#it’s really been hard. i’m sickly and disabled and i don’t have a lot of money coming in as of writing & it oftentimes feels hopeless

[pokemonruby]

my therapist telling me that i’m smart, i have immense potential, and that she genuinely believes that i can add something to this world is just… man. stuff you need to hear for real 😭

[ganymedesclock]

These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user. 

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist. 

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

-

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

[olivetreehugger]

SnK Scouts/Veterans as Health Care Workers

Note: features Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Levi, Erwin and Hange. A part two to my “SnK Warriors as HCWs” post found here. warning: mentions of blood, trauma, gore (it’s healthcare). Also, I know Hange is nb, I headcanon them as female, so I will be using she/her pronouns. 

Eren: this boy is definitely too involved in everything and has too many people depending on him at once to not be a nurse. The kid barely passed the NCLEX but that didn’t stop him from applying to every trauma center within a 25 mile radius of him. He got hired as a night shift trauma ICU nurse  and he frequently picks up shifts in the ER. He wears the cheapest scrubs he can find, often stained with ink in the pockets area. He isn’t a shitty nurse per se but there are tasks that still need to be done at the end of his shift and he gives a crappy report that’s missing too many details. Nurses hate picking up his patients, it’s always a mess. His charting is really spotty and he gets called into the manager’s office all the time to fix it. 

Still, he tries really hard to improve his time management and skills. He wants to be like his friends Mikasa and Reiner, who are the best nurses he knows. He wants to be involved in the traumatic cases and emergencies because he wants to learn as much as he possibly can. He’s really good at wound care, for some reason (hint hint). He’s kinda cocky sometimes too, which can be troublesome when Dr. Galliard is working. People know to steer clear of those two when they’re both  in the ER. Also, Eren always has a black cloud around him; whenever he works it’s gonna be a hella busy day in the hospital. Lots of emergency surgeries, intubations, codes and deaths. He’ll always jump in to help you if your patient is crashing, though, no matter how busy he is. 

Mikasa: she’s a prodigy. She was a straight ‘A’ student in nursing school, got a perfect 75 on the NCLEX and was immediately hired to the trauma ICU after doing a short internship there. She worked night shift for a year but her sleep schedule was so so fucked she started having night terrors, so she switched to day shift. Eren still calls her a traitor for it :/. She keeps trying to get him to switch over but he just hisses at her and threatens to chug a case of Monster energy drinks. She hasn’t given upon him yet, though.

This girl’s work ethic is beyond measure. She comes in exactly at 6:30 am, looks up her patients, takes report, gives a great update to the doctors when they round, and provides impeccable care to her patients. She knows exactly which treatments the doctors will order before they even speak. She’s incredible at inserting IVs--everyone in the hospital knows Mikasa Ackerman can put an 18g in a 90  yr old lady’s arm AND get blood return (just trust me, it’s flipping impossible). She has great skill when it comes to emergency situations and is a big believer in team work. If she notices your patient’s crashing and you don’t know what to do, she’ll calmly coach you and save your patient, too. All before lunch time. 

It doesn’t take Mikasa long to be promoted to charge nurse. When she’s in charge all the reports, paperwork and audits are completed before shift change. She divides the patient assignments really well and is very fair to the new grads. All around she’s an incredible nurse and leader on her unit, but don’t be fooled. If it’s been a rough day, Mikasa will get in her car and sob so loud her throat goes raw. A lot of people depend on her and working in a trauma ICU is really, really demanding. A lot of patients are demanding, rude and busy. She has a lot of trouble with stress management and is thinking of cutting her hours down so she can catch a break. Someone please hug her <3

Armin: for some reason my brain is just SCREAMING respiratory therapist. Like, I imagine this beautiful blond boy in gray scrubs (the color for RT’s in my hospital) going around helping intubate patients, giving nebulizer treatments and doing blood gases. I can just see him huffing and puffing when the attending doctor is overzealous about weaning vent support. -“Why are we changing the patient to pressure support? do you see how tachypneic he is on volume control?”

-“are you gonna put in the order? if not, your patient’s gonna be on PRVC all day, I’m not changing it without an order”

-“Doc, the patient looks like crap and their blood gas looks like death...oh, you still wanna extubate? ok, well I’m gonna leave the ventilator in here just in case. better yet, let me call a pastor in here, too.”

This kid is sassy af and he knows it. He’s smart af too, knows everything there is to know about the lungs and respiratory care. Knows every ventilator mode better than most doctors. Will certainly tell a resident off for ordering the wrong type of inhaler for a patient. He’s so damn intelligent that he even made the ice queen Annie melt like a popsicle. 

 He has no chill when it comes to his patients and even less chill (like -4078875874670) when a doctor gets in his way. For this reason, Armin has recently been toying with the idea of going to PA school so he can have a little more autonomy. He works al over the hospital, usually frequenting the trauma, CV, and medical ICU. The nurses there love him. 

Jean: Jeannie boy. Baby. Sweetie. He’s also a nurse. He is strictly dayshift and trauma. When he first started, he thought he’d do a year in the ICU and then go to CRNA school. He didn’t want to be around sickly patients with hopes and dreams and fears--it was too icky for him. But, over time, he learned that he LOVED trauma. Jean loves the controlled chaos that comes with the ugly, bloody messes that roll in through the ICU’s doors. He always gears up for trauma season (summer time) by bringing Dunkin Donuts iced coffee for everyone on the unit (day and night shift because he’s a supportive king). He gets really good at dealing with arrogant trauma residents and ortho docs who think they’re hot shit. When Jean sees a resident yelling at a nurse, he jumps in and threatens to have their license revoked. He will dig under their skin and page them incessantly throughout the day, too, just to get back at them. Jean is not a fan of lateral violence in the workplace, no sir. 

He always, always makes sure every room is stocked and new bags are hanging for the next shift. He has a thing where if things aren’t properly organized on the unit his brain just spazzes. He’s on the unit council and education committee because he also loves to teach the new grads. He also doubles as charge nurse, when management can’t be there (there can be one or more charge nurses amongst the staff, they usually work different days, though) He and Mikasa work so well together, teaming up to get tasks done, coding patients, running them down to get scanned, etc. People joke they’re the mom and dad of the unit. It makes them both blush <3 (Eren doesn’t like it, lol)

Jean loves to see patients healing from horrendous injuries, he’s constantly cracking jokes with the awake patients to try to make them feel better, and he’s really good at calming anxious family members down. Our boy just makes such good connections with people. He’s the guy you call when your confused patient is one second away from ripping his breathing tube out. He can convince the most restless, agitated patient to chill out. He’s got the voice for it. Also people love his mullet. It looks great. 

Connie: I really didn’t know at first but I feel like Connie would make a great physical therapist. He’s got great energy, he’s funny and I could see him dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire in front of his patients to hype them up for therapy. He’d be very sweet with them 

Sasha: I’m sick and tired of the food jokes, quite honestly. She’s more than that. In my mind, she’s an occupational therapist, helping disabled patients learn to feed, dress and clean themselves again. She works directly with Connie as they round on all their patients in the hospital, they make a great team!  She’s extremely patient and would make a very good nurse, but is unsure of where life is taking her. That is until she meets Niccolo the dietician in the cafeteria, and she falls hard. He encourages her to follow her heart and she does!  

Levi: Hm. This one stumped me. Levi is a bit...cold. It’s not like he has incredible social skills. He’s meticulous and focused and kinda mean? He reminds me of an anesthesiologist, tbh. Like he’ll sedate the shit outta you for surgery, makes sure you don’t die on the table, and then drops you off to the unit as fast as he can. He never takes off his mask while in the hospital and he scrubs maybe four times before surgery. He is very good at medication calculations and knows everything about nerve blocks, intubation, pain medication and sedation. He can look at a person and just KNOW what kind of sedative to give and how much. Your blood pressure will never bottom out while he’s there, he’ll warn the surgeon and immediately get that norepinephrine started.

 If Zeke is the one operating, Levi is on his ass to finish up the surgery ASAP and to not linger, because Zeke takes his time and ignores the tele monitor alarming in the background. After surgery, this 5′2 demon will scream at the 6′ resident about the importance of blood pressure management and sedation in neurosurgical patients. Levi plays no games and he also just really hates Zeke lol

He seems like a jerk but genuinely cares about getting his peeps through surgery. His favorite surgeon to work with is Hange Zoe, because she’s brilliant and fast, but also cognizant of her patient’s hemodynamics. Levi likes taking trauma cases as long as it’s with her. When he drops a patient off to the trauma ICU or goes there to intubate, he makes sure Jean or Mikasa are there because he knows everything is gonna go smoothly. He trusts them a lot. He likes Armin, too and even let him intubate a few times. On his breaks, he’s drinking tea and reading a Williams & Sonoma catalog or scrolling through cleaning Tik Tok lol.

Erwin: This man. This beautiful and hunky beefcake. Omg. I HC him as someone who went to nursing school, became a charge nurse on the trauma unit back in the early 2000′s and fell in love with it. Erwin would eventually fall in love with leadership and educating, too. He went back to school and earned his Doctorate of Nursing Practice (a practice doctorate). He managed the trauma unit for ten years before his brilliant leadership skills and wicked smart brain got him elected as the Director of Trauma Surgery recently. He is the first person with a nursing degree and DNP to ever accomplish this, so it’s very controversial. A lot of toxic doctors threaten to leave the hospital for this (because they’re assholes), but Erwin threatens to fire them in response and it usually shuts them up. 

He often holds lectures in the hospital auditorium. With a mind and voice like his, people are so drawn in by him. He advocates for nursing staff, for reimbursement when continuing their education, better staffing, parking, etc. He makes nice with doctors and gets them to sign petitions for the nurses to get these things. He’s a bit manipulative He’s also a fantastic manager and director, he’s really good at negotiating things. The nurses and residents all love him because he rounds on every ICU frequently, brings food, and asks them how he can help. He can be a bit daunting because of his height and deep voice but once he starts talking to you, you just get sucked in. All around an absolute king. 

Hange: This character reminds me of a trauma surgeon and intensivist (ICU doctor) we have, Dr. Omi. A great surgeon, really really smart, but takes absolutely NO bullshit. She will yell at you if you freeze during intubating. She wants you to recite every step before you take it, otherwise she’ll take the tube from you and do it herself. In surgery, she’s the same way. She wants you to learn, but by her standards. If she asks a question, you better know the answer or fess up right away, she doesn’t like the “uhms” of uncertainty as you try to search for a shitty response. Either you know it or you don’t. And if you don’t, she’ll teach you. Yeah she can be rough around the edges, but she’s got a big heart. She loves her trauma team. She buys them breakfast and gives them funny personalized gifts. One time, she bought an apply tree for Mikasa and brought it to her car at the end of a shift. Mikasa forgot to plant it and it died in her backseat. Hange will sometimes ask, “Mikasa, how’s your apple tree growing?” and Mikasa will lie through her teeth. “It’s growing!” Fess up, Mikasa. Those google search apple trees are starting to look familiar.

All around Hange loves to work and teach. She is a wonderful trauma surgeon and has saved tons of lives.  

[empiresmostwanted]

Hi!! From that quote prompts list, a few that stood out for me were “it’s a brutal world” and “what are you humming?” for Rex? Im imaging either a mechanic/civilian reader or a shiny new clone trooper is accompanying the 501st on an off-world mission and they are sitting by the campfire late at night, a little shaken by the battle earlier in the day. Rex notices and goes to comfort them, and perhaps there is a singing motif??

Also! I loved Sabacc Face and im making my way though your other works this weekend 💕

Thank you so much @maulpunk for the prompts 😘

I'm sorry it took me so long to write, work has done a number on me this last week or so. Grrr. But I was happy to get back to writing this, although I must apologise for straying a little from the parameters of the request (it turned out to be a little too angsty for a singing motif, oops). I hope you like it all the same!

(P.S. Thank you so so much, I'm thrilled you liked Sabacc Face. It was a lot of fun to write, I hope it was just as fun to read!)

posted on AO3 | the prompt list | my writing

Words: 1.5k | Warnings: Post-Umbara Arc, Grief/Mourning, Angst (and lots of it, sorry-not-sorry), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, a certain Besalisk's name is briefly mentioned (okay, I am sorry for this one)

GHOSTS IN THE UMBRA

20BBY

☾

CT-0292 couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, rounds of blue plasma bolts flashed through the darkness behind his lids. Hands, his own hands, held a DC-15 carbine aloft, and one single finger under his control pressed on the trigger, mowing down the Umbarans in their disguises.

But they hadn't been Umbarans. They'd been his brothers.

A strangled sound escaped him, somewhere between a gasp and a sob that he caught in his throat. His chest ached with the effort to hold it, the urge to release it. And it ached as if his brothers had occupied a place there, the loss of them leaving the muscles of his heart to constrict around empty space.

He blinked away sharp tears, then pushed off the weighted blanket – its presence more suffocating than soothing – and climbed out of his rack. He gathered up the armour stacked in a neat pile from the foot of the bunk's frame and applied it, piece by piece, from foot to neck.

If he couldn't sleep, he might as well be useful. He'd never been very good at keeping still.

Around him, his brothers lay in their cots; some slept, restless, while others remained painfully conscious. From his own squad, only himself, Wil (Private), and Ridge (Private) remained. The others, along with their sergeant, had fallen to General Krell's lightsaber.

All was quiet. And Ridge was nowhere to be seen.

0292 shook his head, lightheaded, the back of his neck prickling. After checking his blaster was fastened to his belt, he tucked his helmet under one arm and crept through the rows of bunks like a ghost, leaving the sterile barracks behind.

For a moment, he stopped outside the blast doors as they sshhed to a close behind him, and took a deep breath. Had he caught the scent of rain and salt water in the air, it might have grounded him; but this planet was as unfamiliar to his nose as it was to his eyes and ears. With the tang of metal in his nostrils and on the tip of his tongue, he set off across the floodlit compound.

Beyond the sensor wall, he spotted the warm glow of a natural fire flickering in the perpetual dusk, its light peeking through the mist and the dense formation of local flora. He frowned. Patrol taking a break, perhaps?

CT-0292 made his way to the airbase's entrance. As he approached the gate, he passed skeletons of Umbaran machinery looming out of the fog, and squads of troopers pacing as silent as wraiths.

The planet was reclaimed, but no one had come out of the campaign unscathed.

At the gate, two troopers bearing the colours of the 212th stood guard, blasters held across their bodies, and faced the darkness beyond. With the sight of their armour came a fresh wave of guilt, at once hot and cold, that settled in the pit of his stomach. He cleared his throat upon approach; one started as if he'd been shot, and the other patted him on the shoulder.

"Easy, trooper," said 0292, holding out a placating hand. "Just passing through, lending a hand to patrol. That them over there?"

They followed the direction of his pointer finger, to the small fire burning gold in the gloom. The one coiled as tightly as he himself nodded, and turned back to him. "They're taking it in turns to sweep the perimeter."

"Thanks." He inclined his head, and stepped over the threshold of the airbase.

As his footsteps tapped a muffled rhythm into the damp earth, the chill air cooled the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and pressed cold fingers to the nape of his neck. With a shiver, he donned his helmet and activated its spot-lamp, before succumbing to Umbara's gloaming.

*

CT-0292 walked through the forest of Zabrak Spines, their bioluminescent ridges reaching towards the sky and cutting through the umbra like angry wounds. The glow of giant red thorns shrouded the woodland in an unsettling pallor.

Every small noise was amplified in the stillness around him: the snapping of twigs beneath the feet of tiny creatures, the whooshing of spectral wings overhead, and what seemed like footsteps somewhere behind him, approaching – but when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing there. Each sound sent a spike of cortisol through his body, and he tried not to hyperventilate to the beat of his pulse.

The immediate threat from the Umbarans had been neutralised. But he and his brothers had found out the hard way that this shadowy world kept its secrets close.

You're out of the woods when you're out of the woods, his instructor back on Kamino used to say. It had seemed redundant to him then.

"What's that you're humming, trooper?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked back and came face-to-face – or helmet-to-helmet – with Captain Rex materialising out of the fog, easy to identify by the jaig eyes and the modified armour.

The captain removed his bucket, brow furrowed in concern, and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Relax. I didn't mean to startle you," he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "It sounded familiar, the song you were humming."

"I didn't realise I was humming it aloud," the trooper admitted, face heating as Captain Rex fell into step beside him. "I was thinking of my instructor, back at the facility: she smuggled her own radio into Tipoca, and she'd play it for us during downtime. That one was her favourite, I think. I don't know the words, though. Just the tune."

"Ah."

They walked for a way in companionable silence, each lost to their own thoughts. Confronted once more with the familiar face of his brothers, CT-0292 replayed the moment of terrible realisation, and the skirmish with Krell. The Jedi – if one could even call him that – might have been dealt with on a permanent basis, but his reach would extend far beyond his death.

"Couldn't sleep, either?" asked the captain, dragging him out of his own memories.

He shook his head.

Rex sighed. "It's a brutal world out there."

CT-0292 couldn't be sure if he was referring to Umbara, or the entire galaxy. 

"I admit," he began, "I wasn't expecting to kill other people. I've been training to take down and disable battle droids for nearly ten years, and I thought I was ready, but this …"

It didn't even begin to cover the atrocity of slaughtering his own, knowingly or not.

They heard the voices of their brothers before they saw them, hushed and sombre. Upon stepping out of the forest, they found themselves in a small clearing, lit from above by towering plants, incandescent with pink and purple and blue light, and lit from within by a humble campfire. At least ten troopers were gathered around it, talking in lowered voices amongst themselves.

Rex came to a halt on the edge of the clearing, and stopped 0292 with a hand on his arm.

"If it's of any comfort," he said, "every one of us here is feeling the same right now. No campaign is easy, no life lost is worth less. But this mission has taken its toll more than any other. You say you're not ready, but I recognise the blue bird painted on your bucket. I saw you take charge of your squad when Sergeant Jax was killed, and you kept the rest of them alive. There might well be a promotion coming your way."

A promotion. He'd always harboured the hope of making his way up the ranks, proving his worth and ability along the way. Seeing the captain in action, the way he was respected and admired, had only solidified that desire. But he hadn't entered the GAR as a sergeant, or a captain. It had never really occurred to him before now that someone would have to die for him to take their place.

But he nodded, and said, "Thank you, Captain."

"What's your name, trooper?"

"CT-zero-two-ni—"

"Your name, trooper," Rex clarified. The smile on his lips belied the sadness in his eyes.

CT-0292 removed his helmet. "It's Vaughn, sir. My batchmates called me Vaughn."

"Then welcome to the five-oh-first, Private Vaughn. Over there are your brothers. It won't always be easy, but whatever happens, we look out for each other. And I know you barely got to see General Skywalker in action, but I can promise you that he – and Commander Tano – are nothing like Krell. You'll see."

"Thank you, sir."

Captain Rex clapped him on the arm, then strode off across the clearing, towards the campfire. Vaughn followed, kicking up the smell of damp earth and decaying foliage, sickly sweet in his nostrils. He was pleased to see his squadmate, Ridge, among the ranks of troopers around the flames, and another who'd introduced himself as Sterling just one rotation prior.

"Room for two more, boys?"

��

Thank you so much for staying to the end! Even though I enjoy reading some good ol' angst, it's definitely tricky to write, so it was nice to stretch those muscles for this prompt. Hope you liked it 💜

[spectrumed]

4. body

Do I have body issues? Well... yeah. Who doesn’t? I absolutely do not like being fat, that’s something I’d change about me. And I probably should bulk up a little, go to the gym. My diet isn’t terrible, I don’t eat any fast food, but I could still always eat healthier. More greens, less beans. But most of all, my biggest body issue is that I don’t really associate myself with my body. My mind feels disconnected from my body. The day scientists invent a way for us all to live as brains in jars on wheels, I’m there standing in line for a chance to become all cerebral. Being physical, it’s just so messy, so awkward, so uncomfortable. You feel pain, you feel embarrassment, you feel horny. Nothing good comes from having a body. If you were just a brain, you could go on thinking and calculating and just generally having a good mental time. Or you’d start feeling suffocated and trapped trying to move your limbs and realising that they have been all chopped off. Hmm… Maybe it’s more complicated than I initially thought.

I don’t understand people who enjoy physical activities. Let it be clear before we delve into this long rant of mine complaining about all things gymnastic, this is not particularly an autistic trait. In fact, there are plenty of autistic people who may excel as athletes, their drive and obsessive personality traits becoming quite useful in developing that discipline that is required to fully commit to becoming an all-star jock. Not all autistic people are reprehensible nerds. Some autistic people are actually quite sexy. Some even have abs. But that’s not me. That’s not my clan of autistic people. I like drawing maps. I like thinking about things. I like making cocktails. The only part of my physical body that I like to put strain on is my liver. Don’t make me go on a run. There isn’t an armchair in this world that I wouldn’t want to sit down in, even the ones that used to be owned by old chain-smokers that have that awful aroma that sneaks into your nostrils and makes you worry about second-hand lung cancer. Sitting is great. I like sitting. Also lying down. Lying down is good.

