#in short: a lot more of his siblings would have survived if someone had helped them hatch

[the-imperial-nuisance]

My theory for why so many of Bakool Ja Ja's siblings are stillborn is that the two heads fight over control of the body, resulting in the limbs just weakly jerking about rather than moving with enough strength and coordination to break their shell. The fighting usually gets more intense as the need for oxygen and nutrients increases, which in turn weakens their coordination further until they either starve or drown in their own fluids.

[fanwarriorfictions]

Help Me, Help You - Part Six

Fenrys x F!Reader

Summary- After their last encounter, Fenrys and Y/n find it difficult to pretend like everything is normal. It’s even harder with certain royals sniffing out their business.

Warnings- This is a long one, Angsty, and I mean it this time

Series Masterlist

Part Six

Fenrys counted his dwindling luck for dinner being a somewhat private affair, he didn’t think he’d survive Hasar sniffing about the fractured relationship between him and Y/n.

Instead of the large dining hall where most in the palace would be eating, Sartaq had invited them into the couple’s private dining room, a vast meal prepared for them.

Fenrys assumed the servants attending them where under Sartaq’s thumb, but he wouldn’t be surprised if his siblings had at least one or two hiding amongst them. Ready to report back to their respective prince or princess about Fenrys and Y/n, taking in every word, every movement.

No doubt his friends noticed for themselves the way Y/n avoided his eyes like the plague, noticed the way he sat rigid in his seat beside her, they at least had the decency to keep their observations to themselves.

They made easy conversation with Fenrys mostly, letting Y/n casually observe, keep to herself like she usually did. It was well into the meal before anyone spoke to her directly.

“How did Fenrys here rope you into his little adventure?” Sartaq asked, his brows raised curiously at Y/n.

Y/n casually sipped from her wine glass, her expression carefully guarded, “We happen to be looking for the same person.”

“Vaughan?” Nesryn looked to Fenrys for confirmation.

“Her brother,” Fenrys supplied, turning back to his third glass, “Apparently I’m not the only one he’s running from.”

He felt more than saw Y/n go still, he hadn’t spoken to her since their moment in the hall, since she’d hissed her warning at him, do not touch me. The words had felt like the final swing of an executioner’s axe.

“Funny,” Nesryn hummed, “How the strings of fate pull people together like that.”

“She surely has a strange sense of humor,” Y/n says quietly.

Sartaq was carefully glancing between them and Fenrys was tempted to tell him to mind his own damn business. He apparently collected busybody friends though, as the prince gave him a knowing look, one that said, we will be speaking of this later. Fenrys only narrowed his eyes at him, warning the prince to leave well enough alone.

“Fenrys mentioned he’d gotten a tip that your brother had stowed away on a ship meant for my father,” Sartaq said, “I assume the tip came from you?”

Y/n nods, “I believe he’s here, hopefully still in Antica, he would’ve only been a few days ahead of us.”

“I’ve got eyes and ears throughout the city, if he is, surely someone will spot him,” Sartaq says, “You will find him.”

“Thank you,” Y/n says softly, the smallest crack in the mask of indifference, bowing her head to the prince.

“Of course,” Sartaq smiles, “Anything for a friend.”

Fenrys couldn’t read her reaction to that, she closed him out to well. He knew there was something about this place, about his friends, that had unnerved her, what it was, he didn’t know. Gods knew she wouldn’t tell him now.

“So, Y/n,” Nesryn spoke after a moment of silence, “Have you ever been to Antica before?”

“No, I haven’t,” Y/n said simply.

Fenrys rolled his eyes at the short answer, stabbing his fork into a poor unsuspecting piece of fruit. He caught her eyes shift to him, to his hand curled tightly around his silverware.

“It is a beautiful city,” Nesryn ignored the slight disrespect, “If you cared for a tour, I’d be happy to give you one.”

“This one acts like she’s melting the second she walks out the door,” Fenrys scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, “I’m sure she’d rather hide away inside.”

Y/n glared at him, turning back to Nesryn, “I’d appreciate that a lot actually.”

Nesryn smiled, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief, “We’ll go first thing in the morning before it gets to warm.”

“Perfect.”

The city truly was beautiful, the Gods City, Nesryn had told her as they walked. The crowds were thick as they strolled through the streets, full of hawking vendors and haggling shoppers, children ran through them, laughing without a care in the world.

“You can find a shop for nearly anything you can dream of,” Nesryn says, smiling at a group of starry eyed kids, “Wares from all over the world.”

She could see that, there were clothes she recognized from back home, and things she’d never seen before. Jewels, cloth, foods, spices, so much of the world she hadn’t seen, all in one place.

“It’s amazing,” Y/n said, “If it wasn’t so miserably hot I’d consider living here.”

Even this early in the morning, the sun barely peaking over the horizon, it was hot, and growing warmer by the second. Y/n was grateful she’d brought her little wooden fan with her.

Nesryn laughed, “Fenrys wasn’t joking, was he?”

“Where I grew up, the snow barely melted for a few months before it started again,” Y/n says, gently fanning herself, “I’m not built for the heat.”

“No it would seem not,” Nesryn chuckled, “You’d do well with the Rukhin in the Tavan mountains.”

“My brother told me stories of the aerial legions when I was growing up,” Y/n laughed, “I think he was jealous of the Ruks themselves. As large as his osprey is, he’s nowhere near their size.”

“Perhaps he may make his way there,” Nesryn ponders, “See for himself just how magnificent they are. I’ll send word to Borte to keep an eye out for a suspicious bird flying around.”

She could imagine it, from what she knew, the Tavan mountains where much like home, though taller and perhaps even colder. Maybe her brother would go there, find somewhere that reminded him of the place he thought he no longer belonged.

Y/n still remembers that last night vividly, even this many years later. It was stupid, so stupid how it began, how it ended. She’d been so afraid, so upset, and as she always did, she lashed out in anger, like a cornered feral animal.

If you leave now, never, ever come back.

I’m sorry, Y/n, truly. The image of her brother walking away flashed in her mind, walking into the snow covered forest beyond their home. For a moment, his dark form turned golden, and when he glanced behind him, onyx eyes met her own.

“If we go this way.” Nesryn turned a corner, her words breaking Y/n out of her mind, “We could stop by the Torre and-“

“No,” Y/n interrupts, her eyes instantly finding the magnificent white stone tower, “No, thank you, I’ve seen it plenty from the streets.”

If Nesryn found her reluctance odd, she didn’t mention it, only smiled and turned down another path. Y/n nearly sighed in relief, turning her back on that looming structure.

They walked through the city, slowly moving through the markets and towards that glorious palace. Y/n found her self caught between relief and dread, relief from the overwhelming sun, and dread of the golden male she’d been able to avoid this morning.

Either he’d let her slip out her door and past his own, just as eager to avoid her as she did him, or he’d still been asleep with a surely awful hangover from his night spent with his friends. It was well past midnight when she’d heard him stumble down the hall and into his room.

There had been a moment where he’d paused, perhaps staring at her door, wondering if she was awake, if he should knock, he didn’t. She’d sighed in relief, but there was the briefest feeling of disappointment.

Nesryn kept her face forward, but Y/n felt the weight of her eyes anyways, “If you don’t mind me prying, there seemed to be some, tension, at dinner last night.”

Y/n was surprised the woman had lasted this long before mentioning it, something told her Nesryn’s eyes did not miss much. From the stories Fenrys told of her, she didn’t miss anything, her mind as sharp as her arrows.

“There was,” Y/n nods, “Nothing to be concerned about.”

The woman simply hummed, “Fenrys said the same thing to Sartaq after you left for bed.”

She’d left as soon as she could, being that close to Fenrys for so long had made her anxious, like he’d reach over and touch her again, and she’d ignite, burning everything, everyone in her path, worst of all, she’d burn him.

“In the time I’ve known him,” Nesryn says when Y/n doesn’t respond, “Which, granted, hasn’t been much more than a year now, Fenrys has been struggling. He doesn’t like to show it, but we knew, we all went through hell during the war, we all fought like hell to drag ourselves back to the light. I don’t believe he has gotten there yet, I don’t know if he ever will.”

Y/n remembers his dream, the one that had shaken him so badly that he could hardly speak to her. He’d lost his brother, the other half of his soul, watched his friend, his queen, tortured, had nearly died himself. Those days still haunted him, no matter how much he pretended they didn’t.

“When you two arrived yesterday,” Nesryn continued, “It was the closest I’d seen him to that light.”

Fenrys felt like he was being interrogated, only he wasn’t tied to a rickety chair, no tools of torture laid out, only a plush sofa and a glass of the strongest liquor the palace had to offer in his hand.

“How old is she?” Hasar was perched on the edge of the loveseat across from him, sweet Renia smiling at him over the rim of her own glass, “Is she-“

“My gods,” Fenrys groaned, “I’m sure they will be back soon, you can grill her yourself then.”

The woman’s eyes were lit with their usual fire, if only she’d been fae, she may have had fire to rival Aelin’s. She’d been at it since the moment Fenrys had finally emerged from his room, one of her own servants waiting to drag him to the very seat he sat in now.

“It’s not every day someone surprises me with a guest I know nothing about,” Hasar snarked, “Not to mention a fae, does she have any powers we should be concerned about.”

Fenrys groaned again, “She shifts into a damned cat, unless you worry about hair on your clothes, I think you should be fine.”

“Oh? Is that where all this brooding comes from?” She smirks, “Did she get hair all over your favorite cloak?”

Fenrys only glared at the woman instead of answering. That seemed to be a mistake, he could practically see the wheels turning in her mind, the dots connecting. Renia beside her only smiled at her wife, throwing Fenrys a sympathetic glance, it would seem he had no allies here.

“Trouble in paradise?” Hasar cooed, “Awe, did the kitty reject you pup?”

He held back his snarling and snapping, it would only prove her right. Instead, Fenrys took a long drink from his glass, finishing off the burning liquid.

“At least tell me how you found the girl,” Hasar continued.

“More like I found him.”

His heart lept in his chest, from the wide eyes of the princess and her wife across from him, he was sure theirs had as well.

Y/n had snuck up on them all, silent as ever, Nesryn nowhere to be found. One would think that someone would have seen her in the vast open room, but the female seemed to have a way of moving through the world unseen.

Maybe she had magic similar to his own, jumping through the world in the blink of an eye. He hadn’t seen any powers from her, only her other form, maybe her ability was in the way she moved, that feline grace.

“You must be Y/n,” Hasar said, her razor sharp focus finally leaving Fenrys to lock on to the famale, “Please sit.”

Y/n held the princess’s gaze, her own stare piercing, like the keen eyes of the cat that had stalked him for days in that little Wendlyn village. She circled the small couch, sitting directly next to him, close enough for him to feel the heat of the day still lingering on her.

“You must be Hasar,” Y/n said, voice flat and even, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, princess.”

Nesryn must have done the female a kindness and prepared her for the onslaught of the royal family. Y/n didn’t balk from Hasar’s intense gaze, she met it head on, and she even smiled sweetly at the princess’s wife.

“And you must be Renia,” Y/n nods her head to the woman.

“The pleasure is all ours,” Renia says, placing a hand on her wife’s knee, “Fenrys here was just telling us about where you grew up.”

He hadn’t been, she may be sweet compared to her wife, but Renia was just as cunning.

“Oh?”

Y/n looked at him then, the first time she’d truly met his gaze since the moment in the hall.

Do. Not. Touch. Me.

He didn’t see any of that rage, didn’t see much of anything really, she was carefully blank, hiding beneath a mask.

“He was telling us about your mother,” Hasar continued.

If he hadn’t been looking so closely he might have missed the flicker of emotion, pain he realized quickly, something he recognized all to well.

“Was he now,” Y/n said softly, “I hadn’t realized I’d told him anything about her.”

She really hadn’t told him much of her home, much of anything about her, he realized.

“Stories from Vaughan, I’m sure,” Hasar responded easily, a skilled liar.

Y/n hums, “Strange, he hasn’t spoken much of her since she died.”

A silence fell over them all.

Fenrys definitely hadn’t known that, the few things she’d told him was about her brother, gods knew Vaughan never talked about his family.

He’d known her father had been a sore spot for her, she’d shut down any mention of the male the first night they’d spent together, he hadn’t pushed the subject after that.

“I’m sorry,” Renia said at last, apologizing for the loss and for the prying.

Y/n waved it off, “No need, I was a little girl when it happened, I barely even remember it.”

A lie, he could hear it clear as day, he wondered if it was so obvious to the women across from them. Perhaps not, as they swiftly moved on, asking Y/n all the questions they’d been pestering Fenrys for.

How old was she? Only a few years younger than Fenrys. What was her home like? Cold and boring. How’d she find Fenrys? Tracked him down in her cat form.

“Why do you shift into a cat?” Hasar asked, her brow raised, “I hear Vaughan is an osprey.”

Fenrys was ready for the cool dismissal he’d received when he’d asked.

“My father was a writer from Terrasen,” Y/n said simply, “A small, insignificant family from the Oakwald that had only a few shifters among them, they took the forms of the wild forrest cats that hunted through the woods.”

Fenrys turned to her, his brows raised in shock. She was already looking at him, her expression seemingly relaxed, unbothered by the admission, but Fenrys saw through it. The crack in her mask, pain, self doubt, fear.

“Did your tour with Nesryn give you any ideas about where your brother slipped off to?”

Fenrys asked the first question that came to his mind, anything to change the subject, something he’d already been wondering since she’d snuck out of her rooms early that morning.

Her eyes flashed with gratitude, “Maybe, I know my eye was caught by the multitudes of markets, I’m sure his was as well.”

“Does he care for shopping?” Hasar asked over the rim of her glass, her eyes narrowed.

The princess knew he’d changed the subject, now she’d be relentless in figuring out why.

“Gods no,” Y/n scoffed, “Quite the opposite really, he’s not very fond of crowds.”

She had a lot in common with her brother it seemed. The few times they’d been in crowded places, Fenrys always caught her scanning the streets, he’d assumed she was just observing, perhaps she’d simply been uncomfortable.

“There are very few places in Antica that aren’t crowded,” Fenrys said.

“Maybe that’s where you’ll find him,” Renia chimes in.

Fenrys saw the hope fill her eyes as she echoed the word, “Maybe.”

Someone was knocking on his door.

The light tapping was barely enough to pull Fenrys from sleep, almost completely drowned out by the trickling water of a fountain somewhere beyond his open window.

Based on the moonlight shining through the room, it was still early in the night, dawn far off.

The knocking was a quick, soft pattern, stopping for a moment before hesitantly trying again. He was surprised it even woke him, he’d passed out as soon as he’d fallen into bed, so exhausted from his lone search through the city earlier that evening, Vaughan still nowhere to be found.

Fenrys threw off the light sheets, searching the floor for his discarded clothes to at least slip on his pants.

By the time he reached the door, the taps had stopped completely, maybe the person had given up, assumed he was fast asleep. He still reached for the handle, still gently pulled the door open.

Her fist was raised as if she was about to try a knock one last time, frozen, staring at him with wide eyes like Y/n hadn’t expected him to be there at all. Those eyes fell, for only a moment, enough to tell him she realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt, only clothed by the pants he’d been wearing at dinner.

His own eyes dipped involuntarily, and he cursed the faceless servant who had, no doubt laid out the gown for her. The pale blue silk and lace looked nearly silver in the moonlight, cascading down her body, stopping high on her thighs.

“I didn’t think you’d be awake,” she whispered, eyes shining with self doubt.

“Are you okay?” He kept his voice low, kept his eyes on her own.

Y/n wrapped her arms around herself, “Can I come in?”

Fenrys stepped back, opening the door wider for her. She walked in, passing close enough to him that he scented the lavender oil on her skin.

He took a deep breath as he closed the door, turning to find her standing in the center of his room, arms still wrapped tightly around herself as she looked around the room. Her eyes locking on his rumpled bed sheets, his clothes littering the floor.

