#i need to have Experiences so bad oh my god I feel like a monkey in a 4x4 zoo cage

[sunnibits]

bro on god I’m fucking praying rn that going to college will reboot my fucking brain bc right now it feels like I’ve been on The Horrors™️ program for like 9 months straight 🙃🙃

[akystaracer22]

Maybe in Another Life We Would Hate Each Other a Little Less

A chance encounter sheds a little light on Adam that Lucifer couldn't have predicted, leading to a moment he thought he'd never have with the man.

Notes (Aka my thoughts while writing):

God is a dick and I wanna kill xem

Adam folds his wings like a bird because monkey see monkey do

Both these guys were traumatised by the same person and we don’t talk about it enough

Probably Guitarduck/Adamsapple but in a fledgeling platonic kinda way

Refer to my ref for what Adam looks like!

I listened to Rät while writing this and- it kind of fits Adam???

Jesus is God’s favourite child and it fucking shows

How tf did this become a sickfic????

Lucifer gets the experience of being me whenever I make the impulsive move to boot up Char.ai and talk to literally any of the AI’s, get aunt agonied bitch.

Oh my god Adam has middle child syndrome.

Can you tell I attended a Christian school when I was younger???

Adam was hiding just how fucked over he was from the wing rot but he’s not having a good time in this. Most of the latter half of the oneshot is him dazed from both the one set of wing rot and the feeling of someone touching his wing.

Shit emergency wing HC for Adam ig: His wings grow warmer corresponding to his mood, as in when he is in general happier his wings radiate warmth and when he’s in a foul mood they’re just normal or even a little cooler.

In saying that yes Lucifer’s wings glow when he’s happy

Word Count: 1902

Fic under cut!

“Fucking- Shit!”

Lucifer paused, looking behind him and backing up to peek through the crack in the door. This ought to be good.

Sure enough, he was right, this was entertaining.

Adam was ranting again.

Honestly it was a nearly daily thing by this point, probably the only good thing about his daughters decision to let Adam stay at the hotel. He loved his daughter, he really did, by Adam was… Adam.

Lucifer knew he was a lost cause.

But still, didn’t mean Lucifer couldn’t tease the hell out of the man since he was stuck down here with the rest of them.

Lucifer’s smirk at watching the first man rant quickly died as he took in the guys appearance, he looked…

“What is wrong with your wings.”

Adam jerked and twisted around, scowling at him and oops he said that out loud didn’t he.

“Piss off!”

Lucifer, in his typical fashion, did not piss off and instead entered the room, “No seriously what is wrong with your wings.”

Now that he was closer, the king was certain they didn’t look like that a week ago. The feathers, while already having looked like a wreck were duller and the colours seemed almost… muted. Ignoring the already horrific state Adam’s wing were in, they shouldn’t look THAT bad so why…

“Wait-”

“I said-!”

“Have you not been preening you wings?”

Adam went silent, staring wide eyed at Lucifer much to the kings confusion. A beat passed, then two.

“What the fuck is preening?”

Lucifer blinked, he wasn’t serious, was he?

Surely not.

.

.

.

“By the heavens you’re dead serious.”

“What the fuck are you talking about.”

Lucifer debated whether he should explain it or not. On one hand, it’s Adam. On the other, Wings were a serious thing. He’d even seen Husker cleaning his wings from time to time, for Adam to just not know…

“You know what? For once my hatred of you is outweighed by my need to show you what’s what,” The fallen seraphim huffed, closing the door behind him and summoning a chair to block it from the outside so Adam couldn’t escape. “Come on we’re fixing this travesty.”

“What part of fuck off you do you not understand?!” The first man snapped, his wings mantling as Lucifer rifled through the closet, dragging out one of the many jars of oil he’d had the foresight to put in most of the rooms, perks of being a guy with basic common sense.

“The part where you’re being stupid and my daughter started rubbing off on me,” Lucifer shot back, his own wings serving well to corral Adam towards the bed, “How you don’t know how to preen your wings is beyond me but that’s ending today.”

“Again- what are you blabbering about.”

Lucifer paused, hand hovering just over Adams feathers. Preening someone elses wings was… intimate. It was something reserved for friends, family, lovers, and stuff… not enemies. Was he really going to just go ahead and clean Adams wings for him?

The seraphim’s eyes flicked over to where the ruined wing was draped over the bed. The wing was already in bad enough shape as it was, if he didn’t do this then wing rot was bound to hit it at some point and-

He didn’t really have a choice, not if he didn’t want to watch someone die of wing rot again.

Adam went stiff under Lucifers touch as he started work on the mans functioning wing, it was the easiest to work with, not the mention the safest to start with. The injured wing would no doubt be sensitive to any interaction, so better to start small.

Ish.

Adam shuddered as Lucifer moved between feather’s, periodically reapplying preening oil as he went. He was right as usual, looking closer most of the barbules had been separated and needed to be locked together again. Grimacing, the seraphim gently scratched out what looked like dried blood from where it was hidden in the base of Adam’s Secondary coverts.

“What are you doing?” Adam whispered, his voice for once lacking it’s usual bite. Lucifer paused for a second in confusion before Adam’s wing flexed back into Lucifer’s hand, “Don’t stop!”

“Okay okay!” The king huffed, working on his primaries, “What I’m doing is called preening. It’s something beings with feathers do to clean them.”

“Like birds?”

“Yeah, like birds,” Lucifer agreed, “The oil helps take care of bacteria, but you got to realign the feathers, get rid of the ones ready to moult, and fix the feathers that are out of sorts, though you can just shake the feathers to do that part quicker.”

“Mhm”

Lucifer shifted over to finally tackle the ruined wing and froze, a chill slinking down his spine. As he took in the state of the tattered appendage.

“Shit.”

This close the seraphim could see the red pimples under the thinning layer of feathers surrounding the injury, it was wing rot in its early stages.

“What?”

“Nothing!” Lucifer dove his fingers into the scapulars to shut Adam up while he discreetly conjured up some disinfectant for the rot, if he’s lucky he can treat it now and just get Charlie or Vaggie to deal with it now, knock it over the head before it becomes so visible the others can notice. He ignored Adam’s breath hitching as the seraphim started, just as predicted, the wing was sensitive from the damage done to it.

“But seriously you need to do this more, this is just horrific,” Lucifer grumbled to himself, not really caring if Adam listened, “Honestly I’m surprised this hasn’t happened to you before!”

“Mmmm tried once… I think?”

Lucifer, glanced at Adam’s face, it was pointed away from him, but he could still sense Adam’s attention was on him, “Yeah?”

“Saw the birds doin’ it and tried to copy ‘em,” Adam continued at the prompt, spreading his other wing, “It hurt so I stopped, didn’ know there was a method to this shit or someth’n.”

“You… nobody even tried to teach you?”

“I think they thought I knew,” Adam chuckled sourly, “I think they thought I fu’kin knew how to just- do this. ‘Cause I was meant to right?!” Another laugh, “I bit the fu’kin apple so I shou’da known this kinda shit! Apple of knowl’dge or what’ver.”

Lucifer, wisely, didn’t say anything, he just kept working on Adam’s ruined wing, applying the disinfectant, and fixing what few feathers were still healthy and removing the rest. If it was anyone else in this situation he’s wrap the wing and tell them to rest but… it was still Adam that was in this mess.

“I- why didn’t they teach me? Luci why didn’t they teach me this shit?”

“I… don’t know,” Lucifer replied carefully, deliberately skipping over the butchering of his name that sounded way to close to a nickname for comfort, “Come on, up you get he still got the underside to finish then I’ll be out.”

Adam grumbled but complied, sitting up a little to turn around as Lucifer summoned a pillow for Adam to lean back on. Rolling his neck Lucifer got to work on the auxiliary feathers, the lighter feathers were definitely in better shape, but then again that wasn’t exactly a high bar, and they still were looking rough.

“Jesus was prob’bly taught how to preen himself.”

Lucifer’s shoulders hitched as his wings tucked in against his back abruptly. Jesus… was a rough topic. For all sinners talked about him, Lucifer never met him but from the sinners around that time… it was never a fun conversation. Pretentious once kings cursing his name while hopeless commoners lined up for the exorcists blade, faithful until the end that Jesus would let them into heaven if they just believed in him.

… there was a pattern in there, wasn’t there. Like father like son, he supposed.

“Jesus was made from me and yet he’s God’s favourite fukin kid, course he’d fucking know how to preen,” Adam continued unimpeded, “Doesn’t matter if I was Gods first- Jesus was always fucking better than me.”

Okay! Lucifer was in no way prepared for this conversation, but he highly doubted Adam was even going to remember this conversation, so he just focused on the wings.

“…Luci, do they all hate me?”

Lucifer sincerely wished Anthony, or just anyone really would bust down the door at this moment, at least then he could get himself out of this conversation.

“Why do you think that?” the seraphim deflected, moving onto Adam’s good wing and going through his coverts.

“Because none of them ever fucking did this,” Adam waved his hand haphazardly before letting it rest on his chest, “You’re my enemy but you’re fixin’ my fu’kin wings because I’m too stupid and useless to just figure it out myself.”

“Not useless,” The words left Lucifer’s lips without his input, damn himself to double hell, but it managed to shut up Adam, so he kept on the thought train, “You’re not useless you were just never taught, it’s not your fault heaven doesn’t think.”

“Jesus-”

“Is God’s prodigal son and shouldn’t be counted.”

Adam huffed and leaned back on the pillow, “Why’re you good at this?”

“I’ve had aeon’s to learn, and over a decade of putting it in practice,” Lucifer thought about his daughter, a small smile making it’s way into his expression, she really was the best thing to happen to him.

He finished up with Adams good wing and moved onto finishing off the wrecked one. Applying the disinfectant to the infected spots on the underside before reaching for the preening oil again.

“Y’know, maybe in another life we would’ve hated each other less.”

Lucifer just laughed and started preening the wing, yeah right, maybe in a reality where the apple incident never happened, “You’re sick Adam, feverish even.”

“And you’re a wife-stealer.”

“Should have been better in bed.”

“Fuck you,”

Lucifer stuck his tongue out at the first man, earning a tired chuckle. Then the seraphim blinked at the sudden warmth radiating out from the feathers. What in the-?

“Oh… they haven’t done that in a while.”

Lucifer blinked up at Adam who was staring at his feathers in amazement, “Ackde-whuh?”

Adam leaned back and closed his eyes, “Yeah… sometimes they just get warm all of a sudden it’s weird. Hasn’t happened in a while though. Apparently it sometimes happened when Lute was around? I dunno why.”

Lucifer blinked a couple of times before letting out a small “huh” and running a hand through the ruined wing, it was definitely warmer.

Sighing, Lucifer let his hand fall away despite the wing chasing it, “Alright well your wings are definitely cleaner now, so I’ll be out of your hair now.”

The seraphim stood up to leave through the balcony, opening the window and almost stepping out when Adam called after him, still sounding exhausted.

“I can see why they left me for you.”

Lucifer paused, before smiling sardonically and looking back at Adam, who looked like he might have just passed out.

“Tell me that when you’re not delusional from illness and I might believe you.”

With that, Lucifer stepped out and left for his own room… though, if Adam woke up to a small plush duck on his nightstand, that was between Lucifer and the god that cast him down.

But there is one thing Lucifer will admit.

Maybe Charlie wasn't wrong about thinking Adam could be redeemed.

Pings:

@sleepy-hijinx @whatataha @cyborg0109 @birbisanon @legogator @overlord-rey @luckyburgerz @spiny-dogfishes @justakidicarus

[sanflawoah]

Black Myth: Wukong ramblings because I'M GOING INSANE.

FOUR YEARS. I. DID. MY. WAITING. WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO EXPRESS MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS GAME.

(Lengthy words and massive spoilers below!)

First minutes into the game I was all chill expecting the opening to be a long prologue cutscene about JTTW, explaining core things you need to understand, a helpful guide for those unfamiliar with the lore beforehand. But NOOOOO....we jump straight ahead fighting ERLANG SHEN AND THE FOUR HEAVENLY KINGS. We're WIDE AWAKE.

About gameplay, the devs stated repeatedly that it's not a souls-like game, and more like a God of War ish. Yet so many still questions whether it's a souls-like and then went into the game just to say "meh not souls-like". Amazing density of head.

I really don't demand much for whatever mechanic they serve, I'm really just here for the monkey smash experience and the childhood nostalgia and the fresh aesthetics.

The character design?? The environment?? The architecture?? The statues?? Soooo beautiful oh my god you really need to stop and admire these things (when you don't have a boss shredding you) up close. Look up their inspirations and concept arts, some statues and buildings exist in real life and it's really mind boggling how they incorporate it into the story. The part where you fight with Yellowbrow at Thunderclap temple, what a creative choice, the idea of "miniature fight" on the temple altar. I'm farming so many screenshots for art references. 10/10 visuals, graphics will definitely fry your PC.

Again with the character designs. I'm really loving the absurd looking bosses one, really fresh take. Then to the celestials and yaoguais, I just..... OH they're ALL hella gorgeous. I've seen some people going "WOULD" towards Wukong or The Destined One and I don't blame you. I've had my fair share of neuron activation moment.

Erlang yoo, I was stunned at first with the way they present his personality during the opening, but turns out we got the reason for it near the ending :"(((. He was helping us all along ughsjsjsjsksdsd. Also, they know EXACTLY what they're doing by casting Andrew Koji as the english VA.

White Clad Noble? Half snake man hissing at you to get off his lawn. I feel kinda bad for him lmao, dude was just minding his business and we go monkey smash all over his place.

Keeper of Flaming Mountain? Neat hat and cool makeup bro, awesome yin yang palette and battle area design. BANGER THEME I'll get to it.

The Third Prince in Pagoda realm prison, why does he looks so good, you encounter this guy in his cell just suffering, and somehow he's still serving looks.

The girlies damn, the spider sisters are gorgeous, and YES even madam violet spider, come look at spider granny serving fashion and arachnophobia.

At first I was scared that they're going to sexualise the hell out of the spider sisters or any of the female characters, since the book itself tells their trait as luring men with their beauty (to be eaten though). But actually?? They're a lot tamer than I expected? I mentally prepared myself for the worst, like racy sexualised outfit and personality, but turns out they're all very normal. Like how you would see Tang dynasty inspired ladies. I braced for GTA or cyberpunk-like explicitness but thank god it's not the case, not at all.

Rakshasi and Pingping having the relatively "sexy" look, but then both of them had a moment where they're not actually their real selves, but rather a transformation of Zhu Bajie and Red Boy LMAO. Funny boner killer.

Talk about this boi, our Destined One. To be honest I was kinda disappointed when I found out he doesn't speak at all. Banters, insults, cackles, anything you would expect a Wukong-like personality, he doesn't have it.

I tried to think of a reason, and I think the dev's choice of making The Destined One silent kinda has a root to it. Our MC is NOT the Wukong himself, we are literally just some monke, and we're tasked to gather the six relics Wukong had scattered by retracing his journey. Also, I think it's a funny thought that probably it's just their personality difference, Wukong the loud, Destined One the quiet. Wukong sometimes does chaos for shits and giggles, our Destined One does chaos because we have to.

My theory: our Destined One is just non-verbal! Zhu Bajie even acknowledged it. When we first met him after defeating Kang-Jin Loong, he bantered "A furry coat and a pinched face, luck's all you've got", and he looked confused when we don't say anything back because Wukong would've returned the favour, "Great, another mute. Let's not dally". So the game actually acknowledges it, it's not like they intentionally muted us and have the NPCs acting as if we talk back to them all the time.

Non-verbal and asexual coded? I'll take it.

THE ANIMATED CUTSCENES??? OH MY GODDD. Impossible to put ALL the epic frames here. I really don't expect this from a game at all, real time cutscenes are great, but a WHOLE 2D AND STOP MOTION ANIMATED SCENE?? No wonder the full development took SIX years. You could pause the scenes at any frame and it's worthy of analysis.

The stop motion one really surprised me, how are they that dedicated. The plot as well, it started out romantic and escalated into HORROR real quick. Batshit insane, love it.

For many players, the animated cutscenes may be confusing on the first watch. So many references to JTTW, metaphors, mix of Chinese Taoism and Buddhism. I personally encourage people to look around in forums for explanations, plenty of the Chinese words are untranslatable into English, but it's all so worth the knowledge.

Enjoying the JTTW shows and contents as a child is all about the fun and giggles, understanding the lesson of it all as an adult hits me like bricks, especially with the way they're adapted in this game.

I CRIED?? A LOT??? Of all characters I could cry for, ZHU BAJIE?? Man is literally a nasty pervert in the book, living to the pig form indeed, but in this game he's a bit better. Sure he's still his natural pervert self, but since the game took place after JTTW, he surely had some character development. His animated love story cutscene, loorddd they have no business making it so full of freshly diced onions.

Love how each character in animations have different styles. Erlang's design in particular are different in each scenes. Most of the time he has dark hair, in others he has white hair and different armor, same goes for Wukong's design. I'd imagine the devs struggled to choose for one consistent design and decided to just fuck it and put them all in lmao.

And then THE SOUNDTRACKS, THE SOUNDTRACKS YALL. Love love love it when they incorporate buddhist prayer chants flawlessly into the soundrack. The soundtrack during the chapter one ending animation caught my attention with it, I asked around what mantra is it and they say it's probably Cundi Dharani? Please correct me if I'm wrong. The track is called "I See" in the official playlist. The lyrics too, my god, the way they narate the animations.

During the fight with Keeper of Flaming Mountains, IS THE SOUNDTRACK A RENDITION OF "FISHERMAN'S SONG AT DUSK"? IS IT? Losing my mind because it's my favourite chinese traditional piece. Half expected him to pull out a guzheng and blast me with phantom blade from the strings, IYKYK.

And of course, a new rendition of the classic JTTW theme. This will be my neighbour's favourite music for a while.

Some tidbits I like, apparently if you're idle for a while and Zhu Bajie is with you, sometimes he'll start to talk about past stories or lectures you. If you push him around for a few times he'll get annoyed, if you keep pushing him then he'll struck you with his rake lmaoooo. Perhaps we weren't so different from Wukong after all.

Another insane stuff is the headless singing guy. GoW has a talking disembodied head, now BMW has a HEADLESS singing man, literally a reverse Mimir.

The rematch with The Four Heavenly Kings YOOOOO I love their design so much. They look like statues from temples jumping straight to life. The stances! Throwing hands with them is the true Monke of War experience. The East King with his Pipa literally playing the background music, excellent touch.

This has been an insane scroll of yappings, I'll stop here (for now) and take a moment to touch grass. If you've been reading ALL THE WAY to this line, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to harm your braincells.

[quitealotofsodapop]

Soooooo.... what if Wukong didn't always have stage fright? What if he ONLY started being afraid of large crowds watching him....

AFTER his rampage through Heaven and he was sentenced to death, trigrams furnace, lots of stabbing, and when nothing else worked 500 years under a mountain by a LARGE CROWD of angry gods.

Mac is more than a bit surprised to learn yhe boisterous, bold Monkey King was more than a little traumatized by the whole experience and maybe he needs some hugs....😈

Ooo thats a spicy idea >:3

My hc is that Wukong is good at bluffing and improvising - but the second there's a "script" to follow or something is expected of him, he just freezes. He can drunkenly retell his Havoc in Heaven to the Brotherhood with perfect comedic timing, but if he's asked to make a speech infront of his own army he stumbles. He'll def improv a troop raising call no problem, just don't expect him to keep any decorum.

And oh gosh, imagine that the modern stage reminds Wukong so much of the "trial" he endured in the Celestial Realm after the Havoc.

Hundreds of people he can barely see, many that want to hurt/kill him, reduced to his birthday suit (think the "you flicked too damn hard!" scene in Thor Love and Thunder), the location of his sworn siblings unknown, Mac's no where to be seen, and he just heard Lao Tzu say something about a furnace??

Wukong had the attention of All of Heaven on him. He never wants to endure that again.

At least with armies of angry soldiers, he can physically fight back and repel them. When his "audience" has him restrained or expected to remain calm, Wukong starts to panic. He feels like an chained animal. I'm surprised that he didn't have a more negative reaction during the talent show in Lantern City.

Macaque of course always knew Wukong was bad at scripted speeches, so he had been the one to whisper lines into his ears/hold up cue cards for him back in the day. Macque had always been the better actor. Just another way they were like Sun and Moon together.

But the first time he sees the great Sun Wukong get swarmed by paparazzi in the aftermath of a rough fight, and the king freezes and can't even speak? Mac jumps in and whisks him away via shadow portal.

Macaque: "You never used to lock-up like that... not even when I dragged you into my plays for the little monkeys." Wukong, slowly calming down: "I... it's just all the eyes on me... It reminds me of the trial... All those face just... watching me and talking about me like I'm some sort of animal..." Macaque, flooded with regret and remembering what Wukong said under the mountain: "Oh..." (a hug occurs) Macaque: "I'm... sorry I couldn't come to your rescue back then." Wukong, trying to deflect with humor: "Hey lets be fair - I doubt you could have taken on the entire Celestial justice system by yourself. A lot of what I said back then was cus my brain just got finished steaming." Macaque: "I could have tried." Wukong: "Then we would have shared that furnace. And we'd be two idiots chained beneath the mountain together." Macaque, small smile forming: "You speak as though that would be so terrible." Wukong, forgot how much natural rizz Mac has: "ah." (//∇//)

The two monkeys later find a simple solution to the problem. Lots of Wukong clones, all doing advertisments and public appearances. Small downside is now a few hair clones will hum advert jingles and get too ethusiastic at the mic.

