#the trade off is when things are going poorly. well. he feels his feelings.

[hawnks]

Enough dancing around it.

I need a loverboy. One who is insane though. Plans out in excruciating detail all the firsts (firsts dates first kisses first oral fem receiving), loves to gift roses and champagne, says I love you every ten minutes and always means it sincerely and with his whole heart. Takes everything incredibly seriously, cherishes every moment with his lover, would literally kill someone for hurting his little puppy and probably already has.

[creepycrawliesanonymous]

Addam had taken to calling you "wife," and you weren't about to correct him.

You weren't married, you could never find the time, and it wasn't like anyone was raring to go crying to the sept over it. The people of Hull, at least the people you interacted with, rarely made a fuss over such improprieties, and even had the decency to throw a groat or two in your cap whenever you put out a pot of stew for the dockworkers and looked the other way whenever you would curse burning yourself on the cauldron or hock some phlegm in the dirt or take a hearty swig from your flask. Some of the men told you they had never had fish stew that tasted quite like yours did, and you weren't about to tell them your recipe, so your infractions seemed small in the face of loosing out on the way the fish meat would fall apart in your mouth or how the potatoes were always soft but never mushy.

It had only taken Addam one trip to your little makeshift stand for him to start pining after you, gifting you that flask that you now took everywhere. It was made of sturdy leather, with a small seahorse painted somewhat poorly on one side, and it was given to you already filled with spiced rum. You had made sure Addam's portion had extra meat in it that day. The way his face broke into the biggest grin you'd ever seen told you everything you needed to know.

So yes, you weren't married, but he still called you "wife" and gifted you small trinkets and spent meals at your shack and kissed you when he saw you in the morning, as well as other things that were frankly nobody else's business.

Addam had set out early in the morning, just before the sun rose, with his sieve and other tools to go clam digging. You liked that he worked with his hands, and told him as much when he brought up how soft a lord's hands might be and how much nicer they might feel against your skin. You shoved your calloused palms into his, ending the conversation. He let you sleep in, careful to tiptoe around your living space as he collected his wares. He liked the way your kitchen always smelled like the spices he pinched from his brother's trading cog, and how you placed the small curios he gave you around the windows where you could look at them. He had heard of Lord Corlys Velaryon's Hall of Nine, displaying the treasures from his nine voyages, and thought it couldn't be better than the treasures you kept in your windowsill.

There was a chill in the air, a breeze that made Addam pull his tunic tighter around himself. He recalled how the blanket you used was starting to wear thin, and how the sea breeze would wake you soon without him there to keep you warm. The docks of the port town were already filled with men, loading and unloading boxes, taking inventory, haggling prices with the local merchants, the general bustle of seafarers and sailers. Cod and herring were the main catches coming off the fishing boats, and he knew you would stop by later to pick up some to take home.

The beaches were comparatively quiet, with only a few other men digging around for clams. Poking around, he found a few small depressions in the sand, before settling in and getting to work.

The sun was over the horizon by the time you had made your way down to the beach, slightly stale bread in one hand and basket in the other. Addam stuck out a hand to wave you down, and before you had the chance to say anything, he dropped a pale pink shell into your basket. You fished it out, dropping down to sit beside him as you thumbed over the ridges of the body and poked at the spire. You held it up to the rising sun to see the way the colors changed, before pocketing it.

You cut a piece of bread from the loaf, handing it to him. It would be no use in warning him of its staleness, he wasn't like to complain. He took the piece gratefully, as if it was baked by the cooks in High Tide itself, although you could see the effort he had to put in to ripping off a piece in his mouth. You took your thumb and brushed away the crumbs that stuck to his cheeks. His is a handsome face, you thought, one you wouldn't mind letting people think was your husband's. The chill stung at your skin, and you pulled your knit cape close around your shoulders.

Standing up, you shook the sand from your boots and patted down your skirts. You took a swig from your flask, letting the rum warm your chest. Leaning down, you pressed a kiss to your husband's forehead, and he leaned up to press his own to his wife's cheek. While he felt a pang in his chest as you picked up your things and headed into town, he couldn't deny the contentment in watching you. In those moments he felt like he understood the stories of sailors crashing their ships at the sight of beautiful women-beasts, although none of the sailors could ever hope to know the warmth of their hearth or the grit of their sharp tongue, and none could call a beast "wife," so what could the stories know of ship-wrecking love, anyways.

[heliads]

Hello 💕🌸 can you do a Thomas modern au fic when the reader is not well, sad. And Thomas come to her house to shower her «  the boyfriend package » : hug kiss, etc… the reader is adopt sister of Brenda, Teresa is Thomas twin sister. Newt is their best friend (who also had been matchmaker before they dated..) can you do à maximum of fluff please 🥹🥹

'boyfriend checkup' - thomas

masterlist

Being sick is terrible, isn’t it? From the second you felt the first threads of the cold start to clog your throat and nose, you knew it was all over. Mentally, you signed your death certificate: Y/N L/N, passed away today, gone from the most horrific cough known to man. That’s how it felt, at least, yet you’re still expected to get up and act as if nothing was the matter. Those kids with tuberculosis in the Victorian age who got to lie around in bed all day while their parents treated them like royalty didn’t know how good they had it.

Thankfully, you have at least a couple of days to feel better before you really have to be productive. You started feeling poorly on a Friday, barely managing to stumble through class before heading home as quickly as you could. Not wanting to complain and spoil the good mood of everyone excited about their weekend plans, you had tried to tell as few people as possible. Specifically, you hadn’t told your boyfriend, Thomas, but now you’re missing him more than ever.

It’s not like you’re intentionally trying to keep things from him, you just don’t want him giving up whatever fun things he was supposed to do this weekend so he could hover over you. You love your boyfriend more than anything, honestly, but when it took you so long to admit your feelings for him because you were certain he would never like you back, small things like this make it even easier to talk yourself out of thinking he’ll want to know about it. Thomas is the varsity cross country athlete, the popular one. He loves you, and he’ll tell you that as many times as it takes so you believe it, but some part of you will always wonder why.

That’s why you haven’t told him, not yet, although you have a feeling that he’ll find out sooner or later. Your adoptive sister, Brenda, is best friends with Thomas’ twin, Teresa, and they trade gossip like no one you���ve ever seen before. Both of them have repeatedly assured you that Thomas is head over heels for you, but what if he’s not quite infatuated enough to want to drop his weekend plans to take care of an invalid?

As the cold progresses, though, you start to wish that you had bothered him anyway. You’ve shut yourself up in your bedroom with all the lights off, just lying there and reminiscing about the golden days when your nose had worked as it was supposed to. You had taken so much for granted, and now you’re afflicted with a truly terrible fate indeed.

You’re miserable even on a Saturday, which is how you know things have truly taken a turn for the worst. Not even the weekend, the blessed release from work, can lift your spirits. Your best friend Newt was the only one who knew that you were going through it, and he’d made you promise to call him the second you started feeling better so he could plan a friend group movie night or something. Newt’s always the one on top of stuff like that. You doubt any of you could accomplish anything without his work behind the scenes to keep you all organized. He holds all of you together and keeps anyone from straying too far.

You had hoped that Newt would forget that you were feeling down, but it’s half past noon when your phone buzzes with an incoming call from the blond boy. You briefly consider just letting it go to voicemail, but that would alarm him even more than if you admitted that you still aren’t feeling your best.

You end up giving yourself a second or two to put on your best fake smile before answering the call. Thankfully, Newt had elected to go for just a talk over the phone instead of FaceTime, so you only have to disguise your voice and not your expression, too.

Newt’s voice rings over your phone. “What’s up, Y/N? How’re you doing today?”

You’ve never planned on a career as an actress, but when you answer Newt as happily as you can, you start to consider it. You sound chipper and excited, surprising even yourself. “Doing fine, Newt. How about yourself?”

Maybe this is actually doable. Maybe you might be able to convince your friend that you’re fine so he doesn’t do something terrible like try to get involved. Right now, you just want to be left alone to wallow in your dark room until you’re physically forced out of it.

Newt clicks his tongue in disapproval, sending a rush of static crackling over the phone. “Y/N, are you being honest with me?”

You start to sputter in surprise. Hadn’t your ruse been perfect? “What? Of course I am!”

Newt lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Sure thing. We’ve been friends for years, I know when you’re lying. You want to let me know how you’re really feeling?”

“Really, I’m great,” you eke out. “You’re being paranoid, Newt.”

“Am I?” He asks.

“No,” you admit. “I’m still miserable. My head is killing me, and I haven’t left my bed for more than a couple of minutes all day.”

Newt sighs. “That’s what I was worried about. Is there anything I can do? Maybe rally the group to swing by your house to cheer you up?”

“No, honestly. I don’t want to do anything. Hopefully I’ll get better soon, but until then, I don’t want any crowds around.” You tell him.

Newt pauses for a moment, thinking, then asks, “What about just one person?”

You frown. “Are you offering? I thought you were busy all day.”

“I am,” Newt clarifies, “But Thomas isn’t.”

You go silent. Newt, always the perceptive one, sighs again. “You haven’t told him that you’ve been feeling under the weather, have you?”

“No,” you admit, “but I didn’t want to bother him, that’s all. There’s nothing Thomas can do about this. I don’t want him to worry about something out of his control. He’s already got enough on his plate already, you know that as well as I do.”

Although this conversation is happening over the phone, you can picture Newt’s look of disappointed consternation anyway. “No, he would be furious with me if you were sick and I didn’t tell him. I’m letting him know immediately.”

“Newt, don’t you dare,” you admonish.

He just chuckles. “Too late. Texting him now. With any luck he’ll be over within the hour.”

“You’ve betrayed my trust. You’re a terrible friend,” you admonish him, but only half heartedly.

Newt laughs openly. “No, I’m a fantastic friend and you know it. Did I not use everything in me to get the two of you together?”

You giggle in spite of yourself. “You did indeed. I remember you bringing that up many times.”

“As I deserve,” Newt grumbles. “The two of you fought me all the way despite supposedly wanting this. He had better make you happy now, I’m not ruining all of my hard work for a bad cold.”

You smile. “Thanks, Newt. I’m very glad that you suffered so much for us.”

“You had better be,” he says, but he’s laughing when he hangs up.

Seconds later, you get a text from Thomas: On my way ASAP. Might be breaking the speed limit.

You grin and text him back. Don’t get pulled over.

