#i’m not perfect and certainly not the authority on these issues

[frvnkcastles]

Could I please request one where reader is dating Frank but kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering when or if Frank’s going to break up with her constantly since her last boyfriend (and several ex “best” friends) left/ghosted/broke up with her unexpectedly for no reason so she doesn’t know why and worries about her body/everything she wears and everything she says and does and is trying not to do anything wrong so Frank doesn’t do the same to her but Frank of course catches on, finds out the problem and makes her see different and that’s she beautiful and worth staying and being cared for even though it’s hard to believe because no one has ever chosen her and wanted to stay before…

Thank you, I love your work ❤️😊

I CAN SEE A LOVE RESTRAINED ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: You’ve been hurt one too many times, and letting Frank in isn’t as easy as you’d like it to be.

Warnings: Abandonment/trust issues, body image issues, angst, hurt/comfort, reader is friends with Matt, feminine nicknames, language

Word count: 3.2k

Author’s note: Thank you so much for the support, anon! I definitely understand this feeling that you described and it really sucks. That said, I’m positive people will appreciate you and see how wonderful you are, don’t give up <3

It was fair to say that your past relationships, romantic as well as platonic, had left their mark on you. You were a naturally affectionate and loving kind of woman but being left on multiple occasions had hardened you, made you more reluctant to share the love that you had within you. It was a natural reaction — you just didn’t want to get hurt again, and so, you settled for keeping people at a distance, never really allowing yourself to lower your defenses enough to let anyone in.

That proved to be extremely hard when you met Frank. He was handsome and intriguing, not a very talkative guy but he had effortlessly made you smile and laugh, regardless. He had been reserved about you, too, mostly because he wasn’t looking for anything casual nor serious, and he certainly didn’t trust Red to find him the kind of company he liked. But when his friend of sorts had insisted on introducing you to him, annoyingly persistent, he had caved in and figured it couldn’t hurt to give a chance to the person Red spoke so highly of.

”How come you ain’t together if she’s so perfect?” Frank had questioned, fully suspicious of Matt and his intentions, but the man had quickly laughed him off.

”I don’t think we’re meant to be anything more than friends. But she’s a wonderful person and I think you’d hit it off. I’m not just doing this for you, I think she could use some company, too”, Matt had explained, not entirely acting with your blessing. In fact, you had no idea what he was up to, but he knew you well enough — you were getting lonely whether you wanted to admit or not, and despite their disagreements, he knew Frank could be worthy of your time.

And that was how you ended up shaking Frank’s hand in your favorite bar where you never went to find company, just a drink after a long week. Matt had known you’d be there and more or less shoved Frank inside, and as annoyed as he was, Frank couldn’t deny that the sight of you immediately made his heart skip a beat.

”Did Matt put you up to this?” you asked eventually, well-aware that the two of them worked together often. It wasn’t frequent for Matt to set you up with anyone, but he was the only thing common between you and Frank, and you weren’t stupid.

Caught, Frank chuckled. ”Yeah, yeah, he did. I ain’t gonna lie, I had my reservations but uh, talkin’ to you… I don’t regret comin’ in here. You seem real sweet”, he admitted, his eyes lingering on your figure. Not only did he find you sweet, he thought you were absolutely gorgeous, and he fucking hated the fact that he was going to have to tell Matt he had been right.

You blushed at Frank’s words and shrugged. ”Thanks, but I—I’m not really looking for anything right now. You seem great too, don’t get me wrong”, you gave him a half-apology, chewing on your lip nervously. He was charming, you had to give him that much, but you really weren’t up for having your heart broken yet again, and so, you found it best to keep Frank at an arm’s length.

”Hey, I get it. Can’t say I was expectin’ anything much when I walked through that door but I guess you kinda got me rethinkin’, ’s all”, he nodded in understanding before licking his lips and taking the plunge. ”Maybe we could get another drink sometime? No pressure, no expectations. Just hangin’ out, I guess”, Frank went on, a hopeful look in his eyes, and it wore you down.

”Sure”, you swallowed, feeling familiar anxiety rush in your veins as you agreed.

But like he said, there were no expectations. It could just be two friends grabbing a beer, nothing more. So, you gave him your phone number and hoped for the best.

You met up a couple of times after that. Frank couldn’t believe he was being so forward and that he really was so into you, but it was a fact he couldn’t deny. He had a strong will and good self-control, but he found himself losing all of that around you. Previously used to solitude and being wary of new connections, he now felt hooked on you, needing more and more even if he was willing to do it on your terms.

He could tell you liked him back, though. As much as you tried not to, you couldn’t help it. You started to feel less lonely and he occupied your thoughts on a daily basis, and it scared the shit out of you. You weren’t ready to fall in love again, but it seemed your heart wasn’t waiting for permission.

A few weeks passed with you getting to know one another, and one night, he was walking you home in the dark night, far too protective to let you make it all by yourself. Once at the door of your apartment building, you both lingered, not quite ready to say goodbye, but unsure what else there was left to say.

”I had a good time, sweetheart. I’m glad you ain’t sick of my clingy ass yet”, he joked, and it made you smile nervously. You were mere inches away from each other, his taller build towering over you with his fingertips brushing against yours. Your heart was hammering in your chest and you could feel the undeniable tension in the air, and so could he.

”Of course, not. I like spending time with you”, you whispered, quiet but close enough for Frank to hear. His heart soared at your words, flattered and honored that for someone who chose her company carefully, you had given him the time of the day.

His eyes fell to your lips, and when you didn’t pull away, he made the move and leaned in. Right before his lips could graze yours, though, you ducked your head with a swell of panic in your chest. It was all too real suddenly and the idea of moving from a mutual interest to something concrete terrified you.

”Shit”, Frank breathed out, squeezing his eyes shut. ”Sorry, I shoulda asked. Just thought… Doesn’t matter. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable”, he added while stepping back, and in an instant, guilt and regret took over your body. Seeing the rejection on his face hurt worse than the risk of letting him in, and that was enough for you to know that kiss or no kiss, you were in too deep.

”No, I’m sorry. It’s me, I—I just can’t. Sorry”, you repeated before turning your heel and rushing inside, too embarrassed to stay and look at Frank’s hurt face any longer.

He frowned at your words, but let you go. He had pushed your limits enough for one night, but even if he didn’t stop you from running indoors, he couldn’t help but get stuck on what you had said. It wasn’t that you didn’t like him back, something else was holding you back, and that caused worry to flare up in him. Clearly, someone had hurt you badly, and he felt pure anger at the simple thought of it.

That same night, he tracked Red down, itching to pick a fight, but mostly he wanted to find out what was stopping you from going all in. He could sympathize — after all, he had closed himself off to relationships after Maria, and even now, when he had grown so attached to you, he struggled with that little nagging guilt in the back of his head that didn’t want him to move on.

”She ain’t ready, Red. Wanna tell me what happened or should I punch it out of ya?” Frank grumbled as he joined Matt on the rooftop, an unhappy look on his face that only deepened when he saw the mysterious smile on his friend’s face.

”You weren’t ready, either”, Matt retorted before sighing deeply. ”She’s been hurt a lot, Frank. Every guy she’s been with has broken her heart. It’s the same with best friends, too. Everyone leaves her. So, yeah, she’s careful about who she lets in”, he continued, causing the anger to fade from Frank’s face. At least Red had stayed, but he knew he wasn’t the most stable presence, either. He didn’t think he himself would be, for that matter, but he wanted so badly to prove to you that he’d stick around.

”She don’t deserve that”, Frank grunted, unable to understand why anyone would turn their back on you. Sure, you were stunning in a way that took his breath away, but you were also a good, caring person. You had such a big heart and you were an excellent listener, not to mention how funny you could be. And even though you knew who Frank was and what he had done, you had never judged him.

”I agree. That’s why I wanted you to meet with her. Platonic or romantic, I knew you could appreciate her for who she is”, Matt explained, and sighing, Frank couldn’t deny that he had been right. He thought you were amazing, and he really wanted you to know that.

So, the next day, he made his way to your apartment. He was uncharacteristically nervous, his usual cool demeanor cracking under the pressure of the situation, but he was good at concealing it. He stood on your doorstep, calm and collected, and once he had knocked and you opened the door, you couldn’t have suspected he was feeling troubled in any way.

”Frank”, you exhaled, honestly surprised. You were sure that your refusal to kiss him would have pushed him away, but here he was, and you reluctantly felt relieved. You had given him enough reason to walk away, but he kept showing up, and it gave you hope.

”Red told me about your shitty exes. I want ya to know that they’re assholes for leavin’ you like that and that… that I wouldn’t do that. I know I come with a lot of baggage, but I swear to you, I’d treat you right, sweetheart. Shit, you really… you really got me, y’know? I really care about you and I wish I could make you less scared ’cause I know you care about me, too”, he rambled, calling you out in a way that maybe you needed to be.

Gulping, you nodded to confirm he was right. ”I do care about you. I wish I didn’t, but I do”, you confessed, sending his heart reeling. ”I just don’t want to be let down again. I really can’t do it again”, you pointed out, not sure if Frank would get it, but he did.

”I hear you, sweetheart. It ain’t the same thing, but I know loss, and I don’t wanna go through it again. Maybe we could learn to trust again together. I know it’s fuckin’ scary to let your guard down, I sure as hell have a hard time with it, but you make me wanna try”, he shared, his voice so soft and careful. He wasn’t used to opening up about his feelings, but he knew you needed honesty, and he wanted to give it to you.

”Okay. I… I think I can do that. I want to trust you”, you told him, sparking a smile on his face.

Hesitating, he stepped closer to you and took his hand in your own. ”Can I kiss you?” he asked in that low, husky tone of his, full of want, and it sent a shiver down your body. You nodded, and he broke into a grin, cradling your face in one massive hand and dropping his mouth to yours. It was slow and careful, just testing the waters, but you could tell he was holding back, and it made your stomach do flips. He really wanted you, needed you even, and that felt so good.

He was willing to take things slow. However you wanted him, he was yours. And sure enough, you fell into a comfortable rhythm with him, both of you head over heels for one another, and Matt was pleased whenever you two showed up to a night out together, Frank’s hand protectively around your waist. The three of you began to spend more time together, allowing Frank to see the more carefree, relaxed side of you that Matt brought out, but you also dedicated plenty of moments to just you and Frank. Right before your eyes, you built a relationship, and you were so happy with him.

Nevertheless, there was something of a dark cloud above your head, invisible to Frank but so heavy on you. Your mind fed you constant worries and anxiety — since everyone else had left, surely Frank would do the same. And without even fully realizing it, you began taking great measures to avoid such a fate.

”Which one do you like better?” you asked Frank, holding up two dresses that were casual enough for your movie date, but too important for you to make the decision on your own. You had become highly worried about everything you wore, always wondering if Frank liked what you had on or if he was ashamed to be seen with you. Maybe your body wasn’t good enough, to begin with.

”Why’re you askin’ me, sweetheart? You’ll look stunnin’ either way”, he chuckled, not really seeing the point, but his answer didn’t satisfy you.

”Pick one. Please?” you pleaded, desperately wanting his input, and it twisted his face with surprise.

”Uh, alright. The one on the right”, Frank chose, and instantly, your stomach dropped — you had thought the one on the left was better. But it mattered to you what he thought, as you certainly didn’t want to give him any reason to leave you, and so, you put on the dress he had pointed out.

You picked at it the whole drive to the movie theater, uncomfortable with how your body looked in it and convinced that Frank was seeing it, too. You felt insecure and you wanted to cancel the entire date, but you didn’t want to upset him, so you swallowed it down.

”Somethin’ wrong with the dress, baby?” Frank noticed your compulsive touching at the clothing, and feeling exposed by his question, you gave him a weak smile.

”No, no, nothing. It’s alright”, you insisted, before swiftly changing the subject. Still, Frank didn’t forget about it. If anything, he was starting to notice a pattern of you seeming so uncomfortable in your own skin, leaving him stuck between wanting to reassure you and fearing he’d only be creating a problem by bringing it up.

He picked up on the anxiety that followed you pretty easily. But it wasn’t until you began putting yourself down out loud that he cut in.

”Hey, bring me that black shirt f’me?” Frank called out from the bathroom where he was brushing his teeth, preparing for the day ahead of him. You reacted to his request as quickly as you could, digging through his designated half of the closet to find that one button-up you loved to see on him and hastily carrying it to the bathroom for him.

You handed the shirt over, and you instantly clocked the look on his face. ”Oh, shit, I shoulda specified. The other one, sweetheart. This one got all torn up from that one asshole’s knife the other night”, he corrected you gently and with care, but it hit you straight in the heart, making you feel like you couldn’t do anything right.

”Sorry. Sorry, I—I’m stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking”, you stammered, turning around to go back to the closet, but Frank stopped you with a grip on your wrist.

”Hey, you ain’t stupid. It was a mistake. Where’s this comin’ from, huh?” he glanced you over with concern, hating the sound of you criticizing yourself like that. He saw no need for it, and the way you jumped to it was something he wasn’t going to look past.

You shrugged, trying to move on from it, but Frank wasn’t that easily convinced. ”Look at me, sweetheart”, he demanded softly, and shyly, you brought your gaze up to his. ”I don’t like you speakin’ that way ’bout yourself. You didn’t do anythin’ wrong, yeah? It ain’t a big deal”, he promised, and his attempts to reassure you got your eyes to sting with incoming tears.

”I just don’t wanna do something to make you leave me”, you whispered, wiping your eyes to avoid him seeing you cry. ”Sorry”, you added, and shaking his head, Frank pulled you in, his head tilted down at you. He was so close, you could sense his warmth and his stare, and you felt so vulnerable in the small space.

”There’s nothin’ to apologize for, sweet darlin’. Hey, listen to me. There ain’t a thing you could do to make me leave. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, ’m here to stay. I wanna be with you. The real you, includin’ every little thing you think I couldn’t love. I do”, Frank started, staring you down and trying to make you see he was completely serious. He would have never done anything to hurt you on purpose, and he wished he would have had the words to convince you.

”You really mean that?” you asked weakly, trembling from anxiety. You really wanted to believe him, but it was hard to unlearn everything you had grown so accustomed to.

”I mean it, baby”, he swore, leaning in to kiss your forehead. ”Is this why you keep bein’ so careful with what you say around me? And why you ask me what you should be wearin’?” he wondered, and embarrassed to admit it, you nodded.

”I just want you to still think I’m worth it”, you sighed, breaking Frank’s heart.

”Clearly I ain’t been very good at this boyfriend thing, ’cause I never want you to doubt how I feel ’bout you. You’re fuckin’ gorgeous, and I adore everythin’ you do and are. Can’t think of anyone sweeter and kinder than you. You’re the best thing to happen to me in a long while and I… I love you”, he told you, sincere and full of feeling. His words made your eyes widen, and for a moment, you were at a loss for words, but eventually, the right thing tumbled out of your mouth.

”I love you, Frank”, you smiled, unable to hold back the joy you felt upon hearing that. ”I’m always the one to love more. To get more attached. But you… you really care about me, don’t you?” you spoke in amazement, starting to see that he was serious about you.

”You’re goddamn right I do. And you’ll always be worth it to me, pretty girl. Nothin’s gonna change that”, he emphasized, his dark eyes filled to the brim with something fiery. For the first time since you had met him, you trusted in him one hundred percent and didn’t let the inevitable anxiety and doubt shift your faith.

As he leaned down to kiss you, passionate and needy, you felt like you had found your happy ending. And for once, you had hope, and thought that with Frank, you actually had a chance of healing.

[msfantasy-comics]

The Perfect Match

Roy Harper x Reader

Summary: A head cannon in which you are Roy’s perfect match.

Masterlist - Tip Jar

Independence

Throughout Roy’s developmental years, he was always treated with excessive handholding, rules and over exertion of authority.

This has led Roy to feel resentful of constraints.

In his former years, Roy relished the freedom and exercising autonomy through the Outlaws.

Roy really appreciates the sense of freedom you give in your relationship.

Roy: “Would you be upset if I cancel our date tonight? Jason’s back in town.”

You were fully dressed up, ready for your hot date.

Y/n: “Nope.”

And you really meant it.

You took advantage of your hot fit and took yourself on a date.

The flexibility you give him is one of the key factors to your loving relationship.

Adventurous Spirit

Given Roy has spent most of his free time training and practicing the art of archery, Roy needs a romantic partner who shares the passion of adventure.

Roy: “Wow… I never seen anyone shoot the ground when the target is only 5 meters away.

Y/n: “I was just testing the bow resistance…”

Roy: “Uh-huh…”

Whilst you may not be the most talented archer or most fit individual. You are always keen to try and participate.

Your enthusiasm to do better is infectious and Roy just loves and appreciates your willingness to try and do better, especially when it comes to his interests.

Y/n: “Roy did you see, did you see?! I hit the outer ring!”

Supportive and Empathetic

Roy has had to endure many hardships throughout his developmental years which has plagued him every so often during his adult hood such as;

Addiction issues - not only does Roy have past entanglements with addictions which leads him to live a clean life. He had developed a critical eye for intentions, as a trusted friend was the cause to his addiction. Now, Roy analyses everything for deeper motivations. That’s just the result of the trauma and it’s a the reality in which you had accept. Whilst it can be insulting and exhausting to be under the microscope, you always speak your mind freely and bluntly.

Relationship dynamic of being in a team - it’s a struggle for Roy to build trust in others due to his past experiences. He has trouble letting people in, but once your in, you most certainly not getting out. You appreciate the value in which Roy holds you and makes you feel extra safe and comfortable knowing that Roy, no matter what, will always be there for you.

Responsibility as a hero - Roy has had to endure the heavy burden of protecting society as nothing more than a well trained human. Society is never short of criticism and Roy is hard on himself enough as it is. This can lead to feeling emotionally and physically strained. Roy cannot handle the criticism of his short comings when it comes to his romantic entanglements too.

Roy: “Y/n, baby, I’m so sorry I missed your birthday party, it’s just, this woman, and her child-“

Y/n: “Roy! I had the best birthday ever! I took lots of photos, so you could see it all when you finished your patrol. But we can do that later, do you want me to draw you a bath? Have you eaten yet?”

Roy: *pant* “aren’t you-“ *pant* “upset with me?”

Y/n: “Don’t be a silly goose, I know you wouldn’t miss anything intentionally, must’ve been really important. We’ve been together for years, think I don’t know you by now?”

Sense of Humor

Even in the hardest of times, it’s at times easier to just have a laugh.

Roy appreciates that you don’t take difficult situations to seriously and just have a laugh with him.

Roy thinks your extra-adorable since you kept notes on his funniest one-liners.

"Some days, I wish I was a firefighter. All you have to worry about is fire."

"We're supposed to be professionals, yet here we are, running around in spandex, talking to ourselves."

"All these costume changes, and I'm still trying to figure out my life."

In a crowd full of hero’s your laughter amongst the dead silence is always appreciated.

[writefightandflightclub]

Uninvited: Nathan Bateman x fem!reader

Summary: Nathan attends the Met Gala, but there’s something missing. That’s you. (If you’re literally Elon Musk please don’t read this 😂.)

Genre: mainly fluff, getting together fic.

Warnings / rating: mature for implied smut but that’s not the focus. Swearing, alcohol mentions (Nathan has a beer). Boss / employee relationship. Some reader self-esteem issues. OOC Nathan, probably (I’m writing him older and a bit more mellow here).

Author’s note: it’s not that deep and it’s not that clever. I just want Nathan to take me to the Met Gala, okay? So, welcome to my self-indulgent drivel 😝 Probably typos, this was only ever meant to exist for me so I didn’t spend a ton of time on it, but hopefully it’s coherent enough?!

You startle when you hear the door to Nathan’s apartment click open, feeling only a little relieved when you see the familiar silhouette of Nathan by the door.

Shit.

He’s not supposed to be back yet! And you’re not supposed to be here at all! He should still be out at the Met Gala, and you -his long-suffering assistant- should very clearly be in your own home on your night off. Certainly not stretched out on your boss’ couch in sweats, eagerly shovelling this snaffled, bougie ice cream into your mouth.

You spring into action immediately, slamming the lid of your laptop shut as first priority. The last thing you would want is for Nathan to realise you’ve been meticulously monitoring the socials, your prime objective to swoon hard over every photo and tik tok of him in that suit on that infamous red carpet - Getty Images be damned for their slowness. Next, you shove the tub of ice cream away from yourself, as though Nathan will be able to tell -somehow- that you have been near crying into it all evening. Your plight is quite a singular one, after all. Not only was your boss - who you are secretly crushing on, by the way - slated to attend the Met Gala without you (the audacity!) but he looks so good whilst doing it that you could easily form a puddle and seep between the cracks in his hardwood floors.

So, when he enters, you spring up from your seat guiltily, and a little too fast, swaying with an instant head rush. Or, perhaps, the sudden light-headedness is because you have finally gotten a good look at Nathan as he steps into the soft light, cast throughout the open plan apartment.

You drink him in and God, he looks even hotter in real-life in this formal get-up. The suit’s a little bland for the Met Gala, granted, even if you had begged his monochrome, minimalist ass to go all out for the occasion. Still, it is tailored to perfection. The details add a little flair beyond his usual attire, a subtle sheen on the lapels, and the fabric cut in the deepest midnight blue, complementing his golden brown skin perfectly. It sits just right too with his metallic silver frames, as well as the few grey hairs which sneak through his dense raven beard, glinting like solder and circuitry. He looks like the night sky, welcoming and deep and dense and alluring as all hell, his eyes hooded, enthralling planets.

To sum up, Nathan looks divine, especially given that he has now loosened off his bow tie - and a few buttons on that crisp white shirt. Given that he has his hands shoved in his pockets, tugging the luxe material tight over his hips and thighs - and ass, no doubt. You bet he looks damn good from behind too.

As he stands there, looking up at you from beneath his lenses in that singular way which turns you into putty, you will your face to contort in any one of the accepted formations - a smile in greeting, perhaps - but, instead, you get the feeling that’s not quite what you’re pulling off. Not at all. In fact, you get the distinct impression that you’re looking at him like a goldfish butting its head up against the side of a tank.

For a moment you feel slightly sick at the thought that he might have returned early because he brought someone home, and you manage to tear your eyes away from his deep, dark allure long enough to scan the place, satisfied to find out that he is indeed alone.

Nathan’s thick brows knit in concern as he surveys you, yet you can detect the faint hint of amusement in his tone when he speaks. You know him well enough to catch the subtle smirk beneath that glorious beard. “You okay, honey, or are you having some kind of aneurism?”

Well. Something is certainly happening to you. He is having an… effect, that’s for sure.

“Sorry. I’m…” You clear the sudden frog in your throat. “I’m not at my apartment. I’m… here.”

Wow. You’re not doing too well, are you?

Meanwhile, Nathan looks at you like you’re stupid, and you decide you’d probably have to pay a lot of dollar to your therapist to figure out why that makes you even hotter for him. Better left alone, you wager. “Yeah. I noticed, sweet cheeks.”

“Sarcasm. That’s a new one,” you say sarcastically, your cheek finally tugging on a smile.

He looks handsome. Beautiful. And, you slouch despondently as you all too suddenly recall your own sloppy sweats situation. He wasn’t supposed to see you like this. Especially not after spending the whole evening rubbing shoulders with the most beautiful people, donned in the most dazzling finery imaginable. He definitely wasn’t supposed to have that unfavourable comparison rattling around in his big fat genius brain, now was he? You already felt like you weren’t good enough for the likes of him.

Regardless, in the next moment, you trip over a million words, wanting to offer up some explanation for your presence, and yet all you manage to say is… precisely nothing. Therefore, to distract yourself from him - and to distract him from wondering what you’re doing here - you sidle over to the fridge, grabbing him a beer and you a mineral water. He looks grateful when you pop the cap, crossing the space to hand it to him, condensation pooling on your fingers.

Instantly, he takes a casual swig, and while he does, you finally manage to compose yourself. At least, halfway there.

“Nathan,” you say plainly. “You do know the Met Gala is happening now, right? I know I put it in your calendar.” You toss your thumb over your shoulder, gesturing towards the humongous TV. “Also, you were there. I saw you on E.”

His eyes crinkle subtly at the corners, with a fondness and a familiarity which -honestly- takes you aback. He doesn’t even seem to mind that you’re in his apartment. This is all… very unexpected.

After all. He’s not supposed to be here! Then again… neither are you.

“What are you doing here?” you both ask at the same time.

Nathan huffs out a breath, impatiently. “You first.”

Well, that’s fair, you suppose. You are in his house uninvited.

As your brain trips over excuses, you barely register when Nathan’s warm hand grips you by the elbow, seamlessly guiding you back towards the couch. Once arrived, he nods for you to take a seat alongside him, plonking his ample ass down.

