#so it is a VERY long running solution and takes pains to fix the majority of rose of the noble palace

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Longtime reader and fan (thank you for existing and sharing your writing!) first time asker, prompted by watching the movie The Martian: what if the team went on a mission out in space, during the war or after, and accidentally left someone behind on a planet? I can't decide who it would be worse for it to happen to, and whether being able to morph would really be helpful. Maybe it's a funny no-big when you have alien space travel, I suppose

Ooh, I think it all depends on who got left behind.

Ax: We know from canon that he can get by while stranded on an alien planet without either dying or losing his mind. That said, Ax also desperately needs company and doesn't do well alone. When he's stuck in the Dome ship, he gets to the point of hallucinations and memory problems from the isolation (MM4). So Ax would probably figure out how to get a potato farm or other food supply going — he's very good at cobbling together solutions from limited technology — and he would be able to fix things that went wrong for a time.

But Ax better find that Rover and get it talking to an Earth satellite as fast as he can, if he's the one stranded. And he hopefully wouldn't make a mistake that results in it frying. If he does, then Ax would have the greatest risk of just losing the plot. That could mean falling into a depression so bad he stops maintaining his food supply, becoming so anxious he can't do EVAs anymore, developing psychosis and losing track of reality, or any number of other ways that his brain could start eating itself. But if he does end up with any kind of major overwhelming stressor, then he's probably screwed. It's not like there's a way to do therapy through a 2-message-an-hour Rover running on Morse code, and I doubt(?) NASA would've sent antidepressants in their limited weight supply.

Jake: Would go the same way as Ax, but a lot faster. He wouldn't consider himself worth risking others' lives to rescue, he wouldn't have the necessary mental flexibility to engineer himself a long-term survival solution, and he wouldn't be able to remain sane with no one to talk to. I don't think he'd actually die by suicide. I think he'd just curl up in bed and eat 3x a day until he ran out of MREs, and then gradually slip away.

Marco: Easily the best equipped to survive over a year alone on Mars. Name puns aside, he's the most Mark Watney-ish of the Animorphs. He can laugh as he's crying, he can entertain himself, he can think through problems quickly, and he can charm the media of planet Earth enough to convince NASA to mount a rescue expedition.

Marco would start talking to himself the moment he wakes up alone, and he wouldn't stop talking until he was finally back on the spaceship. He'd try so hard to be cool and tough in the logs, insisting on not really being scared, not really being hungry or in pain, until you could almost believe him. If something breaks, Marco will take it apart and fix it. If he risks dying in the process of fixing the broken water purifier or oxygen system, then he's going to run straight at it with manic determination to make his death at least entertaining for the folks at home.

Of course, Marco might also be the most upsetting one for the other Animorphs to realize they've left behind. Rather than trying to make the others feel better about having made an honest mistake in the process of trying to save their own lives, he'd be making jokes about how he was five minutes late for the school bus and yet they still left him on the field trip, or he knew that Jake found him annoying but never realized he was that annoying. Which would only make the whole team feel way worse about the fact that they left him for dead and nearly let him die for real.

Cassie: Would do all the science she could, with the opportunity she'd been given. She would carefully log the rock samples she found, take extensive notes on her processes, and use up every single sample container and scrap of disc space she had left on her observations. Then she'd go out somewhere beautiful, eat one last MRE and watch one last Earthrise, and take off her helmet.

Tobias: Probably second-best equipped psychologically to spend all that time in survival mode. Like Ax, Tobias is prone to mental illness and so risks not being able to keep going through all the relentless misery and stress, but Tobias is also a solitary creature at heart. And Tobias isn't afraid to do what it takes to survive, as long as he's not hurting anyone else in the process. So he wouldn't make contacting Earth a priority (except to make it clear that he needs rescue) and he would be okay with a tiny trickle of communication with his fellow humans that eventually gets cut off.

However, Tobias is also a lot more... rigid in planning, I guess? He doesn't have Ax's or Marco's "try anything" attitude. He makes rules for himself, and then he follows them, even to the point of risking death. He tends to obsess over taking the right course of action no matter what, and spends a ton of time considering what right would be in any given situation. Like, he's got more functional fixedness than Marco or Cassie, which could be bad if his only option for survival is to make a sock and a paperback book cover into a makeshift CO2 filter. So I think Tobias would handle the isolation best of anyone on the team, but risks not handling the 40,000 random engineering problems that come from using a tent meant for 6 people over 2 weeks as a home for 18 months.

Tobias would also be extremely upsetting for the other Animorphs to have left behind. His role on the team is classic break the cutie, where anything bad happening to him is utterly devastating for all his friends in a way it wouldn't be to have Rachel or Jake suffer a similar fate. If there's anyone that the team would risk cannibalism and death to return to Mars for, it's him.

Rachel: It's hard to say if impulsivity is more of a bonus or a drawback here. Rachel has never taken anything lying down in her life, ever, and she'd be offended by the idea of some stupid dusty planet getting the better of her. She would fight with every iota of her being to survive, fighting airlock failure and potato rot and oxygen leaks and water system clogs.

But. Impulsivity. If that means she tries anything, tries everything, until a solution works, then excellent. If that means she gets fed up with the process of survival, less good. If that means she says screw it and eats when she's hungry, doubleplusungood.

[autolenaphilia]

It's remarkable how easy Linux Mint is to use, compared to Linux's general forbidding reputation. It was really easy to set up for me who has no coding knowledge. I had to fiddle with the boot order in my BIOS a bit but no biggie. Follow the installation guide on the website, and you will be fine. You can boot from an USB too, and test out the OS before installing it and wiping your drive. Transfer data to an external drive before you do.

And you probably won't have much trouble once it is installed either. The default settings are reasonable, and can be changed. It's a very easy to use OS. I have had no problems doing most of the ordinary things I use an OS for. My most used programs on Windows was already things like Firefox, VLC media player and Libreoffice on windows, and they function just as fine on Linux Mint (and are indeed installed by default).

Gaming has given me some trouble, but honestly Lutris has solved most of them. Granted I run mostly so old games on this laptop that Scummvm and dosbox is a solution for many of them. And installing 32 bit libraries has solved others (running the command in this link in the terminal solved so many issues alone). I play very old games, if you can't tell.

Sure, part of how Mint is so user-friendly is that it imitates Windows graphical user interface. But to be honest, it does mean users coming from Windows are already used to the interface. And Mint imitates only the parts of it that work, like the taskbar. And Microsoft has had a bad habit of making the gui look like a phone or a tablet for years now, so Mint does a Windows-like gui better than Windows at this point.

Mint is better than Windows in being a user-friendly operating system in general. Windows being spyware and full of bloatware is well-known and LInux gets away from that bullshit. And just how polite MInt is about updates is a massive improvement. No forced reboots here while an update takes ages to install.

Mint is a long-term support distro, which means it focuses on stability over the latest updates to packages and programs, introducing updates not when they are first released, but after a while when any bugs have been ironed out. And that improves the OS's stability a lot, which I value over getting bleeding edge updates. If you want updates as soon as they happen, and are willing to tinker a bit to fix things, there are other distros which use a rolling-release model.

It is less demanding on the hardware without compromising functionality. Like the majority of Linux distros takes up way less space on the drive and less memory compared to Windows, you can get more life out of an old computer this way.

There are so many older computers that still function fine hardware-wise, but since the specs on that hardware are too weak to switch to a newer more-resource hungry version of Windows, the machines are abandoned because the OS ends up unsupported and unsafe to use. Windows 10 support is going to end in 2025, it might be extended, but the end of w10 support is going to be a blood bath for this very reason. So many computers can't meet the specs for Windows 11 that the switch will be painful. And I would urge you if you are affected by this to upgrade to a LInux distro instead of getting a new computer just for windows 11.

[drsoniamaheshwari]

Advantages of undergoing lasik eye surgery.

Quick surgery with immediate results: The LASIK procedure itself only takes about 15 minutes and within 15 days of the surgery, your sight will be restored to normal. Of course, you don’t actually have to wait for the full 15 days within 24 hours of the surgery you will have improved vision. But the complete restoration of vision takes 15 days. During this time you might have some restrictions like avoiding direct sunlight and avoiding swimming, but otherwise you can go about your daily life as usual. 

You save money in the long run: Cost of LASIK surgery can feel like a major investment and this is often cited as a reason by some people for avoiding it. The truth is, however, that you end up saving a lot of money in the long run. The time, money and energy that you would have to spend on frames, lenses, contacts, contact solution, and optometrist appointments for the rest of your life can be all saved by just getting this one-time surgery done. 

A hassle-free lifestyle and self-confidence: Glasses and contact lenses can be an eye-sore — pun intended! Wearing them can decrease your self-confidence and just be a drain on your time and energy. When you misplace your glasses, you are not able to live your normal life and you are not able to be there for your loved ones at home or perform well at work. So the biggest benefit of LASIK is that you will get your life back. You will no longer have to worry about glasses and lenses, and you will be able to live your life to the fullest. 

LASIK surgery is pain-free: When people hear LASIK involves a laser, they assume that the surgery is painful. This is far from the truth. At most, you will feel a slight irritation in your eye during the surgery. In most cases, patients do not even require bandages or stitches and can get back to their normal life within 24 hours. 

Low risk, high satisfaction: A 2015 study to evaluate the subjective quality of vision and patient satisfaction after LASIK surgery found that a total of 98.5% of patients were satisfied or very satisfied with their surgery, and 98.5% considered their main goal for surgery was achieved. 79% of those patients said they had less difficulty driving at night. The chances of complications is also very less and any complications that do occur are minor and can be fixed easily. 

All in all, there is enough reason to go for LASIK surgery without worry.

For more information contact Dr. Sonia Maheshwari Kothari practicing at Clear Sight Eye care and Laser Center.

[emcapi-gaming]

#im sure arkose is getting a lot of enrichment from being in the sun www (@ferrocyan)

Oh ABSOLUTELY!!! They grew up in the dome and were SO excited to get to go out and see the sky in real life. (Well, to see everything, really, but the sky was very special!) They're also having a lot of fun with the novelty of being somewhere warm enough to wear an open shirt. With the lack of sun, I think Heritage Found in general stayed pretty chilly, and Arkose spent the vast majority of their time in Solution 9 which has very "air conditioned mall/convention center" vibes to me.

Overall, Arkose is THRIVING. Being stuck in the dome was terrible for both their mental and physical health.

(additional detailed rambling on how Arkose is doing under the cut because I started putting it in tags and then it kept getting longer lol)

Mental health:

Soul inherited from someone whose most defining trait was traveling + being stuck in a relatively tiny area = nightmare scenario. Like, probably second only to Amon in terms of "worst possible soul to environment mismatch." They hit rock bottom and clawed their way back up on their own some time before Ardwin And Friends blew up a train, but it was still distinctly a "mental health being held together with duct tape" situation.

Physical health:

Arkose's levin sickness isn't totally fixed, but between being out of the dome most of the time and regular contact with Ardwin*, it's massively stabilized. Their symptoms have always been pretty variable, but the bad end of the spectrum no longer seems to be slowly worsening over time, the good end has improved to "almost nothing," and their average has shifted strongly towards the good end and is continuing to gradually improve.

They still get bad flare-ups during storms or if they stay in S9/Heritage Found for too long, and worse ones if they get hit with any levin-based magic in a fight, but they're also able to bounce back from these faster than before.

I also plan to figure out a way for Arkose to get into some physical therapy for some of the residual effects. With the exception of occasional focal seizures, their symptoms are consistently the worst at the furthest extremities (fingers/toes) and decrease towards the center. So even though they're having far less numbness/nerve pain/localized paralysis, they still have some notable muscle atrophy in their hands and feet and would definitely benefit from some work on grip strength, fine motor skills, and walking/running without braces. I just need to figure out a good way to get them in touch with someone who can help with that.

*The "contact with Ardwin" thing: Ardwin and Ardbert accidentally discovered on the First that he was able to siphon some of the Light from her via physical touch. Similar principle to rejoinings, but on a much smaller scale; he could also only take a very limited amount, being incorporeal and a less dense soul. Their merge was a lot more effective. It was like the difference between bailing out a sinking ship vs. patching the leak.

It works similarly between her and Arkose, and was how she discovered they were another Arkadios shard. This does result in Ardwin's aether getting unbalanced, but she's way more dense and still has the Blessing of Light protecting against aether corruption, so it's not even remotely enough for her to feel any effects. She'll also naturally balance back out over time unless she's staying in the dome.

There are some limitations. One, it only kicks in when they're past a certain relative threshold of imbalance, so there's a long cooldown while Ardwin trends back towards being balanced and Arkose trends back towards being imbalanced. Two, it doesn't work really well if it's an environmental issue (stormy weather and/or visiting Arkose's home), or if Ardwin has also spent the fight getting hammered with levin magic; a common occurrence, because even if she's not officially tanking, she'll insist on sticking in front of Arkose the second she sees any levin being thrown around.

(Ardbert doesn't really factor in here because when Ardwin summons him, his body is a construct from her aether, so he shares whatever her current state is.)

Soulmates sneaking in some chill vacation time :)

(Arkose, on the left, goes by they/them. Also, full size for better view of their top scars!)

[magistralucis]

lib sebinsky/at a party/you pick also side note I Love U💟💟💟💟💟💟

At a party, celebrating // Lib Sebinsky

———————

When the hour is nigh you rise to your feet and gesture for your Captain to join you outside. He seems surprised, but complies, letting the door fall shut; the conversations of the evening fade behind it, and you are left alone together, snowy moonlight drifting past your feet. "Sebastian. Something wrong?"

“No... it couldn’t be further away from wrong.”

Twenty to midnight. This is it. You take a deep breath, pull out a small box from your pocket, and lower yourself on one knee.

“This was a very long time coming.”

Your Captain gasps and stares at you in disbelief. Your smile, faintly bashful, perhaps even chastised - but above all, honest. Surprising how it took you both so long, and around such complicated paths, to convey something so simple. But it’s here now. You’ve thought about this moment for so long the speech accompanying it flows like water.

“In our years together I could never choose the right time to do this. And we had many obstacles in the way: war scars, misunderstandings, my selfishness.” You close your eyes and shake your head, guilt stinging your heart, as it has done ever since you and Vincent fixed your relationship. ���I am guilty - yes! I am guilty of throwing away our moments. I shan’t repeat that mistake again. You have been by my side for a full dozen years, Vincent, I should be honoured if you will be mine for ten times that.”

“Sebastian.”

You open the box. Two rings in brilliant white gold are nestled within. You are already acquainted to yours, it’s the same one Vincent gifted you as a promise so very long ago; well, it has its partner now. “You are the river of human kindness. You steered me this far. At this point in the journey of our life, I wish to keep you with me for ever: Vincent Belorgey, will you marry me?”

He stares at you some more. Slowly, a smile drifts to his lips. The smile becomes a laugh, which soon dissolves in tears of joy. Wordlessly, he pulls you to your feet and pulls you fast to his chest; this is not quite enough for him, and within seconds he’s lifted you up with a triumphant shout, spinning you in a circle. When he lets you down he makes his answer known in a way you didn’t expect, which is: another ring, in its own box, blue velvet to counter your red. His is more elaborate with an inset band of diamonds. You look up at him, astonished.

“I was going to take my chance after midnight.” He confesses, his hoarse-voiced happiness mingling with the dark mischief he learnt to tame for your pleasure. "I received the Madame's permission years ago. But it wouldn't have been right to spring it on you at the start of your presidency, and for years - I wondered if it would ever be the right time-"

And the sting again. Yes, for many years, it seemed like there would be no light at the end of the tunnel. “Oh, Vinco-”

"But I kept hoping such a day would come. Oh, Bastien, I am glad. If we were still in the palace when it happened, I wanted the top floor converted into our suite - for the honeymoon, or whatever else, let’s do that! - and if we weren't, I was going to take you to Grasse. Obtain us a cottage and a beautiful yard in springtime, plead your grace on one knee! I thought you might like to be stolen away, in the same way I think you'd like being gently but firmly taken against the wall." He hushes your blushing protests with a finger, pressed tenderly against your mouth. "It depends on circumstances, but from everything I know about you, I was pretty damned certain you'd love it."

"You scoundrel.” But you can’t resist taking the tip of his finger into your mouth, teeth edging slightly against the skin. “I hope you didn't say that to my mother."

"My lips are sealed." Vincent laughs, eyes twinkling. He leans in. "Unless my Sebastian desires otherwise. I'd much rather please you with them, than to merely talk about it."

The sentiment is mutual. You present your hand to him, playfully haughty as he kisses the back of it and slips his ring onto your finger. You do the same for him with yours, and seeing that he’s pleased with this arrangement, reach up to kiss him fully. It is a short kiss, for the clock is ticking and you have places to be, but wholly satisfying: Vincent slips his hands along your body, feeling for you beneath your regalia, and the caress pleases you.

Already his ring is warm against your skin. Against the wall, indeed. Perhaps later.

---

After that the plan goes without a hitch. When you enter hand in hand, you and Captain both, an air of understanding sweeps across the receiving room right away. People put down their glasses, give you their full attention, and Franck slips away from the crowd. (They will later confirm they were similarly commissioned by Vincent, but kept their loyalty to you, aware you would get your chance first.)

“Have you enjoyed tonight’s festivities, beloved ones?”

Nods and murmurs. You smile wide and raise your hand up high, at the same time as Vincent, presenting your rings in unison to the crowd.

“Might you have room for one more, perhaps?”

Stunned silence. From the back of the room Franck pulls a cord with flourish. One of the many burgundy drapes there, indistinguishable from the rest, falls open instantly; the sound draws the crowd’s attention, and as Franck presents the new Presidential portrait they painted of yourself and your fiancé, the tension breaks free like a flood. First there are gasps, then a thunderous cheer, breaking forth like wildfire. Sonny is the first to throw himself into your arms, sobs of utter relief and joy interspersed with his congratulations.

That painting there is barely a week old, but already it’s set up for a sequel, this time with all three of you. You lavish paternal kisses on him and lift him high above your shoulders.

"Mesdames et Messieurs," you cry as you hold tight the two men dearest to your heart, "a happy family!"

Everyone swirls around you then. A sea of applause, handshakes, and hearty slaps on the shoulder (for Vincent more than you). It took you so long to get to this point, but you got there in the end, and something is finally complete. A camera materializes, already mounted on a tripod. Franck is the operator. With eager gestures they quickly wave everyone in the room close to you, gathered in position in two neat rows, you and Vincent and Sonny at the very centre. Tonight they will immortalize your family as it was and is; at the wedding, which will hopefully be very soon, this picture will be taken again with the addition of Franck in the crowd.

They will always be there for future photos as well. The transference of the old into the new, incorporating the new, and again and again for as long as you prosper.

Xavier and Gaspard are closest to you, faces beaming with joy and a mutual love for one another. Pedro and David are closest to the Captain, their expressions as serene as can be, the former's arm playfully resting on the latter's shoulder as if to show off his taller height. Beside them stands your chauffeur, Quentin and Bruno beside Xavier; then all the subordinates, and the palace staff who were so faithful to you all these years. You glance at Vincent amidst this big and wonderful family you have amassed, and he smiles back you; you lean in and kiss again, picture perfect with hands entwined, as a second round of cheers erupt again.

“Ouistiti!”

You keep that photo in your bedchamber forever.

[olderthannetfic]

Ah, I do see your points, anon. I'm not going to post all your asks publicly because if you really feel that unsafe, it's probably best not to have a bigass chunk of your text for people to analyze and try to guess your identity from. I think one of the best points you made is about how close to home it hits when the non-fave is not only your fave but is similar to you in some way like demographic. You're not wrong for having those emotions. I do wonder if they make it hard to see how some other people feel similarly embattled on other axes.

