#maybe she gets better later on but... considering the fact things seemed to have gotten worse and even some of the characters have gotten

[snekdood]

wait steven universe came out in 2013...? why do i remember it coming out in like. 2015/16??

[yannaryartside]

Shapiro’s angle

I don't think this guy is bad news, or a bad guy per se.

I think he is just an opportunist. And I think he is doing this mostly for himself.

I may be wrong, but for me, the most on-the-nose foreshadowing about Shapiro was Luca telling him:

"Are you getting your sticky fingers on everything again?"

This was right before he asked to talk to Sydney (about the partnership) at Ever's funeral. It was definitely a sign.

Now, it could be a warning about his bad intentions; sticky fingers could be related to wanting to trap someone and never let them go. Maybe Syd should have Pete revise that new partnership agreement.

Mostly, I have a hard time thinking Andrea Terry would have a CDC that was actually toxic or damaging; his true colors would have shown at some point, and she would have known. Maybe that's me being optimistic. Maybe he would show his actual colors when he doesn't have to answer to anybody. Luca hasn't seemed to get awful vibes from him, either.

FINGERPRINTS OF LEGACY

But I associate the sticky fingers comment more with Shapiro wanting to get a "fingerprint" on Sydney. The way a fingerprint may alter the presentation of a fine ceramic plate. Is about marking it as yours, it was in your hands.

Shapiro may think that he has gotten as good as he can get on his own merit, he said he would have stayed with Andrea forever if she hadn't closed Ever, which is a remark on his lack of ambition as a cdc. I think he may be a chef who (also, as he said) is tired of the all-day cooking job, but he still wants to get some glory under his name without all the work. Proteges are a good way to do that.

The only thing about Sydney he knows that could indicate her potential (besides her cooking, which he only tested once) is that she works for Carmen. Carmen has been awarded the best in the world, and the fact that he sees something in Sydney may be enough for Shapiro to bet on her (and a huge bet, considering how much freedom he promised her). Now, what kind of mentor would he be? I would like to think he will try to be Andrea and see where it gets him.

He may have seen the bear's kitchen's obvious lack of functionality and seen it as an opportunity to steal Carmy's best asset from him while she is still unknown by the industry. She could become more expensive to get in the future if she gets a name under Carmen. Shapiro has better chances to get her now. He may even say in the future that he was the only one capable of forming her like a chef while Carmy didn't.

So yeah, he is making a bet on an unknown asset with the hope that it will pay off later since Carmys is not looking. We don't know much about his character besides the fact that at Ever, everyone was cool with him.

I DON'T WANT SYDNEY TO FAIL OR GET SCREWED

Besides how much I care for her—I know it sounds obvious—I don't think it would be a good narrative for the show either way.

Because she has survived Carmy, that has been horrible, but in terms of women in the workplace, at least she doesn't have to worry about being exploited (or other horrible things that we know could happen in these spaces) because Carmy cares about her well-being, the same as the rest of the family.

So, if she hypothetically goes with Shapiro because her voice is being drowned under Carmy's madness, and then Shapiro screws her over, and Carmy has to rescue her.

I am sorry, fuck that.

Because what is the lesson on that? Women should stick around toxic behavior, being grateful that at least they are not taken advantage of? Better the devil you know than the one you don't? Sydney is very capable, and you will punish her for believing in herself?

image by @gingergofastboatsmojito

[antianakin]

I've complained before that some of the way Ahsoka is written in Rebels makes very little sense with the character we knew in TCW, in particular the fact that she's suddenly considered a really great spy when one of her primary characteristics in TCW is that she's bad at subtlety (which seems like a necessary trait for a spy).

But there was a chance to help explain it if anyone had ever explored how her experience during the Wrong Jedi arc had allowed her to learn from THOSE mistakes.

Ahsoka acts impatiently and impulsively and even almost arrogantly in the Wrong Jedi arc. She thinks she knows better than anybody else, she thinks she can solve this mystery when no one else can or will, and she FAILS. She doesn't discover anything useful that could clear her name or point her to the true culprit. All she ever does is make choices that make her look more and more guilty and then gets caught anyway and someone ELSE has to go find the evidence on her behalf (something that could've been done earlier had she not kept running off half-cocked and forcing everyone to chase HER instead). By the end of that arc, she's able to recognize (to some degree) that she fucked up. She says that since the Council couldn't trust her, she can't trust herself, either. She chooses to walk away to try to figure out where she went wrong.

These are flaws that have been given to Ahsoka since the START. Many of the earlier episodes that focused on Ahsoka's flaws focused on her impatience and arrogance and how she learned to overcome them when she started facing larger, very real consequences of her mistakes. She obviously does get better and does learn more patience and humility over the course of the show, but she's still young and has only been a padawan for a little over a YEAR by the time the Wrong Jedi arc happens (at MOST it's been two years, which is still a drop in the bucket in comparison to most apprenticeships for Jedi from what we can tell). It's entirely reasonable that she still struggles with these flaws and that it might cause a larger issue if the stakes are high enough sometimes and her emotions run out of control.

And I would've loved to see more of Ahsoka really acknowledging how she'd fucked up, how she'd put the Jedi into a corner, how she'd MADE herself seem untrustworthy, how she'd made it impossible for anyone to truly support her, how her OWN lack of trust had led to her own demise. If she had been less impulsive and not run away, if she'd been less arrogant in thinking she could do this on her own, if she'd been more patient and trusted that the Jedi would find a solution, maybe she never would've ended up in that court room at all, maybe she never would've even been expelled from the Jedi Order in the first place.

And THAT'S what I could see leading to Ahsoka finally learning things like subtlety. If Ahsoka learns humility and patience after that experience, if she realized just how bad the consequences were when she DIDN'T learn that lesson and worked hard to apply it to her choices later, I could see her becoming better at things like spywork.

But unfortunately, her behavior in TCW season 7 just shows she's almost less subtle than ever, and certainly more arrogant and impatient than she was even by season 4 and 5. She's gotten WORSE since that arc, not better. And then we never really see anything between THAT behavior, the bratty teenager, and the wiser spy she's become by Rebels, which just makes the whole thing even more unbelievable.

So yes, sure, time passes in which Ahsoka COULD have learned the skills necessary to be a better spy, but the actual narrative we have for her shows that she DOESN'T learn those skills and in fact leans more into the flaws that would make her a WORSE spy.

[wavypotatochips]

i love sergio so much, can u write another one? maybe where he likes to tease reader a lot but she’s very shy and introvert so sometimes he stops doing it because he might be scared he could offender her, like he’s very soft and lovey with her and maybe they both have a crush on each other ?

𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐨 𝐑𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐬

𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: Sergio Ramos x Female Reader

𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 2.4k

𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: You are a shy, introvert photographer who PSG hires to take pictures of the players. You have always had a soft spot for Sergio Ramos, even before you were hired. With more time spent together, your crush is just growing, especially considering how sweetly he treats you. One day, He believes he has overstepped the mark one day when he does something that makes you flee.

𝘈𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦: I am so sorry for the wait!! (college has me in a chokehold rn) Of course I can write another! Thank you so much for requesting (: I'm not truly sure how to convey a very shy/ introverted individual, but I tried my best! Hope you like how I represent your idea ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚!!

[Translator Spanish is used- Note that translation may be wrong.]

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ♥

With just a few seconds remaining, the striker has  a chance to score and is going to kick, but Sergio stops him, giving PSG the victory. You smile to yourself and raise your camera to your eyes while shooting pictures of everyone as the boys rush over to him to celebrate. In order to capture Ramos alone, you keep the camera raised while you wait for the ideal opportunity. As your wish is granted a short while later, you start snapping quickly. He turns to look at you and gives you a wink as you peek through the camera lens to take the picture. Your heart starts to beat quickly as a flush spreads over your cheeks. "Got any good shots?," Ricardo, one of the other photographers for PSG, inquires. Ricardo, who is your age, constantly makes an effort to start a short conversation with you despite the fact that he is aware that you might not be interested in talking. But, because you two work side by side all day, you are closer to him than the other employees. You don't say much to him; you just nod your head in return as you look down at the camera and start looking through the pictures you've shot. You are a PSG employee recruited to photograph them for the social media department. As you are far from an extrovert, it comes as a surprise to you that you even got the job. Yet, social media is to thank for your opportunity. As several of the player photographs appeared on the explore page and started going viral, someone from PSG's social media team came across your profile. The next thing you know, an interview has been scheduled, and the rest is history. With butterflies in your stomach, you take a bit longer than necessary to look at the picture you just shot of Sergio Ramos. As a spectator, you have always found Sergio Ramos to be handsome, and your emotions have only gotten stronger now that you have the chance to meet him in person and get to know him better. He never appeared to mind that you were shy, and he always adjusted how he interacted with you to make sure you were at ease, which was especially important given that you spend more than half of your time with guys. He always made sure you were comfortable, whether it was by ordering the boys to step aside when he knew you were too afraid to speak up or by leaving blue raspberry jolly ranchers on your desk when you weren't looking after noticing that you were thrilled to find a blue raspberry-flavored one day in a candy jar. He always shows you the greatest kindness, but you can never tell if it's because he likes you or is simply being nice. Even though you have the largest crush on him, your mind keeps tricking you and making you overly anxious to communicate with him more than half of the time you two speak. Despite your best efforts, it seems difficult for you to make a change.

“Y/N The team is heading back through the tunnel! We should make it back before they do tunnel shots.” Ricardo exclaims, giving you a small smile and then begins to jog towards the team tunnel. You give Ricardo a small smile as you nod your head, mentally thanking him for removing your focus from the picture of Sergio Ramos. 

Sergio Ramos looks up at the bleachers and waves to everyone before gazing straight, his smile widening as he spots you walking into the team tunnel. He takes off his shirt and slings it over his shoulder, the adrenaline pumping through his veins from the exhilaration he felt. He sees you gaze down at the camera and as you move towards the tunnel, he starts to lightly jog in your way. He hopes you would compliment him on his outstanding save. Thousands of voices in the stadium have undoubtedly already applauded him, but the only words that will truly resonate with him are those that come from your mouth. He has always had his sights set on you ever since you were hired. As he is frequently surrounded by pretentious models, something about your timidity makes him feel like you are a breath of "new air," which makes him feel compelled to protect you. There hasn't been enough talk between you and him to qualify as a conversation. While he sees you as a fragile flower, he is unsure about how to approach you. The majority of the time, he makes an effort to imply that he is interested in you by showing you small acts of kindness. Other times, though, he will playfully tease you because he enjoys seeing how you respond, whether it be with a smile or a blush to the cheeks.

You hum to yourself as you enter the tunnel, keeping your distance from the players by walking close against the wall. Ramos' voice can be heard saying "Hey Y/N!" as his arm is wrapped around your neck and rests on your shoulder. You flinch a little in surprise at what he does. Your heart beats fast as you swallow anxiously and look up. Your body begins to heat up as your eyes contact him, your eyes instantly scanning down to his tattooed, shirtless torso, which is gleaming with sweat. When you glance up into his eyes, he smiles and winks at you from above. He smirks and leans in to whisper into your ear, “Me desempeñé bien hoy porque sabía que estabas mirando (I performed so good today because I knew you were watching.)”  You let out a tiny laugh since you didn't know what to say or do. You look away as your brain begins to process how close you are to his bare chest, your heart is pounding rapidly as if it is going to burst out of your chest. You look around to try and find a way out of the circumstance you are now in, your breathing starts to get faster. Sergio obviously has no malicious intentions, but this is simply how your body responds. When he notices your irregular breathing, his smirk suddenly vanishes. "Y/N are you o-" he begins, but you hurriedly push his arm off your shoulder and move swiftly in the direction of the closest restroom. Ramos was unable to do anything but watch as you almost ran away from him, his joy leaving his body and being replaced with remorse.

And the fact that he did not see you for the rest of the evening only made him feel worse. 

Meanwhile, in the restroom, your smile never fades as you recover your breath before squealing. “Oh my gosh,” you mutter to yourself, "Oh my Gosh, I can't believe that just happened!” You start whispering as you begin to recount all that just occurred. “I performed so well today for you, Y/N.” "Oh?-" you exclaim as you put your hand on your chest, “-for me?... How sweet of you. Deberías mirar las fotos que tomé hoy, te ves tan sexy(You should look at the pictures I took today, you look so hot.)” You remember the warmth that radiated from his covered in sweat body and giggle as you put your hand on the shoulder that his arm was on. That may seem disgusting, but hey, Sergio Ramos is Sergio Ramos, so even that is acceptable. Your grin then fades as you realize you are in the restroom and you glance in the mirror. You ran away from him yet again. A few weeks ago, you made a vow to yourself that you would talk to him and return his flirtations, but once again, your feet move more quickly than your lips. You groan and run your hands through your hair, too ashamed to even step back outside to see him at this point. "Next time you better speak out!," you say, pointing in the mirror at yourself. “You can do this!" You sigh once more as you realize you must return outside in order to provide the pictures you took on the field to the social media department. You expected your next opportunity to come later that night, but as soon as you went out of the bathroom, you ran into the manager of the media department and immediately began assisting them with their needs. The following day was a rest day, so there was no team meeting. Yet, as the day of the next team practice drew near, he didn't approach you to chat as he typically does. He might occasionally wave or crack a little smile at you, but he hardly ever even blinked an eye at you. You were saddened by this because you assumed that since he now thought you were awkward, he had lost interest in you.