Never, he answers, and he’s true to his word, a knock sounding on your front door about five minutes later. The rest of your family is out of the house, so you have no problems creeping down the hall to unlock the door and let him in.

Thomas swoops in immediately, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before pulling away so he can get a good look at you. “How are you feeling, Y/N? Dizzy? Feverish? You look alright, if a little tired, but let’s get you back in bed at once.”

You laugh. “I’m not dying of the plague, Thomas. I’ll survive standing up for a few more seconds.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to,” he says. Pausing briefly to leave his shoes at the door, Thomas proves his point by picking you up in bridal style and carrying you back to your room despite your protests, which are admittedly pretty halfhearted.

Once Thomas has gotten you back in bed again, found a glass somewhere to bring you water, insisted on watching you drink all of it, run back downstairs so he could fill it again, and returned, he perches on the side of your bed, gently squeezing your hand.

“Well, Doctor Thomas?” You ask teasingly. “What’s your diagnosis?”

He grins and plays along. “Not terrible. I recommend bed rest, and maybe also letting your boyfriend know when he needs to take care of you.”

This last bit is delivered with increasing passion, and you’re left sheepishly smiling at him. “Alright, maybe I should have told you in the first place, but I just didn’t want you to worry.”

“Worrying is my job,” Thomas says, “I am excellent at it. Also, if I think you’re not telling me when you need extra love, I’ll worry even more than usual. The only way to keep me from worrying is to let me know when you’re sick or hurt. Deal?”

“Deal,” you agree, and smile when he kisses your cheek.

“You should get some rest,” Thomas urges you. “Here, I’ll close the door so the noise from downstairs doesn’t bother you.”

He moves to stand, but you reach for his hand and he freezes at once. “Stay with me?” You ask hopefully.

“Of course,” he smiles, and, careful not to disturb you, climbs into bed next to you, lying down on top of your blankets to keep his street clothes off of the mattress. You curl into him, letting your eyes shut as the steady beat of his heart lulls you to sleep. Once you wake up, you’ll feel better, and be more open to conversation, but for now, both of you are quite content with the silence. Peace is good for both of you.

requested by @hope92100, i hope you enjoy!

maze runner tag list: @rogueanschel, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @neewtmas, @mayfieldss, @hiya-itsamber, @gods-fools-heroes, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver

all tags list: @wordsarelife

[selfproclaimedunicorn]

Bfsjfjajri, this took forever because I get so, so distracted so easily. But here's that sweet, sweet lore @corporalicent

Daenys Targaryen is Rhaenyra's sister who's younger than her by a year. She is soft & feminine & girly & she very much revels in the trappings of being a girl as a sort of rebellion against their dad being disappointed in her not being that sweet, sweet son by Aemma he keeps pining for. It allows her a sense of freedom because it let's people just kind of beigningly ignore her due to "oh she does what she's supposed to." It's equal parts "I like this," & "I can manipulate people this way." Weaponized I'm Soft And Girly And Prone To Hysterical Irrational Emotions.

Her companion & bestie is Lyonel Strong’s youngest daughter, Cassana, & she also winds up starting a secret relationship with Tyland Lannister that culminates in a secret wedding. There's also the Targaryen Weirdness that comes from "I only have same gender siblings" she has to deal with for a bunch of her life & never really goes away even after the Targtower boys are born because, well, Daenys is 14 when Aegon is born. The pressure is off at that point, but her & Rhaenyra both still have to contend with "if one of us was a boy we'd be married, but we aren't so what are we?" Their arc together is going to be very heartfelt & I'm hyped for the feels of "what do I do without an older brother to marry like I'm supposed to?"/"I'm glad Rhaenyra is my sister so I can dream about hunky boys & kiss Tyland without feeling guilty"

Also, I don't get to talk about it a lot, but she is a dragon rider & I made her baby special for her. Her dragon is purple/blue/pink & named "Windscream." Very femme, very girly, this is what Daenys deserves: a dragon that compliments her eyes.

She & Tyland have boocoo kids. Like, 6 or 7? I keep debating one of them, but they have 5 girls & at least 1 boy at the end (Aemma, Jonquil, Genna, Alysanne, Vaella, & Tybolt for sure. MAYBE Gerion).

Also, also I am letting @murmel-malt borrow my girl Daenys as one of her OC Hedaera's kids. Because friendship is trading your OCs around like Barbie dolls

Aldreda Farwynd is my chaotic, bisexual, selkie coded, pirate queen, seal mommy & I adore her so. She's the last living child of Lord Alfric Farwynd of Lonely Light & she is stuck in a succession crisis of her own because of this. She had 20-something brothers that all died at various points in her life, with the one she's fully related to (Alfric has 5 wives) dying before she was even born. Her brothers in order (and with their death details) are as follows:

Euron: died at 35 on a raid

Ronas: died in the cradle before Aldreda was born

Barrian: died at 32 on a raid [same raid as Euron]

Theon: died at 28 from an oral infection that spread

Faren: sailed further west at age 22 & was never seen again, presumed dead

Edgard: sailed west with Faren at age 18, presumed dead

Coren: died at 22 while sailing home due to being caught in a bad storm

Orwen: died at 20 while sailing home, caught in the same storm as Coren

Randar: died at 17 while sailing home, caught in the same storm as Coren & Orwen

Winfirth: died of the shivers at age 3

Trystifer: died at 14 after drunkenly falling from the top of one of Lonely Light's towers

Sigeric: murdered at 15 during a physical altercation about bedding the prettiest girl at Lonely Light

Vernyn: sailed east to try & explore Valyria's ruins at 16

Ulfric: died of a burst belly/ruptured appendix at age 9

Alwin: died at 13 due to an infection from poorly treated wounds

Waeland: mortally wounded at age 12 during a spar with real weapons

Uther: drowned at age 8

Marlyn: slipped & cracked his head open at age 7

Hubert: died in the cradle

Rhys: murdered by poison at his 6th name day

Her dad & his 2 brothers are a whole Thing, but the tl;dr is that Alfric & his full brother are the sons of a Salt Wife, & their brother (the son of their dad's Rock Wife) thinks he is entitled to Lonely Light more than "his dumb, older half-brother with a mainland mom." This gets imparted onto his oldest son, Westley, who is the grossest & most insidious man in the Iron Islands. He manipulates & grooms Aldreda for close to 2 decades before revealing how awful he is by trying to take her claim. Their altercation drives her away from home, putting her in position to become Aegon II's Master Of Ships during The Dance: something Aldreda does in exchange for a royal decree that inheriting Lonely Light is hers by right (following the Andal succession laws Aegon’s claim banks on).

She's 5-ish years younger than Alicent, & their relationship is...it is something. Initially for Aldreda it's "why shouldn't I fuck this hot, obvious lesbian? Don't I deserve comfort?" & for Alicent it's her finally getting egged on to do something with her own desires. They proceed to become each other's character development girlfriends who have actual feelings for each other beyond "this is for me & my pleasure." I'm still debating endings & major events beyond emotional growth arcs, but I know that Aldreda 100% kills at least one person for Alicent’s safety, & that they trade jewelry as part of Aldreda’s weird, fucky Ironborn "we belong to each other" thing. The mutual ownership thing is very important to Aldreda (& the mutual part is part-and-parcel with her growth. It would have just be a "it's about me having you" thing without the growth).

Their relationship is very "we didn't 'fix' each other, we just made each other the better version of who our lived experiences turned us into." Because "fixing" each other would honestly be inauthentic & it would amount to covering Aldreda in way less blood, & that's not very Sexy Pirate of her to not be covered in blood

[strideofpride]

Season 3 of Gossip Girl was so aggressively mediocre tbh, like people bitch a lot about season 5, but at least that had some interesting drama interspersed into the poorly written storylines! The Serenate romance arc and the Dan/Blair popular kid/loser role reversal plots were fun, and the parts of Jenny’s arc that didn’t feel like character assassination were compelling, but outside of that…

Honestly I think the biggest issue was shifting things from being a Serena-centered school drama to a Chuck-centered business drama. The Bass Industries plot ended up dominating the season, and it wasn’t even conceptually interesting. Like the writers were trying to do their own pseudo-pre-Succession thing with Chuck, but they just slapped it right in the middle of a CW teen drama without any of the scaffolding to support it. “Will Chuck live up to his dead father’s expectations? Can he build his own empire, or will he squander his legacy?? Who’s his real mom, and what does she want?!” I don’t care, I really don’t care, and I wish she had wanted an abortion so I didn’t have to sit through 22 episodes of this. What the fuck is going on with Serena and why is Nate dating a republican???

(Okay also, if I’m being completely fair, the S3 Thanksgiving episode really did deliver. And I genuinely enjoyed the Dan/Nate friendship moments sprinkled throughout, as well as the periodic Dan/Blair and Dan/Georgina hijinks whenever they popped up. But those parts of the season got way less screen time than the Chuck/Chair angst, Serena’s suddenly urgent and all-consuming daddy issues, the weirdly bad Dan/Vanessa plot, or all of the nothing they were doing with Nate. The writers consistently prioritized the least interesting storylines that season.)

Yes, exactly! S3 had pockets of interesting stuff, like S5, but it was largely so dull and yeah, it *is* cause of all the “Chuck the teenage businessman stuff” (technically his only business is The Empire in s3, he doesn’t actually take over Bass Industries until Lily tries to sell it in s4). Plus, I always find Chuck boring when he’s in romantic hero mode, so the one-two of that is soooo. Ugh.

Also like…do c/hair fans actually like where they took that relationship in season 3? Cause I feel like the whole season was just a good case study of why they’re a horrible couple. Like they start off the season already doing sex games to spice things up after three months, then Chuck gets all mad at Blair for meddling with The Empire (they even say at one point they only make a good team when they have an enemy to scheme against like??? That sounds unhealthy bro). Then there’s all of Chuck’s mommy & Uncle Jack drama, where he basically shuts Blair out. Then he trades her for a hotel and then he tries to control her dating life after they break up and then he can’t even wait an hour and has dubious consent sex with Jenny like. Their dating season is so Bad for them actually.

And I don’t even get some schadenfreude from it cause once again: it’s all so fucking boring.

[emeraldspiral]

Thinking about Nightwing/Batgirl vs Nightwing/Starfire and my hot take is that Dick and Kory should be endgame because Dick and Babarba is kind of incestuous.

