#i'd still rather not get a canon answer for 'somewhere else'

[randomfae]

so... anyone else thinking about Sergei Ushanka for no reason in particular?

[wannaeatramyeon]

Lookism: "If you die tomorrow, would you have any regrets?"

G/N. Jake, Goo, Gun, DG, Ryuhei, Sammy. Reminder that Gun is canonically a gamer lmao.

Jake looks up at you in surprise, the morbid question catching him off guard.

"Why?" he asks, tilting his head.

"It was just a question I read."

"Hmm," Jake rubs at his chin and gazes off somewhere in the distance, no doubt thinking about all that has happened in his life. "Yeah. Loads."

Oh. You weren't expecting that-

"A lot of things I've made my peace with," Jake shrugs and you know he means Sinu and Samuel and Big Deal.

The mess with Workers, the falling out with Samuel and end of the Golden Era, the arrest of so many of his crew. He knows his mom is disappointed that he is so much like his father, his time in juvie, and Jake thinks if he tried better in school instead of fighting then maybe things would have worked out a lot differently.

"But-" he tugs on your hand, pulling you off-balance and falling straight into his lap.

"I'd regret not spending more time with you. All the time trying to be a good boss rather than a good boyfriend."

You open your mouth to argue that he is a good boyfriend but he continues on-

"I'd regret leaving you on your own. Even though I know you'd find someone easily," And Jake manages a small wistful smile, "I'd regret not being there for you."

.

.

"Me?" Goo blinks, looking up from his manga.

"Yes, you. The only other person here."

"Just checking, Cupcake." Goo thinks briefly for a moment before making up his mind.

"I'll regret not seeing how this manga ends," then he narrows his eyes, stabbing angrily at the page, "And not going to Japan to hunt down this asshole for killing my fave off-screen."

"Goo!" Maybe this is on you for expecting a serious answer.

He gets up and makes his way to you, peppers kisses all over your face as you roll your eyes. "You're not planning on killing me are you, Sweetheart?"

"Yes. Tonight. There's a knife under my pillow."

"Make sure you don't wake me, do it quick," he grins mischievously then-

An unpleasant thought pops up and he pulls a face. "Once I'm dead, you better not fall in love with anyone else. My ghost will haunt you, y'know."

"Fine, I'll just be sad and alone and mourning over you forever."

"Perfect!"

But what would Goo actually regret?

What's the saying? You can't take it with you.

Goo has such fun plans once he retires from all this crew shit. Neither of you have to work another day again, you can just spend the rest of your lives terrorising the general public instead. Travelling the world, swimming in a pool of money together, sleeping on a bed of cash. All that fun stuff.

Goo doesn't regret the time amassing his fortune, his little safety net for the future. But if he was to die tomorrow, he would regret not having that future with you.

.

.

Gun pauses the video game at your question, then turns to you with a brow arched, "Why do you think I'm going to die?"

"It's hypothetical. Like in a fight or something."

An arrogant smile spreads, "And who's strong enough to kill me?"

You click your tongue in annoyance at his response although you hate to admit that damn, you find his attitude sexy as hell. There's just something about him being able to back up his confidence with his skills and talent.

"Just answer my question!"

"No I would not have any regrets," he says, already turning back and resuming his game.

Of course Gun doesn't. As if someone like him would have any regrets.

Eyes still on the screen and fingers clicking on the controller, Gun adds quietly. "But you will be taken care of."

Oh.

If Gun were to die tomorrow, he would regret not being able to take care of you. Being by your side. In his line of work, it is always a possibility no matter how strong he is. The least he could do, and has done, is make sure that at least no harm or hardships befalls you after he is gone.

Money, protection, freedom. If he can't have a future, then he will assure yours.

.

.

DG falters mid-stride, giving it the briefest of thoughts before coming to a conclusion.

"Nope," he says with a cocky smirk.

He has very little to regret. His life as DG is what most people dream of. Fame and fortune, power and influence.

As James Lee he has proven he's the strongest, he's the peak and untouchable.

There's very little left for him to accomplish. Why would he have any regrets?

But, he supposes, as he is later handled by the assistants and the stylists, then plasters on a fake smile for TV appearances before being ushered to some event full of schmoozers and fakers and having to make small talk as DG, the idol and CEO-

Is that maybe if he could do it again, he would choose something with more privacy. More freedom. That he could do what he wants, whenever he wants.

And most importantly-

That he can walk hand in hand with you down the street without rabid fans screaming and the paparazzi photos making headlines.

Without you being on the receiving end of death threats and unhinged letters, and his agent and company telling him that he needs to apologize for his relationship. Backtrack it. Single idols sells better, appeals to the public more.

If DG died tomorrow, he thinks that actually he would regret this. He regrets keeping you in the shadows.

.

.

Ryuhei doesn't hesitate and tells you he wishes you were his first. For everything.

Even hand holding. Even hugs.

You pull a face at that.

"That's... Sweet." You say, lying through your teeth as Ryuhei looks at you with concerned puppy eyes.

"You wish the same, right?"

"Sure," you agree because where's the harm in appeasing this goofball.

In truth, and Ryuhei hates thinking about it, is that he does desperately wish that he met you first. Before Mitsuki, before anyone else.

Nevermind that it's a completely futile, fanciful dream because everything that has happened has led him to you.

But he thinks it would have worked out better. He could have been a better person, a better boyfriend. If he met you before he had a chance to develop his sex pest tendencies and obsessive behaviour that you had to stamp out.

It's pointless though. Not even worth dwelling on. What has happened has happened and he could only try to be better now.

Ryuhei considers the question again with a sigh. If he dies tomorrow, what would he regret?

Oh yeah! He would absolutely regret this!

"I'd regret that we can't bang anymore!"

"Ryuhei!"

.

.

Samuel immediately feels defensive at your question.

He thinks about what he hasn't yet achieved. All his dreams of becoming King, being at the top, and yet he's no closer.

"Why?" he asks, eyes starting to narrow behind his glasses.

You hold up both palms, in a gesture to indicate you didn't mean anything by it and your face tells him to just chill.

"I dunno. I found it and thought it was an interesting question."

"It's not." Samuel says, effectively ending the conversation and eyes dipping back down to his phone.

But it doesn't just end.

Samuel spirals and doesn't talk to you for the rest of the day, his shortcomings haunting him instead.

He drinks and he smokes and he spends even more time at work, trying to dull the ache of his inferiority.

The mornings and nights pass by in a blur, a string of toxic behaviours and self sabotage, until eventually - he comes to.

His failures and faults pushed to the back of his mind, rather than a constant reminder.

Then like a fog clearing, he finds clarity again. He sees your face, the worry, the trepidation... The guilt for asking an innocent question.

And Samuel knows that his biggest regret of all if he dies tomorrow is that you deserved better and he hasn't been able to give that to you.

[syrma-sensei]

→ Somewhere In Your Heart, Ch.1: Tenderly.

Pairing: Soldier Boy x Fem!reader.

Rating: Explicit.

Setting: Pre-canon; in the early 1980s.

Warnings/tags: Ben's foul mouth, sexual innuendos, misogyny, racism, antiquated mentality...

Summary: Soldier Boy lives through the ennui of his peak, but everything is about to change when he has a shift in his heart.

Soldier Boy rolls his eyes at Legend, “No, ain't doing another stupid song. Let Noir do that shit, the kid's been so fucking eager to see his star shine.”

“It wasn't that bad, people loved it. Your fans loved it, and they want more from you,” Legend tries to reason, “Plus, can't win a Grammy award for best record of the year if it sucks. Moreover, it's pretty popular among the young folks.”

The supe sneers, taking a gulp from his drink, he relishes in the burning in his throat even if it's momentarily, “The young folks can suck on my balls. Honestly, the fuck went wrong with young men these days, huh?” He clicks his tongue, “Christ, it is true; good times do create weak, sappy men.” His head jerks to the side sardonically, “Bunch of pussies seeking some women's attention with shitty songs and snivelling lyrics. Chicks don't want no men like that.”

“Yeah well,” Legend shakes his head, a sly grin on his face, “The world's changing, Soldier Boy, if you don't keep up with it, you might end up outdated, just saying.”

Soldier Boy raises a conceited eyebrow, “I'm America's son, hero of all heroes, an actual fucking legend; people practically worship the ground I walk on. In what fucked up sense would that seem to you outdated anytime soon?”

“Time is a tricky thing,” Legend answers with a sigh, “But only for us I presume. I mean look at ya, your sixty-fourth birthday was last month and you don't look a day past thirty. Some lucky bastard you are.”

Soldier Boy grins smugly, placing his glass on the coffee table in front of him where they sat in the living room of his personal quarters in Vought America tower.

Legend decides not to take the time topic any further, because he knows better, such discussions with the strongest supe ever lived are futile and meaningless. Furthermore, he doesn't want to poke Soldier Boy's massive ego, the latter isn't infamous for his temper for nothing. Legend is back to ground zero. So, he tries another way.

“You'll be doing it, though. It's your next mission.” The playful tone from Legend's voice vanishes, a more professional, assertive one replaces it, “It's nothing you can't do. Think of the gals who'll cream their panties when they hear your voice singing their favourite hit.”

Soldier Boy’s lips flip pensively, “Tempting. But still no.”

“Can arrange a collab with whoever female singer you want.” Legend tries again.

“Can ya pair me up with Monroe?” Soldier Boy gives his manager a shit-eating smile.

“For fuck's sake, Soldier Boy,” Legend says with a frown. The little shit, greatest superhero or whatever else, can honestly be a huge pain in his ass. “Be serious.”

“Oh, I'm dead serious,” Soldier Boy grumbles, “Can you do it or not?”

“She died thirty years ago for Christ's sake, of course I can't pair you up with her.”

“Then the answer's still no. I'd rather spend time rubbing one out at Pauline from Donkey Kong than contributing to entertaining a pansy dogshit audience.”

Fuck you. Legend really wants to spit it out loud but he carefully curbs himself. He pinches the bridge of his nose, “Can't help but notice that making my work harder everyday is your new favourite sport, isn't it?”

“C'mon, don't be such a wuss,” Soldier Boy drawls, “Where would be the fun of an easy job? I'm doin' ya a favour; making you truly earn each penny you get paid. It's something we used to call 'hard work' back in my days.”

“Hard work can kiss my ass in that case,” Legend says humorously, shaking his head. Soldier Boy shares an amused chuckle with him.

“Seriously though—”

“Noir's cut out for that shit, not me. He'll be thrilled to do it.” Soldier Boy smirks wickedly as he interrupts him. The kid may not be funny. Fuck, he ain't, and that's precisely why he didn't get Axel Foley at Beverly Hills Cop — but it'd be hilarious to watch him fail in singing. Even if he didn't, nobody can beat Soldier Boy's performing talents.

Before Legend can answer he proceeds, “And tell him while you're at it that he has me to thank for giving him a window like that. He may as well make it fucking count. Make sure he does.” Legend shakes his head.

Soldier Boy and Legend continue to discuss business for another half an hour. Among the offers though; Nintendo wants to make a video game about Soldier Boy.

“For fuck's sake, do those Nips have any dignity?” Soldier Boy jeers.

“Well, it's all about business nowadays.” Legend says. “Arcade games have a large foot in the market, y'know. And, we're hiring many Japanese developers into our new entertainment department. So, I friendly remind you to tune down your slurs.”

Soldier Boy scoffs again. “I’ll see about that…”

When the talk is done, Soldier Boy dismisses the Director of Superhero Management of Vought.

“See ya at the wedding.” Legend says before he steps out of Soldier Boy's quarters.

“Hope fucking not.” The supe murmurs, taking the last gulp of his drink.

This evening Soldier Boy is to attend Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum's daughter's wedding as the guest of honour. The bride is a huge fan of his; her father has personally invited him to the wedding. What better honour can one get than having the greatest superhero ever lived as a guest at their wedding?

Soldier Boy heads to his dressing room to choose a formal outfit for the occasion. He's not going to wear his supe gear even though Vogelbaum made it very clear that he should. But Soldier Boy takes no shit from a nobody, and who the fuck Vogelbaum thinks he is to tell him what to do? Plus, that attire is for business, and him going to that wedding is a mere pursuit for pleasure. He isn't on some mission tonight but to find a good fuck for himself. Women, nonetheless, would throw themselves at his feet regardless of what he puts on. However, fancy tailored suits and bowties seem to pull women more effectively into his charm. When he clads in his supe suit, he's more intimidating; a god walking among men. Women would sigh at his sight and eye-fuck him, but beneath the layers of infatuation, he can perceive the lick of fear in their eyes. Like he's an invincible idol that cannot be touched by lesser hands. Not that he doesn't fucking relish in having such an impact, but he still prefers to pluck a catch in such occasions. Some nice chick who's eager to warm his bed in fearless vigour, some girl who can actually handle his raw strength and superhuman stamina. Especially when Countess won't be up his ass sulking like the bitch she is whenever he pays another woman his attention.

His relationship with Countess is nothing but for show. Pure business. Vought thought they looked good together and had an appealing chemistry in the public eye. Power couple and that shit. But in fact, Soldier Boy has no ounce of romantic feelings for her. Sure, they fuck around every now and then, but nothing more to add to it.

