#someone will be like ‘yeah this is impossible/will result in certain death’

[strkyoo]

✦ 彡 OCTOBER PASSED ME BY

pairing ; various fem genshin characters x fem!reader — slight fluff to angst w/ no comfort ! 

warnings ; break-ups?, reader died in some part, a bit of desperation in some part too, light tw on the last part?? (talking abt deaths), gamon (gagal move on/failed to move on) yahaha — wc ; 0.9k

kyo’s note ; awal oktober is like “we fell in love in october” while akhir oktober is “october passed me by”‼️‼️ SO TRUE (im not ok) (i also got lazy at the end u could tell)

〉MASTERLIST〈

i keep the letters that you wrote in a secret place.

when you two were still together, you always bought things that reminded each of you of each other. plush toys, jewelry, matching outfits, and other items. letters are also included—she loves to exchange letters with you, especially when you’re away from each other.

but now, all the things you bought for her are all meaningless. without you by her side anymore, what does these things even mean to her? these things now had no value. the urge to break them and get those things out of her sight is just… too intense. yet, she can’t. she knew your last wish for her was to take care of the things you had bought for her. she hides them in a secret place, sometimes would look at them and gradually think about how these things used to make her smile like a fool. oh, how she missed this feeling— how she missed you.

YOIMIYA, FOCALORS, amber, xiangling, ganyu, KIRARA, LISA, NINGGUANG, keqing.

yeah, i got bitter when you got cold, and could you really blame me though?

you were a sweetheart in her eyes. someone so sweet, soft, kind, gentle. someone who impossibly can do a crime, someone who wouldn’t and won’t break her heart—someone as perfect as an angel.

at least, that’s what she thought before certain things happened between you and her.

here she is—looking at you like someone she utterly despises, despite the fact that she used to swear to the archons that she’ll cherish you and protect you forever. you got bitter from time to time, and she got cold and hurt as a result. well, things changed, right? and she still couldn’t help to miss your subtle smile that always made her forget about the weights around her shoulders.

ARLECCHINO, yelan, RAIDEN EI, shenhe, candice, DEHYA, KUKI SHINOBU.

you know this song is about you, who else could it be?

she wrote a poem about you, about how perfect you are. she sang for you, about how she couldn’t get enough of your love. she takes loads of photos of you, admiring how gorgeous you look from every angle. she would do anything for you. you are the love of her life after all.

but you left her alone. you left her side. words couldn’t express how much this hurt her internally. she couldn’t stop re-reading the poem she wrote about you, she couldn’t stop humming your favorite songs, she couldn’t stop looking at your angelic photos. she couldn’t let you go.

XINGYAN, CHARLOTTE, ayaka, nilou, yun jin, BARBARA.

you were the first to make me feel like i was me.

she never felt any feelings like this when she’s with you. it feels… weird. in a good way. how her eyes softened when she saw you, how her face would heat up, how her heart rate increased, how the mingling and odd ticklish feelings filled her stomach and how the overwhelming feelings slowly destroyed her in the most heavenly way. she can be herself around you, and that’s the only thing she wished to feel once in her life.

but that was the first and last time she would ever have that feeling. she couldn’t feel the same way anymore. she couldn’t love another person in the same way that she loves you. and this was the first and the last time that she would be able to feel love and pain in such a way.

CLORINDE, sucrose, LYNETTE, ROSARIA, eula, mona, KOKOMI, KUJOU SARA, collei, noelle.

i made you my whole world.

she imagined a lovely future for your relationship. she imagined how she’ll wake up right next to you in your shared bed, how she’ll start a lazy morning with you—spending the rest of her life with you by her side.

but fate said otherwise. and it was being really, really cruel. archons above, why would they take you apart from other people? she just can’t imagine a life without you. it’s impossible—it feels like she is losing the sun of her life—the hope of her life. she just wanted you and only you. oh what is she supposed to do without you?

yanfei, LUMINE, faruzan, mona, LAYLA, fischl.

always in the back of my mind, you’ll be my girl.

the combination of all the parts—she did everything and anything for you.

she keeps the things that remind her of you, she wrote poems about how perfect you were for her. you were the first who made her feel like herself—she made you her whole world. you were her everything, her other half… she just couldn’t let you go. she cherishes you dearly, even if death could separate you from her—she would gladly die with you.

NAVIA, YAE MIKO, la signora, jean, BEIDOU, HU TAO.

likes, comments & reblogs are appreciated ! ♡ 

— © strkyoo.

[twentysomethingwereyote]

So guess what…..👀

⚠️⚠️Spoilers⚠️⚠️

I watched it and OMFG….. I can see where Miguel was coming from, but I also know that canon can always change and diverge from the mainstream of the timeline.

IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME!! TIME ISNT LINEAR!

It’s a big tree that has branches twisting with one another and growing each and everyday. And if those branches collide and colapse with each other it’s not the end of the world. It just means that it’ll become something else, maybe something better or worse.

Miles, whether Earth-42 or Earth-1610, would always have his dad became captain, died, and become something more.

Even if the Earth-42’s Miles was supposed to be that earth’s Spider-Man, but turns into the Prowler as the result of his fathers death and the spider not being there.

Then that means even if Earth-1610’s Miles is an “anomaly “, he was always supposed to be something in his universe anyways.

Uncle Aaron would’ve passed on the mantle or at least mentored Miles into a villain. If we are going down this route, that would mean that canon whether followed or not does not matter then…

Because there is always a different timeline or universe that would be created to balance it out.

Just think about it, we create our own canons everyday with writing, thinking, hell even just talking about an idea you have for a story.

And yeah sometimes certain things don’t go the way that you want it but that means YOU can change it. They are called “HEAD CANONS” and “AU’s” for a reason!

It’s up to YOU as, the readers, the writers, the artists.

To change how you want it, and sure we can’t change reality itself that would be impossible and plus mistakes are what make us human anyway.

If anyone was perfect we’d be living in a whole different world were things are just okay but they really wouldn’t be. We would always feel like there is something amiss, that it’s feels wrong to our nature.

But in fiction, the stories, the songs, the comics…

WE can choose what to change and what to accept as is…

And I think that’s what Miguel kinda forgot, that canon doesn’t always mean it’s how things are supposed to go.

Hell there are a bunch of tv shows and movies that show you why canon isn’t always right, and sometimes it’s not wrong.

Okay I’ve said my piece, now I’ve seen the comments to my other post and I’ve told my sister about the idea. She said if I feel like I should write it to go for it and if I don’t to just leave it someone would write something similar anyways.

So… I might wanna take a shot at it, and don’t get your hopes up because trust me sometimes I will get sidetracked. And the story will end up going everywhere, then we both came up with another story idea will write another post to talk about THAT one.

Till next time, your girl is out 💙😙✌🏽

[markerofthemidnight]

lobcorp x hatchetfield au (i have no idea what hatchetfield is but it sounds cool)

Hey! I was just thinking of getting back to this earlier!

If you’re asking about the AU, honestly there’s not much to tell you. It’s just a weird AU where L Corp got into Hatchetfield and labeled some of its wackiest creatures as Abnormalities.

(Oh, and as for Hatchetfield itself: it’s a series of musicals on YouTube by Team Starkid. There’s three so far, as well as two seasons of a collection of short stories known as Nightmare Time, with a third on the way sooner or later.)

Speaking of Nightmare Time… I know it’s no Lord in Black, but how about my first Tool Abnormality for a nice palate cleanser?

T-09-30-A: “The Killer Track”

��We all live listening to an endless, horrid song, and the only way to make the noise stop is to reach your death.”

{Aberration of Singing Machine.}

The Abnormality takes the form of an old record player in the Containment Unit, dark brown-to-yellow and stained with a dark red substance.

Basic Information

-* Tool Abnormality *-

Tool Type: Single Use

Risk Classification: WAW

Log and Method

(1 Use)

The record within the player seems to be impossible to remove, no matter how hard we try. Any time someone tries to touch it or the player, it immediately starts up. The song it plays, although unpleasant to listen to, thankfully doesn’t last long.

Every time an employee uses this Abnormality, their Fortitude and Justice will slightly increase. However, their Prudence will slightly decrease.

(3 Uses)

It is discordant in a way beyond simple words, but employees who listened to it seemed more able to follow orders and focus on their work, so we decided it was safe for more people to use.

These effects stack with multiple uses, and carry on over multiple days.

(4 Uses)

However, as time passed, all those who listened to the song began frequently complaining that they could hear it again coming from certain electronics or people. Those incidents would get more and more violent as the days went by.

When the SP of an employee who had previously listened to The Killer Track reached 0, the sanity of every employee currently in the same department began to rapidly decline as well, as the song echoed throughout the halls. The same results occurred when they died.

(6 Uses)

Collateral damage became a regular occurrence during these events as its victims seemed like they’d do anything to make it stop. Eventually, all those who listened to it one-by-one died on the spot during one of these outbursts.

Once the song reached its end, all employees who had been in the same department as the original Agent when it started playing immediately died.

(8 Uses)

In a sense, I suppose that’s just the way things have always been. We all live listening to an endless, horrid song, and the only way to make the noise stop is to reach your death. Such is the burden of living.

When the energy meter was at approximately 50% during the fifth day since the employee had originally listened to the song, this effect would occur all by itself.

—

(Other Fan Abnormalities)

Yeah! There it is! Had to make a few adjustments to how it works as opposed to canon, but I like this!

I think seeing all your nuggets run around in a panic would really add to the chaos of listening to the Killer Track! (especially since it gives me MAJOR Second Trumpet vibes)

Now, let me be clear: How long the Killer Track lasts when it plays isn’t affected by the TT2 Protocol.

No matter how fast or slow the game is going, the song stays the same length and all your employees immediately die when it ends. In fact, speeding things up probably just makes things more chaotic since it gives your agents more time to beat each other to death.

Oh, and restoring an employee’s sanity before the track ends doesn’t do anything either. Once you listen to that song, you’ll be doomed to die once you hear it again, just like in canon.

I like how this came out. It’s like Behaviour Adjustment but crazier. Extremely dangerous to literally everyone, especially given how its effects seem positive until a point where you’ve already used it four times, but ultimately just another Tool and not something you have to get yourself involved with if you don’t want to.

[amysteryspot]

Borrowed Time | Two

Summary: The time to meet Mav's students arrives and with it some serious need of a lesson.

Warnings: mentions of major characther death (Goose); swearing; fighting;

Word Count: 1.8k

Author’s Note: Thanks for everyone that read and commented in the previous chapter. It was very much appreciatted. Hope you like this one too.

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“Attention!” An officer exclaimed, making the pilots stand up to salute their superiors. The Admirals entered the room, both Crystal and Maverick followed behind, standing side by side a step behind Cyclone as Warlock took his place up front.

“Morning. Be seated.” He said. “As you may have noted, we have a new face in this classroom.” Warlock motioned at Crystal for her to take a step forward. “This is Lieutenant Commander Kazansky, callsign Icebreaker. She has vast experience as a fighter pilot and has gone through dogfights before. From today on, she’ll be aiding Captain Mitchell in your training.

Warlock takes his place besides Cyclone so Mav could take his place at the front of the class to explain the mission parameters.

And so it begins.

Rooster brought you out of your reverie when he spoke up. It was the first time you had good luck with him. There were lots of photos of Goose, his wife and kid at Pete’s home, as there were many photos of your father and your family, you were certain there was a photo of his graduation from the Top Gun Academy right beside yours. Looking at him right now it was impossible to deny the resemblance. Bradley Bradshaw was the split image of his father.

And he was right, the parameters are insane, you weren’t even sure if they were achievable. In your experience and personal knowledge, pilots are essentially competitive and for this mission they would have to work as a very tight team.

“So for today’s lesson, we’re gonna take it easy on you. Max ceiling: 300 feet. Time to target: Three minutes. Good luck.”

Both Admirals go back to their duties when the exercise starts and you watch as each of the teams gets shot down.

Scarce communication, ability to fly at the parameters, lack of teamwork. It didn’t matter, the result would always be the same: there was little to now hope of getting them all back alive, there was no guarantee that they could complete this mission.

Cruel as it might sound, she could understand Cyclone’s dilemma: giving everything to destroy the secret uranium enrichment site or worry about how these pilots would return home.

At the end of the day Crystal had to admit that Lieutenant Seresin was a good pilot, but his arrogance took the best of him, making him forget about anyone but himself.

On the other hand, Lieutenant Bradshaw knew how to work as a team with the other pilots but seemed overly cautious to you. Yet, he was the only one to successfully get to the target, late or not.

There was more than worry about the mission in Mav's eyes and, for a moment, you questioned yourself about the probability of someone having caught on to that.

"Why are you dead? You're team leader up there. Why are you, why are your team dead?”

"Sir, he's the only one who made it to the target." Phoenix reminded Maverick.

"A minute late.” Maverick sighs. “He gave enemy aircraft time to shoot him down. He's dead.

"You don't know that." Rooster pushes back.

“You’re not flying fast enough.” Hangman emphasizes. “You don’t have a second to waste.”

“We made it to the target.” Rooster says.

“And superior enemy aircraft intercepted you on your way out.” Maverick insists, his voice an octave higher.

“Then it’s a dogfight.” Rooster states.

“Against fifth-generation fighters.” Maverick reminds him.

“Yeah. We’d still have a chance.” Rooster answers.

“In an F-18.” There’s another rise in Maverick’s voice.

“It’s not the plane, sir, it’s the pilot.” In this entire conversation is the first time that Rooster raises his voice.

“Exactly!” Mav exclaims, a little too louder than he intended, if you knew him well enough. You felt the burn his outburst left in the air and in the way Rooster flinched.

“There’s more than one way to fly this mission.” Rooster said.

“You really don’t get it.” Hangman cut in. “On this mission, a man flies like Maverick here, or a man does not come back.” He says, nodding at Phoenix and Bob. “No offense intended.”

Since entering this room Crystal wanted to see how far he would go to achieve what he wanted. He was overly ambitious, too sure of himself for your taste and you especially disliked the way he disregarded his comrades.

There was one thing her father always taught her: the higher they climb, the harder they fall.

“Yet somehow you always manage.” Bob says.

“Look, I don’t mean to criticize. You’re conservative, that’s all.

“Lieutenant.” Maverick warns.

“We’re going into combat, son, on a level no living pilot’s ever seen.” He says, glancing back at Rooster. “Not even him.” He nods at Mav. “That’s no time to be thinking about the past.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rooster asks, a hint of confusion in his features, but also a hint of anger.

“Rooster.” Maverick calls.

“I can’t be the only one that knows that Maverick flew with his old man.” Hangman continues to push to get a reaction from Rooster.

“That’s enough.” Mav warns again.

“Or that Maverick was flying when his old man…”

“Lieutenant, that’s enough!”

And that’s when the levee breaks. In a second Rooster launches for Hangman, cursing and almost getting to him before the other pilots are able to hold him down, including Mav.

You stay at your post, observing the scene unfold. The clamoring and the shouting, it was almost as if you weren’t supposed to be there.

“That’s enough.” Maverick warns again.

“Hey, come on!” Hangman chuckles, a smirk on his face, disentangling himself from the other pilots. “I’m cool, I’m cool. Hey, hey.”

You would have grounded Hangman for less, but you weren’t responsible for this mission. Your role here was to observe and to help when needed, not dictate the parameters of anything.

“That’s enough.” Maverick tries again.

“He's not cut out for this mission.” Hangman affirms and Crystal can’t contain herself.

“And neither is you.” The clamoring stopped and everyone, including Maverick, turned around to look at her, as she stared back at a very surprised Hangman. “If he is not cut out for this mission, neither is you, Lieutenant. The success of this entire operation relies on teamwork. Something we’ve just learned you can’t do, because you’re more worried about showing off your skills than working with your fellow comrades.

“And do you know how to work as a team, ma’am?”

Crystal chuckled at his audacity, speaking before Pete could.

“Permission to conduct an exercise outside of the parameters stated, sir?” She directs her question at Maverick.

“What do you need, Lieutenant Commander?”

“Maximum altitude of 200 feet, sir.” They make eye contact as Maverick weighs the pros and cons, and then nods.

“Granted.”

“Get ready to fly, Lieutenant.” Crystal says as she passes by Lieutenant Seresin and the other stunned pilots. At least this eased the tension a notch.

“Lieutenant Commander?” Hangman asks.

“You’re flying with me.” Crystal says without turning back to see the commotion.

Getting inside her plane always brought chills into Crystal’s spine. This wouldn’t be the first time she had to put a pilot in their place, yet, there was something different about this one.

Crystal missed flying. It had been just one month but being grounded always felt like a punishment. This time it was only subdued because of your father. Being with him, waking up and having all of your family together… It was worth it.

And then there was Mav. You know how much Goose meant for Maverick. Her father told her multiple times that the Bradshaws were the only family Pete had. On good days, Pete would talk about Goose and how much time they worked together, how he loved his family. Crystal knew he was cleared by the court but also knew that he felt guilty about Goose’s death anyway.

And then there was Rooster. She barely knew him, didn’t remember the last time you two had seen each other. What she knew was that the last thing she would want was for someone to use your family against you.

