#thread: consequences

[armagnac-army]

Montebello,

I need to meet with you as soon as possible, regardless if the time and place is inconvenient for you.

M. J-B. Bessières

Maréchal d'Empire (retr.)

Duc d'Istrie

(On @your-dandy-king's stationary)

The letter in response:

YEAH SURE COME MEET ME AT MY HEADQUARTERS ITS CURRENTLY ON A GODDAMN FARM CANT MISS IT ONE OF MY MEN WILL MEET YOU

⸻ The Duke of Montebello

He's not happy about this, but he won't straight up refuse.

⸻·⸻·⸻·⸻

When Bessières arrives in the area of the afterlife that Lannes has set up his headquarters in, he will find that it resembles some kind of mixture of sunny Italian landscapes and Polish houses spread out haphazardly, a mashup of memories. A soldier on guard will take Bessières to an encampment around a farm. The camp is somewhat busy, but interestingly, there are women and children around - cantinières and camp followers. It would seem strange that an army comprised of memories and ghosts in the afterlife would require such upkeep, but then again, perhaps these are the memories of such vivandières who travelled with the army, and perhaps reenacting such memories helped sustain the army itself. Lannes will keep Bessières waiting- for thirty minutes- until he emerges from the farm, looking very irritated.

What do you want?!

[storystartsanew]

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions."

[eriexplosion]

Had a shower thought about the whole Plan 99 thing. Specifically that when asked about why the reason is always, "Well they were going into Tarkin's lair and there had to be a consequence." But they never say why it had to be Tech. Why pick your core character that delivers not only most of your exposition but also humor moments, easy writing work arounds, everything?

Well, if I were picking a fake out character death, I would pick Tech immediately. His loss would absolutely be devastating in and out of universe, but he's also specifically the one that thinks his way out of every situation. Establish a high pain tolerance and make it clear just how fast he processes and you're basically set. You have a devastating scene in the moment and a few dozen ways you can take it from there for how he makes it out. You can even damage him enough to take away some of his utility as a character without totally wrecking it because he's both physically and mentally adept, his loss on the field can be devastating without losing his planning skills and exposition.

But if I were planning a real death? Especially in the manner they chose? It would have been Wrecker. Full stop.

He had no narrative threads to tie up, but we see how completely happy he is on Pabu, how great it would have been for him to stay there. He's been our ray of sunshine since the beginning. He bonded with Omega from the start and has always been there for her.

If he fell from the tram car, was left dangling hundreds or thousands of feet in the air, the very mutation that makes him Wrecker would have made him almost impossible to hoist back up in time, no matter how much they tried. The logic is there. The narrative justification is there - he's always been afraid of heights and now he's here with a choice between facing his biggest fear and his family's safety.

He would do it of course. Even if he can't shoot the cable he'd have an explosive on him that could take out the dangling tram car. He would see his own inevitable death from his worst nightmare and he wouldn't hesitate because his family is more important. And when we lost sight of him we would know that it was almost impossible for him to figure out a way to save his own life before he hit the ground. We wouldn't have dozens of ways to reason it out like we do with Tech. It would be immediately and long term narratively devastating without completely hamstringing their best character for getting out of narrative corners and infodumping.

Tech is the perfect fake out pick. But Wrecker? Wrecker would have been the perfect death. And I think they would have known that too. Picking Tech was intentional because he's the only one that could have survived it.

[jsbashirmd]

[[ plotted starter for @lietwice

Garak was hiding something. For a month, he'd entirely disappeared, keeping himself out of sight, for all that he communicated normally through messages of various sorts. Julian was convinced that it was due to an injury he didn’t want to admit to. But now... Now he'd caught a couple glimpses of him looking well enough, but his messages were strained. Maybe he ought not have bothered with a friend so insistent on being secretive, but how could he not, when he knew no one else would?

So Julian made another house call, with the intention of overriding the lock this time if Garak didn't respond. But something saved him the trouble. A child's voice came through the thin wall, followed swiftly by Garak telling them to stop, and then the door slid open, and in front of Julian was a wide-eyed Cardassian boy who was looking up at him with something that looked very much like relief. "Abba!" And then he was being hugged, and then climbed, and he reached automatically to support the child, but he looked at Garak with mild panic as he did.

[theenbyroiderer]

Progress. It's now golf ball size.

[thatonebirdwrites]

I feel like this chapter isn't up to my usual caliber. I usually use more immersive details, but I just have been so ill that editing and cleaning this up for posting has taken up more energy than expected.

One more chapter to end Act 2, and then we're in Act 3.

EXCERPT:

Lena wakes to the scent of coffee brewing. She stretches in bed, not wanting to leave its warmth and the smell of Kara on the pillow she hugged. Humming echoes in harmony with the taps of a spatula and an almost purring noise that undercut it all. Intrigued, Lena slips out of bed, grabs her robe, and walks into Kara’s kitchen. 

Kara stands at the stove making pancakes again, and the purring is definitely from her. It’s not the first time she’s heard the deeper tones in Kara’s humming, but it’s almost like throat singing and yet not at the same time. 

She’s not entirely sure how to ask Kara about it or if it is rude, but she’s curious about their anatomical differences, not just from a scientific standpoint but also because she wants to map those differences with her hands and tongue. Which is a bit too heated a thought for a soon to be busy day.

After a cold shower, she walks into the kitchen, kisses Kara's cheek, and takes Kara’s offered plate. “So what is your plans for today?”

Kara sighs and pours the syrup until her plate is basically pancake soup with syrup as the broth. “Nia and I are checking on our contacts in San Jose Barrio, and we’re trying to get a more accurate number of afflicted. Nia says her roommate isn’t feeling well, and most of her drag friends are also ill. So it’s hitting humans now too.” 

Lena frowns. “It’s spreading faster than we thought. Do you know how many in total affected? I will check the clinics today with Sam, and I'll see if I can drum up a solution with Florence in our lesson.” She uses her portal watch for the hour lesson, timed for eight am so it's two pm for Florence. Just in time to help tend the garden before the magic drills. 

Kara shakes her head. “They don’t trust me yet, so I can't get accurate numbers. Supergirl hasn’t earned back the trust of the alien community, and as Kara Danvers, I’m too close to Supergirl.” She grumbles and takes a large bite of her soupy concoction. Syrup drips off her fork to splatter over the top of the second pancake.

