#treating him poorly and how it got worse now that he had more power over him like again he harasses Anya still but noticed he takes out most

[dykedvonte]

love seeing your takes on mouthwashing and how sane they are. everything's so black or white. I like how you acknowledge curlys abuse under jimmy (which I honestly didn't quite notice when I first watched a playthrough. should rewatch w this in mind) and how that very much doesn't "forgive" his inaction towards Anya and Her abuse under jimmy. I think what happens to him despite all his issues (bc he clearly wasn't OK 😊✌🏼) is very much karmic. I really did hurt huh

I hate the take that what happened to him is karmic as becoming disabled and being tortured is like not in any way an equal consequence for not taking more action against Jimmy. It is a consequence as is the whole game for everyone but it’s one that is very much established as being undeserved and extreme as everyone else’s but Jimmy’s fate.

Thank you for liking my takes but I also try to point out that this exact sort of framing of the events and what happened to Curly is bad especially if you are gonna factor in his own abuse into the equation of his inaction/ineffective acts. It’s like “saying yeah he deserved the abuse he was already going through to escalate because he didn’t do enough” which is like not a message the game tries to deliver at all. It’s like the game shows that abusers escalate

Karma and punishment are not concepts that I think should be directly tied to Curly’s fate especially since during the game and even in discussion he takes on too many consequences of someone else’s actions. Like this framing is the direct thing I describe taking the discussion away from Jimmy, P.E and the factors that created the environment in the first place.

[fernandopiastri28]

strawberry wine ~ mw2 x fa14

“Strawberry wine, and all the time we used to have. Those things I miss, but know are never coming back.”

prompts: - refusing reconciliation because they're still deeply hurt - being the other's 'right person, wrong time' - remember when they were able to keep the promises they made? *I reworded Mark's exact quote from “By silverstone i'd concluded, another year with red bull and that'll be it. Fernando did all he could to change my mind but it was too late” to “By silverstone i'd concluded, it would be my last year with red bull and that'll be it. Fernando did all he could to change my mind but it was too late”, as I've made it all that this happens over the course of 2013*

no warnings

2013- China, April

“I just don’t know Fernando, I’m not quite sure that Ferrari is right for me,” It seems not matter how much convincing and pleading he attempts, Mark isn’t seeming any more keen on switching to the scuderia then he had been at the beginning of the phone call when he’d rung his longtime friend, voicing concerns about the possibility of him changing teams.

“Give it a try Mark,” Mah-k , in all their years of friendship, one thing he picked up from him was the exact way the Australian pronounced his own name, the r translating to a h. Feh-nando , not fe-r-nando. 

The older man lets out a strangled sigh, slightly exasperated and seemingly at a loss for words. “I- I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” He admits, a quiet click of his tongue signalling the end of his sentence.

“Why not?” He can’t understand the resistance to at least try . Driving for Ferrari at a point during your career essentially cements your legacy in formula one. All the greats have done it- Schumacher, Villeneuve, Surtees, Ascari, Lauda- now himself. 

Mark should be added to that list. Webber should sit right after Alonso on the list.

“Because who’s to say I’ll do anything remotely remarkable at a new team? I could completely bomb out the second I step in the car. The devil I know is better than the devil I don’t,” Alonso didn’t realise when his friend had become this complete pessimist- the kind of guy who didn’t even consider trying. 

“That’s not a world champion’s mindset,” They both know he’s true. As a two time world champion himself, Fernando does have some kind of power over the other to say so- he knows first hand what it takes to be the best. “Red Bull isn’t doing you any favours, so really- how much worse could Ferrari possibly be?”

The Australian hasn’t had the best run being at Red Bull. To say he’d been bad would be an outrageous claim, and objectively untrue, but the Spaniard just knows he’s destined for better. He’s deserving of a world championship, and as long as he’s a second driver to vettel, he simply doesn’t have the car or the possibility to achieve one. 

“Seb is winning the championship currently, in a red bull- that’s gotta count for something,” Fernando rolls his eyes at the mention of the young german. If he’s the reason that Mark is so resistant to leave, Fernando would happily beat some wits into him, get him onto his side in convincing the Australian to leave the team that disregards him and treats him so poorly.

“And I’m second, what is your point?” Ah perfect, he’s got him there. When he doesn’t answer, he adds on, “Just, you’ll consider?” The question is met by a short exhale from Mark, shaking over the phone call. Picking at a piece of flint that’s attached itself to his fire engine red team polo, he patiently waits for Webber to cave and agree to it.

“Yes Nando,” His voice has a sense of faith and possible hope, “I’ll consider it for you,” It’s not a ‘ I’ll sign the contract now,’  

2013- Britain, June

WEBBER TAKES RAIKKONEN! From nowhere the Australian rips past the Finn, and is closing fast on Rosberg! Where did this pace come from? 

Fernando watches as Mark zips ahead in front, his pace looking outstanding from the glances he catches, trying to focus on his own face- aiming to secure another win for the season.

Rosberg has turned the speed on and posts a quicker lap than Webber in that one, and is 1.35 seconds clear of the Red Bull. Not far behind Alonso is all over Raikkonen's tail... AND HE MAKES A MOVE! 

Fernando catches Raikkonen at a vulnerable moment for the Finn, feeling no regret or empathy as he whips past him into third, trailing just behind Webber. 

1.2 seconds now between Rosberg and Webber - the German is doing enough, and will surely win the British Grand Prix now! 

The gap between him and the Australian is only getting tighter, the possibility of standing on the second step at the end of this becoming a more realistic and possible reality. For now though, he won’t allow himself to get distracted by dreaming of what he could do, he needs to focus on pushing.

Lewis Hamilton right in on Alonso as well - half a chance of a podium for Lewis despite that blowout which put him back in last place! 

Shit. Being too focused on the gap between him and Webber meant he’d lost all consideration about how closely the Mercedes of Lewis had been trailing on his heels, eager to snatch up a podium finish.

NICO ROSBERG WINS THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX! He crosses the line 0.7 seconds clear of Mark Webber, who has almost pulled off an amazing victory despite falling back to 15th after a catastrophic start to his race! 

First place is no longer an achievable spot, but just as Senna’s mantra went, ‘If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver’, he won’t allow himself to slow down just because he won’t be top step when it’s time to receive a trophy. Second or third is always better than fourth. 

Webber second, Alonso third with Hamilton fourth despite the tyre blow-out which robbed him of first place early on. 

It’s done now at least. He may not be first, or even second, but he’s not in Hamilton’s spot either- a blown out wheel and the lost opportunity of a race win. He’s doing better than most, and he’s willing to take that.

He stands on the third step of the podium, Mark proudly standing tall to his left, waving his sweat soaked hat high above his head. He looks proud, a grin stretched across his mouth in a tired relief. He may have not gotten first place, but he sure as hell has enough pride in his expression to seem as if he did. 

Rosberg is equally as happy, an unbeatable look of elation staining his face. He pumps his hands up, showing off his golden trophy. One by one, they receive their bottles of champagne, ready to really start the celebration. 

The Spaniard and Australian coat each other in sticky bubbles, while the Finn focuses his onto the crowd in front of them, raining down on the Mercedes team in particular. Pressing the spout to his lips, Fernando takes a long mouthful- the sharp champagne filling his mouth and sliding down his throat. 

He makes eye contact with Mark as he does so, ‘We’ll be doing this every weekend if you make the move,’ . He reckons Mark picks up on that, but there’s an uneasy look in his eyes, withholding something from him.

When the fizz dissolves and all three men are left in sopping race suits, reeking of alcohol- it’s time for interviews. A man, wielding a microphone goes straight to Nico, interviewing him about ‘how his race had gone’, and if he thought he’d ‘win the race from the get go ,’. 

While the attention isn’t on them, rather solely focused on the blond man, Mark takes his opportunity to slip into place beside the Ferrari driver, dropping his voice a few octaves and tilting his head, putting them at near the same height. “I’m not going to Ferrari, Fernando,”

No. 

No. 

He’s not doing this right now. 

If this is true, he doesn’t get to say this in front of a crowd of thousands of fans.  

That’s not fucking fair. 

“Mark,” He hisses, drawing his eyes away from the crowd to look up for the slight difference they have between their height right now. His jaw goes lax, his lips parting in shock. 

“Nando,” He places his hand on the small of his back, his fingers nudging into where the suit awkwardly clings to his narrow waist. “I’m sorry,”

“Not now,” He looks away, his attention drawing to where Nico’s interview is drawing to a close, Mark will be the next to be talked to. “ Dios - why?” His throat is gluey, his accent strengthening despite how he often tried to dull it down to be easier understood.

“I couldn’t,” Mark ducks his head, shame flooding his face. Fernando doesn’t care, Webber doesn’t get to feel poorly about his decision. He’s the one who disobeyed his promise and broke trust. He’s to take responsibility for that.

2013- Germany, July

Tensions are still high between the two by the time the next grand prix approaches. Alonso avoids each attempt that Webber makes to reconcile their relationship- try to make some half arsed apology in which he’ll not even understand why Fernando is hurting like he is. He doesn’t understand how much the promise of teammates means to the Spaniard- he likely never would. 

2013- Italy, September

“By silverstone i'd concluded, it would be my last year with red bull and that'll be it. Fernando did all he could to change my mind but it was too late” The Spaniard feels like driving a screwdriver into his head upon hearing that over the radio, maybe step onto incoming traffic. There’s a strong urge to gouge his eyes out and then cut his ears off bubbling deep throughout his whole body. The want to go out in the most painful, gory ways.

Is it seemingly an intensely dramatised reaction to a seemingly harmless statement the senior pilot made? Not in the slightest. It’s not fucking fair, Mark doesn’t get to do this to him. The Australian had promised for years that they’d be teammates eventually- even if it took their whole careers to do so. 

Bringing him into the interview was beyond unfair. Clearly it had all just a joke to him, some easy fucking lie he could reassure Fernando with to get him to stop bothering him. 

It’s the first that the Ferrari driver is hearing of the official news, the final verdict that had been reached. Sure, Mark had told him back on the podium in Silverstone- but hearing it over national news, it just feels far more true and official. 

Up until this point, he’s allowed himself to view the possibility of the situation through rose-tinted glasses, a warm and hopeful feeling deep in his chest- the belief that he would one day be teammates with the man he considered his closest friend. Maybe Mark would change his mind, maybe he would decide at the last moment that Red Bull wasn’t for him.

Now that’s all being betrayed so he can stay driving an energy drink on wheels alongside some bratty german kid who barely looks old enough to be driving on the freeway.

Fuck you Sebastian Vettel.

Fuck you Red Bull.

Fuck you Mark Alan Webber. 

2013- Singapore, September

He ignores each call the Australian tempts him with, patiently outwaiting the five rings until he can return to the aching silence of his hotel room. It’s not fun, nor is it any what pleasant. Deep down, he wants to pick up, hear even just the careful and calculated breaths of the older man- give him a chance to explain.

But what if he doesn't like what he heard? What if Mark gave him all the reasons why they wouldn’t work as teammates and it was all the things that Fernando had spent so many years ignoring because he so desperately wanted it to be perfect- he was willing to make any sacrifices just to be alongside Mark in matching bright red race suits. 

So for now, he’ll just rot under the thin bleach-white sheets of his hotel bed, wishing for a different outcome to the ending he always secretly expected. 

He doesn’t have to see Mark on the podium this time. He’s on the second step this time, Raikonnen in third and the Australian’s younger teammate Sebastian took an easy lead the whole time- winning by almost a landslide. Fernando refuses eye contact with the German, the man who gets to take the place of being the teammate of Mark for another year, until he will retire.

It settles in his mind for the first time that the next time he’s in this exact spot, racing in Singapore, he will no longer be racing under the humid heat and bright city lights alongside his Australian friend. This was the final time the pair would ever race on the Marina Bay Track together.  

That’s a fate he’d rather not talk about.

2013- Brazil, November

In the five races after Singapore and before Brazil, Mark secures an impressive three final podiums for his last year in the sport. Alonso doesn’t. They don’t stand on the podium together past the british grand prix, and despite how betrayed he feels- it doesn’t mean that he wants Silverstone to be the last time they held those trophies above their heads together. 

His wish is finally granted in the concluding race of the season, Mark’s career too. With Sebastian winning the race, his teammate stands on the step below him, and Fernando on the final step. It’s just like Silverstone all over again. 

It’s the last dance for the two of them, a final chance for them to celebrate together- even when separated by Sebastian, and separated by rival teams.

It’s beyond impressive in his last races in formula 1 that he’d secured four podiums, but that was just Mark’s fashion. To go out with a bang.

2014- Abu Dhabi, November

After a whole year of stewing in slight hatred and missing of the aussie at ferrari- having Kimi Räikkönen as a teammate, who is significantly quieter and more serious then he was expecting out of his 2014 teammate- Fernando finally makes the difficult decision to change teams to McLaren.

He’ll race alongside Jenson Button, who he reckons will be a breath of fresh air- closer to Mark then the teammate he’s had this year. It had been an abysmal year for him too, only 2 podiums- China and Hungary. So he’s looking onto next year in a positive light, a new chapter of improvement for himself. 

2015/2016

Jenson is only his teammate for a single year of the 2015 season. For 2016, he has Stoffel Vandoorne alongside him at McLaren and they don’t get on too well. Fernando is clearly the favoured driver- Stoffel often being instructed to let the Spaniard past him. Regardless, they remain racing for the same team for the next three years. They’re a painful few years without a single podium, still chasing that high from Brazil- stood next to Mark. 

He’d had two since then, but they’d felt empty and meaningless to him, wishing he’d been dressed in red with Mark instead of Kimi. Being in orange doesn’t feel any better than that- especially without a single trophy to prove that maybe Ferrari also hadn’t been good for him.

2018, August

Fernando announces his retirement on twitter on august 14th. He posts a minute long video, thanking the sport in general and all his adoring fans over the years of his career. He does a bit near the end that showcases him in all his different team merchandise- Minardi, Renault, his first year long McLaren stint, again to Renault, Ferrari, and finally McLaren once again.

 It’s a moment that he thought he would be able to avoid for a few more years. He had faith he would win a third championship- hopefully at Ferrari too. But he looks around at the grid that surrounds him, all the new and fresh talent, and he feels a lack of belonging.

There’s supposedly going to be an eighteen year old replacing him at McLaren when he leaves, there’s already a twenty one year old in Max Verstappen, and a twenty year old Lance Stroll. He just feels old. 

Hamilton’s still there, so is Vettel, and a few other drivers from his prime time- but he can’t escape the feeling that his time has come, it’s time for new ventures. 

Maybe he’ll continue to race under different circumstances, maybe he’ll focus more time and energy into managing- maybe he’ll just leave racing to the past, and go on with the rest of his life without it.

2020, February

Mark and him speak for the first time in a while on the phone. Mark sounds well, his voice rougher with age if anything. They’d last spoken when Fernando had announced his retirement, and the Australian had showered him in congratulations and best wishes for his further ventures. They were now on the same boat, even if the events had occurred almost eight years apart.

Mark tells him that he’s just begun managing the FIA Formula 3 champion, a seventeen year old Australian called Oscar. According to the older Australian, Oscar was possibly the biggest Alonso fan growing up- had one of his karts and a race suit. It makes him smile that he’s inspired someone who was born after his career even began. 

Beyond that short call, the amount of times they talk on the phone increases as the pandemic regulations tighten, forcing everyone into home isolation. Hearing all about all these fantastic achievements Oscar is making, Fernando feels something he had lost back in 2018- the want and desire to race.

So after many conversations, emails, phone calls, meetings- Fernando Alonso officially becomes an Alpine Driver for 2021.

[swallowedbyfandom]

Colin felt trapped. There was no other word for it. He was trapped in a nightmare of his own making. His stupidity had gotten the better of him in the worst possible moment. He had stood by and watched Pen grow increasingly uncomfortable with Lord Fife's visible arousal. He reframed from stepping forward because he foolishly thought Fife's poor showing would make him look better in comparison. He failed Pen. He did not offer her the protection he once promised her, he stood frozen as another man brought himself to climax in front of Penelope. Portia instead emerged as Penelope's most vehement defender.

What was it Pen had said? "If you lay with dogs you will get flea." Portia had looked at him with such disgust. He never thought he would see the day that Portia Featherington deemed him too lowly for her daughter, but here he was. It had not mattered how many times he had hit Fife, in the end he had still feel tainted by what he witnessed. How had he drifted so far from his honor that he has allowed such a thing to happened?

