#part of a larger post coming in the future probably

[timdoubleyou]

alex’s hostage photos and his (prop) gun. taken from the 2018 comic fund auction

[iwillbringyouruin]

Visions Magazine with Tobias Forge on the idea behind Rite Here Rite Now, the importance of soundtracks in general and how he distinguishes between himself and his characters (Visions Magazine issue nr. 377, 08/2024)

Full translation of the included interview by me below the cut - buckle up, this is a long post! There are no spoilers for RHRN in this.

Markus Hockenbrink: Tobias, have you ever watched the movie Metallica: Though The Never?

Tobias Forge: Yes, once, when it had just come out. The topic Metallica came up when we were taking care of the funding for [RHRN]. Every larger production company – and I have to emphasise here that this was before Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and her extremely successful movie about it – voiced a lot of concern back then whether anybody would still be interested in concert movies. I had to explain time and again that my movie wouldn’t be a typical concert movie, to which I was asked several times: “Oh, so something like Through The Never?” I had to deny that again. We tell a story in our movie most of our fans are already familiar with. So it’s not an entirely new concept, which is already the first distinction from Through The Never. If you only consider that there is a concert part and a feature film part, then those two movies are probably similar. But that also applies to La La Land.

M. Hockenbrink: You describe your movie as a combination of Kiss’ Alive II, Ralph Bakshi cartoons and silent film horror. Is that a kind of childhood dream that comes true there?

T. Forge: Definitely. For as long as I’ve been interested in music, I’ve also been interested in film and television. Working in film could have also been a career option for me, but I always got the rather annoying impression that one would have to go to film school to really find a place in that field. School was never my strong suit, I see myself more as a autodidact in that regard. That I had the opportunity to work on/contribute to my own movie as a sorcerer’s apprentice of sorts is a real privilege. That is a dream come true but it is also something I can picture more of in the future. Next time maybe without the band.

M. Hockenbrink: Can you remember a specific moment in your life when you realised that you were especially drawn to topics that are slightly morbid and unsettling?

T. Forge: I think that due to my family I came in contact with vastly different kinds of pop culture from a very young age. In more traditional families with more conservative parents and siblings of similar ages, you only really start with your respective journey to find yourself in your teens. Then there are often restrictions that are meant to distract from those darker influences. My parents on the other hand are very liberal and my brother was 13 years older than me. There were never limits or censorship for me. My childhood didn’t go by without rules entirely, but I was always allowed to watch or listen to what my brother was also watching or listening to. That was I was exposed to all kinds of teenage culture from the beginning. Sure, I also liked Pippi Longstocking and He-Man. But that was always combined with the French arthouse films my mother liked to watch or the horror flicks my brother was into. I can’t recall a particularly striking horror film experience, but I still remember the first time it dawned on me that movies don’t just exist, they’re made.

M. Hockenbrink: How do you mean?

T. Forge: My father worked as a documentary maker in television. His job was to connect the video track and the sound track in a fitting way for different film production. I saw Jaws on television with him as a small child. It’s important to note that my father is not somebody who can just quietly enjoy films but somebody who likes to butt in. Thanks to him I already had a kind of epiphany during the introduction. He said: “Look closely! There is nothing to see in this underwater scenery except the algae. Technically completely harmless. But it only takes the ominous music to turn the whole scene into pure horror already!” And I thought: Wow! That’s true! Later in the movie you only have to hear that music and it immediately puts you on edge, even when there’s nobody in the water right now. They don’t even have to show the shark anymore. I found it fascinating that the [viewer’s] senses/perception could be manipulated like that. Ever since I’ve been viewing films with different eyes. I can still allow myself to dive into the story but at the same time I see the practical aspect to film-making.

M. Hockenbrink: I had a similar feeling during the introduction of Shining: technically a cozy road trip in the mountains, but a pure nightmare with the music.

T. Forge: I’m with you on that. Shining is one of the best movies of all time. And funnily enough, only the intro sequence was actually shot in nature. All the other scenes, even if they were outside, were filmed in the studio. Exactly that kind of craftsmanship is what I find inspiring.

M. Hockenbrink: With that in mind, what makes a good soundtrack in your opinion?

T. Forge: We already talked about Jaws, but I can think of Eyes Wide Shut as another example. There is that short piano theme that comes up again and again, incredibly effective. A good soundtrack needs to deliver something that you don’t have to be able to see to perceive its existence. Sure, there are no monsters in Eyes Wide Shut, aside from the main character’s jealousy as an internal monster maybe. But just like the music in Jaws, the theme from Eyes Wide Shut symbolises something that doesn’t have to be shown. The sound is enough. That is also a commonly used effect in adventure and love movies. You just put in a short vignette to describe the love between two characters. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker also has his own theme, that is used every time when things get emotional and you’re supposed to feel that hope. You’ve got to pay attention to that. Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th also has a personal theme to recognise him by. Every time you hear it you immediately know “Oh shit, he’s nearby!”

M. Hockenbrink: What about soundtracks that are made up of songs?

T. Forge: With that, I’m especially thinking of Silence of the Lambs. In the scene where Buffalo Bill dresses up as a woman and dances around his basement, a song called Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus is playing. I have no idea how the artist felt that since the song is now so irrevocably connected to that awful scene, that you can’t listen to it anymore without thinking of it.

M. Hockenbrink: Do you feel like soundtrack work is more appreciated now than it used to be?

T. Forge: I think that it’s definitely gained importance over the last 40 years. The right song on the right soundtrack can be incredibly powerful. Just think of Stranger Things. Obviously, Metallica and Kate Bush already had successful careers before, but what happened with Master of Puppets and Running Up That Hill following the series was something else entirely. The songs were associated so strongly with the narrative, that way more people listened to them than before. Of course I’m a strong advocate for live music but I also realised that nothing is as strong as the connection of visuals and music. That is still the most powerful way to appeal to a deeper emotion through the association.

M. Hockenbrink: More or less a shortcut to the subconscious.

T. Forge: Exactly. But you can’t be cynical about that either. If I was an A&R person at a big label, I would probably also say: “You just have to find a spot for one of your songs on a popular soundtrack, then you’ll have made it!” That’s really how it is. But when you view it from an artistic perspective, when you want to reach people a certain way or bring across a certain message or a certain feeling, the combination of visuals and sound can’t be topped.

M. Hockenbrink: It especially lends itself to an immersive experience, as seems to be in the foreground of [RHRN]. An album by Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden ends at some point, then you’re gone from that metal world again. With Ghost, however, you get the feeling that the illusion just keeps on going, across several media. Did you plan the Ghost mythology like this from the start?

T. Forge: In part. When I started with the band, I only wanted to make a standalone album. The concept was supposed to be interesting and practical, but I wasn’t planning for Ghost to be a huge thing. The style I pictured has its own limits in my opinion. The band was supposed to function a certain way and appeal to a certain target audience. The concert was supposed to be a theatrical performance in the literal sense. Ghost were never supposed to perform in a normal rock club nor go on tour. I wanted more of a kind of Vaudeville show in a proper plushy theatre. The band was supposed to be as anonymous as the actors that stand on stage and play, say, Faust. The idea behind this was: Those who don’t know who the people are on stage are more ready to follow the story. Then we would perform three days back-to-back in select cities. Berlin, Amsterdam, London. Just like Diamanda Galás who can more likely be found at a culture festival than in a rock shack. But things turned out differently in the end, and I had to kiss my original ideas goodbye again, so to speak.

M. Hockenbrink: Why?

T. Forge: After the success of our debut album, it became clear to me that more conventional concerts were going to be demanded of us and that I could only really say yes or no. This problem became worse after our shift to a bigger label. It became clear that my vision of telling stories clashed with the live sector and requirements for success more and more. At a certain point anonymity doesn’t work anymore and I had to make peace with that in the end.  I originally didn’t even want to do interviews but that’s obviously tricky when you want to sell records. The question that I constantly ask myself since is how I can do those things best in the Ghost way without denying the original Vaudeville spirit.

M. Hockenbrink: In his autobiography Golf Monster, Alice Cooper talks about himself in third person a lot when he is talking about his character. Are you feeling similarly at this point?

T. Forge: At least I can definitely see where he’s coming from. There is a difference between the person Vincent Furnier and the character Alice Cooper. I believe that he was on the verge of completely transforming into Alice Cooper at one point – to the point where one has to decide where they want to live or die. In the end he decided to remain Vincent Furnier and only become Alice Cooper for work, on stage. So far I’ve been fortunate to combine the two pretty well, but had I started Ghost ten years earlier in my life, it would have probably affected me similarly to how Alice Cooper did with Vincent Furnier in his time. But with my humble experience as an actor I have to say: every character you play becomes a part of you to a certain extent. You have to find certain qualities – good or bad – within yourself to bring such a character to life. I think that most actors only play one or two roles throughout their life that they then end up being known for. The different characters that I’ve portrayed on stage are not only very similar but actually also a part of me. Fortunately a part of me that I don’t want to deal with all day long.

M. Hockenbrink: Too cynical and antisocial?

T. Forge: Cardinal Copia or Cardi, as I like to call him, is not an all-around cool person, but that makes him so fun to play for me. He is half Freddie Mercury and half Jacques Clouseau. Kind of clumsy, kind of silly, kind of stupid. The kind of guy who trips over his own feet but catches himself elegantly. That’s also me in a way, but not just. And I think that’s easier to embody than a daredevil hero character who can rival anyone and gets all the ladies. When somebody plays only those characters their whole life, it will probably really go to their head. Especially when there are drugs involved on top of that.

M. Hockenbrink: With all that fondness of doom that can be found with Ghost, that universe also has something humorous about it, benign even. It that an intentionally included contradiction?

T. Forge: Yes, and it is also very important to me that it comes across like that. For me that also has something to do with the evolution of metal. Originally it was mostly a phenomenon connected to the youth, nowadays the musicians and their fans are close to retiring. That brings a certain maturity. Even the Norwegian black metal musicians who were super pissed and extreme 30 years ago and were only made of hate and aggression are well-adjusted people now. Bearded fathers and grandfathers with a pleasant view on life that make others laugh. I see a certain duality there. Everything that has something to do with goth, with metal, with horror, appears dark, dismal and hostile at first. But in reality, that can all be extremely life-affirming and a source of great joy for many people. So pretty much the opposite.

M. Hockenbrink: Speaking of horror: could you imagine making a real feature film some day?

T. Forge: Yes, I would love that. I’m well aware that it’s not going to be easy to make what I’m picturing a reality, just because I’ve done directing once with [RHRN] now. The creative liberty I got to enjoy there also was due to the fact that I funded the movie myself. So nobody was meddling with it. That is likely completely different when you work on behalf of a big studio, because we are talking about different sums here. If I only go off my dreams, I would name two points of reference. One is Shining, the other Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. I would like to make a movie that’s only shot in a studio, with elaborate sets, matte painting and all that. No outside shots, no special effects, no green screen. And no actors who only gets to see what they were actually doing after the fact. Proper old-school. The way movies are actually meant to look.

[crazylittlejester]

i don’t know if this is something Jojo is doing on purpose, or if it was an intentional detail but i grabbed and ran away with it, or if I’ve just completely read far to into things and entered the realm of just making shit up, but Warriors and his little crooked smile are so GODDAMN important to me and I am shaking him like a squeak toy (gently)

(big yap/analysis under the cut)

disclaimer, i just have a lot of thoughts, probably way too many thoughts, and 97% of them are about Wars so I might be insane, and what you’re about to read provided you’ve stuck around so far might be the equivalent of your high school english teacher yelling with tears in their eyes about how the curtains were blue to “symbolize her sadness”. also my apologies for weird spelling mistakes or oddly misspelled words, i am dyslexic 💔 but with that being said:

Warriors to me comes off as someone who’s constantly acting larger than life. He masks a LOT in front of the chain, he acts overdramatic and a bit ridiculous on purpose, and to an extent he just is a bit ridiculous, but his reactions to things are sometimes blow way out of proportion or are just larger than life in a comedic way where it just seems like he’s doing it intentionally. He comes across as a very extroverted, talkative person, and he seems like he’d honestly be a bit loud too (whether that’s who is REALLY is or what he’s REALLY like is a yap for another post). His (physical) image and the way his character/personality is perceived by others both seem like things that are not his CORE values or the things that mean the most to him, but they do seem to be at least a LITTLE bit important to him just based on how he presents himself and the way he acts. And to an extent, the whole thing with him caring so much about his looks is canon in LU, with that one sketch of him and Legend where he’s looking at his eye in a reflection of a shield and Legend says “alright break it up you two” being the first thing that comes to mind (which is in the post “Mirror Shield”, click the name for the link)

To me, from what I’ve seen and from my perspective, there are very few times we see an actual genuine smile from Warriors, and when we do it tends to be in moments where he’s not in the spotlight, he’s not trying to command the center of attention, and/or the focus is NOT on him. It tends to be moments where he just seems genuinely happy or at peace, and those seem pretty rare. He smiles a LOT, but the majority of his smiles seem big and flashy and performative, and not that that means he’s not happy AT ALL in any of those moments, but those smiles seem a lot more controlled and closely managed because he’s aware of the attention on him and therefore thinking about how he’s perceived. (I’ve made some posts in the past and I’ll probably make others in the future about how I think Warriors puts on this “Captain” or “Hero of Hyrule” persona because of how an entire war was started because a sorceress found him beautiful, and how he feels like him being just him isn’t really good enough for that and how he feels like he needs to fit in and look/act/seem like the legendary heroes he’s being compared to. He’s created this idea of what he COULD be and that’s what he presents to others, fake it till you make it and all that, but thats another yap for another day)

However there are these little moments where we see him smile, and the same one side of his mouth is pretty consistently always just a little bit higher no matter which way his head is facing (here’s a few examples):

@/linkeduniverse, from the 2023 monthly art, “January- Cold Sunrise”

@/linkeduniverse, both from “Dawn pt. 2”

And the thing that really started this whole headcanon of mine that his REAL smile is crooked was this specific part of Dawn pt. 2 where Warriors sees that Twilight is gonna be find for the first time after most likely worrying about him and being up all night:

That middle panel, to me at least, is probably the most genuine expression of a positive emotion we’ve seen from him this entire time. No one’s focus is on him, no one’s really looking at him, he doesn’t have the pressure of being the center of attention on him, and honestly even if that WERE the case, the genuine relief that hit him once he was Twilight was gonna be okay probably would’ve been enough to get a genuine smile out of him anyways. But the second he walks into the room officially, he kinda, for lack of a better way to put it, announces his presence and starts “acting” again (also from Dawn pt 2):

And while that same one side of his mouth does seem a bit higher and not very straight, it’s definitely more even than it was just five seconds previously

Now, acknowledging there is an art style, and that I also just might be insane, but Warriors’s smiles for the most part (when they seem controlled) appear to be a Lot straighter and more even to me than when it’s a more genuine moment and he doesn’t seem like he’s “acting” so much (and just a note: it certainly isn’t EVERY time, but in general, in moments like these his smile seems consistently straighter unless he’s just flat out smirking. and im not saying it’s PERFECTLY straight either, just noticeably more even). When he’s being more dramatic or intentionally obnoxious or the attention is on him, it really does feel like his smile is more controlled: here are just a few examples, obviously this isn’t every single time he’s smiled in all of LU

@/linkeduniverse, from “Swords”

@/linkeduniverse, from “Shady Escape pt 2”

@/linkeduniverse, from “Divine Dark Reflections pt. 8”

@/linkeduniverse, both from “Magic Sword”

am i looking too far into a little thing? probably. am i insane? yeah. but i just really love the idea that when Warriors is truly, genuinely happy, the part of himself that he tries to hide, the sweet and caring person he hides underneath all the dramatics, that true self he’s probably kept hidden away since the start of the war who’s been buried under insecurity and hidden because of the fear that who he is just isnt ENOUGH peaks through, and that person comes out through his happiness in the form of his smile. and yeah it does probably mean nothing and Jojo might not have done any of this on purpose, but i’m crazy, and Warriors’s crooked little smile is so so important to me *insert image of a guy crying face down on the floor because unfortunately i’ve hit the image limit*

[nohaijiachi]

Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

Before we get into the subject matter of the title let me preface a couple of things:

1- All that will follow is, big surprise, my opinion and my interpretation of this character. Do I think I am The One And Only Who Gets The Blorbo Right and that my ideas are 100% the way the author(s) intended to convey the character? No.

More likely than not the way I see Aziraphale could be intensely different from the way Authorman sees him, or Actorman sees him, and I don't think that my interpretation is necessarily any more correct than anybody's else.

That said, if I also did not think that I am, in fact, correct on a certain level, I wouldn't have bothered forming such a thought out opinion of Aziraphale in the first place, nor would be sitting here, writing this post that I can already tell is going to be entirely too long and might probably ruffle some feathers.

So I'll be writing the rest of this post with the caveat that I while I do think my interpretation correct, I'm also not trying to change anybody's mind nor to discredit anybody's else interpretation of Aziraphale. We can sit here in the sandpit and hold different opinions and still be able to build sandcastles together, it really isn't that deep at the end of the day; I can assure you, I'm not here to fight nor cause fights with this one.

2- With the above point, comes also the fact that I won't bother continuously saying "In my opinion" for the rest of this post. You already know that. So, if something will come across as a bit caustic, do know that it is very much tongue in cheek and I am poking a bit of fun at general fannish habits that I am also very much quote-unquoute 'guilty' of having partaken into, and will partake into again plenty of times in the future, I'm sure.

So, with that: Here's Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

A large part of the people comprising this fandom prefers Crowley. There, I said it.

This fandom's preference blatantly skews toward Crowley. Can we admit that openly? Let's admit that openly.

To be clear, this isn't meant to be an accusation or recrimination or any other -ation you can think of, I am merely stating matter-of-factly a phenomena I've observed in the last four years.

It is also not a wrong nor bad thing in any way, shape or form. I adore Crowley myself. I love them both so much it's unreal.

But I started with that because I think it is very much a symptom of the fact that a lot of people don't get Aziraphale.

I remember back with S1 there had been plenty of times when I found myself reading discussions and opinion exchanges about Aziraphale and Crowley, their dynamics, all the things that went unsaid behind the things that were said, and found myself genuinely surprised by seeing how some people interpreted certain moments wildly different from how I personally saw them.

I look back at that and I think "Oh, sweet summer child". Nothing could have prepared me from the onslaught of takes about Aziraphale that make me go "Good lord, what???" in the wake of S2, and the infamous Last Fifteen.

Now because I don't want to be pointing fingers at specific things and risk upsetting somebody more than I already am by being open in admitting that, guys, yes, some of the takes y'all have been sharing make me go "Yikes(tm)", I'll move on the interesting part and what I would actually love to discuss, aka cracking Aziraphale's head open and see what that actual fuck is going on in there.

Another preface: Because this duo is intrinsically linked and woven together it is downright impossible to only focus on Aziraphale without also mentioning Crowley, so... Let me circle back to our fav demon bae for a sec, here.

I think the reason why it seems that a larger part of the fandom favors Crowley is because I feel like Crowley is a much easier character to grasp. He is very open in his thoughts and feelings, at any given moment us, the audience, have a much easier time watching a scene and sort of ruminating in the back of our heads about Crowley's motivations for saying the things he says and doing the things he does.

That isn't to say Crowley is a less complex character than Aziraphale. They are very much equally complex and multifaceted individuals with their strengths and weaknesses, their issues and the way they each cope with them, how differently they approach their existence and so on and so forth.

But whereas Crowley as a character presents itself with a certain dynamism and a far more outward openness about his complexity, Aziraphale does the exact opposite; we can say Aziraphale is downright hermetic about it.

For us, the audience, he presents a challenge that requires a good deal of thought being put into him to see over the facade he presents at a more superficial level; he requires time and effort to fully dismantle him in our minds to try and see what makes him thick (other than his thighs), and thus I think it is entirely natural that more people latch on the far easier to identify-with, and relate-to, Crowley.

And that is the inevitable consequence of everything that makes Aziraphale... Well, Aziraphale.

So, where to start? Let's try and jot down what Aziraphale truly is at his core.

He is a contradiction.

This man-shaped being is a walking contradiction, constantly existing in a state of being coated in three thousand layers of misdirection and obfuscation and double thinking.

Why is that? Well. He's an angel.

Aziraphale loves being an angel. It is a tenet of his entire existence and something he cherishes. He wants, so very much, to be his ideal of what a good angel is: An entity who is kind and loving and understanding and forgiving.

Of course us, the audience, know that is utter bullshit, because we know angels can be individuals just as complex as the humans Aziraphale loves so much, with all their inherent flaws and capability for cruelty. And, on a certain level, Aziraphale knows that too.

So there we have it, one element of contradiction: Aziraphale wants to think that angels are always Good and Righteous and Never Wrong; Aziraphale knows that angels aren't, in fact, always Good and Righteous and, by god, can they make plenty of mistakes, too.

What else? How about Aziraphale sitting there, being in love with a demon, fully knowing that at the end of the day demons really ain't that different from angels, and also desperately hanging onto the concept of Good vs Bad.

And he sits there, existing with these two contrasting idea equally taking space in his mind, neither side ever capable of taking over the other.

What else do we have? Aziraphale loves God and wants so hard to believe in Her love for humanity and Her ineffable plan, and Aziraphale also time and again does things that very blatantly go against Her will, lies to Her face, and Doubts. He Doubts, a lot, and that requires the capital letter because those Doubts are what spur him in going against everything he's ever told to believe in order to do the right thing.

Aziraphale's very existence is a constant push-and-pull of things he wants to believe and things he knows are real; things he's told to do and things he wants to do. That's how we get "My side" and "there's a bit of good in you" and "you are the bad guys".

And nothing he's lived through has managed to break him out of this unhealthy way of existing quite yet; that's why he acts the way we see him act in the Edinburgh flashback in S2, or at the start of S1 when Crowley has to ease Aziraphale into the idea of trying to stop Armageddon with the usual song and dance of "temptation" and "plausible deniability" and "you'd be thwarting me", even though from the start we can tell there's a little part of Aziraphale who is clearly not at ease with the idea of the end of the world, and once he's been given 'permission' by Crowley nudging him, he is all the way in with the whole saving the world business, not take-backsies.

Both the moments I mentioned here are very important for different reasons, but of the two is very much the Edinburgh flashback that gets a lot more flack by the fandom and is blatantly misunderstood, which I think is the inevitable consequence of that minisode immediately following the glorious, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of art that is the "A companion to owls" minisode.

I've seen a lot of people lamenting that Aziraphale acts obnoxiously in the Edinburgh flashback and, yeah. He does. But I feel like the fact that we are seeing this after watching Aziraphale struggle his way through saving Job's children, even being willing to go to Hell for it, is a though act to follow and probably soured Edinburgh-Aziraphale for a lot of people, made them think that the character had regressed instead of progressing.

But, see, the way he acts is wholly congruous with who Aziraphale is and has always been and keeps being up to the very end of S2. Yes, even after what he does for Job's children.

If you get down to it, Aziraphale had been ready to give up and let the children die, in episode 2. For a brief moment, after Crowley told him he 'longed to destroy the blameless children', Aziraphale was walking away, having tried all he thought he could try to do to stop this senseless act. That was until Crowley tested him by making the crows bleat, cuing Aziraphale to the fact that his impression of Crowley wasn't wrong, and the he could count on him to do the right thing.

To be clear, I don't want to undermine Aziraphale's action by only giving the credit to Crowley but... It is, also, only thanks to Crowley cajoling him and giving him the right excuses, that Aziraphale feels safe in doing what he's always wanted to do all along.

He'd wanted to save Job's children, and thought he couldn't until Crowley threw him that hell of a lifesaver. He wanted to save the world and thought he couldn't until Crowley nudged him on the path of plausible deniability.

He wanted to save Elspeth's eternal soul, blinding himself to the hardships she'd have to endure in her not-eternal life, and was smacked right in the face by the reality of human suffering multiple times.

The way Aziraphale acts in that flashback can't be a regression, because there never was a progression in the first place: He'd always walked the line between Heaven's and God's will and his own, personal morality and sense of justice.

