#which is like… y’all were jerks to me before… but also otherwise the most responsive & helpful clinic I’ve been to

[floral-hex]

health whining

Dilemma: breathing trouble. Still. For weeks. Another bad night where I’m afraid to go to sleep.

Options, if I go somewhere:

ER. No copay. Can go right now. Will most definitely feel shitty for presumably wasting their time and will probably be told to see ENT (ENT appointment in almost 2 weeks but issue is affecting me NOW).

Urgent care. There is a copay. I’ll have to wait 2 more hours. If equipment is needed (I dunno, endoscopy scopes. Who knows), they most definitely won’t have it. Will also probably tell me to go see ENT.

[meltwonu]

〚 💜 𝕕𝕠𝕦𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕕𝕚𝕡 💜 〛| [Chapter 1] 

this chapter pairing; idol!Taehyung x makeupartist!reader x idol!Joshua

genre&warnings; softdom!joshua, dom!taehyung, threesome, blowjobs, reverse cowgirl baybeee, dirty talk, quickies, cum eating/sharing, hair pulling, mentions of sexting/pictures, a little praise kink, there is like one joshua x tae moment 🥰💕 HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABES!! 😭 Y’all know I had to male the first chapter of Double Dip for the birthday twins!! Here’s hoping they had a great day 💕💕 Hehe~ and also looking forward to the next chapter~! If it’s NYE for you, have a safe night! See yall on Friday for Cherry Bomb~! 💜

word count; ~3000

chapters; 1 - ?

“Taehyung, will you just sit still? Ten more minutes and you’ll be done, I promise!”

You try to get the pouting male to stand still as you apply more lip balm; eyes rolling when he only whines harder. “I wanna go see Joshua and give him our gift already though…”

“I know you do, but we have time and he can’t do anything with it right now anyway.”

Taehyung’s lips fall into a knowing frown as he nods back softly. “I guess so… It just sucks, y’know? We always spend our birthday like this and I wanna do something fun!” You laugh airily as you put your brush and lip balm away before pushing Taehyung back into the chair in front of the vanity.

“I know, I know. And we’ll get to that after you get your hair fixed.”

“But you said ten minutes!”

“If you sit still it’ll be ten minutes but if you keep moving around it’ll be twenty so you better behave!”

“‘Shua-hyung, have you seen my belt?”

Chan lets out a frustrated noise as he trips over another pair of shoes; lips pursed at how small the room was for all of the members and staff combined. “I can’t find it and I’ve been looking for the last 15 minutes and there’s just so much stuff in here!”

Joshua shoots the younger male a small smile as he gets up from his seat to help him search for the item. “I’ll check one of the other rooms. Maybe it got misplaced or put into a luggage by accident by someone.”

“Thanks hyung, you’re the best!”

He leaves the loud and bustling room, a sigh of contentment on his lips when he finally has even just a little peace and quiet in the hallway. He leans up against the wall for a moment before he pushes off and starts walking to the other changing room where they kept all of the luggages with their clothes and accessories.

“Joshua!”

Taehyung comes barreling into his back quicker than a blink of an eye and the wind gets knocked out of him as he lets out a sound of surprise as you laugh in the background. “I told him not to do it but…” Shrugging, you catch up to the two males that laugh and walk down the hallway in each other's arms.

Taehyung makes it a point to not mess up Joshua’s hair or clothes when he swings an arm around the male’s neck. “Where are you headed? Aren’t you guys supposed to be getting ready?” Joshua nods, sighing softly in return. “Chan can’t find his belt so I offered to go help. It’s crazy in there, nobody can find anything!”

“We’ll help you!” You add; smirking as you skip in front of the two. “We should check in here!”

Opening the door to the otherwise empty room, you and Taehyung share a knowing look before he’s turning on Joshua and tugging him in by his necktie.

“Hey--whoa--”

“You can take Taehyung’s belt, I can just find him another one later~ We just wanted a little time with you, is all!” Joshua blushes a bright red, eyes focused on you as you shut and lock the door.

That could mean anything, he thinks.

“But I--I have to be ready soon, our stage is almost up…” He watches as Taehyung already strips himself of the Gucci belt around his waist; handing the leather to Joshua before he makes his way towards you.

“Oh, fuck–”

Joshua’s eyes go wide, watching as you and Taehyung get comfortable in the empty changing room. The male helps you up onto the table; soft giggles spilling from his lips and yours when he starts to pepper soft kisses on your exposed neck.

‘Seventeen, you’re on in 30 minutes, please prepare for your allotted time!’

The speaker backstage booms throughout the halls and Joshua panics momentarily. “You guys, I don’t think we have enough time for this…” Joshua mumbles, cheeks burning red hot when he sees Taehyung’s hand disappear up your skirt.

“30 minutes? That’s plenty of time. We just have to move fast, is all.” Taehyung’s words are muffled against your skin but it’s just audible enough for Joshua to hear.

“C’mon, Josh~ This is one of the few times we’re all together… and it’s your birthday today. Tae, too!”

“Fine, fine, fine. Make room for me!”

“Yknow, this wasn’t really what we were gonna bring you in here for.” Taehyung comments.

Joshua throws his head back when you sink your lips down onto his cock, already too worked up when he threads a hand through your hair. “Yeah? What exactly was the original plan then? ‘Cause it doesn’t seem like cake and balloons were on the original timetable.” You moan around his cock; using your tongue to tease the head as you dig it into the leaking slit.

“Mmh, well, we were just gonna give you your gift, which really, seems so lackluster now, right, doll?” Taehyung grins at your back, hands on your waist as you sit on his cock. The three of you had moved to the vacant sofa inside of the changing room; two pairs of hands roaming your body when they’d sandwiched you in between them. 

“But she got a little too handsy in the changing room. Got her pussy all soaking before we even stumbled out into the hallway, didn’t you?” Taehyung slaps the side of your thigh just as you pull off of Joshua’s cock; a thread of spit and precum connecting your lips to the head as you whine and pout up at Joshua.

“It wasn’t my fault… I saw Tae going through the nudes you sent him of us from last week…”

Joshua smirks, tugging on your hair a little harder as you mewl and clench around Taehyung’s cock. “Ah, yeah, those… Wasn’t she so pretty in them? Sat nice and still while I took them too.” He guides you back, using his other hand to wrap around his cock as he taps your lips with the head and smears precum all over your swollen lips. “Which one was your favorite, Tae?”

The other male hums, eyes meeting Joshua’s right before he cants his hips up into you and makes you yelp and brace your hands on his thighs in return.

“Mmm… probably the one where she had her legs spread, fingertips holding her tight ‘lil hole open while your cum dripped out. She looked so pretty fucked out, lips swollen and eyes teary too. I came twice that night just looking at that picture, doll. And I know you were well behaved for Joshua, right?”

Your body feels warm and tingly at their words of praise and all you can do is open your mouth wide for Joshua again as he smiles down at you. “Such a fuckin’ good girl, aren’t you, sweetheart? Take both of our cocks at the same time even though we’re in a rush. Always so good for us.” You sink your mouth back down onto him as you swallow around his cock while simultaneously swiveling your hips atop Taehyung’s lap.

“Oh, by the way, your birthday gift from me and her was a roomkey. Not a huge gift but… Round two is gonna be at the hotel across the venue and I even got a suite with a view so we can fuck her in front of the windows.” Taehyung pauses, licking his lips as you start to bounce in his lap. “Got us some nice wine too. Think we deserve a little relaxation before the year ends.”

“Who says anything about relaxing? We have a lot to catch up on, don’t we, sweetheart? Those pictures Tae sent me of you taking his cock and the pretty ‘lil plug in your cute ‘lil ass had me up all night when he sent them.” Taehyung guides your hips, groaning softly when you raise your hips, only to slam back down onto his lap.

“Fuck she’d look so fucking good with both our cocks in her tight ‘lil cunt.”

You whine around Joshua’s cock; taking more and more of him as you start to gag when he hits the back of your throat.

You really missed being with them both at the same time. Even when they were rare moments.

Both Joshua and Taehyung were always busy at this time of the year and while you mostly worked with Taehyung, you had more opportunities with them when the stylists and makeup artists were switched around for different events; even though you had to sneak around to see them.

Most often than not, it was you seeing one of them and never all three of you together due to lack of time and similar events, which was why they shared photos whenever they could. The three of you shared one chat where you made plans to meet up and also where you all shared various pictures and videos of them both fucking you. 

And on a lot of occasions, pictures and videos of them jerking off, abdomens covered in cum when you sent them videos of you with your pussy stuffed full of toys and their names rolling off of your tongue when you’d cum.

“Ngh, sweetheart, you gonna let me cum in your pretty mouth? I wanna cum in your fuckin’ pussy but we’ll save that for later when we have more time. For now, I want you to be good for me though. I’ll reward you later, I promise.”

You hum back in response, eyelashes wet with tears when he starts fucking your throat. Joshua’s grip in your hair tightens almost painfully as he chases his high and starts thrusting into your mouth; curses and praises spilling from his lips when he feels his cock throbbing.

“Cum in her pretty mouth.” Taehyung sits up, his chest almost at your back as he brings a hand between your legs and starts playing with your clit as you whine around Joshua’s cock and squirm on Taehyung’s lap at the sensations. “And don’t swallow it, doll.”

The vibrations of your whines and moans around his cock are enough to push Joshua over the edge as he cums and fills your mouth with the salty substance. He continues to thrust shallowly into your mouth as you tease the head of his cock with your tongue and swallow around him to work him through his orgasm.

“Bet her mouth feels so good around your cock, huh, Joshua? Almost as tight as her ‘lil cunt.” Taehyung pinches your clit between his fingertips and all you can do is clench around his cock as Joshua tugs on your hair when you can’t stop moaning around him.

“F--fuck, sweetheart, you’re so fuckin’ good to us. So obedient.” Joshua’s entire body tingles with warmth when he starts to pull out of your mouth; his eyes darting down to your chapped lips when you purse them to keep all the cum inside.

Taehyung uses his free hand to tilt your head to the side, leaning over as he kisses you hard; moaning into it when he tastes Joshua’s cum on your lips.

Joshua watches as you part your lips, tongue covered in cum when it meets Taehyung’s own. “Fuck…” He bites his bottom lip before he’s leaning in too, darting his tongue out as he laps at his own cum that you push out of your mouth and into theirs. The action has you mewling loudly while your eyes flutter shut at the feeling of both of their tongues clashing against yours as they both clean the salty substance off.

Taehyung pulls away first, chuckling under his breath as he licks his lips. “Hmm, we should do that more often. Oh, maybe we should eat her out at the same time later. Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you, doll? Two tongues eating your cunt out while you beg us to let you cum.”

“Y-yeah…”

Joshua sits on the table across from the sofa; cheeks hot as he watches you and Taehyung.

‘Seventeen, seven minutes to call!’

Joshua shoots you and Taehyung a look of panic, already moving to stand when Taehyung growls. “Ah, ah, ah, Joshua is gonna see your pretty face when you fuckin’ cum on my cock. Over the table. Now.” He barks, not waiting a second before he’s pushing you off his lap gently.

You scramble to get into position, looking sideways up to Joshua who holds your stare when Taehyung all but drapes his body over yours from behind. He wastes no time before he’s bottoming out in a single thrust and fucking you hard and fast against the table Joshua sits on.

“C’mon, get my cock wet, doll. Your pussy is getting so fuckin’ tight around me, I know you wanna cum. Sucking off Joshua and letting him use your throat was enough for you, huh?” Taehyung reaches a hand around to play with your clit again, fingertips rubbing harsh, quick circles on the nub as you cry out their names.

“Ah, might wanna be a ‘lil quieter, doll. Do you want them to know you had both our cocks filling you up in here?” Joshua shoots you an angelic smile, hands smoothing down your messy hair.  “Mm, he’s right, sweetheart. You wouldn’t wanna get in trouble, would you?”

“Ngh, n-no… I’ll b-be, ah, g-good…”

Taehyung slams his hips into you, cock tapping your cervix and making you whine as you thrust your hips back to meet his quick movements.

“Please, mmh, wanna---wanna c-cum…”

“Go ahead, sweetheart. I want you to look at me when you cum. Let me see your pretty face while Taehyung fucks you good.” You nod feverishly, teary eyes looking up at Joshua when you feel the tension in your body snapping.

“Fuh--fuck! J--Joshua! T--Taehyung!” You scream-whisper; body tensing up just as Taehyung starts fucking you harder as he feels his own orgasm spurred on by yours. His cock twitches inside of your fluttering walls and you can’t help the mental images in your head of both of them fucking your pussy at the same time and filling you up with their cum until it’s spilling  out of you.

Tiny cries of their names fall from your lips as you continue to cum and you reach out a shaky hand towards Joshua’s as he pouts and leans down; kissing you on the forehead and squeezing your hand once before he starts to stand from the table to readjust his clothes. 

“Shit, I’m really sorry but I have to go, they’d probably already pissed I’m missing for so long.”

Taehyung nods tiredly, already feeling his orgasm ebbing off just as you start to squirm underneath him from the overstimulation of his fingers still playing with your clit.

“S’fine. I’ll get her cleaned up and have her fix my makeup and we’ll leave the roomkey in your changing room. Get going before you get hell and don’t forget the belt!”

Joshua nods, checking himself in the mirror before grabbing the leather material left forgotten by the door. He lets out a sigh of relief when he sees not a single hair out of place before turns to face the two of you; chuckling under his breath at the way Taehyung squishes you underneath his tired body.

“Sweetheart?”

You lift your head from the table, eyes slightly unfocused as you peer up at Joshua tiredly. “Mm?”

“Thank you for making our birthday less boring. I’ll see you two later!”

Joshua makes it back to the changing room with 2 minutes to spare; already sweating when he all but throws the door open.

“I found it!”

Several pairs of eyes are on him in an instant as he blushes a bright cherry red, awkwardly standing in the doorframe with a belt in hand.

Uh oh.

Chan trapezes over the mess of shoes as he makes his way towards his hyung; nervous laughter spilling from his lips as he shoots the older male a panicked look.

“Thanks, hyung!”

The younger male pushes him out of the room gently as he shuts the door behind them and all but shakes Joshua once they’re alone. “Hyung, are you insane?!” Joshua looks at him flabbergasted, head shaking furiously as he grips the strip of leather tightly.

“What the fuck are you on about? I got you your belt! See!?”

Chan lets out an exasperated noise, taking the leather belt from Joshua’s hold as he shakes it about in front of the older male’s line of vision. “The coordis have us wearing Saint Laurent tonight and this is Gucci! What are you doing with a BTS members’ belt!? That’s what they’re wearing! Did you steal this?!”

“Wh---no! I--I didn’t steal it!” If Joshua could blush harder, he would; lips suddenly feeling tingly at the way he doesn’t have an explanation for this one and the way he can’t seem to formulate one either. “J--just don’t wear it then! We’ll… leave it in the room and return it later, say we found it on the floor!”

“But how did you get it?”

Chan can’t help but raise a concerned brow at Joshua’s odd silence and crimson cheeks; nodding slowly as the older male continues to fidget and open and close his mouth like a fish out of water.

“We have to get going... But I hope you know you’re gonna have to explain this eventually.”

[blueaura]

Don’t Get Caught

A/N: Hey everyone, hope y’all are doing well. I wrote this little fic one-shot thingy for @crashdevlin​‘s 3k review challenge. I got prompt #13. Big congratulations to Cassie for hitting 3k followers! Hope Dean somewhat likes this fic.

Summary: Sam and Dean are hunters, but what if Y/N doesn’t want to be one?

