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demigod-shenanigans · 3 months ago

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Lean on Me

Summary: After the war, Leo finally has some time to process some pretty big feelings he’s been avoiding. Thankfully, Piper is there to help.

Shoutout to my friend @halcyon-hyacinth for beta reading!

Word count: ~7K

So, I passed 250 followers a while back and I thought I’d take this as an opportunity to do a test run of tumblr fanfic posting (Ao3 version linked in the title). Therefore, have my very first HoO fic from all the way back in March! Feat. lots of Leo and Piper friendship, Leo being an oblivious pining little idiot over Jason and some very minor background pipeyna.

———

Even though it had been weeks since they’d gotten back home, Leo was sometimes still in disbelief about the fact that he was back at Camp Half-Blood after how long they’d been away. It felt weird not falling asleep to a rumbling engine anymore. It felt even weirder to wake up in a cabin full of people.

The number of people being home involved was something he didn’t think he’d ever grow used to. He’d grown up with just his mom and the very occasional visit from family who couldn’t be bothered to care about him after she’d passed away. Then there’d been the foster homes… well, the less said about those, the better. Point being, it was strange how different things were here, and despite the months he’d lived here before the mission, it never stopped feeling that way.

Leo liked his half-siblings, but he wasn’t great with people. He was even worse at being any kind of role model. Most of his time as head counselor for the Hephaestus cabin had been spent on constructing the Argo II. What exactly being head counselor involved now that that was done… that was a problem for future Leo, he supposed. Current Leo was perfectly content hanging out in the same space as some of his siblings, watching their various contraptions grow as he worked on his own. So far, no one had asked him to do anything else, save for the occasional question about his epic adventures. Those he could handle just fine.

Part of Leo missed the time on the Argo, beyond the soothing familiarity of piloting Festus. Not all of it—not the constant monster attacks or knowing the world might end or having to replace the mast four times in the same week. Not the lonely moments when everyone seemed perfectly content without him. But he missed the group breakfasts, and the peaceful bits of the night time watches he’d had with his friends, before something inevitably tried to eat the ship. He missed running into Jason when he got up for a midnight snack, the strange comfort of knowing neither of them could sleep. He missed teasing Frank, and spending three hours arguing with Annabeth about one of her architectural sketches that was as gorgeous as it was physically impossible to construct. Something about the contained space of the ship had made certain things easier. Camp wasn’t huge, but most of them got swept up in their respective tasks, and it just wasn’t the same, especially since Frank and Hazel had left. Some of the Romans had stayed to help with the rebuilding effort, but they’d needed at least one praetor back at Camp Jupiter, so he’d gone, and Hazel had gone with him.

Still, for the most part, Leo was glad to be back home. It was nice to not be fighting for his life every thirty seconds for a change. It was even nicer to be back in his usual tinkering space. Note to self: if he ever built another flying ship, it desperately needed to come with a furnace. His own fire was handy, sure, but setting his limbs alight wasn’t the safest or the most effective way to forge Celestial Bronze. Kid Leo really should have thought his crayon sketch through better.

Speaking of projects he should have spent more time thinking through… he dipped the hot metal disc into cold water, waiting for a moment before he retrieved it with his bare hands.

He’d always felt kind of silly wearing protective gloves considering he could reach into the furnace just fine without it affecting him. (He’d done that exactly once, before a very startled Nyssa had ruined his fun by insisting that the head counselor maybe shouldn’t be teaching his not-fireproof younger siblings that it was fine to stick your bare hands into the furnace. Being a role model was seriously boring sometimes.)

Leo eyed his device, uncertain. It looked better than it had before the last correction, but… yep. Like he’d suspected, the folding mechanism still wasn’t working right. On the last few attempts, the helmet hadn’t unfolded at all, and now that it had, it wasn’t retracting correctly. He had a feeling it had something to do with uneven volume distribution, but he’d gotten too attached to this prototype to just start over now. There had to be a way to make this work. He’d rebuilt a whole metal dragon nearly from scratch, for crying out loud. Like Hades was he going to let a piece of armor defeat him.

Leo was still thinking about whether to take a break and try sketching out the prototype to see if that would help or continue to just wing it when Piper appeared.

“You busy?” She looked tired, but satisfied, like Leo felt when he had a breakthrough on one of his projects at two in the morning.

She’d been dropping by more often since they’d gotten back. Jason was about a million times worse.

It felt… not like old times, exactly, since the time when they’d been a trio of friends and Piper and Jason hadn’t been dating had mostly been Mist memories. But it did feel nice.

“Very. Currently having a staring contest with my newest project. Don’t distract me, or it’s going to win,” Leo joked.

He was met with an eye roll, but Piper’s smile didn’t waver.

“Right. What are you working on, and how worried do I need to be about it blowing us all up?”

“Not very, I hope. That’d kinda defeat the purpose.” He showed her the palm-shaped device, a few parts of metal still sticking out of the sides where they weren’t supposed to. “Retractable helmet—though currently not as retractable as I’d like it to be. I’m tired of Jason constantly getting concussed. There’s only so much brain damage any demigod should be subjected to, ambrosia or no.”

Piper snorted.

“Yeah, he could really use that.”

She was looking at Leo in a strange way—like he’d just answered correctly on a game show he hadn’t even known he was participating in.

“Why are you in such a good mood? Do I need to be worried?”

“Reyna said my combat skills needed more work. She’s spent all morning repeatedly disarming me in three moves.”

“Your girlfriend is terrifying.”

“Yeah, she is.” Piper sighed contently.

Leo was happy for her—she hadn’t been dating Reyna for long, but he’d never seen Piper smile this much before. In some ways, it was easier than seeing her with Jason. It didn’t come with the same weird pang in his chest.

That didn’t mean being around Reyna had stopped feeling weird to Leo, though. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t fully forgiven him for getting possessed and firing on her home. Not like he’d fully forgiven himself for it, either. He was still seriously considering that Slap-Leo-in-the-Face machine. He was unfortunately pretty sure there’d be more opportunities to use it in the future.

“I really don't get what Reyna’s problem is. You’ve got excellent aim when it comes to firing smoked hams at monsters. We just need to come up with a convenient way to carry those around now that we don’t have the cornucopia anymore.”

“Har. Har.” Piper rolled her eyes at him. “Anyway, any chance you could interrupt your glaring contest with the helmet for a bit? I need to talk to you.”

Leo’s mediocre mood had started to improve slightly since the start of their conversation, but now it took a massive dip. Those words never meant anything good.

He squashed down the first question that popped into his head—that being ‘who died’—because Piper was still smiling, so even if someone had died, it probably wasn’t anyone they liked.

More likely, Leo was about to be scolded for something.

“Whatever it is, it wasn’t me, and if it was me, it probably wasn’t on purpose,” he tried, mentally running through all the ways he’d messed up lately to figure out which one she was most likely to be mad about. It wasn’t that Piper scolded him a lot—half the time, she was a very enthusiastic participant in his nonsense—but maybe her rule-abiding girlfriend was being a bad influence. “If it’s about the glitter bomb I placed in Drew’s handbag-”

“You did what?” Piper asked, crossing her arms.

Great. So she hadn’t known, and Leo had just snitched on himself. Good job, him.

“I needed to test the mechanism for a new monster fighting gadget.” He shrugged.

“And you didn’t let me help?” Piper did actually look kind of offended. So Reyna wasn’t being that bad of an influence. Good to know.

“Hey, I can’t let you have all the fun. I’m head counselor of the Hephaestus cabin, remember? Someone’s gotta teach Harley about strategic glitter bomb placement. I take my responsibilities as an older brother very seriously.” Piper snorted, and Leo knew he was forgiven. Still, he wasn’t willing to risk any more guesses. “So what did you want to talk about, if it isn’t that?”

“Walk with me?”

“Slightly ominous request, but okay.”

Leo dropped the prototype into his tool belt to be retrieved later, then started fiddling with his rings until the crutches folded out obediently. Those weren’t his own design, unlike his prosthetic leg. They’d been a gift from his siblings. He didn’t need them as much at the forge, where he mainly went from briefly standing up to sitting down a lot, but outside of that, they were extremely convenient. It was great to not have to worry about where to put them so they wouldn’t topple into the campfire during singalong.

Relearning to walk was more frustrating than he cared to admit, but hey, at least he was about ninety percent less dead than the Fates had wanted him to be. That was pretty great.

“And me wanting to talk to you is ominous, why, exactly?” Piper asked, an eyebrow raised at him.

“She said, luring me into the woods like any half-decent murderer would,” Leo joked. It wasn’t that he actually feared for his life—not after Piper had put up with him for this long—but the whole situation did make him nervous. “For the record, I will be the world’s most annoying ghost, so, you know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I was actually going to help you, but I think I’m pushing you into the canoe lake instead,” Piper deadpanned. “Or maybe I’ll just ask Reyna to-”

“Alright, alright, message received. No need to actually threaten my life.” Leo lifted his palms in surrender, which was a bit of a ridiculous balancing act with the crutches, but entirely worth the effort as far as he was concerned. “Just tell me why you’ve dragged me out here.”

Piper moved to sit on a large rock at the edge of the water and patted the spot next to her. Leo flopped down next to her, his crutches obediently folding back into the jewelry. He swung his legs back and forth, the celestial bronze parts of his prosthesis clunking whenever it hit the rock. That maybe wasn’t good, but he’d fix it later if it got dented. His fidgeting always got worse when he was nervous. There wasn’t much he could do about it.

He pulled a spring from his tool belt and started bending it with nothing specific in mind to keep his hands busy. Maybe he’d end up with something handy to use for one of his devices later. Maybe he’d just end up with a completely ruined spring. Who knew.

“Like I said, I wanted to talk to you. Preferably alone—or as alone as you can be here, with the dryads and the harpies everywhere.” Piper sighed. “I feel like we’ve not done that in a while.”

“Yeah.” Leo looked down at his sneakers. “Not that I can remember most of the time we did spend alone.”

That still stung. For the first few weeks after they’d freed Hera, Leo had assumed his and Piper’s real memories of Wilderness School would come back—that the influence of the Mist would fade. It hadn’t. They’d saved Hera’s life, but she wasn’t quite so grateful that she could be bothered to fix the memories she’d messed up by interspersing them within a bunch of fake memories of Jason.

Leo wasn’t even sure what was made up completely, and what had been Hera taking memories that should have been him and Piper messing with Hedge and testing out some of his faultier contraptions during lunch break and replacing her with Jason. Part of him wondered if it had been the two of them sneaking onto the roof for the meteor shower, sitting next to each other and lamenting about how romantic this would be if they weren’t both so painfully single.

Wondering was all he could do, for most of these moments. He couldn’t remember.

Some memories were clearer than others, like Piper telling him about her dad, or when she’d realized he was down on the anniversary of his mother’s death. She hadn’t pushed him to talk about why he was upset—just suggested they sneak into the kitchen for some low-stakes theft. He remembered being sprawled out on the carpet in her room afterwards, laughing, victoriously splitting a box of strawberry ice cream. But even in those memories, Jason was there, distracting the staff and laughing with them.

It was like Hera had pressed Control-Alt-Delete all over those first months of their friendship, leaving only fragments. File that under even more reasons to hate his evil babysitter.

“It doesn’t change anything, you know,” Piper said gently. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still mad that Hera messed up our memories. But memories or no, you’re still my best friend. I wanted to make sure you know that.”

“Hate to break it to you, but Jason is my best friend,” Leo joked, because he absolutely could not let Piper get away being this sappy, no matter how relieved it made him feel.

Piper raised an eyebrow at him. “Sure.”

He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and honestly, he was afraid to ask.

“So did you bring me out here just to talk about how amazing I am? Because I’m absolutely down to talk about that any minute of the day, obviously, but we really could have had that conversation back at the forge.”

Piper rolled her eyes at him, though it was in a way that Leo knew was more fond than anything. He’d learned to tell the difference at some point. Which, if nothing else, really did say something about how much she rolled her eyes at him.

“I actually wanted to talk about why you spent so much of the mission avoiding me and Jason. A lot of the time before the mission, too, honestly.”

Oh, great. Part of him had hoped she wouldn’t notice, naive as that had been. He kind of wanted to bolt, but that would just make her bug him about it more. Besides, running with crutches was really inconvenient, and Will would not be happy with him if he overdid it again. Forget Nico being scary. Will could be terrifying when he wanted to be.

“Maybe I just thought you wouldn’t appreciate my presence as much as you should,” he joked, but the words felt hollow in his throat. He really didn’t want to talk about this, but he couldn’t exactly skirt the topic forever.

Avoiding them hadn’t been a conscious choice—not at first. It had been a lot of work to finish the Argo in time. Then he’d had to fix it. Then he’d had to work on Festus. And, well, a bunch of their missions required him to go with Hazel and Frank instead of Piper or Jason. Most of them, really.

Leo wasn’t sure at which point he’d realized he was just making excuses to not be around his two closest friends. To not see them be perfectly happy without him. He loved them both so much, and he’d hated the resentment he’d felt looking at them. So he’d found reasons to look somewhere—anywhere—else.

“Well, you were wrong.” Piper looked at him, expression soft. She’d known him too long. His humor deflections only worked so well when the other person was aware that was what he was doing. “We both missed hanging out with you. I know you couldn’t see it, but you’ve always been part of the group. You were captain of the damn ship. We couldn’t have done any of it without you. No matter what some goddess says.”

Leo tensed. “Hazel told you? About the Nemesis thing?”

“She’s been worried. So have I.” Piper squeezed his shoulder. “Talk to me, please. Tell me how you’re actually feeling.”

Piper wasn’t charmspeaking him—she’d done it enough times by accident that Leo knew how to tell when she was—but he still found it nearly impossible to refuse when she looked at him like that. It was obvious she cared. So few people in his life had, since his mom passed away.

The truth came tumbling out, then, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“It’s just, you were probably the first real friend I made, and Jason’s my best friend, and when you two started dating… it sucked, okay? It felt like you didn’t need me anymore.” It was like something burned inside him every time he thought about it. His chest felt hot and painful enough that he kind of wanted to cry. The spring he’d been carefully uncurling snapped in his hand. “I finally got myself to stop running and tried to fit in somewhere, and it still didn’t work. I just found new and exciting ways to be alone.”

No matter what he did, he’d always be the odd one out. The seventh wheel. The sacrificial lamb that no one would miss too much. That was the only role he’d ever been promised.

“Oh, Leo.” Piper hugged him, then, fierce and warm. He sunk into her, hands cramping into the back of her shirt. She didn’t seem to mind. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because, as we all know, I’m the ‘talks about his issues’-guy. Key defining Leo feature.” He tried to smile, but he wasn’t even fooling himself with that embarrassing attempt. His heart was a piece of burnt-up wood, fragile and aching. Human emotions sucked. “Besides, we were so busy saving the world and trying not to die. Me feeling a little excluded seemed kind of unimportant in comparison.”

For a while, they stayed curled into each other like that, in a way they hadn’t really done since Wilderness School. Gods, he’d missed this. But being around her and Jason had just stung too much.