Things just seemed to get worse from there. Firstly, he did not even get the chance to restore Penelope's honor as Lady Whistledown published her most scandalous edition yet, covering the events that happened in the Featherington drawing room and the resulting brawl that spilled out onto the square. It was her scathing commentary over Fife's long term history as a cad who repeated attempted to compromise vulnerable debutants that had the whole of society up in arms. Fife fled town hours after the edition printed.

Secondly, every call he paid on Pen was heavily chaperoned by Portia and varies Featherington staff. Portia also refused to allow him to call on Pen outside of formal calling hours. It was distracting to have to deal with Portia's poorly hidden disapproval. He knows just a month ago she would have been smugly gloating over marrying her daughter to him. Now she eyes him like he is about to urinate on her rugs. That is how uncouth she finds him. Penelope herself seemed to treat him with polite indifference. No longer did she look at his as if he was special. Somehow it seemed every time he called on her, he lost a little more of her regard.

Thirdly, was how every attempt he made to court Penelope seemed to fall flat. He barely managed to sign her dance cards during balls. Out of five balls they attended he only managed to secure a second dance at two of them. The rest of the time he was forced to watch her twirl and laugh with other gentlemen. He even had to suffer watching her promenade on Lord Samadani's arm multiple times.

Then there was that stupid ring. It galls Colin to admit that Debling is indeed a smooth bastard. He had Pen promise to wear his engagement ring on her right hand. It is supposed to be a reminder to stay true to herself, but Colin knows the truth. That ring is a blatant power play, a move to rattle the insecure. Damn it all, it is effect. The last time he saw that ring sitting proudly on Pen's hand he got so lost glaring at it he failed to make conversation. It is infuriating. If she had just accepted his proposal they could be married already.

His family are no help! Anthony harassed him over taking so long to visit the doctor. Then he pointed out that Colin had not asked Lady Featherington for permission to court her daughter. Anthony seemed to think Portia perfectly reasonable in her restrictive access to Penelope. Kate merely gave him judgement looks. She said Penelope had practically given him an instruction manual.

Mother refused to give him any courting advice. She merely gave him defeated eyes and consoling hugs. He had thought his mother would encourage him to fight harder for Pen. Shockingly she urged him to let her go. She told him his reluctance at taking a risk for Pen led her to believe he was not yet ready for marriage. It seems his mother did not believe him capable of regaining Pen's heart. It was a blow he did not see coming. She tried to explain herself but he was so tried of everyone expecting him to fail. Pen was the only person in his life to ever believe him capable of accomplishing anything.

Francesca was the most helpful even if she seemed reluctant to comment. She gently reminded him that Penelope had a front row seat to his desperate attempts at capturing her cousin's attentions. She questioned if perhaps Penelope found his attempts to play court to her half hearted in comparison. That conversation he can admit did seem to hold some truth in it. He could not articulate the difference to between the two courtships in a way that seemed to satisfy the women in his family.

Of course his courtship with Lady Crane was more open, he was so trusting back then. He had not yet learned to guard his heart. He was a fool back then.

His courtship with Pen is not halfhearted. He was just more cautious with, her. He can admit to himself that perhaps he has held back on courting her as grandly as she deserves. Not due to any failing in her so much as it feels hypocritical to court a Lady one has denied so openly. He knows any grand act of courtship he makes after having made such a statement will be viewed as performative and false. He does not want that for them.

His shame makes him feel so unworthy of her. Perhaps a better man would let her go find another, but he loves her. He needs her in his life. Why should he step back? He is sure if she just gave him a chance he could make her happy. He would spend the rest of their lives making up for his many mistakes. He would never give her reason to doubt him again. She just has to trust him once more.

After all their history, courtship feels like an unnecessary step back. Why can they not just move forward? He wants to move toward their future.

[galebrainrot2024]

Gale Seeking Godhood Part VII PATH 2

Wow. This took longer than I expected because it needed to be done justice so I couldn't rush it. This is choose your own adventure, Path 2 and conclusion. Path 3 will be coming soon!

Enjoy!

CW: Death

GALE'S POV

The letters blurred before his eyes, Gale brushing his fingers against his eyes and brought away wetness. Was he crying? What time was it? Gale blinked deliriously, realizing he must have fallen asleep at his desk, now waking from a horrific dream. 

Gale could not shake the feeling that the nightmare left in his gut. It was a dream that was so evocative it gnawed at him - it felt real. One that ruins the rest of a day. 

The dream started with you stood on the docks of Boulder’s Gate, the Chionthar just on the horizon. In the dream you stood between him and Raphael midbattle for the crown, and you - you stepped between them, desperate to help as Gale launched an attack. Gale’s heart lurched and he felt the bile rise in his stomach. The image was worse than he could endure. 

Gale uttered, “Dolor” - the disintegrate spell intended for Raphael - but it missed. Before he woke from this nightmare, the image of you dissipating to nothing but dust was engraved into the darkest crevices of his brain. Gale heaved, the violent sob shaking him. What was he doing?  

For six months Godhood was his focus. He was so close to achieving his goal - he should be elated, shouldn’t he?

The last three months spent in isolation took a massive toll on him. With not even Tara for company, Gale had never felt so alone. He hadn’t heard from her and ignored the constant communication from his mother. Although Godhood was within his grasp, the power of the celestial tempting, there was a deeper yearning.  

The dream shook him to the core, the blind quest for power and its consequences rushing over him all at once. How he had nearly killed you, how poorly he treated you, how poorly he treated Tara. It made him feel sick, disgusted with himself - he was no better than the Gods. He had no excuse and he felt a new determination plant its seed.  

***

YOUR POV

You are sitting on the docks when Tara finds you, something strapped to her collar. It is a warm night, a night that makes the sky blaze a brilliant pink and orange. The clouds look like puffy treats, as if you could pluck them from the air. A cool breeze off the water whispers through your hair. 

“It took me long enough to find you,” Tara huffs mind-landing and brushes her ears with her paws as she settles. You start by the sound of her voice and yelp. “Oh, my apologies, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’ve been give quite the task - Gale -“ 

“Don’t,” you said, holding up your hand as your expression darkened. “I’m not interested in having my heart ripped out over and over, thank you. I cannot help you. I will not help him.”  

“If you’d stop talking and listen a moment, perhaps you’d be inclined to hear what I have to say. If you insist on a closed mind, however, so be it. No wonder you an he got along so famously.” 

You grit your teeth and close your eyes, inhaling. You know if she asks for assistance you will not help. The better part of you is silenced by your curiosity and you indulge, “Fine.” Tara let out a forceful puff, indicating her displeasure. Her tail swishes and you take the warning. “What is it Tara? You came all this way, the least I can offer is to listen.” 

Tara seems assuaged and continues, “Gale wanted me to give this to you.” Tara looks at her neck and you raise a brow. “Yes, that.” You gingerly take the tightly rolled parchment, written on an impossibly small piece of paper. 

“I owe you more than simple apologies… I have been a sorry excuse for both a man and lover, and my behavior has been beyond inexcusable. I know I am not worthy of your time, company, or forgiveness. And yet - I write to ask for it. However long it takes, I will be here, waiting for you. -Gale” 

You feel the blood rush to your face, tears pricking at your eyes that begin to fall in large drops onto the parchment. You see your fingers trembling and Tara notes gently, preparing to take flight: “He forgot to note he surrendered the crown to Mystra.” 

*** 

You wait, absorbing and processing what you learned. You’re not sure how much time has passed since you received his letter. Not only did Gale want to see you, speak to you, he had surrendered the crown to Mystra after all. You fight yourself, unsure of how to feel - as if two parts of your soul tugged at the opposite ends of a rope. 

Your curiosity wanted to indulge this meeting, as did the part that desperately still loved Gale despite everything. Your logical mind, the one that wanted to protect you from further harm scolded, warned against the idea, warned against seeing him and indulging him when he hadn’t chosen you at the start. 

Gale wrote he would wait as long as it took - did he mean that? You are about to test that theory. 

** 

When you arrive in Waterdeep, Tara informs you that Gale is out - teaching - and wouldn’t be back for a few hours. Although you insisted you should leave, Tara refused and warned if you did not that she you would force her hand. You have no intention of finding out what that means. 

You sit for a while in the main hall, sunning yourself like Tara, not wanting to pry. As boredom and the nerves of seeing Gale ate at you, you decide to wander. You allow yourself to explore. You climb the iron stair to his study and the door opens with a click. It looks as it did the last time you were here and you inhale, a sharp pang coursing through you at the memory. 

You walk around the large oak desk, your fingers trailing across the smooth finish and you furrow your brow. Across his desk are all images - drawings. Some are crude sketches, some self portraits and a few of Tara lazing in the sun or playfully chasing a conjuration. A majority, though, shared the same subject. 

You. 

The first you notice was of the moment you pulled him from the portal. You are startled by how life-like it appears, gazing back at what feels like a reflection. There are dozens more, all memories Gale had of you - and some of a future yet to happen. You trace your thumb over the images and feel weak, collapsing into his chair your resolve evaporating. On some of the sketches are brief poems, words of both lament and love. Of a yearning that was visceral and you feel it deep in the marrow of your bones. 

“Oh,” your head shoots up and you and Gale lock eyes for the first time in months. “I didn’t - how are you?” He says breathlessly, although he hasn’t moved from the threshold in the door. He holds a pack, reading glasses a top his head and his gaze bears into you. You stumble as you stand and Gale lurches forward instinctively, “Are you alright?” Your breath catches as you realize the Gale you knew, the one you loved - the one you thought was a casualty of his ambition - he’s here before you now. His eyes are glazed with tenderness and something unconditional. 

“Yes, thank you,” You murmur and he clears his throat and steps into the room awkwardly, as if this is yours and he interrupted you in your own space. He stays on the opposite side of the study from you, seemingly hesitant to approach. You step to the front of the desk, closing the gap between you marginally. “You wrote.” 

“I did,” Gale breaths and begins to rub his chin, “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again. To be clear,” he said abruptly, “I am very glad to see you. I’m a bit shocked actually so please excuse my ineloqunece at present.” You see his face bloom crimson as he maintains eye contact with you and you feel your cheeks respond with a similar heat and you give a wry smile. You forgot how endearing this clumsiness was. It was so raw, so genuine - a part you hadn’t seen in some time. “I am so grateful you came.” Gale took a tentative step forward to test the waters. You allow it and he sighs, his eyes brightening and he takes another. 

You hold up a hand, crossing one arm across your chest. “Why did you ask me here?” 

Gale swallows and rubs the back of his neck. “How much did Tara tell you?” 

“Hm...” You toy with how much to tell him, if any thing at all and decide on the truth. “Only that you surrendered the crown to Mystra.” You see Gale’s expression drop for a moment, his eyes swimming with shame. It makes your chest tighten and stomach clench, your hand reaching out subconsciously though Gale is too far to touch. 

“Ah. Yes, okay. Shall we sit?” Gale gestures to his balcony and you follow, eager for the warmth of the sun and the sound of the waves lapping against the docks. You sit side by side, your knees brushing against each other and Gale combs a hand through his hair, looking out onto the horizon. “I…” he looks down and chuckles, “I wondered whether to share this bit with you - considering how much you sacrificed and did for me, it feels somehow… silly and unfair that this is was the final slap in the face I so clearly needed.” Your body quakes with adrenaline, your fight or flight in full gear and you bite the inside of your cheeks to ground yourself. “Do you want the long, sordid story or just the important bits?” 

You purse your lips, and say, “How about you tell me the important bits first, and then we can decide if I indulge you in the rest.” 

Gale gives a somber lopsided grin. “Very well. Raphael paid me a visit - a personal visit from a devil is not something to be encouraged, as we know. He told me that my having of the crown was for the best - that ambition was a delicious sin for an immortal to wield. At first I thought it was hyperbole, his usual dramatics -“ Gale pauses, looking at you, “I had a feeling that I could not shake, though. What if he was right? What if, despite my best intentions, I corrupted everything? More than just the Weave, more than the heavens - but all in this space and time. That what if ate at me.” You feel yourself smile. Gale is still incapable of telling a short story. Gale seems to realize this, noticing your look. It makes him blush and laugh, “Ah, you did say just the important bits. But this is all important, really if you think about it.” You smirk and gesture for him to continue, not wanting to influence his story telling. “It happened the night before I uncovered the final incantation. The dream, I mean. It felt so real…” Gale’s voice drops and he leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he holds his mouth with his hands for a moment. 

You watch him and he sighs before sitting up again and turns to face you and takes your hands in his. Your breath hitches and you feel the rush of heat flood you. His hands are warm, familiar and it makes your soul ache for him. You allow him to take your hands, chasing the adrenaline of him. 

Gale continues: “Raphael had paid me a visit at this point and I… well, as you might imagine wasn’t exactly in the best of health. I was exhausted. You… I…” Gale’s body shudders and he breaks eye contact with you for a moment before returning to yours. His brown irises are swallowed by black pupils and you feel your lips part. The world seems to slow. His gaze is overwhelming and his tone is one you’ve never heard from him. 

“I killed you. I watched you evaporate before my eyes.” You tense and Gale quickly continues, sensing your discomfort, “The spell was meant for Raphael and you… you stepped between us because you were trying to help. You were trying to help me.” You feel a weight crash down upon you and all at once Gale’s hands are on your cheeks and you feel your hands raise to cover his. Gale’s eyes are misty and his touch ignites you. “It wasn’t real, but I felt it forcefully. I have put you in such danger, harmed you more than I can forgive myself for, and the idea of that nightmare ever becoming a reality was too much to bear. A world without you… at my own hand… that’s no world worth being part of. I am ashamed at what I was willing to give up in pursuit of vain hubris. I am so, so sorry. More than words can express. And I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness and still I ask for it. I will do everything in my power for the rest of this mortal life and beyond to be the man you saw in me from the beginning. I love you.” 

You drink in his words and feel his hot breath against your lips, your vision blurred by how close your faces are. Your mind stills and you say, “I think we have work to do,” you see Gale’s shame for a moment, before you say, “but I’m willing to let you try.” 

You take a breath and Gale grins, tilting your head as if wanting a kiss, “May I?” Your lips part and you nod. When Gale kisses you it’s as if it would be the last. As if he had never had the opportunity before. As if you had died and this was just a dream. Gale kisses you in such a way you cannot doubt the sincerity of his intentions and you allow yourself to melt into him. 

[kaesaaurelia]

affection

For @whumptober day 17, using the prompts "collar," "touch aversion," "leave me alone," and the lyric prompt, "You’re the lump in my throat and the knot in my chest."

Continued from Day 4, wherein Aziraphale receives an unwanted gift of a memory-wiped angel Crowley who is collared and chained and cheerfully obedient, and a tiny bit of hope that the Crowley he knows still exists somewhere in that angel, and Day 7, wherein Aziraphale asked Crowley provocative questions, and failed to get the answers he wanted.

Content warning for contemplation of committing extremely dubiously consensual sex acts.

Aziraphale had been uncomfortably aware for quite a while that he had far too much power over Crowley just now. Not only did the collar seem to force Crowley to obey orders, but Crowley was eager to do as he was told, and stupidly happy when he completed the simplest of tasks for him. Aziraphale tried to do this as little as possible, for he could not allow himself to give up on his hope that Crowley might be healed from this horrible mutilation of his soul and freed from the burden of the collar.

But every now and again some angel or another looked at Crowley, standing obediently off to the side, smiling pleasantly, and suggested that Aziraphale have Crowley do something for him. Sometimes Aziraphale was able to get away with a cold glare and "That would be a waste of Crowley's skills," but with other archangels, he got the impression that if he wasn't seen to be making use of the gift Heaven had given him, they might take Crowley away from him, or worse. So every now and then he asked Crowley to do something, he felt miserable and helpless as he asked Crowley to do some menial task, while Crowley leapt at the idea of being able to help Aziraphale, the center of Crowley's existence.

The worst part, though, were the flashes of the real Crowley that he occasionally saw in this false Crowley's behavior. There were his fond looks, which Crowley had usually saved for when he didn't think Aziraphale wasn't looking, but this Crowley held his gaze until Aziraphale found himself forced to look away in shame. There were Crowley's occasional flashes of insight -- sometimes clever, sometimes startlingly ruthless, sometimes completely irrelevant to the point at hand -- while Aziraphale was trying to navigate some bureaucratic challenge. And there was Crowley stepping in to help him when he had not asked for it -- nothing on the scale of the grand rescues he'd managed before, but Aziraphale could tell how much he liked it, because unlike Crowley as Aziraphale had known him, he was glowing in his acceptance of Aziraphale's thanks.