Not in the sense of it being “icky”, but in the sense of it not allowing the Bat-family to grow and branch out and limiting it’s genetic diversity, in a manner of speaking.

Like, there’s already so many Batman proteges all trading around the same three or four code names. Poor Tim even had Stephanie and Damian calling themselves “Robin” when he wasn’t even dead or retired from the role. Stephanie had to go back to being “Spoiler” so Barbara could be Batgirl again. Jason tried to be Nightwing when the writers were just considering killing Dick off and then a bunch of randos tried to make it a collective moniker for a team. Dick left Gotham and became Nightwing to get out of Batman’s shadow but then he ends up having to take on the role of Batman while he’s Comic Book Dead. He’s supposed to live in Bludhaven but he’s constantly getting dragged back to Gotham to help Batman with one thing or another. The Batman writers even made Dick break-up with Starfire because him being preoccupied with the Teen Titans meant he wasn’t available for them to use in Batman stories, which kinda misses the entire point of having him outgrow the sidekick role and leave Batman in the first place.

So I feel like if you have Dick and Barbara get together, it’s just continuing to tie Dick down to the Bat-family and preventing him from spreading his wings. You know if they have kids together someday the boy(s) are gonna be another Robin/Nightwing/Batman and the girl(s) are gonna be another Batgirl/Batwoman/Oracle and they’re always going to be defined as Batman’s grandkids, Batman’s proteges, his successors, his legacy.

With Dick and Kory you don’t have to keep up the perpetual cycle of Batman getting a new protege who looks up to him at first and then eventually figures out how miserable he is and how poorly he’s coping with his trauma and realizes that they don’t want to be like him. You can tell new stories that go beyond the scope of Gotham. You can have stories that deal with the ramifications of Dick marrying an alien princess and technically being the prince consort of Tamaran and their kids being heir to the throne. You could do something really interesting with the idea of them having a biracial child and wanting them to be connected to the cultures of both parents’ home planets. Even if the kid does end up becoming another Batman protege, at least they’d be bringing something new to the table by being the first Bat-kid with actual superpowers.

I also think it’d be more interesting for Barbara to get a love-interest outside the Bat-family as well. Maybe even follow Dick’s lead and retire from the Batgirl role, pass it back to Stephanie or Cass or some new girl and either go back to being Oracle or get a brand new identity and venture off to a new city. Go solo and do her own thing her own way, not as a Batman sidekick.

Actually, you know if she did go solo and got her very own rogues gallery that would open up opportunities for her to have some sexual tension with a hot villain. Bruce has Talia and Selina. Terry had Ace. Nightwing has basically every woman good or evil. Let Barbara have something special with a hot bad boy.

I don’t dislike Dick/Barbara as ship, but I think there’s something kind of sweet and wholesome about them just being two people who used to date and are now best friends who love each other like siblings and I think it’s better for both characters if it stays that way.

[pipwasreal]

Day 26: bones + dacryphilia

Characters: Edwin Payne, the demon spider made of baby doll heads (mentioned), a thing that is worse than a demon

Content warnings: human remains, despair, existential horror, trypophobia, dehumanisation

Edwin collapses against the wall and slides to the floor, curling up into an unobtrusive ball and trying to catch his breath as quietly as possible.

He cannot hear anything over his soft panting and his pulse throbbing in his ears. This corridor seems particularly poorly lit and filthy, unswept by either his feet or the spider demon's bulk, so perhaps he may hope to remain undiscovered here, for a short while.

The floor is littered with the usual debris of shed doll parts, cracked and dirty. But there is something else, larger and paler than a doll's head, half-buried among the detritus. That is unusual enough to warrant investigation.

He uncurls his limbs and crawls over. Carefully, he extricates the object from the mess and turns it around in his hands.

It is a jawless human skull, soft tissue long since rotted away or picked off.

With shaking hands, Edwin brushes it clean as best he can using his soiled undershirt, then settles back against the wall.

He stares into the empty eye sockets and an awful thought occurs to him. He runs the pad of his thumb along the bottom edge of the skull's teeth; sticks his other thumb in his own mouth and does the same. He is horrified, but not surprised, to discover that the surfaces match exactly.

Himself, then. Of course, who else? But how long ago was he torn apart here? How long has this body lain undisturbed since then, to rot and dessicate so completely?

Nausea and despair rise in him. He is never going to escape this place. Every time the spider demon catches him, this is what he will eventually become, over and over, forever.

Tears well up and run hot down his cheeks, his body wracked with silent sobs, chest burning as he tries to stay quiet.

And then the shadows shift, coalescing into several long, thin, angular limbs reaching for him.

Edwin cannot move, terror pinning him in place. When the limbs wrap around him, the skull falls from his numb fingers and rolls away.

The shadowy surface does not feel like skin or fur or anything else Edwin has ever felt. It feels... rough, uneven, all soft bristles and porous rippling, like hundreds of tiny hands and mouths are grasping at him wherever the limbs touch his skin. He shudders, nauseated but unable to move away.

But a small part of him is curious. The corridor is still silent. This is not the thud and giggle of the spider demon, this is... something else.

He is still crying, weeping silently, tears dripping off his nose and chin. One limb moves upward, its tip rasping and quivering against his skin. The soft bristles soak up his tears and smear them across his face. The tiny holes latch onto his wet skin and suck.

Edwin gasps, entire body tense and still and trapped.

A voice like a sigh ripples through his mind.

Good boy, it whispers. Good toy. Good trade.

[newspropaganda]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal 2 - When Splitting A Season is Shilling Bad Writing All Over

Alright, so where do I even start with Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal II? If you thought the first season of Zexal was bad, then buckle up because Zexal II takes the dumpster fire and somehow adds even more fuel to the flames. This is a perfect example of a series that just doesn’t know when to quit, dragging its feet and pretending like there’s more to say, when in reality, the story’s dead on arrival. And I can’t help but compare Zexal II to the Power Rangers Neo-Saban era—it’s a perfect analogy for how both these franchises took massive steps backward by dumbing everything down for younger audiences, with absolutely no regard for long-time fans or storytelling quality.

From the start, it’s clear that Zexal II is just riding on the same bland formula that Zexal already beat into the ground. There’s no real sense of stakes or progression, just a series of badly structured duels that feel like they’re pulled from the worst Saturday morning cartoon clichés imaginable. The show lacks any genuine creativity in its storytelling. I mean, come on—brick walls, overly complicated monster designs, and zero substance in the narrative. You’d think they’d try to evolve the series by adding some deeper themes or pushing the boundaries of what Yu-Gi-Oh! could offer, but nope, it’s more of the same childish nonsense with little thought behind it.

Let’s talk villains. Dr. Faker, at the very least, had some motivations. Sure, he’s not exactly Shakespeare, but you can kind of see where they were going with him—he wanted power to save his family or whatever, standard Yu-Gi-Oh! fare. But Don Thousand? Oh man, Don Thousand is the absolute worst. He’s literally a cookie-cutter villain ripped straight from the Showa era of tokusatsu. Think about it: he’s just this ancient evil force who shows up because… reasons. There’s nothing compelling about him at all. No real backstory, no depth, just a stock "I am evil because the plot demands it" kind of character. It’s almost laughable how one-dimensional he is. Even Zorc from the original series had more going for him than this guy, and Zorc was basically just a giant evil blob with a bad attitude. Don Thousand is the epitome of lazy writing.

Now let’s address the elephant in the room: the series was clearly aimed at a younger audience. But this isn’t just “young”—it’s aimed at really young kids with, let’s be honest, low IQs. They dumbed down everything: the dialogue, the dueling strategies, the characters. There’s no complexity here, no nuance, no challenge for the viewer. It’s spoon-feeding time, folks. It’s insulting to anyone who grew up with the original series or even 5D’s. And here’s the thing, Yu-Gi-Oh! has always been about bringing in a younger demographic, but this is the point where the series went off the rails. They didn’t trust their audience to think critically or to handle more mature themes. Compare that to the first three series, where you had actual stakes and well-rounded characters. Yuma and the gang are just a bunch of cardboard cutouts designed to sell trading cards to kids who don’t know any better.

And let’s not even talk about the duel mechanics, because they go nowhere. The whole point of Yu-Gi-Oh! used to be the creativity in how characters could use their decks and strategies. But Zexal threw that out the window, especially in Zexal II, with half the duels turning into rinse-and-repeat patterns that don’t make sense. It’s as if the writers were more interested in flashy monster animations than giving us actual tension or innovation in the duels. They’re just bad, drawn-out spectacles, filled with asspulls and nonsensical card effects. And because the story was so poorly structured, it’s hard to care when the duels have zero consequences or emotional payoff.

Now, let’s give credit where it’s due: at least 5D’s made some kind of effort to fix its second half. Yes, 5D’s stumbled with its narrative during the later arc, but at least it tried to bring the characters back into focus and repair some of the mess it created. Zexal II? It just doubled down on all the worst aspects of the first Zexal series. And the pacing was atrocious. It dragged, and dragged, and dragged, until you were begging for the end credits. The series had no business even thinking about setting up a Zexal III, but they dropped hints for it anyway. Why? Who knows? Maybe they thought they could milk this disaster for another season, but the fanbase wasn’t having it.

And that brings us to the fandom, or at least the portion of the fandom that gatekeeps Zexal like it’s some misunderstood masterpiece. They’re quick to defend the show’s "heartwarming" themes and brush off all the legitimate criticisms as people "not getting it." No, it’s not that we don’t get it; it’s that there’s nothing to get. The show is shallow. The characters are hollow. The writing is subpar. Yet, somehow, it’s propped up by this small but loud corner of the fandom who refuse to admit that Zexal was a serious misstep for the franchise. They even point to its inflated ratings as some kind of proof that it’s good, but that just shows how broken the system is when it comes to assessing quality. It's like they’re watching a different show than the rest of us.

You know what’s ironic? Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS feels more like a Yu-Gi-Oh! series than Zexal ever did. VRAINS at least attempts to return to the roots of the franchise, with darker themes, characters that grow, and duels that require actual strategy. It's not perfect, but it’s way more in line with what fans of the original series expect from the franchise. Zexal doesn’t even come close. It’s not Yu-Gi-Oh!—it’s a Saturday morning cartoon nightmare that’s been turned into a hollow shell of its former self.