“Y/n,” he kept his voice soft, stepping closer to her, “Kitten, are you alright?”

She whirled to him, as if remembering he was still there, “I had- I’m sorry, you were sleeping, I- I’ll go.”

She tried to slip past him, but Fenrys caught her, his hand gently wrapped around her arm.

Do. Not. Touch. Me.

The words echoed in his mind but he held on, tethered her to him. She was completely frozen, staring at that hand on her bicep like it was the strangest thing she’d ever seen.

“Talk to me,” Fenrys pleads, “What’s going on.”

Her gaze found his, wide and terrified. Fenrys felt his heart shatter, felt the tears that welled up in her eyes like a knife to his gut, felt her trembling beneath his palm. He couldn’t help himself, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to his chest, despite those four words screaming through his head.

She didn’t sob, but he could feel her violently shaking, like she was desperately holding the tears back. She clung to him, her nails digging into his flesh, it hurt but Fenrys didn’t care, he just held her tighter.

It took several long minutes for her to calm down, to stop shaking, to relax her grip. Fenrys found himself reluctant to let her pull away.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, staring down at the floor between them.

He couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out, his fingers catching beneath her chin to gently tilt her face towards his. Her eyes were red and tired, full of whatever anguish had drug her from sleep and into his arms.

“Talk to me,” he pleads, his hand moving to her cheek, his thumb brushing away stray tears.

Her eyes shuttered, he wasn’t sure if it was from his words, or his touch.

Do. Not. Touch. Me.

“I had a nightmare,” she whispers after a moment, “I- I didn’t mean to come here, I-“

Her voice cracked and she paused to take a deep, steadying breath. She didnt pull away, and neither did he.

“I’m sorry I- just didn’t want to be alone,” she continues, “I don’t want to be alone, anymore.”

“Okay,” Fenrys says, still caressing the side of her face, “You’re okay. I’ve got you, kitten, you’re not alone.”

Like the words finally unlocked something in her, unlocked the chained up gates of the walls around her mind, Fenrys saw it all wash over her. The anguish, the fear, the gratitude, all on display like she was a book ready to be read by him.

“Do you remember that first night one the boat?” Her words we’re hesitant, like she was fighting to get them out.

“Yes,” Fenrys said gently, “You couldn’t sleep.”

He’d teased her for it, assuming the rocking of the ship was to blame, he’d seen the strongest warriors crumble to seasickness.

“The water brought back memories,” she says, her eyes gaining this far off look, “I knew they would bring the dreams with them.”

Not just dreams, Fenrys knew, nightmares, like the one she’d had tonight. The one that had her racing into his arms despite how much she loathed him.

Fenrys felt the moment she started shaking again, her mind already deep into the past and the pain. His hand dropped from her cheek, catching her hand by her side to gently guide her to the sitting room. She numbly let him, sitting down on the golden fainting couch.

Fenrys sat down beside her, a healthy distance between them, “You don’t have to talk about it, but I’m here to listen if you do.”

She’d done as much for him, silently supporting him while he struggled through the words.

She was silent for a moment, still staring off into the past. Fenrys was almost sure she wouldn’t speak at all, until she did.

“Vaughan’s father was is Maeve’s army,” she said, catching Fenrys off guard, “When Vaughan was old enough, he was forced to join, forced to leave our mother alone in that tiny, frozen village, with only his letters to keep her company.”

“For three hundred years, they left her, alone.” Her voice cracked on the word, like it was choking her, “Until he showed up, a traveler from Terrasen, a writer, collecting stories from every corner of the world to bring home to the libraries of Orynth, to become a scholar.”

Fenrys knew where this was going, this was her story, the very beginning.

“My mother fell for him, enough to finally give up the dream of seeing her husband and son again, and he fell for her, enough to stay.” Her eyes shone with fresh tears, “I was born not even a year later, the spitting image of my father.”

Those tears fell and Fenrys desperately wanted to reach for them, wipe them away. He didn’t want to overstep, he’d already done more than he should have.

“I was five when it happened,” she whispered the words, “We had a small lake behind our cabin, it was frozen over for a majority of the year, I spent nearly every day on that ice, my father teaching me to skate, my mother teaching me to dance. I was there when I saw a male, larger than any I’d ever seen, coming from my home.”

“I didn’t know what was happening. Didn’t know who he was, why he was marching towards me, what the dripping red object was in his hand.” Her voice shook, and Fenrys felt dread rise up in his chest, “I didn’t know that I should have ran, should’ve shifted and left as quickly as I could, he was already before me when I figured out the red object was an axe, and it smelled like my parents.”

His heart shattered in his chest.

“He grabbed me before I could run,” the fear was thick in her voice, “Threw me across the lake, till I was at the thin center of it. The ice cracked beneath him as he followed, it shattered beneath his bloody axe as he opened a wide hole, it cut me as he shoved my body into the freezing water.”

Gods, holy fucking gods.

“He held me below the surface, I remember the feeling of his hand on the back of my head, I remember clawing at him, I remember darkness, I remember the ice in my lungs.” Her tears flowed fast, “And then there was light, air, someone hauling me out of the water. I’d never met him but my mother had told me many stories of my brother, I knew who he was instantly, he held me as he brought us back to shore, told me it was going to be alright, told me it was over, told me his father would never hurt me again. Over his shoulder I saw the male laying on the ice, a sword through his gut.”

Vaughan had killed him, he’d killed his own father after the male had killed his mother and nearly drowned the sister he hadn’t known he’d had.

She’d nearly drowned, had nearly been murdered by a male simply for existing. A child, gods she was only a child, and he’d tried to kill her.

Fenrys saw red for the male who’d long since fallen, for the male who haunted her dreams so many years later. His hands clenched in his lap, torn between swinging at the ghost of the male, and reaching out to hold her, to comfort her.

She looks exhausted, leaning heavily on the back of the couch. Her eyes swollen from the tears and the lack of sleep. Fenrys didn’t even try to stop himself, his arms moving forward to scoop her up, cradling her to his chest.

Y/n didn’t fight him as he walked her to his bed, as he laid her down atop it. Her eyes fought to stay open, to look at him as he pulled the sheets over her, her mouth open like she’d finally protest.

“Hush,” he says, “It’s alright, you’re alright, just get some sleep.”

Fenrys steps back, he’d sleep on the couch, it was big enough for him, even if it wasn’t, he’d slept in much worse conditions.

“Fenrys,” she says softly, he turns back to look at her, “I don’t- I don’t want to be alone.”

He looked at the large bed, the spot beside her. Do. Not. Touch. Me. The words were at odds with what she asked for now, completely, utterly confusing, but he could not deny her, not now, possibly not ever.

“You’re not alone, kitten,” he promised, reaching out to trail his fingers across her cheek, “Never again.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes closing as she drifted off to sleep.

Fenrys stayed there for a long time, watching over her, looking for any sign of another nightmare. He only allowed himself to rest when he was sure she was alright.

Tag List

@emma-andrea1 , @mgchaser , @anxious-study , @lees-chaotic-brain , @girl-math-aint-mathing , @mali22 , @nikt-wazny-y , @theworthlessqueen , @cynthiesjmxazrielslover , @lethargicluv

[bonefall]

Better Bones Profile: Sedgecreek

RiverClan's first Lake deputy, and world famous cutie pie!

[ID: The BB version of Sedgecreek from Warrior Cats. She is a wood-brown tabby with short, comma-shaped stripes of a darker brown. She is short and her body is long, with a chunky tail.]

Clanmew Name: Kyyrakoshu, nickname Kyyko. (Kyyra = Sedge, a type of lido grass + Koshu = Creek, a small, shady river)

Alignment: RiverClan

Relations: Ex-Mate - Greenflower Children - Swallowtail, Beechfur Nyams - Loudbelly (littermate), Duckfur (Sib-in-law) Education - Crookedstar (mentor), Grasswhisker (apprentice)

See Also: The Dragonkin Family, and the RiverClan Family Tree

Mistyfoot realized at the end of BB!TNP that Hawkfrost was not the tiger that lurked within RiverClan. He didn't choose himself as deputy while she was captured, breaking the code in the process. It wasn't his call to defy StarClan's will to delay the Great Journey. It was up to Leopardstar to punish the surviving RiverClan mercenaries who served Mudclaw's insurrection, and overrule the false sign that exiled three cats from her Clan... and she didn't.

Seated atop the stump with the sun setting behind her, Leopardstar's black silhouette invoked Mistyfoot's memory of a powerful cat lording over a pile of bones. Her eyes flashed-- Tigerstar amber, dark forest red. His ideas were an infectious sort of immortal; they will not die unless they are killed.

So with Leopardstar's sudden, 'mysterious' death to a "rogue", Mistystar realized she would need to make a strong, tactical choice of a new deputy. Someone who would be able to help her navigate the tense situation she was in, to balance out the harsh choices she was about to make, to be the honey to her sting.

The choice was obvious. Now, she would have to prepare for the hard work ahead...

[ID: BB!Mistystar and BB!Sedgecreek leaning back to back. Mistystar grimly explains, "someone will die." Sedgecreek interjects, "of fun!!!"]

(Lots more below the cut!)

Personality and Trivia:

She is CHEERFUL! It takes a lot to make Sedgecreek upset!

Always smiling, never loses hope, always tries to see the bright side of every situation.

"A mistake is just a chance to learn what NOT to do!!"

People like her. She's just a super likeable person, the sort of cat who gets along with people you'd never expect.

She has learned that you should listen twice as much as you talk. She's always there to comfort her friends, family, and clanmates. Very approachable personality.

I imagine a lot of RiverClan warriors are "stocky," longer than they are tall, Sedgecreek especially.

She's also got a very thick tail, making her an excellent and sturdy swimmer.

Her favorite food is pike meat, which Greenflower once wooed her with. Not very many RiverClan warriors are bold enough to tangle with pikes.

Imo, Sedge is a super underrated background character. Her apprenticeship under Crookedjaw is super cute and no one ever talks about it!

and BOY OH BOY has her role been expanded in BB!!

Long before the Great Journey was even a consideration, back during TPB…

Sedgecreek was mates with Greenflower. They welcomed their kits, Swallowkit and Beechkit, to the world just before RiverClan and ShadowClan moved to form TigerClan.

Greenflower's sibling, Duckfur, was the honor sire for the couple. Under the Queen's Rights, you don't have to explain where your kittens came from. Sedgecreek gave birth and that's that.

But supporters of Thistle Law do not respect the Queen's Rights.

When Greenflower announced openly that their kittens had been sired by Duckfur, Sedgecreek was uncomfortable, but believed she was keeping their family safe.

But... it turned out to be worse than that.

Greenflower was a true believer. She had been holding a lot of her 'worst' ideas back, but felt emboldened to speak openly with the alliance between Tigerstar and Leopardstar.

Sedgecreek knew Greenflower went to the execution of Stonefur... but she couldn't. She couldn't bring herself to.

She couldn't watch an old friend die like that, or stomach the thought of Greenflower reacting to it.

They stayed together for the children, as Sedgecreek staved off the dawning realization that her mate wasn't the cat she thought she was.

It was easy to put it off a little longer, when their next common enemy was BloodClan and RiverClan "returned to normal."

Though they nearly had a blow-out argument over RiverClan refusing to join in with the trading that WindClan and ThunderClan were doing with BloodClan... Sedgecreek apologized, and held her tongue. Suddenly, their roles had been reversed, with Sedgecreek staying quiet to "keep the peace".

Normally very cheerful and outspoken, with friends in other Clans and open-mindedness to cooperation, Sedgecreek spent almost two years of her life just trying to save her mateship. She thought that maybe Greenflower would return to the bold, loyal cat she used to adore, if she just loved her enough and made her feel heard...

But then, during the Great Journey...

Their baby Swallowtail fell in love with a ThunderClan warrior, Rainwhisker.

Greenflower "warned her" about loving cats from other Clans, "Don't make me do something I don't want to, Swallowtail."

Sedgecreek knew how powerful love can be. Rainwhisker was big, handsome, and sweet. She saw a lot of herself in him, and would have approved of him as her son-in-law in a heartbeat

Even though Swallowtail was trying to hide it after that confrontation, Sedgecreek KNEW that Rainwhisker was perfect for her. She knows her daughter better than anyone-- Swallow would never be able to fight it.

But all journey long, Greenflower was growing more and more critical of Swallowtail. Comparing her to her brother Beechfur, constantly questioning her whereabouts, making up stupid tasks to keep her busy.

Sedge and Green were fighting over it, again, but this time Sedge was starting to care less about making up afterwards.

Then, the worst possible thing happened... during the WindClan Civil War, Rainwhisker was killed in battle.

Swallowtail was inconsolable. That brought them all together, for just a little while longer.

But then, Swallowtail discovered she was pregnant. She didn't say anything about the father, and yet Greenflower LOST it. She flew into a frenzy, shouting their daughter down and threatening to disown her. The line that finally broke their mateship was simply,

"Just when it seemed like the problem was solved--"

Sedgecreek didn't even let her finish. How DARE she?? To treat their baby's painful loss, their coming grandchildren, and Swallowtail's right as a Queen, like the continuation of a problem???

So she told her to get out. Quietly at first. Greenflower refused, so she said it louder. Then she shouted it. And then she SCREAMED it, and when THAT didn't work, she THREW her out of the Cleric's den. For SEASONS she had sacrificed for the sake of her children, only for it to end in a choice between her wife and daughter.

But even then, Sedgecreek felt hot with shame that she'd caused such a scene! The whole camp saw her toss Greenflower like a rotten fish!! Sweet, cheerful Sedgecreek!!! It was mortifying, she'd never lost her temper like that, the entire Clan was surprised!

Mistyfoot saw this just like everyone else in RiverClan... and it stood out in her mind, as she shuffled home considering who her deputy would be.

It had to be someone as uncontroversial as possible... Mistyfoot's reputation had been dragged through the mud by Hawkfrost's constant challenges. A sizable portion of RiverClan did not respect her anymore.

So Swansong, her brother and greatest ally, was out of the question. He didn't have a diplomatic bone in his body.

Mosspelt was her sister-in-law, and she needed a deputy who could ward off accusations of nepotism.

Reedwhisker had Skyheart as his mentor, who kept him in an apprenticeship nightmare for over a year. He was too young on top of being ineligible.

But, she needed someone who would understand the threat they faced, and take it seriously. It, hopefully obviously, couldn't be one of her enemies.

And THAT was when she remembered Sedgecreek standing up to Greenflower. How she's everyone's friend, patient and enthusiastic, and yet how she still snapped at her long-time mate.

While no one knows EXACTLY why she snapped except the little family itself, Mistyfoot had a good hunch it was related to Swallowtail claiming Queen's Rights for her litter.

And that is exactly the sort of principled cat she needs by her side.

So... Sedgecreek was perfect. She was diplomatic, friendly, and yet, able to stand up for herself, ready to fight for the Clan they deserved. Her upbeat personality would be a perfect compliment to Mistystar's dour, serious one. This was the best possible choice.

During BB!OotS, Sedgecreek was targeted for replacement by the Dark Forest demons. While they managed to kill several of their targets and even cause ShadowClan to fall, Sedgecreek managed to escape an attempt on her life. But, before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, she took it as a sign to step down so that someone younger could take over. By this point, she had become a great-grandmother and was beginning to feel her age.

Reedwhisker takes her place as deputy, and she's able to live out the last of her days in the Elder's Den. She peacefully passes away at some point in AVoS, surrounded by the family she chose to stand beside.

[kaybreezy3000]

Bad Things (Five Hargreeves/Reader)

~Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked by deficient emotional responses, lack of empathy, the inability to distinguish between right and wrong, poor behavioral controls, and behaviors that contradict social norms which then commonly result in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behavior.

Enter, Five Hargreeves, everyone's favorite little psycho.

