#working with values is such a PAIN I wish I wasn’t conscious of it all the time

[liliavalley]

waking up in 6 hours for breakfast then a 2 hr roadtrip but it’s ok because I got (most of) the colours roughly blocked out!!!

[aquilaofarkham]

title: the little death rating: T+ word count: 2,409 summary: Two years after his fight with Death, Trevor’s injuries start catching up to him while Alucard realizes that humans are more fragile than he thought. 

For @trevorsmellmont ❤️  Thank you so much for commissioning me!

READ HERE

There’s a sharp pain pooling beneath his right arm, coursing through his ribcage. Trevor ignores it just as he’s ignored all the other aches, jabs, and stings over the past two years. Two years of building something better, something sustainable to last far longer than its young, admittedly green founders. Countless days, weeks, and months erecting homes, gardens, and pens for those dumb gentle animals who think the entire townscape is their personal pasture. Not another mistake of allowing them to wander aimlessly straight into the castle. As if heifers need to learn how to craft medicine or conduct what’s being referred to as “electricity”.

The work will never be finished. Even on days like this when the sun burns hotter than any circle in hell. A few drops of warm salt-ridden sweat crawl past Trevor’s pressed lips and into his dry mouth. Pain and thick heat were never enough to stop him before—he tells himself this, barely certain of his own supportive thoughts (a new concept taking root in his mind). Take it slow, don’t push yourself, idiot. This cabin made from the earth will get built eventually. Another family will receive their forever home to fill with lots of babies. Old wounds beg to differ as Trevor’s arms begin to weaken, each movement slower than the last, struggling to keep up with Greta’s superior pace. She’s always known her way around a mallet.

Another bead of sweat gets caught in Trevor’s lashes, sparing his eyes from temporary discomfort. Though it wouldn’t have mattered as they’re already past any sort of respite. He looks for distraction but can only see the blurred shapes coming from a huddle of bodies, despite being a short distance from them. He knows it’s only Sypha and Alucard with the village children, which gives Trevor some relief.

There’s more comfort to be felt when he remembers that one of those little monsters is his own, nestled in Sypha’s lap then placed in Alucard’s gentle arms. She has a name far too long for any toddler to pronounce—Elizabeta Belnades Tepes Belmont—so what rolls off her developing tongue instead is simply “Liza”. She’s innocent now but once she leaves this little man-made paradise and ventures into a harsher world, she will take more after her mother and father. Grabbing whatever life offers with both fists, clawing and biting her way through every obstacle until her teeth are reddened with bloody meat. For the time being, they relish Liza’s soft cheeks, wispy hair, and the way she throws herself at whichever adult happens to be in her nearest vicinity. The other children are helping her socialize by playing games and embracing frivolity; a tactic Trevor remembers from his own upbringing, though with less games and even less frivolity. 

“Think you can handle one or two more?”

Greta’s voice manages to cut through Trevor’s mental fog. Funny how she asks if he can “think” about anything especially at this suffocating moment. She must have noticed the way his lips curl into a happy doped up grin while observing his family and couldn’t help but inquire. As any close, loved and valued friend would.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“What’s wrong with looking a bit further into the future? Now that we all have one.” 

“Looking is one thing, but seriously suggesting is something else completely. My… performance in certain areas isn’t as up to snuff as it used to be.”

As Trevor says this, things deteriorate and get a bit fuzzier from his eyesight down to his chest. Out of focus. Painful. He keeps talking, keeps ignoring the inevitable. Always ignoring what his own body screams for.

Greta wrinkles her nose at his statement. “There are children present, Belmont.”

“What? I’m referring to the house. I barely managed to get one wall up while you’re already on the fucking roof.”

“So dramatic. You three really do deserve each other. And you’re still young.”

“On the outside, maybe.”

She laughs at his lie, misinterpreting it as another piece of mild self-deprecatory banter he might never be able to live without. Greta says something else, perhaps her own personal jest to counter his, but Trevor cannot hear. Breath grows heavier, forcing out a raspy “it’s fine. It’s just my chest”. Barely able to tell if Greta actually said anything about his sudden condition. Or rather, not so sudden. No, this has been building over quite some time now. His muscles and bones screaming, begging for relief or death, and end to everything—whichever comes first. Feelings that only worsened over the years.

Trevor loses control over his legs, now practically boneless. The collision between his head and the ground is nothing compared to the inner war over his heart. Whether it will finally succumb. Greta immediately calls for help—he thinks without confidence, once again. Trevor can still hear voices, but not their exact words. Not Sypha when she demands to know what happened. Not Alucard when he begs for him to stay conscious. Not even Liza as she cries for her papa.

Then all the chaos in the world fades into slow darkness.

--

Alucard stands outside the closed bedchamber door, contemplating how often he’s touched Trevor’s body. Lithe fingertips have memorized every crevice, scar, soft and rough spots alike. Not just as a lover with wandering hands underneath blankets in the dead of night. Or a friend who holds him steady on both feet when he needs it. But as this family’s self-appointed physician. 

Perhaps the prince of two worlds took after his father after all. “Polymath” is what Alucard used to describe Dracula and the very same word others have referred to him as, mostly in the realm of medicine. He knows more than anyone, little offence given towards the herb dispensers and leech farmers (only to be polite for his own townsfolk). Thus, through the anxieties and trembling hands, Alucard gave Trevor his diagnosis: heat exhaustion along with a muscle somewhere in his chest that decided to go rogue and strain itself.

The son of Tepes, the only local doctor worth trusting, and arguably the co-leader of their little prospering hamlet paces across the hall like Trevor did the day Liza was born. He’s on the other side of that closed door, resting. Bedridden from heat exhaustion and a fucking pulled muscle. It bothers Alucard. This shouldn’t have happened to someone who stood up to the personification of Death and pissed in his eye. A stupidly common and easily treatable inconvenience to the human body shouldn’t be the end of a fucking Belmont.

It shouldn’t—unless Trevor’s scars have anything to say about it. The ones on the inside and outside. Inside, unseen, and untreatable. There’s a harsh revelation to be found there; one which the prince has been purposefully avoiding up to this moment. Alucard can try as he wants, use the tools left behind by his father and mother as though it were their final death wish, but he might never tend to what pains Trevor on the inside. He’s a Belmont, undeniably so, but Belmonts are human despite the many recurring signs pointing to the contrary. Then there’s Sypha with her magic, but she’s human as well. Greta and Liza are still human. Humans are more susceptible to dying easy, little deaths even when they follow world-saving victories.

Where does this leave Alucard? Thoughts spiral down, down towards darker places the longer he nervously hovers outside the bedroom. He’s been known to awkwardly stumble into deflection, insisting he’s only half human whenever certain someones bring up this topic of necessary conversation. Meaning he might as well not be human at all. Not when the bodies of those he loves change so rapidly while his remains petrified. It’s only been two years, filled to the brim with countless hours he wouldn’t ever want to trade for the entire world. But the thought of one night as they nestle themselves into bed and Alucard touches either Trevor or Sypha’s chest only to feel an anomaly within their hearts. The earliest sign that time and age will eventually betray them as it does for all mortals—it could be the one thing to break him.

Alucard stops himself at the opportune moment, right before he starts thinking about his mother and father. Did Dracula ever contemplate Lisa’s mortality? Was the decision to never turn her easy or the hardest thing he forced upon his unstable, immortal conscience? Arms crossed over his chest like a protective cage, fingernails digging into the fabric of his shirt until it hurts, Alucard swallows a bitter glob of spit and reaches for the doorknob. Sypha will have to accept the fact that he couldn’t wait for her. He quietly thanks her for the lessons she taught him. If he needs to talk about something—truly talk, no sarcastic wit or banter, just the raw emotions—Alucard no longer hesitates. He won’t, not as he enters the room and immediately sees Trevor still in bed, not quite altogether there. At least he can manage a decent smile and wave of his hand.

“Evening.”

“How does your chest feel?”

“Still a bit tight, but I’ve been taking deep breaths like the doctor ordered.”

The amount of strain heard in Trevor’s voice worries Alucard. Hopefully the Belmont has learned something from the recent past, so he won’t be stupid and suggest anything having to do with leaving bed or getting back to work.

 “I think I should get up.”

“I think that’s a poor decision.”

“Are you saying that as my physician or because you’re letting that pretty little blonde head of yours get too worked up?”

No. Yes. Both? If only Trevor didn’t look up at him with those glassy eyes (can he still see him?) the colour of stained glass windows erected in cathedrals he felt so unwelcome inside. If only that smile, somehow both soft and shit-eating, wasn’t in place of a more serious expression. Then maybe Alucard could voice his concerns without being accused of acting overbearing—an accusation grounded in solid evidence but he’s not ready to admit that yet. Not out loud.

“Normal, healthy adults do not become bedridden after pulling a small muscle in their chest.”

“Belmonts aren’t normal… or healthy in my case.”

Alucard’s brow furrows. “I want to think you’re healthy—” I need to. “—that you’ll live long enough to see the children of this village have little ones of their own. Liza included.”

“God’s sake, she’s only two years old. You and Greta, always talking about looking one step too far into the future. Let her be a child before adulthood rears its ugly maw.”

“Try not to change the subject.”

Trevor lifts his head off the indent pressed into his sweat drenched pillow. “Alright. Fine. I feel much better. I won’t push myself and give my heart some more time to recover.”

No response coupled with broken eye contact; sure signs of Alucard’s reluctance to accept his rather weak assurance. The Belmont has no other choice.

“Come here. Sit.”

Another moment’s hesitation before Alucard complies. Feeling his weight upon the mattress, Trevor blindly reaches for his wrist until calloused fingers grip cool, unblemished skin.

“Now lie down. No, no. Not like that. Place your head right here.” He pats his chest and with a fleeting amount of guidance, Alucard’s cheek fits perfectly between his breasts. Two hands smooth over the dhampir’s curves before one before one rests on his silk smooth head and the other against the small of his back. Alucard lied about one thing: his own body can change in small yet noticeable ways. Without the need to fight for the lives of others, whether today or tomorrow, sharp edges turn softer. Trevor and Sypha have finally let themselves breathe as well, let go, and enjoy all of life’s pleasures.

“Hear that?” He asks Alucard.

“... It’s slow.”

“Slow and strong like it should be.”

Alucard wishes he could bottle up that heartbeat or place it in a box. Preferably a music box to listen to its soothing melody long after its original body and soul are both eventually gone from this world. Who knows? It might make things hurt a little bit less like when he redrew his parent’s portrait or built a much larger nursery where his own used to be. Not a lot, but Alucard could possibly live with just “a little”.

“Speaking of Greta…” The baritone of Trevor’s voice sends deep vibrations through his broad chest, tickling Alucard’s cheek. “She said something about more children.”

“More orphans joining us?”

“No, even though I know how much you love those damn orphans. She asked if we could handle one or two more.”

“What did you say?”

“I implied that she was taking after Sypha’s influence by being wonderfully insane.”

Alucard chuckles in agreement. That sounds like Greta. “You never know. It might be good for Liza if she has a younger sibling.”

With the sound of Sypha’s well timed arrival, he’s mercifully saved from Trevor’s lengthy speech about how patience is apparently a virtue and tirades about his “performance” or lack thereof. Greta reveals herself shortly afterwards with a still crying Liza in tow. So many bodies gathered around one inebriated individual, here for him and him alone. Trevor’s consoled yet exasperated expression directed at Greta in particular says “isn’t there someone more important you could be helping right now?”

Sypha is the first to voice her gratitude after fussing over her exhausting loved one. “I will never be able to thank you enough, Alucard.”

“I think the bed did most of the heavy lifting, love.”

Trevor is given an affectionate, somewhat caring glare in response but his focus is demanded elsewhere once he suddenly notices Liza jumping onto the bed. She snuggles herself between him and Alucard, wetting their shirts with her tears.

“Easy there, you little monster. Papa’s still a bit tender.” Not that she can understand or care.

There’s an aura of relief felt amongst everyone in the room—less with Alucard who smiles bittersweetly. It’s a truth he knew he had to acknowledge before it tore his heart open. Trevor and Sypha will die one day and he will have to bury them. He’ll bury Greta, he might even bury Liza. Not today thank all the gods, or tomorrow, not for the next few decades if fate is kind enough. 

But the day will come. And it will be Alucard’s own little death.

[wallwriterstuff]

The Good I Come Home To ||Leon S. Kennedy x Female!Reader|| Part 1

Warnings: Angsty, PTSD Leon being very jumpy and shell-shocked, mentions of sex. 

Words: 3318

Summary: Originally posted to my Archive of Our Own Account. 

Part 2 can be found here

Leon has kept it very casual with you for months, seemingly oblivious of the growing feelings you harbour. You have no idea just how badly it hurts him to leave you every time until he tries to cut you out of his life completely. You have other ideas. You just have to persuade Leon they're the right ones.

Leon S. Kennedy was a complicated man in many respects, but it was easy to unravel all those complex layers if you started looking at his core values, his sense of purpose. To serve, to protect. Leon was built to be the bodyguard of humanity, the first line of defence between unimaginable horror and the things he loved. Every experience had moulded him into this hard shell of a man, so far from the one people used to know. It had been interesting, really, to see an old friend from the Police Academy approach him and see just how different they had turned out. They both had the eyes of experience anybody in the force acquired over time, but Leon’s were sterner, like an unbreakable stone as opposed to ice you could chip away at and eventually shatter. This old friend of his had a small-town job and apple pie life. He had the white picket fence and the wife who kissed him when he came home to freshly made dinner. His children were doing well at school.

Leon had listened like his life was a whole other world away. It was visible in his eyes, though he carefully kept it off his face, that the comparison between each man actually disturbed him. You hadn’t meant to see of course. It was pure coincidence you’d happened to be in the supermarket, walking down that same aisle. His old friend had hit the barricade you so often hit when you asked. You’d stopped questioning it after a few months of back and forth and the looming threat of losing him became a dark and unbearable burden.

“So er, heard about the huge explosion at Raccoon. Where’d they place you after that?”

“Nowhere. I work for the government now.”

“Oh damn. FBI?”

“Something like that.”

His job was the complicated topic. Classified and bad enough to put a certain brand of darkness behind his eyes when you asked, it was  best left untouched by your hands because it was hidden beneath the many layers of the man you’d only ever been allowed to scratch the surface of – literally and figuratively. Beyond his core values, the simplicity of Leon S. Kennedy lay in his needs. He was a flesh and blood man after all. He was guaranteed to need to eat, to do laundry, to shower, to relieve himself. These simple needs were what made him somewhat predictable to you. On his best days, when he text you days or hours before, you were almost guaranteed to be wined and dined. Okay so the wine and dine option was sometimes more like beer and take-out pizza but it was always paid for by him if you bought the alcohol.

When he was feeling a little less than okay, you’d get no outright statement of his desire to see you, but he’d hedge around the topic and wait for you to ask him, like he was afraid to be a nuisance. You’d only get this awkward and prompting behaviour from him an hour or two before he showed up which left you little time to prepare, but a quick shower was always on the cards. In his worst moments, he’d give no warning and simply show up at your house with smouldering eyes that demanded your attention and everything else you had to give him. God help you, you always gave him everything. As simple as his needs were, as his feelings on the matter appeared, yours were much more complicated. Leon S. Kennedy had made it clear from the start when he met you at the bar that fateful night, all chiselled jaw and playful eyes, that nothing serious was to come of this.

It had progressed to a proper agreement when you both seemed to just keep running into each other. You were free to date, if you so pleased, and he’d stop showing up. He’d be gone like dust in the wind, untraceable and impossible to bring back. You didn’t want that. Until the day either of you became tied down you had agreed you were exclusive. You sated each other only. It was hard to keep to that promise all the time when he was away for long periods, but you remained true to your word anyway, and that was how it had stayed for a solid eight months. Leon came back to a bed you kept free just for him and left in the morning like it was no more than a pit-stop on a long and winding road.

You suspected he wasn’t proud of it. You thought sometimes you could see something softer in his eyes, something that made you think he wished for something more than he was already giving you. There were moments his eyes lingered when he said goodbye, times his hands stayed on you a little longer than they usually did. On rare occasions, when he was just a bit too drunk after what you guessed was a bad job, you let him sleep it off with his arms around you and listened to the whimpers in his sleep with an aching heart. Leon consistently let you have his body, gave you the briefest glimpses at the big heart he held so carefully hidden away, but never once did he let you into his mind. As much as you loved being with him, you had never truly been with him at all. You’d never truly connected with him beyond anything physical. It pained you to know you never would. You cared for him too much. You saw the deep pain he carried with him everywhere, and you’d never be able to alleviate that load because he wouldn’t let you.

You had to pause the TV to be sure you’d actually heard anything at all, but when you heard the noise again it was stronger, bolder. Knocking. Glancing at the clock, you turned the TV off with a frown. There weren’t many people who would come knocking at this late hour, and you didn’t know if your heart was in it tonight to let him in when he would forever keep you out. As if on cue, when you opened the door to a dripping wet Leon, thunder rumbled and rattled the open window in the corridor of your apartment block. A small puddle of water had formed on the windowsill, dripping in as the harsh rain battered the glass. Leaving your door propped with the door stop you kept nearby for moments like these, you crossed to the window to close it and lock out the weather. You felt sullen enough without the storm clouds invading your house.

“Leon if you’re here to drink that’s okay but I’m not really up for-“ you cut yourself off, uncertain all of a sudden as to what it was he was here for. His needs were always so simple, the looks and actions associated with them something you had come to learn to recognise without much conscious thought. This was entirely new. Those piercing blue eyes were sullen, fighting between being as hard as sapphire and as soft as calm ocean waves. What was frightening was the depth of the ocean you saw. It was like staring into an abyss of torment. Red-ringed and with whisky on his breath, it didn’t take a genius to realise Leon had been crying and was in fairly bad shape. Hair soaked and plastered to his forehead, he stared at you through those horribly complex eyes, his mouth half open like he wanted to say something but couldn’t force the words out. He was pale, breaths even but heavy, like he had to physically remind himself to huff out each one.

Wordlessly, you took him by the hand. His skin was freezing to the touch and you guessed the faithful jacket had done little to keep the bitter cold from seeping into his exposed skin. Your theory was proven right when his cheeks were just as cold to the touch.

“I…” you thought he might say more but it was like watching a caveman learn to talk. There were only sounds, no words. He was usually very skilful with his tongue but tonight those talents were nowhere to be found. Pushing his jacket from his shoulders you hung it to dry over the back of your sofa, hoping the radiator would do its job and leave it toasty for him when he inevitably put it on to leave you again. You ignored the stinging in your chest at the thought. Leon didn’t need you to be petty right now. Truthfully, you were frightened. Leon’s carefully constructed composure had been shattered by something and you didn’t think you wanted to know what was strong enough to shatter this man’s rock hard exterior and cut him so deeply. He stood dumbly in your hallway, and you gently pushed him to the edge of the sofa to take off his shoes so they wouldn’t traipse water into your home.

“Shhh Leon, just come with me.” You coaxed him back onto socked feet, leading him down the hall to your bathroom.

“No…no Y/N I, I don’t…” he swallowed.

“Do you trust me Leon?” you asked him, keeping your voice gentle like you were cajoling a wild animal into eating from your palm. Leon nodded without question and you smiled slightly. “Then just follow for me now.” You kicked open your door and led him to the edge of the tub, grabbing a towel from the shelving units there and placing it on the sink.

“What are you doing?” he could barely speak above a whisper, looking confused and upset and lost all at once.

“I’m going to run you a nice hot bath before you catch your death. I don’t know how long you were in the rain for Leon but you’re frozen to the bone.” You said calmly, putting the plug in the tub and turning on the tap for the hot water. Leon didn’t answer, merely watched you with the eyes of a man so lost in trauma he couldn’t find his way back to the surface world and make sense of the happenings around him. While you waited for the water to turn steamy, you rubbed at his hair with the towel in your hand to dry it. You knew something was incredibly wrong when he let you mess it up like that. There were very few instances you were allowed to touch his hair and you had to always, always comb it back into place or suffer the consequences. Occasionally, you took a break to fill the tub with some of your prized bath oils. Lavender, camomile, jasmine, all your favourite scents from a beautiful kit a colleague had bought you as part of secret Santa last year.

He didn’t comment as the room filled with intoxicating, relaxing scents, nor when you checked the temperature again and told him he could get in when he was ready. He held the towel in both hands, staring at the cotton as if it might hold some answers.

“Thank you.” He mumbled. You nodded once.

“Have you eaten anything yet?” you asked him. He nodded once, but he didn’t meet your gaze. He was lying you were sure. “Okay. Take as long as you need in here, I’ll be about when you feel ready to see me alright?” you promised, leaning up to kiss his cheek softly. Your lips lingered a little too long, but Leon didn’t move away. He closed his eyes as if the contact was all he had wanted and more. As the door closed behind you you heard the soft, muffled sob he tried so hard to bury in the towel, and your heart broke a little more. Something had shattered Leon S. Kennedy and it didn’t sit well with you at all to see him this vulnerable. He needed the space right now to get his mind back in order but once he did, when he was ready to face you, you weren’t sure you’d get an explanation from him. He’d shut down every time you’d ever asked for one before.

He’d woken screaming one night, lashing out so violently that if you had been sat upright there’d have been no way to avoid his fist and he’d have knocked you out cold. When you tried to ask what was wrong, he’d simply snapped at you to leave him be and left your apartment so fast there could have been a fire under his ass. So, what did you do? Did you just not even try? He hadn’t made a move on you, had specifically said no when he saw you heading in the direction of the bedroom. But if he wasn’t here for sex what was he here for? It only added to your anxiety that you really had no clue what he wanted if it wasn’t your body he’d come for, and though part of you thought that should make you angry, another part of you hoped that that meant it was something more that he was after this time. The kind of more you wanted.

No. You had to try for him. You couldn’t let him go on like this. He didn’t have to fight the war in his head alone, not when you were here. At least, if he wanted to go it alone, he could have someone stable waiting with a safety net if he stumbled. For now you’d let him linger and soak in the tub, and you’d make the most out of the ingredients you had in the fridge. If he stayed, he could eat it off a plate. If he didn’t…well, you’d make some in a container in case. Pasta bake had always been your father’s speciality and it had been your favourite as a child, was still your comfort food now. Chicken and bacon sizzled, pasta boiled, and you grated the cheese to the rhythm of your favourite song playing softly on the radio while the milk and butter warmed on the stove. You snagged a piece of bacon from the wok and let the salty flavour burn your tongue.