You bite your thumb nail. “I’m so sorry. I thought I’d finish up some work while you were out.” It sounds plausible, right? No. It doesn’t sound plausible at all, you realise, as Nathan openly surveys the scene on the coffee table before you. He delivers a knowing quirk of his eyebrow. Your palms start to sweat. Your game is all the way up, it looks like. “And then, okay. I ended up watching E, ordering take-out, and eating all your ice cream.” You opt to leave out the part about foaming at the mouth over every snap of him to have graced the internet this evening. Nathan’s ego is huge enough, right, to forego that detail? “It’s just so much nicer here than my shitty place. And I didn’t think you’d be back for ages.” Well, it’s not a lie. However: the whole truth is that you’d simply wanted to be with him tonight, and this -sad as it might be- was as close as you could get. “And I.. God. I just looove the Met Gala, okay?”

“You do?” Nathan’s mouth twitches into an amused smirk as he witnesses your combo of panicked excuses and excited gushing.

“Not that I’d know, obviously. But hey! Clearly I love it more than you do! Why in the hell are you doing back so early anyway?” Nathan simply regards you stoically, and you clap your hands to your cheeks, suddenly imagining the worst. “Oh god. Nathan. What did you do?”

Nathan all but rolls his eyes. “Calm down, honey. Calm down? Well. That’s a nice notion, but you can’t. You can’t quite manage to calm down when he’s looking at you so attentively, long lashes fanning intermittently over his big brown eyes, blown-out and obsidian in this dim light. Not when he’s dressed in that tux jacket and crisp white shirt, the top few buttons loosened off. When the scent of his expensive, intoxicating cologne is wafting over you. “I managed to behave myself. More or less,” he reassures.

“First time for everything.”

“Uh huh.”

“Though it is only like 9pm.”

“Still plenty of time to be naughty, huh?”

Shit. That hits different. You’re used to his flirting by now. His crude comments. His explicit banter. Of course. But you could swear he injected a touch more grit into his deep, robust voice this time. Could swear he looked at you some kind of way, his eyes hooded, animated by a languidly catching spark. And, thinking of what being “naughty” might possibly involve? Well, it has your brain short-circuiting all over again.

That system failure is the only reason you fail to protest as Nathan shifts to the edge of the couch and reaches towards your laptop. It all feels a little blurry and unreal. You can barely even hear the words he’s saying anymore over your loud thoughts. Your thoughts of the bare patch of skin at his neck. His warm, veined hands peeking from beneath those white cuffs. The way his suit jacket tugs taut over his cultivated shoulders as he moves.

“You know who was on my fucking table?” Nathan begins casually, another indicator of his familiarity and comfort with you. “Royce Whistler’s Mother-Broadbean, or whatever the shit his name is. Do you remember - that blonde prick? The guy who called himself a businessman because he played Rollercoaster Tycoon 5 one time or whatever?” You look at him blankly, and Nathan takes that as a sign to continue sharing. “I played him at squash one time - and he got so pissed off at losing he pulled his pants down and stuck his flat, pasty ass up against the glass. Mooned the entire board. Fucking unreal.”

You’re half-listening, but your brain still hasn’t kicked fully into gear. Still hasn’t quite caught up with the fact Met Gala Nathan is here, in front of you, never mind blathering on about his table mates. Your brain certainly has not caught up by the time Nathan is leaning forward, lifting the lid of your laptop with a knowing smirk. “Let’s see what you were up to while I was gone, huh?”

Oh shit.

Your brain catches up so quickly now that your thoughts cause a pile up, and yet there is no time left to stop him.

You could swear that you almost pass out from embarrassment when Nathan finally flips the lid, his action revealing every one of the tabs you have had open this evening. Naturally, of course -just your luck- the first just had to be the most incriminating, didn’t it? He just had to see your BlueBook image search for “Nathan Bateman Met Gala hot”.

His eyes spark, his gaze electric as he drinks in the screen. He sinks his pearly teeth into his plush lower lip and practically grunts. “Searching for wank fodder of your boss, honey?” He clicks his tongue in what you hope is faux disappointment. “And you didn’t even go Boolean.”

“Heh. Trying to,” you scoff, the response -in your head- forming a suitably scathing comeback, alluding to how you couldn’t even find any hot pictures actually because he’s so gross or whatever. Well, you realise quickly that you messed that one up entirely, especially as a smug, lopsided grin blooms on Nathan’s pretty mouth.

Honestly, you were not far off giving yourself a little treat. If Nathan had been a little later he may even have walked in on it. You cheeks heat with shame, though it’s hardly the first time you’ve had sexual thoughts about him. Not even close. Still, it’s not like you are keen for him to know that.

In haste then -nay, desperation- you reach to slam the lid closed, narrowly missing Nathan’s fingertips in the process as he begins to skim effortlessly through your other tabs.

Then, springing to your feet with a surge of guilt once more, you scoop the laptop up against your chest, like an ailing quarterback cradling a football in the closing minutes of the Superbowl. Damn you and your motor mouth! “I meant… Look, actually, never mind what I meant!” Your voice is growing increasingly high-pitched, and Nathan’s face is becoming increasingly smug. “Why are you here?” you accuse, as if he doesn’t have every right to be. “Why aren’t you at -oh I dunno- The Freaking Met Gala?” You even stomp your foot and jab your finger a little, so help you, in your last ditch attempt to turn the tables. And, certainly, in attempt to deflect before Nathan can probe you any further about that so-called “wank fodder”.

Nathan, for his part, leans back ever so casually and deliberately on the couch, his sturdy thighs spread open and straining against the fabric of his pants, his arms hooking backward over the lip of the couch. The shift makes that crisp white shirt ride up over his stomach, straining the buttons to show you glimpses of his smooth tan skin.

Hnnnggggg.

You feel positively ill with desire at this point, and Nathan, meanwhile, looks effortlessly cool. He even takes a casual swig of his beer. “Meh. Honestly? Was kinda boring. And I couldn’t get the image of the mooning Royce Flat Ass-Coachella out of my head. Put me off my fucking caviar. Also, I thought there might be somebody bang-able there. But who the hell wants to risk losing an eye to some pointy-ass fashion apparatus while you’re going down to beaver town, huh?”

Oh goodness. Poor little rich boy!

All that, and he’s bored. And, on the other hand, what you wouldn’t give to attend the spectacle that is the Met Gala! Your little Museum Nerd heart is positively outraged! “Boring?! Boring, Bateman?! It’s only the most glorious, fabulous institution to exist in modern America!” Highly amused now by your gushing, Nathan stands too. Slowly, and far more calmly than you did, his eyes glowing with a soft, shrouded affection for you, if you’re not mistaken. “Boring, Nathan?!”

“Yeah.” He tightens his lips into a thin line, as though he’s trying to stop himself from saying something he may royally regret as soon as it’s out of his mouth. “Was no fucking fun without you.”

Your eyebrows jump up towards your hairline, your whole torso curling around your still warm and whirring laptop as you tighten it in your arms. You can’t believe the words he’s just spoken. )You especially can’t believe it after all of the hints you’d dropped about wanting to go with him!) Luckily for you though, you’re still having a near out-of-body experience, and so his words fail to register completely. “Boring?! It’s only full of all of the most beautiful, interesting, important people in the country!” you continue, your voice so high and careening now that you’re sure you’re making a mockery of yourself.

Nathan takes a couple of slow, casual steps towards you, still looking at you steadily from beneath his lenses. “Well… almost all of them.”

A swallow bobs down your throat with the unspoken implication, and you dare not follow that thought through to completion.

Then, wordlessly, Nathan shuffles up close to you, and eases the laptop from your grip. He sets it down on the table, and then he turns his gently heating, amused gaze back to you, looking you over in your crumpled sweats.

You swallow, still experiencing cognitive dissonance, Nathan’s words not matching up with what you’ve told yourself for so long - that he could never be interested in you. Instead of acknowledging him then, you instead cling to your futile, part-sensical assertions. “It’s only an unparalleled showcase of the greatest creative costuming of the modern day.” Your argument is losing strength, however. Your voice is breathy and barely there now, as Nathan’s face hovers ever closer to yours.

His voice drops low in his throat, becomes a low, warm rumble which you swear you feel in the pit of your chest. “Maybe. But no-one looked half as cute as you do in these baggy sweats.”

Nope. No way. This isn’t happening.

Your brain is definitely broken now. In fact, all you can do is whimper pathetically as Nathan looks hungrily down at your mouth. Is this some kind of dream? A joke? You have to be sure, before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. Before he makes a fool out of you.

“Really. Nathan. What are you doing here?”

Nathan pauses. Pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. His face goes taut, brows drawing down. “Well. I went to your apartment first, and you weren’t there.”

“Because I’m here.”

“Yeah. No shit.”

You gulp. You gulp as Nathan reaches up to pick a tiny bit of lint from off of your sweater, the gesture so tiny but humungous. His gaze gently, warmly, flits over your face. “Now I’m here too. Asking you…” He sucks air through his teeth, like he’s about to regret all of his decisions in life, but then… he still says it anyway. For the first time in your memory, Nathan Bateman even looks…bashful. “Do you wanna come to The Met Gala with me?”

Your mouth opens and closes wordlessly for a few moments, in complete and utter shock.

“I know, I know.” Nathan concedes, his eyes blinking closed and his palm waving through the air. “I’m a dumb fuck. You’ve been hinting incessantly. To the point of irritation. Beyond even. You’re not subtle, honey. And my timing is beyond shitty. But… what do you think? Will you be my… date?”

You blink at him. Look at him regretfully. “Nathan. I… I can’t. I…”

He quirks a thick eyebrow. Runs a hand over his buzzed head. “Fuck. Why not?”

You have to laugh. This situation is all so completely absurd. But you look down at yourself, your palms gesturing towards your clothes. “I… don’t have anything to wear.”

Nathan purses his lips then, and nods contemplatively, releasing a long-held breath, perhaps even in relief. “So the clothes thing is the issue? The idea of dating your asshole boss doesn’t bother you?”

You swear his eyes have grown uncharacteristically soft, hopeful even, but of course, your mouth runs off ahead of you to ruin the moment before you can even get there.

“I mean. Nathan. I’d go to the Freaking Met Gala with anyone who was willing to get me in there, honestly. Elon fucking Musk if he asked me. It’s not like I’d be fussy.” Nathan gives you a glare. Curls his tongue around his top lip in mild aggravation. And, there it is. That hand settling on his jutted hip. “Of course. I’m not saying he’d get to any bases. Bleuch. I’d ditch him right after the canapés.” You slide your palm over your face, regretting your motor mouth as Nathan eyes you judgementally over the brim of his frames. Holy shit. Why exactly are you still talking? “Wow. I sure wish someone would shut me the hell up.”

Nathan shifts gently, winding his hands around your waist, his fingers clawing into the soft fabric of your hoody like they belong there on lazy Sunday mornings. “You’re in luck, honey. I’ve been dying to help with that for months now.” His thick eyebrow sweeps up suggestively, and you can’t believe this is happening. You feel giddy. You feel like you’re in some kind of modern fairytale and Nathan is Prince Charming. Or, wait… maybe Prince Crude or something would suit him better.

“Nathan!” You emit a dirty laugh and attempt to bat him in the chest, but in that moment he tugs you closer. And so, your palm simply ends up resting lightly against his chest, your fingertips grazing over the bare brow skin beneath the “V” at his neck. Fuck, he looks hot. Feels warm and smooth. Your knees are barely keeping you up at this point.

What in the actual fuck is happening right now?!

“So, how about it?” Nathan prods, giving the closest thing to puppy dog eyes that you’ve seen from the man, the edge on his usually cool, calculating stare completely blunted - only for you. “Will you come with me?”

You want to say yes. Of course you do. Want to jump at the chance. But this is all so surreal you can barely think straight. Can barely imagine a world where you could be the woman who gets to attend a Gala on Nathan “Gift from God” Bateman’s arm. “You’re impossible, Nathan! I mean. You’re asking me while it’s already happening? This is all kind of crazy!”

“I know. You’re right,” he concedes, drawing back from you and clicking his tongue. Shoving his hands back into his pockets. He does indeed look good from behind, you are delighted to confirm.“Don’t know what I was thinking.”

You fold your arms around yourself, getting whiplash. This is all happening so quickly, and now it might not even be happening at all? “Now, wait a second. Let’s not be so hasty.”

Nathan wafts his hand through the air. “No. You’re right. I’ll call that upper east side boutique you obsess over back. What was the name again? I’ll them they don’t need to open back up after all. Tell them we don’t need a last minute gown.”

Your jaw drops and you audibly gasp. “Nathannnnn!”

He turns back towards you, and you can see the spark of mirth in his eyes. Can detect that he’s teasing you. That this whole thing is still very much on the table, if you want it. “Nathan Bateman. Are you seriously taking me to the Met Gala?” you squeal, unable to contain your excitement any longer.

“So long as you don’t ditch me after the fucking canapés, Princess.”

You subdue a face splitting grin, wanting badly to revel in it - but still not quite sure yet what you’ve done to deserve this. Not even the Gala, the gown, all that. Most importantly, this attention from your long-time crush. The man who, over time, has become so much more than your asshole boss. Your close friend. Someone you could even imagine a future with, so help you.

“I promise not to ditch you, Bateman - at least not until the entrées.” His eyes crinkle again at the corners and it makes you feel ten feet tall. “But… I don’t get it, Bateman.” It is your turn to take two steps towards him now. For your gaze to flit gently, warmly, over his face. Over that groomed, raven beard. His tan skin and his huge, brown, earnest eyes. “Why me?”

Your question seems to take Nathan by surprise. He looks a little more severe all of a sudden. More serious. A weight settles into his heavy brow, yet his eyes remain soft beneath it. “Well, kitten. I was -supposedly- hanging out with the most beautiful, interesting, and important people in the country and…”

“A-And what, Nathan?” You swallow, your heart thrumming and voice trembling at the potential implication of his words. He’s not going to say it though. You already know he isn’t going to say it. That “not one of them had anything on you”.

“And… it sucked ass,” Nathan finishes unceremoniously, in typical fashion. “And not in a good way.”

“S-so, you need me to be there?” You’re not above fishing for your compliments. You cast your line, waiting to see what you can manage to reel in.

Nathan’s brow folds with a newer weight. One which he can’t seem to shake off through smugness or humour or deflection. “Fine. You want me to play my fucking hand, honey? Here it is. Met Gala, Schmet Gala. I got there, and I realised that I…” His voice cracks with the weight of a million tiny revelations, hinted at in his eyes and they way they begin to sparkle. But, he doesn’t say it. Not every revelation he may have had tonight. Still, he does say something. He does say just enough. “I just… I realised that I just needed to be where you were.” Nathan reaches up then, and he lifts your chin with the crook of his finger. “So. We can get you a gown, if you want, and we can hit it up.” His eyes flick towards the TV, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. He offers a second option. “We can stay here and eat ice cream and watch E replay my Nathan’s Ass Broke The Internet red carpet moment all night long.” His eyes turn smug and dark, and a hunger intensifies in them as he looks you up and down again. “Or,” he says, slipping his expensive jacket off of his sculpted form, and passing it carefully around your shoulders. “You can go just like this. Technically, it’s now a Tom Ford ensemble. Would get you through the gate.” You even think he’s serious. You even think he’d have you by his side exactly as you are. That he sees you as beautiful, just like this.

You giggle into your palm. “I’m a mess!”

“No. You look good,” Nathan insists, not a whiff of a lie on him. In fact, as he drinks you in, he looks like he’s melting too. Like he might form a puddle and dribble through the floorboards any moment.

You finally allow a giddy, joyful, disbelieving smile to claim your face, and you reach up to fiddle coquettishly with Nathan’s loosened bow tie. “You look good.”

“Oh, I know, honey. Perfect wank fodder right?” He tips your head, allowing his lips to ghost up the column of your neck. He hums lightly when he reaches your pulse point, his mouth tasting your perfume. “Naughty girl. Gonna make you show me later, huh?” He presses a kiss to your throat. “If you want that,” he adds for good measure, and the addition makes you even hotter for him. He’s far softer and more gentle than you ever would have imagined, treating you like an intricate, delicate thing. You’ve seen his hands be careful as he worked his machines, but you never imagined them quite like this on your own skin. As though you were something magnificent. Special.

You feel another surge of embarrassment at the thought of showing Nathan how much he turns you on, as mental images carousel through your mind. You move to dip your face into Nathan’s chest; however, delicately, seamlessly, he crooks his finger to lift your mouth to his instead, his lips covering yours with a soft, earnest kiss. He hums into it, his tongue tentatively twining with yours as you open up for him.

You blink in disbelief as he breaks for air, your lips still tingling from the contact, your arms now hanging limply by your sides.

“Christ, honey. I’d better not kiss you on the red carpet.”

“And why not?!” On the contrary. You want a lot more where that came from.

“You look like a fucking goldfish. That good, huh?” There his crooked finger is again, gently fixing your slack jaw.

Well that won’t do. And so, with a determined, hungry glint in your eye, you pull Nathan back into your kiss by his lapels, slanting your mouth against him, kissing him deep and hungry. Kissing him until there is a moan spooling from his chest. Until, this time, Nathan is the one who is slack-jawed and dumb-founded when you pull away, his eyes fluttered closed and lips still puckered in search of you.

“You’re right,” you agree, surveying his own goldfish face. “No kissing on the red carpet. You’ll just have to grab my ass instead,” you snicker, and Nathan slowly wafts back down to earth. You could swear he even blushes at the suggestion, a crimson flush deepening the colour of his cheeks.

He strokes his hands up and down your forearms, searching your eyes. “So are we doing this? Because I have about 20 people on standby and ready to go.”

“You do?”

Nathan takes your hands. “Yeah. And I know you won’t wanna miss the exhibition tour, right? You big dork,” he teases with a sweet grin - as if he isn’t the biggest dork you know.

You clap your hands to your cheeks then, the situation suddenly feeling less like a fantasy and growing all too real. You feel a sudden flurry of nerves at the realisation there will be so many eyes on you. “I’m nervous,” you admit.

Nathan sighs, begins to grumble under his breath. “Christ. Don’t make me say it.”

You look at him quizzically.

He sighs again. More deeply this time. His words come out rather reluctantly, but no less full of meaning. “You’re gonna be the most beautiful, interesting, important person in the whole fucking joint. And I should know.”

“Oh yeah, Bateman?”

“Yeah. Got bored of those losers after 5 minutes, but you…?” His eyes twinkle again, with sentiments deeper than his words dare illuminate. You can see him rein it in a little. Backtrack. Keep things Nathan-y. Respond in his typical fashion. “Well. It’s been 9 months now and you’re still here. Clearly, you’re annoying enough to keep things interesting, Princess. Not bad to look at either.”

You chide him playfully with your eyes for the backhander, but despite his words, he’s looking at you with nothing but sweetness. “Besides, you’re gonna look like total wank fodder.”

You laugh. “Okay. True. But can we please retire that phrase? Otherwise I just know you’re gonna say it on E, and your publicist will kill me.”

“Publicist schmublicist,” Nathan breezes, and he pulls you into him for another kiss, a smile cracking beneath his raven beard. “Anyway, honey, you started it.”

You protest, bickering back and forth, exchanging snark as Nathan puts his arm around you and guides you out of the apartment. He leads you out of the lobby to where he has a car waiting, and he opens the door for you to clamber inside. Your belly is full of nerves and excitement, and you eye him with fondness as he calls up the boutique -your favourite, but one you are usually priced out of- to confirm you’re on your way over.

You can’t believe your dream of heading to the Met Gala is coming true. But most of all, you’re elated that Nathan wants you next to him. You’d always believed you weren’t good enough for him, but here he is, eager to show you off to the whole world. To have fun with you and enjoy your company.

It’s funny, you think. He wasn’t meant to be here tonight, and nor were you. But somehow, you think, you each ended up exactly where you were supposed to be.

Nathan hangs up his call and turns to you. “You okay?” He smooths a hand up your thigh and you nod, still smiling softly. “What kind of outfit do you want? It’s on me.”

Your eyes glint with mischief. “Nothing pointy.” Nathan takes a moment to catch your drift. “I don’t wanna put your eye out when you visit beaver town later, do I?”

You think you’d like something simple actually. Something to match Nathan. He may be a complicated man, but in many ways he’s so entirely straightforward. It’s one of the many things you like about him.

For a moment, Nathan looks lost for words, a swallow sinking down his throat. You can tell he’s already eager to follow that plan through to completion. “Please. Honey. Tell me we can we skip the after party?” He looks like he can’t wait for what you’re suggesting.

“How long is this ride?” you ask, arcing an eyebrow suggestively.

“What are you saying?”

“So you reckon you’ve got time to get a whole four bases further than Elon ever could?”

Nathan’s eyes glow with something bright and inexplicable. “You’re fucking unreal.”

“Oh, Nathan,” you purr, as he slides up the divider in the front, giving you some privacy. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

[paperstarwriters]

Hello hope your day is amazing

I was wondering if you could write a Muriel x florist reader where when Muriel is making his once in awhile trip into vesuvia he goes past the readers shop and she gives him tulips because he looks sad and he takes them but after he's gone they forget him obv but the next time he comes into town it happens again and again until he finally gives the reader myrrh and then they remember all those times and get really embarrassed

My first request!!! Wow!!! Now technically I haven’t had any explicit availability on requests because of classes but, well I may just open them up now! (Of course though not all requests will end up this long 😅)

Also, I just wanna mention, that when I first got this request my day had been a little bit of a mess but this certainly brightened it thanks so much!! 💕💕💕💕

By the way, Anon, I am SO sorry I took so long to write this. It ended up getting really long and then I ended up deleting everything and rewriting everything because I thought it could’ve been better lol—Not an excuse, but I kinda wanna be transparent about these things because it helps me acknowledge that no, I did not magically make a perfect fanfic on my first go, and other authors do not make perfect fanfics in one go.

Also I understand that this has since been requested to someone else now too because I was taking so long, and I really don’t mind, though I feel kinda bad to have been so slow. Unfortunately life just tends to interfere and all that.

Anyways,

A Flower a Day Keeps The Lonely At Bay

Pairing: Muriel x Flowershop!Reader

Warnings: Lack of communication (ie. Muriel being shy), awful & rich customers, who pay the cops to chase you down, Reader also Swears.   Summary: A flower a day keeps the lonely at bay, but two to three more, and I’m here at your door, ever waiting, ever waiting, never sure never sure.

Muriel finds himself making visits outside of his hut a little more frequently than usual, accumulating a small bouquet of flowers made larger by a few flowers at a time with every trip he makes to the market.

The only issue is, he hasn’t exactly paid for these.

Masterlists | The Arcana Masterlist

Word Count: 14, 181

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Muriel watched as red washed down from the coliseum stands.

He should be grateful. The sight should uplift him—should release that tension tied deep in his chest. It should fill his chest with something other than dread.

After all, for once, it wasn’t blood.

Red roses drip down from above, their petals peeling away from the bright blooming flowers, cut in the peak of their beauty fluttering in the wind, catching in the sunlight, and falling onto the hot arena sands, still yellow, still free from blood, now stained with a new shade of red. The audience cheers instead of screams, clapping instead of booing. They throw flowers instead of stones.

All for his opponent.

A foreign fighter from a kingdom not too far away, his opponent bathed with open arms in the rain of flowers and roses, smiling and waving at the people above who cheered and wailed their name in rapt awe and delight.

If he were sitting in the stands, watching the battle from afar, he’s certain he would see how clunky and awkward he had been fighting. Lucio had told him that unlike his usual “criminal” opponents he was not to kill the foreign fighter lest he piss off the other kingdom, and wile he wasn’t sure exactly when Lucio had grown so conscious of other people’s feelings, Muriel had been grateful for the chance not to kill his opponent.

It was naïve of him to assume it was something he could simply stop doing.

With every swing of his massive axe, made to cleave heads from their shoulders, Muriel found himself faltering. With every attack, he wondered if this was the swing that would kill his opponent, if this was the swing that would start a war between kingdoms. His opponent, who had no such qualms, was able to slowly whittle away at his defenses until they knocked him to the sand and pressed a dagger to his throat.

When Muriel was shuffled out of the coliseum to be slotted away into the cold cell they called his room, he watched as the other fighter received a glory he never saw for himself. Armfuls of gifts, boxes of food or sweets, letters sealed with hearts and given with bright grins on their faces, and armfuls upon armfuls of flowers. Sitting in his cell, Muriel watched as his opponent passed by with many servants in tow, all needing to be led by Lucio, as they couldn’t see past the heaps of flowers that crowded their arms.

A flower slipped past someone’s grasp, drifting it’s way into his room. It was rose-like in it’s colour. A deep crimson hue, although the shape of it was a far cry from a rose. He could hope that it was something precious and expensive, from some bouquet of foreign flowers, but Muriel couldn’t help but doubt. Perhaps it was something cheaper, something carelessly held and carelessly dropped into the cell of this careless fighter. Its a thing to be admired regardless, something pretty and colourful to enter his drab cell. He plucks it off of the floor, to cradle it’s delicate petals appreciate the soft, sweet smell of it.

Something sweet something soft, and colourful and kind.

It’s not something that would last very long with him.

Lucio returns past him a few moments later, having led the servants to whatever lavish room he had prepared for the foreigner and their followers. The red flower dropped against the hallway floors catches his eye, and with two golden talons he plucks it from the floor, smiling as he appreciates it’s delicate, feeble beauty. He continues down the hall, not even sparing Muriel a glance, as his footsteps crack against the stone floors.

