#readmore for ridiculous length

[wishing-stones]

Oh I saw a question about the boys handling kids of some sort of relatives of Ren or a stranger, but what are their thoughts on having kids? Or it Ren ever gets pregnant? (Assuming both parties are alright with it and Ren can produce a child?)

This is a great hypothetical, and I get to talk about human x monster (and monster x monster) reproduction here too!

Popping this under a readmore for potentially sensitive content, PLEASE read the tags before reading more.

So, generally, in order to make a new life, monsters have to make a new soul, which takes expenditure of soul magic. This oftentimes has to be done consciously, but may be more subconscious if they're in heat or caught up in their feelings.

Still, it takes two, so accidental pregnancies are incredibly rare, and indicate that both parties were thinking about it enough to want it to happen anyway.

This applies to human partners as well-- a human partner must also want that to happen, and with human souls and the magic surrounding them, it's a little more difficult and requires a bit more of a conscious effort.

Since monsters are born from magic, either parent can carry them. Monsters are born from soul magic, so they are carried in the soul until their body begins to form, at which point they are born. Soul gestation takes roughly the same time as human gestation takes, but it does vary from species to species.

With a human involved, a physical body must form. It's easiest for a partner with female reproductive parts to be able to carry the baby, but it can be that their monster partner could also carry the new life. The process is largely the same-- the soul is gestated within the carrying parent's own soul, but it matures a little faster, eventually migrating to where the body is forming, and merging with it. From that point, the pregnancy carries on as a fairly normal one. There are still risks and complications that can happen to the carrying parent, but most pregnancies and births are aided by magic and go fairly smoothly.

Human x monster unions create mages every single time. Mages are generally human in appearance but may bear some monstrous traits-- ears, a tail, scales, different eyes or teeth-- or even none at all. Mages are born with an innate ability to use magic, but the kinds of magic they can use largely depend on the monster parent, and the mage offspring's soul type. A soul of patience might find magic revolving around cold and ice more readily available, while a soul of justice might find ease in commanding electricity. They also might find utilizing the type of magic their monster parent has at their beck and call fairly easy-- so most of the boys' offspring would be able to use blue magic, and potentially have access to bone bullets, or blasters when they are much, much older.

Having covered all of that, let's get into the boys' thoughts on the matter.

Since we've covered that Ren is AFAB, they could carry if they wanted to. If they didn't, one of the boys could, and I'll cover those opinions as well.

Killer would like to have a kid of his own eventually. He doesn't think he's in a place right now to be able to have one, or that he'd make a very good father, anyway. It's kind of a pipe dream for him-- he wants one, but... he's not really fit to be a parent. He's more than happy to be "Uncle Killer," though. Killer would rather not carry, but could be convinced. He'd ham it the fuck up, though, so that's a bit of a double-edged sword. Dust similarly thinks he'd be an unfit parent. He's really unstable, dangerous, and unpredictable, even to those close to him. He'd love a kid someday, but he doesn't feel like that day will ever come. He doesn't much care for kids, but he's great with babies. Especially newborns. But despite that, Dust would not carry under any circumstance. He's too dangerous and unstable to bear that responsibility. Axe wants a big family. Several kids, and if Paps ever finds someone to settle with, several nieces and nephews. Since he's a little more stable nowadays and isn't struggling so hard, he'd probably be the one to entertain the thought the most. He's a lot anxious that he'd accidentally hurt such a fragile life, but he's unbelievably gentle with babies. Also the most prone to baby naps. He'd be worried about his magic getting wonky, but he'd absolutely carry if he needed to. Cross is hesitant to have a kid right now, but he does want to be a father, if for no other reason than to be better than his. He also wants to be a dad because he wants to, but... those feelings are a little harder for him to wrestle with. More than one kid, eventually, but not right now. He's... got a lot to contend with at the moment. Cross would rather not carry, but he'd step up if he had to. Baggs is difficult to answer this for. He's not in a spot where he'd be comfortable with a child right now. Too much going on, too many other responsibilities he'd have to bear. Perhaps one day, he'd make a fantastic father. Right now... he can't. And he won't. He also won't carry. He'd be too worried about stress effecting the soul, and that would stress him out even more. Plus, he isn't sure his magical system and body could handle the diversion of energy it would take-- he runs on fumes as it is. Nightmare would love children. More than two, if he could swing it. He wants to be able to raise a child better than he and his brother were raised. It's almost a form of redemption for him, but despite his tendency to project, he'd be amazing as a dad. Still... at the moment, he's not prepared for them. He'd like a little more secure stability, and to make sure any and all threats to his get would be eliminated before they're even conceived. Ren feels... conflicted. A pregnancy would slow them down for a while, and we all know how they feel about being benched or not useful by this point. Maybe later. They might get a little anxious about carrying the child, but would more than likely tough it out like they always do when faced with a challenge. They aren't too sure about being a parent, either, but... with the boys, it would be raising the kid as a unit, so it isn't just on them and whoever the other parent is.

Additionally, since the boys would carry the baby in an ecto body, when it's time for them to be born, the ecto would just... vanish, and poof! Baby. Carrying might have various unpleasant effects, but the birth, at least, is a complete non-issue.

(This might not be something that's popular with a lot of people, but I've sat on this headcanon for a long while. The entire mpreg aspect is completely not there for the sake of being there, it's part of the relationship and responsibility of bringing a new life into the multiverse. It's just something that's there and an option.)

[firedragon1321]

So here's a dumb writing thing.

I was thinking about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and because writing is on 24/7 in my brain, I wondered who or what the antagonist is in the second half. The answer is really dumb.

Readmored for length, and because this is normally a weeb blog.

Note that the "antagonist"of a story is not the "villain". The antagonist is simply who or whatever is preventing the protagonist from achieving their goal. It can be a person, thing, or concept. Sometimes the protagonist's identity is difficult to spot too. But here it's pretty obviously Charlie.

I'm using the 1973 movie adaptation for this because it's the only one that actually answers this question.

The first half's antagonist is pretty clear. Charlie wants a golden ticket. The only way to get one is to buy a ridiculous amount of Wonka bars (or have someone else do it for you). Charlie's poverty is preventing him from buying chocolate bars. It is only through money randomly found in the gutter that he gets his chance. Therefore, the antagonist in the first half is Charlie's poverty.

Of course, that stops being an issue the instant Charlie gets the golden ticket. His goal now becomes something along the lines of "enjoy the factory tour", which is influenced by his poverty, but not threatened by it. So now who or what is the antagonist? Here's a list of people who aren't.

Slugworth- Slugworth is a threat to Wonka, but he's not the protagonist. He offers temptation to Charlie in the form of money. But this only addresses his initial antagonist (i e.- poverty). It initially seems he must return to poverty, so this is a good deal on paper. But the end of the film cancels this out.

The other four children- While they are in competition to win the factory, this isn't made clear to them or the audience until the very end of the film. Also, Charlie is not actively attempting to win the factory. You could argue they're his antagonists because he wants to enjoy the tour and they keep "interrupting". But this is shaky logic, as each individual "interruption" is a karmic punishment that has nothing to do with Charlie.

Wonka- You could argue he is the antagonist at the end of the film for a bit, as he keeps Charlie from his chocolate prize. But he isn't beforehand, and he isn't after Charlie surrenders the gobstopper.

Remember- antagonists do not have to be people. I also mentioned the only version that satisfactorily answers this question is the 1973 film adaptation. Not the book. Not Tim Burton's version. Why? Because there is a scene in that version only.

Fizzy lifting drinks.

The fizzy lifting drinks serve the same purpose as the temptations that lead to the elimination of the other kids. They exist to lure Charlie off the path (quite literally) and nearly lead him to a sticky end. Stealing them also directly leads to Wonka's antagonism at the film's conclusion.

Because the fizzy lifting drinks are in the same family as the infamous three course gum and the chocolate river, one has to wonder...

How much of the factory was an antagonist in disguise? If Charlie's goal was to enjoy the tour, all of the fates the other kids suffer would not be enjoyable. So triggering them himself would run counter to his goal. Not that the golden boy ever would. But just hypothetically. Does falling down a trash chute sound fun?

Assuming these fates were purposely planted traps (which with Wonka, who knows if they were), then- from Wonka's perspective- they exist to weed out children who shouldn't be allowed near his factory. The fizzy lifting drinks are just another trick in his arsenal. The only difference between them and the room full of golden geese is that they were Charlie's trial specifically. Even if Grandpa Joe had a hand in it, they were as narratively individualized as the television room for Mike Teevee.

As a counter argument, you could say the fizzy lifting drinks don't count because they show up partway through the tour. Or you could say Wonka really is the antagonist because he put them there. Counterpoints-

Wonka mentions the fizzy lifting drinks quite a few scenes before they show up, foreshadowing their importance

They have no other rival to harm/stop Charlie specifically except the boat ride, which is less a narrative antagonist and more the seventies being weird.

Wonka is playing the whole board. He's not going after Charlie specifically (assuming these are traps to begin with- he's so mad that it's impossible to know for certain). Also, his goal doesn't intersect with Charlie's, and no-one really knows what impact that goal will have on Charlie until the end.

Tl;dr- The fizzy lifting drinks are the primary antagonist of this film, and I will die on that hill.

[dnihallofshame]

Submission to the DNI Hall of Shame:

That part about proship being "disgusting" when all it takes is a single fanlore search or visit to the AO3 subreddit to know it's a strictly anti censorship stance with no other requisites, even if a lot of people do say they find dark/taboo ships interesting. Note how they also tell people who think harassment is ok not to interact with them, and to just block instead. Durr. So close to getting the point. This is like a third of their total pinned post length, by the way, and it was all under a readmore, because on some level, even they know it's excessively long and ridiculous and way too much to scroll thru.

[verkja]

childhood headcanon and sad headcanon for mures?

happy headcanon for radomil?

Thanks for the ask! From this ask game.

Radomil is happiest spending time with his friends, but he enjoys a lot of things apart from that as well. Beautiful scenery appeals to him, and he enjoys going on walks through it. Playing, composing, or listening to music; dancing, swordplay; listening to stories; and viewing or making various types of visual art (including with magic) are fun for him too.

Unfortunately, it's difficult for him to focus on any of this without the events of his dream casting a shadow over everything. This only lets up after the climax, and even then, it's not immediate. For some time afterwards, he finds himself enjoying something, and then out of nowhere feeling a pang of grief or anxiety. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort before that response fades.

Putting the part about Mures under a readmore due to length and (mostly implied) child abuse of the emotional neglect variety.

Predictably, Mures didn't have a happy childhood. He lived with his mentor, who wasn't interested in taking care of him beyond keeping him alive and functional (as an apprentice/assistant).

He read a ridiculous number of books. This was good, because since he never got to interact with other kids or, usually, adults apart from his mentor, he could learn about society, people, ethics etc. through these. On the other hand, it gave him a deeply skewed sense of how the world works, and how it should work.

He didn't talk much as a kid, and spent most of the time he wasn't reading or doing things for his mentor on daydreaming. When he was a little older, he also studied magic independently. The few non-hostile interactions were with black-market merchants, mainly, when his mentor bought supplies. Most ignored him, due either to lack of interest in the vaguely creepy-looking kid staring at their collections of illegal grimoires, or to fear of his mentor.

While he relied on fiction for comfort throughout his whole childhood, the nature of his interaction with it changed over time. In addition to enjoying them for the stories and as escapism, he'd initially imagine himself in positive roles he read about - as a character from an obscure background who used cleverness and bravery to obtain a better life, or as a character imprisoned unjustly and rescued by some noble hero. At some point, though, when he was still quite young, he realised he and his mentor had more in common with the antagonists of the stories than the protagonists. After that, he mainly imagined getting the chance to see someone who was like the heroes of the stories, rather than thinking about being one.

[tomwambsmilk]

obsessed with how nondescriptive but also intriguing 'emails' is. what emails tell me about them

Ooh emails!! I have such a soft spot for emails even though I haven't worked on it in a while. Basically, I started writing this after doing the math on the fact that Tom sent the 67 emails to Greg on the first night of his honeymoon, because, first off, hello???? But also because, as hysterical as that concept is, the more I thought about it the sadder I actually got - there had to be a lot going on there, emotionally.

So, I started writing the 67 emails. Or, what I thought might be in the 67 emails. (And technically more than 67 emails, because Tom sent 67 emails, but if Greg replied then we're actually looking at 130+ emails.)

I'll share a snippet from the very beginning, but I'm just gonna copy-paste under a readmore, because it's a bit of a longer snippet:

To: ghirsch@waystar.com From: twambsgans@waystar.com Date: March 11, 12:14pm Subject: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Hey Greg,

Shiv and I are halfway to the yacht in Boca already, and let me tell you, the views are a thousand times better than anything we had in England.

Anyways, there are a few things that are gonna need to be taken care of while we’re on honeymoon, and frankly you, Gregory, my right-hand-man, my Alexander Hamilton, are the only one I can trust to maybe possibly get this right, so:

Jenkins has been giving me the run-around on updated park attendance numbers for a full month now. Clearly they are not good, because at this point it goes beyond negligence and into obstruction, and I’m going to have to rip into him when I get back. BUT to do that I need the actual numbers - so, Greg, I need you to harass him into coughing them up. Camp outside his office. Stalk him. Intimidate him with your freakish physical length. Threaten to poison his dog. (Kidding! …..unless?) If anyone gives you shit show them this email and tell them I sent you. And then once you have them, send them to me ASAP, alright?

Our dog-walker is great, but she’s never handled Mondale alone for this long before and frankly Mondale is too important to me to leave in the hands of a virtual stranger. I need you to go over there once a day and make sure he’s okay. Make sure he looks fed and happy and whatever else. The doorman knows you well enough by now that he should let you in.

Keep an eye on Kendall for me. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, there, but I don’t want to get back and find out he’s fucked me in my sleep somehow. I need intel, Gregory. Be my eyes on the ground, pig-man.

Also, keep your calendar free for the 26th (the Monday after Shiv and I get back) because you and I are going out. You like Italian, right? I’m guessing you must if you can stomach whatever CPKs terrible excuse for linguini must taste like. Friend of mine recommended a really good place that opened up a few months ago - super exclusive.

