#who I see and think is going to be the exception in this hellhole of a fandom

[edenfenixblogs]

I was having a rough night so I went to my favorite funny website IsMercuryInRetrograde.com

I’m not a huge believer in astrology, but the website only has two pages:

If it’s in retrograde it says yes, which feels weirdly validating.

If it’s not in retrograde it just says “No, something else must be bumming you out,” which always gives me a little chuckle.

Fun silly website. Yay.

Except this time

YES. SOMETHING ELSE IS BUMMING ME OUT.

The fact that unless I lock myself in a room with only pre-written or pre-recorded material that I’ve already read or watched and know is safe I CANNOT GO TWELVE FUCKING HOURS WITHOUT HEARING ABOUT THIS FUCKING WAR.

It’s killing me. There are no breaks. I open any website or social media app and it’s an immediate bombardment of info about the war. I go watch a YouTube video and then there’s a fundraiser at the end.

I flip through channels and see news about an antisemitic attack or a bombing in Gaza or Rafah.

I leave notifications on and get a text from a friend who sees a “rape is resistance” sticker on her walk home from school.

I go to look for pride merch and see watermelon merch mixed in as if war is some kind of gay accessory. I look through a fandom tag and see cartoon characters in a kids cartoon drawn with Palestinian flags.

It’s fucking endless. It’s insane. I just wanted a few days without having to think about all of it so I could recharge and I haven’t even been able to go a continuous 12 hour stretch without something or someone shoving the whole thing in my face.

It’s not healthy to live like this. I already have PTSD. And I’m trying with all my might not to retreat fully within myself but this is fucking killing me.

And I am someone who is pro peace and pro ceasefire and pro Palestinian welfare and anti-Likud but also anti-antisemitism. I do nothing but promote interfaith and intercultural organizations devoted to fostering peace. I want this war over.

And yet I’m fucking stuck in this perpetual hellhole of awful news and constant imagery about war and death and antisemitism and Palestinian suffering. And it’s too much. Why can’t I even go 12 hours. It’s killing me.

The fucking mercury in retrograde website‽ YES. SOMETHING ELSE IS BUMMING ME OUT AND ITS YOU.

[itshermocrates]

Some thoughts on Vander and Silco's relationship

I already talked about this when Arcane S1 first came out, but now that the show is over and we got to see a different reality where everyone has a good ending (except for Vi I guess) I want to bring back my Silco x Vander thoughts

So yeah, vanco ?? silder ??? post

Even if in Arcane S1 there’s some sort of parallel between Jinx/Powder and Silco + Vi and Vander, in my eyes those two were made for an old man yaoi story

Now that we have seen Jayvik’s evolution and that glimpse of them together in a “better future”, I realized that Vander and Silco (+ Felicia) could have something similar to what was happening initially with Jayce and Viktor (+ Mel)

Two best friends working together for a common cause, one hopelessly in love with the other while his partner can’t see ―or doesn’t want to recognize― his own feelings. Since I already have a Jayvik analysis in my drafts, I’m going to focus on Silco and Vander

This will be half a theory - half a fic + I also posted this on BlueSky so yeah, if you see it there it was also me lol

[Pinning, Unrequited love and love confessions that go wrong ahead]

I think Silco and Vander were the perfect duo back in their youth, together they had the brains and the strength, using both charm and cold logic to make people eager to follow them. What Silco lacked, Vander was able to provide and vice versa. Together they were the greatest leaders Zaun could ever ask for.

They not only completed each other like two puzzle pieces, but also shared a bond that had been nurtured since childhood. They had been facing hardships and Piltover’s aggressions since they were little kids, so it was natural that the years of friendship brought them impossibly close.

Some even said that they could have entire conversations without exchanging a single word.

At some point Silco developed a crush on Vander, how could he not? Despite his strength and sometimes scary appearance, Vander had always been the big sunshine boy who was looking after him. That urge to protect and take care of others seemed to be part of his very essence, and if someone benefited from this, it was his best friend.

Of course, they needed to fight and get dirty in the deepest hellholes of Zaun, but even when Vander got his knuckles drenched in blood, Silco could only see the kind man with bright eyes and a dream for a better life that Vander truly was.

Silco really thought that this new beginning for them was only possible because Vander was there with him, since when hope seemed completely lost, when the circumstances took another member of their little family, Vander always remained firm in his stance. They would find a way, they would fight back, they would keep pushing forward and they wouldn’t stop until they finally had the future they deserved.

Oh, wasn’t he convincing? Always the beacon in their times of need, who else could lead them out of their misery?

Vander’s kindness was disarming, and his light was so bright that Silco couldn’t help but fall in love with him. He loved him so deeply it made him feel sick, but he could do nothing about it. Vander had been in love with Felicia for almost as long as Silco had loved him, and even if she wasn’t really interested in him, there was no way that man could get over his emotions.

Just like Silco himself couldn’t make his own feelings go away. He pinned for years, forcing himself to hide how he felt so nothing changed between them and he didn’t lose his best friend. He had to protect their friendship, but, above everything else, he had to protect their dream of a free nation for Zaun.

Silco pinned and suffered in silence until he couldn’t take it anymore, until his unrequited love felt like an open wound badly infected, moments away from killing him. Then, and only then, he confessed.

Vander didn’t make a huge deal out of it, he was understanding and visibly confused. It was an awkward situation, but he could be nothing but kind, even as he broke Silco’s heart. Of course, he didn’t feel the same.

Or maybe he did, but he was too blind to see it, too infatuated by the idea of a future with Felicia to give a shot to a real future with him.

Vander had used a very familiar word to excuse his lack of introspection, one that served him as a shield while unknowingly harming Silco as if it had used the sharpest of blades.

“Silco, you’re my brother…”

They used brotherhood a lot to describe their relationship. Their found family, their friends, their allies in the Zaun revolution and even the fucking pilts, they all could see how deeply they cared for each other. And every time that was the reason they assumed to be behind their bond.

No one could ever deny the love in their eyes, the protective gestures, the smiles... It was obvious, but everyone assumed that what they shared was a blood bond. For Silco it was much more than some stupid liquid running through their veins, what they shared had been built over years of companionship, years of pain and struggle, blood was fucking nothing in comparison. Their souls were connected in a way no one could ever imagine or understand.

And Vander knew this. He knew how strong their bond was, but he hadn't really asked himself if what he felt for Silco was something more than brotherhood. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do if it wasn’t the case either, but he didn’t go as far as to truly consider it.

Vander didn't know how to react to Silco's confession, he didn’t want to hurt him or change their world forever. He was happy as they currently were, it was easy to live with Silco as a brother, but he didn’t know what was waiting for them if he ever allowed himself to analyze his own feelings.

Because of this, and completely unaware of the pain he was causing, Vander uttered that seemingly harmless word that Silco couldn’t stand anymore.

Brother.

The softness in his tone didn’t make it any less devastating. The pain in his eyes, as he knew how badly he was breaking Silco's heart, didn’t make it easier to hear.

The countless "I love you"s he pronounced after that, reassuring that even if it was not the same feeling, Silco was still one of the most important people in his life didn’t soothe the agony of his reopened wound.

None of that mattered.

Because he didn't feel the same as Silco.

The same word that once had been forced on them was now stronger than anything he had built together.

Silco didn't want to feel that pain, he couldn't allow it to stay inside his chest, not when it was so profound.

So he decided to leave The Last Drop. It would be only for a couple of days, to distance himself a little from the source of his pain and try to stitch close that damned cut.

During that time, alone and completely heartbroken, he focused on thinking of ways to achieve the goal they had been fighting for since they were teenagers. The Zaunite revolution and Zaun’s independence. He ignored his pain and used all his anger to plan their next move in their fight against Piltover, thinking of new ways to finally defeat their enemy.

It was during those days, blinded by the pain of his aching heart, that he understood they could only win against Piltover if they showed their true nature to the world. He knew by then that they needed to be more aggressive in their methods and destabilize, not only their government, but also their peace.

Let their own people know what monsters they had for leaders.

Let the people of Piltover suffer the same pain they had suffered since the very moment the City of Progress came to be.

The fight had turned into a way for him to forget his own suffering, and in his anguish, provoking pain to others stopped feeling wrong at all if that meant they could get closer to their goal of freedom.

It was at this point where the conflict with Vander started. Suddenly, the word "brothers" didn't quite fit them anymore, it seemed too caring for them. Now it was a word pronounced in a low voice, and when it was Silco the one saying it, his tone could only express disgust. He rolls his eyes as if the word was some sort of sick joke he hated to voice out loud, a reminder of what could never be.

Silco’s pain is a heavy weight preventing them both from going back to what they once had, and seeing this wounded Vander every single time his friend reminded him of his rejection. This, and how differently they started to approach their fight, made them step further and further away from the other.

And when they saw each other during important meetings, Silco threw the word “brother” extremely carelessly, always with the intention to wound Vander instead of calming him and expressing how much he still loved him.

It had turned into a word that neither of them could ever forget, and that would hunt Silco until the end of his days.

It had turned into a word that neither of them could ever forget, and that would hunt Silco until the end of his days.

[There's still a lot of resentment in Silco's expression, and in this scene before saying brother, Silco rolls his eyes. The man was PISSED]

In conclusion, I think "brother" was Silco and Vander's equivalent of Jayvik's "partner" and I bet Viktor was pissed as hell everytime he heard someone reffering to him as Jayce's partner AND JUST THAT, for both scientific pride and his hopeless crush on Jayce Talis.

[kalinara]

So I saw a post earlier talking about Marvel couples and how relatively few long term relationships there are. There was mention of Reed and Sue as being basically the most consistently together couple, crediting that to the nature of the Fantastic Four being about family.

I don't disagree with that.

But then there was a comment about Scott and Jean being "all over the place" and depending on editorial at the time. Sorry for the paraphrase, but I couldn't find the post again to be sure.

And honestly I couldn't disagree with that more.

The thing about Scott Summers and Jean Grey is that, with two exceptions, if they are both alive, and they both know the other one is alive, they are together FULL STOP.

The first exception to this is the original Lee/Kirby years. Because they hadn't gotten together yet. But anyone who has sat through the god knows how many issues it took for the two to actually get the fuck over it and fuck basically gets stockholmed into shipping these idiots.

Because when you go from seeing this nonsense in issue 10:

THIS nonsense in issue 24:

THIS nonsense in issue 3-fucking-4:

And you realize this is only a sampling and that pretty much every issue in between has more of this idiotic bullshit, you'll be screaming at them to "JUST FUCK ALREADY!!!" too.

NGL, it's what turned me into a shipper. Fucking Stockholm Syndrome.

The other time, of course, is X-Factor. Because Scott, in his incredible wisdom and self-perception, happened to marry a woman who looked exactly like Jean Grey, (and asked her if she was Jean Grey on the eve of the wedding).

Scott gets a lot of shit from fans for ditching his wife and son for Jean Grey (which is a vast oversimplification of a very complicated storyline, but fine, for once, let's go with it). So yeah.

A good chunk of X-Factor is basically just these two finding their way back to each other after dealing with a whole mess of other mind-bogglingly traumatizing events and trying to raise a baby while meeting alternate future kids and (in Jean's case) not really handling that well.

But anyway, after that? They're together.

Now, admittedly, the Grant Morrison era of X-Men is a bit complicated. We all know about Emma Frost. I still resent deeply the fact that a man is named cheater for getting taken advantage of by his therapist, but fine. Maybe they'd have broken up over Emma, maybe not. Maybe Jean would finally break down and fuck Logan, maybe not. Sadly she died instead. And then a future version of her decided to push Scott and Emma together for a while. Which was a fucking weird narrative choice, but fine.

When Jean comes back? Immediate romantic scene with her resurrected husband by the way. And yeah, fine, he drops dead again later. And then when HE comes back to life, she's off in another dimension and presumed dead for a bit.

But when they are back, alive, and in the same place? She immediately shoves her tongue down his throat.

On Krakoa, they're the most married they've ever been. They finally get to raise their son together, in a place that isn't a future hellhole. They are explicitly polyamorous, implicitly in a throuple, but when it comes down to the wire, it's Scott Summers and Jean Grey.

And now, in From the Ashes, she's off being a goddess in space. But she's still having psychic phone sex with her patiently waiting husband. It's not clear if they're still doing the polyamory thing, I'd like to think they are because we so rarely get to see portrayals of non-monogamous but still very happy couples. But who knows. What we do know is that even now, even when they're not in the same place: it's Scott Summers and Jean Grey.

I suppose the one exception is young Scott and young Jean when they're brought to the future. But here's the thing. As much as they both try to fight it, as often as they've tried to tease some other kind of ship with Hank or Laura or Jimmy Hudson, or teenaged Vampire Storm, or anyone else. The two still can't ever really escape each other's orbit. (And you know, maybe if they actually got the full story instead of fucked up fragments from incredibly biased people who currently hate at least one of them, they might have felt a little less like escaping. Who knows?)

I guess I can see the argument that the state of their relationship can vary. Sometimes they're very happy, sometimes they're raising a kid. Sometimes they're frayed. Sometimes they fight. Sometimes they fuck other people.

But in the end, as long as they're both alive, it's Scott Summers and Jean Grey.

Reed and Sue still get top billing as the big couple of 616, sure. They're not immune to silly love triangles, but they tend to be dead less often.

But I still think Scott and Jean are up there, as consistent and steady as anything in the Marvel Universe.

[fishhateme]

so... Linkedin influencer au, anyone?

LinkedIn Influencer danny in the midst of the redbull breakdown™ made me think of like this random ass au

BEAR WITH ME

(i made a pt 2!)

Imagine Max being an up and coming engineer or something along those lines, and he's a genius in his field but he's antisocial as fuck (if you'd ask him he'd just say he's intolerant to other people's bullshit)

ANYWAYS he sort of *has* to network because of the horrors of the capitalist world and as he's scrolling through LinkedIn he comes across this... dork? He isn't exactly cringe, not like this other engineer (ahem ahem aerodynamic engineer!lewis) who posts photos of his bulldog going to the office -which is supposed to be inspirational?? Somehow??- or quotes about being a unicorn

(i realize I'm getting sidetracked about how funny lewis would be on LinkedIn so I'll get back on track)

Unlike engineer!lewis, this other guy on LinkedIn isn't necessarily cringe - he's obviously a bit older than max judging by his very proper punctuation (although it is... yknow... linkedin) and his weird hyper fixation with cowboy emojis anytime he gets a promotion or anything like that, but he sort of makes max do that thing where you exhale out of your nose instead of chuckling, and since that's the first semi enjoyable thing max has ever experienced whilst on the hellhole that is linkedin, he decides to follow him

He's forgotten about it at first, but then he sort of start refreshing his feed to check if the guy has posted anything, and then he's commenting on one of his posts about hiding honey badger stickers around his physics faculty office (apparently he works in a university or something, not that max reread his career trajectory ten times or anything) with laughing emojis (who comments on LinkedIn posts? Who is he, his father?) and they get into this weird sort of always-interacting-with-each-other-but-also-y'know-it's-linkedin-not-tinder sorta vibe

The point is that his coworker/reluctant friend lando drags him to this stupid engineering event that's supposed to be perfect for networking.

Max will never admit it, but he agreed to go not only to get away from his horrible boss, because Marko creeped him the fuck out and would criticize his work even if he reinvented Einstein's theory of relativity, but also because the funny linkedin guy posted he'd be there

Except max wonders around and around the stupid aerodynamics convention and, while he runs into that fucking guy with the decked out bulldog more times than he could count, he doesn't think he sees daniel?

He's not about to humiliate himself and ask someone, though. That would be desperate, even if this daniel -danyul- is sort of well known in these circles because his LinkedIn posts are semi well known (max chuckles at the thought of falling for an influencer, but not an Instagram model, instead a LinkedIn physics micro influencer)

After a few hours he gives up, deciding the best course of action is getting shitfaced and therefore successfully forcing Lando to drive back home through the inevitable traffic the convention would bring to town

He goes to the bar and orders a gin and tonic, then another, then a third (he really shouldn't have gotten a third, he was supposed to be looking for another job in the first place and that toto guy from the germany factories seemed interested in his resume, this was a bad idea)

Flushed, frustrated and pleasantly buzzed, he rested his forehead against the coolness of the bar, closing his eyes when he heard someone sit on a stool, an amused Aussie accent right next to him

"What's got you down in the dumps, mate? An equation broke your heart? A lever system rejected your advances?"

Max closed his eyes and barely even chuckled out of courtesy for the stranger. Dork, a distant part of his brain supplied, and although he'd used that same word for someone else his buzzed brain didn't connect the dots

"I was looking for a guy I know from LinkedIn but I think he didn't show up" he admitted, surprising himself with his sudden burst of honesty. Maybe he shouldn't have drank so fast?