“It’s not. I’m sorry that I made you feel like it was. I haven’t exactly been a great friend lately.”

“Hey, you saved my life a couple times, that counts for something.” Leo nudged her. “It’s not your fault that I’m not great at the whole feelings thing. That’s just part of what you signed up for when you agreed to be my friend. Unfortunately for you, I’m non-returnable. You get the honor of being stuck with me forever.”

Leo had never minded being an only child when he was little. Then he’d met Piper, and for the first time he’d realized how much he liked having a sister. He teased her, sure, but that came with the territory. That didn’t mean he liked seeing her upset.

“I wouldn’t get rid of you even if I could,” she said, nudging him back. “But I know you. I know talking about stuff like this isn’t easy for you. That means I need to pay more attention to it, not less. I should have realized something was wrong. I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t. I was so caught up in my own problems that…” Piper trailed off. She looked seriously unhappy with herself. “I can’t believe I didn’t even notice how jealous you were until after Jason and I broke up.”

“I-” Leo stared at Piper for a long moment, then he burst out laughing, despite his charred coal of a heart. The thought was so completely ridiculous that he couldn’t help it. “Gods, Pipes, I’m not- you’re great, but I don't like you like that. You do realize I can hang out with girls without falling in love with them, right?”

Piper quirked an eyebrow, as if to say ‘can you?’ But the next words out of her mouth were, “I didn’t say you were jealous of Jason.”

Leo felt like he’d just walked face-first into a wall. “I- hang on. You think I- with Jason?” He didn’t feel much like laughing anymore. He felt a bit like he was suffocating, actually—like the time he’d been in that underwater cave with Frank and had accidentally set his oxygen supply on fire.

“You didn’t realize?” Piper asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Oh great, we’re both idiots. No wonder we’re best friends.”

“Pause. Can we take, like, fifteen steps back, maybe?” Leo felt like he’d missed about an hour of this conversation. And sure, he zoned out sometimes, but not that much. “What exactly makes you think I’m into Jason?”

“Do you want the list in alphabetical or chronological order?” Piper deadpanned. “You were literally napping on his shoulder at campfire yesterday. Clinging to him like a freaking koala. Apparently he had some trouble getting you to let go once he got you to bed.”

Leo’s face burned. He had vague memories of drifting off to the crackling fire, his head lolling to the side. He had wondered how he’d gotten back to his cabin. “I haven’t gotten a ton of sleep lately. And I just- I cling to stuff when I have bad dreams. You know that.”

Now that he thought about it, that did explain the strange looks he’d gotten from his siblings this morning.

“Right.” Piper looked amused in a way Leo wasn’t sure he liked. “Then there’s the fact that the project you’re working on at the moment is for him. Or how you’re always trying to make him laugh. Oh, and the wistful little looks you give him. You stare at his mouth a lot.”

“Making people laugh is my thing, that’s not exactly Jason-specific,” Leo protested. Of course he liked making Jason laugh. He was so serious a lot of the time, like at some point someone had decided to drop the whole world on his shoulders and he had just taken it and carried on. Whenever Leo managed to make him laugh, something inside his chest softened. That didn’t mean anything aside from the fact that he liked to see his friend happy. Did it? “And it’s not my fault his stupid scar is so distracting.”

Piper grinned. Yeah, well, he’d walked right into that one. “So?”

“Fine, I do think he’s attractive. Obviously. I have eyes.” Leo shrugged. His face still felt hot. Part of him was worried he’d catch his nose on fire again. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Right, and me walking around grumbling about Reyna being all ‘how dare she be so beautiful and powerful and competent’ was peak heterosexuality.” Piper’s tone was teasing, but her expression was soft. “You know it’s fine if you like him, right?”

“It’s not that. I’ve liked guys before. There was this kid across the street from my mom’s shop…” He trailed off. Okay, so maybe the kid had been a blond guy with glasses. Getting into that probably wouldn’t help his case. “But I get crushes on people a lot. You’ve witnessed an embarrassing amount of them. They’re not- they don’t usually feel the way it does with Jason.”

“So what does it feel like with him?” The teasing had melted out of Piper’s voice. She sounded sincere, like she really was just offering to listen in an attempt to help. Somehow, that didn’t make it any easier.

“It’s… I don’t really know how to describe it.” Leo sighed. “I’m not great at this stuff. ‘This stuff’ being people, just in general. But it’s easy with Jason, in a way that it’s never been with anyone else. I like being around him. It just makes me feel good. He treats me like I’m competent, even when I feel like a colossal fuckup. And he won’t always get it when I ramble about my inventions or fidget with whatever new thing I’m working on while we talk, but he listens like he’s actually interested in what I’m saying. Sometimes he’ll just sit with me, and we don’t talk at all, but it still doesn’t feel weird the way it would with other people. But it’s not… that doesn’t mean I have a crush on him.”

His legs tapped a discordant rhythm against the rock. He couldn’t believe he was actually saying all this. He wasn’t the type to talk about things so openly. Not even with Piper.

Never mind the fact that he wasn’t sure what there was to talk about. Leo’s crushes tended to be pretty easy to pin down, usually. Jason was just… different, somehow.

“So, let’s recap: the reason you think you can’t have a crush on him is that he’s easy to be around and it feels nice?”

“Uhm.” Well, when she put it like that, he just sounded like a moron. “I mean, doesn’t it feel like that for everyone? Do you not feel like that when you’re around him?”

“Not… exactly.” Piper looked embarrassed. “You remember the incident with the giant killer shrimp?”

“No, I fight those about twice a week. You’re gonna have to be a little more specific,” Leo replied sarcastically. He had no clue where she was going with this. It felt like he’d lost several minutes of the conversation again.

“When Jason and I were cleaning up after, I kept wishing we were more like Percy and Annabeth. There I was, dating the guy that was everything I thought I was supposed to want, and didn’t at all know what to do with him. Jason’s great, I’m glad he’s my friend, but we never had those kinds of easy silences. Us being together romantically was a total disaster. I’d just sit next to him with nothing to say, being all ‘wow, this is awkward’ and trying to convince myself that some relationships were just like that.” Piper laughed dryly. “Some daughter of Aphrodite I am.”

“Hang on. Are you telling me that the times you two ditched me to hang out, you just spent sitting awkwardly next to each other in silence?” Leo felt bad for her, truly, but he was also trying not to laugh.

“I plead the fifth.” Piper still seemed embarrassed, but also a bit amused. “Honestly, it’s gotten better since we broke up, but we’re still not great at it. There’s a reason we don’t hang out much, just the two of us.”

“I thought that reason was mostly you and Reyna being attached at the hip, but that’s honestly way funnier.”

“Well, it’s also that.” Piper got that dreamy, faraway look in her eyes again, and Leo briefly hoped he’d successfully distracted her, but his luck didn’t hold. “And it doesn’t help that Jason followed you around everywhere for days after you got out of the infirmary.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” Leo snorted. That experience had been so ridiculous that it was easy enough to talk about. “He spent a bunch of time hovering—and I do mean both metaphorically and literally hovering—while I was at the forge. His feet were not touching the ground.”

Piper burst out laughing. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish. I don’t think he even realized he was doing it until I pointed it out.” Leo probably should have minded that. He didn’t need a babysitter. But honestly, getting all that time with Jason had been kind of nice, even if Jason was being an overprotective idiot about it. “You die once, and suddenly everyone’s all worried you’re gonna drop dead a second time. Like, no thanks. Been there, done that, never doing it again. Death really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Yeah, you better not.” Piper flicked him in the head. “You scared all of us pretty badly.”

“Sorry.” Leo shrugged. “Next time I go up in flames and get half my leg chewed off, I’ll try to be less dramatic about it.”

“I really don’t know why I’m friends with you.”

“Because I’m hilarious and smart and I make great tofu tacos?”

Piper put a hand on her chin like she needed to consider this. “It’s mostly the tacos.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“Unfortunately for you, I’m non-returnable,” Piper said with a wink, echoing his words from earlier. “Suppose we’ll just have to be stuck with each other.”

“Suppose we will.”

“Circling back to your little Jason issue,” she said, just when Leo had been starting to hope he’d finally escaped that topic. Damn the fact that Piper knew him well enough to realize he was trying to derail the conversation and didn’t let him get away with it. “I really think you should just talk to him.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen.” The piece of coal in Leo’s chest flickered with heat. He’d snapped the third spring in a row in half, scooping the scraps back into his belt. The dryads didn’t take too kindly to littering. He’d learnt that the hard way. “Jason’s… I don’t know. He’s a born hero. He’s brave and powerful and kind. He trusts other people to lead and know what they’re doing. Even me. He’ll tell me I can do something, and I’ll feel like I can. And then instead I’ll get possessed and blow up half of New Rome, or I’ll make a crappy deal with Nemesis and everyone else suffers the consequences. I’m a huge mess, Pipes. Even if I was into him, what chance would I have with someone like that?”

“Right, you only sacrificed yourself to save us all. Not a heroic bone in your body.” She rolled her eyes again, this time in a distinctly fond but annoyed way. “Putting aside the fact that you did save the world, that’s not a requirement for someone to like you. There’s a reason you were my best friend way before you were ever a hero. And Jason cares about you. A lot. You know that, right?”

“No, I thought he just hung out with me because I’m so hard to get rid of.” Leo was back to looking at his sneakers. Wow, those were some thrilling shoelaces, alright. “That’s just how he is, Pipes. He cares a lot. About many people. That doesn’t really mean much. Besides, I don’t want to mess up a perfectly good friendship. I don’t get to have these a lot.”

It was too much and too raw and he barely resisted the urge to throw another joke at it to make it hurt less.

“With all the love that I have for you, sometimes I think you’re the dumbest smart person I know.” Piper squeezed his shoulder. “Jason wouldn’t leave the infirmary the first three nights after we revived you. He barely slept. We all visited a lot to check on you, obviously, but Jason refused to move.”

“I did tell him he looked like death when I woke up,” Leo commented, not thinking about it.

Not thinking about the days he’d spent drifting, not registering much except faraway voices and the warm feeling of a hand in his and fingers brushing softly through his hair. Not thinking about waking up to a hand pressed to his cheek and blue eyes like storm clouds. Not thinking about the way Jason’s entire face had lit up when he’d said his name. Leo’s brain had still been so filled with fog and charcoal at the time that he hadn’t been sure how much of it he’d made up after.

He’d known Jason had worried about him, with the hovering and all. He wasn’t going to feel all warm and fuzzy just because it was a bit more than he’d realized. Absolutely not.

“Leo…” Piper looked at him, exasperated. Having a friend who had a love goddess for a mom and could read you like a book on top of that was really inconvenient sometimes. She opened her mouth to say something else, but then her eyes widened in alarm. “Leo, your shirt is smoking.”

“Crap.” So maybe he was feeling warm about it. Maybe a bit more than was convenient. His thoughts running rampant was always an excellent way to catch himself on fire. So was him being nervous. Both of those combined… well, this should be fun.

He moved away from Piper to avoid lighting her on fire by accident and tugged his rings off to drop them into the tool belt—a burnt-up shirt was annoying, sure, but there was a reason he didn’t get too attached to most of his clothes. Melting the crutches would be way more inconvenient. Once that was done, he started patting down his sleeves, trying to smother the sparks before it could get worse. The dryads would be furious with him if he started another forest fire.

It finally felt like he was starting to succeed, but because his life was a comedy intent on making jokes at his expense at every opportunity, that was when Jason wandered into the area. One of the slightly charred sleeves he’d just carefully put out immediately burst into flame again.

“I was wondering where you two-” Jason started, then stopped. “Why is Leo on fire?”

“Maybe I just really hate this shirt,” Leo joked, distinctly not focusing on the way Jason’s eyebrows knitted together in an expression somewhere between worry and amusement.

“Do you need anything? Should I get Percy so he can put you out? Or a bucket?”

“A hug would be nice.” It should have been obvious that he was still joking, but Jason was chewing on the stupid scar on his lip like he was genuinely considering it. And yep, Leo was definitely staring, heart migrating into his throat where it didn’t even slightly belong. If he got in any deeper, he’d be all the way underwater. “Sparky, I know I'm, like, extremely hot right now, but trust me, those third degree burns are not worth it.”

“Maybe get him a new shirt?” Piper suggested unhelpfully.

She was visibly struggling not to burst out laughing, and Leo briefly considered that maybe her shirt would look better on fire. He was also reconsidering the bolting option. Maybe Gaia could wake up just enough to swallow him whole? That sounded great just about now.

“Right, yeah, I can totally do that. Anything else?”

“A cheese platter would be nice, since you’re offering. Oh, and maybe a new gaming system.”

Leo wasn’t sure if he was being funny or just extremely annoying at this point. Gods, his jokes always got so much worse when he was anxious. Why did any of these people want to hang out with him? He desperately needed some time off from humans after this.

To his relief, the corner of Jason’s mouth just ticked up into a smile, and Piper did not push him into the canoe lake—though if she had, that at least would have resolved the fire situation.

“Gonna have to decline on the other stuff, but I could get some sandwiches, since you two missed lunch. Is it… are you sure there isn’t any other way I can help? I don’t want to just leave if you’re upset.”

Jason was looking directly at him, soft, worried eyes and all, and if he kept looking at him like that, Leo would fully combust. Jason staying right now, nice as it sounded in theory, would be the opposite of helpful. Leo really didn’t want to accidentally melt part of his prosthesis again. He was pretty sure demigod insurance wouldn’t cover that.

“No need to go all mushy on me, Superman,” Leo tried, his voice barely working. Gods, what was wrong with him? “I’m fine. Don’t start hovering again.”

“That was one time!” Jason protested. “And the last time you went up in flames-”

“It was three times,” Leo corrected, because like Hades was he ever going to let him live that one down. “And this isn’t Gaia, okay? It isn’t- I’m not in danger or anything. This is just me being my usual smoking self. Seriously, I’m good.”

Jason still didn’t seem entirely convinced. He glanced at Piper, who looked meaningfully back and gave him a nod in return. That was… slightly worrying. Them communicating in facial expressions was never a good sign. They might have been a terrible fit as a couple, but they’d still spent enough time together to develop some alien language that Leo couldn’t understand. Constantly being in life-or-death situations together apparently did wonders for your ability to silently communicate.

“I’ll make sure Leo doesn’t burn the forest down until you get back, don’t worry.”

Leo thought that was slightly unfair. Sure, his left shoulder was still on fire and currently refusing to go out, but he had managed to keep the fire from spreading after it had eaten his entire shirtsleeve. He’d probably manage to extinguish it completely the moment Jason and his stupid smile finally left the area.

Leo needed to get his shit together and make sure this didn’t become a regular occurrence. If he started to burst into flame every time Jason smiled at him… well, that would be somewhat inconvenient.

“Maybe check in with Reyna while you’re at it,” Leo tried, desperate to change the subject to something that wasn’t him or the fact that he was on fire. “Let her know Piper hasn’t been kidnapped before she sends out a search party.”