In conclusion, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal was the franchise’s identity crisis put on full display, and Zexal II only made things worse. It dumbed down everything for a younger audience that was clearly seen as too immature to handle anything more than the most basic storytelling. The duels were bad, the villains were lazy, and the show overstayed its welcome. It’s an era of the franchise that’s best forgotten, and anyone trying to defend it is either blinded by nostalgia or refuses to acknowledge the very obvious flaws. The only thing Zexal did was set the bar so low that almost anything that came after felt like a step in the right direction.

[aintgonnatakethis]

SGA Sheppard-gives-Kolya-to-Todd?

his boy's a fucking queer?

I couldn't decide which sounded more interesting

Thanks for the ask, @wyked-ao3! 😄

Sheppard-gives-Kolya-to-Todd now finally has a name and a first chapter posted! bodies in my closet which I added the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat to as a promise to myself to actually follow through on what I want this fic to be: an exploration of Sheppard's dark side. As currently all he wants to do is make out with Todd which, while is an understandable position to hold as well as a nice add-on, isn't what I'm going for overall.

What Sheppard needs to let his darkness out is an enabler. On Atlantis he's surrounded by good people who keep him on the straight and narrow through a mixture of support and pressure (what I mean by 'pressure' is Sheppard feeling pressured to live up to their expectations for what sort of person he should be). I think this is very well shown when he and his team are onboard Todd's hive and he won't give Todd an inch of ground even as Todd is clearly begging for help. If they were alone, I believe Sheppard would be much more willing to provide assistance, but in front of the others he has to 'save face'. Like when he says to Todd "every time we work together I feel like there's a live grenade in my pocket". He would never have said that if there'd been someone else - anyone else, even a stranger - in the room with them, because he's admitting to a weakness: 'I know you're dangerous and I'm going to risk helping you anyway'.

"You're a prize bull, Sheppard. I hope the ride was worth it."

his boy's a fucking queer is inspired by the song the lyric's from: He's So Good by Trash Boat, and is pre-canon SGU, way back when Telford and Young were young men (ages aren't specifically given but mid-to-late twenties, perhaps early thirties at a stretch). Telford stumbles across Young making out with a man. Now, back in those days trading handjobs was common place (yes irl not just in my headcanon lol) because there were so few women on base - if any - and there were often long periods where everyone wasn't even allowed to leave the base at all. So it was viewed by the majority as Not Gay, just something you did to get by.

Kissing, however? Hmm. Telford reacts extremely poorly, and so far it's left open to the interpretation of the reader whether that's because he's jealous, wants Young for himself, and has internalised homophobia about the whole thing, or whether he's just straight up homophobic. But it gets angsty and hate-crimey so it's heavy reading, perhaps even to a more serious degree than the torture in the above Kolya fic, purely because a large section of the people who engage with fandom are queer in some way and therefore will be feel more personal connection to a hate crime over the torture of a "bad guy".

I tried to stop myself from launching off "bad guy" and put this in the tags because it's not strictly tied to the fics, but I couldn't help myself. Sorry. 😂

So. What does 'bad guy' really mean? How has western socialisation affected our views on the subject? Is Kolya a bad guy or someone in a terrible situation? Can you blame any of the 'bad guys' in Pegasus for what they do? They've been subjugated and terrorised for ten thousand plus years. Wouldn't any of us do anything to escape that or even have just a single scrap of safety amongst the horror? Like I don't blame Ronon for never accepting the Wraith in any way shape or form because they slaughtered his entire planet and on the other side of things I don't blame the individual Wraith for killing because the only other option available to them is death, and any species will do incredible things in order to survive. I'll chuck the Iraq-Afghanistan comparison in there too: the Genii as a whole and Kolya as an individual are only the way they are because of Wraith oppression, much like when Western troops roll into places they should not be in and start killing the local populace - they create resistance groups and lend credence to existing ones because people are watching their families die. If someone came into my home and killed my family I'd want to kill them too. I know the eye-for-an-eye viewpoint isn't a healthy one for society and overall I am a prison abolitionist and rehabilitation-focused person, but that's an easy stand to take when I don't have skin in the game, ya know? 🤷‍♂️

Back to the fic! I haven't worked out the ending yet - it's one of those short stories that I get distracted away from halfway through and leave unfinished for a while unless someone expresses interest in the idea - but I don't think it's going to be a happy one.

Everett goes white as a sheet. Telford's never actually seen anyone have the colour drain from their face at such a rate before. He's always imagined it's the response duty-death informers get, calling to the house of some unfortunate serviceman's wife, who knows as soon as she sees a man in uniform who's not her husband at her door.

WIP Name Game

[whumpiary]

Ok I’ve been reading through your Cass and Christopher stories and I’m absolutely enthralled!!! And I have some questions, what do you think was the most damaging part of Cassius and Christopher’s relationship for Cass AND what part of Cass’s story, written or unwritten so far, made him most into who he is in the present timeline?

I love these questions very much. I'm glad you're enthralled!

These are both huge questions and I'll preface my answers with saying that neither of these are 100% definitive, because I think there's a lot of greyness and fluidity in both.

For the first... the most damaging part of Cass' relationship with Christopher was probably its volatility. Christopher was simultaneously incredibly doting, and loving, and genuinely affectionate, and also violent, abusive, demanding, and completely disregarding of Cassius' well-being. Cass was made to be the center of Christopher's world while also not being listened to or protected in the slightest. The contradiction of these things for Cassius was horrendous. The love and affection made him withstand the violence for much longer than he would have otherwise, and the violence made him all the more desperate to seek out the love. For a while, he even feels like that must be the trade off; that feeling so cherished can be possible by enduring an equal amount of pain and horror.

But I'll also say, feeling simultaneously incredibly special and utterly worthless is a recurring theme throughout Cass' life. He was a kid with superpowers... and he was also the kid whose mum was never home and who every teacher categorised as a problem child. He was a teeange psychic, and also had dyslexia so poorly managed he was illiterate. So for him... it barely even read to him as a contradiction that to be Christopher's precious darling boy should come with complete and utter mistreatment.

The second question is trickier, because I'm not sure I believe that any singular event makes someone who they are. But it's probably a combination of a) the above/his relationship with Christopher; b) his relationship with Josiah, and friendship with Lou, and the struggle he feels in trying to accept care from them; and c) the events that lead up to the year he goes missing, and what happens in that year

The last of which in order go: manipulating Josiah into becoming a test subject at the Facility again (so Cass can use the pay off to fuel addiction he's withdrawing from at the time); breaking Josiah back out from the facility when he realises the magnitude of awful of what he's done; running away; getting snagged by Tucker and having to stay under his thumb and under his control for several long, long, long months.

These events humble him in pretty catastrophic ways, and bring him to a rock bottom he didn't realise was possible. Which is why he can even turn up back at Josiah's door, asking for help. He doesn't have any ego left to bruise.

[shrineheart]

DND Update Time:

A LOT has happened in our game and I'm not 100% sure where we left off but let me just cover some things about Roger and some of the shenanigans he's been in.

Fuck Roger Cummingham, born Roger Cunningham, is a tiefling from an upper-class family. This family practices the tiefling tradition of taking on the name of something important in your life. His father is Honor, his sister is Charity.

And he is Fuck.

And hoo boy does his family hate it. They thought he was joking at first but he's been firm. That is his name.

Most people call him Roger but he'll answer to Fuck too.

He always did poorly in his household because he doesn't quite fit in. As a result, he sought friendships in different areas of town. He fell in love with the idea of being a sex worker and performer. He could do his favorite thing AND get paid for it?

A friendly madam by the name of Kimora took him in when he was old enough and taught him the ropes. Well before that he was learning dance and various performance tricks from the folks at the brothels.

He fits in immediately and does quite well.

The usual exchange on introductions is something along these lines.

"Fuck Roger Cummingham, at your service."

"Who's Roger?"

"Me. I'm Roger. It's my name and instructions."

During his time working at the brothel he caught the eye of many customers. One in particular though... one became something more to Roger. A boy who went by the name Lauren.

The pair fell in love. The young man was from a noble family and knew his parents wouldn't approve. So the two made plans to run away together once he'd finished schooling.

And then it came out that Lauren wasn't the only member of the family Roger had been involved with. Due to the anonymity of the brothel Roger, without knowing, had had Lauren's mother and sister as clients.

Lauren's father was furious and sent men after him. Kimora arranged passage for him out of the city.

But Roger wanted to see Lauren to explain himself.

And it didn't go well. Lauren had fully turned on him. Calling him a whore and saying he'd never loved him.

When Roger pleaded with him one last time to listen to him, Lauren called for the guards. And Roger ran.

On board the ship out of the city Roger met a chef/wizard named Paul. The young man made excellent food and seemed rather... dense about things like flirting, innuendo, and dirty jokes. Curious, Roger kept hanging around him.

And eventually fell for him.

Paul is asexual but he fell for Roger too. The pair moved in together. Paul doesn't mind Roger's work and Roger spoils Paul any time he can.

NOW, for our Game. Roger has:

Traded sex to a gator merchant for a magical tattoo.

Now has three magical tattoos which can move around his body. One is a tentacle that gives him the ability to use Eldritch Maul once a day. Another is a tattoo that gives him the ability to use Disguise once a day. And the last is just a little tattoo that he can move around his body and use to spell things out or make images etc. We've joked that it's the emoji tattoo.

Somehow been the least horny of the group while making the most sex jokes.

Gotten a tiny fire elemental sort of companion who he named Jake... because all I could think of at the time was Jake from State Farm due to my sister and I cracking jokes.

He also got a bow that can be used to shoot spells from a distance using said elemental.

Surrendered himself to a villain to save two random slaves. Persuaded her to take him on as a pet. Survived three rounds in the bedroom with her and fled the scene. They ended up killing her not long after. He's got some feelings about that.

Been downed twice but survived both times.

Has, with the rest of the party, adopted a small orphan that they all love.

Managed to NOT be the person who taught the child curse words first. That was the cleric... Who specifically warned the group not to teach the kid curse words.

Has acquired a magic mirror that shows you how others see you.

Dealt with a bounty hunter who was sent by his sister to track him down.

Is trying to score a threesome with the Paladin and the spirit inhabiting the Paladin's sword. Who happens to be the BIGGEST himbo on the planet.

Pole danced his way into a town. Rolled with advantage and got a NAT 20. Ends the performance perched on top of the pole.

Has been abducted in a case of mistaken identity and forced to perform in an opera.

Become the secret keeper and resident emotional support tiefling for the party.