The guy next to him cackled, and Max didn't lift his head because the lights were too bright and they'd hurt him, but he was pretty sure he heard the scraping of the stool legs against the floor signaling this random Aussie guy almost ate shit laughing at the patheticness of his situation

Great

"Screw him!" He said, way too cheerfully for Max's taste, and ordered himself a rose

Max lifted his head at that, if only to say how idiotic it was to order a rose instead of a real drink, and he almost gasped when he was met with dark curls and a dangerously toothy grin he'd seen before, on his LinkedIn home screen, on a tiny icon but definitely there

But before he could have time to react, Daniel was clinking his glass of rose against Max's half finished g&t, smiling mirthfully

"Don't worry, mate. People on LinkedIn are a bunch of cunts, anyway"

[scmg11]

KATE BISHOP x READER

Maybe your heart isn’t made of plastic

Summary: Y/N always considered high school an hellhole where you need to fight everyday to survive, especially when Kate Bishop ruled over everything and everyone adored her. Everyone except her. She hated her. So she just tried to lay low and mind her own business, but when a new student arrive at their school, madness follows.

After a revenge plan, everything falling apart and just overall chaos, Y/N hooked up with none other than Kate Bishop. And it just kept happening. The two started hooking up wherever they had the chance and old feelings start to resurface. But would things work out or they would fall apart eventually?

[I got inspired after watching the new Mean Girls movie and after writing a too long oneshot about an original story with Kate, so I decided to create a book.]

-

A/N: HELLO HELLO HELLO BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!

I am here with a brand new book for you! Someone may already know that I got inspired by the new Mean Girls movie and wrote a 27k long oneshot before deciding to create a book and split it into multiple chapters.

This first chapter just go through the movie to introduce chapters and a bit of the background story, but the real story will start in the next chapter, so- STAY TUNED!

I pretty much have the whole book already written so you guys don't have to wait too much for updates (even if I will be busy with updating my Hailee imagines book too).

As always, let me know what you guys think, it's really important your opinion to me ❤️

Oh I almost forgot, this book is pretty much all smut. So read at your own risk 😉.

Sending you guys love ❤️

-

Chapter 1

Y/N trudged to her locker on a too sunny Monday morning, almost dragging her feet across the school’s hallways with a big scowl on her face, "morning little flower- damn you are glowing today, sweety. Stop that or you’re gonna lit the whole school on fire."

"Very, very, very funny." Y/N turned around to face her best friend with an unimpressed face and found him wearing a teasing grin as he laid his shoulder on the locker beside hers and crossed his arms, "wow, today you’re screaming gay more than ever." Y/N stated after giving her best friend a once over, taking his rainbow t-shirt in and rolling her eyes, then focusing her attention back in her locker to grab her book for her first class.

"Uh-uh, who the hell peed in your Cheerios this morning?"

"Kate Bishop." Y/N growled under her breath after grabbing her book and accentuated her anger by slamming her locker close harshly. "Speaking of the Devil." Y/N rolled her eyes when she saw Kate Bishop strolling down the hallway alongside her friends with her signature smirk on her lips, catching everyone’s attention as their eyes followed them, including Y/N’s ones.

"Oh hey, Y/N. I’m sorry for earlier. I didn’t see you there." Kate spoke with a clearly, fake apologizing tone and didn’t bother to listen to Y/N’s comeback before resuming her walk to presumably her first class, giggling alongside her friends.

"What a fucking bitch." Y/N shook her head while eyeing the back of Kate’s head, not realizing her best friend was giving her a pitying gaze.

"What did she do, now?"

"She almost ran me over with her car." Y/N turned around to face her best friend with anger boiling under her skin, her hands clenching around her book as she hugged it hard to her chest.

"What a fucking bitch." Y/N laughed when her best friend repeated her words and shook her head, relaxing right away and bumping her shoulder with the side of his bicep. She was too short to aim for his shoulder.

"Thank you Buck. You always know what to say to cheer me up."

"Oh honey, you know I do."

-

"Good morning, I would like to introduce you to our new student. She is moving from Slovenia-."

"Sokovia." The red haired girl corrected the principal with a shy smile, her awkward smile settling back on the class staring at her bored.

"Sokovia. Right, hm- welcome Wendy!"

"Oh, it’s Wanda."

"My apologies, Wanda." The redhead nodded once at the apologetic man before meeting everyone’s eyes with an anxious grimace on her lips, but luckily her new teacher pulled her out of her mercy when no one said a thing for a few moments.

"Okay, Wanda take your seat, let’s start the lesson." The blonde pointed to the only empty seat in the room and the girl immediately sauntered to it to sit down.

"Hey." The redhead smiled politely to two of her classmates staring at her with wide smiles, a little bit uncomfortable with their unrelenting gazes giving her a once over.

"Hello, fresh meat." Bucky was the first to speak up, sending Wanda a friendly wave before the other girl, with green ends on her hair did the same.

"Hey Wendy. Welcome to the jungle that is our school."

-

"Hey- HEY! Are you even listening to me?" Bucky punched Y/N’s shoulder when he noticed the girl was trying to balance a chicken nugget on her nose instead of focusing on him rambling about whatever he was telling her, making the nugget fall onto the ground and finally catching Y/N’s attention.

"Yeah, yeah sure. You were talking about something extremely important." Y/N nodded seriously and completely ignored the nugget falling on the ground and sliding a few feet away from their table, moving her attention on a frowning Bucky instead and pretended to not notice a guy stepping on it.

"I was trying to ask you- have you seen the new girl? She ran away."

Y/N shrugged nonchalantly, stabbing some pasta on her fork and chewing on it, all the while Bucky’s eyes never moved from her, staring at her intently. She bit down on her bottom lip at her stomach churning with pity for the new girl and sighed out with an excessive roll of her eyes when her eyes caught Bucky’s pleading ones, already sitting up from the bench, "alright, let’s go rescue her."

Y/N totally ignored Bucky celebrating with a soft squeal and walked out of the room, knowing he was following her. She flipped some dude off that slammed into her on his way to the cafeteria before making her way towards the bathrooms, where she knew the girl was hiding. They smiled politely at a girl walking out and fled in the bathrooms, Y/N crouching down to look under the stalls to locate the redhead and finding her in the middle one, silently pointing at Bucky with her head, who nodded and knocked gently on the door, "hey- everything okay?" She asked with a slightly worried tone and leaned on the first stall’s frame, waiting for the girl to answer. She took a glance at Bucky and found him checking himself out in the mirror and rolled her eyes good-naturedly with a fond, exasperated smile on her lips.

"Yeah." The stall door opened a few moments later and Wanda, with her tray in her hands, appeared, looking a bit uncomfortable and confused but smiled awkwardly at the two best friends nonetheless.

"Rough first day?"

"I don’t know, should it be? I am not used to this."

"What do you mean?" Y/N asked as she grabbed Wanda’s empty tray and threw it in the trash can, waving Bucky off when he looked at her outraged at her gesture, before crossing her arms and lying her butt on the sink behind her, staring at Wanda curiously.

"I was homeschooled."

"Oh that’s so cool!" Bucky exclaimed with an envy, dreamy glint in his eyes as he stared at Wanda, but when Y/N slapped his arm gently he came back to his senses, "so this means you need two guides to help you deal with this shit hole."

"I guess?" Wanda asked more than stated and Y/N already started to like her. She seemed so naive.

"Let’s go. Your first lesson starts now." Y/N signaled for Wanda to follow her as she was already halfway out of the bathroom, Bucky pushing the redhead to move and then followed the two girls out of the bathroom, strolling back into the cafeteria. "Alright- hm, high school is essentially a jungle where if you don’t know how to survive you will be eat alive for sure. That’s why finding a place to belong to is vital. You can choose from the bitchy theater guys, the horny musicians, the dumb jocks, the stoners and the nerdy science guys. Do you feel like you already belong to one of these groups?" Y/N looked at Wanda expectantly after pointing to all the groups sat in the cafeteria, grimacing when her eyes fell on a nerd picking his nose nonchalantly.

"Not really." Wanda shook her head, her face scrunching up in distress as she assessed all the people in the room before looking at Y/N expectantly, "hey, I can hung out with you guys."

Y/N and Bucky shared a quick glance with wide smiles on their lips and nodded eagerly, "it’s fine by us." Bucky shrugged with a wide, excited smile, patting Wanda’s shoulder gently.

"But we need to warn you, we are too cool for this school. Are you sure you can handle all this popularity?" Y/N joked and was glad Wanda caught on it too as she giggled and nodded. Suddenly the chatter in the cafeteria stopped as its doors opened and three girls entered the room.

"Who are they?"

"Oh no, no, no." Y/N shook her head and turned around, pushing Wanda to do the same.

"Do not look them in their eyes!" Bucky whisper-yelled as he covered his eyes dramatically, but Wanda felt like she was frozen in her spot as she watched the trio stroll to the only empty table in the room.

"They are what we like to call them, the plastics. ‘Cause they’re shiny, fake and hard." Y/N explained, finishing with a scoff and a roll of her eyes. "The one on the left is Cassie Lang, she knows everything about everyone. The one on the right is Natasha Romanoff, her parents are famous scientists. She is so good in martial arts I think she might be a spy or something. And the one in the middle is Kate Bishop. Lacrosse team captain and a state archery champion. She is the Queen Bee. She controls the whole school. Everyone is afraid of her." When Y/N noticed Wanda kept staring at the trio now sitting down, Y/N slapped her gently on her shoulder and whispered, "Wanda, do not look or-."

"Hey, you." A voice echoed around the room as chatter slowly started again, Wanda furrowing her eyebrows and pointing at herself confusedly, "yeah, you. Come here."

"No, Wanda!" Y/N tried to grab Wanda’s arm and stop her from walking towards the black haired girl, but she slipped out of her reach and Y/N cursed under her breath as she watched the redhead walk towards the plastics. "Shit."

-

"What did they tell you?" Y/N asked as soon as Wanda joined them at the cafeteria entrance, the three of them walking down the stairs to go to their shared class after lunch time finished.

"They seem nice. They asked me to sit down with them this week."

"Are you serious?" Y/N asked confused, furrowing her eyebrows and looking at Wanda curiously, stopping in her tracks before she could walk down the stairs.

"Yeah. I don’t know why you two hate them. Kate seems so cool."

"What? No, no, no. Wanda- Kate Bishop is not cool. Kate Bishop is a scum-sucking life ruiner. She is heartless and a master bitch." Y/N nodded firmly when Bucky did the same to her.

"Yeah, Wan. In middle school, Kate told everyone Y/N is-."

"BUCK! Please, let’s move on. I have a plan. You are going to hung out with the plastics and then you’re gonna tell us all the stupid things they say."

"What? You mean spy on them?"

"No. It’s not spying. It’ll be fun!"

"Are you sure? I don’t-." Y/N sighed out imperceptibly and smiled widely at Wanda, leaning her arms on the handrail and then placing her head on them, batting her puppy dog eyes at the redhead.

"You won’t spy on them, we are only going to have fun too." Y/N pushed on and broadened her smile even more, hoping Wanda would give in, which she did a few moments later.

"Okay. I will."

"Yes!" Y/N and Bucky let out in unison to celebrate, before both lifted their hands up to high-five a laughing Wanda. They resumed their walk down the stairs but after a few steps Wanda stopped her friends with worry in her eyes.

"Do you guys have anything with pink I can borrow from you?"

Y/N scoffed outrageously at Wanda and looked at her like she just asked her the most offensive thing in her world, "no."

"Yeah! What shade?" Y/N couldn’t help herself and emit a small snort at Bucky’s enthusiasm, opening their Biology class door and walking in.

-

"And I’m telling you- Miss Harkness has a big stick up her ass." Bucky scoffed and grunted, closing his locker forcefully, eliciting a soft chuckle for his best friend.

"She does not. I find her funny."

"Just because you have a bigger stick up your ass." Y/N laughed heartily at Bucky’s comeback, leaning her back and head on the lockers before getting ready to deliver a witty counter back, that, sadly, never left her mouth.

"Why don’t you try to take it out? We won’t have to worry about things catching fire all the time." Kate walked by the two best friends with Cassie and Natasha on her trail, laughing at her own joke and subsequently making Cassie and Natasha join her with loud cackles too.

"Oh yeah. Hold on- do you want me to take yours out first?" Y/N smiled politely at Kate, leveling her with a challenging look and lifting her right eyebrow up a moment later, but the plastic just scoffed and walked away. "Bitch." Y/N murmured as she closed her eyes to calm herself down, but her peace was short lived when Wanda came sauntering towards them with a big smile on her face. "Oh no, too much happiness for this hellish environment."

"Sorry, I just- I met a guy in my Calculus class."

"Wow, calculus. You’re smart." Y/N nodded at Y/N in surprise, lifting herself off the lockers to walk out of school.

"Why are you taking that class? Are you trying to punish yourself for something bad you did?" Bucky asked alarmed, eyeing Wanda like she just grew two heads.

"No, I’m pretty good at math."

"Oh, honey, I’m so sorry for you." Wanda shook her head with a small smile at Bucky and shrugged, "anyway, let’s talk about the juicy stuff- who is he?"

"Travis Jarvis."

"What?! No, that’s a big no." Y/N shook her head alarmed, stopping Wanda before she could keep walking and looking into her eyes in warning. "You need to stay away from him."

"Why?"

"He is Kate’s ex boyfriend." Bucky clarified and Y/N nodded in affirmation, Wanda’s frown only deepening.

"Okay? They broke up, right? I can-."

"No. You can’t do anything. He was her property and you can’t touch what was hers."

"But-."

"No, honey. She will eat you alive. You are the prey and she is the predator."

"The apex predator." Y/N clarified, eyeing Kate talking with Cassie and Natasha in the parking lot.

"You guys are just exaggerating."

"Oh no, we’re not." Bucky shook her head with widened eyes, fear glinting into his irises.

"Someone touched Kate’s lacrosse stick in the locker room last year. That poor girl got transferred. To Europe." Y/N watched Wanda swallow visibly and tried to reassure her, feeling pity at her frightened expression, "if you really want to do this, we will support you, but Kate won’t have to find out." They resumed their walk out of the school but before they reached the big doors, they parted ways to not rise suspicions from the plastics.

-

"And they have this book, this ‘Burn Book’, where they write mean things about all the girls in our school."

"Wait- ooh- ooh- what does it say about me?"

"You- you’re not in it." Wanda lied and looked down at her hands.

"What? Those bitches." Y/N exclaimed outraged, Bucky chuckling from the couch in Y/N’s garage.

"She gave me a pair of shoes for me to wear."

"Oh, show me!" Bucky got up from the couch in a second and pushed Y/N out of the way as he run towards Wanda, making her fall on the couch with a fond, exasperated chuckle.

-

"Hey guys, what are you gonna wear to the Halloween party this Friday?" Wanda asked curiously, catching her two friend’s attention from their textbooks. Like every other Wednesday afternoon, they were studying at Y/N’s house, the only day Wanda would hung out with them since Kate had her archery practice, but that question plagued her mind and prevented her to focus on her homework.

"Nothing. We’re not going." Y/N stated simply, focusing her attention back on her textbook.

"Why?" Y/N sighed quietly under her breath at the question and gave up doing her homework for now.

"Because we’re not invited. The plastics never invite us to parties."

"But screw them, we have so many funny activities Friday night." Bucky smiled and nodded at Y/N, who smirked back at her friend knowingly.

"Don’t look at us that way. We’re not sneaking in their parties. A nerd from the science group sneaked into one of their party once. We don’t actually know what the plastics did to him, but he didn’t show up at school for a month and he refused to tell what happened that night." Y/N shrugged and flipped a page over on her book.

"I claim that he got tied to a chair in Kate’s garage and they frightened him for life." Bucky butted in and lifted his hand up, but then placed it on his chest and looked at Wanda in sympathy, thinking back to that guy.

"But it’s fine. Go to that stupid party. You will tell us what happened on Monday."

-

Y/N and Bucky were in the middle of their scary movies marathon, watching a scary movie they hadn’t had the chance to see yet and chewing on popcorn from time to time. "He is gonna catch her, you see." Y/N stated with a knowing voice as she grabbed a few kettle corns to eat.

"Shhh." Y/N and Bucky had their eyes glued on the screen, waiting for the jump scare to happen but they relaxed as soon the woman in the movie did too, as nothing happened. About 3 seconds passed before the two best friends jumped up in fright when the monster caught the woman in the movie a moment later, before jumping up from the couch again in fear a second later while screaming at the top of their lungs when someone opened abruptly Y/N’s garage door, making Y/N threw the popcorn at them.

"Holy fucking shit! Wanda!"

"Sorry." The redhead closed the garage door and trudged into the room with tears running down her face, sniffling under her breath and looking at her friends in sorrow.

"What happened?" Bucky immediately sat up and guided Wanda, with her makeup now ruined by her tears, on the couch.

"She kissed him. In front of me. She told me she was gonna talk to him for me but then she kissed him." Wanda explained after she calmed down from the hiccups, a few tears escaping her eyes again as she explained to Y/N and Bucky, making the two best friends look at her pitifully.

"That’s who Kate Bishop really is. A fucking egocentric cunt." Y/N stated after Wanda finished speaking, looking in the distance with an anger glint burning behind her eyes.

"Now I see why you hate her so much." Wanda lifted her head up and looked at Y/N in her eyes.

