#this comic is not going where y'all would expect it i'm sorry

[maphel-n-doodles]

“Repent, Allow me to forgive you.”

Something for WIP hell.

[krysmcscience]

Get ready for Amogus Spam!!!

Characters belong to @crinklytinfoil - I just came up with the designs and outfits~ All appearance details are taken directly from either the fics themselves (which, as always, approach with caution and MIND THE TAGS) or the comments sections of said fics, though I have also relentlessly poked Crinkle IRL for additional details, such as each character's name and individual fashion sense...or lack thereof (Finnegan) XD

(If you want to read the fics, keep in mind that you will need to be signed in to an Ao3 account first! And again - MIND THE TAGS! Shit gets dark FAST.)

The Skeld bois! The fucked up crew that started it all~ Only like five actual decent human beings on this crew, and all but one of them fukken DIED, lmao. (Congrats on surviving, Devon, you used to be Kind Of An Asshole but you got better. XD) Clark is such an Obvious Dad - it's why he had to die first, he was the only thing keeping shit together, True Facts, sorry you had to find out this way. <:/ Adam is so Fishing, I bet he fantasizes about having a trout boyfriend girlfriend in his spare time. :) Brown is Babby (stabby-babby), but we all knew that already. And then there's wannabe High Class Fuckboi Purple and his emo "boyfriend", yaaaay, can't wait to find out how Purple dies or anything like that, noooo... All that aside, White's outfit makes me want to die inside, why would anyone want to mix hippie and ouji lolita aesthetics??? White, please, no, even your fashion sense is torturous! D:>

(Full-size here, in case tumblr fucks it up)

Corpatch babbies! Everyone on this crew is certified Babby. (Yes, even you, Skylar. Sorry I had to separate you from Pink in the final image, it was too wide and I hated it, please I'm sorry, put the wrench away-) Love that I got to mostly copy-pasta Devon, made my life so much easier after the artistic nightmare that was Stacy's outfit. Fun Fact: That dress is one of over a hundred jellyfish-themed lolita dresses I've designed! This one has a box jellyfish on it, along with other pretty deadly sea creatures, and is called 'Killer Cuties'~ Wilhelm gets to have some matchies with his platonic girlfriend as a treat, also (Fun Fact: he absolutely wears those novelty glasses to Serious Events). Skye's outfit upsets me personally but it's not as bad as fucking Finnegan's so they get a pass. Pink is, of course, The Best One, and let it be known that the little leaf pin is a reference to Bay~

(Full-size here, in case tumblr fucks it up)

Doncaster folks! Such a long image...I blame Vance. Because I always blame things on Vance for some reason. It's just fun, okay? And also I'm bitter about how long it took to draw his damn Bobblehead mech. Him and Aurora both took what felt like a million years to finish, so now Vance has given me additional Drawing Wires trauma, and Aurora somehow seems Too Expensive for me to afford looking at her. Obviously the best part of all of this was everyone's favorite polycule of Brown, Green, and Red (I dare you to suggest they are not Precious), but I also enjoyed trying to come up with an outfit for Umber that screamed 'I think I'm the main character'. XD (If anyone can guess what's supposed to be on Black's shirt, meanwhile, they get a Gold Star!)

(Full-size here, in case tumblr fucks it up)

And, as a bonus, a goofy scribble comic of the Doncaster AU, which I threw at Crinkle after initially requesting (read: attempting to commission) a What If Scenario where Brown never got brought along with White to the Corpatch, and so never met Pink, thus ensuring Brown remained Terrified of impostors. Because my brain wouldn't stop going hog wild over the concept for some reason. 8|

Finally, a WIP of the Parmenides bastards- uh, I mean, Totally Normal Crew of Fine Individuals who are Not At All Terrible. (Apologies to Danni, Marek, and Ashley for getting mixed up in all this, y'all deserved better.) Bet no one was expecting Johnny to be a certified Gamer Catboi, huh? But I bet everyone was expecting Kyle to look like a Born Republican, and possibly Mitch McConnell's estranged half-brother - cuz that's just how the guy is. So Delightful. Also I was totally not salty about having to look at Purple's stupid smug face again while modifying the copypasta of it, No Sir, why would that ever be the case? He's just so great and not the most hateable character ever or anything. (eyerolling intensifies) In other news, Kage's head is way too small and it's driving me crazy but I'll have to fix it later for the finished full-body chibi+bust piece and I'm D Y I N G. Anyway, no icon spoilers for this one - the fic itself is meant to make the readers wonder who the impostors are, so I'm not going to reveal anything on that front.

(Full-size here, in case tumblr fucks it up)

THAT IS ALL

[burins]

more JLI post dump! this'll be issues 6-10

6:

i know this reads different in 1987 but also i DO like it for dinah. also like of course she's friends with bruce

the rest of 6 is a lot of big-scale dr fate stuff which i know is DeMatteis' wheelhouse but which i also don't particularly care about.

7! we are now officially justice league international because the united nations choose to ratify the league. reagan is here! i warned you!

the fact that clark has to talk to reagan regularly, in the course of superhero comics, is so much for me to contemplate.

A) i think it's SO funny that bruce has a special earless cowl for going to space and wearing headphones. i realize this may just be an artistic mistake but i'm choosing to believe it's a deliberate costume choice

B) cold-war era comics!!!!!! really truly the geopolitics of superhero comics are fascinating to me. i have to do some digging to see what's been written on them

i capped this whole panel but i really just want everyone to focus on beetle. this is how you know he's queer is that in each issue he invents a new, gayer way to sit

LIKE

ok in issue 8 the league are moving into their NY and Paris embassies. as you might expect. shenanigans ensue!!

j'onn. ilu

J'ONN!!! ILU!!!!!

unfortunately for the next few issues the scans they put into hoopla are preeeetty rough in terms of quality (and so are the scans on the other website i sometimes use) so some of the dialogue is a little hard to read.

batman seems to have punched guy into a personality transplant. instead of a miserable he-man reaganite he's become like, pollyanna. it's extremely funny and frankly, as much as i enjoy him being a heel, nice to read him not sounding like clint eastwood.

booster and beetle (at the paris embassy) go out to hit on women. #justbrothings. booster strikes out very very badly with a woman he later learns is their local liaison. whoops!!

mister miracle crashes a helicopter through the NY building. also once again i love j'onn!!!!

we also learn about the (actually international) superteam the JLI are supplanting. sorry y'all. also very funny that we have this international superteam and then one year later we're going to get the wildly ill-fated new guardians. sometime i'll do a whole separate post on the new guardians except i don't really want to bc it would require me to reread that series,

9:

everyone is being mindcontrolled by the manhunters! i will admit that i do NOT know the difference between these manhunters and j'onn's manhunter situation. i will presumably learn this at some point.

guy is having a great time being personality-swapped and so am i

it is also time for feminism jokes. alas.

i DO love an ear joke though. more people should make fun of batman's ears they are objectively so so silly

we're also starting to get some good and ominous setup of a maxwell lord subplot. jli! it's not just jokes!

10: we're chasing the manhunters to space!

i'm learning so much about hawkman, a character i know nothing about. for instance. he is a cop???

also arisia is here. i have heard of her and her plotline. 😬 this issue comes out also several months before the writers finally let her and hal break up, but it's not a big plot point in the issue aside from one panel. uhhh csa/grooming cw if you go digging into that plotline? idk it's bad

cut to the manhunters BIRTHING CHAMBER?? this is explicitly how it's described. clark burns up the baby manhunters with his heat rays (fine! normal!) and the parent gets pissed and leaves.

i forgot to mention that this is the intro of gnort, who is a green lantern nepo baby.

i love him.

cut back to earth, where scott and ted are having shenanigans!

even editorial is bullying ted for his japes and jokes... he's my special little clown

[strawberryicebreakers]

HELLO i hope this ask finds u well :]

so not to be annoying or anything but out of curiosity (and immense unending passion for the topic and also your fanfic) is there a chance the uhf fic will finish? not like, right now or in a month, but just in general :)) sorry ive read the draft like 10 times by now and yknow lol :)) have a lovely day from the weird al fans of tumblr!!

hello!!! your ask finds me in one of my labs, hunkered down between classes.

it's completely alright to ask! there's always a chance I'll go back to any of my drafts [including anything I've posted to ao3 and unfortunately abandoned over the years], but I'm still working on my longer ted lasso fic [which is now at 123k! very weird to know I wrote that much] and I'm a bit worried that trying to revisit an older draft might knock me out of my groove before I finish it.

that being said! I still do incredibly appreciate all the love you + others have given the draft so far; it's so sweet to see people so passionate about something I'm playing around with [and I think of the one comic that was drawn nearly every day]. there's a scene or two that're further down the plot of the story than I wrote in the draft [ergo, doesn't take place right where the draft stops] but I'd still love to share it as a thank-you. as always, it's very unedited, very rough, but hopefully something to y'all will enjoy. :) have a nice day as well!

Sinatra wasn’t the worst to listen to, but when it seemed as though all the radio stations in Oklahoma could loop through were the man’s Christmas albums, Robert could understand why some people would have a grudge against the guy. It’d been an hour and a half of Sinatra, Sinatra, and even more Sinatra, slowly driving a wedge into whatever Christmas spirit he still had at the ripe-old age of twenty-five. 

Teri’s parents lived all the way in the suburbs of Oklahoma City, a far cry away from his and George’s apartment in Tulsa. Usually, the traffic would make him wish for a day where faster-than-light travel was the norm, but at two in the morning on Christmas Day, I-44 had been all but deserted.

Even with the lights strung ‘round each house, little reindeer pulling plastic sleighs that gleamed back under his headlights, Robert had to turn his brights on to see the house numbers. His car slowed to a crawl, creeping through the picture of perfect suburbia. 

Each house was perfect in its own right; a blanket of snow on each lawn, a wreath on each door, a brand new car or two in each driveway. He’d bet his life savings that all (save one or two) of the houses had perfect families, too. A husband and his wife, their two kids, an overexcited dog or a temperamental cat. 

It used to nauseate him, seeing places like this, knowing this would be his life. That he’d be the father waking up on Christmas to a wife wrapped around him, that he’d have to -, do things with her that he didn’t want to think about doing. 

He shuddered, chilled despite his heater working overtime and then some. Usually, his car was on the colder side ‘cause Robert ran hot, but George was more delicate than he was. He hadn’t grown up in Oklahoma, wasn’t used to how cold the winters got. If George had it his way, they’d live in a damn blast furnace from the second the temperature began to drop. 

He parked, an inch from the curb of the nicest house he’d ever seen, staring at a mailbox that someone’d painted “The Cambells” on in curly, vintage font. 

With a pre-emptive cringe, he honked his horn, quick as he could. It was what he’d told George he’d do when he got here, letting him know he was good to run out. 

Robert stared at the door, waiting to see the familiar head of curls he’d grown fond of. He didn’t know what to expect, not after getting a frantic phone call at half-past midnight, begging for him to pick him up. 

There was a joke somewhere in there, that George got lucky that Robert’s a night owl, but before he could hoot down the phone, he’d realized George was serious. It wasn’t some midnight worry, not a kid asking his mom to pick him up ‘cause he can’t sleep without a certain blanket. 

George knew how far the drive was, how miserable it’d be to drive in the middle of the night. He knew how bad it’d be for him and Teri if he disappeared without goodbye.

And yet, he called.

Robert didn’t think there’d ever be a time in his life where he wouldn’t answer.

[frogs-in3-hills]

hey do y’all remember when i said i might post that crimeboys & bedrock bros avatar fusion AU i’d written like 2 yrs ago? because. i might have just impulsively decided to clean up the first of two chapters and. yeah.

short disclaimer: i’m not in the dsmp fandom anymore, i don’t fully remember how to write these characters or even entirely where i was going with this fic, so don’t expect a continuation. sorry!! i'm just posting this for the sillies and for the couple of people who said they were interested. also, obligatory apology for referencing the gene yang comics in even the vaguest of senses…. i like the general conceit of the promise way more than uh... what they actually did with it.

---

Safe Return (11,240 words) sorry about the length but y'all know me :|

Characters: Tommyinnit, Wilbur Soot, Technoblade, Captain Puffy

Tags: Avatar: the Last Airbender fusion, Tommyinnit-centric, angst and fluff, alternate universe, Wilbur and Tommy are brothers, found family, unhealthy relationships, no beta

CW: fucked up immigration policy and a few stomach/gut-based analogies that may trigger emetophobia. also be aware of very lightly implied exile arc and briefly referenced suicidal tendencies.

Summary: Wilbur enlists the help of a stranger in the hopes of getting safely into Ba Sing Se. Tommy is not very pleased with this development, but they both know he'll follow Wilbur anyway.

---

“Names?”

“Wilbur, ma’am. And he’s Tommy.”

Tommy flinched a little as Wilbur placed a hand on his shoulder. It was loud. They’d been standing underground for a few hours now, and before that they’d been waiting in the line trailing outside of Full Moon Bay since the early, early morning. The air was unpleasant in the same way it feels gross to hold a raw egg in your hands, bloated with sweat and the quiet shuffle of feet. The sooner Tommy was out of here, the better. 

The woman before them had a perpetual pucker to her lips, as if she were holding something sour between her teeth. She raised a thin eyebrow.

“Hm… those are some unusual names. Where are you from, Wilbur and Tommy?”

Wilbur’s grip tightened slightly, and Tommy shuddered, worming two fingers into his pocket to fiddle with a loose thread.

“Well —” Wilbur started, but he could barely be heard over the hustle and bustle. He cleared his throat. “Well, we hail from Yu Dao, but we’ve been traveling north longer than we can remember, so we…”

Wilbur trailed off. Despite having asked, the woman looked uninterested in their story. Tommy could practically hear the social-interaction-cogs turning in Wilbur’s head. Distantly, he recalled a few minutes ago when Wilbur had begged him to “be civil” when they talked to the immigration officer. 

Well, Wil had been too distracted to notice he never actually agreed to that, so he didn’t feel that bad for glaring daggers into the woman’s eyes. It was the least he could do, really. 

“I see,” she drawled. “Passports?”

“We’re just humble refugees seeking asylum and work in the great walls of Ba Sing Se, ma’am,” Wilbur said.

“Either of you boys have an education? Or any in-demand skills?”

Wilbur sucked in a breath and his hand left Tommy’s shoulder. His words were familiar, a few short sentences having been practiced a hundred times over. “Both Tommy and I have a unique skillset from working a variety of jobs. I have political experience and he’s well-versed in agriculture and animal care. And we—we’re both young and can pick things up quickly. I’m confident we can—”

The woman raised her hand and Wilbur’s mouth clamped shut. The sight of it made Tommy want to strangle both of them. He wove the thread in his pocket so tight that it threatened to cut off the circulation in his fingers.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Wilbur attempted to continue. “…We can be of value to this great city’s community if… if you would lend us the opportunity…”

Oh my god, shut up! Tommy thought. This was it, wasn’t it? Their entire lives basically ruined in thirty seconds. Wilbur was bungling it, wasn’t he? Tommy should… Wil just needed a bit of inspiration. Right. Tommy gave him a gentle and motivational stomp on the foot.

Calm down, idiot, Tommy attempted to communicate to him through eye contact alone. He wasn’t sure if it worked. Wilbur only responded with a series of difficult expressions, all layered thinly under his best imitation of a more pleasant kind of human being, which made it hard to tell.

The woman sighed, sounding sort of dissatisfied, and then her eyes turned sharply to inspect Tommy.

“Show me your hands, little boy,” she said, her voice pitching somewhat as if she was trying to sound more approachable. Tommy felt butterflies rear in his stomach, anyways. He swallowed back the instinctual “I’m not a little boy, I’m fifteen!” retort and slowly presented his hands.

They were bony, nimble, fingers sprinkled lightly with scrapes and small moles. On the back of his left hand, a burn scar trailed from just under his sleeve and all the way down to his elbow. His nails left four angry, crescent-shaped indents in each palm as he unclenched his fists.

She reached out and snatched one of his hands.

Tommy hissed, immediately trying to yank it back to no avail as she ran a scrutinizing thumb over the tips of his fingers. 

“What the fuck?” He shouted, the crude words slipping out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Don’t touch me!”

Her fingers felt soggy, like when a grandma kisses you on the cheek but without any of the affection. After a moment of tug o’ war, the woman, seemingly mollified, let go. Tommy stumbled backwards into Wilbur. Two warm, steadying hands met both his shoulders, and this time, Tommy wasn’t even sure if it felt comforting or restricting.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, he didn’t—” Wilbur started, attempting some damage control. Tommy would normally have been offended that Wilbur wasn’t taking his side, but the protective grip on his shoulders told him that Wilbur was just as upset as he was.

“Save your breath, young man,” the woman interrupted, then gave them a little lopsided smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I can’t admit you. Look at all these people behind you, they’re hard workers, and they have nowhere else to go. You tell me this kid’s a rancher of sorts, but look at his hands; he hasn’t worked a day in his life. We simply don’t have room for everyone.”

“Please, you need to understand—”

“I’ve worked! I’ve worked fucking plenty, bitch!”

“Denied. Next!” the woman called, waving a hand at them as if dismissing servants from her court. Tommy thought, optimistically, maybe she was just tired. Maybe he was just tired and none of this was actually happening. But then he blinked, and when he opened her eyes, her face was painted with cruelty instead. Maybe.

His stomach ignited with anger, but Wilbur reigned him in. “Tommy, we can’t—look, there are guards all around. Let’s go.”

It was true. Tommy glanced up to see that a group of women in guard uniform were standing in a group near the wall. One of them met Tommy’s eyes, but she didn’t seem like she was gearing up to drag them out or kill them or anything. For a moment, Tommy was distracted—they all looked extremely cool—but another tug on his arm reminded him of the situation.

“Ugh, but Wil—”

“I’m afraid we have no more business here.” The finality in Wilbur’s voice shut Tommy up long enough for him to twist around, practically dragging Tommy with him as he began to powerwalk to the exit.

Well, it was more like he was confidently squirming through the gaps in the crowd. Tommy pressed closer, growing ever more conscious of the mass of people in the huge station. The rumble of chatter soaked through his ears and into his brain. He could barely think. He was gonna—it was ruined. Everything had gone wrong.

Tommy made an effort to step on Wilbur’s heels as they walked, trying to distract himself from the fact that he wanted to spew his guts all over the floor or something. 

But Wilbur just ignored him. His entire body felt too light, like butterflies but worse. Like if all the butterflies had turned to worms and they were eating him from the inside out now. 

Still staring straight ahead, Wilbur’s grip slid from Tommy’s forearm down to lace with his fingers. Tommy tried not to rip his hand away.

They eventually made their way out of the cove. It was bordering on late afternoon, the sun low enough to cast long, dark shadows but not quite tired enough to set. Outside, something of a town had formed, though still innocuous as to avoid raising suspicion from the Fire Nation. The trailing line was shorter than it had been when they’d arrived, and Tommy reveled a little in the fact that he was right that they hadn’t needed to wake up in the asscrack of dawn and stupid Wilbur was wrong. 

The two went to sit, finally, against the side wall of a small shack. As soon as Tommy felt like he could breathe right again, he yanked his hand away from Wilbur’s and stuffed it back into his pocket.

He could tell Wil was looking at him, probably something very interesting and complicated happening on his face. Eventually, he turned away to face the rocky shore, murmuring, “That was it, then.”

Tommy felt his throat do a laugh-so-you-don’t-cry thing and he kicked his heel against the wall, which was only a little better than just stamping his foot like a child.

“I don’t know what the fuck they’re looking for in refugees if not—if—I don’t know how we didn’t—!” he started to ramble.

He looked back at the lines of families, waiting so patiently, only to be turned down like them. Some were injured or ill. There had been women holding their children close to them, people from all over the Earth Kingdom come to escape the war.

“Yeah,” Wilbur said, morosely shoving his stupid beanie back over his stupid hair.

Tommy felt warm tears building in his vision, so he wiped his eyes roughly with his sleeve. “Haven’t worked a day in my life—like you—like she can tell my whole fuckin’—a guy’s life story just ‘cause he likes to stay moisturized! Seriously, it’s such bullshit, it’s—it’s—but it’s fine, ‘cause we can just—we’ll just—we—I can, like, I can pretend to be sick and we’ll go back. And they’ll say oohh, we’re so sorry for doubting you Tommy, you’re so sad and destitute and Wilbur is so bitchless, I’ll be a little soggy, they wouldn’t dare—I reckon they’d let in a soggy little man like me.”

“There’s no need for that, Tommy,” Wilbur sighed. “I don’t think having any transmissible diseases is going to help our case anyway. Look, the ferry was our best bet, but it was never our only bet, okay?”

Tommy scoffed. “Oh! I guess now you wanna go with old Tommy Scammy’s plan of forging our passports, great time to get on board, Wil. We already—they already fuckin’ turned us down, alright?”

“No, dude, I mean my plan. The back-up plan.”

Ugh. The backup plan again. Sometimes Wilbur could be so fucking vague with things, always thinking he was the boss and Tommy was just a little kid following along. Making decisions without him and not telling him like he was doing Tommy some big favor. Every time Tommy asked, he was met with a dismissive “don’t worry about it” or an “it won’t even come up”. Clearly, it fucking did, and now Tommy had no say in their next move even though Wilbur was barely older than him. Probably. Well—five years wasn’t that big a gap, was it?

“Well apparently, it’s our plan now,” Tommy corrected. “It’s not the fuckin’ Wilbur Soot show. It’s not—it’s not all about you, you prick bastard.”

