#not even sure if this makes sense but like i got emotional halfway through so sorry

[therealcocoshady]

Kinktober - Day 1 - Lingerie

A/N : here is the first post for Kinktober. The prompt is Lingerie. I kept it simple and sweet 😉. I hope you enjoy it 💕.

CW : Lingerie ; Romance ; Smut ; PinV.

It had been a whirlwind few months for « Eminem ». Marshall was halfway through his latest tour, performing night after night to sold-out arenas across the country. The energy from the crowds was electric, but when the music stopped and the curtains closed, the loneliness hit hard. No matter how many fans cheered his name, there was only one person he truly missed— you, his girlfriend.

You were the calm in his chaotic world. The two of you had been together for a few years now, and while you had learned to navigate the challenges of his life as a public figure and someone who was always on the move, it never got any easier being apart. Marshall made sure to stay connected with you as much as possible—late-night calls, FaceTime sessions, and sweet texts between rehearsals. Still, he often felt guilty for leaving you at home so often, so he tried to make up for it in other ways. Over the past few weeks, he'd arranged for little gifts to be delivered to you. One day it was your favorite flowers, the next day a gorgeous set of expensive lingerie he thought you’d look divine in. He wanted you to feel his presence, even when he was miles away.

It was late one evening, and Marshall was lying in his hotel room, winding down after a long day of interviews and rehearsal. His phone buzzed on the nightstand, and a notification popped up. Your name appeared on the screen and his heart skipped a beat as he unlocked it. It was a message, with several photos attached.

"Miss you more than words, baby," your text read. "I'm waiting for you when you’re ready to come home."

Marshall opened the photos, and his breath caught. You were getting ready for the day, wearing a stunning set of lingerie, one that he had arranged to be delivered to you in his absence, the soft lighting of your shared bedroom accentuating your graceful silhouette. You looked beautiful, confident, and radiant. Every picture was more alluring than the last, but it wasn’t just the physical appeal—he could feel the emotion behind them. You missed him. You needed him. And suddenly, the distance felt unbearable.

He leaned back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to push down the rush of emotions that came with your message. He still had a few days off before the next show. He had been planning to stay put and rest, ever so careful not to let touring take a toll on his body, but the idea of being away from you now seemed impossible. He couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to see you, even if it was just for a few hours.

Marshall sat up, grabbed his phone, and started making calls to Paul and Tracy. Within minutes, he had a plan. He'd fly back to Detroit tonight, surprise you, and make it back to the tour in time for his next commitment. It was crazy, spontaneous, and exactly what he wanted to do.

The next few hours were a blur—packing, booking the flight, and sneaking out of the hotel without drawing attention. By the time the plane touched down in Detroit, the sun had begun to set, casting a warm glow over the familiar cityscape. He was exhausted from the flight, but the adrenaline of seeing you for the first time in what seemed like an eternity kept him going. When he got home, Marshall let himself into the house, careful to be quiet. The familiar scent of home washed over him as he stepped inside, a sense of peace replacing the constant hum of the road. He settled on the couch, waiting, anticipation buzzing in his chest. He checked the time. You would be home from work any minute now.

Just as he started to relax, he heard the sound of keys turning in the lock. The door creaked open, and you walked in, your work bag slung over her shoulder. You hadn’t seen him yet. “Hey, baby,” Marshall said, his voice low and steady. You froze for a second, your eyes widening in surprise as you saw him sitting there on the couch. You dropped your bag, a grin spreading across your face as you ran toward him, crashing in his arms. "Marshall! What—what are you doing here?" You asked, your voice a mix of disbelief and excitement.

He stood up, closing the distance between you in a few strides. "I couldn’t wait any longer," he said, pulling you into his arms. "Those pictures… they reminded me of how much I miss you. I had to come home, even if it's just for tonight." You laughed softly, wrapping your arms around his neck. "You flew all the way back just for me?" You teased, though her eyes were glistening with happiness. "Of course I did," he murmured, resting his forehead against yours. "There’s nowhere else I’d rather be."

You stood there for a moment, just holding each other, the silence of the house wrapping around you like a warm blanket. It was perfect—simple and quiet, just the two of you.  « I can't believe you're here," you whispered, still smiling up at him. Marshall grinned, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. "Believe it. I’ve got a few hours before I have to head back, so I’m not going anywhere for a while." You kissed him softly, your smile never fading. "Good. Because I’ve been waiting for this."

You kissed him again, more passionately this time. One of his hands cupped your face, while the other went to the small of your back, pulling you closer to him. The kiss grew hungrier and, soon enough, he was removing your blouse, revealing the gorgeous bra he had gotten to admire in pictures earlier, as you had sent pictures while you were getting ready for the day. A smirk immediately appeared on his lips. Obviously, he was very satisfied with what was before his eyes. You knew there was nothing your man loved more than to see your body adorned with beautiful lingerie, lace enhancing your curves. Here, the black lace patterns decorated your skin with elegance, the garment complimenting your boobs perfectly. He licked his lips, allowing himself to stare for a few seconds before letting one of his hands cup your breasts, his thumb teasing your nipple through the bra.

« Gorgeous », he whispered. You hummed in pleasure, the intimate contact you’d been longing for making you far too happy. You had missed him more than words could ever express. You had never been apart for so long before, and to have him back, feeling his hands on you, was everything you had desired for the past weeks. « Do you like it ? » you teased. He smiled and nodded silently as he let his finger trace the lace pattern. You enjoyed that he was taking his time, giving you the opportunity to imprint the sensation in your brain for when he would inevitably have to leave again. You tugged at the hem of his shirt and he removed it, revealing his muscular chest. You lovingly placed a hand on his pec, feeling his heartbeat. He pulled you closer, so that your chest was pressed against his, before capturing your lips again, in a soft kiss that quickly grew voracious. You pushed him onto the couch and straddled his lap. « I missed you », you whispered in-between kisses, only to earn a hum that said he had missed you just as much. And if you needed further proof, his hand on your hip, making you grind against him happily provided it for you. You would have gladly enjoyed the grinding for hours, taking your sweet time, but you knew he’d have to leave soon. You got up, kicked your shoes and made your pants slide off your legs as he did the same with his sweats and boxers. He was naked, rock hard and you stood in front of him in fine lingerie, as he enjoyed the view and stared as you as if you were a work of art. He gestured for you to come back to him but, as you started to removed the bra, he stopped you.

« Keep it on », he instructed before extending a hand to you. You nodded and grabbed his hand, intertwining your fingers as you straddled him again. He gently pushed the fabric of the panties to the side and guided you onto his length. The both of you whimpered as you lowered yourself on his dick, enjoying the divine reunion of your bodies. You started rocking your hips as he stared at you, still mesmerized by the vision. You didn’t need any piece of fabric to be beautiful but, in lingerie, you were nothing short of a goddess. There was something about the way it adorned you, did justice to your god-given beauty. He started moving his hips in sync, while his arms wrapped around you and pulled you close to him. You both closed your eyes and enjoyed the sensation of feeling each other close again. You buried your face in his neck, your whimpering breath sending shivers along his spine. You were here, in his arms, beautiful as ever. You were his. He had been gone for weeks but nothing had changed. You still fit perfectly against him, as if your body had been molded for this very purpose. Feeling you so close after being away for so long was delicious. The living room was filled with both of your soft moans and the sound of skin slapping against each other. It didn’t take long for you to reach climax, Marshall quickly following suit.

After a few minutes of catching your breath, you got off him and adjusted the panties. You could feel his release dripping between your legs, soaking the fabric. He admired you as you sat next to him, grabbing a soft throw that was on the couch to put over the two of you as you cuddled.

« You’re so beautiful in this lingerie » he said. « You’re irresistible. ». You let out a small laugh. You loved the fact that he loved it so much. And you loved the fact that the pictures you had sent this morning has prompted him to come home. « So irresistible you can’t help but fly home », you gently teased. He chuckled and nodded. « so irresistible I would have walked to you if I’d had to », he said with a charming smile. « If I had known all it took to make you come home to me were pictures in lingerie, I would have done it a while ago. », you mused. « it’s really hard being away from you, you know ? ». He nodded and cupped your face, looking at you lovingly. « All it takes to make me come home to you is you saying you miss me », he said with a warm smile. « But yeah, the pictures were nice », he added with a grin. « I loved the presents you sent, I wanted to do the same », you giggled softly. « Is there a chance I can have more of these if I have more lingerie delivered to you for the rest of the tour ? » he asked innocently. « If it means you’ll come home to me as soon as you can, yes », you promised. He nodded before placing a soft kiss on your lips « believe me, there’s no fucking way I’ll spend more time away than what’s necessary when I know you’re here, waiting for me in lingerie. »

[signedeclipse]

douma, gyutaro & rui’ s/o (separately) wandered outside and they thought their s/o left but were just making flower crowns and didn’t noticed they’re out of their demon’s territory - 💀 💚

Douma

You were supposed to be sound asleep in his room when he finished his meeting

But an empty bed and creaked open door letting in the snow told him 'supposed to' didn't mean 'would be'

At first he contemplates if you ran, if all of your emotions had been a ploy not too dissimilar from his own, but then he decided you were too genuine for something like that

Or perhaps he assumed himself to be too good at telling

Then he hurried out the same door you did, remembering humans didn't do so great in the cold and you did not have the proper attire to survive out there

He couldn't sense you any longer, which told him you had either left or been taken long ago

Fortunately he could rely on foot prints in the snow, but the further down the mountain he got the less there was

Then he relief on scent until he found you halfway to the bottom crouched in a meadow pilling all different kinds of flowers into your arms as if your life depended on it

Of course, he forgot sometimes your motives weren't as predictable as he'd expect

"Almost done, are we?"

You dropped all your flowers upon hearing your voice, but the demon was so close his chest wa snow pressed against your back, and he caught them all into his hand with a swift swipe

Once a show off always a show off, he opts to carry you home so your feet don't get frostbitten

He also pinches your cheeks a lot and calls you so cute for such innocent displays of behavior, maybe he'll let you teach him how to make a crown when you are safe and warmed up at home

Gyutaro

Entertainment district isn't exactly known for its lush fields or flower shops

Out of the ones that do exist there they tend to be over expensive and not in much of a variety

So without even thinking to tell the upper rank expecting you back home in a couple minutes, you  bought yourself a snack with the flower money and ran off to the fields

Gyutaro notices the moment he can’t sense you any longer, but the sun hadn't set yet and he can't really do anything so he tried to follow you as far as he can through underground tunnels and through the empty spaces of peoples homes

He knows there are slayers looking for him out there, and he can't help but fear that someone got you

The moment the sun is down just enough he flings himself out into the shadows and follows the direction he had been following you in originally

It was right towards the exit of the district, which had him even more concerned

Following you while avoiding people wasn't easy, but he'd risk being seen if it meant getting you back before too much blood was spilled

Except... you were completely fine

In fact, he found you passed out in the field with a couple of flower crowns and an empty drink glass

Immediate 'why do I even try' pang, but he will make sure you get home safely

When asking about the flower crowns after you've woken up he is pleased to hear you worked so hard to make such a think for yourself, him and his little sister

He'll forgive your foolishness just this once

Rui

The mountain which you called home was so dense with trees it was almost out of a fairytale, where monsters hid

Well, that wasn't wrong to say, the forest was plentiful in demons beyond people's imaginations, trees tall and encompassing to the point where it almost always looked as if it were night

It allowed the lower moon to thrive beyond just the day, but he still had to be careful

On this particular day the wind was strong, allowing rays of sun to break through and make it far too dangerous to chance going outside

But you were fine to go out, and Rui wasn't all that demanding of you so long as you promised not to stray too far or put yourself in any kind of danger

Neglectfully, he trusted you

Because since the sun had risen, which it was now almost fully set, you had not returned

In fact he could no longer sense your being anywhere, which means you were no longer on the mountain to begin with

Once he was able to step outside, he was rushing in the direction he last felt you, partially with worry and partially with anger

Had you run away? It seemed nothing like you, but no one could have taken you, he would have known they were there

Once he gets near the edge of the forested mountain, he knows exactly where you are, he can see you sitting in the fields just beside the dirt path between the fields

Instantly he is relieved to see you are okay, and he is more than curious as to what made you so interested in sitting there all day

Noticing you have piles of all kinds of assorted flowers around you, he realizes you must have gone so far because the forest's density prevented anything more than white blossoms from growing on the ground

Might be a little cross and short with you for even causing him to worry, and he will also confiscate your crown you spent hours on

But next time you see him he's wearing it, so maybe it isn't that rough of a punishment

Authors Note - I love this prompt sm,, thank you skull anon! Happy to see you got to sneak in a request or two as well ;]

[flamingo-writes]

ok but hear me out, artist f reader having pregnancy craving and hobie is taking care of her, that would be so adorable 😭💖 really love your posts, xoxo

No listen, I’m with you in this. Part of his badass punk nature is looking after his own, like the way he looks after Gwen, and how he helped Miles after 20 minutes of meeting him. I’m sure he’d be hella attentive of his s/o especially if his s/o is pregnant. Let’s go!

Chocolate Banana Bread — Hobie x Reader

You never really discussed children. Living together, staying life long partners was out of the question. It was just a given. Children were never part of the conversation. Not because you didn’t want them, but because it never turned up.

And when you found out you were pregnant, the both of you panicked a little bit. And you weren’t sure on what to do next. And the more time it went by, the more comfortable and even excited you got with the idea of becoming parents.

Hobie was already a very supportive boyfriend, but the moment you found out about the pregnancy he became even more protective and attentive. Even when you thought it was impossible. Especially when it came to your cravings.

However, his spider sense worked almost like telepathy. Every time he came home from doing his spidey duties, or just running errands, he always brought you something. And somehow it always seemed to be exactly what you craved.

Most of your days looked the same. Working in art pieces in the morning, a couple of commissions, a couple of personal projects. You went to the art gallery you helped run and helped around with whatever was needed. Lunch break. Some more time at the gallery, mostly showing people around. And then back home. And an hour or so later, Hobie returned.

However, on one of your free days, halfway through your pregnancy, you were starting to get restless. You spent the morning not doing much, watering your plants, cleaning your brushes, organising all the paint you had, even gathering all of Hobie’s sketches and pieces of scrap paper he used for his collages and random materials for installations.

This day in particular you weren’t sure what you were craving. But you wanted to eat something very particular, but you couldn’t pin point exactly what. Chocolate maybe? Bread? You could do some chocolate bread, but there was something else missing. Raisins? No. That was weird. But pregnant women got weird cravings wasn’t it? Banana? You don’t remember being this crazy over bananas but many of the things that had changed, you attributed them to the pregnancy.