With your masterpiece constructed and more cheese grated on top, you slid the dish into the oven for it to crisp up and set your timer, setting about washing the utensils next. It kept your hands busy, kept your mind from wandering too much, but even the sudsy water couldn’t quite keep your mind from ticking over. Why had Leon come here in the pouring rain? What had spooked him so badly he’d thought, in his less than coherent state, that he needed to be here in your apartment? Did the fact he’d come to you mean anything at all or did he just happen to be nearby? You put the saucepan a little harder than necessary into the rack when it slipped from your hands, jumping and cursing to yourself at the loud clang it had made.

“Y/N!” Leon almost roared your name in pure, abject terror. Eyes wide you rushed for the bathroom, hands still soapy and dripping water. He was already out of the bathtub, naked and scrambling through his jacket until he came up with a gun of all things, aimed right at you as you burst through the door. A shriek escaped you and you immediately dropped to the floor, hands above your head.

“Leon it’s me!” you begged. Harsh breathing filled the room.

“Where is it?” he demanded. You peeked up at him from below your arms, lowering them slowly. He was half-crouched, eyes wild and fixated on the door that led back to your room. He offered you a hand. “Come on, get up and get behind me, where is it?” he repeated the question more firmly now.

“Where’s what? Leon I – there’s only us here. I just dropped a saucepan.” You breathed. His expression faltered, confusion flooding his features first , then guilt, and finally grief. His eyes closed and he inhaled deeply, held it, exhaled slowly. He lowered his gun after a few more deep breaths.

“I’m sorry.” He said, looking a little like a kicked puppy. You shook your head, slowly pushing to your feet so as not to startle him. His skin was tinged pink, little suds clinging to the ends of his hair. The timer went off in the kitchen and Leon flinched again, hand tensing around the gun. You soothingly placed your hand on his arm.

“It’s just the timer. We’re the only people here Leon, nothing’s going to hurt us. How’s about you dry off and come have something to eat?” you suggested. He blanched at the mention of food and you frowned. “You don’t have to eat everything, just a little bit, you look really pale.” You reached for the towel and held it out to him until he reluctantly nodded and wrapped it around his waist. You left the door slightly ajar and headed for the kitchen to switch off the damn timer. He was so jumpy, so eager to jump to your defence. You plated up a small portion, not wanting to put him off with a large one. You didn’t feel particularly hungry yourself but you’d had a proper meal earlier in the evening, a cup of tea would suffice, camomile and honey would soothe your nerves. Leon had a liking for peppermint you knew. Maybe if he was nauseous that would help him eat? Tea and pasta bake served you sat opposite his place, one hand wrapped around the handle of your mug and the other pulled up to your mouth, your teeth nibbling the side of your nail.

“You’ll make your thumb sore.” He lingered in the doorway like he wasn’t sure if he should sit down or run away. You dropped your hand and placed a more welcoming smile on your lips, nodding to the plate.

“Chicken and bacon pasta bake. It’s good.” You invited. Hesitantly, Leon shuffled to the chair and sat down. You didn’t push him to talk. Months of being with Leon had assured you that pushing would only clam him up further, and you wanted to pry him open tonight. With a sinking feeling, you realised it might be the last night you ever saw him. He’d let himself be extremely vulnerable to you already and you weren’t the type of person to see this kind of trauma and let it go unchecked. You’d want to check in on him, you’d want to help him feel better, and Leon didn’t appreciate the questions you’d have to ask to get the kind of help he needed right. He sighed slightly, picking up the fork and taking a small bite. He looked physically sick for the first few mouthfuls, and you made an effort to distract him with small talk about the weather, your day and all its mundane happenings.

He seemed enraptured by your very voice, soaking in every syllable that crossed your lips and mindlessly working his arm and mouth to clear the plate and drain the mug in front of him.

“Can I have a bit more? It’s really good.” He surprised you with his request but you obliged him, spooning some more on his plate.

“If you’re that partial to it you can take some home to.” You said simply. He nodded once, clearing the second portion with ease and looking much better for it. The colour had returned to his cheeks and he looked a little more put together than before. You settled back in your chair, watched him clean his plate and put it in the drying rack. It was a courtesy you’d never have asked for but were grateful for nonetheless. He didn’t turn around though, keeping his back to you and tightening his grip on the countertop.

[shadowdianne]

Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

[hb-writes]

Don’t You Dare Touch Me

Summary: When Sam and Dean let Nora in on a hunt, she gets more of an experience than she bargains for. She deals with it the only way she’s ever seen a hunter deal—by burying it deep down below a level of anger and alcohol.

Characters: Dean Winchester & Nora Winchester

Content Warnings: Angst, typical Winchester family business - murder/ death, emotional pain/ trauma, and alcohol consumption.

--

"I think that's enough."

Nora scoffed, her eye contact with Dean remaining steady as she pitched back the drink, feigning indifference as the whiskey seared her throat, sending a warmth through her chest that barely flickered when compared to the pain surging through her as she searched for some sort of release or whatever it was that her brothers and father and every hunter she had ever known seemed to be chasing down the bottom of a bottle.

Dean rarely had much to say about his sister having a drink these days, hadn't really since she turned eighteen. He didn't have much of a leg to stand on considering he'd started consuming much earlier than she had and it didn’t bother him much anyway. Nora was a good kid. She was usually responsible about it. 

Nora had only gotten drunk once in the time since she’d started indulging without asking permission, and she’d done it in the company of her brothers, the three of them collectively getting a little out of hand in the name of celebration, but this was something different. This wasn’t a finger of whiskey enjoyed with her bare feet up on the coffee table or Nora and Sam sampling a fancy bottle of wine. It wasn’t a beer used to wash down one of Dean’s famous burgers. 

He recognized this as something else entirely, something he’d done more than once, something he’d never wanted for his sister.

Dean wasn't sure how much Nora had had, but his sister had been alone in the library since they arrived back at the bunker, heading straight there without a word to her brothers, the music coming from Sam's laptop growing steadily louder until it finally pulled Dean from his bedroom to check on her while Sam went out to pick up dinner.

The bottle of whiskey sat beside his sister was nearly empty. Dean couldn't remember how much was left before they'd gone out for the latest hunt, but he imagined it had been more than half-way full the last time he’d had it out of the cupboard. How much she’d had didn't matter though. His concerns were more closely tied to the fact that his sister had sought this out on her own, reaching for oblivion as she pored over the book they should've read a bit closer the day before, poring over the passage he shouldn't have rushed her through.

She'd been curled up with the book in the backseat for the entire ride back to the bunker, completely silent with her headphones firmly in place, not a single request to stop for the bathroom or lunch or to stretch her legs made during the seven-hour journey, not a single interruption to Sam and Dean's conversation voiced, no complaints or sounds coming from their sister in the back seat other than the turning back and forth of pages as she memorized the words Dean hadn’t given her a chance to even skim.

She'd gone for a shower back at the motel, been in there for maybe twenty minutes and she’d come out what Dean would have called stoic, strong and stoic and in control of herself. Dean was a little impressed, proud of the way she was handling everything, especially considering what she'd been through, what she'd ended up having to do, but Dean recognized it was his father’s voice in his head. It wasn’t him. 

He and Sam should have known better than to be impressed, should have known better to be proud of Nora for something like that, something their sister wasn’t even capable of, pushing it all aside like that in the name of soldiering on. Sam and Dean knew their sister better than that, knew better than to accept her words at face value when she insisted she was fine after what she’d been through, what she’d done. And even if it hadn’t been their sister, even if it had been some random person, Sam and Dean should've known better to accept that sort of nonchalance because neither of them had been fine the first time someone else’s blood made its way onto the soft pad of their inexperienced hands. It wasn't something you could ever really wash away, not in the span of a shower, not in the span of a lifetime.

That's why Dean had always relegated his sister to the role of researcher. There were no blood splatters where the books were concerned, not direct ones anyway. It was safer, set a physical and emotional distance between Nora and what they really did, spared her aside from the occasional paper cut and whatever ideas the knowledge put into her head. But Dean understood why she was eager to experience the rest of the job. He'd been the same way once, curious and pulled to it with no real clue as to what hunting really meant.

But just like Nora’s consumption of alcohol, Dean and Sam had been able to push her introduction to it much later than their father had done for either of them. Sam and Dean had spent years instilling in her how important the research was, reminding her how necessary that component was to the success of her brothers’ business.

It had all started as a way to keep her out of the actual hunting, to keep her occupied on the long days left alone in hotel rooms or to entice her acceptance of the long stays at Bobby's, emphasizing the opportunity it gave her to learn from a seasoned hunter and his extensive library. It had been designed to keep her happy and safe, but it had become more than that at a certain point, more than a diversion and a convenient excuse because Nora was good at researching, better at it than either of her brothers, something Sam and his big shot college education were loath to admit some days. 

Nora was smart, natural with the academic stuff like Sam had always been and always with a book nearby from the time she could read, but she had a hint of rebellion in her that kept her from loving school in the same way Sam did. And whenever she hadn't done as expected in regards to the school stuff, she was always quick to point out that Dean hadn't done as expected either, something he often had a hard time arguing with.

So her diligence and skill she’d developed with the research had come as a bit of a surprise, something Dean partly attributed to Nora being so eager to prove herself to them, so eager to fit some place in her brothers’ business that her determined eyes saw things Sam and Dean’s eyes more quickly dismissed or passed over. 

Her determined eyes had still been looking, barely glancing up when they'd come back to the motel the day before, more engrossed in the words before her than her brothers’ updates, and Dean should have paid more attention to that, should have given more weight to the slew of old tomes and Sam’s laptop spread out in front of Nora on the motel bed. He should have heeded the fact that she clearly wasn’t finished with her part of the job, not ready to relinquish the work to them, but Dean hadn’t read his sister right. He’d gone ahead and announced their next course of action, decided what the kid was and that they could take care of things easily without his sister finishing her part of the job, a simple extraction and they'd have Jesse Miller back to frat parties and sleeping through the 8 am college classes his parents paid for from their retirement savings. 

Nora had fought him at first, asking after a few more hours with the books just to be sure, but Sam had already agreed and Dean had easily dismissed the need for confirmation, their collective confidence in the plan enough that a bit of doubt about her abilities, doubt about her experience and hunches, crept into Nora’s mind, and her own confidence fell away, allowing her to set her own plans aside as she agreed to the course Dean charted, moved along that road by the fact that Sam and Dean were letting her come along. 

It had been a while since Sam and Dean had let her do anything more than sit in the car, and she’d been eager, but now they all wished they'd left her behind sulking at the motel. Nora hated it and she usually railed against her brothers' protection with varying levels of intensity, but it had protected her, physically and mentally. It had kept her safe and whole and all of the things Sam and Dean hadn't been for a long time.

Nora met Dean's eye before filling the glass again, her hands shaking as the liquid sloshed over the rim.

“To saving people, hunting things, the family fucking business,” she said, lifting the glass in his direction and offering him a smile that made him feel sick in the pit of his stomach.

"Nor—" Dean stopped himself when she tipped the whiskey into her mouth, a soft hiss coming from her lips before she started filling the glass once again. "I said that's enough."

Nora stood and backed away from the table, taking the glass and the bottle with her as she stepped away. Dean took a few steps toward her, hand extended and reaching for the glass though her back was to him as she trailed away.

“Nora, give me the glass.”

Nora tilted her head back a moment before extending an arm out behind her, setting the now empty glass in his outstretched hand while retaining the bottle and the small bit of whiskey left inside. She let out a self-satisfied snort and sent a smirk over her shoulder at him.

Nora was drunk. She wasn't herself, wasn't in control. She wasn’t conscious of exactly what she was doing. Dean knew that and he knew that he had no right in being pissed off for her behaving the way she was. It wasn't on purpose, but it set something ablaze in him anyway, a flash of anger running through him at his sister's smartassed defiance.

Dean set the empty glass aside, letting it clash with too much force as he placed it on the table and he moved with a more deliberate pace to close the distance she'd put between them.

"Nora, give me the goddamn—"

Dean didn't have a word to describe the sound that ripped from his sister's throat as he pulled her back to him, one hand wrapping around her arm as the other closed over her hand in an attempt to release the bottle from her grasp. Dean understood it though and it stirred something old and nearly dead, something interred deep within him, the sound of his sister's pain resonating so strongly with the residual something that still lived within him, a pain applied and buffed into his bones and soul, so well permeated that he'd never wash it away.

"Don't you dare touch me."

Even if Nora hadn’t growled the words, her wants had been made clear enough, discernible in the way she recoiled from Dean’s touch as if his fingers burned the skin through her shirt sleeve, made obvious by the way she tried to rip herself away from him. Dean didn't allow her to break the contact though, not even when she released a scream so high pitched that Dean could still hear a ringing in his ear a few seconds later when she stopped to take a breath.

The bulk of the remaining whiskey had spilled out in the struggle, drops of it covering them both, but Nora still gripped the neck, her effort to keep hold of the empty bottle renewed as Dean attempted to rid her of it, to get it out from the small space that existed between them, to save them from an even bigger mess, a different kind of pain. Dean couldn't imagine having to physically hold her down to bandage the cut that would inevitably come from allowing her to continue having the thing in her grasp.

Dean made a decision then and almost mechanically took hold of the bottle, twisting Nora's wrist as she cried out in pain, her whole body turning as he did it, her fingers involuntarily releasing the bottle which Dean quickly set aside, freeing her wrist, almost certain she'd use the opportunity to put some distance between them, use it as justified ammunition to keep him away. 

Nora put her hands up and shoved at Dean’s chest hard enough that he stumbled back a step, dazed for a second as she rushed forward, whatever energy she’d been using in retaining the bottle, all of the focus and determination she’d held, now directed at her brother instead, and Dean simply took it, took the fists pounding against his chest, standing firm as Nora pushed against him, trying to move him back, trying to push him away as she sought a bit of the satisfaction she’d gained when he’d first stumbled, her words starting to come as the adrenaline subsided, a string of pained demands taking the place of the pounding fists, a continuous stream of cruel words wielding more power than any of her punches could have, most of them heavy enough and true enough that Dean tried to ignore a good bulk of it, tried to remember that Nora was working at creating a distance between them, both physical and emotional.

Her arms grew slack and Dean finally got a grip on her wrists, her fight renewed as he gained control.

"You can't push me away, kid."

She stopped fighting against his hold then and Dean sighed, relief just beginning to flow into him as he shifted his grip, preparing pull Nora against his chest, to work on getting her through the worst of it, to help her to shift from the anger to the tears, hoping he’d get her to sleep after that.

"You're murderers,” she said, her words barely above a whisper though they held a certain conviction. “You and Sam. Killing innocent people. Innocent fucking people. Ruined. Broken."

Dean swallowed as Nora stepped back, using his second of shock to put some distance between them, both of them working through her words and pulling out what they'd really meant, so much more than Nora labelling her brothers as exactly what they were.

Sam and Dean were hunters. And they had killed innocent people, hurt innocent people, ruined innocent people, broken them.

And Nora had now done the same. She'd summed it all up in words that took her only seconds to get out, expressed that she'd been ruined and had done the ruining, some precious part of her, the person she would never be again, killed in the three seconds it took for the knife in her hands to plunge into Jesse Miller's side, that part of her dead before the kid was, taking its last breath before the first bit of Jesse’s blood came to the surface of the wound she'd inflicted in the name of self-defense, the wound she'd inflicted because her brother had been wrong, wrong in not letting her finish the research, wrong in allowing her to come along, wrong in not watching over her more closely once they were in the middle of it, for putting her in that position.

Dean looked away from Nora for just a moment, to gather himself and avoid having to look at her as she came down from the anger, the hurt taking over as the venomous rage subsided, the tears coming from her heavy eyes somehow different than those that had been there just a moment before, the choked sobs somehow screaming at him though no sound came from her mouth.

"I—"

Dean rubbed a hand down his face, pulling his eyes back to Nora as she tried to speak, her feet moving just a step or so forward as she tried to fill the gaps, tried to fill the space between her and Dean and the space between what she'd said and what she'd meant, but Dean didn't need her to say any of it. Although she hadn't been able to get past that first syllable, Dean knew his sister had opened her mouth intent on labelling herself in the same ways she'd labelled her brothers.

Murderer. 

Killer. 

Ruined. 

Broken.

Dean took a single step, the distance between them already small enough that he could easily reach out and pull Nora against his chest. Any composure she’d had left her shattered as he did it, her whole body shaking with the sobs that were no longer silent, her pain no longer buried under a layer of anger and stoicism as she clung to her brother, barely aware of his attempts to soothe them both.

"It's alright, kiddo. I know."

--

Bye, Bye Apple Pie (Supernatural) Masterlist

500 Follower Celebration Masterlist

[everythingthatsgoingon]

(Spoilers up til chapter 193)

I've seen a lot of opinions on Dr Xeno and Stanley recently, so I'm here to explain my own opinion and maybe question what I've read a bit.

I love Dr. Xeno as a character, and I really like Stanley as well. Now don't get me wrong ; I don't condone killing and I'd be terrified as hell to be their enemy. But as a person reading a story, I do like them.

Xeno isn't wrong when he says he and Senku are similar : science is their prime interest, and both of them would never give it up. From my point of view Xeno isn't building a dictatorship for power, but to secure his freedom to do science without being shackled by politics, morals and disinterest or ignorance (see his conversation with Chrome in the tunnel when he was kidnapped, or with Senku in chapter 193). And while his lack of morals is something I do not share, it's very easy for me to understand where he is coming from. Thing is, today, scientific research is limited, because all research involves founding. Thus, you are obliged to research something someone will have an interest in, otherwise your project will never even cross the starting line. Add to that restrictions due to politics and/or public opinion who isn't always accurate because the average person is not very knowledgeable when it comes to science, and Xeno's frustration becomes very understandable.

Maybe I'm in a bit of a particular position because I've experienced something similar in the past. I remember my mathematics class in 2nd year of middle school. You must know that I've always loved maths, and it's always been an easy topic for me. What's more, I' ve always been really "behaved" in class. So spending my entire year in a class in which I could barely hear the teacher over the noise my classmates would make, with airplanes and other objects flying all over was pure torture for me. More than once I nearly ended up in tears or spent the entire class internally begging I could explode and make them shut up. But I think the worst was that the day I did explode - for the first time ever in all my years in school, and it only happened once again ever since - and raised my voice at my classmates - no insults or screaming, just speaking very loud and covering every other voice, for one or two sentences - the teacher obviously asked to see me at the end of the class. I expected him to be on my side, to tell me he understood my frustration, but no. He told me not to do it again and left it at that.

So I know what it's like to be surrounded by people you deem ignorant, I know what it's like not to find support in people who should be on your side - and Xeno's eagerness to kill other scientists and not work with them despite the fact that scientific advancement is quicker that way tells me that was probably the case for him too. I know what it's like to feel lonely because of your intellect, and to resent others for not respecting your need to learn. Because yes, it's not a wish, it's a need and not being able to fulfill it is painful. So I can't condone Xeno's methods, but I sure as hell do understand where he's coming from.

As for Stanley - I must say what I like the most about him is his relationship with Xeno. It's not clearly stated whether they are an item or not - and while I like to believe that they are, his loyalty would be even more admirable if they weren't. He's that support and acceptance Xeno must surely long for. An unconditional ally. And yeah, he kills people - but honestly, he's a soldier so I'm not sure what you expected.

And since we're on the topic of killing people, what I'm surprised about is that some people condemn Xeno and Stanley on the topic but not Tsukasa. Because I fail to see the difference.

While I understand Xeno, Tsukasa's ideology never made much sense to me. More precisely, while I agree that today's world is far from perfect, the whole "adults are evil, young people are innocent and science must be abolished" speech is so incredibly naive and ignorant that I could argue against it for thirty minutes straight. And for the critics, I'm the same age Tsukasa was when he was revived, and I was younger when I started Dr. Stone, so don't tell me that's the problem here. In any case, while I don't think dictature is a viable long-term solution in either Xeno's or Tsukasa's case (because you can't tell me Tsukasa wasn't a dictator when he reigned alone and didn't accept differing opinions), at least the reason Xeno started his was logical.

And Tsukasa killed too, for the sake of imposing his worldview. He killed Senku, killed a lot of statues - yes, killed, because he didn't know they could be saved just like Stanley and Brody didn't know the beam would save the Japanese. All things considered, Tsukasa probably killed more people on his own than all the Americans since the beginning of the arc. Not to mention that the Americans only killed people who were an active threat, not people who are not even conscious. So I don't understand why people are so eager to hate Stanley and Xeno but accept Tsukasa no problem.

In the end, the only antagonist I truly dislike is Ibara, because he only wanted power. (And Mozu too, I guess, but he's been playing nice so I'm reserving my opinion for now). Tsukasa, Xeno, and even Hyoga in a way, are all defending their own values from honest concerns that originate from the world we experience today. I truly believe it's important that the Kingdom of Science consider all of those issues while reviving humanity.

[x0401x]

Given Movie: MantanWeb Interview #5

“Given the Movie” (directed by Yamaguchi Hikaru), the theatrical adaptation of the TV anime “Given”, originally a popular BL (Boys Love) comic, was released on August 22. Yano Shougo-san played Satou Mafuyu, vocalist of the band Given and series protagonist. Yano-san, who is also in charge of singing for the scenes where Given performs, states that he values “singing by putting Mafuyu’s feelings into it” and that “just as Mafuyu came to live music, so did I”. We asked him about his feelings for the series and his particularities regarding the scenes where he sings.

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In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

◇ “I want to voice Mafuyu no matter what.” His dearest wish was to play the role of main character.

“Given” is a comic by Kizu Natsuki, currently being serialized in Chéri+ (Shinshokan). It portrays the drama of young bandmates coming into their own. The TV series started on 09/07/2019 in the late-night anime section of Noitamina, broadcasted on Fuji Television and other channels, depicting a romance between the band members and high schoolers Satou Mafuyu and Uenoyama Ritsuka. “Given the Movie” is about the bitter and passionate love between Akihiko and Ugetsu, who live together despite being ex-boyfriends and maintain a half-hearted relatioship with each other, as well as Haruki, who has been in love with Akihiko for a long time.

Mafuyu had been living life dragging along his past, where he lost his childhood friend and former boyfriend, Yoshida Yuki, but through meeting Ritsuka in high school, he began to change. The TV series depicted the process of Mafuyu and Ritsuka communicating their emotions to each other.