And then there was the love, which was pure torment. Crowley adored him blindly, and Aziraphale could feel it whenever Crowley looked at him, but it was not the sort of love Aziraphale had ever wanted. Crowley loved him because he knew nothing else, because he had no one else, because no matter how badly Aziraphale treated him, he was also probably the only person this Crowley could recall ever being kind to him. And Aziraphale knew perfectly well that he was treating Crowley poorly, whether he was peppering Crowley with strange and uncomfortable questions, telling him to stand in a corner and be ignored, or asking him to do menial tasks because Sandalphon or somebody had bullied him into it.

All this, Aziraphale had found a way to live with while he tried to ease Crowley into thinking for himself somehow, or work out how to get that wretched collar off of him.

But then Crowley's affections had developed a more physical component.

Aziraphale had scrupulously avoided touching Crowley since he'd arrived in Heaven. The idea was almost repellent, now that Crowley's mind had been pared down to Yes and Of Course and Whatever You Like. But sometimes as they were walking through the wide, empty expanse of Heaven, Crowley would get close to him. Close enough that Aziraphale could feel his warmth, or the slight movement of air as he walked. Sometimes their shoulders brushed.

The first time Crowley's fingers touched his, Aziraphale jerked away in horror. Crowley had looked a bit confused, but not hurt, and Aziraphale had resolved to ignore it. It had been an accident, surely.

But it had happened again. And again. Once when Michael had been poking holes in some proposals he'd put forth for the Second Coming (which Aziraphale had hoped to make as bureaucratically laborious as possible to carry out, but perhaps he had overdone it a bit with the environmental impact report requirement) Crowley had walked over to them and told Michael that she ought to have more faith in Aziraphale's wisdom and then, alas, he'd laced his fingers between Aziraphale's and squeezed it. There had been nothing at all Aziraphale could do about it other than keep looking Michael in the eye and try not to squirm and wish fervently that he had never been created.

After Michael left, Crowley had leaned towards him and Aziraphale had leapt away, stumbled, and accidentally fallen back into his chair. Crowley approached him and for one terrifying moment Aziraphale had an unexpectedly vivid of Crowley sitting in his lap, but he just offered Aziraphale a hand up.

Aziraphale did not take it. More and more often he asked Crowley to stay in his office while Aziraphale was at meetings, and if someone came to his office he spoke with them just outside, with the door closed. But that had its drawbacks too -- once he'd come back from a six-hour meeting and Crowley had hugged him. It had taken days for his hands to stop shaking. He'd wanted to hug back.

Sometimes his thoughts returned to that moment he feared -- hoped? -- that Crowley would sit in his lap, and the images that followed never failed to add to the weight of Aziraphale's guilt. Sometimes, imaginary Crowley sat there innocently, simply enjoying the contact while Aziraphale's heart beat out of his chest and he tried to be kind to Crowley even as he sinned in his own mind.

Sometimes, though, imaginary Crowley straddled Aziraphale with a face that said he knew exactly what he was doing, and revealed that he had been faking this whole time, and Aziraphale kissed him, and he kissed back sweetly, and then they were magically back on Earth, back in a bed somewhere, happy, safe, and in love.

And sometimes, to Aziraphale's shame and horror, after he'd forced some sort of distance between himself and poor Crowley, Aziraphale thought, I could just... let him. I could show him what I liked. I could ask him to do anything. He would be so happy. I could make him so, so happy just by being appallingly selfish.

And he would be. Aziraphale could ask Crowley to pretend to seduce him, to sit in his lap and kiss him and fuck him or ride him, could miracle a bed up right here and have everything go however it ought to go. He could come up behind Crowley and kiss his neck and bend him over his desk and Crowley would be so happy to spread his legs and take him, to be there for him whenever he needed a little break. He could, if he was careful with how he phrased things, ask Crowley to pin him to a wall and take Aziraphale roughly, to ignore Aziraphale's own false and ineffective protests, to take all of Aziraphale's anger and sexual frustration out on Aziraphale himself. Or he could keep Crowley kneeling under his desk all day, his mouth busy between Aziraphale's legs, while Aziraphale got absolutely nothing done.

Crowley would have done all of it unquestioningly and loved every moment of it, and Heaven might not even have known enough to object, except for the part where Aziraphale wasn't getting any work done.

He knew he did not want that, but sometimes Aziraphale wondered if it would be less bad than an eternity of making this poor shadow of Crowley miserable by flinching away from him every time he sought the affection he wanted.

[ofwolfandmuses]

Is that [ALEXANDER LUDWIG]? No, that’s [YRIC]. The [28] year old [OMEGA] [CIS-MALE] is a [HUNTER] in the [FENRIR] pack. If you ask their friends, they’re known to be [CONFIDENT] & [OUTGOING], but they urge you to be cautious, because they’re also known to be [BULL-HEADED] & [RESTLESS]. Their friends also say that they’re into [BODY WORSHIP, WRESTLING, PUBLIC SEX] but don’t even think about trying [SCAT, GORE] with them.

BASIC INFORMATION;

Name: Yric

Nicknames: Bastard, None - give him some?

Age: Twenty-Eight

Secondary Gender: Omega

Occupation: Hunter in the Fenrir pack

APPEARANCE;  

Height: 6′2

Weight: 226 pounds

Build: Athletic, Muscular

Hair Color: Blond

Eye Color: Blue

Shaved/Trimmed/Natural: Light coating of hair on his chest

Wolf Color: Solid White

Wolf Size/Build: Average size, slim build

SEX;

Kinks: Body Worship, Wrestling, Public Sex, Flip-Fucking, Breeding, Musk/Sweat, Power Bottoming, Dominating, Submitting, Service Topping, Praise, Humiliation/Degradation (Light), Daddy-Play, Open To Others

Anti-Kinks: Vore, Gore, Age-Play, Feminization

BIOGRAPHY;

When Yric came into this world, crying out as a small infant, he was only given one name – no last name, as he was the product of an affair his dame had had on her mate. His father was a nobleman, one that managed to charm his way under his mother’s dress and squirted him into her belly, and her mate had been furious. How dare she cheat on him, how dare she ridicule the Radulfr name and humiliate him? While he doted on his eldest son, he treated the bastard with great disdain and just saw him as a stain on his family legacy. It didn’t help, either, that the boy had been a scrawny runt for most of his youth, making it all the more obvious that Yric wasn’t his – given that all of the Radulfr’s he had sired were thick, muscular, strong – but Yric took it in stride as his dame always told him that he was still worthy, no matter what his step-father said.

Still, though, he was always treated poorly by his step-father and given very little – often thrown the scraps of food and the hand-me-down clothes – but Yric never let it show that it got to him. Instead he looked up to his older brothers, never holding it against them that their father treated him like filth while he doted on them and raised them to be the best Radulfr wolf they could be. And Aurelio was the one he idolized the most, almost imagining being just like him when he got older so that one day, his step-father wouldn’t hate him as he did now.

But then Aurelio became an Omega, and the shame that came down on the family seemed to increase ten fold and while Aurelio was mistreated, any respect Yric had gotten from his step-father was gone in an instant and he was treated even worse than before. That he was a disgrace, a runt, an abomination that he should’ve killed the first chance he got – but because he couldn’t prove that he wasn’t his, he had to give him a roof over his head and food in his belly – and that the only reason he was allowed to live was because despite her being a whore, he still loved his dame.

The words were definitely hard to hear, but Yric knew that he could prove he was worthy. He knew that he was going to make his dame proud, and he’d do what he could to make his step-father proud too. Of course, when he presented as an Omega, too, that only added fuel to the fire but he was determined to prove that he was still capable of whatever it was he wanted. And because he was still small, at least in terms of build as he had shot up to over six feet tall in a manner of a year, he knew that it would only benefit his speed and make him an absolutely lethal hunting machine.

And it did. He quickly became known as a fierce hunter, and if any Alpha wanted to make a quip of his skills because he was an Omega? He was quick to fight them, using the fight training he learned from his step-father and brothers, and in time, they began to see that he wasn’t a pushover despite his scrawny stature. And when Aurelio took him under his wing, training him even further and pushing him harder than he ever had been pushed before? He started to build more and more muscle until he looked like he actually possessed the Radulfr name.

Of course, he didn’t, and though he looked more like a member of the man’s family, his step-father wanted nothing to do with him and he had set out to arrange a mating for him with a wolf from another pack. At first he had been a bit skeptical, given that the wolf in question was one that was hardly social and didn’t seem capable of cracking a smile – until one evening when he found himself in need of getting a wound from a buck cleaned and stitched together that he found himself seeing the softer side of the Alpha. That the wolf was someone that put a hundred and ten percent into his work, wanting everyone to be at their healthiest, and as the alpha began to spend more time with him, Yric began to think that maybe being mated to him wouldn’t be so bad.

Eventually the two of them did wind up mating, though Yric wouldn’t say he’s in love with the guy. Don’t get him wrong, he absolutely liked the guy and enjoyed being around him – when he wasn’t his sullen, standoffish self or pressuring him to have children – but the two of them still didn’t know one another that well because there were so many walls around the Alpha that it was taking longer than normal to reach his heart. It was nice, though, to live in a cabin with just one wolf instead of a whole pack of them, and the sex with the Alpha was great, but part of him wondered… was he going to be stuck in a loveless marriage?

And if so, would he grow to resent any children that his mate would have, just as his step-father did of him? Every time he looked at the pup that his mate was raising, after the untimely death of its dame and its sire rejecting it, he couldn’t help but wonder these things but he shoved it down because he knew there was no way he was going to ostracize a child that wasn’t his. At least… he hoped so.

[arcaneglitch]

I was VERY interested in Tommy's conversation with Foolish so I took the liberty of transcribing it, starting from Tommy telling Foolish about L'Manberg

Transcript below + a bit of analysis in the notes

Tommy: You see this? L’Manberg.

Foolish: Oh yeah, I’ve heard this before.

Tommy: This was mine and Wilbur’s na- it was Wilbur’s nation. It was Wilbur’s, which makes it all the more heart-wrenching, right. And he decided that even- and he doesn’t mean this, but even though at the time when we made this, it was to get away from Dream. Because Dream wouldn’t let us do what we wanted to. He told us that we have to live under his big iron fist. But we went “no Dream, that’s not fair.” Is it? Right? You don’t think that’s fair, do you Foolish?

Foolish. No, no. (under) So you were a couple revolutionaries- revolutionists basically.

Tommy (over): People wanna do what they want, so we made this nation, yeah? We made a nation and it was glorious and it was amazing! People challenged it, sure, but we got through it. (sigh) And then to try and con- you really don’t know the story?

Foolish: I mean-

Tommy: And then to try and consolidate our power, we held an election. Now…

Foolish: Oh man, there used to be governments here?

Tommy: Now, the problem with an election is it kinda puts all your life on the line, which can be good if you’re confident but perhaps we were a little overconfident… And because of that Foolish, well we um… we lost… to the hands of JSchlatt. Right here, actually! Right about here is where we lost.

Foolish: Oh.

Tommy: And Schlatt banished us. Now, we were ok w- I was ok when we were banished, I knew that we’d get it back. And we’d talk about it, right. As you said, peace is the option.

Foolish: Mm-hm.

Tommy: But here’s the thing, Foolish… Wilbur didn’t wanna do any more talking. He’d given up with that. Because some people aren’t strong enough. Some people stop talking. You know the phrase “treat others how you want to be treated,” Foolish?

Foolish (over): Yeah! Yeah!

Tommy (under): That’s a really important phrase and people hear it- you hear your teachers say it and you hear it when you’re young- people don’t ever listen to it. Treat others how you want to be treated. Wilbur disregarded that rule. He decided he wanted to be treated poorly so he’d treat everyone else poorly.

Foolish: Why do you think that?

Tommy: (sigh) Honestly, sometimes I don’t know myself. But this block here... (points to TNT) He used this and he blew up L’Manberg and shattered it into a million pieces. Now Wilbur, he was a good man, he is a good man, deep inside him, alright? But he-

Foolish: So you’re saying there’s still redemption for him?

Tommy: Well he’s been a good man deep inside him. But he’s been a bad guy for a very very long time. And I know that there’s still good in him, there’s still good in everyone really, Foolish. Even if they are all arseholes and wankers. But-

Foolish: You believe in second chances?

Tommy: No I don’t. I don’t really believe- I don’t- I- that’s not a thing for me, Foolish, it’s just that… (sigh) I believe everyone’s got a little bit of good in them. And I know that Wilbur had good in him, alright? (sigh) So I won’t-

Foolish: You said “had”?

Tommy: Yeah, he did ‘cause when we made this nation, although now he seems to clai- he claimed to me, Foolish, that the nation we built together… he claimed that it was all just a ruse for power. Now I think Wilbur’s just being a bad guy, alright? And that’s ok, we’re all bad guys. Everyone messes up, it’s- you learn the most from your mistakes.

Foolish: Oh yeah.

Tommy: He’s made so many mistakes. So many that have hurt so many people, but… what this is gonna be about isn’t giving him a second chance, isn’t giving him a third chance, it’s not about chances, Foolish. It’s about making sure you don’t give up on the people you care about. So I know you’re still really new to this server-

Foolish: Yeah.

Tommy: -and I know you’ve built lots of things. So if you ever care about someone, do not give up on them, Foolish. Don’t give up on people, right?

Foolish: You know what, Tommy? I think I had you-

Tommy: ‘Cause that’s how you lose.

Foolish: I think I had you wrong.

Tommy: Oh, I don’t know what that means.

Foolish: Well I just- y’know? You’re a little bit more mature than I thought you would be. I thought you were just a loud, obnoxious, you know what I mean? Do what you want, y’know, couple muggings here and there, but maybe there’s more to you than meets the eye.

Tommy: I still do that, obviously, ‘cause it’s funny and it-

Foolish, laughing: Well then- nah, I understand. Maybe there’s more to you. Maybe there’s more to you, Tommy, than I thought.

Tommy: ...Thanks, I guess. Maybe there’s more to you too.

Foolish: Oh, there’s so much… Do you consider yourself to be the good guy or the bad guy? Tommy: That really depends who you ask, doesn’t it, y’know? If you ask Dream, he’d say I’m- he’d say I’m his little- I’m his little play- his little toy that he plays with, y’know? It doesn’t… Foolish honestly I used to- I used to consider myself the good guy. Y’know the fucking second in command going round going “yeah let’s do this!” but I’m- recently… these past… (sigh) These past, like, six months or so, Foolish. Everything got so much harder than it was before. Because before it was us fighting the bad guys and it was all so clear, you know? It was all so clear.

Foolish: Yeah-

Tommy: But it’s not been clear for so long, alright? It wasn’t “these are the bad guys, these are the good guys.” Now it’s “he’s doing this, that makes him a bit worse, that makes him-” it all got so fucking complicated, so... I don’t know. It depends who you ask, but…

Foolish: I don’t know, it just all seems strange ‘cause just from, y’know, hearing from others and y’know learning a little bit, it seems like you’ve been the hero, you’ve been… the villain, the conqueror, the savior and even now I still have no idea what you exactly are.

Tommy: That’s up to you to decide, isn’t it? I’m just a… I dunno, these days, Foolish, I’m a little weaker than I used to be. I’m not who I- I’m not who I want to be, but… (sigh)

Foolish: You know, to be honest with you, Tommy? That’s the same case for me as well.

Tommy: Oh, really?

Foolish: Yeah.

Tommy: Here’s the thing, Foolish… Unlike you, I don’t really have a choice. I have to try and be who I want to be. ‘Cause if I don’t… very bad things are gonna happen on this server.

Foolish: Y’know-

Tommy: And I- now. Now Wilbur’s back, Foolish, I can’t… quite frankly, no one can risk that. So I don’t really have a choice. I’ll just keep on mining, I’ll keep on pogchamping…

Foolish OOC: You’re just gonna pog through the pain?

Tommy OOC: I tried to and then Twitch deleted the pog emote.