Am I lazy? No, I don’t think so. Maybe a little, but here’s the thing. I can’t control the things I obsess over. There’s a great deal of overlap between autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit disorder. If you’re reading this and you’re a fellow friend on the spectrum, you may have gotten diagnosed with both. One of those rare times in my life I have attended group therapy, more than half the group were diagnosed with both. I, however, am not. But seeing as the two conditions are so intertwined, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a facet of autism involves difficulties in trying to focus on something, or even trying not to focus on something too hard. If you were to judge my tenacity, my ability to keep going, based solely on how I perform during physical tasks, you’d think I was the least resolute person on the planet. But then you’ll find me, some time later, staying up until four in the morning drawing another map. A map that’s really just a different take on another map that I drew earlier, that itself was a reworked version of a previous map that I drew but didn’t like, that actually began as a second iteration of one map I drew that was actually wholly different, that was based on a map of Europe but if Denmark never existed. How many maps have you drawn Fred? Why don’t you go mind your own business, you nosy ferret.

The DSM-5 (the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. You can think of it as something akin to a bible of psychology, which is definitely an inflammatory way to refer to it, but I’m gonna go with it! Because I’m a wildcard, and that’s just how I roll,) includes this section as part of its diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder.

Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

Now, I personally don’t relate to that at all. There’s nothing abnormal in my intense love for maps. The fact that maps aren’t as widely cherished as they ought to be is a fault of others, and I refuse to acknowledge that this may be a part of my character that could be perceived as quirky, or out of the ordinary. But, still, for the sake of argument, let’s presume that I can get, at times, excessively circumscribed. I’d like to say that I’ve only ever engaged in excessive circumscribing in my privacy away from onlookers, but I am afraid that I may have allowed some of my excessive circumscribing to happen in public. I definitely do apologise for that. I will try to do better in the future. But you never know when you’re about to experience some excessive circumscribing. The best you can do is keep it limited.

I don’t know how neurotypicals work. So, you don’t feel these kinds of obsessions? These moments of intense focus? These fixations? Then, you lack passion? Are you heartless? Soulless? Or are you just weak? Are you too feeble to hold steadfast working on a project all night long? To lose touch with your sense of hunger, your need for sleep, and all contact with any other human person? My fixations may come across as strange, but to me, your lack of fixations come across as bizarre. The world is endlessly fascinating. Have you never felt that compulsion to just fully immerse yourself in a topic that allows you to forget about your physical body for just that moment in time? The body cannot hold me. I wish to absorb as much information as I can. If I could astral project, by gods, I would astral project. To decouple your consciousness from your mushy brain for just that little bit, to go soaring across the landscapes, to explore the cosmos, just free of all things corporeal, that would be swell. How terrible isn’t it, when you’re deep in research, learning all about the mystical religious practices of the long-dead hierophants of the ancient world, to be drawn back into the present by the sudden need to urinate? There is something so dreadfully mundane about possessing a human body. If only we could all be celestial beings allowed to just be without the biological needs associated with having flesh and blood and bone and bladders.

I am not religious, nor am I spiritual. I do not believe that there is an immaterial world that lies above the material. I do not believe there is an astral plane. I think that one of the terrifying things about living is knowing that we do not possess such a thing as an eternal soul, that all things are temporal, and that ultimately, we have to come to terms with that. It’s not so terrible. In some ways, the temporal nature of life can be its biggest blessing. All things must pass. Sure, that does include the good times, like that vacation you spent as a child wishing that it would never end. But it also includes the bad times. The heartbreak you feel from a failed relationship. The grief you feel after the passing of a parent. The depression some of us are burdened with. Some days are worse than others. But they too will pass. One of the remarkable things about the human body is its ability to bounce back from injury. To change and evolve in ways we sometimes find unthinkable. The brain, likewise, is transformational, capable of incredible developments. We’re not fixed in stone. We’re not eternal. Which is a good thing. It is what allows recuperation and progress. I should be thankful to my body for being there, even when I’m not. After all, isn’t your body your temple?

I am able-bodied. Am I disabled? There’s naturally a lot of questions that surround how we ought to understand mental illness or neurodiversity in regards to disability. Does autism spectrum disorder count as a disability? Well, yes, it can be considered a learning disability. It is certainly something of a handicap, you are experiencing struggles that most people don’t experience. But to your average layperson, your typical dullard who spends their time watching reality TV, drinking beer, and being happy, what counts as a disability to them? Would they see me and think I was disabled? I’m not in a wheelchair. I don’t walk with a cane. Though I will occasionally “stim,” make small repetitive moments with my hands or legs, I do not exhibit any kind of physical symptoms. If I told them that I was disabled, they’d scoff and tell me that I’m just making it up for attention. They’d say I’m probably just trying to mooch off the government, scoring welfare checks while doing nothing to contribute to society. I’ve got all my limbs. I am not sickly. I am actually quite strong, due to being a big and tall man, I am able to carry quite the load. So, I have no reason to not be a fully productive member of society, right? And yet, here I am, feeling at most times utterly perplexed by anything physical. Probably because I am just lazy, right?

I don’t think laziness is a thing. What is laziness supposed to actually be? Tiredness? If a person is perpetually tired, then they’ve likely got a sleep disorder. To call them lazy would be callous. There are plenty of overworked people that get called lazy, especially by tyrannical overseers who think of their charges as mere workhorses whose only purpose in life is to toil away in the factory until the day they die. Intolerable parents who see their terminally sullen child and instead of wondering what is making them so upset decide to deride them for their lack of ambition. Are you lazy when you are procrastinating? No you are just being a tad irresponsible, maybe, deciding to skip out on chores in order to play video games or masturbate. But you’re not just doing nothing. People generally don’t enjoy doing nothing. We need something to occupy ourselves, to fill that vacuum we all feel whenever we’re just sitting still. I am someone who appears to be comfortable just sitting still, but that’s because I’ve learned, since a very young age, to entertain myself with my own thoughts. To fantasise, to daydream, to do anything I can to escape from the void that is doing absolutely nothing. Boredom, that’s terrible. Boredom is existential dread. Of all the motivations that drive humans, love, spite, jealousy, or pride, I think the need to evade boredom is one of the most prevalent. Humans would rather experience electric shocks than sit alone in a room being bored.

I am not lazy, I am merely… excessively circumscribed. For as much as this may be a specific diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder, I think it is also a common trait amongst all humans. There will always be within us a pull to do something other than the thing that we’re really supposed to be doing, that does not make us lazy, that just makes us terrified of boredom. Sure, you know that you’re supposed to mow the lawn, but that's just so dreadfully tedious, you just would rather be working on perfecting your new stand-up comedy routine. Thinking up jokes to tell on stage is so much more stimulating than cutting grass. And who cares if your lawn grows a little wild? Lawns are a scam, imposed by fascists to make us think grass in its natural state is ugly. All grass is beautiful, whether it is cut short or it is allowed to grow long. Do the thing that fulfils you. Allow yourself to become immersed in passion, to forget about those things that hold you back, the little silly things we’ve convinced ourselves is important. Stay up late, if you wish. You’re gonna kill it on open mic night, bud!

Yes, it is a problem when your obsessions grow so singular that you forget to feed yourself. When you forget personal hygiene, when you become trapped in your own apartment looking like some feral rodent caught in a cage. Like always, the key is moderation, and I know that from time to time, you may have to entertain a boring task or two. Clean your room, brush your teeth, trim your pubic hair, try to give an impression that you are taking care of yourself. If for anyone, do it for your mother. She will be happy seeing you looking like a civilised individual, wearing clean clothes and not looking malnourished. But don’t ever chastise yourself for being lazy. Laziness is a sin that we’re all guilty of, and if we’re all guilty of it, is it really a sin? Or is it just part of what it means to be a human? To be a messy creature made out of flesh and blood and bone and the occasional bladder. In the end, I’m more happy than displeased at having a body. It’d be much harder to type on a keyboard if I didn’t have fingers.

Still, I wish I wasn’t fat.

[roses-field]

For the writing thing "Is it working?" For uhhh perhaps,,, Chelley? 👁👁

here ya go!! sorry it took so long aa

"Is it working?" : Chelley oneshot

( Core!Wheatley x Chell short fluff)

I haven't really wrote any actual portal fanfics so forgive me if it's bad and too short

()~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~()

Escaping, that's what the two were doing, escaping the hell-like place that they were trapped deep within.

The sudden change of pace was startling enough despite Chell ran many times during the awaking of Her and the endless test chambers of puzzles, each one harder then the previous. She was prepared for almost anything by now, almost.

Or that's what they thought

She survied the few turrets that She placed onto the thousand year old metal surface, at first not knowing if the crimson red one-optic machined taken their chance of shooting those bullets into her rough skin, blood covering the floor.

Now guided by Wheatley, both of them have disabled the turret production lines and are onto the neurotoxin, yet he began to notice something. How Chell's fast sudden movements slowered, of course she was still moving and had her reflexes of when she could feel danger but he was sure that humans weren't meant to have some kind of grey around the eyes, while all of GLADOS' test subjects had that and sickly pale skin, the tired apperence of the jumpsuited woman increased with the grey.

"Hey.. are you- doing alright? Can't talk right.. just shake your head or nod! Perfered it if you did nod, since it would be pretty bad if you weren't okay-" It was easy to tell the sphere robot was nervous by the sound of his tone and his optic, she nodded while failing to hide a quiet yawn, the only sound she was willing to make were those yawns and chuckles, alongsides with coughs.

Walking on the catwalks, her boots making a cling noise each time they touched the harmetal surface as they were getting further into their dangerous plan, focused on her own thoughts untill she heard Wheatley's voice again "Okay I'm not gonna lie here, you look bloody tired so I think we should find somewhere to rest, yknow? Of course- if we do find somewhere, couldn't sleep on this walkway could you now? Well you probably could but that wouldn't be that comfortable, not like there is anywhere that is comfortable though"

But she knew that maybe there was a chance of finding one of those abandoned hideout dens, as if someone once lived in them, as he kept talking Chell looked around for any areas that were secretive enough, safely hidden from Her as much as possible.

Crash. Cling.

A celiling panel dropped to the endless void that was overtooken with shadow, revealed a pitch black room that was impossible to see in, yet Chell shot the orange glowing portal at the walls that supported the catwalk and the neon blue into the dark room, untill the orange portal opened.

"Oh that's clever! Now I was gonna suggest to try to place that portal there but it seems you already knew that, hold on, dark there innit?" She nodded as Wheatley turned on his flashlight, then realising something again "A thing I just noticed right now is that there's no managetnent rail in there, so could you yknow, catch me this time? Won't do a countdown, just gonma pop off this thing"

Chell attempted to catch him before, the first time he told her to catch him didn't go so well but this time, this time she bloody did it, she managed to caught him.

As she held the metal sphere with the portal gun, Chell walked into the small room somewhat lit up by his flashlight, the place must of been old as the walls were dusty, a slight muddy yellow tint on where the walls aligned, for once they weren't panels despite being metal, down in Aperture anything that was made of that matieral felt as if it was controlled by Her, apart from Wheatley.

It must of been one of those dens as there were those markings on the walls, like drawings or writing but it was unable to read what any of the scribbling meant, how a man got up here is mystery in itself, yet alone how it would be possible to survive Her.

Chell wondered around the small room, finding old fallen plates that were detached from what could be other chambers and placed them to cover up the hole that was in the floor, making it safe for her and Wheatley.

"Oh that was brilliant! Alright well enough for today, you gotta recharg- rest and tommorrow I'll figure out what to do with the neurotoxin" the gently-placed-on-the-floor robot dimmed the flashlight as the ponytailed brunette layed near the wall, Wheatley rolling near her, like a nightlight as his optic was being a slight light source, turning off the flashlight.

Chell closed her tired icy gray eyes, how long had she been here? Was it days solving the test chambers? Despite she was under suspension for what could of been thousands of years she still felt tired, exhuested from everything. And now finally asleep.. right?

()~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-()

.

Cling

..

Brrrv

...

Clang

.....

Dark, only darkness and a red optic.

.....

It was getting closer.

......

A laser coming from it.

.......

It was pointing at-

()~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-()

She was back in the shadowy room, despite having good night vision the room was almost pitch dark apart from the gentle blue glow of Wheatley's optic that was looking at her.

"Luv? Are- you okay? Panicked breating and suddenly slamming the wall with your foot isn't normal is it?" It was about two hours after Chell went to sleep, he had been out of his sleep mode a while ago, being bored of it.

The brunette turned her head and looked towards him quickly, nodding her head, breathing wasn't that fast anymore but still somewhat filled with panic, a thing Wheatley realised before her was that she was leeking, not a lot but there was leekage in her eyes, he knew that humans arn't suppose to leak and they needed some sort of red fluids but not sure about the clear ones that come out of their eyes.

"You're leeking- that's not suppose to happen right?" She never cried, not that she remebered before if she ever did, she was suppose to be brave and strong, and she is. So many horrible things happened yet she cried over a stupid nightmare, obviously angry at herself deep down but Chell was too tired to carry on the anger, she was stressed and frightend.

Finally a idea of what it could of been ticked into his brain, he heard that humans needed comfort, whatever that was.

"Was it a nightmare luv? That's what it's called right- when you have a scary image while having your eyes closed?" Another nod yet this one was short, sighing right after, It seemed that was also another sound she was willing to make, he wondered if she would talk one day.

Chell shivered slightly, she was used to Aperture's low temperture in the chambers, her jumpsuit being one of the things that slightly kept her warm but on here it was pretty cold, it gets colder at night right? So maybe it is night for once, unable to tell through the simulation of daylight.

"Hey?" I heard this human concept of 'hugging' when someone puts their arms around the other person, could help! I don't have arms but- maybe hugging me could help?" Grabbing the sphere by the handles with her hands, she had put away the portal gun near her before the first attempt of sleep just incase, yet it felt more comforting to just use her arms.

Chell was now hugging him, it felt comforting like he suggested, he couldn't hug her back of course but it was still nice, and another thing, he was pretty warm, a gentle warmth that helped ignore the shivering.

Wheatley's running circuits were oddly relaxing to hear, her panicked heartbeat going back to normal was relaxing for him too as he listened to it throughout the silence, helping her calm down was surprisingly a easy task, they stayed hugging for a while but long time untill her arms got tired and placed the robot right besides her, letting out a tired yawn again.

Changing her position from sitting to laying on her side, facing Wheatley as her eyes felt slightly heavy as he spoke again "I got another brilliant idea! Full of then actually, well this one might not work but.. I heared humans sing sometines, now I never ever done that singing thing but I could give it a go..?"

Chell nodded again as then she grabbed the top handle and moved him, now hugging again, or more like a cuddle.

"I heard it a while back, somewhere storaged up in my system actually, had no clue why it was even in there."

And then he began to sing, Chell closing her eyes. It wasn't the best but it was still calming and nice, a simple melody.

"When the light is running low..

And the shadows start to grow....

And the places that you know..

Seem like fantasy..

There's a light inside your soul...

That’s still shining in the cold..

With the truth....

The promise in our hearts

Don't forget

I'm with you in the dark..."

It was a song this blonde haired human had, for who knows why he remembered this human, he so apparently had someone sing it to him in one of the stressful days, yet it was a shame that he couldn't remember who or what the person that sung to him looked like. A small fragment thought it might of been someone that had dark brown hair in a ponytail.

"Is... Is it working?" His tone was gentle, not to accidently wake her up by chance if she was sleeping, yet it must of been hard to fall asleep when there was a glowy light, but it was farely gentle.

What Wheatley didn't expect was a response, her tired gentle voice sounded beautiful "Thank you.." was what she murmured before placing a soft kiss on his outer shell before going to sleep, she had a good feeling that this time her attempt would be successful.

His circuits quickly working as if he had a fan-cooling system, the warmth increasing but not insanely, whatever that action was, it felt nice, really nice,

two surprises in one day.

Maybe she would give him another one after they finally escaped to the surface

[starman-john-tracy]

Radiation Poisoning | Chapter Three

by @starman-john-tracy and @asteria-star

In which John Tracy gets exposed to uranium and nearly dies, The Hood is evil, and Star generally freaks out a lot.

[Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Four]

“Inter-national Rescue.” The Villain tilts his head, shiny in his spacesuit, and John gets the feeling that he’s being sized up, like a predator judging its prey, “Well well well, who’d have known there was another one of you, and up in space no less. I thought the little blond one was flying the rocket so you must be…” The man trails off and John seals his lips into a tight, white line. If the Hood doesn’t know about Thunderbird Five, then he’d far rather keep it that way. “You’re not a stray like my Tanusha though, are you? Could it be… another of Jeff’s boys?” Cat-like slit eyes narrow, scanning John up and down where he’s sprawled under his heel. One hand reaches down and closes around the front of the spaceman’s sash, dragging John upright, unsteady and disorientated as he’s reeled in to be examined.

“You don’t look quite as much like him as the others... but it’s there.” The Hood teeth glint in a smile like a shark, “Perhaps you take after your mother, hmm?” It’s a cruel thing to say to a man who’s lost both parents, one to an avalanche and one to the unknown. John’s shoulders go stiff with tension and the Hood’s smile grows wider, aware he’s hit a nerve. “Well then, let’s give those charming brothers of yours a rescue, shall we?”

“I won’t let you take the uranium.” John protests, but The Hood is slithering a hand up the side of John’s throat, lingering awfully over his vulnerable pulse point in a way that makes John shiver. “I… hey, what are you doing?” There’s a small spike of panic in his voice now, and he struggles against the vice grip the man’s got on his sash. The creeping fingers meet the seal of John’s helmet and John freezes, wide eyed, in the split second before as he realises what The Hood is about to do. “Wait don…!”

John breathes out hard, forcing the air from his lungs so that it won’t get a chance to expand inside him. He squeezes his eyes protectively shut as the wandering, probing, fingers slide under the thick rubber seal around his neck, breaching his helmet.

John thrashes in the man’s grip, his heart pounding, as the perfect nitrogen-oxygen of his tank begins rushing out and the vacuum starts rushing in. He coughs, soundless and awful, and he can feel his lungs starting to swell. The world begins to slide into blurred, flashes of impression and smeared colours. The hand shoved inside his helmet cups his cheek and rough, gloved fingers pat his skin lightly: a mockery of comfort.

“Lovely.” The Hood comments, though John hears him as if from the end of a long tunnel, busy as he is trying not to breathe out his lungs. “If only your blasted Father could see you now, hmm? No wonder they’ve been hiding you from me.” There’s almost a laugh. “You’re a clever boy,” The Hood acquiesces, “But I already have all the uranium I could possibly need.” He watches John struggle for a moment, with an unsettlingly pleased look on his face. “My associate is loading up our shuttle as we speak. What remains here is obviously damaged, and useless to me.” A heavy heel stamps down on one of the canisters, splitting John’s perfect welding clean open and splattering dangerous green across the metal floor.

“What a delight you are, Tracy.” He comments, as John’s struggles become weaker, “I am so glad to make the acquaintance of another of Jeff’s boy’s. Who’d have known I was one short, all this time?” He adds, and the hand slides away from his cheek, fingers curling instead under the hard metal edge of his helmet. John’s chokes, gasping, as the air from his tank rushes to try and compensate for the void inside his helmet. His cheeks are wet with tears. “It’s almost a shame that the number will be back down to four shortly.” And the Hood rips the helmet from his head, tossing the young man aside like a rag doll. John hits the rack of canisters, sending them scattering across the floor, and he cries out, breathless, at the impact. The radiation dial at his wrist is blood-red.

The Hood takes a step backward, then another, leaving John’s little room and making his way back to where he and his minion had blown their way in, with John’s helmet still clutched firmly in his hand. The astronaut reaches feebly after him, but the press of a panel slams a bulkhead down between them, the rip of wiring disabling its functionality as The Hood, as quickly as he’d appeared, vanishes from sight, discarding John’s helmet uselessly the other side of the door.

It doesn’t factor into The Hood’s estimations, but the Oxygen scrubbers onboard kick into overdrive now that the canister chamber has got a proper seal, whirring hard to try and drag out the vacuum inside and fill it sluggishly with a O2 mix. John presses his forehead hard against the metal floor and just tries to breathe, the thin air making his head spin, the radiation seeping into his pores.

***

Star’s running, gasping on the canned air from her suit so badly she’s almost sure it’s run out, and she’s just not noticed, that any second now she’s gonna stop breathing all together and never start again. Gravity’s back. She doesn’t know why or how, the only thing she can think of is someone else is on the station.

There’s a sound of voices- no, a voice, and it’s not John’s. She’s hearing through his radio, too close to her ear, making her shiver even though it’s not as cold anymore. There’s a bang, Star hears it in tinny reproduction the same time as it rattles through the floor beneath her feet.

“John?” Star calls again, low and quiet, just in case this other person can hear. She’s coming up on the wreckage they’d first come through, the little store room she’d left John to entertain himself in. With a sudden, sickly pounding in her chest, Star gets the feeling she’s about to meet the aforementioned ‘boss’.

She can hear the voice, hear footsteps, somewhere off to the side, just out of sight, like scrambling in the walls, but her curiosity was never given the opportunity to run away with her. She rounds the corner and sees the door that had been open blocked, and John’s helmet resting on her -which was arguably the wrong- side of the door.

Screw whoever else is there to hear, Star’s banging on the metal, yelling his name, between one breath and the next.

***

John shoves a palm down hard against the floor, trying to get some kind of purchase against the textured metal to push himself upright. He takes a long, ragged breath of too thin air and jumps as someone slams a fist down hard on the door that’s protecting him from the vacuum beyond. Green-blue eyes look up, startled to find, not The Hood, but the familiar, comforting face of Star on the other side, her hands pressed flat against the window, trying to get his attention. Without really thinking about it John raises a shaky hand in a dumb little wave.