For Yano-san, Mafuyu was a much-desired leading role, and he says that he “wanted to voice the character named Mafuyu” after reading the source material.

“I look for things in him that can understand and that resemble myself, so I quickly relate with him. Mafuyu is very delicate; he lost his significant other, Yuki, in the past, and wasn’t able to move even one step forward due to carrying a heavy baggage. He got pulled out of the darkness by Ritsuka. I also have experienced times when I was truly in so much pain that I couldn’t move or breathe - it’s something that everyone goes through, but I thought there were more parts of him that resembled me than otherwise. That’s why I thought I was the only one who could do this; I wanted to do it.”

Mafuyu and Ritsuka appear in “Given the Movie” after having become boyfriends, and the situation of the romance between Haruki, Akihiko and Ugetsu is portrayed as main.

“When I first read the script, I wondered who I should empathize with... It felt like the feelings of all the characters entered me at once. Everyone is skillful yet inept, and though they could be honest, they aren’t. It’s very vexing, so I embraced the sensation of my chest squeezing until the very end.”

◇ Being conscious of “growth” and his particularities regarding the recordings of “Given the Movie”.

In the TV series, Mafuyu performed his original song, “Fuyu no Hanashi”, during what was Given’s first live concert ever since he had joined the band, making the concert into a success. In “Given the Movie”, Mafuyu tackles the making of a new song. Yano-san says he was conscious of “growth” when voicing him.

“When singing ‘Fuyu no Hanashi’ in the TV series, Mafuyu was thinking of Yuki, so it was also a shout out of wanting his feelings to be understood. This time, he begins making music from yet another viewpoint, as he wants to create a song aimed at someone else. I had the impression that Mafuyu’s core itself was molded enough for him to absorb himself in music and that he had become strong, so I had his growth in mind when voicing him. As always, he’s bad at expressing his emotions, but I sensed that he became capable of conveying his feelings and reacting more naturally.”

For this work, Yano-san recorded separately from Uchida Yuuma-san, who voices Ritsuka, but Yano-san says that he “performed while feeling Yuuma-kun’s voice” inside him.

“There’s a scene where Mafuyu is fretting over the making of the song and Ritsuka says, ‘You write lyrics through being influenced by the people around you, right?’, which portrays that he understands Mafuyu. It’s exactly because the TV series happened that I was able to sense the growth of the two as I performed.”

He reveals that, during the recordings, “the roles and acting are left to the actors’ discretion, the TV series included”.

“This series dearly values the mood of a daily life, so in order to bring out a sense of daily life, the microphones are positioned so that we all can see everyone’s faces. They also do the sort of shooting where each of the mics and actors are at a broader distance from one another than for other works, and by letting our voices pass through the atmosphere created in that meantime, we can bring out an even more daily-life-like air. Since the mood in the foundation of ‘Given’ was entrusted to us, I believe that’s evident in this work too.”

◇ “I put the things that Mafuyu wanted to convey into the song.” On singing while shouldering his role.

One highlight of “Given the Movie” is that the story depicting the adult trio’s romance links up with the song that Mafuyu creates, connecting with the final stage, which is the live concert scene. Yano-san talks about his particularities when singing as Mafuyu, “I sing while shouldering the role. There’s a sort of approach that I can do for the song exactly because I’m an actor”.

“Of course, I was expected to do voice training for the singing scene, but I valued putting Mafuyu’s feelings into the song, even if they were harsh. On top of learning the technical parts of it, in order to convey Mafuyu’s feelings even better, I learned and adopted a technique named portamento. I hit a wall sometimes, but gets fun when I think about how much I want to study more in order to put the things that Mafuyu wishes to say and transmit into the songs. It was a new discovery for me that I grew to like music just as Mafuyu came to like it.”

Yano-san states that “Given” was his first time working as the lead and “Given the Movie” had nothing but challenges for him. We asked him about his future goals.

“To continue this job in the frontlines even as I get older. For that, I want to be able to make people think, ‘I’m glad I entrusted this role to Yano’ and to have all sorts of experiences with many forms of acting. Having experienced a starring role this time, I thought I would like to continue playing ‘roles that move the plot’. I also hope to challenge myself with new things from now on, such as dubbing and narrating Western movies, and I want to keep on creating and presenting my own way of acting.”

“Given the Movie” was packed with challenges for Yano-san. We would like everyone to pay attention to his future activities.

[nekojitachan]

Don’t Wanna Fall - Wangxian MDZS/CQL Fic

Okay, so this is what happens when I get stressed and feel the need to write; the mind latched on to this story. It’s basically canon-divergent (CQL/The Untamed for the most part), fix-it, and a/b/o (with some slight twists) and is all plotted out.  I’d figure I’d post it here and throw up the beta’d parts on AO3.

Warnings for canon-typical violence, and more notes explaining things at the bottom.

*******

Wei Wuxian felt a precious sense of contentment as he sat near his sister and ate the soup she’d made; the emotion had been missing ever since the attack on Lotus Pier, and he knew it wouldn’t last long. Soon enough the sedative that Wen Qing had given him would render Jiang Yanli unconscious, and once Song Lan took her to the safekeeping of Lan Wangji and the Jins, then—then it was time to fix Jiang Cheng.

He pushed aside all thoughts on how they’d go about ‘fixing’ his brother while he finished the bowl of pork rib and lotus soup, unwilling to spoil his meal.

As soon as he set the empty bowl on the table, Jiang Yanli was quick to refill it. “You don’t have to—”

His sister gave him a stern look, her gaze shifting down to his abdomen before she shook her head. “You need to keep up your strength, A-Xian,” she chided, her voice pitched low so she didn’t disturb their brother, who was resting on the far side of the room. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard, looking for a way to restore A-Cheng’s golden core. That’s not good… well, you need to rest.”

Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to tell her not to worry about him, but closed it a moment later without any words spoken after another stern look. For all her gentle mothering and sweet nature, Jiang Yanli was a true force to reckon with when she believed that those she loved weren’t taking care of themselves, which seemed to be the case right now. Especially since she knew that Wei Wuxian was pregnant.

He’d managed to hide that fact from everyone else, even Wen Qing, thanks to some clever talismans (desperation truly did help when it came to inspiration) and loose robes, but Jiang Yanli had been there when he’d figured out the truth, a few weeks after his return from the enforced ‘indoctrination’ at Qishan. From the time he’d spent trapped in the cave at Dusk-Creek Mountain with Lan Zhan. Just the two of them, an alpha and an omega, prevented access to the medicines which helped control their heats and ruts (as well as prevent pregnancies for omegas), so of course Lan Zhan had gone into rut after they’d killed the Tortoise of Slaughter (fighting the thing for so long probably had played some part in that), which had then instigated Wei Wuxian’s heat and….

At least it had been his dear shijie who’d found out about the baby and not Madame Yu, who probably would have thrown him out on the street with barely any clothes on his back after whipping him half to death (it wasn’t speaking ill of the dead if it was the truth), or Uncle Fengmian, who would have guilted him into naming the father so a hasty marriage could be arranged. Which really, what good would that do? Lan Zhan had barely been cognizant (hell, Wei Wuxian had barely been conscious) when the whole thing had happened, so why should his life be ruined as well?

Not that Wei Wuxian felt like his life was ruined by any means. He and Jiang Yanli had been talking about ways to get him away from Lotus Pier so he could give birth in secrecy, maybe have a trusted wetnurse look after the baby for a couple months and then he’d ‘find’ the ‘poor orphan’ and ‘adopt them’. Perhaps not the greatest plan, but it had been a work in progress.

Then the Wens had attacked Lotus Pier, and all that mattered was surviving another day.

He finished the last of the soup and smiled at Jiang Yanli, whose expression gentled into affectionate approval. “Delicious, as always. Shijie makes the best soup.” 

She smiled as she poured them both more tea. “Don't you feel better now?” Her gaze once more flickered to his abdomen when he nodded, but she couldn’t ask him about his little ‘lotus seed’ since they weren’t alone. He knew she worried about the baby, one more burden she bore, one more thing to sap her strength when she needed to focus on her own health, so he gave her as bright a smile as he could to ease her concerns.

They sat together and drank tea, content in each other’s presence; Wei Wuxian fiddled with the beaded charm bracelet on his left wrist while he waited for the sedative in the incense burner to take effect. Soon enough, Jiang Yanli’s eyes, marred by dark circles from exhaustion and worry, drifted shut as she slumped down to rest her head on her arms folded on top of the table. He finished the last of the tea and waited for Jiang Cheng to rise from the bed where he’d pretended to sleep so they could gently carry their beloved sister outside, where a carriage waited to take her to Lanling. 

Song Lan, sword in hand, stood beside the carriage and bowed to them once Jiang Yanli was safely tucked inside. “Young masters,” he said as he bowed. 

Before Wei Wuxian could wish the man a safe journey, Jiang Cheng shoved himself forward. “We’re trusting our sister in your care. You will deliver her untouched if you value your life,” he told Song Lan with a growl in his voice.

On one hand, Wei Wuxian was happy to see the return of his brother’s spirited, alpha nature (the way he’d been before the loss of his core), but on the other… while Song Lan was an alpha and Jiang Yanli an omega, Song Lan was a respected cultivator and owed them a debt, so could be relied upon to not harm their sister. Jiang Cheng’s threat was unnecessary and a bit insulting.

Song Lan merely bowed again, his face impassive. “I swear on my life that no harm will come to Maiden Jiang while she’s entrusted in my care, from others or myself.” He paused for a moment before he asked Wei Wuxian to pass a message on to Xingchen, only to change his mind and declare the request unnecessary.. 

“Thank you.” Wei Wuxian bowed to the cultivator before he left, and Jiang Cheng did the same after a moment. 

There was an ache in his chest as he watched Jiang Yanli leave, but Wei Wuxian knew it was for the best; she wasn’t a fighter yet would insist on the three of them remaining together despite the danger they faced. No, best that she was someplace safe, especially considering what Wei Wuxian planned to do next. 

The ache was quickly replaced by anger when Jiang Cheng slighted Wen Qing as they thanked her for her care; she might be a Wen, but she had risked her life (and Wen Ning his) to provide them medical care and shelter. Wen Ning had betrayed his own clan to help them back at Lotus Pier, and so the siblings deserved their respect.

All Jiang Cheng seemed to care about was restoring his golden core.

Wei Wuxian led his brother to where Baoshan Sanren supposedly lived, a nameless mountain outside of Yiling; he took a roundabout route in order to give the Wen siblings enough time to prepare for their arrival. Jiang Cheng tried to push forward as fast as he could, but was hampered by his lack of a golden core; Wei Wuxian used his brother’s reduced stamina to rest as often as he could, his own strength impeded by his pregnancy.

Ah, lotus seed, he thought as he placed a hand on his barely swollen belly while Jiang Cheng’s attention was diverted, what a chaotic world you’ve chosen to be born into. Interesting times indeed. Despite all the bad things that had happened recently—the attack on Lotus Pier, the deaths of Uncle Jiang and Madame Yu, Jiang Cheng losing his golden core, war about to break out at any moment—Wei Wuxian couldn’t include his unexpected pregnancy in it. True, he’d always thought he’d be mated at least when he started to have a family, but he already cherished the child growing inside of him regardless of how it had come about. 

His little lotus seed wasn’t an accident or mistake in his mind; Jiang Yanli accepted it, and he was certain Jiang Cheng would, too, once he found out (and yelled at him for being shameless for a week or two). That was, once Jiang Cheng had a golden core and they were somewhere safe, so Wei Wuxian could tell him the truth (and make him promise not to say anything to Lan Zhan) without adding to his brother’s burdens.

They finally reached the appropriate mountain peak almost two days laters; Wei Wuxian sent his brother on his way, blindfolded and with instructions on what to say to ‘Baoshan Sanren’. Jiang Cheng appeared apprehensive yet determined; Wei Wuxian watched him fumble his way blindly along the trail for some time before he quietly followed. When he caught up to Jiang Cheng, his brother had been rendered unconscious by a disguised Wen Qing and was being held by Wen Ning.

“Let’s get this done,” Wen Qing said as she discarded a hat draped with long, dark veils. She motioned for Wei Wuxian to follow her to where a tent had been set up; inside it were two pallets and several low tables covered with medical supplies, as well as a burning brazier. 

Wei Wuxian helped Wen Ning lay Jiang Cheng onto one of the pallets then knelt on the other and watched while the Wens did a quick examination of his unconscious brother. After a few minutes, Wen Qing nodded once, which appeared to be a signal to Wen Ning to begin to remove Jiang Cheng’s upper garments.

She turned her attention to Wei Wuxian. “Are you still certain you want to go through with this, even if there’s only a 50% chance it’ll work?”

“Yes.” Nothing had changed since the last time she’d asked him that question. “It doesn’t matter to me what happens to my golden core but Jiang Cheng can’t live without one.” He saw a flicker of pain cross her face and knew she’d been affected by his brother’s apathy before being given a hope of cultivating again. “Please, go ahead with the transfer,” he begged as he bowed low to her, his thoughts filled with how he had to make things right, had to make up for not being there to protect Jiang Cheng from Wen Zhuliu in the first place.

Wen Qing made a tsk’ing sound as she rapped her knuckles on the back of his head. “Stop that, we’ve no time for your foolishness.” She gave him a narrow look once he sat up. “You know I can’t sedate you during the surgery?” At his slight nod, she held out her hand. “It’ll affect your golden core, which will lower the success rate..”

“All right.” It wasn’t ideal, but somehow he’d manage.

“Hm.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as she continued to hold out her hand; behind her, Wen Ning finished undressing Jiang Cheng then turned his attention toward them, his hands resting on top of his thighs. “I need to check your qi,” Wen Qing said, an impatient bite to the words.

Wei Wuxian hesitated; he’d been careful to not let Wen Qing lay hands on him due to his pregnancy, but it looked as if he couldn’t avoid contact any longer. He sighed as he placed his hand in hers, and tried not to flinch when her fingers pressed against his wrist.

At first, Wen Qing’s expression remained the same (slightly annoyed, which really, such a shame to see it so often on a lovely face like that), and then her dark eyes grew wide and her lips parted with what could only be astonishment. Her strong fingers bit into Wei Wuxian’s wrist for a moment, then let go so she could smack him on top of his head.

“You fool!”

“Ow! That hurt, you hit me,” Wei Wuxian whined while Wen Ning called out his sister’s name.

“You’re pregnant!” Wen Qing glared at him while Wen Ning smiled, his face bright with joy.

“Congratulations, Master Wei, that’s such good—oh!” Wen Ning ducked his head and blinked in confusion when he was smacked by his sister as well. “A-jie?”

“It’s not good news,” Wen Qing snapped, her alpha nature flaring for a moment before she let out a slow breath and controlled herself. “He should have told me he’s pregnant, because there’s no way we can do the surgery now.”

“What?” Wei Wuxian snatched at Wen Qing’s hand while he shook his head, upset at the news; what did his condition have to do with anything? “Why can’t you? I’m perfectly fine, there’s no reason you can’t—”

“Because it’ll kill the child and possibly you if I go ahead with it!” Wen Qing shook her hand free and pressed it against his lower dantian while he stared at her in shock. “There’s the fact that your body will undergo a great strain during the surgery, and then another after you lose your golden core. Even if you both survived those things… the father was a cultivator, right?” She stared at him intently as her hand drifted to rest against his curved belly. “A powerful one?” There was a knowing glint to her eyes as she spoke, yet she didn’t mention any names.

“Yes.” Wei Wuxian refused to think about Lan Zhan right then, but he could acknowledge that much.

“Yes,” Wen Qing echoed while Wen Ning stared at the both of them as if he was an owl transformed into a human. “Which means the child will be a cultivator, too. It doesn’t have a golden core of its own yet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t benefiting from yours.” Her expression took on a bitter edge as she rocked back on her heels, her hands clasped in her lap. “I’ve seen Wen Zhuliu wield his talent. Once, he was ordered to use it against the pregnant wife of a lord who’d angered Wen Rouhan. She survived, as did the child, but the boy couldn’t cultivate. You can make decisions for yourself all you want, but I won’t be responsible for harming a child or stripping it of its future.”

Wei Wuxian wrapped his arms around his middle as he tried to digest what he’d learned. “But… but Jiang Cheng,” he said as he glanced at his unconscious brother. “What’s going to happen when he wakes up without a core?” It would be worse than before, now that he’d been given the hope of having it restored.

Wen Qing cast a worried glance at Jiang Cheng then shook her head. “Maybe we can—”

“Wha—what about me?”

Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing gaped at Wen Ning; as usual, the quiet beta had faded into the background until he’d spoken. “What about you?” Wei Wuxian asked as he toyed with the beaded bracelet on his wrist. “Do you have an idea?”

“What about giving Young Master Jiang my core?”

Wen Qing was quick to shake her head. “No, that’s out of the question, we’ll figure something else out.”

For once, Wen Ning didn’t allow himself to be cowed by his older sister. “What, A-jie? This was the only solution you and Master Wei could find, and now he can’t go through with it. You can use my core instead,” he offered as he lightly thumped himself on the chest.

“No,” Wei Wuxian said, even as a part of him wanted to accept Wen Ning’s offer, to go along with anything that would save his little brother. “I can’t let you do this.” It was too much of a sacrifice.

“Neither can I.” Wen Qing grabbed hold of Wen Ning’s shoulders and gave him a quick shake as if to make him think properly. “I know you want to help, but this… this is too much! It’s your golden core!”

“I know that,” Wen Ning said as he placed his right hand on her shoulder, his expression earnest as always. “What good has mine ever done for me?” When she made as if to argue, he shook his head. “I’m not as strong as you and the young masters, and I know I’ll never be because of… of my illness.” He pressed his left hand against his chest while Wen Qing appeared guilt-stricken by his words. “You’ve done everything you could for me, but I’ll always be like this. I’m sure young Master Jiang will take my golden core and make something useful out of it.”

“There has to be something else we can do, you can’t just give up your golden core like this!” Wen Qing sounded near tears as she argued with her brother, yet Wen Ning held firm.

“You’re the best doctor I know, probably the best there is, A-jie, and if you don’t know about it then it doesn’t exist. And you know I’m never going to achieve much with mine, so give it to Master Jiang so he can make a difference in the world. It’s what I want.”

As Wen Qing began to cry, Wei Wuxian finally found his voice. “Wen Ning… you don’t have to do this. Any debt you believe you may owe me for saving your life has been repaid.” He wanted to accept what his friend was offering, but it was too much—especially after everything the siblings had done for them in the past couple weeks.

Wen Ning shook his head, his lips curled in a gentle smile. “I want to do it, Master Wei. This way… this way a part of me will be out there fighting, will be setting right the wrongs my clan are committing.”

The fact that he spoke so clearly and fervently, without any stuttering or self-consciousness, convinced Wei Wuxian that Wen Ning meant every word. Wen Qing must have realized the same, since she sat up straight and wiped away her tears, her expression solemn as she gazed at her brother.

“Do you truly want to do this?”

“Mm!” Wen Ning nodded once.

Wen Qing closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if centering herself. “Very well, you’ll assist me while I repair Jiang Wanyin’s meridians.” She then turned to Wei Wuxian. “I’ll need your help with the second part of the surgery.”

“Yes, anything you require,” he promised, unable to believe that they were still going through with the transfer after all. When Wen Qing stood and went over to the brazier, Wei Wuxian grabbed Wen Ning by the arm. “Thank you,” he told his friend, his voice thick with emotion.

Wen Ning smiled once more. “You’re welcome, Master—”

“No, no more of that,” Wei Wuxian said as he patted Wen Ning’s arm. “We’re brother’s now, so you have to call me Wei Ying or A-Xian or gege.” He grinned when Wen Ning attempted to stutter out a denial. “How about Ying-ge?”

“Bu—but—”

“No buts!” Wei Wuxian frowned at his new little brother. “I mean it, we’re family now. Accept it.”

Wen Ning, his face mottled with red, gawked at him for several seconds before he ducked his head. “Even A-jie?”

Wei Wuxian hummed as he rubbed the side of his nose. “Well, I already have the best big sister in the world, but I suppose Shijie won’t mind if I take on another one.” He grinned when he heard Wen Qing mutter something about how she should have kept her mouth shut about his condition.

“Mm, A-jie is amazing.” Wen Ning paused for a moment before he gave Wei Wuxian a quick pat on the left shoulder. “Ying-ge.” Then he scurried over to his sister’s side while Wei Wuxian was left stunned silent at his new nickname.

Once Wen Ning was within reach, Wen Qing cradled his face between her hands and gazed into his eyes until he gave a slight nod. There was a rasp to her voice when she told him to prepare for the transfer, which disappeared when she ordered Wei Wuxian to her side so she could explain to him what she required over the next couple days. Basically, he would watch the first part of the operation to become familiar with the items Wen Qing needed, would fetch anything she asked him to, and would provide spiritual energy to her, Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng. 

He quickly agreed to everything, considering that Wen Qing was doing all the hard work and Wen Ning giving up his own golden core, leaving him to do very little (relatively speaking).

Wei Wuxian had already considered Wen Qing a brilliant doctor, having read through the medical treatises she’d written and witnessing her talent first-hand. Now, he had to agree with Wen Ning’s assertion that she was the best one alive after watching her painstakingly heal the damage Wen Zhului had wrought to his brother’s meridians so Wen Ning’s core could be transplanted into his body, her concentration and control not slipping once over the long hours. He fed them both a slight stream of energy and tried not to think of his friend’s hands in his brother’s abdomen.

He tried not to think about how very soon, those hands would be in Wen Ning’s abdomen.

When it came time to remove Wen Ning’s golden core, the young man laid down beside Jiang Cheng without any hesitation, a reassuring smile on his broad face which froze in place when his sister paralyzed him with her needles. Wei Wuxian held his friend’s hand as Wen Qing cut into his flesh, the tightness around her eyes her only sign of distress.

If Wei Wuxian thought that time had passed slowly while she had worked on Jiang Cheng, it practically crawled during the hours it took for Wen Qing to remove Wen Ning’s golden core. Only the fact that the glowing sphere didn’t disperse into nothing when she quickly shoved it into Jiang Cheng’s lower belly made the muffled moans of agony from Wen Ning bearable, put to rest the thought that such a selfless young man had suffered everything for no reason.

It took a couple more hours before Wen Qing finished with everything (and finally allowed her brother to pass out); she slumped exhausted next to Wei Wuxian, who’d practically drained himself dry feeding spiritual energy to her, Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning. “Stop that,” she mumbled when he tried to give her a little more. “Think of the baby.”