By all means, if we look at Uz-Aziraphale and modern-day-Aziraphale at the start of S1, his reticence about the whole saving the world business should, by all means, appear as a regression as well. You mean to tell me that he'd been ready to become a demon for the sake of three mortal children, and then suddenly a handful of thousands years later when faced with the prospect of the whole world going up in flames he'd just be all like "Heaven will triumph over Hell and it will be all rather lovely"? Like, fuck off, Aziraphale, you lying double-thinker, you (/pos)

Aziraphale constantly exist while being at war with himself. Circumstances have allowed him to rebel the will of Heaven and God more or less safely time and again, but he never quite managed to break free entirely. He'd always ended up being reeled back in, being fed the party lines, being made to feel shame for his independent thinking, until it all becomes too much and he is forced to step back from that freedom he'd been inches away from grasping.

Back and forth, back and forth, never stopping.

And all of this, all of what he is, makes it so hard for us, the audience, to truly see him. To truly grasp him. To truly watch any given scene with him and figure out what he might be thinking or feeling.

To understand Aziraphale is to understand what he is not saying when he says something, which is a good deal harder to do than it is to understand and relate to a character like Crowley, who very much revel in saying exactly whatever the heck he thinks whenever he damn well pleases.

All those layers of obfuscation and misdirection and double thinking that Aziraphale coats himself in are as much an armor that makes it harder for the audience to understand him as they are his very own downfall because, good lord, if you exist like that, if you exist forced to keep things hidden from yourself, well... It's inevitable that at some point you are going to stumble into pitfalls of your own making.

And I love him for it.

So, there? I hope I managed to explain something with this post, and that it wasn't just the rambling of someone who spends way too much time thinking about her blorbos. To be clear, I don't think people who haven't spent as much time as me trying to dissect and better understand Aziraphale's character are like, dumber than me or anything. It's just that this pair of angelic-demonic blorbos take too much real estate in my mind, lol.

Feel free to let me know your opinion and if you think I am wildly off mark and my Take Is Bad. I might answer, I might not, it all depends on time and my mood ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜

[yinyangyandere]

ll Yandere Anxiety HCs 🧡

[SPOILERS FOR INSIDE OUT 2]

Synopsis; A long list of headcanons on how I think Anxiety would be like as a yandere, as well as somewhat of a fanfic

ll Caution: General Yandere Mindset, Mental Manipulation, Betrayal, Obsessive/Possessive Behaviors, Bad Ending, Possible OOC Writing

A.N.; Not me literally writing a 9-page Google HC Doc yandere scenario for an emotion jfnjrndjnredj3j3er But seriously, I love Anxiety so much. I felt like she had a good deal of nuance to her character, in-between her wanting to help Riley for the future with good intentions in mind, but executing it poorly. Should go without saying she’s probably my fave in the franchise, and one of my fave Disney characters now.

At the same time, I noticed a lot of her behavior could potentially be ripe for a depiction where she wanted to protect Riley SO much that she’d do anything for her. Eventually, that led to me making this; it should be noted that you are not Riley in this though. It’s intended to be a what-if situation, if OG Anxiety displayed yandere-typical behavior and was inside your head instead. Hope that makes sense.

Anyways, make sure to acknowledge the warnings before reading further! If any of the above topics make you feel even a bit uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to look out for yourself and click off. Your mental health is important!

If anyone needs anything additional tagged, I’ll do so and edit the post with the added warning. Other than that, I hope you enjoy!

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First things first, I’m so sorry for you; imagine having a yandere that exists solely in your head, and no matter how hard you try to get rid of them, they’ll always be there. They exist as essentially a part of you, and removal of such things is far from easy. Especially so if that yandere in question is a personification of an emotion, which leads me to your lovesick “headmate” today: Anxiety.

🧡 ll Start:

She first showed up when you first began your puberty, similarly to Riley’s Anxiety from the movie. Like the others, she adores you and only wishes for the best when it comes to you. But all the while, the love Anxiety felt for you was growing more and more with each passing day, much more exponentially than what the other emotions in HQ felt.

Unconsciously, she slips her way into becoming the lead emotion, making you become an overall cautious individual as a whole. The others mostly disapproved of this, but they still went along with what Anxiety had in store for you since she could be pretty good at persuading everyone else into what she wanted.

Anxiety would, of course, step back so the rest can help you when needed, but as time went on, the other emotions needed to be more insistent on getting Anxiety to back down from the Control Panel. It had gotten to the point where Anxiety was basically piloting you for nearly the entire day without any of their input!

However, an awful pit in her stomach grew as well. Anxiety couldn’t help but squeeze her criss-crossed arms together as she observed your Joy manipulate the panel. ‘You were doing just fine with me in control!’ Anxiety couldn’t help but think to herself. ‘There’s no reason why I needed to step down!’

This feeling, this thought, persisted through multiple days and weeks. All the while, scenarios of you having a bad future because one of them made a mistake replayed on loop inside the girl’s head. She could’ve stepped in and stopped them, making sure you were safe, but she didn’t! She wouldn’t ever be able to forgive herself if she couldn’t protect you!

Anxiety, while she disliked these feelings, grew into someone who didn’t talk much to the others. She became antisocial, only focusing on tending to you and ensuring both your safety and happiness.

Sleepless nights and jealousy-filled days passed, and her obsession towards you never waned in the slightest. It grew, larger and more present, until it encompassed her entire life in her eyes. Anxiety lay awake one night, eyes wide open and staring up at the ceiling. Her mind just wouldn’t stop racing, thinking of you and how she could help you so much more if she was more in-control of things around here.

…Wait. Maybe…if she was more in-control…the sole emotion to take care of the Control Panel…

That idea persisted inside her head for days on end. She didn’t talk to the others during this time, refusing to answer their questions on why she was acting so weird and off recently. They wouldn’t understand. They’re your emotions, yeah, but Anxiety was your main one! She was the one who made sure you’d be protected in any situation!

Finally, it all came to a head when your Joy pointed out how obsessive Anxiety has been over you. The others agreed with Joy, and seeing everyone else loom over her with those questioning looks of theirs made Anxiety feel trapped. In an uncharacteristic act of rage from her, Anxiety shouted back at them, yelling that they would never be able to understand how she’d feel and that she was the only person there who truly cares for you. She stormed off before anyone else could retort back.

When she came back, in the middle of the night, she wasn’t alone. Alongside her was the Mind Police; she was able to convince them that the emotions there were actually rogue secrets and that the real ones are missing. Anxiety watched silently, fidgeting, unable to stop the slight guilt in her heart as she watched her former friends be pulled away and be stuck inside the Vault. ‘It’s for you,’ Anxiety reassured herself, talking about…well, about you. ‘Everything I’m doing is for you.’

It was weird at first, adjusting to being the only emotion left inside H Q, but she got the hang of it pretty quickly. Since, as the days ticked onwards, Anxiety swooned over you, sometimes talking to you as if you’d be able to respond back to her. Finally, she had you all to herself, and she’ll guarantee that she’d be able to keep you from harm’s reach while being able to bask in all of you.

🧡 ll Further Descent:

Boy, if you thought Anxiety had gone off the deep-end before, she certainly has now. Her days and nights are completely consumed by you. HQ is absolutely covered in drawings and little origami depictions of both you and her (and, while she’d often blush while doing it, she also enjoyed treating them like dolls and making them give little kisses to one another). Interspruced with all of that is her written ramblings, and it felt like that the further you went down in her notes, the more fanatical it became. 

Sometimes, she’d have small sparks of self-awareness. Anxiety will clean up HQ and tidy it, all while reminiscing on her love for you. These small moments of clarity will give her twinges of regret and doubt, but she’d push them all in the back of her mind in the end. After all, it’s for the greater good. She’d assure herself that she really was the only person who could truly be able to acknowledge everything about you until that assurance soon became a truth in her eyes. A stone-cold, unrelenting truth.

Meanwhile, you’d become much more nervous, “unstable” in some cases. Nowadays, you feel too apprehensive about going outside, quitting your in-person job in favor of an online or at-home one. Groceries are delivered to your door-step, and appointments you need to go to, like for a check-up or surgery, are done with great reluctance. After, you immediately rush back to the safety of your abode.

When it comes to social interactions, Anxiety also makes sure that, while you’d have friends, they wouldn’t get too close to you. She can’t have them hurting you, physically or emotionally! Though, deep down inside of her, Anxiety does feel a hint of possessiveness towards you, but it mostly comes out as her afraid for your well-being.

Crushes definitely are a no-go. Any attempts on trying to get closer to a love interest you may have is completely out of the question in the eyes of Anxiety. She’ll break the button that makes you feel socially-awkward if she has to.

Anxiety notices soon enough that your feelings of loneliness are increasing rapidly, and attempting to brainstorm an idea where both of you could be happy, a lightbulb goes off in her head.

She goes down to the studio where they produce your dreams, and through some sly convincing and surprising ability to help sway others to what she wants, Anxiety is able to control your dreams with full access. Now, she hopes that her plan will work. 

🧡 ll Meeting You in Person:

Well, in-person is in very large quotation marks, but it’s the closest thing she can get to doing such a thing. 

After making sure everything was in working order and looked good, Anxiety waited for night to come and for when it was finally time to reveal herself to you. The studio, while it mostly worked with actors, also had the option of summoning your consciousness in a tangible form; how else did you think those falling dreams would cause you to wake up violently right as you hit the ground? Though, Anxiety was using it for a much, much different purpose now.

She sweated bullets while she waited, stimming in both excitement and worry on how you’d react to her. Anxiety suddenly stood still when your eyes finally shut, signifying that it was time to enact her plan.

Pressing various buttons and switches, she grinned as the thing shuttered and spat out smoke before shooting a project of light from the machine’s camera. It morphed, taking form, until you were finally there right in front of Anxiety. You blinked, confused, before turning to the delighted squeak you heard. 

You nearly barrelled over as you felt a sudden force of weight being flung right around your torso, and as you looked down through the wild forest of orange hair that somewhat covered your vision, you saw Anxiety tightly wrapped around you in a hug. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and her smile beamed wider as she snuggled into you just a bit more.

“I…I finally get to see you,” you heard her mumble. “I never thought I would, but…here you are! With me!”

You gave her a confused expression, unsure of how to react. “I’m sorry, but, uh, do I know you?”

Anxiety’s eyes snapped open, tears wiped away in a flash, as she glanced up at you and immediately backed off. “O-oh, oh my gosh! I’m so, so sorry; that was so dumb of me, ugh!” She muttered the last part under her breath.

What follows is what you’d expect: she explains to you that she’s your personification of Anxiety, but makes sure to add that she only steps in to prevent you from making possible bad decisions. At least, that’s partially true. Then, she gives you a small tour of the place, deciding to give you a tour of HQ another day (when she doesn’t have your face plastered all over the walls…). After, she insists to you that she’d do anything for you. Figuring that this was all a dream, you simply ask her for some levity from your struggles in reality. In short, you two have fun.

Anxiety is extremely reluctant to allow you to go, but she figures that it would be too suspicious and off-putting if she begged you to stay. When you awake, you just figure that it was some sort of strange lucid dream before going about your day.

So, it surprises you when you see Anxiety again the next night…and the next…and the next…and the next. Around the third time, you realize this is abnormal and start feeling uncomfortable around Anxiety. She notices, and asks you about it. You just wave it off, saying you’re a bit nervous for work tomorrow. Anxiety’s very doubtful, but she goes with it.

However, when she shows up again on the fourth night, you’ve had enough. You’re creeped out with her, and explain to a now very concerned Anxiety that she can’t be real. “I am!” She retorts back. “But-but that isn’t a bad thing! That just means you can talk to me if you have anything troubling you! Please, don’t run! I’m not going to hurt you!”

Even though you did, in fact, run away from her that night, she just showed right back up again the next. What then happened was a repetitive cycle of you running away from Anxiety as she tries to explain her side of the story, waking up, and then going right back to Stage 1. You ask your doctors for a higher dosage of anxiety medication in hopes it would quell what you perceived as delusions. But no matter what you tried, no matter what medicine you took, Anxiety will always be the first thing you “wake” up to.

It had maybe been almost two weeks when you finally relented. Anxiety, however, seemed a bit snarky. “So, have you finally run all out-of-steam? Can I finally get to tell you what’s going on?!”

It took you a few seconds to reply. “...Yeah. Go ahead.”

She let out a sigh of relief, before she explained more on why she’s being so persistent with you. She figured that, since your life wasn’t the best at the moment, Anxiety would help give you some escapism during the night as a relief. While you still felt a bit off-put by one of your emotions continuously showing up in your dreams, and of all of them it’s the Anxiety one, her reasoning did give you some respite. She made sure she didn’t slip that she just really wanted to spend time with you too, though.

It took you a little while to warm up to both the idea and her again, but after some time, you started to enjoy your little adventures with Anxiety. She was funny, sweet, kind, and had all the same interests as you did. She became your best friend, but in Anxiety’s eyes, you two were already in a relationship.

Every time you awoke, she did a little happy dance at the progress being made. Heck, she even had a checklist full of things to make certain you’d fall for her in return. Anxiety was not going to allow herself to destroy your bond together with her. At this point, her whole life really is about you. She loves you so, so much and every day she gets more exhilarated at getting closer to the stage where she’d ask you the question.

Months pass on, and it’s now around the end of the year. She decided to give you a little celebration, convincing the workers below to set off fireworks outside. HQ was decked out in festive decorations, illuminated by the glow of the bright flashes of light outside. When Anxiety sees your gorgeous face lit up by the colors set off from the other side of the window, her heart thumps louder in her chest, almost to an audible level. Her breath is caught in her mouth, but shaking off the stunned reaction she has towards you, Anxiety figures now would be a good time as ever to ask you: do you love her as much as she loves you?

✨🧡 ll Yes:

“Well…ah, it’s a bit weird to be dating one of my emotions…”

Anxiety’s wide-eyed face immediately turns down on itself, pupils shrinking and a frown making itself very well-known on her face. No, no! You can’t-!

“...Ah, why not? Sure!”

I hope you’re stanced up because if not, you will be thrown to the ground in another one of Anxiety’s tight hugs. She keeps on letting out happy squeals, unable to contain her absolute joy at your response. You laugh at how cute she was, returning her hug. She smiles even wider at that.

“I love you, I love you, I love youIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouILOVEYOU!” Anxiety repeated, her tongue twisting near the end making her almost unable to be understood until her final declaration of love. You giggle, and at this her green eyes open up and twinkle at you, a smile spread wider across her face than ever before.

“I love you too.”

While Anxiety never truly does let go of her obsessive tendencies towards you, they do somewhat lax now that she knows you love her back. Her mind sometimes wanders to the other emotions locked up in the Vault, and now on her off-days, she actually goes and visits them, talking to them through the cell. Of course, they’re pissed off at her, but she just can’t stop gushing about you and how much you love her back. Anxiety is too lovestruck to notice the gagging coming from Ennui, Anger, and Disgust inside whenever she goes on another long spiel about how your kisses feel or the flower you gave to her the other day.

Speaking of gifts, while she loves to talk to you about your interests and hyperfixations, Anxiety’s personal go-to love language will always be presents. Whatever you want, she’ll make it happen in the dream.

If you had a bad day too, Anxiety will do double-duty to make sure you wake up feeling ten times better than what you felt like going to bed!

As you grow older, Anxiety reflects back on how when you pass away, so will all of them. But while she still frets over it, there’s also the reassuring thought that she may be a human in the next life alongside you. So, instead of being inside your head, Anxiety will get to live out in the real-world right beside you. But as long as she’s with you, any future is great to her.

Overall, Anxiety feels like a weight that’s been on her since her very inception has finally been lifted. She’s much more relaxed and allows you to go out more as long as you don’t cheat on her. Thankfully, you never do, and she couldn’t be more than grateful.

Life was finally good for her, and she couldn’t be any happier.

💔 ll No:

You smiled awkwardly down at her, the tension in the room suddenly becoming more palpable to you. “I-uh, what?”

Anxiety’s grin falters. “Do you love me?” She repeats.

Your smile becomes a frown, and so does her’s. “I’m…I’m going to be honest with you, Anxiety. I love being your friend. But if you’re asking if we should date, I just can’t accept.”

Immediately, Anxiety shouts out. “WHY NOT?!” Panic is written all over her face, chest heaving in a faulty attempt to calm herself down. 

You flinch back from her, suddenly unsure of what to do. “It’s just-I-I don’t know!” You replied back. “You’re literally an emotion! Something my mind made up! You’re not real!”

Those last words hurt her worse than any knife ever could. “You-you don’t mean that! I know you don’t! We’re supposed to be happy together! I did everything for you! So please just love me! LOVE ME!”

You took a few steps back, unknowingly bumping into an ajar closet. When you turn around, you gape in abject horror.

Thousands of drawings and art crafts of you, reciprocating Anxiety’s adoration, filled your sight. You turned down to a sheet of paper that innocently slid to your feet.

‘I got rid of the others. I hated to, but they’d never be able to understand how I felt towards them. They were in the way. But now, we can be together forever! I can’t wait!’

Oh toaster strudels.

You whip back around to face Anxiety, fear evident on your face. She looked just as stunned as you, her green eyes prickling with tears as she shook her head. “I-I promise,” she tried to explain. “I didn’t think it would ever go this far. But I need you to love me back. I NEED YOU!”

Fast on your feet, you’re barely able to dodge Anxiety’s attempt at grabbing you, and without thinking, you go towards the window. You need to get out of this dream, A.S.A.P.

“NO! DON’T-” Too late.

As you fell, wind sweeping through your hair, you turned to gaze up at the window. The last you saw before you jolted awake was the speck of orange looking out the broken window, crying her eyes out and sobbing to herself.

Afterwards, you refused to fall asleep. You chugged energy drinks, made sure to take your anxiety medication every day, watched horror movies so you felt too scared, turned up your home’s lights, anything to make sure you wouldn’t go to sleep and see Anxiety again.

But in turn, you felt your own anxiety levels rising. You felt an irrational, unstoppable fear of attending to your job, jumped at every little creak in the house, the unexplainable drowsiness present in your fits of worry, you all knew it was the work of Anxiety to get you to go back to sleep and see her again.

Of course, you couldn’t stay awake forever. It happened one day when you did your best to explain to your boss why you haven’t been going to work. Your voice was slurred, giving away your sleepiness, and your boss on the other end worryingly called out to you as both your phone and your body landed on the cold floor.

🧡💔 ll Nice to See You Again:

You woke up on top of a comfortable bed, and while you were coming to, you noticed the rope wrapped tightly around you. A bandana had been wrapped around your mouth as well to make sure you didn’t make a peep.

At the foot of the bed, was Anxiety. She looked much more worn-out, eyebags present and hair an absolute mess. She was fiddling around with a clipboard at first, but as her eyes glanced at you for a moment, she realized you finally came to.

“Oh! Hey, didn’t notice you were awake there!” She ignored the cries of protests coming from you. She laughed, her loss of sanity being noted in her giggles. “I guess you always were a heavy sleeper!” You didn’t laugh back.

She got closer to you, any talk you had with her about personal space thrown out the (now repaired) window. Her eyes were bloodshot, like she hadn’t slept either. “I mean, it makes sense. You were awake for a really long time out there. In fact, you didn’t sleep for four whole days! Can I ask why that is?”

You glared at her. She huffed. “Ooooh, I think I know what it is,” she muttered. “I bet you didn’t want to get nightmares. Well, it’s okay now! Your girlfriend here, Anxiety, will make sure you have only good dreams from now on!” She puffed out her chest. You didn’t know if she was mocking you or genuinely deluded into thinking that was the truth.

You uncomfortably shifted as she crawled to the other side of you, wrapping her arms around your bound form despite your discomfort. “I’ve been so, so alone these past few days. I missed you, I missed you so bad. But now, you’re back! With me! I can’t wait for what adventures you have planned for the both of us.” That final note in her voice, that seemed to almost hiss out, gave you a sense of fear. You were too scared to fight back or even move, just allowing Anxiety to make up four day’s worth of no hugs.

“I promise that I’ll be the best girlfriend you could ever ask for. No other person knows you like I do. Nobody.”

Should I even have to explain to you that your two’s relationship is toxic now? Because it is. Like, hazardous waste-type of toxic.

In her deluded mind, Anxiety fully believes that you just ran through that window because you were scared of the commitment, and that you just responded no to her love request because of the same reason. In time, she thinks she’ll be able to win you over, and considering how you can’t really get rid of her, you’re unfortunately stuck with her.

When you eventually did wake up, you found yourself in a hospital room, alone. At least, physically. You couldn’t help the onslaught of hopeless tears that trickled down your face.

In the background, Anxiety was fiddling with your feelings, not thinking about your own desires on the matter. She smiled, chuckling, when she found what she was looking for, hidden deep within the recesses of your hypothalamus: the control center that managed who you found romantically appealing.

She was smart about it, though. Despite wanting to just crank it all the way up, she gradually made it so you found her more alluring without you even noticing the changes.

You were immensely terrified of her at first, discouraging her, but as she set your romantic feelings towards her higher slowly, Anxiety noticed the change you had in your demeanor.

Eventually, she was comfortable in allowing you to finally be untied (she had undone the makeshift gag a little bit ago), and while she was a bit disappointed at still seeing you be uncomfortable around her and shying away, that just made Anxiety more determined to get you to fall in love with her.

Was doing all of this morally wrong and cementing her fully into the deep-end? Yes.

But did she truly care about that currently? No.

She can think about the moral dilemma years down the line when you two are fully reciprocating love towards one another.

Anxiety accidentally let out an excited snort at you finally hugging her once again. She clasped her hands over her mouth, blushing right after. You found it to be…weirdly cute.

Eventually, your romantic feelings were almost at 100%. As time passed on, your life became better as you started to reflect that same strange comforting feeling Anxiety felt towards you. 

You felt inclined to question why you were getting these emotions for your mental stalker, but any attempt to further examine this is usually quashed thanks to Anxiety’s interference. Soon, you don’t even get these questions anymore. They just feel like they come naturally to you.

Those same reactions Anxiety had towards you were now being felt by you, except obviously with her. Shy gazes at her cute orange hair before looking away when she goes to return your look, fully enraptured in her kind voice and nodding along to whatever she said, blushing whenever you were complimented by her, the list goes on.

The fact that she did awful things almost seems to become a distant memory to you, until much later on, it becomes completely forgotten in your eyes.

Eventually, it came to a head. One night, when the two of you were alone, you tapped her on the shoulder. You smiled at her, blush clearly evident on your face as you awkwardly rubbed the back of your neck.

“H-hey, uh, Anxiety? Can I ask you something kinda’...important? Promise not to freak out or anything, okay?”

Anxiety nodded violently. “Yeah!! Yeah, tell me anything!” She leaned in closer, eyes trained fully on you. Her hands were rolled up into fists, vibrating slightly in barely-disguised eagerness. After a bit of stammering, you finally were able to lock eyes with each other.

“Do you, um…want to go out with me-?”

“YES!! YES!!!” Anxiety jumped to respond, flapping her hands happily as she raced around the room. You laughed, before abruptly getting stopped by the kiss that Anxiety had placed on your lips. Both of you looked stunned for only a brief moment, before you happily returned it.

If emotions had brains, Anxiety was sure it short-circuited at that moment.

Finally relinquishing, you stepped back, only to lunge forward when you caught her about to fall right on her back.

“Woah, Anxiety, are you okay?” You chuckled. Anxiety looked up at you with a tired, but completely and utterly smitten look on her face.

“Never been better.”

Things were definitely better now. Much like if you said yes to her original proposal, she gives you more freedom in exchange for always being beside her when you’re dreaming. You happily accept, none the wiser of the manipulation Anxiety pulled to get to this moment.

She sometimes reflects on her actions, knowing full-well what she did was completely, morally-reprehensible. But at a certain point, Anxiety just sighs and puts it into the very back of her brain.

Yes, what she did was absolutely wrong. But, when she looks at you, finally head-over-heels for her as much as she is with you, Anxiety really can’t help but smile.

“I really am sorry, guys, but it was all worth it in the end.”

[bobbile-blog]

Okay so I've finally gotten to Jessicalter's Oprec and now feel qualified to talk about Come Catastrophes or Wakes of Vultures. holy shit. This went straight into my list of top Arknights events. Fantastic event, spoilers will be under the cut so I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading the event first. It's really good and worth your while.

Anyway, what follows is a scattered mess of thoughts about this event and things that stuck out to me.