Macaque: "...tell me, why were you using a cardboard Wukong if you could make temporary clones of yourself?" Wukong: "Sentimental value."

[sleepychailatte-blog]

When I was in school, there seem to be a camp of two types of girls when it came to literary choices. You had the Twilight/vampire romance girlies and the Hunger Games/dystopian gals, and you would have thought these two groups were the two families from Romeo and Juliet. Yours truly was part of the Hunger Games camp, and middle-school me was obsessed. I’m talking book and movie premieres, Team Peeta shirts from Hot Topic, wearing a mocking jay pin publicly, the whole gambit. God forbid if you read Twilight, that poorly written, low-brow, dumb, vampire romance. We were the readers of dystopian fiction, which was superior because it made you FEEL things about capitalism, broken societies, being true to yourself, etc. etc. etc.

It’s been over a decade since 2008. To all my Twilight girlies, I would like to offer you my most sincere apologies. I should not have judged you so harshly.

Recently I watched Twilight for the very first time as an adult. A friend of mine came over for a painting/movie night, and Twilight was our featured film. I knew the memes, I knew roughly what the plot was, but I wasn’t ready for the experience that was to come.

So without further ado, I’d like to offer my thoughts and review on the 2008 masterpiece, Twilight. If you aren’t familiar with the Twilight story, go read a quick synopsis and then come back.

🌘So, did you like it?

I had an absolute blast watching this movie. Would I say it’s a good movie? Probably not. Did it age well? Nope. But it was delightfully cringey, as you had to suspend all believe of realism. You couldn’t take this movie too seriously, because this movie took ITSELF way too seriously. It’s like they cranked the drama/teen angst meter up to 100 and everything seems so life-or-death…even though the main characters, Bella and Edward, are 17 year old juniors (ok so Edward actually isn’t 17 because he’s an old vampire but you get what I’m saying). It was very much that kind of relationship where “they can’t even bear to be apart or they will DIE” oh no how tragic (I think we now call that co-dependency).

When I was 17, I sure as heck didn’t know what love was. But again, this story is based in absolute fantasy, not realism, and that’s the fun part. Oh to be swept off your feet by a mysterious, handsome, brooding vampire that you met in your biology class!

🌓Favorite part of the film?

The script for this movie is pretty bad, I’m not gonna lie, and that’s part of the charm. It’s so bad, that it’s kinda good. Here’s some of my favorite quotes:

“You better hold on tight, spider monkey." -Edward to Bella because he can jump really high and run really fast. I about peed my pants from laughing when Edward said this.

“This is the skin of a killer, Bella." -Edward to Bella because vampire skin *literally sparkles* in direct sunlight. Again, almost peed my pants.

I will say that I love Edward’s family, the Cullens, as a whole. This vampire family tries to cook a regular meal for Bella, Edward’s human girlfriend, and oh my heart. Vampires don’t cook because they don’t eat normal food; the Cullen family had never used the kitchen in their house. The fact that they would go out of their way and attempt to do something so foreign to them in order to make the human girlfriend feel comfortable? Um, wow that’s actually really sweet.

Also, shout out to Bella‘s dad, Charlie for actually trying to connect with his daughter. Bella and Charlie have a bit of an awkward and tense relationship but this doesn’t stop Charlie from trying to be a good dad. I will say that one of my other favorite scenes was when Bella asked her dad if he wanted to meet her boyfriend Edward… while he was cleaning his shotgun. When he said, “sure, send (your boyfriend) in” and loudly snapped his shotgun shut, I about lost it. What a dad move! A national treasure.

🌒Would you watch it again?

Under the right circumstances. I would need either anesthesia or a large sangria. If I ever showed this film to my children, it would be for a study of what not to do in a relationship. If your significant other says “I can’t live without you” when you’re 17…that’s some big creepy co-decency energy.

🌑Team Edward or Team Jacob?

Um Team Charlie all the way. Hands down the best and most sane character in this whole film. We love to see a dad do his best and love his daughter…even when she starts dating a super weird pale dude.

🌘Conclusion

Watching this film made me think about guilty pleasures. We all have them, and they all look different at unique stages of our life. One of my favorite guilty pleasures is watching Judge Judy. My 70 year-old grandmother used to watch the Bachelor. For a friend of mine, it’s those cheesy Hallmark Channel movies. Others enjoy vampire romance novels. Are these things high-quality and sophisticated? No. Are they of good taste? Meh. But they are meant to be enjoyed, and that’s the whole point.

Twilight is the same way. Is it good? Not really. But that doesn’t matter, because it’s a cringey/angsty teen fantasy that’s meant to be enjoyed.

You can be both a Twilight girlie and a Hunger Games gal, and still have a pretty darn good time 🖤

[mandy4ever69420]

hey love tell me do u have an opinion about roberta, monicas S1 girlfriend, and the way she wanted to take liam away with the justification that the gallaghers were not raising him properly by erasing his blackness and community and origin and all that?

i do :) i think her argument captures something very Real and Infuriating in when people will make good points to try to explain around something really awful. like, with her specifically i am inclined to be forgiving of because well. if i'm not then i really don't like what it says about hiring a very beautiful Black butch woman for that role. but i really do Sincerely think she was just very caught up in the romance of shit and was very misinformed by monica and how very charmed she was by her. holds up b/c when they find her later to ask shes like "oh my god, why was i hanging around this woman, please fuck off i'm so embarrassed"

^^ there are a couple things that shameless does really well in contexts like these. the "that's a good point but it doesn't make your end goal moral" feeling of sympathy and being infuriated goes with the "someone finally apologized and really meant it but it was for the wrong thing or the wrong part of what they did which means they don't understand the problem at all but it's nice they're trying" thing you also see sometimes

but yeah. she has a point about liam being separated from his culture. that doesn't mean you can just, rip a little baby away from his family who loves him. that's pretty much just nothing but trauma right there. liam also explicitly talks about this later about his isolation and how really his family even though they ARE biologically related simply Cannot understand his position. also in a "bad day when i approve of frank" move frank does introduce liam to some nice relatives who are able to offer him something he was missing.

carl also is the most vocally concerned about Black issues & tries the hardest. because he was so little when we learned that frank is liam's biological father so he just went "huh. guess im Black" & presumably rolled with that without commenting on it for a good long while. which. is not how that works if you still experience white privilege & have parents who experience white privilege but oh my god genetics is so dumb racial categories are so made up and cruel. of course it gets weird. & you see where that goes wrong where carl thinks he can use the n word. even well intended and probably as the person who's put most thought into what randomly happening to be Black in a mostly white family means for liam he's Very liable to make it weird

& the gallaghers ARE biologically related but i want to mention that a lot of adoptions of kids of color by white parents go very, very abusive. which um. is not the case entirely here because most of his family is good to him to the best of their abilities. and it's not adoption. but still most of these characters (i think especially fiona @_@) have some weirdass racialized affectionate nicknames for him. though yeah frank is up there w the nicknames. he's just being an asshole on purpose though. so that's slightly different. & i know like calling kids 'monkey' is kind of just a thing people do but jesus christ. you do need to think about this when you are a white caretaker of a nonwhite child. Why is this not the only tv show i've seen fail to think of very specifically that with a white woman caring for a mixed child side note. you guysssss please for the love of god

anyway there are some real world dangers that white families are not really equipped to prepare little nonwhite kids for. & just on the feeling of being subject to racism that maybe his family could sympathize with but they dont have the tools to deal with or give him advice on. there are people who try and im sure do a very good job but the gallagher family has So much going on and most of them Are very selfish. for understandable reasons. it's fine. but it means they don't do a lot of looking into liam's perspective and just assume "that's probably fine"

anyway the best way in this sort of situation is just expanded social circles. liam Should connections in his life that he can rely on and feel close to. is it too predictable from me to get into the "nuclear families are limiting and enable abuse" thing here. i feel like i'm always on that. well i stand by it. kids need bigger communities of people to rely on to be safe and understood it's really just not possible to get everything you need from only 2 parents or only your biological family. particularly in liam's case though, you can't be forcibly separating him from loved ones, you can't just ask him to do all the work himself (which is what they did in canon)

& you can't just assume 1 Black friend in the community will be idk a spokesperson or something. a friend is not a family member unless you let her be And she wants to be & it's very unfair to ask V to be like wise or cultured enough to offer liam a complete connection to his culture. she's just one person with her own insecurities and shit going on. who tbh already wasn't super stoked about being asked to take care of other people's kids when she DID love them. imo it was a slightly racist maneuver for fiona to tell the kids to put (kev and) v near the top of their emergency contacts as like caretakers without even asking. and she DOES know them & they DO care about these kids

[thelongestway]

Dawn: Trailed

Now that the spoiler embargo is gone, well...

This is probably my favorite expansion. On par with, if not better than, HW (My personal rating otherwise goes HW>ShB>Ew=Sb=Arr). I went through it without reading anything about others' experiences, and you can imagine my surprise about the incredibly mixed reception!

I was even more surprised, because I was going in very burnt out on FFXIV, and had really been expecting to go in and say "eh, this was ok, sure, but nothing special."

Instead, I got exactly what I wanted or, dare I say it, even needed. That is to say, this:

So this review is going to be reflecting over the type of story this is and what made it so appealing to me specifically.

Tons of spoilers below the cut!

What I thoroughly enjoyed about Dawntrail:

the "not my circus, not my monkeys" vibe

the worldbuilding

the pacing

And I think these things are related. But let's start with the pacing.

My usual way of playing is "do story, do available sidequests as they pop up, a couple of fates along the road, etc". I usually wind up with a class fully leveled and a class half-leveled by the end of the story. My WoL is very thorough and meticulous, and a firm believer in "get the lay of the land" first.

In most previous expansions, that meant there were spots where I went stir-crazy, because something about that flow didn't click; there were many places I was bored but also did not want to skip things, because while it felt bad to do them immediately, it would feel even more out of place to do them later. To wit: Moogles HW (even though I loved the crafter quests later), Ruby Sea SB, Twine etc ShB, Ultima Thule EW (yes, not Labyrinthos part 2 - sorry my friends, I love insane academics, while Ultima Thule really, really did not hit for me).

This was not the case in DT. There wasn't a single moment I felt truly bored. And specifically I enjoyed the vibe that you can come and go at any moment - the fact that the succession isn't really your problem helps with this a lot. This is why the amount of Wuk Lamat didn't particularly bother me - my WoL just went "oh, fantastic, any fallout is your problem, not mine - I'm just here to see the sights and talk to people". He got to have a good night's sleep without being interrupted, for gods' sake - unheard of!

On a player level, this worked wonderfully, because I hate it when writers try to raise the stakes by making it personal. Usually, I have a very visceral reaction to that, which is primarily "you do NOT get to decide what makes it personal for me", and I can count the number of times that kind of bait worked for me on one hand. In FFXIV specifically, Haurchefant and Ysayle in one expansion - and never again (although should anything happen to the twins, yeah, that'll work). Having another character take the brunt of "this has to be personal For Them" is really one of my favorite vibes. That said, I'm very much a worldbuilding-over-story girlie. Give me a world to muck around in, and I'm happy. And if I don't feel punished for taking my time, this becomes even better - I detest time-based long-term gameplay, I have enough of that IRL. Which means that for me, the vibe of this whole expansion was "excellent, I've got an excuse to be here - oh, we're moving on? You go on, I'll catch up". The last time I felt like this was really in HW, while the resolution to the Monetarist plot was brewing in the background. "Yeah, we can't really go back to our three home states for long. Great - let's explore the floating islands and see what the deal with the Dragonsong war is. We've got nothing but time." In both expansions, giving me time to fool around let me develop a personal connection - not to the characters, to the space. And by the time the plot picks up, I am hooked.

So aside from being my favorite type of worldbuilding, the feeling that "the plot is on pause and I have time to breathe" is unironically one of my favorite things in games, and what lets me feel like I've been relaxing while playing a game. And, well, I really needed a vacation from IRL bullshit, and I got just that.

It was one heck of a surprise for me to see that's not the case for most other players. To showcase this, I actually quite enjoyed one of the most controversial storytelling moments - which was "you've found the City of Gold! ...Now before you go in there, the current ruler needs to inform their successor about the bullshit going on down there, and you're not invited". My WoL's reaction was an amused "yeah, sure, I'm not in a rush - we'll get there (not that you can stop me from poking my nose in). Now, what else did you say was here? Xak Turaal?"I know a lot of other players got thrown out of the illusion of verisimilitude here; for a lot of people, the pacing here felt like a jarring stop. For me, though, it felt like breathing space; like a promise - there's no rush, we'll get there. Take your time, relax. It was like the game said "yeah, I see the load you carry normally. You don't have to for a few hours". And that was great.

It was the same with Wuk Lamat. The big cat wants all the bullshit I hate? She can have it, and my gratitude with it! The only time my WoL felt irked with her was the "invitation to be part of her government" - but even that moment was basically fixed immediately by the WoL's reaction! Which is: you stare at Wuk Lamat silently - silently even for the WoL, no gestures or implied responses, she sheepishly goes "you don't have to answer now... also I got you that pass to Xak Tural I promised?.." Only then do you smile. And you have the option of basically turning around after that and walking directly into Xak Turaal without talking to anyone except Erenville, which I found appropriate and more than a little hilarious. Finally, much later, Wuk Lamat even goes "ok, yeah, I get it now, the invitation was kinda stupid, sorry" - which is a big Point for her in my WoL's eyes.

And you get to just walk away! And there are no problems arising from that! And you walk into Shaaloani, doubling down on the "nope. I am On Vacation. Nothing but the wind and the vibes", and it was exactly what I wanted and needed. And then, after Shaaloani, once I've thoroughly relaxed, the plot picks up! I've had my rest, and now I get to do shit! 10/10 hit in the personal preferences, no notes.

All of this would've been enough to bring DT on par with HW and above ShB (which had the "new world exploration" down pat, but was also much more inconsistent in its pacing for me). But what brings it really... Above HW for me was the last zone. Because that zone hit stuff I'd been needing to have a good cry about, and I spent 8 hours doing just that: reading through and sobbing.

Now, this was a very personal hit in the themes. I mean, it was mostly coincidence that it hit that hard. But it was what I needed.

Dawntrail is an expansion that has two main themes: vacation (break, pause, freedom) and death. Death, while always present as an FFXIV theme, here is discussed specifically in the aspect of "leaving behind stuff for others to take care of". These two themes are bundled in extremely neatly, you keep going back and forth between them, and they reach a crescendo in the last zone, which is a memorial disguised as an amusement park; a memorial whose paperclip-optimizer managing AI was about to try and kill everyone it could reach in order to keep that memorial's lights on. So you walk into a deteriorating attempt to make the "between-space" of vacation last forever, and then you turn that vacation into death, and that comes as a relief.

I won't go into the IRL bullshit that made me cry over this. But the mix of "you can't capture happiness in a gilded cage" and also "you cannot exist in that liminal space where you temporarily leave your burdens - you shouldn't try to actually live there", and finally "someday you will have to leave your burdens to someone else, and you will never solve everything forever" - yeah, I needed that. I needed a good ghost story right now, and I didn't know I did. So the last zone hit insanely hard, and I loved it.

And it hit all the harder because the focus wasn't on me. For contrast, Ultima Thule was my least favorite zone of EW. It was a total, absolute miss for me - the exact kind of "the writers are trying to make it personal" that I hate. I think I have the exact feeling about Ultima Thule that most people have about Dawntrail: if the plot had been moved a few steps to the side, I would've enjoyed it - say, have the Scions lean into "we're building a bridge, and whoever gets to the end will have to handle the rest. WoL, though - you're gonna have to be the last one to go, we need you to bring us back. Let's walk into this with our eyes open" rather than into the "sacrifice" aesthetic. But they didn't, and it didn't hit for me. I felt sort of numb and irritated throughout.

Meanwhile, Living Memory - and its focus on a bunch of NPCs I didn't know, and then Krile, and then Erenville and Cahciua - let me experience what I needed to experience without also feeling like the writers are dragging the requisite emotion out of me with pliers. For once, playing through the story as a Black mage was amazing - I was very much "okay, time to put on my thaumaturge ritual robes and hold a funeral". It was a somber feeling, but also it felt like it should.

And then you get a multidimensional key out of it! And you end 7.0 alone, looking at a map with the key in your posession, and you can see the gears turning in your WoL's head as they plan... That's my personal perfect ending.

As a result, this expansion made me reflect very heavily on my own personal preferences on pacing and plot, and how the niche that I inhabit is probably smaller than I thought. Things that are absolute dealbreakers for other people are barely blips on my radar; while things that are absolutely monumental to me often go unnoticed. Good stuff to know for a writer - and I'm very grateful for getting a story that was written so close to what I like.

[snarky-synesthete]

Hi, I read in one of your posts that you "almost have a masters degree in motivating the unwilling" and I just wanna say please. Halp. I'm ruining my life by being the way I am and I can't stop. Everybody talks about my "immense potential" and how it's "such a waste of intelligence" for me to be the way that I am. I'm honestly drowning.

Oh wow. If I had a dollar for every time somebody told me that, I'd be able to afford a life coach for my ownself, lol. I have a pretty significant little alphabet soup of disorders to my name, but I didn't get diagnosed with any of them until my early 30s. What that means is that I had to find ways to compensate for my shitshow of a brain, so I have a lot of tips and tricks. I'm currently working on my doctorate as well, so I'm doing lots of research around mental heath, focusing on teen mental health since I work with teens every day.

First off, you're not ruining your life. You're just living it. Your life isn't something that needs to be put through the wash and purified. It is what it is, and you are who you are. The fact that you're here and breathing and *wanting* to improve are already wonderful things. You're doing okay. ^_^

Next, think about what you want your life to look like. This is a good journalling prompt. There's no wrong way to do this. You can get really specific, right down to the new furniture you'd like to fill your space with; you can have just big picture stuff: "I want to survive high school" or "I want to wake up looking forward to the day." Try to think in positive terms rather than negative. I don't mean "I want to feel happy!" necessarily: but think of things with positive *action*: instead of "I don't want to feel miserable," which is a negative, something you want to subtract from your life, think of a positive: "I want to feel better," "I want to re-connect with an old hobby," "I want to start a diary," things like that. It's easier, sometimes, for our weird monkey brains, if we start off *adding* something new instead of *stopping* something old...even if the "something old" is part of what makes us miserable.

For example, a lot of people want to stop smoking. Quitting cold-turkey is possible, sure, but it's a god-awful experience. Instead of thinking of it as "subtracting" smoking, a better approach would be to ADD something new that can slowly start taking its place. An example in this scenario would be to add in another oral treat you enjoy (I see your mind in the gutter, hello, nice place!) that can take the place of just one smoke a day. A really nice chocolate truffle, or some spicy crunchy chips, or a fancy lollipop. That way, your brain isn't necessarily feeling a *deprivation* or the lack of something it has come to expect, but you're still lowering your daily nicotine consumption.

So that might be the easiest way to start. Look at any habits you might have that don't make you feel good, or that you don't want to carry with you into your future. I don't want to call them "bad habits" because that implies a judgment call, which I am NOT qualified to make about your lived experiences. Obviously, that habit served its purpose for you at some point! But if it's no longer serving you, try to slowly replace it with something that does. Think of it as a shift rather than a removal, and your brain will tolerate the change more easily.

If you wanna get more specific, feel free to DM me, @justanexistentialcrisisnbd ^_^

[hunsa-jars]

Favorite animatronic and why??

Oh boy

(I know I promised that i'll post that character tier list, i didn't forget, i swear! It will hopefully be up around christmas if everything goes right)

Chief, honestly, there's no definite favorite

That title is tossed around between four people, them being Golden Freddy, the Puppet, Circus Baby and Ennard

Goldie was my very first favorite, i was so drawn in by their mysteriousness and unsettling presence throughout the first few games, i just wanted to know more. My fondness for them just grew stronger when the Golden Duo theory entered the fandom space, and UCN solidified it even to another level. Even if it's just Cassidy residing in them, their unwavering resolve to punish William for all eternity, never letting him go, having him experience a fraction of what he put them and the other kids through. While never finding peace themselves, because it will never be enough- hhhgh good. Very good. Also i know some people characterize them as selfish because they only cared about revenge, but it never felt like that to me. (Stares in Golden Eyes theory) They cared... i know they did..