(Chapter Three Post)

---If you need to go back to read the summary and the first two chapters first, hit the link below.

Link to Chapters 1-2

Warnings and tags: Mental disintegration, psychological trauma, effects of isolation, masturbation, non-consensual voyeurism, explicit sexual content, bondage, POV altering, touch starved, obsessive behavior, inanimate object love, and many other sexually deviant themes all mixed with a lovely twist that you will hopefully enjoy...

---In this chapter, we start the POV switches, and they will be made clearer by large page breaks in-between.

Chapter Three: Creep

Running through his options, Five makes the quick determination that after what he just did, he can’t stay here. He needs to get the girl back inside her apartment, then he will get Dolores and together they will run.

Thanks to his fake ID, nobody knows who he really is, but as soon as the girl can, she’s going to call the police and have them search the apartments across from hers. His family will figure out what he’s been doing, and Five can already hear them going on and on about how disgusting he is.

Everyone already thinks he is a psycho, and this further proves it. His siblings may not throw him under the bus because doing so would obviously tie him to them, but it’s still possible that someone could figure out that the once famous missing boy Number Five Hargreeves is not dead like the world thought and he is not at all the person he was before he disappeared.

The possibility of the whole world knowing about the monster he has become is only adding to the heartbreak that the people he has cared about and fought for his entire life will hate him more than they already do. All this has Five questioning everything. 

They were all he lived for, and he lost them, and now this.

“You really screwed yourself this time you sick asshole,” Five angrily curses as he starts hauling the unconscious girl across the parking lot towards her building.

As if all that isn’t bad enough, Five realizes that he just ensured himself a lifetime of running from the law. This means no more trying to pretend to be a part of something he’s not, but it also means that he will have no other option but to resort to other, much less legal means of surviving.

He failed at life again and there’s a big part of him that just wants to throw in the towel and let them lock him away. But the same part of him that wouldn’t give up for the last sixty years is still there in the back of his mind screaming at him to keep fighting.

Committed to his plan, Five is about to start crossing the short distance to the girl’s building when a man in a janitorial uniform comes out the back door. Being taken off guard by his sudden appearance, Five inelegantly drops to his knees behind a parked car with the girl folding down with him on the dirty cement.

As the man crosses the lot, Five does his best to calm his heavy breaths to a more manageable level. He hasn’t had the chance to let his racing heart slow down since his extremely drunk sprint down the stairs.

Not being his usual stealthy, in control self and not being able to easily blink himself out of this situation is enough to make Five’s mounting panic much worse. The fact that he just heard the door electronically lock after the guy closed it isn’t helping either. It didn’t even occur to him that her building might need an entrance code.

“God, damnit!” he quietly hisses.

He could slip in behind someone, but that’s not likely at this hour, and not with the girl passed out in his arms. Hitting random buttons in the hopes that someone will buzz him in will get the police called or it will wake the whole building, so that’s a big fat no.

As the other man pulls out of the lot, Five makes a split-second decision based on his most recent plan being blown all to hell. He does not want to leave the girl outside lying on the ground, especially in this neighborhood. He’ll have to leave her in his apartment. He’s screwed one way or the other. It really doesn’t matter where he puts her as long as it is safe. He’ll grab only what he has to, and he’ll be gone before she fully comes to.

Five pushes his back against the car, using it to help balance him as he gets them both upright again. Then swooping the girl up in his arms, the alcohol gets the best of him and Five accidentally stumbles backwards into the car before moving forward towards his own building.

“I am never drinking again,” he declares, weaving with each step he takes. Five is trying so hard to push past how dizzy he feels, but drunk is drunk and it’s getting worse.

After the girl blew him off tonight, Five had the grand plan of passing out in a super sloshed stupor. The whiskey he tried to drown his sorrows in is catching up with him by this point and he’s realizing that finishing the whole bottle was just one more bad decision to add to the many others he’s made tonight.

When Five opens the lower-level door to his complex, he can see that no one is in the shabby hallway that leads to the elevator, and it seems like his shitty luck is changing because the thing is working, and it’s already on the ground floor. 

There’s no way he would have made it up the stairs at this point. Heavy feet scuffing along across the worn tiles, Five moves inside, throwing his elbow against the button for the seventh floor.

As soon as the doors close, he woozily drops his weight back on the wall, and sets the girl down, keeping one arm around the girl’s waist to hold her upright and the other angled across her chest to keep her from tipping forward.

Five can hardly grasp how quickly he just fucked everything up. A few minutes ago, he was in the throes of personal passion, about to blow his load all over his costly dress pants, and the next he sealed the deal that he was completely ruining his already ruined life.

Five is being consumed by his deeply depressing thoughts about himself as the old elevator doors close and it groans to life. The girl’s flowery smelling hair is rubbing up against the side of his cheek, and he can feel the heat of her body pressing back against him in a very tormenting way considering his self-self-absorbed cock brain hasn’t caught up to speed yet that he is not sitting there in his kitchen with his hand on his dick about to destroy his own lap with jizz.

His partial erection from that sad whack fest is wedged right between this girl’s warm cheeks, and it’s just like he was imagining positioning himself on her Monday night. 

Now that Five has the girl’s body pressed up next to his while he’s holding her in what many would think looks like it’s a very loving embrace, the truth that he has actually been violating her by watching her and getting his rocks off is impossible to ignore. 

You can’t imagine something if it’s right in front of you physically touching you. The entire fantasy he’s been creating in his head just completely disintegrated.

Now things just got very real and it’s not in a good way.

“I am so sorry I am doing this to you,” he hotly breathes, his forehead falling even more against the girl’s shoulder as he forces down the growing sickness in his stomach.

With extreme sadness, Five thinks about the trauma he just inflicted on this girl. Five knows trauma and his own experiences with it is what resulted in him being unable to put himself out there to have anything worthwhile in his life. 

He had wanted nothing more than to know what it was like to passionately hold someone he cared about and who also cared about him, but the horror of how it’s happening right now is unbelievable. It seems like this must be happening to someone else. 

Five is so tormented by all this, and intoxicated, that he doesn’t realize he hasn’t been holding any pressure on the girls’ neck since he carried her inside. Her knuckles make unexpected contact, hitting the bridge of his nose. Five eyes instantaneously pinch shut to the intense sensation of shooting pain that makes everything in his face burn and his eyes flood with tears.

The girl’s furious screech reverberates inside the elevator. “Get off me!”

Taking Five’s momentary inability to function, her other arm wiggles free from the arm he has around her waist. She pulls away, maneuvering her fist back and down at the same time, nailing him right between the legs.

“Ff-ah-ckkk!” 

Five’s sudden high pitch yelp comes out just as loud as the girl’s cry, but unlike her, his verbal alarm ends in a very hushed groan followed by a whisper of a wheeze as he frantically fights not to double over and also maintain his hold on the back of her sweater.

Five gags down his vomit that is threatening to make this even worse, and while he is immersed in the sensations of pure agony, she comes at him again. 

Somehow, Five manages to move his head back just in time, narrowly avoiding another jab to the face. Her hand hits his upper sternum instead and just as fast, her fingers find their way around his silk tie, yanking his head forward with it.

Five instinctively retaliates by violently twisting his arm around her neck.

“St-ooo-ppp,” he splutters as they choke each other.

“Let go!” she piercingly shrieks before she’s completely deprived of the air to do so.

Dropping her weight as her fingers dig at Five’s arm doesn’t have the desired effect of getting him to let go, so she digs her heels into the floor plowing backwards instead. 

Her reverse attack makes Five’s dress shoes slip out from under him on the grimy floor. The impact of Five’s head as it swings back into the metal wall makes a cracking sound that leaves the wall vibrating.

Totally in shock and seeing the brilliant scattering of stars filling his vision, Five’s free arm swings out, searching for the railing behind him, but he misses. He starts to lose consciousness. All at once, his full body weight is hanging on the girl’s neck as darkness begins swallowing up his remaining vision.

The girl lets out a helpless sounding whimper as they start to fall. 

Beyond faint and feeling equally helpless, Five inadvertently squeezes his arm tighter, using the girl to pull himself upright again. To his relief, her fingers suddenly release the sleeve of his dress shirt and her arms flop down limply at her sides.

DING!

At the same time the doors rumble open, the girl’s legs give out and Five almost drops her.

Unable to think let alone function like he normally would, Five hoists her back up then unsteadily stumbles out of the elevator with the girl’s feet dragging between his legs.

Light-headedly glancing both ways, he is beyond grateful that no one is out there looking to see what all yelling was about. 

Beaten and bloodied, Five makes it inside his own door a few seconds later and his first move is getting them both over to the bed because he still feels like he may fall flat on his face.

Five hastily drops the girl down next to Dolores, then he moves towards his kitchen, swaying as he navigates the short distance. 

After getting the shit beat out of him, he is quickly processing the fact that he needs to adjust his original plan to drop her and go. He is going to need to shake at least some of his drunken and concussed brain fog before he can walk even remotely straight. If he doesn’t, he may pass out in the street or his own hallway with his face smacked down in a pile of his own puke.

The idea of the cops finding him like that, with the addition of Dolores lying next to him, is enough to push along Five’s new approach to make this all still work out in both their favor. The most important thing he figures right now is that he needs to keep this girl quiet for a little while before he is functioning enough to leave.

Five throws open the utility cabinet, his unfocused eyes landing on the hook with the wound-up nylon rope hanging on it. The apartment’s previous other weirdo occupant had left many things behind, but unlike the loads of old stuffed animals, this was one thing that Five didn’t throw away being it had many practical uses. In this case, tying someone up.

“They are right, you are a psycho,” Five mutters to himself as he digs around finding nothing else useful.

Next, opening the first drawer next to the refrigerator, he grabs his switchblade and his revolver. It had been Five’s norm to always carry both these weapons, but he stopped when he figured out that there were no field operatives from The Commission coming after him in this new world because there was no more Commission.

Klaus was right, he thinks. He was better when he had an evil taskmaster to keep him in line.

Staggering a little as he turns around, he sets the gun on the kitchen table and tucks the knife into the waistband of his pants. Next, making it back over to the bed with what he figures will be enough to keep the girl safely detained till he is more composed, Five is surprised to see that she isn’t waking up yet.

He says her name.

Nothing.

Five throws the rope on the bed, then picks up her wrist, checking her pulse. He doesn’t feel one, so his trembling fingers move to her neck, pressing against her throat instead. The girl doesn’t react to him touching her, and Five still can’t feel anything.

“Oh, no, no, NO, NO !” He says the girl’s name a few more times, and again he gets nothing. “Dolores, I didn’t mean to- Shit, shit, fucking SHIT!"

Feeling like he’s losing what’s left of his mind, Five doesn’t know what to say, and even though Dolores is right there, she doesn’t respond to his terrified ramblings.

Even though his mind is spinning out of control, Five’s years of training kick in. He jumps on the bed, rolling the girl on her side. Then he lifts her chin, putting her in the recovery position that you are supposed to do for someone when trying to revive them after being fully choked out. The maneuver makes the girl’s mouth fall open and Five checks to make sure that her airway is not blocked, or that her own tongue didn’t slip back in her throat.

Everything is normal. She should be able to breathe, but for some reason she is not, and she is not waking up.

Kneeling over her, one hand on her back, Five starts rubbing. “Come on, breathe! You’re strong, you just showed me how strong you are. Breathe damn it!”

He knows very well how this works, and giving her CPR will do nothing because this is not happening to her because of cardiac arrest.

Lifting her legs so that more blood moves to her brain is not that effective at helping to revive someone in this condition, and it’s sure as hell not going to work if she’s already gone. Five could stand her on her head and no amount of blood running to her brain will bring her back if she is dead.

“Come on! NO! You can’t die!” he angrily pleads, even as both his hands keep at it, one now methodically trying to massage life into her cold legs.

Counting the minutes in his head, Five can’t really say how long he would have been squeezing tight enough to fully deprive her of oxygen. He knows that all it takes is a matter of a minute like that and someone can face permanent brain damage or death. 

They were in the parking lot for only a minute or so after she swung the bat at him. He knows he let up on her throat enough during that time because she woke up a little when they were crouched behind that car. She was moving in his lap, and he heard soft moaning sounds coming out of her. Then as soon as the car pulled out of the lot, he carried her in, not choking her at all.

In the elevator, he fucked-up big time and he let her wake up completely. Five is sure that she was never completely out more than twice and for no more than about thirty seconds at a time. 

Right?

From where Five has himself positioned next to the girl, one of his knees is pressing against Dolores’s hip and with glistening eyes he looks from the girl to her. 

“I didn’t mean to do this,” he insists.

Again, Dolores says nothing to calm Five or reassure him like she normally would. His watery eyes plead with her, but he gets nothing.

“Oh my God, thank you,” Five cries, with his head swinging back to the girl. His hand on her back slowly begins to rise and fall as she comes back to life. “That’s it. Keep breathing, it’s going to be okay.”

The girl slowly begins to move her legs and Five puts his hands under her side, sliding her small body up closer to the headboard. She makes a small sound of complaint at being handled, but he still needs to restrain her hands, or she’ll be trying to fight him again the second she’s aware of what is happening.

Mechanically, Five flips open his long switchblade so he can quickly cut the correct lengths of rope with it. Then just as fast, he makes tight loops around both of her wrists. Seeing that he’s at least not totally fucking that up that lesson he learned over and over as a child, and that her arms are snuggly secured above her head to his headboard, he risks looking over at Dolores again.

“I think she’s okay. I know how this looks, but you know that I didn’t mean to do this. I was never going to go near her. It was only supposed to be just me waahh-"

Five can’t finish that one, and that is because saying that it was only supposed to be him watching the girl doesn’t make it okay. None of this is okay. His eyelids lower and he rubs the area between his eyes.

“Please talk to me, sweetheart. I don’t know what to do. I think something is very, very wrong with me. I need you,” he pleads, winching in pain as the trickle of blood from his nose continues to drip down over his upper lip.

Five gets nothing back, and right now, he needs his trusted voice of reason more than ever. In his head, he can only imagine that Dolores is not acknowledging him because she is questioning why he is tying this poor girl up like this if he supposedly didn’t mean to do this. 

To him, she is probably thinking that he is going to hurt her even more than he already has and that makes Five spiral even worse.

“Please don’t hate me. The only reason she’s tied up is because I need to stay here long enough to make sure she’s going to make it, and I can’t leave like this. I need time to clean up,” he tries to explain. “I will get us out of here. We can start over,” he promises. 

His blurring eyes dart from Dolores to the girl, then back again.

With tears starting to run down his face, Five gasps out a devastated sob, “Dolores, I need help. Please, talk to me!” Again, she doesn’t react, and his reddened eyes fearfully widen. “Dolores!” The quiver in his voice matches the quiver in his bloodied hands.

Nothing.

Five just drug in the near lifeless body of the very real girl from across the alley, placing her in the bed next to his beloved. Now, having them both laying there opposite each other, all he can see in the mannequin’s normally devoted expression of limitless acceptance is the actual lifeless object she is. 

Just like in the elevator with the girl right there with him, now Five is finding that he can’t pretend anymore.

Dolores’s face stares out blankly, the matte finished paint of her sky-blue eyes will not meet his. 

In Five’s entire time with her, this has never happened.

As Five moves himself down the girl’s legs, snaking the nylon around her ankles, he does so with the shock of knowing that Dolores finally left him.

Now he really has nothing to live for.

Feeling totally out of it, liquid dribbles from your slack mouth. You feel the softest tickle as the hair that’s stuck to your cheek pulls away.

“Wha thhh-ah," you start to mumble, but you are so groggy that at first you can’t even complete a thought let alone string two measly words together.

It feels like you are in bed, but you don’t remember going to bed.

In your jumbled thoughts, you recall going on a blind date with a guy from a stupid dating website. That obviously turned out to be a very bad decision. You should have known this guy was bad news when he showed up early and he somehow snuck inside your building instead waiting down in the parking lot. 