"Because that’s what she always does. When we were in middle school, she told everyone Y/N is-."

"BUCK! Not now."

"No, I know the story. You were in love with Kate and you burned her backpack when she didn’t feel the way." Wanda explained as she wiped her tears with the back of her hand, smiling gratefully at Y/N when she offered her a Kleenex. "Thank you."

"That’s what she said? Really?" Y/N asked outraged with fire burning behind her eyes, scoffing and lifting her legs up on the couch to hug them closely when Wanda nodded tentatively.

"That’s not what happened. Let me explain it to you." Bucky sat up and grabbed a box under a drawer and placed it on the coffee table. "With dolls."

"Ugh, Buck, can you not?"

"She deserves to know the truth!" Bucky countered back to Y/N sternly, eyeing Y/N hard and lifted the top of the box only when Y/N sighed out dejected and hugged her knees closer, resigned to listening to Bucky explain the story, "Y/N and Kate used to be best friends in middle school."

"What?"

"I know, right? Shocking! Anyway, they were inseparable. One day, they gave each other these friendship pets and Y/N put this pin on hers to come out to Kate." Bucky pointed to the rainbow pin on the fluffy pet, "Kate was happy Y/N came out to her and put the same pin on hers for support, because- she used to be human." Bucky stated, making Y/N smile at his joke, "a few days later, Kate confessed to Y/N she liked a boy in their class named Kyle. Y/N, of course, supported her- they were best friends. They went to a party and when it was time for the spin the bottle game, Kate was afraid Kyle liked Y/N more, so when he spun the bottle and it landed on Y/N, Kate kissed Y/N in front of everyone abruptly and then brushed it off saying things like ‘I knew she would let me kiss her, because she is a dyke and completely obsessed with me’." Y/N rolled her eyes when Bucky tried to imitate Kate and making the two dolls he had in his hands kiss, but didn’t interrupt him, eyeing Wanda quickly and finding her completely focused on Bucky, "they had a really bad fight and stopped talking. But Kate, the bitch that she is, brought that pet everywhere she went. Y/N heard her making everyone say hi to the pet and call it Sissy Liz, that was a code name for ‘obsessed lesbian’. She was basically making fun of Y/N and everyone knew except Y/N. So during chemistry class she lit that pet on fire to get rid of it. Kate’s backpack caught slightly on fire and Y/N got expelled."

"So when you got home you couldn’t explain why." Wanda finished with a pensive tone, already looking at Y/N in sympathy as all the pieces of the story fell onto place.

"Yeah. And Kate got away with it." Bucky finished with his story and placed everything back in the box, scoffing under his breath.

"I’m so sorry you went through all of that."

"It’s in the past now, Wan. But now you see Kate for who she really is. Now you know she is not your friend. We are your friends. And we’re gonna make her pay."

"That bitch deserves a lesson." Bucky butted in and high-fived Y/N, while Wanda looked at the two confused.

"Yeah, do you want your happy ending with Vis?" Wanda nodded, her eyes already filling up with tears as the image of Kate kissing him in front of her appeared in her mind, "then we’re gonna have a fucking revenge party." Y/N smirked widely at her friends before sprinting to her laptop to start working, while Wanda and Bucky decided to watch a movie. About an hour later she hung a white sheet on the wall, turned on her projector and cleared her throat to grab her friend’s attention. Bucky stopped the movie and both Bucky and Wanda looked over at Y/N’s presentation while Y/N stood beside it with a focused frown on, "so, here’s the plan. We need to take Kate from off her throne. Targeting all the things around her she cares the most. First thing first. Her perfect body." Y/N pointed to the first point on her PowerPoint projection, making both Wanda and Bucky look at her weirdly for how much effort she put on that presentation.

"Wow, talk about dedication." Bucky joked but Y/N waved him off and continued.

"Then putting her best friends against her. And last but not less important, making Vis dump her. Questions?" Y/N looked at her small audience and lifted her right eyebrow up in question, pointing at Bucky, who lifted his hand up.

"You remind me of my first grade teacher. She looked like Satan." Bucky snickered at his own joke and at Y/N staring at him unamused. A few seconds later Y/N grabbed the first thing she had within her reach and threw it at him. "Ohw! Throwing your tubes of paint at me is not nice."

"You should be glad it wasn’t an hammer." Y/N deadpanned with an hard stare directed at Bucky and lifted an eyebrow up defiantly. A few seconds of silence wrapped around them into the garage before the three of them let out loud cackles.

"I have a question." Wanda lifted her hand up after she calmed down and waited for Y/N’s full attention, who nodded after wiping away a few tears that escaped her eyes, "do we have to do these things in succession or-."

"Not really. But I think destroying her perfect image would be the logical thing to do first." Y/N shrugged, turning her head around and staring at the words projected on the sheet as a pensive frown rolled over her features.

"It would definitely make her go mad. Turning her friends against her would definitely come subsequently." Bucky added with a small nod as he leaned back on the couch and stretched his arms over the top of it.

"But how can we do that?" Y/N furrowed her eyebrows pensively and stroked her chin gently, wracking her brain for a good idea to start with their plan. The three teenagers spent about 5 minutes thinking in silence, all staring into space and humming from time to time as they discarded a few ideas. Suddenly Y/N sat up from the coffee table and lifted her hand up in victory. "I got it. Okay- this Thursday we have that stupid celebration for her win as the Spring Fling Queen last year. We can start with that."

"Where is the celebration?" Wanda asked, still getting used to all these school activities.

"On the football field." Bucky explained to Wanda when Y/N didn’t answer right away as she stared at the ground, thinking over a plan of action.

"Oh I got it! Oh this will be amazing- we are gonna fucking hit her with hydrants and drench her in front of the whole school. She will be furious." Y/N explained out loud happily, proud for coming up with that idea.

"Oh I would definitely cry in front of everyone." Bucky nodded with fear in his eyes, looking into space as he probably imagined the scene, and Y/N rolled her eyes good-naturedly at her friend.

-

"How the fuck is that possible? We splashed water into her fucking face and she transformed into a model? I had my feed full of Kate stroking her boobs with that stupid sexy face. And she even created a new trend. Are you fucking kidding me? Ugh." Y/N punched Bucky’s locker in frustration before leaning her forehead on it, making her best friend gasp at her.

"Hey! Don’t hate on my locker."

"I’m sorry. But our plan had a really shit start. We only made her more popular." Y/N lifted her head up to stare at her best friend in apology before leaning her forehead back on the cold surface with another frustrated groan and closing her eyes to calm her nerves but a rustling sound of paper beside her ear made her lift her head back up and meet Wanda’s eyes instead, eyeing the bar she was eating. "What’s that?"

"Oh, that’s actually my lunch. I need to study before my test, that will be after lunch. I don’t have time to eat so I’m using this bar that my mom used to give to people in need in Sokovia. It helps you ingest all kind of nutrients and vitamins. She gave it to people starving to help them gain weight fast." Y/N was certain that if she was in a cartoon a lightbulb would’ve appeared on top of her head and lighted up as a devilish idea popped into her head.

"Wan, I think you gave us inspiration for step 2 of our plan." Wanda stared at Y/N’s face erupting in a big, mischievous grin and stared at her in confusion, waiting for her to clarify. "You’re gonna make Kate believe these things are used to loose weight in Sokovia instead. In no time she will have to say goodbye to her perfect body."

"Damn girl, I love when you’re such a dick." Bucky chuckled and bumped his shoulder with Y/N’s one, who just shrugged with a fake humble smile before chuckling evilly under her breath.

-

"Holy shit! Kate just bumped into me on her way to class. I was so shocked I didn’t even register her calling me an idiot. Shit- those bars are starting to work." Y/N sat down in her chair in class and sighed when it luckily didn’t start yet, meeting Wanda’s and Bucky’s eyes with her own widened in bewilderment.

"Yeah, I noticed it too this morning in the parking lot." Bucky nodded with a proud smile, winking at Y/N mischievously.

"Yeah. Yesterday she was so pissed-off she yelled at Natasha and Cassie all the time. Cassie is afraid she hadn’t ‘crapped’ in two weeks." Wanda grimaced in worry and recalled how brutal Kate was being with her best friends the days prior.

"Perfect. That’s just perfect. She is starting to crumble!"

-

"Buck stop trying to set me up with that girl in your class. I’m not interested." Y/N repeated for the umpteenth time to her best friend as she closed her locker, groaning in frustration when he tried to protest, again.

"I would be surprised if she is interested in you." Kate scoffed as appeared from behind Y/N and snickered at her own joke, making her three friends that followed her around do the same. Y/N fleetingly met Wanda’s eyes over Cassie’s shoulder before moving her eyes onto Kate, staring at her proudly of her insult. She took a deep breath to calm herself down.

"Well, I guess you definitely need to pull a surprised face. I like to people. You’re not the only one good with her mouth in our school." Y/N countered back cheekily, lifting her eyebrow up in challenge as an evil smirk appeared on her lips. She could swear she saw Kate blush, but her angry brain was definitely pulling jokes on her.

"Pft, bullshit."

"Wanna test it out?" Kate imperceptibly faltered in her stance as she swallowed quickly, but Y/N didn’t notice it.

"Y’know what I think? I think you only like to show off with your mouth. I think you only use it for selling bullshit." And with that Kate walked away, purposefully slamming into Y/N and making her hit her back on the lockers behind her, as her friends followed behind her. Wanda sent an apologetic smile at Y/N as she passed by her before stopping abruptly to prevent to fall into Natasha. The plastics suddenly stopped and Wanda lifted her head up to look what was happening and her heart fell down at her feet when she watched Kate and Travis kiss in front of her. "Hm, hey babe. You should push your hair back like this." Wanda watched as Kate slipped her fingers in Travis’ hair and pulled them back, a gesture that Wanda was sure was overly sexual to spite her, "Wanda, tell him her looks better with his hair pushed back."

Wanda swallowed the jealousy she felt bubbling up in her throat and, after taking a calming breath, spoke up with a blank stare, "you look better with your hair pushed back."

With that Kate walked with Travis, Natasha and Cassie out of the school, while Wanda stayed back to catch up with Y/N and Bucky. "What a fucking cunt." Y/N exclaimed, pulling Wanda’s eyes away from the door Kate and Travis just walked out and nod at her in agreement.

"She’s such an asshole."

"We need to hit harder. Cassie is the next one. We need to put her best friends against her."

"I can’t. She is too fragile." Wanda countered back with a sad expression on her face and Y/N sighed out disappointed.

"Dude, she just forced you to compliment Travis when she knows you like him. We need to hit hard. You will end up with Travis as soon as she is off her throne."

"I’ll end up with Travis as soon as she is off her throne." Wanda repeated with a dreamy expression and Y/N grinned widely at her as she started to give in.

"Yes bitch."

"Okay, let’s do it."

-

"Guys, it worked. Cassie told me a lot of Kate’s secrets. Did you know last year she convinced a girl from the opposite team to not wear her underwear during a game and while they were playing she pushed her pants down and made her flash her intimate parts to thousands of people just to score?"

"That would be something Kate would do, yeah." Bucky nodded after imagining it in his mind, sipping on his tea gently.

"As much as despicable that was, we don’t need it. Anything else we can use against her?"

"She is cheating on Travis. With Ryan Perrick. Every Tuesday and Thursday in the janitor’s closet." Wanda spoke right away, not even thinking about anything else Cassie told her in the school’s bathrooms.

"What? Holy shit, that’s perfect! This way our plan will be over. You’ll see." Y/N grinned mischievously at Wanda as she clicked her cup with Bucky’s one.

"Oh and she also told me Kate is trying a new Japanese or something technique to have perfect skin. I thought it would’ve been useful."

"Yeah, it will definitely will. Buck go get that lard jar in my kitchen. We’re gonna give Kate some new, expensive Italian facial cream." Y/N spoke with a too sweet tone as her eyes lighted up enthusiastically, her best friend running into the kitchen as a snicker left his lips.

-

"The Queen Bee just got dethroned." Y/N stated with a delighted sigh after taking a seat in her History class, looking at Bucky with the same facial expression.

"Yeah."

"That’s what I call a perfect plan. Kate lost all her power." Y/N high-fived Bucky enthusiastically before eyeing Wanda weirdly as she applied lip gloss on her lips. She shrugged it off and smiled once again at the girl, "hey, are you free this weekend? My art exhibition is this Friday."

"This Friday? Oh no, I can’t. I have this thing with my family. We already have tickets. I’m so sorry." Wanda looked remorseful at Y/N for just a moment before she turned back around and continued touching up her makeup happily, looking herself through the small mirror in her hand.

"Yeah, you really look sorry." Y/N eyed Wanda and scoffed, shaking it off and looking at Bucky, who shrugged at her.

"Do you want to watch a movie tonight? We are watching another scary movie. I love watching Y/N pee herself from the fright." Y/N turned around in her seat and punched Bucky on his shoulder, who chuckled happily at his mocking, but Wanda kept staring at herself in her mirror, not looking at their friends once.

"Oh, I can’t tonight. I have plans with Cassie and Nat."

"But the plan is over." Y/N furrowed her eyebrows confused, but Wanda just shrugged as she sat up, Y/N and Bucky looking at her confused.

"I know, but I want to have fun with one last strike. I’ll see you tomorrow. Kisses."

Y/N and Bucky stared at Wanda appalled and watched her walk away, Bucky waving unconvinced at her before shrugging at each other as their professor showed up a moment later.

-

"Oh God."

"You dirty, little liar." Y/N exclaimed as she walked towards Wanda with fury burning behind her eyes.

"I’m sorry! I can explain."

"Explain what? That you forgot to invite us to your party?"

"You know I couldn’t invite you. I had to pretend to be a plastic."

"Hey, hon, this is not pretending anymore. You became a plastic too. Cold, shiny, hard plastic." Y/N scoffed with a roll of her eyes and went to walk away to join Bucky, waiting on his bike, but stopped and turned around to send a withering glare to Wanda, clearly not over with the conversation yet. "Did you have fun with your new awesome friends? Had some fantastic shots and just had a great overall time with each other’s awesomeness?" Y/N mocked Wanda with an overly sweet tone, watching as a frown appeared on her face, but she couldn’t care less if she hurt her. She was done with her shit.

"Y’know what? You made me do this shit for your own 8th grade personal revenge, do not blame me."

"Ah shit, at least me and Kate know we are mean. You only like to play the victim for your own good."

"You know what?! It’s not my fault you’re like in love with me or something." Bucky gasped loudly as he put his hand on his chest while Y/N froze on her spot with an annoyed expression on her face.

"Oh no, she did not."

"What?! You see, this is the problem with you plastics. You think everyone is in love with you when news flash baby, everyone HATES you. Including Vis, that after dumping Kate, he still doesn’t want you. You are a mean girl, just like Kate. Here." Y/N threw a rolled up paper to Wanda and walked away with a loud scoff, "you can have this. It won a prize."

"And I want my pink shirt back!"

-

The next day Y/N and Bucky strolled into what they couldn’t call a school anymore. People were fighting with papers scattered all over the floor and on the walls. They eyed in disbelief what was unfolding in front of them and dodged a few girls pulling at their hair as they finally arrived at Y/N’s locker, where a paper with a picture with her and Bucky was attached on it. Y/N picked it up with her eyebrows furrowed curiously before anger boiled under her skin at the words written under the picture, "Y/N, the pyro-lez?!"

"Bucky is too gay to function." Bucky read out loud and Y/N gasped outraged.

"Hey! I only can say that." Y/N slammed her hand with the paper on her thigh and assessed the caos that was still taking place in the hallway. Girls in the whole school were fighting. Two of them were slamming another one on the lockers on their right, other two were trying to punch another one in the face, one was trying to bite another girl on her ear. It was a mess. Bucky screeched loudly when a girl got thrown right beside him and he cowered behind Y/N, who rolled her eyes somewhat amused at his behavior. "There she is. The new Queen Bee." Y/N spoke purposefully out loud when Wanda walked beside her and both stared at Wanda hard, narrowing their eyes at her when she tried to wave at them, but the principal’s voice booming over the hallways interrupted her. Y/N noticed a smug Kate Bishop standing beside him with her arms crossed and she instantly knew this was all her fault.

"Every girl in the gym. NOW!"

-

"Okay, who’s next? Oh Y/N, go on." Y/N smiled at her teacher and walked up the makeshift stage, looking one more time at the paper with the apology she wrote on it and prepared to speak up.

"Oh this will be awesome. Maybe she will lit something on fire." Kate spoke up from the crowd, making everyone laugh at her joke, while Y/N bit the inside of her cheek and balled her paper up, throwing it on the ground.