Having someone bring Goose up like that, trying to use it as a weapon made Crystal remember her own time at the academy when people brought up her father a lot more as an excuse to make her doubt herself, to make her feel small.

After preparing herself and walking out of the locker room, she finds the whole class waiting for her. Mav looked at Crystal with a questioning gaze but she  just nodded at him in reassurance.

“You’ll be my wingman.”

Surprised glances were exchanged but she just ignored them.

“We’ll fly the route of the mission, see if we can make it to the target.”

Hangman nodded, not uttering a word. After setting up in her plane, Crystal glanced at Rooster one last time. She couldn’t decide if he looked more confused about her behavior or more angry at Hangman’s still.

That was the easy part of the mission, she knew that. Rooster proved that it was achievable, he only didn’t make it on time. Her goal here was to try and increase the speed, maintaining the route and making Hangman work with her—if he could.

“What happened, Lieutenant? You couldn’t keep up?” Crystal asks Hangman when they arrive back on the ground after failing the exercise. “Why are we dead?”

He growls. “You made it to the target, ma’am.”

“Without my wingman to get me eyes on the target.” She stresses. “I made it to the target to drop a bomb blind and get intercepted by the SAMs on my way out to fight alone.” Crystal exclaimes, waiting for the words to sink in, not just for him but for the rest of them. “On the day of the mission you’ll have to fly faster than that and rely on your team. As you said before, I flew faster, you didn’t communicate with me, now we’re both dead and you know what it's like to be left hanging.”

“Lieutenant Commander.” Crystal recognizes Bradshaw’s voice as she’s heading to the dressing room, turning around to look at him running to her.

“Lieutenant?” She asks with a frown.

“I didn’t need defending back there.” He says with a hint of annoyance on his face.

“Excuse me?” She asks, trying not to misinterpret his actions.

“With Hangman.” He clarified. “You didn’t need to go out of your way just because we had a fight, ma’am.”

Crystal blinked once, then twice and scoffed. “A little presumptuous of you thinking I did what I did because of you.” He opens his mouth to talk but she stops him by raising a hand. “I did what I did to teach you all a lesson. It was never my intention to fight your battles for you, between the both of us, you’re way past that.” There is a pause, and then Crystal continues, “Let’s leave it at that, Lieutenant. It will be better for both of us. You are dismissed.”

It seemed like he would say something back but decided against it, saluting you before turning back to go to the common room. Crystal scoffed, shaking her head as she made her way inside.

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[nut-in-me-jojo]

If I may keep complimenting you, i just wanna say your Gyutaro feels really spot on.

You made him exactly how he should be, his entire flow chills me in all the ways demons should act in their audience's eyes; a demon, someone ruined. Who's only means of coping with abuse is fierce hostility, and in the poor environment Gyutaro was born in, it's not unexpected to turn into a violent and mean individual as a result of extreme abuse and discomfort. Especially when it comes to the ways of survival, the world stomps on the weak and poor masses, it never cared for him and/or his sister. So why should he give a rat's ass?

He's cold, he's cruel, he's mean and incredibly demeaning to the degree where he uses insults heartlessly thrown at him as a youngling on other people (I'd argue it isn't only for evil sadist's sake, but also a coping mechanism). The very people he viewed as monsters, he became worse in canon.

You know that meme where it says, "when you see a dude write a character differently than how you see them"? I adore writers, as a developing writer myself I maintain a massive respect for them. And i ain't gonna shit on them for their own thoughts and fanon (It's called headcanons for a reason. Bloggers can do whatever they like, it's their blog, their content after all), but when someone makes a society-abused literal demon like Gyutaro all love hearts and sweet like candy for little to no reason it makes me die a bit on the inside.

As I mentioned, it's their blog and all. I won't tell them how to run their shit, as it's not my place. But I never understood why anyone writes or reads OOC!charas. OOC just takes all the attractiveness of that character and...makes them not that character.

When you search up writing for a character you expect to read that character to act the way you've seen them. The reason why people read/follow certain characters it's because their traits are appealing, personality or otherwise. Not to say the characterization and research has to be totally 100% spot on or the writer has to mentally and/or physically understand the character. There are flaws in everyone's writing, perfection only exists in practice. But when I read a character, I do expect the writing to understand what their role was in the story.

I love Gyutaro but from a realistic standpoint, I utterly despise him. Tanjiro gave him and Daki exactly what they deserve, death. Why? Because Gyutaro is clearly written as a terrifying villain. A demon, corrupted by inhuman blood, who takes great joy and excitement from the fear of unfortunate victims. Gyutaro plays with his food, like cats do to mice; he canonly admitted more than a fair number of times he actively enjoys bringing torture and will absolutely give chase if it'll strike even more fright in their hearts. And Daki is only worse because of how picky, entitled princess she is. When I read villainous dudes I expect/want to read villainous things, and when there are lovey-dovey things there has to be corresponding reasons for it. By all means it doesn't have to be justified because in villain cases it almost never is, but it does have to make sense, needs to fit.

Yeah, I know. Love don't need to be complex, but complexity should be expected in characters written specifically as complex, right? KnY is deep in it's subjects. It's a demon-filled world, the demons are the bad guys of its entire story, so when love and demons mix you know it ain't anything normal or easy.

(Douma for example, is canonly stated as emotionless and psychopathic. Love in his demonic state seems down-right impossible, but should he ever 'experience' it, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be real awkward about it in standard Douma fashion. A stream of confusing and whole stage of denial following suit, seeing he grew accustomed and content with "nothing" for so many centuries despite a broken upbringing.)

Connecting love and villains together is fun for the same reason why people adjust their emotional connections for the consideration and comfort of other people. Because villains often want almost nothing to do with it. They are dark, selfish and very unnerving, predictably becoming of their lifestyles. True villains are distant-hearted, to the degree that distance directs how they act to themselves and other people. Unfeeling and unmoving even in front of opposing forces.

Gyutaro is a mega-asshole and romance stories with him are fascinating to explore, as stated above, because he's a villain (And because we all love a sleazy man done right).

So once more, I clap and throw hearts at your story. The gremlin man is green, mean and the proud owner of this poor woman's soul. I'm truly excited to see what you plan next in general. Don't mind me just gonna eat up all your other stuff. I' am more than honored to be a follower (And you're following me too?? Like whATT?) and enjoyer of this sweet sweet content.

so sorry for rambling i just really love your shit ok, just lemme know whenever i get to be too much.

Let me start by saying this is very incredibly sweet and totally made my day. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a nice review! Also, I could never ever ever get tired of people telling me how much they love my stuff, the encouragement is wonderful fuel for inspiration. So definitely don’t worry!!

I’m very glad you can appreciate my take on Gyutaro’s character. Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes to everything you said. You’ve listed off every little thing I’ve always strived for in this series which is a pretty big ego boost ngl lol.

But yes, I watched the entertainment arc as it aired and I got this idea for this story pretty much immediately before there were many fics for Gyutaro at all. But I knew most people who WERE gonna write for him would probably water him down and make him all fluffy like most people do with villains. Which I mean, nothing really wrong with that of course. I’ve certainly been one to enjoy those before.

But I wanted to have a story where he’s portrayed as the monster he really is. I wanted people to remember my fic as, “that one really fucked up one.” Lmao. Because as a reader, I feel like I’m always looking for a fic that has the true villain I actually signed up for, with all or most of their complexities in tact lol. So I wanted to deliver that to my dear readers.

I’m so very glad you’re enjoying the ride. Thank you again for the kind words! Ily5ever🥹

[fox-buried-in-maple-leaves]

dream to dna for ignas <3

dream: does your OC have a driving dream or goal? what is it? how far would they go to achieve it?

Ignas really just wants to be a psychologist, its what he's studying in school. He wants to help people, especially in the field of childhood trauma. It's his dream.

no: how does your OC respond to being refused, rebuffed, or ignored? are they willing to accept ‘no’ as an answer?

It depends why he's being told 'no'. He'll accept it as an answer, of course he will. No is no. But there are times where he knows the 'no' is a result of society or the result of authority and should have been 'yes'. He'll stew quietly though.

danger: what’s one thing that makes your OC angry? what’s their temper like? how do they respond to people who make them mad?

Not to be punny but Ignas is very 'chill'. He doesn't get mad very easily. So when he DOES get mad, he explodes. Fractals, man. It's bad. He'll stay calm and collected until he literally cannot anymore and then he might throw hands. The easiest way to piss him off is to insult his loved ones, but even then he'll calmly tell someone off first.

need: has your OC ever experienced desperation? how has it affected them? what do they do when something they need is out of their reach?

Ignas feels very lucky that he hasn't felt true desperation. He's wanted things really bad that he couldn't get, sure. But he's never felt REAL desperation. At least that he can remember. Anything out of reach, he'll work harder to achieve. And if he really can't, he'll accept his losses after a bit of a cry.

run: what’s one relationship or experience your OC has mixed feelings about? are they good at finding joy in sad things, or vice versa?

Honestly like 80% of his interactions with his father lmao. lol. but anyways. Ignas will always look for the bright side, no matter how dark it is. It helps him stay ~sane~

fire: what’s one thing they’d destroy if they could, and why? would that destruction bring them any satisfaction or catharsis?

Probably the government, and yeah.

blood: what would your OC would sacrifice everything for? what does “everything” entail—their life, or something else? how far would they go?

To Ignas, sacrificing everything means giving up his hopes and dreams for another. A fate worse than death. And he'd do it, for Caiden, for his brother. For them to be happy, he'd give up everything. It's probably why his brother's shadow looms over him so much tbh.

spring: what does your OC miss most? will they ever be reunited? how would they feel about that?

When he was a child, he had a dog. Her name was Candy, and she was the sweetest thing. But she was just a normal dog. And she died when she got old. And he'll never be reunited with her, and yeah it makes him sad sometimes. But he knows Candy was loved by him and had a good life, so he's content with that.

dna: does your OC believe in fate or destiny? what about soulmates? is this all a coincidence?

Ignas knows about the Fates, about Destiny. He knows its real and he knows what they do. What they are. He didn't believe in soulmates, metaphysically impossible. But he believes in a certain's fox romanticized view. Ignas, however, does not believe fate can be changed. That destiny is the way it is, and everything is already planned out. No matter how much he may wish to change it. Hopefully one day he can change that view.

[silentfcknhill]

Yeah, a lot of times I think it is too hard or unfair for humans to be the judges of other humans because it is impossible to eliminate all bias and subjectivity. But I'm also agnostic so it's kinda complicated because I don't necessarily believe that any divine punishment will come in the afterlife either, so if not us then who? And I guess that's why I used 'karma' in quotations, I don't think it's some magical force but moreso that people who practice hate and harm in their lives are more likely to draw in the consequences of that. I don't think, for instance, I would feel comfortable sentencing anyone to death, but if something bad happens to a person as a result of their own actions and it seemed relatively equal in magnitude to what they did then I wouldn't feel sorry. Vigilantism is tough because similar to death penalty it is very easy to make mistakes in persecuting someone who is innocent. But there are certain people where, like, would I enact karma myself? No, that doesn't seem like a responsibility I am qualified to take on. But I wouldn't shed a tear if somebody else did.

[lavellander]

more skyhold scholars :’)

and since these are messy — top left is fiona, alani, and dagna discussing magic stuff; top right is alani and helisma with a lil frog; bottom is alani, minaeve, and elan hangin out in the garden !!

[daydreaming-away-reality]

Catching Stardust

Tadashi Hamada x Reader | ☁️ + ✨ | 3.9k

Most days, like any other university student, you would wake up tired. Unfortunately for you, that was not today. You had spent the entire night working on your lab report for one of your science courses and didn’t get a wink of sleep. At least it was handed in and done with.

(You had to double check - just in case your brain decided to get desperate and help you imagine the best case scenarios. Thinking and doing were two very different things, they were hard to tell apart when you were so dead tired though.)

It was one of those days.

“Morning, Honey Lemon,” you greeted as you navigated your way into the kitchen for some caffeine. Grabbing your travel coffee tumbler, you watched your blonde roommate in her morning stretching routine.

“Good morning, (Y/N)!” Honey cheerfully replied. “How was not sleeping last night?”

You halted your movements, looking up at her with concern. “Can you tell just by looking at me?”

Honey Lemon laughed. “No, silly. GoGo came home late last night and saw you up. I heard you shuffling around earlier this morning too. No raccoon eyes, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Thank goodness,” you said with a sigh as you continued pouring liquid energy into your tumbler. “This bio course is going to be the death of me.”

“You mean working two part time jobs will be the death of you,” GoGo corrected you as she walked out of her room. “Girl, you need time to have fun too.”

You stuck your tongue out at her. Rummaging through backpack, you noticed a missing tome of knowledge. “Has anyone seen my Medical Terms bible?”

“Coffee table.” Honey called out from the living room as she held the tree pose.

GoGo walked over to you with the heavy book in hand. You mouthed a thank you to her before taking a sip of coffee.

“(Y/N), you need to take some time to make some more friends or meet a cute boy,” Honey Lemon brought up. She exchanged a look with GoGo. “We know someone who you might like. He’s nice and funny, good looking as well.”

You gave your two roommates a sad smile. “By the time I’m ready for a relationship, a boy like that will already be snatched up by someone less stressed about their future.”

Grabbing your premade meals and a couple of snacks, you swung your backpack on.

“I work bookstore and pharmacy today, so I’ll see you both tomorrow morning. Good luck with your projects in the meantime.”

“Bye, (Y/N)!” Honey called out.

“Keep the luck, you need it more than we do,” GoGo said with salute.

Walking out of the apartment, you checked your phone for your schedule once more. Class at nine, bookstore at two and pharmacy at six. And it was already eight thirty, yay. Just your typical jam packed day, all so that you could pay off medical school tuition in the future.

Balancing everything in life was... impossible, but you were managing. 

Full course load university student, working two part time jobs, and a very minimal but still existent social life.

It wasn’t easy, but it was what you wanted. Going to med school was a necessary path to take if you wanted to help people out in your future career choice.

Just as you were arriving on campus, a voice caught your attention.

“(Y/N)…!”

You turned to see your friend Mina, another sufferer pre-med student.

“Hi Mina,” you greeted.

“Did you sleep last night?” she asked. When you shook your head, she let out a loud sigh. “Yeah, me too. Dr. Andrews is going to kill us with these lab reports and the test Thursday. I mean, I’d feel smarter if I weren’t so tired all the time.” 

You smiled. What a mood.

“Is my make up, okay?” Mina asked. “I don’t want Justin to see me at my worse - not yet.”

You glanced over Mina’s face. She had gone through the usual effort to make herself look cute. “You look fine and I’m sure Justin wouldn’t be scared off. He knows we’re med students.”

Mina made a face. “We’ve only been a dating for two months, (Y/N), two! He doesn’t know what kind of crazy we are yet. You never know when he might get skittish and ghost me.”

If you weren’t so tired, you would have laughed. 

Linking arms with Mina, you pulled her towards the classroom. 

Today was going to be just another day.

Tadashi checked over the information on his phone as he walked off campus towards the bookstore. He had been looking up information to help his robotics project and a certain book had come up in his recommendations. Deciding that the resource was worth checking out, and was worth the price, he was determined to get his hands on the book while his robot was still in the works.

Walking through the doors, he made his way to the medical section. Browsing the shelves, he kept an eye out for the particular title.

After circling the area for a while, he let out a huff. Where was this textbook?

Noticing a girl wearing a name tag, he approached her with smile.

“Hi, I was wondering if you could help me?”

She turned to him with a smile, (E/C) eyes making contact with his brown orbs.

“Of course, are you looking for something?”

Tadashi nodded, pulling out his phone and showing her the textbook information.

"Ahhh, this one. That’s a popular book with the first year pre-med student courses,” she commented. “Everyone always asks where this one is - we organize this one by title since there’s no author.”

Leading him back into the medical section, the girl stopped in an area of the bookstore that Tadashi had missed earlier. She tapped the spine of one of the books.

“This one is good resource for in depth procedural explanations,” she explained. “Not what you were looking for though...”

Scanning the shelves, the girl paused and frowned when she stopped a particular spot. 

“Is it out of stock?” she murmured, checking again. “For a textbook no one appreciates until third year, I’d be surprised if it’s sold out...” She turned back to Tadashi with an apologetic smile. “I’ll check if we have the book in stock - give me a second.”

Pulling out her phone, she typed up some information quickly. The results of her searching seemed to yield the same results.

“It looks like we’re actually out of stock for this textbook right now, although, we are restocking it,” she explained. “Would you like to request a reserve to get a copy?”

“That would be helpful, sure,” Tadashi agreed. 

“Great, let’s go fill out a form for you,” she chirped, leading him away. “Are you a med student?”

“No, I’m a robotics engineering student at SFIT,” he replied. “I’m working on something related to the medical field though.”

“Really? That’s so cool,” she exclaimed, looking genuinely interested. “It’s amazing to think how technology can incorporated into health sciences. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on?”