“What if you go as your alien self?” Lena takes a small bite.

“That could expose me?” Kara tilts her head.

“No, I mean.” Lena cuts another piece of her pancake and arranges her thoughts in a more coherent manner. “Kara Danvers is human to them. But a reporter than is an alien? Nia’s half-alien, and they trust her.” 

“But I can’t say I’m alien as Danvers—”

“Hey,” Lena reaches over to gently lay her hand over Kara’s restless fingers, “I understand, okay? That needs to stay a secret. Be strategic on who you talk to, don’t name where exactly you’re from, maybe avoid your last name. I can do a glamour charm to make your face harder to remember.” 

Kara raises her eyebrows. “Huh. Well, that's an idea. Glamour?”

“What Florence calls illusions. She’s having me read an old tome about various magical styles, so I can derive their origins.” She slices into her second pancake with the edge of her fork. “Since, as she put it, ‘Yuh too curious for yer own good. So here, be safe about it.’” Lena mimics the accent with a roll of her eyes. “I’m simply trying to be accurate. There must be rules governing all this.”

“It’s magic, Lena. And can you really do a spell like that?” Kara’s eyes shine with wonder. 

“It can’t be that hard.” Lena wipes her hands on her napkin, stands, and picks up the book from the coffee table. It’s a thick tome with a brown cover with leave etchings on it. She flips through the yellow-stained pages, until she finds the right one. She taps the page. “Ingredients rather simple. Will need to enchant an item near your face. Scarf and hat best. I don’t recommend glasses since you use that for your human self. This needs to be an item you don’t associate with Kara Danvers.” She reads through the incantation, which is a mixture of Irish with the last line in Latin. 

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

IS BARNABY NEUTERED

THE PUPPET??????

[spaciebabie]

Hey mate, why are you attracted to the rabbit man? The green one. What is interesting about him to you? I've been curious (and slightly afraid) for a while and thought I'd ask.

alright tldr; he is a combination of all of my favorite things in media when it comes ta a character. hes a monster, hes a dilf, hes a bunny, hes got a nice voice, hes evil, hes a robot, hes interesting ta me beyond a simp level which really sells it i think (or its the bunny thing i really like bunny characters skjdgkdjgkdf). there's so much you can talk abt with him. theres so much you can do. hes an evil fucked up scientist who loves his kids so much he tries ta reverse death itself ta bring them back. he manages ta die and then bring himself back ta life through pure spite and grit and determination ta "come back". he fucking survives a fire and then assumedly rebuilds himself which under than assumption (even though scraptrap is butt ugly) that would take an incredible level of ingenuity. literally how could i not love him. hes this twisted fucking mutilation of humanity melded with metal. he willingly gave up his humanity ta become this horrible fucking thing and relishes in it. ive seen ppl talk about the trans metaphor and yeah!! that totally applies here too (i hc spring/william afton as trans cough cough). what i really like especially is how he does all these evil fucked up things and feels no remorse about any of it like!! sometimes storylines will try ta make the villain sympathetic but fuck that!! let him be unabashedly evil!! even though i think his motive for killing kids was ta save his own, its still super evil and fucked up that he took those kids from other families in the first place!! and its so cool!! hes repeatedly inflicting the same trauma on other parents he felt himself with no remorse!!!!!! talk about irony!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the story telling with him can be so good!!!

[invested-in-your-future]

Me: Hmm, how would Vale situation develop taking into account what had happened at the end of V3. Do they have access to food? What about land routes to Vacuo if the sea is dangerous? I wonder if Glynda will have responsibility thrust on her shoulders now? How would she feel about everything that happened and Ozpin's fate? Oh I can't wait to see how the world crumbles into chaos now that international communications are down and Vale is a mess and nobody knows who they can trust anymore. Show: What if we uhhh... ignored the place for six volumes and then just magically messed it all up OFFSCREEN LMAO who cares - we should focus on this totally engrossing volume about talking animals in candyland. Me: ヽ(ಠ_ಠ)ノ

[lanternlightss]

loop ….

[yaksha-garden]

@askrossiel | Continued from x

"Hail?" Eden scoffed. "We're hardly up in the mountains, Ros-"

A light but sharp plink on their head interrupted them. Eden blinked, and glanced up and around and what could have fallen on them. Another plink on their shoulder. Their palm opened up, and in fell a little cold crystal.

Well. That certainly looked like the "hail" that Eden thought only formed at high altitudes... at least, that was the case back home. The weather of the northern climates was truly and utterly fucked then.

More began to fall. Eden's shoulder and hands lowered. Instead of running into the shelter their friend so kindly offered, they gazed up at the sky, muttering "Ay bhagavan, the gods really do hate me..."

[ikemenomegas]

Omega!Gojo Satoru x Alpha!Reader

I believe we are fated to do the things we choose anyway*

gege akutami is the kind of mangaka who makes fun of almost all their characters. with utmost affection, gojo deserves to be bullied a bit. we love that he's a little heartless, a little frivolous, that he's powerful as a fact, that he cares a little bit strangely, so doing him a bit of justice, here's the mirror to Getou's youth story

tw: canon character death, spoilers for the manga, gojo's emotional constipation and egotism

Toji Zenin cut so many threads the day he arrived on the Tokyo school grounds, but the one between you and Satoru survived. It's already a miracle that Riko was the only one who died that day. The miracle of surviving should have been enough, but now you've lived long enough to find out how much you could love someone too. You get to see how afraid someone is of loving you. Gojo Satoru had one friend. Gojo Satoru had one mate. That was it, that was all he could let himself have.

Springtime Tokyo is still cold. Not as cold as up north in the mountains, but the winter uniforms are blessedly warm. An assistant manager drops you off at Tokyo Jujutsu Technical School on a milky March morning where you are met by Yaga-sensei, the first year teacher.

This teacher has some kind of idea about building community, which is why he's clustered the four of you first-years in the same building, around a loud blue-eyed boy who barely takes one look at you, squinting around a pair of blackout sunglasses, at your purposeful non-expression, before he is grinning, far too wide and it feels like he gets even louder, movements expansive to pull you into the range of an argument he's having with a tall slim boy with long hair tied at the back of his head.

Yaga-sensei just shakes his head and introduces you to Ieri Shoko, who is physically leaning away from the noise as if to escape some blast radius and has the most distant smile you've ever seen in your life on her face.

