#that was entirely organic in the writing

[gisellelx]

This scene has definitely officially hit the cutting room floor; there's now absolutely no way it can come back into the fic so I'm dropping it here as an actual real honest-to-goodness outtake in the original, "cut from this story" sense of the word.

------

The locker rooms at the rec building were expansive; with dozens of rows of freshly-painted lockers with dark wooden benches spread between them. Apparently, if you wanted, you could rent a locker for the year for a hundred dollars or so, but most of the lockers were open for borrowing. I stashed my backpack inside one, and affixed my freshly-purchased combination lock on the outside.

The mat and bag were also brand new. I asked Kelsey if there was a good exercise store downtown, and, once she finished laughing, she pointed out that the bookstore on Liberty sold plenty of yoga supplies.

“And this has nothing whatsoever to do with Will Edward,” she’d said.

“Aside from him reminding me the classes existed? You’ve seen me. Balance is not my strong suit. People have been telling me to do yoga for years.”

Her smirk had been instantaneous.

“Sure. Well, you let me know how it goes, seeing that body in yoga pants.”

I’d decided to start with the noontime one, which seemed likely to have more students. I hadn’t been completely lying that it wasn’t just for Carlisle—my therapists had suggested over and over that I try yoga; that it would bring my mind away from struggling over information about Edward and would calm my body. I just had never had any reason to do it. But our student fees paid for our access to the three gyms, and to all the classes therein.

I had no sooner stepped into the hall when I met Nabil, because I had of course I had run the same idea past him, a week ago.

He had just glowered.

“Fine,” he’d said. “See if there is a two-for-one on mats.”

“Two?”

He gave me a withering look. “Bella, there is absolutely no way you are taking yoga with the Asshole by yourself. I believe every word of what you said about what did not happen when he spent the night, I promise. But I also promise that dude has a dick, and you are someone he would definitely want to…” He pulled himself up short. “So yeah. I’m coming along.”

So now he was here, standing in the hallway in shorts and a tank top, with a mat rolled under his arm. I gave him a quick peck on the lips.

“Thanks for doing this,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “You are crazy. But I am coming to love crazy.”

We went into the studio. It was a basic gym, but with a dance barre and mirrors across one wall. Other students were setting up their mats; I picked a spot toward the back of the room, where we’d have a chance to see the instructor do the poses before we attempted them. Google told me that Ashtanga practice differed from Vinyasa in that Ashtanga was a set sequence of poses; I had at least looked at them ahead of time—they didn’t look too terribly difficult, at least not for the first sequence. The only difference I had found on YouTube seemed to be in the proficiency of the people who were actually practicing it. I was fairly certain I would not be putting my nose between my legs any time soon.

We were stretching on our mats when Carlisle entered the room. At least sixty percent of the heads snapped up, male and female alike. He was dressed like a true yogi, wearing a pair of tight, thigh-length shorts and a gray tank top, neither one of which left very much to the imagination.

Nabil was right. Carlisle definitely had…the requisite equipment.

[idonthaveacontract]

fuck it hot pete campbell

[comic-sans-chan]

obsessed with julian asking "what did they do to you? is it some kind of punishment device?" in the wire because my god if this man didn’t go from "this is garak my super cool spy pal who i go on secret missions with and sometimes fuck teehee but also yeah his planet’s kinda fucked up and he’s got some weird ideas but we’re working on it" to "this is garak he's my precious little angel babyman who has been horribly traumatized and brainwashed by his government but it's okay because i'm a doctor and i will fuck and suck the fascism out of him if it’s the last thing i do" in just two years. shit's wild

[mrehkka]

Dib meets one of the tallest in person and uh... is actually rather awed. He kinda gets it now. Zim is like "see?! the tallest are great!"

The story that goes with this is that Dib becomes ill, but oddly, with a somewhat rare Irken disease (stemming from a long term complication from when Zim's PAK attached to him way back when, it messed with something internally in Dib's body). So Zim takes Dib along with him to meet Red, to get Dib some Irken medicine/cure. Red has a huge crush on Zim so he tends to give him whatever he asks for (or gives him SOMETHING anyway, if he can't give him what he wants), and Zim knows this, although maybe a little in denial about the actual crush part.

aka: the "Dib gets to visit Irk and experience a bunch of Irken Culture" fic :D

[fungh0u1]

no one could possibly say i dont have fun on moshi monsters

[pastelaspirations]

hello! first i just wanna say ur stories r really neat n have have inspired me a lot! soo I remember when reading perseverance u mentioned a couple of times in the notes bout some of the songs u listened to while writing the chapters so would it be alr if u dropped all the songs u think goes w the story? (u don have to ofc I jus think it's interesting how u might perceive them as songs) much love to u n ur creative mind 💞

Awwww, thank you!! <3 <3 I'm glad I could inspire you! That's what I want to do with my stories! :D

Okay, so. U m. This is uh. A very interesting question. First off, I am. Very surprised people actually pay attention to those, I didn't know if people did or not- XD

Second. Um. Are you s u r e you want me to drop all the songs that I think goes with the story-

There might... be way more than you think.

And that's not including the 3 unlisted ones that I can't remember what they were/don't have the heart to remove from the list. Also, it's a playlist that... includes any song that inspired me ever. For any fic that I made. Not just Perseverance.

I don't think you actually want me to drop all of these on you, man-

[randomwriteronline]

The sounds of cooing and raucous voices sputtering out something akin to words was a good sign, they both thought as they approached the room. A few healers were standing around the doorway, watching in curiously and giggling to themselves at the poor attempts at language coming through the thin barrier dividing them from the beings who were not their patients.

Whenua stood beside them, his short hunched stature causing him to go mostly unnoticed; he crossed his arms behind his back, made a show of trying to peek through the curtains, and finally whispered in a conspiratorial tone: "What are we laughing about?"

One Ice Agori jumped so high that they nearly cracked their skull on the ceiling.

The onslaught of hurried embarrassed apologies that followed wasn't that loud, but there were enough beings talking at the same time as they scrambled against the wall to completely cover the vocal progress coming from the adjacent room, clumsily backing away from the two Turaga in a burst of sudden bashfulness.

Try as she might, Nokama could not hold back a quiet chuckle as her brother scattered the healers away with an imperious wave of his hand, so very unlike him.