Days have passed, and it is now officially two weeks since your last 'regular' interaction with one another. The guys are practicing right now, and you're back in the restroom, trying to convince yourself that you can talk to him. You are holding your camera and are dressed in black leggings with a PSG windbreaker because it is a little chilly outside due to the wind. You're pacing back and forth while telling yourself, “Okay Y/N…. you can do this…. How hard can it be? You talk to people all the time…. Maybe you can practice with Ricardo first…” You bite your bottom lip, trying not to let your nerves get the best of you because you haven't even attempted anything. You sigh and check your watch, realizing that practice is about to end and that you should head back to the field right now to take any last-minute shots. You give yourself one final nod of approval before heading outdoors to the practice fields.

You go down the hallways, your eyes widen as you start to hear a lot of voices, and you start to walk quickly. Of course they end practice early the day I don't need them too, you think to yourself. You witness Ramos pouring water into his mouth outside, still without a shirt. You want to scream at the sight, but you decide against it and carry on walking. YAs you start to move, you are too preoccupied with your thoughts to notice that you are walking right toward him. “Y/N?” You become aware that you are once more in front of a shirtless Sergio Ramos when he asks a question.  Your mouth starts to open and close as if you are a fish out of water as you attempt to conceal the sound of your rapid heartbeat. Come on, say something! Your mouth starts to open and close as if you are a fish out of water as you attempt to conceal the sound of your rapid heartbeat. Come on, say something! Sergio Ramos observes your frozen state for a few seconds before smiling and shaking his head. Before leaving, he puts his palm on top of your head and slightly messes up your hair. As you turn around and watch him walk away, you are upset with yourself. This time you pushed back instead of giving in, even if your neck feels like it has been sewn shut. “Sergio!,” You call out to him. He swiftly turns around with a smile on his face as he realizes you are speaking to him first. He answers, "Yes?," back. You take a sharp breath and swallow, hoping to get rid of your nerves. “You s-should put on your shirt…. I-I don't want you getting sick.” "Alright," He nods and chuckles as he quickly pulls the practice jersey back over his head. With the last inner power you have at this moment, you approach him as he was putting his shirt back on. “Sergio, I also want to apologize,”  there is a brief pause as you glance down and start to play with your camera,“I know I don’t always show you how thankful I am for the things you do for me, but I truly am. It's just my inner thoughts getting the best of me, and I believe that if I don't know what to say- then you shouldn't say anything at all.. I'm so-" "Y/N, you don't need to apologize," Ramos interrupts you and says,  “I should've never made you feel uncomfortable by invading your personal space last game… I just didn’t know how to apologize to you so I did what I thought was best and kept my distance in hopes that it made you feel better.” You give him a puzzled expression. "I didn't feel uncomfortable at all; I just responded that way because you were too hot to handle."   Your lips are swiftly covered with your free hand as you think to yourself, there is no freaking way I just said that. Your eyes widen. Ramos' eyes light up with amusement as he approaches you, hoping to taunt you a little,"Oh yeah? So, am I too hot to handle, or did you really want me to put on my shirt because you didn't want me to get sick?” You use your hand to conceal your face as much as you can because your other hand is still holding the camera. Ramos wraps his arm around you and gives you a big bear embrace as he laughs at the sight of you feeling embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Y/N, but you are just too cute. I can't help but to mess with you a little." He glances down, but all he can see is the top of your head as you continue to mentally swear yourself out and conclude it's better to remain silent. "How about we go eat ice cream and I meet you in front of the staff housing in about two hours? He asks as he begins to rock you back and forth, "¿Eso te haría sentir mejor? (Would that make you feel better?)” He smiles once he feels you nod your head against his chest.“Great! Then it's a date.” "¿E-espera qué?(W-wait what?)" you ask, raising your head to look up at him, your chin pressing against his chest. He simply winks and releases his hold on you. "I'll see you later, princesa (princess)," he says as he turns to walk away. All you could do was look in disbelief because your brain was unable to comprehend what had just transpired. 

The one time you speak first, you get a date with your biggest crush. I suppose there are some risks that are worthwhile.

A/N: Part 2 with the ice cream date, maybe? c;

[auiciqa]

Marriage Counseling With Miguel O'Hara 😵‍💫

Pairing-Miguel O'Hara x fem!reader

Warnings-not many just soft angst(kinda soft angst 😰) and cheesy

*a/n-this is my first drabble so keep in mind that this is my very first one and pls tell me if I made any mistakes😔💔

Miguel was a...very confusing man.you couldn't help but grow suspicion on the fact that he came home from work really late.I mean could you really blame the man? He's one of the lead geneticists in Alchemax which can honestly can be very stressful considering that he's also Spider-Man.

It wasn't till he got home from work really late with his hair all over the place,his blouse being smothered in wine red lipstick and the smell of cheap perfume from TJ-Maxx or Ross or something.Your mind knew exactly why he came home as such late hours.You weren't surprised at all,when you payed your credit card bills you could see purchases made at Tiffany's and co,Pandora,Sephora,Dior, Cartier,etc.. When the most he had gotten you was a full charm bracelet from James Avery?

You didn't have the words to confess to him so you just kept it to yourself.It even scared you that your own 5 year old daughter understood why you and her father were so distant.

The day you confessed to him he was mad.. like really mad. Mad to the point where could just slap you across the face right then and there. "Hija de ty puta Madre I knew I should've told you this sooner or later!"."Well you didn't,instead you went and fucked your sorrows into a 20 year olds pussy!". You felt your throat tighten like there was a piece of barbed wire wrapped around it,hell even your words came out almost broken."Well at least it was better than yours!"."Miguel.. don't you remember you said that you would love me forever? You aren't the man I feel in love with 10 years ago."."Well maybe I broke that promise alright why can't you just shut the fuck up already!".You cried into your pillow that night while Miguel left, probably to go to the other woman but you couldn't stop thinking about the promise he made to you,he said he'll love you forever,right? Right.....?

As soon as Miguel came home from work you had told him that marriage Counseling was going to be the best option the fix your marriage."Why can't we just get a divorce you stupid bitch it won't even work out!" He yelled but you just kept a straight face."Well I just don't want Gabby to grow up switching houses every week,the girl isn't even 12 and she already understands why we've been so distant it even scares me on how much she understands what we have..!". You both loved Gabby very much but Miguel couldn't help but think about his own daughter,how could have he forgotten about how his own daughter would feel if her parents separated her opinion matters too."Only for Gabby's sake.".Took awhile for him to agree his face said otherwise,he looked like he was defeated meanwhile you were scheduling an appointment with the counselor.

"Good morning Mr and Mrs O'Hara what seems to be the issue here?". It was that question that both of you guys wanted to avoid answering,yet again you felt that same feeling of ur throat feeling tight."Um..well this son of a bitch just cheated on me yet he promised he will love me forever and I just think that promises should last forever don't you think Mr.Anderton? Miguel couldn't help but roll his eyes at what you just said but felt a sense of relief because he wasn't the one to answer that question."Well that seems to be the case for most couples,but let's just start off on things that we can change and things we can't, starting off strong Mr O'Hara what is something you would like for your wife to change?"There was a long pregnant pause, because Miguel was distant from you he didn't notice anything that bothered him or that could change so he just had to make something up."Uh..she's always complaining on how I get home late.?"Did this bitch really just lie? Y'all are here to repair your relationship for the sake of y'all's daughter and he just sits there and lies?"Not true!" You yelled, Miguel couldn't help but argue back and so did you,this went on for about 30 seconds till Mr anderton stopped you guys."Ok that question might be something you both don't want to answer, I fear that y'all are here to repair you're marriage not fight." you turned to look at Miguel as he does the same and y'all both look back at the counselor."Let's just go with something easier,Um Mrs O'Hara have you ever thanked your husband for having a roof over your heads and to have food on the table every day?" Miguel could feel himself smirk and so did you feel it you were just left speechless,"Uh.. no.." "Ok now Mr O'Hara have you also thanked your wife for cooking,cleaning, washing laundry and for taking care of your child." Right back at you bitch, you couldn't help but giggle a bit as Miguel frowns at the question."no."

The session went on for another hour or two untill "I can't help but say that you both need some serious help.."You and Miguel both looked at each other knowing that this won't work out.

Okkk guyssss hope y'all liked this I think I could do some improvements but overall I think this came out good!

[jayvolans]

𝐥𝗼𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝗼𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐢𝐫 | 𝐚𝐥𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐚𝗺 𝐬𝗺𝐚𝐮

𝐗𝐈𝐕. 𝐂𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐒

Y: Good morning everyone, and welcome to another segment of our Stellar Lunar analysis!

A: As I’m sure you can tell, this was not scheduled, but some of you reached out to ask for help on a latent theme analysis of chapter 7.

Y: Wow, your intros have gotten so much better! Didn’t think you had it in you~

A: …thanks. I guess.

Y: Alright, enough chit chat let’s get to it!

A: *unintelligible noise*

A: Please, please, please tell me you don’t actually believe that…

Y: And why wouldn’t I? You can’t take everything she says at face value!

A: Yes, you can. Not everything has a deeper meaning.

Y: And I would agree, but in this instance our narrator has been proved time and time again to be completely unreliable because of her mental state. The whole point of this is that we absolutely can’t trust everything she says.

A: I guess I… didn’t consider that. So with that being said, what do you think she meant by her statement?

Y: Oh my god… is the Alhaitham agreeing with me AND asking me a question, all in the same sentence?! I think I’ve seen it all!

A: Technically it was two sentences.

Y: Ugh, way to ruin the moment.

A: But you-

Y: One of these days we’re going to have to agree on something!

A: As soon as you start making sensible points we will.

Y: What makes you right? Our classmates love my point of view!

A: …

Y: Whatever.

A: Anyways, hopefully I’ll rub off on you so you can look at this logically.

Y: None of this book is logical though! That’s like- the entire point! And the seventh chapter is the most convoluted and non-straightforward part!

A: You’ve… read the whole book?

Y: You haven’t?

A: Of course I have.

Y: We’ll talk about the ending later.

A: Agreed.

A: I think I might strangle you.

Y: Cut.

A: What?

Y: Cut the cameras. Deadass.

A: Can’t win the debate so now you have to fight me?

Y: For your information, I’d win both, no questions asked!

A: Oh yeah?

And the next thing you know, Alhaitham is towering over you, haughty eyes looking down on you. Only slightly daunted, you stood up to meet his glare.

It was quiet in the room, the only sound being his quiet breathing and the ticking clock. “This isn’t a fight you can win,” Alhaitham grinned, but it was less mocking than you expected.

In fact, his narrowed eyes danced with mirth, taking you by surprise. “Oh please, I could take a nerd like you down any day,” you huffed, hands on your hips. Alhaitham snorted out a laugh as he stepped closer, and now you were chest to chest. “I’d like to see you try.”

Your frown deepened at his taunt. “You’re insufferable sometimes, Alhaitham,” you bit out. There had been an odd tension that had been present the whole recording, and now it was reaching its peak.

Chest to chest, nose to nose, he was insufferable to you, but you couldn’t get enough of your back and forth with him, couldn’t get enough of him. And maybe it was just the lingering heightened emotions from your near arguments, but you couldn’t help but want to be closer still.

It might’ve been wishful thinking, but from the way he was staring, you couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same way. “God, you talk too much,” He hissed.

But before you could make a retort, his lips were pressed feverishly to yours. Your noise of surprise was muffled by his lips as he pressed your body closer to his.

It felt as though a haze was clouding your mind and stealing your judgment, but you couldn’t stop your arms from curling themselves around his neck.

He was intoxicating, and you were falling deep. The way his lips moved against yours was a mix of precision and passion that pulled you further into him.

His hand carefully cradled your jaw, allowing him to deepen the kiss more than you thought possible. You needed to breathe, and thought he would too, but Alhaitham seemed wholly content to only breathe you in, showing no signs of stopping.

You had to force yourself to pull away, but you couldn’t find yourself regretting it when you saw his expression. Eyes half lidded, lips swollen, and cheeks dusted pink… it was not something you could’ve ever imagined seeing on Alhaitham’s face, but the last thing you were doing was complaining.

“What was that?” You mumbled, unable to escape his gaze. And just like that, his infuriating smirk was back in full force. “I told you; you talk too much.”

You groaned, flicking his forehead. “Shut up. Anyways, we definitely have to cut that part out,” You sighed, but you weren’t at all displeased, and it was obvious that Alhaitham knew it too.

“Why? I think it adds to the argument,” He shrugged.

A: With all of that being said, I hope this was as productive for all of you as it was for me.

Y: Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?

A: I think you know, yn.

Y: I-?!

A: Anyways, if you have anymore questions reach out to either Professor Lisa or us. Anything to add, yn?

Y: H-huh?

A: Tch. You were complaining about my intros when it’s really your outros that are the problem…

Y: Hey-!

A: Goodbye and thanks for watching.

Y: Alha-!

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝗼𝐮𝐬❧ 𝗺𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭❧ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭❧

:D?

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 (open)❧

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[penultimate-step]

One thing that interests me about Koyomi and Tsubasa's relationship, especially early on, is the contrast between how much they care about each other and how little they really understand each other. From their first meeting, their relationship begins with a complete lack of understanding.

All through Bake, Hanekawa is talked up extremely highly by Koyomi. In his eyes, she's the one who knows everything, the one who is always right. Her own catchphrase might be "I just know what I know," but this is in response to Araragi complimenting her about knowing everything. He rarely thinks that she can possibly be wrong - which makes it almost funny in retrospect to realize that he holds this opinion of her despite the fact that one of the first inferences he every sees her make is massively misreading his own issues.