TBH, I think one of the big problems here is that the large aggregate patterns you're talking about are racist, but most individual fics and fans are not really the problem. It's hard to know how to talk about this or who to tell to "fix" it when we're looking at free, hobbyist art.

A lot of people's tastes are certainly formed by shitty society, but once they're formed, they don't change fast if at all. Asking someone to rewrite their libido is a big ask, yet tumblr does it all the time as though it's as simple as snapping your fingers.

This leaves me with the sense that a lot of tumblr is... like... the political lesbians of porn fic or something: desire is not real, only choosing based on logic and politics. Or maybe people are so asexual that they just don't understand the lizard brain's "YES!" at some porn things and complete indifference to others?

I don't think it's great if great swaths of people feel like bottom!Nicky is super hot and top!Nicky fundamentally isn't, but I also don't think they can necessarily just turn it off like flipping a switch.

(If someone reading this doesn't like their current tastes and wants to attempt to alter them, I do think it's possible. What you should do is line up a large slate of media that prominently features characters of the ethnicity or whatever that you don't find hot/interesting. These should be leads whose emotional development drives the plot and is supposed to be central to the audience's enjoyment of the media. Watch/read/etc. this media all the time. All. The. Time. Try out many pieces because you won't like every character or every show, and we're looking for genuine enjoyment, not the fandom equivalent of a pity fuck. Spend enough time on this, and your unconscious sense of who's hot and interesting will eventually shift somewhat. This is a project you should expect to take a few years.)

But I digress.

The one tweet thing is a very toxic pattern. If TOG fandom is doing that, guys, please try to be more conscious of holding the actors of color to a higher standard (or the women or whomever). I know this often comes from a place of paying more attention to our own and wanting to set a good standard, but the effect is that minorities can't fuck up ever while white dudes get infinite passes.

Okay, on to the fic thing... Gotta say, my instant reaction to that description is "Ooh!"--as it would be for the same scenario with the characters reversed. (Ships who start out trying to kill each other are my favorite! x1000 if they're resurrecting style immortals and they literally do.) I can see how it would feel like slamming into a brick wall if you aren't kinky in just the right way and you didn't know it was coming though.

Part of why I react so strongly to a lot of discourse that runs along these lines is that I am a naturally extremely kinky person. It's not so much about what I do (which as a deeply lazy person in a long distance relationship is essentially nothing), but it's absolutely how I'm wired.

And I can tell you that my quotidian experience in fandom is sharing something I don't even realize is a big deal only to have someone I like, respect, and trust react in horror and tell me that it's triggering and awful and should not be allowed in fandom spaces because it makes "people" unsafe. It's such an instant, kneejerk reaction they don't even realize I was sharing it because it spoke to the very core of me. Lesson learned, friend. Lesson learned.

That sounds a bit off topic, I know, but bear with me: The point of that anecdote is that it's pretty common for me to get people trying to raise my awareness of things I have already thought deeply about while denying my essential humanity and not even realizing. As a kinky person who likes to make my fave the top (and generally a conflicted sadist), this constant request to explain and justify is exhausting.

I doubt most of the top!Joe fans have this precise problem simply because people who make their fave the top are much less common in fandom than people who make their fave the bottom, but I see a similar pattern with fans who are just fundamentally wired for rape fantasies (one of the most common fantasies that exists) vs. fans who just don't get rape fantasies at all. Or substitute your BDSM/kinky/messed up fantasy trope of choice. Covertly radical feminist attitudes towards kink and power are on the rise in fandom, and as a naturally kinky person, boy do I notice it!

I know that it feels like crucial activism to share these insights about why the ratio of top!Joe is hurtful, and the pain you feel is real. But it's also the case that it's a big ask to want people to listen. (Not me. Obviously, I routinely choose to engage with discourse. I mean overall.) The reason for that is that you're only seeing a fraction of what they do or who they are, and you don't know how many previous people they've listened to how many previous times. It's a very different situation from someone whose job is making some major TV series or movie or something. That person does, in my opinion, owe you some amount of listening.

Now, I'm not saying no top Joe fan was ever a jerk. I'll bet they were. There's a tendency to be rude and to publicly air your schadenfreude when you feel like everyone has been yelling at you. What I am saying is that a lot of the problem here boils down to conflicting needs, and that means there isn't a good solution. It's a situation where people are genuinely hurt, but I don't necessarily agree that other people have harmed them.

I like that you did an actual count of the explicit fics, btw. It's good to look at the real numbers. I see too little of that in these situations. My off the cuff reaction is that 2/3 to 1/3 is not a bad ratio at all compared to many fandoms, but yeah, it definitely shows a strong trend, and that can be painful. (I have a fandom where I think there's maybe like 1 bottom so-and-so fic in the entire zine era fandom. One. It's pretty extreme.)

I guess my thinking here overall is: What is the practical solution? What are we hoping to gain? What is reasonable to ask of people?

And it can't be "Well, if they would just listen..." That's just a sneaky way of saying "If you haven't done it my way, it's because you haven't listened to me yet."

So the question I would ask of people is this:

What does a non-racist fic where Joe tops look like?

What does a non-racist sex pollen, dubcon, or even noncon fic where Joe tops look like?

And if you say the latter is impossible... well... sadists exist everywhere in the world. So do doms. So do people who prefer to top in a purely physical sense. People with rape fantasies where they're the rapist exist (people who are not actually rapists, I mean). None of this is restricted to any one group. We can't categorically say fic like that about Joe is coming from a place of racism without denying the fundamental humanity of kinky MENA people who'd want to make Joe like themselves or like their ideal partner. (Yes, I agree this won't be the majority of fic writers writing top!Joe, but this is a place to start for figuring out what the better version would look like.)

IDK, maybe you're that kinkster yourself, but your asks gave me the vibe that you don't really get the drive towards those darker kinds of fics and what might be motivating it besides stereotypes and shittiness.

If we can answer these kinds of questions, we can better critique the way people write what they write without telling them all of their taste is bad and they should just stop writing. Even if we think the latter is true, it isn't going to get us anywhere. Figuring out how to make Joe more multidimensional in the fic they already want to write or finding very specific wording that should be avoided might actually work.

Beyond that, the actions I think are productive would be running prompt fests, exchanges, or other events for bottom!Joe or for top!Joe where he's the main character and the fics are required to be from his POV. Themed collections and recs lists are great. (I've seen a bit of this going around in TOG fandom in the past, and that's an excellent approach! Keep it up!) Positive actions tend to work better here. Make more of what you want. Promote what you want to see.

I don't mean this in some fluffy magical thinking way: you aren't going to change that ratio radically just by the power of positivity. But I've seen this kind of thing play out in many, many fandoms, and going after the people who write what you don't like, even in a well-intentioned effort to educate and even in a polite, kind way doesn't do much. A few people feel guilty. A few feel defensive. A lot ignore you. The overall fic doesn't change. It's not a good use of your limited time and energy.

I'm off to look up that fic to see what I think of it in practice, but I'm going to post this before tumblr manages to eat it.

[rax-writes]

Enchanted - Part II

Fandom:  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Pairing:  Caliban x Reader Warnings:  Violence, death + resurrection Notes:  Part I ♥ Here’s part two! Hope you all like it!

Your relationship with Caliban did not remain a secret for long. Your sister was the first to know.

As you jogged over to her at the carnival the following weekend, you said, “Sister, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I know how the Plague Kings’ plan to overthrow you. They’ll be keeping an eye on you for any missteps, and once given probable cause, they will force you and Caliban to embark on a quest to retrieve the Unholy Regalia.”

She was visibly stunned, and understandably so. “That’s great! But how did you find all that out?”

“That would be the bad news.”

As if on cue, Caliban then materialized, and wrapped an arm around your waist – which was immediately noticed by Sabrina.

“What did you rope my sister into?” she snarled at Caliban, but you held up a hand to silence them both before the bickering began.

“Caliban came to me and stated that he wished to court me. I first tried to convince him to end the coup in exchange for courtship, but he explained that even if he wanted to, he is unable to stop the Kings. So, instead, the exchange became useful information for courtship.”

“Mhmm,” Sabrina mused disbelievingly, glaring at the man at your side. “And for how long does she have to date you?”

“The only requirement to fulfill our agreement is a single date, hence our presence at this mortal affair,” Caliban answered, then smiled warmly at you. “After that, the status of our courtship is up to my lady.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad,” Sabrina muttered, then shrugged as she turned to you. “At least you can get this night over with and never have to see him again.”

“In all honesty… I am not entirely opposed to seeing him again,” you admitted hesitantly, and Sabrina’s jaw dropped slightly as her brows furrowed in agitation. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Sister. For Satan’s sake, have you seen him? He’s more than a little easy on the eyes.”

Caliban chuckled, both at your compliment and your sister’s obvious annoyance. “Come, little dove. Let us explore this fanciful event.”

Though the evening had been a delight, and you enjoyed your time with your date, you couldn’t help but notice that Caliban seemed slightly on edge all night. After the sun had gone down, and you’d surveyed the majority of the carnival, Caliban requested to take you to dinner in a nice restaurant. You agreed, and he thoroughly surprised you by taking you to a quiet, romantic rooftop restaurant in Italy, having remembered you stating that Italian was your favorite food. It was the following morning before you realized that he’d been sensing the impending danger of Herod’s attack. Coincidentally, he had disappeared for a short while during dinner, and although he’d claimed to have gone to the restroom, you learned from Sabrina the following morning that he’d actually returned to Greendale to collect King Herod's crown.

Naturally, the two of you had bickered about him cheating your sister the next time you were together, but his soft lips and skilled hands had done wonders to dissipate your anger. Although you refused to admit it, you were positively hooked from thereon out.

You told yourself that you continued the dates and the trysts simply because it was merely an enjoyable pastime. But in truth, it was because you were slowly falling for the prince. Knowing it was a mistake due to his allegiance to Hell, and his position as the enemy of your sister, created a forbidden nature to the romance, and it only made you crave him more.

Little did you know, Caliban felt the same for you. Your smile set his soul aflame, and your laughter made his chest tighten with affection. The sight of your hair fanned across your pillow, mouth slightly agape in pleasure, was not one he would ever grow tired of. He had fallen well and truly in love with you.

This information was kept secret from one another, because both of you were scared to admit such a thing and risk scaring the other away.

It wasn’t long after your mutual realizations that he met your aunts and Ambrose. Although they were all pleased to have met the object of your affection, and they remained civil with him, it was evident that each member of your family distrusted him, and questioned his intentions with you.

Their distrust turned out to be short-lived.

Immediately following your coven’s Hare Moon celebration, one of the Pagans had developed a very intense dislike for you. All it took was for her to sense that you were a very powerful member of your kind – that is, until your powers faded – and she, being a harpy, notorious for their insatiable hunger and lust for torture, had decided that she would feast upon your witch flesh as her next meal.

It was that evening when she appeared. You had been relaxing on the front porch of the Spellman Mortuary, and at first, you thought she was merely a mortal woman – then her wings spread out from behind her as her glamour faded, bird-like legs sprouted from her torso, and her face became hideous, decayed and rotting. You had instinctively tried to run, but it was futile. After all, harpies were originally thought to be the personification of wind, so it was unsurprising that you were in her clutches before you even made it to the door.

The harpy’s sharp talons dug into your shoulders, and you screamed for help as she launched you into the yard. You fell flat on your back, which knocked the wind out of you, and she was on you again in the blink of an eye. As you felt the most impossibly intense, agonizing pain across your abdomen, you screamed again as you glanced down and realized she had torn you open. She began feasting on your flesh and organs, blood dripping from her claws as she ravaged you.

You were vaguely aware of a horrified scream from Sabrina somewhere behind you. She had just swung open the front door of the Spellman household to see the ghastly scene before her, Aunt Zelda, Aunt Hilda, and Ambrose right behind her. With a roar of pure rage, Ambrose charged at the harpy with his blade drawn, which drew her away from you. Sabrina and Hilda then kneeled beside you, the former with tears in her eyes and a terrified look on her face as she held your hand, and the latter clearly trying to hide her panic as she unsuccessfully attempted to heal you. But your injuries were far too extensive, and your loved ones’ magick was far too weak.

The unmistakable sound of a gunshot pierced through the night air, and you weakly turned your head to see Aunt Zelda holding a shotgun, Ambrose a few feet from your attacker, and the harpy lying dead on the ground. The two then ran over to you, both dropping to their knees at your side, their faces just as solemn and fearful as Sabrina and Aunt Hilda.

It was then, looking upon the panic-stricken faces of your family, that you knew you were going to die.

Darkness began to cloud your vision, and you vaguely heard your sister sobbing, and aunts and cousin begging you to stay conscious, giving you empty promises that they would find a way to fix this, and that everything would be alright. In the midst of all their hysterics, it seemed an idea donned on Sabrina.

“Caliban!” she screamed desperately into the night, her voice breaking from the force as she put behind it.

He appeared instantly, the usual vortex of flames escorting him onto the scene. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make a smug retort to Sabrina’s unceremonious summoning, before his eyes fell on you.

“No,” Caliban whispered in disbelief, still frozen on the spot. Blood poured from your abdomen, and the sight of you torn open and half-dead filled him with a sense of gripping terror and worry he had never before experienced. He ran over to you, skidding to a stop on his knees and gently cradling your head in his hands.

“Do something!” Sabrina begged, a sob raking her body. Caliban panicked for a split second, then a solution came to him. It was a last ditch effort kind of plan, but seeing as your eyes had already drifted shut, and your body was growing colder by the second, he knew that he must do something that would absolutely ensure your survival.

“With a desperate heart and no time to waste, I call upon all three Fates!”

In a cloud of smoke, three hooded figures appeared. Each had clouded eyes, long white hair, and greenish-gray, wrinkled skin.

“Fates, I beseech you to save this woman’s life,” Caliban pleaded.

“In exchange for our aid, you must give up the fate you have been pursuing so fiercely.” The Fates spoke in unison, their voices raspy and eerie. “You must cease your pursuit of the throne of Hell, and no longer seek to make Earth the tenth circle.”

“I shall. Here and now, I end my quest to become King of Hell, and remake the Earth as the tenth circle,” Caliban vowed. The lack of hesitation and conviction in his voice astounded each of the Spellman’s, although that was but a minor thought in the back of their minds at the moment. “Just save the woman I love, please.”

The Fates disappeared without another word in another cloud of smoke, at the same moment that a ragged, desperate gasp tore from your lips. The Spellman’s and Caliban all snapped their eyes back down to you. The fatal wound had been healed, and even your clothing was fixed. You sat bolt upright, as if you’d just been necromanced back to life – and, technically, you had. As you looked around at your loved ones, the realization that you were alive and safe sunk in, and you immediately began to cry.

“I saw Dad. I saw him,” you sobbed pitifully, and your family took you into their arms. You despised how weak you sounded, but seeing your father was something you were entirely unprepared for. Caliban rubbed his palm up and down your back, not wanting to interfere with your familial embrace. Still crying into Auntie Zee’s chest, you explained, “I died. I died and Dad was there waiting for me. He hugged me and told me that he was happy to see me, but it wasn’t my time yet.”

It was several minutes before you were able to compose yourself, although you supposed that was somewhat to be expected for someone who had just died then came back to life. After your aunts wiped your tears, you turned around to look at Caliban.

“I know you had something to do with this. We’re all powerless right now, so that is the only explanation,” you whispered. “What did you do?”

Caliban hesitated a moment, so Ambrose answered for him.

“He called upon the Fates. They demanded that he give up the fate he has been pursuing, in order to save you. So, he vowed to give up the throne of Hell, and said it was to save the woman he loves.”

You looked slowly from Ambrose back to Caliban. He appeared slightly perturbed that Ambrose revealed what he’d said in that moment of fear-fueled vulnerability, but didn’t bother to deny it.

“Caliban… is that true?”

“As I’ve told you before: anything for you,” Caliban answered, giving you a soft smile. You threw your arms around his neck, and he immediately wrapped his around your waist.

“I love you,” you murmured, your face buried in his neck. Caliban held you tightly and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“And I love you, little dove.”

[hongism]

the little things - k. hongjoong

↣ pairing: hongjoong x reader; ft. seonghwa, san, mentioned poly ot8 x reader ↣ genre: sfw, fluff, slight angst, fantasy au, witch ateez au ↣ wc: 3.8k ↣ summary: a job doesn’t go as planned for hongjoong, and you’re left to pick up the pieces ↣ warnings: mentioned illness and death

Hongjoong arguably has the hardest job out of anyone in the coven. You are well aware of that, and the pressure he feels from being the leader of the coven doesn’t help one bit, especially since the majority of the public eye’s judgment falls on his shoulders. He would never admit it out loud, but that pains him quite a bit, even if he is willing to take the judgment of others so his coven doesn’t have to. Seonghwa helps in those moments of weakness, lulling Hongjoong to sleep with a quick spell or trying a myriad of other things to calm the man, but it must be worse than usual for Seonghwa to call on you to help with the issue.

Hongjoong’s magic is draining mostly due to the fact that he is eclectic and likes to dabble in everything. Some spells take more out of him than others, some take no effort, and others require days if not weeks of recovery time. Now, however, there seems to be a different issue.

“A job went south.” That’s the only explanation you got from Seonghwa, but the small shake of his head told you all you needed to know. Because jobs don’t just go south for Hongjoong.

That is what lands you here — steps outside Hongjoong’s room with hand raised and ready to rap roughly against the wood several times. You aren’t sure what awaits you inside, but considering the very late hour, you are hoping to find Hongjoong asleep. The faint yellow candlelight filtering under the door tells you otherwise though, and that’s why you opt to knock rather than barging in unannounced.

“Come in.” Hongjoong sounds tired even in the two small words, but it isn’t the typical kind of tired you’re used to hearing from people. You are used to the exhaustion of the body, people coming to your door for sleep remedies, and nightmare potions meant to dispel the bad dreams that keep them up at night. The exhaustion in Hongjoong’s voice is one that resides deep in the body, one that eats away at the bones and muscles, breaks you down until you can hardly keep your head up. It’s nothing you can’t fix with a simple herbal concoction, but Seonghwa didn’t ask you to bring anything. He didn’t expect you to use your alchemy to fix Hongjoong, thus you’re going to have to rely on words and comfort instead.

You twist the handle as quietly as you can so that you don’t disturb the other sleeping men in the house. Sneaking in was hard enough, especially since Jongho was sprawled out on the couch with Yeosang’s lithe cat form curled up directly on his stomach, but you managed to get past the two of them with little to no disturbances. (And you delivered a few head scratches to Yeosang but that’s beside the point).

“Are you here to heat the tea again? I forgot all about it — oh.” Hongjoong’s thought falls short when he turns to face you, no doubt assuming that it was Seonghwa knocking for the umpteenth time tonight, but instead, he finds you with your hands tucked behind your back and lips stretched into a small smile. “What are you doing here? Did something happen back at the cottage? Did you come alone? Please tell me that you at least carried a ward or charm with you. That walk isn’t safe alone at this hour and I—”

“Hongjoong, darling, please.” Your smile stretches bit by bit as you move towards where Hongjoong is seated at his desk. Back hunched almost painfully, the man seems to be slaving over some old tomes, several books cracked open and laid bare before him, and your heart squeezes tight in your chest from the sight. There’s a barely touched mug of tea alongside the books, no doubt cold at this point, and the small lamp sitting on the corner of the desk illuminates the space.