Word count : 2.9k

“What’s for dinner tonight? If you say burgers again, I will tell Sam and then you’ll have to little with the ‘eat healthy’ lecture again.” You walked into the kitchen, peering over Dean’s shoulder to look at what he was making. “As much as I love your burgers, we’ve had them four days in a row and if I see another one today, I’m gonna actually throw up.”

“I liked it better when you didn’t snark back. Now it’s like living with teenage Sam all over again. Teenagers are the fucking worst,” Dean lightly quipped back giving you a look that confirmed he was just teasing. “And it’s chicken pasta tonight, you little monster. I can switch things up every once in a while.”

“You liked me better when I was too scared to offend you in case you threw me out?” you deadpanned, quirking an eyebrow at Dean. He gave you a look. He clearly didn’t appreciate your humour regarding your rough start with them.

You met Sam and Dean on a hunt. They were appalled that a 15-year-old was hunting alone and basically forced their way into your life. Dean, specially, refused to leave you alone, no matter how many times you pushed him away. Your parents had been hunters and not the most affectionate people, so when pushing the Winchesters away had failed and they had successfully wormed their way into your heart, you were so scared that the first real family you had was going to abandon you if you weren’t enough, you didn’t dare place a toe out of the imaginary line you had created for yourself. It took a long time for them to get you to open up to them and come out of your shell. You never knew why they chose you. From what you knew, they had met other hunter kids before but for some reason, instead of pawning you off to the first responsible adult who could keep you safe, they welcomed you into their life and their home. Your home, you reminded yourself.

“Pasta sounds great. You’re gonna make me fat with all your cooking you know. I’ll have to start running with Sam. I hate running with Sam,” you whined, changing the subject before Dean could start reprimanding you.

“Everybody hates running with Sam,” Dean said, letting go of your previous comment. “And you’re healthy, which is all that matters. I don’t want you thinking about getting fat, you do enough exercise to balance out your eating habits.”

You rolled your eyes. For a guy who claimed to hate ‘chick-flick’ moments, Dean Winchester sure initiated a whole lot of them. Dean lightly clipped you in the back of your head when he saw you shrugging of his words of wisdom. You could see he was gearing up for another lecture. He was such a dad.

“Where’s Sam anyway?”

Dean clearly knew what you were doing but he let you have your moment of victory anyway. If he had learned anything in the past 2 years with you, it was to pick his battles. So, he let it go. For now.

Sam came back in time for dinner. It was one of Dean’s new rules. If you were not on a case, dinner was family time and everyone had to eat at the table. Sam agreed. While Dean acted more like a dad than Sam, the younger Winchester was just as bad. You remembered when Sam accidentally found the pack of condoms in your room. You winced at the memory. There had been a lot of yelling, followed by an awkward conversation about being safe. It was traumatic for all parties involved and you both mutually decided not to tell Dean. If Sam overreacted, you definitely never wanted to see Dean’s reaction.

Being scared of Dean’s reaction was one of the main reasons why you didn’t tell him about the play you were taking part in for school. Yes, you had to go to school. Apparently, high school was important. While you hated school and people in general, you fell in love with theatre. Signing up for drama club had been a blessing for you. Pretending to be someone else and telling stories and being on stage was the only thing that got you through worrying about the brothers when they were out on hunts. But you knew you had to be a hunter. It was the family business after all. So, you never told Sam or Dean what you were doing.

You knew they were getting suspicious. The practices for the play were getting more intense and you could only use the excuse of having detention or staying back to study in the library so many times. For one, they knew that after five consecutive detentions, the school called the parents or guardians, and B – they knew how much you hated school. Just the fact that you were staying a minute more than you had to was a big red flag, specially when you had a perfectly good library at the bunker.

You still had to think of an excuse about going out at night on the final day. While the dress rehearsal was in the afternoon, the actual production was late in the evening and you knew there was no way you could sneak out of the bunker.

While you were pacing in your room trying to think of ideas, the brothers were contemplating your recent behaviour in the kitchen while they did the dishes.

“I don’t know man; she’s been shifty all week. I’m starting to get the feeling she wants us out of the bunker. She keeps bringing up every possible lead for a case. When was the last time Y/N purposely looked for a potential hunt? She hates being left alone. Something’s going on.”

Sam knew Dean was right. This was unusual behaviour for you. Even when you were mad at them, you never hid things. Coupled with all your lame-ass excuses for staying back at school, Sam had a feeling Dean was onto something.

“You don’t think something’s off at school, do you?”

Sam knew all about peer pressure. He also knew Y/N was extremely strong willed but so was he and he still got roped into smoking weed in college. Not that he thought Y/N would ever get into drugs, specially the heavy kind but there was always the niggling sensation at the back of his head going ‘what if?’.

“She would have told us if there was something bothering her,” Sam tried to sound confident but he could hear the uncertainty in her own voice.

Dean paused where he was drying the dishes, looked over at his brother and decided enough is enough.

“Here’s the thing – there’s trusting someone and just being plain stupid. Y/N is definitely hiding something and I’d rather she be mad at us for invading her privacy than regret not stepping in sooner. So, seeing how she desperately wants us out of the bunker next week, we’re going to go out of the bunker. Find a fake case Sammy, we’re going fake hunting.” Dean managed a nonchalant grin as he went back to his dishes. Sam contemplated for a moment and reluctantly agreed.

It was 2 days before the play and you still hadn’t figured out how to sneak out. You contemplated telling them you had a sleepover or a party to get to but they knew you well enough to know you didn’t get along with your classmates. If only you could dumb yourself down enough to socialise with them. You sighed and mindlessly browsed through the men of letters library.

“Hey kiddo, we found a hunt a couple of towns over. Looks like a simple salt n’ burn. You gonna be okay on your own for a couple of days?” Sam’s voice jerked you back to reality and when you registered what he was saying, you barely managed to keep yourself from squealing out loud.

Your giddiness must have been obvious as Sam and Dean shared one of those looks – the ones you hated – and asked you if you were alright.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. And yes, I’ll be good by myself. When are you guys leaving?”

If they had any second thoughts about their plan before, your answer just got rid of them. You were never this excited about a hunt and you always, always asked about every little detail.

“We’re probably gonna leave tonight, drive overnight to avoid the traffic. So, I for one am gonna catch some zee’s while I can. Unlike Disney princess hair over here, I won’t be getting sleep on the road.”

“You know that wouldn’t be a problem if you’d let me drive for a change!”

“Hell no, I ain’t listening to your classical crap.”

You shook your head at their antics as they walked away. Finally, things were going your way.

Things were not going your way. The brothers had left the previous evening (although they didn’t go far, but you didn’t have to know that). The day of the play had arrived and you were already nervous when you heard that the male lead was sick and his understudy had to step in. You hated him. He was one of those cocky high school boys who thought they were the shit. You had to reluctantly admit that at least the guy wasn’t the worst actor in the world. Although, if he kept hitting you with his cheesy pickup lines, you were going to stab him. Hard.

Dean and Sam spent the night at a motel before making their way back to the bunker after you’d left for school. After taking a quick shower and grabbing fresh clothes, the brothers took one of the more inconspicuous cars in the bunker basement and parked outside the school. They knew you would recognise the Impala immediately but you’d never really been interested in the other cars, much to Dean’s dismay.

“Never thought we’d be staking out Y/N,” Dean said wryly.

“Well, at least everything is normal for now. Maybe we were wrong and she’s just being a teenager you know.”

Dean doubted it but didn’t say anything. They waited for Y/N to come out when school finally ended but she never did. Sam even scoped out where the stoner kids were and she wasn’t there, much to his relief. Finally, Y/N came out 3 hours after school ended, looking extra tired but otherwise alright. The brothers shared a confused glance but sighed in relief. At least she wasn’t doing anything illegal.

You went straight home and fell asleep to recharge before your performance tonight. You got up in the evening, one hour before you had to be at school to calm your nerves.

Sam and Dean were confused. Y/N had done what she would normally do on any other day. Maybe she stayed in school for a longer time than usual but other than that, she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.

Dean suddenly had a horrifying thought.

“Dude, if this whole thing is about a boy, I’m gonna actually kill her.”

Before Sam could reply, they saw Y/N leaving the bunker.

“It’s late. Where the hell is she going? And what the hell is she wearing?” Dean’s voice grew more incredulous with each question. “If she’s sneaking out to a party, I’m grounding her. I don’t care how old she is.”

They followed her without being seen. To the school? What the hell?

There was a lot of buzz at the school despite the late hour. Confused, the brothers got out of their car and followed Y/N inside, making sure to stay a few feet behind her.

“Is it just me or are there a lot of adults here?” Dean asked.

Then they saw the poster outside the hall Y/N had just entered. Rock Hills presents ‘West Side Story: the musical’. Sam stood there gaping at the poster and Dean had never been more confused in his life.

“What the hell?”

“I don’t know”

“Seriously. What the hell?”

“I don’t know!”

“Come on. Let’s go in,” Sam nudged his brother in the direction that the other parents were going.

The host said something about the show starting in 5 minutes but they ignored him and made their way backstage. They located Y/N quite easily. She was standing in a corner, mentally psyching herself. They made their way towards her and gently tapped her on the shoulder.

You were just minding your own business in the corner of the room before the show, going through the whole spiel of ‘why did I do this’ and ‘holy shit I’m gonna throw up’ when you felt a hand tap your shoulder. Startled, you jumped and turned around to glare at whoever disturbed you, when you froze. Sam and Dean were staring at you incredulously and had your legs been working you would probably have hightailed out of there.

“Fuck,” you softly exclaimed under your breath.

“Something you wanna share with the class kiddo?”

You couldn’t make out the exact emotion in Dean’s voice but it didn’t sound like anger. You held onto that and realised you had to be on stage in less than sixty seconds.

“Uhm, hold that thought,” was what you said instead. You went to peek through the curtain. Yep, 45 seconds.

“I love you! No time to explain – gotta go!”

With that you rushed on stage, more terrified than ever. That melted away once you started performing though. You forgot all about your worries for the duration of the play. You acted, sang and danced your heart out and when the thundering applause reached your ears and you saw the brothers in the audience cheering you on along with everyone else, you had a feeling it would be okay.

You were backstage again, taking off your stage make-up and gearing up to go face the music as it were. You were scared of the brother’s reaction and even you could tell you were procrastinating. Most of the other cast had left and it was time for you to leave too.

They were standing outside, leaning against a car. The first thing that stupidly came out of your mouth was – “Where’s baby?”

Dean laughed. A full belly laugh. You felt some of your anxiety leave your body.

The three of you looked at each other. Sam was the first one to make a move. He pulled you in for a tight hug, almost lifting your feet off the ground, kissing the top of your head.

“You were incredible, kiddo.”

You buried yourself into his chest as your eyes filled with tears of relief. Of acceptance.

“Thanks moose,” Your reply was muffled against his chest which moved with silent laughter at the nickname.

You finally pulled away from Sam when Dean cleared his throat. He looked at you blankly for a moment and dread filled your entire being.

“You ever pull something like this again, I will kick your ass.”

For a second you thought he was talking about the play and your heart dropped.

But then he pulled you into a hug too. You tensed, confused.

“Dammit kid, I don’t like being worried about you. Stop doing shit like this. Why the hell didn’t you just tell us you were taking part in this thing? You’re not nearly as good at the hiding thing as you think you are. I was terrified something shady was going on with you.”

Although he was almost yelling in your ear, you sagged against him as the tension seeped out of your body. This time you actually did start crying. Dean just hugged you tighter and Sam gently rubbed your back.

After a few minutes Dean pulled back a little and put both hands on either side of your head.

“You never have to hide anything from us. By now I like to think I know how your mind works and I can guarantee that I will never be mad at you if you want to pursue anything other than hunting. You’re not our kid because you’re a hunter Y/N/N. You’re family, regardless of your job. Clearly I’m not doing a very good job at this parenting thing if you don’t know that already.”

You furiously shook your head, hiding your face in his shirt again.

“You’re the best dad anyone could ask for. You both are.”

Your words were barely audible and your face was extremely red but the brothers still heard you and grinned at each other over your head.

“We love you too, kiddo.” Dean kissed your forehead and started walking towards the car, pulling you along.

“What do you say we get some ice cream and celebrate at the bunker? We could watch some movies, make some popcorn? You know what I’m in the mood for Sammy? West Side Story,” Dean grinned as you groaned into his shoulder.

The brothers continued to tease you as you walked to the car. You finally felt happy.

“But seriously guys, where is baby?”

[knightofameris]

in another world — peter parker

Setting: ending of infinity war to the moments after Gender: Neutral Contains: blood, could be seen as platonic? or unrequited/y’all are fucking dense? i tried keeping it open o: or even as a set up, cursing (oops, already cursed) Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: You didn’t think you’d know anyone after dying. But when a mysterious man led you to a group of familiar faces you didn’t expect to see your best friend.

a/n: I finally got this out. Also, still writing the literal 3-part series (maybe more, depends) but I’m a lazy piece of shit so uhhhhhh. [reposting from my old account :3]

Let me know if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes or if I accidentally say ‘she/he’ instead of the gender neutral ‘they’.

Feedback is appreciated!

Enjoy! 

❝ no matter the dimensions we’re in we’d always find each other right? ❞

You gripped your side as you felt the blood start seeping through your uniform. The fight was long and brutal. Lives were lost and more importantly, the Avengers had lost.

Leaning against the edge of a tree, too weak to move, you watched the scene before you. Each one of the Avengers struggling to come to terms with what just happened. Fear struck you when a sudden feeling came over you the same moment Bucky called out to the captain. It felt like it was out of the movies created from a poem. The sudden disappearance of each fighter, people calling out for loved ones, and those who died alone.

Natasha came up from behind you asking if you were okay. You looked up at her and nodded meekly, your face glazed over in horror. She put one of your arms over her shoulder.

“Come on, let’s group up, and we’ll get you checked out.” You nodded your head again as the two of you stumbled towards the rest of the Avengers who were still alive. Steve sat on the ground next to his fallen friend when he saw you approaching with Natasha. Worry cast over his face once he saw you limping towards the group. He pushed himself to stand up and walk up to the two of you to make sure you were alright.

Your breathing was even, as even as it could with your injury. Nat watched your chest rise and fall, to see if there were any abnormalities in your breathing pattern. It was smooth, you breathed in through your nose and out your mouth. But her eyes furrowed when she noticed that your breathing hitched, and your chest heaved, slightly jerking as you struggled to let in air.

“Guys?” You gasped out, looking at each of the older Avengers. You looked down at your legs but they weren’t there and you fell to the ground, Nat holding on to you as she tried to soften the impact. The numbing pain that alerted each of your nerves caused your body to go into shock. Your mouth gaped open, your breaths quick and sharp.

“Kid, you’re gonna be alright, okay?” Steve bent down, his voice cracking as he struggled to keep it together.

Nat smiled at you, caressing your face, a pained smile etched on her face. “You’re gonna be okay. We’ll fix this okay?” You wanted to cry, you knew what was happening. You wanted to believe them but, you didn’t know what to expect.

“I love you guys,” you croaked out, then looking away as you faded into dust.

Thor clenched his jaw in anger and looked away from the two clamber over the pile of ashes. At himself or at Thanos? He didn’t know.

***

Your eyes snapped open, immediately taking in the yellow-tinted sky. Looking to the side, you felt yourself laying in what seemed to be water which was also tinted yellow. Slowly, you sat up but you weren’t soaked like you thought you’d be. Then that’s when you recalled the earlier events.

You died.

“Is this heaven?” You mumbled to yourself, looking around. In the distance, you saw an odd piece of architecture, four pillars with an arch. Frowning, you slowly approached it.

“You probably don’t want to go towards that,” a voice said. You turned around only to see an older man donned in a peculiar navy blue tunic adorned with a red cloak on his shoulders. His beard reminded you of Tony’s and the white hairs on the sides of his head made you think he was an older man. But his facial features and lack of wrinkles let you think otherwise

Tilting your head, you asked, “And why’s that?”