Chocolate banana bread.

As you looked around the kitchen, you grew frustrated with the fact that you had very few cocoa powder. Enough flour. And no bananas. In any other moment, you could easily grab your wallet and keys and go buy what you needed. But not today. Today the raging hormones got the better of you and you felt incredibly overwhelmed with everything. The lack of ingredients. The effort of grabbing your things. Walking to the store. On your free day! This isn’t how you wished to spend your free day! Bubbling like soda, your emotions soon erupted from your eyes in desperate tears as you tried to make sense of your own emotions.

“Home, sweet’eart!” You heard Hobie’s voice echoing, coming from the room. “Marco!”

“Polo!” You replied between sobs.

Upon hearing your shaky voice, Hobie rushed out of the bedroom, alarmed. As he saw you, he got up to you and called your name softly.

“Hey, hey, baby, what’s wrong?” He asked as he gently cupped your cheeks in his large hands. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay, baby, what happened?”

“I wanted to make chocolate banana bread and we only’ve got flour…” You sobbed softly, your eyes wide and teary.

Hobie chuckled softly and kissed your forehead. “Hey, it’s a’ight, let’s make banana bread, luv…” He said as he pulled away and swung his backpack off his shoulder and opened it. “Take a peek,”

You cleaned your tears and looked at him puzzled before looking inside. Your eyes widened, and the plethora of hormones and emotions made your eyes teary once more as you started crying again. Hobie giggled softly.

“Hobie! You brought what we needed for the banana bread!” You sobbed.

“Hey, it was a hunch. These spider senses are pretty spot on, aren’t they?” He chuckled as you nodded and cleaned your face with the back of your hand. “Come on, luv…” He said, kissing your forehead. “You can stop crying…”

“I’m just very happy, Hobes…” You cried softly.

“I know, babe…” He chuckled cupping one of your cheeks, “I think it’s cute, actually” he purred before jerking his head, “c’mon, let’s get bakin’, although, I don’t want my banana bread all salty from tears…” He teased, making you laugh.

“Let me go wash my face…” You whispered as he clicked his tongue and winked.

“Sure, I’ll get started in everything else,”

[scentedpepper]

Hiiii I really liked ur recent lip fic so I had a request if it interests u :) it's probably pretty basic actually

Lip x male reader where reader is basically struggling to find a decent job because they're falling behind on bills so they become over stressed/overwork by their current shit job. This being something Lip can relate to he tries to comfort them/tries to get them to relax. (Totally not self reflecting haha 🧍🏻)

Fish.

LIP GALLAGHER X MALE READER

Summary: Lip knows when you're right and when you're wrong.

Content Warnings: None

AUTHOR NOTE(S):

Hey Anon 😼

Totally doable request

Gets a little angsty there for a sec cus I can't not put angst in my fics but yk

This has got to be the mushyest thing on my page so hopefully it's alright (^-^;

Allusiveness per usual..

The self projection is so real..

I'm glad you liked my last fic and I hope you find something that works for you soon tho!!

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

Fish.

That's the smell that immediately hits Lip upon entrance into the little studio apartment you call home.

Your cat stares at him, big eyed and blinking slowly from the peeled leather sofa with a blanket draped over it to hide the tweaks and imperfections of a Craigslist bought Lazy Boy.

If the boy was none the wiser, he'd assumed your place had been ransacked, burglarized and left with nothing but items not worth taking a second glance at. Though, it wouldn't be a half bad guess given that your front door was left open and there were clothes and trash strewn about the creaky floors, some of your furniture knocked out of place or even right on its side.

But he could hear you shuffling around the bathroom, knocking something over, the clatter of it to the floor, the less than enthusiastic curse from you and an internal groan that sounded like a hog dying as you bent down to pick it up.

–He wasn't sure how he'd heard that last one.

Intuition, perhaps.

Sheer connection, even.

But he wouldn't delve too much into that concept.

Despite the reality of its contents.

A sigh escapes him, he thinks, maybe one of these days, your recklessness will get you killed. But who is he to speak?

He locks the door from the inside before abandoning his shoes at the entryway, a task you never fail to stress upon to any guest who decides to stop in your home.

The cat is now perched comfortably on the end of your mattress, yawning and stretching as he makes sense of the newcomer in his house that just so happens to be intimately close with his owner.

Lip glances at his feet as he steps into the middle of the walkway, there's holes in his socks right where his toes protrude and they'd gone through their fair share of stitching and needless patching to keep them from slipping off his feet and turning into giant floppy gray lint brushes at his ankles.

Two people, similar living situations and yet two vastly different attitudes toward it.

He tries not to focus on that particular line of thought while he tucked his hands into his front pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels until you shut the bathroom door with a slam.

You're a sight for sore eyes, hair a disheveled mess, sunken in tired eyes, wearing nothing more than boxers, a white tee halfway up your arms when you pause abruptly at the sight of him.

"Hey. “

He finally acknowledges with a little side-smirk that immediately makes you feel a way that's contradictory to every single negative emotion running wild in your head.

You look at him quizzically, pulling your head through your shirt so you could breathe through the collar and clear away some of the exhaust building up after you tugged at your own hair like a horse suffering from some sort of brain-storm induced illness.

"Door was open. " He states the obvious, just to ease the awkward silence beginning to swallow you up.

In response, your eyebrows raise, tugging at your facial features and making your frown look even more drawn, and weary as your lips, that had seen better days, curl up in such a subtle, effortless smile that Lip fails to suppress his immediate burning response.

It's an ironic smile, but it charms your features nonetheless.

“Yeah.. I-” You clear your throat all the sudden, your sentence falling off into a mumble as you grab your hair before releasing it, only succeeding at making it less than structured. Your eyes dart around the room, suddenly aware of the chaos surrounding you. “Been busy. “

You move past him with rushed steps, partially knocking into the broom leant up against the wall, it clatters to the floor loudly behind you.

Lips eyes follow your frantic movement, tracking you as you stumble past him. The broom punctuates the silence like an exclamation point and he notices your cat jumping up out of his peripheral.

He doesn't move to pick it up. Instead, he stands there, hands still in his pockets as he watches you fumble with a stack of envelopes on the counter. He sees the tremble in your fingers despite the effort to suppress it, the tips pushing deep into the thick, yellow colored paper with bold, red text emblazoned on them.

“You know, “ Lip starts, voice low and measured, “I've got a pretty good idea about what those are. “

He steps over the broom, careful not to crowd you, the air between the two of you feeling heavy and charged.

Your shoulders tense at his words, a barely perceptible flinch. For a moment, the only sound is the soft padding of your cat's paws as he slinks away.

"Yeah?" Your voice is strained, almost challenging, but there's an underlying note of relief. Of being seen.

Lip's gaze drifts from the envelopes to the deep bags under your eyes, the knit in your brow, the stain in the creases of your face, to the worn-out shoes by the door, to the empty fridge humming in the corner. He finally settles back on you, confliction in the seas of his eyes.

“Look, “ he starts, then pauses, rubbing the back of his neck. You feel him get closer to you, his warmth invading your senses at once and you have to close your eyes at it.

He takes another step, less than half, not quite touching. An invitation, not a demand.

Your fingers trace the edge of the envelope as your mind blanks, for once. The paper's supposed to be rough, you know that, but you can hardly feel it with the way your fingers have calloused with the grime and weight of construction. You battle with your instincts, not moving an inch, freezing at his non touch touch.

“I have some extra cash from–”

“No. “

It's immediate. You don't think and your body instantly makes flee from him, the sizzling of the fake fish on the stovetop re-registering in your mind.

Lip doesn't flinch, but his eyes follow you as you retreat to the stove. The sizzling fills the silence between you, a mundane sound at odds with the emotional undercurrent.

"Okay. " He says softly, his tone careful but not placating. "No money. Got it. “

He leans against the counter, giving you space but not leaving. His presence is like a gravitational pull you're fighting against.

You focus on the fish, flipping it with more force than necessary. The spatula scrapes against the pan, a harsh sound that makes you wince.

"I don't need—" You start, then stop, unsure how to finish. Charity? Help? Him? All feel like lies on your tongue.

Lip waits, his patience a contrast to your agitation. When he speaks again, his voice is low, almost confessional.

"You know, when I was at my lowest, I couldn't stand the idea of anyone helping me either. ”

There's something so melancholy in his voice, a darkness creeping into the depths of the ocean that usually swims with his gaze that draws your attention, once again, back to him and his story.

He pushed himself off the counter, coming just a little closer to you with gentle steps like he's scared to startle you into abandoning him for a second time.

"It sucked, " he goes on, "It felt like shit, it made me feel even shittier. "

Then he's behind you and he isn't reaching for you, isn't touching you and it's even more dizzying than if he just was.

You shut the burner off and slump, feeling smaller as his breath ghosts across your skin.

The fish continues to sizzle, filling up the gaps where you don't speak, almost like it's speaking for you.

He's an inferno, a personal sun, everything burns in his orbit, you're convinced.

But you don't like the heat, the tension.

So, instead, you stand straight with a grimace as you say,

"What're you here for, Lip?" You glance at the clock on your stove. "It's nearly midnight. "

His eyes trail down your neck and he says nothing.

Everything goes quiet. So quiet, that when you tilt your head away from him, you catch the cat staring blankly at the two of you with his tongue out and drool pooling on the ground beneath it.

You press your lips together as your brows, furrowed, meet the bridge of your nose with creases and wrinkles you've picked up from excessive worrying.

"Here for a hookup?" You don't face him as you say this, instead you busy yourself with retrieving a plate but fail to find a clean enough looking one amongst the pile of dishes in your sink and settle for a coffee filter instead.

"Jesus christ, Y/N. “ He leans forward so he's sure you can hear every word he says. "Stop projecting your shit onto me. "

Ouch.

Your lips purse, pulling down to a flat, disapproving line at that.

"You're an asshole. “

You place the faux fish on the makeshift plate with a slightly shaking hand and then turn to him, looking him in the eye in distraught before you're speeding past him again, to the couch to rip the blanket you've got on there back over the chipping surface before you finally land on it, slumping into the battered cushions with a huff and a deep, tired sigh that has him blinking at you.

The cat has since vacated the premises upon the third trip you made around your apartment, choosing to go do gods knows what over sitting on his owner's lap which is even more distressing than anything Lip had seen on his way over, or once he had actually stepped inside.

For a moment he stands awkwardly in the kitchen, staring at the back of your head, unable to fathom what you must be thinking, so he ponders, maybe trying to relieve some of that pressure instead.

"Why does this—" he catches his own sentence, having almost used the words "make you", and quickly removes that option from use. "How's your stress lately?" Is the question he elects to ask instead.

"Stress doesn't bother me. "

You lie, blatantly, blatantly lying.

He clicks his tongue, finally removing himself from the stagnant stance and strolling toward you.

One foot before the other, before the other, before the next and the next and the next, finally finding himself within the circle that surrounds your worn out couch.

"Come on. " Lip grunts lowly, eyeing the coffee table you're sat before that's cluttered with junk, and half gone boxes of garbage, with rags and bottles, stray pens and hair ties.

"Lip–"

"Lemme see. " He hums at the sight of an empty plate with something half burnt and some sort of vegetable fried in butter but otherwise undistinguishable. He's pretty sure he might have to scrape it off from how long it's been sitting there, hardening.

"I didn't say you could help clean my shit. " You warn him, trying to maintain a certain sort of coldness even though there was no way of disguising the way your shoulders lessened at his voice, or the way your back pushed in further in the seat.

That's okay. He liked your stubbornness more and more with each passing minute.

You kept him on his toes.

He sighs in response, mumbling out a comment he kept to himself over your unwillingness to accept some kind of help; like you were starving– dehydrated.

He kneels slowly in front of you and reaches out his hands until your body stiffens and then wilts underneath them.

For the sake of your pride and that stubborn resistance to accept any amount of comfort, or to even bring up the fact that Lip is, in some ways, your rock.

He can do that for you, he tells himself. He likes being relied on by someone.

Someone who needs him in a way you never let anyone see because you had this notion to keep it all locked away inside of you like you could be dependable, like you were all you had.

"Listen to me. " He takes the tasteless fish away from you and for a moment you look appalled and ready to snap, but then he grabs your hands from your lap and slides his fingers along your palms and the fight is gone at that instant.

Your eyes glaze, darkening the circles underneath and he can't help but tug you away from the makeshift plate, from the furniture, the piles of stuff on the ground, the stack of boxes in the corner, the scattered clothing and the woes of your life.

Before you know it, his arms are cradling you and his warmth, his body heat, his scent, it's all encompassing.

"You don't gotta be perfect, you know?"

You grit your teeth when he says this, laying limp like a baby on your half living room, half bedroom floor with your face buried against his collar as he practically lay above you, holding you.

"Stop. " You force out, then a second time and a third before you can get anything more coherent from your lips.

He quiets you each time with another and another gut wrenching statement and soon, your intensities are practically splayed out across the stained, Dollar Tree carpet.

"It's not anything I can't handle. "

"I'm sure you can– you always find a way. " He shifts a bit, but it doesn't disrupt your hold on him. "But it's okay to need help every once and awhile. It's okay. Even to ask for it. "

"Lip, I just—”

He hears the anger in your tone, and he shushes you with a coo like noise and a slight nod of his head.

"I can't find a fucking job. " You mutter a few moments later into his shoulder, where his hands had snaked up into your hair so he could run the pads of his fingers along your scalp.

He nods, sympathetic, "You'll find something. You'll figure it out. "

"What the fuck am I doing wrong?" Your fingers raise from the carpet in silent resentment as you ask this, reaching up to claw at the thin, coarse fabric adorning his chest.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You're fucking great. The problem isn't you. Okay?"

"Sure, " You sigh, gripping onto his shoulders tighter, pulling his torso closer to you. "You say that because you think you'll hurt my feelings if you say anything else. "

"That's not true. " Lip snickers, sliding the hand back from where he was gently squeezing the back of your neck to play around with your hair instead. "If I was, we wouldn't be talking right now. You know?“

"Right. " You sniffle, a bit of a laugh bubbling up within the depths of your chest. "Because your heart belongs to anyone other than yourself? Doubt it. "

And the snark causes a giggle to erupt into the quiet of your little studio apartment.

You can smell him. His smell is like his scent mixed with coffee and sugar– for those Mondays when you want a treat, but are too lazy to walk the three blocks to the bakery for anything different than a cup of joe.