At the end of the night, the douche monger insisted on walking you to your door, and then he really upped his creep factor when he jumped on you.

You remember feeling extremely unhinged and completely repulsed by what he did. As such, you figured that it was a excellent idea to educate the prick on what would happen if he ever tried that date rape shit on anyone again.

As this all comes back to you, your eyes start to flutter open, but the room is dim, and your vision is badly distorted. 

More liquid slips inside your parted lips.

“Please, wake up,” the softest male voice worriedly whispers.

Hearing that, you immediately try to move, but like the voice, everything feels wrong. It feels like your arms and legs aren’t working right.

You feel a warm hand on your back slowly moving back and forth.

That’s when you remember that strange man in the parking lot.

“No,” you croak out, as you remember the unmistakable shape of his firm manhood pressing up against your ass as he cut off your air supply with the constriction of his arm around your already bruised throat.

It feels like something is still wrapped around your neck but whatever it is, it’s not painful and tight, it’s cold.

This doesn’t make sense.

Your mouth quickly shuts, your eyes flying open, as you try to sit up. Adding to your horror, you find that you can’t. Your arms flex and pull but they won’t give in to your request. Your chest and bottom rise off the bed only to immediately get pulled back down.

As your vision clears, you realize that someone is sitting next to you. 

Dark hair dangles over pale green colored eyes. 

The expression on his face is empty, not at all the way it was when you first laid eyes on it. Then, this lunatic appeared harmless. He even looked greatly concerned for your well-being. His eyes were conveying such open sorrow that it threw you off enough to let him approach.

He was acting like he knew you. He called you by name.

You open your mouth to scream but he quickly covers the sound with a thick fold of fabric that a second ago must have been around the cold pack that is now on his lap. His eyes narrow as his hand firmly presses the towel against your face.

As air wheezes through your partially blocked nose, he says, “Don’t. Do. That. Again.”

Every word out of his mouth is filled with warning.

Even if you weren’t already completely scared stiff, just the look in his eyes has the sound of your own blood thrumming in your ears and your heart feeling like it’s going to burst out of your chest.  

This can’t be the same voice you just heard speaking so compassionately.

Looking for help, your eyes try to take in the room behind him, but you don’t see anyone else.

Angling your chin backwards, you see someone illuminated by the small bedside lamp, but your own eyes grow even wider when you realize that the woman lying there next to you is not alive.

It’s an old, full body mannequin like you would normally see at a dump or in a second-hand clothing store.

You try to scream again but he pushes his hand down harder, completely muffling it.

“I said, DON’T!” he growls as you yank at the ropes binding your wrists. They won’t budge and that’s because you are tied to a very heavy-looking wooden headboard. 

Trying to move your legs again, you realize that each ankle is tied much like your hands, then fastened by extended lines of rope to opposite bed posts at the foot of the bed.

It dawns on you that this is his bed.

This perverted asshole saw what your douchebag date did to you. He has been watching you for who knows how long, and now he has abducted you. Your legs are spread wide, and your skirt is pushed up so high from your floundering that you know he can see right under it from where he’s sitting.

You can’t believe this is happening, but it is.

Again, you remember feeling this fucker pressing himself on you. He was hard.

This guy was turned on by squeezing the life out of you, and he has a plastic woman in his bed!

Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

This is so bad.

As you mentally lose your shit, his eyes never leave yours. One of his thighs is pressing against your side and he’s still holding the bottle he must have been feeding you with, but from the way he is sitting at the edge of the bed, you can’t tell if he is still aroused.

You want to scream at him to let you go but you can do nothing. You are entirely at his mercy.

The only reasons you can come up with for why he is doing this aren’t good, but you force yourself not to go there. You have to focus.

Since he’s not actually touching, touching you yet, you try to concentrate on the rest of your surroundings, looking for some way out of this.

There is an old looking electric stove in a small kitchen area across the room, with an equally old looking refrigerator next to it. A small beat-up looking table sits under one of the only two windows and it has an empty liquor bottle on it and something black that looks like a revolver of some kind.

Great.

You remember smelling the strong scent of booze on his breath in the elevator. He is clearly shit faced. Your eyes flit back to his. He hasn’t moved at all.

Oh my God, you are going to die.

Looking out again, you see that in front of the bed, there’s a very battered looking recliner. Other than the basics, there is nothing someone would have that would give signs that they lived there. There are no pictures on the walls. No TV, no shelves full of personal belongings. Next to the recliner, on the floor, you can just make out that there is a stack of books, but that is it.

You see what must be the door to get out, and one that is narrower and has slatted vents in it, meaning it’s a closet. Behind you, when you tilted your head back to look at what was holding you from moving your arms, you saw what appeared to be a tiny bathroom.

At first glance, you see nothing that can help you. It’s just some psycho guy’s shitty shoe box sized apartment.

His indifferent reaction as you look around his home is jarring. The flawlessly smooth skin on his face gives the impression of youthful innocence, but what he’s doing proves he is far from it.

You’re betting this fancy dressing Ted Bundy has got piles of bodies under his bed and body parts galore in his freezer. Now you see it; he’s totally the type!

SHIT!

His expensive looking three-piece suit didn’t make sense in this neighborhood. Now splatters of blood stain the sleeves of his white dress shirt. He clearly used the cuffs to wipe his nose based on the numerous red smears. 

You wish so badly that you’d hit him hard enough to break his whole stupid face.

You risk looking at more of him, and you see that he is missing the tie he had on before, and you can only assume that is because the first chance you had, you latched on to it and tried to strangle him with it.

He is clearly not taking any chances of that happening again.

Uselessly trying to wriggle away from him, your arms pull down on the ropes and the heels of your bare feet slide across his rumpled bedding.

He took off your shoes!

Your stomach sickens with the realization that he has already been touching you when you were unconscious. 

Again, you notice how high your skirt is, but he isn’t looking there, his cold eyes remain fixed on yours.

You can’t help it when you scream under his hand, but that only makes him even more scary looking. His features contort ominously.

“This is not what I wanted. I-” He suddenly pauses, a line forms between his eyes as they run over your face, down your body and back up again. “You never should have lifted that bat.”

You try to tell him that you don’t care what he wants or that he didn’t want his head bashed in, but your words are totally stifled by the persistent pressure of his hand.

“You kept fighting me. I had no choice but to do what I did,” he scolds, like this is your fault rather than his.

He reaches over to the bedside table, setting the bottle of water down, then he picks up another length of rope off of it. The moment he removes his hand from your mouth, he forces your lips apart, jabbing the cloth inside. His other hand is already behind your head, pushing it forward as he works the rope between your lips.

As he ties the ends at the nape of your neck you realize it’s to keep the gag in. Your mouth is so full of fabric that not even the roaring animalist growls coming out of you are even remotely loud enough to get anyone’s attention.

Your teeth bare down on the nylon fibers as you glare at him in blind hatred.

Eyes darting away from yours, he slowly starts to sit up, but he abruptly stops when you let out a pathetic mewing sound. Those green eyes of his give the faintest hint of something as he watches the burning hot tears rolling back into your hairline.

His hand comes up brushing his dark chocolate colored hair out of his eyes before tucking it behind his ears. His eyes close so sluggishly it is like it pains him to take in the very deep breaths he is all of a sudden taking. 

The heavy fringe of his lashes sweeps his cheeks covering the dark hued skin under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, but the faint bruising that is starting to form is also from when you hit him, and it only seems to be showing at all because of how fair his skin is.

First, sexual assault and now you are finishing your fabulous Friday night off being this crazy prick’s new and improved sex doll. 

Is this really going to be your final fate? Live a subpar existence scratching to get by, working meaningless jobs to pay the rent, then die because some crazy asshole across the alley from you decided to remove you from the world for his own sick satisfaction?

You would laugh at your ridiculously bad luck if you weren’t crying and if you could actually laugh.

He’s going to kill you. There’s no other way out of this.

“Just let me go,” you beg him. It comes out of you, but with hardly any sound though saying it makes his eyes dart back to yours anyway.

His face is one of those that you’ve seen that can express the most heart wrenching emotion if he lets it. Right now, it seems it’s more of failing to hide it than intentionally showing that he’s not as cold as he is pretending to be. 

His prominent jaw line seems even more dramatic as you notice him clenching his teeth. It makes the dimple on his cheek stand out even more. He looks so sad, and that reaction is baffling because a moment before he looked like he felt nothing and didn’t even have the tiniest amount of remorse or humanity in him.

You swear you see his hand closest to you trembling.

That has to mean something.

You try to plead with him again, but hearing it, he steels his expression to nothingness again, he stands, preparing to walk away from you.

Christ! Even crazy vagrants on the street don’t have the gift to emotionally turn off and on as quickly as this guy can, and that’s no matter how long gone their minds are.

If you could just get through to him somehow, then maybe you’d have a chance, but how can you do that if he is mentally all over the place.

As he moves, you can see his entire body more clearly. He has straight shoulders, but he is hunching them forward in an odd way that doesn’t match his young age. His chin is angled down to the floor like he simply can’t stand looking at anything else.

His trim waist is defined even more by his tailored vest. He’s one of those guys who has that V-shaped torso that comes from having zero body fat. He’s all lean muscle and bone. Add the fitted black dress pants enhancing the slim look of him and you’d think he’s nobody to worry about, but you know already that he is not weak. Under this misleading appearance is hiding the very dangerous man that just took you.

Your eyes follow his every move as he travels over to the other side of the bed. Again, you swear you see the look of pure agony in his face as he lifts the mannequin and sets her down a few feet away over by the window on what has to be a stand because the thing is standing there dressed all pretty like she belongs in a 90's department store not this freak job’s apartment.

He goes ghostly still with one of his hands resting on the form of its narrow waist.

You hear him softly talking to it and it’s almost exactly the way you heard him speaking when you were coming to.

“Dolores, please… I love you,” he pleads. He is looking at the dummy like he is expecting it to answer him.

When you look to the window beyond him over there having this extremely bizarre moment with his plastic girlfriend, you see the flowers dangling from your own flower box blowing in the wind.

He was right across from you the whole time.

You look over again at the single chair pulled up at the small table next to the window. You can just imagine him sitting there in the dark, finishing off that bottle, watching you.

Being an opportunistic perv that gets turned on by peeping on others is one thing, but this guy was getting off by watching you get attacked and he was clearly also turned on by attacking you.

He’s a sexual sadist and while he rapes you, he is going to do his best to make you suffer even more!

Animalistic sounds of pure desperation erupt from your chest, and they get even louder when he abruptly turns away from his one-sided conversation with the mannequin and comes back towards the bed.

You see his expression change to something fierce and dangerous. His entire body seems to thrum like a bowstring drawn taut. You can almost feel the carefully restrained violence about to explode all over you.

His gaze is so intense that your whole body shudders and his voice comes out so achingly low that he sounds like a different person. “If you have already done the worst things a human could do, would it matter if you sealed it that the devil owns you?”

You do not like where this is going. You shake your head side to side, denying him. You refuse to draw the parallels he is trying to make in justifying what he’s going to do.

“I lost everything. There is no point in fighting anymore,” he whispers.

Even though you don’t want to give them to him, tears trickle down your cheeks again. Seeing them, the faintest trace of a sound comes from somewhere deep inside his chest.

There is something. Something inside all that coldness. He looks sad. You are the one tied to his bed, and he looks sad…

What?

After another minute of him seeming to consider something, he begins to hungrily study you, or at least it appears that way to you in that slow, languid way his eyes roamed over your body. When they hover over your chest, your breath hitches, and you think you hear his hitch too.

“Go fuck yourself, asshole!” you frantically cry, adding every curse word you know and even adding some new ones specially invented just for him. It comes out garbled, but you are sure he is getting the gist.

He reaches for the bottle of water on the nightstand, his eyes roll back in his head, and he almost falls down as he proceeds to pound it. 

After stumbling and then tossing the empty bottle on the floor, he moves across the bed, crawling on hands and knees towards you. The mattress sags beneath his weight as he bends down on top of you.

His weight hovers over you, and your fingers curl into fists. Your arms pulled down but to no avail. 

Reactively, when his hand comes towards your face, you pull back as much as you can. He stops for a second, dark brows furrowing like he doesn’t understand your reaction. 

“Sweetheart, no, please. You know I'd never hurt you,” he slurs, then his long fingers gently run across your skin to wipe your tears away. 

You shudder. 

He still has that look. You know it even though you don’t know him. It’s the look of misery.

He brushes your tangled hair back and the frown on his face deepens. Those pale cheeks of his suddenly flush with…

Arousal? Shame? Murderous rage? You have no idea until you look between your bodies, and you see that his crotch region is definitely tenting in a way it wasn't a few minutes ago. 

Very slowly, he traces the bruises your date left on your neck with a finger. The sensation makes you shiver in fear, and you see him shiver too. You are sure he’s about to lower himself on you but then he rolls off, staggers to the bathroom, and then slams the door behind him.

Entering his bathroom, Five’s body falls forward over the small counter. He clings to the edge holding himself steady, while hoping he will be able to think clearer now that he is away from the girl.

Five is completely overwhelmed with unimaginable levels of sorrow and gross intoxication, but the worst of it is the very demanding reaction his body is having over seeing the girl laying under him on his bed. As bad of shape as he is in, Five can’t even link together any coherent thoughts other than that when he looked at the girl, he was seeing Dolores.

“Dolores, no,” he breathlessly cries in pure unfiltered agony over the gut-wrenching loss he feels.

Wanting to stop the pain and unable to operate on anything but pure brainless need, rather than hurt the girl because he has completely lost his mind, Five desperately begins to hurt himself.

He lowers his head even more, panting out panicked gasps for air as one of his trembling hands starts to rub the front of his pants.

“Please. Fuck. Help me,” he moans, meaning much more than the words can convey as his other hand fumbles to get his zipper down. 

Once he has himself free, Five is quick to start jerking himself with an intensity and cruelty that only makes his head spin even more than it already is. 

“Nahhhh-nnnn-” His instant moans of pleasure are followed by the top of his head accidentally banging up against the oval mirror hanging above the sink.  

Pumping his hips, Five rams the hand he is using to grope his tight balls, jamming it abusively right up against the edge of the counter. His angry touches feel so damn good despite the punishment that the combination only makes him moan even louder.

His knees bang over and over against the cabinet as he finds every way possible to inflict pain on himself while also giving in to that heady desire trying to consume him.

Five winces as his knuckles begin to split after making contact too many times with the hard surface, but he doesn’t stop doing it. He wants this sweet torture to drown out the rest of his unbearable suffering. 

Hair falling in his eyes and his skin feeling like it’s on fire, Five’s other hand continues taking care of the rest of his shaft. His fingers are circled around the end of the hard length, and they are moving up and down so fast that when he peers down at himself, all he sees is a violent blur.

“Yessssssss!”

Mouth hanging open, Five’s come begins to spurt out of him. The near iridescence of his release is somewhere between a milky white and a purely clear watery fluid, allowing it to blend in almost seamlessly into the fake chalky colored marble of his chipped counter. With a dazed expression, Five’s body twitches repeatedly as he watches it drip down into the bowl of his sink. 

As the waves of ecstasy all too quickly abandon him, Five’s bloodshot eyes turn up to the monster in the mirror. 

All at once, his fist slams into the face staring back at him. The glass shatters, raining down sharp blades of Five’s reflection, scattering his hatred at his feet and all over the counter.

As if what just happened when he was suspending his body over you isn't appalling enough, the sounds coming from the bathroom are making you really lose your mind. You yank at your constraints hard enough to make your quickly abrading skin begin to bleed.

It's very clear what he is doing in there; you don't need to see him to know that he took your advice and is actively fucking himself. The only good thing about this is that he is not trying to fuck you and he is in there and you are out here.