“Just have a bad feeling, everyone did,” he replied. “Odd that you decided to walk towards it.” You looked back towards the pillars then back at him.

“Everyone?” You wondered. “Who are you?” Your eyes narrowed at the man who came out of nowhere. Though, if you were dead, you didn’t have to worry about dying again. The man shifted his stance in front of you before speaking.

“I’m Doctor Stephen Strange, and you’re (Y/n) (L/n), right? Full-time Avenger and full-time student,” he responded. You continued to glare at him as you pulled off your mask.

“Yeah, well that was supposed to be a secret,” you muttered and then walked towards him.

“Peter talked about you,” he said. Your eyes widened and you looked up at him.

“Wait, Peter? As in Peter Parker?” You asked somewhat excitedly. But then you stopped and frowned. “Wait, he died too?” Strange looked to the side, his head bobbing side-to-side in a ‘sorta-but-not-really’ manner.

“We’re not really ‘dead’,” he put quotes around the word dead. “Come on, I’ll explain as I take you to everyone else.”

You purse your lips as you reluctantly followed the man who began to explain where you were.

It seemed as if the two of you were walking in place. All you could see was yellow, and the sloshing of the water didn’t help. But anytime you looked back, the four pillars grew smaller and smaller. It was hard to wrap your head around the fact that you were in a pocket dimension. Hell, alternate dimensions, in general, was what shook you the most. But to be in a dimension that was really just the soul stone? It just felt impossible. But it gave you a sense of relief, you still had a fighting chance somehow.

“So do you guys have a plan?” You questioned, breaking the silence that came after Strange finished his explanation. He didn’t seem too much of the talkative type, especially considering you were years younger than the man. “How’d you even find me?”

“Not really, unless the rest of the group created one while I went off to find you,” he replied. “And Parker’s spider senses, as he calls them, sensed someone else came.” You nodded your head. It made sense after all.

“What about the rest of the universe? Are they okay?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” The man quipped. You stopped in your steps, appalled at his rudeness.

“Sorry I’m always curious, asshole,” you muttered loud enough for him to hear before continuing to walk with him. He rolled his eyes but then eyed you carefully. He was surprised at how well you were taking everything. Strange also respected at how you cared about the rest of the universe even if you were ‘dead’.

Strange sighed, he knew he probably shouldn’t be as much of an asshole as he usually is. Especially with someone as young as you. “The other half from the snap is here, you were among the last. The ones who died after the snap from car accidents and whatnot are also here. Seems only fitting since they come here too.”

More hope. Which made you smile. “Great, that means after we kick Thanos’ ass everyone can go back to normal.” Strange chuckled at your response.

The walk to wherever the two of you were headed continued. Along with Strange, the sound of the water sloshing about accompanied you.

Small figures in the distance entered your vision that slowly grew bigger as you continued to approach them. You wondered how in the world Strange was able to navigate this pocket dimension but when you were able to recognize a few of the figures as you got closer, you didn’t even bother to ask. Bucky grinned at you and placed his hand on Peter’s shoulder, gripping it tightly as he shoved him around a bit.

“Look at who’s here, Spider-ling,” Sam crossed his arms. Peter would’ve corrected him but he couldn’t. He just stood there, mouth gaping at who Strange brought. He didn’t expect you to be the last person to arrive. But there you stood, smiling. Neither one of you moved. “Close your chin, boy! Unless eating flies is what you really do because of your powers.”

Bucky laughed at Sam’s remark and patted Peter’s back hard enough to push him forward.

“Ow!” Peter looked back at the older man.

“Look,” Peter began walking towards you as he pointed his fingers towards the two men, “just don’t tell them I thought you were Jesus.”

“Oh, we’re so telling them,” Sam chuckled. Bucky smiled in response as he watched the two of you interact. Wanda rolled her eyes at the two’s antics, her lips perked upwards but her eyes still glazed over with a hint of sadness. Vision wasn’t in the dimension they were in, no one was able to find him.

You grinned at Peter as he slowly approached you and your little handshake you had ensued. Being best friends meant that you had to have a handshake, if you had one with Ned and MJ, you did with Peter. But then Peter pulled you in for a hug. You were stunned for a moment but promptly hugged him back.

Murmuring into your hair, “I’m so glad you’re here, I thought I’d be alone.”

“I mean, you have everyone else here though,” you chuckled.

“Yeah, but you’re my best friend,” he let go of you and looked into your (e/c) eyes. “Along with Ned and MJ, but we’re crime-fighting buddies.” He nudged you with his elbow and you laughed. For a moment, you kinda wished you made him stay on the bus, or that you should’ve gone with him. But you knew if you saw him die or vice-versa, it’d fuck the two of you up.

“Speaking of our guys in the chairs…” You trailed off, looking towards the other people who occasionally eyed the two of you now and then.

“They’re alive,” Peter responded. You nodded, a pang of guilt and pain pulled in your chest.

“That’s good but,” you paused, making eye contact with Peter once more, “they probably think we’re dead, huh?” Peter took in a deep breath, knowing very well what you mean. The pain he saw in Tony’s eyes as he said he was sorry would probably stay with the olderman forever. He already knew of his PTSD and anxiety attacks, his death probably just made it worse. And to think of how your friends and the rest of the Avengers felt?

Peter didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. You already knew how he felt as you were surrounded by the other Avengers as you faded away.

“Oh, hey! Is that a new person?” A new voice called out, the two of you guys looked away from each other to look at who was talking to you. A man, who seemed to be human, wearing a red leather jacket looked down at you two. “Ah, you guys dating?”

You and Peter looked at each other and exchanged faces. Slowly, you burst out laughing. Peter chuckled nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck and glanced down at you who seemed like you were having the time of your life. To Bucky and Sam, they couldn’t really tell if you were being overdramatic just to be overdramatic, or if you were just covering up the heat that might be rushing up to your face. Out of embarrassment or awkwardness, they still couldn’t really tell.

“Me and this kid?” You pointed at Peter with your thumb. “No way.”

“(Y/n), this is Peter Quill-”

“Please, call me Star-Lord.”

Peter rolled his eyes but continued, “And the other guys are part of the Guardians of the Galaxy.” You took in the faces of people before you, an alien who seemed like a bug was beaming at you, a tree who seemed bored out of his mind, another humanoid who had what seemed to be red tattoos, and a green woman. An odd group.

But it didn’t stop you from saying, “Guardians of the Galaxy? Half of us are dead.” Though it was meant more like a joke, Quill flinched. “I’m joking, sorry. Too soon.”

Looking at Peter, you couldn’t believe the situation you were in. Maybe you should’ve been more scared of what was going to happen. But with the last words Nat and Steve said, what Strange informed you, and being in the presence of Peter Parker, you knew you’d be okay.

Before you knew it, one of the Guardians jumped on over to you and grabbed your hand, her antennas began to glow.

“Woah!” You pulled away, glancing a Peter with a plea for help. “What are you doing?”

“I can feel emotions,” she replied. Peter gave you a reassuring smile so you slowly gave back your hand to her. “You feel lots of love, love for-”

“Okay, we’re done here,” Strange interrupted. “We’ve gotta create a game plan.”

Quill began, “Or, I’ll create-”

“No.”

The green woman smacked Quill in the backside of his head and you laughed at the scene before you, glad that the situation you were in was glossed over. For dying, all of you guys seemed pretty relaxed. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. I mean you had Peter Parker right there with you, and that’s all you really needed. Your best friend by your side while all of you created a game plan.

“Hey, I’m glad we’re in this mess together,” You said to Peter.

He nodded his head and let out a heavy breath. “Yeah, me too. Who knew we’d find each other again.”

Letting out a laugh and lightly punching his arm, with him feigning hurt, “I mean, no matter the dimensions we’re in, we’d always find each other, right?”

“Yeah, always,” he responded.

“Are-are you lovebirds done?” Strange narrowed his eyes towards the two of you.

“We’re not-!” You both said at the same time.

“Together, we know.”

[jbbarnesandnoble]

Forever and Always: Part 7

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Series Summary: You and Bucky used to date, until someone got in between you two. After a year without seeing him, he pops up in your life again, and old feelings with him? Harsh words can never taken back, but can they be forgiven?

Chapter Summary: You’re still in shock from the news your friends just dropped on you. But you what you have to do, even if it’ll mess up everything you worked so hard for.

Word Count: 3,874

Warnings: Anggssstt/Hurt/Pain/Ect -I lowkey hurt my own feelings writing this- Get ready for all the mess y’all:)

A/N: Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think this is one of the best things I have ever written. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I’m really proud of my writing in this part. I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have honestly been looking froward to this part for weeks now. Once I started working on it I felt so inspired. Please leave some feed back, I love to know what you all are thinking. If you want me to tag you in this series feel free to let me know!

It’s an hour to midnight and Bucky’s apartment is full of his friends and loud music. Although you can barely hear any of the noise over your heart practically beating out of your chest. Fantastically, you are rushing around trying to find Bucky’s bright blue-grey eyes in the sea of people.

What was meant to be a small get together with friends quickly turned into something much bigger and louder. A few of the guests didn’t quite get the memo that this was meant to be a small quiet gathering.

With each step your determination quickly turns to fear. You begin to realize just how stupid this is. Why would he ever believe you? You’ve never met his girlfriend before, you barely know a thing about her, let alone her name. And what if it was all just one big misunderstanding? Of course you trust your friends, you know they wouldn’t lie to you about something as serious as this.

But there is also a possibility that they just misheard their conversation. Besides, what proof do you even have? You only have your friends word, maybe things would be different if you heard it yourself. But you didn’t, you panicked as soon as you heard that someone might be using James for selfish reasons. Just like always, you jumped without thinking things through properly. If anything this will just go to show that all you are to him is his crazy and jealous ex-girlfriend.

You get the sudden feeling of dread and panic slowly rising in your chest. Looking around, you swiftly make your way towards the first door you see. When a hand gently wraps around your wrist. You hold your breath, hoping, praying that it isn’t Bucky. You know you can’t face him right now without accidentally spilling everything.

You let out the breath you were holding when you’re met with sandy blond hair and baby blue blue eyes. “Hey, Y/N, are you okay?” Steve looks at you with a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Steve.” you look at him processing his question.

“Um... yeah... yes, I am. Sorry, I-I have to go.” From the look on his face, you can tell he wants to ask who hurt you then punch the jerk who did. He’s always acted like an overprotective big brother when it comes to you. He even taught you self-defense when you were younger. No matter how much time has passed he will always find a way to protect you. Even if you don’t need it, or want it.

From the frown on his face you know he doesn’t believe you, you don’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to talking about your feelings. Over the years you have learned that lying won’t get you anywhere when it comes to Steve, Nat, Wanda and Peggy. Yet you still feel guilty when you bother them with your negative emotions.

“I just need some air, it’s getting a bit too crowded in here for my liking.” he nods his head in response. Knowing that you aren’t a huge fan of big crowds or parties.

Without another word, Steve nods his head towards the door leading to the balcony. You don’t have to ask, already knowing he wants you to follow him. Sucking in a sharp breath, you ready yourself for whatever it is he wants to say.

By the time you reach the door, Steve has already made himself comfortable on the cozy balcony. You stop suddenly when you finally allow yourself to take in your surroundings. You can’t help but smile softly at the sight in front of you.

“He couldn’t bring himself to change it.” Steve speaks gently, bringing you back from your distant memories.

“As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to actually do it. He tried to argued that you spent too much of your time and effort on it, to just throw it all away. But we both know that’s not the reason he kept everything.” you look up to catch Steve staring at you, a small smile planted on his face.

“He kept it because it reminded him of you.” you feel a bit sad at Steve’s gentle confession. “I’m surprised.” you start slowly, taking a seat next to the huge man who takes up most of the small couch.

“He never said anything about it. So I just assumed he tolerated my constant redecorating of his home.” Steve thinks for a moment before answering.

“He once told me he thought watching you work on little projects, like this one, was calming.” you can’t help but chuckle slightly at the thought. “He enjoyed watching how happy you would get over something as simple as adding a few decorations to an otherwise empty room.” Steve looks at you with a gentle softness in his baby blues

“He even said it was one of the things that made him fall so hard for you.” He admits too quietly for you to catch over the sound of the music and the loud city street down below.

“Steve.” you swear if it the music from inside was any louder he wouldn’t have heard you. You suddenly wish he didn’t.

You swallow the lump in your throat before asking the question that has been burning in your mind since you stepped outside. Noticing the nervousness in your voice, he takes your hand into his giving it a reassuring squeeze. His large hand makes yours feel like a child's in comparison.

“What do you think of Bucky’s girlfriend?” You can feel Steve’s gaze on you, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to look him in his impossibly blue eyes. Not wanting to see his emotions.

You have known Steve Rogers long enough to be able to read him like a book. You know well enough that if you so much as glance at him, you’ll see every single thought and emotion running through his mind.

The long, painful silence drags on for what feels like hours. Before Steve finally answers your regretful question. “I think.” He begins quietly and cautiously, like you’ll break from his words. Looking out towards the lively city below us, he continues. “I think that this is the first time that Buck has been genuinely happy since... well... you.” He looks down smiling sadly at our interwoven hands. You see another emotion flash across his face, it’s darker than the others, but you can’t seem to name it. Then, just like that it’s gone. Whenever it was, the sight left you with an uneasy feeling.

“I'll admit that I'm still trying to get used to the fact that my best friend and little sister aren't together anymore.” He bumps my shoulder with his, he knows you dislike it when he calls you his little sister. You just playfully roll your eyes at him. You’re a month older than him and not even his biological sister.

It had always just been Steve and his parents, but when they died in an accident when he was no more than six-teen, he didn’t have any other family that he could rely on. Except for you and Bucky -who you didn’t know at the time, the first time the two of you met was Steve’s eighteenth birthday-

“I think that sometimes I let that get in the way of me fully accepting that he has moved on from you." This time it's you who gives his hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Because in my eyes it’ll always be Bucky and Y/N.” When Steve looks at you, you can see a mix of hope and sadness in his eyes. But chose to ignore it.

“Steve, I don’t want to be the one who gets in the way of everyone accepting their relationship. If you think that she’s a good person who genuinely loves and cares for Bucky and makes him happy, then that’s great, that’s all I’ve ever wanted for him. His happiness.” Which was true, you just aren’t sure if his happiness is with her. You watch Steve carefully, hoping he’ll give you some kind of answer. Some type of proof that he feels the same doubts as you.

“You’re right.” he rubs the back of his neck a bit embarrassed that he was the one complaining about his best friends relationship, when you have every right  to, but you have said nothing but good things.

“I always feel a bit uneasy when it comes to her. I get a feeling that she’s hiding something from us.” He looks at you, searching your eyes and face for something. You aren’t quite sure what.

When you open your mouth, suddenly finding the courage to tell him about what you were told only an hour before hand. But he cuts you off without realization.

“She’s hiding something.” Steve mutters darkly, too quietly for you to completely hear, you have only ever seen Steve angry twice in your life. That’s why you know it’s serious when he looks mad. You just aren’t sure the reason behind his sudden and dark expression.

He laughs awkwardly “But that’s probably just me being paranoid.” you can see through his weak lie, but decided not to press on anymore. Steve has never been a good lair.

Just like that his face turns back to his normal easy smile. Like nothing ever happened. He has always been a fairly honest person, even if the truth itself wasn’t so pretty. You can always trust and rely on his word. If Steve says she’s okay then she has to be, right? He may not always be the best judge of character, considering that he, being the optimistic person he is, always tries to see the best in people. But no matter what, his heart is always in the right place. If on the rare chance that he does try to lie his way out of something, it’s usually because he’s uncomfortable. 