"Wow. " He snorts in return, resting his forehead against the top of your head where your nose met the tuffs of his curly, messy looking hair. "You're lucky I like you. "

"Uh huh. " A strained chuckle pushes past your lips, eyes sliding shut as your hands find his hips.

The sound of your heart beating in your ear is all you can hear as his fingers clasp around the sides of your face.

Everything is calming, cathartic. His demeanor is like honey; it runs down your bones, seeping into your open wounds and they begin to grow a bit plumper under the heat.

"Sometimes I just—" you pause, the feeling of his thumbs stroking back and forth across your jawline is too distracting for you to pay attention to the fact that you're trying to get your point across, "feel like there's something bad coming? Something coming for me, you know?"

"Yeah, " he blinks, hands gliding from your cheeks to the underside of your ears. "I know what you mean. "

His hands flatten, then run down until they find the collar of your shirt and a part of you relaxes as his fingertips stroke the outer lining of the stretched fabric.

"I get the same feeling too. " He adds, voice, so wonderfully low, rumbling from deep within his chest. "All the time. " He sighs quietly, rocking a bit.

"I'm gonna help you. " His eyes are dilated, even against the muted white ceiling light that hung above the two of you. You don't think twice to notice. “Get something going. Something solid. “

"Lip. " You choke a bit on the inside as he says this, turning your head to the right.

"I know you don't need it, but I want to. "

Against your better judgment, you take a dive and glance him right in his eyes and he doesn't falter.

It surprises you, then it doesn't.

A short sharp intake, air filling your lungs and Lip smiles. Just a sliver of skin at the edges of his lips. You take note of his change of expression immediately.

"When was the last time you had something actually good to eat?”

You narrow your gaze at him, ready to throw back an answer at his statement when he silences you by raising his hand up, index finger flying to shush you as he points at something past the two of you.

When you turn to look, you see your cat lapping his sandpaper tongue on your fish, seemingly enjoying it more than you had been.

"Been awhile for him too, apparently. "

You groan quietly, leaning back into him where the sound of his beating heart feels like music from some unknown realm your tired mind couldn't hope to understand.

"C'mon, " Lip nudges you gently.

"I'll get you something to eat. “

[daengtokki]

Your story is like the first one I’ve been so deeply captivated by when it comes to serial killer shit, like I can’t explain it. Sure I’ve read yandares and silly ghost face skz story’s, but this one made me feel…disgusted? Like I’ve never had a fictional story about skz make me feel so grossed out. I don’t want you to take it as a negative thing, and if you do i apologize 🩷

I’ve read sooooo many fics through three years and I was a little bit skeptical when I first read the “serial killer! Seungmin” but I’m glad I kept reading cause I’m so excited for the next part.

What I meant by the “it grossed me out” part, is the scene where he killed the man? I don’t know why but I dead ass almost threw up, might be cause I’m sick and the only thing I’ve been consuming are medications. But holy fuck dude, I had to step away😭

Also!! I got so, frustrated? And confused? When she DIDNT LEAVE THE COUNTRY!? A MAN JUST KILLED YOU FOR LIKE TWO MINUTES AND YOURE OVER HERE KISSING HIS LIPS AND WHAT NOT.

But I think that’s what makes a story good! The minute a fic I’m reading is making me feel some kind of emotions, better bet I’m reading until the fkn end.

Anyway, pardon my rant, and again I really hope you don’t take it as offensive, but if you do I’d totally get it tbh.

Stay safe and healthy! Lots of love🩷🌺

Sorry I took so long responding, but I really had to gather my thoughts for this one. Apologies for it being so long and for me basically taking an opportunity to unload.

All of the "negative" parts popped out because I was so tired and out of it. And I was like “oh no please don’t hate please don’t hate the story” 😭 ㅋㅋ ㅋ I'm out of it today, too, so hopefully I type this up properly.

But I don’t take your comments negatively! My job as a writer is to make you feel all of the emotions my characters are dealing with.

So thank you for taking the time to write all of this out! Seriously. I'm a little floored anyone (this goes for everyone who has sent a message or left a long comment about the fic) has been reading thoughtfully enough to catch everything l've been putting into the story. We’ll be getting more into readers fucked up head very soon, since you mentioned that!

I’m glad these not so pretty parts have gotten a reaction out of you, because I’ll take that as me writing the scenes well! That’s very important to me as a writer, and as someone who has always taken writing seriously. I love writing simple fanfic that you guys can lose yourself in, because that’s why I picked up ff again after stopping for many years. And because of Seungmin, ofc. But this is also why I was very nervous about posting DEITY even though I’ve been wanting to do serial killer!Seungmin for months now. I knew it couldn’t be simple, but I had no idea it would already be this long halfway through (almost 50k words). After writing the intro and getting into the first part, I decided to just write an entire novel. I already had the plot in my head.

I don’t see many stories like this on tumblr, but I also don’t read much (I’m not exaggerating when I say all of my free time is spent writing) so putting something darker out there that wasn’t just oneshot smut was a little scary. I’m aware that’s what get most of the attention on here (short stuff, ott smut, ~imagines, etc) and why even though I have readers like you, I don’t have much in the way of likes and reblogs. It does get discouraging, but I’m pushed forward when I think about all of you reading each part.

So ANYWAY. Sorry this got so long. Thank you so much for your reblogs and your comments on those reblogs. It’s so important to me and the other writers on tumblr.

And thank you Seungmin for being my muse. I wouldn’t be writing every day again without you making me so delusional.

Again, sorry if this is too much and none of it makes sense. I took too much of one of my meds today and I’m very dizzy and lethargic from it.

[nekrosdolly]

Pookie, you've got me thinking. After your headcanons about being Wesker's partner, and him being your bf and reacting to a breakup I want your opinion on two scenarios.

1. Reader who knows what happened with the STARS team and stays with him (whether by force or by choice)

2. Reader who leaves him and they have a reunion in a later game (maybe helping Leon in re4 or Chris and Sheva in re5?)

No pressure to write a fic or headcanons, I'm just curious what you think.

Stay hydrated! <3

snookums... you're brilliant.

(first scenario)

anybody rational would leave. you're a rational person, so you tried to leave and he just wasn't having that. since taking that dose of the prototype virus, he's nearly unstoppable.

the last thing you remember is sitting him down and telling him that you can't, in your good conscious, stay with him. his expression quickly fell.

"i was only doing what's necessary, dear," he'd try to tell you, placing a firm hand on your thigh. the situation would escalate, he'd inject you with something, and then you'd be unconscious within minutes. you've never felt so unsafe in your life. like a dog, he'd keep you on a short leash. you're in a different country every few years to remain under the radar.

after the first year under lock and key, you realize that there's no escape for you. unless he dies, you're never getting out of this, and you're pretty sure he's not dying any time soon. what do you do? give in. give up. surrender and try to be the person you were before everything happened.

(second scenario)

the year is 2004. since the raccoon city incident you were involved in, the d.s.o has had your life in a vice grip. they molded and carved away at you until you became a shell of what you once were. you were 23 in 1998. at age 29, you're jaded. tired.

you've been sent to a small town in Spain alongside your fellow agent Leon to rescue the president's daughter.

truthfully, Albert thought you'd died in the incident. after he had told you about his plans for the future, you left. he poured hours into finding you, only to come up null.

when you made your deal with the d.s.o, they'd agreed to give you a brand new identity to keep you safe.

so imagine his surprise when ada tells him there's not one, but two little problems in their plan. one she knows, and the other she's unfamiliar with. the only thing she gives wesker is a birds-eye view of yourself and leon running to take cover from the mob of ganados.

instantly, he recognizes you. his blood runs cold. he never thought he'd see you again and truthfully, it's a kick in the teeth. so maybe he never got over you- surely you got over him, right? it's not like he could come out of hiding to bring you into his arms- he's not quite sure you'd welcome him back anyway. you're different now, that much is true.

he can't help himself. he seeks you out in a hurry, some sense of desperation controlling his actions. he knows it's ridiculous, but what is he supposed to do? leave you with a man he doesn't know or trust? absolutely not. he makes little attempt to disguise himself, no less.

the last thing you expect is to see him coming towards you as you keep watch, leon sound asleep beside you. on instinct, you grab your knife from its hilt and meet him halfway, keeping a friendly distance between you two. you don't smile or cry or even scream at him for what he's done. your silence is unexpected and very, very insulting.

"dearest-" he reaches out for you and you slap his hand away.

"don't. you don't get to call me that anymore." you point your knife at him, your eyes cold and hard. once hurt, you never forget. he hurt you- hurt everyone in raccoon city- and made you go through hell.

"how dare you be alive. you should've died in that fucking mansion with the rest of your team." you snarl and spit at him. you're not hurting him. in fact, he's just letting you get your emotions out. he grabs your hand holding the knife and lowers it, then uses it as leverage to pull you closer.

"don't be so unkind. the years have been hard on all of us-"

"you caused all of this. you're to blame. if you ever touch me again, you won't live to see another day." you swap the knife to your free hand and cut his forearm, forcing him to let you go.

and let you go he does. you let your words hang in the air and then retreat to your makeshift camp with leon, and like normal, wesker slinks into the shadows.

[asexualbookbird]

It was not a great month for reading enjoyment. It did not start off strong, a book I was really looking forward to enjoying was boring as hell, and now my brain is too foggy to enjoy anything more complex I've been wanting to read. It WAS a good month in terms of volume, though. Two chonky books, and eight overall, if we care about those stats. Which I do a little bit. Numbers are arbitrary, but it does give me a sense of accomplishment when I read an 800 page book, I will not lie.

Eryie: Gryphon Insurrection by K Vale Nagle ⭐ - I'll admit, this is partially my fault. My brain skipped right over the Gryphon Insurrection part of the title, so I wasn't really expecting gryphon genocide, the children's novel. On top of that, it just wasn't well written! POV changes well over halfway through the book, no character is distinct, only thing it has going for it is it finally made me jump into Guardians of Ga'Hoole, but. uh. Well you'll see.

Dragon Pearl by Yoo Ha Lee ⭐⭐⭐- It was fine! Entertaining! I know YA and MG books don't have the luxury of going too deep into lore or anything, but it was really lacking here. She was sad about her brother being dead for like. One line. And then got over it. Kids deserve to read emotional depth! It was a cute adventure, but nothing I'd read again. It does make me more excited about Ninefox Gambit, though, because I can see the bones of good writing!

The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng by KS Villso ⭐⭐⭐⭐- Ow. What an end to a series. Everyone is awful, everyone sucks, except Khine, love of my life. It's always harder to talk about the books I like, but I did really enjoy this series. I'd like to reread it one day!

Legacy of Ash by Matthew Ward ⭐- I was sooooo looking forward to this. I even bought book two (at a secondhand shop thankfully) because I really thought I'd enjoy it. LOL. It took 800 pages to say nothing at all. It was long for the sake of being long. It was like four different plots trying to be one, and none of them really amounted to anything because the focus was so split. Really, similar problems as Priory, but at least that was gay.

The Guardians of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky (1-4) ⭐⭐⭐- Finally starting this series after a million years! It came highly recommended from many friends throughout my life, so I've naturally been putting it off. It's fine. I did really enjoy the first one, but reading more left me really picking it apart and it's a solid three stars for me. I think Animorphs is more well rounded, but it's still an entertaining series. My biggest gripe is the inconsistencies! Soren and crew decides to withhold information from the Guardians, and then the next book the Guardians have that information? And said they got it from the gang?? Not sure how th timeline works for Metal Beak to be Soren's brother when Metal Beak was supposed to be a Big Scary Enemy to all of owlkind. Thought it might be a Dread Pirate Robert's situation, but nope! Kludd has been the only Metal Beak! Kids deserve better lol I'll read what I have (eleven books) but probably nothing more than that.

I don't have reading plans or goals for February. I'm still sick, doing things is hard. I'm just trying to survive over here. If you have recommendations for easy to read silly books, I am all ears!

[cat-angel-936]

The villains plan part 1

(Inglés)

(these events occur one day after meeting María)

Chris: *speaking via text message*

Aviva what happened next: are you talking to your new friend? *gives him a cup of hot chocolate*

Chris: Yes, two of her dogs are warming themselves by the bonfire * shows him the photo because they are still in the Husky costume *

Aviva: oh how cute, I would like to meet them too

Chris: If you want, I can ask him if we can go tomorrow if it doesn't rain.

Aviva: really? Wouldn't it be too much of a hassle?

Chris: mh...I don't know, I'll ask *writes something and blushes*...what's wrong with me?

Aviva that I read the whole combination: I think you like it

Chris: oh...that makes sense *red*

Martin: brother, are you okay? your face is red *puts her hand on his forehead to see if he has a fever*

Chris: haha ​​brother I'm fine *removes his hand* in fact I couldn't be better

Martin: huh? *confused*

Aviva: haha ​​what your brother is trying to say is that he likes the girl he met today

Martin: What!? But you only met her today!

Chris: and what? You hung out with girls you met hours before when you were in high school.

Martin: but I am me and you are you.

Aviva: don't be like that Martin, plus tomorrow we will go to his house to get to know each other better

Martin: what did you say!?

Chris: Yes, so please behave.

Martin: But Chris, we can't, we still have to investigate the other part of the forest, that's why we came here.

Chris: Well, María knows this part of the forest, so she can help us.

Aviva: more reasons to go see it

*while with the villains on a call*

Zach: Donita guess what happened! *emotional*

Donita: hey, what happened Zach, Gourmound?

Gourmound: but guess *laughing*

Donita: oh I don't know, tell me and it better not be a joke!

Zach: It's not a quiet joke, but we have to tell you something important that will help us destroy the wild rats once and for all.

Donita: well and what is it?

Gourmound: Are you sure about that?

Zach: I grew up with them so yeah, you see Donita, the green guy got lost and while the whole rat team was looking for them, we came up with a plan to distract them before it starts raining.

Donita: and did it work?

Gourmound: Halfway through, the avocado realized it sooner than expected and the blueberry went out furious to look for his brother alone.

Zach: we didn't follow them and in one I see a certain green boy and you won't guess who he was with *to mischief*

Donita: with an animal?

Gourmound: even better, with a girl and they were very close

Zach: Yeah, she was holding his hand and everything.

Donita: really?

Gourmound: and the blueberry didn't like it hehe

Donita: and what do you want to do with her?

Zach: Make her go out with Chris!

*everyone looks at him strangely*

Donita: And how would she help us?

Zach: you see Donita, Martin is a very jealous brother and he usually kept away potential partners that Chris could have and he was very artful. I saw him constantly until he even interrupted a double date that we had with a girl and her sister.

Gourmound: oops I mean I'm harming you too

Zach: It was very annoying, even my parents and Mr. Kratt went to try to stop it, because it had already gotten out of control!