"Okay, I have some apologies to make I guess. I have a new friend, she is a new student. And I convinced her it would’ve been fun messing up with Kate Bishop’s life. I had her pretend to be friends with her and then she would come to my house after so we could laugh about all the dumb things Kate said. Oh and we gave her some bars that would make her gain weight and then we turned her best friends against her. What else- oh yeah- and then Wanda- oh you know my friend Wanda, right?" Y/N pointed to the redhead on her left, making everyone stare at her a few moments before focusing her attention back on herself, "she told him Kate was cheating on him and then she convinced him to break up with her." The anger appearing on Kate’s face was the peak of Y/N’s week, but she kept going with a proud smirk on her lips, "oh and we switched lard for her face cream." Y/N chuckled softly under her breath, "but then it all went to shit because apparently Wanda is just like Kate Bishop. So the apologies are for me." Y/N flipped the bird to Kate and instead of falling into the crowd like everyone did before her, she hopped down the makeshift stage and walked out of the gym and out of the school, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion when she turned around and noticed everyone else was following her. Well not exactly her, but apparently Kate and Wanda fighting a few feet from her, also walking out of the school. She then exited the school and crossed the road to go to Bucky’s bike and wait for him there. She leaned her butt on his friend’s bike and watched Kate standing in the middle of the street fighting badly with Wanda but after a few moments everyone gasped loudly when they saw some stupid student run Kate over with his car.

-

Luckily Kate only suffered from a back and neck injury, but she was overly fine. Despite that, Y/N had to fight against her guilty feelings. If she didn’t let her hatred for what Kate did to her take over her, Kate wouldn’t have been run over by a car. She knew it was stupid thinking that, but she couldn’t help it. After a long chat with Bucky, he convinced her it wasn’t her fault. None of that was her fault. And luckily Kate was okay. They also stopped talking to Wanda, who went back to being ignored and eat in the bathroom, but the two best friends didn’t gave a shit about her. She was a bitch to them and she deserved it all. After a strangely calm month, the Spring Fling finally rolled over. Y/N had to endure a lot of convincing from Bucky, but after trying for the umpteenth time, she finally gave in and went with him as his plus one. She chose a purple suit that, as Bucky stated ‘hugged her in all the right places’, while Bucky chose a classic black one. "Damn Buck, you almost look straight tonight."

"Bitch, you know I will never be. Here put the flower you so nicely gifted me in my pocket."

"You are supposed to do it to me, not the way around, dude." Y/N reasoned with a chuckle but grabbed the white rose from Bucky’s hands nonetheless and did what he asked her to, before smiling widely when he pulled another white rose from behind his back and placed it in her suit pocket too.

"Let‘s go break some hearts." Y/N laughed heartily at Bucky’s joke and let him pull her out of his house and into his car, jamming to loud songs as they drove towards their school.

"Holy shit."

The party was already in full swing when they entered the gym, now all decorated for the Spring Fling, and Y/N and Bucky stopped at the entrance to take over the room, their eyes watching people dancing on the floor, drinking at the tables or smoking under the bleachers. "Do you want something to drink?"

"Are you kidding me? There’s no way I’m going through this hell without being drunk." Y/N deadpanned with a serious, almost scared face, causing a small laugh to escape Bucky’s lips before he shook his head and pushed her towards the table where punch was on.

-

Wanda, after making up with Bucky, let him lead her to Y/N, finding her dancing with a few guys and girls from the A.V. Club. She watched her a few moments before taking a big, grounding breath and then tapped on Y/N’s shoulder, watching her turn around and noticing she still had the piece of crown she threw at her after winning in her hand, and with an hopeful tone she asked, "so- friends?" She batted her big doe eyes at Y/N and patiently waited for Y/N’s answer.

"I don’t know, are you still a bitch?"

"No." Wanda smiled softly at the girl and immediately shook her head, her gesture making a small grin grow on Y/N’s stoic face too, instantly calming her nerves down.

"Then we’re cool. C’mere." Y/N chuckled and circled her arms around Wanda, hugging her close for a few moments.

"I don’t know how is that possible, but Kate apologized too, in some twisted and confused way in the bathroom." Wanda told Y/N with a still perplexed expression, her mind still reeling from that moment.

"Oh really? I would’ve loved to witness it. Where is Vis?"

"It didn’t workout. He is with a girl from his science class now." Wanda told Y/N with a resigned shrug and Y/N caressed her shoulder gently in apology.

"Oh I’m so sorry." Bucky butted in, caressing Wanda’s shoulder too, who smiled at her friends gratefully.

"It doesn’t matter."

"We can always make up a plan to make him pay." Y/N joked, giggling at Wanda when she widened her eyes and shook her head furiously.

"No, no, no, no. I’m done with revenge."

"That’s fair." Y/N nodded still giggling and circled her arm around Wanda’s shoulders, Bucky hugging her torso from the other side.

"Besides, I already forgot about him. I just want to have fun with my friends tonight."

"That‘s it, bitch. Let’s go have another drink." Y/N smiled widely and pushed them to the table where all the drinks were, but Bucky stopped her and pulled her and Wanda to the dance floor instead.

"It can wait. Let’s go dance now, bitches!"

-

"No! I need to drink. Wanda is your dancing buddy from now on." Y/N chuckled as successfully sneaked away from Bucky’s hands and waved through the sea of people to finally walk towards the table where the spiked punch was, grabbed a red cup to fill and took a sip of the strong drink as she leaned her ass on a random table to catch some breath, not noticing she stopped at the table where Kate was sat in. "Hey." Y/N smiled awkwardly at the black haired girl staring at her just a few feet from her and waved at her with her free hand.

"Oh, hey Y/N!" Kate was definitely high from medications if her hooded eyes were anything to go by, and Y/N still smiled awkwardly at the plastic, watching as she blinked a few times into space before struggling to grab her fancy cup and trying to drink from it, only to huff out in frustration when her collar prevented her to.

Y/N sighed out loud and debated with herself for a few moments if she should help Kate or not. A few moments later she made up her mind. She wasn’t a monster. "Fuck it." Y/N whispered under her breath and sat up, walking over Kate and placing her red cup on the table before grabbing Kate’s glass from her hands and sliding gently between Kate’s slightly open legs to let her drink easily and prevent it to spill on Kate’s dress, "here, let me help you."

Kate stared at Y/N gratefully and drank softly from the cup, never moving her eyes away from Y/N. Y/N suppressed an entertained smile by biting on her bottom lip at Kate rolling her eyes slightly back in delight as she drank, "thank you."

Y/N nodded with a soft smile and stared into Kate’s blue eyes for just a moment then started to move away from her, but she just had the time to move to the side from Kate’s slightly open legs before two hands grabbed her waist and pushed her down, making her sit on Kate’s lap. "O-kay."

Y/N smiled awkwardly down at Kate, who stared back at her with a dopey smile while her arms circled around Y/N’s waist, making her gasp softly under her breath at the sudden gesture. "Hm, you smell nice."

Y/N tapped with the palm of her hand the top of Kate’s glass before moving it on top of Kate’s head and tapped her hair gently when Kate leaned her head as much as her collar allowed her to into Y/N’s neck and breathe her perfume in, an awkward smile stretching over Y/N’s lips, "thanks, I guess?"

"You look nice too. I love purple." Kate leaned her head slightly more into Y/N’s neck and hummed softly as she hugged her tightly.

"Kate, what is this?" Y/N couldn’t help but ask after staying awkwardly into Kate’s arms for a few seconds, staring at her seriously and almost regretted using an harsh tone when she noticed the vulnerability swirling into Kate’s blue eyes when she pulled away to stare into her own Y/E/C irises.

"It’s me missing my best friend. I’m sorry I treated you like shit. I really liked spending time with you."

"Kate, you’re high." Y/N shook her head to prevent her brain to fall for the girl’s games again, putting a metaphorical space between them. She wasn’t going to let Kate fuck her up again.

"Maybe. My pills make me like everyone. Can you believe I said I liked Lili’s dress? And she is wearing orange! Who the fuck likes orange?"

Y/N shook her head and breathed out a small laugh. Kate didn’t change so much. And she somehow loved it. "Are you okay?"

"My back hurts a bit, but with you here with me, I feel better."

"Okay, you are definitely so fucking high." Y/N stated with an amused laugh and looked at Kate when she pulled away to observe people dance distractedly. She found herself getting lost in taking Kate in, from her perfectly styled hair, to her light make up, then moving her eyes down her green dress and appreciating it hugging her body as it was starting to become lean and muscular again. Luckily, before she started ogling at her exposed chest, Kate’s voice pulled her out of her inappropriate daze.

"I wanna dance." Y/N sighed out happily when she moved her eyes away from Kate’s chest a moment before she met her eyes and smiled innocently at her, nodding slightly at her.

"Are you sure you can with-?" Y/N waved her hand around her head and neck to point to Kate’s collar situation, but the black haired girl just nodded slightly at her with the same dopey smile.

"Yeah, dummy. It’s here for a reason." Kate laughed loudly at her own joke that Y/N clearly missed but laughed unconvinced alongside her before widening her eyes comically when Kate patted her butt a few times, "get up, we’re dancing." Y/N sat up slowly as her mind still reeled for Kate’s gesture, so much lost in her head she just let Kate grab her hand and pull her towards the dance floor where Bucky and Wanda were still dancing. What the fuck?

"Look who finally decided to join us again! And she brought fresh meat!" Bucky exclaimed, screeching loudly when Kate went towards him and took his hand to dance. Y/N watched Bucky carefully spun her around before the two started dancing back to back in a someway funny way. It was weird watching Kate so care-free but Y/N liked it nonetheless.

"Y/N! C’mere!" Y/N widened her eyes comically when Kate pulled on her hand and turned her around quickly, making her slam her back on Kate’s front as her arms circled her waist.

"Kate- are you-?"

"Shut up and dance." Y/N swallowed the rest of her question as nodded, before swallowing once again at Kate moving her hips to the rhythm and occasionally hitting Y/N’s butt. Was she really grinding on her?

"Oh fuck it." Y/N exclaimed under her breath at her mind reeling and let herself go on the dance floor for once, thanking the alcohol in her system for that. After a few beats of dancing seductively with Kate, she grabbed Wanda’s hand when she stood in front of her and danced care-freely to the EDM music blasting loudly through the speakers in their gym.

[surplus-of-sarcasm]

31st Story

Part 2

TW: Captivity, implied past torture, blood mention, restraints, mistrust, starvation mention, defiant whumpee, corrupt system, knife

Heyyy! Long-time no see. I blame college 100% because it takes up all my time, seriously. Happy New Year tho 💙

Villain could tell himself he was already used to the cold, hard embrace of the dull rock of his cell, to the claustrophobia-inducing lack of windows, to the fact that the only times he ever got to see the light was when someone walked in to beat him senseless, a feat made incredibly easy with the help of the chains that shackled his wrists and ankles, not allowing for much movement.

He could pretend that being covered in blood and filth, dazed and starving, was nothing to him, that the maddening urge to find out what time it was wasn't gnawing at him torturously.

"In here, wishful thinking is all you are capable of," a sunken-faced, old prisoner had told him before he was thrown into his personal hellhole. He hadn't said anything, but he'd believed the old hag to be weak and hopeless, and thus so was her sentiment.

Right now, all he wondered was if he'd break even faster than that woman might have. The villain screwed his eyes shut, hoping it would stop the chain of thoughts poisoning his mind, but all that did was make him think clearer, every disturbing image he tried so desperately to expel growing clearer and more vivid by the moment.

It was bad enough handling the physical pain, where every time he so much as shifted his form slightly, the tormented muscles in his back would scream in protest. But the physical side was tolerable, compared to being left at the mercy of his mind; a cruel, sinister thing.

So consumed he was in his own reverie, he hadn't even noticed as the door to his cell was unlocked, at least not until the light skirting around the corner had him snapping his eyes open and sitting up.

"This doesn't look good on you," a silky, almost serpentine voice called out.

"Superhero?" he asked, despising the note of trepidation in his voice.

"No. Just her lacklustre twin," she scoffed.

"Vigilante," he deduced with a slight fall of his shoulders in relief. It's not that he believed Vigilante would treat him well, it's just that no one could rival Superhero in cruelty.

"Still ever the genius," she responded dryly.

"What do you want?" he asked, almost desperate. If she was here to torment him, he wanted her to get over with it. It was becoming progressively more difficult to bear the state in which he was in, the one chock-full of waiting and thinning patience, of hoping the pain would start so it could end, that this time would pass faster.

Except it never did.

"It's strange seeing someone normally so high and mighty like this," she attested, dodging his question.

The older version of him would have let out a frustrated snarl and cussed her out for annoying him, but now all he could do was bite his tongue and stare at her with his new resting face, broken and defeated.

"Well, I'm not here to hurt you," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

That was a response, albeit an indirect one. And of course, she wasn't here to hurt him. She was here to make sure he was comfortable, that he was enjoying his five-star stay in this resort in hell.

Sucks to have an army of enemies and not a single semblance of a friend.

He and Vigilante hadn't really had any direct bad blood, but he was a villain locked up in here, so by default, he was supposed to be her enemy, right? It didn't matter who walked in here or whether they knew him or not. They just loved to see him break, to see him, once so relentlessly powerful, reduced to less than nothing. Perhaps it brought them a sort of sick satisfaction, but he didn't know much about satisfaction anymore to judge.

"I'm going to get you out of here," she said casually, like promising him the impossible was some sort of small punishment, nothing to tear himself up about. Maybe she could rival her sister in cruelty.

Without warning, a hysterical laugh escaped his throat, only for him to bite his lip and stop abruptly, trying to clamp a hand over his mouth only for him to remember he was chained up.

Vigilante's face fell, and his own had silent tears streaming down it. He felt as though he couldn't breathe, as though bricks were raining down on his shoulders and crushing his bones into nothing. His whole being seemed to itch with dread.

"Villain?" Vigilante called out, looking a mixture of confused and horrified.

"Just get over with it! Torture me until the floor runs red with my blood, tell me how death is a mercy above vermin like myself, and tell me to take it with a smile. Hit me harder when I can't bring myself to do it. Hit me until I feel all the pain of death but never attain it. Remember my current words as defiance, as another crime I've committed. I think watching me be humbled to the nothing I truly am will entertain you as any show would," he spat, only for regret to colour his features just as fast.

"Damn it. Villain, I don't want to do. . .any of this to you," Vigilante started, careful, trying for a semblance of gentle, something she was never particularly good at. "Like I said, I'm going to get you out of here," she continued again, hoping the stern tone indicated she was serious and not somehow going to torture him.

She'd never particularly liked him, mainly because he'd always been ice-cold, calculated to a point he seemed inhuman at times, no emotion whatsoever showing up on his face, besides a cool smugness. And by virtue of all the terrible things he'd done, all the blood on his hands. And yet, he was far from the worst thing out there, and most definitely not the villain in her story.

"And let's pretend you're telling the truth, which is completely fine by me because any mercy I've ever had here has always been a pretence, a figment of my imagination, you know. What could you possibly gain from this?" He raised an eyebrow, bearing a small resemblance to his usual self. Well, at least there was a slight amount of fight left in him, even if he was clearly holding back tears now.

But the villain's question wasn't completely outlandish. Vigilante did want something from him, but it wasn't a favour he would ever come to hate. "I need your help. My sister may seem like the goddamn tooth fairy to those who don't know better, but we know what her regime is really doing. This isn't about fighting crime, it's about her insatiable addiction to power."

"And where do I belong here?" The villain's voice still held the same disbelieving tone, his shoulders managing to tense even further.

"You're one of the few people who challenged her, Villain. And as much as it pains me to say it, you're a good strategist," she explained, even though she knew she'd barely convinced him in the slightest.

"I can't be the only one fitting that description, but I can be the only one owing you a favour too," he answered. Even if he didn't look half as confident, half as untouchable as before, the criminal was still just as clever. But it also meant he wasn't believing her anytime soon. Still, he wasn't wrong. The villain may not have smelled like roses all the time, but he'd be loyal to make sure they were even; a man of his word.

"What's it gonna be, Villain? Come with me or stay here?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest, growing impatient.

Well, it didn't make sense for her to give him a choice if she was going to torture him, but sense no longer governed things in his mind, letting a fearful apprehension replace it, no matter how humiliating. The choice could easily be an illusion, another cruel joke in this comedy skit from the filthiest parts of hell.

But it could be a chance, and he was desperate. So desperate he'd risk feeling even further degraded when she laughed in his face and put him through whatever torment she'd have planned.

"Fine," he answered, looking up at her with trepidation in his eyes. He could already feel the regret tasting like salt on his tongue and the burn of acid at the back of his throat he recognised as shame.

So when the sound of his chains being unlocked rang in his ears, and the vigilante helped him up, the feeling of surprise was palpable.

"I just need to handcuff you while they can see us," she explained, noticing how slowly the villain nodded, mistrust still burning in his eyes.

She didn't like how weightless he seemed against her, barely able to walk. She hadn't fought him much, but she clearly remembered that while his frame was somewhat slender, the villain's build still used to be athletic. It was no surprise he'd deteriorated, but that didn't make his fate any less cruel.

"I'm moving him to the other facility," she announced, practically dragging the half-starved villain with her, the only response being curt nods from the guards.

They were lucky that no one here would dare question Superhero and by default, her sister, if they could even tell the difference between both.

And sure enough, there was an entry documented into the other facility, done with the help of a few handsomely paid workers. And while Superhero wouldn't buy into the lie for long, it would at least make sure she didn’t notice immediately that something was up.