When he's fully dressed and spruced up he looks at himself in the full-length mirror and nods in approval. He'll definitely make the ladies' panties drop tonight.

Soldier Boy arranges a few lines of coke for himself on the coffee table. It'll help him  handle all of the cock-sucking kiss asses he's going to interact with tonight.

God fucking damn.

It takes the mightiest of his steel aplomb not to roll his eyes or hiss a curse. The moment he arrives at the wedding in the swanky hotel, he has everyone's attention all to himself. Guests swarming around him with hearts in their eyes, already forgetting about the wedding. Happy shrieks emit from the gals, and full admiration in the eyes of pals.

Ben puts on an expertly-feigned and charming smirk as he nods his head and shakes hands.

“Oh my Gosh, it's really him!”

A pretty woman in a dashing white dress wobbles down in his direction. The fucking bride. Soldier Boy's grin couldn't get any wider. The girl practically left her fucking husband standing with his groomsmen and came marching to him. Something huge and satisfying sprouts in the depths of his chest when he sees the young man briefly stink-eye in his way.

“If it ain't the queen of the show,” He drawls with a stentorian voice and a conceited raise of his brow. The bride holds a breath, her companion bimbos of bridesmaids sighing dreamily, “Well, congrats on tying the knot, darlin',” Large hand taking the bride's gloved one as he leans down to press a light kiss on her knuckles, and the girls squeal.

“Thank you, sir,” The corner of Soldier Boy's lips curls up into a half grin as he hears the groom's curbed voice, “A huge pleasure for us having the greatest man alive honouring our wedding,”

The man extends his hand out for a shake and Soldier Boy doesn't disappoint. “What can I say, Sonia is one of my best girls,” He sends a playful wink to the bride, and her groom's face rises in colour. However, she giggles timidly with blushing cheeks, and covers her mouth slightly.

“Thank you again, sir, for coming,” Sonia chirps, “Means a lot to us… to me, right, darling?”

Her new husband answers with tight lips, “Yeah, of course, please enjoy your time here, sir.”

Sure hell I'll do.

After signing some autographs, which mostly came from the bridesmaids on this special occasion, Soldier Boy lets out an elongated sigh before plucking a flûte of champagne from a server wandering around with a full tray of pleasantries. With the first sip invading his strong taste buds, he regrets it instantly. That shit is extra fruity with enhanced floral notes, it made his face controt in disgust.

“You're late,” The Doc's voice comes curt when he appears next to him, eyeing him disapprovingly. His unpleasing presence made the twitch of his face worse. The little shit. He should be kissing his ass and thanking him for wasting his time on this crap. Soldier Boy should hand it to him, though, he's got some balls. He scoffs. Ever since Vogelbaum gained Stan Edgar's infinite corroboration and support, he's become insufferable. And perhaps sometimes looming dangerously close to make Soldier Boy's hackles rise.

Ben grins indifferently at him, “Had a tight schedule,” Be glad I'm here you ungrateful old fuck.

Vogelbaum stretches his lips and nods, “You have my thanks anywho,” He grumbles, “Though I strictly told you to honour us with your presence in your suit.”

“Yeah, you did,” Soldier Boy replies with a shit-eating grin, “But wasn't in me to steal the light away from your breathtaking helluva daughter,” He patted the doctor's shoulder, “Cheer the hell up, Doc, it's your daughter's wedding and you have the greatest man ever lived as your guest!”

Ben can't endure another second of this man's company. He hands him the flûte and threads his way to the bar to order a drink. A real fucking drink. He sights a vacant stool next to a pretty woman who seems to be without company. He grins to himself when he catches a better angle of her. She is a beauty. Maybe she's the lucky one tonight. He smoothes his suit jacket and adjusts his bowtie before sliding nimbly on the stool.

He orders a strong liquor from the bartender and the beauty next to him cooes, “Make it two, please.”

He turns his head to her with an arched eyebrow, because fuck does he appreciate a woman who's not a lightweight, “Tough night?”

Her painted mouth curls up into an inveigling smile, “Should I ask you the same question?”

Brave. Tempting. He loves brave. Whereas most women are intimidated by him, this one here though, she looks unfazed. He likes it. He wonders what she's gonna sound when he's balls deep inside of her. Timid, brave, strong, weak, they all sound the same in his bed when he touches the magic button. One thing he was certain of was she'd sound pretty in her throes of pleasure.

He gives her figure a quick scan; she isn't one of bridesmaids that's for sure. She's wearing a forest green dress. Her skin is glowing beneath the velvet, and a pleasant fragrance emitting from her body. Her neck and ears are adorned with gold and rubies. She looks hazily beautiful.

“Groom's or bride's?” He asks when their drinks are served.

She flashes him a grin with those tempting lips, “Why wouldn't you hazard a guess like when you do on a minefield?” She winks, taking a gulp of her drink.

Interesting, he raises an amused brow. At least she ain't playing easy. He has to give her that; she's making his night way more entertaining. He likes to play prey and predator let alone when she's practically inviting him to do so.

A playful grin graces his lips, replying, “Can't risk bursting a pretty lady like you tho, can I?”

She lets out a small laugh, “God forbid, what kinda superhero would you be then?” His eyebrows knit together slightly as he watches her grabbing her purse and preparing herself to leave.

“It was nice running into you, sir,” She remarks, “But you'll have to excuse me…”

“Sure, sweet cheeks…”

She nods as she moves away with such grace and swiftness. Ben doesn't realise he was holding his breath until it clicks within him. Fuck, he forgot to ask her her name. But nothing to worry about, he catches her entering the powder room. In moments, he'll go after her and take this rather interesting conversation somewhere else.

He waits though. For more than fifteen minutes. Vogelbaum makes his way on the stage to raise a toast to his daughter and her groom, and he doesn't forget to give Ben a word of gratitude for being here. People cheer and applaud when the lights shine upon him, and he smiles and nods at them. On another occasion, he'd enjoy this to the fullest. His mind, however, is occupied by finding a pretty seductress. Can it be that she left? No, he doesn't think so. Fuck, if only he could distinguish her voice out of the many nattering and yapping voices despite his superhuman hearing. He considers asking Vogelbaum about her later. Maybe the man would be useful to him for once. But he will not have to, though.

The lights of the hall ebb away, save for the ones above the music stage.

A wide grin slips into his lips when he sees her behind the microphone, and their eyes lock for a moment. She gives him a teasing wink.

The little minx, he thinks.

Tender music emanates from the piano and she starts to sing with a silky voice.

The evening breeze caressed the trees tenderly

Damn, he likes that song. And her voice couldn't be more on brand for it!

The trembling trees embraced the breeze tenderly

He feels the said breeze of her cooes and it makes him shiver.

Then you and I came wandering by

And lost in a sigh were we

Ben conjures a vivid image of her sighs of pleasure.

The shore was kissed by sea and mist tenderly

She's the shore, and his mouth is the sea.

I can’t forget how two hearts met breathlessly

Your arms opened wide

And closed me inside

You took my lips

You took my love

So tenderly

A loud applause erupted from the guests when she finished, and Ben found himself amongst the riveted clappers.

God fucking damn.

Ben knows a lot of singers, hell, he works with them sometimes. But never has he ever heard such a mellifluous voice like this one! How come he hasn't known of her before? A new face, he guesses. He wonders if Legend knows her.

Ben stops clapping as his conversation with Legend that afternoon flashes through his mind. That's it.

Shortly after the wedding, Ben heads back to his quarters in Vought's tower, impatiently dialling Legend's number.

“That sappy song you wanted me to do—” He says right away.

“Well, good evening to you too,” Legend drawls from the other end, “As happy as I am to hear that, Ben, but I'm kinda fucking tired to talk business right now. Despite my marvellous traits, I'm still a human.”

“I'll do it.”

Soldier Boy could hear Legend switching the handset of the telephone to the other hand. And before the latter says anything he proceeds.

“Only on one condition...”

🦅 Next Chapter: A New Window.

🦅 Somewhere In Your Heart Masterlist.

🦅 Soldier Boy Masterlist.

Taglist: @thebiggerbear, @zepskies, @deanbrainrotwritings, @deansbbyx, @deans-spinster-witch

@venus-haze, @kaleldobrev, @k-slla, @ketchupjasmin...

[swearyshera]

And now for some Shadow Weaver's Dead asks, which I'll answer all as one

@capndragn94 @floorgoblin @baronbrian I'm glad you all enjoyed that scene, so here's a little about my thoughts on it.

I wanted to make her final words similar to canon in their effect, especially with the ambiguity. And I'll point out particularly her lines about regrets ("I thought it'd be black and white - I'd regret these things and I wouldn't regret those things. But now it's looking very gray."). I specifically didn't want her to say 'I'm sorry' or 'I regret how I treated you', because that's too clear, too final, and I wanted to leave both Catra and the audience not knowing whether she did regret how she treated them or not. At the same time, this admission that she might be regretting some of the things she did gives a little bit of hope that will never be confirmed - which is probably going to hurt more than never having that hope!

Looking at the "You win" part, that one came fairly late in development. Initially, I was just going to echo her "It's pronounced thank you, dickhead" or whatever it was I'd written back in S5E2, just as the show did. But that line never seemed to feel like it fit there, and I started rethinking. I also toyed with the idea of something along the lines of "Isn't this what you wanted?" - and that's really the meaning of "You win."

Catra and Shadow Weaver both know that Catra holds no love for her, and has actively hoped for Shadow Weaver to die multiple times (even saying so to her face). But it's one of those situations where it was more from anger rather than an actual desire to see her killed. Indeed, their whole relationship over the years has been more of a struggle or a fight than anything else. They both know it has. So for Shadow Weaver to say "You win" is an acknowledgement that this fight that's been going on for years is over - that Catra is free of it.

But it's not a wholly positive thing. There's a far more traumatising side to those two words, and it is that idea that Catra's getting exactly what she wished for. She's won, but nothing in that moment feels like a victory. As much as Catra despises Shadow Weaver, there's still some weird, fucked-up kind of familial love somewhere deep inside that she hates and that doesn't want her to 'win'. It doesn't want Shadow Weaver to die.

Then you've got a third layer (fuck, that line is like an onion!). She's blaming Catra. Shadow Weaver is looking Catra in the eye and saying "You did this." Remember that she's only at the Heart because Catra made her teleport there. She's only fighting the monster because Catra got caught by it. That "You win" is Shadow Weaver looking at every bit of fighting they've done over the years as one long battle and saying "You finally found a way to kill me. Well done". And it comes at a time when Catra is desperately trying to put that aspect of herself in the past.

There's so much in those two words, and I think it may well be one of my favourite lines on this whole thing.

[the-24-7-lawlu-library]

Poll Vote A/B/O

Hi lovely readers,

Here the 4th voted Poll of February. Enjoy your weekend <3

Until we drown Series by Chenziee (M,M,T)

An omegaverse story set in the One Piece canon exploring the relationship between one omega Trafalgar "I'd rather jump in the sea and drown than have sex" Law and alpha Monkey D. "Sex is an interesting concept and all but have you heard about literally anything else" Luffy. AKA, the asexual omegaverse LuLaw that you didn't know you needed :)

Torao by ElAlmaDelMar (M)

"Luffy!" It came out in a roar, and the source of that mark woke up in a snorting instant, rolling off the bunk and tumbling to the cabin floor with a loud oof! "Torao, wh-" Law stormed back over to him and pointed at the mark. "You fucking bit me." A/B/O/tober Day 11: Accidental mate marking

lychee by Lolistar92 (E)

“What he means, Luffy-san, is that omegas produce a sweet nectar when aroused. It’s highly addicting to alphas.” Luffy turns to Law with a look on his face that catches Law off guard. “Is that true?” And Law, heart pounding, opens his mouth and damns himself with the words, “Yeah, that’s true.”

My precious little Omega by Sakuya_Serenity_Kira (E)

Law is an Omega, but always hides away. Till he falls for Luffy and after Punk Hazard one evening he takes a heart... But Luffy already knows. Because the strawhat knows even more than you thought...

Luffy's Treat by Fawnsheart (E)

Luffy is the type of omega who enjoys life’s simple pleasures. Like going to the store, or making good food for himself on a shitty day, or meeting a hot alpha by accident.

“I’d Still Love You, Even if You were a Chicken” by quackquackcey (E)

Law pines for Luffy, but knows it’s hopeless—they’re both alphas, after all.~ Or are they?

Mission failed successfully by Gleda_33 (E)

Today's mission: try not to get bored to death during that business meeting. Spoiler, things don't always go according to plan, or do they? -Law has to take part in a business meeting but gets distracted, the cause? An omega in heat

Honey Chocolate by Methoxyethane (E)

If you had asked Trafalgar Law how he thought he would meet the love of his life at literally any point before today, he would have answered, “probably in the doctor’s office.” Instead he finds his mate when Law watched him get hit by a car.

cough it out, loverboy by frogsterz (G)

It's true, if you'd believe it. Somehow, their captain has come back from Punk Hazard, what is supposed to be an abandoned island, with a mating bite on his neck. Somewhere, somehow, a poor, hapless alpha out there has actually chosen their big, lanky, creepy grump of an omega as their mate! (Law has a mystery alpha. The Heart Pirates make it their mission to find out who.)

