#ive only been in this fandom for like a week and it's already taken over my brain (this is a good thing)

[missionel]

peter what is your problem 😭

[bad268]

heyyyyy can i request kimi antonelli and a reader who is sick and has to go to the doctor/hospital? idk if this is too specific or too much to add but could im rlly scared of needles and i feel like he'd be rlly cute and comforting so could reader be scared of needles?

Please Don't Make Me (Andrea Kimi Antonelli X Sick! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/F2/F3

Requested: Clearly (as someone who just had to stay in the hospital for 5 days, I relate. Anyway, ily <3)

Warnings: food poisoning (vomiting, weakness, fever), needles

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 1486

Summary: Kimi's s/o has been sick recently, so Kimi decided the urgent care is the place to go.

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

“Do I have to go?” You wrapped your arms around yourself as you leaned away from the car window that you had been resting against for the entire drive as Kimi pulled up toward the entrance to the urgent care. After the first week straight of your fever, painful stomach cramps, and not being able to keep food down, Kimi was already concerned, but then you passed out. He knew at that point you needed to see someone, so partially against your will, he drove you to the urgent care. You were already out of it and usually, you two would go for drives at night, so you didn’t think anything of it when he helped you into the car. Then, he pulled up to the urgent care, and you were willing to do anything besides going in there.

Kimi didn’t answer straight away as he pulled into a parking spot, turned off the car, and leaned over to press his hand against your forehead. You leaned into his head when he moved it down from your forehead to hold your cheek. “You still have a fever, you passed out just before we left, and you have not stopped vomiting in a week. This isn’t normal, amour (love). I just want to make sure you’re okay. Please? I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“You know I hate hospitals and doctors,” You whined, but cut yourself short with a groan as your stomach started hurting again. You doubled over as much as you could in the car, and Kimi climbed out, ran around to your side of the vehicle, and opened the door to help you out. “No, I’m fine, Kimi. Can we please go home?”

“We can go home after you see someone here,” Kimi negotiated, grabbing your arms and pulling you out of the seat. You stood in front of him weakly as your knees buckled, and Kimi had to hold all of your weight. “I’ll get you anything you want on the way home. Just please, let me take you to see someone. You should be able to stand, and it hurts me to see you so sick.”

“Fine, but I want gelato and the special pizza. Both or no deal,” You countered with a pout as you leaned into his body more, craving the heat. He just sighed before moving to close your door and lock the car. Then, he started helping you walk to the front of the building, but you only made it a couple of steps as your feet kept dragging. It wasn’t because you were dragging them; it was because your limbs felt too heavy for you to lift them, so Kimi lifted you to carry you the rest of the way.

He set you down in one of the waiting room chairs while he filled out some paperwork on your behalf. He wrapped up quickly before walking and taking a seat next to you. It didn’t take long for you to go back, again with Kimi carrying you into the room. He set you carefully on the bed as one of the nurses immediately began taking your blood pressure.

“Based on the initial answers, we’re also going to set you up with an IV,” she explained as she pulled out a needle to get the line in.

Your scared gaze immediately shifted to Kimi, who had taken a seat off to the side, out of the way. He met your eyes before moving to sit on the edge of your bed and grab your free hand. He ran his fingers through your hair as he whispered in your ear.

“They’re just trying to get you hydrated,” He comforted. “Squeeze my hand as much as you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But I don’t want to even have a needle in my arm,” You tried to object, attempting to pull your arm away from the nurse. You could feel your heart rate speed up as tears filled your eyes and your breathing became unsteady. “I don’t want it. Please don’t make me, Kimi, please.”

“Is there any way we can hold off for a little?” Kimi asked the nurse. It broke him that you were hurting and he couldn't make it better. Plus, he knows the IV would make you feel better since you haven't been able to keep anything down and you have been so dehydrated. He also knows he needs to pick his battles. There was no use in trying to argue right now. He just got you to agree to come in the first place. He needed to take the small win before convincing you about the IV. “Maybe do some tests first?”

“We can do that,” The nurse agreed as she set the needles down, causing you to let out a huge breath as your breathing and heart rate returned to semi-normal. “Can you explain the symptoms you have been having?”

“I’ve had a fever, been throwing up everything, stomach cramps, and I’ve just been really tired,” You explained before dragging out as you couldn’t remember anything else.

“You’ve also been pretty weak recently. Like you couldn’t stand on your own outside. It’s been going on for a little over a week and a half now that we know of,” Kimi assisted. “I also feel like your brain has been foggy for the same amount of time.”

“That could be a side effect of the lack of nutrition,” The nurse comforted. “Was there anything you did differently before this all started?”

“I feel like we went out to dinner with the team,” You guessed, looking to Kimi for confirmation. “We were in Brackley for some testing, and I think we went out to a seafood place.”

“Did you have raw seafood or was it cooked?”

“I think you had sushi and I had teriyaki chicken,” Kimi answered.

“Yeah, I had a couple of sushi rolls,” You replied excitedly since this was a rare moment of clarity. “I remember you said you’d rather eat your protein cooked, and I thought it was funny.”

“Well, I think I know what this is then” The nurse chuckled along with you, causing you both to look at her expectedly. “Raw seafood makes for a higher chance of food poisoning. All of your symptoms alight and the timeline fits. The only thing we can recommend is liquids to keep you hydrated and when you feel up to it, eat some bland foods. I’d suggest bananas, rice, applesauce, or toast when you get to that point. Seeing how dehydrated you are now, I’d like to put you on an IV line and maybe give you two bags of fluid before sending you home.”

Your eyes snapped to Kimi as he was nodding at the nurse before he looked down at you, and moved his hand to hold your face to stay looking at him. His hand rested on your cheek as his fingers gently caressed against your cheekbones. This also served as a block, so no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t see the nurse or the needle.

“So no more raw sushi, right?” Kimi teased you as he tried to take your mind away from the needle.

“No more raw sushi,” You replied sadly. 

“Don’t tell Lando anything,” Kimi joked as he briefly glanced at the nurse who was getting ready to put the needle in. “He’ll say ‘I told you so’ or something.”

“Lando is a big baby,” You chuckled lightly. “Food poisoning isn’t going to stop me from eating sushi forever. Just a few months or something.”

“Is that so?” Kimi gasped as you went on.

“Sushi is life, Kimi,” You deadpanned. “A little food poisoning isn’t going to stop my love.”

“And look at that! You didn’t even flinch!” The nurse cheered as she took off her gloves and that’s when you looked over. The needle was already in and the IV was already dripping. You had already started to feel a little bit of the effects kicking in. Were you really that dehydrated? “I’ll come back in a couple of hours to make sure you are getting hydrated, but feel free to get comfortable and call me if you need anything.”

“There’s no way I missed that,” Your jaw was dropped as you stared at the needle embedded in your arm. “I didn’t even feel it, but I do now.”

“That’s because you’re staring at it,” Kimi chuckled lightly. He stood up, going to grab a cloth and wet it with cold water before bringing it back and laying it across the back of your neck. You sighed in relief as you practically melted into the bed. “That should help you feel less hot. Try to take a nap if you can. I’ll be here when you wake up, amour (love).”