✨️Break✨️

The drive to Vigilante's house was almost torturously long and reeking of the tension of two people who weren't used to each other. The villain ran his fingers over his wrists, now free of handcuffs, but they still hurt. All of him hurt, a constant, dull pain that he was almost used to, but that didn't mean he didn't miss the times where he could remember moments without aches all over his body.

That was only the least of it anyway.

"I think you'd want to clean up," the vigilante had suggested when they'd got to her house.

Instead of an off-hand "yeah" like he'd meant to, the first words that foolishly came tumbling out of his mouth were: "I can?"

This wasn't an option they gave him back there, and soon enough he'd stopped caring entirely.

"Oh," Vigilante had responded, giving him a solemn look. "I mean, yes, of course you can," she corrected hastily.

He nodded, quite literally shoving himself into the bathroom and swallowing down the awkward shame in his throat.

He'd grown so accustomed to pain that he'd barely even noticed the sting of the hot water on his open, practically fresh wounds, or how the shower water underneath him turned a dull pink. He was a lot more focused on how his sore muscles relaxed with the heat, how he seemed to get lighter with all the dirt off him, good sensations having become foreign to him in the time of his captivity.

He walked out to find a change of clothes (his clothes) on the bed in the room outside, catching his reflection in the mirror, bruises lining his cheekbones and jaw and heavy, dark circles underneath his eyes. The villain simply ignored the old memories of himself taking the time to style his hair and care for his skin, his mind hardwired for survival, looking around the room for anything he could use in case he had to defend himself.

Not that Vigilante was stupid enough for that.

Still, if she wished to hurt him, she could've done it faster, could've done it earlier. Maybe the villain wouldn't trust her blindly, but so far, he hated her less bitterly than he hated everyone else.

"How'd you get these?" he asked, walking out, looking down at the black zip-up hoodie and black sweats.

Vigilante shrugged. "From your place."

"You broke into my- whatever." It wasn't the strangest part about the situation now. "What are we supposed to do?"

"I think you need to rest," she suggested.

And she was entirely correct, given his exhaustion and how the shower had made him somewhat sleepy, so he nodded his head, walking into "his" room and waiting until she walked up to her room, waiting until he could walk out and check if she'd slept, and once he was sure, he walked into the kitchen, picking up a knife and bringing it to his room.

The villain knew it was scummy, but he wasn't about to risk being hurt again, and if the vigilante truly had good intentions, the knife would never be put to use. Still, the villain had managed to fall into a fitful sleep, still better than any night he spent curled up on a cold, hard floor.

Trust is never easy, especially for those who have been hurt one too many times. But people were not made to live forever encased in solitude, a safe option to the blind and foolish, but never a permanent solution. And while taking a risk in times of suffering might seem like a wretched fate, sometimes it is the lifeline you need to breathe again.

✨️Le Taglist: @larinzz @syberianjade @lateuplight @altu-interactions @enbious-prince @astr0-mj @thelazywitchphotographer @a-fucking-simp-00 @addictedsandwhichaki @justalittlecorrupted @quaggasus @theangstyclown @vernilliom @mothmancommitsarson @starssabove @kurai-hono-blog @talkingsperm @muffinrebel44 @sunnynwanda @annablogsposts @cardboardarsonist @itsmyworld23 @onlywhump @m3rakii @crotchgoblin69 @wtfevenisausername @pendarling @avloki-pal @kaiwewi @those-damn-snippets @genuinelythioehat-is-whump @ghostofnorth

Wanna be on the taglist? This'll take you there!

[free-luigi-mangione]

Wtf no food or water the entire day? And this is in addition to being chained with a back problem? How is he even alive at this point. I hate that his only chance to see sunlight is also accompanied by such brutality.

His demeanour around his lawyers and then around the cops is so drastically different. He clearly feels safe around Karen, he knows she won’t let them hurt him. But then I saw pictures of him on the street and he looked so scared and miserable and I realised it’s because they were taking him back to that hellhole prison and he didn’t want to go back there. I also think his back pain was acting up that day, he seemed to be moving somewhat gingerly.

I don’t understand the shackles, I really don’t. Okay maybe they want to put a show on for the public, but why do they need to keep him restrained in the transport van? He’s literally locked in a dark steel box, he’s moved at gunpoint, he’s a 26 year old with a broken back surrounded by dozens of older beefier men. It’s completely unnecessary. It’s like the whole point is to scare him and break his will.

I was looking into solitary confinement once I realised they kept him isolated for a good 3 weeks before he could join the Diddy dorm. He said in a letter that they just locked him in and kept the lights on 24/7 (which meets the UN’s definition of torture btw)

There’s a journalist who wrote extensively about his father’s time in solitary confinement. The father was a police captain who was accused of corruption and thrown into solitary for his own “protection”. Now this man was a seasoned law enforcement professional who had been around crime and punishment his entire life, and yet he broke within a week and started banging on the walls begging to be let out.

Compare that with Luigi, who’s basically a sheltered boy and I bet this was his first time in handcuffs. Karen keeps saying he’s a model prisoner meaning he didn’t scream or bang walls when he was in solitary. He just tolerated it all. Can we just take a moment to admire his resilience and bravery?

who's gonna feed him when he's shackled at the hands and the waist and at his feet?? anyways the way he's being treated is very terrible and inhumane and should not continue. but this exists because of a terribly inhumane justice system existing in the US and that certainly doesn't seem to be changing anyhow, now or ever.

he obviously feels safe around his legal team. for one, they're trying to save his neck and trying to get him out if possible. and also because they're the only ones whom he gets to talk to in complete privacy. and they're the only ones around him in a courtroom who're rooting for him and haven't subjected him to any misery.

of course he was moving around gingerly. dude has his hands cuffed and chained to his waist, and has his ankles cuffed too, on top of the fact that he has had a spinal fusion surgery and cannot bend a part of his lower back at all and has four screws poking out of his spine. i wouldn't expect him to be as agile as an olympics gymnast in such situations.

and yes, the point of all the shackles and gun pointing is to break him down, if not to intimidate the public into thinking of him as somebody they should be scared of.

Luigi was in solitary confinement for a total of seventeen days (ten days in PA, and a week in NY after extradition and that infamous perp walk). and while he has been a model prisoner, he did express his frustrations with solitary confinement through a letter that you quoted almost directly. as he should, i say, because he was in a terrible situation that counts as torture in any sane country, except USA.

[nereidof40k]

Sheesh, you people keep inspiring me. I wasn’t planning on more than one Primarch kid OC, but that talk about how Perpetuals potentially work got me thinking.

*edited slightly January 16th*

The story is as follows.

In a very familiar galaxy there was a planet called Chanosis. It was pretty much in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and an irradiated hellhole. Not so different from Baal, in some respects, except it wasn’t lucky enough to have a Primarch land there.

Among the barbarians and raiders that infested the place, there were a few ordinary people who dared to fight for the safety of their home villages.

Among them was a woman named Alyena Bathory, who, despite her youth, not quite twenty yet, rallied the people of her home region to work together to get rid of the raider band known as Red Talons.

It was working almost too well. The Talons were driven into a corner, which can have horrific consequences. In this case, a local lord (at least a lord in his own mind) by the name of Stephan Zarev, was highly annoyed by this young upstart girl gaining all that sweet influence.

Zarev proceeded to give information to the Red Talons that allowed them to capture several local children. Threatening to kill them all if Alyena did not surrender within a day.

Alyena did go to the meeting place selected, but she doubted the Talons would stop at one kidnapping. So she had a plan, though she didn’t inform her allies of everything.

As the exchange happened, Alyena showed her defiance until the children were safe. Then, as the leader of the Talons, known only as the Butcher of Dann (after a village he’d razed), was getting annoyed and made to make her kneel, she detonated the surprise she’d hidden. An explosive carefully packed with shrapnel and bits of metal, quite a bit of which had been collected from the ruins of Dann. Where Alyena had been born, only escaping the slaughter by pure luck.

It shredded the Butcher and Alyena both, injuring several of his guards. In the resulting chaos, Alyena’s allies wiped the leaderless Talons out.

This made Alyena something of a local Saint, many people praying to her and spreading her legend.

Which brings us to the present day, where Belisarius Cawl was busy making his usual insults to natural order. This time he had tried to make a clone combining the DNA of Corvus Corax with something else. At least in part to see if it was viable.

At first it looked like it would be another failure. Corvus’ DNA was very finicky and hard to use. But this time Cawl had managed to make a body that was perfect for Alyena’s soul. And she took the opportunity to make the stillborn her new body. And for once the new creature grew into a strong woman. Looking quite similar to Alyena, though thanks to Corvus’ genes she was extremely pale. (Think Snow White the Amazon.)

At least she got Corvus’ shadow related powers in the bargain. Even if it came with the associated insecurities.

Even if she’s on the wrong side of the galaxy, Alyena plots to get out of the lab. Somehow.

[plus-i-miss-you]

Hello, Lina!! I wish you luck and hope you can have lots of fun with your new blog!! How about a request to help you kick off? 👀 Headcanons for t2!Mikoto and Orekoto with a guard gn!reader that tries to keep Mikoto from getting too stressed when interrogating him? Basically, they don't want to push him too hard. After the end of trial 1, I was thinking about how I would have preferred Mikoto and Orekoto over Kotoko as allies if I was a guard, haha.

▷ listening to:

"i won't hurt you, i promise" (gn!reader)

⇆ㅤ ㅤ◁ㅤ ❚❚ ㅤ▷ ㅤㅤ↻ ılıılıılıılıılıılıㅤㅤ

♪ note: thank you sm aurora! i hope you like this one! (again. probably came out too cute ahshajaj)

♪ summary: okay, maybe voting a guy with undiagnosed did (and an alter who is extremely protective of him) guilty wasn't a good idea. wishing to make amends and get to know these two better, you try to help these two feel at least a bit safer in this hellhole known as milgram prison.

♪ warnings: mostly none, except there's a description of john trying to make the reader believe that he's the "evil" alter in an attempt to protect mikoto. the reader doesn't believe him though and it's mostly lighthearted. also the reader is kinda supposed to be a "replacement" of es, since they're the reason why mikoto's been voted guilty and there's a mention of.. well, what happened in mikoto's first vd.

mikoto kayano.

♪ "y/n, d-don't get me wrong, i don't mind the attention, but seriously, i'm fine! my head hurts a little bit, but other than that-"

oh, but you know well that this man is not fine at all. you're glad to see that mikoto is doing better after.. well, everything that happened with kotoko and all, but you refuse to leave him alone even for a minute. yes, you're worried about him. why wouldn't you be? voting him guilty was your decision and you're not sure it was the correct one (well, you certainly were shocked after watching his video, haha..) and you're ready to take responsibility for it. you just hope kotoko really won't try to attack him (or anyone, really) again..

♪ you make sure to do everything in your power to help mikoto when he's feeling stressed or anxious and you know that this guy really doesn't like to show how he really feels. but you recognize the signs pretty easily, so no matter how hard he tries, you're already there, asking if he's okay. yes, he's still a prisoner, but that doesn't mean you're just gonna interrogate him until he loses consciousness because of how tired he is. so you try your best to check up on him as often as you possibly can. and no, you have no idea why the other prisoners are saying you have your favorites. 

♪ when you're interrogating him, you tell him that it's okay if he doesn't remember something and he doesn't have to force himself to remember it, especially if it's something that can be traumatic for him. of course, you still try to learn at least some new information, that's your job after all, but you try not to push him too hard. you don't mind if john appears again, but you also want to make sure mikoto himself feels safe. whenever he gets distracted, you gently get him back on track and remind him why he's here and if you notice that he's starting to get visibly anxious, you ask if he needs anything and change the topic and try to go back to the question you had once he calms down.

♪ yes, you feel bad about voting him guilty. maybe it really wasn't the right choice. and when mikoto gives you that lost and confused look, asking why you voted him guilty and feeling like he did something wrong.. yeah, you don't feel so good about it. he looks like a sad puppy when he does it and you refuse to look him in the eyes when it happens. so, uh.. you just try to make it up to him by still letting him do things that make him at least a little bit happy. he can sit in his cell and draw stuff if he wants. you can even take a look if he's okay with that. you can also try to help him start hanging out with the other prisoners again-

"h-hey, y/n.. do you know why everyone's kind of.. i don't wanna sound like i'm blaming them or anything, but is it just me or they're avoiding me for some reason?"

.. ah, about that.

john kayano.

♪ o-okay, now you have to try to get along with this guy. and to your surprise, it wasn't.. that hard? he still doesn't fully trust you, that's for sure. but even though your first meeting didn't go that well (him beating you up and almost killing you in the process, romantic, isn't it?), when you've finally managed to make john trust you and believe that you're not dangerous and you're not planning to hurt mikoto (it took.. a lot of time), he started to act a little bit calmer around you. he's still mad at you, for obvious reasons. he has no idea what you saw in that video, but you still voted mikoto guilty. and he won't forgive you so easily.

♪ whenever you try to learn more about mikoto (or john's?..) crime, john tries really hard to make it seem like he's the one at fault. he's the one to blame, not mikoto. just forgive mikoto already, is that so hard? you really think that guy is capable of murdering someone? and you really don't want to suspect these two, but again, that's your job. and you know well that all prisoners are murderers at least in some way. so when john says that he murdered someone to help mikoto relieve his stress.. it just.. doesn't make any sense. you don't say it out loud though and just say that you're not going to try and figure out which one is innocent and which one is guilty. you're going to judge both of them and you will try your best to be fair, but you're not going to point a finger at one of them and go "you're the bad guy here". not at least before you really do get a confirmation that one of them is the murderer.

♪ john tries to play it cool, doing the whole "tch.. do what you want" thing, but on the inside?? he's LOSING IT. hey. hey. he's the murderer. he's the bad one. he's the evil one. just leave mikoto alone already. however, that's not the only reason why he's kinda going insane. he's just.. not used to being treated like this. what do you mean you see him and mikoto as two different people and treat them as such. why are you so nice to both of them. he's not surprised that mikoto feels safe around you, this guy is way too naive (yes, he means it in an affectionate way), but why does he also feel kind of.. whatever. just remember to forgive mikoto and everything will be fine.

♪ when you hear the infamous "weird noises coming from mikoto's cell", you know well that it's john's doing, so you go pay him a visit. you try to talk to him about whatever that's bothering him, and when he asks just why are you "acting like this" (he's talking about being nice.), you simply say that it's also a part of your job. yes, you're supposed to judge the prisoners, but you don't want anything to happen to them before all three trials are over. he looks at you for a moment, processing your words and says that it sounds like a lie, though you can't hear any anger in his voice, he actually sounds a little confused. you sigh and try to fix his hair that's been messy since the second trial started.

"well, you're not exactly being honest with me either."

[gachawolfiebloom]

Love Malfunction

Chapter 2: Something Is Wrong

Summary: Love is in the air as the Mushroom Kingdom is celebrating Valentine's Day, except for a certain someone. Mr Puzzles has hated the holiday ever since he can remember, seeing how nobody loved him his whole life. That is until he unexpectedly runs into his loathsome enemy, Mario. After the encounter with the stupid plumber, things only get worse for the television as he starts hacking up flower petals, pink ooze drips from his screen, and for some reason these symptoms worsen anytime the TV man gets around the red Italian. Now the both of them must fix this before their days of romance turn into disaster.

He couldn't see it. He couldn't see anything. All that surrounded him was darkness. The same darkness from where he entered this hellhole. But that wasn't all...

Something was...off.

His body felt like it was being weighed down, an extreme pain in his chest that caused immense suffering anytime he breathed. Where were his legs? He had made use without them before, but this wasn't his doing. It felt like they had been ripped clean off. Why can't he feel his arms? It was as if they had been replaced by deep roots that implanted the same pain from within his screaming chest. His vision had been blurred out by his broken screen, but not like that mattered with all this eternal blackness around him. After moments of silence, he began to speak.

"Ugh. Wh- What happened...?"

His body stayed locked in its position despite his urges to fight it. Panic began to settle in as the situation began to sink into his memory.

"Why can't I move? What's going on!? Am I back at the asylum!?"

By this point he was desperate for somebody, anybody to come to his aid. Leggy, Smg4, even Mario. Nobody was there. Nobody was around to help. He was alone.

"Huh?"

His attention then shifted to a pile on the ground beneath him. They looked like...rose petals?

"What...What is this?"

Begging for a closer look, he resisted the urge to succumb to the unbearable suffering within him as he used his weird arms to crawl over. He didn't understand. It was just an innocent pile of petals. There wasn't anything special about them. Nothing but a display of pity.

That's when the pile began to stir like some kind of creature was underneath. The petals scattered to reveal an unconscious man. He was suddenly petrified when he saw who it was.

"N-No...It can't be..."

He couldn't believe what he just saw. It can't be. There's no way it could be him.

"Mar-"

~

Mr Puzzles woke up with a start, sitting up while accompanied by a cold and shaky breath. Sweat lines were imaged on his screen and his shaky grip clutched the sides of his rickety bed. That tragic climax, that horrifying scene. Puzzles couldn't stop replaying those ghastly images that were imbedded in his mind. He let out an unsteady sigh and tried to act as optimistic as possible.