Wilbur’s hand juttered between five different motions, like he was trying to exhasperatedly rub his temples and fidget with the hem of his coat at the same time. “I—Tommy, would you say I’ve been self-centered in all this?”

Tommy pressed his lips together. “Fuckin’ trick question.”

He’d meant the whole thing to come off as a joke, or like, one of those things you can take seriously if you agree with it or take it as a joke if you don’t. But he could tell by Wilbur’s wince that maybe he hadn’t gone with the joke interpretation.

“You’re right,” Wilbur said, turning away. 

That made Tommy feel kind of bad, but… it’s not like he was wrong, really, and he wasn’t in the habit of enabling Wilbur’s chronic flirtations with his impending emo arc anyway, so he swallowed the vague apology that had begun to form in his mouth. It went down like chalk.

“You’re right about that,” Wil repeated. “Look, I’m just thinking… I know someone willing to guide us. An old friend.”

“Who? Where?” Tommy asked.

Wilbur chewed idly on the broken upper clasp of his coat before muttering, almost as if he was ashamed of the words, “through the Serpent’s Pass.”

Tommy’s breath caught in his throat.

“You want to—the—Wilbur, we—The Serpent’s Pass? What do you mean? We can’t—Wil, we’ll fucking die, Wil.”

“No, we won’t,” Wilbur responded, obviously trying to be firm, but his voice teetered off at the end like he wasn’t so sure. 

A flame of frustration bloomed in Tommy’s stomach. “Oh, fuck off, bitch, you—ohh, are you fucking kidding me?! Now, I don’t—I don’t know about you, Wil, but I—I remember what happened last time you wanted to meet up with an old friend. What, you’re risking everything—risking it again because you think—you fuckin’ think some stranger will save us? Yeah, that’s great Wilbur, real great. The fact that it’s called the fuckin’ Serpent’s Pass isn’t springing any red fuckin’ flags in your head, man? Y’know, serpents?! Does that seriously sound like a nice friendly little creature to you?”

“Tommy!” Wilbur hissed, shoving a palm over Tommy’s lips.

“Fucking what?!” Tommy snapped back, though he instinctively lowered his volume to a whisper, following Wilbur’s lead.

Wilbur pressed his hand closer over Tommy’s mouth. “You’re smoking, you brat, that’s fucking what!” 

Tommy’s eyes widened as he caught a dark trail of clouds puffing through the gaps of Wilbur’s fingers.

Immediately, Tommy glanced out towards the sparse group of people exiting the cove, probably having been rejected just like them. None of them looked all that interested in the two, nor did anybody seem to notice the tiny plume of smoke wafting out from the top of the small alley they’d settled in. 

He had to admit, breathing smoke whenever he got pissy was damningly quirky. And a little inconvenient to the whole secrecy thing.

“Sorry,” Tommy said insincerely, his voice muffled. He reveled in the halfhearted glare that Wilbur sent in return. Tommy licked his hand for good measure.

“Tommy!” Wilbur cried, yanking his hand back. 

Hah. Loser.

Wilbur heaved the world-weary sigh of a man who’d been forced to tow around an Innit child for the past three years. Tommy folded his arms and leaned back, satisfied with the amount of annoyance he’d caused within the past thirty seconds. (And maybe feeling a little better now that he’d gone and screamed his frustrations out. Just a bit.)

“I know you and I don’t have the best track record with this kind of thing, but I—I promise this person isn’t like—like. Y’know.”

“Okay, Wil,” Tommy said, really genuinely trying to sound like he believed it even though he didn’t. 

It wasn’t like they had much of a choice now. Beggars can’t be choosers and all.

Wilbur studied him for a moment before pointedly turning on his heel, focusing his attention on forming a plan. “This alley might be a good place to settle for the night.”

He wasn’t stupid enough not to notice the transparency of that subject change, but maybe Wilbur was stupid enough not to notice that Tommy noticed? He frowned, picking at the edge of his sleeve. “This is a transport hub. Surely there’s—I reckon there’s somewhere that refugees gather and like, set up little tents, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur said absently, then turned back around. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right.”

Tommy snorted. Wilbur rolled his eyes.

It felt so achingly close to normal.

Still, they needed to find some food for the night and see if they could find some other folk to sleep near. They still had a few copper pieces and a silver split between them, and food would likely be cheaper at Full Moon Bay to accommodate for the constant influx of poor customers.

In Tommy’s mature, humble opinion, most Earth Kingdom food couldn’t hold a candle to Yu Dao cuisine. Wilbur was lucky—his favorite food had always been crab puffs, which, while not common, could still be found in other parts of the Earth Kingdom. But no amount of squeezing lemons and sprinkling chili flakes into a bowl of soup would ever come close to the suan cai yu back at home.

They eventually found a cheap place and brought a bowl of possum chicken noodles along with them as they perused the barely-existent streets, pretending to be tourists. As was routine, Wilbur took the bowl first, adding some chili flakes from the jar they always kept in their bags, then picking out most of the vegetables Tommy didn’t like. Once he’d eaten half, he handed it off to Tommy, who snatched up the chili flake jar and shook it violently over the leftovers until red became the dominant color in the bowl.

They came across a small encampment of people who hadn’t had time to depart from the harbor before nightfall, or who had arrived in advance and would be trying their luck the next day. And everyone was nice, too. Tommy didn’t even have to watch Wilbur grovel too much trying to get in. He saw one of the cool guard ladies there, but it didn’t seem like she was there for work; she’d shed the outer layer of her uniform to offer as a makeshift dinner plate for some other refugees.

They settled down in a corner against the earthen wall of a tiny house. A few struggling bushes kept them out of sight from most of the other folks, but it wasn’t solitary enough to be rude about it. As soon as they set their packs on the ground, Wilbur was already on his hands and knees, examining the stony slab.

“I think this was earthbent,” he beamed. “Look, you can even see where these pieces of limestone were split.”

Tommy was temped to do his due diligence and call Wilbur a nerd or something, but it was kind of cool, so he figured it wouldn’t be so bad to indulge the guy every once in a while. He still managed to slip in a few insults between Wilbur’s interesting bending facts.

It didn’t take long for most everyone to settle in for the night. Tommy could hear low murmurs drifting from various groups, but didn’t bother to parse what they were saying. It was getting too dark to tell who was who, anyway.

“Y'know, I wanted to ride the ferry,” he remarked, pulling a thin blanket from their pack. "It seemed nice, right?"

Wilbur, who had been scribbling something into a journal, dropped his quill and looked at Tommy. His face twisted into something unidentifiable.

Right—of course—that was childish. The fucking ferry ride to Ba Sing Se, yeah, that was the biggest blow to their plans by far. 

Tommy glanced away, worrying the blanket with his thumb. 

Obviously he liked acting like a brat, otherwise he wouldn’t do it so much, but he wasn’t an idiot, either. He knew tagging along made things harder for Wilbur and that’s probably the reason he hasn’t gone off to, like, study something awesome or enact political change and stuff. Whatever he wanted to put his big fucking head to. He knew if they’d stayed in Yu Dao, Tommy’d have been drafted a year ago. He was old enough to fight, but all Tommy could think about was boat rides, really? He was…

“Tommy,” Wilbur said, in that way he does when he’s trying to be embarrassing, but there wasn’t anything playful in his voice.

He frowned. “What's up, Wil?”

Then Wilbur was reaching out, his hand hovering over Tommy’s shoulder. “Can I—?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tommy said, quickly ducking his head and pulling his friend into a hug. His ratty wool coat was rough against his cheek. It smelled bad, too. Sweaty and kind of like smoke (ugh).

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur sighed.

“Wha—Wil, it—it’s okay, it’s just a boat ride,” Tommy replied, brows furrowing.

“I…” Wilbur paused and sniffed quietly. “Can I be real with you?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Wilbur was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice came out a little less watery. “That… you said that, and I… it’s like a switch just flicked in my brain. Y’know, I fuckin’ wish we could’ve. You deserved to get to take the ferry and have something fun for once. And yet, I…”

Tommy heard the note of frustration building in his voice, and his body went cold. He wanted to break free from the hug, but before he do anything about it, Wil pulled away first. Worst part was, it didn’t make him feel any less cold.

“Seriously, it’s not a big deal,” Tommy mumbled, but as soon as he got done saying it, he realized that wasn’t even the point.

Wilbur chuckled weakly. “Believe me, I know you don’t like to be coddled, Tommy. I like to think that, y’know, you don’t feel like I’m ever looking down on you. But you know you’re still… I think of you as—”

“I know, Wil.” Tommy said, then glanced over with a wry smile. “You don’t have to say it. I know you’ll cry.”

He knew Wilbur was blaming himself over their encounter with the border lady, how it ruined everything they’d been working towards. Really, it was Tommy’s fault for freaking out—but, well, that wasn’t all that unreasonable of him, was it? It was that they hadn’t been good enough. Not needy enough. Wilbur could have—why didn’t he plan this out more? Why—?

No, that wasn’t fair. That lady was just an asshole.

“It wasn’t your fault. Dickhead,” Tommy said, an edge of finality in his voice.

Wilbur sighed, in that annoying way when it was clear he was doubting Tommy Trusty’s words of wisdom.

“Alright, brat,” he finally said. After a moment of what looked like calculating hesitation, he reached out and mussed up Tommy’s hair.

“Fuck you!” Tommy cried, shoving Wilbur away (and then immediately felt bad for yelling when people were trying to get some shut-eye).

They settled down the way they always did: doing their best to share a blanket between them, with their pack of supplies kind of smooshed between their heads like the world’s most ineffectual privacy partition.

Tommy was often the first one to fall asleep, but not tonight. It was only the turn of spring, so there were still some vestiges of the winter chill clinging to the darkness like a spider to her web. Tommy tried to salvage some warmth by tugging over a little more than his allotted 50% of the blanket, but even then he could still feel himself shivering.

Every time he looked back out into the dilapidated streets of Full Moon Bay (Shit name, by the way, it was clearly a waxing crescent tonight), his heart jumped a little. Like they were being watched or something. Flashes of light disappeared and reappeared in the distance like fireflies. Every time he caught one, Tommy shut his eyes tight and prayed they would disappear for good when he opened them.

He tossed and turned—well, as much as one could when sleeping next to somebody and still not be a dick. He considered waking Wilbur up for about two seconds before deciding that was baby behavior and it’d probably be the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him.

He didn’t know how long he laid there, but at some point he realized he could still hear a little conversation from the other refugees.

“I just… don’t know where we’re supposed to go from here, dad.”

A pause, then a second voice answered quietly.

“Listen, dear, if you really think we’ll be safe in Ba Sing Se, we could try the other way.”

“Do you mean the Serpent’s Pass?”

Tommy’s toes curled at the mention of that name. The place Wilbur wanted to take them. Because he was a fucking wrong’un and an idiot.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, guys,” someone new whispered. Tommy realized it was that guard lady, which meant the other two were probably the woman and her elderly father he’d seen earlier. “It’s one of the most dangerous passages in the world. On foot, at least.”

“But, haven’t you heard, young lady? They say there’s a half-spirit who guides people along the pass.”

“A half-spirit? What, like the Avatar?” The woman scoffed.

“Who’s to say?”

Tommy’s eyebrows furrowed at that. Wilbur had been talking about an old friend who might help them on their own journey, but Wilbur definitely wasn’t cool enough to know any half-spirits, let alone the Avatar.

“Dad…”

Another pause. “Oh, you’re too serious sometimes.”

“I’m really not trying to lower your mood,” the woman sighed, some bitterness in her voice. “I just don’t think it’s worth putting all our hope into any spiritual business.”

“Oh alright, I understand…”

“Actually,” the guard lady cut in, “I’m kind of curious. Seems like you know your spirits, sir.”

The old man laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’ve heard many different rumors. That he was once an assistant in the Spirit Library, or that he’s from another world entirely…”

The guard hummed. “You’re talking about The Blade, aren’t you?”

In the dark, Tommy’s eyes widened. It’s not like he really thought they were the same person-spirit-thing, but if this somehow turned out to be Wil’s guy, Tommy was gonna fucking strangle him. As if accentuating this thought, Wilbur did a stupid little snort in his sleep.

“Oh, yes, that was his name.”

The daughter chuckled a little. “Sounds friendly.”

“I don’t know a lot about him either, but I think he was around when Avatar Kyoshi was alive,” the guard remarked. “But I’ve also heard he doesn’t show up for just anybody, so… I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t bank on it, either.”

“Don’t apologize, dear,” the old man said. “Jia Li and I will be alright, one way or another.”

The rest, Tommy supposed, was too private for words, because after another moment of listening, he didn’t hear anything else after that. 

Well, it sounded like he and Wilbur didn’t need to worry about any “The Blade”s trying to come and murder them or anything like that. Not like Big Man Tommy Innit was gonna be scared off by a spirit who probably didn’t even want to help out perfectly nice people like Jia Li and her father. He scrunched his eyes shut once again, trying to calm down.

But his thoughts wouldn’t stop racing. The Serpent’s Pass kept jumping to the forefront of his mind—what it was like, whether Wilbur really seriously wanted to go, all the potential ways they might die there without anyone finding their bodies. That kind of thing.

And it was so. Fucking. Cold.

As slowly as he could, Tommy tilted his head up to see if Wilbur was asleep yet. In the faint light, he could tell his brother’s face was slack, peaceful. But the lines of stress and deep bags under his eyes were still there. They could almost make Tommy forget that the man before him was only twenty years old.

But he was asleep.

Quietly, Tommy took a deep breath. It was shaky at first, so he curled tighter around the feeling in his gut, willing his fears to melt away. Buzzing energy gathered inside him.

He breathed out.

It was as if he was holding a pile of kindling. It started with with a speck of red, barely even hot against his palm.

A little fire grew, swaddled in Tommy’s hands. It was warm. Not as big and burning as he would’ve liked, but still warm. He held it close to his chest so none of the light would flutter out from behind him.

He breathed deeply, in and out, until he, too, finally managed to fade into the restless night.

---

Wilbur did, in fact, really seriously want to go.

“So. What’s this—this old friend, what’s he like?” Tommy asked, trying to suss out Wilbur’s real feelings towards their new… route. If you could even call it a route. To Tommy, it obviously seemed more like a suicide wish. He didn’t want to wonder if that’s why Wilbur liked it so much (he really, really didn’t want to think about that).

Wilbur sighed a little and shifted his pack. “I always knew him as Techno.”

Tommy raised his eyebrows. “Real shit name, innit? How do you even know he’ll help us? Or even fucking be there?”

“I mean…” he trailed off.

“Wilbur, you—are you—!” Tommy groaned. “You have got to be fucking kidding me, man!”

“Oi, he is gonna be there, alright? He will. He just—he’s always where he needs to be. That’s what he does.”

“Oh, so what, the little birdies whispered it in your dumb oversized fuckin’ ear. You want to go on—” he recalled what the people from last night had said—“one of the most dangerous passages in the fucking world, because that’s the vibe?”

“My ears aren’t oversized,” Wil protested.

He looked vaguely unhappy with the direction of the conversation, so Tommy broke eye contact and began to focus on the path ahead of them: a long stretch of rocky earth, speckled with sleepy anthills and crusted with slabs of limestone emerging from the dirt. The Serpent’s Pass couldn’t have been more than two day’s determined travel from Full Moon Bay, but he still wasn’t excited for the short journey.

Especially since they’d be meeting with this “Techno” at some point. Allegedly.

Tommy just wanted to get to Ba Sing Se, where the war couldn’t touch them, where—where that tyrant freak couldn’t touch him, where he could go on pretending there wasn’t any Fire Nation in his veins, and where Wilbur could do… well, whatever he wanted to.

Tommy also wanted to not fucking die. And, if he was being honest, he wasn’t exactly keen on some random stranger barging in on his and Wilbur’s dynamic, either. Didn’t he know that an extra party member always ruins the vibe? Obviously not, the bastard.

So. If Wilbur didn’t like Tommy being a bitch about the whole thing, then he would just have to fucking deal.

“Look, Tommy, I know you don’t like this,” Wilbur started, a little undiplomatically. “But you need to—I need you to give him a chance. He’s done this before. You can trust him. I’m afraid we don’t have many other options.”

Tommy pointedly kept his gaze to the ground, dodging another anthill as they trudged along.

“Fine. What’s he like?” Tommy asked again.

Wilbur told him. Apparently, Techno had been close to Wilbur’s father, but eventually grew to care for him as well. Tommy thought it was stupid that Wilbur refused to call him dad anymore, but he also kind of got it.

“So they were friends?” he asked.

Wilbur’s nose scrunched up a little and his glasses bobbed stupidly with the motion. “I guess. I—I mean, it was perhaps more than just being friends, I would say.”

Tommy snorted. “So they were—they were in love? They made out and stood on furnaces ‘n’ all that shit?”

Wil briefly made a face like he was going to throw up, but less in a grossed-out way and more in a I-hate-my-life-way. “No, I… don’t think so.”

According to Wilbur, the guy was quite easygoing, preferred things to go his way, awfully stubborn, and criminally funny. Tommy scowled at the description.

“What? What’s that face for?”

“Nothing. I trust him,” Tommy lied.

“Tommy…”

Tommy had some trouble reading the tone of that one. It was a little drawn out, but exasperated didn’t seem quite right. He somewhat prided himself on being able to read Wilbur when others couldn’t, but sometimes he was too much of a closed book even for Tommy’s magnificent, gargantuan mind.

Suddenly, Wilbur gasped.

“Awwe, Tommy…”

Oh, he knew that one well enough.

Wilbur grinned. “Are you fucking jealous?”

Immediately, a flame of embarrassment licked at Tommy’s cheeks and he halfheartedly shoved Wilbur away. “I’m not — I’m not jealous, dickhead.”

“You’re jealous! You’re fucking jealous!”

“No, no, I’m not! I’m not! I’d never be—I’d never be jealous of—of—I’m not jealous!”

“It’s okay, Tommy, it’s okay, don’t be embarrassed!”

“Mmm! Mmm! Mmmm… Can’t hear you, can’t—shut up! Humina humina humina humina…”

“Look, you’ll like him, it’ll be fine! Don’t worry, Tommy, I’ll still pay the most attention to you,” Wilbur crooned. 

“Dickhead prick bastard, you’re unpleasant to be around, you—you’re the worst person to be born, Wilbur, ever. Fuck you.”

The two walked on until night returned, taking little breaks to rest. They hadn’t fully restocked their waterskin—for the billionth time, Wilbur passionately expressed how much he wished he was a waterbender so he could pull water out of thin air for the both of them. Tommy figured if it was that easy then every waterbender would fucking be doing it. But go off, he supposed.

This part of the Earth Kingdom was a different type of cold than they were used to, a thick humidity permeating the air. It was the worst kind of weather ever. Now that they were back on the road, they could at least set up a real camp. The sun’s last dredges were about ready to fade behind the horizon. Instead of forcing him to help like usual, Wilbur got busy pitching the tent, letting Tommy watch the sunset bleed out.

“Wil,” Tommy said.

Silence.

“Wilbur.”

Wilbur’s finally glanced at Tommy.

“Wil, I heard some of the other people talking last night.”

His mouth popped in an “oh” shape. “What did they say?”

“They said—well, there was that really pretty guard lady and they were talking and all, and they were talking about—they said that on The Serpent’s Pass, there was some kind of spirit.”

“A spirit?” Wilbur perked up.

“Or like, a half-spirit, I don’t know,” Tommy amended, “like the Avatar ‘n’ shit.”

Wilbur frowned. “The Avatar isn’t a half-spirit.”

“Oh my—whatever, you fucking nerd.”

That made Wilbur laugh, which made Tommy feel about 2% better than he did before.

“So, who’s this half-spirit?”

“Well,” Tommy started, trying to remember. “They said it, like, helps people across the pass, but I guess only certain people, like some kind of fuckin’ capitalist or something. It’s called The Blade or something stupid like that.”

“Oh,” Wil said, “That’s Techno.”

“What the fuck?!”

Tommy gaped as Wilbur started laughing again.

“Your friend is a fuckin’ spirit?!”

“No, no,” Wilbur attempted through his stupid fucking giggle fit. “He’s just a guy. Like, he’s just a dude. That must be some kind of rumor.”

“Oh my god.” Tommy put his face in his hands.

“I bet he’ll be pleased to hear he’s got a reputation, though.”

“Oh yeah, he sounds like a right fuckin’ egotist—I mean, like, a fuckin’ bastard.”

Wilbur made a little "pffft" sound like he kind of agreed, but didn’t say anything more, so Tommy turned back to the sunset and hummed to himself for a bit.

“Wil,” Tommy asked approximately two minutes later. “There’s nobody around here, right?”

A short silence followed before he heard Wilbur call back, “No.”

“Let me set up a fire?” 

Tommy’s heart stood still as he waited for the reply with bated breath. Wilbur must have been expecting the question, though, because he just smiled. “Sure, king.”

“WOO! Fuck yeah!” Tommy cheered, bouncing up immediately. No sleeping cold tonight!

He was able to gather some firewood fairly easily. Some of the twigs and branches Tommy found didn’t feel quite as dry as he would’ve preferred, but he’d been getting better with his control, so… At the very least, he was just quick enough that by the time he’d wandered back to the camp, some residual heat from the sun was still lingering in the sky.

Wilbur was sitting outside the tent on their ratty blanket. He watched silently, seemingly absentmindedly, as Tommy began to make a small firepit.

“Now,” Tommy boasted, “the moment you’ve been dying to see! Gentlemen…”

He looked to Wilbur, then all around the desert, then back to Wilbur. “Wilbur.”