It's unsettling is what it is. The dark haired boy is just rolling his eyes at the one who had somehow both dismissed you and pulled you into his orbit. The automatic response is to try and get that attention back, but you have at least a little more self respect than that. You climb the stairs to take a room on the same floor to Shoko-san's and leave them to their snipping. You don't see Gojo fall silent for half a second before carrying on bickering, Yaga now stepping in to separate them.

School hasn't quite started yet. It's a boarding school so everyone is just around, getting the lay of the school, setting up their rooms, exploring Tokyo, running into one another and trying to figure out how their pieces fit together.

Satoru has already sorted you all into neat little piles of adjectives

Polite: the boy with the long dark hair, Getou Suguru, although this doesn't necessarily mean nice he notes gleefully. Self righteous and reactive, as in he can be baited into a no holds barred fight, which is new for him. He hasn't been able to fight someone who could hold their ground for more than a minute since he was thirteen. Subversively irreverent.

Morbid: the shortie with the short hair, Shoko Ieri. She discovered her abilities somewhere and even Satoru has to admit some of the diagrams she pulls up are admirably disgusting. Neutral. Satoru has never met someone else who sticks so close to their own whims before but she isn't like anything he expected, dismissive, meandering, goading. And she can't explain how she does what she does, which is aggravating because he can't do it.

And you, the new one. The last to arrive. Fresh meat. Quiet, wary.

You catch him not following you, but showing up near where you are a little too frequently to feel coincidental while you're making a point to meet the upperclassmen. He adds opportunistic and watchful to the list when he notices you do this, but some of the older students seem to find it vaguely endearing - the clan ones like a small animal they can toss treats, the recruited students who aren't trying to suck up to the clan kids with the cautious familiarity of greeting another outsider.

He tries tossing you a treat, granting you some offhanded attention in the common space of what is now the first years' block. Suguru laughs at him when you mostly look confused and apologetically tell him you've never seen either of the movies he wants to debate before refilling your water bottle and wandering back out onto the school grounds with your umbrella.

School starts regardless with some tentative unspoken agreement between the four of you to try and be friends, or at least classmates. There is after all, no one else to be friends with.

Class is boring, so Satoru watches his classmates. Where Shoko is passive and watchful and Satoru is staring into the air, you're openly attentive and Suguru more casually mirrors your attention. Which makes him want to call you another boring small-town bumpkin

Except you are in the same the advanced mechanics elective he is, and you and Shoko become animated discussing the curse anatomy lectures. Yaga takes you away to practice hand-to-hand with his dolls while he lets Satoru and Suguru pummel each other, which makes him think you must be too fragile to handle the two of them. Most people are, so he doesn't think much on it.

Satoru sometimes goes out alone to train when he can't sleep. He lashes out at the wooden dummies on the practice field, ducking under wooden arms and lashing out to see sections of it spin faster. On one of these nights, a week or two into the first year, he sees you standing outside the track, leaning on a railing, face buried in a thick scarf. He's aware of your vague attention, watching him without any particular interest, like how one might watch water sliding under a bridge, but when he sneaks a glance around the practice dummy, you're just as often more fixated on the sky. The moon is full and you're watching the clouds chase across the deep blue expanse, listening to Gojo Satoru's knuckles impacting on wood. And then at some point, he looks over and you're gone, your weird cursed energy signature fading in the dark.

Satoru only sees your technique the first time a substitute makes you spar with everyone else during training while Yaga is away. Apparently the teacher is someone you know because you get into the first argument he's ever seen before you send a spear flying so fast it hits the center of a target and topples it over.

The same teacher makes you fight Satoru, to already defeated attempts at appalled refusal. He'd usually help you push back just on principle, but he hasn't gotten to go on a mission with you yet and his sometimes oppressive curiosity has settled on whether you actually can keep up with him after all.

You can't, but this is Gojo Satoru at fifteen, not fully realized, and the first time he fights you he amends how he feels about "opportunistic". He flies right at your face and swears he makes contact, but you step back at the last minute and he feels an impending impact from his left that is almost the same strength as his own attack. He tries again and you twist out of the way much faster than he had expected. He tries to throw you and you end up descending slowly to the ground, trying to get the teacher to end the bout. Eventually Satoru overwhelms you and breaks your arm when you try to block too many hits in rapid succession. Shoko fixes it, and you wince with gritted teeth and tears in your eyes but don't cry or sob or glare at him with the kind of face that is calling him names you can't say out loud. The demonstration has him, fortunately or unfortunately, folding you into the energy of your little first year group like you'd been there all along.

He's a shaman clan kid, so it's interesting to see you now as not necessarily opportunistic but curious about the other sorcerers, about other people. What a novelty, to be inconsequentially curious. If he'd been too curious as a child he would be either lectured on responsibility or nearly drowned in related gifts meant to appease his moods

You don't appease his moods and the attention of him, one of the strongest sorcerer of the generation, doesn't appease you.

Satoru tries to bait you and things go right over your head. He tries to disrupt your silent, invisible schedule and you let him drag you away with minimal fussing, especially when Shoko or Suguru is involved, but will wander to the side on outings and either find some accidental trouble or something that makes him a little surprised at the intensity of your focus.

He forces you into a combat-determined wager that demands you stop using honorifics with his name and Suguru's name and Shoko's name (without asking the other two) and there's no way for you to get out of it or win so that forces some artificial closeness that becomes real. Language is very important for creating distance, for creating hierarchy and Satoru somehow isn't interested in a hierarchy between you.

He is however far more self conscious of his omega status than Suguru is. He won't say it, but it's a relief when none of you make a big deal out of it when you find out and also a surprising comfort when you and Shoko who don't have to suffer through the literal additional headache of heats try and make them comfortable

For Satoru this involves distracting him by playing video games with him, watching movies, or tossing balls of paper at him while he tries to stop it with his technique. Mostly he's with Suguru, especially if they sync up, but Satoru doesn't have the same heat symptoms as him. During first year even though he sleeps more than he does as an adult, it's typically less than the rest of you might want. Where Suguru gets tired, Satoru will get cranky and mean because he's bored and feverish and Suguru is too tired to entertain him. His family also was never very comforting during his heats so he knows what to do as far as nesting, but having people around is new for him.

He likes to call and text you if you're on missions during these times, which is typical given his clan's sensitivity to him being around alphas at these times.