He placed one last kiss on your forehead as your eyes fluttered shut.

~~~~~

© BAD268 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[devilish-parrot]

im not giving my real name but you can call me either Karl, Ryan or Oris

he/they. i dont usually have a preference. u can switch it up from one sentance to another or in the same sentance if u want, as long as you use them both

libra

1 brother. fun fact abt him; hes rlly good with lego

i dont have any pets any more. when i was like 5 i had 2 clownfish named nemo. then when i was 8 i had a rabbit named bunny but she died

my fandoms are in my pinned post. i really like tally hall and twomp atm, im really hyperfixated on them both. like ALOT

fav colours are black, blue and green. in that order

i cant choose a one favourite song so ill name a few i really like (they're all tally hall though because i havent been able to listen to anything els for weeks). The whole world and you, Welcome to tally hall, Taken for a ride, greener, You, Good day, Haiku, and The bidding

i dont have a favourite author so ill jusy tell u my favourite book: animal farm (highly recomend)

hobbies include reading, drawing, listening to music

i dont read fanfics

halloween

no partners, am single 😔 but i was doing my start of the year tarot reading recently (12 cards, one per month) and my brother was watching over, making his own skewed interpretations of the cards. he thinks im gonna get a boyfriend this month, then break up with him after he cheats on me, then ill spend my next four months plotting my revenge which ultimatly ends me up in jail... im pretty sure the card was actually reffering to me finishing my tally hall blog (more info on that below). if youre wondering, the card was xxi the world, drawn upright

ive spent the past 3 days working on a tally hall daily blog. im very proud of it but im nowhere near done. ive only gotten through 2 internet show episodes but already have posts queued up untill may. im really excited about this!!

tags (i wont tag mutuals that worm-brainzz already tagged) @confusedsnowpatch @ailill-everytime @jellyfish-fingernail @mikka-minns @milofonn @zaychik45510 @wielderofthechainsaw @thatfrogperson @theseusthetransratking @mysticlilac-ec @alex-is-a-simp-73 @felt-squirrels no pressure, u dont have to answer all the questions or any at all

I got bored so here's a little get-to-know-you tag game I think could be fun :3

Name(s)

Pronouns

Star sign

# of siblings & fun facts about them (if you have any)

# of pets & their names

Fandoms

Favorite color

Favorite song

Favorite author (of anything readable-- books, fanfics, zines, webtoons, whatever!)

Hobbies

Favorite fic type

Favorite holiday

Do you have any partner(s)? (romantic, qpp, anything!)

Fun facts about you / anything extra you wanna share!

────────

Name(s): Loki (highly preferred), Elye

Pronouns : they/them mostly, he/she okay too

Star sign: Pisces

# of siblings: I've got 2! An older sister and a younger sibling. The fun fact about them is that they're also both queer; in fact, my mom is too. The only non-queer person in my immediate family is my dad.

# of pets: 4 cats! Phoebe & Frankie are our girls, Lenny and Murray are our boys :3

Fandoms: MCU (kind of), BSD, OFMD, Ranboo (does his fanbase count as a fandom?)

Fav. color: Don't have one

Fav. song: Aurora Borealis by Lemon Demon

Fav. author: Alice Oseman

Hobbies: singing, acting, drawing, writing, procrastinating

Fav. fic type: Fluff, definitely. I am a sucker for well written coffee-shop and flower-shop aus, too. Smut's fine, but only if it's romantic. I can't do angst if there's no comfort.

Fav. Holiday: Hanukkah or Halloween! I love autumn and winter

Partners?: Yes! I have a girlfriend (queerplatonic) who I love very much, and a boyfriend (romantic) who I love very much :]

Fun facts:

- Even though I'm a cat person, I really, really want a dog.

- I actually used to play sports. Because I don't do gendered leagues anymore, I don't play, but I've been looking for mixed/gender-neutral/queer sports teams. Baseball and basketball specifically!

- I started questioning my identity in 2019; I'm no closer to finding a label now than I was then. The difference is, now I don't want a label. I just am. :]

tags: @neonganymede @cha0ticlesbian @x-chiara @exceleo @brinnybee @autistic-katara @gandalfthemorallygrey @ohboyanotherlokiblog @roachandrenfri @ourflagmeanslokius @exceleo @edettethegreat @swiftlyspidey

[threepointseven]

Home(Dinner Part 2)

Im shortening the exchange students name to S/N AKA student name

Sorry i forgot to answer the person who actually requested this @kurooandkarmaswife thank you sm for requesting! I hope you enjoy 😩

Also lets pretend you cant have more than 1 pact with a human cause yeah. If you havent read Dinner yet go read it since you’ll really only understand this if u read the first part

Fandom: Obey me!

Pairing: not really with anyone but has subtle undertones of solomon & Simeon x reader

Length: sort of long

Genre: Angst with comfort

Gn! Reader and exchange student!

Part three!

Dinner last night, was, well...pretty terrible. I ended up waking up at 2 am to the brothers STILL not home. Apparently even Diavolo had taken a liking to the new exchange student.

A day goes by and finally i get to meet the new exchange student.

Whoah

Is all i can think. I walk into the living room unnoticed as everyone is talking to the new exchange student, i wouldnt blame them.

They look incredible.

I felt a hint of jealousy wash over me. Seeing Mammon, Asmo’s and Beel’s joyful laughs as they talk to them. Their voice was ever so gentle, it’s what i imagine spring to sound like.

I tried forgetting about my distasteful thoughts of jealousy and walked over to them.

“Goodmorning!”

I called out to try and grab their attention

“Oh, MC! I didnt see you there;;”

Asmo said to me as he was taking selfies with the new exchange student

“This is the new exchange student”

Beel smiled

“Hi! My name is MC”

I happily introduced myself

“My name is S/N”

They brought their hand out and i shook it in return. Their eyes were ever so sweet, i felt the sadness come over me as i wore a soft smile.

Something tells me this wont end well.

Weeks go by as i barely get to see the brothers anymore. They’re always around S/N. I find myself longing the brothers touch. The random emergency texts i get from mammon, calls from Asmo asking me if i wanted to go to a club, Belphie always dragging me to his room to take a nap, Beel’s adorable goodnight texts, Lucifer’s complaints about work, Satan’s library dates, And levi’s rants about a certain anime he just watched.. i missed it all.

I guess i missed the warmth and the constant attention i got from them. The attention thats now being directed at S/N.

The new feeling of emptiness leads me to the Purgatory hall, a place i’ve been to quite often after S/N had won over the brothers.

I enter the room praying that i dont see S/N hogging Luke, Solomon, and Simeon’s attention....

What?

Did i just think that?

Am i that jealous?

Have i gotten so used to being in the spotlight that suddenly i become like this when not in the center?

Its an unpleasant feeling and i try to snap myself out of it as i see Simeon, Luke, and Solomon all happily seated on the couch drinking tea and eating pastries Luke made.

“MC! Hey!!”

Luke happily greets me as well as Solomon and Simeon. Im pulled to the couch as im seated next to Luke. I take a bite of the pastry and embrace the comfort of the sugary sweets.

The conversation goes on for a long time as hours go by. Soon enough the entire tray of pastries and tea are long gone.

As the clock hits 8 PM i realize ive been at the Purgatory hall for too long now. Excusing myself i go back to the house of Lamentation to be once again greeted by smiling faces and S/N laying out plates filled with food for the brothers.

The brothers quarrels, Satan’s face of annoyance, Asmo’s whining... The smell of warm food on the dinner table being handed out....

As i hide from the view of the brothers and S/N i look back to when it would to be me that made everyone dinner and calmed them down.

My chair.

My chair had been occupied by S/N,

What?

Did they expect me to sit on the floor for dinner or something?

As i slowly walked to my room i heard the deep voice of Lucifer

“Oh MC,,, sorry S/N is sitting on your spot, we thought you were gonna go to the purgatory hall for dinner tonight. We do apologize”

As i feel my throat closing up i smile and say in a bubbly tone

“Oh it’s fine! I was actually gonna go out with my friends for dinner anyways! I was just getting something from my room, i’ll be out in a sec!”

Lucifer gave me a warm smile and continued conversing with S/N

As i went to my room i started to realize the situation here. I’ve been replaced. I mean who wouldn’t replace me when the actual definition of an angel was right in front of them with their welcoming arms open.

As soon as i got to my room salty tears trailed down my cheeks,

Jealousy?

Sadness?

Anger?

Whatever the emotion was i wasn’t having it. Unlocking my DDD to be greeted by the wallpaper of me and the brothers all dressed up for a ball we went to together once. i tried to hold back my few tears as i called Solomon, a dear friend of mine.

“Hey solomon!!”

“Oh, yes MC? Is there anything you need?”

“I know i just left the purgatory hall but could I possibly stay there for the night?”

“Oh, of course! I dont exactly know why but Luke’s already whining about how you stayed for too little.”

“I’ll be right over”

I hung up the phone, my tears stopping after i heard that comforting voice of his.

That night i stayed at the purgatory hall, happily sleeping next to Luke, lulling him to sleep.

The purgatory hall became my escape. Solomon always made me laugh, Simeon always made sure i felt welcome there and Luke was practically my adopted son after how long i could stay with him.

As i went about the kitchen helping Luke make a pastry i showed him from the human world a strange feeling washed over me. The feeling of something being erased from my my soul, something was fading away. That something felt like it was piercing my soul.

I look around my body to see what it is. As i look around i see it.

My pact marks are starting to fade

I panic as i excuse myself and go back to the house of lamentation.

As i silently enter the room i hear the faint sound of the brothers, they’re discussing something.

“Cmon Satan you’ve gotta be quick! What if they find out?!”

“Removing a pact isnt that easy Mammon.”

As i listen more i realize what it is.

They’re trying to break my pact with me.

And for what exactly?

Because they want one with someone else.

That someone being S/N

It hurt. Who wouldn’t be hurt? tears flowed from my eyes in record time as i tiredly walk outside.

Devildom was a place the brothers always told me to beware of, but right now i couldnt care less.

While i walked around the town with puffy eyes and the stinging feeling of my pact marks being removed, i hear a certain group of people call my name, i look back to see Luke, Solomon and Simeon’s smiles quickly turn into frowns as they see my tears

“What’s wrong MC?!”

Luke worriedly asks

Unable to hold it in i tell Them.

“The brothers are trying to break my pact with them, they want one with S/N apparently. Im afraid i’ve been replaced by that saint..”

Solomon and Simeon’s face turn into faces of empathy while Luke’s turned quite sour

As Simeon came closer to me and pulled me close into a hugged he mumbles out a comforting phrase

“Whatever happens MC, you’ll always be welcome at the purgatory hall.”

The sentence made my stomach overflow with butterflies. I happily hug back, quickly accepting the purgatory hall as my new and improved home.

[justice4falum]

do NOT give money to tumblr user roboticwheelchair

Hi, so you’ve probably seen this post or some of its permutations on this website lately! (The old version of this post broke because I mistakenly deleted it. Let’s try this again, shall we?)

This is a “RAFFLE” for a Nintendo Switch Lite and the poster is asking people send them $10 to earn a spot in the raffle, of which there are 52. People have already sent money in.

This post was made by user roboticwheelchair and the name which currently displays on their paypal is “Mick Garcia” - it’s very possible you’ve heard their story already from several weeks ago. User roboticwheelchair claims that they were physically assaulted for being a transgender man, and that they sustained a concussion.

The BAD news is that roboticwheelchair is a blog which has been on tumblr for a very long time, and used to belong to someone named Falum Gibson. You may have heard this name from their #justice4falum campaign ages ago. They are a notorious scammer and has been doing this since 2016. LET’S REVIEW (LONG, LONG, LONG POST AHEAD.)

Part 1: #BieberMeetFalum and Meeting Ed Sheeran

In 2016, Falum ran a Justin Bieber fan account on Twitter called @bieberfreezer (account has since been suspended). They began a campaign called #BieberMeetFalum by posting a Twitter thread about their disability, cerebral palsy, and how they had intended to meet Justin Bieber personally because his music was important to them. However, the venue he was performing at was not wheelchair accessible and Falum uses an electric wheelchair. They were trying to get the attention of him or his team in order to ensure they met. (LINK)

This was a reasonable thing to post about! Accessibility is a necessity. We know this. And they weren’t asking for money. Twitter got this the attention it needed and they were able to meet Bieber despite the trouble. (LINK)

Later on, they gunned to meet Ed Sheeran and succeeded.

Part 2: #TaylorNoticeFalum

In 2018, Falum was on Tumblr as user taylorsgetawaycarxo. At this point they still say they have cerebral palsy, but has also said they have COPD (something they later will drop.) Claiming that they are terminally ill and has 2 years left to live, they talk about how Taylor Swift is their idol and they want to meet her before they die.

This came right after they had done the same thing with Demi Lovato fans, claiming they idolised Demi and needed to meet her, so on and so forth. They ran a GoFundMe for this. 

The GoFundMe is now defunct, but the URL was “falumlastwish” I believe. Here’s where the plot gets a little lost, because the sheer number of different GoFundMes, donation posts, and meet-a-celebrity campaigns that Falum was running in these couple of years is... pretty wild. There’s a post from another blog here on Tumblr about the Taylor Swift fandom’s run-in with them. (LINK) 

Here’s a GoFundMe they ran from a music fan account on Instagram, where they were asking for help escaping homelessness. They raised almost 5,000 dollars out of the 10,000 they were asking. (LINK)

At some point they also ran a GoFundMe for a PTSD service dog. I’m not sure how much they were asking for this one, but they apparently made $880 off of it. 

Part 3: Ellie Elizabeth

This part is a little muddled, because the tumblr blog connected to it has been deleted and it’s really difficult to find archives of the posts, but at some point in early 2019 Falum started using the blog ellie-elizabeth21 to ask for money as well. The story was that they were being sent to conversion therapy for being bisexual by their father, who had them deemed legally mentally incompetent. Further stories they posted about were potential evictions, needs for grocery money, etc.

Here’s a link to an imgur album of some of the posts this account made. Many of them achieved their goal of over $200 or more. (LINK)

“Ellie” also ran a GoFundMe to escape conversion therapy. Although the person running the campaign was listed as Ellie Elizabeth, the “beneficiary” listed on the campaign is Falum Gibson, proving that Ellie was another pseudonym - just a better hidden one. Here’s the link to that GoFundMe, where you can see it for yourself. (LINK)

This was Ellie Elizabeth’s PayPal account at the time, I believe? And anyway, you might note that they apparently made nearly $6,500 on this account.

Part 4: #Justice4Falum

Now in November of 2019, Falum moved away from the world of Fan Internet and decided to try out something new. They made the blog roboticwheelchair in September of 2019 and reblogged a photoset of cats to it, which for a while was the only thing on the blog besides the donation post they initially made. They’ve gone through a cycle of reblogging and deleting things there, basically clearing out the blog every couple of weeks to make a new post.

At this point they were also @falumgibson on Twitter. The account has since been locked. This is when they posted a GoFundMe describing medical abuse they were allegedly undergoing at the Ottawa Hospital. Weird side note, this GoFundMe is still running and can be donated to, though obviously I’m recommending you don’t do so. (LINK)

They made several donation posts on Tumblr about this campaign, frequently linking it or their PayPal account and asking people to donate. Sometimes it was to go directly to their legal fund for this lawsuit, other times they were asking for money for medications or other immediate costs.

Side note, they had claimed to be in the hospital since August of 2019 due to suicidal ideation and claimed they had been psych warded. From what I can tell, the Ottawa Hospital General Campus they claimed to be hospitalised at does not actually have a psychiatric ward. It has a mental health team, but they appear to do outpatient work. It’s not really clear what they were in the hospital for at this point.

#Justice4Falum was originally about fundraising for a place to live because apparently they were in danger of being forced to leave the hospital due to homelessness. Later on they turned it into a legal fund to sue the hospital for mistreatment.

Part 5: Further Fundraising, Coming Out As Trans

While Falum was in the hospital, they started identifying as nonbinary. I’m not in any position to speculate about whether or not Falum is transgender, because that’s honestly not the point. Either way, they have started using their trans identity in much the way they use their disabilities - as a way to garner sympathy and trust, and to scam people out of money.

On their Twitter at this point, they did seem to have kind of a bizarre interpretation of how transition worked and appeared to be under the impression that the first thing trans men do is get top surgery? (LINK)

Shortly after this, still during the November that #Justice4Falum ran during, they began asking for donations to a different PayPal account than their normal one, because their stepdad was dying of cancer. There was a GoFundMe for this as well, but it appeared to feature their parents and was possibly not created by Falum.

No date on this tweet unfortunately, but right after that, they made a post about how they had been outed to their transphobic father and needed to escape living with him.

At this point, Falum has added several diagnoses to those they claim to have. In addition to cerebral palsy, they now claim to have multiple sclerosis and several mental illnesses. No more COPD, though! I’m very impressed that they recovered from a terminal illness!

Now that they’re out of the closet, in early December they begin making donation posts on Tumblr again and have now made a Patreon. (LINK: POST) (LINK: PATREON) Soon after this, they apparently left their home and became homeless, and started posting about this on Twitter and linking their PayPal.

In late December they posted on Twitter about having attempted suicide by taking 75 extra strength Tylenol. Warning for a photograph of their IV in this link. (LINK)

Not very long after, Falum returned to their narrative of being terminally ill by posting about how their multiple sclerosis (something they have only claimed since 2019, I believe) causes them over 20 seizures a day and will eventually kill them. (LINK)

Then they locked their Twitter account and decided to try something new.

Part 6: Connor Kay, “anontransman”

Enter Connor Kay. At this point Falum makes a new Twitter account called @ConnorIsTrans which eventually morphs into @anontransman. They initially link this account to their old main account, saying that they’ve switched in order to be openly trans on their new account because their transphobic father is stalking them. (LINK)

They continue asking for donations on Twitter, now with a Ko-Fi account called Connor Rocks.

They also post a story about an ex-friend of theirs spitting on them for being trans, apparently, and say they’re calling the police on her, which really doesn’t seem like something that’d be safe for a disabled trans person to do but whatever. (LINK)

On their blog at roboticwheelchair, they post stories about how they are being assaulted and mocked for being transgender. I should note that on Twitter they’ve said they are not out IRL and have not taken steps to transition.

Not only does this particular story sound kind of like the “down with cis bus” post, it’s also somewhat suspect that they allege they were called a tr*nny as an AFAB trans person, given who is generally targeted by that word. But. Moving on.

When the COVID-19 pandemic came around, Connor created a Facebook group for disability support. This was run by the Facebook account Connor Kay, which has since been deleted. It was the same account that they used to have and they’d not changed anything except for the name; prior posts showed it was Falum Gibson’s account.

It turns out they deleted this Facebook account because someone on Facebook posted about their years-long history of scamming people online. Here’s a link to an imgur album of some of the Facebook callout and the images the OP posted. (LINK)

So Falum, or Connor, decides to start anew with an all new PayPal, Ko-Fi, Patreon and Twitter account. At this point they begin to break away from linking these accounts to the name Falum Gibson and their past donation posts, although they are still using the same Tumblr blog. They change their Twitter handle to @anontransman and remove links to Falum. (TWITTER SCREENCAP) (KO-FI SCREENCAP) (PATREON SCREENCAP)

Then they tweet about how they have been diagnosed with cancer. (LINK) Then they begin asking for $100k to go to the US for treatment. (LINK)

Soon after, this Tweet has been completely deleted and they have instead started asking for money for top surgery. (LINK) I believe this is in reverse chronological order, but here are a week’s worth of tweets from them - all deleted at random times in order to make room for the others - asking for money for various reasons. Yes, this was all literally within the same week. (LINK)

Note the very last image of that album contains a reference to an “Amazon Raffle” - they were basically telling people that donations would win them a spot in a raffle for an Amazon gift card or something? It seems they moved on from the @anontransman account before the raffle could come to fruition, or possibly that they just deleted all references to it. Not sure.