Donita: oh poor Chris, it must have been a very awkward moment, okay, we'll make a plan to get them together, he could even become a godmother at the wedding if everything goes well.

Zach: wow wow don't go so far into the future Donita, this will be to separate the Kratt brothers once and for all

Gourmound: and if everything goes well, you could be the best man at the wedding, taking the place that Martin would have

Zach:.....

*Zach's imaginary scenario*

Chris: Zach, I know we're enemies, but thank you for helping me date Maria, so for that reason, would you like to be my best man? *kneeling and with hand extended*

Zach: Oh I've been waiting for this moment my whole life, of course! *hugs him*

*on the wedding day. Zach helping Chris with his nerves at the altar*

Martin: that should be me... *sad looking from the seats*

*end of fictional scenario*

Zach: okay, we'll do it, Donita come here to plan our next move, I'll send you the location

Donita: right away *hang up* Dabio!

Dabio: Yes, Miss Donita.

Donita: take me to this location

Dabio: yes Donita *quickly leaves*

[kalena-henden]

Destined With You Final Thoughts

THE GOOD

Rowoon - Every new role I see him in (Extraordinary You and Tomorrow), I feel like he's grown leaps and bounds as an actor. Here he got to be literally be EVERYTHING. He was an arrogant emotionless jerk, a lovesick puppy who says the cutest most ridiculously things, a serious no-nonsense professional who's great at his job, a man struggling with his feelings and choices, a devoted protective lover, gutted and sobbing over life or death circumstances, respectful patient attentive boyfriend, an impulsive and passionate lover. I know we say ALL THE EMOTIONS sometimes but he literally when through them all.

Jo Bo Ah - Hongjo was a hard character for me because she was so passive and let everyone walk all over her again and again. Her saving grace is she always stood up to Shinyu and eventually learned to stand up to those around her. I could easily be annoyed with this character if it was played by a less competent actress.

Ha Joon - I enjoyed his turn as a suave lawyer who's actually a total dork in his personal life so much so that I started watching his new 50-episode family drama, Live Your Own Life, where he's finally the male lead with his own romance. Jaekyung came as Hongjo's sage guide when she needed him and happily exited when she was settled. Honestly, not a bad arc for a SML.

Shinyu's mom, Shinyu's lawyer friend, Hongjo's Landlady, Uram and his grandfather, and Shinyu's assistant - These characters were alot of fun and added to the depth of the story. I wish we had actually gotten more development from them which would have filled out this story a bit better.

Symbolism & Magic - This show is rife with well thought out symbolism. Love all the flower/plant stuff around Hongjo (Bloom) and Shinyu (Groot) equating to a blossoming and thriving relationship. The magic is actually pretty well explained and is there if you're interested in it.

THE BAD

Dropping the Magic Halfway Through - I am EXTREMELY disappointed in a show billed as a FANTASY ROMANCE that went to painstaking care to introduce the spells and curses to be like oops! don't care if the spells worked or not but we kinda care if the big curse is real cause we want to keep Shinyu in perpetual danger. Like I have ZERO respect that the FANTASTY aspect was dropped (and no the reincarnation plotline doesn't count). I feel hoodwinked and things make even less sense now. It's basically a JJ Abrams Mystery Box level of non-sensical bulls*t which is one of the main reasons I stopped watching most Western shows. It also leaves MASSIVE holes about how and why the Gardener and Nayeon started working together as well how did they learn about and come to believe the curses would even work. It was just she's a backstabbing two-faced bully and he's an insane murderer but zilch on their motivations. I really wanted a mini-montage of the black magic curses that were so well foreshadowed. I'm unsure if this was a writing call or directing call because in Korea the directors have final edit rights, not the writers. What got left on the cutting room floor?

Hongjo's coworkers - Why were they so terrible and unfunny the entire time? They were also irrelevant to the plot. The only good thing was her boss stopping the others from bullying Hongjo. It wasted time that could have been given to the side characters l liked (see above).

Noble Idiocracy & Repetitive Danger - I'm not sure which is worse that they repeatedly put themselves in danger time after time (even when bad things kept happening to them) or they broke up or stayed apart for the other person's 'benefit'. *face palm* If it was a great story, I can forgive some of this but...

The Pacing/Editing - If they had done a big reveal of the magic and other stuff at the end that really brought things to a climax, I would be like yeah it was slow at points but look at the payoff! Instead, I'm looking back at this going, if this is the story you wanted to tell, it could use a serious overhaul in HOW it was told. Even though there was stuff I liked about this drama, I wasn't that emotionally invested.

VERDICT

I would only recommend watching this to see Rowoon act his heart out and be in a ridiculously cute and sexy romance. That's it.

I'm sad because I really loved deep diving into this show. It could have been so much more like Goblin, Doom At Your Service, or Alchemy of Souls.

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire - chapter 3

Chapter 2: Varney cannot get over a wall.

Chapter 3: Originally posted on Livejournal, December 7, 2010, in the same post as chapters 1-2. The recap was short, so I've expanded it. Content note: blood.

CHAPTER III.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY. -- FLORA'S RECOVERY AND MADNESS. -- THE OFFER OF ASSISTANCE FROM SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

Given that this serial is titled, you know, Varney the Vampire, I got to this header back in 2010 and blurted out, "O rly?," because that's how we talked back then. No, I did.

(There is no actual offer of assistance from Sir Francis Varney in this chapter. Ya rly.)

Previously on:

Henry had the weapon, and he pointed it full at the tall form with steady aim. He pulled the trigger -- the explosion followed, and that the bullet did its office there could be no manner of doubt, for the figure gave a howling shriek, and fell headlong from the wall on the outside.

Currently: GET HIS ASS

This was at once agreed to, and the whole three of them made what expedition they could towards a gate which let into a paddock, across which they hurried, and soon found themselves clear of the garden wall, so that they could make way towards where they fully expected to find the body of him who had worn so unearthly an aspect, but who it would be an excessive relief to find was human.

sloooow cab, meter runnin' 

Three hundred words later, the men go around the wall, examine the heathy (yes, heathy) vegetation and find... no vampyre. Three hundred and fifty words after that, it finally occurs to them to go back and see if Flora is, you know, dead or whatever.

"My senses," said Henry, "were all so much absorbed in gazing at that horrible form, that I never once looked towards her further than to see that she was, to appearance, dead. God help her! poor -- poor, beautiful Flora. This is, indeed, a sad, sad fate for you to come to. Flora -- Flora -- "

I am pretty sure that if the printer had let James Malcolm Rymer just have a ten-page lightswitch rave—doop doop doop. Flora. Flora. The Flora. Is down—he would have done it.

I summarized the family for you earlier, but I think this is actually the first time we hear that Marchdale is "Robert Marchdale, you whom I [Flora's mother] have known even from my childhood," and who will surely not deceive her. I don't think they've told us... why, exactly... he's living here, in 1840s terms of respectability. (I think I was more suspicious of this back in 2010 than I actually am now. Sometimes a family is a mother, her children, a man, and his crowbar.) Anyway, everyone is just letting Flora bleed out at their leisure (content note: here comes the blood):

The mother approached the bed-side of the insensible, perhaps murdered girl; she saw her, to all appearance, weltering in blood, and, overcome by her emotions, she fainted on the floor of the room. [...] She was quite insensible, and her face was fearfully pale; while that she breathed at all could be but very faintly seen. On some of her clothing, about the neck, were spots of blood, and she looked more like one who had suffered some long and grievous illness, than a young girl in the prime of life and in the most robust health, as she had been on the day previous to the strange scene we have recorded. [...] “A wound!" said the mother, and she brought a light close to the bed, where all saw on the side of Flora's neck a small punctured wound; or, rather two, for there was one a little distance from the other. "How came these wounds?" said Henry. "I do not know," [Flora] replied. "I feel very faint and weak, as if I had almost bled to death."

Please notice all the blood, and also the puncture wounds, from which the blood endeavors to pour, and which are consistent with those made by vampire fangs (a concept that this serial, after all, introduced). This is going to be important later, if you want to understand why I got halfway through Volume Two and suddenly melted down in unbelieving rage that this godforsaken book would try to fucking gaslight me as to whether any of this happened or not.

The Bannerworth family revives Flora with wine, because, when in doubt: booze. And then, while Flora is wailing and trembling and fainting, the family all looks over at the spooky portrait in her room (whose idea was that, anyway?) and realizes that... it looks just like the vampyre. Of course it does. But it's the ancestral portrait of Sir Runnagate (oh, why not) Bannerworth, "who first, by his vices, gave the great blow to the family prosperity."

(You know, I said "why not" when I wrote that years ago, but no, I want to know why! Why the fuck is a 1700s dude named RUNNAGATE? So I go google it, and I get this:

Corruption of renegade, influenced by run + agate (“on the way, agoing”).

1. A deserter, renegade or apostate. 2. A fugitive; a runaway.

I'm gonna hope this was a sobriquet their ancestor picked up from some salty descendants after he blew the family fortune, because otherwise, this is a real "dead dove: I don't know what I expected" situation.)

Henry then tells us that the spooky portrait is ninety years old, which I thought was Rymer trying to tell us that Sir Runnagate is actually Varney, and that's (at least) how long he's been around. Hell, maybe that's what he is trying to tell us right now; the storylines of serials tend to drift all over the place, and writers either forget what they started out saying, or they decide to contradict themselves and hope no one notices. But I get ahead of myself.

To finish the chapter: Henry, having promised Flora that he won't leave, camps out at her bedside with Marchdale's crowbar reloaded pistols—which I mention because it reminds me a lot of the men watching over Lucy in Dracula. Or reverse-reminds me, since Varney predates Dracula by fifty years. My point is, here's another Literary Vampire Tradition Moment: the maiden abed, and her protectors' vigil. Which is worth noting, because there are a number of moments that feel like something you've seen a hundred times, and then there are vast, oceanic swathes of wackery. As I said back in 2010, I had read half the entire serial by that point, and the opening chapter was the first and only episode of vampiring I had seen in some 300,000 words. BE STRONG, WE CAN DO THIS.

(Chapter 4, sparkle willing, will go up on Tuesday, March 21.)

[denimbex1986]

'The British director on the power of crying and how he crafted his heartbreaking new film, All of Us Strangers.

Andrew Haigh is a veteran of film and television, having directed projects including Weekend, 45 Years, Looking and The North Water. His work is defined by an expert eye for detail and profound sensitivity – in All of Us Strangers, he excavates familial and queer trauma to create a powerful, tender, ghostly romance, starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell.

LWLies: Every person I’ve spoken to about All of Us Strangers has had quite an intense emotional reaction to it. How aware of that potential are you when you’re making a film?

Haigh: It’s funny, because I used to get emotional writing the script, and then making a film, there are moments when you feel the emotion that’s coming back at you. I’m a pretty emotional person, I’m constantly crying. But then when I watched the assembly that Jonathan [Alberts, editor] had done, I was a wreck. And I know that he’d been a wreck editing it.

The more you work on a film, for months and months, you aren’t sure. You wonder if you’ve got rid of the emotion within the piece, if you’ve ruined it. When the film was finished, I hoped that people would have a reaction to it, and that it would feel like a genuine emotional reaction rather than a manipulative one.

I wanted to unpick the pain that we all carry around, in the hope that at the end, there is some catharsis. I find crying so cathartic. Every time I cry my eyes I feel so much better. I remember when Jonathan was cutting the dailies, and it was just one of the scenes about halfway through, of Harry and Adam in bed talking. I came in and Jonathan was just in floods. I said, “What’s the matter?!” It wasn’t a big emotional scene but he was a wreck.

I think that’s representative of how grief works, too. Sometimes it’s the small things that set you off, and it’s not always the things that make sense. 

It’s always the little things, and it’s the same whether it’s grief or anything in your past. I think grief is not always just about someone you’ve lost, it’s about things that you’ve lost. It’s time that you’ve lost, it’s relationships that you’ve lost, it’s love affairs that you’ve lost. Our whole lives are essentially dealing with time moving on and us losing things. I wanted the film to be about that – so the mother is just as upset that she has lost the time with her son because those things are so fragile. I’m a pretty melancholic person, and so I often think about all of those little moments in life that have been so important and are now just distant memories. They are essentially ghosts.

It’s strange, I’m currently going through a lot of video footage from when I was a kid, so I’m having a very similar experience. It brings up so many strange emotions, excavating the past. Thinking about the people that aren’t in your life now.

Yeah – and the emotion that you have for someone once they are gone, whether that’s because they’ve died or they’re just not in your life..that emotion is still there. It’s strange how that works. Fear doesn’t last the same way. No other emotion does. But love is always there. Somehow it’s both a little bit cheesy and kind of magical at the same time. Love is the thing that remains.

Were you familiar with Taichi Yamada’s novel Strangers before you were approached about the project?

No, I hadn’t heard of it – Graham [Broadbent] and Sarah [Harvey], the producers, sent it to me. They knew me, and they asked what I was interested in doing, so I said “I’m kind of interested in doing some kind of ghost story.’ Even though this isn’t that exactly. But they sent me this very traditional ghost story, and the thing that I loved was this idea in the novel of meeting your parents again. I thought that was a fascinating way to start looking into love, grief, parental responsibility, all of those things. I very quickly knew I wanted to make the love affair between two men, and I didn’t want the ghosts in the story to be malevolent, in the way they sort of are in the book.

I felt like, Oh God, I can finally talk about queerness and family in a way that I think is very complicated, and do it within a way that these two things can be interconnected and wound up together. I feel like that is a thing about being queer. It is complicated within a family dynamic. It’s getting better every day, although not for everyone. But it was certainly so complicated for me, growing up.

I’m interested to know how much you thought about the connection between All of Us Strangers and your previous work, particularly 45 Years and Weekend, because there are overlapping themes. 

Yeah, and I don’t mind it being sort of repeating, because I think my interests are always my interests. So the things I’m trying to articulate, I’m often going back on myself to try and find new ways to express something I’ve looked at before. I quite like that idea. But my biggest concern, actually, in the beginning, was that people were going to think this film is just Weekend with Ghosts. But even though I don’t think the film is that, everything that you do is always in relationship to what you’ve done before. For me anyway. It’s like picking up a conversation, there’s something that you’ve already sort of talked about, but you realise you want to talk about a little bit more, and in a slightly different way.

You’ve talked a little bit about bringing your own personal experience into the film. How do you find that process of weaving your own personal experience into an adaptation?