“A healthcare robot,” Tadashi explained with a fond smile. “It’s still in the works, nothing has been finished yet, I’m still working on the programming stages.”

“I think that’s incredible. I’m sure you’re capable of amazing things.”

The sincerity in her tone brought a smile to his face. For someone who didn’t know much about his project, the kind words from her were very nice.

“What about you?” Tadashi asked. “Are you a student?”

“Yeah, over at Sato Health Institute,” she responded. Sato was the top post secondary institution for health care in San Fransokyo located nearby - it even shared some programs with SFIT as Tadashi recalled. “I’m a pre-med student - if you hadn’t already guessed.”

“I might have had a feeling,” Tadashi said with a grin. “You seemed like you were familiar with things firsthand.”

The girl laughed. “Lots of firsthand experience, trust me.”

Approaching the help desk, the girl popped around to grab a paper and pen. Scrawling down information onto the page first, she then slid the paper over to Tadashi across the counter.

“Just fill out the rest of the form and the textbook should be arriving in the next three days.” 

Tadashi looked up from filling in the form, brown eyes flicking over to her name tag. “Thank you so much, (Y/N).”

“You’re welcome,” she replied. She took a sip from her coffee tumbler. Grabbing a sticky note, she offered it over to Tadashi. “If you’d like, leave your number and I’ll text you when it arrives - I’ll be working that day. I promise to use your number for professional reasons only.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Tadashi said as he wrote his number down. As he finished his form, he noticed a large medical terms textbook behind the counter on the desk next to the computer with a ton of sticky notes sticking out. “Is that yours?”

“That’s my current bible,” she affirmed with an amused tone. “Can’t survive without it.”

The two of them shared a laugh.

“Thanks again for your help.” Tadashi repeated as he returned the form.

“Just doing my job, don’t worry about it! It was great meeting you...” Her (E/C) eyes flickered down to the form and smile appeared on her face. “...Tadashi.”

As Tadashi left the bookstore, part of him was still lingering behind, thinking about (Y/N). She seemed like a nice girl and he really hoped that they might have another chance to encounter her again.

You fumbled with the door before pushing it open, popping back into the dark apartment. Hitting the light switch, you took off your shoes and checked for signs of your roommates.

Looks like Honey Lemon and GoGo were still out.

No surprise.

The three of you were always busy, whether the other two liked to admit it or not. 

Just as you were sorting things out in the kitchen and about to grab a snack, your phone buzzed.

Mina: OMG. Did you see Terry’s SNS profile update? 🤣🤣

(Y/N): What did he do this time? Do I want to know??

Mina: He put MD CANDIDATE. The AUDACITY of this man - I got a C+ working with partner project with him. My poor GPA... 😭

(Y/N): I mean...

Mina: DON’T

(Y/N): Cs get degrees 😂

Mina: RIP me. Seriously though, are you free to study for that bio test? 

(Y/N): let me grab my snack first, I’ll see you video chat

Mina: True MD candidate here

(Y/N): HA 

Letting out a sigh, you swiped a snack from the cupboard before heading back to your room. Fingers crossed you would get some sleep tonight.

“Oh, finally!”

Tadashi wiped his hands off with a rag and turned to look at Fred. Wasabi and GoGo were also looking at the beanie wearing boy, but neither of them decided to engage.

“Something up?” Tadashi asked, speaking up.

“The comic bookstore said they were out of that new series I was telling you guys about the other day,” Fred explained. “I refused to go to Richardson’s place, so apparently, they reached out to the nearby bookstore and they have a copy! I got to go pick it up.”

“The one near campus?”

“Yup.”

Tadashi paused, thinking for a moment before making his decision. 

“I’ll come with you.”

“Let’s go then, man!”

Catching up with Fred about the current condition of Baymax, the two soon arrived at the bookstore. Fred immediately beelined towards the help desk with Tadashi trailing behind him.

Just as Tadashi anticipated, a familiar face was working at the desk. This time though, (Y/N) was fairly concentrated on the stack of flashcards piled on her space next to textbooks filled with sticky notes.

“Uh, excuse me,” Fred said, practically bouncing on his toes.

That was enough to jolt her out of her studying. Shoving away her flashcards, she offered Fred a smile. “Yes?”

“I believe someone called about -”

“Oh! I know what you’re here for,” (Y/N) said, jumping up. She got up and skimmed over the bookshelf behind the counter. “Ah, here it is. Fred, right?”

At the sight of his new comic, Fred nodded happily. He quickly accepted it from you. “Is there a comic book section?”

(Y/N) nodded. “Just straight that way, it’s not a big collection, but you might find something.”

“Alright, thanks!” 

Fred turned to see Tadashi lingering around. “You coming, Tadashi?”

“There’s something I want to check out, I’ll catch up in a bit,” the black haired male responded.

As Fred disappeared, the girl turned her attention over to Tadashi. 

“I didn’t think I would see you again so soon,” she commented. “The book is not in yet, sorry.”

Tadashi smiled. “That’s fine. I see you’re here often.” 

“Yeah, when I’m not busy with classes or my other job, here I am.”

The words piqued your interest. “Other job?”

“I also work at a pharmacy,” (Y/N) explained.

“Ahh. You must be a busy person,” Tadashi said. He tilted his head towards your desk. “Studying too?”

She flushed. “Yeah. Only because today’s pretty quiet - my manager doesn’t mind as long as I’m work as I’m needed. There’s a test coming up.”

“Good luck, I think you need it.”

“I do. Thank you.”

Tadashi watched as (Y/N) moved back to sitting at the desk. As she picked up her flashcards, she looked up at Tadashi.

“How’s the healthcare robot going? Any progress in the last 24 hours?”

“Baymax finally had some supply come in for assembling,” he responded. “So, just a little bit.”

“Baymax?” she repeated confused. “Oh. Is that their name?”

Tadashi nodded.

“Baymax… I like it, sounds friendly.”

“I should probably let you get back to studying,” Tadashi commented, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry for bothering you.”

“Not at all, I’m happy to chat with you.”

- Wednesday. 6PM. -  

Honey: (Y/N)?

(Y/N): What’s up, Honey Lemon?

Honey: I heard the pre-med students plan on throwing a party this weekend? 

Honey: Are you going?

(Y/N): Nah, I think I have work.

GoGo: You always work.

(Y/N): Huh, I never noticed.

(Y/N): Anyways, parties are not my scene. I’d be happy spending a free evening at home instead.

GoGo: Mina says she’ll miss you.

(Y/N): She’ll have Justin, she’ll be okay

Honey: Well, if you ever decide to go, we know a boy you can take with you.

(Y/N): Thanks, but I’ll pass. 🥰

- Thursday. 5PM. -

Unknown: Hi Tadashi. The textbook you wanted finally came in! Feel free to drop by anytime to come pick it up.

Tadashi: Alright, thanks (Y/N)!

Unknown: Yep, no prob!

Tadashi: Hey, is this your personal number?

Unknown: yeah 😊

(Y/N) has been added to contacts.

Tadashi: Hope you don’t mind if I contact you like in the future. 😊

(Y/N): Oh, I wouldn’t mind at all!

“Tadashi, hi,” you greeted, waving as the boy came into your line of sight. With a baseball cap on his head today, you almost mistaken him for someone else. Pulling out the textbook, you handed it over to him. “Here you go! You weren’t the only one trying to get your hands on this textbook today.”

Tadashi peered at you curiously as he accepted the textbook. 

“You look tired,” he pointed out.

You just shrugged with a half smile. “The bio test was today - that was gruesome.”

“At least that’s done with,” he encouraged you. “Week’s almost over, too.”

“Best part is I’m off in five,” you agreed.

 You could see your words caught Tadashi’s interest. 

“Are... are you still working after?” 

Shaking your head, you leaned back against the counter. “Nope, told them I was busy today so no shifts at the pharmacy tonight.”

“Would you like to go out with me then?” Tadashi asked hopefully. “We can hit up a café and grab something to eat?”

Good thing you were leaning against the counter, because the surprise you felt would have toppled you over.

“Oh, um, sure!” you agreed, cheeks heating up a little. “I’ll meet you outside in five?”

“Sounds good.”

- Friday. 9AM. -

Tadashi: I enjoyed my time with you yesterday. 

(Y/N): I enjoyed my time too! Although the cookies there were kind of hard... 😢

Tadashi: Yeah... I find us somewhere with nice cookies next time.

(Y/N): Just a warning, next time might be a while. My schedule is usually full.

Tadashi: That’s fine!! If you ever find yourself with free time, let me know, I’d like to spend it with you.

(Y/N): 🥰

(Y/N): You’re too sweet, Tadashi. 

(Y/N): How are you single??

Tadashi: Haha, I could ask you the same thing. Probably the same reasons as you though. I’m usually too focused with what’s in front of me.

Tadashi: Hope to see you around though.

(Y/N): me too

- Some Tuesday. 8PM. -

“And your total is 18.95,” you said, pressing buttons on the register to confirm the amount. The customer tapped their card for the purchase before taking their bags. “I hope you feel better!”

“Thank you,” the customer responded as they left. 

You waited until they had gone completely before heading back to find your manager. Spotting one of older pharmacy students, you decided to talk to them instead.

“Hi,” you greeted.

“(Y/N), need any drugs?” Harper asked with a smile.

“I’ll take them all,” you joked. “Let Aria know I left if you see her for me?”

“Yeah, go. You’re free,” she ushered, waving you away.

As you pulled on your jacket and stepped out of the pharmacy, a figure caught you by surprise.

“Tadashi!” you exclaimed. 

“Surprised?” he asked. “Thought I’d walk you home, not safe for you to walk the street alone at night.”

“I do it frequent enough,” you countered with a smile.

“Ooh, risk taker,” Tadashi said.

You laughed. “I appreciate this though, thanks.”

Tadashi nodded. As the two of you were catching up each other on what happened throughout the day, you felt Tadashi slip his hand into yours. Fingers intertwined, you could feel your heart racing.

This was something you didn’t want to let go of.

- Some Monday. 2PM. -

GoGo: Yo, Tadashi

GoGo: Fred wants to know when you’ll be back with the snacks.

Tadashi: Just stepped back on campus. 

GoGo: Took you a while.

GoGo: You seeing someone behind our back?

Tadashi: Ha. Does Baymax count?

- A couple weeks later. Friday. 10AM. -

“Someone looks cute today,” Mina commented as you sat down next to her in the lecture hall. She eyed you up and down, nodding approvingly. “Not working today?”

“Yeah,” you replied. “My rare day off besides class. Thought I’d put a little more effort in today.”

“Well, you look adorable,” Mina confirmed. She let out a sigh when she saw the professor walk in. “Let’s see if we can survive these next two hours.”

“Challenge accepted,” you said, bumping her shoulder playfully. “Although, I might lose you halfway.”

Mina gasped and smacked your arm.

You laughed as you pulled your laptop. Although the two hours went by at a decent pace, you were glad the course was three quarters way through. 

At the brutal pace your professor went, there was nothing but review for the few weeks before final exams. It was nice to know you didn’t have to teach yourself an entire unit in a week before your final.

Bidding Mina goodbye, you weaved your way out of the lecture hall and out into campus. At this point, most groups of students you saw hanging around were study groups. You would have been like them too, if you hadn’t worked so hard to make things work.

Balancing two part time jobs along with classes had you putting in so much extra effort that it usually paid off in the long run.

Yay.

Navigating your way through the streets with the GPS app open on your phone, you soon spotted the campus you were looking for.

SFIT.

(Abbreviated, because thinking through what each letter stood for was too much effort.)

Slowly wandering around as you pulled up the campus directory, your eyes glimmered when you spotted the building you were looking for. Popping inside, you clutched onto your bag, peering around curiously. There was so much science happening in this space. 

Lots of creativity too, you wondered why their tradition was to prank the art school.

Poking around, you soon realized you were lost among the many rooms and labs. Your mission was a failure. Pouting, you pulled your phone.

(Y/N): Help me, I’m lost.

Tadashi: What do you mean?

(Y/N): I wandered into the lab building and was going to surprise you with a visit, but I don’t know where to find you. 🙁

(Y/N): I didn’t think this through...

Tadashi: Awwww

Tadashi: What room number do you see? I’ll find you.

(Y/N): Lab 2B

Tadashi: omw

As you awkwardly waited for Tadashi to show up, you tried not to look suspicious. Although admittedly, you were sure you looked suspicious regardless since you were lost.

“There you are,” the soft yet deep voice greeted from behind you.

Turning around to see Tadashi, you smiled. 

“Sorry for the trouble,” you apologized. 

“Not at all.” Tadashi shook his head. He took a moment to take you in. Within his eyes, you were absolutely beautiful. He didn’t want to mess up, so he kept it to himself. He’d voice his thoughts one day. “Welcome to Nerd Lab, by the way.”

So this was where Tadashi, your roommates, and their friends all spent their long hours working.

Tadashi took your hand. “Come on, I want to show you my lab.”

Following after Tadashi, the two of you entered the elevator behind arriving on the floor of his personal lab space. He opened a door, showing you his tidy space.

“Baymax won’t be in the works for a while, but here,” he pulled out several large blueprints. The image of an almost plush like character was found in the middle. “This is going to be Baymax.”

In awe of all the labelled details and planning in place, you looked up at Tadashi.

“This is incredible,” you breathed out. “You’re incredible too.”

Tadashi dipped his head down and captured your lips for a kiss. 

Before he had the opportunity to pull back too far, you went in and gave him a quick peck as well.

Although the two of you were flushed, the loving gaze you could see in Tadashi’s eyes made you feel hopeful about this relationship.

“Can I see the medical programming?” you asked, breaking the silence.

Tadashi shyly nodded. “All the computer.” 

- Later. -

(Y/N): Do you think we should let our friends know?

Tadashi: Nah, they’ll catch on eventually.

(Y/N): But if they don’t should I just accept their blind date request?

Tadashi: WHAT?

(Y/N): 😂

(Y/N): I asked for more details one time.

(Y/N): He’s this handsome robotics engineering student, who nice and has a good sense of humor. Apparently he’s very dedicated to his work too.

Tadashi: …

Tadashi: They’ve tried to set me up with their friend as well. 

(Y/N): Hmm, maybe we were meant to be after all

Tadashi: I think so. 😀

(Y/N): 😘

[razieltwelve]

Individual Differences (Final Rose)

Vanille frowned. She was stuck on a deserted island with nothing except some coconut trees, a few rocks, and some seemingly random debris from the shipwreck. Oh well. She’d be fine.

A quick trip around the beach allowed her to find a suitable stick and a good piece of wood. Using the stick, the piece of wood, and some very dry coconut fibres, she was able to start a fire. Using that, fire she was able to harden a bigger stick that she found further down the beach. Using that stick, she was able to break some of the rocks with a well-placed strike and some Aura.

By lashing some of the pieces of rock onto the stick, she was able to make an axe. Using that axe, she chopped down some coconut trees before using some coconut husks to make rope. With that rope and those coconut trees, she was able to lash together a raft. A trip down the beach revealed some debris that she used to create an improvised sail that she attached to the mast of her makeshift raft.

She spent a day gathering supplies and testing her raft before sailing her way back to civilisation.

X     X     X

Yeul frowned. She was stuck on a deserted island with nothing except some pointy rocks, some angry crabs, and a couple of coconut trees. Thankfully, however, help was at hand. In precisely twenty-three hours, Vanille would be sailing past on an improvised raft. All she had to do was light a signal fire and gather supplies to help with the voyage back to civilisation.

X     X     X

Serah frowned. She was stuck on a deserted island with literally nothing on it. Well, there was plenty of sand. Oh, and there was also the skeleton of a whale on the beach. Wonderful.

With nothing better to do, she fashioned a spear out of some whale bone and set about catching some of the fish that lurked in the shallows near the island. At least, she wouldn’t starve to death although dying of thirst was a definite possibility. Thankfully, she’d managed to kill a large shelled creatures of some kind - Vanille would probably know what it was - and she was able to use its shell as a pot to boil water in. 

Now, without any wood, starting a fire was basically impossible. However, Aura could be used to heat water when circulated through it very rapidly. It was something she had practiced for survival situations, and it was coming in handy now.

More exploration of the shallows allowed her to find and kill a fish with particularly shiny scales. She ate the fish and attached its scales to a piece of whalebone. The result was something that reflected sunlight very brightly, almost like a mirror. If there was anyone in the air nearby, they should be able to see it.

X     X     X

Lumina was not stuck on a deserted island because making a giant Aura construct bird to fly around on was trivially easy. She immediately took to the air and surveyed her surroundings. There were several deserted islands scattered over perhaps four or five hundred miles of ocean.

It the others had survived the crash - and she was certain they had - they should have washed ashore on those islands. As she was flying over the first island, she caught sight of something shining below her. She swooped lower and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was Serah.

“Hey.” Lumina grinned. “Need a lift?”

Serah nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

The two of them were making their way toward the next island when Lumina spied something moving on the surface of the ocean below them. It was a raft with a sail, and Vanille and Yeul were on it.

“Why am I not surprised,” Serah said. “Trust Vanille to have a functional raft with a sail in less than two days.”