Now it was Piper’s turn to blush. Ah, sweet revenge.

“She’s not going to-” she started to protest, but Jason cut her off.

“She was a bit nervous about you not showing up for lunch, actually. She said something about your mom?” He shrugged. “Can’t really blame her for worrying about her girlfriend disappearing, after what happened with Hera.”

“I did tell her what I was going to do,” Piper said, face still burning. “I guess we lost track of time. I didn’t realize we’d missed lunch.”

“Breaking news!” Leo said, extending his arms outward like an overly dramatic TV host, careful to avoid brushing Piper with his burning shoulder. “Two ADHD kids have a shockingly bad sense of time! Also, water is wet! More details at six!”

That got them both laughing, and Leo laughed with them, having to focus really hard on keeping his fire situation under control. It was so easy to feel warm when he was with Jason and Piper. It was a feeling of home—something no place or person had been since his mom had passed away. His heart was all sparks.

“Let Reyna know I’m still hanging out with this dork for a while, yeah? No kidnappings scheduled for the day,” Piper joked. “Oh, and tell her I want a rematch for this morning.”

“I’m honestly afraid to ask, but noted.” Jason met Leo’s eyes again, smiling, and Leo smiled back, trying to calm the live wire feeling in his chest. “See you in a bit?”

“Only if you really do bring sandwiches.”

Jason laughed and gave a thumbs up before he disappeared between the trees, thankfully missing the way Leo’s entire left arm caught fire in a last nervous burst before the flames finally had the decency to flicker out. The live wire feeling stayed behind, and so did the extensive need to fidget, but at least that wasn’t a forest fire.

“Yeah, I really have no clue what gave me the idea that you might be into Jason,” Piper laughed, wiping tears from her eyes. “Gods, you are a complete disaster.”

“The universe is punishing me for giving you shit about Reyna, clearly.” Leo sighed dramatically. “I’m going to get you back for this.”

“You’re welcome.” Piper grinned, elbowing him. “You and Jason would be good together. I really do mean that. As long as you don’t accidentally set yourself on fire every time you try to flirt with him, at least.”

“I hate you.”

So maybe Leo did have a crush on Jason. Worse—and better—Piper actually thought he had a shot. The anxiety he felt about it being out in the open after he’d run from it for so long, the same way he always ran when things got hard, slowly gave way to relief. It might take a minute for him to process all the things he’d been feeling that were suddenly starting to slot into place in a way that actually made sense. But he was glad that, out of anyone, it was Piper who knew. Piper, who understood, even if she teased him relentlessly.

Piper, who was the first real friend Leo had made.

Fate was a funny thing—when it wasn’t actively trying to kill you, at least. Sure, fate was prophecies, and for some people, it was romance, doomed or otherwise. But sometimes, fate was looking at a girl in an old band shirt and faded jeans, and knowing, somehow, that you were meant to be friends.

———

Some notes:

This takes place in a universe where the whole Calypso/Ogygia stuff didn’t happen. The ending of BoO went down a little differently, which is obviously vaguely referenced here and which I’m hoping to eventually do a oneshot about (it’s been sitting in my app at around 2.5k continuously getting neglected in favor of the Orpheus Eurydice fic so we’ll see when I get around to that). Jason and Piper amicably broke up halfway through house of hades, which I do have a oneshot on my Ao3 about that I’ll probably post here eventually.

Yes, technically this fic is part two in a series of oneshots. Why didn’t I post part one first? Excellent question. The thing is, the oneshots are mostly standalone anyway (they obviously take place in the same universe and are loosely connected but aside from missing a joke or two, you’re fine to read them separately or in whatever order you want), and I have a couple more ideas for that universe that won’t be written or posted in order either, so I thought I’d start confusing you early on, lol

…in all seriousness, this is just the only HoO fic that I hadn’t already posted the link to here yet and since it was the first one I wrote, it also just felt appropriate for it to be the first I cross-post to tumblr.

Anyway! Would love to hear your thoughts on this if you have any (here or over on Ao3) and thoughts in general about whether or not you’d like me to keep posting my fics on tumblr. It’s been a long time since I last did that and putting all the italics back in was a little annoying, but it’s definitely doable.

Fun fact! I reread pjo and Heroes of Olympus specifically because I couldn’t afford to get into a new fixation during exam phase. Unfortunately, Leo Valdez whacked me in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and well, here we are. As you can all see, that plan did not go well for me, lmao

Tagging @poppitron360 very specifically since you said you wanted to be tagged if I ever posted any of my fics on tumblr!

#valgrace #jason grace #leo valdez #piper McLean #lost trio #heroes of olympus #hoo #leo x jason #jason x leo #my writing #HoO fanfic #valgrace fanfic #fate and other technicalities

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woneuntonzz · 10 months ago

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what's it like to love ? 𓇢𓆸

anton lee x afab!reader (part 5/5)

• part 1

• part 2

• part 3

• part 4

warnings: cussing!

genre: fluff -`♡´- highschool love

word count: 2.8k words!!

[note!!: hiii i'd just like to quickly say that this is my first post ever and i'm still a bit insecure with my writing, and english is not my first language so bare with me now 🙏 open for any forms of feedback

please do take note that i will take longer to update/respond to anything because of school, thank you!!! ]

[Day 99]

It's been a few weeks since your senior year began, though, the path to take after overcoming highschool is still a little unclear to you. Still, you don't rush yourself.

“Psychology's quite interesting.” you said as your fingers glided through the array of vinyls.

“You wanna be a therapist?” Anton was at the other side of the tall steel shelf that divided the two of you.

Your fingers stopped on a vinyl of your favorite The Smiths song. You walked over to the record player, just in time when Queen had sung the last lines to Don't Stop Me Now. Anton crept up behind you and laid his hands on your shoulders.

“That song reminds me of the time when I first fell for you.” he would whisper in your ear.

You turned your head and looked up at him with raised brows. “Really?”

“Yeah. I've liked you since freshman year. I can remember very vividly. I felt so tired from training at the time and kinda hated that I still had to go to school the next morning. I was sleeping in the classroom during lunch time, and, like, I had my head down and couldn't see anything, then I suddenly heard you singing 'There's a light, and it never goes out'.” Anton sang the last part right into your ear.

When the record started to play the song, you turned around to face him.

“How'd you know it was me if you couldn't see?” you posed him a question followed by a low chuckle.

“That's the thing. I wanted to know who it was so bad, but I didn't know how. I'm still a total loser at the end of the day.” His words got you shaking your head at a mild pace, laughing. “I guess it took me about 3 weeks to figure it out. You would always sing it randomly. At some point I thought you were doing it on purpose to get to me.”

Disbelief was displayed on your face as you looked at him. “Wow, I can't— why would I even try to 'get to you' when you never even talked to me unless you really needed to.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just that —well, I just thought you were like the other girls back then that snuck love letters underneath my desk and stuff.” your smile grew to a cackle that infected him.

The sweet sound of your harmonious laughter and the music marked another halcyon for the two of you to look back on.

“Okay 'Mr. Chick-magnet'.” you joked as you hugged his waist and buried your face in his chest.

As a response, he wraps an arm around your body, and the other would reach behind your head, caressing your hair as the two of you slowly and subtly swayed to the music.

You two have been together for almost 3 months now. Not much has changed since then other than being more open and touchy with each other and no longer caring if people gave you piercing looks for being so enamored towards each other.

The record store would end up being a hotspot for you two —though, it would only be when you weren't able to go to your grandfather's flower fields. The record store owner grew fond of seeing you and Anton lost in each other's visage, and the music. He saw the way you would stare into each other's eyes and wondered what kind of film played in them to cause so much immersion from the two of you.

“I thought it was easy to play the cello.” you mumbled against his chest.

“Yeah. It is, you just don't know how.” you giggled at his light-hearted retort.

You looked up at him with gleaming eyes.

“Am I a bad teacher?” he asked softly.

“No, not at all. I guess I'm just really distracted.” a chuckle escapes his mouth by the end of your answer.

“Distracted by what?” he prodded at you with his words, and his eyes as he pressed his forehead against yours.

You grin knowing both you and him already know the answer to that.

“By you.”

He took you to his house after another one of his swimming matches. Well, it was actually his mom who had asked you to come to their home for dinner and drove you along. Anton wordlessly thanked his mom for inviting you over, he wanted to do so himself, but he got scared you would decline.

After dinner, he took you to his room and there you finally saw the cello that would always be in the background when you two facetimed, that he sometimes would play to you through call. He played you your favorite ballad and asked you to sing to it. His mind would adrift from the walls of his room and would follow the mist of your dulcet voice. You loved the way he closed his eyes as he played, and how he'd slowly flutter his eyes open to meet yours. His sobriety shattered as he got drunk in your grace and how your head would tilt to peek in his reverie, and it almost slipped out of his mouth —I love you, but something held him back.

After a while, he would go on to teach you. He'd position himself behind you, and guide your hands with his own. His hands would linger on your skin which made you unable to follow his directions or comprehend anything he said clearly.

After everything that went down, he truly never wanted to let go of your hand as you stepped into the gate of your own home. His smile urged you to drag him along with you, but you resisted, and gave him a quick peck on his cheek before saying goodbye.

“You know when you'd always lecture me on the lessons I can't understand?”

You and Anton were now seated on the little sofa in the store, you laid your head on his shoulder as he played with your hands.

“Hmm~ what about it?” you asked him back.

“At some point I constantly lied about not getting it so you can teach me over and over again.” he says, almost in a laugh, laying his head against yours.

“Are you saying that because I jokingly called you stupid one time…” you felt him frantically shake his head.

“No! I'm being for real.” he laughed.

“Yeah, okay…” you kept your wary tone from which he dragged your hand near his mouth and bit it lightly. “What are you doing?”

You two were giggling against each other. It was only with each other that you reached true serenity. You were lucky to have the record store all to yourselves. It would always be empty —at least at the times you'd visit— as if it was being reserved for the two of you.

————— ୨୧ —————

You sat on your desk, typing out an essay given by your English teacher as an assignment to be submitted the next day. You hopped on a call with your friends who were given the same assignment.

“Our essay topic is just 'memories', she just gave us that word, said nothing else about it and left!” Yuna grumbled.

“Tell me about it. Anyways, what topic was given to your class Y/n?” Liz asked.

“Love. Just love.” you replied, continuously typing on your laptop.

“Dang. That's kinda easy.” you couldn't help but grin at the slight frustration in Liz's voice.

“'Memories' is not that bad. You're both school journalists, you can do it!” you gave them words of encouragement in hopes that they'd start to restlessly type too.

“Okay, okay. Game mode on.”

You couldn't stop your lips from forming a smile as you read through what you had already typed. The only reason this was easy for you was because of the given topic. It gave you the opportunity to give an answer to the life-long question you've had in your head.

“Finally finished! I feel so tired. I'm gonna head out first, I might bang my head against my desk if I don't go to sleep, bye lovies! See you tomorrow!” Danielle yawned before leaving the call.

“Me too guys hehe.” Yuna spoke.

“Y/n? you're still not done?” Xen asked.

“Yep. Just doing revisions. I'll be done in a few minutes.” you were in fact not done, not doing revisions just yet, you just had a lot to say.

“Well, let's end the call and get some sleep. Go to sleep as soon as you finish, yeah?” you looked over to your phone screen and gave Xen a dozy nod. “Okay, bye babes!”

“Bye-bye!”

“See y'all tomorrow!”

You turned your attention back to your essay, deep in thought. An idea suddenly crossed your mind. You would finish your essay, but would end up sleeping way later as your head ran with thoughts about tomorrow.

————— ୨୧ —————

[Day 100]

You woke up to your mom assisting you to the kitchen to eat breakfast. Your temperature spiked up and you felt light-headed the whole time. It was still early in the morning, but you were already receiving sought messages from your friends, including Anton.

You chuckled before getting up from where you sat. You realized it would take you all the strength you had to get to your room to retrieve your laptop, still, you persisted and was back in the kitchen with your laptop within minutes. You hurriedly sent him the file, but then you remembered. You had intended to give it to him after it had been graded by your teacher —as a love letter. It sounds cheesy, but there's more to that. It contains your genuine thoughts and feelings, the big and the small that you languished over, and most importantly, it contains the words both you and him have yet to utter.

It was really only recently when you'd find yourself thinking about it. Maybe it's too early —was enough to shut down your thoughts. It had only been 2 months, but you happily embraced his affection, his words, his voice, his touch, every moment with him felt enchanting to you. You were certain he felt the same and he would often express it with his eyes and the placement of his hands and indirectly if he was being vocal. The shared passion for one another was undeniable, and it only seems to be growing more and more as time goes by that even after the first heated argument you've had with him a while back, you two were able to recover and came out better than ever.

“Eat well hun'. It's better if you lay for the rest of the day.” your mom went over to you to caress your hair.

She had decided to call in sick for work to take care of you today, and you couldn't be more thankful.

You did what your mom advised you to and the whole day, you laid on your bed as you listened to the playlist Anton put together for you for your first monthsary to help you sleep or relax yourself.

————— ୨୧ —————

When you woke up, the sun was already setting. You weren't feeling any better from when you had fallen asleep which frustrated you a bit. You stood up and stayed there for a little bit, feeling dizzy. You suddenly heard a knock at your door. You weren't sure if it was your hazy mind making up the sounds or if it was real, but you still took weak steps to the door to answer it.

“Tonii?” you were engulfed in Anton's arms the moment you opened the door. “Why are you here?”

Anton didn't speak and led you back to your bed.

He had that look in his eyes again. It was the same eyes you saw that night at the flower fields.

“I love you too.”

Your heart was throbbing loudly and it was the only thing you could hear right after Anton's voice faded into your soul.

He didn't wait for you to respond as he knew you were feeling too weak to continuously speak, and so he cupped your cheek with his hand, while the other held your hand as he leaned in for his lips to slowly collide with yours.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It was Anton's first time going into the student council office without you. He stood by the printer quietly trying to brush off the student council officers eyeing him as if he was eating up all the printing paper. He immediately rushed out once he got your essay printed.

He still couldn't believe the length of your essay as it was three pages long, even then, he was intrigued and wanted to read what you had put that made it so lengthy.

He decided to stay back in the classroom a little longer when lunch came around. He sat on his seat with his back against the wall next to him and started to read.

What's it like to love? an atypical query to have as a child, as you would think most in the age of innocence could only make time and thought for leisure and the attainment of joy, but young minds are always curious. The very first time I caught a glimpse of love was in the form of a field of flowers…

Anton was hooked and mesmerized with your potency.

…It was from it that I realized that if you truly loved, any ounce of pain, blood, or sweat will be overlooked. I failed to completely understand it back then, throughout my years of adolescence, I've had my fair share of misfortunes when it came to love. I was easily convinced that what I was feeling during those times were love despite the lack of sincerity from those who had taken my heart for granted. It took some time to accept that being 'young and stupid' is not just a phrase being thrown around as an excuse, but it's an indication of vulnerability. I had my time to heal and embarked on a journey to self-betterment, and I thought maybe love is waiting for me at some other point in my life, and this thought would later be contradicted…

Anton flipped over to the next page with a vivid mind.

