#i’ve suspected before even with negative test results that i’ve had it

[switchytransboy]

downside: i tested positive this morning for covid after this lady at work tested positive and CAME IN ANYWAY?? like UM??

upside: i’ve been needing some off days for mental health lately SO badly and my covid symptoms aren’t that bad so im low key just gonna enjoy a 4 day weekend LOL

[blahandwhatever]

Medical News Today

Long-Term Care

My prime preoccupation for the past month or so has been my health and, specifically, once again, my supplements and chemical balance. Once again, I got some of the weird feelings and symptoms I had for a while earlier this year, before experimenting with my calcium, magnesium, and iron and concluding I should keep taking all of them; once again, these were my prime suspects. But this time, I was extra-heavy on numbness and tingling and coordination issues. And I scoured the internet anew, overwhelmed by possibilities and underwhelmed by the extremely limited, incomplete information on every website, thinking I should someday make a big spreadsheet of all the possible symptoms of every possible nutrient deficiency or excess. Of course, there’s also always the possibility that I actually have A Disease, but I have to get the more likely basics covered before I consider that.

And I experimented, and I felt various types of bad, and I felt various types of better. This time, some of my worst-feeling days were the ones when I took magnesium - generally a safe supplement, and one I don’t take huge doses of, but it is probably the thing I’ve been supplementing the longest (since the Age of Anxiety) and also something I probably get enough of from my diet; it’s possible that, no longer living in anxious times, I no longer need the extra dose (there was, however, one time it helped when I got agitated. maybe its use should be as-needed). Some of my best-feeling days were ones when I took none of the three suspects - but then, there were random ones that differed. Another suspect I considered was my zinc and copper supplement, and zinc in particular, as I also took separate zinc gummies sometimes. The results on that one were pretty inconclusive, but I erred on the side of caution, reduced its frequency, and skipped the gummies altogether. I also upped my B12, as I’d somewhat neglected that one lately, and considered the additional possibility of too much vitamin D but thus far have done no experimenting on it (bit inconvenient, as it’s part of my fish oil supplement, and also I think the main negative effects of excess vitamin D are due to resulting excess calcium absorption, so a) might as well focus on testing calcium directly and b) I’m honestly skeptical I’d have too much calcium even with the supplements because, given what I tend to get from my diet, it just doesn’t add up. ALSO I’ve paid close attention to how I’ve felt before and after taking different supplements each day and never felt a difference after the fish oil/vitamin D supplement).

Overall, I’ve come to feel and look and function better over time, for the most part, with a lot of ups and downs and no firm conclusions yet. It’s always a good idea to be cautious and conservative with supplementation. However, I still feel I benefit from some of my supplements, and some, I’m trying to figure out whether I should eliminate completely or just reduce. Currently, I’m feeling the most negative about the iron. I’ve mostly been skipping it and felt markedly worse the last couple of times I took it. The last time I took it, I had cold hands and orthostatic hypotension. It helped with those but made me feel worse overall. Questions continue to arise.

Urgent Care

A few days ago, I scratched myself by the neck with a long, jagged nail. Just barely - I thought nothing of it. Sometimes I’ll scratch myself when my nails get too long. Things got a little red, but I figured it’d go away soon.

The next day, the redness spread wider. Weird. A little concerning. But I trusted my body to do its thing. Took my zinc & copper supplement and felt better after a somewhat lethargic day.

By today, there were long streaks up my neck and down my chest. Bad. Very bad. The internet urged me to see a doctor ASAP.

And so I spent half this day trying to figure out, and go about, the best way to get treated. I searched around for high-rated urgent care clinics, explored their services and prices. I drove up to one in Northbrook, but it was about to close, and I didn’t go. Found the next best thing, open later, in Mount Prospect. Made an appointment, came back home, charged my dying phone, squeezed in a few quick tasks, and drove to the clinic.

I was a bit nervous - it had been almost a decade since I had seen a doctor. Wondered if they’d find me a mess just like the dentist did.

But it went pretty quickly and painlessly. My blood pressure was high, but they didn’t comment on it - maybe it was normal under the circumstances. No concerns about my lungs or heart. I got prescribed an antibiotic and told to use Neosporin.

By this point, it was 8 PM, and all the nearby pharmacies were closed. I found an open one in Palatine - at the Walgreens with the same address as my local one, where once upon a time GPS had brought me by mistake. So I drove way up there from Mount Prospect, and I dropped off my prescription, and it wouldn’t be ready for an hour and a half, so there wasn’t much to do but go home and come back.

And finally, by 10 PM, I had it all wrapped up, and I took my scary bright-red antibiotic, cringing at the thought of wiping out my microbiome, but oh well - it happens to the best of us.

Honestly kinda disappointed in my immune system for not having handled this better. I’ve had so many worse scratches and sores over the years that didn’t develop any issues. This was really such an odd one. Did I have some particularly bad bacteria on my hands, or was I particularly weak. Did reducing my zinc and vitamin C (which I only really take together with iron) supplements weaken my immunity? Today I took a zinc gummy and felt better after that one too. I’m thinking that isn’t something I need to limit supplementing.

But I also didn’t do anything about the scratch to begin with - again, because it seemed negligible. So, lesson learned there - I probably should have been alarmed by the redness much sooner. I bet some prompt disinfection could have stopped this in its tracks. Kinda mad I don’t get to see the alternate universe where one of my trusty gentle natural solutions - manuka honey, tamanu oil, coconut oil - prevents this whole thing. I’ve literally not had to use anything else to prevent skin infections in like 7+ years. I mean, I do keep rubbing alcohol, and sometimes antibiotic ointment, in stock in case any of those ever fail to work, but that has never happened.

Thankfully, this urgent healthcare need didn’t devastate my poor, uninsured ass (I sure wish I’d known the massive difference between ERs and urgent care clinics when I was younger). And the antibiotic somehow only cost me… $5? Rare win for the US healthcare system.

[horsesarecreatures]

Most of Cannoli’s test results came back today. He is negative for EPM and Lyme. He also has high levels of pNFH (the biomarker for neurodegeneration). While there is no way to definitively diagnose it while the horse is still alive, through the exclusion of these other conditions he most likely has  equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (EDM). Supplementing his diet with vitamin E may slow it down, but there is no cure or chance of recovery.

Additionally, he came back from the layup facility extremely lame in the right hind, and tests are currently being done to see if he has a suspensory injury, which is what the vet suspects. My personal vet did not think he had any soft tissue injuries, but considering she missed the neuro issue and didn’t know about the absorbable implant bone cyst treatment being used for horses like him, at this point I’ve lost a bit of faith in her and will only be using her for deworming and vaccines from now on. 

I have only talked to his lameness vet at UPenn and not the neurologist (she wants to see the results of his vitamin e test before speaking with me), so I don’t know what the immediate plan of action will be. I want him to come home, but whether he should be euthanized soon or continue to be rehabbed is up in the air. It depends a lot on how fast she thinks the EDM will progress. 

Right now his ataxia is at stage 1 of 5, which isn’t bad. But once it gets to stage 3, I don’t plan on letting the condition continue. That’s when the horse starts to be dangerous to handle even on the ground due to their lack of control over their own body, and I would never want him to collapse suddenly, or start choking on his food. 

His mental state will also play a factor, as I feel that his freakout last week and that one time by the indoor is probably a result of this disease and not a part of his inherent personality, which is normally calm and sweet. 

I’m sorry, I know a lot of people care about him. This is not what I was expecting and I wish I had better news.

[mintelepathy]

"You are my safe place"

idol!jimin x reader/oc

word count: +1.2k

summary: oc goes to their home country, gets stuck there because of quarantine, and then finally goes back to korea without telling jimin so oc could surprise him.

FLUFF so much fluff

masterlist

Getting stuck in your country because of quarantine wasn’t in your plans when you went to visit your family earlier this year.

At first you were going to stay there for a month, but from one day to the other your flight back to Korea was cancelled, and the president had decided to implement a strict quarantine due to the increase of covid cases.

Everything was a mess and there was nothing you could do.

The worst thing was that this happened all of the sudden, and maybe if you had known beforehand you could have moved your returning date forward.

“You still don’t know when are you coming back, do you?” you watched him through the screen of the phone.

Even though you were at the other side of the world, and it was hard for Jimin and you to find the right time to facetime each other, you made it work.

Even if that meant that one of you had to stay awake late at night you’d always find some time for each other. Your times zones were so different that every time you texted him he would text you back hours later because either he was sleeping or working, and the same happened when he texted you, you were either sleeping or.. yeah sleeping.

You’ve been talking for an hour straight now and he was the one awake at 3 in the morning.

You noticed how tired he looked and somehow you felt guilty for talking too much and making him stay with you on the phone for so long.

“Sadly there’s no news, but I’ll let you know if something happens”

That was a lie, you actually had some good news, actually great news but you didn’t tell him because you wanted to surprise him.

Tomorrow at that very right moment you’d be sitting on a plane.

A few hours ago you’ve received an email which said that the permission you requested was accepted.

This permission allowed you to fly out of the country, and it was only possible because you had a reasonable motive to ask for it. Of course you mainly wanted to come back because you missed your boyfriend, but there were lots of important things you had to take care of in Korea, such as the new job you'd be starting in two months.

“You know what I’ve noticed these past few weeks you haven't been here?” you watched him as he rested his cheek in the palm of his hand.

“Tell me” you copied his action.

“I’ve realized how important it is to me to have you physically here” you raised your eyebrows twice and smirked at him just to tease him.

“You dirty minded” he smiled and tilted his head “but seriously, most of the time when I arrive from work you are always there waiting for me, and now when I get home it just feels so empty, or every time I wake up and turn around I hope to see you there sleeping besides me, but then I remember you are not here, and the list goes on and on” you pouted at his words.

“You don’t have idea how much I miss those things too, and I have something to confess too” he nodded and waited for you to tell him.

“You know how bad my experience with my ex-boyfriend was, sorry to mention him, I won’t go deeper into the subject because you already know but‐” you took a second to breath in before continuing, you always felt a lump in your throat every time you mentioned him. “but what I’m trying to say is that after him I was so afraid to try it again with someone else, I was so scared to get hurt, and then I met you, and you showed me in so many different ways how real love is, of course I’ve experience love before with family or friends, but I’ve never felt the same way I feel with you with anyone else and it’s just so beautiful. You are my safe place Jimin”. You didn’t notice you were tearing up until now.

Jimin couldn’t stop smiling at you. “You are also my safe place babe, I’m trying so hard no to cry right now, shit. I hope you can come back as soon as possible” you let out a chuckle.

“Me too babe, me too..”

———————————————————————————————————————————————

It’s been more than two weeks since you last facetimed Jimin and more than two weeks since you arrived.

You told him your phone fell and your camera stop working so he wouldn’t find out you were already in the same country as him, and it seemed he didn’t suspect anything.

You would phone call him every day anyway.

You wished you could have seen him as soon as you got there, but you were a responsible person and you didn’t think of breaking the safety protocol for covid, you also got tested and the results came negative so now you were more than ready to finally see him.

The only person who knew you were already there was Hoseok, and he had texted you earlier saying that him and Jimin were going to their dorm after practice so you could go and surprise him later.

You were so excited to finally see him, that was for sure.

A few hours later you’ve received the message you were waiting for. Hobi and Jimin were already at the dorm and it was time for you to go.

Hobi told you to let him know when you were there to help you go through security, and that’s what you did as soon as you got there.

He was so fast to welcome you that you were already greeting him with a small hug.

“Jimin is in our room watching videos of cats on his phone, I’ll let you have your moment alone” you couldn’t stop thanking him.

You felt your stomach spinning as you walked in, you were so nervous, but not in a negative way. They were happy nerves if that made sense.

The door was closed and you didn’t know if you should just open the door and run towards him, or knock at the door. You went for the second one because it was the safest considering you can cause him a heart attack.

You knocked five times.

“Come in” you heard him shout but you kept insisting and knocked five more times.

“Hobi hyu‐ WHAT THE HELL?” he opened his eyes so big, like he was trying to see if you were actually standing there in front of him, if you were actually real.

“Surprise!” you opened your arms at him.

He didn’t waste a second and embraced you so tightly and hard that you ended up falling to the floor.

“I can’t believe this is real, am I dreaming right now?” he pinched himself and you couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction, he was so shocked and happy just like you.

“Totally real Park” you kissed him how you could because you weren’t in a really comfortable position.

He deepened the kiss as he helped you to place yourself on top of him. It was so much better now.

He suddenly turned you around and now your back was against the floor.

He started to give you small kissed across all of your face and then he put his arms around you to hold you tight.

You didn’t know for how long you’d stay like that but you did know that neither of you would let go.

[alansstoictest]

‘No worries, I’ve got this.’

Sunday, September 11

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE:  THIS NEWS IS NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD AS YOU THINK IT IS!!!

BACKSTORY:  About three months ago, June of 2022, I took a routine blood test/urine sample here at the Embassy.  Blood is pretty much fine ( cholesterol a little high, nothing to worry about), but blood in urine.  Embassy doctor says I should see a urologist, recommended Dr. Ahmed Qteishat at Abdali Hospital. 

I see Dr. Qteishat at Abdali hospital in late June, right after I got over COVID.  He suggests I get a blood test to check PSA (prostrate specific antigen) levels, and another urinalysis, i wait until early September (yeah, perhaps I should have done it sooner) and do it, and another urinalysis.  No blood in urine, but PSA a little high, “Possible neoplasia.”  Yoiks.... 

I see the Doctor after these tests and he says it is either prostatitis (i.e. infection), or prostrate cancer (he says it better than that). He adds even if it is prostrate cancer,  ‘prostrate is the best type of cancer, i.e. really slow, treatable and maybe even doesn’t need treatment.  He says we can treat it as if it were the infection and then depending on results do an MRI.  I say let’s do the MRI, and if it is negative I’ll start taking the antibiotics

 Next step was the MRI. Thankfully, here in Jordan it is a lot easier to do all these things than it would be in the US, and cheaper!.   I get the MRI today, and the results show there are some ‘suspicious lesions.’  My urologist suggests we meet to discuss, to include whether to do a biopsy, (i.e. take a sample to see if they are benign/malignant).  I tell him a biopsy sounds  good and I’ll make an appointment.  I see him this Tuesday afternoon, September 13.

So obviously, this isn’t great news, but I don’t think there is cause for worry yet (actually, there is never cause for worry, since it doesn’t do any good).  We will see what he says on Tuesday, but at this point I’m assuming its prostrate cancer.

Update (this is all happening real time).  I’d been keeping the Embassy Doctor in the loop and I just talked to him now.  He is strongly suggesting I go back to the US for the biopsy, since proper diagnosis/analysis is crucial, and I’ll get more expertise there.  So I might be Washington-bound (just me - I would be medevaced - medical evaluation - and hopefully be in the US for only a few weeks before returning to Post.  He points out that treatment for prostate cancer is successful in the vast majority of cases, with the person leading a full, healthy live.

Here is how I choose to look at this:  Bad things happen to everybody, and I’ve had surprisingly few bad things in my life so perhaps I’m ‘due.’   Or perhaps even, it isn’t a bad thing (like that Zen Koan where the old guy keeps saying, “Maybe, maybe not” when his family keeps telling him about the various good/bad things that have just happened) , but in some way a blessing in disguise - we’ll see.  

But regardless, I am going to choose to see this as a Stoic test.  This doesn’t mean ‘look on the bright side’ as much as ‘do all I can while accepting that whatever happens is going to happen regardless of whether I worry about it or not.”  I think it likely this experience will change me, and I’d like it to change me for the better.  So, I am going to handle this medical issue as well as I can, and I think writing about it will help, so I will continue to write in this blog.  

I love you all so very much, but you know that.   I suspect regardless of what I say you will be worried, but this is a lesson for you too, and for all of us together as a family, so let’s all pass it with flying colors - huah! 

[followthebluebell]

FIP: Feline Infectious Peritonitis

Sprinkles contemplates some birds.  We’re re-doing the catios right now, so they’re all closed off.  I think she’s looking forward to being outdoors again.

I’m putting a cut here because this is a LENGTHY READ and, in case of further developments, I’d like to be able to easily update this article. 