“Let’s go say hello,” Lumina said. “So I can fly the four of us out of here.” X     X     X

Author’s Notes

In a survival situation, Vanille is actually a really high pick. She has the ability to very rapidly improvise tools to improve her situation, and she can build just about anything with minimal outside support. Sure, she’s not as tough in a fight as someone like Fang, but she’s tough enough to fight off most things without much difficulty and lucky enough to avoid everything else.

[bored-storyteller]

uh I love your storys about Uta ^^. You write him so good and in character . Could you maybe write a story about him were him and the reader ( human) meeting at an auction like reader was captured and meets Uta there . But maybe they escape the auction house and meet Uta sometime after this again. I`m sorry I love Uta angst and fluff .

Dear anon. I'll tell you, your request inspired me a lot (that's why I did it right away), but I must confess that I'm not really satisfied with the result and I'm sorry (I rewrote it three times). I have to thank my poor summary skills for this defeat, I don't think I managed to really give you what you asked me. Feel free to send me clarifications or a further request for me to remedy!

43- Tokyo Ghoul, Uta x human!reader

“The bird of ill omen and the broken toy”

You are in front of his eyes, huddled in a corner of the cold and dark container. On your knees, tied up, you are the condemned to death ready to face the gallows, or rather you are a delicious dish wrapped in its most beautiful dress to entice the spectators.

"Oh, look here ... what a delightful creature."

You are not the main article, you are not the rare object, yet your smell has brought him there. Uta is not a glutton, but he couldn't resist the temptation to peek at whoever was carrying such an inviting fragrance.

"This is really a shame ..." his voice is sweet, calm, yet ironic and cruel. Yes, it's a shame that he has to give you to some miserly ghoul.

Uta doesn’t usually prefer a certain type of food, he is not delicate or picky, nor does he have problems eating even his similar ones. But he has to admit that while those bright eyes of yours, shining with tears and desperation, look at him, he really would like to be able to eat them. Yes, it is rare for someone to stimulate his appetite in this way, customers really have to thank him for his self-control.

You are so small in his shadow, and even if you tremble, even if you smell of fear, he sees no hope in your eyes.

You know you have no escape. As little as you may be when it comes to ghouls, you know you can't save yourself. You heard them talk.

You would rather die now than continue that torture.

He feels it, and oh, how tempted he is to grant your wish.

He leans over you, he wants to see you well, he wants to hear you. The demonic beak of his mask brushes against you, rubs against your temple like the muzzle of a mother cuddling his cub, or the muzzle of a lion that is playing with his prey.

Maybe, if he had met you in another situation ... maybe ...

No. He doesn't necessarily have to devour you. Nothing is ever said with Uta, even he knows it, he knows himself. Who knows what would have happened if you had met somewhere else. Who knows who you were, elsewhere.

In conclusion, you were both unlucky: you cannot survive, and he cannot be the one to eat you. You have something in common.

"Uta!"

Roma's voice makes its way, muffled by the metal container in which you are locked up - like a ready meal -

"I'm coming!" It's time for him to go on stage, for you it's time for the final bow.

He doesn't tell you anything anymore, he doesn't need to. He will say goodbye to you that same evening, but he feels a little happy that you are among the last items to be exhibited.

He still gives you a look, you, little shaking puppet, sweet broken toy. Who can fix you anymore?

After that, he leaves you behind, abandoned in the cold darkness of your last hours in solitude, as he plunges into the cold light of demons, ready to entertain his fellow men with his affable ways. What a crazy world you are both in.

. . .

Locked in your cold prison, if you could you would cover your ears in a desperate attempt to get away from the announcements and screams, but it's impossible for you. So you wait, trembling in your shell of panic, not knowing what to do. If only you had at least a vain hope, a false chance. If only you could save yourself, for some reason, any reason then yeah, oh, how dear life would be to you thereafter. But you can't even think now.

And you don't even realize that the noises change. The cries of the victims become the cries of the executioners, and the applause becomes breathless footsteps in search of a safe place. But you don't know it, or at least not until they get closer, more distressed. They are probably running away. But who can save you? Who knows you are there? Who can remember you?

And in fact, no one stops, no one frees you, and the footsteps and the screams brush against you and pass you, without bothering to kill or save you. At least you think so.

But as soon as the silence comes, the creaking of the doors opening makes you lift your face, towards the light.

He is there again, and you wonder if that Bird of ill Omen is not your hallucination. With that bizarre suit, that hateful mask, and those ancient letters around his neck that seem ready to strangle him.

He doesn't talk to you. He is simply looking at you, you feel him looking at you, behind that deadly beak. In the silence that surrounds you, whether it is a real silence or created by mutual presence, he suddenly occupies your every thought in those few seconds of eternity. Maybe it's the touch of death that wanders your mind, but suddenly unusual questions arise in you. Who knows who he is, what he does. What does he like and what not ... does he live in the alleys of the city, or maybe, instead, without that mask he pretends to be someone?

He came to take you and devour you. But it almost seems like a strange barrier is keeping him away from you.

And while you are suspended in this limbo of cold resignation, as he came he disappears, and with his disappearance he takes away from you that sad calm that had enveloped you.

The panic returns as someone approaches.

Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Clean eyes, a clean face, no mask is looking at you agitated. You don't know how to answer, you don't even know if what you are seeing is true.

“I'm a human, I'm a CCG investigator. Don't worry, it's okay, we'll get you out of here. "

Without your being fully aware of it, you find yourself in warm, safe arms that take you away from hell behind you. You didn't even realize you were crying.

. . .

He recognized your smell right away.

Even if it's been some time since his meeting with you, it's hard to forget something that has affected him so much, especially if it is something that has particularly touched his sensitivity over that of others.

And it's not that Uta is then easily surprised, he is ready to expect anything from that crazy world, yet you manage to upset him without even knowing that he is there.

You are smiling. And that's not the fact, but at the same time it is. You are smiling sweetly, sincerely. Your eyes are clear and bright, and you are listening to someone talking to you about their petty problems without batting an eye.

That night, that night he met you, he came back to eat you. He was not a ghoul who got lost in gluttony, but given the situation he had a particular interest in the statement "carpe diem".

He hadn't, in the end. In the end he just looked at you. It would have been easy to swallow you, but he had left you there. He had told himself that he hadn't made it in time, but who knows what was really going through his head at that moment.

It doesn't matter anymore, however. What's a broken toy like you doing so quietly exposed? How can you smile at people like that, when surely the world around you has crumbled into millions of little bits?

You make him angry, you know? Humans like you, whom the world keeps getting back on their feet despite everything, provoke anger in him.

And you are there, a few steps away from him, and you do not realize that the one who had the task of trampling your life is watching you.

And no matter how much anger he may feel inside of him, he can't help but look at you, as you speak comfortable words to someone, while you give your attention as if you have no problem.

"Uta?" Renji's voice, intent on looking at him from behind the coffee shop counter, makes him look away from you.

"Nh? Ah… ”His gaze falls on his now coffee-stained lap. The stain is almost invisible on the black sweater, but it is damp and warm.

"Don't laugh ... can you give me a towel please?"

"I'm not laughing." Yet Uta could swear that in the serious voice of his trusted friend a note of amusement is audible even to those who do not know him.

Carefully he puts the cup back on the saucer, making sure not to do any further damage.

This then. When was he ever so distracted for a human?

But when he instinctively looks for you, after all that nice little theater, you're not there anymore. The table you occupied is empty.

Only one object remained abandoned on the shiny surface. A book lies alone, the bookmark sticking out in the middle.

It is placed on the side where you sat. Did you leave in such a hurry that you left it there?

It is not that he has a real reason to do it, yet, while he is about to leave :Re, with all the tranquility that characterizes him, he picks up that literary volume in his hands, hiding it inside his jacket. Even that printed paper is imbued with your smell by now.

. . .

You talk to books, apparently. The edges of the pages are filled with thoughts written in pencil. They are all yours, it almost seems like you use the books as your diary, but there is nothing so personal about you. They are just… points of view. The world told by you, depending on the inspiration that the phrases in the book give you.

"It must be difficult to live in a world where you can talk to your food about your favorite book."

When Uta's eyes had settled on that particular phrase, he had closed. For someone else it might have been a stupid phrase, probably, but for him it was like a punch in the stomach.

He doesn't know if you wrote it before or after the accident, but in any case that simple sentence arouses a mixture of emotions that he doesn't really know where to place. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't understand what it meant to be a ghoul in that world, but on the other hand, the utopia in which Renji seems so hoping could be made up of people like you. If only he believed it, Uta could like that world, as long as there was a place in that world for someone like him.

“Excuse me, did you happen to find a book yesterday? I'm afraid I left it here by mistake. " Your cordial voice betrays a note of alarmism as you speak to the young girl. Your hands grip the counter as if it were a rock of salvation, but your feet are ready to run elsewhere, to look somewhere else in case it isn't there.

"Oh ... no, I'm sorry, I haven't seen any books." Touka's voice is sorry, an apologetic tone hovers between her words.

"Oh, damn ... sorry, thanks anyway!" Your words are so hasty, so quick that he doesn't have time to interrupt them.

The bell rings and the door closes with a click.

"You have it, don't you?" Renji never misses anything - or almost -.

"Yeah, it’s better that I give it back to them before they run all over Tokyo on foot."

"How long have you been so thoughtful?"

Uta allows himself to take a last look at the silver-haired ghoul from over his sunglasses, as he prepares to leave the cafe: "I'm always thoughtful."

. . .

The snow has just started to fall. It is light and silent, the parks of the metropolis have not yet begun to turn white.

You would gladly stay and watch the show from the heat of your home, if it weren't for that damn book you forgot somewhere. Oh, you love your books, but they're so good at hiding. You were convinced you left it in the coffee shop!

"Excuse me…"

A cordial voice caresses your eardrums. It's so warm and peaceful, yet a chill shiver stops the blood in your veins.

Turning around, you meet a man dressed in black. He is strange, but it doesn't surprise you, there are a lot of strange people in such a big city, even people who wear sunglasses on a snowy day.

You had already seen him in the cafe, but you didn't dwell on him. Not because he doesn't get your attention, just… it was an instinct.

“I think you were looking for this. I found it yesterday by chance. "

Clear and tapered fingers hand you your much-desired book. On fair skin, intertwining dark patterns form inexplicable designs, at least for you, but you're sure they have a lot to say, don't they?

Slowly you reach out your hand, and hesitantly touch the cover, to resume what you were looking for.

The night of the accident did not disappear. You are scared. You are afraid of death, but even more of pain, of imprisonment. You are afraid of fear itself. However, you are also afraid of not living, of wasting, of losing.

You are in a limbo that does not let you escape, and you can not help but continue your life, savoring every second, waiting for the Bird of ill Omen to come and get you.

So you push back the mistrust again, and a grateful and kind smile goes to the one who helped you, without asking for explanations.

"Thank you very much." Your voice reaches his pierced ears with such unexpected sweetness.

"It was a pleasure." His smile, decorated with the piercing, is barely hinted at, but delicate - reassuring? -

And for endless moments you look at each other, in silence, without speaking and without thinking. And then, as if nothing had happened, the dances between prey and predator begin.

"Can I buy you a coffee?"

. . .

Your eyes look at him shiny, frightened. You are still in a cage, imprisoned by a body that will soon be ready to consume you.

Uta wonders if you really never anticipated this. All the times you've crossed paths, have you really ever been in doubt? Every time you looked at him, every time you smiled at him or laughed at his words, did you never guess the truth? No, maybe you've always known it from the start, broken toys never work too well.

The mask of that evening, like a macabre mockery - both for him and for you - is leaning on the work table, not far from you, looking at you placidly. It’s a coincidence that he pulled it out just in the morning.

Suddenly the images of that day come back between you two, like a dream. The incomprehensible to you tattoo on his neck has a creepy look overwhelmed by the shadows that the soft lights create on the ghoul.

Fear invades you, like a script. Yet, while the Bird of ill Omen looms over you, trapping you in the corner of the room with his arms, your terror is different from what he had already seen in you. Today it is almost more visible, less controlled, as you tremble beneath him.

Maybe it's the surprise of being caught in a trap by someone who – perhaps- you had slowly begun to love – despite everything-, or maybe, simply, inside you a little hope still survives.

Uta's head bends, and the tip of his nose brushes your neck, smelling the coveted perfume that had so attracted him.

If you're so scared, how did you smile all that time? How did you keep going? How did you keep loving that world?

Beside his mask, as a warning of future torment, your dear book lies silent, ready to say goodbye. You lent it to him last time, he asked you for it.

Your smell is as strong, sweet, delicious as ever - so why is his stomach closing up? -

His jaws open, and as delicate as cruel they enclose your fragile neck. In them, the accelerated beats of your heart, still alive, make him tremble.

One bite and you will be nothing but dead flesh, and he hesitates.

He had to kill you before it was too late, right? Uta should know himself well enough, he had to understand right away what was happening inside him.

A sigh, and then his lips pull away, his saliva stops wetting you. He is not hungry, he has already eaten.

He is still upon you, but now he is only looking at you, with his eyes of blood and darkness. You, like a frightened puppy, remain shaking in a corner for a few moments, lost in his pupils. And then, like a crazy lightning bolt, you run away, as you have always run away. You slip under his arms, and as fast as you can you reach the door of the shop.

Uta watches you go, swallows bitter air, and then bows his head, surrendered.

What will happen now? Will you shut up in fear? Will you tell anyone? Only time will tell.

He slowly gets up, his hands caressing each other's tattooed arms, in a distracted gesture of protection, as he approaches the table. His fingers touch it, and then squeeze it, while he looks at the book that is left alone again, without your eyes on it.

And then, suddenly, as if he had woken up from a dream, he notices something: your smell has not vanished.

Turning his view, he sees you. You are still there, or maybe you are back there.

Now it is you who are on the side of the light, and he is in the corner of the cage. The Bird of ill Omen has become the broken toy, left alone among his masks.

"What's up?" No matter the crack inside, Uta always looks so mature, peaceful, even after he has threatened to kill you.

You take a step towards him, but your outstretched arm continues to secure yourself to the door jamb. If you left he wouldn't follow you, you know that right?

"I ... I think I'm crazy, Uta ..." You too realize how much your behavior is against logic, how foolish it is to remain - to search - in your nightmare. But on the other hand, humans ... no, people, when they are desperate, lose the light of reason, and do wrong things. Things the world says are wrong. That world, which claims to be the only one, when it is nothing more than a facade, a corner of something much larger.

"Yes, I think so too." He really thinks so. You have to be crazy to still be there, at least as crazy as he is. "Why are you still here?"

You shrug your shoulders, hugging yourself more out of shyness than out of fear - yeah, you're no longer afraid, it's as if you've run out of batteries.

"I ... as long as I'm alive I can choose, right?" It came out of your lips so naturally that you didn't even realize it was you who uttered that sentence, yet it's a truth so deep, so intense that it has guided you from that damn night to this day.

"And what are you choosing?"

Your eyes cast a fleeting glance outside, at the glimmer of the city, and without hesitation you gently accompany the door to close, imprisoning you. Imprisoning both of you.

Maybe it's a prison, but this time it's really your choice. You are with that Bird of ill Omen, but you are not tied up, you are not thrown to the ground in a cold corner. You are with him, surrounded by works of art that stare at you impassively, but it was you who decided it.

"I choose not to ignore anymore ..." Your fingers intertwine with each other, you play with them as if you need to keep them busy as you approach him. He is waiting for you. "I want to understand."

"How can you understand?" He would like to tell you, but he doesn't say a word, because not even he can understand you. What kind of mask would suit you? Who knows, yet he has learned enough about you that he should be able to think of at least one. But no, you are always there, hoping for something, believing that after all, living is worthwhile.

So he stays there, even when you lean against him. Not a contact, but a fusion. Stomach against stomach, lungs against lungs, heart against heart. Your hands cling to his arms only to hold him closer, and as he looks at your closed eyes he knows you're listening to him. You're trying to feel his every breath, every twitch of him. You want to get inside him, and he lets you do it - isn't that what he wanted too?

The predator and the prey united in a single entity for an eternal instant.

It's all so against the moral and social rules, but what do you care now? You already know he could kill you. And in that world that goes round and round without stopping, a black writing in an ancient language that also goes around a greedy neck could be your starting point for putting the pieces back together. Maybe it's a disease, maybe it's madness, but deep down, why not? Why not go a little further? Better to die than to be afraid to live, right?

"How much confidence ..."

His voice further softened by his whisper makes your previously closed eyelids lift. His nocturnal eyes look at you slightly narrowed, a slight upward crease caresses his lips without even knowing it. It is difficult for Uta to do something without being aware of it.

He is very beautiful. Beautiful and awful.

"Can't I?"

The world out there, the crazy little world is gone.

"Well, why not ... you are my food, after all."

[plussizeappreciationfics]

Series: Just the assistant..?

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Plus sized reader

Summary: [Y/N], Tom's personal assistant knows that she shouldn't have fallen in love with her employer but she just couldn't help herself. When she thinks that her biggest wish is about to come true, a third party arrives and makes her question whether she'd ever have a chance to escape her situation and simply be loved back by the person she loves the most...