He maintained his act as he side-eyed her: "Well?" he hissed with a self-importance that would have once fit Matau perfectly, only making her giggle harder: "What is there that you find to be so funny? Is it me? Ah! It is, isn't it? Have you no respect for your elders? Such irriverence! Why, you young ones, growing ever cockier by the year! When I was your age, young lady, we- we would- we had-"

At that point they were both too overwhelmed by their own laughing fits for the charade to continue - bent over their knees and sustaining each other from the shoulders as their frames rattled and rattled with the sound of pocketfulls of spare change.

"Oh!" a squeak reached them. "Would you look who's here!"

Their racket had not gone unnoticed, evidently.

The two Turaga hurriedly calmed down once more before entering the room. They had to keep at least some semblance of decency and intrigue about themselves.

Their one-hundred-percent dignified appearance from behind that thin excuse of a curtain was met by the lopsided smirk of an Agori with a heavy metallic sheen to her skin and the both excited and curious gazes of a pair of suddenly quiet beings.

"Ulagha!" one of them beamed, smiling so brightly that his entire face seemed to lit up.

"Raise your tongue!" Krahka chided him: "You need to block the air at least a little bit if you want any of that to make sense! And roll the arr further down your throat!"

He huffed, wiggling in his seat but still grinning as he repeated, slower, following her instructions: "Tu - rrra - ga!"

"Hello!" Nokama replied just as giddy.

"Ayam Poha - tu! Toa ov Tohn!" he continued - and instantly his face scrunched up in displeasure at his mispronunciation, the arms he'd thrown triumphantly in the air retracting immediately while his nose curled up and he tried again, phonemes tangling in his mouth: "Ton. Tohn. T- thon, thon, thon, thon! Thon!"

"Easy now, easy-"

"BONES!" he cursed out loud: "BONES! STONE! STONE! STONE! Ayam Poau- Po - ha - tu, To-a ov Sss-tone! Stone!"

"There you go!" Whenua hollered back.

With a victorious shriek the Toa pumped his fists: "Toa ov STONE!"

"Of," Krahka corrected.

"STONE!"

"Of stone."

"TOA OV STONE!"

"Alright, we'll fix that later."

"Aycan peak! Ps- sk- spkspk- seek- pek- sep- BONES! Ssspeak!"

Nokama beamed, eyes alight with pride: "You can indeed!" she laughed exuberantly as she streched out her arms towards him. Pohatu slammed his head in her palms much like a Hapaka pup, perhaps even a bit more forcefully than she would have liked, and let her sway it left and right while gently squeezing his cheeks between her fingers. "How lovely to hear you again!"

His laugh was as thunderous as she remembered, filling the entire room effortlessly.

"He's not that good," Krahka huffed. She didn't get all these compliments when she figured out speech in a handful of minutes...

Her student stuck out his tongue at her.

She stuck it right back at him.

If she'd still been a teacher, the Ga-Turaga would have felt compelled to break up their bickering; having trained herself on the most inane of her brothers' arguments, however, she simply turned away from their childish display to put all of her attention on the one being who still had not uttered as much as a sigh.

"And you, Kopaka?" she grinned at him. "Would you like to share your progress with us, too?"

The Toa treated her to as blank yet least annoyed a gaze as he could.

His lips moved forward, as if to send her a kiss: then he whistled.

Whenua widened his eyes: "No," he whispered.

Kopaka looked straight at him and whistled twice again, adding an inquisitive inflection to the sound.

"No," the Turaga repeated. His finger pointed right at the organic being's chest; his gaze had turned dead serious. "Do not do this to me. Speak."

Another whistle.

Whenua smacked his hand on his leg: "No!" he wailed in a state of total despair, "I will not take this! We do not need another one who speaks solely in bird! I know you can speak - Pohatu, tell him to speak! Tell your brother to speak!"

But Pohatu only grinned as wide as he could and shook in his seat, legs tangled and swinging - not even trying to hide his amusement.

The Turaga turned to his old friend: "Krahka! Tell him to speak!"

"But he is speaking," she replied innocently as she batted her lashes, "Just not your language."

Watching him grip onto the cot for dear life as he whined and sobbed dramatically loudly while letting himself sink to the floor, this close to biting a chunk out of the mattress in frustration, was certainly something. What exactly that was was hard to tell, but the other four beings could agree that it was at least very funny.

When Whenua finally pulled himself up, he looked like he had been through the trials of the Hordika again.

"Kopaka," he began, pointing his finger at the Toa of Ice once more. "Listen to me very carefully. You cannot do this to me. I've stomached Nuju speaking only bird for a thousand years, I physically cannot handle a second one like that. You will kill me. You will kill your brother's Turaga. Do you think Onua would appreciate that? I know you can speak. Now take a deep breath, and say something. Normally. With words."

Teridax had awaited thousands of decades to see his plan come to fruition - millions of days, billions of hours, trillions of seconds, all for a moment of glory that barely lasted but a fraction of the anticipation and planning behind its very achievement.

The pause before Kopaka's answer was somehow more excruciating.

Might have been his dead stare in the Turaga's eyes.

Or the fact that he followed his instructions to the letter, likely for the sake of torturing him further.

His lips parted first to take a deep, deep breath, filling his chest.

They parted again to then exhale all that air - very slowly.

Parting a third time, he inhaled shortly.

And finally, mouth protracted to whistle, he said, deadpan: "No."

Whenua sunk back to the floor with a loud whimper.

Two seconds later he sprung back to his feet: "You PIRAKA!" he shrieked, and menacingly swung his fist down on the cot several times as the Toa picked himself up and leisurely walked on the mattress to hide behind his brother, who was convulsing uncontrollably as he laughed harder than his stomach could take, "You Vatuka! You Makika-faced fiend! So much for being made by Artakha - get back here, you spawn of Karzhani! You make me believe you can only--!"

"He couldn't even speak avian," his sister cackled for the sake of increasing his brother's relief and anger at the same time, "My Rau couldn't even translate him! He was just whistling!"

"WHAT!"

Pohatu kept rocking back and forth wheezing hysterically to the point where he was about to start crying.

"You shut up, you overly meaty Vako!" Whenua yelled again.

The Toa tried to answer to the insult with something in tone as best as his still clumsy speaking capabilities could allow him to - instead coughing up a storm as he choked on a breath when he attempted to stop his crazed giggling a little too quickly, needing his brother to (extraordinarily gracelessly, to be quite honest) slam his open palm a few times on his back like he was trying to shatter his spine to smithereens in order to dislodge whatever disgusting thing was stuck in his throat.