So even when you're on campus, you and Shoko only spend a few hours with him at a time. Sometimes you play games and the heat makes him almost slow enough to beat on a DS link game. Sometimes he makes you do his homework. Sometimes he likes to throw throwing things at you to see how you use your technique to deal with it.

He adds "sentimental" to the list of adjectives when he realizes he can so easily pressure you in these times into revealing more of yourself to him than you usually do. He's bored and there's only so many things to talk about before you start telling him about an encounter with one of the rare cats that will tolerate living around the cursed energy of the campus, when you grimace and tell him about a terrible noodle stand in Yamanashi province that you still crave somehow, when you tell him about saving fallen leaves in a heavy dictionary you use for that purpose, or the one time you reveal that you've kept every pair of shoes your parents bought you to wear on the first day of school. You tell him these things and it makes him feel like maybe, someday, he might want to tell you things too.

It's not soft but there's a softness to it. A genuineness in the four of you together, in Satoru's and Suguru's growing strength and self surety. Satoru tries to make himself the center of the world, because it's fact that is where he has been all along. But he's not so easily the center of your world. You didn't come from his world.

Satoru doesn't fall. He doesn't think hard about why it becomes so. He barely thinks about it all. He just knows at some point that you're one of his. You're one of his and he wants you to pay him the attention he' accustomed to as center of the world (except he doesn't maybe. He'll be able to say it one day that what he loved was you treating him like he was as human as he could be)

He's terrible at acknowledging whether this possessiveness is anything in particular. After a sparring session, you watch Shoko patch a cut on Suguru's arm with so much longing and a pang of something worms its way in Satoru's chest. He crowds in next to Suguru before Shoko's done, draping over Suguru's shoulders. You don't see the way Satoru's eyes flicker from Shoko's steady hands to your wide-eyed gaze.

He's jealous the way a child is jealous of a favorite toy, hooking his arm around your neck if any omegas outside of school talk to you in the street. If you brush him off when he's trying to use you as a tool for self-affirmation, he sulks around until you acknowledge him in some other way and he will not admit to a single soul why it matters. When he's forced to go home for holidays like oban and returns in a terrible pique, you may fight with him if he lashes out in the worst, most personal ways. You push back and talk to instead of around him or through him and you also don't realize that is why he backs off.

He realizes slowly that he has to be careful with you. He forgets sometimes that you're more fragile that Suguru, that you need help Shoko doesn't need. On what you call the "worst school trip in existence" and Shoko calls "lucky we didn't all die" and Suguru smiles and calls "well we all made it out in the end", even Satoru got injured, yet he feels invincible, like he caught a bullet and threw it back.

When Toji nearly kills him and everyone he ever cared about, he awakens with the power to keep it from happening ever again. He thinks he can carry the world for all of you, for everyone, reveling in his power. He doesn't realize that his presence, the gravity well he made in the monster class's lives, doesn't exist the same way while he's not there because he has a tendency to think everything will be easy for him to fit back into when he returns, or not to think on the fact things could change at all.

Then Suguru leaves and the center of Satoru's world, his reference point, collapses

You're there in Shinjuku the day it happens. It's getting cold again. You're there to meet Shoko. Suguru has gone missing, Satoru is... away. Again. Still. He's been absent whenever he is around anyway. The jujutsu world doesn't have the resources to devote to hunting curse users in particular so the effort to find Suguru has been halfhearted at best and even if he's on your minds, you have jobs to do still.

You're there in Shinjuku and when you don't find the person you're looking for, you find someone else, It shouldn't happen, but it does. You run into Satoru, mind reeling at Suguru's betrayal. You nearly don't see him and he nearly doesn't see you except he sees everything and he's been walking around the district like a ghost.

He appears like a ghost too, tall and pale and ridiculous eyes. You'd tried to see if the world reflected in them once, but now it's more obvious to you than ever that it's just him, nothing more and nothing less.

"Let's go back," he says, and for the first time in months, you return to the college, side by side on the train, feeling like there should be more people in the near-empty car. You get as far as you can before you get to a station that's closed where you can no longer transfer and then you get out and walk in silence.

You walk like there's another person jostling for space between you. When you get to the school, Shoko meets you at the red tori gates. When you get to the mostly empty dormitory building, now a little emptier, Satoru looks at you. And looks and looks and looks. This time, he feels like you might disappear in the pre-dawn light casting your faces in blue.

Maybe it's because he's already lost one precious thing long before he noticed it was gone that he grips your shoulders tight, so tight you almost wince, but turn into it instead, tilting your head as though, were you less careful people, you might brush your cheek against his hand. Just for a little bit of comfort, for a little familiarity.

Then Shoko makes a noise at the top of the stairs, the scuff of her foot, the tap of her palm on the banister. What a terrible day it must be if Shoko is interfering. And you step away.

Satoru doesn't go to bed. For the first time in his life he feels like he doesn't know who he is. He watches your light come on and then go off. He doesn't see you stand at the mouth of the hall leading to Suguru's room with a blanket around your shoulders until eventually you turn away and fall asleep on one of the common room couches, near to where a year of his body in the same spot had left an indent. He doesn't think about the world where you aren't here, where he never sees you again, because he can't quite fathom it.

Because even when he was gone, he never felt like he had let any of you go

It makes him feel sick to his stomach, the closeness of someone else, but it feels worse to push you away so you sit shoulder to shoulder with him some time in the morning. He pretends not to see the new dark shadows in your eyes. You sit and watch the mist burn off and pretend his warmth can hide how the world is a little colder.

*I didn't fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we'd choose anyway. And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you ― Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars

[nightmaretist]

TIMING: Current PARTIES: Vic @natusvincere & Inge @nightmaretist LOCATION: Masque of the Red Eye SUMMARY: Two immortals cross paths again and speak of current events, among which mostly daughters. CONTENT WARNINGS: Child death.

The meeting at the Good Neighbors had ended early.  There had been a tenseness in the air that Vic couldn’t quite place, but, being a new member, she figured it wasn’t her place to question it.  People in Wicked’s Rest were odd, and the do-gooder Good Neighbors must not have been any different.  Regardless, Rosie was asleep at home with the nanny who had already been pre-paid, so Vic took it upon herself to saunter over to the Masque of the Red Eye, a place she had hadn’t ventured to since her days of betraying vampires.  It might have been stupid to come back to the Masque- there was probably an unknown number of friends of those she’d betrayed, waiting to enact their revenge.  But Vic, ever stubborn and ever so determined, was desperate to make amends in any way she could, even if the mere thought left a pang of anxiety in her stomach that felt too deep to quell.