Tom

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 12:52pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Jesus, Greg, you really need to learn to be more responsive. What, are you dead? I know you’re not that hungover because you looked fine this morning. I’m pretty sure you ate enough of those congealed eggs to feed a small army of wild horses. (Enjoy that metabolism while you can, by the way).

Anyways, our helicopter pilot keeps trying to tell us fun facts about Boca. Fact: did you know that if these helicopters had removable windows, I might jump out one? Seriously ridiculous. I really just want to get to the yacht so Shiv and I can get down to business ;)

Let me know when you see this, and also change your push notifications so you see my emails before I grow a beard and die of old age.

Tom

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:05pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Greg, if you are dead you have a legal obligation to me, as your employer, to let me know.

Tom

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:23pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Is this about yesterday morning? If it is, that’s both incredibly petty and unprofessional of you. You really need to learn to control your feelings in a professional working environment.

Tom

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:29pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

For the record, I get that I probably shouldn’t have pushed you down like that. I know you were trying to help, even if it was an incredibly shitty thing to bring up.

Still, you don’t need to be an asshole about it.

Tom

From: ghirsch@waystar.com To: twambsgans@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:32pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Sorry Tom, I really wasn’t expecting any emails from you today, lol. I’ve been packing and shit, didn’t bother to check.

Re: the Kendall thing, I think something’s up with him? He seemed really out of it this morning. He might’ve been coming down from something, though, so idk. He went into Logan’s office, then came out and got in the plane and took off. Haven’t seen him since.

And yeah, I can harass Jenkins. I’m not gonna poison his dog though. His dog is actually really cute. (Not as cute as Mondale though <3)

I’m not mad about yesterday or anything. Does this mean we’re good? I do feel bad about bringing it up, I guess it was kind of a shitty thing. I guess I thought that I would want to know? But tbh I think I was probably mistaken. I had a few drinks and a joint and I probably didn’t know what I was seeing. So I’m sorry about that, and I hope we’re good.

Greg

From: ghirsch@waystar.com To: twambsgans@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:35pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Also Shiv is my cousin man. It’s kinda weird when you talk about her like that.

Greg

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:43pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Hey Greg,

Good to know you aren’t dead, fuckwad. Push notifications, ever heard of them? I know you’ve got the nepotism thing on your side, but you do need to step up your game if you want to get anywhere at Waystar.

Also, good to know about Kendall… Honestly, I can’t figure that guy out. Is he super competent or a burnout? He might be an evil genius, or he might be a rejected daddy’s boy. You’d think it would make him more interesting, but it’s really just irritating.

And yeah, we’re good Greg.

Tom

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:46pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

For the record, though, you weren’t wrong.

Tom

From: ghirsch@waystar.com To: twambsgans@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:50pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Oh. Sorry about that, man. That’s kinda rough. I’m guessing you guys worked it out, though?

Greg

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 1:58pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

You trying to pump me for information, Greg? Get my dirty secret out so that you have leverage on me. “Oh, Tom, I would help you out, but maybe then I’d have to tell everyone that you’re a cuckold.” Fuck off, man.

Tom

From: ghirsch@waystar.com To: twambsgans@waystar.com Date: March 11, 2:05pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

No? I just wanted to know if things were okay, but whatever. Have a good honeymoon, I guess.

Greg

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 2:28pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Yeah, things are fine, Greg. We have a whole arrangement worked out, it’s very modern and exciting.

Tom

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 2:40pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

See, the thing about love, Greg - traditional love, I mean - is that it’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit! It’s pablum made to sell magazines and lipstick and flowers and all sorts of garbage. Hell, we use it to sell news and theme park rides and movies and whatever else. But it’s not real. Of course it’s not real! But dumb fucks from hicktown want it to be real, so they believe it’s real, and they get into “traditional” marriages and lock themselves down with one person, and pretend that what they feel is love and not fear, jealousy, revenge, and a whole host of messy shit. But they’re lying to themselves, really.

Honestly, Greg, you’re pretty young so you might not get this, but you will eventually. The closest thing to this fake idea of love is really just - a partnership. Two people who get each other, and they like hanging out together, and maybe they have a plan or a strategy and they can work together to push each other into the positions they want to be in. Or maybe they pull each other up, I don’t know, I haven’t fully worked through the metaphor. But this whole “let’s just fuck one other person forever” bullshit, that’s just a recipe for misery. That’s not how people were meant to be.

So yeah, Shiv and I have an arrangement, and to be honest it’s a lot closer to the ideal of “true love” than any of those other dumb fucks have, because we know the truth. And we have a plan, and we get each other, and really that’s all you need.

Tom

From: ghirsch@waystar.com To: twambsgans@waystar.com Date: March 11, 2:52pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

As long as you’re happy, Tom.

Greg

From: twambsgans@waystar.com To: ghirsch@waystar.com Date: March 11, 2:53pm Subject: Re: You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs

Of course I’m happy, Greg. Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?

Tom

[angelslant]

7, 16, 19 <3

7. Any tattoos?

yes!! i have two, both stick and pokes by my friend laine (hi laine if u see this hehe) one says “lost boy” on my arm and the other is a owl petroglyph above my ankle <3 (i love neolithic art and a lot of my future tattoos involve cave paintings or rock carvings) i dont have many super good photos of them bc theyre at angles where they kinda need to be taken by someone else but i love them both dearly and looking at them makes me so so happy. also i want hand tattoos so bad but im restraining myself for now....

16. I will love you if

i am a quality time bitch through and through....if you dont have time for me, i dont have time for u. i love spur of the moment mini-adventures and i love friends who ive talked to every day for years and i love people who remember that we made plans and stick to them. i really like establishing enough consistency that it becomes easy to be spontaneous. also i love grad students who just impart knowledge onto me at random and the people you share art studios with when working late at night and random strangers in public who will hear a ridiculous conversation youre having with a friend and chime in in a funny way

19. A fact about your personality

this one gets a readmore bc of length lmao <3

i think a lot of ppl, sometimes even people somewhat close to me, dont rlly understand how much work i put into being an outwardly kind person lmao, or they dont understand that i do have to put a lot of work into that? i think a lot of times people confuse my anxiety with being like..."oh you look scary but you're actually so nice!" types of things which can be very true but at the same time, a lot of my current friends have not necessarily seen me when i dont put the care in to be kind and instead go with my knee-jerk reaction to situations (which is almost always some form of anger), because i have specifically trained myself out of going with those responses. i have kind of this weird dichotomy where i am a generally pleasant person who is anxious and can be a people-pleaser at times but to me that feels like a very like....surface level version of myself that can be easily cast off if i care enough to? but i think some people see that part of me as like my deep-down vulnerable self, which i dont really find to be true. because to me i think a lot of my people-pleasing is a direct result of the fact that i overcompensate for my anger. but this is hard to explain to people because since i look alternative or whatever, if you sit there and insist like "no no im actually sooooo evil and mean and tough i promise guys!!" it just comes off as ridiculous and try-hard lmao so i havent successfully found a way to be like "hey guys unfortunately none of this is a joke to me and in fact it kept me alive when nothing else would for several years". anyways idk i just sometimes feel like people view my skittishness as something its not or dont really understand that my "~edginess~" is not actually performative because it has a very real basis in my past experiences and generally if someone is willing to grapple with that they will become much closer to me and know me a lot better than if they just brush me off because they dont really take me for my word

[bobzora]

5 hours in, earliest possible date, made it to the first barrier in tartarus.

no spoilers really, but readmore for length instead:

playing on hard, i definitely feel that it's easier than base p3, though it's possible that that will change. doubt though because shift alone changes the playing field a lot but who am i to say lol. did have One close call because i was being stupid but have yet to die.

treasure shadows also way easier to catch but I AM NOT COMPLAINING. especially because i dont get save states this time lol... ambush timings are also weirdly forgiving.

i get the sense that teleporters are not on every floor but also i practiced the "rush for the stairs" strategy and didn't explore every floor so who am i to say. got soooo low on sp lmao. OH YEAH: interesting change, unlike mementos or previous versions of tartarus, the layout only shuffles when you exit tartarus completely and the day changes! this is really interesting. also, like mementos, once you find stairs or a teleporter, you can go elsewhere and use them from the menu, which, by the way, expandable map changes lives that old minimap did not help navigating this shit.

some treasure chests, INCLUDING FLOOR BOSS REWARD CHESTS cost certain amounts of twilight fragments to open...not sure how to amass many of those i've already ran out. got a sick ass poison bow for yukari through a boss chest that helped a lot on a floor boss lol. the healing clock costs SEVEN...but well fair enough it's pretty op.

the shuffle time changes are interesting! guess we don't have to worry about reaper cards anymore with the whole...the cards aren't obscured thing. the arcana cards are an interesting touch.

thank god for manual skill inheritance btw. when do you unlock elizabeth requests again?

sidenote: looked at the dlc personas that i am not going to use because i like at least a little bit of challenge and holy shit the phantom thieves' first tier personas all have 75 PERCENT, STACKABLE element boost passives which is utterly insane LOL. would love to see what kinds of stupid numbers you can deal with that. ridiculous.

in conclusion i love you persona 3. and while reload doesn't capture the SAME EXACT energy i'm glad it exists. it's fun!

[makeste]

save no matter what.

so this is going to ultimately be a post about Deku. however, if you’ll be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to start things off by making a point about Bakugou. specifically, I’d like to point out that back in the day before this kid got Character Development no Jutsu’d, people weren’t always so inclined to view his attitude towards winning in the best light. which is a nice way of saying that he came off as unhealthily obsessed, not to mention more than a little unhinged.

sorry for the image spam btw, I just think they’re funny. he’s so demented lmao. KILL DIE CRUSH.

anyway so we’re gonna do the rest of this below a cut before it gets long. but I promise it really is a Deku post lol. don’t let the pre-readmore stuff fool you. I PROMISE THERE IS A POINT, AND WE WILL GET TO IT.

anyway! so yeah, we really didn’t have the best impression of Bakugou’s whole winning fixation at the beginning there. and I mean, it’s not like we had the best impression of Bakugou himself at the start of things either. we were already primed from the very first chapter to see this kid as an adversary to Izuku. the story goes out of its way to paint him in pretty much the worst light possible. which is why what happens next is so interesting.

because one might see all this and think, “holy heck, this kid is off the shits, somebody needs to set him straight pronto and get it into his head that winning isn’t everything.” because that’s almost the natural conclusion to draw. “look at this kid, he doesn’t care about helping other people at all, all he cares about is winning, someone needs to come along and show him that he’s got it backwards.”

except that’s not what happens, is it? because this is where, much to my delight, Horikoshi came along and started subverting expectations. because not only is Katsuki not rebuked for being so obsessed with winning -- it’s pretty much the exact opposite.

the one and only time Deku ever straight up hands Katsuki’s ass to him is when he says he doesn’t want to win. Deku is IMMEDIATELY all, “THE FUCK KIND OF BULLSHIT DID I JUST HEAR OUT OF YOUR TRASH MOUTH,” and that’s when he sets him straight.

the important people in Katsuki’s life never tell him, “hey you need to cool it with the whole winning thing.” All Might and Aizawa never scold him for it, or tell him that he shouldn’t try with everything he has to win, or that wanting to win is a bad thing. on the contrary, they both commend him for it. and ultimately, he’s told by All Might that this desire is actually one of the two fundamental qualities that every great hero needs.

he completely turns the whole thing on its head. not only is it not a bad thing, it’s actually crucial. essential. because what the desire to win really is, at its core, is tenacity. it’s the fiercest kind of determination. it’s not something he should be ashamed of; it’s something that sets him apart, something that makes him worthy. he is someone who refuses to back down no matter what. refuses to give up, no matter what. and this quality, which is initially misunderstood by some to the point where even the villains mistakenly take him for one of their own in the making, is eventually validated to the fullest degree by the person that Katsuki looks up to the most. his desire to win goes from being this awkward “son wtf are you doing” thing to being one of the core philosophies of the series. and ever since then, we pretty much don’t question it.

so why do I bring this up now? well, the answer to that can basically be summed up in one word.

“parallels.”

so here’s the thing. there’s been a lot of talk lately about Deku’s ridiculous, reckless, and absurdly self-destructive desire to save others while having little to no regard for himself. currently he’s lying in a hospital bed, having broken approximately 218 out of the 206 bones in his little hero body (yes, somewhere along the way he found an additional dozen bones to break). it is worrying. it is Concerning. and it’s raised a lot of questions, such as “???” and “wtf is this idiot doing.”

and a lot of people have been pretty critical of him! this is, of course, an ongoing thing with this child, and people have been giving him grief over it going as far back as chapter 6.

while others have been bothered by it going even further back than that.

and I’ve seen these sentiments being echoed pretty frequently in the fandom as well. and there are basically two talking points that I want to address here. the first is the idea that Deku’s aggressive brand of selflessness stems from an inherent lack of self-worth. in other words, because he prioritizes other people’s safety and well-being above his own, and is willing to go to such drastic lengths to save them, there’s this feeling that he doesn’t value himself enough, that he must not care about himself.

but I don’t think that’s quite it. let’s go back to those parallels first, though. let’s take another look at Kacchan.

what I mainly want to call attention to is the intensity here. again, it’s something that at first strikes most readers as being absurdly over the top. the truth is, I think a lot of people simply can’t relate to it. Katsuki cares about winning with a ferocity and a fervor that most people, for better or worse, simply don’t have. I certainly don’t, lol.

but he does. to him it’s not a shallow, superficial thing at all. it’s important to him, perhaps the most important thing. I think we often talk about it in terms of it being a desire, but imo a more accurate way to define it is not as a want, but as a need. in other words, it’s the opposite of the question “what is it this character wants” (i.e. “what is it they can’t live without”)? instead, it’s a question of “what is it they don’t want” (i.e. “what is it they can’t live with”)?

and in Katsuki’s case, the thing he can’t live with is feeling like he hasn’t tried his absolute best. he needs to give his all in everything he does. he wants to win, but winning just on its own is not enough.

it has to be earned. he has to prove to himself and to everyone else that he deserves it. anything less than that is unacceptable. anything less than that, and he can’t be at ease. he can’t be settled. he can’t rest. and so he puts everything he has into winning, even if it means going to extremes. because it’s that important to him.

it’s something that’s at times alarming and even disturbing for others to witness. but nonetheless, it’s a part of who he is, and at the end of the day his teachers accept that, and the story acknowledges that it’s his greatest strength.