The tension in Hongjoong’s shoulders remains even as you get within touching distance of him, and you dart a hand out to brush a few loose strands of hair off his forehead. The dark locks cave under your fingers, letting you tuck them back with little resistance. Hongjoong sighs from the gentle touches.

“Long day?” you murmur, despite already knowing the answer.

“Fucked up an important job,” Hongjoong sighs in response. He drops his head and faces forward again, staring down at the book before him. You take the opportunity to look in the same direction but you regret doing so a moment later because of what you see on the page.

Curing terminal illness with magic.

You tug at the back of Hongjoong’s chair, pulling him away from his desk with as much strength you can muster, but eventually he caves and assists you in pushing the chair back. You leave just enough room for you to slip between him and the desk before dropping your hands to his shoulders. No words come from your lips for quite some time; the two of you just remain in that position until tension begins to ebb away from Hongjoong’s shoulders. And the moment that begins to happen, you take advantage of it, dropping atop his lap with little effort and slipping your legs about his waist. Hongjoong’s hands secure at your hips.

Even the slight touch fills your body with energy — it’s weak and fragile, evidence of how much magic Hongjoong used today and how much he’s struggling to even stay awake right now — and you push yourself closer to him in attempts to offer at least some warmth and comfort.

Seonghwa would be better suited for this as a witch, or even San since the man is Hongjoong’s familiar, and yet you were called upon to help Hongjoong. You, the herbalist and alchemist with no magical ability in your bones. It’s a daunting task being asked to help Hongjoong without knowing what to do or having the skills that the others have. Still, you refuse to let that lack of confidence shine through in the slightest, bringing your hands up to cup Hongjoong’s sharp jawline and lift his head. He blinks back at you with wide eyes, dark orbs swirling with a mix of emotions that leaves a deep-seated pain in your heart.

“My love, what happened?”

Hongjoong blinks away from you. Before either of you know it, tears are springing to his eyes, welling them up with crystalline drops that glisten under the yellow lamplight. Not a single one falls quite yet; they still hold onto his eyelashes and waterline for the time being, but the moment he starts speaking, you know they’ll begin to fall. You wait as long as he needs you to, patient as ever as he collects himself and takes several deep breaths to calm down a bit before talking again.

“I promised his father that I would be able to heal him and fix him,” Hongjoong exhales against the exposed part of your neck. “I – h-he trusted me, and I… he died.”

Your arms tighten a bit around Hongjoong out of sheer instinct, and Hongjoong’s breaths tremble before he’s able to get his next words out. You don’t force him to continue the thought; you’ve heard enough to know how badly the job went and why Seonghwa was so concerned when he talked to you earlier. Your fingers brush over the base of Hongjoong’s neck, combing gently through the locks of hair the reside there in a desperate attempt to offer him some comfort.

You don’t need to ask what he’s talking about to understand. There can only be one patient he’s referring to – the young boy of about nine who suffered from a tragic terminal illness, one that left him bed-ridden for years before Hongjoong came along. It only took Hongjoong two weeks to get the boy out of his bed, and another three for the boy to walk around normally. Within two months, he could run and play outside once more, and in the third, the boy and his father were going on weekly fishing trips that always resulted in Seonghwa getting vast deliveries of black bass and rainbow trout. The young boy’s case has always been Hongjoong’s pride — the one job he never tires of, the one he would always return to, the most important one he’s ever had. There were no signs of things going south again.

“I-I wanted his father to be mad at me. Scold me and harass me and berate me. Call me a failure because that’s – that’s what I am, but h-he just… smiled. Told me not to take it too harshly. I was a last-ditch effort as it was. He didn’t expect anything to work and y-yet I was able to at least prolong his son’s death for a few precious months. He was grateful — grateful. Even though his son d-died. Even though I couldn’t save him.”

You pull back to look Hongjoong in the eye now. Dark eyes search yours, still glistening with tears that fall freely now, and they seek answers that you don’t have. All you can do is hold his face with the gentlest touch manageable and bring your forehead down to rest against his.

“Death… death is fickle, mio caro. She takes as much as life gives and is as elusive as a cloud on a clear day. We can’t control her no matter how much we try. While you have the ability to prolong her cold touch, no one can keep her away forever. You gave this boy months of life – a life he was able to cherish and use to the fullest. That was enough. You did enough.” You drag the pads of your thumbs over Hongjoong’s cheeks collecting the tears and brushing them away with ease. He leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut as you trace faint patterns across his skin.

“I just keep thinking about the ‘what if’s. What if I had noticed the changes sooner? What if I had been quicker to help him? To find a solution or a spell or just… something – anything. Could I have given him more time? His father seemed ready b-but the pain in his eyes when I delivered the news is not something I could readily forget.”

“You don’t have to forget that pain, Hongjoong. No one is asking you to. But put aside the possibilities, and look at reality.”

“The reality is that he died.”

“But not because of you,” you counter with haste, gaze sharpening on Hongjoong a bit as he opens his mouth to protest. “Were you the cause of his illness?”

“…No.”

“Did you do everything in your power to help him?”

“Yes, but there is alwa—”

“Shush, darling.” You drop a hand to where one of Hongjoong’s rests against your hip, taking it in yours and lifting it to your chest. You place his hand directly over your heart and fall completely silent so that he can feel the steady thrum of your heartbeat. “Do you feel that?” You inquire once a few seconds have passed.

“Yes.”

“That’s life, Joong.” A soft smile overtakes your lips. “Where there is death, there is also life. And we cannot focus on the life before us if we are too consumed by the cold touch of death. As much as you want to hear that you’ve failed or made a mistake or deserve to be hated, it is not what you deserve because none of those things are true. You gave that man and his son the most precious gift of all for those months: time. Time they spent together whereas before they could not.”

“Notre petite étoile is right.”

You don’t need to turn to see who’s just stepping into the room; the little nickname is enough to tell you who it is since there’s only one man in the house who speaks French and calls you by that name. Hongjoong looks up though, arms squeezing around your waist as he looks to where Seonghwa stands at the edge of the room.

“Are you two ganging up on me?” Hongjoong grumbles. You and Seonghwa merely laugh in response, the latter man coming closer to the desk. He pauses at the edge to glance down at Hongjoong’s mug of tea and wordlessly traces small patterns against the side of the mug. Before you know it, small wisps of steam curl into the air above the liquid, and Seonghwa has once again heated the tea. The smile he wears signals that it’s something he’s done time and time again tonight, but he doesn’t make it seem like a chore or a burden at all, hand reaching out to comb through Hongjoong’s dark hair. Hongjoong sighs into the touch. There’s a gentle silence that drapes over the room next – one that Hongjoong relaxes under with your scent and Seonghwa’s intermingling under his nose.

Seonghwa doesn’t stop his rhythmic motions until Hongjoong’s shoulders have dropped all the tension stored in them, then he moves around the back of his chair and leans over it. You aren’t quite sure what he’s up to until two fingers curl under your chin and lift your head to greet his.

“My little star,” he murmurs before dipping closer to press a soft kiss against your lips. “One for you, and—” Seonghwa pulls back to glance down at Hongjoong, finding expectant and wide eyes blinking back up at him, then he parts Hongjoong’s bangs and places a second kiss to the exposed skin of his forehead “—one for you, my sweet starlight. The sun will rise soon, along with our darling sunrise to do the yard work. You two ought to get some rest before the chaos begins.”

“I should get home so I can prep the shop for morning opening,” you whisper, beginning to pull away from Hongjoong inch by inch. You half-expect Seonghwa to be the one to urge you to stay with pleading eyes and lingering touches that most definitely hold a bit of magic to them, but this time, he doesn’t say a word. Rather, it’s Hongjoong who tightens his hold on you and clings to you as though he might lose you if he dares to let go. You don’t realize it right away – perhaps you’re too distracted by the haziness of the late hour or by Seonghwa’s presence in the room – but when Hongjoong’s hands move up to brush over your shoulder blades, there is a sudden sense of desperation in his touch. Seonghwa smiles from off to the side.

“I’ll tell the younger ones not to bother you too much. Sleep as much as you need to. Yeosang and I will take care of the shop, étoile.” Seonghwa turns on his heel and walks towards the door again, leaving you and Hongjoong to watch his retreating form in silence. Just before he disappears completely, however, he shifts to look at the two of you once more. “I could get used to such a vision in our home.”

“Hm?” You echo, confusion evident on both your features and in your tone.

“You being here often, Hongjoong distracted from work long enough to focus on something else, San sneaking up the stairs behind me and hiding outside the door while we talk.” Seonghwa cracks a smile and pushes the door wide open. A startled San pops out from behind the wood, broad shoulders curling inwards in his momentary shame, but Seonghwa doesn’t let that last long and brings a warm hand to the younger man’s waist. He doesn’t say anything else, slipping out of the room behind San’s form and leaving the familiar in his place.

“Come, come, darling.” Hongjoong motions for San to come further into the room as he nudges you up, and you quickly slip off the man’s lap to stand on your own feet again. The breath leaves your lungs in a huff as a pair of arms suddenly wraps around your body, squeezing you in a tight embrace. The lines of sinew and muscle could only belong to San though you never saw him move in the slightest. Still, his hold is warm and inviting, enough to easily pull you towards Hongjoong’s bed, one that’s large enough to accommodate more than simply two bodies.

“Missed you,” San mumbles into the crook of your neck. His cool breath tickles the hairs on your skin, sending rows of goosebumps over you, and San kisses them away as best he can. “Been too long since you stayed the night.”

“Hm, Hongjoong needed me tonight,” you sigh, watching said man adjust the books and papers on his desk. He leaves the lamp lit for the time being, but it’s evident that he’s preparing to join you and San in bed, and that’s enough of a welcome sight to cause some of your worry to melt away. San sits up all of a sudden, tossing the sheets back to slip under them, although you don’t join him in doing so quite yet.

“His emotions have been volatile all day,” San says under his breath. The hush over the room is not nearly enough to conceal his tone though. Hongjoong most definitely can hear his words, but he neglects to mention it for the time being. “Couldn’t do anything to fix or help.”

San and Hongjoong share in a special type of relationship, one that is more interwoven and connected than most simply because of San’s identity as a familiar. Not just any familiar but Hongjoong’s familiar, just as Yeosang is Seonghwa’s familiar. It allowed the pair to share a deeper connection, sharing of emotional states – when one feels pain, the other does as well, just as with every emotion from happiness to rage. Hongjoong, however, prides himself on being able to cut off his emotions and keep them from affecting San too badly; so if San could sense the distress today, Hongjoong must be suffering a lot more than he’s letting on. Thus, it’s no surprise that San showed up when he did or that he’s here to stay the night with the two of you. The bond they share provides more than just physical comfort; the bond of a familiar and his master is one that bears great emotional weight and connection as well. It’s something you’ve been a bit insecure about when it comes to both men, along with Seonghwa and Yeosang, but they never let those doubts linger for long.

You’re halfway through taking off your second shoe when Hongjoong finally approaches the bed. He pauses before you, setting the chamberstick on the bedside table alight with a small flame, then he slips down to his knees. Deft fingers work the knots of your laces apart and push the shoe away from your foot. His touch is too warm to be normal, and you only realize what he’s up to when a sudden wave of drowsiness overwhelms you. Hongjoong’s soft touch is the only thing that keeps you awake as he works his way up, pressing a trail of ghosting kisses up the inside of your calf and stopping at your knee. You can hardly keep your eyes parted but manage to see – or at least feel – Hongjoong crawl over you to get onto the bed and slip between your body and San’s.

“No fair,” you murmur, words slurring together a bit. Hongjoong huffs out a laugh before leaning over you to puff the candle out. Small billows of smoke fill the air around your heads, along with a pleasant scent of lavender.

“Forgive me for wanting my star to get some rest,” he chuckles as he settles back against the mattress.

“That’s Seonghwa’s line.”

“Yes, well, Seonghwa isn’t here to say it, is he?”

“I’m telling.” Hongjoong rolls his eyes – a gesture you can barely make out through the darkness – then he leans forward to peck the tip of your nose.

“Childish.”

“Seonghwa doesn’t like it when people steal his nicknames.”

“Oh hush, you little brat. You’re worse than Wooyoung.”

“That’s more like it. Our dearest affectionate Joongie,” San laughs from behind Hongjoong, chin coming to rest on the length of the other man’s shoulder. His lips stretch into a grin, dimples flashing through the darkness, and you smile back at him softly. A hand touches your waist, and you almost think it’s Hongjoong but San grumbles something about you being too far away to cuddle properly and you know it’s him instead. You hum at the touch and settle into the warmth it provides. You nearly fall asleep right then and there, but you force your body to stay awake just a little while longer so you can press one last kiss to Hongjoong’s lips, then another to San’s.

“Okay, goodnight, my loves. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer thanks to Hongjoong.” You press closer to both men, wrapping yourself in the combined warmth of your lovers’ arms and the sheets, and Hongjoong tucks your head against his chest. His chin comes to rest on the top of your head. You’re already drifting off when you hear San’s next whispered words, ones meant only for Hongjoong’s ears but ones you hear nonetheless.

“I have a surprise for you tomorrow.”

“Hm? Is that your way of telling me to clear my schedule?” Hongjoong murmurs. The words send soft vibrations across your hair, and you instinctively tuck yourself further into his chest.

“Well, your schedule should be empty at night unless one of the others would be having you… preoccupied at that time.”

“As if you don’t intend to have me in that way yourself.”

“Only after the surprise,” San whispers, tone slightly offended, but you can also hear the affection in his tone.

“Then I’m all yours tomorrow evening.”

“Perfect.”

Those are the last words you hear out of either man; both fall silent after that and leave you with the soft heavings of their breaths above you, warm arms clinging to you as you drift off into a pleasant and peaceful rest. And as much as you protest the idea of intruding and living here with them, you have to admit that these moments make it worth it in the long run. The little things – the kisses and hugs, the sudden intrusions from your other lovers, the piling warmth, lingering gazes, soft smiles, quiet shared whispers. Perhaps you could get used to nights like these.

...

a/n: just another lil addition to the witchteez universe, i plan of having a drabble for each member then doing drabble requests after? i think? let me know if that’s something you want to see or if you have any ideas for the other members’ drabbles! i haven’t come up with anything yet so im quite open to suggestions!

[pleasantwizardphilosopher]

Just you and me

So, I finally gathered the courage to write something and went for a SuperCorp fanfic, because clearly I am supercorp trash. I haven’t decided whether to post it in AO3 or not but if I do I’ll let you know. English is not my first language so if you get any mistakes or some parts lack cohesion please let me know and I’ll try to fix it. This fic goes by the idea that Kara is a very good scientist, she deserves that much, Lena’s background is canon-like. There are no dialogs, only feelings and senses, hope you like it.

*********

Finding yourself stuck in time is hard, at least that’s what most people would feel like under such circumstances, but not for Lena, not right now, where every single piece of “normalcy” her life had is just beginning to crumble, like a piece of sun-dried bread, or the way eggshells crack after someone steps on them, painfully, noisily, in a million pieces, most of all and beyond everything, they shatter unrecognizably and irreparably. Maybe the cold that such pain leaves behind is what led her to run, maybe it was the sudden fear and tiredness that was left in her, like cold steel in her bones, maybe it was the emptiness that started consuming every truth she thought she knew. It did not matter, she fled, running as fast as she could in those 7-inch Louboutins. She never looked back, not even after her flight landed in National City, not even after setting foot for the first time in her new penthouse in the middle of the city. She never regretted it, at first it was rough, sure, like every bumpy road is, yet, after the first glance she ever took at that blonde hair that day in the park, all doubts were erased off her mind.

*********

It was the end of August, the chilly air that announced a cold winter ahead blew her hair, ruffling it in her face; filling the streets, waking scattered orange and brown-ish leaves that had fallen from nearby trees, whistling on its way through the now almost-bare branches. The wind left behind the soft aroma of wet dirt, freshly baked bread and upcoming rain, heartwarmingly, filling her lungs easily with every breath, puffing visible clouds when exhaling. It was certainly nostalgic, the kind that makes you feel warm and cozy and at the same time makes your eyes prickle with unshed tears. Kara felt that pull, as usual, for everything good her life has had, and everything it had taken from her. She stood on the sidewalk, towards National’s City Central Park, glancing around her, taking in her surroundings when her gaze landed on a particular someone, dragged to her as if her eyes were mere pieces of steel and that woman were a huge neodymium magnet; She found herself staring at a sight she’ll always remember, because at that moment, when she first saw her, she felt a different kind of pull at her heart, the kind that screamed “caution!”, but in the good way, hopefully.

Long before she knew her name, what made her laugh, what made fer fidget with her fingers nervously, but above all, long before she had met that woman with dark long silky hair, forest-green eyes and pearly skin. Long before that gorgeous human being, with such power emanating from her, yet such caring, hopeful eyes, crossed her path, long before she made her feel like flying without actually leaving the ground, mostly, who she would grow to love, maybe, maybe she was fantasizing too much, who could blame her, it surely was a sight to remember.

*********

When the double doors slide open, she’s expecting a no-nonsense, powerful, cold-blooded, cocky-demeanor CEO, what she’s definitely not expecting is for such CEO to be almost precisely all that shaped and carefully placed in a stunning, raven-haired woman, whose green eyes could pierce through your soul and would probably make you spill your darkest and deepest secrets, those that also hide so much fear, making her want to walk over there and pour all her support into a hug. Kara swallows. Nevertheless, there is also something else to this woman’s aura, her posture is perfect, clearly carved into her from a very young age, and her smile is polite but stiff, almost practiced, and still, Kara can feel kindness emanating from her, true deep kindness and care. Something brings her to the present again, her breath hitches, those beautiful eyes are staring intently into hers with curiosity and a hint of amusement. The woman in front of her has managed to steal her breath twice now, which is not something she, the founder and co-owner of a start-up company. Harvard graduate and Kryptonian, finds happening often, she has faced great threats, from grumpy bankers to out-of-space threats as Supergirl, yet, Lena Luthor has managed to make her heartbeat go erratic with a simple gaze. 

The soft scent of an expensive perfume fills the office, something akin cinnamon, vanilla and a little scotch (?). It is dizzying and a little distracting. She somehow manages to go through her proposal for the CEO without stumbling too much and, fortunately, without rambling. Lena seems fascinated by the proposal and agrees to the terms without major modifications to the contract. After both signing, they shake hands, and maybe, just maybe, they linger a little more than needed, both enraptured by the softness of the other’s hand. Lena pulls away first, fingers tingling, feeling the tips of her fingers warm and a lingering scent of something floral, it is electrifying, like a low current cursing through her veins, making her get goosebumps all over her arms, but she doesn’t mind, as her attention is captured by those ocean blue eyes that seemingly hold the weight of the world. She certainly is nowhere close to getting tired of them.

*********

When they signed this partnership, they did not expect it to turn this way, at least Kara didn't, or so she muses while sitting on the ledge of her rooftop. She truly just meant to get funding and maybe get to work a little up-close with the brilliant, certified genius of a woman. Sure, she is gorgeous and incredibly sharp-minded, as proven by so many magazines’ articles having bothered to analyze both qualities deeply and thoroughly; but after that first sight of her, with such strength and determination to her pose, with each powerful step, with every sway of her hips, albeit hiding so much hurt, sadness, and a great burden, brought to her by her last name; a burden that Kara has somehow come know so well, such need to be understood, because, the truth was, that no one had ever lived through loss the way they did. One lost her world, her culture and way of life, but found love and compassion, whereas Lena was denied both from a very short age, living a life without love, compassion, and affection, in a household where the outside cold wouldn’t enter, as the inside was icier. 