300 years of hatred was hard to overcome in just 3.

A familiar face from across the way interrupted her nerves almost the moment she walked in, filling her with a strange sense of familiarity.  It was a face she hadn’t seen in years, not besides about six months when she swore she jogged past her in the park.  But Vic was always seeing flashes of faces she once knew in strangers, so she barely gave it a second thought.  “Inge?”, she called out, feeling uncharacteristically brave as she approached the other.  There was always something comforting about the other woman, even if they had only passed through each other’s social circles once or twice in the past few decades. Vic couldn’t even remember first meeting her, only that it was at an art museum in god knows where  “It’s uh… Vic.  Um, Victoria, maybe.  I can’t remember which name I gave you.”  She gestured to the seat beside Inge, wondering if it was okay to sit down.  “Since when do you spend your time in a seedy town like Wicked’s Rest?”  This would turn out to be utterly humiliating if Inge didn’t remember her, and Vic was already turning red at the thought of it.  

—

It was an embarrassing thing to her, to feel unsafe. Inge didn’t tend to let herself feel unsafe — she tended to run, to turn on her heel and go to a different place where there would be no room for such a feeling. And yet, she was still here, in this town where a man had threatened to scoop out her insides, where a ghost had made the earth split, where the sky trembled and something else horrible was bound to happen any  second. She found it hard to explain to herself why she stayed – it certainly wasn’t for her job (though she did enjoy that). Maybe it was because her art was better than it had been in years, the town like a never-ending muse. Or maybe it was because of something more embarrassing than feeling unsafe — because she found herself tied to the people inhabiting this space.

Regardless, the feeling of being unsafe persisted, and so she stuck to the places she felt safest in. The corners where the undead gathered. The astral, her studio, her home, the casino. Masque was another on the list, a nice place to grade papers and sip her coffee and feel like she was surrounded by her own kind. And she was doing a good job at focusing on said papers (something that she’d been struggling with due to the aforementioned causes of dismay), at least until her name was called. She looked up, pen floating above the page in mid-action. (She printed out the papers — she’d never gotten the hand of grading digitally.) “Vic,” she said, eyes widening with surprise. “Hi!” Inge got up, placing the paper on the tiny table and giving the other a quick embrace. “Come, come, sit.” She laughed. “Since when do you?” She sat down, wondering how to explain the magnetism of this horrid town. “I guess there’s something inspiring about a place like this to the likes of me, hm? I teach here, too. It’s nice.” It was the first time she’d been employed in at least a decade. “Tell me, how’ve you been?”

—

Vic was not used to the feeling of being embraced.   Not by arms that weren’t child-sized, anyway.  And not since…  Well, not since a lot of things, she supposed.  She tried not to let her body harden at the act, fighting past every instinct that told her to fight affection for the last 300 years instead of relaxing into it.  It was over before she knew it, and Inge didn’t seem to notice her aversion, and Vic herself was embarrassed that her mind was making such a big deal of a little hug.  She really needed to get a grip.

She sat as requested, again comforted by the magnetism that Inge seemed to hold.  “Oh, I’ve been here for around 13 years, actually.  Not at the Masque, of course.  But living in town.  I didn’t get out much until around three years ago, though.  And who can blame me?”, she asked, trying to make a joke of the town’s reputation in an attempt to quell any questions Inge might have about what she had been doing while so recluse.  What would Inge think of her if she knew how many people she had betrayed?  “Teaching!”, she said with surprise, her eyes traveling down to the papers scattered around the table.  Clearly, she had interrupted some hard work.  “That’s a reputable job if I’ve ever heard of one.  Are you teaching children?”

Vic thoughts flashed to Rosie, wondering what type of student she might be as she grew older.  A confident one, surely, but well-behaved and demure.  Inge would certainly be a wonderful teacher for her.  “I’ve been… well, better lately than I had been in a while, if I’m being honest.  I’m living over in Deer Springs in this beautiful home I’m restoring, and I have a small business going painting storefront windows.  It’s not much, of course, nor is it incredibly mature, but I find myself quite enjoying it.”  She smiled at the thought, remembering the adorable yellow minion men she’d painted out in front of a bookstore just last week.  The owner had seemed shocked at her choice of character, but she would come to see the vision of it soon, Vic was sure.

“What about you, Inge?  How has life been treating you as of late?”

—

Thirteen years, Vic said she’d been here for thirteen years. Inge found it impossible to imagine. Where had she been, thirteen years ago? Somewhere in Europe, gorging on people’s dreams and struck with grief, that must have been it. She had flown back to America something over a decade ago, but she’d flit around plenty of states even then. To stay in one place for that long – especially a place like this – she found inconceivable.

But then Vic had said she’d been inside for a lot of it. She didn’t know why, but she could imagine. She found herself avoiding the streets too, especially after her latest encounter with Emilio. She had the luxury of astral projecting, though, and still going out even without walking around an awful lot. “No one can,” she said definitively, not particularly interested in asking why Vic had stayed in all those years. “It tends to either smell horrid here or there’s puddles or goo, or all at ones.” 

She smiled a little at the other’s reverence for her career of choice. “It’s nice, I never thought I’d enjoy it. And yes, in a way — college. They don’t think they’re kids any more but they certainly are.”

Inge took a sip from her coffee, wondering how she’d never encountered Vic in all the years she had been here. Different circles, perhaps. If only she could avoid certain types like that. “I live in the same neighborhood — it’s nice there, isn’t it? Painting storefronts … that’s wonderful!” Certainly not the kind of creative expression she preferred, but she couldn’t judge too harshly if someone was picking up a paintbrush. “I’d love to see some of it. And you would be welcome in my studio, if you want to change it up.” 

The question about her life seemed a little futile. She’d told Vic, hadn’t she? She was a teacher. “Oh, you know — I’ve been between towns a lot the past few years. Was in New York before this, so this is quite the change of pace. But I don’t mind it. I never thought I’d return to a small town.”