He’ll throw it away the moment he gets outside perhaps, or maybe even sooner than that. Or maybe, just maybe he’ll get some small little cup and let the flower live just a little longer. It’s doubtful though, considering how easy it would be for someone like him to get more flowers. People gift him things all the time, and whatever he doesn’t receive as a gift, it would be simple for him to purchase himself.

Muriel never received gifts in his life as a gladiator.

After all he’s done, he didn’t deserve them.

He did not deserve flowers.

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Muriel pulled his basket closer towards himself, shifting the strap that attached it to his back to rest more comfortably on his shoulder. Although he initially refused the offer, he’s grateful for Asra’s insistence, and even more grateful for the gift. It’s practical. With it, he can carry so much more materials than he ever had before. Flour, rice, fruits, he can place it all in his basket and leave his hands free to purchase smaller things, like bread or berries or herbs, or whatever else he might need. Most importantly, being able to carry so much at once, Muriel can limit his trips into the market as a once in a month or two journey.

Sure, the basket made him look bigger, only drawing more attention to his broad looming frame, and sure, perhaps it was a bit heavy to carry so much groceries all in one go, but if it meant he’d only have to endure the bustle and crowds of the market less, it was certainly a sacrifice he was willing and ready to make. Even the longer journey the basket imposed on him—since it would not fit into the smaller alleyways—was made more tolerable knowing that he would not have to return for a while.

It’s his saving grace amidst the crush of people yelling and hawking their wares, the inconsiderately placed shops of medicine right beside shops of food where delicious scents make the dizzying medicine smell stronger. The push and shove of impatient customers—all of it is made just a little more tolerable knowing it’d be over soon.

Soon. He assures himself. Just a little further, then I’m out of the market. Just past these next few shops, just a little more…

A blur of bright colours catch his eye. Though it was hardly enough to stop him from walking, he slowed at the sight, unable to help but stare at the little shop squished between and behind a few other stalls. For some other shops perhaps the size would be moderate enough, if only a little squishy to sit inside, but for that shop in particular, it seemed downright tiny, dwarfed by the flowers that seemed to burst from any and every opening it could get, starved for space and sunlight, and with the vivid colours and unruly growth—starved for attention.

He didn’t mean to stop in place, but he couldn’t help but stare at all the pretty flowers before him. Butterflies twitched from where they sat atop flowers, and bees bumbled lazily from flower to flower, all delighted at the sheer variety they had before them to enjoy. Like the many insects around him, Muriel found himself drawn into the little alcove the shop provided, drowned in the flowers and their soft and tender scents.

Setting his basket aside, Muriel let himself breathe. The crush and bustle of the crowds were still there, but a panel from another shop blocked him from their view. An alcove large enough for him to hide him—he never thought he’d find a place like that.

“Hello?”

The voice was by no means loud. It was a far, far cry from anything accusatory or cruel, and yet still, Muriel can’t help the urge to leap up in place and run, the thin branch of flowers reaching over his head, serving as the only thing to stop him from doing so. Careless movement could damage the pretty little things, and even if it would sting, damaging the beauty of something seemingly so abandoned, he’d hate to have to deal with the ire of the shopkeep should he damage their precious merchandise.

—Should he damage your precious merchandise.

Wearing mud-smeared clothing and a pair of gloves, it was clear you were the caregiver of these flowers and therefore, the owner of the shop.

Maybe he should have noticed it sooner—seen the vibrant colours and assumed nothing that bright and big could grow naturally, or maybe he should have looked closer to those openings and noted how clean the curtains of the window—the very one you now leaned out from—were.

“I’m sorry.” he mutters, scrambling to get his things while still taking care not to damage the flowers of your shop.

“No, no. It’s okay,” you tell him, smiling a little as you watch him pick up his basket once more. “You don’t have to go, I’m not gonna kick you out.”

“I’m out of money,” he blurts out in reply.

While technically a lie, there is some semblance of truth in it too. He’s already spent his limit of what he set out to buy today, and he really didn’t want to buy any more, just in case he needed the money for something else more important.

“That’s fine you don’t have to buy anything. It’s a nice place to relax here.”

Muriel nodded, but knowing he’s long since outstayed his welcome, he turns instead, fully ready to leave and let you forget. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to come by this side of the market place again any time soon.

“Hey! Wait!”

Oh no.

What did you want now? Did he break something? He might’ve hit or damaged some of those flowers with the basket, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to accept Asra’s gift. It made it so much harder to not bump into things. Automatically, he reaches for his pockets prepared to out himself for his earlier lie rather than have to deal with the accusations and demands for damaging merchandise.

Instead, he finds the flowers still intact, and a new one, bright yellow, and mere inches from his face.

“Here,” you say with a smile as you lean out—nearly tipping yourself out—form your shop’s little window. “Take it. Just a little something to brighten your day.”

It’s a simple little flower, with yellow petals like the sunshine that dappled through your flowers and their leaves.

He hesitates, unsure of whether or not to receive your little gift, what your ulterior motives might be, or what he needed to do for this gift, but you had been insistent, slipping the flower into his half open hand before he has a chance to back out. Satisfied with your gift, you smile with a brightness that matches the flower you’ve given him, warm like spring sunshine.

Despite the abruptness of the gift, he manages a small smile, nodding a little in thanks before he promptly turns to leave and finally be out of the market.

The simple yellow flower, with little else it could go, remained in his hand held to his chest as he weaved in between other market-goers. Listening for the sounds of shouting and screaming that never made it’s way to his ears. It’s not like you would remember. It’s not like you would even know.

Technically speaking, he didn’t have to keep it. Honestly, it’s probably nothing more than a ploy to get him to return and actually buy something from your shop, and it’s not like you’d remember him to ask what he’s done with the flower. Not like he could do anything with it anyways. Unlike Asra’s gift, it’s impractical, and Muriel finds himself wondering what you even expected him to do with it.

His fingers trail along the velveteen petals as he walks, appreciating the faint but pleasant smell that sits at the flower’s center. Whatever beauty he finds in it now is fleeting. It won’t last very long, especially since he has no vase to put it in.

It’s just a flower. He has no obligation to keep it.

It’s not like you would remember anyways.

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Shrugging the basket off his shoulders, Muriel makes quick work of putting away the items he’s bought. The bread flour gets tucked into the bottom shelf of the alcove of food he keeps in the house, and the fruits go in a bowl a little higher than that. Finally the bread is placed and covered in it’s own little box. Inanna runs around him welcoming home as he trundles around setting everything into it’s place, tail wagging like a dog. Even as she jumps up on her hind legs to greet him, she's just as careful as he is not to bump into his table, lest the cup at it’s center fall over and spill the yellow tulip it cradles onto the floor.

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Muriel returned to the market a bitter few days later. The basket had made him eager on his last trip, urging him to get everything done and over with so he wouldn't have to be there long, but he had forgotten that the chicken feed needed some extra restocking with the rain season lurking just around the corner. Muriel wasn't technically responsible for Bok-Bok and her friends. They could easily care for themselves as they, and all other chickens scattered in the forest, have been doing long before he had arrived. As a neighbor who occasionally borrowed eggs, however, Muriel had an obligation to lend a helping hand, and he knew full well how difficult the rainy season made it to find berries and seeds. There were of course plenty of worms, but robins and crows were quick to snatch those things up and some days there was just too much water for even the worms to enjoy. In those moments Bok-Bok and company would really need his help, and he was not about to let them down.

He hauls two bags of chicken feed in his basket, the bite of the straps onto his shoulders almost as bad as the bite of the cost into his limited pouch of coins. Technically he’d only really need one bag, but seeing as chicken feed was edible, Muriel was hoping to use at least some of it for his own meal within the coming days. There’d still be plenty for Bok-Bok and the others, but this would make things easier on him for a while as well.

The feed shifts side to side with every step he takes, the shift in weight feels almost hypnotizing, as he walks. It’s an imperfect distraction from the typical sounds and smells and feeling of the marketplace, but it’s a distraction nonetheless. People continue to press against him, and he feels the grains shift to his left. People continue to chatter and talk, the sound of it layered thickly over the sound of crashes and movement and moving creaky objects, and he feels the grains of the bag shift to his right. That awful smell of medicine entwined with fresh bread and he feels—

“Hey!! You!!”

Muriel freezes in place. When his head snaps to the sound of the scream, the rest of his body is already preparing to run away. And yet, when he sees that familiar face—your familiar face—he finds himself unable to move

For the second time within the few weeks he’s been here, he meets your eyes, and your own grow wide.

As if you recognized him.

Just as quickly it appears, it vanishes and you continue to yell.

“Watch your step!” you yell and point to a little spool of ribbon, sitting just where he would have stepped.

Muriel allows himself to relax, following your gaze downwards, taking a step backwards rather than forwards to find a spool of golden ribbon, lined with green that sat just beneath his feet. He’s about to apologize for almost crushing it when you promptly continue.

“I’m sorry, but yeah could you get that? I don’t want someone to step on it and trip like you almost did”

He nods as he bends over, freezing momentarily to shuck off the basket on his back when he feels the grains of feed slip forward. Taking the little spool in hand, he ducks back into the little alcove where your shop resides and hands it back to you, promptly rewarded with a smile flashed his way.

His face warms at the attention, but he doesn’t find it all too bad.

“Thank you. Oh, and here! As thanks.” You pull from behind you another flower—another tulip. It’s orange this time, tinted yellow around the edges. It’s the colour of a sunset, or his warm fireplace at night—the colour of even warmer smiles.

Although he hesitates, he takes this flower as well, bringing it to his nose to drown out the smell of medicine and food swirling together unpleasantly just a few stalls down.

It works better than the rice of his basket had managed at least.

Muriel manages a nod and soft grunt as thanks, trying to avoid the bright smile on your face as he slings his basket back onto his shoulders and trundles off once more. Another flower held carefully between his fingers.

He knows he doesn’t have to take it or keep it.

He knows he still will anyways.

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Asra visits a day or two later, and grins when Muriel is unable to give them their own cup for tea, especially since it was the one cup they had purchased themself. Still, they grin, and even snicker, as if unaware of the turmoil that brews at his inability to be a good friend and give them what’s theirs. Instead, they only fuel the fire of his anxiety and coyly remark that he should get another cup for whoever had given him his tiny bouquet of flowers.

It’s only then that Muriel realizes he could have, and should have argued back.

He still tries, though he knows it’s too late for that.

“How do you know I didn’t pick them myself?”

“Because you don’t tend to pick flowers for yourself,” Asra replies easily, grinning happy and easy, with that familiar glow of mischief in their eyes. “You should make a vase for them. It’d look nice, I think.”

Muriel can feel his face grow hot as he hesitates to refute Asra’s offer, which only makes their grin grow wider and wider in reply. Eventually he sighs, and though he doesn’t make any direct confirmation or denial, Asra laughs, knowing full well what that sigh entailed.

Despite it all, Muriel found himself smiling too.

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Muriel wanders through the marketplace a mere two days since his last visit. He’s without his basket, as he has been for the last handful of times he’s been there, but the journey is still overbearing. Visiting so often within such a short amount of time was quickly giving him a painful headache, and the temptation to just buy some spiced bread or some other delicious smelling food, to drown out the worst of the busy, busy, world around him, was only trumped by the fact that he did not bring any money with him.

Lately, on his last few trips to the marketplace, he neglected to bring any coins, knowing it’d be better for him to focus on saving up for when he really needed the money. Technically he didn’t need the money that much, being fully capable of living off of the forest, but difficult times such as the upcoming rainy season was made much easier when he could just buy the things he needed. For now, however, he’s simply content to wander through the marketplace and shop for inspiration; his only payment being his time, and the need to be there in the first place.

Carving a vase is easy. It should be easy, compared to the other things he’s carved. it’s a pretty simple wooden thing practically a deeper, wider cup with a little flare at the top like a plate. That was something he could carve, but he recalled seeing other vases around the marketplace, and despite himself, curiosity got the better of him and he stopped by to look at the vases other people had made. He’s been returning pretty often much to his dismay, as he kept on realizing or remembering the design of a vase he had only glimpsed at when he returned to the hut. Not to mention how his initial design might not even work anymore.

With every visit he’s made to the marketplace, he passed by or took shelter by your little flower shop on the way back home, and every time without fail, you called out to him. Even on days where he forgot to try and stop by, where he, fully engrossed in some other thing, or the dizzying feeling of the crowd around him, passed by the shop without a second glance. Even then, you still called out to him, with some excuse or other for you to offer him a flower. Some days he got a single tulip. Other times he’s received up to three different blooms. He gets a different flower each time, and each time he has to add the flower to his rapidly filling makeshift vase. It’s no longer a cup, but a rather sorry chunk of wood with a hole down the middle and water at the bottom. So busy with his visits to the market, he hadn’t had the time to really work on it.

If he was being truthful, he had been trying to avoid the task. What could he carve that could adequately hold such pretty flowers that you’ve given him? It’s the first bouquet he’s ever received, he wants to make something fitting for your gifts.

With how consistently you give him flowers, Muriel can’t help but forget that you don’t even remember him. He can’t help but forget you don’t really even know him. Not in the way that he knows you. Even if he knows you in sporadic fragments, he still knows you more than you know him.

Perhaps it’s made him cocky. Overconfident in his understanding of you.

Perhaps that’s why he didn’t expect to see you like this.

You are the sun, radiant and bright for your flowers, providing them warmth, providing them light before you give them away to others to illuminate their day or the day of whoever is lucky enough to receive that gift.

Somehow, he never anticipated the fact that maybe the sun couldn’t always be shining.

“I AM NOT PAYING THIS MUCH FOR THIS STUPID SHIT!!!”

Eyes shift away from Muriel towards the loud argument of some overzealous self-entitled noble who failed to recognize that the world doesn’t revolve around them. Selfishly, Muriel finds relief at the distraction bathing in how for once, in the crowd he was not the spectacle to be stared at instead it was—

Oh.

You stand under the barrage of cruelty raised against you and smile. It falters, it twists, but you do your best to maintain your smile, to appease your audience, someone who clearly did not deserve your grace.

“With the amount of money you had outlined—”

“YOU ARE LITERALLY JUST PICKING FLOWERS—CHILDREN COULD DO THAT!! WHY SHOULD I PAY SO MUCH FOR SOME DAISES YOU PICKED?!”

The stranger’s hand slammed on the small windowsill that you usually leaned on rattling the worn material below it. Bees and butterflies fled from their refuge in your flowers and even some weaker flowers toppled over under the stress. Even if he could not see it for himself, Muriel could tell you were trembling, every flower that so much as brushed against you vibrated in place, your fear bleeding into them, as you tried your best to smile despite it all.

If not for the flowers, he’d believe it too.

“WERE YOU NOT LISTENING WHEN I TOLD YOU THAT THESE WERE FOR AN IMPORTANT EVENT?!? YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT I’M EVEN BUYING FROM YOUR PATHETIC LITTLE SHOP!!! IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME SOME BETTER FLOWERS I WILL—”

It’s hard to tell what compels him more, the barely restrained discomfort that you radiate, or the bitter anger that only rises with every wretched word that comes out from the noble’s poor excuse for a mouth. If he were a better person, perhaps he’d go to you first, but just like with any fight, it was foolish of him to assume violence was something he could simply stop doing.

It always came back to him one way or another.

He strode, unthinkingly with every intention to just get rid of the unpleasant nobleman. Whether he was going to punch them, shove them aside and away from you, or simply pick them up and throw them into the nearest canal, Muriel would never know, because thankfully the noble was more cowardly than they had seemed.

All it took was for him to stand behind them, his shadow swallowing them whole as he glared them down before they were scrambling backwards and sputtering threats about money and guards. A hard threat to follow through on considering the stranger won’t even remember him the next day.

He’s tempted to follow the noble as they run. Tempted to chase them down and force them to never do it again. To show them how strong they really were in the face of a cruel world. Greedy wretches like them wouldn’t survive a day in the coliseum.

But would he really be able to stomach dragging them there?

Red flickers in the corner of his eyes, and Muriel instinctively turns, bracing for the sight of blood. Instead he finds flowers, and you flinching with wide terrified eyes, and a smile barely there on your twisted lips.

“Hello,” you say, flatly, only loosely coloured with a false cheer, just barely covering your trembling voice.

“…Hi.” He manages to mutter back. “Are you…okay?”

You relax a little, no longer afraid, but a look of hurt still lingers in your expression, and Muriel doesn’t know if or how he should try to help. Still, you manage to nod, and smile, however sad it may be.

“I’m fine,” you sigh in a way that always preludes a “but”. “It’s just that, he still didn’t pay for the bouquet.”

You gesture to the bundle of flowers a beautiful splash of red all clustered beautifully together. There are a litany of different shades of red and even a few other colours amidst the bunch, each complimenting the other, looking much less like the chaotic spatter that he still had at home. He could see roses amidst the bunch, de-thorned and coloured in hues he’s never seen before. Taller more spindly flowers sit amidst the bunch as well, though he’s unable to tell them by their names unsure if they are true in colour or made to look similar to the rest through whatever magic you were using.

Despite it’s beauty, you glare at it, as if you hoped it could shrivel up and die.

“I used so many flowers for that thing, what am I supposed to do with it now?” another grumble escapes you, sounding almost like a bitter growl. He flinches when you grab a flower and it’s pot, something set out as a display, and snatch it into the confines of your shop. He almost expects to hear the pot shatter, but your hands snap back out to grab another without so much of a whisper of the first pot being set down.

“Don’t you give some of your flowers out for free?” Muriel blurts out, regretting the question as soon as he asked it. Did it sound suspicious? Insulting?

“Those are special situations,” you snap back. “Besides, I do NOT give full bouquets out for free. That shit is expensive you know?! I put a lot of time and effort into them!”

Muriel nods, but he doesn’t think you see, as you carefully yank another bundle of flowers back into your shop, angry footsteps making the remaining blooms tremble from the force of it.

“I put all my hard time and effort growing these flowers! Contrary to popular belief I am NOT just running around in a meadow, picking out little flowers to take back home and sell for cheap! I grow these things myself! I colour them! I mix them together! I’m not some nobleman with access to flower farms and flower farmers!!”

Muriel busies himself by picking up the flowers you have further out for display, and bringing them back towards your shop. He doesn’t know where the door is, burred under flowers and greenery somewhere, but he tucks the display into the nook where he had hid many times before, keeping the flowers from prying eyes and greedy hands.

It’s the only thing keeping him in place really. As you continue to stomp back and forth in your shop, ranting about rich customers trying to cheat their way out of paying for your flowers. Even if he knows it’s not directed his way, Muriel can’t help but feel a growing sense of guilt.

He did that too. He’s doing that right now.

You don’t remember it, and to you it probably seems like you’ve been giving various different strangers tulips, but he has a bouquet of them now—one even bigger than that noble failed to pay for.

He carefully tucks the last of the flower displays away, carefully arranging the flowers so that none stick out and reveal their location to onlookers, and prepares to run away, internally promising to never return and never steal flowers from you again.

What he intends as a final glance your way, hoping to leave while your back is turned, roots him in place instead.

You stand, hands over your eyes, furiously scrubbing as you try to both hide and stop your tears. Torn between running to help you and running away, Muriel stands and stares, as useless to help as the flowers that still surround you.

“I just… fuck,” you hiss, or at least you try to around the hiccups of your sobbing. “It’s just so hard. They demand money from me and then refuse to pay me for my hard fuckng work! What do they even get out of hoarding that much money?”

Why can’t he decide? The choice to help you is as obvious as it was when you were being threatened by the nobleman earlier. And yet, when faced with a problem that he can’t solve with violence he’s stuck.

It really is all he’s good for isn’t it?

You duck behind your window to hide your tears, but he can hear your back hit the wall and the hiss of fabric against stone as you slide down to your knees and succumb to sniffles and sobs.

With little else to say or do, Muriel turns and runs away.

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A moment of terror pulls you from your sorrow as you remember the flower stands you left outside the shop. You’ve already lost a lot of time and effort on the bouquet for the noble who never paid, you can’t afford to loose your display flowers as well.

About to bolt out from the shop to look for them, you glance to the shops beside you wondering if your neighbors decided to be cruel, or if you could see the escaping thief. Instead, you find your flower stands tucked away in a little alcove between your shop and one of the neighboring booths beside it. The flowers are carefully tucked beneath each other, to keep from springing up over the other shop’s crates, and remain hidden from any potential thieves.

It’s not anything grand enough to make you reconsider opening the shop back up for the day, nor does it quell the roll of anxiety in your chest, but it’s enough to make you smile again. Even if only a little.

It takes you a moment to recall that a stranger had been here only moments ago after the departure of the nobleman, but beyond their presence you can’t recall anything about them. You know they helped a little, but the how or why evades you.

Instead you return to work tucking your flowers away inside, before you finally close shop and head back to your garden.

You can’t recall what the stranger’s face looks like, but the fleeting memory of them still lingers in your mind. They remind you, strangely, of tulips.

Perhaps you could give them one next time you saw them. Hopefully you’d recognize them in the crowd.

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Muriel’s fingers sift through the flowers that sit in his little wooden makeshift vase. In a better world he’d be able to give back all the flowers he had taken from you—stolen from you—and you would be able to sell your flowers to people who could pay for and better deserved the beautiful blooms. Instead, Muriel finds many of the flowers already starting to wilt in the vase, petals growing crumpled and stems growing weak. The first flower you had given him was a husk of it’s former beauty.

He shouldn’t have gotten it in the first place. That fleeting beauty would have been better spent on someone better than him. Someone who could appreciate it better with a crystal vase—or even a simple painted clay vase to carry the flowers and show off how pretty they were.

Or just…someone with more money than him. Someone who could actually pay you for your flowers.

Someone…. Someone who would deserve them.

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Once more, Muriel makes his journey into the market, the dizzying smells and feelings and noises made all the more worse by the burden of his objective. Two pouches sat in his pockets both burning through fabric and skin to scorch him to his bones. Every passing jostle against his body had him scrambling to check if both bags were still there, panic flooding him when he forgot that he had moved one of the bags from one pocket to another.

Over and over again scenarios flashed through his mind. He tried to keep himself reasonable, tried to expect the worst so he wouldn’t be disappointed, but hope—ever stubborn, and ever cruel—slipped in regardless of his wishes. He hoped that you’d still like him afterwards, that you wouldn’t ask him to pay for all the flowers he had taken from you, that you’d be happy to be able to remember him, but the truth of the matter was, that he was just another customer. All he had been receiving was a placating smile in hopes that he’d buy from you.

If only he could hate you for that. It’d be so much easier if he could let himself feel like he had been cheated, or wronged, but you were just trying to make money for yourself, just like everyone else. Could he condemn you for that?

The sickening smell of some strong smelling meal with pungent medicine fills his chest once more, and the once familiar need to vomit at the smell grows stronger knowing your shop is only a little further away. His hands gravitate towards the two pouches in his pockets and he squeezes them, hoping that for once the universe would be kind to him and he wouldn’t make some awful mistake like mix them up and give you the wrong bag too soon.

With every step closer he gets to your shop, Muriel recites in his mind what he wants to tell you, his apology for what he’s done and his willingness to not bother you again.

Someone else is already shopping at your booth. Muriel watches from nearby, trying to remember what he needs to tell you while he waits his turn.

“If you don’t mind, I need a few flowers, not too many…”

He just needed to tell you that he was willing to leave you be.

“How many flowers will that be? Oh, and what kind?”

No, no, he needed to apologize first for taking all of your flowers.

“Any kind will do. I just need them for a… friend of mine. They’re ill, and I... I made a promise to them.”

He’d need to explain what had happened as well. Explain how he kept receiving flowers from you, and explain how he’d need to pay for it.

“Oh, I hope they’ll be okay soon, how about this?”

“Oh that looks gorgeous!”

He’d need to tell you about that magic, that kept others from remembering him, and he’d need to….

“…oh, I can’t… I’m sorry, I can’t pay that much.”

“…how much can you pay?”

Muriel watches the old man place a few coins onto the table. It really isn’t much, but telling by the clothes he wears and the stains that litter them, it’s clear that he’s been trying to save up for this. Your own eyes, grow dim at the sight of the meager amount he brings. Would it even pay for a few flowers? Would it even pay for a single flower?

Your eyes flutter closed and your hands grip the flowers as if you were going to yell at the old man, but you’re trembling as well, fighting against something before you look back up and smile.

No. No, no. You can’t be thinking—gossip travels fast in the marketplace, even faster when it’s something of concern or interest to a noble. If that person gets word that you’re giving out free flowers after that stunt you pulled yesterday…

“Alright. Take it.”

…What will happen to you?

“No—wait.” Muriel steps in, his own coin pouch in his trembling hands. “that…how much does that cost?”

It’s a smaller bouquet than what you’ve given him over his many many visits, but he still winces as you take the money. He’s now the one without enough funds to pay you back for your flowers. He’s now the one marring your reputation—making it seem like your prices are something fickle, that someone could just get a bouquet of tulips for free if they looked sad or sorry enough.