*They then continue speaking about the pog emote*

[jschllatt]

𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 | 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐭

Prompt: hello ! i love your work and i have such a big soft spot for schlatt so i was wondering if you could do like a roommates to lovers thingy for him? maybe even like if they didnt get on in the beginning ? idk x

Warnings: Swearing

Words: 915

Masterlist

Thank you anon for requesting :)

When Schlatt posted an ad on craigslist claiming he was in need of a roommate, the last thing he would’ve guessed was that he would fall helplessly in love with the person who emailed with an inquiry—that person being you. Having recently moved to Texas, Schlatt was in need of a companion, feeling lonely in the unfamiliar environment in which he was unaccustomed to. He decided that he would benefit from having a roommate. Not only would he have a friend around, but someone to keep the house less quiet—he hated dead silence, especially when he was alone—and figured having someone else around would help prevent that. But there was one problem: you hated him. At least, that’s what he thought. 

You see, you tended to be a very introverted person. Despite sharing a home with Schlatt, you couldn’t bring yourself to mutter more than a ‘hey’ in passing, which made you cringe internally every time. You didn’t mean to be so short with him—especially considering that you were attracted to his effortless charisma and charming smile—but found that it was easier for you to be curt with the man rather than to humiliate yourself. 

And so, chaos ensued. 

Schlatt, whose growing fear of being hated by you increased with every passing second, did the one thing he could think of: act like he hated you, too. And though he knew it was a horrible idea from the start, Schlatt treated you poorly. 

You noticed it about four months after you moved in. 

As you entered the kitchen, the strong smell of coffee immediately invaded your senses. It was typical for Schlatt to make enough for the both of you, considering he tended to wake up a bit earlier than you did, but as you wandered into the kitchen, you noticed that the coffee pot was empty. Deciding he was probably in a rush, you shrugged off the abnormality, pouring coffee grounds into the filter so you could make your necessary dose of caffeine. Moments later, the rumbling of the coffee pot echoed throughout the house. As if on cue, Schlatt entered the kitchen. His expression was one of contempt as he disregarded your existence altogether, shuffling around you to reach for a glass. Confused, and slightly awkward in his tense presence, you hesitated, “Good morning.” Barely grunting out a response, Schlatt gave you a curt nod before filling up his glass with water. He then exited the kitchen, leaving you perplexed and slightly offended by his rudeness. 

Chewing on your bottom lip, you searched your brain for anything you could’ve done to piss him off. What could it have been? You always cleaned up after yourself and made sure the house was tidy; you even brought home dinner for the two of you every Thursday, so what could it be? Blowing out a sigh in frustration, you quickly poured the bitter liquid into a mug before heading back to your room. You decided that he was having a bad morning and tried not to take his unusual behavior too personally, though the thought remained in the back of your mind for the rest of the day.

As the week progressed, each encounter with Schlatt got progressively worse. You considered yourself lucky to find even a drop of coffee left in the pot, nevermind a clean mug for you to use. Schlatt used the remainder of the cream and sugar in the house, leaving you with a hot, steaming cup of nothing to power you through the day. Feeling beyond frustrated, you decided to go grocery shopping. Schlatt had managed to ransack every cabinet and crevice of the fridge of anything worth consuming, without bothering to tell you, meaning you were responsible for restocking your empty home. Typically, you would have no problem going shopping, knowing how much Schlatt hated it, but his recent behavior led you to believe that he didn’t deserve your help. Doing it anyways, you arrived back home after an hour and a half with an overwhelming amount of bags flooding your trunk. Once you opened the front door, you yelled out, “Can you help me with the groceries?” You were met with an unwavering silence that made your blood boil. Now angry, you called, “Schlatt!” 

His voice was faint as he yelled back from down the hall, “Busy!” 

That was the last straw. 

Dropping the bags that occupied your arms, you stomped down the hall, not bothering to knock on your roommates door. Schlatt turned, his expression one of surprise as he observed your furious glare. “I’ve had enough of your shit, Schlatt. I’ve tried to ignore your shitty behavior but now I’m done. I do everything here! I clean, I go shopping, I bring you dinner!” Schlatt slowly got up from his seat, approaching your fuming figure with a solemn look. Trying to ignore the way he towered over you, you continued, “I don’t know what the fuck I did for you to treat me like this, but if you don’t get your shit together right now I swear I’ll-”

Your words were interrupted as Schlatt pressed his lips to yours. The kiss was short, but passionate enough to get the point across—Schlatt liked you, a lot. And judging by the way you kissed him back, it was clear you felt the same. Pulling away with a smirk, Schlatt raised an eyebrow as he studied your slacked expression. “Get it now?” 

It was safe to say you did. 

[holdontorogers]

𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞. 𝐛.𝐛.

gif not mine, credits to owner

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠; tfatws!bucky x bartender!college!reader

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭; 2,218

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲; Bucky has a secret place in Brooklyn that he found out as soon as he got his apartment after the blip: the bar you work at.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬; +18 ONLY | MINORS DNI, angst, cheating (your bf/ex), hints to oral (f receiving), sex dreams, alcohol consumption, metal arm kink (i guess lol), swearing, friends on their way to lovers, unrequited feelings, mentions of college, stress, let me know if something’s missing and sorry for any typos.

𝐚/𝐧; so this was suppose to be out last weekend but headaches, college and stress delayed the process, hope you enjoy. 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐬!!!

⊱⋅ ───────── 𖥸 ────────── ⋅⊰

“So, pretty amazing what you and Captain America did the other week”, he chuckled more for himself then any other thing as he pretended to ignore the fact that you knew everything about his past — and about him, in general. 

“Yeah well, I guess it feels good to know that the shield is finally with the right person”. You gave him a nice smile and intended to say something else but someone was already calling out asking for their drink, you rolled your eyes playfully for Bucky and walked away.  

Safe to say that Bucky is way more interested in your company than the bar itself, that’s why he would come by almost everyday by the end of the night and stayed for as long as you would like. 

The bar was packed, more than usual, and Bucky pretended to ignore the fact that he was bothered by not having as much of your attention as he planned to. 

Given that between missions and your senior year in college plus all your work at the bar, sometimes visiting you while you moved around the crowded place was one of the only ways you two could spend some time together.

 “It won’t magically fill up you know?” Bucky  was so lost in his thoughts and distracted playing with the now empty beer bottle he didn’t even notice you brought him another one.

“You know I can’t get drunk right, doll?” he said with a playful smirk, “and why would I want to get you drunk?” you winked and went back to attending the other people in the bar as Bucky followed your movements with his eyes. 

He sees you quickly looking at your phone following the action by a frustrated sigh, and he immediately clenches his jaw. Your ass of a boyfriend was probably leading you on yet again on another Thursday night with some lame excuse. Bucky could not believe how poorly this man (boy) treated you. If only Bucky could have the chance to show you how you should properly be loved and cared for...

When you came back to where he stood you seemed even more annoyed.

 “Is everything okay, doll?”, you looked at him with an exhausted expression and a tension between your eyebrows, “yeah, just... can’t wait to finish up and go home, how long are you planning to stay?” Bucky furrowed his brows, were you tired of him? 

“Don’t know yet, why?” you shrugged and looked over your shoulder discreetly “that girl keeps checking you out and I don’t know, maybe you would like to take her home?” I actually would like to go home with you. Bucky could swear this suggestion was as painful to you as it was to him, but he knew that that was only his mind playing tricks with him.

 “I still don’t think I have a way with the ladies right now” your eyebrows rose in amusement and you tried to study his expression “Well, if anything, just tell her your arm vibrates”.  You winked and returned to your duties once again. Meanwhile, Bucky realized the heat in his cheeks thinking about what you said. It’s amazing how much power you had over him, as he imagined how you would react under his arms. 

How soft his right arm would be on your warm skin, how the friction between metal and warmth would drive you insane once his metal arm was touching you... He could see all the different ways that he could make you his, make you forget all the shit you go through everyday, make you feel unique and loved. 

(...)

However, Bucky saw you seemed more upset and stressed out than usual so he decided to stay. He waited until you closed the bar and helped you sort everything out. You looked once again at your phone with a much worse look than before. 

“Doll what’s wrong?” he rarely asked you about your relationship, and always did good in pretending to ignore the frustrated looks you’d constantly give to your phone. 

You met his concerned eyes and saw all his attention in you, which makes your heart soften a little. You unlocked your phone and opened a conversation with one of your friends, showing it to Bucky with watered eyes. 

When he looked at the conversation from a few days ago he used all his self control to not shatter your phone or run down to haunt the man in the pics you showed him. There was a girl pressed against the wall of a club right between your boyfriends arms, and that girl was not you.

All the anger in Bucky’s eyes settled for worry when he looked at you. He held you in his arms and ran his fingers through your hair to calm the silent tears that were falling involuntarily from your face. 

“He’s an asshole and he never deserved you.” You nodded and continued to let yourself be taken care of by Bucky, “and just tell me the words so I can gladly kick his ass”. You laughed and that felt odd, but not surprising since Bucky always brought up the best in you. You had no idea how you two became such close friends, but you were glad to have him in your life. “Thanks Buck, you’re the best friend I could have right now ”. 

As Bucky walked home after taking you home the events of the night went over his head. He was a mess of nerves, angers, worries and sadness. He knew how much you needed a friend right now. He knew how you handled your own feelings and barely talked about it. He knew it was a big deal for you to show him what was going on. And yet the thought of showing you how much better he could treat you if you saw him beyond a friend wouldn’t leave his mind. 

 ───── 

**Bucky’s lips were drawing your skin like it was meant to be there this whole time. It’s like his mouth was designed to know how to touch you in all the right spots. He would caress your skin and take such good care of you. His words were soft and yet you knew he was in control, and you loved being at his mercy. You were willing to let him do anything as long as his lips never left your body again.

Goosebumps were consuming you as he kept going lower and lower. His lips finally started to trace down your inner thighs as you whisper his name as an exasperated request. Bucky’s lips were wet and soft and hot at the same time. He smirked and finally went down to where you needed him most.**

Your heart was racing as your alarm made you jump scared instead of properly waking up. It took a while to remember where you were and what the hell was going on. You sighed when realizing you just had a dream with your best friend.

You decided to take a cool shower before starting your day, as the minutes you usually lay in bed before forcing yourself to wake up were effectively replaced with a very intense dream that led you to question all your life choices.

Your mind begins to wonder and you asked yourself if Bucky got the phone from that girl in the bar last night. You had a bothered look on your face even though you knew you should not be feeling like this.

And you shouldn’t be having these dreams as well, but it’s been so long since you’ve actually felt good.... It’s been so long since you had an orgasm. It almost felt natural to think of Bucky that way, as if the desire of having him between your legs have been there all this time just waiting for you to notice them. You shook the feeling out of your head - or at least tried to. 

You couldn’t help but think about the recent events of your life. You have been beyond busy and missed so many warning signs from your now past relationship. You left out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, biting your lips and thinking about your situation. 

You’re suddenly annoyed and wondering why the hell you stuck around in the relationship you were at. It wasn’t adding anything else to your life anymore, it wasn’t doing you any good and you were pretty sure the main reason your boyfriend has been so neglecting lately was because he was cheating on you. And you were right. Now you were a breakup hot mess drowning in work and college assignments barely making it through the days without stressing yourself out. 

As the caffeine started its magic and you were getting ready for the day, your boss texted you saying that you could have the day off. She would surely find a way to compensate for this miraculously free day you had but you wouldn’t complain. Today especially was a very much needed day for you to give yourself some tranquility. You got ready for your classes in a very comfy yet cute look that made you feel good and went out.

On your way to college you texted Bucky to see if he was available this afternoon. He was surprised to read about your day off and quickly answered back saying he would be free. You both agreed to meet at Central Park once you were done with classes. Your smile and excitement once again surprising you as your dream would not leave your mind. How would you face him? You had no idea but he was your best friend and one of the closest and greatest person in your life right now. Your frustration of a sex life would not be in the way of this friendship.

The classes went by rather quickly and you were catching up on your readings when Bucky met you at the park. The sun was starting to set and there was something about the sunset atmosphere and Bucky that made his features seem even more in evidence. You smiled and waved at him as he raised his brows and walked happily to where you were. 

“Hey doll, how’s the day been?” he seemed extremely relaxed and care-free as he tugged you in a warm hug, his cologne invading your senses and numbing you for a moment. You cleared your throat before answering him “It’s been weird” you frowned “I was called off work God knows why and I have been able to catch up on most of my readings for school so” you shrugged still surprised with how smooth things were. “So it’s been a good day?” his brows drew together in amusement, and you both started walking aimlessly through the park.

“Yeah it’s been good I guess, weird but peacefully good, what about yours?” his eyes were sparkled with excitement and he had a half smile illuminating his face “I’ve been good, I was watching that show you told me about when you texted me about your free day so, only good moments I guess” he winked as you studied his face and his genuine expression and you felt weird butterflies in your stomach — which you ignored.

“So how do you like Friends?” you poked him teasingly and he smiled “It’s a good show, Alpine and I have good laughs, but I don’t know I feel like it’s something that should be shared you know? I bet watching with someone would make it a hundred times better”. Bucky looked at you as if you should’ve read something between the lines.

You would usually take his words lightly and never question their meanings, but tonight was different. You could almost feel something in the air. You were absolutely sure that it was all on your head but... Something about the way Bucky always looked at you in such admiration and softness. You could spend all of your days studying his expressions and getting to know him. Life may not have been kind to him but kindness was all you knew when it came to James “Bucky” Barnes. 

He cleared his throat and caught your attention. Yep, you were staring at him instead of thinking about an answer. “Sorry doll, I just meant — ” Bucky read your silence as an awkward moment but you were quick to stop him “No! You were right! Friends is absolutely better when you watch with people... I’m sorry, I’ve been a little distracted that’s all” you smiled at him hoping he would take your answer and not think too much about this. Bucky thought you were distant and quiet because of what he found out last night, but the truth was that you couldn’t look at him without thinking about your dream. 

Every single time your eyes met his or that you accidentally touched him was like an electric wave washed over you. The memories you created in your sleep would not leave you as Bucky would do normal things like, winking when telling a joke, wetting or biting his lips. Every little action made you hold out on reacting in a way that would ruin your friendship for good.

Crossing a line with Bucky would be a bad idea, wouldn’t it? 

[ddarker-dreams]

Exodus. Yan Chrollo x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol mention, implied trauma, and panic attacks.  Word count: 1.6k.

Tonight commemorates an important milestone. 

You don’t know if you’d call this outing a “celebration”, the somberness of your mood presenting a stark contrast to the festive label. Reclaiming authority over your own life shouldn’t have been a necessity in the first place. To take pleasure in having autonomy again feels surreal, invoking a bitterness within you that can never be sated. Nothing serves as a permanent solution in making you feel better. Distractions, all of them, fleeting as the wind that carries you from one city to the next. 

The glass in front of you is empty, your throat burning from finishing it off. It’s late -- around midnight, last time you checked -- you should be heading out by now. Staying in one location longer than necessary is unwise. This prepaid card should have just enough to cover your tab for the night, if you’ve been keeping track properly. The man who’s been chatting you up for the past thirty minutes pauses when he sees you reaching for your wallet. 

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he chuckles, cheeks flushed from the alcohol. “My treat?” 

It’s a welcome enough invitation. “Ah... if it’s not too much a bother.” 

He shakes his head, and waves the bartender over. “It’s the least I could do. You make for a good conversation partner.” 

Good conversation partner, you think, repeating his words in your mind. Well, it beats some lecherous guy trying to feel me up. I’ll take it. 

“Though, I’ve got to say, are you feeling alright? You look like you’ve been spaced out for a bit. Did you drink too much?” He asks with a frown. It’s true that your head feels hazy, but it’s not debilitating. 

“I’ll be fine,” you respond, stretching your sore muscles. “Thank you for caring.” 

As more people from nearby clubs pour in for a drink, the bar feels more claustrophobic. Various people walk by you at every moment. You and your friendly companion have to move out of the way to make room for the influx of people, even though you’re sitting on barstools. Can’t people bother giving a bit more space? Geez... 

“Alright, just making sure,” he’s been feeling around his pocket for a few seconds now, eyebrows furrowing. “Huh, that’s strange, I could’ve sworn I left my wallet right here...” 

You look at the pocket he’s referring to, recalling how he put his wallet in there after ordering drinks for himself earlier. Before you get the opportunity to offer to help him search, there’s an additional voice behind you. One that instantly submerges your body into a state of unrivaled panic.

“I’ll pay for them.” 