“I’m… ok?” He manages, though without his helmet radio Star doesn’t have a chance of hearing him. “Ow.” The exclamation doesn’t seem to quite sum up the thick, awful burning that’s going on inside his ribcage, or how his head is pounding in time to his heart, his sinuses tight and his temples throbbing. There’s just not quite enough air in here, though it’s improving fast. The Hood hadn’t done anything too severe to him, but it had felt like touch and go for a moment there. John’s a little surprised to be alive, if he’s honest, though he doesn’t dwell on that for long. “The Hood…?” He tries to ask, though his mouth is so dry it doesn’t come out as much more than a whisper. He runs a trembling hand backward through mussed ginger hair. “I… oh...” He catches sight of the red flashing warning at his wrist, eyes widening.

That’s… that’s too much radiation. He draws in another ragged breath, thick with trepidation more than vacuum now. Oh hell. Right, ok John. You’ve gotta get out of here. Gotta move now.

There’s a struggle as John tries to climb unsteadily to his feet. He makes it the whole of three wobbly steps toward the door before his knees give out, unused to the gravity and the abuse and the eight or so greys of nuclear radiation that are eating away at his cells. He pitches forward, catching himself only barely against the door before he slides down, gasping, the other side of the glass to Star. The hand raises again, pressing against it, though it’s not clear how that helps him.

It doesn’t, really.

Somewhere on the space station, there’s a dull roar of engines: The Hood and his minion are making their escape.

Star taps on the glass, trying to get John’s eyes to focus on her instead of the big load of nothing he seemed to have drifted off into. She can’t hear him, but she saw the word okay formed by his lips, and for that she kind of wants to hit something. The word okay doesn’t deserve to even be in the same room as this situation, let alone to come from his lips. Blue-green eyes finally come to land on her, and Star holds up his helmet, so he can see.

“I’m going to open the door,” she tells him with big, rounded words, hoping he’ll be able to read them on her lips. “You have to put this on when I do.”

John knows there’s nothing worse than having a barrier, physical or otherwise, between you and a person in need of rescue. All the more so when it’s a person you care about. He offers Star a shaky smile, in some vague attempt to be reassuring, but it comes out more pained than anything, so he’s not sure it does a very good job. His head tips back, exhausted, and his fingers slide down the glass to rest, limply in his lap.

“Mmm…?” He tries to process what Star is telling him. She’s going to… open the door? That’s good… that’s… oh, his helmet. He’s gonna need his helmet...

Slithering tendrils of claustrophobia are curling in the spaceman’s chest. John’s aware, on a logical, sensible level, that there’s no way the walls could be closing in on him, but the space just seems to be getting smaller and smaller and there’s nowhere to go. The air smells metallic, ancient and recycled. It hits him like the scent of old blood.

The ship is determined to trip Star up, a loose piece of panelling catching the heel of her boot when she goes to take a step back, leaving her stumbling back a handful of uneven steps until she can see the door in its entirety. The control panel is gone, that much she can tell, not that she thought she’d have been able to do much with that anyway. A spaceship was a little more hightech than her usual target for robbery. Manual release. There has to be a manual release of some kind; all kinds of bad things happen when there isn’t… she hopes radioactive locker isn’t the one situation where a backup isn’t top priority.

Breathing is getting harder. His airways feel acidic. John huffs out an exhale, short with the need to suck air in again, to get good Oxygen circulating in his irradiated blood cells. His exposed face and neck and even his scalp have begun to feel hot and raw, like the beginnings of a bad sunburn.

Star sees it, a heavy looking crank nearly hidden by debris. But it's there. John seems to be drifting again, and Star feels a little guilty banging on the wall by his head to get his attention.

John looks up weakly at the sound, his head loose and wobbly, blinking lots as he tries his best to focus on her, trying to understand the plan. The radiation detector bleeps urgently at his wrist, the readings a deadly, terrifying crimson. He doesn’t seem to notice though, he’s preoccupied with trying to support himself, ready for the door to fall away.

“I’m opening it,” she mouths to him, holding up ten fingers in what she hopes he understands is a countdown. She can’t do anything else to help him but get the door open, so she does.

John exhales heavily, pushing the air forcefully from his abused lungs in preparation for another rough exposure to vacuum. He nods once, short and sharp.

Do it.

The door opens, not all the way, just enough for John to fall limply through in his defence, it does look like he’s trying to help, but in the end it’s Star scrambling over, hooking her hands under his arms to drag him back into the main room, easing the helmet back onto his head and sealing it a little too roughly. And then she’s gone.

Star almost doesn’t want to close the door behind them, purely to never have to be out of arm’s reach of John again.

The door clangs shut, rattling the entire crumbling ship, separating them from the toxic waste within. Star can’t help but notice the twitch towards orange her radiation sensor makes when she slides to her knees beside John. Not that it matters, she’s not going anywhere.

She’s got the spaceman up against her chest, hoping being closer to upright might help the painful gasping he’s got going on, arms wrapped around his narrow chest, back of his head resting against her shoulder. She can see her hands, clasped around in front of him, see them shaking, but she almost can’t feel them through the lightning terror racing through her body.

“I’m so sorry,” She sobs, helmet pressed to John’s in an attempt to rest her forehead on his tangled hair, rocking the two of them somewhat neurotically, the entire world tunnelling down to them and them alone. Then she catches herself. “John, are you okay? Talk to me, are you alright tell me what… tell me what to do out here. What can I do?”

John crumples against her as the door between them suddenly vanishes, little hands under his arm pits dragging him out across the floor. He’s vaguely aware of his helmet being shoved on over his head and the click as it’s clipped into place but the fresh bloom of oxygen that hits his system is what he really feels, the impact like the first breath of a man whose been deep sea diving, who desperately needs to come up for air. Star’s gone, but then she’s back again in what feels like less than a heartbeat.

There’s a whirling twist in elevation as John gets propped upright, his head lolling weakly against Star’s collarbone and the borosilicate glass of his helmet rapping against hers as she holds him to her. There’s a small sob across the radio in his ear, closely followed by another, then another. John’s head is pounding and John squeezes his eyes shut, his mouth a tight white line as nausea curls unpleasantly in his stomach.

“The uranium?” He manages after a long moment, his stupid priorities still firmly on the safety of the rolling blue marble far, far below them, despite the fact his cells have been perhaps irreparably irradiated, “The Hood…” His voice is thinner and weaker than Star’s ever heard it, and he makes a limp, heavy weight across her knees and up against her chest, evidently with no power of his own to do anything about it. “Five?” He suggests, dragging in a ragged gasp of a breath, “H-Home?”

Star starts laughing. She can’t help it, an almost hysterical bark that trails off into the words, “Don’t worry about your stupid uranium. I beat up his evil henchman and took it off his shuttle. It didn’t sound like they went looking for it.”

The Hood… So that’s who the voice belonged to. The big and scary ‘boss’. She’s going to kill him.

The dark room is blurring around them when Star looks up, unable to wipe the hot residue of tears from her eyes. The way they’d come is still sitting there, waiting ominously to spit them out into the great unknown, and Star still has John’s extra grapple packs strapped to her chest.

Thunderbird Five. She can do that.

“Okay, John, I need you up.” She really would rather not make him do anything, but even with John’s bony frame, their size difference is just too big to go dragging him around without a little of his help “Just a little minute, then we’ll be back in your favourite zero G.”

Star feels worse than the Hood, forcing him to move. His face is already grey and twisted the way it always is on those first few days back in gravity, when it takes most of John’s dwindling energy to keep his stomach firmly where it belongs. There isn’t another choice, though, and she knows it. John needs to be in decontamination, then he needs o2, then he needs Virgil, then he needs- Star runs it all off through her head, gently rubbing John’s chest in apology and forcing him to move.

Star’s laughing and the sound of it, tinny and crackly in his ear, blooms a warmth in John’s chest that has nothing to do with the radiation damage there. He smiles back at her, a bit loopy, finding her joy or relief or whatever this is that’s making her smile completely infectious. A blue-clad hand bumps uselessly against her helmet as if he meant to wipe her cheeks for her, but he forgot the three-inch thick glass separating them. Somehow, it’s almost worse than the bulkhead door.

She tells him how she hid the uranium from the madman and John’s mouth shapes a warm little;

“Oh,” though the word barely makes it out. He presses his reddened face in toward her shoulder with a soft groan, unable, for the moment, to vocalise just how relieved and grateful and proud he is of her. John can’t help how lethargic and heavy he is, his fingers slack and curling by his sides. He manages to bump his thumb, just a little against one of her knees in an attempt to convey some of the feelings to her.

“I… Ah!” There’s a short, sharp noise of pain from the spaceman as Star struggles to get him upright. He’s so damn heavy, sprawling and useless in the endeavour. There’s no chance of him piloting the Exosuit back to Five under his own power. Not like this. He’s all knees and elbows and his balance is atrocious, his head swimming with vertigo and his legs weak beneath him. “M… so tired…” He tries to get his feet as solidly on the floor as he can, tries to clamp down on the rolling nausea in his stomach, but he’s fighting a losing battle. “S-Star!” He gasps, fingers curling and desperate, “W-wait, wait, jus’ a… second. Let me… nngh...”

John squeezes his dry eyes tightly shut and tries to breathe heavily through his nose. One solid mantra becomes the only thing going through his head:

Don’t throw up in your helmet. Don’t throw up in your helmet. Don’t throw up in your...

The air feels sharp and prickly in John’s abused lungs. He’s unaware, as of yet, of the damage the radiation has done to him, but he finds himself curling an arm protectively around his midriff almost on instinct. A sharp, piercing sensation has started in his side, around his stomach.

John takes another long, deep breath, the edges of it ragged and shaky over the Comms.

Star has decided she is the worst person alive -on and off earth- when she has to haul John upright. He goes grey and moans low in his throat and begs her to let him stop for a moment, and she just… Star just braces him against her side, arms around him, and takes as much of his weight as she possibly can.

“It’s alright, baby,” she tells him softly, wanting to stay quiet but unable to keep her motormouth from getting away with her a little. “You’re gonna be fine, I’ve got you, just keep breathing, don’t worry about anything else.”

She wants to stop. She doesn’t want to move him, to go out into the void keeping them from the relative safety of Thunderbird 5 but… she can’t help him there. She can’t even let him take his helmet off.

“Five.” He agrees again breathlessly, trying to pull himself out of it. “I’ll… do what I… can…” Time isn’t on his side here, and he’s becoming increasingly aware of it. He can hardly just give up and leave Star trapped out here alone, after all.

“You don’t need to do anything,” she assures him. “Once we get back to the hole in the wall, I’ve got it.”

“My… brothers?” Their Comm system should be able to reach Tracy Island from any position in Low Earth Orbit. John can’t concentrate long enough to find his own wrist right now though. Instead, unreliable feet take a half-step toward the vicious maw, and the blank, open expanse of space beyond it. The stars out there don’t twinkle like they do down on Earth. There’re no layers of atmosphere out here for the light to scintillate through.

Five is a tiny dot out there somewhere amongst them.

She seems impossibly far away.

“Comms haven’t been working since we got here, John, not anything long distance,” Star murmurs, starting towards the way out. “Didn’t work trying to call in, and didn’t work when I just tried to call EOS… but I’ll get them for you. I’ll get you your brothers.”

Star is right about one thing, John is significantly easier to manage once they get to zero G. Aside from the terror of slipping, which Star doesn’t let herself acknowledge, getting to Thunderbird Five is almost no trouble at all.

[beeexx]

Set after 2x6, Alex and Kyle talk about things.

You can read it here  on my ao3 too. Just a little snippet I wrote after everything so to say.

“I need a friend.” That’s the words Alex wakes up to when he finally crawls out of his bedroom to open the door to Kyle’s persistent ringing. His cheek has a crease from sleeping in a weird position on his pillow and his hair is sleep tousled.

At the sight of Alex Kyle’s eyebrow shoots upwards and his mouth open.

“Wait, were you sleeping?” Alex is too tired to feel bothered by the fact that he is indeed only wearing sweatpants and a blanket wrapped around himself.

“Maybe.” He mutters

“Dude, it’s like 1pm.”

“Yeah well…”

“Okay, maybe you need a friend too, can I come in?” Alex bites back the reply of we’re not friends which threatens to escape. Also, the fact that he steps aside to let Kyle in probably means they are. From behind him Kyle picks up two plastic bags and sidesteps Alex to get inside. 

“Just make yourself comfortable.” He mutters to the empty space and closes it slowly. His brain really hasn’t woken up enough for this. He walks into his bedroom and puts on a t-shirt and an old ratty jumper lying at the back of his closet. When he finally makes it to the kitchen where Kyle is he decides that Kyle and him are definitely friends because a cup of hot steaming coffee is pushed into his hands. He can’t help the moan he lets out at the sip he takes. Kyle just chuckles and leans back against the counter, looking happy. 

“So, what’s up?”

“Ugh, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, if you’re not here to talk about it then why are you here?”

“Well it was this, the gym or gettin drunk, and before you ask, yes I already tried the gym. It didn’t do the trick. And the second option being alcohol, it is 1pm and I am not in the habit of getting drunk at that time, and I also have a job to go to tomorrow and I didn’t think you would appreciate getting drunk with me. Because, well because you have a job to go to as well. So I had to get creative and hanging out honestly seemed like the best option I had.”

Alex takes another sip.

 “Should I feel offended by the fact that I rank the lowest on that list?” 

“I thought you might say that so I bought bribing material.” He looks through one of the plastic bags and holds up a couple of Airheads and a packet of flaming hot Cheetos. Kyle wiggle his eyebrows.

“Yeah that is definitely not bad bragging material.” Alex puts the coffee down and takes the snacks off Kyle.

“I haven’t had Airheads in so long.”

“They used to be your favourite when we grew up.”

“You remember?” Alex is actually surprised to hear that.

“Of course I remember. I don’t even know why you like them so much but today I am definitely not judging because on the way here I stopped and probably bought mine and your weights combined in snacks.”

“You really must be having a bad day.” Alex laughs.

“I drove all the way here and brought enough snacks to give me diabetes in 20 years time, so yes I definitely am.” Kyle says and picks out a bag of Moams from the bags. Alex peeks over his shoulder to see that Kyle definitely wasn’t lying. The bags or filled up with different kinds of snacks to honestly last Alex 6 months. 

“Did you at least bring anything to drink with all of this?”

Kyle replies by taking out a six packs of Mountain Dew and Coke and Alex shakes his head but goes for the Mountain Dew.

“I haven’t had this shit since I was a kid, that’s for sure.” He takes out a glass and hands one to Kyle before he fills his glass up with the soda. He takes a sip and it tastes just like he remembers, sickly sweet. He takes an even bigger sip.

“So, what’s next then?”

“I have thought of that too my friend.” Kyle says and apparently he has because what he does next is that he he puts a stack of DVDs in front of Alex and steps back.

“Wow, you really have.” Alex leans over and looks at the selection. He spots Back to the Future at the top. 

“I have.”

“Star Wars? Really?” Alex holds the DVD up.

“Oh yes, I am desperate enough to watch Star Wars, that should tell you something.”

“Yeah, but Star Wars, that’s a new level even for you.”

Kyle snorts and pops some popcorn into his mouth. 

“I didn’t know you even owned this.” Kyle shrugs.

“I bought them a while back but I’ve not really had the time to watch them.”

“I see… well you know what sure. Let’s watch Star Wars.” Alex picks up one of the bags along with his snacks and walks into the living room, Kyle in tow. 

“This is a nice place.” Kyle notes as he lays himself down onto the couch like he owns the place. Alex lets him, just because he’s having a day. He sits down on the other end and opens up the Cheetos. 

“Thanks.”

“The military pay for this?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm, not bad.”

Alex picks up the DVD.

“Are you sure you want to watch this?”

“I’m probably the only 28 year old who hasn’t seen Star Wars, I feel like I’m missing out on part of my culture.”

“I mean yeah you probably are the only person our age who hasn’t seen this. You know you’re supposed to start with episode IV right?”

“What? How does that make any sense. Why?” 

Alex laughs at the obvious confusion Kyle seems to feel over this.

“George Lucas had the idea for Star Wars for a long time and while he was making the first film he had already figured out a lot of the backstory and what happened before it. But because he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t completely flop he waited to make the others after the success was already certain of the three first films.”

The room’s silent and Kyle’s looking at him like he’s slightly insane.

“Okay, you asked.” Alex says, his cheeks only heating a little.

“Yeah, no, okay that was totally on me. I did ask.”

Alex replies by chucking a Cheetos at his face and Kyle’s reflexes kick in and he catches it mid air. He looks proud and Alex just rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, are you sure you want to spend the afternoon watching Star Wars of all things? I’m sure I can find something that you’d actually enjoy.”

“Nope, I’m certain.” Alex relents and puts on episode IV. He’s having a little bit of a hard time  believing this whole to be fair but whatever if Kyle doesn’t want to talk about it then he’s not going to push him. 

Alex lasts about 40 minutes of munching snacks and drinking Coke like he’s 15 again, and a part of him enjoys it because he doesn’t have to think about…...things……. but he’s been living by his own motto when it comes to everyone which is that he left bullshit in Iraq. He sighs and presses pause.

“Hey, that Luke person was just about to do some training with the erm stick….oooo lightsaber, why did you turn it off?”

Alex is surprised Kyle actually seems to have grasped what is going on.

“The fact that you’re keeping up tells me this is serious enough that we need to have a conversation.”

Kyle’s eyes widens and he slumps down in his seat and crosses his arms.

“Are you pouting like a child??”

“No.” The tone is so petulant Alex laughs.

“Come on, what’s going on? I’m trying to be a friend now. For real totally trying.” Kyle grimaces

“I’d rather watch Luke Skytalker.”

“Walker.”

“Yeah, whatever, I’d rather watch him and Han Solo save Carrie Fisher.”

“Princess Leia, also you know who Carrie Fisher is?”

“Of course I know who she is, I was a jock but I wasn’t blind.”

Alex can buy that.

“Nope, we’re still talking.”

Kyle sighs and lies down completely on the couch. 

“Okay, well the other day was definitely weird. I’ve been avoiding Liz because, well I am struggling a little bit with having to deal with her choosing Max and me doing her every bidding which is clearly not healthy so I went to this gay bar just to get away a little from everything and I ran into Isobel. Now I like Isobel, and we danced and had a good time and then we were totally gonna sleep with each other but I chickened out because I kind of like this other girl so I went back to the hospital to see if she was still around only to find out that she was in surgery, all alone without telling me anything…. and I’ve been feeling kind of off since.” He rambles on.

“Wait, did you just tell me you went to a gay bar?” Alex cannot believe this. Kyle groans and hides his face.

“My hopes were that you would hyper focus on me and Isobel almost sleeping together rather than the gay bar part.”

“Oh you and Isobel almost sleeping together that doesn’t surprise me one bit to be honest. I thought it would happen sooner than this.”

“....what?” Kyle shouts.

“But you, Kyle ‘Hyper Masculine’ Valenti went to a gay bar?”

“Can we focus on the other parts of the story?”

“No, definitely not.”

“Ugh, well I’m very comfortable in myself and my sexuality thank you very much but even us straight guys enjoy putting glitter on our faces from time to time.”

“Oh my god.” Alex laughs, loving this. “You had glitter on your face?”

“Totally.”

“Please tell me you have pictures.”

“Sorry.”

“Well that’s just a crime, you went to a gay bar with glitter on your face and didn’t take any photos?”

“You can just come with me next time and see.”

“Honestly I might, it sounds very tempting.” Alex jokes and Kyle smiles. 

“Back to the issue please.”

“What is the issue exactly?”

“I don’t even know, I like Steff and I thought we had something going on. But now I’m worried about her too, and then the whole Isobel thing and it’s all just messed with my head.”

“I don’t mean to make it into a competition over who’s had a worse day out of the two of us, but I honestly think I win.” Alex says without thinking. His eyes widen and he shakes his head.

“No I mean nothing by that.”

“Pfft, you left bullshit in Iraq, well I left bullshit in high school, so what’s going on? I’m only going to assume it has something to do with you staying in bed like a teenager to 1pm.”

“I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this... Well I went with Maria to find out more information about her mom’s disappearance and we ended up in the middle of nowhere with this crazy guy who stabbed me in the chest and chased Maria through a cornfield. Michael came later too, but Maria had already disabled the guy by then and I was mostly fine. Then we find out the crazy guy has a twin who is well, not crazy and shoots his brother in front of us and tells us to call an ambulance and then get the hell out of there. Which we do and then after coming down from the adrenaline of almost dying well, I have a threesome with Maria and Michael….”

Kyle spits the soda out. 

“What the fuck?!”

“So I win then?”

“Oh totally, but also what the fuck? You had what now? A threesome?”

“Yeah.” Alex runs a hand through his hair and avoids looking at Kyle. 

“But you’re gay.”

“Yeah definitely.”

“Erm so why? I mean not that I’m against threesomes, you do you if you know what I mean. I am however having a little bit of trouble understanding why you slept with the love of your life and your best friend in this world?”

Alex tries not to flinch at the words because he’s kind of tried to stay in denial about the whole goddamn thing and when it’s put in the terms of love of your life and best friend in the whole world it sound really stupid.