Warning(s): adult language

Word count: 2,3k 

Picture(s) found on: Pinterest/Google

CHAPTER TWO: The boundaries have been overstepped

“I’m fine, just make sure that the stylist closes the door behind her once you’re gone” [Y/N] spoke into her phone before letting out a soft cough, her throat sore and itchy. She heard a long sigh from the other end of the line and rolled her eyes.

“Tom, this isn’t the first time I’m sick. So what, I caught a cold a three days ago, it’s not the end of the world” she couldn’t see the actor’s frown increasing on his face as he listened to her weak voice explaining her situation. 

Hours before, the assistant had been tossing and turning in her bed for quite a while, her body not being at peace because it longed to be held again by Tom. She couldn’t stop thinking about the dinner, how intense his stares has been and how he suddenly seemed so interested in her. [Y/N] was staring at the dark ceiling of her room and shook her head in contentment, having a feeling that something special would happen to her very soon.

He felt bad because he technically had been the reason his assistant had gotten sick in the first place; After their celebration dinner, Tom had ended up not being able to fall asleep, so he had called [Y/N] over and they ended up stargazing in his backyard, barely speaking a word with each other. They just sat next to each other, shoulders and arms touching and looked up the beautiful sky with a faint smile ghosting on their lips.

By the time [Y/N] had returned home, she was a coughing and sneezing mess and thus resulted in her having to take a week off because she had caught a nasty cold. She was on her 4th day off and pretty much enjoyed not having to do much physical activity besides feeding herself and taking her medication on time.

“Tom? Are you still there?” the assistant asked, wondering why he was being so silent. The actor cleared his throat and felt his stomach churn in discomfort, the intense need to take care of [Y/N] making it hard for him to focus on anything else. He couldn’t have a good day while knowing that she was in poor health and discomfort, he wished that he could heal her with a simple hug but that was obviously impossible.

Her thoughts had been interrupted by Tom calling her, nervously asking her if his call wasn’t a disturbance because the world was fast asleep. [Y/N] gently told him that she hadn’t been able to sleep either before happily accepting his invitation to stargaze in his backyard as he had one of the best views.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here…Just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you. Anything. I-need you-I mean we need you strong and healthy again” Tom added a quick fake cough at the end as he had realized that he was starting to slip, he had been thinking about his assistant a lot the past few days and had found himself calling and texting her more than usual, she reciprocated to his mood and energy though. So he knew that he wasn’t bothering her at all.

Her stomach was fluttering in delight and she couldn’t help but smile and stare into space. Something is happening, Tom has been very attentive and kinda needy of my presence the last few days…Maybe he’s starting to feel the same way…Or maybe he’s going through something and is gathering the courage to finally share it with me…

“I’ll be fineeeeee, just don’t forget to tell me who your costars will be on the play. Bye” and with that, [Y/N] quickly hung up the phone before releasing the breath she didn’t know she was holding in. She had heard the slip up and forced herself to not read too much in between the lines. 

“Anyhow” [Y/N] muttered to herself while getting comfortable under the warm sheets of her bed. She still had three days of peace and quiet and was enjoying them by getting as much sleep as possible and catching up with her reading list. Today she would’ve had a busy day ahead; Tom had 2 talk shows appearances. 

She thankfully already had helped him arrange his wardrobe for the appearances through her phone and laptop, the stylist only had to come by and deliver the suits, which would be in an hour, but [Y/N] already had strictly (but kindly) instructed her to do her job and make sure that everything was alright with the clothes.

Tom had gotten a fresh trim the morning and had decided to let his long curls stay the way they were (because [Y/N] had voiced a nice compliment about the way it looked so the actor silently decided to grow it out a little more).

His driver was also on his way as he preferred to be driven to public events. Tom’s fans were known for blocking entries and streets once they’d know he’d be present somewhere. He loved his fans to death, but he knew that driving himself through a sea of frantic people (with his already bad eyesight) could cause a serious accident. 

Everything that had to be done, was done. So, [Y/N] was able to relax and focus on getting her health back on track.

She took one final glance at her phone before locking the screen and placing it on her nightstand, feeling tired and sore. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep, with her special someone lingering in her mind…

“What are you doing here?” [Y/N] wondered in confusion upon seeing Tom welcome himself into her home, his jacket already removed along with the shoes. He then made his way over to the couch where she comfortably seated, her phone in her hand and looking through her mails. She silently was thankfully for the shower she had taken thirty minutes ago because she looked like her normal self and also smelled good.

“I am here to keep you company on your final days off as I know that you have missed my presence oh so much” the actor added a dramatic sigh while sitting next to his assistant and appreciating her beauty from up close. “Of course did I miss you, I can’t stand to be parted from you for so long, oh my dear Thomas” she reciprocated his dramatic and sarcastic tone, although she was being completely honest.

Three days later

“Then we shall enjoy each other’s company before the hectic and busy world seeks our attention again, M’lady” the actor spoke with a chuckle, the bright smile on his face still very much present. He was wearing a simple pair of blue pants and his famous dark blue sweater, he looked as scrumptious as always. 

[Y/N] had to swallow hard as she forced her eyes to not scan him from head to toe, it would make it obvious that she was attracted to him, emotionally and physically. These next few hours certainly would be trick and tempting…

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Tom suggested, placed his arm around her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze for no reason at all (Well…we all know the reason, don’t we?). “Sure, you can pick one out!” [Y/N] spoke with excitement, euphoria pumping through her blood as she now knew that she was addicted to his touch. No one had ever made her feel so comfortable. She was a confident woman but to feel this extra layer of security and comfort just soothed her soul on the daily.

“We can watch whatever you want, darling” Tom mumbled, feeling a rush of contentment himself from purely having her this close to him. [Y/N] took the remote in her hand and opened the Netflix app, she looked through her daily suggestions and the top ten of most popular movies that were currently trending. Tom’s soft fingers were playing with the material of her shirt, reaching the hem of her sleeve and then smoothly drawing random patterns on her soft skin.

“How about Spirited Away? It’s been years since I’ve seen that masterpiece!” [Y/N] happily suggested, “Plus the movie also shows how love can be so strong, even when the two people barely acknowledge or talk about it. It’s all about the actions”. Hearing the short description had the actor instantly curious and so he agreed to watch it, despite never having seen it himself.

Both relaxed against the couch (yes, Tom’s arm still around [Y/N]’s shoulder, now having moved even closer so that their bodies were in constant contact), before the movie was playing on the screen. [Y/N] randomly explained certain scenes that had the actor a little bit confused and once he’d understand the reference or meaning behind it, he couldn’t help but lean in and whisper his thanks into her ear. To say that the tension was thick, sizzling yet light and delicate was an understatement.

__

[Y/N] slowly opened her eyes, letting out a tired sigh while slowly acknowledging the conscious world again. “Mhm” she mumbled, realizing that she had fallen asleep sometime during the movie. She was about to sit up straight when a strong, but gentle grip around her thick waist pulled her back.

Fuck.

She turned her head to look behind her and saw Tom sleeping peacefully, having lied down behind her at some point. He grumbled softly in his slumber before pulling her warm body closer to him again. [Y/N] felt like she was about to have a heart attack. But she still slowly repositioned herself in her previous position and stared at the TV screen.

She knew that they had overstepped a heavy boundary of their professional relationship. But did she feel bad? Nope. She felt so at ease, it was like his arms were made just for her. The current moment was one she had often dreamed about and to actually have the privilege to experience it was just indescribable.

“[Y/N]….” Tom whispered in his sleep, his voice low and rich with smoothness. He was literally trying to pull her into his body, his hands gently squeezing one of her stomach rolls. She felt his toned chest against her back along with the body heat he was radiating onto her, his head now nuzzling in the crook of her neck. When his soft breaths tickled her sensitive skin, [Y/N] thought that she was about to burst into flames. The acts were so intimate yet tender, everything she had always assumed about him now being true.

Tom Hiddleston was a clingy sleep cuddler.

“Fuck” she whispered again when he let out a content sigh, already having tears brim her eyes as this all felt like dream. The man she had been loving for three years now was finally reciprocating her love. 

[Y/N] closed her eyes and enjoyed the amazing feeling of pure love and joy, she even reached her arm out and gently ran her hand through Tom’s soft curls and sighed in pure delight herself. She wished that she could stay like this forever, just the two of them. 

__

“[Y/N]?”

Her eyes fluttered open and she (again) took acknowledgment of her surroundings. She still was lying on her couch, But Tom was now sitting next to her, along with two bags of takeout resting on her coffee table.

“Mhm? I’m awake” [Y/N] mumbled once her brain recognized the sound of Tom’s soft voice calling out for her.

“Are you hungry? I ordered Thai as it’s almost six in the evening and you haven’t eaten anything yet” his gaze was soft and kind. The assistant nodded her head and slowly sat up, silently comprehending that Tom had woken up after she had fallen back asleep again. She felt a pang of disappointment churn in her stomach once she also realized that he was pretending like nothing had happened.

“Thanks Tom, I must have fallen asleep. My bad”

But she also understood and accepted why.

“Nothing to be sorry about, I fell asleep myself and actually had a great rest. The past few days had been very stressful, and I had really needed an afternoon of peace and quiet. So thanks again, [Y/N], for letting me enjoy your company”.

Tom’s appreciation speech actually mended the disappointment she felt, she hadn’t known about the few sorrows and stressed he had had because he hadn’t voiced them to her at all, despite having texted and called her plenty of times throughout the day.

Wow…

“You’re welcome, Tom” was all she was able to respond before reaching for the takeout bags and looking at what deliciousness were awaiting her. She ignored his piercing stare, not knowing why she suddenly was the sole focus of his attention. It was hard doing so because she felt like his eyes were burning holes on the side of her face.

“You’re very beautiful, [Y/N].

She turned to him, a bright smile creeping upon her face as her heart skipped a beat. “Thank you Tom, you are handsome yourself”. He chuckled and finally looked down at his lap, a slight crimson shade appearing on his cheeks as he felt flustered and appreciated.

[Y/N] handed him the second bag of food before removing the items in her own bag. 

“That’s amazing! Do you want me to book a table at your usual restaurant?” [Y/N] asked while feeling happy for Tom’s friends, she knew that he’d have a blast with the play and that sole thought left her smiling to herself while the actor continued to share the details of the upcoming play to her, still sitting very close to her and barely being able to keep her eyes off her beautiful face.

“By the way, I have great news”, [Y/N] hummed as in indication that she was listening while continuing to unpack her food. “Charlie and Zawe have been casted as the other two main characters in the play! We’ll be all going to dinner tomorrow!”

Tag list: @jamesbarnesappreciationclubub  l @pleasantdreamqueen l @disneymarina l l @harleycativy  l @sparklemichele l @melaninmarvel l @amethyst09 l @the-force-of-imagines l @bossyboyd03 l @pebblesz892 l @stars8melanin l @brittyevans l @toc1985 l @janeyboo l @badassbaker l @winters-beauty l @cannonindeez  l @ilovefanfic86  l @adorablespecialsnowflakes l @brittanyovens l @kanupps06 l @jazmynejack l @thebookwormslytherin l @theunsweetenedtruth l @talannalew l @littlexmissxfandomxlover l @amethyst-dreams-and-candy-canes l @crimsonash330 l @booklover2929 l @aranelgrey l @panda-duuu l @thisismysecrethappyplace  l @titty-teetee l @honey-anon l @princess-evans-addict l @hp-hogwartsexpress l @malindacath  l @letsdisneythings l @scorpionchild81 l @shado-raven l @alisoncdariel l @plutoneu l  @queenoftheworldisdead l @briannab1234l @miyaeadys-blog l @thenamelesscorpse2185 l @hihellogoodbyebruh l @nackrosor l @nerdgurl1985 l @2darkskinbeauty l @bugngiz l @african-melanin-goddess l @barnes-wilson-love l @ktiz90 l @let-the-love-in l @forlornfortitude l @robinredboob l @hopefuloperaangelnerd l @kola95 l @partypoison00 l @alwaysadreamingoptimist l @reniescarlett l @g0thicdream l @mayasopinions l @captaintightpants58 l @leillee​ l @kayleighsimone​ 

-Emmanuelle 💋❤️

[voiceswithoutlips]

Fallen - Chapter One

— pairing: OT7 x Reader (F) — genre: Fantasy AU, Vampire AU, Soulmate AU, Fluff, Eventual Smut, ANGST , Poly!BTS — word count: 2.8k — Rating: M — warnings: minor character death, slight gore — beta: Thank you so much @taegularities​ and @unoriginal-username15432​ for all you feedback <3

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— chapter summary:  

The people you killed, they haunted your dreams. They would say to you, “What you do always comes back to you, there is no escape from this miserable life.” It was true, there was no escape. In your world there was only darkness, sorrow, fear, hate and death, always death.

— A/N: It is I, your idiotic author. Welcome to my blog <3

Ch. 2

The sound of rain was like a roaring beast. It was almost midnight and the roads were lonely. You stood there in an alley facing a madman, uh, mad-vampire. His eyes were glowing red; he was wearing a dirty grey cloak on his rag like cloth. His brown hair had gotten messy when he’d run away from you but there he was, still as a dead body, waiting for you to attack. There were thick walls on both sides of the alley and behind him was a dead end. He was trapped.

“Lockham, why don’t you come back with me? That way I won’t have to kill you,” you suggested to the psycho killer vampire who stood a mere ten feet away from you. There was no way for him to run so maybe he would attack. You weighed your options - fight? That would’ve been nice; at least your body would’ve gotten some exercise.

He laughed. “You think you can win? Destiny is waiting for you Hunter,” he said in an impressive voice. Another one of those ‘destiny’ believers. Apparently the Goddess had a plan for us all, not that you had much faith in it. Gods don't care about who kills whom or who eats what, they’re more concerned about their own entertainment. You’d never put much faith in any higher power, God or not, nobody gave a shit.

“You’ve killed people Lockham, you’ve been a very naughty vampire and now it’s time for your punishment,”you said as a teacher would say to a naughty kid. He took a step back.

“Who are you to punish me?” he mocked, showing you his blood covered teeth. He was just having a meal when you found him and then you two had a nice chase. You were glad that he ran, you wanted to stretch out your legs anyway.

“Exactly, I’m no one,” you said and took a step forward; he took a step back simultaneously and vanished. What? Vanished? How? You walked forward to investigate and sighed. How careless of you. There was a hole, he fell into the sewer. He must have used cloaking so that it would look like he vanished. The only thing he forgot was to close the hole. You shook your head,  you hated wet places! You jumped down and landed lightly on your feet, without making a sound, perfect.

You were getting bored of chasing him, it was almost dawn and you needed your beauty sleep. You took a deep breath and pulled out your silver dagger. It was your favorite weapon. Silver was deadly to vampires. It was very pretty with a finely carved snake on the handle with emeralds where the eyes should be; a gift from someone you had known a long time ago.  You closed your eyes and let your mind wander through the tunnels. Just like your immunity to silver, your telepathy was stronger than centuries old vampires and you could perform magic. You were a half-witch after all.

You found him running through the tunnels. As soon as your mind touched him, he froze. You were inside his mind now. Reading someone’s mind was nothing like watching a movie or reading a book. It was like waking up from a dream, you don’t remember what you saw or heard but the thing that you remember is the feeling, the essence of the dream. Every being has a certain essence, unique to them. Like walls that you can’t see or touch, but you know they’re there. You could clearly see the tunnel before you, but it was like a distant memory, you were no longer there.

You were in a room, an old room with cobwebs and dust. It smelled of something rotten, like a thousand dead rats. There were worn out clothes hanging from the ceiling - correction, there was no ceiling, just clothes hanging midair and swaying with the wind, except there was no wind. At one corner sat two rusty iron chairs. The window with broken glass showed a full moon. 

There was an old cupboard on the wall with the yellow wallpaper. It was white as if someone had carved it from bone. There were noises coming from the cupboard, screeching, screaming, the cry of a baby, the soothing voice of a mother, someone’s last words. A shudder ran through your body. I will never ever do this again, you promised yourself. 

You heard a creak from behind and you swiftly turned back. There he was, sitting in a corner, the little boy. He held a tattered grey cloak in his hands. His body was folded at impossible angles. He was white as a sheet, there was no blood in his body. He was thin with brittle bones. Dull brown eyes in a sunken face held unimaginable terror. 

He looked up at you. “I’m tired, I want to sleep,” he whispered and quickly stole a glance at the cupboard.

“Then why don’t you sleep?” you whispered back, clearly not wanting to wake anything in there. Yeah, getting into someone’s mind was a nice thing, you could get full control over them... but there was a catch. If something went wrong in that mind or if you failed to escape in time, then you’d be trapped there forever, or die. You were pretty sure that you didn’t want to be trapped in this mind, not here.

“They don’t let me sleep, they keep me awake so that I could bring more and more food for them,” he replied, pointing a finger at the cupboard. Slowly, you understood what he was saying. ‘One without a soul feeds on other’s souls,’ the thought crossed your mind, not a good one.