At last he sucked in a huge breath, mouth opening wide in a grin as the sound of a creaking window escaped it: "Aploghy tim-one tim-too tim-thrr earh-tauraga tim-one tim-too."

"Oh!"

"Ah - yes," Krahka bit her lip, face scrounched up in an almost pained grimace: "That. I was going to mention that."

"Lang stone-pattern same-not, be?" Nokama whirred, hoping her memory was simply a little faulty. The words came out of her like the intermittent clicking laments of a floppy disk drive allowing its contents to be downloaded slowly.

"Smaae-not, bee," Pohatu confirmed - not without struggling to imitate something at least close to the correct noise a few times.

Kopaka rolled his tongue deeper down his throat in something akin to a purr: "Frrreim-uorrrk an- anao- amu- anolam- anomelie," he tried to explain, modulating squeaks by imposing his dull greyish teeth and tongue against his lower lip to try and correct his pronounciation - though much of it was beyond his control.

His frustration was mitigated slightly by Nokama's humid palm laying on his hand. He focused on the texture of the protodermis on his skin before he started scowling too hard.

The Turaga turned to their friend, speechless but with eyes open wide, completely baffled.

Krahka could only shrug: "They're not built for it."

"What do you mean, not built for it?" Nokama sputtered before she could hold herself back: "It's our language! Our first dialect! All Matoran are made with an immediate knowledge of it - what do you mean, not...?"

"Framework lang compat-not," the Rahi repeated: her Agori-like face morphed into a mixture of mechanical features, reminiscent at once of both all the former inhabitants of the Great Spirit Robot and none of them, so that she could illustrate the problem as they moved in an unnatural manner as she continued speaking in screeching whirrs, clicks, buzzes, clangs, clunks, and so on. "Unit mec-not lang maker lang part-plural present-not. When: lang maker-yes lang part number-plural mod-not. Ice-toa stone-toa find-yes number-plural rrr-lang part click-lang plus maker-yes part-part-part iiii-lang-dif minus lang part-dif number-plural mod-not."*

The information did very little to comfort the Ga-Turaga. She looked awfully beside herself.

"But you do understand it still - you did understand all that with no problem, right?" Whenua turned back to the Toa as he gently clunked: "Comp-yes, be? Comp-correct-yes, be?"

"Com-ies arth-turrga, bee," Pohatu reassured him.

The other winced a little, but he smiled: "And you can still say a few words," he reassured Nokama, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. "Pronounciation leaves a lot to be desired, but based on how you spoke earlier it's safe to say that's not your forte."

The Toa of Stone dropped his shoulders with a cartoonish pout.

"Corec," Kopaka coughed.

His brother shot him a glare that wouldn't have been out of place on Nuju's face during one of his worst days.

The other Toa smirked with a smugness worthy of Onewa.

It was very short-lived, as he instantly dropped it and paled when Pohatu pointed at his nose with a brand new vengeance in his own dastardly grin as he only said: "Sayit."

Krahka tilted her head.

Then she grinned too.

Horrifyingly, because of the completely mechanical face.

Pohatu pressed harder on Kopaka's nose: "Sayit."

The Toa bit down on his lip and scowled.

"Sayit!"

"Come on, Kopaka," Krahka drawled with a honey-sweet tone, "Don't you want to show them how good you are?"

He shot her a look that could have killed her if she'd been any weaker a being and tried to stand up to walk out of the situation as he'd enjoyed being able to do in these past few days; he was instantly grasped and manhandled until he was essentially dangled before the Turaga, trying as hard as he could to hold himself back by clawing onto the cot with his dull fingers: "Sayit!!" his brother insisted with a wail, shaking him up and down like a jammed up pepper grinder.

"No!" he growled back quietly as his cheeks grew darker.

Pohatu leaned down to the baffled Turaga with a conspiratorial smirk: "Ee kip sain da vecas ee nos ee can mes i'ap," he stage-whispered, completely forgoing any lesson he might have been given on proper phonology in favor of fluid if only vaguely comprehensible communication.

"Can-NOT!" his brother corrected.

"Aysay da!"

"NO! Ee- Yu, say-d, can!"

"He's right, you said 'can', not can't." their teacher intervened: "You're really bad with plosives."

He very maturely replied by blowing her the loudest raspberry he could and resuming shaking his poor frazzled brother by the shoulders whilst gargling some sort of inarticulate howl.

The sheer tenacity with which Kopaka was holding onto that terrible mattress was probably only matched by a Bohrok's drive to clean.

Krahka's hyena-like cackle briefly interrupted his concentration so he could shoot her another positively deadly glare - which meant that he was taken completely aback when he was finally ensnared from beneath the armpits in a grapple, lifted halfway in the air, and launched together with his brother as the both screamed back onto the bed.

The Rahi kept laughing as the two tussled like a pair of angry manuls, needing to bend down on her knees before her lungs collapsed and she fell to the floor.

She waved at the worried friends to reassure them: "Let them, let them - pups like them need to play!"

"I think they're trying to bite each other," Nokama objected.

"That's a common play-pattern," her brother intervened too quickly.

While he nursed the shoulder she'd punched, the Ga-Turaga turned back to the still cackling beast: "What is this even about? What would elicit a reaction like this?"

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Krahka howled back, overwhelmed by a fit of giggles for a few more seconds before she could return to a semblance of composure: "Your little Ice Toa is a big ol' show-off, is all! He decided he was good enough to recite a rhyme from memory as his first real attempt at speech, and he-"

"SHAT!" came from the mess of organic matter, promptly followed by a "SAYIT!" followed in turn by a loud frustrated shriek.

"And he did bad. Like really bad."

"SHAT!"

"SAYIT!!"

"NO!"

A loud, almost metallic sound rang out for a second, and then Pohatu yowled as he rolled on his back with his faulty leg that didn't seem to want to heal in his hands, accusing a certain degree of pain to the limb through variations of ahia-ahio-ohiohi-ahiuiah.

Kopaka pointed a finger at him as though he could have stabbed him with it, hissing: "Yu, de-serv, it."

His brother briefly stopped nursing his calf to slam a hand on his bicep in what would have more clearly been the first half of a crass gesture if he hadn't been laying face up in the spit image of a stuck dermis turtle.

"I could give you a penalty for that!" Whenua warned him.

To which the Toa of Stone rightfully protested, squashing his brother's face in his hands: "An ee don ghe uan?"

"By the tail of the Rahi Nui, you are abysmal at talking," Krahka sighed. "And you could do it from the second you were awake..."