Was that why he had gotten all those flowers? You did say some were to brighten his day. Did he truly look so miserable?

The old man smiles up at him, and thanks him profusely as he leaves with his flowers. Muriel manages a smile, but a nagging feeling at the back of his head tells him it looks more like a grimace. When he turns back to look at you, you meet his half-smile half grimace with one of your own.

“Thank you so, so much for that—but you didn’t have to.”

“But yesterday—I saw—heard—” Muriel coughs, fighting the rising warmth in his face. “I heard about that… customer…yesterday. I just.... Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” You smile, eyes falling closed as you recall something before you look up to him. “Yesterday, a kind stranger stepped in to protect me. It was…really sweet.”

Muriel forces himself to turn away from your fond expression. For all the preparation that he put in anticipating what he should do when you hate him, he never prepared for what he should do if you liked him.

While your attention is diverted, Muriel begins his attempt to scurry away from the situation before it grows too awkward, but not for the first time, you call out to him, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Before you go!” Once more he stops and turns. He knows his face is flushed, he know he looks ridiculous, but he turns out of habit to the sound of your voice, like a sunflower to the sun. “—here. Just as thanks.”

Muriel stares at the flower you give him his mind flying back to a small cell beneath a roaring crowd. A rose coloured tulip, the likes of which he’s never seen before, sits in his palm as another gift from you. He’s never seen a tulip this red before. Brighter than the colour of blood.

He tries to hand it back, but your hands sit atop of his and push back, insistent on giving your gift.

You smile when you tell him, “Please, it’s a gift.” But he feels nothing but dread.

Another flower stolen, another bloom he can no longer afford to pay for.

He does not deserve flowers.

He certainly did not deserve yours.

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Muriel doesn’t return to the market. He doesn’t—won’t—need to for a while. The basket Asra had given him really lived up to it’s practical uses. He savors the fresh cool air of the forest, untainted by headache-inducing smoke billowing from medicine shops or blacksmiths or bakeries of sleepy bakers. The hiss and hush of the trees, sounds soothing to his ears rather than the cacophony of chatter, of yelling and demanding from sellers and buyers.

He feels alive and safe in the forest.

At least, more than he had felt when he was in the city—when he was just a child.

A lifetime of struggling for money and food and running from guards called by over zealous nobles was not something that he expected would every leave him. In the same way the blood may never wash from his hands, the dirt and disgust he carried for being one of many strays in the South End would never leave him either. It’s something he could live with though. Something he could endure within the safety of the forest.

…He just never thought he’d be the one causing someone to struggle the way he did.

It’s not the same. He knows that it’s not the same. You have a shop that you are able to maintain—a viable way to make money. With all your flowers, you probably had a garden, you probably had the ability to grow fruits and vegetables that you could eat and rely on when times got tough. And most of all, you are an adult. You can fend for yourself, act for yourself. You don’t need help the way a child does. You can survive.

…but sometimes just surviving just made things worse.

He just made things worse.

What if you were struggling for food? What if you wouldn’t be able to maintain that shop for much longer? What if all those flowers you gave him were what lead that noble to think it was okay to get flowers from you for cheap?

Even if he couldn’t be remembered perhaps people remembered seeing you give flowers away for free to someone over and over again. A free flower every now and then would hardly be anything bad but Muriel had enough to consider it a bouquet.

He had to pay you back.

It might take some time, but hopefully his carvings were appraised better than they were when he was a child. Hopefully more people liked them. Hopefully he could make enough money to pay you back soon.

Wooden animals sit between Muriel’s legs as he carved away at another figurine from a block of wood. It was a little sloppy, as was the other figures, but seeing as he needed to make back the funds at least somewhat quickly, he needed a lot of figures in a short amount of time.

The knife slipped against the wood, and cut into his hand. Deep enough to draw blood, but not deep enough to garner worrry. Not for his hand at least. Blood stained the wood he carved, tainting the wooden flower with a bloody patch of red, soaking into the wood.

Muriel sighed, as the blood seeped deeper and deeper into the pale wood. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to carve the stain away to salvage the flower, he set it aside, and wiped the blood from his hand, and started again against a new block of wood.

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For all Muriel had planned and worried the location and use of a stall was not one of the things he had considered. The market was filled with vendors all squished against each other in an attempt to sell wares. Any of his old places for selling things as a child were either filled by new children, hawking trinkets and other odds and ends, or far too small for him to fit in and comfortably sell from now.

He tried to wander through the busier parts of the market, even amidst the crash and chatter of people around him, but earlier vendors had beat him to the stalls, and no one was willing to spare any space.

Eventually, though he tried to avoid it, he came down to your side of the market, where there were just a little less shops than before. Even here however there was no space that he could take that wasn’t a crushing squish against two other shops.

The familiarly grating smell of medicine and baked goods wafted past him and instinctually he glanced your way, even if he hoped not to see you and gain another flower he needed to pay back.

Only, you weren’t there at all.

Where there was once a little window surrounded on all sides by flowers that seemed to burst out from the room within, there was instead, a green door. Upon closer inspection a thin line divided the door in half so the top could be opened or the bottom could be opened, and he realized that this had been the window you once leaned out from to sell your flowers.

And now, flowerless it had been closed.

What happened to you? Did the noble come around and confiscate all your flowers for some crime you didn’t commit? Had he been too late to help you? Too late to fix his mistakes?

He didn’t know how long he had spent staring at the blank walls, taking in all the imperfections he had never seen and never wanted to see before, but it was long enough, that someone inevitably noticed him.

“Hello?”

Muriel nearly leapt up from his place and ran, if not for the person he turned to see.

Still smudged with dirt, with flower petals and leaves caught in your clothes, you stood before him, smiling but confused.

“I’m sorry, did you want something from the shop?”

The bag of coins burns in his pockets, both too heavy and too light for him to hold. He scrambles for an explanation, something feasible to explain away the situation, and allow him to go on his way once more, but his mouth dries with every attempt, and the urge to confess his crimes and get it over with builds high in his chest.

In the end, he abandons his words and shakes his head instead.

With an even more confused look on your face, you shake your head almost dismissively, but a smile still lingers on your lips. It reaches your eyes too, drawing lines across your face from the force of it all. He tries to convince himself that it’s genuine, but the doubt is hard to remove once planted.

After all, you always smile to your customers, even if they don’t deserve it.

“What are you doing here then?”

“I… Just…I’m passing by,” he manages, watching as your smile shifts for a moment. It softens, but it never leaves your face.

“Oh. Where are you off to?”

He glanced away, tempted to just give some non commital answer and just leave before you could ask something else, but he catches sight of your empty shop once more and finds his feet rooted in place.

“I…. I was looking for a space to set up a temporary shop.”

“Oh! What are you selling?”

Since it’d be easier than trying to explain, Muriel reaches into his basket, pushing aside the blanket covers to protect against the sun and the wooden support beams he was planning to use to hold the blanket up, to reveal the wooden carvings that sat beneath it all. He grabs the first one he feels pulling it free and offering it for your inspection.

“Oh! That’s so pretty!” He looks at it in your hands now, one of the flowers he had carved from wood. It’s no tulip, but he’s glad you seem to like it at the very least.

“You can keep it if you want.”

“Really?” you ask, your voice wrung with awe sounding almost almost breathless to his ears.

Despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to tell if you were actually pleased or just smiling, Muriel glances your way, finding that soft smile once more on your lips, as your fingers carefully trace around the center of the flower. He turns away from the sight of it.

“Sure.”

“Oh, hey, in exchange, how about…” Muriel braces himself for the flower you’d always give him. No matter how pretty or soft it’s petals looked he would not accept. He couldn’t, knowing that he’d have to add another flower considering how much he’d need to pay for it.

Instead, you gesture to the shop, and smile.

“Here! You said you wanted to look for a stall to sell your things at, you can use my shop.”

And though Muriel knows full well what your shop looks like, for the first time today he turns and actually looks.

Between two stalls sits the little window, where you once leaned out and smiled at him as he passed. Except, with it’s top “shutter” closed, he could now see it was a door, sitting listlessly against the off-white walls. Around it, where flowers once bloomed, cracks in the stone are so abundantly clear. Exposed for all to see without flowers covering the cracks. Sitting lifeless, colourless, and empty, he little shop seemed even smaller, crowded out by other people’s boxes. A hollow husk of what it had been before.

Or, perhaps it was hollow because you weren’t there anymore.

For all the questions he wanted to ask, all the distress and apologies he wanted to offer, all Muriel can stomach to ask, is a pathetic, strangled, “why?”

Why weren’t you using your shop anymore? Why did you remove all your flowers as if you were just moving out? Why were you letting him use that shop?

Why, even when you couldn’t remember him, did you still trust him?

Why were you kind to him?

Why—

Muriel turns to the sound before you do, the heavy footsteps of armored soldiers marching with that distinct rattle of their shiny armor that only ever meant they were here on purpose, rather than just on patrol.

You catch sight of them a moment later, the same time that they catch sight of you.

And all Muriel can do is stare.

It’s funny really, how, in the past it had almost been second nature for him to run and hide at the sound of clanking armor, grabbing any other children he’d see who had yet to notice lest they get taken by the soldiers seeking to “clean up” the marketplace. But maybe it was all that time he had to spend trying not to flinch and run from the soldiers in the coliseum lest the taunt and tease him while he was helpless to do anything else, or maybe it was the safety net that his gift provided, knowing they could never come for him.

It doesn’t matter anyways. He’s rooted to the ground, helpless to do anything to help you.

A familiar face grins behind their armored friends, looking as pleased as they looked punchable, as if tattling to the soldiers about whatever offense you didn’t commit was something they could be proud of doing. As if they weren’t just some massive coward hiding behind armor and gold.

As if they were really in the right.

He’d scowl if he could manage, but he feels far away from his body, bracing for cold impact of armored hands against mere flesh. Ready to drag him away somewhere cold and dark and alone. Ready to drag him back to the arena.

Instead, the hand that finds him is warm.

Warm fingers thread themselves between his, and suddenly he’s being pulled through the marketplace, just barely able to grab his bag before he’s running between stalls and down alleyways, as the soldiers clamor and shout clumsily crashing through booths and debris in their pursuit.

The both of you are fast, but the soldiers, trained as they are, are faster, and grow closer and closer as you stumble on each other’s feet trying to stick together. You seem to have a destination in mind, but running home with these soldiers on your tail is never, ever a good idea. You seem to know this, but you don’t seem to know how to loose them.

Muriel on the other hand does.

All it takes is a few strides and a squeeze of your hand before Muriel is leading you through the streets, diving down alleyways, and between shops and their carts, before he shoves you into a small dip between two buildings, crowded with boxes and goods from the stalls that sat on either side, and his basket set in front of him for good measure. The two shopkeepers glared his way, frustrated at his strange intrusion, but they fail to notice that he had someone with him, as they often do if that other person is hidden quickly enough. Though their eyes on him makes his skin prickle, they slide off as easily as water on oil, and soon they return to their own business, forgetting that Muriel had ever even existed as their attention drifts away, and they return to attending to their wares.

The crash of soldiers is audible in the distance, and behind him, hands pressed to his back, Muriel can feel you grow tense. Your hands ball up into fists on his cloak, and you press your face into his back as if it may be able to better help you hide from them. It lets him feel you breathe, trying to keep it slow, and deep, trying to relax yourself, but the tremors remain. It makes him want to hold you, take your hand in his to reassure you, tell you that everything will be okay, but when he still trembles at the growing sound of iron on stone and wood, all he can do is stand still and quiet, hoping to all hope that the shopkeepers beside him would not note his presence and, that what little magic he has won’t fail him,

Above all, if everything else fails, he hopes you remain safe.

Their armor glistens in the sunlight, blindingly bright, a distraction and protection he’s fallen victim to many times before. One turns his way, meeting his eyes, and for a moment, Muriel loses his breath. Behind him you tense as well, as if his tension passed onto you. As if you could somehow see through him, and met the guard’s eyes.

He wonders if you had poked your head out from behind him, wonders if the guard had somehow seen you—a scrap of your clothes perhaps, or some sliver of your skin. He hopes to all hope that you had not done so, but he tries to puff up his chest despite it all, use the width of his shoulders to truly make sure you were covered.

And no matter how much he wants to do otherwise, Muriel keeps his eyes open, and stares down not only the guard before him, but also the group behind him, watching and waiting for that moment of recognition, the moment when the guards eyes stopped slipping away, the moment when he’d have to shove the soldier away to let you escape.

To make sure no one was dragged to the coliseum again.

Someone yells behind the guard, loud and abrasive, and Muriel has to keep himself from flinching at the sound. For another moment the guard lingers, eyes still scanning the area, where Muriel stood, as if he wasn’t there at all, for a mere second perhaps, before they turn away eyes still slipping off of Muriel like water against oil. The soldiers continue on hollering and barking as they chase shadows down the street. It’s only when they fade out from earshot that Muriel finally relaxes, and behind him, he can feel you do the same.

It’s an awkward little shuffle around when he steps away to let you escape your confines. Your hand doesn’t quite leave his back so readily, trailing down before falling away, leaving phantom trails of pressure and warmth still lingering on his skin, even if you never actually touched him directly. He tries to distract himself amidst it, focus on getting his basket back on his back. Focus on the possibility of another patrol of soldiers passing by. He doesn’t notice that you had been waving for his attention until you fingers slip beneath the belts across his chest and you yank.

“Thank you,” you whisper-hiss, freeing his belt to capture his hand instead. “C’mon, follow me. I know a safe place we could lay low for awhile.

Your hand is warm in his. Sweaty from running, but warm, with callouses marking the inside of your knuckles. Your rough hands against his own, and yet cradling his carefully with your touch. In his earlier haste he didn’t get the chance to notice that.

You tug, he follows.

–––––––––✿・✿・✿–––––––––

For all that he’s known you, for all the times he’s visited, all he’s ever seen from you were smiles that bent your eyes with it’s fondness, soft as the flowers that surrounded you and vibrant as the sun that fed them.

But that hardly counted as knowing a person.

For all you had forgotten of him, he never really got to know you.

The city grows more glittery and sharp as you tug him towards the decrepit opulence of the flooded district, right along the edge of the temple district where old temples sat in ruin, flooded with water that bent their floorboards and made space frigid during the night. Yet those flaws hardly stopped children from scurrying into the upper levels through windows, standing in the frigid dust laden rooms, and pretending they had a better life.

He remembers doing the same himself, with vivid fondness, trying and failing to climb up the side of the building after soldiers broke all the available climbing structures, that could support his weight. Asra managed on the tiny ledges, and weak remains, but Muriel and many other children struggled to do the same.

Thick walls of ivy, and even a small tree grows there now, the ground having been cleared of tiles to make space for dirt and mud to allow for the growth.

He turns his attention back to you, as you continue to pull him past buildings, littered with new blooms that climbed the walls.

For all that you had forgotten of him, Muriel barely knew you.

–––––––––✿・✿・✿–––––––––

You stop before a fence that looms even above him, coated in greenery, with sharp, rusted metal spikes that jut out from the top of the bushes.

He can see thorns entwined with the green shrubbery, thin and clustered together to make it hard to avoid getting scratched or hurt by any attempt to climb up it, which perhaps, is why it was an area that seemed so abandoned. Unlike the well-maintained gardens of many nobles, what could a trespasser hope to find behind a fence so clearly bursting with nothing but plain shrubs and wayward thorns?

You, clearly, believed otherwise.

Muriel can’t help but wince when you jam your hand into the mess of thorns and bushes, rummaging around the plants in search for something within. He’s tempted to pull your arm out and try to get you to wear something to protect yourself, but you beat him to it, pulling back for a moment to reveal an untouched arm before you reach back in with more intent and care than you did before.

Something creaks, and the wall of ivy and bushes, reveals itself to be thinner than the foliage initially let on.

He doesn’t even need to slip through the greenery as you do to already glimpse the world within, but he does anyways, treating himself to the true magnificence of your domain. Hidden by plants and trees and bushes and thorns sits a world of flowers blooming en masse until they cover nearly every inch of the ground around it, some even spilling out from their designated places to uproot the stone tiles that made up the slim walkways between the spill of flowers.

Most strikingly, Muriel can see the tulips that line the far end of the garden, a splash of sporadic colours all clumped together in a mad swirl, spilling out from their allotted section to infiltrate pathways and the beds of their neighbors.

And amidst them, finally looking at ease, you stand, turning back to him with a smile.

“I’m sorry about that, but… we’ll be safer here for now.”

You close the door, with a gentle thud, and brush the roses around it back into place, slipping a rust-browned lock back into place, and locking the world outside far, far away.

Perhaps he should be worried that you had essentially locked the both of you inside here together, but despite being overcrowded with flowers, the garden seems so expansive he can hardly see it as being locked inside anything.

“Feel free to look around” you tell him. “Just… don’t pick anything, please.”

You flash him a smile, and as quickly as you had astounded him with the beauty of your garden, you turn away snapping your attention back to your flowers, and give him space to marvel in awe at your beautiful garden—to marvel in awe at your beautiful practice. Setting his basket aside, he watches as you crouch down, and procure a pair of shears from beneath a bush, and begin to snip away at the overgrown and wilted plants. The sun shines a halo around you as you hunch over plots of dirt, shuffling your way into the plants, and trying to pry flowers away from each other, to generate distance so one doesn’t starve the other.

It’s hard work, quick to smear you with dirt and mud, but he can see the tension fade from your back as you toil away, a means of relaxing yourself from the tension.

Though questions swirl around his stomach and chest, Muriel decides to give you your space. It’s the least he can do after all.

He wanders, carefully, between the patches of flowers, many intermingled with each other into beautiful messy arrays, some even curling around each other, to enough of an extent, that Muriel supposed you couldn’t separate them anymore. Of course, slow growing as flowers often were, Muriel wondered if you failed to notice how close they had gotten, or you simply allowed them to grow so close to each other.

He approaches your tulip patch. You have so many. Found in nearly every colour, with different patterns on the petals, and different shapes of petals themselves, all crowded into one large plot—and when that plot could not fit any more flowers, you intermingled the tulips amidst other plants, amidst other flowers that seemed to get along well with the shoots of colour.

Although he has never seen the foreign shaped and patterned flowers before, Muriel can’t help but note the abundance of red, orange, pink, and yellow tulips in your garden. A favourite, perhaps? Or perhaps they were in high demand, or perhaps they were just—

“They used to be my parents' favourite.” He turns to look at you, dirt smeared with leaves sticking to the fabric of your clothes. You turn to him and smile. “They liked to give them to each other, as a way to show how much they cared about each other.”

Something in Muriel’s chest flutters. Something else constricts. He really shouldn’t be hearing this—you don’t remember him, you don’t remember what you’ve done.

“I tend to give them out to my favourite customers as well.” Muriel scrambles for his bag. He shouldn’t be hearing this should he? No matter how much he wants to… he shouldn’t. It’s not fair to you. You don’t remember him, you might not even be harboring those kinds of feelings.

After all didn’t you say the flowers were supposed to just... cheer him up?

“Hey, do you want—” Muriel just barely manages to shove the bag into your hands, pressing further to get the bag closer to your face.

The sooner you remember the sooner you can kick him from your garden and be on your merry way, even though his stomach grows tight at the very idea of it. Your garden is beautiful. If he could stay here, or even just visit every so often he would be glad.

As it is, just seeing you smile was enough for him.

Just seeing you smile had been enough for him, but he’s taken too much from you, and he refused to take any more.

It takes you a moment, flustered as you try to protest the strange gift he’s given you, but the memories come soon enough, and rather than push, he finds you grabbing—not only the bag, but his hand as well—and pulling it closer to your face, to take a deep breath, and savor the memories.

It only lasts so long.

You stare at him now, eyes wide and mortified before your hands snap to your face trying and failing to hide you as you still cling to the bag of myrrh he had given you. Muriel closes his eyes and looks away, not wanting to see your enraged or sorrow filled face when you claimed you had been cheated or swindled of your precious, precious flowers.

Instead he hears you giggle.

It’s a nervous sort of giggle, the kind made when someone’s not actually happy, echoing in the hollow cup of your hand as you sink to the floor.

“Oh my gods. Oh gods.” The words slip between your fingers as you adjust and readjust your hands to hide your face. “Oh my gods I am so sorry.”

“What?”

“I gave you, so many flowers…”

The comment sounds like regret—that you regretted wasting so many flowers on him, but your voice doesn’t sound sad, you just sound… embarrassed.

“I am so sorry…”

“W-what?? What for?”

“Isn’t it embarrassing? I keep giving you flowers!” Your volume picks up, and though he doesn’t intend it, his own voice gets a little higher and a little louder in reply.

“Is that bad??” He really can’t focus on his volume when he’s trying to sort out all the questions you are not answering.

“ITS EMBARRASSING!”

“HOW?!”

You groan, half stifled and half agonized before you bury your face back into your knees, leaving Muriel’s mouth to snap shut with a soft clack, gritting his teeth as he silently vows to never open his mouth again—or at least refrain from doing so for a long while. He was too loud. Too close to yelling. He doesn’t blame you for being afraid.

He’s about to apologize, whisper something placating to fix his wrongdoings, but once again, you speak before he can even get a word in.

Or well, you don’t speak. You laugh.

It’s almost a mad cackle. Almost. If you didn’t peer up for a moment, looking so genuinely happy and pleased, he would have thought you had gone insane.

You’re breathless when your laughter bubbles down into hicuups and giggles, leaning your head on your arms as you peer up at him. Of course, he’s too tall for you to look without craning your neck, and that’s so much worse when you’re sitting down. He sits beside you in an attempt to keep your neck from aching, but that only seems to make you giggle more.

“So, how much to I have to explain?” You ask your question teasingly, but Muriel can’t help but notice the strain of sincerity or the way you shake ever so slightly as if scared. You’re still grinning, but he can’t help but take you seriously.

“It…. You spend so much time on your flowers…. Don’t you need the money?”

His question sobers you considerably, that smile falling away from your face. Again, he’s the one who has to tear that from you, who makes you frown instead of smile.

“I can afford to lose a few tulips.”

“It’s not a few.”

You huff, turning away from him, and again, he worries that he’s made you upset. “It’s fine. I have a lot of those ones anyways. Besides, it’s not like I give them out to everyone.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope.”

“What about that old man? You wanted to give those flowers to him for free…”

You roll your eyes, and shake your head a picture of exhaustion, if not for your smile. “Yeah, well, he’s a pretty common customer, and he’s a fellow merchant. I stop by his stall sometimes and I know he doesn’t always have much, but he still wants to give flowers to his friend and all that.” You turn away from him then, tucking your face back into your knees. “Besides, I wasn’t giving him tulips.”

His brows dip again, “Tulips…?”

You sigh, loud and drawn out, tucking your face deeper into your lap. “I… remember how I mentioned my parents?”

“I… I didn’t think I was supposed to hear it…”

“If not you then who?” you gawk, waving an arm to the garden that wraps itself around you. In the beat of silence that follows, the wind rustles through the flowers, and the sound of trickling water meets the melody of a birdsong. It’s so peaceful. It’s so… lonely. Another gust of wind, and though the walls sit thoroughly coated by shrubbery and plants outside, it’s far clearer to see the iron bars from within, a mere gust of wind doing enough to show the cage these flowers have been locked inside of. To show the cage that you...

“You’re the only other person here.”

“I didn’t… I thought you’d change your mind in letting me in here if you realized….”

Once more you tuck your face into your lap, and Muriel has to wonder what makes you so miserable every time he mentions it. “Why would I change my mind after remembering how many flowers I’ve given you?”

“I thought… I thought you’d think I’d stolen them.”

You scoff and roll your eyes. “I gave them to you. As a gift.”

“Would you give me them if you knew it was me returning?”

You straighten yourself, turning to him with wide eyes as if he’s said something absurd or unthinkable. He’s about to retract his statement, make an apology for whatever he’s done to offend, but you look away before he does, and though muffled, in the quiet peace of your garden, you’re loud enough for him to hear you.

“Yes.” A pause. You fiddle with a worn patch over the knees of your pants, coated in dirt, and evidence of being repaired repeatedly, it’s a well loved set of gardening clothes. Well worn. Well cared for. “If I knew it was you, I’d give you even more flowers too.”

You huff the words out as if frustrated, and Muriel can’t help but look away.

“Why?” he blurts out the question, immediately regretting it when he hears you tuck your face back into your legs. You had said it was embarrassing. He still fails to understand… how.

“You heard the story about my parents.” This time it’s not a question. With your face now tucked behind your knees and safely guarded by an arm, you wave a free hand in the air, as if expecting him to connect whatever dots remains.

As if it was as easy as that.

“You said that they did so to show how much they cared about each other.” You bury your face deeper into your lap. “But you don’t… You don’t know me.”

At this point you’ve thrown your arm over top of your head now too. Trying to fold yourself up into a little human ball. Was this what was embarrassing? That you had been showing affection to someone you’ve never met before? To someone you didn’t know? But you haven’t known each other this entire time. What made it different now?