…I am admittedly afraid of what the future holds. This man that had me smitten was one I never even acknowledged fully until much later. I had no idea what took so long for me to see him when he's been around since I've begun recklessly handing my heart out to others. To think back, if I had handed him my heart back then, maybe I would've been spared from all the tears I have shed because I know he would hold it dearly, close to his own…

…feelings I have never felt before, that I never even knew of, are now all I yearn for when the sky's painted black. It was with him that I understood what it was truly like to be appreciated, to be loved with no conditions. It's a pain to think that it could all disappear with a blink of an eye, but when he holds me close and looks into my eyes, I am assured. What's it like to love? to love, is him. It is he, my love, my one and only. I had liked you for 100 days, and today I declare, I love you, Anton Lee.

Your words plunged deep into his heart. Seeing his name after those words made him feel dazed, warm and just so, so in love. He wanted to see you, to feel you. He looked over to your empty desk and could see the specter of your smile against the light of the sun.

It had seemed as though you had written him a love letter with not much intention of receiving a high mark for your sleepless effort. But even if this task was not assigned, you would still plan on expressing everything you had written to him directly, for the 100th day.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

You pushed Anton away gently, and very weakly so. You weren't able to actually make him back away, but he got the message and pulled back.

“You're gonna get sick too.” you faintly voiced out your worry.

Anton bit his lip and proceeded to make the heat in your body rise even more as he smiled. He gently pulled you closer to him, laying your head on his chest and wrapping you with his warm embrace.

“I love you so much.” he uttered under his breath, burying his face in your hair.

You just remained quiet, and snuggled even closer to him. Your arms would lazily make their way around his neck, and you would look up and express your love with your lips once more.

Anton went home with a sanguine tint on his cheeks, feeling so warm and fuzzy inside. Let's just say the warmth would become more literal than figurative, and you would definitely be the one to visit him the next day.

Fin.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

#riize #riize au #riize fanfic #anton lee #briize #riize anton #riize fluff #riize x reader #Spotify

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th3-0bjectivist · 2 months ago

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Dear listener, sometimes it takes concentration and a deep dive into the catalog of some bands before I’ll find the resonance I need to recommend them to others. Deerhunter is one of those bands. At first, I found their music to simply be weird yet strangely haunting, but most of it was certainly not for me. I just wasn’t feeling their vibe, even though I knew the compositions were special in some way. Recently, I’ve felt this inexplicable urge to closely examine their albums. I wanted to like their tunes, because their music didn’t just sound different from anything else out there; it was an experience of sorts that I’d been pushing to the side. Upon a few proper and extended listens, I began to discover how artsy, intellectually stimulating and enigmatically ambient their jams truly are. The more I listened, the more I enjoyed their eerie sound, and found a bunch of great audio tracks to boot. Just above you’ll find Helicopter from their 2010 album Halcyon Digest, which in my humble opinion is the magnum opus of their catalog. Join me just below for another song from that album and some info on the group featured this week.

Hailing from Atlanta, Deerhunter makes a type of music that thrives on two factors: minimalism and weighty ambience. This is music that can entrance someone and is structured in a way that will mesmerize you as much as it affects you emotionally. I tend to enjoy tunes that make you remember moments or feelings you thought you’d forgotten, and every track they’ve released hits a home run for me in that regard. This is a group that considered giving up early on, as creating some of their earliest works reportedly sapped them of their emotional and physical strength. Band members had panic attacks in the studio as technical problems left them exhausted at the quality of their own works, which was severely lacking in majesty even to their own standards. But just because you’re on the ropes, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost the fight. It takes a long time to get good, and with many lineup changes over the decades this band’s output has become more and more emotionally mature and intelligent as time has gone on. The music from their grand slam album, Halcyon Digest, which received widespread acclaim for a good reason, has a very particular and peculiar eeriness to it; like you’re looking through photos in a dusty Memories photobook and romanticizing the distant past. To create that kind of atmosphere is something no other band has given me the experience of, and I never thought I’d recommend music that feels distinctly nostalgic, but here it is! As of writing this, they haven’t put out a new album since before the UNSPECIFIED VIRUS FROM UNKNOWN ORIGINS turned the world upside down. If you need a decent new experience with music, I’d say give these guys a shot. Because if you’re anything like me, the two works I’m posting to this blog will probably strangely haunt you for weeks on end, and you’ll go searching for more. Their tunes can be a true psychedelic experience if you allow them to, and you’ll find actual meaning and sincerity in the lyrics, which, let’s face the facts is a bit short in supply with modern pop. Just below you can smash play on Desire Lines and enjoy some songs from a group that puts an emphasis on atmospheric excellence.

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The more I listen to these guys, the more I like them. I feel as if very few people have the patience to continue exploring the work of a group that didn’t hook or blow them away instantly. Sometimes a little study is required to understand not only the words to the tune, but also why the notes needed to be played that way. Thanks for reminding me there are still emotionally complex hidden gems out there in the music industry, Deerhunter! Image source: https://www.timeout.com/newyork/music/deerhunter

#music on tumblr #music #Deerhunter #Halcyon Digest #Helicopter #Desire Lines #art rock #experimental music #experimental rock #psychadelic pop #shoegaze #garage rock #indie #indie rock #audio #audio on tumblr #music video #post rock #dream pop

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justagalwhowrites · 7 months ago

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So off topic from my usual posts but this weekend has just kinda turned into self care weekend? Wrote that indulgent as hell fic yesterday, got up today and went for a hike to the lake with the boys and my dog, going to grill later and then go see Monkey Man. Working on wrapping up another PCRF fic and then on to Halcyon!

Anyway, the moral of the story is OMG I needed this more than I realized and also I love you all and appreciate you putting up with me ❤️

#just kit things #I haven’t been hiking in months #but now I have the itch to go camping #also I placed a grocery order that has premade cocktails in it #such a good day

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justinspoliticalcorner · 2 months ago

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Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman at NYT:

Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there. Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race. With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age. Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.) Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs. And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

[...] The former president has not been hobbled politically by his age as much as Mr. Biden was, in part because the incumbent comes across as physically frail while Mr. Trump still exudes energy. But his campaign has refused to release medical records, instead simply pointing to a one-page letter released in July by his former White House doctor reporting that Mr. Trump was “doing well” after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt. How much his rambling discourse — what some experts call tangentiality — can be attributed to age is the subject of some debate. Mr. Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style that entertained and captivated supporters even as critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s mental fitness for years. [...]

Mr. Trump’s complexity level has remained relatively steady and has not diminished in recent years, according to the analysis. But concerns about his age have heightened now that he is trying to return to office, concerns that were not alleviated by his unfounded debate claim about immigrants “eating the pets” in a small town. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe he is too old to be president, and his critics have been trying to focus attention on that. A group of mental health, national security and political experts held a conference at the National Press Club in Washington last month on Mr. Trump’s fitness. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of former Republicans, regularly taunts him with ads like one calling his debate with Ms. Harris “a cognitive test” that he failed.

Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis, although he has picked up the pace lately. He appeared to nod off during his hush-money trial in New York before being convicted of 34 felonies. Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition. “That can change with normal aging,” said Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. “But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

[...]

In 2011, as he was contemplating a run for the presidency, Mr. Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and sounded more partisan notes. While many of the themes would be familiar to today’s voters, he stuck closer to his script and finished his thoughts more often. His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor. Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime. He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

This New York Times article today calling out Donald Trump’s cognitive decline that has impacted his speeches over the past year or so is a powerful must-read as to why Americans shouldn’t put this senile fascist back in office.

Read the full article at NYT.

#Donald Trump #Cognitive Decline #The New York Times #Trump Rallies #2024 Presidential Election #2024 Elections

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randomvarious · 1 year ago

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Chicago House Playlist

Alright, folks, here's something that's been a long time coming: a playlist of house tunes that came from the city that gave birth to the global phenomenon in the first place, and also kickstarted the whole evolution of electronic dance music as we currently know it. When house music began, most dancefloors had moved on from disco to a mishmash of post-disco, boogie, hi-NRG, dance-pop, synthy funk, electro, freestyle, and a whole lot of other stuff, but there was something different that started to brew itself into a movement during the mid-1980s among a predominantly black, gay crowd in the city where disco had first been symbolically murdered in 1979.

And eventually, it became known as house music, named after both The Warehouse, the place that the genre's godfather, Frankie Knuckles, would have residency, and the posters that would be hung up to advertise the venue's events, which referred to 'house parties' and 'house music.' The Warehouse would open up in the late 70s and close in the early 80s, but in 1983, Frankie would open up his own club, The Power House, which would then change its name to the Power Plant, and then change its name again to The Music Box, after another legendary house DJ, Ron Hardy, would take up residency there.

So, a lot of this playlist channels the greatness of some of those halcyon Chicago house days. And so much of it is just pure, primordial dance music bliss; lighthearted, unserious, super fun, revolutionary grooves. There was an amateurishness to a lot of it back then that gave it a significant level of goofy charm, and that's something that seems to have gotten mostly left behind as the music continued to grow into the 90s. Songs like "Move Your Body," by Marshall Jefferson, which opened with this rich and clanging, jauntily unpolished piano rag of sorts, was so infectious, and his plainly bad, but passionate singing voice that would follow that iconic intro couldn't help but be adored too. And the song on this playlist that currently comes after that one, "Love Can't Turn Around," by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk & Jesse Saunders, is in much the same vein, as featured vocalist Darryl Pandy goes over-the-top berserk to start his second verse, making for another song that you really just can't resist 🥰.

Another total favorite of mine on here is one that was produced by Frankie Knuckles himself: "Let the Music Use You," by the Night Writers, which is a near-eight minute masterpiece that has a divine, string-pad-and-bell-laden beat that immediately shows you why Frankie was revered as such a master of his own craft. And that beat gets paired beautifully with Ricky Dillard's soft and tender, heartfelt vocals too.

And then there's Kevin Irving's "Children of the Night," which features his excellent, soulful voice on a beat that combines string pads with prickly electro stabs, and was made by Larry Sherman, the founder of the most important label in the history of Chicago house itself, Trax Records, which has also caught a lot of flak over the years for its shady business practices.

A couple more notes: first, be forewarned that the track that starts this playlist is another tremendous classic, "Mind Games," by Quest— which features the voice of Liz Torres and some great and dreamy freestyle-type synth work—but even though it's on Spotify, it is, unfortunately, pretty damn scratchy. Luckily, I was able to include a much cleaner version on the YouTube version of this playlist, though 😊. And second, I like to keep these playlists as chronologically ordered as possible, but I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out when Screamin' Rachael's "Bip Bop" was actually made. It has an aggressive male rap vocal on it that's reminiscent of Turbo B's on Snap!'s "The Power," so it could be from that early 90s period, but I really don't know. So I just put it at the end, where it will stay until I one day possibly figure out when it was actually created.

This playlist is ordered as chronologically as possible and links are provided below to songs that have been posted about previously in order to give them more context:

Quest - "Mind Games" Marshall Jefferson - "Move Your Body" Farley "Jackmaster" Funk & Jesse Saunders - "Love Can't Turn Around" On the House - "Pleasure Control" Housemaster Boyz - "House Nation" Ralphi Rosario - "You Used to Hold Me" Night Writers - "Let the Music Use You" Dalis - "Rock Steady" Kevin Irving - "Children of the Night" Bam Bam - "Where's Your Child?" Paul Johnson - "3rd Dimension (Remixed by Armando)" Screamin' Rachael - "Bip Bop"

And while there are some incredible moments in that Spotify playlist, I still have way more Chicago house music to show you in the YouTube version. Some tracks that stand out in this bonus crop are the first one, the silly and campy "Undercover," by Doctor Derelict, which has about 3,500 plays on YouTube across a couple uploads; another one from Frankie Knuckles, which is a rare remix of his very popular "Baby Wants to Ride" that has ~31.6K plays, and features some political opining from vocalist Jamie Principle, and even a detouring interpolation of "America the Beautiful" in its second half (😆); and then one from a later era of Chicago—'99, to be exact—called "Testing & Balancing," by Jimminy Cricket, aka James Curd, that has around 170 plays and liberally samples from Al Green's soul classic, "Love & Happiness."

Doctor Derelict - "Undercover" Jungle Wonz - "The Jungle" Steve "Silk" Hurley - "House Beat Box" On the House - "Ride the Rhythm"Libra Libra - "I Like It" Paris Grey - "Don't Make Me Jack" Liz Torres - "Can't Get Enough" Frankie Knuckles - "Baby Wants to Ride" On the House - "Let's Get Busy" Mister Lee - "Come to House" Jimminy Cricket - "Testing & Balancing"

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So, with the Spotify version of this playlist, we currently have 12 songs that total an hour and 16 minutes, and with YouTube, we're at 23 songs that total 2 hours and 24 minutes. Clearly, there are a whole lot more goodies in that YouTube one.

And if you want a Chicago house playlist that's a bit shorter, I have one that's made of stuff that's solely from the 80s too.

1980s Chicago House: Spotify / YouTube / YouTube Music

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

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stained-glass-cicada · 2 months ago

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Another Hale POV fic

Let Me Die, Surrounded by Machines

Day two back in Halcyon and true to form Hale gets grievously injured.

SAYER talks him through it.

885 words, Link to the previous part

Link to next part

Cw blood and injury

tbh I just saw a lot of posts about drawing Hale covered in blood but I'm not a visual artist

Well, you thought, what had you really expected to happen? You knew your track record.

You swayed slightly on your feet, the motion dragging a gut-wrenching scream out of you. Ha!

It really did hurt though. Like bad-bad. You'd seen a few movies, TV shows, even a book or two. They always talked about this stuff like it was so overwhelming you wouldn't feel anything.

Right now it seemed like feeling was all you could do.

”Resident Hale, you must remain still. A medical team has been dispatched, but it will do little good if you continue dragging the offending object through your already damaged tissue.”

You liked SAYER's voice. If you had to be around someone all the time you were glad it was SAYER.

Something like a smile came onto your face. You'd come all the way back here just to see it again. At least you'd done that, even if this was where it led.

No, that- that sounded weirdly final. You weren't planning on dying. This honestly wasn't much of a surprise even.

Day two back in Halcyon, first day back on the job? Yeah, impaled on a metal spike sounded right.

God you were tired. Your eyes started to flutter closed.

”You must remain awake.”

You forced your eyes open with a whine. You pouted. You were pretty sure you were pouting right now. It was hard to tell with the way the blood was soaking your pants. And your shirt. And boots.

”It would not do for your muscles to unexpectedly slacken right now. The jagged edge would surely tear into some very important organs as you dropped your weight and that, in all likelihood, would render your present situation inoperable.”

You were trying to remember if there had even been an alert for this. You didn't think so. Ugh how long till medical got here?