"Shat ap, ayam jas fas."

"There is not a single right phoneme in that sentence."

"Ayam jas fas!"

The sound of their bickering did not bother the Onu-Turaga as he mused over the barely comprehensible complaint his brother's Toa had brought to his attention.

He turned to his sister: "What is it that you used to teach in Metru Nui, again?" he asked, "Was it hystory? Or language?"

"A bit of both," she replied, the hint of a twinkle in her eye telling him that she must have caught on to what he was thinking: "Though literature was also on my curriculum."

Whenua made a big show of humming and thinking, even playing with the chin of his mask like he'd once seen some Ko-Metru scholars do when they were so deep in their mostly useless ponderings that they wouldn't even notice where they were going until they smacked their faces against a wall, before litting his pale green gaze finally settle on Kopaka's dark face.

The organic Toa was giving him a look that promised frigid anguish if he even just thought of putting his idea in motion.

"Does your leg hurt very badly, Pohatu?" the Turaga asked with not a single hint of fear towards the silent threat at him, since he knew it was all hot air anyways.

A disgruntled wail was answer enough.

"Then a penalty for Kopaka is indeed in order. I'm certain you're curious about that rhyme they mentioned he could recite, sister?"

Kopaka hissed through gritted teeth: "No."

"You don't get a say in this," Whenua shut him down immediately.

"No!"

"Why, dear brother, I am curious," Nokama replied.

"No!!"

She laughed a little more gently as she noticed the Toa's embarrassed darkening cheeks as he sunk his nails into the mattress, and waved at him reassuringly: "Oh, come now, I've heard all sorts of terrible recitals in my time from Matoran who should have had a much better grasp on their tongue than you do right now, it'll be nothing special! Here - come closer, say it into my audio receptor. That way nobody else will hear. Is that alright with you?"

For a second, considering the way he trembled in his seat and the perfectly immoble seething squint of his eyes, her interlocutor seemed moments away from grasping her mask and disassembling her entire body like a puppy tussling with a porcelain doll.

Then, blushing so furiously that his face might as well have been made of coal, he did lean very close to the Turaga (avoiding eye contact at all costs) and complied.

His lips moved imperceptibly for a few seconds, making almost no sound at all.

He was so quiet in fact that Nokama had to interrupt him and ask, as sweetly as possible: "Could you repeat that a little louder, please? I can't hear a thing."

Head sinking into his shoulders from embarrassment, hearing Krahka's mocking giggles behind him, and feeling Pohatu's eyes pierce holes into his back, the stoic Toa of Ice thought the loudest most terrible curse that could come to his mind in the hopes that it would automatically transfer into their brains and raised his voice just enough for the Turaga to actually make out the words.

If he had gotten a limb cut off it would probably have been so much less painful than this.

The second Nokama pulled away and joined hands in front of her mouth to carefully choose her words he was frankly ready to just spontaneously shatter into a quadrillion pieces.

He did crumble a little when she placed a kind palm on his arm.

"It was a commendable effort, and I praise you for trying your best in your current conditions," she started, so immensely sweet in an attempt to soften the blow that was inevitably coming (she stopped briefly to shut up Krahka's new batch of chuckles with the most killer glare in the repertoire of any being of Water) before finally taking a long breath and admitting: "But that was really, really bad."

Kopaka curled into a ball, lowered himself to the floor, and scuttled under the cot and across the room in pure shame.

Pohatu nearly choked again as he laughed as loud as he could.

He choked for real when his brother landed a whole elbow in his stomach with a pounce that would have hurled the both of them right off the bed if the Rahi present hadn't shifted just in time to contain them - though that could not stop him from contuining to howl his hilarity, all while getting pelted in as many furious slaps across his face and body as the Ice Toa's hands could withstand before they caught on fire.

--

*Organic beings don't have anything to produce most of these sounds with, and even when they can only a few can be modulated. They did discover a variety of purrs and tongue-clicks - and that they can do those weird lip-teeth-tongue squeals - but they can't articulate much else.

[afniel]

I have no self control. Like, at all. I told myself to give me at least a week off and I would not hear shit about it.

To be fair the entire contents are currently "Words go here" but still. That's three. Solid start.

Can you blame me though, the Vegas-Indy flight is so boring and I can get so much done during it.

[wiltking]

opened up my ideas document for Fish Bones today to show my friend how i structure stuff and this part gutted me

[ac-liveblogs]

Childe: Hi Traveller just here to establish that we're friends, I'm a good person at heart and there's something weird going on with my Vision but a Delusion is not a safe alternative! I'm depressed and there's something strange going on with me! I fell into the Abyss by the way, and I met a woman called SKIRK and got my inhuman powers there! Did I mention SKIRK. SKIRK is very important. Remember SKIRK. Welp, something definitely weird going on. Kinda depressed. Weird abyssal powers. Anyway, g'bye!!!!

Childe: Wait, I forgot to drop more lore. Champion duelists! Also, take my Vision. Okay bye for real!!!!!

what the hell was this conversation. absolute sprint match. that sure was a whole lot of unnatural exposition compressed into two minutes. was childe on a timer or what

[linguisticparadox]

Hello lovelies I am here today to tell you that "shock" is a medical condition that occurs when the body is not getting enough blood flow. It is life-threatening and as many as 1 in 5 people suffering from shock die from it! It is not a psychological reaction to trauma (although that is also very real and can be quite serious), it is a physical condition. I know that exactly zero health or first aid classes I ever took bothered to say what it was (what I remember is being told "put a blanket on the victim to prevent them from going into shock" with no further explanation lmao), which is kind of a travesty because shock constitutes a medical emergency! If you suspect someone is in shock or is at risk of going into shock you need to call 911 or your local emergency number!

Please check out the links up above to learn more! Take care of yourselves bbs! I love you! 💖

[tally-ace]

To make my file names as clear and easy to read at a glance as possible, I shorten the titles of my fics to a single word to organize them all. For example, my folder of chapters for Filling Graves with Ghosts looks like:

Similarly, all my chapters for Haunted by Restless Spirits are shortened to "Restless Chapter _"

That being said, I'm finishing up the draft for "Crowns Chapter 2" tonight. If anyone can guess what the full title is you get a passionate kiss on the lips from your truly.

[jangmo-othewarrior]

That Which Burns and Warms

Patty couldn't bare to see it, but she could feel it clearly.