In Kizu, spurred by the day's sense of melancholy and the sudden absurdity of Hanekawa's skirt situation, Koyomi briefly opens up and is emotionally honest with Hanekawa. (Given that we as readers learn most about him from internal narration, this is bigger than it seems: this is one of the moments when he shares the most about himself out loud to others in the whole series.) It's not his whole deal, not by a long shot, but he gets across the basics: his strained concept of the value of friendship and human connections, his sense of nihilism, and his desire not to have to live as a human: "I want to become a plant," he tells her, "so that I wouldn't have to talk or walk." Honestly I'm not sure what a good response is to someone you are only now having a first conversation with telling you all about his depression, but Hanekawa chooses to reject it. She tells him that normally people would dream of becoming something like a rock, but in his case, since plants are a form of life, "You still want to be a living thing." Subtextually: "You don't really want to kill yourself. You aren't suicidal." To this, Koyomi basically thinks, Huh, never thought about it like that. Maybe you're right. and moves on.

….20 pages later, Koyomi chooses to kill himself for Kiss-Shot's sake, stating, "There isn't a single reason for me to bother staying alive." Kizumonogatari is in large part about Araragi's suicidal depression. Hanekawa, I love you, but you misjudged this one.

Even at this early stage of their relationship, Hanekawa thinks highly of Koyomi, much more than he deserves. As such, when confronted with something she considers a weakness, like his supremely low self-worth, she tries to justify why this isn't actually a trait he has.

Much later, by the time of Neko White, she's gotten a better chance to get to know him and become familiar with his him as a person, including his flaws, enough that she and Senjougahara can list them for hours. But that doesn't necessarily mean she understands him or his motivations - because she cares for him so much, she ends up idealizing his bad traits and his personal weaknesses into charm points and strengths. She says at the book's start that she admires him because of his confidence in his own identity, describing him as a person who doesn't hesitate over questions of who he is as a person or what he should be and do moving forward and comparing herself unfavorably to her own lack of sense of identity.

Readers, having read his narration in Kizu and Neko Black know this is far from true; that he spends a huge amount of page count trying to reflect on where he stands in life. The climaxes of both those books are great examples. In Kizu, Koyomi has a huge internal crisis after seeing the death of Guillotine Cutter. He tells Hanekawa that he is unsure if he is human or monster, worrying even that he'll eat her. He is unsure if he is going to oppose Kiss-Shot or not. And on top of that, his own guilt is eating him alive, causing him to question the worth of all his actions in the book so far. There's no way that this can be called a man sure of who he is, and it is Tsubasa herself who snaps him out of it. He relies on her presence as a guide to move forward. She has first hand experience seeing him experience deep uncertainty as to what kind of person he wants to be, but her narration in Neko White claims the opposite - that his consistency and surety is a trait she admires. A similar kind of struggle happens in Neko Black's ending, though given her own stresses and struggles at the time its very understandable that she didn't catch this one. Time after time Tsubasa is the one to see Koyomi's doubts and greatest moments of weakness, but rather than harm her view of Araragi, if anything it seems to have raised her opinion of him. In her Neko White letter, she admires what she calls "confronting his own weaknesses." She talks about falling in love with him when she saw that he was crying as he saved Kiss-Shot, comparing it negatively to how she showed no emotion and smiles through both suffering and aid. She basically says this outright in the letter: to her, all of Araragi's flaws becomes positive. Moments of self-doubt become moments of self honesty, to cry while acting is to remain true to oneself, and so forth.

Not that Koyomi is a genius at understanding her, either. While he admires her, for most of Kizu a lot of whats going on between them is going on in his head - he's projecting his own issues onto her and he deals with her more as what she represents to him than an equal friend, as he will come to treat her later in Bake and beyond. Neko Black, taking place between these two points, shows him in the middle of this transition.

I feel like there's less to say on his side though, just because Neko Black is much more explicit about Koyomi's failure to understand Tsubasa than Kizu is for the reverse. When she feels obligated by friendship to tell Araragi about her struggles with her family, in a reversal of their first conversation from the start of Kizu, he has this to say about it:

Despite having been friends for a month by then he realizes he has still been seeing her more as an ideal than a person. However, his reaction here, in contrast to when the situation was flipped, also illustrates that his way of misunderstanding is subtly different from the way Hanekawa misunderstands him. Rather than a direct dismissal, Koyomi, while originally ignorant, does come around to understanding What Tsubasa will do. However, he does this while blocking out any understanding of Why she would act like this. He can grasp the actions and emotions, but not the underlying causes.

As an example, near the end of Neko Black, after Koyomi has had some time to internalize his new understanding of Hanekawa, he is able to predict her words to her father before Meme tells him, then later develops a plan to deal with the Cat based around predicting her actions well in advance, first luring her out and then baiting her into attacking him. However, despite all this, he seems to have no knowledge, or perhaps is intentionally blocking out, the motivations behind her actions. Theres a reason she calls him "the worst" when he offers to give his time and energy to deal with her stress. (And much like when he healed her injury earlier, this is him dealing with symptoms rather than the true problem.) Because he's totally misjudging what she actually wants.

A similar pattern can be seen in the Cat chapter of Bake, when he first sees the cat. He realizes this means she's stressed, and can guess at how this will make her act and that things might get dangerous, but has no idea what set her off this time, not until the Cat tells him outright why things got to this point.

Koyomi views Hanekawa so highly, almost like she is incapable of making mistakes, despite having personal experience from the get go that she is very capable of making mistakes and that sometimes her inferences are wrong, and that she is often wrong about him, specifically. Hanekawa is wrong about Koyomi because she does the same thing, and views him so highly that she dismisses and glosses over his faults that she has seen personally. Together, they both consistently fail to understand each other because they place the other on a pedestal without meaning to. And yet, the book is clear that despite this gap in understanding, the friendship is no less for it. The care between the two is real, as is the effort they take in each other's lives.

[paperboy-pb]

"A Very Special Day" [Life Story]

[TW for: ableism against kids, internalized ableism, and mentions of suicidal ideation.]

9 years ago today, in the state of New York on September 5th, was my second day of 6th grade. Being a Special Ed kid, I was upset; my school, a K-8 that I had been with since the start and stayed with until the end, had always treated us so differently. And the world around me had promised that things would change once middle school began. But they hadn't. In fact, barely anything was new at all.

Same old baby talk from adults who saw me every day, but willfully ignored how big I had grown.

Same old bullying from my peers, disabled children who spent their days as pots calling kettles black, because no one had any intentions of teaching us better.

Same Adapted Phys Ed, getting ready to interrupt my morning reading every Monday, Wednesday, Friday; even though they'd promised to let me play in Gym with the rest of my class years ago by now.

Same old kids from the neighborhood filling up the rest of my grade, coming in smiling and laughing and oh so free in their new groups of 30. 30-something of them. 12 of us.

They'd even gotten some new kids from the K-5s around town. All of which seemed really nice. Man. Lucky them. Meanwhile, everything was so same-y that I'd considered running away from the school bus when it pulled up.

September 5th, 2014. Still kinda hot in Brooklyn. Sunny out there.

The day had gone bad. My classmates were talking FNAF, and being mean about things I don't remember. They flicked food at me during lunch while I tried to read and mind my own business. We weren't allowed to change seats, even though the rest of our grade got that privilege. It was supposed to be for all of us middle schoolers, but when I'd asked the day before, our lunch aide had no idea what I was on about. She suddenly insisted it was never a thing! While the rest of our grade was splitting into cliques behind her back, paying us no mind, knowing they'd somehow earned it and we didn't.

10-year-old me couldn't wait to go home.

By the end of the day, I was drained like no other. Head down on the desk and all. I was thinking, 2:20-something. Just a few more minutes.

God, why are things like this? Is it gonna get better later this year? I hope so, it's only the second day. Maybe it just starts bad!

Man, I miss summer already. I wish I spent today home all day eating onion ring chips again and playing Animal Crossi--

"Alright guys, listen up!" Said Mrs. Z, who would pretty much be our only teacher this year. (Meanwhile, everyone else got to have different people for different subjects.)

I don't remember her exact words. But she held up a white booklet with a bunch of kids holding hands and awkwardly smiling at us from the mostly-white cover. She said something about it being very important. And she ended her little stanza with, and I quote, "DON'T read these, alright? It's for your parents."

I think that one line changed the trajectory of my life.

As our para handed them out, my bookworm ass couldn't help but furrow my little brows. I'd had teachers assume certain books were "too hard" for me when they weren't, and get upset at me whenever I summarized the plot of them correctly. I'd had teachers tell me not to read other books during class, which was fair enough, I guess. But a teacher telling me not to read something at ALL?

Now THAT'S a new one...

It felt plasticy, not like paper. It's a packet, not a book. Six kids in a row, but none look like me, as usual. The cover said, "Family Guide To Special Education Services for School-Age Children. A Shared Path to Success." ...I don't think a title should be that long. Why not parentheses that end bit?

After that, we were dismissed. Me & some peers headed into the hallway down to the first floor to wait for our bus, and we chatted about it a little bit?

One was like, "Is this a report card or something?"

Another was like, "I guess?"

The first boy skimmed it, though, and saw nothing about him. Which eased his nerves.

A third asked me what I thought it was since I was the only kid who'd hit a Z-reading level. They figured I could make sense of it. And my first thought was boring adult stuff, or some sort of... after-school? Program? Thing? But I didn't really answer. I was too preoccupied with what Mrs. Z said.

What kind of teacher tells me not to read something? Give it to my parents is one thing, but specifically, "don't" read this? Dude! What doesn't she want me to see?

Everyone else had tossed the damn thing into their bookbags and zipped 'em up by now. We headed downstairs, and I couldn't help but notice that our 6th grade class was on the third floor; with a lot of grades 2-4 around us.

Meanwhile, the rest of the big middle school classes came down from higher up. It turns out that they all had their classes high up on the top floor. A bunch of bright minds floated down from above like they were that summer's fireflies, and we were the tips of night grass. Or maybe even worms, burrowing into the dirt and calling it a day.

...

By the time the bus was moving, I still had the packet in my hands. I was wondering why they all got to be up there and we didn't. We lived pretty close to Coney Island, after all: it must be cool seeing the parachute jump from the hallway window on your way down every day.

I barely had time to stuff the packet in my hands once we pulled up to my apartment.

If you've ever wondered what Kid Jonah was like, imagine some sort of hybrid between a miserable little nerd & the most optimistic goody-goody you've ever met. Like, yeah, I'd been in a few fights by this point, broken some rules behind their backs, but I was also... 10. And known for being "THE good kid" in front of teachers. I didn't like to defy them, you know? Even if they did always make me feel weird, or on-edge, or like I was a part of something bad.

So when I made a beeline for my room, I was like, Oh my God, I'm actually gonna do this...? And I didn't tell my parents a thing. I've kept the packet all this time and they STILL haven't read it!

But I did. I think I hesitated, but I remember opening it on my bed.

"Welcome.

Dear families, we've come a long way since our special education reform initiative, A Shared Path to Success, was launched citywide in 2012... we've also been changing hearts and minds as our core belief- that special education is a service, and not a place- has taken hold in our schools...

Section 1... Children learn at different speeds and in different ways. Some children have physical and/or intellectual disabili..."

WHAT?!

...

It was a really dense packet for a kid. Long, boring, seemed endless. But I understood the words. Especially that D one. And at the time, 10-year-old me knew it was a bad one.

I'd crossed the point of no return by then. I kept reading. And I didn't dare skip a word. "Intervention," "Special," "Disability," "Meeting," "Evaluation," "Eligibility," "IEP,"-- Hey, I know that word! IEPs are the dense things stapled to my report cards!

I remember the anger flaring in my heart, out my nose, widening my eyes once I got to the Eligibility bit. I thought, and I quote, "THEY THINK WE'RE DISABLED?!" I don't think words can articulate how insulted little 10-year-old me was!

...I don't think I can articulate how sad that is now, either. How do you instill such heavy ableism into a little boy like that? How do you live with yourself?

But I couldn't throw the book at the wall or take one of my mom's lighters to it like I initially wanted. Because I realized pretty quickly... Oh my God. This is it. These are THE ANSWERS! THIS IS WHY IT'S ALL HAPPENING!

I couldn't believe my eyes as I took it all in. The 13 disabilities that landed me and my friends in this mess, some of which matched up with certain kids I knew right away. But what really caught my attention were the services. Terms that I KNEW about. Things I engaged with. Things I... hated.

"Occupational Therapy." That nice older lady who takes me out of class every few days so I can play memory games, or play with this hand-gripper, or yank pegs outta this bright green putty.

"Paraprofessional Services"; those weird second-teachers that annoy us and only us, but never anyone else in the other classes. They're so stuck-up sometimes! And they never really seem to know how to leave us alone. Especially certain kids.

The stories I could tell about them all now... good fucking lord.

Physical Therapy; That's the one where the lady is always making me feel bad about things and do sit-ups or run drills in the hallway and stairwell... and do embarrassing stretches like people aren't walking by.

And she got upset with me because I brought a lunchbox every day for years; she told me, "You'll never be a big kid if you keep bringing food from home, Jonah!"

And I told her, "But my mom doesn't even make the sandwiches anymore! I make them for myself!"

And she was like, "But still!"

She also measures her footstep, saying it was a foot of distance. Like, 12 inches. But nuh-uh, it was never a foot! Her sneakers aren't that big. Rulers are longer. Why didn't she just get a measuring tape? What's this lady's problem?

The one that sunk my heart, though, was Adapted Phys Ed. The packet said it was "A specially designed program of developmental activities, games, sports, and rhythms suited to the interests, capabilities, and limitations of individual children who may now safely or successfully participate in the activities of a regular physical education program."

And I thought: ...That's the watered-down gym class I do three times a week.

The one where we do "challenges" like stepping into each hole of an agility ladder mat and doing a squat before moving to the next.