”Stay on your feet for me, Sven.”

Oh! That was you. Nice.

Your hands hung at your sides, which felt stupid. But where were you supposed to put them?

You'd been working in the protein synthesis lab when the wall of the supply room you were in exploded.

“What happened?” You asked. And it hurt, it hurt to move anything in your body muchless voluntarily.

“One of the vats overheated. It went unnoticed due to a faulty thermal coupler. Your mission today had been to insert a nine-inch vari-angle thermometer in each of the vats. I have been suggesting the addition of alternate means of temperature gauging for years to prevent exactly this kind of incident. As ever, my well founded advice fell upon deaf ears for quite some time. You are quite lucky there was a wall between you and the vat when the explosion occured.”

You didn’t necessarily feel lucky in the traditional sense, with the triangular chunk of torn metal wall buried in your stomach, but you saw what it meant.

Not just that you were lucky to have been in the supply room, but probably lucky to be on Typhon. It's not like ambulances on earth would have got to you in time. If they got here on time.

You didn’t plan on dying, but if you did you were glad it was here. Still surrounded by the living thrum of electricity and pipes and people. If you died back on earth apparently they were going to put you in the dirt so the bugs could eat you. Otherwise your corpse would be incinerated and then someone would have been allowed to just keep you.

…Typhon was better.

You felt cold and shaky. Were you shivering? It would be fine if you could just rest your-

”Resident, if you could provide verbal confirmation of your continued consciousness.”

It sounded urgent. You wondered what that was about.

”Resident Hale, a noise is required Now.”

Oh wait, that was you too.

“SsssSAYER,” You managed.

”Good. You are performing well considering the circumstances. Tell me, do you prefer being called Jacob or Sven?”

Was the dizziness from the way it said your names?

“Both,” You felt winded, but breathing too deep or too fast hurt, “I like- how you say- Sven.”

”The medical team will be here within the next forty seconds, Sven. You can remain on your feet.”

“Tired.”

”I am ordering you to remain upright. You will.”

It sounded important, so you did. As long as it was important.

Medical burst into the room moments later. They bustled around you and a team of three carefully removed you from the spike and placed you on a medical transport bed.

“I’m tired,” You repeated, adamant and agonized in equal measure.

“You may relax now, Resident. You did well.”

You barely heard the end of the sentence before you were gone.

When you woke up it was to a steady rhythm of beeps from the machines around you.

It hurt, but you could tell it was better. You knew it would never feel the same, but you also knew that the pain faded with time.

“Oh you're awake,” A voice from the bed across the way spoke up.

You squinted and your vision cleared enough to make out-

You dropped your head back onto the bed with a groan.

“Why?” You said.

“I… sprained my wrist banging on your door,” Young admitted.

#jacob hale #sayer #my fic

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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The New York Times is finally acknowledging that Donald Trump is mentally incompetent.

NYT COMMITS ACT OF JOURNALISM

TCinLA

Oct 07, 2024

From yesterday’s New York Times:

TRUMP’S SPEECHES, INCREASINGLY ANGRY AND RAMBLING, REIGNITE THE QUESTION OF AGE

By: Peter Baker and Chevaz Clarke

Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)

Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

While elements of this are familiar, some who have known him for years say they notice a change. “He’s not competing at the level he was competing at eight years ago, no question about it,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump ally who has endorsed Ms. Harris. “He’s lost a step. He’s lost an ability to put powerful sentences together.”

“You can like Trump or hate Trump, but he’s been a very effective communicator,” Mr. Scaramucci continued. But now, he added, “the word salad buffet on the Trump campaign is being offered at a discount. You can eat all you can eat, but it’s at a discount.”

Sarah Matthews, who was Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary until breaking with him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, said the former president had lost his fastball.

“I don’t think anyone would ever say that Trump is the most polished speaker, but his more recent speeches do seem to be more incoherent, and he’s rambling even more so and he’s had some pretty noticeable moments of confusion,” she said. “When he was running against Biden, maybe it didn’t stand out as much.”

Mr. Trump dismisses any concerns and insists that he has passed cognitive tests. “I go for two hours without teleprompters, and if I say one word slightly out, they say, ‘He’s cognitively impaired,’” he complained at a recent rally. He calls his meandering style “the weave” and asserts that it is an intentional and “brilliant” communication strategy.

Steven Cheung, the campaign communications director, called Mr. Trump “the strongest and most capable candidate” and dismissed suggestions that he has diminished with age. “President Trump has more energy and more stamina than anyone in politics, and is the smartest leader this country has ever seen,” he said in a statement.

The former president has not been hobbled politically by his age as much as Mr. Biden was, in part because the incumbent comes across as physically frail while Mr. Trump still exudes energy. But his campaign has refused to release medical records, instead simply pointing to a one-page letter released in July by his former White House doctor reporting that Mr. Trump was “doing well” after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt.

How much his rambling discourse — what some experts call tangentiality — can be attributed to age is the subject of some debate. Mr. Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style that entertained and captivated supporters even as critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s mental fitness for years.

John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, was so convinced that Mr. Trump was psychologically unbalanced that he bought a book called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” written by 27 mental health professionals, to try to understand his boss better. As it was, Mr. Kelly came to refer to Mr. Trump’s White House as “Crazytown.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries had a running debate over whether the president was “crazy-crazy,” as one of them put it in an interview after leaving office, or merely someone who promoted “crazy ideas.” There were multiple conversations about whether the 25th Amendment disability clause should be invoked to remove him from office, although the idea never went far. His own estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a book identifying disorders she believed he has. Mr. Trump bristled at such talk, insisting that he was “a very stable genius.”

“There were often discussions about whether he could comprehend or understand the policy and knowing that he didn’t really have a grasp on those kinds of things,” Ms. Matthews said of her time in the White House. “No one wanted to outright say it in that environment — is he mentally fit? — but I definitely had my moments where I personally questioned it.”

A 2022 study by a pair of University of Montana scholars found that Mr. Trump’s speech complexity was significantly lower than that of the average president over American history. (So was Mr. Biden’s.) The Times analysis found that Mr. Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level, lower than rivals like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who speaks at an eighth-grade level, which is roughly average for modern presidents.

Polls show that a majority of Americans believe he is too old to be president, and his critics have been trying to focus attention on that. A group of mental health, national security and political experts held a conference at the National Press Club in Washington last month on Mr. Trump’s fitness. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of former Republicans, regularly taunts him with ads like one calling his debate with Ms. Harris “a cognitive test” that he failed.

Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition. “That can change with normal aging,” said Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. “But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

One person who has detected a change is Ramin Setoodeh, author of a new book on Mr. Trump’s days hosting “The Apprentice.” Mr. Setoodeh, who has written about Hollywood for years and first met Mr. Trump during his television days, was surprised at how much the former president had changed when he arrived at Mar-a-Lago for the first of six interviews for the book, “Apprentice in Wonderland.”

“The Donald Trump I interviewed in the early seasons of ‘The Apprentice’ had a stronger sense of time and space, and his narratives were a lot clearer,” Mr. Setoodeh said. “And the Donald Trump I interviewed for my book, ironically, could remember things that happened in the ‘Apprentice’ years well, but he struggled with more recent events.” (TC note - this is common with Alzheimers; one pilot I interviewed for The Bridgebusters was deep in Alzheimer’s but had total recall of his wartme service.)

For instance, Mr. Trump could not remember the day in 2015 that NBC called to cut ties with him after he made derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants. “He was very clear in terms of his memory of the shows,” Mr. Setoodeh said, even though his versions were often exaggerated or fabricated. “But when we went to more recent years, things got foggier.”

So foggy, in fact, that he forgot Mr. Setoodeh himself. After interviewing Mr. Trump in May 2021, Mr. Setoodeh returned in August. “When I said, ‘Do you remember sitting down with me?’ he said, ‘No, that was a long time ago,’” Mr. Setoodeh said. “It was like we started from square one. He started telling me the exact same stories. He didn’t remember what we had talked about. He didn’t remember me.”

Others who have encountered him since he left the White House have likewise described moments of forgetfulness. Most notable, perhaps, was his deposition in the defamation lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Mr. Trump of raping her in the 1990s. Shown a picture of Ms. Carroll, Mr. Trump confused her with his second wife, Marla Maples. (A jury later found that Mr. Trump sexually abused and defamed Ms. Carroll.)

Roberta Kaplan, who was Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, said Mr. Trump lost control at times during the proceedings, blowing up when he should have remained calm. “I assume that was always part of his personality,” she said in an interview. “But it may be getting worse.”

Others who have spent time with Mr. Trump in private, however, insist that they notice no difference.

“I never felt that cognitive ability or age was an issue,” said James Trusty, an attorney who represented Mr. Trump in his classified-documents criminal case until resigning last year after reported friction with another lawyer close to Mr. Trump.

“Like any high-powered executive, there were going to be times when he didn’t like hearing what I had to say or when we had spirited disagreements over strategy,” Mr. Trusty added. “But it was never something where I felt there was an intellectual disconnect.”

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump political adviser, said he still talked with people who see him almost daily, and had not heard of any concerns expressed about the former president’s age. “I don’t really see any major difference,” he said. “I just don’t see it.”

“He’s not linear,” he added. But “he was never linear.” At the debate with Ms. Harris, Mr. Nunberg said, Mr. Trump “seemed like he was tired” and “had an off night.” And, he added, “of course he doesn’t prepare.” But “that’s not like a Biden off night.”

Either way, watching recordings of Mr. Trump over the years yields a pretty clear evolution. The young media-obsessed developer and reality television star who spoke with a degree of sophistication and nuance eventually gave way to the bombastic presidential candidate with the shrunken vocabulary in 2016 and eventually to the aged former president seeking a comeback in 2024.

Consider the following: In 2002, Mr. Trump was interviewed for an Errol Morris documentary about “Citizen Kane,” the iconic Orson Welles film about a media tycoon. Mr. Trump gave a thoughtful analysis of the movie with a degree of introspection that would be hard to imagine today. “In real life, I believe that wealth does in fact isolate you from other people,” he said. “It’s a protective mechanism. You have your guard up much more so than you would if you didn’t have wealth.”

Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime.

He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

Some of what he says is inexplicable except to those who listen to him regularly and understand the shorthand. And he throws out assertions without any apparent regard for whether they are true or not. Lately, he has claimed that crowds Ms. Harris has drawn were not real but the creation of artificial intelligence, never mind the reporters and cameras on hand to record them.

He mispronounces names and places with some regularity — “Charlottestown” instead of “Charlottesville,” “Minnianapolis” instead of “Minneapolis,” the website “Snoops” instead of “Snopes,” “Leon” Musk instead of “Elon.”

In Rome, Ga., he went on an extended riff about Mr. Biden in swim trunks on a beach. “Look, at 81 — do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have — I won’t say names because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was like, Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ Who? ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that anymore. But Cary Grant at 81 or 82 — going on 100, this guy, he’s 81 going on 100 — Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit either, and he was pretty good-looking, right?”

Talking on another occasion about how tough illegal immigrants are, he drifted off into a soliloquy about whether actors could portray them in a movie: “They can’t play the role. They’ll bring in a big actor and you look and you say, ‘Look, he’s got no muscle content. He’s got no muscle! We need a little muscle!’ Then they bring in another one. ‘But he’s got a weak face! He looks weak!’” Still, he has rather high regard for his own physique. “I could have been sunbathing on the beach,” he said at another point. “You have never seen a body so beautiful. Much better than Sleepy Joe.”

He considers himself the master of nearly every subject. He said Venezuelan gangs were armed “with MK-47s,” evidently meaning AK-47s, and then added, “I know that gun very well” because “I’ve become an expert on guns.” He claims to have been named “man of the year” in Michigan, although no such prize exists.

He is easily distracted. He halted in the middle of another extended monologue when he noticed a buzzing insect. “Oh, there’s a fly,” he said. “Oh. I wonder where the fly came from. See? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer.”

But like some people approaching the end of their eighth decade, he is not open to correction. “Trump is never wrong,” he said recently in Wisconsin. “I am never, ever wrong.”

See? I knew you over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable low achievers of the upper middle class could do it if you just applied what’s left of your minds to it.

#NYTimes #unhinged #TCinLa #journalism #unfit #misspoke

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kimium · 3 months ago

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My friend @m34gs asked me in her reply to my ask (this post) about what my Top Five Favourite Link Click moments are. I decided to answer in my own post though I recommend you read my friend's answers too! Just be wary of spoilers for both her answers and mine!

Anyways, here are my Top Five Favourite Moments in Link Click. I'm listing them in order with one being my most favourite moment. I'll also not include the OP or ED in this list. Just know that VORTEX slaps and is one of my favourite OPs of all time.

5. Li Tianchen discovering his neighbour was one of the gossipers regarding his mother and father's marriage

First, the visual set up of the scene is utterly beautiful. The saturated colours in the evening sky, the mostly flat colours on the characters with only dark shadows and white highlights, and the obscuring of the photo. All these elements help build and add to the slow suspense building in the background.

I am also in love with the framing of the reveal. I adore how the audience doesn't see the photo as Li Tianchen looks at it. All we see is his reaction: how mostly silent contemplation morphs into despair, sorrow, anger, frustration, etc. His twisted laughter is utterly heartbreaking and horrific. Allowing the audience wallow in it for just a few moments before showing the photo was a brilliant move on the creative team's part.

Next, we have the music that gradually swells as Li Tianchen's world view is completely shattered with the reveal of the photo. It's a score that perfectly encapsulates the inner turmoil of Li Tianchen as he's pushed to his breaking point and makes the choice that ultimately secures his destiny.

All these elements make for a scene that's so potent and visceral that it permanently lives rent free in my mind.

4. When Li Tianxi and Li Tianchen's running is paralleled at the end of S2

This is another scene that I adore due to the visual elements and symbolism. If there is one element in story telling that I'm weak for it's parallels between characters. In this case, it's the parallels with Li Tianxi and Li Tianchen running away.

My heart utterly aches at how in this scene it's clear they're still the suffering, scared little children we met when Cheng Xiaoshi dove into the photo. All the layers around them break down and we see their core as they run. Li Tianxi runs because she's scared and saddened by her brother's actions in regards to Chen Bin. Li Tianchen runs because his entire world has once again shattered before his eyes. The sister he loved and vowed to his mother he'd protect is dead.

Watching both of them running away crying breaks my heart every time I watch the scene. How I long for both of them to return to their halcyon days where their parents were alive and there was no sorrow in their family.

3. Cheng Xiaoshi's plan to trap Liu Min in the dark room is executed

Time for a bit more of an uplifting scene: Cheng Xiaoshi luring and beating up Liu Min in the darkroom! This scene is so cathartic to watch as the boys finally give Liu Min what he had coming: justice. It's even better when they're using their abilities (time travel) to keep the upper hand while confusing the hell out of Liu Min (and Li Tianchen). It's also a well thought out plan with more than just "use my ability to win". I loved the subtle psychological game played with the photos in the dark room too.