—

Vic felt herself smiling, relieved that chatter with an old acquaintance seemed to be feeling more natural than not.  There was so much about Vic and her past that Inge was never told- especially about who Vic truly was and what she was doing to those like her until Rosie came into the picture.  The two of them had always seemed to dance around their shared status as undead (at least Vic assumed, due to her lack of a heartbeat) … (maybe it was rude to assume).  This mostly happened on Vic’s end, as it did with all the undead she ended up having a fondness for, so she could ignore the repercussions of longing for friendship with someone who was a monster just like her.  But now that she was done betraying vampires and hating those who had the unfortunate circumstance to be like her… perhaps the two of them would have a chance to delve more into each other.  “Or, the people are just horrid in general.  Stinky or not.  Sometimes I find myself avoiding them altogether”.

Vic would deny she was desperate for adult interaction.  She loved Ms. Rachel, and those yellow minion men, and the cute little cartoon girl who sang the phonics song on youtube.  And Rosie was enough interaction- she was all Vic needed, especially now that her vocabulary was thriving in both English and Swedish.  But she would have been lying if she said she didn’t intentionally pick fights with her nasty neighbor Tracy or the mailman who kept delivering packages to the wrong house, just to have a meaningful interaction with someone who could drive.  Maybe a real friend might do her some good.

“I don’t think I’d have the patience for teaching”, she said earnestly.  She never thought she’d have the patience for motherhood, either.  Maybe another 10 years in Wicked’s Rest would soften her up even more.  She shook her head at the thought of Inge seeing her ‘professional work’, almost regretting telling her.  “It’s nothing incredible, if I’m being frank.  Just cartoons, mostly inspired by my daughter.”  Her elephant in the room, the one Inge wouldn’t have even realized existed, blurted out faster than Vic had expected it too.  She picked an imaginary piece of dust off her pants after the pseudo-admission, pressing her lips together.  

Would Inge be ashamed of her?  Would she think it odd that someone like her suddenly had a child?  Should she have kept it private?  Vic couldn’t change the subject fast enough, it felt like the entire building were looking her way.  “You know, in all my years traveling around, I never ended up in New York city.  I was in Boston two separate times.  But never New York.  Did you enjoy yourself there?”

—

It seemed for a moment as something in the air paused. As if a collective breath was held, as if the invisible flow of air halted. Vic said something incredulous. My daughter. Inge blinked her eyes at her, this woman who had not aged a day since the last time she had seen her. A face unmarred by the signs of aging, not a gray hair growing from her head. A woman who was frozen in time just like her, and she had a child. 

So there were two horrifying options — either the child was like them and would not age, which would be a small mercy for Vic but otherwise something so unethical it made Inge squirm as well. And then there was the other option, the one that made her unbeating heart skip a beat. Vic was the mother to a human child, one way or another, and that child would age and age and age, and in four or five decades time look older than her mother. Vera’s hair had not gone gray at the end, but there had been a few random silver hairs among the brown. Vera —

She closed her mind off for memories of her own daughter, of the hospital, of the end. She looked at Vic, disregarding most of the other things she’d said. “A daughter? Since when — how old is she?” She wanted to leave. She didn’t want to speak of the dead. There was probably a whole slew of dead people between herself and Vic, considering the nature of their unlives. “How – Is she like us?” This was said in a lower tone and with a level of shame, a level of quietness. Inge didn’t feed off children. She had, a few times, but they were too easy to scare. If she were a vampire she wouldn’t even consider it, but there were some out there that might.

She reached for a coffee like it was an anchor. “You – You should go to New York, sometime. It’s great. The museums are wonderful, and every child should visit good museums — everyone, actually, regardless of age.”

—

Vic tried to look down at the table, to occupy herself with anything other than the emotions that were processing on Inge’s face.  If the situation had been reversed, she wasn’t sure how she would have reacted.  There was something unspoken between them- they always seemed to dance around the fact that the other was undead, the Vic of the past never wanting to sit on the subject too long just incase Inge turned out to be a vampire, too (it was why she shouldn’t have been making friends).  And she knew that unspoken secret was exactly what had caused Inge’s questioning look now.  The silence between them was palpable, and Vic practically had to hold herself to the chair to stop from running away.

“She just turned three”, she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.  She wondered if Inge would put together her earlier words, or if they had seemed as throw-away as Vic had tried to make them sound at the time.  I didn’t get out much until around three years ago, though.  At the thought that Rosie could be anything like them, Vic moved back in her seat, clutching her chest in surprise.  Her face morphed into one of distress before she answered.  “She’s, no…no.  She’s nothing like me… like us.  She’s perfect.  She’s… she’s human.”  After she was sired, Vic was told horror stories of children turned, and the thought, now more so than ever, made her stomach turn.  If being turned as an adult felt like torture, she couldn’t imagine the anguish and despair that must have come with eternal childhood.  

Three years had already gone by in a blink.  She couldn’t bring herself to think what their lives would look like in 30… or 60… or 100.  

“She’s perfect”, she said again, as if to reiterate.  Vic truly believed she was.  “And I would never… I won’t… nothing like that will ever happen to her, Inge.  I won’t let it.”  She felt she should explain more, but she didn’t know how.  When she thought back to her first night with Rosie, it still didn’t make sense why she was picked.  “Her parents were slayers.  Friends of mine”.  She tugged at her cloaking bracelet, unsure if Rosie’s birth parents ever actually knew the truth.  “They had betrayed someone, or something…there was a bounty on their heads, and their families had already been killed…there was no one else.”  Vic hated herself for the times she felt grateful that there had been no one else.  She couldn’t look at Inge, not after all the revelations.

“I haven’t been to New York in… decades”, she admitted, clearing her throat of the emotion that threatened to rest there.  “Rosie loves museums.  Maybe we should travel there on a small vacation.”  

—

Vera had been three once — just as she had been four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, thirty-six. Inge thought back to that blur of the early years of childhood, the years before her transformation, the years she sometimes, very quietly and very guiltily, yearned for in a way she’d lost. She tried to blink the memories from her head, those thoughts of a toddler that had her eyes moving around the world while her mother’s eyes were growing more and more sunken, less and less similar. She tried to imagine Vic with her human child, her perfect human child, who would look older than her in a couple of decades and then die before Vic would.