In October 2019, she was diagnosed with ocular FIP (Feline infectious peritonitis), which is a mutation of feline coronavirus (FCoV, which is very distinct from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19).   FCoV is ubiquitous in the cat population: almost every cat has it or is exposed to various strains of it.  Most cats get over it just fine with only mild diarrhea.  In a small percentage of cats (we’re uncertain on the percentage, which I’ll get into later, but it’s theoretically somewhere between 5-10%), it goes fuckwhack apeshit and mutates into FIP.

We don’t know why it spontaneously mutates.  There seems to be a genetic component to it.  It’s believed to be more common in purebred cats, but we’re really not sure--- since FIP is a diagnosis by exclusion, there often is a hefty vet bill attached to the diagnosis and a person who can afford to buy a purebred cat from a cattery is more likely to be able to afford that bill.  It MAY be triggered by stress.  It’s much more common in younger cats, often appearing in kittens ranging from 4 months to 4 years.  This doesn’t mean older cats are safe; I know of at least one case in a 12 year old cat.

Sprinkles was diagnosed at 3 and a half months.  She didn’t have a particularly stressful event before developing symptoms.  She’s not a purebred.  I don’t know anything about her genetic history, so I can’t cross that off the list.

Mickey, my second FIP kitten, was diagnosed at 4 months.  I know slightly more about his health records but it’s still scant.  He arrived with an unusual skin ailment: sarcoptic mange.  Hypothetically, this could indicate an already delicate immune system that left him vulnerable to this sort of FCoV mutation.

FIP is deadly and remains, to this day, the most horrifying disease I’ve ever personally encountered.  Thankfully, FIP itself is NOT contagious.  FCoV is highly contagious but, as previously mentioned, it’s fairly common in the cat population.  There was a study done to see if separating kittens from their mother at 7 weeks (approximately the period when a mother’s antibodies begin to wear off and the kittens have to begin producing their own) would prevent cats from catching FCoV from her.  This was effective but the social drawbacks are too heavy a cost for it to be considered regularly.

There is a vaccine for FCoV but it’s largely ineffective and most vets don’t recommend it.

FIP comes in two primary forms: wet (effusive) and dry (non-effusive).  Usually, FCoV exists only in the gastrointestinal system.  It’s really the only place it can replicate itself with ease.  Once the virus mutates, it can’t replicate itself as well, but it CAN infect macrophages.  Macrophages are highly mobile white blood cells.  They go pretty much everywhere, and ones infected with FIPV (Feline Infectious Peritonitis Virus) will carry the virus along for the ride. 

The early symptoms are vague.  These cats are lethargic, listless, have low or no appetite, weight loss, and a fluctuating fever.  The first symptom I caught in Sprinkles was complete avoidance: she was actively avoiding other kittens and other kittens were avoiding her.   Mickey’s only symptoms were lethargy and diarrhea.  I only got suspicious about possible FIP because the other kittens in his playgroup didn’t have any diarrhea at all. 

And this is where we see a split in the forms of FIP.

Effusive FIP is characterized by the accumulation of fluid within the abdomen and is more common.  It happens very quickly.  Cats with effusive FIP develop breathing problems rapidly.  The fluid drawn from the abdomen is usually straw-yellow.  Effusive FIP is said to be more common, although only one of the 5 cases I’ve seen in the last few years was wet FIP. 

Thankfully, effusive FIP has a few distinct traits that makes it easier to diagnose.  It’s important to remember that FIP itself is generally a diagnosis by exclusion. 

Measuring the protein in the effusion is a good first step.  If it’s less than 35g/l, FIP is generally ruled out.

The albumin to globulin ratio is considered next, via a blood test. If it’s less than 0.4, FIP should be considered.

Finally, examining the cells in the effusion is valuable.  If they’re primarily lymphocytes, FIP is excluded.

Non-effusive FIP is more difficult to spot, because the symptoms are so varied.  Granulomas (inflammatory cells) form in various organs, which produces an extreme variety of symptoms.  The most commonly affected symptoms are the ocular and neurological symptoms.

Ocular FIP happens when the virus crosses the blood-ocular barrier and is characterized by slightly opaque white films on one or both eyes; these don’t cover the entire eye.  They’re often just a small section.  This was the first distinct symptom I saw in Sprinkles. It’s considered a distinct enough sign that her ophthalmologist was able to tell me that she was 99% certain it was FIP.

Neurological FIP is my own personal hell.  The virus crossed the blood-brain barrier and infects the brain.  The first symptom is usually a limp or a slight tremble in the head.  The paralysis often begins in the hind limbs and it travels upwards.  The cat eventually loses all mobility.  If the cat is lucky, they’ll begin to have seizures instead and die soon afterwards.  Like I said, it remains the single-most awful thing I’ve ever seen. 

Non-effusive FIP is harder to diagnose than effusive FIP, especially if the cat fails to develop ocular or neurological symptoms.  In these cases, the only symptoms the cat has are fevers, diarrhea, and other non-specific issues.

Once again, the best bet is to consider the albumin to globulin ratio.  The same rule of ‘if it’s under 0.4, FIP should be considered’ holds true.

Unfortunately, checking for antibodies is fairly useless.  A positive FCoV test just means the cat has been exposed to FCoV.

FIP is deadly.  While there are some isolated cases of cats seemingly recovering from it, I think it’s more likely that those were simply misdiagnosed cases.  As I’ve said before, FIP is a diagnosis by exclusion, so a misdiagnosis can happen fairly easily.  A cat with wet FIP is gone in days.  A cat who’s unlucky enough to develop neurological FIP may linger for weeks until they die of starvation, oxygen deprivation as the lungs themselves are paralyzed, or dehydration.  Ocular FIP generally spreads into the brain, causing seizures. 

Sprinkles is very, VERY lucky.  I had been following the study very closely and I had an acquaintance who recently started treating her foster cat for FIP.  I was able to get into contact with some folks and obtain experimental treatment for my kittens.

GS-441525

In February 2019, there was a very promising study on a specific drug called GS-441524.  Most of the cats involved with the study made a full recovery.  The company (Gilead-Sciences) behind the drug wasn’t interested in getting it FDA approved for cats out of concern that it would affect its approval for human use.  See, if it’s used officially for cats, Gilead-Sciences would be obligated to report any negative side-effects and that could impact getting it approved for human use down the line.  “One of the rules in drug development is ‘never perform a test you don’t have to, if the results could be problematic,” isn’t an uncommon saying.  It’s one of the reasons why I fell out of research and development myself.

I had some pull and was able to get experimental access to this drug for Sprinkles and, later, Mickey. 

Both kittens went through three months of daily injections and a further 3 months of observations before they were deemed FIP-free.  After seeing 3 other cats die from it, it’s been a blessing to see them recover.  They’re both especially lucky that they finished their treatment cycle JUST before COVID-19 hit American shores since I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue using a very promising antiviral in cats when it would likely be needed by humans.

It’s definitely not a perfect system.  Three months of daily injections (or pills) is not ideal for the average owner for several reasons.  In addition to the difficulty of injecting a cat with an EXTREMELY painful drug daily, it also requires a lot of math; the dosage has to be adjusted daily to take weight gain into consideration.  Even the concentration has to be adjusted at times.   I haven’t used the pills at all, but I know a lot of people have had problems with cats biting through the pills.  In addition, the pills seem less effective against neurological or ocular FIP.

Gilead-Sciences has refined GS-441524 into GS-5734 (named Remdesivir), which is supposed to be more efficient.  Hypothetically, the addition of the phosphate groups should make it easier for it to get across barriers and be absorbed more easily.  Hopefully this will result in a shorter treatment time, although I suspect it will be more expensive than GS-441524.  This is already a substantial cost attached to GS-441524, with the treatment of a single cat or kitten over 1,000 USD.

As of writing (April 20, 2020), neither Remdesivir nor GS-441524 are available to the average public legally.  Remdesivir has been approved for use in humans with COVID-19 in emergency cases.  

[violethowler]

The Heroine’s Journey of Sora

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing out my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts and the way the series follows the framework of the Heroine’s Journey. Rather than a bunch of drabbles or a single long-winded post, I’ve decided to break up my explanations of the Heroine’s Journey and the way Kingdom Hearts fits into it as a series of ten essays posted weekly. I will put up a masterpost once all of them are finished, and in the meantime I will have all of them on my blog under the tag ‘Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine’s Journey.’

Due to the length of this essay, I will be putting the full thing under a cut. 

What many Kingdom Hearts fans do not realize is that while Tetsuya Nomura does sometimes make up the details as he goes when it comes to the writing of Kingdom Hearts, he does do things with a plan. 

In the KH3 Ultimania [1], he talked about how he’d had the conclusion of the Dark Seeker Saga outlined by the end of Kingdom Hearts II’s development. In an April 2012 interview [2] with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, he indicated that he’d had a general framework up to Kingdom Hearts II planned out when the original game was first announced. And in a 2004 interview after the original Chain of Memories was released on GameBoy Advance, he mentioned that he’d already come up with the “last scene” that would serve as the definitive ending of the entire series[3]. 

So while some details may be hard to predict because Nomura comes up with lore and backstory details as he goes, he does have a plan in mind where the overall story is going. And the central arc of the series is entirely predictable once you understand the framework that the story fits into. 

Since the late 1800s, scholars have been studying the common patterns that repeat in stories, legends, and myths across different cultures around the world. One of the most well known templates developed from such research is the Hero’s Journey. In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, literature professor Joseph Campbell published a 17 step formula of storytelling. Campbell held up this framework as the monomyth, an ultimate narrative archetype from which all other stories are derived, and in discussion of his work expressed his view of The Hero’s Journey as a universal framework that showed how people grow from youth into adulthood.

However in the 1980s, Maureen Murdock began work on her own narrative framework. Believing that Campbell’s view on the universality of the Hero’s Journey did not encompass the experiences of every identity like he claimed, Murdock developed what she called The Heroine’s Journey as a critique and response to Campbell’s monomyth. Other authors have shared their own variations of the Heroine’s Journey, but for the purposes of this analysis, I will be focusing on Murdock’s model. Hers is both the oldest one I know of, and the one that I personally have the most familiarity with. Though originally conceived as a therapy tool, the core concepts of Murdock’s template have resulted in its use in storytelling for narratives about protagonists overcoming the ingrained biases and preconceptions of society. 

Some notable examples of stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey template, albeit most with different formulas, include 

Beauty and the Beast

The Hunger Games trilogy

The Princess and the Frog

Tangled

Howl’s Moving Castle

Labyrinth 

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy*

Voltron: Legendary Defender*

*Note: Voltron: Legendary Defender and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy are examples of 3-act narratives that followed the Heroine’s Journey framework in the first 2 acts only for behind-the-scenes conflicts to result in the formula being abandoned in the final act. 

Despite the name, it is possible in theory to have a male protagonist follow the Heroine’s Journey, much like how you can have a female protagonist in a Hero’s Journey.  While nearly every story I know that follows the Heroine’s Journey template has a female protagonist in the lead role, Kingdom Hearts is the first example that I’ve discovered of a male protagonist following this formula. Sora’s arc across the series follows Murdock’s framework so precisely that I was able to correctly predict the broad strokes of how Re:Mind would go three months before the DLC was released. 

Part I: The Beginning

While the Heroine’s Journey mimics the Hero’s Journey in its early stages, it ultimately goes in its own direction. I plan to go into further detail about the differences between the two in a later essay, but for now I will say that while Campbell’s monomyth describes physical plot points and the themes they represent, the Heroine’s Journey formula focuses on the emotional conflict of the narrative and the psychological development of its main characters. The pattern of the Hero’s Journey is fluid and doesn’t have a fixed central theme, while the core element of the Heroine’s Journey is a protagonist coming of age in a society that consciously or not regards them as lesser because they do not fit in with the expectations of the dominant social group. 

I know that some people who decide to read further will be put off by the fact that the names and descriptions of the Heroine’s Journey feature gendered language and focus on discussions of masculinity and femininity, so allow me to explain. The reason for this is that in a Heroine’s Journey, the protagonist is attempting to conform to a set of traits that the audience’s culture values. In pursuing this external validation, the main character has to suppress a vital part of who they are, cutting themselves off from achieving their full potential. The traits they are suppressing are the ones which are often regarded as feminine, while the ones they are trying to conform to are typically associated with masculinity. We see this pattern frequently in movies where the female lead tries to succeed in a male-dominated career field, only to feel lonely and unfulfilled when she finally gets what she wants because she sacrificed the parts of herself that made her who she is along the way. 

Now that I’ve given you a relatively brief summary of the Heroine’s Journey, I can get down to business and walk people through the steps to this template and how it fits with the story of Kingdom Hearts. Note that this is only a basic rundown of the steps of the Heroine’s Journey and how it relates to these games, and I will be posting additional essays shortly which go into greater detail on the themes, character archetypes, and other different layers of the framework that are present in the series. 

Murdock’s version of the Heroine’s Journey begins with the “Separation from the Feminine”. This is the stage where, as mentioned, the protagonist suppresses a core part of themselves in pursuit of external validation. It often takes the form of the protagonist sacrificing their emotional strengths and focuses exclusively on proving themselves in the physical sphere. Sora has demonstrated again and again that his greatest strength is his empathy and his willingness to make connections with others. It makes him a strong unifying force because of how well it complements the people around him. But because this isn’t something tangible in the same way that physical strength is, he doesn’t see the value of it, believing that without the strength of his friends he’s nothing. 

From the way the other kids on Destiny Islands talk about their competitions, Sora’s focus is on trying to prove that he’s just as strong and capable as Riku is. But he’s so focused on proving himself in physical challenges that he doesn’t notice the signs of Riku’s jealousy that lead his friend into the arms of Maleficent. And we see through Anti Form and Rage Form that Sora is still repressing his own negative emotions in Kingdom Hearts III. His narrow focus on external skills has cut him off from achieving the full potential of his internal ones. 

When Sora awakens in Traverse Town after the destruction of Destiny Islands, we come to the second stage of the Heroine’s Journey, “Identification with the Masculine and Gathering of Allies”. This is where the main character chooses to align with the traits and roles that the dominant social group sees as desirable in order to achieve their goal, and where they acquire the allies who will help them in their quest. With the adults around him focusing on his ability to destroy the Heartless, Sora latches onto the Chosen One status that implicitly comes with having a Keyblade. His interactions with Phil and his disappointment with the status of Junior Hero in subsequent games paint Sora as being focused on heroism in the sense of overcoming obstacles with force. Even Donald and Goofy, in the beginning, are focused on Sora’s value as a Keyblade Wielder in terms of how their fight against the Heartless can lead them to King Mickey’s location.

By setting off with Donald, and Goofy, Sora embarks on the “Road of Trials” stage of the Heroine’s Journey. This is one of the few points of similarity between the Heroine’s Journey and the Hero’s, corresponding to Campbell’s “Tests, Allies, and Enemies” stage. This is where the main character faces the initial obstacles and challenges of their quest. In the first few Kingdom Hearts games we have Sora face off against Maleficent, Ansem, and the Organization, before reuniting with Riku and Kairi in The World That Never Was. The final stages of Kingdom Hearts II correspond to the “Finding the Boon of Success” stage of both the Hero and Heroine’s Journeys. 

Part II: Interlude

In a Hero’s Journey, the Boon of Success is the end of the story. They slay the dragon, save the princess, and go home to live happily ever after. I suspect this is one reason why a lot of gamers in the KH fanbase tend to think of Kingdom Hearts 2 as the best game of the series - because in their minds Sora’s quest had been completed now that he had found Riku and Kairi like he set out to do in the first game. His journey, as far as they were concerned, was done. 

(This may also have an affect on how some fans reacted to Kingdom Hearts III, expecting it to be a grand epic finale that wrapped everything up with a bow and left a completely blank slate for the future of the series)

But in a Heroine’s Journey, the Boon of Success is not the end of the main character’s story. They have achieved their external goal, but they have not addressed their internal motivations for seeking that goal in the first place. And as their story continues, they find themselves facing challenges that their attitude thus far has failed to prepare them for. Finding The Boon of Success typically occurs early during the second act of the story. Usually it is achieved in the second half of Act II, but can sometimes happen as early as the end of the first act. For Sora, this was of course finding Riku and Kairi so that they could all go home to the Destiny Islands together.

But because the protagonist of a Heroine’s Journey has not addressed the underlying insecurities which set them on their current path, they “Awaken to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity”. 