(j-gems and MD-PTV's portrayals of them mean everything to me, i could rant about them too all day)

Oh Puppet, my dearly beloved. Not gonna lie, i was lowkey very disturbed by them when i was younger. Can i just start with their design? It's wonderful, peak character design. Gosh... i adore them so terribly. For everything they represent and how they never abandoned the MCI. God dammit, I love Charlie so much too! They're technically the same- Even after making the wrong decision of bringing all the kids back to life and failing (Stares in Candy Cadet five keys story), she stayed by them and still tried to help them however she could. Ghhhgghg the selflessness and protectiveness in this 6 foot + sock monkey, it's killing me- Okay but i'm also so crazy about the fact that Charlie just straight up doesn't resent and fear William anymore, she just wants him to not intervene with her plans, damn (Well... this is only true if UCN is not 100% Cassidy's making, another can of worms, anyways-)

I need her to come back so bad, Steel Wool, where is she-

Everyone is wrong about Baby, Jesus Christ on a boat. She's like.... one of the most crucial characters in the whole franchise! In some cases, miles better than any of the other antagonists. But MAN, did everyone, including the books did her dirty (I know, Silver Eyes is not directly connected to the games, but sadly most fans treated it as such and i think the aftermath really damaged her image for others, goddamn you SE-) Before i lose it let me mention, i love her voice so much, it's such a perfect balance between comforting and unnerving. Oh your honor, THE LAYERS! The layers nobody seems to care about, it's pissing me off. (Mostly) everyone misunderstood her intentions in Pizzeria Simulator and i haven't felt peace since then, no joke- like you would think AT LEAST ONE of the more popular theorists would just say "hey what if she was just pretending to be on William's side to gain his trust and get closer to him" BUT NO?? Because that doesn't make sense after what she did to Michael THINKING he was William, oh my goddd, I'm so sorry Lizzie, I'm sorry that no one gets it- Pizzaria Sim was a nice session of Bang! (the card game), we had our bandits (being Michael, Molten Freddy and Lefty), we had a sheriff (being William) then we had a renegade. The renegade earns the sheriff's trust by acting like they're the deputy, their objective is to be the last one standing, even if it gets the outlaws killed. But they're ultimately on the bandits' side, because their goal is also to kill the sheriff- IT'S LITERALLY HER, GHHHHH. She's so tragic and so wasted away, i feel bad for her but can't forgive her but at the same time understand why she does the things she does and and and

I am SO NORMAL about Ennard, your honor (lie). I would like to blame (thank) j-gems and MD-PTV for the absolute clownery you guys have to witness in the coming weeks or months, they turned the already existing strong fondness into... hm, mind worms. Like holy smokes, j-gems's Ennard, I love that guy, it's making me look stupid. (He makes me crazy i can't stress this enough, he's so fun but still freaking threatening at the same time, man-) With MD-PTV's version, while i prefer separate personality Ennard over the complete hive mind, I really adore the Funtimes' dynamic in there (and how tragic it is that they just want to find peace and rest...... if only it wasn't also Mrs Afton Ballora-) This pile of wires has no business looking as sick as he does, genuinely. Scott COOKED with this design, and I shall be forever grateful. The whole gaslighting body snatcher concept too, it was so good, they had to pass it over to Fazbear Frights AND the Mimic, it's kind of funny. My poor fella is unfortunately so underutilized, like, I love Molten Freddy, i don't want to replace him at this point, BUT GOD ENNARD SHOULD HAVE STAYED THEMSELVES I WILL FOREVER MOURN WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN (not that i don't appreciate the MCI and Charlie both "becoming" bears to oppose the rabbit thematic detail, i could ALMOST forgive them for that). Like seriously, imagine an alternative universe where they actually gave him a personality other than the small characterizations in Help Wanted, that isn't just Baby dominating the body basically, hell- Kellen could have voiced him too, IMAGINE!

(Also i just see so much potential in the separate personality of his character, always viewed him and Baby as the twisted parallels to Goldie and the Puppet, but i'm gonna save that rant for another post)

(Also also i'm a huge fan of fics where him and Michael live together or just put their differences aside to find Will- The beautiful contrast of the serial killer bozo becoming an actual murder machine while the machine learns to become human, we love to see it)

I'm sorry, i could go on but i'm getting real sleepy, hope this isn't too incomprehensible

[dancefloor]

hi regina! i see that you got the ftpanon and i have no idea how that game works 🤣 but i hope you win 😊 how has your week been?

for today’s question(s) you get another hodgepodge! 1) what are four pieces of media (a book, a show, a movie, and an album) that you’d recommend to anyone wanting to get to know you? 2) what three characters do you relate to most? 3) what are two of your favorite snacks? and 4) when you dream, do you dream in first-person (like real life) or third-person (like you’re a character in a movie)? i’m the only one of my friends who dreams in the latter and i’ve found out so many interesting things about how my friends’ brains work so i decided to start asking everyone 😅 i hope you have a good rest of your week and i can’t wait for you to see your gift!

love, 💠🎄

oh i swear to god i dont even know how to play ftpanon. i just fuck around and find out. thank you for the support, if i win i’ll make merch <3

1) oof okay. i’d want to recommend gone girl by gillian flynn for the book but people would think i’m sick in the head so i’d go for the hunger games by suzanne collins, weirdly? it was the first f*ndom i was ever in & it meant so much to me when i was in my pre-teens, and now that i’m older i’m finding more things to love about it that i would’ve never thought of as a kid.

the show i’d recommend would be better call saul. i actively recommend every person i talk to ever to watch this and i need the bitch pack to hop onto the bandwagon because it’s so!!! good!!! it really is!!! it’s also a major inspiration for me to want to start studying film. it’s “only” a prequel to breaking bad but i’d honestly argue it’s better

the movie i’d recommend would be 13 going on 30. this sounds sooo goofy compared to the other choices but imo it’s the best romcom there is, the cinematography is unironically great and it makes some decent points about feminism. for an early 2000s movie starring mark ruffalo.

the album would be punisher by phoebe bridgers or tranquility base hotel & casino by arctic monkeys. i’m not choosing taylor because i don’t feel like any of her albums & my opinions on them say as much about me as punisher and tbhc do? like i love speak now and reputation but the vibe is just different. meanwhile punisher & tbhc have some great production, are conceptually strong & lyrically great. and i’m also just a little pretentious

2) why are you giving me so many hard questions.

3. monica geller

i am also a massive bitch with a superiority complex, an unhealthy sense of perfectionism and a bunch of friends that are really too good for her

2. fleabag

i’m nothing like her on paper or in experience but i feel the same things she feels. i bawled my fucking eyes out at that show like. she Gets it

1. kim wexler

it’s about the need to help people it’s about the fear of being stuck it’s about the fear of mediocrity it’s about needing to be control it’s about trying to be morally just while still respecting who you are. i’m gonna go insane btw

3) an easy one! nachos and maltesers

4) omg i think i dream in first person? but i’m not sure. my dreams are always so weird i don’t pay attention to where i am, i’m just like oh wow i have to call 911 and they’re gaslighting me and my best friend just morphed into my childhood friend without me realizing and why is kendall roy mad at me

thank you for this painfully detailed message, sorry it took so long to answer and i’m so excited to find out who you are. <3 hope you’re well!

[bxckybarness]

What I Missed - Loki Laufeyson

summary: while in custody at the TVA, loki realizes what he misses from the future, only to be surprised by what he gets in the present

word count: 2100+

warnings: a little angsty, a little emotional, mention of loki’s death, episode 1 spoilers

Today was certainly not Loki’s day.

Over the course of a few hours (or more, or less, this is the TVA, afterall) he had been in the custody of the Avengers, had happened upon the Tesseract and escaped from New York. It seemed too good to be true, and it was. Just when he thought he had truly outsmarted the Earthly heroes again, he was imprisoned and taken again.

Now here he was, under the supervision of the Time Variance Authority and one, Mobius, a bizarre administrator in charge of tracking down the most dangerous of variants. It all seemed like madness to Loki. He was used to silly games and grandiose tricks but this story of timelines and space lizards seemed beyond even his own trickery. It seemed downright absurd. And annoying.

He had been subject to what he would call an interrogation. Mobius, however, called it a simple conversation. A slideshow of his life, his “greatest hits” as Mobius had called it and a relentless fire of questions, the memory of which continued to burn in his memory:

Should you return, what are you going to do?

King of Midgard? Then what, happily ever after?

King of Space?

Why does someone with so much capability just want to rule?

Do you enjoy hurting people?

That one had burned most of all. Did he enjoy hurting people? Hardly. And it was upsetting to him that anyone would think that. But he also understood what he appeared to be to every other living creature. He had just relived the moment in which he killed that daft agent and his mother. His mother. He refused to believe he was at fault for that. Frigga was the only person who truly saw him and whom Loki cared for deeply. But it seemed so clear in the moving picture, he had led them right to her.

It was in that moment, with tears and rage in his eyes, he knew he needed to get out of the disastrous time circus. He no longer cared to be a monkey in this ring. If he could find the tesseract, he could escape and be free once again.

That plan had gone almost perfectly. The only thing that went wrong - there is no magic in the TVA. No matter how many times he held the tesseract in his hands, wishing it to take him back to Midgard or Asgard, he was met with nothing but the bland walls in this TVA Time Theater. There was no hope in escaping.

Feeling exhausted, Loki slowly moves toward the table in the center of the room. He sits down and admires the machine in front of him. As grim as the stories it held could be, it was still quite fascinating that it could replay the highlights from his life - in a weird way, at least. He reaches out and turns the knob, searching for the moment his mother dies. He finds it and watches in silence for a while, tears beginning to fall down his face.

He turns the knob again.

He sees a future version of himself sitting next to his father and Thor. He watches as his father declares his love for his sons. Sons, plural. Both Thor and him. A small smile graces Loki’s face before Odin disappears, leaving the two men behind. Loki holds back a sob as tears continue to flood from his eyes. His father did love him, did see purpose for him. He wasn’t just the mischievous son. He’s sad that it took this long to understand that, and sad that he never got to experience this himself, even if a future version of him did.

Another turn of the knob.

This scene immediately feels different. He sees a garden, full of life, beautiful flowers blooming in every direction. He sees himself, sitting under a tree smiling next to a young woman. As the scene progresses he realizes this version of him is smiling at you. He lets out a small gasp when he watches the pair share a kiss and wipes the quickly falling tears from his cheeks. He had always loved you, but had never gotten the chance to tell you. The two of you had met through Thor, when he brought both you and Jane to Asgard. He had taken to you quickly, enjoying your similar sarcasm and humor - something that was scarce within his home realm. You, like his mother, had always seen the good in him and had understood his struggle. It was something he would never understand, you being of Midgard. You knew what he had done and had been there to see the destruction, but still saw him not as the God of Mischief or Earth Enemy #1, only Loki. He aches for the fact that he never got to feel the happiness his future self did, especially when it was happiness with you.

Turn the knob.

Loki and Thor stand in a room together. Loki lets out a small laugh in the midst of his tears, wondering how his oaf of a brother managed to lose an eye. Maybe a dumb bet between the two of them, maybe there was a battle amongst the nine realms. He’s quickly pulled from his thoughts as he hears Thor speak.

“Maybe you’re not so bad after all, brother.”

“Maybe not,” the future Loki responds.

“Thank you,” Thor replies, “If you were here, I might even give you a hug.”

“I’m here.”

Loki smiles and nods to himself. From where he’s sitting now, it’s a wonder that he and his brother ever made up. He realizes now that the fighting and the sibling rivalry may have all been in his head. He, again, curses himself for leaving New York and allowing himself to miss these moments that he’s been waiting his whole life for.

Fast-forward.

He and you lay in a room, seemingly on the same ship as the previous scene. You lay snug against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around you. You hum softly before speaking up.

“I love you, you know.”

By the look on both of your faces, it’s the first time this has been said out loud. There’s nervous tension in the room, Loki can feel it through this screen. He somehow knows the words his future self is going to say before he hears them.

“I love you too, darling. You bring out the best in me.”

You snuggle closer to him, if that’s even possible, and there’s a comfortable silence for a few seconds. Loki takes a moment to admire this picture. It was something he had wanted since he had first met you on Asgard. You had stuck out like a sore thumb, dressed in your casual Midgardian clothes. He couldn’t have missed you even if he tried, nobody could have. And boy was he glad about that now.

“Promise me something,” he watches himself say.

“Anything,” you whisper. “Anything for you, Loki.”

“Promise me, no matter what, you’ll always help me see the good in myself. I’ve too long suffered at the hands of those who desperately wish for me to see the bad.”

You let out a laugh and the Loki stuck in time laughs with you, “Oh, Loki. I wish you could see yourself as I see you. But I promise.”

“Thank you, my love.”

“You, Loki, may be a God, but you will always just be the man I fell in love with. The good, kind, and honorable man I call mine.”

Turn, again.

Loki sees himself kneeling and before he can question why, he watches as his future self moves to attack someone in front of him. When Loki realizes it's Thanos, he’s quickly on his feet, moving closer to the screen. The tears are gone now, and a silent rage burns behind his eyes. There was nothing from Loki but hate for the purple titan. He watches in horror as Thanos picks Loki up from the floor, a death grip on his neck. Loki wonders to himself how he would get himself out of this scenario had he been there. He assumes an illusion would do the trick. However, he notices your distraught figure behind the mad titan. He can hear your screams as you kneel next to Thor, who is imprisoned in cuffs. He hears you call out to him and he knows this will not end well. His suspicions are right when he watches his death. A shocked gasp comes from his throat as the tape in front of him runs out, nothing left to show.

Loki quickly sits back down and closes his eyes, trying his hardest to process the vision he saw. To one version of him, these would have been experiences and now memories. To him, though, these were all subtle tastes of a life he lost. He lost a touching moment with his father and a long awaited declaration of love from him. He lost the reconciliation with his brother and the confession that they had been more partners than rivals. Even though to him it had not yet happened, he missed it all, and it upset him deeply.

What hurt Loki the most was the idea that he lost his chance to feel his love reciprocated. Loki had never had much luck with romance. He was often seen as the sly younger brother and was usually too occupied to try and compete with Thor for the maidens at court. When he met you, he thought he had a chance. You were the first woman who saw him as his own person and not just as Thor’s brother. The relationship between the two of you had blossomed quickly and he found himself always sneaking away from his princely duties to see you. He had shown you his favorite places in Asgard and had opened up to you in ways he had never done before. He loved you and wanted you to be his. His one regret was not initiating a relationship before you had left for Midgard. And he thought his chances had been ruined by his actions in New York. Oh, how wrong he was.

Before Loki can dwell on his future more, Mobius comes bursting into the room.

“Ah Loki, glad you made your way back here. I have something for you,” he says.

“If this is another one of your tricks, I’m not currently in the mood,” Loki responds coolly.

“Just trust me on this one.”

Mobius shouts over his shoulder for someone to “bring her in.” Loki eyes the guards who walk in suspiciously until he notices who they bring with them. He can hardly believe his eyes. The gods in all the realms must be smiling down on him today, after all, because there you stand. He takes in your hideous red and white space suit, emblazoned with the Avengers logo, and he’s at least thankful he missed whatever battle this suit was required for.

He quickly stands and rushes over to you, a smile quickly gracing his face. You meet his gaze with a smile that is just as big and tears begin to flow from your eyes.

“Loki,’ you start. “Is that really you?”

He nods and speaks, although his words are barely audible, “It’s me, my love.”

“God, I thought I lost you forever. That’s why I went back in time to find you.”

Loki nods, now, unable to believe what he’s hearing, “You went back to find me?”

“Yes, but look what good that did me,” you say with a smirk. Loki’s heart pulls and he feels he could fall over right there. Norns, he missed you and your witty humor.

“Well,” he says, reciprocating your sly attitude, “You found me did you not? I might not be the same Loki as you knew, but I am still Loki.”

“The good, kind, and honorable Loki that I call mine.”

Loki smiles and you move forward to give him a hug. You’re cautious, though, because you aren’t exactly sure what part of the timeline this Loki came from. Maybe you had already been dating, maybe not. That was something to figure out another time though.

“Alright then,” Mobius says from behind you, “Let’s get you two caught up on what you missed with each other.”

Today was certainly not Loki’s day. And he had cursed all that was good that he had ended up at the TVA, taken from the life he knew. But now? He didn’t mind. He knew the relationships that were broken with his brother and father had been mended, he knew that one version of him had sacrificed himself for good and he had you, not only in memory but in the flesh. And sure, you had lots to rediscover within your relationship, but you would do that together.

[inkweaver22-blr]

Tumblr is stupid and has a paragraph/ block limit so this chapter has been split in two.

Read Part 1 Here or click on Previous below.

AO3 Link

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Scattered Cicadas - Chapter Twenty: Identity Crises (Part 2)

CONTENT WARNING

Hallucinations, Panic Attacks, Traumatic Flashbacks, Vomiting, Unreliable Memories, Mistaken Identity, Brief Intense Violence

Being yourself can be pretty hard. It’s even harder when you’re not sure which self you’re supposed to be.

----------

Tang buried his face into his pillow and groaned at his misfortune. Yesterday had been… Something.

Oh it was a lot more than just ‘something’, but in his misery he couldn’t quite articulate what exactly it was. He had woken up with a decent recollection of the previous day, and while he was lucky enough to avoid another panic attack he still had a multitude of other emotions to deal with.

Confusion over why his memories seemed to be such a mess. 

Shame for having a complete breakdown over something that hadn’t actually happened.

Anxiety of potentially stumbling across other triggers that led to more horrific flashbacks.

Fear lurking in the back of his mind telling him that turning back into a human would not turn out well.

Guilt from thinking himself to be the great sage Tang Sanzang and then treating Sandy and the Monkey King like his students which probably brought back painful memories.

Embarrassment due to having flirted with Monkey King as Tang Sanzang and feeling pleased when he became flustered and basically admitted to thinking Tang was the opposite of ugly.

Tang could feel his face beneath his fur heating in a blush and moaned in anguish.

What had he done to deserve this? Which Gods had he displeased? Why was the universe conspiring to make the attractive demon men in his life notice him only when he had something strange happening to him?

There was a knock at the door.

“Tang? Are you still awake?”

Speaking of…

“Yes, Pigsy, I’m awake,” Tang answered with a sigh as he sat up. 

Waking up next to the chef earlier that morning when he had left to start preparing breakfast had been… Well he had already used ‘something’ to describe the entirety of yesterday so there must be some better words to use.

‘An experience’ was probably as good as he was going to get for now. Yes, shoving Pigsy off the bed in surprise after realizing he had been cuddling with him in his sleep and then stumbling and stammering over his apology like a middle school-er with a crush was certainly ‘an experience’.

“Hey there,” Pigsy said as he entered the room. He made his way over and sat on the edge of the bed, examining Tang with a concerned look. “How are you feeling?”

Tang thought it over.

“Mortified.”

Now there was a good word that encompassed pretty much everything he felt over this whole mess.

“Hey now, I told you not to worry about earlier,” Pigsy gently chided. “I probably should have gotten out of bed before trying to wake you.”

“It’s… It’s not just that,” Tang said, fidgeting with the blankets. “It’s everything that happened yesterday.”

“You remember?”

“To my humiliation, yes.”

“Okay, none of that,” Pigsy reached out and placed a hand on Tang’s shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. What happened isn’t your fault and no one is going to think less of you for something outside of your control.”

“I know that, but…” Tang sighed and leaned into Pigsy’s touch. “This is all very stressful and it’s hard to not feel depressed.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Pigsy said, giving Tang a soft smile. “Just remember you aren’t alone in this. You have people who care about you that want to help. If you ever need to talk, we'll be there for you.”

Tang managed a smile in return.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Now,” Pigsy stood and stretched, “moping around in bed isn’t going to fix anything. I’ve almost got breakfast finished so get up, get dressed, and come get something to eat. It’ll be much harder to feel bad for yourself when you’ve got a full stomach.”

“Alright, that sounds nice,” Tang said, stretching as well. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“I’ll save you a seat at the table,” Pigsy said. “Don’t take too long or I’ll come looking for you.”

Tang pulled himself out of bed once Pigsy had left and prepared for the day. Hopefully he would actually be able to eat something before some random impossible memory left him collapsed on the floor again.

Tang frowned as he approached the kitchen and heard raised voices arguing within. What was going on now?

“-because as the ‘Monkey King’, I don’t let things go and pester anyone who might even potentially be associated with dark magics so I can be sure to stop whatever nefarious scheme I obviously think they’re up to no matter how much they deny it!”

“Grr! Well, I, ‘Macaque’, very obviously do know quite a bit of evil and vile things that may even be helpful to let others know about but refuse to trust anyone because I like feeling smarter than everyone and enjoy keeping secrets when they could potentially be used as leverage to improve my position!”

Tang stared at the bizarre scene playing out in front of him.

Monkey King and Macaque were… Fighting wasn’t quite the proper word. They were yelling at each other while speaking in the third person to say somewhat disparaging things about themselves. This, oddly enough, seemed to work in riling up their opponent quite a bit.

Everyone else was seated at the table, watching the peculiar exchange in various emotional states. 

Sandy looked exhausted, staring at the squabbling monkeys blankly while sipping his tea.

MK seemed to be trying his best to ignore the whole exchange, but his expression revealed how annoyed he was.

Mei was watching with glee, occasionally grabbing handfuls of popcorn from a bucket to snack on.

Red Son also had his own bucket of popcorn, but seemed to be eating it more as a distraction to help him push through the experience rather than enhancing it.

Pigsy was alternating between eyeing the buckets with extreme disapproval and scowling at the two arguing figures as if they were the reason such an unhealthy snack had appeared at his breakfast table.

Which, as far as Tang knew, could be entirely possible.

As no one seemed to be overly alarmed at the situation, Tang decided to not worry too much about it either. He skirted around the edge of the kitchen to reach the food laid out on the counter without interrupting the ongoing argument. Pigsy caught sight of him and gestured towards the seat he had saved next to him before going back to glaring at the popcorn buckets.

Breakfast was a spread of healthy cereals, sliced fruit, yogurt, and granola. Tang poured into one bowl of a cereal boasting honey glazed oats and mixed yogurt, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries in a second. The fighting was still going strong by the time he finished preparing his meal and sat down next to Pigsy.

Tang watched Monkey King and Macaque as he ate. He couldn’t place it but something about them seemed off. Their postures, their speech patterns, nothing was quite right. To him it appeared like someone was acting out what they thought the monkeys were like. It was almost as if…

Tang paused with a spoon half way to his mouth as a memory presented itself.

“Did Monkey King and Macaque swap bodies again?”