He shrugs.

“I just… I just… I don’t know I didn’t want to be alone after everything that had just happened. I mean getting stabbed is not something that’s ever happened to me. It wasn’t exactly common when I was deployed so getting sneaked up on and then assaulted wasn’t something I wanted to go home to an empty house with. I have enough PTSD already and that was just doomed to set of insomnia for a while. So staying was better than leaving and then one thing led to another.”

“Wow man...that’s tough. How are you feeling?”

“How often do you think I end up sleeping to 1pm?”

“So, is this one of those instances where I have to go beat Michael up?”

Despite all it makes Alex smile. He feels grateful for Kyle.

“No it wasn’t his fault. And also we’re not in high school anymore, I could totally take the both of you on even with just one leg.”

“Yeah that’s definitely true. Well you say the word and I will drive over and drag him out the junkyard myself.”

Alex smiles again.

“Thanks, but no need.”

“So you’re not angry?”

“No no, not angry, I just…”

“He chose Maria again?”

Alex wonders if it’s all written on his face and that’s why Kyle seems to be able to read it all.

“No it’s not really that. I just. I feel anger towards my dad sometimes. Because he fucked me up so badly when I was young.”

“Hey hey, there’s nothing wrong with you.” 

Kyle puts his hand down between them on the sofa, leaving it there for Alex to take if he wants to. He exhales.

“I went to therapy after I lost my leg. It’s the first time I went. I should have gone way earlier because my pile of issues were huge even before I lost it. I was forced to go when I lost my leg, because even then I was convinced I didn’t need help. Because going to therapy is the weakest thing a man can do. That’s what I heard on repeat in my head when I was being wheeled into her office a month after the truck had exploded with me in it. It was his voice saying, “You’re weak Alex, you’re weak” over and over again…”

Kyle doesn’t say anything, Alex has turned his head away, staring in the opposite wall so he doesn’t have to look at Kyle’s face. 

But…

He does take Kyle’s offer up on support and grabs his hand on the couch in reassurance. Kyle grips it tightly and Alex continues.

“We didn’t really talk too much about my life before the Air Force. She was a good therapist, she really was but I wasn’t really there to unpack the trauma of having all my self worth being beaten out of me by my father, so we didn’t. Which is why, now that I’m back here that the things that happened before I enlisted have just been pushed away and undealt with for years. Which is not the ideal way of dealing with issues. They are all just being dragged back up again and I keep going in circles around it. So sleeping with Maria and Michael really wasn’t the solution to anything, but I’m not sure it made anything worse either.”

Kyle grasps his hand again encouraging him to go on. 

“Michael’s the only person I’ve ever had any sort of relationship with, the only person I’ve ever really wanted to be with too but when we met I was young and the issues had only just begun. Michael had his own set of problems too and while I am definitely guilty in how things went down between us then and now I still even now, I just…”

He starts scratching at a loose thread on the sofa, just to have something to do. 

“Love always comes with some sort of conditions. That’s all thanks to my dad… I can’t escape the feeling of every time I let myself be vulnerable something is going to happen that ruins it. That I’m not good enough or that I’m not loveable because I am who I am… I don’t like myself at times because my dad drilled that into me, that I am unlovable, and if I don’t love myself how is anyone else supposed to? I never feel secure either, in myself or any partner. It’s just a big mess tangled together.”

Alex takes breath and bites down the tears. Even talking about it is really hard for him. 

“I love Maria as a friend, but I guess she’s just had this ability to make me feel safe where no one else has, not even Michael. And it isn’t Michael’s fault really, because he didn’t know what I needed, how could he? I didn’t even know at the time… I just know that after what happened between us that it’s time to move on, move forward and demand better for myself. I just want more than what I’ve been given before…”

“Wow, I really should have brought alcohol shouldn’t I?”

Alex chuckles watery and looks over at Kyle who looks like he’s been hiding his own tears.

Ugh, not really how he planned for this day to go. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to put all that on you.” He clears his throat in embarrassment.

Kyle looks annoyed and pulls on Alex’s arm. He doesn’t understand but moves closer to Kyle. When he’s close enough Kyle wraps his arms around him and Alex is stunned into silence.

“Don’t ever apologize to me Alex. Especially not for something like this, okay?”

Alex nods silently and for a moment allows himself be held. After a while he distangles himself and moves away. Kyle lets him. 

“So, are you and Michael over then, for good?”

Alex takes a long moment before he replies.

“I always had this idea that we would end up together, but after everything I honestly don’t know any more. If I live long enough then maybe yeah in the future. But not for a while. I need some time to figure out who I am.”

“Okay, well even so, even after what you and Michael have been through, however bad it was at times it would make some sense too if you wanted to give yourself some time to mourn him and whatever you had together. If you don’t then that hole in your chest might just expand forever.” He says softly. Alex gulps and sighs, refusing to cry again.

“Y-yeah.”

They’re both quiet for a while, Alex just sitting with what he’s come to terms with.

“So, more Star Wars?” Alex nods and jumps on the distraction Kyle offers. He opens up a package of Maryland cookies and munches them down.

All this food is looking more and more like comfort food to him.

…….

Two films later Kyle is laying on the floor, crumbs on his chest and his head in his phone trying to figure out tiktok dances. Alex has taken up the whole couch and he feels drunk. He probably is going through a sugar high because his whole body is buzzing with energy.

“I can’t remember the last time I had this much sugar.” He groans and eats an M&M.

“Me neither.” Kyle is definitely looking way to concentrated on that tiktok thing.

“Kyle you’re almost thirty, are you sure there isn’t an age limit on the app?”

“Shut up.” Kyle mutters but puts the phone down. Alex snort and throws some popcorn at him.

“Do you have any food around?” 

Alex shrugs, he has no clue. Kyle groans but gets up and walks into the kitchen. He’s wearing a pair of Alex’s sweatpants that are way too small for him, but the day spent eating just junk food, the jeans he arrived in had long gone been discarded of. Kyle bangs about in the kitchen for a while and Alex doesn’t move because he’s kind of comfortable where he is.

“You have pizza, that will do.” Kyle declares and comes back out with the stack of DVDs that had been left in there earlier.

“So you pick something. I need something other than the force, lightsabers and aliens. I feel like we should both be done with aliens for the night.”

“Then why did you bring Infinity War?”

“What? I like that film.”

“God who are you?”

“What? It’s really good, also Captain America is inspiring.”

“Patriotism and steroids your thing Valenti?”

“Funny, no, well you know what he’s actually pretty hot and he’s workout routine is impressive as hell.”

“Honestly, I’m more into Robert Downey JR. and that man is over 50.” Alex quips back. Kyle looks thoughtful.

“Nah, still digging Chris Evans more.”

“I mean blondes were never my type.”

“Yeah that much is clear.” Kyle snorts. Alex throws some more popcorn at him and Kyle whacks him with a pillow.

They end up watching Legally Blonde instead and this is definitely one of the strangest days Alex’s ever had. But it’s also kind of the best ones he’s ever had too, not that he’s letting Kyle know that of course.

It gets late, way after 2am and Alex is not cruel enough that he is going to let Kyle drive home at that time.

“Okay, I’ll stay but I am taking the couch.” Kyle says. Alex scoffs.

“Don’t be ridiculous, this couch is really uncomfortable, it will mess up your posture for sure.” Kyle eyes it suspiciously.

“My bed is big enough for two.”

“Are you sure?” Kyle looks uncertain.

“I’m sure.” Alex says reassuringly. 

So, they end up sharing a bed just like they used to do when they were kids and things were good and normal between them. Also Alex’s bed is definitely big enough for the two of them. He invested in this bed when he decided to stay here long term. He’s spent too many years of his life sleeping in uncomfortable beds that he’s done with that forever. So he had splashed out on this because he deserved it. And he was nearing 30, his back definitely deserved it.

“This reminds me of us as kids.” Kyle says later when they are comfortable. Ales chuckles.

“Yeah same, I hope you’re not still a snorer.”

“I haven’t snored a day in my life.”

“That’s definitely a lie and you know it.”

Kyle laughs and fake snores. Alex snorts at the ridiculousness of it all.

He falls asleep feeling a little better though.

……..

At 4:30 am they are abruptly woken up by someone knocking on his door.

“What the fuck?!” Kyle groans. Alex doesn’t even turn over, instead he starts poking Kyle’s arm. He refuses to get up. Kyle groans some more but after a while he gives in and leaves.

Alex is so tired he doesn’t even listen for who it is. That’s a mistake.

The person who has decided to come disturb him at this god forsaken hour appears to be Isobel, and her voice is loud. 

“Oh my god Kyle, you left the bar a changed man I see. I can’t believe you slept with Alex.”

Alex sits up immediately, as quick as he can with just his one leg and pulls the duvet up to cover himself. Her eyes trail over him and Alex brains clicks into action because that’s definitely what this looks like to an outsider. Kyle comes running in, his hair a mess, shirtless and still looking half asleep.

“That’s definitely not what happened.” He says, Isobel narrows her eyes.

“Well it’s not really any of my business. I hope you used protection.” She sits down on the bed and Alex doesn’t understand what is happening because Isobel and him are definitely not close, and for her to sit down on the bed like she knows him is strange as hell. 

“What are you doing here Isobel?” He asks.

“Oh, well we’ve been trying to get in contact with both of you for hours, but none of you have been replying. You usually answer when Michael or Maria calls but you dodged those too, which is strange but whatever.”

Alex honestly doesn’t even know where his phone is, he hadn’t looked at it all day yesterday, so he definitely has no clue what has been going on in the life of people outside this house.

“But after everything that happened I felt like being nice and charitable and drive all the way over here. I also thought you’d be up by now Captain, doesn’t your day start at 5 normally?”

Normally yeah, he might be up by this time, but not when he’s consumed his own weight in sugar and gone to bed late while dealing with things, then he doesn’t.

“So I’m charity now?” He says instead.

“Something like that, come on let’s get going. Chop Chop.”

“What happened?” Kyle asks.

“Max remembers something, from a dream maybe. Alarming things, so come one. I’ll buy you two coffee on the way there.” 

She blows a kiss at Kyle and leaves the room. Kyle gives him a look at Alex sighs.

Yep, no rest in Roswell, that’s for sure.

[marcothehobbit]

OC Facts feat. Hadrian Trevelyan

Thank you so much to @merrybandofmurderers​ for tagging me in this! And I’m sorry it took so long for me to complete; I just finished moving across country so I had to work on it here and there when I wasn’t packing boxes.

Here’s my lovely Hadrian, including a second shot where you can see his broken nose better (and somehow both of these screenshots are him talking to Dorian?? idk man):

I’m gonna put this under a cut because it’s  v e r y  long! Enjoy :)

PLACE IN SOCIETY 

✖ FINANCIAL – wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty

Hadrian comes from House Trevelyan, and though he is the youngest child in his family and therefore not the heir, he certainly does not want for anything. He frequently donates to Chantry efforts to help the poor and disadvantaged members of society, but other than this, he’s never been a big spender like others in his family.

✖ MEDICAL – fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged

At the Siege of Haven, Hadrian suffered a concussion, a few broken ribs, and an overextended right knee in his altercation with Corypheus. These injuries took a while to heal, and Hadrian tried to patiently wait to get better, but his sense of duty to lead the people of the Inquisition to safety led him to push himself a bit too far at times, and though he tried to hide it, some of his followers spied him hunched over in pain. After some time and rest, Hadrian is back to peak physical health, though he still suffers some difficulty sleeping and sensitivity to loud noises as a result of the concussion.The only indication of past injury anyone can see on his person now is a broken nose he received many years ago that didn’t quite heal straight.

✖ CLASS OR CASTE – upper / lower / middle / working / unsure

Overall, Hadrian is definitely a member of the upper class in society. He was destined, as many younger Trevelyan family members are, for the Chantry; Hadrian had welcomed this as an opportunity regardless of its cost and even if he’d have to reject wealth and status. However, what with being sent to the Conclave and subsequently becoming Inquisitor, he once again found himself assuming his previous role, using his noble status as leverage for the Inquisition as needed.

✖ EDUCATION – qualified / unqualified / studying

Hadrian’s family places a big importance on giving a good education to all Trevelyan children, so he received a full set of courses from private tutors in every relevant subject from rhetoric to mathematics, including special lessons on the Chantry since he was originally destined to take vows there. Hadrian’s favorite subject to learn was history, especially about past heroes and battles. When he was younger, Hadrian looked up to many of the figures he read about in old stories, and he also enjoys listening to Solas’s accounts of the battlefields and conflicts the latter has witnessed in the Fade.

FAMILY 

✖ MARITAL STATUS – married, happily / married, unhappily / engaged / partnered / divorced / widow or widower / separated / single / it’s complicated

Hadrian and Cassandra got engaged a few months after the Exalted Council, and his proposal was a very romantic event. One day, the advisors summoned Cassandra to an impromptu meeting in the Skyhold armory on the pretense of touching base with her before she left to go find some of the missing Seekers. When she left the armory about an hour later at sunset, she found a path of flower petals lined with candles, and every 10 feet or so was a basket with a piece of paper inside detailing one thing Hadrian loves about her or a happy memory from their relationship. Cassandra followed the path, which led up the steps into the great hall and out to the garden. Here, she found Hadrian by himself dressed in his best ceremonial armor flanked on both sides by flowers, and from the trees were hung over a hundred glass baubles, each one containing a brightly burning candle. Once Cassandra was close, Hadrian took her by the hands and recited a romantic poem that he’d been writing for her, and then got down on one knee before asking her to marry him. With tears in her eyes, Cassandra accepted, and as they kissed cheers erupted from above. The couple looked up in surprise to see the ramparts filled with as many Inquisition members as would fit (plus the advisors, obviously), and Hadrian shouted up amusedly at them that he’d told them not to watch. Leliana shouted back that “They couldn’t help themselves,” and Hadrian and Cassandra laughed and kissed again.

The two have talked a bit about their future wedding, the main sentiment being that they’d like it to be as small as possible. They both come from big noble families and know that a) they don’t necessarily get along with a lot of their relatives, and b) once you start inviting people it can get out of hand very quickly.

✖ CHILDREN – has children / no children / wants children / adopted children

Hadrian has always known that he wants children, but he and Cassandra have agreed that now is not the time. What with her efforts to rebuild the Seekers to be more just (especially towards mages) and his continued efforts on behalf of the Inquisition, the two are simply too busy working and traveling for the time being.

✖ FAMILY – close with siblings / not close with siblings / has no siblings / siblings are deceased / it’s complicated

Hadrian is the youngest of 5 siblings, and he has three older brothers and one older sister: Lawrence is the oldest, Arianna is the second child (and only girl), Wilmar is the third, and Rayner is the fourth. He is only regularly in touch with his sister, Arianna, as she is the only one of his siblings that he is still close with. Hadrian has never particularly gotten along with Rayner as the latter is overly competitive and resentful of his lot in life as the fourth child, and he’s always been jealous when his siblings get more attention and recognition than he does. Wilmar and Hadrian were close as children, but after the former began showing signs of magic, he was taken to live in the Ostwick circle; Wilmar stayed in regular contact with his family, but they haven’t heard from him since that circle rose up. Hadrian thinks of his mage brother frequently nowdays, his brow creasing with worry as he wonders what has become of his sibling. Lastly, like with Wilmar, Hadrian and Lawrence got along when they were young, but the latter has become quite shrewd in adulthood and concentrated almost entirely in managing the family’s finances. Hadrian and Varric bonded when they first met over having boring, overly business-focused older brothers.

On the other hand, Arianna and Hadrian remain close despite their distance (Arianna still lives in Ostwick), and they regularly exchange letters to update each other on their respective lives. Arianna is happily married to her wife Antonia, who is originally from Antiva, and they have an adopted daughter named Amelie, whom Hadrian has only met once due to his duties with the Inquisition. Hadrian actually got his broken nose by defending Arianna from a distant Trevelyan relative--a very bigoted one--and getting smacked hard across the face with a full wine bottle as a result. His nose has never been the same, but Arianna has always been grateful to her little brother for standing up for her.

✖ AFFILIATION – orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by both parents / it’s complicated

Hadrian has a pretty average relationship with his parents, Cadencia and Rowan Trevelyan. When he was a child, they certainly doted on him since he was the youngest, and as he got older they tried to make sure that he was prepared for life in the Chantry. Hadrian’s parents were certainly surprised when their youngest son became Inquisitor and commanded an army seemingly out of the blue, but they are proud of what he has achieved, and they try to stay in touch with him often to make sure that he is getting enough vegetables.

TRAITS & TENDENCIES 

✖ disorganized / organised / in between

Hadrian is definitely more on the organized side of things. One of the first things he did when he got access to his new quarters at Skyhold was to alphabetize all the books on his shelves; it always baffles him that though Dorian’s bookshelves always seem to be chaotically unorganized, the latter can always find what he’s looking for. Hadrian may not be the biggest perfectionist when it comes to organizing, but his quarters are certainly always tidy when he has visitors (and especially when Cassandra drops by).

✖ close-minded / open-minded / in between

In most situations, Hadrian is ready and willing to listen to and entertain new ideas unless they’re coming from someone he really doesn’t like and/or trust. The main exception to this concerns the Chantry. Hadrian comes from a devoutly Andrastian family, and there are so many members of the Trevelyan family that have taken holy vows that he is on first-name basis with most of the Ostwick Chantry. Moreover, Hadrian himself had not only supported the institution’s efforts to help the poor and needy for years but also looked forward to taking vows himself. Because of this, he respected the Chantry a lot, and after joining the Inquisition and learning of things like the abuse of mages and longstanding oppression of nonhuman races, he had a hard time letting go of the perfect image of the Chantry he had in his mind. With time and considerable thought, not to mention conversations with other faithful Andrastians like Leliana, Hadrian’s view has changed considerably, and he now not only acknowledges that serious changes need to be made but also tries to advocate for the historically ignored and oppressed members of society.

✖ cautious / reckless / in between

The best example of Hadrian’s cautiousness comes from early in his relationship with Cassandra. Both of them agreed that they didn’t want others to know that they were together at first since they’re both quite reserved when it comes to talking about romantic relationships. When Cassandra would go to Hadrian’s quarters to spend time with him in private, she’d knock on his door at the end of the great hall and, once he opened it, say something about wanting to talk through tactics (rather loudly and awkwardly, I might add, since we all know Cassandra isn’t the best liar) before following him inside. The couple waited a few months before telling people or showing any PDA, but Hadrian suspected that Varric had known after Cassandra’s second or third visit due to the dwarf’s asking suggestively in passing how Hadrian and Cassandra’s “tactical meetings” were going.

✖ patient / impatient / in between

Hadrian is generally very patient. He’s usually the last person to (stifle a) yawn during long, tedious war room meetings, and Josephine often goes to him to vent about nobles that are distressing her since he’s a good listener. 

✖ outspoken / reserved / in between

Hadrian is definitely a mix of outspoken and reserved. He typically doesn’t mince words, but when he’s drunk (which doesn’t happen often), he can get quite loud and talkative, sometimes saying things out loud that he’d otherwise keep to himself. If someone is speaking negatively about him, he won’t react, but if they attack someone he cares about, he will speak out decisively in support of his friend/loved one.

✖ leader / follower / in between

Most people that knew Hadrian before the Conclave--including perhaps Hadrian himself--were taken aback when he wholeheartedly accepted a leadership role as significant as Inquisitor is. Everyone close to him and his family in Ostwick knew that he’d been destined and prepared for a life of service with the Chantry, so his subsequent unflinching acceptance of his new role surprised many people from his old life. But Hadrian has proven to be a patient, fair, and merciful leader who uses his faith and the words of his advisors to guide him. And despite his usually more taciturn nature, he’s a surprisingly rousing public speaker as well.

✖ sympathetic / unsympathetic / in between

Unless he’s dealing with a complete trash fire of a person like Erimond, Hadrian is willing to listen to just about anyone to try to understand them. Hadrian is a very good listener, and he’s more than willing to listen to anyone close to him that has a problem they need to get off their chest. He’d probably be willing to do this for any fellow Inquisition member at Skyhold to be honest, but most of them would likely be too scared to take him up on it merely because of his being The Inquisitor™.

✖ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

Hadrian is more on the optimistic side, but this is definitely tested at times. His companions tend to reach out to him when they’re feeling down about life because he can frequently offer a different (and brighter) take on their situation.

✖ hardworking / lazy / in between

Hadrian is hardworking almost to a fault. He is no stranger to late, candlelit nights, poring over letters to important noble allies or old tomes he is using to help Dorian research. It certainly doesn’t help that he tends to have trouble sleeping anyway, and if he wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, his first instinct is to be productive with his time. Hadrian can have trouble shutting off and relaxing, and Josephine, Cullen, and Leliana have actually had to order him to rest on multiple occasions.

✖ cultured / uncultured / in between

Part of Hadrian’s education when he was growing up was learning about other cultures. Hadrian can remember sitting wide-eyed as his tutor taught him about Orlesian fashion, Nevarran dragon hunting, Dalish deities, dwarven provings, Ferelden mabari, Tevinter architecture, Antivan trade, Rivaini seafaring, Avvar hold beasts, and Qunari vitaar. But reading about a culture is very different from meeting people to whom that culture belongs, and before going to the Conclave, Hadrian never had much occasion to interact with many other cultures, especially the nonhuman ones, aside from some traders, refugees, or city elves that he knew casually from Ostwick’s alienage. Hadrian always felt nervous before meeting someone new from a culture that he’d only read about, mainly afraid of being unintentionally offensive. Since joining the Inquisition he’s gotten a lot more experienced and has met at least a few people from each of the above cultures. He’s also gained friends like Dorian, Iron Bull, and Varric that he can exchange cultural knowledge with, so he’s learned a lot and become more culturally aware, but he’s definitely still learning.