He snorted. “Child.”

“Fuck you,” Tommy dismissed, then continued on with his exciting performance. “Please pay attention now, keep your eyes peeled all the way open like an orange. The Great Big Tommy Danger Hands, sleightest of fingers, Breaker of Chains, will demonstrate his finest and most manliest trick, which all the women love and they drool over him and try to marry him constantly… as he now delicately starts… a fire!”

He plopped down into a low squat, like he’d seen in the picture books Wilbur used to show him before they got banned from the Yu Dao library (Admittedly, that was Tommy’s fault). It was technically an earthbending form, but Tommy figured it didn’t matter that much. It wasn’t like he had any other old masters to teach him.

He could do this.

Breathe in.

Tommy felt the air hum and pulse with warmth. Something buzzed alive inside his stomach.

Breathe out. 

Energy flowed through his breath and a wave of heat curled from the firewood.

Breathe in. 

A few bright sparks whistled around the sticks, and Tommy had to quickly calm the rush of excitement he felt so he wouldn’t lose control. He was going to do this like a real master.

Breathe out. 

A little flame sprouted and affirmed itself like mushrooms rooting into a tree stump, stretching its tendrils into the clouds above.

Breathe in.

He opened his eyes, and the light caught on the edge of the scar on his hand.

(“I thought we were friends, Tommy,” the bastard said.

Tommy said… Tommy said—

Everything was really hot suddenly. He looked down, and he saw red, and he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t…)

Stop, stop, stop! Tommy gasped as his little fire crackled burst into a roaring blaze.

“YOO!” Wilbur cheered from the other side of the firepit.

He blinked, suddenly aware of the tension in his knees as he held his squat. He was…

Breathe out.

The fire shrank down from its outburst, fluttering pleasantly in the air like a lovely dancer. The tinder and logs shifted a little as smoldering chunks fell to the bottom. Right. He was…

Right.

He watched Wilbur lean in, excited. Flecks of light danced in the reflection of his shitty stolen glasses like confetti. Tommy could feel the heat pulse through his arms, both from the fire and from his own energy, but it was a pleasant sunbathing warmth instead of the cold, mango-sticky feeling they’d been trudging through all day. 

Breathe in. What was he so freaked out about, anyway?

With the final bit of air in his lungs, Tommy slowly pushed out the rest of his energy into the fire. 

Breathe out. 

A golden glow lit up Wilbur’s face like a firefly hovering in the night. It caught against every early wrinkle and stray hair on his cheeks and cast long, somber shadows on his face. His smile brightened as he watched the flame bloom.

Tommy bit his lip, feeling ashamed for some stupid fucking reason.

“Dude!” Wilbur cried. “That was fucking amazing!”

Tommy glanced down at the fire, popping gently, a product of his own soul and practice and care. He sank into the dirt, watching it for a second and muttering a string of astounded curses under his breath. 

A tiny laugh radiated from Tommy’s chest. It was beautiful, this thing that he made all on his own, and a lightness rose in his throat like a bubble of mucus, but in a good way. It was alive.

“Yeah—yeah—I fuckin’—that was so fucking cool!”

They both cheered, Wilbur bestowing Tommy with a searing high-five, a communication of only the utmost respect. Even though it was nearly too dark to see past their little circle of light, everything somehow felt brighter than it had in days. 

All the times Wilbur had to shove a blanket over Tommy’s emotionally reactive firebending in public felt so worth it just for this moment. Tonight, they would fall asleep with warmth and light in front of them, backs unguarded in the open field. The boiling weight in Tommy’s lungs would be forgotten.

---

The Blade was late to their rendezvous. You know, the one that only existed in Wilbur’s head.

Wilbur seemed to know Techno lived somewhere around this little port down near the start of the Pass, but nothing more than that. He’d seemed confident that they would just… run into him, or something like that. Apparently Wilbur has sent the guy letters before, but never got a message back, which meant either Wilbur was fucking wrong, or Techno was fucking rude.

Tommy, the self proclaimed “polite one” of the two brothers, bit back about six “I told you so”s throughout the morning. It wasn’t much, but it was honest work.

At first, Wilbur didn’t seem too stressed about it, explaining that Techno was just trying to maintain a cool and fashionable facade, but after about an hour of walking around doing nothing, he’d started to pick up on Tommy’s antsiness.

“Technolate,” Wilbur said.

“Technolate,” Tommy agreed, not feeling the least bit smug about it, as was the kind and brotherly thing to do.

After another hour of wandering and playing various word games—that devolved not once, not twice, but three times into promises of future violence—the two decided to wander off in search of cheap food. Considering this was a fishing port, it didn’t take them long to find somewhere near a dock on the shore.

A slightly older looking woman with a mane of thick, curly hair was unloading a small fishing ship. Tommy made eye contact with Wilbur for a second before bounding over the sloped ground towards the boat.

“Hello? Hello?” Tommy asked, fingering their remaining coins in his pocket.

“Oh! Uh, hello, friend.” The woman startled a little, nearly dropping a crate she’d been heaving onto the dock. Tommy heard Wilbur walk up behind him at a leisurely pace, and the woman smiled. “…Friends.”

Tommy opened his pitch with a dazzling smile. “Well, miss—?”

“Puffy,” the woman supplied.

“Miss Puffy—you are incredibly beautiful, by the way—”

“Tommy,” Wilbur groaned. He went on, probably needlessly apologizing to Puffy like he always did when Tommy started talking to strangers, but Tommy decided not to comprehend it.

“My brother—my big brother Wilbur and I, we—we’re very poor and sad. We—we’re impoverished, we scramble around on the floors and we—and we eat up all we can like little mice. We came down to the lovely town of—?”

Puffy laughed. “Well, it’s really more of a club than it is a town, but—”

Wilbur straightened up, trying to dominate Tommy in the conversation, and cried, “well, we love your fishing club!”

“Yes!” Tommy agreed, doing everything in his power to resist the urge to jab his thumb into Wilbur’s belly button. Instead, he gestured out into the barren land of the cliffside. “It’s like—it’s like a fancy little forest! With little fish just—little fish swimming around and being… delicious.”

“Goods! Fish! Your wares are available for purchasing?” Wilbur added, sounding more embarrassed with himself with each new syllable.

This seemed to break Puffy, as she immediately sputtered into a round of buoyant laughter and pressed her face into her hands. “I’m—I’m so sorry you two, but I—”

“Look, look, Wil—now’s the—now’s our chance. Let’s steal her wares. She won’t see a thing,” Tommy conspired unsubtly.

“What?” Puffy asked. It sounded more like a wha-ha-haaat? because she was laughing still.

“Tommy!” Wilbur groaned. “You are the worst salesman I’ve ever seen, and every time you open your mouth your ineptitude fucking spreads to me like a disease.”

Tommy sighed. “But I’m not selling anything, Wil, except—except for my winning smile and my vivacious abs-sculature. I’m a Crime Boy, I’m a Dirty Crime Boy!”

“I regret passing that title to you every fucking day.”

Puffy, with a lingering grin on her face, cleared her throat. Tommy and Wilbur’s mouths snapped shut. She was not laughing anymore and the jig was up because Wilbur was afraid to take action in the moment of truth.

“Look, I’m really sorry you two, but I’ve honestly been struggling to get by with the whole, uh, fishing thing myself. Serpent and all,” Puffy admitted. “I’m actually trying to set up shop somewhere else right now, and I’ve already sold all the good fish.”

“Right. The Serpent.” Tommy shot a glare towards Wilbur.

Wilbur ignored him. “We’re okay with the bad fish, too,” he negotiated, overeager.

Puffy smiled apologetically. “I hate to break it to you, but this lil’ shack is fresh out of fish. But, I mean, if you two need money, I wouldn’t mind having some helpers on the boat. In fact, uh, I picked up someone like you a few hours ago for the same reason.”

“Oh, sorry, we’re looking for someone today”, Wilbur replied, raising his arms purposelessly then letting them awkwardly fall back down. “We appreciate the offer, though.”

“Wil,” Tommy protested, “You don’t even fucking know where he is.”

“I know he sticks around these parts,” Wilbur spat back, but he sounded unsure.

Suddenly, a heavy clank rang from the back of the fishing boat. Puffy didn’t seem too alarmed.

“Hey Captain, remind me exactly how much of this ya need me to carry out?” A voice called from inside the cabin.

From the corner of his vision, Tommy caught Wilbur’s eyes widening. “What? What?” He asked, ramming his elbow into Wilbur’s side.

“Uh, just one or two boxes,” Puffy replied, then turned back to the two. “That’s the guy who’s been helping me today.”

On cue, a hulking figure stepped out of the cabin, carrying a large crate with a line of slime dribbling from one of the bottom corners. Peering over the top, Tommy saw what he was pretty sure was maggots squirming around inside. Cute.

The man was wrapped in a thick, woolly cloak that looked like it could have cost more than twice Tommy’s lifetime earnings, but it was so worse for wear that he wasn’t entirely sure how the man could even touch the thing without it dissolving into a pile of thread. Like Puffy, he had a mane of brown hair, but his was streaked with pink, like how middle-aged ladies sometimes have a salt-and-pepper greying thing going on.

Most interestingly, he wore what looked like a thoroughly cleaned moo-sow skull over his face, obscuring most of his features and making him look both batshit crazy and indescribably awesome. 

“Holy shit!” Wilbur said, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“Uh…” The man set his box down—yep, definitely maggots— onto solid ground. “Wilbur?”

Wilbur’s shock quickly transformed into a bright grin. “Techno, my man, it’s good to see you again!”

Oh, Tommy thought. Great. Wilbur's mysterious friend actually did appear.

“Ha, you still have those old glasses! Nerd,” Techno said, stepping over and immediately wrapping Wilbur in what looked like a warm, crushing hug. Tommy grimaced and looked away.

It was kind of funny how Wilbur clung back to him though, like a weird little stick. “We were looking for you, actually.”

“Oh, right, ‘cuz—”

“Did you get any of my letters?” Wilbur asked.

“I got, like… three.”

He frowned. “I've sent more than that. Which ones got through?”

Techno freed Wil from the massive hug, patting him hard on the back and causing him to let out a sharp oof. “Well, there was the one about that girl who dumped you, or you dumped her, I didn’t really get it, honestly.”

Wilbur’s frown deepened. “Other than that one.”

“Well, I got the one where you adopted, like, a raccoon child? That was cool.”

Tommy decided enough was enough.

“AHEM.”

“Oh, Techno—” Wilbur, presumably, began to introduce him, thank god.

“Oh, riiight,” Techno cut him off, “and I got the one from a month ago saying you might want some help up The Serpent’s Pass. I don’t have anythin’ to do right now, really, so that’s fine.”

What?

Tommy clenched the edge of his shirt. “Excuse me. Excuse me.”

“Oh,” Techno said. “Hullo.”

“Wilbur, you—” Tommy said, feeling kind of ill in a flippy way, like when you spin around in circles for too long. “You’d already told him to come?”

Wilbur sighed. “Tommy, listen, I was just letting him know it was a possibility.”

Techno tiled his head curiously, but that ridiculous skull mask made the gesture look predatory instead. “Oh yeah, Tommy, that’s right. The raccoon child.”

Tommy tried to stab him with his eyeballs. “And you’re Techno. The Blade.”

“Yep,” he said, unbothered.

Wilbur straightened up, obviously trying to take control of the conversation from there. “Now, there’s no need for hostility, you two.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna be honest, I’m feelin’ kinda attacked right now, don’t know why though. Definitely some sort of wave of antagonism coming from… about this direction,” Techno said, gesturing towards Tommy.

Tommy bristled. Before he could say anything, though, Wilbur pushed forward. “I’m sorry it’s sudden, Techno, but we’re just trying to get to The Impenetrable City. It’s important.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I was kinda prepared for you to be here, like I said. And I owe ya one, anyway.”

Wil shot him a little smile. “Planning on putting us through Serpent’s Pass boot camp or something like that?”

“Eh. Sounds like a lotta work.” Techno said. “I mean, you guys’ll be fine if you just listen to what I tell you out there. Not to brag or anything, but like, I kinda know my way around.”

“I know it might not be a big deal to you, but this really means a lot to us,” stupid Wilbur said, speaking for Tommy like he knew what he was thinking. “I failed to get us a ferry in, so now I’m afraid we have to take the next-best option.”

Tommy was… he was pissed. Actually pissed. Not fake-pissed or funny-pissed. Miffed, one could say. Fuming, even.

First off, he told the dipshit it wasn’t his fault, but there Wilbur went putting it all on himself like it was nothing again, like he was just that used to covering for Tommy’s fuck-ups. It was humiliating. It was wrong. And then he decides to pull some stupid stunt and pretend that’s what he meant from the very fucking beginning? And he wanted Tommy to just go along with it, his stupid Tommy, his Right-Hand Tommy. His—whatever. 

“Well, I think it’s a fuckin’ horrible idea, if either of you give a shit,” he declared. Just because he was still gonna stick with Wilbur didn’t mean he couldn’t be a bit of a dick about it. Had to keep his brand image and all.

“Tommy,” Wilbur said, frustrated.

At that, Puffy stepped forward with an air of authority. “Okay, I guess today’s been a weird day for everyone, and I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but I’d like to remind everyone that this is my dock. So I think we can all be chill, right?”

Tommy leaned back against the shack and crossed his arms. “‘M not trying to start shit,” he muttered. Honestly.

“I’m very sorry about all this, ma’am,” Wilbur said.

Puffy waved him off. “Hey, no need for the formality. I appreciate it, it’s just that Techno’s been helping out on the boat all morning. And when I’ve got someone working with me, I don’t let anyone bother them, you get me?”

“Yeah,” Techno said. His voice was lighthearted, but the animalistic appearance to his mask made it feel shallow. “I didn’t expect to get all caught up with this, but it turns out Captain Puffy here is kinda based. Makin’ a real connection out here.”

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Wilbur said.

“Yeah, turns out we have a lot in common,” Puffy smiled, “like having surprisingly compatible political beliefs.”

“And havin’ similar hair problems,” Techno supplied.

“And we both think eggs are only okay.”

“We’re basically besties now, is what I’m sayin’.”

Tommy huffed to himself, thinking that was kind of funny but not wanting to show it.

Techno’s gaze fell on him.

“Uh, so I’m kinda feelin’ like we got off on the wrong foot. Maybe a bit of a misunderstandin’ between you two, I dunno.”

“Well—I think this has been just lovely, Techno-Blade,” Tommy said, making sure to emphasize how stupid the man’s name sounded.

“Uh, that’s not—” Techno started, then interrupted himself with a huff. “So… I’ve heard a bit about you.”

“I most certainly—well, I certainly do not fuckin’ want to know what you’ve heard,” he lied.

“Nothing good, don’t worry,” Wilbur rolled his eyes.

Techno looked somewhat uncomfortable as he wiped his hands against the front of his pants, leaving a subtle stain of sweat in their wake. He reached up to twist a strand of hair between his fingers, but he’d already dropped his hands again by the time Tommy had the brilliant idea of making fun of him for it.

“Okay, cool, ‘cause this is like, really awkward,” Techno said, and despite looking mildly weirded out by the whole thing, he somehow seemed above it all at the same time.

Something bubbled inside Tommy’s gut, and he didn’t feel like examining it. This Techno guy was obviously fucking with him, and Wil wasn’t even saying anything!

“I do not—okay—I do not fuckin’—Techno-Blade, I’d like to have—I would like to have a talk with you. A private audience. With you.”

Techno simply stared for a second, then shrugged before shambling off to a nearby tree. He glanced expectantly at Tommy to follow.

“Tommy…” Wilbur said.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Puffy. Mr—Mr. Soot. I’ll be—I’ll be right back,” Tommy said, straightening his back in mock politeness. Wilbur looked—well, not upset. Tommy couldn’t tell. He hated it when he couldn’t tell.

Tommy stomped towards Techno. 

“Alright, listen here, The Blade. Real shit name, by the way.”

“Hey, man,” Techno protested. “I’m literally just vibin’ here, I—”

“You—you think—you think…” Tommy trailed off.

He couldn’t identify the feeling burning inside him. It wasn’t quite anger, since he really was just trying to annoy Wilbur’s friend. Make a good impression. Nothing personal, right? And Techno was obviously trying to troll him back. Nothing personal. Tommy didn’t know what he was planning on saying.

“…Wilbur likes me more??” was what Tommy decided on.

Techno did something of a half-laugh. “I’m not tryin’ to, like, imply anything here, but you honestly don’t seem sure about that.”

“Fuck off!” Tommy hissed. “That’s not what I fucking meant. You’re like a little snap pea to me. You’re a little ant. And there’s like, a fuckin’ million of those per anthill, so you’re not even, like, a special ant.”

Techno leaned back against the tree, contemplating that mind-shattering insult—the whole thing bent a little under his weight, and it pissed Tommy off so bad because he couldn’t even tell if it was an intimidation tactic or the guy wasn’t even aware of how fucking massive he was.

“Alright, we got a firecracker here,” Techno said slowly. 

“Don’t condescend to me, bitch—!” he started, but Techno cut him off and Tommy snapped his mouth shut without meaning to.

“I’m gonna talk to you the way you want to be talked to,” he rumbled easily. “So if you’re gonna act like a brat, then that’s how I’m gonna treat you. Uh, no offense.”

Sore luck for you, then, Tommy thought bitterly. Because I’m always a fuckin’ brat. 

 “So here’s the deal. I don’t—” Techno’s mountainous shoulders raised in what Tommy guessed was some facsimile of a shrug— “I don’t really get why you’re beefing with me so hard, it’s honestly kind of sad? Again, not to imply anything…”

“Oh my god, you are actually a fucking asshole,” Tommy blurted.

“Oh, but I’m an asshole for a really good reason, Tommy.”

Something cold ran swiftly through Tommy’s veins, and for the second time in just a few minutes, he was embarrassingly shut up without Techno even having to raise his voice. 

“You’re tryin’ to go down the Serpent’s Pass?”

He glanced away. “I don’t fuckin’—I dunno, I don’t fucking want to.” 

“Sure,” Techno agreed, “But are you gonna?”

Fighting the urge to make myself smaller, Tommy nodded ever so slightly. “Yeah. What of it?”

“The Serpent’s Pass is a dangerous place. People die here, kid. Sometimes people die even when I’m supposed to be there, protectin’ them and guidin’ them along the way. And ya know why that is?”

Tommy clenched his teeth, raising his head to look at The Blade through the eye socket of his moo-sow skull. “Why?”

“Because they thought they knew better. They didn’t listen to me when they needed to.”

“…Prolly ‘cause you’re a fuckin’ asshole,” Tommy said, raising an eyebrow.

To be honest, Tommy didn’t know what he was expecting when he said that. He thinks he maybe wasn’t expecting anything, like a dumbass little kid who doesn't know how to think ahead. But he was still surprised when Techno planted a goodnatured hand on his shoulder.

“Pffft. Nah,” Techno said flippantly. That light tone carried into his next words, foreboding as they were: “‘S ‘cause they just saw me as a tool. Y’know, like a carriage or somethin’, just a way for them to get from one place to another. They never really trusted me. Tommy, you know the story of Orpheus?”

“Fuck is an Orpheus?” Tommy scoffed. 

“Dude…” Techno muttered to himself, scratching his neck. “I keep forgettin’ people in this world don’t have Greek mythology.”

“What? What’s that mean?” Tommy asked. He remembered what that lady and her dad were saying about The Blade—he was some kind of half-spirit, or maybe not even from this plane of existence. But there was no way that could be true, because he was friends with Wilbur. Cringe…

Techno folded his arms. “Well, the story goes somethin’ like this. So there was this guy named Orpheus who lived a long time ago. He had a wife, Eurydice, she went off to dance with nymphs one day, but while she was doin’ that, she got bitten by a snake and died. And now, Orpheus was a bard, so all he could do to cope with how much he missed her was to sing, and sing, and sing for days straight.

“And he was so upset that he went all the way to the god of the underworld to ask for her back. His song of grief was so moving, so rich with the deepest feelings of love and loss, that even the god of the underworld decided to humor his foolish request. He said that he could lead Eurydice all the way back home, and she’d get to stay alive—as long as he could manage one little thing. Orpheus couldn’t turn around to look at her until they made it out of the underworld. Not even once.”

“But then he wouldn’t be able to tell if she was following,” Tommy argued. “That’s a shitty thing to make him do.”

“That’s true. But that’s how it goes when you’re dealing with the gods,” Techno tilted his head back to rest against the tree. “So Orpheus leads his wife all the way out of the underworld. They climb up together for hours and hours, passing by all sorts of dangerous things, but Orpheus managed to hold on to his faith that his true love was still following. But just when they got to the exit, Orpheus realized he couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore. And so—”

“Shut up, man!” Tommy interrupts, his heart racing. “I—this is fuckin’ stupid, I get it, alright? You’re a real bastard, y’know that, Techno-Blade? That’s—shit name, by the way.”

Infuriatingly, Techno chuckled. “There ya go. Guess you can figure out what happened yourself, huh. You’re obviously a smart kid, Tommy—”

“Stop fuckin’ patronizing me, bitch!”

“—So,” Techno emphasized. “I think ya know what I’m tryin’ to say. Those guys who died out there on the Serpent’s Pass died because they didn’t trust me, they trusted their instincts. Or maybe they just took one millisecond too long mulling it over… guess it ends the same both ways. Anyway, I’ve been doin’ this for a while, so you’re gonna have to listen to what I tell you when we get out there, Tommy. You’re gonna need to trust me over yourself, and over Wilbur. ‘Cause I have the skills to get through this place and you don’t. That’s all I’m sayin’, alright?”