First off, plot stuff! I'll probably cover this when I do my next plotline recap post, but what I took away from the end is that Clip Cliff seems to want to make Blacksteel independent, or at least more self-determining than it is now. He seems to be gathering resources and assets like mobile city plates and investing in long-term infrastructure like merc training, so he definitely has a long game he's pushing for. I don't think we know enough go speculate about his goals, but we'll definitely be coming back here again. After all, Tila has an infection monitor in her art, which probably means she's going to be playable at some point in the future.

Next, having looked into this a little on my own, I was interested in some of the previous places Raythean has shown up. Specifically, the ones that stood out were the drones in the Kazimierz Major and arming Silverash's forces in Kjerag, which might be referring to the Tschäggättä. It's not just notable for their apparent level of technology, but also as a faint connecting thread between three separate capitalism plotlines. I don't know if that's going to be meaningful in the future, but I found it interesting enough that I thought I'd bring it up.

Now on to more narrative things. While I love Liskarm and Franka, I do think it was the right choice to give them less screen time in this event. They're both (for the most part) fully-realized characters who understand their own motivations and morals. This is above all else an event about Jessica learning to stand on her own as an adult, so it makes sense that they're more here to support her than they are to play their own roles in the story.

Speaking of said roles, I liked the event's commentary on cops. It pointed out an interesting distinction that I wouldn't really have ever thought of, that between mercenaries and cops. To start: cops exist to protect property, not people. The police exist to protect things and do not have an obligation to err on the side of people over things, and in fact are supposed to do the opposite. This event understands that, and that role os the core of how the bank treats the Blacksteel mercs. CV, however, raises an interesting point that mercenaries are bound by the letter of a contract and not the larger obligation to property cops are, so they can actually raise moral objections and point to their contracts, sort of a Lawful Evil/Lawful Neutral to cops' Neutral Evil. The independence of their position with respect to cops allows for more of an independent morality than you'd get in a cop story and I like that, I think it's a really smart direction to take your writing in.

On a (mostly) separate note, holy shit Arknights is really good at writing cowboy stories. Between this and chapter 9 (and I would argue An Obscure Wanderer), Arknights has repeatedly made it clear that they Do Not Fuck Around with their cowboy stories and I'm surprised I haven't heard more people talking about it. It kinda has everything:

- It takes place in a rural, working-class setting undergoing a larger imminent societal shift that can inform the larger narrative, and deals with a semi-mythologized past that is rapidly disappearing.

- It has a protagonist and an antagonist that serve as foils, both very heavily affected and defined by the (same) violence in their past that they've both had different reactions to. Our protagonist has come to terms with the violence as a tool to maintain order, while our antagonist has used it for personal gain and in some ways lost control of it.

- It's a story about community, and heavily emphasizes local and personal community over larger artificial corporate "community". That's my reading of the recurring motif of the cold btw, warmth represents the close, personal community Davistown used to have and the cold that now pervades it comes from how the bank has systematically dismantled that community.

- And, I'd argue most importantly, it understands the narrative power of a bullet. The Showdown at the end of a cowboy story is powerful because we've spent the entire runtime of our story with these characters, and they are now facing each other down with the intent to end one of their collective two stories. The entire weight of the narrative so far comes to rest on a single moment of tension. It's really hard to gather up the kind of narrative momentum you need to make that hit like it does in CV. For example, it requires a really light hand with actual action in the story, so that it really does feel like it's an even standoff between our protagonist and antagonist. On the other hand, though, you do actually have to establish the relative skill of both parties and actually sell the danger of the moment to the audience. It's really hard to toe the line between tension and actual action in a way that makes for a satisfying resolution, and CV does it extremely well.

Honestly, Arknights just seems really good at getting the vibes of American media right. This is something I noticed in DV and Lonetrail too, and I haven't really been able to put my finger on what it is about them, but the vibes are just really on-point. I want to write more about this at a later point once I actually figure out what it is that I'm feeling, but maybe it's the setting, maybe it's the cast, maybe it's the plot points, maybe it's something in between — it just seems to understand the spirit of period cowboy stories in a way that I can't describe. Good shit.

Finally, I wanna end this with where Jessica is now. The events of CV take place In between the events of Loneterail and Ideal City, so the current "now" of the story is a few months ahead. Jessica left for the frontier along with Woody, Helena, and Miles. They live together in a small new settlement, building the place from the ground up with Woody and Jessica acting as town sherrifs. At the point we're at now, rhe town is fairly well-established and Woody has temporarily left on other business, leaving Jessica the sole sherrif of their new settlement. However, she's risen to her new station, and is growing into a stronger person than she ever was before.

[psychic-refugee]

I loved MOA, I’ve watched it twice and it’s definitely a great rewatch. Probably going into my list of comfort films to watch again and again.

It definitely deserves its #1 Spot on Amazon Video.

I’m going to wait to give a full on review so people have more time to watch it and it’s less spoilery.  

I do want to address one thing that I don’t think is a fair criticism, at all.

I’ve seen several posts where they’re unhappy that the main character isn’t a lesbian. Someone even went as far to call it “lesbian erasure” and others are calling Megan Park/the movie lesphobic.

On one hand, I understand that there aren’t enough good representation movies for lesbians or the LGBTQ+ community, and it can be frustrating when something looks promising or if you had certain hopes, but it turns out a different way.

On the other hand, come on, BFFR and fuck off.

No one ever said it was a lesbian rom com. It’s a rom com with a character who is very young and in her limited experience had thought she was a lesbian, and then finds someone who makes her question that specific title.

Chad has ALWAYS been part of the synopsis and cast list. He was always framed as the romantic interest.

Other people's sexuality is not dependent upon your hopes and wishes, both real and fictional.

I think people are so chronically online and obsessed with labels that they forget that no one has met everyone they’re ever going to meet, ESPECIALLY NOT AT 18. Elliott had only ever been attracted to women up until she meets Chad. She’s also from a very small town, is itching to live in the big city of Toronto, and is about to attend the University of Toronto.

There is a chance she still would have figured out she was also attracted to men when the dating pool got much larger for her.

Is it “heterosexual erasure” if the opposite happens and someone goes off to Uni to discover they are attracted to the same sex? Or is it just part of some people’s journey?

I, personally, think it’s a great message that you’re a) not stuck with a title or specific sexuality and b) it doesn’t have to be this traumatic, existential crisis. I loved how she talked it out with her friend, Ro, and it was like, “oh shit (surprised)…tell me more (intrigued and supportive).”

Please notice how Ro and Ruthie (Maddie Zeigler) don’t question Elliott’s sexuality or try to make her feel bad about it, they just accept her as friends should.

Again, personally, I’m glad to see a queer story that doesn’t have queer trauma.

I hope everyone’s sexual, or lack thereof, journey is as easy going.

I also feel like the people who are mad that she fell in love with a man when “the right one came along,” and are calling it lesbian erasure, completely stopped paying any real attention to the movie.

Elliott NEVER calls herself straight. She NEVER indicates she no longer is attracted to women because she found Chad.

Her attraction to Chad is in addition to her general attraction to women. It’s very clear through the dialogue that she is very much into women, and that never stops.

Spoiler but not relevant to furthering the plot and it’s towards the end of the movie:

…

Older Elliott references having a current girlfriend in the future. Timestamp: 1:13:30

She doesn’t mention any other male significant other.

It could very well be that Chad is a one off, but still very important, valid, and REAL love in Elliott's life.

At no point does Elliott’s attraction to Chad diminish her attraction to women.

Fine, be frustrated in the general lack of lesbian specific movies.

But don’t call Megan Park lesphobic for not making a character SHE CREATED lesbian when Elliott was never meant to be lesbian to begin with.

[beekeeperspicnic]

What I've been getting up to without my computer

Since I don't have any game updates at the moment I thought I'd give you a look at my very analogue Sherlock Holmes related project!

As you probably know, the Sherlock Holmes stories were mostly originally published in the Strand Magazine which came out as floppy monthly magazines with hardback collections every six months.

A while ago I spotted a really beaten up copy of the July to December 1893 book on eBay for £8. This book can sometimes go for £200 in good condition because it's the one with...

I immediately decided to make repairing it a Project!

You can see here that the text block has totally come away from the boards.

Along the spine I was really excited to see something a little familiar being used to give some structural support! My initial thought was that this had to be a slice of a cover of one of the floppy Strand magazines.

But when I got it loose and studied it, although the paper and ink colour is the same, it doesn't actually follow the layout format of the Strand covers. It's lots of little ads, and they run off the bottom like this is part of a larger document.

Scrap of paper on left, a Strand Magazine on the right:

So yeah, that's still a bit of a mystery, but it's cool to see this scrap of paper the printers had lying around. I had to remove it, but I'm going to keep it safe.

I did some gentle cleaning of the cover using a putty eraser, just gently pressing and rolling, never rubbing. It picked up a little of the grime.

The cover had got some paint splotches on at some point in the past, and I tried to gently remove these. Part of me wishes I'd left them as I think I was starting to effect the blue colour in the area.

(Original on the right, my attempt at cleaning on the left!)

I also reinforced some of the parts of the bookcloth around the spine that were very worn with Japanese tissue, which is very thin but very, very difficult to tear.

Now here's a fun part, with some help from my cat Miss Malkin!

The spine of the book had a few problems.

The fabric which wraps around it and helps attach it to the cover/boards which is called scrim (or mull, I've seen it called both!) had totally decayed and turned into gross dust, I knew I'd need to replace it.

Although the sewn binding was sound, I could tell that the glue wasn't doing its job anymore. It was old 'animal glue' that had turned hard and brittle. I knew I'd need to replace it with something else, like PVA.

I needed to get that glue off, so I tried out a trick I saw online. I made a paste/gel out of methycellulose, which is a substance that gets used as a thickener in lots of food products. Of course I keep mine in a fancy little jar:

The gel softens the old glue without getting it dangerously damp, allowing you to gently scrape it away. I have a really satisfying video of me doing it, but Tumblr only lets you upload one video per post, boo.

Look at all this gnarly gunk!

But look at how good the text block looks with its new scrim and glue!

I got the black paper from Shepherd's in London which is a specialist Art & Conservation Paper shop (they have a book bindery too but it's closed at the weekends.) Buying it was so fun, I got to look through lots of samples and pick something which matched the original paper.

I then had to get it home half way across the country on public transport. Yaaaaay.

I was trying to think what I was going to use to replace the Strand Magazine page on the spine. In the end I decided to leave a little note, for some future person who might take the binding apart someday!

So, here it is!

I have to admit that this whole project has been a real challenge, emotionally more than anything! It's required me to be brave about messing with an old book, and to acknowledge that even where I've made mistakes, at least it's better off then it was when It arrived at my house.

[agent-cupcake]

Flashbang

Chapter 9 Part 2 - Honey I'm Home

Spotify Playlist / All Chapters / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 /Chapter 7/ Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 pt.1 / Chapter 9 pt.2 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12

Pairing: One Piece Live Action Buggy x f! Reader

Synopsis: Childhood memories entwine with the rest of the month spent in Lafitte as the pieces fall in place for the grand debut of Buggy's new show.

Warnings: Explicit smut, dubious consent, child abuse, violence/blood,

Word Count: 20.9k

Notes: "I didn't want to post a 20+k word chapter" lol. Part of me wishes I didn't have that bad week so this could be a cohesive but huge chapter because I think last week's was pretty weak, but hopefully this makes up for it. If you don't like the backstory thing and only want clown, ctrl+F the words 'days earlier' to read those sections+the final section.

"Father said that this world isn't for me I tried to pray for a new reality "So, come to me, we can change night into day." A tied-up moth seemed to know a different way (Don't remember it Don't return to it) Oh, Father tore out the umbilical cord There's nothing left in the bottle keeping me scored We'll abandon the scenery in the (Don't remember it Don't return to it) Rear-view mirror"

xx

23 Days Earlier

“What are you doing out here?”

“Crina!” you said, smiling despite your gloomy mood. In the sunshine, she was a radiant figure, her tawny skin practically glowing gold with its light. 

She raised an eyebrow in lieu of any greeting, sitting down on the sand next to you. 

“I’m waiting for Captain Buggy,” you told her, looking around the stretch of beach claimed by the pirates. A few members of the crew lounged around drinking or playing cards or whatever else it was that they did, but the captain was nowhere to be found. He had mentioned getting something to drink, but you weren’t sure. 

“He left you here alone?” Crina asked. 

“I think I upset him,” you told her. “I don’t really know how, though. I only asked if he wanted to go swimming.”

“Ah,” Crina said, nodding. “He probably assumed you were making fun of him.”

“Making fun of him?” 

“Because he can’t go in the water.”

“Why not?” 

She gave a confused look. “Anybody who eats a Devil Fruit is cursed. The sea rejects them. Even a splash of seawater can be debilitating. Captain Buggy didn’t explain any of this to you?” 

“No,” you said softly, taken aback. “Captain Buggy really is cursed then?” 

“Yes.”

You looked down at your feet, half buried in the warm sand, reaching up to pull down a bandana that wasn’t there. Buggy said you needed to get used to going without it, or at least wearing an eyepatch like a proper sort of pirate. Your hands dropped lamely into your lap, restless as the word ‘cursed’ pounded around in your head.    

“I’m sure he’ll get over it. How are you?” Crina asked, breaking the silence. Well, relative silence. The sea had a lot to say, whispering and roaring all at once. 

“I’m fine,” you said instinctively. “How are you?” 

She stared hard at you. In the sunlight, her dark eyes became the warmest shade of brown you had ever seen. “I heard about your dad.”

Your shoulders tensed up, curling inward. “What did you hear?”

“That he’s an infamous Marine and now you’re a valuable asset.” Crina scoffed, shaking her head. “Only Captain Buggy would accidentally find himself in a position like this.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Most people are predictable,” she explained. “You can predict their future based on their past and accounting for things like skill and experience. For Captain Buggy, it’s like… His luck is a dice roll, the only thing he’s truly reliable for is capitalizing on opportunity. I assume that’s what you are. A lucky roll.” 

You shrugged, unable to look her in the eye. “Does everyone know, then? About my dad?” 

“The senior officers do, but it’s only a matter of time until the rest find out. They already suspect. The target on your back keeps getting larger, and he leaves you here all alone.” She looked back, her brow furrowing. You followed her line of sight, shocked to meet the eyes of a familiar blunt-featured man. You looked away quickly, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. 

“Is he staring at me?” you asked softly, hunching forward as if that would protect you from his gaze.

“Ivo’s never gotten over his little grudge, and this hasn’t helped.” 

You sighed, pulling your legs up so you could put your head on your knees. 

“Are you okay?” Crina asked, her voice very gentle. 

“I’m fine.”  

“I don’t know Captain Buggy’s plan,” Crina told you, “but you know that this will end in a confrontation with your father.”

“I know,” you said, hugging your thighs tightly for some sense of stability. “Captain Buggy said he wouldn’t let Dad take me back. It will be okay. It has to be.”

Crina scooted closer to you, leaning in so she could speak very, very softly. “There are other options.”

You sat up a little, frowning. “What do you mean?”   

“It might be nice to settle down for a while,” Crina said. “I can make a living practically anywhere. You could come along and help me. I would pay you, and you could learn how to live independently.”  

“I… Um, I don’t think Captain Buggy would go for that.” 

“I’m not asking about Captain Buggy,” Crina said. “You and I could leave. Disappear. I know people who could make that happen, and you wouldn’t have to be a pawn in either man’s scheme.”

“I… don’t, um… understand.” 

“Has he apologized for what he did?” Crina asked rather than clarify, staring at you with an intense gaze.

“What did he do?”

“Sending you here alone, keeping you in the brig. Has he apologized?” 

“He doesn’t… doesn’t need to-to apologize,” you told her, drawing back into yourself. “I was the… I lied. Everything is okay now, Captain Buggy told me it is.”

“What about next time you upset him?”

You shook your head, outright refusing to think about that. “No, I won’t. I won’t lie to him ever again.” You exhaled shakily, bowing your head. “He promised he wouldn’t send me away. He won’t do that.” 

“You need to consider having a backup plan,” Crina told you. “Pirates always have one. Captain Buggy undoubtedly has several in case things with your dad go wrong.”

You nodded, trying very hard to swallow the lump in your throat. You didn’t want to think about that. 

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Crina muttered. You looked over your shoulder. Captain Buggy had a piece of paper in one hand and a bottle in the other, calling everybody over to where he stood. 

“Heya, babydoll, get over here,” he shouted at you. You stood up, brushing the sand off your butt, and approached his chair. He handed the bottle to you, motioning for you to open it up. “Check it out.” He held the paper up to show everybody, flicking the back for extra emphasis. It was his bounty poster, a photo you were very familiar with. Except, something had changed.  

“Oh,” you said, realizing the key difference. “Your bounty went up!” 

As soon as they understood what they had been called over to do, the pirates began cheering, raising bottles and whooping excitedly. The sudden assault of noise startled you, but Captain Buggy accepted their excitement and praise as if it were expected, rolling his eyes and waving it off.  Wanting to join in, you tried to open the bottle. The foil came off easily, but the cork was tough.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Buggy finally told them, bringing the cheers to a stop. “This,” he held up the poster again, “is proof that my star is rising. And you,” Buggy waved his hand in a circle around the crowd, “have all been given the very special honor of enjoying my light. Imagine it. If you’ve got the talent to make the cut, you’ll end up serving royalty.”

Everybody cheered again, toasting to Captain Buggy, King of the Pirates. 

 When the cork finally came out, it was with a loud pop that caused you to yelp in surprise, and then a fizzing stream of what you assumed was champagne. The silence that followed was the worst of it all. Nobody was going to laugh unless Buggy did, but he was just staring. You held up the bottle with a forced smile, which was much lighter given how much of the drink had ended up on your dress. “To Captain Buggy.”  

He broke, cackling at the display. Everybody else followed suit. You looked to Crina for help, but she just shrugged. 

“Alright, you’re all dismissed,” Buggy said when he was done laughing, waving everybody away. 

“I’ll talk to you later,” Crina said before departing, giving you a comforting smile that almost helped soothe your crippling embarrassment. 

“You know, babydoll,” Buggy said, grabbing the bottle out of your hand and taking a swig, “most people drink the stuff, not wear it.” 

“I didn’t know it would explode,” you said in your defense, cringing.

“Are you wearing polka-dots under there?” Buggy said, staring at your chest. Now that it was wet, the wrap dress was practically see-through. “That’s bold of you.”

“It’s a swimsuit,” you said, going around him to grab a towel, trying to clean up a bit. 

“No way,” Buggy said. “Show me.” 

“That’s… I mean, it’s for going into the water, otherwise…” You pressed the back of your hand to your cheek. The flush wasn’t going away, maybe you could pretend it was just sunburn. “It’s embarrassing.” 

“Yeah, and?” He asked, raising his eyebrows tauntingly. 

“Captain Buggy,” you said, frowning. “I… that’s really, really embarrassing. Especially after…” You looked around. Nobody was looking, of course they weren’t, but you could imagine what they were thinking. You couldn’t do anything. When you tried, you were bad at it, and embarrassed yourself. They knew the reason you were here, stripping down into glorified underwear would not help with that perception. 

He took another big drink out of the bottle before setting it on the table. 

You realized he was going for you a second later, jumping away with a yelp of surprise. You were fast enough to evade him, somehow. Which didn’t matter because Buggy just detached his hands, grabbing onto the bow’s tail keeping your dress tied and pulling hard.

“When will you quit falling for that?” Buggy asked, laughing. 

“Captain Buggy!” you exclaimed, swatting his hand away and trying to fix the dress. 

“Wrong one,” he said. “On your left.” 

You turned left, over-compensating for your blindspot, but his other hand was behind you, dragging the back of the dress to get it off. You circled around, trying to fight that one off, but something else flew past you. Another part of his arm?

“I meant on my left,” Buggy clarified. You turned right, but you tripped on what you thought was his wrist. With a squeaky cry, you fell into the warm sand on your hands and knees. When you tripped, he dragged the dress off of your shoulders, and Buggy laughed as all the pieces of his arms reattached, your dress like a white flag he waved above your head. 

“Captain Buggy!” You exclaimed, standing up and throwing yourself towards him to try and take it back. He held it up, easily keeping it out of your reach, laughing at your fruitless attempts to try to get ahold of it. Out of breath and knowing it was pointless, you gave up with a huge, unhappy huff.

“What, that’s it?” Buggy asked, lowering his hand enough to taunt you to lunge for the dress. 

“It’s too late now,” you told him, breathing hard. You thought that you were getting stronger, but the old exhaustion was always so quick to set in. Maybe it would never go away. When you nervously looked over your shoulder, nobody was looking. Nobody would. Not only was there nothing worth looking at, but Buggy would get mad if they did. 

Embarrassing. Then again, you had already done about as much damage as you could. It wasn’t going to get worse.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Buggy relax, his arms dropping as he followed your line of sight. 

You blew a raspberry at him, snatching your dress out of his hand and running as fast as you could as soon as you got it, giggling madly.

“Oh, real mature,” Buggy called.

“What?” you asked innocently, stopping about ten feet away to look at him. “That’s it?” 

“Are you sure this is the kind of game you wanna play?” he asked, taunting you. Daring you.

“You started it!” 

“S’long as you don’t cry about losing,” he said. 

You grinned, turning around and taking off. Running was not something you were very good at, and especially not when you were laughing and out of breath. You didn’t expect to get far. 

Buggy caught you about halfway down the beach. Instead of using his ability at all, he stooped down and tickled your bare sides. Which was worse. Way, way worse.

Squealing, you rounded on him, trying to slap his hands away. “No! Stop!” you told him, the words ineffective when you were laughing uncontrollably. “You can have it!” You held up the balled up dress as a peace offering. “I give up!” 

“You think I did this for that?” Buggy asked, not accepting peace in favor of continuing the attack. “This isn’t that type of game.” He finally stopped, grabbing you around the middle and pulling you close so he could talk softly in your ear. “It’s more like the kind of game where I win and we go into that changing booth over there so I can enjoy my prize.”

You, the you that lived in the world, the you that seemed so other compared to the rest, finally recognized where you were. It was the smell. His smell, that was the thing that really stuck with you. You were on Buggy’s ship, in his cabin. Although the details were too dark to make out, you understood enough to figure you were in the dining area.

Why? How? You could almost remember, faintly, from a far away place. But the world heaved and churned and your head fell back against the hard floor and you succumbed to the washing tide and the painful memories gushing out of your unguarded subconscious. 

Out of it emerged the hazy memory of another adult conversation. Even now, that’s how you thought of them. Them, not us. Mom and Dad thought you were asleep, laid out with a fever, but you weren’t asleep. Sometimes you pretended. 

“This is your fault,” Dad said. “Your lack of faith has cursed her. How can you not see that? If you were faithful to me, truly faithful, she wouldn’t be forced to suffer.”

“I am faithful,” Mom argued. “I have done everything for you, for her—I have given you everything.”

“No, you haven’t. She burns with proof of your faithlessness.”  

Mom didn’t say anything at first. All you could hear was the crackling fire and the ticking clock. Eventually she muttered something, but the only word you heard was cellar. 

You hated that word, hated it enough that you almost forgot to pretend to be asleep, hated it so much that your drug-addled brain tried to break itself out of the memory. Cellar meant rats in the dark, it meant the scent of wet rot, it meant shivering in the dank cold, it meant alone. It meant you had done something wrong and were being punished. You remembered each detail of cellar with wicked clarity. 

“What did you say?” Dad asked.

“Nothing.” 

There was silence, and you wondered if they were done talking. 

Finally, “It is your fault I have to punish her, your sin, your curse. Teaching her right from wrong is the only way to keep her pure and clean,” Dad said. “And you deign to judge me for it, but everything I do, I do because I want to save her from becoming like you. All of you—hysterical, inept, faithless women. I married an innocent, beautiful girl, and now look at you. It disgusts me to know that she may meet the same fate. I was too late to protect you, but I will not let our daughter fall as you did. If you don’t see that, you’re even less of a mother to her than I thought.” 

“It’s your hatred that poisons us,” Mom said, her voice trembling but, somehow, defiant. You knew enough to know what kind of reaction that tone of voice received. It was always the same. Thunder, and fire. Rage. 

But instead there was another long silence.   

“Hatred? No, birdie, no. I love you,” Dad finally told her, and he sounded gentle. “I love you both more than anything. That you would see my actions as hatred proves the sickness of your mind. As husband and father, it is my responsibility to do difficult things. You have no idea how much it pains me to see you suffer. I take no pleasure in punishing you—either of you, but I have no choice. I wouldn’t ask for you to understand, but you must trust me. You must have faith in me.”  