They begin to learn that the conflict they find themselves involved in is not as clear cut as they previously believed, and the challenges that come with this new knowledge are ones that their current way of doing things has failed to prepare them for. They may have found their boon of success, but things quickly begin to go wrong until they are ultimately forced to sacrifice their reward. 

The first game already showed through Riku and Mickey that Sora was not the only person able to wield a Keyblade, but because of his heroic deeds the story still framed him as the Keyblade Master and treated him as having a more significant role to play in important events than anyone else. It’s only after he hears from Mickey of the Keyblade Wielders who came before him that it begins to sink in for him that being a Keyblade Master is not a special Chosen One status. He thinks that because of all that he’s accomplished, he doesn’t need the recognition that comes with the official title, and because of that he’s careless and almost gets himself Norted at the end of DDD. 

His failure in the exam is a blow to his self confidence and shows that despite what he had said at the start of the test, deep down he really does want that kind of external validation. His insecurities and doubts continue to eat at him over the course of KH3, culminating in his breakdown at the Keyblade Graveyard. Outside of battle, we see him bottle up his doubts and other negative emotions because his friends (Except for Riku. More on him later) brush his concerns and problems aside. It is very much like Joy from Inside Out doing everything to keep Rylee happy and refusing to let Sadness take the controls. 

When their current way of doing things ultimately costs them their boon, the protagonist tries to go back to the way things used to be. To return to a simpler time and avoid the pain of the present. When literally going back to where their journey began isn’t possible, a Heroine’s Journey story will use this stage symbolically. The main character will cling to a person, object, or relationship that they associate with a simpler time. But as comfortable as the sense of familiarity they get from that is, it ultimately cannot truly address their inner pain in the long run.

This is reflected in the Re:Mind DLC, where Sora goes back in time in order to find the pieces of Kairi’s heart and bring her back. One of Kairi’s most consistent character traits is her fear of change and desire for things to remain the way they were. 

At the end of the DLC, Sora compares his connection with Kairi to the bond between Ventus and Chirithy, a friendship explicitly strained by distance, time, and Ven’s amnesia. In an interview at E3 2018 [4], Nomura commented about Kingdom Hearts III tying into a theme of childhood friendships changing as one gets older, a plotline that Merlin calls attention to after Sora’s visit to the 100 Acre Wood. And in a 2006 book titled Character’s Report Vol. 1, Nomura specifically calls attention to Kairi’s anxiety about growing apart from Sora and Riku as they get older. [5] All of these details combined frame Sora’s quest to save Kairi as an attempt to symbolically recover the innocence he lost when he began his journey.

But while he is able to find a way to renew his connection to Kairi, it can never be the same as it was before, and attempting to go back to how things used to be is ultimately doomed to failure. By the time he brings her to The Final World at the end of Re:Mind, Sora has realized that he and Kairi cannot stay on the same plan of existence anymore as a consequence of his actions. So he takes her on a tour of the worlds to re-establish their connection before fading away at the end of KH3. Thus, we come to the final act of the Kingdom Hearts narrative. 

Part III: The Future Story 

It is at this point that the protagonist of a Heroine’s Journey begins the “Initiation and Descent to the Goddess” stage. Having failed to achieve meaningful success through their old way of doing things, they must look inward and examine the cause of their insecurities and accept that in order to move forward they need to heal themselves. In this step, the main character travels to either a dream world or a physical location that is closed off and forbidden to them, like the West Wing of Beast’s Castle in Beauty and the Beast. In Jungian psychology, this metaphorical dark cave represents the main character’s subconscious, and entering it triggers a dark night of the soul for our protagonist as they are forced to confront the parts of themselves they’ve been keeping locked away.

While Sora knows in his head that darkness is not inherently bad, he continues to rely entirely exclusively on light, on his connections to others, and has not properly accepted it in his heart. In order to truly finish his coming of age narrative, Sora must learn to balance his inner light and darkness the same way that Riku has. And to do that, he needs to look inside himself and figure out why he feels so badly that he needs his connections to others in order to be strong. And in order to achieve that level of understanding of himself, he needs to understand his Animus. 

Derived from the psychological theories of Carl Jung, the Animus in a Heroine’s Journey is an external representation of the protagonist’s masculine-coded traits in physical form. While not every Heroine’s Journey features an Animus, many of the stories I’ve seen that follow the formula do. Usually the Animus appears in the form of a deuteragonist who often functions as the protagonist’s Shadow, an archetypal character that embodies the aspects of the main character’s personality that due to their immaturity they either aren’t aware or don’t want to acknowledge that they have. 

In order to complete their character arc, the protagonist must symbolically integrate with their Shadow by learning to embrace the parts of their psyche that the Shadow represents. In many stories the protagonist has more than one Shadow figure, all of whom challenge the protagonist by forcing them to become faster or smarter to stay one step ahead, giving their interactions with the main character a push-and-pull dynamic as they drive the main character to grow. Shadow figures who fill the role of the Animus also challenge the protagonist to look inside themselves and examine their own emotional needs. With an Animus, the push to grow runs in both directions, with the main character motivating their Animus’ growth just as much as the other way around. 

In these types of stories, every aspect of the character is tailored to make the Animus and the protagonist fit together like Yin and Yang. In visual stories such as film, television, and video games, the Animus’ entire look is designed to complement the main character and they are framed in the narrative as the protagonist’s equal physically, intellectually, and spiritually. This serves to emphasize that despite their surface differences, much of the conflict between the protagonist and their Animus comes from the ways in which they are fundamentally similar. While their circumstances may have led them to drastically different lives, the characters are ultimately two sides of the same coin, and their character development is driven by learning to balance their contrasting traits.

And within the structure of the Kingdom Hearts series, there is only one character who fulfills all of these qualities in relation to Sora’s journey. 

The same character who Testuya Nomura said in the KH1 Ultimania was designed to balance Sora; [6]

Who series producer Shinji Hasimoto said was part of the core of the series alongside Sora [7], as has been repeatedly emphasized by the number of games where he is given a major focus and is a playable character alongside Sora. 

[Image Description: Riku walking towards a door to light in the opening of Kingdom Hearts III. End Description]

While Sora and Riku have addressed some of the latter’s behavior in the first game during their conversation on the dark beach at the end of Kingdom Hearts II, they have yet to truly dig deep into why Riku felt the way he did in the first game. Riku has not told Sora about how he felt like he was being left behind and forgotten. And since that conversation, Riku has gone to the opposite extreme, dealing with his emotional problems on his own instead of lashing out at others like he had done at the start. Likewise while Sora has accepted that darkness is not inherently evil he has yet to apply this to his own negative emotions, as seen in Kingdom Hearts III. Neither character has truly achieved an ideal balance yet, and they cannot until Sora completes his journey. 

After the protagonist returns from their spiritual journey, they experience an “Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine.” As the main character recovers from their period of soul searching, they embrace the parts of themselves that they had neglected in their pursuit of outside approval. Their Descent allowed them to recognize their value as a person and an individual outside of their ability to fulfill the role that they were expected to fill. Following this realization, they go about “Healing the Mother/Daughter split”. Reclaiming the aspects of their personality they’ve been repressing gives the protagonist the clarity necessary to gain a different perspective on their old way of thinking. This new understanding is what will allow them to find the inner balance needed to truly complete their journey. 

The Japanese version of the “My friends are my power” mantra often repeated across the series is “Connected hearts are my power.” For Sora, who has long relied on his connections to others as a source of strength, he should come to realize that these connections go both ways: that his friends draw strength from him just as much as he draws strength from them. This should help him come to accept that he is still strong and worthy all by himself. Ven’s version of the mantra from the English version of BBS summarizes it best: “My friends are my power. And I am theirs.” After he accepts this, Sora will finally be able to use the full extent of his emotional abilities.

After achieving that new perspective, the protagonist’s next step is “Healing the Wounded Masculine Within”. This is the stage of the Heroine’s Journey where the main character, having come to understand themselves, reconciles with their Animus, thereby symbolically integrating the aspects of their psyche that the Animus represents and permanently healing the rift between the two characters. This will be where Sora and Riku need to have a longer, more in-depth conversation than the one they had on the Dark Magin at the end of KH2. Where they talk about why Riku acted the way he did and finally address the underlying reason for why he was so jealous of Sora in the original game. 

The final stage of the Heroine’s Journey is the “Integration of Masculine and Feminine”. This is the point at which the main character and their Animus finally achieve a perfect balance between them. They are united both internally and externally. There are no more secrets between them, and they are now free to move forward and overcome the main antagonist together. 

Part IV: Conclusion: 

While there’s too many different possibilities to completely predict every twist and turn of the series’ lore in future games, once you understand how Kingdom Hearts fits into the framework of the Heroine’s Journey, the broad strokes of how the story will go in terms of Sora’s growth and character development are entirely predictable. When Re:Mind first released and the rest of the fandom was reacting on Twitter, I was sitting back with a smug smile on my face thinking:

[Image Description: Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi sitting aboard the Death Star II with the caption ‘Good, Good. Everything is going according to plan.’ End Description.]

While I didn’t expect the precise mechanics of how Sora went about saving Kairi, Re:Mind was exactly what I expected it to be in terms of themes and its place in the Heroine’s Journey framework, and then the Secret Episode came along to reinforce that the next game is going to be Sora’s Descent.

While there isn’t a complete guarantee that the series will continue to follow the formula, I find it extremely unlikely that it won’t. Kingdom Hearts follows the stages of this framework too precisely for me to ever believe it happened by accident. So as long as there is no corporate interference from Disney like what happened to Voltron, I’m confident that Nomura’s plan for the finale of the series will be exactly what the Heroine’s Journey predicts it should be, no matter how unexpected future additions to the lore may be.

Special thanks to @dragonofyang and the rest of Team Purple Lion for everything I know about the Heroine’s Journey. I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about analyzing the story of Kingdom Hearts if they hadn’t taught me the vocabulary to realize the kind of story that Nomura has been telling right under my nose for the last 18 years.

Sources:

[1] “Kingdom Hearts III Ultimania interview with Tetsuya Nomura”; March 12, 2019

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Kingdom-Hearts-3-Ultimania-Main-Nomura-Interview-Translated-14763

[2] “Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS: Third Party Game Developers, Volume 12: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Part 3: Square’s Intentions”; April 2012.

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/2

[3] “2004 GMR Nomura Interview 2004!”; Translation by Kingdom Hearts Insider posted May 5, 2012. 

https://www.khinsider.com/news/GMR-Nomura-Interview-2004-2563

[4] “E3 2018: Tetsuya Nomura on If Kingdom Hearts 3 Is the End of Sora's Story”; June 14, 2018.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-tetsuya-nomura-on-if-kingdom-hearts-3-is-the-end-of-soras-story

[5] “Character’s Report Vol. 1 Translations”; Jul 16, 2014

https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/characters-report-vol-1-translations.195560/\

[6] “A Look Back: Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Gallery Comments Part 1″; August 30, 2019;

https://www.khinsider.com/news/A-Look-Back-KINGDOM-HEARTS-Ultimania-Gallery-Comments-Part-1-15519

[7] “How Kingdom Hearts III Will Grow Up With Its Players.” September 24, 2013

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players

[X] “The Heroine with a Thousand Faces”; June 13, 2019;

https://www.teampurplelion.com/heroine-with-a-thousand-faces/

[X] Murdock, Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey. 1990.

[X] “Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey Arc”. The Heroine Journeys Project. https://heroinejourneys.com/heroines-journey/

[anogete]

Watch me vomit up my thoughts

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  I’m sorry I’ve disappeared on everyone.  It’s been... a year.  I think that probably goes for everyone, not just me.  If you’re interested in a personal life update, then read on.  If you’re looking for an update on my writing then I regret to inform you that I haven’t written a single thing this year.  Maybe next year, though.  There is always next year, right?  I think I saw a blurb that we’re getting Sam and Bucky back in March.  And Loki shortly after.  Maybe that will be my inspiration.

I’m fortunate enough to have a job that lets me comfortably work from home.  I’m also fortunate enough to own a home.  And my last blessing is that I don’t have kids, so I didn’t have to figure out the nightmare of childcare and home schooling like some of you.  My library on the second floor of the house has been my office since mid-March.  I’ve been transitioning into the Associate Financial Advisor roll this year and that has been going well.  I’m supporting the clients I’ve worked with as an assistant for the past nine years, so it’s been easy-going.  I’m able to order my groceries for pick up to avoid going in the stores and I live in an neighborhood where it is easy to get delivery from restaurants.  I’m incredibly lucky to have all these things going for me and I am thankful every damn day.

I fell into a bit of a funk this spring and early summer, but managed to pull myself out of it in August.  I started planning my meals, walking 2-5 miles every day, and exercising on the Peloton bike I bought a year ago.  I also started reading again and zipped through almost 50 books between June and now.  By November, I was feeling strong and healthy.  I felt like I had found a balance between work and activity and self-care.  I was still coming to terms with my grandma passing in March of last year and with Ferguson (my sweet doggo) passing in September of last year.  But I was trying and things were getting better.  I felt like I had my feet underneath me.

Lemme stop you here if you don’t want to read about death and some general medical stuff.  Because that’s mostly what you’re getting from here on out.

On November 21st, my mom texted me at 5:30am.  I got it right away because I usually wake up around that time, alarm or not.  She said she had dropped my dad off at the hospital because he was having difficulty breathing.  Apparently, he’d been feeling bad for a week, but insisted to everyone that it was just his sinuses draining.  I called her and began questioning her like I was cross-examining a star witness.  I was able to piece together a really fucking shitty story.

My dad always went to a friend’s house on Friday evenings to have a couple beers and hang out.  We’d all warned him since March that he needed to stop, but he insisted it was fine.  He bought into a lot of the cavalier attitude that the Trump fans have over this virus. Plus, he was 64-years-old and didn’t take any medication so he probably thought it was no big deal.  He spent a few hours at his friend’s house on November 6th.  Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, he received a call from that friend on November 11th that the friend and the friend’s wife had tested positive for COVID.  He didn’t share this info with my mother, my brothers, or my uncle, all of whom had been near him.  By November 15th, he was coughing but insisted it was drainage when my mom suggested he take something for it and go to the doctor.  By November 18th, he was worse and admitted to my mom that his friend had tested positive but that he hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks so his problems were just sinus-related and not COVID.  My mom hates confrontation, so she accepted this and didn’t tell anyone, including me and my brothers.  By November 19th, he had a fever and was having trouble breathing along with a persistent cough.  He finally agreed to take some cold medicine, but refused to call his doctor’s office despite my mom asking him many, many times.  At 4:30am on November 21st, he woke my mom and asked her to take him to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe well.  She dropped him off and returned home to text me since they wouldn’t allow her in the building.  She also texted my brothers, who admitted that they felt like they’d had a cold for several days.  I live 4 hours away and haven’t traveled since March, so I hadn’t seen any of them.

A nurse called my mom a couple hours after she dropped my dad off to tell her that he was positive for COVID and pneumonia and they were admitting him to put him on a bipap.  From what I understand, that’s the oxygen mask that pushes air into your lungs.  Later that day, the health department called my mom and told her to quarantine for two weeks.  My mom cooperated and gave them my brothers’ phone number (they live together), my uncle’s phone number, and the name and number of the person we suspected my dad was infected by (his friend).  My brothers opted to get tested and were positive.  They quarantined for two weeks and had mild to moderate symptoms (brief fever, very tired, cough, drainage).  My mom had virtually no symptoms with the exception of some drainage that she took Mucinex for.  She didn’t get tested, but she lived and slept in the same bed with my dad for a week while he was symptomatic.  If my brothers got it from 30 minutes in the same room as him, surely she got it as well.  My uncle and his son got tested, but they were negative.

My dad was cooperative with the doctor and nurses at first, but as the first day wore on he became irritated.  He’d been without his chewing tobacco (yes, I know: eww) for several hours and was going through nicotine withdrawal, but wouldn’t admit that to the nurses or doctor.  The next day he was put in ICU, still on the bipap, and even more unruly and rude to the staff taking care of him.  They called my mom to ask her to talk to him and convince him to cooperate.  They said if he couldn’t recover on the bipap and required a ventilator then “things would be very bad.”  My mom tried to talk to him by text and he just continued to insist that he was well enough to come home.