This guy was a real piece of shit, Tommy decided. 

“Are you fuckin’...” He hissed under his breath. Down at the dock, Wilbur was talking with Puffy about who-knows-what, doing that thing where he just kept kind of walking between a few points as he talked, which he only does when he’s nervous. Tommy watched out of the corner of his eye for a moment, but twisted back to Techno just as Wil was about to look up.

“This is stupid. I can’t believe I’m about to go on a fucking field trip with you,” Tommy told him.

“I think it could be kinda fun,” he replied, right back to being weirdly laid back.

“I tell you what, big man. Here’s the thing, I don’t—I don’t know why you think I’m gonna trust you when I don’t even fuckin’ know you. I look at you, and I—do you know what I see? I see some fucking weirdo who thinks he can never be in the wrong. If you ask me, kinda seems like—sounds to me like maybe you’re more like that Orpheus fellow, and those guys only died because you weren’t paying attention, and listen, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but that does not inspire confidence, man.”

At that, Techno just stilled, but Tommy just kept going. “But I trust Wilbur, I fuckin’—I fuckin’ guess, and he trusts you for some reason, so—listen, that means you get a little baby shred of my trust, but not a lot. It’s gonna, like—it’s like secondhand trust. And secondhand trust isn’t good for you, it—like, it wiggles all up in there, Mr. The Fuckin’ The Blade, but it’s what you fuckin’ get, alright? So my suggestion is, you make it work.”

Silence. The moo-sow skull hanging from his face went very suddenly from vaguely creepy to… Actually Really Threatening.

“Fuckin’. Uh…” Tommy said awkwardly, not sure if he should attempt to retract what he’d just said, but Techno was still chewing on it so he just kept insulting him. “Dick bastard son-of-a-bitch. You fucking wrong’un. Shit.”

Why did he say any of that again? He kind of thought it would be funny, but maybe it… wasn’t.

“Maaan…” Techno sighed, and his whole stature kind of drooped like a deflating balloon. “You sure are Wilbur’s little brother.”

A few questions flickered through Tommy’s mind. The first ones to rise to the surface were what the hell does THAT mean? and why is Wilbur friends with him again? But in the end, the thought that won out was great, so he isn’t going to murder me?

“So you’re not going to murder me?”

“Wha—no,” Techno said. It was offputting. He spoke with a janky, dispassionate intonation, like he was reading lines from a script. “Did ya think I was going to—dang. I was kinda trying to stay light here, like, keep it PG ‘n’ all, ‘cause, y’know.”

“…Oh my god, you are fuckin’—you are being for real right now,” Tommy laughed. “Techno-Blade, you are fuckin’ nuts, man, you’re worse than Wilbur and he’s like—well, he’s not crazy, y’know, like he’s—but it’s—listen, look, it’s like—fuck you even mean I’m his little brother, anyway? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Techno raised a hand to his neck again. “Nothin’, you just… he made you out to be so nice and all, and then.”

Tommy made a face. “No he didn’t.”

“Heh. Nah, he didn’t, really…” With a grunt, Techno lifted his weight off the tree (the leaves rustled a little from the weight of the movement). “But what he did write makes ya seem like an angel now that I’ve actually met you. Anyways, uh.”

Tommy took the smallest step back as Techno stepped forward. Not because he was scared, honest, but the guy was just so big it just felt right to give him some space. Techno stretched a hand towards him and his heart jumped a little. But it just stayed there, hanging between them, not doing anything.

“Hope we can work well together, Tommy.”

Right. 

Tommy shook his hand like an idiot. 

Fucking prick. 

---

“Hope you didn’t scare him too bad, Tech,” Wilbur remarked as the two of them returned, Tommy trailing quietly behind Techno, whose cape he could now see in all of its disheveled glory. The fur lining that poked from the edge was so caked with grime it was hard to tell what color it was originally. Against the rail, Wilbur was tapping out a nervous rhythm with his fingers.

Tommy clenched a fist in his pocket. “I’m not fuckin’ scared.”

Tommy could feel Wilbur watch him for a second, but when he looked up, his brother was narrowing his eyes at Techno instead. 

“What’d you say to him?”

Techno didn’t look like he noticed anything out of the ordinary, or maybe he just didn’t care. “Nothin’ special. Just levelin’ expectations, y’know how it is.”

“Cut it out, Wil, I’m not a baby,” Tommy said, walking past Techno to join Wilbur at the railing, turning his back towards the sea. It was strange, because for the one second he stood between the two of them, he’d almost felt like he was defending Techno. 

“Child,” Wilbur retorted. 

“Bastard.”

Near the entrance to the boat, Puffy cleared her throat. “Sorry, whatever you guys are talking about… this something I need to know about?”

Techno turned to her, and from a profile view, Tommy could spot the faintest curve of some kind of huge tooth peeking from behind his moo-sow skull. “Aww, nah, Captain, I’m just takin’ these guys up the Serpent’s Pass tomorrow. Didn’t mean for you to feel left outta the conversation.”

“Oh. So you guys are really serious about that, huh…?” She put her hands on her hips. “Not that you don’t look capable, but like, that seems… misguided. Y’know, the Serpent herself has been kinda aggressive lately, from what I’ve heard.”

Wilbur stood up, clearly trying to be polite (Tommy, of course, knew such a thing wasn’t possible). “Please don’t worry about us, Captain Puffy. It’s the best option we’ve got. Right, Tommy?”

It’s the ONLY option we’ve got, fucking apparently, Tommy thought sardonically. Not like his own ideas were any good.

“Yeah. We’re sure,” he agreed, standing up next to Wil. 

“Well, alright,” Puffy said, shrugging a little. “I get it if you guys need to head off soon, but if you’re planning to stay a little longer, I’m still happy to throw some compensation your way if you still wanna help out on the ship.”

Tommy glanced towards Wilbur, who glanced towards Techno. 

“Uh…” Techno seemed to wilt a little under the attention. As much as someone built like a rock could wilt, anyway, which wasn’t very much at all. “I was kinda planning to stick around a little longer and finish up with ya, but I mean, I can’t speak for these two nerds, so.”

“We’ll join you,” Wilbur decided, placing a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “Thank you for the opportunity, Captain.”

“Hey, I like the extra company,” Puffy smiled before turning to lead them inside. 

Wilbur’s hand was only lightly resting on top of Tommy’s shoulder, never wanting to touch too much without permission, but Tommy shook it off like it was burning him anyway. 

This was gonna be a rough few days, he thought, but Tommy Trusty’s made it through worse before.

---

since this is already so self indulgent, i thought it’d be fun to leave a more in-depth AN here. i’d set up a lot of backstory details to be explored in chapter 2, but that’s ofc not happening, soo… yeah! no need to read all this. hope you liked the fic! :)

chapter 2 was going to be about our boys’ journey along the serpent’s pass. techno would reveal himself to be an earthbender and offer to teach tommy some bending basics. you see in this chapter that tommy has a complicated view on firebending due to his trauma, but he still obv thinks it’s cool and wants to learn. learning from techno lets him get in touch with his earth nation roots and maybe even start to get through his firebending block. they would eventually make it to ba sing se and part ways with techno, with tommy and him having become friends. we also would have seen more of wilbur’s motivations, how everything he does is for tommy and how he struggles with the aftermath of his own traumatic event in which he feels he “should have died”. but most of those feelings would remain unsaid, only gleaned from his actions and loyalty to tommy.

on to some fun commentary:

wilbur lies to the immigration officer quite a bit. he says they’ve been traveling for as long as they remember, but him and tommy only left yu dao 2-3 years ago. his “political experience” also comes exclusively from reading history books, and tommy’s skill with “agriculture and animal care” is derived from the fact that he loves animals and was a fire nation soldier’s gardener back in yu dao. but we’ll get to that more in a bit.

the reason tommy and wilbur want to get to ba sing se so badly is because tommy dodged the draft lol. yu dao is a fn colony, so there’s a lot of cultural mixing—tommy and wilbur both feel more earth nation and are treated as such (ie. extremely poorly), but tommy is also a firebender. he feels a lot of guilt for dragging wilbur along to escape his own problems, but he also kinda feels like wilbur’s dragging him along, too. 

if you’re thinking ba sing se probably isn’t a good place for either of them, you’d be right. wil’s interest in politics, tommy’s trouble-magnetism, and their combined tendency to start drug empires would have the dai li on their tails eventually. it’s almost lucky, then, that i see this story taking place during the very beginning of avatar’s season 2, only a few weeks to a month before the drill and the following fn takeover. tommy and wilbur still have a while to go before they’ll be truly safe.

a few times, tommy and wilbur mention another “old friend” with whom things didn’t go down too well. this friend is eret, of course! up to interpretation whether she is connected to wilbur’s above-mentioned traumatic event.

i decided it wasn’t unreasonable that tobacco might exist in the avatar world, so wilbur’s canonical smoking habit gets to stay.

yes, the guard lady tommy thinks is cool is a kyoshi warrior! she knows “the blade” was around during kyoshi’s era because he shows up in some of the historical texts she’s read about kyoshi. that means the blade was around at least 200 years ago, probably longer.

wilbur is very insistent that techno is just “there” whenever he needs to be. it’s completely up to interpretation whether techno is a god, a spirit, a human, etc… it’s not even clear who the blade is or whether it’s really techno. so do with wilbur’s claims as you will.

so, tommy mentions he wants to get away from a certain “tyrant freak”, and later has a flashback to something burning and a man calling tommy his friend. this is a reference to the exile arc equivalent in this AU. dream was an accomplished fn soldier who’d been released from duty due to an injury that prevented him from bending for a long time. he lived in yu dao and hired tommy as his gardener. eventually he found out that tommy was a firebender and threatened to send him to the fn army if he didn’t cooperate. the rest, i think, can be extrapolated.

the bit where tommy is upset about wilbur having sent letters to techno about the serpent’s pass was going to be a whole thing in the second chapter, but i don’t really remember where i was going with it.

wrt wilbur: techno does not, in fact, owe him one. he thinks phil would want him to help, though, so that’s basically the same thing.

techno telling the story of orpheus is where i picked up on this draft after like, two years of not touching it. so if it feels a little janky from there, it’s because i don’t really remember how to write these characters, lol.

thanks for reading all this way!

[gc-genshin]

Chapter Four: Epiphany

Epiphany (n.): a sudden insight or understanding of something.

Pairing: Various x female reader

Summary: You get an idea of what's going on… sort of.

Warnings: Explicit language.

Word count: 12.7k (holy shit my bad)

A/N: Uh… *taps mic* hello?? Is this book still relevant?? Did y'all miss me? Lmao, lot of shit happened the past months so I wasn't really able to focus on this story unfortunately. I hope this extra long chapter makes up for the wait! Plus this isn't proofread and I'll add the taglist later, I'm ready to post this chapter.

Happy reading!

Your first week of working at the Wangshu Inn was… uneventful, to say the least.

Other than being hectic trying to take care of guests because of Lantern Rite, nothing really surprising has happened. Which you suppose was a good thing.

After your little drinking incident that happened a few days ago…

—

“Perhaps…” Xiao started and you waited with a baited breath, nervous as to what he was going to say. “You are in need of some assistance, you imbecile.”

You looked at him with hazy and unfocused eyes. In your drunken stupor, you could only respond to him with an embarrassed laugh.

“Aha, yeah…” You trailed off awkwardly. Your eyes then began to droop dangerously low as a sudden wave of drowsiness had hit you. Xiao could only watch as you instantly passed out in his arms while letting out small snores. The adeptus let out an aggravated sigh as he picked up and carried you to your shared room, already regretting the decision of taking care of you.

—

It was safe to say you didn't see him for a day or two.

Today was Friday. One day before the Mingxiao Lantern was released. Goldet had decided to already pay you for your two weeks because of how hard you were working, which you tried to decline, but Goldet was as stubborn as you so you reluctantly accepted the money.

You were sweeping the reception area, bored out of your mind. You were done with all of your chores but you still wanted to work and be productive. You turn your head when you hear Goldet heave a sigh.

“Lantern Rite is nearly here, why don't we decorate the inn this year?” She asks you.

That line sounds familiar. You tilt your head, feigning confusion. “Lantern Rite? What's that?”

Goldet looks at you surprised. “Oh! Don't you know? On the first full moon of the first month each year, Liyue celebrates the Lantern Rite. It's a festival to commemorate the heroes from the past. After dark, the people release Xiao and Mingxiao Lanterns into the night sky.” She began explaining. “Ah... "May the flames of wisdom spread to all, and never be extinguished." This is the meaning of the lanterns. We believe they act as the beacons in the night, guiding bygone heroes back to their homeland.”

You gaze at her in wonder. “That sounds like a magnificent festival.” If I cried during the cutscene from the game, I wonder how much of a mess I would be if I was able to see it in person.

“Do you want to get involved in the Lantern Rite?” Goldet asks.

You nodded. “From the way you were talking about it, it sounds like a wonderful experience.”

Goldet clapped her hands excitedly. “That's great! The festive period leading up to the day itself is all part of the celebrations. If you're looking to take part, it's not too late.”

You thought for a moment. “Wait, so you're telling me that I don't have to work?” You asked Goldet.

She let out a small gasp as if she was shocked you would even suggest such a thing. “Oh Archons no! I would never ask you to work on a holiday such as Lantern Rite!” She exclaimed. You blink at her a few times, caught off guard by her slight outburst, and she laughed at your expression. “Haha... During this time, we pray to bring peace and ward off bad luck. Liyue locals call it "bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new."

After hearing Goldet exclaim, Huai’an, her husband and the innkeeper, came to see what the commotion was. “Verr, are you alright? I heard you yell.” He asked with a concerned look.

Both you and Goldet turned to him. “I'm fine, dear. I was just explaining to [Name] the history behind Lantern Rite.” Goldet tells him. “Can you believe this will be her first time celebrating it?”

Huai’an gives you a look of surprise. “You've never experienced Lantern Rite?”

From the way they were talking about it, you almost felt embarrassed to say no. You hunch your shoulders and meekly shake your head at him.

Huai’an noticed your timid state. “Well isn't this exciting?” He quietly asked Goldet. He then turned to you. “Lantern Rite truly is a wonderful experience so I have no doubt that you'll enjoy it. Plus I can teach you how to make Xiao Lanterns!” He gives you an encouraging smile.

You give them both a wide eyed stare. “So… I'll be able to go to Lantern Rite? You don't need me for anything?”

Goldet shook her head while laughing. “No, you silly girl. Everybody will be in the city to release lanterns, so the inn won’t be very busy that night.” She gives you a soft smile. “Go and have fun.”

Shit I might just cry. You looked at Goldet teary eyed. “Boss!” You wept comically. “You're too kind, boss! Paying me in advance, giving me a roof over my head, letting me go to Lanter Rite! What did I ever do to have such a wonderful boss?” You cried out and glomped her into a hug. You were totally using your younger appearance as an advantage to act more childish because you would have never done this with any other boss.

Goldet laughed at you, reciprocating the hug. “And what did I do to deserve such a wonderful employee? You've been working so hard since you've started, it would be cruel of me not to let you go and enjoy the festival.” She tells you while swaying side to side. You've come to realize that Goldet was starting to become like the older sister you never had.

You both pull away from the hug. “Plus,” Goldet began, “I paid you early in advance so that you would be able to go shopping.” She gives you a cheeky smirk. “Can't have you wearing my clothes and your uniform the entire time you're here.”

You laugh at that. “You're right.” You grin at her and Huai'an. “Thank you both so much, for all that you've done for me.” You say sincerely.

“Of course [Name]. Now go have fun shopping.” She gestures to the balcony. “I think you've just about swept the floorboards down to splinters.”

You thank Goldet again and give her one last hug before running to your room to change. But as you were making your way up the stairs, Goldet called out to you. “Oh [Name]! Um… also,” she trailed off uncertainly.

You crinkle your eyebrows in confusion. “What's up?”

“If you're able to…” she cleared her throat. “... could you... try to convince Xiao to go with you?” She asked. She then let out a sigh. “We're not close, I wouldn't know how to ask him myself. But it seems that you've grown familiar with him.”

You look at her confused. You? Being close with Xiao? Yeah, the thought sounds nice but there's no way you have already ‘grown familiar’ with him in just a week. If anything he tolerates you at best since you've forcefully wormed your way into his life.

“Really?” You tilt your head. “Xiao doesn't seem to be one for crowds.” Sorry Aether, I might have to steal your idea. “I mean, I'll try and convince him but I can't make any promises.”

Goldet let out a resigned sigh. “I suppose you're right… Anyway! Just thought I'd mention it. You should get yourselves down to the harbor.”

She then shoos you off with a smile. “Get going! If you leave too late, the city will be crowded with people and you won't be able to make the most of it.”

You nod enthusiastically. “Yes ma’am! Happy Lantern Rite!” You wave to her and Huai'an.

They both wave back. “Happy Lantern Rite!”

—

You burst into your room, practically vibrating in excitement at the thought of having your own clothes. You hurriedly started to strip out of your uniform, unaware of the curious gaze that came from your current roommate.

Xiao was currently leaning against the railing on the balcony that accompanied the room and was wondering why you were in such a rush. As he turned to question you, he instantly turned back around upon seeing you reach behind yourself to start buttoning your dress, keeping his gaze on the scenery before him. Xiao let out a deep breath and rubbed his forehead in aggitaion. I just can't get used to her doing that.

However, when you start to undress, you notice Xiao quickly turn around out of the corner of your eyes. Halting your movements, you call out to the young adeptus as you buttoned your uniform back up. “Sorry Xiao! I didn't know you were there!” And you made your way to the bathroom.

Hearing you say his name made Xiao tense up in surprise and furrow his eyebrows. He was one hundred percent certain that you would have just kept undressing in the middle of the room, being the shameless mortal that you are, but you didn't. You instead moved to change in a different room. Huh… perhaps she does have some decency.

You quickly came out of the bathroom after that interaction, dressed in Goldet’s clothes for the last time. Seeing Xiao still out on the balcony, you walk up to his side while enjoying the warm breeze.

Xiao looked at you from the corner of his eyes, nearly seeing the excitement radiate off you. “Where are you going in such a rush?” He asked. You perk up when hearing his voice and swivel your head to him.

“Goldet is letting me go experience the festival!” You exclaimed excitedly. “Isn't that great?”

Xiao rolled his eyes and let out a scoff. “What's so great about releasing glowing trash into the sky only for it to return to the sea?”

You hummed. “Well, it's like any other tradition I suppose. It's not so much the actual festival or ritual that matters but more of the meaning behind it instead.” You shrug. “Plus it gives me an excuse to go shopping, you coming with?”

“No.”

You let out a groan and roll your eyes. Even though you were expecting it, you couldn't help but feel a little disheartened at his answer. “Why not?” You question. Although I already know why.

Xiao gave you a look. “I don't enjoy large crowds of people.”

You let out a sigh. “Fiiiiine,” you drawl out, “no means no so I guess I'll stop bothering you about it.”

Xiao raised an eyebrow. Really? She's going to quit just like that? He looked at you dubiously.

“For now.” You added mischievously with a smirk.

There it is. Xiao should have known better. He found out that you were too damn stubborn to give up easily pretty quickly. He shook his head at you. “Do you plan on leaving soon?” He changed the subject.

You nod. “I was going to leave as soon as I changed but then I saw you and just had to talk to you.”

That made Xiao scrunch his eyebrows. “You just had to talk to me? Why's that?”

You look towards him and give him a closed eyes smile. “Because I wanted too! Plus you're my friend and I enjoy your company.”

Xiao gave you a once over. A heavy feeling settled in his chest when you referred to him as a “friend”. That word left a bitter taste in his mouth. Everyone that he ever considered a friend had either died or left him in some way, and he never bothered to keep in contact with the current adepti, so the thought of you wanting to be in his company was worrying. Who knows how long it'll be until his karmic debt finally catches up to him…

And drags you along with him.

Xiao narrowed his eyes at you. You immediately took notice of his tense state and swallowed at the harsh glare he gave you. Uh oh. You let out an uncomfortable laugh. I don't think he liked that.

“What have I told you about getting close?” He asked harshly which caused you to curl in on yourself slightly.

“In the thousands of years that have passed, I have taken countless wraiths,” he began, “so if you want no trouble, it’s best you keep your distance from me.” After he finished scolding you he turned to leave, going to do who knows what. You watched as he seemingly stormed away. Slightly panicking that he was leaving because you had upset him, you steeled your nerves and asked the first thing that came to your head.

“But what if I want trouble?”

Your question made Xiao stop in his tracks. He turned to look at you confused. You wore an expression that was full of confidence that waived slightly.

“What if I don’t want to keep my distance away from you?” You continued. “You told me to “stay out of your way or all that awaits me is regret”, right?” You quickly stride over to him and jab a finger in his chest.

“Well guess what honey? That's a risk I'm willing to take.” You tell him fiercely. “I make my own choices and if I happen to make bad choices then I will deal with the consequences of those choices.” You place a hand on your chest and glare at him determinedly.

“You have no say in what I ultimately can and can't do, Xiao. Only. I. do.” You finally finish and place your hands on your hips defiantly.

Xiao looked at you blankly, trying to process what you had just said. When he finally did, he looked at you sternly. “Is that really what you want?”