It was like a volcano, or an uncontrollable wildfire. Demonic energy was scorching everything, turning lesser demons' corpses into stains on the ground. The only reason she was even spared was because of the Behemoth corpse on top of her, and she could smell it cooking and burning away. The devil erupting out this energy was still roaring, and it hurt her eardrums to listen to. How the other demons had pissed it off this bad, Patty didn't know.

All that she did know, was that as soon as it was done with the demons, it would be coming for her.

---

"Hey Pattycakes." Dante started talking as soon as she opened up Devil May Cry's front door. "You wanna come with?"

Patty was less than impressed with Dante's attempt to avoid the topic of their previous arguments, but at this point she expected it. So, she decided to play along, for his sake.

"Come with you where? To the grocery store? Bout time you ate something other than pizza." She didn't miss a beat, waltzing over to the jukebox. She could hear Vergil snort from over on the couch, nose deep in some old-ass poetry book.

"Hey!" Dante smacked the magazine he was reading onto his desk. "I eat sundaes too! And you would know, Brat." He mumbled. Patty laughed as she fiddled with the jukebox.

"Dante." Vergil doesn't even look up from his book.

Dante flinches like he's been burned and growls under his breath. Patty cocked her head as she looked over at the brothers. Were they fighting again? It wouldn't be the first time in the six months they've been back. "I was wondering if you would want to come with me on a job, Pats."

Her mental heelturn was instantaneous. "Really?" She gasps. "I swear, if you are lying to me Dante-"

She had started 'interning' for Devil May Cry before Dante had even returned from Hell, and he had been weird about it when he had gotten back. He was super cagey about it, but refused to tell her why. He had also 'forgotten' to tell her about some really big jobs, which had pissed everyone off (a hellbird roosting in Redgrave was kinda an all-hands-on-deck situation). Needless to say, she was finally called in after Lady shot him in the head a couple of times, and he was still upset about it! He had only put her back on the actual rotation after she had promised him to let him teach her how to use a sword - which was stupid because he knew she has watched him use Rebellion for years.

"I'm not, I'm not! Take your finger off of the trigger Pattycake!" Dante ran around his desk like a chicken with its head cut off. "Verge is being boring and refusing to go."

Vergil immediately glared at his brother with the force of a rolling thunderstorm. It would of bothered Patty a long time ago, but it didn't now. It shouldn't of bothered Dante either, but he grabs her hand and rushes out the door before anyone could get a word out.

Yeah, they definitely had a fight about something.

---

The job had been going well, almost to well.

An old park had just been bought by a private buyer who wished to put in a bowling alley. Cool, no problem there. The park was previously used in demonic ritual summoning. Not cool. Thus, a call to Devil May Cry.

There were a lot of the basics: Hell Cainas, Pyrobats, Riots, the whole works. There were more interesting threats as well, like Behemoths, Blitzes, Hellbats, and Baphomets, but nothing the two of them couldn't handle together. In fact, Patty was sure Dante could have handled them by himself. He was certainly acting like it.

It felt like Dante was all over the place, flying from enemy to enemy. There was a slight lack of his usual playfulness, but his quips with her didn't slow down in the slightest.

"You slowin' down, Pats?" He leaned his elbow on the Baphomet corpse he had just punched straight into the ground. Balrog lit up in what had to have been amusement.

"Not in a million years!" She yelled back at him as she aimed one of her custom twin pistols down a Hell Cainas' eye socket. Patty had given Nico very specfic specifications when she crafted these guns, and boy, she had delivered. Half of the Hell Cainas' skull was blown into nothingness.

"Now your even stealing my lines!" His voice rumbled weirdly as he spoke, and his eyes had an odd shine to them. "Brat."

The demons close to Dante suddenly started hissing under their breathes and one of them - a Riot - scurried away before Dante could shove King Cerberus down its throat. "Shit." He muttered.

"You think they're getting their boss?" Patty ran over, putting a spray of bullets into a Blitz as she did so. The other lesser demons were beginning to back off, which meant something bad was probably about to happen. Dante suddenly leaned his back onto her shoulder with his full weight, the asshole. The small bit of demonic power in her veins sparked at his touch.

"Hopefully. Then we can finally get paid." He laughed and softly knocked the side of his head into hers. For a second, Patty swore his entire body was vibrating as he bounced off of her and shot Ivory into an approaching Pyrobat. The air surrounding her felt like was vibrating too, if only for a moment.

Huh. She thought as Dante finished off the flying fire hazard. Must be demonic adrenaline. Dante landed on the ground with a stylish flourish, but his taunting suddenly stopped. Patty then felt more vibrations again, but this time from...

...the ground.

Instinctually, Patty pitched forward, using what little demonic energy her blood had to shove herself forward as much as possible. Seconds after she launched herself, a massive fire-covered claw ripped through the ground where she had been standing. Her landing wasn't graceful, but she was alive. Dante immediately grabbed her arm and heaved her up onto her feet. As they looked at their attacker, the devil hunters suddenly realized something crucial.

They were surrounded.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" The hole in the ground from where the claw sprouted through the dirt was ripped open, and a Fury-sized demon crawled out, spewing magma as it did so. It was a disgusting thing, reptilian in body structure but covered in obsidian and magma. There were obsidian spikes and horns in what had to have been uncomfortable places, and its teeth jutted out of its skull like daggers. One of its clawed hands was lathering magma over its body like it was sunscreen, but it just looked like it was causing itself pain. To put it bluntly, the demon looked utterly nasty.

Dante immediately shot Ebony and Ivory into its volcanic hide, but the bullets got caught in it like a glue trap. The demon tried to laugh, but it just sounded like a clogged volcano about to explode. Dante let out a hiss underneath his breath, and Patty could practically feel his energy begin to wind up like a spring. She wasn't any better; her fingers never let go of the triggers.

"The blood of Sparda, truly a waste with a being like you. It could of seen its true potential elsewhere." It tutted like it was a disappointed school teacher.

"Oh really? Got any applications to turn in?" Dante's words sounded playful but there was an edge to his eyes.

The demon ignored him. "Your... successor even more so, sullying the Sparda clan with something like that."

Dante stilled at its words. His grip on her arm tightened, and he began to lean forward towards the demon. The edge in his eyes had turned as sharp as the blade that shared his name, and she could faintly hear a growl on the air.

Patty has heard enough; she whips her left handed pistol up in line with the demon's chest. "Enough chit-chat." The shot went off.

And chaos erupted onto the battlefield.