so now, to finally bring this back around to Deku, this is what I keep seeing in his character as well. only in his case, the thing he can’t live with is knowing that he didn’t do everything he possibly could to save someone. or to put it another way, Deku, at his core, is someone who cannot rest until he knows that everyone is safe. simple as that. it’s not just a desire to protect people; it’s a need. he needs to know that everyone is safe and protected. otherwise he can’t be at ease. it’s no different from how normal, everyday people aren’t able to feel at ease unless they know that they are safe and that their loved ones are safe. it’s just that in Deku’s case, this same fundamental need extends to everyone, not just himself and his friends and family. everyone. he can’t live with himself knowing that someone was in trouble, and he had the ability to do something to help, but didn’t. and so, if you literally can’t live with not doing something, you basically have no choice but to do it.

and this is what in my opinion defines Deku’s character. Kacchan, in trying to understand it, noted that Deku doesn’t seem to take himself into account. but I think OFA Prime summed it up a little more accurately. “he rages for the sake of others. for them, he does his best until he can do no more. this young man is possessed by a drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding.”

so yeah. it’s not that he doesn’t care about himself at all, it’s that he cares about others even more. he has that same intensity and ferocity towards saving people that Katsuki has towards winning. and just as it was difficult at first for fans to understand Katsuki’s feelings, it’s hard to fathom the sheer depth of that “save everyone” feeling that compels Deku to break his own body in that pursuit. it’s scary, not to mention extremely destructive and dangerous. and so really, it was almost inevitable that there would be some backlash.

but just like Katsuki’s desire to win was ultimately validated in the end, I think Deku’s desire to save others will be as well. in fact it already is being validated, for starters by the other denizens of OFA, led by Lil Bro as mentioned above. let’s go back for a moment to that same scene.

here we get a huge hint that “Deku gets taken down a notch and chewed out and scolded for his recklessness” is not, in fact, the direction that the story is going in. because in general, when the main villain starts mocking the hero and saying that they’ve done something wrong, that’s a very good sign that said hero is actually on the exact right track. like, no offense, but as far as character critiques go, AFO is probably the least qualified person in the entire manga to start offering those up lol. so yeah. if AFO is denouncing Deku for something, and OFA Prime is praising him for that exact same thing, I think it’s safe to say that means he is in fact doing something very, very right.

“okay but makeste, he nearly got himself killed and broke all of his arms AND legs and is now lying in a fucking coma,” you say, gesturing emphatically to the last page of chapter 298. “so I mean, that’s all well and good that Wonder Boy has the best of intentions and all that, but at the end of the day he’s only one kid. he literally can’t save everyone, and if he pulls one or two more stunts like this, he’s going to get himself killed.”

and okay, but this here is the other talking point that I wanted to address. because it’s true, Deku does need to learn a specific lesson here. but that lesson is NOT that he can’t save everyone. this is a superhero story, guys -- “you can’t save everyone” is never going to be the underlying message, ever. it’s the OPPOSITE of the message. Deku is the hero because he tries to save everyone. because he doesn’t give up on saving people no matter what. that is literally the core of the story. it has been since the very first chapter.

so then what is it that Deku actually needs to learn here? well, once again, it all comes back to those parallels.

btw, I really just love how he’s carrying Katsuki there lol. he’s just so done with him.

but anyway. so, the final exam arc. Katsuki initially wants to win at all costs -- but there’s a hitch. because even though he wants to win, he refuses to do so while working with Deku. enter Deku’s left hook, and one impromptu Rival Encouragement Speech later, our boy has thankfully come to his senses.

but here’s the point -- the lesson here wasn’t “you can’t always win.” rather, the lesson that Katsuki needed to learn was that you can’t always win alone.

yeah. so now you can see what I’m getting at here.

“...on your own.”

that’s the key. this is the one and only thing that Deku actually needs to get into his head. wanting to save everyone is fine! his will to save others has never been a weakness -- it’s been the most admirable thing about him from day one. it’s what makes him strong. it’s why All Might chose him. it’s why OFA has chosen him. it’s what sets him apart, and I firmly believe it’s what will ultimately help him save the day and defeat AFO as well. because what other character would look at Shigaraki Tomura, the person who just impaled his friend and destroyed an entire city, and instinctively reach out a hand to try and save him? and if you don’t think that’s going to wind up being key to the final battle, you and I have very different ideas about this series’ endgame.

Deku’s determination to save everyone isn’t arrogance or futility. it is and always has been his greatest strength. but what he’s missing now, what he needs to learn, is simply to trust. y’all might have seen that theory about the Fourth’s quirk, and why All Might was so hesitant to tell Deku about it. basically, the theory (which is based on an attempted translation of the crossed-out parts of All Might’s OFA notebook) goes that the Spidey Sense was so overwhelming that the Fourth -- whose cause of death was one of the things crossed out -- eventually couldn’t bear it, and went to live alone in the middle of the woods somewhere. and possibly wound up killing himself?? all of which is just speculation right now of course. but it makes sense. and it would certainly explain why All Might, being all too aware of Deku’s self-destructive tendencies, would keep that from him.

but if this is the case, that means it’s clear that the Fourth’s solution didn’t work. “give up and accept that you can’t save everyone” clearly is NOT the answer to be had here.

the answer is trust. trust that his fellow heroes have his back. trust that they’ll be able to help him reach the people he’s not able to reach on his own. trust that they can work together to save everyone. that he doesn’t have to rest the entire world on his shoulders alone.

it’s the one lesson that All Might, his predecessor and his teacher, never learned himself until it was too late. but of course, All Might never had a prickly and determined rival who was ready to step in and deal out some tough love if need be. a rival who, perhaps, just might soon get a chance to repay an old favor.

“I don’t wanna hear you say you can’t save someone.”

I’m just saying. just as Deku has been watching Katsuki all this time, and admiring his determination to win, and emulating it himself, so has Katsuki recently begun to emulate Deku’s determination to save others. we’ve seen it not just in his recent act of self-sacrifice, but even in little things like his habits and tricks of speech. just like Katsuki is Deku’s image of victory, Deku is becoming Katsuki’s image of saving others.

and so I’ll bet you anything that if Deku ever starts to doubt himself, or starts feeling like his dream and desires are futile, Kacchan will be there to set him straight with a good old fashioned Rival Encouragement Speech of his own. possibly with his own left hook to match, though his left shoulder is currently out of sorts atm so he might need to modify that approach a little bit. but the point is, he’ll be there. and he will not allow Deku to give up on himself. he will be there to remind him that he doesn’t have to face this alone.

so yeah! finally managed to wrap up my giant Deku meta which I’ve been working on for ages and rewritten like fifteen times lmao. just in time for this to be relevant for all of a day, probably, depending on what happens once chapter 279 drops lol. but yeah. tl;dr, local boy tries to do too much, but his heart is in the right place, and hopefully all he really needs is a good pep talk from his tsundere bff to set him to rights again. r.i.p. to the Fourth, but he’s different.

[multiverse-of-souls]

Moving more HC’s over, this time! all of Yarn, Aka UL Sans’s, Under readmore more for length then content

A few headcannons for yarn because damn I love he, the newest favorite.

- He stands at a decent height of 5'5, so while he is nearly the tallest sans (minus obvious exceptions), he's still short by dancer standards and that gives him a edge to stand out compared to what's considered the average height for dancers

- Yarn is so damn flexible, it's ridiculous, he works out constantly and does yoga when he's not working at saffron's to keep himself limber after all, he rarely uses his ectobody for quite a few reasons, but this is one of the smaller ones. He can contort himself a lot more without the restrictive magic flesh to hold him back. Also yes he can do the splits, with and without ecto flesh.

- Just like classic sans, he spent much of his formative years in the capital/new home with his little brother after the death of their parents, working at the lab to get everything done and of course to keep a roof over their heads, he's not quite as old as classic though he's still of a decent age and remembers the underground before the wide spread injections of Lust became mandatory.

- he won't lie, he fucking despised lust at first, it burned like nobodies business, he was always to hot, his body and magic ached in every way he could creatively think of and he was so damn horny. It took him about a year to really adjust to the constant heat and now he considers that level of sensitivity his new normal and as long as you aren't intentionally rubbing up against anything then he's chill since intention to yarn is everything.

- Yarn has a deep hatred for what the capital/new home stands for as the biggest and main red light district of the entire underground, it's and he doesn't say this lightly, the most depraved place of the underground and lacks a lot of the self imposed rules you'd find in snowdin/waterfall/hotland, it's the one place he tells monsters to avoid and he uses the term capital monster as an insult because consent ain't sexy there and he's not cool with that.

- as an addition, before he moved to snowdin with his brother but after he'd quit working at the lab, yarn danced at a bar in the capital and while he managed to mostly avoid the worst of the worst encounters, there were a lot of days where he got touched a lot more then he ever wanted to which is actually why he ended up quitting and moving to snowdin with his brother. He was the first dancer at saffron’s bar and knew about the elemental’s business when it was still only a concept since after all they’d known him before he’d even been considering a bar.

- you can blame the time in the capital for what self confidence issues yarn does have because they have the toxic standards of what 'sexy', should be, what you 'should' be willing to do, what you 'should' look like and it took a long time to get out of those hurtful habit's, sometimes it still gets to him when his mood is low. But he knows well enough that those aren't healthy. He knows he doing his best and that people love him as he is

----

More headcannons for yarn/UL because he’s and it has been on my brain and the hour is late.

- Unlike quite a few other timeline’s where it takes a significant amount of magical energy (Or some form of outcode) to travel between them (Closed timelines), The timeline of underlust is considered a ‘open’ timeline where the magical flow of energy isn’t stuck to that timeline and tends to leak out into other nearby timelines. Making channels that monsters from other timeline’s can travel through to reach the UL timeline and get back to their own. Sometimes monsters do this on complete accident but quite a few actually do it on purpose to have a vacation.

So while UL is mainly comprised of it’s usual inhabitants, It does have a blending of people who’ve moved into the UL timeline from other timeline’s (Who have to be injected with lust or risk infertility like the rest of them) and a variety of visitors from all kinds of places (who are told of the risks of long term visits) and while it may have weirded some of them out at first, most are happy for the extra business and potential relationships.

- Yarn uses these channels pretty frequently to go to other timeline’s to get away from all of the sin for a time and just relax, He’s been seen in UT/UF/US/TT pretty frequently and it’s not uncommon to find him in others like OT.

- For as many people enjoy UL timeline, A lot of people will come to realize that there’s a startlingly lacking number of children. While many timeline’s are bustling with monsters and their families, UL...just, Doesn’t have that, This is due to widespread infertility and still birth rates happening all across the underground once they were sealed, Monsters don’t know 100% this has happened but the biggest blame was the mage’s of the UL timeline putting a extra spell on the barrier designed to keep them both trapped and to reduce their birth rates over time so logically, They’d eventually die out completely and nobody would ever realize monsters existed in the first place.

The injections of lust into every adult monsters was a desperate attempt to fix it or at least stop it in it’s tracks and that’s what it did, It did not raise the rates but the rates no longer went further down either, Monsters were stuck in a state of fertility from whenever they were first injected (Which is why the younger generation is injected as soon as they have their first heat/18 years old). While the older generation was injected when it rolled out, Leading to a big difference in the younger gens vs the older gens (Which also vary a lot between older monsters) conception rates.

- Pregnancy is a huge and widely celebrated thing in the UL timeline due to said rarity, A healthy birth is practically a underground wide celebration, Everyone will often listen for news with bated breath and there’s a certain grief that infests everyone when it goes badly, Monsters in UL absolutely cherish the few children in the underground and family is seen as a community wide affair (The whole ‘it takes a village to raise a child’) so they are often spoiled quite a bit and rarely face hardship

- Yarn was injected when he was already in his mid 40′s so by the time it got to him, His magic had already been widely infected by the barrier’s effect and while there is a small, Very small chance he may be able to conceive and even smaller chance he’d be able to carry to term. These chances likely could be boosted with love, True love, Not the lust the UL timeline is known for but it’d still be seen as high risk to any soulling (Though suspiciously enough the risk of complications only rarely extends to the parent and often only affects the potential kids)

----

More headcannons 2: electric boogaloo

- Yarn’s stats are surprisingly good compared to most sans since he never had the lab accident like many of them, His stats were never affected and though he did still overwork himself quite a bit, He didn’t lose hope. He held onto it, He persevered despite all the challenges and will continue to do so long after the rest of him would have given up.

ATK: 160 Def: 160 HP: 300

LV: 5

* You think your going to have a good time

- As many realize, Yarn is a rarity amongst san’s due to the fact he has a Perseverance soul instead of an integrity soul, This also mean he’s missing many of the powers known to Sans’s and works quite a bit differently then the rest of them, it makes him unpredictable because alongside his different magic, Yarn fights differently to make up for what he’s lacking in.

- Perseverance souls are known for their soft purple coloration that is linked to a monsters willpower so their magic can be stronger or weaker depending on what they need it for though generally speaking, It leads monsters with these trait to have an aura about them that inspires other monsters to get up and keep going despite the challenge they might be facing (though this also does wonders for monsters with lesser stamina wanting to plow him), The more Perseverance souls you have grouped together, The bigger this range of affect is and the more potent it is.

- Perseverance souls are well known for their Close combat prowess (Being often equally balanced in ATK/DEF) and don’t do as well with long range opponents, They work well in groups or alone, They were feared for how well they could break down other’s defenses with their magic and even if they couldn’t break it down. Pairing a Perseverance and patience soul together was a deadly set that brought down one a many bases in the war.

- He uses his magic sometimes when he’s working at Saffron’s to impress the guests, When he’s forming an ectobody, his magic will gather around him like Shibari binding before exploding outward into his proper ectobody so for a time, It looks like of course. Shibari which excites monsters quite a bit though he can of course also use his magic to do actual Shibari but he’s been waiting for a good time to reveal this at the bar since he needs a willing participant.

- Yarn practiced his magic when he was younger under muffet’s tutelage because of her potent perseverance soul and he’s still friends with his old teacher (As he lived with her for threeish years with a itty bitty baby papyrus after the death of their parents), This is why his magic so often takes on the form of threads. Wrapping around and binding his opponents, Forcing people to dance along or around the strings to be able to attack him. Due to being adopted by the spider clan (He still considers them family to this day and will always buy spider donut or cider), He was also taught their passed down practice of Spell weaving.