In April of 2020, roboticwheelchair posted a specific donation post about being attacked for being transgender and sustaining a concussion. They said they did not see a doctor after the assault because they didn’t think it was important, so their concussion went untreated and because of it they were unable to get groceries. The donation post linked to Connor Kay’s PayPal account. It was deleted and reposted several different times, with basically the same text.

Part 7: Mick Garcia

This is a more recent post with the exact same story, now about their multiple sclerosis medication. The only difference is now that the PayPal link sends you to the PayPal of Mick Garcia. Mick Garcia has a different PayPal username than Falum, Ellie, and Connor did.

On April 12th, the @anontransman account deactivated after Falum, or Ellie, or Connor, or Mick decided to leave Twitter. Then yesterday on April 19th, it reactivated and they tweeted once again.

However, around this same time, another Twitter account under the name Mick Garcia with an icon @anontransman used to use and a very similar tone/style cropped up.

The Mick Garcia account has not tweeted yet, as it appears that they may be staying with @anontransman for their current purposes, but it appears that for some reason or another they’ve decided to start going by Mick Garcia now.

I guess it’s probably relevant to note that while I suppose there are probably some white people out there with the last name Garcia, Falum is really seriously white and it’s suspect they would pick out Garcia as a pseudonym, whether they list “white” in their Twitter bio or not.

More from the current state of the roboticwheelchair blog includes many, many posts where they’re either reposting their own petitions or basically grabbing for as many followers as possible. You can probably guess why. (LINK)

As of April 20th, 2020, there are 2 donation posts still standing on their blog. Here are both of them. (LINK)

Finally, The Switch Raffle

Literally today, April 20th, roboticwheelchair posted something that is allegedly a raffle. They claim to be giving away a Nintendo Switch Lite to a lucky winner. There are 52 slots in the raffle; they are asking that people send them $10 over PayPal in order to enter. They’re also claiming this is to further fundraise for their medication.

They are claiming their doctor has put them on an MS medication that costs $450 every two weeks. (Note that if they’re trying to make money for that right now and also going to buy a Switch for the winner, than they’d only have about half of that at the end? The Switch Lite is about $260 in Canada and their total earnings from a full raffle would be $520.)

You should not give money to them for this raffle, or for any reason. The reason I’m compiling all of this is because after months of seeing them pull this scam over and over again, they’re now promising people an actual product that given their history, I would say they are highly unlikely to deliver.

Given their past, it is most likely they will delete this raffle once they have the money they want, and refuse to allude to it ever again. Or maybe they’ll just disappear! Or hell, maybe they’ll have some kind of nebulous problem ordering the Switch when someone wins, and that’ll be that.

But it’s clear based on this history, I hope, that Falum or Ellie or Connor or Mick has a long history of taking lots and lots of money from strangers online. Like, a lot of money. My estimate is that they’ve made over $15k on this, and that’s exclusively based off of the visible numbers on their GoFundMes and Ko-Fi accounts.

Please do not give this person your money. They are not trustworthy. There are other people who need it - like you, or maybe like, someone you personally know and not some complete stranger who keeps telling people they’re terminally ill so they can meet a cool musician.

Disclaimer

I’ve compiled all of this information to the best of my ability, but I am just one person and it took a lot of digging due to the deleted accounts involved.

Falum is actually disabled; I believe they do have cerebral palsy and may have other disabilities. I do not know if they really have MS, but it’s hard to trust them because they previously lied about having terminal COPD.

I have no idea if Falum is really transgender or not. They have apparently taken no concrete steps to transition, which I know means very little. That being said, if they are transgender, they are leveraging their identity in dangerous ways against other people for money and sympathy. Their stories about being assaulted by strangers for being transgender are highly suspect, given their lack of transition and the fact that the scenarios they describe are highly cliche.

Finally, I’m not trying to harass Falum or threaten them in any way. I don’t know them. If they’re interested in talking candidly about what they have been doing all these years and why, that’s fine. I would honestly love to understand, but at this point it seems like the only thing they can do is apologise for their dishonesty and stop doing this.

Reblog this post if you want! The point is to get the word out there, because this person has been a pervasive presence on this website for some time and has not yet been called out.

[rainbowsky]

hi, i would really like your opinion on this. so, back then when yizhan was just getting popular in the intl fandom there used to be fic events such as “BJYX Exchange” and “BJYX Prompt-fest”. the event was open to any dynamic (bjyx, zsww, lsfy) and were super fun and many authors joined in and we’d get many fics of all types to enjoy. (of course, if you don’t like the fic, don’t read). bcs of this, many bjyx-only fans got mad that the events had the name “BJYX” but included fics with zsww/lsfy 1

The rest under the cut.

then, things happened, the “is the usage of BJYX as an umbrella term for yizhan or should it be dynamic exclusive” debate went on and i guess the fandom reached a silent consensus? anyway around oct 2020 the BJYX Week event happened which was exclusive t!dd and b!gg dynamics and many people were grateful and were like “finally, a REAL bjyx event”. this same team organized a couple of events (for Halloween and Christmas) after that and everything was peaceful. fast forward to feb 2021(?) when (2)

the first exclusive zsww/lsfy event happened, followed by an open prompt fest. then, idk what happened but maybe bjyx-onlys got overwhelmed? and this is a passive agressive retaliation? lmao bcs there’s just been one after another BJYX-only events since then. starting with a pregnant xz event, then a mini(?), and now a dark event. all in less than two months. look, personally, i have zero preference in dynamics but this is not normal. ive been in many fandoms before and none have had events (3)

THIS exclusive and THIS often. i know that we have no right to tell authors what to write and yes, everybody should have the freedom to read/enjoy what they like. but at this point i feel like both camps are trying to drown the wyb/xz tag in their preferred dynamic, and im so tired of it. ao3 used to be my go-to way of unwinding after a long day but then when i clicked into the tag and am faced with just a string of pregnant xz fics? it’s just so tiring and frustrating.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I think it's entirely up to authors to do whatever they want with their fics, to write whatever they want, etc. If they want to write a bunch of mpreg I won't go near, that's fine with me. It's their fic and their choice. I can just unsub and move on.

On the other hand, I feel like this situation is just another example of how that dynamic wankery is toxic, and is constantly leading to war among fans. Especially since within the BJYX label there exist people who are there for a dynamic, and people who are there for GGDD regardless of dynamic. It's a hot mess.

I often feel like the supposed distinction between dynamic preference for fan fiction and dynamic belief in real life is largely mythical or meaningless. I've talked about that before.

Ultimately people are free to write however they want, and to conduct themselves as fans however they want, just as we are free to view it in whatever way we like, and avoid or connect with whoever we want to. We don’t have any control over what other people do, say or think. All we have any control over is how we respond to what they do, say or think. I hope we’ll all chose the path of peace, and live and let live rather than hate or argue.

I don’t get involved in the whole AO3 fan fic scene beyond finding stories I’m interested in reading, and recommending/praising stories I enjoy. For that reason, it would be irresponsible for me to comment on how the prompt fests are run and how the various dynamic adherents behave.

If you say the way it’s being handled is becoming overwhelming, I believe you, if for no other reason than that I myself have noticed that the GGDD fic is increasingly gender swap, ABO and mpreg lately, and all my fave authors I’ve had to unsubscribe from because those are categories I won’t go near. But I can’t offer any solutions or really even any insights. Authors can write what they want. End of story (pun intended).

The only thing I can say is, I hate the whole ‘dynamic’ thing, and everyone who reads my blog knows it by now. That’s probably a huge part of why I get so many asks about it (although what more can I say about it than what I’ve already said?)

I am grateful to the authors who have taken the time to write stories that I’ve enjoyed, and I need to restate a thousand times that my perspective and preferences in no way = requests or expectations of authors. Please continue to write what you enjoy writing. I’ll be fine. 😅

Also, I am very strongly of the opinion that the BJYX term is still a fandom umbrella term, no matter what dynamic zealots feel about it. It’s unfortunate that the term has had to be shared. Trust me, BJYX dynamic people, I hate sharing it as much as you do, but the fandom overwhelmingly uses the term as an umbrella one and so sharing is what we’ll have to continue to do.

Perhaps there are people who are more familiar with the GGDD fan fic scene who can lend their perspective to the promptfest thing?

I’m not sure anything I’ve said has been remotely helpful, Anon, but I think there are probably many people scratching their heads like you are.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[youngbeanpole]

A message from BP’s mail-lady

hoo boy here we go. this is gonna be a long post.

hi! im lemon, and i started this blog on april 2nd 2012. and today, april 22nd 2021, im posting beanpole’s last message here. its been one hell of a ride.

how it all started i was 15, spending time on tumblr, when i suddenly started seeing people posting about this movie that was about to be released soon, called the lorax. now, im not american, so i had never really heard of dr seuss, but people were so enthusiastic! so i watched a shitty cam-rip of the movie and joined the fandom. 

and then the askblogs started, the first one i came across being swag, of course. i had run askblogs for other fandoms before, so i wanted to join in on the fun. but regular once-ler was already taken... and green suit once-lers, and audrey and ted too... so i had to come up with something original. 

the movie started with the once-ler leaving home and his family showing just how awful they were, and i started thinking, ‘man, his childhood mustve sucked..’ ‘haha what if i made a blog about once-ler when he was my age?’ 

an impulse decision that somehow gained me 100 followers in a week. somehow relatable tumblr teen once-ler was relatable to 2012 tumblr. who couldve known? 

i get kinda emotional looking back at it, honestly. people were so fun and creative. id stay up late to keep talking to people (bc timezones are hell). and i had a lot of fun just pretending to be a flawed boy, one who seemed nice but could be rather snarky, who would lie and break promises at the drop of a hat, but only because he didnt know any better, not out of malice. and i couldnt have done it without you all. i never wouldve known that he hates tomatoes, or likes celine dion, or wears the same thneed every dang day just because that happened to be his icon. 

was it silly to get obsessed with a childrens movie? maybe. but i had a great time.  (im also happy to see there are still people in the fandom that are carrying on the legacy... you guys rock)

truffula flu i think most people that remember bp remember him from truffula flu’s camp entre, over at youngbeansprout... a blog ive sadly lost the password to. im a big baby so i never thought id enjoy writing about something as scary as zombies, but i saw my friends doing it so i went in blind, without any idea on a backstory for the au or whatever.  ....which is probably why he wasnt always all that prominent in the story, haha. well, that, and timezones. 

it was probably an even wilder time than running this blog was, because there was actual plot. and people would liveblog it. and make fanart. and cosplay??? someone out there? cosplayed my oc to a convention? its one of those things that make you go. huh. i made something cool. probably never gonna reach that high ever again, but it sure is a fond memory. i still have a folder on my computer with all the fanart and it still brings a smile to my face.

also... i never did get to finish zombie au’s story, but i did plan how it would end. so if youve managed to read this far, congratulations! youve hit the hidden deep lore.

---

so the thing with truffula flu was that entre made the trees fucked up, right? and those spores would turn ppl into zombies. and of course you could become a zombie from being bitten, but it also traveled through the air...

everyone in camp entre (who wasnt immune or already infected) wore a gasmask, a bandana, something to cover their mouth. bp, who wandered into the apocalypse by accident, did not. he didnt even know. 

so little by little, the spores gathered in his lungs, until he realized. oh no. im getting sick. oh no. oh no oh no oh no. he messed around audrey’s equipment to confirm he was infected, and he got scared. he was a scared kid and he was going to die.

except. ted had handed him a cure for safe-keeping. a cure bp had sworn to protect with his life. but it could save him, right? in a moment of cowardice, he uses it on himself... only to find out there never was a cure.  (now heres the part where my memory gets fuzzy but) the ‘’’cure’’’ was given to ted, who was already slightly rotting, meant as a mercy kill. the people who gave him the cure assumed he would use it on himself.

except ted was a good kid, who wanted to use the cure to help others. and beanpole? his lies and broken promises came back to bite him in the ass, and he died sudden and alone. the end. :)

ANYWAY

the end of an era ive wanted to wrap this blog up for several years now but i never knew how. younger me wanted to give him a happy ending, which back then i thought was getting him a girlfriend. 

but as i got older, i realized... not everything can be fixed with a relationship. he’d have to learn to overcome his flaws by himself, learn his lesson about honesty and sincerity and the dangers of greed. and then, maybe he’ll have a happy ending.

so as he rides into the sunset on this day, imagine. maybe he’ll end up cutting down a forest and regretting it the rest of his life. maybe he’ll become a rock-star. an inventor. a teacher. a gentleman. a cannibal? okay, maybe not that one or maybe he’ll continue traveling forever, singing songs about boredom.

who knows? there’s infinite possibilites out there.

--

and with that, im logging off too. if you ever need me, ill be over on twitter as his deoncelerized self, bean. 

<3

[badwolf-winchester]

Ancient Bloodlines

Pairing: Loki x Emy Nightstar (OC)

OC Summary: Emy is the newest Avenger. She specializes in Magic and close range attacks/ weapons. Her heritage is unknown to her as she was left at an orphanage door step when she was a young girl with only the memory of her name. She goes by her nickname Emy but has never told anyone her full name as its a reminder of her being abandoned. Emy can see through any illusion and Magic no matter how powerful they are or how strong the magic is and is unaware of this. Her powers include Telekinesis, Elemental Control, True Sight (as stated above) Enhanced healing and Shifting (she wont discover this till much later in the story). She loves to read, listen to music, play violin, sing, and draw.

Story Info: Takes place after infinity wars. Tony and Natasha are alive Steven comes back from the future after giving back the infinity stones. Vision is alive and living with Wanda in the tower. Thor and Loki live in the tower with the rest of the Avengers and for the sake of the story Himedall is alive and living with the rest of the Asgardians on earth in New Asgard (you will find out why later)

One last thing: Please do not repost my work on any other site or social media, however reblogging on here is fine. I work hard on all of my fanfics and it’s disappointing when people take my work as their own. I am the creater of all my OCs such as Sora Nightstar, Emy Nightstar, and Lithium Nightstar. My inbox is open for any and all requests as i am a multi fandom writer. Let me know how you like the story and i will do my best to answer any and all questions. As always i encourage any and all feedback as it helps with my writing. I hope you all like it!

The Beginning

They say that your parents are there to teach you the rules of the world, but what happens when you have no parents? Who will teach you then? The world is cruel but people are crueler. Ive learned this first hand when the person i trusted most in this world left me on the door step of the St. Trinity’s Orphanage. I was 9 when my mother told me she didn’t want me anymore and i guess I couldn’t really blame her. I mean who could love someone who couldn’t control the powers that grew with each passing year. Someone who started fires out of thin air when they had nightmares, conjured whirlwinds when startled, unfurled earthquakes when angered, spring forth rain showers when sad, and levitate objects when riddled with anxiety. I will never forget that day for its seared into my mind like its own person brand echoing with every beat of my heart. A monster thats what she called me, her own flesh and blood was a monster in her eyes, and i could see the relief when she ran from the solid oak door finally rid of the burden she had to put up with throughout the years. An abomination she cried as she reached the cobblestone sidewalk eager to be rid of me and by the pace she was going at i could tell she had more spring in her step than on the walk over from the bus we exited from. Unnatural she bellowed as she disappeared around the corner a ghost of a smile springing from her lips as she disappeared. These where the last words i would ever hear from my mother, if thats what you would call her.

Emy’s POV

Tonight was just like any other. Crisp cold air submerged the city in a blanket of dark and silence while it settled into your bones. I never minded the cold in fact I welcomed it, it reminded me of the cabin i found one year after running away from one of the many abusive foster homes i was forced to stay with. I’ll admit it was one of the times I was able to avoid the social workers for longer than a week and the happiest I had ever been in my life up until i was captured by Hydra. When I had a flair up with my powers, which usually ended up being fire, i would immediately get sent back to St. Trinity’s but this time i ran before they had the chance to toss me aside. The staff there used to place bets on how long i would stay with a family, they would joke saying i was cursed or jinxed but i knew the truth, no one wanted me. Once the parents found out about my abilities I was sent packing. I was labeled as a flight risk and a danger to others which only deepened my anti socialism.

Walking through the streets of New York i pull my dark purple jacket on and my dark brown hair in a pony tail as I get closer to my destination. Because i don’t feel the effects of the cold weather Tony, being such the dad figure he is, has made it his priority to make sure i still wear one just incase so here i was walking home in black ripped up jeans, a black v neck T-shirt, black and purple checkered vans and a light weight dark purple jacket. With my headphones in my ears and “I like it heavy” by Halestorm blasting I make my way to the place i call home, Stark Tower. Walking through the front doors i make my way past the receptionist who always greets me with a bright smile. As I walk towards the elevator I give her a small smile back and a head nod. After entering the elevator and pressing the button for the penthouse I start to reflect on how i got here.

By the time i was 15 Hydra found me in that cabin and took me away. I went from hopping from family to family to being used as a science experiment, constantly being poked and prodded just so they could get a reaction out of me. As a child my powers where very unstable mostly flaring up with my emotions, its no wonder that Hydra caught wind of me its not like i was hiding it very well or more so that i couldn’t hide it. They tried to wipe my memory to gain control of me “a blank slate” is what they wanted, but for some reason, they failed as I wasn’t susceptible to their conditioning methods no matter how much time i spent in the chair. However, I could tell they were scared of me I could see it in their eyes. This didn’t last long though as they used what they called their perfect weapon code name Winter Soldier to beat me into submission. After that first meeting that left me with a broken arm and a fractured ankle i started to obey, since then Ive met the Soldier a couple of times but if he remembers me he dosent let on and I dont blame him, he has been in that chair so many times Im genuinely surprised he can even remember how to walk. He is stronger than the others as most of the other test subjects had turned to vegetables after the 4th mind wipe, he was on his 10th the last time i saw him with Hydra.

Another test was done on me and this one was different. They used a teseract? If thats what they called it I can’t be sure nor did I care all I could feel was pain like as if someone injected lava in my veins. After they injected me I started screaming after a while I couldn’t even hear myself anymore, my throat was so sore and horse from the constant roar of my agony I just wanted it to end. How long was I out for? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? Years? They didn’t keep clocks there or at least not in the dungeon like cell they had me in. When the fire faded i was left with this numbness and after further tests I realized that I was immune to fire. I can literally stick my hand in fire and i will be left untouched and unscorched. They did the same test with freezing temperatures to see if they could subdue me at least in some way. I must have been out longer than just a couple of days as during the tests i didn’t recognize any of the Doctors. In that moment I realized something, if they were trying to contain me then something must have happened to the soldier. It was time to plan my escape.