I used to be close to my dad when I was a kid, but we’d grown apart over my adulthood.  Over the past 20 years, my dad morphed into someone different.  Everyone around him, especially my grandmother, told me they saw this happen the same as I did.  The result was that my dad became someone I didn’t like and didn’t want to spend time with.  He also didn’t seem to know how to talk to me anymore.  To be fair, I didn’t give him much help in that regard.  I texted him to see how he was doing and the conversation quickly devolved into him complaining about the care and insisting he was well enough to come home.  I tried to reason with him and appeal to his love for my mom by saying that my fear was him coming home and giving her the virus.  He told me that he’d decided he was no longer contagious and this was just a bunch of bullshit.  This conversation via text continued through Monday and Tuesday (November 23rd and 24th), but it took a turn for the delusional.  The doctor can only assume that the virus and the lack of oxygen had resulted in hallucinations and delusions.  My dad told my mother and I that he was in an office building owned by a man named Mr. Pritt.  He said he was the only patient and that this man was having his workers experiment on him and that they would eventually kill him.  He demanded that we come get him immediately so he could recover at home.  When we told him he’d die if he came home because he was too sick, he insisted he wasn’t sick at all and became very angry with us.  He accused both my mom and I of conspiring to kill him because we wouldn’t help him.  One day he told me that I’d confirmed what he’d known all along.  I asked him what that was and he said, “That I always loved you more than you loved me.”  This really hurt because even though I knew he was loopy, I also knew that he’d probably actually had that though before.

He began refusing treatment on those days and wouldn’t accept the steroids they were trying to give him and raised hell when they tried to take him for a chest x-ray.  He also told them he didn’t want to be placed on a ventilator even though he had agreed to one when he was admitted.  He was texting all of his friends and telling them he needed a ride home.  He attempted to get up and leave the hospital twice, falling in the floor both times because he was so weak from lack of oxygen once he took the mask off.  He also told my mom and I that he was secretly removing the mask when the nurses couldn’t see to prove to them that he wasn’t sick.  He was taking and sending blurry pictures to us of the room as “evidence.”  He told my mom to forward the pictures to “the feds.”  The pictures were of his hospital bed, the whiteboard with his nurses’ and doctor’s names on it, his IVs, etc.  By the morning of Wednesday, the 25th, I was getting some off-the-wall texts from him.  He was begging us to come check him out of the hospital at that point and we were trying to play along and tell him we were getting everything in order for him to come home soon.  Eventually, he told me that he wasn’t getting out of there alive and that he loved me.  I told him I loved him too and begged him to do whatever the doctor said because the doctor wanted to help him get better.

A few minutes later, the nurse called my mom and asked if she’d been on the phone with my dad.  My mom said she and I hadn’t spoken to him by any way other than text since he arrived at the hospital.  The nurse said he had been on the phone with a woman, trying to convince her to come get him.  The nurse made him put the call on speaker so she could tell the woman that he wasn’t well enough to leave.  Because she was concerned that her message didn’t get through before my dad hung up, she called my mom to make sure he hadn’t convinced my mom to check him out against medical advice.  My mom assured her that we had no intention of breaking him out of the hospital, but she didn’t know who the woman was.  It wasn’t her or me.  We called a long-time former co-worker of my dad’s that I’ve known since I was a kid and she said she hadn’t talked to him.  We called his best friend and asked if he’d called and spoken to the man’s wife.  Not her either.  More on this later.  I’m sure you know where it’s going.

We were stumped, but didn’t have time to deal with it because the nurse practitioner called and told my mom that my dad was delusional and could no longer make his own decisions.  They said he had no chance of survival if they didn’t put him on a ventilator immediately.  My mom called me.  I told her to agree to it.  The nurse called her back and gave the phone to my dad.  He had agreed to the ventilator as well and wanted to tell my mom that he loved her and me and my brothers and his dog.  His speech was slurred and muffled from the bipap mask, but she at least heard that.  They intubated him right after the call.  He was on a paralytic for a week.  When they backed off on the paralytic, they had to increase his oxygen.  A week later, the nurse tried to kindly tell us that he wasn’t getting better and his chances of survival were low.  She suggested we start to talk about turning off the ventilator and letting him go.  We did talk about that, which was very upsetting for everyone, but the doctor said he’d been on the ventilator for two weeks and we’d give him one more week to see what happens.  By this point, he no longer had pneumonia. But the damage COVID did to his lungs couldn’t be repaired.

The ventilator was on full blast (highest pressure, highest oxygen) just to keep him somewhat stable.  The days were ticking by and he still wasn’t making progress.  Any step forward was followed by a bigger step back. My mom would call and get the update from the nurse most days, but I did call myself a few days.  When I’d call and talk to the nurse, I’d get a grim picture that my mom didn’t seem to get or understand. I talked to her on December 12th and asked her if she was trying to protect my brothers and I or if she really thought he was going to get better.  She admitted that she’d had a feeling for days that he wasn’t going to get better.  We decided to just wait for the doctor to call.  The nurse called my mom on Monday, December 14th and told her that my dad’s blood pressure was all over the place and they were struggling to keep him stable, that the ventilator was turned up to the highest settings and it was barely enough to keep him going.  My mom texted me and told me she asked them to call me.  The doctor called me within about 20 minutes and basically told me that my dad wasn’t going to make it.  They’d had him on a ventilator for 19 days and within a couple days his throat tissue would likely become necrotic from the pressure of the cuff keeping the tube in place.  They could only continue the ventilator if they could put in a trach and he wasn’t stable enough for that.  In addition, he needed more support than the ventilator could provide.  I was told he was either going to go into cardiac arrest while on the ventilator and die or they’d be forced to take him off the ventilator because of the damage to his throat.  The most damning thing he told me was that he’d removed the sedation but my dad didn’t wake.  He wasn’t responsive, wouldn’t squeeze their hands, wouldn’t flinch when they tested his reflexes, nothing.

I was told we could come sit with him and say goodbye when the ventilator was removed.  I asked when and the doctor said soon.  I live 4 hours from my parents, so I told him I’d leave right away and have my mom call to make arrangements for me to come to the hospital.  I called my mom and told her all this and asked her to let the hospital know.  I packed a bag and rushed out the door.  On my way out of town, the doctor called me back and asked if I was on my way.  My mom had told them that we’d come by the next morning and he was worried my dad wouldn’t make it through the night.  So, I had to have a shitty conversation with my mom about how we couldn’t schedule my dad’s death for 7am on Tuesday, that it needed to happen at 8pm on Monday.  I do not recommend these types of calls.

I got into town around 7pm and picked my mom up because she’d decided she wanted to come with me.  My brothers said they couldn’t handle it and decided to stay at my mom’s house.  My mom and I were taken to the COVID floor, given gowns, and gloves, told he was COVID positive so we’d need to continue to wear our cloth masks (no medical mask, is that safe?!), and escorted to his room in the ICU.  Guys, he looked so fucking tired and so sad.  It was heartbreaking.  The nurse said their ICU was full and most of the patients were in the same shape as my dad.  We talked to him for a few minutes, held his hand and all that shit.  He didn’t respond in any way, so I don’t know if he was even there.  We stepped out of the room while they removed the tube and gave him some medicine.  When we went back in, his breaths were labored and it looked like he was gasping for air. My mom almost lost it because she wasn’t expecting that.  I told her she could go wait in the hall and I’d stay with him until he passed.  The nurse was kind enough to give him a little more medicine to make it less dramatic, but it was still difficult watching him breathe in that way.  My mom sat so she couldn’t see his head to make things easier on herself.  We sat there with him for about 40 minutes before he passed away at 8:32pm on Monday, the 14th.

I stayed with my mom last week and helped her arrange a private graveside service and the burial.  She wanted to do a funeral and I thought that was the worst idea, so we agreed on doing a celebration of life next year when things are a little better (hopefully).  To my knowledge, I haven’t had the virus.  I operated under the assumption that my mom and brothers had it and were immune for now and wouldn’t transmit it.  So, I was able to be with them without mask, but I did wear a mask when anyone else was around.  I can’t say the same for the fucking funeral director and the locksmith’s employee who opened my dad’s safe for us, though.  I live in a bigger city and mask wearing is pretty wide-spread here, but I saw so many people in my hometown (a more rural area) who didn’t bother with them.

Anyway, while all these graveside preparations are going on my mom goes through the bag of personal items from my dad that the hospital gave us.  She tossed his clothes in the washer and placed his two rings into a bag to give to the funeral home so he could be buried in them.  She also pulled out his wallet and his cell phone.  His wallet has a picture that was obviously cut from an old driver’s license of a woman named Deb.  Apparently, this woman lives in Florida and had attended junior high school with my dad.  About two years ago, my parents took a trip to Florida and visited with her for several days.  She even friended my mom on Facebook.  So, the old driver’s license picture of her was very weird.  What was even more disturbing?  His wallet also contained a plastic bag of hair that very obviously is not my mom’s.  And there was a piece of paper with three phone numbers on it.  His phone was locked with a PIN and was set to wipe itself after 20 incorrect tries.  I did tried to break into it, but wasn’t successful.  My mom admitted that she suspected he’d been talking to someone on his phone for years, but she never directly confronted him about it.  She’d just make comments about him always texting on his phone and being secretive.  Two Christmases ago he bought her a ring at a store that she has an online login to.  This particular store posts the receipts for all purchases linked to the customer’s account to the website.  She saw that my dad had purchased two pieces of jewelry even though she only received one.  My dad has never in his life bought me a Christmas present without my mom assisting, so she knew it wasn’t for me.  She still didn’t confront him, though.  She just told him that she could see the itemized receipts online.

I sympathized with my mom because I’ve experienced the infidelity of a partner in a relationship and if I were her then I’d want to know.  But I also told her that I don’t know digging into it will make things any better and may not even give her the truth.  He’s gone and there is nothing that can be done about that or anything else.  While I was running errands for her the day before the graveside service, she messaged Deb in Florida and asked if she wanted her picture back.  She also called the three phone numbers in his wallet.  One went to Deb.  The other two were the cell phone and work phone of my dad’s best friend’s wife, Anne.  The same friend and wife who likely gave the virus to my dad.  My mom told me when I got back that she’d done this and admitted she’d always felt like my dad was talking to Anne and might have an inappropriate relationship with her.  I suspect my mom is right.  Gut instinct is usually accurate.  She said she didn’t think anything physical was going on with Deb, but she did think my dad was carrying on a flirtatious relationship with her via text.  In both cases, he tried to hide it.  And if you hide it, then you know it’s wrong.  That night Deb messaged my mom back and said she had heard about what happened to my dad and was very sorry.  She said that my dad was always clear that he was married and nothing went on that was inappropriate, but that he gave her someone to talk to when her husband was sick and dying five years earlier and they’d always kept in contact.  Again, I don’t think my mom can count on anyone to give her the full story without spin or deceit.  A couple days ago, she texted me a picture of a receipt from my dad’s truck.  It was from last Christmas from a department store.  It had two pieces of jewelry on it.  She looked them both up using the UPCs listed and found the necklace he gave her last year and a ring she doesn’t recognize.  We don’t know if he was giving this jewelry to Deb in Florida or Anne, his friend’s wife.  Or someone else we don’t even know about.  And we’re probably never going to know.  Do I want to call Deb and Anne and tell them I want to full story?  Fuck yeah.  Do I think it will fix anything?  Fuck no.

TL;DR?  I finally found some balance in my life late this summer.  This balance was destroyed when my dad got COVID and died after three weeks in the hospital.  And when you’ve already got a not-so-great relationship with your dad, you get all kinds of feels when he dies in a traumatic way and then you find out he’s been screwing around on your mom.  I also have lots of anger toward him for knowingly exposing my other family members to the virus simply because he didn’t want to own up to getting it after doing something we’d all told him to stop doing.

Health-wise?  I think I’m okay.  It’s been almost ten days since I was with him in the hospital and seven days since his graveside service.  I haven’t had any symptoms yet and I think most people show symptoms by now.  Regardless, I’ve been at home since I returned last Thursday evening and I intend to stay home until January 2nd.  My boyfriend is also home and will be here until January 2nd as well.  Just to be safe.  My brothers are mostly recovered, but both still have a bit of a cough.  My mom never had much in the way of symptoms and seems fine.  My dad was 64 and overweight.  We found out once he was admitted to the hospital that his regular doctor had told him he was a diabetic and my dad insisted on “treating” that with cinnamon instead of actual medicine.  Other than those things, he didn’t have any health concerns.  Be careful, ya’ll.

[bixbythemartian]

cause I got a couple questions about it- I think I’ve just got a sparkling head cold. which is more or less what I’ve thought for the last two days, but because I had symptoms that are commonly associated with Covid, was required to wait for my test results before I could return to work.

(completely reasonable! it’s a state where there’s uncontrolled spread and I delivered to like 20 houses last thursday night, not counting the customers I interacted with curbside! many of those people don’t wear masks, even though I’m vigilant about it!)

My symptoms started on Saturday and I suspect it was a combination of a head cold and my whole body trying to decompress after like 5 days straight of election stress. that does weird things to ya.

I started feeling better yesterday and have been expecting a negative result, but I’d also heard that the first few days of covid can be fairly mild and then you get jackhammered by it, so I was just staying home and eating tuna and drinking ginger ale and being cautious

(canada dry has a bold ginger ale that is extra gingery, which has been useful because my taste and sense of smell are still kinda fucked, though improving, but may be useful to you if you are like me and regular ginger ale does not have enough ginger in it to START with)

anyway, I’m starting to improve. amusingly, five to seven days is about the amount of time it takes a cold to pass through your system.

I’ve actually been working on some long form writing that I don’t know if I’m going to finish, but it seems that electing the less bad white old dude has cleared up some mental bandwidth

not reopening my ask box right now, I have decided that in the future I will do that for short periods of time only, and I’m going to figure out a transformative works policy that I can be happy with and just stick it in the master post because that’s the way that’s going to make me happiest.

love y’all, you’re all very kind and I appreciate it!

[redbirdbella]

@clintasha-week advent calendar day 21 - free 

This goes against all my headcanons so it wont go any further but this idea wouldn’t stop bugging me so here we go!

"Hello? Yes. I'd like to request medical assistance to safehouse 3485 please, suspected poisoning" Clint begins unable to take his eyes off his partner and the way she's bearhugging the toilet bowl. 

"Ok honey, we can definitely get that sorted for you. Can you just let me know which agent you are requesting this for?"

"Natasha Romanoff"

"Uh-huh," she taps away furiously at a keypad. He wonders if he can see the notes, the ones that say she's only just had the KGBs bounty removed from her head. "So is this Clint I'm speaking to?"

"Yeah"

"Ok Clint, Agents Stanton and Welford will be over to support they are from Natasha's approved file and I believe you've met before?"

"Many times"

"Excellent they are 20 minutes away from your location and are on their way as soon as they can. Do you mind giving me a brief description of the issue?"

"She's been generally unwell for the past 4 days with sickness and nausea - unable to keep food down and now seems weak and tired. It started after Starks party"

"Ok, I've got that noted down. Is she currently conscious and breathing?"

"yeah she's now being sick, bits of blood too"

"Alright Clint, keep her calm, it's perfectly normal for that to happen if someone's being sick as much as she is. No more food and fluids until help arrives though ok?"

Clint nods not that she can see but he doesn't want Natasha to realize he's asking for medical support but if her glare is anything to go by she's noticed. 

"And you say it started after Starks party?"

"Yeah the morning after" 

"Ok, and can you tell me who was in attendance?

"No, it's a bit of a blur" 

"That's ok. We can look into that more if and when we need too. How's Natasha doing now?" 

"Still the same"

"Ok, Stanton and Welford are only 5 minutes out now-"

The operator is 48 seconds too early. Stanton and Welford arrive relatively uneventfully as far as Natasha's concerned. She grumbles but still gives Stanton, an ex-army medic now a lovable grump, a tight hug and a soft "hello" leaving Welford to fuss over Lucky and the inevitable paperwork that comes with interacting with Strike Team Delta.

 They get Natasha settled on the bed leaving the cool bathroom floor behind. 

"Right, let's start by running a few basic tests and then we will either take you to the treatment center or give Clint the number of a good therapist for the hypochondria"

The quick laugh it draws from Natasha disappears as soon as the medical equipment appears. 