“More than anything.” Your eyes bore deep into him, not wavering in the slightest in your decision. “You saved my life. The least I can do for you is offer you my company and assistance in any way for not letting me splatter all over the ground. Even if you don't want it.”

After a few heartbeats of silence, Xiao reluctantly gave in and sighed while crossing his arms. “You are the most troublesome human I've had the displeasure of knowing.”

You smiled triumphantly. “Glad we're on the same page!”

“Well I'll be heading off now. Do you need anything?” You ask as you start heading towards the door.

“Nothing in the city would be of use to an adeptus.” He responds. “Don't forget your blade.”

You promptly made a 180 turn and walked towards your nightstand where a little dagger laid. Since you weren't able to fully wield a bigger weapon and don't understand how they do the whole whooshy thing to make their weapons disappear, I think he called it “particulation” or something like that, Xiao insisted that you had some form of weapon to protect yourself with.

You grabbed the knife and clipped it parallel to your belt, allowing your shirt to conceal it. “I don't see the reason as to why I have to have this thing. Aren't the Millelith scattered along the road to Liyue?” You then turn to Xiao and tilt your head. “Plus I can just call you whenever I'm in trouble.” Though that would probably be a last resort for me.

“I don't trust those lousy soldiers.” Xiao huffed.

You raised your eyebrow and pursed your lips, nodding in agreement. “Yeah… I don't blame ya.”

“Anyways,” you shrug, “are you sure you don't want to come with me?”

Xiao only shook his head. “Best you go alone. There's no need for me to be there.”

You look at him with big doe eyes, trying to convince him to at least walk you to the harbor. “But the road from here to Liyue Harbor is long and full of dangers... I need someone to ensure my safety!” You exclaim, seemingly scared.

“That's why I gave you your blade.” The adeptus gave you a bored look upon his handsome face.

You then startled Xiao when you clapped your hands into a prayer position and brought them to your head. “O Vigilant Yaksha, please escort me safely to the city!” You cry out.

Xiao tensed at your sudden decloration. Normally, Xiao was used to other’s praying to him and hearing their wishes but when you did it, it made him feel… fidgety. You seemed to hold yourself in a high regard that you didn't let anyone have control over your actions, so it was odd to see you with your head bowed to him.

Xiao crossed his arms and looked away from you. “Quit that. There's no need for you to bow to me.”

You perked up, an excited gleam in your eyes. “So you'll come with me?”

“So be it. I won't be going into the city though.” He retorted.

You throw him a smile. “That's fine!” You straighten back up and open the door. “Come on, let's go!” You wave at him.

Xiao shook his head at your antics and began to follow you. And to think that she's a grown adult. “Wait.” He called out.

You stop in your tracks and look back at Xiao confused. “Huh? Why?”

Xiao walks up to your left side and grabs your bicep. You looked at him even more perplexed. What is he doing?

You then began to feel a strong gust of wind swirl around you and in an instant, darkness flooded your vision and a familiar feeling of nausea came over you. When you opened your eyes again, you saw the gates of Liyue below the hill you were on.

You put your hands on your knees, trying to keep from puking everywhere, as you begin to process that Xiao had just teleported you both to Liyue.

“Here we are.” Xiao released your arm.

“Would have been nice to know beforehand.” You groan. After feeling like you weren't going to empty your guts out, you look up and let out a small gasp.

In front of you stood an archway that led to the bridge that entered into the city. Looking beyond that, you could see the beautiful Chinese architecture of the buildings that filled Liyue Harbor with the magnificent decorations of Lantern Rite along the city. You gaped at the scene before you. Holy shit…

Xiao swiveled his head to give a hard stare. “Don't go and cause any trouble.” He warned you.

That caused you to let out a snort. “Yeah, yeah, sure. What are you, my dad?” You raised an eyebrow at him. “Why did we teleport?”

“So I wouldn't have to listen to talk my ear off all day.” He responded bluntly, causing you to let out an offended gasp. “And I told you,” he continued before you could tell him off. “so long as you are in Liyue, it is my duty to protect you and not let any harm come to you.” Xiao reiterated.

“Wow… you really are my dad. But that's a pretty big responsibility. You sure you can follow through with it?” You question.

“Are you questioning my abilities as an adeptus?” He asked gruffly. He then leaned in closer to your face. “I always take care of my duties.” Xiao finished while staring you straight in the eyes.

Your eyes widened in surprise at his declaration. The way he said that so firmly and confidently made your chest feel light before tightening, a familiar feeling of guilt settling in, causing you to look away and frown. Shit… not now.

Noticing the change in your demeanor, Xiao tilted his head confused. “What's wrong?”

Shaking your head to get rid of the self-deprecating thoughts that were forming, you look up at him with reassuring eyes. “It's nothing.” You tell him with a small smile.

Going back to your seemingly old self, you give Xiao a look. “Alrighty,” You turn towards him and hold out your pinkie, “pinky promise it then.”

He gave your pinky an inquisitive look. You furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “You have heard of a pinky promise before, right?”

Xiao squinted his eyes at you. “Is this another strange human gesture?”

“Eh, I wouldn't necessarily say it's strange. More endearing than anything.” You hold your dominant hand and make a “give it” gesture. “Give me your hand.”

Xiao hesitantly puts his hand in yours. You close it into a fist, only leaving out his pinky. You then bring your own pinky and lock it with his own. “Now say your promise again.” Xiao looked at you reluctantly. You let out a groan. “Come on dude, just do it please?” You say giving him your best puppy dog eyes.

Xiao sighed. “I promise, so long as you are in Liyue, that I will protect you and not let any harm come to you.” He looked at your still entwined pinkies. As he said this, a gentle breeze drifted between the two of as if it was sealing the promise between you and Xiao. Xiao watched as the wind suddenly made your hair flutter around you and the way the afternoon sun casted just the right amount of shadows on your features as you looked up at him. At the moment he didn't see the fifteen year old features that made up your current face but the mature, more sharper features that he saw from your most recent pictures and student ID.

“Now what?” Her hands are really warm.

You give him a smile. “That's it!” You then let go of his pinky, bringing your hand back to your side.

He looked at you confused. “That's it? Nothing special happens?”

“The special thing about pinky promises is that the person who broke the promise gets their pinky cut off by the other person who made the promise.” You say to him.

“That's quite gruesome for such a little act.” Humans confused him so much.

“I think it was more of a scare tactic for kiddos than anything really.” You shrug. You then started walking to the city. “I'll see you later Xiao!” You call out with a grin.

“Be careful.” He told you with a subtle nod, which made your smile somehow even brighter, before teleporting away. You then turned back around and practically skipped to Liyue.

—

You made your way down the hill and soon came upon the gate that led to the city. In front of it stood two guards, you couldn't bother to remember their names, who gave you a nice ‘welcome to Liyue Harbor’ as you walked past them. As you walked over the bridge you saw the Mingxiao Lantern standing tall in all its glory. Continuing on, you finally stepped foot in the city. With a look of amazement on your face, you spun around while trying to take in all of the decorations.

I can't believe I'm actually here… You let out a disbelieving laugh and began to feel your eyes become misty. Am I really tearing up right now? Oh my God I am. You shake your head trying to get your emotions in check. As you carry on walking further, the infamous somewhat creepy shipowner, Bolai spots you looking around like a lost puppy. Which you really weren't, you were just hypnotized by the decorations.

“Hello young lady!” He called out to you. You whipped your head towards him, slightly startled. When you realized who was talking, you made a small grimace. Oh… it's that really creepy guy that I don't like.

As he makes his way towards you, you put your guard up as you straighten your back. “Hello.”

Bolai raised an eyebrow as he stopped short of you. “What a strange accent. Are you perhaps foreign?” He questioned.

You furrow your eyebrows. I have an accent? “Something like that.” You reply with a shrug your shoulders nonchalantly and a ghost of a smile on your face. Ain't no way in hell are you talking about yourself to him.

Bolai narrowed his eyes at you suspiciously. How interesting. “Quite the mysterious one, you are. Tell me, young lady, where do you hail from? Fontaine? Sumeru?”

“Sure.” You tell him halfheartedly. Why the fuck is he grilling me so hard? I should probably give him some sort of answer so he'll leave me alone. “I traveled a lot so I never really had a distinctive place to call home.” You smoothly lied. Well… it wasn't entirely a lie.

Believing your little fib, Bolai’s face softens into a look of realization. A young girl like you didn't have a home growing up? Is that what you were hinting at?

Taking notice of the subtle pity look that crossed his gaze, you groan internally. Great, now he's going to think that I never had a home. Whoops!

“Well just know that you are always welcomed here in Liyue,” He reassured you, kinda. Your eyebrows raise slightly in surprise from that. “And if you ever need anything, and I mean anything, you can always come to me.” He finished ominously while giving you a smile that seemed a little too kind.

You leaned your torso away from the strange man and looked at him mildly creeped out, yet kept a polite smile on your face. “Duly noted… thanks.” Trailing off, you maneuvered your way around and sped walked away from Bolai. A fake shiver runs through your body. Ugh… just as creepy as I remember.

You continued further into the city. Your head was constantly moving from left to right, up and down, taking in the gorgeous decorations that littered the buildings and streets. Pulling out the Mora pouch that Goldet gave you, you recounted the money that you earned from your first week working. 60,500 Mora… that should be plenty right? You paused. Actually, isn't that a lot of money? This seems like a lot for just a week of work. After pondering a few moments, you shrug the thought off.

You made sure to visit almost all the food stalls that were on the harbor to experience Liyue’s cuisine authentically, as well as how to make Xiao lanterns. After doing all the activities you possibly could, you made your way up the gigantic steps that led to the main road of the city.

As you made it to the top, you put your hands on your knees trying to catch your breath. From being on your feet all day from working plus the training the Xiao puts you through, it's safe to say you were pretty damn tired. You're kidding me. I can not be this out of shape! You thought.

Heaving one last breath, you straighten back up. You looked out to see the streets bustling with people with a slight grimace on your face at the crowds of people. You absolutely hated crowds of people because being around them just completely drains your energy.

However, your curiosity and astonishment motivated you to move forward. As you walked through the city, you kept an eye out for any clothing shops because you needed your own clothes, since that's pretty much what you came here for.

Letting your gaze continue to search through the windows of various different shops, your eyes landed on an article of clothing that caught your attention. You quickly make your way to the store and opened the doors, causing a bell above the door to let out a little chime and alert the store owner and other shoppers of your presence.

“Welcome!” They called out. You give them a small wave in response as you make your way over to the outfit. Once you made it, you reached your hand out to feel the smooth silk of the fabric. It was a beautiful sleeveless, purple dress that reached the middle of your thighs. Around the skirt of the dress laid two longer pieces that were a darker purple and draped along the sides. The top of the dress was two different colors, the right being a dark purple that were the same color of the longer pieces while the left was a lighter purple that matched the skirt, and had a high collar and with an opening in the chest area. The dress also adorned what looked like a wide obi belt, but you weren't too sure. The whole dress was trimmed with gold accents and had gold swirls all along it. Next to the dress were a pair of low ankle boots that matched the color theme.

This was the one.

You yoink it off the rack and look around for the owner. When you found them, you asked if they had any dressing rooms to try on the dress to which they led you to one. You begin to strip as soon as the door closes behind you. I really hope it fits otherwise I'll be heart broken.

As you slipped the dress over your head you zipped up the side and fastened the button on the collar. When you turn around to face the mirror, your eyes widen in surprise. Holy shit… I've never had a dress fit me so well. The dress sat magnificently on you and accentuated your curves. However… You looked down at your chest to see that your bra from your universe was most definitely visible thanks to the opening that went from the collar of the dress to the belt. I'm gonna have to do something about that. Looking back in the mirror you took notice of your tattoos. Those as well. You thought for a moment. Plus I don't particularly like wearing dresses unless I have leggings or something underneath it.

You begin to take the dress off and put your other clothes back on. I wonder if they would have some kind of body suit or something… You put the dress back on the hanger but continue to hold on to it. Making your way back towards the racks of clothing you begin your search.

As you walk through the aisles of clothing, you notice a black full body suit hanging on one of the racks. Bingo! You thought with a smile. You made your way to the suit, but you failed to notice the other body that was backing up into you.

Feeling a sudden weight on your right side, you stumble a little due to the force. However, the person that ran into had lost their balance and started to fall to the ground. Eyes widening in surprise, you were quick to catch them by grabbing them under their arms. When you looked down to check on the person to see if they were okay, you felt your breath hitch.

Staring back at you startled are lavender colored eyes that were lined with dark, thick lashes that belong to the one and only Ganyu.

You begin to feel your cheeks grow warm as you look down at the gorgeous half-adeptus in your arms. Ohfuckohfuckohfu– “Are you okay?” You asked worriedly. When you looked up to see what could have caused her to trip, you were greeted with the sight of a man that looked a little too pleased with himself. As he looked away from Ganyu and up to you, you made sure to give him the coldest glare you could manage – which made the man’s smirk falter and back up just a little.

Fucker.

Ganyu blinked as she came back to her senses. “Y-yes! I'm alright.” She gives you an appreciative smile. “Thank you.”

You return her smile. “It's no problem.” As you help her upright, you lean closer to her ear. “Do you know this guy?” You whispered. She looks at you from the corner of her eye and subtly shakes her head no.

You looked up to the creep and gave him an ‘innocent’ smile. “Is everything alright here?”

Realizing the slight hostile undertone in your voice, the man gives you a strained look. “Y-yes, everything's fine!” He stuttered and gestured to Ganyu. “I just thought I'd give this young lady a little help.”

Your eyes flicker from her back to the man. “She looks to be just fine on her own. What does she need help with?”

The man’s opens then closes, trying to think of a good excuse. “I… uh… well, she-!” You cut the man off with a raised hand.

“I'm going to stop you there. You're making yourself look like a fool.” You chastise. “It's obvious what you're doing and you're clearly making her uncomfortable. I suggest you stop now before you keep digging your grave even deeper.”

Eyes blown open and mouth agape, the man stares at you in shock from your words. Was I really that obvious? The man thought. He felt himself cowering in on himself under the heavy gaze of the two girls.

“Well, whatever.” He scoffed while avoiding eye contact, seemingly trying to act tough. “It's not like she was actually attractive.” Yet he received no reaction from either of the girls, as they continued to stare. The man began to fidget from their silence, then quickly turned around and left the store.

Both you and Ganyu let out a sigh. “Thankfully, that's over.” You tilt your head at Ganyu. “Does that happen often?”

“No, that was the first time it has ever happened.” She reveals. She then bows toward you. “Thank you for helping me.” When Ganyu straightens back up, she places a hand on her chest while giving you a sweet smile. “My name is Ganyu, secretary of the Yuhai Pavilion.”

God, she's even more gorgeous in real life… You flush a little as you give her a small bow in return. “It's nice to meet you, Miss Ganyu. I'm [Name] [Last Name].”

“It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Miss [Last Name]. Again, I do apologize for bumping into you earlier.” She tells you.

You wave your hand dismissively. “Just call me [Name], please. Calling me by my last name makes me feel old.” You joke.

Ganyu tilts her head curiously at you. “If I may ask, how old are you?” She asks innocently.

You pause, processing her question. Damn it. “I'm fifteen.” You manage out. I really hate telling people that because then they'll treat me like a child…

“Really?” She wonders aloud. “You're quite mature for your age and you seemed to know exactly what to do in the situation that happened earlier…” She trailed off.

You freeze hearing that. Oh shit! Has she caught on already?! You let out an awkward laugh. “Yeah, mature…” You say while making a subtle face. Although Xiao would disagree otherwise.

“Anyways, thank you once again for helping me. Is there anything I can do for you in return?” Ganyu asks.

You bring a finger to your chin and hum in thought. “Actually there is.” While Ganyu waits patiently for your request, you give her a smile. “Would you know of any stores that would have a body suit?”

The beautiful half-adeptus perks up in response. “As a matter of fact, this store has the same ones that I wear. Let me show you.” She then beckons you to follow her.

You do so with a skip in your step.

—

You and Ganyu soon left the shop, with you now wearing your new outfit that screamed main character. Thankfully the body suit was able to cover all of your tattoos. As you continued through the city, making light conversations with Ganyu, you watched as two little boys, who looked to be around the age of ten, chased each other around the streets while laughing. You watched them with a small smile. While you didn't like kids, you didn't necessarily hate them either. Plus it was kind of your profession to be able to take care of them as well. But you definitely didn't want any kids. Well, right now at least.

You watched as they weaved through the legs of strangers, trying to avoid getting hit. However, as the one with light blue hair raised a hand out in order to tag the other little boy with darker blue hair and an asymmetrical cut, a man that wasn't paying attention to what was in front of him went to take a step and kneed the poor boy hard in the head. The pale blue haired boy went down in an instant.

You let out a snort and raised a hand to your mouth to hide that you were laughing. “That poor kid just ate shit.” You couldn't help but let out a few chuckles at the kids unfortunate situation. Ganyu looked at you confused from the corner of her eyes. I'm a horrible person.

“I'm so sorry, buddy! Are you okay?” The young man that hit the boy asked as he crouched down. He received no reply as the boy laid still. The man started to shake the boy, seemingly beginning to panic.

“Hey…” He called out once more. “Are you okay?” He shook the boy frantically. Still, he received no reply. “This isn't funny, kid. Wake up!”

You stopped laughing and straightened your posture as your ‘doctor mode’ kicked in. Now you were getting concerned. Thousands of scenarios ran through your mind as to why the kid wasn't getting up. Is he concussed? Is he faking it? What's going on?

The other little boy that was running away, turned around when he heard yelling. His orange eyes widened in fear. “Chongyun!” He cried out and began running back to his friend.

Realization dawned on you. Those kids were Xingqiu and Chongyun. Your feet moved before you even noticed it as you rushed towards Chongyun and the man. Ganyu jumped when you began running and raised a hand to stop you. “[Name], wait!” But you were too far away to hear her over the people walking around.

A crowd began to form around the two to see what was happening. This caused the young man to panic even more. He looked up to the crowd. “Is there a doctor here? Please, anyone!” He cried out desperately, yet no one made a move to help.

You shook your head at the crowd. I see that the Bystander Effect is still a thing here. Xingqiu made it to Chongyun before you did, then got to his knees as soon as he reached him and started tapping Chongyun on the shoulder. “Chongyun?” He asked. “Wake up ‘Yun!”

You finally made it to the crowd and started elbowing your way through. “Excuse me! I'm a doctor, please let me through!” You yell out to the pedestrians. They turned and looked at you skeptically. Your lip curled up into a sneer at the people's ignorance. I don't have time for this.

“I said MOVE!” You yell out startling them in the process and forcing them to move. “Thank you!” You say exasperatedly, not forgetting your manners apparently. You quickly made your way over to Chongyun and got to your knees behind his head, gently placing your hands on either of his cheeks in order to stabilize his neck, in case he had injured it. Xingqiu noticed you and looked at you with tears eyes, worried out of his mind for his friend.

You looked to the man who started this whole mess. “What's going on? What happened?” You asked hurriedly while you checked Chongyun’s pulse.

The man seemed to be in a daze as he answered. “This kid just came out of nowhere. I had accidentally hit him with my knee and now he's not waking up.” He explained shakily. “Then this other kid just now showed up.” He pointed to Xingqiu. He then looked at you confused. “Aren't you a little young to be a doctor?”

You look at the man and give him a glare. “I don't think that matters right now since I'm the only one who even bothered to step in and help the poor child.” You glared at the rest of the crowd when you finished which made them avoid eye contact with you. Murmurs started to float through the crowd. What was this girl doing? Who is she? She's clearly too young to be a doctor.

You ignore their not so quiet whispering and look over to Xingqiu, giving him a reassuring smile. “Hey buddy,” you started softly. “What's your name?”

The normally composed boy let out a sniffle. “Xingqiu.” He responded. “My friend, Chongyun, isn't opening his eyes! Can you help?” He asked pleadingly.

“Don't worry baby, I'm a doctor.” You tell him, the pet name subconsciously slipping out of habit from when you worked with kids. “I'm going to help him and make sure he's okay.” Seventy beats per minute. Normal heart rate. Nineteen breaths per minute. Normal respiratory rate. If he wakes up soon, it'll most likely be just a slight concussion. You mentally start going down the checklist for head trauma patients when Chongyun finally opens his eyes.

Quickly taking notice, you yell at the crowd. “Everyone back up please! The kid is waking up so give him some space!” The crowd immediately backs away. You look back down at the boy who was wincing from the sunlight.

“Hey honey,” You gently try to get his attention, “can you hear me?”

Chongyun opened his eyes fully and looked at you, confused before squinting from the sunlight. From his position on the ground and the way the sunlight was hitting his baby blue eyes, you were able to see that his pupils were equal in size. Good. No anisocoria, no serious brain damage.

“Wha…?” Chongyun groaned out. With your hands on his cheeks, you gently tapped them to shift his attention back to you.

“Hey honey, look at me.” You instructed. “What's your name?”

The boy paused for a moment. “Chongyun.” He answered.

Alright that's one question. “It's nice to meet you Chongyun.” You smile at him. “Chongyun, do you know how old you are?” You continued.

“I'm ten.” He responded a little quicker this time. You nodded your head at him. That's two.

“Do you know where you're at, Chongyun?” You made sure to keep saying his name so that he would focus on you.

After a moment of silence, he responded. “I'm in Liyue.” He then closed his eyes and let out another groan. “My head hurts.”

“I know, dear. One last question, okay?” You tell him. He nods. “Do you know what happened to you?”