“I’m thinking I won’t be any good for anyone if something goes wrong.” He groaned as he rested against the side of the tent as well. “It worked, right?” The last time he’d checked, he felt a steady pulse of qi in Jiang Cheng; it wasn’t as strong as his old core had been, but it was there. Wei Wuxian figured that for now, it was enough for Jiang Cheng to wield a sword and fly (for short distances at least), and that his brother would work hard to make it stronger.

“Yes, it worked.” Wen Qing cast a tender look at her brother. “It had to work.”

“What happens now?”

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as if contemplating the question; Wei Wuxian got up to pour them each a cup of tea, and smiled when Wen Qing gave him a slight nod in gratitude for the drink. “Now… I’ll monitor them for a few more hours. Once he’s stable, you can leave. When he’s healed enough, I’ll let him wake up so he can go, too.”

“What about you?” Wei Wuxian frowned when she didn’t answer. “What are the two of you going to do?”

Wen Qing gave a one-shoulder shrug. “What does it matter? You got what you wanted.”

“Because I wasn’t lying when I said you’re family now,” he said as he lowered the cup of tea. “And I want to know that my family will be safe. Don’t make your didi worry about you.” He pouted for added effect.

She turned enough to look at him, her expression inscrutable, before she shook her head, a hint of a smile on her lips. “You’re incorrigible.” 

“I’m adorable, brilliant and handsome, my shijie tells me that all the time.” He smiled when Wen Qing rolled her eyes at that statement. 

“You’re also delusional.” When he went to complain, Wen Qing held up her hand and gave him a stern look before she glanced at their sleeping brothers. “I’ll wait until A-Ning heals, which will take longer, and then we’ll return to the Supervisory Office.”

He frowned at that and rubbed his nose. “Is that wise? What if they come looking for Wen Ning for helping us?”

Wen Qing shook her head then sipped her tea; Wei Wuxian shifted so he could lift the pot and refill her cup. “Let them come. I’ll tell them I’ve already handled his punishment.”

It took Wei Wuxian a moment to realize what she meant. “You’ll tell them that you removed his golden core for helping us.” He gazed at her in admiration, for being able to turn her brother’s sacrifice into something that would protect them both.

She nodded once. “It’s a way fo both of us to escape Wen Rouhan’s wrath without him being turned into a puppet or being tortured, and should keep him from being sent to fight.”

No one needed to know that Wen Ning had done it willingly or that Wen Qing would never treat her beloved younger brother so harshly, no one but the three of them. “We’ll still keep this a secret from Jiang Cheng.” Wei Wuxian had planned to not let his brother know about the transfer of golden cores when it was supposed to be his golden core sacrificed, and saw no reason for that to change now.

Wen Qing nodded again. “That’s likely for the best,” she said, which surprised Wei Wuxian since she’d argued differently before. “He’ll probably suspect A-Ning of some ulterior motive for giving up his core.”

Wei Wuxian didn't say anything, he merely pressed his lips together at the thought of how Jiang Cheng couldn’t see past the hatred for all Wens and realize how much the two siblings had done for them. Instead, he inhaled slowly and took the empty cup from Wen Qing’s slightly trembling hand. “Get some rest,” he told her. “I’ll watch these two for a few hours and wake you if there’s any sign of trouble. Sleep a little then you can check Jiang Cheng one more time before I go.”

It looked as if she wanted to argue, but Wen Qing was too exhausted from the golden core transfer to remain awake much longer. She examined Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng briefly then finally stretched out near her brother to sleep, unconscious within a few seconds.

Wei Wuxian brewed more tea and nibbled on a handful of dried fruit one of the Wen siblings had packed (probably Wen Ning) while he forced himself to remain awake. He would check his brother and Wen Ning every now and then, to reassure himself that Jiang Cheng’s new golden core hadn’t vanished and that Wen Ning continued to recover, then tried to distract himself with plans on what to do next.

He’d leave Jiang Cheng on the mountain with the Wen siblings to continue healing and go to Yilin to wait for him at the inn they’d agreed upon earlier. Once they both were up to it, they’d travel to Lanling to reunite with Jiang Yanli and look into the rumors of Qinghe calling the clans together for war. 

Oh, and at some point Wei Wuxian would have to let his brother in on the secret about his lotus seed, but one thing at a time. He figured he’d worry about that when he was far enough along that they couldn’t fight—well, that Jiang Yanli was there to keep Jiang Cheng from throttling him then attempting to kill Lan Zhan for ‘besmirching’ his ‘honor’.

“Ah, lotus seed, it may be small but it’s a wonderful family you’ll have,” he whispered while he rubbed his belly. “Your aunt will spoil you with the best food and your uncle will fight off anyone who dares to look at you the wrong way. You certainly will be loved.” He thought about the stranger he’d met at the market in Yunmeng, right after he’d realized he was pregnant. Somehow, the woman had known about his condition when not even Madame Yu had figured it out, and had gifted him with the beaded charm bracelet he now wore on his left wrist, which she swore would provide protection to him and his child. She also had said that his child would be a powerful cultivator and that she had an old soul, the woman’s expression wistful as she talked about the unborn babe. 

Wei Wuxian wasn’t one to take such prophecies seriously, but there’d been something about the woman, a quiet yet deep thrum of power to her, a reverberation of truth to her words, and a comforting sense to the bracelet, that he accepted the gift and bowed in gratitude to her before walking away. That and… well, who didn’t want to hear that their child would grow into a powerful cultivator? Not that he had many doubts of it happening, considering that Lan Zhan was the father. 

“I do hope you’re a girl,” he said as he glanced at a sleeping Wen Qing. “Someone like mom to give those stuffy Lans fits.” He didn’t think that Lan Zhan would try to force any claim on the child if the truth came out, not when there was no mating bond between them nor marriage, but there would be less pressure on the Lan clan’s heir if Wei Wuxian bore a girl; they tended to favor men as sect leaders, not women.

“You’ll be Yunmeng Jiang, just like me.” Wei Wuxian smiled as he thought about a young woman robed in purple, her long hair held back with a red ribbon. Would she have grey eyes like him and his mother, or golden ones like Lan Zhan? Best if they were grey, he decided. He hoped she would have his mother’s smile, one of the few things he clearly remembered about her, and the sense of humor everyone said he had inherited from the woman. 

Mostly, he wished that his child never grew up like he did, starving on the streets and all alone, orphaned at a young age. He swore he’d always be there for his child, that they would never know such grief and fear.

When he felt as if he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, Wen Qing stirred and slowly sat up. She blinked a couple times then whirled around to her brother, her hands seeking out the pulse point on his left wrist; after a moment, she sagged in relief then continued with the examination. While she did that, Wei Wuxian brewed a fresh pot of tea.

Once she had examined Jiang Cheng as well, he handed her a cup of tea. “Everything good?”

“Yes.” Her dark eyes narrowed while she sipped the hot beverage. “Did you get any rest?” When he shrugged, she set the cup aside and snatched at his wrist, only to click her tongue after a few seconds. “You’re very low on spiritual energy and nearing the limits of your body. You need to sleep.”

“I’ll get plenty, once I get to Yilin,” he promised, even going as far as to raise three fingers by his forehead. “I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t forget that you’re responsible for more than yourself now.” Wen Qing placed a hand over his growing belly and concentrated for a few seconds before she clicked her tongue again. “What the gods were thinking by making you an omega, we’ll never know,” she said as she turned away.

“That my children will be as beautiful, clever and adored as I am,” Wei Wuxian said after he stuck his tongue at her (while her back was turned, he wasn’t stupid). 

Wen Qing glanced heavenward as if beseeching the gods for patience, then shoved several things into a small bag. Once she was done, she handed it to Wuxan. “Chew on these on your way to Yilin. And be careful from now on,” she admonished, her tone harsh but eyes filled with concern, “because there’s not much else we can do for you.”

Wei Wuxian accepted the bag and gave her a deep bow. “I am eternally in you and Wen Qionglin’s debt for everything you’ve done for me and my siblings. If you need anything, you just have to ask. Anything.”

She sighed and tugged on the sleeve of his black hanfu to make him stand up straight. “I thought we were family now, there’s no need for such things.” Then she wrinkled her upturned nose. “That and it seems unnatural, seeing you act like this.”

“Aww, Qing-jie is- aiya!” Wei Wuxian stumbled backwards, away from the needles suddenly brandished in his face.

“Don’t call me that, and shouldn’t you be leaving?” Wen Qing gave him a cool look and didn’t put the needles away until he nodded.

She begrudgingly waited for him to say ‘goodbye’ to his unconscious brother then walked with him back to the trail which would lead down the mountain. Assured that JIang Cheng would be alright, as would Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian wished her ‘goodbye’ as well and went on his way. He discovered that she’d given him several small balls of herbs that tasted horrible when he chewed them, but helped push aside the exhaustion so that he made good time back to Yilin. 

Still, all he wanted was to eat a good meal, have a long, hot bath and then sleep for a day or two. He thought longingly about a few jars of wine, until he felt the charm bracelet slip along his left wrist.

“The sacrifices I make for you, lotus seed,” he said as he walked, struck by a strong pang of loss yet again for Subian; if only he had his sword, he’d already be in Yilin.

If only he had his sword, maybe things would have been different when the Wens had attacked Lotus Pier. 

Eventually, he finally arrived at the designated inn on the outskirts of Yilin; he was so tired, he hardly recalled much of the last half-day of travel. Perhaps that was the reason why Wen Chao found him so quickly, or maybe it was just a case of truly bad luck. All Wei Wuxian knew was that he’d barely sat down in the inn when Wen Chao, along with Wen Zhuliu, Wang Lingjiao and several soldiers, burst into the building.

He got up to run away, only to find Wen Zhuliu in his path; the man grabbed him by the front of his robes with his left hand, his right hand pressed against Wei Wuxian’s chest, before the bastard frowned and pulled the hand back to punch Wei Wuxian instead and send him flying through the air to land on top of a table. Exhausted and still drained of energy, both physical and spiritual, Wei Wuxian could do little more than curl his body in a manner to protect the child growing inside of it.

As soon as he regained his footing, one of the soldiers kicked him in the back, which knocked him onto the ground. Wen Chao, the smug asshole, trod on his right hand and taunted him, asking him why didn’t he get up and where his arrogance had gone. He was told to get back up, despite the asshole standing on his foot; eventually two soldiers had to haul him upright.

“Where is Jiang Cheng?” Wen Chao demanded to know. “What, you don't want to talk? You know you can’t save him even if you remain silent. Right now, Jiang Cheng is merely a waste. He’s no better than livestock.”

Wei Wuxian listened to the useless second son of the Wen clan insult his brother and the Yunmeng Jiang clan, as he was told to beg like a dog (a dog!) and crawl on the ground if he wanted to be let go (he knew it was a lie, did Wen Chao think he was as stupid as him?). Even Wang Lingjiao started yipping away as if she was of any importance.

Of course Wei Wuxian didn’t take them up on their ‘offer’ (blatant lie), so it wasn’t any surprise when the arrogant asshole ordered his soldiers to beat him; once again, Wei Wuxian curled up in a protective manner to protect his child as much as possible. Part of him wondered how the soldiers would react if they knew they were attacking a pregnant omega, before he decided that Wen Chao probably wouldn’t care about breaking such an important taboo (and he couldn’t risk the Wens finding out that Lan Zhan was the father).

The assault eventually stopped, only for Wen Chao to threaten Wei Wuxian as if he was anything more than a pathetic bully whose only real power lay in the weapons his father loaned out to him. There was a moment of fear when he called upon Wen Zhuliu to destroy Wei Wuxian’s core, but Wei Wuxian managed to talk his way out of it before the man moved to obey. He foolishly believed that might be improving (despite Wang Lingjiao slicing into his chest with that damn brand she never seemed to be without), before he was dragged out of outside and hauled into the air.

At first he thought they might be taking him to Qishan with the intent of throwing him in the dungeons there, but eventually Wen Chao, the pompous asshole, began talking about the Burial Mounds in Yiling. Wei Wuxian’s eyes grew wide and his heart raced when it became clear what was going to happen to him, but he was too battered and drained of energy to do more than attempt to struggle. Not a moment later, mocking laughter broke out as he was flung downward, toward the darkness and source of overpowering resentful energy that was the Burial Mounds.

Pushing all panic aside, he quickly cast a talisman for wind in an attempt to slow his descent; it worked somewhat, but he still rushed toward the ground. He tried another one, which seemed to have a greater effect (there was an odd heat around his left wrist for some reason), so he then cast his binding spell, the gleaming blue thread forming on his left wrist, which he cast out as he quickly approached what looked to be large trees. Be it by luck or the blessings of the gods, it managed to latch on to one of the tall, spindly structures. A sharp pain tore through his left shoulder when the line grew taut, but his impact upon the ground was lessened to the point that he didn’t die immediately.

No, he merely passed out.

He woke to the sound of screams, of voices calling out his names and cries of vengeance, and a wall of fierce corpses standing in the near distance. Surprised that he hadn’t been devoured by the undead creatures while unconscious, he noticed two things: that there was a glowing, pale blue circle around him and that just outside of it floated the sword he’d found inside the Tortoise of Slaughter and had placed inside his quankin pouch. Confused, battered both by resentful energies and what the Wens had done to him, Wei Wuxian managed to sit up somewhat, hunched forward as he felt for the spark of life inside of him that had been steadily growing the last few months. He almost slumped face first into the ground when he realized that his unborn child had survived everything (so far, a hysterical voice whispered in his head) by some miraculous means.

He needed to get his act together and ensure his lotus seed remained alright; that meant figuring a way to get out of the Burial Mounds alive, something no one had ever done. It was a good thing the Yunmeng Jiang clan’s motto was ‘attempt the impossible’.

He took in the bleak surroundings: the bones scattered everywhere and numerous gravestones, the mist which obscured his vision after a few yards, and a lack of sunlight which made it impossible to tell the time of day. There was the oppressive miasma of resentful energy along with the endless chorus of voices calling out to him, which he did his best to block out of his head. His right hand clutched at the bracelet around his left wrist while he attempted to concentrate, his fingers quick to find the gap from two missing beads.

Had they been broken in the fall? Or during the beating back at the inn? Wei Wuxian didn’t have much time to ponder what had happened to the charm since the intensity of the voices’ shrieking increased to a painful level, as did the pressure from the resentful energy. He struggled to fight against the insidious forces, but he didn’t have much spiritual energy.

However, he remembered that the odd sword had some sort of power to it, that it seemed tied to the ghostly voices in the Dusk-Creek Mountain cave. Or maybe he’d hit his head on something during the fall, or been kicked one too many times by those Wen bastards. The thing was, he and his unborn child weren’t going anywhere unless he did something, and right then? The sword seemed the only source of power around, which meant it might be of some help.

Or it might be one huge mistake, but Wei Wuxian didn’t have many choices available as well as a history of turning mistakes into his favor (well, mostly). 

He half-crawled toward the sword and only hesitated a moment to reach past the safety of the circle (where had it come from?) for the weapon’s hilt. For a moment all was quiet, and then the screaming came back in force.

Wei Wuxian

Do you want vengeance?

Young Master Wei

Stay with us

Hurt the ones who’ve hurt you, Wei Wuxian

Wei Ying

Do you want to stay?

What about vengeance?

The voices were so loud, so constant, as were their shrieks of pain and rage. He thought some of them sounded familiar, thought they might be the dead from Lotus Pier, yet he also thought he heard Lan Zhan say his name once or twice when he dwelled on the voices calling for vengeance. By the time he reached the sword, the voices were an incoherent cacophony in his head that funneled to one thunderous question as his hands wrapped around ice-cold metal.

DO YOU WANT VENGEANCE?

For a moment, Wei Wuxian could see himself standing in the Palace of Sun and Flames, surrounded by an endless sea of Wen corpses, the heads of Wen Rouhan and his sons mounted on pikes behind him. He hungered for the vision to come true, for the Wens to pay for what they’d done to the Jiangs and the Lans… and then he felt a faint flutter in his belly and heard Wen Qing chide him to take better care of himself.

“I… I want the power to protect myself and my loved ones,” he told the voice (the sword?). “To defend them from those who would cause harm.” Who had caused harm.

VENGEANCE!

He thought of Jiang Yanli and shook his head.”I want more than that for my child!” He didn’t want someone to come after her for what he’d done, he wanted an end to the fighting. “Protection!”

Child? 

A child. Home

Family

It was faint, but some of the voices seemed to be breaking off from the sword. “Yes, a child, my child. I’ll fight anyone to keep them safe, can’t you understand that?” To give them a happy, safe life.” I want to give them peace, not eternal war,” he pleaded with the sword and the voices. “I understand revenge, I want it, too, but not at the cost of my child’s peace. Help me give my child peace.”

Vengeance

Family, they took away my family

I only wanted a husband and child of my own

Wei Ying

My child was so young

Was he getting somewhere with them? Wei Wuxian gritted his teeth together, his hands long turned numb from holding onto the sword, and offered the voices (the dead) a consoling smile. “Help me, and I’ll help you,” he promised.

*******

Somehow all my italics got messed up. Grrr.

So, the a/b/o here - it’s more lowkey than in other fics, if you can’t tell, and basically comes across as how people reproduce. People don’t put down omegas as being weak or lesser, it just means they are more fertile than betas and can bear children (and so usually have a protected status, especially when pregnant). An alpha/omega pairing will produce the most offspring, but other pairings can technically produce them as well, just with less odds of success. That means no one looks down on WWX for being an omega, though they’d chastise him (and his partner) for having a child out of wedlock and for him not taking care of himself while pregnant. That’s more to deal with the value placed on family and honor than anything.

No obvious scenting, either, at least not until one is in heat/rut, and it’s considered normal for people to take daily medicine (tea or the such) to lessen the impact of them if not put them off all-together, and to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Also, I’m probably going to skip most honorifics except the immediate family ones. I’ve only the very beginning knowledge of Chinese. Please forgive any mistakes there along with the culture, I appreciate any corrections.

And I promise, a new chapter of Casts a Shadow up this weekend!

[galactichen]

i’ll force the seas apart for you | bang chan

prompt #3. “You’re not hurting me, you’re not heavy. I’ve got you, love.”

description. because nothing is scarier than a captain fighting for the love of his life.

pairing. bang chan x reader

genre. romance, adventure, pirate au

word count. 2.3k

author’s note. decided that the world needed more pirate chan, so i delivered. enjoy pirate chan and his crew ;) this is definitely hinting at a skz pirate au hhhhh

warning. blood and gore. just pirate things

When Jeongin accidentally ate the last of their food rations, Chan didn’t get mad. He only expressed his disappointment in the youngest member of the crew before telling Jisung to steer the ship towards the nearest port to restock; they had a little extra cash from their previous raid to spend anyway.

When Minho drunkenly spilled about their next target in a bar filled to the brim with treasure-seeking pirates like himself, Chan didn’t get mad. He only sighed, quietly making his way back to the map he had built with Jisung, the crew’s navigator, to mark a big red ‘X’ over what once was their target. Jisung then proceeded to give Minho a piece of his mind when the latter arrived back to the ship, burdened with a terrible migraine, an angry Jisung, and a disappointed captain.

Chan still didn’t get mad when Changbin, in a fit of rage over an apparent spew over the captain’s ability to direct his crew, sliced off the arms of one of their allies, effectively initiating a war between the crews. It ended in terrible bloodshed; multiple casualties on both ends and a few of Chan’s key crew members badly injured with a frantic Woojin pacing back and forth between patients. They had to replace many of the planks in the ship, for they had been stained with far too much blood to simply wash out; it left them stranded on land for days and drained of gold for weeks until they could pinpoint their next raid for money. And yet, he only expressed gratitude towards Changbin, his first mate, mainly because the other crew was pretty shitty anyway and he’s been waiting all this time for a reason to cut off their allyship.

But when he sees you, all bloodied, beaten, and tied up to the mast of their enemy’s ship like some sort of sick sacrifice—that’s what makes his blood boil.

His knuckles turn a sickly shade of white from gripping the handle of his sword too hard, and it makes Woojin glance at him rather worriedly, for the mind of the medic was never not worried about the well-being of his crew—especially that of his captain.

“What is it that you desire?” Chan yells, and it makes the rest of his crew flinch because none of them were used to this kind of Chan; the kind of Chan who only appears when you, the love of his life, were in danger.

The opposing captain only grins—the sort of grin that sends shivers down one’s back because of the ferocity it holds, like you weren’t sure when they were going to pounce like an animal gone feral. He reaches up and tilts his cap back to reveal an even more ferocious look in his eyes, even in the glass one.

“Desire? What do I desire?” the opposing captain laughs, though empty of any humour. But then he stops abruptly, the silence that follows deafening before he slams his foot down, the look on his face suddenly contorting into that of a mad man. “Your ship. Give me that beaut’ of your’s,” he slurs, “and she,” he says, pointing to your unconscious form, your head leaning a little too far on one side to expose bruises that shouldn’t be there, “is all yours.”

The ship. Chan’s scowl only etches deeper into his face. His hands start to shake from rage. That’s what you were kidnapped and beaten and possibly—Chan doesn’t even want to think about what other unholy things they’ve done to you—all for what? His ship?

The ship that he inherited from his father? The ship that he and Changbin both sailed together by themselves to different landmasses, in search of the crew they stand together in front of today? The same ship that Hyunjin and Seungmin snuck into one night, seeking shelter and accidently got adopted by a whole crew of pirates instead?

The same ship that brought him to you and your brother Felix, where you were huddled in a corner with tears streaming down your face as Felix bravely tried to fend off a band of bandits by himself with nothing but a dagger before Chan and the rest of the crew arrived by chance?

“Don’t do it,” Changbin whispers quietly from Chan’s left. He knows how important both the ship and you were to the captain. He wasn’t about to make his captain choose between one or the other; the ship held an incredible amount of sentimental value to Chan, Changbin, and the rest of the crew. And you were, well, Chan’s biggest source of happiness.

They were going to find a way around this. Changbin was sure of it.

But he doesn’t get a chance to elaborate further when Chan quietly says, “Have it.”

Even the opposing captain looks stunned out of his mind when Chan accepts the offer of taking you back in exchange for his ship. Changbin doesn’t even try to hide the bewildered look that crosses his face. Was Chan out of his mind? That ship was so, so important to both him and Chan! That ship was gifted to Chan by his father. It held so many memories; why was Chan so willing to give it all up for this piece of shit of a captain?