The cold nighty wind startles her, it brings to her mind memories of bight smiles, so hard that certain dimples showed, laughs so hard that some wine would be spat on a very white leader couch, sunny days filled with an assortment of foods and a wonderful voice, filling every corner of the room with its melody and a slight accent, becoming more evident when emotion takes a rightful place in her voice, one that comes from a very pale yet very compassionate woman. She has to tell her, it's been just over a year since they first met, but she knows it is time, with them growing closer, she has to tell her she is Supergirl. And yeah, she definitely did NOT expect things to turn this way. (Maybe she kinda did).

**********

When she asked Kara if she understood the quantum mechanics behind the surface plasmon resonance their platinum nanoparticles showed, she wanted to be shaken, mad even, because why wouldn't she, the to-be youngest member of the Science Guild on Krypton? Of course, they didn't have the same metals as they did on Earth, but they understood the physics behind the phenomena. Okay, Lena did do not know her identity, yet, hopefully, but she did have a Bachelor in Mechatronic Engineering and a Master Degree in Advanced Materials, she definitely may have crossed paths with the concept. But hell, how can she be mad when those bright, summer-trees green eyes look at her with such glint of excitement, with a twinkling sparkle or curiosity? Those eyes that were looking at her with a look you give someone you know gets you, beyond understanding your words, those who truly get a grasp of your language, of who you are, what makes you shake with the excitement of a new discovery, a greater challenge. It was then that Kara knew that she could read Lena the way no one had ever done for her, she could grasp what she needed in every moment, what she was thinking, but she also got her sciency stuff, the theoretical jargon, upcoming theories, the physics behind phenomena and she shared her love for technology that could make humans' lives better, longer, healthier. They shared, compassion, vision, passion and... Kara was now almost certain, love.

At least she thinks so, what else could those stolen glances be? She looks up, just to find those forest-green eyes glinting with determination and concentration while those agile slender fingers handle tools and twinkle their way around the solar panel’s circuitry. She is so enraptured by her skills that she mistakenly adds way too much platinum sulfide to the solution, turning it suddenly black and bringing her out of her stupor as the contents boil, violently spilling all over the place, filling the air with a slight scent of iron, evaporated water and burnt plastic. Green eyes break contact with the panel to look towards where strong hands work frantically to turn off the hot plate she was working on, dropping her tools she reaches a hand to help Kara, concerned green eyes looking for any kind of burn injury or spill that may need to be taken care of. After making sure everything is (mostly) okay and that it was just a failed reaction, Kara is suddenly aware of a soft hand pulling her away from the table, vanilla and cinnamon fill the air around her, like a soft embrace, that turns real when Lena pulls her into her arms, a soft bubble surrounding Kara, making her a little giddy and peaceful at the same time. Flowers, fresh-cut flowers is what Lena smells, while she hugs Kara tightly, it is normal to get worried for your best friend after a lab incident, no matter how small, she tells herself, and while it maybe is, it is definitely not normal the way her heart felt like stopping the moment she saw the hot contents of the Erlenmeyer flask spill all over the place, fearing for Kara, feeling it creep up her spine and settle like cold ice on her stomach and lungs, making it hard to breathe.

When strong arms surround her and pull her in tighter, she realizes she has started shaking and hyperventilating, embarrassed she hides her face in the crook of Kara’s neck, and everything fades outside this moment. It is just them, vanilla, and flowers, Kara murmuring sweet nothings into Lena’s ear, hearing her heartbeat even out, and her breathing become normal; and Lena trusting that this person, whose arms seem to be able to lift a bus, whose laugh makes her heart warm and fuzzy, whose smile lights her world and makes her feel safe, cared for and understood; will never let her fall. And perhaps she is right.

**********

Yup, it is definitely love. What else could it be? That snowy January, between hot cocoa and soft muffins, she knew. She is hovering outside her lab, on the outskirts of town, where it was less likely that someone caught her both personas; peeking through the windows, she sees her, Lena is coding the interface that would allow them to take the most efficiency and durability out of the technology they had designed, the mechanical and chemical part was almost done already. She is typing, eyes narrowed in concentration behind thick rimmed glasses, the tip of her tongue poking from a corner of her mouth. And Kara knows, she wants to caress those hands when they were trembling from the winter cold, but also kiss them after a long day working with her computer, she wants to rub her feet after a day filled with meetings and kiss her every time her brilliant mind comes up with a solution for an impossible problem. But above all that, she wants to hold her and whisper into her ear comforting and loving words when she has a nightmare regarding Lex, she knows it’s a common occurrence. She wants to see her crumble knowing that Kara would always hold her and support her, kissing her lovingly every time her insecurities get the best of her. She wants her to feel safe, protected and loved in a way she always deserved but never got.

She sighs, this is it and she knows it, there is not moving forward without coming clean about Supergirl, because, staring at Lena, she knows there is no going back either, looking the way her agile fingers dance around the keyboard as if she were writing a letter to a friend instead of a state-of-the-art software to power and control their recently developed solar panels. She thinks of how beautiful of a soul Lena is, she has such a big heart, she has a huge weight on her shoulders for being a Luthor, a burden which Kara would love to lift from her since it is not hers to carry, it shouldn’t be. Furthermore, she cares so much for the world and the people in it, even for the ones that are not human, unlike her family she is truly kind and compassionate.

Here goes nothing. Kara flies through the lab floor-to-ceiling windows towards the desk where Lena is working, placing beside her the paper bag containing hot cocoa and muffins for her. Due to the cold, the soft warm homey smell soon starts filling the room. Lena looks up smiling, expecting to find Kara behind the treats, but instead, bright green eyes lock with glassy baby blue eyes, trembling lips and fingers fidgeting. Lena stands. She is instantly shaking, whatever it is that could possibly turn the unyielding hero into a crying mess must be of great concern. She steadies herself by grabbing the edge of the table to keep her knees from buckling, knuckles turn white. Green never leaves blue. And just when she is about to ask the hero what brings her here, a strong hand comes to the small of her back to steady her and keep her upright. She has never been this close to Supergirl and at that moment when every sound seems to shut and the air stills, she knows.

She knows why those sky-blue eyes always inspired her such calm and confidence, why she always felt safe in those arms that could bend steel as butter. Because in that moment, when the warmth emanating from that hand starts filtering through her clothes, warming her, her senses are also filled with a smell of flowers, mixed with chocolate and bread, and a hint of mint; when a single tear escapes those ocean blue eyes, she crumbles. She crumbles under that gaze filled with pain and sorrow, filled with such regret that she could feel it creeping through herself, nestling in every corner of her body, making her feel slump and heavy. She also sees intelligence, compassion and strength, qualities she has come to be very familiar with under a blue setting. And so, she grabs the hero’s suit in her fist and buries her face in her chest, a single heart-wreaking cry filling the air. Kara shatters then, knowing how much pain this is causing to a soul that has been betrayed over and over again, who has been abused and pushed to her limits. She knows she is picking an open wound with a stick, and she hates herself for it, for using the same trust Lena gave her against her. They slide to the floor, never letting go of each other, tears falling freely through both their cheeks. Lena breaks into heartbreaking sobs and Kara holds her tighter, as if trying to keep her from falling into pieces, from breaking apart, rocking them both back and forth softly. Lena just cries, screaming from time to time, gripping the fabric so tightly that if it were regular fabric, it would be tearing down by now, but it isn’t, just as the woman holding her, the woman she most certainly is NOT in love with, is not a regular human. They stay there, holding onto each other, never breaking eye contact, the hot cocoa and muffins long forgotten.

**********

She really isn’t mad. She isn’t. So maybe she has been slightly avoiding Kara, but she isn’t mad. Despite her first-instance outburst of emotions, she realized she really isn’t angry at Kara from keeping the Supergirl thing a secret from her, yes, she was deeply hurt and upset but she understands the reasoning behind it, albeit she wishes Kara had told her earlier in their relationship it also makes perfect sense for her to hide it until making sure their relationship was well-founded and strong.

She is quite lost though, there is a small hint of emptiness inside her chest from that day which smelled like chocolate and bread, at first Lena thought she might actually and finally be broken, her heart having taken so many hits already. But the pain eventually faded, and that emptiness never left, on the contrary, it became more present, so much that she was now almost used to it. Like a lingering rock in the bottom of her stomach, or a ball of cotton in her throat, constant, bearable but persistent. And now, as the snow starts melting outside her office she wonders why. She knows why though; she just likes to pretend like she can fool herself.

The morning sun is hitting her office’s windows, warmer than it has been for the past few months and as the first drops of melted snow start to fall from the rooftop to her balcony, the pretense falls to pieces, and she falls along with it. She fumbles with her balcony door and stumbles outside, not even bothering to grab her coat, as soon as she steps outside, she is hit with cold, humid air and slippery floors. Taking huge gasps of cold air to fill lungs that seemingly do not want to be filled.

Maybe this is all she needed, standing on her balcony and glancing at the city, the morning sun casting a bright yellow light over her face, warming her skin softly, while her side in the shadows gets colder every passing second. It is enough, hot and cold, day and night, light and darkness, she always wondered to which side of the scale she tipped the most, she used to believe she was all shadows, a Luthor, and Kara was light, all goodness, she smiles at the irony, a Super. However, while she is taking in the city, calm and almost quiet since it is so early, bright light hitting the buildings and cold, contrasting shadows hiding smaller streets, cars, and people, she gets it. Kara was never all light, and will never be, she has on her shoulders an unbearable pain that will never go away and with her powers come hard choices that no one should ever have to make. And she, she is not darkness, she is both, and she can choose which side to feed, and she wants to choose light, just not any light, one that is personified by blonde hair and ocean-deep blue eyes that she could, and does, get lost into. Maybe, she can bring a certain light to Kara as well, maybe they both deserve it, they deserve each other. Letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding she turned on her heels towards her office and out of it, directly to a certain warehouse on the outskirts of town. The balcony door left open, melted snow glowing gold from the morning sun, dripping into Lena’s office.

**********

Disappointment is that what she feels, no, sadness, for sure, she knew things could go sideways with the whole reveal show and yet, the clench in her heart won’t go away easily, and she knows she absolutely has no right to feel that way, she made that choice, just as she has made every other choice before it. She is tempering with her suit, waiting for her cell culture to finish growing so she can properly test their absorption properties. Soft pop music plays in the background, filling the warehouse with soft notes with a cheesy vibe, the mid-morning sun streams from the windows, lighting the space with an orange-ish golden glow. She finishes her upgrades with a tired huff, never one to hate working on something she surprises herself with such reaction. Groaning with frustration that has nothing to do with her projects and a lot to do with a certain pale powerful, wonderful, CEO.

She walks towards the windows, letting herself bask in the mid-morning light, feeling her powers recharge and her body start buzzing with energy. She clenches her fists, as the warmth caress of the sun on her skin makes her heart ache, missing another entirely different kind of warmth. She leans against a wall and lets her body slide to the ground, bringing her knees to her chest, she closes her eyes, letting herself get lost in the feeling of the sun kissing her skin, softly, almost hesitantly, she can almost picture a certain brunette, softly stroking her cheek, a sweet lovingly caress. A single tear rolls down her cheek from her closed eyes, knowing that such caresses may never be from her, a faith written by her own hand, resulting from her choices, as hard as it is. Letting her straining superhearing and expanding its reach she hears the hustle and bustle from downtown a few kilometers away, she hears the honks of the cars and the heavy panting from people running late for their work, such mundane thing that she may never truly get to live and experience. As her hearing expands, she finds herself focusing in a very well-known heartbeat, one she can distinguish above the sea of heartbeats that flood the city; it is beating absurdly fast, and her first reaction is to focus on her surroundings to find out whether she is in danger or not.

She hears heavy puffs of air, heels clicking steadily and determinately on the pavement, closer with every step, and is she running? Her breath hitches when realization dawns on her, she IS running, towards her. While her mind screams for her to move, to do something, her body is frozen, unresponsive, breath caught in her throat, she absolutely does not understand what is happening and doesn’t know what to expect from the woman that is now reaching her. Before she can dwell on it further, a feminine soft hand with slender cold fingers is touching her knee softly. She is panting from the effort, her breath smells like back coffee and mint, hitting Kara’s face warmly, making her head spin; a slight scent of grounded coffee beams mixed with Lena’s favorite scotch emanates from her clothes, she smells strangely like home; her red lipstick matching her flushed cheeks from running, and Kara cannot help but let her jaw fall open in awe at the sight.

She grabs Lena’s wrists softly and stands up bringing her along. Kara finally gathers her courage and looks at her eyes. She feels like sinking under her gaze, not out of fear, it’s nothing but love and warmth what she sees in those jade-green eyes, feelings she doesn’t feel worthy of, specially not when coming from the Irish goddess. Just when she’s about to close her eyes again, uncapable of keeping her gaze, Lena hooks a finger under her chin and makes her raise her eyes up to hers again. Insecure, scared-like blue puppy eyes find soft-looking bright emerald eyes. It’s understanding what she sees now in those deep green eyes, the same ones that seem capable of reading her like an open book. She lets out a sob, and Lena lets go of her chin, going to grab her hand, bringing it to her lips and kissing her palm tenderly.

The breeze brings to Kara’s nose the scent of Lena’s shampoo, smells like rainy days and autumn leaves, and, as usual, no words are needed when Kara moves her hand from Lena’s lips to cup her cheeks, bringing her other hand up. And, what else can she do other than lean forward? So, she does, she leans forward and kisses her forehead, its soft, tender, like a butterflies’ kiss, just barely brushing her skin, trying to convey her love for her beautiful Genius™ mind, for her brilliance, stubbornness and compassionate selfless soul. She then brushes her lips softly on both her eyelids, trying to convey all the love and regret she feels regarding the way she did Supergirl secret-related things. She parts slowly and watches as Lena opens her eyes fluttering open slowly, bringing her hands up to grab the wrists of the Kara’s hands that are still cupping her face, thumbs softly stroking the inside of the kryptonian’s wrists, she lets out a shaky breath, blue eyes looking at her so lovingly tenderly, with such determination and strength, unyielding as sapphires, she feels no questioning in her heart, this is where she is meant to be, she turns into a mushy puddle and lets herself be drawn into the Girl of Steel.

Kara leans forward and kisses her nose, giggling quietly, Lena simply melts into it feeling a soft warm breath that smells like chocolate and honey, suddenly, the emptiness in her chest melts like ice cream on a hot summer day, leaving nothing but love and warmth, like the one from a fireplace on Christmas Eve. She lets out a shuddering breath, relieved. They lock eyes again, and finally all those unspoken questions find an answer. They lean forward at the same time, their lips meeting in the middle, fitting perfectly against each other. It is warm, tender, loving, and everything it should be, the way every cheesy romantic comedy says it’s like. They pour all their love into that moment, lips moving against each other, chocolate-honey and black coffee.

When they finally part, it’s like breathing for the first time, lungs grasping for oxygen, freshly cut grass, concrete and sun-provided warmth, and it is perfect. Like taking a breath after holding it underwater for a long time, except you never truly knew what breathing was like, until that life-altering breath. They breathe in sync, foreheads touching, Kara’s hands go down to wrap around Lena’s waist, pulling her closer, Lena rests her head softly on Kara’s chest, nuzzling into her neck and closing her eyes, letting herself fall into that fierce love, like an all-consuming fire, she’s been too afraid to open herself to, to be vulnerable. They stay there, enjoying each other’s embrace, the hustle and bustle of the city blind to a beautifully blooming love.

**********

Kara is very clumsy, it does help her keep up her façade, albeit it is also a personal trait of hers. And right now, as she trips on nothing, while standing nonetheless, she makes it extremely evident. Forest green eyes look at her amused from the other side of the door. How does Lena expect Kara not to fall face first to the ground when she is dressed looking like THAT. Wearing a deep red drees that falls softly just below her knees, strapless, leaving her back and cleavage on display, her hair up in a neat bun and her signature 7-inch black heels, Kara definitely stopped breathing, not that she needs to anyway. She stands up awkwardly, taking the dust off her khaki pants and dark blue blazer. Lena cannot hide a smirk after pulling such reaction from no other than Supergirl.

The CEO pulls Kara into her apartment, it smells like vanilla and apples, probably resulting from the many scented candles that Lena likes to light around her apartment. The only light comes from said candles and several Christmas-like light strings that are hanging from the ceiling, giving the place a warm cozy glow. Kara smiles lazily as she leans down to kiss Lena, catching a glimpse of bright emerald eyes melting glimmery before falling shut. She smiles into the kiss. She pulls apart slightly and kisses the tip of Lena’s nose, the raven-haired woman lets out a soft chuckle. Kara grabs her hand, intertwining their fingers, and leads her to the door. Today it’s dinner date day, they are celebrating the successful launch of their joint solar panels project, the best performance ever achieved thanks to a certain Kryptonian’s platinum oxide nanoparticles; and 10 months of full-on dating. As Kara closes the door of Lena’s apartment behind them, the warm smell of the candles fills the hallway and follows them into the elevator, a fluffy plush blanket, a protective mantle surrounding them.

**********

drip…drip… the constant crash of raindrops against the windows surrounding them, rain pouring heavily around them, drowning the usually loud noises of the city’s rush hour, washing away the strong smell of smog. They are tucked under a bus station stop, at least Lena is, Kara is already dripping, since she stubbornly stood outside the small protection the roof offers so Lena and other humas could take cover, she doesn’t get sick anyway. Lena is shivering, although it has been a remarkably hot summer, today was quite a cloudy day and it rained for the most part, resulting in a temperature drop of several degrees. The brunette leans into Kara seeking for her abnormally high body temperature to warm herself up, but the Girl of Steel has other plans, since she cannot fly Lena to their apartment, she might as well take the best out of the situation.

Just as Lena is dropping her full body weight into her, she slides away, pulling Lena’s hand with her, directly into the downpour. Lena gasps when the first heavy drops of the cold water hit her, feeling her clothes get soaked almost instantly, she feels the raindrops roll down her skin and further dampening her clothes, the smell of the rain fully hits her now and when she lifts her eyes from where they were looking at the floor not to trip, she sees Kara smiling her signature megawatt smile at her, completely soaked and intertwining their fingers playfully, so Lena smiles, smiles so hard her dimples show. She lets herself be dragged by Kara, running under the rain, feeling the cold sweeping into her bones, and feeling more whole and filled with happiness than she has in a very long time, if ever.

Kara jumps over a puddle with all the grace of a gazelle, letting go of the CEO’s hand, such displays of her true nature still wonder Lena, just when she is about to make the jump herself, Kara stops and abruptly turns towards her. The world stops. Or maybe she is the one that freezes, the only thing she can hear is the rain pouring heavily around them, and her heart beating erratically in her chest, ringing in her ears, the smell of rain mixes with Kara’s floral perfume, she is getting closer now. The brunette starts shaking, and it has nothing to do with the cold water still running down her body. Kara stands in front of her, soaking wet, dirt all over her jeans from playing in the rain, her hair falls in wet dirty blonde strands around her face, her eyes as baby blue as always are dim because of the raindrops that coat her glasses, and in her soaking hands she’s holding an astonishingly made silver ring, two intertwined silver strings hold one small bright emerald in the middle, the inside of one of the string, in almost unreadably tiny letters reads “You are my hero”. The simplicity of the stone in contrast with the intricate design of the ring.