He's a blast to play with a thick southern accent and a pretty easygoing disposition most of the time. He's such a wholesome little dude too which makes the whole thing even funnier.

[fusionbolts]

@tabletbound​ // plotted starter

Finally, a moment to himself. Every minute in Paladea was beginning to feel like an eternity. Diplomacy schplomacy! Yes, yes, he knew that it was true: Unova needed allies, especially after the war. Trade partners. (Anything even marginally more positive than “bitter ex-empires,” really.) But for goodness sake! It felt like his every move was being scrutinized. He couldn’t use the damn restroom without someone reading into it.

Well, it could be worse - he could be poor Zekrom, unable to even wander about. Sure, he understood the logic — a foreign king shows up with a dragon the size of a house. It only makes sense to keep said dragon somewhere it could be kept very carefully watched. Not that watching would do them any good if Adair really wanted to Zekrom to cause trouble, but he wasn’t about to voice that. They can go ahead believing some measly knights would be any match for Zekrom if they wanted to leave their ‘quarters’.

“You lucky bastard,” he greets his braviary as it lands beside him in the empty courtyard. At least someone was able to enjoy themselves here. “You can go fuck off and do whatever you want. What I wouldn’t give.”

(Braviary almost seems to chuckle at his partner’s misfortune. Or at least, it would, if a bird of prey were capable of laughing.)

“What a blowhard,” he scoffs, carefully combing out his braviary’s feathers with his good hand. “Honestly! How far up his own ass can a man possibly be? Of all the things I could be doing — off in some foreign country, kissing up to a bastard born with a silver spoon in his mouth for Unova to have a bit of extra coin to go around... I thought we’d quite definitively concluded that we were above this sort of tauros shit with the revolution. I swear, the second we return, I’m pushing Ephreith straight into the bay for talking me into this. Smarmy, know-it-all, son of a—”

It’s too little, too late when he realizes he’s not as alone as he’d first thought. Fight or flight kicks in and he runs through the scenario in his mind — they’re upwind, no wonder braviary hadn’t noticed anything, and turned just enough away, too. (Stupid. Should have given his position more thought before opening his big mouth.) Is that fellow hiding (poorly), or did he just approach from an unfortunate angle? Hard to tell.

    “Ah, for fuck’s—” Sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose. No use playing coy, is there? “Alright, how much did you hear, and what will it take to convince you that you didn’t? I would really rather not start an international incident today.”

[liffy-feelin-jiffy]

To combat that sad with the glad, I have a story for you all:

My mother and father were both on the more unlucky side when it came to their health. My mother nearly died of multiple cancers upon fighting each one by one, and my father had to get a kidney transplant and the only person who was able to give up one of their own kidneys was his own mother, my grandma. Despite the struggles they both faced, neither left each others side. My momma didn’t leave me dad when there was the possibility that he was going to die, and my dad never left my mother when she was in a feeble state having to fight off her deadly enemy that was cancer with multiple pounds of poison that was antibiotics and cancer medication that was both trying to save her whilst torturing her alive. Despite all of that, they both pulled through, and eventually they would finally come to have me (a kid who also gets screwed by health stuff in terms of mental health because woopty doo depression and struggles of ADHD).

My mother got cancer again. This time it wasn’t looking good at all. She was told by the doctor she only had six months to live, and from what I can believe based on my dad’s story, he must’ve lashed out at the doctor, angry how somehow the healthcare system in the U.S., in the entire world hadn’t yet found a cure for the most burdening sickness there was, and after he and his wife had fought for years to keep it at bay to live a happy life, he was going to have to face the fact that the women he’d come to love and cherish was going to be snatched away from him, and he couldn’t do a thing about it.

Except for treatment… But in truth, it was a trade off. My mother wanted to watch me grow up so badly, but in turn, she would slowly develop dementia, and her mental health would come to decline rapidly, greatly. It was really a joyride for no one. She became more disagreeable, argued with my dad nonstop over things she couldn’t remember. Momma’s physical health soon got worse, and I remember the night when she was sick, and I tried to help pull her up when she went to lay on the floor because she felt tired. It wasn’t until dad came home did we get her up and to the hospital. Years only got worse, irritating, concerning, and very expensive. I was exhausted from having to eventually take care of her as well as be responsible for my own well being at school, which was honestly so much to juggle when your mother is disabled and rapidly declining from the soft, warm soul to a grouchy old woman who judges even the clouds in the sky, and having to trudge through my education with undiagnosed ADHD in middle school.

Despite everything, dad never left. Neither me, nor mom. Yeah, he may have gotten on my ass about my grades even though I was exhausted, but so was he, and he just didn’t understand at the time. I do wish he did… He does kind of now, but it’s hard to say.

There was one night mom fell, slow motion. She was okay, as she didn’t fall hard, but when I went to get dad, damn, I never saw that man run like a damn track star. I thought his legs were shock—he’s literally limping around these days because of the pain in his knee, but I feel like he still would’ve ran like that to my momma if she had fallen again tonight, or if she was standing outside as though she’d never left. And he’d leaned over her as she laid down and he asked, “are you alright?” Even though she might’ve responded with “yes, just get me off this damn floor.” Because she was always witty. It was her charm.

It finally got to the point where mom had to go to a care home. We couldn’t take care of her anymore—I couldn’t take care of her anymore. I was just a damaged kid, and my dad wanted me to be successful in school. He wanted to send her to a nice place, that he told me. He went everywhere with my mom’s father, who I called Fee (RIP), and he told me about how he came across so many abhorrent places where the places smelled of piss and the residents there seemed so poorly cared for. And he wanted a place that was just a first floor building so it would be wheelchair accessible because mom was in a wheelchair at that point.

Years go by, I’m finally getting fresh air, and the house isn’t tense or exhausting anymore. High school is a lot more stress free, and was miles better compared to middle school. Even still, dad always asks me to deliver boost to the nursing home mom lived in to make sure she had her protein (and because she liked to drink them very much) and even when the task felt like a chore, I would make sure that I did so. I still remember the way mom’s face would light up whenever I came to see her. I’m sorry I took your smile for granted. And we would always try to go see her every weekend, every Sunday or Saturday. And every night we would call her, even if she would try to keep us on the phone for a lot longer even after she’d tell us “goodnight, goodnight.” She was still funny ass hell tho, so it wasn’t bad. I always felt a little distant with mom at the time, especially all the years prior, but dad always made sure that mom was not only cared for, but remembered as well. He made sure she was in a nice place, had what she needed (protein, clothes, sanitary supplies, medication, and other stuff that she liked.) he would get real salty whenever he’d have the slightest hint that the nurses weren’t properly taking care of her, if anything of hers was missing, or if my uncle hadn’t gone to visit his disabled sister in a while whilst he’d try to ask my dad if he could tag along for bike week while playing along as the “concerned brother” to butter his way into having my dad’s sympathy, but it wasn’t worry at that point. If anything, it only pissed my dad off even more.

We saw the day coming when mom got sick with pneumonia, especially the last day in the hospital when she was the most lively she had been in a while. She was having a good time, smiling, laughing with us all, making that weird irritated “NYAY!” When dad try to adjust something in her little hospital beanie. I wish I had a video of that, she sounded hilarious.

The day she finally died, the morning of New Year’s Eve on 2022, nanny (her mother), dad, and I were there. I was the last to arrive, the selfish little ass I was, even though I swerved at a stoplight because I was in a hurry to get to her. She’d spent a whole night holding on because she was waiting for me, and once I finally showed up, she was gone with the wind in just about 5 minutes. I was the first to see it, dad the was one to announce it and close her lifeless eyes for her, and nanny was the first one who broke down.

I wish he could’ve stepped up into the podium at her funeral, he had told me he felt he couldn’t do it because he wouldn’t have been able to hold himself together. Lord knows I struggled to hold it together when I did. I wish more people could’ve stepped up to say something. I felt I had to say something because despite the weight of my guilt trying to weigh me down, because I’d be damned if I was gonna be held back by my tears.

Nearly two years later. Even after he had tried a rebound relationship that he honestly seemed to hate because of how much his ex irritated him, and even sometimes comparing the things she’d say and do to how mom acted, especially when his ex got drunk and mad as a hornet and blamed every little thing on him even when they were really her fault (she really had the ego of a cop—which is what she is unironically). He told me how mom got drunk—SLAM drunk, and she would get fiesty too. Apparently she swung at him a few times??? And it was during the years that she was healthy before the dementia and cancer? But every morning after, she always apologized to him for how she acted, and that’s what he loved about her, and what he very much disliked about that other woman.

I had worried that his relationship with his (at the time) girlfriend would numb the love he had for mom, but he told me how he thought of mom literally every day of his life, and I saw real tears form in his eyes when he said that. They aren’t the kind of tears someone were to try to purposely form for the sake of sympathy or to trick you into thinking that they cared. My dad rarely ever cried, the only time he sobbed was when I started bawling because we found out our first dog was going to die of cancer too, and the night we put him down as he hugged me. A cruel pattern in our lives.

He may have a new girlfriend now, and while she seems like a keeper (she’s cool as hell, they’ve known each other for a while, and she respected my mother) but I’ll always be certain that she and dad were soulmates. He calls her as such; his soulmate. And my father would tell me how wonderful it was to truly be in love for real, and he’d try to encourage me to never let go of hope when it came to love. Love can be a great thing, but of course it’s gonna hurt.

I hope you were able to make it this far, and if you did, thank you! My throat hurts because I was tearing up a lot writing all of this :,)

But if there’s any sort of takeaway from this story, it’s not the simple, shallow motivated phrase that is “not all men” because while sure, this isn’t behavior exhibited from all men out there, and that generalizing this kind of false assumption is honestly very harmful and it’s only going to pull us backwards as a society…

I want you all to know, even especially to you men out there that you should be like my dad. If you really intend to marry someone, then you better make sure that you don’t abandon them when they need you the most, because if you do, were you ever in love to begin with? Was that person ever really important to you? We’re they so insignificant to the point that you aren’t willing to at least keep an eye on them yourself? Make sure that whoever is taking care of them is actually taking good care of them? Give them the best possible treatment and attention that they’d need? Or just simply spend their final days with them, whether in person or on the phone if you can’t be there, because hell, they could die tomorrow of a heart attack, the flu, or just some random coincidence that no one would’ve ever seen coming.