You give his hand one last squeeze before standing up. “Thanks Stevie, I always feel better after our talks.” Which is true, he always helps you sort things out in a practical and well thought out way, you still can’t help the small part of you that still doubts everything. You give him a small smile before walking back inside.You pass Peggy on your way back in who just gives you a sad look.

----------

“Is everything okay, Steve?” He looks up to find Peggy’s hazel eyes staring down at him with concern. “Yeah, it’s fine Peg. I’m just worried about Y/N.” Steve gives her a small smile, the worry evident on his face. “Do you think she’ll tell him?” for once Peggy doesn’t have an answer for him. Instead she sits next to him, wrapping her arm around his. “I don’t know.” she leans her head on his shoulder.

“He used to believe her word in a heartbeat. Without so much as a second guess. But now that they aren’t together anymore, would he still?” They look at each other, both thinking the same thing. Was it a good idea to let Y/N handle this? Was it fair to put that on her?

----------

“I don’t think Pepper would appreciate that Tony.” you say through a laugh

“Thank you, Y/N. Finally someone agrees with me.” Pepper says, using her hands to dramatize her statement. She give Tony a playful glare.

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side kid.” Tony pouts “Not this time Stark.” you smirk, placing a hand on your hip. You glance at the watch on your left wrist,‘11:45′ Fifteen minutes to midnight. Noticing the time you slip away from Tony and Pepper when they’re distracted. You want them to have their moment when the clock strikes twelve without making them feel uncomfortable.

You’re making your way through the crowd people, everyone seems to be getting ready for the ball to drop -You too, except a different ball- Whether it’s by finding their significant other, grabbing a drink from the bar or hanging around friends. Everyone has someone. You look around to find Wanda, you know Nat will be with Clint and Peg will be with Steve.

Instead of Wanda, you end up making eye-contact with the one person you were trying to avoid. Bucky. You turn around, hoping he didn’t actually see you. It’s dark and there are so many people that he probably didn’t even notice you.

But luck doesn't seem to be on your side tonight, or at all recently. “Hey, Y/N. Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Not wanting to meet his eyes you look around, hoping to spot Wanda to come save you from this interaction.

Ignoring his question you ask, “Have you seen Wanda? I wanted to be with her when the clock strikes twelve.”

You try walking away, just wanting to get as far away from his as possible. You know if he asks those three little words everything will come spilling out. Whether you want it to or not. But Bucky seems to have other plans. 

He grabs your wrist before you can get far. You whip around to meet his blue-grey eyes boring into yours. You can see the already see the question forming in his eyes. Panic begins to rise in your chest. You try to get your arm out of his grasp. Trying desperately to get away. But you’re too slow, luck really isn’t on your side at all.   

“Is everything okay?” as soon as the words leave his mouth you close your eyes, trying your best not to say anything. Trying your best not to cry. You look around hoping that someone, anyone will come save you. But none of your friends are in sight, or close enough for them to hear you over the music and noise.

“Buck, please, don’t.” the words that leave your mouth don’t even feel like your own. It’s like you’re in a stranger's body. Just like earlier you find it hard to breath.

“What’s going on, doll? You haven’t been acting like yourself all night.” Bucky asks again, softer this time. You don’t think you can fight it. Any of it. Gently he lifts your chin up to look meet his face. Which is a lot closer than you would like it to be.

Forcing your eyes open, you don’t bother hiding the tears in your eyes anymore. You let them fall freely. “I’m sorry.” You let out in a whimper. Bucky must feel how tense you are under his grasp because he finally lets you go.

You know there’s no way out of this situation, if you try to run he’ll follow you. If you try to lie, he won’t believe it. You have to tell him everything. “B-Buck, what I’m about to tell you. You have to promise me that you won’t get angry.” He looks at you, more concerned this time. “Promise me, James.” You manage to say it in a firm voice. With the use of his first name, he knows it’s important.

After he promises, you take a deep breath. Trying to calm your nerves.

“Buck, it’s... it’s your girlfriend.” his body visibly tenses at the mention of her. You can see a million questions forming in his mind as you speak.

You’re about to tell him how Natasha and Peggy overheard the conversation, then decide against it. It’ll be better if he thinks you heard it directly.

“I overheard a conversation in the hallway before I got here, an older man was speaking, he said something about not getting the money fast enough. I didn’t think much of it... until the other person spoke, she sounded younger than the man did. She said that.. that she would get him the money soon, t-that it was just taking longer than she expected it to. I was going to ignore it. Then I realized who was speaking. It... it was your girlfriend.” You have to force yourself to look at him. His face is blank, for a moment you wonder if he heard any of what you just said over the loud music filling the room.

Then his blank expression turns to confusion. “What are you trying to say, Y/N?” He runs a shaky hand through his hair. Messing it up. “Bucky, she’s using you. Your girlfriend she-”

“I know who you mean. Why are you telling me this?” He snaps, faster than he meant to. You don’t notice the tall brunette that suddenly appeared next to him. Before you can open your mouth to speak, she interrupts.

“What about me?” the beautiful woman says with a laugh that would make angles jealous.

“Nothing important, doll.” You’ve never heard Bucky use that nickname for anyone other than you. It stings more than it should. You look up to see the woman standing next to him. as soon as you recognize her your heart drops. You blink your eyes a few times, hoping that you’re just seeing things. But when you open them, she’s still there.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so stupid. Of course it would be you.” you say more to yourself than anyone else. Fear suddenly pools in her eyes when she sees you, but she  quickly and flawlessly recovers. Of course you just assume that it’s fear of seeing her fiances ex-girlfriend at his New Years Eve party.

“Wait, Elena... do you two, know each other?” She opens her mouth to speak, but you’re faster.

“I didn’t know you were engaged. I guess I own you a congratulations.” You try your best at hiding your disappointment in him, he didn’t tell you about his engagement. After everything, you thought your relationship was improving with Bucky. Then it hits you, he didn’t want you to know. Especially since he seems to have gone to the trouble of telling everyone not to tell you.

Bucky looks at Elena with a confused expression. But you miss it, too disappointed in him to care. That’s when you notice it. The beautiful engagement ring Elena always wore was missing. Now that you think about it, the ring isn’t his mothers. Which you find strange, he used to always talk about wanting to propose with his mom's ring one day. But now that suddenly changed? You can't help but feel a but put off by it.

"Elena, did something happen to your ring?" The question is completely innocent, with no hidden agenda. But as soon as the words leave your mouth she looks at you like you just told the world her darkest secret.

"Oh, my ring. I'm getting it cleaned." She glances towards Bucky who's face stays blank. "I should have it back soon." She laughs again, this time it feels more forced. But still as beautiful as before.

Awkward silence falls between the three of you, luckily the music in loud enough to drown out your thoughts. It's then you realize you never completely explained to Bucky what's going on with Elena.

"Elena, if you don't mind I would like to have a word with Bucky in private." You hate how your voice sounds so small and insecure compared to hers, which always seems to be full of confidence.

To your surprise it's Bucky who speaks. "Whatever you have to say to me you can say in front of Elena." He says coldly. You try to ignore it.

"Right..." you clear your throat hoping that will somehow give you confidence. "I-I told you because I'm trying to protect you. Buck, I-" but Elena cuts you off. "Protect him from what, exactly?" she eyes you with a suspicious look

Her interruption only makes more frustrated and upset than you already are. "From you." You snap back before you can stop yourself. Not that you care, You're tired of her using him, whether it's true or not.

"I know that you're only using him for his money. I heard you talking to that older man in the hallway earlier." You take a step closer to Elena, who has a few good inches on you. You don't miss the fear that quickly flashes across her face

"How dare you assume that, I love James. I love him more than you ever could." You swear you feel your heart stop. Regret and hurt pooling inside of your stomach. You don't let her see it, you refuse to. Before you get another word out Bucky steps in.

"That's enough!" You expect him to yell, instead his voice comes out as a deep growl. You can practically see the anger and frustration fuming off of him.

He turns to face you before he continues. "Thanks Y/N." you let out a small sigh of relief feeling the hope rising in your chest. You don't bother hiding it. All you care about is that Bucky believes you. Nothing else matters. You don’t even seem to notice the defeated look on Elena’s face. 

"Thank you for trying to sabotage my relationship with Elena." In just one sentence all your hope is shattered. You can feel your heart slowly begin to break. Even more than it already is. The hope in your eyes dying with his cruel words. But you know you deserve them.

"I trusted you, after these past few months of repairing our relationship, I thought you supported me. But clearly I was wrong." Regretfully you sneak a glance at Elena who now has a smug smile planted on her face, anyone can read it. 'He chose me, he'll always chose me. You had your chance.' Your heart somehow manages to break even more at the thought.

"You were just trying to get in the way of my happy relationship, because if you can't move on neither can I, right? I'm an idiot for even thinking I could trust you again. That was clearly a mistake, one that I'll make sure to never make again. After all, you broke my heart and betrayed my trust once before. Why did I bother trusting you again." Those last words are like a slap across the face, except instead of a hand it's with a bus.

Every slither of hope you once had moments ago had been destroyed. Never to see the light of day again. Slowly and painfully, the world goes silent. You can't hear the cheers of excitement around you. The world begins to grow blurry from unshed tears. It feels like you're hundreds of miles below water. You aren’t sure how long you stand there in shock. You're only brought back to reality when a drunk man bumps into you, spilling his drink all over your outfit. Making you and your clothes reek of alcohol. 

When you're brought back from your dark thoughts and shock. You realize what's going on from the couples kissing and people cheering and toasting their drinks. Without having to check your watch.

When you look up Bucky and Elena are still there. Elena is smiling wickedly at you and Bucky, well you don't bother glancing at him. Not wanting him to see your broken state.

"Happy new year." You say bitterly, with that you take your leave.

Part 8

Tag List: @justreadingfics @soopranatural @invisibleanonymousmonsters @void-imaginations @the-canary @bloodyproudpotterhead @marvelsbangtan @ladifreakingda @taliarosej00

[hirazuki]

I’m going to try and summarize what bothers me about VLD from as objective a standpoint as possible. A lot of people, including myself, have already made posts pointing out specific issues, especially with regards to the messages it sends to abuse victims, so I’m not going to touch on that or any type of emotional issues here at all. I’m going to skip specifics except where needed as examples, and just talk about the nature of story telling itself. As someone who not only has used fiction for escapism, but who has studied story telling both in terms of literary analysis of novels and of religious texts, it’s a subject that I feel very strongly about.

Warning: long ass post.

Okay, a couple of disclaimers first.

One, I am a firm believer in the “don’t like, don’t read” mentality. If I don’t like something, I don’t talk about it, I just move on. Y’all have never seen a single discourse post about The Dragon Prince, right? Yup, that’s ‘cause I really didn’t like it. It goes for countless other things too. I don’t expend time and effort and energy on things I don’t like, that’s just wasteful. So, why am I harping on VLD? Because I really enjoyed it, despite a couple of what I felt were minor issues at the time, for most of its run. That’s why I -- and I imagine the same goes for many other fans -- am so bitter.

Two, I came late into the Voltron universe. I joined in a couple of days before s6 dropped, and only watched DotU as well as the other Western versions in the past couple of months. Haven’t had a chance to see the original Japanese anime yet.

Three, I’m not a shipper, in general. I don’t ship anything in VLD except Zarkon/Honerva. Romance/sexual stuff is just not my thing, I’ll take swords and explosions any day over that. So my saltiness regarding the series has nothing to do with ships.

Alright, so I think my major gripes with the series can be sorted into three categories:

1. Inconsistency of Story Type:

This is, of course, my own opinion, but through my time of consuming fiction, I think there are three types of stories:

Good vs. Evil: the most basic type of story. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and everyone stays well in their lanes. Think Disney movies, typical Saturday morning cartoons -- the heroes are exemplary of good traits, the villains are one-dimensional and unrepentant, evil for the sake of being evil. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this story type imo, and there are several stories of this nature that I really do enjoy.   

Grey Morality: a much more nuanced take on the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. Due to the very nature of grey morality, there are varying degrees to which this can be implemented. Probably the most common one I’ve seen is where the heroes do some bad/questionable things, the villains/antagonists do some good things or have the right motives or are “noble” in some way; but overall, there is a sense that there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed, certainly by the heroes but also sometimes by the villains/antagonists too. An excellent example of this is Firefly. Another example, that puts a total twist on it by having the protagonist also be the “villain,” is Death Note -- even though the story resolves in a way that to the audience is, really, the only sustainable way possible, it still leaves neither the characters in-show nor the audience with any sense of victory. This concept is taken to the extreme by a series like Tenpou Ibun: Ayakashi Ayashi, where no one is right and no one is wrong, but at the same time everyone is right and wrong, and simply just human. There is no good and no evil, just context, circumstances, and choices. 

Combination: this type of story starts with the Good vs. Evil dichotomy but, as the story progresses and the protagonist becomes more acquainted and involved with their environment, both the protagonist and the audience come to understand that the picture is actually much more complicated than that, and it evolves into Grey Morality. Bleach is a great example. We start with seeing the Hollow as evil, mindless monsters that need to be killed; we learn that they are actually human spirits that have transformed into “monsters” through pain and grief and, therefore, we pity them but also understand that it’s a mercy to put them down; we then find out that, actually, not all are mindless and they have a complicated society and culture of their own; and, eventually, come to accept them as (reluctant) allies against a bigger threat, understanding that they are creatures in their own right. 

From the moment that Keith -- arguably the character within the main cast that had the most time/character development spent on him -- was revealed as being half-Galra (that is, half the “evil” race of the show), VLD promised to be that third type of story. Because there is no way that the writers would make one of their protagonists evil by default because of his blood in a kids’ show, duh, so by logical conclusion this means that that race is not all evil, after all. This was further emphasized by Lotor’s introduction to the plot -- a severe departure from his character in any previous incarnation -- and cemented by the episode, “The Legend Begins,” where we finally get to see the other side of things and the fact that not even Zarkon and Haggar were “born evil,” as well.

After the Keith reveal, we got shocked reactions from his teammates, notably and understandably Allura; got only an apology from her and not the rest for their treatment of him (which could have been better but, whatever, it was a step in the right direction, great!); and then... back to a weird strained relationship in working alongside Galra without another word on the subject.

Okay. Fine.

Then we get Lotor -- again, some of that initial resentment/treatment could be understandable to some extent, and eventually on the road towards, seemingly, genuine acceptance. Cool.

I won’t go into details about the colony episode, because that’s been done to death already, but, woah, major setback there. Back to the knee-jerk reaction of treating individuals of a race as complicit and responsible for the actions and perception of that race as perpetuated by a handful of individuals. And then -- flash forward to s8 -- we are welcoming Galra allies in our cause! Please join our Coalition! We want to help you!

Look. I’m not saying that you can’t retcon stuff; that you can’t go Good vs. Evil, develop into Grey Morality, and then reveal something and BOOM, jk, it was Good vs. Evil all along, gotcha! I’m sure that there is an author somewhere out there that has pulled that off effectively (I can’t think of any examples myself right now, but I’m sure it must exist somewhere).

I am saying that if you’re going to do that -- if you are going to pull the rug out from under everyone’s feet and sacrifice some crucial character development (and crucial characters themselves, let’s be honest) -- you better have a DAMN GOOD IN-UNIVERSE reason for doing so. And no, shock value or getting rid of a character because they were overshadowing the protags doesn’t count. Otherwise, your protagonists will look like giant jerks. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re going for, but I highly doubt that was the thinking here.

And then, we proceed to flip flop between “I knew it, the Galra are irredeemably evil, what’s wrong with these people?!” (I think Hunk -- HUNK, by far the most empathetic character -- said this at some point in s7?) and “Here, we can work together towards a brighter future” or some shit. You can’t do that. I mean you can, but you’re gonna get major backlash from your audience. Pick a fucking direction and stick with it.