"First question" Stanton asks sternly but the glint in her eyes says otherwise, "Did you eat Clint's cooking?"

"Nothing I haven't supervised"

"Well that pretty much rules out food poisoning"  

"I'm sure it can be arranged if you like Stanton, I can make you my special scrambled eggs recipe the special ingredient is E.coli" Clint mutters entwining his fingers with Natasha's.

The tests are over quickly, with Natasha too drained to put up much of a fight this time. One by one the results all come up negative, negative, negative. But the sickness hasn't stopped. Clint holds her through the next bout until she's left empty dry-heaving and coughing.

"Ok me and Welford both want to give you a little trip up to the treatment centre cause chances are you might have a nasty case of stomach flu or a stomach migraine but we can run some more tests up there just to be sure it's nothing major. But first, let's get you feeling a little more human and a little less walking dead. Wash or a shower?"

"Can't she get clean once we are there?" Clint's asks straining to keep the fear from his voice. 

Stanton nods towards the door leaving Natasha to Welford capable hands and Lucky's wagging tail.

"No, it's nicer to do it at home where we can get her dressed. I understand your concerns but between the three of us, we have got her covered. do you want to pack you both an overnight bag? She's going to need IV fluids overnight if nothing else, get someone in to check on the dog"

Clint nods "But it's not life-threatening?"

"No she's still very much alive so don't start spending the life insurance money just yet. Now Natasha wash or shower?"

They let him travel in the ambulance, sitting him close enough so he can kiss her hands and whisper to her when the movement of the ambulance and her nausea collide.

She chooses shower cause of course she does anything to delay a visit to the treatment centre. It works though, she does look more human dressed in leggings and one of Clint's old jumpers. Smaller but still more human.

She even manages a smile when they call ahead and guarantee Natasha her favourite Doctor the quirky young woman with the red converses. 

Welford does the handover, patiently repeating himself when the Doctor interrupts to ask questions before he's finished. They stay there goodbyes to Stanton and Wellford and the next few hours pass by with endless tests and observations. By Strike Team Deltas standards Natasha is a model patient even when they place her onto an IV of fluids and an anti-sickness medication with a name with more syllables then ingredients, probably. 

Eventually, Clint crawls into bed with her, once the medication has kicked in enough that she can actually relax as the fear of being sick subsides. 

"I'm sorry" he whispers "I was being paranoid"

Natasha smiles pushing her forehead against his, "Avoiding blame more like, bet it was that omelette the one you absolutely checked the eggs were good for" 

"I'll make it up to you. promise"

Natasha smiles, she relaxes into him and Clint is almost certain she's asleep when the Dr walks in. 

"Mystery solved love-birds. The good news is Natasha hasn't been poisoned. The bad news is she's been taken out by friendly fire. The friendliest fire" 

Natasha glances over giving Clint her best 'i-told-you-so' smile. 

"Congratulations. Your pregnant!"

[plasticnightmaredoll]

So, this is a drabble I’ve been sitting on for a little while, mostly because I wrote it while in a “mood” and thus it’s kind of personal. However, I do still like it and want to share it.

It does involve Erron Black and Cassie Cage from “Mortal Kombat,” so if you’re familiar with them then kudos, I suppose. If not, then it’s no a big deal. You don’t need to know all about them to understand what’s going on in this drabble. 

I didn’t tag this writing with anything Mortal Kombat related because it’s kind of...bashing BlackCage (Erron Black x Cassie Cage) and doesn’t paint Cassie Cage in the best light. I don’t want the drama and bullshit that could result so I am keeping the MK tags far away from this drabble.

Now, this fic DOES involve Arkham Knight Riddler, so it’s a crossover, and I am 100% ok with tagging him and Scarecrow (Yes, he’s in it, too, sort of). Neither of them are portrayed in a way that would piss people off. 

Now, the fic is very personal to me and technically it’s a self-insert, but I refrained from using my real name or my alias, and has just referred to myself with pronouns. Why? Because I’m kind of shy and weird like that. Plus, it’s super personal and emotional to me, this drabble, and I just don’t feel comfortable directly attaching my name -- or even my alias -- to it right now.

This isn’t on AO3 for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, and I am honestly ok with any feedback on this, be it positive or negative. Seriously, if you have thoughts, then share. If you happen to be a BlackCage fan and/or Cassie Cage then feel free to send me hate -- no anon hate, though, as I have turned off anonymous asks.

I will warn you now, the drabble deals with self-esteem issues, and the ending, if you are familiar with Scarecrow (and if you’re reading this, I sure hope you are), the ending is kind of.....dark. Nothing actually happens but it is heavily implied someone is in for a traumatizing time.

Volunteer

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” she said, sounding as defeated and drained as she looked. “I tried my best yet I still only managed to be in the friend zone. He said it’s not that I’m not good enough, but that he had liked her for a while and she finally said ‘yes’ to going out with him so…”

“What does this girl look like?” Edward asked, displeased with the situation.

“Hang on.”

Edward had to admit he wasn’t shocked by this news. From the start, he knew Erron Black was that type of guy, one of those dim-witted pretty boys who had no sense or reason. However, Edward didn’t say anything to her as she was an adult and could make decisions on her own -- even if they were the wrong ones. Besides, she was so smitten by Erron that Edward suspected she wouldn’t have listened to or believed his warnings anyway.

She searched on her phone and found the (infamous) girl’s Instagram profile and then handed it to Edward. Looking through Cassie Cage’s photos, frowning, shaking his head, he found himself unimpressed. This was the woman that got Erron’s attention? Honestly? She was a spoiled, bratty, self-centered blonde with the IQ of a donut! 

Clearly.

Although, seeing as how Erron’s IQ was clearly no higher than that of Cassie Cage, Edward figured birds of a feather flocked together...one dodo for another.

“Ugh, I’ve seen enough,” Edward said, handing her back her phone. “She’s a social media brat who has fluff for brains and probably uses her looks to get what she wants. There’s no way she’s actually an intelligent, fascinating person. Anyone who takes that many ridiculous selfies is, without a doubt, an idiot.”

Edward noticed she didn’t appear to be relieved by his words, so he quickly thought of something else to add, hoping it would provide some sort of window to clarity that she desperately needed for this situation.

“So, this Cassie fits society’s shallow and pointless standards of beauty,” Edward said. “She’s an absolute bore, I tell you! She’s got a pretty face and an attitude, probably only is successful because she’s relied on her parents for everything.”

She still looked upset, and maybe even more so.

Ok, Edward, think! thought the criminal genius, chewing on his lower lip as his anxiousness grew. There’s got to be a way to get this through to her. This is a waste of her time!

“I mean...I wouldn’t want to spend time with her,” Edward said, placing a hand on his chest. “I’d probably lose my mind after listening to whatever pointless drivel would inevitably spill forth from her mouth. As for her looks, well, let’s be realistic here: they won’t last, and then what? She’ll be stranded with her own deflated ego and nowhere to go.”

Edward could tell that she was nearly crying now much to his dismay, and she kept her head down to hide the tears gathering under her lashes. This was absurd, he thought. Why did she feel so hurt by a guy who was a complete moron and a girl who looked like every other blonde girl out there? It was a waste of time, energy, thought, and emotion to dwell on such people. Why couldn’t she see that?

“I understand what you said,” she said, sniffling. “I agree with a lot of it but...it still hurts, maybe more so now that I realize how much of a bimbo Cassie is. And Erron chose her? I’m not blonde...is that what he wants?” She gripped her phone tightly. “Do I need to start acting like an obnoxious brat, taking selfies and posting them online for attention?” The grip was now threatening to crack the protective outer case of the phone. “I did all I could to be a good friend to him, was there for him, listened to him, treated him well….and yet, I’m still not good enough to earn his...his love? He waited a long time for Cassie...well, I’ve waited even longer to stop being rejected because I’m not good enough!”

Not wanting her to injure herself, he reached out and placed a hand over hers, watching her fingers loosen around her phone.

“I don’t feel good enough,” she said softly, finally crying. “I’ve never been good enough. I don’t know why...I don’t know...I try and I try but it’s never enough...”

Edward watched her sob quietly to herself, unsure of what to do but his internal panic was growing worse. This wasn’t exactly his area of expertise, and he still thought she was wasting energy on two idiots. However, there was nothing he could do about that, not right now, not when she was still overwhelmed by emotion.

So, he reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, feeling a little awkward doing it but it was all he could think of at the time.

“It’s going to be alright,” Edward told her. “I promise.”

A few weeks later….

Edward was typing away at his computer as she sat at a table nearby working on one of her custom dolls. With her headphones on, she drowned out the world around her, entirely focused on painting the face of the doll. Because of this, she didn’t notice him get up from his chair to “greet” the ignorant Neanderthal standing outside under the security camera mounted on top of the main door.

Edward opened the door to see a worried Erron Black standing outside.

“What do you want?” Edward asked in an exasperated tone. 

“Have you heard from her?” Erron asked. “She hasn’t responded to my texts or calls, and it’s really botherin’ me. I wanna know if she’s a’right.”

Edward crossed his arms, sighing in annoyance.

“Yes, I have seen her and spoken to her,” Edward said. “And it’s her right to ignore you if she chooses to.”

“I...I know that but…” Erron rubbed the back of his neck. “I...I want to speak to her...there’s somethin’ I got to say. I...I just...I need to see her and talk to her, face to face.”

“Haven’t you done enough?” Edward demanded. “No, you can’t speak to her. You’ve done enough damage to her psychological state with your puny, insignificant brain.”

Erron looked taken aback but said nothing as guilt consumed him further. As much as he hated Edward’s callous words, the cowboy wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight.

“Now, run along, Little Cowboy,” Edward said. “Go back to your vapid Selfie Queen where you belong.”

With that, Edward closed the door in Erron’s face, smirking triumphantly. Why that idiot thought he could just walk on back with his tail between his legs and beg for forgiveness, Edward had no idea. Then again the other man was too selfish to realize the error of his ways, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise he tried that.

As Edward made his way back to his computer, he suddenly got an idea; a beautiful, incredible, ingenious, devious idea. Taking his phone out of his pants pocket, he searched for and dialed the number he had in mind for this situation.

“Hello, Crane,” Edward said, smiling wickedly to himself.

“Ah, Edward,” said Jonathan, who was fully expecting to be hit with Edward’s ego. “I am surprised to hear from you. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I’ve got something, or rather someone for you.”

“Oh?”

“You said you were working on a new variation of that fear toxin of yours, am I correct?”

“Yes, and it’s nearly ready. Perhaps just another day more and it will be finished.”

“Great! Then I have a candidate you can test it on.”

“Oh, yes, do tell. I am always looking for ‘volunteers,’ as you know.”

Edward gave Erron’s name and description to Jonathan, his smile turning into a malicious grin as he did so. As much as Edward wanted to teach the dumb cowboy a lesson himself, he also thought it wasn’t worth the effort and Scarecrow loved having ‘volunteers’ for his silly little gas...

“I will have my men apprehend him right away,” said Jonathan.

“Just don’t leave any permanent damage,” Edward said. “Otherwise...have at it.”

“I would never do such a terrible thing,” Jonathan said, chuckling darkly. “I take good care of all of my ‘volunteers.’”

“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“Before I go, may I ask why you are recommending this man to me? Is he one of your henchmen? Did he steal from you? Fail to complete a job?”

Now this caught Edward off guard. How was he going to explain this? He couldn’t even fully explain his feelings about this -- about her -- to himself. Yet, he didn’t want to deny Jonathan an answer, either. It was a perfectly valid, logical, albeit nosey question.

“This man, he…” Edward began, his words catching in his throat for a moment. “He, um...he...damaged something...something very valuable to me. And...and as much as I want to discipline him myself, he is too far beneath me for me to waste any of my precious time dealing with him further.”

“Ah, I see,” said Jonathan. “I must be going now, but thank you, Edward. You are too generous.”

With that, Edward hung up and made his way over to her, lightly tapping her shoulder. Turning around, she smiled up at him and removed her headphones.

“Hi, Eddie,” she said. “Did you need something?”

“No, no,” he said with a charming smile. “I just wanted to get a closer look at what you’re working on. It looks impressive so far.”

“Really?” she looked delighted, her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink. “It’s not done yet but...thank you! You have given me a little confidence boost.”

“And you deserve it,” Edward said, patting her shoulder. “I look forward to the final result.”

Back at his desk, Edward continued working on code for upgrades to the Riddlerbots, humming to himself contentedly. Maybe what he did was a bit much, but the cowboy needed to be put in his place. Men like Erron -- people like Erron -- always did. Besides, she would forget about the fool in time. Edward was certain of this because that was the nature of things: you forget about what no longer has any meaning or purpose in your life, and seeing as how she wasn’t at all interested in conversing with Erron anymore...well, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the conclusion.

“Just dance,” she sang softly to herself. “Gonna be okay, da da doo-doo-mmm...”

Edward nodded to himself upon hearing her, smiling.

Yes, it’s going to be ok, My Dear, he thought. It’s all going to be ok…

-----------------

And that’s the drabble....Now, think of this: Riddler could fuck Erron Black up. I mean, he has a goddamn robot army. And Riddler is a criminal genius -- well, even without the “criminal” part, he’s still a genius. Erron is....he’s not. No offense but he’s not. 

In this drabble, Eddie is aware of all of this, but -- and this is where the self-insert part comes in so forgive me -- he does have strong feels for myself (which sounds weird but, like I said, this is a self-insert type of thing and I self-ship with this Riddler so......), as I’m the only friend he’s got (only friend he’s probably ever had, really). So, he’s very protective. 

I can see Arkham Knight Riddler being this way if he actually cared for someone. They’d be special to him for a lot of reasons and he wouldn’t want them to be hurt. He’d be devastated because he cares for them, they care for him...it’s the last the he’d want, for them to be hurt in any way.

And we know Riddler isn’t above getting revenge, and this is personal. 

Yes, I know Batman pissing him off and humiliating him over and over is personal, but I think this sort of situation would be even heavier for AK Riddler for the reasons I already mentioned. 

Some idiot dared to make his one and only friend, the only person who has been both kind and respectful towards him despite his flaws, feel awful about themselves and for no good fucking reason? 

A guy who reminds Eddie of the bullies he had to deal with growing up (I do think AK Riddler was bullied growing up -- it seems to be implied, and with how poor his social skills are, I think he would have sadly been a target for bullies in school)? 

A guy who is so beneath both Eddie and his dear friend, that said guy doesn’t deserve to walk away from this without paying a price?

But Edward isn’t a master of mental torture like Scarecrow is, and we know Scarecrow’s fear toxin makes people hallucinate terrible, terrifying things, including their worst fears and possibly any traumas they have endured in life. Erron Black didn’t have the best childhood based on his intros with other MK characters. It seems like he grew up in an abusive household, has trouble being open with anyone, has trouble forming serious relationships, chases cheap thrills over and over like he’s filling some sort of void....

Something tells me Erron wouldn’t have a good time under the influencer of Scarecrow’s toxin, and while Eddie doesn’t know about Erron’s unpleasant childhood, he...also doesn’t and wouldn’t care because, AGAIN, of the reasons I have already mentioned. In Eddie’s mind, he’s getting revenge for his only friend, the only person he actually cares for, and he’s getting it in a very fucked up kind of way. 

Phew...that was a real fucking ramble. I apologize but I have a lot of feelings about this drabble and its subject matter.....

And let’s be fucking REAL, Bitches: Erron should be glad we’re dealing with Arkhamverse Riddler and not Telltale Riddler. If it were Telltale Riddler.....omfg Erron would probably beg for the fear toxin.

Because Telltale Riddler doesn’t fuck around. 

[five-rivers]

Prompt by @fruity-hub-blog.  Phor the Phic Phight.

.

.

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The night was auspicious for a summoning, all the stars and planets in their ideal locations. The date, Beltane, was excellent. The mansion was old, Gothic, and had more than a passing reputation for being haunted, not to even mention the town. The candles were high-quality all-natural beeswax. The chalk was the purest white. The altar at the center of the geometrically perfect chalk circle was of clean-cut marble. The practitioners were experienced. The ritual...

Well, that remained to be seen.

But still, they couldn't ignore the opportunity to summon the Dark King, the Lord of the Afterlife, the Ruler of All Ghosts and Spirits. It was the kind of thing that only came along once in a lifetime, if that.