The glows over your garden, dappling you in it’s golden warmth. There are structures in place, some tall trees intermixed with the bushes outside, but sunbeams still sneak their way to reach you, as if eager to light you up, to amend the gloom that he’s cast over you. One beam streaks across your arms, and as you peek up at him, your eye glows in the golden light, and like magic, you slowly unfold yourself, to sit normally by his side.

“I… You’re right. I’m sorry.”

That was… “You’re apologizing again.” He means to ask it as a question but it doesn’t come out like it should. Hearing it fill the silence, he wonders if that would have been worse.

“I…” again, your hands come up to cover your face, dragging over your eyes, until they’re cupped around your mouth. You’re hiding again. Embarrassed you had said, but he still can’t figure out—“Look, I’m sorry for flirting with you okay?”

Muriel chokes. You don’t seem to notice.

“You don’t have to take it as flirting at all okay? It’s just… You just looked really pretty and I just wanted to give you flowers because I thought you were nice and you helped me out so many times with all those things, you were really brave and tough and yet so kind, and, augh no, look I’m not… I know I don’t know you okay, I’m not expecting you to fall in love with me over some…silly flowers, it’s fine. I… I’m really sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, I’m really sorry if this is just…weird. I… look my garden is pretty much all I have! People like flowers but I understand if those were maybe just not your thing, and I know maybe roses would’ve been more fitting, but those are just so hard to take care of sometimes and they’re such an overused gift, I mean I kinda thought someone like you would end up tired of receiving those gifts all the time but that’s because I was assuming that you were interested in relationships like that and—”

You keep talking. And talking, and talking and talking. Circling back to the same statements over and over and over again in new contexts as you somehow say so much and very little at the exact same time. It’s nice though. He likes listening to you speak, even if this seems to make you more stressed out than ever, but most importantly, it gives him a moment to try to collect his own thoughts, to try to get his breathing in check. And when both attempts fail, to try and find a way to fold himself up into something tiny and unseeable.

He waits for a while, hoping that you’d trail off somewhere eventually, that he would eventually be able to interject and direct the conversation away, or just…. Ask if you were… serious…. but every glance his way seems to make you more stressed, and you burst out in another round of apologies and reassurances, and on top of it all another round of compliments, many of which keenly focused on…prettiness.

Particularly him… and… being… pretty.

He doesn’t mean to grab your wrist. Poke you maybe, but he doesn’t mean to grab.

It’s just… hard to tell when he’s trying to hide his warming face behind a hand.

There’s a long stretch of silence.

And of course, you try to amend whatever mistake you think that you’ve made. “I’m so sorry I didn’t—” he has to interrupt you this time.

“No… no… It’s…”

You’re really smart. Very, incredibly clever. Burying his face in his lap sounds more and more appealing by the minute, but as much as he wants to he can’t exactly make himself look as small as you managed beside him. Besides, he just… really wants to know.

“I… you think…. I’m….” He can’t. He just can’t. His mouth opens to try, but his throat falls dry each time. It’s a struggle to get the idea of it into his mind without growing furnace-hot at the thought alone. He is a rival to the sun, by mere heat alone.

Somehow, miraculously, you understand… or at least somewhat. “You’re kind, you’re brave… you’re pretty….” You have to look away as well, lips falling victim to the press of your teeth. “You’re pretty as flowers, really.”

Muriel could explode.

You take his embarrassment as distress, faltering and wincing as you try to amend what had never been damaged. If he could, he’d press a hand to your face to shut you up. But that would mean having to remove a hand from hiding his own face away.

“Sorry! Is that….? Is that insulting? I didn’t mean for it to be insulting like that or anything It’s just you know as a gardener and all constantly working with flowers and everything and—”

“No!” he wants to berate himself for yelling. To feel ashamed for raising his voice but the sound of it is so strangled and sounds more like a helpless yelp than anything, only really serving to make him feel more embarrassed.

It’s Embarrassing…

Have you been feeling this way the whole time?

“It’s just that…” many words want to spring their way out of his mouth all at once, and considering his tongue has yet to master the skill of saying two separate words at the same time, Muriel is just left to struggle. “I’ve never…. No one’s ever… It’s not bad it’s just….” He can’t speak. He’s as effective as if he were mute, eyes practically spinning in his skull, as he tries to look anywhere but you.

Still he manages a glance your way, and it gives him pause to find you staring intently at the ground, a little smile stuck upon your lips.

“Oh.”

You try to hide it behind your hand. And Muriel’s terrified to find his first instinct is to grab your wrist and keep you from hiding away, like some sort of greedy hypocrite. To deprive you of the chance to hide when all he would ever do—all he was ever going to do, would be the exact same thing. It’s greed isn’t it? First for your flowers, and your mild kindness towards him and now—! Now!!

What was he going to do now?!

“Do you want a flower?”

You blurt the words out, slamming your hand over your lips to hide away promptly after. You’re standing now, unable to tuck yourself back into your knees, but your hands are still a serviceable shield. It’s nothing to block the words that begin to pour from your lips, but maybe you aren’t trying to stop that. Maybe it’s just your expression. He wonders at what you look like so flustered….

How greedy.

“I mean It’s just—I don’t know if you want something other than a tulip—I’ve given you so many tulips—I haven’t even asked you about your favourite flower! You know! So I just thought! Just— Any flower you want!! Just one!!”

You scurry off somewhere, possibly off to tend to your flowers for something, trying to busy your hands, or just to get away from him. He understands both sentiments very well as his hands tangle themselves together twisting and pulling as he wearily gets up and looks around your pocket of paradise once more.

He doesn’t really want to take any of your flowers. At least… not pluck them straight off of the ground.

The tulip beds overflow with flowers, and like a moth about to be burnt by the flame he wanders towards it, unable to bite back his urges when he plucks a flower from it’s place.

It’s not something he wants it’s just…

It’s stupid….. But……

You return with an armful of various flowers, small simple little things, that fill your arms and get tangled in your clothes, some even worming your way to sit around your shoulders like little faeries peering over at him.

And you offer all that hasn’t attached itself to you, to him.

You don’t even speak, you just shove it all into his arms, like some last ditch effort for… something. As if this was a last ditch effort at all.

The flowers just barely all fit into the crook of his arm, and he’s grateful for once, for being so large. That he can hold so much in one arm alone, as it leaves his other arm free to offer your tulip back to you.

It’s a sign of affection you said. He hopes you understand, because he really can’t stomach speaking right now.

Surely, surely you do… right?

Your eyes go wide as if it was not your own flower he had been offering to you, gingerly taking the little bloom by it’s stem into your own hands.

And when you glance up at him, looking so happy, so giddy and yet trying and failing to hold it all back, he finds that same warm sunshine you’ve offered him when you leaned out your window the first time you met.

It’s so bright, it almost burns. At least, it certainly makes his face burn. He can’t stare at you for long, turning away sharply as he fights the urge to take more than he’s due, to sweep the dirt from your face, pluck the flower from your hand and tuck it behind your ear…. Or…. Something…..

He has to go. He has to leave. His face can’t take much more of this overwhelming warmth.

“I have to—” he begins his retreat muttering as he goes, but you grab him, your hand clinging to the slim portion of his wrist, fingers slipping beneath the cuff, to sensitive skin beneath, as if scared that he might try to tear your hand from his skin.

“Wait you….” Your smile faltered, growing into something sad as you stared at him. “Will…. Will I remember you?”

And for all he wanted to escape, he turns back to you to slip your fingers free from the uncomfortable hold they have on his wrist, to instead take your hand in his own and give what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze. “Yes. You…. Yes. You’ll remember me. So long as you have that pouch I gave you…”

He can see it in your eyes, in the furrow of your brow and how you lean closer to him. You want to know why. What had happened to him, how it happened. You want to ask about the spell that he asked for himself.

But you don’t.

That soft smile glows his way instead, and you squeeze your own hand against his once more.

“Okay,” you say hand already falling slack. “I’ll see you in the market then.” You’re just barely holding on to his fingers now, still squeezing, still trying to let go. “You’ll visit, right?”

He wants to say yes, but you’ll remember him now, and he’d hate to leave you waiting for him.

“The market isn’t really….”

“Ah right." You laugh, though a little awkwardly. "How about here then? Do… do you think you can come back here sometime?”

He nods, not trusting his voice to speak for him. Your fingers are nearly gone from his hand, but you curl them up against his anyways, giving one final squeeze before your hand falls away.

He turns, and with the loud creak of the metal gate marking his departure, he sends one final glance to you, finding you grinning from ear to ear, waving at him as he goes. “Come back soon! I really want to get to know you!”

Tongue tied, and the need to escape burning furiously through his body, Muriel smiles and nods, before he slips through the gate and through the foliage that hides it, already planning the fastest way to get back home, and the fastest way to return to your garden the next day.

–––––––––✿・✿・✿–––––––––

When Muriel gets home his hands are a trembling mess. He misses many times, trying to slip the many flowers he’s received back into the little cup along with the others. Perhaps it’s a bad decision to take up a knife when his hands are trembling this much, but just as much as he shakes with the overwhelming wave of anxiety from talking with you, he trembles just as much with an itch to create.

It’s hard work, and long work, and it’s very far from done when the sun finally sinks down into the sky, but the shape is at least there, and tomorrow he’ll work on scooping out the insides of it to make a vase.

His thumb sweeps over the patterns clumsily carved into the wood but he smiles as he follows the grooves of his work.

A little heart sitting amidst a garden of clumsily carved flowers.

It’s fitting, in a way.

It seems to be where he’s left his own after all.

……

…It…also seems to be where he’s left his basket.

Ah, well, looks like he’ll have to go there tomorrow then, right?

[finalfrontierpioneer]

2023 Fic Recs!

Happy International Fanworks Day everybody!!! To celebrate, have some fic recs! These are some of my favorite works from last year! You know the drill- all completed last year, various ratings/lengths, nothing from multiple authors (although i was SO tempted, especially by @chocolateteapotsvis as always), and in complete random order.

Thank you to all of these lovely authors for brightening up my year! :D And also enabling my procrastination lolol

Halbarry, my otp, of course:

Onward to the Horizon by ChocolateTeapots @chocolateteapotsvis (Teen and up)

Five days, three Kaiju, and eleven collective hours of sleep. It’s one more fight. They just need to pull through. For Halbarry Week Day 4: Fantasy/SciFi

sometimes I feel it comin' on at the wheel by DynamicDuo (XylB) @halifax-jordan (Explicit)

"It'll be okay," Hal soothes. "I don't need to know what's troubling you right now, but whatever it is, it'll be all right." "It focuses…on what…I want," Barry says through gritted teeth, like each word is painful to get out. Or maybe embarrassing? He peeks up at Hal through his fingers with a meaningful look, as if hoping Hal will understand…through osmosis? "Buddy, I can do a lot, but I can't read your mind."

When I Come Back, I'll Wear Your Wedding Ring by ketchup_monthly (General)

hal has some issues he needs to work through, but he loves his boyfriend very much. barry just wants to get married. aka: i wrote yet another halbarry fic furthering my "hal is a huge romantic" agenda

Entropy (Has Got Nothing on Us) by RoboticNebula @roboticnebula (Mature)

Snapshots of Hal and Barry’s life together. For Halbarry week 2023 (25 August – 31 August).

star twinkled skin by Rexs_Blacks (Explicit)

Barry gets stuck in a wall. Hal helps out. Feelings and shit.

Buddie!

glue by ProsperDemeter (Teen and up) -this entire series is SO PERFECT

“It’s just…” Connor shrugged. “No offense, man, but… you’re twenty-five. Do you really want to be spending so much time falling for a guy with a kid?” “I’m not falling for him.” -- A month away from graduating the LAFD Academy, Evan Buckley gets introduced to new recruit Eddie Diaz and things certainly change for both of them after that. -- Another season one rewrite.

I'll Feel You Forget Me Like I Used to Feel You Breathe by turningthepages (Mature)

A car accident leaves Eddie without ten years of memories. He forgets meeting Buck, falling in love, getting married, and bringing two more kids into their life. As Eddie struggles to adjust to this new life, Buck struggles with being in love with someone who doesn't want to remember him. Oh, and they have really cute kids. or Just another Hollywood Amnesia story the fandom probably didn't need but lived in my head rent free for too long.

help me hold on to you by Ink_Dancer (Mature)

"You doing okay, Buck?" Eddie asked. Buck snorted. Loudly. It echoed. Eddie clicked his tongue. "Okay." He started moving again, coming over to Buck's side and starting to gather up an armful of takeout cartons. "What're you doing?" Buck asked. "I'm taking care of you," Eddie said firmly. "Because you're not doing a very good job." Or: Buck recovers slowly from the ladder truck, the Buckley-Diaz family goes stargazing, and Eddie and Buck get stuck in an attic during a house fire.

to your front door by hammersmiths (General)

Pepa’s been eyeing him all evening, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when she says, “Why aren’t you dating Eddie?” And yet Buck still nearly veers the car straight off the road.

maybe it's the way you lean on his shoulder by allyasavedtheday @littlespoonevan (Teen and up)

“Eddie,” she blurts. “Hi. Sorry. I didn’t realise you were here.” The sound of her voice makes him move and he quickly sets the knife down, offering her a warm smile. “Hey, Maddie. Don’t apologise; I’m not interrupting your schedule, am I?” “Oh no,” Maddie shakes her head quickly, waving the idea away. “The uh- the schedule’s been retired. I was just gonna make Buck dinner but-“ “Looks like we had the same idea, huh?” Eddie replies with a half-laugh. “Well, you’re welcome to join us. I’m making lasagne. It’s not quite on the level of Bobby’s famous four-cheese recipe but Buck’s still on a comfort food kick.” * In which Maddie realises there might be more to Buck and Eddie's relationship than she'd originally thought.

Stucky:

Werewolves in the Workplace by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen) @leveragehunters (Teen and up)

SHIELD was the only intelligence agency that assigned werewolf and vampire agents to work together in the field, but the program had been a staggering success. They compensated each other’s weaknesses, complemented each other’s strengths, and a werewolf could feed a vampire and shake off the effects faster than ordering a pizza. Bucky knew all that. What he didn't know was why this particular vampire, one Agent Steve Rogers, was holding out a protein bar. They were perched in the rafters of a warehouse, waiting for not-overly punctual arms dealers to show up and deal arms, had been stuck up here for a couple of hours, but none of that explained vampires suddenly offering snacks. In his near decade as a werewolf in SHIELD, Bucky had worked with a lot of vampires, and they all tended to be pretty much the same. Steve Rogers was different, didn't fit the vampire mould, and Bucky couldn't quite figure out why. Not that it really mattered. Steve was just someone he was occasionally paired with on SHIELD assignments. It wasn't like he was going to have any effect on Bucky's life.

Waking the Fire in Me by humapuma (Explicit)

Steve’s knees nearly went out from under him, but he grabbed onto the table to stay upright. He whined – he couldn’t help it. His chest cracked open, breaking him down until he was sixteen years old again, thin and sickly. The pale grey of those eyes was so familiar, but Steve hadn’t seen it, hadn’t even thought to look for it. How? A voice screamed inside. How did I not see? His entire being trembled as he whispered, “Bucky?” The Soldier’s usually cold eyes changed then, something flashed in them as his nostrils flared, harshly inhaling Steve’s scent before he said the words that finally made his buckling knees give out, forcing Steve to the ground. “Who the hell is Bucky?” A ghost found his way to the Avengers, asking for help - a ghost of a man long thought dead.

the time that's slipping by its_tortle @its-tortle (Teen and up)

“Hello?” she calls. Steve holds his breath again, even as he feels pressure build up behind his eyes. Because that’s his mother’s voice, and he hasn’t heard in twenty one (conscious) years. He doesn’t dare move. OR 'If Steve was going to travel back in time for anything before returning to his own timeline, it would be to see his mom again one last time'

Tongue in Cheek by rohruh (Explicit)

“No, no,” Bucky leans into his space, close enough that Steve can feel the warm tufts of his breath against his cheek, “go on.” “It’s just,” Steve’s not quite sure how to phrase this. He’s not sure what his motivation was in starting this whole conversation, really. “I guess I wish that I could kiss like that, is all.” Bucky stares at him, his eyes bright as the warm glow from the streetlight dances off of them. “I could teach you.” Steve’s mouth goes dry. “Teach me?” “Yeah,” Bucky snatches the joint out of his hand and leans back against the wall. “Give you a kissing lesson, or whatever.”

Backhoe by ZenaidaMacrouras @zenaidamacrouras1 (Explicit)

Steve Rogers is a seasoned activist and not at all afraid to get arrested while protesting the building of a pipeline. HOWEVER he is TERRIFIED when he realizes he’ll be chained to the same backhoe as Bucky “very handsome southern boy who also plays guitar and struts like a panther in his very tight, worn thin blue jeans” Barnes. Our brave, tiny Steve will find out once and for all: Can you catch on fire from blushing over your crush? May Contain: Extended descriptions of how to get arrested while chained to a backhoe, copious amounts of sisters, Appalachian accents, cheerful silliness interspersed with tragic background realness. Pining with a happy ending. Chicken related controversy. Tragic background realness mainly consists of parents passing away, because who doesn’t love adult orphans. Discussion of funerals. Very brief homophobic interaction in chapter 18 (marked in the chapter intro notes). There is no violence, but there are a few moments where you might think there might be violence. Overall this is a romance not a gritty, hard hitting documentary.

Various pairings:

Till You Find Your Dream by Kyele @timeforalongstory (Explicit) (Brudick)

You know, my child, that the orphanage cannot continue to support you once you become an adult.” The abbess sighs. “There is one path that is always open to you. You may choose a holy vocation, and take orders. The Sisters of Perpetual Grace will accept you as a postulant if you choose.” Dick had known to expect this. “Thank you, Reverend Mother,” Dick says respectfully, “but I cannot follow that path.” The Mother Superior nods. He looks unsurprised. “Then perhaps,” he says, “you would be interested to hear of another opportunity.” From the papers on his desk, the abbess removes a single sheet. “Are you familiar with Captain Wayne?” Dick accepts a position as governess to eight war-orphans, adopted by millionaire and WW1 flying ace Captain Bruce Wayne. The rest is inevitable.

Seven by HollyDB (Explicit) (Spuffy)

It's been months since Willow almost ended the world, and a tense summer has turned into an ominous fall in Sunnydale. Spike is back from wherever and acting weirder than usual, a new threat is rising that—for once—doesn't seem to stem from the hellmouth, and Buffy has no idea who to trust or what to believe. She also doesn’t have the luxury of time to figure it out. Some things never change.

Seven Lessons by Tessabeth (Mature) (Cazriel)

At Windhaven, teenage Cassian's in trouble again. As punishment he's paired with the strange shadowsinger who hangs around Devlon's headquarters. 40,000 words, ten chapters, complete. Some timeline tinkering. “You,” says Devlon, pointing at Cass, “need to learn self control. He’s got it. And you,” pointing at Azriel now, “need to learn to use those pathetic curtains you’re carrying around on your back, and this one knows how. So there you go. You’ve got a week. At the end of the week, I want both of you flying, and both of you able to put up a solid shield without blasting your comrades over a cliff. Now fuck off.” Azriel bends down to the Commander and murmurs something urgently in his ear. Tendrils of shadow writhe around his jaw. “No. No, I’ll manage it without you. I’ve let this go on too long; you’re too old for this bullshit. You can come back when you can fly. Go on, fuck off. And shut the door behind you.” Back out in the gelid dusk, the two look at each other warily. Azriel still says nothing. Cass sighs. “See you in the morning? Meet by the mess?” Azriel ducks his head in agreement, and disappears down an alleyway. It’s going to be a long week.

Desperate Times by Eienvine (General) (Sifki)

Sif sees the man’s lips curve up in a sharp, cruel smile. “I have long dreamed of seeing Odin on his knees, begging for his life. I cannot have that, but I can at least see his son beg for someone else’s life.” He won’t do it, Sif is certain; if there is one thing that can confidently be said about Loki, it is that he is horribly proud. And proud men do not beg. Not even to save her life.

Sit, Stay, Speak by Fenris13 @ragnarokhound (Explicit) (Jaytim)

“He’s not here. Just his suit,” he tells Babs, gathering up the costume. “The apartment’s untouched, but downstairs looks like a hurricane went through it.” There’s a crackling hiss through the receiver as she sighs, tense. “Shit. Okay. Is there anything—?” “That’s not all,” he interrupts, standing up with an apprehensive look at his unexpected new companion. “There’s a dog.”

and tell the ones you love (you love them) by LadyMerlin (Teen and up) (Jaytim)

Weeks pass and the clan remains occupied with the chaos that is Gotham. It’s no busier than usual, but Bruce feels himself tiring easily, still recovering from his involuntary jaunt through the timestream. Everyone is remarkably kind to him, giving him time and space to recover. Unfortunately, all that time gives him, well… a lot of time to think. To consider. To analyse the changes that have occurred during his absence. There are new alliances, new tensions, shifting fault lines in the geology of his family. He reminds himself that this is the best case scenario; that everyone is still alive and well, that things could have gone much worse. But he can’t help but feel there’s something he’s still missing. Something he hasn't been told. AKA: the one where Bruce learns how to use his words, and tries not to be too nosy about his children's love lives.

those kind of friends by gabrieeella (Mature) (Jeronica)

He remembered the first time he’d seen her wear her hair like that, the way it’d unsettled him a little. It was so Betty-like, and yet not Betty-like at all. Betty’s ponytail moved like spilled sunlight. Veronica’s swung around like a guillotine. Or, a series of unexpected late-night encounters force an ever-distant Jughead and Veronica to explore who they really are (and could be) to each other.

you dug my heart a grave by jilliancares @jilliancares (General) (Spideypool)

He’s laying there, groaning and in pain and clutching his ribs, but even worse— [Really? Is it really worse? Give it a good, hard think and tell me if this is worse.] —but even worse, sparks are flying. Literally. Or: Wade realizes that Spidey is his soulmate.

[cobaltswriting]

Character Essay: Snape

So, there are some characters that I have feelings about. Like, that I can see what the author was trying to do with them, but I also just... think they failed.

Unsurprisingly, two of these characters have to do with Harry Potter. Severus Snape, and Albus Dumbledore.

Yes, I know, J.K. Rowling is a terrible person and a TERF. But this is still something I wanna write about. And this is my blog. So... yeah. The Albus Dumbledore post might come later.

So, Severus Snape.

I’m gonna break this down into 3 big issues I have with the character. Which does definitely call into question the way Snape was written. And I'll even put it under a read more so any people who are pro-Snape for whatever reason don't have to read any further.

And yeah, this isn't going to be nice to Snape. Like, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Albus Severus Potter should have been named Rubeus Remus. It is actually kind of a crime that he never named a child for Hagrid, considering Hagrid was literally the first person who was nice to him and introduced him to the Wizarding World. But I digress, let's get to the main subject of this essay.

1. Treatment of Students

We know why Snape treats Harry like shit. It doesn't make it ok, but I wanna talk about other students. Disregarding the favouritism towards his own house, we already come across a huge problem, that is also a problem with Dumbledore as well...

Snape's an abusive teacher.

Even if we disregard Snape's treatment of Harry, we have how he treats students like Neville, and insults leveled at students not within his house. Even the best Hermione, who is basically as close to a perfect student as we get, is simply ignored and passed over without a comment, and Neville... Hoo boy.

Like, I don't know the specific guidelines teachers are given that they're not allowed to cross, but Snape breaks almost all of them. Insults and abuse are hurled towards Neville constantly, even when he's in other classes, like him insulting Neville right in front of Lupin. And while I do like Lupin... Lupin just smiles at it. Nothing ever happens. Snape apparently never even gets told off about abusing his students. Hell, he yells at Hermione and Harry in front of the Minister for Magic in the 3rd book, and Fudge, while surprised, does nothing about it other than trying to calm Snape down.

Like, is abuse just... not a thing in the Wizarding World? This comes up in my thoughts about Dumbledore as well, beyond this, but...

If Snape was a teacher anywhere else, he would have been fired. Like, immediately. But he's just allowed to do so. Like, the closest thing to punishment he gets is that he's not allowed to teach Defence of the Dark arts until Harry's 6th year.

And just so we know this isn't the norm, let's look at another teacher... Minerva McGonagall.

She is the head of Gryffindor House (although I still think she should be a Ravenclaw. As should Hermione. BUT ANYWAY) but she does not favour her house. Excluding Quidditch, in which she supports her House's team, but that's a different thing, that's fine. Whereas Snape has probably never taken so much as a single point from Slytherin, she was responsible for the largest amount of points taken from Harry at one time, if I'm right. If not the largest amount, certainly the largest amount of points taken in the first book. She is also strict, but is also shown to be fair, and will compliment a student and praise them if they do well. She praises Hermione in their first class, because while Hermione did not entirely succeed, she did show godd progress for her first try. And while we do not see her compliment a student from another House, it can be assumed that it does happen.

This is how a teacher SHOULD be. They are there to nurture students, teach them, not abuse them and play favourites.