✖ loyal / disloyal / in between

Hadrian is fiercely loyal. Once someone gains his trust, he will stay by their side through anything. This isn’t to say that he won’t question friends’ problematic decisions, but he doesn’t like to even gossip, and if someone is saying something negative about someone close to him, whether it’s behind their backs or to their faces, he will absolutely stand up for them.

✖ faithful / unfaithful / in between

Hadrian is absolutely faithful, and he would never dream of cheating on someone that he was in a relationship with. This has never happened to him, but if he were in a relationship and met someone else that he wanted to pursue, he would be sure to break things off with whomever he was seeing first so as to remain faithful.

SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION 

✖ SEXUALITY – heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / omnisexual / demisexual / queer

Based on his past crushes, romantic interests, and partners, Hadrian would consider himself (at least in modern terms) pansexual. Though he is currently engaged to Cassandra, he doesn’t particularly have a preference in terms of gender.

✖ SEX – sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable

Hadrian definitely enjoys sex, but for him it’s reserved for committed relationships that he’s in. He of course doesn’t think any less of other people who do have casual sex, but it’s just not for him. His first time with Cassandra was actually the first time he’d even had sex on a first date, but he’d also never been so sure of his feelings for another person before her.

✖ ROMANCE – romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable

Hadrian is a bit of a hopeless romantic. He loves the practices of giving flowers, reading poetry, and other romantic gestures, and he enjoys both giving and receiving these. Hadrian was very happy to find someone like Cassandra who has a similar interest in being swept off their feet, so to speak, and the couple has had a lot of very cute, very romantic dates over the course of their relationship.

✖ SEXUALLY – sexually adventurous / sex experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious / uninterested

Hadrian is sexually inexperienced because of several factors. The main one is that because he was supposed to take holy vows, he was preparing himself for celibacy by refraining more from romantic relationships in the few years before he was supposed to join the Chantry. As a result, he was only in two relationships, both with other guys. And combined with his preference to only have sex with those he is committed to, he hasn’t had many opportunities for learning, but he’s certainly eager to try new things.

ABILITIES 

✖ COMBAT SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

Hadrian is an excellent marksman and very skilled with a bow. While wooing Cassandra, he participated in the archery contest thrown at Skyhold and won handily; he probably wouldn’t have participated otherwise as he’s not much of an attention lover or showoff, but he definitely wanted to impress her. Also, if he’s had a bit to drink, he and Sera try to do trick shots. This little practice of theirs arose originally out of Sera tipsily saying something along the lines of “Hey Trevelyan, bet you can’t shoot one of those banners outside the great hall while doing a backflip off a barrell.” These bets of theirs have gotten more outrageous over time, resulting in a few that seem near-impossible, like trying to shoot an arrow onto Hadrian’s balcony from the sparring area during heavy winds. But aside from these, Hadrian practices every day to make sure his skills are as sharp as his arrows.

✖ LITERACY SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

Hadrian isn’t too voracious a reader, but he has great reading and writing skills due to the customary education he received as a noble child. When he has some quiet time, which isn’t very often since he spends most of his time working or training, he enjoys reading about history. He’s also read some of Varric’s romance serial after catching Cassandra reading it just to see why she likes it so much, and he secretly quite enjoyed it.

✖ ARTISTIC SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

Hadrian has never been very artistic; even as a child he never had much of an interest in learning an instrument or drawing or anything like that. But one thing he does enjoy is writing poetry for Cassandra; he’s not the best at it, but he knows that she loves it, so he enjoys trying his hand at it on special occasions. 

✖ TECHNICAL SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

The same aptitude that made Hadrian good with a bow and arrow also makes him pretty good with his hands. He asked Blackwall to teach him woodworking when he saw the latter working on a little gryphon rocking horse. Since then he’s learned and created a lot, including a few bottle racks for all of the bottles of Thedas and Grey Warden ritewine that he’s found and some sliding bookshelf organizers.

--

Please let me know if you read this and have any comments/questions/feedback! I’m very new to all this so I’d appreciate anything you have to say!

[theoneandonlyowengrady]

We’ll Get Out of Here (2)

Description: (I feel like I should apologize for how long-awaited this sequel has been. Oops). A few months ago, you were kidnapped mid-battle from your friends The Guardians of the Galaxy. You never gave up hope that they would find you, but recently, prisoner in some strange lonely stretch of universe, you’ve been keen to give up.

Warnings: blood/gore, violence, fighting.

Word Count: 4,829

First Part

“Y/N!” Peter cried, sprinting so hard and fast that you could see the pain of his heart racing all over his face. He strained, reaching, screaming, grasping for you.

They pulled you back further still. They dropped you to the floor of their cold grey ship and the door began to close, Peter shooting the solid metal as you disappeared. You crawled forward, stretching, crawling, legs sore and tired.

“Peter...” You cried, banging your fist against the metal door as his shots rang out around you, echoing over the rumble of the engine.

You woke with a start, your eyes caked in dirt, sweat, and blood. Your jacket, a pillow beneath your head, was spread out beneath you now. Your hair rested in a matted bun atop your head, long and dirty. Your breathing was hard and labored, and your heart pained to be back in that dream, to see Peter again, to reach for him and maybe, just maybe, this time you would find his hand and he would pull you out. And then you could go back to Earth and stop waiting for the future to bring Earth back to you. You could live normal boring lives together in some desert or city, the events of the past far behind you.

“Oh-sixty-four, wake up,” a guard grunted, throwing some gross beige mush down next to you. “Rounds in thirty.”

You looked to your right and out the small porthole of your cell. The stars were far off in the blackness. Somewhere out there, you hoped the guardians were searching for you. You knew that they would find you. They would save you.

It’s not like you’d been pathetic and hadn’t tried saving yourself. You looked down to your wrist at the lightning-like scar that wiggled up your forearm, and then to the shackles on your ankles. There’s a tall price to pay for escaping in these parts, you knew that.

You took a forced bite of the breakfast mush and shoved it away. You had lot a lot of weight the last few months. You were weak and tired. So tired. You hoped they’d hurry and find you, because you weren’t sure how much longer you had the will to fight it all.

After a minute, you stood up, dizzy for a moment until you could get your bearings. You picked up your old leather jacket and wrapped it over yourself, shivering in the hard metallic cold of the ship.

You trudged through the halls with your guard at your side, his sickly green skin wet and slimy. The chains rattled against the floor. You wore an electric choker around your neck as well, and it left your head pointed up and stiff. They put it on every morning before you began your shift, just extra insurance against your escape.

“Don’t try anything dumb,” the guard said, shoving you forward and into a large, glass-domed room filled with dirt and other prisoners digging tirelessly.

“When I get out of here, you’ll be the first person I kill,” you spat, turning towards him angrily.

He chuckled. “If you last that long.”

He closed the gate on the big botanic room and you turned to the rest of the prisoners, watering and picking food from the bushes and digging in the dry dirt. The ship, you thought, was some kind of colony in the sky. You hadn’t seen the people that lived there often, but in the times you had they seemed naive, clean, and high-strung.

“Y/N,” one of the other prisoners said, slamming an old shovel into your gut, “you’re a digger today.”

You sighed and stared at the gate, and then turned your attention slowly to the dome.

“Peter,” you said, “I’m waiting.”

“Peter, I’m waiting,” Gamora snapped, steering the Milano through a gang of hostile aliens.

“Give me a damn second,” Peter yelled, “we have to wait for the right moment.”

“The right moment was five minutes go!” Gamora said, diving sharply down and around another enemy ship.

“Quill, I think I’m siding with the green one,” Rocket said, “I’m not in the mood to die a fiery death today.”

“Yes, I agree with the bunny rabbit,” Drax said, tensing.

“I am groot,” Groot said.

“Exactly!” Rocket agreed.

“Will you all shut up!” Peter shouted, aiming for the center of a large, black ship. “I need, like, two more seconds.”

Gamora rolled her eyes and continued flying forwards.

“Peter-” Rocket tried.

“We can’t kill them all! We still need to question them! These ships are the same mark as-”

“Peter,” Gamora said, her voice low. “We can’t help her if we’re dead.”

“We can’t help her if they’re dead,” he said after a moment.

After another second, Peter fired, the shot ringing through space and colliding with the center of the big black ship. An electric shock pulsed throughout the fleet and left the ships disabled all around them.

Gamora took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Rocket dropped his head to his hands.

“I am Groot.”

Peter sat back and smiled. “Yeah, now we’ve got a lead.”

The screen in front of them buzzed for a minute, and then a strange face clicked on and flickered before them.

“We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy,” Peter said, “prepare to be boarded.”

The Guardians boarded the main ship, guns drawn, Peter in the lead.

“And to what do we owe the pleasure?” The old, wrinkly alien said, lips perched as he watched the group approach.

“We have some questions about an attack a few months ago,” Gamora said, “it involved a ship just like one of your fleet, and they took one of ours hostage.”

The alien threw his head back and chuckled. “We have thousands of ships in our fleet like those, and everyday there are new people taken aboard. My guess is the prisoner died long ago. Not many survive.”

Peter clenched his jaw and took a step forward. Rocket shoved his claws into his leg and held him back.

“You don’t understand,” Gamora said, “we’re going to need you to look up some specifics.”

Drax tightened his grip on his gun and aimed it promptly at the aliens head. The mood of the room shifted and darkened.

“I’ll need a location.”

“A dwarf planet not too far from here. We landed on a gang of thugs like yourself. We were hired for the job.”

The alien man sighed, “then it does truly seem like these events should be in your job description.”

Peter stepped forward and punched him hard in the face.

The man rubbed his hand along his jaw and sighed, eyeing Quill.

“This must be a touchy subject for you, boy,” he said.

“Give us the information we need, or I blow up this entire fleet.”

The man thought for a moment, and then conceded. “There was a report of an attack on a shuttle by a small group on a nearby dwarf planet. A few casualties, one prisoner. But as far as I know, the ship encountered the Jitauri and blew up not one week after that event. There wasn’t a report of the prisoner being dropped off.”

Peter swallowed.

“Where would they drop the prisoner off?” Gamora asked.

“Anywhere from here to the other side of the universe. We’re everywhere.”

“Let me try again,” Gamora grunted, “where between the explosion and the planet could they have dropped the prisoner off?”

The man sighed. “They couldn’t have,” he said, “your friend is dead.”

Peter cried out and threw another punch at the man, tears welling in his eyes as Drax and Rocket reached to hold him back.

You dug all day. Hundred of little holes. So many new and strange plants growing from them. Sweat dripped from your forehead and you sighed, looking up to the sky.

“Still waiting for your friends?” Another prisoner asked. “If they’re gonna face this fleet, good luck to them.”

“They’ll be fine,” you said mindlessly, still staring at the stars above the glass dome. “Stronger then people expect.”

“I hope so,” the other prisoner said, “if they’re coming for you, maybe they can free all of us.”

You snapped back to reality and looked to the prisoner talking to you. It was a girl around your age, with long orange hair braided back and around her head. Her eyes were far apart and her skin was pale and freckly with an undertone of blue. She smiled sadly at you.

“Do you think they’re still looking?” She asked.

You looked at her and at the sky, and then back to her. She'd been here much longer than you.

A little bit of doubt began to creep into your mind. It had been months, and you knew you hadn’t gone that far. About two days travel on the ship that took you here. And this was a big place, and the stars had stayed in the same positioning the entire time. You hadn’t moved. So why hadn’t Peter found you yet?

You sat in the dirt, watching everybody work as you took a short break. You sang to yourself, your mouth dry and lips chapped. Your voice cracked and whispered.

“I’m not in love...”

You felt the tears rising under your arms and up into your eyes.

“So don’t forget it... It’s just a silly phase I’m going through...”

You tried to imagine Peter’s touch. That night, the night you were taken, he was sleeping next to you. When you woke up, he was flying the ship, and you were alone. You’d give anything to have woken up besides him that last day. You kept singing.

You let your head fall against the wall behind you.

“And just because... I call you up... Don’t get me wrong, don’t think you’ve got it made... I’m not in love...”

Peter rested his head against the window and watched the stars pass as they raced back towards the dwarf planet they left long ago. The song played on around him, floating through the air like an old promise.

Gamora sat next to him and placed a hand on his knee.

“Peter?”

He grunted, still staring out the window.

“Peter, are you okay?”

He didn’t answer.

“Peter, we’ll search the radius of the planet. After that, we can try and find the wreckage of the ship. But really, all we can find now is closure.”

He moved his eyes and found hers, glazed and sad. Empty.

“You believe him? That asshole? You think she’s dead?”

Gamora thought about her words carefully. “We’ve been looking for a long time, Peter... If that ship was destroyed that fast... And you know she would’ve fought back. What are the chances that-”

Peter tensed. “Well we’re here now, aren’t we? So the chances are pretty good that this would all happen. And I can’t give up.”

“I know, and that’s why we’re scanning, and searching, and why we’ll find the wreckage, whatever is left of it-”

“So you’re looking for a body now?” Peter asked. He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes.

I’m not in love.

Gamora stayed quiet. She lifted up a gentle hand and brushed away some of his fluffy curls. “I’m looking for closure.”

Peter turned his face gently back towards hers, closer now. A few seconds of silence passed before he fell forward, leaning gently in towards her. He kissed her, the tears falling from his closed eyes and down his cheeks as the universe danced in the window behind them.

I keep your picture... Upon the wall... It hides a nasty stain that's lying there...

He placed a hand on her neck, just below her jaw, more tears peaking through his squinted eyes.

I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me...

“Peter!” Rocket called, “the scanners picked something up! There’s a fleet base about two days south of the planet! They might’ve left her there!”

Peter pulled himself away from Gamora, his cheeks soaked in salty tears. She blinked for a moment, sad.

“Let’s go. Top speed.” Peter stood and walked away from Gamora, who turned her attention to the window at her left.

I'm not in love... So don't forget it... It's just a silly phase I'm going through...

The song echoed out around them as they sped off into the reaches of space.

The next week you awoke from a relatively sleepless night. The shackles on your ankles ached and stirred as you moved. You stared out the window when you couldn’t sleep, hoping to see the milano fly up, Peter just out of reach.

The same nightmare of the night they took you came again, and Peter’s face was blurry now. You tried to remember it, to remember his voice and his hands, but it was all so far off now. How far away were they? Had they given up?

You pressed a hand against the cool glass of the porthole and felt a tear fall form your eye, draining on the floor at your head. Your jacket served as a blanket tonight, shielding you from the stark cold.

There was a rumble that shook the ground. Other prisoners stood up in their cells and called out.

“Shut up!” The guard shouted, “shut up!”

You struggled weakly to your feet, wrapping your hands around the hard bars of your cell. White-knunckled, you pulled yourself up to your feet, your knees shaking.

“What’s going on?” You tried, your voice weak and scratchy.

“None of your business, oh-sixty-four,” the guard said, banging the bars and your fingers, “step back. Back!”

You cringed, pulling your fingers into your chest. The floor shook again, and more guards ran down the hall.

Across the hall, you found the eyes of the orange-haired girl sitting in front of the bars of her cell. She had dried dirt smeared down her cheek, covering her soft pale-blue lips.

You turned and scrambled for your porthole, pressing your hands flat against it as you tried to look around.

“Peter,” you tried, your voice breaking. “Peter.”

The ground shook again, sending you to the floor, dizzy and and weak.

The milano shook restlessly as Rocket steered straight for the giant ship. A big glass dome decorated the center of it, reflecting the light of the stars.

“What is this place?” Rocket asked, leaning forward.

“A colony,” Gamora said, “he probably didn’t mention it because there’s civilians. We need to find a safe way to do this.”

Peter watched Gamora. Gamora kept her eyes trained forward.

“We sneak in,” Peter said.

“Well we’re already being shot at,” Rocket said, the milano shaking.

“Then we fight,” Peter said.

Rocket began firing at the approaching ships, a few of them spiraling out in flames. They dodged and swung, speeding around the colony in a blaze.

Peter swallowed, watching Gamora and the huge ship, the dome of glass stretching out over the center.

“Peter, I’m gonna drop you guys real quick once I get an opening. Get in there, blend in, hide, and try and find her.” Rocket yelled over the firing, surging forwards towards and open bay on the big colony ship.

Rocket dove towards the bay, Peter, Gamora, and Drax standing at the opening door, clicking their masks on.

They jumped out, flying towards the opening fast. Peter took the lead, speeding down towards the ship. He landed with a thump, rolling forwards until he slammed into a wall at the opposite end of the bay. Gamora and Drax followed.

They entered the ship, their masks dissolving as they clicked them off. Peter glanced back and Gamora and pressed his lips together, letting out a deep breath.

“Y/n,” peter whispered, pushing forward.

Guards were still running passed your cell.

“Do you wanna get out?” You asked, looking at the orange-haired girl across from you. She thought for a moment, and then quickly jumped to her feet and nodded firmly.

“I’m gonna need your help,” you said, “I’ve got these chains.”

She nodded again, holding onto the bars with both hands.

As a guard sprinted by, you reached out a hand and snagged a set of keys, quickly rolling backwards into the darkness of your cell. You fiddled with them, your hands shaking from weakness.

“God, Peter, I hope this is you,” you muttered, reaching outside of your cell to try and unlock the door. “Tell me if anybody is coming,” you said to the girl.

“Okay,” she said, “be quick.”

You tried key after key, shaking and fighting against your own strain to unlock your cell. After a minute, the lock clicked and the door fell ajar. You grabbed your jacket and wrapped it around you, sliding out the door and closing it behind you. You glanced up and down the long hall of cells and took the keys to the orange girls cell.

“They’ll kill us,” she said frantically, “I’m afraid.”

You reached a gentle hand through the bars and grabbed her wrist. “It’s gonna be okay. No matter what happens, we’re getting off this ship.”

She nodded, watching your eyes with a sense of hopelessness. Her door clicked open, and she slid out beside you. You closed it silently.

“Hey!” Another prisoner yelled. “Hey! Us too!”

You looked down the hall at all the desperate hands, skinny and dirty and desperate. You slid the keys to the prisoner that cried out and grabbed the orange-haired girls hand, pulling her through the hall. Doors clicked and flew open behind you both as you sprinted, prisoners joining you in your race to freedom.

“We’ve got a code red just off bay three,” a voice said, garbled through a communicator, just passed a turn ahead of you. You held out an arm to stop the people behind you, slamming yourself against the wall. You put a finger over your lips.

“Three invaders, all of humanoid descent, one green-skinned with red hair, one grey-skinned, one wearing a long cloak-”

You reached around the corner and locked your arm around the neck of the guard. He reached up and grabbed at your arm, clawing at your skin. The orange-haired girl grabbed him and helped you pull him to the ground. After a moment of wrestling, you found your way on top of him, all of your weight down on your forearm just over his neck.

“Three invaders-” you said, exasperated, “who are they?”

You felt hope trickled back in. You glanced up at the other prisoners, watching intently.

The guard gurgled and choked, flailing against the floor. Spit and sweat dripped from your chin and onto his face, and after a second his body fell still. You clenched your jaw and took a few deep breaths, standing up quickly. You rolled your shoulders and cracked your neck, the chains at your feet rattling against the metal.

With the band of prisoners behind you, another guard rounded the corner. You sent your elbow up into their face, your chains hitting the floor.

A soldier slammed backwards into a wall as Peter pulled his elbow back from his head. He grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed his knee up into his chest. He collapsed to the ground.

“Peter, I thought we were blending in,” Gamora whispered.

Peter look down at the bloodied soldier and dragged him behind a corner. He wiped off his hands and turned forwards, and empty hall stretching out before him.

“We’ve got three invaders, all of humanoid descent, one green-skinned with red hair, one grey-skinned, one wearing a long cloak-”

Drax grabbed onto  loose pipe in the ceiling and swung backwards, his legs stretching forwards just as a guard came around a bend. The guard flew back and slammed down on the cold ground, his communicator sliding across the hall.

A weak voice cut through the static, just barely audible.

“Who are they?”

Peter stopped, his ears twitching at the sound. His lips parted as he bent down to pick up the narrow watch, the voice breaking through the static.

“Peter?” Gamora asked, turning away from Drax as he pummeled the guard.

Peter stared down at the watch, waiting.

“Peter-” Gamora tried, “we need to go. Now.”

The static on the watch cut off and died. Peter looked up at Gamora, clenching his jaw and dropping the broken communicator to the ground with a clank.

The chains hit the ground.

You searched the guards on the ground for a key to set yourself free, but there was none.

“We need to keep moving,” you wheezed, pulling yourself around the turn.

“Y/n,” The orange-haired girl said, “if this is your friends-”

“It is,” you said, nodding, breathing frantically.

“They’ll find you. You’re in no shape to fight. They will find you. Come with us. We can get out.”

You looked over all of the other prisoners, all small and tired. They watched your every movement, every twitch and breath you took.