Spell weaving is something technically all soul traits can learn but it’s easiest in perseverance souls and the finest, More perfected spell weaving is almost exclusive to the spider clan, Yarn can weave his own magic into items or food to give them unique magical properties but he can also borrow attacks from other monsters and weave them into an attack of his own. No matter if it’s from another skeleton, a elemental or what have you which mixes the stats of it’s original attacker in with Yarn’s own stats. Spell weaving also extends to protection spells, Much like the barrier was crafted. Yarn can weave barriers around himself and other monsters though it takes a lot of magic and focus to maintain a barrier around (And that’s if the barrier is stationary) so if he’s not being supplied magic by other monsters in the barrier, He eventually will collapse and the barrier will fade away.

- Yarn can’t shortcut, Can’t summon gaster blasters and can’t use blue magic at all so no throwing people around or picking them up, he won’t pop in and out of random places and of course. No big blasties, Yarn however, Can still wrap his threads around a soul (Which he usually refrains from doing out of respect and caution) and he’ll squeeze said soul until it pops from the pressure which is how he does his judge duty. Yarn is as fast as regular sans but instead of dodging every hit, He’ll actually take a hit or two to get in close to whoever is attacking them and absolutely beat the crap out of them. Instead uses his dodging skills to duck and weave around attacks at close range.

----

- One might wonder what has replaced the small secret lab in the skeleton household in yarn’s world and the simple truth is, Nothing. Yarn still has a secret lab that can’t be accessed without a key, a passcode and a series of hand movements to get into it because the lab itself is booby trapped with a number of invisible magic strings (Except for heart, he has special permission to enter) that would 1. Alert him of intruders, 2. It’d send a nasty zap of magic to anyone’s soul and render them unconscious. Although, He isn’t researching timeline’s in the lab nor is he looking for a way to get gaster back as gaster never fell into the void in this timeline. No.

- What yarn is researching in his lab in his free time is Lust, More specifically he’s researching how to reverse the affects of lust on a monster because while yarn is adjusted to lust and having it in his body because he knows it’s a necessity underground lest they all die out because they can’t have any more kids. But he knows one day that there will be a time where all of them will be able to live on the surface again and when that day comes. He doesn’t want to be infested with lust forever because in the end, they don’t know the long term affects that a permanent heat has on a monsters body.

- He usually puts a few hours into his work each day and he HAS managed to make injections that will nullify lust for a few hours at a time via a absolute crackpot mixture of chemicals and certain woven magical spells but it always comes back, Though it is a stunningly welcome relief and clarity of mind that he’s missed having access to. How does he knows it works you might ask? he uses himself as the test subject because he knows he can handle any side effects.

- There is the drawbacks of course, There’s been a few different versions of this injection and each has had their own issues, The first one barely worked and gave him a mix of extreme nausea and dizziness that had him bed ridden for days, The second one he’d managed to get rid of the dizziness but the nausea remained though this time only after the lust returned so he found himself unhelpfully horny AND ill. It wasn’t a great time. The third reduced the Nausea but it made his magic unstable and very sporadic for a couple of hours. He felt like a flickering lightbulb. There was a fourth that while it did remove lust completely for an hour, It also completely chucked his magic so he couldn’t use any (Not even summon eyelights)

- The current version still makes him a bit nausea’s but he can usually power through and sometimes it will make his magic flicker but only briefly and he can usually tell when it’s going to happen, He wants to make it last a bit longer (Preferably at least eight hours, the current longest is five hours) before he tells Heart and Saffron about it because he doesn’t want what he’s doing in there getting out to the public, He’s sure the king would have his head.

[whywishesarehorses]

Mustang Culling Dilemma

Hey Y’all,

I wanted to do a big informational post about some of the drama behind mustang gathers + the reason American taxpayers end up paying millions to hold and feed horses every year. It’s not as simple as “just cull them,” or “hunt them in the wild.” I do not work for the BLM, this is merely a set of opinions and facts as I have them. Under a readmore for length.

To be clear: the reason I make so many posts about the dilemma of mustangs in the west and the overpopulation is to help counter the narratives the ARAs use at length. Every time I see a photoset go viral about some pro-wild sanctuary and their stallions, I get fired up and end up sharing more content about the overpopulation problems.  I love the mustangs, and seeing them on the range is a great joy in my life, but the situation is out of control. Personally, I am all for culling at this point to get numbers down to manageable, then use of fertility control and protection of predators to create balance.  This is not super possible at the moment for a variety of reasons.

As a background, feral horses in the US breed very very rapidly and have no natural predators. Left to their own devices, they breed until they eat all the food, then starve to death. This could be a way to manage the population, but ranchers rely on that rangeland for their beef cattle, which they pay the BLM to pasture. The ranchers then become one of the main lobbyist groups. Additionally, mustangs are mostly confined to dry areas of the west - forage is limited, and in times of overpopulation, they overbrowse until other native species die out - plants, deer, insects, small mammals, etc. So horses are limited in feasible numbers to be on the pasture, ranchers are angry about it, and the excess have to go SOMEWHERE.

Problems begin with one law: horses cannot be slaughtered for meat in the US, and that’s been the case since 2005. Instead, 82,000 horses are shipped annually to Mexico or Canada for slaughter there. Mustangs are doubly insulated from slaughter by the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which declared them animals to be “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” Some still make it to slaughter, sold by 4th or 5th owners who can legally sell them at auction to kill buyers.

This is the part that births the second enormous lobbying group - the animal rights activists, or pro-wild folks. They are hugely opposed, in general, to many of the adoption programs (selling a horse for $25 makes it a great deal for those who sell for meat to turn a profit, and many of them are absolutely CERTAIN that it is part of a grand scheme by most adopters and the BLM itself to funnel them off to meat), and often the idea of roundups in general. They show up in large numbers to roundup events, and there have been fights at those events between these people and other observers.

So, in order to do any sort of culling, 3 steps need to happen.

1. The 1971 act would need to be repealed, or at least modified. This act was put into place largely due to the efforts of Wild Horse Annie, when mustangs were en route to being eliminated from the west entirely. Her clever activism resulted in enormous protections, the addition of HMAs to the BLM, and a series of laws designed to maintain the population in ecological balance. Although the original legislation allows for culling to maintain population control, a set of further laws put in place by Congress limit the use of slaughter. This is a set of Federal laws, and therefore would take a great deal of work to have adjusted. It is also resisted very aggressively by ARAs and general laypeople.

2. Laws regarding horse slaughter in the US would need to change, unless the goal was simply cull -> dispose of, which would take an enormous amount of funds in and of itself. This is another thing the ARAs and public would fight tooth and nail.

3. Long-term herd management strategies have to change. This could be fertility control, or creation of better predation systems. At the moment, fertility control has been largely dropped for several reasons: ARAs worried about long-term fertility issues, cost and labor requirements (it’s a ridiculous amount of work to track lineages, find horses, and dart mares every few years, to say nothing of the training involved), and simple inundation with costs to maintain the system that currently exists (BLM can’t afford to do this because it is expensive and they are too busy trying to keep up). Natural predation is complicated as well, with other branches of the federal govt working to limit predator populations to protect humans and livestock.

In fact, the Tr*mp administration made moves to start a cull in 2019, citing a return to the letter of the 1971 law and the allowance of culling, but was rapidly shot down by Congress. The reason? 80% of Americans surveyed want continued protection of the Mustang, and 75% of them say a vote against it would lead to loss of support for their senators.

(Take this image with a grain of salt; it’s from Public Polling Institute, but driven by the American Wild Horse Campaign and has a fairly small sample.)

This public pushback is partially because of the actions of the ARAs, the American Wild Horse Campaign, and a great deal of confusion about management=/=extinction.

Every time you go to comment “just cull them already!!!” on my posts, this is the series of thoughts I have. I agree with you! And this is a problem. But it is one that is far more convoluted than a simple call for a change in management. I am happy to talk about this and discuss it at length, and this is not aimed as an attack at any of y’all.

[pleuvoire]

yugioh rivals, roughly ranked by how much i like them. i put it under a readmore for length but everyone is required to read this post and behold my opinions

1. ok i started this list and immediately blanked because i love them all. or well i love half of them. let’s go with manjoume for number one i love manjoume he’s SO fucking funny. i love how all the other rivals are like “tch... i am your enemy...” and only become the main character’s friend through trials and battles but manjoume is like. literally part of the main friendgroup he just also likes to insult judai while he’s at it. anyway he’s so fucking funny. the ojamas... the way he wipes up soy sauce stains with his stinky black coat... the time he got brainwashed by saiou and just spent half the season brainwashed and everyone was like well ok moving on also he fell off a roof. but he also has some really good character depth and insecurities and development. man i miss gx

2. hmm ok seto kaiba probably he’s just so fun he’s both hilarious and deep. like he grew up with an abusive adoptive father and then got to push him out of a window or something (i know that’s not actually what happened but i don’t remember specifics and i think he deserves to regardless) and then was like “i’m taking over this company, no more war profiteering, i’m blowing up the weapons factories” but also he's 16 years old so he makes the whole company about his favorite card game instead. but like, EVILLY. he has to do an evil laugh about it. also he has issues and problems but will never let on about them which is my character type weakness. and i love his relationship with mokuba omg. but he’s also just so fucking dramatic and over-the-top and funny

3. kamishiro “shark” “reginald kastle” ryouga, i planned to have him higher up on the list because i love zexal but then i just didn’t have as much to say about him as the other ones. umm i think he’s really good i like his revenge deal even if i wish his sister didn’t get fringed for it and i like his whole spoileriffic deal in zexal ii. he’s edgy and middle school and gay as all hell. bedazzled shoes. i like him

4. ok i don’t consider kaito tenjou a rival because shark is already the rival to yuuma and like, actually has personal rivalry with him, kaito is just kind of a vague antagonist-turned-ally. also he’s 5 years older than yuuma which is a lot at that age so he’s almost more of a babysitter in the end really. but yugioh merch and stuff considers him an official rival so he goes on the list. i think he’s a super good and compelling character and i love his relationship with haruto (although i’m bitter that all his complexities kind of went down the drain in zexal ii to make room for plot) (love his dynamic with mizael though) he’d be higher on the list if i actually considered him a rival character

5. i haven’t watched 5ds yet beyond small chunks so i can’t say for sure but i feel like i can’t put jack atlas any lower down on the list just from like. the things i’ve heard about his character and writing everyone seems to agree they’re very good and i like him from the glimpses i’ve seen of him. maybe he will advance higher up on this list if i watch more 5ds. i like his funny side with the cup noodles and the ridiculously expensive tea. The Tits

6. sawatari shingo no matter what official merch says you are the true rival of arc v in my heart. i like him he’s very fun but arc v didn’t leave that much of an impression on me in the end so i don’t think about him though. keep on rocking though funnyboy

7. kogami ryoken i like him. from what i’ve heard later seasons of vrains made everyone hate him or maybe it was him being overhyped in the fandom that made everyone hate him or both. but i only saw the first season and a half of vrains and have no contact with the fandom so i just like him i think he’s neat i like his motivation and his link to yusaku and the other lost incident kids. i think he’s kinda tied with sawatari or maybe above him? i feel like there should be more distance between him and akaba but there isn’t anyone else left on this list

8. akaba reiji. i don’t really like him. i don’t remember much about arc v but i don’t think he should be considered the rival character he isn’t even a proper rival to yuuya he just like...masterminds shit? sits in his office and pulls strings? all according to keikaku? boo sawatari should be the official rival not you. yeah i don’t really have anything to say about him he’s just there and boring and DOESN’T WEAR SOCKS

9. i haven’t seen sevens and i have no idea who the rival in it is

[banashee]

i"I have way too many stories already planned" I said. “I can’t write in multiple fandoms at once, it will throw me off” I said. “OK so I’ll just get this out of my system real quick” I said. “Well shit, I’ve gotten more ideas now that I’ve started…” I said, determinded to face it - I have a problem. Just a small one… Who am I kidding. Send help.

Also, this is the first time I’ve written for this fandom. I’ve loved and enjoyed TMA for a while now, not just the pod but also fanworks. And now I’m joining in on the fun and you folks will have to deal with it :D ♥

This story got inspired by a conversation on Reddit with Swiftysmoon. Thank you very much for the inspo! This one is for you :)

-

edit. sorry about the missing ReadMore cut, Tumblr is programmed like a pile of garbage and removed it after I edited a typo...I’ve added it back in now.

-

please mind the tags and warnings

-

 Into the Void

Truth be told, Jon never planned on this to happen. Of course not - it is ridiculous and more than a little embarrassing, but he can’t help himself.

See, the thing is, Jon is a restless, anxious person in general. He’ll hide away in his office for hours, typing away or recording statements in solitude, only interrupted when someone actually wants something from him. That, or when Martin brings him yet another cup of tea, checking if he’s still alive or starved to death on his desk.

No kidding - Martin had told him this, once, and although he’d been half-joking at the time, the underlying message had been very clear.

‘Please take care of yourself, you worry me.’ - it had been oddly sweet, and Jon still has no idea how to even react to this kindness.

But the thing is - Jon has nervous habits. While his mind is wandering and he is buried neck-deep in his work, he tends to fiddle. Mostly with pens, or anything else he can reach on his desk. That would be fine - no one notices it, unless they stand right next to him. But Jon had almost choked on the pen he’d been chewing on, lost in thoughts while reading his notes, omn more than one occasion. Mostly thanks to Tim bursting into the room like the whirlwind he is.

For one, Tim Stoker just doesn’t knock. Ever. He enters a room as loud and cheerful as he does anything else, and it can be a bit unnerving. Still, he somehow manages to be a professional and be really good at his job. That and the fact that there is  ‘Chaos’ written all over him makes for an odd combination sometimes, but they’re all somewhat used to this.

So, when Tim suddenly sticks his head into the room with a cheerfully casual

“Hey, Boss!”

Jon startles and nearly stabs himself in the throat with a pen while he scrambles to make it look like he  didn’t chew on it the entire time. He needs to preserve some sort of professionalism around here, even though he feels a little bit lost sometimes.