Yes, I felt like I had to. For some reason, I felt like I didn’t want to make the film unless it was personal. There was stuff I wanted to talk about in terms of queerness and how I feel about family and its complications, what it can mean to be a child and a parent. I wrote a lot during the pandemic – I kind of threw myself into trying to make it feel as close to something I understood as possible while making sure it wasn’t autobiographical. So there’s lots of me in it, but there’s also lots of me that isn’t in it. When I gave the script to people, they’d said “I feel like you’ve written this about me. I feel like you’ve told my life story.” Whether it’s about the loss of parents or the separation from family, or whether it’s about queerness…they’re taking something from it. And that was always what I hoped that it would feel like. It’s personal to me, but I want it to feel personal to everyone.

You have such a wonderfully curated collection of 80s music in All of Us Strangers. Was this directly plucked from your own experience?

Oh yeah, those choices were definitely personal. I love The Pet Shop Boys, I’ve loved them from their first album onwards back in 1985, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. If you open the vinyl now, it’s so gay! You pull out this bit of paper, and they’re wearing like leather underwear and you’re like “How did this exist in 1983?” Those songs were so important to me. But pop music in general is a way for especially repressed British people to express themselves – the old pop songs especially expressed the things that we can’t say in very blatant terms. I think weirdly my politics was forged by pop music. I listen to a Housemartins song now, and I can tell they’re a bunch of socialists, you can feel it. Everything was passionate in those days, especially in pop music.

The film begins with a sunrise and ends with a night sky which lingers, and I loved that parallel. How early did you have that ending in your head?

I think it was there from the beginning if I’m honest – but I’m also aware that the ending won’t work for everybody. For me, it’s like I needed the ending to transcend a sense of reality. When I was a kid growing up I genuinely thought that I would never be able to find love. I couldn’t even see spending my life with another man as a possibility. And I wanted in the end to make love have this almost cosmic importance. Like the idea that love is so fundamentally important and enormous. Someone said something to me that I hadn’t quite realised – stars die billions of years ago, and the light is still there millions of years later. It’s like we said before; love is this thing that can be long gone, but it’s still there. And you can find it again. And again. And again. It’s always there.'

[trouticecream]

Intermission: Old Wounds Reawakened 2/2

The house isn’t much in terms of size or decor–small, cozy, and simple as it may be, neat and clean in a sense–but it’s home and for one reason or another, Ninten has decided to give the weird blonde kid a chance.  To actually let him into his own home, against his deeply pitted gut feelings of unease and decidedly misplaced sense of familiarity, and talk to him about the invasion from about a decade ago.  Supposedly.  He clicks his tongue discontentedly while he lifts a worn tea kettle, steam gently wafting out its silvery spout, before tilting its freshly boiled water into a plain white tea cup with a tightly bound bag of peppermint tea at its center, the fragile string laying flush against the cup’s delicately smoothed edges.  The human man had accepted it in the moment, but that explanation for why this kid–if he’s even a kid at all, outward appearances be damned–had been observing him over the course of several days, doesn’t really feel like it even scratches the surface of the actual truth.  That kid, Gregory, hadn’t really given any obvious reasons–apart from well? the obvious weirdness of following along and watching someone–to suspect anything malicious either though… so he’s kind of a mystery.  One that, against all reason, has admittedly peaked Ninten’s interest though for all his general emotiveness, he remains fairly neutral… for the time-being anyways.

He picks up the teacup by its handle and moves over to the rectangular wooden table–smoothed and polished mahogany set in rounded edges with legs ending in points overtop the immaculate ivory kitchen tiles–where Gregory is seated in a matching chair, as silent as ever with that inscrutable quality to his void gaze.  Ninten sets down the teacup before roughly moving out the chair on the opposing side and sitting at the table himself, a stout shiny red can of a certain popular darkly-coloured soda on his side.

“Here.  You’ve got your dried leaf water… –er peppermint tea.  You sure you don’t want a soda instead?  It tastes waaaaaaaaaay better than tea, on like every level possible.”

With a deft flick of his index finger, the human man pops open his soda, and hesitates none in greedily guzzling it down, the remainder of his thoughts on the whole matter regarding Gregory almost casually flitting by as he does so.  In a way, there’s a certain kind of thrill to be doing something so outrageous and kinda nuts, if he’s being completely honest with himself.  There’s something so eerie and off about this whole situation, but he’s practically dying of curiousity to see what ends up happening, for better and for worse, anyways.  He’s cautious, of course–he’s not that much of a dumbass; something is clearly off here at the very minimum–but at the same time, he’s kinda a bit nuts himself which in a weird way balances the scales.  Heh.  Must be why Ana and himself make such a great pair; she’s sweet and talented at high class shit like playing the piano and ballet, but when it comes down to it, she can more than handle her fair share of insanity.  Same as Loid and Teddy, though Teddy has always seemed like he can handle insane shit either way.  He makes it about halfway through his soda before a flat, cool voice–a contrast against its unbridled undertones of youth–cuts the effort short.

“No.  I do not have peppermint tea.  Not yet.”

Completely ignoring the human man’s inquiry, the blonde boy rather critically squints, sharply tapping against a blunted nail against the cup a few times as if to further emphasize his displeasure as his mouth curves down just a bit; all too focused on the ‘offense’ of claiming to have tea only for it to be woefully underdeveloped.

“Tea requires time in order to become properly saturated with the flavour of its bagged components.  It is only partially complete with the addition of water.”

Gregory uncomfortably shifts in his seat, gaze shifting between Ninten and the offending beverage while his free hand sporadically fidgets with the end of his yellow turtleneck sweater, and with a short huff telekinetically lifts up the cup to get a closer look at its contents as if to ensure that there are no other flaws, the human’s wording aside, before promptly setting it back down atop the table before him.

“My commendations on switching on a machine to boil water.”

It’s subtle, barely discernible through the flatness of his tone, but he’s being a bit snide.  Yet another inexplicable burst of pettiness that slips out before the disguised alien can even properly parse his options.  He need not have even made that initial commentary on what constitutes tea, but it had come tumbling out anyways, as though drawn magnetically to the human man with force so potent it couldn’t possibly be kept away in the absence of exceedingly extreme measures.

Small fingers tightly press around the cup, as though barely restraining something, as the disguised Psion takes a moment to recenter himself anew.  He needs to get these little… outbursts… under control.  But, somehow against his generally more neutral and analytical approach to most situations, it seems all too easy to let them slip on by.  All too easy when it comes to Ninten.  To someone that, though only important by proxy to the one that has truly earned his loyalty, nonetheless is important in some capacity anyways.  To someone important that he has wronged.  His focus is all too easy to disassemble, cut apart by frazzled, disjunct, and frayed energy that surges through his entire being like electricity, by the slightest provocation; an unusual sensation, choppy even by the already turbulent standards of basic emotion.

He’s nervous.

The thought comes to him suddenly.  An minor epiphany in its own right, albeit not one that eases his turmoil any.  If anything… it makes him even more self-conscious about the whole matter.  Even more aware of how much he is lacking here.  How… ‘upsetting’ the departure from his typically more logical and efficient standard of being actually is, no matter how small or few in kind each deviation.  He straightens up in his chair, creaking it across the floor one or two steps, ultimately determining that regardless of any missteps… he must press on anyways.  To get through this interaction without causing any disproportionate or unnecessary damages.

The tea bag–marinating in the steaming waters this entire time–lights up with a kind of blue luminescence indicative of the disguised alien’s power and twists a few times in the waters across the circumference of the cup before being abruptly tossed into the sink nearby with a moderate thud.  Gregory then lifts the teacup up and takes a slow sip of the peppermint tea.  To soothe.  To calm the figurative knots which had all too quickly formed in the pit of his very being.  To recenter himself–and in doing so, effectively shake off that odd, almost involuntary, bout of what can almost certainly be regarded as self-sabotage plucked from a very dark place–and rectify that particular slippage.  Another slow sip of the tea before his too tight grip on the teacup loosens just a smidge.  He isn’t entirely over his nerves, but just about enough ‘breathing room’ has consequently been opened up, such that he can make an earnest attempt at correcting that poorly-weighted decision.  Success here may not hinge on actually gathering the information about the confrontation at Mt. Itoi’s summit itself, but he would rather not cause any undue distress towards Ninten if he can help it.

“My apologies.  That was…– ‘rude’ of me.  Thank-you for your efforts.”

Gregory shifts uncomfortably, feeling a touch too exposed in a way that he is  neither used to or comfortable with, but ultimately relents that it is something that he just has to get used to anyways… irrespective of how unlike himself it feels.  This is what it means to have and experience emotions after all it is not?  The primary way by which he is separated from the Psion species.  This is what it means to be just a bit ‘human’--courtesy of his adoptive human parents–does it not?

And to the human man’s credit, against the conjecture devised by the disguised alien’s own nerves, he seems to have let that little jab slip off like dust off one’s shoulder.  Sure any kind of jab really–given the human man’s own hot headed nature, no matter how many years pass on by–leaves him feeling a little prickly, bristled like a startled cat, but nothing that he can’t handle.  As such, with little more than a displeased click of his tongue, the human man cuts downing the soda at its halfway point before gruffly putting it back into its original place on the table.  Eyebrows furrow against his watchful expression while calloused fingers tap, almost impatiently, against the table as he puts in some conscious effort towards carefully–blegh, can’t believe that he’d ever even approximate being this close to the very adults he had once dismissed as ‘boring’ as a kid–thinking over his next choice of words.  Obviously, while the weird kid is kiiiiiiiinda right about the tea thing… it doesn’t seem right to get that bent out of shape over it.  It’s the effort that counts right?  Though, even for a jab, it was relatively tame.  The nervousness is pretty palpable, no matter how subdued the blonde kid tries to be though, any further thought over the matter kinda seems to be rendered a waste once the human man receives an apology.

Some tenseness he hadn’t realized was there in his posture–be it from the strain of having to think this over more carefully or more than likely, that tiny kernel of feeling something about the other that puts him on edge, try hard as he may to put it aside–leaves his body, posture relaxing as he almost sheepishly runs a hand through his hair and offers a small yet reassuring smile.

“Jeez.  You don’t need to worry ‘bout something like that.  It’s not a big deal, honest!

If you’re that bent outta shape over it though, maybe we can even things out like an exchange?

I’ll pretend I never heard you make that jab about my tea making skills and in return… you don’t tell my girlfriend that I called tea ‘leaf water’ or thought that just adding water automatically made it ‘tea’… deal?”

Ninten extends out a hand, to take or not depending on the kid’s comfort level, as if to properly seal the proposed deal altogether.  A gesture that Gregory doesn’t quite return albeit not out of coldness so much as it is out of awkwardness.  A sudden pang of uncertainty on what to do and how to approach this exactly.  He squints rather critically at the human man as though trying to figure out some hidden angle to Ninten’s words, only to find none and relent.  But this time, rather than taking the extended hand, Gregory almost protectively cups the scalding teacup and turns his face away.

“I agree to the terms of your proposed arrangement.”

He already has an idea of who this ‘girlfriend’ is.  Ninten must know that Gregory knows it too.  Romance is a bit of a nebulous concept, one that he personally struggles to separate from exceedingly close friendships, but something about it causes his figurative ‘stomach’ to churn.  He isn’t certain as to why that is exactly, but all the same, the disguised alien dares not spend a moment more on the matter before turning back to face the human man with blank neutrality etched into his face.  By then, Ninten had respectfully retracted his hand–utterly unbothered by the unspoken rejection of the gesture–before taking another swig of his soda and pressing his elbows atop the table as he leans in just a bit, that curiousity of his own from before cutting through that backend cautious.

“Anyhoooo… you said that you were curious about that alien invasion from 10 years ago, right?  What didja wanna hear about it?  You probably already know the basic gist of it so, is there anything that you wanted more details on or…–?”

The human man trails off, cutting himself off at that to not only give Gregory a chance to parse out exactly what he wants, but to avoid rambling on and on.  Awkward rambling about the same thing would really cramp his style after all.

Either way, as requested, Gregory takes a moment to think over his next move.  His inquiry to pose to be precise.  He’s hit a snag in his original plans for this excursion after all.  A snag that he had ultimately leaned into in order to make the most of it and perhaps more finally put this whole matter to rest.  After all, a snag or not, this has nonetheless become a good opportunity to gain more clear and concrete answers to the very question that has been burdening his mind over the past few days.  He takes another sip of tea from his cup before neatly placing it atop the table and folding his hands together, fixing Ninten with a level gaze as he does so.

“What was it like to fight against the alien that was responsible for orchestrating the invasion of Earth?  Were you afraid…?”

Straight to the point it seems.  He had considered easing into the topic slowly but perhaps much like Ninten himself in the faintest of ways? it really isn’t his ‘style’ to dance around what he really wants to know with meaningless inquiries padded out by false platitudes to fill in the gaps of such a vacuous approach.  It might seem abrupt, but this ‘feels’ like a good starting point.  One that can effectively establish a reasonable baseline from which Gregory can establish the impact that the first invasion had on him.

A baseline of impact which immediately peeks out, even if likely just a small glimpse into its full format, by the jarring shift in the human man’s demeanor.  Before Ninten had hardly ever deviated much from an amicable and more casual demeanor, ultimately taking everything–no matter how strange this all must be for a human–in stride, but now? he couldn’t help the rather immediate way in which his thick eyebrows shoot up whilst his mouth hangs slightly agape.  Either he’s surprised by the audacity of coming in guns a blazing like that, he’s suddenly hit by the permanent mark that particular encounter had led for a multitude of reasons (and not just because it was a harrowing and utterly terrifying experience overall), or more than likely? a combination of both reasons altogether.  However, being who he is, the human man quickly recovers though rather than assume a more neutral demeanor, he leans into one of his propped up hands overtop the table and frowns just a little as he takes a moment to study Gregory.

Geez.  What a question to ask right off the bat.  Seems that even nerves won’t keep this kid from being so direct and forward huh?  It’s a bit tactless he guesses, but in a way that kind of brashness reminds Ninten of well? himself from when he was a kid.  That’s not necessarily a good thing.  He did a lot of dumb shit because of traits like that, but it’s nonetheless enough to ease away some of that perpetual sense of being on-edge that’s been hovering in the background the whole time.  It might seem a bit odd… a bit nuts if you will… but even if it’s a bit personal to tell a complete stranger, somehow it feels okay to do so anyways.  He leans back into his chair with a slight creak, hands idly falling to a rest atop the table, before awkwardly running a hand through messy black hair anew.  But ah how to tell it?  Putting feelings so complicated into words is a messy affair.  Not his strong suit, strangely enough, despite being someone that’s more or less openly emotive.  But then… that particular confrontation had (again) left a mark in a way that’s not easy to convey to someone that plainly wasn’t there.