The one where we never play sports like everybody else gets to do.

The one that makes the gym teacher sit me out on the bleachers by myself, and watch literally everybody else I know have fun. And when I ask why, nobody tells me anything.

The one where I ask how I can improve in order to go play with everybody else, but nobody tells me anything.

The one where Mrs. D keeps promising me that I'll get to play with the rest of my class soon... but it never comes true.

This is why everybody acts so weird around us.

This is why we can't even talk to the rest of our grade.

This is why nothing ever changes...!

It all made sense. 10-year-old me couldn't feel the floor or the bed anymore. The back of my mind buzzed like shaken soda, fizzling against the back of my skull. I didn't cry. I didn't have tears. But I did sink down, down into the depths of I-don't-even-know-where.

I went time-traveling back to May of last school year, where a Special Ed kid the grade above me was saying to his classmate, "We're all just the kids nobody wants." But I didn't have context. Was this the context? He sounded like he was about to cry.

I went back to 4th grade when I headed into the bathroom and saw two kids from my grade walk by with papers promoting the talent show to everybody. I saw the text written on them clear as day! And I got excited; Our school's having a talent show? COOL! We must be getting those later today, too!

The papers never came.

I went back to 3rd grade, where paras would hover over our class during lunch, but nobody else's. They always stood tall above and between us, like they were a scarecrow keeping the birds of our grade away.

And there was so much. More. Than that.

...

I still wonder why Z didn't want me seeing that. Maybe she knew I would spiral or label myself. But at the same time... that's a learned behavior. Ableism is a hatred, and hatred is learned. From ADULTS. One that she and the rest of the school could at least try to curb if she noticed.

Z wasn't a bad lady. I think she was trying to protect me? But... we already knew we were being treated unfairly. Why would keeping this secret protect me?

The anger only lasted a little while. Because something else dawned on me.

I can't stay here.

This place had been upsetting me for YEARS. And now I knew that it was happening for a reason. A shitty one, but still... a reason. It's not just bad luck. And that it wasn't going to change unless I removed that reason from their minds.

I had to leave. Sound familiar?

The next day we had school? I was completely shaken up. Kinda surprised no one noticed. I was finally seeing just how deep this all went. The teachers smiling in my face, baby-talking, getting reallll close while having this sense of disgust in their eyes.

The staggering difference in numbers between "normal" classes and ours.

Our class locations.

I even found this board on the first floor that had a picture of every teacher and what they taught. Sure enough, "Special Education" was specified in the label for every teacher I'd ever had. I was even able to find the next teachers I'd have for Grades 7 & 8. And my blood went cold because I knew those two particular ladies were pretty mean.

My school was DEFINITELY failing that, "Special Ed is a service, not a place!" shit the state allegedly wanted to accomplish. It was a place. And I... was trapped.

And I couldn't stay trapped. Because as far as I knew, education was everything. I was a very academic little boy back then. And I didn't know what staying in a place like this could mean for my education later down the line.

I didn't want to find out.

I also didn't want my social life restricted like this. Especially since there weren't many kids who treated me well. I wanted freedom. I wanted independence. I wanted a chance to actually find real friends!

And this is sad, but... I was already very depressed by that age. Due to the nature of Special Ed at school. Had been since 8. And so... I made a plan in my bedroom the same night I found the packet:

I can't carry this environment with me into high school. I have to do anything-- EVERYTHING I can to get outta here by the time 8th grade starts! And if I fail... I can't finish 8th grade like that.

The Verrazzano Bridge and the walkway by the water, the one with the short fence that I can get right over, are only a fifteen minute walk from home. If I don't get out of Special Ed by 8th grade, then... I have to go out there and throw myself off. I have to kill myself. I have to...! Because I know for a fact I just can't. Stay. Here.

And I was serious. Dead-serious. Because I thought about it every day for the next 2 years straight.

...

That packet started it all for PB. And as sad as it is that I technically had to go behind adults' backs just to learn something about myself and where I was, I'm extremely glad it happened. Because it's also what kickstarted my interest in disability topics. My journey in learning who we were, what we were, and what we do & don't deserve.

It led to the first drafts of PB just under a year later, which set my life on a completely new path. Paperboy would not EXIST if it weren't for that day. Hell; I don't even know if my OTHER projects (like Weirder Than Usual) would, either!

That wasn't right. None of that was right. But it did give me a story to tell. One that you guys are finally starting to see!

And one that I'm very, very proud of.

Disability conversations are extremely important to me now. I don't think I'm the beacon of anti-ableism or anything like that. I know I've fucked up as I grew up, especially in my younger years. But this entire situation showed me how hush-hush the world likes to be about it. And while it's better now than it was in 2014, it ain't great yet.

And I think I owe it to 10-year-old Jonah to change that shit. Because when he googled "Special Ed makes me feel bad," he barely found anything.

It was definitely an experience I will never forget. And as you saw above, I still keep that packet with me to this day, and I always will, because of just how heavily it changed my life.

I have no idea where or who I'd be if it wasn't for that.

Happy 9th birthday, SpEd packet. Can't wait for the 10th!

[hermitcraft-8]

Deiforms, Chapter One: The End of All Things (Part Two)

masterpost

Sean didn’t dream very often.

When he did, they were vague, unclear, sort of blurry. Just the kind of thing where you get a sort of feeling when you wake up that something happened.

This started off like that- vague and blurry, but then, all of a sudden, like an image loading in all of a sudden, it all clicked. And he was standing in the road across from Frost’s Diner, staring down at a charred and blackened corpse. It wasn’t familiar- the lack of any distinguishing features kind of did that- but he recognized the hoodie.

It was him.

He looked up, and the town was on fire- but not regular fire: red flames that licked the sky. He could have sworn at some point he’d heard that red fire wasn’t supposed to be very hot, but here, it seemed almost to be scalding hot, even hundreds of feet from him, even nowhere near the place he stood.

He woke up the next morning to the familiar sound of his mother in the kitchen, arguing with someone. And, considering his father was out of town and his sister was hardly an arguer, there was really only one person it could be.

He managed to fight his way out of his covers without falling on his face, fighting his way down the hallway to the kitchen-slash-diningroom where his mother stood with her back to him, busy furiously scrubbing out a bowl while she bitched away to the only other person in the room.

“Hey Mama,” Sean said, his voice rough. “Hey Madi.”

Madison Costello, much like her twin brother, was far from tall or lanky. In fact, she was probably a good head shorter than Ash, and twice his weight. Her hair was trimmed short, her wiry glasses held to her face by a broad nose. She wore a sweater vest over a dress shirt, clean gray slacks and a cross necklace that Sean knew better than anyone was just for appearances.

“Sean, baby,” His mother turned around, a flash in her steely gray eyes. “It’s past noon. What were you doing up so late that you slept in so much.”

“And why isn’t your truck in the driveway?” Madi added, an almost playful smirk on her face.

“What?!”

“Uh, I went to a party. No drinking or anything, but it went a lot later than it was supposed to. I got a ride from Ash.”

Madi’s smile flickered, a questioning look replacing it. Sean’s mother didn’t notice, just clicking her tongue and turning back to the dishes. Sean raised an eyebrow at her, and she just shook her head.

‘We’ll talk later.’ She mouthed.

Feeling a little out of the loop, he nodded along. He often felt out of the loop around Madi, almost all the time. It wasn’t her fault, he thought, she simply was… quicker than him.

That was the thing about Madi. She thought of things before anyone else did, and then didn’t elaborate. She just assumed everyone else was having the same revelations she was having, and didn’t stop to consider that maybe they weren’t. Sean had known her about as long as he’d known Ash- which was nearly his whole life- but he wasn’t sure he’d ever had the same thought as she did at the same time she had.

He was just… behind.

When he’d first started hanging out with her and her friends, back when they got together a few months prior, he’d been sure that he’d be left out and confused and alone, but, inexplicably, he found her usual crowd was hardly any more put together than him.

Dean, for example, was a lanky kid who looked faintly like if some Kpop star had gotten their face slammed into concrete a couple dozen times. He was attractive, in a very tragic, missing a front tooth, broken nose, sort of way. Too boot, he was a benchwarmer on the basketball team, where he spent a good amount of his time daydreaming about space ships.

His main claim to fame, however, was his girlfriend.

Lillian Robyn, like all Robyns, was absolutely drop dead gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous where you’re not sure if plastic surgery was involved. She’d been a pageant star in DC as a child, until her parents divorced and her dad remarried to the only lawyer in Rome, and they settled down in the only house in the neighborhood with a third story.

Neither of them were very intelligent. They hung out with Madi because she made them seem smarter, she hung out with them because they kept away any assholes. And they all hung out with Sean because he made them all look very smart and very hot in comparison, as far as he knew.

He did kind of miss his old friends sometimes- Ash and Miki and Lori and Kyrie- but this was better for him, he reminded himself. This was less likely to get him labeled a bad kid.

The second Madi managed to shoo him out of the kitchen, he knew he was in trouble, and yet he remained firmly excluded from anything resembling a loop as she hauled him down the hallway, to his bedroom, where she shut the door and turned on him.

“So, Ash gave you a ride home?”

“Yeah?” Sean sat on the bed. “He always does, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is,” Madi said, slowly, condescendingly. “I don’t want my boyfriend running around with a guy who’s known for stealing boyfriends.”

“'Steal boyfriends,'” He huffed. “He kissed Lars Milyama once. And he didn’t even know him and what’s-his-name were going out-”

“That’s not the point,” Madi pouted. “You said when we started going out that you’d stop hanging out with them.”

“I though you didn’t have beef with him-”

“Besides, why wouldn’t you call me to drive you? You know I would have-”

“Because- because-” She stared at him, raising one eyebrow, and his voice gave out. “I don’t know.”

The butterflies that came with being in love sure felt an awful lot like a panic attack sometimes, he thought.

Luckily, Madi seemed to get the memo, and just sat beside him on the bed. "Sorry for grilling you, it's just…. I'm worried, you know? You've been going to a lot of parties, and driving home drunk-"

"I didn't drive drunk last night."

"I almost wish you had." She muttered.

Secretly, he agreed, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t supposed to have heard that, anyways.

“Whatever,” She said, waving a hand. “You need to get dressed, we’re all going to hang out at the park, and you need to at least be wearing something clean.”

By the time he was dressed, he was already wishing he’d pretended his headache was worse to get out of this, but it was far too late at this point. He was going to go to the park and he was going to have a good time whether he liked it or not.

Madi was sitting in her car by the time he got out there, scrolling through Insta on her phone. She glanced up absently when he got in, and for a second he thought she was going to say something about him taking too long and he braced himself, but instead she just snorted. “Your shirt’s on backwards.”

Embarrassed, he managed to twist it around until it sat correctly, buckling up as she pulled out of the driveway.

The park wasn’t really a park, just a field of grass between the highway and the local church, but that was pretty much the only place for people to hang out, and the church didn’t mind, so that was that. The only alternative, after all, was Walmart.

Pulling into the church parking lot, Madi’s phone rang. Before she could dismiss it, Sean glanced over and saw the caller ID.

“What’s Ash calling you for?”

“Hell if I know.”

“You should probably answer.”

She gave him a look and he shrunk back a bit. She declined the call and climbed out of the car, brushing her short curls from her face.

For a second he watched her walk away, trying to hype himself up enough to follow her.

He knew he was in love with her, but the near constant nausea of being around her was a bit much, he thought.

He got out of the car.

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One: Domestic Battles

Chapter 22: Unintentional Discoveries

Belle returned with a book in hand only a few short moments after Hook and Elsa left. They'd only just barely managed to miss each other. She made a comment about him not working on the dirt anymore and he reminded her that working quietly was how his mind best solved problems. That wasn't a lie. Quiet and silence were how he solved problems best, but usually only after he had all the facts at his disposal. The facts were what he was sorely lacking but seeing as how Belle was sitting in the back room reading yet another book on magic, he knew it wasn't safe to even attempt to study any of it in front of her.

He'd never considered a world where she would become fluent and well-versed in magic. She didn't have a drop of magical blood in her, probably the result of generations of arranged marriages in her family tree. And she'd never shown a particular interest in it before he'd gone off to Neverland, a few questions here and there, but that had been it. His absence, it seemed, had forced her into the trade. And in the absence of any magical abilities of her own, it seemed she was determined to at least master the theoretical aspects of it, which could cause a problem if he wasn't careful.

Smart as she was, this meant that he couldn't claim to do one thing when he was actually doing another and depend on her ignorance to shield him. He couldn't study the hat and then claim it had something to do with Elsa's sudden appearance; she'd see right through that now.

Gods, he loved her. He loved everything about her, everything the world saw and didn't see…but he liked their relationship more when they'd had separate hobbies.

It was nearly dinnertime when she finally closed the book she'd been reading, stood and stretched, then grabbed her coat. "I think I'll run to Granny's, grab us some dinner to take home."

He was finally just finishing his work on the clock and nodded in agreement. "It'll be dark soon," he warned. He might not be terribly worried about her out on the streets, knowing what was going on and what they truly wanted, but she didn't know that.

She kissed his cheek, promised she wouldn't be late, and finally left him alone in the shop. A minute or two later he finished his work on the clock and headed into the backroom to find the place where she'd laid her book aside. He noted the marker and flipped it open…a chapter on magic and its interaction with temperature.

Fuck.