There’s a hand placed on your shoulder. For such a light touch, it carries a heavy weight, your body all but crumbling underneath of it. Your breath catches in the back of your tightening throat. This... this can’t be happening. It’s been months. How is this possible, I took every precaution-- 

“Isn’t that right, [First]?” Chrollo comes into your view, a content smile on his face. The same smile that tells you he knows he’s won. The same smile that seals your fate, closing every door to the future you fought tooth and nail to open up. You don’t trust your voice, not in this petrified state, opting to nod your head once. Wrapping up some unsuspecting stranger in this is the last thing you want to do. Especially as courteous as this person has been to you.  

“Ah, thanks man, I must’ve dropped it somewhere,” he lets out an awkward laugh. From how Chrollo is referring to you with familiarity, he assume he’s your boyfriend. “I’ll head out for now then. It was nice meeting you.” 

“Y-yeah. Nice meeting you too.” You swallow bile that rises in your throat, every muscle in your body going taut. Chrollo takes the seat the stranger had once occupied and eyes you with acute interest. He’s wearing far more casual clothes than usual, bandages covering the peculiar mark on his head. Neither of you make a move. Had it been anyone else, any other person threatening you without so much as uttering a word, you’d be making a scene. 

It isn’t anyone else. You know Chrollo, you know the lengths he’d go to. One wrong move and everyone in here would be reduced to nothing less than a bloodstain on the floor. Playing your cards right is the only option, stalling until a better solution comes into your paralyzed mind. His dark grey eyes are unreadable, piercing straight through you, bringing a sense of dread like no other.

Your hands tighten on your lap, fingernails digging into the skin of your thighs. “How... how long...?” 

Chrollo raises an eyebrow at your quivering voice. “How long what? How long ago I knew the body wasn’t yours, that you’ve been using various forms of false identification, or since I entered this bar?” 

He returns your poorly executed question with a barrage of his own, delivered in an even timbre. Chrollo takes a sip from his own glass at your silence. What is there to say? What is there to do? You’ve been caught, trapped in the spider’s web, any forms of struggle fastening you further into his clutches. Squirming underneath his unrelenting stare feels even worse, but you can’t will yourself to remain calm. You know this is what he wants. To make you feel powerless, taking some form of twisted pleasure in your misery. There’d be a tiniest touch of satisfaction in denying him that, yet you can’t even manage that much. 

“I wanted to observe what you’d do, what lengths you’d go to,” Chrollo explains as he taps the rim of his glass, “Now that you’ve had your fun, I believe it’s time to come home.” 

Fun...? Is that what he’d call it? Having to look over your shoulder whenever you went out for basic supplies, the insomnia that haunted you as you feared you might wake to the sight of him watching over you, cutting off contact with everyone you cared for as you feared the repercussions if he found out? There was no fun in the last few miserable months of your life, only anxiety and lament. It took everything you had to escape from Chrollo once. Seeing the light of that victory extinguished is agonizing. 

Chrollo places a smothering hand atop your shaking one. “Though, I do have to admit that I’m quite... disappointed, with you. There’ll be time to discuss that elsewhere.” 

“What makes you think I’ll come with you?” you snap before you can stop yourself, pulling your hand to your chest in disgust. Chrollo doesn’t bother moving his hand. You both know your lack of power in this situation, how every act like that is nothing but an attempt to make you appear stronger than you are. Never before has his surname felt more fitting than now. 

“The same reason why you haven’t tried doing anything since I showed up,” Chrollo closes his eyes, reflecting. His voice drops to a sinister whisper. “You know what’d happen if you did.” 

There are no hidden strategies up your sleeve. No escape route, counter argument, or clever tricks. Your eyes dart around. There are people from every walk of life gathered here, none the wiser to the threat that looms over like a shadow in the night. College students, long time friends reconnecting, workers relaxing after a long week at the job. To Chrollo, they aren’t meaningful people with lives and ambitions, they’re puppets. His Nen is capable of horrors that you wish you could unsee. 

“In that case... what do I do?” Your body is heavy with the burden of defeat. Shoulders slumping, eyelids drooping, and eyes threatening to overflow with tears. 

Chrollo places some bills onto the countertop, money no doubt gained through the pain of others. “I’m glad you asked. There’s a car outside waiting for us.” 

Of course. This wasn’t a chance encounter, or fate spitting at you in disgust. It was meticulously planned and executed by a man who specializes in the art of thievery. You’d expect no less. Sighing, you reach for Chrollo’s drink, that he had sit down in favor of inspecting you. He watches wordlessly as you take it for yourself, chugging the remnants in its entirety. The flush on your face worsens at your actions, but you can’t bother yourself to care. 

It’s only when you place it down with a clink that he comments. “I leave you to your own devices for this short a time and you end up like this? Surely, being with me was better than jumping motel to motel for months on end. You’ve proven you’re incapable of taking care of yourself without my intervention.” 

“It’s because of you that I’m like this,” you wipe at your mouth with the back of your hand, venom dripping from your every word. “Don’t get the wrong idea.” 

Chrollo simply smiles, standing and motioning for you to join him by his side. For something that’s posed as a choice, it’s lacking the options to truly be one, a single path set ahead of you. Chrollo helps you to your feet, your legs too unstable to function properly. In the moment, you can’t settle on how you feel. Angry with yourself? The rest of the world for not being able to see what’s happening? Exhausted from months of being on the run? You don’t know. You don’t know anything anymore for certain, the room around you steadily becoming a blur. All you know is that it’s all his fault. 

“Whatever helps you feel better about yourself, [First].” 

[itsclydebitches]

Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

[bigskydreaming]

If you were editor of Nightwing's book ever since at least the start of Rebirth to today and you were given free reign, what would your story mandates?

Oh no, this is dangerous. LOL. Hmm, I have no idea what to shoot for here, so I'll try to keep it to ten. That's reasonable right? Ten is good. Yeah. Is fine.

Okay, so, in no particular order:

1) Let Dick be competent 101. None of this him having to play hype man for every other character to pop up in HIS title bullshit. Nope. That's not what they're there for. He's the lead man, LET HIM BE THE LEADING MAN. Like sure, everyone has their areas of expertise, he doesn't need or have to be the best at everything, blah blah blah.....but its about the nuance. All of that is kinda lip service because the thing is, you don't go into MOST comic books and NEED to be reminded of that because the lead characters of those books are all constantly getting saved or shown up or chastised by every guest star in their books, you know? This is a very weird, very niche phenomenon very specific to Dick's character, and I'm super over it. I'm here to read about the guy who has literally been doing this longer than most superheroes twice his age. The guy who's been doing this since before he hit double digits. The born acrobat. The destined ultimate warrior or whatever of Gotham's Ornithological Society Of Murder and Pretentiousness. Gimme that guy. And that guy doesn't need to be 'humbled' every other page, because the thing is, he's not some egomaniac to begin with so the everpresent need to humble him doesn't actually come off as humbling! It just comes off as pandering and not even to actual fans of the actual character, so its like.....wyd DC.

2) Let other people take responsibility for their own crap with Dick rather than always just expecting a mea culpa from him. I'm so unbelievably tired of the words I'm sorry from Dick. I love personal accountability, so I never thought I'd have to say this about a character, but enoooooough. They have made it completely in character for this dude to apologize to everyone ELSE for being brainwashed, getting amnesia, being KILLED, like.....the amount of things he's groveled for forgiveness for when he didn't actually do a damn thing wrong or worse yet, was the ACTUAL victim of is like....pretty damn staggering. And meanwhile, there's nary a peep of apology from the people who regularly insult or belittle him, get physically violent with him, take advantage of him or take him for granted, etc, etc, etc. Its entirely too one-sided and imbalanced, and the pendulum needs to swing the other direction, like YESTERDAY, and in a fairly big way, IMO.

3) None of this Baby's First Social Justice Awakening 101 crap. I'm sorry, but no. Especially not when you go out of your way to acknowledge that Dick is Romani, only to then turn around and act like he's only JUST had his eyes opened to an awareness of like, classism and poverty and the real struggles people face day to day? Sorry not sorry, but especially for other white writers out there, do not use people of color as self-inserts for dipping a toe into Learning To See Past Privilege. And especially when talking about a character who has a history of being actively abused and hurt by the system and institutions of power, or hell, even leaving out that particular origin story, who has still been out on the streets helping people since he was a literal child. You can not tell me that this is his first face to face experience with social issues, or the first time he's had the inclination to try and address those head on. (And its also particularly egregious that the people second-guessing Dick in his own title and giving him reality checks or acting like they have more of an awareness of all this than he does like, happen to all be white? OPTICS. LEARN ABOUT THEM. COMMON SENSE. GET SOME.)

Know what would actually be a better way to approach this? Flashbacks. Show us Dick running into situations that make him think back to a case when he was still Robin, when he and Batman had started fighting over their approaches to things, actually SHOW us those conflicts and how their viewpoints had started diverging, and how much of that was due to Dick not having the same experiences as Bruce, or the same standing in society, no matter what house he lived in. THEN you can jump BACK to the present, with the reminder/awareness that this is something that isn't NEWS to Dick, but that he in the past felt he was forced to make his peace with as something he wasn't in a position to do that much about....only NOW, he's in a very DIFFERENT position, and suddenly it just hits him how he's still acting like he did when he was limited in resources or in having to be part of a chain in command or having to factor other responsibilities into things....now he ACTUALLY has the power and the resources to make meaningful change in the ways he ALWAYS wanted to, but maybe just needed time to figure out HOW.

Like you know what would have made Shawn Tsang's story arc so much better? If Dick didn't just remember her as the Pigeon's one time teenage sidekick he'd briefly fought as a kid, but like.....if he remembered her as someone he and Bruce had FOUGHT about. Because he didn't agree with sending someone to juvie for defacing public property as a form of political protest, when it was someone's LIFE who was going to be irrevocably damaged by that while the damage to the city could be fixed with a check, and what made Dick any more deserving of Bruce's leniency and faith in his potential or underlying goodness than Shawn?

But he was still a kid himself back then, and when Bruce responded with his usual conviction, talking about the importance about rule of law and etc etc, Dick just didn't have the words to get through to him then, to get him to understand that this wasn't just Dick not getting it because he was too young, it was BRUCE not getting it, that Dick was literally just saying well he wasn't too young to have been in juvie himself, and of the two of them, he's the one who has experience there so why was Bruce's opinion on whether this was the punishment that fit the crime the one that got to hold more weight here? When Dick's the one who knows what that punishment actually LOOKS like beyond the abstract, for whom it was a reality that still haunts him in ways that even defacing a few statues of some rich old fucks doesn't deserve?

Or hell, go back FURTHER than when he was Robin. Idk where any of those posts are, but I've always wanted to see something where Dick maybe runs into someone he remembers from his time in juvie, maybe a guard who is like, the source of the reasons Dick mistrusts figures of authority and is so hung up on independence and not being under anyone's thumb, or maybe someone who was in there with him, another kid who looked out for him when he didn't have to, etc. Gimme Dick tackling head-on his firsthand awareness that there's no rehabilitation to be found in a jail for kids, when most of those kids don't even need rehabilitation in the first place and only did what they did in order to survive or escape from worse situations or like, were there purely because of racist cops, etc. Let him go after THAT system, driven by personal experiences and memories that maybe only hit him in full after recovering his memories from the Ric Grayson arc, like they're things that he put in a box in his mind a long, long time ago because he didn't have the spoons or reserves to deal with them when he was a kid still so traumatized in so many ways, like, something had to give and so he put all those memories away for another day and just....never got back to them because life kept hitting him with new and fresh trauma every week.

But now something has him thinking back to those early days in Gotham, and reminding him that not everyone had a Bruce Wayne willing and able to give them an out from that place or acrobatic skills to escape it on their own, and like. You want to do something about the cycles of violence in Gotham and Bludhaven? Why not start with the places that literally MANUFACTURE cruelty on an institutional level, that teach kids that no matter what they did to get put there, even if that was nothing at all, they're all going to be treated the same way and given no reason NOT to do whatever it took to be top dog in a dog eat dog world by the time they got out.

There's SO many better approaches to social awareness in the Batbooks than what we're seeing, and like. Sheesh. The bar is way too low.

4) On a related note, if I'm editor of the Nightwing book, the FIRST thing I'm doing is making it a priority to find a writer of color for that book, ideally someone of Rom descent. Its waaaaay past time to let a Romani writer take the reins on Dick, Wanda, Pietro or Doom, aka some of the only prominent Romani characters out there? You can't tell me that there aren't talented writers who identify as Roma who would be more than willing to add their perspective to Dick's archive of narratives, and if an editor's gotta go looking for them? Go fucking look. DC and its fans have milked a lot of mileage out of the idea of Dick being Romani with very little in the way of nuanced storytelling to show for it in the past twenty years, and if DC wants to trot out little reminders that Dick is Romani every couple years, like in the form of a freaking line that has no follow up or expansion to any degree and is offset by an internal monologue that otherwise reads as incredibly privileged, the least they can do is TRY to expand on that with the narrative perspective of someone they claim to be representing via that character.

And no, this isn't gatekeeping, this is prioritizing. Its not about preventing other writers from writing this character, like just for the hell of it, its about being proactive about finding a writer who can write specific aspects of this character that have long gone unaddressed or poorly represented. And like. Okay. Its not easy breaking into the comics industry for anyone, but its particularly not easy for marginalized writers. Most every major comic book company just recites 'make your own stuff first and then show us that' but when you're a writer specifically, finding a compatible artist to partner with on creator-owned indie stuff first, when those artists are in the same position as you are and apologetically and understandably tend to have to take paying work over yours if you can't pay except on the back end, like....there are a lot of hurdles to getting your start in comic books, and while there are more and more marginalized writers in comics these days, DC and Marvel kinda fucked up, because you know what?

After being told 'make your own first, then we'll talk,' writers DID do just that....but then found out that well, due to the ease of online distribution and access these days, for any writers who CAN find an artist to partner with, its a hell of a lot easier to get their content out there these days WITHOUT a major publisher behind them.....and for a lot of marginalized writers in particular, its worth it to keep full creative control in exchange for smaller circulation. Especially when they don't have to deal with editors 'softening' their work to make it more palatable for audiences that quite frankly aren't necessarily their primary target. So yeah, marginalized voices are becoming more and more present in comics, but Marvel and DC for the most part are keeping the same voices centered they always have, and what these voices have to say is becoming less and less relevant and outdated. Because much like this arc from Taylor, even when they DO dip their toes into story matter that's of interest to wider audiences, they're doing so to a degree that still puts them years behind the conversations everyone else is having.

5) The same holds true of disability representation. I stopped reading Taylor's run for a lot of reasons but his way of responding to people unhappy with his depiction of Babs was a key one. If I'm editor on a book, and someone tweets at one of my writers that their depiction of a disabled character was hurtful because it feels like they're doubling back on everything Babs has ever said about not being defined by or ashamed of her disability and now its being treated like a dirty little secret, and that writer's response is essentially to just laugh at them and say there's nothing wrong or ableist about their writing of a disabled person, TO a concerned disabled person? That writer's ass is getting fired. Full stop.

Either you give a shit about this stuff or you don't. Don't pay your readers lip service about how important social issues are to you and how much you care about using superhero narratives to inspire people on these matters if you're gonna turn around and show your ass the second you don't feel comfortable and prioritized by the conversation, like it wouldn't exist without your oh so valuable contributions. ESPECIALLY if you don't identify as sharing the same identity of the marginalized character you're writing. You are a guest in someone else's lived experiences at that point, and you think you've got the right to belittle and talk down to the people who LIVE THERE? Fuck off, my dude.

6) Re-center Dick as someone who the superhero community RESPECTS. I love seeing Dick depicted as someone who has an awareness of his own limitations and an appreciation for what others bring to the table, and so I'm not opposed to him calling on others when he needs to.....but I also would like to see more of the opposite. But not in the way we usually see it these days, where he's asked to come help with a crisis and then usually second-guessed the whole way, and then sent back home without so much as a thank you when its done. Yawn. Sorry. I've read that story by now.

You know what story arc I freaking LOVED as a kid, back in the 90s? In Green Lantern, when Kyle Rayner first became the sole GL, one of his very early arcs, before he ever joined the JLA or anything....was him realizing how little he knew about being a superhero. He was like, my predecessors all had a full fledged CORPS to teach them everything they needed to know, but I had a few lines of exposition from a funny little blue guy in a red pillowcase and then I was off to the races. That's not good enough. There's so much I don't know about being a hero, I don't even KNOW what I still need to know.