There are other teachers in Hogwarts, but Snape is the main one who abuses them. A case could be made for Barty Crouch (disguised as Mad-Eye Moody) abusing them, by putting them under the Imperius Curse) but considering he was a Death Eater, and was apparently doing it because Dumbledore wanted him to, we'll just... ignore him. I don't think it's too far from what Moody would actually do, although I don't like to think of Moody as abusive.

But yeah, Snape is very abusive of his students, to the point that the most positive thing he can really do towards a student that isn't from Slytherin is ignore them or say nothing. And abuse is a really fucking bad thing, in case you didn't know.

Let's move onto the next topic...

2. His 'love' of Lily Evans

Yeah, I put the love in quotation marks. Mainly because it... doesn't really read that much like love to me. I am aromantic, so that might have SOMETHING to do with it, but...

It just comes off more as a creepy sort of obsession than anything else. An obsession deep enough for him to have a doe as a patronus.

Like... let's start from the beginning. The first time we see Snape and Lily, Snape is spying on her and it's implied that he's been doing so for a little bit. Even though they're just kids, I'm pretty sure that counts as stalking. And then he makes a branch fall on Petunia when she insults them, which could have seriously injured her, depending on the size of the branch and where it hit her. It was enough to make Petunia cry at the least when it hit her shoulder.

Snape also encouraged Lily to steal letters from her sister and read them, when they found out that Petunia had written to Hogwarts. Although I guess that doesn't really come into the subject of his 'love' for Lily.

We also see that Snape is very... racist, I guess? Does the whole blood thing count as racist? Calling Lily a Mudblood, and then when he tries to apologise he can't even deny that if it was anyone but her, he would not apologise for it. So basically having different rules for her, which I guess could come into a love thing but the fact that he calls muggleborns Mudblood and yet 'loves' one comes out as... kinda fetishistic to me, I'm not gonna lie.

In the books we also have him desperate to protect her from Voldemort, crying when she's dead... And yet despite that, he is horribly abusive to her son, just because he looks like his father. And yet he does say that he wants to keep him safe, angry at Dumbledore when he finds out they've basically been raising him like a lamb to the slaughter. So apparently he's fine with possibly mentally scarring Harry, but killing him? Oh, that's just totally unforgivable!

You can point out various things across the books that Snape has done for Harry, but that doesn't change the fact that Snape is INCREDIBLY abusive to Harry, even moreso than he is to other students.

And then we have him taking part of Lily's letter, just because it had her signiture, and part of the photo that showed her in it, which just... always struck me as creepy. Stalker-ish. I dunno how to explain it any better than that.

And then, we have absolutely the creepiest part... him wanting Harry to look at him as he dies. Just so he can pretend that he's looking into Lily's eyes, probably. Which... yeah, that's just super creepy.

Like, I honestly cannot see it as romance at all. It just comes off as Snape having an obsession. It's even worse in the movies where he is shown cradling Lily's dead body against him and crying. Which normally wouldn't be that bad but with everything else on top of that... yeah.

This does bring us onto the last subject...

3. Snape's 'Redemption'

Snape's redemption is supposed to happen after his death. Here's the problem... he's one of the main examples about why J.K. is very poor when it comes to redeeming characters. Like, Draco could have been set up for a redemption, but he wasn't, as were his parents. Snape was set up for a redemption... and J.K. seems to think it was enough?

So, the main thing that is supposed to redeem Snape, that is meant to make us think he's ok... is showing us his past with Lily, and various discussions with Dumbledore. The whole sequence is for exposition and to try and make us think Snape is a good guy because he 'loved' Lily, and that was his motivation for everything good he did. Which, again, comes off as pretty obsessive.

Here's the thing though...

Snape abused Harry for 6 years of his life. He made Draco set a snake on him in his second year. He repeatedly broke into Harry's mind which seemed to end up having the opposite effect that Dumbledore wanted. Dumbledore even basically admits as much, saying that Snape was a poor choice for it, that he had hoped Snape would be able to see past his hatred of Harry's father. He refused to listen to anyone when it came to Sirius, refusing the possibility that Sirius might be innocent (until Dumbledore talked to him about it, probably), outed a colleague as a werewolf, which, considering the allergory J.K. was aiming for, was like outing a gay man, and made him resign from his job because he knew student's parents would be writing in to complain about it, so it essentially cost Lupin a job, which as we know, is already something that werewolves had problems with.

I do have issues with J.K.'s allergory of werewolves as homosexuals... but let's just say that one of the most notable werewolves, after Remus, was known for attacking and 'turning' children and leave it at that. It's not relevant to the topic at hand anyway.

Showing us that Snape did some things right, and that he 'loved' Lily... like, let's pretend that he did love Lily for a moment, and that it wasn't a creepy obsession.

... That still doesn't excuse the shit he did. It doesn't excuse the abuse at all. It doesn't redeem him from being a Death Eater. His only reason for wanting to save the Potter family was Lily.

Saving Harry's life in the first year by countering Quirrell's curse, and then acting as referee in the next match to protect Harry? That doesn't redeem the abuse that he inflicted upon Harry in the first year, let alone the rest of it.

Let's assume he had the best intentions in Prisoner of Azkaban, and he was interested in rescuing Harry, Ron and Hermione from Sirius. Although that is a HUGE assumption, all things considered... still doesn't redeem him.

Checking that Sirius was indeed at headquarters and then alerting them that Harry had gone to the Department of Mysteries to try and save Sirius when Sirius wasn't even there? Still doesn't redeem him.

None of the good things Snape does redeems him for the abuse he inflicted upon his students and especially Harry and Neville, and his love for Lily reads more like a creepy obsession.

J.K. tried to redeem Snape... and absolutely failed. Sometimes when you write a character, you need more than a single chapter to redeem them.

I'm not even sure if Snape was redeemable at all. Abusing children is a pretty fucking terrible thing. And I don't think it's even me being biased for being abused by a teacher, it's just unacceptable.

[saiyanwitcher]

I have been waiting for part one to be finished, because when I first started eyeing Prince of Death, it was close to being done. And oh my it hit just right. I devoured the whole thing.

I love it, my honor. It is the perfect combination of high-stakes plot, romance, main characters being a self-sacrificing dumbasses (always peak literature) and everything i was looking for. So from all those ingredients, you have created the perfect meal and I have been fed and watered and everything is great.

The whole thing just flows so nicely. You have a very clear, lovely writing voice.

I think I understood everything I needed to with ample additional mystery to be uncovered, but I never felt like I had no idea what was happening even though I had no prior knowledge of the universe. And this is indeed a feat, because honestly sometimes I read whole published books and I’m like, "Wait, what? WTF is happening?"

Another thing that is so hard to master, which you just got down here, is the pacing. It never stalls, but there are enough quiet moments for me to breathe and get to know the characters. And for Max and Charles to fall in high-stakes, low self-esteem love, which is just chef’s kiss.

Talking about Max and Charles, they are so dear to me in this fic. I live for the protective boyfriend trope and this is all set up for greatness in that regard. Kicking my feet, jumping in joy. I’m just overall a happy reader when it comes to this fic.

Also, I need to make a shout-out to all the effort you have put in outside of just writing the fic. All the pictures and posts and playlists. It adds a lot and I know that it must take effort and time; it is appreciated.

To conclude this rambly too long ask: thank you for writing this and sharing it with us. You are a gift and a treasure.

I may come here with some more superlatives later. I hope thats alright 😅

Hello there!

I always forget that people wait until fics are finished to start reading. I'm so impatient, I generally just jump right in and then get stuck on a cliffhanger and want to kms. I respect the self-control I definitely do not have!

So happy that you enjoyed part 1 ❤️ As I stated in my authors note at the start of the work, this is literally the first thing I've ever tried to write and I almost trashed the whole thing at least a dozen times through the learning process. I'm also pleased to hear that it isn't confusing or like boring to read (things I've been very worried about).

Pacing is something I wasn't quite sure if I got right either, so I appreciate the feedback! I love slow burn as much as the next person, but I also want to be engaged with a work and not get too bored with slice-of-life type stuff. I'm also a huge fan of "okay, we're together now, but the universe isn't going to let us be together," which is the definition of this entire fic. 🫣

If the angst doesn't make my chest doesn't ache every few chapters, I don't want it your honor lol

Max will continue to struggle with many different issues (as he should) in part 2, and Charles will have to learn what his triggers are and how to handle someone with such a traumatic past. He will be over protective and do some things that Charles/the reader might be confused by, but the poor guy has been through some shit, and he needs some time. I'm really looking forward to exploring that dynamic if I'm honest. I've read a lot of fic where it's either, all the trauma and no recovery or trauma happened off camera and it's all focused on recovery. Attempting to have both feels like a big ask, but I'm certainly going to try!

Making an edit for the start of each chapter was a fun idea I had starting on chapter 2, and then quickly got out of control by the time I was on chapter 20 😅 but I really like visual aids, and I will probably continue to make them for part 2 as well.

Come back any time as my ask box and DMs are always open! There's a lot of clues and subtle things in the finer details that may not have seemed important in the early chapters, but on second or third inspection, have HUGE implications on the later plot for this story.

[kolachess]

Star Struck - Explaining the conflict and cultural nuance

Those of you who have seen the Korean BL, Star Struck, probably thought it was a(nother) mediocre school BL. In a year with more and more BLs from South Korea (yay!), it might have been an easy pass.

BUT, if you’re like me, you will have really, really appreciated the refreshingly realistic taste of a friends-to-lovers dynamic, complete with a conflict that is not just over one-sided or mutual dislike of each other for once! (Which is not to say I didn’t love the BLs that had that... they’re all great. But I do think expanding scope is always admirable!)

I realized that part of the reason why what seemed to me a rather thoughtfully constructed set of characters and plot development comes across as plain boring to many others might partially be a cultural nuance issue.

So, here’s my attempt to bridge that gap and give it a little more credit than it got (at least, so far). Of course, that’s not to say I think this drama is perfect... I do think a lot of pacing / editing could have done with some improvement. And at the end of the day... it is a coming of age sort of school drama, so it’s not going to be crazy complex. And I’m also writing this after episode 4, so there will be spoilers through episode 4. 

Disclaimer: I am not Korean, nor did I grow up in South Korea, so I definitely do not have complete authority on this subject matter. However, I feel like a lot of what was happening in Star Struck might have been... unfairly overlooked or otherwise not understood by audiences who are less familiar with Eastern Asian cultural values, so as a Chinese American, I wanted to do my best to add a bit of perspective.

So. What is the root of SHJ (Seo Hanjoo) and JYJ (Jo Yoojae)’s conflict?

Certainly, SHJ’s (seemingly) one-sided crush on JYJ and JYJ’s reactive jealousy is a large part of it, but the other big part is a newfound wealth gap and how that translates into what esteem they hold each other in.

From the get-go, we can tell SHJ is very (self-)conscious about money. He knows how hard his mom has to work, and he feels guilty and early on already tries to justify to himself (and others) that some costs, like the cram school he saved up to attend, are not worth it. He’s too prideful to honestly mention his money troubles to anyone.

Although SHJ doesn’t know JYJ’s rich yet in this scene, JYJ’s financial circumstances still was better off than SHJ’s. But he’s clearly uncomfortable with the idea of his best friend paying for him like that. And here’s where I’ll do some cultural breakdown.

In East Asian culture, the collective identity comes first, and the individual comes second. Meaning, people take more pride in what school they graduated from, what company they work for, what their family background is, more so than people in many other cultures. I’m not talking school pride like, ‘I’m proud to be a <insert school mascot>!’ kind of spirit. I mean that everyone in your life, in society, will measure your worth first and foremost (and often only) by the primary institution or family background you came out of. And with SHJ’s sort of background - poor, single-mother - that’s a big stigma. He’s still a rational human being though, so at least he doesn’t blame his poor mother for their circumstance (which some kids do, given all the pressure of society). But that all said, this clearly weighs on him - how his lack of money reflects on him. And if money is viewed at all similarly to how it’s viewed in China... it’s basically a measure of your capabilities and standing in society. The inability to be generous with your money is ‘losing face’ i.e. embarrassing. And so... yeah. It’s a lot of ‘dings’ in SHJ’s social profile. The kid is understandably a bit self-conscious, though he clearly tries to not let it get to him.

Fast forward to when he finds out JYJ is now ‘rich’... Obviously, he’s upset at not being told because they’re supposed to be close friends. However, he’s clearly super self-conscious about being seen as someone who’s that sensitive about money. Notice how he hasn’t actually commented / asked about JYJ ‘moving out’. (Note: I wasn’t 100% sure if this carried the implication that JYJ might be moving away, but the text message made it sound like that? Correct me if I’m wrong.) He immediately assumes JYJ didn’t tell him because he’s pitying him or otherwise worried about how he’d react because of how it involves money. And he hates that. (Which... he’s not totally wrong about. JYJ might not pity him like how SHJ is thinking, but he definitely worries a bit about how SHJ will perceive things, and it becomes this death spiral of misread intentions.)

And of course JYJ starts to comment on SHJ’s family, which just confirms all of JYJ’s worst fears. He suddenly ‘realizes’ that his best friend who he has a crush on actually walks on eggshells around him because of his money situation, which is a blow to his self-esteem, because what does that mean? That there’s a meaningful gap now in their social status and JYJ looks down on him and just never said? That JYJ sees SHJ as too delicate to be able to handle this new reality? (His insecurities and perspectives, not necessarily what JYJ thinks, of course.) 

It’s like having a close friend say something that makes you suddenly wonder if they were actually judging you this whole time, and your mind goes into overdrive analyzing every past interaction you’ve had and reading in between the lines to see if you were actually blind all this time. To SHJ, who is already a bit self-conscious about all of this... it’s a major blow. And although he says he’s only ever felt inconvenienced by his poverty... I’d say he’s being a bit dishonest with himself. Again, he’s clearly not the shameful type to blame his poor mother, but he clearly has trouble admitting his circumstances to even his closest friend.

Meanwhile, for JYJ...

...the guy is clearly struggling too. He obviously cares for SHJ and extremely mindful of his money situation, hence previously wanting to just pay for SHJ at the cafe. However, he also doesn’t want to hurt SHJ’s pride even more, so he ultimately still tosses his pair of perfectly good shoes he no longer wants despite wanting to give it to SHJ.

Once SHJ cools down a bit, and JYJ extends the olive branch, they both apologize to each other and come to an understanding. However, as is with a lot of human emotions... getting over it in the moment does not necessarily mean getting over it for good if you haven’t addressed the inner demons that spawned these bad feelings in the first place. And it’s not long before we see another issue pop up.

At this point, SHJ has had to move into the side house (and hides it from JYJ). He finds the Gucci receipt in the pocket of the jacket JYJ lends him, and JYJ immediately tries to wave it off saying it was pretty much something his mom made him buy.

He’s clearly worried about SHJ feeling bad again. He definitely doesn’t seem to care for the materialistic things as much as his parents seem to, and he even seems a bit embarrassed by it. So when SHJ brings up his big new house, he immediately tries to make light of the situation by joking about how indeed, the one good perk is that he can no longer hear his parents fighting. So that’s clearly another thing that weighs on him. SHJ is seemingly rather sensitive to JYJ’s money situation, but JYJ doesn’t really want anything to do with it at all. And the thing he really wishes could be new and shiny - his family’s relationship - is not something their newfound money could buy. In fact, it’s possible he’s even a little envious of JYJ for having such a caring mom.

Later, when he finds out SHJ has moved into the little side house / shack, he’s understandably upset that his best friend had chosen to hide this from him, that he didn’t see JYJ as understanding enough to be honest with him. He obviously also aches for SHJ’s circumstances. 

Gift-giving is a big part of East Asian culture, but there’s casual gifts between friends, and there’s gifts between everyone else. When you’re gifting gifts to someone less close, you definitely don’t want to go for things too cheap, so people tend to skew for expensive and unnecessary things because it’s part of social gestures and having ‘face’. While well-intentioned, sometimes receiving (and continuing to receive) gifts, especially more expensive ones, can make the receiver feel like they have to reciprocate in kind and continue to stand on ceremony or otherwise have this formal distance between the other person. It’s a big game of chicken sometimes, but some people’s ‘face’ won’t allow them to take a more casual, intimate approach first. This is not the main reason why JYJ gets upset of course, but it is an element.

All that compounded - he’s hurting already on SHJ’s behalf, yet his best friend seemingly doesn’t trust him enough and still tries to save face. And what’s worse, SHJ seems to think JYJ is materialistic and chases expensive things, when that couldn’t be farther from the truth - he dgafs about this kind of stuff. So to have his best friend essentially woefully misunderstand his character, continue to hold him at arm’s length / treat him with non-intimate courtesy, make sacrifices that hurt himself to give JYJ something that makes him seem materialistic and puts even more distance between them due to their economic gap... he’s pretty hurt and furious.

Of course, in reality, while SHJ not telling JYJ might be partly due to his pride, the expensive gift was purely because he was crushing hard. And cue the confession tumbling out.

-

So actually, I feel like there was a wonderful build-up of their tension, oriented not entirely on SHJ’s romantic feelings towards JYJ, but a very real issue between two people compounded by the complexity of romantic feelings.

Although I grew up away from the frontline influence of these sort of social gestures and expectations, it was still a big part of my upbringing. And I feel the agonizing indecisiveness over what to say, how to react, etc. You read intention into every gesture and word, because that’s how Asian culture operations.

I was rather surprised to see people comment that this drama was boring, but upon analysis, I did consider that part of it might be because a lot of this tension goes over the audience’s head if you weren’t brought up in that context. What seems like beautifully nuanced dance of well-intentions-turned-sour might come across as a jumbled mess of ‘being upset over unnecessary secrets’. That, coupled with some abrupt scenes that might not be tied in too smoothly, might have led to a lower evaluation.

Or it’s just my bias for a non-romantic-feelings based tension haha.

-

Anyway... curious what others think!

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, I saw your "Fear of Negative Feedback/Reviews" reply, and while everything you said is definitely all true, I think the anon was more referring to interactions within the online writing community and on social media, rather than reading reviews on their work. I could be wrong of course, since I'm not that anon, but that's how I read it. With social media allowing people to gang up on creators en masse and destroy their careers over a tiny, imagined slight, it's definitely a relatable fear.

Dealing with Social Media Dog Piling

It seemed to me they were talking about reader feedback, which also includes reviews. Here's why I say that:

Anon said: "Do you have any advice on how to deal with the fear of bad-faith readers?"

Keyword: Readers

Anon said: "I’m quite worried about random online users discovering my writing..."

Key phrase: discovering my writing

Anon said: "... complaining that my writing is not good enough, not diverse enough, not social justicey enough, etc."

Key phrase: complaining that my writing is not... So... Anon is concerned about readers discovering their writing and complaining that it's not good enough... aka feedback and "reviews on their work."

I did lean into reviews on that post, which was just my ND brain falling down a bit of a rabbit hole, but that advice applies to any unsolicited feedback on your writing. If you didn't ask for it, it's not there for you, so you can ignore it.

However, we get into a very different area when we talk about people dog piling on an author due to a perceived issue with their writing. But, I can tell you, viewing this phenomenon as occurring due to "tiny, imagined slights" is problematic. If that many people feel slighted by something you said or did in your story, it isn't "imagined." It could certainly be a misunderstanding, but it's not imagined. If that happens to you, the thing to do is listen to their concerns, acknowledge them, apologize, and do better next time. That's it. That's all you can do.

And that's the reality of being part of a society. Humans aren't perfect. We're a big complex web of emotions, ideas, mindsets, and experiences. It's impossible to live on a tiny spinning ball with 8-billion other people and not constantly step on each other's toes. If you inadvertently step on someone's toes, you apologize and move on, being careful not to do it again. If someone accuses you of stepping on their toes when you're sure you didn't, there's no point in arguing... you own it, apologize, and move on, doing what you can to make sure you're actually not stepping on anyone's toes. And that's it. That's what you can do. You don't let it stop you from being part of the crowd. So don't let the fear of it happening stop you from creating or sharing. Just be prepared to apologize and do better if it happens. If you're genuine, they'll move on and so can you.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[wander-wren]

got another bot-spam comment on ao3, but this one is extra weird. let’s do some investigating!

for those not in the know, The Haunting is my dark whumpy “todoroki gets adopted by aizawa” fic. it’s also 60k words long. so right away i’m doubting this person read it. that plus the generic vibes? bot comment. but i’m also pretty sure i’ve heard of this channel before, specifically because it wasn’t crediting authors. hm. so i go check it out: http://www.youtube.com/@DnWhatIf

first of all, these are the videos i’m greeted with:

now, i don’t want to bash anyone’s taste, but this is so extremely not my thing. nooooo way. some of these read more like crackfic, which is fine, but tonally the difference is SO much. and just makes it even more glaringly obvious that they aren’t reading the fics they’re spamming or even giving them a cursory once-over (or putting strong filters on the bot? i’m not clear how bot comments work)

because this is the first thing you see about The Haunting:

i’m guessing, if it wasn’t completely random, it’s the fact that i tagged izuku as a character. and really it’s just lazy, the whole thing. it’s all bots. ai art in the thumbnail, ai voice reading the fic, bot making comment spam for you. zero respect. if this was an actual podficcer i would consider it! hell, i might even accept ai voice readings (MAYBE), if it was obvious there was a human person who cared behind them. it could certainly be a tool for good, since podficcing isn't very common (we love you podficcers. if i had a little bit more confidence i would be one of you).

but anyway, hang on, lets back up a step, because the whole reason i looked into this was the credits issue. the video “what if deku became a teacher at ua” (ugh) (i hate the title gimmick also) is going to be my guinea pig.

so in the little intro (also done by ai), it says “all credits to their respective authors” which, yikes. however, they do link to their permission statement and the fic in the description, so it….could be worse. but also, these are the comments

(and it continues like that for a bit)

the channel name also has a 4.0 after it [edit: it did when i started this post, then i got distracted for two days, and now it is gone. hm], which implies they’ve had a lot of trouble with keeping it up. so it seems likely that this is the channel i heard about stealing fics, they just finally learned to get permission and give credit to try and keep it up this time. the permission statement on this video is real (i wondered if they would just link to something else and assume no one would check), but even THAT author references being “freaked out” (positive?? unsure) when they heard of people finding their story on youtube. before giving permission to upload with credit. so that’s not great

also this sludgepit of content is absolutely the thing that attracts people with no patience clamoring for updates literally one day after the video goes up. go figure. bad vibes all around.

also, if you’re wondering about the quality of the reading (i’ve stumbled on some pretty good ai voices as of late!), it’s, uh. i don’t actually know about how all this works, but i feel like when you pick a voice to read a story it should at least be able to approximate character name pronunciation. and flow.

but alas.

i also don't want to bash the authors in question but the truth is from the very minimal poking around i did (not giving this channel any more of my time than absolutely necessary), the writing featured is....mediocre at best. which is fine and good for the fandom ecosystem and i will NEVER be anything but happy that people are writing and posting less-than-perfect works, especially since some of these premises are pretty unique and i think it's better to have the fic than not. we all start somewhere, fanfic is an excellent way to practice and get feedback at the same time, etc.

but these channels, these kinds of operations, they're going to prey on new and young authors and that's who is going to be saying yes to them. because they want the exposure, they want to be told their work is good enough for someone else to care to record it for youtube, they haven't been around long enough to recognize this for what it is: someone taking extreme shortcuts to get views and likes and a bit of notoriety off of other people's work. and that's shit.

and remember that youtube videos can be monetized!

now, i doubt this channel in particular has been monetized, although it does meet the minimum requirements as far as numbers go:

it shouldn't meet the requirements for the monetization policies, specifically these ones:

especially with the disclaimer in the beginning that the content is not their own--which might be why previous versions of the channel did not give credit. who knows.

however, youtube DID just have some scandals about people making videos that were pretty much entirely plagiarized, which were monetized, so i don't have the highest hopes in the world. still, it doesn't seem monetized, so no strikes against this particular creator for that, at least, but defo something to look out for if anyone ever brings up hosting podfics on youtube.

so yeah, bot spam, not a complete scam this time but definitely really sketchy, bad vibes all around. and i still kind of want to give them permission to use my fic just to see what would happen, lmao

[nedjemetsenen]

Why do Fanfic writers generally hate “constructive” criticism?

This is a topic that comes across my dash a couple times a month, but those posts generally focus on how unsolicited criticism is rude. Today, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the ways that it’s also generally useless even if you’re trying to be helpful. To do this, I will be using examples from my own comment section, but please do not seek those comments out. This post is about informing, not about creating a hate mob.

Issue One: You don't know if your criticism is already known

No story is perfect. There will always be flaws. Sometimes you find a flaw that the author can improve on. Sometimes you pick up on something that the author accepted as a flaw during the writing process for whatever reason. It may have been because they're writing for fun. It may have been because they liked the flawed version of the story better than the story without the flaw. It may be because they genuinely didn't know how to fix it, but still wanted to tell the story flaw and all.

To give an example of this, here’s an excerpt from a truly lovely comment where the person also tried to give some helpful feedback:

you did a fantastic job with the characters you altered to fit the story. They were mostly rounded and felt like whole people instead of cardboard cut-outs. However, this made the characters that you didn't change feel very flat. [List of characters] often felt like window dressing, like they were included solely because they were part of the original show.