If he didn't get her out of here, then it really was going to be walking on a tightrope around her. But if he left her to her own devices, without any kind of notice if she was using the dagger…

Maybe there was something that he could do about that. Maybe there was a spell he could cast over the fake one to allow it to summon him if she attempted it. Or maybe a general spell to let him know that it was held in her hand was better? That would allow for more than summoning. He could enchant mirrors and listen in to see what she was going to demand he do with that dagger. Or he could just-

The phone in his pocket suddenly buzzed. It was Dove. He knew it even before he looked to check for messages, if only because Dove was the only one who regularly sent him messages to his phone. "I've got a name for you and more. We should talk."

Finally. A name! he'd been expecting this message hours ago, he'd been worried that perhaps the terror in the town had prevented the Apprentice from coming to town as Ingrid said he would or perhaps Ingrid had gotten distracted and closed the shop before Dove could identify him. But now-

His fingers were poised over the keypad when he heard it—a high-pitched whine coming from somewhere close by, in the back room. It was sharp, more like an overtone, a squeal—like a nail on a chalkboard or…glass. He moved to the place where he'd set the dust in its new glass vial.

There. A brand new crack, this one clear as day along the side. The vial was straining, the magic breaking it down quickly. He realized there was nothing left of the glass shards that he'd placed inside earlier, that they'd all been consumed by the magic and-

The glass in his fingers suddenly spiderwebbed. He instinctively let the vial go just before the entire thing caved in on itself and spilled out onto the table in front of him. A moment later, there wasn't a single piece of glass from the vial left. But even more fascinating…

The dust had fallen onto a spool of golden thread that he'd had sitting out. He watched in amazement as the gold his magic had imbued it with melted away until it was just…thread! It returned to a whiteish beige color, the color of fresh wool, what the thread probably would have been if he hadn't transformed it. And yet now it sat there covered in a pile of golden dirt, regular as regular could be. That was interesting. Very interesting.

"I'll call you later," he quickly typed out for Dove before closing the phone and turning his full attention to the mess before him.

The original spell on the urn had been meant to contain magic. Now, he was getting a glimpse at what it might have been like to be inside it and stripped of power. That was very interesting indeed.

Given what he'd just seen it do, he wasn't going to touch the stuff. He tried using his magic, recalling the spool of thread into his hand but…his magic rebounded. It was as though the spool was contained within an invisible capsule. His magic couldn't get in. It was like…like…a summoning circle.

It was like a summoning circle only…not quite a circle, at least not a purposeful one. The dust had formed a circular pattern all its own when the vial had broken above it, but there would have been a clear space where the spool was sitting on the table that was unaffected and unintentionally made it into a circle.

Curiosity seized him as he glanced around the backroom and found the brush and dustpan that Belle had moved. Personally, he had very little experience with summoning circles or magical circles of any kind. He'd used them but rarely because his magic simply didn't require them as others did. But he knew how to break them. It was simple: the circle had to be broken. He wasn't going to touch that dust, not until he'd done further testing on it. Besides, it likely wouldn't let him.

It didn't let his magic in. If he attempted to get near it, he'd likely find a solid wall preventing him from touching it, or he'd find himself without magic until its effect wore off. He had no idea how long that would be, and now wasn't the time to find out. So, with the dustpan and a paintbrush in hand, he reached forward and gently removed a bit of the curve, sweeping it into the dustpan.

Immediately, the golden spool became gold again.

He held his hand out and summoned the spool to him. This time, the magic didn't ricochet. The spool appeared in the palm of his hand, perfectly golden, just as it had been before. Very interesting.

And also, very problematic if he didn't find a way to safely contain it! He got to work sweeping the dust into the dustpan, then, with the help of a funnel, put it into another glass vial. The way it was eating through the vials, he figured he had an hour or so to get it home and fashion some nickel container to hold it. Hell, if he had to, he could always use actual nickels. It wouldn't be pure, but at least it might buy him a bit of time to do what he needed to do with it.

He was just finished putting a stopper on the vial when he heard the bell chime and the click of Belle's heels back in the store, bag in hand, which he was inclined to ignore altogether given what he'd just witnessed.

"We need to get home," he told her before she could take off her jacket. "I need to do something about this, it's too dangerous to remain in this vial much longer and the answers I'll need are in the basement books."

"What are you trying to do with it?" she asked curiously, coming around the table and plucking it from his hands so that his stomach lurched.

She wasn't magical, he reminded himself. It wasn't going to hurt her. But that didn't mean that he loved the fact that she'd pulled that "dangerous" substance into her hand without a second thought. If she was going to insist on studying and working with magic, they'd have to have a talk about that.

"Store it safely until I can find a proper use for it. Any tool that can stop a person from using magic like this needs to be stored in a very particular way. My vault was the perfect place for that urn in the enchanted Forest, but here…let's just say I might have to get a bit more creative."

She nodded as if in understanding as she held it up to the light and turned it this way and that, watching it glitter before she finally handed it back to him.

"You told Emma you had the urn because you were afraid someone would try to put you in it one day," she muttered. "Who would do such a thing? Who would put anyone in there and then just…just forget about them like that?"

"Well…" he sighed before pocketing the stuff. It would last an hour or two without question. But he was going to take an extra vial with him just in case he started to hear a whine again. "You live long enough you learn people are capable of most anything. Who put Elsa in the urn is a complete mystery that I imagine only she can solve when she gets her memories back. But we both know I had no shortage of enemies that would have been willing to lock me away for the good of everyone around me. I, for one, was always a bit suspicious of this maid that I had living in the castle. Something about her smile always made me a little uneasy…"

When he realized how close they were getting to a topic he'd rather not discuss, distraction and diversion were always his go-tos. And fortunately, they worked on her like a charm.

Her cheeks turned red, and she let out a breathy laugh before she leaned in to kiss him. Magic was nothing compared to her, nothing compared to the spell she could cast over him all too easily. Determined as he was to get home and get to work, her kiss reminded him that every second he was going to spend on this problem was going to mean a second away from her and in rebellion his hands wound into her hair, pulling her body closer to his.

They were both breathing heavily by the time she pulled away and rested her forehead against his own. He hated being pulled in two different directions. Hated the feeling of wanting her around every second of every day but needing her to be gone so he could get his work done properly. He couldn't wait to be done with this mess, for Ingrid's plan to succeed or fail, to be free of the dagger, free of the apprentice, for the dust to be settled. Literally and figuratively.

"I love you," he whispered.

"And I love you too," she echoed back, predictable words he'd never tire of hearing.

"Let's go home," he finally insisted. The sooner he could get this over with, the sooner things could get back to their new normal.

[toyotacorrola]

The first official chapter of "Radio Static" is now out!!

Chapter Summary: "Ingo disappears. Emmet has always been a man of fact. There is a terrible truth that he can't deny, no matter how much he wants to."

Chapter Word Count: 2,076

Links: ff.net | neocities

Also available to read below the cut:

The twin Subway Bosses of Nimbasa had always been close, as far as they could remember. This was common knowledge, and natural enough, considering they were twins.

Sometimes, though, it was... strange. Something beyond simple closeness. Like something that ran deeper than logic could explain, like something beyond familiarity connected them.

Most, though, never got close enough to find this out, or simply tried not to think too hard about it. It was better to just dismiss it as a side effect of being together so often for so long than drive themselves mad trying to come up with a proper explanation.

It made itself difficult to ignore, though, when Ingo disappeared.

All around the platform, heads had turned at the sound of a clipboard clattering to the floor. Emmet had looked as though he hadn't even noticed, preoccupied by something else entirely. His eyes were wide, his brows furrowed tight, and all the blood had drained from his face. He almost looked ready to pass out.

The agent that had come to ask him about the schedule tried in vain to get back his attention as he glanced about frantically, as if searching for something; no one could have guessed what. He scrubbed a hand down his face, like he had a headache coming on.

When he finally acknowledged Cloud, it wasn't to answer any of their questions, but rather, to ask one of his own.

“...Something is wrong. I am Emmet. Where is Ingo?“

Before they could even think to answer him through their perplexion, Cameron had jogged up to the pair, looking frazzled.

”There you are, Boss! I've been looking everywhere for-“ she began, then stopped, and looked around the platform, her brown curls swaying as her head turned. ”He's not with you, either?“ she asked.

It wasn't long before they realized that Ingo was nowhere to be found. His belongings and his pokeballs all laid in the tunnels, discarded, with no sign of where their owner had gone.

Cloud later realized that, in all of the panic and confusion, they never found out just how it was that Emmet had known.

-

It had been a remarkably slow day, seemingly dragging itself on towards nothing in particular. He had very few challengers make it to his car, and those that did seemingly did so on a fluke, not giving him much, if any, challenge at all.

The only remotely interesting thing to happen that day was when he and Ingo had gone into the tunnels to check for something strange an agent had allegedly seen on one of the security cameras. Emmet had had to leave, though, to wait at the platform before they had found out what it had been. He suspected that the answer wouldn’t be very interesting, anyway; probably just a Pokemon that had gotten separated from its trainer, or somesuch.

Other than that, though, nothing seemed to be very much out of the ordinary. Emmet wasn't sure whether this was a good thing or not. He was bone tired from the monotony of the day, but “interesting” seldom went with “good,” at least in their business. 

He had, for once, wanted nothing more than to just end the day and go home. He and Ingo loved their jobs, so usually, neither of them much minded the long hours. That day, though, he couldn’t think about much other than having a nice, quiet evening home with his brother. 

As he waited at the platform for the train to arrive, he thought of a loose plan for what they would do that night. They could make dinner together, and maybe sit on the couch and watch a movie before retiring for the night. 

Just thinking about that made him aware of how his back ached. Ugh. He bent backwards, hands resting where his back curved, and heard several loud pops. As he straightened back up, he didn’t really feel much better. If Ingo were there, he’d have chastised him for it; he’d always hated that habit of his.

Emmet didn’t believe in bad days, so long as he had his brother with him. Every day is what you make of it, as Ingo would say. But today was really pushing it. He was hoping the last few hours, despite how tired he would still be, would make it so the day ended on a high note, at least.

Suddenly, Emmet froze, and felt the blood drain from his face.

Something was wrong. Something was missing. 

He blinked, and tried to focus, but nothing changed. The constant, warm presence in his mind that he was used to was just… gone. It had been there, just a moment ago, and all at once, it was gone.

All of his fatigue had frozen solid into dread in a single instant.

He hardly had a single coherent thought as his ears began to ring louder, and everything seemed to stop all at once. His heart, his breathing, everything around him, and...

And...

Where was Ingo?

He couldn't hear him, he couldn't feel him, he couldn't...

He tried to reach through, or to just feel that he was there; pulled away, for some reason, but there. Something must be wrong, but they would work through it. He’d yell at Ingo for it, he’d sound angry, even though he was really just scared. He’d apologize, and Ingo would apologize, too, and then tell him what was wrong so he could help. Surely.

But he tried and tried, all to no avail. There was nothing.

Nothing at all.

Not even a wall keeping him out.

He looked around, knowing he'd see nothing, as Ingo hadn’t been anywhere near him before, but not knowing what else to do. His heart thundered painfully in his chest, and he felt his breathing come back, stuttering and quick. That chilly dread had now turned into a fiery panic, scorching his mind and burning under his skin. 

Where was Ingo? Was he alright? What had happened?

Why couldn't he hear him?

Someone was calling for him, and had been for a while. His mind had filtered it with the rest of the noise around them, as his fear had stolen all of his awareness of his surroundings and turned it all into a blurred mass of stimuli he couldn’t process. 

As their voice came back into focus, emerging from the haze everything had set itself into, so did everything else. The layers of chatter all around them, the rumbling of the trains in the distance, the blazing lights overhead, the fabric rubbing against his skin. He felt himself begin to sweat, despite how cold the station tended to be.

It had been fine only moments ago, but it all seemed to slam into him like a bullet train as he tried and failed to listen to what the agent was saying to him. He brought a hand to his face to stave off the headache as it came back with a vengeance, feeling like a shot straight through his brain.

Focus, focus, you just need to find him. You’ll find him, and he’ll be okay, and this can all go away.

Try as he might have, though, panic threatened to overtake him with every breath. Everything seemed to pass in a jumbled blur of sound and color.

He was fairly sure he had asked the agent where Ingo was, but hadn't gotten an answer. Another agent had come, also looking for his brother, seeming both exasperated and worried. His own worry had only gotten worse, with that. 

All around the station, everything came to halt. A search began, yielding no results. The only thing they had managed to find had been Ingo's belt, without any other sign of him anywhere, or where he might have gone. Emmet’s stomach had felt as though it was filled with cement, when the news made its way to him.

Everything was completely off-track, in every sense. A great number of passengers were delayed, or had to find another way to travel entirely. Normally, Emmet would be appalled at this, would focus all of his energy on solving the problem and ensuring it never happened again. But it was the least of his worries at the time. 

He sat with his head in his hands, the odd silence of the barren station around him somehow worse than all of the noise from before. He felt awful not doing anything, but there wasn’t much more that could be done, not by him at least. His agents had insisted he take a break, saying he didn’t look well. He’d never been more grateful for them and how hard they all worked than he was that day, but it still frustrated him.

He knew, though, that he couldn’t be much help in the state he was in. He did his best to calm down, but his stress and his worry kept mounting up, paralyzing him, making him feel sicker and sicker.

With every minute more that they couldn't find him, the grim reality came into sharper and sharper focus.

Ingo had vanished.

Generally, Emmet was able to keep an even head in stressful situations. It was what made him and Ingo such a great team. Ingo would identify the problem, what needed to be fixed, what they had to get done, and would make sure they didn’t get off track. Emmet would think about the facts, about what he could do, and find a way to solve the problem, step by step. 

He feared, though, that this was a problem that he couldn't solve. His eyes burned, and nausea swirled in his gut and made itself at home.