That was your mistake, wasn’t it? The reason for your suffering. Was it possible that you could try so hard to take Dad’s warnings to heart yet still make the same mistakes? Still let yourself fumble and fall, still disobey him when you shouldn’t? You didn’t want to become like the women Dad spoke of, you didn’t want to be like Mom, or to be cursed. You wanted to be good, and to be clean. You wanted to please him. 

But you didn’t. Not then, and certainly not anymore. Why? You didn’t understand that. Your actions and intentions never seemed to line up.

It didn’t begin on that day, but it was one of the first times you became aware of the filth that Dad spoke of. The taint of womanhood, the creeping intrusion of the unpleasant truths Harper had revealed to you so many years before. 

How old were you on that day? The day you had your first kiss. You weren’t sure, but you knew it was during the in-between period of your life. Possibly the only time you really felt happy, or hopeful. Dad occasionally took you out on the ships with him as a sort of helper to boil bandages or send messages or help look after basic injuries. When you were home, you snuck away as often as you could to go northside. Whenever you could, you were mapping uncharted territory in the overgrown, crumbling ruins. Finding bridges that could take you from roof to roof without having to climb down, traversing the dangerous tightropes of rusty metal beams and scaling sheer cliff sides of faded brick. It was the one thing you could do that nobody else could. Even when you got tired, or felt too weak, or realized you were too short to reach anything, you found a way. Dad forbade it, but that didn’t stop you. He struck you sometimes, or put you in the cellar, but you didn’t stop. It was the only thing in the world that actually belonged to you.

You remembered sitting on top of the old butcher building with your feet hanging three stories up from the overgrown road. The brick wall below you used to have ‘slaughterhouse’ painted on it, but the second part had faded. You dubbed the building the Slaughter, and that was where you had your first kiss.

“There you are,” he called from below. You looked down, startled and fearful it might be Dad, only to immediately melt. Randall was tall, broad shouldered, and the most handsome boy you had ever known. He smiled in a way that made your stomach explode with butterflies. “Do you mind if I come up?” 

“If you can,” you said, your voice echoing oddly in the empty streets. Sound carried in an eerie way northside. Randall didn’t blink at the taunt, easily scaling the first set of old metal stairs, and then the rusty ladder, and then the final set of steps to the top where you waited. 

“I was worried I’d find you out here,” he said as he took the final few steps up.

“You were looking for me?” you asked, trying to sound casual. To a girl in the awkward phase of life—the phase where you stagnated even after most had grown—and especially one who had yet to significantly develop in the ways that other girls had, even the handful of years between you and Randall made him seem unattainably mature. But he was nice to you, always, and he made you feel little butterflies in your stomach. You liked him. You liked him a lot. 

“It’s gonna get dark soon,” Randall said, sitting on the edge of the rusty old fire escape grate beside you. “You know how much the Major hates it when you come out here.”

Randall’s dad, Harmon, was a carpenter and since Harmon worked on the docks sometimes, he was friends with Dad. Randall didn’t want to be a carpenter like Harmon, he wanted to be a Marine, and so he took Dad very seriously. Dad liked Randall too. Sometimes you thought that he liked Randall more than you. Sometimes you wished that you could do the things Randall did. But you couldn’t. At that point in your life, you were barely out of childhood. Too small for your age and underdeveloped from a lack of healthy growth in your youth. Dad said it was normal, it only meant you were a little more frail, a little less healthy than other girls. It meant there were a lot of things you couldn’t do. 

“You won’t tell on me, will you?” you asked, trying to be casual, to seem cool. You had no idea how to talk to or impress boys. You weren’t entirely sure you even wanted that type of attention, it seemed too dangerous. But you wanted Randall to like you.

“I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “But you owe me.”

“What do I owe you?”

He thought about that for a second, his eyes rolling up to the late afternoon sky. 

“A kiss,” he finally declared.

You smiled sideways at him, struck with surprise, before giggling nervously. “Do you… Do you mean that?” 

“Yes. I like you,” he said, as if it were easy. Your heart nearly stopped, blood rushing in your ears, burning your cheeks. 

“I-I like you too,” you said, but your brain was swimming with filthy words like sex and slut and you were a little confused because you barely even needed a bra yet so you weren’t sure why Randall would want to kiss you and maybe that meant he wanted other things too but those weren’t things you knew very much about and there was nobody in your life you could ask for advice so you were certainly going to disappoint him at some point and also if Dad found out he would be furious because you weren’t allowed to date boys let alone kiss them and—

“Unless you don’t want to kiss me,” Randall said. 

“I do!” you told him quickly. It didn’t matter if that was true or not, or what you wanted. If Randall thought you were worth kissing, you would do anything to keep that. You didn’t want to disappoint him. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”  

“I don’t mind,” he said, turning to face you. “It’s easy, I promise.” You couldn’t meet his eyes for more than a couple of seconds at a time, and your nervous smile wouldn’t go away, but you felt a buzzing sense of anticipation all the way from your toes upward. Excitement. Fear.

“Okay,” you said softly. 

He held your cheek in a hand that smelled like the ladder rungs he used to climb up the Slaughter and pursed his lips in a way that you thought looked a little silly before they met yours and then you realized you were supposed to close your eyes too and that was that. Eyelid filtered red-dark and the scent of old metal and dry lips pressing against your mouth and a pit of sickness in your stomach because you knew you were doing something you shouldn’t. 

Until he ran his tongue along the seam of your lips which felt very strange and wrong and you pulled back with another nervous giggle, opening your eyes. 

Randall frowned, but let you go. “You’re supposed to open your mouth,” he told you.

“Why?” you asked. 

“That’s how you kiss.” 

“Oh,” you said, feeling very stupid. “I’m sorry.” 

“One more, and then I’m taking you home,” he said. “Okay?” 

Was it? Probably. You swallowed down the sick feeling in your throat and nodded. Girls liked to kiss boys. It was okay and normal and fine and you liked it. 

When Randall walked you home—at least part of the way, not close enough that your dad would see you were together—neither of you talked about the one kiss that had become three and a hand on your hips, and then your waist, and then your chest. It made your skin crawl, but he treated it like it was normal and so it probably was. You had no reason to be weird about something he liked. 

You were so preoccupied with trying not to think of what happened that you didn’t immediately notice the tension in the house when you got in and removed your boots and jacket. 

“You’re home late,” Dad said, standing in the doorway into the den. Your heart crashed into your stomach. 

“Sorry, daddy,” you told him, your chest clenching. When he looked at you like that, you worried that he could see everything. See that you had been northside, see that you had let a boy kiss you, see the imprint of a hand on your body in places it shouldn’t have been, of lips on your own. 

“Where were you?” he asked. 

“I took a walk,” you said. “The weather is nice.” 

Dad exhaled heavily, closing his eyes. “You’re lying to me. You were out northside, weren’t you?”

“I was just walking,” you told him again, your voice weakening. 

Dad didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched on and on and on and he just stared at you, his eyes dark. 

“I’m worried about you,” he said, approaching you with heavy steps. You resisted the urge to shrink away, trying very hard not to look guilty. “If you keep lying and sneaking around, I won’t allow you to go out anymore. You’re too sick to put that sort of strain on yourself.” 

“I’m fine, daddy,” you told him, shaking your head. “I feel good, really.” 

“You’re delicate,” he said, his voice hard. “My sweet little girl.” You flinched when he raised his hand, but he only tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Where were you?” 

“Walking,” you said in what amounted to little more than a whisper. 

“You were with a boy, weren’t you?” he asked. 

You shook your head fast, guilt and shame filling up the hollow in your chest like liquid lead. “No, daddy. No.” 

He looked down at you. You couldn’t meet his eyes. 

“You’re lying,” he said, slamming his fist against the wall behind you. You yelped, trying to make yourself as small as possible. He forcibly composed himself, breathing deeply. “Every day, I feel like I’m losing more and more of my sweet little girl. All I want is to keep you safe, and you throw it back in my face.” He heaved out a heavy, hot sigh, his eyes boring into your own. “Where were you and who were you with?”

He already thought you were lying, he already assumed the worst, but you couldn’t tell him the truth. Dad liked Randall, you would be the one to bear the sin, the blame. The curse. Maybe it was your fault. Why else would Randall want to kiss you? 

“I was walking, daddy,” you said so softly that it was almost inaudible. “By myself.” 

He struck you quickly and precisely, a single blow that knocked you back into the wall. Your ears rang and roared with the whooshing of blood and Dad grabbed you by the arm, pulling you towards the kitchen. Towards the cellar. 

You couldn’t hear yourself begging, but you were. You couldn’t hear him talking, but he was. You could practically feel the force of words like liar and filthy and disobedient. Everything else was a blurred mush of fear and shame.  

When you tripped on the stairs, he jerked you upright by the arm and pushed you past the door and into the dark. When you collapsed onto the cold stone floor, you barely had enough air to properly sob, nausea swelling up in your throat. You looked up a final time before he shut the door and locked it and saw a cruel god. The figure of justice and punishment. And then you were alone and it was dark. The sour taste of Randall’s kiss lingered on your lips, and the scalding imprint of his hand burned into your skin, and you knew you weren’t Dad’s sweet little girl anymore. That only made you cry harder. 

With some vague notion of what you were now, the things you had done and let happen, it was almost laughable that an awkward first kiss was enough to make you feel so disgusting. 

Randall kissed you a few more times after that, and you held hands, and he made promises he never had any intention of keeping, and each moment of it forged a horrible conflict within you. Being wanted by him was the most potent and intense happiness you had ever felt, it was giddy and new and bright. Being intimate with him made you want to burn your skin and never look anybody in the eye again for fear of what they might think when they looked at you. 

You were afraid that they would look at you and see a woman. Dad said that word like it was dirty. Women were impure. 

But it wasn’t Dad who told you that you were what you feared, it had nothing to do with kissing or breasts or sex. It was blood in your underwear, and Mom telling you that it meant you were a woman now. 

You remembered the ice in your stomach, the way your hands shook. You looked at her with tears in your eyes and told her, “I don’t want to be a woman.” 

“You don’t have much of a choice in the matter,” she told you. “Neither does your father.” There was a cool bitterness in those words, but also disgust. She looked so much older than she was. Her beauty hadn’t faded, not entirely, there were moments where the canary shone through her dull eyes, but right then she looked ancient. The weight of the world and a million little cuts had torn her down to the bone. Sadness etched into the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth but, most of all, she looked guilty. “Don’t tell him about this. Menstruation is women’s business, men don’t want or need to know about it. All it will do is upset him.” 

You nodded, swallowing hard. Dad got upset more and more those days. Mom was almost always nursing some sort of bruise, becoming increasingly distant by the day. Her medicine made that worse. She didn’t even sing very often. She didn’t do much of anything. 

So many things happened in your life that were regrettable or scary or bad, and you had done even worse, but for what it was worth, you did love her. Mom was a woman of incomparable beauty, and she had the voice of an angel, and she tried. You knew that now, in hindsight. She did her best. 

That’s what you remembered. 

But you also remembered the day everything changed. The two of you had taken a ship out of Barley. Dad was gone, and she said you were meeting up with him somewhere else, hastily packing up as much as possible and getting out of town without any other explanation. 

You should have been with her at the inn, but you had wanted to look around the town.

Sometimes you thought you remembered telling a stranger who you were, and where you were staying, but you weren’t sure. Sometimes you remembered a man with her, but maybe that was nothing more than the power of Dad’s suggestion. The truth was that you didn’t remember much of anything until the world ended. You were almost inside the inn when it happened. Any further and you wouldn’t have been shielded enough to survive the explosion. You remembered thinking that it smelled funny, and that you were worried about Mom, and that you were a little hungry. 

And then. 

Brighter than the sun, sharper than any blade, the light exploded the universe apart. Effulgent, radiant, deafening, and then it resolved into endless, terrifying black. An abyss of nothingness and panic and fear because you couldn’t see anything, and it hurt. That was all you were aware of. A sticky, sickly, blazing hot pain that you couldn’t understand, it was utterly incomprehensible to feel such agony. Your hands went to your face, but it was covered in plaster and bandages. Even though they were only wrapped around your eyes, you felt as if they were suffocating you. 

“It’s okay,” Dad said as he had several times before because every time you awoke, it was from the same confused nightmare. Then you were conscious and you realized that the nightmare was real. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” 

“Daddy?” you asked, your voice hoarse from screaming and smoke. That taste, acrid and foul, coating your throat in soot, was familiar, and you remembered. You were in the hospital. There had been an accident. “Daddy, it hurts.”

“I know it does,” he told you, taking your hand as it groped across the blankets in search of him. 

The pain was incomparable. It was difficult to understand anything outside of it. Dad said that’s why he waited so long to tell you that Mom hadn’t made it out, because he didn’t want to hurt you further. 

By the time you returned to Barley to bury an empty casket, your right eye had at least partial vision back. The left was ruined. It hurt, and it remained as a hideous reminder of what happened. Randall was there to help Dad, but he didn’t even look at you. Nobody did. All they could do was whisper. Whisper about Mom, about you, about what happened. 

You remembered stumbling to the hole with a fistful of dirt in your hand, nearly toppling into it with how unsteady and uncoordinated you were. You remembered looking at the empty mahogany box. You were glad Mom wasn’t there because Dad was too drunk to say anything and you were still having problems putting together full sentences and you dropped that handful of dirt into the ground with the vicious, agonizing thought that nobody in the world except you loved her. 

You really, really did.

14 Days Earlier

Around the time that the silence of the streets became noticeable, you realized that you had maybe taken a wrong turn somewhere. Lafitte wasn’t a large place by any means, but the winding structure of its layout and your poor directional skills were a bad match. According to the directions you were given, it was a straight shot to the western side of the island where you were trying to meet up with Captain Buggy. Now you were wandering amidst blocks of grungy old buildings that were closed for the day and more than a little creeped out by how dark and isolated it was. 

Maybe you should have asked if someone would walk with you. 

Maybe you had gotten off track somewhere.

Maybe you were hopelessly lost. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” somebody called from your blind left. You squeaked, startled, and whirled around to face two men that had been loitering in an alley that cut between two dark buildings. The smell of garbage and old metal and stale smoke emanated even stronger from the impenetrable shadows.

“Hi,” the other one said, smiling. It was too dark to make out almost any other feature than the glint of a gold tooth. Your heart seized up, panic flooding your system. For all that Dad had warned you of a situation like this, you didn’t ever think it would happen. You didn’t know what to do. “You lost?”

“Um, I’m…” you stammered, smiling out of an anxious habit. “I’m fine, thank you.” 

“Where’re you trying to go?” the first man asked. He was taller and lankier than his companion. In the shadows, he looked like he’d been stretched out unnaturally. 

“I’m fine, really,” you said, taking a step back. “Thank you. I just have…” You gestured to the side, meaning to walk away. 

The lanky one was faster, easily closing the distance between you and grabbing your arm before you could get away. You should have run, but by the time that occurred to you, it was too late and he was dragging you into the dark. 

You yelped, trying to yank your arm free. He pulled something out of his pocket, flipping out the blade of a knife. 

“Don’t do anything stupid, m’kay?” he asked, holding it up so you could see the silvery gleam in the sickly yellow light of the single streetlamp. 

“Make sure it’s the right girl,” gold-tooth told him. “Scar on the left eye.” 

The lanky one pressed the blade to your cheek, turning your face towards the light. You whimpered, a little sob heaving in your chest. “Mmm, ‘s her,” he said. “That’s an ugly one.” Clicking his tongue in disgust of your scar, he removed the blade to grab your waist and push you towards the other man. You stumbled, almost falling. 

“Please don’t do this,” you begged, looking between the men desperately. It was too dark to see them as anything other than hulking shadows. “Please. If you want money, I’ll—I’ll give you anything, just don’t take me back, please-”

“Can you shut ‘er up?” the lanky one asked. “He said to make it look like an attack gone wrong. Something random or, y’know, accidental. Yeah? Like we was try’na mess with her but she got too rowdy.”

You whimpered, shaking your head. Your ears were ringing so loud you could barely hear yourself beg. Gold-tooth grabbed you, stifling your pleas with a sweaty palm over your mouth and nose. You shouted, clawing at his arm, but he didn’t budge.

“He wants us to rape her?” he asked.

“Nah, just rough her up a little. Rip her clothes, make sure she’s got bruises. ‘s called staging.”

“Staging,” gold-tooth repeated, turning you around and shoving you back against the alley’s brick wall. You pulled in a deep, ragged breath and screamed. Despite your dry mouth and throat, it was a good one, so loud and piercing you could hear it blurring and ringing in your ears. 

Gold-tooth stopped it fast, punching you in the face. The world erupted into stars and the next thing you understood was that you were on the ground. Blood gushed out of your nose like a spout, your eye watering enough to blind you completely. 

“I told you to shut ‘er up!” the lanky one said, grabbing you by the hair to drag you back onto your feet. You were too dazed to struggle, leaning against the dirty brick to keep from falling. All you could taste and smell was your own blood. It flowed into your mouth, your throat. You gagged, coughing, sobbing, crying.  

“Woah, woah, woah, shhh. Someone’s…” gold-tooth’s warning trailed off. He was looking at the mouth of the alley. 

The lanky one grabbed you, pressing the knife against your throat. “Not a sound,” he told you softly, digging the knife into your skin enough to cut a shallow line. Gold-tooth stepped in front of you, almost like a shield. With the alley’s opening on your left, you couldn’t follow their line of sight, and you didn’t dare try to turn your head or make a sound, practically holding your breath.  

“What kind of lame ass party is this?” a very familiar voice called. You sobbed, relief flooding your system. “No booze and only one girl? Borrrrring.”

“We’re not sharing,” gold-tooth told him. 

“You know what you need? Entertainment. Lucky for you fellas, I’ve got a killer act.”

“Hey, friend,” gold-tooth said flatly. “Walk. Away.” 

“Hold on, he’s a pirate,” the lanky one said softly to his companion, significantly more trepidatious. He relaxed the hand holding the knife to your throat, letting you get in a good breath. Everything tasted like blood. “Look at ‘im, he’s that clown. He’s, um... Buddy or something.”

“Buggy,” Buggy said loudly, emphatically. “Buggy the Clown. My name is on the poster, why does nobody…” He huffed in frustration, you could imagine him composing himself. “Okay, here’s the deal. You give me the girl, and I let you live. Sound good? Actually, wait a sec. Hey, babydoll, you’re still alive, right?”

You groaned weakly.  

“I’ll take that as a yes. Great. You boys wanna see a magic trick?”

“Last chance, clown. I mean it.” The lanky one grabbed you, holding you in front of himself like a proper hostage with the knife at your neck again. Finally, you could see Buggy. Not much of him. The light hit him at a quarter angle. What you could see was a sharp cheekbone, the recognizable curve of his nose, and, when he moved his head, a faint glint where the light hit his eyes.

“I guess you’re up, friend,” Buggy said to gold-tooth, his smile evident in his voice even if you couldn’t see it clearly. “Show me your moves.” 

Gold-tooth pulled out a knife from his jacket, rushing towards Buggy. It was going to hit, Buggy wasn’t even trying to dodge.

“Captain Buggy!” you shouted, struggling against your captor despite yourself. The knife dug deeper into your neck, and you whimpered, going limp.

Buggy’s body separated at the last second, coming apart right where the knife would have landed. Gold-tooth had the wherewithal to try and execute a follow-up attack, but Buggy detached those parts of his body as well, letting gold-tooth rush right through him. When the sections of his torso snapped back into place, he tilted his head back to display the manic smile he wore. 

It left you feeling very, very cold inside. Your attackers might have been villains of the night, but Buggy was an unhinged madman cursed by the Devil. 

The lanky one swore, releasing you. Whether he meant to escape or attack Buggy, you couldn’t tell, but he rushed towards him. Knowing it was your only opportunity, you didn’t hesitate. Blood rushed a violent tempest in your ears. You scrambled forward, desperate to escape the alley. 

Too late, you realized gold-tooth hadn’t run away in fear of Buggy’s power. You couldn't stop your momentum, you didn’t have enough traction on the gravel. It slid out under your boots, carrying you forward even as you tried to rear back. 

He caught you with an arm like an iron bar, his other arm winding up and punching you in the stomach. The blow knocked all the air out of your lungs, leaving nothing but pain. You crumpled onto the ground with a broken gasp, a death rattle. 

All that existed was ringing in your ears and pain and confusion and you couldn’t breathe. The world went very, very dark. You squeezed your hand into a fist, feeling the painful stretch of your skinned palms, and let that stabilize you enough to open your eye. You had to blink over and over and over to clear it, coughing globs of bloody phlegm as your body tried to restart the whole breathing process, and then you raised your head to look at the scene. 

Captain Buggy was distracted with the lanky one, cackling wildly as he fought him. Even though you were accustomed to it, the sight of a shadowy man pulling himself into pieces and reforming over and over again was disturbing. Gold-tooth stood above you with his knife out, intending to try and get the jump on Buggy.

“Captain!” you shouted as loud as you could. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very. But Buggy seemed to hear you, finally turning to notice gold-tooth. The lanky one capitalized on his distraction, jumping forward with his knife. Gold-tooth moved at the same time, their movements impressively synchronized. 

You did the only thing you could think of and lunged for gold-tooth’s ankles, grabbing onto one and hanging on with all your remaining strength to trip him. He tried to kick you off, but all that did was destabilize him further. 

The men dropped at the same time. Buggy’s opponent went with a pained howl, his front criss-crossed with countless painful slashes as he stumbled and fell back into the darkest pit of the alley. Gold-tooth fell forward, going heavy and hard onto the ground. He let go of his knife. It skittered forward, stopping only when Buggy stepped on it, kicking it to the side. 

“I’m afraid that’s curtains for you, friend,” Buggy said to the downed man, approaching him with slow steps. Gold-tooth began cursing at him, scrambling to get up. Buggy beat him to it, jauntily kicking him in the head.

It was over.

You collapsed, braced on your skinned forearms, just trying to breathe. Everything, everything hurt. 

Buggy kicked the man again for good measure. And then a third time.

“Just so you know,” Buggy said, his footsteps crunching on the ground as he approached you. “I didn’t need your help. That was a test. You passed. Good job, babydoll.” 

You opened your eye to watch his boots get closer and stop. After a moment, you figured out how to get your arms beneath yourself. Buggy held out a hand for you to take, which you gratefully did. 

As soon as you were on your feet, you realized it was a mistake to move so fast, your head spinning. You stumbled sideways to lean against the brick. For a moment, you worried you would vomit. The taste of blood and bile coated the inside of your throat, the metallic tang mixing with the heavy, ripe stench of garbage that had been marinating in the humid Lafitte heat for far too long. 

Desperate to avoid that, you spit out a mouthful of thick, bloody saliva, coughing out as much of it as you could. You could breathe through your nose, luckily. The punch had landed more on your left cheek than dead center. 

“You’re not gonna pass out or throw up or something, right?” Buggy asked, nonplussed. 

“No, sir,” you said, the words scraping unpleasantly against your raw throat.

“Okay, good,” Buggy said. “Well, now that the show’s over, let’s chop chop get the fuck out of here.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Probably realizing you weren’t going to move on your own, Buggy grabbed your elbow, tugging you out of the alley and onto the street. Rather than going back the way you came, he pulled you across to cut through to the next road over. This one ran parallel to the seawall. As soon as you stumbled into the open night, a heavy wave of humid air slammed against you. The scent of trash wasn’t as intense, replaced by the stench of rotting seaweed and sulfur and acrid oil.

“What did they do, offer you candy?” Buggy asked as you tried to keep up with him, huffing and puffing and wracked with strange little half-sobs that came as much from the adrenaline pounding in your system as it did from leftover fear and pain. “I guess pops never taught you about stranger danger.” 

There were more people here, although not many. This part of the island was mostly filled with those unfortunate enough to call such a place home. Nobody paid you any mind as Buggy pulled you across the road, towards one of the sets of crumbling concrete steps going down to the beach. Well, ‘beach’ was a kind word. That would imply sand and an enticing, lapping tide and a hint of romance. The beach on this part of the island was a strip of silty grit, a thick band of seaweed clogging the tide like hair ratting up a drain, and the greasy churn of foul brown water. It was to its benefit that the night was too dark to see anything other than the gleaming sliver of a moon draping silver over the top of the water, nothing but deep shadow stretched out in between. Once the two of you reached the bottom of the steps, you were lost in the endless dark. 