Life is fucked. Life is hard, and we’re all going to get hurt or drag our fair share of weight through the mud, but that never stopped my dad from being my dad and a damn good husband. If you aren’t willing to go to the end of the world for your spouse, husband, wife, pookie, whatever the fuck you call them, then how about you go ahead and pack your bags and gtfo out of their life so you can stop wasting their time and air so they can find their Tim.

Be more like my dad, Tim, and my mom, Pam. I love you two so much. I miss you, momma. Im sorry life turned out like this for you guys.

❤️💙🤍 until we meet again

[violetswritingg]

Canary Cry

Robin/Nightwing (Dick Grayson) x OFC!

Description: Her violence was silent. Until it wasn't.

"I'm fine."

"Fine is just another word for drowning."

Rating T-M (mentions of blood, child abuse, mental health, cannon situations of violence and the like. Loss of parents, hard of hearing/deaf character, poorly written fight scenes lol)

Want to read the other chapters?

Click here

10

HAPPY HARBOR

August 8, 21:59 EDT

Kate was positioned on the south side of the building, crouching on the edge of the roof. Working perimeter with Miss Martian and Superboy. Which was almost preferable than being in a room with everyone else after the display her, Roy, and Dinah put on. She could feel their questions on the transport over here.

The last thing she wanted or needed was Kaldur pulling her aside before they had left and asking if she was okay after Roy showing up like that but he did and it was almost sweet.

She'd honestly rather just ignore that it had ever happened and block it out from her memory. Which, according to Dinah, wasn't exactly a healthy coping mechanism and Kate would definitely be going home to a talk with the woman about what happened and how it made her feel.

"Link established. Everyone online?" Kate winced at the pressure filling her head, she still wasn't used to the feeling of other people entering her mind.

"This is so weird." Artemis thought? Kate decided it wasn't worth thinking too hard about. Just accepting the fact that she now had voices in her head that weren't hers.

"And distracting. Coding a distributive algorithm on a kitty computer with less ram than a wrist watch is hard enough. Now I have to hear teen-think in my skull?" Dr. Roquette complained and Kate couldn't help but scoff.

"Lady, do you always complain when someone is trying to help you?" Kid Flash's voice entered Kate's head.

"Pot Kettle have you met?" Artemis's words made Kate chuckle, the girl catching herself and fixing her posture on the ledge. Subtly looking around to make sure no one had heard.

"Hey, hey, I do not need attitude from the girl who drove Red Arrow off the team." Kate almost wished she was in that room, if only to see this go down in person.

"That is so not on me!"

"Red Arrow was never on the team KF, him abandoning his friends and family isn't on her." Goldfinch snapped, her mood souring at the mention of the red archer, Kate not there to see the reactions of everyone. Thankfully.

"Fate of the world at stake!" Doc, in the room, waved her arms around to emphasize her frustration with the group of teens.

"She started it!" KF childishly pointed the finger at Artemis, who decided removing herself from the room would be for the best.

"How about I just help Miss Martian, Superboy, and Goldfinch patrol the perimeter?"

"Good idea. Trade places with Goldfinch." Aqualad agreed as the archer walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind her.

"Where do I go then?" Goldfinch asked.

"Inside." Kaldur answered and Kate sighed but left her perch and headed towards the roof access door.

"You might want to cut her some slack; it was her arrow that saved your butt against Amazo." Robin said to his best friend. The speedster's reaction almost comical if Goldfinch had been in a better mood.

"What no! That was Speedy's- Red Arrow's.... Arrow. Right?"

"No. It wasn't." Goldfinch said monotonously, looking straight ahead with a frown as she lifelessly bounced down the stairwell. One floor closer to the computer lab.

"Well, still not giving her the satisfaction." Goldfinch rolled her eyes and chuckled without any humor. Wondering if this is how Dinah felt with her sometimes, but closing that off from the group chat in her mind.

"I'll make a sweep of the floor, and then report to the computer lab." Goldfinch stated before anyone could protest, Artemis and KF going back at it giving her cover.

She kept her eyes peeled as she made her way through the hallways.

"The virus won't be of much use if we cannot find the weapon. Can you track it?" Aqualad asked.

"My utility fog is not a weapon, it's science. Brilliant science. And of course, I can track it-" Goldfinch cut off the doctor.

"But she'll have to go online. Might as well rent a billboard with this address and an open invite to come kill her painted in neon."

"Goldfinch." Aqualad scolded her.

"What? I'm just stating facts here." The blonde glared at the tile floor under her feet as she walked.

"We will protect you." Goldfinch sighed and stopped in her tracks, looking up to the ceiling and internally groaning.

"What he said Doc."

"Tracking fog now." Goldfinch cleared the last hallway on the floor and started to make her way to the computer lab. Her short period of solitude coming to a bitter end.

"Mmm, that boy." Goldfinch stopped right outside the computer lab and choked down any laughter fighting its way to the surface.

"He can hear you, we can all hear you." Miss M chastised. Someone's a little territorial, Goldfinch made sure to keep her thoughts out of the mental link.

"Oh, I know." The songbird was slowly starting to like Artemis, like actually like her, not just saying she was cool with her just showing up. She was funny, only a little bit, and Goldfinch could relate to having a rough childhood. They were two sides of the same coin really, and that's what scared the bird. Letting someone else in, someone that knew Kate and Goldfinch. Caring for them and then them just... leaving.

"Miss Martian, Doctor Roquette has located the Fog. Reconfigure the Bioship so that Robin and Superboy can pursue." The aforementioned teen boys passed Kate on her way back inside the computer lab.

"Good luck." The blonde smiled slightly at Robin.

"Stay whelmed." Kate rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face growing larger gave her away, "Admit it, it's growing on you."

"In your dreams, Bird Boy." Robin only smirked at the blonde and turned on his heel, running to catch up with Superboy.

"You got that right Goldie." KF muttered as Kate, in a visibly better mood, hopped up onto the counter that ringed the room.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kate looked at the speedster confused, the red-head only shook his head with a look in his eye that screamed, "I know something you don't." And it was slowly starting to piss her off again.

"Nothing, never mind." Kate only pursed her lips and leaned back against the wall behind her while crossing her arms over her stomach.

After some time in relative silence, KF decides to stand outside the door, like a bouncer to a club and Artemis and Miss M start talking again.

"You embarrassed Superboy." Miss M accused, annoyed.

"Didn't hear him say that." Artemis fired back.

"Must you challenge everyone?"

"Where I come from, that's how you survive." Kate tensed slightly in front of the Doctors desk, Aqualad noticed but didn't say anything. That was another thing Kate could relate to with Artemis.

Kate could feel it in her gut that something bad was going to happen, and low and behold not even five minutes later, Aqualad is jumping in front of a projectile aimed for the Doctors head.

"Get down Doc!" Kate ordered, standing in front of the older blonde as a woman with dark hair and a creepy mask on her face ran into the room. An assassin sent by the Shadows.

Aqualad jumped in front of the two blondes as two more throwing stars were launched at them and imbedded themselves into his arm. "Mm, that had to hurt."

"Atlantean skin is quite dense." The assassin attacked Aqualad, who uses his waterbearers to block her twin sais.

"And my shuriken are quite poisonous." The assassin replied, Kate cursing under her breath and letting her annoyance of Aqualad treating her like she was fragile and couldn't take a hit fade. Now only worried for her leader and friend.

"M'gann, Kid, Artemis, we are under attack in the computer lab!"

Kate pulled out her batons and started to attack the assassin with Aqualad, hearing the confirmation from Artemis that back up was coming, but not able to respond as the assassin landed a kick to Kate's side and knocking her down before jumping at Aqualad and wrapping her legs around his neck and twisting to take him down. Throwing one of her blades with deadly precision, Aqualad knocking it off course just enough with a water whip to make it miss it's mark by a fraction.

Kate was up quickly and back in front of the doctor.

"Almost, poison slowing you down?" The assassin and Aqualad struggled for the upper hand, Kate prepping a scream as a last resort, knowing it would probably take out this part of the building as well as the assassin. Her powers had been stressed as a "break glass" option only to her by Aqualad for this mission.

"Jelly fish toxin, I'm largely immune." The assassin headbutted Aqualad and knocked him down.

"largely?" She raised her blade and Kate was about to lunge at the creepy mask lady when the sais was knocked out of her hand by an arrow. Artemis's arrow.

"Don't. Move." The archer ordered, distracting the assassin just long enough for Aqualad to get back up and to have Kate move to his side, fists up and ready to throw a killer right hook.

"This gigs' getting interesting." The assassin chuckled and whipped out a foldable sword. Artemis started firing arrow after arrow, only to have them all cut in half or sliced mid-air as KF and Miss M finally showed up. And helped Kate and Aqualad form a barrier around the Doctor.

"Maybe a little too interesting." She threw down a smoke bomb and disappeared.

"She's getting away! You're letting her get away!" Doctor Roquette yelled at Aqualad and Kate.

"This is all your fault! You were on perimeter, how'd that Shadow get in?!" Kid Flash yelled at Artemis, Kate pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance at everything that had just gone down and is continuing to blow up right in front of her.

They had just gotten into a good place, where they really felt like a team, but now with a new member throwing things into chaos.... It was way too much to be dealing with on such an intense mission.

"Wasn't just her that missed things." Kate referenced herself, once again coming to Artemis's defense.

"Yeah, that's not really fair, I was outside too." Miss M added to Kate's statement. It was all very "sister solidarity".

"Outside... being distracted by her!" KF found an avenue to bring it back around on the blonde archer making Kate glare at the speedster. "Besides, I can't be mad at you."

"You gave me mouth to mouth." KF wasn't as good as keeping his own thoughts out of the mind link as Kate and the others were.

"We heard that." The team chorused making Kid groan and walk away.

"I didn't do half as well on my first battle, and I know you can't have been Green Arrow's sidekick for very long." Miss M tried to comfort the archer, in true M'gann fashion.

"Focus everyone, the shadows will be back." Aqualad ordered, getting the teams attention and pulling them back on mission.

"Robin to Aqualad, we're over Philadelphia. We've located the Shadows target, we're too late." Robin's voice came over the comms, Kate cursing internally at the news. "It's destroyed, totally destroyed. The Fog decimated it."

"This is bad," Kate muttered, gaining the attention of the room, "STAR Labs is cutting edge tech and science. And now-"

"And now their secrets are in the hands of the enemy." Robin interrupted, sounding just as pissed off as Kate. "What's our next move?"