So he went on kinda a superhero training roadtrip. He went to Metropolis to ask Superman for advice, he went to Batman to learn from Batman and Robin (Tim at the time). He went to Wonder Woman, Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern), etc, etc. And in the end, Kyle very much became his own kind of hero who wasn't just a pastiche of all those other heroes and the advice they gave him, but like....this put him on the road to that.

And I'd love to see something like that happen in Dick's solo title. We've seen him train in a team setting, we've seen him train the other Robins.....I'd love to see like, young superheroes from OTHER books, not ones created by the title, but like names people actually recognize from other franchises, like, guest star in Nightwing's book to learn from HIM, specifically. I wanna see something where Wally looks at the latest speedster and is like, you know what, if you really wanna be the best hero you can possibly be, then Nightwing's who you gotta go to, because there's no one I trust to make a better hero out of someone than him. I want the newest kid on the JLA block to worry that people aren't taking him seriously because of his age or experience, and he's always hearing them talk about Nightwing and how young he was when he started and so if anyone knows something about how to gain the respect of your older superhero peers, that's the guy to talk to.

Gimme Dick's couch being crashed on at various times by a half dozen new or upcoming young superheroes who all heard or figured out that if they really want to up their superhero game, Nightwing's the guy to see.

7) Bring back Bea. There's no long paragraph expansion on this, its really simply. Bring back Bea. She was one of the freshest breaths of air in Dick's supporting cast in ages, most of the current run is based off her character direction in the first place, she's literally the best suited TO help Dick in this venture, and the reasons they gave for writing her out of Dick's life were all bullshit and they just wanted to focus on his previous relationships, which would be fine if they didn't fall into the same two endless cycles of bring back up, go nowhere with, awkwardly avoid each other for years, rinse and repeat. Like. Bring back Bea, please and thank you, the end.

8) Focus on new villains. Heartless is meh, but the idea of new villains is still better IMO than rehashing Blockbuster, Zucco, etc. Like, nostaglia ain't it. If I want to read Blockbuster fucking up Dick's life, I can do that. They're called back issues. The thing is, love it or hate it, the Blockbuster arc WAS iconic. It left its mark. And anything that doesn't leave just as much of a mark, if they're going to bring him up again, is just gonna be a waste of time, you know? It'll just dilute his overall presence when like, what he was - worked fine as is. We don't need Round Two.

The trick to good villains, IMO, is they have to speak to a fight that needs fighting.

What I mean by that is....the best villains are those who resonate on a more instinctive level because they embody something that already exists in a reader's mind as a conflict that needs fighting. Like, if superheroes exist, if the embodiment of larger than life presences and forces devoted to protecting the world from various things are real....then their villains need to embody the kinds of fights or conflicts that NEED larger than life figures to combat them, at least on a one to one level.

Look at Superman and Lex Luthor. Superman at his core embodies the strength of community. He's the ultimate hero of the people, his essence is that he was the last survivor of a doomed race who was raised by two honest, hard working people to see the beauty in just being ONE of them, in using what he had on behalf of all of them and not just himself. In contrast, Lex Luthor is basically the embodiment of capitalist greed, of excess, of the entitlement of being able to have anything with a snap of your fingers and thus assuming that gives you divine mandate to make the kinds of choices that he sees as only his right to make.

He hates Superman, ultimately, because Superman is the WRONG savior of the people. He wants their only savior to be HIM, half the time he honestly believes he's saving the world FROM Superman, but just as often he's perfectly content to be the villain and not shy about it....because Lex Luthor's ultimate motivation is he wants everyone to know when he's dead and gone that LEX LUTHOR WAS HERE. He genuinely doesn't care WHAT his impact or legacy is at the end of the day, just that it exists and it overshadows most everything else...because all that really matters to him is the irrefutable proof that HE mattered. And thus at their cores, Superman and Lex are perfectly opposed. Ideally situated to eternally be in conflict, their own forever war, because their core natures are incompatible. They CAN'T compromise, without compromising themselves and essentially ending up as someone totally other than who and what they are already.

And you can go down the list. The Joker is the chaos to Batman's order, while Mr. Freeze is the stagnancy of that order taken too far, he's what you get when you freeze everything in your grief and refuse to let anything go on, anything new grow, because that would mean having to admit once and for all that what you're mourning is really gone. Two-Face is the ultimate embodiment of Man vs Self, a once good man at war with his own worse nature, and reminding everyone who looks at him how easily they could fall to the same fate.

And so on and so on. What Dick needs, is more of the same. Like, as much as I'm not a huge fan of Talon stories, I maintain that the Court of Owls were a great foil for him - just they tend to be poorly used in canon as well. But I also think how poorly they come off in canon has a lot to do with canon not really touching on WHY they're such a perfect foil for Dick....and that's Dick's history with being outside the system, mistreated and even exploited by the system. Because the Court, their core concept, is they ARE the system. They are entrenched, enfranchised, institutional power, passed down through generations, dynastic control that is a perfect counterpart to the dynastic power of the Wayne family, embodied in its youngest generation in the form of Bruce's FOUND family, the children he adopted regardless of whether or not his peers found them deserving of that honor. The Court, and their entire....thing...about the Gray Son, is the entitled fury of those denied something they deem theirs simply because they WANT it, and who will burn the whole world down rather than admit defeat or let someone else have it instead.

And that resonates. It could resonate a lot MORE if DC would actually lean into those concepts and allow Dick to explore how the Court are nothing he's not used to, they're literally made up of the same people who have looked down on him ever since he came to Gotham, but now they're actually a face and a name put to all those attitudes, something he can literally FIGHT BACK AGAINST. The Court are literally human-sized embodiments of everything and everyone who's tried to confine Dick since his parents' deaths, tried to define him without his permission, tried to make him other or lesser than who and what he is.....and who thus now exist in a form that Dick can literally BATTLE. So that he doesn't HAVE to just take this stuff lying down.

Thanks to the Court, he doesn't HAVE to just passively accept it, that this is just how life is, that some people are going to view him this way and think this about him and there's nothing he can do about it. He CAN do something about it, in superhero stories. He can kick its ASS, in the form of the Court of Owls and everything its members think about him and intend for him. He can refuse to bow down to them, to accept their mark on him. He can say lol, no, and then blow their shit sky high, ideally with a little help from his family. He can BEAT them, in this incarnated form, and in doing so, even though he can't beat everything they stand for and represent, that victory still matters, still means something symbolic to readers it resonates with.

And that's what we need more of. Villains created specifically to embody concepts that are diametrically opposed to Dick and what he represents. The system, yes, but also villains who embody the kind of tyranny and control he fights back against in his constant battles for autonomy and self control. Villains who embody the 'new hopes' of a second generation just like Dick himself is the focal point of the hopes embodied by the second generation of heroes. I'm actually not the hugest fan of multiversal constant Dick Grayson, but I might like it more if he had an opposite number there, someone he was specifically contrasted with. Idk.

But you get it.

9) Dick having a social life. Gimme the Titans and his siblings showing up JUST to show up. We have room enough for at least a couple pages every other issue where we just get to see these characters having some breathing room, taking a beat to stop and be something other than just a superhero, to be human as well. There's more to life than 24/7 fighting, even for them, and that's largely been lost in modern superhero comics, which kinda sucks, because that was what made most of the more iconic and lasting dynamics between various characters like, STAND the test of time. The larger than life battles between good and evil might be what many of us come to superhero comics FOR, but the relatable back-and-forths and ups and downs of their private lives spent with friends and family tends to be what keeps most of us coming BACK. And lately its all just mission, mission, mission, and I'm like blah, blah, blah and its like, meh, meh, meh. Y'know? Give the guy some down time, and let his friends come spend it with him.

10) Boone. This is purely self-indulgent, but if you know anything about me, you know my obsession with Robin: Year One, Dick's brief time at Vengeance Academy, and the hate/hate relationship he has with his brief frenemy from that period, Boone aka Shrike. This character has SOOOOO much potential to be Dick's true archnemesis and rival, and like. *Sobs* I can't get into it all again. Its too much. I can't do it.

Okay, I absolutely can. And will, probably. But like. Later.

BONUS ROUND:

Other thing I would absolutely insist upon if I were Nightwing editor....

GET THAT FUCKING MEME SHIRT ABOUT BRUCE SLAPPING DICK THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.

Like. Seriously. WHAT THE HELL. Why would you double down on THAT? Why is Babs STILL wearing it? (Last I checked, like I think I saw it in a scan from last issue? I'm pretty sure its still there? If not, forget this entire rant, and I am very embarrassed. Okay not that embarrassed. I don't really care if I'm wrong here but like, in case I'm not)...

WHY. Who thought that was funny? No, seriously, on behalf of any other abuse survivors who like me are SERIOUSLY not amused, who the FUCK thinks its FUNNY to have one of Dick's best friends sporting a shirt that no matter what it represents IN universe, to readers OUT of universe, is always going to call to mind the fact that this meme only freaking EXISTS because of all the times DC has obliviously and without acknowledgment written Bruce abusing his children, including the BFF that Babs is literally wearing that right in front of.

Like omg do you hate her, DC? What other possible reason could you have for thinking that would be a cute, funny thing for her to wear around the guy getting SLAPPED, by his DAD, in your shirt's iconography.

Okay I'm done.

LOL.

Sorry, that last one was brewing for awhile. Deep breaths. Woo.

[kingandfireheart]

The Lady of the Autumn Court: what the fuck is happening in Autumn (part 2)

As I said in my Eris Vanserra post, it seems that the Lady of the Autumn Court is a bigger piece to the Eris and Lucien puzzles.

We don't know what the fuck has been happening in the Forest House but we do the following:

The Lady of the Autumn Court is/was extremely powerful

Lucien (and to some extent Eris) are mama's boys (even though Lucien has been exiled for centuries)

The Lady met Helion before she was married to Beron

At least one of the seven brothers - Lucien - is Helion's child, but Helion saved the Lady after she had already had some kids (so Eris probably isn't his, even though they both have amber eyes)

The Lady chose to stay with Beron

Beron is aware of the affair between Helion and the Lady

Beron is physically abusive towards the Lady and had tortured Eris

Helion does not know Lucien is his heir, but Eris seems to know Lucien isn't Beron's son

Things that aren't mentioned below the cut, but are interesting:

Eris is the ringleader of the brothers, the commander of Beron's forces, and is Beron's most trusted son (the other three don't even have names)

In ACOWAR, Eris says has never denied Beron anything - except to save Lucien - but is angling for the throne and betraying him in ACOFAS and ACOSF (this reminds me of Lorcan betraying Maeve for her own good in TOG)

Beron wanted to kill Lucien for wanting to leave Autumn and marry Jesminda (this doesn't seem like a good reason if he isn't in line for the throne - or isn't part of their bloodline, but I guess Beron doesn't need a reason to be cruel)

Helion alludes to having trouble at home in ACOSF

The remaining unnamed brothers are all angling for the throne (this reminds me of the Khaganate in TOG and the Cruel Prince)

I got a little carried away with the color coding, but here's every major scene involving and discussing the Lady of the Autumn Court (and some breadcrumbs because I'm convinced SJM is purposeful in her writing)

Rhysand uses the Lady of the Autumn Court taunt Lucien in ACOTAR:

Rhysand’s venom-coated smile grew. “You draw blood from me, Lucien, and you’ll learn how quickly Amarantha’s whore can make the entire Autumn Court bleed. Especially its darling Lady.” The color leached from Lucien’s face, but he held his ground. It was Tamlin who answered. “Put your sword down, Lucien.” Rhysand ran an eye over me. “I knew you liked to stoop low with your lovers, Lucien, but I never thought you’d actually dabble with mortal trash.” My face burned. Lucien was trembling—with rage or fear or sorrow, I couldn’t tell. “The Lady of the Autumn Court will be grieved indeed when she hears of her youngest son. If I were you, I’d keep your new pet well away from your father.”

The Lady of the Autumn Court also helps Feyre with one of her tasks:

A door clicked open somewhere down the hall, and I shot to my feet. An auburn head peered at me. I sagged with relief. Lucien— Not Lucien. The face that turned toward me was female—and unmasked. She looked perhaps a bit older than Amarantha, but her porcelain skin was exquisitely colored, graced with the faintest blush of rose along her cheeks. Had the red hair not been indication enough, when her russet eyes met mine, I knew who she was. I bowed my head to the Lady of the Autumn Court, and she inclined her chin slightly. I supposed that was honor enough. “For giving her your name in place of my son’s life,” she said, her voice as sweet as sun-warmed apples. She must have been in the crowd that day. She pointed at the bucket with a long, slender hand. “My debt is paid.” She disappeared through the door she’d opened, and I could have sworn I smelled roasting chestnuts and crackling fires in her wake.

Rhys (while wearing the mask of hte High Lord) uses her to taunt Lucien again in ACOMAF:

“Little Lucien,” Rhys purred. “Didn’t the Lady of the Autumn Court ever tell you that when a woman says no, she means it?”

“Prick,” Lucien snarled, storming past his sentinels, but not daring to touch his weapons. “You filthy, whoring prick.”

Lucien explaining how he was treated since Beron may suspect he's Helion's heir and as we know from Tamlin: future high lords have physical markers:

His jaw tightened. “As the youngest of seven sons, I wasn’t particularly needed or wanted. Perhaps it was a good thing. I was able to study for longer than my father allowed my brothers before shoving them out the door to rule over some territory within our lands, and I could train for as long as I liked, since no one believed I’d be dumb enough to kill my way up the long list of heirs. And when I grew bored with studying and fighting … I learned what I could of the land from its people. Learned about the people, too.”

“I’d say that sounds more High-Lord-like than the life of an idle, unwanted son.”

A long, steely look. “Did you think it was mere hatred that prompted my brothers to do their best to break and kill me?”

This may not relate to the Lady of the Autumn Court's relationship with Helion, but I'm gathering all the crumbs (why does Eris hesitate before calling his brothers brothers?)

“You hunted me down like an animal,” I cut in. “I think we’ll choose to believe the worst.”

Eris’s pale face flushed. “I was given an order. And sent to do it with two of my … brothers.”

Eris has no love for Beron (he literally asks Rhys to kill him), but he does seem to protect the Lady during the High Lord's Meeting:

“If you want proof that we are not scheming with Hybern,” Rhysand said blandly to them all, “consider the fact that it would be far less time-consuming to slice into your minds and make you do my bidding.”

Only Beron was stupid enough to scoff. Eris was just angling his body in his chair—blocking the path to his mother.

Helion and Lady of Autumn lock eyes:

The violence simmering off my friends was enough to boil the pool at our toes as the High Lord of Autumn filed through the archway, his sons in rank behind him, his wife—Lucien’s mother—at his side. Her russet eyes scanned the room, as if looking for that missing son.

They settled instead on Helion, who gave her a mocking incline of his dark head. She quickly averted her gaze.

The High Lords discuss the past war:

(also reminder: Eris has Amber Eyes like Helion)

Helion shrugged, the sun catching in the embroidered gold thread of his tunic. “Indeed, though it seems Tamlin is already ahead of me. The Spring Court must be evacuated.” His amber eyes darted between Tarquin and Beron. “Surely your northern neighbors will welcome them.”

Beron’s lip curled. “We do not have the resources for such a thing.”

“Right,” Viviane said, “because everyone’s too busy polishing every jewel in that trove of yours.”

Beron threw her a glare that had Kallias tensing. “Wives were invited as a courtesy, not as consultants.”

Viviane’s sapphire eyes flared as if struck by lightning. “If this war goes poorly, we’ll be bleeding out right alongside you, so I think we damn well get a say in things.”

“Hybern will do far worse things than kill you,” Beron counted coolly. “A young, pretty thing like you especially.”

Kallias’s snarl rippled the water in the reflection pool, echoed by Mor’s own growl.

Beron smiled a bit. “Only three of us were present for the last war.” A nod to Rhys and Helion, whose face darkened. “One does not easily forget what Hybern and the Loyalists did to captured females in their war-camps. What they reserved for High Fae females who either fought for the humans or had families who did.” He put a heavy hand on his wife’s too-thin arm. “Her two sisters bought her time to run when Hybern’s forces ambushed their lands. The two ladies did not walk out of that war-camp again.” Helion was watching Beron closely, his stare simmering with reproach.

The Lady of the Autumn Court kept her focus on the reflection pool. Any trace of color drained from her face. Dagdan and Brannagh flashed through my mind—along with the corpses of those humans. What they’d done to them before and after they’d died

After Nesta makes her speech:

She looked to Beron and his family as she finished. Only the Lady and Eris seemed to be considering—impressed, even, by the strange, simmering woman before them.