Lena forgets how to breathe, but Kara understands, so she just waits there, with the most loving smile ever seen stamped on her face. When Lena’s out of body experience ends, she simply nods enthusiastically. And so, the world starts spinning again, the honks of the cars return, engines roaring and muffled conversations, all muted by the rain, washing over them as reality sinks in, they are choosing each other, even when the world has tried to pull them apart repeatedly, furthermore, against each other, for them, none of it matters, just them, here and now, kissing for the first time in hopefully many years to come. Lena lets her hands drape loosely around Kara’s neck, feeling the grounding weight of the ring on her left ring finger, hot against her cold skin, the same way Kara’s hands, which hold her together.

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 131 Thoughts

Eren what the fuck.

Like.

What in the actual fuck, my dude.

There are parts of this that make sense.

Then there are the parts that absolutely do not, and it’s all wrapped up in this chapter where, as previous chapter posts predicted, people are screaming and dying.

Since that’s pretty much the majority of the content, I guess we have the luxury of a short post that almost entirely focuses on Eren.

With added Annie and Armin. They can go at the start, I guess. They exist, they are cute if you’re into that, they’re also dumb and mopey if you’re into that, Paths make for a great radio, and just generally

WHAT THE FUCK, EREN.

Did I already talk about Rebellion? Is that a thing I did in these past few months? -checks- Damn it. Not that the well can’t be visited again, since it’s very obviously appropriate, but twice in two months starts to look like the laziness that is indeed threatening to take me.

-spins the wheel-

Okay then, let’s talk about Anakin Skywalker.

Cool dude. Rad kid. Born into slavery. Freed from slavery by a dude with magical plot magic who immediately dies. Inherits dude’s desire for him to follow the leanings of the religious sect responsible for plot magic. Has hormones and has a meltdown over having hormones, and also feelings, and proceeds to protect everything he loves so hard that it burns to the ground while someone he eventually throws into a pit laughs maniacally in the background.

It’s mainly that last part that is arguably relevant to today.

Anakin is terrified of losing his wife in childbirth. Instead of contacting a doctor, he decides that it’s best to rely on himself. Plus shady mentor. His fear turns into a longing for a power to destroy that fear, and the combination drives him to the Dark Side. When he starts demolishing the very things he wanted to protect, he digs in deeper. For twenty years, he kills, and kills, and kills, because he can’t admit he was wrong.

(Clone Wars is a good show, if anyone is interested. It fleshes the emotional weight of the script out, and makes the horror and tragedy stab you in the heart.)

I can’t say that I entirely hate this for Eren. I don’t particularly like how it’s been presented, but that might just be the part of me that looks at the “GENOCIDE IS THE ONLY OPTION” button lit up on his forehead and finds it so fundamentally disagreeable that I haven’t been looking at it even when the plot tells me that’s what it is.

Here’s the thing: Genocide is presented as a feasible course of action all throughout this series. From Zeke, from Marley, from Paradis; whoever’s pitch you want to listen to, a conclusion everyone always comes to is that it would be easier if all of these people causing problems would just die.

They can make that happen. They have the technology.

Marley is a cesspit. The moral cost means nothing to them.

Zeke is abused, traumatized, and molded into thinking death is a mercy.

Floch survives, and teaches himself that the evil he lives through needs to be repaid in full.

Kill, kill, kill. If something stands in your way, murder it.

This is a concept of horror to the characters who are establishing the moral center of the tale. They’ve killed people. They’ve fought to the death against people who would gladly see them die. The titans are their victimized kin, and all they can do for the greater good is put them down.

They’re tiny humans trapped in a cage, and they’re just trying to get out. Whenever they try, their jailers try to eat them. That is forever what Paradis is attempting, and whenever they do try to lessen the amount of violence in their tactics, they get fucked over by the plot. As much as the story can, it’s thrown the main Paradis cast into the light of being innocent victims who are just trying to defend themselves.

The whole series is a study in the damage genocide has caused.

Nothing excuses it.

There is no motive that justifies this scale of premeditated violence.

There is the fear that one day the people who belong to you will be victims, and the only way to stop them from being victims is to make victims of everyone else. Kill or be killed.

In self-defense.

Defending from an attack that might never come.

Genocide is not an option that has ever deserved a seat at the table.

Why don’t we just kill everyone off?

Why not erase everyone’s memories of it?

Why not continue to use this power to herd everyone into our vision of what the world should be like?

Why not say that we deserve life so much more than any other living creature on the planet?

The entire story tells us why.

From the very first chapter, we’re exposed to the violence and terror of an uncaring world devouring anyone unfortunate enough to be on the outskirts of what supposedly greater people have decided is most important. Eren’s entire home is destroyed because some children kick down a wall. The people in the core of those same walls are disturbed, but send out their lesser to be fed to the monsters so that they can continue living.

Karl Fritz locks everyone away on an island and tells them the world has ended.

Anyone who is too curious, or too interested in beginning a new world, is killed. They’re robbed of their memories or their life. The remaining Ackermans are alive because they were too far away from the true history of the world to actually know anything.

Marley, the whipping boy of the Eldian Empire, finds its escape through Karl’s mercy, and immediately mimics the way of life that has caused them so much pain. Titans continue to run rampant in the world, simply with different reins. They redefine what’s acceptable based on who’s pulling the trigger.

Every single major plot point comes back to the ruin that perpetrating genocide has conceived.

Nothing is fixed by saving Marley from Eldia. Marley chooses to renew the evil.

Nothing is fixed by Karl walking away from the world. He just picks on smaller targets.

Nothing is fixed by pretending this is a solution.

The series’ history is a cycle of people grabbing power and tormenting their enemies with it. It shows no sign of stopping. It takes Paradis a hundred years, but they go from a blank slate of a starting point to producing someone ready to destroy the world.

Nothing suggests that another hundred years won’t do the same.

We have seen this all before. The only difference is that Eren is trying to commit to a large enough scale that no one alive will have the kind of grudges that will produce this fuckery.

It is vile.

This is not a defensible course of action. Some things are simply wrong, and even without morality coming into play, we’ve spent years reading an object lesson in the consequences of this behavior.

This horror is where Eren comes from.

Eren is not special.

He is a normal human born into this world.

His actions are ones that any other person could duplicate.

Not easily, and not without a great deal of coincidence, but nothing about Eren makes this a choice that only he can make. His power is borrowed, and no matter how he dies, that death means there will be a next person in line.

He isn’t ending a fucking thing. He’s become a cog in the machine that broke him.

So that’s the starting point. Even if killing younglings did have a logical undercurrent, no. No, no, a million times no. Eren chooses this. Eren causes this. Eren picks genocide without anyone putting a gun to his head. Eren picks genocide when he has access to a power that could easily discourage anyone from attacking his home for years.

He chooses to murder people.

Because he’s afraid, and because he can.

Then we get to what I find infinitely more interesting:

Eren doesn’t want this.

In the present day, we have an Eren who no longer has a body, and what amounts to a hallucination of his younger self, dreaming of a world hidden away in a book. His physical self has its eyes closed, and his younger self looks more alive than Eren has in ages. He isn’t looking at the damage he causes, just the open sky.

In the past, we have Eren bawling apologies to a boy he meets once. We have an Eren who realizes that this world is one that has let him down, and that, completely outside protecting his home, is what makes him want it gone.

This doesn’t just happen.

Eren wants it to happen.

Eren looks at this world that wants him and everyone like him dead, and he wants it to be like the book. No mention of other people -- other people aren’t in the outside world anymore. Just beautiful scenery, and the freedom to enjoy it.

He can’t have that, and it hurts. He’s been through Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt. He’s lost friends and seen even more people die protecting him. He’s lost limbs and sleep and sanity to see a world beyond the walls.

It’s a world that wants nothing to do with him.

And Eren, who has rejected that line of thinking since he was a child, rejects the entire world.

He can’t dress it up.

Deep down, he doesn’t like the world he’s going to destroy.

He’s known for four years that he’s going to end countless lives.

He walks off Paradis’ ship knowing that.

But when he sees this world, he does want it gone.

Knowing what he’s going to do is one thing; seeing the beginning of a reason for it is what drives him to his knees. It isn’t some strange inevitability of the future. He’s the one who does this, and behind every bit of love for his friends and Paradis, there’s the knowledge that this world, where so many people live lives just like his, is one he’d liked better in a dream where none of them existed.

And that is where the plot thread loses me.

Not because any of this is something that I find particularly outlandish. There’s a plain, hysterical logic to it, and a small fraction of identifying with that logic has Eren in tears.

Eren does this.

There is no evidence of him wanting it.

He sees the shadow of want in himself, and he freaks out.

Eren of the present is dissociating so hard I don’t view his childhood hallucinations as a stable mind choosing something.

Eren of the past is continually horrified that this is going to happen.

If I had a tablet, this is where there would be a bad drawing of present Eren and past Eren, linked by an unstable line of red question marks.

I don’t have a tablet.

I do have Paint.

In the immortal words of an angry fictional nine-year-old, “If you don’t fight, we can’t win.”

In the immortal words of a very sad fictional nineteen-year-old, “I don’t know when in the future it will happen... But I... am going to kill every one of these people...”

Eren going full villain is a choice, I guess. It’s not a very interesting one. As previously stated, we know what happens in this world when people do a genocide. We also know what happens when the walls go marching. We are now watching a genocide as the walls go marching. There are no revelations here. There’s death and gloom.

I mean this as sincerely as I can: This, on its face, is boring.

Eren is just the latest person killing people for Reasons.

There is very little reason to be invested in that as a plot. As a character drama, there are tears to be shed and hearts to be torn asunder, but as a basic plot??? This has nothing in it.

I don’t personally believe we’ve come this far for nothing, so I apply my magnifying glass where I choose, and where I choose is the part where I believe this all slips:

Eren takes his visions as an inevitability.

He has the conversation with himself, counting out the lives. Paradis versus the world. In a simple game of numbers, the world should win, and he knows that.

Presenting our problem.

Eren can’t accept a future where Paradis, and Eldians, are sacrificed for the world. Paradis is his home, and he’s spent his life fighting for Eldians to be free, even if he doesn’t know them by that name for most of it. In the case of Paradis v World, Paradis wins out. It’s wrong and it’s terrible, and Zeke’s plan means less dead bodies, but he can’t let go of Paradis.

A binary is presented. Paradis can live, or the rest of the world can. Pick one.

Except that’s stupid.

Following this, Eren leans so far into that choice that he does what he can to manufacture an impossibility of any other results. He makes Paradis a priority. He makes Paradis an international concern, not simply a Marley one. He has the power to knock back any assault on the island they can make, but he still goes on offense.

Paradis dies

World dies

That is not the choice. It is the choice Eren locks himself into, but frankly, he doesn’t even try before he jumps at the genocide route.

As a story thing, whatever. Valid, I guess. Let the protagonist’s own misconceptions break him.

As an Eren thing, it falls short of working.

He’s clearly being torn apart by what he’s going to do.

He’s a protagonist who enters the story yelling about people never winning if they don’t enter the ring.

Eren sees a vision of him destroying the world, thinks on it, and effectively goes, “seems legit,” and cries himself to sleep feeling sad about it.

Eren.

You can have your characters fail. You can have them drop their principles one by one until there’s nothing left. You can have their character development be entirely negative. You do not have to have your hero be a Hero.

Eren is appalled by his own feelings, and walking around the world like a zombie. He sees himself ending the world, and plays it back over and over again, never questioning that this is exactly what he’s going to do.

But when he finally starts, there’s not even a trace of this conflict. His eyes light up at the amazing sight he believes is waiting for him. He spits his defiance at Zeke for even suggesting the sterilization plan. He’s still a zombie in every human interaction that happens with his flesh body, but he goes about his plan with an unconcerned ruthlessness that is disconnected from the humanity Eren has spent the whole story personifying.

Arguably, Sasha dying is the tipping point, and that’s where he fully commits, and blah blah blah stuff.

Only defiance, and not bending to anyone else’s will, is the key trait of the Attack Titan. It’s the key trait of Eren. To keep fighting well beyond sense.

This plan’s inception comes from Eren yielding to the inevitable.

He’s going to kill these people.

There is no choice to it, it’s simply what’s going to happen.

Eren has always had a choice. He might not like the options, or know what’s right, but he has always, always known that the decisions he makes are his.

The story is making the case that Eren buys into inevitability so completely that he denies himself freedom.

That isn’t uninteresting, but we don’t see that. We don’t see what convinces Eren that it’s no use fighting. He chooses to save a boy, and his memories of the boy don’t change. Big deal. That’s one kid in four years of choices. As a proof of concept, it’s weak, and it’s weaker still because Eren makes the choice to save him.

None of this was inevitable, but we approach Eren’s actions from the perspective of there being no way out. Maybe if we had even more flashbacks to him trying to change things, and a play-by-play of him slowly realizing that nothing he does changes what he sees --

But even then, if Eren doesn’t want to kill people, he’s allowed not to. He’s allowed to continue working with his friends. He could have told any of them, at any point, that this was an upcoming problem. He’s always trusted Armin’s mind.

Eren hides himself away with his problems and tells himself he can’t fight this.

Bullshit.

I’ve made this argument before, about Historia and Ymir:

If you’re going to have a character renege on a core of their personal identity so completely, you need to put in the legwork of showing how it happens. Otherwise there’s no reason to trust anything the story tells you, and the grand illusion falls to pieces.

The character work in this series has always been solid, even when everything down to the art hasn’t.

This doesn’t quite work.

There’s a compelling case. There’s a viewable logic that pretends to be believable.

The internal consistency is still off. Something’s wrong here, and if it turns out to be the character ball being dropped in the final inning... really, that’s just such a waste. Personal preference colors all of this, obviously, but if this is the whole truth of the matter, it’s boring.

“I still want to believe... that there’s still a world we don’t know about yet out there... past the walls.”

C’mon, Armin. Earn your fandom hatred. Be right one more time.

We’re not done yet.

[transsexualhamlet]

so about norman’s ethics

The thing that a lot of people don’t understand about Norman is that he doesn’t believe in the like, political sentiments that he acts on in the slightest. Yeah, this doesn’t make it ok that he did a bunch of shitty stuff, but it’s a misconception to say norman like, genuinely believes fucking eugenics are a good thing.

And yet, he decides to act on the idea to degenerate and genocide the demons and seems not to understand why Emma wouldn’t agree with him. People’s explanations of this seem to be pretty much one of two minds, either:

His morals are corrupt: Norman wants all the demons dead because what they did makes him think they’re all bad and don’t deserve the respect humans get, which is understandable but still wrong, or

His morals are intact but he ignores them: Norman feels bad that he’s doing a bad thing and does it anyway because he can’t find a better way out, which honestly makes what he did worse, though Tragic.

The second one is more accurate, but still doesn’t completely explain his ideas.The truth is that, in my opinion, he just barely understands the concept of morals in general, and what’s ‘messed up’ is simply his priorities. That sounds like I’m saying he’s a twisted cycle path but I swear I’m not, it’s just like him having low empathy. This is another, autism thing, and it’s another thing that I have, so I’ll try to explain it as best as I can?

Personally, I understand and try to follow sociatal expectations for moral things like, you know, do not kill people and what not. Because it’s bad or... whatever. And although I can cognitively understand the reasons why people think so, I don’t value it in the same way. Obviously I wouldn’t kill a person, there’s no need for me to in a world like this, and it would be inconvenient and probably make me feel bad despite not understanding why it is bad. But I’ve known from a very young age if I had the power and reason to kill someone, I absolutely would, no questions asked. Not even the necessity, just a logical reason. Most of the time this means nothing and isn’t applicable in the real world, because most of the people around me would be negatively affected by it. But it means nothing to me personally, and if prompted I could change at the slightest reason.

This is what I think we’re dealing with in Norman’s situation. 

Norman, in grace field, has no reason to violate any intagible laws of right and wrong, in most cases, until the escape arc happens. Yeah, I do believe Norman probably lied significantly more than the average child, because he didn’t see any reason not to, but I doubt it hurt anyone bad, they lived in, well, basically a neverland. He’s just a slightly off white little man. But when he is faced with a risky and dangerous situation, he might look Correct on the outside but the closer you look the more you realize his actions are directly impacted by the situation around him, completely independent of any internal moral compass. 

Ray wants to only escape with those three, because although he feels extreme guilt for being the way he is and completely understands it’s a selfish and terrible thing to do, he’s too cynical to accept any other options. Norman initially agrees with him, because Ray explains the risks. Emma then insinuates she wants to bring the other kids, giving ideas as to how. Norman then switches to Emma’s plan because he believes it can be achieved and he wants Emma to be happy, not because it would be wrong to do otherwise. At the same time, he later ships himself out, without much consideration to the others’ wishes against it, because now that it’s gotten impossible to have both, Emma’s and Ray’s safety is more important now than their happiness. Though he can understand that they’d not like that, it’s not that important to him in the long run. He will choose the path that offers them the greatest chance, if the one his friends want isn’t good enough.

When he was shipped out and taken to lambda, what happened is he was put in a situation where the stakes become much higher. There’s a different kind of situation, and the idea of simply running away from the demons is obviously not an option. When he escapes, and basically adopts the lambda kids- now he’s surrounded by people with the opposite morals and ideas as Emma. These kids want revenge, they would be happy to kill the demons, their ideal situation involves that and trying to reach any compromise would be unsatisfactory. The overwhelming majority of the kids agree with killing the demons, and that idea makes him seem stronger and gives him more certainty and control over the situation, even if it’s difficult and hurts him personally, making him a “Bad Person” to Emma. 

Norman harbors no personal hatred towards the demons, nor any specific desire to kill them. He just doesn’t see any viable reason not to, and killing them provides both him and the people he cares about with a more beneficial situation. Emma is now the minority, and even though she provides an idea that could work, Norman, after seeing so much pain and suffering, is no longer willing to take the risk for her, like he was in grace field. He is incapable of understanding why she values a sense of right and wrong more than the actual statistics of how well one or the other could work- yes, they had different experiences, but she lost other people because she decided to take risks, and she still believes in it? It simply doesn’t fucking compute.

An important aspect to consider is that it still does make him feel bad not to follow a more traditionally accepted route. He might have low empathy but he’s not an emotionless robot. Not understanding morals doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a concience, though it’s much more ambiguous and generally equates to any other thing, such as the actual convenience, details, or certainty of a plan. It’s not of any more importance, and he is in a situation now where it’s inconvenient to pay attention to, more so than in grace field. So not following a Nicer route does take a toll on his Feelings TM, same as it takes a toll on his literal body, but that’s a sacrifice he’s fine with, it’s a sacrifice that’s significantly smaller than the chance that someone he cares for could die.

Generally, most Lukewarm Takes on Norman can be disproven with this idea (pretty much anything that insinuates he would see the demons as less or like, he’s doing it because they did awful things to him, understandable but hey this isn’t tokyo ghoul and he’s not that kind of character), though everyone is obviously free to have their own takes and I doubt Shirai took his autistic coding into consideration, so it’s obviously my own idea.

Although Norman’s actions have correlation with Ray’s before, Norman isn’t disregarding his physical needs and trying to sacrifice himself out of any idea that it would make up for what he did, he’s doing it because it gives him more control over his own situation, he values his own well being less than his family’s, and he doesn’t understand why it would be Bad to do so. If we’re really digging deep, it’s likely he doesn’t want to have to experience any real consequences for his actions. He understands that they’re Bad, but this isn’t important to him, more than anything else. He doesn’t want to see Emma’s disappointment because it would complicate things.