Seabreeze and Brine by GrislyJellyfish (E)

Just when he was starting to gain control again and re-focus on his surroundings, a door opened, his eyes snapping wide open and head turning so fast it made his vision spin. "Torao?" The universe really had it out for him, didn't it?

-Mod Raiya

[indolamine]

hey y'all 🤍 here's a link for INFO on jiyeon, but i'll include some bullet points here with all you need to know. in case anything here sparks ideas for your muse and you'd like to work on a plot, hmu. i do prefer dscrd, so don't hesitate to ask. oh and i'd appreciate it if you could shoot me a dm first so my account doesn't get banned trying to touch base with the likes (say literally anything, hit me with a send it to me rachel if you'd be so kind). still, if you'd rather just hit like it's fine, i'll reach out once tumblr allows me!

jiyeon is what you'd call an Interesting Girl. someone you don't call or arrange schedules with, just happen upon. someone who never calls you but can be your best friend between 11pm and 3am. a fun girl, you just don't look too long.

both her parents are dead for all intents and purposes, which's proven to be a very character defining event in her life. one of her fathers passed away before she was even code, and the other chose to virtually die to work as a doctor for terrascape when she turned 18.

as single beneficiary to both her fathers, jiyeon found herself young, alone and newly rich. she's not particularly self destructive, but choices were made. luckily? for the most part, she was too stunned by grief and anger to blow away her fortune, which now affords her a cushy life she doesn't dwell too hard on.

she's emotionally stunted, still reliving the loss of her parents somewhere in her mind at every moment. she knows a lot of people, calls them friends but struggles to connect with them, blinking in and out of their lives. death is a constant thought, not quite a morbid fascination but more of a haunting. she knows, poor little rich girl.

she writes -- tries to, anyway. she's got some essays published, wrote for a column for a hot minute, it's her definitive trade of choice. but, and not to get too meta, the thing about writing is that you do have to write. that's the tricky part. merits were a good incentive, though once they're no longer an issue, she finds herself ignoring deadlines and putting off work on the novel she's been writing for the past 4 years. she instead "gathers experiences". she has many talents that she has no interest in seriously exploring, so she entertains herself while the high lasts.

between her writing and her party girl fame, at some point along the way she amassed a following on social media that she hesitates to cut loose. they make her more interesting than she, merely human, could ever hope to be, and she doesn't know how to kill the part of her that answers to their call. it's a lie when she says she doesn't look at what they say.

adult life for her breezes by in parties with half-friends and long bouts of reclusion. she wants to be a little of everything. she enjoys reading, skiing, playing silly little meta indie games about living in hyper realities. she doesn't commit to romantic relationships, yet enjoys the hunt anyway. she takes her time, and it never seems to align with anyone else's.

& here's a rolling list of canons that could also serve as potential connections for anyone interested, will add more as they come to me:

she once got involved with a couple for some brief months and it didn't end well

one of the few things she gets competitive about is skiing

she's fucked someone's significant other purely out of spite

she has a writing group whose meetings she misses often but she isn't the only one so she feels like it's a safe space

the person she plays a random weird rpg with incognito is maybe the most consistent relationship in her life, their chats can get very personal and strange and they can go weeks on no contact but go right back to where they left off

the events surrounding gyuok pique her interest because it's the first time terra residents could potentially be hearing from a virtually deceased and because he's essentially a virtual ghost which she thinks is neat

one of her published essays focuses on a celebrity she knows personally and doesn't portray them in the best light, which soured their relationship

[ponett]

some more SLARPG-related questions and answers taken from my retrospring:

Hi, I wanted to start by saying I loved your game and it meant a lot to me. Instead of gushing sappily though, I wanted to ask about the cross iconography in Melody's staff and Provence's armor; what cultural or religious significance does this symbol have in the world of Reverie? (If it doesn't mean anything to them but does to us that's cool too!)

the + shape (typically in green) is the symbol for healing magic, rather than a religious symbol

hi! in an answer on here just now you referred to "the beast kingdom", is that a canon thing and there is a monarchical governed body called The Beast Kingdom, or was that just something you threw out there because you didn't have a name for it, or some exciting third answer?

the country slarpg is set in is The Beast Kingdom. i can't remember if that's actually stated in the game. i think it is? maybe it was cut from the intro so as to not overwhelm the player with Fantasy Proper Nouns up front and i forgot to put it somewhere else? idk. the sapphire islands are some distance off the coast, and brightport is on the mainland

i saw some speculation about this based on the name, and yes, it's intended to be a modern constitutional monarchy

(after answering this i doubled checked, and yes, the name is mentioned in the game)

Is there any kind of animal species beast folks strictly CANNOT be? (besides RandomFurryUser726's custom closed species obviously)

off the top of my head i can't think of anything they COULDN'T be, no. mammals, birds, reptiles, sea creatures, bugs. i guess when you get to some of the more oddball invertebrates it becomes trickier, but i also wouldn't completely write off the possibility of coming up with a jellyfish character or whatever. it's just less likely that i'd go for something like that compared to, you know. furries

since holly floated the idea in her own stream: Did Jodie forge her own grill?

you know what? sure. this is canon now

How did Claire come to choosing her name? Was is just a name she liked the sound of or is there more significance for her?

undecided due to how much that part of claire's life is still unexplored

just curious, but is zinnia's hair color intended to be more 'older woman gray hair' or 'magical girl white hair'?

her hair is naturally a very light blue, like how melody and jodie just have naturally white hair

i pictured the scrap cannon skill working by magnetizing a bunch of scrap metal around one's arm to make an arm cannon and firing off a big ball of more scrap metal from that. is this a valid interpretation?

this isn't how i picture it but it's cooler than how i picture it and also adds yet another mega man allusion to the desert, so

Given that it's the day of the Big Game: How do each of the Novas (+ Faith/Beverly) feel about sports?

jodie likes sports and follows the brightport teams actively, but she's also too good of a sport to really hate their rival teams

allison's always liked the act of playing sports way more than watching them (although she was never good enough at following orders to play on a team as a kid). she'll watch the big games with jodie, though

beverly is a casual fan who will at least root for local teams but doesn't really pay that close attention

melody and faith don't follow sports but can be convinced to show up for a super bowl party type get together

claire can only get invested in a sport or team if there's a jon bois type documentary that gets deep into the nerd shit

Were there ever any other names other than SLARPG in the running? Or was it always gonna be slarpg all the way.

i always considered changing the name. i have a list of 75 different names i considered over the years in my notes, ranging from more generic fantasy titles to sillier ones to more unique ones. early on most involved melody's name. many later ones include "Reverie." i may share the full list someday (possibly good fodder for a patreon post), but the "serious" title i've mentioned considering before was Power Couple (or Power Couples). i still like that one

i debated over the title a lot for many reasons. mainly, people are weird about the title, either treating the whole game as a joke or assuming it's porn or whatever. some also assume that you just cannot play the game if you aren't a lesbian, a thing that people don't do with other fantasy things that happen to feature sapphic relationships without putting it in the title

the problem, of course, is that changing your title is often a death sentence. half the struggle with marketing a game is even getting people to remember it in the first place in an era where a million things are constantly fighting for your attention. people need to have seen it a few times before they create that mental connection of "oh, THAT game, i've heard of that." so changing your title massively undercuts that

in that regard, Super Lesbian Animal RPG is just way more unique and memorable of a title than the alternatives i was considering. it's direct and unambiguous about the content of the game, and it grabs your attention in a way that something like "Guardians of Reverie," for instance, doesn't. (that's not a title i was considering too seriously, just an example.) also it abbreviates to a unique hashtag, which i find convenient. also i can say that rock paper shotgun once referred to it as "brilliantly named," so like, of course i can't change it now

several of the names i considered are now in the running for an overall franchise name, though, since i have zero intention of naming a game Super Lesbian Animal Platformer or Super Lesbian Animal Visual Novel or whatever

I wish you could kiss Holly this life is so unfair

fear not my friend, large women exist in our world as well

are all cars on Reverie weird fantasy vehicles like the one in the Celestial Wasteland? or was it just the fact of Greenridge being a tiny town with dirt roads that made cars irrelevant to mention or see in the story?

fantasy vehicles such as flying cars and airships are very common on reverie, but regular wheeled vehicles still exist too. (there is a conversation about motorcycles in the game.) i'd imagine regular, non-flying vehicles are just the cheaper option, but they're also not particularly necessary in greenridge, a small, old town built for foot travel that doesn't exactly have a highway connecting it to the mainland

from the sounds of it, would it be safe to assume that the exact level of involvement you had in the characters Anthony/Scarlet designed varies from character to character? Like for some characters you'd have a solid-ish idea of gender/species/age/role, other times you just have the role ("I need an NPC to fill this nice"), and other times they just sprung a design on you without any prompting from you?

yeah, it varied a lot. for example, faith was a character i conceived and had a pretty clear idea of, but i was struggling to come up with her design, so anthony offered to give it a shot. other times i might request something from him, and he'll give me a black and white concept sketch that i color and then turn into a sprite. but then you've got, like, the paladin brigade, who are characters anthony just pitched to me thinking that they'd be a good addition to the cast. he came up with their names, designs, color schemes, personalities, team dynamic, everything. i just filled in details where necessary. the boys are also anthony's babies - they would not have been included in the game at all if he hadn't pushed for it

meanwhile, scarlet's characters (which included a good number of more general NPCs that didn't make it in due to time constraints) mostly consisted of me giving her broad directions like "we need some adventurers to hang around noel's sanctuary," and she'd come up with her own ideas from there

what's the hardest part of making a cohesive and/or compelling narrative to you?

for me at least, it's the logical glue that holds a story together that's the hardest. that's just the type of writer i am, and as far as i know it's pretty common to feel that way

i'll know specific scenes i wanna hit, emotional beats, the general mood and tone, images i want to use, those sorts of things, but the logical shuffling around of pieces on the chess board to connect those disparate moments is harder to nail down for me. why is this character doing this? why are they here instead of there? why can't the protagonists just do this other thing to solve their problem? what in the narrative is going to steer them towards this next moment? what is this supporting character's motivation that informs their participation in this event? why did this character know or not know this key fact? etc. and in a video game - especially an rpg like this - there's that added layer of needing to give the player clear objectives, having reasons for them to go from point A to point B, excuses for gameplay elements to space out the story beats, and whatnot. it can be a lot to juggle

with slarpg in particular i knew most of the big emotional beats and major setpiece moments i wanted to hit early on, but the logic of the plot took a LOT of reworking. lots of late night pondering and scattered notes trying to piece together the villains' plans and things of that nature

[muninnhuginn]

hello! for the wip ask game: 🌀🌧️☔

hi! sorry for taking ridiculously long to answer this, but thanks for asking ^^

🌀Post the fic summary for a fic you haven't written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing...

Went for the placeholder summary of the angsty CXS-QL siblingisms fic I've been stalled on for months:

It's not that Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn't like Qiao Ling as a sister. It's just that she has her family; he has his. That's all there is to it. That's all there will ever be.

🌧️Share something angsty from your WIP.

This is from the siblingisms fic. Hopefully makes sense without much context, but tldr Cheng Xiaoshi and Xiao Li are at the store having accidental emotional (un)honesty hours:

Cheng Xiaoshi muttered, “I’m not going to make the mistake of pushing myself into somewhere I’m not wanted.” That hadn’t been what he’d meant to say. “Not that I think– Maybe when we were younger, it was one thing, but Qiao Ling has her own stuff on, nowadays.” Better. Xiao Li's expression was unreadable at that, so Cheng Xiaoshi cleared his throat and continued, “You do get that, right?” It came out more pleading than he was comfortable with. He clearly hadn't convinced Xiao Li, whose eyes narrowed. For a second, Cheng Xiaoshi thought he might leave it be, but then he moved closer. Cheng Xiaoshi resisted the urge to shy back, well aware there was a shelf directly behind him. “Look,” Xiao Li said, resting a hand on Cheng Xiaoshi’s shoulder. “You’re young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Now is the time for you to make mistakes, alright?” The grip on his shoulder tightened until it verged on painful. “Make your mistakes now so you don’t make them later.” Xiao Li looked away then, allowing the harsh lights of the store to catch his wrinkles. He seemed old, all of a sudden. “Don’t presume you know what’s going on in someone’s else’s mind.”

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

I've got two here. One Link Click (donghua version), one White Cat Legend (cdrama version specifically).

The Link Click concept is something I may attempt one day, but eh, for now it's just in my head. So, the hospital-boat loop in season two. I subscribe to the idea that Lu Guang never meant for Cheng Xiaoshi to loop back in his place at the hospital. And I'd love to explore the implications of that if you actually follow them through. Lu Guang may not have even *realised* that Cheng Xiaoshi went back at first, so in this concept, when he realises what happened (due to CXS casually referencing the phone passcode of trauma LG did not know he knew), he freaks. Thinks CXS could have seen something when was possessing him (s2 finale spoilers obviously :V). And in trying to dig to figure out *what* Cheng Xiaoshi knows from his possession that time (which is... basically nothing) Lu Guang would basically give the game away to some extent. Hadn't decided if to make it full reveal or not, but that was the gist (still not written a proper reveal in general, but at some point I should at least try rather than dancing around it).