Her coffee wasn’t strong enough and severely lacking in a shot of whiskey, and yet she clung to it, taking another sip. “A great age,” she said, because that was what people said in situations like these. She wasn’t sure what to say or do besides that, though, as there was no etiquette when it came to undead parenthood. Vic spoke about their natures as if it was something ugly and perhaps it was, if you thought about imposing it on your child. And how could she judge? Inge had never even thought changing Vera into something undying to save her from her coming death. She would have hated it. So no matter how much she thought herself and other undead better than human, some sort of upgrade, she understood not wanting to give it to ones own child.

But — the child would have to die. Rosie – she had a name – would die if she wasn’t turned and Inge wanted to warn Vic of it, this sword of Damocles hanging over her neck. And Vic kept talking, kept making it worse. The child was the result of two slayers procreating and was now hers. She kept drinking her coffee, the bitterness not bitter enough, her throat speechless.

She had to say something, though. “She’s … she’s … well, you won’t raise her as a slayer at the very least, right?” How could Rosie be perfect if she were to be a slayer? How could Inge condemn a toddler for something she couldn’t control? Why was Vic someone slayers trusted enough to give their child to? “I am happy – yes, Vic, I’m happy for you. It can be a wonderful thing— magical, motherhood. I do … well, I wonder. But as long as you’re happy. And I think…” She placed her saucer down. “For what it’s worth, you seem like a gentle parent.” 

It was easier to talk of New York, even if it was in context of the child. “You should go, then. The natural history museum will probably also be fun for her, hm?”

—

Vic pressed her lips together and nodded, because she didn’t know what else to say.  Or to do, for that matter.  This conversation was bringing up far too many ‘what-ifs’ that Vic spent her time ignoring because they were too horrifying to think about.  Now, under Inge’s unsure gaze, they raced to the forefront of her mind.  As Rosie grew older, as she grew to understand what the world around her and what she was, there was an inevitable consequence hanging in the air, one that sucked the air from Vic’s lungs and forced her back to feelings she’d been attempting to bury away for 300 years.  Surely their diametrically opposed natures would one day be the downfall of their relationship.  She couldn’t hide who she was from Rosie, not anymore than she could force her to deny who she was-... but what did that mean for their future?  Ever stubborn, Vic made it seem that there wasn’t a problem.  Only a slight twitch in her brow might have implied otherwise, to someone paying close attention.

“I can’t very well deny her of her nature, Inge.  That would be…unethical.  It would be wrong.  And it would leave her questioning things that she shouldn’t have to worry about.”  She tucked a hair behind her ear and blinked, willing the tears that threatened not to fill her eyes.  “I have my ways of… hiding myself from those that threaten me.  I’ll find someone to teach her what she needs to know, but I’ll teach her about the rest of the world, too.  It doesn’t need to be as black and white as you’re implying it’ll be.”  But it would be, wouldn’t it?  Letting Rosie learn about hunting and slayers… about the truth of the monstrosity of what she was, it would be the beginning of the end.  

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been much happier”, she replied quietly, knowing that alone was where her juxtaposition stemmed from.  Still, she found herself chuckling at Inge’s next comment.  She wasn’t sure anyone had ever referred to her as ‘gentle’.  “You speak of motherhood like you know something about it”, she commented, letting her unasked question fill the space around them.  

“I assumed it would be, yes.”   There was a far-off look in her eyes as Vic wondered just what a trip to New York might look like.  Rosie had never left Wicked’s Rest before.  “And the art museum, too.  She’s quite taken with art, as of late.  This week, anyway.  Perhaps next week she’ll be interested in horses again.”  

—

What a strange reunion this was. Inge had experienced plenty of reunions in her time (that was how an undead life went – lots of coming and going of relations) but none were quite so tense so fast. She wanted to be nothing but happy for Vic, but she spoke of the ethics of keeping a child from being a slayer. As if it wasn’t a gift to not indoctrinate them into indiscriminate murder. And who was she, to judge a mother on how she was raising a child? Vera had been gone before she was dead, the wedge that had grown between mother and daughter a constantly evolving thing until finally they had been definitively severed.

“Her nature? Do you suggest it is nature and not nurture that makes slayers go after us?” She tried to keep her tone to a lower volume but she felt a wave of indignation pass through her. “Maybe you shouldn’t leave her in ignorance, but come now — another slayer? We’ve plenty.” But it had been slayers who’d given Vic the child, so maybe there was more that. She bristled at the notion that it wasn’t as black and white, “Slayers never consider shades of gray in my experience, either. But — I do trust … your judgment.” Did she? How well did she really know Vic?

She wanted it to be so simple, to be happy for a friend who found happiness in motherhood. But Inge was bitter and ruined and felt like she’d flayed herself in front of the other. Did she wear it on her sleeve so obviously, then? Leila had pricked through it too. “I do. Did. It’s in the past now.” She didn’t want to talk of it, of children that grew older than their mothers and died before them. 

“Good,” she said, “A child interested in art is a promising one. But the changing interests…” She did remember that, too. Vera had been a girl of many passions. “It’d be nice, to go. I’m sure.”

—

Vic picked at the tablecloth beneath her fingernails, feeling a small spot unravel as she dug into the fabric.  She didn’t know what to say, because she felt at an impasse. She respected Inge a great deal, but it seemed like her opinion on this matter would do more to upset her than anything.  “I suggest that hunters have senses, abilities, and culture.  Culture which includes protecting the secret of supernatural existence, not just eliminating it.  Do you suggest I should have her ignore these senses, instead?”  There were plenty of hunters who weren’t killing machines, Vic knew this first hand.  A decade ago she would have called them weak.  

If truth were to be told, she didn’t know what the best route was when it came to Rosie being a slayer.  She did not ask for her parents to die, nor did she ask to be raised by the very creature that she was born to kill.  “I will sit in on her training.  I will not allow anyone to traumatize her.  But it will be up to her to decide who she wants to be in life.”  Which meant one day Rosie might hate her, or… or worse.  A kind of worse she wouldn’t let herself imagine.  

She felt the urge to reach forward and squeeze Inge’s hand, wondering how much more of the story there was here.  There really had been not much substance to their relationship in the past, but now, it felt like everything was tumbling out. “I’m sorry.  For whoever you might have lost.”  She looked down at her watch, noting that time was passing faster than she had expected it to.  

“I didn’t realize it had gotten so late”, she muttered, worried that this might be the end and that their friendship would never spark.  “I don’t want you to…You should know that I’ve thought about this situation long and hard, Inge.  I’m just trying to do right by her.  Because she deserves it, more than anyone.”