Ninten never really had to explain it.  Not even to Ana and Loid.  He didn’t need to.  They just knew because it was something that they had gotten through together… maybe in part because they were all together and cheesy as it sounds, that togetherness is what gave him (and Ana and Loid in turn too, he hopes) the strength to stand against a seemingly unstoppable force like Giegue.  He forces out a puff of air from his mouth, a touch exasperated over this conundrum, before sneaking a glance at Gregory.  Seems that, though the signs of nervousness are still there–maybe even intensified just a bit once the human man lost that more casual demeanor of his–in the way that he taps his teacup when he’s not otherwise downing more of the tea… the blonde kid seems otherwise pretty nonplussed.  As weird as ever.  And maybe because of that, he doesn’t really need to overthink any of this.  He’s just gotta give it his best shot, no matter how messy or disorganized it might come out.  It’s not really his style to sweat small stuff like that anyways.

“Uh.  Okay.  I dunno how to put this in a good way, but basically it was a lot.

The alien guy? his name was “Giegue” and his whole reason for being on Earth was to basically wipe us all out because of something that my great grandfather did.  Something about getting info that the aliens didn’t want him having?

I dunno the details, but basically he got into some shit.”

Ninten pauses, blinking as a sudden realization hits him like a freight train, swearing.  He just swore.  In front of a kid.  Should he be doing that?  Gregory doesn’t seem to be bothered by it and he’s only 21 years old anyways –so he doesn’t need to be that responsible as an adult yet.  And so, barely missing a beat, he presses on.

“And the aliens decided that the best way of dealing with that or doing damage control or whatever was by wiping out all humans.

Me and my friends went through a lot to finally confront Giegue, but when he actually showed up…?”

An intentional pause this time as he encounters some resistance in finishing the thought.  Resistance which the human man conceals by starting on another soda before pressing on, his expression growing more concentrated–indicative of the tense way in which his eyebrows furrow, his more jovial energy giving way to a seriousness that isn’t usually seen in him–and strained against the more casually neutral demeanor he wants to exude.

“….I’m gonna level with you… it was piss-your-pants terrifying.  Straight up the scariest shit I’ve ever had to face down from the crazy powers to the stone cold way he talked about humans and hitting back at my great grandpa for something so dumb.

I’ve never seen anyone that empty, cold, or remorseless about doing something so terrible –not even from the other aliens we had to fight before getting to him.  It was kind of hard to understand and a huge shock at the same time.

It’s a huge part of what made him so scary.  But even though we were all scared, we couldn’t turn away.

We had the fate of humanity figuratively in the palms of our hands.  It was all hanging by our efforts and whether or not we would succeed at the summit of Mt.  Itoi.

We figured out pretty early on that we stood no chance against him, but we still couldn’t turn away.

Strong enough or not, our family, friends, the people of Earth… were counting on us and no matter how scared, hopeless, or hurt anyone was feeling, we knew that we had to persevere until we could figure out a way to win.”

Ninten chugs the remainder of his soda, momentarily considering grabbing yet another one, before deciding that for now he’s had enough.  It’s a big of a mess, even when he’s skimmed over the more complicated feelings–not that those were the exact subject of the question anyways–but he feels a bit less weighed down than before.  Relieved that he’s gotten out the very things that he’s admittedly kind of been lowkey thinking about in the wake of the second invasion.  Now to wrap things up, bring it all back to something more simple.

“So to sum it up? yes it was definitely scary, but not just that.  It felt hopeless at times and kinda crushing from the pressure…”

The human man gestures vaguely as he tries to find his phrasing.

“... the weight of so many lives depending on whether or not we could stop him… but if I had to do it over again, I would.  

My mom always said that people with power have a responsibility to use it to help others or protect them in this case.

I think that it’s why we all were able to withstand that confrontation… because no matter how scared or hopeless we felt, we knew that this was something that only we had the power to actually do.”

And off goes a bit more of that tenseness as he awkwardly scratches the back of his neck, almost embarrassed by his own phrasing by the end.  He’s not usually this well? cheesy, but it’s no less important to him.  Nightmare-inducing or not, he’s proud to have made it through and never given up even when things turned out to be way more difficult than brute-forcing enemies in video games.

Gregory, on his part, has managed to remain remarkably still (unnaturally so, like some kind of statue) throughout the majority of Ninten’s answer, only moving to silently sip some more tea from his all too quickly dwindling supply.  It’s a necessary maneuver, one meticulously calculated to maintain a semblance of calm, but one that quickly becomes woefully insufficient when Ninten delves into describing just exactly how awful the Psion’s callous attitude had been.  How despicable his own behaviour truly was; worse than the incorrectness of his mission, he had gone out of his way to demean and belittle the courageous efforts of juveniles that had only wanted to save the people of Earth, their very family and ‘friends’.  How much Ninten’s own mother had influenced his quest and seemingly indomitable will to continue on, no matter how difficult.  Teeth grind from behind his mouth whilst small fingers tighten around the teacup as if somehow that would ease the pressure exuded as an odd sensation violently presses against him.  Overwhelming and inexplicable, red-hot to the touch… far too much for anyone to dare approach, and yet against his best efforts it crashes into him anyways.

Shame.  An emotion raw and true, unfiltered by fuzzy piecework and impressions… it is quite a bit real.  Just as real as the clarity of Ninten, from within his own memories, had been.  The very memory which had spurred him into action… into doing this sort of thing to begin with.  The disguised alien glances down into the remainder of his tea, a murky image reflected back in kind, before he manages to rein it all back in.  No matter what, he cannot falter like that.  Not before the Earth and its life-forms.  Not in front of Ninten.  Doing so would only cause more pain than what excesses he has already inflicted upon the Earth.  And yet… though some of the tenseness leaves his overall body… something remains.

“You have never faltered…?  At all?  Never thought about just trying to save yourself?”

A moment of weakness, but perhaps a bit more permissible compared to the alternative.  An analogue to the same perceived moment of ‘weakness’ Gregory had when halfway through the confrontation on Mt. Itoi, he had submitted (even if for a moment) to feelings he had forgotten he even had in the first place and offered .  In the name of a cherished memory, no matter how distant, he determined that though forsaking his mission was not an option… he could do at least this much.  He could save his only link to her.  Just one person–not to be experimented upon like the others he had abducted earlier on–alone could be explained away to the Psion superiors.

Just Ninten alone.

It’s selfish now.  Just as it was back then.  But then, Gregory himself is a selfish creature; something he is in the process of changing.  A process which, in this particular vein of matters, Ninten has not needed to undergo because the sentiment from a decade now continues to ring true now.  The human man shakes his head, light brown eyes glinting in the same determined way they had back then, and at the speed of a bullet, responds with absolute certainty in his tone as if he too were reliving the same moment Gregory had just replayed in his mind.

“No way.

I’d never abandon people that are counting on me to help them.  

I’d never betray my family and friends like that.”

.

The human man pauses, as if mulling something over, likely in terms of how appropriate it actually is to delve any deeper into it before just pressing on anyways.

“If it came down to it… I think that we all would have kept on fighting and trying to stop him until we uh… couldn’t anymore.

Guess that it’s good that my great grandma gave us a pretty solid hint on stopping him since we couldn’t actually just beat him up like everyone else.”

Another pause.  But this one decidedly more tense as he awkwardly laughs as if trying to break up the damper–not that this conversation was ever going to be any lighter given how many grim things Ninten and everyone else had collectively seen on the journey–he had put on this conversation before sharply snapping to a grimace at the memory of that turning point in the battle against Giegue.  Once so seemingly calm, collected, and prim in demeanor… the alien had quickly devolved into screaming at them and begging for them to stop singing great grandma’s lullaby.  It was terrifying, like anything else about that encounter, and part of him felt a bit bad… but between the fear that constantly threatened to glue each one of them to the spot with no more actions to be taken and the desperation to save everyone, Ninten continued on no matter how progressively awful it felt.  Until Giegue finally gave up, tearing up in a way he had never expected to see, and vowed to return in order to finish what he started.

But Ninten didn’t feel any better about it.

While he had felt nothing, but relief when Giegue left… –so much that his legs had figuratively turned to jelly and he had almost fallen over as a result… it didn’t feel very good.  It didn’t feel like much of a win.  It felt like the three of them had collectively broken something in the alien, without necessarily meaning to, and sent him off the deep end in a way that couldn’t end any way other than putting him in the ground for good.  He taps his foot agitatedly and shakes his head, gaze long since shifted down to the table.

“Tch.  Damn it.  I really wish that had gone differently though…”

Then abruptly, his gaze snaps back up as the realization dawns on him that he had slipped up.  Not the worst possible way to slip up, but nonetheless nothing he had tried to do intentionally.  Before Ninten can even rectify it, Gregory cuts through whatever thoughts may have started to form with renewed sharpness, like a blade through pristine waters.  The Psion had been closely observing the human man this whole time and what had started out as shame and remorse over playing a hand in having him relive an awful memory… quickly swerved to disapproval, the very instant he had detected a perceived wavering of resolve.  Dark blue voids narrow to match the sentiment as a subtle sense of disappointment floods through at the apparent slight to his own perception of the human as a ‘true hero’.

“Do you regret it?  Do you actually regret stopping him?”

Gregory had jumped a bit quickly to conclusions, admittedly, but he couldn’t help it.  This entire topic had thrown his carefully contained control completely out of sorts as alternating emotions of varying intensity battered him one after another.  Ashamed and remorseful as he was… weak as he had been in the moment he had given his prior inquiry… he ultimately understood.  Of course not.  Of course Ninten would not turn his back on the people of Earth to save himself.  None of their group would.  And yet… something about Ninten feeling any remorse–where he should not–strikes a nerve in the disguised alien.  It irks him.  Irks him enough to take a figurative swipe at the human man in return.  

A swipe that earns a swift response in kind.  Admittedly, it agitates Ninten in having hit an especially sore spot–one which like a scab torn off a barely healing wound, had all too easily reopened anew–and it shows in the way he grips the edges of the table as though ready to get up and shoot back just as harshly… before he wills himself to simmer back down.  No use in getting all bent out of shape at some kind.  Tactless as his recent questions have been… it’s not really his fault that this subject is more sore than even Ninten himself had thought.  Time hadn’t really healed that particular wound, but more like it had made the whole thing less noticeable.  Easier to distance himself from.  Easier to water down to a basic story about stopping an invading force.  He forces himself to lean back in his chair, inhaling and exhaling, before resuming a more relaxed (though still ever-so-slightly tense) posture.  The human man shakes his head.

“Ugh –no. It’s just.  Complicated.

Damn… even though Giegue said and did all that terrible shit, I just… I dunno… I felt bad for him.  At just how badly he got messed up by great-grandma’s song.

Bad guy or not, I’ve never wanted to win against anyone that way.  It’s messed up.”

Gregory’s expression contorts suddenly, like an involuntary twitch and into something almost queasy, as he’s hit by a mishmash of that irritation from before–or rather an increase in it–and something distinctly melancholic.  He looks away and off to the immaculate white tiled floors of the kitchen for a moment or two.  Then a slight lapse in the thus far characteristic flatness of his tone and into something almost defeated… despondent, when he deigns to speak again.

“But why…?

Why would you ever ‘feel bad’ for him?

He tried to kill you.  He tried to kill your… ‘friends’.

He would have wiped everyone out if you had not done what you did.

How can you ever overlook something like that enough to ‘feel bad’...?”

A good question.  One that momentarily gives Ninten pause.  He had never really thought about the specifics to his complicated feelings over the whole matter.  They just were.  It’s just how he felt and that was always the end of that.  Wouldn’t anyone else feel that way after inflicting a really deep kind of wound on someone else like that?  He sneaks a glance at Gregory.  Well.  Maybe not everyone.  The blonde kid’s reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed.  It’s a bit of a departure from how self-contained he’s been this entire time.  Like it’s personal or something.  But, it couldn’t be.  Not in the way that it all is for Ninten himself.  Weird as he is… the kid ultimately seems harmless.  Maybe a bit prickly about some things, but nothing too crazy.

All the same, part of him wants to reach out and offer some comfort for whatever it is that’s eating away at the blonde boy, but can’t quite manage to do so for the same reasons that he’s been making all these exceptions in his own conduct here.  The kid gives off a particular sort of vibe in a way that he’s only felt during the invasions.  A vibe that ultimately gets shunted off to the side anew, opting to just mind his own business since Gregory otherwise seems fine.  Not exactly his style when it comes to shit like this, but at this point his options are either to ‘drop it’ or go down the associated rabbit hole.  And for reasons tricky to make out right now, he really doesn’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

So he doesn’t.  The matter is moved aside and he focuses back on the question.

If he can do anything for Gregory at all… anything to maybe lift his spirits… then answering the question just right (albeit honestly) feels like the best way forward.  He taps his chin thoughtfully.  If he really has to delve into why he felt bad for Giegue… if there were any good way of explaining it… that would have a lot to do with just what the song meant exactly.  Why it even worked in the first place.  Even though Giegue was clearly far too gone to be reasoned with–probably even long before that confrontation at Mt. Itoi–in any meaningful way… the song still meant something to him.  Great grandma still meant something to him.  The alien clearly had some shit going on.  He clearly felt conflicted, even if only a little.  The offer to be the only one spared was messed up (and even now it still rubs him the wrong way) but it kinda makes sense in terms of the conflict felt by the alien.  After all, if it was as simple as just getting rid of them all? Ninten is pretty sure that Giegue wouldn’t have even entertained any of the confrontation.

Giegue had been stalling.  Because no matter what he was saying or how he was behaving overall… there was still something more in there.  The part that great grandma loved and the part that definitely loved her back in return.  Giegue was definitely evil at that point.  Not 100% evil, but evil enough to wipe everyone out.  But, if great grandma’s memory of him, the offer Giegue had made, and the impact of great grandma’s song were to convey anything, it’s that he definitely didn’t start out that way.  That, at some point, he was a good person.  That at some point… he was someone that they could have laughed with, stood by, and altogether made many cherished memories with.

And that’s probably why despite everything… Ninten feels bad for him.  Because of how different things could have been if it all hadn’t gotten all messed up.

He runs a hand through messy black hair and almost impatiently taps his foot.  Man what a damn mess.  But, it is what it is.  He hates that saying, but sometimes he’s gotta submit to that basic fact.  Sometimes no amount of bravado will change anything and that’s just how it is, but that’s not this kid’s problem.  So the human man forces a smile in the hopes of lightening the mood a little even though it had inevitably gotten kinda melancholic and grim.