He glares halfheartedly, trying to keep whatever is left of his composure in place. Tim shoots him a bright smile with finger guns, then he rattles off the information that Jon had asked him for not long ago.

Thankful that he doesn’t have to explain himself, Jon launches onto it.

      As time goes on, things around the institute get more and more weird. One thing adds to the other, and suddenly, they’re at war against worms all over the place. They spend their days at the institute armed with fire extinguishers and in Martin’s case, a corkscrew. Martin even lives there now, which adds a whole different level to it all.

Really, it is not surprising that they rarely ever get any outside visitors down in the archives. They have a bit of a reputation for being weird, and truth be told, Jon can’t find any fault in the people who assume that. If he wasn’t involved - if he didn’t  know  what lurks out there, in the shadows, he’d have thought the same.

Pushing his own dismissive, sceptic act is getting harder and harder these days, but it doesn’t stop Jon from trying.

Even after Jane Prentiss’ attack, Jon tries to keep up that act. It’s clearly faltering now, though, which may or may not be partially due to the fact that he confessed to Martin that yes, he does believe and he is terrified. It’s been an awkward conversation, to say the least, and not just because Jon pretty much asked if Martin was a ghost and despite Martin stabbing him with the corkscrew. To be fair, he’d apologized profusely for that, and while Jon is not happy about it, he is thankful for his attempt to get the damn worms out of him. Just thinking about it still makes him shudder, makes him lay awake at night.

On the plus side, their team in the archives has grown much closer to one another - it eases the anxiety and paranoia, just a bit.

      Jon finds himself busy, not to say, utterly distracted. Time flies, and he takes even less care of himself than he did before. He practically lives off tea, and whatever food is offered where Martin, Tim and Sasha drag him along to.

Jon acts prickly and annoyed as always, but in reality, he appreciates their efforts. Lord knows, he isn’t sure he deserves this kindness, but he still makes an effort. These three people are all he’s got, after all. They’re the only group of allies who have any sort of idea what is really going on in the archives, and that alone is enough to have him lower his walls just a bit.

One day, Jon keeps blowing an annoying, grey-streaked strand of his otherwise dark hair out of his face. He didn’t have the time or energy to get a haircut lately - there are much more pressing matters to take care of. But his hair is currently at the awkward in-between length that he hated years ago, when he decided to grow it out. He’d kept it long, up until shortly before his promotion to head archivist. Only then he parted with the shoulder length ponytail in an attempt to be perceived as more professional.

It doesn’t feel right - never did. And as much as he hates the annoying strands falling in his face, it makes him feel like he is back on the way to himself. Or at least as much as he can these days.

Especially in the face of, well, everything else, it is a small comfort. Right now though, Jon is annoyed - he takes a pen from his desk, and sticks it behind his ear to hold back the constantly falling piece of hair - it works.

Jon only notices the pen again when he is about to go to bed that night - he huffs, places it onto the small desk in his bedroom and then crawls under the covers. Once he is in bed, Jon is waiting for the insomnia and the nightmares to keep him awake, despite his best attempts to fall asleep.

He is long used to both, but the last few months have been significantly more stressful.

The next day, Jon is exhausted. He barely makes it into the kitchen for some coffee, then he drives to the institute, the pen forgotten back home. Oh well - he’ll bring it back in another day - no big deal.

Except, it becomes a Thing, with a capital T.

Jon is chewing on and fumbling with his pens as usual, recording statement after statement and doesn’t exactly realize what he is doing. He hides away, until one of the others drags him away from the desk for inconvenient human needs like food and company, but really, he goes willingly now. All he needs is a small reminder.

The bit of human warmth and company means a lot to Jon, and he soaks it up as much as he allows himself to. Trusting people is a struggle for him. His relationship with each and every coworker is definitely a work in progress, but he is willing to try, anyway.

One night, Martin points to the side of Jon’s neck in quiet amusement.

“Oh, you’ve got ink on you - yes, right there.” he touches the spot behind his own ear. Jon blinks, and when he tries to wipe it away, his hand comes away with yet another goddamn pen.

It joins a small pile of accidentally stolen pens on Jon’s desk back home - he’s been meaning to bring them back ages ago, but he keeps forgetting. At this point, he refuses to drop them all off at once, because that would definitely catch someone’s attention - and attention is the last thing he wants right now. Add in the fact that this is, well, ridiculous and embarrassing… No. Just no.

Jon looks around the room, heat creeping up his face even though there is no one around to look at and judge him - then he opens an empty drawer in his desk. The pens disappear with one swift movement of his arm before Jon slams the drawer shut. There - done.

And this is how, what Jon secretly calls his “Desk Drawer of Shame”, comes into existence.

      Occasionally, a small handful of pens will make its way back into the archives. But at this point, they’re way, way too many to bring back at once, at least not without pissing off Elias. That is, if he isn’t chuckling at the ridiculous and mysteriously high cost of office supplies in the last few months.

At the very least, Jon would be at the receiving end of some good natured ribbing from his coworkers in the foreseeable future.

Jon is reading the last few lines of a statement, when the door to his office opens up after a quick knock. He looks up with a frown, which is more habit than anything at this point, and quickly drops his feet back on the ground. At least, he isn’t chewing on a pen this time.

Standing in the doorway, shooting him a small smile, is Martin and he is waiting for Jon to finish recording the last few lines. Only when the familiar

“Statement ends.” marks the end of the recording session, he starts talking.

“Hi! Uh, did you have lunch yet?”

Jon didn’t, and Martin knows it, but he is trying to go the polite route before his motherhen-mode is activated and he physically drags the man away from the desk in an attempt to make him take a break.

So, Jon smiles back, which still feels a bit foreign in a work context, but he secretly enjoys the spark of happiness on Martin’s face when he does. Not like he focuses on that or anything…

“No, I- I didn’t. Did you have something in mind?” he asks as he gets up and pulls his jacket from the back of his chair. It’s a welcome distraction from his work.

Jon didn’t sleep, again, and he can tell that he is getting sloppy and way more irritable than usual. Chances are, getting a bite to eat and spending some time out of the institute with a friend will do him some good.

On the way out, Jon falls comfortably into step with Martin. Plenty of thoughts cross his mind, and he chooses to ignore all of them. In fact, he’d been so busy staring up at a cluster of freckles on Martin’s cheek that he doesn’t even notice what he tells him about the little café that he was planning to visit. Only when he stops talking, obviously waiting for an answer, Jon nods, hoping that Martin actually asked him a yes-or-no question.

For now, it seems to be enough, and they enjoy their lunch break. Jon is still lost in thoughts though.

That night, he is unable to sleep once again, as his mind keeps him wide awake and Jon is shaking apart under the blanket. There are two new pens on his desk, and it feels like they’re glaring at him. It’s ridiculous - they really are the least of his worries. Jon is just distracted, that’s all.

      There is ink on his neck. Again. Jon swipes at it in mild annoyance, inwardly cursing himself for being so careless. His movement catches Tim’s attention, and then his eyes wander to the pen that is stuck halfway to Jon’s ponytail - it’s for convenience, really - but it’s clearly the cause for the ink scribbles on his skin.

Tim puts the pieces together and grins. He is way too easily amused about this, but to be fair, they get their laughs whenever they can these days. And this is still much better than the silent, angry version of Tim that tends to come out more and more and the last few months. At least, when he’s laughing, he isn’t that.

Small favors.

      The more distracted Jon grows, and the longer his hair gets, the more pens he keeps losing - or more like, forgetting - in it.

He doesn’t realize that he is doing it, really, until someone - mostly Martin or Tim these days, because Sasha is (gone) (different ) absent - walks up and plucks one of the pens right out of his hair in order to use it. Jon should be annoyed, but he can’t bring himself to be. It’s oddly comforting that the two of them are still willing to seek him out. Because that’s what this is - there are plenty of pens around, of course.

There is no need to come into his office, to come close to him just to get office supplies. They’re here because they want to, and that honestly means the world to Jon.

As much as he’d tried to keep them at arm’s length, he’s failed miserably. Thankfully so - things would be much, much worse if they had to deal with everything on their own.

      “Hang on - how many bloody pens are in there?” Martin asks one day, calling over from the other room. He looks up in utter confusion while already cracking up with  laughter.

“Wait, are those-?”

Oh goddammit.

Apparently, that’s what happens when Jon answers absentmindedly when asked for the location of a pen in his apartment.

He needs to renovate his kitchen, because the landlord just won’t do it in any reasonable amount of time, so Jon is in old jeans and an even older T-shirt, packing dishes and kitchenware into boxes with Martin and Tim. The two of them had been kind enough to offer help, so that’s why they’re all piled in Jon’s small apartment on a Saturday morning.

Partway through, they realize that they should probably label the boxes, and soon after, Martin stands in the bedroom, opening not the stationary drawer, but The Secret Drawer of Shame With Accidentally Stolen Pens From The Institute.

“Oh, good lord.” With an audible ‘thump’, Jons forehead collides with the kitchen table. His glasses sit crooked now, and he doesn’t lift his head up while he tries to explain, and despite being flustered, he manages to keep that certain tone of voice that’s usually reserved for work hours.

“I, yes. I may have accidentally taken a pen or two with me and only realized it here. Coming back into work with all of them at once seemed… well. Not ideal at the time.”

“No wonder when you keep storing them in your hair.” Martin comes back, with a handful of pens and a bright smile.

While walking past, he pulls another pen out of Jon’s bun, just to prove his point. A long strand of hair slips forward and falls back into Jon’s face. Meanwhile, Tim has snuck off to peek into the other room out of pure curiosity, then he proceeds to laugh his arse off for the next few minutes.

“You know, we should make it a sport at this point. How much stationary supplies can we steal until Elias catches wind of it?” Tim offers, because of course he does.

It is ridiculous and childish, so naturally, it quickly becomes A Thing.

Anything to get a tiny bit of satisfaction is a valid option at this point, and besides, it’s not like Jon is trying to be sneaky or anything. It just happens , like so many things these days.

      As it turns out, Elias doesn’t care. None of them is stupid enough to assume he doesn’t know - the bastard knows everything, that’s part of their problem. He just never calls any of them out on it - if it is because it’s too unimportant or if he is getting a chuckle out of it as well, they never find out.

At some point, late at night when all three of them had a few drinks, they’re brave enough to joke about what fear entity would be responsible for a never ending void filled with pens (“A.K.A you desk drawer of shame, Jon. Have another drink, you’re annoyingly sober for this conversation.”)

It’s a half-serious debate, and one which they continue every once in a while. Most notably so at the institute’s christmas party, huddled in a corner where they’re mostly being left alone. And if that is mostly due to Jon glaring holes through anyone daring to come close, just a hair away from actually hissing and snarling, well. He didn’t get his reputation of being rude and prickly for nothing.

      All of this turns into fond memories, once everything has gone to hell.

Jon is freshly awake from six months of coma, and the world around him has changed. Martin is barely around and Tim is  dead . So is Sasha, even though they never knew, for the longest time.

All of this hurts badly enough to stop him from breathing every once in a while, and after a series of even more tangled and unfortunate events, Jon finds himself huddled close to Martin on a train.

They’re on their way to Scotland and neither of them talks much, but they’re unwilling to let go of the other’s hand. The air is chilly, even inside the wagon, and Martin is still shivering under layers of jumpers and jackets.

The Lonely has settled deep into his bones, and sometimes, it’s like he is fading away again. Every time this happens, the steady warmth of Jon keeps pulling him back.

Jons hand is smaller and bonier in Martin’s own large, soft hand, but it’s grip is steady and warm. His thumb keeps stroking gently over the back of his hand while he is holding it, and it is the most loved Martin has felt in a long time.

Eventually, he manages to relax enough to doze off for a bit. While his head find’s it’s way down and onto Jon’s shoulder, he can feel the slight poke of a plastic pen that is sticking out of his hair.

Martin almost smiles, and squeezes back when Jon tightens the grip around his hand and settles against him.

    They keep finding the damn things around the safehouse, because frankly, they’re everywhere. And that’s just whatever Jon had on his person out of sheer habit. Lord knows, his hair has grown way past his shoulders by now, and more often than not, he keeps it up and out of the way with whatever is around him at the time.

Mostly, it’s pens.

At first, they’re just  there , and both Jon and Martin have about a million other things to think of and to deal with than a few too many office supplies laying around.

The exhaustion, both physically and emotionally, leaves them absolutely drained and dead to the world.

It is bad enough so that they crawl into bed almost as soon as they have arrived and inspected the small cabin. The question of whether or not they’re going to share the bed isn’t even raised - neither of them is willing to let go of the other. All the way from London to up here, they’d held hands to reassure themselves that they wouldn’t lose each other, and they’re not about to stop now.

It is a lot easier to remind each other that they’re not alone when all they need to do is focus on the breath and heartbeat of one another. Focusing on the heat radiating under the blankets, where they are embracing throughout the night to keep the nightmares and the ever growing anxiety at bay.

They have plenty of bad days when everything just creeps up at them and even talking is too much. Those days, they spend curled up in front of the fire or in bed, holding on tight for as long as they need to in order to feel more alive again.

After a while, they’re able to relax more. Martin is much warmer and solid now, doesn’t fade away into the fog without noticing. It’s happening less and less now - whether or not he will be able to shake off The Lonely entirely, neither of them knows, but he is happy about every step in the other direction.

Jon is just as happy to see him doing better, and he tells him as much over breakfast, smiling as he tangles their legs under the table.

There are two pens already stuck in his hair, holding it up in two buns. It’s probably from when he read a statement from the stack of files and tapes that Basira sent over the other day.

The statement has definitely taken the edge off of things for Jon. Now he can sit at the kitchen table with his boyfriend and enjoy a cup of tea instead of growing weaker and weaker with hunger for statements. As ironic as it is, it makes him feel more human, even though he is no longer fully human. He’s pretty sure of it.

“I love you.” Martin tells him, because it is true and he likes saying it as often as possible, now that he can. It sends a spark of warm happiness through his chest, and it is bright enough to chase away the cold fog that’s still lingering sometimes - just for a bit.

“I love you, too.”

He’ll never get tired of hearing this.

“I love you” they say, as they drink tea in the morning and eat freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven.

“I love you” they say, as they walk hand in hand through the cobblestone streets down in the village, on their way to buy groceries and look at the little local shops.