For the past three seasons, it has really felt like the story line is being pulled into two different directions: 1) staying true to the original source material of Paladins = good, Galra/Drule = bad, and 2) providing the viewers with a groundbreaking, nuanced interpretation. 

My dudes. You can’t have both. Trying to implement both of these approaches means having morally grey, nuanced characters operating within a narrative framework that is subject to an overarching principle of a strict Good/Evil dichotomy. Do you know how fucking hard that is to pull off effectively without diving headfirst into the pitfall of punishing your morally grey characters by default, simply because they happen to exist in a universe that cannot, by nature, support them???? I can think of only a handful of authors that have managed that and, I would argue, that the man at the top of the list only managed to be so effective and influential because what he wrote was, in essence, a mythology. Mythologies have a totally different set of concerns surrounding them. And even then, he went to great lengths, both in his works and outside of them in discussions/interviews, to note that the “evil” in his world could never have happened without it intentionally being part of the larger cosmological design, i.e. balance. I’m talking, of course, about Tolkien. 

Why the fuck would you attempt to pull something like this off in a kids’ cartoon?! Avatar: The Last Airbender, since everyone loves that comparison, was defined by a black/white view that developed into a very simple grey morality, and it was this limited scope that allowed it to be presented so effectively. None of this sashaying back and forth. 

Especially when this flip flopping is done for le dramatic effect/shock value, with seemingly no good in-story reason?? Of course it’s gonna fall flat.

2. Concept vs. Execution:

This is probably what drives me crazy the most about VLD. 

As an idea, it was fucking brilliant -- anyone who has watched DotU, even with all the nostalgia, I imagine, can admit that it was very much a cut and dry 80s cartoon, with simple concerns; Vehicle Voltron attempted some nuances, but the Lion Voltron part of the show, which was by far the more popular part, was pretty stiff in that regard. VLD took that and introduced themes like: being biracial (Keith, Lotor, etc.), having to choose between duty and family (Krolia), having to choose between personal dreams and important relationships (Shiro), having to overcome deep-seated understandable prejudice and work with people you never thought you could come to stand for a greater cause and through that see that not everything is black and white and attain a greater understanding of the world (Allura), leaving home and learning to survive in a totally foreign environment in the worst circumstances possible (the paladins), dealing with disability, mental illness/ptsd while also dealing with issues of being in a position of leadership/power (Shiro), parental abuse (Lotor), substance abuse (Honerva and Zarkon), being a clone and coming to terms with that (Shiro/Kuron), learning to compromise and sacrifice personal integrity/morals for the betterment/survival of those you have made yourself responsible for (the paladins), and so much more than that. Lotor’s relationship with Honerva/Haggar had serious undertones of both Mother and Child symbolism, as well as Arthurian legend. The whole quintessence thing drew pointers from ancient and medieval concepts of alchemy.

The inclusion of any of these things, injected into a pretty straightforward and tame original source material like DotU, was inspired. What an absolutely fantastic take, with incredible potential.

... and it was the shoddiest, shittiest implementation and execution of any concepts that I have ever seen. Like... how? How did they manage to not be able to successfully see any of these themes to a close, and to actually offend the vast majority of their fanbase (regardless of background, age, race, sexuality, literally from all walks of life) by the way these themes were handled???? 

I’m sure time restraints, direction from above, etc., played a big part in it, but still. If you don’t have time to properly develop the interpersonal relationships between the core members of your main group of characters -- to the point that, say, Keith and Pidge? Hunk and Shiro? Did they ever properly, truly have any meaningful interactions? -- there’s no way you could properly handle all of this.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. 

Also? As stories are being fleshed out, they and their characters tend to take on a life of their own. The Lotor/Keith parallels? I totally believe and understand how it’s possible that it was unintentional. But when that happens, you go back and rework the rest of your plot to make sense with what you now have before you. You adjust and adapt. You don’t barrel on ahead headless and not acknowledging it, and you don’t force your characters into straitjackets just because you want to doggedly follow this one idea.    

3. The Female Lead: 

Let me begin by saying that I really, really wanted to like Allura, and the way she was written was one of the biggest turn offs and disappointments for me. I won’t go into specifics regarding her, as there many posts that already address the problematic nature of how she treats people of her race vs. anyone Galra, but I will just look at her character development as a whole.

Perhaps the easiest way for me to voice my frustrations here would be with a comparison. Let’s look at my favorite female protagonist of all time, Nakajima Youko, from Juuni Kokuki (aka. The Twelve Kindgoms).

Youko starts off as a very meek high school girl, from a typical modern Japanese family. Class representative, top grades, is scared of conflict and wants to live up to everyone’s expectations of her, which makes her very submissive, a total coward emotionally, mentally, and physically. She seeks to please everyone and, as a result, harms her own development by never giving any thought to her own desires and ends up bullied by everyone around her. Magic happens, shit goes down, and she is whisked away to a different world that is parallel to our own, along with two friends from school; ripped from her home, her family, with absolutely no way back. This other world has a different language, people who end up in there from our world are treated like garbage and are slaves, has a medieval level of tech/advancement, and Youko with her friends has to figure out how to survive. She finds out she is actually queen of one of the realms in this world, which makes her a target of various groups. She is betrayed by literally everyone around her, everyone she places her trust in, including the two friends that got transported to this world with her. 

She goes from meek and mild to bloodthirsty and brash; lashing out at everyone around her, plotting to kill those that offer her a helping hand, becoming unreasonably suspicious and racist and way out of line. Understandably so, but the narrative doesn’t, for one moment, present this as okay. Some more stuff happens and she finally snaps out of it, comes to a couple of realizations, and has major character development. She develops the attitude that, yes, people have betrayed and hurt her, but their actions towards her and their opinion of her is none of her business. It will not stop her from acting in ways that are in line with her own morals; if people choose to betray and use her, that’s on them. She will simply do what she must, and treat everyone as an individual according to their actions. This doesn’t mean that she adopts a pushover mentality -- it just means that she loses her knee-jerk reaction, and doesn’t rush to conclusions. She becomes a badass warrior and queen, strong and just, and, frankly, one of the most well-developed female characters I have ever seen.

Do I think this is the only way to write a strong female character? Of course not. But I’m convinced this is what the writers wanted to do with Allura, this kind of progression and path, from being angry, lost, and alone to being a confident, capable, magnificent ruler. And, imo, they totally missed the mark.

I think that the writers were so focused on giving us a “strong” modern female character, and getting as far away from her DotU damsel in distress depiction as possible, that they ended up writing her as, basically, a bully. Sure, they tell us -- both through other characters’ words in the show and through interviews -- about her diplomacy, peaceful nature, leadership quality, open-mindedness, etc., but they never show it to us. In almost every key moment in the series, she has been written to be combative and suffering from tunnel-vision.   

And a huge part of this is that they simply didn’t give her any room to grow. Youko’s character started off at maybe... 5% of her potential? She was honestly so “weak,” I thought about dropping the series. But by the point the anime ended (because the story itself is unfinished and unlikely to continue, unfortunately), I’d say she’s at around 70%. That makes for an extremely dramatic, fulfilling, and believable character development. The VLD writers started Allura off much higher than that. Too high. From the get-go she’s a highly accomplished martial artist, has incredible physical strength due to her Altean heritage, a seemingly natural affinity for leadership and for appealing to people, she’s very attractive, well spoken, had a loving and supportive family, is a princess, had a brilliant alchemist for a father, has access to the universe’s greatest super weapon -- I mean, yes, she’s had to deal with immense loss and grief and come to terms with it in a very short period of time, and lost her father a second time so to speak with Alfor’s AI -- but overall, everything has been set up and handed to her in a nice package. Other than overcoming her hatred towards the Galra and idealization of Altea/Alteans, really, there’s nothing left for her to do that would be defining for her character.

That’s not to say that characters that are extremely accomplished from the start are a bad thing. But in their case, their emotional and mental development and maturity is that much more important, because that’s all that’s left to work with. The writers didn’t really give Allura any significant room to grow in terms of any of that. (And no, I don’t consider her new alchemical powers from Oriande as her growing; she expended no effort for that, it wasn’t really a trial at all for her; it was like me playing a video game on casual mode with the “killallenemies” console command enabled). Her overcoming her racism towards the Galra, beginning with Keith and BoM and continuing to do so with subsequent Galra allies, had a TON of potential and I had been so excited to see where it would go; but that fell flat, totally forgotten by the story.

In contrast, you have Lotor -- we see him struggling to claw his way out of the hand that fate has dealt him, to grow beyond his family’s influence and abuse. Both on and off screen, even described by his own enemies in great detail, we see just how much he has had to fight and to earn everything he has and he is, even things that shouldn’t have to be “earned” in the first place. He’s lost Daibazaal and Altea, both his father and his mother, he’s too Galra for anyone who’s not and not nearly enough Galra for anyone who is. Literally nothing has been handed to him. The juxtaposition between him and Allura, had Allura been given more breathing room by the writers, could have been fantastic and I would have shipped the hell out of it, like I do in DotU. She’s had everything he’s ever wanted (loving family, supportive father, Alfor himself, exploration, alchemy), etc.; envy would have been extremely appropriate on his part, and very interesting to work through, but that was never explored either.

So, I feel like what ended up happening was that a huge imbalance in how these two characters came across was created, made only more evident when their relationship with each other was what was front and center. And, at least for me, this is what makes me completely unable to see Allura’s side of things, and I freely admit it -- I simply don’t understand her or her actions, because I don’t feel like I’ve been shown enough of her inner workings as a character to be able to care about her in the slightest. I can definitely see where the writers were going with her, or where they thought they were going. But unless they actually meant for the character that is, for all intents and purposes, their female lead to be a  racist, abusive, immature person playing at being an adult and at being the leader of a coalition spanning galaxies, who has no problem condemning millions of lives to death and devastation at a whim of her emotions because they are Valid™, and who wades dangerously close to “Mary Sue” territory many times due the way the narrative frames her... then all I see on screen is an unfinished character. Unfinished, because the writers didn’t take any opportunities in the narrative for the flaws and issues she does have to be addressed and overcome, opportunities of which there were plenty! I absolutely don’t mind that she has flaws -- flawed heroes are amazing. But, you gotta do something about them, i.e. address them and work through them. Otherwise your heroes remain static in a plot that is evolving and that’s not a good look.

And, you know, I honestly think DotU Allura is a much stronger female character. She works for everything she gets. She works her ass off. She has to fight to not only be allowed to be part of the team and fly a lion, but even just to do everyday common things like be out in the fields or swim or whatever; forget practicing martial arts. Coran literally ties her up at one point to prevent her from participating. Nanny is a constant battle for her. Over everything, from her clothes to her manner of speaking to where she’s going. But she doesn’t stop, she doesn’t give up. And she fucks up, BIG TIME, several times, she does TONS of stupid shit. But she learns, acknowledges it, gets called out on it, tries again, and keeps on trying. DotU Allura’s biggest battles, in my mind, aren’t with Lotor or the Drule forces or Zarkon, but with her own team and those she considers family, and her struggle for the others’ acceptance of herself and her skills within the group. And for that, she is a much stronger, more solid female character than VLD Allura, despite all superficial appearances and frilly pink dresses and 80s voice acting.

Again, like I said in a previous post, I don’t conform to the view that creators owe their fans anything. Write things however the fuck you want. You want to kill Allura off, fine. Do away with Lotor too? Cool. I completely understand people who want happy endings in fiction because, it’s true, reality fucking sucks; there are several fictional works I turn to whenever real life is too much. And I would be lying if I said that I don’t crave stories where characters like Lotor are given happy endings; of course I want my favorite characters to be okay. But overall, I’m the type of person who, as long as things make for an effective, compelling narrative, I’ll be content with it, regardless of whether the ending is tragic or happy or anything in between. 

So you want to kill off your morally grey character and your female lead, who is also one of the only women on the team, who is also a princess figure, who has also been completely visually redesigned in such a way that you know women of color will relate to her? That’s fine by me, go right ahead. But do so in a way that is meaningful and makes sense within the larger narrative you created, and isn’t some empty, sensationalist gesture. 

And also be aware of your fanbase. This is a reboot -- that comes with certain expectations attached, as a number of the viewers will very likely be fans of the old series, watching out of curiosity, nostalgia, etc. Expectations like, the princess lives, the heroes aren’t assholes, etc. (and I’m referring to expectations from DotU and other Western iterations, rather than the original Japanese series). You don’t have to conform to these expectations -- personally, I’m a big fan of tropes being subverted -- but you need to be aware of them. You need to know the rules before you break them, and if you break them, you better break them damn well.

Imo, VLD ultimately failed to deliver on these fronts, and pretty much fell prey to what a lot of series do -- it couldn’t handle the shift from being primarily episodic in nature (i.e., each episode is self-contained, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, while operating under a distant general goal, like defeating Zarkon; so, s1 and s2) to becoming a more complex narrative unraveling a hidden agenda (s3 onwards). Kind of like how the paladins made no provisions for how they would handle things after Zarkon’s defeat, it feels like the writers didn’t really have one solid plan for how to develop past that point as well.

tl;dr: Whoever is responsible for the way VLD turned out should write a book: how to offend your entire audience in eight seasons or less.

[askjeeveshypno-blog]

What I know about consent violations from having seen a lot of them

Crossposted to Fetlife. 

*TLDR: This stuff is complicated, memories and stories are often flawed, and outside of a few sharp lines there is no consensus on what IS a consent violation to say nothing of what is the correct punishment for one. *

Hi, I’m AskJeeves.  I’m a “community leader” but please don’t blame my communities for what I’m about to say.  I literally ran this past nobody but my wife so the responsibility for my words would be entirely mine and indeed, it’s possible some folks I work with running organizations will be unhappy with me for my directness here.  FWIW, I also have never been the head consent person in any organization.  I’m just a board member of three different kink groups who has also been in the community for a really long time.

But anyway, in various kink positions of responsibility in hypnokink, regular kink and a kinky arts organization, I’ve seen quite a few complaints.  And here are some general impressions.   I’ve messed with some details for privacy but kept the spirit of the complaints intact.

1. Most of the scene likes to gossip and the drama around consent violations is pretty sweet gossip.  The chain of secrecy is almost never intact.  I’m good at keeping secrets.  When I hear about a consent complaint, I treat it as confidential and don’t talk about it.  But people who know I’m in a position to know VERY FREQUENTLY talk to me.   This puts me in this wacky position of “A complained about B, and everyone seems to know that.  A is talking about it and B is talking about it, and people want to talk to me about it, but I don’t 100 percent know WHAT A and B are saying and if one of them is leaving a detail or two out on purpose and I reveal it, I’ve seriously breached my responsibilities,” so I do a lot of smiling and nodding about consent complaints.  Also, “B and I are at the same party and B is recounting a romanticized version of what they did that leaves out a lot of facts and if I’m quiet it looks like I agree but I’m really not in a position to speak up,” which also sucks, but they way.