The other concept. So, honestly, I *know* there are probably fic with this as the basis but none of it is in English so I'm stuck pawing sadly at the sidelines. White Cat Legend (cdrama not donghua) time travel fix-it with qiubing. Where they both go back and don't realise the other has also gone back and so spend the whole time suspicious of each other. I hadn't gone any further than that because I know time travel fix-it deals tend to be longer than a short one-shot which is all I trust myself to write, but their whole canon loyalty/distrust dynamic is so compelling. They're both falling on swords for each other whilst refusing to clear any of the misunderstandings up. So turbo charging that dynamic with time travel and giving them the chance to fix everything if they'd just talk *properly* to each other is like catnip to me.

[thebettermccoy]

😂Funniest thing that’s ever happened to your muse? 

📑 Favorite part of your muse’s backstory? 

📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse? 

😒 Is there anything canon about your muse that you ignore? 

🔮 What do you see in your muse’s future? 

🔥 Unpopular opinion about your muse? 

😩 Hardest thing about writing the muse? 

⌨ What’s a situation you’ve always wanted to RP with the muse? 

😂Funniest thing that’s ever happened to your muse? 

Just being in the five-issue Dark X-Men storyline. Dark X-Men #1 starts off strong when Osborn sends them on their first mission to interview the "I'm an X-Man" victims in the hospital.

That scene reads as one adult (Mystique) trying to wrangle three children on a road trip. You've got Omega (the youngest kid who won't shut up and begins to wreck shit up), Mimic (the sad middle child who is coerced into also wrecking shit), and Henry (eldest child, chaos instigator but also just wants to go home.) For those who haven't read it, please do. For those who have, reread it with this mindset, the storyline will be exponentially more entertaining.

📑 Favorite part of your muse’s backstory?

It's hard to say that I like/ have a favorite backstory for Henry when he little grew up in a terrible world where Apocalypse ruled. The first time we see him, he is already an adult known for his twisted experiments.

Perhaps the thing that I like is that we don't know what his experience was before Earth-295 went to shit. So it leaves us to wonder exactly at what point Henry McCoy lost a few screws. Even Scott and Alex (who supposedly at least shared some similarities in upbringing as Henry in Apocolype's world) think he's "a creepshow".

It leaves us to ponder what fucked Henry McCoy so terribly compared to the others on the evil side of this storyline. I could write an entire paper on this (and I did once, then deleted it out of embarrassment back in college). I wish I had fucking kept it. It would have been useful in this context.

📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse?

Unlike his counterpart, McCoy hates Twinkies. He did not grow up with them, so when he posed as Hank during the Onslaught storyline, he tried one for the first time from Hank's stash and spat it out because it tasted like spongey sweetness wrapped in chemicals. He cannot fathom why Hank likes them.

😒 Is there anything canon about your muse that you ignore?

He's not a head in a jar during Krakoa. He fucked off somewhere. (I'm still bitter that Sinister and Apocalypse, and his now-evil counterpart get to have positions of power on Krakoa, and McCoy is just a floating head doing absolutely nothing. Sooo much-missed opportunity. I'd rather he just be dead.)

I also kind of ignore the Generation X (1994) #-1 issue with Dark Beat meeting Emma Frost when she was 16. Not only because it's weird, but it also makes little sense in Emma's timeline anyway. It only became kinda relevant once (during X-Men (1991) #74 X-Men (1991) #79, and X-Man (1995) #44) anyway. Let's just say I'm not upset that it hasn't been brought up again.

Sidenote: Remember when I answered the ask about my favorite creepiest/derpiest image of McCoy, well I just found this one and it is 100x better. WTF Luke Ross? I'm dying. )

🔮 What do you see in your muse’s future?

Some writer at Marvel misses him and he'll be back. I have a feeling it might be soon, too, since he has been "dead" since 2019.

🔥 Unpopular opinion about your muse? 

I am of the opinion that Henry is on the asexual spectrum (either through nurture or chemical changes that he enacted upon himself, as we know that Hank is not asexual.) Sex, like everything else, is just another tool for him to get what he wants and even then it is not a tool that he usually resorts to. Sure, it can be fun, but I think he views sexual urges as more of a distraction from more important things, and he doesn't particularly like to be distracted from his work.

😩 Hardest thing about writing the muse? 

I am as dumb as a sack of bricks, so writing an evil genius requires various levels of Googling to make sure I at least sound like I know what I'm talking about.

⌨ What’s a situation you’ve always wanted to RP with the muse? 

A humorous romp. Maybe something where he is part of a mismatched duo forced to work together with someone under bizarre circumstances. I want to really lean into the true trashy gremlin side of McCoy. It's hard to balance humor with someone that is so disgustingly evil, but I love it when it's done well and I would love to give it a try.

[master-of-the-railway]

This is probably stupid, but I've got a couple questions and one of them is AEG related;

1: Do you think AEG! Edward and Henry would ever actually speak to the younger engines? Or do you think they seem more mute?

2; How do you think the Model era engines would react to the CGI versions of themselves?

First of all HIII! I've seen you around and I love your monster stuff! You've got wonderful art and lore my friend, it's inspired a lot behind my own monster engine au actually :)

(Now onto the actual answers lol)

Making the assumption we're talking canon, I'd say they do, we're just never shown it. With how little we see Henry and Edward compared to Gordon, James, and Emily, I've come to the hypothesis that this universe banks off the idea that Henry no longer lives at Tidmouth and Edward mainly sticks to his own little corner. I'm sure they've talked to the kids in passing, but perhaps have never really had enough time to hold meaningful conversations. They don't show most characters in the show until certain points but the kids act like they've known them forever, so maybe they're actually closer to Henry and Edward than we think, and we just don't get to see it!

As for the second one, going with the model series being the time before the cgi, I suppose it'd be a lot like looking at your past self for the cgi crew. Gordon would remember that he used to be far more harsh, Henry would be reminded of how upset he used to be, Thomas would reflect on how he used to cause a lot more trouble than he does now. James has hardly changed (I say this lightheartedly he has had some growth over the years lol) so tbh I think he'd just have a nice chat with his past self.

And for the model crew it would be like looking into the future. Gordon would be surprised that he's softer now, still rather closed off and prideful but softer in a way. I think Henry would be a little bewildered at the idea of living somewhere else. Model Thomas would be so excited for all of the future adventures he's going to have, traveling across the world sounds incredible to him!

[marley-manson]

For the fandom meme!

17, 22, 25 (tried to balance out the negative with some opportunities for positivity but also … curious about 25 lol)

Thank you!

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Fic with unhappy or ambiguous at best endings. I was thinking about the most memorable fics I've read the other day, the ones that really stuck with me, and a lot of them have dark endings. And I kinda miss how common angst fic without a happy ending used to be, I feel like it's gotten a lot rarer across the board. Like while reading old Mash fic pre 2015 or so, I'd say the majority of what I saw was miserable in tone, and usually had a downer ending even if it was funny. And I have fond memories of a lot of lj era fandoms where, even if it wasn't a majority, a lot of fic was fans exploring dark/angsty scenarios with no happy ending in sight.

And especially when it's of the 'character makes bad decisions that are perfectly in character and understandable' type. Gimme an agent of one's own demise, I absolutely love it. Like, my favourite type of escapism is reading something and going 'lol glad I'm not this guy,' so yeah, I hope the fandom atmosphere shifts again eventually to encourage more dark and tragic stories alongside the happy escapism. Or I get into a dark fandom with lots of this type of content again lol, if it's out there in abundance somewhere and I'm just missing it.

Also aside from dark endings, characters making each other miserable for a long time before it gets better slowly and with difficulty. Though tbf these types of fics aren't easy to write lol and idk if they were ever super common. But still, I'd love to see more of them.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

HMMMM this is hard actually lol. Idk if I have an answer for Mash, I don't feel like there's a universally neglected aspect of canon that I like.

lmao ykw I'm gonna resurrect one of my oldschool petty fandom complaints for this: am I seriously one of the only people whose Labyrinth-related teenage sexual awakening was dominant rather than subby? It's not completely ignored, but boy was femdom a minority dynamic in a sea of femsub in that fandom considering the climax of the movie was "I would be your slave" and "You have no power over me."

25. common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing

Not specific to a fandom: why must everything be gay???? because it's more fun, next.

(also it isn't, ao3 was created in large part as a haven for gay fic that often got purged from other archives, go to literally any other fanfic site and het will reign supreme as it always does.)

[greaseonmymouth]

Hi! I'm rereading your incredible Little Deaths fic and drinking green tea, in the middle of some very dramatic gloomy weather. Super conducive to soft whispery feelings!

I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the post-war justice system/environment of the fic? I'm from a recently post-war country, and have always thought a lot about who should and shouldn't stand trial after conflict (especially in wars where the general population is heavily affected by fighting from either side). I'd just like to hear your thoughts on well...anything, really! How you came up with this aspect of the story, what your thoughts are on the HP fandom's usual representation of post war justice system, anything!

If you've talked about it somewhere else feel free to just point me there or ignore - I tried to look through the comments but there's so many of them, as there should be, of course ❤️ Thank you again for your writing and these whispery sweet boys!

Hi! I don't know how long this has been sitting in my asks so I'm sorry if you've been waiting awhile.

To start with: thank you for this lovely ask! I’m so incredibly pleased and humbled that this fic has become a comfort read for so many, and is still being read and re-read. ❤️

The rest of this post is under a cut because it got REALLY long. It’s also on my DW in a public post here in case it’s easier to read than on tumblr.

Ok, so the post-war justice system. I have thought about the war aftermath in HP for many years and have never really been able to formulate a coherent idea of what I thought was wrong with how it was done (or not done) in canon, and then fanon has a set of common tropes for dealing with it that don’t gel with me much either (though I’ve no doubt used those tropes myself in fic as a shorthand to get past the war unpleasantness so I could get to the more fun stuff). I think the first time I tried to bring it up was in Don’t Blame Me, which I wrote in 2015:

"I do not see what the problem is," Fleur said. "The war is over! I have been reading a lot of war literature, you know, and I think you're doing the right thing, Harry."

Harry frowned. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It's healthy for the society," Fleur said. "Muggle studies of societies that have been through civil wars as well as non-civil wars show that people who do not talk about the war and who keep sides after the war, have a much bigger risk of going through another war, or have a lingering war trauma in their collective consciousness," she explained. "One study showed that it takes until the great grandchildren of people who fought in a war for this trauma to fade."

Harry and Ginny stared at her.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," she said, impatiently. "I believe the second war happened in part because the fallout of the first one wasn't dealt with properly! And in order to prevent the same thing from happening again, we must take conscious action." She was gesticulating as she spoke. "That includes making sure nobody is ostracised or left behind"

"You mean, can't let the losers get trodden on," Harry said.

"No," Fleur answered. "That's not what I think. In a civil war there are no winners, Harry, only losers. We may have won the war, but we lost it too." She gave him a significant look. "The only difference, in the end, is that the victors aren't put on trial and only the losers are punished for their crimes of war."

Harry felt his cheeks grow hot. "You think I should have been tried in court."

"I think we all should have," Fleur argued. "We all did terrible things. You can't tell me you didn't."

"I suppose I did," Harry said, his guts twisting. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Yes, let's not talk about the war," Ginny interjected.

That’s all I said about it - this is one of the fics I wrote where the war aftermath was reduced to a single line ("Didn't we settle our differences after...your trial?" Harry asked carefully. "Because I thought we had.") so I wouldn’t have to deal with it, but my brain wouldn’t leave it alone.

And then I wrote Little Deaths (2018) and I didn’t plan to bring this up again, but since I was already dealing with some serious issues and Harry and Draco do discuss an epilogue in a fantasy book (vaguely based on Hunger Games, but absolutely also intended as a meta discussion of the HP epilogue) and it just felt wrong to not say anything at all about how the war turned out in this fic. Little Death’s is about healing in so many ways, so I was also wondering how does a nation heal from the trauma of a civil war?

For those reading along, here are the relevant passages from Little Deaths:

Harry was struggling to remember the last time he’d had a civil conversation with Malfoy…that was to say, before he started coming to the Archive. Was it at the trials? Harry recalled sharing a few words with an exhausted Draco Malfoy in the halls at the ministry—Harry had been utterly wrung out at the time as well, testifying for and against so many people, standing trial himself, testifying, testifying, watching friends and enemies and everyone in between go from court room to holding cells to court rooms to freedom, or to jail.

No, there had been instances other than that, later. A few words at a party or other, those Pansy had put on after the trials (and after she got out of prison), the ones that started out as blind drinking and dancing to forget, that turned into drinking to talk, that turned into canapés and Muggle movies and friends. Malfoy had been there, but now Harry didn’t know if he’d spoken to him at length, if at all, or if all their interactions had been filtered through alcohol and semi-annoyed tolerance. Pansy had stopped throwing those get-togethers a long time ago.

--

“All right. Uhm. Why did you drop out of the Auror programme?”

(...) “After I served out my prison sentence and community service I was offered a spot and since I had nothing else to do, I accepted it. And everyone else expected me to take it, you know? I was the Harry Potter, Vanquisher of Evil, The Boy Who Lived, all that bullshit—and everyone expected me to continue down that path. Be some kind of…Arbiter of Justice.”