Oh, how Changbin wished you were conscious so you could slap Chan out of it.

Felix taps Changbin’s shoulder and Changbin is met with a “is he serious?” look from the younger male, which makes Changbin shrug in response.

“That’s it?” the opposing captain all but shrieks, and his voice makes you stir a little, your head bobbing a little before you slip back into dreamland once more. “No fight? No ‘arrrgh you piss me off’ moment?” the captain flails his arms around for show, effectively demonstrating his shock.

“Quit pissing me off and give her back,” Chan growls. Don’t misunderstand; he’s pissed all right. He’s pissed that this joke of a captain was making him choose between his beloved ship and the love of his life. He wants nothing more than to slice that man’s head off clean with his sword, but the only thing that holds him back is the thought of the blood of his enemy splattering all over you—the thought of that ever happening to you made him gag.

But at the end of the day, the ship can be replaced.

You, on the other hand, could not.

The opposing captain halts his arm-flailing and turns only his head in Chan’s direction before hissing, “Nah.” He slowly lowers his sword and brings it close to his face, making a show of moving it across and even licking the blade. “Where’s the fun in that?” he asks, finally lowering the blade after a long, excruciating moment. “I came to see you get your panties in a twist, and I refuse to leave before that happens.”

Then he swiftly picks his sword up and makes a move to plunge it into your chest which makes Chan’s entire crew yell in panic, but Felix is quick on his feet and makes a frantic leap for the opposing captain, throwing the dagger that was in his hand and praying to god that it’d hit true and do something to stop what looks to be the inevitable.

Chan himself lets out an entire battle cry, throwing his own sword only seconds after Felix.

It’s slow motion as it happens, both blades flying in the air towards the opposing captain as he’s in the middle of thrusting his sword forward to your chest. 

The opposing captain’s sword strikes first, the blade meeting your body in a burst of pain that makes you wake from unconsciousness, mouth opening in a silent scream. But what everybody hears instead is the scream of the opposing captain instead, Felix’s dagger slicing into the skin of his hand clutching the sword, making him drop the blade before it could do further damage to you. 

Chan’s sword strikes next, the momentum of his arm giving it enough power to pierce through the captain’s neck as well as the crewmate beside him. Both of their eyes roll back and they tumble to the ground without another sound.

Then it’s chaos.

The sound of swords unsheathing fill the air, cries of men and women alike close behind as the bloodbath between two crews begins. Blood begins to fly and the ship they stand on quickly becomes a jungle as Chan and his crew try their best to dodge the flying blades and fight back, desperately defending their captain as he draws a second sword to fight his way over to you, guarded by two members of the opposing crew.

All Chan sees is red.

He was so close to being tricked and losing not only his ship, but you as well. All he could focus on at this moment was the developing bloodstain at the centre of your chest, your hooded lids fluttering open and closed as you frantically tried to get a gather at your surroundings. Woojin stands close behind him, waiting for the perfect moment to hop in and grab you so he could treat your stab wound as best he could, given the circumstances. Changbin’s not too far off either, but he was far too occupied with beating the shit out of anyone who dared to come within a foot of Chan and Woojin—the rest of the main crew was no different.

Limbs fly as Chan desperately swings his blade through the air, swinging at whatever dared to cross his path. Fortunately, the rest of his own crew was smart enough to stay far away from Chan’s line of sight so they wouldn’t accidently get mutilated by their captain.

“Quickly!” Chan shouts at Woojin just as he slices the head of one of your guards clean off. Woojin nods and doesn’t hesitate to dash forward in the path Chan has successfully cleared to you. Minho is at Chan’s side within seconds, and the two furiously fight to defend the mast of the ship where Woojin frantically works to carve at the ropes that bind you to the mast.

“Woo...jin?” you murmur weakly, recognizing the familiar kind gaze and sweet smile of the crew’s medic in front of you as he cuts through your ropes.

“That’s me,” he says with a smile despite the carnage behind him. He does his best to block your vision by making you look down at his feet, but then a head rolls along and—well, it’s the life of a pirate anyway. “You’re safe now,” he lets out a quiet huff as he cuts through the last of the rope that binds you to the mast, and with the little strength you have left, you push off the mast and fall into Woojin’s arms.

Another pair of arms lift you from Woojin and you fight back temporarily until Seungmin’s voice soothes you quietly, saying, “Hey, hey! It’s just me, it’s just me.”

“Hold her like that,” Woojin tells Seungmin as he reaches in his back pocket, likely for some spare gauze he always keeps on his person. He makes quick work of your wound, tying the gauze across your chest tightly as a temporary fix until he can properly clean and fix up the injury.

“Where’s Chan?” you ask the boys. You’re dizzy, you’re tired, and all you wanted was to be in the safety of the captain’s arms. Too long have you suffered in the cell of the enemy crew’s ship, beaten when you refused to let them use your body to their desire.

“Fighting for you,” Seungmin says.

“Either you die here, or you walk the plank,” you hear Chan snap at one of the remaining enemy crew members. The scream that follows is deafening and indicates the desire of the pirate to fight to the end; the deafening silence that comes after makes everyone breathe out a sigh of relief.

At last, the fight is over.

Bodies litter the deck of the ship, and it makes Chan grateful that he didn’t bring the entirety of his crew over, for they would have suffered even more losses.

Oh, but seeing you alive and breathing, Chan is reminded of why he came with his best fighters and medics in the first place.

“Chan!” you weakly call out when you spot him making a run over to where you’re being held up by both Seungmin and Woojin, for you were far too weak at the moment to be standing on your own. 

Chan chants your name over and over again when he finally reaches you, arms wrapping tightly around you as you cry out for him, desperate for his embrace because you were afraid you had forgotten what it was like after all your time in the cells. 

“My love, my love,” Chan whispers. Seungmin and Woojin quietly step away from the precious reunion, turning their attention to the rest of the crew to help the injured across the wide plank that connects their ship to the now-crewless enemy ship. Hyunjin, Jisung, and Jeongin all run across when they’re given the signal that the coast is clear, happy that all went well in the end.

“I-I couldn’t,” you start to say, but Chan hushes you, leaning forward to kiss you briefly.

“Tell me after we have you fixed up, love,” Chan says with a soft smile after he pulls away, his smile a stark contrast to his previously enraged self. He then proceeds to pick you up bridal-style, to which you gasp and clutch onto his neck in response.

“Am I too-”

“Shh,” Chan whispers, nuzzling his nose into yours. “You’re not hurting me, you’re not heavy. I’ve got you, love.”

You only nod in response, deciding to simply bury your face in the crook of Chan’s neck as he makes his way over to his ship, carefully stepping over the bodies that litter the deck as cheers erupt from the other side when the rest of the crew spot the captain making his way across with his beloved in his arms.

Because the captain’s beloved, was also the crew’s beloved.

[compassionthreads]

Real Apologies

Someone asked how to deliver real apologies and how to grow out of behaviors that hurt others and here is what I can offer under the read more: 

Why it can be hard to apologise  

So why do so many people struggle with admitting their mistakes, electing instead to play the ostrich-head-in-the-sand game? Often masquerading behind stiff facades and a determination to shift blame (often onto the hurt party), and to save ego and skin, it’s a dangerous place to sit long term.

Owning and admitting mistakes of any kind can feel like a loss of power and a declaration of weakness. This is a phoney fear in reality as taking responsibility and apologising takes great courage and strength.

Studies also show entrenched non-apologists grapple with deeper psychological conflict around apologising as it elicits fundamental shameful feelings (either conscious or unconscious) they desperately want to avoid.  

Sue Parker wrote for SmartCompany: 

For clarity, I’m reflecting in this article on the commonplace (but still harmful) mistakes that are made in our lives and businesses — as opposed to those of the monumental, historical, government, institutional and or royal commission kind. -SUE PARKER AUGUST 14, 2019

So, given that humans make mistakes, be they intentional or inadvertent, why is admitting and apologising with remorse often akin to pulling a decayed tooth from a tiger? What prevents people stepping out to take responsibility and remedy? Mistakes that are not addressed can be set in stone causing ongoing commercial and human damage.

“It’s never too late to put things right. It’s never too late to say sorry and mean it.”

A genuine apology can shift mountains of despair, alleviate hurt, elevate self-esteem and purpose, encourage honesty, build partnerships, foster trust and most importantly allow situations and relationships to really repair, grow and succeed.

An apology:

Is simply the right and decent thing to do;

Works to repair and re-establish relationships and trust;

Helps restores dignity and wellbeing to the other party who has been hurt;

Minimises conflict and gives the space for business creativity;

Strengthens self-respect and values 

Minimises feelings of deep remorse that can impact you physically and emotionally.

-SUE PARKER AUGUST 14, 2019

Apologies are definitely “crucial conversations,” and the book gives good insight into the win-win potential a real apology creates:

…an apology isn’t really an apology unless you experienced a change in heart. To offer a sincere apology, your motives have to change. You have to give up saving face, being right or winning in order to focus on what you really want. You have to sacrifice a bit of your ego by admitting your error. But like many sacrifices, when you give up something you value, you’re rewarded with something even more valuable — healthy dialogue and better results.

According to The Power of Remorse and Apology by Hershey H Friedman an apology is structured in the next manner: 

What does an apology entail? O’Hara (2004), synthesizing the literature on apologies, states that an effective apology has the following four elements:

(1) Identification of the wrongful act; (2) Expression of remorse and regret for having committed the act; (3) Promise to forbear from committing the wrongful act in the future; (4) Offer of repair.

There can be an apology without remorse. Indeed, this is usually a failed or pseudo-apology, an apology that does not heal and may make matters worse. Lazare (2004, pp. 85-106) describes various types of apologies that do not indicate true remorse, for instance:

An apology that minimizes the offense or implies that the victim was not really hurt. 

A conditional apology such as “If anyone has been hurt by my actions, I am sorry” does not usually indicate remorse. 

On the other hand, there can be remorse without apology. Remorse usually indicates that there are psychological pain and suffering on the part of the wrongdoer. They wish they could go back in time and undo the bad deed. Many people regret past misdeeds and think of them often but may, however, never apologize to their victims. 

Remorse without an apology may mean that both the victim and the offender suffer an entire life; there is no opportunity for healing. 

Engel (2001, p. 12) observes:

When we apologize to someone we have hurt, disappointed, neglected, or betrayed, we give them a wonderful gift that is far more healing than almost anything else we can give. By apologizing, we let the other person know that we regret having hurt him or her. Just as important, we let this person know we respect him, and we care about his feelings. It becomes one of the most effective tools for mending a relationship.

Therefore this begs the question what constitues then, as a Non apology? 

According to Zahra Barnes (JUL 21, 2015); A non apology constitutes of Five core signs that the aggravator does not mean what they say.

1. They Don't Seem to Understand Why They’re Apologizing

After actually saying "I'm sorry," comprehending what they  did wrong is the bare minimum for an apology. "Sorry on its own is like a balloon without a string," says Greer. "It needs to be tied to them  explaining how they  hurt you."

If they’re not showing an awareness of why what they did wasn't okay and how it affected your feelings, they probably doesn't get that they did anything wrong in the first place. "The apology is just the beginning," says Greer. "The first thing it needs to be packaged with is an explanation of what exactly they’re apologizing for."

2. They Make It All About Themself

Empathy is key for a successful apology, but it needs to be done the right way. "When someone brings in their own experience, he runs the risk of trivializing the intensity of your feelings," says Greer. Instead of making it sound like they know exactly how they hurt you, they could have tweaked the language and settled on something like, "I'm sorry I created some backlash that was upsetting for you. I've been through some myself, and it wasn't fair to help put you in that position." (On a social example.) That way, it doesn't make it seem like they think they're in the same exact situation.

3. They Make a Show Out of It

So about that whole getting-on-his-knees and apologizing to (social circle or media) thing. "That's television, so it makes more sense there, but if a person is falling all over themselves just repeating that they’re sorry, it may not be sincere," says Greer. Without an explanation of how they plan on changing any hurtful behaviors in the future, dramatic apologies can fall flat. "An apology should include some sort of intention about how they’re going to change going forward," says Greer. That's one major way you'll know they care about not making the same mistake twice.

4. Their Actions Don't Mimic Their Words

Following a person’s stated resolve to do better, they need to actually, you know, do better. "You have to give it time to play out because what people say in the moment can only be supported by what they do in the future," says Greer. Otherwise, a lack of change shows they can't take ownership of the apology. 

5. They Expect You to Get Over It ASAP

If a person does all of the above, they could still undermine what would otherwise be a good apology by expecting you to go back to normal in an instant. "That's more about them wanting you to get on with it without fully understanding why you might need more time," says Greer. Instead, after explaining that they knows how they hurt you and what they’ll do to make sure it doesn't happen again, a person who's truly sorry will get that it might take some time for you to heal.

Given this information it’s understood that the structure of the apology needs to be characterized by giving a victim space, understanding, empathy, and giving oneself personal introspection and reparation. 

But to be more exact, how do you say you don’t mean something, and/or how do you avoid saying the wrong thing?

Kelsey Borresen (04/12/2018) has a good list of things Not to say during apologies that are representative of nonapologies:

1. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“Even though this phrase begins with the words, ‘I’m sorry,’ it is not a real apology. It does not take ownership of any wrongdoing. It does not communicate remorse for your actions, and it does not express any empathy towards the other person’s feelings. Instead, it may imply that you think the other person is being irrational or overly sensitive. Try to understand and take responsibility for how your actions or words hurt the other person, saying something like, ‘I’m sorry that I canceled our plans at the last minute. It was inconsiderate of your time and I understand why you are angry at me.’” ― Gina Delucca, clinical psychologist at Wellspace SF

2. “I’m sorry I said that, but I never would have if you hadn’t behaved the way you did.”

“Again, we are hearing blame. ‘Look what you made me do.’ This is not an apology for one’s behavior but actually a maneuver to hold the other person responsible for one’s behavior. In other words, ‘You caused me to say this to you.’ We are all responsible for our behavior, no matter what the other person says or does. A heartfelt apology is to recognize the pain we cause and own our behavior: ‘I’m sorry that I reacted the way I did and upset you.’” ― Carol A. Lambert, psychotherapist and author of Women with Controlling Partners

3. “I was stressed out!” (or tired... or hungry... or in a bad mood...)

“This makes a recurrence of the offense almost inevitable. Always connect the apology to the future. For example, ‘The next time I feel that way (whatever triggered the offense), I will remember that I love you and that our bond is so important to me,’ or, ‘I’ll make sure I get centered in my values so I don’t act on impulse.’ The subtext should always be: ‘I’m sorry that I hurt you and harmed the bond between us.’” ― Steven Stosny, psychologist and author of Love Without Hurt

4. “I said I’m sorry already, why can’t you just let it go?”

“Blaming your partner for not immediately accepting your apology, forgiving you and moving on is unrealistic and unfair. For an apology to be effective, it must be clear that: 

1) You accept full responsibility for your actions and inactions; 

2) You are sincerely sorry for anything you’ve done to cause pain and

3) That you want to remedy the situation by giving your partner what they need to feel safe in order to move on and forgive you. 

Not all apologies lead to immediate forgiveness. It may take time. And it may take apologizing more than once. Start by asking what your partner needs in order to trust you and feel safe and then do it.” ― Sheri Meyers, marriage and family therapist and author of Chatting or Cheating: How to Detect Infidelity, Rebuild Love and Affair-Proof Your Relationship

5. “I was reacting to...”

“This is an excuse, not an apology.” ― Stosny

6. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“This is an example of a conditional apology that doesn’t truly acknowledge any remorse or personal responsibility. By using the word ‘if,’ you are communicating that the problem isn’t really about what you did, but is about how the person reacted to what you did instead.

Essentially, this type of ‘non-apology’ places the blame back onto the person it’s directed at. Simply remove the word ‘if,’ and your apology can take on a whole new meaning: ‘I’m sorry I offended you. I will make sure to be more considerate and careful with my words in the future.’” ― Tara Griffith, marriage and family therapist and the founder of Wellspace SF

7. “I may have done this, but you did that!”

“Try to avoid keeping score and bringing up times when the other person was in the wrong. An apology is about you acknowledging the wrongfulness of your own actions and making amends; it is not about pointing fingers at other people as a way to justify your actions.” ― Delucca

Here are six words that can sabotage your apology in no time flat delivered by 

1. You

There’s no better way to apologize without actually apologizing than following an “I’m sorry” with this three-letter pronoun. “I’m sorry you … [feel that way/think that/misinterpreted things/anything else].”

If you’re sorry, be sorry for your actions. Don’t imply that the recipient was wrong to feel upset or hurt.

Of course, context is important. If it applies, then feel free to throw in you at other points, as in the always appreciated expression “You were right, and I was wrong.”

2. But

This little conjunction may be the ultimate apology annihilator. You never know what will come after it, but whatever it is, it’s bound to steer your mea culpa away from sincerity and down a road of excuses and exculpations . Best to leave the phrase “I’m sorry, but … ” at the door.

3. If

Such a short little pronoun, but its passive-aggressive power is massive.

“If it came off that way …” “If I hurt you …” “If you think I was wrong …” If you were wrong there should be no ifs about it.

4. I

It’s obviously OK to start an apology with I, as in “I am sorry,” but if the rest of your apology is filled with “I this …”  and “I that…” then there’s a good chance you’re making it all about you, and not about the person you hurt. Be mindful of how you incorporate this term, and whether what follows is a line of defense, or something more earnest and useful.

5. Blame

While the rain (cue Milli Vanilli), tequila, or anything else may have something to do with your actions, saying, “I blame it on … ” sucks the sincerity right out of an apology. It implies that you’re holding someone or something other than yourself responsible, and it sounds more like an explanation than a plea for forgiveness. Plus, we all know that it can never really be the tequila’s fault.

6. Not

This mighty adverb can come in handy in all kinds of heartfelt apologetic phrases, but the tired “sorry, not sorry” isn’t one of them. Enough with the sarcastic sorrow. Can we please just banish this phrase already? Either be sorry or don’t be sorry, and if you’re not, then words like unapologetic , impenitent, and obdurate have a much nicer ring.

Then if it is this easy to own up, apologize and move on, how come so many people cannot do this? 

Why Apologies Threaten Non-Apologists, by  Guy Winch tells us that for non-apologists, saying "I’m sorry" carries psychological ramifications that run far deeper than the words themselves imply; it elicits fundamental fears (either conscious or unconscious) they desperately want to avoid:

Admissions of wrongdoing are incredibly threatening for non-apologists because they have trouble separating their actions from their character. If they did something bad, they must be bad people; if they were neglectful, they must be fundamentally selfish and uncaring; if they were wrong, they must be ignorant or stupid, etc. Therefore, apologies represent a major threat to their basic sense of identity and self-esteem.

Apologizing might open the door to guilt for most of us, but for non-apologists, it can instead open the door to shame. While guilt makes us feel bad about our actions, shame makes non-apologists feel bad about their selves—who they are—which is what makes shame a far more toxic emotion than guilt.

While most of us consider apologies as opportunities to resolve interpersonal conflict, non-apologists may fear their apology will only open the floodgates to further accusations and conflict. Once they admit to one wrongdoing, surely the other person will pounce on the opportunity to pile on all the previous offenses for which they refused to apologize as well.

Non-apologists fear that by apologizing, they would assume full responsibility and relieve the other party of any culpability. If arguing with a spouse, for example, they might fear an apology would exempt the spouse from taking any blame for a disagreement, despite the fact that each member of a couple has at least some responsibility in most arguments.

By refusing to apologize, non-apologists are trying to manage their emotions. They are often comfortable with anger, irritability, and emotional distance, and experience emotional closeness and vulnerability to be extremely threatening. They fear that lowering their guard even slightly will make their psychological defenses crumble and open the floodgates to a well of sadness and despair that will pour out of them, leaving them powerless to stop it. They might be correct. 

However, they are incorrect in assuming that exhibiting these deep and pent-up emotions (as long as they get support, love, and caring when they do—which fortunately, is often the case) will be traumatic and damaging. Opening up in such a way is often incredibly therapeutic and empowering, and it can lead them to experience far deeper emotional closeness and trust toward the other person, significantly deepening their relationship satisfaction.

Looking at the barebasics of the psychology behind non apologists, and what a non apology may look like, is it possible to implement an apology as an abuse tactic? The short answer ? Is yes, it is. And it is extremely common in familial and romantic relationships with toxic and or unhealthy people who do not know anything about emotional maturity. That and by abusers. 

Emily Desanctis’s article for the Writer’s Corps tells us What “I’m Sorry” Means When it’s Used to Manipulate You:

1. A declaration made out of selfishness

Synonym: I don’t want to feel guilty anymore

I feel guilty because of what happened, and guilt isn’t a good feeling. I’m saying that I’m sorry to make myself feel better, not you.

2. A means to end a dispute that the apologizer would prefer to avoid, often for lack of caring

Synonym: This conversation is over

I’m tired and bored with this disagreement so I’m using these words to end it. I probably don’t believe it or don’t care enough to get to the real issue and so I’ll say this, so you’ll stop pressing for more. It may seem that I’m submitting to your point here, but in fact, I’m using this phrase to avoid doing so.

3. A method of appeasement to control another person

Synonym: I’m in control

I’m telling you what you want to hear not because I mean it, but because I know it will appease you and then allow me to pull your strings as I desire. If I don’t say it, there’s a high likelihood of some outcome occurring that I don’t want to happen—maybe you’ll stop talking to me or leave me home alone while you go out with your friends or break up with me for good. “I’m sorry” is simply a tool I pull out from my toolbox to prevent these things from happening.

4. A phrase designed to elicit an apology from the other party, whereby the original apologizer can deflect full responsibility to that other person; usually said in a hostile or sarcastic tone and often followed by an explicit or implicit “…but this is really your fault”

Synonym: you should be sorry

I wanted to hurt you and I did exactly what I knew would do so. But you started it—like always, you did something to make me upset: you weren’t where you said you’d be, you smiled at that stranger in an overtly flirtatious way, you took too long to respond to my text. Even though you might pretend that you didn’t mean to hurt me, I know that’s a lie. This is really your fault; in fact, you should be apologizing to me.

5. A means of furthering the test of how far the apologizer can push the other person’s boundaries and get away with it

Synonym: I’m testing you

I know what will hurt you and I do it with pleasure. I’m testing you to see what I can get away with—to see what you’ll put up with and what you won’t. “I’m sorry” is just something I say before I do this again—maybe the same exact way, or maybe slightly differently. Don’t worry, over time you’ll become desensitized to this; it will simply be “normal,” and so I’ll continue to push further so I can provoke you to react and keep myself entertained.