“What if you don’t bring them food?” You already knew the answer but you asked anyway, maybe just to confirm it.

“I’ll go mad,” he whispered back with horrified eyes.

“Come to me, I’ll help you sleep.” The words left your lips, the real ones which were still attached to your face. Lockham turned back and slowly walked towards you. You could hear his heavy footsteps in the tunnel.  At last he took the last turn and there he stood right in front of you. His eyes were blank. It was like there was no soul in his body, no life. You had him entirely under your control. If you told him to do ballet, he would dance like a professional, but you weren't a sadist. Life had already tortured him enough. 

“Come forward,” you said softly, the sooner it ended the better. He walked forward and your silver dagger slashed through his throat, severing his spine, killing him in a second. Blood splashed and soaked his body. It was a merciful death, you had seen worse. There are worse things than death in this world. Death was just an easy escape.

You stood there for a moment, looking at him, wishing that the outcome would’ve been different. Were you feeling sorry for him? No, you were feeling sorry for yourself. You were a fifty year old vampire and in all your years as a hunter you’d killed hundreds of criminals, but you had never been able to save one. 

People knew and people talked. Some said that you were cursed; you were the representative of death, the spawn of darkness. As a result, the council only gave you high profile cases, criminals that were too far gone to be saved. It was always death. The people you killed, they haunted your dreams. They would say to you, “What you do always comes back to you, there is no escape from this miserable life.” It was true, there was no escape. In your world there was only darkness, sorrow, fear, hate and death, always death.

You pulled out your cell phone and called the police. They would take care of the body. You bent down to leave a tracker near it, so they would find it easily. Lockham’s eyes were wide open, and you closed them. “At least one of us is at peace,” you whispered. 

“You’re home!!” little Lilly exclaimed happily as you walked through the door. Your  family was sitting in the dining room, having supper. You were the firstborn, the eldest of your father’s children. Your father was the Duke of Serafino, the City of Snake; one of the two warrior cities in the Vampire Kingdom. He was a nice man with brown eyes and hair, fair complexion, nicely built but a little short. 

Your stepmother was a beauty; she had blue eyes, fair complexion, sharp features and hair spun like gold. Her children took after her, all cream and gold. They all hated you, except for the little one, Lilly.

“Yay, I’m home,” you said sarcastically. It was hard not to be nice to the little girl who looked at you with wonder in her eyes; she was so full of life. To no one’s wonder you had blood on your clothes and your darling step mother eyed it with a look in her eyes that said filthy. For you, it was like an invitation. You were planning to have supper in your room just like any other day, but you sat down at the end of the table. Your father was seated at his normal seat which belonged to the head of the family. The chair right across from him was the place for his wife, but that was your mother’s place and now it belonged to you. 

Your mother had died in childbirth, you had her amber eyes and olive skin. Her name was Katina. People told you that she’d been a beauty; you had some of her pictures and sometimes you would feel her close beside you. It was a weird feeling, but not bad, not at all. You weren't a person who put her feelings on display, heck you hadn’t even cried in like twenty years! The only permanent feeling you had left was emptiness. You felt numb, like a shell, nothing inside, no love, no hope, not even sorrow after all these years. It felt like you were dead and it was true, your heart was dead.

“I would like some blood sausages Charles and don’t forget the wine,” you said cheerfully to the butler. He was a nice guy, always talked politely. You suspected that he was in love with the cook, Ms. Glen; it would be nice to have some love in this house which felt like living in a coffin.

“How was your day, Y/N?” Lilly asked, her cheerful eyes trained on you. You wondered for how long this child would be allowed to keep her innocence? When you’d been her age ...you shied away from that thought. Thoughts bring back memories and your memories were like old corpses, one would never want to dig them. Instead you took a bite of your sausage - man, they were delicious.

“It was almost nice, Bunny. I played who-can-catch-me with a friend and I won!!” Bunny was the nickname you had given her because she was never still. Everyone paused for a moment; it was really weird and funny at the same moment. You loved how all the eyes drifted to you and back to Lilly. She was beaming because you had won the game. You gave her a small smile.

“Oh that’s wonderful!! Where is your friend now?” Curious little kid, everyone paused again, including you this time.

“You see, we were playing on a bet. He lost the bet so he had to …go to another city.” You were very good at lying, but her beaming eyes and pure innocence made it hard. It was impossible to lie to that child.

“When would he come back?” she asked, and you sighed. Your plate was half empty and the looks everyone were giving you just killed the hunger inside. You stood up with the wine glass in my hand.

“Chew your food, Bunny,” you replied and left the room.

Your room was a mixture of blue and gold. The wallpapers were straight lines of different shades of blue. The furniture was of mahogany wood with fine carvings. The round rug was golden on the edge and blue in the middle, it looked like a pool of water. All the linen was blue and gold as well. Your bed was round and big with golden bedposts and curtains. You had a balcony of your own with a little fountain with a sculpture of a mother and her child. You had spent a lot of time taking care of the blue roses in your garden. 

The front wall was covered with your music collection. You found peace in music, it was the only time when you could just forget everything and float. You quickly changed and crawled under the sheets, picking up the remote from the side table and pressing the play button. It was Mozart’s duo. What an amazing symphony! It helped you drift back to your happy memories.

Unlike your half brothers and sisters, you were raised in Tiria. It was a small town on the edge of Serafino. You were raised by the Countess of Tiria, a very kind woman. She had grace, beauty, and wealth but no children. She showered you with love and pretty gifts. You had excellent teachers for your education. You learned everything from crochet to fencing. 

The manor there was old and beautiful. It had a beautiful garden and a whole forest around it. You would often go into the forest, just to explore it. Those were the happiest days of your life. Until your tenth birthday - the day the Countess died.

Just like the symphony, your thoughts turned darker. You’d been happy that day; the maids had told you that you were going to have a big birthday party. The Earl had been there for two weeks now. Your innocent mind had thought that he was there for your birthday. That morning you were out in the gardens, picking up some red roses for the Countess, it was something you did every day. You would just run into her room to put them on her side table, she loved that. You held the bunch of roses in your tiny hands, running through the house to her room. You were wearing a very pretty white dress with laces and pink ribbons. Your bare feet softly met the stone floor as you ran to her room and pushed the door, happily calling to her.

The Countess was there, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. There were bruises on her body and a sword, stabbed right through her heart. The handle of the sword was in the hands of the Earl. He twisted the blade with a cruel smile in his eyes. Then you screamed. The flowers falling from your hands, red roses into red blood - they were the same color. Your pretty white dress was now red. You backed away still screaming, leaving little red footprints on the floor. The maids came running to you and held you tight as you screamed and screamed. You don’t remember for how long you were screaming or what happened later.

You drifted off to sleep. 

It was a beautiful forest. The trees were so thick that sunlight barely touched the ground and everything was covered in moss. You were standing there in front of a giant wolf. It wasn’t a werewolf, it smelled like a  regular  one but just giant, like a direwolf. It was growling at you, baring his teeth. You had no weapons with you, you double checked. You looked around for an escape, you could kill him with your teeth but they weren’t as sharp as they’d used to be. You looked at your nails, they were fragile. Heck! You were human!!

“Y/N, wake up!!” the wolf suddenly spoke in a girly voice. It didn’t make sense, really.

“Are you a girl?” you asked the wolf who was ready to kill you. Talking to an animal, guess you had finally lost your sanity.

“Y/N!!” Someone was shaking you, trying to wake you up without much success. Then you realized you were sleeping under a bunch of blankets and pillows. It was three in the morning; you could tell by the smell of the air. You peeked at the person who had dared to disturbed you. It was Lily.

“What is it, Bunny?” you asked sleepily. It was good she had practice understanding you while you sleep talked, if it was anyone else, they would’ve thought you were talking gibberish.

“I had a bad dream,” she said with a puppy face. You knew what she wanted; she wanted to sleep with you. 

“Me too,” you replied and ran your tongue over your teeth, yup, still vampire. “Come here you,” you said, grabbing her and stuffing her under the pile of blankets and pillows. You loved a warm cozy place to sleep. You held her like a teddy bear and dozed off again. She was so soft in your arms and she held tight onto you. Protecting someone was a good feeling. You went back to sleep as if  you had never woken up.

NEXT

[intothewickedwood]

Once Upon A Time Rewatch: 7x09 One Little Tear

Love the opening of this episode.

It was a really interesting decision to make Rapunzel also Tremaine. Who watches Tangled and thinks, “Ah yes, she grows up to become the wicked stepmother from Cinderella.” 

I actually really like young Rapunzel. She goes through absolute hell and she’s extremely determined. A combination that can inevitably lead to disaster if the character walks a destructive path.

I just realised Rapunzel’s Witch having a garden is likely influenced by Into the Woods, though it could be from one of the original tales. “Greens, greens and nothing but greens!”

It’s weird to think Gothel is way older than Rumple. I imagine she’s older than the Blue Fairy as well, but who knows anything when it comes to Blue.

Ow! Those vines straight up cut her!

Poor Rapunzel. Gothel, why are you like this?

Alice must have been marking each day she was trapped as well for her to know exactly how many days she was trapped for. Or maybe she just worked it out by adding them up each time the second star to the right blinked to the north. 

Those lanterns look so pretty. It looks like Anastasia and Drizella let off hundreds of them.

Also, how is it humanly possible for someone’s hair to grow that long in, like, 6 years? The only explanation is Gothel put a spell on it but why? Why didn’t she do the same with Alice’s hair? She didn’t need to brush it to stay young as she was able to stop or significantly slow her aging process for many years before that. I think it was significantly slowed as she seemed to be a teenager or young adult when her family were killed but appears to be in, maybe her late 30s by the time she gives birth to Alice.

But that does make me wonder if Alice can age properly up to a certain point? Did her own physical aging significantly slow after she reached young adulthood? Does she perhaps physically grow a year older every 100 years or so? That seems to be the case with Gothel. And, of course, Alice could take after her father in that sense but it’s fun to think about and she did inherit Gothel’s magic after all.

Oh! Rapunzel wasn’t even being held within the tower by a magical barrier. Imagine when she met Wish Hook and he was like, “Oh yeah, I climbed down and up that tower every day. No big deal.” She would probably want to scream. But I’m with her on this one. Without a rope that tower would be impossible to climb up or down. Maybe she just didn’t think of using her hair before, or Gothel was guarding her or maybe she’s just terrified of heights which is freaking relatable.

I do feel for her. All those 6 years and the only thing keeping her going was the thought of coming back to her family. Finding out that she can’t get back to that, especially since she had made that sacrifice for them, must have been so painful. I wonder if she didn’t use her hair as a rope previously because she was worried that if she escaped her family, with or without her, would lose their happiness and go back to a life of extreme poverty.

Her utter devastation. And poor Ella and Cecelia are caught in the middle of it. They did nothing wrong and they lose each other and everything as a result of entering the family.

So, is the Tweedle that actor also played in Ouatiw related to Marcus?

He still loves Rapunzel. What a difficult situation to be in for everyone involved and she still clearly loves him. Heck, the thought of him and her daughters was all that kept her going for 6 years of hell. The thought of that image that was all you had being destroyed upon being free is horrible. And for it to be so close to her reach, knowing he still loves her, that he would have her back if only the one person stands in her way could part from him. What she did was extremely wrong, but I actually think a lot of people would have done the same thing in her situation if they had a magic solution that didn’t have to result in death. 

I forgot Rapunzel initially refused to hurt Cecilia because she saw her as an innocent, which she was. She thought she’d never be that person.

How did Marcus not suspect that it was her who did something to Cecelia? Rapunzel got her family back out of Cecelia’s heart being poisoned. Who else stood to gain anything from that? I suppose he assumed it had to be a magic user, thinking it was a spell. Or maybe he thought Rapunzel incapable of such a deed. The woman before the tower would never have done such a thing, perhaps. I bet Cecelia knew what she’d done.

Omg Hooking Utensil scene!! I am not ready!! 

Bahahahaha! The thought of Rumple shoving his dagger into Sabine’s hand and asking if she feels anything lmao. Why does that seem like a creepily sexual thing to do? Sabine seems so disturbed. 

He must have suspected Tiana was a potential Guardian. I wonder if she could be. And I wonder if Rumple would have been willing to burden her or even Anastasia with immortality, considering he didn’t know them as well as Alice.

Why did Tremaine suddenly start pronouncing Anastasia’s name like that? It’s presumably wrong because she used to say it the way everyone else does when she was young Rapunzel. Maybe it’s a little joke they had between them or something. 

She’s doing the same thing she learned to do those 6 years while she was trapped. She’s holding onto the memory of Anastasia and expecting her to be exactly as she was when they were separated. That’s why she fixates so much on Anastasia, because she was just how she remembered her before she was trapped in the tower (albeit older). She was the only person or thing that remained the same and who lived up to her memories and imagination.

You know what, Rapunzel was straight up traumatized. She spent all those years in isolation. I never thought of it like that before. Her actions were terrible and inexcusable, but that trauma certainly informed them. Of course, Alice didn’t react the way she did, but everyone reacts differently to traumatic events. Girl needed therapy. Cecelia, Rapunzel’s relationship to Drizella and even Ella could have been saved. Where was Archie when they needed him? Even in present Hyperion Heights you can tell how much those events have both physically and mentally scarred her.

Tremaine: “And for the record, that girl out there hasn’t been my daughter for a very long time.” God, I feel for Drizella here.

Aren’t Disney making a ‘Tremaine’ movie? To be honest they can’t top this backstory. What are they gonna do, show us a bunch of mice beating her mum with a broom and shoving her off a cliff?!

Is Rapunzel their maid?

Cecelia seems so nice. I bet she was a kind mother figure to Alice.

Cecelia was totally ready to invite Rapunzel into their marriage. They could have had a poly relationship if they were all game. 

I think Ella might be the oldest. She’s a lot taller than Anastasia.

Marcus shows signs of wanting to invite her into their marriage too. I wonder if he’s still technically married to both. Maybe they should have outright asked her. Or maybe it just wasn’t for her or wasn’t approved of in the NEF.

Drizella’s just a kid, of course it was gonna be hard for her to adapt to having her birth mother back. For 6 years of her 10 years of life Cecelia was probably the only mother she remembered. She might have seen Rapunzel as a threat to her relationship with Cecelia. 

I understand it must really hurt Rapunzel to see her daughter not giving her a chance and pouring all her affections into her other mother. You can see it’s killing her. 

Rapunzel snapped. 

Rumple is so irritated by Gothel calling herself “Mother Gothel’ on behalf of Alice. It probably makes him think of What he thought was his own mother’s abandonment of him.

Why is Gothel hinting that Tremaine is after Lucy? Doesn’t she want Anastasia awake? 

Victoria’s being a creep. 

Ella, don’t go after the hat! It’s not worth it, girl.

Aww. Anastasia was worried about Ella and followed her. I tend to forget how many years they spent just growing up as sisters.

Marcus was gonna show Rapunzel how much he valued her. Was he gonna propose to her again or was he gonna do something else?

I’m not sure if he specifically went after Ella because of favouritism or if she was the first one he saw. It was fine that he saved Ella first but for God’s sake, save your other daughter too! He gave up so quickly! Rapunzel must have fished her out herself. Maybe he was hurt or something. I have to believe that, otherwise that’s just cruel and it seems like he doesn’t care about Anastasia at all. And I would say the same if he saved Anastasia first and left Ella. The only thing is that if he’d saved Anastasia first and was too tired to save Ella, I don’t know if Rapunzel would dive in to save Ella. She might have done if the other girls begged her. It’s not fair to put so much blame on Ella. Anyone could have made the mistake of going for the hat and she was just a kid. They shouldn’t have let them play there in the first place! And if she blames Ella for Marcus saving her first, that’s ridiculous because it was completely out of Ella’s control.

Interestingly, Victoria insists to Lucy that she is her family but earlier she said that Drizella hasn’t been her daughter in a long time. Does that mean she sees Ella as a daughter? She certainly doesn’t show it.

Wow. Grandmother of the year.

So, the blood magic couldn’t be broken by Anastasia’s mother potentially taking her place? I always assumed it was the blood of the tower’s occupant that kept them trapped but it makes more sense that it’s always been Gothel’s blood that kept any occupant trapped since she used blood magic before she tried to trap Anastasia and had access to her blood. So, Wish Hook could never have taken Alice’s place, which I think I always knew but somehow didn’t put the pieces together that it was Gothel’s bloodline magic that kept Alice entrapped and not Alice’s.

Ha! She got you, Gothel! Serves you freaking right!

Listen, that move was badass on Rapunzel’s part.

Bless Rumple, frantically searching for his great-granddaughter. I’m not sure we ever saw those two interact.

This tear magic is weird. The fact that Lucy’s tears can be used to break curses in a way that puts her under a curse is so dangerous. Every time she cries, they need to collect those tears and burn them or something. Emma’s tears were used to keep Hook separated from her, so it must run in the family. Keep those tears in a safe, Charmings!  