Malfoy had raised an eyebrow. “You? Forgive me, but…not that I don’t appreciate your role in how everything turned out, but…”

“Right?” Harry agreed. “It was…I was tired. I was so tired. And after a year of training, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to be a person who fights, you know? I never…I never chose to fight in the first place, I just had to. And now it was all done and I was supposed to fight crime? Me?”

--

Malfoy huffed. “It’s not a spectacular story,” he said. “You know that I got a combined prison and community service sentence?” Harry nodded. “The community service part was in reconstruction. I and a bunch of others repaired and rebuilt what the Death Eaters destroyed—what we destroyed, everything from homes to bridges to Hogwarts to businesses. We broke it, so we fixed it.”

--

The rain continued pouring. It was cold, but dry, under Malfoy’s umbrella. Harry didn’t really know what he was doing, here, with Malfoy. He was falling in love with a person who had just reminded him, bluntly at that, that he’d been on the other side in the War, a person whose family was tied up with centuries’ worth of human and magical supremacy politics and blood politics, somebody who’d been directly responsible for a lot of harm.

But it was hypocritical, Harry thought, to hold himself in better regard. He’d gotten a combined prison and community service sentence too. He’d used Unforgivables. He’d caused injury and death to a lot of innocent bystanders when he’d broken into Gringotts with Ron and Hermione, and he had to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. Hell, he’d probably broken more laws than Malfoy had, but Harry had gotten two months in prison, and Malfoy had gotten a year.

--

“When did I become someone who overthinks things?” Harry grumbled, sitting down.

“When you came back from prison,” she answered, without hesitation.

Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t recall his time in prison being particularly awful; the incarceration rates after the War had been so high that there wasn’t enough space in Azkaban for everyone, even with the staggered sentences, so he’d been sent to a facility in Norway. And even so, the European Delegate had banished Dementors from Azkaban. Hermione had served in Azkaban and had said of her time there that it’d been a bit cold, but otherwise uneventful. Harry could’ve said the same thing. Prison had been mostly boring. There’d been a library there, and they’d had a few books in English, so Harry had read those, and…that was it. Two months of boredom in a Norwegian prison.

How had that possibly changed him? Was it all that time to just…think? His prison time had been bookended by his community service; he’d been assisting in the Janus Thickey ward for about six months before he went to prison, and he came right back to it afterwards.

He’d thought a lot about the war, then. About his choices. Both those that led to his sentence and those that hadn’t, all the different ways the war could’ve turned out if he’d only been faster, braver, more cautious, more bold…there’d been a counsellor there, but Harry hadn’t wanted to talk to her at the time. He’d made his peace—he’d taken both his punishment and his accolades, and gone to Pansy’s parties, and put it all behind him.

“I don’t think…none of us came out of the War unscathed,” Ginny continued, “and I think all of us were impacted by our sentences in some way or other…maybe it was a slow change, I don’t know. But when you came back from prison, that’s when I noticed you weren’t the same person anymore.”

--

“Merlin’s tears, Harry, I wasn’t ready! I wasn’t ready to have bloody children or, or, get married, or any of that shit!” Ginny snapped back. “I just wanted to live! Have fun! Not think about the fucking War or my dead brother or the fact everyone was in prison or doing community service—I just wanted to play Quidditch and have fun and not get serious, and you—you didn’t.”

--

“Look, that book? Is just a book. It’s not an indicator for your life, or mine, or anyone else’s. We get to make our own happy endings, all right? We deserve that.”

“Do we?” Draco said, after a while. “After everything we did, do we really?”

“Yes, damn it. I didn’t suffer for most of my life only to continue to suffer. I don’t care about what I deserve or don’t deserve, I care about what I want. Right now, that’s you, us.”

“That’s easy for you to say—”

“No, it isn’t! Merlin’s bloody hat, Draco, none of this is easy.” Harry rubbed his face. (...)

Draco hadn’t touched his food either. “I just don’t understand,” he said, “how, after everything we did, we deserve anything at all. The book—those characters all did some truly awful things to overturn the government, and they just…went and got married and that was it? How did they deserve that? How do we deserv—”

“I’ve already been to jail, and so have you.” Harry was done with this discussion. He put his plate aside and got up, pacing. “We’ve had our punishment. That’s enough. I’m not going to continue to punish myself just because. It’s done! It’s in the past! I just want to move on!” He glared at Draco. “I want a normal goddamn life, a fucking happy ending, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I want—I need to just be a normal fucking person!”

“So just because in the eyes of the law it’s done, it’s really done?”

“Yes!” Harry threw up his hands. “I don’t know! But there’s no other metric, is there? It’s why we have the sodding law in the first place, isn’t it?”

--

“Draco,” Harry continued, closing the distance between them. “I don’t know how to make you understand that you deserve good things—”

“Just because I went to prison it doesn’t mean the scales are even—”

“No, but you have been working tirelessly on becoming a better person than you were since then,” Harry pointed out. “Everything you’ve done since then has been about that. You’ve earned it. You get to have things, now.”

“I don’t—” Draco shook his head. “I’ll never be done with that. That’s not a process that ever really ends...I just happened to run out of properties to give away.”

“No, I know, but—okay, you know what. I died. I died so everyone could live, and part of me stayed dead—or so I thought anyway—and you know what, I don’t care if I haven’t deserved this, or if you haven’t deserved it, I want it, and I want you, and that’s just how it is. That’s how it’s going to be. Okay? I’m allowing myself to want something and to let myself have it and to fight for it. And what I want is you.”

So as you can see, this is a vanishly small part of Little Deaths - 1442 words out of 96144, or 1.5%. The point of Little Deaths was never to interrogate the justice system or the war or the aftermath, that’s something I think I’d need to write a separate fic to deal with and to be frank that’s never going to happen. I still don’t know entirely what my beliefs are - I’m still working it out.

A little bit of background:

I have a degree in Finnish and have lived in Finland for a while, in rural societies that still, a hundred years later, have plaques in the local church and/or community centres with the names of those who died in the civil war in 1918. The family I lived with didn’t want to talk about the civil war and which side their grandparents or great-grandparents had been on during the war, or who they lost, but they did explain a few things to me. The rest I got from textbooks and literature.

It seems to me that the wizarding wars are modelled on WW2 - there’s an overt link to the one where Grindelwald was terrorising Europe, and it’s placed in a vague, almost mythical past, due to the elder wand stuff and how old Dumbledore is. The two Voldemort wars however are clearly in terms of politics modelled on WW2. What canon doesn’t take into account is that the two Voldemort wars are civil wars. That’s not to diminish the very real WW2, but I’m old enough to remember the civil wars on Balkan (some of my earliest memories are going with my mum to red cross to put together boxes with food and blankets and the like to send to Yugoslavia), and while I’ve never even visited the area and absolutely cannot speak to what kind of horrors the people there experienced and what the aftermath was like, I have known several people from the area who don’t want to talk about it because the trauma is still very raw. My sister’s husband is from the area and what I’m given to understand is that the area still isn’t very stable. Last I heard there’s some unrest again because of politics that tie back to the civil war and people are scared.

So, these are civil wars. And what little I know about civil wars (I’m absolutely not an expert) seems to point towards these being profoundly traumatic to a nation because you’re not fighting an outside, invading force - you’re fighting your neighbours. Coworkers, family, friends. I won’t say it’s impossible to heal from a civil war, but it’s not easy, and the trauma can and often will last for generations. Take Finland for example - there are still families where it’s taboo to marry someone from a family who was on the other side of the civil war. There are still areas where neighbours don’t get along because their families were on the opposite side of the civil war, a hundred years ago. I won’t say that this is super prevalent because I don’t know enough about it to say, and no doubt for many people the civil war is a non-issue today. It just wasn’t always.

And the winners write the history books. The winners persecute the losers.

In HP, Voldemort and co killed and tortured a lot of people, and it’s implied that when the war was won (er, when Voldemort vanished bc of Baby Harry and his whole movement fell apart) all the ‘winning side’ did was persecute death eaters and imprison them. What we see in the books is that when the second war starts up again, the ‘good side’ does a lot of stuff that is straight up illegal and if had been done by the ‘bad side’ would’ve been cause to punish them.

A common fanon trope for the war aftermath is that Harry testifies on Draco’s behalf (and often also his mother) to get them a lighter sentence, because Harry is a hero and has that power. He defeated Voldemort, after all! There are variations on this trope. Sometimes Draco goes to prison for a bit. Sometimes he gets off scot free. Sometimes he incurs financial losses. Sometimes he is discriminated against as an ex-death eater. The common theme is that Draco is always the one who gets punished and that Harry is the one with the power to make it stop, by associating with him. Harry himself is never punished. Nobody ever questions his methods - there’s very much a ‘the ends justify the means’ attitude to Harry in both canon and fanon. (A quick note here: I am not condemning writers who do this or fics that have this as a central theme. And tbh if fandom didn’t have this trope, many of us, myself included, would be missing a quick shorthand to get us past the war and to the fun stuff. It’s fanfic; if we want to write frivolous fanfic that doesn’t deal with serious war stuff, we should be allowed to do that without first having to grapple with bloody war politics to justify it.)

I looked at what I know about civil wars, HP canon, HP fanon, and I couldn’t stop thinking: what if it had gone differently? What if it didn't play out that way? What if Harry's side of the war, even though they are the victors, did not, in fact, deal with the aftermath? What if an outside force (like, idk, the magical equivalent of the EU or the UN) took reins as an objective power, and put everyone on trial? I don’t have the power to change the world, and I certainly don’t have the answers - I don’t *really* know how international politics work either. But I can try to discuss.

SO. To get to the point:

Harry etc. went to prison because I find it profoundly unjust that they didn't. They might have been the 'heroes', but they used unforgivable curses. In the real world we have the concept of war crimes for a good reason, as well as we have established standards for humanitarian treatment under war by international law (commonly known as the Geneva Convention).

By making it clear in this fic that Harry and co faced justice for their actions I wanted to question the tendency in fandom to blindly accept the book series' implication that they never did, and especially the fanon that Harry testified for Draco at the trials after the war and that his word somehow got Draco a lesser sentence or off entirely. Harry is a teenager and when you look at the facts, you could argue that he’s a war criminal - so I wanted to question the assumption that Harry is a hero.

At the same time, we know that the British wizarding law body/government as presented in the books is deeply flawed, so whatever justice they, and others on the other side of the war, would've faced wouldn't have been just. So I thought about it and wondered how it'd have turned out if some kind of international impartial legal body untangled the mess? would such a body exist? why? when would it have been formed? I like to think that in a just world, an outside, unbiased (or relatively unbiased) body could've handled it. I don't have an answer, and I didn't go into further details about it in this fic because for the purposes of this fic I needed it to have already happened (or it would've been a very different fic...) but realistically I know that this sort of thing threatens the sovereignty of a nation (even one without a functioning government). It’s more like wishful thinking than a rational suggestion of how to deal with something as terrible as a civil war.

So I figured, ok. Harry and co were all tried in court and faced some kind of sentence afterwards, BUT there was still a sharp difference in how they were treated. Harry was sent to a cushy Norwegian prison for a couple of months while Draco got a year in Azkaban. institutional misogyny plays a role too, with Hermione's sentence. While her sentence was also short, it was carried out in Azkaban. I didn’t think it was realistic that an outside objective body would’ve been truly objective, I still think that there would’ve been differential treatment. (I went through the books when writing this and there's no evidence that Draco used unforgiveables aside from that time in myrtle's bathroom when he was about to crucio Harry. But Harry did! He used imperio and crucio successfully and multiple times. (His failed attempts to avada kedavra Bellatrix in book 5 should've probably been punished, but that wouldn't have served Dumbledore's agenda now would it. and Dumbledore was the only witness to those attempts iirc.))

I want to believe that this approach would've helped heal the rift caused by the civil war somewhat so that there wouldn't be yet another war twenty years later. I’d like to think that for many people, having had jail time and community service, they could get closure. they've served out their punishment so it's all over now. I also genuinely don't believe that the ministry would've been able to deal with the aftermath of the war, given how everyone was complicit, even though many of them had been acting out of fear.

What you might notice is that in the fic I was very ambivalent about it by actively avoiding presenting the war aftermath in a positive or negative light. I present it as something that happened. Where it gets thorny is how Harry, Draco, and Ginny think of it - and again, I don’t make it clear that one of them is right or wrong. Harry wants to believe that because he’s had his lawful punishment he can now move past it and be a normal person. Draco doesn’t believe his lawful punishment was enough and wants to keep making amends. Ginny (as well as Pansy and many others, by implication) was so traumatised by the whole thing that she refused to think about it at all and more or less became a nihilist for a few years. This ambivalence is deliberate in part because I don’t know within myself what I think is the right way, but also because I don’t want to pass judgment - this is a fanfic, but civil wars are real things and there are no doubt people out there in the real world struggling with that kind of trauma. I wouldn’t want to presume, from the comfort of my own non-experience with the subject, to know what’s the ‘correct’ opinion to have. What I do think, is that it’s very easy to talk about war as a black-and-white thing, with evil on one side and good on the other, that it’s always the ‘other’ who is in the wrong, and that heroes are infallible. I just don’t think with civil wars that it’s always that simple. Even in fictional universe Harry Potter where Voldemort is Actually Evil and Harry is the Good who defeats him, it’s not that simple.