The argument abruptly halted as everyone turned to stare at him.

“What? Oh.” Tang sighed and rubbed his eyes. “They never swapped bodies before, have they?”

“No, we certainly have not.” The monkey who currently looked like Monkey King seemed disturbed by the idea.

“Okay, then why are you two disguised to look like each other,” Tang asked.

“I have no idea what you mean.” The monkey who looked like Macaque was grinning nervously.

“Tang, what are you going on about?” Pigsy was torn between looking concerned for Tang and suspicious of the fidgeting pair of monkeys.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tang pointed his spoon at the one that looked like Macaque. “That’s Monkey King.” He pointed at the one who looked like Monkey King. “That’s Macaque.”

There was a stunned silence for a moment before Red Son turned to Mei and held out his hand with a superior smirk.

“I win. Pay up dragon girl.”

“No way!” Mei scowled and crossed her arms. “It doesn’t count if he put it together because of those weird fake memories he has!”

“You bet the chef would figure it out first. I bet the scholar would. Neither of us made any stipulations on how they had to figure it out, so that means I’ve won.”

“Wait, hold on!” Pigsy stood and slammed his hands down on the table, interrupting whatever Mei had been about to say. “You’re telling me that you knew that these bozos were walking around as each other, and instead of letting us know you bet on which of us would find out first?!” Pigsy blinked as he eyed the buckets of popcorn. “Is that why you keep pulling out popcorn whenever they’re arguing?”

“Free entertainment is better with popcorn,” Mei defended herself.

“Not before you’ve eaten a proper breakfast it isn’t!”

“That’s what you’re upset about?” The monkey that looked like Macaque scowled. “We don’t argue for your amusement, you know.”

“Oh I haven’t forgotten about you two.” Pigsy glared at them. “Disguises off. As it’s none of my business, I don’t really care if you decide to cosplay as each other any other time of day, but meal time is sacred and you will be showing up to them as yourselves from now on.”

“Cosplay?!”

Tang snorted at the genuine offense in their voices. He hadn’t meant to cause such a commotion with his observation, but as he continued eating his breakfast he had to silently agree with Mei over how entertaining it was. The distraction from his own problems was certainly welcome.

With much grumbling, Monkey King and Macaque returned to their own forms and sat down to eat. They tried guilting MK over having let their secret slip, but he turned it around on them by pointing out that neither of them figured out that Mei and Red Son knew despite how obvious they were being with their popcorn. The conversation fell off as the two monkeys sulked.

“So, Tang,” Sandy said once the silence stretched on for a bit too long. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Well… It seems my short term memory has returned to normal since I remember everything from yesterday,” Tang said, gaining everyone’s attention. “Anything beyond that is still fuzzy, though.”

“Well that’s certainly an improvement!” Sandy frowned as he looked over at Monkey King. “So, when you say everything…”

Tang followed his gaze before wincing and looking away.

“Uh, yeah. That includes our conversation last night.” He stirred his yogurt morosely. “I want to apologize to you and Monkey King about that. I obviously made you incredibly uncomfortable with the way I was acting and-”

“Stop.”

Tang looked up in surprise at Monkey King’s interruption.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Monkey King said, avoiding Tang’s gaze as he spoke. “It wasn’t something you had any control over. Besides, Sandy and I decided to play along instead of trying to pull you out of the memories so we’re the ones to blame.”

“If you say so…” Tang sighed and looked back down at his bowls. “I still feel pretty embarrassed though.”

Pigsy gave him a comforting pat on the back.

“Is anyone going to clue us in on what you’re talking about,” MK asked.

“It’s somewhat private, MK,” Sandy said apologetically. “Maybe some other time. Right now I want to discuss what we should do when Tang gets lost in these memories again.”

“You mean other than letting him know they aren’t real,” Macaque said with a raised eyebrow.

“Actually, that’s the opposite of what needs to happen.” Sandy’s serious tone made everyone sit up and pay attention. “I’ve been reading some of my mental health books and came across several conditions with similar symptoms to what Tang’s going through. They all made it explicitly clear that telling the person experiencing the false or old memories that they aren’t real could be potentially harmful. I’m sure you all remember how Tang started to panic and passed out yesterday morning once he realized none of us knew what he was talking about.

“I believe the best course of action would be to just go along with what he thinks is happening. Don’t try to correct him and ask him to share anything he remembers. Or try to steer the conversation into something neutral and unrelated. He should snap out of it on his own after a while or after getting some sleep.”

“What about when I burned my hand?” Pigsy folded his arms in defiance. “There’s no way I’m just going to leave him in a memory that bad again.”

“Traumatic flashbacks and panic attacks are a separate issue,” Sandy agreed. “What you did by grounding him back in reality was the best thing you could have done. We’ll all need to be ready to deal with them when they happen or know who to get if you aren’t comfortable with trying to calm him down. We should also try to pay attention to what triggers the attack so we know to avoid it in the future.

“We also learned last night that there’s something that seems frightening to him about turning back into a human, so don’t bring it up.”

“You really don’t have to go through so much trouble just for me,” Tang said while hunching in on himself.

“What did I tell you about being down on yourself,” Pigsy said, putting his arm across Tang’s shoulders and pulling him into a side hug. “This isn’t your fault so stop acting like it is. We all care about you and want to help, so it’s not any trouble at all.”

There was a general agreement from everyone else, which made Tang feel all warm inside. What did he do to deserve such great friends?

Breakfast finished soon after and everyone dispersed to do their own things. Tang, feeling a bit cooped up, headed up onto the deck to get some fresh air.

It was still early in the morning, but the day was shaping up to be beautiful. There were only a few clouds in the sky, the air was crisp and fresh, and whatever mechanism that prevented them from being blown off deck while the airship was in flight allowed a pleasant breeze to waft through.

Tang leaned against the railing and basked in the sunlight. He closed his eyes and relaxed as it warmed his fur. He hummed in pleasure at the sensation and stretched out his arms to help ease the stress from the past day.

Tang chuckled to himself as he mentally compared himself to a cat laying out in a sunbeam or a reptile warming their scales on a rock.

Hmm… Scales…

Tang’s eyes became unfocused as a memory began to fill his mind.

Sunlight… On his… Scales… Yes… That sounded… Nice…

Tang took a step back from the railing and began to stretch.

And stretch.

And stretch…

----------

Tang sighed in contentment as he laid on the deck under the mid-morning sun. It had been some time since he had sunbathed purely on a whim. The warming light falling across the entire length of his body was exquisite and intensely relaxing.

If he wasn’t careful, he might actually fall asleep. Not that he was trying too hard to prevent that from happening. Hmm… Perhaps a nap would be nice…

“Eep!”

Tang opened one eye at the exclamation. There, standing in the doorway leading to the stairs from below deck, was Mei. Her mouth was hanging open as she stared at him in what appeared to be shock.

“Mei?” Tang lifted his head slightly off the ground and turned to face her fully.

“Tang?!” Somehow, her surprise seemed to grow even stronger.

“Is everything alright, cousin,” Tang asked in concern.

“I… Huh?! I mean!” She shook her head and muttered what sounded like ‘just go with it’ a few times under her breath. She plastered on an obviously fake smile and gave him a thumbs up. “Yup! Everything’s fine, uh, cousin! One hundred percent a-okay!”

Tang raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Uh huh.” Tang yawned and shook his head to rid himself of the drowsiness he had been feeling. “Seriously, though, what’s wrong?”

“Uh…” Mei seemed transfixed for a moment before blinking in realization that he had asked her something. “Oh! Nothing! Nothing’s wrong! I was sent to come check on you because you’ve been out here a while and just wasn’t expecting, uh,” she gestured vaguely in Tang’s direction, “this.”

“Oh. I suppose I did lose track of time,” Tang said, stretching out his front legs. “But the weather is so nice right now I couldn’t quite resist.” He stretched his neck upwards, sighing in relief as a crick he hadn’t noticed faded.

“Why don’t you join me,” he suggested as he lowered his head back down to be level with Mei’s. “I’m sure the deck could fit us both easily and the sun feels absolutely wonderful.”

“I, uh, would love to, but…” Mei fidgeted with her jacket. “I can’t actually turn into a dragon?”

Tang blinked.

“You can’t? I could have sworn Aunt and Uncle were going to teach you after you were accepted by the Dragon Blade.”

“Mom and Dad? I’m not entirely sure they can either…”

“Really? Well I suppose the required power necessary has been known to skip a generation every now and then.” Tang drummed his claws against the deck in thought. “You are certainly powerful enough, and your parents should know the theory on how to transform even if they can’t do it themselves. I wonder why they didn’t at least start you on the basics…”

“Maybe they were too busy with the renovations after I wrecked the mansion?” Mei reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. “Hey, so I don’t think I actually have any pictures of you like this so do you mind if I…?”

“Hmm? Oh sure. Go right ahead.” Tang shifted around so the majority of his twenty-foot-long body could be seen. He posed in such a way that his bright golden-yellow scales and chocolate brown mane wouldn’t be washed out by the sunlight. “How’s this?”

“Perfect!” Mei began snapping pictures at a rapid pace, giggling when Tang stuck his forked tongue out and crossed his eyes for a few of the shots. “So since Mom and Dad weren’t able to teach me anything before all of this happened,” she gestured to the airship, “do you think you could show me how? Becoming an actual dragon would be the coolest thing ever!”

“As much as I want to, I can’t,” Tang sighed in regret. “From what I know, each of the five clans has a unique process for teaching its members the transformation. They keep it secret from the others for some reason so your parents are the only ones who could teach your clan’s specific technique.

“Even if I ignored this unspoken rule and tried using my clan’s process to teach you, I don’t think you’re suited for the way we do it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mei placed her hands on her hips and scowled.

“It means I honestly can’t imagine you sitting completely still for several uninterrupted hours in meditation,” Tang said with a smirk. “And that’s just the first step.”

“You don’t know what I can do! But, uh, what’s the second step, just to be sure” Mei asked in slight trepidation.

Tang leaned in close and gave a conspiratorial grin.

“An advanced, University Level course on Dragon Anatomy.”

“Ugh! Yeah, no, that sounds super boring,” Mei said with a look of disgust. “Why would your clan make you do that?”

“Well we aren’t known as the Keepers of Knowledge for nothing.”

“Really? I… I don’t think I knew that.”

“What? But that’s one of the most well known things about us.” Tang narrowed his eyes. “You skipped out on those parts of your history lessons, didn’t you?”

“Maaaaybe?” Mei grinned nervously. “I, uh, don’t take to classrooms and textbooks very well.”

“I am very much aware of this,” Tang said in amusement. “How about I give you a summary of my clan’s history then?”

“Sure, why not,” Mei shrugged. “Not much else to do up here.”

“Alright, come get comfortable then,” Tang said as he moved to be laying in a half circle shape. He gestured to his flank for Mei to sit against it. Once she was situated he laid his tail across her lap so that she could keep her hands busy with the tuft of fur on its end while he spoke.

“As you know, the five Long Family Clans are the human descendants of the Yellow Dragon Emperor’s five sons; Ao Guang, Ao Qin, Ao Shun, Ao Run, and Ao Lun. Of them, only the youngest, Ao Lun, inherited their father’s yellow scales.

“While his older brothers were each given a sea to rule over as their kingdom, by the time Ao Lun came of age there were no seas left to rule. Instead of feeling bitter however, he accepted his lack of a noble title with grace. He traveled the land and began accumulating a vast amount of wisdom and knowledge.

“His experiences and knowledge helped him mediate many disagreements between his older brothers and other powerful beings, and thus was given the title of Peacemaker.

“Ao Lun’s love of learning soon turned into a passion for teaching. He sought to share as much as he could in the hopes that others could learn to end conflicts with words instead of blows.

“His passion for sharing knowledge was passed on to his children and grandchildren and eventually his human descendants. They began creating vast stores of information and places of learning to share it. Many of the major libraries and universities still used today were actually founded by my human ancestors.

“Ao Lun knew, however, that conflict and strife could not be avoided forever. So in order to help his descendants protect themselves and their collections of knowledge, he followed his brother Ao Run’s example and gifted them with a powerful weapon. The guandao Dàdì Zhī Yá, the Fang of the Earth.

“Thus armed first with knowledge and wisdom to soothe tensions and a mystic blade second for when words eventually failed, the Long Family Clan descended from Ao Lun became known as the Keepers of Knowledge.”

“Wow…” Mei stared up at Tang with wide eyes. “That’s so cool!”

“See? History can be interesting,” Tang teased as he gently tapped her nose with the tip of his tail.

“Yeah, maybe when you tell it,” Mei said as she batted his tail away from her face. “Wish my tutors were more like you growing up…”

Tang felt a rush of pride and affection flow through him. Being told you were a good teacher was what everyone in his clan strove for.

“Thanks, Mei.” He leaned down and nuzzled her with his snout, making her yelp in surprise. “That actually means a lot to me.”

“Uh, yeah, no problem,” she said while awkwardly patting him. “So, I’ve got a question.”

“What about,” Tang said as he pulled back.

“Which do you think is more powerful? Your clan’s Fang of the Earth, or my clan’s Dragon Blade?”

“Hmm… That’s not something that can easily be determined.” Tang closed his eyes as he thought. “They’re both very different weapons and are wielded in distinct ways. Plus their main magical attacks are unique with the Dragon Blade firing a concentrated beam useful for penetrating defenses while the Fang of the Earth produces a wave that can hit a wide area of many targets at once. Their strengths and weaknesses would change depending on the situation they were used in such as the Dragon Blade being better for fighting within enclosed spaces…”

“So there isn’t an answer?”

“I didn’t say that.” Tang stood and stretched one final time. “It would just be difficult to find. We’ll have to run some tests if we want to figure it out.”

“How are we… supposed… to…” Mei trailed off as Tang began to shrink down.

Not feeling like returning to his human form just yet, Tang shrunk down into his half-dragon one instead. It was mostly dragon in features, but with more human shaped arms, hands, and legs. While not as large as his full dragon form, he was still roughly the height of Sandy, but not as bulky, and thus several feet taller than Mei. A pair of compression shorts magically appeared on his body just before finishing the transformation in order to maintain his modesty.

“Whoa…”

“Yeah, I reacted the same when my father first showed me the transformation,” Tang said as he stretched out in his current form. “Now in order to learn which weapon is more powerful we’ll have to run them through various exercises and drills.”

“But what about-”

Tang held out his hand and summoned Fang of the Earth.

“Holy shit!” Mei’s jaw had dropped open once more. “How did you do that?!”

“What are you talking about?” Tang’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You’re acting like you’ve never… seen me… summon…” Tang’s vision grew hazy for a moment as something in his mind shifted.

The events of the previous day returned to him.

His vision cleared. Tang blinked and stared at the weapon in his scaled hand.

“Fang of the Earth…”

Tang sat down hard in shock.

“Tang?!”

Tang looked up to see Mei hovering nervously nearby.

“But… But none of that happened,” he said in a daze. He looked back down at the very real guandao that refuted his claim. “Then how did I…”

“Oh no, I messed up! I was supposed to play along! Uh… Please don’t panic! Everything’s okay! Do I need to go get Pigsy? Or Sandy?” Mei was bouncing anxiously in place. “Um! Um! Deep breaths! In and out!” Her own breath was starting to grow short.

Tang very carefully placed Fang of the Earth down, only somewhat surprised when it didn’t immediately vanish after leaving his touch. He then reached out and grabbed Mei by the shoulders and pulled her back against his chest.

“Oh! Do you need a hug? I can do hugs! I can give the most comforting and calming hugs ever!”

“Shut up and follow my breathing before you start hyperventilating,” Tang scolded as he began to take deep, even breaths.

Mei closed her mouth with an audible click before leaning back against him and doing as instructed. Her breathing soon returned to normal.

“Better?”

“No fair,” Mei pouted, continuing to follow along with his breaths. “I was supposed to be keeping you from panicking, not the other way around.”

“I suppose it's to be expected when you don’t have much experience in dealing with this kind of thing,” Tang soothed. “We’ll have to talk to Sandy to get you, Red Son, and maybe Macaque some lessons on what to do when someone has a panic attack and how to recognize when you’re having one yourself.”

“I guess…” She squirmed out of his grasp to turn and look up at him. “What about you? How are you feeling?”

“I’m… shocked and confused,” he admitted before nudging the guandao with his foot. “Very confused.”

“Yeah, how did you manage that?”

“I don’t know.” Tang shook his head. “These memories tell me that, as it’s chosen wielder, I’m able to summon it to my side at will, but… Those things didn’t actually happen.”

“‘This time’…” Mei muttered.

“Exactly. They didn’t happen… this… time.” Tang blinked at that. “Huh. I don’t know what I mean by that, but it feels correct to say.”

“You said that yesterday, too,” Mei said, looking like she was concentrating hard on something. “When you were using telepathy, which you said the Monkey King taught you how to use. You also happened to be a twenty-foot-long dragon a few minutes ago and are some sort of awesome human-dragon hybrid right now.”

“Half-dragon,” Tang automatically corrected before shaking his head. “Sorry, what exactly does all this mean though?”

“I’m not sure, but I think you didn’t just get a bunch of weird memories,” Mei looked up at him seriously. “You also got whatever powers you had in them too.”

Tang’s eyes widened at that. He couldn’t really deny the evidence of his dragon abilities currently in front of him. But if he had the Monkey King’s powers as well…

He pulled out a strand of fur from his mane. Concentrating, he blew on it. In a flash of golden-yellow light it transformed into a notebook.

Oh.

Well then.

Tang hissed in pain as another memory resurfaced. It was when he actually first woke up yesterday. The confusion. The panic at his human reflection. And then…

“Tang? Tang what’s wrong?”

“I… I remember how I became a monkey,” he said, rubbing his temples. “There was… something in my human reflection that terrified me. I shattered the mirror and then… Then I used the 72 transformations to change myself.

“I… I’m not afraid of turning back into a human. I’m afraid of being human at all.”

“Okay that’s… Kinda scary actually.” Mei chewed on her lip in worry. “Do… Do you want that hug now?”

“Yes, please.”

They embraced for a moment, drawing comfort from each other.

“We should probably go and tell the others what’s happened,” Mei said once they pulled apart.

“Alright, give me a second.”

Tang focused and shrunk down further into his monkey form, his normal outfit reappearing as he did.

“Okay, how did you do that with your clothes?”

“It’s part of the process of the dragon transformation,” Tang said as he picked up Fang of the Earth. “It stores them in a magical pocket and automatically removes them or puts them back on you as you change size. Although my father thought it would be funny to not explain that bit to me before my first transformation. My clothes were torn to shreds so I wasn’t wearing anything when I changed back.”

“Oh man,” Mei snickered. “You weren’t in public, were you?”

“Fortunately not, but my dad said it was a ‘valuable experience’ in making sure I knew all the details before attempting something. He then made me walk, not run, all the way to my room with my hands clasped behind my back and without a towel or bathrobe or anything.”

“No! Did you get caught?”

“He had made sure we were the only ones home at the time. Still, having to go from our training hall, across the manor grounds, and up three flights of stairs at a slow pace without anything to cover up with certainly made me learn my lesson.”

Mei giggled helplessly as they went back below deck. Recounting the somewhat embarrassing story had done its job by lightening the mood considerably.

Perhaps these memories weren’t all bad.

“Argh! Get off!”

“Not until you get what you deserve!”

Mei and Tang glanced at each other in surprise as they heard the shouting. They rushed off towards the source, coming upon the spacious living room set at the back of the ship.

Tang blinked at what they found inside.

The Monkey King had MK, who was wriggling vigorously to get free, in choke hold and was giving him a vicious noogie. Nearby, Macaque was struggling to stand for some reason.

Tang’s breath caught.

His vision blurred.

Mei said something but he couldn’t hear it past the rushing memories.

His eyes refocused.

His heart nearly stopped at the sight in front of him.

The Monkey Tyrant had his son while Liu Er was injured.

Disbelief.

Panic.

Rage.

“GET AWAY FROM MY SON!”

Tang’s bellow caught everyone off guard. He lashed out with a binding whip, snagging the Monkey Tyrant by the waist and flinging him off his son. He launched himself after the demon, cornering him and placing a barrier around them so the others wouldn’t get in the line of fire. He heard shouting but ignored it.

Tang jabbed the butt of Fang of the Earth into the Monkey Tyrant’s sternum while he was still surprised, forcing the breath from his lungs. He then swept the wheezing demon’s legs out from underneath him, knocking him to the ground. Binding the demon with magical ropes, Tang placed his foot on his chest and aligned the blade of his guandao with the Monkey Tyrant’s left eye.

He reared back to strike.

“Tang, stop!”

Tang looked back to find his son desperately pounding on the barrier and the others all gathered by the doorway.

“Don’t worry Xiaotian,” Tang said comfortingly. “I’m just going to make sure the Monkey King can never hurt us again.”

He turned, prepared to end all their suffering for good.

“Tang! TANG! DAD, NO!”

“MACAQUE DROP YOUR GLAMOURS NOW!”

Tang paused in his motions as the demon below him glowed and changed shape into a familiar black furred monkey.

He sneered.

“Illusions aren’t going to work anymore, Wukong.”

Tang activated his True Sight.

He stared.

The black monkey beneath him with six ears, horrible scarring on the right side of his face, and a blind eye on the same side stared back.

“Liu Er? But I thought…”

Tang froze when he noticed Liu Er wasn’t staring at him, but at the blade barely a few inches away from his remaining good eye.

He looked terrified.