After Emma and Ray, well, complicate things, ie face him and force him to see there are real consequences to his actions past Ambiguous Moral Obligations (ex. “you’re Taking Advantage the lambda kids” means nothing until he sees that it’s stopped them from being able to grow as people and forgive, “you’re neglecting yourself” means nothing until there’s an idea brought up that could fix him, “you’re trying to kill so many fucking people” means nothing until he sees that it’s hurting the human kids.) and that there’s a valid flaw in his personality past that- that it’s not a strong but a cowardly move, he can move forward and attempt to change things, possibly give himself a fucking break. 

In that situation, with other solutions that Emma and Ray have opened up actually seeming to work, he no longer finds it necessary to Be Terrible and hurt himself. This makes him feel better, because he doesn’t want to be Incorrect, it’s just a difficult thing for him to understand, when most other things come to him naturally. I think in the future he can be more cognizant of the fact that he’s more suceptible to doing generally, unacceptable things, and vows to lean more on Emma and Ray so he doesn’t end up going down the wrong path again, because to him they all look the same color.

Yes, this is my long ass way of telling Shirai why the fuck did you let Norman be a CEO. That’s a terrible fucking idea, he’ll become capitalism, guys?! Don’t let him do that. He needs to be in a job where like, he can use his skills without having to make Ethical Decisions like... an engineer or something. Computer scientist. IDK. Just not a fucking CEO, not in a management position for anything.

Honestly, it’s difficult for me to even use the alignment chart because I don’t understand morals enoughto put anyone in the Evil category because the idea of ‘evil’ doesn’t exist for me. So yeah, I’m projecting, but in conclusion I just have a bone to pick with anyone who wouldn’t call norman lawful neutral. 

[cinearia]

The way the flowers remind me of you

Summary: Emerie values her work with your store in a world where it was not expected of someone like her. That routine is different, varying from her work, to her reading, and her time with her friends, that the time she spends with Nesta has become something common when she gets a new friend.

Except that the things she feels when it's just her and Nesta is not exactly what someone think for a "friend"

----------

Packing new merchandise became easier when Emerie shop started to have more customers. When unloading and organizing everything on her own started to pay off after receiving the profit from sales. It was a lot of work for one, but it was how worked with her for a long time.

She would swear with her soul, most of the time requiring more mental than physical strength to complete the task completely, in which it seemed more advantageous to drop everything. She had no friends and money to risk getting into debt. Whatever had to do, Emerie had to do alone. In the first few days there she noticed the looks she got when people heard that she claimed her father's store.

The loading gave her physical strength, at least. And the little time Cassian stayed to train taught her the damage it could do if she wanted to hurt someone and turn most manual jobs less suffering.

Your primary purpose, however, was defense, to make time to run while immobilizing. Emerie refused to put her hands up to hurt someone in vain, even if he is a filthy drunk man. Like being proud of a wound she caused, things that her father and uncle often did. Emerie has always chosen to find another solution that does not necessarily come from violence.

What could come up with after leaving a black eye on someone, she didn't want to know. She had no interest in being in a leather uniform that looked more like a second layer of skin than a suit for battle. Calling herself a warrior seemed so distant from what she saw herself, although it was fun to be with her friends.

Curious, being in that store is where was she find more comforting than holding a sword. Even if at any moment she is threatened to lose it. At this point, the chance went to zero. Training with those two warriors at Rhysand court served a purpose. How long had Bellius not come? How much profit has started coming into the store in the past few weeks?

It was enough for her to say that the whole fight was worth it. That not even the title of warrior could take away. Only Emerie knows how she felt.

For how long did you have to do all the calculations by herself? Pack and tidy each showcase, listening to one of your cousins who was not grumbling that a certain part was wrong, that other needed to be fixed, there were two more boxes to be opened. Look at the splinters on your fingers, cousin. Careful with the nails. He never bothered to take them out - he was a woodcutter once, he knew how those things hurt. Her aunt, who once had some of her dresses sewn and intended to order her wedding dress, asked about Emerie ingrown toenails, ignoring the bandaged fingers and purple stains.

Most of the store that has been redecorated, except the glass and the walls, was by her. Emerie was proud to say that she did it. But anguish came from nowhere every time someone in her family commented on it. Although they did not know that it was Emerie who did most of the work, it was her who chose what the store would look like.

It wasn't the most perfect place in the world, it had parts peeling off, but it couldn't be that bad.

From Bellius smile, he knew his words hit her.

Once Emerie forgot to mask her dark circles under the eyes with makeup. You are so tired. A luscious tone as a lullaby.

If she shrugs, they can deviate from that subject and say how much shrugging was disrespectful. If you just sigh and say you had more to do, they would say everything they had to say and leave. Emerie could lean over the bed and think, rest on the blanket and resist the urge to slip under the covers and not go out for days. She could reconsider for the thousandth time and accept defeat as a good loser, go somewhere else, build a market stall, or work for another store - if she wasn't spiteful.

Was it wrong not to know how to feel after her father died? How Emerie can be angry if he showed her the store, let her pass the free time as she wanted there. How Emerie is going to feel sad if he doesn't come to her comfort when she begged them to not cut the wings, was in tears with pain, and ignored his gaze at everyone who flew away?

Emerie already noticed pity in his countenance when noticed the change in her movements, the difficulty of getting up, which was already constant before she cut her wings. Emerie case seems more critical. Maybe because she was born that way? Or because she got worse when she lost her ability to fly with much of her motor activity?

Where it had been clear as Illyrian skies when the man of the family was last seen going off to war as she looked… Simply horrible. How she had to beg to go to a specialized doctor, not the one who was there when her clipping happened. Other than the one who'd been at family lunches on weekends longer than Emerie had in her life, but who had always been a good attraction for him and any young woman who came to age of majority.

For one who can tell them that Emerie moves might not change. That being born that way did not make it synonymous of frailty. No one needed to cast a pitying look on her every time they noticed.

Even though it's useless to wait for the look people gave her since that day to stop, they'll still remember how she was before the clipping, how she tried to fight, how she cursed everyone around her, how there was little, very little, chance to the doctor hit her, if your father hadn't.

A relief just to know she wasn't mistaken. That not everything she said was pure female hysteria or post-clipping stress. A good doctor would tell that it wasn't just her high hormones, that breaking out of her comfort zone wasn't running counter to everything she believed. And even if Emerie started to develop that ideia though the years, hearing someone say it aloud was a final sentence that she was not crazy.

There was a feeling growing inside her that many others also had. Emerie wanted to know how they managed it, how they buried and buried for the decades that were left to them. Without wings, but with thousands around her, with a pair who would take her being and soul and cradle all her desires as long as there's something in return.

They came in so many ways, disguised themselves as docile words, in a different skin, so that if you ever realize you've left one walled prison for another, it's too late. And there's a lot to just turn your back on. Can be a baby in the arms, but just the security of a family can provide to a single person. If Emerie was really smart, she would have seen it in time, and maybe, just maybe, she still could fly.

Gwyn heard it from her mouth. Emerie has never heard your voice low before. She let her braid her hair while told where she would go if the store didn't work. One day she could go to the Dawn Court. Gwyn's eyes lit up at the idea.

One day it would take a long time, but it was possible. In addition to the mountains of Illyrian, further south of Prythian, there would be something that interested her that would make her leave that territory. Something she didn't know and didn't allow herself to think about when she grew up. Emerie didn't have a reason, since Illyrians didn't usually leave their homeland, but it was also possible.

Emerie stopped limiting the things she think, she doesn't know when she started to, even when more obligations fell the more she become a woman, but began to fear what was out of those lands. If she can't run a store, what makes her think she could travel to another court?

Gwyn spoke encouraging words. Said that Emerie would pay for her trip to some strange library at the Day Court. That she will pay the presents that Gwyn will bring to the other friends in the library of the priestess. And it would be so rich that it would finance Nesta's trip as well.

The worst was that it seemed like a good idea, but she was never sure what Nesta wanted living there and never asked her where she would like to go. Anywhere but the mountains of Illyrian? She guess, so. But where?

What was the High Lady sister doing in those mountains with a body that definitely didn't look like a warrior? The sister who cut off the head of the King of Hybern, for sure. But why was she there? Why there, if she leaves with the blood boiling all the end of conversation with that general? What did she think when they talked about her High Lord when she corrected them saying that he was not her High Lord? What Emerie could know with those disconnected facts that she can't notice?

Nesta had been visiting for months and Emerie still had no idea. When Gwyn finish her work, she get together with the other women in the library for some kind of stupid game or conversation. Something they do after work and bring Gwyn to meet anothers Nymphs and others storys that she really wanted to hear, wich was great seen her interact with the other woman there. Meanwhile, it was just Nesta and Emerie.

Nesta smiled a lot when it was just them. It fell apart when Emerie smiled back, and thought, and stared, something inside turning off and on again, trying to regain her senses, and looking away quickly.

Emerie learned to notice the first signs in Nesta, as if she saw a side of her that not even her family – her sisters, in fact – knew about. Your presence became frequent, common in that environment. When Nesta went back to home, her scent was there, pervading the chair near the counter.

A scent of lilies, or hydrangeas, Emerie didn't know how to differentiate, floating in the air while she was doing some task.

Just focus on checking some corner of the store until it becomes just a smell of flowers. She opened the back window to run the late-afternoon air, warmer than Illyrian winter wind, dispensing with her friend remnants, and went out to buy her ordered dinner on two corners. Then the cycle begins, following her own routine.

At that time, everyone was already closing their shops, receiving good night from the neighbors, taking her food and making her way back.

Nesta huddled in her room, enjoying reading in an armchair next to the bed, interrupted by Cassian or Azriel call for dinner. If she forced herself to eat as much as she needed, as much as Emerie insisted that she have to do, she soon returned to her reading after splinters exchanged with the general. Maybe given more attention to Cassian, turning a fight into something more, smelling the fight of his skin and a perfumed essence in hers, rubbing the skin on each other like the characters in the books she read. Emerie embraced the cold of the night, smelling of the warm breads in the bag she carried mixing with a flower shop near her store. She was able to smell the lilies and the violets and to distinguish, when leaned, the hydrangeas sprouting from a vase.

And then the cycle started again. Her daydreams disappeared with sleep, as they accompanied Emerie when she tried to dream a dreamless night and Nesta's face disappeared with her consciousness. And would come back the next day. And again. And again. And again. To the point that she didn't remember when it started.

Emerie only sold clothes and utensils, but maybe all this had to be a sign to sell flowers too.

The bell rang just before a person was on the other side of the store. Emerie lifted her body, containing the sound that would come out of her throat with the effort, seeking to balance her body with the wings. Her senses were slow since the cut on the wings, but after so long trying to get used to the different joints, Emerie disguised it.

A book was between Nesta chest and her arms crossed. If she tried to hide, it was a very flawed act to use thin arms, and too late when she took him behind her back.

How does she manage to carry weight with them? Emerie noticed some new body mass. For training with the general, for sure. Over the long sleeves of a blue-violet dress, her skirt came loose from her waist. On the spine a brown corset to adjust the spine. What for, exactly? Did Nessa ever relax her spine?

"I want to give you something"

Emerie met her eyes, looking into hers and at the same time her whole body. Rarely did Emerie dress like the women of the High Court. Nesta can combine the simple and the beautiful at once, nor matters wich one is majority.

Emerie, on the other hand, wore the apron she liked so much, because she was the one who sewed it, and a brown dress. Somehow, Nesta looked at her as if she were the tallest lady of any court.

She shouldn't be excited about that feeling.

"What would it be?" Emerie smirked.

Nesta lifted her chin, level with hers, spine erect and shoulders low. The thin neck stretched as if it were going to detach from the body. Reached out to deposit a small book in the middle of the counter. Emerie fingers almost turned him toward her, if an orange tulip wrapped in two tiny daisies didn't get her attention.

Emerie looked from the flowers to Nesta. Her face was impassive.

"Would it be for me, too?"

Nesta shook her head, anxious or neutral, Emerie couldn't say anymore, but saw her swallow hard before turning to the book. Picked up the flowers by the stem, closely examining a tulip and the daisies adorning around it. Emerie was never a fan of flowers, but the color matched the cover of the book. She read the title out loud.

"I think it suits your taste" Nesta said "It has romance, a little bit of smut, but a lot of mystery. The author balancead between and it was... Really great. It's a special edition. I got it at the bottom of a bookcase when I was polishing the books"

Emerie noticed the lines of folds at the edges of the cover, and, flicking through quickly, some idiot thought it a good idea to fold the pages as a highlighter. The leaves denounced their long years, disagreeing with the polished cover several times and an outdated edition.

"Well, thank you" Emerie thanked her and held up the flowers "And thanks for that too, although I don't know where to put them"

The words came out with her regret.

"Tell me what you think when you finish"

"Did you get it from the library?"

A wave with her head.

"Is that allowed?"

"Gwyn said yes"

"Gwyn say yes to many things"

A smile appeared on her dark salmon-colored lips and a light brush on your cheeks.

"Nobody would notice. It's not like I'm the only one to pick things up without Merril knowing. If you knew what the Priestesses do when they're alone" she winked "It's good to distract them, have a little fun. Gwyn even got along with some of them"

"Good. We're not the only who are going to endure her"

Sometimes, Emerie feared they would think that everything she said was true. Nesta laughed. "Oh, not really" she left her hands on the counter, close to her body.

Emerie felt on the other side. A scent that was definitely hydrangeas rising as she heard a lower voice, soft as a flower, from Nesta "Don't worry"

She stared at her, gray blue eyes glued to hers with unbelievable attention. The way Emerie, she reflected that second, never saw Nesta look at anyone. To a favorite book in her hands? For a suitor? For Cassian?

Has anyone ever looked at Emerie with such interest?

"I wouldn't think of leaving you anytime soon"

Emerie smiled, she couldn't tell from the way Nesta smiled or for the irony.

For the irony, of course.

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

A one-shot of what I would think if it were Nesta x Emerie. Because Nesta deserves more than Cassian does to her (sorry, but I completely dislike Nessian) and Emerie deserved more development.

So, this is just an au that I did very quickly and just to do. I also like their friendship, but I would also like to see them as a couple.

Could it be a crackship? Yes, but I don't regret it yet.

[slowly-writing]

She Knows

Tony Stark x Daughter!Reader

Wanda Maximoff x Stark!Reader

Word count: 2550

Requested by @kye06

A/N: The premise of this story is flipping who survived Infinity War and who didn’t

Warning: Major Character Death. Angst.

You’re fighting as hard as you possibly can. You’ve been training for as long as you can remember, but nothing could’ve ever prepared you for this. You look off to your right and see Wanda trying her hardest to destroy Vision’s stone and your heart aches for her. You know how gentle of a person she tries to be and she considers Vision a close friend. This has to be killing her.

You turn to the alien...thing you’re fighting and put all your focus into that. The next time you look up you see Thor with Stormbreaker in Thanos’s chest. You let out a sigh of relief, thinking you’ve won but then you hear the purple bastard mumble something about going for the head. Your eyes go wide as he snaps his fingers and he disappears. You fall to your knees. It can’t be over, can it?

You see Steve coming through the tree line, holding his side and asking where Thanos went. You hear bucky coming up behind you and you look at him for one second. By the time you look back, Steve is disintegrating in front of your eyes. You look to Thor who quickly follows Steve’s fate. You can hear people calling each other and you know it’s a sound that will haunt your dreams for years to come. All you can do is stare in shock, this is really it.

“What is this? What’s happening?” a voice behind you says, Sam maybe.

“We lost,” you say, you’re barely able to bring your voice above a whisper, “we lost.”

xxxxx

“What do we do?” Wanda asks, only to be met by silence. No matter how many times you try to have this conversation, it never gets easier.

“What about the team on Titan? Do we know if anyone over there is still…” you trail off. You can’t bring yourself to say the words. No matter how rocky of a relationship you had with your father, you never thought you’d be in this situation. You never dreamed life could get this bad.

“What is that?” you look up at Bucky, who’s staring out the window. You follow his gaze and immediately take off for the lawn, the others close behind you. The ship has definitely seen better days, but it settles and Peter is the first one off. He looks dazed and you run up to him, grabbing him before he can fall. The poor kid is too young to be dealing with this.

“I couldn’t-I couldn’t stop him,” he mumbles, staring at the ground and you feel your heart breaking a little more.

“None of us could, Peter” you try to reassure him, and he meets your eyes.

“I lost him. I lost Mr. Stark,” he says and your world stops. You do everything you can to stay strong, but it's too much. You feel a familiar set of hands on your back and you turn around, collapsing into Wanda’s arms as she holds your weight.

xxxxx

“It’s a mess here. It’s been 23 days since Thanos came, and it looks like he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.” You explain to what’s left of your team, looking at the board in front of you. Faces are flashing through the hologram and you catch sight of your Father’s picture.

“Where is he now?” Sam asks and you sigh.

“We don’t know. But I’m gonna find him,” you start typing and you feel Wanda put a hand on your shoulder.

“Maybe we should-”

“No!” you cut her off, “I’ve been sitting on my ass for weeks. I’ve done all the good I can here. I’m gonna find that bastard and we’re gonna fix this!”

“Okay, okay. Let me help,” she says, sitting next to you and the two of you start running scans. Within minutes you find a radioactive signature similar to the one from Wakanda.

“There. We got him.”

“Let’s go get this son of a bitch,” You hear Bucky say and you nod.

xxxxx

You’re sitting on the ship, looking down at the alien planet below and you sigh before you hear Wanda’s voice.

“This is gonna work, y/n,” she says and you nod.

“I know it is. Cause I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t.”

When you land Wanda and Peter go in first, holding him back and you quickly use the blaster on your suit to remove the gauntlet from his arm. Bucky flips it over and everyone freezes.

“What did you do with them?”

Thanos goes on a rant about how they’re useless now, but you can only focus on one thing. The stones are gone. There’s nothing left. It’s over. You’re not sure who takes the shot, Wanda maybe. Maybe it was you, but before you know it, Thanos is gone, and there’s nothing left to do but to go home and find a way to live with it.

xxxxx

After everything, you left the compound. There were too many memories there. Too many reminders of what you lost. It was all too painful. So you moved up to a nice cabin by the lake, you finally bought Wanda the ring you should’ve given her years ago, and you lived your life as best you could. You adopted a baby girl, after the snap there were so many kids who needed families. You named her Natasha. It was a joke at first, you remembered how much she teased Clint about naming a kid after her, but then all the sudden it wasn’t a joke. It was a good way to remember your best friend, and in an odd way, it helped you heal. So now it was the three of you, and your new sense of normalcy.

“Tasha? Come on, it’s lunchtime!” you call, walking out to the tent Wanda had set up a few years back. The kid loved it and you always knew where to find her. “Natasha Stark, come out come out wherever you are!” you tease and she comes crawling out, a toy blaster and miniature helmet on her head. “There you are, Mama made lunch, you ready to come inside?” you gently pull the helmet off of her head, revealing her beautiful smile and your heart melts at the sight.

“I’m ready,” she smiles and you lift her up, heading towards the house,

“Well then we better get going,” you hear a car pull up to your right and you sigh, seeing Peter and Bucky get out followed by a woman, Hope, or something like that. You nod at them, walking over to the front door, “Tasha, go inside with Mama, okay?” you hear Bucky take a sharp inhale at the name, and you understand. You felt the same way at first.

“Y/n, what’s happening?” Wanda asks and you shake your head.

“I don’t know,” you say and she nods.

“I got her, you take care of it.”

xxxxx

“So you’re telling me time travel is your solution?” you ask, “you’ve really exhausted all your resources down at the compound, huh? If you go down there, you don’t come back.”

“I did,” Hope cuts you off and you sigh.