He thought for a moment. “I was… I was chasing Xingqiu,” said boy perked up in response to his name, “we were playing tag. I almost caught him then it suddenly got dark.” He opened his eyes and looked at you. “Why did it go dark?”

You give him a look of reassurance. “Your noggin got hit pretty hard and you fell down. You were asleep for a few minutes but you'll be okay.” You tilt your head. That's the last question. A and O times 4. He's alert and aware. “Does your head still hurt?” You asked as you began to palpate his neck, feeling for any serious injuries. You removed your hands when you found none.

He nodded. “Do you feel pain anywhere else? How about your neck?” He shakes his head in response.

“Good. Do you feel like sitting up for me sweetie?” You ask. Chongyun slowly moves to sit upright with your help and you guide him to the curb to sit on so he was out of the road. Xingqiu crawled over to his friend to see how he was doing, with you reminding him to overwhelm Chongyun. As you look out towards the crowd, you see Ganyu, who was carrying a cup of what you assumed was water, make her way over to your little group. She hands you the cup, which you thank her profusely, and you give it to Chongyun.

“Drink it slowly.” You advise him. “I don't want you choking on me now that you're awake.” You tease gently while sending a subtle wink to Xingqiu, causing the young boy to giggle.

He gingerly takes the cup from your hand. “Thank you ma’am.”

“Thank you, ma’am!” Xingqiu tells you as well.

“It's not a problem.” You reassure both of them with a smile. As soon as they saw that Chongyun was okay, the crowd dispersed and continued what they were doing. However, not without whispering amongst themselves how seemingly a teenager knew exactly what to do when taking care of an injured child.

You continued to sit with the two boys to monitor Chongyun, in case something suddenly went awry. Ganyu stayed as well, astounded at the young girl before her.

“What you did was quite impressive Miss [Name]!” The half adeptus praised. “I didn't know you were so vast in medical knowledge, and at such a young age too.”

You let out a few chuckles. “Well you only just met me today Miss Ganyu.”

She then gives you a sheepish look. “I was surprised to see you help him so quickly,” she leans in closer to whisper to you, “given that you were laughing at him earlier.”

“Oh… yeah,” You let out an uncomfortable laugh. “As long as they're not seriously hurt or in any danger, kids getting hit or falling is hilarious to me.” You let out a wince. “Wow, that sounds awful.”

“Yet you didn't hesitate to help him as soon as you saw that something was wrong.” Ganyu pointed out.

You lifted your hand to pet Chongyun on the head. “Well I've always wanted to be able to put my life to good use and help people in some way, so what better way than this? Helping people in their times of need.” You give Ganyu a cheeky smirk. “I may act all tough but I'm actually a big softie.”

“I'm well aware of that now.” Ganyu chuckles.

As you visited with the half-adeptus and two young boys, you failed to notice a pair of red eyes gazing at you with a look of mischief.

—

After triple checking that Chongyun was okay and him constantly telling you that he was, you wave the boys goodbye who returned it in full. Ganyu then tells you that she should continue running errands for Lady Nigguang and you may or may not have freaked out a bit inside when you heard her name. Waving to the half adeptus as well, you continue to wander aimlessly through the city.

You soon found yourself at the Wanmin restaurant, chef Mao working swiftly in the kitchen. He soon brought out your order and after paying, you made your way to the south side wharf. As you make your way to the dock, you sit down on the edge and look out at the ocean before you while swinging your legs. You welcomed the smell of salt water and the ocean breeze that fluttered around you, yet it did nothing to quarrel your racing thoughts.

I can't believe I've already been in Teyvat for a week and still don't have a fucking clue as to how I got here in the first place. You slide your hands down your face and clasped them together in front of your mouth. And Xiao has been no help to me in that matter unfortunately. The guy still doesn't talk to me that much anyways. Plus training with him has been difficult as well. I've learned that he's a super strict teacher and I've only managed to construct only two Geo items with him this past week but that was only when I was extremely frustrated or upset, so I have no clue as to how I'm going to be able to properly control the element… or that ‘particulation’ thingy with the weapons as well.

You drop your head in your hands and let out a whine. This is all so confusing! I really wish someone or something just give me some fucking answers!

You then look up and run your hands through your hair. Turning your head to the left, you see the giant Mingxiao lantern that was ready to be released once it was dark enough. You let out a sigh and try to relax. I should probably start looking for a place to watch it when it releases tomorrow. You stand up and start walking back to Feiyan Slope. Soon you crossed over the little bridge that connects Chihu Rock and Feiyan Slope. You decided to stick closer to the buildings to try and stay away from the crowds.

However, as you were too preoccupied to not hit anybody, you didn't notice a hand reaching out from an alleyway until it was too late. You felt a harsh tug on your left arm which caused you to let out a yelp. You quickly caught your bearings and when you turned to slapped your assailant, you froze as you saw a pale face that looked to be thirteen years old inches from yours. Red eyes with strange, floral shaped pupils came with the face and was framed with dark hair that faded into red.

Holy… Hu Tao? You wondered. But she looks a lot younger? Younger than this “me” that's for sure.

You give her a confused smile. “Um… hello?” Am I just going to meet every character in Liyue today?

“You're the one Mr. Zhongli told me about!” She exclaims. “It's nice to meet you! My name is Hu Tao!”

You swore you felt your soul leave your body when you heard his name. ZHONGLI?! HE’S LOOKING FOR ME?! OH SHI-! You're cut from your thoughts when Hu Tao starts pulling you. “Hey! W-wait!”

“C’mon! Mr. Zhongli is waiting for you back at the funeral parlor. It seemed like he wasn't too happy with you so we shouldn't keep him waiting any longer!” She giggles.

Yup, I'm officially dead. Maybe now I can go back to my world and be normal again.

Soon the young girl brings you to the doors of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. You gnawed on your lower lip. Fuck… I'm more nervous now than I was when I was taking the MCAT. Maybe because I'm meeting a FUCKING GOD?! You begin to slightly hyperventilate, the reality of the situation finally sitting in. FUCKFUCKFUCKFU-

You are once again snapped out of your internal freak out by Hu Tao pulling on your arm. The girl pushes the doors open while bringing you with her. The inside is about what you expected from a funeral parlor with coffins lining along the walls along with different types of shrines. After a few twists and turns, you and Hu Tao reach a very intricate door with a plate on it that says “Consultant: Zhongli”. You clench your jaw as you could practically feel the intense aura that radiated from him even through the door.

Without even knocking, Hu Tao busts through his door. “Mr. Zhongli! I found her! This is the girl you were looking for right?”

The wind gets knocked out of you upon finally seeing him in person and your knees about damn near buckle from underneath when you make eye contact with him. If you thought Xiao’s eyes were intense, then you don't even know how to describe Zhongli’s.

The Geo Archon narrowed his eyes towards you. “Indeed it is, Hu Tao.” His deep voice rumbled throughout the entire room and shook you to your core. “You may take your leave now.”

The young girl pouted. “Aw… and I wanted to see you scold her.”

A quick glance from the corner of his eyes was enough to make Hu Tao take the hint and leave, however not without whining on her way out.

As soon as Hu Tao was gone, Zhongli stood up and took large strides towards you, causing you to start panicking. Hu Tao, why did you have to leave me alone with an Archon?! Soon the man towered over you, forcing you to look up at him. The shadows that casted over his being due to him blocking out the overhead light made his striking amber eyes all the more intimidating. You felt like you were about to be pounced on like a mouse cornered by a barn cat.

Then Zhongli lowered his face closer to yours. “So you're the outlander who took my vision without permission.” He accuses. You feel your breath hitch in your throat and your palms beginning to clam up. You had never been more intimidated in your life and you have fought against people twice your size no problem before!

“Oh…! Um, t-that was me?” You stutter out. Your eyes widen when you realize just how fucking stupid you sounded.

Zhongli coolly looked at you. “Of course it was you. I knew that you were not of this world the moment you arrived in Liyue.” He tells you firmly while staring straight into your soul. “Now, do inform me on how you were able to acquire this power without a Vision granted from me?”

The silence was deafening in the room. You thought you were just about to faint until your experience from working under pressure in the emergency room decided to kick in and not fail you as you quickly composed yourself.

“In my defense,” you raise your hands. “it was completely out of my control.”

Zhongli raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

You let out a sigh. “Here's what happened. A saw a Statue of Seven in Guili Plains, in all of its glory, and as soon as I was near it I felt a pulling sensation. Later that day I was extremely frustrated and all of a sudden a rock pillar just came out of the ground.”

Zhongli hummed in thought before finally standing back to his full height, allowing you to breathe again. He brought a hand to his chin and looked down in thought. “Interesting. I have not heard of such instances where that has ever happened, with me or any of the other Archons.” His eyes met yours again. “So what makes you special? So special that even the adeptus Xiao has decided to look after you?”

You couldn't help the exaggerated laugh that bubbled out of your throat. “Ha! I wish I knew, but your guess is as good as mine sweetheart.” You pause. “I also know that you're Morax too… if you haven't figured that out yet.” You finish meekly. WHAT THE FUCK AM I SAYING?!

The Geo Archon’s eyes widen at you. “How did you know that? Where exactly did you come from?” He interrogates.

You quickly explain to him the same thing that you told Xiao, that he was from a video game and that you were aware of what was to come in the future as well as how you somehow physically de-aged.

“Interesting.” Zhongli thought for a moment. “It appears that you come from a similar universe in which our’s exists but in a completely different manner.”

“How much of our universe do you know through this ''game”?” He questions.

“I know of some future events that will happen, but the lore of the story is still a complete mystery. We don't even know how long the main story of the game is.” You say.

Zhongli pondered. “I see. If you know what is to happen in the future, then it would be best to let things run their course and not intervene with it.”

“Yeah, the butterfly effect and shit like that.” Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise as you subconsciously swore. You quickly slap a hand over your mouth. “Sorry… it's a bad habit.” You apologize quietly.

Zhongli decided to ignore your mishap. “So you're aware of what could happen. And since you're already aware of my identity, I presume that you know that I go by Zhongli now?”

You nod your head. “Yes, I do.” You then realized that you haven't introduced yourself. You quickly bowed towards him. “My name is [Name] by the way! [Name] [Last Name].”

Zhongli nodded. “It's a pleasure to finally know the name of the outlander that took my Vision without consent.”

You make a face at his snarky comment. “Is it a pleasure though?” You muttered rhetorically.

“Let's continue with your situation.” Zhongli diverted the conversation back on track. He then looked towards you. “Perhaps if you tried to remember the events that happened to you before you came here, that may give us a better idea as to the reason why you're here.” He then gestures to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Please have a seat. It will be easier for you to remember if you're comfortable.”

“I do remember being on a bridge but that's the only thing I know now.” Moving to sit down, you tuck your dress skirt underneath you and cross your legs, trying to look somewhat professional. You take a deep breath as you gather thoughts. What happened before coming here? What was I doing? You lean forward and rest your elbows on your knee while interlacing your hands, then put your forehead against them. You close your eyes and your eyebrow twitches into a furrow as you begin to concentrate. [e/c] eyes move rapidly behind eyelids as memories start to form.

“A hospital…” You began. “I was working a shift in the hospital.”

—

“Hi Miss Bradford!” You cheerily call out as you knock on the door. The old woman looked up from her magazine and smiled at you with dull blue eyes.

“Dr. [Last Name]. How are you doing sweetheart?” She asks softly. Miss Bradford was a quiet old lady in her seventies with salt and pepper hair and the brightest, most gorgeous blue eyes you had ever seen.

That was before she had started chemotherapy.

Miss Bradford was your most recent patient. You had treated her a few months ago when she came to your emergency room with intense chest pains. After taking multiple different CAT scans and MRIs, you and several other doctors had concluded her diagnosis as breast cancer. Although you admitted her to Oncology, she kept having complications when she had started chemotherapy; causing you to see her quite frequently.

Today was the day Miss Bradford would start her third round of chemo and you decided to bring her her favorite lunch before starting. Miss Bradford was hell bent on beating this cancer but after her most recent round she had started to lose her appetite. Which was never a good sign for a cancer patient.

“I'm doing well, thank you. And I thought I told you to call me [Name]?” You grab a chair and pull it up next to her bed.

She gives you a small smile. “But you worked so hard to earn the title of a doctor. I'm only giving you the respect you deserve.”

You shook your head playfully at the older woman. “How're you feeling today?”

She let out a sigh. “Tired, but better than yesterday. I'm ready to get this damn treatment over with.” She grumbled.

“That's good! Do you feel like eating today?” You ask.

She shook her head. “Not really but knowing you, you'll probably force me to eat anyways.” She looked at the plastic sack in your hand. “Whatcha got there?”

“Well hopefully this will bring your appetite back for today. It's your favorite!” You raise the bag higher and place it on her food tray. “Almond Tofu! I remember you telling me that it was your go to desert when you lived in Singapore, so I had one of my foreign exchange friends teach me how to make it.” You let out a dramatic sigh. “I can't tell you how many times I messed up baking this damn dessert.”

Miss Bradford looked at the sweet treat with tears in her eyes. “Oh, [Name]…” She let out a wet laugh. “You didn't have to do that.”

You smiled at the older woman. “I know I didn't have to, but I wanted to.”

She suddenly reaches over as quickly as all the tubes hooked up to her allowed her and brought you into a tight hug. You fretted over her before she cut you off.

“Thank you, [Name].” She whispered. You reciprocated her hug gently.

“You're welcome, Miss Bradford. Though I can't guarantee it'll be just like the real thing.” You playfully warned.

She let out a laugh as she pulled away from the hug. “I'm sure it will be wonderful.” She gives you a grateful smile. She then evenly separates the dessert and gives you half of it. You shook your hands no at the offer.

“No no, Miss Bradford, I made this for you so you don't have to share it with me.” You politely decline.

She glares at you but smiles. “I know I don't have to but I want to.” She quipped.

You gasp. “How dare you throw my own words back at me!”

“Just take the damn dessert, Dr. [Last Name].” She laughed out loud.

Letting out a sigh, you grab the plate from her and begin to eat with her. You both chatted for a couple of minutes after finishing before you were paged to be back down in the emergency room. You grabbed the plastic container the dessert was in and threw it away. As you moved the chair back to its proper place, you looked at Miss Bradford.

Reaching a hand out, you place it over her own. “Thank you for eating today, Miss Bradford.” You tell her sincerely. “I know it's getting hard but all of the nurses are telling me that you're doing great.”

“Just two more rounds and it will be over.” You encouraged her.

The older woman nods as she grasps your hand and gives it a tight squeeze. A nonverbal thank you.

“Do you need anything else before I leave?” You ask.

She shakes her head. “No, Dr. [Last Name]. I'm quite alright. Now go save some lives.” She lets go of your hand and shoos you off.

You roll your eyes teasingly. “I'll be back to check on you after your treatment. Try not to see me this time around!” You open the door and wave back at her. “Good luck! You got this!” You then swiftly leave the room and head back to your station.

As soon as you were gone, Miss Bradford’s smile dropped immediately. She laid her head back and lifelessly looked at the ceiling. Tears started to fall from her cobalt eyes as she thought about you and the gift you had made for her.

“I'm gonna miss you, [Name].” She whispered into the empty room.

—

After three days, you fortunately had the day off from working so you immediately went to go see Miss Bradford.

You soon made it to the familiar room. “Hi Miss Bradford! How do you feel-” You stop in your tracks upon seeing Miss Bradford lying in front of you. The older woman looked nothing like what you had seen three days prior. Her beautiful salt and pepper hair had begun to fall out and her skin looked like it was barely hanging onto her bones.

You quickly come back to reality. This is what chemo does. And elderly people tend to not survive the drug. You remind yourself.

You take a deep breath and walk towards the bed. “Miss Bradford?” You call out. “It's me, Dr. [Last Name].”

The woman slowly opened her eyes. Her bleary and glazed over eyes tiredly searched for the voice calling out to her before landing on your form. Her dull blue eyes light up in recognition.

“[Name].” She croaked out yet still gave you a smile.

You give a smile right back to her. “Hi Miss Bradford.” You greet softly. You squat down next to the bed so it was easier to make eye contact. “How're you feeling?”

She let out a tired sigh. “Like shit.”

You chuckled quietly before you both sat in silence for a few moments. You open your mouth to say something but the older woman beats you to it.

“I don't think I'm gonna make this round, sweetheart.”

You clench your jaw hearing her statement. “Don't say that.” You tell her firmly. “I thought you wanted to kick this cancer’s ass?”

The poor woman couldn't even manage a chuckle. “Don't all patients say that?” She asked. She looks past you and out the window. “I think it's my time. I can feel it.”

She then closed her eyes and gave you a grateful smile while reaching up to cup your cheek. “Thank you, [Name], for sticking by my side even when my own children didn't. I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful doctor to take care of me.”

You held the hand that was on your cheek and gave the older woman a sad smile as if to say “I'm sorry for not doing enough”, yet she seemed to understand what your smile conveyed as she began to caress your cheek as a means to console you.

“Keep saving lives, Dr. [Last Name].”

The steady flat note of a heart rate monitor tells you that your patient has finally passed away.

Her hand that was on your cheek laid flaccid on your own. You closed your eyes and let out a shaky sigh. After a few minutes of sitting in silence with your deceased patient, you press the nurse’s call button. You then place her hand next to her on the bed. Shortly after several nurses come into the room and begin to console you while covering Miss Bradford’s body with the sheet. You watched them as they wheeled her out of the room.

She told you to keep saving lives and you plan on doing just fucking that.

—

It was dark out when you finally left the hospital after you said your last goodbyes to Miss Bradford. The temperature had dropped significantly causing a shiver to run down your spine and goosebumps form on your arms.

You're not going to lie. Even though she told you that she was ready and already accepted her death, you couldn't help but feel like you failed her; so you were feeling pretty depressed. Everybody was so determined to get her healthy again, to go back to a somewhat normal life again. But it was never that easy.

You passed several buildings as you continued home. Soon you were passing your current town's local park when you suddenly stopped, a sudden feeling of anxiety had come out of nowhere. It felt like there were eyes on you, watching your every move. Your face sets into a hard glare to try and look intimidating. You turn around in a circle trying to find any suspicious people, yet you only found yourself alone in the street which unsettled you even more.

A sudden rustling causes you to whip your head to the right. Your eyes immediately lock onto a bright pair of golden ones that look at you from the tree line. Neither one of you refused to blink or look away, seeing who would back down first.

Your eyes widen when the other set of eyes seem to just dissipate into thin air. After a few moments of trying to process what the hell just happened, you shake your head.

I must be going insane. You thought. When you turned around to continue home, your gaze caught sight of something on the sidewalk. On the sidewalk was what looked like gold flecks of dust hovering in front of you. Being the completely logical person you were, you tried to kick the dust away from you. However doing so only caused more gold flecks to appear and soon a trail of them started to manifest that led into the forest where you saw the pair of eyes. You looked at the trail bewildered. What the actual fuck is going on? You drop your head and let out a defeated sigh.

“Yeah, I'm over this.” You mumble out loud. You walk through the trail dead set on going home and sleeping for the entire day tomorrow. Now you weren't going to lie, yes you do get upset whenever one of your patients pass away, but normally not this upset because that was part of your job; it's bound to happen. But Miss Bradford’s death seemed to be taking a bigger toll on you than you thought.

However, as you tried to walk through the trail it forcefully turned your body to walk to the forest. Your eyes widen as your adrenaline spikes and your fight or flight kicks in as you start thrashing around, trying to release its invisible hold on you.

“Hey, wait! Stop!” You cry out. You whip your head in all directions, trying to look for someone to help you. “Help! Anyone, please!” Yet all you received was silence from the empty street. While the gold dust continued to push you toward, you still tried to fight against it though you quickly began to falter thanks to the mentally and physically taxing day you just went through.

As if it had sense you were giving up, the trail abruptly stopped pushing you. For a split second you thought about running off again but decided against it. You watched as the trail formed and led even deeper into the forest where the bushes and trees were so thick that not even the bright moon that was above could illuminate it. Your eyes flicker down to the trail before going back to the forest then back down to the trail. You grimace at the trail as if you were saying “do I really have to?” to it.

All of a sudden, your head whips up to the tree line as you hear music softly playing from it. From your limited musical knowledge, it sounded like it was a harp or some type of string instrument. You feel your muscles relax and your heart slows its frantic pace as the soft melody coursed around you, like a warm comforting blanket that had just come out of the dryer, and a sense of peace had washed over you.

The logical side of your brain was screaming at you to not listen to it. To not be a dumbass and see where it was coming from. To run away as fast as you could while screaming for help, yet you already knew that wasn't going to work. But the hypnotic song that the harp-like instrument was playing kicked that side of your brain to the curb as it lured you into the forest.

Your feet moved before you even realized it and soon you began to bush limbs away. After a few minutes of trying to follow where the music was coming from, it started to get louder and then light filtered through the trees. You quickened your pace and pushed away the last of the trees, but froze in your place as the music suddenly stopped and at what you walked upon.

In front of you was nothing but a vast and endless bright blue sky. From above where the sun continued to glow brightly but seemed to be twice the size of what it was before, to below you where you could see a single hint of land anywhere. Clouds rolled by thanks to the gentle breeze that blew past you and tall pillars were littered throughout the area, some were even floating!

You turn back to the forest behind you with a confused expression before looking back at the open sky. Wasn't it just night before? And why is this… oddly familiar? Where have I seen this before? You wondered.

You jumped nearly ten feet in the air when you heard a noise at your feet. You look down to see individual slabs of concrete form a bridge several feet out in front of you and the gold trail resumes onto the bridge.