When the sound of glass breaking and things hitting the floor abruptly comes after a another one of his guttural groans, you are pulling so hard on the headboard to break free that it's banging against the wall behind it.

Not more than a minute later, the bathroom door swings open and he's back at the side of the bed looking down at you with those empty eyes. 

“I need you to be quiet a little longer." His words don't sound mad or even scary even though he just busted you trying to break free. He sounds very meek but that makes sense considering what he did in there.

You can't help your eyes from moving right from his to his fly, and sure enough, Mr. Psycho's Mr. Happy seems to be momentarily tamed.

Just when you are thinking you might be safe, he shifts himself over on the mattress where the mannequin was.

Just the act of laying down looks like it hurts him. His moist looking eyes open and shut like he can hardly hold them open as he lets out a very pained moan that makes him sound like a child that needs his mommy very badly.

You can see his hand is freshly bleeding but not bad. He doesn't even seem to notice.

“I am going to let you go. I just need to clear my head for a few minutes, and I am cutting you loose and leaving. This will all be over soon,” he hushes when the bed moves from you trying to wriggle away from him.

As he settles into the blankets and his eyes droop closed, his black vest pulls up as he stretches out and you immediately notice that he has some kind of knife tucked under his waistband. 

After a minute or two of laying like that, eyes closed still, he rolls over and his arm flops down over your chest, his hand landing way to close to your neck again. You try to shake him off, but you have nowhere to go, and he remains as is. 

This guy can say what he wants about letting you go, but him lying next to you, hand on your throat, with this fuck mannequin watching him resting up enough so that he can brutally rape you doesn’t have you feeling any less terrified. 

The only reason you are not screaming anymore is because you don’t want to set him off now that he is this close.

Less than a minute later of you laying there thinking this is it, his chin slides down the arm he has folded under his head, and as it happens, the choppy looking fringe of his hair falls over his face.

Holy shit… You cannot believe it, but he just passed out. 

His heavy breathing immediately starts to relax.

Whether he was lying or not when he said he wasn’t going to hurt you and that he was also going to let you go, you have no idea, but it doesn’t matter. Seeing your chance, your arms begin pulling again. You twist and torque your wrists, working the ropes.

The sound of loud vibration startles you and you go stark still, your eyes darting to the kitchen table as your heartrate flies through the roof. 

You can’t be sure, because it’s so dark, but you think there is a cell phone lying there next to the gun. Just as you start to wriggle your wrists again, the phone vibrates again and at the same time, he lets out an annoyed sounding grumble. “Leave me alone, Klaus.”

Klaus?

The third time the phone buzzes, his upper leg moves over, locking down over one of yours.

You close your eyes, willing your mind to take you anywhere but here.

Stupid phone and fuck you Klaus person whoever you are.

“Don’t wake up the psycho, I am about to shiv his ass! ” your mind yells at the offending electronic device.

Not long later, the hand at your throat begins to move away, but as it retreats, your crazy cuddle buddy snuggles his body even closer to yours. This new intrusion on your personal space seems to make him happy enough at first, but then all of a sudden, he must decide that he is not warm enough. He reaches back and flips the bed spread over you both and in doing so, the cuff on his right arm pulls up and something catches your eye.

He has a tattoo on the underside of his wrist. It’s the silhouette of a black umbrella with a circle around it.

What the hell?

You’ve seen that symbol before. You were a little too young when the superhero kids that belonged to the infamous money mogul Sir Reginal Hargreeves were all the rage, but you have heard of them. They all supposedly disbanded when they came of age, and from what you remember hearing, one or two may have even died before that.

They all were born with different unimaginable powers and were often seen in public as children stepping in here or there during major emergencies to show off their extraordinary skills. 

You’ve seen old posters with them, but none of their faces are coming back to you except the girl named Allison, and that is because she has been in the news over the years for different movies that she has been in. 

They were all exactly the same age, and this guy looks like he could be ten years younger than her.

He can’t be one of them…

Can he?

Whether he’s one of them or not, just like with your date tonight, as soon as you get free, you are going to show this sorry sack that he may think he knows you and you are just going to lay here and let him treat you like his little play thing, but he got it all wrong. 

He picked the wrong girl to fuck with.

If this loser was one of the Umbrella Academy kids, you haven’t seen any signs of his powers, which might be because you recall hearing that they all lost them at some point. If he is one of them, it appears he lost even more than that, and he is in luck because you are about to help him lose even more.

The rope painfully digs into your skin. You are so close. A few more twists and the ligaments holding your thumb together will slide, letting your bones pop out of place. Then you can grab his knife and it’s go time fucker.

Someone is getting a knife through the dick and it’s one hundred percent Mr. Umbrella Academy Tattoo!

The phone lets out another long buzzing sound then stops. He doesn’t say anything this time, but the disturbance must have disturbed him again because you feel his hand slowly start surveying your upper leg, his fingers gently tracing a line northward.

You begin to struggle. Your nasally whines of protest have him swiftly changing course, instead clamping that same hand at your waist. He pulls you closer as he presses his face against your neck.

“I am sorry, Dolores…” he whispers.

He is so close. Everything suddenly feels very hot.

His lips part then they start feather lightly, sweep along the coating of moisture he’s creating on your skin. When the heat of his pelvis moves tight against your hip, you are shocked that he isn’t hard again over violating you. 

This guy doesn’t make any sense. You thought that was part of the whole thing he was into, but when he popped a woody from touching your face and neck, as soon as he noticed it was happening, he took off like he was scared shitless.

Maybe right now he is just not recovered enough from his last weirdo whack session or...

Is it possible that he really doesn't want to hurt you. Maybe he wasn’t planning on it when he reached out like he did in the parking lot? 

Maybe you had it all wrong in thinking that he was enjoying watching you nearly getting raped. He had clearly been doing something by way of enjoying himself prior to sprinting out into the parking lot, but…

All of a sudden, it dawns on you that he actually looked very upset by what he saw happen. He sounded very upset by it. It was like he was so distressed by it that he ran down there planning to do something about it. 

He looked like he wasn’t expecting you to be there. He actually seemed very confused by it.

Was he coming after your date?

At the moment, you didn’t see all that, but now…

Well…

What the fuck?

He is obviously very messed up, but maybe not in messed-up in the ‘I’m going to violently rape you and murder you’ kind of way.

He did abduct you, but he just said he was going to let you go. He said that he was going to leave.

For some bizarre reason, he seems to be very in love with his mannequin and you are almost certain that right now he thinks you are her. He is so delusional; he probably can’t even tell the difference.

Again, your feet dig down into his mattress as he nuzzles your neck and makes one of those super soft whimpering noises.

This does not feel like he’s trying to hurt you. It feels like he is trying to do something else entirely.

Something is not adding up other than he is most certainly off his rocker.

He said that he has done the worst things a human can do, and you have no idea what he meant by that, but when he could have raped you while you were out or even now, he didn’t. Besides tying you up, the things he was doing before taking off to take care of his boner problem were all in an effort to help you. 

Add all this up and what he said about letting the devil own him, may not have been implying what you originally thought. The more you think about it, it seems like he could have been talking about killing himself, not giving in to raping and killing you.

You can’t see his entire face, but you can tell that his eyes are still pinched shut and it’s in such a way that looks so miserable.

You have no idea what is going on with the guy but it’s clear that something is very wrong with him, and it’s not just that he is mega wasted.

As your mind is putting all this together, he lets out a throaty sound that almost sounds like a sob before he begins placing soft kisses along your bruised neck while vibrating his next words across your skin. “Please don’t leave me.”  

His hand at the narrowest part of your waist slips under you, tenderly massaging circles against your lower back. His warm fingers very subtly dig in as if he’s trying to comfort you.

You can’t help it when a similar sounding whine comes out of you as your heels dig in across the bedding again. 

He is all over you and not in the hurtful kind of way. 

This is not what you’d expect from a sexual sadist who gets their jollies off torturing people.

As he kisses just below your ear in that very sensitive space that makes your toes curl, he does so like he has done this maneuver about a million times, and he lets out the most contented sounding sigh when your body involuntarily shudders from it. This has got you starting to think that you may have read this crazy perv all wrong.

He’s a perv but maybe not the type you thought.

What he’s doing is so unbelievably tender and loving that it has you trembling from head to toe and incidentally not just from fear.

“Dolores, please forgive me.”

Again, he’s not talking to you, that much is very clear.

After saying that, he stops with the kisses, his body motionless as he clings to you like his life depends on it.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sound of his steady breathing, you know that he is fully out again. 

To the feel of his chest rising and falling against your side, you start to work your wrists free again.

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

Thanks for reading.

Link to Chapter four

Master List Post to my Five Centric Stories and Art

KayBreezy | Archive of Our Own

kaybreezy-on-a03 on Tumblr

[doodleferp]

Cara and Miguel Starter Pack

So let me start from the beginning one last time. Once upon a time, Cara was yeeted into Earth-928 thanks to some fucky Lovecraftian nonsense from her fucky Lovecraftian dimension. After meeting Miguel, who was a baby Spider-Man back then, Cara was denied access back to her world thanks to some sibling disputes. She spun a little web of lies for Miguel’s then-fianceé Dana, and they took pity on her and decided to help her out. I’m pretty sure you know the rest. They moved her in with Dana, saved the city, humorously acclimated Cara to the city, buried Dana, got married to get Cara a green card, and ended up actually falling in love.

This works off of a timeline of events that I established myself and it's subject to change if more information from the films comes out. General consensus is that Miguel was born in 2070, so he was 29 when he got his powers IN 2099. But since he’s 35 in AtSV, that means about six years have passed since then.

Cara is five foot even. She’s a tiny little thing who has the love of a fucking giant. As the tall one, Miguel is often asked to help get things from places she can’t reach. But instead of grabbing the thing like a normal person, Miguel grabs Cara under her arms, lifts her up, and holds her up so she’s the perfect height to grab the thing herself. He does this everywhere. The apartment, the Spider Society, the grocery store, his office at Alchemax, etc.

Cara likes to wear a helmet instead of a mask because she’s being tossed around constantly and feels safer with that kind of head protection. Miguel, however, fucking hates the helmet and takes every opportunity to show Cara his Pepe Silvia board about why she should trade it out for the mask he made her. Cara will sit patiently through all of it, and then she’ll go “Would you like me to crack my head open?” And he shuts up for another week. (Oh, he also made her current suit all by himself.)

These two are like...so gossipy Mostly Miguel, but Cara indulges him a lot. Ofc they have those bedtime pillow talks where they're both reading or Miggy's on his laptop and they'll go on about something someone did that day. They'll be swinging through the city and talking shit about Internet drama or some dweeb from a restaurant. Miguel will hit her up on his lunch hour and give her all the Alchemax tea, complete with examining his nails like the mean popular girl from a Disney Channel Original Movie. If he thinks someone's eavesdropping, he'll start talking in really fast Spanish so they can't get what he's saying. Needless to say, Cara had to learn Spanish really fast just to keep up with him.

They both adore snuggling. Miguel is like Cara’s weighted blanket and she can’t sleep without him anymore because he just envelops her (Fig 1). He’ll spoon her, he’ll let her sleep on his chest and hold her there. He’ll do everything short of actually sleeping on top of her (Fig 2) and he does that at least once a month. However, he always wakes up at 4 AM to use the bathroom, and Cara always wakes up because she no longer has her big warm blanket man. Thankfully, she goes right back to sleep once he comes back to bed. It’s to the point where they have trouble sleeping without the other in the bed because Cara needs the weight on her and Miguel needs something to cuddle.

Since Cara and her sisters got some fucky eldritch nonsense going on with their blood, they…I guess a bit more compatible with other dimensions. They can’t travel between them at will, of course, but they don’t glitch because they got that interdimensional cosmic horror in em. When Miguel somehow starts monitoring the ItSV movie, he’s flabbergasted when he sees the other Spiders glitching and he goes to Cara like “these people are literally dying and it hasn’t been a week, how the shock did you survive SIX YEARS”.

Cara’s actually good at a lot of household chores, so she offers to help around the apartment when she isn’t working. And thanks to Spider nonsense, she can get really thorough with it. Miguel has come home multiple times to see her standing on the ceiling changing light bulbs or cleaning something on the ceiling. It saves him tons since he got to opt out of the building's cleaning service, but it still gives him a heart attack every now and then.

They have had long arguments about whether or not killing spiders counts as murder since they’re both half-spider. Cara scoops them up on a piece of paper and puts them out the window or something. Miguel just puts them out of their misery.

As I’m sure everyone reading this has deduced, these two are a very...hands-on couple. They have been banned from being in the Spider Society’s gym at the same time because of it. As in "when one of them goes in, the other is automatically locked out" kind of banned. Thank Peter B for that -- as in, genuinely thank him because he's saved a lot of minors from seeing a couple spider mutants getting freaky.

Not exactly shippy, but Miguel and Cara's sister Cadence do not get along. At all. They hate each other with a burning passion. Cadence is positive he's that archetypical dudebro who's going to drag Cara down, and Miguel is rightfully pissed that she's hostile to him for existing. Cara unfortunately has to get in the middle of them and keep things calm, and thankfully Miguel is willing to make an effort. Cadence is less than accommodating though, so the occasional cross-dimensional family visits are always interesting.

c. doodleferp, 2024. do not steal or repost.

[royalcolls-cccc-au-act]

MIND/APOLLO LORE !!

This is up until the current timeline of the story

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> Apollo, that isn't his birth name but he didn't like the name he was given. He found it boring and way too common for someone such as himself, strong, smart, someone worth remembering. No one knowa what his actual name was besides his family and his best friend, June, and lord knows that they knew better than to tell other's that information.

> The boy grew up in a small town, one that had a lot of other poorer family's. So, the town wasn't as good as others. Not many people complained though, as they had enough to survive and live. It was worse of for those of bigger families, like Apollo's family. There were 5 kids all living under the same roof with both parents working to support it. The eldest of the siblings would work alongside their father as well as hunt for some decent animals and meat. The second eldest were to look after the younger ones, make sure they got to school and came back just fine.

> And this is how Apollo met June. In school.

> Long story short, they got on well. Inseperable. There was barley a time that they were seem away from eachother, and to others it was nothing dhort of a miracle as Apollo typically was snarky or just cold towards others, not liking to interact with people. But with June, he was happy. He was also chaotic, sure, but happy. When they were both late teens, around 16 (Apollo) and 17 (June), they went a few towns over to go check it out, and saw how it was a more well off town than theirs, as well as the fact that one or two people owned cars. Nice cars, big too. They exchanged a look and they both ended up stealing one of the cars. It took a bit, but they got it running. Bad news though, the sheriff noticed and as they drove off, the sheriff followed. The were eventually caught, but June lied and told the sheriff that Apollo didn't do a thing to help, and that June had done everything and dragged him along. They were both sent to jail, but for different times. Apollo got 6 months, while June got 4 years. Pretty unfair, but June didn't mind, he was just happy that he saved his friend the time in jail that he would've got.

> Apollo was forever grateful.

> 6 months later, Apollo was let out of jail, and he made his way home to his parents. Parents, who chewed his ear off for a good 2 hours straight about how stupid it was to go stealing a car. That wouldn't stop him though, as the next few months, Apollo continued these crimes and everything as he went on to successfully steal a car, and start robbing places, getting the money to dress nice and support himself. He also ended up moving out of his parents house. He didn't buy a house, didn't want to. He just spent time in his car, going from town to the jail June was held in, visiting his friend once a month.

> It got quite... lonely by himself. He didn't have June to hang about with, and god forbid he have any other friends. He didn't like that idea, but one day when he was collecting some fruit from the farmer, he decided to actually strike up a conversation.

**"Hey, what's this ranch for for? It doesn't look like you're usin' it for a whole lotta storage."**

> The farmer had laughed from where he was sat on a hay block, resting from the days work he had done.