The shot had connected, but the bullet got caught in the obsidian on its chest. The demon, however, clearly felt offended by Patty's potshot. It charged, but Dante met it halfway. One half of Cavaliere slammed into the right side of its face, but it catches Dante in claws. Both of them fly off to the side, propelled by the force of Dante's demonic motorcycle buzz saws.

The lsser demons wanted in on the action too. Patty turns to shoot a pouncing Riot in the face. Sidestepping its flying corpse, she angles one of her pistols into the magma latherer's side. The rounds connected, but it only grunted as it vomited magma in Dante's direction.

"Darn." She muttered as she shoved the other pistol into a Baphomet's mouth and fired.

Dante launched himself forward in the blink of an eye, slicing upward with the DSD. The blade repeatedly spins along along the middle of its chest and neck, and the cut squirts out blood and fire. The demon, hissing angrily, lunged forward and blocked Dante's exit off with its arms, blocking him from view.

Logically, Patty knew he would be able to handle himself. He had saved the world, what, four times? Five? A single demon being a son of a bitch couldn't hurt him that badly. But, in the heat of the moment, all she could think about was that Dante was in danger. Shit!

Patty immediately unloaded one of her pistol's entire clip into the Ugly SOB's face. It turned to her with fire in its eyes, and her spine shivered. It gripped down onto Dante, and chucked him into a group of approaching lesser demons. "Dante!"

He was gone from view before he could even get a word out.

Stay calm, Lowell! He'll be okay, he's Dante! Just breathe. Her bleeding heart gladly accepted the reassurance, even as it picked up in speed when the SOB looked down at her.

"Human. How you managed to gain his favor, I will never know." The demon hissed. Patty vaulted over a Behemoth that had charged at her back. It ran straight into the SOB, but it just grabbed onto the giant, chained demon.

"Hate to break it to ya, you son of a bitch," Patty shakily yelled as she shot through an approaching Hellbat's wing, "but I have no idea what the hell you are talking about!" The SOB deviously laughed at her words.

"Fine. Lie to me all you want. It doesn't matter..." In one quick motion, it grabbed the Hellbat she just shot out of the air and pushed the Behemoth so hard it's chains broke. The Hellbat's head was then bitten off, and the demon held its back out in front of its chest. "...Because you're not getting out of here alive."

A lot happened in those few seconds.

Patty tried to back up, only for a Blitz to slam into her back. A large group of lesser demons suddenly started to scatter, as if afraid of something. The SOB shoved the dying Hellbat into the bullets and magma on its chest.

And the Hellbat, and all of the magma and bullets with it, exploded.

She doesn't remember much else other than pain, heat, and a crushing force after that. But there was a sizzle in the air, and the last thing she was able to hear before the world went dark was a voice.

"PATTY!!!"

---

She only woke up when the air shook.

But there was too much pressure to think. Too much, too much too much too much-

She gasped for air. It hurt to fill her lungs, hurt to breathe, but she did it anyway. She felt her lungs stutter, and a horrible sound filled the air. For a second, Patty panicked.

Oh, please no more demons please not right now. She kept breathing, because that was all she could do, as she waited for the demons to come after her again. Lord, she was tired of decade long chase.

But nothing came. Her lungs hitched again, and she heard the ragged, wheezing cough. Oh. That was her. Not more demons. Not Dante. Just her. No one else. Only her. And that hurt so much.

God, she needed to breathe.

She laid there - breathe in, ignore the stabbing in your lungs, breathe out, ignore the pressure - until she finally had the courage to open her eyes. The light burned for a second, but when she finally manged to look around, all she could see was a mass of rotten scales. There was a Behemoth corpse on top of her.

She immediately went to push it off of her, only for her entire body light up in pain. Everything burned, but all she could think was Get it off get it off get it off-

Her arms felt the least damaged, so she slowly pushed against the rotten scales to free her lungs. She couldn't even get it fully off of her, but her arms were holding something. It didn't help much, but at least some of the pressure was gone. A few inches of gracious space for her to inhale.

Patty took in a couple of deep breaths, the first in what felt like hours, and tried to assess her physical condition. Nero had said once on a job that it was really important to do that.

Everything hurt, which was good, because that meant she wasn't paralyzed. It was also bad, because everything hurt. Multiple things were broken, like her leg and definitely some of her ribs, but she was just glad her back was functional. She could barely keep track of the number of cuts she had, and the bruises that would surely form would only make that harder. The only one she definitely knew was there was the one on her forehead; she could taste the blood running down her face. Or maybe there was just blood in her mouth. No doubt the ground was stained with her blood. Fear only truly set in as her skin ran along a sharp, metal point on her stomach. There was a jagged piece of the Behemoth's chains the size of her hand sitting against her stomach. One wrong move, and it goes into her gut.

Wow. Great. Thanks Nero, but NOW WHAT DO I DO???

The only part of her that wasn't in pain was the tiny piece of demonic energy she inherited; it was just fine. In fact, it was sparking, helping her senses come back to her.

Wait, what? Why... And then she felt it. In the air, on her skin, everywhere. It thrummed in the air, against her strained arms, and it made everything she could see wobble with its mere existence. It was hot, sizzling even. A huge outpouring of this demonic energy was coming from... her left?

She turned her head, but her view was partially obscured by the Behemoth's half burned skull. She could see other demon corpses, and the ground was razed down to black ash. Suddenly, something flew into view. No, it was thrown into her view.

It was the SOB demon from before. That is, if it was still alive.

It was missing an arm, and it's lower half was charred so badly that one of the legs disintegrated as it fell down onto the ground. Almost none of the obsidian remained, and what little did was hanging on by small pieces of ripped skin. It's upper jaw was partially caved in, but the eyes moved. It was somehow still alive, and it was looking at something. It's eyes were wide with fear, and it's remaining arm tried to pull it away from whatever it was looking at.

For a second, Patty felt vindicated. Yeah, asshole, you should feel afraid. You should die for the countless people who have probably died because of you. You should suffer for throwing my-

Its terror partially came into view. And Patty's brain stopped.

Being the descendent of a summoner had a lot of perks. A small bit of demonic energy reserved for just for her, the ability to summon demonic energy recreations of some demons (eventually, she didn't have that down yet), and being able to gauge the general level of power of any demon she could see, just to name a few. The third one never really had many applications;in fact, she often forgot she could do it. She couldn't escape it now.