"Heh...just a nightmare. Fleeting shadows of my past. That's all."

But he still kept thinking about that last part. Was his dream a sign for his oncoming future or was it-

All of a sudden, Mr Puzzles felt something get caught in the wires of his throat. He covered his hands over his mouth in queasiness, feeling as if he was going to throw up. In a flash, Mr Puzzles ran over to the dirty bathroom in his household and held his head over the sink, coughing up a storm. Looking back up at his tired expression in the mirror, he saw what had made him so nauseous. A couple of flower petals stuck in the drain. At first, he was confused, trying to make sense of a television hacking up freaking petals that belonged in nature, not his beautiful body.

Then a line from yesterday made the realization instantly clear.

"I hate this flower. Nothing but a display of pity."

Mr Puzzles soon felt something he hadn't experienced in a long time. Fear. He gasped and fell over, causing the mirror to slip from its perch and shatter into thousands of pieces on the floor. The TV-headed man said nothing in that moment as all he could muster was a pained gulp, feeling more flower petals run back down hence they came from. He stared at his cracked reflection in the broken glass shards before getting up rapidly and steadily, wobbling a little bit with one step.

"The flower- Where's the flower!?"

Mr Puzzles kicked the door open and ran back to the spot he'd left the rose last night, his run down table used for capturing many movies that were supposed to put him back on top. Obviously that didn't happen, but Mr Puzzles was too stressed out to worry about it right now. A clear sign that something was definitely wrong with him. As he ran, he kept panicking to himself. "Oh please be there! Oh please, please, please-"

He skidded to a stop and looked down to find the rose exactly where he had put it, except now it had some kind of mystical glow around it, vaguely noticeable, but still a noteworthy factor. Well, at least it didn't pull that old trick of conveniently disappearing and the hero having to set off on a crucial adventure to retrieve the item of importance. Mr Puzzles has seen that classic set up a million times, but he'd never seen anything like this before. The television snatched the flower up and held it close, not letting it out of his sight this time.

"Those petals...they look just like the ones on this rose Mario gave me."

He ran his finger very gingerly over the pretty petals in observation, but his tone soon turned to annoyance and aggressiveness while his face glitched into a peeved expression.

"Mario..."

~

"Mario, how many goddamn times do I have to tell you!? CLEAN. UP. THE. KITCHEN."

Smg4 shoved a broom into the Italian's hands, pointing towards the stains all over the floor of none other than spaghetti sauce. "But Mario hates cleaning!" He whined as Four ignored his pleas and stated "Too bad! You caused this mess and you're going to clean it up! Understand?" Mario shrunk to the size of a Goomba and innocently nodded, scared of his best friend's anger. "Good! Don't leave this kitchen until it's sparkling!"

He slammed the door and Mario soon regained his normal size, sweeping while groaning "Mama mia...Mario didn't know Es-mg-4 hates cooking lessons." He kept sweeping sadly when he heard someone go "Psssst..." The noise made him jump, looking all around the room when another "Psssst..." was heard. For some reason, the plumber's first instinct was to look towards the sky and squint his eyes. "God...is that you?"

"No you half brained dimwit! Over here!" The voice whisper shouted. Mario raised an eyebrow and glanced over at the window, where Mr Puzzles was peeking out of. He had draped a dark hood over him and was gesturing the Italian to come closer. "Oh, it's you TV man! Want-a some spaghetti sauce?" He picked up a dirty wad of sauce off the floor that was crawling with bugs and germs. Mr Puzzles grimaced squeamishly and hissed "Shut it or you're gonna give us away! Just follow me!"

Apparently, the red plumber didn't find it suspicious in the slightest. It could have been a trap or a trick, but he just dropped the broom and said "Okie dokie!" The fat Italian hoisted himself on the windowsill and fell face first into the dirt. "Mario's all good!" He mumbled into the ground. Once he recovered from the drop, Mr Puzzles got right into his face abruptly, boiling with rage that caused the clumsy oaf to fall over once more.

"MARIO YOU PRETENTIOUS PERPETRATOR! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!?"

Instantly believing he had done something wrong, Mario's eyes widened to saucers before he cried "No please! Mario didn't mean to leave the oven on!"

"What."

"Mario didn't know you have to change the dial!"

"I'm not here because of your inferior cooking skills."

Mario began to calm down, now in wonder and curiosity as he couldn't think of anything else he'd possibly done for Mr Puzzles to have beef with him. "Mario doesn't get it. Did he blow something up again yesterday?" The television had enough of these games as he gripped the Italian by the neck and shook him around while yelling

"STOP ACTING SO NAIVE! YOU GAVE ME THE CURSED ROSE AND NOW I'M GOING THROUGH THIS PARANORMAL SHIFT BECAUSE OF YOU!!!"

The flimsy plumber kept flailing his arms around for help until he stopped for a moment and slanted his eyebrow upwards in confusion. "What rose?"

"THE ONE YOU GAVE ME YESTERDAY THAT I TOOK HOME, AND IS NOW GLOWING, AND I SHOULD HAVE BURNED WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!!!"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the thorny rose that was still shining with the most radiant shade of red.

"THAT ROSE!!!"

Mario leaned forward to see and smiled obliviously when he saw the familiar sight. "Ooooo lookie! It's Mario's flower!"

"THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY THIS WHOLE TIME YOU INSOLENT-"

Halfway through his sentence, Mr Puzzles clutched his neck, feeling the same petals from the back of his throat. He dropped the Italian onto his back this time and ran over to the bushes, coughing more violently than this morning. An extreme worry came over Mario, something that snuffed out his usual idiotic antics whenever a close friend like Four or Meggy was in danger. But Puzzles was no friend. He was...an acquaintance. Still, the Italian ran over and rubbed his back in comfort, asking "Is TV man okie...?"

Mr Puzzles lifted his head to see velvety, crimson petals plastered over his screen and descending into the cool grass. The TV-headed man couldn't find the energy to be snappy with Mario anymore as he whispered sternly with a hint of sadness "Is this what you wanted? To see me suffer?" The plumber didn't really have a response to that. Instead, his eyes were locked onto the beautiful petals that were fluttering in the soft breeze. Finally, Mario spoke up.

"TV guy...these...these petals are the same color as Mario's hat!"

He took one between his fingers and held it up to his cap, showing the comparison. Mr Puzzles looked at him with a blank expression. He was hacking up flowers and Mario is worried about color similarities!? After staring aimlessly at each other for a while, the Italian stared down at the rose again and said "Ohhhhhh your flower matches too!" Puzzles wanted to slap him, but then his fury died down. "You're...You're telling the truth. You really have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" 

Mario shook his head and replied "Nop. But maybe Mario can help!" Thinking his situation was hopeless, Mr Puzzles curled into a ball and hugged his knees, pulling his hood tighter over his television box. "How can you help? My throat feels like it's literally dying and you were my only lead."

"Easy!" Mario pulled out some giant pliers and assured "Mario will yank that nasty weed out like a tooth!" No way was that going to be an option for Mr Puzzles as he screamed and covered his non-existent mouth in horror. "Keep those nasty things away from my beautiful screen!" The red plumber grumbled and threw the pliers off into the sky grudgingly.

Depresso was rummaging through the garbage cans on the other side of the Showgrounds and found a family of rats living inside. "Ah! Finally, somebody who will listen to my jokes!" Suddenly, he felt a dark shadow cast among him and he turned his head in confusion. Next thing he knew, the pliers jammed themselves through his head, causing the run down clown to run around, screaming aimlessly.

Mr Puzzles and Mario stared awkwardly at the violent scene until they shifted eye contact with one another again. The Italian threw on a nervous smile and innocently asked "Ha..ha..who did that?" The TV man rolled his eyes in displeasure and abruptly said "Is there any way you can help WITHOUT torturing me!?" He couldn't help but let out another loud cough with a little wheezing this time. Mario pondered that question with a lack of knowledge until a lightbulb went off in his head.

"Ooooo we can go to the game room!"

"And how the hell does some stupid video games solve my problem?"

"No silly! The computers! We can use them to search up TV guy's condition!"

Mr Puzzles tapped his chin and said "Y'know, that's actually not a bad idea." The offer brought a pleasant smile to his face, figuring out who or what the cause of this perplexing incident was. "Well then, lead on my dear boy!" He was about to put his best foot forward, but was then stopped when a certain big nosed Italian tugged on his hand, urging him about something.

"We can't just go in there willy nilly! Our a***** will get caught for sure! We'll have to get past...Smg4."

[zoswriting]

┊͙✧˖*°࿐ welcome to my blog!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ me

hi! my name is zoya—but i mainly go by zo or zoe on social media. i’m a british pakistani reader (and i write occasionally, i guess). i’m a computer science and all-things-tech nerd, along with a heavy passion for photography, lemon cake, cats, strawberries, and purple. heavy on the purple, if you couldn’t tell.

i enjoy reading, writing, or just lazing in bed (like a cat, indeed), usually with my earphones in. you can normally find me blasting chase atlantic, diljit dosanjh, the weeknd, badshah, or any other artist in my 27 hour long spotify playlist into my ears at almost-max volume to try and escape from the hellhole that is this world.

i’d like to say that i’m an incredibly funny person, but i don’t know how many people would agree. if you do, though, please let me know (i’m pretty sure i have a praise/validation kink of some sorts…)

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ my blog

this blog is mainly going to be for my hero academia, specifically for the character shoto todoroki (i’m heavily infatuated with that man, and i have been for over five years now. it’s really unhealthy, but i don’t think i want help anymore.), so if you don’t like him, this may not be the blog for you. however, if persuaded enough, i might write something for some other characters. maybe. if you’re lucky, or if i feel like it—but either way, don’t get your hopes up.

the writing on here will mainly consist of one-shots, little drabbles, or little scenarios i make up (which, again, will pretty much all be around shoto. who’s shocked?). i write fluff, however i may write the occasional smut/lemons—if that term is even still used… is that just a wattpad thing?—if the embarrassment doesn’t catch up to me. you may even see the occasional angst post, but it probably won’t be that common. i like to stay happy, thank you. in any case, just don’t expect consistency from me. writer’s block enjoys holding me captive for a good few months just to release me back into the wild and start the cycle all over again.

anyways, this is getting too long, and tiktok has ruined everyone’s attention spans, i’m sure. so…

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ tl;dr

i write for shoto todoroki from mha, with the exceptions of a few others if i feel up to it, which will probably be extremely rarely. these writings will include one-shots, smut/lemons, scenarios/headcannons, or anything else that i feel motivated enough to write.

i hope you all enjoy this page! i’m open to suggestions too, feel free to submit any specific request in my asks, and i’ll try my best to heed to your wishes! thank you for reading <33

psst… i’m an old lady when it comes to tumblr. i had way too much of a struggle writing this. you may have to bear with.

[the-view]

Another from M.A. Rothman (I thought I had misplaced this)

I don’t think I’ve posted this previously to my author profile, sorry if it’s a duplicate.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚: 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐈𝐬 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

By Karin McQuillan

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment."

In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country. Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism.

Last time I was in Paris, I saw a beautiful African woman in a grand boubou have her child defecate on the sidewalk next to Notre Dame Cathedral. The French police officer, ten steps from her, turned his head not to see.

I have seen. I am not turning my head and pretending unpleasant things are not true.

Senegal was not a hellhole. Very poor people can lead happy, meaningful lives in their own cultures' terms. But they are not our terms. The excrement is the least of it. Our basic ideas of human relations, right and wrong, are incompatible.

As a twenty-one-year-old starting out in the Peace Corps, I loved Senegal. In fact, I was euphoric. I quickly made friends and had an adopted family. I relished the feeling of the brotherhood of man. People were open, willing to share their lives and, after they knew you, their innermost thoughts.

The longer I lived there, the more I understood: it became blindingly obvious that the Senegalese are not the same as us. The truths we hold to be self-evident are not evident to the Senegalese. How could they be? Their reality is totally different. You can't understand anything in Senegal using American terms.

Take something as basic as family. Family was a few hundred people, extending out to second and third cousins. All the men in one generation were called "father." Senegalese are Muslim, with up to four wives. Girls had their clitorises cut off at puberty. (I witnessed this, at what I thought was going to be a nice coming-of-age ceremony, like a bat mitzvah or confirmation.)

Sex, I was told, did not include kissing. Love and friendship in marriage were Western ideas. Fidelity was not a thing. Married women would have sex for a few cents to have cash for the market.

What I did witness every day was that women were worked half to death. Wives raised the food and fed their own children, did the heavy labor of walking miles to gather wood for the fire, drew water from the well or public faucet, pounded grain with heavy hand-held pestles, lived in their own huts, and had conjugal visits from their husbands on a rotating basis with their co-wives. Their husbands lazed in the shade of the trees.

Yet family was crucial to people there in a way Americans cannot comprehend.

The Ten Commandments were not disobeyed – they were unknown. The value system was the exact opposite. You were supposed to steal everything you can to give to your own relatives. There are some Westernized Africans who try to rebel against the system. They fail.

We hear a lot about the kleptocratic elites of Africa. The kleptocracy extends through the whole society. My town had a medical clinic donated by international agencies. The medicine was stolen by the medical workers and sold to the local store. If you were sick and didn't have money, drop dead. That was normal.

So here in the States, when we discovered that my 98-year-old father's Muslim health aide from Nigeria had stolen his clothes and wasn't bathing him, I wasn't surprised. It was familiar.

In Senegal, corruption ruled, from top to bottom. Go to the post office, and the clerk would name an outrageous price for a stamp. After paying the bribe, you still didn't know it if it would be mailed or thrown out. That was normal.

One of my most vivid memories was from the clinic. One day, as the wait grew hotter in the 110-degree heat, an old woman two feet from the medical aides – who were chatting in the shade of a mango tree instead of working – collapsed to the ground. They turned their heads so as not to see her and kept talking. She lay there in the dirt. Callousness to the sick was normal.

Americans think it is a universal human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's not. It seems natural to us because we live in a Bible-based Judeo-Christian culture.

We think the Protestant work ethic is universal. It's not. My town was full of young men doing nothing. They were waiting for a government job. There was no private enterprise. Private business was not illegal, just impossible, given the nightmare of a third-world bureaucratic kleptocracy. It is also incompatible with Senegalese insistence on taking care of relatives.

All the little stores in Senegal were owned by Mauritanians. If a Senegalese wanted to run a little store, he'd go to another country. The reason? Your friends and relatives would ask you for stuff for free, and you would have to say yes. End of your business. You are not allowed to be a selfish individual and say no to relatives. The result: Everyone has nothing.

The more I worked there and visited government officials doing absolutely nothing, the more I realized that no one in Senegal had the idea that a job means work. A job is something given to you by a relative. It provides the place where you steal everything to give back to your family.

I couldn't wait to get home. So why would I want to bring Africa here? Non-Westerners do not magically become American by arriving on our shores with a visa.

For the rest of my life, I enjoyed the greatest gift of the Peace Corps: I love and treasure America more than ever. I take seriously my responsibility to defend our culture and our country and pass on the American heritage to the next generation.

African problems are made worse by our aid efforts. Senegal is full of smart, capable people. They will eventually solve their own country's problems. They will do it on their terms, not ours. The solution is not to bring Africans here.

We are lectured by Democrats that we must privilege third-world immigration by the hundred million with chain migration. They tell us we must end America as a white, Western, Judeo-Christian, capitalist nation – to prove we are not racist. I don't need to prove a thing. Leftists want open borders because they resent whites, resent Western achievements, and hate America. They want to destroy America as we know it.

As President Trump asked, why would we do that?

We have the right to choose what kind of country to live in. I was happy to donate a year of my life as a young woman to help the poor Senegalese. I am not willing to donate my country.

https://www.americanthinker.com/.../what_i_learned_in...

[koibitogata]

sage forest mental institution.

chapter 1. pilot Dingy job at a dingy asylum in a dingy town. Everything goes wrong. CW: unfortunately slightly comedic because I can't help myself but it won't always be this way, hopefully 2.8k words

Note: You are referred to as Reader. Y/N is a bit too much of a hassle to type.

You sigh as you're tossed into the back of a car, with the man named Jeff grumbling about how he can't kill you, with Masky admonishing him, Toby ticking away, Hoodie pinning you down, and EJ hanging his head.

You wonder how you got here, and that questioning is so intense you feel your system being choked up with tears, eyes stinging and throat hurting.

So here's how you got here:

You couldn't believe you got the job.

Staring down the asylum on the hill, you thought it was pretty much the typical cliche asylum on a hill. Like, literally, with dark clouds surrounding the cliff it stood on, the sky thundering. Except this time, the sky was a clear blue, contrasting the dark colors of the brutalist-style architecture asylum. You wondered if the walls were a faded greyish-black because it was supposed to be black but the paint faded over time, or if it was originally another color and no one had maintained it for ages. Either way would honestly work, seeing as this asylum was on the outskirts of town, a town that rarely anyone passed, which was ironic, because it was just an hour and a half away from the city. Behind that town was a big patch of forest. Everyone you knew in this town—and you knew everyone—knew not to go into those woods.