Back in my cell i could hear footsteps approaching me and then stop short. One of the scientists frantically trying to talk some sense into someone just out of my line of sight. “She is immune to anything we throw at her sir. We have done every test we could there is nothing left for us to do.” One of the goons in a lab coat stated to what i assumed is a higher up. “Bolden If her powers keep growing at the rate they are it could be days in which she will be unstoppable and with the soldier gone we dont have anything that can keep her in line. She broke Mandy and Rays arms the last time we tested her. She is getting too strong.” Brining a hand up to his chin the higher up Bolden stepped out of the shadows and looked at me with deep interest before he turned to looked at the man and scoffed. As he walked away i felt a cold chill ran down my back as I anticipated what was to become of me; I knew it was nothing good i had already broken their rules. His next words only confirmed what I feared. “ Its simple. Break her spirit or kill her Doctor. And when i say break her i mean in anyway means necessary.” His sadistic laugh is the last thing i remember before everything went black.

Its been 2 years since i have escaped and now I’m living in the avengers tower. I don’t remember what happened after that night in my cell its all a blur of red, screams, and gunshots. When i woke up next i was in a 6ft crater where I was being held captive without a scratch on me. Trees were uprooted and fallen over as if a bomb went off. Luckily the Avengers showed up not long after me waking up and took me to their base where i met Directer Fury. With his permission and 24/7 surveillance provided by Tony Stark via FRIDAY and training sessions to get my powers under control i was allowed to join the Avengers and fight for good. Little did i know that by agreeing to this I would end up in the path of a certain God or Gods who were also taking residence at the tower.

With the sound of a *ding* the elevator shook me out of my mind and back to the present. As i exited the elevator I pulled my head phones out of my ears and was instantly met with the sound of Tony losing his mind. “Where did she go? She knows she can’t be out this late. She could be taken again! Its 5 minutes past her curfew!” Rolling my eyes I roll my headphones up and shove them in my pocket and round the corner. “Tony it takes 5 minutes to get from the lobby to the penthouse calm down. I bet she will walk through that door anytime now.” Came the sweet voice of reason of none other than Pepper Potts. “I’m Home.” I said in a deadpan voice as i walked by the couple only for Tony to stand up and intercept me by placing a hand on my upper arm. “Where did you go and why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” I looked at him and raised an eyebrow pushing his hand off me. “Tony its Wednesday. I have training with Strange on Wednesdays and I had Friday alert you as I was leaving but you were in the lab with Bruce.” Not sure what to say next Tony mumbled a small apology. “Sorry I was just worried about you. I know you are grown enough to make your own choices as you are 25 but I just want to make sure you are safe. How was the training with The Wizard?” Sighing and shaking my head just wanting to go the library and read I decided to just let it go. “Strange is a hard ass that much you already know. It wasnt bad actually I think I’m warming up to him. I didn’t spontaneously throw him to the wall when he snuck up behind me as i was going over the ancient texts so i call that improvement.” I said sheepishly while side stepping around him. “I’m gonna go to the library now and grab some light reading before bed you guys have a good night.” With out waiting for a response I quickly made my way towards my new destination only to have Tony saying something about guests in the house but I ignored him.

Pushing open the library door I make my way to the poetry section to grab my usual copy of Edgar Allen Poe that I read before bed. As my had reached for the spot i knew i put the book in i find that its not there. “Wait what? Where is my book? I know I put it back here before I left for training so where did it go?” Frustrated I stomp back over to the entrance and rip open the door ready to go on a murder spree while shouting down the hallway. “CLINT! You better give me back my night time book or I’m breaking all your arrows again! No one reads in this tower but me! How stupid do you think I am!?” Straining my ears I listen for any type of movement but was met with dead silence. After a minute I finally hear movement through the vents coming from the west part of the tower and I take off sprinting. Sliding around a corner I barely miss colliding with Steve and Bucky who look like they were on their way back from a mission. Offering a quick apology before I continue my pursuit I hear Steve yell “Hey! No running in the tower!” Not faltering in my hot pursuit of the Hawk thief I continue to zip through the tower ignoring the Captains words until i was almost to the vent that lead to the 2 level family room. Using the railing for the steps leading down to the family area to give me more height i jumped as close to the vent as possible and conjured my signature Scythe to slice through it while twisting in the air kicking the vent free and off its track. A shocked and terrified scream resonates from the vent as the culprit falls to the ground with a thud and a grunt. I landed in a crouched position and slowly straightened to my full hight. “What the hell Emy?! When did you learn to do that?!” Clint yells as he sits up rubbing his left shoulder that he landed on. I started stalking towards him with the blade of my scythe scrapping across the ground as i went while giving him a death glare. “Give me back my book Barton.” At the mention of his last name his head snapped up to me fear replacing the pain from his fall. “Oh shit last name not good.” Scrambling up on his feet he turns and runs towards the common room that connects to the elevator with me hot on his tail and my scythe trailing behind me in my right hand.

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit SHIT!!” He yells as he makes it fully to the room only to fling forward as i jump and kick his back tired of all the running. Twirling my weapon around I place it at his neck sneering at him. “I will not ask you again.” I said placing pressure on his neck with my blade. Sensing a fast moving object coming from my left from the kitchen I move my head back 3 inches as what looked like a hammer flew by me embedding itself in the wall. Turning my head slowly in the direction of the flying object, I confirmed it was indeed a hammer that was thrown at me. Irritation flared through me as i released Clint from the end of my scythe and turned fully to the kitchen to face my attacker. There stood 2 men that i did not recognize, one tall oak of a man with blond short hair, blue eyes and tan skin in blue jeans, a red T-shirt ,and grey jacket. the other shorter man made me stare at him and faultier for a second as he was so different from anyone i have ever seen, dark blue skin covered his entire body with darker almost black symbols and piercing red eyes, long black hair with black jeans, a green dress shirt and black jacket. Tearing my gaze away from his own curious one i looked between both men before i clenched my jaw letting my irritation settle back in. “Which one of you threw that hammer.” I said venom dripping with every word. “Whoa its ok Emy thats just Thor and Loki they are the asgardian Gods that live here in the tower part time when they are not in Norway.” Clint said standing up quickly. Not moving from my position i narrowed my eyes and flicked them over in Clint’s direction. The ground started to shake as my irritation and annoyance grew to anger remembering what i was doing before being interrupted by the Gods. Throwing his hands up in surrender he then quickly reached into his back pocket and retrieved my book. “Ok ok dont blow a fuse Em.” He said while tossing me my possession stopping me from causing an earthquake. Catching it in the air with my left had I inspected the book to make sure it wasn’t damaged before I let go of my scythe, with a wave of my hand it disappeared back to the pocket dimension I keep it in then looked back at Clint as the tremors stopped. “Touch my things again and i will be wearing your guts like my mom’s pashmina.” I said to the thief before walking out of the room and disappeared down the hallway not giving the Gods a second glance. As I entered my room i could hear a silky voice ring out from the kitchen. “Well isnt she interesting.”

Part 2 coming soon

@nickkie1129

[macgyvertape]

Castlevania kinda had a pacing problem

spoilers for all of Netflix’s Castlevania. I haven’t seen much analysis for the show on tumblr, im honestly curious if discussions I had with irl friends mirror what fandom talks about

tldr: Castlevania seems inconsistently paced from season to season, and within season as well, leads to a lot of characters motivations feeling unclear so characters repeatedly explain why they are doing something while they’re doing it

overview of the seasons:

S1 I know somewhat of a test for Netflix but it has good main trio character establishment and sets the scale of the conflict

s2: pretty complete emotional arc for most characters and resolves the plot of killing Dracula while setting up additional characters to continue the story. Isaac, Hector, Carmilla all established with the audience as characters whose story would continue

honestly I would bet this is the most popular season

S3: s2 did a bit of worldbuilding, but this season really fleshed out the world with both a wide range of locations and exploring the question of “what now, Dracula is dead but vampires and night creatures remain”.

There were basically 4 plot threads: 1) Sypha/Trevor investigating the cult & Saint Germain; 2) Hector & Carmilla (also introducing Lenore, Striga, Morana); 3) Isaac’s journey of revenge & self discovery; 4) Alucard sits around the castle and is betrayed.

overall characters roughly feel like they are in the same place if not worse. A big criticism I saw at the time, which hold up after rewatching this before s4 is nothing felt resolved for the main characters

I would say this season is where the pacing issues start to become apparent, juggling 4 plot threads that lack a central theme or even mutual character connection. If there was a central theme it would be “humans are awful to each other”. The Judge doing Hot Fuzz style murders, The Wizard in the tower, Sumi & Taka

S4: it starts with the same 4 plot threads, though upfront it is made clear that the plot theme is “people are trying to resurrect Dracula”, and the progression of the plot works to resolve unrelated plot threads until the main trio reunites for the boss fights. To me and my friends watching it was obvious that the show would reunite the main trio, the question was how and how far into the run time.

Season 4 is why I’m writing this essay, for the past 2 days I’ve been like, yeah that character sure explained their motives repeatedly maybe with some philosophical discussion, but it’s just such a weird place considering where they were in s3

Alucard’s arc:

Where he was left in season 3, it was after killing people he had trusted in self defense and impaling their corpses. It was clearly meant to parallel Dracula’s dislike of humanity. However overall his character lacked a proactive motivating force.

Honestly the most interesting thing I found in s3 was Alucard clearly misses Sypha and Trevor, however they don’t miss him or refer to him

One reason Sumi & Taka betray Alucard is for the secrets and power of Castlevania. After inviting the village including St Germain who Alucard was warned of into the Castle, Alucard makes 0 effort to secure anything, not even his personal childhood room. Guess he really learned nothing

Discussing St Germain, I think it’s funny that they had a several minute flashback sequence for his lost girlfriend (who doesn’t have a name or a voice actor), to remind the viewer of who he is, and to justify how he’s suddenly back and down for murder.

In s4 there is the call to help the village, and the walk back to the castle is a montage of Alucard opening up to Greta and becoming friendly literally overnight. He laughs off the impaling, and basically all of the darker things he went through in season 3, which has me asking what was the point of his season 3 arc then? 

Honestly writing this I realize the biggest parallel he has with Dracula is the call to action from a bold woman with a dramatic entrance speech which then leads to a romance

Isaac’s arc:

in s3, with all the other themes of “humanity sucks” I was always unsure if the townspeople were meant to appear irrational while attacking a larger force instead of letting him pass through an leave, or him not caring about how he’s provoking them is meant to show his insanity

ive seen the discussion elsewhere, curious about the Discourse here

is s4 Isaac has the whole monologue about how he now has agency but him gaining that agency was his s3 arc. In s4 he’s already at the point of accepting it. By the end of s4 he’s one of those who comes the furthest from his first character appearance to his last.

s4e5 where of Isaac attacking Carmilla in Isaac’s 2nd appearance had him resolving like 4 plot threads at once (Carmilla, Striga& Morana, Hector, and Isaac himself).

but i do wonder if Trevor, Sypha, or Alucard even know any of these people exist. I think not

I was honestly confused if I missed a scene from his dialogue about building something and what is inherent nature, to “My plan has evolved, my plan is now conquest” because he only conquests the one castle and the rest is left unclear

Upon rewatch the connection there is “killing [the wizard] felt just ... I liked that feeling”, so the show says that Isaac in the end attacked Carmilla for the sake of justice and not revenge.

Isaac in his last conversation expresses the theme of s4 “build something new on these old bones, where people can live for the future”

however, his arc honestly feel scenes were cut, and then dialogue was written around it. He’s the only living character who doesn’t show up in the epilogue and the sentient night creature “what if I could empty hell” dialogue was some of the most interesting worldbuilding. Night creatures with sentience and possibility of regaining memories!!!!

The Council of Sisters & Hector’s arc:

oh I’ve already seen s4 discourse about Lenore/Hector while searching for character analysis, a chunk of it seems to be rationalizing the absolute difference between how s3 ended with these characters and s4. It was extremely confusing for me and my friends; wondering if 1) was Hector showing more emotional intelligence than before and putting on a facade to cover up hatred? Nope 2) did more time pass than 6 weeks for there to be some kind stockholm syndrome? No, Hector seems fine to let Lenore kill herself

The slave control ring: played up in the climax of s3 and easily solved s4. s3 Lenore says if he tries to harm them, flee, or take it off it would cause crippling pain, in s4 Hector just easily cuts off his own finger.

for a control ring that they take time to show a version being on the Rebus, it doesn’t do much controlling of Hector

also guess the definition of “do harm” just refers to direct action

Lenore in s4: has no purpose in conquest, has that useless remarked on by multiple characters, is imprisoned, then kills herself after a genre aware philosophical discussion. This essay is long enough, but what the fuck happened to this character who ended s3 clearly physically and sexually abusive? Seriously this was one of the biggest writing changes to the point where she was treating Hector as an equal. Compare her last words in s3 “shh the real people [vampires] are talking”. The change in the relationship is actually something I would have taken being shown, or atleast told of what exactly caused this change other than the vague “you adopted him”

Striga&Morana get the best arc of the Council. 3 scenes: the tent argument, Daybreak armor fight & argument resolution, declaration of feelings and turning away. You could argue Castlevania is plot to be connective tissue between fight scenes, but for all the dialogue about human resistance in different seasons it was nice to see it. Overall the scenes were short but had a lot of showing what their relationship is not just telling,

unlike Carmilla. For as much hyping up as they did with her, and as much power as she had, she only appeared in 2 episodes and no other group except Isaac knew about her military conquest.

the map scene where she states her motive for conquest of wanting to take things from old men is the key example of how characterization became tell not show. How interesting was that monologue compared to the past seasons flashback to her murmuring the old vampire lord, or all her repeated insults of men/man-children that shows how she judges people??

That monologue had to carry the weight of justifying the Sisterhood bonds falling apart as well as why her motivation changed from building a human pen from Styria to Braila to world conquest. I think it did so poorly

Sypha & Trevor

really Sypha & Trevor have the main plot in the show. I checked and post season 1 the only episode they don’t appear in is s4e6, which is entirely devoted to the Isaac, Hector, and Council of Sisterhood arc. Their partnership and adventures are the main plot of the show.

Its easy to see what Trevor’s arc was over the show: coming to peace with the deaths of his family, taking up the mantle of being a Belmont, and starting a new family with Sypha.

With Sypha I actually had to scroll through tv tropes for what is her character arc, and I guess hers is disillusionment from adventure and life outside the speakers? My friends joke that Sypha’s magic is what the plot demands to look cool in a fight, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Tangent: the ending of their arc was easy to guess: as soon as Trevor went to fight the final boss alone I literally said “oh i bet Sypha’s pregnant, Trevor’s doing a heroic sacrifice, theyll use the unexplained magical dagger mcguffin, and 60/40 odds that he goes through an infinite corridor to outright come back vs just the implication he might come back”

I guess my final thought of the show, was overall the SUPER Final Boss got my by surprise. It was a good twist I enjoyed. Not that Death appeared, I had guessed that from the heavy foreshadowing, but I was surprised by who it was, because I had thought I thought the characters involved feeling shoehorned into the plot was just more bad writing. The Alchemist who put St Germain on the path or murder for no discernible motive for helping? Sure gotta move the plot along. New Dracula court member Varney who has a whole introduction with almost every character he meets and banter about his smell? Sure thats basically how all characters talk with a snarky and acerbic voice.

[toomuchtv95]

Life Saver

Fandom: Chicago PD / One Chicago

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Wife!Reader

Warning/s: Poorly writing medical talk, Pregnancy, Fluff 

Word Count: 2.4k+ 

Request:  Hey can you do a reader wife x Jay halstead where she had gone to check on Pat halstead when the fire happened and she somehow manages to save him and take him med but due smoke inhalation she falls into coma and the test also show that she pregnant.

A/N: I hope you do mind that I changed up the request slightly and I also did change up the plot of the episode just because it made sense of how I writing this. 

Masterlist  Mobile Masterlist

Wednesday mornings were always a little hectic in the Halstead household. Wednesday mornings you usually head over to your father in-law’s apartment to do your weekly check-in with him since Jay and his father since still aren’t talking unless it involved yelling at each other. You and Pat had been doing these weekly meetups since you and Jay had started your relationship. Pat was welcoming to you which shocked both brothers considering he didn’t even get alone with his own sons.

“Morning.” You walked into the kitchen to see your husband pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Morning, beautiful.” Jay looked up at you with a smile on his face. A soft smile spread across your face as you placed a hand on his upper arm before leaning in and giving him a soft kiss. “Want something to eat?”

“No, I’m good. I’m grabbing bagels and coffee on the way to your dad's.” You kissed his cheek as you walked over to the kitchen table to grab your gun and badge, but your work phone was missing which was weird cause that was you left it last night. “Have you seen my-” You turned around to see Jay standing next to you with your phone in his hand.

“Right, today’s Wednesday.” Jay handed you your phone before taking a sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, it usually comes after Tuesday.” You smiled at him while shoving your phone in your pocket, before clipping both your gun and badge to your waistband.

“Are you-”

“Don’t start with me.” You leaned forward and kissed his cheek before turning and leaving the kitchen with Jay close on your tail. Walking towards the front door, you grabbed your coat from the coat rack and turned around to see Jay leaning against the railing of the stairs leading upstairs. “I gotta go.” You stepped closer to Jay before leaning forward and connecting your lips to his. Jay placed his free hand on your upper arm pulling you as close as he can to him.

After a moment, Jay pulled away and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You peaked his lips one last time before pulling back. “Okay, I need to go now.” You grabbed your keys off the table near the front door before opening the door to leave.

“Be safe out there.”

“Right back at you.” You turn around with a smile on your face.

“I don’t understand.” Jay stood outside of your hospital room with his brother Will, who was trying to explain to his brother your condition.

“Because of all the smoke she took in, it caused some inflammation around her airway and lungs. When they brought her in, she was already struggling to breathe.” Will reached over to place a hand on his brother's shoulder for comfort. “The only way to help her heal and breath was to put her in medically induce a coma.”

“A coma?” Jay was still confused about what was happening. “Is she going to wake up?” Tears formed in his eyes as he glanced over at your body that had wires connected to machines and a tube down your throat to help you breathe.