So, I guess Lucy wasn’t under a sleeping curse then? Presumably she suffered the same fate as Anastasia had all those years. I mean, it’s between life and death, so it could be the Neverworld. I’m not sure. That’s probably why True Loves kiss didn’t work between Henry and Lucy when she was in the hospital.

God, poor Lucy. Jacinda must have been terrified.

That was a great episode! I found young Rapunzel to be so complex and compelling. Her backstory was great!

[bigskydreaming]

Fandom Stuff To-Do List (basically just stuff I want to get to this week in any order, now that I have Completion Capabilities. Not meant to be a promise of any specific things on this for sure getting done, just these are stuff on my mind to get around to when I have the chance)

- Finish meta post about the wings fic AU and how peoples’ wings are affected by massive physical or emotional trauma that changes them as a person (aka do Babs’ wings change when she becomes Oracle). Which will of course segue into a mini-rant about how our culture tends to view trauma and the acquisition of physical disabilities as something there’s no coming back from, like there’s a ceiling on how good a person’s life can ever be after certain things happen to them. 

And that’s why so much of our media content is geared towards treating disabled people and survivors almost more as resources to ensure ‘the same kind of thing’ doesn’t happen to people it hasn’t happened to yet and thus ‘can still be saved/protected.’ Rather than people just fucking acknowledging that trauma is just destructive change that’s impact is relative to how many resources a person has to cope or deal with that change and incorporate it into their life. And that people don’t need to be protected from trauma or accidents as much as is hyped because its literally impossible to ever prevent anything bad from happening ever, so rather than hyping the illusion that ‘this sort of thing could never happen to you as long as you do xyz and don’t do abc’ more attention and focus should be shifted to acknowledging that its still gonna happen sometimes no matter what people do to prevent it or keep safe from it. Because these sorts of trauma ARE EXTERNALLY ORIGINATING and thus there’s literally only ever so much people can do that’s originating within the self to control/protect from being affected in certain ways by stuff originating from outside the self, aka inherently OUT of our control. 

And thus IMO we’d all be better served as a society by paying less lip service to the idea that people can be guaranteed safety or protection from various things and instead have more of that focus and attention shifted over towards the acquisition and building and distributing of more resources to help people in the EVENT of certain things happening to them anyway. Which in turn helps spread the narrative that you know what, even if these things happen, even if you are disabled, even if you are traumatized, that’s not the end of the road, that’s not a dealbreaker, that’s just a CHANGE that we as a society are here to help you through. It just means that your life is different now, that you may be different now, but different doesn’t have to be bad, it doesn’t have to come with a ceiling or limitations, it just means a change in perspective. 

Bad things will still happen, just like bad things still happened before your Big Change, and its important to remember not to glamorize or romanticize the Before time because that tends to gloss over the fact that nobody’s life was ever perfect before big change or trauma hit anyway. So why on earth should it be a surprise (or any different from anyone else’s life) that life isn’t perfect after big change or trauma? That doesn’t mean it can’t still be GOOD. That you won’t still have good days, good surprises, happiness, friends, joy, laughter, that maybe it takes more resources or just DIFFERENT resources to get there than it did before.....but everyone’s life is different and everyone requires different resources to achieve various desired results or experiences in the first place, so its not the end of the world to have to switch your focus and look in different places for different resources now. 

There needs to be less focus on what HAPPENED to people and more focus on what EFFECT it had on them, specifically. On how it changed them and what those changes mean they require now in order to live their life fully and happily,  that just might be different from what they needed before. There needs to be a shift in focus from just the trauma or accident or THING that happened that changed the course or direction of a person’s life as like....the definitive point their life changed, because that THING that happened was still just a THING. It came from the outside. It was external. It literally WASN’T ABOUT THEM, and thus focusing on IT can only ever reveal so much about the PERSON it happened to. 

No, the point of focus for a person’s life changing in the wake of massive trauma or an accident isn’t WHEN that happened, its when in the aftermath of that, however long it took, when that person, that survivor, finally got up one morning and realized they had a new normal. That they weren’t the person they were before, but they aren’t aimlessly lost in a single long-lasting trauma response searching fruitlessly for personal landmarks to reorient themselves when those landmarks simply don’t exist anymore, because they don’t HAVE to find or lean on those old familiar landmarks anymore. Because they’ve found new ones, found their footing in a new landscape, a new approach to living and perceiving the world around them and how it impacts and intersects with them. 

Gimme a change in focus to how recovery isn’t a thing you can ever FIND, that you can ever ACQUIRE by searching for it...and so its less vital that we hold up the idea of it as some kind of semi-mythical Holy Grail its okay to send knights eternally questing for on just the possibility of its existence because hey at least its something to shoot for, when not so deep down a lot of people shelling out advice for recovery that isn’t rooted in their own experiences or utilization of the same advice they’re selling but rather is born of ‘eh, you want something I can’t give or help with and that’s making me uncomfortable so lemme point you in a direction just vague or far away enough that I don’t have to worry about seeing you and your aura of Making Me Uncomfortable around for awhile’....

.....nah, instead how about looking to how resources might be better utilized just....supporting people until they can reach that point of recovery in their own time and their own ways. Because by its very nature, you can spend years working on recovering, on finding a new normal, a new sense of stability in your life, but you’re only ever going to ‘find it’ the day you realize that you’ve ALREADY found it. That you don’t have to go searching for it anymore because its already there, you settled and replanted yourself without even realizing it. Recovery in the wake of trauma is about searching for a way to feel better, to heal, to move past something, and the answer to that need is a feeling of no longer needing to search or find that ephemeral something, because you’re content, you’re okay with who and what you are now. And you don’t need to look anymore for something you wake up and realize you’ve already found somewhere along the way. 

Being disabled, being traumatized, being hurt, being CHANGED by some kind of big ass fucking Meteor Of Suck smacking into the planet that is your life and wiping out the fucking dinosaurs of this weirdo metaphor, like....yes, it leaves a mark, makes an impact, oftentimes a BIG one. But like, without the meteor that ended the dinosaur age or whatever, none of us would even be here because the point is just life goes on, and there’s no predicting what it will look like tomorrow, so yeah it could be worse and maybe it’ll never be like it was before, but there’s absolutely zero proof it couldn’t maybe be BETTER, even if it doesn’t ever look the way it was before. 

Change is just change. Its not the enemy, its just the point of life. Like we’re born and then things change every single day of our life however long it is and then we die. Birth and death are the bookends, and constant change is every single page of the book in between that. Change isn’t the villain of our story, change IS our story. 

And its OUR story, so it never gets to be defined by what someone else does to us in the story, because the hero’s journey isn’t about what MADE the hero set out on their quest, its about their QUEST itself, its about their TRIUMPH, its not about what happened its about what THEY decided to do NEXT because of it. Its not about the catalysts for our changes, its about what we decided to DO, who we decided to BECOME, once those catalysts hit the page and necessitated further change. 

Your trauma, your change, none of those are YOU, because YOU are the person you see when you look in the mirror and take all of that in, view it as part of you, your story, something that left a mark just like every single experience of your life has left SOME kind of impact no matter how small, and who you changed into, decided to become, how you incorporated all those marks and changes and experiences....THAT is you. The ENTIRETY of that map, not the single markers along the way, no matter how loud or dramatic or attention-grabbing they try to be. 

You are the map of your experiences and you only look to a map, a map only matters to you when its about leading or finding the way to where YOU want to go, with intent. No road map gets to take the wheel of the car just because you aren’t going in the direction it said you were supposed to go originally. If you get lost, you get lost. If you end up somewhere you didn’t expect, you end up somewhere you didn’t expect. If you realize you no longer want or need to go where you were setting out to originally, if you change your mind or decide another destination is better suited to you, you get to look to your map and draw a new route accordingly, because its YOURS, it only exists because of you, not you because of it. 

Your trauma or whatever else is fucking up your life may be big fucking pieces of the mosaic you are when you see yourself in the mirror metaphorically speaking cuz I want this analogy to be inclusive for blind people too and I just realized I need to spend more time thinking up alternative ways to express that sentiment that don’t rely on a singular axis of experience to convey it, because that’s kinda the point in and of itself: 

We’re all born with toolboxes that give us a variety of tools to approach life with, to build things out of, to build OUR life out of. The aim of civilization, of society, of being a species that only made it this far by being communal and building things together, pooling our tools to build things none of us were equipped to build with just what we already had...is that ideally, the toolbox we’re born with gets added to by others around us. Our parents or guardians or teachers, our friends and loved ones, the random person at the store who saw someone was a dollar short at the grocery store register and offered one of their own or the way we can add to someone else’s toolbox by simply asking if they’re alright when we can see they’re not and then just like that they have the added resource of the knowledge that someone cares enough about them to want to know what’s wrong. 

And none of our toolboxes are identical. None make it all the way to our deathbed with us while containing the exact same tools we started with, some are missing, some are added. Some we didn’t even realize we had. Some we never even used. Some we used the hell out of and are worn to pieces and some are shiny and new because we wore out the older version of them and needed a replacement. And sometimes big fucking meteors of suck smack into our lives right when we’re just minding our own business and enjoying our own jurassic age and everything changes forever, but millions of years later we might still be around and now we just look like chickens and alligators and sharks and all the other creatures that are basically just dinosaur descendants in a different form because we’re hardy as fuck and damn I really need to get over this metaphor it is not the analogy I’m looking for but oh well. 

Point is, sometimes Change happens and the tools we’re used to leaning on when building our better, ideal lives and optimal experiences, like....maybe they just don’t work for us anymore. Maybe we can’t grip the old familiar ones the way we used to, maybe our eyes have gone to shit and we can’t wield the more precise instruments with the precision we’re used to, maybe the nails we were using to build stairs in our dream house are fucking useless cuz they’re not the right size when building the wheelchair ramp our new dream house needs instead.......and so fucking what? What does any of that actually say about US, about who we ARE, about what our life could be or how good it could get? 

Absolutely nothing. Because the toolboxes we were born with were still only ever just tools. What we ARE is what we make with them, what we build out of ourselves, what we choose with intent to become. So what if our old tools aren’t up to the task of actualizing our new dreams? That’s what we need other people for. That’s what society SHOULD be for. That’s when what we need is not to be FIXED, not to be restocked with what we had originally but is now no longer of use to us or what we need or maybe even not what we want.....no, all we need is....new tools. New resources. New kinds of help. 

And again, that’s what society is SUPPOSED to be for. To help us define ourselves not by the problems we face but our solutions to overcoming them. To help give each other new tools and teach each other how to use them when change necessitates hunting around for something that’s easier to grip now. And if we all come into the world starting out with different tools than everyone else anyway.....what does it MATTER if somewhere along the way we have to swap out the old familiar ones we started with and look for new ones we didn’t need originally? 

A cane is just a cane to help someone walk because for whatever reasons, their legs or spine need that tool to help get them where they want to go. A cane is not proof that it will never take them to a destination where they’re every fucking bit as happy as people who made it to the same place without the use of one. A cane is not THEM. Its just a fucking cane. Same thing with glasses, with wheelchairs, with prosthetic limbs, with hearing aids. Same thing with support groups, with therapists, with trauma centers. 

Like do people ever think about how fucking AMAZING it is that we have prosthetics at all? That somewhere along the line, people saw a problem, saw a need, that was not ‘oh this person (or maybe even ‘they themselves’ because let’s not go the saviorism route and forget that disabled people have had plenty the fuck to do with designing or dreaming up or building the tools disabled people use to navigate life while working with a different set of physiological tools than most people are equipped with. Like this isn’t a ‘oh look how good other people are to people in need’ point but more just a ‘people-as-in-society-overall-which-includes-both-able-bodied-and-disabled’ point). 

Like the point is the response to seeing that was not just ‘oh so and so or maybe even me is damaged beyond repair,’  no instead it was just ‘this person’s legs aren’t currently equpped to do what this person needs or wants them to do.’ And people said okay the solution, the answer, the RESPONSE to seeing that problem or need was not to sit back and think about how much it sucks that this person can’t walk on their own and how limited or ‘lesser’ their life will be than other peoples’ because of that, no they said instead, hey, what if we just BUILT THEM DIFFERENT LEGS. Like, just THINK about that. We, as a people, communally, as in more than one, pooled resources to BUILD PEOPLE NEW FUCKING LEGS. 

And all it ultimately took, the catalyst for THAT, for changing the lives of people who use prosthetics as tools in their day to day lives....the catalyst for that CHANGE was NOT in fact....whatever happened to make various people need prosthetics in the first place. No, the catalyst, the change that got us to the point of people having the OPTION of prosthetics at all, was the point in time where people saw a need, and came up with the solution of prosthetics to address that need. When they said not oh that’s a problem or oh sorry you have that need, but oh I have an idea, or oh here’s what we can do about that. The defining element wasn’t that something needed building. The defining element was WHAT PEOPLE CHOSE TO BUILD BECAUSE OF THAT. 

Just like severe trauma is a catalyst for change in a person’s life, a meteor that no one saw coming and can dramatically reshape the landscape of their life, wipe out familiar comforts and landmarks they use to orient themselves.....but at the end of the day, that person is not the meteor itself. We don’t call them whatever we call that meteor, we call them by their fucking name because they’re still the same fucking person, just in a different place now, with different needs, with different dreams or wants or goals. Who they are isn’t how rough they have it while they’re going through the most....because how much a trauma shakes up a person’s life is directly relative to how equipped they are already to deal with that particular trauma or change. 

So by its very nature the ‘worst’ or most changing traumas are the ones that we’re personally LEAST equipped to deal with at that particular time on our own, and how fucking stupid is it to try and draw conclusions about a person based just on how they react in the immediate aftermath of an event whose defining element is that it was a destructive change that was uniquely impactful because it hit them where they were least equipped to deal with it? 

Like, NOBODY is equipped to handle well, like, an event that relative to THEM SPECIFICALLY, like....is something they’re not equipped to handle. LOL. Like, that’s so fucking dumb, but that’s who we ALL are when in the midst of massive trauma responses - just people hunting desperately for new normals, new landmarks, new awareness with which to recenter ourselves, reorient ourselves, redefine who and what we are in relation to our lives and society and our loved ones in the wake of a massive change that shook things up and required repositioning ourselves because the spot we used to be positioned on no longer exists.

And what the fuck can you learn, can you actually KNOW about a person based solely on the fact that ‘oh this person is having a hard time dealing with something that there’s literally NO good way to deal with?’ 

People talk a lot about how revealing trauma or tragedy is, that you can learn a lot by seeing how someone handles a huge trauma or tragedy being thrown at them, even in fiction. But y’know what? There’s a ceiling on how much that alone can ever reveal, especially if the lens of time through which you examine that person or character is limited just to the aftermath of the trauma, the thing that HAPPENED to them. Rather than focused on the beginning of their new journeys, once they’ve reoriented themselves, acquired new tools, picked new destinations or goals for their lives and set out to now make THOSE a reality....just like people before or without massive trauma or tragedy are similarly not defined by the LACK of what didn’t happen to them, but simply by......what destinations or goals they pick for their lives and their journeys to get there and what they do and what choices they make along the way. 

Nah, if you ask me, a person’s truest essence isn’t revealed by what they do with whatever limited tools or resources they have when struggling with a massive trauma or tragedy that’s only massive specifically BECAUSE it hit them in a way or place they were ill-equipped or unprepared to deal with. Because the essence of that person, the truth revealed by examining that struggle, the answer in focus when looking through just that finite lens....can be boiled down to the exact same thing, no matter WHO you put in that place. 

What they do in the wake of a massive trauma is simply ‘as much as they’re capable of given their limited resources or capabilities at THAT SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME.’ Which is inherently....not a lot. Completely subjective and relative to every individual, given the different traumas, resources and needs or injuries relative to every individual while they’re going through their fucking worst....but that’s still the point. 

A person struggling with things beyond their capability to handle well at that given moment given their current state or resources.....is ultimately never going to appear as anything other than.....a person struggling with things beyond their capability to handle well at that given moment given their current state or resources. Wow. Really pegged that person huh. Got them all summed up, totally differentiated from every other person to ever go through shit, just by seeing them.....not handle it great when by its very nature of fucking course they’re not going to handle a trauma they’re not prepared for with any degree of ‘great.’

Like, is it any wonder our society has this built in presumption that experiencing certain traumas or tragedies just fucking CONDEMNS that person to from then on live a life that will never actually measure up to being as optimal as it maybe could have been if that hadn’t happened? What other conclusion are you gonna draw, about how good or not a person’s life is in the wake of massive destructive change....if you’re only ever focusing on or looking at how they react at the specific point where they’re LEAST equipped to deal with that trauma or tragedy well?

Because thing is....that’s not a person. That’s a snapshot of a person. Try and define me or sum me up by looking at a fucking Polaroid of me when I was ten or whatever. Go on. See how revealing that is. Tell me what that says about me.

People can’t be defined by negative space. By what they’re NOT. By all the ways in which they can’t be what they MIGHT have been had something happened different, or all the things they COULD be if they were born into different circumstances. You do that, you’re not describing a person, you’re describing hypotheticals that you can apply as desired to ANY person, with just a few tweaks here and there, and thus always find a way to picture them as you want to for your own personal purposes, agenda or comfort, rather than gaining any insight whatsoever about who they are as defined by the space that they DO fill up, with intent, by their choices.