Each of the thirteen of them had their lines, their part of the ritual that they had memorized after months of practice. It was complex, but also oddly simple. Elegant. Refined. Perfect.

The grandfather clock in the drawing room began to toll midnight, the signal to begin. The practitioners' voices wove together, reaching up, up, up, and hopefully through the veil separating the mortal world from the one belonging to the spirits.

The candles flared, first yellow, then red, then green, reaching higher and higher until the circle looked like a cage with bars of fire. A wind whipped through the room, twisting and tangling the flames. The hoods of the practitioners' robes were blown free, exposing their faces. A few put up their hands to shield their faces from the flames, but none of them stopped chanting.

The leader, their high priest, took his dagger from beneath his robes and drew it smoothly across his hand. He let the blood puddle there, before flinging it out, towards the altar at the center of the circle. The book they had read had suggested that the ritual was more likely to be successful if the high priest made a more significant sacrifice at the altar, or if the high priest made the sacrifice at the altar, in the circle, thereby putting himself at the King's mercy, but, well. The practitioners were all dedicated. None of them was that dedicated.

A few drops of blood hit the altar, and there was a flash of light that was bright and somehow dark all at once. The practitioners had to avert their gazes.

"What have you done now, Daniel?" asked a mature, highly annoyed voice. It echoed weirdly around the room.

"I didn't do anything," said a much younger, but still male voice. "I never do anything. Whenever something happens, it's because you decided to go all power h- Ellie!?"

"Ow," this third voice was younger and female. "That was weird. What happened? Where are we?"

"I don't- Oh. Hello. Uh. Hm." Two pairs of green eyes and one pair of red blinked out of the circle at the practitioners. "We seem to have been summoned by a cult. Hi, Mr. Thunder." As the practitioners' eyes adjusted, they saw one of the three (three!) ghosts they had summoned wave to one of their more junior members.

Lance Thunder made a strangled noise. "Phantom? And the Wisconsin Ghost?"

The smallest ghost snickered. "The Wisconsin Ghost? Really?"

The largest ghost growled. "That is not my name. I am-"

"Oh my gosh, is that blood?" asked Phantom, pointing at the altar. His finger traced the line back to the high priest. "Dude, you're bleeding. Are you okay? You should probably get that looked at, it looks pretty deep from here."

The high priest blinks for a minute, then turns his gaze to the eldest ghost. "You... must be the king," he said, forgetting his planned speech, "and these," he hesitated for a moment, "phantoms are your attendants?"

There was a beat of silence then an uproar of laughter. "Him? King? You're joking right?"

"He's so bad at getting people to listen to him that he makes his own followers from scratch!" exclaimed the younger ghost. "And I still told him to stuff it!"

"People hate him more than they hate me!" Phantom took a deep breath and seemed to settle himself. "Why would you think he was a king?"

"We were, er, we were trying to summon the King of All Ghosts," said Lance Thunder when it became clear no one else was going to answer.

"Pariah Dark? Why?" asked Phantom, clearly taken aback. "The heck would anyone want to do that? Don't answer, we all know you're the lunatic that let him out last time."

By this point, the ghosts had moved so that they were standing on opposite ends of the altar, the Wisconsin Ghost on one side, and the two green-eyed ghosts on the other.

Lance glanced at the high priest again. "To... ask a boon."

"Right," said Phantom. "Well, it's a good thing you didn't get him, honestly."

"But-" said the high priest, reemerging from his stupor. "Why you? Why three of you? This doesn't make sense! This was for one, specific, ghost! There shouldn't be three."

The ghosts exchanged glances. Phantom, with the air of someone trying to be subtle, tested the boundary of the circle and winced slightly as his hand met an impenetrable wall.

"Most likely," said the Wisconsin Ghost, clasping his hands behind his back and standing straight, "it is because Daniel and I were the last ghosts to be in Pariah's presence, as we were the ones to defeat him."

"Please, you showed up at literally the last second and turned a key. You didn't fight. I guess you were there, but that doesn't explain Ellie. You secretly a king, Ellie?"

"Nah, but I bet I'd make a great queen." She struck a pose then let it drop, shrugging. "I'm going to be honest, though, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The similarities between Danielle's ectosignature and yours probably confused the spell. Now, if you are all quite satisfied that we aren't the ghost you are looking for, release us. I'd prefer not to have to waste time breaking out. My night has been disrupted enough."

The high priest twitched, then clenched his uninjured hand. "No," he said.

The Wisconsin Ghost raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"No. Perhaps you aren't the ones we wanted, but we would be fools to throw away this opportunity." The high priest took a deep breath and uttered a word of binding.

Lines of light sprang up from the circle, wrapping around the ghosts. The boy was the first bound, then the older ghost, and finally, after what almost seemed like confusion, the girl. The lights tried to arrange them on the altar, but that only resulted in the ghosts being mashed together in a confusing pile.

"Oh, come on!" said Phantom, wriggling. "I've already filled my ritual sacrifice attempt quota this week!"

"Stop that at once, Daniel, you're kicking me in the face!"

Phantom wriggled harder.

"Bring the book," ordered the high priest. "Perhaps it can shed some light on these events and tell us how we might reap benefits for ourselves."

"Are we going to put them in thrall?" asked one of the practitioners, excitedly. "Make a bargain? Collect their powers? Sacrifice them to higher beings?"

"Wow, all of that sounds terrible," said Phantom, craning his head back so that it hung off the edge of the altar. "Like, really terrible. You shouldn't do any of those. Trust me, they'll all backfire horribly."

The book, an old crumbling thing that had long been in the family of the high priest, was brought forward and opened. He flipped through the pages, slowly. He had read the book cover to cover many times, but some kind of power had been infused into the pages, and he often found passages in them that he would swear he had never laid eyes on before. That was how he had come across the ritual to summon the Ghost King and extract a boon from him.

The priest stops, a sentence catching his eye. Should a title be contested, it may be that all spirits with a claim to it are called. This gives the priest a sacred task, to mediate the dispute. The priest read through the next few pages.

In all honesty, the high priest didn't put much stock into things like sacred duty. Although his great-grandfather had been invested in the art and ritual for spiritual reasons, the high priest was of a more practical bent. So what if ghosts existed? People had always at least suspected that. All it meant was that you had to secure your position in the afterlife, too.

One of the other practitioners cleared their throat. "Master," said Lance Thunder. "I really think that we should just let them go. I mean, Phantom is a tutelary spirit."

"I mean, thanks, but I'm actually terrible at school."

"Be quiet, Daniel."

"So?" asked the high priest.

"So, we need him to keep the town from being overrun with ghosts," said Lance Thunder.

"With the powers we can gain from this, we could protect the town ourselves," said the high priest.

"You know," said Phantom, "saying 'could' sort of implies you won't. And this is a really uncomfortable position. The last cult I got kidnapped by was much better about positioning. I'm definitely going to have to give you a negative review."

"This happen to you a lot?" asked the girl. "Where do you even go to review cults? Yelp? What are the criteria?"

"Oh, the usual. Comfort level, sincerity, complexity, effectiveness, originality... I'll give them points for originality, since I'm usually summoned by myself. I mean, I don't summon myself, but I'm the only one summoned."

"No, no, I get it."

The high priest pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew there were spells to shut up summoned spirits, but he needed them talking, for now.

"One of you," he said, "will be King."

"No, we aren't," said the girl. "We just established that."

"Hold up," said the boy. "'Will be?' Not 'are?'"

"You are the contenders for the position," said the high priest, with as much authority as he could muster. "You must determine which of you it is to be."

"Well," said the Wisconsin Ghost. "Clearly I am the only suitable option."

"Oh, come on. You have to see he's trying to play us," said Phantom. "We pick one of us, and then that's the one that has to do this 'boon' thing, and they'll turn the rest of us into 'thralls' or whatever."

"Perhaps. But, then, you should have no trouble acknowledging me as King."

"I literally just outlined why I would have trouble doing that."

"What does 'thrall' mean, anyway?" asked the girl.

"Like, slave or something. I don't know. It was in a song that S- uh, a friend likes."

Obviously, they weren't going to cooperate. The high priest would have to get more serious. "Fetch the water of life," he ordered, pointing at Lance Thunder. It would do the junior practitioner good to remember who was in charge.

The man scurried off, light from the next room briefly spilling past the doorway.

"Isn't that vodka?" asked the girl. "Like, alcohol?"

"I don't know. Ask this guy. Reminds me of a sci-fi thing, though."

"What about this situation is sci-fi? I'm not up on genres, but, still, this has to be horror."

"Or humor, yeah."

"Oooh, burn."

"If you two are quite done," said the Wisconsin Ghost. "Perhaps you might share your plan to get out of this mess."

"You don't have a plan," said Phantom, "you have a power grab. A really dumb one, that won't work, just like all the other ones."

"He's got a point, though. How do we get out of these ropes?"

"No idea."

"I thought you did this all the time."

"Not this specific variation," protested Phantom. "None of the others had this glow-y rope thing going on. They don't exactly feel like real ropes, though, if you get me. A human could probably put their hand right through them."

"Wonderful, Daniel, but that isn't exactly something we can take advantage of, is it?"

"I'm just pointing it out, you don't have to be a jerk about it," said Phantom. He shifted again, very deliberately putting his feet in the older ghost's face.

"Daniel, stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Weren't you complaining about being enslaved a moment ago?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm totally on that. Got it covered," said Phantom.

"What do you mean, you have it covered?" said the high priest, aggravated by the constant banter. "You can't possibly believe you're getting out of this. This circle was designed to hold the King of All Ghosts!"

"Sure," drawled Phantom, "and government was designed to keep things in order, but it doesn't do a particularly good job of that, does it? Not to mention, you got three for the price of one, here. Ghost King is pretty singular, generally."

The high priest let his eyes flick over the circle and the bonds. Nothing was out of place. Everything was secure.

"Also, I'm pretty sure Mr. Thunder bailed on you, dude."

"Yeah," said the girl, "unless this house is way bigger than it has any reason to be. Even bigger than Vlad's."

"Or if he can't find it, I guess."

"Or if he has to buy it from the nearest liquor store."

"Nice. Hey, guess what, guys? If any of you want to bail, now's your chance." Phantom smiled, showing off a set of too-sharp teeth.

"No one is going anywhere," snarled the high priest. Lance Thunder had been gone for much longer than he should have been, however. He frowned at the door.

"Oh, hey, I got the blood," announced Phantom.

"I'm sorry," said the girl, "you got what?"

"The blood. I knew there was some on here. I saw it before. Really dumb leaving it out like this, you know. There's lots of stuff people like us can do with blood. It's way better than hair."

"Daniel, are you implying that you know magic?" said the Wisconsin Ghost, completely incredulous.

"That's the part of this situation you're having trouble with? But, yeah. Enough to screw with cultists who don't understand the meaning of 'personal space' or 'bio-hazard' and leave their stupid blood everywhere."

"You're going to have to teach me," said the girl.

"My friend, you know the one, is way better than me."

"That makes sense. So, are you going to blow him up?"

"I was thinking about it, but that would leave all the other guys."

"Not if you made the explosion big enough."

"That's true, but I was thinking about maybe turning him into, like, a werewolf or something. Have him tear apart all these other guys. I did say you could bail, it isn't my fault you've stu-"

"You can't do that!" snapped the high priest. "He can't do that. He's trying to trick you into letting him go free."

"Are you sure about that? I'm a ghost after all. I'm old enough to have seen Rome burn. I know more than you, even if I like playing the teenager. It makes people underestimate me." Phantom's lazy smile turned sinister. "Don't you feel what I'm already doing to you? To all of you. You could still escape," his voice buzzed uncomfortably. "All you need to do is let us go."

A few of the practitioners shifted.

"Don't-" started the high priest.

It was too late. One of the others had darted forward and upended a candle. Wax spilled over the clean chalk lines, breaking them, obscuring them. The lights flickered. The ghosts were gone.

.

"You don't actually know any magic," stated Vlad as they hovered over the house.

Danny rolled his eyes. "I know enough to scam a cultist," he said. "But, if you're asking if I could do what I was saying? Nope."

"Aw, that's too bad," said Ellie. "I was excited."

"Clever, I suppose," admitted Vlad. "But this doesn't resolve our previous business. Which of us is King?"

"Oh my gosh, Vlad, let it go," said Danny.

"I can't do that. This is a very important matter, not that a child like you would understand." Pink sparks leaped from his fingertips.

The other two ghosts drifted back, their dropping body temperatures making mist condense from the air around them.

"Well," said Ellie, "I'm not sure that it counts for anything, but I nominate Danny. Full offence, Vlad, but you suck."

There was a tiny popping sound, very like the sound a tiny firework might make, and a green and glowing crown expanded into being above Danny's head. All three ghosts stared at it for a minute. Danny was practically gaping.

"Oh," said Ellie after a moment. "I guess it does count."

Danny made a very strangled sound before diving out of the way of Vlad's attack. Ellie responded with a ghost ray of her own. The chase was on, and soon they had left the mansion far behind.

[icarusmoons]

Ready or Not

@our-newdream

New Dream Appreciation Week: We’re Having A Baby

My contribution for this prompt is a little late, but I hope you enjoy! This is a Modern AU. No explicit content, but content warning for an unexpected pregnancy and all that implies. Fic is under the cut and will eventually make it to AO3. 💜

“Rapunzel? You okay in there?”

Rapunzel didn’t answer. Instead, she took a deep, shaky breath and buried her face in her hands. She had been sitting on the cool bathroom tile, staring at the two pink lines and sobbing for God knows how long. No wonder he was worried. She had told Eugene she needed to run an errand (i.e, buy a pregnancy test), and had immediately locked herself in the bathroom. 

And then, of course, she had gotten the result she had both suspected and dreaded.

Positive.

Pregnant.

What were they going to do? 

“Sweetheart?” Eugene said softly, knocking on the door. 

 “Um.” Rapunzel wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took another deep breath in an attempt to stay calm. “I’m okay. Everything’s--everything’s fine, babe.”

A pause. That meant Eugene knew she was lying, and she didn’t want to lie, but she also didn’t know how to tell him the truth. It’s not like they had been trying to have kids. They weren’t ready for kids, and they weren’t sure they ever wanted to be. Parenting was a sensitive subject for them both. Some of their friends had balked at the thought of the Fitzherberts never having children (”You’d be such good parents!”) and it frustrated Rapunzel to no end. She firmly believed their hesitation was perfectly reasonable. After all, Eugene grew up in the foster system. Rapunzel was an abused runaway. Neither of them exactly had shining examples of parents. 

Even if they had had happy childhoods, their thoughts on procreating was their business and theirs alone, Rapunzel thought. She scowled at the pregnancy test and sighed. There was no use. She had to tell him. Maybe now. Better to get it over with, she figured. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. 

Eugene knocked on the door again. “Rapunzel, I’m getting worried.” 

Well. That made two of them. 

Rapunzel finally stood up and opened the door, hiding the pregnancy test behind her back. Eugene was still standing right outside, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.  “Hi,” she said. She hoped she sounded normal. 

“Hey,” Eugene said quietly. He reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and then gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. “You feeling okay, Sunshine?”

“Um—”

“Are you feeling sick again?”

Rapunzel smiled weakly. She did feel sick, but not in the way Eugene thought. For the past few weeks, she had been chalking up some of her symptoms to being sick. Eugene had been the ever-supportive partner, of course, asking her if she needed anything from the drugstore and reminding her to get plenty of rest. She hated suddenly knowing it was all for nothing. 

“Um. No.”

Eugene frowned. 

She tried again. “Kind of?” 

Her husband sighed and ran a hand through his hair, the way he always did when he was stressed. “Rapunzel, this is getting...it’s getting out of hand. This has been going on for a while—” 

“I know, but Eugene—”

“I just—”

“Eugene.”

“I know you don’t think it’s a big deal, but I’m worried about you, because you’re clearly not feeling well—” 

“Eugene.”

“I can call the doctor if you want to lie down for a while—“

“Eugene!”

“What?”

“I’m...I’m pregnant.”

Eugene blinked. Once. Twice. 

Maybe ripping off the Band-Aid wasn’t the best approach. 

“You’re...what?”