“Captain Buggy,” you said, your breathing harsh and fast, your heart pounding mean and hot where you had been hit in the stomach. “Ss-stop.” 

“Really?” Buggy asked, annoyed.

Under any other circumstance, his irritation would have been reason enough for you to push yourself, but you couldn’t. “You can… go on without me,” you said, your voice distant and ragged. “I’ll catch up, I just need…” 

“Don’t be stupid, dipshit. I didn’t go through the hassle of saving your sorry ass just to abandon you here. You’d probably walk right into the ocean and drown.”

You drooped back against the grungy wall, unable to think of a response. 

“Why were you wandering on your own anyway? I gave you one rule, and you broke it. You know, I’m starting to understand how daddy dearest must have felt. If you weren’t already busted up, I think I’d go after you with a belt too.” 

You whimpered, your head rolling back.  

“This isn’t a bad look for you, babydoll,” Buggy said after a moment of nothing other than the ocean’s distant roar, tilting your chin up towards the moonlight. “Not at all. How about a little sugar for your savior?” 

You couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, he was just a shadow. Numbness permeated your body, even though you were aware of everything. Everything, everything. The soreness of your feet. The pain pounding furiously against your face, the smell of blood mixing with the briney scent of the ocean. All of it, and nothing. 

“Okay,” you said softly.

Buggy grabbed you, pulling you up and against him. Kissing hurt bad, as if it wasn’t hard enough to kiss him standing up. He had to lean down and you had to tilt your head up, holding onto his shoulders. Buggy didn’t seem to care that it hurt, or that you probably tasted like blood. He kissed you like he always did, like he was hungry, groaning into it when you whimpered helplessly. 

You didn’t fight him when he grabbed your hand to press against the front of his pants, grinding your palm against his hardening erection and moaning into your mouth at the feeling. Entranced, you mimicked the motion, getting an even rougher noise out of him. Buggy bit your lip before pulling your head away with a fistful of your hair. 

“I know last time didn’t go so great,” he said, “but whaddya say to giving the blowjob thing another try?” 

“I… um…”

“You… what?”

“I don't know.”

“Come on,” he said, irritated. “I just saved your sorry ass from two guys. I deserve more than a little peck on the lips, don’tcha think?” 

Your ears were ringing. Or maybe that was the ocean. “Okay,” you said. 

“Try that again, but with a little more gratitude,” Buggy told you. “Actually, you know what, I don’t care right now. On your knees, honey buns.”  

Since your knees were already skinned, you crouched down on your haunches rather than kneel, bracing yourself against the slimy seawall to keep from topping over. Buggy got his cock out so quickly it was almost surprising. Based on what you felt before, he was already halfway hard. With your eye slowly adjusting to the faint moonlight, you could somewhat make out its shape. 

“Say ‘aahhhhh’,” Buggy told you, swirling his cock around in front of your face like a mother with a spoonful of baby food trying to feed a difficult child. Some part of you, way deep down inside, was rightfully disgusted by that approach. But it was like trying to make out the words of somebody trapped at the bottom of a depthless well. All that you could hear was the echo. 

Unable to think of any other way to handle the situation, you did what you were told. Let it happen. Don’t think. With a palm scratched up and bloody, you reached up to guide his cock, opening your mouth. In a way, it was better like this. Nothing else in the whole world made sense, why should this? You were already free falling and helpless and confused, at least this was direction. 

Buggy groaned when you closed your lips around the head, sucking lightly like you would on his fingers. Shamefully, the scent of cock wasn’t all that unfamiliar by now, and the taste was just an extension, almost overpowered by the tangy flavor of your own blood. 

Your mouth was already overproducing saliva, slicking up his dick as you bobbed your head forward. It was easiest to brace yourself with your left hand on his thigh and one of your heels propped against the wall. Buggy released his cock so he could replace it with your hand, closing your fingers around him. He guided your fist down to pick up some of the excess saliva, easing the friction as he pulled your hand back up the shaft. Like Pippa said, a handjob. 

Thinking of that seemed so surreal, doubt of reality infecting your mind now that the numbness really set in. Everything that led you to this point in your life was some weird dream, or maybe more of a joke. A disturbing, horrible joke. Now things were quiet, and that was better. 

Buggy groaned, his hips impatiently pushing his cock deeper into your mouth. You choked a little, slurping around him. Saliva dripped from the seam of your lips. Confused, your tongue raised to slide against the underside and you could feel his cock twitch in your mouth so you did that again. 

“Good girl,” Buggy told you in a heavy, hoarse voice, continuing to guide your hand up and down the base of his dick.

When he let go of your hand to let you take care of it, you didn’t stop. This ended in Buggy coming, that was the way it was. Even you knew that.

At least until something—or somethings—got beneath the band of your panties, worming against your pubic bone and down. Your yelp of disgusted surprise was stifled by his cock. Panicked, you pulled off, and Buggy didn’t stop you. A flood of saliva followed, splashing onto the sand.

“Calm down, it’s just me,” Buggy said, laughing and holding up his ungloved hand. Or, what was left of it. A curve cut around the squishy part of his palm and to his pinky. Everything else, you assumed, was between your legs, working under the confines of your panties, he wasn’t even using his whole hand. “You didn’t think I was just gonna leave you out to dry, did you?” His disembodied fingers dug a little deeper, curling into your pussy without any warning. You shuddered, clenching hard around them. “I guess not dry. You’re soaked. Is this from earlier?”

You shook your head, completely lost. “I don’t…” 

“I bet you get off on being saved. That'd explain why you're so damn pathetic.”

The ocean roared. Sweat gathered in a sour line down your spine, beneath your bra, along your hairline. You should have worn it up, strands that had gotten in the way of your mouth were now coated with spit, sticking uncomfortably to your cheeks. “What?”

“One more time, babydoll,” Buggy said theatrically. “With feeling.” 

That was, as he often said, a laugh. You had no idea what to feel. The well only got deeper, the quiet spreading. Even the pain seemed so inconsequential, the agonizing ache from where you’d been punched in the face a mere background drone as you opened your mouth wide to take his cock. This time, you had a feel for it. He didn’t need to guide your hand along the base, which was for the best because his hand was busy in your panties. 

It kind of seemed like you should have been disgusted by the idea of Buggy using his cursed powers for your sexual pleasure, but you were cursed anyway, and sin didn’t compound, it was a flat rate to be paid in full at the Devil’s convenience.

For now, you could just accept that it was good. 

Everything was too disconnected and disjointed for there to be any coherence to the scattered sensations in your body, but the friction of his fingers drove the far away part of your living self wild. Unobstructed, they could easily curl against your g-spot, his thumb on your swollen clit. It was kind of like a choice. If you wanted yours, you would have to take it. And of course you did. If it was from Buggy, you always did.  

So you slurped and sucked and bobbed your head, striving desperately for some release from the straitjacket hold of the quiet and the pain and the sickness and the fear and the dark. If you could just feel that fast fizzle and let it consume you for a moment, that was enough. That was all there was. 

“Fuck, babydoll,” Buggy swore. “I knew you’d catch on quick.” 

The muscles of his thigh tensed and trembled against your hand, his hips thrusting restlessly against the pace you set. It was messy and unsteady and disgusting and his fingers kept hitting your g-spot in a way that had your pussy weeping around them, your hips trying to roll into a body that wasn’t there, to get more solid friction. More and more. His thumb ground down against your clit, the calloused pad catching against a spot of raw nerves that had you seeing stars.

Time didn’t really exist, so you weren’t sure how long you were held in that hellish limbo of almost. Pleasure curled and tightened around his fingers inside of you, and you held onto it with a death grip, knowing that it was the only way you could make any of this okay. Or maybe you were just selfish.

Now it was like you were the one at the bottom of the well, feeling your body finally give in to the tension stoked to a steady burst beneath Buggy’s fingers. Your body took over automatically, squeezing him so tight it hurt, your clit pulsing under his thumb, your hips rocking back and forth in a way that threatened to topple you over. 

He had to pull your head back and forth by your hair to keep you moving on his cock, but you didn’t care. Nothing mattered except for that exquisite flash, that sparkling sizzle of warmth, that moment of invulnerability. 

Too soon, it was over. You sobbed hard around his cock, feeling like the sensations had been cut short, like it wasn’t enough in the first place. Ruined. You were still falling, still quiet, still trapped at the bottom of a pit in the dark. 

“That was it, wasn't it,” he said, pleased with himself. “It totally was!” He laughed hoarsely, and then groaned. “You know, it—ah, fuck it. Get up.”

Buggy pulled you off his cock, scooping you onto your feet. He shoved your panties down your thighs to release his fingers, reattaching them at the same time he was picking you up and scraping you up against the seawall, scrubbing you into the grime. Your panties dropped down past your knees, falling to one ankle before he grabbed your thighs to wrap your legs around his waist.

His cock was coated in your bloody saliva, and your pussy was soaking, he slid in easy and smooth. Buggy groaned low in his throat, but you just gasped, and then whimpered. The way his cock filled you now that you were already sensitive and needy was almost more than you could bear, too much and yet unattainably distant. You writhed helplessly, your inner walls tightening around him to pull him deeper, to keep him with you in the only way that mattered. 

“You’re so lucky,” Buggy told you harshly, his voice like a growl. “I mean, with a pussy like this, who needs talent? My little mattress actress.” He punctuated those words with especially hard, wet thrusts. Whining, your fingers dug hard into his shoulders, grateful for the stability of his body against yours. 

Your head fell back against the wall, light as air. Buggy clearly wasn’t trying to savor the moment. This was hard and fast and sweaty and filthy and nothing but sickly need and animalistic gluttony. He pressed his nose against the side of your jaw, breathing hard into the hollow between your neck and shoulder as he fucked you. Each thrust pushed you up and down the wall, knocking your empty head against the hard surface, punching whimpers and moans out of your sore body. 

Your eye rolled up over his shoulder to the little silver curl of the moon. It blurred into a pale smear in an endless sky. You closed your eye, your mouth falling open as you moaned helplessly, holding onto Buggy as he fucked you hard and fast. 

With an open mouthed groan, he seized up, pushing his cock as deep as he could, grinding his hips against you as he came. 

Rather than pull out and release you right away like you expected, Buggy kissed your jaw with an open mouth, licking your feverish skin. Then your neck, sucking as he pulled away as if to relish in the obscene noise. Your pussy unintentionally spasmed around his cock and Buggy inhaled sharply through his teeth, pulling out and letting you drop. 

“Good lord, you're a horny little shit,” he said, fixing his pants. 

You opened your mouth to say something, but there were no words. 

He stepped back, leaving you to lean against the seawall. “Aren’t you gonna… Fine, I’ll do it.” Muttering about how he had to do everything himself, Buggy crouched down to get your ankle back into your panties, pulling them all the way up and giving your pussy a little tap. “There ya go, kiddo. Now c’mon.”  

You weren’t exactly aware when Buggy finally half-led and half-dragged you into a bar. The walk along the beach, a shortcut to get to the docks, had been a dizzy stumble in the dark. You let it happen numbly because that was easier than trying to argue. 

The light of civilization shocked and blinded you, like an unwelcome alarm pulling you from a feverish dream. The sleep wasn’t especially comfortable, but it was better than being awake. The bouncer tried to stop the two of you as soon as Buggy pulled you past the door. 

“I’m sorry, we don’t allow…” He looked you up and down, concerned. “Is she alright?” 

Buggy threw an arm around your shoulders, smiling widely. 

“She’s clumsy. I’m just looking for my—Oh, hey, Crina!” he called. “Get over here.” 

You watched dully, trapped beneath the weight of Buggy’s warm body, as Crina came over. She looked at you, clearly unimpressed. “What did you do to her?” she asked Buggy.

“Whaddya mean?” Buggy asked defensively. “I rescued her from two idiots with a death wish. Can you just give her a quick little look-see to make sure nothing's broken? I’m fine with the eye thing, but any other disfigurements would be overkill.” 

Crina sighed, giving you another look. “Let’s go to the bathroom,” she told you gently. 

“Great, I’m gonna go get us a drink,” Buggy said, releasing you and walking towards the bar. You watched him go, feeling very, very cold. Actually, you felt like you were going to pass out. Or throw up. Throw up, and pass out, and probably die.   

Crina cursed under her breath, turning to the bouncer. “Get me some rags, ice, water, and… The bar should have something like simple syrup, she needs sugar.” 

“That’s not my job,” the man said. 

Crina cursed even louder, not under her breath, and pulled out a wad of money. “Now it is.” 

The man pursed his lips, but accepted the money. “Rags, ice, water, and simple syrup. Are you gonna pay for that?” 

“Yeah, put it on Captain Buggy’s tab.” 

He nodded, turning towards the bar. Crina had to support most of your weight as she took you to the bathroom. Your head spun, your body wilting and drooping. It was hard to stay upright, and you felt sour and cold. The world trembled. 

“My… my dad's a doctor,” you told her. “If you get him then… he's a doctor, he can…”

“Hey, focus on me,” Crina said. “What’s my name?” 

“Crina,” you mumbled. 

“Okay, good. You’re gonna have to get onto the counter, can you do that?” It took an impossible amount of effort, but you managed to scramble onto the counter with her help. You fell against the wall, your body impossibly heavy. She tilted your head towards the light, but you kept your eye closed. It didn’t matter. Nothing did, you just wanted to sleep. 

“You have to stay awake,” Crina said, tapping your uninjured right cheek. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I dunno,” you muttered softly. The world swayed. That’s right, you were on a ship. “I wanna… can we go home? We’re almost there…”

“No. Hey, open your eye.” 

Through a tin can, you heard the door open. “Don’t mind me, ladies,” Buggy said brashly. “I got all the shit you asked for and one of those Dirty Sunrises you like.” You heard him set the supplies on the counter by you, but you were too tired to look. “Oh, oof. She looks rough. You hangin’ in there, babydoll?”

“She’s in shock, she can’t have alcohol,” Crina said irritably, wetting one of the rags in the sink. “This might hurt a little,” she warned you before starting to dab at your face. It hurt, but you didn’t care. You would be home soon, and Dad would help you, and then you could go to bed, and everything would be okay. “This blood is dried, what were you doing that took you so long to get her here?”

“Oh, you know how she is, I could barely get her to walk ten feet before she was whining about being tired.” 

Crina scoffed. “And you helped her with that, Captain?” 

“What?” Buggy asked, his tone thin like ice and unnervingly flat. “Is there something you wanna say, Crina?” You opened your eye to look, anxiety spiking you alert. He was smiling, but his eyes were dead. 

“Captain Buggy?” you asked weakly. 

His glare broke when his eyes flicked to you, that hard smile replaced with a smug smirk. “See? She likes it.” 

Crina shook her head, grabbing the bottle of syrup and squirting a healthy amount into the cup of water. “This is gonna taste weird, but you need to drink all of it,” she told you. 

“Don’t worry, she’s getting pretty good at the whole not choking thing,” Buggy said dryly, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.  

You opened your mouth obediently when Crina raised the cup, drinking all of it without complaint. The cold water and the sugar were more of a wake up than anything else, and it cleared the sour taste of blood and cock from your mouth. You cleared your throat, coughing again, spitting more blood and saliva into the sink. 

“Okay,” Crina grabbed your jaw, wiping at the dried blood again. It hurt enough to make your eye water, but you accepted the pain. “It looks like he caught her left cheek. Her…” She paused before saying the word, stopping herself by clearing her throat. “Everything else is fine. It’ll bruise some, but the tissue around her eye is already so damaged, you probably won’t see the worst of it.” She raised your chin more, wincing at the shallow cut along your neck.

“If you think that’s bad, you should see the other guy,” Buggy joked through a mouthful of food. He was slicing off pieces of an apple, eating it right off the blade. “You’ll know it's him when you see the guy walkin’ around with his guts hanging out.”

“Is there anything else?” Crina asked you, ignoring Buggy. 

“I dunno,” you said, frowning. You felt a little more alert, but that wasn’t better. 

“She’s fine,” Buggy said. “A little pain is good for her, maybe it’ll teach her to listen to me.” 

Crina’s lips pressed into a line, but she nodded. “Maybe. I’ll get her cleaned up and then you can take her back to the ship.” 

“Great,” Buggy said, tossing the apple and putting his knife away. “I don’t know about you, babydoll, but I’m beat.”

You remembered that, after the funeral, Dad fully retired. At first it was to help you recuperate, and then it was for your safety. You were hurt because of him, because of who he was. That’s what he said when he was sober. You were hurt because of Mom, because she cursed you. That’s what he said when he was really drunk. Due payment. The price was her life, and your eye. The truth, you thought, laid in between. You were hurt because you deserved it, it was a consequence of who you were and what you had done.

Losing an eye worsened your health significantly. Not only the headaches, and the unsteadiness, and your ability to read and write for any length of time, but it also intensified the exhaustion that plagued you. You always felt cold and weak, so much that simple tasks took all of your energy.

Even something as simple as going shopping had become a laborious and tiring undertaking. People looked at you sideways, avoiding your left eye. They whispered about you. People who had once been friendly now smiled tight, polite smiles and excused themselves from conversation. And yet, somehow, the worst part of going out was coming up the hill and seeing your house, knowing you would have to go inside. No matter how warm the weather, or how merrily the sun shined, the house had an iciness to it. The walls absorbed the cold and held it there, bleeding out any warmth or noise that entered. Dad would say that was fanciful thinking. Dangerous thinking. And yet he so readily staved off the chill with liquor. 

You walked through the silent hall and put away the groceries, setting aside ingredients for supper, before taking a moment to compose yourself. The world, and everything in it, was so, so tiring. You were tired. Worn out all the way to the marrow of your bones, your flesh itself becoming as heavy as a thick winter coat. And your head ached. Always, it ached. You began to scratch at the scar beneath your eye before stopping yourself, pulling the bandana down instead.  

No matter how tired you felt, the day was not yet over. You stood up and smoothed your hair, taking the stairs with dragging feet. Dad spent most afternoons sequestered in his office. It was the coldest place of all. The hall leading to the heavy door stretched for miles and miles. 

You walked its length and knocked lightly, opening the door at his barked invitation. 

“Can I get anything for you, daddy?” you asked, peering into his dark office. He sat in the large, imposing leather chair, a mess of documents on his desk as well as an open bottle. He didn’t bother with a glass anymore. But his eyes were sharp enough, fixing on you in a way that made you want to shrink back. 

“Come in and sit down,” he instructed. You did so slowly, thinking quickly to figure out what he was going to say so you could get ahead of it, apologize or explain or whatever he wanted from you. When you were sitting, he looked at you, folding his hands beneath his chin. He stared and stared and you squirmed, pulling your bandana down.

“You’ve gone and grown up on me, haven’t you?” he asked.

You blinked, surprised. “What?” 

“I don’t know how I didn’t notice. I’ve been too preoccupied, I suppose, and now you’re becoming a woman.” He sighed heavily, rubbing his face. “I saw the blood in the laundry,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”

Your heart sank, your thighs pressing tightly together as if you were trying to hide evidence of your shame. “Yes, but I’m not hurt,” you tried to explain. “It’s… the blood, it’s not… it-” 

“I know what it is,” he said irritably. You closed your mouth, folding your hands in your lap. “How long?”

You struggled for the right answer, your confusion worsened by the embarrassing topic. “I… I don’t understand what you mean, daddy. I’m sorry.” 

“How long have you been menstruating?” he clarified. The more he talked, the more you could hear the intoxicated slur in his voice. “I assume it began before your mother died.” 

“It did,” you said, wincing at the reminder. He was so casual about the event, like it was merely something that happened. “I guess it was just… a few months before.” 

“How often do you bleed?”

“Not often,” you said. “Every few months. It’s okay, mom told me how to take care of it.”

“It’s not healthy for a girl like you to bleed,” he said, “it’s not healthy at all. It’s a filthy thing.” 

“But mom,” you began, having to clear your throat to speak properly. “Mom said it’s normal.”

“Your mother was wrong, and she should have told me,” dad snapped. “She never appreciated how frail you are, the sensitivity you must be shown. Your body can’t handle the stress of that muck. My sweet little girl…” He looked at you mournfully, dragging his eyes over you in a way that made your skin crawl. “I just don’t know anymore. Your body is changing, you’re changing.” 

“I’m not changing, daddy,” you said. “I’m the same as always.” 

“I saw you talking to a boy out there,” he said. 

“The butcher’s son?” you asked, confused again. And scared. The interaction had been polite and short, but you never knew how dad would interpret things. “That wasn’t anything, daddy. I forgot something and he was kind enough to take it to me, that’s all.” 

“No, that’s not it. You know it’s not, that’s why you look so guilty.” 

You opened your mouth to reply, but nothing came out. You were confused, and your head hurt, and this conversation was making you feel sick. 

“You’re old enough now that men notice you as a woman. They can’t help it,” dad said. “It’s your responsibility to shield their attention, otherwise you’ll give the wrong impression. Purity is the most vital trait in a young woman. Without it, you have no value.” 

“I’m sorry, daddy. I understand,” you said quickly, bowing your head, wishing very badly to climb out of your skin. 

“I only want to protect you, sweet girl,” he said. “Your mother… There was nothing I could do for her, but I will keep you clean and healthy. I’ll keep you pure, so you never go through what she did. The hysteria, the madness… No, not you. I’ll keep you safe.”

You nodded. “Thank you, daddy.” 

For a minute, a long, long minute, he merely looked at you, and you couldn’t look at him, preferring to stare at the floor. Finally, he broke the silence. 

“Come here.”

You braced yourself and stood up to circle his desk, knowing what he wanted. He tilted his head and you pressed your lips to his cheek.

“I love you, daddy,” you told him, just like always. 

He caught your hand, squeezing it to the point of pain. His eyes were bloodshot but sharp, and he stank miserably of alcohol. “And you know that I love you. Everything I do, I do because of how much I love you. That’s why I worry so much. You’re my sweet little girl. My precious girl.” 

Your medical treatment changed after that. Things you could and couldn’t eat and in small portions, the medicines you had to take, the examinations to make sure you were healthy. He said it was for your health, but you only got sicker. Weaker. And dad drank more and more, his temper flaring at the slightest provocation because of the stress. 

After the funeral, you hadn’t seen Randall almost at all. Whatever fling you had was long dead. He hadn’t become a Marine after all, instead taking up his father’s business. Dad was the one who broke the news to you.

That’s how you ended up in one of Mom’s ill-fitting dresses sitting at a corner table with other guests invited only out of familial obligation.

Even nearing fifty years old, and looking older yet because of his affair with the bottle, the Major cut a fine figure in his Marine uniform standing at the front of the room. People began to hush, anticipating that he was going to speak. Dad had that effect on people, a shroud of command. Just by seeing him, a person got the impression that what he said was important, that there was extra value in the words of a man like him.

“It would be remiss of me if I didn’t start by pointing out the obvious. I am not the man who should be standing up here,” he said. “This honor has been granted to me in the stead of my dear friend Harmon, as today it is the marriage of his son that we celebrate. He is not able to be here, that is true, but I can speak with authority on how proud he would be of his son. I know this because, although Randall is not my son by blood, he is a treasured member of my family. The pride I feel seeing him on such a joyous day as he takes this step forward in his life is immense.”  

He paused, giving that sentiment an appropriate amount of respectful silence. Randall’s mother—Harmon’s widow—dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. Dad gestured to the newlyweds, wearing a rare smile. 

“Melody, you are one of the finest young ladies I have ever met,” he continued. “When Randall first told me of your breathtaking beauty, I could hardly believe him—and I was right not to. You are even more beautiful than his descriptions led me to believe. There are few women deserving of Randall’s love, but I suspect there are even fewer men deserving of yours. Melody and Randall, congratulations to you both.”

Everybody raised their glasses, applauding Melody and Randall. The beautiful couple.

Dad went to Melody and offered his hand for the first dance, as he had practiced. She went gladly, taking his leathery old hand and standing as the first notes of the song began to play. There was a stiffness to dad’s movements from the life he had lived, an unsteadiness from drinking too much, but she made up for it with her fluid grace. When she moved, it was as if she were floating. You stared at Randall, wishing that he would look at you for just a single second, but he didn’t. It was silly to expect him to, considering the vision that was twirling around the dance floor with Dad. 