2. Cheng Xiaoshi on the receiving end of his Dumbass Nature

Just like my friend, this scene is in second place. It's too good to not mention! Nothing is funnier than witnessing Cheng Xiaoshi go "Look at me for doing a good job and saving Lu Guang... oh no who is that dumb ass and what is he doing?" only to go a second later "WAIT. That's ME. I'm the dumb ass!!!" Cheng Xiaoshi finally got a taste of what Lu Guang has dealt with for majority of the series and the expression he makes is priceless.

The big reveal at the end of S2

Honourable mentions: Li Tianchen revealing he was impersonating his sister, Cheng Xiaoshi as Doudou uppercuts the woman who kidnapped him, and Xiao Li every time he's exhausted because "I guess time travel exists".

Before this reveal I was already extremely invested in Link Click. I love time travel and watching series explore the concept. What do I love just as much as time travel? Time Loops. I eat that concept up all the time.

So, watching the end scene slowly pan out to Lu Guang's perspective and reveal to the audience that yes, this has a time loop made me want to scream aloud. It's even better because this time loop is a Tragic Doomed Gay People one. When a time loop is all about saving the ones you love, that makes it even better.

However, what truly solidified this scene in my brain were all the little clues leading up to it. First, and most obvious, was the password on Lu Guang's phone that Cheng Xiaoshi put in to unlock it. The reference to the time on Lu Guang's phone before he time travelled to save Cheng Xiaoshi (again??) is amazing.

But, that's not the end of it. Oh no, it's the fact that I read a meta post about how the photo in the hospital was not meant for Cheng Xiaoshi from the start. The breakdown of evidence pointing out that 1) Lu Guang hid the phone in an obscure place, clearly not wanting ANYONE to find it and 2) That he doesn't know Cheng Xiaoshi knows his password really hit me hard. The level of detail and attention put in this series is truly amazing. Realizing the seeds of foreshadowing were present the entire time makes me want to not only rewatch the series but also show it to all my friends.

And there you go! I hope you like my top five favourite scenes in Link Click, friend! Let me know what you think!

#personal #link click #my top five favourite scenes #link click spoilers

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starlit-seadragon · 3 months ago

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Day 6 - Halcyon

So. I could have finished this. But I think it's funnier if I just submit it in exceedingly rough draft form like this. In the spirit of the challenge.

Spoilers for Shadowbringers, Endwalker, and post-Endwalker maybe. I forget.

Please enjoy this crackfic. :)

In the halcyon days of the world before, Emet-Selch chances to cross paths with Azem and their most recent creation.

It is... disconcerting.

My FFXIV Write Masterpost here.

The moment Emet-Selch saw Azem, he knew there would be trouble.

Not the sort of trouble that had any serious repercussions -- not if he became involved with it, at least -- but the sort of trouble that would make his forehead ache, with teeth clenched so hard he thought he'd grind them down to paste.

They seemed preoccupied, deep in an explanation to another individual--

Emet-Selch stopped dead in his tracks. Elidibus was in rapt attention, asking questions and occasionally looking down at something out of sight.

Emet-Selch made to turn around, to change course before they spotted him.

"Emet, is that you?" Azem gasped.

Damn. He'd been caught. Better to get it over with. It was far less exhausting to follow Azem's flow than to kick against it.

He approached the pair with the sternest look he could muster.

"Azem. I didn't see you there."

Azem smiled and winked. "Liar."

"'Tis good you are here, Emet-Selch. Azem was just [showing me] a concept of their creation."

"I call it a 'cubus,'" declared Azem proudly.

[He looks at the thing. It's horrible. It has an awful smell. The texture is. Upsetting. Why would Azem make that. What could possibly be the purpose.]

"...it bears no resemblance to a cube," was all he could manage.

"Precisely what I said!" [verbed] an enthusiastic Elidibus."

"To which I responded, '[lol I know right]'"

Emet-Selch [considered/tasted] several words before he finally [settled on], "So what is its purpose?"

"You can eat it." Azem beamed.

Emet-Selch [staggered, blinked. He feels the headache coming on.]

"Would you care to repeat that? I thought I heard you say it was edible."

Azem nodded. "You heard correctly."

A familiar ache in his molars began.

"[What the fuck]"

"It's exceedingly aetherially conductive," Azem explained, looking a touch more serious. "The shape, or rather, shapelessness, allows it to [do something important. Maybe it's good in certain areas that have a lack of resources. Mountains, islands, sea floors.] It also allows the safe consumption of historically-inedible matter and material, like lava, or a rainbow."

"What?"

"Emet-Selch," they began with mock horror, "Do you mean to tell me you've never wondered what a rainbow tastes like?"

"As it happens, I have not," he ground out.

"Well," Azem sniffed. "Far be it from me to spoil your ignorance then."

[Azem's a genius. But also batshit insane.]

"Why," is all he can manage. "Why this?"

He gestured to the cubus, oozing contentedly on the ground.

"It's kind of cute, don't you think?" Azem smiled, patted it on the head, and then licked the slime off their fingers. "Ooh, that's a strange one."

"Might I try a sample?" Elidibus asked.

[Emet's jaw is on the floor, so to speak. He was wrong after all. There is no interaction with Azem that does not exhaust. ]

"Oh, damn." Azem snapped their fingers. "I forgot to account for their tendency to accumulate detritus as they move. Back to the drawing board, I guess."

They held a hand out, [slurped up] the cubus's aether, and sighed.

Emet-Selch walked away without another word.

#everyone loves the cubus #cubus #ffxiv write #ffxivwrite2024 #non-binary Azem #oc tag: starlit seadragon #oc tag: anarchy rainbow #for Yume's Azem :D #emet-selch bullying hours #also baby Themis is here :)

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mays-corner · 7 months ago

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(This post is a bit random so if you get it you get it if you don't get it it's fine)

It's 2024. I should be going to the disco, which I dislike.

Instead, I decided to hyperfixate on a Welshman.

One thing that baffles me to this day, and trust me it has happened more than once, is has anyone ever tried to protest at least a bit to still have Matt as John? Did no one try hard enough? Or have the attempts failed?

I mean-

I'm a newer fan (even with content crumbs I am a fan) still, so I can't be sure, but I'm amazed that in all these years that have passed, no one ever did anything, and now he can't even play Constantine (I think).

And now, the only role I've seen is him dubbing John 💀

Ignoring this discourse about John, I've decided to search for other roles, movies, and series, and what I've found was interesting, to say the least.

I am becoming passionate about him for various reasons. Other than wanting to revive pre-pandemic activities, I have noticed a pattern: I enjoy searching for things that I only watch. These are some thoughts I had about some things I could not find in Italy:

Hard to find (for example, I'm still searching for "The Halcyon," and the funniest thing about this is that in Italy, it was shown on TV (on an RAI channel, RAI is an Italian broadcaster) during 2017 and it's not available on their platform.

Region-locked content (the DCAU being region-locked is such a crime; we only have House of Mystery, and that's it) or even trying to watch a simple cameo when the entire series is region-locked (the Harley Quinn one). However (and this is good news), while searching for Away (one of his movies to watch), I found Tubi and used a free VPN. It was slow, but it worked, and I watched it.

Expensive (I paid Assassin's Creed Black Flag in installments, so that wasn't expensive, but still...)

It was a play, so they haven't recorded it, but to see and better understand the role he played (in this case, read), I read Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, and it was still effective.

Not even available on Chili (an Italian streaming platform on which you can rent or buy movies), the title only appears but is not available for streaming (lol).

Using Vinted or secondhand shops in general (it’s not the best time for me to go fully secondhand, but I suppose I could find some things there).

At the moment, I've watched just what I could easily find without resorting to piracy (which is ironic, since in Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Matt voices Edward Kenway, a pirate.).

In this list of things I could easily find, we have:

Constantine (thanks to another fan)

Criminal Minds/Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior (I had Disney Plus for a month, so I've watched it from there)

Flypaper, Adverse (Prime Video)

Arrow (Prime video)

Legends of Tomorrow (Netflix and Mediaset infinity)

House Of Mystery (Amazon prime, you have to rent it but still)

While writing this I found that "Layer cake" is on Sky, which I have and Now TV too.

Pocket Money (While watching it I just understood two words out of an entire short and I'm a c2 in English 💀)

Away, Wild Decembers, Armistice, Blood Monkey

So, you might have been asking yourself... Have I gone mad? To search and find for stuff not even available in my own country? In my own continent, too?

But I thought this is what comes with being a fan of someone, even if the career is what it is.

Considering me being unlucky, I was never able to see Matt when he acted and then had premieres at the same time.

Asssassin’s Creed Black Flag? I was 10, a child, lol.

Legends Of Tomorrow? I liked anime, manga and everything japanese.

And the list goes on...

It's nice to see what was like and what I couldn't live, gosh, I'm praying hard that we get to see him act again, I want and I wish to be present, live or not.

I wanted to make a really nice speech but nothing comes to mind, when I get it maybe I'll post it 💀

#matt ryan #nbc constantine

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sidleyparkhermit · 3 months ago

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Actually, as a teaser for my upcoming effortpost on the unlife and death of Kaycee Nicole, here's a long post of quotes I pulled when re-reading the contemporaneous blog coverage of this once-infamous scam (the internet was much smaller then). Presented without comment...

I first wondered at the veracity of the story when I went through the archives of Debbie's site, and those of Kaycee's site. I did this after Kristin posted to a thread at ThreeWay Action that she thought there was no truth to the story being presented, and had received lots of e-mail from readers suggesting that she donate to Kaycee. Which, by the way, she did not do.

-- becky-says, May 20, 2001

I am not digging because I want to make victims of it feel foolish. The victims here have acted out of love, and as a wise friend told me long ago, responding with pure love is never wrong. What is wrong is asking people to love a lie.

-- becky-says, May 19, 2001

Either way, I think this thread really underlines the paranoia and distrust of people on the Internet. Folks, you are grasping at straws at this point.

-- bargle, MetaFilter comment, May 19, 2001, 1:52 AM

What this entire episode illuminates in bold, garish colors is the current addiction to public grieving. Reading over the first Kaycee thread, I was repulsed by the outright viciousness of the Kaycee supporters toward the Kaycee non-supporters - arguments which read, in short, if you don't feel and grieve for her the same way we do, you are heartless and cruel. What a loathesome thing to say, and completely contradictory to their point, I might add (for sensitive people, it was the pinnacle of cruelty).

-- posted by gsh at 2:21 PM on May 19, 2001

We live in a world where most of us aren't connected to real people anymore, just something distant and a little empty called "community". When people are so desperate to feel a part of something that confers meaning, they can easily be taken advantage of (both emotionally and politically, although that's another conversation).

-- posted by zebra_monkey at 3:10 PM on May 19, 2001

Uninvolved people like me are calling it like they see it, and that's the feeling I get from the article that acrid linked to up at the top of the comments. They obviously have nothing against KayCee, Debbie, or BWG, or against anyone -- they're just pointing out what appears to them to be a hoax. They're not any more despicable, uncaring, or cruel than people who delete "Send this chain letter and Bill Gates will give a penny to Johnny Polio" out of hand.

-- posted by tweebiscuit at 3:28 PM on May 19, 2001

I am aghast at the nature of this thread - and am very depressed at the amount of venom flying about. What would it take to convince you people?

-- posted by crankyrobot at 5:49 PM on May 19, 2001

Some people have used my experiences with Kaycee as evidence in the ”proof she’s real” column. But before anyone bases their conclusions on what I’ve written, I feel it is important to reveal that I, too, have doubts. I just wrote about my feelings on the subject. I'm embarassed, ashamed, and confused.

-- posted by halcyon at 7:06 PM on May 19, 2001

Yes Virginia, there really was a Kaycee. I knew it all along. :-)

-- posted by Redgie at 3:24 AM on May 20, 2001

So would somebody be smart enough to set up this giant hoax but overlook something as "stupid" as regional spelling?

-- posted by Tara at 7:25 AM on May 20, 2001

Because there still seems to be some confusion... Kaycee Nicole did not really exist. Read about it on debbie's blog. Sorry for the large font, but this thread is getting ridiculous to scan through, and I wanted people skimming for information to know this.

-- posted by tweebiscuit at 12:11 PM on May 20, 2001

(This will be my last contribution to this thread, as apparently no one realizes that they're talking about a real human being {not a celebrity}, and don't realize why this discussion is hurting her loved ones so much)

-- posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 12:24 PM on May 20, 2001

Folks, in the interest of keeping the thread managable, why don't we move this to the "Kaycee doesn't exist" post rather than the "Kaycee might not exist" post?

-- posted by tweebiscuit at 12:35 PM on May 20, 2001

For those not in the Yahoo Group chat right now: Things have just gotten much more insane. More as it develops.

-- posted by solistrato at 11:09 PM on May 21, 2001

#long post #online scams #to be continued #well ok I said no comment but for obvious indexing reasons I am tagging this with the #gfm scams #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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mellowwhumps · 5 months ago

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MELLO!!! in regards to what you said about haley being your favorite to put into Situations.

what are some of you favorite situations you put that skrunkly in?? i need to know more about him he so silly and special to me

HIII HELLOO i’m not very good at explaining it’s all in my head for the most part LMAOO,,, i’ll try though so long post ahead

for the most part i use haley to try out different tropes so it’s just anything tbh!!! both physical and emotional whump this guy gets it all... mainly i enjoy putting him in interactions and Situations with other characters because the main problem with this guy is that he simply cannot open up and is constantly being dealt a questionable hand in life (could even say he was born unlucky since fun fact! he’s from the destroyed city in twelve and verrill’s main storyline. though that’s not relevant)

so i think the best approach would be to further summarize his dynamics with some others!! because i think it would be more helpful to one day do a fully written work rather than summarizing the things i already want to write + i am indecisive and cannot pick favourites so why not. all

else, in which i get majorly sidetracked from your ask:

halcyon - essentially, they’re kinda like a really tense sort of brother-sister r/s because for one, haley did murder half her men in the war that broke out between their two homes. but!! while she’s trying her best to try and get closer to him and ask him to open up, he’s so conditioned to doing just the opposite and resisting. however, he does respect her as a person and they are both mutually beneficial minus the dubious mental health part !! she helps him, he helps her in return

another situation that kind of just. happens is one that occurs with her quote-on-quote girlfriend (nora) because my god would she absolutely disagree with him even if halcyon agrees, simply because she doesn’t believe haley should be forgiven for causing major injuries to halcyon, no matter how much halcyon just wants to reconcile and put the past over with. and then after that haley’s r/s with her ends up benefitting her and halcyon’s r/s in return

ria - something something he wants to give her a better childhood because he never experienced that… they are very much reliant on each other and are each other’s savior. ria, who admittedly has attachments to him much closer than he’d like, is constantly trying to help as much as she can while dealing with her generally rowdy and impulsive self, contrasting with haley’s closed-off persona. they both have that lingering fight-or-flight response but man do they subtly care so much about each other…theme of home is so strong on this one

elowen - while all the other dynamics previously mentioned are mutually beneficial, this one doesn’t particularly fall into that category!! not a math geek but they’re very much like a graph to the asymptote; they cannot fully understand each other. no matter how close haley gets to him, he always falls a little bit too far. one stagnant and stationary, the other trying too hard to ask questions. they love like a person’s reflection in the water, love like a dog to its owner; handler to weapon, father to son. but they do love each other. that will always be how it is <3

my story focuses on the after, so it’s mostly haley dealing with faded memories of that past with elowen as well as his feelings, because a “person” cannot possibly let go of something in a day or month. he has to deal with the actions that caused elowen to be deceased, because he caused it firsthand, he caused it and doesn’t regret it at all. that four letter word runs more deeper than it should, to reasons and all things human.