2. The vast majority of complaints we get are in gray areas, and it’s almost impossible to nail down what a “consent violation” actually is outside of what’s actually illegal or specific enough to be spelled out in rules we already had:

a. A guy wrote about kink stuff on his public facebook on the regular.  Somebody who was mad at him got drunk and posted something on the same facebook page about how much he sucked for not coming to her play party.  Said guy got drunk person banned from a dungeon for “outing her” in a place he’d already outed himself.  

b. I’m pretty judgy about JK Rowling retweeting TERFS, but should a con punish someone for retweeting a post that outs somebody?  

c. If someone steals someone else’s money without permission, is that a consent violation?  

d. If C and D make plans to play, and then C loses interest but never actually says “actually, I changed my mind,” and just puts off or ghosts D, how many times can D follow up, in what ways and getting what responses, without it becoming harassment?    (Soft nos are VERY complicated from a “trying to enforce consent rules” perspective.  In this situation,  C almost always says that D is ignoring a “no” and D almost always says that C seems really busy so D thought D would keep trying and they were eager to do the play C had earlier said they wanted.)

e. If E made a promise to follow a bunch of rules set by a group, and then broke one of them, and F, a member of the other group, complains to a my group that E consented to follow the rules and broke them and the complain to MY group, which has different rules, is that violating the first group’s consent?

f. Hypno-specifically, what counts as non-negotiated use of persuasive language and where?

g. The above complexities quadruple for trying to ban someone from an event or organization for something they did online.  Does this happen in rare circumstances?  Yes.  But the bar is quite high.  

h. Some of y’all who are black and white thinkers or just very decisive will feel like you can go down this list going “Yes, no, yes, yes, no” but suffice to say, even if one of these seems straightforward to you, it hasn’t to me in the past, perhaps because of further details I’ve left out for brevity or something I changed to make the situations less specific..

3. If you’ve been banned or whatever, threatening to bring in a lawyer never helps you.  Kink organizations are private.  We mostly have our own lawyers and know very well how incredibly legal it is to exclude someone from a private organization for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all unless it’s a discriminatory reason.  Proving “discrimination” is very difficult, proving “defamation” is too.   Suing a kink organization for not letting you in requires money up front that almost none of us have, so it’s an empty threat anyway unless the person making the threat is independently wealthy.  I write this under the assumption that if you ARE independently wealthy and are willing to sue us into the ground if you don’t get what you want, these words won’t stop us anyway.

a. Suffice to say that when you threaten to sue it indicates to me as a person in a position of responsibility is that “bringing in a lawyer to make threats” is something you’re willing to do when you don’t get what you want, and if my organization continues to deal with you, this will almost certainly happen again.  So why would we want you in our private organization?  Do you really provide so much benefit to the organization that this constant threat is worth it to us?

b. Caveat: If someone has sexually assaulted you, by all means, call the cops or a lawyer if you feel comfortable doing so.  I’m not at all saying that legal mechanisms have no place in kink when directed at the person who hurt you. But as fair as organizations are concerned threatening to sue, or coy letters about how you might threaten to sue if you don’t get your way, are counterproductive and have a strong whiff of bullshit, which is never a good thing if you’re trying to convince us you’re not lying about anything else.

4. Long relationships that end in one or both parties accusing one another of consent violations the moment they break up are a nightmare to deal with on the consent side.   Because abuse REALLY DOES happen in long term relationships.  But there are many ways  of being a shitty partner that are consent violations.  People who have just broken up last week can almost never tell the difference.  

5. People who talk about consent ALL THE TIME have a bad habit of setting their own rules about it in ways that benefit their own bullshit.  Such people are often so excited to talk about other people’s consent violations that they make a big deal without having investigated or otherwise gotten the full story.  So people who make a big public deal about rumors of other people’s problems have raised a red flag about themselves.  This is completely irrelevant if they never have a consent complaint raised about them.  But if they do, the red flag is there.  A red flag doesn’t decide anything, but people are going to notice it.

6. I get that Jeff Mach got paid.  Just about nobody else in kink does and if you’re looking to get paid, running a con is a terrible way to do it.  We’re volunteers throwing parties/events for the community. We want people to be safe but we also hang out at our own parties/cons and we don’t want to hang with jerks.  Nobody gets banned for being a jerk alone, but if you’ve yelled at us, been an asshole when you dumped our friend, been accused of minor things many times before, or otherwise caused a lot of problems, that’s not going to help you get what you want. Again, if I personally think you’re a jerk but no one ever complains about you, that’s fine.  Some of you ARE jerks and I demonstrably haven’t.  But if you’ve got what feels like a long history of being difficult or causing problems, that’s a strike against you.  My kid brother has a long history of cussing out cops and has been told he has the worst driving record in the county where we live. Most of the judges and cops in our county have met him and he was unpleasant every time.   If you think every new time he’s a defendant there is a clean slate and none of that prior stuff matters, you’ve been sold of a vision of our justice system, and possibly humanity, that doesn’t exist.  We are trying to be fair but it would be weird to expect a bunch of volunteer kinksters to be less susceptible to their own perceptions.

7. Rumors people have heard about bad behavior, complaints from unverifiable and likely fake scene names, or a friend making a complaint on behalf of an anonymous friend are simply impossible to investigate or do anything about.

8. Two years ago, a group of people got together to lie about an innocent person assaulting someone.  They were people the consent folks at the event liked and trusted.  And then the truth came out.  It is never impossible that this is happening.  And it ruined what seemed like a pretty solid kink organization.   There are mitigating factors here and there but the bones of it are an organization people put thousands of dollars and untold hours into that brought a lot of people joy was ruined, because like eight people didn’t get what they want on something incredibly minor and broke the consent system, and the con, on purpose.  Again, the consent folks didn’t handle things optimally either, but when eight people are willing to tell the same lie it’s tough to imagine that ending well for them, their victim or the organization.  Consent organizers never want that to happen to us, but it’s unrealistic not to accept that it could.  

This stuff is complicated.   And again, I’m only writing on behalf of myself.  But these kinds of issues are what folks who seriously work on consent face.   I'm happy to talk about them.  But if you think you have an iron-clad, one-size-fits-all solution, you probably don't?

[walters-tampon-string]

An Accident

Fandom: Durarara!!

Rating: T

Warnings: A bone gets broken and there is some angst and a little suggestiveness, but otherwise, y’all should be good. Nothing too explicit. 

Characters: Heiwajima Shizuo, Orihara Izaya

Relationship(s): Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya

Description:  An accident causes Shizuo to question himself and his relationship with Izaya.

It had been an accident.

Izaya and him had been bickering about something. He forgot what it had been. It had most likely been over something very inane. However, unlike in the past, their arguing wasn’t filled with anger and spite. No, the atmosphere had been light and joking as they traded off comebacks that had no real bite to them.

Izaya had quipped out some smartass comment to something Shizuo said, as per usual, and in response, Shizuo had moved his hand to give Izaya a playful shove. He had expected Izaya to nimbly duck or dodge his hand, like he always did. However, Izaya, who’d been typing something on his phone at the time, must have not been paying as much as attention as he usually did, as this time, he actually seemed to have caught the flea off-guard.

The flea had swayed off-balancedly like a drunk, desperately trying to rebalance himself, but by then, it was too late. He was stumbling sideways, his head careening right towards the glass coffee table he had in the middle of his apartment. While Shizuo knew that Izaya was surprisingly durable, especially given how small he was, he imagined that falling and smashing through that table would do Izaya quite a bit of damage.

Panic taking over, Shizuo had immediately reached forward and grabbed the flea’s arm. It had been reflex, practically immediate. However, in his rush to pull Izaya back towards him, he hadn’t been worried about trying to control his strength. He had squeezed with just a tiny bit of pressure and-

Shizuo swallowed thickly at the memory. He remembered feeling the bones in Izaya’s arm snap like a toothpick, followed by the sickening crunch sound they had made, which was almost covered by an involuntary yelp of pain from Izaya.

The last sound in particular made Shizuo’s stomach clench with guilt. Never, in all the years he and Izaya had known each other, had he ever heard the flea let out a cry of pain. He’d heard hisses of pain and seen a few eye winces, but the flea had never once made a real noise. The flea’s pride wouldn’t allow him to do that. But this one must have caught them both off-guard and Izaya couldn’t hold the sound back before it came out. Shizuo couldn’t help but wonder how bad it had to hurt for that to be the case.

The second it happened, he had immediately released Izaya, jerking back like he had been burned. Izaya stumbled to the floor, thankfully away from the glass coffee table, though still, falling in a graceless heap after having his arm snapped in half probably hadn’t felt good either. The flea almost immediately was trying to get back to his feet, clutching his broken arm in his good one, teeth clenched.

It was then Shizuo managed to get control of himself again. He had immediately knelt down to try and pick Izaya back up, hurriedly saying, “Oh god, Izaya, I didn’t mean to, I-”

However, when he reached down to help Izaya, he saw the flea flinch a bit and for a split second, a flash of fear flickered through Izaya’s vermillion-red eyes. It was gone within a fraction of a section, but he had saw it. Shizuo had immediately stopped moving forward, guilt tearing him even more. He continued to spill apologies as Izaya, with somewhat wobbly knees, managed to pull himself off of the floor.

After Izaya managed to do that, he had simply given Shizuo a small smirk, which had probably been meant to lighten the mood a tad, but the pain still flickering the flea’s gaze kind of ruined it. Voice steady and only wavering a tad, Izaya had said, “”Would you mind calling me a cab? I need to get to Shinra’s. I’ll call him in there.”

Shizuo had nodded immediately and had done so, watching Izaya anxiously as the flea calmly put on his shoes to go out.

Shizuo had offered to call Shinra as well, and to go with the flea, but Izaya had shaken his head.His reasoning for why not had been sound. They still hadn’t gotten around to telling anyone about their relationship yet, and Shizuo worriedly bringing Izaya to Shinra’s to be patched up would be awfully out of character of the public persona they had created for themselves. However, even despite the logic, Shizuo couldn’t help but think there was something more to it. That Izaya simply didn’t want to look at him at the moment. Not that Shizuo blamed but it still ripped at Shizuo’s insides nonetheless.

Izaya had eventually left to go, probably telling Shinra that he had gotten in a fight of some kind or had fallen or something, leaving Shizuo waiting for him alone in the apartment, not knowing what to do. He knew he should’ve probably busied himself with a task of some kind. Make himself something to eat, watch television, try to nap, go take a walk, but he couldn’t bring himself to work up the energy to do so. What tasks he did try, he found himself distracted, remembering phantom screams and snaps. So in the end, he just sat Izaya’s posh couch and awaited the flea’s arrival, feeling like the violent monster everyone thought of him to be.

He had almost thought Izaya would send the cab to one of his other secret apartments and spend the night away from Shizuo, but to his surprise, Izaya later pinged him that night, saying to help carry him upstairs as he was still high from painkillers and anaesthetic. Shizuo had done so and Izaya had almost immediately wandered to his bed and fell asleep for the rest of the day, leaving Shizuo to the torture of his own thoughts.

Right before his eyelids had slid shut, Izaya had decided to reply to him tiredly, murmuring, “It was alright, Shizu-chan, I know it was an accident.”

It had been. But that didn’t make Shizuo feel any better. He could only think about the cry of pain and the flash of fear he saw.

He had always thought he was good at regulating his strength. When he wasn’t angry, anyway. It had been difficult when he was a kid. He would always accidentally hold things too tight, causing them to shatter, even though he swore he was holding them normally.

Eventually though, he learned the correct way to hold things so they didn’t smash, break, or shatter. He learned how much pressure he had to put in for him to actually cause damage. He knew how to control himself. He used to have to think about it, but now it was basically autopilot.

Or at least he thought, until that day.

He knew kind of what to blame his lapse in control on. It was the feeling of panic that had taken over when he had seen Izaya was about to fall. If there was one thing he was a slave to, it was his emotions. The moment his emotions went crazy, his control in strength became looser and looser.

It was part of the reason why he hated getting angry. When he was angry, his mind wasn’t even trying to control his strength. All it wanted was to try and use his strength to hurt something or someone. To smash, to destroy, to snap, and in the case of Izaya in the past, to kill.

The thought made him dizzy.

He was always frightened of getting angry in this relationship. Whenever he and Izaya got into an argument of some sort, and he could feel the beginnings of his anger boiling to the surface, he did his best to try and get out of the apartment for a while, but sometimes that wasn’t always viable or practical. Sometimes he would be forced to stay, and the flea, always the instigator, never helped matters when that was the case He would always just keep pushing and pushing, continuing to jab at Shizuo verbally, until Shizuo snapped.

Thankfully, as mentioned before, Shizuo could usually get out of the apartment before then, where he would wander into a field where he could smash up whatever he wanted until he wasn’t frustrated anymore, or at the very least, too exhausted to do much else.

However, when he couldn’t do that is when things got dangerous. Something in one of their apartments usually got destroyed as he tried to hit Izaya with it, with the flea usually tearing off to god knows where. It wasn’t too different from their usual chases, but Shizuo couldn’t help but wonder about what would happen if Izaya didn’t get out in time or run fast enough. What would happen?

He also remembered with sickening horror when Izaya had gotten him so worked up that he punched the wall right near Izaya. The flea had flinched at the close proximity of the fist, but he had just stared at Shizuo with a passive glare, before taking his leave, knowing that things were starting to get dangerous. Shizuo thought back to that moment and wondered what if he lost his control and actually had smashed Izaya in the face right then and there? The thought made him want to vomit.

These were the thoughts that haunted him sometimes.

But now, after this incident, he was starting to wonder if it was only his anger he should worry about. Perhaps he should worry about his strength in general.

He began thinking of more and more incidents that could possibly happen in the future. Izaya and him liked to spoon or cuddle in bed. What if one night, he had a particularly bad dream, and in a state of unconsciousness, he began to squeeze too hard. What if he didn’t hear the screams of pain until Izaya’s ribs were all shattered like glass and his spine snapped?

What if during a night of sex, he got too lost in the moment and snapped one of Izaya’s bones?

What if what happened that day just happened over and over and over again?

The look of fear that had came on the flea’s face at that moment suggested that he had thought of some of these things, if not all of them, before.

And what kind of relationship was that? One where the one party had to worry about not hurting the other and the other having to constantly worry about being hurt, or at the very least wary?

Shizuo didn’t know. He found himself wishing for the umpteen-millionth time in his life that he had been born normal. That he wasn’t a monster who just became blinded with rage and destroyed everything in its wake. But wishing wasn’t going to change anything. Unless a miracle happened, he was going to be plagued with this curse for the rest of his life, and he had to think responsibly.

There was a somewhat obvious choice floating around in the back of his mind, and that was simply to break up with Izaya. If he couldn’t control himself, then Izaya was in danger at all moments, and the flea did not help matters by instigating at times. It would be hard, but it would be safer for the flea in the long run. And who knows? Maybe if someday, Shizuo ever did learn to control his strength, maybe he and the flea could try again.

That was, if the flea ever forgave him, which he doubted would be the case. The bastard could hold quite the grudge when he wanted to.

But, even despite that logic, Shizuo found himself reluctant to do that. He liked the relationship he had developed with Izaya, which still felt weird to think about. What had once been the two of them wanting to see the other dead went to some casual fucks every now and then to a full-blown, actual relationship. It still was jarring, but Shizuo actually liked the direction it went. He liked being with Izaya. He liked seeing them. Sure, the flea could still be a cruel, rotten asshole every now and again, and he still could make Shizuo angrier than anyone else, but he was also smart, witty, funny, handsome, and energetic.

He made Shizuo feel happy. Back in the day, after work, the only thing he had to look forward to was an empty apartment. With Izaya around now, he had someone he could talk to or mess around with or go places with. The flea always seemed to have a conversation ready for him whenever he came back, and sometimes, it seemed Izaya knew him better than he knew himself at times.

And he assumed that the flea liked him back, at least to a degree. Izaya did not seem like the type who would force himself to be with anyone else he particularly hated. So, the fact that Shizuo was still even allowed to come over was probably a good sign.

He didn’t want what they had developed after so many years of bad blood to end just like that. It would break his heart. It might possibly even break Izaya’s.

But like he mentioned before, if he was going to make this work, he had to learn to control his strength better, which was easier said than done. He had tried before to control his temper in many different ways. He tried taking pills, he tried anger management classes, and he even attended therapy sessions, but none of them had worked in the slightest. His rage was not like everyone else’s, and even if it was, he still had his strength to battle with.