After Azriel attacks Eris:

Beron struck—only for his fire to bounce off a hard barrier of my own. I lifted my gaze to the High Lord of Autumn. “That’s twice now we’ve handed you your asses. I’d think you’d be sick of the humiliation.”

Helion laughed

---

Eris, wisely, averted his eyes. And said, “Apologies, Morrigan.”

His father actually gawked at the words. But something like approval shone on the Lady of Autumn’s face as her eldest son settled himself once more.

Thesan rubbed his temples. “This does not bode well.”

But Helion smirked at his retinue, crossing an ankle over a knee and flashing those powerful, sleek thighs. “Looks like you owe me ten gold marks.”

Feyre loses her shit:

Beron shielded barely fast enough to block me, but the wake singed Eris’s arm—right through the cloth. And the pale, lovely arm of Lucien’s mother.

---

The Lady of Autumn was clutching her arm, angry red splattered along the moon-white skin. No glimmer of pain on that face, though. I said to her as I reclaimed my seat, “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes lifted toward mine, round as saucers.

Beron spat, “Don’t talk to her, you human filth.”

Helion tells the story of the Affair:

Helion tapped a finger against the carved arm of his couch. “He played games in the War and it cost him—dearly. His people still remember those choices—those losses. His own damn wife remembers.”

Helion had looked at the Lady of Autumn repeatedly during the meeting. I asked, carefully and casually, “What do you mean?”

--

Helion’s jaw clenched. “The Lady of the Autumn Court was sent to stay with her sisters, her younger children packed off to other relatives. To spread out the bloodline.” He dragged a hand through his sable hair. “Hybern attacked their estate. Her sisters bought her time to run. Not because she was married to Beron, but because they loved each other. Fiercely. She tried to stay, but they convinced her to go. So she did—she ran and ran, but Hybern’s beasts were still faster. Stronger. They cornered her at a ravine, where she became trapped atop a ledge, the beasts snapping at her feet

--

Helion didn’t so much as shift in his chair. “She was still young—though she’d been married to that delightful male for nearly two decades. Married too young, the marriage arranged when she was twenty.”

---

But it was Mor who said coolly, “I heard a rumor once, Helion, that she waited before agreeing to that marriage. For a certain someone who had met her by chance at an equinox ball the year before.”

I tried not to blink, not to let any of my rising interest surface.

The fire banked to embers and Helion threw a half smile in Mor’s direction. “Interesting. I heard her family wanted internal ties to power, and that they didn’t give her a choice before they sold her to Beron.”

--

“How long did the affair last?” I asked. That withdrawn female … I couldn’t imagine it.

Helion snorted. “Is that a polite question for a High Lady to be asking?”

But the way he spoke, that smile … I only waited, using silence to push him instead.

Helion shrugged. “On and off for decades. Until Beron found out. They say the lady was all brightness and smiles before that. And after Beron was through with her … You saw what she is.”

“What did he do to her?”

“The same things he does now.” Helion waved a hand. “Belittle her, leave bruises where no one but him will see them.”

I clenched my teeth. “If you were her lover, why didn’t you stop it?” The wrong thing to say. Utterly wrong, by the dark fury that rippled across Helion’s face.

“Beron is a High Lord, and she is his wife, mother of his brood. She chose to stay. Chose. And with the protocols and rules, Lady, you will find that most situations like the one you were in do not end well for those who interfere.

I didn’t back down, didn’t apologize. “You barely even looked at her today.”

“We have more important matters at hand.”

“Beron never called you out for it?”

“To publicly do so would be to admit that his possession made a fool of him. So we continue our little dance, these centuries later.” I somehow doubted that beneath that roguish charm and irreverence, Helion felt it was a dance at all.

But if it had ended centuries ago, and she’d never seen him again, had let Beron treat her so abominably …

The Lucien Paternity Revelation:

While we spoke, I said down the bond, Helion is Lucien’s father. Rhys was silent. Then— Holy burning hell. His shock was a shooting star between us.

I let my gaze dart through the room, half paying attention to Helion’s musing on the wall and how to repair it, then dared study the High Lord for a heartbeat. Look at him. The nose is the same, the smile. The voice. Even Lucien’s skin is darker than his brothers’. A golden brown compared to their pale coloring.

It would explain why his father and brothers detest him so much—why they have tormented him his entire life.

My heart squeezed at that. And why Eris didn’t want him dead. He wasn’t a threat to Eris’s power—his throne. I swallowed. Helion has no idea, does he?

It would seem not.

The Lady of Autumn’s favorite son—not only from Lucien’s goodness. But because he was the child she’d dreamed of having … with the male she undoubtedly loved.

Beron must have discovered the affair when she was pregnant with Lucien.

He likely suspected, but there was no way to prove it—not if she was sharing his bed, too. Rhys’s disgust was a tang in my mouth. I have no doubt Beron debated killing her for the betrayal, and even afterward. When Lucien could be passable as his own of spring—just enough to make him doubt who had sired his last son.

I wrapped my head around it. Lucien not Beron’s son, but Helion’s. His power is flame, though. They’ve mused Beron’s title could go to him.

His mother’s family is strong—that was why Beron wanted a bride from their line. The gift could be hers.

You never suspected?

Not once. I’m mortified I didn’t even consider it.

What does this mean, though?

Nothing—ultimately nothing. Other than the fact that Lucien might be Helion’s sole heir

[jextraordinaire]

I know I already reblogged a post about this but the thought of Wilbur going back to writing on the dream smp is stressing me out. I need to stop being protective of Technoblade's plotline and the dsmp plot in general but it's kinda hard. They're a huge part of my life (second to sleep and college) and seeing something I care about be "messed up" would really bother me.

In the interest of organization here's a list of poorly sourced paraphrased things that concern me in regards to Wilbur returning to writing. (In no particular order)

1) Technoblade's excitement about writing

In "a new home" Techno was so genuinely excited about writing. I just want him to be happy honestly

2) The revisions Techno made to Nov 16th

I'm sure everyone remembers how anticlimactic Nov 16th felt after Tubbo was declared president. It was way too easy since everyone defected from Schlatt. The Great President Handoff (tm) started to feel really lame after the dust had settled. All that work for nothing. But then c!Technoblade starts freaking out and goes rogue to fight the new dictatorship. And it was such a climatic ending

But if you remember, Techno said that Wilbur was gonna just have him as another fighter with no significant contributions. No vault, no withers, no Theseus. Maybe he would have managed to make the post president assignment less awkward and anticlimactic but I kinda doubt it. There wasn't much that could be done with it imo.

My point is collaborative story telling gave us Nov 16th not head writer Wilbur

3) Wilbur's cursed canon

The thing Wilbur said about being twins with Techno was never about the dsmp and rather the general family dynamic au that already existed (we know this because Wilbur said that in response to discourse about the au not canon). However the rest of Wilbur's cursed canon is still yikes. Having sex with a salmon, dating a sheep, the refrigerator mother, his references to the family dynamic on the server, etc. When Technoblade says "canon" for the 50th time when Tubbo dies no one takes it seriously. When Wilbur shitposts people update the wiki

4) Techno's commitment to clearing up false info

On a related note Techno's commitment to his characterisation keeps me going. He corrected the family dynamic and comes up with arguments against all the bad takes about his character. He makes fun of Tommy's blame game logic, fights bad character takes by other cc's and pushed for Nov 16th. I trust him to have our back on character and plot nonsense and Wilbur's sometimes opposite demeanor concerns me

5) Wilbur saying he would only come back to be head writer

Wilbur said (before the recent confirmation of him as a writer) that he would only come back if he was the head writer who got the final say. That obviously concerns me because he's coming back now, but the general attitude also feels bad. It insinuates that having his way in the writing is really important to him which doesn't bode well for other writers

6) Wilbur appreciating Tommy not wanting to control his character

Wilbur says (maybe in that same stream idk) that Tommy was super flexible with how Wilbur characterised him while Technoblade wasn't. I can't remember the wording but he sounding noticeably appreciative of Tommy's aquiesence to any sort of writing. Another attitude about writing that I worry won't mesh well

7) Wilbur saying he wanted more geopolitical plot

We have a lot of non geopolitical plot and I'm concerned for how he'd treat them

8) But like seriously Nov 16th??

9) How Philza got into the plot

Not a criticism but Phil got added to the plot and to the smp early because Wilbur wrote him in. What does that say for people Wilbur doesn't know who are running their own story lines. People got really mad over Niki not being involved in the plot like she wanted to and there was no head writer at the time. If you wanted your arc to be important you had to push for it. Now imagine Wilbur not letting someone into the central plot cause he's got his casting already prepared.

10) The exile arc would never have happened

Character driven story telling? Wilbur would never

11) The eggpire would definitely have not happened

Secondary plots that are supernatural and don't involve countries or politics?? No.

12) Techno's retirement arc would be unlikely

Certainly not with the level of development it got

13) -1000% chance of Doomsday happening

Large scale battle to settle conflict?? Not a chance

14) Tommy's hotel bit is cool after all the action

I feel like Tommy in the spotlight just gets repetitive. It's like a tv show desperately trying to make another season. I'm really glad Tommy stepping back from the eggpire arc and giving his character some room to breathe

15) Tommy's non dsmp videos are really good

Another point in the less main character Tommy please column. I personally find the mod videos so much more entertaining than his dsmp stuff. I feel like spending all your time on a server either walk around aimlessly or roleplaying a character someone else made just isn't peak content. Tommy vibing in non plot streams was where his better dsmp content came from. And now he's vibing in videos not even in the server

16) Wilbur plot holes

Despite being a writer before want collaborative story telling, Wilbur's writing has a lot of lore breaking plot holes. The family dynamic obviously, but also the age and death stuff. Fundy's age is a mess and Wilbur writing Phil in as his dad made it so much worse. Is Phil supposed to be 50? How old is Fundy actually? The inconsistency between which lives mattered and which didn't also came about while Wilbur was writing. A fan theory came in clutch but it was very frustrating before that point

17) Wilbur's joke about writing Ranboo out of the story

Obviously a joke but I dislike the implications that he would have that much power over other people's characters

------------

In summary no hate to Wilbur he's a super cool guy. Not all of this is his fault; I'm just concerned and wanted to vent. I trust Technoblade to put his foot down about writing but also I fear

[pigeon-princess]

TYBALT MONTAGUE’S BACKSTORY

It’s been a long time coming but here is the compiled backstory of my DnD Half-Orc Bard/Fighter Tybalt, tracing his life up until he joined the adventuring party known as The Tresspassers. I’ve also included drawings by me and other party members below the cut! 

(CW: SEXUAL ASSALT, RAPE) A small portion of Tybalt’s backstory contains some traumatic events, however they are not described in detail.

There is a collection of Islands off the coast of the continent of Iona, known by many as The Isles of Thiva. The culture of the islands is very Medditeranean, Italian and Greek inspired, so as you travel through you’d likely be seeing beautiful cliffside cities, lush wineries and lively street culture. 

For people living in Thiva, Orc pirates from across the seas are a serious problem, especially for certain villages on the Eastern coast. When an Orc raid passes through a city there is always a wave of destruction from the pirates, resulting pillaging, raping and murder thoughout.  

For the few women who survive their traumatic assault, only a handful of them are strong enough to survive and give birth to Half-Orc children. Because of this, Half-Orcs in Thiva are often looked down upon and shunned, almost as if they are a walking reminder of the trauma that the Isles have suffered. 

TYBALTS EARLY YEARS

Tybalt was one of these children. His mother was an Elven woman called Marina, from a small fishing village called Alta Maria. At the time of the Orc raid she had a husband and two, young half elven children called Mercutio and Benvolio. After surviving the attack, everyone thought she had gone mad for wanting to keep the child, but she was determined to love the baby despite the slander her husband threw at her. For her, the child was her own and one she wanted to protect them at any cost. Young Tybalt barely ever left his mothers side for the first 6 years of his life, his older brothers never wanted to play with him and his mothers husband couldn’t stand the sight of him. Despite all this he was happy by his mothers side. 

Marina - Tybalts Elven mother (Art by @lulii999​) 

Marina’s Drawings -  A young Tybalt finds a crab, Mercutio, Benvolio and baby Tybalt nap together, A grown up Mercutio and a grown up Benvolio (Art by @lulii999​) 

When Tybalt was around 6 years of age, his older brothers who are now 10 and 12 years old, invited him to play with them for the first time. He excitedly followed them to the docks where they managed to trap him in a fishing net and throw him onto a small fishing boat. Unable to escape the rope, the ship left port leaving Tybalt alone, trapped and afraid. He managed to survive the two day journey and the fishing boat arrived in the port of the capital city, Santiados.  When the boat made port, Tybalt made a run for it. He was lost and confused, but managed to survive by stealing food, avoiding the other Half-Orc kids that lived on the streets and sleeping in a barrel at night. Unable to find a way back home, and at this point thinking that perhaps his family didn’t want him anymore, Tybalt stayed living on the streets for 6 years. 

ON THE STREETS

During his time on the streets, when Tybalt was around 10 years old, he got into an altercation with an older Half-Orc boy who was picking on him. In a rage Tybalt pushed the teenager away from him, causing the boy to slip and stumble down a flight of stairs, cracking his head. When the other Half-Orcs saw that Tybalt had killed this kid, he became infamous and reveared among the Half-Orc street gangs. All Tybalt wanted to do was stay out of it. 

A NEW FAMILY 

At the age of 12 Tybalt decided to break into one of the larger merchant estates in the capital, thinking that he’d be able to steal a good amount of things from within. While rummaging through the mansion’s pantry, he was discovered by the family's 10 year old son, Romeo Montague, a human boy with bright blue eyes and blonde hair.

Tybalt threatened that he was going to hurt the kid if he came any closer, and instead Romeo suggested that if he is looking for food he should take the biscuits that they have at the back of the pantry. Tybalt hesitantly went further into the pantry to grab the biscuits, giving Romeo enough time to push the doors closed and lock him inside. Romeo immediately ran upstairs and called his parents to come down and see the kid in the pantry, his parents definitely thought he was making up some kind of imaginary friend until they heard angry yelling from behind the doors in the kitchen. 

Eventually the couple, Lorenzo and Helena Montague, sat Tybalt down and asked him about himself and why he was stealing from their pantry. With a bit of probing he told them that he lived on the streets and almost against his will Tybalt was given a bedroom to stay in and one day turned into a week. Before long Tybalt had a new family. 

Lorenzo and Helena Montague (Art by me) 

Teenage Romeo Montague (Art by me)

Growing up with his first ever friend, Romeo and Tybalt would get up to so many things together. They would spend their time pulling pranks, running away from lessons and throwing their tabaxi friend Antonio (Against his will) off the balcony to see him land on his feet (The tabaxi friend’s full name is Antonio Banderas). 

During their teenage years, Tybalt realised that his feelings for Romeo were beyond friendship and he developed a very deep, long standing crush for his best friend. He’d write poems and songs about his angst, about how much he loved him and how he was always chasing girls and never looked at him that way. 

Adult Romeo Montague and Antonio Banderas (Art by @lulii999​)

A TERRIBLE STORM 

By the time Tybalt was 21 and Romeo was 19, Romeo had started working for the family business in the merchant trade and Tybalt worked full time as his personal bodyguard and right hand man. Things took a turn for the worse when they sailed out to a business meeting with a man called Lord Magnus Kraus, an extremely well known merchant sailor in charge of an armada of sailors known as the Magdolina. 

As Magnus controls a large portion of the trade routes between certain ports, it was vital that Romeo secure this business deal in order for the Montagues to open up further trade. During the times negotiations seemed to be going poorly, Tybalt was starting to be very wary of the way that Magnus was looking at Romeo. It was like he was some kind of creature in an exhibit, and in a way that was extremely sinister and sexual. As Romeo appeared to be completely oblivious to this Tybalt confronted Magnus alone and threatened him. 

Magnus was curious about Tybalt, and offered a deal, if Tybalt agreed to sleep with him, he would agree to the trade deal and he wouldn’t lay a hand on Romeo. Tybalt was stuck in an awful situation, he knew that if he refused Romeo could be in danger and the trade deal would completely fall apart. Magnus Kraus is an extremely powerful man and one bad word from him could run their whole business into the ground. He agreed, and the next night he showed up at Magnus’s quarters. 