“I’m pregnant.” She held up the pregnancy test and waved it in a futile attempt at humor. “It’s, uh...It’s positive.”

He looked down at the pregnancy test, then back up at Rapunzel, doing a rapid triple-take before speaking again.

“It’s...positive?”

Rapunzel nodded.

“As in...not negative?”

“I mean...that’s usually what positive means, yeah.” 

Eugene ran a hand through his hair again and slowly walked towards their bed, as if in a daze. She couldn’t blame him. It didn’t feel real, somehow. Rapunzel set the pregnancy test on the bathroom counter and followed, sitting next to him at the edge of the bed.

“So...The past few weeks make a little more sense now, huh?” Eugene asked, raising his eyebrow. 

“You could say that.”

“I mean—I know we—” Eugene blushed, and it was so unexpected and so unlike him that Rapunzel couldn’t help but laugh. “But how?”

Rapunzel shrugged. “I guess we weren’t as careful as we thought.” 

Eugene took her hand in his. “Well, Sunshine,” he said softly, “How do you feel?”

“I’m...I’m terrified.”

Rapunzel’s eyes filled with tears, and Eugene brought her hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles.

“I never—I mean, I didn’t have a mom. Not really. That’s why I left. I never dreamed of being a mother, because I hated the woman who called herself my mother. I don’t even know what a good mother does.”

Eugene’s eyes softened. 

“I’m ill-equipped,” Rapunzel said, letting out a sob. “Thinking about being a mother just brings back all these awful memories. I didn’t even know how to help myself for most of my life. How am I going to raise a child?”

“Rapunzel. Sweetheart. Look at me.”

Rapunzel lifted her head and let Eugene cup her cheek. “If we do this,” he said gently, “You’re going to be an amazing mother. Because that’s who you are. You’re good. No matter what.” 

She squeezed her eyes shut as another tear fell down her face. 

“And hey,” Eugene whispered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “You wouldn’t be doing this alone, remember?”

Rapunzel managed to smile through her tears. “We do make a good team.”

 Eugene grinned back at her. “Mmhm. I love that about us.”

“What about you?” Rapunzel asked, leaning back as she wiped her eyes. “How do you feel?

“Well,” Eugene said slowly, “I’m also terrified. And I’ve been pretty neutral about the whole kid thing, too.” He paused. “But I...I also think it’s a chance to give someone what I didn’t have. What we didn’t have.”

Rapunzel hadn’t thought about it like that, and something like hope bloomed in her chest. She thought of all the stories Eugene had told her about taking care of his younger foster siblings. She imagined waking up in the middle of the night, only for Eugene to tell her to go back to sleep and head for the nursery. 

 “You’d be a good dad,” she said softly. “I know you would be.”

“True. I’m good at most things,” Eugene said, nudging Rapunzel’s shoulder as she giggled. A cocky Eugene was a good sign, she thought. It was a sign of normalcy. A sign that maybe things would be okay. 

Okay just felt very far away. 

“Do you really think we can do this?” Rapunzel asked, biting her lip. “I mean, even if we’d be good parents? I don’t feel ready. I don’t even know if I’m happy.” 

“Well, babe,” Eugene said, leaning forward to give her a quick kiss, “I’m no expert, but I think that’s normal for unexpected pregnancies.” 

“You don’t think I’m horrible?”

“I could never.” 

Relief flooded through her, and Rapunzel leaned against Eugene’s shoulder. She gave a contented sigh and closed her eyes. This was good, Rapunzel thought. This made the prospect of motherhood less terrifying. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Sunshine.” 

She opened her eyes and tilted her head, looking up at Eugene’s smiling face. “So,” she started, raising an eyebrow. “I guess….we’re going to be parents?”

Eugene’s smile grew wider. “Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, I guess we are.” 

[toomuchtv95]

End of the World

Characters: Jay Halstead x Reader

Word Count: 1.8k+

Warnings: Swearing, medical talk (nothing graphic)

Summary: Events take place during the Infection Crossover along with slight changing to the plot.

A/N: It’s finally here! I know I’ve been promising this for weeks and I kept getting busy with work. So here it is. Enjoy and let me know what you think. 

MasterList Mobile MasterList

It all the years you have been a cop you have never seen anything like this. The city was in a panic. There were atleast 30 people in quarantine including yourself. During an interview with a suspect, the suspect had attacked you, causing you to fight back not knowing she was infected till after they had collapsed in your arms. So here you sat in quarantine, waiting for your test results to clear you. After seeing what the infection could do, you were scared. You were putting on a brave face because if you start to freak out then everyone else that was in quarantine would also freak out.

“Hey.” The moment you heard that voice, you immediately stood up from the cot you were sitting and walked over to where Jay was standing. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” You hated lying to Jay, but if he knew that you were scared, he would start worrying about you. He needed to focus on this case and catch this son of a bitch. “It’s the waiting for the test to come back that is the worst part of all this.”

“I know, but I have faith that your test result is going to come back negative.”  Jay always knew the right words to say in these situations which is one of the reasons why you were inlove with him. Within the last couple of weeks, you and Jay officially became partners. You used to be partnered with Antonio, but since he moved to Puerto Rico, Voight had rearranged partners.

“Jay….” The two of you locked eyes for a few moments but before you could speak up, Jay’s phone started to ring which broke the stare. Jay took the call and when he returned, he had a lead on the case.

“I gotta go.” You could hear the sadden in his voice because he would rather stay here with you then be out there chasing leads, but he knew he had to get back to the team. “Hang in there okay?” You nodded your head and then watch Jay walk away.

You sighed as you laid down on the cot and looked up at the ceiling. As you laid on the cot, your thoughts wander back to Jay and how your feeling got so intensive for him. It probably started the moment you had joined Intelligence. When you joined Intelligence, you were immediately partnered with Antonio and when Erin left to join the task force for a short period of time, you were partnered with Jay. Once Erin returned, you were once again partnered with Antonio. When you joined the unit, you and Jay immediately clicked and became instant friends. Over the years of being in the unit, you had slowly developed feelings for the handsome detective, and as you sat here in quarantine you started to regret not telling Jay.

“Hey, Y/N.” Natalie appeared on the other side of the plastic wall causing you to stand up “Well, I got some news for you.” Natalie had a smile on her face which meant one thing. “Your test results came back. They came back negative.” You closed your eyes and slightly thanked the big man upstairs for your results. After Natalie gave you the good news, you had gotten dress and you were handed back your possessions. As you were at the nurse’s station signing your discharge paper, you left the hospital and got in your car. Once you got in your car, you turned on your police radio and before you could call into the team, you heard over the radio about Intelligence heading to BRT's office building. Without even thinking, you threw your car into drive and made your way to the office building. As soon as you arrived, you saw Jay, Atwater, and Upton already geared up and ready to jump into action. You jumped out of your car, grabbed your vest and strapped on your thigh holster.

“Y/N? When did you get released?” Jay of course was the first to notice you as approached the group and he was more than relieved to see you.

“Just now. I heard over the radio and I came straight here.” As the four of you started walking towards the entrance, a body came flying through the window and landed on the sidewalk. “What the hell?” You glanced up at the side of the building and saw that someone had thrown them out the window.

“You guys go I got this.” You, Jay, and Hailey headed inside and saw that everyone was in a panic and running towards the exit.

“You two head upstairs. I’ll stay down here.” Both you and Jay gave Hailey a nod and headed up the stairwell. Once you and Jay approached the 6th floor, you guys heard gunshots.

“5021 George, I got shots fired on the six-floor.” You spoke into your radio as you guided people past you to make sure they were out of harm's way.

“Where is he?” Jay asked a woman as she came running past the two of you.

“He’s in the conference room at the end of the hall.” The women pointed down the hall before running off. You and Jay glanced at eachother before slowly approaching the end of the hall.

“Detective Halstead, Chicago PD.” Jay was standing right outside of the doorframe with you right behind him.

“Don’t come here.”

“Okay, I’m not.” Jay looked back at you before slightly nodding his head towards the other side of the doorframe. You have him a nod as he quickly made his way to the other side of the door frame.

“5021 George, advise responding. I got eyes on the offender. Sixth floor, southeast side of the building. He’s got, hostages.” Jay spoke low into the radio so that Seldon could not hear him.

“Dr. Seldon, I just walk to talk. Okay? Can I come in there and do that?” You snapped your head at Jay and gave him a ‘are you serious’ look. “Look, it’s either me talking or a team of men shooting.”  Even though you could sense some hesitation in Seldon’s voice, he agreed for Jay to enter.

“Jay.” You hissed under your breath. Jay pulled out his phone and dialed Hailey.

“Hailey, I’m going in. Keep this line open and get Voight on the line.” Jay looked at you and he could tell that you were not okay with this plan, but he didn’t see any other choice. As Jay slowly moved into the room, he slowly dropped his gun to the floor per Seldon’s order. Once Jay entered the room, he shut the door behind him which gave you a moment to let’s this all sink in.  

As you waited outside of the door, you moved to the other side of the door frame where Jay had stood before and tried to listen to the conversation on the other side of the door. Unfortunately, you could only get bits and pieces of the conversation. You couldn’t believe Jay would do something this stupid, but then again you can believe he would do this. It’s just who he is. He would do whatever he needed to do to make sure that no innocent person would be harmed. Once Voight and the team arrived, you could finally hear what was going on.

“I believe you, so let me do it.” What the hell was he gonna do now?

“Okay, back up.” You looked up at Voight who was just as concerned as you were. “Take that knife.” Oh god, you knew exactly what he was doing now. “Now, you're going to cut yourself.”

“Sarge, Seldon just handed him a spray bottle,” Hailey spoke into the phone. This can not be happening. The thought of losing Jay, well you couldn’t even think of that right now. Thankfully, Voight had ordered Upton to distract Seldon long even for them to make a move. Once, Voight entered through the door, he took down Seldon without hesitation. As you walked into the room, you and Jay immediately looked at eachother and before he could say anything you left the room.

“Still no answer?” Jay and Will decided to head out to the bar to celebrate on the world not ending. Since the office building, Jay has been trying to get a hold of you, but you refuse to talk to him until you were ready to face him. Jay went outside to get away from the noise to try and get a hold of you again.

“No. It’s like she’s purposely ignoring me.” Jay took a seat back down next to Will and took another sip of his drink.

“I kind of don’t blame her.” Jay thought that his brother was on his side but apparently not. “I see the way you two look at each other. Take it from a guy, who lost someone they love. You gotta tell her how you feel man. Life is too short to sit around and wait.” Jay knew Will was right. Jay was madly in love you with and after seeing you in quarantine, then risking his life today, he needed to tell you.

“I gotta go talk to her.”  Jay stood up from his stool, tossed some money on the counter, and said goodbye to Will. After a 15min drive to your apartment building, Jay basically raced up the stairs and approached your door. You were sitting on the couch drinking a glass of wine when you heard a soft knock on your door. You sighed as you pushed yourself off the couch and left your cup on the coffee table. As soon as you opened the door, you came face to face with Jay and before you could say or do anything, Jay grabbed hold of your face and crashed his lips to you. You shocked by the fact that Jay was here right now kissing you. Once you realized what was happening, you laid your hands on Jay’s sides and started to kiss him back.

“Jay.” You were the only one to pull away even though you didn’t to, but you two had to discuss what was happening. “What-”

“I’m in love with you.” You were in complete shock and for a split second, you felt like you couldn’t breathe.

“You love me?” You took a small step back so that you could see Jay’s face. You had no idea that Jay even felt that way about you. Jay was the type of guy that hid his feelings well.

“More than anything.” Looking at Jay, you placed your hands-on the nape of his neck.

“Jay, I am completely in love with you.”  Your lips slightly hovered over his before you leaned in and connected your lips to his. Jay closed the door behind me and pushed you farther into the hallway.

“It only took us for the end world for this to happen.” Jay chuckled against your lips while you helped him remove his jacket.

“Well, I’m glad the world almost ending to be together.” You smiled at Jay before planting another kiss on his lips.

Tag list: @hehurst23 @smokey102 @solennauriane @snowangle1994 @vinstef-blog @natyaria @abbiewrites1808 @extrasadbish @baker151910​

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 25: Vilify

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Twenty Five: Vilify

Note: *Nervous laughter transitions into nervous crying* I just- shit. I’ve got nothing.

(-~-)

The door loomed at the end of the hallway, black and oozing clouds of icy mist from its center and outer edges like the maw of some unknowable beast. The thick layer of frost that had once been on the windows that were present in the middle of each side of the door had now migrated upwards towards the ceiling, freezing the windows solid. For a moment, they entertained the idea that the doors might very well be frozen solid and that there may not actually be a way to open them. But one thing was for certain: whatever was on the other side of this door was cold. Very cold.

As they approached, a flicker of light could be seen from the other side of the door as if someone or something had just gone past. The light moved from right to left in a quick burst as though something had quickly dashed past, but had made no effort to conceal itself. They stopped dead in their tracks as they waited to see what would happen, unsure as to what they might be up against. A low rhythmic thudding could be heard from some unknown place, each step they took seemingly bouncing off of the impossibly echoey walls and amplifying the sound of the accursed thudding. It grew louder and louder until it began to double up, indicating to them that the rhythm of the sound was, in fact, that of a heartbeat, its speed quickening as they inched closer and closer to the door.

V examined the door for a moment as they finally got up close to it, noting the thick layer of film-like ice that had started to cover the doors. It reminded him of pond scum, or the skin that formed on top of a pot of soup if you left it for too long. The only difference was that this was on a vertical surface and was mostly see-through, easily falling away towards the floor and shattering or melting under food when he brushed his hand over it. When he tried to wipe away the surface of the door handle, he noticed that the ice had formed on the door again, seemingly unwilling to go without its protective layer of frozen condensation. A quick test tug at the handle yielded the unsurprising result that the door wasn’t going to budge.

Seemingly realizing the fact that they were not going to be able to open a frozen door, Sirrus stepped forward, gently gesturing for V to move so that he could examine the door closer. He looked at each of the handles before migrating to the hinges on both the left and right sides of the two doors, his eyes studying them carefully as he seemed to try to come up with the best possible solution to this problem. After a moment, he put his left hand on the left side door and held it there for a moment, closing his eyes. The door handle began to smoke, and a strange sizzling noise could be heard as plumes of white mist rose up into the air. V got the impression that Sirrus might be doing something that involved heat to the door, but he honestly couldn’t be sure. It was hard to see what the tall redhead was doing with his back turned to him.

“My powers are seemingly mundane, all things considered. He shouldn’t suspect much if he sees me use them.” Sirrus said quietly under his breath as he focused his attention on opening the door. Despite his best efforts to get the door to open, the handle was heating up, but not as much as it should. “This door is being held shut by something stronger than just ice. I should be able to break through it at this temperature, but alas, I am having very little success. Perhaps if I try the hinges…”

He stepped back out of Sirrus’s way, taking a look at the door himself. The moment that the tall man with the vibrant hair had stepped away and released the door handle, it had begun to cool off. Already there were droplets of condensation forming on the door handle, the cool air had not so much as slowed down. V was easily willing to believe that his companion’s assessment of the situation was correct. Everything about this door was just wrong, even in a situation like this.

“Do you think that we could try removing the hinges, or something akin to that?” V asked as he folded his arms, contemplating the situation that he found himself in. This wasn’t something he had too many ideas in regards to. After all, there were only so many ways that you could open a door. “In truth, I can’t say that I really know any other way that we could open this door. I don’t think we can fit through these windows. Maybe the door is locked?”

Sirrus turned to face him, waggling his finger at him as he nodded in apparent agreement, his satisfaction evident. “Yes, that just might work. At the very least I could break one of these windows and make sure that the door isn’t locked from the other side. That could be part of why this door is giving us such trouble.”

With a quick heel turn, Sirrus stood in front of the window to the right of V, peering through it. They both possessed instruments that were blunt enough to be able to break a window, especially one that was frozen. And while V was correct in his assumption that they could not fit through the windows in the doors, his arm could, and that might be just enough to accomplish what he needed to. The worst-case scenario was that they were already unlocked but were frozen shut, or that the doors required a key, but just knowing what they were working with was a good place to start. They would take what they could get at this point.