He could try to be hyper-aware of it at all times, but that would be hard to keep consistent and he imagined, with his job, it would be difficult trying to act like everything was made of gossamer thread.

The more possibilities he thought of, the more depressed he got, as none of them seemed like they would be practical or viable. In the meantime, he was shamefully avoiding Izaya as much as possible. He kept taking extra hours at work, he kept his conversations clipped in the hopes Izaya would get bored and leave him alone, and he tried to not look at the flea as often as possible, to avoid looking at the cast Izaya had over his arm and to avoid the guilt. When Izaya kissed him, he would kiss back, but he kept his hands to himself and didn’t allow it to go further.

He tried to be subtle about all of this, hoping the flea simply wouldn’t notice, but as the two of them were laying together in bed one night, he heard the flea say, “I am the one who has the broken arm here. If anyone should be sulking, it is me, not you.”

Shizuo winced. However, wanting to avoid the conversation, he decided to play dumb. Grumbling, he said, “I am not sulking.”

He suddenly felt Izaya shifting and pressing against his back, craning his head to try and look at Shizuo in the face. Poking Shizuo’s cheek, he said, “Yes, you are. You have been cold to me since the accident, which I don’t even understand because I didn’t even get mad at you.”

Shizuo batted the finger poking him in the cheek away hurriedly with a growl, disappointed that he couldn’t play subtlety off as well as he thought. Acting had always been Izaya’s strong suit, not his.

He couldn’t see Izaya’s face at the moment, but he could guess the flea was pouting somewhat. He was hoping the flea would just grunt and let him mope, but that wouldn’t be annoying enough, now would it? So instead, Izaya just leaned forward more so that he was practically draped over Shizuo like a shitty blanket as he said, “What’s wrong, Shizu-chan? Usually you solve problems by punching them. It’s not like you to be so gloomy.”

Shizuo growled once more and tried to get Izaya off, insisting, “It’s nothing, flea. Just feeling weird. Go to sleep.”

“You really are a protozoan if you think that I am going to go to sleep after that shoddy explanation,” Izaya said, simply clinging tighter to Shizuo and dodging Shizuo’s hand. “Now, tell me why you’ve been afraid of me.”

Shizuo threw a glare back at Izaya and snapped, “You do know you are the most obnoxious person on the planet, right?”

Izaya grinned at him and said, “Thanks for the compliment. Now tell me what’s wrong. I am not going to go to sleep until you do.”

Shizuo believed that threat too. He knew Izaya could pull all-nighters with ease and he could be annoying with even more ease than that. Besides, what Izaya had said earlier bothered him. It was coated with a light-hearted playfulness, but Shizuo could hear the underlying concern and anxiety underneath it. So, sighing, and giving up, he said, “Get off of me, and I will tell you.”

To his surprise, Izaya actually complied. He thought the flea would decide he liked clinging onto Shizuo and leeching his warmth like always just to annoy Shizuo even more, but Izaya peeled off of him and sat up, waiting for Shizuo to do the same. Feeling Izaya’s red eyes watching him questioningly now, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. This was going to be awkward.

“First of all, I am not afraid of you-” he started.

Izaya interrupted with a snort, “That’s a mistake.”

Shizuo felt a stab of annoyance. “Do you want to hear me out or not?”

Izaya immediately said a quick “Sorry” and mimed zipping his lips closed.

Once Shizuo was sure that he wasn’t going to have his first sentence interrupted at the very least, he continued on, “As I was saying, I am not afraid of you. It’s the exact opposite. I am afraid of myself. Namely, myself when I am around you.”

He saw Izaya’s eyes flicker with interest at this, but thankfully, the flea still remained quiet, which made it easier for Shizuo to spill out the words that followed. He said all of his worries from the past few days. As he was speaking, he was still baffled at how weird this felt. Years ago, he would’ve sooner cut off his tongue than open up any of his vulnerabilities willingly to Izaya. But now here he was, laying his heart out in the open for Izaya to do what he pleased with. He could only hope the flea wouldn’t be cruel.

“I just… I don’t want to hurt you. On accident, in a fit of rage, on purpose, for anything. You…” He swallowed. Part of him wanted to just let the sentence dropped there, but he decided to spit it out while he still had some nerve let in his body. “You mean a lot to me, now.”

For a while, after he let that last sentence hang in the air, it was uncomfortably silent for a moment. Shizuo found himself tensing for a moment. Izaya was almost always immediate with responses in conversations, but now the flea looked like he was mulling something over his mind. He didn’t look like he was disgusted or anything, but Shizuo knew Izaya was good at guarding his emotions.

All of a sudden, Izaya flashed him a small smirk as he said, “It baffles me sometimes how dumb you can be, Shizu-chan.”

Immediately a wave of defensiveness and anger came over Shizuo as he gave the flea a dirty look, wanting to protest. He had opened himself up, said his worries, and the bastard had the gall to mock him? But before he could open his mouth to say something caustic back, Izaya suddenly scooted up in front of him and pressed his forehead against Shizuo’s, saying, “After all these years, do you really think so little of me that I hadn’t thought of stuff like this before I even approached you all of those years ago to have sex?”

Shizuo looked into the flea’s eyes for a moment, before swallowing and saying, “I am sure you did but-”

“But nothing. I knew going in that something like this was part of the risk. But to be honest, even now, I really don’t care.” When Shizuo just looked at him, Izaya smirked even more and said, “Why? Cause I trust you.”

“Trust me?”

“Yeah,” Izaya said with a shrug, now backing up. “The fact that you’re even worried about this in the first place shows me that you care and would never intentionally hurt me.”

“But even if I don’t do it intentionally, I could still do it when I am angry and lose control-” Shizuo hurried out, baffled by how nonplussed Izaya seemed about all of this. He had been agonizing about this for a week now and the flea was just acting like this was a casual, no big-deal thing.

“And I will be able to handle myself when you get angry, just like I have hundreds, if not thousands times before,” Izaya said, “Don’t think that just because I tolerate you every now and then that I’ve suddenly gone soft. What happened then was a once in a lifetime event, and if you think I am going to let you get rid of me after something as stupid as that, then you are sorely mistaken, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo was silent for a moment, before he murmured in a voice so low he was sure Izaya would have to strain to hear him, “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“The only one who is afraid of anyone or anything here is you, Shizu-chan. I don’t know what you thought you saw in my eyes then, but I assure you, if what you saw was indeed fear, then it was only an in the moment thing. I mean, I was kind of focused on the fact that I had not only fallen, but my arm had suddenly snapped. I think anyone would slightly panic in that moment,” Izaya said, before adding, “Except someone like me, of course.”

Shizuo resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the last comment.

Shizuo was silent as he absorbed Izaya’s words, still not feeling fully convinced. Apparently, Izaya could sense that, as the informant let out a huff of frustration. Leaning in again, his lips barely a centimeter away from Shizuo’s, he said, “Listen, let’s make a deal.” He reached his good hand up to cup Shizuo’s cheek.

Shizuo blinked at the proposition. Before he could stop himself, he let himself quip out, “Is making a deal with the Devil really the smartest choice at the moment?”

Izaya rolled his eyes. “Har har, Shizu-chan. It’s a shame you didn’t try to become a comedian with wit like that. But seriously now, let’s make a deal.”

“Okay, what is it?” Shizuo conceded, trying to resist the urge to avoid kissing those lips so close to his.

Izaya leaned down and began pressing light kisses down Shizuo’s neck as he said, “Perhaps, if you stop belittling me and treat me like normal again, then perhaps we can address your strength. I highly doubt we can get rid of your anger fits completely or control your strength, but I am willing to help you try if you are willing. That way, we can make an effort in the right direction, and you will actually pay attention to me, again.” Pressing a kiss right on Shizuo’s jugular, he said, “Deal?”

Shizuo felt a shudder run through his spine at that, his arm looping around Izaya’s hips to drag the flea’s body closer. Eyes slowly but surely clouding with desire, he ducked his head so he could bury his nose in Izaya’s hair, growling, “You are going to kill me one day, flea.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, Shizu-chan,” Izaya said, looking up at him with annoyed eyes.

Shizuo gazed down at the flea, his emotions a flurry within him. It wasn’t the perfect solution. Far from it. Maybe, they never could reach a perfect solution. But damn it, they could try to at the very least come close, and Izaya was willing to try it with him.

And in a way, that did make Shizuo feel better.

He leaned down and pressed his lips against Izaya’s in a smoldering kiss, deciding to push all of the negative feelings away for now to enjoy what he had in his hands right now.

“Deal.”

[willowlark369]

Survival is Imperative

This post discusses a concept which is controversial and features a great deal of disturbing information. There is a great deal of torture and misused (abused) medical procedures/practices discussed. Yet what I feel may be most problematic for most people to digest is that the concept I will be laying out will challenge the idea that an individual’s agency is a hard set dichotomy where one either has it completely or they have been stripped of it entirely.

I’m not treating this as a proper essay or academic paper. I’ve taken several levels of courses in the fields of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology along with specialty diversity courses. I’m pulling a lot of concepts from that academic work, and since I am not making a paper to present, I will not be citing the dual-minors-worth of knowledge that led me to the conclusions I am sharing. I apologize if this upsets you. I know that Tumblr is such a bastion of academic learning that this must be absolutely shocking. (Was that too sarcastic? OFW.)

Reader discretion is advised after the Read More break.

Let’s get the hard part out of the way:

Steve Rogers is wrong about Bucky Barnes, and he’s only showing disrespect by making his claims about Barnes’ innocence of the crimes of the Winter Soldier. Whenever Steve Rogers talks about the Winter Soldier as a separate entity from Bucky Barnes, he is ignoring the trauma of the man he claims as his friend.

Still with me? Haven’t skipped down to the bottom to post nasty comments?

Good. Now I will lay out the why for you.

Everyone has heard of Ivan Pavlov or more likely, Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned responses in dogs. He rang a bell before giving his dogs a treat and eventually all he had to do to get the dogs to salivate was ring the bell, regardless of the presence of a treat. This basic concept is actually the idea behind Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) where a person works on identifying their own conditioned responses and work to disable them (and/or redirect them, depending on the goals set by the patient).

Yeah, that’s right, folks. Conditioning is something which can be done to humans. How do we know? Because Dr. John Watson--the less fun one, apparently--and his lovely graduate hostage assistant Rosalie Rayner figured out how to create phobias in an otherwise healthy child, and that was apparently really inspiring to a great many people including the Mother of Behavioral Therapy Mary Clover Jones. Dr. Watson’s paper on the experiment came out in the early part of 1920.

For those of you playing the home game, that’s almost a decade and a half before a certain sniper took his tumble off a train in the Alps. In terms of science, that’s a really long time.

It’s long enough for the science branch of a certain religious cult to start working on a device to make it easier. This device’s purpose was understood to be memory suppression. This effect was achievable through what could be loosely described as Electrical Shock Therapy (EST). Pass enough current through the synapses and they don’t connect so good, at least for a little while.

It also hurts like a motherfucker, which is also what makes EST so useful for the treatment of behavioral disorders. I’m using the term disorder here in its most antiquated definition. Some of the disorders treated with early versions of EST were ‘hysteria’, masturbation, book-reading (in women), and refusal to marry (again, in women). Treatment was given until the patient stopped showing the problematic behavior.

It also works as a deterrent for not showing desired behavior, where the patient is given treatment for not doing what the doctor wanted. Other behavior modifying treatments are isolation, withholding of food/drink, other pain delivery systems... really, there’s a lot of manipulation techniques out there, in the real world. A lot of them can be unquestionably considered torture, but some are just simply psychological. Repeat something in a calm, reasonable tone of voice enough times, and a person begins to believe it. Show kindness to someone whose world is narrowed into nothing more than bright spots of pain and they will want to believe you, even knowing that you are the source of the pain.

Eventually, inevitably, reward does not need to be kindness, does not need to be pleasurable or unquestionably positive. It just needs to be a cessation of pain, maybe even just a lessening if given enough time. Given enough time, a knowledgeable individual can create conditional responses for any number of things, especially once the subject begins to show willingness to adapt.

That’s what we humans are good at, you know. We adapt to our environments, even if doing so might compromise firmly held ideals and principles. Instinctively, we seek to survive and to that end, nothing becomes taboo. It’s easy to stand outside of a situation and say “I’ll never do that” but historically speaking, yeah, you probably would. If the situation called for it, if it were bad enough, if the options were laid out the right way and every other path was blocked--if you knew that everyone had to think you were dead and there was no hope of rescue.

See, Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes fell from a train traveling through the Alps. They thought he was dead, even without recovering a body. There was no hope for the SSR to come to the rescue, no reason to believe the punk was going to show up once again to save him from the pain, the hunger, the cold. He was alone in enemy hands, undergoing torture as they sought to shape him into what they wanted him to become: a willing participant in their plans capable of taking care of any problem they needed cleaned up.

He was alone and without hope, but Bucky still fought them for over twenty years before they deemed him controlled enough, conditioned enough, to begin using. The problem with conditioning is that the associations need to be maintained routinely or else they fade. So, despite being usable, Barnes would still have been routinely and methodologically tortured in order to preserve that willingness to obey without hesitation or question.

Sgt. Barnes spent over seventy years as a prisoner of war. Sgt. Barnes managed to survive over seventy years in the control of a known terrorist organization by learning when to fight and when to acquiesce to the demands of his captors. Sgt. Barnes learned how to disassociate from emotional responses which only served to slow down action and become better at the behavior Hydra wanted from him.

Sgt. Barnes became the Fist of Hydra in order to survive an untenable situation. He is the Winter Soldier and he willingly completed all missions given to him. Because his entire existence relied upon pleasing his handlers and if there is one thing that humans are good at, it is survival.

Survival is imperative.

However, while there is no question about innocence in this case, the responsibility is also not in question. Sgt. Barnes is not innocent but he is also not responsible. The responsibility shift is two-fold: military chain of command and ability to consent without duress.

Military chain of command creates a buffer of sorts for military personnel who are following directives from those higher in their direct chain of command. There is bleed-over of this buffer into similarly martial organization such as the FBI, CIA, and police. Pretty much, if an organization is authorized to use force against others, then there’s a chain of command exemption to responsibility. Hesitation or refusal to follow the chain of command is actually considered a negative trait that can limit promotions and career duration. Entry programs (such as Basic for the Armed Forces) are specifically designed to create a mentality where the knee-jerk reaction is to follow the commands of a recognized superior. Of course, under normal circumstances, most individuals will not mindlessly follow orders if they go completely contrary to social mores such as harming traditional noncombatants (women, children, the sick, the elderly) or seem really questionable (blow up this bomb while standing beside it; poison this well; execute the ally standing next to you).

Which brings me to the second fold: ability to consent without duress.

In case y’all haven’t heard, no means no. (Yeah, I’m fucking going there. Buckle up, readers. This is a crash course in Consent 110.) Straight up, body autonomy is sacrosanct. The only person allowed to make your body do things is you. You are the only one who gets to choose what your body does, even if that choice is to let someone else make your body do things. Anything else is a violation of your body autonomy.

However, it must be recognized that there are times when saying no is not really an option, for whatever reason, and even saying yes is done due to circumstances which negate the expressed permission. Why? Because it’s not really consent when there’s a threat or manipulation involved, when the choice is between doing the thing or dying (or being harmed or someone else being harmed/killed). That creates duress, which negates consent even while willingness to participate continues.

Analogy time: think of any sex act you want. Maybe it’s your favorite; maybe you’ve done it hundreds of times and you’re damn good at it. The only difference is that you don’t want to do it this time with this partner. Now imagine that partner holding a gun to your head, telling you that they will shoot you if you don’t do it. You do that thing and manage to live. You did that thing, and nothing really changes that. However, it was not consensual.