You turned towards the table, unable to keep watching. Other people were joining in to dance, but not you. Even if you had the inclination to do such a thing, you wouldn’t know how, and dad said it would be too tiring for you to try. 

It had been a bad week. He said it was the stress that was making you sick. Excitement and change, he said, were not good for your system. Only you knew the truth. It wasn’t stress of the mind or body, it was your broken heart. That was your most precious, and most painful secret. Dad knew nothing of your brief relationship with Randall, and you hoped he never would. It likely wouldn’t affect his opinion of Randall, but you knew what he would think of you.

Slut. Even after years and years, you remembered the way that Harper said that word. Dad called mom a slut a lot, and had even accused you of being one, but it was the dismissively casual voice of a child speaking about things she didn’t quite understand that remained in your mind.

A month or so later, you remembered getting a note, and you also remembered the one you sent in response. 

Northside hadn’t changed much, although it had been years since you sat on the old metal fire escape of the Slaughter. It was the only one of the buildings you dared to climb, since it was the easiest. 

‘Easy’ was a relative term though. You remembered how to navigate your way up safely, sure, but it exhausted you in a way it never had when you were young. Even just a few years ago, you had been able to get up here without a problem. 

Sometimes you could almost forget about your eye and frailty, sometimes you got to thinking about other things so intently that it faded into the background. But then you remembered that you were weak. That you could not do things that you used to do, or things that other people could do. That hurt. It hurt really, really bad. 

So you tried not to think about it. 

From your vantage point, you spotted a familiar figure round the corner, looking around for you.

“Hello there, stranger,” you called to him, waving. Randall looked up, squinting past the low-hanging sun.

“I don’t s’pose you’ll come down to me?” he shouted.

“Nope.” 

His shoulders slumped in exasperation before he approached the building, taking the first set of rusty stairs up to the second floor. From there was a ladder, and then more stairs.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” you said as he reached the top of the second set of stairs, unable to stop from smiling. Randall didn’t match it, too busy frowning, a line forming between his eyebrows. 

“I saw your message and got worried. Are you sure it’s okay for you to be out here climbing around?”

“I’m fine,” you said defensively. “I’ve been feeling better lately. Dad says it’s okay for me to be outside.” 

“Not here, though. He’d have a heart attack if you knew you were out here,” Randall said, frowning. “There’s been rumors that strange people have been hanging around.” 

“Dad said that’s not true,” you told him. “And I haven’t seen anybody, either. Have you?”

“Okay, fine,” Randall allowed. “But what would happen if you lost your footing and fell? You could seriously hurt yourself and nobody would know. What would your dad do then?” 

“You won’t tell him, will you? Please promise you won’t, Randall,” you begged. You couldn’t imagine what Dad would do if he knew you were going northside again, but you knew it would be bad.

Maybe you could imagine, you just didn’t want to. 

“I won’t,” Randall told you, “but you have to promise me you won’t come out here anymore. I mean it.”

“I promise I won’t. I just thought, when you said you wanted to talk to me, that it would be nice to come here. Like we used to.” 

Randall sighed, finally relaxing enough to sit down next to you, his feet dangling over the edge. 

“I’ve missed you,” you told him.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been so busy with the business and settling in with the new house and Mellie.” He hesitated, shooting you a concerned look. As much as you hated yourself for it, you couldn’t exactly blame him. You hadn’t taken the news of his engagement very well. But that was a while ago, and you were fine now. It was fine. 

“How is she?” you asked, forcing yourself to sound pleasant. “Is she adjusting to life in Barley?” 

“She is, I think,” Randall said, clearly relieved by your mild reaction. “She’s a lovely woman. You and your dad should come over for dinner some time, I think the two of you would get along very well.” 

“I’m sure Dad would love that,” you said. Realizing the bitterness in your tone, you quickly added, “I would too, of course. I just mean… You’ll probably have to ask him. You know how he is.” 

“I will,” Randall said, nodding.  

You couldn’t think of anything to say after that, so you didn’t. It was strange, you had spent the better part of the last month imagining this conversation, but now that it was happening it was completely lackluster. There must have been something he wanted to talk to you about, but you couldn’t tell from his expression. 

“How are you?” Randall finally asked. 

The question took you by surprise. It shouldn’t have. It was the only thing people ever asked anymore. You dragged your bandana down, making sure it was covering the scar. “I’m fine.”

“The Major seems like he’s doing much better.”

“Yeah, I think he is,” you said, glad for the easier topic. “Dad picked up a new project he’s working on with, um, with the trade routes and everything.”

“He mentioned it when he came by earlier. He asked for my help.”

“Oh?” 

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you, actually. I would like it if we could be friends, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable when I’m around.” 

“It’s not… discomfort,” you said softly. 

“Whatever it may be, I want to settle it. Not only for my sake, but for yours.” 

“I love you,” you told him, unable to meet his eye, looking down at the ground instead. 

Randall stiffened up, you could feel it. “You can’t say things like that. I’m married.” 

“I know,” you said, swallowing the lump in your throat. “I know that. Just… May I ask you something?” You looked up at him, seeing his uncertain frown, his awkward posture.

“If you feel like you need to.” 

“Did any of it mean anything to you?” you asked softly. “If what happened with my mom and my-my eye, if that hadn’t happened, would you love me still? Would we—would you and me be together now?”

“No,” Randall said.  

Even though it was the answer you expected, and maybe even the kindest answer given the circumstances, the single word was a knife into your heart. The pain of it struck you so profoundly that it took the air right out of your lungs. You nodded, your throat too swollen to even attempt speaking. 

“I would like to make it clear that nothing that happened has anything to do with my feelings towards you,” Randall quickly explained. “I do love you, just not in the way you wish I would. You and the Major have been like family to me. I would do anything to protect you, and to see that you live a happy life.”

“You don’t have to explain anything. It’s okay,” you whispered, talking softly so your voice didn’t crack, forcing an agonizing smile to try and smooth things over. You didn’t know if it was worse to see his pity or his guilt. “It was a stupid question.”

“There’s somebody out there for you,” Randall said. “Somebody who can love you the way you deserve to be loved, who can give you so much more than I ever could.” 

You nodded, looking down at the ground so far below. “Yeah, maybe.” You cleared your throat, pulling your coat closer around you like an empty hug. “I’m not… I don’t want to make anything difficult with my dad or Mellie. I’m sorry you thought I might.” 

“Are you okay?” he asked, always so concerned. 

“Of course,” you said, forcing another painful smile. You’d rather be chewing glass, but you hated to think that you were making things more difficult for him than they needed to be.

Randall nodded. “We should head back. I need to get home to help Mellie with dinner, and the Major will get nervous if you’re out too late.” 

“Not yet,” you said. “I’m still a little worn out from the climb up. You can leave, I’ll be fine.” 

“I’ll stay with you.” 

“I just need a minute. I’m sorry,” you said, focusing on steadying your breathing. “When I was little, I could climb these buildings and run around like it was nothing.”

“I remember that.” 

“It’s strange to think about. I can’t imagine what it was like to have that much energy. Even on my best days I’m so—so tired. Everything is exhausting, no matter how much I rest, or what medicine he gives me. And sometimes it’s… it’s more than I can take.” 

“Have you told the Major about this?”

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head and smiling. “He worries enough already, I don’t want him to think that I’m…” Insane. Sick. Weak. “I’ll be fine. I’m sorry for saying anything. It will all be okay.” You sniffled, wiping your nose and fixing your bandana. Your body was still weary from the climb, but you didn’t want to be here with Randall anymore, so you stood up and brushed off your butt. “Okay, I’m ready to go.”  

13 Days Earlier

Your body hurt, covered in bruises and scrapes, and if you thought about the attack too hard you felt fuzzy and vague inside, but when Buggy let you lay your head on his warm chest, you didn’t feel as bad. 

He saved you. Every time you started to feel too bad, you thought about that.

“Why were you out there yourself anyway?” Buggy asked, absently tracing patterns on your back. 

“I was asking where you were so I could meet up with you, like you said,” you told him. “And they said you were at the Cove and then I asked for directions and… The guy said it was easy to find, that there was no way I could get lost.” 

“Who said that?” Buggy asked. 

“I don’t know his name, he heard where I was going and gave me directions and…” You frowned, realizing your mistake. 

“I swear, the jokes write themselves with you,” Buggy said. “I wanna say I can’t believe you fell for that, but it’s not surprising. The only thing that’s surprising here is how you managed to live as long as you have.” 

You sat up so you could look at him. “How did you find me?” 

“I got pissed that you were taking so long so I went out looking for my missing midget. Then I heard a scream and I knew. There’s only one girl in Lafitte who could make such a god awful sound.” 

You frowned at him. 

“Seriously, I’m shocked that their ears weren’t bleeding when I got there.” 

“You’re mean,” you said, dropping your head back onto his chest as it shook with laughter. 

“I saved you, didn’t I?” he asked testily.

You sighed. “Yes. Thank you, Captain Buggy,” you said, raising your head enough to kiss his chest before laying your cheek back down. That seemed to placate him, his fingers returning to tracing aimless patterns on your back. 

“I’m surprised pops was ballsy enough to send thugs like that,” Buggy said.  

“I don’t think it was him,” you said. “Those guys… I really think they were going to kill me. They mentioned somebody else, but Dad… Dad wouldn’t want somebody else to kill me.” 

“Clearly, they were trying to bait me out so he could collect my bounty.” 

“Maybe,” you allowed, “It’s just that, they really seemed surprised that you were there.”

“Why would anybody want to hurt you if not to get to me?” 

There seemed to be several answers to that, none of them that you much liked, but his tone of voice made you think that it was better not to argue with Buggy. 

“You’re right, Captain Buggy,” you told him, holding onto him a little tighter, affection and gratitude and relief swelling in your chest. 

“Of course I am. Trust me, babydoll,” Buggy said. “I know exactly how he thinks.”  

You remembered the dress you wore. It was heavy and black and unappealing. You wore it because being a shapeless lump was better than risking Dad’s disgust, or inviting any amount of attention. And yet he still looked at you with scorn curling his lip, commenting on how unfeminine it was. You told him that nothing else fit you anymore, which only made him unhappier. 

You remembered the door opening, and the woman who stood behind it. Melody was a tall woman. Not tall comparatively—everybody was tall compared to you—but tall. Rather than seeming bulky, her height accentuated the elegance of her lithe limbs and slender build. And she was beautiful. On her wedding day, she had been radiant. Now she merely glowed, but even that was entrancing. 

She invited you inside warmly, giving Dad a hug and kiss and accepting the pan of rolls you made for dinner to take to the kitchen. Randall came out to greet you both, inviting you into the sitting room for drinks. Dad had a bottle of whiskey for the occasion, and you poured them all a glass. You weren’t allowed to drink on account of your health. 

“You have a lovely home,” Dad told Melody. “Do you think your husband will lend you out for an afternoon so you can help fix up mine? It’s been sorely lacking a feminine touch.” 

Melody had the grace to laugh off the comment while giving you an apologetic look, shrugging off the praise. “I can't take all the credit, Randy’s mother has been a great help.”

“Yes, she has,” Randall agreed. “You know, I heard all these horror stories about the wives and mother-in-law’s not getting along, but the two of them are practically inseparable.” 

“I’m the luckiest woman in the world,” Melody said. “Somehow, I found the perfect husband and another mother.”

“Do you think you could spare one?” you asked, wanting to make a joke to establish your existence. But the comment came out off-beat and awkward, too sharp to be funny. Everybody looked at you. 

Dad was the first to think of a response to break the awkward tension, forcing out a laugh. “You’ll have to forgive her manners, we don’t go out very often.”

The couple also forced laughs and Dad gave you a look. A very stern, very uncomfortable look. 

You didn’t say anything after that, only faintly listening as they spoke and joked and enjoyed the company. You were enthralled by the ring on Melody’s beautiful, manicured finger. It sparkled and flashed and winked with every gesture. Her lipstick left a pretty pink imprint on the rim of the glass. Everything about her was so softly and viscerally womanly. 

Eventually, she declared that dinner was ready and you were ushered into the dining room. 

“Oh my, this is wonderful,” Dad said as he sat down. “Are you sure you're not intending to host a king?”

“Oh, you flatter me,” Melody said. 

“Mellie is too humble to brag,” Randall said, “so I'll do it for her. She went to a fancy finishing school in the city before we met. You won't find a finer hostess in all of the East Blue.

“Randall, how in the world did you manage to find this woman?” Dad asked. “You’ll have to invest in a good beating stick to keep the men away from her. Hell, I'm half tempted myself. Perhaps she could teach this daughter of mine some proper manners.”

“Come now, Major. You’ve done a remarkable job. She's a far cry from that scrawny little scamp who was always scurrying around northside.”

Did he mean that to be funny? You couldn’t tell if it was a joke or a barbed insult, and you weren’t sure which intention hurt worse. Dad laughed at it, but you felt something inside of you wither away. 

“I’ll get our supper,” Melody said.

“Would you like help?” you asked, desperate to escape the room.

“If you would be so kind.”

You followed her into the kitchen, which was as warm and inviting as the rest of the house. Perfect. Everything was perfect. 

“I just need to prepare the plates,” Melody said, bringing a tray of steaming food to the counter. “Randy said that the Major likes fish, so I made a seafood casserole. I hope that’s alright with you.”

“I won’t be eating,” you told her. “I’m… Because of my health, I can only eat some things.” Her smile froze in place, awkwardly stuck there as she tried to think of something to say to that. “It smells delicious,” you said, hoping to smooth things over.  

“Thank you, do you mind preparing the plates while I get the peas?” 

“Not at all,” you said, picking up the spatula. The casserole steamed enticingly as you began cutting into it, the scent of creamy seafood washing the kitchen. “What’s a finishing school?” you asked to distract yourself, setting evenly shaped squares on each plate.

“A school that teaches etiquette and manners and such,” Melody told you, setting the bowl of peas on the counter. She frowned. “It seems like a bit of a waste now that I live in a tiny little town like this.” There was a distinct hint of disdain in her voice, a sharp turn from the cheery tone of before. 

“Do you want to live somewhere else?” you asked, setting a roll on each plate and then finishing it with a hearty scoop of peas. 

“Hopefully. Randall might be convinced to move after his mom passes,” she said casually, oddly cold about a woman she called a second mother. “I don’t want to raise children here.” 

“Oh,” you said. As painful as it was to see him around, the idea of Randall completely leaving Barley hurt worse. 

“I’m sure you’ll understand when you’re older,” Melody said, picking up two of the plates. 

“I’m sure I will,” you agreed passively, taking the third. You wondered if she knew you were the same age, or if she even suspected that you had once been so close with her Randy. 

“It smells divine,” Randall said as the two of you reentered the dining room. She set her plate and Randall’s and you set Dad’s. 

“I hope you like it,” Melody said as you took your chairs. “I tried a new recipe and I may have misread the numbers. I swear, I'm half blind sometimes.” She froze, looking at your covered left eye. “Ah, I didn't mean-”

“It's alright, my dear,” Dad said. “She doesn't mind.”

You smiled, nodding in polite agreement, and then you stared at the table while they ate, thinking about the purpose of going to a dinner where you couldn’t eat and nobody wanted you to talk. You understood why Dad limited your diet to keep you healthy, but not why he was so eager to involve Melody in the conversation. It wasn’t adult conversation, it was fluff. Nothing stories and overly jovial laughter. 

So what was it? Why wasn’t he offended by the way her dress hugged her curves, or the way she flirted with Randall, or her drinking liquor or eating. She even swore once, covering her mouth and apologizing demurely after the fact, and he didn’t look even slightly displeased. He called her charming and beautiful. 

Why?

When they were done eating, you were eager to get out of the room. Nobody wanted you there anyway. 

“I'll take the dishes,” you said, standing up.

“Let me help,” Melody told you.

“Nonsense,” Dad said. You could hear the slur of intoxication in his voice, making it louder, brassy. “She's glad to repay you for this fine meal. Besides, surely you wouldn't deprive an old man of such enchanting company. Genuine ladies are hard to find these days.” 

You took the plates to the kitchen and stood there, listening to them talk and laugh. Nobody minded that you weren’t there, you doubted they noticed. Choices were rarely ever made as a result of one event or feeling, you often felt as if you didn’t make choices at all, but the cold, hollow way loneliness gnawed at your heart as you stood alone in that kitchen was undoubtedly one of the many chained dominoes that led to finding yourself tied up in the dark in Captain Buggy’s cabin, swimming in a drugged stupor of sentimentality and self pity. 

The next domino of significance fell while you were at the docks. There were two reactions you usually got. Either people were hyper aware of your presence and avoided you at all costs, or you were utterly invisible. On the docks of Barley, you were invisible. Since dad was there so often, you became a familiar fixture, and over time you blended into the scenery. The Major’s poor little daughter. Or, less charitably, his one-eyed freak of a girl. 

You were not spying on the sailors, or eavesdropping. You were nearby, and you happened to hear their conversation. Sometimes you did that. You liked hearing about the world outside of Barley. 

“It was a weird Jolly Roger though,” one of the men was saying.  

“All pirates are weird,” the other countered, obviously bored with the conversation.

“No, this one was really… Here, let me show you.”

You peeked over your shoulder to see what he meant. He was sketching it out on a napkin. 

“Yeah, wow, a skull,” his companion said sarcastically.

“No, look, it had a big red nose. Like this.” 

“What is that, like a clown?” 

“Guess so, I didn’t get a real good look at it in the mist. But it was close. I’ve heard all sortsa weird stories about pirates in this area, and I’ve seen quite a few ships that shouldn’t be there, but you never hear about raids or nothing.” 

“Ah, that’s all bunk. They’ve been saying we got pirates hanging northside for years and I’ve never seen any of ‘em.” 

Feeling something very hot and anxious bubble up in your chest, you stood up to leave. And, just by happenstance, you glanced at the picture of the ‘weird Jolly Roger’ as you passed by.

And then you went out into the blinding daylight with some giddy feeling that you knew something they didn’t. It wasn’t just that the Jolly Roger was weird, but that the captain who flew that flag was a freak. That’s what Dad called Buggy. The Clown. A freak.

The risk of breaking into Dad’s safe was very, very high. He didn’t know that you knew how to do it, and you hoped that he never would. He kept lots of boring things in there, but it was also the only place you could look at pictures of Mom. Maybe they were too painful to be left out otherwise. He kept something else in there though, which was files of pirates. Retired or not, Dad hated pirates. 

You found the wanted poster with a relative amount of ease, stealing it and folding it into the waistband of your leggings, relocking the safe and setting the security so he wouldn’t know you got into it. 

That night, you looked at the wanted poster underneath your blanket and you made a list. A mental list, you didn’t really like to write anymore. Pros and cons. 

Pros:

The pirate Buggy’s wanted poster. Dad said he was a clown—Buggy the freak. That’s what dad called him. A freak. His didn’t look as scary as other pirate wanted posters you had seen, he looked younger too. Maybe a little scary. You had to fold the paper to avoid looking him in the eye. 

People didn’t mess with pirates. Marines did, but that was different. Regular people, the people who lived in Barley, would never treat a pirate like they treated you. Pirates got to talk in all conversations, even if they weren’t wanted. Who was going to stop them?

It was your best chance at getting out of Barley, at getting away from dad and Randall and the cold, awful house. If Randall was leaving soon anyway, what was the point of staying? And you had no delusions about being able to run away by yourself. You wouldn’t know how, you didn’t even know how to book passage on a ship out. And then where would you go? Where would you live? What would you do to get money? 

Cons:

The chances of the Buggy Pirates actually being nearby was incredibly low. You could go northside after dad left and check, but, really, what were the odds? Even entertaining the possibility was dangerous, fanciful thinking.

You were too weak to be a pirate, too frail. Too sickly. You refused to think you were crazy, you couldn’t believe that, but dad said you were, and maybe you wouldn’t know if you were crazy.  

Captain Buggy probably wouldn’t take on a crew member who had no skills to speak of, no talent or experience other than maintaining a household. Not unless you could think of some really good reasons.

Dad would be alone. Nobody would take care of him when he came home drunk, or make his food, or clean up the house. Nobody would fix his clothes or shave his beard or love him when he missed Mom. 

Oddly, out of all the problems you thought of that night, you didn’t think that one of them would be the simple truth that Dad would never, ever let you go. You didn’t think about the time and effort he put into your medical treatments, or the way he kept you cosseted up in the house. You didn’t think about how protective he was, how combative he got whenever you tried to be independent. Now, with a bit of space from the situation, you could recognize those things as odd. But, that night, you were only worried for him.

1 Day Earlier

There had been a fight. A mercenary sniffing around looking for a one-eyed hostage. Although you had your doubts about Dad sending the attackers from the other night, that man definitely was someone Dad sent. Ivo said it was your fault, that you were bringing all of this misfortune on them, that you were cursed from the beginning. 

Buggy said you shouldn’t worry about it. He laughed it off. 

But you couldn’t. 

So you snuck away during dinner. It was a plan you had come up with laying wide awake while Buggy slept soundly next to you. You worried. You really, really worried. There wasn’t much you could do for him, no way to repay the debt you owed him, but maybe you could help. Maybe you could do something useful, something only you could do. Lafitte was as shady as they came, but it still had law enforcement, and you knew they had a Den Den Mushi that could contact Marine lines. After you slipped them a little bribe, of course. 

The guy seemed pretty amused by the whole thing. People in Lafitte weren’t really the types that called Marines. He left his office for you, but the door hung open. You wouldn’t have expected privacy anyway. It didn’t matter.

Taking a deep breath, you dialed the number and waited. As soon as you heard it connect, your posture straightened out with a zip of electricity, your heart thundering hard in your chest. 

“Daddy?” you asked. “It’s me.” He didn’t say anything at first, and you wondered if the line was dead somehow, or maybe the number was different and it wasn’t him. “Hello?” you asked, confused and nervous that this had all been for nothing. 

“Is it really you?” he asked. His voice, even like this, was enough to make your heart ache. The feeling ran counter to your nerves, something painful and mushy and filled with longing. You missed him. 

“Yes, daddy. It’s me.” 

“Is he there? The pirate—that clown. Is he with you?”

“No, it’s just me. I wanted to talk to you. I…” You weren’t sure what to say. Tears burned in your eye, the conflict of love and fear choking you. It wasn’t the first time you regretted running away, but right then the feeling was more intense than any you had ever felt. It hurt. Physically, it hurt you. “I miss you, daddy.”   

“Does he know where you are? Are you safe?” he asked. “If you can, hide. I’ll have men there to rescue you as soon as possible and then I’ll get you home. I’ll murder that bastard for what he’s done. I need you to tell me everything.”

“No, that’s not why I called,” you told him, shaking your head. Nausea swam unsteadily in your stomach. Your hands shook violently enough that holding the mouthpiece took both of them. “I wanted to tell you that I��m safe, I’m fine. I-I love you, daddy. So you don’t—you don’t need to look for me anymore.” 

There was a long, long moment of heavy silence.

“Did he tell you to say this? What does he want?” 

“Captain Buggy doesn't know I’m calling you, but I need you to know that you don’t have to look for me anymore,” you said. “Please. I just want to… Please stop looking for me. I know you think I’m sick, but I’m-I’m not. I’m fine, I’m happy.”

“Happy?” he repeated. His tone of voice shot ice water all the way down into your gut, every single alarm bell in your head ringing at full volume. A cold sweat broke out on the back of your neck and you looked around, anticipating violence even though you knew he wasn’t actually there.

“He hired me,” you said. “I’m on his crew and-”

“A pirate crew.” 

“They’re my-my friends,” you explained, shaking your head. “And Captain Buggy is… He’s not like what you think.”

“He’s a pirate. An egotistical overgrown child with delusions of grandeur. He’s exactly what I think. Whatever he told you, whatever promises he’s made to you, they’re a lie,” Dad said, his voice hard. “He’s using you. He’s taking advantage of your weak mind. Once he’s done enjoying and exploiting the fruits of my labor, he’ll throw you away without a second thought. I imagine he’ll try to ransom you back to me, or perhaps sell you off to the highest bidder. All you mean to him is money and a warm body.”

“No,” you said, shaking your head fast. “No, that’s… No.”