“It was a fluke, the most likely outcome is our collective demise,” you argue and Bucky pipes up.

“The stones are in the past. We go back there and we get them.” Bucky says, as if it’s that simple, “after everything that we’ve been through does it really seem that unlikely?”

“Once we have the stones we snap our own finger, bring everybody back,” Peter says.

“Or we screw it up more than he already did!”

“Y/n, we have to take a stand,” Peter says, and you can hear the tears in his voice.

“We did stand. And yet, here we are.” You say, and Hope glares.

“I understand you’ve got a lot to lose. You’ve got a wife, a daughter, but I lost somebody very important to me, and now we’ve got a chance to bring them back, and you’re telling me that you won’t even-”

“That’s right. I won’t even. I lost someone important too. But I can’t.” you hear the screen door open and your daughter climbs into your lap.

“Mama told me to come and save you,” she says and you hold her close.

“Good job, I’m saved,” you say before looking to the people standing in front of you, “I wish you would’ve come to ask me anything else.”

“y/n, I understand. I’m happy for you, but this is a second chance,” Peter says and you shake your head.

“I’ve got my second chance right here, kid.” you say, gesturing to your daughter in your arms, “I can’t roll the dice on that.”

xxxxx

You’re standing in front of your work table staring at the hologram. “Let’s see what we can do,” you mess with one last particle when you see the words ‘model successful’ floating in front of your face. Your eyes go wide and you fall back into your chair “Shit.”

“Shit,” a small voice behind you says and you spin around.

“What are you doing up, little miss?”

“Shit,” Tasha says again and you shake your head.

“No. We don’t say that word.”

“What are you doing up?” she asks and you smile.

“I got some important shit going on!” you can’t help but laugh at her adorable scrunched up face. “No, I’m working on something, I got something on my mind.”

“Was it juice pops?” she asks and you chuckle.

“Yep. It was, you want some juice pops? Come on, that’s exactly what I was thinking...” you trail off as she drags you towards the kitchen.

xxxxx

Somehow it works. You never would’ve bet on it in a million year, but it worked and you were staring at the birds through the window when suddenly everything went to shit all over again. When you manage to pull yourself out of the rubble and onto the battlefield you prepare yourself. You gave the world 5 minutes of hope, and now it was all happening again. You look to your right and see a portal opening. “Dad?” you say softly, but he manages to hear you. His head snaps towards yours, you smile at him. He hasn’t aged a day. Before you can do anything else Steve is speaking on your left.

“Avengers. Assemble.” you smirk and then everyone is off. Fighting twice as hard as they did last time because now, you refuse to lose.

The battle feels like it is lasting forever, and off next you, you see the gauntlet hit the floor. Thanos is running for it and you tackle him as best you can. Thor comes next to you fighting him off with Steve and Carol behind him. You make eye contact with Strange, who holds up one finger before you look over at your dad. You know what you have to do.

You wrestle with Thanos, pulling at the gauntlet before he pushes you aside.

“I am inevitable.” he says and you hear the metallic clank of him snapping his fingers. You hold your hand up as the stones slide into place. Your whole arm feels like it’s on fire and it takes everything in you not to scream in agony.

“And I. Am. A Stark.” you grit out, snapping your fingers and watching as Thanos’s army turns to dust. You rest yourself against the nearts mound of metal and stare out into the battlefield as everything becomes eerily quiet.

“Y/n? Y/n we won,” Peter comes into view, tears streaming down his face and you nod as best you can, “we won, y/n.”

You see Wanda pull him off of you and crouch next to you, you can vaguely see your dad standing behind her, and maybe Pepper. Everythings too blurry, you can’t really tell what’s happening anymore.

“Friday,” your dad says crouching in front of you, and you can hear your AI’s voice reporting your life functions. You don’t know what she said, but you can tell by his face it wasn’t good. You force out a smile as best you can, but everything hurts. “Y/n, hey. Look at me. We’re gonna be okay.”

You take in your dad’s words before looking to Wanda. You open your mouth but no sound comes out, but she knows what you were trying to say.

“I got her, I’ll look after Tasha. We both love you y/n, so much” you hear her voice crack. You want so badly to say it back. She needs to know how much you love her. You’re screaming it, but no sound will come out. You want to apologize and tell her everything will be okay, but all you can do is look into her eyes as everything fades away.

xxxxx

“Everybody wants a happy ending. But it doesn’t always roll that way. I’m hoping if you play this back, it’s in celebration. I hope families are reunited and some sort of normalcy is brought back to the world. God, what a world. For better or worse, this is the reality Tasha’s gonna have to find a way to grow up in, and I wish I could’ve been there to see it. That’s right, Romanoff, you can finally stop complaining about Clint not naming a kid after you, and I think I won the title of better friend, here.” The group settled in your living room chuckles at your hologram, Wanda pulling your daughter closer as Natasha puts a hand on her shoulder. Your dad is sitting next to them, still in shock after all this time.

“I thought I better record something in case tomorrow doesn’t work out. This whole time travel thing has got me scratching my head. I wish dad were here to help, I know he’d be able to figure it out. I just hope it works, and maybe he’ll be back. Maybe he’s back now watching this, I sure hope so. I always wanted him to meet my little girl,” you holographic self smiles, shaking its head slightly. “What am I even tripping about, everythings gonna be fine. I love you all,” you say, turning off the camera.

The room is silent as everyone stares at where you once were, the knowledge that they’ll never see you again slowly settling in.

“It should’ve been me,” your dad's voice is barely audible. “If I could’ve gotten there faster-”

“Don’t.” Wanda cuts him off, her voice thick with tears as she tries to hold it together, “she knew what she was getting herself into. If it had been you I’d be sitting here having this conversation with her. She knew what we were doing out there. She knew the risks.”

“I wish I could’ve been a better father. I should’ve done more,” Tony says, and Pepper puts a hand on his shoulder.

“She loved you. All she ever wanted to do was make you proud,” Wanda tells him.

“I just wish I could tell her I loved her, one last time. Tell her I was proud of her. I always have been…” he trails off.

“She knows” Wanda says softly, smiling despite her tears.

Tag list: @rvgrsbrns

[brynwrites]

How to Write Non-binary Characters: Part III.

Visit PART ONE: the basics.

Visit PART TWO: the nitty gritty.

PART THREE: common pitfalls and easy fixes.

Here we'll cover some common situations where writing respectful non-binary characters can be trickier.

Writing Non-human Non-binary characters.

Non-human non-binary characters aren’t inherently disrespectful to non-binary people, but it can easily become negative representation when there are no non-binary humans present, because it implies that those with non-binary genders are less human (and usually more monstrous or more alien) than people with binary genders. You can read more about why this is a problem in this full analysis by Christine Prevas.

There's a very simple solution to this though: Write some non-binary humans. (Or, in the least, make it explicitly clear that non-binary humans exist, and are just as valid in their identity as anyone else.)

Writing Non-binary Villains.

This situation is very similar to the non-binary non-humans, but instead of implying that non-binary people are less human, it implies they are less moral, abnormal, depraved, or insane. Villainous figures in history have often have their villainy connected to or blamed on their non-gender conforming traits. We don't want to add to that clinging transphobic and homophobic belief with modern fiction.

As with non-binary non-humans, having non-villainous non-binary characters can go a long way in offsetting this, as well as not connecting (or letting characters within the world connnect) the villain's non-binary aspects with their perceived villainy. Instead of writing a non-binary villain, write a villain who also happens to be non-binary.

(On this note, I would be very cautious about writing villains who are being villainous because they've suffered from transphobia.)

Killing (your only) Non-binary Character.

This falls into the same category as the previous two sections, but it has just one solution: don't kill your story’s only non-binary or trans character. Just don't do it. If that character has to die to make the plot continue, let there be another primary non-binary or trans character in the story somewhere.

Writing “Coming Out” Scenes for Non-binary Characters.

Let's break this into two different types of coming out:

The casual, everyday coming out. This is the kind of coming out a non-binary person has to do every time they need to let new people in their lives know about their gender. If you're writing non-binary characters, you'll probably have to write some version of this at some point. It can be as simple as a character introducing themselves with their pronouns, wearing clothing or pins that say their pronouns, mentioning their identity casually, correcting someone's misuse of their pronouns, making a (respectful) joke involving gendered terminology (e.g. "I'm the king of monopoly today and the queen of monopoly tomorrow, but either way you're all going to lose!"), or a multitude of other ways.

While writing any setting that you create yourself (whether that's fantasy, science fiction, alternate history, etc), you can always do yourself a favor and work a method of identity presentation into the world building. Maybe in your fictional culture everyone wears a certain color accessory for certain gender identities or in your fictional boarding school the students all decided to introduce themselves with their pronouns no matter what gender they identity as.

The major, terrifying coming out. Often, this is the traditional coming out scene where the person sits down with family and tells their truth, even though they know things might turn out poorly. It might be the first time they've come out to anyone, or it might be that they've held off with certain important people in their life because they're afraid of those people's response. Be wary of writing out these scenes if you haven't lived through them yourself, because it's a very emotional and complex situation which, if represented poorly, can harm non-binary and trans people in real life. Sometimes though, you might want to allude to what happened during this scene because of its effect on the character!

Keep in mind that while there is much prejudice against non-binary (and trans) people in our world, that you don't have to include that in your stories. It is always the writer's decision to include transphobia and transphobic characters in what they write, as well as their responsibility to make sure that any transphobic inclusions are framed as the terrible, incorrect biases they are, and do not harm the trans and non-binary community.

Writing Non-binary Characters Discovering They’re Non-binary.

Realizing you're non-binary is often a long, emotional, and extremely personal experience. Unless you have a non-binary (or trans) co-writer or you've done an academic level of research, its best to leave these experiences to be written by the people you lived them, because there are many living people who have lived them, who will be effected by these stories on a very real, very personal level.

So, go write non-binary characters, but write them having adventures and falling in love instead.

Writing Societies Without Gender Binaries.

Because this is a huge topic where new pitfalls might appear at any moment do to the endless ways it can be used, the best thing to do if you're interested in writing it is to read speculative fiction from trans and non-binary authors and study the nuances of how they portray these societies, and, of course, always avoid the societal version of all the previous no-nos, like having only villainous or non-human non-binary societies.

Remember: when in doubt, get non-binary people to beta read your work.

Finally, here are two insanely easy ways to include non-binary representation in all your stories:

1. Give a character (or multiple characters!) they/them pronouns. 

You don’t have to explain this. The character never needs to come out as non-binary. There doesn’t have to be a focus on whether they’re androgynous or not. You can keep it so simple that their description is just “Parker had brown hair and a hooked nose and when they smiled their eyes lit up,” and there you have a non-binary-coded character without having to do any work or research at all.

2. Have a character refer to their family member with gender neutral terms. 

“Those are my sisters, my big brother, and my little sibling. We were on a skiing trip, but our step-parent came down with the flu so our father stayed back at the lodge and let our auntcle take us up the mountain.” Will any of these non-binary characters ever by in the story itself? Perhaps not. But it still shows that the author accepts the existence of non-binary people in their story’s world, and that the character speaking loves and respects the non-binary people in their family enough to refer to them in the ways those family members prefer.

Closing Words.

Non-binary people have had a long history of being ignored in Western stories. Having writers attempt to include respectful non-binary representation in their books is more important to us than having all that representation be perfect. So, write non-binary characters, find a few non-binary or trans readers to double check your work, and most importantly, and have fun.

While you’re at it, consider supporting non-binary writers writing ownvoices stories. If you don’t know of any, here’s the wikipedia list of the more famous authors and a little twitter thread with some lesser known voices. You can also purchase my debut novel, Our Bloody Pearl, a fun romp about a disabled, non-binary siren and a freckly pirate captain.

Stick around for a preview of Our Bloody Pearl....

SWELL BEGINNINGS

There is one thing I know for certain: We were right to hate the humans.

HUNGER HAUNTS ME like a bull shark. With every roll of the ship, the gunk inside my stagnant tub sloshes against my waist, stinging anew. The tight wooden room's stale air burns my lungs.

Steam whistles in the pipes that run along the walls, their copper gleaming in the dim ceiling light. My wrists throb where the metal cuffs locking me to the tub dig into my silver scales. The gill slits along my neck are clamped shut after a year without seawater and my head fins stick to my scalp like barnacles to rock.

I try to anchor myself with the memory of home, of fine sands and vibrant reefs, but I can barely recall the rush of the warm current or the thrill of the hunt. Even a single wrasse sounds like a feast now. Or a few human fingers.

At least I can still smell the sharp brine of the ocean. When the ship rocks, the small, circular window to my left reveals the sea rolling in an endless stretch of deep blue, begging me to return. The silhouette of an approaching vessel forms a blur on its horizon.

I squint at the hazy shape, but Captain Kian’s roar of irritation from an upper deck makes me recoil. My captor’s harsh voice is so loud it seems to shudder its way down my spine.

The new vessel leaves my sight as the ship I’m captive on—the Oyster—turns toward it. The steam stacks clatter to life somewhere beneath me. Fabric and metal wings stretch out from the sides of the Oyster, and the ship bursts forward, riding just above the crests of the waves.

The sudden change in speed shoves me backward, tossing up my putrid water. As the liquid recoils, it grazes my largest tail fin, lying limp over the far edge of the tub. For all the pain I suffer, I nearly forget my tail exists, its iridescent gleam washed away by the filth and grime of the tub. It must still be impaired from the massive, anchor-like weight my captor crushed it beneath when she first locked me here. I can’t bring myself to focus on its lifeless form for long. I wasn’t meant for this.

I need the sea.

Purchase the full novel on amazon, bookdepository, or kobo, or request it from your local library!

[teruthecreator]

THS IS A ROBBERY 🔫YOUR ROLESWAP LORE!!! HAND IT OVER 🤲if u want 2 :)

just took my melatonin bc i have to wake up at 4:30 AM to drive 16 hours to my mother’s so i’m sorry if this becomes derailed but uh. here’s the roleswap lore! or, at least, everything i’ve decided (along with matthew and corinne bc the three of us tagteamed on it) 

gonna chuck it all under a readmore bc this is going to get long

so first off, just gonna run out in front and say i have no idea how this fits into graduation plot. i haven’t gotten that in plot consideration, given their character differences in comparison to their canonical selves. so, for the most part, it’s a lot of background establishment and character traits. but i do have a few plot bits that i’ve figured out bc i thought it was cool. why such a long preamble? i don’t know. help me

fitzroy maplecourt: 

first off, he’s not called sir!!! because he doesn’t go to knight school! 

my idea for his backstory is that the way he decides to grapple with his identity crisis/imposter syndrome (which he definitely Still has) is that instead of becoming a grander, larger than life version of himself. he just. goes the opposite.

not necessarily becoming a degenerate (bc he just smokes pot and that’s not bad he’s just vibing)??? but more just like. leaning into the laid-back nature of life that one might pick up from a lifetime in rural country. 

he goes to a liberal arts school a ways away and just decides to bum around and take life not seriously. he develops a pretty large group of acquaintances being a hippie stoner; he doesn’t really pursue a degree either. i think if he picked up any major it was probably like. an art major or an english but he basically fails most of his classes bc he doesn’t care! 

unlike his canonical counterpart, fitzroy doesn’t mind being called nicknames!! ones i think he has the most are fitz or roy, but basically you could call him anything and he’ll respond. that is because, instead of clinging to the concept of his identity bc it’s the only thing he feels he has, his identity is nebulous!! he doesn’t understand it and it scares him too much to be concrete, so he just lets people decide shit about him for him. 

his personal philosophy is more about floating through life and letting people assume shit about him than having a solid personality and backstory that people understand and recognize. it is a more dissociative way of having an identity crisis! how fun! he also barely talks about his past, and what he does talk about are cherrypicked points of his past that fit his narrative of being a casual down-to-earth hippie

 the moment that this all changes is when order decides to pop in and grant him powers!!!! wahoo!!!! here’s how that happens: 

he’s baked out of his fucking gourd in his dorm room, in the spring semester of his junior year. he’s alone (which is rare) and he’s maybe a little sad, but he decides to just ignore it. he looks at his table and laughs. “hehe, what if this table just. blew up?” he says to himself. it isn’t that funny, but he laughs. then he lays his hand on the table. 

the table blows up.

after that, he has magic!!! 

i’m going to go into detail a little bit later about how fitzroy’s magic manifests in the roleswap universe, but i wanna get through the backstory first. basically, he gets really freaked out after his magic comes to him because it is So New and Wow What and What The Fuck.

he realizes that this new addition to his character Completely changes how people who know him would perceive him (as a bum stoner chill guy), and he can no longer have control of his narrative with this magic business. so he drops out!

well, he actually just transfers. to a school far, far away where people will never know who he was and he can rebuild his narrative with this magic incorporated into it. he chooses wiggenstaff’s because he figures the school would have more of a knowledge of magic than his libarts school, which would mean he could understand why the fuck weed gave him magic (sidenote: it wasn’t weed, obvs, but he thinks this so for a while he doesn’t smoke!) 

he is now the chill hippie of wiggenstaff’s!!! most people like him because his personality is fairly easy to digest; some people think he shouldn’t be there, but he is! he starts out as a sidekick and he would’ve honestly been fine with that forever, but then he’s suddenly thrust into the hero track!!! wow!!!! i will also explain this with the magic. 

but yeah!! that’s fitzroy, for the most part. now we’ll move onto the other boy

argonaut keene:

he actually prefers if people call him argonaut, but he’s less likely to correct people than canon fitzroy Or canon argo. he’s a tad bit shyer in this universe!

argo’s backstory pretty much follows the same idea of his canonical background, but with some key differences that shape him into the character he is in the present! 

basically he still grows up on shebrie’s ship, surrounded by crewmates and the salty sea air. but his fascination with the sea doesn’t manifest into this swashbuckling lifestyle that he has in canon. 

what fascinates him more is the ship itself. how it functions, how water wears down wood, how directional currents can affect navigation. basically, he becomes invested in the sciences part of sealife more than the pirateering. he has special interests in marine biology, but his heart remains in nautical engineering. figuring out ways to make the ship run better, faster, and more efficiently consumes his childhood thoughts!

shebrie encourages her son’s craving for knowledge with tomes and books from all over the world about anything related to engineering and nautical things. he’s homeschooled, basically, but he becomes rather intelligent within a few short years! 

and then, well....shebrie dies. yeah we aren’t escaping that finality, sorry folks. that part of canon Still Applies.

after shebrie’s death (coughMURDERcough), argo is. traumatized! and he makes the decision to almost entirely sever himself from his life on the sea. it’s all too painful to look back upon--the times he spent studying with his mother in the captain’s quarters, rattling off dolphin facts as they sailed onward, dreaming of turning gears as the ship gently rocked him to sleep--and so he just decides to throw the whole thing out!

he can’t ignore his lifetime of education, though, so he continues to pursue it. with the remainder of money his mother left behind, he enrolls himself in a boarding school of science and technology, with plans to continue study in Only engineering. no more nautical Anything on his roster.

eventually, when he is old enough and graduates high school, he roams around...trying to figure out what to do. he doesn’t have enough money for college, so he can’t continue his scholarly efforts yet. he works around, job-to-job, city-to-city, and just notices how...delayed everything feels. like society is suffering under this slow pace towards innovation. 

and that’s when he decides his next course of action. if he were to discover the root of some problem and engineer a solution, he would be famous! he would gain notoriety and praise and--and all the things his mother had as a captain. but he would have it on his own, separate from his mother, and separate from his past. 