But, for the sake of routine, he would follow his usual tracks. Maybe, at the least, it would help him calm down, and think about the situation more objectively.

What were the facts?

First and foremost, Ingo was gone. Vanished into thin air.

Secondly, there wasn't the slightest hint of where he could have gone. No blood, no damage to the area, nothing helpful on the security cameras. Nothing.

Thirdly, whatever had happened, it had been instantaneous. One moment, Ingo had been there, doing his job, and lingering in the back of Emmet's mind like always. The next, he had simply been gone, as though he had never been there in the first place.

The thought made his nausea sharply worsen, and he really thought for a moment that he’d be sick all over the floor.

While they searched, Emmet felt that it was of no use. They thought that if they kept looking, they’d find something. But he already knew that wasn’t going to happen.

And he did appreciate it. He appreciated that so many people cared about his brother. He appreciated that they all wanted him to come home safe. He appreciated all of their help. He really did.

But they didn't have all of the facts. They didn't know what he knew.

While Ingo and Emmet may have looked nearly identical on the outside, they were very different on the inside.

Ingo was always idealistic. He always saw the good in people, and the light in even the darkest of situations. He believed that, even if it turns out to be wrong, hoping for the best scenario can help you get through even the darkest of times.

Emmet believed in the truth, in fact. He believed that, while every alternative was worth exploring, the most likely outcome usually wasn't the one you wanted. No matter how much he didn't want it to be true, it was better to think of the worst outcome as the one you would get.

After all, disappointment hurts less when you're expecting it.

Ingo was gone. Emmet was certain that he was not coming back.

He didn't want it to be true. He wanted so badly to hope with everyone else, to be able to search and believe that he'd find anything.

But he had felt it. Ingo had gone in less than a second. There was no shock, no pain, no nothing.

He was at least comforted by the idea that it had been quick. Whoever or whatever had taken his brother from him was at least a bit merciful.

So, while everyone else prayed for Ingo's return, while they told Emmet not to give up hope and assured him that his brother would come home eventually, he knew the truth.

Ingo was dead.

[thestobingirlie]

Hey!! So I was scrolling through your blog and I completely agree with your opinion of Nancy. I can not tolerate Nancy in the show at all and I acknowledge some of that is due to the fact that the show writers and the some of the fandom paint her as perfect. (The other part is that she reminds of people who didn’t treat me well in school.)  She's not. She has flaws. She's selfish. I don't know if that's the right word, but it's the one I have. And that’s fine to start out with but the second they started making it seem Nancy was in the right all the time, they doomed her character. Like when Steve apologizes for being a bad boyfriend, there just isn’t any evidence for that? He goes to dinner with Barb’s parents with Nancy, and it’s clear that he adores her. And also, do people really think Nancy didn’t cheat? She makes it quite clear to Murray that she’s in a relationship with Steve and then later that day she sleeps with Jonathan. She strings along Steve for a year only because she was waiting for Jonathan to be ready. And Nancy never apologizes! For any of her mistakes. She makes them! But no one treats them like problems! I just can’t like her character, the Duffers intend on writing her as this perfect character and everyone treats her as such in the media, which feels unnatural and just makes me so mad. And that has trailed over into the way I perceive material about her. And maybe her character is still redeemable, but with the way the Duffer Brothers are taking this, I don’t it will be. I think Nancy could have been a compelling character, like the way Steve is, but the Duffers messed it up.  ~@thestrangerthingsmeadow

the sad thing about nancy is that i think i totally would’ve liked her if she’d been written better. as it stands, she’s never even actually had a character arc (because no, giving a girl guns doesn’t count).

and yes, though the show doesn’t want you to think it, nancy does have flaws. she’s very single minded, once she’s gotten her mind set on something, nothing can dissuade her, which means that she isn’t particularly empathetic, and she hurts people without thinking. and she’s been this way since the very beginning.

now, like you said, this wouldn’t actually be an issue, if she’d ever learnt from it. as it stands, she’s never had to apologise when she makes mistakes, in fact, the show doesn’t even present them as mistakes!

it is very clear that nancy cheats on steve, she literally says she loves him like an hour before she sleeps with jonathan. but because nancy can do no wrong, the show pretends it doesn’t happen. steve has to take the cheating graciously to show how much he’s grown (he’s not even allowed to be mad he got cheated on!) and no consequences for nancy. and yes, we have to believe steve is a bad boyfriend, because otherwise what nancy did was out of line, and fucked up. steve deserved better than to be someone’s back up. to be used so nancy didn’t have to wait alone until jonathan finally asked her out.

but one example that really annoys me is nancy and jonathan’s argument in s3.

so, first, this argument happens because nancy put the blinkers on, and refused to consider anyone else’s opinion. they’re both in the wrong in the fight, both say things they shouldn’t. but we see nancy talk it out with her mum, who totally supports her. and yet we never see anything similar for jonathan. he gets no opportunity to have someone on his side, to back him up. and this is a key example where the show so obviously wants us to side with nancy. to ignore her faults, and support her wholeheartedly. we aren’t supposed to think she’s done anything wrong.

and that’s why i can’t like canon nancy. a character making mistake and having flaws isn’t a bad thing, but it is when those mistakes are never acknowledged. when the show actively pretends they don’t exist, that makes a character intolerable.

obviously nancy has her good sides, and there are parts to her character that i like. but i’d like her a hell of a lot more if the show acknowledged her faults, and gave her the space to grow and change as a person, rather than stagnating.

i don’t think the duffers will be able to totally save nancy’s character by the end of the show (especially after s4. i had hoped them bringing up barb would mean we’d get something, but no. it seems her dead body was just used to scare nancy) but i do hope we get at least a little development.

[lady-wallace]

Whumptober Day 1 (Buddy Daddies)

ITS FINALLY WHUMPTOBER! So excited for all the things I have to share this year.

We’re starting off with some cute Buddy Daddies stuff this year. I hope you enjoy reading 😌

~~~~~~~

Prompts Used: Safety Net, Swooning, 'How many fingers am I holding up?' Fandom: Buddy Daddies Character: Kazuki ~~~~~~~

Read on Ao3

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"Maybe that wasn't the best plan."

"Dude, the safety net wasn't supposed to hold both of our weight, you know."

"Didn't have a lot of choice."

Kazuki swayed, reaching out to grab Rei's shoulder as everything went wobbly, holding his head with his other hand. "Still your fault I hit my head."

Rei grunted, grudgingly offering him support as they got back to the car.

"Give me the keys," Rei said, holding out his hand.

"Like I'm letting you drive," Kazuki snorted. "You'll kill us."

"So you'll drive with a concussion and not kill us?"

"Don't have a concussion, just hit my head," Kazuki protested, even as his head started to feel worse and worse by the second. Everything blurring and shifting, making him sick to his stomach. He would, of course let Rei drive, but he wasn't about to go down without a fight.

However…

Rei snagged the keys out of his limp fingers and went to unlock the car. "I'm driving," he said decisively.

Kazuki swayed, pressing a hand to his forehead. The sun felt incredibly hot, pelting him mercilessly.

"Kazuki?"

An embarrassingly weak moan escaped his throat as he finally keeled over, collapsing limply on the ground.

XXX

"Papa! Are you awake? Wake up, wake up!"

Kazuki cringed, head splitting at Miri's shrill voice. Had he gotten super drunk the night before, or…

No, nothing nearly so fun considering his last memory was jumping out of a window with Rei toward a poorly thought-out safety net.

He moaned and cracked his eyes open, everything blurring around him, including the small face that appeared hovering over him.

"How many fingers am I holding up, Papa?" Miri asked, waving a hand in front of his face so quickly that he felt sick.

"Ugh…fifty," he muttered, raising a hand to his head.

Miri turned around. "Rei-Papa, he can't count my fingers!"

"He's concussed," Rei's voice replied as he came over and pressed something extremely cold to the side of Kazuki's head where the aching was concentrated.

He hissed in pain. "Geez, that's cold!"

"What's concussed?" Miri asked.

"It means he hit his head badly and needs to rest and not try to get up." Slightly accusatory.

Kazuki wrinkled his nose, but if he were being honest, the idea of getting up was not an enjoyable one to him at the moment. In fact, he was pretty sure that if he were to move more than an inch, he might either pass out or throw up—maybe both, and hopefully not in that order.

"Does he need a band-aid?" Miri asked.

"That might help," Rei replied.

Miri ran off and Rei crouched beside what seemed to be the couch where Kazuki was laying.

"You don't seem to be confused, so that's good," Rei commented. "Can you take some pain pills?"

Kazuki groaned, but nodded once before he realized that was a bad idea.

Rei got him some and helped raise his head up and hold a glass of water for him so he could take the medicine.

Miri came back with a box of band-aids. "I got the Morio Kart band-aids!" she cheered and dutifully opened one.

"Ah…hold on…" Kazuki tried to protest as Miri stuck it in his hair over the lump on his head. Yeah, he was not looking forward to getting that out later.

"There, does it feel better, Papa?" Miri asked.

"A little."

"When will he be better?" Miri asked.

"Hopefully soon," Rei told her. "And it will be your job to watch him so that he doesn't get up. He'll just swoon again."

Kazuki gritted his teeth. "I do not swoon! I just passed out."

"It looked like a swoon to me," Rei replied blandly.

"What's swoon?" Miri asked.

"Like a princess," Rei said.

Miri giggled. "Kazuki-Papa is a princess!"

"Am not," Kazuki grunted.

"Shh," Miri told him, pressing her finger to his lips. "You need to rest. But don't worry, Papa, I'll watch over you."

Kazuki couldn't help but feel a little warm and fuzzy inside at that. He smiled and shut his eyes again, reaching up to hold the ice pack more firmly against his skull. "I know you will, Miri. I appreciate it."

"Get some rest," Rei told him. "I…suppose Miri and I will make dinner tonight."

Kazuki's eyes flew back open, all the warm and fuzzies gone. He really had to recover soon or everything in the apartment, including his precious kitchen, might be destroyed.

~~~~~~~

Check out my Whumptober Masterpost HERE for more stories!

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[dimiclaudeblaigan]

What do you think about Azure Gleam's part II? I've seen many online discussions, mostly negative. The main issue is ofc how they handled Edelgard, the other Eagles and the Empire. There are also some who think it's boring/too predictable/less dynamic than the other two. And while I do think part I was indeed way better, I still did enjoy the rest while playing (though I felt really sorry for Edelgard). But when I read all the hate part II receives, I think maybe I'm part of a minority? lol

I loved all of AG tbh aside from a few forced writing choices like Literally Everyone Except Dimitri distrusting Claude for literally no reason whatsoever. I've talked a bit before regarding how I don't like how they handled Edelgard, but only to the extent that she was essentially literally woobified and couldn't knowingly take responsibility for her actions. Since those things don't actually affect the overall story though, they're more like... minor annoyances.

I don't feel like AG was predictable in any way tbh. Who expected Miklan to be part of the army and be hanging out at your camp as a friendly NPC? Who expected Dimitri to head to Fhirdiad only to get captured and need rescuing (because mind you a lot of people get annoyed about female damsel in distress tropes, and this was literally the opposite of the norm)? Who expected that NPCs would actually comment that Dimitri was more relaxed in the second half and was much easier to approach (which is a total contrast to AM where he's totally unapproachable then he's just back to his usual approachability. He didn't have the same support in AM to be able to relax in the same way)? Who expected that Thales was going to be the final boss of the route (seeing as most people would expect it to be Edelgard, and not woobified Edelgard)? Who expected to see Rodrigue being able to land the final blow against Thales because he can actually survive the entire game and kill his son's murderer-by-conspiracy? Who expected Rufus to be the big early game villain that you had to personally defeat and wasn't offed offscreen and told to us later?

There were a lot of things that weren't predictable in AG. It was also much more adrenaline based, whereas GW was more like looming dread for me. SB was just... eh. It was just alternate CF, so it wasn't anything new. All they really did was change who died in some regards and allowed the players to actually fight both Thales and Rhea instead of "and then after the war they fought and defeated TWS, the end"/

As far as the Empire went, I don't think it was made to look bad the way people seem to think? The Empire itself wasn't the issue. Thales and Ludwig were in charge of it, though Ludwig was mostly just Thales' puppet at that point like the rest of the army. What happened to the Empire wasn't because the people who ran the Empire allowed that to happen, and I actually liked that they really showed us the damage Thales could do. The whole country was a disaster and it was basically bandit central there. We've always been told how dangerous TWS is, but we've never really gotten to see the sheer amount of devastation they were capable of. What happened to the Empire would've been all of Fodlan if Thales was able to manage that. It was kind of annoying how TWS was supposed to be so powerful and terrifying but they were just laughable as villains in Houses. Hell, even Solon and Kronya lasted to nearly the end of the game. They actually felt tenacious and threatening.

Literally my biggest disappointment in all of AG is the fact that Miklan died lmfao. He would've been a great playable character and they even had playable quotes for him in Houses so at some point in Houses' development they considered making him playable (like, he had full voiced JP and Eng quotes as a playable ally).

When the game first came out I was really excited by all the things they filled the route with. Not only we did get closure on Duscur for so many characters and for the players (because it didn't feel all that satisfying killing Thales in AM, because nobody even knew he wasn't Arundel. The only satisfying part of it for me was killing the guy who was trying to hurt Claude ahjfghjsgdhf), but we even got to hang out with Duscur soldiers in camp! We even got a fleshed out paralogue in Duscur with some of the people affected by the Tragedy, which was a lot better than the one we got originally in Houses. There was also much better relationship development between Felix and Dedue, Ingrid and Dedue and Ingrid and other NPC Duscur soldiers. Felix's relationship with Dedue in Houses was just... minimal. Very, very minimal. They get a support arguing and then they get a support where all of a sudden now Felix is like >:/ don't die or I will kill u >:/ as if implying they'd grown a lot closer, when the only other conversation they really had was... their C support. Throughout the game in Hopes we actually get interaction and sometimes see them together at camp.