*"It ain't used for storage, you're right. It's used as a stage, rehersal room. There's this... girl that uses it to practice. Darrel here helps 'er."*

> He gestured to the chicken that was pecking idley at the hay block that the farmer was sat on. He picked up the chicken and held him comfortably in his arms.

***"Tell me how she'd doin'. I might wanna meet lil' miss moviestar some day."***

> And then Apollo left. That was how the start of their friendship. Atlas knew that Apollo robbed others, but they had a mutual agreement that Atlas wouldn't snitch if he didn't steal from the farm and actually buy the crops and animal products.

> Moving to a while later, Apollo had been away from the farm for a while, as he was out of town, but that day he had to seek cover in the farm. He had been in one town over and saw a dog being mistreated, sand beinf kicked in its face and probably some other horrible things, so when the owners weren't looking, he hopped the fence and took the dog off its leash, taking it to the car and running off. The owners saw though, and chased him all the way to the farm. When Apollo got to the farm though, pulling up to a stop by the fence gate, there was a problem. A huge problem.

> The ranch was on fire.

> Now, Apollo was usually one to think quick on his feet, but in that moment he froze. He stares at the ranch and how it was up in flames and prayed that Atlas wasn't inside. Hoping to whatever god was out there that he didn't have to lose a friend, like how he lost June temporarily.

> After what felt like an eternity of just watching the flames burn the ranch, he ran inside the place, looking for any sign of Atlas. There was nothing but smoke and flames inside, evident by the fact it was like Apollo was coughing up his lungs. He spent what seemed to him as an eternity looking for Atlas, knowing that the man had nothing else to do besides be on his farm working all day, so he must be here, right? Well, he had to leave the ranch before finding out due to the smoke getting to him. He'd check though, every day after. For now he just has to get to a safe place where the fire didn't get him.

> It's a few weeks before he actually goes back to the farm, people were saying no one wa allowed near there, and they'd have to get their food other ways until the ranch was rebuilt. During the rebuilding time, Apollo visited, seeing the wooden frames and ladders, people working on the ranch. They were getting things done in a good time. And Atlas was there, outside the ranch with Darrel under his arm as he leant on a cane (Well that was new) watching the men working on his ranch.

> And life went on as normal from then on out.

> Until the day Apollo met someone new, of course.

> He drove up to the ranch like he did every week, but on a different day than he normally headed up there. He humed as he walked into the ranch, looking as Atlas seemed to be setting out some wooden planks on the floor.

**"Wha's all this for then?"**

> Apollo asks, confused as all hell.

*"A stage."*

> Is all the farmer had given in response as there were footsteps in the ranch. Apollo turns, then smiles.

**"So you're the famous lil' movie star Atlas has been talkin' 'bout?"**

[one-annon]

Hi!! Just wanted to say your writing is amazing:D

What do you think the Sawyer brothers were like in middle school or high school (if they even went there, lol?) If you don’t like this request feel free to ignore!

i love this question!! ill do it sawyer by sawyer to keep it all organized :) also thank you so much for your kind words! i try my best with these..even if they take 3-5 business days.. this is also rather short..i apologize..

DRAYTON

due to the way drayton spells sex (scex) i imagine he didnt get a great education. i think he was either homeschooled or was pulled out of school early on in his life.

hes the eldest and i think he was heavily affected by his family's money issues after the slaughterhouse was shut down. maybe he was pulled out of school afterward? i just know he probably didnt get past middle school.

even if he did, i dont think he would survive in highschool. let alone stay in it for long. since his family needed help with their whole cannibalism act plus grandpa and grandma needed someone to care for them, he wouldve dropped out and stayed to help out.

once they got older and the twins were born, drayton tried his best to help his family make a little bit more money for his brothers to go to school. he genuinely cares about them, he just doesnt admit it nor does he know how to show it

most of the english he's learned is from his grandmother teaching him and his work in the gas station! she also used the gas station to teach him math :)

CHOPTOP

hes either a choir kid or a theater kid. probably a theater kid. as a theater kid i can confirm i in fact act like choptop

during highschool he was in his emo/goth/all american massacre phase. when he was a freshman he would help out just a little with his family's money issues - giving kids weed in trade for money.

him and nubbins were troublemakers - always having to be seperated. the only problem is how bad their separation anxiety gets. the twins never stay apart for long. both of them will kick and scream if theyre seperated and highschool wasnt any different.

out of all the brothers, i think choptop is the smartest. his experience in the military really helped him with his education and he was able to learn so much. i think he had a pin pal at some point and that definitely helped him with his writing!!

he wasnt able to fully complete highschool because of the draft but he was at least about to get to 11th grade :)

NUBBINS

nubbins was definitely a struggler in school. he didnt really understand what was being taught no matter how he was taught. teachers have tried to tutor him and he just never understood it

choptop helped him a lot with getting him to understand. he would sit with nubbins at the dining room table and help him through their math homework, help him with english essays, anything he needs. he would explain it in a way nubbins could understand easier!

he was very dependent on choptop throughout highschool. they were always seen together

i dont know how to explain it but nubbins really likes comic books. theyre a lot easier for him to read, especially with the pictures

grandpa also read him a lot of books when he was younger! according to nubbins, he's grandpa's favorite

BUBBA

there really isnt much to say about bubba? his parents didnt really see a use of sending him to school

he was mostly homeschooled by the twins..who would always try to get him to say words

at the very least he knows how to write his name and he can understand what his siblings ask of him. he tries! really he goes off of tone of voice for how he reacts

[thefandom-casserole]

Dndads Teen Headcanons

(It got kinda outta hand, and these aren’t even the angst ones…)

Hermie curls their hair and Taylor straightens his (but because of the adventures neither of them have been able to do it so they’re slowly reverting back to their original state)

Hermie uses they/them pronouns when not in a roll and Dood uses they/it

Normal and Hero have watched Adult Swim shows from a really young age (Lark, Sparrow, and Rebecca either didn’t care enough to turn off Cartoon Network, or just didn’t realize)

Linc and Hermie were PBS kids

Taylor is always playing games on his Chromebook at school (coolmathgames rules)

Taylor has a ton of pins on his jacket and hat

Scary has a TON of birthmarks, freckles, moles all over her body. It’s gorgeous

Dood‘s Teen body rotates between four outfits that all seem too large and slightly too old for it… (it’s Hildy, Robert, Meryl, and Stud’s outfits) (even if It never technically met Meryl)

FUNFACT: none of the Teens have a nuclear family

Hero’s first language is Spanish (Lark and Sparrow decided that forcing her to go through an almost entirely English-speaking school without knowing English would help “toughen her up”)

All of the Oak’s are fluent in Spanish and English

Scary is afraid of going under tunnels (when she was Terri she’d close her eyes and squeeze someone’s hand)

Linc types like an old man but can game really really well

Hermie does cosplays and posts them on the future equivalent to TikTok

Everytime they go to a mall of something Normal tries reallllly hard to convince them to all squeeze into a Photo Booth (it has not happened yet)

Hermie loves Starkid

Taylor really likes FNAF

Scary’s favorite season is winter

Linc’s favorite is spring (even though soccer season is autumn)

Normal likes all of the seasons (he takes after his grandpa!!)

Dood loves everything (all the seasons), though they absolutely despise the mosquitos and gnats…

Taylor’s favorite season is probably summer

Scary was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age (not autism though), but when she started being Scary she tried to stop taking her medication (she started taking it again)

Taylor used to LOVE dinosaurs. He had every Jurassic Park movie, the book, everything. He still has the anime and the original downloaded for bad days

Scary is tall without shoes (only shorter than Linc and about the same as Hermie) but she wears platforms to make herself taller (queen <3)

Hermie has a younger brother and a younger sister (like, 6 years old) who were not born by Scam and Jodie, and Hermie has no idea where they’re from

Hermie’s two favorite people are their siblings (they would do anything for them)

All the Teens but Dood and Linc had Amino at some point </3 (but for completely different fandoms/communities)

The only class Normal has consistently had an A/100 in has been GYM

Normal, Scary, and Linc are very very athletic

Hermie is more athletic than people would think they are (you run a LOT in theater, and singing takes a ton of energy)

Normal constantly plays the Zip Game throughout their travels (everytime you see a horse you yell ‘zip’ and keep track of how many horses you’ve called, everytime you see a cemetery you yell ‘cemetery’ and everyone else loses their horses)

Normal and Hermie know a ton of car games (though Hermie wouldn’t admit it) because of looong car rides with their sibling/s

Hermie works at a Haunted Attraction during Autumn

Hermie is freakishly worried about their siblings after coming home and not finding their parents (has not mentioned it to anyone though…)

Scary uses her notes app for everything (song lyrics, poems, reminders, etc.)

Dood is the shortest out of them all, then Taylor

Taylor has a ton of stickers on his cane (anime, survival, etc.)

They’re all autistic and queer <3

Scary has a vent notebook and a lyric notebook

Linc doesn’t really get cold, which is why he always wears shorts and tanktops

Scary only eats the Oreos with the orange filling

Taylor either sleeps with a TON of blankets or with only a sheet. No in between

[andreal831]

Do you think it would have worked with Antoinette in non-memory loss circumstances

Short answer is no, I don't.

I've seen people say they were "good" together because they are similar but we do not know enough about Antoinette to know this. They are similar in how they dress and both play piano but that is not enough to create a relationship.

Elijah and Antoinette had met when he was his whole self with memories and he did not pursue her. There did seem to be chemistry between them but Elijah Mikaelson is a very different person than the Elijah who fell in love with Antoinette. And even in this relationship, we see very little of Antoinette as a character on her own. I do think they have some sweet moments, but there were also a lot of moments where Antoinette felt less like a character and more like a plot device.

She and Elijah had been together for seven years but he seemed to know nothing about her. Elijah is learning everything as we are, mostly for the audience to understand her back story, but still, Elijah should have already known all about her family drama.

But here's what we do know about her:

Antoinette says she loves her brother but doesn't lift a finger to help him. Elijah burns himself alive and she rushes out of the room instead of trying to help support him emotionally. She has been lying to him the entire relationship about knowing him and who he was. All of these things, to me, are things Elijah wouldn't like in a person.

Whether it is healthy or not, the most important thing to Elijah is putting his family first. Antoinette doesn't understand this. In season 5, she wants him far away from them. Sure, this may be healthier for him, but he wouldn't stay with someone who wants that. Antoinette may be healthier in detaching from her toxic family, but Elijah wouldn't respect that in her. Instead of trying to help her brother, she has abandoned him.

Antoinette also seems to not like confrontation. She runs instead of facing Greta or Greta's army. She runs instead of helping Elijah emotionally. She wants to run from Klaus. They try to create a parallel of her running from an abusive father, but Elijah only runs to save his siblings. In fact, he stands to confront Mikael when his family needs him too. The Mikaelson family is always about confrontation. Yes, they are always running, but Elijah's relationship wouldn't survive with someone who couldn't handle the family confrontations. He would want to protect her and likely end the relationship because he would see how unhappy she was with his family. Elijah tends to be attracted to very combative women because that is what he knows of love, that's how his family has always been.

A lot of people say that Elijah with no memories is still Elijah, so by that logic, Elijah Mikaelson would still feel the same way about Antoinette that no memory Elijah did. But I vehemently disagree. Elijah Mikaelson would never have done the things no memory Elijah did. Sure he seemed happier and more free, but even Elijah before all of the trauma wouldn't have behaved like him. And I think a big part of how no memory Elijah turned out is due to Antoinette's influence. She was essentially able to shape him into what she wanted him to be since he had no memories or connections with anyone. It always just felt very manipulative to me. Even after a seven-year relationship, nearly as soon as Elijah gets his memories back, he ends it with her. Yes, he is grieving Hayley, but he was not willing to try and fight for Antoinette or even stay alive for her.

More evidence that NM Elijah was not Elijah Mikaelson is that when Hayley goes to France, Elijah clearly approaches Hayley (Andrea) at a bar and spends the night flirting and dancing with her. This is years into his relationship with Antoinette. Elijah would never have done this to any of his past relationships. While I love the haylijah moments, I didn't like that Elijah was essentially emotionally cheating on his girlfriend, something Elijah Mikaelson would never do. Antoinette and Elijah are actually one of my least favorite Elijah ships because I don't like how either of them treated the other.

Antoinette and Elijah felt very forced. Again, I loved seeing happy and free Elijah, but I would much rather see it due to character development and growth, not erasing everything that he is. And everything that Elijah Mikaelson is would not be compatible with Antoinette.

[spellbookss]

DISCLAIMER

Although I've gone through numerous YouTube videos covering practically all of Rolan's dialogue options, the story of this NPC is pretty vague and leaves a lot of room for creative interpretation. While I try to stay true to Rolan's character as portrayed in the game, I'll use headcanons to add depth to him.

BACKSTORY

Rolan's early years in Elturel were tough. He spent his early childhood in an orphanage where he endured neglect and abuse because - you guessed it - he was a Tiefling. He eventually fled, finding himself struggling to survive on the streets.

Fortunately, not for long.

Rolan's luck turned when he was taken in by the mother of Lia and Cal. Embraced into their family, Rolan, Cal, and Lia formed a close bond; they’ve been thick as thieves ever since.

It was a loving home, but a poor one. They struggled to make ends meet. 

Despite the family's financial struggles, Rolan harbored aspirations of becoming a renowned wizard - he always has. He wanted to be someone. However, the cost of arcane education was way beyond their means. Still, whenever Rolan got his hands on a spellbook, he’d study relentlessly (Lia probably stole books for him whenever possible). What he lacked in knowledge, he made up with ambition.

Over time, the family's situation improved, and they attained a solid middle-class status. 

Things were looking promising, for all of them. Especially when Lorroakan answered Rolan's letter and accepted him as an apprentice! Oh, he was overjoyed. This was a dream come true!

Unfortunately, that happiness was short-lived. When HELL broke loose in Elturel, literally, everything they had worked for was lost in an instant. 

Their mother died before they could flee.

Rolan didn't handle it well. He latched onto the idea of becoming Lorroakan's apprentice; it was a means of escaping the harsh reality of his situation and despite facing the same hardships as other refugees, Rolan convinced himself that he was somehow “better”, superior. It was easier for him to play pretend than to confront the painful truth that he was just as broken.

PERSONALITY

Due to his past, he is a very guarded person. He doesn't like to rely on others and asking for help is a struggle for him. Rolan is very ambitious, would take an arrow for those he loves, and his heart is bigger than he lets on because oh boy, we don't need more emotional pain and being a prick is a great defense mechanism.

He struggles with feelings of inadequacy hello childhood trauma and neglect, so behind all that ego is actually a very vulnerable man who puts way too much pressure on himself and is terrified of disappointing or losing those he loves.

VERSES

(pre-) ACT I ; Refugee

During or before the Emerald Grove. Having been through so much suffering, he will try to mask his fear with a cold, arrogant demeanor. Despite his apparent indifference towards others, he genuinely cares, but he suppresses it because the well-being of his family is paramount. He cannot risk losing them.

ACT II ; Lost in the Shadows

During the events at Last Light Inn, either before or after the rescue of his siblings.

ACT III ; Apprentice (main verse)

He desperately wants to make a name for himself and provide his siblings, as well as himself, with the life they deserve, enduring even Lorroakan's abuse in the process.

ACT III ; Master of the Tower

Post Lorroakan, maybe even post the events of the game. Aspiring to become the greatest wizard of Baldur's Gate. Scratch that. The greatest wizard of the Sword Coast.