That night Magnus sexually assaulted him and treated him more like a beast than a person, using ropes to restrain him and whips to beat him with. Calling him awful things and breaking him both physically and mentally. There was terrible thunder and lightning that night, and from this day on Tybalt has a fear of storms as it always reminds him of Magnus. When Tybalt thought it was over, Magnus ordered him to come again tomorrow night or the deal was off. 

Terrified, beaten and bruised, Tybalt did just that and the ordeal continued every night for the next week. He even lied to Romeo that he was going to do extra work for the Magdolina so Magnus could get Tybalt alone on his ship for another 2 weeks. When all of this was done Tybalt returned back to the Montagues and swore he’d never tell a soul what he’d been through. The new trade routes were going extremely well and his parents were over the moon at Romeo and Tybalt's successful trip. 

It was shortly after this that Romeo met a beautiful red haired woman called Juliet Capulet, and Tybalt watched the love of his life fall head over heels in love with someone else. Juliet was extremely smart and insightful, early on she could see how Tybalt felt for Romeo. She tried to confront him about it to say she wasn’t sorry for loving Romeo but was sorry about how it was affecting Tybalts feelings, but he continued to deny anything of the sort. 

A few years later Romeo and Juliet announced their engagement and asked Tybalt to be their best man.  On the night before the wedding, Tybalt couldn’t bear to ruin their day with his own heartbroken feelings. Without saying goodbye or even leaving a note, Tybalt fled Santiados and sailed away to Estredios across the sea. 

A SAILOR AT HEART

Heartbroken, and lost, he spent all of his savings on food, alcohol and plent of company. When he was properly broke he hopped on a boat and started working on the open ocean as a sailor. 

During his time is Estredios and at sea, Tybalt did what he knew best to escape his heartbreak. He flirted and slept with people to his heart’s content over the next 2 years, learning not to get too close with people to keep his heart safe. He made a few good sailor friends who managed to pull him out of his darkest times and allowed him to enjoy his time on the seas. His memories of his time on the ocean are some of his favourite, although it was tough work at times Tybalt felt truly at peace when he was aboard a ship. 

Wanting to explore beyond the sea, his escapades eventually lead him to arrive at the docks of Finras, a port town on the coast of the continent of Iona. And it was there in a tavern where he picked up a job to help find a dwarven woman’s missing father, and that’s where his adventure with the party began…..

Thank you so much for reading Tybalt’s backstory! I’ve been playing this dnd character for over a year now and he means so much to me. If you have any further questions feel free to send me an ask! I’d love to answer them.

[skellebonez]

Because you are a fantastic writer, and because I simply adore what you write, how about a continuation to the "Wukong is once again being an idiot and lying to everyone" prompt? And this is an open prompt! You can take this and go absolutely bonkers with it!

THE POWER YOU HAVE GIVEN ME SHALL NOT GO UNDERUTILIZED. This is a follow up to these two previous fills and I am just going off about what I think would be an interesting way to continue into season 3 at this point.

Warning: UH... Sun Wukong is not doing too great. Mild descriptions of his hidden injuries, Wukong is still immortal but what he hid would be very bad for people who are not.

"He's burning up," Pigsy said with a hiss as he pulled his hand away from Wukong's forehead. "Why is he burning up? What even happened to him!? He didn't look like this an hours ago, ain't he immortal-"

"Yeah, but not invincible," MK interrupted with a shake in his voice, watching as Sandy checked on his mentor's newly revealed injuries. "Not entirely anymore. He-he'll probably be fine! No, he will be fine, but he's-shit." He took in a shaky breath, trying to stand on legs that had long since fallen asleep in their awkward position holding his mentor's head off the hard floor. "I'll explain later, we need to see how bad he is now!"

He jumped, feeling a soft touch against his shoulder. Mei had knelt beside him at some point and it wasn't until she reached over to brush her thumb against his cheek that he realized he had started crying at some point.

The chef looked at him with an odd expression at MK's revelations, almost looking like he wanted to say something in anger before shaking his head and standing instead.

"You're right," he said as he turned to Sandy. He didn't need to ask the largest of the group anything, watching as he carefully scooped the Monkey King into his arms and headed off into what they had designated as "the med bay" with Tang following close by. "But you're gonna tell us exactly what that you mean by 'not entirely invincible' on the way, no more of this waitin to talk business! And we're going to walk there calmly."

MK couldn't find it in himself to argue.

~

"Well, shit," Pigsy sighed after MK rushed through the conversation he had shared with his mentor, pinching the bridge of his snout with a sigh. "That's... bad. That explains a whole lot about a lot of stuff, like how he managed to get himself caught on New Years, at least... You're sure he's still immortal?"

"Yeah," MK nodded, leaning into the grip Mei had on his shoulder as they walked. "Yeah, he made it a point to insist he still couldn't die."

"That's... good, right?" Mei offered with a chuckle, her usual exuberance seeming shaken up after seeing the state of the immortal monkey. "That means he'll get better!"

They paused at the entrance to the med bay, really more a spare bedroom they had stocked all the medical supplies Sandy apparently hoarded into, and MK gulped. He thought over Wukong's words, trying to find any piece he could to pick it apart. See exactly what, if anything, may have been just more half truths... he didn't want to believe he was still hiding things, not after that display of dropping the glamor. But MK himself had claimed he would explain everything to the others before... and lied still... and he was more like Sun Wukong than he first realized.

"I-I think so," he finally settled on an answer as they walked in, Sandy's back being the first sight they were greeted with. He could see the bottom half of Wukong's legs and feet, and Tang standing on the opposite side of the bed, as they were doing... something. "He said I was half invincible so... maybe he's still half himself? But he said they'd 'probably heal eventually' so..."

"Maybe he just meant they wouldn't scar!" Mei offered with a smile, moving to grip MK's hand. "Come on... we can't stop thinking about the good outcomes now..."

He turned, looking at his best friend. Her smile was off, uncertain, dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. None of them had slept well the last two nights. But her eyes, despite the uncertainty they shared with her smile, were as bright and hopeful as ever.

"Yeah..." MK said with a small smile.

"As much as we'd appreciate the help," Tang said suddenly, moving from behind the bed to stand before them. He had removed his scarf and robe, something that looked bizarre and wrong outside of seeing him in his sleep wear, and instead wore a simple tank top and his regular pants. He had gloves on... already spotted in red. "This room is a little cramped with all five of us and a bed."

"I'll go make us food," Pigsy said immediately, laying a hand on MK's back as he addressed Tang. "We don't gotta eat it when it's finished it's just... gonna be ready for when you're done, ok?"

MK couldn't help but smile a bit. Pigsy didn't just make food and let it sit, not normally. The only other time he could ever remember him doing that was after... DBK. After they volunteered to help clean up the city from the damage his possession caused. He'd made pots and pots of noodles and soup and plates of side dishes and buns and just kept them warm for when anyone came by to eat them. He stayed in his shop, waiting and handing out what he could.

He never once complained about the excess from the last batches, offering them for free to the first few customers the next day if they wanted it.

"Thanks, Pigsy," Tang said with a tired smile. "I think everyone is going to appreciate that."

"I'll finish the ship upkeep Sandy and I were doing," Mei offered, smiling at Sandy when he looked over his shoulder. "I've got a pretty good handle on the specifics by now."

"I trust you," Sandy said with a smile, the first thing he had said the entire time he'd joined them in the kitchen, and turned back to what he was doing.

There was an awkward silence as Tang started grabbing supplies from a cabinet to deposit on a nearby table and Pigsy and Mei turned to MK.

"I'm staying," he said firmly, but nothing could hide the shaking in his hands. "Just... I have to know how bad he is."

"OK," Pigsy said, and they made their way out before Mei turned back inside.

"When he wakes up? Give him one of these for me," she said before making a face and leaving in the opposite direction.

There was just enough of a chuckle that escaped him that MK thought he would be able to do that.

"Are you sure you want to see this?" Tang asked, far softer in tone than he had been before. "Sandy and I were already taking stock of his injuries and... MK, they're not good."

"Yeah, I'm sure," he insisted, taking in a calming breath. "I need to know exactly how angry I need to be at him."

His father figure didn't laugh, but there was amusement in his eyes as he returned back to where he was. "Alright, then you're going to need to help by handing me everything I ask for."

They settled into silence after that, and MK watched and Tang and Sandy worked to check on the unconscious immortal in the bed.

They had stripped off his robe, leaving him only in the pants he wore underneath it. He looked... he looked much worse without it on.

In addition to his eye (which seemed to have been the only hidden injury to have already healed as much as it may have) and the tear in his ear (which seemed to have at least been partly treated by himself already) his torso was littered with little cuts and scrapes. Sandy had rolled up the legs on his pants, one remaining upright and MK could see the slight swell of his knee from some kind of internal injury (probably muscular). His tail and arms were also similarly injured, one nasty gash in particular close to the end of the tail that had gotten almost as much treatment as his ear.

But on his side... there was sloppy bandaging slowly growing redder.

"Sandy, help me get this off him," Tang said, holding out his hand. "Scissors, please."

MK jolted, getting what Tang requested from the pile of stuff, watching as he carefully cut away the wrapping.

Tang winced as he finally lifted the dressing from Wukong's side, but did his model best to look as impassive as possible. There was a sizeable gash on it, large enough that Tang's entire hand barely covered it lengthwise, that had poorly treated with the lopsided gauze and bandages (probably stolen from this very room after he allowed them to treat his visible injuries). Blood had seeped through it, all fresh, and it was most likely reopened upon his fall. It looked... wrong. Not the way it should. The fur around it had been either ripped out or had fallen out and the skin was inflamed and angry.

"... no wonder he's burning up, this is becoming infected," he said evenly, detected, leaning over to look at the supplies he took from the medicine cabinet. "Sandy, I'm going to need your help moving him. MK?" He turned to the young man, face softening as he saw how pale his face had gotten at the revelations before him. "MK, I heard what you were telling Mei and Pigsy earlier. Mei's probably right, he'll be ok. OK?"

MK wanted to believe he had been, he'd been so honest after he told him to stop lying, but... but he still couldn't help but worry his mentor was still hiding more. And he felt so guilty thinking that. But he shook his head, dispelling the thoughts in his head.

"OK... what do you need?"

"Let's start with antiseptic. We need to clean this as quickly as possible."

~

It took longer than MK had hoped. And Sun Wukong had only barely stirred the entire time. Whether it was from the infectious fever or from exhaustion from using his remaining powers while sick he didn't know, but the most of a reaction they got him from was a sharp gasp and a twitch while cleaning the worst of his wounds.

Aside from that... nothing. He remained still, even as Sandy moved him without any effort and guided Tang through the medical stuff he wasn't sure how to handle.

MK knew Tang had some first aid training but this was much more than he expected him to pull off... he supposed he was learning a lot.

After a while Tang didn't need Sandy's help to move him anymore and the massive man shot MK an apologetic look before leaving. MK assumed he had left to wash up, and he did, but he eventually returned completely cleaned up with a hot cup of tea. It was the same flavor as the one he never got to finish during his conversation earlier.

He ruffled MK's hair after the young man gratefully took it, making Wukong more comfortable on Tang's instruction and pulling the covers over everything but one arm before saying something about needing to give Mei some tea as well, before leaving the three of them alone again. MK thought that, maybe, the sight of the Monkey King as he was was somehow making him... uncomfortable. No, not uncomfortable.

Sad.

He didn't say anything.

"He looked... almost fine when he saved me..." MK said after a long sip of his tea and a long silence of watching Tang handle everything else on his own, trying to squeeze his cup. Just like when he had tried before, it stayed firm. "He wasn't hurt then, not by LBD, so... he'd been keeping up those illusions since before he came. How long was he hurt?"

"There isn't really a way for us to know," Tang admitted, wrapping the fresh gauze around the king's arm as carefully as he could manage. It wouldn't have mattered if he wasn't careful, Wukong didn’t stir a bit. "It could have been hours... could have been days. With how quickly his eye healed vs his gash it's hard to tell. But my guess would be hours, given when you... when..." He trailed off, a shudder running through him. "He was actively giving you his powers, yeah? Maybe... he was giving you some of his healing abilities. Or maybe something else hurt his eye long before everything else. We just don't know."

"I think that was from Macaque," MK said with a wince, knowing he was going to have to explain more about who Macaque was eventually. "He said LBD has him under her control and he has the same injury on the opposite eye."

Tang froze for a half a second, the shine of the overhead lights on his glasses keeping Mk from seeing just what kind of expression he had. But he simply nodded, finishing up his work.

"We'll just... have to hope he'll be able to give us some better information when he wakes up," Tang said with a shrug as he removed his gloves. "This is all probably a mystery even to him... I'm going to wash up... will you be alright alone?"

"Yeah."

That was a lie, but he felt at least this one was warranted.

Because even if he wouldn't be fine he didn't want to leave.

~

It was nearly 11 hours before Sun Wukong opened his eyes again, though he didn't realize that at the time.

The morning sunlight was just barely shining through the window to the med bay, and he wondered for a moment why one of his eyes seemed to ache at the light and a tear rolled down his cheek from the strain at trying to see.

Then he remembered that he couldn't see out of it anymore. And the conversation with MK. And... passing out. In the kitchen.

This was definitely not the kitchen floor, which was bad. What he was laying on was soft and had something else laying on top of him. Which meant he had been moved to a bed.

Which meant he had been unconscious for more than a minute, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted.

He tried to move his left arm to cover his eye, but found something... holding it down. And with a little effort he moved his head, looking over to the side.

MK was slouched over on a chair, nearly face down on the blanket that covered him and holding his hand. In his other hand there was a comic book of some kind, horribly bent by his own face.

He had dark circles, much darker than he had the night before, under his eyes and there was a dried wetness on his cheeks that made Wukong's chest hurt at the sight.

He'd messed up... again. He shouldn't have held up the illusion, not for that long. He should have let it fall the moment they hit the drone and been honest instead of insisting that he go on his new Journey to the West on his own. Or at least let it fall the next day, when they questioned why he was so tired. So quiet. Why he was so still and wasn't running around the ship like they expected (the pulled muscle in his knee, which he very much noticed was tightly compressed by either a sleeve or a wrap, being the main culprit along side... that injury).

He sighed, doing his best to remove his hand from his student's carefully before gently resting it on his head and ruffling the hair there.

"...'m sorry, MK," He said tiredly. "No more secrets, I promise."

"You better mean that promise you asshole."

Wukong yelped and jumped, yelping again when it sent a jolt of pain down his side. "YOu're AwAKe!?"

MK sat up, almost smiling at the way his mentor sounded but holding it back. "Yeah... I kinda passed out after a while, but I woke up like... an hour ago? I've just been trying to get as much rest as I can, even if I'm not actually sleeping."

"That's... good," Wukong said with a nod, the way MK described the time frame feeling familiar. "So you saw... everything?"

"Everything."

"Well, shit."

"That's exactly what Pigsy said when I told him what happened," Mk said with a chuckle, reading over to grab a packet of some kind and a glass of water. "Tang gave me very specific instructions to make you take all of this. Or else."

"Or else... what?" Wukong chanced, raising an eyebrow.

"I dunno, I always took the medicine he gives me with that threat so I never got to find out," MK shrugged. "Pigsy says it's not worth finding out."

"I'll take his word for it," Wukong said with a sigh. It was probably best to take whatever it was regardless of threats, he could feel his fever still and he did not want to keep having to fight that off. So he took the medicine, a mixture of pills and some kind of powder MK mixed into his drink that made it taste oddly way too sweet and sour at the same time, and sighed as he closed his eyes again for a moment.

They sat in silence for only a minute before he spoke again.

"Your friends... did all this?" He gestured to himself, reaching up to feel the odd dressing on his ear.

"Tang and Sandy did," MK explained, and went on to tell him what happened. How they treated him. How Pigsy had food waiting for him now that he was awake. How MK stayed by his side just in case.

"Oh, and Mei wanted me to give you this," MK said before pausing, glowering at him in a way that looked odd on his student's face but probably would have looked horrifying on Mei.

"Oh... I made her that mad huh?"

"I think everyone is kinda angry at you to some degree," MK admitted before holding his mentor's hand again. "But... mostly we were worried. You're my mentor, and a part of our little group now. That's what we do. Worry about each other."

Sun Wukong felt another tear slip out of his injured eye, but not from strain.

It had been so long since anyone... worried about him.

He didn't know how much he missed knowing he was cared about like that.