“Heh.  I guess that I just ended up seeing a bit of humanity in him.  It seemed like his heart wasn’t totally in it ‘cuz of how much time he wasted talking to us instead of just y’know–”

Ninten moves a single finger across his throat in a slicing motion.

“--offing us straight off the bat.  I dunno what he’s gone through or what’s changed since my great grandma, but it’s always seemed like if he wasn’t so far gone by the time of the invasion, he could have been a good person.

I think that most people can be.  You just have to uh… –choose to be good.  To make that effort, even when it’s hard and the odds seem stacked against you.”

At that, as if the realization had finally permanently clicked into place for Gregory, the disguised alien is overcome with a sense of relief… at first.  He had received that final bit of confirmation needed that Ninten was indeed okay.  That while the invasion had unmistakably left its mark on him, Ninten had not been broken.  He closes his eyes for a moment, turning back to face forwards, and downs the remainder of his tea.  Of course not.  Someone that courageous and tenacious wouldn’t break so easily.  But more than that, as the relief subsides, the Psion is hit with the sense that the gaping emptiness–left behind by Maria–in his chest had filled in a bit.  As if something had been healed, even if only a little.  An overwhelming feeling of something.�� Longing maybe, mixed in with a far deeper sort of realization.  As if he had just received something he had not realized he desperately needed until now.  

Ninten really thought that even at his worst… even after he did all those horrible things… that the Psion himself could be good?

Really…?

He tenses as he feels something beginning to form at the corners of his eyes.  A strange and clear liquid that’s only ever spilled out on one other occasion.  A malfunction, but one that he doesn’t really care about right now.  All this time… he had convinced himself that he did not need anyone’s support.  That he didn’t need to be believed in.  That he had permanently destroyed any remaining connection to be had with Ninten in that confrontation on Mt. Itoi.  But now… well, maybe he has a bit more humanity in him than he initially thought.  There’s more hope in being who he wants to be.  In being good.  He needs only to continue his efforts and never falter, no matter what.  He had come here with a particular mission in mind.  To finally determine whether or not he had ruined Ninten’s life, but it seems that he would be coming out of it with additional reinforcement to his resolve in making it up to the people of Earth, through whatever little he can do now.

Ninten for his part immediately shoots straight up out of his seat, his smile immediately giving way to genuine concern, as he moves to make a beeline for Gregory.

“Woah WOAH… you’re crying!  Did I screw up?  Did I say anything that upset you–”

Gregory sticks a hand out in a ‘stop’ motion before promptly shaking his head.

“No.  It is.  Just.  That.”

A pause to recompose himself, the disguised alien rather neatly wiping off stray tears with the sleeve of his sweater, before pressing on in a more neutral (and less stilted) tone of voice albeit one that’s no less sincere in the sentiment conveyed.

“Thank-you.  For what you did.  Were it not for you and your friends, I would not exist.

You are… a personal hero of mine. I hope that you do not forget it.”

And he means every single word, even if the truest meaning of his words cannot be conveyed to Ninten in full.  Were it not for the method utilized to stop him the first time around–resentful as he had been over it at first–he would not have been reminded of what has always been truly important in his life.  He had forgotten… lost his way… for a bit, but now–rickety, twisted, and littered with many more mistakes as it is–he had found his way back and it is certainly because of Ninten and his friends.  The Psion wishes that he could thank the human man more personally–properly without the charade–but he cannot disrupt Ninten’s life like that.  He’s been selfish enough as is.

As for Ninten himself, well the admission takes him by surprise more than the sudden emoting did and while he’s not entirely convinced that Gregory is okay in general… the kid’s reassurance seems to be made in good faith enough that he decides not to push it.  So instead he focuses back on his words.  The latter bit.  There was sincerity in that and it’s enough to bring a smile back to his face, hand scratching at the back of his neck a bit awkwardly.  For all his confidence, high praise like that leaves him feeling a bit bashful.  There’s just something heartwarming about seeing the people that can continue living their lives–lives that didn’t get cut cruelly short–because of something that Ninten himself had a hand in doing, that really reaffirms that for all the horrors they all had faced, the injuries they had all endured, and the horrible nightmares they all had weeks after the invasion was stopped, it was more than worthwhile.

“Well geez kid… you don’t gotta thank me.  I only did what I thought was right at the time.  If anything, you should probably thank my cousin.  He’s the one that stopped the attack this time around.  But uh.  More permanently I guess.”

Gregory says nothing at first, merely stares as though deliberating something while moving his arm to wipe away at his eyes again, before he abruptly stands up and on moving away from the table, shoves the chair back into place.  His expression is unreadable, but determined.  He can’t say that he entirely agrees that gratitude is undue–the Psion himself rarely ever uses such words after all, only reserved for the most pressing of occasions–but his mind is nonetheless made up about this interaction.  It is done.  Gregory has gotten what he’s wanted out of it and now all that is left to do is to leave Ninten be so that he can live his life in peace.  In turn, Ninten whom had remained standing since he left his seat in a bout of concern merely cocks his head with curiousity before rightening it and putting his own seat back into place as well.

“Soooo I guess that you’re done huh?”

Gregory nods, straightening out the folds of his sweater as he does so, but doesn’t say anything.  He’s not entirely certain on what to say next.  Fortunately, Ninten continues on in his place, moving ahead of him to open the door in advance… only for his hand to just about hover over the doorknob.

“I thought that I was in for a little more, but if you already know the gist of what’s happened, then I guess that there’s not much else to talk about.”

Ninten is hit back anew with that odd yet familiar sensation, but with a burning vengeance, stronger than ever before.  He’s been able to dismiss how off the kid feels a couple of times–mainly by attributing anything unusual by explanations that could realistically fit–but the frequency of the sensation abruptly brings that decision into question in one fell swoop.  Maybe much like the surveillance, it’s an indication that something doesn’t fit.  This could be his last chance to properly figure this kid’s whole deal out and not just unusual traits or quirks that stick out.  

“Before you go, I gotta know something… I’ve been kinda fighting myself on this because I don’t wanna jump to conclusions, but this entire time, I’ve been getting weird vibes from you.  Like you’re not what you appear to be.

I’ve been getting the same feeling from you that I get off of aliens…”

The human man firmly grips the doorknob as Gregory stops just before him and rather blankly stares ahead, dark blue voids only narrowing a bit for a split-second once the word ‘aliens’ comes out.

“...so what I’m trying to loop around to asking is… are you actually an alien?  And if you are, did you really come over just to hear about the confrontation at Mt. Itoi or is there something more to it?”

For a moment or two following that inquiry, silence hangs heavy in the air, the tension over all the unknowns almost palpable before Gregory decides to respond.  It’s almost certainly better to deny everything altogether, but something in him feels that he owes Ninten this much at least.  Especially after making him revisit such a sore topic.

“Yes.  I am indeed not human.  But, I do not mean any harm.”

Ninten relaxes a bit.   Even though there’s a lot of details missing–ones that he figures will mostly stay missing–the sincerity, much like before, comes through clearly.  Especially once Gregory elaborates a little more.

“What happened here is regrettable.

I was hoping to better understand the impact that it had so the consequent data obtained may enable for me to better reverse the damages done.

I apologize for deceiving you.  I did not think that you would entertain my request if you knew that I was not human.  That is why I originally did not approach you directly.”

The disguised alien shuffles a bit uncomfortably, fidgeting with the end of his sweater a bit before forsaking that particular action too and staring straight ahead, somewhat expectantly…

“Okay.  I believe you, but my point from before still sticks here… –sneaking around isn’t the best strategy when it comes to talking to humans y’know?  That causes all kinds of misunderstandings and weirdness ‘cuz then people think you’re up to something bad.

If you ever need to talk to me or anyone else again, just be direct about it, understand?”

And to his credit, the human man seems to take the Psion’s word for it, opening the door shortly after.  Whatever more questions he might have had seem to have been put aside, dismissed as something he’s unlikely to get answers for.  The most important bits have been filled in and it’s clear as day that the alien wants to get going asap.  Gregory offers a nod to Ninten’s words before starting to move.

“I understand.  Goodbye Ninten.”

Gregory steps through the door outside and in an instant teleports out in a flash of blue twinkling light.

[elletromil]

So about 2 years ago I got three prompts from @gaiahenshin and I fully planned on writing the three of them and go midway through the second one and then life happened

But like i said, i do want to get back into writing so i am finally sitting down to finish writing the halfway done stuff!

This is set in a star trek like!au I might eventually write more into where Ba Ye is an empath and Rishan is an android.

10. hiding their face in the other’s neck

Yatou is no stranger to people being rushed into her medbay. There has even been a few memorable -- in the worse way possible -- occasions when patients had been directly teleported to a bed.

It’s not exactly part of the routine here, but it’s not unexpected either. In fact, if more than a couple of weeks pass between these kind of incidents, she -- along with the rest of the medical staff -- will start growing wary and prepare for the worse. Something which inevitably turns out to be a good thing.

This is not one of those time. The last away mission was only four days ago and everyone on that team suffered from a very bad case of indigestion when they failed to remember one very important rule from basic training. In other words: don’t eat unknown fruits native to a newly-discovered planet, no matter how much they look like Earth’s plums. Yatou had been as disappointed in them as Fo Ye had been furious.

But they’re currently in route to their next destination without any specific mission on the way. It could be a confidential one of course, but, in deference to her rank as Chief Medical Officer, Fo Ye usually gives her the courtesy of implying she might want to be sure the medbay is fully stocked when he’s under that kind of orders.

So there really shouldn't be any reason for Lieutenant Zhang to be rushing through the medbay doors, holding an unconscious Ba Ye in his arms.

Expected or not however, Yatou is still a professional and she’s already done calibrating the bed sensors before Lieutenant Zhang is even done crossing the room.

“What happened?”

“He- he just collapsed.” The slight stutter is all Yatou needs to know just how worried Lieutenant Zhang must be right now. While it would be a complete lie to say the android cannot feel emotions she’s never known him to be anything but imperturbable in time of crisis.

She wishes she could reassure him that Ba Ye will be alright, but that’s a mistake she knows better than to make, especially without a diagnosis.

Lieutenant Zhang lowers Ba Ye into the empty bed, but when he tries to move away, Ba Ye’s groans in pain and his hands grip tightly at his clothes.

“Keep holding him Lieutenant,” she orders, making a split-second decision.

It might not be proper protocol, but whatever is happening to Ba Ye, it is next to impossible for it to affect an android. She would rather keep him comfortable as long as possible.

It’s not like it seems to be any hardship for Lieutenant Zhang anyway. By the looks of it, he would never let Ba Ye go if given the choice.

“Lie down with him for now, but leave me space to work.”

The sensors need a bit of quick recalibrating to take in Lieutenant Zhang into account too, but already, she can see Ba Ye seems to be running a high fever.

That’s too much of a generic symptoms for any number of potential illnesses, but she gets a hunch as to what it could be when, even unconscious, Ba Ye tries to avoid her touch when she takes a blood sample. That and how he turns into Lieutenant Zhang instead, hiding his face against his neck with pained whimpers.

Were it anyone else, she would have dismissed the idea at once, but she remembers Ba Ye’s attempts at describing his mental impression of the Lieutenant once, like he was a spot of tangible peace and quiet.

If his mental shields are down like she suspects, it’s no wonder that he would be seeking a deeper connection with him in order to drown out everything else assaulting his senses.

Even that doesn’t narrow things down however, but if she remembers the incubation time of the Krr’ll’t flu in empaths like Ba Ye correctly, it would correlate with their last stop at the space station about two weeks ago. She hadn’t heard of any outbreak at the time, but a delegation from Ba Ye’s home planet had also arrived at around the same time and she’s pretty sure Ba Ye had met up with them.

They could have been unwitting carriers as the virus was near undetectable until the first brutal symptom hit.

Unfortunately, there’s not much she can do until the blood analysis is done except to try and keep him comfortable. And Lieutenant seems to have it covered on that front.

“Hope you didn’t have anything important to attend to Lieutenant, because you’re stuck here for the foreseeable future.” An exaggeration if it does turn out to be the Krr’ll’t flu. The treatment for that is usually fast acting, at least where allowing empaths to rebuild their mental shields is concerned. But Yatou always prefers to play it safe in her estimates when she can.

Lieutenant Zhang looks slightly affronted and for a moment there, she thinks he’s going to protest the not-quite order. She couldn’t have been more wrong however.

“Nothing is more important than Ba Ye’s health.”

[the-tmnt-ficfinder]

Ficfinder finds: The Lemonade Leak

Chapter 13: The Caretaker

Chapter 13 Summary: No summary

The Caretaker: Appraisal and Ratings

(Don't know what fanfic "Appraisal and Ratings" means? Check out my explanation on my Main Masterpost! Looking for a different fanfic to read? Head on over to my Fanfic List Masterpost!)

Disclaimer: This fanfic is only available to those who have an Ao3 profile. This fanfic is written by @turtleinsoup, so go show them some love and support!!

The fanfic ratings are not based on quality, favoritism, or how good I think it is, but rather, how intense a subject may be. Like a movie review, or the tags on Ao3, letting the readers know what to expect.

Plot: 💛💛💛💛💛

"Plot is five out of five!! The plot for this chapter is really good, filled plenty of tense moments, and sharp realizations! Plus lots of stress and suspense!!"

Suspense/Mystery: 💛💛💛💛💛

"Suspense/Mystery is five out of five!! The suspense was brutal in this chapter!! Not to mention that it's left on a cliffhanger!!"

Angst/Hurt: 💛💛💛💛💛

"Angst/Hurt is five out of five!! Oh gosh, things are just going wrong, no matter what Leo does now. Things are just all messed up, like really messed up."

Fluff/Comfort: 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Fluff/Comfort is zero out of five! Complete zero, there's no comfort to be found in this chapter at all. Like, none."

Emotions Conveyed: 💛💛💛💛🖤

"Emotions Conveyed is four out of five!! Ooh this chapter really gave off a very strong sense of suspense and dread!! It stressed me out to read it, though in a good way ^^"

Drama/Tension Level: 💛💛💛💛💛

"Drama/Tension Level is five out of five!! The tension in this chapter was very prominent, plus the underlying drama of what's going on, yeesh!! Just yeesh this chapter had a heck of a lot of tension and drama!"

Triggers: 💛💛💛💛🖤

"Triggers for this chapter are four out of five. We've got the usual triggers for The Lemonade Leak, now with the added trigger of plans for non consensual drugging!"