“I love you” they say, as they step around each other in the tiny kitchen while cooking dinner, distracting one another with kisses until one of them remembers the food or notices the charred smell of something burning. It’s only then that they break apart, cursing and laughing all at once.

“I love you” they say, as they spend nights wide awake, holding on tightly through their grief and fear. They say it out loud or whisper it into the darkness, comforting one another as best as they can.

“I love you”, they whisper through silence and tears, but they say it just as much through smiles and laughter.

“I love you” they say, after every single argument. Their love for each other is strong, so much so that they’re certain they will be able to figure out the rest. Whether that’s the end of the world as they know it or anything else doesn’t matter.

“I love you” Martin says, after he walks up behind Jon and plucks one of the pens out of his hair. There are at least two more, and besides, Martin woke up this morning with a few lines of poetry in the back of his mind. He wants to write them down before he forgets - maybe, just maybe, he can  turn them into  something beautiful.

“I love you.” Jon says, and he pulls Martin closer by the front of his pyjama shirt, turning around just enough to be able to press a quick kiss to his lips. The movement leaves them both in an awkward position, hanging over the back of the sofa with their glasses askew.

Martin has one of his arms wrapped around Jon, who is holding on tight, happily leaning into him with a quiet, happy satisfaction on his face. Clearly, he is enjoying this an awful lot.

No doubt, if it wasn’t for the hold onto the sofa Martin has with his other, he’d have toppled over and fallen right into the smaller man’s lap. And maybe that’s exactly what Jon is trying to do - who knows. He is way more affectionate than either of them would have thought possible, really.

They remain wrapped up in the tight hug, and neither of them wants to let go yet.

                                     Notes:  

Warnings: - Off-screen canon character death mentioned - insecurity - Loneliness - Trust issues - if you want me to add anything please let me know

[sleepymccoy]

Okay! I’m joining in the butteromens fun!

This is a carry on of @n0nb1narydemon ‘s kick off post, which you can find here . Also, there’s two more buttery contributions to the thread that i want to link up, cos they’re both wonderful. There’s @freyjawriter24 whose story you can read here, and @aethelflaedladyofmercia whose story you can read here

I tried to move away from the damsel in distress sorta Crowley and put him in more of a participation ribbon kinda role, cos i figure while he’s hella into the whole Aziraphale can fight thing, he’s also pretty useful!

Word count is 3500 cos i cant control myself and i havent written just silly banter in so long and i enjoyed it so much! So the bulk is under a readmore cut <3

-

“I'll get the bill, shall I?” Aziraphale offered.

“No, no,” Crowley muttered, pulling his legs in from their rather wild sprawl under the table so he could use them for walking again. Aziraphale folded his napkin politely and left it on his plate, already moving to leave the cozy booth they'd shared. 

“I picked the place, I can pay,” Crowley insisted as Aziraphale began to shuffle out. 

“But you always pay when I pick the place."

Crowley took the other exit route from the curved bench. They ended up sitting across from each other, watching warily for a tell or a flinch. 

“I pay,” Crowley said carefully. Aziraphale’s feet tilted forwards like he was preparing to run for the register. “You just usually pick the place.”

Aziraphale’s feet flattened on the ground and Crowley began to relax. He would be allowed to pay again. Wonderful. Then-

“Let me get this one, dearheart,” Aziraphale said with a pout. 

Crowley’s confidence slid from him like jelly from a warmed cup, hitting the floor with a wet slap. Pale eyebrows tilted in, blue eyes shimmered, and pink lips showed their colour in full. Crowley withered, quickly beaten. 

Aziraphale's pout deepened and Crowley gave up, swiftly falling in love all over again.

It hit him often, this love. He was constantly tumbling down a hillside, not trying to catch himself, just slipping and stumbling further with every glance and smile from this angel.

“Alright, if it matters to you,” Crowley said airily as if his insides weren't squirming in adoration. Aziraphale grinned and bounced up, scurrying off to pay. 

Crowley shut his eyes and laughed to himself reluctantly. He would get Aziraphale back for this, he would take him somewhere marvelous and expensive, somewhere on a top floor or deep in a garden or on a boat, where the appetiser cost at minimum £200. And he would pay the bill in full, flourishing the receipt obviously. Let him read the four figures and find a way to thank him. And then Crowley would be winning again.

Someone cleared their throat by him, so Crowley opened his eyes and peered up, his pupils not hurrying to readjust to having to see. 

The figure swam in silhouette for a moment before solidifying. 

“You look familiar-" Crowley's stomach lurched. "Gabriel.” 

“Demon,” Gabriel greeted. Crowley scuttled, moving from Gabriel as quickly as he could, which turned out to simply not be quick enough. He flew back but saw the sword Gabriel swung reach for him. He followed the arc with his eyes and knew it would hit his chest.

The sword point stopped, pressed to his left pec, stinging furiously as it pierced his skin. Crowley froze and the sword went no further. A feint.

“Wha-” Crowley sighed, staring as a bead of blood welled up and tracked up the sword, defying gravity to cling to the sharp of the blade. 

“You fear this weapon,” Gabriel pointed out, his voice a whisper. Crowley flashed his eyes to watch him, studying him with the focus of one terrified. Gabriel grinned, wide and sick with cruel meaning. “It can hurt you.”

The sword flicked, swinging impossibly fast and slicing the air to rest against the side of Crowley’s neck. Crowley kept watching, keeping himself dead still. Gabriel leaned forward inexorably slowly, gently slicing a paper-thin stinging line under Crowley’s ear. 

“This is an unpleasant surprise,” Aziraphale said. 

Fear drained from Crowley at the sound of that voice. 

“Aziraphale, hello,” Gabriel said coolly, stopping the slow thrust of his sword. “Be a good angel and sit down, yes? You know how to be attentive.”

Aziraphale stepped out from behind Gabriel and politely sat where he had before. He didn’t look at Crowley, didn’t glance away from Gabriel for a moment. 

“I think, perhaps, we should discuss this,” Aziraphale suggested gently, his tone calm like he was dealing with an erratic animal. “Why are you here?”

“We forged a new sword,” Gabriel said. The sword in question wavered, nicking Crowley’s neck again as Gabriel turned and faced Aziraphale. “You can’t be immune to it," he spat, "it's made to slaughter you both.”

Crowley slid lower, laying flat on the cushioned chair, unwillingly aware of how low and demonic he sat below the two angels. Aziraphale met Gabriel's gaze with a silent challenge of his own. Quiet, furious expressions were exchanged as Crowley's fingers splayed under the table, grasping hopefully for something he didn't find.

"I see," Aziraphale finally said, just as Gabriel hinted at turning back to face Crowley again. The heel of Crowley's hand touched glass and he grabbed it triumphantly. 

"Angel!" He called out in warning, laying flat as he did to keep himself out of the way. He chucked the bottle, the arc tidy and foreseen, into Aziraphale's right hand.

Aziraphale swung the bottle at the sword, knocking it up and away from Crowley’s prone form. Gabriel turned, leaving Crowley completely unattended as the sounds of metal on glass filled the restaurant. 

Crowley flung himself over the low wall behind the chair, searching for safety.

“Not working, Crowley,” Aziraphale muttered, his words crystal clear over the repeated shattered glass that sang through the air. Crowley paused and saw that Aziraphale had not managed to light the bottle with his fire. Not sword-like enough, apparently. 

“Oh, piss,” Crowley said. 

Gabriel knocked the last of the bottle from Aziraphale’s hands and turned on Crowley again, catching him as he sat on the top of the thick, low wall between the seats, straddling each side in a near escape.

“Double piss,” Crowley whispered, taking care to not move as the sword tip pressed against the soft skin under his chin. He sat slightly higher than Gabriel stood, but not by much. Regardless, not being so low anymore gave Crowley a dash of pleasure.

“Be still,” Gabriel commanded. The sword nicked him. Crowley went still.

“You see this, Aziraphale? I want you watching,” Gabriel spat, the sword pressed higher, cutting Crowley as it went. 

“I’m watching, yes,” Aziraphale said gently, not a waver in his voice. “What’s the purpose of this, Gabriel? Why not just leave us be?”

Crowley couldn’t see Aziraphale from here. He could glimpse Gabriel when he glanced down, but the sword bit when he did so he kept his eyes skyward. 

“You took something Heaven owns,” Gabriel accused.

“I took nothing.”

The pressure of the sword wavered, then lessened. Crowley risked a glimpse and saw that Gabriel had turned to face Aziraphale, his expression furious.

“What did I take?” Aziraphale asked. “You can have it if it makes you leave us be.”

Crowley elongated his spine, carefully and inhumanly stretching so that he could slip out from the touch of the sword without alerting Gabriel to his movement. It was delicate, but he succeeded and lay down flat on his back, keeping his legs completely still as they still sat in Gabriel’s periphery. 

“Your servitude, Principality, you owe us yourself.”

Crowley added a few more vertebrae reluctantly, it was sore work and human muscles weren’t designed for this kind of effort. But his body rose to the occasion and let him sway as a snake, an extra two feet of length given to his torso that allowed him to slip over the side of the alcove wall and check for useful items. 

And there he saw it. An umbrella. 

“Oh, that’s just ridiculous,” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Really? That’s what you’re demanding?”

Crowley reached forwards and found himself a few inches short. He stretched and a few scales popped painfully into being on his skin, making the distance. Aziraphale continued to rant and hold Gabriel's attention. 

“You have so many angels, you can’t just let me go? And I own one thing in this world and you’re trying to take that from me and you think I won’t fight against it? More the fool you, Gabriel.”. 

Crowley quickly turned back into a human, umbrella in hand. His spine shortened as he sat back where he had been left.

Aziraphale stood to the side and a bit behind Gabriel, having taken a step at some point to keep Gabriel’s vision away from Crowley’s acrobatic efforts. He looked angry, his mouth spluttering as he spoke, but his hands were calm, held in the air around his stomach as if ready to catch what Crowley threw.

“Ownership is love, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said. "You cannot love a demon!”

Aziraphale had not looked at Crowley, he showed no sign of seeing the umbrella Crowley now held, but Crowley was confident nonetheless. 

“Hup!” Crowley said lightly as he flung the weapon over Gabriel’s head. 

Gabriel spun to face him, unbalanced by the call to attention. He might have seen that Crowley threw something, but his eyes didn’t track it. Instead he gripped his sword with both hands and swung in a strong downwards arc. 

Crowley flattened, rolling aside as the blade came towards him. Just before he slid onto the couch behind him, flames filled his vision, scorching his face with their heat. The sword stopped, held easily by a burning umbrella. 

Crowley skittered to the side and fell into their neighbours bay, leaving the battle behind him. 

The fight ensued. Loudly, with grunts and clangs and the ongoing crackle of flame. 

There was a bottle of white wine on the table, as well as a terrified pair of humans. Crowley gave them a smile that was probably not calming, he had been a lot of snake very recently, and picked up the bottle. It tasted cheap. He spun and knelt on the chair, surveying the fight from over the top of the partial wall.

It seemed fairly evenly matched, which impressed Crowley mightily as Gabriel wielded a sword that was designed to wound Aziraphale, whereas Aziraphale wielded an umbrella that was designed to avoid rain and was now steadily turning to ash as it burned. 

Crowley leaned forwards, humanly this time (although his hips were bending more than the average middle aged human would find comfortable), and tipped the half a bottle of chardonnay on Gabriel’s head. 

The roar of fury that Gabriel eminated cracked windows, but Aziraphale didn’t flinch. He used the moment of distraction and cleanly disarmed Gabriel. Sadly, this simply meant the sword clattered to the ground rather than Gabriel’s hand. 

Crowley leant on the flat, dusty top of the wall and watched as Aziraphale swung a leg out and caught Gabriel by the ankle, sending him tumbling to the ground. Gabriel, to his credit, moved quickly, bending his leg to right himself, getting a purchase on the floor with his hands quicker than anyone had a right to. But Aziraphale stepped smoothly, as if he had always meant that to be the next moment (he likely had) and knelt on Gabriel’s chest, the length of the umbrella held to Gabriel’s throat.

“I will hold you to a vow, Archangel,” Aziraphale whispered. 

The flames licked Gabriel’s chin. His fine collar singed then caught fire, destroying the thin, expensive fabric with ease. Through it all, he glared silently.

“You will take no part in a hunt for me again,” Aziraphale instructed. “You will leave me and mine in peace, alone and ignored on this Earth. Vow it.”

Gabriel’s mouth clamped shut. His eyes watered as his skin started to grow red from the heat of the flames pressing into him. 

“I will kill you here, Gabriel. You tried to take what’s mine and I will kill you for it. Unless you make this vow.”

“Why not just kill me?” Gabriel asked. His flesh was puckering at his throat, curling and blistering slowly as the fire refused to let up. The smell of cooking meat began to filter through the air. Crowley usually had no problem with such a smell, but this made his stomach turn. 

“I have free will, pawn,” Aziraphale said with an easy contempt. He held the umbrella in place. “Vow it.”

A moment passed, heated beyond the righteous flame, as the two angels stared each other down, identifying how this would end. In death or vow. 

Gabriel shut his eyes and began to speak. For a moment Crowley couldn’t understand, then the echoes of choirs rang under the words and a tremor took his bones as the vow filtered through his body. He recognised Enochian and gave up on trying to follow the conversation. That effort would prove pointless in all regards except in giving him a headache. 

Aziraphale responded to Gabriel in the same language. Crowley caught a moment of Demonic as Aziraphale said his name. Gabriel repeated the Demonic intonation somewhat maudlinly.

Then, with no grand ending, Aziraphale stood. Gabriel took a breath and lifted himself to his feet with more dignity that Crowley thought he deserved. His shirt fell open, the collar and chest burnt to uselessness. His wounds were sickening, but not lethal. The sight of exposed sinew, blackened chin bone, pained and working throat muscles on display as his sloughed skin stretched and adjusted would have bothered Crowley were it on another entity. As it was he felt a malicious glee at the pain it must cause.

Gabriel snapped his fingers and disappeared.  

The umbrella dropped immediately, the fire extinguishing the instant it left Aziraphale’s hands. 

“Crowley, how are you?” Aziraphale asked, immediately rushing around the alcove to reach him.

Crowley touched his throat, the sting of wound still fresh and smarting. He felt wet and looked, not alarmed at all to see a thin scattering of blood on his fingers. 