You are not innocent but you are also not responsible.

Ultimately, what you are left with at end of the day is a PoW who did everything necessary to survive, including a lot of horrible things that affected others. I think this is really fucking important to note: Sgt. Barnes is a survivor. He did things, made choices, which clearly haunt him in order to ensure that survival.

He did those things because Sgt. Barnes became the Winter Soldier to survive.

Steve Rogers continuously invalidates that. Steve Rogers makes himself unavailable as a recovery support person because he refuses to acknowledge the trauma and guilt that would accompany such actions. I’m sure that his intentions are to be helpful and comforting. Steve Rogers once went on a suicide mission for Sgt. Barnes and later decided letting the guy beat him to a pulp was a good idea when the alternative was fighting him. Never doubt that Steve Rogers loves Bucky Barnes and that it is unconditional.

However, harm is not measured by intention. It is measured by effect.

Invalidating a survivor of violence? Not cool. Insisting that “it wasn’t really you” to someone who had essentially been raped? Also not cool.

And you know what effect that has? It makes the survivor unable to comfortably open up to you. Especially if disagreement with an authority figure was a past cause for corrective behavioral modification. Logic may say the punishment won’t happen but emotionally? Essentially, you are removed from the support team, and this is after you have created a situation in which the survivor is unable to remain in their previous safe place.

So, in summation, Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier due to being a PoW willing to do what it took to survive, but his blast-from-the-past best friend doesn’t acknowledge any of that which is hella hurtful and dismissive, regardless of said friend’s intentions. It interferes with the possibility of recovery which is inherently harmful to someone who has already been through so much and sets up the continuation of the conditioned behaviors, furthering the trauma in a way that is quite possibly worse than the outright violence of before.

Because Bucky Barnes will not stand up for himself. Resistance has been conditioned out of him. And now the person hurting him is a trusted individual declaring that he just wants to help.

Please respect the survival of Sgt. James Barnes by acknowledging his trauma, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Survivors do not have to make you comfortable with what it took to gain that status. Survivors do not owe you a picturesque view of their trauma.

Survival itself is the only imperative.

[nakateleeli]

100 questions about Miss Naka

Y’all probably get tired of me talking about her, but I’ve had this post in the back of my head for a while and wanted to answer them because I like talking about Miss Naka and Welgaea and stuff! So hold on for a ride.

Since things change over the course of the story, all questions will be answered as though we’re at the beginning of the first game unless stated otherwise. I did change one question, as the removed question felt redundant and I could have sworn the added question was in there already.

1. What is your OC’s race? Human

2. Does your OC have any powers beyond what is normal for their race? She’s pretty good at a few things, but nothing abnormal for a human. She’s very agile and has strong legs. She’s got a pretty good resistance to cold, too.

3. What is their gender? Female

4. What is your OC’s favorite color? Pink

5. Are they religious? Not very. She does for sure believe in the goddesses, but she’s not the kind to pray to them for salvation or for a bountiful harvest or whatever.

6. Do they have a favorite outfit? If so what? The same red and white outfit she always wears!

7. Do they have a spirit animal? Not really into that sort of thing. Deer, maybe, if she had to. There aren’t really deer in Welgaea. Something with antlers.

8. Does your OC have a favorite time of year? Spring! Everything is pretty and just beginning with the year’s possibilities still ahead of us.

9. How does your OC travel around? By foot or a passenger caravan usually.

10. Does your OC have a best friend? Dis guy once they meet.

11. What is your OC’s biggest secret? She’s not really one to hold onto secrets, but she’s not exactly blatant about herself being a lesbian.

12. How does your OC feel about violence? It’d be swell to avoid, but often times it can’t be avoided.

13. Does your OC have a favorite time of day? Mornings are really nice. When the sun’s just coming up and the world is still sleeping. Very relaxing, lets you get your head straight before tackling the day.

14. Is your OC in a relationship? Not initially, but eventually with her.

15. What does your OC smell like? Probably the wind, or a grassy field, faintly flowery. Maybe a little foresty if she’s been out and about.

16. How old is your OC? 26 years

17. What is your OC’s weaknesses? Physically she’s not very strong. She can be a bit impulsive and will absolutely help people out to a fault.

18. Has your OC ever killed someone? Yes. She avoids it if possible, but sometimes you have to. Mostly just bandits and cultists, which common society doesn’t really treat the murder of much differently than killing a monster.

19. What languages does your OC speak? She speaks common fluently, while speaking bestia, elvish, and abaia good enough to get by, but not well.

20. Can your OC swim? Pretty well, but she’s no olympian.

21. Who is your OC’s biggest hero? Her dad!

22. What social class is your OC from? Lower middle class. She’s had an easy enough time, but they’ve always grown their own food and taken care of themselves.

23. What country was your OC born in? There aren’t really countries in Welgaea, and I haven’t figured out enough about the general geography to place things, but she’s from a pretty average part of common society.

24. How does your OC prefer to have their hair? Twin tails, with the front a stylized messy. She’ll put her hair up in buns if need be though.

25. Is your OC introverted or extroverted? Introverted, but she’s not a recluse.

26. Does your OC enjoy nature? Yes! She spends a lot of time surrounded by it either traveling or exploring.

27. What is your OC’s morning routine? Maybe start by making a warm drink. Or cool if it’s hot out. She’ll put her hair up into her twin tails before actually drinking it and relax for a few. She’ll usually do some reading at this time too. If she has to get dressed she’ll usually do it after this, and regardless will tidy up a little and put a little makeup on. Then make/eat breakfast right afterwards. Other than a bit of relaxing to start she tends to do everything back to back so she can get her day going.

28. Does your OC drink or do drugs? Nope, not at all. Doesn’t see the point for recreational use and she prefers her mind and body in peak condition. She sees performance enhancers as having both bonuses and drawbacks, which remove her from that peak condition, and even if there were zero drawbacks she would still rather rely on her own abilities and not become reliant on something else.

29. What’s your OC’s eye color? Purple, a little brighter than her hair.

30. Does your OC have any extra limbs? Are they missing any? Nope, just the usual.

31. What’s your OC’s sexual orientation? Homosexual/lesbian

32. Does your OC have any scars, moles, etc? Beauty mark under the corner of her right eye.

33. What turns your OC on? A nice person is a must. Someone who makes her feel like they want her is big. Someone who’s very casually open and confident about their body is also a big turn on.

34. Does your OC regret killing anybody? Any time she has to, but there’s nothing that continues to haunt her. Perhaps a botched job at some point that got an innocent killed.

35. Are there any smells your OC really likes? Nothing too strong, but flowers are nice.

36. Are they an honest person? Very much. She’ll only lie if it benefits everyone and isn’t the sort of thing that could come back to bite anybody.

37. What’s your OC’s favorite food? Pastas and meats, mostly.

38. Does your OC like to travel? Absolutely, it’s really all she does if she doesn’t need to do some work for money.

39. What’s the farthest your OC has ever traveled? She’s been all over the world, but has limited experience in the farthest corners.

40. Who is your OC’s favorite family member (if they have any)? Her dad!

41. Does your OC have any siblings? Who? Nope, she’s an only child.

42. What makes your OC angry? Intolerance and generally being a jerk. Active malice. Interruptions, be them verbal or physical, getting worse the more urgent or important the task is that’s being interrupted. She’s not going to go off the wall if it was nothing important anyway.

43. Does your OC have a pet? Nope!

44. Can your OC use magic? Minimally. She can do what’s expected of most people, like recharging a light crystal, but not much more.

45. Does your OC want to use magic? It’d be cool, but she’s not heartbroken about it.

46. Where is your OC’s favorite place to be? Anywhere quiet that’s outdoors. A place she can hear the sounds of nature, like a running stream, but still has a nice expansive view.

47. Has your OC ever destroyed anything sacred? By accident once. She tries not to go back to that town.

48. Would your OC ever use sex to get what they want? Absolutely not.

49. Does your OC care about hygiene? For sure. She doesn’t spend all day on it, but she cleans herself when she wakes up and before going to sleep; and bathes in running water once a day if she’s been out and about, or once every other day if she’s been inactive.

50. Does your OC like to take directions? She likes to figure stuff out on her own but she’s more than happy to take directions if she’s on a time limit or just doesn’t have any idea and the opportunity to ask comes up.

51. How would your OC react to getting lost? Unless she’s on a time limit, no big deal. She’ll camp out and survive for a bit while she works her way back to civilization.

52. What are 3 things your OC always has on them? Her swords and a small bag of holding, though the bag has quite a few items in it. Most importantly are a blanket, some spare change, and a change of underwear.

53. Who is the most important person to your OC? Her dad. Later on likely Ysami.

54. What is your OC’s biggest fear? Death and bugs.

55. How would your OC react to suddenly being told that they are now King/Queen, President, Ruler, etc? She wouldn’t believe them. If they managed to convince her she would take on the roll and its responsibility, helping everybody out as best she could, especially with whatever was lacking without a ruler, but she would try to get someone to replace her as soon as she could.

56. How would your OC react to suddenly having everything materialistic taken away from them? She doesn’t really have a lot to lose, she lives pretty lightly. Her swords would be the only big one. She’d be pretty heartbroken about it, but she’d have to go about making enough money to get another pair made.

57. What does your OC sleep in? She sleeps nude. If sleeping nude is unreasonable she sleeps in only a simple chemise with an unfitted waist. This would be like if she were sleeping at a camp site with others, and each person had their own small tent. If there is no privacy at all she sleeps in her bikini top and fundoshi.

58. What’s your OC’s favorite weapon? Her twin bayonets.

59. How does your OC feel about the government? Given how little government there is everywhere, it’s actually nice having government provided utilities like a police force to settle disputes and for protection, and hazard relief to help put out fires or rebuild. Even just regulations on trade so people can’t rip each other off or pull people into slavery or anything. Living with absolutely nothing to rely on is rough. Some government officials can get corrupt and self-serving though, so be aware.

60. Is your OC able to travel off world? Nope. At present nobody on Welgaea can.

61. How does your OC feel about ships? They’re nice. Be nice if they didn’t get attacked by pirates and monsters so often.

62. Can your OC fly? Funny question, but no.

63. Does your OC have any phobias? Nothing I’d go so far as to list as a phobia.

64. Is there any delicacy your OC hates? She has pretty basic tastes in food, so anything too out there is a turn off.

65. What is your OC’s favorite memory? Muscle posing with her dad.

66. What’s the best way to make your OC happy? Generally being happy yourself. Being around happy people rubs off on her.

67. What’s your OC’s favorite way to relax? Being able to kick back and take in the atmosphere. Even if she were at a party she’d be most relaxed observing to herself and not getting dragged into a conversation or the events.

68. How does your OC feel about being nude? She is very pro nudity. An at-home nudist, if she’s lounging around an inn room all day she’ll be nude for it. She’s very comfortable nude, but she’s not an exhibitionist and has no interest or desire to show off to anybody. In fact she’s rather off-put by the idea of someone oogling her.

69. Is there any trait your OC despises in themselves? In others? Before meeting Ysami she doesn’t really like that she’s a lesbian because of the embarassment that comes with asking people out or revealing feelings for people who aren’t, or end up not being lesbians. While young she was laughed at for it and had nearly sworn off getting into a relationship at all. In others mostly intolerance, especially of sexual preference. Also body shaming and forcing prudishness on others.

70. How far along has technology advanced in your world? Technology is pre-industrial revolution, but supported by magic, which is used for things like lighting and flowing water. Magic technology has advanced fairly far in small pockets, but is reliant on the rarity of advanced mages.

71. Would your OC ever kill a loved one to save the world? She would save both.

72. How does your OC feel about races other than their own? They’re cool.

73. How does your OC feel about their own race? They’re cool.

74. How does your OC feel about religious people? They’re cool, just don’t force your religion on others.

75. Can your OC make a good meal? She’s no professional, but she can cook up a decent meal. She prefers stove-top cooking to oven-based.

76. Can your OC survive in the wild? She does quite often just traveling around.

77. Does your OC prefer the city or the country? Generally the country, but does like visiting the city.

78. Did your OC have any schooling? Did they enjoy it? She was homeschooled by her father, leaving home with the equivalent of an early-highschool education. She enjoys learning and has continued to pursue it.

79. How would your OC feel about being naked in public? She doesn’t go out in public nude but kind of wishes she could, and that casual public nudity were more pervasive. She’s not an exhibitionist after all. She wouldn’t really be embarrassed or anything if someone saw her nude. If she were nude in an inn room and had to answer her door she would likely grab a towel or something to hold in front of her while answering instead of answering completely nude.

80. What are your OC’s feelings regarding sex? That it should be saved for someone you trust with your whole heart and love deeply. If your heart changes later on that’s fine so long as you did at the time.

81. Does your OC play any instruments? Nope, she’s never had any training. String instruments are neat though.

82. Does your OC like music? Sure thing, but she’s no connoisseur. She likes music with energy and a strong melody. Something pop-y. She’d probably like our k-pop and j-pop.

83. Does your OC like art? Sure thing, but she’s no connoisseur. She likes expansive landscapes you can get yourself lost in. She especially likes creative paintings of things you can’t find naturally. The fiction of the painting world, whatever that’s called. She appreciates other mediums, like sculptures, and has seen some neat stuff made, but doesn’t understand it as well.

84. Has your OC ever had a painting or photograph taken of them? She’s modeled a few times for the work. Generally not anything too big or professional, usually just for an art class or something. Though she’s modeled a good few times she’s only modeled nude once or twice for very specific situations. Like once was for a single female sculptor.

85. What is your OC’s favorite thing to talk about? Usually whatever she’s learned about most recently, since when she has down time she’ll read reference books and studies.

86. Has your OC ever made clothes? She makes her own, and has had to several times.

87. What’s the best piece of advice your OC was ever given? “Have fun!” -Her father.

88. Does your OC want to fall in love? Absolutely! Though she was scared it might be a pipe dream.

89. What does your OC want to do with their life? See everything. Learn everything.

90. Does your OC believe in ghosts? She’s been to enough spooked places she doesn’t have to believe any more. In a setting closer to Earth she’d likely not believe in them, but would be willing to entertain the idea if someone could get her actual proof.

91. Does your OC wear any jewelry? Not really, though she’ll occasionally wear earrings.

92. How will your OC die? This is a complicated question. I don’t know. Possibly a spoiler?

93. Does your OC believe in an afterlife? She’s not really sure. Even Kharon has been a bit ambiguous about what happens.

94. What is your OC’s favorite part about being alive? Seeing and learning something every day that shows the world is more complex than we ever expected.

95. Does your OC fear death? Terrified. She tries not to think about it.

96. Does/Will your OC ever have children? I’ve dabbled with the idea of her having a child, but I feel like not. Too complicated.

97. How does your OC feel about traitors? She’s a pretty good judge of character, so I feel like unless they were intentionally duping her from the start they’d have a hard time getting the upper hand on her. Otherwise she’d mostly want to know why. She wouldn’t want them dead, depending on what they did anyway, but she would have a very hard time trusting them again. She likely would eventually trust them again, but never completely.

98. What’s the craziest thing your OC has ever done? She’s helpful to a fault and will put herself at great risk without a second thought if someone needs the help. At some point I would not doubt she’s rushed into a burning building to save someone, or distracted an unreasonably powerful monster so someone else could get away. I’m hard-pressed to say these would be the craziest things she’s done because this is the sort of thing she’d probably do quite often. Though there is that one time she beat up the elf princess without even turning around.

99. How does your OC feel about killing animals? Avoids if possible, but sometimes you need to hunt to survive, and meat is tasty. Don’t be wasteful, be merciful, only do as necessary.

100. What is your OC’s name? Miss Naka “the Honeywhite” Teleeli