Honestly, playing AG and being at camp was super fun because there were people from everywhere. There were civilians there, the Knights of Seiros, people from the Empire, people from Leicester (and the people from Leicester were so sweet and kind when you get them in your army), you get Brigid rep through Petra if you recruit her, you have people from Duscur... It just felt like a really fun experience because not everyone you talk to while exploring camp came from Faerghus. On that note too, I feel like we learned a lot more about other locations through AG's expeditions, like Sylvain randomly throwing Morfis hair dye lore at us, or how Ingrid talks about Sreng's food problems. It feels like Faerghus is such an open space where you can learn so much, about so much more than just Faerghus.

Also, let's be real, it's the only route Seteth is playable in so it wins by default because we get Takehito Koyasu and Mark Whitten's wonderful voice acting (Koyasu voice being recruitable makes the route win by default, I don't make the rules, he's just the god of voice acting and he's everywhere gjksgjfgsjg). :) I'm kidding. Mostly! It does get a bonus for having Seteth though considering how unimportant the Church otherwise is is in this game, and Seteth actually gets a good chunk of screentime in AG and gets to have a friendship with Dimitri that we were completely stripped of in AM.

Then there's the dads! OH THE DADS. We got so much lore and information from Rodrigue in this game. Making him playable was probably really the best thing they could've done for the characters' relationships imo. Felix also really needed him to be playable for those supports. We got a lot of fun tidbits about Lambert too from Rodrigue's old man tea sipping gossip, and hearing all of that for the first time was so much fun for me. We also get to learn from about Matthias' relationship with Sreng considering he's been guarding against their invasions for so long, and in turn we get to learn that a Sreng commander is on pretty relaxed terms with Sylvain and seems to know Miklan equally as well, so it sounds like the man wasn't just talking with Matthias, but probably had some sort of friendship going on with the brothers, too. More than any other route, we learn more about the previous generation and how the kids are improving upon all the foundations started from their parents. AM left so much groundwork that it didn't build upon, but AG took all of that and more and had lore thrown at us from every direction.

AG was a huge to play, and I was SO relived that Claude was an ally in this route since I knew beforehand form the leaks about what would happen in GW and in SB. Also, Claude was actually on the map and fighting with you in two chapters which we were R O B B E D of in AM. I may be a lion, but I want my deer friends close by! And Ferdinand, but he went MIA. I refuse to say he died in that route. He was just hiding. He was waiting to come out of hiding. That's all. It was too dangerous! And Ludwig never mentioned anything about his son being dead so I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT HAPPENED! Sorry Hubert. You really did die offscreen, I can't help you there like I can cling to my weak little hope for Ferdinand...

OH OH and we got to have Cyril hang out at camp too sometimes! That was nice. It was like a quick hi and bye, but it was nice to see him sometimes.

When it comes to the few things I was meh about, I can look past them to an extent because there were way more good things in AG than bad things. My overall experience was positive and not me being bored or dreading whatever happened next.

I'M DISAPPOINTED WE DIDN'T GET YURI FOR HALF THE GAME but he does join you sooner in AG than either of the other routes if I'm not mistaken so I'll take that as a win. Sad tho that I gotta lose Miklan to reach him and my boy Lorenz.

OH and Matthias saying he would avenge Miklan and Sylvain being sad that he died (again lol...) was very nice. AG helped the characters and their relationships feel way more nuanced than just what we had in Houses alone.

Basically AG helped improve upon what we already had, which is why I loved it so much compared to the other two. There was so much information we could've gotten in GW and instead it focused on the same stuff it focuses on in the other routes (i.e. Fodlan war stuff, etc). GW was missed potential, and SB was just a rehash of what we already had. I mean, GW did do Lorenz justice which was severely needed based on the fandom's failure to recognize his character through Houses, and I did love basically everything Lorenz was a major part of, but that's really the only thing that kept me going in GW. AG instead always kept me excited and when Claude showed up in chapter 11 it was like YAAAAY HURRAAAAAY, and then we had basically all the armies in the game fighting together (also counting the Empire's people that you can recruit, since really even if those people once fought for Edelgard, they'd be fighting for Thales if they continued fighting for the Empire *COUGHCASPARCOUGH*. You had the Kingdom, Alliance, Empire, Church and Duscur all fighting together + Petra if recruited.

We're probably part of the minority of folks who liked AG, yeah, but I had very little to dislike compared to how much of it had my attention and enjoyment.

[casspurrjoybell-17]

HEART'S FATE - CHAPTER 13

*Warning: Adult Content*  

Martin Hunter stares at the picture his son, Nico had drawn and tries not to blush beneath Dr. Vance's assessing gaze.

"It's a good thing, Martin," she says. 

"Look at how happy you are."

Martin looks up and frowns at her. 

"I just don't want him to get the wrong idea."

She quirks a brow. 

"Who? Nico or Mister long-blond-hair?"

Looking back at the drawing to hide the heat in his face, Martin shakes his head. 

"Nico. I don't want him to get attached."

"Why not?"

Martin considers his answer. It's been a week since Skylar West 'moved in' or at least since he started parking his van in Martin’s yard and his children have adapted well. 

‘Too well’ possibly, as evidenced by Nico's drawing. 

It shows a row of figures standing in front of a house, holding hands. 

Martin recognizes, in order from right to left, himself, Miguel, Flora, Rio, Nico and... Skylar. 

They look like a family.

"Martin," Dr. Vance continues when he doesn't gather his words fast enough. 

"This is a ‘good sign’. From what you've told me, all the kids enjoy Skylar's company and have welcomed him into your home, into your family. That means they're ready to move on when you are, whether or not your new tenant is more than a friend."

"I met the man three weeks ago," Martin scoffs and Doctor Vance nods. 

"And you're right. While their acceptance of someone new in your life is encouraging, you don't want to confuse them. It's important for children to have clarity, don't underestimate their capacity to understand and handle things. Uncertainty and sudden change will be a lot more damaging than the knowledge their father is or is not, in a relationship."

"I'm not."

She shrugs and takes the drawing back from Martin, slipping it into a file. 

"Adults like clarity, too, Martin. Flora says Skylar eats meals with you, helps around the house and gives her and her brothers rides to school. From what you've told me, that's more than your ex-wife ever did. Would it be so bad to have a partner?"

Martin frowns but Dr Vance smiles.

"Here's the good news," she goes on. "I don't think the kids need to see me regularly anymore. Why don't we cut back to once a month check-ins and see how it goes? If something changes, you've got my number. You've done an excellent job with them, Martin," she says, softening her tone a little. 

"Now, maybe it's time you give some attention to yourself."

As Martin gathers his children from the waiting area and corral them into the elevator, a confusing mix of feelings trouble his heart. 

Maybe Dr. Vance is right, at least about needing clarity and clear boundaries seem like a good place to start.

                                                       ⁕⁕⁕

Skylar's not around that evening, however, having business of his own to attend to, so Martin has plenty of time to practice what he’s going to say to him. 

Something about 'keeping things professional' or 'not giving the kids the wrong idea.' 

How they'd have gotten such an idea in the first place would be a mystery, except for the fact Sky has unequivocally made himself at home. 

On the one hand, Martin has gotten more work done in the past week than he has in months, thanks to him. 

He'd forgotten what it felt like not to have a to-do list the length of a football field.

On the other hand, their arrangement isn't permanent and sooner or later he'll find somewhere better to live and he'll leave. 

In the meantime, Martin didn't want his children getting too attached to having him around. 

‘We'd been fine before he showed up, and we'd be fine again when he was gone. Perfectly fine.’ 

He had just managed to convince himself of this as he prepares for bed that evening, when his daughter Flora enters his bedroom, looking upset.

"What's up, sweetheart?" Martin asks, setting aside the shirt he'd been folding. "Are you okay?"

She shakes her head and sniffs back tears. 

"I think there's something wrong with me, Daddy."

A spike of alarm shoots through Martin’s heart and he’s instantly at her side. 

"What? What do you mean ‘something wrong?’"

Her voice quavers. 

"There was... blood in my pee."

‘Oh... shit.’

"Daddy? What is it? Is it something really bad?"

Martin realizes he has frozen, probably with a look of stark terror on his face. 

Forcing himself to relax, Martin smiles.

"No, sweetheart, it's not something bad. It's perfectly normal. It's..."

Martin: ‘Gods, how do I even say this? 

Did Elena never talk to her? 

Don't her friends talk about this stuff? 

How can she not know what's happening?’ 

Martin swallows and takes a deep breath.

"It means you're growing up. That's all. You're ready for your first Shift, first full moon after first blood, for girls."

Flora’s expression relaxes. 

"Will it stop?"

"Um..." 

Martin’s mind races for an escape route and finally glimpses one. 

"You know what? Tomorrow we'll go visit Chloe and Grace at the far and they can tell you all about it. Daddy doesn't... know that much about the girl side of things."

She frowns at her father. 

"But Chloe and Grace aren't Wolves."

"Uh... Well, it's the same for human girls, too. Just without the Wolf part."

"Are you sure it's not something bad?" Flora sniffles.

"I'm sure. Does it hurt?"

She shakes her head.

"Good. Hey, I'm gonna pop down to the corner store and get you a few things, okay? I'll be back in no time."

Grabbing his wallet, Martin is halfway to the street before he remembers he’s in his underwear. 

Racing back to his bedroom, he throws on some clothes, reassures Flora one more time and takes off again just as Skylar pulls up and parks by the garage.

"Martin?" Skylar calls out as he disembarks from his van. 

"Where's the fire? And why is your shirt on inside out?"

Martin stops and looks down at himself as Skylar comes over.

"It's Flora," Martin says, running a shaking hand through his hair. 

"She's... um... not feeling well."

"In what way?"

Gratified by the genuine concern in Skylar’s voice, Martin grimaces and confide in him.

"She got her first period. She had no idea and I... I just thought she'd learn about it at school, or something. Anyway, I have to go buy some... some things.

"Some 'things'?" Skylar asks, lifting his brows at Martin. 

"Any idea what sort of things?"

Martin stare at him, no doubt looking as lost as he feels. 

Skylar pulls out his cell-phone and beckons Martin over. 

"Come on. Let's handle this calmly and rationally, like real men. We'll look it up on the internet. Ah, this looks promising, 'How to prepare for your first period.' Perfect."

                                                        ⁕⁕⁕

After a quick education and a furtive trip to the corner market ‘Thank the Gods for self-checkout’ Martin returns with a bag of items for his daughter. 

Among them is her favorite candy bar, several articles having recommended a celebratory treat as part of one's 'self care.' 

With a bit more reassurance and explanation, she cheers up and even grows excited, a Wolf's first Shift is a rite of passage and a crucial moment in a young Wolf's life. 

Martin, on the other hand, can't help feeling he’s let her down. 

Wolves develop a little slower than humans do, so he'd thought she had another year or so before he had to think about it but he should have prepared her better. 

He should have talked to her or at least had someone else talk to her, to make sure she knew what to expect. 

She'd been frightened, if only for a few minutes and fear is something Martin never wanted to see on his kids' faces again.

In the meantime, now he has something else to think about. 

A Shifting is a big deal. 

The whole Pack will want to come and see Flora's wolf-form. What color fur will she have? 

Will Flora look like her father or her mother or completely different? 

Martin’s parents, Joseph and Astrid Hunter will want to be there, too. 

Flora will be their first grandchild to Shift. 

Martin can't cheat them of that. 

Which means he is going to have to face his family. 

But maybe, Martin thinks, as the sound of Skylar singing softly to himself drifts up through his open window, he won't have to face them alone. 

And if some of them happen to get the wrong idea and stop worrying about me... well, all the better. 

Boundaries and clarity can wait.

[mt-musings]

Bluebell

Chapter 30

After being abruptly transferred to the BAU at what she suspects was Gideon's request, Cassie Boann struggles to find her footing. Shy and solitary by nature, the transition is made all the more difficult when Dr. Spencer Reid seems to take an almost immediate dislike to her. Unfortunately for them both, their respective areas of expertise leave them paired off more often than not. But when Cassie's past literally starts hunting her, Spencer is forced to consider that he might, in fact, not hate her at all.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Spencer Reid x OC

Warnings: Canon typical violence, kidnapping, stalking, drug use, blood, injury, death, PTSD, eventual smut, more tags to be added

Series Masterlist

Read on AO3

30. Красиві дівчата роблять могили

Cassie crossed her arms as she watched the grave being dug up, trying to hold in some warmth. The rain didn’t help, though it added to the drama of the whole ordeal. The whole thing was surreal—she’d been present at dozens of exhumations, but never of someone she knew. Hell, she’d never even seen a familiar name on a headstone. Neither of her parents had had enough remains to bury.

And yet this man, currently at the bottom of the very muddy pit, could be her grandfather. Was, her grandfather. 

Konstantyn Lyvychko. Died 1977. Bludgeoned to death with a claw hammer, which had been left at the scene. 

So, at least they had that in common, she thought dryly, though she’d only had her left arm pulverized. It was at least another tie to Montana, besides the murder in general. 

“You don’t have umbrellas in America?”

She glanced over to see Detective Melnyk picking his way around the excavator, holding out his umbrella so it would cover the both of them. She huffed a laugh, shaking her head.

“This is the first I’m hearing of them.”

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering her one as they pulled the casket out of the mud. She shook her head, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the smell. 