Aqualad looked to the Doc, "Re-scan for that Fog, find it. We're moving the Doctor."

~~*~~

"You sure it's a good idea leaving the old married couple to watch her?" Kate asked the Atlantean beside her.

"Maybe not, but your powers are not meant for indoor use." Aqualad had a point, underground or close quarters were historically not smart places to use a sonic scream, which is why Canary trained her as hard as she did. Because not every fight is going to be out in the open or primarily long-range attack centered. "You are better utilized in this leg of the plan."

Aqualad paused and looked to the kind of community center building from his and Kate's positions across the street.

"Stop it both of you." He ordered, sounding fed up with their childish bullshit.

"What?" Artemis and Wally replied offended. Kate huffed and rolled her eyes.

"We can hear you glaring." Aqualad jerked his head to the side, telling her silently it was time to play their part. The two took off into the forested area behind them, and crouching behind a tree for cover.

"Miss Martian, stay in camouflage mode and make a wide perimeter sweep." Kate had to fight back the cringe at how loud Aqualad had said that, but she kept on guard, knowing it was all part of the plan.

A rustle was heard a fraction of a second before Kate and Aqualad were yanked up into the tree by sticky webs. The two fighting against the Shadow and were thrown out of the foliage, Aqualad grabbing Kate and taking the force of being thrown into a van parked on the side of street and falling to the sidewalk.

"Thanks." Kate said breathlessly as they both stood up quickly. The blonde spotting the purple clad assassin fly through the air and land in front of them, Aqualad getting knocked down by an attack from behind while the web guy tried to get Kate.

She let herself get tied up and fell, hitting her head, and "Passing out".

"The Martian could return any second, and I'm not keen on evening the odds. We end Roquette. Now." The assassins left and Aqualad and Kate got up, looking at each other with matching smirks before getting up and going to the place where they had actually stashed to doctor.

~~*~~

Aqualad paced slowly by the windows and Kate stood next to Roquette.

"I've almost got it!" Kate took a deep breath, adrenaline coursing through her veins like her own personal drug. Which only heightened when a loud thump came from the ceiling.

"We've got company!" Aqualad told the Doc, looking to the ceiling just like Kate had done.

"Any day now Doc." The blonde muttered, pulling out her batons and prepping for a fight.

"Uploading now, and you said you'd protect me. You both did." Kate really wanted to smack the doctor. Like a lot. Before she could ask herself if that made her a bad hero a metal ball rolled into the room.

"Oh shi-" it released a cloud of smoke and Kate got into a defensive stance, Aqualad pulling out his waterbearers and turning them into swords.

"No matter what, protect the doctor." Aqualad ordered before turning around quickly and taking three darts to the chest, Kate pushed Roquette behind her and backed up as the creepy mask assassin jumped down from a square in the ceiling.

"Let's test the immunity of your jelly fish immunity, shall we?" The assassin glanced over to Kate, "And maybe see how much the birdie can take. That should be interesting."

Aqualad blinked hard and shook his head to regain his bearings and rushed at the assassin. Kate following orders as much as she hated standing back and letting Kaldur do all the heavy lifting for the moment.

Kate gripped her batons tighter when the assassin took down Kaldur with only a couple hits, the toxin obviously weakening the Atlantean.

"There, limit tested, now..." The dark-haired woman turned to the two blondes. Blink and you'd miss the assassin throwing darts at the teen, Kate's reflexes really saving her ass and the doctor. Pushing Roquette out of the way and hitting the darts out of the air without really knowing how she did that.

"Holy-" Kate almost laughed but the assassin was on her once they realized her darts hadn't hit their target. "Fu-" Kate reacted, throwing up her batons, crossed over the other like an x. Blocking the shuriken and their poison.

Kate didn't wait to react again, needing to put the battle on her terms, needing to get the assassin away from the doctor and outside. Where Kate could hopefully light her up with a sonic blast. Kate's boot met the woman's stomach and knocked her to the ground. The woman caught herself though. Rolling back and into a three point stance.

Kat acted in the split second that the assassin threw more assumedly poisoned projectiles, rolling to the ground and throwing one of her batons in response. The woman standing slowly, Kate matching her pace. The woman laughed.

"Your aim could use some work."

Kate just smirked and held out her hand in an open position. Her baton came back, called by the magnets in her gloves, but not without pegging the woman in the back of the head. It was then that Kate started to feel whoosy. Bringing up a heavy hand to her exposed cheek her fingers came a way with red coating them.

Kate's world started to tip, and she went with it.

"That's disappointing, I thought you'd be able to handle more, anyway...It's time for my appointment doctor." The assassin said darkly, turning her sights to the big fish she came for.

The blonde teen seeing blurry figures, one pushing the other to the floor, a glint of something, labored breathing, muffled words. Nothing solid, like she was underwater, it was constantly shifting. Kate wasn't someone to give in though, pushing herself up shakily and stumbling after the blurry green shape she could barely register as the assassin.

Being forced back into the wall of the building when a small explosion and smoke filled the air. The shock bringing the world back into minimal focus, recognizing Artemis standing on the other side of the assassin with her bow drawn.

"Don't move a muscle."

"Wow, I am completely at your mercy." The assassin taunted, her mask on the ground, but her back to Kate so the only person who could see her face was the archer.

"You." Artemis gasped quietly.

"I suppose now is when you bring me to Justice? Let your new friends interrogate me? I don't think the bird is gonna make it much longer though, not with the stuff I shot her with. Quite disappointing really, I didn't even get to hear her scream." Artemis shot a cautious yet worried look to Kate, who was barely on her feet. "I do wonder though, if your position is secure enough to survive them learning everything I know."

Kate, in the back of her poison fogged mind could put the puzzle pieces together that this was Artemis's sister, the League of Shadows assassin, she had been told about. But she couldn't remember her name for the life of her. Her brain refusing to work like it should as things started to get fuzzy again, her knees giving out.

Smoke filled her senses and she started to cough just as Doctor Roquette and Aqualad came out of the café.

"Artemis, where is the assassin?" His eyes fell to a basically passed out Kate leaned against the building, holding back a sigh of exasperation. The blonde was most likely injured. Again. Why this kept happening was a mystery to everyone on the team.

"She uh, she got away." The blonde teen archer spoke dejectedly.

"Oh! From you? Big surprise!" KF zoomed up beside her as she walked away. "Notice, we got ours." Miss Martian hovered mid-air behind him telekinetically holding Black spider and Hookman above the ground.

The speedster looks to the ground and saw the other assassin's mask by Kate's feet, rushing to the blonde's side and picking up the mask. "Cool, souvenir! Hey GF, come on sleeping beauty, time to wake up."

"Her mask? Did- did you see her face?" Aqualad asked as he took out the darts imbedded in his chest, KF still trying to wake up Kate and getting increasingly more worried about her. Robin would kill him if she got seriously injured again while he was around.

"It was dark." Artemis said defensively, her back facing the team.

"It is fine, Robin and Superboy were able to neutralize the fog, and Dr. Roquette is safe, Thanks in no small part to you," Artemis turned to look at the group assembled in front of the internet café, "Welcome to the team."

KF hung back with Kate as Kaldur and Miss M went up to the conscious blonde. The Atlantean shaking her hand and the Martian laying a green hand on her shoulder.

"I've always wanted a sister. Here on earth, I mean, I have twelve back on mars. But trust me, it's not the same. Now I have two."

"I wouldn't know but, thanks."

KF let Doctor Roquette have a look at Kate as he walked up to Artemis. Miss Martian elbowing him in the side when he didn't say anything, Doctor Roquette helping the younger blonde up to her feet behind them.

"Yeah, welcome," he muttered unenthusiastically, about to bring up Goldfinch needing medical attention when Doctor Roquette did it for him.

"Uh, excuse me, she needs help." The four team members looked to the struggling pair of blondes and Aqualad instantly went on high alert when he saw the blood trickling down Kate's cheek. Rushing up to her and holding her head in his hands. Neck doing nothing to hold up its weight on its own, earning a low groan from the fourteen year old, sweeping her limp body up into his arms and turning to the team.

"We need to get back to the cave now."

~~*~~

"How are you feeling?" Aqualad asked the blonde laying on the scratchy bed in the medical bay.

"Fine," Kate smirked a little at Aqualad unamused face. "Really I'm alright." The blonde reassured, letting her smirk drop into a neutral look of exhaustion.

"I'm glad to hear that. I hate to ask this so soon after you've woken up but-"

"You wanna know if I saw the assassin's face," Kate sighed quietly, rolling her head to the side and lazily looking at the Atlantean, "What did Artemis say?"

Unbeknownst to either of the teens in the med bay a certain blonde archer stood just outside with her ear pressed to the door.

"She said it was too dark." Aqualad answered carefully, slightly suspicious of why Kate would want to know what Artemis had said.

"There's your answer, I could barely see my own hand in front of my face, it was all just a big blob." Aqualad nodded neutrally before giving the blonde a small smile, placing a hand on her arm.

"I am happy you are okay; the other's will be as well. Robin was almost panicked when we told him and Superboy of your condition." The Atlantean smirked at how flushed Kate's face got.

~~*~~

Artemis, after a long night with an even longer wait at the cave to see if Kate was going to be okay, finally Zeta's home. The bright light fading as she exits the phony broken phone booth, feeling eyes on her and knocking an arrow, pulling back and aiming it at the person creeping up on her.

"Step into the Light. Now." The teen archer ordered.

It was Red Arrow.

"Nice move." Roy patronized as he walked closer, making it clear he didn't see her as any kind of threat. "Almost made me believe you are Green Arrow's niece, but we both know you're not," Artemis narrowed her eyes at the correct accusation, "Still, I'm sure GA, Bats, Canary, and Goldfinch have a reason for lying. Though how they got Goldfinch to trust you at all is a complete mystery to me, so... your cover's safe. But I warn you, do not hurt my friends."

With that he walked away.

~~*~~

[masterghandalf]

MG Reads Embers: Chapter Two

Note: This is a continuation of my reread and commentary of Embers by Vathara, originally posted last fall and winter on my Dreamwidth account.

Chapter Two This chapter doesn’t have an AN; it opens with Zuko reflecting that even boring schoolwork can pay off, as his education to the Earth Kingdom has led him and Iroh to a charcoal-burning mound. Extracting some of the wood, he builds a makeshift kiln and sticks some of the rocks they collected last chapter into it to heat them. A few moments later, the kiln comes apart to reveal several heated rocks, as well as others which exploded under the pressure because they contained water. Iroh asks how Zuko knew, and he has a brief flashback to Azula taunting him over something similar before admitting that he learned it the hard way.