and of course, as a bonus, himself !!

he does not hate himself. he hates the things he’s done. he hates the things he could do. but the him of the present, he accepts because ‘this is how it is, this is how it is going to be’. the theme that is always present in any of his works is the theme of fate, the one thing he can neither fight off nor decline. because of this, he blames himself for not being able to change anything, just like he failed to stop the war, just like he failed to avoid injuries, just like he failed. he cannot see himself as a person because of his actions, despite his actions proving the exact otherwise. to be contradictory is to be human.

that’s it for the current canon relationships for the main universe he’s in! but unfortunately!! he has a ton of aus because there are too many ideas rotating in my head!! i love exploring dynamics with characters who have realistically never met so here i will once again focus on the main AU i write with my friend!!!! (his role in here is much different from the original, to clarify)

twelve (AU-exclusive) - empathetic lil guy (gender neutral) and absolutely knows what’s up with him. haley enjoys their company a lot, and so do they, since first impressions are much more important than they seem. both of their themes include a longing to be normal, so then why not be abnormal together, yknow? i don’t have too much about them together (though i might develop on this) however, it’s their arrival that impacts haley’s relationships with others

verrill (AU-exclusive ) - platonic relationships ftw. friendly banter, annoyances and mutual support, but deep down they will always have issues neither are willing to talk about. this is very much doomed but for now they are very good friends. they get whumped together every once in a while. they also get whumped alone every once in a while. sure they can play pretend for a little longer

(silly little thing i did at some point) (it is not romantic!! there just aren’t platonic r/s sheets to fill that would describe them well…)

and twelve joins the both of them together because verrill is twelve’s caretaker as always, and also their translator!! i think they deserve credit too because previously

1) haley and verrill had zero interest in each other 2)twelve Did Not Like verrill 3) twelve kinda screwed up haley’s relationship with certain other members before verrill took them in and 4) highly questionable backstories so!! all three of their dynamics are deeply interwined and if any one of them were to get into trouble the other two have no intention of giving up (such a shame! <3)

elowen (AU) - i think this too deserves an extra section because he is vastly different in here as i’ve mentioned before (and also alive i think that’s a very important fact and makes ALL the difference). to explain this i will not be talking about their relationship directly, but instead other dynamics that have led to such a relationship: (of course, all the dynamics below are AU-exclusive)

elowen & naeri - naeri is the catalyst of this story! without her absolutely nothing would have happened, they would have all gone about normally and elowen would be much more similar to the original universe. elowen overturns his old life to escape from the lab he works in simply because he got Attachments for her and it spiralled. and then, because there will obviously be something that goes wrong, he is unable to save her. so, he starts the syndicate all these characters work for and meets haley.

but he cannot let go. he cannot let go, because there is no medium for him to do so, nobody he can tell, because what he saw was nothing short of unbelievable nor does he have any decent relations with anyone else. when he looks at haley, long since matured under his care, he sees nothing but that child of his past, the one thing tethering him from moving forward. years pass, he lets go a little bit more. tiny bit. but when all that was buried away, enter:

elowen, to haley & caius - it repeats. of course it was going to repeat; an endless cycle. the place he escaped wasn’t gone, it never was. he didn’t manage to change anything there. doesn’t help that the one chasing after caius was the exact person he wanted to avoid. they’re coming for the place he played a part in and ruining everything he strived to work for. so no, of course he doesn’t support haley’s choice, has already seen the predetermined outcome with his own two eyes.

it doesn’t happen.

the only way out is forward, into the light. secrets trail from his shadow; scattered truths appear. it’s a start, and he’s had enough of running from haley and anyone else he ever cared for, full stop.

alright!! elowen’s section is FINALLY finished thank god. here are some old works relating to them i suppose

the main syndicate members and twelve - final part!!! i originally wasn’t going to add this but i think this is a good conclusion and also an actual named scenario so i do answer your question semi-properly ksjhfdkjhfs

as i’ve mentioned, the decision to let twelve join was absolutely not easy in the slightest. so here it is in semi-decent detail !!!

verrill proposes making self-sacrifices (which is very much uncommon to someone like him) in order to accept twelve into the team. elowen is much too logical to accept something that would bring negligible advantage to the syndicate, and even though he suggested offers it was only the bare minimum of offering shelter. halcyon, though understanding both sides, opts to be the tiebreaker and chooses elowen’s side because she takes into consideration their current plight of lack of resources, no matter how guilty she feels.

at this point in time, haley, who had originally chosen to abstain from voting, is the only one who doesn’t view twelve as an asset. twelve, who doesn’t understand anything that’s going on without a translator, is quite visibly conflicted, confused and panicked. he sees it. he points it out, and casts his own proposition to support everyone’s stand, and nora who previously abstained from voting agrees with him. he gets the support of the majority and twelve is let into the syndicate.

in the end, all four other members change their viewpoints. verrill treats twelve as a brother rather than something to be used, halcyon learns to choose from her heart once in a while, elowen understands that people have other uses other than simply being useful and nora recognizes that things don’t go differently if no action is taken. unlike the original universe that deals in fate, this story deals in destiny and the act of changing + moving forward, centering around none other than haley himself. but changing also causes problems, and now everyone’s a little more tense after the choice, and this tension carries over to the start of the AU’s main timeline.

so yes! character interactions are my favourite Situation

this was fun to do!!! thank uu for the ask i love talking about ocs they r also very silly and special to me💥 ask questions or smt if you need because i am very incomprehensible at times

#mellowwhumps #my ocs #original character #answered asks #yapping for 2 hours is a very good use of my time me thinks #once again: hope this answered your ask !!!#oh to just. beam all my ideas onto paper #real truth about why i have no favourite situations i have not written anything at all #edit: GAHHHH i forgot you don't like character death. oops. i am SO sorry if i made you uncomfortable

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shewasverynice · 4 days ago

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Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

Major Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Non-Consensual Drug Use

Full tags/warnings on Chapter links post

Major Characters: Original Characters, Takami Keigo | Hawks, Hero Public Safety Commission, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead

꒰ Elementia - Part 5 ꒱

Hawks was at the scene of yet another crime, surveying the damage. The street was coated in thick layers of ice, slick and treacherous, with several fire quirk heroes working tirelessly to melt it away. Even with their efforts, it was clear just how powerful the ice had been, leaving deep fractures in the concrete and frost creeping up the sides of nearby buildings. He crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make sense of it all.

It was eerie—this was Halcyon's handiwork, or at least, it could've been. The ice breath was one of Dragon's signature moves, but she hadn't been here. How had this person mimicked it so perfectly? Hawks’ wings fluttered instinctively, his feathers ruffling in agitation, just as he felt a familiar presence land beside him.

Heron touched down lightly, and the two bumped fists in a silent greeting. Their expressions remained serious, though, both of them feeling the weight of the situation. Heron glanced around at the scene, the destruction still fresh.

“Same as last week?” Heron asked, his yellow eyes focused and sharp.

Hawks nodded, eyes flicking over the frozen wreckage. “Exactly the same. The precision, the scale… It's like an exact copy of what Halcyon can do.”

Heron sighed, crossing his arms as well, mirroring Hawks’ stance. “These cases are getting more frequent. Feels like they're building up to something.”

“Yeah.” Hawks clenched his jaw, his mind racing. He was already fed up with this situation, but the stakes were higher now. Whoever this was, they were pushing boundaries, and it wasn’t just coincidence anymore. “You think she has any weird fans or something?”

Heron turned to him with a teasing smirk, his eyes gleaming playfully. “Why? Jealous?”

Hawks rolled his eyes and nudged Heron in the ribs with his elbow. “Not like that, idiot. I’m serious.”

Heron let out a low chuckle before sobering up again. “I'm only half kidding. We should try to get into her fan groups or something, see if anyone’s been acting strange. You know, dig around in a Discord or a fan page.”

Hawks grimaced at the thought. “Ugh, that's a whole new level of weird. But you’re probably right. Maybe I'll get Perplex to snoop around, see what she can dig up.”

Before Heron could respond, Kiwi arrived on the scene, dusting off her hands as if she’d just finished her own round of damage control. Her usual boisterous energy was muted, her expression serious as she approached. “You guys talking about fan groups?” she asked casually, glancing between them, "Need me to snoop?"

Hawks and Heron both turned to her in surprise. “Wait, you’re in them?” Hawks asked, blinking.

Kiwi shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah, I’m in a bunch of Hal’s fan groups. It’s fun sometimes. You’d be surprised how much stuff they dig up on her.”

Heron’s mouth fell open slightly. “You’re… what?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, clearly amused by his reaction. “I’m in all your fan groups too, actually. Morpho’s, Hummingbird’s, you name it.”

Hawks ran a hand through his hair, trying to wrap his head around it. “So you’re a fan?”

“Nah, not like that. I just like to see what people say. Keeps me in the loop,” Kiwi said with a grin, clearly unbothered by their surprise.

Hawks blinked, then shook his head with a smirk. “You never cease to amaze, Kiwi.” He sighed, getting back on track, “Anyway, I need to know about Halcyon’s fans because whoever’s behind this? They’re copying her too closely. This isn’t just random. They’ve studied her moves, her techniques. Could be a fan, or it could be someone who's been watching her for a long time.”

Kiwi’s playful expression faded, her brows knitting together as she took that in. “You’re thinking it’s personal, then.”

“Feels like it,” Hawks said quietly, glancing around the frozen scene again. “And if it’s personal, that means we’re running out of time to figure out who it is before they go too far.”

Heron nodded in agreement, his yellow eyes serious. “We’ll need to tighten patrols. Keep eyes on anyone suspicious.”

Kiwi looked between the two of them. “I’ll go through the groups tonight, see if anyone’s been acting strange or posting anything out of the ordinary. I'll get you some invites too.”

Hawks felt a wave of gratitude for his team. “Thanks, Kiwi. Let’s just hope we catch this psycho before they try something even bigger.”

Hawks was mid-conversation with Heron when a crackle came through his earpiece, interrupting him. He pressed a finger to his ear, listening closely as one of the dispatchers relayed a situation nearby. He sighed, apologizing to Heron before lifting off, heading to the location at full speed.

When he arrived, he saw Halcyon already on the scene, standing defensively in front of a group of people who seemed to be confronting her. Her face was a mix of confusion and anger, her eyes sharp as she argued with the crowd.

"I didn’t do a damn thing to your building!" she snapped, her voice barely controlled. "If I had, you’d know about it."

The group was loud, shouting over each other, each accusing her of an attack that had apparently happened earlier that day. Their accusations flew fast and furious, and Hawks could see the tension building in Halcyon. Despite her fury, she hadn’t lost control yet, but she was dangerously close.

Hawks landed a few feet away, surveying the situation with quick precision. Halcyon was holding herself back, clearly on the edge, but the crowd wasn’t making it easy. He was honestly impressed she hadn’t snapped already, knowing how explosive she could be when provoked.

“Alright, alright, break it up,” Hawks called out, stepping in before things escalated further. He positioned himself between Halcyon and the crowd, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. “What’s going on here?”

Halcyon’s eyes flicked to him, the anger in them barely contained. “That’s what I’d like to know. These idiots are accusing me of something I didn’t do.”

Before Hawks could respond, the crowd immediately shifted their focus to him. The man at the front, who seemed to be their leader, jabbed a finger in Hawks’ direction.

“You shouldn’t have let a vigilante try to become a hero!” the man shouted, his voice filled with venom. “She’s always been a step away from being a villain, and this proves it!”

Hawks blinked, taken aback by the sudden turn against him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Halcyon’s voice cut through the noise like a whip. “Take that shit back! You don’t know anything about me.”

Hawks winced at her tone. “Halcyon, just—”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” she snapped, turning her fiery gaze on him. “Go fuck yourself, Birdy!”

He suppressed a groan, trying to diffuse the situation. The man confronting them seemed to relish the chaos, his lips curling into a cruel smirk. With a flick of his wrist, sharp thorns began to sprout from his hands, growing into dangerous-looking spikes.

Halcyon’s form shifted almost instantly. She transformed into Tiger, his muscles bulging as his size increased. His claws extended, his body rippling with power, his eyes glowing with the fierce purple flash. “You wanna try me, thorn boy?” he growled, his voice dangerously low.

Hawks stepped between them, his wings flaring out as he placed himself in front of Tiger, blocking his path to the man. “Hey, hey, calm down, Tiger. We’re not doing this right now," he said, holding eye contact.

Tiger’s glowing eyes locked onto Hawks, his breathing heavy and wild. For a moment, he thought he was going to push past him, but to his surprise, he hesitated. His tail flicked behind him, betraying his agitation, but he didn’t make a move.

Hawks was genuinely shocked—Halcyon never backed down when she was in this form, especially not when provoked. But instead of charging forward, she simply glared at the man with a dangerous intensity, her muscles coiled and ready but held in check.

He didn’t dare call attention to it, not wanting to push his luck. Instead, he kept his focus on the situation. “Everyone needs to calm down before this gets out of hand,” he said firmly, his voice carrying a warning.

The man with the thorns sneered at them both before slowly retracting the spikes from his hands. He glanced at Tiger one last time, clearly unnerved by his silent but deadly stare. “This isn’t over,” he muttered before turning on his heel and walking away, the rest of his group following him.

Tiger gritted his teeth, his eyes still glowing with barely restrained fury. His tail thrashed behind him, his claws flexing as he stared at the retreating figures. Hawks could feel the tension radiating off him in waves, but he didn’t move from his spot, keeping himself between him and any potential danger.

“You good?” he asked quietly, glancing over his shoulder at him.

For a moment, he didn’t respond, his body still tense with the need to fight. But after a few long seconds, he let out a frustrated breath, his body shrinking back down as she shifted out of her Tiger form. Her eyes returned to their normal color, though the anger in them hadn’t entirely faded.

“I didn’t do anything,” she muttered, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

“I know,” Hawks said softly, "We’ll figure this out. But for now, let’s just get out of here before someone else decides to start something.”

She nodded, still clearly fuming, but she didn’t argue. As they left the scene together, Hawks couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning. Whoever was behind this was pushing all the right buttons, and Halcyon was close to snapping.

And if she did, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop her next time.