“She needs time for the swelling to go down around her airway before we can wake her up. She on a bunch of medicine to help. We are hoping that it’s no longer than a week.” Will looked at Jay who was on the verge of a breakdown and the other new he had to share he wasn’t sure how he would take it. “There’s more.”

“What do you mean there’s more?” Jay was aggravated not at his brother, not at you, just at the situation. He never imagined that this could happen. Sure, you’ve been shot at, broke bones, consciousness, and everything else the job came with, but never this.

“There is some good news out of this.” Will looked over at your body with a small smile on his face. “Her blood work came back, and everything came back in range for her condition except for one thing.” Jay looked at his brother waiting for the shoe to drop. What else could he possibly have to say to make this better? “Y/N is pregnant. She’s about 6 weeks along.”

“Wait what?” Jay was in complete shock because the two of you weren’t even trying for kids at least not anytime soon. Sure, the two of talked about kids and you both wanted them but the two you just got married within the last years and still were enjoying being married and just the two of you.

“You’re going to be a father, Jay.”

Jay couldn’t even wrap his head around what was happening, and once Jay turned to look at his wife, it hit him. “I’m going to be a father,” Jay whispered. “Wait, if she’s in a coma and-”

“The pregnancy is early enough to where the smoke inhalation didn’t do any damage to the baby. And for her being in a coma, it won’t do any harm to the baby either.” With that said, Will’s pager went off, notifying him he was needed back in the ED. “She got all those people off that floor, including dad. And before you go on a rampage, know that no matter who was on that floor she would have done it regardless. It’s her job as the first responder to jump into action.” Before leaving Will pulled Jay into a hug before letting him know that he would be back later to check on her.

Taking a deep breath, Jay walked into your room and stared at your lifeless body. Grabbing the chair, he pulled it over to the side of the bed and took your hand. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but Will says that you might.” He closed his eyes as he tried to hold back his tears. “I love you so much and need you to pull through this. I need you. You are my lifesaver. If it weren’t for you, I would still be in that dark hole that I was digging myself into.” His chest heaved with a quiet sob, and tears welled up behind his eyelids, slipping down his cheeks without resistance.

“On the bright side of all of this, Will did deliver some shocking yet good news.” Jay squeezed your hand tighter. “It looks like it’s not just gonna be the two of us anymore.” A small smile formed on his face as he thought about becoming a father. “So, you need to make it out of this because I can’t do this alone.”

It’s been almost a week since you were brought into Med and you were still in a coma, but Will assured Jay that things are moving in the right direction. A couple of days ago, they had taken the breathing tube out, because the swelling around your airway had gone down enough to were you were breathing on your own. There was still some swelling around your lungs, but the medication you were on was helping and it was going to take some time for it to heal. On a positive note, today was the day they were going to wake you up because of all your vital signs where they were needed to be to wake you. They had a few hours until they were going to wake up, so Jay decided to run around and get some errands done.

“Here again, pops?” Will walked into your room to check on you when he saw his father sitting in the chair next to your bed. Ever since you been in the hospital, Pat had to visit you every day and just sat there with you. Since the fire Jay and his father have gotten along a lot better than they used to. Pat was thrilled to learn that he was going to a grandfather and being trapped in that fire, just made him realize that life is to short to be picking stupid fights with his sons.

“Well, I wanted to be here when they woke her up.” Pat placed the newspaper he was reading down on the table near the bed before looking up at his son.

“It’s gonna be a couple of hours.” Will walked over to the machines to record your vitals.

“I don’t mind,” with that said, Will mentioned to his father that Jay should be here in a little bit before disappearing to treat his other patients. Pat looked over at you with a small smile on his face. “I know I’ve never said this before but I’m glad you came into Jay’s life when you did. If it weren’t for you, he would still be in a dark place. When he returned from the war he was in a dark place and then you came around and his whole world was flipped around. I’m just glad that he manned up and told you how he felt.” Pat let out a dry chuckle at the last part. “I’m glad I have you as a daughter and I couldn’t be more thrilled to become a grandfather.”

Hours passed and it was finally time to wake you up and Jay was more than ready. “Once we lighten the sedation, she may or may not wake up right away, it’s perfectly normal. It could take a while.” Will handed Jay the paper for his consent. Once Jay signed the papers, Will motions for the nurse to inject the medicine into your IV. “I’m going to go find dad. He wanted to hear when she woke up. Give it time. She will wake up.” Will patted his shoulder as he left Jay alone with his wife.

20mins passed and you were still not awake, but Jay was staying positive. Jay was staring out the window with his arms folded against his chest. “Jay…” Jay snapped his head in your direction and when he saw that you were awake, he sprinted over to you. You glanced over at the water on the bedside table which Jay took as his cue to give you some water.

After taking a few sips of water, Jay put the cup back on the table and stood by your bedside while stroking your hair. “What happened?” You spoke in a low tone almost a whisper.

“You’re at med.” Jay sat on the edge of your bed holding your hand. “Do you remember what happen?”

“I remember I was having breakfast with your dad and then there was a fire.” You let out a soft cough which caused your throat to ache. “Then I remember the ambulance ride to med, but that’s about it. How long was I out for?”

“Sweetheart,” Jay's face softened, and you knew Jay too well to know that something was wrong.

“What is it, Jay?”

“There’s no easy way to tell you this,” Jay took a deep into your eyes before continuing. “Because of the smoke you took it, both your airway and lungs were inflamed. You were struggling to breathe when you came into the ED and the only way to help you breathe and heal was to put you in a medically induced coma.”

A coma? How long have you been out for then? “Jay, how long?” You weren’t sure you wanted to know, but you knew you had to know.

“A week,” you were in complete shock. You struggled to sit up on your own, so Jay lightly grabbed your one arm and used his other arm to place behind your back to gently move you to sit up.

“How’s your dad? Is he okay?” Jay gave you a soft small, knowing that was going to be your first question. You always put other people’s needs before you, which was one of the reasons why fell in love with you all those years ago.

“He’s fine. Suffered a little smoke inhalation. He was here every day for the last week, sitting here with you.” Jay reached over and stroked your cheek with his thumb before moving a strand of hair behind your ear. “When I heard about the fire at dad’s apartment building, I got really worried. I thought I was going to lose you.” You could sense that Jay was holding back something else and just as you about to ask, Jay spoke up. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Jay whatever it-”

“We are going to be parents sooner then we planned.” You looked at Jay with confusion. “Your about 7 weeks along. And before you started panicking about the health of the baby because of the smoke, Will said that the baby is perfectly healthy.”

As you sat there, tears formed in your eyes not out of sadness but out of joy. You looked up at Jay and all you could do was use whatever strength you had in you to pull Jay in for a passionate kiss. Jay returns the kiss with everything he had. After a moment, Jay pulled away slightly and rested his forehead against yours.

“We are going to be a family.” You rested your hand on his cheek before planted another soft kiss on lips. “I love you, Jay.”

“I love you, more.”

[roman-writing]

no great revelation (6/8)

Fandom(s): The Haunting of Bly Manor / Star Wars

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor

Rating: M

Wordcount: 6,797

Summary: Jamie  just wants to enjoy a drink after a hard day’s work on the Telosian  Restoration Project. The last thing she needs is to get herself  caught  up in a mysterious woman with a lightsabre at the local bar.

Aurthor’s notes: Please note the rating change

read it below or read it here on AO3

VI.

—

It was somewhat gratifying to know that Jamie wasn’t the only one who was absolute shit at meditation. 

“This is pointless,” said Dani with her eyes closed. 

“You’re telling me,” Jamie muttered, her eyes also shut.

They were both seated on the massive bed, cross-legged and facing one another. Jamie had ordered the ship’s computer to dim the lights, so that the room was dusky, the ship’s computer even going so far as to project pinpricks of light onto the high ceiling like a map of stars. Back when Jamie had been a padawan, the Jedi Masters used to do something similar back on Tython to encourage that e’er-elusive quest for inner peace. Jamie used to take the opportunity to take a quick nap while she pretended to meditate, but she couldn’t do that now because she was trying to set a good example or whatever. 

“Have you tried slowing down your breathing?” Jamie asked, keeping her eyes closed and straightening her shoulders a bit.

“This is just how I breathe.”

“Yeah, but have you tried slowing it down?”

“When I do that it just feels like I’m slowly drowning.”

“Okay, then what about relaxing your body one part at a time?”

“One -? What?”

“You know. Think about relaxing just the muscles of your face, and then move on to your shoulders, and so on.”

Dani huffed, and Jamie heard her shifting her weight on the bed before going still. All was silent but for the pattern of their breathing and Jamie’s heartbeat accompanying it like a percussion instrument. Sitting still. Being still. Thinking and doing nothing. In short, the most difficult activity for Jamie to attempt ever in her life. She would rather be back on Peter Quint’s flagship, dodging blaster fire. 

Okay, maybe not that far. But honestly sitting still for long periods of time really was her own personal hell.

The air whispered with a hint of cold, like standing in a room with a window open, the tendril of an icy draught threading its way inside. Jamie shrugged against it, but kept her eyes closed. It was only when the whisper of cold lifted to a prickle, when the sound of Dani’s breathing grew too shallow, that Jamie’s eyes flew open. 

Dani was still seated on the bed, eyes squeezed shut, brows furrowed, every exhalation through her nose a plume of white steam, shivering as if she were on the surface of an ice planet instead of in the warm safety of the luxury cruiser. 

Immediately Jamie grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Woah. Woah woah woah. Not that way.” 

Dani jerked as though she had just been shaken away from a deep sleep. Her eyes were on the edge of wild as she looked around the room, her breathing heavy and sharp and slowing when she remembered where exactly she was. 

“Oh,” she said with a guilty glance towards Jamie. “Did I - Did I do it again?” 

With a stroke of her thumb across the back of Dani’s cold hand, Jamie nodded. “Yeah.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean -” 

“I know,” Jamie murmured. “I know. Don’t worry. This time tomorrow, we’ll be on Tython, and we can get you a much better teacher than me.” 

Dani swallowed and nodded, but her expression was unsure, reluctant even. 

“You’ll like Hannah and Owen,” Jamie insisted. “If anyone can teach you, they can.”

“It’s not that. It’s just -” Dani turned her face away and exhaled. She chewed at her lower lip. “What if I’m caught? What if The Order doesn’t care that I was - that I’m not -”

Frowning, Jamie asked, “Not what?” 

“Good,” said Dani.

“What like -?” Jamie grinned. “Not good at the Force? ‘Cause they’d throw me out on my ass with nary a care if that were the case.” 

“No, that’s not what I -” Dani’s teeth were clenched, the muscles bunched up between the line of her neck and her jawline. “I killed people. I killed a Jedi. There’s already an investigation into his murder. And I can’t even channel the Force on my own without slipping into the Dark.”

Jamie shook her head while she listened. “You weren’t yourself. And once we find a cure for whatever is going on with you, then you can be trained properly.”

“What if we can’t?” Dani whispered. “What if there’s nothing to be done? What if I’ll always have this - this angry, empty, lonely thing haunting me?”

Jamie rocked Dani’s hand beneath her own gently. “We’ll find a way. We just need to take it one day at a time.”

Every muscle in Dani’s body seemed to be held taut. The tightness of her jaw. The flex of her hands. The bunching of her shoulders and the muscles all along her spine. Her hand was still cold under Jamie’s grasp, though the wintry edge had been blunted from the air around her. Jamie offered her an encouraging smile, but did not receive one in return. 

“We should get some sleep,” Jamie sighed, pulling away. “We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow -”

But Dani was scrambling to her knees and she was gripping Jamie’s hand tightly in her own before Jamie could fully let go. Her fingers trembled and her eyes were overbright, fixed and unblinking upon Jamie’s, holding her fast. “Not yet,” she said quickly. “Not - I want to feel it again. Please. I want to feel good. I want - I want to feel you.”

Jamie could already feel the thrum beneath her skin, the Force like a tether between them, on the brink, but there. As if Dani were reaching out then waiting for permission to drag her in. 

For the last four years, Jamie had been telling herself to keep her head down. Don't get involved. Mind her own bloody business. Don't do what she did back in ExplorCorps and paint a great big fuckoff target on her own back. And for four years, she had done exactly that. Telos IV and the AgriCorps were a fresh start, a good life, a simple, boring life. All it had taken to completely upend that life was a week of Dani Clayton.

Jamie nodded. Because it made relief sweep over Dani's face. Because it made Dani smile at her with that big smile that crinkled her eyes and creased her cheeks. Because it meant that connection snapped taut like a wire, drew them together into something more than the sum of their parts, more than this crude matter. Because it did indeed feel good. 

Each brief contact of the Force between them had remained discrete in the past. Stolen moments in which Jamie tried to coax Dani towards the Light on her own. Now, Dani gripped her hand to keep the connection alive, a current like static, like the movement between the inchoate and the flourishing, and it extended to the horizon. Dani's eyes dropped to her mouth and Jamie should've known this was coming, shouldn't have been as surprised as she was when Dani leaned forward to kiss her.

Bad idea, Jamie’s pesky little inner voice kept saying over and over like a mantra. Bad idea. This is a bad idea. A very very bad -

She should have pulled away, called this off, cut the line. Except Dani was warm and solid and groaning low into Jamie’s mouth, a sound that coiled heat in the pit of Jamie’s stomach. She cupped Dani’s cheek with one hand, allowed herself to welter for a lingering moment in the softness of Dani's mouth, in the texture of her jaw, before she pulled them apart just enough to breathe, their foreheads still pressed together.

"I want -" Dani murmured urgently, so close Jamie could taste the words on her lips. Her free hand had grasped Jamie's collar, rumpling the starched white fabric in her fist. "Can I -?"

"Yeah," Jamie breathed, throwing any vestigial scrap of self-preservation out the airlock.

Dani kissed her again with a grateful sigh. Jamie couldn’t remember ever being kissed quite like this. With singular focus. As if there was nothing else in the world for Dani to do but kiss her and pour everything of herself into it. 

"Kept thinking about this," Dani mumbled against her lips.

"Explains why you're so shit at meditation."

Dani huffed out a laugh and pressed her smile to Jamie's. She pulled at Jamie's collar shifting forward on her knees so she could lean over Jamie and turn the kiss from giddy glee to hungry in an instant. Jamie took off Dani's headband and threw it onto the bedside table beside the lightsabre so she could rake her hands through Dani's hair. With a tilt of her head, Dani opened her mouth and Jamie would've been appalled at her own weak whimper if she'd been in any state to care. She couldn’t. Not when Dani was kissing her like this. Not when Dani was pushing Jamie onto the bed and straddling her hips. Not when Dani was tugging the buttons of Jamie’s shirt free with trembling fingers. 

They didn’t break contact even when Dani paused to gasp at Jamie’s thigh pressing up between her legs. Always some section of skin was touching, so that the link remained, buzzing around in the back of Jamie’s head like an amplifier. Every movement, every sound an echo caught on a feedback loop, building to something impossible to miss. Jamie could feel the way Dani’s blood stirred in her veins, the way Dani was grinding down against her thigh, the way Dani was tugging the shirt down her shoulders and casting it aside, as though the sensations were her own, but muted — a phantom feeling. 

When she had imagined this  — and over the last few days on the luxury cruiser, Jamie had in great detail imagined this — it had always been a slow, coltish thing. All start and stop, lazy hesitance and careful exploration. In her mind, Dani was keen but skittish, wanting but indecisive. Something to do perhaps with the long glances sent in Jamie’s direction, or the distrustful ventures into the Force. When it came to this however, Dani was uncertain about nothing. 

Dani made excited little sounds against Jamie’s exposed neck when Jamie began to fumble with the button that fastened her pants. Jamie tugged at the zipper and Dani lifted herself up just enough so that Jamie could slip her hand down. Tugging lightly at Dani’s hair to get her to tilt her head back, Jamie sought out Dani’s pulsepoint with her mouth just as her fingers sought out slick heat. 

There were too many clothes between them, far too many, but neither of them could bring themselves to pause for long enough to fix that. The pants shoved partway down Dani’s thighs gave Jamie little room to manoeuvre, but she had two fingers inside of Dani, and Dani was sitting upright to rock her hips at a better angle, eyes lidded, lips parted on a stuttered sigh.

“That’s -” Dani’s breath hitched. “Yes - Right there - Please -”

Jamie had to bite back a groan of her own when Dani bucked against her hand and made a high desperate sound, clenched and shivering, and the moment going on as it echoed back and forth, mirrored and caught between them. Feeling this good, this alive, this conjoined, then chasing after it with a fervor as Dani leaned down at the same time Jamie pushed herself up to kiss her hard.

“Keep going,” Dani panted against Jamie’s mouth, then gave a feeble cry when Jamie did exactly that  — curled her fingers and ground her palm up until Dani was shuddering again, until she was spent.

Dani’s forehead dropped to Jamie’s shoulder to catch her breath. Jamie placed her free hand against Dani’s back, holding her close. She twitched the fingers still inside Dani, just an experimental press, and received a sharp inhalation.

“Too much?” Jamie asked softly.

“A little. Do it again.”

There was no building up to anything with it, just an extension of what had come before, flickers of pleasure that sparked at the edges of her vision, until Dani reached down to slide Jamie’s fingers out and lift them to her mouth. 

“Fuck,” Jamie hissed as Dani licked her sticky fingers clean then nipped at her fingertips.

Dani glanced down Jamie’s chest, one hand drifting inquisitively over the high-waisted hem of her black slacks. “Is it all right, if I -?”

Jamie was already nodding before Dani could finish the sentence. “Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you want.” 

When Dani pulled away to quickly shed her own clothes, Jamie felt the loss of that link like a light suddenly going out. She blinked and skimmed her fingertips along the curve of Dani’s elbow just to re-establish that contact until Dani had finished, until Dani was tugging the slacks down Jamie’s legs, smoothing her hands up Jamie’s bare thighs and watching her with hunger in her eyes. 

Jamie settled back on her elbows, biting her lip, gaze fixed upon Dani as she lowered her head and parted Jamie with her tongue. She wanted to watch  — eyes glued to the way Dani’s mouth moved against her, the way Dani urged her knees wider — but Jamie could not help how her eyes rolled back and she sank back onto the mattress with an embarrassingly loud sound despite how she tried to trap it behind her teeth. 

She twined her hands in Dani’s soft hair and guided her head, shivering when Dani moaned against her in return. Maybe it was the sequence of events, being the one to make Dani completely fall apart while feeling the echo of that pleasure, but soon Jamie’s hips were jerking out of rhythm and she was raking her nails down the back of Dani’s neck and shoulders  — anywhere she could reach  — desperate and hurtling over the edge. Even after she had finished, breathlessly staring up at the star-studded ceiling, Dani toyed at Jamie with the tip of her tongue, just softly, just enough to keep her suspended like a bridge held aloft by the tightness of a rope. 

And as Dani crawled back up her body to curl up against her, Jamie could think only that  — of all the bad decisions in her life, this one would surely have the most dire consequences. She just didn’t know what those might be, and she was afraid of ever finding out. 

—

There wasn’t much to pack, if anything. The majority of belongings they had begun with on this trip had been abandoned back on the Czerka flagship. Jamie was still lamenting the loss of her favourite pair of overalls and band shirt combination — wrecked at the courtesy of none other than Peter fucking Quint himself — as she pocketed her handheld mining laser. Behind her, Dani was fussing with her headband, trying to tease her hair into just the right shape all without the aid of a mirror.

“Does this look okay?” she asked, hands still tucking stray strands back.