We then cut to some point later as Zuko is placing the heated stones on a local blacksmith’s back, apparently treating some pains. Iroh reminds himself not to laugh, as he knows Zuko well enough to tell that his nephew is apparently very afraid of something. We learn that when they arrived in town, Iroh had told the local innkeeper that they were a healer and apprentice, feeling that they both knew enough field medicine to pass themselves off as such so long as nobody came to them with too complicated a problem. Instead of trading the stones, they ended up using them to treat various pains, as the village healer was already busy and needed help. Jumping back to Zuko and the blacksmith, Iroh thinks about how Zuko is clearly being very careful to show no outward signs of firebending but wonders what exactly he’s so scared of. He briefly wonders when the last time Zuko helped someone without suffering for it was and thinks back to him saving their helmsman during the storm. While continuing to give advice to Zuko and banter a bit with the blacksmith, Iroh wonders about what Zuko meant by learning “the hard way” and concludes it must have been something Ozai or Azula did – probably Azula, who would have found tricking Zuko into making rocks explode in his face to be an amusing prank. This experience must have left Zuko wary of exploring this side of his abilities. Iroh realizes that this experience is forcing Zuko to relive old traumas and they’ll need to wrap it up quickly while he can still handle it, recognizing the depth of the damage Ozai and Azula did to Zuko and being determined not to lose another son.

A moment later, however, Zuko gets done and tells the blacksmith he can go, though he warns him not to strain himself. Iroh tells the innkeeper that they’ll need some more supplies later, and she’s happy to offer them; Iroh and Zuko leave the inn and find themselves in a deserted alley where Zuko can breathe. Iroh tells Zuko that he’s seen soldiers who were captured by the enemy and treated poorly, and he recognizes some of the same signs in Zuko now; he knows that Zuko has been under the power of those who harmed him and sometimes feels like he’ll never be free of them, and he recognizes that fear in him. Zuko snaps that he’s not afraid of Azula, but Iroh says that he is, because he knows how dangerous she is. He promises Zuko that they know how to survive, and that he will not abandon him. Zuko still tries to insist that he’s not afraid, so Iroh changes the subject, talking about how hard surviving on one’s own in a foreign land is, and that he doesn’t think Azula could do it – but he thinks Zuko can. He explains an old proverb about the dragon and the mountain; the mountain may seem stronger, but the dragon can adapt and survive. Zuko says that the dragons are dead, but Iroh reminds him that people said the same thing about the Avatar; Zuko takes the hint and realizes that Iroh must have lied about killing the last dragons. This leads into a discussion of the Moon Spirit, and how it taught the first waterbenders; Zuko wonders if this means that Zhao killing the Moon Spirit, and Yue sacrificing herself to restore it (which Iroh had previously told him about) were his fault, but Iroh assures him it wasn’t. If Zuko had been there, he would have tried to stop Zhao, even if he couldn’t succeed, but that doesn’t make him a traitor, either. Two enemies – like Zuko and Aang – can fight a common enemy without being allies. Zuko admits that being at sea for three years, he wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t learned to respect the moon.

The two head off to the market to get supplies, and are suddenly confronted by an Earth Kingdom swordsman, who taunts them, calling them deserters. He says that Zuko’s clearly no healer and asks if his family had to pay off Iroh to take him on. Iroh takes a moment to note the man’s fine swords, wondering how he came by them. We then seemingly cut to later that night, though there’s not an obvious scene change, as Zuko attacks the man and takes his swords before returning to his and Iroh’s sleeping place at the inn’s hayloft. Zuko sets to cleaning the swords as Iroh returns; Zuko asks if Iroh wants him to give them back, but Iroh says he’ll need the weapons. However, Iroh reminds Zuko that if he ever commands troops, not to let them pillage, as that will lead to hate for the Fire Nation rather than “harmonious rule.” Zuko retorts that the man called Iroh a liar and worries that he was right when he said Zuko was no healer. Iroh bids Zuko sit by him and makes a flame in his hand, explaining that fire is not only destruction, and that Ursa must have explained this to him. Iroh has Zuko push and pull the flame, then asks if he can do anything for his sore feet. Zuko disbelieves he can, but Iroh urges him on. Zuko manages to play the flames around Iroh’s feet without touching them, and though the fire soon collapses into nothing, Iroh says that Zuko held it longer than he could have. Iroh explains that Ursa showed him the technique, but he could never master it – it was passed down in her family from her grandfather, Kuzon of Byakko. Zuko is surprised, since he remembers Aang mentioning the name as someone he knew a hundred years ago. Iroh agrees that Kuzon is the right age that he could have known the Avatar, and wonders if, though he’s studied waterbending, one needs a knowledge of airbending to use the technique properly. Zuko wonders why Iroh would study waterbending, and he explains that one has to draw wisdom from many sources; Zuko admits he’s studied Katara, and he won’t let her beat him again. However, Zuko’s back isn’t hurting, which makes Iroh conclude that the technique they tried may have some usefulness after all. He tells Zuko to leave his blades for the morning, since they have work to do tonight, and the chapter ends there.

MG’s Thoughts This chapter is… quite a lot, actually, though most of it’s pretty straightforward. We get more of an explanation of fire healing, how it works, and how Ursa and Zuko came by it, as well as some genuinely compelling insight into Zuko’s trauma and Iroh’s compassion for his nephew and determination to help him. I do have two major criticisms, one being another nitpick that looks worse in hindsight, and the other being more substantial. The first is that while Vathara goes into a lot of detail about Zuko’s trauma and past suffering and how that, along with his cultural context, has shaped the person he is and why we should sympathize with him, she’s often not nearly as willing to extend the same courtesy to other people’s backgrounds and trauma. We’ll see more about what I mean later on, especially as we get to the fic’s take on Katara and Aang. The more substantive critique lies with Kuzon. In canon, Kuzon was just Aang’s Fire Nation friend from a hundred years ago, and never implied to be anything else. But fanon often tended to assume that Kuzon must have been someone important, and Vathara absolutely goes with that (Kuzon will ultimately prove to be, in multiple ways, one of the key figures in the fic’s backstory). And, well, I don’t like it. It speaks to a mindset in approaching fiction where background details just can’t exist; absolutely everything has to be a Chekhov’s Gun of some sort, and IMO it can get excessive and end up feeling a little too neat and pat, and making the world feel smaller rather than bigger (then again, I was in Harry Potter fandom long enough ago to remember the “Mark Evans” fiasco; that may have left me a little wary of assuming every background detail has to be important). This is far from the only time Vathara will lean into popular fanon that elevates minor background elements or offhand references into critical plot points, sometimes taking them out of context and turning them into things that they were clearly never meant to be or imply, and while clearly the fic’s popularity means it doesn’t bother everyone, it definitely bugs me.

Also, the offhand bit about “harmonious rule” is going to have implications for how Vathara depicts the Fire Nation as operating that I think contributes to some of the issues I have with the fic in general, but… more on that later.

[pesterloglog]

Roxy Lalonde

Act 6, page 5578

herbert and beatrix were dressed in fanciful athletic gear. thats what kids wear when theyre about to embark on a journey to compete in some irrational magic . herbert had tucked under his arm a big stitched up leather ball with golden springs poking out of it for no good god damn reason. it was called a skubbump. beatrix had propped on her shoulder this funnel thing to be worn as a glove called a gimmidge horn, a crucial appendage for any drudsel scooper worth her salt. theyd been selected probably for some valorous deeds they did to represent fort crowsnest in this highly whimsical event. russet was there too, but he didnt get chosen to play in the due to some poorly explained stuff that no reasonable person could possibly care about even if offered loads of cash. he was mainly jacked into the scene to wave goodbye and wish them luck which he begrudgingly did.

he also put in some time dodging questions and averting eye contact from his friends. he was being a champion at that.

"russet! answer me!" beatrix demanded. "why the heck didnt you tell us? or tell grant for that matter?"

herbert wasnt paying much attention. so russet was moody and cryptic and didnt tell people some stuff. what a bombshell. he worried at one of the springs poking out of his ridonkulous ball. it made a sproinging sound like a mouth harp and broke off. he wondered if the springs served any actual purpose. the springs did not serve any actual purpose.

"how could you keep something like that from everyone? that you knew all along?"

"i just wanted what was best for grant" he finally said.

she had tons of questions but couldnt settle on the next one to ask. she wasnt about to let good body language go to waste so she did kinda what mimes do when they dont like something you said. how long did he know grant was from this dogshit wizardfic? howd he escape in the first place? was it really his spell that sealed them here? how long had he been planning this? she guessed that would explain why he had an absurdly obvious pseudonym. grant anonama? yeah like THATS a real name. great job bro, or should she say SLINUS. she wondered if his bogus name wasnt an anagram for something. like a clue dangled under their noses. magic bad guys do love their anagrams. they are just so damn clever and when you finally figure them out its like whoa INSTANT MINDFUCK.

"hes quite a troubled person you know bea."

herbert looked up from his skubbump. "well if RUSSET thinks so, then..."

she gave up on the interrogation. when youre dealt a shit sandwich why go to war over who baked the bread. russet could stuff his dumb secrets in a sack for all she cared. what did she ever see in this moping tool? she never thought she would long for those times before they met. the old questing days before all this started. she was never exactly psyched to watch herbert assault a crazy old wizard with a pistol but now... ok she wasnt saying she wanted to see any more wizards get shot. she just meant she would trade all the badges in the world to go back to when things were simpler.

it was time to go. the narratives invisible conductor let them know with the arrival of a carriage. it was drawn by two floating, perfectly immobile wooden horses. herbert read this thing a hundred times but still couldnt understand the authors fascination with flying rigid wooden horses.

herbert held open the door with a bow and gestured her in with ironic chivalry. the text didnt let it go unsaid that was meant as a big fuck you to russet thus keeping their rivalry brewing, but in truth neither dude was feeling it this time. beatrix got in and they were off. rigid horses, carriage and all into the sky. they turned around in their seats and waved to russet below, because a poorly written sentence said they were supposed to.

beatrix smacked her forehead.

"'not an anagram'" she quoted from her brain.

"what?" he asked.

"that FUCKER"