So tl;dr I guess: How do you heal after a trauma like this? I don’t know.

[paper-cloud]

i. the crushing weight of what happens next

part of "(there will be a) tomorrow"

fandom: prospect (2018) characters: ezra, cee rating: T words count: ~3K context: post-canon general warnings/tags: see series masterlist warnings/tags for this chapter: ezra's pov. angst. not graphic descriptions of wounds, blood and amputated limbs. mentions of minor characters' death. (probably very) inaccurate but anyways vague descriptions of medical treatments and post-anesthesia symptoms. taglist: @ravensmutty @buttercup--bee @thegreenkid (again, thank you all for your interest and encouragement! :3) @krissology @ezrasarm @bonktime (please forgive my nerve, i won't tag you in the next chapters unless you'll explicitly ask me to! just thought about someone else who might be interested and you guys are AMAZINGLY talented and inspiring "prospect"/ezra writers. it's not my intention to waste precious moments of your time! 🤡

[SERIES MASTERLIST] [MAIN MASTERLIST]

He'd have thought it was almost ironic – opening his eyes to the light only to see nothing. To feel pain.

He'd have laughed about it, most likely. A bit later, he'd have acknowledged it was a reasonably fair compromise; for him and any other wretch that'd ever dared play dice with darkness and miraculously made it out alive.

And in the very end he'd come to laugh at himself, too.

He knows the drill. Someone who trades their own life with the contract of the highest bidder doesn't see the universe in black and white, let alone is in a position to draw the hypothetical line between the two of them.

Must be an even more wicked universe than he's ever cared about, then.

At least, that's where the struggle of opening his eyes made him stumble upon; when a blade of light thrust through that hint of a gap he'd pushed himself to create in the middle, resonating through the dark coils of unconsciousness like a harsh, unforgiving bell.

A skilled mariner over silky rivers of natural redundancy and rapids of professional edges, Ezra is a man who can appreciate a sharp wit when he recognizes one.

That was too much even for him.

Floundering in between a blinding whiteness and a black hole that wasn't even completely black, but permeated by a thick, suffocating haze that filled every ghost haunting his mind with its stench. With the color of diabolically lush leaves.

Forest— spores— poison— death.

It hadn't been enough to let him dangle in apnea above a roaring vortex of lifeless emerald; take him away from the grey flow whose elusiveness he'd come to appreciate more than he'd ever hated to endure its chaos— from the bubble built on the routine series of one last jobs that, in the end, never really were.

There'd been a moment when, from the higher parts of the room, his pupils tumbled down, tripping over a patch of green discreetly lurking in a corner.

He almost threw up.

It had taken him a while to clear out the misty grit clotted in his corneas— focus on white walls, light wood paneling... a harmless seedling in a pot.

He'd breathed heavily, deeply. He sure hadn't got much relief from it. Still, he'd been able to hear its sound, louder than he'd ever heard it before, the musical, cooling mesh of oxygen particles in and out of his lungs almost begging his fingers to be touched.

Oxygen.

Fresh air.

Had he been less sore – less convinced it was just the residual effects of anesthesia pulling pranks on him –, he would have burst out laughing. Even more so if some poor soul of the medical staff nearby would have called for reinforcements from the other side of the space station before storming into his room.

He'd be laughing now, too. The best he can manage is sitting on his bed, leaning his back on the headboard – which is what he's struggling to do right now— and well, sometimes the room lighting still slightly bothers him. Of course, with all the painkillers and antibiotics they've given him, he wouldn't feel like the wound on his stomach is swallowing the entire arsenal of stitches and bandages.

He just wouldn't like her to get the wrong idea.

He blinks several times, like a man who no longer trusts his eyes. How can he, when they're burning like that, in such a different fire from the one from days before – damp and flickering? For reasons he can imagine, she seems to be faltering. Totally beyond his comprehension, he could swear she's smiling at him. Something inside his ribcage creaks oddly, while the curve of his chest arches upward.

"Birdie."

It's just a huff of breath, weak and hoarse, yet scratches his throat all the same, in a way that its walls feel studded with rock spurs. Actually, Ezra doesn't remember talking since they left the Green behind – which, being him, is saying something – and it's like an eternity has passed since their pod docked up there.

The nurse who let her into his room has just left and Cee sinks her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants. She's still smiling— just the faded shadow of a smile, now that he takes a better look at her.

"How's your wound?"

It sounds a lot less plain than he expected.

She hasn't moved towards him any further, and for now she's not showing any hints at wanting to. In her irises, Ezra recognizes thumping stars and cerulean clouds, all clustered in the black circle cut by the large porthole next to his bed. All before catching the thin mist veiling them. As if she did want to reach those stars, let herself get carried away by those streams of bluish dust, but she had no idea how or what to do there.

He looks down, the borders of the bandages over his abdomen slightly raised under his black short-sleeved tee. He clears his throat.

"S'healin' nicely", he says, with a deliberate lightheartedness that costs him a sharp, bizarre inflection in his voice. He closes his eyes soon after, tilting his head condescendingly. "That's how the nurse feels about it, anyway... S'not like I can feel much more right now."

This reminds him of those vacuous moments between brief, chaotic waking states and delirious dreams. When he'd managed to reconnect some essential key points scattered around in the talks of surgeons and nurses; the weariness he felt from simply gathering he was on a space station due to enter the orbit of Mesos in three cycles and something standard hours. All while his only solid reference point – the only indisputable proof he was still alive – was the sequence of beeps chirped by the medical monitor perched nearby. Constant, not monotonous. Friendly, even. Sometimes, he actually comes to miss it.

"A trust fall to the extreme, I'd guess", he snorts, a sly laugh as weak and heavy as the words trudging out of his mouth. As the whole rest of him.

Whatever answer she's considering, Cee freezes it in a quick purse of her lips – maybe a nod, but for his own good he'd rather be doubtful. Then she starts looking around.

There's a chair under the board firmly anchored to the opposite wall – probably a desk or something he's never needed to test, whatsoever. She grabs it and puts it next to his bed. She sits down, bringing her legs to her chest, squeezing them in her arms.

Waiting for what, Ezra has no idea, and he's afraid she doesn't have any, either.

He doesn't speak, though, nor does he encourage her to do the same. Her pearly gaze roams steadily but unhurriedly from him to somewhere beyond him, her nose buried in the gap between her knees. He studies her carefully, two purple crescents above her cheeks, a few hair strands swinging down her face without her wiping them out. The nights she's slept through haven't been any more peaceful than his.

Trust, he recalls in the meantime.

It sure brings an odd taste to his mouth. Something close to sweaty spacesuits, grimy paths and gone-off ration bars. A single word for two human beings forced to share the same air filter for days; that, and the image of a dead body left to rot miles behind and the desperate commitment not to end up in the same way.

His gaze just happens to trip over his right side, taking in the deflated sleeve over the emptiness that saved his life. When he lifts it back to the girl, meeting her eyes just before they can flutter away, he realizes they were both looking at the same spot. And he realizes something else— something he's already understood, yet not quite.

There is no tube binding them now.

"Why d'you do it?", he mumbles a split second later, almost like somehow the thread of his question has immediately knotted to the one of his previous thought.

He huffs. He shouldn't even have asked her, in all honesty. Seeing her like this, at least he should have put it in another way, danced around it, it's not like he’s never been good at stalling, after all—

"Comin' back", Ezra says instead, and when he swallows, he mainly does it to send his heart back down his throat. If he'd died without being given the last chance to be this straightforward on this matter, he would have probably kicked his ass all the way to the other side. 

This time, Cee doesn't avoid his gaze. He shouldn't be surprised by how collected she looks, given the calmness she handled his infected arm with and then told him about when she used to slip into Jata Bhalu carcasses. But he can't help it when he thinks she can't be much older now than what she was then.

He watches her breathing in, wobbling her pupils here and there, seemingly considering his words. She's not afraid, not any more than what she seemed to be when she walked into his room. Maybe she's just better than him at playing pretend – but this, he can't tell whether it's more of a good than a bad thing. Especially for her.

One thing he can tell is that she's not the same girl who pointed a trembling gun at him before running away into the woods. He knows she's not afraid.

He knows...

So is it the hunter's instinct he has to blame if he feels she is?

"Guess I've seen too much death on that forsaken moon to just... turn my back on one I can help– one I can do something about."

If he was standing in front of an entire mountain crumbling down into the ocean, he wouldn't hear its sound. ‘Wouldn't even be the worst he deserves. She did hesitate before adding the last few words, but Ezra refuses to believe she did that because she was afraid of hurting him. He may be a wretch, but not a fool.

Kevva, for a man who's always managed to untwist himself from far tougher situations with the tangles of his tongue alone, he's sure having a deal of trouble – and he wishes he could put all the blame on his current physical condition.

There is no word he doesn't have to weigh carefully now, to prevent it from taking too sharp edges once out of his lips. He may float around it forever. But once he's let her go without saying anything, he'll hardly find the courage to look within himself again, more than after any other job that hardened his hands with calluses and tarnished his eyes with blood.

He doesn't know for sure. In fact, everything he was sure to know – about the turning direction of the universe and the one of the wheels in his head – has already collapsed in front of him, tracing a flaming tail. An unforgiving meteor following a trajectory far beyond his grasp.

He just knows silence scares him, in a way that a wrong word will never do again. It terrifies him. More than as a talkative person, as a castaway on a hostile moon for too many cycles to keep their count – with the only company of a mute. Silence is green; the green of the most poisonous pollen, lethal in his brain just like toxic spores enveloped in his lungs. The green of snake scales ready to stand and scratch his flesh until liquid crimson pours out of it.

And at the end of the day, this is the only fucking thing he can tell himself to know without having his guts churning and chest heaving a beat later.

"Stop looking at me like that."

It's more of an exhausted prayer than an annoyed remark. Ezra blinks, stunned by the sudden return from the shapeless stream of his thoughts.

"Like what?"

"Like you're looking for the words to thank me", Cee settles back into her chair and this time she lets one leg touch the floor, "Tell me you owe me, and you– you're sorry about what you did."

Ezra sniffles. "Would it be bad?" 

"No, it—". She closes her eyes for a moment, clenching her jaw. "Just no good", she breathes out, calmer.

And the discordant note in those words conjures up ghosts not yet vague enough for Ezra to be able to tolerate them without something twinging inside him— like a violent flutter of wings. Voices groping their way up ravels of compromises. Damon, deep in the forest. Himself, with the mercenaries in the Queen's Lair. Cee, days before that. After he—

She's right— those words she hasn't said yet, but whose shadow he feels looming every time he catches her wetting her lips.

Some things just can't be split evenly.

"This is not the Green", she states, suddenly more confident but no less exhausted. "If you're going to hang around just because you need to, once we reach Mesos¹ you'd better be on your way."

Ezra doesn't interrupt her. A faded echo starts making its way into his ears. A former prospecting partner, many years ago. An easy job on a forgettable Fringe moon.

Gems don't have an expiration date. Deals do. Strike 'em if you need to, get rid of them as soon as you can. Unless you care to dig a quicker way to your grave.

He didn't pay attention to it, then. He'd thought it was just the empty rhetoric prospectors drop absentmindedly to fill the time between an unrewarding digging and the next. All the more so under the rickety advice of a couple too many.

His eyes still wide open, hands shaky, he merely reciprocated the awkward bottle lift of his partner, whom he didn't know more than the meanders of that quarry. A toast to a faceless future – a nothingness still more reassuring than what was all around and behind them. Not to the darkness of the cave, basically unbreakable if only for the red halo thrown by the twinkles of sharp, sinister Prystines². Not even to the two poor bastards that had set out with them, ending up skewered a few hundred paces behind – one by mistake, the other to return the favor of saving him from the clutches of a furious Aiu³.

Like an idiot.

Several contracts later preventing him from missing a beat in front of similar hiccups, the logic of that statement no longer sounds so absurd to Ezra. Luckily for him, Cee understood it long before him.

"I was just lookin' for the words to tell ya you'll be better off without me—"

Half a truth. Half a heartbeat. After all, she isn't the only one of them who knows how to sell it.

He leans his head back against the headboard, eyes half-closed, a sly grin baring a couple of his upper teeth. It would almost be intimidating, except that the glint hitting them doesn't quite match the dying one in his eyes.

"—But you beat me to it", he finishes, and he sounds like he's about to fall asleep.

He slowly turns his head away, looks through the porthole. His gaze clutches to the passing asteroids outside, distant nebulae spraying the sidereal black with hues of purple, blue, red— then green, again. A climbing plant squeezing him from the inside, discomfort starts creeping on him an inch of his body – what's left of it – at a time.

He doesn't want her to think he's angry at her, and it's the only concrete foothold emerging from the fluid, magmatic chaos in his mind.

How could he be, when she came back to get him?

She didn't have to.

She doesn't have to be here, either...

"I'm sorry", she suddenly blurts out.

He meets her eyes again, a mix of bewilderment and disapproval shading his own. He shakes his head.

"Don't."