This is exactly why those characters showed up in that fic and the issue of them being window dressing isn’t something that I introduced. It’s a flaw in the original work. To fix this issue, I would have cut these characters or merged them into one character. But this wasn’t original fiction. It was fanfiction, so I decided to sacrifice quality for the sake of honoring the source as it felt wrong to remove these guys when they’re a classic part of the roster. I also actively chose to not develop them more as it would have killed the pacing and added nothing to the story I was trying to tell. There are characters that I arguably should have given more screen time to in that fic, but these were not those characters.

Issue Two: Timeliness

Unless the story is newly published, you have no idea if your criticism is still useful. Even if it is newly published, how long has the fic been going for? Are you critiquing a chapter from 3 years ago or last week? Unless it’s the latest chapter, you don’t know. Even if it is the latest chapter, you don’t know when it was written. Sometimes people find an old work of theirs and just post it without editing because they don’t want to edit and they know people will enjoy the story as-is. Sometimes people write the whole fic and then post it week by week while they work on the next one.

I recently had someone ask me for some feedback on a section of dialogue and I pointed out an area for potential improvement. The person who asked for the feedback has read some of my stuff and pointed out that I’d used a similar technique in a fic and they were absolutely correct. I had. But the fic was a few years old and I simply haven’t yet taken the time to go back and edit all 100k+ of it. I write at least a quarter of a million words every year and that means that I’m always learning. It’s incredibly rare for me to reread an old piece of mine without finding something to edit. It won’t always be something major, but it’s there. Waiting. Taunting me.

Along similar lines, if you're pointing out a flaw that's specific to the story, I'm not sure what you're expecting to happen next. While some writers go back and edit old works (I certainly have), a lot of writers consider older works done and prefer to focus on new ones.

Issue Three: Most people are shockingly bad at giving good constructive criticism.

Constructive criticism is a skill that you have to learn and practice. It’s also genuinely difficult to learn as it's the difference between helping a person tell the story that you want to read and helping them tell the best version of the story that they want to tell. The first is not good crit, but it is the crit that most people give.

There are times when I’ll beta for a fic and think “that character would never do that”, but that’s terrible feedback because I’m imposing my version of the character over the author’s take on the character and they’re not trying to tell a story with my headcanons. They’re using theirs and my job as an editor/beta is to accept that and help them tell their story as best they can.

I've also been given feedback like this. Here’s an excerpt from a comment where someone pointed out something that they didn’t like in one of my fics:

it's cute to see him like this once in a while but he's a grown man and "adorable" feels a little out of place in this situation

This is utterly useless feedback and I will die on that hill. In my opinion, I wrote this character perfectly because this is how I see him. It’s my headcanon and the version of him that you'll see in all of my fics. What’s funny is that I actually think that I got the female lead in this story a bit wrong. I should have toned her down, but this was early in my journey to learn these characters and then we’re back to issue two.

Final Thoughts

If an author asks for constructive criticism, then absolutely feel free to give it to them, but if you've ever wondered why most authors don't, the above is probably why. It's why I only welcome grammatical corrections and historical/cultural accuracy corrections on my own fics. Those are the only comments that I've ever found useful.

There are times when I seek out other types of feedback. I just don't get it from random readers after the story is already published. I get it from select individuals during the writing process and that's the feedback process favored by most writers as it's the one that's most likely to lead to improvement.

If you ever come across a fic that you love, but you feel like it could use an editor, my advice is to leave a comment saying how much you love the story and then offer to beta read (the fandom word for an editor. No I don't know why fandom has a different definition for that word than the definition used in the publishing industry. It just is what it is.) And if you don't want to take the time to beta for someone, that's okay! But if you don't want to make the massive time commitment to truly help the person improve, then maybe don't give unsolicited feedback that's more likely to make them stop writing altogether? I promise you, that person will improve on their own just by writing more. I certainly did! If you read the fanfic that I wrote when I was 13, you'd be shocked by how bad it is compared to my current stuff.

I personally consider that fact a source of pride.

[thegirlwhowrites642]

Do you think one of the problems with Hermione is that we never see her in the real world as an adult? It is quite possible that once the war is over that is when Hermione grows up more, finally settled down she can look more inwards.

Whilst I’m not excusing the poor writing of her character in the later books you point out, we all grow up at different rates. I know I certainly grew up a lot since leaving school, particularly going to work and doing Uni.

[in reference to this post]

You know, I'd love to tell you that it is a possibility. It is something I was open to. While Hermione's lack of growth is a clear display of bad writing, I could live with it. Like, ok, she is not the main character, and she is not the love interest therefore her emotional sphere is not that relevant. But Rowling completely destroyed any possibility of that with the information she gave about Hermione's career.

According to JKR, this is Hermione's career:

She arrives at the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and she is absolutely perfect, she fixes everything for house elves

Then she skyrockets to Deputy Head of Law Enforcements where she's instrumental for some revolutionary laws (laws done from a position in law enforcement??? Seriously Joanne???)

And then she becomes Minister of Magic

Now, obviously, this reinforces the idea that Hermione never learns what failure is because apparently, the world goes according to her especially when you consider that:

Hermione canonically does NOT understand how to deal with systematic discrimination.

Hermione repitedely shows in the story to be petty and vengeful and absolutely ruthless in punishing people that she believes to have no excuses for what are, according to her, bad behaviours, and she never shows remorse: Rita in the jar, scarring Marrietta for life, giving Umbridge to the Centaurus, interfering with Quidditch tryouts because Cormarc in her opinion is rude, attacking Ron with the canaries. Her being slightly more merciful of Luna's father doesn't count as growth (one that regardless would be unjustified) because he is the father of one of her friends and he is trying to save her, therefore, it's an understandable action in her view. Anyone who has ever opened a philosophy of law book can tell you that you really don't want people like Hermione in law enforcement.

Hermione is absolutely unfit for such a political role as Minister of Magic. It's a role that highlights all her flaws. She is not charismatic, she does not have leadership skills, and she is not open to compromise, and so on... (Also, another Minister of Magic from Law Enforcement?? Someone needs to send Rowling to law school)

If I have to take this information as canon then I'm obliged to assume that Hermione's role in the war played a huge factor in her success and that she never learned that having the highest most prestigious position is not what really matters and gives her value.

I'm also obliged to assume that once she becomes Minister of Magic, a role she is extremely unfit for, she inevitably fails spectacularly after like forty years of not dealing with her issues. Imagine the mental breakdown after that. Now, there I would see Ron and Hermione getting a divorce.

And, listen, I'm not a best-selling author, but I think it would have made a lot more sense to give Hermione this post-canon story:

She goes to work for the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures because, despite the fact that she does not understand how to deal with systematic discrimination, her heart is in the right place and she really cares and that's one of Hermione's best qualities and it should be valued. Once she arrives there, for the first time she is really challenged. She finally faces her lack of knowledge on the subject. She fails spectacularly and has the proper mental breakdown she needs to have but someone in the department recognises her potential and takes her under their wing. And that's how she acquires a mentor. Hermione slowly but steadily learns how to work with other people, the complications of dealing with structures that have pretty much always existed in the wizarding world, how prejudice and psychology and politics and traditions all play a factor in systematic discrimination, how it's necessary to study the history of every oppressed category, how much nuance there can be in every situation, how long these processes are, and so on... And so Hermione learns also that she can be wrong. She grows into a department full of people who know her and can deal with her quirks but have also seen her improve greatly and she eventually becomes Head of the Department. A slightly more political role, but still practical. She has learned to pace herself and not aspire to a conventional top position for the hell of it but do something she truly cares about and is good at.

But hey, what do I know, right?

[totowlff]

chapter eight — as if i could ever keep a promise

➝ we don't always get what we want.

➝ word count: 3,9k

➝ warnings: none

➝ author’s notes: i apologize for the delay in bringing you a new chapter. these last few weeks have been a little complicated for me, as they culminated in me being fired from work. i'm not upset, as it was a job i wasn't a huge fan of, but coming full circle is always hard. i hope you enjoy this chapter and would love to hear your feedback.

Two agonizing, painfully slow weeks after Cassie’s embryo transfer, she was at her desk at work, trying to get something — anything — done, but her eyes kept sliding over to the clock in the corner of her computer, counting down the minutes until 3pm.

She was leaving work early today to go to the fertility clinic to find out the results of a blood test she’d provided a sample for earlier that morning, on her way into the office.

Cassie was nervous, but excited. The possibility that the cycle would not take had briefly occurred to her, but there were so many more reasons to believe that she was pregnant. The embryologist had confirmed that both her and Toto’s samples were of excellent quality. Both of them were in perfect health. She’d read the statistics and the failure rates, but even those numbers weren’t enough to dash her optimism.

The only thing that weighed on her at the moment was that Toto was not in the country at the moment. He was in China for a Grand Prix, and would be in Bahrain next weekend, and would not be returning to the UK between the two races. Toto had told her to call and give him the results as soon as she found out, but she didn’t really want to tell him that he’d be a father over the phone. 

Instead, Cassie was going to tell him in person when he got home the next weekend. She planned to surprise him with a gift that she’d ordered online the day after her embryo transfer that had recently arrived. 

It was an infant onesie with a gray-and-teal F1 car on the front, and text underneath the car that said “Future Mercedes Driver”. It certainly wasn’t produced by the team, and she knew she should probably forward it to the legal team so they could issue a cease and desist, but she bought it anyway. 

“It’s perfect,” she thought, when it arrived in her post a few days later. She put it in a gift box with teal tissue paper and tied it with an elegant bow with teal ribbon. 

As soon as 3pm came around, Cassie was out of the building like a shot. She barely noticed the scenery passing as she made the half-hour drive from Brackley to Oxford on the M40. 

By the time she was in the waiting room of the fertility clinic, she felt like she was about to jump out of her own skin from the nerves. 

When the receptionist called her name, Cassie bolted to her feet. She sat in the exam room, her leg bouncing incessantly as she waited. After a few minutes, Dr. Hodges, the clinic’s fertility specialist, came in with a laptop in hand.

— Good afternoon, Miss Aldersey. How are you today? — she said, taking a seat in the stool across from Cassie. She had a polite smile on her face. Cassie watched as she opened the laptop and logged in. 

— Hello. I’m… Good, but a bit nervous.

— Understandable — the doctor said — So, let’s just take a look at the results of your bloodwork and then we’ll discuss your next steps. Does that sound okay?

— Yes — Cassie said.

Dr. Hodges took a moment to look at the chart on the computer, and turned the screen toward Cassie.

— Unfortunately, it looks like this round didn’t take. See — she said, pointing to a line on the lab results — You tested negative for any presence of beta hGC, which is a hormone that your body starts producing when a fertilized egg implants. We start seeing it on blood tests around eleven days after conception, which is why you wait two weeks from the date of your transfer. Now, there is a chance this is a false negative, and we can re-test again in a week if you’d like, but…

Cassie felt strange all of a sudden, not really paying attention after she heard the words “didn’t take”. Or maybe it was that everything sounded muffled and distant. She felt like the blood had drained completely from her body, and like a giant pit had opened in her stomach. 

— S-so, I’m n-not pregnant? — Cassie stammered. 

— No, unfortunately not this time — Dr. Hodges said, giving Cassie a sympathetic glance — But, it’s not unusual for the first round to fail, it happens more often than not.

— I… I just thought… I… The embryologist said the samples were both good, and that we are both healthy, and…

— I know, I’m sorry. This is my least favorite part of this job, but, don’t worry, Miss Aldersey. It will happen, and it will all be worth it once you get there.

— I… Yeah — Cassie said, trying to get her bearings again. She glanced briefly around the exam room, looking at the posters on the wall. Most of them were colorful medical diagrams, one with the stages of embryonic development, one with a cross-section of a womb with a baby inside. Seeing the posters in that moment sort of stung, because it was not what her body would look like. Not now, at least — So, um… What now? How… I guess, what do I do now?

— Well, the first step is to stop taking your progesterone — Dr. Hodges said — It will induce a menstrual cycle, and then we wait four to six weeks before performing another embryo transfer. You have quite a few fertilized eggs, so we don’t have to have you go through the full stimulation cycle.

— We can’t… We can’t try again right away? — Cassie asked. She was starting to feel stressed now, she could feel her pulse pounding against her chest.

— Well — Dr. Hodges said — No. It’s possible, medically, but all of the hormones used for the ovarian stimulation are fairly intense, and can cause some inflammation, or ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which isn’t pleasant. The standard protocol is to let your body take a break from the hormones for at least one cycle. Plus, in my experience, it lets you take an emotional break, as well. IVF is stressful and tiring, and so much stress is going to do more harm than good.

— I… I guess that makes sense — Cassie said. 

— If you want, I can schedule you an exam, just a blood test and an ultrasound, once you’ve had your next period — Dr. Hodges said, trying to sound cheerful, doubtlessly for Cassie’s benefit — That way, we can check to make sure everything looks good before we proceed with a second transfer.

— I — Cassie hesitated. She’d budgeted the costs of the treatment carefully, but Toto joining her on the venture added some extra fees she hadn’t been considering; the costs of his exams and the fees to the solicitor. She knew Toto would gladly pay for his share if she asked. Hell, he’d probably pay for the entire process without prompting, but Cassie didn’t want to ask that of him. This was something she wanted, and she didn’t want anyone else to have to foot the bill for her dreams. However, she had a feeling that the money from her grandmother’s estate that she’d set aside was gone now — I will have to think about it. I also want to… You know… Talk to, um…

— Oh, yes, of course, you’ll be wanting to discuss things with Mr. Wolff. Well — Dr. Hodges said, closing her laptop — Go ahead and schedule an appointment after your period, if you’d like, and we can proceed from there.

The doctor extended her hand to shake Cassie’s before she opened the door and left.

Cassie sat in the empty, quiet exam room for a moment. She felt like she was going through some sort of strange, accelerated grieving process, with her emotions changing every few seconds as her thoughts raced. She took a few deep breaths to try to calm herself down before she left. She feebly waved goodbye to the receptionist as she walked out. 

Cassie needed to stop for a few groceries on her way home to her flat. She felt numb during the entire drive, like she was simply repeating an automated process, a route she’d gone so many times now, from the clinic, to the Sainsburys by her flat, to her flat. As she parked her car, she thought about calling Toto, but she realized, when she pulled her phone out of her purse and unlocked the screen, that it would be well past midnight in Shanghai by then. Toto would — or should, rather, be asleep. She couldn’t bring herself to bother him at this time of night.

She sighed heavily and put her phone back in her bag. 

As Cassie walked around Sainsbury’s, she felt like there was a massive weight on her shoulders, and like her shoes had been replaced with paving stones. She trudged aisle to aisle, barely paying attention to the things she was putting in her trolley. 

She kept catching sight of mothers and fathers with small children in their trolleys or holding their hands, which compounded her sadness. It wasn’t like anything was out of the ordinary in the shop that day, but the lack of possibility of her having children now made her see them everywhere. 

The universe saw fit to rub extra salt in her wounds, though, as she was absentmindedly looking at jars of jam, trying to decide which one she wanted. She’d just picked up a jar of apricot marmalade when she felt a tug on the leg of her trousers.

She turned around to see a small girl brandishing a box of Weetos cereal at her.

— Mummy, I want this one… Oh, sorry — she said, when Cassie turned around to reveal that she was, not, in fact, the girl’s mother. A woman came scrambling up behind Cassie, grabbing one of the girl’s hands. 

— Right here, sweetheart. Sorry about that — she said, nodding her head at Cassie and leading the child away toward her own trolley. 

They were gone before Cassie could even say anything.

She stood, anchored to the floor, between the jams and breads, her shoulders starting to shake from the effort of trying to not cry. She forced herself to take a few deep breaths to try to calm herself down. When she felt like she could move again, she went to the beer & wine section and grabbed three bottles of the first sauvignon blanc she laid eyes on without a second thought. 

Cassie managed to avoid crying on the rest of her drive home, but as soon as she was in her apartment, there was no reason to hold back any longer. She haphazardly jammed things in the refrigerator and freezer as tears streaked down her face. 

She uncorked a bottle of wine and took a swig, not even bothering to pour it into a glass, which she realized would probably make her mother faint. All the less reason to care, she thought, as she sat down on her sofa. She wailed into one of her throw pillows. It was the kind of full-body wracking sobs that toddlers did, too. 

Cassie knew she was quite the sight with her hair disheveled, her mascara and eyeliner making tracks down her cheeks, drinking directly from a cheap bottle of wine, but she didn’t care. It had been a while since she’d had both a good cry and anything to drink, so she felt entitled to both. 

It was a cycle — she would calm down, but she would remember the way her doctor looked at her, or the word “negative” on the line for bHCG on her chart, or she would imagine telling Toto that she wasn’t pregnant, and she would start crying all over again.

Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, just like a toddler would.

Cassie woke up on her sofa hours later, sweaty and disoriented. The lights in her flat were still on, she was still wearing her clothes from work that day. She even still had one shoe on. Her television was on, displaying the Netflix “Are you still there?” message, and there was an empty wine bottle and a bag of open chocolate candies spilling out on her coffee table.

She got up and turned her lights and television off. She stripped her clothes off and flung them into a haphazard pile in the corner of her bedroom, not even bothering to put on pajamas before she plugged her phone into the charger on her nightstand and went back to sleep.

Cassie hadn’t set an alarm, but a buzzing noise woke her up the next morning at around 8h30. She pawed at her table, hand searching for the device before she picked it up and squinted at the screen. Her heart sank when she saw Toto’s name. It was about 16h30 in Shanghai, so qualifying had likely just finished. 

She wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t know what to say. He was doubtlessly calling to find out how Cassie’s blood tests went, to find out if they were going to be parents. He was as excited as she was, which meant he was going to be as devastated as she was, too. It would be cruel to disappoint him so much now, when he was halfway around the world, with races to focus on. 

Cassie set her phone back down and let it ring until it stopped. 

She would figure out how to break the news later. 

Toto had left her a voicemail, which Cassie listened to when she had woken up a bit more.

— Hi Cassie — he said. His voice sounded soft and gentle, even happy — I know it’s only about 8 in the morning in Oxford, so you might not be awake yet, but I was just calling to say hello and to see how things went at the doctor yesterday. We just finished up qualifying, I don’t know if you were up and watching. Lewis got pole, and Valtteri got P3, so that’s good. Anyway, I’m going to go get dinner with Niki here shortly. Give me a call later when you’re awake, okay? Talk to you soon.

Fifteen minutes later, he tried calling again.

Cassie answered this time, but couldn’t think of what to say. Even “hello” wouldn’t come out of her mouth, for some reason.

— Hello? Cassie? Are you there? — she heard him say, before she panicked, and hung up.

She started crying again. It was all too much.

Cassie watched the race the next morning after a night of poor sleep. She’d been up for hours, thinking about all the plans she’d already made for the child she and Toto wouldn’t be having. 

During the race, she poured over her finances, her heart sinking when she realized that the addition of Toto’s tests and procedures, and the solicitor’s fees for their known donor agreement, had eaten the entirety of what she’d budgeted from her share of her grandmother’s estate, and then some. Her doctor had brought up the possibility of trying again, but there’d be no way to do that now. The process had gone hundreds of pounds over what she’d already set aside, and she couldn’t live with the thought of asking anyone else — not even Toto — to cover the costs of another round.

Not even watching Lewis claim victory in the Chinese Grand Prix, or Mercedes move ahead in the constructor’s standings over Ferrari, could lift her spirits. 

By the time she went back to work on Monday, Cassie felt numb. She wasn’t sleeping well. She barely had an appetite. She’d consumed more wine than anything else over that weekend, and was dealing with a persistent hangover as a result. She continued to ignore Toto’s phone calls and messages. She still didn’t know how to tell him. 

Tuesday was worse.

Stopping the progesterone brought on an intense, monstrous period, the likes of which she hadn’t had in years.

Cassie’s head was pounding. Her mood was worse than before, which she would have thought was impressive if she didn’t feel so awful. On the upside, she had an appetite again, but it was insatiable, making her feel worse with the arrival of bloating that made it impossible to put her pants on. A patch of fresh acne on her jawline was the cherry on top, but the worst was when the bleeding actually started. Before, the slim possibility of a false negative was something she was hanging onto, a small ray of light in the darkness.

But now, she had the final confirmation: she wasn’t pregnant.

She called in sick on Wednesday and stayed in bed, both from the pain of the more-intense cramping and from the feeling like she was drowning.

By that point, Toto had called at least once per day, and sent several WhatsApp messages. She’d read them, and she’d typed a few responses, but couldn’t actually gather the courage to press “send” on any of them.

She didn’t listen to every voicemail he’d left, but the one she did listen to crushed her.

— Cassie, please, I don’t know what’s wrong, or what I did, but please let me know you’re okay — he said — I’m in Sakhir now, and it’s only three hours ahead, so, please, give me a call and let me know what’s going on. I’m worried about you, I haven’t heard from you in almost a week and… I just don’t know what’s going on. I lo… I miss… Okay. Give me a call. Please. Goodbye.

By the time Friday came — a week since Cassie found out that she wasn’t pregnant, she’d at least stopped crying out of the blue. It was like she physically wasn’t able to any longer. She felt as empty and hollow as her womb was.

She still felt horrid about never responding to Toto, and kept making excuses for herself. 

“This is something he needs to hear in person”, she thought. “I’ve acted so awful this week he probably doesn’t want to have a child with me any more anyway.” 

Still, though, she missed him terribly. She would pay any price for him to be back in Oxford with her, because surely, he would be able to take away the deep, constant pain she’d been feeling for a week now. She felt like she’d failed herself, and her own ambitions, but she’d let Toto down as well. 

Somewhere, in the more rational side of her brain, Cassie knew that it was a possibility that the first round wouldn’t work, but she thought it was because of cases where couples had to utilize IVF because of other factors that drove infertility — medical issues on the part of either party that made it so those couples had difficulty conceiving naturally — things that didn’t apply to Cassie and Toto. They were only doing it this way because they weren’t together like a traditional couple, which meant that they weren’t really in a position to try to do things the old-fashioned way.

Cassie’s failure tortured her so much that the only way she’d been able to get any sleep was to imagine that he was there with her as she laid down, imagining herself laying in his arms, like when he’d offered to hold her after her embryo transfer. If she tried hard enough, she could remember the solid warmth of his chest against her back, the fresh, clean scent of his cologne, and how gentle his hands were, in spite of how big they were. Her imagination could only offer her a pale imitation of the real thing, but it was the only way she was able to relax enough to let herself sleep.

As she watched television coverage of the race in Bahrain, her heart squeezed every time one of the television cameras panned to him. Maybe it was Cassie’s imagination, but he didn’t look all that well, either. His hair was in varying states of sticking up in odd places, which Cassie knew was from him running his hand through it whenever he got stressed. His brow seemed to be furrowed constantly, like he was worried about something. 

She wanted to see him again, to talk to him, but now, she thought she didn’t deserve to.

His phone calls became less and less frequent as his trip came to an end.

Given the result of the Bahrain Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel winning the race and Ferrari retaking the lead of the Constructors Championship, Cassie thought Toto would have other things to worry about after he got back. 

Cassie realized at some point that she needed to talk to somebody about what she was going through, even if she’d missed her chance to talk to Toto about it. Not for the first time, she wished that her and her mother had the kind of relationship that most mothers and daughters had, because this seemed like the sort of thing one would talk to their mother about. 

However, she did have an eccentric, but kind, aunt. While Sybil had never wanted to have children, she would probably be sympathetic to Cassie’s plight, so she called her aunt after she got home on Monday.

— I’m sorry, ma étoile, that sounds awful. If it helps, I know your sister didn’t have an easy time when she was trying to get pregnant. Your father, of course, was a real knob about it, and it didn’t help that your brother and his wife got pregnant right away. I remember him saying, “it’s always the mare and not the stallion”, as if you can compare horses to people — Sybil said — Your father gave Helena such a hard time about it, but it happened eventually, and it will for you, too.

Cassie sighed. She hadn’t known about that, because she had already stopped talking to her parents around the time Helena got married. 

Actually, it was a fight at Helena’s wedding that made Cassie realize that it was probably better for all involved if she didn’t speak to her parents any more. She had to do some mental subtraction to figure out how long ago that was — eight years now, when Cassie was twenty-seven.

— I remember that — Cassie said — That thing about mares and stallions. I never understood that, because even his reproductive veterinarian told him that wasn’t always the case.

Talking about horses, though, made something clear to Cassie, something she didn’t like about the IVF process.

She remembered that her father’s barn switched from live covering — the process of two horses physically mating to produce a foal — to IVF, sometime in the nineties, when Cassie was young. It was easier and more cost-effective, her dad said, to manage breeding so many horses that way. Plus, they could buy sperm from stallions from other farms to produce, saving the cost of having to transport stallions and mares around. But the whole process that Cassie was going through reminded her of that, and made her feel like a broodmare — and not a prized one, either. 