Tang’s stomach twisted as he deactivated his True Sight while removing his foot from his old friend’s chest and pulling the blade away from his face. He quickly dismissed the binding ropes and barrier, as well.

Liu Er rolled onto his side once he was free and started coughing and retching. Tang went to place a hand on his back, but pulled away when the monkey violently flinched at its approach.

Tang took a step back and looked around.

Xiaotian was kneeling on the ground and panting as if he had just ran a great distance.

Mei had her hands clasped together over her mouth.

Sandy was placing a restraining hand on Pigsy’s shoulder.

Red Son was tense, as if ready to fight.

The Monkey Tyrant was just… Laying there, propped up on one arm.

They were all staring at him with wide eyes.

Wide, fearful, eyes.

A chill ran up Tang’s spine.

He gasped and clutched his head as his memories swirled painfully. He remembered.

No…

He wasn’t human! They weren’t supposed to look at him like that! 

No.

They weren’t supposed to… Supposed to be…

‘Face it, they’re afraid of you,’ Her voice hissed.

“No no no no no…”

“Tang?”

He jerked back and looked up at the faces of his friends.

The scared faces of his friends.

‘And you didn’t even need my help.’

“No!”

Tang lashed out at a nearby potted plant, breaking it open and scattering the soil. It wouldn’t be as good as sand, but would work in a pinch.

“Tang, what are you-!”

Tang didn’t wait to hear what MK was saying and teleported. He landed back outside on the deck and collapsed while gasping for breath.

He… He didn’t understand! She was gone while he was an animal of some kind! He was supposed to be safe around! He shouldn’t have been able to hurt them if he wasn’t human!

But he had.

And now they were afraid of him.

He needed to leave.

He started when the door to the deck banged open.

“Tang!” Mei’s shout sounded panicked.

Afraid.

He needed to leave!

In a flash of golden-yellow light Tang transformed into a cicada and flew off the side of the airship.

“TANG!”

Tang flew down and away in the opposite direction the airship was traveling. He needed to get far, far away! He plunged into the dense forest below, weaving through trees in a blind panic and not paying attention to which direction he was going.

He clipped a branch, which didn’t hurt too much, but startled him out of his transformation. He landed roughly in a clearing obscured by the canopy of leaves above. He lay there, panting and sobbing in misery.

He hurt them. He hurt them! Even when She couldn’t get to him he had hurt them!

He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t face the fear in their eyes as they looked at him. Even though he deserved it. Even though he deserved hatred as well.

Tang clawed at the ground, tearing up chunks of earth as he howled in anguish.

He couldn’t go back. He had hurt them. They feared him. They should hate him. This is what he deserved. This… This…

He blinked away his tears as he continued to dig at the ground.

This… This soil was unusually soft.

He forgot everything and dug.

Before long, the first few inches of topsoil had been cleared away to reveal the most beautiful white clay he had ever seen.

Clay…

Tang’s vision blurred as he manipulated the malleable earth between his fingers.

Didn’t he… like to… play with clay… when he was… a young bull…?

His memories shifted.

Tang’s hands glowed golden-yellow as he began to pull more clay from the ground.

----------

Tang smiled to himself as he carefully worked the mold-able clay with some help from his earth shaping abilities.

He couldn’t quite remember how he ended up in this clearing, or how long he had been there, but he didn’t particularly care. This clay was a dream to work with and sculpting relaxed him. Once he finished this fourth figure he could begin making one with all of them together.

His ear flicked as he heard a familiar voice call his name.

“Over here,” he called out, not taking his eyes off his work.

There was the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush at speed.

“There you are! Do you have any idea of the trouble… you’ve… put me…”

“Just one moment, Red, I’m almost finished.”

“Tang?!”

“I said one moment.”

“I-! But-! Argh!”

Tang smiled at the younger demon’s predictable outburst. He quickly finished off the final details of his sculpture with a flourish so as not to earn any more of his ire.

“There!” Tang wiped his brow and began pulling the clay that somehow got all over his face and horns away with earth shaping. He flicked the resulting blob over to a giant sphere of clay sitting in the center of the clearing before turning and smiling at Red Son.

“Little Brother! What did you need me for?”

“I-! What-! Brother-?!” Red Son pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

“Just go with it, Red Son,” he muttered before glaring at Tang. “What. Are. You. Doing.”

“I’m sculpting! I haven’t done it in so long I forgot how relaxing it is.”

“Right.” Red Son didn’t look convinced. “So… Brother… Why are you a bull?”

“Well Father’s a bull, so I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Tang said, completely understanding what Red Son meant.

Red Son took another breath.

“Why are you a bull currently?”

“I felt like it. It’s nice to stretch out every now and then.”

“Mother says my- our- animal forms are unsightly and we should embrace our more civilized human appearances.”

“I don’t know. Mother wouldn’t have married father if she thought him ‘unsightly’,” Tang said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Gah! Don’t do that!” Red Son scrubbed at his eyes. “I do not need that mental image, thank you very much.”

“Come on, you know I’m right.”

“I am not having this conversation right now!”

“Suit yourself,” Tang shrugged and turned back to his sculptures. “Hmm… If I were to form a kiln, would you be willing to fire these for me?”

“What are you…” Red Son paused as he finally paid attention to the waist high figures resting on the stone table. “Is… Is that…”

“Our family,” Tang confirmed, sounding pleased with himself.

“But that’s us from… From before…” Red Son trailed off.

Tang nodded. That he meant before their father had been sealed under the mountain didn’t need to be said.

“You… You made me in my bull form.”

“I did.”

“But… How did you… I haven’t…” Red Son took a steadying breath. “I… I haven’t been in that form in a long time. How did you remember what it looked like?”

“The day you were finally able to transform into it was one of my happiest memories from… before,” Tang said solemnly. “You were running around screaming in excitement and accidentally setting fire to the tapestries. Mother was chasing you around alternating between telling you to be more careful and gushing over how adorable you looked with your red fur. Father was so proud,” Tang coughed as his throat tightened. “He was so proud he couldn’t stop sniffling for hours as he tried to keep the tears at bay. He lost that fight when you playfully headbutted him for the first time with those cute little nubs growing on your head.”

Tang paused as he examined his works.

“And… And then?” Red Son sounded hesitant as he urged Tang to continue.

“And then a week later he began his assault on human kind,” Tang said hollowly. “That day was the last time we were all together and happy. I will never forget it as long as I live.”

That’s what these sculptures were, he realized. A requiem to a lost moment of time he could never get back. A time when Father’s eyes were kind and caring. A time when Mother’s smile was warm and sincere. A time when Red Son looked at the world in wonder instead of as something he could exploit. A time when he was a happy and studious son who didn’t need to hide behind goofy jokes and false lightheartedness.

“They… They’re wonderful,” Red Son finally admitted after a moment of silence. “But… Mother would have a fit if she saw these. Especially as we’re in our bull forms.”

“Well Mother needs to get over herself and stop taking out her grief on us,” Tang growled, causing Red Son to squawk indignantly.

“Sorry,” Tang said with a sigh, cutting off Red Son’s building rant. “I know you don’t like having this argument. Let me finish one more sculpture and then we can go, alright?”

“One more-!” Red Son took a calming breath. “Okay. Fine. Let me know when you’re finished.” He stalked over and leaned against a tree, pulling out his phone to start texting. 

Tang looked over the sculptures. They looked wonderful individually, but the set was incomplete. The final piece would be the center that tied the whole collection together.

He pulled a decent clump of clay from the sphere and got to work. This sculpture was going to be twice as large as the others so he could make some of the details larger as well.

Tang used his earth shaping to speed up his process a bit. No point in making Red Son wait longer than necessary. 

As the forms slowly became more than shapeless blobs beneath his fingers, Tang began to hum to himself. He couldn’t quite recall the words to the tune or remember where he heard it, but something deep within him resonated with it and helped him relax.

“That song…”

Tang paused and turned to look at Red Son. The younger demon was holding his phone loosely in his hand as he stared at Tang with wide eyes.

“Red Son?”

“I… I know that song.”

“You do?”

“Of course! It’s… it’s the lullaby Father used to sing.”

“It… It is?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No, I…” Tang furrowed his brow as he tried to recall. “I don’t… Why can’t I…”

Remember…

Wasn’t there something about remembering things happening to him?

His vision became unfocused.

“Tang?”

Tang remembered.

He wished he hadn’t.

“No!” Tang pulled back from the clay and clutched his head. “No! Why did you follow me?! I hurt you! I’m not safe!”

“Tang, calm down!”

“I hurt you! You should be afraid of me! I was supposed to be safe! Why?!”

“Tang! Tang! Oh, damn it all!”

There was a whoosh of fire.

“No… No… Not safe… Afraid of me…”

“Brother, look at me.”

“No… Not your brother… Just a freak with fake memories…”

“Big Brother. Please. Look. At. Me.”

Tang looked up.

He stared.

“Red Son?”

The red bull demon nodded as he knelt next to Tang and took a deep breath.

He then started to sing to the tune Tang had been humming.

“I’ll Think Of You

As I Go

So When I Leave

You’re Not Alone

And No Matter Where We Are,

We Will Never Be That Far

‘Casue I Will Think Of You As I Go”

Tang blinked away his tears as he listened to Red Son’s voice. The words… They sounded… Familiar.

Red Son, seeing that Tang had started to calm down, continued to sing.

“I’ll Think Of You

As I Dream

So When It’s Dark

You’ll Be With Me

And No Matter Where We Are,

We Can Look Up To The Stars

And I Will Think Of You As I Dream”

Tang gasped. He… He remembered! He remembered how Father would sing this song to him whenever he had a bad dream! He remembered hearing him sing it to Red Son!

With a scratchy voice, Tang joined in to sing the chorus.

“Oh, It’s A Long And Winding Road

But You Don’t Have To Walk Alone

‘Cause No Matter Where We Are,

I Will Keep You In My Heart

And I Will Think Of You As I Go”

Tang panted for breath as they finished. His heart had stopped hammering and his thoughts didn’t seem quite as loud.

He didn’t understand. Weren’t they afraid of him?

“Why? You all looked so afraid of me…”

“No, Tang. We were afraid for you. This whole situation has been… Stressful. I was honestly afraid your mind had broken from the strain.”

“It still might,” Tang said, sounding very small. “I… I don’t know if I’m safe to be around anymore.”

“That’s… a valid concern. But I’m not sure we’ll need to worry about that. Do you know why?”

Tang shook his head.

“Because you’re you. You're stubborn, and thoughtful, and care for your friends quite a lot.

“And, uh, we care about you too. So we’ll make sure you’ll never go too far and we’ll always pull you back from the edge.”

“What about… What about the memories? Aren’t you freaked out that I just suddenly know these private things about you and your family?”

“Actually, it’s that exact fact that convinces me that they aren’t just some fabrications or illusions. I believe that these memories you’re seeing are real. That they actually happened to you in some other time or universe or whatever. For good and for worse these are your experiences, and I cannot fault you for that.

“I’m not sure about the others, but to be honest? I’m somewhat… relieved that someone else knows what I’ve gone through. That I now have someone to share in my frustrations and grief and know that they’ll just get it.”

Red Son narrowed his eyes slightly.

“You are to never repeat this to anyone, but… I used to daydream about having an older brother quite often after Father was sealed away. The way you were acting earlier… It’s a lot how I imagined he would be.

“It was… Nice.”

Tang stared for a moment, feeling overwhelmed.

“I’m going to hug you now.”

“What? Gah!” Red Son flailed as Tang launched himself at him. Being careful not to lock their horns together, he reached around to awkwardly pat the bigger bull on the back.

“Alright. Okay. I think that’s enough now.”

Tang pulled back from the embrace with a chuckle and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Thank you, Red Son.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously. If you tell anyone about this, I swear!”

“Understood,” Tang said as he reached out and ruffled the fur between Red Son’s horns.

“Stop that!”

“Okay, sorry. I’m done!” Tang turned back to the sculptures. “You know if you help me fire these, I’m sure we could convince MK to paint them.”

“Oh?” 

Tang hid a smirk at the way Red Son’s ears perked up at that. Looks like someone would need to relearn how to hide his emotions in their current form.

“You bet! Of course, he’ll need a good look at our bull forms to get the colors just right.”

“Uh… I’m not sure if I can…”

“You know how I said Mother was attracted to Father partially because of his looks?”

“Why would you bring that back up?!”

“Because I’m pretty sure I have a few memories up here of a certain Noodle Boy looking at you the way Mother looks at Father whenever you’re in your bull form.”

The fur on Red Son’s head caught on fire.

“What-! But I-! You-! Arrgh!” Red Son buried his face into his hands. “Just hurry and set up your stupid kiln already. I need to let the others know we’ll be a bit longer than intended.”

Tang laughed as he did just that. While Red Son worked on firing each figure, Tang worked on his final piece.

It depicted the four of them together, as they were now, but with their joy from the past brought forward to the present.

A spark of hope for the future amongst the requiem to the lost.

Red Son loved it.

----------

With the revelations that the memories Tang saw were real and that whatever powers he had in them he would have in reality, things became simultaneously easier and harder for the small group aboard the airship.

It became easier to go along with Tang whenever he was lost in a memory, as they were both interesting and sometimes informative. He could usually shake himself out of it before too long as well. His powers even came in handy when they had to outrun one of the search parties looking for them.

It was harder whenever he relived something traumatic, as the horror of it having actually happened took its toll. He would sometimes become despondent and melancholy without wanting to speak to anyone. His powers helped him hide himself away whenever he didn’t feel like talking, much to Sandy’s frustration.

But they persevered. For the next few weeks they did their best to help both Tang and each other through this stressful time. They learned from their mistakes and soon the more violent of Tang’s outbursts happened rarely.

Life went on.

Pigsy cooked and Sandy made tea.

MK painted the sculptures and Red Son posed in bull form so he could get the colors right. (Yes he needed to pose each time MK painted. No he didn’t know why MK kept asking him to do so, shut up Tang!)

Mei ate popcorn whenever things got chaotic and Tang told them all stories from his memories.

Monkey King and Macaque continued to pretend to be each other, except during meals lest they faced Pigsy’s wrath.

Things began to settle into their new normal.

Until one morning…

----------

Tang woke up in a somewhat unfamiliar room. It took a few moments to recognize it as a room on Sandy’s airship.

That was odd. A cycle had never started this late in the timeline before.

Unless this was a variant of some kind. Perhaps this was a world of sky islands?

Well, only one way to find out.

Tang made his way into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

Huh. He was starting the cycle as a monkey this time. Definitely shaping up to be a variant so far.

He shook his head and looked into the reflection of his eyes and began.

“My name is Tang.”

Tang

Remembered

Everything

----------

‘Once upon a time, there was a Storyteller. The Storyteller lived in a wonderful city with some of his closest friends.

‘There was the Chef, gruff but caring.

‘There was the Boatman, easygoing and kind.

‘There was the Dragon, carefree and energetic.

‘And there was the Monkie, bright and optimistic.

‘For a time, the five of them lived happily together. But then one day, the city was attacked by the Demon Family.

‘The five friends journey to the mountain where an ancient Hero lived, but only the Monkie managed to make it past the ring of fire surrounding it. There he met with the Hero, only to be told that he needed to save the city himself.

‘The Monkie gathered all his courage and determination and faced down the head of the Demon Family. They fought viciously, but the Monkie emerged victorious! 

‘The Monkie was declared the Hero’s successor and tasked with keeping the city safe. He fought many who sought to do harm in his quest to fulfill his duty.

‘The Demon Family. The Metal Twins. The Hero’s old friend, the Warrior. The Spider Clan.

‘However, the most fearsome of these enemies was the White Spirit and her General.

‘The Hero, the Monkie, and his friends were forced to flee the city after the White Spirit took over. 

‘Westward they fled, searching for a weapon the Hero promised could defeat the White Spirit.

‘But the Storyteller never learned what that weapon was. For one day, he woke back up in the city.

‘It was as if everything had started over. He watched the Demon Family invade, the Monkie defeat the Demon Family, and the Hero declare the Monkie to be his successor all over again.

‘He watched the Monkie fight the same enemies. He watched as the White Spirit took over the city and fled with his friends once more.

‘Again, the Storyteller woke up back at the beginning.

‘Frightened and confused, the Storyteller tried to tell his friends what was happening. But his words would not stick, and his friends could never remember what he told them.

‘The Storyteller then tried to prevent the White Spirit from gaining power. The General killed him for interfering.

‘But death was not the end for the Storyteller, as he woke back up at the beginning once more.

‘The Storyteller tried changing smaller conflicts, but horrible things happened to him or his friends whenever he did.

‘So the Storyteller was forced to watch. He watched and did his best to support his friends as the same events occurred over, and over.

‘Over time, the Storyteller began to notice that the city he woke up in wasn’t always the same. 

‘Sometimes it was small things such as the time of year or the color of his hair being different. 

‘Other times it was extreme changes such as being the Dragon’s cousin or the Hero’s beloved Teacher in fact rather than in reincarnation.

‘The Storyteller soon realized that whenever he woke up, he wasn’t just back at the beginning, but he was in an entirely different city each and every time.

‘Thus his life as the Storyteller ended and his time as the Traveler began.

‘The Traveler learned many things during his visits to the different cities. Secrets and knowledge and many skills. The magical abilities he sometimes acquired were, unfortunately, locked behind powerful bonds and he was unable to access them unless the city he was visiting allowed it.

‘The one thing the Traveler truly wished to know, which was how to get back to his original city, seemed to forever be out of his reach. He discovered a few clues, such as the nature of his current existence being tied to his unwound soul, but never the cause or a way to reverse it.

‘So the Traveler focused on those around him instead.

‘The Traveler grew closer to his friends over the many years, eventually coming to love each of them as family. The Hero, too, became dear to him as did many of their old enemies.

‘The exceptions were the White Spirit and the General.

‘After a rather peaceful city he was visiting where all of his loved ones were together was abruptly ended by their hands, the Traveler grew angry.

‘How dare they! How dare they hurt the ones he loved!

‘The Traveler broke the bonds preventing him from using the powers he obtained from his wanderings and began to prepare. He would make sure they could never hurt his family again.

‘But in his singular focus, the General managed to catch the Traveler by surprise. He lured the Traveler into a trap and immobilized him.

‘The General summoned the White Spirit and she entered the Traveler's body, taking it into her possession.

‘To the Traveler’s horror, she was able to see past the blocks preventing him from telling the others of what was happening to him. She took all his accumulated knowledge and easily crushed his family before destroying the city around them.

‘When the Traveler woke up in the next city, so did the White Spirit, already in possession of his body.

‘Thus the Traveler became the Prisoner.

‘The Prisoner was helpless to prevent the White Spirit from using his abilities to destroy the countless cities they visited.

‘But the White Spirit grew bored. So she decided to get… Creative.

‘She targeted the Prisoner’s family, relishing in his anguish as he was forced to watch. The atrocities she committed were… Evil. In every sense of the word.

‘Evil acts, after evil acts, after evil acts, over, and over, and over, and over.

‘The Prisoner’s mind broke.

‘He locked himself away in the dark, unable to see or hear or think. Unable to feel pain or sorrow or despair or anything at all.

‘Drifting endlessly in a black void for what felt like an eternity. He… He very nearly became Nothing in that time, but was Lost instead.

‘But then there were lights.

‘Seven shining lights entered the darkness and tore the White Spirit from the Lost’s soul, banishing her forever.

‘While two of the lights were unfamiliar, the other five the Lost eventually recognized.

‘It was his family! His original family from his home city!

‘He didn’t understand how, but they had journeyed here to the void to grant him gifts to help him on his travels.

‘The Boatman gifted him Time and Safety. A guarantee that the cities he visited after times of great stress would be calm and restful.

‘The Dragon gifted him Protection and Peace. A shield that prevented his mind, body, and soul from being taken from him ever again.

‘The Chef gifted him Choice and Change. Never again would he or his family be unfairly punished should he decide to interfere with events previously unavoidable.

‘The Hero gifted Hope and Assurance. The knowledge that he needed to return to his home city would be out there if he could hold on long enough to find it.

‘The Monkie gifted him Sharing and Companionship. So long as he remembered his origins, he could tell those around him about his life and they would remember.

‘With the Lost’s mind restored, his family and the other two lights took their leave, promising to faithfully wait for his return.

‘For the first time in a very long time, the Lost awoke as himself.

‘It wasn’t easy though. His time spent in the void had muddled his memories. He would misremember things, and lash out when he recalled something traumatic.

‘But his family that resided in this city rallied together. They provided support and care and love. The Lost did his best to reciprocate in kind.

‘Then one day, the Lost’s memory healed, and he remembered everything.

‘And so, I gathered my family together to Share my Story.

‘No longer Lost, but a Storyteller once more.’

----------

Tang fielded clarifying questions about the story and the metaphors he had used from his family members as they sat around the living room on Sandy’s ship together. It seemed the original MK’s gift had worked perfectly as he was able to go into more detail after telling them about the cycles in the form of a tale first.

He had to pause in his explanations a few times to wipe away the tears of joy that kept coming to him.

Once they had a decent grasp on everything, more serious topics were discussed.

“So the reason you don’t like being human anymore is because of what Lady Bone Demon did?” Pigsy’s voice was gentle as he brought up the potentially painful question.

“It’s not just what she did,” Tang said, squeezing Pigsy’s hand as he waded through his turbulent emotions. “It’s that she did it for a very, very long time while using my body the entire way. After a while, whenever we looked in a mirror, I no longer saw myself. All I could and still see is her grinning cruelly back at me.

“She never took an animal form so it’s just… easier to cope with it this way, I guess.”