You stare at the bridge processing what just occurred. You could practically hear the Jeopardy theme song playing in the background. You sharply inhale and your eyes widen when finally realized why this was all familiar.

Motherfucking Genshin Impact! I thought I recognized this loading screen!

You place a hesitant foot on the bridge, expecting it to crumble but it stood sturdy. You take another step, then another, and after four steps the bridge begins to form out again. You keep walking as the bridge does so. You do this for a few moments, giggling to yourself about what is actually transpiring.

“I really have gone insane.” You laughed. “Ah, and my future was so promising.”

A loud boom from below cuts you off from your self deprecating thoughts. What the hell? You get down on your knees and crawl over the edge of the bridge to see a huge black rip in the sky.

“Outlanders,” A voice boomed out. “your journey ends here.”

And out stepped the Unknown God.

Oh shit. You gasp quietly as your heart rate accelerates at the sight of her. She's hotter in person. You looked around for the twins and quickly spotted them on a platform just below the Unknown God.

“Who’re you?” The queen herself, Lumine, calls out.

“The sustainer of heavenly principles.” The Unknown God summons a black cube in her hand. “The arrogation of mankind ends here.” She then creates a cube below the twins, forcing them to jump out of the way. They spin in the air and summon their, much cooler than the ones in the game, wind gliders with swords in hand.

The Unknown God sends multiple horrifying trails of cubes after the twins, forcing them to fly and twirl out of the way of them while causing the whole sky to rumble somehow. Soon the twins fly towards the Unknown God and collide with her creating a huge explosion.

The explosion caused the bridge you were on to shake due to the force. You grabbed on tighter to the ledge in hopes of keeping your balance, but an aftershock made you slip off from the edge. You let out a terrified scream as you suddenly began to fall.

Your scream caught the trio's attention and made them look at you. The twin’s faces morph into a shocked and horrified expression as you fall while the Unknown God’s eyes narrow in recognition. “There you are.” And sent cubes after you, yet you are completely immune to what's happening around you thanks to the wind that was blowing in your ears.

Lumine quickly yelled to her brother. “Aether, catch her!” She diverted her attention back to the god. “I'll take care of this!”

Aether jumped into action and quickly flew to you. He willed his wind gliders to move faster than the cubes and was soon on you. He then flies underneath you and catches you bridal style. You let out a loud “oof” as you roughly collided with something and opened your eyes, which had subconsciously closed when you fell, to see Aether flying away with you in his arms and away from the cubes.

Aether looks down to your wind blown form. “Are you okay?” He asks gently. How you could hear him over the wind, you didn't know, but you could only stare at him in shock, not actually believing that he was real.

Taking in your silence as being in shock from the fall, he flies higher in the air and turns to the Unknown God to see his twin getting sucked into the god’s cubes.

“Lumine!” He cried out. He looked between you and his sister before ultimately throwing you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes while keeping a firm hold on your thighs. He zooms to the god at high speeds which catches you off guard.

“What the fuck?!” You screech. You were starting to get a little motion sickness from all of the sudden movements.

Aether dips behind the god and swings his sword at her which causes an even larger explosion than before. You let out a scream at the loud sound. You could feel Aether’s chest rising and falling rapidly under your legs due to him panting. You hear him gasp and you turn over his head to see what was happening, though you already knew.

However, the sight of the smoke from the explosion coming back and encasing Aether’s hand was more terrifying in real life than it was in the game.

“Hold on!” He orders then quickly readjusted you so that he had a hold of your waist. You wrap your arms around his shoulders and cover your face in his shoulder, bracing for any sort of pain. Soon your vision started to turn black, but before it covered it entirely you heard Aether scream out to the Unknown God.

“Wait, don't go! Give my sister back!”

—

A/N: Kazuha is now officially the ninth member of the harem. Also, y'all... Inazuma? Lord help me I want to add Gorou and Thoma to the harem as well.

Side note, for all of the male characters that have a "young adult" physique like Aether, Kazuha, Xiao, etc. they're taller than they are in the game, from 5'6"-5'8" (Xiao still being the shortest) while those with an "adult" are anywhere from 5'10-6'2", because I said so lol.

[alyssa-grimes-bitch]

It's a twin thing

This is a Fic I wrote a few days ago where the reader is Beth's twin sister and she goes to find her when she finds out she went missing! I hope y'all like it. It's pretty cute.

"Beth is missing?" I repeated. My twin sister is missing. "So Maggie leaves you in charge of her and you fucking lose her?!"

I was screaming at Daryl trying to blame someone. Anyone.

"I didn't lose her, she was kidnapped, get your facts straight," he snapped. Obviously not happy about her missing too.

"Then is there a fucking reason why we're not running out there and going to save her right now?" I shouted as Rick came up behind us with Carl in tow.

"Enough with the yelling. (Y/N) we will find Beth," Rick Replied.

"He lost my sister," I snapped, gritting my teeth and earning a glare from Daryl. "Oh sorry he let her get KIDNAPPED."

"I didn't let her get anything," Daryl snapped. "Watch who you're saying those words to."

"Both of you need to cool off," Rick snapped. "Daryl take a walk, (Y/N) take a walk. We will talk about who will be going to find Beth once you calm down."

"You're seriously going to get my sister killed, just like you got my father killed," I spoke softly as I bellied up to Rick when I felt a hand roughly grip my arm and tug me away.

"Let's go," I hear Carl shout and drag me along.

" Let go of me!" I shouted yanking back.

"You need to cool off first," Carl replied and threw me when we were far enough from Daryl that I couldn't snap at him again.

"My sister is possibly dead or being fucking tortured and you want me to 'chill out'?" I shouted angrily at him.

"Yes," Carl replied, crossing his arms.

"Fuck you," I snapped kicking up some leaves.

"I mean if you want but I don't think it'll help you feel better," Carl shrugged, earning an angry eye roll from me.

"I'm going to find my sister," I snapped and turned my back to walk away when suddenly I was pulled back.

"Nope," Carl smiled at me and I glared at him.

"You're having too much fun with this," I growled, which earned a smile from him.

"No. I'm not having nearly enough fun with this," Carl replied.

Then it hit me.

I paused and stared into the forest beyond us. I felt my lip quiver and suddenly tears started streaming down my cheeks.

"She's gone Carl and I ain't ever gonna see her again," I whispered not pulling my eyes from the spot I was staring.

Carl didn't reply. I took that as a tell tale sign and fell into the ground.

Except I didn't fall.

My knees gave out but I didn't hit the floor like I expected. Instead Carl grabbed me and just held me.

He didn't say anything and I was okay with it. I don't know what he could've said to make me feel better anyway. The silence was comfortable. For some reason it's all I needed at that moment.

"My dad's going to find her, you know," Carl whispered after some time had passed.

"Maybe," I replied softly. "She could be eaten."

"She isn't. She's out there," Carl responded.

" Beth isn't strong like the rest of us. She won't last out there alone," I whispered and threw my head in Carl's chest as he rubbed my back.

"She'll come back I know she will," Carl whispered and I wasn't sure if it was to me or not.

"I can't lose her," I whispered. "Her and Maggie are all I got left."

We sat there for a second longer before we heard footsteps. It was quick that we spilt apart. Carl holding me when something happened wasn't new. I met him when he came to my dad's farm and he was only 2 years younger than Beth and I so we became fast friends. You didn't see many kids our age running around during the apocalypse. We used to read comic books on his bed at night and I always helped with his chores. But it was okay he helped with mine too. Carl was the first to tell me I have too much of a temper and was the only one who would calm me down. I would also be lying if I didn't say I felt something more with him, maybe it was the apocalypse, maybe it was him but I desperately wanted Carl and I to be more than friends which also made things awkward when people saw us together. I didn't want Carl to know I liked him that way.

When we turned around it was Rick. He didn't look angry at me but after my dad died he took up that parental role with us kids.

"We're going to send a search party out to find Beth," Rick said, kneeling down to talk to me.

"And I'm coming right?" I said glaring up at him.

"No it's just me, Daryl, and Carol," Rick said. " You and Carl are staying here with Michonne."

"So you're letting the person who got her kidnapped go and not letting her sister?" I said.

"Daryl didn't mean for her to get hurt or lost. It's these people we should be blaming," Rick said.

I was still angry but I was pretending I understood so I could leave tonight.

“I know, I just can’t lose her,” I whispered softly.

“I know,” Rick replied. “Which is why I will find her and we will bring her back alive.”

“Do you know where she is?” I asked.

“No. We think we do but we’re not sure.”

“So where do you think she is?”

“Grady memorial hospital. They’ve been known to take people.”

“Please bring her back alive, Rick.”

“I will.”

Rick kissed the top of mine and Carl’s head before walking off towards where Daryl and Michonne were seated.

“You’re still going aren’t you,” Carl said and I looked away from him.”I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t stay put if it was Judeith.”

“She’s alive, I know she is,” I whispered. “I can feel it.”

“So are you staying here or are you going?” Carl asked again.

“Rick will bring her back,” I lied. I was not planning on staying put, I was absolutely planning on leaving when everyone went to bed. “I’m going to bed. Maybe when I wake up it’ll all be a bad dream and my dad is going to wake me up for school and I'll go to his clinic and tend to the dogs. There won’t be any damn walkers or missing sisters or dead dads.”

“You worked at your dad’s vet clinic,” Carl asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “We all did. Even Maggie when she got back home from college.”

“What did you do?” Carl said, causing me to sit down next to him.

“It was nice. I was a kennel tech, I just fed the animals and cleaned their kennels. Sometimes if there weren’t any techs around he would have us give medication but we weren’t supposed to tell anyone but I guess it doesn’t matter now,” I shrugged. “I miss it sometimes. What did you do before the apocalypse?”

“I read comic books a lot, and played some video games,” Carl shrugged.

“How old were you when it happened?”

“12,” Carl replied, “How old were you?”

“14,” I smiled. “It seems like forever ago.”

“Yeah it does,” Carl said.

“It’s only been 3 years,” I said. “Anyway, it’s bedtime.”

“I was hoping to stall you for longer,” Carl replied.

“Unfortunately not Carl,” I smiled. “Goodnight I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I walked my way back to a small cot I had, I knew someone would be watching for walkers and I just needed to make sure I could stay out of their vision. As long as I did that I could go without any issues.

I waited for hours listening for everyone to go to sleep. Rick told Daryl he was on first watch today which meant it would just be that much harder for me to be able to sneak out tonight. It was not what I was looking forward to. Daryl would be extremely pissed if he caught me and Rick even more so and I don’t want to even think about What Carl would do.

I listened for the slightest sound but it was quiet. I wasn’t sure how long I laid there pretending to be asleep so that I could sneak off. It was hours and way past dark when I finally started leaving. I threw whatever I could fit in my backpack, grabbed my gun and a knife and left trying to make sure Daryl couldn't see me. Just as I was about to make it on the main road to lead me into the town I saw Carl standing there with his gun secured on his leg and had a backpack on with his dad’s hat on as well.

“I knew you weren’t going to give up,” Carl replied as I was walking down towards him.

“What can I say, I’m predictable,” I said, throwing my hair up. “But you’re not stopping me Carl. I mean it.”

“I knew I couldn’t so I’m coming with,” Carl responded.

“Fat chance,” I laughed and tried to walk past him.

I grabbed my arm and ripped me back. I was surprised and gasped then I saw him staring into me and he spoke.

“I wasn’t asking,” He said and I ripped my arm back from his grasp. “Now let's go before my dad realizes we are gone.”

I grudgingly left with Carl in tow and we made our way down the street. We didn’t pass any walkers, it was quiet and dead. I was tired, I didn’t get any sleep and I was fueled by the pure desire to find my sister. I knew she was alive. I could feel it in my bones. I knew Carl could feel it too or he’d never let me come.

[syn0vial]

Hello how are you doing?

I was wondering if you could tell us more about Boba Mand'alor or if you had some recommendations like comics or books about that? I'm sorry if it's been asked before I didn't find it

Thank you in advance!!

i'm doing well, thank you! better, now that i've received this ask :D mand'alor!boba is one of my fave bits of the expanded universe; honestly, i wish they'd done more with him! as it stands, the story arc is only really explored in the novella boba fett: a practical man and the legacy of the force series of novels, but it's still quite rich in terms of character exploration and development. lemme give y'all a break down:

to start, boba did not become mand'alor by choice. y'see, the mand'alor before boba was a mandalorian by the name of fenn shysa. though he was mand'alor, shysa was a staunch believer that the title should instead sit with an heir of jango fett. shysa knew that as the last mand'alor of the true mandalorians and a fearsome warrior who gave even the jedi a run for their money, jango could be a potent symbol to rally for the renewal of the mandalorian people—and thus, so could his heir.

unfortunately, jango's heir is none other than boba fett who, at that moment (post-OT) was [checks notes] hunting mand'alor fenn shysa at the behest of his former kaminoan baby sitter taun we, who wanted revenge on the mandalorians for an attack they'd carried out against kamino some years before.

details are a little bit sparse about the exact order of events when boba eventually found shysa, but suffice to say that things did not go as anyone expected. for one thing, boba didn't end up collecting the bounty on shysa—instead he and shysa somehow ended up on the same side against a rival mercenary group that threatened to overrun them. during the battle, shysa was critically wounded protecting boba from said mercenaries and, knowing that boba wouldn't be able to escape while dragging him along, urged boba to grant him a quick death and take up the mantle of mand'alor in his stead. boba was, to put it mildly, less than enthused about this proposition. however, he couldn't bear to leave shysa to be captured and likely tortured to death, and so granted him a coup de grace and honored his dying request.

so now we have the absolutely delicious juxtaposition of boba fett, a man whose connection to his mandalorian heritage is fraught at best, more-or-less forced into being the commander-in-chief of the mandalorian people. and it's as awkward as one would expect. it seems that most (though not all) mandalorians accepted boba's account that he hadn't purposefully deposed shysa (likely bc shysa wasn't exactly quiet about wanting boba on the throne) but the general reaction to him seemed to be, "you're not one of us. but you're a useful symbol, so we'll let you stay where you are."

boba himself likens it to being stranded in "no-mans-land—too Mando for the outsider but not Mando enough for some of the clans"

on the flip-side of the coin, you have mandalorians who tell him shit like, "well, thank the stars you finally came to your senses; this was always your purpose, you know that, right?" which actually makes him angrier and more uncomfortable than the former reaction, for reasons he himself doesn't fully understand.

something something don't imply to the clone-who-pretends-he's-not-a-clone that he was made with a purpose other than sonhood mkay

despite this tension, boba finds himself, to his own bewilderment, developing a sense of responsibility for the mandalorians he comes into contact with. he wants to look after and protect them. he starts thinking in terms of "we" and "us." and he becomes coldly, viciously enraged when they're threatened.

...which happens pretty dang quickly when the yuuzhan vong invade.

look, the yuuzhan vong are a whole other can of worms, but i'll sum up the best i can by saying that they're an extragalactic race of bio-engineered, self-mutilating torture-slavers who think the gffa deserves to be genocided for the crime of developing combustion engines. it's like fucking hellraiser invades the gffa, idk what else to say.

ANYWAY, these dudes are preparing to invade and, after learning that the mandalorians are the galaxy's ultimate mercenary assholes, invites boba (and his friend beviin) to a meeting to discuss, oh, you know, betraying the gffa to the vong in exchange for not torture-enslaving the mandalorians.

and the vong are like "oh, btw, here's some random prisoner we'll torture-enslave in front of you :) just to give you an illustration :) of how seriously you should take our offer of mercy :)"

and boba, knowing that they're lying, and inwardly seething at their veiled threats toward the mandalorians, calmly answers, "based on [your promise], we have a deal."

translation: "we're gonna fuck you up"

(boba has a thing about sticking to his word, so by phrasing his assent like that, he can justify backstabbing the vong. basically, "i am making a promise based on your promise, but bc your promise is bullshit, mine is too")

the mandalorians then spend a good chunk of the war playing the villains, pretending to be fighting for the vong while in reality, they're siphoning key intel back to the new republic to bring about the vong's defeat.

though the mandalorians' sabotage plays a key role in turning the tide of the war against the vong, it isn't without a cost. the vong, eventually realizing the mandalorians' betrayal, wreak terrible vengeance on mandalore, indiscrimimately bombing the planet and mass-poisoning the soil. one could think of this as a parallel to the glassing of mandalore in new canon. mandalore was already in bad shape due to imperial strip mining and the vong's retribution leaves the planet barely habitable.

also, in the aftermath of the war, mandalore doesn't receive any reconstruction aid from the new republic bc fuck them i guess

things are bleak for the mandalorians. they're short on credits and, unable to grow anything from the planet's poisoned soil, they're forced to rely on importing food to sustain themselves, further draining what little communal funds they have.

after talking things over with his fellow mandalorians (see: occasionally interjecting while they yell at each other in a crowded bar) boba decides on a few key policies going forward:

1) as a group, the mandalorians stay neutral in the new republic's ongoing wars. mandos are already an endangered species at this point and they don't need to invite any of that smoke back to mandalore itself.

2) any individual mandalorian is free to sell their services to whatever side they want, as long as they don't do it in the name of mandalore itself. times are tough and people need credits. boba won't begrudge them that.

3) any mandalorians living in diaspora, consider yourselves officially invited home. you show up, you get land, but you gotta pitch in to restore it.

4) until things are stable, those mandalorians with the means (see: boba and the chief of mandalmotors) use their own funds to keep importing food for folks until enough land is restored to make the planet once again self-sufficient

these policies are well-received and morale is significantly improved when said land restoration leads to the discovery of a huge motherlode of subsurface beskar, unearthed by the vong's indiscriminate bombing.

cue mandalmotors going balls-to-the-walls insane and making beskar starfighters. boba is, for once in his fucking life, absolutely delighted by this development.

no seriously, they offer him a chance to test-fly one and it's probably the only time i can recall in his adulthood that he actually grins.

anyway, the restoration of mandalore proceeds at pace under boba's leadership. most of the next book is dedicated to fett family drama with a side of jedi cultural exchange and the book after that sucks so bad that i don't acknowledge its existence. so here ends my hopefully interesting account of the reign of mand'alor boba!

[youssefguedira]

thoughts on tales through time: issue #2 - strong medicine

as per usual, spoilers under the cut!

i'll be honest. don't have a lot to say about this one. booker is in the wild west and beats up some guys. that's pretty much it. however, i still do have some things to say:

number one. everyone calling booker english even after he told them he's french killed me. how do you even mix the two up. i cannot figure it out. funniest part of the whole issue

number two. the panels when booker first enters the town where he's looking at the men who have been hung? and thinking about his own hanging? yeah....

booker, comparatively, isn't that old. in this, set in september 1870, he's only been immortal for just over half a century (58 years, i checked). your first death has gotta be pretty traumatising, i think andy even mentions it in the comics (cannot remember which) as something you don't forget. i don't know where this is going but just. a thought.

i also liked how it shows booker's telegram to andy. more fun character things. i found it kinda hard to follow while i was reading so here's the full text (i added punctuation + paragraph breaks for ease of reading):

"My friend Andromache. Have been diverted by weather and other matters. Will join you in San Francisco as soon as is practical.

Something gnaws at me. Like a string that has been plucked. I need to hear the note it sounds.

In any event I am compelled here, though as yet I am unsure why. I expect I will find out why soon enough.

This strange life we lead must have a purpose. These strings always pull us to where we must be. Is each pluck of the string another note in a symphony? But I must confess, my friend, the conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade.

That notion gives me pause. That we are not directed by a grand design. That our destiny is just a chaos that ultimately means nothing.

What I must do here feels necessary. But I am at a loss to see what may come of this affair."

there is so much to unpack here! firstly, the idea that they're somehow compelled to be where they need to be is interesting i guess, but this also might be booker having thoughts about immortality and not anything to overanalyse. it also sure does show booker's general.... difference to, let's say nicky, in ideas about immortality and what it all means. it's kind of exactly what i would expect from booker but it's also interesting to see his thoughts on the subject i suppose

secondly, what he must do? save a doctor from getting murdered. what will come of this affair? well. here's the last panel:

i really love the new perspective that this puts the events of opening fire/the movie into. i remember a post floating around a while ago about how copley actually found out about the old guard in the first place, because.... how do you find that. but the idea that dr. milford merrick-

(i'm sorry. pausing the train of thought. i cannot stop laughing at the name milford.)

(back to this very serious and sensible review post.)

the idea that milford told his children about the time booker saved him, and this getting back to merrick and merrick therefore investigating? i like it a lot actually. shows the Butterfly Effect idea the movie introduces us to except in a... less good way.

anyway, that concludes this review post. apparently i was lying about not having a lot to say.

see y'all next month for tales through time issue #3: passchendaele and lacus solitudinis!

[ultraclops]

Now for an unexpected merge - Day 4 and Day 6: New Pronouns and Festival!

(Well, in the comic they're getting ready to go to a festival, so I think it counts?)

Get ready for a hc you probably wouldn't expect. Or maybe you would expect it, from me.

I'm a simple person. I see a character with the same mental disorders as me, I PROJECT more than Badgerclops projected onto Bobo-Chan.

(Once again, sorry if the writing seems wonky.)

(For context, the Sheriff's Department is getting ready for a pride festival and invited 'gene to join them. While him and BC are waiting for Mao and Adorabat to get ready [Mao is helping Adorabat make her costume], 'gene gets curious and asks BC some questions.)

Dialogue Transcript:

When did you realize you were a demiguy?

Dunno, just came to me.

Just came to you?