Legibility (Reading): 💛💛💛💛💛

"Legibility (Reading) is five out of five!! I particularly loved how the sentences skipped back and forth, and cut off halfway through, just like a real person stammering out what they're trying to explain."

Legibility (Audio): 💛💛💛💛💛

"Legibility (Audio) is five out of five! Brilliant to listen to, and once again, the audio book version is especially helpful for pacing."

Length: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Length is two out of five!! Chapter 13 of The Lemonade Leak takes about 17-18 minutes to listen to!!"

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The Lemonade Leak: Story Ratings and Chapter List

Personal thoughts on chapter below cut (Contains Spoilers)

Raph let go like he had burned himself, retreating a full step, wide-eyed. Raph was human like that. “Oh crap, I’m so sorry, did I -”

I find this little comment to be interesting. “Raph was human like that.” When Leo gripped onto Mikey’s wrist in a panic, he didn’t let go even though Mikey was hurt. I’m sure he feels bad about that, and notices the difference between what he and Raph did. Also, perhaps Leo is feeling less human lately, and more predatory. 

Leo said nothing. There was a hole in his wall, still. He really should fix it, before it got bigger.

I love it when out of context sentences, are so deeply metaphorical. The hole in the wall could mean nothing, but it also means everything. Leo provoked Raph into making that hole, but then never made the effort to fix it back up. The hole isn’t just physical, but mental as well. 

I know it’s selfish. I know I’m making it about me again, but I would rather drown in lemonade than force you – any of you - to fight Donnie’s parasite. I gave up against yours. I couldn’t allow you to do the same.

I love how lemonade is repetitively brought up throughout the story. 

“Welp, this conversation just took an unexpected turn,” Leo grinned, dumbly. “But so can I!” He pointed at the door behind him. “I mean, Donnie’s got the love life of a hermit, but it’s no fun to roast without seeing his face go nuclear. So… discúlpame?”

discúlpame means excuse me in Spanish, and I do feel like the excuse me is warranted lol. This part of the chapter genuinely made me laugh out loud!!

Leo realized for a moment that his big brother was a kid too. And it was a good thing Raph was only bleeding on the inside because otherwise, Leo’s cold room would be a red, red place.

Ohhh poor Raph T^T the poor boy…

The thing’s voice was soft, when it said. “I need you to mix them into his drink.”

I find it interesting that Donnie classified this as a ‘need’ rather than a ‘want’. He doesn’t want Mikey to do it, he NEEDS him to do it. This is also a psychological trick. When you want someone to feel like they don’t have an option, you classify it as a need rather than a want. Donnie is backing Mikey into a corner whether he knows it or not. He probably doesn’t even realize what he’s doing. 

“It’s designed to dissolve into microscale particles. It’s not sapid. He won’t find out.”

Sapid means to have a strong flavor. You learn something new every day!

“Okay, I get it. I get that,” Mikey cut in. “But like, it’s… okay? It won’t hurt him? Leo’s such an self-destructive egoist, Dee. If he was the last piece of cake, he’d eat himself in secret. So if this was hurting him, you think we’d ever know?”

I think this is the most creative way I’ve ever seen someone say the phrase “eating yourself alive”. 

“Oh, did he?” The thing said softly. “Did he really. All of us?” It breathed out. When it continued, its voice was low and fast. “I’m simply of the opinion, dear Angelo, that Nardo should be banned from getting to make life-or-death related decisions when it comes to himself.”  

I love how much is hidden in Donnie’s question. How it seems like a light question on top, but the deeper you dig, the more you find. That Leo wasn’t the only one who died, and came back to life 

[motheatenscarf]

Alright, well, I still have to do the last trial for Dawntrail but I'm averaging at C to B- territory. There are genuine A-tier moments but they are infrequent and fleeting and with one shining exception, almost entirely due to the buildup of familiar moments with familiar characters we've known for years know.

Alas. They... tried?

Nothing specific, but spoilers discussing the themes, pacing, and general opinions on Dawntrail to follow, you've been warned.

General impression is that the overarching story feels afraid to commit to itself. You can feel where the writers maybe wanted to take bigger swings but then held themselves back for... whatever reason. It could have used a script doctor to marry the first and second half together better and tie in the themes to the characters and make certain motives a.) more compelling and b.) more believable.

There's been a real lack of focus between what the story clearly wants to focus on and what it needs to hurry up and get out of the way so it can show you the cool shit and it SHOWS. About halfway through the 4th zone I realized what I would do as a writer if I were telling this narrative and the further I got into the story, the more I got angry that they didn't do this obvious thing, and I will talk about that in its own post, but god, it seemed so obvious to me.

But anyway, yeah. The second half is more engaging than the first half to be sure, but also makes the first half feel like... a fucking waste of time. And I don't mean that in the sense that "hurr burr, I don't understand RPGs start slow" the way bad faith detractors and diehards have been talking about, I mean in the sense that I know how fucking stories work and oh, wow, this is a BAD example of how to manage your law of conservation of characters. Almost none of our main cast have anything to do while they're here and NONE of these cute little NPCs tied to each of the first 3 zones are going to come back and matter.

Like, y'know how selling fish with Matsya was kinda boring, but it was only one mission and it served the vitally important task of making you familiar with him and his struggles so you would care when he came back in one of the most harrowing scenes in Endwalker?

Yeah, imagine if you went to help sell fish for Matsya and all he did was say thanks, and then like, idk, Thancred or whoever was there was like, wow. Really makes you think, huh? That guy's fishing business. He works so hard. Just a normal guy with a beautiful culture and faith that brings him comfort. This is who we do this for :)

And then Matsya never came back except at the end to say thanks for helping me sell fish.

Now imagine that's half the expansion.

Frustrating. It's frustrating. I want to buy in and care about these people but despite the focus clearly being on getting you to care about these people (an emotional hook they've managed to sink previously with much less effort and focus when being economical with their focus and screentime), it also so clearly wants to just go "ANYWAY, here's the real cool thing we wanted to show you, but no spoilers :))))"

Do these characters matter or not? If they matter, then let them matter to the actual story, not as some generalized "People of Tuliyollal" to serve as a fetish object for the Real Characters, our claimants to the throne, to argue about and fixate on in the second half of the story.

And don't even get me started on the villains. At least Gaius van Baelsar had a consistent internal logic you could follow and understand, and even freaks like Zenos were at least FUN in their unhinged cartoon villainy! Like, Christ, at least we've got tragic lesbians speed running through the WoLEmet parallels, I guess. The speedrunning is what makes it feel weak and unearned because we wasted so goddamn much time in the first half of the story, but hey, the bones are there to work with and like... interpret ANY kind of meaning if you squint hard enough.

Also, wow, lol, they do not... have any interest in even pretending to try to make Krile into a character. This was their shot. They could have done something with her, finally, given her any kind of meaningful internal world, shown her struggles, her unique take on things, her fears, her doubts, her.... fucking anything.

Nope!

We learn information about her past, which she has never cared about and barely expressed any interest in throughout the entire story, but nothing at all to do with how she feels about it, what it means to her, what she wants this information for, whether or not this will change her perception of herself, nothing. She just. Hears things and accepts them as true and we don't get to learn anything meaningful about her other than factual data.

Oh well.

Got some great moments with the other Scions at least, few and far between though they were. Alisaie and G'raha in particular get some great moments with the WoL specifically, but all get their moment to shine and it made me miss them that much more. I have conflicting thoughts about how to resolve this issue, but alas.

Of our newer characters, or at least spotlight characters, Erenville was the standout. Internally consistent AND he has a compelling emotional arc coming to terms with his own homecoming? Congrats, Erenville, you get my gold star for this expansion. Not an S-tier, but definitely A-tier. Also, I know he has no combat abilities, but the Scions could use a ranger and I feel like he'd be very well suited for what I've heard of this beastmaster limited job they'll be releasing at some point, PLEASE can we keep him? I need to see him join Y'shtola and Urianger in picking on Thancred, we have to keep him humble.

I know I'm harping on what didn't work pretty hard, but in all honesty, it is.... passable. It's a serviceable expansion. If you want to turn your brain off and just enjoy exploring an MMO, taking in beautiful scenery, have fun gathering and FATE grinding and just existing in the world, the first half of the story is great. The NPCs are charming if hollow, and the first 4 zones are truly beautiful and atmospheric and I love being in those locations. The dungeon and trial fights are also really inspired throughout the whole expansion! Lots of fun environments and mechanics. A lot of cutscenes felt like they should have been duties and a lot of shit happening off-screen should have been cutscenes, but idk, maybe they ran out of money with the graphics overhaul. I don't have any issue with the focus being on Wuk Lamat, but I do take issue on not letting the player participate more, it's a game, the interactive bit is kind of the point. The music is, as always, fantastic (although I will say I think we're starting to lose some sense of musical identity with how often some of these themes are being re-used, and it's ESPECIALLY telling when I hear Endwalker music for the big Scion huddle break to plot the resolution out, and not, y'know, Dawntrail music).

If those are the things you're here for, you'll have a good time and a lot of fun. If you are here for the story and the narrative standards they've set with the last couple expansions, you'll be a little let down.

I know this was a challenging expansion to write because it's a tone setter for the next 10 years, it's trying to balance a familiar cast of characters we all know and love with a new batch of characters to tell this expansion's own story, it wants to be light and fun and breezy but also maintain the same elevated atmosphere of grand stories that Final Fantasy is known for, and rather than. Y'know. Commit to any one of those, they tried to straddle the line and the expansion was worse for it. I know this was a hard expansion to write, but, well, to be blunt, better writing could have easily done this without it feeling hamfisted, clumsy, or unearned.

I'm disappointed, I won't lie, but I did still ultimately find it... fine. My expectations weren't high going in and for as flat as it frequently fell, it does still have it's charm. I do like just seeing a lot of these characters exist and do their thing and it serves its function in that capacity as well. It's by no means bad, just... not as good as it could have been. Not as good as it should have been.

And definitely not as good as it would have been if they'd hired ME as a script doctor, making Wuk Lamat disabled in some way and giving Zoraal Ja ANY humanity would have fixed this whole thing, you've got themes of family, eugenics and transhumanism, and colonialism as a world devouring system that literally requires one's humanity be purged to abide by, these TWO things would have fixed EVERYTHING! YES, post to follow, I have opinions on this!

[vanmarkus]

Weekend Wip Game ✨

I was tagged by the lovely @daffi-990 thank you mwuah 😘

Rules: List your WIPs below (if you only write one fic at a time, feel free to include future WIPs/ideas!) then answer the following questions. Then, tag as many people as you have WIPs (or more)

(I cut it off halfway cuz I went long like always...)

1. WIP List:

so as you know my wip list is pretty long, but the active ones right now are:

• the mudslide fic

• the jealous eddie fic

• the breeding kink fic

• the accident fic

• the donation smut

2. Which of your WIPs is currently the longest?

the mudslide fic is currently standing at 38.6k and I expect at the very least 20k more... which wouldn't just make it my longest current wip, but also the longest fic I've ever written

3. Which WIP do you expect will end up the longest?

the mudslide fic hands down, unless something drastic happens and one of my wips gets away from me (though from the inactive wips I expect two of them to be around the same length, possibly)

4. Which WIP is your favourite to write/the most enjoyable to write? Why?

I enjoy all of them, but the mudslide fic is surprisingly joyous to write, even though it's mostly just me putting the boys through the emotional and physical wringer lmao

5. Which WIP do you find the most intimidating to write? Why?

listen. I love writing the mudslide fic, but I kinda wrote myself into a hole with it, in the sense that I included a couple of real life locations (though only vaguely) that I just had to make shit up for, which is fine cuz the show does the same, but... idk it's long and the boys spend quite a large chunk of the story separate and it makes me worry that people will find it boring or just idk will be nitpicky about it... like, I have confidence in my writing, but I'm also forever insecure about it??? ugh

6. Which WIP do you experience the most self-doubt about. Why?

uhhh I guess the accident fic?? because it's short and it's kind of written in the way I usually write ficlets, which means I don't spiral about the details that much and now I'm worried that it's gonna seem rushed or way too out of sorts 😓

7. Which of your WIPs will you seek out a beta/sensitivity reader for? Why?

none of them, I'm very much a fuck it we ball type of writer

8. Have any of your WIPs been struck by the curse of writer’s block?

yeppppp. that's why I have so many active wips atm cuz I got stuck on both of my main ones 🥲

9. Which WIP has your favourite OC? Tell us about them?

the mudslide fic – and she's barely even in it, but she grew on me anyway 💛

10. Which WIP is the sexiest?

I have to say the donation smut... or the breeding kink fic, whichever floats your boat I guess

11. Which WIP is the angstiest?

the mudslide fic, definitely

12. Which WIP has the best characterisation (in your humble opinion)?

I'm not sure??? like, I try my best in all of them, but I can't necessarily say if I succeeded idk

13. Which WIP has the best scene setting (in your humble opinion)?

again, I'm probably gonna have to go with the mudslide fic

14. Which WIP have you worked the hardest on?

👆 I've been doing quite a lot of research going into legal procedures, sixth grade curriculum and body decomposition in water, just to name a few (and most of these barely feature btw 🥲), not to mention looking at the map of LA constantly to gauge distances, but it's still kinda fun though

15. Which WIP do you have the highest expectations for? Why?

uhmmm I don't have high expectations for any of them, if we're talking about like, comments and kudos and stuff... usually the fics I just write in a moment of inspiration and just throw online get more attention than the ones I try to finetune for hours/days/weeks, so you know... I try to write fics for myself and hope that there are people they resonate with 🫶

16. Do you dream about any of your WIPs?

listen, I have really hectic and weird dreams, but I don't think I ever dreamed about any of my wips

17. Do any of your WIPs have particular complexities that your other fics don’t?

well, if nothing else, operating with this many characters is something I'm not exactly used to, so the mudslide fic and the jealous eddie fic are kinda unique in that regard, I suppose

18. Which WIP is the funniest or has the most humour?

I'm not... exactly big on writing goofy stuff, which is unfortunate because I love reading it, but I mean it a 100% when I say angst and smut is my bread and butter

19. Do any of your WIPs contain outside POVs or a deep dive on a character other than the main ship? How are you finding that process?

not a very deep dive, but I do touch on a side character's background in the mudslide fic, no outside povs though

20. Tell us one thing we don’t know about one or more of your WIPs

idk?? uhh it's not an active wip, but all I could think about is that Homesick For Your Skin isn't my first parallel universe fic, but it's the first one I had to work out without magic 🪄

I'm sure most of you have already done this, but here are five no pressure tags anyway:

@forthewolves @jesuisici33 @callaplums @ladydorian05 @disasterbuckdiaz