“Well… At least you don’t have to worry about her taking you over any more,” Sandy said comfortingly.

“Yeah, that’s… That’s such a relief.”

“So how strong are you actually,” Mei asked. “Because dragon powers, earth shaping, straight up magic, and all of the Monkey King’s abilities combined sounds pretty OP to me.”

“Well then it’s a good thing the Heavens nerfed me with all this anxiety and PTSD,” Tang said with a dry smile. “But seriously? I don’t know or care. The last time I tried training to be a fighter didn’t end up so well if you recall. I’m more than willing to step up if any of you are in danger, but I think I’ll stick to a supporting role when possible.”

“Welcome to the sideliners club,” Macaque said, raising his cup of tea in mock salute.

Tang chuckled and raised his cup in solidarity.

“I have a question that may be… difficult,” Red Son warned. “What… what happens to us when a cycle ends and you move on to the next timeline?”

Tang took a steadying breath as he thought it over.

“There’s… There’s three potential theories I’ve come up with over time.

“The first is that you’re all actually just perfect copies of yourselves from this timeline being projected into my consciousness and don’t truly exist. Thus, you’ll cease to be once I move on to the next timeline. I reject this theory out of hand for obvious reasons.

“The second is that the version of myself that is stuck in the cycles will just disappear from this timeline’s Tang one day. Either he’ll have false memories over what happened during that time, or have no memories of it at all. I’m not sure how to feel about this as everyone around him will obviously still remember and it will be as if he drastically changed overnight.

“The third and the one I choose to believe is that when I leave a timeline it resets again back to before I entered it. Everything returns to how it was supposed to be with no one knowing anything different.”

“You… choose to believe that? That we’ll all forget about you and everything you do to make our lives better will be undone?!”

“I have to, Red Son,” Tang said, voice breaking. “Otherwise all those worlds Lady Bone Demon used me to destroy… They’ll… They’ll actually be gone forever and I can’t…”

“Oh.” Red Son’s anger quickly died as Tang took a moment to recuperate. “That’s… understandable, I suppose. I do not like it, but I understand.”

“To be honest, I don’t like it too much either.” Tang took a drink of his tea to soothe his throat. “But considering the alternatives, it is the best option we’ve got.”

“Sometimes there is no ‘best option’,” Wukong said solemnly. “You just have to forge ahead and hope a better way appears before you.”

“And if such a path does not appear, step off the road you’re going down and make it yourself,” Tang completed the piece of wisdom with a smile. “Where did you hear such a profound thing, I wonder?”

“Only from the wisest man I’ve ever known,” Wukong smiled back.

“Ugh. Get a room,” Macaque said with a groan.

“Only if you and Pigsy join us,” Tang smirked.

He basked in the indignant stuttering from all three of them.

“I have something that may sound strange,” MK said once everything calmed back down. “I get why you don’t want to be human anymore, but why a monkey?”

“What’s wrong with being a monkey,” Macaque challenged.

“Nothing! I’m actually hoping I get to become one too someday.”

Tang smiled into his cup at Wukong’s look of pride, Red Son’s look of interest, and Pigsy’s look of resignation.

“What I meant is, why not a form you picked yourself?”

Tang blinked. Had he not picked this form for himself?

“Perhaps you should explain a bit more, MK. I’m not sure I completely follow your meaning.”

“Okay, so, like, your current monkey form for example. Didn’t you say it was basically forced on you when that timeline’s Macaque gave you that cursed necklace? You had no consent in taking that form and had no way of changing it, right?”

“Yes… That is true.” Tang looked down at the golden-yellow fur covering his arms. Now that it had been brought up, he started to feel a phantom sensation of itchiness beneath his skin as he recalled how violated he had felt all those cycles ago.

“Then there’s your half-dragon form and your demon bull form,” MK continued. “Those versions of you already had access to those forms when you woke up in those timelines, so really they aren’t yours. It’s more like you’re borrowing them from the versions of you that were part of Mei’s and Red Son’s families.”

“Well… When you put it like that…”

“I guess what I’m actually trying to say is: If you are going to choose not to be human anymore, then you should also get to choose what your form looks like. Because you can choose now and you should choose what you want.”

“Oh.” Tang stared in disbelief at the brightly smiling young man. “When did you become so wise?”

“I had lots of help,” MK said cheerily. “So does that mean you’ll do it?”

“I suppose it would be properly thematic to have my first true choice within these constantly changing cycles to be that of picking out a static appearance of my own volition.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, MK, I want to choose my permanent animal form for myself.” Tang looked around and smiled at his family. “But I’m not sure where to begin. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Let’s start with the basics,” Wukong said. “Do you want scales, feathers, or fur? Or some combination?”

“Hmm… Fur. I'll admit I find being brushed or groomed all over to be quite relaxing.”

“What about a cat,” Sandy said as he scratched Mo beneath his chin.

“No, sorry. I just can’t picture it.”

“A yellow-throated marten?” Mei looked up from her phone where she had obviously been searching for animals. “They’ve got a large patch of golden-yellow fur on their upper bodies if we want to stick with that color scheme.”

“To be frankly honest, I am somewhat sick of that color. I understand why I seem to be stuck with it but, no. Just… no.”

“A burrowing animal,” Red Son said. “To coincide with your element.”

“Hmm… Yes, I like the sound of that.”

“A mole!”

“I would like my eyesight to either remain the same or improve, not deteriorate, thank you very much.”

“Uh, a badger?” Pigsy scratched the back of his head. “I don’t think I’ll be much help here.”

“Don’t worry about it. Every suggestion helps even if it’s to narrow down my choices.”

“Do skunks burrow?”

“Hard no.”

“Pangolin?”

“Interesting… But I don’t think I could shape those clawed hands into something resembling opposable thumbs very well.”

“Tarantulas technically have fur and live in burrows.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I can’t believe no one’s mentioned rabbits yet,” Macaque said.

“Rabbits?” Tang paused as he considered it, missing several other suggestions as the conversation continued around him.

Rabbits burrowed. They came in a variety of colors if he included domestic varieties. Their fur was incredibly soft.

Rabbits were known for being vigilant, always scanning their surroundings with their sensitive eyes and ears. They were both crafty yet cautious, digging multiple burrows to confuse predators. Many cultures portrayed them as both wise and cunning tricksters who avoided direct confrontation.

Rabbits were usually docile, but they would fight to the death over territory and resources. Sort of like how he preferred to support from the sidelines but would not hesitate to protect his loved ones…

Tang pulled out some of the clay he and Red Son had brought back to the ship and began to work it. The figure he was creating was lithe, with what some people might describe as a runner’s body. Which made sense for what it was. 

Digitigrade or plantigrade? Hmm… He’d have to experiment with both to see how they looked and felt but for now he gave the sculpture digitigrade feet.

The head was the angular shape of wild breeds, but he preferred the drooping ears of domesticated ones. If he didn’t like how they felt he could change it later.

The fingers were a bit shorter and wider than a human’s, but that was to accommodate the paw pads. They would still be fully articulated and feature opposable thumbs.

Finally the tail at the base of the spine, which didn’t need to be anything more than a ball of fluff.

Now for a color.

Well he did like how the mane on his dragon form looked.

A quickly muttered spell and the majority of the clay figure changed to a deep chocolate brown.

Tang stared at the anthropomorphic rabbit he now held.

Something inside of him clicked into place.

“What do you have there?”

Tang jumped a bit as Pigsy looked over to look at the figure in his hands.

“Hey, that's really good.” Pigsy gave Tang a questioning glance. “Is this…?”

“I… I think this is my choice.”

Tang quickly hardened the clay figure so it wouldn’t break and set it on the coffee table in front of him so everyone could see.

“So… What do you think?”

“You know I was joking when I mentioned rabbits,” Macaque said with a surprised expression.

“I know, but it felt… Right.”

“That’s a pretty cool fursona you got there, Tang!” Mei was snapping a few pictures of the figure. “Do you take commissions?”

“It’s not a fursona, Mei!” MK paused as he thought about it. “Okay, so maybe it is a little. But the important thing is: is this what you really want?”

“It… It is.”

“Then it’s perfect!”

“Are you going to try transforming into it now,” Red Son asked.

“Not yet. There’s a few smaller details and, ah, bits I need to finalize.”

“If you need any help, let me know,” Wukong said. “Transformations are kind of one of my specialties.”

“Right now I think I just want to get something to eat,” Tang said as he stood. “It’s almost time for lunch, right?”

“Just about. We have some leftovers we can heat up today,” Pigsy said before glaring at Wukong and Macaque. “I shouldn’t have to remind you to drop your disguises, correct?”

“We, uh, aren’t actually disguised as each other right now,” Macaque said sheepishly.

Everyone else paused and stared at the two monkeys.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s great you feel comfortable as yourselves around us,” Tang said. “Now let's go eat!”

As they all trooped out of the living room, Tang took one last look at the figure sitting on the coffee table.

If Wukong and Macaque could finally feel safe in their own skins, one he made for himself would give him no trouble at all.

With a smile he turned to join his family.

The future looked hopeful.

----------

Are you still with us after getting through all that? Good. Because it’s official! Tang is free! Both from Lady Bone Demon and the harsh restrictions of the cycles!

Of course, not everything is 100% OK yet either. Tang is kind of messed up now. Plus all the rules he’s been living by for centuries have been irrevocably changed. There’s going to be a lot of growing pains as we head into what I’m calling “The Healing Arc”. Nothing as bad as when LBD was possessing Tang, but it won’t all be sunshine and roses.

So @animemoonprincess' Doppelganger AU is pretty interesting! It’s got a perfect blend of wacky humor and serious emotional depth that I felt was perfect for Tang’s first cycle back in control. ( I was unfortunately unable to add Tang dipping a Kitkat into orange juice but maybe in a future chapter. ;P ) Also shout out to @unseelie-robynx for contributing quite a bit to this AU as well!

There’s some retconning of the Golden Dragon Tang AU here. I was a dumdum who did not do his proper research back when I wrote that initial chapter. I’m not going to go back and edit it however, so it will sit there mocking me and always remind me to do my due diligence from now when it comes to research! Also you’ll get ALL the internet points if you can figure out how I picked Ao Lun’s name!

We also had a brief appearance of @winterpower98's Swap AU once again!

The song that Red Son sings to calm Tang down is I’ll Think Of You by Kurt Hugo Schneider. I’ve loved this song for a very long time and feel that it fits the story perfectly. I wish there was a fourth verse…

(Also I’ve decided Demon Bull Brother Tang is a complete and utter Troll. XD)

That story sequence was planned for quite some time. It was originally supposed to include Tang bringing out a lantern he made out of the white clay and doing a shadow play as he told the story, but I just couldn’t get it to flow well. May have to reuse that idea later on…

Last but not least we have Bunny Tang! No one seems to know who exactly started this idea, by my good friend @skellebonez has a fic about it called Cotton Tails and Borrowed Time that’s really good! Go give it a read! I was going to save this for a later chapter but then I realized it helped capstone the theme of Self in this chapter perfectly.

Now I have no idea when the next chapter will come out. I actually don’t have The Healing Arc planned out and I’m also currently without a job so I’ll be needing to put a lot of time into finding a new one. I’ll at least try my best and not let six months pass again this time!

Stay safe! We’ll get through this! I love you all!

Until next time!

[glitteryglitter]

hii i have a request for a finnick story. so i was thinking maybe if it was during the quarter quell and the reader is a victor for district 1 or something and her and finnick hate each other but secretly care about each other. the reader ends up leaving her alliance with the careers to join finnicks group forming an alliance at some point in the games. THANKS!!

𝙰𝙽: It's been a while since I read Mockingjay, so I'm sorry if some details are off. Thank you so much for requesting!

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: Mentions of violence

𝙿𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: Finnick X District 1! Fem! Reader

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 1286

                                                       ๑*˚🍓˚*๑

The quarter quell had been an absolute nightmare for everyone. even the careers

As they all milled around a clearing in the forest, they all had the exact same worries.

They were all terrified, for themselves, and each other.

Y/n had almost gotten stabbed, and Gloss hadn't been doing too well either.

Even Brutus looked visibly stressed.

Meanwhile, Enobaria had been glancing around the small clearing shiftily. The careers had decided to stay in a part of the arena that didn't look as dangerous, yet the tension was almost unbearable.

The entire experience had been even worse than Y/n's first hunger games, mainly because people very close to her were very likely to be killed,

Also the absolutely insufferably cocky district four boy was in the arena with her.

He'd even had the nerve to recited a love poem he'd written to someone in his interview.

Y/n couldn't imagine anyone actually wanting to spend more than five minutes with him and his overall demeanor.

She truly couldn't stand him, or his deep blue eyes. Why anyone would ever want to date him, she didn't know.

Why he thought he had a chance with someone, she didn't know either. But, she wasn't one to judge, and the topic of him dating someone merely made her feel angry, so she decided to shove all thoughts of Finnick and his love life out of her already racing mind.

What y/n did know for certain, was that she'd do everything in her power to make sure that those in her alliance stayed alive.

At that moment, monkey mutts, hundreds of them appeared and began running towards the group.

Y/n tried to focus, but there were so many of them, and she certainly didn't want any of them to catch up with her.

She couldn't place where they were coming from, but she didn't really need to at the moment.

What she needed, was to keep her allies safe.

The careers scattered.

Their previous attempts at sticking together were not working out as well as they had hoped.

Gloss dashed towards the ocean, meanwhile, Brutus ran through some bushes.

Enobaria had already disappeared, no doubt trying to get away from the horrible little mutts as well.

It was at that moment that Y/n realized something: She was all alone.

She really needed a plan.

However, with the monkey's shrieking playing in her head, practically driving her insane, it was hard to think straight.

She ran in the direction she thought Gloss had gone, but only succeeded in getting lost.

Finally, she found an area that was thankfully, small-primate-free.

Y/n was left with the terrifying feeling of being alone, and very very vulnerable.

She'd dropped her spear and there was no way that the others were unarmed.

She knew some hand-to-hand combat, but not enough to save herself if someone else had a knife.

Or worse, a bow and arrow.

                                              ๑*˚🍓˚*๑

At that moment. she heard voices.

Internally swearing, she crouched behind some vines as Finnick, Mags, Johanna, Katniss, and Peeta came into view.

They looked like they were arguing about something, Y/n only hoped that they would leave as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.

They all sat down and appeared to be setting up a place to stay.

Perfect.

Just perfect.

She had no way of escaping and Finnick, that idiot was with them.

She just couldn't believe how his hair still looked that good!

Wait, what?

She didn't know where that thought had come from, but she didn't particularly care, as long as she never needed to think about it again. ever.

If only there was a way for her to escape...

At that moment, a tree branch cracked and fell to the ground, startling her.

Y/n promptly tipped over and fell into plain view.

Everyone looked up and froze.

"Who is that?" Peeta asked.

Finnick, that idiot, walked over.

"Look who it is" Finnick pulled her up onto her feet with a hard expression on his face.

Y/n cringed slightly.

You two know each other?" Peeta asked, sounding more confused by the minute.

"Of course, they do. Finnick couldn't take his eyes off of her at the interviews. All through the training, I couldn't tell if they wanted to murder or kiss each other, but it was definitely one of the two. Don't act like you didn't see it." Katniss whispered.

That warranted a glare from the two.

"Listen, I don't think you like me very much, but I need to join your alliance."

Y/n was desperate at this point and this seemed to be her best bet if she didn't want to get murdered.

She really didn't want to rely on anyone, especially not Finnick, but she didn't have any other choice at the moment.

He nodded. "We'll make it work."

Finnick sighed, He didn't want to ever talk with the district 1 girl ever again.

He hated to admit it, but Katniss was right.

Y/n seemed to despise him, despite his best attempts at flirting.

He'd even written her a poem and recited it for the entire capitol to hear.

She certainly was special, and it would be better if he didn't have to kill her.

                                              ๑*˚🍓˚*๑

Several hours passed and the group, plus y/n, decided to move on.

They'd been walking for a while when she recognized the area they were in.

There weren't any monkey mutts this time.

Y/n was just beginning to relax when she heard something.

The sound of wings, along with Finnick shrieking.

"Y/n stop screaming You're not helping anyone!" Finnick yelled.

"Me? You're the one screaming! Could you maybe stop it? Just let me think!"

"Just shut up! You two weren't screaming up until now and it's not helping anything." Johanna was standing off to the side, completely calm as the entire group dissolved into chaos.

She did have a point.

Y/n remembered something.

She'd been told that Jabberjays echoed the screams of the person one cared about the most.

Why on earth were they echoing Finnick?

She realized then and there, it was all so obvious.

Maybe she did want to kiss him.

Had she been jealous all this time?

Why hadn't she noticed this earlier?

How on earth would she deal with this?

She was in the Quarter Quell of all things, definitely not the most romantic place to confess your love to someone.

Y/n took a few deep breaths, she knew that the screams weren't real.

It was a bad time to tell Finnick her feelings, but it was better now than never.

"Finnick, I need to tell you something"

Y/n was practically shaking, but she still persisted.

How do I say this...I hated you- I thought I hated you... She paused to take a deep breath.

Finnick hoped this was going the way he thought it was. Did she like him? She couldn't possibly. After all, she'd basically admitted to wanting to murder him. But had she? She'd never said it specifically.

"I like you. I didn't want to admit it, but I like you. A lot. I understand if you don't feel the same, but- she paused again no doubt, thinking she'd said something very wrong.

"Can we kiss?" Finnick asked.

This must be a dream. A fever dream, but still, a very, very good one.

Y/n thought as she melted into the kiss.

"Oh my god. What is it with you two? I can't believe I decided to ally with this group", Johanna hollered over the Jabberjays.

"Because we're better than the careers, of course! Sorry, y/n not you." Finnick yelled back.

She shook her head.

Y/n could still see a hint of a smile on her lips.

                                               ๑*˚🍓˚*๑

[secretshinigami]

Meet you under the sun

Author: @lightlessons For: @danthegeek Pairings/Characters: Light Yagami/L Lawliet, Misa Amane, Kiyomi Takada. Rating/Warnings: M. Mature language, Swear words, Alcohol consumption.  Prompt: AU Light is a popular Collage Student and invited to a beach party. He is having a lot of fun, is flirty and arrogant as we know him. He is dancing with Misa, who is not his girlfriend but has a crush on him. Then, L joins the party, somebody brought him along. He is chilling awkwardly by the buffet when Light takes notice of him and joins him at the buffet. He has seen him before a couple times on the campus, but never talked to him. What happens next is up to you…

Author’s notes: I bent the specifics a bit in that I had Light talk to L  just a bit after seeing him instead of immediately, because i felt it fit the pacing I had better. Hope it’s still okay though :-) 

—————————–

“Don’t tell me you’re a Beach Volleyball junior champion too,” Takada joked after Light obliterated (yet again) a team of what appeared to be sociology majors, or something equally pointless, she had that small, half-hearted smile that was so characteristic of hers but with the slight frown of someone who isn’t used to being impressed.

Light laughed humbly. 

“I’m not. Maybe my experience with tennis helps somewhat? But I’ve really never played it before.”

His classmate sighed, and Light thought that being constantly made aware of his numerous skills had to be tiring for her. “You must be just naturally talented then,” she supposed as she fixed her hair behind her ear in a strange bashful gesture that must mean she was finally surrendering over to Light’s natural charm, as one would expect. 

“Or those two are just awful,” Light smirked conspiratorially. 

The young bourgeois laughed, which was what Light was hoping to achieve. Takada always enjoyed laughing at other people’s expense.

Light wasn’t much of a fan of the beach. There was too much sand getting into bad places and too many people acting as if the transition from monkey to hominid had never been made. Too much noise and too much sun and too many girls asking him to slather them with sun blocker, as if he’d pop a boner over touching their skinny naked backs. But, if there was something he’d learned from a very young age was the importance of having good public relations, and so when Kiyomi Takada had invited him to an exclusive beach party, he knew he wouldn’t say no to the daughter of the Sankei Newspaper’s owner. He’d gone into To-Doh not just looking for a quality education after all but in the hope of forming good connections too. 

And this party, filled with Tokyo’s most important youth, was a perfect opportunity to start rubbing shoulders. Light was young and attractive and athletic, perfectly composed to be like a bug zapper for these kinds of things. 

Plus, the lively music and the three margaritas he’d already had were kinda getting to him. 

“LIIIIIIIIGHT!!!” A familiar voice suddenly screeched from somewhere behind him. 

Oh dear God. 

Five feet of blond supermodel darted towards him through the small crowd of spectators that had formed for the match. Misa Amane, bimbo extraordinaire, had finally shown up to the party in all her unbridled glory. 

“Oh, that was so cool! You’re always so cool, Light,” she proclaimed with shiny eyes while all the other men around and some of the women ogled her in her small two-piece red bikini with a blackthorns and vines pattern, as characteristic of the gothic style she favored. 

Now, Light didn’t dislike Misa. She was cute in a very whiny-cat kind of way. Sort of endearing at first but jarring as the volume increased and the minutes went on. The first time they met she’d claimed she felt a cosmological affinity towards him or some such bullshit and then proceeded to interrogate him for his zodiac, moon, and rising sign, whatever the hell that meant–he hadn’t been paying attention. She was useful, though, in that she was somewhat famous and happily willing to do him any favors, or connect him with any of her large contact lists, even when he’d already been clear about not being interested in any non-friendly relation with her (using the hardships that came to celebrities’ partners as an excuse), he was a gentleman, after all, and he wouldn’t toy with a woman’s feelings. 