[ziggyturner]

STATS • CONNECTIONS • PINTEREST

GENERAL.

full name: zigmund theodore turner, iii nicknames: ziggy, zig gender / pronouns: genderqueer, he/they age / birthday: 28, january 5th orientations: pansexual, demiromantic previous occupation: sports journalist / photographer birthplace: nantucket, massachusetts status: quite attached to beau clary family: zigmund turner, jr. (father, deceased), amelia turner (mother, unknown), agnes turner (sister), 1 siblings (1 older, wcs), nacho (ginger tabby cat they treat like a son) strengths: creative, ambitious, perseverant, helpful, hardworking weaknesses: pessimistic, melancholic, cynical, cold, stubborn time in nyc: 10 years time at the wexley: 2 days (new survivor post-outbreak)

PERSONALITY.

ziggy has always had to work hard for everything in life. it’s left him a bit bitter and feeling like he was cursed or something. this has always made them appreciative for what they did have, even if it wasn’t what they wanted. they recognize and have a lot of respect for other people that had to work hard to get where they were in life. he comes off as sardonic to most, occasionally it can be perceived as cold because of the lack of animation or enthusiasm in his demeanor but at the end of the day they are kind. with a couple drinks or a solid smoke session ziggy became downright delightful and quite talkative. when it comes to feelings and emotions, they tend to struggle on how to express them outwardly so it often comes out in their writing and even more so in their poetry.

BIOGRAPHY.

tw: death

     ziggy was born and raised on the island of nantucket, massachusetts. they were smack dab in the middle of three children. his father, a commercial fisherman, was swept off deck into the ocean when ziggy was young. amelia raised her three kids the best she could after that but it also meant that they often sacrificed things that were not necessities. all three children did their best to help out to make their mother's life easier, however. from her, ziggy learned the importance of hard work but it's also where he got his love for writing and poetry. 

     throughout school, the one thing on ziggy's mind was getting off the island and moving to the city. it wasn't that he didn't love his family and where he was from, but he knew that if he didn't get out when he could— he would never leave, just like so many others. he graduated with high marks and got a scholarship to nyu. while he enjoyed writing poetry and short stories, he wasn't naive enough to think he'd make enough money to survive off those ambitions. instead, he hoped to write for the new york times. that's what made him pursue a degree in journalism and photography with a minor in creative writing. when he graduated, however, the jobs he hoped to get got filled by other applicants and he ended up taking a job as a sports writer and photographer to make ends meet while he searched for something else. unfortunately, something else never came.

     perhaps the job wasn’t as bad as they’d made it out to be, they did get paid well enough to survive in new york city and they met a really great guy at work who just so happened to be a professional football player. they'd been together about a year when the city went to shit. ziggy was on their way to finally put in their notice in at work after getting a deal with a publisher in town. it was early in the morning and they hadn't noticed the rising panic on their way in. it was only once they'd reached their office that they noticed something was off. people were telling them they needed to evacuate and as ziggy tried to figure out what was going on, that was when he saw one of his coworkers attacking someone else. more started emerging and moving towards the crowd. there was no way they were all making it down the stairs and he broke away. ziggy spotted a bat in one of the offices (signed by at least several of the yankees) and ran for it. the sequence of events after that were a blur. 

     there hadn't been much time to process anything, but by the time the day was over he was pretty sure he'd killed two of his co-workers and he was barricaded in an office on the twenty-second floor of what used to be his work. there were clips of news broadcast before the internet and phone went out that helped explain some of what was going on. what became clear is that he would be stuck in that office until he could figure out a way to get somewhere familiar. the wexley was only several blocks away, however that felt like light-years when they looked outside to see the chaos unfolding in the streets. after a few weeks the food from the employee lounge fridge and vending machines was going to run out. by then he developed the best plan he could come up with. ziggy made their way to the top of the building and found a way across to the next one. they started moving building to building, it was a slow process as he had to avoid danger and plan routes as he went. with scarce resources he had to conserve as much energy as he could. 

     by the time he made it outside the wexley ( only to find the front entrance destroyed ) ziggy was running on empty. with the creatures going in on him, he crawled into a nearby delivery truck and latched the back until he figured out what to do next. all but ready to give up, ziggy woke up to a friendly face who got them quickly inside the wexley. after being alone for over four months, they are are just happy to see people and find out they have food. they will deal with whatever comes next later.

HEADCANONS.

had a serious boyfriend before the outbreak, has been trying to get to the wexley to find out if he's okay.

writes their thoughts and poetry down in their notebooks often, feels weird without at least one notebook and their camera

had a ginger cat named nacho that was more like a kid than a pet, has no clue if they are okay.

lost at least ten pounds since the outbreak due to scarce food resources while he was making his way to the wexley

gets pretty severe nightmares if he can sleep at all ever since the start of the outbreak.

for the majority of quarantine ziggy was in and out of sleep as they arrived to the wexley after weeks with little food or sleep and were definitely dehydrated.

they haven't had human interaction since the outbreak started, seeing ashton was the first non-chomper they'd come across for over four months.

more to come...

[akaiuchiha]

Chapter 12: A New Departure

Sanji was standing in front of his “father” with a serious expression on his face and pure hate in his eyes.

“You're not my father!”

Judge watched him and finally agreed to help them and leave Zeff alone. But there was one more thing Sanji needed to know. Even though his guts were telling him he was right, he still needed confirmation.

“I have one last thing to ask.”

The blond cook heard his siblings sigh and he felt Luffy's haki becoming more and more persistent.

“What is it?”

“You talked about someone who left East Blue. What were you talking about?”

Judge stared for a second and finally shrugged.

“Apparently you're smart enough to understand what I meant. But I'm certain you are too much of a coward to face the truth.”

Judge smirked and finally ordered his soldiers (a.k.a his sons and daughter) to help Bege escape. Sanji could feel Luffy staring at him, almost as if he was trying to unfold everything he had kept hidden all this time.

He thought his captain might say something against Judge but silence only greeted him.

 

After that, everything happened so quickly Sanji didn't have the time to think about anything else than making the cake and saving Luffy.

Once they were back on the Thousand Sunny and Judge yelled everything he thought was a failure in Sanji, they were able to breathe again. However, his crew did remember his question from earlier.

“What did you mean earlier about East Blue?” Nami asked after the hug she had given him.

“Yes, I have to agree I am trying to understand too.” Brook added without a joke.

Sanji looked at them for a moment and decided it was something to be discussed with everyone, or at least, the members who were present.

So they settled down near where Luffy was half passed out and half sleeping away his injuries.

“I am not sure Luffy will wake up any time soon… now that Jinbe left to help us leave safely.”

“No, probably not. But it's worth trying.” Nami shrugged before crossing her arms. “Now would you care to explain what the hell was that about or are we going to take a guess?”

“....” Sanji kept quiet while watching them. He seemed to have made up his mind when he started to talk. “Judge had sent someone to take care of the Baratie if I ever tried to go against his orders. They had the mission to sink the ship and kill thz cooks if I disobeyed. But…I heard him talk to someone and from what I understood… the Baratie is on the Grand Line.”

Silence greeted him before Name stood up and looked at him with a weird expression Sanji couldn't identify yet.

“You're saying that your dad went into the Grand Line without a real navigator and the Baratie as a ship?! That's absolutely crazy! If the Going Merry suffered that much, I don't even want to think about the restaurant!”

“Nami-san…”

“Yohoho, Sanji-san, maybe you should call him and then we'll see his answer, even though I don't have eyes yohohoho.”

Sanji did not raise his head to look at his crewmate plus Carrot. With what Brook had just proposed, his anxiety had increased by a lot. How could he face his father? He put him in danger, he gave up on his dreams and he was reckless through the whole ordeal. Maybe Zeff was going to be disappointed, maybe he was going to reject him.

Sanji was so stressed about Zeff rejecting him. He could survive the hatred and disappointment coming from Judge, but if it came from the only man he ever considered his dad? Sanji wasn't sure if he would be able to carry on.

His turmoil was cut short by almost everyone asking for food. Right, he had asked if he could cook them something, he should start preparing dinner.

Sanji stood up, followed by the others. Even Luffy had woken up and was standing.

“Sanji.”

The cook turned his head in his captain's direction and was surprised when he felt a well-known straw hat on top of his head.

“Luffy wha-”

“Don't overthink. He'll understand.”

Honestly, if you had told Sanji three years ago that he was going to dedicate his life and dreams to a rubber teenager full of freedom and convictions, he would have laughed. But right now, Sanji was sure he had made the right decision. The crew was family. Baratie was home. Both were his hopes and dreams.

He was just starting to realise it.

“Yes, captain.”

Luffy grinned and then started to ask for meat as always. Everyone smiled and laughed as they walked to the kitchen.

Once they had settled inside, Sanji started to cook. He had missed that feeling so much. The joy it brought him to feed his loved one, the proudness he felt when someone complimented his cooking. Sanji didn't even realise he was smiling until he felt the gaze of his crewmates looking at him with such fondness his past self would have thought he was in the middle of a huge hallucination.

“It's good to have you back.”

Nami said it with a soft smile and her head resting in the palm of her hand. Chopper nodded furiously with tears running down his face, followed by Carrot who had a lot to cry about, but it was going to be a discussion for later. Brook and Luffy were both laughing and soon Sanji joined them all.

“Yes, I am happy to be here with you guys.”

He put down the plates on the table and sat down next to Luffy.

They talked for a moment while they dodged the greedy hands of their captain trying to steal their food.

They started to leave the kitchen probably an hour after they had finished their meal. It was really late by now, the sun was going to rise in a few hours, maybe even an hour as their escape took them a large part of the night. The entire world was now aware of what had transpired at the wedding ceremony and it was going to be the important event of the day, if not of the week. Sanji didn't want that but he couldn't change the Newspaper by now. So he decided that, instead of overthinking once again, he had dishes to wash.

Sanji took the plates and cutlery to the dink and started to scrub and clean everything. With years of experience, it took him twenty minutes. His assigned dryer was missing but he could do without him. While he was drying a fork, Sanji eyed the den den mushi sitting on the counter. He didn't know if it could reach that far but it was worth trying. However it was something that would have to wait for the sun to be high in the sky.

 

The night ended and Sanji finally went to sleep in the bunkroom with his family.

When he opened his eyes again, some of them were still snoring. Nami was probably up, as she was their navigator so it meant he was late for breakfast, which didn't surprise him.

Sanji took fresh clothes and went to the bathroom. He washed and scrubbed away the sugar and cream he still had on him. Once he was clean and ready, he left his dirty clothes in the laundry basket and went to the kitchen.

There sat Nami with Carrot crying in her arms. Sanji fidgeted nervously as he did not want to disturb but still wanted to help Carrot and comfort her.

Pedro's death had hurt him more than he could have thought but it had happened and now it was something he had to live with.

The chef shook his head and offered a kind smile to the navigator and their temporary crewmate.

“Hello dear, can I get you something to help you?”

They both nodded and he decided to make them hot chocolate with tangerine slices in a plate as an addition.

Sanji didn't want to disturb them more so he quietly started to prepare the breakfast. As he cooked, he mind wandered to his childhood on the Baratie, dodging flying spatulas and kicks from whomever he had messed with. These memories made him smile and realise that he still had a call to make.

The girls had left the kitchen maybe ten minutes ago, leaving behind them empty mugs and a clean plate.

Now was the best time to call the old geezer. They were a week away from Wano, after many naps today most of the crew would get back to their former sleeping schedule and life would come back to normal. Once they reached Wano, peace was going to be difficult and quiet times even more.

He had to call him right now.

Sanji put down the pan he was using and grabbed the poor snail. He composed the personal number of Zeff and waited.

The first time it didn't work. No one answered and Sanji felt his anxiety doubling. The second time neither.

He started to imagine the worst scenarios. What if the Baratie had sunk? What if Judge had not respected his promise? What if Zeff was dead?

No, it couldn't be. Zeff was alive, everyone was safe and no one was going to die soon.

Sanji inhaled and tried to calm his nerves and composed the number one last time, praying to every god he knew (and certainly not Ener) for Zeff to answer the goddamn phone.

The well-known “gaccha” happened and Sanji relaxed. On the other end, the man holding the snail was trying to get a reaction from the person who had called him so early in the morning.

Sanji had to fight the tears from coming out when he heard the typical grunt from Zeff.

The old geezer was alive.

Sanji swallowed down the knot forming in his throat and finally spoke.

“Hi Zeff, it's Sanji.”

Maybe everything was going to be fine in the end.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: February

ahoy, gamers! after an uneven start to my reading year in January (high highs, low lows) I've had a pretty consistently excellent February! yes, I'm including Red, White & Royal Blue. it may not have been good, but it was definitely fun. more on that in a minute, but I cannot recommend enough if you, like me, are a rancid hater.

what have I been reading?

Sharks in the Time of Saviors (Kawai Strong Washburn, 2020) - @dykerory came upon this book in a pretty fruitless search for good adult novels that prominently feature sharks, a weird gap in the market that seems to ignore that SOME OF US don't ever stop thinking sharks are fucking sick. (don't talk to me about Jaws. even Peter Benchley regrets Jaws.) while Sharks in the Time of Saviors actually has much less shark action happening than one might hope based on the title, it's very much a case of "came for the shark on the cover, stayed for the phenomenal writing." the novel follows the lives of the three Flores siblings: athletic oldest son Dean, academic little sister Kaui, and middle child Noa, who possesses odd abilities that seem to be a gift straight from Hawaiian gods and just might be the savior his impoverished family needs. spoiler alert: growing up as a demigod in the 21st century is hard, and success is hardly guaranteed. Washburn writes beautifully about the the suffocating realities of struggling to survive poverty, and the ways it can both tie families together and creature fractures that are difficult to heal. apparently this was Barack Obama's top novel of 2020 and I am forced once again to acknowledge that the war criminal has taste.

Blue-Skinned Gods (SJ Sindu, 2021) - okay so this is ALSO a book about a boy being raised to believe he's channeling the divine; I accidentally struck a bit of a two-book theme. Blue-Skinned Gods follows the early life of Kalki, a boy born with blue skin and raised in a isolated Indian ashram by parents who assure him (and their many paying devotees) that he's the final incarnation of Vishnu. from a very young age Kalki is placed on a pedestal and expected to behave as a perfect spiritual leader, and you guys won't believe what happens next -- it turns out that really fucks with a kid. what follows is a coming of age story unlike any other, following Kalki's growth from a self-assured child god to a young man with a lot of questions about exactly how he fits into the world. Sindu's writing is smooth as hell, impossible to put down, and takes Kalki down some thrillingly unexpected twists that complicate every notion of identity and self. 10/10, made me want to go read all of Sindu's other work immediately.

My Solo Exchange Diary Vol. 1 (Nagata Kabi, trans. Jocelyne Allen 2016) - I was not remotely joking last month when I said that My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness was so good that I would be tracking down all of Ngata's other work in short order. her solo exchange diary continues to document a journey of self-growth with none of the usual unbearable fluff that phrase entails, instead highlighting all the discomfort that comes with realizing you can no longer keep living the way you were and finding yourself pissing, shitting, shaking, etc, in the face of learning how to do something different. I really admire the way Nagata's vulnerability is upfront and prevents her from ever sounding like some kind of self-help guru who claims to know everything; her self-discoveries are presented as unexpected gems rather than universal truths, the discoveries of someone as pleasantly surprised by her own progress as all of her readers. there's something immensely comforting in these graphic novels, which I think is the reminder that there's literally no wrong time to start wanting and doing better for yourself.

Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism (Alison Phipps, 2020) - I added this book to my TBR because I noticed that Phipps seemed to be drawing the ire of a lot of TERFs on twitter, which is (in my experience) usually a pretty good indicator that someone is doing something interesting worth checking out. having finally circled around to her book, I can see why Phipps (who seems to have since deleted her twitter account) was making TERFs so angry: Me, Not You doesn't even get to page 10 without plainly stating its thesis statement that trans exclusionary feminism is inseparable from other reactionary conservative ideologies such as racism, colonialism, and misogyny itself. so that's a super promising thesis, but how about the actual content of the text? eeeeh. Phipps drops a lot of the right names -- especially Sara Ahmed, and I can certainly never object to Ahmed -- and she's certainly sincere, but I can't help feeling that many of her arguments come across as a bit shallow and under-supported for the sake of time. if I were assigning this book it would be the first week reading for, like, a semester-long exploration of white feminism, with more substantial reading to follow. not a bad primer on the whole, but lacking if you've, say, already read most of the writers Phipps is influenced by.