And it wasn't as if you were the social type, no. You were pretty friendly, but you didn't consider yourself as someone who would go out of their way to meet others. No, in fact, it was because this town was so small, even the goddamn sheriff was related to you in some way. Your paternal cousin's uncle on his maternal side, yeah yeah, long story that you didn't want to recall. You'd moved into this small decrepit town not because you wanted a romantic getaway from the city or whatever (this place was hardly romantic), but because your place burned down.

Good, you had thought, good riddance of that fucking hellhole where my lifegivers stayed, acting like I was some tenant. Actually, I don't even think a tenant should be treated that way, abused verbally and emotionally.

Barely 3 months had passed after their deaths before that godforsaken house burned down in the suburbs where no one would hear your cries. You recalled having the happiest day of your life when you called 911, and the second happiest day when the half-assed murder investigations finished.

And a week after that day, your house burned down. Crashed and reduced to nothing but ashes. Pretty comical, you'd thought, but then you were out of a place to live.

Sighing, you'd packed whatever stuff you had left after the fire—the clothes on your back, your phone and your precious journal—and hauled ass to the town  on the other side of the city, where your cousin's dog's foster parent's friend or whatever lived.

Really good reason why no one came here, you'd realized, when you reached the town and even the goddamn sign was either burned down or too covered in bird shit to even see the actual sign itself anymore. It's impossible for bird shit and burnt wood to be differentiated, you'd thought, until you met that sign, stared lovingly into its eyes, and immediately fucked off because it was so horridly gross.

You'd knocked on the sheriff's office door, which was in some old-time 1970s building, because you had no clue who to go to in this town. Turns out, the sheriff was more like some village elder than law reinforcement.

"No one tries anything in this town," he'd said with a cigarette in his mouth. "No one." You didn't know if it was because there wasn't enough people in this town for anyone to try anything, or if the sheriff was just incompetent.

No matter. He'd plopped you down on the patio of an abandoned house, whose condition could honestly be way worse. After an entire weekend of spring cleaning the house, you finally had a comfortable (enough) place to live in. It wasn't so bad, you thought.

"There's an asylum behind this town, on the cliff. Sage Forest Mental Institution, or just SF. You can't miss it, it's pretty much visible from everywhere," said the sheriff. Anderson, his nameplate said. "Don't try anything with it. God knows what those teenagers from the city have tried to do in there, but they never came out," he said with a scoff, propelling the smoke in his nose to jet out in a big puff.

You were insane enough to apply for a job at that asylum. Of course, you didn't tell the sheriff. You told no one. None of the, what, twenty people who lived in this town, who'd gathered to welcome the new neighbor. Honestly, it might as well have been called a village at this point. Your fellow town-dwellers were nice, but as you gazed them in their eyes, you noticed something off. Eye contact was noticeably weaker than it was where you previously lived, but you chalked it down to the small population size. Hell, there wasn't even a 7-11. Just a tiny grocery shop. You probably couldn't even get condoms there, which was ironic, because the birth rate would supposedly go up without protection, and thus, population size.

Just as you'd finished contemplating your life choices and the absence of condoms in a small town, you stepped past the threshold of the doorway separating the asylum from the outside world.

Dingy. Horribly dingy, poorly maintained, old building smell. Those words were what came to your mind the moment you were able to take in the inside of the building.

"You the new hire?" A voice so rudely interrupted your admiration for cobwebs on the ceiling. A woman, tanned skin and dark hair, looked at you with an almost impatient aura.

"Uh...yeah. Hi, I'm Reader," you introduced yourself politely with a light chuckle, hoping to lighten the atmosphere, get her to be nicer, anything that could help save your ass from a toxic work environment.

Instead, she rolled her eyes with an "ugh", and droned, "I'm Andrea. Follow me."

Okay, so much for a healthy work environment.

And so you followed her. If you were being honest, you had no idea what to expect. An asylum in a town this remote was one thing, but you didn't know whether to expect many patients, or very few. You also had zero gauge on the employee count, and if the building size was anything to go by, you would've guessed maybe fifty, sixty or so.

But nope, as you walked behind Andrea, you heard nothing but the echoing of your footsteps and your now co-worker muttering angrily about something like why'd they choose me to go all the way out here and useless fucks, the latter of which was very ambiguous as to whom she was referring to. The building had almost no lights, either, and you wondered if there was even water or electricity in this place. Everything was confusing you at this point. But oh well, you thought, you had a steady pay and that was enough.

Begrudgingly, she led you to an unlit back room directly behind what was probably supposed to be a main counter. "This isn't the main building of SF," she started, setting a box down, and as it made contact with the floor, you heard plastics rustling—these were probably meds for the patients. "The main branch is a whole 3 hours away, and for some godforsaken reason," she punctuated with a glare at you, "they sent a measly 5 patients over here and got me aaaall the way over here just to introduce some newbie to their duties," she grumbled. You had no idea whether this was directed to you, or if she was just talking to herself.

She sighed and stood up, facing you. "I won't be here for long. I'm just here to deliver instructions." She fumbled around in the box, causing more plastic to rustle. The noise was almost jarring and you swore you heard it echo off the walls of the empty store room. Again, you thought it was ironic. She pulled out a file from the box and hastily shoved it into your arms. This prompted you to open up the file, and though you couldn't read its contents too well in the darkness, you made something like a table of instructions, timings and diets out.

Just as you thought you'd finally gotten the gist of what you were reading, Andrea snatched it out of your hands and tossed it into the trash below the main counter.

What the fuck?

Your jaw left itself agape. You had no idea, at this point, what you were expecting, what you were currently expecting, and what to expect at all in the future. Why on God's green earth did your weirdly cranky co-worker toss the only instructions you had at all in this dingy place into the trash?

Upon taking in your shocked expression, she sighed and rolled her eyes. Yet another show of begrudgingness. "Look, I know you're new and all and you might have the gusto to work or some shit, but no one is here. No one. You aren't even required to report back to the main branch, I bet no one over there cares and not even the guy in charge of this entire village gives a measly fuck, and the 5 they dragged over here probably creeped out those at the main branch. Look, your job here is, as admin told me, to keep them alive." Upon noticing that your expression was still slack, she decided to oh-so-kindly dumb it down for you. "That is to say, if they die, it's no one's problem."

You wondered how it was possible for your jaw to go even more slack, but it did anyway. But before you could utter any words, oh you had *so many questions*, and so many profanities to cushion those words between, Andrea turned tail and nearly skipped away. You could've sworn she was a ghost, with how quickly she appeared and disappeared.

*What the absolute fuck is that work ethic?

It was actually, legitimately so bad that you drifted over to the main counter, sank into a chair behind it, and buried your face into your hands.

What the fuck just happened? What did she say to me? Why do I know the words she said but not what she said? What is that work ethic? What about the patients you're supposed to take care of and treat with kindness? Did HQ abandon me or something? What the absolute fresh fuck is that work ethic?

You swear you turned into a ghost or something too, because you felt your very soul leave your body.

It took you all of 45 minutes to gather your wits, and finally stand up, because holy shit, that work ethic was so bad it literally dealt a blow to your *own* mental health. But no matter, you told yourself. You're here to take care of patients, and damn right will you take care of those patients.

After picking the file up from the trash and dusting it off, you confidently strode down the hall.

It was at this moment that you realized that Andrea had work ethic so abhorrent that she never even showed you where the patients were. This cost you another 5 minutes, which you spent crouched down on the floor sobbing so hard you shed tears, and you had no idea if you were laughing in despair or if you were crying from a really bad joke.

After a hard slap or two to your face, you straightened up. How hard could it be to find 5 goddamn patients? If you're lucky, they'd even be right next to each other!

They were not.

Of course they weren't.

For after what felt like hours of wandering the interior of the building, you finally came across an area where light flooded onto the floor from the window of a cell. Gasping in relief, you damn near ran over to the cell, but then remembered you probably shouldn't make any sudden movements around the insane, and immediately slowed down, increasingly so as you neared the source of the light from the window to your right.

You came to a stop at the window and turned your head to the right.

Right in your face was a Cheshire grin. A blood-red grin, teeth so white it almost rivaled the sun, but oh, this person's eyes.

Unblinking, black irises so dark you could have mistaken them for the pupils themselves, sclera so bright in comparison and yet bloodshot, and eyelids rimmed in black, like a smokey eye makeup look, but dear god, this was DEFINITELY not makeup. His eyes scared the shit out of you, and you felt like you had to physically grab your soul from leaving your body.

Your vision blurred for a moment. The colors white, black and light blue.

"Whoa there, sweetheart. Can't have you fainting on us."

Those words in a raspy voice brought you back to earth.

The person, the person with not-smokey-eye-makeup and a Cheshire grin, was speaking to you. You blinked and your vision refocused. A dark eyebrow was raised at you, rippling near-white skin. You wondered if it was face paint, but then remembered that one could not procure face paint from asylum air in the middle of nowhere.

"Uhh," was your intelligent response. The man—it was clear, from the baritone of his voice—chuckled, eyes still unblinking, though narrowing a little as the chuckle reached his eyes. But he didn't stop chuckling, no, this man doubled over, laughter reaching a crescendo.

"HEY! HEY, YOU SEE THAT, BEN?!" He howled, gripping at his light blue hospital gown.

Who was this Ben?

"Oh, don't worry about it," he chuckled, wiping a tear from his still wide open eye. "I'm gonna kill you anyway."

Huh?

Before you could even dismiss his words as something a crazy person would say, the glass in front of you shattered, and out shot his hand, veiny and as pale as the rest of him. He nearly tore your clothes with the sheer force at which he pulled you forward, hands wrapping around your throat, constricting breath, blood flow, and your senses.

Nails. Your nails, they dug into something. Your hands hurt. Your eyes teared up, and your lungs screamed for air.

Something like a voice sounded behind you, though at this point, your hearing had left you, but you felt your center of gravity lower and something hit your ass hard, followed by your skull.

You regained your senses and gagged, hands around your own throat, eyes tearing up even more now, and your body couldn't decide if it wanted to choke, gasp for air, or throw up. You heaved and heaved, for ages and ages, till your mind grasped reality again.

Yelling. Yelling, from two different voices, from two different directions. The one behind you was named Jeff, apparently, and the newcomer—there was a newcomer?—was called Masky. Or Tim, but just as that name popped up, Jeff's quarrel was cut off, followed by choking sounds. Deja vu, you thought, as you turned around to see another patient in a hospital gown holding Jeff—the one with wide eyes and a scary grin— by the jaw. Or was it his throat?

"Shut the fuck up," Masky or Tim spat viciously. "And stop killing random people. The reason we're still here is because you keep fucking KILLING our keyholders, and then shifting to a new room every goddamn time! What the actual FUCK," he snarled, "is WRONG with you that you can't compre—"

A loud slap, and Masky-not-Tim fell to the ground.

No, it wasn't a slap. It was way too powerful to be one. Perhaps it should be called a blow instead. Whatever it was got him knocked out cold for a whole of 2 seconds—2 seconds that Jeff took to vault over where the glass was supposed to be, and grab ahold of you again, but not before Masky lunged and pulled him down by the neck, sending them both tumbling into the mess of glass shards, a tangle of limbs.

Honestly, you didn't know what to think. Your first instinct was to run, away from Jeff, but your second was to stay and help Masky, your benefactor. Your final, rational thought, was to break them apart, and so you did, but Jeff's flailing caught you in the face.

You blacked out.

chapter 2 is out.

[nevereverthem]

Imagine after sending Ms. Cuddles away that Bonnie developed insomnia which eventually led to Kai becoming Mr. Cuddles 🥰

TVD :

Given the moment this happens, I couldn't get myself to make her lose sleep and end up in Kai's arms as if they didn't mutually stabbed each other not so long ago. Since I kind of try to stick to how the character was written.... before the merge, he doesn't show much empathetic pretty feelings.

So here's my version, with a little twist.

PS : I intended it to be quite short but got carried away. I ended up talking about numerous things before getting to the point, but I hope you'll still enjoy the story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 10th 1994, prison world.

An eclipse. Kai Parker. Bonnie Bennett.

She was chanting a spell that would bring them back to their world.... It stopped abruptly. She's lost her magic. In fact, she's just put her magic in her beloved Miss Cuddles, sending the teddy bear to the 2010's.

Kai's cry resonated through the cave. He walk-rushed right to Bonnie.

_ Where's the stupid bear ?

_ Oh, it's gone. I guess we're stuck here. Forever.

She holds his gaze, whispering.

_ Sorry.

He inhales loudly, an incredulous laugh escaping his mouth.

_ Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie.... You'll regret this.

His psycho smile's been replaced by a menacing expression.

_ I don't think so.

She seems confident, despite being aware of the fact she's locked herself up with a killer. She couldn't let him out of this prison, in the present, murdering more members of his family.

_ You lost your powers. You've doomed us to be stuck here for damn eternity ! You think you had it bad during four months ? Try eighteen years. Alone. 'Cause, I suppose you don't fancy a truce with the enemy around a nice diner.

_ I'd rather die starved and dehydrated under the burning sun than spend one more day with you around.

He huffs in response.

_ Right.... You'll want me back. Somehow. When you've gone insane from the loneliness. No sounds at all, except from yours. Tired of your own voice, you'd rather punch your face than to hear one more syllable come out of your mouth. When you're on the verge of suicide, with no escape from your own mind.... When all of your being craves the only thing left, human company....

He slides a hand in his pocket, pulling out his pager.

_ Beep me ! 555hikai. I'll come and watch the show.

The last thing Bonnie sees is Kai's sadistic grin growing on his face. Then she turns her back, determined to get as far away from him as possible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The witch spends several more months in this prison world, going through the routine she had with Damon, now on her own. It seems like Kai didn't bother following her to haunt her days. She's stopped being useful to him after all.

At first she's holding on, hoping Damon got the teddy bear. Her friends will find a way, they'll come and get her out of here. She's counting on them, as they counted on her so many times. She concentrates her thoughts on happy memories with her friends. She counts the days to keep tract of the real time. When supposed-Christmas season comes, she even decorates a tree with garlands and christmas bulbs. Shortly after, she's hit by a wave of angry desperation and burns the tree. Who does she fake happiness for ?

A few more months later, it all becomes unbearable. It's her birthday. She's still in that hellhole. Alone. She's read every book she could find, searched every mystical object. Nothing. No way out. She's been stuck in this place for nearly a year now and she's had enough.

In a last celebration, she finally decides to open the bottle of bourbon Damon and her had made a pact on. After drinking three quarter of the bottle, she walks to the garage, closing the outside door. She starts the car so the carbon monoxide begins filling the room. Then, she slumps down the floor, back against the vehicle.

A camera in hands, she presses the recording button and starts talking.

_ I'm Bonnie Bennett, locked in a time loop in 1994. Elena, Damon, whoever.... Hi. If you find that video, it means you've managed your way in. It means you didnt give up on me....

Tears start gathering in her eyes.

_ I miss you. I miss you so much.... I miss saying hi to strangers, ordering diner in a restaurant, laughing with my friends. Every day with no one to talk to. Going weeks without speaking. The loneliness....

She bumps her head onto the car behind, crying....

_ I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.... I can't.... I promise I tried....

Her sobbing turns into a cough.

_ You know, Kai told me I wouldn't last long. I almost miss him.

She chuckles at her own statement, tears running down her cheeks.

_ You hear that Damon ? I miss that sociopathic murderer. Not that I'd ever forgive his manipulation, the arrow shoot, the chasing, the manhandling.... but I'd settle for a talk. He's the only human left here, wherever he might be. It'd be a hell of a last talk but...

She pauses a second, pondering.

_ I can't let him win. I'm stronger. I know I am.

She immediately stops the video, forcing her body to rise. She stumbles. The gaz has filled her lungs, making her weak. She can't stop coughing, vision blurred. She falls to the floor, desperate to crawl outside....

Suddenly, she hears a door slam open, someone walking in her direction.... Kai !

She makes an effort to look up at him.

He's standing right beside the switch of the garage's door, holding an oxygen mask before his face. He seems.... pained ?

_ You didn't beep me.

Right before she falls into unconsciousness, the door opens, filling the room with fresh air. The last thing she sees is an arm lifting her up the floor and an oxygen mask crashing on her face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's strange in here. All's kinda blurry, green-ish. She doesn't recognise the place she's in.

Two children appear in front of her, coming in her direction. Before she can realise, they both pass through her body before running away.

She's a ghost. Great ! She exhales in exasperation.

She hears knocking behind her. Turning around, she sees a woman opening a door.

_ Malachai ?

Mala.... Kai ?

Bonnie urges to the room. Nobody can see her anyway. She's faced with an unexpected picture.

A little boy's sitting on his bed, brow furrowed, a sad expression on his face.

_ You hate me !

_ No, no my love, I don't hate you.

That's his mother.

_ I already told you. It's safer that way.

_ I just wanna play with my sister.

_ You can't. We don't want you to harm her.

She's stern but soft at the same time. The boy's pleading.

_ I won't ! Please !