I dunno how to explain it, really. It's like, I was fine with being a guy, but at the same time I didn't feel like just a guy? You know?

...Nah, that probably doesn't make any sense.

Hmm.

No, I understand.

I...kinda feel that way, too.

Hey, y'all!

? ?

Mx. Adorabat's gonna be testing out they/them pronouns for today!

This was partially inspired by a lot of chex-nix's comics, so go check them out!

BC's little tangent is based on how I felt about myself, especially around middle school age. Like, I felt like a girl, but at the same time I didn't. But I didn't feel like a boy, either. And that's why I call myself a demigirl now! :)

Another inspiration is that if 'gene were to appear in S2, I think it would make sense for him to have an arc where he realizes how dependent he was on Sonara and Adorabat, and learns to be more independent. In the process, maybe he could learn more about himself, and how to be brave in his own way!

Idk why, but I hc that he's either demiboy or bigender & uses He/She/They/Ae pronouns! It just fits him for some reason :) (Probably because I project onto him, lol) ((this isn't a "Your dad is gnc af" joke this hc came to me before I heard of that meme))

(Btw the gay flag I used for Badgerclops's sash is by dueling-jesters, I've seen people complaining about the blue gay flag & I thought this one looked pretty ^ ^)

((Also I would've used the new bi flag for Mao but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fit all the stripes so I defaulted to the old one. The new one is by smatterbrain on Twitter and its really nice!))

[jeonjeonggukenergy]

Anti-Hero

summary ~ in search of wine at a party that’s so not your scene, you run into jungkook, the weeb from your film class, and become determined to learn just how much he lives up to his big reputation.

pairing ~ jungkook x reader

genre ~ fluff, light smut w/ more to come - college!au

wordcount ~ 1.7k

warnings ~ light smut, drinking/partying, mentions of dick?, basically just making out, feat. long hair jk :)))))

a/n ~ this is my first time posting a fic!!! costume idea inspired by @ddaenggtan‘s iconic weeb-ass jk in chasing butterflies lol, and I got the idea to write this in general from wondering what a scenario like @joonbird​‘s literally flawless fic passionfruit would be like from the opposite perspective bc I kept reading it (and rereading it...and rereading it...) and loving the connection but I’m much more like joon in that au than the reader oooop. anyway thank you to all the writers on here whose work i have loved and my friends who have encouraged me and made me bold enough to embrace such a fun new creative outlet xxx u know who u are :’)

next: chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 (coming soon!) 

~ read on ao3 ~

CHAPTER 1 ~ dress up

You never intended to end up at this Halloween party. You didn't even know who to expect to see here, other than your roommate's friend from high school, the host, who had invited y'all as a package deal even though she knew you didn't really do parties. At least not ones like hers, where every bedroom ended up occupied by the end of the night and nearly no one went home alone. Thrilled to break out of your lame group of friends for a taste of flirtation and fun, you tried to relax into the scene but the unspoken expectation of casual sex intimidated you the tiniest bit.

Speaking of casual sex, there was Jungkook.

Used to admiring him from afar in your "14 Films To See Before You Graduate" class, you paused to take in the sight of him in what you supposed was a more natural habitat. Everyone knew Jungkook got girls, thanks to the rumor his first freshman-year hookup had started about his seriously impressive dick. He had a beautiful body too, carefully crafted muscles obvious even beneath his usual baggy black clothes, so as the more intimate rumors spread and various co-signers confirmed every detail from length to curve to (you had always hated this word, but...) girth, getting a piece of all that became a badge of honor among the girls in your grade. You had never really understood how the awkward boy who hid manga under his desk in class could supposedly be such a sex symbol, but you almost felt bad for him. That kind of reputation following you around everywhere couldn't be all fun and games. If anything, though, it had intrigued you even more about the rest of him, all his little weeb quirks and the way he debated your points in the discussion boards like he actually cared. He wasn't exactly studious in general, but he clearly loved film and you enjoyed speaking up in class just to see how he would jump off of your observations. You hadn't really talked to him other than that, but he didn't seem to be talking to anyone else tonight either. From the corner, you let yourself appreciate the way his nervous hands tugged at the skinny black tie of his costume, freeing more of his throat from a thin yellow button-down shirt.

At least you no longer felt overdressed in your Nancy Drew outfit. The retro headband, brown loafers, and bookish plaid knee-length skirt set a much more sophisticated tone than most other ensembles you'd seen, but Jungkook's weeb ass had basically worn a full suit to channel Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. With his grown-out hair tousled and a navy pinstripe jacket cinched tight with two strips of electrical tape over his tiny waist, you couldn't deny that he rocked it. He leaned against a long plastic table left in the hallway, bobbing his head to the music in the next room and adjusting the too-slim suit pants around his thick thighs. His translucent cup stayed hidden behind a hip until he raised it quickly to his face for another sip of...red wine? Probably Franzia, knowing tonight's crowd, but anything was better than beer. You made a beeline for the one boy with taste at this party, your sole mission now to get wine drunk, sneak some Usher throwbacks on this playlist, and drop it low enough to leave some dude hard on the dance floor. #wastehistime2019, yknow.

"Hey!" You got his attention, grabbing the hand with the cup before he could lower it out of view again. His eyes grew comically wide and his mouth formed an "o" in shock before you demanded "Where is the wine?" and he pressed his lips back into a line, stuttering.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I just brought a bottle because the beer here sucks but I think it's all gone by now, I tried to hide it but yeah anyway you can have the rest of this one if you want though." Wincing at his own ramble, he ruffled the retro pouf of his hair with one hand and proffered the plastic cup in another. Both actions highlighted how pretty his hands were and you were just slightly tipsy enough to thread your fingers over his in the also-pretty black waves falling over his yep-still-just-as-pretty cheekbones.

"Aw, it's okay, I don't want to take your wine. No more liquid courage for me," you grinned, dotting the lightest kiss on his nose. It was an innocent gesture, but as your face naturally lowered so your noses touched, leaving your lips centimeters away from each other, something snapped—in him.

His wine discarded on the table, a hand curled around to clutch your ass and you practically felt his tongue before you felt his lips. Slamming your body abruptly into his, he nudged a thigh between your legs to grind it up on your center and as your arm got caught between your bodies, the tension you sensed filling his frame gave you pause. You pushed him away gently but firmly with the hand already flattened against his rock-solid abs. Looking down at the slight space restored between y'all, you removed his hands from his hair and your ass and laced them in yours to guide him back against the wall.

"I...what was that?" you almost giggled. You definitely weren't trying to laugh at him, but you couldn't hide your surprise at this first potential proof of his fuckboy reputation.

"I'm—" his whole face crumpled, both from the simple sting of your seeming rejection and the possibility that he had broken a boundary or forced himself on you against your wishes, which made him so sick he could barely face you. Squirming under your light hold but not quite resisting, he rambled again: "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to force myself on you or anything, don't worry I would never try anything if you didn't want to, I just figured we might as well get to the point if you did because, uh...when girls touch me like that or even talk to me at these things it's pretty much always just because they...want to."

"Jungkook," you breathed, pulsing your hands over his in reassurance. He squeezed his eyes shut, still distraught, and when they opened, you had craned your neck to meet his averted gaze.

"I never said I didn't want to."

His eyes widened again. "Uh...uh...then..." he trailed off, never having needed to directly proposition a girl like this before. He really had been inexperienced before the rapid escalation of college, and was at a loss for how to get to the good stuff from here via anything more eloquent than a rushed "Wanna fuck?" You shook your head silently, nose grazing his again, and let go of one hand to cup his face with care, like he was something precious you were scared of breaking.

"What? You want to get right to fucking me?" you murmured into his ear. He shivered at hearing you curse for the first time, freed from the constraints of class discussions and closer than he ever guessed you'd get to him. "Is that really what you want? Or is it what you think I do? Because if it's alright, I think I want something better. For you."

You pressed a new kiss to his nose, only slightly stronger than the one that had started all this. He held his breath and his untouched, open mouth trembled as you scattered soft introductions of your lips across his forehead, to his temples, over the scar that sliced his cheekbone. Finally inhaling a skittery heave of your shared air as you passed closer to his lips, he forced it back out in frustration when you ducked away to nudge under his jaw instead. Returning your hand to his hair, you grinned, enjoying the spike in his pulse under your thumb and skipping the tip of your tongue lightly over his neck right up to the earlobe. You lifted the choppy ends of his waves away from the dangly silver hoop they hid, tensing the strands just slightly between your fingers in an inability to hide your glee. Something told you this was going to drive him crazy.

Taking a slight detour to suck his pierced lobe between your lips, you responded to Jungkook’s low moan of surprise by wedging your tongue through the first oversized hole and letting your teeth clatter over multiple rings of metal. He was trying so hard to stay pliant under you, but the tease of slight pain in a new and unusual spot made him want your mouth more, anywhere he could get it. No one had ever spent this much time tracing so few inches of skin.

And so many girls had buried his face in their necks, craving evidence of an encounter with the Jeon Jungkook, that a strange kind of empathy caught him off guard when you showed him how good it could feel to receive. You connected your lips to the hollow right under his ear, feeling the tendons stretch as his head lolled away from you. Working him through a cascade of light gasps, you stepped away satisfied once you had sucked a dark bloom to the surface. He watched you leave with his mouth agape and chest heaving, unable to believe you could just walk away with a wave and a "See you in class!"

But you did, and he would.

"Shit!" he swore, a shaky hand darting straight to the spot. Now he had to keep his hair long for at least another two or three days. If he showed up to discussion on Monday and had to watch you admiring your work on his skin, he would probably just die on the spot. And that would not be very Spike Spiegel of him.

next chapter

[marvellfashion]

are you poc? i guess i don't care since i don't really expect you to answer this ask. here it goes. i'm a poc in fandoms... no. i'm a poc who has read books and comics, and watched tv shows and movies, and has consumed and engaged with fan content for the past 10 years of my life. if you want to tell me to "log off and go outside" i'd like to remind y'all that saying that can be funny in your (and many others) heads but i'd like to remind you of the existance of people like me who spent 10 years inside of their houses for reasons that we don't have to explain to you! and it hurts! sometimes all we have is the things that we have inside. and i wanted to ask you: how do you do it? how do you enjoy comics? or movies? is there any such a thing as critical consumption? i'm not sure if i believe it anymore... my eyes are open to the racism backstage, racism onscreen, how black and non-white characters are treated, misogynoir, sexism, whitewashing, straightwashing, pentagon/us military propaganda, the list is endless. fate the winx saga didn't do anything that we haven't see on the mcu or any other piece of media. and i can't unsee it and i can't unlearn it. (i don't want to.) the white man (he is an adult) who plays the white boy in ms marvel is a trump supporter and now everytime i see his face i feel ranço (a word that's too powerful to have an english translation.) i know he will be woobifiyed. maybe i should be better at separating the actor from the character. maybe i am good at this... and it's actually the guys that who move heavens for a white guy bc he played a character in their favorite disney property. twitter stan fandom power interference or whatever is called is... something that shouldn't be ignored anymore. everywhere i see it. every tv show and movie it's the same shit again. maybe i could find solace in comics but my favourite characters are going through superhell for the past 15 years and i can't find solace anywhere in this fucking website or twitter or the source material. there were no excitement in my life since my childhood ended and the stuff that i used to love now doesn't give me joy and the fandom is either too "i see/hear no evil" and its usually the part where i get the racism and fujoushi weirdos or too "i hate tony stark and i hate and i hate and i hate..." and this side of fandom i thought it would be more open to my endless frustration but now i see myself and there's no excitement in my life and there's no joy and... i'm tired of it. i'm tired of how fandom and media have treated black and non-white people... and i'm tired. how do you do it? how do you enjoy media knowing you're supporting the us military (and know that they're doing bad things to people)? how do you enjoy media knowing that the black witch girl (who is the closest i'll ever get) who is even at some point more popular than the ambiguous white passing character wont get 4 mediocre seasons at netflix even tho she was a better character than kiernans sabrina for more than 7 seasons? i think the trailers were dope... but now that i know things and i spot these things idk what to do. im going through a bad moment that lasted 10 years and my "Confort character" is an awful character bc its whitewashed and the fandom is 100% fragmented and weird compared to the fandoms of other characters. goodbye. i hope u have a nice day/night. i wrote another ask that was better written but i accidently erssed so... sorry

 I wish I could give you an answer that was comforting, but I don’t have it. First I want to tell you that everything that you’ve expressed in this ask is absolutely valid and you are rightfully frustrated.  

The truth is that I think most of us when we open a Marvel comic or watch a Marvel movie ( if it’s through piracy or not) we do it being aware of how problematic they are. there’s no other way around it. I know this answer probably doesn’t answer anything or calm any of your frustrations but it’s an honest one.

 I hope that at least this blog can be a place that can bring you at least one milligram of joy about the fandom in Marvel. and if you want to scream and shout in my ask about how you feel, you can and are absolutely welcome to do all that! 

 I wish you a nice day and night too. 

[whimsically-ominously-auspice]

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A post shared by ABC World News Tonight (@abcworldnewstonight) on Apr 6, 2020 at 12:14pm PDT

The curve flattened I'm told due to evaporation.

Evaporation is allowed to occur when 3 or more people in one house have COVID-19 and give consent to immediate travel to their home place -- some aliens prefer not to call it a planet but it is

So when they are diagnosed they are sent home in NY state including NYC. And so it's made s remarkable difference in numbers.

The evaporation numbers are electronically recorded live in a databank

So dead bodies to dinosaurs and handle that nasty drama or evaporation and hands free and clean.

And as a doctor or nurse, "you are diagnosed with COVID-19. You will have an adventurous future. Please go home and enjoy your ride. Here's two prescriptions to help you on your life's journey"

I mean really. Try a little flavor.

"Bitch you gonna die yo! Here take this pill so you shut the fuck up while you dien' ain't no one wanna hear you yo! And push this down and suck when you be coughin like you dyin cause you will!!" I mean i Don't even care. What are they gonna do? Complain? When? They about to die. In case they do "I explained the medication use and how to and when to and I said the future is different than it is now. And i need a break. Care to join me away from this soon to be home individual?" now its only for now and i really don't recommend you to talk to someone like that except people like me, just wanna punch some fucking ass holes in the face.

Besides some people find that kind of interaction comical and they actually do prefer it to normal doctor talk. Its humbling. Some get upset like Denise.

And i just walked by Uncle Dad and he said to her when she borrowed $2000 from me and lied it was for bills but it was so she could go to Hawaii and she said "just between you and me i borrow this Don't tell dad" and she was talking about it because I walked by and he said "yeah Denise just between you and me You got a bloody broken nose"

Because he wanted me and my daughter to go. And she borrowed almost all my savings and i didn't have enough for 3 plane tickets to Hawaii when she already had $2,000 and 2 paychecks go in and had over $6000 of her own money on the trip after bills paid. So she had $8000...

And i couldn't go. She she got a busted nose. She was until 6 months ago assisted leader of Zulululu on Eaerth.

She insisted that Nathaniel try to initiate sex with me at that time and lost her rulership.

Because in reality she told him to rape me. That's what she fucking did.

Anyway point. If someone talks in a different manner to a COVID than usual. But isn't abusive as i was not abusive in the passage above i expect it to be excused and accepted and discontinued soon. As it is ONLY for COVID-19 activated and not carriers (which will only show up in DNA4U)

A lot of people The most strong people have been invaded by aliens. The strongest.

And we been beat down. Over and over.

I'm gonna pull out the NHRA because some of them kids are real special to me.

32% are human. 92% of the remaining percentage are alien. That's just the drivers.

72% of mechanics are human. 4% of the remaining are alien. (Cause they're fucking lazy -- not just an opinion)

The rest evil humans.

So of 600 drivers... Take 32 times 6 and you got some fucking number i ain't a calculstor but it's about 3x6 is 18 plus in the ones column 2x6 plus Yoir carry.

192 I'm assuming out of 600.

So that totally isn't right. 32% of drivers. 1/3 of 600 is 200

Fuck tree msn noe he says there's 900 drivers. Makes me laugh

So over 300... Why does the calculator say 288??

Why does this not work? 32% oh is not 33.333% it's less than im all thinking 30% is 1/3.

Fuxk math.

I'm sloppy in math. I have good humor about it tho and tree gets a good chuckle at me because I get so dumb about it. I was looking for 35% which is about 315.

See why Yall need 8 hours or more of restful sleep? Denise kept me up all night acting stupid screaming and then Nathaniel woke me up early worried about his livelihood. So i got me like 4 or 5 hours.

So 288 people surrounded by 900 people.

This is often the case then the remaining (i have a calculator here) 612 people try to drag down the 288 i can clearly see that they are outnumbered by over double

So that is a two on one unfair fight. Two not even being allowed to be on the fucking planet!!

And the one alone to stand or ball up to defend is nearly defenseless.

Then in the NHRA to make matters worse the aliens lie and manipulate to get their mechanics behind them.

So i developed a system that the driver team that wants to fight fights as a team and they have to pay real cash money starting at $10,000 that just goes up and up. If they intend to fight a human and Easter Egg occurs and the aliens that put up the bounty to warrior can't fight and must award all cash to the human ran team. Like Erica Enders.

And if she catches you talking shit after the cash award (usually a wire payment) and she will. She racks up fees and fines aka charges. Then she can beat the shit outta the alien team that has to stand there with their hands at their sides or in their pockets after the pockets are cleared by the awarded team and each person gets 5 hits to the face or ribs then the shit talker gets 10 from each team member from the human side.

Since 2013.

Aliens do not belong on Earth. Many of the drivers are the worst offenders of human trafficking which is why They are allowed in the NHRA so we can spy on them and is why rhe mechanics are so many humans.

Because by default humans hate aliens. Its just a distaste we are programmed and then we feel sorry for them for our programmed hate..

It is a very vicious cycle and very painful. Because we can't stand the way they act or dress or the way they're so fucking happy. And its because they lie and hide who they are from us and we feel it.

Thus the distaste

No matter how hard we try to like them and enjoy being with them the hiding and lying over and over of their true identity is terrible.

Queen hid from me her identity and I was all who the fuck are you? Like it wasn't like i would be rammed if i asked.

She said "pardon?"

And i was like oh shit and i got all red... And i was all oh im sorry I should not talk to her like that she's elder and proper! So i said "im sorry ma'am i was Just wondering who you were"

"Well I'm the fucking Queen!!"

I must had looked like a turnip by then all the blood rushing to my face to feed my brain.

"Of who?! What? Where?!"

"Of England" and she folded her hands in her lap on one side and looked all dignified.

Holy fucking shit who would thought?! Not me!

But an alien will lie "I'm just like you but ...." And never dignify themselves to say they are alien. And it is irritating.

When Queens or Kings don't announce themselves its full of mystery and wonder.

When an alien DOES then it's full of mystery and wonder.

When they don't it's absolutely full blown annoying.

Sometimes we can act like children and allow a person to follow us around and copy every move like the other kid doesn't know how to live. But there comes a point even a child will explode in temper.

They just don't fit on our planet!

Even Venus. Neptune and Mars when they transferred to human Because they earned the right by following the rules we still had to tweak their brains and look and so on.

Neptune looked like Ewoks. They were so fucking cute!!! I love Ewoks. I slept with one forever in my bed when i was a kid - a stuffed one from the store.. A fake non living one. I didn't know. I just felt a lot of love.

And i was being really abused by Denise and Nathaniel and i felt really better to,wake up to its cute little face. It was the one thing Denise didn't try to destroy because she knew the truth about them but she sure didn't tell me.

So although I have and the whole human race has a severe dislike and distaste for the alien race I did ensure that their deaths are one I would want for myself. For my children. For the proper Queen of England who can joke around and make my body feed my brain to keep me alive for one more day.

Something kind.

Evaporation is a slight accordion feeling mainly in the chest and then off they go.

So no one intended for Donald Trump to be running his mouth telling people not to listen to me

Simple bronchitis treatment then home to their families to discuss the ability to leave and when and where. And apparently there's a website you can organize yourselves on so you don't go alone.

I have tried every other way and it was unsuccessful.

I'm not destroying my own planet that was a gift because some aliens are fucking rude.

Im just gonna send their asses home as i should have done long ago.

Its not about being bitter or wanting revenge.

Simple fact is they don't belong here and they have their own home and their own Gods.

Its straining for their Gods to switch between their home and here.

Not my creation. Not my responsibility.

Not the nurses nor doctor nor military.

Not the mailmans nor Amazon's.

When yall voted for an American Revolutionary War 76% voted yes. Of the world wide population of nurses and doctors and health cate professionals 81.5% voted yes. Over 81% voted for a Revolution

So i expect no problems from now and the next 13 days.

24% of Y'all were probably aliens. Tree says... 16 and a half % which then leaves probably evil humans. Snd tree says yes.

So 100% of Humans says yes fuck this shit.

So y'all drink your grocery store wine. Have your cheese. Leave me some extra sharp cheddar but get you some too and get your ice cream. Buckle down and take your tests for money to buy all that. Don't pay no rent nor mortgage

We will talk to car loans i expect. Talk to your car loan providers. I don't want no dude towing your car cause he know it's at home and you didn't pay the monthly payment.

So use your DNA4U to pay your car loans and car insurance and get your food..

Don't be paying baggers online. I got a couple I follow here on Tumblr always a medical or food need. Go on the street corner and work for that yo.

They can get same as you to take a test

Get your student loans deferred.

If you have no DNA4U access and you did and you got an email saying why then you're leaving the planet So click the link and make your arrangements to get on your way.