She couldn't even see all of it, but, God, she did not need to. Its back was turned to her, and she was glad about it. The SOB looked like a child next to it, it was so large. The body is covered in dark ridges and spikes that looked straight out of Hell. Firey, demonic energy is leaking out of it at any crack in its obsidian carapace. Four wings adorned its back, and swirls of demonic energy radiated off of them. She couldn't see its face, but the back of its head showed off two pairs of horns, one on the sides and the other on top.

Everything about its presence screamed power; the amount of demonic energy was overwhelming. Abigail had been bad to her, and this thing felt like it could eat Abigail for breakfast. Hell, she wouldn't be surprised if this demon could pick up the Yamato and snap it in half like a twig. All of the burning energy filling the air came from that thing, and seeing it made it all hit her at once.

ragekillbloodlustangerkillrageHOWDAREYOU-

Her head hurt, but she couldn't look away as the devil (that's what it was, a high devil, a king) shoved one of its claws into the SOB's eye sockets. Garbled screeching soundsfilled the energized air as the devil lifted it up with one claw. It pulled it up to what Patty had to assume was eye level, and stopped. The devil held it there as it hovered for a few seconds, and it opened its mouth. All Patty could see was sharp, black teeth and a lava colored tongue before it roared and slammed its prey into the ground.

Patty had to look away then. She had nearly lost her hold on the corpse, and she could feel the point of the Behemoth's chains poking into her lower ribs. It was hard to ignore the horrifying sounds of her previous attacker being squelched, but she couldn't look. She couldn't lose focus, not when the energy was already making everything more difficult; the air burned in a frenzy with the devil.

Patty couldn't bare to see it, but she could feel it clearly.

It was like a volcano, or an uncontrollable wildfire. Demonic energy was scorching everything, turning lesser demons' corpses into stains on the ground. The only reason she was even spared was because of the Behemoth corpse on top of her, and she could smell it cooking and burning away. The devil erupting out this energy was still roaring, and it hurt her eardrums. How the other demons had pissed it off this bad, Patty didn't know.

All that she did know, was that as soon as it was done with the demons, it would be coming for her.

The ground shook each time the demon pounded its prey into the ground. With each shockwave, she could feel her hold on the Behemoth slipping. Just breathe, Patty. Breathe.

It had felt like hours had passed when the devil's rage finally subsided. Its demonic energy began to die out in the air. The smell of burned flesh started to overpower her senses. Patty could taste the dried blood sticking to her face.

Breathe.

Her arms were shaking more now than ever, but she couldn't focus on the pain. She had to breathe. The devil was staring down at its kill, levitating a few feet above it like it was its superior. It probably was. Ragged, animalistic breaths escaped its maw.

Breathe.

The air was still burning, but the defensive, angry part of the air had finally began to fade away. The devil sensed no more enemies; anything that could threaten it was gone. All that was left was corpses.

Brea- Dante.

The devil would consider him a threat; Mundus did years before she had even met him. There was no way the devil would feel calm if Dante was around. If Dante was alive. Tears pricked her eyes. Her arms shook even more.

She hadn't even gotten to tell him how much he meant to her. They had been fighting so much over whether she should be a hunter, if she could take care of herself, and if she was ready for the world. This job had felt like a step forward, that Dante was finally pulling his head out of his ass. That maybe Dante was finally ready to acknowledge the fact that he was the closest thing she had to a father. And now he might be... gone.

Her arms finally gave out.

The Behemoth had lost a lot of its weight to the burning, demonic air, but the chains had remained unbothered by the burning air. The body had been moved just a bit, either by her arms, gravity, or the shaking ground. The corpse fell what few inches it could.

The sound that escaped her as the knife-like chain piece lodged itself in her stomach wasn't a scream, or even a true cry of pain. It was a weak, strangled noise. The sound of something rendered helpless through no fault of their own. The noise of something that desperately wants to live but sees no way out of their situation. The choked cry of someone that thinks they lost someone they love.

Her arms laid limp at her sides, and, for a second, she stared up at the sky. Pressure choked out any breath she had, and her blood was staining the ground again. Patty Lowell fought to keep her eyes open, but her exhausted and battered body forced them shut. She could barely think, and the world began to fall away.

I don't want...to die...please...Mom.....Da...

...

...warmth. It was so warm. It spread everywhere, into each exhausted limb and bleeding wound. Her small, demonic core pulsed like fire, accepting the warmth greedily. It held her up, keeping her mind aloft.

pleasedon'tgo It said. Why was it so nice? pleasestayipromisesafewarm

The ever-present pressure suddenly lifted, and she instinctively took in a breath. So many places suddenly hurt all at once, especially her stomach, but the warmth buzzed almost angrily over her wounds. Pressure returned suddenly to her stomach, and, in a moment of rage, she tried to sit up and throw the pressure off. The pain stopped her before she could even prop her elbows up. Falling back unceremoniously, a strained whine ripped out of her throat. For a split second, she braced herself for the pain of her skull knocking back onto the ground, but the impact never came. Instead, a gentle hand caught her before she could smack into the dirt.

...Who?... Patty managed to think, cracking open her left eye.

A demon looked back at her. Kneeling next to her, its wings blocked out the light, but its demonic core glowed faintly orange. Its head looked more like a skull, with no skin to speak of. There was no readable expression, and its eyes looked like yellow pits. Four vaguely recognizable horns wrapped around its head like a crown.

...The devil from earlier?!?

Why in Hell was it holding her like this? Her guns were laying on her chest too; had it gotten them for her? One of its clawed hands had caught her head, and the other was... Patty caught a glance at the sight of the claws gingerly applying pressure on the stab wound on her stomach. She had no energy to move, but she did have enough energy to squeak.

Out of all the ways Patty thought it would react, leaning down and making soft clicking noises was not one of them. She couldn't tell where its eyes were looking, but it didn't feel like it was looking down on her. The devil lifted her head with far too much care, and sniffed her forehead cut. Her entire body instinctually tensed up, fully prepared for the devil to brutally cave her head in.

To her udder shock, instead of immediately biting down after catching the scent of her human blood, the devil leaned back slightly and hissed under its breath. What is going on?? Patty's bewilderment must of shown on her face, because the demon made more soft clicking noises. Her breath hitched when it leaned back in again. She shut her eyes instinctively.

The open cut on her forehead was suddenly covered with a warm, wet substance. She immediately opened her eyes back up in alarm, only to see a tongue the color of fire rasp over her cut again. And again.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Her core sparked again as the warmth responded in tandem. safemustbesafemustbehealthy

To say Patty was overwhelmed would be an understatement. Every muscle in her body felt like it should be tense and in pain, but instead they were slowly relaxing into the warmth. Her tiny demonic core certainly didn't mind the devil's actions; it pulsed even more.