“What else do you think would make you worthy of his attention? I have tried to mold you into a good, useful girl, but you’re sickly and you’re weak. You’re not smart or capable or beautiful. You’re practically a child. You need to be taken care of and given strict direction. The only reason a man would want a girl like you is because you’re easy and because you’re my daughter, don’t you understand? That’s why I’ve tried so hard to protect you. I never should have trusted you to be left on your own.” He sighed. “Help me arrest them and I will do what I can to protect you.”

“What?”

“Your Captain Buggy will be caught, and I’d wager it will happen soon. Give me information about him, and I will ask that you’re spared execution and released into my custody for treatment.” 

“I can’t do that,” you whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you want to come home?” 

You blinked out a single tear, staring hard at the desk. “A little,” you admitted weakly. “But I… I can’t. I made a promise. I’m sorry, daddy.” 

“My sweet girl, you’re not capable of surviving out there without me. You know that you’re sick, you know that you need me. This is the only chance you will have to beg for my forgiveness and help. Give me a reason to speak on your behalf. I’m ordering you to, as your father.” 

Your stomach turned painfully. “Daddy, I know that I’m… I don’t want you to be mad at me, really. I never wanted that. I love you. But I made a promise.” 

“When that man is caught and tried, you will be prosecuted right along with him. Has he told you of his crimes? He is a killer and a thief.” 

“I know.” 

“He killed Randall.” 

You froze, your heart stopping. For a moment, you could smell the blood and the old wreckage of the crumbling building. You could hear the way he screamed, the sickening sound of the blade getting caught in his neck.  

“I know,” you said again, barely audible. “Daddy, I’m begging you to stop trying to find me. Please. I love you, I will love you forever and ever, but I can’t live like that again.”

His facade broke with a noise that barely translated, a growl like sound. You flinched hard, whimpering. 

“After everything I did to keep you clean and pure, you turned out just like her,” Dad said, almost like he was ranting to himself. “Perhaps it was inevitable after all. You still belong to me. No matter what you have allowed that man to do to you, he cannot have you. I will find you, no matter what. You are mine.” 

With those words hanging like the final, solemn condemnation of an executioner, the line went dead. 

Slowly, so slowly, you hung up the mouthpiece. 

The man who let you use his Den Den Mushi seemed significantly less amused by you after having heard the interaction. You didn’t know what he might have taken from that conversation. You weren’t sure what you took from it. Disgust? Dread? Fear? Despair? You left the office with a brick of anxiety in your gut, the slow, sinking realization of what you had done setting in. It was all true. Dad was looking for you. He would find you. Calling him like that told him exactly where you were.

The sun was setting on Lafitte, you needed to hurry back to Captain Buggy. You had no idea what you were going to tell him. Overcome with sour nausea at the thought, you stumbled into an alleyway to violently dry heave, gagging on the sour bile that you squeezed out of your empty stomach. 

“There you are,” somebody said. You stiffened, turning fast with fresh terror making your heart race. It was not the kidnapping mercenary or Marine you feared, but a familiar round, red face. 

“Newt,” you said, relieved. 

“Hey there,” he greeted you awkwardly. “The Captain wants you back on the ship.” 

“Right,” you said, nodding and wiping your sweaty palms on your thighs, trying to hide the obvious evidence of your guilt. “Lead the way.” 

He frowned. “Yeah. I’m real sorry about this.” 

The last thing you were aware of was a sharp sense of betrayal, and then the cloying scent of some powdery mist Newt sprayed in front of your face.

The rest of it, sneaking northside with the vague idea that you were going to join the circus and be a pirate, converged with the last time you woke up dazed and confused and tied up. 

And just like last time, Captain Buggy was the one to pull you out of the stupor. He opened the door and flicked the light on, blinding you. 

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” he called, shutting the door behind him. He grabbed one of the chairs from the table that was pushed aside, swinging it around so he could sit on it the wrong way with his arms crossed over the back. “Sorry about the,” he gestured around. “I was hoping to get a cage up here, but it was a bit of a rush job. Maybe another time.”  

“Captain Buggy, what’s going on?” you asked, the words coming out mushy and heavy.  The light was too loud, too violent. Your head ached with each agonizing pound of your heart. You weren’t entirely sure this was real. Maybe it was another memory, maybe you were still lost. Maybe nothing ever was real because you felt awfully disconnected and confused. “Please untie me.”

“Only if you’re good,” Buggy said. “We need to have a little talk first. You’ve been a naughty girl.”

“You… you drugged me.”

He shrugged glibly. “Technically, that was Newt.” Oh, right. You remembered that part.

“Did he tie me up?” 

“Oh no, that was me. Couldn’t risk letting you make any more stupid decisions. Although,” he leaned forward to speak conspiratorially, “between you and me, it’s hotter than I thought it would be. If I weren’t so pissed right now things would be going very differently.” 

“What?” you asked. 

“Exactly, I’m glad you asked, babydoll. Because of your little stunt, we had to leave Lafitte early.”

Stunt. That one took you a moment, but the grief and despair was quick to rush back in right alongside the fear and uncertainty. “No,” you muttered, shaking your head in denial of it. “I’m sorry, I-” 

“Do you know why your dad only told a few trusted mercenaries and Marines that his daughter had been kidnapped?” Buggy asked, cutting you off. “Because, unlike you, he’s not a moron. Plastering your name and face on missing posters would be an advertisement to all of his old enemies that he misplaced most of his most valuable assets. If the Surgeon really wanted to save you, he had to do it quietly.”

“You’re… It’s because I called him, right? I just wanted to ask him to stop looking for me,” you tried to explain, although you could hear how cheap that excuse sounded.

“Did you now?” Buggy asked, his voice dripping with condescension. “Well, dipshit, what you actually did was let him know that you left because you wanted to. Now daddy dearest doesn’t care one bit if his little girl gets roughed up, she’s used goods and he’s got a bigger prize in sight.”

“What prize?” 

“Me,” Buggy emphatically answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And you,” he pointed at you, “are nothin’ but bait.” 

You frowned, your mind lagging behind trying to keep up with what he was saying. The anesthetic still gunked up the insides of your head, made your body all heavy and uncoordinated. “I don’t… understand,” you told him. 

“The news is that the Surgeon’s beloved daughter had been kidnapped by the Buggy Pirates. I’ll give it to him, that was bold. He’s trying to get everybody else to do his job so he can come in during the third act and collect my bounty. I can see it now—” Buggy raised his hands as if to showcase a marquee. “Past his prime has-been Marine takes the stage for the final time to stop one of the most infamous pirates in all of the East Blue.” His hands dropped. “Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy. For him. Sure, we’ll have to premiere sooner than I would like, not great, but it’s gonna make waves, babydoll. All this is just free marketing.”  

“Is that…” 

“Is that what?” Buggy asked. 

“Is that why you're mad at me, captain?” you asked, hating the feeling of embarrassed, pained tears pricking the corner of your eye, making your chin wobble. 

“Oh no,” Buggy said. “I’m not mad at you for that, sweetheart. I mean, I’m a little mad, but I’m not exactly surprised that you would run off and call home. I’d even say it was convenient if you had waited a day or two. No, I’m worried about you—about your loyalty. I heard your conversation with pops and I’ve gotta say,” Buggy clicked his tongue in disapproval, “yikes.” 

“You were spying on me?” you asked. “How? Why?” 

“Because I’m not stupid. I knew I couldn’t trust that you’d be honest with me about your conversation with him, and now I see why. Seriously, I did not expect it to be that bad. Shit’s nauseating. I knew you were a little stunted—mentally and physically—but hearing it firsthand... Bleh. You know what you sounded like? Daddy’s little princess. There’s something weird going on there and since you were a virgin when I got you, I can only think that maybe you’re not nearly as dedicated to me as you keep saying you are. That’s what this is, right? You’re playing both sides, waiting to see who comes out on top?” 

“No, I’m loyal to you, Captain Buggy,” you said. 

He gave you a flat look. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I called him because… Because I thought it would make him stop. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, right. Because you didn’t believe me when I told you that I’d take care of you, right? That’s what you’re saying. But you trusted that daddy would do what you asked if you said it real sweet. Is that it?”

“I wanted to help,” you said, trying very hard not to cry. 

“You said you love him, was that supposed to be helpful too?” 

“No, that’s… He’s my dad, Captain Buggy.”

“You chose to come to me. You wanted to leave him.” 

“He’s still my dad.”  

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Buggy exclaimed, standing up and kicking the chair away. You yelped, curling in on yourself. “You know who takes care of you now?” He demanded loudly. “Captain Buggy.” 

“He’s the only family I have.”

“What,” Buggy asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not enough?” 

“No, that’s not-”

“If you think about it, I’m a way better dad to you than he ever was.”

“No, he…  it’s different, Captain Buggy,” you said, struggling to get the words out because you couldn’t fight the tears anymore.

“I feed you, clothe you, look after you. I keep you safe and I let you come every single day. What did he do? Beat you? Make you feel like shit?”

“Captain-”

“Why don’t you love me more than him?”

“Please-”

“What more could you possibly expect me to do!? I swear, you’re just like the rest of them. Ungrateful, miserable little—”

“Captain Buggy, please stop yelling!” you cried desperately. “I’m so-so sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, really, I’m-” Your words cut off with a broken sob. You couldn’t even wipe your eye or nose, having to hide your face against your knees to clean up some of the mess. “You know I only want you, you ha-aave to know I do. I would do ah-anything for you. I thought if I—if I could help you, then… I’m so so-” You couldn’t finish the apology, your words cracking over one another in your incoherent, blubbering haste to get them out.

He didn’t respond right away, leaving you to sob pathetically in the ensuing silence. Now that you were crying, it was like everything was flooding out. Every memory your brain saw fit to replay, every feeling of despair and sadness and misery and pain and loss and the acute ache of disappointing the only two people in your life who had ever really mattered, all of it gushed out all at once. 

“Aw, shit. Hey,” Buggy finally said, crouching down next to you. When you looked up at him, he pulled a face. He didn’t look angry though. “Eee—yikes, that’s… Okay, look. Let’s just take five, okay? Cool down a little bit. I didn’t mean that thing I said before about you being… You know. So, um, can you just… Not do this,” he gestured to your face, “anymore.” 

You sniffed, looking up in an attempt to stop the tears. “I’m sorry,” you said again, your voice breaking. 

“Yeah, I got that part. Okay, here, let’s…” Buggy flicked out his knife and sawed through the ropes around your wrists. You sniffled, trying to mop up your face as soon as you could use your hands. “Jeez,” he said, “that is a lot of snot.” 

That just made you sob more, you couldn’t stop yourself. 

“No, hey, I don’t even mind,” Buggy said quickly, clearly trying to placate you. “C’mere, you snotty lil brat.” He grabbed you, forcibly pulling you against his shoulder. Without any hesitation, you threw your arms around his neck, clinging to him. Buggy grunted, rocking back before stabilizing himself and awkwardly patting your head.

“Yeah,” he said. “There, there.” 

“I’m ss-oo, so sorry, Captain Buggy,” you said, your voice muffled by the way your face was squished against his chest. 

“I know,” Buggy said. “This really is a disgusting amount of—you’ve only got one eye that can actually cry, where is this all coming from?”  

He settled his arm around you like a hug. Even awkward and not at all comfortable, Buggy was holding you while you cried. When was the last time anyone did that? You couldn’t remember. Every other pair of arms you had sought refuge in had been cold or hard or unwelcoming, but Buggy wasn’t. He was warm and solid and scary and cranky and cruel and funny and handsome and he was all you had and-

“Captain Buggy, I love you,” you said. 

“Aw, babydoll,” Buggy cooed. “I know you do.” 

“No—oh.” You sniffled, wiping at your face as you pulled away to look at him. “I don’t mean kissing or holding hands love, it’s…” You grabbed at his hand, pulling it up and pressing it against your chest, above your heart. “I love you. Before I talked to him, I guess I still thought that Dad was… That some part of him would—would care about me, but…” You choked down another sob, hating how hard it was to get those words out. “The Surgeon is our enemy, that’s all.”

“Do you realize what that means?” Buggy asked. 

“I know,” you said, forcing yourself to harden against the soft part of your heart that shied away from that. “I know that. But I’m a pirate, and he’s a Marine.” You looked up to meet Buggy’s eyes. “And you are my captain, so… So whatever you think is best, Captain Buggy. I trust you.” 

[creabirds]

just binged the max/charles accidental mating fic and i am loving it. do you know when you'll next update it 👀

no, sorry :(

i will use this ask to go on a little author/fanfic writing rant please be warned (not particularly @ you anon)

i find myself kind of put under pressure by people demanding again and again i continue this series especially as i am currently in the midst of a different project that i've put a lot of thought and work into, much more than the quick pwp that is the abo series. i really appreciate how much this series is loved and obviously it is nice to see you guys still comment on it!!!! but i find it much more encouraging to see comments simply telling me youve enjoyed it instead of asking for more parts... obviously i would love to continue it and bring it to a somewhat satisfying conclusion. i am very much a completionist, so no i do not plan to abandon it, but it is getting kind of exhausting

i haven't said anything until now bc i feel kind of ungrateful or like it's unfair but it's been actually doing the opposite and turning me off from continuing to write this series bc it feels like i have to and like people don't care about the other stuff i've written or am currently writing

after all this is just something i do in my own time for fun, for free (!!!), that takes probably 20 times the amount of time to produce than it takes for you guys to read and i struggle finding time and motivation to write as is

a much more productive and encouraging way to inspire authors (i'll make a generalization here, obv everyone is different) to continue work on a project is to engage with it meaningfully!! give me ideas, things you want to see explored in future parts, things you especially loved about the existing ones, ask questions about things. be nice, be enthusiastic!!! fandom is an interactive space and it brings me so much joy to converse over fanwork if i get the sense that people truly appreciate it and want to talk to me about it rather than just demanding more more more

obviously it is fine to tell authors you would love to read the next part in a series, or a sequel, i do that too sometimes!! but there is something to be said for how you say it (again, not @ you specifically anon) and how you package it. it should be more of a side note, rather than the entire message, if that makes sense.

i can't fully pinpoint why it's been bothering me so much but i think this is the best way i can describe it and i really do hope you understand that this is not me complaining about people not complimenting my work in the correct way or whatever. truly, you can say anything you want, you can critique it, whatever, it's all fair game because i do choose to post it publicly online.

however, this is me kindly asking you not to do that, if anything because it is not having the intended effect lmao. so it's in your best interest if you want me to continue this series, maybe think about what i've said and try to understand where i'm coming from.

in general fandom and fanfic culture is moving into a very consumerist direction that i am not particularly enjoying and this is part of that discourse in a larger sense.

i'm just here to have fun and brainrot!!! so lets just do that together instead of pressuring people.

[astarlightmonbebe]

i'm only at the beginning of li tongguang's descent into obsession (eps 17-18), but already it's both hurting and hitting. hurting, because we know li tongguang's capabilities, and his level headedness, and the potential he has, that he seems to throw out due to this obsession. hitting, because when you think about it, the obsession storyline and characterization does make perfect sense. obsession like that is a double edged blade, which can turn from love to hate, childish belief and joy to embittered rage in a second.

on one hand, it's painful to watch ltg's childlike desperation when faced with ruyi again. we want to grit our teeth and think of him as idiotic, unable to take a hint. but the reality is that it's a completely normal response to be expected from him. i mean, it's a dream come true, to see the person you 'love' the most in the world to be whole in front of you. it's probably what he could only dream about, especially being the one to apparently find her bones and bury them.

on a deeper level, ltg's initial reaction is very much a manifestation of his inner child, almost peter pan-like in the 'child that never became an adult/grew up' way. by that i mean to say the desperate urge to please, the constant worrying, and the oscillation between hot and cold moods are all so indicative of someone who grew up in an insecure/unstable environment, usually with volatile or simply unavailable authority figures. from what we can gather, he had no father, his mother wasn't in his life ("she doesn't want him around, nor can she bear for him to be away, so that's why he's like that" per empress zhaojie's words to ruyi). the one authority figure that entered his life to offer some semblance of guidance was ruyi, and even though it's clear that she held care for him, she was also a twenty year old assassin used to training subordinates, not children. her mentorship style is clearly so different when you hold ltg and yang ying side by side, and we know from ruyi's own mouth that she doesn't consider herself to have taught ltg well, and wants to remedy that through/with yang ying (i'll probably make a whole different post comparing this and the affects of this after watching some more episodes lol - there are bullet points in the drafts). so even though ruyi was his authority figure, she was still an emotionally unavailable one who couldn't meet ltg on the level he probably needed at that time in his life, and which no one probably ever did. hence his up and down reaction and actions.

it intrigues me, too, because i think, in a very subtle way, ltg is very much a character foil to ruyi in that he reflects some of her worst attributes, or more accurately represents the sort of person she was, or at least acted like (yuan lu's comment about how ltg has ruyi's gaze was meaningful outside of the jealousy arc - to me at least). i saw someone make a really interesting comment on how ltg's devotion to ruyi parallels ruyi's own devotion to empress zhaojie, which i'll also probably comment on more later.

obviously, ltg's obsession stems from an issue much larger than ruyi herself - she just happens to be the unfortunate target of it. and, clearly, i know his descent into it will be ugly, if understandable. i understand ruyi wanting to leave that part of her life behind, but also - to think that maybe many of the issues faced in future eps could have been avoidable if she'd been upfront with li tongguang about her identity early on.

[melodiousmonsters]

I'm going to be honest I didn't do as much research on this as I probably should have and I may make my Reebros a bit more mechanically accurate in future illustrations. But it's done now and I made an oath to myself to not redo any monstiary pages until all the ones I can do are done. Also going to rewrite the two paragraphs in the image in the post because it looks good to me.

"Reebro (J. Mentacorpus) average around 4ft/1.2m tall with a roughly 2.5/.7m circumference, not including the mech suit of course as that’d vary the measurements too much.

The body of the Reebro is composed of an oversized brain, brain stem, and an approximately foot long jumble of nerves. They come in an array of different colors and patterns, each Reebro is unique. Though all of them have only two eyes, one mouth, blunt teeth, and of course their overall body plan.

They are in the Jellatinous family as they have no bones besides their teeth, and they are composed of a fatty jelly not dissimilar to the tissue of the brain.

To be able to do anything, Reebros fashion mechanical suits that are biomechanically integrated to their bodies by their nerves, allowing them to control the suit as if it was a part of them. Their mech suits consist of three main parts, the engine, base, and a form of locomotion. The base is what holds the body of the Reebro and connects their nerves to the mechanics of the suit. This is always right below the body as it's the most convenient for nerve connection.

The engine is what processes the Reebro's lifeforce into energy the suit runs off of. It's done by the largest nerve being connected to a small egg-sized chamber. As the shape of an egg is made to draw lifeforce from the things around it, the chamber will fill itself from the Reebro's energy. This pure energy can then be conducted through wires to do whatever the Reebro needs it to do.

The locomotive parts are the most diverse parts of a Reebro, they can be wheels, treads, or standard mechanical legs. Most often the mechanical legs are hydraulic as it’s the easiest to set up and get the resources for as they just need pistons, water, and tubes. Wheels are a bit more complicated as they require a motor so they are less common. Most often older, more technologically advanced Reebros have them.

Reebros are usually blunt with very little personality in their speech. They are very logically intelligent but not often emotionally or socially, making them come off as very annoying and cocky when they say how smart they are in their early age. Most of the time they learn not to be like that the hard way.

Their logical problem solving skills are very sought after and often a Reebro will be bombarded with questions and requests to assist in fixing or building all sorts of stuff.

Reebros like dry mineral rich environments as it allows for their machinery to function better and for them to get resources to make their machinery. They tend to at least frequent the weird “scrap deserts” in the pocket dimension, which are environments caused by the mech elements being highly present in an area. 

Reebro eggs need to be around a lot of minerals to hatch, most often done with a fancy metal casing that covers about half the egg. As hatchlings they have strong telepathic abilities that allow them to assemble a mech suit to be able to navigate the world. They lose these abilities after about a year. Sometimes the parents will assist in making their mech suits as well. A baby Reebro acts like a computer with very mild human traits. They run near solely off of logic and have a very hard time understanding things like emotions, other monsters, art & creativity, etc. Once they’re around ten or so they’ll start developing those skills if they are exposed to them enough.

The larger a Reebro gets the more machinery they can power, so their mech suit size is limited by their body size. They will eventually always be forced to change out their suits as their body will get too big to fit in their old one."

This is the first monster to not have any variants! If I feel like it I will make it so a monster doesn't have variants if I want to, also it's more fun that way as any Reebro imaginable rather than only three types existing.

[vixen525noms]

Defying Certain Death Part 20

Dual posted to my DeviantArt account, a non-sexual G/T vore story featuring adults along the lines of the lion and the thorn fable. There will be tons of hurt/comfort aspects, lots of safe vore. That is the primary focus in this.

Barrett is an adult giant standing 85ft tall and Hope is an adult human at 5ft 6. Barrett does not eat children at any point. 

Warnings: Fighting; Fatal Mention; Characters in Distress

Future and Previous: While this part has no fatalities, future parts include fatal vore and violence. Barrett, the giant, is not a good guy, so will be doing some occasional bad things.

Editor: @vore-scientist

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Since what happened with the thieves, Barrett did not like being away from camp for long. He didn’t like the idea of Hope being vulnerable or at risk, but taking care of her during her illness hadn’t let him hunt as frequently as usual. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but she also clearly didn’t like seeing when he ate humans, and he suspected she would react similarly to seeing him eat any other sort of small folk. But he needed food, and going hungry longer than usual meant he couldn’t afford to be picky. Which unfortunately meant leaving Hope at camp and hoping the smell of a syor living there would scare off most things. At least today had been a good hunt. A nice moose was caught, not a common find, and large enough to be rather filling. He paused on his walk back and his ears flicked as he heard an unfamiliar male voice. And he dropped his catch and charged forward. He flicked up the tertiary eyelid organ to see past the trees…something larger than Hope was at their camp. His feet moved with instinct before thoughts even formed. 

Another predator was in camp. Another predator was with his Hope.

“MINE!”

-----Earlier....-----

Hope was rather startled when a large naga, standing probably about 25 ft tall or a tad shorter, came through the trees. He had long curly hair that was so intensely black it was as if dipped in ink, but there were streaks of gray despite no other outward signs of great age.. From his vibrant blue coloration, and his thick build, he wasn't one of the native varieties. She wondered if his kind, like native nagas, had the potential to be dangerous predators. He very well could be, but if he was, he wasn't hunting her, instead he smiled warmly, “Hello there! I think I got a bit lost. Can you tell me where I am?”

Still, she was a bit wary. This could be a trick. And yet… How long had it been since she’d talked to someone? “I haven’t seen nagas your size in this area before. Too close to a syor settlement for them to thrive.”

The naga paused, considering, “Then I must be very far off track... May I sit here?” he asked as he gestured near where she sat on the shore of the lake.

 Hope nodded, “I don’t mind... but you may not want to stay long. There’s a syor in the area, and I doubt he would react well to you.”

The naga nodded in return, then curled up in a seated position near her before reassuring her and introducing himself, “That’s alright. I’m quite confident I can handle myself. I’ve studied quite a bit of magic. I’m Taevis by the way.”

The potential overconfidence didn't do much to assuage Hope’s concerns. But they had just started talking and it was going so well, and Barrett was probably still hunting decently far away. “I’m Hope. You say you studied magic but didn’t mention the college... Did you study somewhere else? Like I heard there’s places of study on the far continent... I hope you are right about being able to defend yourself from a syor. He will come back for me... so far doesn’t seem to intend to eat me, but that could probably change at any time... but he definitely isn’t going to let me run off. He left me here while he went to hunt, you can see the tent he uses right over there. If you want, I have a pretty good idea of the direction of the nearest syorian town. They can help you get your bearings there.”

Taevis listened attentively to her, frowning a bit at her ramblings. “If you want me to leave that badly, I can head off... but I was enjoying your company. I’ve been wandering lost for a while now.”

Hope’s eyes widened as she realized her rudeness and she shook her head vigorously, “Oh I definitely love the company. Since that syor has decided to... I don’t know... keep me? I haven’t had much chance to speak to people. Mostly just him, and that’s mostly me hoping every day that he doesn’t change his mind about keeping me alive. I just worry about your safety is all. If you are that confident you can defend yourself, I really do love having someone to talk to. I’ve missed it.”