“If they’re on this ship, they’re in just as much danger as we are. I’ve never left them behind before-” You thought back to your dream, to the face Peter made as the doors shut in the shuttle and swept you away. You had left them then. That day, you didn’t fight hard enough, and you left them.

“You guys go,” you said after a moment of silence, “get to safety. Steal shuttles. Kick ass. Do whatever you can to get out and get home. I have to do this.”

The girl shook her head. “You don’t owe anybody anything, Y/n.”

You looked down, a drop of blood falling from your nose. You found her eyes. “I owe Peter.”

Blood dripped from Peter’s hand as another soldier fell to the ground.

The three rounded another corner and entered the big glass dome. A makeshift field of dirt and plants spread out before them, abandoned now and drenched in a red hue from the alarms they had set off.

A man lay in the dirt, his ankles in chains. there was a steal collar around his neck, as well as cuffs around his wrists. His eyes stared up into nothingness. Peter swallowed over the lump in his throat and pushed through the dirt.

“Peter, we need to find her fast,” Gamora said.

Peter ignored her and ripped up the plants, kicked the dirt up into the air. A smaller door on the other side of the dome opened, and a group of guards in all-black walked through, their boots crunching on the ground.

Peter reached under his cloak and pulled out his two guns, one for each hand.

You watched as the prisoners went in the opposite direction of you, towards the shuttles. There were so many of them, some of them carry rusty bars and others weapons from the guards. You knew you had done something right by them, setting them free. Nobody could stop them now.

You made your way towards the dome. Knowing how they all thought, you figured they would go for the most identifiable place. Your chains rattled as you limped through the hall, nose bleeding and head pounding.

“It’s just a silly phase I’m going through...” you sang to yourself, “and just because... I call you up... don’t get me wrong, don’t think you've got it made...”

There were shots ahead of you, behind the small door where the prisoners entered the big dome. You looked back one last time.

It was too late to join the others.

You kept singing, squeezing your tired eyes shut as you listened to the sound of shots firing.

Gamora ran up and wrapped her legs around the neck of a guard, throwing him to the ground. As she held him down, Peter sent a shot into his shoulder. He spun and shot a few more times, more guards and soldiers pouring in. Distantly, he could hear people screaming.

Dirt and plants exploded around him, fire erupting on the trees along the walls. The dome above was crystal clear, the stars around the ship shining bright and watching casually.

Drax pushed a small group soldiers into the wall over and over, leaving a giant dent in the metal.

“State your business!” a soldier screamed, shoving a gun into the back of Peter’s head.

The room began to fall quiet, the rest of the soldiers pinning their weapons on the three of them. Peter tucked his guns away at his side and put his hands up, his eyes finding Gamora’s.

“We’re looking for someone,” he said, brows furrowing.

The guard pressed the gun into his head.

Through the quiet, Gamora could just barely hear the sound of singing. She turned her head, listening carefully.

“I’m not in love...” You sang, more like a zombie now than anything else. The shots had died down. You limped still, chains dragging as you sang.

Peter could hear you now too. So could the rest of the guards.

As the door rose open, Peter saw you standing there, skinny and broken and chained, nose dripping blood. His lips parted and his breathing sped up. Gamora and Drax turned.

You found his eyes. He stood there with his hands in the air, guns pointed at him from ten different angles. 

“It’s just a silly phase I’m going through.”

The soldiers and guards looked at you, perplexed.

Your usual guard turned to you, eyes deadly.

“Oh-sixty-four!” The guard shouted, huffing towards you in the doorway.

You pressed your lips together, Peter’s eyes finding yours. Your heart flooded, seeing his face. His hair, curled so gently. Scratchy beard, pink lips.

The guard reached out for you.

You mustered up all your strength and punched him in the face, his gun falling from his hands. In that moment, Peter ducked and turned, tackling the soldier behind him. Shots erupted once again.

You dove and slide across the dirt for the gun, wrapping your fingers around the cold handle. You turned and pointed it at your guard.

“I told you, you would be the first person I killed.” You pressed the trigger, the shot sending you falling backwards as the guard crumbled lifeless to the ground.

You lay there, looking up at the stars. You thought about that fateful day on the dwarf planet, when they took you. How badly Peter wanted to save you. You felt safe in that split-second memory.

But then there was a knife in your side, and you gaged suddenly, crying out.

“Y/N!” Peter called, ripping out his guns and shooting in every direction. Peter screaming, his fists blazing and shifting as he filled with rage.

He shouted, and every soldier and guard around him fell to the ground. Gamora tackled the soldier that stabbed you, sending a shot through his heart.

You looked up at the sky.

Peter stared down at his hands, the flames fading now. Drax watched him, confused.

You smiled, blood welling up behind your teeth.

“Y/n,” Gamora whispered, placing a hand in your hair.

“You- you- you found me-” you struggled, shaking. “Jeez, can you get me out of these chains?”

Gamora tried to smile, her lip quivering. She shot at the chains and they fell from your ankles, into the dirt.

“Y/n,” Peter said, falling to his knees at your side. Your heart surged with happiness.

“I knew you’d find me, Peter,” you said, finding his eyes. He was crying. You smiled.

You felt his arms wrap around you and lift you, the stars somewhat closer. The memory blurs after that- he was running, carrying you. He was warm. So warm. And you were cold, still. 

“We’ll get out of here,” Peter whispered, placing a mask over your face. “Don’t worry, Y/n. We’ll get out of here. We’ll get- We’ll get out of here.”

You let your head roll back as the void of space confronted you with no walls to protect you.

You woke up the way you had fallen asleep, in Peter’s arms.

Your body was sore and tired. Your ankles burned from the freedom from the chains. There was stiff gauze wrapped around your midsection.

Peter was so warm, and he smelled like home. Even the lights of the milano seemed welcoming.

“Y/n,” Peter said, sitting up slightly to look into your eyes.

“Peter,” you said with a sigh.

“I thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you.”

You smiled. “I thought you’d given up on me.”

Peter pressed his forehead to yours and closed his eyes. “I love you. I love you, Y/n.”

You pressed your lips to his. “You found me.”

He pulled you into his arms, gently tracing circles on the exposed skin of your stomach.

“When we get to Earth, I don’t want to live on a farm,” you whispered, your voice hoarse.

“That’s fine,” he said, “farms are overrated. All I need is a park and some birds to feed.”

You thought back to that fateful day one last time, and you smiled, sinking into Peter’s warmth.

“What a simple man.”

[iflostreturntosteverogers]

When Skies Are Grey

Characters: Nat, Daughter!reader, Tony, Peter, Steve, Clint, Pepper (mentioned)

A/N: This is the sequel to You Are My Sunshine in the Little Spider Series. 

Warnings: Angst, Mentions of torture

Nat POV

     “We’ll find her, Nat.” I’m shaking, my head in my hands. “How could this have happened? I was right across the hall!” I scream at them. Steve bends down in front of me. “Whoever it was sealed the vents solely to your apartment and pumped some sort of gas in to knock you out. That’s not your fault.” Clint sits down beside me and holds my hand. “I want to know how they even got in here.” Tony sighs rubbing the back of his neck. “I have FRIDAY searching the surveillance footage and identifying the breech. I hate to give credit but whoever it is has to be near genius. Not only were they able to override the vent system to isolate their apartment but disabled the alarms and somehow slipped out of this building unnoticed. It has to be someone who works here. It’s the only way into the building.” I hate this. This was supposed to be the safest place for her. I’m her mother. I was supposed to protect her. “Do we have any idea as to who it could be or at least what group? Was anything left in the apartment?” I shake my head. “But I didn’t really take the time to look either. I-I need some time to think.” Without another word, I get up and walk away. I head down to the training area. I need to hit something, to clear my head so I can find my daughter and kill whoever took her.

Y/N POV

     Cold water splashes against me, scaring me awake. “Wake up!” A man’s voice screams at me. I scramble into the corner of the cell making myself as small as possible. “Oh, baby spider, you can’t escape.” My whole body shakes. “P-please. I-i just want to go home!” He walks in and towers over me. “Well now, you see that’s a problem. We need information on your mother and her teammates, and you can give us that. If we were to let you go, then we’d never get what we need.” He says through gritted teeth, pulling me up by my hair and dragging me out the door and down a long hallway. Everything in this place is dark, cold, and damp. I whimper when he tosses me into a room and I hit the hard ground. “Why is she wet?” Asks a woman. She reminds me of Aunt Pepper with her long, blonde hair and tall high heels. The man that dragged me here shrugs. “I threw water on her to wake her up.” The woman rolls her eyes and kneels down in front of me. “Well, little one, are you going to be a good girl?” I nod at her and she smiles. She looks like an animal about to attack. “Good.” She turns to the man in the room. “Go grab a chair and strap her in. Boss will be in soon.” The man drags a big, leather chair into the middle of the room and lifts me off the ground. I try to kick and scratch him like Mama said but I can’t reach his face. He laughs, slamming me into the chair and wrapping leather straps around my wrists and legs. He leans down into my face with his stinking breath. “Too bad the boss won’t let me have any fun.” I do the only thing I can think think of and spit in his face. “Why you little-“ He raises his hand to hit me but he’s pulled backwards and lands hard on the floor. “OUT.” The man scrambles out of the room as quickly as he can. 

     Black spots dance in my vision. “Oh, I’m not done with you yet. Stay awake.” The first man I met grabs my hair and yanks my head up to look at him. Everything hurts. He asks a lot of questions, and hurts me when I tell him I don’t know. “Where is your father?” I try to answer but my mouth doesn’t want to work. “I-I-I,” I trail off and he makes a disappointed sound. “I won’t ask again.” I take a deep breath and try again. He won’t like my answer, but it’s the truth. “I-I don’t know. Mama wouldn’t tell me. She said it wasn’t safe for me to know.” He growls but doesn’t hit me this time. He releases my hair and lets my head fall forward. “Set up the feed, Katya. It's time to let Ms. Romanoff know we have her precious, little spider.”

Nat POV

     “Nat, you need to eat.” Clint shoves the take out container under my nose. “I told you I didn’t want anything.” He rolls his eyes. “Yes, because I’m going to listen you. You can’t just not eat.” I turn and glare at him. “It’s been a week, Clint. We have nothing to go on! I am not worried about food right now!” I shout at him. He sits across from me at the table and points his finger in my face. “You haven’t slept and you’re not eating. I know you want to find her, we all do. But you are going to be no good to her if you run yourself into the ground. Now, stop arguing with me and eat. You know I’m right.” I give in and take a bite. Clint smirks at me knowing he’s won. “Wipe that look off your face before I do, Barton.” He chuckles. I sigh and stare into the container. “I can’t help but think of how scared she must be or what they’ve done to her. They’ve had her for seven damn days.” I start to take another bite when Peter bursts through the apartment door. “You gotta get down to the conference room! It’s Y/N.” Clint and I look at each other a moment, then take off running with Peter right behind us.

     “Ah, there she is.” A heavily accented voice says as we walk in the room. I know it but can’t place it right away. “Don’t you recognize me, Natalia?” His voice chills me as recognition hits. “How could I forget you, Niko?” I reply sickly, sweet as things start to make sense, this isn’t a Hydra ploy after all. It’s revenge.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

A lot of thoughts about All Might, Izuku Midoriya, and My Hero Academia’s themes of empowerment and hope

So a few months ago I finally jumped on the infamous My Hero Academia bandwagon, and I’m finally getting around to talking about what it is about this series that has me so utterly captivated and emotional beyond belief, something I’ve wanted to discuss for a while now. MHA does a lot of things right, and at the same time, some things wrong, I can’t deny, (and man, I wish it didn’t do some of those things... alas), but there is one aspect of it in particular it (that expands into a few different things) that affects me more than anything else, that I wasn’t expecting at all when I first walked into it... something so special to me purely because of how so few other series focus on topics like these, and so beautifully and profoundly.

Below I’ll go into what I believe is MHA’s biggest strength, what makes it stand out from other shounen series, that resonates with me and so many others so deeply. This post is super long and rambling, with way too many pictures, and all of this has been said before by others, but hey, this is really damn important to me so I need to cry about it myself in-depth okay. Hopefully this all makes sense? lmao. Oh and lots of spoilers ahead.

It all has to do with our two main characters, and how they embody and exemplify more than anyone else the themes at the heart of the series:

First off, the main point: All Might is a disabled superhero.

I haven’t read/watched a ton, at least compared to many others, but I’m still confident in saying that, like other marginalized groups, finding disabled characters in media, main ones that are handled well, and don’t have their disabilities magically cured or made irrelevant somehow, is really fucking rare. And even in these cases, the disability is usually something such as blindness, deafness, muteness, an inability to walk, or lack of limbs. Which by no means am I saying that it isn’t important to represent those disabilities as well, far from it (I want more characters in wheelchairs, god dammit); I’m only saying that there’s even less chance of seeing more complicated disabilities, ones that might not be obvious from the outside, or on the flip side, ones that are very obvious on the outside (to the point that they might seem “unsightly”, disabilities that writers, especially in Hollywood, wouldn’t be eager to want to attempt properly, unfortunately), because of that.

All Might is arguably the secondary main character in the series, and he has a very specific set of issues due to the injury he received in the past: the blow to his torso meant they had to take out his stomach, much of his lungs were mangled and destroyed, and he had to have many successive surgeries just to get to a stable point, all of which left as emaciated as he is, and with a massive, ugly, bruised scar that caves inward like an impact crater, which looks like it hurts like hell. Losing his stomach means getting enough nutrition is virtually impossible for him (since he doesn’t have the time nor the discipline to eat as regularly as he needs to), making him even more dangerously skinny, and losing so much of his lungs wreaks havoc on his stamina and breathing, as well as causes him to cough blood on a regular basis.

...and All Might is the strongest superhero in the MHA universe, while still having all of these problems.

Now I won’t say that this is the absolute pinnacle of disability representation or anything, absolutely no way; All Might’s blood coughing is used for comedic effect, which I wish weren’t the case (though that happened the most near the beginning of the series; you don’t really see it anymore), and it would honestly be really nice if his disabilities were made more of a focus/point in the normal, mundane slice-of-life parts of the story, instead of just when the plot demands for it to be relevant, which so far has only been in the USJ arc, the Kamino Ward arc, and I suppose you could argue with the reveal of his death prophecy in chapter 131; it would be really amazing to see the other characters helping him when he needs it, and to see him using medical technology, even. Fanfiction is a blessing that I am eternally grateful for for doing this, but it’s not a replacement for canon. However, having said all that, it is incredible, something that I cannot even put into words how thankful I am, that Horikoshi has done even this much. All Might is not only the strongest of the strong, but he is simultaneously weak and sickly as well, he is both, and the best part of this is that when his “weak” side is revealed to Izuku, and later on everyone else, no one considers that part of him “lesser” or “inferior”: he is still strong, he is still “All Might”, to them, no matter what he looks like, and no matter what he can do.

In essence, having this in a Superman character is genius, because heroes are meant to be inspirations, beacons of hope, people who the characters, and the audience, watch, and are able to think “I can be strong and do good like them, too”, and one of MHA’s main themes is that heroes are heroes ultimately not because of what physical strength they possess, but because of their hearts... so how reassuring, how inspiring, how perfect is it for the top hero to actually be so ordinary, so human, underneath all the bravado and physical strength? Someone who is not some godlike entity on another level entirely, impossible to reach, but simply someone as normal as anyone else, filled with nothing but kindness and an entirely selfless earnestness to help the world, who worked as hard as he could to reach where he did, even despite all odds, despite everything he endured... someone that almost anyone can relate to, and feel like they can become. That is why everyone continues to love All Might no matter what he looks like and what he can or cannot do, and to have someone with so many physical disabilities be so beloved and considered so strong in the story?

That is powerful. That is the kind of character so many more stories need, who, again, people like myself can relate to, both in feelings of weakness and frailty and insecurity, but also in feelings of inner (and outer) strength and motivation and confidence, too. All Might is disabled: that’s just a fact of him, he is never going to ever recover any more, and no one faults him for his disabilities or treats him differently or delicately for it, except for Aizawa a couple times (out of concern). And I love him for it, because I can see my disabilities in him, I can easily picture him going through so many of the hells I’ve been through throughout my life, and god I’m just so emotional to have All Might. I was sobbing during the Kamino Ward All for One fight, seeing All Might be allowed to fight and WIN in his non-powered up, weak form, seeing everyone cheering him on because they held unwavering faith in him no matter what he looked like, to the very end. You never truly understand how important representation is until you are given some, finally. Could there be more to it? Yes, absolutely, and I wish there was. But it’s so wonderful to have a character like this at all, who is an endless sandbox of headcanons and art and fics, all of which are very likely based on what canon does tell us about All Might. It’s just... so nice to simply have a character like him there, shown positively. Thank you, Horikoshi.

However, it goes beyond just All Might; there is the other half of this representation (and relationship), as well:

In MHA’s universe, being quirkless is likened to having a disability; only 20% of the population do not have quirks, and being in that percent is considered strange, a tier below so-called “normal” people, and something to pity and sympathize, if the adults and kids around Izuku in his middle school years are any indication. It’s bad enough knowing that actual disabilities are often treated this way (All Might doesn’t want anyone to see his true body, out of shame, guilt, and fear that people will worry about his ability to continue helping them, even though he is the most beloved and strongest hero of all time, and proves for six entire years with these injuries that he can still work!), but the fact that this then happens to people without inhuman superpowers, something that no one had and wasn’t at all a part of society and everyday life generations ago, that not being cool (basically) will get you looked down upon too, is awful to think about. But that’s the situation Izuku is put in, and it’s because of this specifically that All Might has such an incredible impact on him: that is, not just because of what he does for him, and how he starts off admiring him from a young age, but also because of All Might himself (I’ll get to this).

Izuku admires and tries to emulate All Might as a child, dreams of becoming him when he gets older, just like any kid would; like many children probably did with All Might. But once he’s told that he won’t develop a quirk, clinging to that dream, clinging to All Might, becomes even more fervent and desperate and necessary and important, no matter how impossibly out of reach now All Might’s level may seem, no matter how foolish it is and how deep in denial he goes, because believing that he can become as great a hero as him, believing his heartfelt and motivational words and actions on TV, is all Izuku has to keep his spirits up, to still have any hope. Everyone around him loses faith in him ever becoming someone great, becoming as strong as others with powerful quirks will become, even someone with a pointless quirk means more in society’s eyes than someone like Izuku (ableist much??? ugh) but Izuku continues trying to shoot for his dream, though he has no idea how besides researching other quirks, refuses to give up on himself, despite the pitying, despite the constant, horrendous bullying (bullying that is, again, essentially the way a disabled person would be bullied for having a disability. Think about that. why is Bakugou painted as so forgivable in the narrative again), and I really do believe All Might’s existence for all those years before he met him was the only real reason for that. Izuku is stubborn, but it’s clear at the beginning of the series how badly everything has affected his confidence and self-esteem... if he had never met All Might, it haunts me to think about when Bakugou’s suicidal taunts might have finally pushed him over the edge, possibly literally.

But then, he does meet his hero. And who is it that he finds?

A depressed, broken, and unhealthy man, the complete opposite from the person he had known and looked up to and clung to all his life, who tells him that his heroic smile is no longer real, but rather a mask, and that Izuku should face reality: he can’t become a hero without a quirk.

Now, initially, of course, this utterly devastates Izuku, and one can’t blame him. He reacts exactly as All Might believes anyone would act if they saw his true form, true self, and then his hero rolls with the unpleasant mood and makes it worse, and deals the killing blow and shoots down his eternal dream, the scraps of hopes he’d been clinging to. And hearing it from the man himself, someone who is literally in the same situation Izuku is in, essentially, forces him to give up entirely, because if All Might says he can’t do it, then that’s the end of it, isn’t it? No more lying to himself, after this... not after his hero has basically just told him that everything he projects to everyone is a lie. All Might is the best of the best, and yet, still, he ended up like this, so how on Earth can Izuku think he can do even a FRACTION of what the number one hero has done, with no power at all, and come out of it alive??

All Might is depressed, and weak, and powerless (despite having so much power), just like Izuku is, but he has no inspiring words of comfort about pushing past boundaries or defying odds and expectations, because he doesn’t see himself as anything inspiring, anyone to shoot for, not like he is, doesn’t want anyone emulating him and getting themselves hurt like he is, and he’s not going to be cruel to someone and tell them that they can do things they won’t be able to just to make them feel better; he knows the harsh reality better than anyone. He doesn’t intend to hurt Izuku on purpose, he’s only trying to keep him from doing something reckless that will get him hurt (oh the irony, minutes later), and in his depression and self-loathing and guilt, he’s forgotten how he originally felt when he wanted to become a hero, way back when, the same way Izuku feels... he has lost all hope himself, so of course he has none to give to Izuku, someone sitting squarely in his similar, currently-hopeless position.

In short, all of Izuku’s insecurities and fears are confirmed by that first encounter, which is like looking into a mirror, (and, again, that is heartbreaking, for that to happen with All Might, of all people) and at that point, he’s ready to give up.

But then, the sludge attack happens soon after, and everything changes completely when they meet again.