Nightbitch (Rachel Yoder, 2021) - this is a book that I have been MEANING to read since it came out in mid-2021, and I have FINALLY gotten around to it. having done it: I would say worth the hype. Nightbitch is an intensely internal meditation about the mundane horrors of motherhood, of isolation and endless repetition, of time and energy lost and creative pursuits stifled seemingly forever. its terror is that of the loss of self and endless stagnation in the face of duty, and how sometimes you get tired of being nice and just want to go apeshit turn into a dog and run howling through the night to kill small animals and take a shit on your republican neighbor's lawn. I don't even have a kid and it sounds good, so you can imagine how delighted I was when (vague spoilers) the book ends with Nightbitch absolutely winning. go, girlboss!

Mongrels (Stephen Graham Jones, 2016) - in another accidental two-book thematic streak, I immediately followed Nightbitch with Stephen Graham Jones' books about the saddest, grossest werewolves ever. Mongrels pulls no punches about the bloody realities of shifting perpetually between forms -- werewolves have to avoid wearing anything that won't tear away when they transform, because it will simply meld with their skin when they change back and kill them slowly; they have to dispose of their trash constantly, or risk eating something that will kill them slowly when they next turn into a hungry wolf; when human women give birth to werewolves they have to be killed quickly or, you guessed it, turn into half-dog monsters and die slowly. but despite the horrors, Jones' werewolves take grim pride in what they are and the solace they find in each other on their endless nomadic quest to avoid discovery and live the best lives they can. it's only February, but I'm absolutely confident saying that this blood-splattered book is going to be one of my favorites of the year.

Book Banning in 21st-Century America (Emily J.M. Knox, 2015) - I was lucky enough to recently see Dr. Knox lecture at the university where I work, and I'd hopped on my local library's website to place this book (her dissertation) on hold before she'd even finished speaking. while the text is a lot dryer than her very charming in-person presence, I think it's extremely important reading for anyone who has a vested interest in, you know, book banning and the prevention thereof. Knox cannily summarizes the attitudes that lead to challenges to the accessibility of various reading materials, offering examples from real challenges and interviews with challengers, creating a comprehensive study of the symbolic power exerted by fighting to remove a book from a library or high school curriculum. I think these kinds of studies are so vital, because understanding the mindset of people to whom you're pretty much completely ideologically opposed can be illuminating in many ways. I was particularly shaken by one grandmother's objections to the book I use when teaching human development to 4th-6th graders, which I consider incredibly tasteful and the grandmother in question considered pornography that was hellbent on destroying the fabric of American society. the more you know!

Red, White & Royal Blue (Casey McQuiston, 2019) - look, I pretty much already said it all here. this is a romance novel for adults who want to read about gay sex without having to see the word "penis" and believe that voting democrat is the best solution the all of America's ills. the plot is nonsense and reading it made me feel insane. I enjoyed almost every second of it because I experienced the correct way, which was reporting its many sins live to my wife, my creative partner @dykerory, and any other hapless passerby I could force to hold still and listen for five seconds. yes I will be watching the movie. no further questions.

sorry this update isn't in bulleted list form like normal, tumblr told me I had too many fucking characters and wouldn't let me post it until I separated them 💀

[sparklebear11]

Rate my ocs!:

☼☽⋆｡°✧ CHARACTER INTROS✧⋆°｡☾☼

✧ BASIC ✧

Name: Ciro Cano

Age: 15

Pronouns: He/him

Gender: Male

Sexuality: questioning

Type of creature: Fireborn (human with fire powers)

Height: 5'7

Camp Position: Camper

✧ PERSONALITY ✧

(Short overview of personality goes here)

Positive: Strong willed, quickly can pick up skills.

Neutral: Extremely protective over his little sister, nondependent.

Negative: Has uncontrollably angry issues, has pretty bad pstd to.

✧ RELATIONSHIPS ✧

Friends: N/A (All dead)

Siblings:(if dead put N/A) Annie (his little sister) rest are all dead.

Enemies:(optional) The world (he's pissed at everyone and everything right now)

Significant other:(optional) N/A (dead)

Someone they look up to: N/A (dead) (optional)

✧ EXTRA ✧

Voiceclaim: (optional) N/A (can't find any)

Physical description: Ciro is a pretty physically strong 15 year old. He has a massive burn mark by his eye. He has messy fiery red hair. He's usually found in old shirts and a old army jacket with black pants.

Likes: Annie (his sister) training, swimming in the ocean, carving stuff.

Dislikes: His nightmares, talking about his home, his sister getting picked on.

Weakness:(optional) Stuff which reminds him of home will send him in a emotional mess, making his powers uncontrollable which makes a black fire called 'soul fire' this fire burns black and is uncontrollably and extremely uncomfortable it causes massive black scars on the person with the fire powers.

Backstory: Ciro was born in a far away country. He lived in a small fire kingdom with his family. He was extremely close with everyone and he always went swimming in the ocean by the nearby volcano. It hadn't erupted in thousands of years.

Until one day during a hot June night the volcano exploded, hot lava burning it anything it's in path. It quickly wiped out the village within minutes.

Ciro had heard the volcano make sounds. He worried that it was going to explode. He tried telling his family but no one believed him apart from Annie.

She was the only one saved that day. Him and Annie were the only two who survived out of a village of 500.

Both of the kids wandered around. They grabbed a boat which was some how not burned and sailed for days to another village. They both got treated for their burns. Annie was more covered than Ciro.

After getting their burns and shit treated they got send to the summer camp to try help them de-stress from the whole situation.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

☼☽⋆｡°✧ CHARACTER INTROS✧⋆°｡☾☼

✧ BASIC ✧

Name: Annie Cano

Age: 13

Pronouns: She/her

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Doesn't know

Type of creature: Soul fireborn (Human with soul fire. Soul fire is black and uncontrollably and extremely uncomfortable. It tends to burn alot more and a lot quicker)

Height: 5'1

Camp Position: Camper

✧ PERSONALITY ✧

(Short overview of personality goes here)

Positive: good with music, caring, loyal.

Neutral: Quiet, alert,

Negative: Pretty bad pstd, anxious, extremely self conscious (due to her burns)

✧ RELATIONSHIPS ✧

Friends: N/A (dead)

Siblings:(if dead put N/A) Ciro (big brother) N/A (rest are dead)

Enemies:(optional) N/A

Significant other:(optional) N/A

Someone they look up to: Ciro (optional)

✧ EXTRA ✧

Voiceclaim: (optional) N/A (can't find one)

Physical description: Annie is a small 13 year old. She's pretty skinny and full of painful burns, everywhere. She is usually found in long clothes to hide herself so people don't have to look at her burns. She usually wears makeup on her face although it stings her burns badly. Usually is seen in thick gloves to try control her powers.

Likes: Music, Ciro, swimming in the ocean, flowers.

Dislikes: Her nightmares, being away from Ciro, Her burns/ scars, people making fun of her, the dark.

Weakness:(optional) Her powers are getting more uncontrolable by the day. She struggles to control her emotions which lead to the soul fire overtaking her more then it normally would. Annie worries that she's gonna start another fire.....

Backstory: Annie was born in a far away country. She lived in a small fire kingdom with his family. She was extremely close with everyone and she always went swimming in the ocean by the nearby volcano. She also went fishing with her dad and her big brother often. It hasn't erupted in thousands of years.

Until one day during a hot June night the volcano exploded, hot lava burning anything in its path. It quickly wiped out the village within minutes.

Annie had woke up to her brother screaming. She quickly slipped on a pair of shoes before running out. Ciro went to try go save the rest of the family while Annie ran off to their boat. She had took a wrong path in her worry, tripping into the lava which caused her extreme burns. It was lucky she was even alive. She immediately dived in the ocean, trying to stop the burn although it didn't help much. It kept her alive though.

She was the only one saved that day. Ciro and Annie were the only two who survived out of a village of 500.

Both of the kids wandered around. They grabbed a boat which was somehow not burned and sailed for days to another village. They both got treated for their burns. Annie was more covered than Ciro.

After getting their burns and shit treated they got sent to the summer camp to try to help them de-stress from the whole situation.

Faceclaim:

[backmaskcd]

(Joseph Quinn) [THE ANALYZER]. Please welcome [REX VALENTINE (HE/HIM)] to Huntsville, WV. They are an [29]-year-old [VISITOR] who lives in [TOWN]. You may see them around working as a [SERVER AT BUCKY'S DINER]. Poor unfortunate soul. We’ll see if they survive.

Full Name: Rex Edward Valentine Birthday: January 26 Age: 29 Hunter or Gatherer: Gatherer Sexuality: straight Height: 5'10 Relationship Status: taken (dating violet beauregard)

Growing up, Rex was nothing short of completely ordinary. The one thing that was different however was the way he grabbed onto dinosaurs. Most little kids have a phase, but Rex was full blown head over heels. A number of conversations needed to be had about how digging in the back yard was not allowed and he would not find any dinosaur bones back there.

He got the label of class clown early in life; he tried his best to focus and stay on track, but it was much more fun to goof around and slack off with his friends. He was never tested for it, but there's a pretty high chance a lot of that has to do with undiagnosed ADHD. Rex was happier outside of the classroom, taking trips to the museum or getting together with the local boy scout troupe, convinced that these were the real life skills he'd need.

Going to college wasn't something anyone actually expected Rex to do, so his parents were pleasantly surprised when he revealed that was his goal after college. Of course, it was to become an archeologist, but they were just happy he was taking something seriously even if they didn't think it was a particularly lucrative job. Studying and focusing was still a struggle for Rex, but at least he cared more and found tricks to keep himself engaged and on time when it came to deadlines.

College was how he met Violet, even if they didn't meet in school. It was a complete coincidence - but the dance school was close to the museum Rex frequented and he couldn't help but fall for her the minute he laid eyes on her. He liked to think his charm and dashing good looks were what won her over, but he knew he was just a goofy guy that had to be a breath of fresh air for her.

He got lucky - the pair were very drawn to each other, and Rex could see himself marrying Violet as the years went on, but neither of them really felt mature enough to cross that hurtle - not to mention there was Violet's family to consider. However, as time went on, whether they liked him or approved of them dating became less and less of a factor. Violet was happy when he was around - and that's all he cared about. He encouraged her to stop doing things just for their sake and do what actually made her happy - which is part of how he found himself in Huntsville.

Violet wanted to find her younger sibling, and Rex was nothing but encouraging - even when that meant they needed to uproot their current life to go find them. He didn't mind - he was excited even - but then, you know how Huntsville works. It's been a weird and rough transition, but he's just as goofy and cheery as ever, rarely taking anything too seriously (sans the night monsters) and is always happy to lend a helping hand when someone needs it.

[llycaons]

ep38 (1/3): that which resembles a romance but is in fact a horror short film

lsz is eager to help ofc, but wwx doesn't know who he is yet

wwx asking for jl and the jiang bell matters - his connection to his old home and family. and apparently the jiang bells are powerful? they were more described in the book. I actually forgot they were even in the show since they're barely talked about

THERE SHE IS!!!!!!!! I love a-qing, such a strong personality, her own goals and motivations, curious and intelligent and out for herself and brave. it is shitty to pretend to be disabled, but I'm going to blame the author for that instead of a 16 yr old orphan girl living on the streets. it's not like it doesn't backfire on her anyway

also she's so funny. 'why do men dress nice when they're poor, this is an attack on me specifically'

FIRST MEETING!!! that blindfold is alarming but the blood looks a little pale (fake)

ohh I could swoon. saints and heroes don't really exist in this world, it's too complicated and brutal for them to survive. but xxc was as close as anyone else ever got and I think a-qing knew she'd never meet someone as special as him again

not to say he doesn't have flaws - his naivete is disastrous for all of them and he overlooks her concerns out of a patronizing dismisiveness when he should be respecting her instincts, which helped her survive all her life on the streets. also, it's admirable of him to be nonjudgemental but xy just has odious vibes and it's a tragedy he was so charmed by him that he didn't pick up on that. sort of a xxc jgy situation except xy was fully in love with him or whatever approximates love for him and I still think jgy was mostly using lxc to survive. so another dark foil to wx just as songxiao are a lighter (but still tragic) parallel

anyway he thinks a-qing is funny and is clearly endeared by her, and she clearly likes him a lot despite lying to him. their dynamic has so much chemistry and potential for being great family, it's a shame they're not more popular to write about. this is probably one of the only reasons he's had to smile since he and SL parted ways

smart girl! this guys sounds like bad news, so get outta there

ah! curse the hyperdeveloped senses of a cultivator!

unlike the tragedy of wwx, this could literally have all been avoided if not for a single person - there are many ways to rewrite this and just have them never cross paths. of course, that misses out on the richness of this story and the themes at play, not to mention their significance for the wider narrative, so I don't particularly like yi city fix-its before the fact. but they're definitely easy

christ he's bleeding like craxy. what did they do to him. and why didn't they do it better

of course as soon as he sees xxc he's like FUCK

yeah and if xy lets xxc touch his hand he'll know he's missing his pinky

...not that I like to think about them having a relationship but IF they had sex I wonder how he managed that

god this is so kind 😭 why couldn't it have been wwx that xxc found and they just had a nice little family time (they're cousins or something) for a decade or so before wwx was comfortable enough to leave. MAN

a-qing sleeping in that coffin then hopping out is so cute I love her

it's only been a day and already he looks perfectly groomed clean robes clear skin fully hydrated etc. the man knows how to look good I gotta say

and he starts right off by being a piece of shit to a-qing. I think the siblings dynamic can be really funny but lbr in canon he terrorized her and she hated him for it

I thought this was kind of dumb. like even if she was blind anyone would feel a SWORD. and if he learns she's not really blind, what, xxc is disappointed? I suppose it means he's less careful around her. bc she was able to witness a lot of his crimes bc he wasn't as watchful, assuming she couldn't see (and therefore could never understand what was happening? ableist of him)

a-qing: please don't leave me alone with this scary stranger we picked up by the side of the road, he's really aggressive and he's lying about who he is and I think he's dangerous

xxc: oh you silly girl. he'll be leaving soon *immediately starts flirting with him*

actually xy comes at this with a very specific angle. it's almost like he's emulating wwx - he presents himself as someone hardworking, uncomplaining, and good-hearted despite the hardships he's clearly gone through. of course xxc was taken in

haha no big deal! I'll just casually drop this little fact! it's definitely not something I want you to know about me so you can sympathize with me while admiring how blase I am about it! MAN

on the one hand I can see why xxc is being so open-minded and I appreciate his kindness. on the other hand he IS misled by his own feelings and she is also literally right. she gives him good reasons not to trust him and he's like *pats her on the head* we'll be fine

the head-pats are sweet when coming from adults to their kids (or jyl to wwx) but it just feels patronizing here

literally this is blatant flirting. a-qing off to the side going 😭 he has a crush what I am supposed to do now!!

and THIS??? I was so shocked the first time I saw this I was like THIS is allowed but wwx and lwj can't hug??? huh??? idk the exact specifications of the censorship but in some ways xy/xxc hits you harder with the gay subtext than any other couple including wx which is so wild to me. and also deeply tragic obviously

I think it helps that the writers have a very solid idea of what this relationship is and exactly how each character felt at every moment of it. meanwhile for wx interactions can be very inconsistent and confusing. anyway GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM YOU FREAK

so yeah overall super eerie and frightening to see xxc fall so readily in love with someone you KNOW is cruel and sadistic and lying to him and deceiving him. like this could have been a cute second-love kind of deal with a new family in a new city. fresh start. but then again, no it couldn't have