A little flatter than usual, but all Jamie said was, “You look great. Better than me. Not that that’s hard.”

Dani smiled, lowering her hands only to approach Jamie and fix her starched white collar. “I think you look wonderful.”

Jamie made a face. “These clothes make me feel like I’m a conductor for a galactic circus.” 

“You look very rakish. Like you’re about to strike some shady business deal.”

“Oh, well, if I’m rakish, then that’s all right.” 

Dani’s smile ticked up at one corner and she leaned forward to kiss her. Jamie remembered waking up to a similar scene not long ago. A morning spent in much slower exploration than the previous evening until they were finger-mussed and kiss-bruised and had to go seeking a much-needed shower, during which Dani had ignored the mirrors in favour of pressing Jamie up against a tiled wall and putting her hands between her legs.

Now Dani put a hand to the small of Jamie’s back and pressed lightly, just enough to brush their hips together. Jamie opened her mouth as Dani’s tongue swept against hers.

A low chime from the ceiling. “Excuse me,” said the ship’s computer. “But we have arrived.”

Jamie pulled away. “We should probably go.” 

“Yeah,” Dani nodded, but her gaze was fixed on Jamie’s mouth, as though she wanted nothing more than to lean back in and pick up where they’d left off this morning. 

Jamie patted her arm and reached around to remove Dani’s hand from her waist. “Later.”

“Promise?” 

With a soft huff of laughter, Jamie answered with another lingering kiss. A coil of heat wound tight in her stomach, and she stepped back before it could take root. “C’mon. Let’s go.” 

Only reluctantly did Dani let herself be led from the luxury cruiser by the hand. The ship lowered the gangway for them with a jettison of atmo as it repressurised. The muggy air of Tython bore with it the old familiar smell of dense vegetation, even here on the planet’s major space station. As the station was revealed and all its bustling people and droids, Dani squeezed Jamie’s hand. Jamie looked up to find Dani nervously chewing her lower lip and staring out at the people, many of them wearing robes of various cut and colour, though their occupation was clear. 

Squeezing her hand back before letting it go, Jamie opened her mouth to give an encouraging word, but before she could speak there came a low chime from the speaker ports.

“How would you like me to wait for your return?” the ship’s computer asked.

“Oh, uh -” said Jamie. “How much is it to dock here?”

“One hundred and thirty-five credits per day.”

“A hundred and thirty-five?” Jamie repeated, incredulous. 

“Do you not have enough credits to afford this?” 

Scowling, Jamie fired back, “Are you always this much of a tit?”

“Query irresolvable,” the ship’s computer responded. “I have no anatomy, because I have no body. I do, however, have a stockpile of credits from Czerka Corporation in a private account tied to this vessel and accessible only by this vessel.”

Jamie shot the speaker ports a puzzled glance. “And how long could you remain docked using this private account?”

“Approximately two hundred and three years.”

Jamie’s eyes widened as she did some quick maths in her head. 

“Would you like me to dock here for two hundred and three years?”

“What?” Jamie shook her head. “No! Just - stay here until we get back. And don’t let anyone else aboard.” 

“Affirmative, Bollocks.”

Muttering expletives under her breath, Jamie continued down the gangway. 

“So, you’re rich now?” Dani asked. 

“Only if I survive the next week,” Jamie said. “I’m going to worry about that later. C’mon. I see Owen over there.”

Dani’s head jerked up and she glanced around with wide eyes. Jamie smiled and shook her head, walking along with Dani trailing in her wake. Owen stood near the station entrance, wearing blue robes dusted with flour handprints, and a sheathed lightsabre at his hip. His moustache twitched in a smile when he noticed her approach and he stepped forward to squeeze Jamie in a hug that picked her up a good half meter off the ground. 

“Oooof,” said Jamie as he set her back down, hands remaining on her shoulders.

“Look at you,” Owen said. “What do they feed you on Telos? Raw air and nothing else?”

She swatted his hands from her shoulders. “Fuck off. And why do you look like you’ve just escaped a bakery?”

“I’ve taken an interest in cooking while you’ve been away.” 

“Thought you were supposed to be a healer, mate.”

“Food,” said Owen very seriously, “is healing. And I’ll not have you - oh no. Jamie. You didn’t.”

He was staring over her shoulder at something behind her. Jamie turned, only to find Dani standing there awkwardly toying with her own fingers as she witnessed their reunion, her mismatched eyes wary. Owen’s face went from confused, to aghast, then to hard and guarded.

“I can explain -” Jamie started to say.

Owen pointed — not at Dani but at the sleek luxury cruiser they’d just disembarked. “You told us you were done with smuggling for good.”

"It's not like that!" Jamie insisted.

“You wait ‘till Hannah hears about this, young lady,” he said with faux gravitas, wagging a finger under her nose. 

“Oh, come off it!” 

Grinning, Owen stepped forward to Dani with his hand outstretched. “You must be Miss Clayton. I trust you’ve been making sure Jamie hasn’t been getting into any trouble?”

With a breathy laugh, Dani hesitated to take his hand before finally shaking it as if expecting to be struck by sudden lightning. “To the contrary.” 

He narrowed his eyes towards Jamie. “That doesn’t sound right. Has she been ill?”

“Oi!” Jamie snapped.

Owen chuckled, letting go of Dani’s hand and making shooing motions at the two of them. “Off we hop, then. I have the landspeeder parked outside and dinner in the oven.” 

“Is that a euphemism?” asked Jamie.

Owen made no gesture, but Jamie felt a light repreminanding flick of the Force at the back of her head. “Don’t be naughty, now. We have a guest.” 

Rubbing at the back of her head, Jamie followed him to the landspeeder. She offered Dani a brief encouraging smile, receiving something tremulous in return. 

“He seems nice,” Dani said in a low voice.

“I am,” said Owen without turning around. “Thank you.”

Leaning closer to Dani, Jamie whispered, “And he’s got big ears.”

“I do, yes. Who wants the front seat?” 

Jamie let Dani take it, so she herself could sprawl across the whole back seat and lean her head over the side of the landspeeder, the wind ruffling her unruly curls. In the front seat, Owen did his best to put Dani at ease while he drove, occupying her with polite talk of her home planet, Alderaan, how it compared to Tython, etc. Jamie only piped up when she heard her own name spoken, usually to correct one of Owen’s tall tales about her, which made Dani’s mouth curve in a smile that Jamie wanted to kiss away. 

They had landed on the planet at dusk, and by the time they arrived at Hannah’s apartment in the outer fringes of the Temple complex it was dark. Hannah was sitting on a couch and scrolling through a dry holo feed depicting ancient texts, when Owen ushered them through the front door and into the lounge. In robes of rich burgundy hues against her dark skin, she was a picture of elegance just as Jamie remembered. Immediately she swiped the holo feed away and rose to her feet, crossing the room to pull Jamie into a warm hug and greet Dani with an outstretched hand. 

“Do you want drinks?” Hannah asked. “Only I believe Owen had a specific wine he wanted to pair with tonight’s dinner.”

“Did you turn off the oven at -?” Owen started to ask but Hannah simply patted his darkly stubbled cheek.

“Of course I did, silly man. What do you take me for?” Hannah chided. 

He grinned but made no move to lean into the gesture or otherwise react, and soon Hannah dropped her hand. Owen disappeared into the kitchen while Hannah urged Dani and Jamie to sit. Jamie sat on the couch, and when Dani sat beside her it was so close their thighs pressed together. Hannah’s dark eyes flicked down to note this, but she simply smiled and inquired about their trip. 

With a hand towel tossed over one shoulder, Owen emerged from the kitchen not long later with a platter of savoury pastries, which he set on a table for easy access. Jamie swiped one up with an eager hand. 

“Not bad,” she said to Owen, mid-chew. “I can feel my latest scar healing up already.” 

“Shush you,” Owen said, swatting at her knees with the hand towel. Jamie snickered and reached for another pastry. 

Meanwhile Hannah had sat on a lone armchair and turned her attention to Dani. “Jamie mentioned she had a Force Sensitive friend with a peculiar - ah - predicament, so to speak. She brought you to the right place.” 

“Oh, I’m not,” Dani said with a flighty motion of her hand, “Force Sensitive.”

Hannah tilted her head. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s not me that uses the Force. It’s -” she pointed to her eye, the one that burned a constant gold these days, “- whatever this is.” 

“And what makes you think you have nothing to do with it?” Hannah asked. 

“Well,” Dani fumbled for a response. She was perched at the very edge of the couch, knees tucked together as if expecting a scolding from a teacher. “Peter said -”

“Peter?” Hannah rounded on Jamie with a flinty expression. “Don’t tell me you’re still getting yourself tied up with the likes of Peter bloody Quint.”

“I’m not!” Jamie said, trying to sound indignant but doing a very poor job of it since her mouth was full of pastry. She chewed quickly and swallowed so she could better defend herself. “Besides, he’s dead now!” 

“Oh, that is a shame,” Owen sighed dreamily. “I would’ve liked to have seen it myself.” 

“Who was the lucky bastard who killed him?” Hannah asked. 

From the couch, Dani cleared her throat uncomfortably, then lifted her hand in a miserable little wave. Both Owen and Hannah exchanged surprised glances. 

“It was an accident,” Dani said in a small voice. 

“Well, brava,” said Owen. 

Dani closed her eyes. “Please, don’t. I - uh -” she drew in a trembling breath and forged on, “I don’t know exactly what Jamie told you, but he wasn’t the only one.” 

“Ah,” said Hannah shortly. “Yes, she did mention something about that. The dead Consular out by Vurdon Ka. Edmund, was it?” 

Dani’s only reply was to nod and stare down at her socks; they’d all removed their shoes at the front door and set them into the cloak closet. 

“Can’t imagine the investigation will come poking around here,” Owen added. “They’ll think you’ve run off to the Outer Rim to hide.” 

Hannah hummed. “Yes, well, best we keep Miss Clayton inside for the duration of her visit, anyway.” 

Dani stared at them in utter bewilderment. “But don’t you - Shouldn’t you be reporting me to the authorities?” 

Owen tipped his head towards Jamie. “If this one vouches for you, then I believe you.”

Placing her hand over her heart, Jamie said, “That’s so romantic. You going soft on me?”

He knocked his foot against her ankle. “You wish.” 

“If what you say is true,” said Hannah, ignoring their antics, “and you’re being inhabited by some Sith entity, then I rather think it our duty to help you, not put you down like a rabid dog.” 

Owen cleared his throat. “About the Sith entity thing. Can we go back to that?”

"Quint said something about a -" Jamie trailed off, then turned to Dani. "What did he call it? The glowy box?"

"A holocron," Dani said.

Both Hannah and Owen turned to look at them with such sudden sharpness that Jamie nearly took a step back in surprise.

"A holocron," Hannah repeated. “You’re sure?”

"What colour was it?" Owen asked Dani before she could answer Hannah’s question. "Was it blue? Please say it was blue. I'll even take green."

Dani blinked, taken aback, and glanced nervously between them and Jamie before she answered, "It was red."

Hannah drew in a sharp breath and Owen grimaced as though he'd just been shot in the leg.

“Where is it now?” Hannah asked. 

"Gone," Jamie said with a shake of her head. "In bits and pieces back on Quint's flagship."

"Not all of it."

The three of them — Hannah, Owen, and Jamie — all turned their attention to Dani, who was wringing her hands together in her lap. Then she reached into the sewn up makeshift pocket of her cloak and pulled out a single shard of black gold metal. 

"I kept one of the pieces," Dani explained, holding it out towards them. "In case — I don't know — in case Peter tried to put it back together again." 

“May I?” Hannah held out her hand. 

Dani passed it over to her. Carefully, Hannah inspected it. Thin, triangular and gleaming darkly in the light. Jamie thought she could almost hear a faint whisper when she looked at it for too long, a cold fingertip brushing against the back of her neck, travelling down the length of her spine.

“There is part of an inscription here in the old Sith Tongue,” Hannah said, and she spoke a series of guttural words that seemed to darken the very air around her before translating them. “I sleep. I wake. I walk.” 

“Mmm,” said Owen. “Hate that.” 

“I’m so glad you two know what the hell is going on,” Jamie said dryly. 

Shooting Jamie an exasperated look, Hannah handed the shard back to Dani. “Thank you, dear. What you have there is a piece of a very rare storage device made with the Force. Undoubtedly Sith in origin, and very ancient, too. Jedi use them as well. Holocrons contain information. Secrets. Wisdom. Power.”

Dani turned the metallic triangle over between the fingers as if trying to read the same inscription, or to glean something more. “And what did this one hold?” 

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Hannah said with a soft smile. “Whatever that holocron once held is long gone now.”

Dani clenched the triangle in one fist. “But what if we had all the pieces?”

“Perhaps that would accomplish something. I doubt it.” Then Hannah added wryly, “You might be able to make a very fine lamp.” 

In the other armchair, Owen snorted. Without looking in his direction, Jamie aimed a kick at his leg, which he easily dodged.

“That can’t be everything,” Dani said, knuckles going white, voice going shaky. “You have to know something more. There has to be more.” 

Hannah shrugged. “I’ll look through the archives tonight. Maybe then we will have more answers.” 

“That’s -”

"Tomorrow," said Hannah firmly yet kindly. She stood and urged Dani to her feet as well.

"But -" Dani started to say.

Hannah put a warm hand on Dani shoulder and steered her towards the dining room. "Tomorrow," she repeated. "We cannot solve the galaxy's problems in an evening."

—

After dinner, they retired to the lounge over a glass of wine. Hannah took Dani aside, where they murmured away together in a corner, while Jamie and Owen sat in armchairs across a polished stone firepit that had been dug into the ground. Dani wandered off to bed not long after with a lingering glance in Jamie’s direction, then Hannah left for the comforts of her archives, murmuring that same phrase in the old Sith Tongue as she went. 

I sleep. I wake. I walk.

Jamie shivered in spite of herself. Owen watched her knowingly over the rim of his glass. 

“How are you really?”

“You know me. Bold as brass,” Jamie muttered.

He glanced down the hallway, where Dani had gone and not emerged after the sound of a door shutting. “I shouldn’t have to tell you to be careful, so I won’t.”

Jamie grimaced. “Yeah. I know.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t. Besides,” she reached out to nudge his elbow so that it slipped off the armrest of the couch. “I can always count on you to patch me up again.” 

His answering smile was strained. “I can only do so much with lightsabre wounds.” 

“I’ll be fine.” 

Owen took a sip of his wine and hummed, the note echoing slightly around the glass bowl. “I defer to Hannah in matters of balance in the Force,” he said, “but I’m not sure I can do anything for your friend without more information. And even then — I’m saying this might be a lost cause, Jamie.” 

Jamie gripped the stem of her wineglass and rolled her head back to sigh at the ceiling. “If I had two credits for every time someone told me that, I’d have twelve credits.”

“You could buy yourself a decent stimpack with that,” he said with a snap of his fingers.

She let her head loll forward again and leaned her cheek upon her fist. “I know what you’re going to say.”

Owen smiled sadly at her and then he said it anyway, “You need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

“I don’t want to hear it, mate.” 

He leaned forward, setting aside his wineglass on a side table, and said in a soft yet serious tone, “You cannot let your judgement be clouded by personal attachments.” 

She laughed, a short bitter huff of laughter. “That’s rich, coming from you.” With a gesture around the room, she said, “Awfully cosy here in Hannah’s place, innit? Was that your spare cloak and set of boots in the closet I saw?” 

If Owen was put off his stride in any way, he did not show it, nor did he falter. “As a member of The Order, it is your duty to help everyone you can. And in that regard, you have always been the best of us.”

Jaw tight, Jamie glared into the firepit, a flicker of flame sending up sparks. “I’m not a Jedi.” 

“No,” he murmured, his gaze dark and warm and unyielding. “But you act like one. If strength and power were what made a Jedi, then we would all be Sith. You are not defined by how much of the Force you can control. It’s what you do that matters.”

Jamie eyes burned from staring at the fire for too long. She cleared her throat, lifted her wineglass and drained its contents. 

“Thanks for the drink and for the food,” she said, setting the wineglass aside and pushing herself to her feet. “And for the shit pep talk.” 

Owen did not stand or attempt to bring her back when Jamie turned and walked down the same hallway Dani had vanished down about an hour ago. He let her go with a soft, “Good night,” that Jamie caught just on the edges of her hearing, and which made her fists clench.

At the end of the hall, Hannah had given them each their own rooms across from one another. Jamie stopped in front of Dani’s door. There was a soft light shining beneath the gap at the base, indicating that either Dani was still awake, or she was too afraid to sleep alone with the lights off. Jamie lifted her hand to knock, but stopped before she could touch the door. Instead she ran her hand down her face and rubbed at her eyes. Then with a shake of her head, she turned around and went into her own room. 

It was the first night in nearly two weeks that Jamie slept alone. She tossed and turned, looking back towards her own shut door, seeing the echo of that pale sliver of light across the hall. Telling herself she was being ridiculous, she shut her eyes and struggled in search of sleep. 

—

“I did a bit more research last night,” said Hannah as a greeting over breakfast.

“Oh, aye?” Jamie mumbled to the contents of her teacup. 

Late morning sunlight washed through the tall windows of Hannah’s apartment, and Jamie was combating a pervasive grogginess with her third cup of the morning. Sleep last night had been a futile effort. Sitting across the table from her, Dani looked no better off; her eyes were circled with dark rings and her hair lacked its usual polished care. She had already been out in the kitchen for some time when Jamie had finally emerged from her room to find Dani helping Owen prepare breakfast and set the table. Both she and Owen had greeted Jamie with varying degrees of enthusiasm — Dani with a small private grin, Owen with a boisterous call of ‘Good Morning!’ that could’ve woken the dead. 

Now they were all seated at the dining table. Owen had prepared a spread of food that would have given the ship’s computer a run for its millions of credits. He and Dani had tucked in, while Jamie and Hannah nursed their cups of tea in lieu of food. 

“That inscription,” said Hannah. “I sleep. I wake. I walk. IT was specific enough to give me a small lead.” 

Jamie lowered her cup, while across the table from her Dani did the same with her knife and fork, suddenly alert. 

“So, what did the holocron have in it?” Jamie asked. 

“Not what. Who.” Hannah pointed around her cup towards Dani, who had gone stock-still. “The echo of a soul. An ancient Sith Lord, whose sunken tomb is said to lie beneath the waters of a planet lost to time after the Hundred-Year Darkness. I could find nothing more than this, and at first I thought it a mere legend. Here. These images were taken from The Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban.” 

Hannah tapped at a link on her wrist, bringing up a holographic display which she set to the middle of the table so the rest of them could see. A collage of pictures from various sources. Old texts written on parchment or carved into stone. Weathered statues emerging from bodies of water in dark caves, and vast frescos painted upon plastered walls depicting a woman. All of them somehow defaced. Sections of writing blotted or chiselled away. The heads of every statue, every painting smashed or blighted as though taken to by a hammer.

“Spooky,” Owen muttered. 

“What’s wrong with her face?” asked Jamie. 

“It seems even other Sith feared her. Or envied her. Or hated her. Who knows? But her very name and image have been desecrated beyond repair, condemned to damnatio memoriae,” Hannah highlighted a section of writing that had been left unscarred. “They call her only: The Lady.” 

Jamie stared at one of the statues, and even though it lacked all discernible features she could not shake herself of the horrible feeling that it was watching her back. “A Sith feared by other Sith? Well, that’s not terrifying at all.” 

“All Sith eventually turn on each other in the end,” Owen scoffed. “This was probably just the work of some ambitious apprentice. You know how they are.” 

“That’s very possible,” agreed Hannah. 

“So instead of knowledge,” Jamie said slowly, “the holocron was holding a piece of her soul? Why?” 

“A piece? No.” Hannah shook her head. “More like a shadow. A reflection of what once was whole. And for what purpose, I cannot say. Did she even make it herself? Or was it made of her unwillingly? Perhaps to preserve her own life. Or even to trap her, to interrogate her. All of these are plausible.”

Owen hummed a contemplative note, nodding to himself, then he abruptly said, “More tea?”

Hannah held out her cup. “Please. Thank you, dear.”

Meanwhile, Dani had spoken not a word. Her gaze was glued to one of the holo images, the one of a fresco depicting The Lady, faceless, with her hands on the shoulders of a young child with gold-graven eyes. 

Jamie nudged her foot under the table, and Dani started, blinking at her. 

“Sorry,” Dani breathed. 

“S’alright,” Jamie said. She nodded towards the holo images. “This sound familiar at all?” 

Dani licked her lips and then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s her.” Hands clenched and trembling around her cutlery, she said, “I’m sorry, but can you please turn that off?”