“Hey Misa,” Light gave her an easy smile that would hopefully settle her for the rest of the day. 

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere for the past week! Where have you been hiding? Not with Kiyomi, I hope!”

Takada at his side made an affronted sound that seemed to choke on the way up her throat. 

“Behave, Misa. I’ve told you I’m not your property,” Light belittled her with only mild sternness. 

Misa shook her head enthusiastically. 

“Misa is only teasing, Light! She promises! Besides, Kiyomi and I have started getting along since Spanish class. Haven’t we, Kiyomi?" 

Kiyomi seemed startled for a moment, as if she didn’t expect Misa to call her out like that, but recovered quickly to settle her face into her usual cold mask of indifference. 

“I suppose so.” 

“Aw, don’t be like that. We even planned a fake trip to Playa del Carmen together! Oh, Light, you should join us!” 

“I’m taking Korean.” 

“Not in class, silly, on the trip!” 

"Right… then I happen to be busy around that time of year,” he joked, throwing a smirk at Takada and earning the most formal of snorts he’d heard. 

"Miss Amane does have a fondness for fantasizing,” Takada replied instead, like a ready viper waiting for the perfect moment to strike at her victims. Oh, there’s no need to be mean with her, Kiyomi. 

The implications seemed to get lost on the blonde, however. 

“Pfft, you’re no fun. I’ll borrow him for a bit, Kiyomi. Clearly he needs a little loosening up, and you’re not exactly a party animal, are you?” 

Before Kiyomi could reply Misa had already taken Light’s arm and dragged him to the bar for more drinks. Light had to admit, the cocktails options were impressive, and he sort of wanted to try everything on the menu, but in the end, following the beach spirit, he and Misa both ordered a piña colada, and while usually, he wasn’t a fan of too much sweet in his alcohol, the fresh taste felt like a blessing under the hot summer sun, enough that soon he found himself chatting amicably with Misa and even had to catch himself from -dear God- giggling at something she said. 

Such was his mildly buzzed state when a sight at the corner of his eyes caught his attention. Turning around, he understood why. A black-haired man was standing under a palm tree and sipping at his own colada, with his back very badly curved in an awful posture and huge eyes fixed somewhere on the sand. Weirdly enough, he was wearing jeans to the beach with only a loose tank top to combat the scorching weather, and still, his wild mop of hair was the most recognizable part of him, which was in itself something, as Light had never in his life seen someone more particular. He’d seen the other boy around campus a handful of times before, but there had never been an opportunity for him to approach him, even though Light had always felt an inexplicably strong pull for him to ask him about his name. 

Misa loudly calling his name made him realize he’d been staring. 

“Misa, do you know who that is?”

Misa squinted in the direction of Light’s eyes, face lighting up with recognition. 

“Of course! That’s Ryuzaki! He’s actually the inheritor of Wammy’s Co. But not many people know about that,” the model smirked like she was telling the juiciest gossip. “People like Takada probably think he sticks out like a sore thumb around here. But the truth is, he’s got more money than any of us combined.” Light’s ears perked up at that. “He’s also one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet, and I’ve met you, Light. I don’t know who invited him, though. Let’s ask him! Hey, Ryuzaki!!" 

The odd student turned around towards the voice calling him and tilted his head to the side in silent interrogation. 

The boy’s assemblage of quirks brought a smile to his face. He hadn’t allowed himself to think it before, but he had always thought the student was rather cute even with how little he knew of him. 

“Who invited you?!” 

Light winced and glared at Misa for how carelessly she had posed such a question, but Ryuzaki didn’t seem the least bit faced and instead cupped a hand near his mouth like a mock-megaphone and shouted: “I just came for the desserts!” with a wide-eyed expression that gave no indication whatsoever of if he was teasing or not. 

Misa laughed like she’d heard the best joke ever and Light just blinked in the boy’s direction.

“Isn’t he a blast?” She hollered as Ryuzaki’s eyes met his.

It was hard for Light to describe those few seconds, but for one single moment, the strings holding his soul together seemed to vibrate at a different tune than they’d played previously. He was unsure if he shivered, but he had to break the eye contact like some damned school girl to pull himself back together. 

Why did his face feel warm all of a sudden? 

"Ooh, I love this song! Let’s dance, Light!” Misa interrupted his thoughts again with a squeal.

“Uhh, sure, yeah…" 

×~°~×~°~×~°~×~°~×

Dancing was decidedly not as fun unless you had a certain amount of alcohol in your body. Or at least, that was Light’s opinion on the matter. Who’d enjoy several hours of mindlessly moving your body unless somehow inebriated? That’s why Light had to drink another two mimosas to keep up with dancing with Misa for five songs straight, not because he was somewhat shaken up about the guy with the bird’s nest hair and the absent look –Ryuzaki, his brain provided– and certainly not because he was figuring out how to approach him. 

He separated from Misa when the sun was already setting, bathing the sea with a last warm goodbye. Everyone at the beach stopped for a moment to marvel at it, but Light only had eyes for Ryuzaki, who was… nowhere to be seen, sending Light into a momentary panic. 

He almost slapped himself when he found him below the parasol housing the buffet. It was what Ryuzaki had said before about the only reason for coming to the party. Normally, he would have remembered, which only meant Light’s brain wasn’t behaving as fast as it normally would. It couldn’t be that he’d have too much to drink, could it? 

Alright, be smooth, Yagami. 

“Hello!” Light chirped with a wide grin, planting himself beside the strange boy who was staring at the lines of sweets like they were study material. 

Ryuzaki turned to him with a blink. 

That had come higher than intended. 

"We, uh, are in the same faculty? I’ve seen you around 345.”

“Light Yagami. Second-year Criminal Justice major. You’re the son of detective-superintendent Soichiro Yagami of the NPA." 

"Um.”

“You respect and admire your father greatly and your intention is to become the deputy director of the NPA. You’re as ambitious as you are clever.”

“Why do you-”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’re aware of how popular you are around here, word goes around. You’re not the only one I have this sort of information on." 

Light wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be reassuring. 

At the very least, that introduction had sobered him up. 

The other student was appraising him with a curious gaze, as he was starting to learn he looked at pretty much everything. 

"Is that the way you introduce yourself to everyone?" 

"Hmm. Yes, usually. I told you. You’re not special in that regard.”

“In what regard am I special, then?” Light asked cheekily. 

“That’s not-”

But he didn’t let him finish before walking around him like a predator would its prey. He made a show of considering what pastry he’d take and settled for a star-shaped cookie. Ryuzaki watched the whole procedure closely and Light smirked at him as he took a bite. 

Yes, I made you think about my mouth now. How’s that, smart-ass? 

“I think we should get to know each other better, don’t you?”

“And what makes you come to that conclusion?” Ryuzaki supposed. 

“Well, I want to, for one.” Light sassed.

“Are you coming on to me?" 

Light’s confident semblance cracked. It suddenly dawned on him what he was doing and where. Fuck, what if he isn’t into guys? This was why he never flirted with men unless he was sure the other person was at least bisexual! Or just let the other guys come onto him, which he never had a lack of. Shit. 

Ryuzaki seemed to notice his momentary alarm because he placed a hand on his arm in reassurance. 

"No, I’m into it. I was just surprised,” he explained with an earnestness Light wasn’t expecting. 

“Surprised?”

“People like you don’t usually flirt with me." 

"What’s people like me?" 

"Now you’re just fishing for compliments." 

Light grinned, feeling like his assured (but not overly-presumptuous) self again. 

“Swear I’m not.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“Your hand is still on my arm, by the way.” 

Ryuzaki blinked at the offender, which was indeed still curled around Light’s tricep like a possessive pale spider. He only let go of it slowly, finger by finger, and Light pretended he could see a faint blush on the other’s face with the last rays of sunlight. 

There was a conscious effort on his part to not brush those sharp cheeks tenderly with his knuckles, less the sudden contact spook his new sudden fascination away. 

“It appears you’re not the only intoxicated one of the two of us,” Ryuzaki admitted in a low voice.

The loud party music and noises of the crowd seemed so far away. 

Light took a step forward. 

“We should–” 

“Light!”

A group of people was coming their way, and Light recognized Takada, Okubo Chise, Kinoshita Hideo, and another fake-blond dude he’d never had any interest in talking to. Kinoshita was the son of a major tech company’s executive and was rotting in money from his million-dollar hair to the ugly fungus in his toenails. Light, sadly, had had a mild interest for him at first, but that went to shit when he came to see how much of an asshole he was. 

Kinoshita grabbed him by the shoulder, while Chise and the fake-blond planted themselves in front of Ryuzaki. Takada, for her part, just stood to Light’s side glaring in Ryuzaki’s direction. What the hell?

“Light, what is someone like you doing talking with a freakshow like Ryuzaki.” Kinoshita wondered, exposing his gums in a self-satisfied smile that quickly raised Light’s hackles. "Don’t you know nothing good ever comes from involving yourself with him?”

“Come again?” 

“It’s true, Light. He doesn’t have a good reputation,” Takada interjected, not bothering to hide the disgust in her face with a once-over to his new acquaintance. “I don’t know how he’d have the nerve to come in here, uninvited.”

Frowning, Light searched to see the face of the boy he’d just been so pleasantly flirting with and, outwardly, found him to appear relatively unbothered. He’d expected him to be angry, indignant, or even sad, but Ryuzaki only had his hands in his jean pockets and was yet again staring with wide eyes at some unknown fixed point as if no one were talking about him. 

“You’re going to have to be more specific about whatever offense Ryuzaki’s done. But whatever the case, I find it incredibly distasteful to round him up like you’re doing.”

“It’s alright, Light. Kinoshita is probably still just angry because I exposed a nasty little online scam of his, and attained information that could lose him the already crumbling favor of his father, and also the fact that he is nevertheless unable to cause me any significant harm,” Ryuzaki answered matter-of-factly without sparing a single glance at Kinoshita’s direction.

Everyone fell silent for a moment. 

Okay, that was… 

Extremely attractive. 

“You’re a lying little cunt!” Kinoshita snarled. 

“The naive teenagers being granted false scholarships would argue otherwise.”

“What? Hideo, you said–” Takada began. 

But the small elite group exploded in an argument about what Kinoshita had or hadn’t done, with the latter giving weaker and weaker arguments. Light was so engrossed in his rightful indignation and the opportunity to disgrace Kinoshita, that by the time he called for Ryuzaki’s own word in the matter the strange student had already left without saying a word.

×~°~×~°~×~°~×~°~×

“Ryuzaki!" 

The hunched figure paused in his lazy gait towards the beach boulevard, but the dark disheveled head didn’t turn around. Light was panting by the time he caught up to him and he could feel the beginning of a headache already forming. 

Night had already fallen and the breeze charged at them from within the sea. 

"You’re already going?" 

"I am indeed approximately 700 feet from the party." 

"Not what I was asking.” Light rolled his eyes. 

Ryuzaki turned around finally, all sharp angles and even darker eyes illuminated by the blue and purple artificial lights on the street. 

“Well, your question didn’t contain your true intentions either. You’re asking why I’m going. And I assume this means you’d like to talk more?" 

Fastidious asshole. 

L didn’t wait for Light to answer before taking his phone from his jean’s pocket and handing it to him with the contact app open. 

Light typed quickly and handed the phone back, which finally brought a blessed smile to Ryuzaki’s face.

"I’m looking forward to talking to you soon, Light Yagami. Oh and before I forget." 

Long, spidery fingers settled themselves in a careful hold below Light’s chin, and before he had time to process what was about to happen, soft lips gave a feathery kiss to his own, so quick it might have been fantasy if it weren’t for the ghost of a contact searing an imprint over Light’s heart. 

“I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you at the entrance ceremony.”

[awkwards]

Kinktober Day 5. Aphrodisiac : Pleasurable Test | Overhaul

Day 5: Aphrodisiac

Title: Pleasurable Test

Pairing: Overhaul x F!Reader

Count: 2.2k

Summary: You needed to make ends meet, and so you go to subject yourself to a testing center that will pay. Turns out, you’ve signed yourself up for way more than you expected. You should really read the fine print.

Warnings: Noncon, syringe, aphrodisiac, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, yandere, sadist overhaul

Note: It’s finals week and definitely starting to hit me. Also, thanks for all of the support! If you’d like to be tagged for my kinktober fics, dm me! My inbox is open~

You snarled behind your gag at the man in the lab coat, who was currently coming at you with another needle. When he stepped close, you managed to kick the shot away.

“You can’t even handle one little girl. Pathetic.” A voice you haven’t heard before chides. A man wearing a plague mask and rather large coat with purple feathers stepped in. You could barely see him from where you’re restrained on the operating table. He snaps gloves onto his his, his eyes glaring at the subordinate. “And now that needle is filthy.”

“I’m so sorry sir!” you could see the sweat from the doctor, his face pailing. “She kicked me and it went flying!”

“Begone. I do not wish to hear your excuses.”

“Yes sir.” The guy practically runs from the room.

The man levels his gaze on you, judging.

You quirk an eyebrow at him, challengingly.

You’ve been here for a week. It was supposed to be one test, in which you got paid for. You took it because money was tight and you needed to pay rent. Little did you realize they would keep you kidnapped and subject to their devices because you were the “perfect candidate”.  Your fear has practically been pushed aside by your anger. For a week they’ve been sticking you with needles, running “tests”, keeping you on the edge of functioning. All you had left was your anger and attitude.

“What a nuisance.” The man sighs. His dark eyes scan your barely clothed body.

Quicker than you can move, the man has your legs pinned down, fastened in place just like your arms and neck are. A gasp of shock careens past your lips, silenced by the gag.

“That’s better.” He moves over to the counter where the equipment lays. He turns his back towards you. “Do you know who I am?”

“Well, I assume you’re the one in charge of these monkeys. Do you know who I am?” You bite at him.

“I am Kai Chisaki. You will address me as Overhaul.” He turns slowly, an intense look in his eyes that makes your skin crawl. “I know plenty about you. You are a quirkless individual. Your blood type is AB negative. You’re allergic to penicillin. You’ve lived in this city your whole life. I know you were adopted at the age 5. You had a kidney transplant at the age 12.”

“Your parents were brutally murdered when you were in high school by a villain attack. I know that the villain attack was actually a target for your father’s brother because he made some bad deals with the yakuza.” He grabs a needle and begins to mix a mystery pink liquid into it. You’re shaking by now. How does he know so much?  “You dropped out of high school quickly after, and less than two years later sold most of your adoptive parent’s belongings, and then the house.”

Overhaul takes deliberate and slow steps towards you, tapping the air bubbles out of the needle. “You moved into a seedy little apartment in the middle of town. You work at a small bar across from the noodle shop in the bad part of town because it was the only place that would hire you. This month you couldn’t make ends meet so you showed up here.”

A gloved hand drops onto your arm, thumb soothing over the prominent vein of yours. “And most importantly, I know your name isn’t actually Nakaya Kosuke. You, Miss (y/n), have quite the extensive history.”

You jerk hard at hearing your birth name. No one should know! Only your adoptive parents, who as he stated were dead, and the lawyer that erased your identity knew.

You try to speak through the gag, your words hushed.

An amused dark chuckle falls from him. “Oh, my apologies, did you want to speak?”

You nod your head.

His eyebrows raise, as if debating it. Finally, he unties the back of your gag. You spit it out, breathing in deeply. “Careful now, say something I don’t like and I’ll put it back on. Or I’ll remove your tongue.”

“Why am I here?”

He hums. “You are special. Did you know that your blood type is extremely rare?”

You clench your teeth, glaring at this cocky son-of-a-bitch. “I did.”

“Well, fortunately for us, your blood type was exactly what we’ve been looking for in our experiment. It’s extremely hard to come by a willing participant, too.”

“I’m not willing. I signed up for a test. One.”

His chuckle is light, and his eyes are wide with sadistic mirth. “No. You actually signed up until there was one successful test. So far, none of them have been such. It would appear someone didn’t read the fine print.”

Oh. Oh god. Did you really?

“No worries. You will be fully compensated. Well-” His eyes narrow. “If you live.”

Overhaul begins to prep the vein in your arm. “See, quirks are filthy. Those heroes parading around their quirks are but vermin on this earth. Pathetic. But you - no, you’re corrupted like those who roam the streets. Your blood is pure. Your genes are clean. You and I are far more similar than you might think, y/n.“

“What are you going to do to me?” Fear is fully controlling your mouth now. You shiver as he sanitizes the area he plans on injecting you.

“I have reason to believe that your blood will be the perfect capsule to carry my new invention. It’s a device that will remove the quirks of those who come in contact with it.” The look in his eyes turned wild, excited. You shiver. “My parents were ripped away from me, too. Those heroes did nothing to save them. Yet, they parade around the world as if we, the common folk, owe them. Not for long. Now, don’t make too much of a noise; I’d rather not have to remove your tongue.”

The prepped needle’s cap comes off, and the metal slides into your skin. You whimper, looking away as Overhaul begins to press its contents into your bloodstream. As quick as it began, it ended. He wipes away the lone blood drop before pressing a bandaid against you.

“Normally I would never dream of coming so close to an individual. But you are different from the filth filling this world.” Gloved hands grab your chin, turning you to look into his eyes. “You’re pure. Perfect. And I plan on taking full advantage of that, my sweet Y/N.”

Tears burn your eyes, your lip trembling. You finally let your body relax. This time you were truly fucked. He pulls his hand away, throwing away the needle tip of the syringe. You watch him walk away, back to the counter where he removes his gloves and washes his hands and arms.

A warmth began to fill your system. You shoot a concerned look at Overhaul. It was like your body was warming up from the inside out, your blood beginning to boil. A feverish sweat was spreading over every inch of you. “Something’s wrong.” You croak out.

Overhaul turns back to glance at you, sweaty and blushed. A mild look of intrigue covers his face. “Oh?”

“It’s burning me.” You whine.

Your body is completely uncomfortable now. The warmth feels … different. Wrong even.

“Explain to me what is happening.” He dries his hands leisurely, watching you from across the room before putting on a new, clean pair of rubber gloves.

“I’m hot. It feels like my blood is boiling. I -” you whimper as the slightest movement of your head increases the feeling tenfold. “Please make it stop.”

Overhaul takes his time as he walks back over to you. He runs a finger over your pulsepoint. The single touch sends a wave of pleasure crashing through you, a moan following. “How interesting.”

You’re mortified and confused. You wish you could rub your thighs together at the uncomfortable feeling between them.

“I see now. The molecular constructs of those two vials creates an aphrodisiac.”

You pinch your eyes shut as his single digit drags down your arm, over the hospital gown you have. The thin fabric is too much. It feels as if it’s weighing you down and making it that much harder to breathe.

“I suppose I should relieve you. It’ll be the only way to collect your blood at the right molecular compounds,” He muses to himself, talking out loud as if you’re not there.

Overhaul pulls off the glove on his left hand. “If I hadn’t reassembled you already, I would let you suffer until the side effects wear off. But, because of me, you really are clean. You should thank me.”

Not knowing what to say, you watch the man through your watery tears. He presses his bare hand on your stomach. If you weren’t being restrained, you would have arched into his hand, moaning loud as pleasure floods your core.

When he removes his hand, your whole body shivers as air nips your bare skin. How? “Wh-what?”

He chuckles. “My quirk.”

You watch as Overhaul steps around your pinned body, coming close to your wet sex.

“What a mess you’ve made. Disgusting.” Despite his words, he runs his gloved hand up your right leg, stopping at the stop below your belly button. You can feel your walls flutter.

A choked out “Please,” tumbles from your lips. You’re so turned on it hurts. Your brain can’t think straight anymore.

You moan loudly as a single finger strokes your dripping lips. You roll your hips as best as you can to get more friction. He lets out a proper laugh at your discomfort, sliding his single digit past your folds.

“So needy. What would you do without me? If I wasn’t here to relieve you?”

Your walls flutter around his digit as he runs his finger against your inside. The burning in your blood only seems to increase at the slight relief. “Please, Overhaul please!”

At your pitiful begging, he slides another finger in, stretching your walls. He works the two digits in a slow and methodical pace, scissoring you. You whine and cry, grinding your hips into his fingers. When he curls the two fingers and strokes the spongy spot inside you, a coil snaps, and you cum hard around him.

He doesn’t stop, continuing to pump his fingers inside you. You moan as you come down from your high.

The heat inside dims for the barest of moments before firing back up with a vengeance.

“Did that make you feel better?” He mocks, putting more force behind his motions.

You gasp as the coil of pleasure begins again. “It hurts! I need more, please!”

“Patience, little one. You’ll get your release. Soon, you’ll be begging me to stop.”

As if to prove his point, he uses his thumb to stroke your clit hard. Your walls flutter and drip around his gloved fingers as you feel yourself close to the crest again. “Oh - Oh, oh please!” You wail.

“Cum again, pet.”

You do. Your walls spasm as you tip over, shaking in your restraints as a sigh leaves you.

He doesn’t stop. The fire inside is rapidly dwindling, and you flinch at the touch.

“Oh, are you sensitive already?” He muses. “It won’t last long.”

True to your words, the fire picks up again. You sob as his touch hurts. It hurts yet is relieving you too. Tears stream down your face as you’re overstimulated, but the heat is still there.

“It's almost over. Hold on just a bit longer.”

Overhaul fingers you faster, making the coil of pleasure twist quicker and harder than the last two orgasms. You sob as you near the edge again.

“Last one. Give me one more. Cum over my fingers.”

“I can’t!” You cry out, rocking your hips into his fingers despite what you say.