My Hero Academia’s most beautiful and unique quality to me is how overwhelmingly hopeful and uplifting it is, the message it carries of realizing that you can achieve your dreams, in some way, in some form, no matter how out of reach they may seem and no matter how insignificant and lost you may feel; it is so positive and moving, heartfelt and sincere, wholesome, in everything that happens in it, even when “bad” things happen, compared to many animanga nowadays that steep themselves in darkness and depression (not to say they’re not good, of course I love many of them, but it’s still true), and that’s why it’s so incredibly refreshing and so beloved, I think, despite how very simple the story is. And all of that starts right here, in this scene where Izuku is first told that he can become a hero, that is probably one of the most iconic scenes in the entire series, if not the most iconic.

People like Izuku need to be given hope, encouragement, to know that they’re believed in, that there can be opportunities out there for them; on a most basic level, they need to be treated with normalcy and positivity, just like anyone else would be treated. Lying and giving false hope to unreasonable levels isn’t right, but neither is wallowing in and validating the utter misery, sorrow, and hopelessness the person is feeling, which is exactly what Izuku’s mother does; she doesn’t mean to hurt him, she’s still a good mother, but ultimately she does, unfortunately (especially when added to the school bullying that no one makes any attempt to stop, least of all Izuku himself, his self-esteem as low as it is). At the end of this scene, All Might offers to give Izuku his quirk, and the thing is that you can definitely say this is, in essence, Izuku’s disability being done away with, and I’m not going to say you’re wrong; I, too, was initially disappointed, because I had hoped that this was going to be a story of Izuku becoming a hero without a quirk, cliche as it might be (ideally with the support gear introduced later in the series that I didn’t yet know existed). What makes it more tolerable, though, is knowing that he doesn’t end up recieving One For All for a very long time after this, and even when he DOES get it, he has to work so, painstakingly hard to fine-tune it over the course of the series (reaching only All Might’s level will take him years, I imagine), harder than anyone else who had a quirk from an early age, to even reach a state where he can use it without breaking his body. But getting back to the point I’m trying to make: the focus of this scene is not on Izuku being offered a quirk (because, again, it hasn’t happened yet), but rather simply on the words All Might says to him. In this very moment, what impacts Izuku so strongly is being told that he can become a hero.

Simply those five words. That is all Izuku wants, what he needs more than any actual power itself. What he has been wanting someone to tell him for years upon years, to simply believe in him.

And this is where I’m extrapolating some, but I think that All Might’s condition/situation also has a hand in causing Izuku to react so emotionally to this: previously, All Might’s secret was devastating to him, coupled with his hero rejecting his hopes and exposing nothing but a bleak, harsh reality to him, with no hesitation at all, but here, when All Might completely turns around, inspired by Izuku’s actions and remembering that strength does not make the hero, but heart (”remembers his origins”, as it were), and finally tells him what he’s been craving from someone for so long, it is so much more powerful that it’s coming from All Might in his normal, human, sickly body, and not the heroic one everyone else sees. The “heroic” form of All Might might give off more confidence (especially in his own mind), but that is also the version of him that seems so much more impossible to reach, that seems so untouchable and as far away from the current Izuku as a hero can get, and not to mention is the version of All Might that is “fake”, that he doesn’t consider truly him, and able to convey his most genuine feelings; instead, All Might chooses to give Izuku his offer not as the beautiful hero the boy has idolized all his life (that, to him, is the only version of him he’d recognize, and like, especially since his normal form is the one that, just hours ago, told Izuku to give up), but as himself, as Toshinori, in all his weak, flawed, normal humanity, and it speaks volumes that Izuku is still so incredibly moved, so happy, to hear these words from this All Might that is so different from the one he’s always known. To other kids who have quirks already, powerful or not, they can easily look to the All Might that the world sees and be inspired by him (see: Bakugou), just like Izuku did all his life, be inspired by the power of that All Might, but this new All Might becomes infinitely more relatable to Izuku, just like a child in a hospital, who can look at Toshinori’s character (heart) and body instead, that is so strong despite being so frail at the same time, and can think “If he can do everything he does like he is, then maybe even I can, too.” And what makes it even more poignant to me is knowing that, ultimately, Toshinori essentially tells Izuku what he himself has been wanting someone to reassure him of for the past five years, too; he not only sees the younger, quirkless him in the boy, but also sees the him of now, who has been losing hope and confidence rapidly under crippling weakness for years, and hasn’t had anyone to convince him that he still matters and can do good for the world.

There’s a post I’ve seen that talks about the advice “never meet your heroes, because they’re sure to disappoint you” and how this ends up being subverted when Izuku meets All Might, and it’s absolutely true. What’s so beautiful is that meeting All Might, and seeing all of his many, many flaws, actually causes him to admire him more instead of less. Everything that Toshinori despises about himself, feels guilty over, are what leads to Izuku having an even greater amount of respect for him than ever before, knowing the human side of him, the person beneath the hero; his strength despite his physical ailments is already something Izuku is moved by, but then later finding out that All Might, too, started out quirkless, just like him, causes him to feel even closer to him, and more hopeful that he can become a great hero. He no longer remains simply a fanboy of All Might, but rather, someone who intimately cares about him as a human, as his savior, as his teacher, as his father figure, and finds so much in common with him. The “buff” All Might is everyone else’s All Might, but Toshinori is Izuku’s All Might, the person who told him he could become a hero, the person who shared his heroic spirit and dreams and lack of a quirk as a kid just like him, the person who is reckless just like him, and caring and strong (yet weak) and everything Izuku is and aspires to be. Izuku knows for the entire period All Might is still able to use One For All that his time is running out, that his era is rapidly coming to an end -- and he does cry when that end finally comes, mourns for the ending of the greatest hero he has ever known and the person he looks up to more than anyone else in the world, but even when that happens, his respect and admiration for All Might still does not waver one bit. Even when he can’t fight anymore, Izuku forever considers him All Might, and he’ll never stop doing so: from the moment he tells him he can become a hero, “All Might” and “Toshinori” blend together to him, and becomes someone he eternally loves and respects all the stronger, someone he wants to make proud, someone who he never wants to stop teaching him, and being there for him. All Might starts off as a vague, figurehead idol to Izuku, an image of someone that he loves from far away, and comes to him and becomes a person, and Izuku grows to love that normal, ordinary person more than he loves any other hero. It is the best and most touching version of a “meeting your hero” story that I can think of, where their flaws are embraced, and shown positively, and empowered, adding to their best qualities instead of taking anything away.

And Izuku’s love for Toshinori is, quite literally, saving his life.

As I alluded to, after sustaining his injuries, it’s clear that Toshinori falls into a deep depression, and changes vastly from the person he was when he first started out and for most of his career. After Nana is killed by All For One, he momentarily loses himself to anger and acts selfishly over the selfless duties of a hero, and tries to murder AFO out of revenge, and nearly dies as a result. Besides the obvious ensuing terrible trauma and ptsd he would have had to deal with, and an excruciatingly long recovery period (with probably many relapses), on top of his continued grief over losing his master, not being able to work nearly as much as he could before is absolutely devastating to Toshinori. Being All Might, helping people, saving people, being a hero is what he considers his only real value, which is why he desperately and recklessly continues pushing himself to keep working for however many hours he can, even if it hurts his body, even if his “All Might” smile and jovial personality turns fake and becomes a facade only for the peoples’ sake, not something he genuinely feels anymore, because to Toshinori, if he can’t be the number one hero anymore, he is nothing.

Toshinori has never been in it for the fame or glory; from day 1, from the moment he told Nana about his idea of becoming a “symbol” for people to rely on to keep their world safe for them, so they don’t let their fear lead them into crime, he has always been incredibly humble about everything he does, and extremely self-sacrificial. Of course, a hero needs to be selfless, at least to a degree (Ochako might be doing it for personal gain, but her desire to help people is still 100% genuine, for example), but after the major turning point is his life is when Toshinori begins to take it too far. When he goes after All For One is the sole time that he loses sight of how a hero is supposed to act, and he is punished severely for it, and continues to punish himself in order to make up for his mistake and do what he believes is his necessary duty, having completely forgotten how it felt to want to be a hero, for himself, for his own dream. Being the Symbol of Peace no longer is something Toshinori feels truly passionate about, like he did in the past, but now something he does on autopilot, something that he feels like he has to continue doing just because he’s already done it for so long, been so famous and so relied on for so long, even though it’s utterly exhausting for him, exhausting on his body and exhausting on his mental state, to keep up his normal upbeat personality that everyone knows and loves, but he continues on because not being able to continue serving the people is worse than literally anything else to Toshinori. He doesn’t have anyone there to prove to him that he has value as a person, not just as a hero, let alone to tell him that it’s okay for him to finally stop and rest. As far as we know, it seems like Gran Torino and Naomasa didn’t try to dissuade him much, and though Nighteye tries, rather violently, his approach isn’t the kind that’s convincing to him, and unfortunately his revelation that Toshinori will die in five or six years if he continues working as a hero seems to backfire, and instead makes him want to continue working more instead of less; he most likely believes that he won’t be around much longer, anyway, with the state of his health, so he’s convinced that he needs to do as much as possible before accepting the inevitable end. And then, Nighteye leaves him, so Naomasa is essentially the only person to support him Toshinori has left (seriously, Nighteye, I know you care; come on!).

But this is why meeting Izuku is so important for Toshinori, as much as it is for Izuku; everything changes for him when he does. At first, all he sees in Izuku is another fanboy, trying to chase a dream that Toshinori knows very well is completely unattainable for him without any power, because of how he can do nothing, is nothing, when he runs over his time limit and can’t use his quirk anymore, and he tries to shut him down as reasonably as possible, even admitting how unfair it is (because everything about himself is unfair now, to him); he knows how he must look to a fan of his, and hates it, and doesn’t have the energy to give him any small amount of hope or comfort, because he hasn’t known what it’s like to have hope in years, so he cannot give out any in return, when to him, now, being a hero is only something that will get you hurt, get you guilt-ridden, and, for someone like Izuku, get you killed. ...But it’s when he sees Izuku in action, sees his pure, unadulterated, selfless desire to help (however foolishly), it’s like a light turns on in his mind again, because actions always speak louder than words, and Toshinori is finally, truly reminded of that feeling, that innate, original, burning desire to be a hero that he had had when he was Izuku’s age, and also quirkless, and Izuku’s passion ignites his own passion once more, after so long, and lets him see the light and inspires him to act.

And because Izuku moves him, awakens something inside him again, like this, he chooses him to be the next One For All inheritor, partly because, as I said, he sees his younger self in him, but also I think because he understands exactly how hopeless Izuku feels, and wants to do something to change that, since he can (since he believes Izuku is worthy); his own dreams have been long since crushed out of helplessness, he doesn’t want this child’s to be too, when he himself got a chance from Nana when he was just like Izuku, back then. The thing is, at first, despite the spark that Izuku initially ignited in Toshinori, he still believes that he is going to be ready to die when the fated time comes, however it may happen; he starts teaching at UA, but knows that his time with One For All is running out, and believes that once it does, or once he dies, whichever comes first, that will be the end of things, and he won’t regret it. He knows he is not a good teacher, not knowing how to help Izuku train One For All so that he doesn’t hurt himself, and he initially believes that it is simply good enough that he managed to pass on his legendary quirk before he died, the one true urgent thing he’d been worried about since he became injured.

But then, over time, Izuku starts changing him.

Slowly, without even realizing it, Toshinori is affected by Izuku’s presence, his admiration for him, his care for him even when he’s in his normal, “inferior” state. He begins to be reminded again, truly, of what it means to be a hero, why he does what he does, why he loved it, and grows to again find value, importance, confidence, in the ideals he created for himself all those years ago, that his master encouraged him to stick to, again, and shows pride in them again, despite his “shameful” and “weak” appearance. The battle at Kamino Ward is truly the turning point for Toshinori, because he goes into it believing that his prophesied death will occur there, while taking down the person who took everything from him in the process, but it’s during that battle that he suddenly truly realizes not only what I said above, but also that it’s not enough anymore for him to simply win here, it’s not enough anymore for Izuku to solely have One For All on his own: now, All Might wants to live. He wants to live for Izuku’s sake, to be there for him and support him and care for him, and for his own sake as well, because Izuku has become more than just his successor to him. He wants to live, wants to defy his fate, he refuses to die, and tells his sworn enemy as much, multiple times, has a true will to live that Toshinori has not felt so strongly ever since his injury, and it’s thanks to his students, his fellow teachers, but more than anything else, Izuku. Because Izuku never takes advantage of him, never takes him for granted, never scorns him, never makes him feel as weak as Toshinori always felt; Izuku looks at him as if he’s the sun in the sky, he respects him, trusts and wants his guidance, he loves him, and in the same way that Toshinori empowered him on that day by telling him he could become a hero, Izuku gives strength to him right back, every single day, simply by being with him, and letting him know how much he needs him, how much he can do for him.

yeah I just wanted an excuse to put these panels cause they fucking kill me bye Just as much as Toshinori no longer wants to accept death, is determined to fight against it, Izuku is determined to stand by his side and make sure he succeeds in that, by helping him and protecting him however he can. No matter how many years pass, and how much stronger Izuku becomes, and how much weaker and more “unneeded” for his training and guidance Toshinori becomes, Izuku will never, ever, ever give up on him, or stop wanting him and believing in him. It is for Izuku’s sake that Toshinori has come as far as he has, not just mentally and emotionally, but even physically: he’s making a conscious effort to wear clothes that fit him now (obviously, now he can, without his quirk, but I think it says something that he’s made the change at all, since he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t wish to), and he’s trying to get in shape as much as is possible for him; anything he can do to extend his lifespan even a little bit more, for Izuku, something he didn’t care about at all before meeting him.

And of course he doesn’t want to simply live; he tries to make a conscious effort to become a better teacher, that Izuku desperately needs, even though Toshinori knows he’s not good at it. He realizes how important it is that Izuku stop injuring himself, stop being so recklessly heroic, lest he get himself into a deadly situation just like he did six years ago (something that Toshinori had to have thought about initially, when he first turned Izuku down that day, but since became ignorant of after giving him One For All and not knowing at all how to handle the teaching/mentoring side of things), and implores Izuku’s mother to let him continue teaching him and helping him become a hero, not only because of how deeply he’s come to care about the boy, but because of how much he genuinely believes he can achieve his dream, and how much he wants to make sure things go right with him, after everything in his own life went so horribly, depressingly wrong. Wants to make sure that he doesn’t lose his precious mentor, his source of guidance, the way Toshinori did, doesn’t want him to have to struggle alone, wants to make sure he can have someone to share his feelings with, someone to lean on, so he never has to hide anything, someone he can get everything he needs from, because Toshinori, as the number one hero, has been through it all. Toshinori wants to pour his all into Izuku, protect him, raise him, lift him up, as his successor and who is basically like a son to him, after everything Izuku has given him in return, after he has done nothing but save him the entire time they’ve known each other.

And that’s ultimately the core of their relationship, in the end: two people who saved each other, are still saving each other, in the most poignant and moving of ways. Both of them acknowledge somehow that the other being there is what kept them going. For Toshinori, I most certainly believe Izuku is why he is still alive today, and I honestly believe the same for Izuku as well. Without All Might, Izuku would not have made it through the bullying, and the pitying, and the loneliness and despair, and without Toshinori, he wouldn’t have been blessed with the gift he’s been given, wouldn’t be able to being living out his dream and trying to achieve it, wouldn’t have found friends, best friends, people to talk to, happiness, encouragement, support, strength, and above all, a father figure who he adores almost as much as his mother. Without Izuku, Toshinori wouldn’t have been given someone to guide, and nurture, and protect and want to see grow, wouldn’t, I believe, have had the same relationships with the teachers and students at UA, wouldn’t have been given a family, a son, a reason after he lost One For All to keep getting himself out of bed every day and keep living. Izuku and All Might parallel each other in so many beautiful ways: both of them begin quirkless, but hopeful, with strong ideals, a desire to do good, and kind and earnest hearts, and eventually they lose their way, Izuku gradually and hesitantly, and All Might drastically, devastatingly, and messily, agonizingly and bleakly, though both of them retain their kindness despite their internal despair, and then they meet each other and... save each other, become each other’s world, give each other so much. They both look past what they consider to be their weaknesses, and see the beauty and potential in each other, and bring out the best in each other, make each other happy.

More than anything else, All Might must live to the end of the series. He must. At the beginning, he started off depressed, dying, and ready to die, but now he is hopeful, still weak, still disabled, still dying, in a way, but trying so damn hard to live, and he deserves it so much. His arc is all about him doing everything he can to make sure that happens; he “should” have died at Kamino Ward, if this were any other series, he would have, but he didn’t, because he knew Izuku needed him, just like he needs Izuku. I want him to live, I want him to age, and become old and grey, and to need more help and need technology to help him (give him a cane, give him a wheelchair, give him oxygen, give him everything), but still be alive, alive to see Izuku become a great hero just like he always knew he would be, alive to see him graduate and get married and have children, and see that for all his other students too. I want him to live, for himself, for Izuku, and for everyone in the audience who he touches, just like he does to me. I see myself in Izuku, in his emotional state and his insecurities and his tears and his uncertainty about what he can accomplish, and I see myself in All Might, in his body (so much of his body) and his pain and his frustration and his shame and his insecurities. Both of them represent what it feels like to be disabled, in different ways, literally and figuratively, and being shown that you still matter, that you’re still important and can do so much greatness, and are given the opportunity to do so, to go beyond.

That is why All Might and Izuku matter, why My Hero Academia’s hopeful, uplifting, and inspirational outlook matters. The two of them are each other’s heroes, not because of any grand spectacle, but because they made each other feel needed, important, and strong when no one else was there to give that to them, at their lowest points. That’s why they are, to me, one of the absolute best mentor/mentee relationships in anime and manga, ever.

All Might will always be there for Izuku in some shape or form... but please, Horikoshi, from the bottom of my heart, let him live. He’s still important, always will be. Don’t let him fade into irrelevance. Don’t let him die.

Izuku needs him. I do, too.

(and let him wear this outfit in canon, it’s so badass; look at those oxygen tanks! SO MUCH POTENTIAL)

“Between my inferior self, and the world that surrounds me, I form an image and try to grasp it, but it feels so far away.

That endlessly expanding sky held no clear destination, so I started to feel scared. But no matter how many times I stumbled, you were right there, smiling.”

- “Heroes” by Brian The Sun

“And when it gets too hard, and nothing seems to work, I think about the reason why you kept pushing forward. I’m meant to be the savior but you saved me instead, I tried to hold your hand but you just held me in the end.

But then what’s left for me? With no one else around, I’m stuck here with the guilt that I can’t be left alone now. But keep looking ahead because you know that you should, and don’t be sad it changed, because I’m happy that it could!

And when I feel like giving up and doubting myself, I think of every letdown, the pain that I felt. But the things that I have lost are now the weapons I wield, each one of them a flower that is always concealed.”

- “Long Hope Philia” by Masaki Suda

[carryonmyswansong]

[All page dividers are created by me. If you’d like to use any of them, please message me. I make these to sell and offer sets of two for $3.]

On  Oct 4th, 2018, I received the following ask, at my old blog:

This is my answer:

First of all you need to know some things about me. I am plus size as well as chronically ill. The other things about me is that I do lots and lots of research, when I answer these questions. I try to base my answers on what I’ve observed in the movies, what I know or find out from the comics, as well as any gaps that are filled in via interviews, tweets, and articles. I write MCU fanfic but most of my characterizations come from a mix of the comics as well as the movies. I also google stuff to make sure I am -historically- accurate… or as historically accurate as I can be.

That being said:

Steven Grant Rogers:

Steve Rogers is the son of poor Irish immigrants. He grew up in Brooklyn. He grew up very very ill. In fact, he spent more of his life ill than not, not counting the time he was in the ice, after crashing the plane. SO growing up in that part of town, he had some exposure to plus size women. Whether they were plus size by the 20/30/40s standards or our own, big women are not new to him, and being who he is, I have no doubts that Steve saw beauty where ever it was. His mama taught him right, is what I’m saying.

Steve even says in the moves that he hates bullies. He’s always been bullied. Always ignored. Never taken seriously. Even as Captain America, before he went on real missions… he felt like a performing monkey. He hated it. That’s not what he signed up for. He didn’t want to be a performing monkey in a fancy suit. He wanted to be a real solider, helping other real soldiers, to fight the enemy.

Steve has like zero experience with women. He didn’t get very far with Peggy and he didn’t like her because she was thin. He liked her because she saw past the sick body and saw him for who he was… and Sharon… Don’t even get me fucking started on that disaster of a relationship… I mean come on. The great niece of the only woman you ever loved? Come on Steve. Do better, buddy.

Captain America is sure of himself. Confident. Strong. Seemingly emotionally stable. Steven Grant Rogers? Probably still thinks of himself as that gangly sickly little man who everyone ignores… and is often baffled when pretty women look at him and flirt with him. He is a super soldier. But he hasn’t been one for very long. Not actively.

Look at it this way: when someone who is overweight looses weight, a switch doesn’t flip in their brain and they automatically have good self esteem or a good relationship with their body. Same with someone who is very sick for a long time and finally gets treatment and a cure. These things take their toll on someone’s mind and Steve is no different. He spent so long being unnoticeable that even tho his body is hard and doesn’t get sick, and probably doesn’t age.. and probably has a bigger dick… doesn’t mean he SEES that as who he is.