—

“You can protect the secrecy of the supernatural without calling yourself a hunter. It is in the name, Vic. They hunt. Their existence is built on murder,” Inge said icily. To her, it was different from the predatory existence of the undead — they needed to prey on others in other to survive, could not live without nightmares, blood or flesh. Hunters didn’t need to maim, chase and murder in order to breathe their mortal breaths, though. “I don’t — you can raise her aware of her senses, of what she comes from but why would you rear her to be that?”

The scars on her body would have throbbed dully if there was any blood in her system, so in stead there was a mental itch. She was overstepping, she knew. It was bad praxis to criticize a mother, but it was easy to do from the side. She swallowed. “It’s — I’m sure you’ll do well by her.” Just do right by our kind too, she wanted to add. 

She felt exhausted, which was a strange thing to feel as a creature of the night who didn’t need sleep. Memories of Vera were sharp, however, as was the knowledge that Vic would watch her child grow old and die. She wanted to say that the undead were not supposed to have children, that such a thing was reserved for the living — but what good would it do? Inge had been a human when Vera had been born. Vic had happened upon a child. Life happened and more importantly, death did. “Me too,” she said, voice somewhat small. She swallowed her warnings. Grieving someone who wasn’t dead yet wasn’t something she wanted to make Vic do.

She frowned at the comment, “I suppose it did,” she said. “I — I know.” At least, she figured she did. She felt bitter and ugly, like a pessimist and a bad friend. If Vic and her were still friends, or could rekindle it now. “I didn’t – don’t mean to be harsh. If you’d like, maybe we can … She can come to my studio with you, if you’d like. We could see each other again.” 

—

“It’s not up to you or me what she chooses to call herself. It’s up to her guardian to give her all the information possible, to nurture and guide until she’s old enough to decide for herself.  Until then, she’ll be raised as she would have had tragedy not befallen her family.”  It was enough that Rosie was ripped from someone who would have a natural maternal bond with her, worse that she’d been given to someone she was born to kill.  Vic didn’t often think about this, because the consequences of raising her how nature intended were innumerable.  Thinking about it only made her second guess her choices.  In an effort to quell the tension, Vic hadn’t been holding eye contact with Inge, but her companion’s comment about murder changed that.  “And how is that any different from our existence?”, she asked sharply and defensively, staring daggers into Inge.  

But there was the catch 22.  It was the problem with her whole change of heart.  How could she still find value in what hunters did while befriending vampires and trying to rescue them?  How could she ethically raise a daughter while teaching her it was okay to kill her mother’s friends, just for existing? Conversations like this brought too much to light- it was too hard to question how things were going when she was already so unsure of their outcome.

But there, again, was a spark of kindness from Inge.  A permission, even, to make the choices she thought was best.  She didn’t know if she would have granted someone else that grace had the situation been reversed.  Vic sat back in her chair, letting out a low breath.  

“I think she’d like that”, Vic said, although her voice was smaller than earlier.  Her eyebrows were furrowed in contemplation, like they so often were.  “I think she’d like to meet you, too.”  She stood up, pulling her bag over her shoulder with a shaky breath.  Reaching in, she pulled out a business card with her phone number and business instagram plastered in bright, bold letters.  “Will you send me your information?  We can set up a time to make this all happen.”  Inge would meet Rosie, Vic was sure, and understand how important raising her was.  She’d understand that no one could mother her without putting meticulous thought into every decision that was made about her life.  She’d understand, and give Vic her blessing, and then Vic could stop worrying that she was making a huge mistake.  

[jsbashirmd]

@lietwice sent:

⌚️ ( okay consider julian who has been married to garak for like 10 years on cardassia, getting the chance to talk to early ds9 garak. or, alternatively, obsidian order garak meeting ds9 julian or married cardassia julian )

When Julian awoke, he was immediately aware that he wasn't in his home. It smelled different, to start, and though the walls were in the correct places, it was decorated differently. It was also overpoweringly, suffocatingly hot. He looked first for his communication device, then for his husband and children, and when he found no sign of either, he quickly and quietly exited the unfamiliar home to widen his search. It took a matter of hours for him to discover that this was his home, but it wasn't his time. Then, his entire focus changed--his whole mission became to find his husband, whether or not Garak was his yet, and he tried not to think too hard about just why he was doing that.

It took weeks. Nearly two months, though that was partially because Garak was off-world for much of that time, but as soon as he caught sight of him, tending, carefully to his little garden of orchids, Julian was finally able to relax. He shouldn't upset the timeline, he realized. He'd seen him and he was safe and as he should be at this time, and thus reassured, Julian should just live as unobtrusively as possible while he tried to get back to his own time. But he couldn't help but linger, just for a while, and unfortunately for him and his good intentions, Garak was not content to be watched, especially by a stranger.

"Oh!" he exclaimed quietly, as soon as their eyes met. He cursed, then spread his hands to show he was unarmed, then made no other movements. "Hello. Not that it's likely to help or to convince you, but I promise I'm not an enemy operative here to spy on you."

[nicomoon69]

spoiler alert but the nilou redesign I started impulsively is making me lose the will to live bc I have to draw fabric details and if there’s one thing I hate drawing its fabric and clothes 😭😭

[definitelynotshouting]

(About hunger au) Thinking about the gift fic Divergency you got from Raichett and rotating how it meshes with the current story

Thinking about how Grian could be doing this at least a little due to the guilt he has from being born the way he was

He didn't have a choice but to kill and cause pain when he was born and now he's using his control over his life to cause pain to himself and die. Oughhh

Raichett's fic is so near and dear to my heart, i'll never get over how incredible it was to receive that. Frankly, its canon to me-- that is exactly how it went for poor Grian. And the circumstances around his birth as a Watcher were so objectively tragic... i think the guilt honest to gods just eats him up inside. In his head he's sorta mentally separated them into the Good (past) Grian and then Himself (aka the Bad Grian), and now he just feels this constant weight about killing that original version of him. I think what he's doing now definitely has that desperate bid to atone in it, and not just for hurting his friends, but for killing Player!Grian as well.

Its genuinely heartbreaking tbh, like i know im the one doing this to him but i feel for him so badly about this in particular, because its such a horrible thing to be convinced you're a monster for something you had literally no control over at birth