Without question, Hannah killed the feed, and Dani breathed a sigh of relief. Owen topped up Dani’s teacup as well, and she smiled gratefully at him. He winked and set down the teapot.

“As fascinating as Sith history is,” said Owen dryly. “What does it have to do with Alderaan? Why target children of House Thul?”

Hannah looked to be deep in thought, sipping at her tea with a furrow to her brow, while Dani shrugged. 

Meanwhile, Jamie groaned and rubbed at her eyes. "I don't know," she said, "but I know someone who does. Do you have a transceiver?"

“Oh! Yeah. Give me a tick.” Owen pushed back his chair and went off in search of a transceiver. He returned a moment later holding a blade-thin screen, tapping at it to pull up the right application before he handed it to Jamie and sat back down in his seat. “Here.” 

“Cheers.” Jamie took the screen and typed in the relevant frequency and hit a green button. 

It rang. And rang. And just as Jamie was about to kill the feed, the screen flickered and a familiar face appeared. 

Rebecca smiled. "Well, that was fast. Miss me already?"

[hale-13]

Ulcerated

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 8 - Force Feeding

It’s only been a week since Tony last saw the kid but the weight he’s lost is clear in the way his shirt is just a little baggier than normal, the paleness of his face, the gauntness of his cheeks and Tony has to hold in his sympathetic wince. May Parker was never one to exaggerate but Tony had kind of been hoping that she was this time.

Words: 2720, Chapters: 1/1 (Completed), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & May Parker

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Tony Stark, Helen Cho

TW: Vomiting, Medical Procedures

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

It’s only been a week since Tony last saw the kid but the weight he’s lost is clear in the way his shirt is just a little baggier than normal, the paleness of his face, the gauntness of his cheeks and Tony has to hold in his sympathetic wince. May Parker was never one to exaggerate but Tony had kind of been hoping that she was this time.

“Hey Pete,” he says, trying to keep his tone light and his voice gentle, Peter looks like he’s one stiff breeze from passing out or crying – it’s a toss up – and Tony doesn’t want to find out which is more likely. Peter raises one hand just above waist level in a half-assed wave and Tony bites the inside of his cheek sharply. “May said you’d been feeling pretty crummy kiddo.”

Peter shrugs and hums noncommittally, eyes a little unfocused from, what Tony guesses is, low blood sugar. He purses his lips and weighs his options before crossing the room to pull Peter into a careful hug. Peter goes nearly boneless in his arms but doesn’t raise his own to return the embrace which worries Tony even more; Peter is more tactile than just about anyone Tony’s ever met and is always eager for any physical affection. His stomach turns and he looks up to make eye contact with May where she’s wringing her hands in stress and looking guilty in her navy scrubs.

“Thanks for this Tony,” she says, approaching them and running her fingers through the rat’s nest of Peter’s curls. He’s still leaning up against Tony either for emotional or physical support, he’s not sure which. “I was worried about leaving him alone.”

“It’s no problem at all,” he assured and it wasn’t. When May had first called him about Peter’s supposed stomach flu earlier in the week he had sent all of the kid’s medical information to Cho who had told them, based on his symptoms and history, that they just needed to fill him up with as many fluids as possible and start a bland diet. They couldn’t afford not to with Peter’s wicked fast metabolism. May had taken most of the week off work to cram electrolytes and soup down Peter’s throat but her PTO had run out and she was on shift for the next three days. When she had called Tony for their daily update he had insisted that Peter come stay with him in the Tower – the penthouse a convenient few floors above the MedBay if they needed it.

“Okay Petey,” May said, pulling Peter into her own arms to fold him into a soft hug that Peter at least attempted to return. “You get some rest and try to eat something for Tony okay? I’ll call you in the morning when I get home but I’ll have my phone on if you need me and the hospital can always page me if I’m not able to answer okay?”

“Sure,” Peter rasped and Tony winced at how rough his voice sounded but, he supposed, non-stop vomiting for the majority of the week would do that to you.

“Alright,” May said, looking torn and a little devastated and Tony empathized. Peter was the closest thing he had to a son and he couldn’t imagine leaving him like this now that they were together. She made eye contact with him and Tony could read the clear ‘you’re going to have to take him from me or I won’t let go’ expression on her face and pulled Peter gently back to him.

“I’ve got him May,” Tony promised. “The chefs at the Tower have prepared a ton of bland foods for us to try and Cho’s on call if we need her. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I know,” she said, eyes a little damp. She cleared her throat and pressed her lips to Peter’s forehead. “I love you Pete.”

“Love you too,” Peter mumbled back and Tony slipped his arm a little lower down the kid’s back to support him when he swayed a little unsteadily, dazed. He needed to get Peter off his feet fast before he passed out. They rode down the janky elevator together but went their separate ways at the curb – May toward the subway and Tony maneuvering Peter to lay half in his lap in the back seat of the town car Happy had been idling in the fire lane in front of the apartment.

“Step on it Hap,” Tony said once he had Peter settled, ignoring the concerned look his friend was giving them both in the rear view mirror. “Make it a smooth ride yeah?”

“No problem Boss,” Happy promised, pulling away from the curb with the utmost care and merging them into the Queens traffic.

——————————————

“I know you don’t want to,” Tony began, apologetic as he nearly shoved a bite of unsalted, unbuttered white rice into Peter’s unwilling mouth, trying not to feel overly guilty about the look of pure betrayal on Peter’s face. “But you’ve already lost over eight pounds and its hard enough to keep up with your metabolism as it is. I know you don’t want to end up in the MedBay.”

Peter sighed around the mouthful of rice but chewed it and swallowed it, begrudgingly accepting the next bite Tony forced into his mouth. They got through about half the bowl before Peter abruptly turned pale and then green, barely managing to grab the empty bucket Tony had placed next to him, vomiting up a mixture of bile and undigested rice. Tony squeezed his eyes shut a second in commiseration before rubbing the kid’s back to help him through it. “It was a good attempt buddy,” he said quietly as Peter retched painfully into the bucket until he was dry heaving only.

The episode only lasted for a couple minutes but Peter looked completely exhausted when he collapsed back to rest against the headboard of his bed, letting Tony pull the bucket from his limp grasp. “No thanks,” he said, voice sounding even worse now, throatier and deeper than normal with the wear and tear on his vocal cords, and pushing away the bottle of Pedialyte Tony had tried to force into his hand.

“Not optional kiddo,” Tony told him sympathetically, pressing the straw between Peter’s unwilling lips and staring until he finally gave in and took a few swallows, his Adam’s apple spasming.

“Can I just sleep?” He asked pathetically, eyes red rimmed and skin both pale and flushed, skin drooping with how tired he clearly was.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Tony offered. “You eat another five bites and drink a quarter of the Pedialyte and I’ll let you have a four hour nap before we repeat. Do we have an accord?”

Peter looked at him with sad eyes, the bags under them dark and deep. “I don’t really get a choice huh?”

“Not if you want to avoid the MedBay,” Tony agreed. “The only reason I haven’t taken you already is because you asked me not to but, if this gets any worse, you’ll have to go.”

“Give me the rice,” Peter said, defeated and Tony passed it to his shaking grip, steadying the bowl while Peter forced down five bites of the rice, washing it down with the drink before lying back and cuddling up to Tony’s side, eyes already half-lidded with sleep.

“Put on some Brooklyn 99 would you FRI? Volume at twenty percent.”

“On it Boss,” FRIDAY’s voice responded quietly, pulling the show up on the flat screen in Peter’s room as Tony started massaging Peter’s scalp.

At some point he must have fallen asleep as well because, the next thing he knew, he was waking up to Peter gagging out his name and lurching for the trash can next to the bed. Tony hastened to grab it and thrust it under Peter’s chin – just in time for the poor kid to retch weakly into it. “Let it all out Webs,” Tony said, rubbing Peter’s sweaty back and brushing his lank bangs out of his face. It wasn’t until Peter was done and panting against Tony’s chest that Tony noticed that the bucket contained a concerning amount of blood and material that looked like coffee grounds. “FRI tell Cho to meet me in the MedBay.”

“No,” Peter whined, curling closer to Tony and tucking his legs into his stomach – balling himself up tight.

“Sorry buddy,” Tony told him, crawling out of the bed as carefully as possible to not jostle Peter too much. “You’re vomiting blood so we have to.”

“What?” Peter asked, confused, craning his neck to look into the trash can and then paling further. “Oh.”

“Yep,” Tony agreed, dragging him up to stand before finally just scooping Peter up into a bridal carry when it became obvious that Peter’s knees weren’t going to support him the whole way downstairs. Tellingly, Peter didn’t protest; he just curled into Tony’s shoulder, one hand tangling into his sweatshirt.

Helen wasn’t present when Tony burst into the MedBay a few minutes later but her nursing staff were quick to get Peter settled into a bed and get his vitals and an updated history from Tony. By the time Helen had swept into the room, looking put together and not at all like Tony had woken her up in the middle on the night, the nurses had already drawn blood and placed an IV catheter to start fluids.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t be seeing you in here Peter,” she said, taking his chart and flicking through it.

“Same,” the kid agreed with a weak smile, not letting go of Tony’s hand or the basin he had been given shortly after they got him in a bed.

“So you still have the nausea but it says here that you been having some issues with acid reflux and that you had a fair bit of blood mixed with the bile you just threw up?” She asked, using her stethoscope to listen to Peter’s heart and lungs before moving on to feeling his lymph nodes. “How much blood?” She directed to Tony.

“All of it was blood,” Tony answered, trying to stay calm. He needed to text May ASAP but he was hesitant to do so until he knew what was wrong. “Maybe half a cup? Some of it looked like coffee grounds.”

Helen hummed as she moved on to palpating Peter’s abdomen, apologizing when he flinched. “Have you been on any medications recently Peter? Aspirin, Advil, Aleve? Any stress?”

“Midterms were last week,” Peter answered slowly. “I had a pretty bad headache the whole week and I did take some Advil a few times a day.”

“How much and how often?”

“Uh…,” Peter said, face scrunching as he tried to think. “Maybe like eight to ten pills three or four times a day? I’ve done that before though, Dr. Banner told me I would need that many because of my metabolism.”

“Very true,” Helen agreed. “But not that often. Based on your symptoms and history I’m tentatively diagnosing you with a stomach ulcer that has likely perforated based on the blood in your vomit.”

“An ulcer?” Peter asked, looking like he was having a hard time tracking, Tony gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“So what do we do next?” He asked, running his hand through Peter’s hair quickly in solidarity. An ulcer. Of course his kid would end up with a bleeding ulcer.

“Well we’ve already drawn blood to check for infection or anemia,” Cho answered. “Depending on the results I’ll start him on fluids and maybe a blood transfusion. Since this has been affecting him for a while and because we need to get some calories in his as soon as we can, I’ll stop the bleed and remove the ulcer via an endoscopy. You won’t even have to be fully under for it, just sedated.”

“Okay,” Peter agreed blandly – a sure tell that the kid felt like shit. Cho made steady eye contact with Tony for just a second before reaching out to squeeze Peter’s bicep.

“Tony can I speak to you in the hall? I need to get you to sign some releases while the nurses get Peter prepped,” she asked.

“Sure,” Tony nodded, giving Peter a careful side hug before following the doctor out of the room, shutting the door behind him – all the rooms were soundproofed due to all the enhanced humans in the Tower and their sensitive hearing. “You were clearly holding something back,” he accused. “You’re lucky Pete’s so out of it or he would have picked up on it too.”

Helen sighed deeply, finally looking tired. “He’s lost too much weight.”

“I know,” Tony agreed sadly, reaching up to massage his temples with one hand. “What are we going to do about it?”

Helen clicked her tongue and tapped a finger against the tablet in her hands. “He’ll probably be able to eat once her wakes up but I really just want to place an NG tube while he’s under so he can have a continuous stream of nutrients going in. We could even continue feeding him while he’s sleeping, really get the weight back on. I wanted to talk to you first before I brought it up. He’s on the cusp right now so he could get away without having it but I don’t really want to give him the option to decline it. It would help him recover a lot faster.”

Tony hummed, torn. He didn’t really want to take away Peter’s agency here but he agreed with Helen that he doubted the kid would go for it. “Let me talk to him about it,” Tony finally conceded. “I might be able to get further with him.”

“Sure,” Helen said with a nod. “You should be good to go back in and sit with him, it’ll take another thirty minutes to an hour to get everything ready but we’ll let you know when it’s time.”

“Thanks,” Tony said sincerely, re-entering the room. Peter was still sitting propped up in bed in his comfortable sweatpants and hoodie, not having to change since the procedure was so simple, but with the addition of another IV catheter in his other arm connected to a bag of his own blood – donated earlier in the year for occasions such as this.

“So what did Dr. Cho want,” he asked, eyes still tired but shining with his usual intelligence and a bit of curiosity.

“Figured we wouldn’t be able to get that past you,” Tony said sardonically, taking a seat on the edge of Peter’s bed, facing him. “Helen wants to place an NG tube while you’re under. Wait,” he said, holding up a hand preemptively when Peter opened his mouth. “You’ve lost too much weight as it is and it’s going to be hard to put it back on with the bland diet she’s going to have you on while you heal. Doing this will make your recovery go so much faster.”

“I don’t want to be stuck in here,” Peter grumbled, gesturing the the room and Tony let one side of his mouth tick up in a smile.

“Hate to break it to you kiddo,” he said, “but that’s already a forgone conclusion.” The kid groaned and Tony let a full smile pull across his face, many of his previous worries eased with the diagnosis and treatment plan. “Let Cho do this and I’ll pull as many strings as I have to to spring you early. Deal?”

Peter made a face, his nose crinkled in disgust but he nodded in defeat anyway. “Two days. At most.”

“Three,” Tony haggled, holding out a hand which Peter eventually took with a sigh. “Great! FRI, relay that to Helen please.”

“Done Boss. She said she’ll be ready for Peter in about ten minutes.”

“Thanks honey,” he said, still smiling. “I’ll call May while you’re out and have Happy pick her up after her shift. She can stay here for the next few days.”

“Thanks Mr. Stark,” Peter said, his voice still sounding more destroyed than Tony had ever heard it but lighter somehow – probably because he could see the light at the end of the tunnel and knew he would be feeling much better soon.

“Anytime kiddo. Anytime.”

[nobody-knose--archive]

i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

[salexectrian-heir]

ragged edges and sharp teeth

Pairing: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist

Fandom: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal

Rating: M

Word Count: 3,305

Tags: Hurt/No Comfort, Canon Universe, Implied Sexual Content, Non-Consensual Platonic Affection, References to Underage Drinking, Referenced/Implied Suicide (Goro’s Mother), References to Depression, The six times someone kisses Goro Akechi, and the one time Goro Akechi kisses someone, Shuake Week 2020

Summary:

But in truth, in reality, Goro is selfish. Always will be. He is all ragged edges and sharp teeth, he is rough and all consuming and unrelenting.

And ruining Akira is perhaps his most selfish desire of all.

Shuake Week 2020: Free Day (a six and one prompt)

i. his mother

Goro is six years old and he is crying.

The water is scalding against his skin but that he doesn’t quite mind. He tries to fight the tears but they fall despite his brave efforts to not let them roll down his cheeks. Normally, he likes this place. The bathhouse is usually calm and comforting, and feels a little bit like an adventure when he’s sent here on his own. But tonight, he knows something is wrong .

One of her “ friends ” is over. One of the many he doesn’t like. His mother had that look on her face when she ushered him outside, the kind of look that made him want to stay rooted to the spot, clinging to her leg and begging to not be sent away.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been in this place, time almost doesn’t feel real in the bath. But it’s been long enough for his fingers and toes to prune, for his tears to have (finally) run out, and everyone else to have left. He runs his wrinkled fingertips over the tiles of the tub that are smooth and sleek, and wonders if anyone would come looking for him if he stayed in the water all night.

Probably not.

He sinks another few centimeters so that the water reaches his chin, and thinks about staying.

But he would miss his mother too much, and his eyes sting immensely, and all he wants is to fall asleep with her curled up next to him on his futon. He wouldn’t even mind if she hogged all the covers. It would be enough to know she was with him. That he wouldn’t be alone anymore.

He fumbles his way out of the tub and into his night clothes with clumsy, pruned fingers. The street is empty as he walks back to the complex where he and his mother live. The door is unlocked, but he vigilantly locks it behind him like she taught him. She must have forgotten. Again. But that’s okay! Because Goro can reach the top lock now and knows she must be tired, that’s all.

There are no lights on except for the glare from TV, a forgotten channel making ambient noise he barely notices. He creeps towards her bedroom and slides the door aside to find it empty, to his relief. No strangers left to linger in the space he covets. The next place he knows to check is the bathroom, which is where he finds her laying on the ground. Her head lifts at the noise and her eyes widen when she sees he’s standing in the doorway.

“Go-chan?”

He’s seen his mother like this before. He knows she’s hurting but doesn’t know why (a much older Goro would understand and curse himself for not noticing sooner. But he was six, and a six year old wouldn’t know what to do. He would blame himself anway.). He lays down beside her on the floor and she tucks him underneath her chin. He pretends he doesn’t hear her cry, pretends that he hadn’t just been crying himself, and buries his face in her neck. Her hair is damp but smells like home, floral and fresh in the way that makes his heart ache. He is grateful it's not the lingering scent of cigarettes and sweat that sometimes would stain her skin in ways that would make his stomach churn.

He thinks she’ll be okay this time when he feels a tender kiss on the top of his head, on his temple, on his cheek when she finally pries him away from her throat.

He thinks she’ll be okay when she whispers I love you , against his forehead as she carries him into his room, and helps him get ready for bed.

He thinks she’ll be okay when she leaves a chaste kiss on his lips when they are finally curled up on his futon together, as she brushes away the tears that somehow, some way, had found themselves running down his puffy face again.

But he doesn’t hear her when she says I’m sorry with soft lips pressed to his damp eyelids. After his fingers have woven into the locks of her hair like a lifeline.

Because Goro is already half asleep, and doesn’t have the energy to kiss her goodnight.

ii. a relative

Goro is nine years old and he is numb.

It’s freezing outside and no one thought to give him a heavier jacket. So he stands there shivering, hands fisted under his armpits as he tries to breathe normally. The air burns his lungs each time he takes a hiccuping breath, and wishes more than anything that someone would wake him up. Because this has to be a dream. A cruel one.

Then someone grabs his face and kisses his cheek, starling him out of the haze that had settled upon him like a wet blanket. They had meant it to be a comforting gesture he would come to realize much later in his life, but his traumatized nine year old brain couldn’t handle it and he violently recoils.

The shove isn’t strong enough to deter this woman… an aunt? A great aunt? A friend of his mother? Goro doesn’t know. He’s never met her before. Or maybe he has? If so, she clearly wasn’t important enough to remember or leave an impact on his life before this moment.

All he knows is they violated his space and as he remembers what his mother--he chokes on the protest that formed on his lips as he repeatedly pushes himself farther from the person trying to hold onto him--he remembers what his mother had always told him.

“ Don’t let anybody touch you unless you want them to .”

He holds those words close to his heart, hoping the punches he’s throwing get his message across.

He didn’t want to be touched by anyone.

Anger bubbles up from somewhere in his gut. Why didn’t his mother do the same when all those “friends” touched her when she didn’t want them too? Why couldn’t she be strong enough? Why wasn’t he strong enough to protect her ?

Why wasn’t he enough?

Bile rises in his throat when he finally breaks the hold of the hands that were gripping his chin, his elbow... blatantly ignoring the affronted scoffs and whispers of what a disgrace, such a rude child, that circled in the wake of his outburst.

The only person he wants holding him is his mother.