And another thing. Steve doesn’t work out because he has to. The serum maintains his metabolism and stamina. Steve works out because now he CAN. I keep mentioning him being chronically ill. Because it is VERY important. He was sick for more years than not (again, NOT counting the time he was in the ice)…. So now he can -just be- and not have to worry about passing out or having an asthma attack or having a heart attack because of his blood pressure… he can run in the winter and not have to worry about catching a cold, of all things… Him working out is his way of celebrating that he CAN do those things now, when he couldn’t before… This doesn’t change how he sees himself though. You can celebrate the better you, while still seeing yourself as the not-so-better-you and still have self esteem issues all the same. Those don’t just go away automatically. That’s not how human brains work.

He’d rather live in Brooklyn, where he grew up, then live in The Tower. He’d also rather do his morning runs through the city, then work out in the gym that Tony build, so he can watch his city come alive (Both of these are canon and easily searchable on google)… I only mention this because it speak to the kind of man Steve is. He loves people. And he loves watching people’s lives unfold… It makes him feel attached in a way that he normally can’t because he spent so long on ice that there’s a big disconnect in how he relates to people

He isn’t gonna care if his girl can “keep up”. No one, except Bucky, and maybe comic!Natasha, can keep up with him. He doesn’t want another super soldier or spy as a partner. He wants someone he can hang up the mantle of Captain America, and just be Steve Rogers, from Brooklyn, with. Period. Someone who will love him for who he is, not his serum, or celebrity status, or paycheck. None of that. He would want someone who SEES him for who he is. Not what he can give them. And Steve isn’t fucking shallow and to assume otherwise is really insulting to the man who grew up almost too disabled to live as long as he did. But somehow his will to live, got him far enough that now he is a super soldier and is Captain America.

Steve is also an artist and sees beauty absolutely everywhere, and yes, even the fat girl he passes on the street who stares at her shoes because she’s afraid to take up space but can’t help it. Steve understands, probably better than most, that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and growing up, he wished people saw him instead of ignoring him. So fat girls? Are not off his radar. And they ain’t gotta be conventionally or “acceptably” pretty, in order for him to notice them.

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes:

Ok, so if you think Bucky is shallow, just cuz he’s fit… then you don’t know the man at all.

He grew up with Steve as his best friend (at least in the MCU, anyways)… They were practically brothers, and since Bucky lost his mom at a very early age, guess who helped raise him before she passed? Yup, Mama Rogers.

Sure, Bucky is often considered a womanizer, in the MCU… But people are so afraid to portray good looking men with fat women because its often presented as a joke… because fat bodies are not seen as good bodies so why would a fit man want to be with a fat body?

Thing is tho, a lot of fit men are with women (and men and other genders) who have fat bodies. And not for fetish reasons either. Its because they are decent people who SEE their partner and not just the fat or the lack of fat or whatever else.

You also need to understand something about Bucky. Bucky of the 30/40s might have been a little full of himself, but he wasn’t shallow. If he was, he wouldn’t have been Steve’s friend. He wouldn’t have interacted with him in public. He wouldn’t have admitted to even knowing the scrawny chronically ill man who insisted on picking fights with men who were much much bigger than him, simply because he saw an injustice that needed tending to. By all rights, Steve was embarrassing. But Bucky is better than that. And loved and accepted Steve for who he is. Period.

So of course he’d be that way with women. He might not have committed to them, but Bucky loves women. And women come in all shapes and sizes. Why wouldn’t he like fat women, too?

Fast forward to Bucky with the metal arm. You know, the arm he needs and if he didn’t have he’d only have ONE ARM WHICH MEANS HE IS DISABLED, NO MATTER HOW ADVANCED THE DAMN ARM IS???????

Bucky ain’t a shallow man. And fit or not, he hates who Hydra made him into. Who cares about the chiseled abs or the ability to run side by side with Steve or the ability to accurately shoot a target in his peripheral vision. They stole his life. They took everything from him. But what they didn’t take from him was the teaching of one Mama Rogers, and the life lessons that come from being best friends with a disabled man. It might have taken him a bit to remember both of those things, but Bucky? Bucky loves women and that will never change. No matter fat or thin.

And have you seen Bucky’s thighs? If that man wasn’t built to bone fat chicks against walls, then I don’t know what even the point of those thighs even are… But he’s better than that. With who he is now? He isn’t just a one night stand kind of guy. He’s in it for the long haul and he isn’t gonna let a little thing like someone’s weight, deter him from seeing the beauty in them.

Steve and Bucky’s fit status and raging metabolism aren’t going to suddenly make them into shallow people who will only love or bone women who are of “acceptable” size. When both men could literally easily carry an overweight girl, over their shoulder, like she is a 5lb sack of potatoes. Because of both of their life experiences, as both disabled or friends with someone disabled, and all that stuff that came with their lives… I really don’t see them ignoring a woman just because she’s not fit or just because she’s got a big belly or can’t run a mile in under a certain time.

You would also do well to remember that people can be healthy at any size and someone’s weight doesn’t determine their health. Just like there are unhealthy fat people, there are also unhealthy thin people… and both can be unhealthy in the exact same way. And both Bucky and Steve are going to know this.

Send me an Ask! | Lets discuss stuff!

[Once i get more of my blog settled, I will be transferring over all of my asks. But until then, you can find them HERE.]

[teamoliv-archive]

Cutscene: Because We’re a Team

Lilac stood in front of Ivory, her limbs glowing sickly colors. She was shaking as was her opponent. “Is... Is that it!? You’re almost out of tricks you know. Why do you keep bothering?”

Ivory staggers and leans on her ax. She wasn’t down for the count by any means, but this fight was taking a heavy toll on both of them. In all honestly, she was pretty sure it was sheer willpower keeping her going. She could only hold off Lilac for so long. “All I have to do is keep you here. I just have to hold out!”

“For who!? Who could you possibly have left as backup!? Jade is almost certainly dead by this point and his psychotic partner isn’t about to come to your rescue! Face it, you have nothing left, Reynard! I want to see the hope spill from your eyes before I kill you! What could you possibly be waiting for!?”

_____________

Lapis fired and slashed through several more of the ball-like drones that drove around them, trying to fire or explode to block their path. Lapis lead his sister, Violet, and Molly down the narrow street they were being lead to. “There’s a lot more than there used to be. We’ve got to be getting close!”

“It’s a warehouse half a block down. It can’t be hard to miss with the fight going on!” Molly shouts back. She had only been able to keep up with her injuries, not really participating in the combat despite dragging her gigantic wheel with her.

A barrage of the drones comes flying off the rooftop. “Down!” Lapis urges the three underneath his arm as he holds his barrier upward. The impact created a large explosion that send them all back. After scrambling back up, they turned around to the sound of more beeps and tire screeching.

“How many of these things did she build!?” Violet says double-checking her pistols. “We can’t just keep shooting at them like this, they’re just going to keep slowing us down.”

Lazuli spun around just in time for the sounds to be confirmed with a small group of the ball drones wheeling toward them. She raises her weapon to take more shots and standing. She flips it into its melee form to try and swing at an oncoming on, only for it to be deflected and bounce harmlessly against a wall where Violet shot at it to disable it. She had to do better than this. She had to think back to how her semblance activated that first time in her fight with Jade. All she could remember was being overcome with thoughts and memories of her friends and how much she wanted to protect them. Maybe that was where her part laid. She stands firm and faces the rest of the oncoming drones.

The sounds of her brother turning and trying to protest registered, but she couldn’t quite hear what he was saying. She was too focused. This wasn’t just about saving the person they were after. She had to make sure the people around her were safe as well- 

All with the help of the people in her life close to her. 

Something finally made sense as she makes the single connection all of the images that fought with her had in common. “You guys go ahead. I’ve got this.”

“No offense, kid, but no you don’t!” Molly returns, doing all she could to stay out of the way of everyone’s fighting. “If it was me, maybe I could do something about this but-”

Lazuli stood staring at the oncoming drones, reaching her hand out as if completely ignorant of the oncoming danger. “What was your name again?”

“Why is that important right now!? We need to get to Ivory!” There was no response from the girl. Molly didn’t really know a lot about her during her time at the Arena- Jade had taken a special interest in her and even brought Darcie in to check her out, but she had been absent for a lot of whatever happened to bust her out. “It’s Molly!” She finally blurted out. “There, are you happy!? Now help us out here!”

Lazuli gives a faint smile no one could see with her back to them. “Molly. My name’s Lazuli.” She finally turns around faintly and holds out her hand. “I forgive you.”

“Yeah. Awesome. That’s swell. We’re going to be best friends now.” Molly said dryly, and taking her hand. Her hand trembled for a moment. This was something new- the idea that someone went through everything the Arena could throw at them and she had the... whatever it was to forgive her? It gave her a moment of pause. “Hey, as cute as it is that you’re being nice to me a few minutes before we’re all blown up, how is this helping?”

Lazuli closed her eyes for a moment before letting go. “Just trust me.” She turns to face the oncoming drones and twirls Winterfang to block the oncoming shots, focusing on her breath and some thoughts. She took in the moment- that small spark of a kind gesture, that connection. She spun around and launched herself forward toward the pack of drones and a faint chain flew from her. Attached to it, a difficult to see form spun a circular shape at them and the impact sent them all flying, some in pieces. The shaky mimic of Molly lasted on a second before disappearing again. 

“What the hell was that!?”

“Woah, cool semblance! If you can keep that up we can get to Ivory!”

Lapis met his sister’s confident and serene gaze. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I think I finally figured this out so... hopefully. But someone needs to stay behind and take care of these things. Molly, stick with me. If you go back there that woman’s going to try and kill you first, isn’t she?”

Molly stood up a bit more firmly, trying her best to ignore her weakened state and roared her weapon. “Dammit, why do you have to be right!? Alright, but if you’re going to save Ivory, I’m not letting anything happen to us either. I’ve been through worse. Let’s go.”

Violet quickly heard a different beep and checked her scroll before pocketing it with a nod. “Let’s not waste any time. Onyx will be here soon. He’s following my signal. Come on- we’re almost there.”

_____________

Ivory let loose a broad swing to crash through a barrier of pointed icicles that appeared in her way. Lilac had taken to launching projectiles and obstacles to wear her down.

I have to keep going. I have to trust Molly will find help.

Jade couldn’t be dead. She had this... feeling she couldn’t shake or describe. There was an assurance in the back of her mind that Molly was going to come back and that she’d show Lilac that people did care about her enough to come back for her. Her companions- they were a team, right!? Her team would come for her. Jade, Robin, Molly... they’d be here.

“Face facts!” LIlac shouts, landing on the ground and shuddering as more and more dust courses through her. She was running low on the painkillers and was starting to feel the searing sensation of it in her blood. “There is no one coming to get you! No one cares about you! You betrayed everything you’ve ever had and now you’re paying the price for it!”

“IVORY!” “REYNARD!”

The shouts were said in unison as shots rang out, peppering the area around Lilac in bullets.

“What!?”

“What!?”

Lapis and Violet managed to batter the old door off what was left of its hinges to stare down Lilac Cheshire, weapons drawn.

“You know, out of everything I expected to show up- this was not it. Why are you here?” He tone was ice cold as she glared down at the two figures. No, wait... There was one more.

“...Why? You three of all people?”

Onyx strode silently into the doorway as well. He rubbed his neck knowingly. He wasn’t really wanting to strain his voice further- but perhaps he’d have to.

“Because...” He began harshly and slowly, “This must stop.You’re accomplishing nothing anymore. You’ve destroyed everything but what you set out to.”

Ivory stared at them for a while. Onyx, Violet, Lapis... they had shown up. The team she was going to sell out to Jade. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t supposed to work out like this. Why were they here? She didn’t deserve their help. This had to be a coincidence.

Violet kept her gaze on Ivory, though. “It’s over.” She says in a kinder tone that she had imagined it sounding, “We’re here now. You can rest.”

“Wh-What...? No, this is some kind of joke! You can’t just show up and save me like this! It doesn’t make sense! Why!?”

“Why? Because we’re huntsmen and huntresses and it’s the right thing to do. Because someone came to us and said that the only person they care about was in danger. Because no one else was going to stop this psychopath from destroying the entire district and all those people just because she hates you.

“And because, as much as I want to say you deserve everything that’s coming to you, we’re a team and we’re going to end this as one.”

Lapis steps forward, gripping his weapon tightly and holding back the urge to charge right now. This was the person responsible for the deaths of so many of his friends- and a lot of his own old hatreds. It was like staring down all of his personal demons rolled up into one wretched person. “So... you’re the one, huh?”

Lilac scrunches her face and continues glaring. “Whatever it is you think is going on- it doesn’t concern you.”

“Pineyard,” he continues, “Logging village a little bit outside of an old dust mine that got attacked by a riot wielding your weapons.”

“Seriously!? Let me guess, you’re here to avenge your stupid little town, right?”

“Not anymore. This is about something way more important than that. Killing you won’t bring anyone back- but I sure as hell can make sure no one else has to go through what we did because of you. I have a feeling you’re not going to stop here.”

“We’re not here for us. We’re here to stop you for the sake of the people we care about. We can deal with Reynard’s boss later. Right now what matters is you don’t hurt anyone else!”

“You see that, Lilac!? I’m not alone. Maybe I don’t deserve it. They probably should still hate me for what I did, but right here right now I’m going to hold my promise. We’re stopping you and I’m going back to Molly alive.”

“We all are. I can’t call myself a real Goodfellow if I backed away from this now. My dad wouldn’t, my mom wouldn’t, I think even Robin wouldn’t... This is where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do.”

“I told you this was madness the moment I heard about it. Now...” Onyx lets out a cough and wipes his face, gritting his teeth and resuming.

“Don’t strain your voice, Onyx, we’ll call the shots. Just focus on the fight. Ready team?”

“So that’s how it’s going to be? Fine. I’ll rip you all apart myself.”

[anunquenchableflame]

Character stats

I’ve seen this meme around a lot, so I thought I’d do one for Rani. I’ve added extra notes on some in italics, because I can’t keep things succinct when it comes to my characters. If you want to fill this out too you should probably delete my extra waffling!

WEALTH  —

$  financial:  // wealthy / moderate /  poor  /  in poverty (she grew up pretty poor but is reasonably well-off now) ✚  medical:  // fit / moderate  /  sickly  /  disadvantaged  / disabled / not applicable (but y’know, with a whole load of implants and meds keeping her going. She’d probably count as disabled post-war.) ✪  class:  //   upper / middle-working / poor  / slave  /  unsure ✔  education:  // qualified  /  unqualified /  studying  /  other (her education level is really variable. She skived off a lot of school and barely finished secondary, but she pushed herself really hard to study and excel in all her Alliance training and to get through the N7 program.) ✖  criminal record:  //  yes, for major crimes  / yes, for minor crimes  / no  / has committed crimes, but has not been caught yet (She has done so much crime ok? She had a hefty juvenile record which was still missing a bunch of stuff no-one ever knew about, almost everything she did while with Cerberus was a crime and I’m sure she was being charged with desertion or even treason when she returned to the Alliance, and lots of people wanted her tried as a war criminal after blowing the Alpha relay...)

FAMILY  —

◒  children: // has one or more children / has no children / wants children / verse dependent / doesn’t want to have children / can’t have children (She does have one son, but not until at least 10 years post-war and he’s a surrogate and in-vitro birth from cryo-stored reproductive matter.) ◑  relationship with family: // close with sibling(s) /  not close with sibling(s) / has no sibling(s) / sibling is deceased ◔  affiliation: // orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parent(s) / not applicable / kidnapped (her mum’s still alive but was in prison most of her life, her aunt and uncle adopted her)

TRAITS  + TENDENCIES  —

♦  extrovert // introvert // in between ♦  disorganized // organized // in between (largely mental health state dependent) ♦  close-minded // open-minded // in between/contextual ♦  calm // anxious // in between (another mental health dependent one) ♦  disagreeable // agreeable // in between/contextual ♦  cautious  // reckless // in between/contextual ♦  patient // impatient // in between ♦  outspoken // reserved // in between ♦  leader // follower // in between // contextual ♦  empathetic //  indifferent  // in between ♦  optimistic // pessimistic // in between // realistic ♦  traditional // modern // in between ♦  hardworking // lazy // in between ♦  cultured // uncultured // in between ♦  loyal // disloyal // in between ♦  faithful // unfaithful // in between

BELIEFS  —

★  faith:  // monotheist  / polytheist / atheist / agnostic / it’s complicated ☆  belief in ghosts or spirits: // yes / no / don’t know /  don’t care ✮  belief in an afterlife: // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ✯  belief in reincarnation: // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ❃  belief in aliens. // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care / doesn’t apply (I mean... she knows they exist, belief not required. Some of her besties are aliens.) ❀  philosophical. // yes / no / sometimes

SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION  —

> sexuality: / heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / demisexual / questioning ❥  sex: // sex repulsed  / sex neutral / sex favourable ♥  romance: // romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favourable ❣  sexually: // adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced  / curious / inhibited ⚧  potential sexual partners: // male / female / other / none / all ⚧  potential romantic partners: // male / female / other / none / all

ABILITIES  —

☠  combat skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ≡  literacy skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ✍  artistic skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ✂  technical skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

HABITS  —

> drinking alcohol: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess > smoking: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess / ✿  other narcotics: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess / tried some > medicinal drugs: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess / when needed ☻ indulgent in food:  // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess $  splurge spending: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess ♣  gambling: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[akaluan]

I'm writing a bleach fanfiction, and I'm entertaining the idea of a Fullbringer Quincy, and since you seem an expert on all-things-Quincy, do you think you could let me know if it seems legit? If the Quincy is a Gemischt with a Human mother, perhaps the Quincy could develop an immunity to Hollow reiatsu? Maybe they were always sick as a child? Or is this not possible? Also, sorry to hear about how stressed you've been. Feel free to ignore my ask if you're too busy, and I hope things get better!

Well I don’t know when I became a Quincy expert, but okay then XD

So this is an interesting concept, a Fullbringer Quincy… absolutely could not happen with an Echt Quincy, of course, but you’ve already covered that.

On Urahara’s alignment chart, Quincy and Shinigami are opposites, and Hollows and Humans are opposites, so if the kid’s mother IS a full Human and survives a Hollow attack, that would set her up to have a Fullbringer kiddo just like usual. It’s adding in the Quincy father where things get tricky.

I think… your couple is going to have a LOT of problems conceiving a kid. There’s going to be miscarriages and maybe even a stillbirth or two, and having more than one child is very, very unlikely.

This is going to take a toll, not just on the relationship, but on both of their mental health (the mother’s especially, since in general (at least in America, which is the only culture I’m really capable of making comments on) females are conditioned to believe that things like this are OUR FAULT AND WE’RE TERRIBLE PEOPLE WHO DON’T TRY HARD ENOUGH, but if the father is invested in this relationship and in the potential kids that aren’t living to be born, he’s probably suffering too)

Depending on a variety of factors that we don’t really know, like exactly how long the Hollow’s power lingers in the mother’s body, and whether or not each fetus drains some of it away, and whether or not it’s always a set amount of Hollow reiatsu that invades the fetus or whether it’s variable–

(My personal take: each pregnancy reduces the viability of the Hollow reiatsu, since the mother is Human and thus can’t really generate Hollow reiatsu on her own. Each fetus gains a variable amount of reiatsu, which reduces the available pool. Biologically, this makes more sense than precisely portioned amounts that are always the same.)

–you’ll eventually get a fetus where the ratio of Human-Hollow-Quincy is JUUUUUUST precisely balanced enough that they survive to be born. It’s a lot narrower window than Ichigo’s birth was, or Karin and Yuzu, because there isn’t any Shinigami in the mix to potentially stabilize the Quincy heritage a bit more, but there’s still a POTENTIAL there.

In the end, the kid that’s born is probably going to be on the sickly side; potentially powerful, but their natures are going to be at odds which will put their body under stress from the moment they’re born. And using the Fullbringer powers are going to be… not very fun. Think how Ukitake’s bankai puts stress on his body and makes him have fits more often.

At its core, the Fullbringer powers are inherently Hollow in nature, and I’m positive that it’s Ichigo’s Shinigami nature that’s the balance-point on keeping him healthy. Even when he “lost” his powers he still had that Shinigami heritage, and his Fullbringer powers are pretty well bound up with his Shinigami powers (Since it’s Shiro who is both his hollow AND his true zanpakutou)

So without that Shinigami heritage, a Fullbringer Quincy is going to be… fragile. Using their Quincy powers will probably be fine, unless they use TOO MUCH and risk exhaustion, because, again, fragile balance. This isn’t something that’s just going to get BETTER as they grow up, this is a permanent health issue that probably gets them labeled by the Humans around them as some form of disabled. This is two inimical powersets coexisting in a fragile Living shell, cushioned only by their Human heritage.

They’ll get better at managing it, get better at keeping their powers from interacting, and maybe even start building up a tolerance (think like how those of us with constant pain build up a higher pain tolerance through sheer exposure), but it’s never going to GO AWAY. Tolerance does not mean resistance, it just means that they can walk a finer edge than they could previously. And maybe doing that damages their body even more but they don’t notice, or they do but they don’t care because there are More Important Things On The Line.

If you’re prepared to write that, a character whose body and powers are constantly at odds, WITHOUT making them into a caricature just to make other, more abled characters look stronger/better/more capable, and without stealing their agency away by somehow magically ‘fixing’ them and making them all better in an instant, or making it so that they can’t do ANYTHING without help or being bailed out of every situation, I’d say go for it.