The hidden meaning behind any disingenuous “I’m sorry” is the same: I’m not really sorry because you deserve it. This is the lie that manipulators who lavish false apologies spread.

In short, a sincere apology can be seen in 3 parts: “I am sorry . It's my fault .What can I do to make it right?”

And how can a person show that they are becoming better?

Respect boundaries. Respect people’s intrincasies or walk away if you cannot coexist healthily. Communicate, constantly. Everything and Anything will be misinterpreted. This is not a joke, it is a common human matter.

Surround yourself with people who will be ready to openly critcize, hold you accountable and/or call you out on your unhealthy behavior, not those that will simply not along to your actions or look the other way when someone is being hurt by you. Yes men are not a ways to grow up, they are enablers who will hold you back on your path toward becoming a better, healthier person and who will allow you to walk all over them regardless of their own feelings and opinions.

Cultivate Gratitude. Yeah. You’ve probably heard it a million times, but keeping a gratitude journal of what you’re thankful for can have a big effect on your mindset. Research has shown that incorporating gratitude into your daily life can help ward off stress, improve sleep, and cultivate more positive social relationships.

Anna Hennings, MA, a mental performance coach in sport psychology, recommends using the acronym GIFT to help you identify what you’re grateful for.

When thinking about things you’re grateful for, look for instances of:

Growth: personal growth, like learning a new skill

Inspiration: moments or things that inspired you

Friends/family: people who enrich your life

Tranquility: the small, in-between moments, such as enjoying a cup of coffee or a good book

Surprise: the unexpected or a nice favor

The next time you find yourself feeling incompetent or overwhelmed, try telling yourself:

“I know this change is going to be challenging, but I’ve put a lot of meaningful thought into it and have considered all the options open to me [fact], so I feel confident I am doing the best I can in this moment [optimism].”

Being kind to others can help give you a sense of purpose and make you feel less isolated.

Try doing something nice for someone at random:

Pay a compliment to a stranger.

Buy lunch for your colleague.

Send a card to a friend.

Make a donation to someone in need.

“You’ll notice your mood lift a little when you do good for the sheer joy of it,” says Roantree. (Studies Trusted Source) show that simply counting acts of kindness for one week can boost happiness and gratitude.

Allow the other person’s experience to be what it is, without trying to dismiss their pain. Work to extend true empathy, as you strive to understand their perspective. There may be a time to teach them a life lesson; for now, offer your love and care instead, which validates their experience.

Before offering your opinion or guidance, think carefully about how it’s likely to be received. For example, that critiques of one’s parenting are almost never welcome. You might also take a closer look at what’s driving the pattern of criticism, and discuss with the recipient how you intend to change your behavior.

Be honest with yourself about the feelings you have that lead to the behavior. If you’re unhappy about something and it’s worth addressing, find a time and a way to do it directly and honestly.

Take a close look at your patterns in relationships. Look into information on “attachment style” (like this book), which is how we tend to connect with other people. You might also address this issue in therapy.

Think about the people you’re close to and who is going through a hard time. Let them know you are there if they need anything. Put reminders in your calendar to check in with them regularly. And remember, it’s much better to support someone imperfectly than to be absent, even if you don’t know “the right thing to say.”

Share more openly with the people who need to know. This will probably be painful at first, but it will spare you and others pain in the long run. It is also likely to lead to more support than you otherwise would have had, and perhaps to a solution you hadn’t thought of.

When you listen and ask more, you are better able to learn and understand others. Compassion and empathy are learned emotions and behaviors.

When you people please, it’s not genuine. And people can definitely feel that and can tell. It doesn’t benefit anyone. The person who is on the receiving end feels uncomfortable and like the other person is acting out of obligation.

Have you ever met someone who was super nice to you, but rude to workers and waiters? Or they were always complimenting you, but always had something mean to say about everyone else? Or they showered you with gifts and ‘love’ only because they wanted something in return or to manipulate you? This is similar and these people may very well be people pleasers. They just want everyone to like them if it serves them.

This is not most people pleasers though. People pleasing often stems out of fear and anxiety, fear of rejection and low self-esteem which results in lower standards, letting people walk all over us, and being afraid to say no.

You should never try to be generous for the sake of being liked. That’s not generosity. It’s people pleasing. And people will often see right through it.

One should learn from other’s mistakes. This is one of the best way to become a better person. People around you - Parent, sibilings, cousins, friends make mistakes. Its always wise to learn from their mistakes, and avoid it in your life.

One should accept their own mistakes. This is first step toward improving yourself, if you don’t accept your mistakes, you are never going to improve. If someone think, he is always right, then in reality he is doing something terribly wrong.

Be humble and avoid ego. There is always someone, who is better than you, so having ego on something is never going to work.

And most importantly don’t pretend that “because it was (x time) ago” it does not matter or that the person / people you have harmed have to “get over it” or are “holding old shit” / “against you”. 

Hurt is hurt whether you like it or not. And when you cause it, change needs to come from within, it needs to be a personal decision and choice. 

Ask for introspective opinions and constructive criticism. Seek professional guidance and help. Sort your own shit out. Move on if you’re told to move on by your victims. Don’t cling. 

Sources: 

O’Hara, Erin Ann (2004). Apology and thick trust: What spouse abusers and negligent doctors might have in common. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 79(3), 1055-1089.

Lazare, Aaron (2004). On apology. New York: Oxford University Press.

5 Signs His Apology Is Bullsh*t

If You Say This During An Apology, You're Doing It Wrong

5 Reasons Why Some People Will Never Say Sorry / Twitter @GuyWinch Copyright 2013 Guy Winch

What “I’m Sorry” Means When it’s Used to Manipulate You  

You’ve stuffed up, now what? Why the power of a genuine apology can move mountains

Writer’s name needed: https://www.dictionary.com/e/words-that-ruin-an-apology/

Lastly: Administrator’s personal imput. 

[roseskiesandbutterflies]

Pain Is So Close To Pleasure (modern!Queen x platonic!reader) - Chapter 2

Summary: As a recently promoted Soloist for the Royal Ballet, you move closer to Covent Garden with your three-year-old daughter, Rose. But your new neighbour turns out to be the last person you'd expect to pop up on your doorstep.

A/N: This chapter, but really this whole fic, has such a specific vibe and I love it?? Like I can relate to a lot of the things I describe, and I don’t know if that’s a me thing, or a British thing, or just a thing. Anyways I’m here for it. And if you’re not British and don’t relate to this fic in the way I do, and you’ve wondered what it’s like to live in Britain, this might give you a rough idea.

The chapter count for this crept up again because I’ve had about two or three more ideas for this. I think now would be a good time to mention that I’m treating this as more of a load of one-shots set in the same verse, rather than a story with a plot. That’s why it will start to seem more like a series of vignettes, not as a storyline.

As always, I hope you’re all doing okay with everything that’s going on, and I hope to have another update for you all soon. I hope you enjoy!

Warning(s): swearing

Word Count: 3.3k+

Inspiration: Incandescent by @immistermercury on AO3, Outed by @platawnic on Tumblr, Rock Angel by @mirkwoodshewolf on Tumblr, Brian’s Instagram, Modern Times Rock ‘N’ Roll by @rhapso-kei on Tumblr and AO3, this silly lockdown business, the fact that I should have gone to see Queen over two weeks ago but it’s fine

Taglist: @bhmay @briarrose26

Series Taglist: @banana-tree-freddiemercury @lillycarlyn (darling you didn’t say which taglist so if you want me to put you on the perm one then let me know)

Ask to be on either! Make sure to specify!

You popped your head round the door to the studio and smiled to yourself when you found it void of people. You switched the lights on, the charcoal-grey clouds outside casting a darkness over the Opera House; uncharacteristic for midday, but then it was London, and it was February. You couldn’t expect too much from good old British weather.

It wasn’t often that you had the opportunity of having a studio all to yourself, so when you did, you simply had to make the most of it. The way your timetable for the day had worked out meant that you had a longer lunch break than everyone else, not by much, but fifteen minutes was more than enough time to go over a routine you’d crafted yourself. So, seeing as you could afford to eat later on, and everyone else was either in the canteen or some café in Covent Garden, you decided to book one of the studios for your own use.

You connected your phone to the mostly unused speaker in the corner of the room and quickly found the song. Time was of the essence here, and you were most conscious of that. You lightly ran to the centre of the room, making sure you weren’t facing the wall-length mirror for watching yourself dance made you rather self-conscious, replacing passion with technicality. This dance was your own, you had created it, cradled it, held it oh-so-close to your heart; unlike anything you’d ever done professionally, this dance was all about the enthusiasm and the love with which you danced.

Freddie’s voice rang out through the studio, clear as day and filling each and every particle with the richness of his voice. The singular note was soon accompanied by harmonies and then the familiar piano motif of Somebody To Love. You smiled despite yourself as you began the routine.

You promised yourself that one day you’d perform this to someone, even if it was just Rose. But that day was a long way off yet.

The way you danced was unlike how you had ever done so on stage. You performed with a vivacity that many dancers lost so early on in their careers when they valued the physical quality of their dancing over the raw emotion of it. You considered yourself quite lucky that you hadn’t yet surrendered to that particular temptation.

You considered this song to be a crescendo in and of itself, just building and building as its many layers unfolded. You’d made sure that this was reflected in the choreography. Each section was grander a more extravagant than the last. You quite liked the simultaneous challenge and familiarity of it; it made for a good dance to return to when you found your head overflowing with your thoughts and anxieties. You made more and more use of the space as the song progressed, like you were contained by an invisible circle that gradually grew.

When the third verse came around, and Freddie’s voice temporarily faded into silence, fooling the nonchalant listener into thinking it was the end, you had a second to pause. You used it to inhale deeply before starting the fouettés that accompanied the acapella. One, then another, then another, more, more, more until you genuinely thought you were going to fall over. You persevered, however, pushing through all forty of the turns, and even though by the end you wanted nothing more than to lay on the ground and watch the world spin, you couldn’t stop yourself from beaming because holy shit you’d never done them all before. You shook off the feeling, allowing yourself to revel in it later; right now, you had the rest of the dance to get through.

You breezed through the rest of it, the highest jeté seeming insignificant compared to the dizzying hell you’d just put yourself through. When everything quietened down once again, and Freddie faded back into his falsetto, you came to a still in the centre of the ‘stage’, going up on pointe and gradually raising one leg into the air so that it was parallel to your upper body and then to your face. When the music kicked in again, you dropped it back down and returned to your original flow. With the last tiny piano chord of the song, you did a cheeky little jump with the biggest grin on your face, before curtseying to your non-existent audience.

Or so you thought.

A slow clap sounded from the doorway and you whirled round to look at the intruder, blushing furiously with the embarrassment of being seen without knowing. Your smile made a comeback, however, when you recognised the face.

“Wow, that really was something, (Y/N),” Brian whistled, “I’m impressed, truly.”

“Thank you,” you ducked your head, panting heavily. Your muscles screamed with exhaustion, and even though you wanted to just lay down and maybe have a nap, you stayed strong, refusing to appear rude to Brian.

Somehow, he seemed to read your mind, “You can sit down, you must be knackered. Don’t mind me.”

You smiled at him gratefully before sinking down in the corner of the studio next to your bag and grabbing your water bottle with desperation. You gestured to the spot next to you which he took gladly. “How much of that did you see?”

“Pretty much all of it,” he laughed, “I was about pop in for a chat but I saw you put the song on, and I thought I might as well watch.”

“Gosh,” you muttered, beginning to take off your pointe shoes to relieve your aching feet. You’d had back-to-back classes all morning and doing a routine such as that one after all of that just didn’t help.

“I didn’t know you guys danced to non-classical music,” he said.

You managed to get one shoe off, and you started on the other one, wrinkling your nose at the quite frankly disgusting smell that Brian was politely showing no reaction to, “We don’t. Well, I haven’t heard of it anyway. Even if people did somewhere, it would be an awfully long time before the Royal started doing it.”

He shot you a confused look, “Then how…”

“It’s my dance. I choreographed it a while back,” you shrugged, not really understanding what the big deal was, “That’s probably the best run I’ve done of it.”

“Wow, I,” he ran a hand through his hair, “That looked like something from an actual ballet.”

You ducked your head again with the kind of embarrassed pride that comes with compliments, “Thanks, Brian, that means a lot. I only made it a while ago. I,” you laughed self-deprecatingly before saying, “I’d just done quite possibly the worst audition of my life, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how shit it was. So, I just freestyled to some of my favourite songs and that happened.”

“You just made that up?” he asked incredulously.

“It wasn’t nearly as good as it was just then. I’ve been working on it for months until it became what you just watched. It’s been my little side project,” you mused, shoving your phone and both of your pointe shoes into your ballet bag. You poked your head up and peered through the huge window on the opposite wall, cringing at the heavy rain and how that wasn’t a good mix with the non-waterproof trainers you were now putting on, “Oh, shit, I thought it wasn’t going to rain until later. I don’t think I packed my umbrella,” you said, forgetting about your shoes for a second and rifling through your bag.

Brian placed a hand on your arm, “Relax, I have one, we’ll just have to share, if that’s alright with you?”

“Thanks,” you looked at him gratefully before returning to doing your laces.

“Where are you going anyway? You haven’t finished work already, have you?”

“Oh, I wish,” you laughed sadly. You did love your job, but today was just one of those days where you had no energy and just wanted to cuddle up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a box of Quality Street chocolates all to yourself and binge watch Miranda on Netflix. “No, I didn’t bring any lunch with me, so I thought I’d have a look and see which cafes have free tables. You’re more than welcome to join me if you want.”

About five minutes later, you found yourself running through Covent Garden Market while it was hammering it down with rain, sharing an umbrella with Brian that was way too small for the both of you. You were trying your hardest not to slip on the shining cobblestones beneath your feet, while also trying not to knock into any other pedestrians who, like you, were also running for cover. It wasn’t long until you reached your destination, a café that was a favourite haunt of yourself and Rose. It served at Rose’s Friday treat after she had finished preschool for the day, when the weather wasn’t too good and you couldn’t go to the playground in St James’s Park. You also frequented it on bank holiday weekends or half-terms where you’d been in the flat for three days straight and were in desperate need of some fresh air but had absolutely nothing to do.

You held the door open for Brian, hearing the little bell ring when it came into contact with the door, and you grabbed the umbrella from him as he entered. You shook it rather aggressively outside and popped it into the bucket next to you, filled to the brim with the umbrella of fellow patrons who unluckily got caught in the rain and had dived into the nearest establishment for sanctuary. You made your way to the only free table left while Brian queued up to order your food and drinks.

This wasn’t actually the first time you two had done this, though it was the third. The first time had been rather awkward, as from the second you put your shoes on to leave to the second you said goodbye, you were both repeatedly stopped by people wanting to talk to Brian. And even though neither of you ever complained, you had later admitted to each other that you had found it rather annoying. The second time wasn’t as bad, though at one point you had been stopped by a guy from some tabloid you’d never heard of asking for an interview. Much to your amusement, and Brian’s embarrassment, the guy had actually been looking to talk to you instead of him. You’d politely declined, offering to do it another time, but as soon as you’d sat down to eat, you teased Brian mercilessly about it, and still did every now and then. All it took was for you to say Brian look I’m more famous than you for him to blush furiously and ask you to please change the subject. Considering this was the third time now, the initial shock of oh my God I’m just casually having lunch with Brian May this is fine had passed. Now it was merely having lunch with a friend. Just that that friend just so happened to be an international icon. No big deal.

You looked up to see Brian making his way over to you, carrying a tray of food, and you smiled when you noticed that he’d remembered from last time when you’d told him what, in your opinion, was the best food this particular café had to offer. He sat down opposite you and plonked the tray down on the table, as you both started to work out who’s food and drink was who’s.

“How’s work been this week?” he opened up the conversation as he stirred his latte that had fake milk in it because I don’t know if their milk is locally sourced, (Y/N)!

“Not too bad, actually,” you said, taking a sip of your own drink and cringing when it scalded your tongue, “We’re just in our last week of rehearsals for The Winter’s Tale right now. Someone got injured on Tuesday, and our first performance is next Tuesday, so that’s not exactly ideal. But we’ll get through it, it’ll be fine, I’m sure,” you shrugged. The show must go on, you supposed. Pun not intended.

“Listen, (Y/N),” he started, his more serious tone intriguing you already, “I need to talk to you about something.”

You nodded slowly, “Okay…” You weren’t all too sure where he was going with this, and it was impossible to tell if the news he was about to impart was good or bad.

“I know this is very sudden, and there’s no guarantee that this will even happen, but I thought I’d ask you first,” he rambled for a moment.

“What, what are you on about?” you laughed impatiently.

He took a deep breath and said, “I have a business proposition for you.”

**************

The after-school pick-me-up was carnage at the best of times, let alone on a Friday which also just so happened to be the last day of half-term. Parents crowding around the doorway, desperate to reunite with their child and careless of who they had to shove out of their way in order to reach them. Children spilled out of the school, arms full of lunch boxes and month-old paintings that were meant to be rainbows and dragons but resembled something similar to an oil spill. Teachers waved goodbye with the odd word to the overly concerned parent, not-so-secretly relieved that their week off was edging closer, and hurrying everyone off because the sooner they left, the sooner half-term started. Something which parents had very split feelings over.

Not for you, however. You were more than happy to get Rose to yourself for the week, finding the flat way too still and silent and void of a child’s laughter for you to find remotely comfortable. And even though half-term would always mean a busy show week for you due to the sheer amount of families desperately needing something to do, you were still grateful for the time you got together. That may or may not be because you had spent the far majority of your adult life being a parent, but you weren’t complaining.

As per usual, you heard Rose’s shout long before you saw her face, but you decided that you wouldn’t have it any other way when you saw her run straight towards, “Mummy!”

You crouched down and hugged her tightly when she collided into your arms, almost overbalancing from the sheer force of it, “Hello, darling, did you have a good day?”

She pulled away and grinned at you, “Yeah! We had a dance party and we played games and we played musical chairs and I won and I got some chocolate!”

“Oh, wow, that’s really good Rose, well done you,” you bopped her nose and turned to the things she was holding, “What’s all this?”

She thrust a piece of sugar paper under your nose, “I did a glitter painting yesterday and it’s dry now! It has every colour in the whole world!”

You took it from her and looked at it, pretending to inspect it like a pretentious artist and putting on the poshest voice possible, “Well, I do think it’s rather splendid, if I do say so myself. Absolutely spiffing.”

She dissolved into giggles, “Mummy, you’re silly.”

You gasped in mock offence as you took her hand and started to lead her out of the crowd, “Excuse me, I’m not silly! I’m a very serious grown-up, don’t you know?”

“I don’t want to be a grown-up! Grown-ups are boring. I want to be little forever and ever and ever.”

“I’m a grown-up, do you think I’m boring?” you asked.

“Only sometimes,” she said very seriously, “Only when you talk about boring grown-up stuff.”

You chuckled slightly, “What about Rog and Bri? Are they boring?”

She laughed again as if you’d just said the funniest thing she’d heard all day, “No! They’re fun because they give me ice cream and they think of really good games,” she paused for a second, “Mummy, are we going to the park today?”

“Well, it is Friday so if you want to go then we’ll go. It is a very sunny day today,” you said, frowning when you noticed Rose’s face, “What’s up, sweetheart?”

She pouted as if deep in thought, “I don’t think I want to go today.”

“It’s perfectly alright if you don’t want to, darling. It’s half-term next week so we can always go another day,” you assured her, “Why don’t you want to go?”

“I feel a bit tired,” she said sheepishly, “I don’t want to fall asleep on the swings and fall off!”

“Oh, baby,” you said, heart swelling with the simultaneous silliness and adorableness of her logic, “I’d catch you before you fall, don’t worry. But we can go home if you want. We’ll find something else for your Friday treat.”

Her eyes lit up, “Can we have cookies? The nice ones with the big chocolate bits?”

“Good idea, darling, we can have cookies,” you did a quick mental run-through of what your biscuit tin was looking like at the moment and said, “I don’t think we have any of those ones at home so we’ll stop off at the bakery on the way home.”

“Yay!” she squealed before singing, “We’re having cookies! We’re having cookies!”

Rose spent the entire journey home singing that song, and even though you wanted nothing more than to never hear that tune again, you wouldn’t dare burst her bubble of joy. Besides, you didn’t think you could tell her to stop if you tried; she really was that cute. Or maybe you just told yourself that, so you didn’t feel like a terrible parent. You guessed you would never know. At least the lady who worked at the bakery found it endearing that a child could be that excited for something as relatively simple as cookies.

By the time you’d shoved the key in the door and the two of you had spilled into your flat, it was around half past four and Rose was positively exhausted, despite her best attempts to look and sound awake. You’d decided to have the cookies with some milk you’d warm up once you’d sorted out Rose’s stuff and gotten her changed from her long day at preschool. Then you just supposed you’d have some cuddles, and, with any luck, she’d fall asleep because the poor girl really needed it.

You put the radio on in the background before snuggling down on the sofa with her comfortably in your lap and your favourite honey-golden blanket draped over the both of you.

“I love you, Mummy,” she murmured against your chest before nibbling on the cookie that was bigger than her hand.

“I love you too, baby,” you said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and feeling her snuggle in more, as if that was even possible. You suddenly remembered your lunch with Brian, and the news you needed to impart, “I had lunch with Bri today,” you started, feeling her nod and carrying on, “He had a very cool idea, darling.”

“What was it?” she whispered, large, curious eyes looking up at you.

“He asked me if I wanted to work on a film, and I said yes,” you smiled, watching her face light up with the muted excitement that was usually paired with some element of confusion.

“A film? Is it a big film? Like Tangled?” she asked, suddenly much livelier than before.

“Yes, sweetheart, a bit like Tangled, except there’s going to be real people in it instead of animated people,” you explained.

“What’s the film about?” she was getting more curious by the second and it just made your heart leap with pride.

“It’s about the band that Rog and Bri are in, darling. It’s the story of how they got famous,” you grinned.

“Who are you in it?”

“Ooooooh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that yet, I’ve got to keep it a secret,” you said judiciously, smiling when she pouted at you, “I’ll tell you another day, sweetheart, don’t you worry.”

“Promise?” she asked hopefully.

You brought her into a hug again and whispered, “Promise.”