But she is six feet under the dirt at his feet, and won’t ever be able to hold him again.

iii. a girl in the orphanage

Goro is eleven and is taken completely by surprise.

One moment he is huddled around a board game in his room with a classmate, and the next she is suddenly leaning into his personal space, pushing her face into his. His eyes go wide as he braces himself on the edge of the desk so as not to fall out of his seat.

He never really thought about kissing girls before it happened, and knew immediately after that he probably would never think about kissing girls again.

His body reacts faster than his brain and shoves her off. She gasps and stumbles back, her expression twisting in confusion at his rejection.

“Why,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “did you do that?”

“Because I like you, and I wanted to kiss you…did you not like it?

He had never been kissed like that before. He thought first kisses were supposed to feel special. But this...felt empty. And bluntly says as much to her.

She looks at him like he had slapped her across the face. “I-I thought...you liked me back?”

“What gave you that idea?”

Guilt only starts to settle in his gut when he sees the tears welling up in her eyes just before she mutters something akin to an apology and bolts out of his room.

He glares at the spot she had been standing.The longer he thinks about it, the angrier and more justified Goro feels. He doesn’t regret telling her the truth but… he drops his head on his arms.

He can’t even make friends right. Maybe he really was broken, like all the other kids say he is.

She gets adopted two days later.

He doubts she even remembers that kiss.

iv. a hook up

Goro is seventeen and it's a means to an end.

Goro hates these events, but has to attend to keep up airs with Shido and his... associates . To be available for Shido to both dangle in front of and threaten his inner circle with. The fact Goro fits in with them at all makes his skin crawl, and he drowns the urge to peel it off with the complimentary wine he’s (illegally) being served. It’s the least offensive crime he’s committed by a landslide.

Goro just needs to be seen and not heard. To both impress and intimidate. And it works every time.

But tonight, it works perhaps a little too well. Or Goro is a little too drunk to care anymore, and wants to get something, anything out of this hell he’s stuck in. Which is how he finds himself pressed up against a bathroom door by the son of some sycophant politician dragged along by his father hoping to get in Shido’s good graces.

The boy is his age, maybe a little older. Far too eager, excited, and sloppy. He kisses Goro hastily, before Goro could stop him (it’s not what they're in this bathroom for, and they both know it). The boy’s mouth is clumsy, and the kiss is full of inexperienced tongue and tastes of the sickly sweet moscato they’ve been chasing. When the boy tries to deepen the kiss, Goro takes a fistfull of this boy’s hair and yanks. It earns him a yelp.

Glaring down at him, Goro simply states, “On your knees.”

And the boy obeys without a second thought.

The boy doesn’t like him . He likes the image he carefully manufactured to be desirable. Even if the boy claims he went down on the Detetive Prince in a bathroom in some fancier hotel in Shinjuku, no one will believe him.

Back at his apartment, Goro slams down the mug of tea he had made to wash out the taste of the boy from the party. If that boy really knew what Goro kept buried underneath the layers and layers of masks he wore, what he was truly capable of, he would run away screaming.

But it doesn’t matter, it’s not like the boy’s affection was really for Goro . And Goro held none for the boy. It means nothing. A release, an excuse to feel something other than seething rage for a few minutes. A pitiable excuse for human connection Goro so desperately craved. How pathetic.

Goro begins to laugh.

And when his manic laughter breaks into sobs he can’t quite tell.

v. his rival

Goro is eighteen and it stops his entire world.

Stepping out of the Jazz Jin, Goro is quickly enveloped by the brisk November chill that finally settled itself in the streets of Kichijoji. It seeps through his clothes and makes him shiver, craving the warmth and atmosphere of the lounge they just left.

He shouldn’t even be here with Akira. Against his better judgment, Goro had reached out, invited him here one last time before…

Akira ducks around him as the door shuts, effectively cutting off the only exit out into the street.

“Akechi, can I ask you a question?”

Goro raises a brow. “I suppose.”

Akira removes his hands from his pockets, and suddenly seems unsure of what to do with them. Turning them over and flexing his fingers as he says, “Um, I’ll need you to close your eyes first.”

“Akira, we don’t have time for games,” Goro chides in that manufactured plastic tone of voice the Prince uses to let his fans down easy.

(Thinking Akira will probably try to shove some stupid trinket in his hands like last time. And Goro will have to repeatedly decline said trinket until Akira inevitably shoves it in his pocket while he’s not looking and only for Goro to find it later when he takes off his coat back at his apartment).

A soft laugh pulls him back to the present. And then, “Indulge me, detective . Please?”

Maybe it was the poorly disguised desperation hidden in Akira’s voice that made him cave to the delinquent’s whim, or Goro’s realization that this was perhaps the last time he would ever get to feel like a normal teenager before...  

Goro rolls his eyes and gives in to Akira’s request with a sigh. “Alright.”

The sounds of Kichijoji’s nightlife are amplified when his eyes flutter shut. He becomes hyper aware of the cold clinging to his skin, the idle chatter of the passerby at the top of the stairs, milling about down the street.The welcoming scent of coffee that never seems to fade from Akira’s clothes.The sound of Akira stepping closer into his space.

Suddenly, alarms are going off in Goro’s brain as he register’s Akira’s hand cupping his cheek, skin to skin.

“May I?” Akira’s question is whispered so quietly, Goro thinks he feels it more than he hears it.

Goro swallows, unable to get his tongue to work to form words. It’s the first time anyone has ever asked Goro for his permission, for his consent, and he has no idea how to even voice how that makes him feel.

It’s blindsiding him.

A thumb traces over Goro’s bottom lip, and his eyes snap open. He’s peering right into irises of silver, sparkling from the string lights that hang around them in the stairwell of the Jazz Jin’s entryway.

“You said you would keep them closed,” Akira whispers, gaze dropping to where his thumb is still idling tracing Goro’s mouth.

Goro’s prolonged silence seems to unnerve Akira, for he begins to pull away. Without thinking, Goro’s hand shoots out and grabs the lapel’s of Akira’s coat, holding him in place. Goro wasn’t even aware he moved until Akira let out a small gasp.

“I never said that,” Goro murmurs, but his eyes fall shut anyway when Akira leans in again.

Akira’s lips are so soft, so delicate and gentle when he presses them against Goro’s mouth. They are everything Goro is not, and Goro is melting . It’s so much kinder than he deserves, far more genuine than Goro is even capable of being.

“To remember me by,” Akira breathes when Goro parts his lips to taste more of him, “since we agreed to stop seeing each other after this.”

Too soon the warmth from Akira’s mouth is gone, and so is the dark haired boy. Having assimilated into the shadows to leave Goro alone in that stairwell.

It changes everything and nothing at the same time.

Goro still puts a bullet in Akira’s brain two days later, but it's his own head that explodes.

vi. a kiss met halfway

Goro is still eighteen, and living on borrowed time.

“ Your life isn’t trivial! ”

Goro has never wanted to believe anything so badly before. But knows in the shell of his empty heart, that Akira is wrong.

That he’s just being a brainless, sentimental fool, giving Goro’s life more meaning than it ever had the right to have.

Yet the thief’s words echo in the recesses of his mind, with each step he takes away from Leblanc for them only resonate louder. By the time he reaches the main road, the words are deafening screams and he has to--has to--

Akira is just where he left him. Sitting there stupidly at the cafe counter with his face in his hands.

The door to Leblanc is ripped open. It shakes on its hinges as it absorbs the aftershocks of being slammed into the wall by the force of Goro’s hand. The jingle of the bell is drowned out by the roar of Akira’s voice in Goro’s ears.

Akira startles and whips his head in the direction of the noise. Goro can see the thief’s eyes are swollen and red, brimming with unshed tears as he pulls his hands away from his face. His mouth falls open, brows furrowed in shock or confusion, Goro isn’t keen on differentiating at the moment because he’s too busy closing the distance between them.

Goro is so sick of other people defining what his life is meant to be. So sick and tired of being manipulated, following orders like some kind of marionette on a string. And for nothing in the end. Because Goro is his own worst enemy the cards were stacked against him from the beginning.

So fuck it. Goro decides for the first time in a long time that he wants to be touched. To be held. To feel the weight of someone’s desire for him pressing in from all angles. He wants to drown himself in Akira until he can breathe nothing else.

And Akira meets him halfway.

They don’t speak of what they’re doing, as they tumble up the stairs to Akira’s room.

They do not name the desperate feeling they are chasing through each other’s clothes as they fall to the floor.

They refuse to acknowledge the truth that is passed between each other’s mouths, secrets they had kept buried beneath flesh now exposed.

But everything left unsaid hangs in the silent spaces between their bodies as they move as one.

+1 a kiss goodbye

Goro is (still) eighteen, and he is dying.

It takes less than a minute.

Goro does his best to keep the desperation out of his eyes but can’t keep it from his hands.

Hands that reach for Akira to roughly pull him into the helicopter after Maruki, who had been tossed aside like a ragdoll.

Goro drags the beaten and bloodied thief into his lap, and no one seems to pay them any attention, too focused on either watching the unconscious therapist in the back, the collapsing palace around them, or the brilliant white light they were heading for.

Akira goes to unhinge his helmet, and Goro lets him. It clatters to the ground, next to where Akira abandoned his own mask.

He lets Akira drag fingers drag across his chest, to travel up and bury themselves in his hair, to cradle the back of his head like the most precious treasure he’s ever laid hands on. So much of Goro yearned to be touched, and there was so little time.

Goro slides his own hands, still encased in clawed gauntlets, along Akira’s battered face. He uses the pads of his thumbs to trace the angle of Akira’s jaw as he crushes his mouth against Akira’s for the last time. Akira’s blood is sweet on his tongue.

For a split second, Goro wishes he could have been a stronger, more selfless man in his final moments. One who didn’t covet things that were never his ( would never be his ), or ruin the things he touches.

But in truth, in reality, Goro is selfish, always will be. He is all ragged edges, and sharp teeth, he is rough and all consuming and unrelenting. And ruining Akira is perhaps his most selfish desire of all.

Goro knows Akira deserves better, but Akira allows it willingly all the same. Letting Goro lay claim to everything Akira is, everything Akira could be for a moment. For a moment, it all belongs to Goro.

And in return, Akira takes everything from him. His revenge, his anger, his envy, his loneliness, his heart. Devouring what is left of Goro Akechi as the false reality shatters around them in a blaze of white light.

[halfwayinlight]

I wrote a thing today. It was supposed to be for Valentine’s Day

Title: Holding Space Fandom: Star Trek TNG Pairing: Will Riker/Deanna Troi Rating: PG Notes: set between Season 3 episodes The Bonding and The Booby Trap

Commander Will Riker would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was disappointed Deanna had not yet come to the bridge to report she was back on board. It wasn’t an official protocol, but it was a courtesy that the senior staff generally observed. It was, in fact, out of the ordinary that Deanna didn’t report to the bridge officer on duty.

He told himself he would wait a full half hour past her anticipated arrival time to call down to O’Brien. It would be a very long half hour, and he knew that at least some of the bridge crew were very aware he was antsy. So Will had dutifully read through the various daily reports sent in. And he checked the logs three times to make sure there wasn’t some mental health crisis that would’ve pulled her immediately back into work.

Eventually, he’d taken to the ready room, vacant since the captain was off duty at the moment. Catching up on reports was no help in the distraction department because the only remaining reports they were still working on were the reports over the Mintaka III duck blind. It had been an utter failure in all aspects of First Contact. Not that the Enterprise crew had been able to really help it. It was more an Act of Fate.

Privately, though, Will still felt guilty about the whole thing. Guilty for leaving Deanna behind. He knew, rationally, that there was no help for it. Palmer had needed immediate medical care. There had been no reason to think that Deanna wouldn’t be able to slip quietly away and be beamed back on board.

“You’re beating yourself up over it,” she’d observed one night in Ten Forward, about a week ago. Her fingers played with the glass containing her Sumerian sunrise, idly tracing the bands etched around the cup.

He shifted, elbow on the table to lean against it for support, suddenly uncomfortable with the turn this evening was taking. Rather than answer immediately, he took a slow inventory of the lounge. It was a slow night, and they were relatively isolated. As his gaze swept the bar, Guinan had given him a long look and a subtle nod. He wasn’t even really sure what the nod meant, except that they would be given some space. “We should’ve come up with a better plan. One that had less risk.”

“We had limited intelligence. Given what we knew at the time, the risks seemed minimal. In retrospect, I don’t see what we could’ve done any differently.  And, Will, I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt.”

He shook his head. “You were almost sacrificed to a non-existent deity,” he ground out, one hand lifting to rub his beard in frustration. “Do you know what it’s like to sit in a meeting with the captain and the current expert in Mintakan culture and hear that under these extraordinary circumstances, they might actually kill someone you care about?”

Deanna was leaning in now, arms resting on the table, hands clasped. He envied her level of calm and acceptance about this. “No, I do not. But,” she quickly added, “I do know what it’s like to sit on the bridge or in meetings and hear about missions where the people that I care deeply about may die. To see you and our friends leave on away teams when there are serious risks. To coordinate evacuations and general quarters, especially sauce separations, that leave me with the low-risk group and people I care for very much on the battle bridge.”

The intensity of her words hit him like a phaser blast, and Will was left speechless for long moments. He’d never taken much time to consider what it looked like from her end of things. And given her sympathetic smile, she realized this.

“It’s the life I chose, Will,” she added quietly after giving him some time to absorb her first statements. “We all signed up for Starfleet understanding the risks. Some of us have already lost loved ones in the line of duty…”

It was the line of duty that was the hardest to absorb. That reminder that her own father had died while serving. Amplified days later when Lieutenant Aster died on the archeological dig. It had impacted the crew, shocked them all because this had seemed like such a routine exploration. Worsened because she left behind Jeremy, now parent-less.

And in the last six days since that incident, Deanna had been on duty, more or less continuously caring for the boy. Worf had wanted to accompany both her and Jeremy to Starbase 24, where they would rendezvous with the boy’s aunt and uncle, but the Enterprise couldn’t spare him long enough. As it was, Deanna would barely make the connection back before they needed to jump to high warp in order to make their next mission. If she was delayed, it would be another week or more before a shuttle or transport would cross their path to bring her back.

In the end, it was O’Brien calling. “Transporter Room 3 to Commander Riker.”

“Riker here,” he replied instantly, straightening in his seat on the couch. He never used the desk in the ready room because it felt too much like the captain’s personal space.

“The counselor is back on board. You can take us to warp now.”

“Acknowledged,” Will replied, feeling a bit silly for not realizing sooner that O’Brien would be aware they were waiting for her arrival before moving on. That he would have anticipated the need to notify the bridge so they could go to warp.

Gathering the PADD he had been using, Will made his way back to the bridge. “Counselor Troi is back on board. Warp eight, on to our next coordinates,” he called to the helm before settling into the captain’s chair. He continued to fight his eagerness to see her back on board for himself. With a few commands from his PADD, he finished the plans he’d settled on the night before in anticipation of her return.

She had sent two communiques to him in as many days. They’d spoken only once through subspace, the first night after Jeremy had fallen asleep in one of the bunks on a small thirty passenger supply ship they’d caught a ride with. Deanna had looked very tired, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep that he hadn’t seen from her in a long time. It had been a rough past few months for her-- the psychological torment on Rana IV, nearly being sacrificed on Mintaka III, and the aftermath of Aster’s death. He’d set a hot bath to run in her quarters and left out some real chocolate that he’d managed to obtain on a recent starbase and kept a secret stash for the rough days when hot chocolate from the replicator wasn’t enough. Will had the sense from their subspace call that this would be one of those days.

And yet the bridge held only the scheduled crew members on a very routine shift. Textbook even. He’d rarely been so glad to hand over command to Data when it finally did end. In reality, he should be finding his way to the mess hall or Ten Forward for a meal. But he was determined not to wait any longer.

It didn’t take long to gain her quarters, and he politely pressed the button to notify her that she had a visitor. They came and went freely from each other’s quarters. They were both visitors with full access at any time. Besides that, as First Officer, he had override access to all parts of the ship. But he was a gentleman and would announce himself.

When there was no answer, he paused for a long moment. A glance up and down the hall confirmed that he was alone for now, and he was grateful. Everyone on board knew they were close. It wouldn't have been the first time either of them had been spotted outside the other’s quarters. Besides, their roles on the ship meant they often worked closely together. But he was also acutely aware that the crew knew their relationship was much more complicated than that.

“Computer, location of Counselor Deanna Troi,” he finally decided to consult on this, instead of simply assuming she was in her quarters. It would be easy enough to gain entry, but he hesitated to simply go in. She might be sleeping. Or she might want to be alone. A few dozen less rational explanations for no answer flitted through his mind, but he dismissed the various scenarios as absurd and unlikely.

“Counselor Deanna Troi is in Commander Riker’s quarters.”

Now that was not something he had not considered. With an about-face, he moved just down the corridor and through his own door. His lounge showed no evidence of a visitor, and he frowned to himself as he scanned the room to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. He gained his room and came to a full halt at the doorway.

There was a Betazoid in his bed. Soundly asleep. In the chair in the corner, her maroon uniform was folded neatly and her boots tucked out of the walkway. He was pretty sure he’d left at least a few articles of clothing on the floor, but it had been cleared out, most likely tossed in the laundry.

But what caught his breath was how small and worn out Deanna looked under the silvery Starfleet-issued blanket. The shadows under her eyes were more pronounced in the low light seeping in from the lounge. He wondered if she had even gone to her own quarters at all, and he suspected likely not.

For now, he was too awake to sleep. So he let himself linger for several moments more, absorbing that she was back on board. That she was getting the rest she so clearly needed. There would be time to catch up later. Will finally returned to his lounge and found something in the replicator menu that sounded appetizing and was able to focus enough to wrap up his daily report and close out two older reports before his mind wound down enough that he could think about sleeping, too.

A quick sonic shower relaxed him enough that Will knew meant he could finally get some rest. When he went in search of his usual blue pajamas, he found the top missing but tugged on the trousers and eased in beside Deanna. And he quickly found his missing top, which she had appropriated for her own sleepwear.

That particular realization touched on a mix of new feelings. Attraction. It wouldn't be the first time she had swiped something of his to sleep in. Secretly, he hoped it wouldn’t be the last time, either. And it touched on something tender, which surprised him all the more. That she was tired enough to borrow something, rather than make the effort of going to her own quarters, one room away, for her own things.

“Mmmm,” she murmured now, though Will could tell she remained on the other side of sleep.

“Sssh,” Will soothed, arms banding around her and pulling her closer to him, his body warmer than usual from the sonic shower. She relaxed into the comfort, as he’d hoped she would. “Back to sleep,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss into her hair. “I’m glad you’re back,” he breathed, thumb pressing at the nape of her neck, seeking those pressure points to soothe and relax her. He rubbed small circles until her breath evened out again, familiar and soothing against the crook of his neck and he followed her into deep sleep.