_ Malachai, no.

He starts sobbing, tears threatening to run down his face.

He extends his arms, reaching for a hug. The woman cries in pain. It's only a second, but it's enough to hurt her. The moment he hears her pain, young Kai removes his hands, horrified.

_ Mom ?

_ It's okay.

It's faint, but she smiles at him.

Loud stomps are heard in the stairs, the face of a man appearing in the door frame. His father.

The man doesn't say anything. He comes inside the room, wraps his arms around his wife, and carries her outside.

Just before he leaves, he glares at his son, a warning look on his face. Then, he closes the door, the lock clicks. The boy's alone.

He freezes a moment, holding back his tears.

Bonnie stays there, observing him. She can't recognise the emotionless murderer she knows in that little boy standing here, petrified from his own action.

Her train of thoughts is interrupted by shouting coming from downstairs. Little Kai slowly walks to the door, putting his head on the wood, an attempt at eavesdropping. The witch imitates him.

_ See what he did to you ?

_ He didn't mean to.

_ Of course ! Like he didn't mean to siphon his sister last week !

_ He just wanted to play....

_ We almost lost her ! That power, that thing, it kills people ! It's an abomination !

_ I know !.... But he's still our son.

The boy can't hold back anymore, he breaks down, falling to his knees by the door. A flow of tears escapes his eyes, running down to his neck, staining his shirt.

_ Kai....

Bonnie raises a hand, reaching for his cheek. Her hand disappears the moment she touches his skin, sinking through his body. She can't touch anything. Despite facing the man he became, manipulative and vengeful, she can't help but want to wipe away the tears of his younger self....

All of a sudden, the image of the boy fades. It's replaced by short fragments of discussions, people....

She sees it all pass before her eyes. The family reject, locked in his room countless times. The accidental siphonings. The pain. The addiction. The help he never get, learning by himself. Hurt turning into rage. Emotions buried away. Finally d-day. Merge refused. The snap. The killings. The banishment. Flashes of his months trying to find a way out of the prison world. His desperation. The moments he broke everything around him, punching his reflection in the mirror.... Then, all his attempted suicides. As she had just tried. The thing is, he succeeded. He actually did die. Each time. Coming back to life. Each time. Trying to kill himself for years. She saw all those times, all the suicides. Stabbing himself with a knife, throwing himself off a cliff, painkillers overdose, numerous unknown needle injections, shooting an arrow at himself, cutting his arms open with a kitchen knife, car crash, real guillotine in a museum.... She felt them all. She felt them in her body. Excruciating pain, vengeance desire, hurt, rage, fellings, despair.... Then nothing. Void. Just that feeling. They're going to suffer as much as I did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bonnie snaps awake, gasping, jerking in a sitting position. She's panting, trying to catch her own breath.

She looks around. It's the Salvatore house. She's sitting on the couch next to the fireplace. She's actually sitting across someone's lap....

_ Kai !

Eyes wide, she abruptly pushes herself off of him, hands on his chest. Parts of the nightmare she just had make their way through her mind. She freezes, still too stunned to move away. Kai has an arm lazily rested around her waist, a blanket covering them both.

The man hears someone calling his name through his sleep. His eyelids open, watery from a troubled nap. He notices the eyes piercing through his own.

_ Hi ! Awake ?

The witch seems disoriented, wearing a traumatized look on her face. Kai's voice sounds too casual for the position they're in.

_ Oh, yeah, hum.... When I carried you out of the garage and took you here, you started to get all sweaty and cold. The fire and the blanket didn't help. So I figured.... the whole 'body heat' thing.... Well.

Bonnie doesn't respond. She doesn't move either. Kai waves a hand before her face. She doesn't even flinch. Given her lack of responsiveness, the man extends a leg in an attempt at walking away.

She stops him. A hand on his shoulder.

_ That was yours, right ?

The man gives her a confused look.

_ What ?

_ The nightmare... It was yours.

Now, that's his mouth whose's shut.

_ Kai ? Is this all true ? Or did you manage to feed me false visions ?

His expression's petrified, angry-sad-ish ?

_ How ? You don't have your magic back. I would have felt it. How did you-

_ I take that as a yes.

She doesn't know how it happened, how it's even possible. She must have felt him in her sleep and got into his head. She's not supposed to have her magic back. She's doesn't. But she somehow was able to get through him. All of him.

It surely doesn't feel like he's down to have that conversation. And she clearly needs time to process all she's just witnessed in her sleep. But there's one thing bugging her now. It just popped in her head. She was able to get inside his mind because she's here, alive, thanks to him....

_ How did you know I was in the garage ?

The question is enough to get the man out of his thoughts. He's expression's back to 'normal'.

_ I was watching over you.

_ You were... how ? There's nothing here you can get magic from.

A guilty smile grows on his face.

_ Hiding in a house doesn't require a cloaking spell.

The witch's dumbfounded, her mouth opening in an 'o'. She's also kind of impressed by his discreteness, and a tiny bit scared.

_ Stalker much ?

He fake-gasps, being falsy offended.

_ That stalker just saved your life !

_ Why ? You couldn't just 'enjoy the show' ?

Her quoting him after all these months sort of gives him an ego boost.

_ First, you didn't beep me, meaning you didn't know I was there, so that's no fun. Secondly, dying on your birthday ? Even I know it's pathetic. And exhaust poisoning.... Seriously ?

_ You tried it too. I saw it.

How does she.... Right, 'the nightmare'.

_ For the record, it wasn't on my first attempt.

They suddenly both fall silent. His smile fades, her expression darkens. Even though they're discussing the situation, the touchy subject of suicide affects them both too much to keep arguing.

Also, Kai doesn't know how much she saw and he's certainly not letting himself be vulnerable by slipping out information she doesn't already have.

Despite being physically close at this moment and having an oddly casual conversation with him, Bonnie is far from feeling safe. She wraps her arms around herself.

_ Are you here to kill me ?

Kai chuckles, brows furrowed, mocking her.

_ After I stopped you from doing it yourself ? That would be so evil !.... I like the way you think.

His amused grin reappear on his face. The familiarity of his expression nears reassurance. He adds.

_ I'm not here to kill you. I weirdly got used to 'not harming you'.

She huffs in response, eyeing him incredulously.

_ That's progress.

He can look as sincere as he wants, the witch isn't fooled by his words.

_ You wanted to stay close in case I ever happen to find a way out, am I right ?

_ Guilty ! But I got myself useful. I stopped you from.... You know.

Here we go again... She shakes her head, pushing the thought away.

_ Why ? We have no way out. I'm not getting my magic back.

He shrugs, terrifyingly soft in his words.

_ I still want the company.

_ The company ?

Now she's mad.

_ You shot me with and arrow !

_ You killed me with a pickaxe.

_ You murdered your siblings !

_ You....

He stops. He doesn't feel any remorse, he believes they deserved it. But he can't deny what he's done, nor can he form any excuse she would accept.

_ You know you wouldn't have popped out again like me, right ?

Change of subject ? She wants to argue and force him to explain himself, somehow. That's when she remembers the dream, the memories.... She gives in, answering the question.

_ That was the whole point....

_ Don't do that again. Please.

_ You're concerned about me now ?

He exhales, a stupid look back on his face.

_ Look, I was kinda hoping you would get up and walk out by yourself. You were about to, but then you tripped and that was it.... I couldn't let you die. I mean, if I can't get out of here, I'd rather not lose my main entertainment.

She rolls her eyes at the ceiling. That sounds more like him.

After so much unusual conversation, the witch's mouth feels dry, eyes tired, a crushing headache making its appearance. She closes her eyes, hand on her forehead. Kai notices her discomfort.

_ Hangover ?

_ Ya think ?

He nods in understanding.

_ You drank more than half the bottle of bourbon. By the way, what's their thing with bourbon ? That's, ugh !

He wears a disgusted expression, making a giggle escape from the witch's lips.

_ At least, that knocked me out. I haven't had a good night's sleep for ages.

_ I know.

His statement came out a bit too fast. He's nowhere near shy of a person but the lack of restraint in his talk leaves him with an apologetic look.

_ Did you watch me sleep ?

The accusing tone in her voice is flagrant.

_ Oh, no. Please !.... Okay once ! I was intrigued.

He is unbelievable. She's not surprised, but she'd hopped to have a little intimacy. She doesn't want to think about what else he might have seen. She's not going to ask. Ever.

She blinks a couple of times, trying to block any invasive thought about a certain man spying on a naked Bennett witch....

_ Miss Cuddles.

_ What ?

_ I've had trouble sleeping since I don't have her with me....

_ Whose fault is that ?

He's the one accusing this time.

_ I had my reasons.

Silence. He doesn't bother. The witch's mouth opens wide, letting out a loud yawn.

_ Tired ?

She only nods, slowly shifting towards the man, putting her head back on his chest.

Kai flinches at her movements.

_ What are you doing ?

_ Getting back to sleep.

_ On me ?

_ Yep.

Direct answer, as if there was no problem with that. The man frowns in confusion.

_ I may be a sociopathic murderer, Bon....

She notices him quoting what she's said recording her video a few hours ago.

_ ....but I'm clever enough to know I'm the last person you'd like to willingly cuddle with.

She steps back, looking straight in his eyes.

_ You're right. You're a bad person craving for touch, and I'm desperate. Win-win.

Her blunt logic hits something inside of him.

_ You think that low of me ?

_ Didn't show me much better.

_ Fair enough.

In a silent agreement, she places her head back on his chest, Kai's arms wrapped around her waist in a shy embrace.

_ And from what I've seen, I'm not the only one who could use a hug.

He wants to argue, but then remembers.... She knows. She saw him. Little Kai. 'Right where it hurts', he thinks.

_ Does that mean I've become your new teddy bear ? Am I the brand new Mister Cuddles ?

His voice sounds so excited it's endearing. Bonnie looks up at him. He winks, offering her a stupid grin, which hides much more. She has proof now.

_ Shut up.

She lowers her head, eyes closed.

_ If you promise not to invade my head again.

_ I'll try.

It may be a mistake, a bold move, a dumb experience, call this what you want, but she needs it. Wether it'd be a friend, a complete stranger, or an enemy.... She needs it. Human touch. She's got no magic to be sucked. It's 'safe'. For now....

A few minutes later, she's already fallen asleep.

Kai's watching her, sleeping in his arms, chest heaving at each intake of breath. He thinks about planting a kiss on top of her head, but it's not worth the risk. He doesn't remember the last time he got to hold someone, or the last time someone volunteered to hold him. He's thrown his feelings away a long time ago, but he would be lying if he'd say this didn't make his heart beat faster....

The End.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Words : 3k ~ how on earth ? When I said I got carried away. 🙄

That took fricking long to write !!

I don't even know if it actually respects the request. >< Sorry ?

Next time, say it if you want me to change Kai's personality a bit. If you want him to have more feelings than in the actual TV show, especially before the merge.

Don't hesitate to tell me your impressions.

✨❤️💀❤️✨

The Vampire Diaries Masterlist

[aihoshiino]

Having read the other ask about Hikaru being at the hospital (im not the same anon btw), I'm not very sure whether to feel reassured that he appeared at the hospital or not...because as you said, he did claim that he didn't go there or do anything, yet it is now shown as clear as day that he did (he was even talking to Ryo in the scene)...so doesn't that mean he was lying out of desperation? Wouldn't the anime simply follow this route and simply show Nino appearing later like in the manga? Unless you mean they might change that because she is already implied to be accomplice to Hikaru already due to the cliff scene

The other thing that still bothers me is that I still don't know if I want to believe the whole narrative of "haha Kamiki evil manipulator" at the age of a middleschooler...but we also don't even know (and probably won't ever know) why he went there to begin with, how he found out, and why with those 2...like I'm fairly certain he knew who Nino was and still revealed it anyway. I get Ryo he maybe didn't, but Nino was Ai's coworker...except if Ryo called her later to come over which feels less possible knowing how long a trip to Miyazaki takes

The reason I kind of perked up when I saw that change was because, like I said in the original post, that combined with the anime moving 109 so much earlier up in the timeline says to me that the anime team feel okay making pretty major structural changes to the story if it means their version of Oshi no Ko flows a little better. The anime is already sort of a second draft of Akasaka's manga and has been tidied up and smoothed out in various places, so seeing them commit to stuff like this now that we actually know what direction the story is going makes me excited and curious to see how the team will choose to handle this stuff later in the story.

Obviously, it could still be dogwater and I don't expect them to outright change the ending or make any especially radical changes, but I do think the anime version of things is going to be a much smoother ride. The team has a lot more time and room to do the kind of editing and patching up that Akasaka should have been afforded the chance to do if the weekly manga industry wasn't such a hellhole.

[archangelween]

Breakups

The breakup in the bookshop in s2 was staged, made to look like a breakup to outsiders while it was actually them confirming their plan to take down HH.

But that's not the only breakup we saw. Were the other ones real, or also staged?

S1

In season one we saw the breakup in St James Park, after they were caught in Edinburgh. Aziraphale is the one who leaves the park first and initiated the breakup in the park. We also see a "breakup" in the 1960s, the too fast scene.

(1) Park, 1862. Crowley initiates, neither protests/both add fuel to the flames, Az leaves. 1941 Crowley returns. The title card is underwater, as in there's more going on than what's on the surface, what's superficially apparent. It's not clear. Hard to fathom.

(2) 1960s. Az initiates, both reaffirm they want to get together, Az leaves.

(3) We also saw the bandstand breakup. Az initiates, Crowley protests, Crowley leaves. Az initiates contact, gets pulled up to heaven. Crowley mourns, because he thinks it's real. Az returns.

That's two in the past, one in the present. Each time they take turns. We don't see the "I lost my best friend", we don't see the "you can't leave", except at the bandstand and subsequent yanking by corporate. We now know the park was after the 1862 hellhole.

Conclusion: I think everything but the bandstand was faked. Two fakes, one real. They were threatened, so they "broke up" publicly to take the heat off. 1960s was the tentative "maybe it's safe now, but we just can't know, it's not a risk I want to take". An assessment of whether it's safe to be publicly together again, and the answer was no.

Further, I think each event here isn't solely fake or real.

(1) Park, that was a real fight, but a fake breakup;

(2) 1960s was a fake fight and fake breakup;

(3) the bandstand was a real fight and a real breakup.

There's ambiguity about what's going on, which is another theme that comes up constantly: who actually knows what's going on? what's the answers? God plays games with the universe, what's written isn't straightforward, god doesn't answer and what she does say isn't an answer.

S2

In season two we saw the breakup in the bookshop, after Azi introduced Jim. Crowley initiated the breakup and he's the one who leaves. In the past we saw Aziraphale lose Crowley to hell for real. At the end, Crowley loses Aziraphale to heaven, not via death but might as well be. He isn't broken up about it like after the bookshop fire. One in the past, two in the present.

(1) Az's backroom. Crowley initiates, Az protests and stays, Crowley leaves. Real fight; not a true breakup, because it wasn't a breakup, it was Crowley not wanting to participate in this particular thing. He still left though, so for purposes here that's a real breakup. This is the ambiguity again: looks like breakup, and he is leaving him high and dry, but it's that particular action/request instead of them breaking up as a whole.

(2) 1827. Crowley initiates, Crowley gets yanked by corporate. Real fight over morality, real breakup.

(3) Metatron hovering. Public breakup, that looks a whole lot like their real breakups. Except they're not stressed out like they were after the real breakups. Fake fight, fake breakup.

So that's two real breakups and one fake one, the opposite of s1. It's an AAB pattern: fake/fake/real for s1, real/real/fake for s2.

The pattern

Three fake breakups. Three real breakups. In the pattern of AAB, both seasons.

So in s3, we'll see the same thing, except it'll be getting together or first times. Because that's what goes hand in hand with "breaking up". Since the previous seasons did fake and real, I think s3 will be about ambiguity--were they really together, or not? That fits the previous seasons too: were those breakups real or fake? There were elements of both in each one, but I think it's the overall goal that matters: for example, the fight over the holy water was real, but them breaking up over it was not. Real fight, fake breakup.

I think it'll be two false starts, or two times they were assumed to be together, and then the real time they got together: AAB.

I think the AAB pattern is the pattern from the music playlists? I haven't heard that anyone figure out what it was. Perhaps this is it. There's many more patterns in the way the show goes too, with the same AAB/set of three. Since there's three seasons, the seasons themselves might follow the pattern. So far we've had two seasons where things aren't fine, so maybe the last is when everything is finally okay.

AAB is a common song form, called the 12 Bar Blues Song Form: "A" refers to the first and second four-bar verse, and "B" is the third four-bar verse. In a 12-bar blues, the first and second lines are repeated, and the third line is a response to them—often with a twist.

Unlike AAA or AABA song forms, which describe the overall structure of the song, AAB describes the structure of an individual verse. AAB is always used as a compound form. 12 bar relates to the number of bars, or measures, in this song form. Almost all Blues music is written in a 4/4 time signature, i.e. there are four beats in every measure or bar with each quarter note (crotchet) being equal to one beat. (source)

What's the four beats within each season? And within each "A"/"B"?