“You can. And you will.” You can hear the squelching as his fingers target your g-spot, his thumb rolling your clit hard. “Cum again y/n.”

A scream rips from your throat as you’re forced over the edge of another orgasm. Your entire body tenses, and white fills your eyes. Overhaul drags his fingers out of you slowly, making you wince from the overstimulation. He tears the glove covered in cum off of his hand before sliding a new set on.

Panting hard, you come down again, body relaxing. Your blood no longer feels like you’re being boiled alive.

You flinch as a syringe is forced into your arm, and watch in sick curiosity as he draws blood from you. Even the touch of the needle makes you quiver, your entire body too sensitive for touch.

“Shh, it’ll be okay. You did so well.”

You moan, shaking as he places a bandage over your skin again. Your head swims as black dots at the edge of your vision.

You look up at him, and can tell even from behind his mask that he’s smiling. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Rest well, pet.”

Tag list:

@ofthedewthesunlight​ 

[yuulina-vre]

Cuddles

Fauna’s save heaven

Summary: Y/N has trouble sleeping and shifting only helps for that long. Bucky and Steve are the best help.

Pairing: Steve x Bucky x Reader

Wordcount: 4555 words

Warnings: mentions of kidnapping and violence, Nightmares

Masterlist

“Y/N? Are you even listening?”

“Huh?” Y/N’s head snaps up from the spot she had been staring at. The others around the table stare at her. Tony especially looks annoyed since she hasn’t listened to the mission briefing at all. This time he actually tried to turn his rambling down. The others just look amused, maybe with a little bit of concern. Bucky’s the only one who really looks worried. He grabs her hand under the table, squeezing it lightly. “No, I’m sorry, I’m listening now.” She ducks her head in shame, clearly embarrassed but Tony seems satisfied enough and continues talking. She tries to listen and pay attention. She really does but her head hurts and her eyes are heavy with sleepiness. “Did you manage to sleep at all?” Bucky’s voice whispers in her ear as he leans in a bit. “No.” She whispers back. Her voice is so silent that she worries if he even had heard her. “Y/N…” Bucky sighs knowingly but defeated and squeezes her hand again. She only looks briefly at him before her gaze falls back to her lap where Bucky’s hand clutches hers. “Alright. I have enough. Do you two want to share something with the class?” They both look up. Tony’s arms are crossed, glare directed at them, though, he’s the only one who seems annoyed. The rest are just watching, waiting for reactions. “No.” Y/N whispers but Bucky’s answer different. “She hasn’t been sleeping for days. She needs a break.”

“Bucky!” Now she’s the one glaring at him, trying to get her hand out of his but Bucky tightens his grip. “Why?” Sam pipes up, the concern now on his face, too. Bucky’s eyes meet her eyes, silently asking if she wants to tell them what’s up but she shakes her head nearly not noticeable. “She has nightmares. The bad ones.” That’s enough. They all know what that means. Dreams of kidnappings, torture. Experiments. For four years of her life, when she was only seven years old, she got kidnapped from her home. The people that took her got her across the whole country to a facility where other people with similar abilities to hers were kept. Four years of her life, the years in which children learn a lot, where children should have the happiest time because that’s the period of time that forms who they are going to be later on, were spent in constant fear and pain. She never told them what these people had done to her, not in any detail at least. Only Bucky and Steve have a vague idea and only because she once said that Bucky had suffered just as bad as she did and Steve’s the only one who make living with it a little better. This one little sentence had shattered their world for a week. They weren’t able to understand how someone could do things, these kinds of things, to a child.

“Then… Go to bed.”

“What?”

“Out of the room and to bed.” A cold shudder runs down her back. For a split second a picture flames up in front of her. Someone’s scolding her, sending her to the bed, a bed with nails. The picture is gone as fast as it came but Y/N lifts herself from the chair, slowly. She tenses and she knows that Bucky sees it, that he wants to get up with her. But she doesn’t want him to get punished too, so she squeezes his hand and leaves the room. Funny thinking, they would punish her. Tony never punishes her, where did that come from? “Y/N! Wait a second.” She stops, back tensing again, worried she did something wrong but the warm hand on her lower back feels like a lifeline, like comfort. She turns her head to see Sam smiling at her. “You know Tony didn’t mean it like a punishment, right? It just came out wrong, he’s worried.”

“I know.” She mumbles silently but Sam catches it and nods. “The nightmares. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I-I…” She swallows thickly. Can she tell him that she was afraid of what he would say? That he would laugh? “Hey.” His hand lightly lifts from her back to be placed on her arm. “You remember what we talked about? You don’t need to tell me what’s up. You don’t need to do anything, but I’m here when you want to talk and I listen, not judge. Just like the rest of us.”

“I know.”

“Good.” The man nods and grins again. He quickly looks back to the conference room and then to her. “What do you think about the thing we did last time? You think it would help now?” Y/N’s eyes stay on Sam’s face. “I-I don’t know.”

“Well, why don’t you go to your room and shift? I’ll come in a minute and pick you up. We can at least try.”

“Okay.” She nods and Sam squeezes her arm in comfort. Silently she walks down the hall to the elevator. FRIDAY does her job without Y/N doing anything. The AI gets her down to her floor without a hitch. Back in her room, Y/N falls down on her bed with a heavy sigh. How come she’s so miserable these last few days? What triggered it? There were no missions she had attended, no briefings, no reports. She hasn’t talked to her parents or about anything from these four years. So why are the dreams torturing her right now? Where is it coming from so suddenly?

She closes her eyes, only to open them again. The pictures start flashing as soon as they’re closed. With another heavy sigh, she sits up. Her back is tense, just like her shoulders. Her headache gets worse with her anxiety spiraling. “Are you ready?” The knock startles her a little. “A-a moment, please.” She stutters, gets up, and quickly sheds out of her dress and underwear. Then she concentrates. Sam usually asks her to change into a smaller animal, something that fits into the pockets of his hoodie or can easily be carried around. This way he can keep her calm and steady but still do his work. Sometimes Y/N settles for mice or a flying squirrel but today she doesn’t feel it. Instead, she concentrates on something else. She doesn’t want to sleep in a dark pocket. It will encourage other memories she rather forgets. So, she slowly shifts until she sits finished on the ground. Running over to the door she makes a small screeching sound. The door opens quickly, revealing Sam. “Well, this is new. Monkey?” He smiles and crouches down, holding his hand out for her to climb up on his arm until she can rest on his shoulder. Her tail wraps around his bicep to hold on tight while one of her hands grabs Sam's ear. “Okay, here we go.” Sam walks slowly, making sure she’s not falling off until he reaches the conference room again. Everybody turns to look at him. “Is that…” Tony looks confused but Wanda coos instantly. “Oh my god. She’s so cute.”

“It’s a squirrel monkey, right?” Bruce looks closer at her and she nods. “We have watched some documentaries in the hope for her to fall asleep. I think one of them was about Primates or something.” Sam hums, probably connecting the dots while he walks back to his seat to sit down. “Come on, down.” He holds his hands to his lap, motioning for her to climb on his lap but Y/N doesn’t want to sleep down there. Instead, she climbs down from his shoulder but only halfway. She stops at his chest, holding tight to his shirt like the babies do, and looks at him to see if it's alright. He seems surprised but not bothered. He places his hand on her back and runs his fingers slowly over it. “It’s alright. Just try it, yeah?” She eyes Sam for a second longer but his focus is more on Tony now, so she uses the time she has to look around. Steve, Clint, Nat, and Wanda are also concentrated on Tony, though she sees Steve glance at her now and then. A soft smile grazes his face each time their eyes meet and Y/N knows that he itches to have her lying on his chest. He’s a sucker for a good cuddle. Only Bruce and Bucky watch her closely. Bruce seems a little on edge but the good kind. Like he really, really wants to touch her. She makes a mental note to seek him out later on when she’s not on the edge of falling asleep. Bucky looks… a little startled. No, more unbelieving, like he can’t figure out why she’s on Sam’s chest and not his. Maybe he’s a little jealous. But the moment he catches her staring he smiles at her with a nod, making sure she knows it's okay. She makes a small chirping sound before a big yawn escapes her and she snuggles closer to Sam, tail wrapping more securely around his wrist. Her eyes start to droop while she listens to Tony’s rambling about finances and training schedules.

 * * *

 “Hey, are you coming back to me now? You were out for a while.” Y/N chirps lowly, still pretty sleepy and struggling to open her eyes. She notices though that she’s no longer clutching Sam’s shirt but lies nestled in the crook of his arm. “I managed to get you down when we were halfway through the meeting. It looked kinda uncomfortable and Barnes was glaring at me the whole time.”

“I wasn’t glaring.” The deep rumble of a voice behind her lets her look around. She twists a little struggling to get a better look. Bucky’s sitting on another couch, book in hand but his eyes are focused on her. She makes another chirping sound, climbing out of Sam’s arms to run up to her brunette favorite person. “Sure Barnes. You looked like you would stab him any second.” Natasha wanders in a bowl in hand. Y/N looks at her briefly then back at Bucky and notices that Steve’s sitting next to him, head on the brunette’s shoulder and eyes closed. Though, what’s more, interesting is the little stuffed and colorful bear that he has in his hands. It was the first one that he tried to stitch on his own and even if it looks uneven with one arm longer than the other and the eyes not quite on the same height. The head is hanging a little sideways too and one leg is turning in the wrong direction. But the little stuffed creature is all hers since she loves to cuddle it while changed into smaller animals. It reminds her of him when he’s gone and they both lovely named it Cappy. A mix of Cap and crappy. Bucky sees her gaze and follows them, snorting. He lifts his shoulder lightly to rouse Steve while Y/N scrambles forward, over Bucky’s lap and right into Steve’s to free the stuffed friend of his hands. “Wha-? Y/N?” Steve wakes, rubs his eyes before he notices the little animal on his lap. She chirps and clutches the teddy to her chest while rushing up to sit on Steve’s shoulder. He laughs a little and quickly rubs her teil the moment she settled. “Y/N…” Bucky whines, sending his own puppy eyes to her. “No cuddles for me?” Steve rolls his eyes and Y/N would do the same, even giggle but she can’t. Her stomach grumbles loudly. She can smell fruits. She looks around and her eyes stop on the bowl Nat has on her lap.

Y/N swears she can see some banana slices just over the top. She looks between Nat and Bucky, who’s still pouting but her hunger wins out. She jumps from Steve’s shoulder, bear still clutched to her, over to the couch where Nat has settled. There she climbs all over Nat’s lap. “Hey, you. Hungry?” Y/N nods and climbs on Nat’s shoulder and lets Nat hand her a banana slice. Y/N quickly starts devouring it, grabbing into the bowl herself for the next one. “Hey.” Nat laughs but lets her get the next few slices of bananas and strawberries. Y/N chirps around the food, now and then jumping around to switch positions when Nat angles the bowl differently. A few times she even throws a raspberry on the coffee table and Y/N has to jump around to get it, making the four people laugh. Though, she notices that Bucky’s not as happy as he tries to look. Dread and guilt settle in her little chest. He still seems a little jealous, now of Nat too, maybe even of Steve, and Y/N knows that he sometimes starts to doubt himself when others can help her but he can’t. So, she makes a split decision. She runs up to Nat for the last time and steals two more Bananas only to waddle over the cushions to where Bucky sits. One of the slices finds its way into her mouth and while she munches on that she climbs up on Bucky until she’s snug on his chest, Cappy trapped between their chests. Bucky seems surprised but the smile on his lips is genuine and actually reaches his eyes. He lifts his hand and one of his finders stokes over her nose and along the white markings on her face. “Hey, monkey.” Instead of answering in any form, she holds out her hand with the slightly squished banana as compensation. “What’s with your banana?” She holds it up higher, poking it against his mouth. “For me?” She nods, which probably looks strange for a monkey to do. Bucky chuckles and Y/N holds her hand up higher once more until Bucky actually opens his mouth for her to drop the slice. “Thank you.” He leans down and kisses her little head. While he chews on it, Y/N jumps a little with cute little squeaks in a happy dance before climbing his shoulder and holding on tight to his hair, nuzzling it a little. Even if Bucky sometimes can’t help her fall asleep, he is one of her favorite persons after all. At some point, Y/N yawns again. Steve has gone back to napping a while ago and Bucky is drawn back into the fictional world of his book. Though, he notices that her head drops forward now and then. “Hey, monkey. Come down here, yeah?” He holds out his hand, slowly taking her small one, and guides her down onto his lap. Before she settles herself, he quickly grabs one of the smaller pillows to lies it on his thighs and lets her climb it. “Go to sleep. Stevie and I are here.” She doesn’t nod but she rolls herself into a ball, curled around the bear. Her eyes are closed and for a second, she fears the pictures will return instantly but she’s relieved as that’s not the case. She concentrates on Bucky’s warm, big hand on her back while drifting off.

* * *

 The man that’s holding her hand has a fierce grip on it. Y/N doesn’t really understand what’s happening. She hasn’t got an answer after she asked for her parents, the man just had rushed down the street without a word. Soon he had pushed her into a car and after that, she must have fallen asleep. Now they walk through unknown halls with people she has never seen. The man's still silent, not saying anything. At first, she had thought he was a friend of her mum but now she isn’t as sure anymore. She’s afraid and has cried but kept silent. The other people that they go past don’t even look at her and if they do, they don’t show any sign that she would describe as pity or empathy. Suddenly the man stops walking. She looks up at him and then to the door. It’s big and looks heavy, not like the door to her room at home. “Where are we going?” She looks back at the man but he ignores her, instead he pushes the door open and leads her inside only to lift her up and set he into a chair. There are more people around now. Men and Women in white coats, a man in a suit and a woman in a dress. It looks like the one her mum wears when she meets with her dad at work. The people in the room run around her not even noticing her and the man that was with her the whole time now steps back and leaves the room. The fear she has felt spiraled a little and she curls herself together. She doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t know anyone and she doesn’t have her little dolphin plushie to keep her company. The man and the woman that has been standing at the wall now walk up to her. They look nice enough, the woman even smiles a little at her. “How’s your name?”

“Y-Y/N.” She speaks silently, wiping some tears away from her face. “And how old are you?”

“S-seven. Where am I? Where’s my mommy?”

“What animals can you shift to?” Y/N blinks once, then twice. Not only has the woman not answered her but she knows of her ability. Y/N’s mum and dad always told her to not go around and tell someone and she never did. “I want my mommy.” She starts crying again. This woman scares her. Then suddenly pain blossoms on her cheek. “I asked you a question!” her tone is sharp and she doesn’t look as friendly anymore. Y/N’s cheek throbs with pain and she clutches it while scooting as far back in her chair as she can. She’s too afraid to answer and only shakes her head. She flinches as the woman lifts her hand again, probably ready to slap her again but this time the man holds her back. “Darling, let her be. We will find out in a few days. Let us just proceed so she knows what’s up.” He smiles at the woman but Y/N can see that this smile is evil. It reminds her of one of her aunts’ friends when she promises Y/N to get sweet and then hands her these disgusting lollipops made of vegetables. Y/N watches as the woman nods and steps back. The man comes forward, smiling at her but then grabs her wrist and puts them on the armrests of the chair, and binds them to them. “W-where are you doing? Where’s my daddy?”

“Oh, did no one told you?” The man looks with pity at her while he now sets something on her head and attaches some strings to it. Then he attaches something to her chest after opening her pajama top. “Your mommy and your daddy don’t love you anymore. They don’t like your ability and want you gone.”

“Noo… They love me.” She cries again. Can it be true? Her mum always tells her how much she loves her, that she is her little miracle. And her daddy always tells her she’s his little princess. “Oh, you sure? Why are you here then?” he waves an arm around to show her again that she’s all alone under all these strange people. “Your parents want us to find out why you are as you are and to make it stop so you can come back and they can be a family again. Without a freak baby girl.” Big sobs wrack her body but she can’t do anything against it. And she can’t say anything. Only a split second later the man steps back with yet another gin and then. There’s only pain.

 * * *

She opens her eyes, confused about where she is. It’s bright outside, so it’s not night. A warm hand lies on her back and she looks around to find the interior of the common room. Nat’s sitting on the couch Y/N remembers her being on and on closer inspection, she sees that she’s still sitting on Bucky’s lap. The man is sleeping peacefully with his head bedded on Steve’s. Her eyes dart around as the feeling of fear grows in her. She knows that it only was a dream, a memory that’s way back into her childhood, that nothing the man had told her was true. But on the other side, she has lived with that lie for four years of her kidnapping and her mom… She hasn’t taken it well that her only child was taken right out of their home while she was sleeping only two doors next to her. She had committed suicide two months before they finally had found her. Her dad then had moved away with Y/N, out of their old little town into the big city to try and start anew. Even through all the therapies, he got her she still suffers the effects of the four years. And right now, she desperately needs comfort. She hasn’t noticed that she’s shivering until she gets taken off from the pillow and pressed to a broad chest. The smell alone is enough for her to know that it's Steve who picked her up. “Hey, doll. Are you alright? Another nightmare?” She doesn’t nod, instead, she quickly hides her face in his shirt and holds on tight, her tail wrapping tightly around Steve’s wrist. “Hey, hey. It’s alright. Your perfectly safe here.” Y/N only tightens her grip but looks up at him. He must see something in her eyes because he sits up straight, startling Bucky awake. “Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

“Why?” Bucky yawns but as soon as Steve stands up and Bucky sees Y/N in his arms he seems to understand. He disposes of the pillow but grabs the bear that has fallen to the ground. “Here, doll. Cappy might help a bit, yeah?” as fast as she can She takes the toy with a sad chirping and hides back in Steve’s chest. The whole way to their shared room she can’t stop the shivers or the picture of the two people that started her suffering. It’s as if the images burned themselves into her mind. No matter how much energy she pushes into it, she can’t get rid of them. She loses track of time quickly swirling yet another time in the pain that had come over her, in the torture she had endured, and in the pictures of other suffering children she had seen in that few years. Some of them she has never seen again. Today she knows they hadn’t made it through these ‘tests’. “Y/N!” Her head snaps up quickly. Steve looks down at her with a pained expression. She notices now that they are already in Steve’s room, sitting on his bed. “I’ve called you a few times now. How about we change, yeah? Cuddling is easier that way. Buck’s getting the laptop and beamer ready so we can watch a movie.” She’s not really able to answer but clings to Steve with all that’s left. Then she nods end lets go. While she shifts, she hears herself let out a sob. It sounds strange, some kind of screeching like an animal but equal like a human sob. The shaking intensifies but Steve comforts her, pressing her naked body against his. He cradles her head to his chest, even leaning back on the bed while she shifts so that she’s comfortingly leaning against him. Even after the shift, she lies against him sobbing. She hears Bucky come close and soon gets covered by a light blanket while he wraps his arms around her. “Hey, baby.” Bucky presses a kiss against her head. “How about we coot a little to let Steve lie against the headboard, hm?” Y/N notices Bucky’s hands gripping her. He is careful but Y/N is transported back into her dream with more tortures she had to endure. The screams broke free without her noticing. The hands pull her and the blood rushes in her ears. She hears screaming that’s faint and not coming from her, she feels more hands gripping on her, wetness in her face. She starts kicking and punching, everything to get the hands away from her, to not let herself be dragged to the room with the whips and collars. And then, suddenly… There’s calm.

There are warm lips on her forehead, arms circling around her waist and a broad chest against her back. She hears murmuring in her ears. Soft whispering voices paired with soft touches. All around her is warmth and the cold that has shaken her body is completely gone. The fear in her body slowly ebbs away but she still doesn’t dare to open her eyes. “Shh, doll. I’m sorry but you’re safe, you’re safe.” The voice sounds thick with emotions. “Y/N?” Another pair of hands join her body, one hand slowly stroking over her arm, while the other cups her cheek, thumb rubbing tears away. “Can you look at me?” Involuntary, she shakes her head. She’s not ready to open her eyes. What if she’s dreaming? What if the people she wants to see aren’t here? What if… What if she’s still there? 

“Hey, hey. Darling, come on.” Lips press again on her head; hands rub her skin in comfort. Slowly she peels her eyes open, just for a second. She sees Steve’s concerned face and hears a faint sniffle, right behind her ear. Dread fills her stomach. She knows these kinds of sniffles. Turning lightly, she finds Bucky’s face. It’s white and pale with streaks of teas on the skin. “B-Buck...?” She whispers, silently but he hears her. He sends her a watery smile and tightens his arms. “I’m okay, doll. I’m sorry I startled you. I’m sorry.” Y/N’s head empties from her worry and guilt, from her fear and dreams. All senses are focused on Bucky, on comfiting the man that helped her through so much. She sits up a little but his arms press her against him again. She struggles a little against him until he finally losses his grip. In a blink of an eyelash, she turns herself and flings her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him and taking him down with her. She can hear his head bump against the headboard but she ignores it in favor of pressing her lips against his. He makes a small confused sound but then turns it instantly into a moan, his arms tightening. Behind them is a chuckle. Y/N quickly turns around and grabs the wrist that’s the closest to her, pulling it in. “Woooh… Y/N.” Steve laughs almost tripping over and landing on her and Bucky but he catches himself in the last moment, though, it's to no use. Bucky pulls him down on top of him connecting their lips in a loving kiss. Y/N watches for a second before she drapes her free arm around Steve’s neck as well, connecting her forehead to the sides of them. “Thank you. I love you two.”

“We love you, too.” And all of a sudden, she has two pairs of lips against her forehead, two pairs of loving arms around her, and two favorite people that comfort her. Two people, she loves the most.