As V pondered the proper way to stand in order to break the ice with his cane without falling on his face or slipping, Sirrus wrapped the bottom of his jacket around his arm and slammed his elbow into the glass on his side of the door, shattering it easily in one fell swoop. V gave him a blank look, mentally kicking himself for not having thought of that sooner. If the glass was that easy to break, then maybe he was just overthinking this. It would be totally understandable with the state that his mind was in at the moment. That borderline mental breakdown that he had almost had a few minutes ago had genuinely negatively impacted him.

“I believe that I should be able to check if the door is locked or not. Give me just a-” Sirrus started, but he didn’t get the chance to finish his statement.

Reaching up to knock the glass out of the window as he listened to the other man’s statement, V had just enough time to make eye contact with him before a loud boom could be heard from the other side of the door. Sirrus looked slightly alarmed and attempted to withdraw his arm for the hole in the glass that he had made moments ago. But before he could do so, the door was snatched open, the two doors peeling down towards the floor in opposite directions as a loud screeching noise penetrated the air between them. A large, almost transparent hand adorned by a set of long, razor-sharp nails could be seen from the other side of what used to be the doors as it managed to grab the entire door that Sirrus had his arm through and drag it to the depths that it had emerged from. The redheaded man let out a startled yelp before disappearing into the yawning abyss along with the hand and out of V’s line of sight.

V’s mind was racing at a speed so rapid that made even the fastest supercomputers look like they were being operated by dot-matrix cards as he considered the horror of the situation that he was now in. Was Sirrus alright? It was unlikely, but he held on to the small shred of hope that he kept buried deep within himself that he might find his companion alive. He couldn’t break that news to Magnolia, and although he was odd at times, Sirrus was not unkind to him. And yet somehow that was still the least pressing issue at hand.

 What in the hell was with that giant, seemingly transparent hand?! It looked almost like a clear shell with black smoke inside of it, but he was sure that it was probably a bit more complicated than that. The appendage had been gigantic, one finger being nearly as big as he was. One could only hope that whatever the hand belonged to didn't decide to crush Sirrus and dispose of him like so much refuse on the side of the road, because it was most certainly capable of doing so. Anything that could destroy a metal door like that was vast and powerful, and at the moment, V was almost afraid to ask himself what that appendage might belong to. Or should he say “who”?

He was alone now in this strange environment that didn’t have any rime or reason to it, and the only thing he could do was press on and hope for the best, being sure to be careful as he went. He was nearly certain that he was no longer alone, and while he didn’t doubt that he could protect himself, he had no idea what he was up against in this place, and that gave his opponent a clear advantage over him. Not that they really needed another one to begin with. He was already in their territory, and it seemed to possess the ability to change that territory to do what they saw fit. That was a frightening prospect.

“Gees… You think that guy is dead, V? Because if I was the betting type, and I am, I’d be willing to bet that he is.” Griffon chimed in quietly, admittedly taking V off guard. He jolted slightly, his head pirouetting from side to side as he looked for the source of the voice, only to realize a moment later that it was coming from inside of his own head. It seemed that he had a few too many of those these days from what he understood.

“Let us hope that he is not,” V said calmly under his breath, addressing no one in particular as he slid carefully around the crushed wreckage of what used to be the door and stepped into a cold, dark room. The area was shaped like a plus sign with doors going to other areas to his left and right, but he had no interest in exploring them if he did not have to. In front of him was a doorway that he assumed might have actual doors, but from what he could see from where he stood, they had either been removed, or they were pushed back against the adjoining walls so far that they were no longer visible. There was, of course, the third option, but it involved the gigantic evil hand that he had seen earlier, so he was going to just pretend that that option didn’t exist. He had no desire to interact with something like that.

Moving onward at a quick but careful pace, he considered his current options. He knew that the spectral hand had taken Sirrus. That much was a fact, and there was no avoiding it. But there was still the question of his own perception. Some elements were physical in regards to the space that he was currently in, but what parts of those elements actually existed in his current reality, and what was the nature of that reality? Was this place in the human world, the underworld, or something else entirely? Did entities in this reality actually possess the ability to control or affect elements of the space around them, or was this all smoke and mirrors? He was willing to believe that at least some part of this situation was influenced by actual reality since Belial needed fragments of his memories to construct this place, but then how did he explain the physical presence of things such as the groceries that he had been able to pick up and touch, or the doors that he could and could not open? What were the limitations of a place like this, and how much did his adversary know about him and his allies? There was so much that he did not understand.

A part of him wanted to believe that he might somehow still be in the human world, and it was simply his understanding of his surroundings that had changed. In spite of everything, he cracked a brief smirk at the mental image of other random shoppers in the store watching him and Sirrus scramble around in a massive hurry, knocking over things and practically climbing up the shelves in distress and confusion, but somehow he just knew that wasn’t the case. They might have walked through the doors of the store, but this place wasn’t physically part of that building. But that raised another important question, didn’t it?

His mind went back to a previous conversation that he had witnessed between Nero and Lucia’s mother back in her homeland. What had that lovely older woman’s name been? Matier. That was right. It had only been a few days, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Well actually, how long had it been? Everything had been perfectly fine just an hour ago. He regretted the fact that he had ever felt the need to eat food. If not, he could still be at his house, safely within the confines of their warm, not at all cursed walls. But what she had said stuck with him at that moment, and he was admittedly taken aback by the validity and relevance of the answer that she had given his younger brother when he’d asked her such a standard question.

“Why would that knife even be able to do something like that? It is cursed or something? We’ve had it for a while now and nothing like that has happened before.” He had asked.

“Nothing that you know of, young one. If what he describes is true, who among you would be able to tell? After all, we have very little insight as to how the Arcana functions.” She had stated.

Cold, deathly chills ran down his spine as he considered the gravity of that statement for the first time. How would he be able to tell? How far was Belial’s reach in regards to his illusions? All he needed access to was V’s sense of perception to be able to replicate something as complex as a grocery store. Random street signs that he only half-read when he passed them, and buildings that he didn’t pay much attention to could change day to day and he would have never noticed. The people that did and didn’t pass by him each day were of little to no consequence. How well could he fake another person without him noticing, and was that something that he was even capable of doing in the first place? What else had this demon faked without him knowing, and for how long? Just how long could he have been doing something like this without him realizing it? If Sirrus had not clued him into just how strange the store had been initially, he would still be shopping, minding his own business, and going about his day as if nothing was wrong. What was the true extent of his lack of perception in this case? 

Normally things didn’t escape his notice easily. He liked to think that he was at least somewhat intelligent and keeping a close eye on his surroundings was something that he had done his entire life, even when he hadn't wanted to do it. That was one of the only reasons that he had made it as long as he had. But now that he was up against this demon, this unknowable powerful individual who had amassed a cult and sent them after him for reasons he still didn’t fully understand only to then carefully set a trap that he had been non the wiser about, he had no choice but to begin to wonder just how much he could rely on his own mind to fill in the blanks around him.

Paranoia was not something that he could afford to entertain, but in the case of a demon that could easily mimic an entire building, what other choice did he have but to doubt his own sense? He couldn’t trust his own eyes, and his body was reacting to the bitter cold caused by something that probably wasn’t even entirely real to begin with. Those were two sources that were unreliable in a situation like this. All he had left was his ears, his sense of smell, and his touch. Tasting literally anything in this place was completely out of the question. But upon considering that, something occurred to him. There was one thing he could try that pertained to that sensory category that just might work.

Awash with doubt and thoroughly shaken, he raised his hand up to his face and touched his pointer finger to his tongue, holding it there for a second. It was a longshot, but this was something that he might be able to do. He could practically feel Griffon sighing in exasperation as he tried to comprehend what his master was up to now, but unless it worked, he didn’t really have a whole lot to tell him.

Concentrating on his finger as hard as he could in order to be able to tell what he was doing, he felt the air blow towards him. It was a slight thing, but it was present, and as he took a step forward towards the doorway, he could feel the strength of the breeze grow slightly. But just a moment later, the air pulled backward, going in the opposite direction. It then repeated, pushing and pulling slowly as he stepped closer towards the doorway and through the hanging plastic that obscured his view. His blood ran cold for a moment as he realized the terrifying implications of what he had just discovered.

This wasn’t a breeze… it was breath.

Stepping further into the room, he was met by utter darkness, the yawning black abyss seemingly absorbing him as his pulse picked up. There was no telling how large this space was, and that alone was enough to make his already tired legs slightly weak. But that didn’t really matter at this point. One way or another he was going to have to get out of this place, and this imposing room was clearly the way forward.

His blood pumped heavily through every available pathway his body contained, flooding him with a potent mixture of adrenaline. At this point, his body practically distilled the stuff on command. Unfortunately, he found himself in perilous situations often enough for that to be a distinct possibility. He took another hesitant step forward before stopping. Somehow he could just tell that he was standing in front of something, and whatever that something was, it was colossal.

And then they opened. First one and then two, both on opposite sides of the room. Thin slits with long black slits in the middle of them, each about half the length of a train car. Then two smaller slits opened, each higher up and flanking the first two, followed by a smaller one in the very center, forming a sort of fin pattern in the darkness, mere feet away from the young descendant of Sparda. And then they closed, two sets of large sliding flaps, both vertical and then horizontal as they closed briefly before reopening. 

He blanched slightly as he stepped back, turning pale as his stomach hit the floor. Eyes. These were eyes. And then a moment later, the rippling darkness moved closer, revealing a large almost liquid-like surface that matched the iridescent, transparent black surface that was oh so reminiscent of the hand that had taken his companion mere minutes ago. He had found the source of the darkness. And although he was too paralyzed with disbelief to say as much, he knew exactly what this creature was.

“Excellent. I was hoping that you would come eventually, and you didn’t disappoint me. In fact, you took less time than I imagined you would to arrive. Good. I do not tolerate disappointment.” The being spoke without speaking, its voice somehow echoing through the space that they both occupied as it bounced off of unseen walls. V fought the urge to flinch, but gritted his teeth in discomfort regardless, unwilling to break eye contact for even a moment. That could easily spell his doom. 

“Did you think there would be no consequences for what was done to bring you back here? That you could take without giving back? I doubt you had much say in the matter. But that is irrelevant now. I see everything, and now I have you exactly where I want you.” It slid forward in one long, swift motion, forcing him to step back in order to avoid touching the gargantuan face that he was presented back. One could only imagine that it was extending its neck, if it had one. As he took one step and then another, he reached backward, grasping towards the door. Against his better judgment, he stole a glance in the direction of the door, only to find that, to his horror, it was no longer there. Only the endless expanse of darkness that now surrounded him. Whatever this place was, he was now in it, and there was no clear way out. What was he going to do?

“You seem uncomfortable, child. Let me fix that for you.” It said, its booming, dark voice vibrating the walls as it almost laughed in amusement at this situation that it found itself in. The floor beneath V rippled like the surface of the face before him, tendrils of blackness suddenly erupting from beneath him and insnaring him, pulling him upwards and coiling around him like the roots of a tree. He was anchored in place, and there was no fighting back. 

Every muscle in his body tried to fight his restraints, but they failed virtually the moment they even manifested the will to attempt to combat such immense otherworldly strength. He briefly imagined that this was what it would feel like to try and move a cinderblock wall up a steep mountain with your teeth, but it wasn’t like he had any baseline to compare that to. And although he was glad for that, he couldn’t say that he was looking forward to whatever was going to happen next.

With a wispy wheeze-like gasp, V coughed, suddenly feeling the breath leave his body as the tentacles clasped around him tightly. He got the impression that this was being done to restrain him instead of smothering him to death, but it was borderline painful regardless of the intention behind it. Looking forward, he locked eyes with the large face as it loomed over him, inching closer as it nearly touched him. He could feel its breath despite no apparent opening. It seemed that Vergil had been right in that assessment. Oh, how he desperately wished that wasn’t the case… 

“Ah yes,  where are my manners? You are my honored guest, after all.” V got the impression that the entity before him was grinning ear to ear, and the fact that it possessed no mouth somehow made that a million times worse. Introductions then. I am Belial, your host… And we have business to discuss.”

(-~-)

Nope nope nope nope nope! I’m going to go hide in the comment section where it is still at least a little bit safe. I’m telling you now, next week is going to be WILD. I spent so much time editing the final draft for the physical release that I think I’ve gone mad from sleep deprivation... 

[jeannereames]

Why do you think so many historians view Hephaestion unfavourably, and write about him negatively?

This took me a while to get to, due to new book duties. But this is a complex issue with several different pieces all building on each other.

First, Hephaistion died before ATG, and the ancient sources, writing about ATG in his lifetime, tended to gloss over the other figures at the court, like those diamond chips meant to set off the main gemstone. It’s only after Alexander’s death that we get to see the metal they’re made of. Hephaistion didn’t survive to compete in that testing fire.

Second, if my analysis of his career is correct, a lot of his assignments were non-combat, and the ancient sources accorded more glory to combat (something modern historians may unconsciously echo). This leads to a misunderstanding of his importance at the court. I STILL see this with some modern apologists for Hephaistion, who get upset with my observations about his assignments as largely non-military, as if I’m denigrating him, not recognizing that they’re playing into those same biases. Anybody who thinks logistical or diplomatic roles are “denigrating” should try fighting on an empty stomach. ;)  This is all rather silly.

I’d also point out something else that gets overlooked: fighting ability and strategic or tactical ability aren’t the same thing. The fact he was (apparently) a commander of the agema of the Hypaspists at Gaugamela suggests he was both a sizable person, and also probably a pretty decent fighter. That doesn’t mean he was the strongest combat commander, even though he was also, apparently, quite serviceable at it. I’m just tired of people assuming excellent combat command skills are the ultimate test of one’s worth in an army. To quote Napoleon, “An army marches on its stomach.”

Finally, I think there’s a certain amount of discomfort/homophobia with the implications of their relationship. In the Renaissance and earlier, we see a fascination with the romance of their friendship. It’s exulted in paintings, and sometimes in literary mediums. But this was a time more comfortable with emotional ties and expressions between men (sexual or not). I very much doubt some (maybe most) of those Renaissance painters were thinking of A. and H. as lovers. But devoted friends? Absolutely. And in that, perhaps they came closer to the mores of the ancient world. So Hephaistion’s friendship was something of note, worth celebrating–a virtue. Never mind if he was a combat commander.

As time moved on, there was an increase in concern/awareness of male “pathics” (the old term) and too much emotional attachment between men became suspect by the 1800s, certainly later 1800s and early 1900s, in Europe. Notice how Hephaistion drops out of the discussion in those early histories, and art. I think the ultimate erasure is the 1956 Robert Rossen “Alexander the Great” with Richard Burton as Alexander, where Hephaistion is a byline in the credits, not present in the film, and then the 1963 “Alexander the Great” TV pilot with William Shatner as Alexander, where Hephaistion is COMPLETELY erased and replaced with “Cleander” as the best friend played, amusingly to me, by Adam West. So Captain Kirk and Batman conquer Persia. :-)

Anyway, that’s the height of discomfort with Hephaistion because the fabled friendship is now too gay. A similar discomfort is echoed in the scholarship of the time, with several ATG historians barely mentioning Hephaistion and/or defending Alexander from any hint of same-sex attachments (Tarn, albeit mostly about Bagoas). This dismissal of Hephaistion had unfortunate consequences in subsequent historiography (post-’60/’70s).

As I’ve said elsewhere, I know several of the men who’ve written negatively about Hephaistion in the prior generation. Most are liberal, or at least moderate, agnostics/atheists and support women in the academy, etc. In short, those assuming they’re hand-wringing fundamentalist Christian misogynistic homophobes are creating a strawman to unfairly lambast. Yet at the same time, many are products of an earlier era, and may not be too comfortable thinking about what two men do in bed together even if they’ll vote for gay civil rights. It’s a complicated mix, which isn’t to excuse the bias, just don’t make a comic effigy of it. People ARE complicated.

In addition, academia strives to avoid any breath of romanticism, not unfairly. The goal is to be as unbiased as possible. But the end result can undervalue emotional attachment, and emotional motivations. (Something the former counselor in me frequently decries.) So the struggle becomes how to address a highly emotional attachment (which may or may not have had a sexual element) between two historical figures, while not romanticizing it. The allure is to go to extremes. I want to maintain the middle road (ergo, I not infrequently annoy those on the extremes).

So as I warned…it’s a complicated answer with several moving parts…ALL of which converge to create a negative picture of Hephaistion in at least some modern histories.