[lencir]

( NADIA HILKER, 254, SHE/HER ) We opened the gates to the seelie court for GENEVIEVE LENOIR and we are curious to see how the VAMPIRE, that is often described as the tempest, will contribute to the new era ━ are they the hunter, or are they the prey? We will find our answers in due time and until then, we hope that they can keep their little secret from getting exposed. It could be dangerous if everyone knew what we know…

FULL NAME: genevieve lenoir

AGE: 25 (apparent), 254 (actual)

SPECIES: vampire

SEXUALITY: bisexual

BIRTH DATE: dec. 1, 1766

GENDER: cis female

PRONOUNS: she/her

HEIGHT: 5'8″

MBTI: entj, the commander

From what she can recall, Genevieve had an unremarkable childhood. Her father Henri, a French soldier, died from tuberculosis when she was twelve, and her mother, a German midwife named Syele, never remarried. She adored her brother, Félix — a boy nine years her minor with curls so much like her own. Together, they lived in an unassuming cottage in Château-Chalon, a small commune in Eastern France.

Her uncle, a hunter by trade, would visit often, feeding her love for the wilderness. From an early age, she was taught how to listen for animals, anticipate their movements, and, most importantly, shoot. By the time she was fourteen, she could easily outshoot her uncle with the beautiful red oak crossbow he’d made for her. She had the patience of an experienced hunter too, a valued asset when hunting season came around and the town required the thinning of rabbit populations. But, for Genevieve, there was more to life than killing.

It might surprise people to know that she wasn’t always the gruff, stoic figure she is today. She wanted to practice medicine with every fiber of her being and would often stay up at night practicing her stitches. Her mother would often call on Gen’s help, teaching her the skills necessary for a successful midwife. That all ended the night Syele uncharacteristically arranged for one of her patients to deliver in the Lenoir family home.

It was a difficult delivery for both mother and baby, and Syele sent Gen to fetch the village’s other midwife to aid in the delivery. She was only gone for a few minutes, having run the entire way, but she returned to a massacre. The front door had been kicked in, furniture overturned, and amongst the wreckage lay the drained bodies of the two people she loved the most. For years, there had been rumors of vampyre killings throughout Europe. Neighbors would return from travels claiming sightings and strange disappearances. It was out of curiosity-laced shock that she bothered to check… only to find small puncture wounds in the necks of each of the bodies.

Something broke in Genevieve that night. She gave herself the night to mourn and by sunrise, she abandoned her home with only a crossbow and the family’s stallion. Medicine was no longer an option.

She met her mortal end a year later at the hands of nomad clan who had caught her scent just outside of Écrille. They ambushed her horse, slipping a sack over her head and dragging her into the night. For four agonizing nights and five balmy days, Genevieve found herself locked in a cellar. The vampires’ sadistic goal was simple: to punish her. And they dealt the final blow in the form of dripping blood into a just barely conscious Genevieve’s mouth.

She tried to resist her thirst, fought against the temptation to drain the innocent they brought in to tempt her. It almost worked, until the opening of the door blew the fragrant scent she’d longed for into her nostrils.

When she awoke into her new life, the house was empty with only blood-splattered curtains to show for the temporary vampiric guests. Alone and forced to teach herself, Gen stole away to the mountains. She remained in isolation for five months, coming to grips with her newfound immortality while feeding solely on hunters who strayed too far from the village. The adjustment period was difficult and filled with bloodshed. Needless to say, her attackers didn’t survive her vigilante justice once she found them. Killing her sire was painful, but what he had taken from her was worse. She gave their followers a choice: die or join her.

The newly formed clan —named Lamoura for the lake where Gen spent her first months of vampirism— made its way through the French countryside with sights set on Paris. After all, 1792 was a great year to be a vampire, and the violence of the revolution blurred with her own reign of terror; no one had the time to notice all the missing people. She made a name for herself across Europe, becoming known as la femme sanguinaire des boucles.

Neutrality suited Gen best, so the Lamoura would never pick a side in any of the battles they joined. As a result, she attracted the most ruthless members of her kind and had no choice but to enforce order. Those were the bloodiest years, constant challenges of her authority driving her to take more lives than she would have liked. Her form of justice was strict but fair; loyalty was rewarded and betrayal of any sort was unacceptable. The ultimate betrayal being the killing of families. A husband at war? Fine. Following someone home to where they lived with their spouse and child? Banishment or worse. The latter became a less likely punishment as her reputation came to precede her.

The same is true today, which has made her stay at court… manageable. The years have certainly hardened Genevieve, shaping her into the blunt, battle-worn woman she is today. She’s indifferent to anyone she meets until proven otherwise, existing in a moral gray area. She can recognize that she has done things that others might deem distasteful but in the name of survival, who can judge?

Her sense of humor is sarcastic, her form imposing, and she generally does little to discredit assumptions made about her. She’s passionate about the causes she believes in and is willing to give anyone a chance — one chance.

It’s a misconception that she makes rash decisions, especially given her past. On the contrary, she carefully thinks through all of her moves. It’s key to how she’s been able to maintain leadership for over two centuries.

Restlessness is something that has never sat well with Gen, and it shows the longer she stays at court. Where once she was keen to bide her time, she is now coiled and ready to seize any opportunity to escape. She has always been sure in her aims, confident in her, at times, brutally selfish way of life. Like a poison seeping into her pores, the court is slowly starting to change that, and she wants out.

THE GREAT ESCAPE x someone who’s part of her clan – esp. a. someone she’s trying to recruit (she is careful about every aspect of her life, especially who she puts in her inner circle. now that she’s established, she doesn’t want any threats to her authority) b. someone who’s been in her clan for years (either a positive or begrudging relationship) ❛ This rage will lead us through the burning plains. No matter what they say, we're heroes. ❜

AIN’T NO REST FOR THE WICKED x someone with whom she crossed paths during her “bloody” period. she didn’t use much discretion at this time so anyone who knew her then l i k e l y would’ve perceived her as a strong cold bitch ❛ There ain't nothing in this world for free. Oh no, I can't slow down, I can't hold back. Though you know, I wish I could. ❜

VENUS x gen doesn’t have many longterm ties outside of those she believes can help her down the road. that said, this is someone she seriously considered changing her rule for. she has a heart??? ❛ At first I thought you were a constellation. I made a map of your stars, then I had a revelation. ❜

BANG BANG YOU’RE DEAD x she hates this person’s guts. do with it what you may, but this is someone who really makes her wish she was as vicious as the stories say. ❛ I knew all along but I was loathe to believe. There was nothing but spite, fury, and lies in the words that you weave. ❜

hey guys! i’m taylor and i’m super hype to write with all of you :) this is my sarcastic asshole gen –  feel free to like this and i’ll hit you up for plots

[ohlawsons]

i played the fool (you played the martyr)

summary: As with everything else between her and Theron, there’s always been a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull, a predictable wobble in their unsteady orbit around each other.  or; Nathema throws some things into question and throws others into sharp focus. Maybe this is a conversation that's long overdue. pairing: Rei/Theron word count: 4659 notes: back on my bullshit with 4k words of chaotic bisexuals

***

Countless things flash through Rei’s mind as Theron falls, but her foremost thought is that she’s glad he’ll be too focused on the pain — if he’s even still conscious — to pay attention to her, because she really doesn’t think he’ll appreciate the things she has planned for Vinn Atrius.

(She recognizes his voice, now, from that first transmission they’d caught back on Odessen, months ago when this had all begun. She’d crushed the holocomm as the message replayed, using the Force to reduce it to mangled metal and a shower of sparks. They were going to find him — the Zakuulan, not Theron; she hadn’t yet acknowledged out loud that Theron was no longer on Odessen — and she’d announced to the war room that she was going to end him in a variety of painful ways.

Lana had been the only one present who hadn’t flinched.)

It’s been nearly six months since Umbara, six months since she’d held back Lana and watched Theron and Zaara walk away. Six months of galaxy-wide broadcasts and half-hearted warnings that she would be bringing him back to Odessen — alive —  and six months of carefully nurtured rage and grief and confusion held tight in her chest, growing and festering until a moment like this, a moment where she has somewhere to focus all of this pain and uncertainty.

But she forces that from her mind, for now. T’sereen kneels beside Theron, and Rei knows the former Jedi will do everything in her power to keep him alive; even as Rei stalks towards Atrius, even as she rips the saber from his hands and reaches out to force him to his knees, she can sense as T’sereen begins healing Theron. It’s enough — just as it will need to be enough when she clinches her hands tight, grasping onto Atrius with the Force and gripping, pulling, tugging.

She wants to take her time. She’s Sith, after all, and she’s furious — hands shaking, eyes alight with a ocher burn, the darker edges of the Force wrenched and shaped through her will alone — and she’s spent so long planning this moment, waiting and wishing and wanting, debating the very best way to express all these months of equal parts bitterness and despair.

But Theron would protest, if he were in any shape to protest rather than out cold on the ground behind her, so instead Rei continues to pull, and with one last effort to expend all her pent up energy there’s release and the sundered halves of Atrius’ armor-clad body clatter to the ground.

She suspects Theron would still protest.

But it doesn’t matter. Lana and Zaara are already rushing past her to the console, but Rei almost can’t find it within herself to care; the grief she’s so studiously built up over the months is gone, and its sudden loss leaves her exhausted and swaying on her feet. She joins T’sereen, stands just behind her and watches as the Jedi works, cursing beneath her breath as her hands move over the wound on Theron’s chest.

“He’ll live,” is all she says at first, before standing without warning and hoisting Theron up with her, beginning to carry him back out of the ruins. “I need to get him back to the med bay on the ship. Go save the galaxy,” she adds, jerking her head towards the console.

Rei watches as they leave, eyes trailing them a moment longer than she knows is necessary; letting out a slow breath, she turns back to where Lana and Zaara are now focused on tearing the systems apart, and Rei lets electricity begin to spark and crackle along her fingertips.

 ***

 She doesn’t leave him alone once they’re back on the ship, maintaining a stubborn watch over him in the medbay even as Lana needles her about putting together an official statement for Odessen and T’sereen shoos her away, fussing over Theron with a combination of kolto and her own Force healing abilities. Andronikos joins her, too, letting Zaara take the helm so he can sit with Rei instead of sleeping.

“For what it’s worth,” he says after T’sereen leaves to get some sleep of her own, “this isn’t as bad as you were after Thanaton. That was…” he pauses, and there’s a ragged edge to the words even after all these years. “You looked a lot worse than this. And you still pulled through, even with those ghosts toying with you.”

Rei doesn’t bother turning from Theron. “The ghosts kept me alive,” she reminds Andronikos, aware her tone has slipped into something akin to a pout; she figures she’s entitled to a bit of pouting, really, given the way things have gone recently.

“Sort of.” Another pause. “We didn’t have a Jedi, either.”

The way he shrugs as he says it — as nonchalant as anything — is enough to pull a tired grin from Rei. She rests her head on his shoulder and stays there, content with just his presence, until he leaves to take the helm again and Lana’s back, asking about statements and the Alliance’s official stance on the incident; she’ll humor Lana, Rei decides, and makes an honest effort to type something up but she can’t focus, not really, not with Theron lying so still before her.

They arrive on Odessen long before Rei can muster up anything substantial, so she passes off the datapad to Lana and follows as Theron is taken to the base’s clinic to be looked over by Yvara and the other doctors. It takes more than one pointed threat to keep them from throwing Rei out of the clinic entirely; she gives them space, at least, and paces at the far end of the room while T’sereen relays details of the injury and the treatment she’d already given.

When Yvara finally gives the all-clear — “He’s stable, but he needs time. Do not let him leave this room when he wakes,” is all she says before leaving — Rei takes up the same post as in the ship; she pulls up a chair and settles in, scrolling aimlessly through a datapad despite her attention remaining fully on Theron.

She hasn’t worked out how to feel, not yet; she’d never fully accepted that Theron was even gone, to begin with — as she’d pointed out in the first broadcast after Umbara, everyone who has ever betrayed her is dead — and a hollow ache settles in her chest whenever she allows herself to consider any similar course of action for dealing with Theron.

It couldn’t be betrayal, then, as she’d told Lana for all those months, even as her remaining spymaster repeatedly showed that all evidence pointed to the contrary — until things had begun to unravel, and hints and messages and breadcrumbs began to reveal themselves.

(Lana had refused to see it, all the way up until Copero, and that’s when Rei realized just how hard Lana was taking the betrayal, as well. There was a bond between her and Theron and Zaara, one that went back to Manaan all those years ago, and Rei knew it wasn’t easy to have that bond broken by them both at once.

But then Raina came waltzing onto Odessen with decrypted messages from Zaara that used a code their team had only used when deep undercover, one that only Raina and Lokin could decrypt and, well, Raina was the only one left living. She knew her wife, Raina insisted with more fire and certainty than Odessen had seen since Umbara, and she knew the messages were deliberate. Zaara and Theron weren’t traitors, not really. Not in the truest since of the word.

But Rei thinks it’s that revelation that hurt Lana the most, learning that she had somehow lost the trust of her two closest friends.)

It doesn’t feel good, being right.

Hope and grief and anger have left a hollowed out pit in her stomach, it seems, from holding on to them so tightly for so long, but it doesn’t matter because it’s over. He’s back. He’s back, and yet something dark still roils within her mind, because once again this careful back-and-forth dance between them has a looming obstacle — like on Rishi, on Yavin, on Ziost — that she’d made the mistake of assuming was over once they’d reunited on Odessen.

It isn’t opposite sides of the war, this time, not really. She would tear down the galaxy for him, collapse the stars and ignite the planets; it’s her way, it’s in her nature, because all she’s ever known is to fight.

But Theron — he would save the galaxy for her, fight until his last breath to hold it together with his own bare hands, if need be; that’s his nature, isn’t it, to stand in the way of a blaster or a saber — or a god — because while he isn’t a Jedi he shares too many of their damnable values, Rei thinks, and hasn’t that always been the problem standing between them?

Maybe they could both learn to be a little less reckless, but that hasn’t ever been in either of their natures.

She watches the steady, shallow rise and fall of his chest, the raw bruising around his implant, the dark circles beneath his eyes; for a moment, equal parts rage and satisfaction bubble up within her at the memory of, quite literally, tearing apart the man responsible, but it’s quickly replaced by guilt that churns uncomfortably within her mind — because while this isn’t her fault, it easily could’ve been. As with everything else between her and Theron, there’s always been a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull, a predictable wobble in their unsteady orbit around each other.

They both act without thinking, they rush forward, spurred on by gut feeling and base emotion. She leave destruction in her wake, and he follows behind to clean up the mess and protect her from the fallout of her own actions. Maybe he would disagree — she knows he would disagree — but Rei can’t help but wonder if this would’ve still happened if she were a little more cautious, a little less brash, someone that Theron could’ve trusted this sort of delicate mission to.

But then, she thinks, quiet fondness causing her lips to curl into a soft grin, he was hardly delicate about the mission, either, given the way he leapt into the heart of the cult.

He’d never asked her to be anything but who she already was — and she could be so much, at times, she knew — and Rei doesn’t think she could ask Theron to change, either.

She knows what she signed up for.

 ***

 He stirs later that night, and Rei immediately has to reach over to keep him from trying to sit up; she suspects that he would’ve given up rather quickly even without her intervention, if the grimace of pain is anything to go by. She sets her datapad aside, one hand reaching for his before she withdraws; unease and uncertainly settles over her and she hesitates, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“Ow.” He doesn’t try sitting again, but does turn his head just enough to look in Rei’s direction.

“We’re going to have matching scars now,” she informs him, matter-of-fact, brow raising as she glances over him again; the twisted, gnarled scar tissue that crosses her own torso — a gift from her first fight with Thanaton — is a bit messier than Theron’s will be, she suspects, once it heals enough to be a scar. “Though I think yours will heal better.”

He starts to laugh, but the sound quickly gives way to a sharp intake of breath as his grimace returns. “Glad to hear it. Are we back on Odessen?”

“We are. Are you here to stay?” The question comes out more quickly than Rei had wanted, more callous and point-blank than she’d planned, but she doesn’t take it back; she’s been in the dark for too long, spent too many nights alone with nothing but her uncertainty for company. He owes her this one thing, she thinks, just one answered question to atone for six months of lies and reckless deception.

Theron looks away, just for a moment, a few seconds of silence before he reaches for her; it’s nothing but a hint of motion, just one hand creeping to the edge of the medical bed he’s on, but Rei understands and gingerly takes his hand in one of her own. “Yes,” he says, slowly, just as delicately as the way they cling to each other, “if you’ll have me. All I want is to come back to the Alliance. Here.” A beat of silence. “With you.”

He’s watching her with a careful, reserved gaze, as if he doesn’t expect her to say yes, and somehow that cuts Rei as deeply as when he’d left in the first place. She wonders if it’s the pain or the meds, or if he really believes that she cares so little for him that she would toss him aside.

As if she could.

“Yes, of course,” she says, swallowing back the way his doubt stings and making a show of rolling her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, if you’re not. And if you are—“ she pauses and leans forward, giving his hand the slightest squeeze, “—then take me with you next time.” He starts to argue but she shakes her head; they aren’t ready for this sort of conversation, not now, not when he’s still too weak to even sit up on his own. “Focus on healing, and we can have this fight later. But I want you to know, Theron, that I love you. So completely and deeply that I… I don’t even know how to make sense of it.” She pauses, places a second hand over his; her voice stays steady, but her chest burns with the intensity of the words, the staggering depth of the way she feels about it. About him. With a slow exhale, she forces a carefully measured grin. “Really, it’s cute that you think a little betrayal is enough to get rid of me.”

He says nothing, at first, but his cautious grip on Rei’s hand tightens and she wonders if she didn’t say the wrong thing, opting for a bit of levity to break up the heavy moment. But then he smiles — it’s slow, and hesitant, and almost bitter — and when he speaks his tone is tired. “The last thing I wanted was to push you away. If there had been some other way…” He lets out a slow breath, releases her hand. “I didn’t have a choice. For the Alliance, for you…”

The words trail off again and Rei can tell Theron’s fighting exhaustion — or the meds, or both — so she slides her hand back and stands, grabbing her discarded datapad and clutching it in a grip so tight she worries it’ll crack. “Rest,” she chides, taking a step back; if she doesn’t leave now, she doesn’t know that she’ll be able to leave his side at all. “I’ll get Yvara. And I’ll be waiting — after she clears you and you’re released. No sneaking out of here early.”

That, at least, earns her a tired smile, and she pauses in the doorway and watches as Theron’s eyes flutter shut; all the months of bitterness and uncertainty seem so trivial, now that he’s back, and something like resolve — like certainty — settles warm within her bones and she’s happy, she thinks, for the first time in what feels like years.

 ***

 She doesn’t avoid him, not necessarily, but the next several days pass in a flurry of frantic activity that leave little time for her to visit.

Rei, Lana, and Beywan work to put together an official statement, first in a quiet memo circulated through the Alliance, then to lengthy reports passed to their Imperial and Republic ambassadors; Arcann takes the liberty of smoothing things over with the rest of Zakuul, but when Rei tries to thank him he waves off the attention — something about knowing Theron and Zaara need people on their side.

Zaara, for her part, seems in a better mood than Rei has ever seen her, walking hand in hand with Raina throughout the base. Theron’s recovery has gone well, to the point where Rei knows Yvara has had to threaten — more than once — to cuff Theron to the bed if he continues to try and bargain his way out of the clinic. She wishes she could visit, more than the handful of times she’s dropped by since their return, but she’s hardly had time to even sleep with as busy as she’s been.

After working to convince the rest of the galaxy that Theron and Zaara had been working under Odessen’s orders — something made infinitely easier by the fact that Rei left them alive, in stark contrast to the long list of others who had betrayed her and faced swift retribution — there were the continued attempts from both Empress Acina and Chancellor Rans to sway the Alliance in their favor, as well as the increasingly worrisome rumors that renewed war looms on the horizon, all punctuated by the stream of reports highlighting the galaxy’s worsening resource shortage. Rei doesn’t mind politics, far from it, but even the verbal sparring with Acina and blunt threats towards Rans grow tiresome, these days.

She misses Theron’s official discharge from the clinic, and only learns about it after an impossibly long day spent in meetings and on calls and trying to wrap her mind around the logistics of working enough farmland to feed the entirety of the Alliance; on a different day, she might have stormed through the base to demand answers, to demand the reason that she wasn’t alerted as soon as he was released. But tonight, she’s not in the mood to fight with anyone, so instead she drags her tired feet through the base towards her quarters — their quarters — only to find them empty.

It doesn’t take her long to find him; it’s late enough that Odessen is growing quiet, and by now Rei knows Theron well enough to have a good idea of the handful of places he’ll sneak off to when he needs a moment to himself. She finds him at the back of the base, leaning against the railing of one of the walkways that leads down to the shallow valley where she and Zaara both tend to land their ships. It’s peaceful, down here, tucked away just out of sight of the hanger bay where the Gravestone used to sit.

Rei doesn’t bother to announce her presence. She stands beside him, hands clasped behind her back as she joins him in surveying the valley that sprawls out before them; Theron acknowledges her with a quick glance, but even just that is enough for Rei to see that his movements are still stiff. “Out early on good behavior?” she asks lightly, brow raising as she suppresses a grin.

“Something like that.” His white-knuckled grip on the railing loosens, but the rest of his posture remains rigid, tense. “Guess I just needed some time to get my thoughts together.”

There’s a comfortable silence, then — at least, it’s comfortable enough for Rei, but beside her Theron is still impossibly still; she reaches for one of his hands, steps closer until she’s pressed against his side, warm and solid and real. She isn’t very good at providing comfort, but she can be here, and that’s something. “How did this all even happen?” she asks after a moment, the words more curious than accusatory, eyes locked on their joined hands as her fingers intertwine with his. “How long before Iokath were you scheming?” She tilts her head up, brow raised and lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

“In my defense, things got a little out of hand.”

“Mhmm.”

“An old contact of mine got me some leads,” he says, finally beginning to relax beside her; Rei wonders if it’s her presence or the chance to finally speak freely about it all. “I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but next thing I knew I was staring at a way in with the Order.”

“The mysterious Iokath intel,” she guesses.

He nods. “I knew I could convince you to send a team to investigate, and had to hope the Empire and Republic would do the same.” He pauses, frowning, and when he speaks again he sounds a bit sheepish for the first time. “That’s… when Zaara found out. She’s still got friends in Sith Intelligence, and apparently I didn’t cover my tracks as well as I’d thought. But I wanted to make sure I had something substantial before I turned it over to the rest of the Alliance.” Another pause, this time to glance back out over the valley, and when he speaks again his voice is rough. “There was just too much going on to waste time and people on a dead end, but… guess I didn’t really help with the personnel issues.”