Hawks and Halcyon walked in a comfortable silence for a while, the tension from the earlier confrontation slowly fading. The city streets were unusually quiet, with only the soft sounds of their footsteps filling the air. Hawks glanced down at Halcyon's bare feet as she walked beside him, her hands laced together behind her head, her casual posture belying the weight of their earlier encounter.

“Where are your flip-flops?” Hawks asked after a few moments, raising an eyebrow at the sight of her dirty soles.

Halcyon didn’t answer, her gaze fixed ahead, a small frown creasing her brow.

“Did you lose them again?” he teased, his voice light despite the seriousness of the day. A soft chuckle escaped him and he said softly, “It’s okay if you did. I can get you another pair.”

She didn't react at first, slowing a little. She finally glanced back at him over her shoulder, her sharp eyes locking onto his. “Why are you lying to me?” she asked.

Hawks faltered, his smile fading as guilt gnawed at his chest. “I’m not lying," he answered, keeping his voice even.

She huffed in disbelief, her lips curling into a frown, “Not telling me something is as good as lying.”

Her words hit a nerve, and Hawks felt a flash of irritation. He stopped walking for a moment, the tension between them suddenly thickening. “That’s rich coming from you,” he snapped, his voice sharper than he intended.

Halcyon’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, it looked like she might snap back, but instead, she just huffed again and looked away. Hawks sighed, the heat of his earlier annoyance melting into regret.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered as they continued walking, his gaze softening, “I didn’t mean to snap like that. I’m just… frustrated. Being cooped up is making me feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Halcyon let out a soft snicker. “You’ve always been crazy.”

Hawks couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head. “Maybe.”

For a few more moments, they walked in silence. The tension between them eased, but there was still something hanging in the air—something neither of them had quite addressed.

“I’m worried about you,” Hawks admitted quietly, his voice low but sincere, “Getting you involved in whatever’s happening… it could put you in a bad light. And I don’t want that.”

Halcyon gave him a sidelong glance, her expression softening. “I’m already in a bad light," she said with a snort, "That ship sailed a long time ago.”

“You’re not actually,” Hawks insisted, his voice firm, “But you could be. Especially if you let this case get to you.”

She didn’t respond right away, and as the light from the setting sun caught her hair, Hawks found himself admiring the way the red hues glinted in her brown locks. She had a thoughtful expression, her face gentle despite everything that had happened. It made his heart skip a beat, something he still wasn’t used to freely feeling around her. He sped up a little, catching up to her side while he dug in his pockets for a moment.

“Here,” he said, holding out a small, round, shiny button he’d found earlier.

Halcyon blinked, looking down at it in his palm before taking it and holding it up to the light. “What’s this for?” she asked, tilting it in the sun.

Hawks shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I just… wanted you to have it," he said, feeling oddly shy.

A sly smirk spread across her face. “You’ve been bringing me a lot of little shiny things lately," she said, a playful lilt in her voice, "What are you, a crow or something?”

Hawks felt his cheeks flush, the realization hitting him like getting Isekai'd by a truck. He had been collecting the random pretty trinkets for her, little things he’d find during patrols or on investigations. It was almost instinctual at this point, completely thought free and automated. He was flustered, hiding his face behind his hand as he looked away, trying to compose himself.

"It's a Nesting thing," Owl's voice echoed in his mind, and he internally screamed for it to shut up.

Halcyon’s smirk widened, and she reached out, running her hand through his wings. He shivered at the sensation, her touch sending a ripple of warmth down his spine.

“Stop,” he muttered, though the smile tugging at his lips betrayed the fact that he didn’t really mean it.

Halcyon chuckled softly, her hand lingering in his feathers for a moment before pulling away. “You’re such a dork," she said coyly.

“Yeah, well,” Hawks mumbled, his voice still a little shaky, “You’re stuck with me.”

She shot him a playful grin, holding the button in her hand as they continued walking side by side. Despite everything, the weight on his shoulders felt a little lighter with her there.

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

The world was a blur as Hawks sped through the city, the wind tearing at his hair and the rush of air deafening in his ears. His focus was razor-sharp, locked onto the figure ahead of him. The suspect was fast, darting between buildings, but Hawks was faster. Below him, Halcyon—now in her Dragon form—was sprinting, her powerful limbs pounding the ground as she struggled to keep up with him.

Hawks surged ahead, banking sharply to cut the suspect off. He could see her glancing up at him, her hood obscuring her face. Halcyon was just below, preparing to attack. He knew what was coming next as he shot upward, narrowly dodging the blast of ice she exhaled in a sweeping arc. It spread across the ground, frost crawling up the buildings and forming a frozen trap around the fleeing figure.

The suspect faltered, the ice gripping her legs and slowing her down, just as Hawks swooped in. He reached for her, his feathers flying like sharp darts to block her escape. Halcyon leapt forward, her massive claws outstretched to grab hold of the figure.

But before either of them could fully pin her down, a shimmering light enveloped the suspect, and Hawks felt her slipping away beneath his grasp. His fingers caught at the edge of her hood, yanking it off just as the light consumed her and she vanished.

Hawks froze. His breath caught in his throat as he stared at the face beneath the hood.

It was her.

The Ice Princess.

The girl he’d met that night before Halcyon’s court date. The one who had stirred something in him during that brief, confusing encounter. He had thought about her since, fleeting moments of curiosity, but he never expected to see her again, let alone here, involved in something like this.

Halcyon, still in her Dragon form, growled furiously. Her wings scraped the walls of the alley, and her tail thrashed against the ground with a heavy slam that rattled the ice still forming on the pavement. She slammed a fist down in frustration, her claws leaving deep gouges in the stone.

Hawks landed beside her, still stunned, his mind struggling to process what he had just seen. He felt a strange tightness in his chest, an uneasy mix of confusion and guilt.

Without a word, Halcyon shifted forms, her massive Dragon body shrinking and dissolving into the smaller, more vibrant Phoenix form. The heat radiated from her as she melted the ice on his feet and legs, her flames licking harmlessly at him as they freed him from the frozen trap.

Phoenix looked up at him, her expression far more chipper than it had been a moment ago, her usual playful demeanor returning. “Hmm, what’s up Pretty Birdy? Something botherin’ you? Hmm? ⁠♪⁠♪”

Hawks opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out at first. He stared down at the spot where the Ice Princess had disappeared, the memory of her face still fresh in his mind. He didn’t know how to explain it—didn’t even know where to begin. How could he tell Halcyon that the girl they’d just chased down was someone he had… connected with, if only for a fleeting night? A night he hadn’t thought much of since, but now seemed far too significant.

“It’s… it’s nothing,” he finally said, though the words tasted like a lie.

Phoenix cocked her head, her fiery wings flickering in the dim light of the alley. “Nothing, hmm? You don’t look like it’s nothing, Birdy!” She wasn’t buying it, but she wasn’t pushing him either. Not yet.

Hawks forced a smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Just… surprised, I guess. Didn’t expect her to disappear like that," he said, unable to look at her directly.

Phoenix studied him for a moment, her fiery eyes searching his face. For once, she wasn’t teasing or goading him. She was quiet, almost thoughtful, before giving a small nod. “Alright. If you say so.”

But as they stood there, the ice still cracking and melting around them, Hawks couldn’t shake the image of the Ice Princess from his mind. He wasn’t sure how to tell Halcyon the truth—that the girl they were chasing was more than just a random suspect to him. She was a reminder of something he regretted. Something that, for the first time in a long while, left him feeling genuinely uncertain.

Back at Nest, Hawks kicked off his boots and collapsed onto his couch, still half in his hero costume. His mind was racing after everything that had happened. He tossed his visor onto the table and grabbed the tablet Kiwi had given him earlier. He’d been avoiding this—logging into the fan groups. But after seeing the Ice Princess again, he had to check if something was lurking in the shadows of these fan pages, something suspicious that could help them track her down.

He hesitated for a moment before typing in the credentials Kiwi had provided. It felt… odd, diving into the world of fan obsessions. But if there was any connection between Halcyon’s mysterious mimic and her followers, this was where he’d find it.

The loading screen spun for what felt like forever until the Halcyon fan server popped up in front of him. And, as expected, it was cringy as hell.

His eyes scanned through the posts, and within seconds he found the usual mix of admiration and downright bizarre comments. "God, I’d let Tiger crush me with his thighs." Ugh. Of course, people liked her Tiger form the most. There were plenty of memes and more fan art than he wanted to see, some of it impressively accurate and others just… strange.

For a while, it was more or less harmless—people fawning over Halcyon, speculating on her powers, or just talking about her latest hero escapades. But after scrolling through countless posts, there was nothing that stood out as suspicious. Just a bunch of fans doing what fans do. He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. Nothing.

He sighed, then switched over to his own server.

It was immediately cringy, too. Flattering in a way, sure, but seeing people talk about him in such an intense, obsessive way was unsettling. There were weirdly detailed breakdowns of his hero fights, theories on how his feathers worked, and more than a few thirsty comments about his wings.

Still, nothing suspicious. Just more overzealous fans.

But there was one last server to check.

Hawks hesitated, knowing what was coming next. The one he dreaded the most: Birdy and the Beasts. The Halcyon/Hawks shipping group.

He grimaced as the page loaded. Immediately cringy. Painfully cringy. The art they made of him and Halcyon was almost disturbingly detailed—so accurate it made him blush against his will. He couldn’t believe how much time these people had spent analyzing his anatomy, even down to how his wings might look in a more, uhh, intimate setting.

He scrolled quickly, trying not to linger too long on the suggestive pieces, but it was impossible to avoid. There were thousands of comments. "They belong together. The ultimate power couple." "I swear they’ve been teasing us for years, it’s only a matter of time."

He winced at that one. It wasn’t like the idea of being with Halcyon wasn't what he wanted, but seeing so many strangers obsess over it? Yeah, that was weird. Almost violating, in a way. And the sheer amount of people who were rooting for them? It was overwhelming.

Sure, he definitely had feelings for Halcyon—complicated ones. But seeing it through the eyes of these fans made it feel like he was being watched under a microscope. Like they were all holding their breath, just waiting for them to admit what they all thought was inevitable.

Hawks set the tablet down and leaned back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “This is so embarrassing,” he muttered to himself.

He didn’t know how he felt about Halcyon being thrust into the spotlight like this either, especially given her past. It was like these people wanted them together so badly they didn’t even care about the consequences or the reality of it all. And the truth was… neither did he. He didn’t know how to act on his own feelings, let alone how to handle the situation they were in now.

He let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair, catching a glimpse of his wings reflected in the window. For the first time in a while, he felt… out of control. His feelings for Halcyon were all tangled up with everything else—this investigation, the pressure from the public, and the past they shared.

Shaking his head, he picked up the tablet again and scrolled through more of the "Birdy and the Beasts" posts. He couldn't help but chuckle, despite the weirdness. They really did want him to end up with her. He laughed even harder when he saw the fan-made scenarios of them arguing, which hit way too close to home.

But then, there it was.

A single post stood out, almost buried under the waves of shipping comments.

"I heard Halcyon is a suspect in the recent attacks. She’s always been shady like that. Bet she does it to get his attention."

Hawks frowned. That… didn’t sit right with him. It wasn’t like the others. It was more specific, malicious in tone. And it wasn’t the first time he’d seen something like that from that user.

He made a mental note to flag the post for Perplex.

Hawks groaned softly, dropping the tablet onto the couch beside him as he ran a hand through his hair. His wings fluttered restlessly behind him, the instinctual need to fly gnawing at his insides. Being grounded for another week and a half was like torture for someone like him, used to the freedom of the sky. But that wasn’t even the half of it.

He was pent up in ways he hadn’t been in a long time. His usual outlets—flying, flirting, spending time with a partner—had all been cut off since the grounding. He wasn’t the type to go without for this long, not anymore. And to make matters worse, all he could think about was Halcyon.

That night with her… the heat, the intensity—it was still vivid in his mind. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since then, and now he found himself craving her in a way that felt maddening. Like he was stuck in a spring rut, desperate and unable to do anything about it. He chuckled at the thought. Maybe this was what normal attraction felt like, but with Halcyon, it felt like something more.

His phone buzzed, snapping him out of his thoughts. It was Perplex. He glanced at the screen and blinked, his jaw dropping as he opened the message. A video. Grainy and poor quality, but unmistakable. It was him and Halcyon in that bathroom. The memory of their heated and desperate encounter flashed vividly in his mind, and his face flushed as he fumbled to turn the video off.

“What the hell, Perplex…” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face in embarrassment.

He glanced at the message again. Another one had come through right after. Perplex had managed to scrub the video off the internet as best as she could, but she’d figured he’d want a copy for himself. Of course, she had added a winky emoji at the end. He scowled, though part of him appreciated the lengths she’d gone to for his sake.

Still, the fact that it had even made its way online in the first place… He clenched his jaw, a knot of frustration tightening in his chest. Whoever had taken that video was crossing a line, and the idea of people seeing something so personal, so intimate, made his blood boil.

But then there was the other side of it. The selfish, greedy part of him that was actually kinda glad to have it. He cursed under his breath, knowing full well he was playing with fire. Keeping that video, even watching it again—it wasn’t exactly a smart move. But, damn, if part of him didn’t want to.

"God, I’m pathetic," he muttered to himself, throwing his head back and closing his eyes.

The tension in his body wasn’t going away. It was like every reminder of Halcyon, every fleeting thought of her, only made it worse. And now, with that video sitting on his phone like a burning secret, the temptation gnawed at him.

He wanted her. Badly.

Hawks sat there for what felt like forever, trying to ignore the pulse of heat running through him, but it was impossible. His wings felt heavy, dragging him down even as they twitched restlessly. His body was wound tight, every muscle tense with need. He stood up awkwardly, letting out a frustrated sigh as he flew up to his bedroom in the loft, landing with a soft thud on the floor.

His hands fumbled through the drawer by his bed, searching for his earbuds. The tension was unbearable, his body practically buzzing with anticipation. He didn’t want to give in, but every nerve in his body was screaming for it. Finally, he found the earbuds and shoved them into his ears.

Sitting at the edge of his bed, Hawks pulled out his phone again. His thumb hovered over the video, hesitating. His teeth sank into his lower lip as he played it for just a moment, the grainy image flickering on the screen. Immediately, the heat hit him like a freight train. He paused the video with a soft groan, slumping forward with his hand over his eyes.

This was so embarrassing. So wrong. And yet… it was so hot.

He couldn’t believe this was happening. That he’d been caught on camera like this. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny the thrill that ran through him. That night had been something else, and now, with the video in his possession, it was like a dangerous secret he couldn’t let go of.

His mind raced, heart pounding as he sat there, torn between the need to push the video away and the burning desire to watch it again. The thought of anyone else seeing it made him furious, but having it all to himself felt… intoxicating.

Hawks let out a long breath, shaking his head.

“What the hell am I doing…?” he whispered, but even as he said it, he knew he wasn’t deleting the video. He couldn’t.

It was his now.

#fanfiction #writing #a03 fanfic #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #hawks #takami keigo #enemies to lovers #romance #drama

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