"I just—". She starts fiddling with the extra fabric created by the folds of her sweatpants. Then she sighs deeply. "I have no idea what I'm gonna do now."

He snorts. "Not that it's s'pposed to make you feel any better, but... neither do I."

He doesn't have a hazy helmet choking the glimmer in his eyes, an air filter breaking some frequencies in his voice— maybe just those making him sound sincere, while saving those trapping him into the swamp of self-loathing.

He was nothing but honest when he told her the rules of the game on the Green. When he openly admitted he was a killer, and when he assured her he wouldn't trade her for the Sater's Aurelac. And she's always seemed to believe him, maybe for that kind of desperate inertia that washes over people when they need something to cling to. Whatever the case, Ezra can only hope she wants to believe him now. But she doesn't speak, and for a moment his fear of not saying enough overcomes that of crossing her boundaries.

"But w—", he immediately bites his tongue, "—you still have three cycles to figure things out. Someone up here will be able to help you. Even so, please know you'll always have my most sincere gratitude."

The effort of lining up all those words and so few pauses to catch his breath casts a thick fog over his ears. His eyes suddenly hurt again and he finds himself squinting.

What happens next, he just records it, hardly managing to follow each cause-effect relationship. A series of events softly raining on him without making a noise, while he can quite imagine them to be way more prolonged in time. Cee leaning towards the lighting panel on the wall, sliding her finger counterclockwise, and the white coating the walls turning less painfully bright; her getting up, walking away, dwelling just before the door. "I'll come to check on you tomorrow", she says, sniffling.

She tilts her head, holding his gaze in her watery one for an agonizingly slow while – Please, don't ask me why.

He blinks once – Of course.

Then, the automatic door is once again engulfed by the wall, closing behind her with a metallic rustle.

Tomorrow.

His heart is taken by a spiraling jolt that leaves an empty cave behind. When it falls back into place, Ezra finds something has tripped in there, shapeless and quivering like the nucleus of a newborn star.

Hope, terror and everything that lies in between. 

___________________

NOTES:

1) Mesos — Invented planet. Its only raison d'être is that "mésos" in Greek means "middle" and my intent was to frame this story in a moment of transition (after those of movies) for both Ezra and Cee. 2) Prystines — Invented kind of crystals. They're implied to be huge, red and very sharp, thus endangering the path through the cave. 3) Aiu — Invented predator, ideally a big feline.

A/N:

Yeah, uhm... at this point, if someone was ever to give me any kind of feedback, constructive criticism or random thought, I think I'd just melt into a puddle for the attention alone. And to all those who came all the way down here, your bravery shall not be forgotten. ♥️✨

In my defense, it's (almost) all P**** P*****'s fault & of his habit of taking orphans under his wing from one planet to another.

I know people in the fandom generally tend to make Ezra and Cee go along straight away after the movie, so this will be a slightly different take on things, I guess... But even if I don't know if I'll keep this series going atm (life & maturity exam suck), a final reconciliation is definitely on the way. ;)

Oh, and any beta reader that should feel like helping me out for when I'll have the next chapters ready is warmly welcomed! My DMs are always open and I swear I don't bite! :3

[solivagusdraco]

From the Depths of a Lab: Boundaries Between Nonhumanity and Creativity through the Journey of a Potential Silvally 'kin

I'm a dragon.

That's a fact I've known for over a decade at this point. It was pure chance that I ever even learned of otherkin - somewhere along the line, one of my best friends mentioned being a therian, and so I asked what that was. If I ever had any doubts about my draconity just being something developed because I heard this new fascinating thing… the fact that I still feel my wings and get sense memories when I search for them, even after this long, would eliminate those… we'll call them worries. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but it's what fits in my experience - I'm firmly in the spiritual otherkin camp.

And perhaps that, and my continued journey to understand psychological 'kin, is part of the "problem" that spurred this essay.

Again, perhaps a poor choice in words.

This isn't some discussion about facets of the community, or debate on origins. My experiences aren't another's, just as theirs aren't mine. This is an essay on personal exploration, and the adventure of trying to confirm or deny a kintype whilst sifting through muddy water, years after I've last done any serious introspection on such topics. But if you're still interested in the personal ramblings of this dragon, then I welcome you and will pull up a nice rock for you to sit on. All I ask is patience, for words are hard for me. Talking about myself is even harder.

I awakened as a Dragon in 2010. I found a hearttype in Painted Dogs in 2014. Both of which were… simple.

I found my dragon in meditation and introspection, finding memories of both sense and the more traditional kind. The senses persisted, and still persist. Perhaps one day I'll wake and realize I'm not a dragon, but that doesn't change what I am now, nor how I feel. I am a dragon, and I found that through soul searching.

I found a home in painted dogs during a chance trip to the zoo. They had just recently finished a new exhibit for those fancy canines, and for some reason I just felt so excited to go see these creatures I'd never heard of before that moment. And then I saw them and while I didn't feel like looking in the mirror… It felt like looking through a photo album. I'm not them, yet still they're so familiar.

But this isn't an essay about dragons or canines. Or perhaps it's an essay about them both, just in a different, chimeric form.

Pokémon has always been a part of my life. As of writing this, I'm 27 and the franchise is 25 - the only part of my life without Pokémon are years I don't even remember. I learned the TCG, my first video games ever were Gold and Silver, I had plush and played pretend with my friends. I had favorites… but I never made a character. Not a trainer, not a Pokémon. Rather, it was literal decades before I made a proper Pokémon OC.

Sev the Silvally was made out of a desire to try and run a Pokémon ask blog as a means to improve my art skills through regular practice. I don't even remember the thought process that made me choose a Silvally over any of the other hundreds of Pokémon - I just knew that I'd started drawing and suddenly I had a crime against Arceus with a broken RKS Drive. Granted, Type: Null and Silvally had been my favorite Pokémon of that generation, and my inspiration for the blog was a Type: Null blog.

Later on, Sev would become something of a comfort and coping character for me.

I had been abused by someone I considered one of my best friends in high school, and while I had since recognized it as abuse by the time of Sev's creation… It still bothered me. So I decided to have Sev's escape from the Aether Paradise be that he was stolen by an abusive trainer, and his evolution happened when that trainer turned her abusive hand to a Rockruff pup - an evolution not through love for his trainer, but rather through a desire to protect. Sev escaped his abuse and got the chance to learn how to live without the shadow of his trainer looming over him, just like I hoped to do. Escape that shadow. Let Sev be my guide through the nightmares and hate scrolling that still persisted.

He stopped being just a character.

But what does this all have to do with otherkin?

As I mentioned, Pokémon has been a part of my life for effectively my whole life. Yet despite that… There's never been a Pokémon that gripped me with the intensity that Silvally has. I've hungrily looked for merch, official and unofficial. I'm in the midst of making a fursuit, complete with electronics. One of my Tumblr usernames is multi-attack, and oftentimes now when making an account on a website, the first thing I check is if 'Silvally' is taken as a username. The design I painted on my mailbox is of my dragon and Sev, in a sort of "coat of arms" reminiscent style. This chimeric Pokémon latched on to some part of my mind and refused to let go.

And yet it wasn't until this past year that I even considered that Silvally could be something other than a "mere" favorite character.

Perhaps it's a hearttype. Perhaps it's a kintype. Perhaps it is just a mere favorite character. Introspection is the answer, regardless. My way to find just what Silvally is to me. But then there comes another question. Another problem.

With my dragon, the hunt for memories was clear cut. I had no existing thoughts to sway the hunt, and what memories I eventually found… They had little comparisons to various dragon media I'd consumed. But I start this investigation with Silvally at a disadvantage - I've made a character with crafted backstory, and consumed what little canon information exists on the species. There's no blank slate for me to start from - whatever search I do will always be colored by Sev and his tale.

So then I have to ask myself:

Is Sev his own character, or is he me?

I've never had a character that I was able to just write. Perhaps it's akin to soulbonding, but what I've read on that experience just doesn't quite taste right for the circumstance. I'll create a path for my characters, a baseline for their personality to grow on… but all too frequently, they end up bucking those guidelines and becoming their own person, as it were. They don't keep me company in my mind, but they still make their own minds clear should I try to direct their story or actions in ways they don't agree with.

Where does one find the boundary between self and other, when those "others" make their own decisions yet aren't their own entities?

To say nothing of my tendency to dole out my flaws and traits to each of my characters. Each little facet of myself being the seed from which a character will grow. Sometimes as the simple fact that the familiar makes creation easier. Sometimes as a means to work through a problem. But regardless of reason, it doesn't change the fact that almost every character I've ever made has had some piece of me in their core.

But… When every character you make is a facet of yourself, the moment you consider that they might be more than just a character gets muddy. Is it a hearttype, born from a facet of yourself that your subconscious decided you needed to care for more? Or is that facet just a part of you that recognized what you were, long before your consciousness connected the dots? And if kintype it is, then how do you determine what memories are real? Were the plot points and character biology you designed mere fabrication of the mind? Or were they flashes of another life, fleshed out, recorded, and/or adapted in the name of writing?

As if the discovery and determination of memories wasn't already complicated enough.

Sev's name was the only decision I consciously made whilst creating him - shortened from 'severance', as his creation was for the partial purpose of finally separating myself from old memories. Everything else just… happened. There was no rhyme or reason or choice to anything. Not his color, not the reason he and the other Silvally of his world were created. Every plot point, every musing on his biology was a simple moment of "Oh, so that's how it happened".

In what way is that different from how I found my dragon, with her quiet nights of meditation and introspection until the memories and feelings fell into place?

Now don't misunderstand - this isn't me saying that discovering a kintype is nothing more than making a character. That couldn't be farther from what I'm saying! Rather, I'm musing on the question of where the boundary is between the creative process and the discovery process. If Sev (or just Silvally in general) isn't a kintype, then it's still fascinating to me that his creation was so similar to me discovering my dragon. And if he is a kintype? Then is that particular creative process something to be mindful of when contemplating "original character" kintypes?

Perhaps this question would be easier to find an "answer" to if I knew what Silvally was to me… but I don't! That's almost the point of this essay - a vague attempt to knock some solid feeling thought loose from my mind.

It just happened to lead to a fascinating line of thought.

[tamagochiie]

--would you be so kind [tsukishima kei]

genre: fluff/slight angst 

pairing: tsukishima kei x reader 

song: would you be so kind by dodie

synopsis: you’ve fallen for quite a boy and what’s the best way to confess to someone if not during the school festival? 

wc: 2.37k

a/n: truth be told, i was inspired to write this when i was listening to dodie, and i tried to somehow tie the lyrics in with the story, but i kinda lost my flow in between, but the story still works! 

"This might seem strange..." You should've known better than to reach out to Yamaguchi and Yachi the moment those words left his lips. You should've cut him off, stopped him before he could finish the thought and left, but you didn't. You had sat there with your attention wrapped around Yamaguchi's finger as he conceptualized your perfect confession.

I should've gone to someone else, you thought. But you didn't have many friends and the ones you did have had no experience with love. You were lucky enough to have been friends with the ultimate Karasuno High duo canonically known to the student body as: YamaYachi.

Though, you weren't entirely sure if you could even deem yourself lucky.

They were quite meddlesome since you've come to know them and let them into your life. Though for someone as quiet and kept together as you, their presence helped spice up it every now and then. Like when they volunteered you to be the new volleyball manager without your consent, or when they had found out your heart had unwillingly fallen for Karasuno's notorious jackass, Tsukishima Kei, and butt in.

They would crack a wedge in every small opening they found to get you two together and chucked you right through it. During practice, when it came to water breaks, they'd make sure Tsukki wouldn't be able to get his water bottle, forcing him to go to you to ask for it. Whenever they heard Tsukki wanted to stay behind to practice, without your consent, they'd volunteer you. When it came to walking home, oh, they'd make sure you were always by his side while they followed behind.

Though it had been extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing, a friendship did blossom. Eventually, Yachi and Yamaguchi no longer needed to manipulate the forces of nature, and Tsukki would just come looking for you on his own.

So here you were, determination shaking in your bones as you strode down the crowded corridor of your high school, going against the current as you ignored your friends' attempts to catch your attention. You took deep breaths to calm the persistent thumping of your heart and to the ease  the miniatured yous dashing around in circles in your mind.

If it had been up to you, your confession would've been as toned down and discreet as you: sticking a note in Tsukki's locker and making a run for it. But your high school life had fallen into the hands of two people who shared the same brain cell, so of course, go big or go home.

At least that's what Yamaguchi had said.

He made it a point that it was their final year while you were still struggling in your second year. "If you're gonna tell someone you like them, you might as well do it facing them head on, right?"

As much as you hated it, he was right. But you shook the pompous image of Yamaguchi as you drew near your meeting place. You met Yachi at the corner away from everyone else. Her face softened when she saw the nervousness in your eyes and greets you with a hug."How are you lungs?"

"They're a bit in pain." You answered honestly, breaths shaky. "This so dumb, I don't think I can do this."

"If I could swap chests with you today, I would." She joked as an attempt to ease you; it was her silly way of saying, "I'd trade the storm in your heart for the stillness in mine," and though her odd one-liners would help, it wasn't working. "You don't have to do the funny stuff Yams said—just  go up to him and tell him. That's all you really need to do...They boys are just over there by the ramen booth,"

You leaned to the side to catch a good look at Tsukki, but what you find tightly gripped your heart and squeezed out the little confidence you had been mustering the entire day.