Apparently, while she was trying to process what was happening, the devil had decided its job was done. The cut slowly stopped buzzing with demonic energy, and it weirdly felt sealed. All of her cuts felt sealed, Patty realized, even the big one in her gut. The devil looked down into her wide eyes and chuffed affectionately. Its clawed hands suddenly shifted, moving underneath her to slowly lift her off of the ground.

Without warning it pressed her body on its chest, her left ear landing right on top of one of the many spikes surrounding the core. A small bit of energy cushioned her from the spikes and jagged edges. The wings folded in as well, practically covering her like a shield. For a second, all Patty could do was breathe and question why?

A rumble answered her.

It started in the devil's core, and expanded until its entire body vibrated with the noise. It was so loud, right next to her head, but it didn't hurt. The devil set its chin on the top of her head, and never stopped purring. That's what it was, purring. A grounding showcase of care that felt real.

And familiar.

It had only came up occasionally, but it had been happening for years. Every once in a while, there would be a rumble in his voice. They could be arguing over sundaes or she could be shooting a Hell Caina in the face, but it would appear out of the blue. Only to disappear as fast as it came, covered up by grins and snarky quips.

She brought a hand up to his demonic core and let the energy run through her fingers. It burned the air around it, small embers glowing and fading in the wind. As it hit her hand, it gave her the same sense of warmth she had felt when he had pulled the Behemoth corpse off of her. The same sense of warmth buzzing along her skin. The same warmth she had barely felt when she had first met him a decade ago.

"D-Dan-" Her voice broke off into a mangled cough. She shut her eyes as she fell limp from the force of it all on her still-battered body. The purring tapered off and Dante let out a worried warble as he gently caught her. Clearly Dante's human brain was taking a snooze, since he would normally say some silly quip to lighten the mood and cover up his nerves.

She would of reassured him if she hadn't see movement out of the corner of her eye.

Snatching one of her guns out of her lap, Patty leaned out of Dante's grip. Everything hurt, but that small bit of demonic energy pulled through as she aimed at the crawling, half-dead son of a bitch. The recoil hurt like a bitch too, but her reward was instantaneous. The SOB moaned out a pained gurgle as its remaining eye angrily searched for her. And then widened as she fell back and tucked her head underneath the unhinged jaw of one very pissed off devil.

The screech Dante released should of burst her eardrums, but the energy hovering around her thankfully muffled it. His wings wrapped around them both as he lifted into the air, and fireballs started shooting out like they were being fired from a minigun. When Dante's wings opened back up, the only thing left of the SOB was a chunk of his obsidian hide surrounded by charred flesh.

And then, like a switch was flipped, Dante was back to fussing over her. He gently lowered them both onto a relatively uncharred and less bloody patch, although he refused to let go of her. The purring was back as well, and Dante let out a croon as soon as she set down her pistols. Carefully, he set her down on his incredibly spiky lap, and gently knocked his head into hers, wary of the sharp points cutting her. Despite everything, Patty just felt relief and exhaustion, and she sagged into Dante's affection. As he set his head on top of her's again, Patty noticed something new. Words.

"Slipping out of safety and attacking your enemy. Heh, course my nestling takes after me too much..." They were low, and hard to separate from the rumbling purr constantly underneath it, but they were there.

Nestling. The term made her suck in a breath. Vergil once called Nero that after a really intense misson, and Trish had explained that it was a term of endearment parent demons used with their children. If Dante is refering to her as his nestling, then that means that he sees her as...

Patty burst into tears.

Dante immediately stopped everything: the purring, the words, the demonic energy, everything. The warble that left his mouth just made her cry even harder. She held her head in her hands.

Is this real? Their relationship had been so rocky lately with his overprotective actions, because of course he was being overprotective. God, Vergil totally knew and was hammering him about it. Patty's thoughts were moving a mile and minute.

She had always held out hope for a father to enter her life when she was little, but that had stopped after meeting Dante. It only after he disappeared into Hell again did it finally hit her why. And now he was telling her that all of him, human and demon, wanted her as his kid? It was almost too much to bare. But she needed confirmation. She needed to know for sure.

Her tiny demonic core responded immediately, reaching out with what little energy it had to connect with Dante's for a split second.

worrysorrypleasebeokayimsorrydontgoiloveyou-

That was all Patty needed to know.

She launched herself at Dante, wrapping her arms around his giant, spiky torso and shoving her face into the most comfortable place she can, directly above his core. Dante instinctually wraps his arms around her in return, and his wings join in a second later. Questioning clicks sound out from above her head, but her answering tears just fall past the jagged edges near his core.

"..Patty?"

His voice is rough, deep, and has a weird echo, but it was his. It was tentative, worried, and almost sounded scared. His energy hangs in the air, disconnected but still nervous. Her throat burns, her head is throbbing, and she feels like walking corpse, but she just needs him to know.

"I love you too, Dad."

It barely gets out in one piece, but those words hang in the air. For a split second, Patty is terrified that Dante didn't hear her, or that she was completely off base somehow. But then, the energy comes rushing in as Dante curls himself around her even more. It's as if a dam had been released, the warmth wrapping itself around her like a blanket. Dante's purring was almost too loud; she could barely hear anything else. He nuzzled the top of her head, almost as if he was terrified she'd disappear. She laughed into his chest, a battered but happy mess.

There would be time for arguments, explanations, and personal conversations later. Right now, Patty couldn't give a damn about anything, not when there were tears mixing with her own in her lap. They should be burning her, the fiery, demonic things that they were, but all she felt was warmth.

[sanchoyo]

I’ve always been interested in things like choose your own adventure stories or when community polls choose what happens in a story. Tbh I would love to write one (I know there’s a way to do this on ao3, the choose your own adventure part not the poll one as far as I’m aware) it’s just a matter of 1. Making time to do it 2. Deciding what story/fandom to write it for 🤨

[reverecurrent]

isn’t it so ironic that my WHITE rich privileged professor of my women and gender; transportation class is filling me (a queer, poor, transportation disadvantaged student) in her class ABOUT vulnerable ppl.

[kazoologist]

not to be a colossal fucking cowabummer about everything but it really does suck that like. my really chill and like. supposedly more realistic type of career goal feels about as unattainable as like a kid saying he wants to be a singer or something