“I think I’m dying, angel,” he said blandly. 

Aziraphale’s hands wrapped around his head, pulling him into place for a quick kiss to his forehead. Crowley smiled into it, not needing the comfort one bit but enjoying it all the more for that fact. Aziraphale manhandled him gently, angling his head back to study his slight wounds. “Oh, you’re fine, you silly snake,” he muttered.

Crowley ran his hand across his throat then held it up for Aziraphale’s inspection. “It’s real blood, look!” He said triumphantly. 

“Here,” Aziraphale sighed, pressing his thumb to Crowley’s jugular and pouring a rush of warm sensation into his wound.

Aziraphale pulled away with a flash of apology in his expression. “Oh, it may scar, my dear,” he said. 

Crowley grinned and rolled his head, testing the strength of his skin. The heal lasted. 

"That's okay.”

“I am sorry about all that,” Aziraphale said, glancing to the sword that still lay on the ground. 

Crowley hooked his finger between Aziraphale’s shirt buttons and pulled him in for a kiss. Their lips pressed, then stayed pressed for a beat longer than a casual peck. Crowley used the moment to run his hands down Aziraphale’s torso, confirming to himself that he was unharmed and well. Aziraphale shimmered with vitality, his pulse high and his skin warm. Crowley broke the kiss and sat back, momentarily breathless at the force of joyous life before him.

“I knew I was safe," Crowley whispered. "I mean, you own me, right?”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened, then he frowned, let go of Crowley and gasped before finally saying; “No-”

“I’d need your permission to die,” Crowley interrupted, “wouldn't I, boss?”

“Oh, Crowley, that’s not what I-”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale with deeply exaggerated deference. “May I rejoin your high and mighty table, sir?”

“I don’t see you as mine,” Aziraphale pleaded, “not in that way, just-”

“Oh, Lord Aziraphale-”

“Now, that’s blasphemous, cut it out,” Aziraphale said quickly despite himself. Regret splashed across his face, interrupted by his sigh.

“I just meant that, well, Heaven sees ownership and love as somewhat interchangeable, so I was…” Aziraphale locked around sadly, then took Crowley’s hands in earnest. His eyes were serious and so blue. “I’m sorry, it was an inappropriate thing to say about you. I would hate to hold you in any shadow of the way they held me.”

“I know,” Crowley whispered. He smiled, his amusement coupling with his adoration and spilling over without anything to keep it down. He moved, a desire to kiss his angel filling every fiber of him, and found himself met by insight and reciprocation as Aziraphale pulled him in. 

They stood in the still restaurant, everything still tense and slowed after Gabriel’s disaster, and kissed. 

“Does it hurt?” Aziraphale asked, his lips still brushing Crowley’s as he spoke, his fingers delicately trailing the small lines of scar that Crowley’s neck bore anew. 

“Not a bit.”

“Shall we go home, sweetheart?”

Crowley kissed him once more, quietly confident he was about to be scolded into the next century but fully intending to push his luck regardless. Aziraphale pressed his lips to him, returning the kiss fondly. 

“Yessir,” Crowley agreed.

Aziraphale’s calm face fell into an unimpressed glare. “Don’t you start that.”

“Whatever you say, sir, I am your humble servant,” Crowley said grandiously. Aziraphale glared at him.

"I love you, Crowley, I don’t own you."

"And I love you," Crowley agreed, before quickly stirring the pot. "But I do belong to you!"

"No-"

"Angel," Crowley interrupted again. Aziraphale paused, hearing the slight change in his tone, the hint at sincerity. "I’m mine to give. Free will, babydoll, I give myself to you."

Crowley ran his hands down the sides of Aziraphale's face in adoration, taking a moment to fix his bow tie and flatten the creases from the front of his shirt. 

Aziraphale, in a very darling fashion, sighed as though he was being put out by this attention. "I don’t know," Aziraphale mumbled.

"I trust you with this gift," Crowley pressed. "Entirely."

There was a beat as Aziraphale considered his shoes. Then a second sigh and the angel smiled. "You ridiculous, beautiful demon," Aziraphale muttered and Crowley knew it was done.

They stepped apart. Crowley tidied a few pieces of errant cutlery and completely ignored the shattered table. Aziraphale gingerly picked up the sword and frowned at it. Crowley watched his expression for a moment, then came to the solid decision that he was going to leave that entirely to Aziraphale to sort out.

They made their way to the Bentley unhampered by restaurant staff.

Aziraphale went straight to the back of the car, popping the boot with an action any other Bentley would not have recognised but Crowley's car obeyed. He slipped the sword in with a frown.

Crowley waited by the passenger door, leaning against it so it remained closed. 

"Dear?" Aziraphale asked warily as he reached Crowley, indicating vaguely his question as to what Crowley was doing.

Crowley smiled. "Would you like me to kiss your feet first?"

Confusion flashed across Aziraphale's face, followed quickly by outrage. "Don’t- no! Of course not!"

Crowley opened the door and waved the petulant angel in. Aziraphale went, following his habit more than obedience. "I could clean them when we get home," Crowley continued, leaning against the door frame smiling down at the annoyed love of his life. "Or a massage, you’d like a massage."

Aziraphale perked up and glanced at him, his expression easing as he was distracted. "Oh, would- ?" He caught himself and frowned. "No!"

He buckled his seat belt pointedly while Crowley laughed. 

"Oh, I’m so going to give you a massage!" Crowley exclaimed in triumph before closing Aziraphale's door and darting to his own. He cheerfully ignored Aziraphale's tracking glare as he rounded the Bentley. 

"Crowley-" Aziraphale began, his voice filled with condescension. 

"Do you have any rosemary oil at the shop?" Crowley interrupted.

"No, but really you needn’t-"

"I know a place, don’t worry."

The car took off, tearing down the street without pause. Aziraphale gripped the dashboard and threw Crowley a dangerous look, but didn't tell him off for it. 

"I do have some frankincense oil," Aziraphale muttered as Crowley took a roundabout with malicious slowness, pissing off a businessman perfectly.

Crowley began to laugh again, first a chuckle then a full bellied roar that would have sent the car spinning if it hadn't been so self sufficient. "Oh, yeah, that’s the ticket!" Crowley grinned. Frankincense, then maybe Aziraphale would let him rub myrrh into his forehead! 

"Really, dear. I saved your life," Aziraphale scolded.

"Yeah, you did," Crowley admitted.

"Do you think you could thank me by not making endless fun of me?"

Crowley threw him a risky grin. "Nah, I’ve decided a life of servitude is more my speed."

Aziraphale sniffed and crossed his arms. "You’ll forget in two weeks."

"Well you know I’ll make it to fifteen days, now! You just want a good fortnight of pampering, don’t you?"

"Crowley, darling- "

Crowley took Aziraphale's hand, accidentally interrupting whatever he'd meant to go on to say. He brought it to his lips and kissed the angel's ring fondly. 

"Thank you," he whispered. He followed it with a gentle kiss to Azirpahale's knuckles and moved the steering wheel carefully to take a corner with as little turbulence as possible.

"It was for myself as much as you," Aziraphale said. His thumb pressed to Crowley's lips for a moment, so Crowley kissed it. 

He dropped Aziraphale's hand and pressed his foot to the floor, speeding the Bentley up. Quite enough sincerity for one drive, that kind of thing doesn't come naturally to a demon. "Selfish bastard," Crowley quipped because Aziraphale let him and Aziraphale understood. 

It was quiet for a moment before Crowley took a brave breath and admitted a few things in one sentence.

"Also, ah, next time you want to say I’m yours maybe feel me up a little too?"

"Ah, I see!" Aziraphale said, accepting the change of tone easily.

“That whole thing- the fighting and competence and so on- that was pretty damn hot, angel,” he muttered, staring in determination out the window. 

Aziraphale’s hand landed on his thigh and tightened, gripping him with confidence. “Let’s hurry along home, then, my best thing,” he suggested.

Crowley ground down impossibly harder on the pedal, making the car fly down the street.

[transienturl]

I’ve been thinking about making a separate 18+ sort of blog for a while, but... well, see, here’s the problem: the topic which this post is supposed to discuss is, obviously, at least adjacent to being nsfw, which would sort of imply that if I were to make one of those, it should go there, but the topic is also about what kind of content should or shouldn’t be corralled over there, and certain answers to that question would mean that this doesn’t qualify for that, in which case it would belong over here. Which is, to say the least, somewhat confusing.

Anyways, this post is ultimately quite safe, I think, so this readmore is really for length.

So the original thing I wanted to post was:

I wonder what the distribution and frequency/popularity of people’s sexual preferences/kinks are. It seems kind of absurd, actually, that this kind of data isn’t public. And moving one step backward from that: does anyone even know? Like, similar to the impossible-to-answer-with-accuracy question of even roughly what portion of the population would, with some basic awareness and the magic removal of society’s discriminatory history, identify as straight, is there a single human in the world who can point to some data they collected and estimate with some confidence (and some methodology-based caveats) how much of the population is into... literally anything?

It seems... surprising to me that the first few pages of google results didn’t have anything, I guess is my point. I don’t expect big sample sizes, rigor, a sampling of any general sort of population, whatever. But, like, in a world where Facebook can tell with remarkable precision not only whether you’ll vote, but what specific thing could be shown to you in order to change that... shouldn’t someone have at least a vague idea of, say, what portion of people like sex toys at all, and thus how big the market could be for them? Or... know anything about sex toys at all? Hm, I guess that second part is the real issue: discomfort with talking about this stuff due to the sexuality taboo aside, people probably have no idea what their feelings on a lot of what would be in one of these hypothetical surveys is, and might not have even heard of plenty of them, and so the data might be mostly terrible and so it might be incredibly difficult to justify doing. I guess that would make sense.

Anyways, do you think this discussion should be on a separate blog? I can imagine a whole hierarchy of potentially useful opt-ins. Like...

One: should this blog never mention sex existing? Answer: no, that ship has sailed. This is a personal blog, anyways, and given that I think sex is a positive thing and I don’t post anything of general public value here, if someone needs to not follow me because this is where I say I support comprehensive sex education, that’s totally fine.

Two: should this blog be reasonably safe for the sex-repulsed? (I think I follow someone who has mentioned it, but I don’t remember who and I don’t thiiiink they follow me...?) I don’t actually know anything about being sex-repulsed, so I don’t actually know what does and doesn’t cross the line for the median person who identifies as such. If you are, and are at all interested in discussing it, I would be quite interested!

Distinction two here is, of course, the one under which I dunno if the above paragraphs should be opt-in. It would be somewhat easier to talk about this general-topic sort of stuff if I knew the audience had opted in, simply because I could use specific examples for things. but this continues:

Three: should this blog be limited to, in short, discussions like this one that would make just as much sense if I myself were asexual. Basically, should one avoid being horny on main, as the kids say. I am personally totally comfortable reading my followed users’ hypothetical nsfw thirst tweets - er, reblogs? - but I imagine lots of people are not, especially when said followed users are strangers, and of my 200 followers, I know like... 3 of you? So, I’d lean towards “yes, make a sideblog to discuss sex in the first person, no matter how vague.”

Four: should this blog avoid personal details that it would be at least arguably kind of weird for IRL friends to know abou- YES OBVIOUSLY

So, here is the problem that I have: if I actually do want to talk through all of those categories (e.g. the end of those two paragraphs, I could continue with “for example, this is what I’m into and I have no idea how rare it is, but let’s speculate”), then to make all of those opt-ins separate, I would need 2-3 sideblogs? And that just seems patently ridiculous. I recognize that I’m clearly overthinking this, considering that of the 200ish followers I have, I’d guess without evidence that all but ~30 are defunct blogs, maybe 5 of you read the multiparagraph text posts, and somewhere between zero and two people thus care about exactly how much explicit shit you do or don’t know about me? But obviously I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable by accident.

Eh, y’know what, screw it: transienturl2.tumblr.com. If you’re interested, head over there and we can work the details out, how’s that? (And if you’re not interested, but read all the way down here, I’d love a reply or like or w/e just noting that, too!) Hm, I really didn’t think this through, did I.

[crunchmaster-supreme]

sometimes the fall court is actually a courtroom. it goes as well as you’d expect

do you ever just get sentenced to life in prison because your changeling ancestor (that you didn’t know you had) sleighted the queen of autumn a thousand years ago? do you ever get your court case overseen by a bickering pair of sixteen year-olds who like the same girl? do you ever learn that the queen of summer has your long-lost sibling in her dungeon and you’ll never see them again? kaipo hale has. 

and somehow, it only gets worse.

image description below readmore!

[id: a digital sketch in three panels, depicting a scene of a tense and somewhat ridiculous fantasy court case from the artist's DnD campaign.

PANEL 1, TOP-RIGHT: Kai, a young adult human with brown skin and dark shoulder-length hair, stands before a podium listing them as "Accused". Their expression is frantic, hopeless, disbelieving, and above all, angry. Their eyes have dark circles beneath, they are dressed in all black with their shirt's laces loose to show a number of tattoos- And fresh injuries- beneath. Their arms are bound with rope.

PANEL 2, TOP-LEFT: Three witnesses watch the trial, the purple-and-orange fermata tapestry of the Fall Court hanging behind them. On the left is Confetti, a changeling woman with curly blue hair, pink eyes, and rosy cheeks. She is wearing a cream-colored sweater and pink cardigan beneath her reaper's robes, and her hands are over her mouth in suspense. 

In the center is the General, Loveless, a firbolg with soft grey fur, dark eyes, and fluffy orange hair. They are wearing a black and red military uniform and a well-worn brown vest with a pink heart over the chest. Their uniform is well-decorated with pips, epaulettes, and medals. They have a determined, if resigned, expression as they stand to testify. 

On the right is Rabbit, a tiefling with red skin, somewhat messy navy blue hair, yellow eyes, and horns that curve straight back against their head. Their expression is nothing short of distraught, one hand over their mouth as the other twists into their sleeve. They are wearing a plain blue shirt which covers as much skin as posisble. Their ears are drooped low, their tail twitching anxiously behind them. 

PANEL 3, BOTTOM: Four courtiers stand in observence, displaying the more ridiculous aspects of the trial. There are two thrones, one tall in black and purple marked with the Harvester's fermata which sits empty, and the second is shorter, gold and blue, and occupied. Heavy purple curtains frame the backdrop of this panel.