Taevis’ face flushed slightly, “I don’t intend to scare, but I’m pretty confident I’m one of the most dangerous things around! I’d be far more worried about being lost than about the syor. But even if I’m dangerous, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m really glad to have run into someone so helpful to a stranger!”

 “I like to help people... but my desire to help others has gotten me in trouble a few times,” Hope chuckled nervously, “Like the fact these days I rarely get to see or talk to anyone. Last time he found a traveler, he just ate them. Can’t exactly have a conversation if the person immediately becomes food... And it’s not like I can have much conversation with the syor... I’m still not sure how long he’s going to keep me around before I end up like that traveler.” Hope shrugged and took a deep breath , “But nothing I can do about it, so at the very least I can be kind to the first person I’ve had a proper conversation with in... I’m not even sure how long anymore. Two months? Three?”

Taevis considered her words then smiled down at Hope, “You could always come with me. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go around eating travelers, at least. I have no real idea where I’m going at the moment, but it sounds better than staying here!”

Hope sighed even deeper and tried to laugh but it came out wrong, “That’s very kind of you, but I guarantee the syor won’t let me go. But until he comes back, if you want, I have plenty of food. He’s been taking everything the travelers carry, and the amount of food... it’ll go bad before I could ever eat it all. It’s in that cart over there. As for directions... following the lake shore that way will lead to a river. There’s a town just upstream,” she pointed in the direction of the town. 

This new revelation surprised Taevis, “He eats travelers and makes you use their stuff? That’s kind of fucked up! And it seems a proper comb hasn’t been in those supplies. How about I help you with your hair a bit, since you’ve helped me with my problem of being lost?”and he pulled a human sized comb from one of the pouches at his waist.

Now it was Hope’s turn to be surprised, and she nodded hesitantly. She tensed up when he put his hands around her to pick her up and set her on his coils, if he was hunting her she was now in his clutches. At least she knew Barrett would avenge her. Then her fear melted away as the comb went through her hair.  The strong but delicate hands held her secure and though the comb pulled a bit, it felt nice rather than painful. She didn't even flinch when he took out a knife to cut the dead ends. How long had it been since someone had been gentle with her?

Hope was so relaxed she didn't hear Taevis ask her about her life before ending up in her current situation. He had to repeat the question. Now she genuinely smiled, not a shred of discomfort left, “I had a beautiful farm... I actually came out this way to get some new...”

“MINE!”

The roar came as Barrett charged out of the trees.

The naga hissed and slithered back rapidly and held himself tall, knife in one hand, and with the other… Well he tried to put Hope behind him, to protect the vulnerable human. But she ran out and stood between the two monsters. 

Hope was determined to defuse the situation without bloodshed, and she knew Barrett’s first instinct would be to grab her, though she was worried that Taevis would attack as she was lifted up by the syor. Thankfully he didn’t. And more thankfully, Barrett, who was running on pure possessive instinct, didn't crack any ribs snatching her up. 

With Hope in hand Barrett’s eyes looked down upon the naga, taking its smaller size and making quick judgments as to how dangerous it may be. His predator calculations worked quickly to give him an answer. “Looks like I don’t need to hunt anymore…”

A deeper hiss, almost a growl, came from the naga, “Listen, syor. I did not come seeking a fight, but it will not go well if you press the issue.” 

Barrett growled lower, “You were messing with something that belongs to me. I know you could smell I have been here a while and she is mine. Besides, I still need a meal.”

“I recommend hunting elsewhere,” Taevis warned, eyes flashing.

Barrett smirked, confident as he extended his claws, “But I just found something large enough I won’t have to hunt for a few days… Why would I walk away from such a substantial meal?”

The naga exhaled a cloud of frosty mist, intending the elemental magic to be sufficient warning and make it clear to this syor that physical size won’t win this fight. A miscalculation on his part, the syor charged forward and slashed with his claws. The unexpected stupidity caught Taevis off guard and he felt pain as the claws made contact. Then the lightning Taevis had been preparing struck Barrett’s arm, making the syor jerk back as his skin burned and muscles seized with electricity and pain. 

Barrett hesitated to charge again, his predator brain re-calculating. While a large meal was good, getting Hope away from this other predator was top priority. It was time to leave, or convince the naga to leave. Cursing from the pain of the attack he spat at the naga, “What the fuck… nagas don’t do that… Just… get out of here. I’ll just eat the human.”

Taevis let out a very un-naga-like growl, “I was afraid you’d say that,” and lunged forward with another bolt of electricity. At the same time Barrett pulled a dagger from his waist, snarling. 

Barrett charged again, slashing the dagger at the naga’s face and cutting him across the cheek. This time he knew he lacked the element of surprise, and making contact with the knife wasn't his true goal. As Taevis moved away Barrett anticipated the direction and kicked at the naga’s serpent body, punting it into the lake. It landed with a satisfying splash and Barrett allowed himself a self congratulatory purr. Until the surface of the lake bulged, a hill as large as himself made of water rose up, and broke. 

Instead of a naga emerging from the water, a horned humanoid that was, to Barrett's acute dismay, well over a head taller than he was. Horns curved back on the head, bluish silver scales visible on the cheeks under the gash from the dagger. Decorative metal decorated the horns as well as earrings and even gold cuffs on the draconic wings spreading behind him. A long reptilian tail, adorned with those silver scales and fins on the end lashed back and forth creating waves taller than Hope in the water. True vicious talons on the hands made Barrett suddenly aware of his own less substantial retractable claws. A demidragon. Offspring or descended from true dragons, and no less dangerous than the full blooded sort.

The demidragon stepped out of the lake, clawed feet furrowing the damp ground, and Barrett struggled to not show apprehension as Taevis spread his wings to further emphasize his superior size. Barrett was determined to deny Taevis the satisfaction and showing any fear. And Barrett was afraid… but Hope was his and only his, so he tightened his grip on his blade, and held Hope to his chest. “Just leave! I won’t let you take her!” Focusing on his own abilities, Barrett decided to demonstrate the magic syor did have. He flung the dagger, using his natural magic to shoot it towards Taevis’ wing joint. But the demidragon, with an agonizingly casual motion, blocked it with an arm.

With his focus split between his dagger and his Hope, even his quick reflexes failed as Taevis quickly turned his thick tail, sweeping Barrett’s feet out from under him, followed by a horrible loud THUMP and CRACK as Barrett landed on his back. “Don’t you fucking touch Hope! I’ll cut your throat!” His voice broke with fear instead of aggression as he tried the knife again, flinging it wildly at Taevis. 

Having announced the second attack, Taevis was easily able to grab the dagger from mid-air. He ignored the blood dripping from his palm and electricity crackled through his hand, heating the knife white hot and deforming it in the shape of his grip.

Taevis let it drop as he stepped forward, placed a heavy clawed foot on Barrett's chest, knelt down, and got his talons around the wrist which held Hope. Barrett’s eyes narrowed and he growled, “I’ll bite your throat out! I won’t let you take her!” 

Taevis ignored him and spoke words that Barrett did not recognize, summoning gleaming magic that wrapped rapidly around the syor. Once the syor was thoroughly immobilized, Taevis growled, “You want to eat her. I’m not going to let that happen.” He pressed his talons into the soft underflesh of Barrett's wrist and with his other hand pried open Barretts fist. It wasn't that hard, the syor was not crushing the human; not that surprising since they like them alive and squirming after all. 

Barrett snarled at the demidragon, “Like I would actually eat the woman who saved my life!” 

That piqued Taevis’ interest and against his better judgment he let the syor continue to breathe and speak. 

“But saying that makes other syor back off so I thought it would work with other predators!” 

Taevis studied the syor’s expression, thinking. He wasn’t from this region, but had heard from travelers that syor were unusually honest, unless deceit was needed for extreme situations. Keeping a human was not an extreme situation.. Protecting kin, mates, and other giants that were close might qualify and thus force abnormally honest creature to lie… But he did not have enough experience with the species to be sure. 

“Hmm… Do not try to get loose from your bindings.” He moved to open his own hand that had taken Hope from the syor, holding her on upturned palm to try to make her feel less restrained, “Hope, is what he saying true? He threatened to rip my throat out… which was… unexpected.” He could see Hope was nervous with his larger size, so he further adjusted his hold and she relaxed a bit more. 

It still took a moment for her to find her voice, “I… did save his life. That’s what I meant by helping others ending badly… I was about to tell you before he showed up… and… he has said he’ll eat me to another syor who tried to grab me once… but I’ve never been sure if saving his life was enough that he wouldn’t change his mind about keeping me alive…” 

Barrett was surprised by the last part of what Hope said, “I was half starved after you spent weeks freeing me from that rockslide and I didn’t kill you then! Why would I kill you now when I’m not half starved to death?”

In an attempt to reassure Hope, Taevis cupped his hand slightly to provide a cage of talons between her and the syor. His eyes flashed as he glared at Barrett, “I was speaking to the young woman. I am not going to trust you until she corroborates your claims… Besides, can‘t hardly blame her with your kind’s reputation.”

To Taevis’ surprise, Hope peeked over his hand to look at Barrett, “Your kind is notorious for having no regard for human life, and the way you have been hunting travelers makes it clear that hasn’t changed!” her harsh expression turned to surprise as she heard her own torrent of words. She sighed, sitting down on Taevis’s palm as she considered what else her new… friend? captor? wanted to know, “I… I don’t know. I’ve been stuck with him this long and… I just don’t know. He acts sorta nice, for a syor I guess… but also won’t let me leave… It didn't exactly help matters when he tortured and ate my father right in front of me…”

Barrett’s ears twitched at the mention of her father, “I do not regret eating your father. When I brought him back because he smelled like you, the look of pure fear on your face at the sight of him made it clear what I had to do.”

“Should I give you two some privacy?” Taevis narrowed his eyes, “Or perhaps it is my having her safe from you that allows such a discussion…” His tone softened a bit, “If so can at least get more comfortable…?”

Barrett let out a deep hissing sigh, “Hope barely says a word to me these days. The last time she has said this much was when I was trapped under those rocks. I do not like these restraints and I do not like you touching what’s mine… But Hope is actually talking to me for once.”

Hope looked down briefly as she thought about the situation, then at the hand around her, then up at Taevis before looking back down, “Well… a demidragon is strong enough that if you did lose your temper, you couldn’t hurt me…” She turned her eyes to meet Taevis’s, “Please don’t leave me alone with him…” 

Taevis nodded, “Well then, Hope… if you are confident enough in my protection, would you mind if I released his restraints before I lose feeling in my knees? I won’t leave, and I won’t set you down until you are ready.” Hope took some time to consider and nodded. Taevis gestured and released the magic restraining Barrett however hee tensed in preparation as Barrett sat up.“I recommend sitting near the lake, the cool water will ease the electrical burns.”

Barrett hesitated, his instincts to care for his wounds at war with his aversion to moving even a few steps further away from Hope. Finally the pain won and he knelt by the water to soak his wrist.

 Hope expressed a bit of surprise, “You burned Barrett?”she glanced back at his tail again. 

Taevis only glanced briefly at hope, keeping focused on Barrett, “So that’s his name? And yes. While my tail may have the fins of the oceanic dragons, I’m a mix of silver and oceanic..” -

Hope nodded as she thought over that explanation, “That explains the lightning. I’ve met silver dragons and demidragons before. Even had some visit my farm on occasion.” 

Taevis smiled slightly, “I heard some of my kind live around this continent, but I actually traveled here from quite far away, This is my first encounter with one of his kind” meaning syor, “I’d heard stories of these ‘evil giants that treat smaller races as food’. I thought it might be an exaggeration, but he has proven me wrong.” He turned to look at Barrett with a slight glare, “I now suspect you could tell I wasn’t threatening her and you were using ‘protection’ as an excuse to make a meal of me before you knew what I am. With that kind of behavior, I don’t blame her for fearing a change of heart!”

Barrett gave a snort, “You aren’t her. She’s special. She spent weeks saving my life, so I intend to protect her. You were a potential meal. Good meat ain’t always easy to find.”

Taevis thought for a moment as he calmed, “While I understand protecting those you care about, and getting a nice treat as a bonus… that doesn’t seem to be what you were actually doing. It is curious that you would act as if it was…I heard syor aren’t big on deception, and the only one you would be deceiving is Hope… meaning.”

Taevis waited to see if Barrett would continue and when he didn’t, “Meaning… you do care about not upsetting her enough to go against your normal straightforward nature.”

Barrett grumbled under his breath a bit. Clearly unhappy with the implication he was being dishonest in some way, but also not outright denying it. It was true that syor tended to be true to their word and not all that inclined to lie. Occasionally lying to give false hope to humans they caught, that he had done. But that’s not what Taevis was talking about. Protecting a human’s feelings was simply not done. “Still not happy about you touching Hope…”

Hope frowned, “I don’t see what the big deal is, he’s been very kind and friendly.”

Taevis rolled his eyes, “and Yet at you do seem happy that she is more open to talking. But perhaps you will be in a more amicable mood after having some food.”

Barrett gave a slight snort, “Well the bull moose I killed before I saw you is enough for me and Hope.”

This, for reasons Barrett couldn’t understand but Taevis could, angered Hope, “Wait, you were successful at hunting, but you still tried to eat a naga?” 

Barrett shrugged, “Bull moose is a meal for one day, naga is a meal for several.” 

Taevis glanced around the campsite, “I don’t see anything for you to prepare the moose… Where is your cooking fire?” 

Barrett rolled his eyes, “Why would I waste time cooking it? The only reason I didn’t eat it immediately was to see if Hope wanted some.”

Taevis pinched his nose, “You are saying that all these piles of supplies and you don’t even prepare proper meals for yourself? No wonder you are so scrawny and hungry.” He surveyed the piles, “Hope will never use the supplies before they go bad, so why not combine the moose with some veggies that are about to go bad and make something that will last both of us a couple days?”

Barrett was rather confused at the suggestion, “Mix the meat… with something else? You mean like the syorian do? I’m not a wimpy syorian. I don’t do that. I hunt like any proper syor.”

The look of astonishment on Taevis’ face made Barrett uncomfortable, and Taevis’ response didn’t help “You.. aren’t familiar with cooking…” he said with concern before grinning with all his teeth. A mouth full of vicious fangs. “Well I happen to be a very good cook. It will keep it from going bad and be much more filling.”

Hope piped up, “There’s a ton of metal cookware in the carts! If we combine all the metal we have we can make a great pan to cook with! Oh I would love to share some recipes! I wonder if they would turn out as good when done at such a large size…”

Barrett was taken aback by Hope’s boldness and excitement about the prospect of cooking yet he was still hesitant. He wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not, “You want me to do what syorians do with food…”

Taevis arched a brow as he looked at Barrett again, “Like demidragons do. Like many scaly dragons do. You aren’t saying your kind are better than dragons, are you?” he flashed his teeth again. 

Barrett frowned and looked away, not sure how to respond. Taevis stood. “I’m going to go find that dead moose. You keep soaking that hand. Hope seems to want to stay by me at the moment, but we will remain close, I can smell it is just beyond those trees.”

Barrett gave a slight snarl, “I don’t like you having my Hope… But she…” his words faltered so instead he growled, “Try to steal her and demidragon or not I will hunt you down.”

With a shrug of his wings Taevis turned to walk back into the woods, and hoped to have a private conversation with Hope before their return to the clearing, assuming the syor stayed by the lake to soak the burn. 

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[sniffanimal]

I think something the self diagnosis discourse has missed the forest for the trees. There's something I've basically never seen come up in posts discussing the pros and cons of self diagnosis that I think is actually rather integral to the whole thing! That being: labeling your lived experience matters far less than your lived experience.

What I mean by this, is that labels like ADHD, Autistic, BPD, Depression, etc can feel comfortable, and can *help* you find resources or a community. But at the end of the day, the thing that actually matters is if that resource or community actually helps you or not.

And, disclaiming right up front, this isn't a post about if you should or shouldn't self diagnose yourself. I'm not a psychologist! I have no clue what's going on with you. And I know there's barriers for many reasons on if someone can or desires to seek a professional diagnosis. That's not the point here. The point here is what do you do once you've got that diagnosis (self-determined or otherwise).

More nuance+resources+sources on some stuff below the cut.

I'm going to talk mostly from the point of view about ADHD/Autistic experiences since I think that broadly covers a larger part of the whole thing that this is about, and is also included in my lived experience, as well as the people I support and work with for my job. But all this can also apply to people with personality disorders and mood disorders, and probably some other stuff.

I personally think "Do I have ADHD?" is a useless question. It can be really relieving to have something to explain why you experience things, or why your brain works a certain way. But ultimately "How do I manage this symptom/behavior/emotion/etc" is the much better question. If you watch a video that says "if you are constantly forgetting to do the dishes even though you can see the full sink right there you might have ADHD", and you think "gosh, I do that, do I have ADHD?" try thinking about it instead about like, "How can I remember to do the dishes more frequently?"

I guess I will agree that from there you can be more in tune to future ADHD posts, and maybe consider looking into ADHD resources, etc. But that's exactly the point I'm making here, the resources and things you do to manage your mental health is infinitely more important than what you call it. If you benefit from ADHD resources, it doesn't matter if you *do* have ADHD or not, you are using resources to manage your mental health! Congratulations!

And you know, maybe I'm just like, experiencing the symptom of not understanding subtext, and maybe this was something people meant when they talk about pro- or anti- self diagnosis, but it's nothing I've really noticed. All people seem concerned about is whether or not a doctor agrees that the combination of symptoms you have match the generally agreed upon combination of symptoms. Like, that's all this discourse seems to be. No one really brings the idea of *working on* your mental health into any of this! Or if they do, they bring up some boogeyman like "finite resources" for people (as in, "if you don't really have autism, you're taking up resources for actual autistic people" etc.)

So what are these resources that can help you even if you don't have a diagnosis, a doctor, medication, a therapist, etc?

This (the Job Accomodation Network) is my favorite place to point people to for a starter on what kind of assistance they could benefit from. The idea of this site is for determining what reasonable accommodations someone might ask for in the workplace (usually provided they have a medical diagnosis), but it's also good to investigate ideas for things that might help you!

For example, if you click on ADHD and scroll down, it has a list like this

You don't need a diagnosis to try out and decide if these kinds of things could work for you. Lets look at another one. This is from the list of possible things for OCD regarding non-compliant behaviors (which is job speak for "not able to do the task the way we want")

If you think you could have OCD, maybe try out some of these things, like a white noise machine, to see if they help. They might not! But it's something to consider!

You don't need to have OCD to benefit from a white noise machine helping you focus. You don't need Autism to find sensory toys soothing and grounding. You don't need depression to go on walks to get extra vitamin D. You don't need BPD to ask your friends to check on you once in a while. If you benefit from something, that's what matters the most!

I guess what this is ultimately coming to is there's no boogeyman of finite resources being used up by self-diagnosers. And if you are pursuing self-diagnosis, consider to yourself how useful the label is, and if looking into actually how to manage it is more useful.

Please be niceys in the notes so i dont have to turn off reblogs ok. Goodbye and I love you and I want the best for you!

[madisonmccoy]

Fredrik Johnsen (Øyvind) featured in local news ahead of Rykter S3

https://www.askoy24.no/nyheter/fredrik-johnsen-blir-tv-kjendis/125603

Translated for y’all below!

RYKTER: Fredrik Johnsen from Erdal becomes part of the boy gang in the NRK series "Rykter". By: Yngve Johnson

Fredrik Johnsen becomes a TV celebrity

Fredrik Johnsen (19) from Erdal can be found in the next two seasons of the popular NRK series Rykter. - “A little attention suits me well”, he laughs.

Yngve Johnson

PUBLISHED Wednesday 17 July 2024 - 23:29

LAST UPDATED Thursday 18 July 2024 - 09:29

Those who know Fredrik Johnsen know that he is a sparkling young fellow, and that he is someone who loves to do things that cause a bit of buzz.

“I think it's fun with things that create engangement and attention”, he admits.

Seasons three and four

The popular series "Rykter" premiered two years ago, and now seasons three and four have been recorded, with Fredrik Johnsen in one of the roles in the boy gang. The series premieres on August 19.

“It's really cool”, admits Johnsen.

He explains that in the first two seasons there were four main roles, while in the next two seasons there will be a larger part of the gang who will be more involved in the stories.

"Rykter" is a youth series about friendship, boyfriends and girlfriends, social media and growing up on the outskirts of Norway, in a place where everyone knows everyone.

Johnsen will play a happy and nosy boy who comes up with a lot of nonsense. He really just wants to be a good friend to everyone.

“He is a guy who is not particularly fond of arguing and discussions, simply a bit shy of conflict”, says the 19-year-old from Erdal.

WINTER SCENE: The action in the series "Rykter" takes place in a village in Western Norway. Here is Fredrik as "Øyvind" in one of the scenes.

Random

“But there is a lot going on around this group of boys. I am not allowed to say much about what it will be about”, he emphasizes.

“I can say that my character's name is Øyvind”, he nods.

“How did you get this role then?”

“It was very random. They posted something on Facebook that they were looking for people. And there were several people who shared it with me and said I should apply. Some were probably just fooling around too”, he laughs.

“But I submitted an application, and a little later they called me and asked if I could submit a new application. I did, then it was only a few hours before they called and said I had got the job”, he smiles.

TEO: Fredrik has gotten to know the other famous actors in "Rykter". Teo (left) is one of the main actors, and also an artist.

Very fun

Johnsen breezed through the audition. Straight into the acting job.

“Of course I was very happy. This is a lot of fun, and there is something in this vein that I would like to do in the future”, he says, adding that it is uncertain whether exactly he wants to become an actor.

“Something involving TV anyway”, he says.

Fredrik Johnsen has many followers on his Tik Tok account, with over 8,100 and counting. He will probably gain more when he becomes a TV celebrity.

“Now first I'm going on holiday, and then I'm going into the military, so I'll have to hope there's a bit of "fame" left when I return”, he laughs.

“I think it will be good. I am pleased”

-Fredrik Johnson

So there are two seasons that have been recorded now. It has been a lot of work for Johnsen.

“We started recording in September last year, and continued until March this year. There have been many long days with a lot of information, which means that I have had to be locked in the whole time. I went to school and had a job at a store at the same time, so it has been tiring at times”, he admits.

Has many lines

The series was recorded in Telavåg, at Sund upper secondary school, a bit in the city center, and some locations around the Bergen region.

“Do you have many lines?”

“Yes, there is quite a script, so there was a bit of practice involved. But it has gone well. I also liked that we could also be spontaneous, and that as long as the main essence of the plot was there, we were allowed to play a bit with the script.

Johnsen has seen some of the finished material.

“I think it will be good. I am satisfied”, he asserts.

YOUTUBER: Sondre Mogård (TV) is involved in the production of "Rykter", and is also a well-known YouTuber.

Here you can read NRK's ​​presentation of the series "Rykter", when it premiered two years ago: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/nrk-serien-_rykter_-skildrer-strileungdommene-pa-vestlandet-1.16071541

[whoredmode]

Hey!

For rambling, kind of a jump off from the ask about SR moving away from hip-hop and rap.

I think that is part of the larger problem with 3 and 4, and the reboot. And that is for whatever reason, volition made the decision to distance the Saints franchise from 'The Hood' in general.

Like 1 and 2, but especially 1, was such a good look into and obv inspired by inner-city culture and issues. They deal with gentrification, dirty cops, terf wars, the realities of generational poverty amd the cycle of crime that goes with it.

And even though the games are funny af, 1 and 2 have this consistent layer of seriousness and grime to all player's interactions. But then you get to 3 and its just so sanitized and clean. Suddenly you're just some asshole 'celebrity' who shoots people and causes massive property damage. There's almost no recognition of who the crew was before either. They have no connection or reason to even be living the penthouse lifestyle you do. There no genuinity to anything anymore.

I don't know volitons reasoning for distancing itself so hard but whatever the reason it's probably not a good one.

hey there! i’m gonna assume you didn’t see the post i made that prompted the ask so i’m gonna link it here but yes this is essentially what i talked about

the point is that gangsta rap and hip-hop are not taken seriously as genres, that a lot of ppl cannot get past their own biases. ppl see these genres as inherently lesser art. these genres and their themes are the basis for saints row, down to the point that sr1 was envisioned as the type of story told through a music video. like you cannot take these genres away from sr and expect it to be the same. as far as why they did all this in srtt onward, aside from what i said earlier about how this art is viewed, i believe it comes down to how and who they wanted to market future games to.