She was hoping to be done with it, especially when she imagined her father talking to her like a mare that wasn’t successfully bred. 

“Well, there must be something wrong with this one,” he’d say. “Bad blood will out, you know”.

— And what did Toto say when you told him it didn’t take? — Sybil said. It caught Cassie off-guard, though she supposed she should have been expecting that question.

— I… Uh… he doesn’t know yet — Cassie said, shyly. 

— What do you mean? Surely you had to have told him. He’s supposed to be the father!

— Well, he was out of the country for a doubleheader, and I — Cassie said. She sighed — I didn’t want to tell him over the phone, and… I wasn’t sure what to say anyway. He’ll be back in the office tomorrow, I think, so I guess I will talk to him then…

She didn’t.

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 382: Don’t Let Him Go

Two big lengthy segments today (guess what about) and some shorter observations. I'll just go ahead and put the jump here, shall I?

On Toga:

It’s hard to talk rationally about the drama with Toga this week, both because 

(A) The early leaks led to a lot of discussion centered on Toga and love and why—as the leaks expressed quite baldly—she doesn’t love Shigaraki and Dabi, and the bad takes are like unto a lingering poison I have to shake.

and

(B)  It feels so overwhelmingly like a copout.

There’s so much that can be theorized about Toga's dilemma and to what extent Tsuyu's assumptions about her love are correct, but I find it difficult to engage in good faith because it just feels so cheap. This is an almost Platonic example of arbitrary complications that are only a problem because the author says they are, not because they flow naturally from previously established facts.  If the Shigaraki that couldn’t make his quirk go off were a Toga-disguised-as-Shigaraki, that would be one thing, and you could move into discussion of her feelings freely.  But so far as we’re presented with, it’s not—it’s just a clone Shigaraki, exactly like any other Jin could have made himself.

Jin never had any problems with creating incomplete doubles.  If he didn’t understand something well enough, it wouldn’t look perfect on the surface despite missing core aspects internally; it would just immediately turn into sludge, like his attempt at replicating Overhaul’s quirk-erasing bullet.  Likewise, the various members of the League Jin doubled never manifested Jin’s own psychological need to cover his face to keep from splitting; that always remained unique to him and his self-doubles.

So why do doubles Toga makes have her emotional restriction?  Well, because the author said so.  Because Horikoshi couldn’t have this whole field of heroes be annihilated by a single double—even though, from all we knew about how Double worked before, that should be exactly what happened—so he had to come up with some arbitrary explanation why dozens of people haven’t been dusted where they stand.

As far as (A) goes, I think the real translation is more nuanced than the blunt statements in the leaks, and certainly the chapter as a whole is much more nuanced than the wild leaps people started making when all they had to go on was Tsuyu’s hypothesis—that people immediately took as fact—that Toga doesn’t love Shigaraki and Dabi.  For myself, I’m not inclined to second-guess Toga on her own experience of her feelings of love, what qualifies and what doesn’t.  She says she loves Touya and Tomura; I have to read that as at least as credible a claim as her love for Ochaco and Deku.

So where does that leave me?  Well, I think there are two major possible explanations for Toga’s problems that aren’t just the incredibly reductive and insulting, “She doesn’t love them.”  Both have some sub-issues of their own, but, well, that’s what comes of this whole development being dictionary-definition Arbitrary.

Theory 1:  Toga’s love always been tied up in her sense of wanting to become more and more like the objects of her affection.  She doesn’t just love Ochaco; she wants to become Ochaco.  So maybe the issue is that, while she loves Shigaraki and Dabi, she doesn’t particularly want to become them, and it’s the desire to emulate, rather than the love, that actually defines her ability to use quirks.

That would be consistent with the way her quirk evolution was portrayed in Chapter 226—much more consistent, even, than the idea that her “love” is the key factor.  Back then, the thought that’s on her mind as Curious comes in for the kill is, “I wanna be just like you.”  When she uses Ochaco’s quirk to kill, her spoken line is, “I wanna be even more like the people I love.”  Love is a factor, certainly, but it’s filtered through that additional qualifier.  This would mean everyone involved[1] has misread Toga’s condition in a small but crucially important way.

I can see two immediate problems with this theory, but both are fairly minor.

First, Toga never showed any particular desire to emulate Jin, but she’s obviously using his quirk—not without issues, but using it all the same.  This one’s fairly easy to get around, in that it would be very easy to say that she didn’t want to become Jin before he was killed, and her desire to do so now is inseparable from the fact that he was murdered.  Does she want to become him so he won’t be gone from her life?  So she can carry out revenge for him?  That’s fairly immaterial; as long as she does want to become him, his quirk becomes accessible.

Second, Toga has shown signs of emulating Shigaraki and, to a more debatable extent, Dabi.  While it’s not as full-throated as for Ochaco, obviously, Chapter 226 ends with Toga thinking that whatever she hates must be destroyed—right, Tomura?  Likewise, people have pointed out that Toga’s pose on the 339 color spread could be her copying his Frankenstein’s monster hands pose from 191.  So there’s at least some basis for Toga mimicking or adopting aspects of Shigaraki and Dabi, which would undercut the idea that she doesn’t want to become them ergo she can’t use their quirks. A single line of dialogue and a highly interpretable pose in a non-canon color spread make a pretty thin objection, though, so I don’t regard them as hard evidence against the theory.

Theory 2:  Toga’s transformation into Twice is flawed, so his quirk isn’t working to its fullest.  A flawed transformation would line up with that extremely unsubtle page of Toga agonizing about why she can’t become Jin overlaid against a background of thoughts about hero mass extinction that are highly un-Jin-like.  It would also point to the Sad Man’s Death Parade not being made up of Togas-transformed-into-Jin, which I had thought was the explanation for why they were so deathly silent compared to the riotous clamor the Sad Man’s Parade raised in Deika.  Rather, they are clones of Jin, but they’re flawed clones, strained through Toga’s grief and overpowering hatred, choking out Jin’s actual character: chatty, protective, desperately loyal.  If those distorted copies have Toga’s emotions, it makes a certain amount of sense that they’d also have her restrictions.

This one runs into serious trouble with my (B) objection, above, particularly the idea that Twice’s own quirk was always very all or nothing—it either works or it gloops, no in between.  If Toga’s attempt to use Jin’s quirk is reflecting a flawed understanding of Jin, she shouldn’t really get usable copies at all, just sludge.  As for explaining away this problem, well, we might say that quirks are pretty weird, so Transform and Double having some unpredictable interactions isn’t entirely out of bounds.  It’s just, again, deeply arbitrary.

I can't help but think, whatever the explanation, that there are ways around a hero massacre that wouldn't have required kneecapping Toga with nonsensical quirk restrictions. It's not as if we lack precedent for clones being way less dangerous than the real things!  The Shigaraki/Dabi/AFO clones were probably made by the bazillionth Himijin clone, so are about as strong as wet paper.  They'd also take longer to make, because it always took Jin longer to make clones of other people than clones of himself.  Just get Hawks off of AFO-sitting-duty and back down to the field to put feathers through any League/AFO-clones that are reaching out their hands in dangerous ways.

Heck, you could even further the teamwork themes by having Hawks—who's probably a bit low on feathers to do that whole thing himself—be the eye in the sky to coordinate everyone else!  (This might then leave him open to Actual Toga, who still deserves to knife him and has inexplicably not gotten to do so yet.)

Anyway.  I guess we’ll see how it develops.  I’m not against Toga having some good crunchy anguish, heaven knows, but it would be nice if it didn’t feel so mandated by the need to stop her from murdering a dozen acres’ worth of on-the-ground heroes.

One other thing, though, before I leave Toga and move on to the other big headache this chapter.  Tsuyu says, “It seems like Himiko-chan’s own restriction applies to the doubles she makes after transforming into Twice.  (...)  In an extreme situation like this, a single emotion could override that restriction at any second.”  That’s extra dangerous because of—and I don’t know if Tsuyu knows this or not—one of the factors in how Double works, or at least could be read as working.

Recall that back during MVA, we were told that the doubles Twice makes of other people are limited to what their real selves knew at the last time real!Twice saw them, but that this limitation doesn’t apply to Twice himself.  I never could 100% parse that, but one of the logical explanations is a sort of instant knowledge transmission—that anything the original knew, any double of him made would also know, even if it was itself made by a double that wasn't present for whatever new thing just happened.

Would this have applied only to new clones, each created as an up-to-the-minute copy of Original Jin and then lagging behind as they slide into their own experience?  Or is every clone updated moment to moment such that they stay accurate reflections of Jin?  That’s unclear thanks to the vague phrasing, but if the knowledge transmission works the same way for Toga, and she resolves her crisis and suddenly becomes able to create quirk-capable clones, then whether every Himijin on the field can abruptly do the same or only newly created Himijins, it’s an instant ticket to The Worst Situation either way.

(I’m rooting for you, Himiko!  Resolve that crisis!  Go go go!)

On Shinsou and Gigantomachia: 

On the one hand, this is the exact opposite of arbitrary authorial handwaves.  I can look back over Shinsou’s arc all the way back to the Sports Festival and see the groundwork being laid for this.  Indeed, I’d say all of his major appearances, combined with what we know about Machia, contributed to the setup for this.

At the Sports Festival, we learned that he could take control of people by tricking them into responding to them.  By the Joint Training arc, he’d picked up a support item that allowed him to mimic others’ voices.  In MVA, Machia was shown to be fanatically loyal to AFO, a trait that could be particularly guided by the sound of his master’s voice.

After the traitor reveal, Shinsou mind-controlled the Aoyamas through their phone call with AFO.  Since he can’t force people to do anything that requires much mental engagement (here meaning he couldn’t just order the Aoyamas to respond to AFO the way AFO expected them to), we must assume he needed to be able to hear AFO’s side of that phone in order to respond to it properly.  Thus, that phone call enabled him to learn what AFO’s voice sounded like such that he could later mimic it.

It all fits!  It fits extremely elegantly, more so than the vast majority of the late-stage twists have done thus far.

And yet...  And yet.

And yet it’s morally dubious and frankly, the Machia we were introduced to in MVA deserves better than this.

I know most people don’t care about Gigantomachia—indeed, the post-MVA series has not gone out of its way to encourage us to do so—but imagine for a moment that this wasn’t Machia attacking AFO.  Imagine it were Mister Compress.  He’s much too chatty to not trip into responding to Shinsou, and then he could be dropped in front of, say, Toga in hopes that seeing him would cause her to drop her guard long enough for Mr. Compress to be ordered into marbling her.

Wouldn’t that feel incredibly shitty, manipulative, and even outright villainous?  Especially for the kid whose entire character arc is about proving that he can use his quirk in non-villainous ways?  Like, Shinsou immobilizing Machia would be one thing, making him walk back into his cell, something like that would entirely fine. Actually forcing him to attack his own allies, however, is many, many steps past fine.

And it’s not like AFO doesn’t deserve to have a mountain thrown at him, but does Machia deserve to be forced to throw it?  Well, I could talk about that,[2] but as I see it, it’s a moot point.

Forcing enemies to fight their own allies, just so we’re all clear here, would be considered a war crime if this were a duly declared war situation.[3]  It isn’t a war, not least because the heroes are a nominally civilian force fighting against their own nation’s criminals, but, hot take, anything that would constitute a literal war crime in an international conflict is not something that should get readers cheering for the wholesome good guy heroes just because the crime’s being perpetrated against their own people.

Even if you set aside the ethics of the situation, though (which you by no means should), I have to ask about the tactical wisdom of bringing Machia to the field as well.  So Shinsou's controlling him now, awesome; we’ve weaponized one of the villains against their own side.

What happens when that control wears off?  Or Shinsou gets wounded (or worse) and loses focus?  Or AFO warps Machia out of there, likely out of Shinsou’s range of control?  Or Machia breaks himself out of the control because that’s just how much it agonizes him to be forced to fight his beloved master?  Or AFO breaks him out of the control because Machia is conditioned to respond to his voice, and he’s got the right smell to go with it?  Or literally anything because this is not a permanent solution but now Machia's out of prison and on the field with AFO, great job, team!!!

Another issue a chat friend brought up: Machia’s basically just retracing the path he took before—from the Villa to Jakku then back again.  Given how incredibly destructive that was before, how destructive was it this time?  Did they swerve around every settled area on the way?  Just run over it again because, heck, it’s not like anyone’s had time to repair it anyway?  ‘Cause like, back in Chapter 282, when the radio was running through the list of places that needed to be evacuated, the announcer listed twenty names before Uraraka picked up her line of dialogue, interrupting any further roll call of affected areas.

Furthermore, all the places listed were called cities—shi in the Japanese, the largest of Japan’s three municipal categories.  There are also towns (machi) and villages (mura), neither of which were mentioned in the broadcast, but which must surely also be scattered along Machia’s route.  That’s a lot of municipality to swerve around; would it even be feasible to do so and still reach the battle in a relatively timely fashion?  How much time has elapsed since we saw the Jakku battlefield in 353, at which point Machia was still down and dreaming?  How much time is that compared to how long it took Machia to clear the villa and arrive at Jakku in the previous war?

Machia’s travel times have always been a frankly impossible abstraction,[4] but seriously, it ought to take considerably more time to navigate around every clutch of houses in his path than to just plow through them.[5]  Unless, again, the kids just said fuck it and ran back over the path he took before, trusting that it was still an evacuated wasteland.  Which, while it doesn’t account for those who declined to evacuate to begin with, might be a fair bet—I can’t imagine the government’s shelling out much for repair and construction with things still so unsettled—but would still be a pretty bad look for Team Hero.

Stray Thoughts:

O  The layout of the narration boxes on the first page is very fun.

O  AFO is obvious, but I wonder why Dabi and not Shigaraki for Tsuyu’s pick on people they’d be doomed if Toga had chosen to transform into.  Shigaraki’s ranged Decay is by some measure deadlier, and that’s not even getting into everything else Shigaraki’s packing now.  Meanwhile, Dabi has still yet to kill a single named character.

O  Tsuyu calls Toga Himiko-chan, which is certainly A Choice she’s consciously making, given that last time they met, Tsuyu was still rebuking Toga not to address her by her given name.  Suffice to say, it’s a pretty strong suggestion that Tsuyu and Ochaco have had at least one serious conversation about Ochaco’s intentions towards Toga.  I wish we could have seen it, but I suppose there’s always a chance of flashbacks.

O  The panel of “Twice” with Toga’s eyes is a very nice touch.  I assume it’s not meant to be literal—the “Camie” the reader first meets at the License Exam also has Toga’s eyes, which are wildly different from Real Camie’s eyes, a discrepancy you’d think her classmates would have noticed if it were meant to be a true depiction of her appearance.[6]  Anyway, Ochaco doesn’t recognize her by the eyes; she recognizes her by the tears.

…Which is ironic, really, given that Jin was by far the most openly weepy of the League.

O  Teen AFO is great, but what I find most striking is the shadows beneath his eyes.  Specifically, the way they so strongly resemble the hollows beneath Shigaraki’s in e.g. Chapter 373.

I don’t know if this means anything, but it’s an interesting visual parallel.  I wonder if Yoichi was not the only brother prone to frailty as a youth?

-------------------- FOOTNOTES --------------------

1:  Tsuyu, who makes deductions based on it this week, Toga herself, who states it in Chapter 289; Ochaco, who heard it from Toga’s own mouth in the same chapter; and Dabi, back in 241, who probably also heard it from Toga at some point post-Deika.

2:  Mostly I’d say that since we know neither what AFO did to earn Machia’s loyalty nor how much say Machia had in the walking disaster he’s become, we don’t actually have enough context to say what he “deserves” and what he doesn’t, and that it’s not the heroes’ job to unilaterally dispense that justice regardless.

3:  Article 130 of the Geneva Conventions, which includes “compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of the hostile Power” as one of several “grave breaches” of the Conventions that constitute a war crime.

4:  As has been the case for all the travel times this arc has flippantly handwaved.

5: Because if plowing through them would take him longer than running around them, he would have run around them the first time, the sooner to make it to Master’s side.

6:  Oddly enough, “Camie” only has Toga’s eyes for the first phase of the exam.  Once Toga switches transformations to Ochaco to target Deku and then shifts back into Camie after, her eyes look the Real Camie’s.  I haven’t done a thorough hunt, but she manifests Ochaco’s and Deku’s eyes normally at Deika and the Shie Hassaikai raid.

[dropoff99]

—On WoT fandom disagreements and such—

Been reading WoT since 1998. For most of my life it was THE fantasy series as far as I was concerned and still is in many ways. The world and the characters were simply deeper and more realized than anything I was reading. The roster of fantastic characters, scale, the magic system, masterful use of multiple POVs, metaphysics, and general lore Jordan created pulled me in and wouldn’t let me go.

I stilI have visceral memories of the time around RJ’s death, distinctly feeling like nothing resembling a proper ending was going to come to what I felt like was the best fantasy series around . Very few other fantasy authors prior to his passing were eager to cite Jordan in tones of reverence. If anything many “serious” fantasy fans were embarrassed to admit they loved the infamously long series which was the peak of the genre once but had more or less stalled out. Knife of Dreams was amazing to me personally but with RJ’s death and the slog prior you couldn’t argue that a satisfying ending was on the horizon. Fantasy authors like George RR Martin (despite being a friend of RJ’s and WoT definitely influencing both his work and success) constantly railed against many of the tropes of the genre (Chosen ones, Tolkien imitation, lack of moral ambiguity, plot armor, etc.) that Jordan reimagined/leaned into early on. It also didn’t help that Martin didn’t exactly argue when people made critiques of WoT in front of him either (like the famous Stephen King interview he did much later). This wouldn’t really matter if these sentiments were not so common among fantasy readers when Sanderson hopped on board. What was clear to me very early on after reading TGS was that not only was Sanderson a fan but he clearly understood the gravity of finishing the series and the care/respect he had for both the community and Jordan’s legacy was evident. I never had the feeling that it was an outsider coming in who just didn’t “get” the wheel of time. Secondly what Brandon did very well is communicate what was special about the series as a whole to new readers.

I have my issues just like anyone else but I genuinely have enormous respect for the work that both Team Jordan and Sanderson did under circumstances that were obviously not ideal. I can see the arguments regarding Sanderson’s religious/political overtones entering his other works but certainly not Wheel of Time. Yeah he didn’t completely overhaul every institution Jordan created and had to resort to quicker solutions. I’m also not going feign any sort of religiosity or be his apologetic in that regard and consider it to be the thing I like least about Stormlight. His worldview/biases of course will remain (just like Jordan’s). However I really don’t think you can deny he was an enormous fan who had genuine love and respect for both the series and Jordan himself. The fact that Harriet (Jim’s widow and long time editor) picked him based on his work and eulogy mean a lot to me. The reverence with which Harriet still seems to hold for BS and the job he and Team Jordan did seems to indicate that at the very least the people closest to the work and previous author felt that the promise of Jordan’s vision was delivered as best as could be expected.

I’m not someone who is without criticisms for BS. I envisioned the direction of Mat, Padan Fain, Perrin, Logain, Nyanaeve and several others very differently after reading the story well over a decade by that point. I missed Jordan’s unique style on character perspective and gift for painting a visual I could walk into mentally. But I also think in retrospect Sanderson was the perfect choice outside RJ to do the job. Some of his weaknesses at the time (barreling through plot, lack of rich setting, hasty exposition etc.) actually worked in his favor as he converged gigantic swathes of character arcs which still required three massive books. I respect those who think Sanderson’s choices were bad. And if you really hate the guy based on political/religious views go off I guess. I just don’t see how claiming he doesn’t respect Robert Jordan or his legacy holds any water at all. Or at the very least, as someone who’s been paying attention to the community my entire adolescent+adult life, I have not seen compelling evidence for that to be the case.

[thereaderinsertlady]

Hello! :D This is for the Quest Tober event!!! 🎃

How about a platonic Nastasia x with a Scare Actor Reader? Maybe it's like that scene in Spooky Month where Streber is doing their stuff and gets...pretty badly injured. Established relationship is preferred, but platonic or romantic is up to you!

Hello there! I.. strayed a little from the prompt lmao, but I still think it's cute! It can be interpreted as platonic or romantic. Here's the link on ao3 and I hope you enjoy!

Nastasia & Reader - Dress up and Gossip

“Just stay still, k?”

“It’s… hard to stay still when I have to sneeze!”

Putting on makeup wasn’t your strong suit. However, since you were going to play the role of a scare actor in a haunted mansion, you needed to prepare for tonight. Mimi was long gone and you sure as hell aren’t going to ask Dimentio for help even if he is around, so you had to go for your next best option– Nastasia. 

You tried your best to keep still as she gently brushed something onto your skin, but a tickle in your nose threatened to betray you. You were currently in her room, sitting by an old dresser that had a mirror.

"Just don’t move, k?" Nastasia commanded, her tone a mix of authority and amusement. “If you sneeze, then I’ll end up messing up your makeup.”

“But…” You slightly scrunched up your nose. 

She sighed, pulling back the brush and giving you some space. Though, your sneeze quickly went away. You offered her a sheepish smile.

Nastasia squinted at you before huffing, getting back to work. After a while, she spoke up again. “When do you have to be at the mansion?”

You glanced at the clock, noting the time. "I should be there in about an hour. The event starts at seven, so I want to make sure I'm all set up before then," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady. You were already in your outfit for tonight, so you only had to worry about Nastasia finishing up your face.

“Would you like me to teleport you straight there when I’m done?” She asked, applying something to your cheek. 

You gave a meek smile. “That would be very much appreciated.”

Nastasia stayed quiet for a good while after that, focusing on putting on your makeup… “Don’t expect perfection when I’m done,” she told you. “Mimi is much better at this than I am.”

“I’m sure it’ll look fine,” you said after a pause. “Besides, I think Mimi is out on a date right now.”

“A date?” She looked at you oddly. “She told me she was going to go trick-or-treating with Dimentio.”

…You giggled. “Maybe she’s going out with him,” you mused. “I think they’d make a great couple.”

Nastasia scoffed, adjusting her red glasses. “He’d tear her apart. Or vice versa, depending if he messes with her enough.”

“You really don’t think they’d be a somewhat decent couple?” You lowered your bottom lip. “I think they’d be cute together… Yes, he has some… issues, and Mimi can be a little… murderous at times, but I’m sure they can work through it.”

“I doubt they’re going out together.”

“Then why are they going ‘trick-or-treating’ together? I bet they’re at some coffee shop right now, kissing up on one another!”

“I highly doubt that– even if they were together, he wouldn’t kiss up on her like that,” she said, taking a step back and getting a good look at your face. “He’s not the touchy-feely type.”

“And how would you know that?” You smirked. 

“I just do, k?” She booped your nose, beginning to put up everything. “I’m done with your makeup.”

You turned your head, looking into the dresser’s mirror with a hum. “You did a good job,” you said, taking a long moment to marvel at your makeup. She really had done a good job– it didn’t look sloppy at all, and you certainly seemed scary. 

As you admired your reflection, Nastasia packed up her makeup supplies, putting them in the bathroom that was attached to the bedroom. “Glad you like it,” she said while stepping out of the bathroom. “You'll definitely give the guests a good scare.”

You stood up, feeling the weight of the costume and makeup. "Thanks again, Nastasia. I really appreciate your help." 

“It was no problem at all.” She seemed sincere. “Don't mention it. Really. Just make sure you live up to the look, k? And watch out for Dimentio if he does happen to show up. He's unpredictable.”

“Will do.” You looked at her for a long moment, thinking… “What are you doing this Halloween, Nastasia? Are you going to go out trick-or-treating with O’Chunks or something?”

“Ah, well…” She faltered a little. “No, I hadn’t made any plans with him for tonight.”

“Why not?” You tilted your head curiously. 

Nastasia sighed. “He was going to go out to some pub with some friends he had made a bit ago.”

You tried not to frown. “So… you’re staying here?” 

She nodded slowly. “But it’s fine. I have some things to work on anyways, and now would be a good time to catch up.”

“Nastasia…” You sighed deeply. You could sense a hint of loneliness in Nastasia's voice, and it tugged at your heartstrings. "You know, you don't have to stay here alone. You're more than welcome to join me at the haunted mansion. We could use an extra spooky touch."

"...Are you sure? I don't want to intrude..."

“It’ll be fine,” you told her with a smile. “Seriously. You could always go as a ghost– they needed more ghosts. Besides, it's Halloween! No one should be alone on Halloween.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Nastasia's lips. "You're really kind, you know that?"

"It's just how I was raised," you replied with a shrug, though the sentiment warmed your heart. "So, what do you say? Shall we make this Halloween a night to remember?" You said, purposely being cheesy. 

Nastasia's hesitation melted away, replaced with genuine gratitude. It was rare to see her like… this. “If you’re so sure… Will there be extra costumes there, or will we have to make one out of a bedsheet?”

“There should be some there– most people get dressed at the mansion anyways. My outfit just required more effort.”

She hummed at that, taking your hand into hers. “I suppose we should hurry over there, then.”

With that settled, the two of you headed out into the Halloween night, ready to embrace the spooky festivities and make the most of the evening.