On the left, Party, a changeling with dark skin and bright green hair stands, a look of deep confusion on her face. She seems to be counting on her fingers, and is surrounded by question marks. She is wearing a big pair of obnoxious pink sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt with all the buttons undone.

In the center of the panel, occupying the gold and blue throne, sits the Queen of Summer, the Sunbeam, a tall fey woman with tanned skin and messy blonde hair decorated with seaweed and starfish. She looks positively entranced by the drama of this whole affair, her hands clasped beside her face in glee as she grins. She is wearing a sand-colored dress made of seashells and a similarly obnoxious pair of large pink sunglasses.

To the right of the Sunbeam stands Cresta, a unique and eyecatching teenage merfolk, with the coloration of a well-bred betta fish. She is a of deep indigo coloration, with splotches of fuchsia and magenta, and wine-colored wavy hair. She is glaring indignantly at the figure to her right, and is trying to record the events of the trial with her clipboard and quill. She is wearing a white-and-blue striped blouse with a ruffed collar and a pair of tiny glasses on a chain. There is an annoyed scribble symbolizing frustration over her head.

On the far right of the panel is Marguerite, a heavyset pumpkin-orange tiefling teen with black and purple hair, yellow eyes, and horns with arrowhead tips. She looks very goth, wearing a black gown with a front-laced corset, a number of face piercings, and a necklace made of blue seaglass. She sticks her tongue out at Cresta, her hands indignantly on her hips. /end ID]

[fight-surrender]

Howlin’ Forever Chapter 3: Into the Woods

Rating: Teen and Up

Word count: 2583

Read on AO3

Summary: “Dog-Simon must catch my scent because he’s instantly awake and on his feet. His head is down, hackles are up and the snarl that ensues from his mouth is most certainly lupine. His eyes are Simon’s blue, but there is no humanity or recognition in them. Only malice.”

Time for Baz to find a werewolf. 

(I did put a readmore cut in here on my desktop, I’m terribly sorry to clog your feed if it doesn’t transfer to mobile.) Thanks as always to my amazing friends, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz​, @vkelleyart​ @penpanoply​ for their unwavering support and encouragement and beta reading and omg @penpanoply​ made me this cover art which is fucking gorgeous and brilliant and perfect. <3 <3

        _________________________________________________

                                       Ch 3: Into the Woods

                                   You and me have a disease,                                   You affect me, you infect me,                                   I'm afflicted, you're addicted,                                      You and me, you and me

                                  - “Infected” by Bad Religion

 Baz:

Panting, I scramble to the window. The night seems to be holding its breath, silently waiting as a quiet splash draws my eyes to the moat. The merwolves are eerily calm, almost reverent, as they bear witness to the hulking bronze figure that cuts through the water. The creature emerges from the moat, shaking off moonlit water droplets. He howls again, sending my heart into a renewed frenzy. The wolf then turns and runs into the forest.

I wipe my hands across my face, then rake them through my hair.

What should I do? What should I do?

Should I go after him? Leave him be? Where is he going? Does he even know?

The drawbridge is closed. I’m too frazzled to manage a spell to get around it. Sleep isn’t an option tonight. My eye catches on the pile of books Malfoy sent over. At least Hogwarts still has a fully stocked library, not the Children’s Garden of Verses we have here at Watford. I take a copy of “Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and settle onto my bed to try and focus on the pages.

***

  Sunrise turns the room pink as I realize I’ve been reading the same paragraph for half an hour. I have no idea what it says. The only information I’ve retained from this exercise is that the full moon phase can last up to about four days. The transformation seems to last longer in the newly Turned. Also, there is a potion called Wolfsbane that helps lessen the effects of the Lycanthropy.

A heavy thunk, followed by the clatter of gears indicates the drawbridge is coming down.

I snap the book shut with one hand and stand up.

Time to find a werewolf.

 ***

 It’s a good thing it’s the weekend. I certainly wouldn’t miss class to hike through the woods after this imbecile. Branches slap my face as I stomp along, following Snow’s tracks. He’s left an obvious trail of broken limbs, scratched soil and huge footprints. My vampire senses come in handy as well. His scent is different in this form. He still smells like smoke, but now there’s a wildness, a smell of petrichor and moss with hints of musk.

My mind is a swirl of thoughts, but I can’t settle on any single one. Simon, the Chosen One, Watford’s golden boy is now a monster. Technically, he’s not allowed to exist. Neither am I, for that matter, I’m well versed in keeping my secret. The question is what’s Simon going to do with this information? He’s so damned good, he could very well just turn himself in to the mage as soon as he resumes his human form. I’ll be damned to hell twice over before I let him throw his life away like that. I will stop him, even if I have to put a collar on him and chain him to the bed. (That actually sounds appealing, regardless of his reaction to his new condition.)

Simon’s scent gets stronger as I approach a dried creek bed. I slow down, treading lightly across scattered stones and debris, trying not to make a sound. An angry squirrel chitters at me from a branch above my head. If I had the time or inclination, I’d drain him out of spite. At least squirrel blood tastes better than rat.

I stop short as I come around a boulder, on the other side is the hulking form of Simon Snow. Rather, the were version of him. His breath is till heaving, but he seems to be asleep. During the frenzied events of last night, I hadn’t a chance to really get a look at him.  He’s huge, probably the size of a Shetland pony. He doesn’t exactly look wolfish, his muzzle is not so pointed, his ears flop down. He looks like, well he looks like an overgrown, shaggy, bronze-furred Golden Retriever. For snakes sake, of course Simon Snow would turn into a Golden; cheerful, loyal, lovely dogs that they are. He’s too good to even be a proper monster. Crowley. I roll my eyes and shake my head in wonder.

Dog-Simon must catch my scent because he’s instantly awake and on his feet. His head is down, hackles are up and the snarl that ensues from his mouth is most certainly lupine. His eyes are Simon’s blue, but there is no humanity or recognition in them. Only malice. Not quite so Golden-esque then.

Before I can pull my wand from my sleeve, he lunges at me, but immediately falls to the ground. He growls again and turns to bite at something behind him. I step back to a safer distance and see that the beast’s foot is caught in some kind of debris. Snow flails and thrashes, but eventually collapses, exhausted, panting.

I try to approach him, now that he’s tired, and am met once again with that malevolent, dead stare and a mouth full of giant teeth. And, I might add, horrific dog breath.  I back away into the forest to think. That thing, it is Simon. I can’t exactly leave him out here for the next three days, but how can I spell him free and somewhere safe until he goes back to human form? There are dog training spells, but what would “atta boy” do to the human part of his brain? I suppose I could spell him to sleep, but how do I get him back to our room? I don’t have the magic to transport him.

What if I could get him to trust me? Physically, he’s a giant pet dog. What’s the best way to train a dog? Positive reinforcement: Food. What’s the way to Simon Snow’s heart? Food.  

I turn and run back to Watford. It’s time to call in a favor with Cook Pritchard.

 ***

 Thank magic no one is around when I haul the giant wicker picnic basket Cook Pritchard loaded up for me across the great lawn. She gave me enough food for an army. The woman was well chuffed that I was having a picnic with “friends.” She acted as if I hadn’t any friends.  “Well that’s lovely, Basilton, so nice to see you coming out of your shell.” Cook even tucked a small bottle of dandelion wine into the basket, “to help break the ice.” She actually winked at me. I wanted to implode.

I have friends. Sure, half of them are family, but still. You only need one or two friends, anything more isn’t worth the effort.

I carry the basket through the wood. I feel like I’m on my way to a goth Victorian picnic. I stop periodically to drain a few squirrels, just for spite.  The resident dryad side eyes me as I pass her thicket. I ignore her.

“What do you seek, blood eater?” She hisses. Twirling her ridiculous umbrella. Butterflies swirl lazily around her mossy hair.

“None of your business.” I reply.

“Your pistil is a wolf.” She remarks.

“He’s not my anything.” I snarl, “And he’s not a wolf, he’s a Golden Retriever.”

“The Chosen One is an abomination,” she presses. “The children of the moon must die.”

I light a fire in my palm. “Is that so?” I drop my voice to a menace, “maybe I should take out this whole forest in the process.”

“Do what you must. The forest will regrow. He cannot live.” She calls my bluff.

“You know what? You can fuck off.” I say, frustrated.

She opens her mouth to speak, but I raise my hand. “Enough. We’re done here.” I sling the giant basket over my shoulder and stomp away.

I’ll be staked before I take advice from a woodland creature holding a parasol. Snow has as much of a right to live as I do. More so, he’s not dead. Fuck the dryad.

I finally make it back to the creek bed. Dog-Simon looks vaguely defeated, laying on his side, his back leg stretched behind him. I can see a length of rusty wire wrapped around his foot. He’s awake, wary eyes never leaving mine, a low growl rumbles in his chest.

I settle myself on the ground a safe distance away. I’m wearing my school-issue green Watford football trackie bottoms and sweatshirt. Coach Mac will probably not appreciate werewolf damage to the practice uniform. My trainers are caked with mud. I sigh. The things I do for love.

The basket creaks as I open it. The sound makes Snow get up and retreat as far as the wire around his leg will let him. His tail is down, ears back; he’s panting lightly.

I pull out the bottle of dandelion wine and take a swig, to calm my nerves. It’s bitter, with a faint floral overtone, and just enough bite to warm my chest. I take a deep breath and survey the contents of my picnic. The basket is overflowing with roast beef sandwiches, sour cherry scones, roast chicken, bacon butties, jellies, and inexplicably a layered trifle. She must have magicked it all in there.

It’s just me and the dog, and I missed breakfast, so I help myself to a roast beef sandwich. Snow’s ears tip forward and he sits down. Sniffing the air.

I toss a bit of my sandwich at him, he scrambles away with a surprised bark. Almost immediately, he cautiously noses forward, sniffing at the roast beef. He sits down again, without eating it and resumes watching me, panting. His teeth are huge.

“For fucks sake, Simon, it’s not like it’s poisoned.”

The dog’s ears perk up and he cocks his head at me. His mouth is closed, brows almost furrowed in concentration.

“Go on then lad,” I press, “roast beef is your favorite.” I remind myself to breathe.

Snow resumes panting, but lowers his nose again at the food. He nudges it, then takes an experimental bite. Apparently satisfied that the offering wasn’t going to kill him, the great dog swallows the rest. Licking his lips, he retreats to his original position, as far away from Baz as he can get.

I toss half a sandwich into his orbit.

“There you go Snow, I know you can’t walk away from half a sandwich.”

Once again Dog-Simon sits, cocks his head and looks at me. I’m probably imagining it, but his eyelids almost seem to squeeze a bit, in concentration. He cautiously walks my way, never taking his eyes off me, and eats the sandwich half in one bite. This time he doesn’t shy away, he sits, panting again and watches me.

I toss him the other half of the sandwich, which he catches in the air and eats with more gusto. He’s watching me again, this time I get a weak tail wag.

I unwrap the roast chicken and throw the whole thing at him. It lands with an unceremonious plop, a leg breaking free. Simon stands and practically inhales the whole thing. His tail is wagging faster now.

We go on like this for the duration of the afternoon. I’m slowly inching closer, I can almost touch his muzzle now. He seems more relaxed, the panting has stopped. His ears are forward, tail wagging freely. His eyes have gone softer, from ice to sky.

I reach into the basket for a sour cherry scone, I’ve been saving these for this moment. I scoot even closer, holding it in my hand this time. He’s so close, he could easily rip my throat out. It’s not often I have to worry about someone ripping out my throat. It’s refreshing, really. I suppose there are worse ways to die.

“Simon, we’re going to have to work together to figure this mess out. If there is any part of you that can hear me, let me help you. I mean, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but…” My voice tapers off. Why would he trust me? Crowley, I’ve done nothing but torment him for the last 6 years.

A gentle breeze ruffles the golden leaves above me. “We be of one blood, ye and I.” I murmur. A warm rush of surprise washes over me. Where the fuck did that even come from? Kipling was a powerful magician, but is that even a spell? Leave it to me to channel my favorite childhood book in times of duress.

I take a breath and hold out the scone. Simon noses forward, sniffs, and carefully takes the scone from my hand. He doesn’t move away. I keep my eyes on him as I slowly reach for the basket and remove another scone. I hold it in my hand, when he takes it, I reach out with my other hand and run it behind his ear, rubbing along his jaw. He stiffens, but continues to eat the scone. “These are your favourite,” I whisper, scratching behind his ear, rubbing slowly along his neck and shoulder. Eventually, I find myself out of scones and scratching his stomach, while his tongue lolls and he scratches his back leg lazily.

I take a break because my hands are cramping from all the petting. I really hope he doesn’t remember any of this. I shake my hands and look at the grime under my nails. I’m going to need a manicure.

Simon stands and gives a mighty shake from his nose to his feathered, rudder-like tail. He utters a sharp bark, like he’s decided something, then proceeds to try and climb into my lap, his huge pink tongue lapping my face.

“Merlin and Morgana, you giant thumping git, get off. I push him away, but not too far. He knocks me to the ground and licks my whole face. For snakes sake, you’re disgusting, I get to my feet wiping saliva off my chin and trying not to smile. Simon’s tail is wagging so hard his whole body is wiggling and he’s rubbing along my side, trying to get me to scratch his back. I oblige for a moment.

“Snow, stop, let’s get your leg untangled.”  He stands so quietly as I extricate his leg from the wire, that I can’t help but wonder if he understood me.

Once freed, Simon plants his giant paws on my shoulders and smears the side of my face with his tongue once more. “Blimey, Snow.” I step back and the great dog’s feet once more hit the ground. He zooms away, coming to a skidding stop, returns to my side and bows his front legs down, rear up, tail wagging madly.

I lean down and take his huge face in my hands, scratching gently below his jaw. “Come along, you delightful moron, let’s go home.”

I turn and make my way through the forest. The late afternoon sun dappling the trail with rich golden light. Dust motes dancing in the beams. Simon scampers ahead, darting back every few minutes to make sure I’m still following.

I breathe in the rich loamy scent of these ancient woods and let it out slowly. For once, my mind is quiet. Simon is back at my side, nosing at my hand. I absentmindedly rub his velvet ear. I stop and let this foreign emotion wash over me. I let myself relax, for just this moment, I am content.