We don’t look to the early history of our species and talk about all the people who DIDN’T discover fire, maybe even just because they were born in a fucking wet climate or whatever where it was inherently more difficult to happen across the realization that striking sticks or stones in certain ways can make a very useful and helpful flame. With the point being that even if we DID talk about those early humans as much as we did the ones who got actual bonfires going, the fact that they simply ‘weren’t the ones to discover fire’ actually would reveal shit about them in and of itself, because who’s to say that the reason, the ‘culprit’ for that was that they were simply too dumb or whatever to figure that out instead of just being they lived in a climate that made that discovery particularly difficult or less likely to happen by chance? Y’know? 

But no, anyway, we talk about the ones who DID discover fire, because the turning point for our species which that was, like, we don’t look at it and define it by the lack of it happening sooner, at the problem that not having fire was for the people who came before that discovery. It was the triumph that mattered, it was the choices made in the wake of that discovery, it was how people put that new tool to work and not oh how revealing it is about the rest of early humanity that they didn’t put that tool to work in similar ways because it simply wasn’t even a possibility for them when it was simply a resource they didn’t have.

Nah, IMO a person’s truest essence is revealed not by their problems or their lacks, not by the hypothetical maybe me they could have been if they went through life without anything bad ever happening to them and thus who they’ll never actually be now. Its not revealed by taking a snapshot of them in the moments or days or even weeks following a trauma or tragedy that struck with an accompanying seismic shake-up of all their existing stability and support systems that ultimately limited how much or many of the resources they’d previously acquired or built could even be of use to them in dealing with things now. You don’t learn anything substantial by putting people in a room with only two exits and one of them locked and then act like its an insightful revelation that they ultimately make their way out by means of the finite options available to them when their options have been actively limited by forces outside them and their control, even if that wasn’t the ‘optimal’ answer to that predicament and you wanted them to make other more ideal choices without acknowledging they literally were limited to the most basic of fucking choices available. No, IMO the actual revelations about people come in their declaration of a new want or wish or ask or goal AFTER they’ve found their footing and are ready to live again rather than just cope. 

Why define ourselves by our needs when we’re most ourselves when dreaming of our wants?

You don’t gain the most insight by watching someone flail about when they’re at their lowest and just floundering. You want insight, you look to see what tools they use to pull themselves upright, what resources they ask for or seek out in order to build something new that they can place upon their new shaken-up-and-reformed foundations and from there find some stability with which to pull themselves FORWARD. Instead of just clinging to the shattered remnants of whatever their source of stability was previously but is no longer useful for that purpose, maybe not even because they WANT to cling to just that or are afraid or unwilling to move forward, but because they simply can’t reach any fucking resources with which to do anything BUT just cling to what little they could grab, and what they actually need is just someone to offer them said resources instead of just acting like they really did something by looking at a person lacking in resources and then judging or defining them simply by all the things they AREN’T doing to better themselves or their lives, WHEN THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEY’RE LACKING THE FUCKING RESOURCES TO DO ANY OF THAT.

You see who a person is not by comparing them to who they MIGHT have been before, because who can say with any certainty what person they might have been the day after that massive trauma or tragedy, had said trauma or tragedy never actually occurred? Who can guarantee that person, that hypothetical maybe-me is ACTUALLY better than who they are or can become now?

Nope. You wanna know who that person is? That’s who they declare themselves to be the second they stop trying to define themselves by who they WERE and thus who they’re not anymore....but rather by who they are NOW, and who they want to be from here on out. You don’t look at the person who’s been pushed to the ground and say oh that’s that person, that’s who that person is. No, all that tells you is that person was pushed to the ground by an asshole, and surprise surprise, they fell because that’s what fucking happens when someone pushes you to the ground, lolol. That’s not the nature of a person, that’s the nature of physics. Wow. Person A is affected by gravity and the forceful aggression of assholes in their vicinity. The uncanny insight of it all.

You wanna see that person, you look at who they are AFTER they’ve pulled themselves back up. You see what they do THEN. Once they’re back in control of themselves, their life, in the driver’s seat.

You can’t define people by the lack of something. A lack of control, a lack of choice, a lack of resources. Because we are our choices, we are the journeys we take, we are what happens on the next page of our story because the next page of our story only EVER happens because each and every page we decided to MAKE something happen next. 

And we can only MAKE those choices, versus have them made for us and which thus says more about the person who forced those choices on us than it does us for simply being unable to stop that, we can only TAKE those journeys, versus being forced into certain directions and paths and down certain roads by limited options that say more about how little a person can do with only finite options available to them rather than say anything substantial about what directions a person might go in if they had actual options and choices available to them beyond just being presented with two routes that both equally suck, we can only do anything substantial with any of that, anything that says anything about US rather than just descriptive of our circumstances....

We can only do anything with all of that AFTER we’ve gained or taken back or regained control over our lives. AFTER we’ve found our footing. AFTER we’ve said well guess what, this happened then, but guess what else happened today? I got out of bed and said okay so we’re just not gonna worry about that because its over and done and it doesn’t get to be the only thing that matters about us. So instead, how about what matters right now is whatever the fuck I choose to do today, because THAT is up to me, THAT says something about me, THAT is not just some random rock crashing into me from outer fucking space and saying knock knock, fuck you. THAT is ME, saying with intent, THIS is who I am now and THIS is what I’m going to do today, and THAT’S an actual story about me and my choices and my PERSONHOOD. Versus just a summation of how shitty I looked while being smacked in the face by a mountain of bullshit and me without so much as an umbrella.

THAT’S a story about a person. That other thing, that fixation on the rock that crashed into them without warning? Its ultimately never going to be anything other than the story of how a person got hit by a fucking rock.

All of which is to say, so yeah, in that wing fic AU, Babs’ wings do change after what happens with the Joker, even though her wings had already settled.

BUT, the key thing about that is....the point of CHANGE for her wings was NOT when the Joker shot her. Its not when her life, when SHE changed, ‘because of that.’ Because maybe her wings didn’t work the same way anymore after that happened, because they represented who she was before that. And before that she was and thought of herself as someone who could grapple between buildings, flip kick into bad guys, do cartwheels across rooftops, and she can’t do those things anymore so maybe her wings don’t work for her in the way they used to because they were ‘designed’ for someone who lived life in a way she was no longer capable of. 

But her wings didn’t just change then and there, they still remained the same as always even if they weren’t as useful because maybe she could still fly perhaps, but not land in the ways her wings were designed to do that, due to the changed capabilities of her legs and spine which were meant to work in concert with her wings. 

See, because the point is.....if the wings are the ultimate expression of the self, even acknowledging that she was in fundamental ways CHANGED at that point (not lessened, but changed, made different, needing different things and having different wants).....the point is, at just that specific time, in the immediate aftermath of that trauma, what would her wings have changed into? What would they LOOK like, simply because say, two days ago, the Joker shot her and now she’s paralyzed? If she’s no longer the old her, how could the new her POSSIBLY be defined by that little data, that little definition, that small an image or encapsulation of everything she still MIGHT yet be or become once she’s out of bed, out of tears, out of grief for the goals that are no longer viable and now ready to say okay, now let me decide what DOES come next for me now.

So yes, Babs’ wings do change after the Joker shoots her, but they remain as they were for awhile. Just not as useful to her now that her toolbox of physical capabilities was less equipped to accommodate her newly changed needs and approaches to life.

When they change, its because she’s already become Oracle. That’s who she is now, Batgirl is a part of that but more about who she was. It’s part of the foundation she built her new self atop, its never going to not be a part of her, never going to leave, it still matters....but it is not the building itself anymore, it is the bedrock that made it through the seismic upheaval of her life and thus was sturdy enough she felt safe building something new on it, something that could ride out further earthquakes thanks to having it to ground her. But as integral as it is to what she built in the wake of her big quake....it is not the house she houses her self-image in. That’s Oracle’s domain now.

And so when her wings do change, it happens overnight, while she’s asleep. Dreaming of everything she wants now, everything she wants to become. They change not in a ‘this is happening’ sense, much like we’re never fully aware of how far into our recovery process we are.....instead, they change in a ‘huh, so this happened’ sense. Just like we only realize how much we’ve recovered, how much we no longer need to define ourselves by a quest to be better, happier, more alright...once we’ve already found that happiness or contentment and realized the reason there’s no longer the same drive to pursue some abstract image of recovery is simply because we no longer need to go anywhere to get that, we’re already there and this is what that looks like.

And so when one day Babs wakes up feeling different and looks in the mirror to see her wings no longer look like they used to but rather seem much more suited to the woman she is now, the woman she envisioned in her mind as a new goal or destination of self-determination, that she chose to become with intent, that she worked to become so she could be defined by something other than what some asshole did to her, so that she could be the sum of her deeds rather than the snapshot of her tragedy.....its a sign of change. Of her change, and proof that her life is not now what it once was, and never will be again.....but its not some big momentous reveal, more just an exhale of affirmation for something she’s already known for awhile and just now has the distance and perspective to see actual proof of. 

Its the marker of the fact that actually she’s okay with it, she’s okay with herself, her new self, because she doesn’t need to be who she might have been without that trauma, she doesn’t need to be a maybe when who she is? Has no more of a built in limit or ceiling or cap on happiness and success than the woman she was before her trauma had. She doesn’t love what happened to her, but its just something that happened to her. Its not who she is, THIS is who she is, this is THAT, and this she’s more than okay with, she’s proud of, she’s like damn I look good. Life threw a punch at her and she got into a wheelchair and rolled with it, and if you’re busy looking at the bruise from that punch because you’re so focused on the fact that it happened, you’re missing the real story. 

And that’s the way she pulled herself out of bed every morning for a year and into her wheelchair to train with escrima sticks in whole new ways of fighting so the next time the Joker tried knocking on her door, he wouldn’t get to pull the same shit twice. Because she’s not the same woman she was then and anyone focusing on THAT instead of watching out for all the ways she can still kick ass, some old, some new, some that she invented herself because necessity is the mother of invention and Babs has always been driven to be the top of her class for reasons that have everything to do with just HER and absolutely nothing at all with what happened to put her in a class where fighting from a wheelchair was a tool she felt she needed -

Well maybe they need to get clocked across the head with a stick to drive home that they’ve missed the entire point, that if you’re there looking to see a tragedy you’ve got the wrong fucking address cuz she’s doing just fine.

And so she wakes up one day and looks in her mirror and sees her wings have changed overnight and they look nothing like she remembers but tbh, she likes these a lot better, likes the way they feel, the shape of them, they just FIT....and then she just nods her head decisively, quietly pleased but in no rush to make any big announcement, because for her, this changes nothing. Its just a sign that change has already happened.

And its like....duh, she already knew that, and she’s more than okay with it, so semantics can wait for another time. She’s Barbara Gordon, the Oracle of Gotham, and she’s got shit to do.

And okay, so clearly, I ended up just writing that post instead of writing the rest of that to-do list, so I’m gonna now go make another post with the ACTUAL to-do list, and like, yay, I can cross this off I guess? My process is so mysterious, oh unknowable ways.

[modlisznik]

Dankovsky thoughts let's goooo

(judging by the shards of Discourse reaching me despite all the blocks it's literally the worst time to publish this, but well)

Now, I'm supporting this interpretation mostly on Patho 2 and Marble Nest and I'm aware that the moment the Bachelor's route sees the light of day (WHEN???) it all can turn out wildly inaccurate and frankly just my wishful thinking... but hell, it's certainly no less skewed and personal than all the other takes flying around. Besides, it's all just an interpretation of this one humble actor, Mark Immortel gave me the permit, sue me.

What I often see discussed in fan spaces is "what if Daniil wants to defeat death because (personal_reason)". What if it's supposed to prove his usefulness to the powers that be? What if he grew up as an overachieving kid with strict parents, and now he feels he's a fraud and a failure unless he literally does the impossible thing? What if he suffers from thanatophobia, so it's a fight against the source of his very real fear? What if there's a personal tragedy, someone dead who he desperately wants to bring back? Now I'm not here to bash anyone's interpretation, we're all valid here and I love seeing all these ideas, that's what the fandom is for. But what I, Mo, wish to see in this character is a little different.

First, the dying - it's about control. Danko is all about control, whether it's how quickly he jumps into action and assumes a directive role, how frustrated he is about people disregarding orders... and that lovely Latin quote in Diurnal ending; while Artemy mostly goes with the flow and trust his intuition, Daniil wants to seize control of the situation and play his most optimal scenario. With the way he talks about his work in Thanatica, I don't get the feeling that their goal was full and total immortality, complete eradication of the phenomenon of dying (think about all the folk tales about closing Death in a bottle and the mayhem that ensues), but rather understanding and, ultimately, controlling the process of dying. To give people means and tools to decide whether they *want* to die at this point or not. And... it's a good thing? And not at all selfish, mind you, he's not like a lich in D&D, he doesn't seek to stop his own death. Or even the death of someone he loves. From what we know, his goals are genuinely altruistic. To stop people from dying unless they want to is a good thing, that's a benefit to humanity as a whole. And it's a benefit not lesser than the gift of flying, of defying gravity; just like with flying, it's not about eradicating the gravity (because it has certain benefits lol) but about controlling the fall. The whole idea might sound stupid, fantastical, utopian, but hey - we made some progress in this field already since the times Patho - presumably - takes place, we now understand death as a lack of brain functions rather than lack of heartbeat; who knows what's next. We should study it, we should ask questions. But it wouldn't be interesting if Daniil was just a humble lab-dwelling scientist. Since he has all this dramatic aura of a mad scientist around him, since he speaks about his study in the terms of "fighting death", he invites questions about his motives. At one hand, I get it - people who are happy and feel fulfilled don't pick impossible fights so yeah, it's fair to speculate what kind of damage made him this way. But on the other hand... there's this idea that every time we get a character whose aim is to disrupt the status quo we're almost conditioned to assume that they are somehow damaged, hurt, broken, that under all their ideas lies some trauma that we can point our fingers at and say "aha, so that's what it was all about, see, you aren't happy in this world because you are broken. The world is fine as it is, let's get you some therapy". I just don't vibe with it, and I disagree with the idea that every attempt at the betterment of mankind must come from the place of trauma, must be fuelled by trauma; I don't want to think that the only kind of motivation is the negative one. There are beautiful stories to be told about that, but I don't want for them to be the only story.

I want Daniil who actually, genuinely loves humanity. I want him to really be exceptionally intelligent, well educated and decide that since he has these extraordinary means, it is his duty to put them to the best possible use because you can demand the most from those who have the most and what goal could be nobler for a doctor than to give people an upper hand against death? I want him to have that aura of the XIX scholars who still unironically believed in progress (and were more than a little into occultism). I want him to dream about growing apple tree gardens in the desert (to hell with sustainable agricultural practices lol) while recognizing that people still need bread, even if they need dreams more. And I want him to be a vain, petty dandy with short temper and a capability to be a tiny wee murderous, because people are allowed to be messy and contradictory

So he loves humanity, but has troubles loving, or even relating to particular people. He's self-absorbed, and his focus is at the same time too wide and too narrow, because while he fights the fight of the largest possible scope - against death, against god and nature for the betterment of all mankind - he fails to take into account all the mundane struggle of the people around him. I don't believe that he despises people, as the Death says in Marble Nest, but rather underestimates them. As many of the truly passionate, he can't believe that the people around him could NOT recognize the importance of his work, realize that he's doing it all for them and at least not get in his way. He assumes that people are, at their core, rational and will behave reasonably - or rather, the way he expects them to, the way he himself would behave, because he has trouble putting himself in someone else's shoes. And he ends up disappointed, over and over, when his ideas about what would people do clash against people being, well, people with their own agendas. When the Plague strikes, he does what's rational - orders a quarantine, forbids people from leaving their homes and so on -expecting people to recognize the level of danger the same way he does and comply for their own good; lo and behold, his safety measures are being broken left and right. When the corpses pile up, he expects people to understand the sanitary hazard the same way he does and recognize that the very real threat of *another* outbreak is more important than the words of a distressed girl living at the graveyard. He wants them to disregard their personal plans and customs because that's what he would do. At the same time yes, he is arrogant, he assumes he knows best, he immediately puts himself at the very top of the responsibility ladder - but I get the feeling that it's not because he thinks so poorly of anyone else, rather so highly of himself, expects so much from himself. And as a result of seeing himself as the most crucial person around - to fight the plague; I don't think he considers himself important because of who he is but what he does - he ends up with this patronizing attitude that he considers others his helpers, the extension of his will, or not at all. where I'm getting with this? I'm not sure; I really don't have list of themes I want to see in his route, I trust in the devs to handle it with the same care that hook me in the Artemy's route. I'm curious about what kind of story they want to tell. But in the meantime - we all know it's going to be bittersweet at best and something something about flying too close to the sun and how every miracle is paid with blood. Still, we need people dreaming about these miracles and for once, I wish that this dream was born out of love