he figures out his next course of action: attend a school that will give his prestigious enough marks to be accepted onto a research team, find a problem, solve it, help the world, maybe earn a little bit of that credit and respect that would make him feel like he was doing his mother proud. 

the thing i want to emphasize here is that argo’s take on helping the world comes from that morality that canon fitzroy has. canon fitzroy wanted to be a knight because he wanted to fairly and justly instill ideas of “good” and “bad” onto the world. roleswap argo has a similar moral sense, but instead of establishing rules he wants to fix the “bad” and make it “good” in a technological/scientific sense.

the only school argo can think of that can get him that kind of notoriety is wiggenstaff’s. getting onto the HOG board would mean he’d have access to countless resources and be respected by a large audience, which would give him the opportunity to make change happen. even if he’s only a sidekick On Paper, what matters is that the diploma would give him the ability to Apply to the HOG. so he drafts a carefully worded letter for a scholarship and achieves a full-ride!!! epic 

like fitzroy’s magic, i’m going to break down argo’s relation to the unbroken chain after i get through backstory stuff. but trust me, I’ve Thought Of It

argo sort of blends into the background at wiggenstaff’s. or, he would, if his roommates/friends weren’t so Fucking Out There. fitzroy is enough to make him always be visible, but even the firbolg’s massive frame means eyes are always on him. which makes him nervous!! he doesn’t like the attention (as opposed to his canonical self, who revels in it for the self-esteem fuel) his insecurities manifest more in what he’s Doing rather than what he Is, mostly because his identity is barricaded by a wall of trauma repression

he’s still plenty funny and witty, just quieter. also he’s a lot Meaner than canon argo, at least to me. because if you irritate him he Will just completely shut you down with words. motherfucker doesn’t bark but he will most DEFINITELY bite

that’s their backstories, for the most part! in terms of how they interact together:

as established, they meet prior to wiggenstaff’s on a tinder date (during the grace period of argo working odd jobs and fitzroy about to be granted immense fucking power) and end up casually dating during the course of their wiggenstaff education. argo is a nervous goober and fitzroy just likes making him blush. it’s very cute.

fitzroy is still less inclined for the romantic than argo, who remains a steadfast absolute romantic internally. fitzroy still holds a lot of the self-doubt and distrust that canon fitzroy has, only it manifests in him not taking anything seriously! which means when he catches Feelings feelings he basically freaks out 

argo still falls in love really quickly, only now he’s more conflicted about it because being in love means trusting and trust means communication and communication means Oops Years Of Trauma Are Being Unloaded Uh Oh! 

now i’m going to touch on the big points that i find really interesting: fitzroy’s magic and argo’s relation to the unbroken chain

fitzroy’s magic:

chaos is not the being that grants him magic. it’s order! 

my take on what this means for what deity is on what plane of reality is that chaos is more Needed so they are the one that is physically On Nua, while Order remains in dreamscapes because they are already a constant amongst the tangible world. yes i know this directly contradicts the reasoning for why theyre Supposed to be where in canon, leave me alone i’m having fun. 

my reasoning for this switch is because chaos stands to be a contradiction to everything canon fitzroy has going on. he has a very strict, nailed-down understanding of himself and the world. everything he thinks is in black and white, bold statements, no questions, he follows rules and obeys the law. untiiiiil chaos gives him magic and shocks him out of that complacency. they lean into his inner impulses and that rage he’s kept locked deep inside. they allow for magic to Explode out of him, rather in calculated bursts or with intent. 

which is why order is more fitting for roleswap fitzroy!! because fitzroy, in this world, has less of a concrete grasp of himself and the world. he purposely lets himself be nebulous and goes with the flow. thinking of the future in real terms is not something fitzroy Does, he has no plans and that’s Fine. order seeks to give fitzroy a backbone, to put it simply. 

his magic doesn’t go impulsively out of him. it is calculated--it comes with thoughts and intentions. the reason it surprises fitzroy when the table blows up is because he didn’t think his thoughts or wants would amount into that, but that’s what order is trying to show him. that his intentions matter. that he matters and he has to Think and Focus and Be Here.

i’m still not sure if his power would manifest as lightning??? because the imagery for the lightning works perfectly for canon fitzroy because of the random power of lightning strikes. but for roleswap fitzroy it’s more like...thunder. like Purpose. thunder happens because of a reaction--it comes with intent. if differing air temperatures collide, it creates thunder. that combination is purpose + intent equating in magic. 

i think that part needs word bc like. how would one quantify thunder?? i think fire might also work really well because the idea of a controlled fire. like things have to Happen in order for fire to start, it can’t just appear like lightning can. 

order’s manipulation relies more heavily on the concept of boosting him up as a savior/hero, rather than boosting his ego and desire for power. fitzroy Has no desires in roleswap world--he’s just there. but when he gets put on the hero track, now he’s suddenly been given purpose. and order uses that to be like “wow, look at all these people who rely on you! look how important you are! don’t you want to use this magic for good?? to do good?? start a war with a demon come on pussy :-)”

OH YEAH also he becomes a hero in this universe (like in terms of tracks) because of the fact that it directly contradicts how he views himself. for canon fitzroy, it was showing him how much more he is capable of without the restrictions of morals (i.e, king fitzroy). but roleswap fitzroy doesn’t Have an image he wants to bolster! he doesn’t think he needs it and, frankly, he doesn’t care for it. the hero tracks carries with it all these stereotypes and expectations that now directly contradict his personality--thus showing him he is capable of more.

okay now for argo’s business jesus christ this post is so long and im NOT EVEN DONE WITH ALL THE POINTS I WANTED TO MENTION

argo’s relation to the unbroken chain:

so since roleswap argo has less of an association with his past (and, by extension, the memory of his mother), he is less inclined to join the mysterious cult that his mother was a part of. 

moreover, he doesn’t necessarily believe the shit he’s told??? he’s way more skeptical of jackal than canon argo is--immediately questioning why and how jackal knew his mother, and constantly trying to poke holes through his narrative.

generally speaking, if you try to talk to roleswap argo about his mother or his past, he Shuts Down. like completely. and that usually results in him snapping at you or just clamming up completely. mostly he just gets really snippy and angry because Hey Shut Up Dickhead I Don’t Want To Talk About It

a part of me still isn’t sure whether or not argo would take the unbroken chain up on their offer. but i also know that, plot wise and character arc wise, it is a necessary part of argo’s story. so i think, at most, he agrees but is extremely hesitant and might even let fitzroy on immediately once he’s given the task of digging into fitzroy’s life

also, they’re boyfriends in this universe, so how could he Really keep it a secret for that long. come on jackal, you idiot, you know they’re kissing. 

i think he’d Eventually warm up to jackal as a sort of father figure, but only after many nights of conversation and dancing around the subject of shebrie.

OH YEAH. this argo doesn’t know the commodore murdered his mother! important to note! he just assumes what he was told was true, that she sailed into dangerous territory and was ambushed. 

during the tribunal bit If That Even Happens In This World, i think fitzroy actually is the one who figures it out Before argo. and once argo does, well............fuck!

OKAY last little bit, just gonna talk about some random extra parts of the world that i’ve thought of already: 

in this universe, grey takes on higglemas’s identity instead of hieronymous’s!!! this is for good reason actually

okay so basically my thought was that, instead of whatever happened in canon yadda yadda dog time, hieronymous and grey are fighting and it’s a pretty evenly matched battle. there’s a cooldown moment where hiero thinks he’s safe but grey uses sneaky backhanded tactics to try and get the drop on him. 

only higgs sees it in time and saves his brother, taking the hit himself. he collapses, extremely wounded, and hiero rushes to his aid. he’s cradling his brother’s body, trying to keep him alive, when grey approaches to deliver the final blow. 

hiero is completely crushed and defeated and basically will let grey do anything to him by this point. the only thing he begs of is to let him live long enough to save his brother.

now, grey isn’t nice. let me make that clear. grey fucking SUCKS and the reason he agrees is because he wants a Real War with hiero and he can’t get that if hiero is basically like “if you let higgs die then you might as well kill me”.

so, grey agrees, and hiero ends up saving higgs by turning him into a cat. was supposed to be a temporary solution until he could find a better spell, but he wasn’t the magic guy in the duo. eventually, grey gets tired of waiting and decides to do some other shit. like turning the school the brothers have been running into a backalley place for demons!!

he takes the form of higglemas and leaves hieronymous locked in his office as basically a mascot. he’s like the queen and grey is the parliament--grey makes all the rules, but everyone assumes it’s hiero. faux-higgs is more on the ground, changing things and making the school a place more fitting for an eventual war. he builds up the concept of heroes and villains being Real, in the hopes he can sway some mortals to his side when he’s able to open a portal to hell. 

hiero still tries to stop this from happening, but his pride and his self-image is wounded by what happened. he feels guilty and puts the blame entirely on him, instead of doing the whole cowardice route like higgs did in canon. he gets people to help him eventually, via mind control and all tht jazz. 

also in this universe, buckminster is the one who gets birdified instead of leon!! has to do with my leon/buckminster and higgs/hiero narrative parallels that i’ve thought of for far too long.

firbolg is exactly the same in this universe. it is hard to swap three people and i didn’t want to think about him. 

fitzroy doesn’t pick a grab. i think he’d rather a lizard, like a bearded dragon. he names him something stupid. like scaly. or kyle. 

uhhh yeah!!! i think that’s....everything i’ve thought of so far!! lemme know if you wanna hear my takes on any other elements in the roleswap world!!!!

[tired-college-student-writing]

If you're into Black Butler, maybe something with that and Miraculous ladybug? Or Black Butler with Demon Bim? I just think you'd do a good job with the Black Butler characters.

Oh boy! I just finished rewatching Black Butler actually! I had forgotten how much I loved the show. So here’s a bit of Miraculous Ladybug/Black Butler :D

ASK BOX IS OPEN SEND ME PROMPTS

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Marinette was different. 

Her family tried to keep her oddities to themselves when they could as the few that found out had branded their daughter as a freak, making the usually sweet girl’s icy glare freeze their very souls before they would leave and never talk to her again. 

When she was born her parents were shocked to see she not only had a sapphire blue eye, but her right was a transfixing purple as well. The doctors had said they should fade into more usual shades as she aged but they never did. Heterochromia they called it, when the eyes were different colors due to a mutation in how the melanin concentration in the eyes, but it was nothing to worry about and about 1% of the population had heterochromia in one form or another.  It didn’t stop Marinette from showing a clear disdain for anyone looking at her purple eye.

By two she was speaking in full English sentences which would have just been advanced for her age if they ever spoke anything, but French and Mandarin around her. But it wasn’t just English no, she could perfectly speak French, Latin, and German with little effort on her part. Never truly understanding why people would look at her strangely when such a small girl would be able to use five-syllable English words in normal conversation. 

When she was five her parents saw the first major mood shift. Chloe Bourgeois, the little terror, had been placed in the same class as Marinette. The girls were at odds from day one, but three months into the school year Chloe had tripped little Nino and almost landed him right into traffic. The sunny little girl had flipped in an instance, ripping into the other girl with the ferocity of a black mamba, controlled strikes verbally reducing the bully into shocked and fearful tears as she tore into everything from the girls clothes and hairs to her parents failing marriage and her father’s inability to fulfill his the campaign promises. She had then turned to Nino who was watching with wide shocked eyes and melted back to the soft caring girl she normally was, fussing over him and basically ordering him to come to her house so her mom could check over his scraped knee. It was months before Chloe said anything negative in front of Marinette for fear of the same attack, only it didn’t come, just earning a scowl and the usual banter that the blonde had come to expect from the baker’s daughter. It seemed there was a line for how far Marinette was willing to let Chloe go, and the blonde was careful never to toe that line. 

When she turned six her hatred of others seeing her right eye had reached its peak as she continued to make makeshift eyepatches out of anything she could get her hands on. Finally, her mother had taken her to the ophthalmologist to get colored contacts, to hide the purple hue. The ophthalmologist hadn’t wanted to give her contacts until her face had faded from the bright smile into a blank mask and she ran through the care and instructions that she had already known on contacts. The doctor decided to just hand them over after that. A blue contact for one eye and a clear one for the other with the prescription that fixed her lacking depth prediction. A single icy glare that nearly bordered on the one she gave Chloe many moons ago stopped any of the students in her class from commenting on her now same colored eyes.

At eight her parents noticed her new ‘friend’. A raven that seemed to have made a nest on her balcony, well maybe not a raven if the blood-red eyes had anything to do with it, but the lack of white tips on its wings ruled out anything else other than a hybrid.  They decided it better not to ask why this raven had roosted there as Marinette grew oddly attached to it quickly, though it was an odd bond they shared. Marinette could often be heard talking to the raven in English as if conversing with it, but gone was her normally cheerful demeanor, instead she would snark and ridicule the raven as if it was an unruly child. In turn, the raven would caw, peck at her and swat her with its wings. At the same time, however, they undeniably cared for each other. Marinette always made sure that the nest was warm and dry, though she never offered food to it, simply taunting the pastries in front of it with a remark about how they tasted so much better than ash.   

 The raven took great care to bring trinkets back to the girl, expensive items it had no way of getting, jewelry, sets of high-end buttons, the finest threads, rich untouched chocolates, once they even found an entire bolt of new fabric on the balcony. If it wasn’t for the cameras they had installed after that event they would have feared someone was visiting their little girl, but the raven was the only visitor to the balcony. Marinette was smart however, knowing where the holes in the camera's view were before they had been there for two months. She had been offended that they thought she would accept presents from strange humans. They relented that they trusted her and that she was a bright young girl but kept the cameras up. 

They asked her about her comments of ash and she didn’t remember ever saying anything like that. 

They asked her the raven’s name and she got a far off look in her eyes before she came back and said she doesn’t remember. 

Tikki appeared when she was thirteen and the little goddess almost recoiled in horror at the dark twisted magic radiating off of the girl chosen to be her holder. Demonic energy, nauseating to see this close around a soul so pure.  The book being swung at her and high pitched screech was the only thing that convinced Tikki there hadn’t been a mistake. The magic was too intertwined with her soul for it to be a new development, for her to have sold her soul in this lifetime.  No this was a deal that never got sealed, never allowed for the demon to consume her soul. It didn’t take her long to locate the raven on the balcony. They came to an agreement of mutual distance, realizing they were both here for the same reason to be here, to keep Marinette safe. 

During the Akuma battles where the heroes’ win is a close call, and her miraculous cure is stretched to the limits from bringing back countless lives, there was often a flash of red in the corner of her eye, simply waiting off in the distance to see if she could pull off the save once more.  Sometimes it would be replaced by a silent black figure or a golden blur, but they were always there. Simply waiting, watching. The raven always seemed more ruffled on the days the red was around. 

It wasn’t until near her 14th birthday did an Akuma come along with the power of fire, did something change. The Akuma was tall and black as night, swift and dancing like the flames they created, willing to kill and burn all of Paris down with them. Cheated on, backstabbed and burned, the woman wanted all of Paris to feel the pain her ex-girlfriend had made her feel. Each human that burned turned into its own flame beast, with the single-minded 

They had been chasing the victim through the streets when they rounded the corner. The bakery was engulfed in flames, inky black smoke billowing from the windows. She felt her heart leap into her throat. Her head screamed at her to run, they were coming for him, how her parents were dead, he wasn’t safe. Why was he out of the manor on her own anyway? He needed to get back, the servants would keep him safe. He needed to find-

Her mind snapped back into place as she realized the implications of her thoughts. Of his memories. 

“Are you alright?” The voice in front of her made her register the black figure in front of her, Chat Noir. Her knight. It seems as if she has one every lifetime. 

“Yes,” She said firmly, pulling away, “But I think it’s about time we got some assistance.” 

“Need to go get a miraculous?” He asked, knocking some advancing flame beasts back with his staff. 

She shook her head taking a step back as he kept her safe and tossed her yoyo as high as she could, no miraculous would help now. This victim was nothing short of a demon, and to fight a demon…

“Lucky Charm!” She shouted, catching the item and began pulling out her contact before she even looked down at the red and black contact case, filled with contact solution. 

“M’lady?” 

“Chaton,” She said with firm determination, turning her two-toned eyes to him, “I’m going to do something that will seem very strange and might scare you but please trust me.” 

His eyes were wide and tail lashing, but he didn’t hesitate to nod his head, never faltering in keeping the beasts away, “Of course, Bugaboo.” 

“Don’t call me that,” She snapped, voice slipping into English, before turning her eyes to the burning remains of her rooftop, “Sebastian, get down here you bloody mongrel. Don’t make me order you.” 

A large black blur flew from the nest she couldn’t make out anymore due to smoke, swooping high into the air before shifting in and gliding down, the once raven now kneeling in front of her, a cunning smirk pulling on the man’s lips, “Sorry for the wait mistress.” 

He was exactly as he was before, silky black hair falling elegantly around his face, framing the burgundy eyes that burned into her as they did the day they had made the contract. The only thing that changed was his clothes, gone was the tailcoat, polished silver pocket watch and crisp white gloves of a victorian butler, replaced by a sleek black suit and white button-down, black nails on display along with the sealing mark on the back of his hand. 

“Best to keep it, my lady, while I’m transformed. You couldn’t tell me the truth before, because…” She trailed off in question, eyebrow quirked. 

“Memory restoration requires a strong emotional response that plays on memories of your first life, my lady,” the demon gave her an innocent look as he rose, “I didn’t think you would appreciate me burning down the bakery before Miss Tikki could repair it.” 

“Sebastian,” 

They turned to look at the cat who had frozen beside them, noting the thinness of his pupil. 

“Chat,” Ladybug said slowly, “This is Sebastian, an old… friend of mine. He can help us.” 

“I-” Chat suddenly leaped forward, staff striking out between Sebastian and Marinette to knock away the beast that had appeared there, darting between them to continue fighting. 

His footwork had changed, becoming lighter than before as the ferocity grew. 

“Of course,” He spat, accented English spilling out of his lips, “Of course Sebastian was never human! I should have guessed,” 

“What?” 

The green eyes were sharp as they turned to the stunned pair, “Are you going to help me, Sebastian? I’m guessing that’s why my lady called for you. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before! No human could run the manor as you did, I heard stories of the impossible feats you pulled but never did I think, ugh I’m an idiot!” 

Marinette couldn’t help but gape and she could see her butler’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline from the corner of her eye as she sputtered out, “Lizzie?!?” 

The blond just glared at her as she batted another beast away, “Ceil, I love you dearly but we’re going to have a serious talk about keeping demonic secrets from your fiance. I don’t care if it was a lifetime or three ago, we’re going to talk once the fires are gone and Sabastian if you think for a second you’re getting out of it, you are strongly mistaken. Now let’s finish this.” 

“Right,” Ladybug spoke slowly in French, “Head in the game Chat, yell at me later.”  

He shook his head as if to clear it, before returning to their normal tongue, “Right, sorry Elizabeth’s memories hit me like a brick wall... It is nice to see you, Sebastian!” 

“Likewise,” The demon hummed, tossing a flaming demon away.

The victim was easy to seduce with Sebastian at their side, the purple butterfly mask flared early on into the fight leaving the victim terrified as if Hawkmoth knew what Ladybug’s purple eye meant and what the man at their side was. Ending the battle was short work. 

“Pound it!” The teens cheered only for Marinette to turn a sly eye at Sebastian, “You two, Sebastian.” 

The demon raised a challenging brow, “Really now? How childish.” 

“Exactly why I want you to do it,” The sugary sweet smile held a hint of cruelness in it, “You’ll feel like a fool doing it, now come here.” 

The demon’s eye twitched but he raised his fist either way, “You haven’t changed at all.”