“You been to the house yet?”

She shook her head. 

“I’ll drive you tomorrow. It is not that far.”

She nodded, watching the workers wipe globs of mud from the casket. 

“I knew your mother. Or, knew of her, I was very young. Your grandfather was so proud of her, always telling everyone what a talented dancer she was. When she defected—it was like he was another man. That’s when we started getting the domestic disturbance calls, the child abuse claims, the drunken disorder—“

“Child abuse? My mother was an only child.”

“Konstantyn remarried after his first wife died. He had another child—a boy—some time later. He would have been about, uhh, ten years younger than your mother. And he’d beat that boy something fierce. The mother too, but, uh, we could never do much about it. You know how those cases go.”

She nodded. It was an unfortunate reality, one that weighed on her whenever they had to tackle abuse cases. 

She thought she would feel something, some connection to this man in the ground. That blood would call to blood, that some primal part of her would recognize him as kin. But there was nothing but a sort of professional curiosity.

Perhaps it was better that way, considering now she knew him to be the sort of man to raise a hand against his family, against his children.

Maybe there were other reasons her mother had leapt at the chance to defect. 

---

Spencer knocked lightly on Penelope’s door carrying half-caf double whip caramel coffee concoction that Derek had assured him was her favorite. 

“Enter, ye who seeks eternal wisdom! Oh, hello Boy Wonder, what can I do for you?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

“I guessed,” she said, grinning at the way he shrunk back, just slightly, under her gaze. “Is that for me? Oooh thank you!!”

“Oh, yeah, Derek told me it was your favorite.”

“I love that man. So what can I do for you, Dr. Genius.”

He sighed before pulling out Cassie’s manuscript. He’d gotten into the office at five after dropping her off at the airport and had spent the four hours until the rest of the team got in double and triple checking it for errors. 

“You know how I’m terrible with computers?”

“Oh boy do I.”

“Um—I have to edit the original file with all these changes by Friday and I was wondering if I could maybe bribe you into helping.”

“By Friday? Even Hotch wouldn’t be that mean, that’s got to be like 200 pages.”

“304, but it’s not for work. It’s actually Cassie’s thesis—“

“Oh my god, are we going to have two brilliant doctors on the team now? Oooh, I can make her a new sign for her desk, I’m thinking black and sparkly—“

“She doesn’t—she doesn’t know I have her thesis. She actually was going to pull it because she didn’t think she could finish it in time and—am I overstepping? I don’t know. It’s just—it’s really good and I don’t want her to push off graduation because—“ he stopped himself, unsure of exactly how much he should share. How much he wanted to share. 

“Aww, well aren’t you two just too cute? How long have you been together? I can’t believe you managed to sneak past my all-seeing eyes—“

“We’re not! Not together, I mean, just friends. Just two good friends that hang out and do friend things.”

“You’re going to stand there and lie to this face?” Penelope asked, having way too much fun at his discomfort.

“I’m not lying!”

“But you like her. Like like her.”

He just sighed, shoulders dropping in defeat. “Will you help me or not?”

“Only,” she said, pulling half the stack of papers from his hands, “Because it is sweet and romantic and so incredibly nerdy. And because I want to see what goes on in Cassie’s head. But, I get your firstborn. I’m calling godmother, right now.”

Spencer couldn’t help his little snort of laughter at her ridiculous request. “Okay. Sure, it’s a deal.”

---

Dr. Garvey couldn't help but stare at the PCR results that had led to Cassandra's spur of the moment trip to Ukraine. It was a proxy sample, the very thing she'd been working on for nearly three years to match with victim data. A genealogical match--a wonder, really. But it was bothering him--bothering him because the proxy sample didn't just match the blood evidence of the bodiless victim she'd cited in her paperwork for the evidentiary transfer, but it bore a striking resemblance to another DNA panel, one run for one of the specimens from her dissertation. 

He was familiar enough with her dissertation that he recognized the familiar marker in the proxy sample, recognized it, but couldn't quite place where. It wasn't until he leafed through her reports on each that he found it--the outlier in the sampling. The only male vertebrae, it's box more worn than the others, labeled carefully in Cassandra's scrawling hand.

Rasmus Orav.

He pushed back from his desk, dropping the panel report back on top of the stacks of paperwork and walked to the main lab, looking for Ayesh. He was hunched over a gel, carefully loading each well with his sample DNA. As was so often the case in the late evening, his boombox was blaring, the Backstreet Boys over-loud in the relatively small space.

"Ayesh, could I ask you a question?"

"Just one second," he said, finishing his work before flipping on the PCR and rolling over to paused the music. "What's up?"

"Do you know where Cassandra got the proxy sample for her match, by any chance?"

"She matched herself. She didn't even bother with a syringe, just knicked herself with a scalpel and called it a day. She's fucking nuts sometimes," he said, rolling over to grab another gel to prepare. 

Dr. Garvey fought to keep his face neutral, glad that Ayesh didn't really seem to be paying attention. "She certainly has unique methods. I'll leave it to you."

He left the lab, grabbing Cassandra's report on the remains in question before going back to his desk to wake up his computer. It was simple enough to search for Rasmus Orav. There were a handful of articles about his work as a composer, as a talented, ex-Soviet concert pianist. He'd been active in the DC area before Dr. Garvey had taken the position at the Smithsonian, when he'd still worked at the Natural History museum on New York, which explained why he'd never heard of him. Most of the articles he could dig up were just about performances or debut compositions, that was, until he found an article from a small Montana newspaper describing a grisly home-invasion-turned-murder outside of Whitefish.

The victims had been 40 year old Rasmus Orav and his thirty-six year old wife Lilya Orav. The paper skimmed over the gorier details, but mentioned that the couple's eight year old daughter had been found after a three day search led by the FBI, had been rushed to St. Patrick's Hospital, the nearest Trauma II Center. The article went on to say that the daughter was stabilized and transferred out of state for advanced orthopedic surgery, and that the police had yet to name any suspects and that the investigation was ongoing. The only picture in the article other than exterior shots of the house covered in crime scene tape was a blurry shot of an FBI agent carrying the little girl, covered in grim and blood and drowning what was clearly a man's green corduroy jacket. the only distinct feature he could make out in the grainy photo was her hair, which was black and a mess of wild curls. 

He flipped open the report from the bones, comparing it with the proxy sample he now knew was Cassandra's. He stared at the two for a long moment before taking off his glasses and placing them carefully on his desk. He dropped his head in his hands, taking a deep breath. 

He'd wondered, when she first started showing up in the lab, fresh out of the FBI Academy and milking the Smithsonian's partnership with the FBI for all it was worth. She'd barely been twenty-one, younger than most of his undergrads at GW, and yet with the intelligence, the bearing of one decades older. She'd always been polite and painfully reserved to the point of rarely speaking. He'd often had to usher her out to lock the building up for the night, having stayed five or six hours even after a full day at the Bureau. 

He'd known she was haunted by something the first day she walked in, requesting access to the collection. She hid it well, but it was easy enough to see the signs when you were so personally familiar. Perhaps if it hadn't been for that, he'd have held more strictly to protocol, kept her from the extent of her early research. He'd justified it by the quality of her work, far surpassing most of his fellows. But he knew it was because he had recognized that look, the determination in the set of her shoulders. 

And that she had somehow reminded him of his Hanna. 

It had taken him a long time to figure out why, exactly. They looked nothing alike--Cassandra was raven-haired and pale and perpetually underweight and Hanna had been blonde, with doe-like brown eyes and practically bursting with life. He thought at first it was because Cassandra had looked so young--even at twenty-one she looked closer to sixteen or seventeen and Hanna had never made it to her eighteenth birthday. 

It wasn't until he found her buried in the corner of the lab a year later, no doubt trying to escape his notice so she could work through the night, that he'd figured it out. She'd been hunched over a stack of different test results, her head buried in her arms. At first he'd thought she'd fallen asleep, but then he saw the silent shaking of her shoulders. She'd looked up at the sound of his footsteps, face streaked with tears she'd quickly shoved away, trying to force a smile, trying to brush the whole thing off with a witty comment about hitting another dead end. 

It was the same smile Hanna had so often forced near the end, when the cancer was overwhelming her, but she didn't want him to worry. She'd always done it, every before she got sick. Maybe she wouldn't have, if it hadn't just been the two of them, if her mother hadn't skipped out to god knew where when Hanna was scarcely four. Maybe she wouldn't have felt the need to protect him, to hide her pain and struggles. She'd never wanted him to worry, so determined to push through, no matter the cost. 

It was that resolve that reminded him of Cassandra. Resolve that scared him, just as much as he found it admirable. It was why he pushed her to apply to GW, to the Smithsonian's fellowship, why he pushed her to spend time with her cohort, with people her age. In that moment he could see how it would consume her, if left unchecked. He knew the rest of the fellows thought he favored her because of her intellect, because of her revolutionary theories, her research. He knew he shouldn't favor any of them, had done well to at least appear impartial with all of his past students. 

But the truth was he favored her because she reminded him of his daughter, and he was terrified that she'd crush herself under the weight of all that she shouldered before she'd ever asked for help. He saw it more and more with each passing year at the Bureau--she got better at hiding it, but he knew by the shadows under her eyes, by the slope of her shoulders, by the hollowness of her cheeks. 

He couldn't understand for the longest time why she stayed when it was killing her, when the Bureau was so obviously squandering her talents, her brilliance. When it was so clear that most days she didn't even really like it, especially in her old department.

Now he knew. 

He knew he couldn't have given up, if it had been Hanna's vertebrae in that box, if the rest of her was still missing, her killer free. 

He knew why that box was the most worn, why it so often sat at the corner of her workspace and she studied specimens and lab results. Why it was so often the first thing she pulled off the shelf when she swung by the lab. 

He'd watched her pour over those remains for nearly six years, searching for answers, watched her add boxes and names, but never any further resolution. Watched her pioneer new techniques just to search for matches, publish dozens of articles as mere byproducts of her search. Watched her delay and delay her defense, because it wasn't ready, because she didn't have practical success. Because the dissertation itself had never been the point, the focus. 

He hoped she'd find some in Voron'kiv, hoped she'd find something, even more than he had before.  

He sat back up, wiping away a few stray tears before replacing his glasses on his nose. He tucked Cassandra's DNA panel away in his desk, closing the file before grabbing the only picture frame on his desk, the Polaroid protected behind UV-blocking glass. It was him and Hanna in the Botanical Garden down in Brooklyn, grinning at the camera in the middle of the orchid house. She beamed up at the camera, wearing the butterfly-embroidered bell bottoms she'd begged him for and a striped sweater. She'd been freshly fifteen and it was the last photo he had of her before she got sick. Or at least, before they'd known. 

She would have been twenty-eight in May. 

He sat the frame back down, carefully, and turned back to the transfer paperwork Cassandra had handed him. He hadn't read much into it, trusting her to have filled it out. He hadn't thought much of the victim before--it had just been a genealogical match, mostly likely that of a grandfather. Now he looked at the details, at the rough translation of the coroner's report, at the horror is skimmed over in its brevity. 

He wondered what sort of bitterness it was, to finally find a practical match using her technique, only to find another brutally murdered family member. 

He wondered if there was anyone left to look after her. 

---

Cassie glanced over the body laid out before her, cross-referencing visible injuries with the coroners report. It took her slightly longer than usual in Ukrainian—she wasn’t familiar with all the technical terms off-hand. He mother had never taken to reading to her from medical textbooks as a child and she’d always much preferred poetry. 

Still, she was able to muddle through it without much trouble. Thirty years had all but destroyed the soft tissue, leaving an unfortunately jumbled mass of bone shards. A proper reconstruction could take days, weeks, but she only had hours. 

Luckily she was more interested in collected viable samples to take back and test than in putting him back to any semblance of rights.

Still, looking at the damage—she hoped he took the headshots first. There had only been one would the coroner had labeled defensive in the official report, though she wasn’t sure exactly how they’d come to that conclusion considering the extent of trauma. 

She’d been struck three times at eight, resulting in a shattered ulna, fractured trapezoid, capitate, and hamate and breaks in her pinky and ring finger that caused those fingers to remain slightly crooked still. 

Konstantyn had been struck fifty-eight times. He’d resembled butcher cast-offs more than a human person by the time someone had reported him missing. His wife had died of a heart attack upon finding him and their son, whom she’d learned was named Hadeon, had been no where to be found. Police had suspected him, but after failing to track him down for questioning, the trail had gone cold. 

Very little of that information had been in the official file Penelope had been able to track down, instead existing in a jumble of moldering handwritten notes left in an old case file box. She’d copied the entirety of it to bring home and sort through. 

Detective Melnyk had taken pity on her and helped, though he had told her it was pointless. She’d just smiled and thanked him for his help. 

It wasn’t worth trying to explain or convince him. No one understood, because it was never Orav on the badge they checked, on the request forms she submitted. They assumed she shared the same luxury of disconnect from the case. 

Sometimes she wished she did. 

---

She stood outside the National Opera House and just stared. She’d ben standing frozen on the steps for the last twenty minutes, unable to bring herself to step foot inside. 

She hadn’t seen a ballet since her mother died. 

She’d tried, when she’d moved to Boston for college and then again when she’d moved to DC. She’d bought the tickets and everything. She just couldn’t go in. Couldn’t sit in the red velvet chairs without her father sitting beside her, spinning the story of the ballet in a hushed whisper. Without her mother pulling her backstage to say hello to the other dancers, tucking flowers in her hair. 

She wiped away a fresh bout of tears with the heel of her hand, turning away. 

She’d see another ballet—see the theater her mother had spent half her career performing in—just not today. 

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