Another girl—a pretty girl—who was glued to him by the hip, laughing and twirling her hair. But what shocked you the most was the way Tsukki looked at her intently as she spoke, like he was making it a point to actually listen to whatever was coming out of her mouth.

Yachi caught the pain etched in your face and turned to see what the problem was, "Oh shit."

You didn't exactly know what came over you, but before you brain could match the tempo of the rest of your body, you called out his name and marched towards him. "Tsukishima Kei!"

Eyes dilated and looking down at you, he blinked at the sudden sight of you. His lips twitched in a smile as if he was happy to see you, but before he could address you or even say hello, you cut him off, unintentionally yelling, "I like you! I-I know you know that I like you, b-but that's not enough...So, i-if you would—Please go out with me! "

Time was such a fickle thing; because though it had only been a mere couple of seconds, it felt like you were stuck in a forever as the silence lingered between you, Tsukki, and everyone else that was within range to hear not only your confession, but your unexpectedly bold decision to ask him out as well.

Holy fucking shit, you thought. Though the silence was a loud and clear response, the rapid thumping of your heart was louder; and you couldn't stand the thought of staying there any longer. So before Tsukki would even manage to part his lips, you bolted out of there.

You ran to the pool side, far from where everyone else had gathered, where you were supposed to watch the fireworks with Tsukki if things had fallen into place like it was supposed to. You plopped yourself onto bleachers and sunk your head into your hands as you wept. You felt in incredibly silly.

"There's gotta be some butterflies somewhere," Yamaguchi had said this when you asked if it was a smart move for you to confessing to someone when you weren't even sure if there was even the smallest possibility the feelings were mutual. You should've taken it as a sign that you shouldn't have done.

But you did.

Oh, god, you did.

The image of Tsukki looking at you dumbfounded by your confession bled through and all you could do was sob harder into your hands. You remember  the teams' faces, how shocked they were to have heard you say more than three words in one breath.

Oh, shit, the team. You were gonna have to quit being manager because there as no way in hell you could bounce back from the depths of your embarrassment and pretend as if you hadn't done that, especially in front of that pretty girl.

You wanted to hate Yamaguchi and Yachi, to place the blame on them, but they never said to screech out a confession let alone ask him out. So, this was undoubtedly on you. In the end, you were the idiot and you probably just lost a really decent friendship with someone you didn't even believe could be a good friend to begin with.

Regardless of Tsukki's reputation, he was quite kind, considerate, and attentive; if you were struggling with math or life in general he was willing to listen if he couldn't physically step in to help. Thinking about it, he always seemed to match his pacing with yours. If you were in a good mood, he'd banter with you, but if you weren't he'd tread lightly and do something to lift your spirits.

During lunch, he'd buy food in pairs; one for him and one for you because he when he asked why you didn't bring food every day, you told him you didn't have time to do it in the morning and you were too tired to bother when you came home. He'd lend you his jacket if you felt cold.  He'd always wait for you after club if you had to pack up equipment or do extra tasks.

All these small gestures made your heart stand on its toes, but maybe you were bold to assume he saw your more than a friend.

Maybe you were bold to assume anything.

"I wanna die!" You groaned as you finally lifted your head from your hands, your eyes meeting the sky. The sun had fallen into the horizon and it was beginning to grow dark.

"Well, if you drop dead now, I won't be able to give you an answer." You jumped at the disembodied voice, gasping. You whipped your head to find Tsukki stepping out of the tall shadow of the pool shed. A sly smirk played across his lips with this hands hidden behind his back as he waltzed towards you.

You frowned at him, not really looking at him, but rather the buttons on his shirt. Too tired to run, you accepted your fate and swallowed the little pride you surprisingly had left and decided to face the rejection head on.

"H-How'd you find me?" Your voice was strained from the crying, so you cleared your throat and tried to relax. But when Tsukki took up the space beside you, you couldn't help but flinch back into stiffness.

"Yamaguchi said you might be here..."You scoffed as you brought your knees up to your chest, still avoiding looking at him. You looked ahead at the backdrop of the night, your ears trained on the subtle chirping of the crickets nearby. This would've been an ideal date moment, thought. The embarrassment once again creeped in and you shiver at what you had done moments ago.

Why was he here? Shouldn't he be with that girl? If he was here to reject you, he should hurry up rather than spend another moment wasting it on silence.

"Hey—"

"If you're going to reject me, please do so now." You deadpanned, cutting him off. There was a tingling, numbing feeling that began to build in the tips of your fingers, and would later spread throughout your whole body. "I'd rather you be straight to the point and reject me now. I'd rather you be cold and straight to the point rather than sit here and pick at your words, so please  just hurry and reject me."

Tsukki scoffed at you, pushing the frame of his glasses further onto the bridge of his nose. "Well, damn," He seethed. The way he said your name made your heart float, but your stomach drop. "What the hell do you want?"

"Excuse me?"

"You asked me to go out with you, now you want me to reject you? Tell me, which is it?" You looked at him, finally meeting his gaze. He looked annoyed—no, he looked angry and you couldn't tell why.

"I—"

"Because I came here with an answer and a bag full of that spicy ramen you liked so much," He leaned in, lessening the gap between the two of you. Though you should've been wary at the close proximity, you couldn't help but have your thoughts wander over to the spicy ramen. Did he really bring me spicy ra—" You're so annoying! I listened when you told me what you had to say, so shut up and listen to me."

"Tsukki I—"

"Yes." He said, firmly. He swung his leg over to the other side of the bench so that he'd be completely facing you. Your cheeks began to burn and you swallowed thickly at the action. "Yes, I will go out with you. I want to go out with you. Damn it, I was supposed to ask you myself, but you had to go ahead of me. I didn't even know you had that in you."

"...I didn't..." You muttered.

"Then why'd you go and do it?"

"I—" You were at a loss for words; partly because Tsukki had just said yes, but also because of his bluntness and the aggression laced in the words that so easily left his lips. "I wanted you to know before you graduated...and it would've been a waste if I stuck a note in your locker instead of facing you head on..."

"So you decided to yell it at me?"

"I panicked!" You retorted.

"Why?"

"Well," You caught your bottom lip between your teeth before you could let yourself finish. You remembered the pretty girl, how close she leaned onto Tsukki, and the bitter taste that followed. "I—Cause...That..That girl you were with...I kinda just...I snapped, okay?"

"The girl?...Oh." It was as if you heard a clicking sound the moment Tsukki had realized what you meant. "That's my cousin... She'll be an incoming first year next year, so I wanted to show her around."

Oh, my god, shoot me in between the eyes.

You buried your face back into your hands as Tsukki began to laugh. You wanted to die right then and there, you prayed to the deity's to grace you with some sort of blessing and hit you with a rock—maybe even get set on fire by a firework. Anything.

"Wooow, I can't believe I like you." Tsukki sighed as he leaned back with his arms stretched behind him for support. You peaked at him through the spaces between your fingers, watched as he smirked to himself.

"W-Wait you really like me?"

"Duh!" He spat, rolling his eyes. "Did you think I said yes to you as a joke? I would've said yes to you in front of everyone back there if you hadn't taken off like that." You sat there as you pressed your legs closer to your chest, resting your chin on your knees completely dumbfounded. You had many questions, but not enough time to take up in the night to ask it all.

You sat up straight before completely twisting yourself to face him. He furrowed his  brows at you, watching you shift in your seat as you tried to regain the confidence you had lost. You cleared you throat and met his eyes, leaning in. "Then, would you be so kind to fall in love with me?"

A playful smirk tugged the corner of Tsukki's lips, "I already have."

[cruelfeline]

I'm rather new to the fandom but I had a thought/theory I'd like your opinion on regarding Hordak's 'defect'/illness as I think its never specified in canon what it is (correct me if I'm wrong). What if his defect is simply something he perceived about his past that is not real, similar to his perception that he was a top general to Prime. It was something he made up to explain events to himself, and that any illness that he displays by the show is simply the result of a manufactured (1/4)

being that was forced to survive in an environment that it was now designed to live in for 20 or so years. I think this might be the case for a couple of reasons, first I can definitely see Prime send defects to the front line, however in season 5 Hordak isn't simply shipped away to a front line somewhere. He is sent to Etheria but not for long and not what I would argue as the front line considering there are actual battles going on the planet and he's not like in the occupied territory (2/4)

most likely to see battle. And two despite how far he has 'fallen' in Primes eyes, Prime takes the time and resources to remold him rather than just dispose of him, and Hordak seems just as physically capable as his brothers after this. And if Prime was able to repair Hordak's 'defect' easily enough that he would keep him around rather than send him out to die in battle as Hordak had been showed to assume earlier, then perhaps Hordak never had any defect or illness to begin with. He only (3/4)

told himself that after he got separated from the galactic horde because why else would Prime send him away, why else would he even have been in a situation to be separated, he would think he must deserve it, that there had been something wrong with him and its his fault for what happened to him, and not the truth that he just happened to be the cog in the machine that fell out because there was a portal and he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry for the long ask lol.(4/4)

So, this is definitely an idea that’s been floating around the fandom: this concept that Hordak never actually had a physical defect, and that the illness we see is one caused by environmental factors on Etheria.

There’s nothing specifically wrong with this headcanon, and if it’s one that people enjoy, then by all means: indulge! However, it’s not one that I personally subscribe to, for a few reasons.

The first of these reasons is largely meta-based. Removing Hordak’s in-born physical defect removes a huge part of his character arc and a significant aspect of why he means so much to so many people, especially those people who identify with him in terms of physical disability. His arc is very much based on disability and how it affects him, on feelings of physical inadequacy connected to an illness that he cannot control coupled with a “family” and “society” that condemns him for that illness. Removing this aspect of him greatly diminishes the meaning of “imperfection is beautiful” and the lesson that he learns throughout the series.

If there was never any actual defect, if he was never really looked upon by Prime as “inadequate,” then what he learns about failure and having worth as he is, physical problems and all, becomes somewhat meaningless. If the defect never existed, then... the conflict is kind of gone, isn’t it? I mean, in that scenario, it would still be awful to be sent to the front lines to die, but the reason behind it, the thing about Hordak that so deeply hurts him, would be gone. The sort of igniting spark of his entire story would be gone, and with it, a major aspect of his character.

I also think that Hordak sort of rationalizing a position of importance in Prime’s cult is believable, simply because I feel like it happens in real cults. With real victims. Victims who think that, rather than being abused, they are participating in something important and meaningful. Victims who think that their abusers have special love for them (something that we likely see in that clone Prime caresses, in S5E5, actually). But I think it’s less believable that Hordak just “made up” an entire physical illness; I do think that that existed prior to Etheria. Removing it just seems... very odd to me. Especially removing it without coming out and addressing the fact.

The removal would also take away some of the sense of evil surrounding Prime: prioritizing his brothers based on physical ability, rejecting those with defects, is a horrific thing. Take that away, and Prime is still evil, but a certain emotional aspect of it is removed. Which, again, lessens the story, in my opinion.

Now, in terms of in-universe logic regarding why Hordak remains with Prime in season five: in my opinion, this has to do with memory access. 

While Prime is conquering Etheria, he wishes to maintain access to any relevant memories and information about it. Hordak is the only one with those memories. And, as we learn when Prime accesses one of his previous bodies, these memories cannot be uploaded into a server, or put on a thumb drive. They require a mind and body to exist. Therefore, Prime simply (temporarily) fixes Hordak up enough to make him pretty and functional and keeps him around as a memory bank. With this logic, there is a high chance that, once Etheria fell, Hordak would have lost his Healthy Maintenance privileges and been sent back to the front lines, but until that happened, he was useful.

This actually provides another facet to the disability narrative Hordak’s character explores: it’s not so much that Prime can’t maintain Hordak in something of a healthy state. It’s that he doesn’t think it’s worth it. It’s that it perhaps takes more resources, so why bother? Why bother tending to Hordak and giving him the extra care he needs, when Prime can just stick another, healthier clone in his place?

It’s the sort of awful question that, I think, we see asked every day in the real world: why bother making something accessible to someone with some form of disability when they can just be replaced by someone without that disability? Why put in the effort? The answer, of course, is because they’re people who deserve to live comfortable, fulfilling lives by virtue of being people, but for Prime, that’s not a concern. The concern is ease of use. The concern is not “wasting” resources. The concern is never how Hordak might feel, either physically or emotionally.

So that, to me, is how Hordak works in season five: he is useful despite his physical issues, and so he temporarily gets the maintenance he needs because of that use. And, thankfully, we never have to see Hordak lose that usefulness, because Prime dies before he can take Etheria. Small miracles and all.

Anyway! I hope that’s helpful? Obviously, one can headcanon whatever they want. But I think the most common interpretation of this in the fandom, at least the part I frequent, is that Hordak does have an actual physical defect that requires special care. Taking that away just lessens the impact of so much of his story arc, and it lessens a good portion of the representation he offers to many members of the fandom.

Oh, and a quick addition: it can also be both! It can be a natural defect that is made worse by Etheria’s environment! I’ve seen that done, too.