Rei shifts her weight, gives a noncommittal wave of her free hand. “There’s always personnel issues. I’ve been dealing with them since long before Odessen. What about the trap on Iokath?” She doesn’t think she really wants to know, but she needs to, doesn’t she? Maybe it doesn’t matter, but she’s tired of not knowing.

“Zaara’s idea.” The simple statement comes out on a rough sigh, slow but not quite hesitant. “Atrius’ plan — I didn’t know it was him, at the time — was for you to get caught in the crossfire. Zaara pointed out it might look… suspicious, if the Alliance came out so far ahead, and I had just enough time to…” He doesn’t say it, doesn’t admit that he was the one to rig the trap that knocked Rei out cold, but the words still hang between them, unsaid. “Atrius assumed you’d make a run for the weapon and try to secure it for the Alliance, but none of us expected you to get so creative about it. Or lucky.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone at that point?” Again, she’s careful to keep her voice even, not too sharp. Not too frustrated.

Theron’s frustration, however, is plain in his tone. “We didn’t even get to meet Atrius in person until after Iokath, which is when we realized that Gemini droid was in our systems. I couldn’t report it at that point. Not without tipping off the Order.” He pauses, jaw working, eyes focused on something off in the distance. “So we met with him, and he told us about the Adegan crystals and Umbara, and… there was no going back.”

She doesn’t ask for details about Umbara.

“So…” He lets out a long, slow breath, turning back to Rei. “Where do we go from here?”

She tilts her head, considers; it’s been a long day, and a longer evening, but she certainly feels as if she’s gotten the answers she’d needed. “To bed, I’d hope,” she decides, giving the slightest tug on their still-joined hands. “It’s been a very long day and I’m very tired of sleeping alone.”

“Just like that?” His brow furrows and his expression shifts to one that’s not quite suspicious.

Rei frowns, fighting back a yawn. “Would you rather we have a big fight about this?” she deadpans. “What you did was stupid and reckless, but you and I both know I’m the last person who should be criticizing rash decisions.” Exhaustion finally gets the better of her and she yawns before continuing, “I’m tired and I miss you, and I honestly do not care about anything else. I just want to move past it.”

“Just like that.” There’s fondness in his voice, now, and even as Rei tries to lead them back to their quarters, Theron pulls her back towards him into an embrace, but even as he wraps his arms around her he’s gentle, hesitant — and she can’t tell if it’s his injury or his guilt that makes him so cautious, even now. “I’m sorry. For all of this. I’ve missed you, too, and I love you, so much, and…” A catch of his breath, a quiet, shaky laugh. “And I really don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t let me back in.”

She doesn’t respond, not right away, simply content to be held. But then she pulls away, just enough to look up at Theron — at the way he stares at her like she’s the best damn thing to ever happen to him, which isn’t fair, not really, not with the way it makes her heart thrum erratic in her chest even after all this time — and the glib remark she’d had prepared falls unspoken from her lips. “You’re stuck with me,” she says instead, beaming up at him, because it feels right — him, and this moment, and Odessen, all of it.

She would tear the galaxy apart for him, and he would piece it back together for her. And maybe that’s enough, for now.

[charliejrogers]

Yes, God, Yes

Full disclosure: I not only attended a Catholic high school, but I specifically attended a Kairos retreat, the exact retreat which the characters from 2020’s Yes, God, Yes attend. In the film, they call it “Kirkos,” but everything about “Kirkos” is the same as my (and seemingly every) Kairos. So let me clear up a few things for those of you who saw this film and thought, “This shit at this movie retreat can’t be what they do in real life.” Yes, Kairos leaders really do collect your phone and watch upon arrival to the retreat center since you are now on “God’s time ”(kairos comes from the Greek word καιρός which literally means “God’s time”). Yes, you are forced into small groups with your other classmates and feel this weird pressure to have a sad life story to share. Yes, small group leaders start to play music while they tell their own story AND pass out the lyrics as if these song lyrics are real deep poetry. One of my retreat leaders, for example, handed out sheets of the lyrics to Florence + The Machine’s “Shake it Off.” Now, I LIKE Florence + The Machine, but even still the lyrics to that song are nothing special. And, most of all, yes, those who come back from Kairos do tend to act a little cultish. At our school it was referred to as having a “Kai high,” a feeling in time when everyone just wants to be friends yet those people only exclusively hang out with one another.

In defense of Kairos retreats, at their very best, they offer adolescents at a critical time in their development the opportunity to reflect on their lives thus far, evaluate if they are living out the values their parents and community have instilled in them, and give them a safe space to work through conflicts, apologize, and try to be better people. At their worst, it’s a self-congratulatory experience where people act morally superior to others without really doing anything substantial… or even worse it’s a period of time where adolescents might unearth and talk about really hard topics like suicide, depression, etc. for the first time… and yet are given no real guidance on how to handle those emotions outside of this four day experience!

All this said, this is not a review of Kairos retreat. It is, indeed, a film review. I just wanted to make clear my biases etc. before talking about it since the retreat does more than provide the setting for the majority of Yes, God, Yes: the retreat’s four-day thematic structure doubles as the film’s plot structure. Just as in real life, our protagonist does a lot of questioning about her life and her faith during her first day, does some “crying” during the second as people, “accepting/trusting” the third, and then “living out” the lessons she learned on the fourth day and beyond! The difference is that in real life, teens are supposed to do these things in regard to their faith... or protagonist across those four days has a genuine sexual awakening.

In fact it’s exactly the desire to suppress her sexuality that prompts our protagonist to go on the retreat in the first place. Because our protagonist, Alice (played by Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer), has just discovered something about herself that is hard to put out of her mind: she likes sex! Or, more specifically, likes masturbating. Alice is, from what we can tell in the prologue, a pretty by-the-books Catholic teen. She follows the rules, goes to Church with her Dad every Sunday, and os pretty sexually naïve… sheltered as we used to describe kids. Someone starts a rumor that Alice “tossed” a boy’s “salad” at a party and the rumor spreads like wildfire. Even the teachers know about it, and she loses her status as a gift bearer for the school’s weekly Mass. Of course, Alice doesn’t even know what “tossing salad” means (nor truthfully did I… but the movie seems to anticipate this by providing a definition to the audience at the very beginning of the film.)

All Alice knows is that she likes arm hair… like LIKES arm hair, something she discovers when she’s on an AOL chat room and someone sends her porn. That’s right, this is a film set in the early ‘00s, so if you hold any nostalgia for that time, get ready to have your fill from the era’s cheesy pop ballads to giant brick phones, to the fact that America (while starting to be so) wasn’t so health conscious that’s it not crazy to believe a teenage girl would just come home from school and snack on frosting and a giant bowl of Cheetoh’s Puffs. The nostalgia is not quite as in your face as in Captain Marvel, but it’s certainly more of a focus than it was in Lady Bird.

Yeah, you knew the comparison was coming. Let’s just be clear, this is by no means trying to be the next Lady Bird. This movie knows it’s pretty frivolous to begin with. Still, it’s hard to avoid comparison with the last big movie about a Catholic girl coming of age in the early 2000s. What I learned in watching this movie compared to Lady Bird or even Boyhood is that merely recreating aspects of my former life does not a good movie make. While I loved the fact that part of watching Lady Bird was getting to see someone shine a light on how ridiculous high school theater could be, that was never the point of the movie. Here, meanwhile, a significant purpose of the film is to highlight the fact that, yes, Kairos retreats are weird and the Church sucks. While I found myself nodding my head in agreement with what I was seeing on screen… it wasn’t exactly enjoyment as much as thinking, “yup, this is what a Kairos retreat is.” Furthermore, I feel like there are aspects of Kairos that would be great for skewering and I love the parts they absolutely nail: the cultish nature of the retreat and the pressure to frame your life in a sad way… but they ultimately take a route of criticism that is too easy and frankly is not a focus of most Kairos retreats… the focus on shaming one’s sexuality and the innate hypocrisy that behavior inevitably reveals.

If there’s a villain in this film, it’s probably the retreat leader and school priest Fr. Murphy (Timothy Simons), who gives in to rumors of Alice’s sexual impropriety as much as any schoolyard bully. No one in this whole film, from Fr. Murphy, to the head of Alice’s bunkhouse, to her small group leader, to even her best friend, takes Alice’s spiritual journey seriously, as they all assume Alice is not taking the retreat seriously as she seems to be avoiding talking about her recent, rumorous activity. Of course, there’s a bit of #MeToo hypocrisy here in that the male with whom Alice is said to have been engaged with enjoys none of the backlash that she has been dealing with. And to that degree it’s a satisfying movie in that Alice gets to dish out a little #MeToo revenge.

Still, even with all things conspiring against her, Alice retains her good spirit throughout the film… as well as her determination to further explore her sexuality. On the one hand, it’s a little unrealistic the risks she takes in trying to learn more about her body, but on the other hand teenagers and young adults are friggin’ weird when it comes to figuring out themselves. Ultimately she is emboldened in this take once she finds out that all those people who are out to get her to confess her “sins” are sinners in much the same way.

Probably the best scene comes at the end of Alice’s third day of the retreat when she runs away from the retreat center and walks into a lesbian bar where she hears the story of someone who used to be Catholic and is now not. More important than anything she could learn at the retreat, this Iowa girl learns that some normal people… just don’t have a religion. For some people this world, its pleasures, its pains, is more than enough. Alice doesn’t become a full-blown hedonist after this, but she is opened up to realize there’s more to life than Catholic guilt.

Perhaps to make this good message ring out, the film as a whole, despite some absurdist elements, feels like it’s meant to be a somewhat accurate reflection of reality. I wish the writer/director, Karen Maine had tried for a slightly more absurdist approach or taken out the absurdity altogether. She already makes the Catholic high school authority more caricature than character, and the plot at timesis almost silly. Therefore, the tone of the movie just sorta feels off throughout. Just about the only thing keeping this movie grounded is a great performance by Dyer who portrays a genuine sexual awakening very faithfully, capturing the mix of confusion, guilt, and excitement all at once. Even when Alice does something downright stupid, Dyer’s performance engenders our trust from the start, and we are always on her side. I wish I could have liked this movie more as it really does accurately portray some aspects of a Kairos retreat and is about as close as I think I’ll get to having it portrayed in a major film, but ultimately by not treating the Church authority with the same amount of nuance paid to Dyer’s Alice and her sexual awakening, the film ends up being an enjoyable, if one-noted, experience. Come to make fun of Catholics, stay for Dyer’s performance.

 **7/8 (Two and seven-eighths out of four stars)

[theyungrose]

Be Good ( Roman Reigns X OC)

Chapter 3 

Spite.

I had reverted to tearing our pictures down from the walls, my sanity reduced to screams in the dead of night. I cursed his name to the heavens and back, wished the worst of events, and yet I still didn’t feel any better. 

I was broken.

Never in my life had I felt such pain, 24 hours in a day. I woke up in the morning and felt nothing in my soul, no happiness, no purpose, no love. I moved through the day lifelessly; of course he hadn’t thought anything of telling our close friends and his family that we were breaking our engagement, leaving me to answer all the questions they only ever save for the girlfriend. 

Yes, I was okay.

(No I wasn’t.)

It was mutual, we just kinda fell apart I guess.

(Really?) 

And then they say “Well I bet he misses you just as much as you miss him right now.” 

I sincerely doubt that. 

Anger. Rage. 

Questions. 

How could he do this to me? 

To us? 

What, you court me for nearly a year and a half; not counting the two years we were friends. I met your mother, your father who never meets “any of the girls you bring around”; his words not mine. We traveled everywhere together, we bought each other things we hadn’t even bought for ourselves first. When my brother died, when you got sick, when there was no one else in the world for us to count on, you told me we had each other. Always. For what? For you to wake up one day, turn on your side and decide you don’t want to be with me anymore? That it just wasn’t going to work?  

For a month your child lived inside my stomach. 

Does that not matter to you? 

Emptiness. 

What was I to do with my life now? The past two years were the best of my life, and now I was expected just move along as if they never existed. As if we never existed. 

That’s enough to drive any woman mad. 

I had to get away. 

The cold Denver air greeted me warmly as I stepped through the sliding doors of the airport into its little snow flurries. It was nostalgic for a second, until a loud car horn ripped me from my thoughts. Stepping out from her gray minivan was my childhood friend, Lauren. You could tell she didn’t like the cold from the way she kept the driver’s door open and stayed close to it, clutching her hoodie tight around her arms. 

Oh yeah and she said this.

“Girl get in this car I’m losing heat ‘cuz of you!” 

I snickered rushing over to her ride with my suitcases rolling loudly behind me.

“Daydreaming and shit.... aye aye aye what’s all this?”

Lauren motioned to my stuff with a certain... well stank, look on her face. 

“I ain’t say you could stay with me.” 

I was getting too cold to respond to her, and being that I was putting the bags in the trunk by myself, I chose to ignore her for the time being. 

“Relax creature I bought myself a hotel for the night, that’s where you’re driving me first before you drag me to that barn you live in.” 

Lauren scoffed and slammed the trunk closed, nearly cutting off my fingers in the process.

“Whatever hoe, I ain’t miss ya ass anyways.” 

The ride through the city was much calmer; we talked as actual friends do about her life down here, old memories, bullies who got fat, shy girls who have babies, and all the other drama I’d missed out on. Thankfully, she didn’t seem too interested of why I had suddenly left my dream and sunny Florida weather to come back to Denver, but I had a feeling somehow she already knew. 

“Aaliyah... you sure this is your hotel girl?”

“What you mean?” 

“It’s $50 valet parking child! The Marriott don’t got them prices.” 

I laughed motioning for her to pull into the grandeur driveway where a valet man was waiting. 

“Do you need help bringing your stuff in?”

“No I think I’m fine it’s only two suitcases.” 

The valet went to speak but Lauren poked my arm roughly to get my attention first.

“Girl for $50 you better tell that man to bring in your bags on his head.” 

“Lauren stop being extra. I don’t need him to help me, just bring the car around to the street so you don’t have to pay the $55 sitting fee.” 

*******

Lauren’s family greeted me with hugs, hospitality, and a beautifully home-cooked dinner; and when everyone went up to their rooms to sleep, Lauren blessed me with a much needed guilty indulgence. 

If you never forget how to ride a bicycle, then you never forget how to smoke weed either.

“Are you freezing yet?” 

I watched her through the large puff of smoke I exhaled, giggling to herself near the corner. I snickered too and shook my head, motioning for her to take the blunt from me. Our hands sparked electricity when they touched and we both laughed so loud someone upstairs turned on their light. 

“Oh, my mom and my sister said you’re really pretty.”

My cheeks were flushed red as I leaned my head back against the fence. The weed had me lost in the galaxy of stars above me, so far yet they seemed so close. It felt like my eyes were stars themselves.

“Awwe, tell her I said thank you... and thank your whole family for being so nice to me. Oh and tell them they cooking is the bomb...” 

Lauren was almost red herself with laughter as she passed the blunt back to me. It was so nice to know that she had a pretty smile, I never saw her smile once when we were kids. Always... serious. 

“You know... I wasn’t going to say anything but... I really expected you to ask bro.”

Lauren looked up from her phone completely clueless. A face of total innocence and hopeless oblivion. 

“Ask you what?” 

“About why I came to visit you... you know all of a sudden? I was with my fiancee and we broke off our engagement last week and I thought you would ask me about it.. but I guess you didn’t know.”

“No I knew.” 

I scoffed shaking my head as I crushed the dead paper into the grass.

“And you didn’t ask?”

Lauren shook her head as she stood up and walked towards the cooler sitting a few feet away from us. 

“It’s not my business to ask. I knew about your break up with Roman Reigns, I watch y’all wrestle together on Monday Night Raw; that’s the only reason my mom let a stranger come up in here because I told her you were famous.” 

She sat down beside me on the grass and placed a water bottle between my feet. 

“But despite all that, what happened between you and your man is none of my business to ask. For all I care you came up here because you suddenly missed my face.” 

I looked at her completely shocked. Dumbfounded. Amazed at this woman that was so conscious and compassionate of someone else’s struggles and privacy, it was so well-mannered it almost felt misplaced. So foregone from the values of this current society. 

“Well do you want to know? Like what happened? For the first time I actually don’t mind telling it.” 

“I only want to hear what matters.”

“Okay and which one is that, if I’m okay or if he took all his money with him?”

“Nope. What I want to know, is what are you going to do now?”

For a moment I kept my eyes trained on her shoulder; not thinking, just frozen in existence. Tears fell from my eyes unintentionally, but still I couldn’t speak. 

To answer that question would force me to swallow the harsh truth that this was reality; one I still hadn’t come to terms with. 

“You don’t know do you?” 

Without answering I just shook my head, and as her arms began to spread I fell weightlessly into her chest. A fit of emotion overtook me as I sobbed and trembled in her embrace, pain pierced my heart like needles yet somehow I felt comforted. It was the first time I hadn’t cried by myself in weeks. 

“It’s okay Aaliyah... it’s okay. I’m here for you love.” 

“He just left me.... left me like I was nothing. I feel so ugly. I feel worthless, like trash. I just want to know what I did wrong Lauren... what did I do that was so wrong, so terrible that one day he woke up and didn’t want me anymore? Where did all that love go? When did he stop loving me? Why did he stop loving me?”

Lauren’s arms held me a little tighter, and slowly she began to rock back and forth, like a mother would soothe the cries of her baby. 

“...What’s wrong with me?”

I felt warm supple skin touch my forehead and rest there for a while before they were replaced with her cheek. Never did I feel so comforted in the arms of another woman, she was so warm and soft. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you friend. People fall apart sometimes is the reality of it really... we never know the reason for half the things people do. I can’t imagine the pain you’re in, but Aaliyah I promise this won’t beat you. You’re stronger than this. This is just another storm.”

I sighed, hiding my face further into her chest. 

“Can I stay here the-”

“You can stay here for as long as you need to sweet pea. You’ll have a home here until your wings are no longer broken... and you’re ready to fly.”

Through my tears I found a small smile, finally returning her embrace as I wrapped my arms around her waist. Again she kissed the top of my forehead gently and sighed.

“Now let’s roll up another one.” 

Lauren Riley 

[levinfist]

I: Arrival

“Why do I have to be bothered with babysitting savages?”

Acacius pyr Coxus heaved a frustrated sigh. When word first came down that he was to be transferred to the vaunted XII, he had been ecstatic. He dreamed of winning glory for himself and his family quelling rebellions in the humid jungles of the Far East or perhaps even crossing blades with the mighty savages hailing from the peaks of Gyr Abania. Surely a life of dashing adventure, whirlwind romance, and riches beyond his wildest reckoning awaited him serving (at least tangentially) under the Crown Prince’s command! Ah, the stories he would have to tell when he finally returned home from his tour of duty. Why even those snobby Desertus’ would be positively green with envy! He was certain of it!

The truth of the matter, however, was none of those things.

By the time he’d reached his posting the Doman rebellion had been snuffed out, the leaders either dead, captured, or scattered to the winds. Much the same could be said of the so-called “resistance” in Gyr Abania and Ala Mhigo; all that remained were frightened children and old men too long in the tooth to offer any kind of meaningful resistance. Glorious battles imagined in the Capital had been replaced by tax collection, investigating often fraudulent reports of ‘rebel’ activity, and the occasional run-in with wildlife to spice things up a little bit. Today was, unfortunately for everyone involved, the first of the three out in some backwater village high in the mountains that Acacius wasn’t even sure had a name. All he knew was that it stank of stale piss and mud with a healthy dose of decay thrown in for good measure, just to make things as unpleasant as possible.

His linkpearl chimed.

“Decurio Coxus! The villagers have been rounded up and gathered in the town square. They await your presence, m’lord.”

“Very good,” he replied, trying to sound at least somewhat professional, “I’ll be along shortly.”

Acacius waved his hand forward and trudged through the mud up the main road into the village proper. Half a bloody bell. That’s how long it had taken six of his men to complete such a menial task, though he couldn’t be sure if the issue was a lack of enthusiasm on their part or if the villagers were dragging their feet as usual. His barely passable trail gave wound upward and around a ramshackle mud hut, snaked to the right past what might have been some sort of merchant’s stall at one point that had since been abandoned to rot and then back to the left into the village square proper. He was greeted by the sight and- ugh- the smell of the village assembly in their finest filthy rags. Sometimes he wondered why the Empire even bothered to send him and his men out here. Whatever he’d bring back in tax revenue had likely already been spent supplying the men for the journey, so he doubted that was the case. One of his subordinates dropped a small sack of gil into his hand. He frowned.

“This is it?”

“It is, Decurio. All that we could gather.” Acacius’ frown deepened. Were he to return with such a paltry sum, his superiors would surely have his hide. He pursed his lips and glanced up from the gil to the assembled crowd huddled together like terrified livestock. Yes. That was a good word for them. Such a paltry sum was insulting, both to him and the Empire he represented. This would not do.

“This is it?” he repeated himself, raising his voice louder this time so that all in the square could hear him as he held the tiny sack high over his head. “Surely you mean to mock us with such a measly offering. We who the Emperor would graciously see fit to send to liberate your lands from the madness of your ‘King!’ We who work so tirelessly to safeguard your homes from the wicked and the wild!” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “This will not do.”

Acacius surveyed the crowd. Not a single one of them dared to even look him in the face, much less move. He sighed and turned to the man at his right. “Search every home. Take everything of value. Turn the whole blasted village upside down if you must, but I will not be returning to the Centurio with this little.” “At once, Decurio!”

A murmur rippled through the crowd as his men fanned out but Acacius found little need for alarm. He had looked this lot in the eyes time and time again, dared them to make a move and found none among their number willing to even entertain the idea. There was a dullness in their eyes only found in those well and truly broken. They were in no danger here- or so he thought. Again his linkpearl crackled to life, only this time it was a short burst of...something. A malfunction maybe? Certainly not out of the realm of possibility, but he couldn’t help the pit slowly beginning to form in his stomach.

Another burst from his linkpearl. This time he was able to make out something that sounded like a cry for help. Another of his men must have heard it too.

“That was Eligius!”

“Where is he?!”

“I don’t know! I saw him headed south, I think, with Velia!”

“I found him! Hey! You! Stop! I said st-”

The transmission cut out and the pit quickly became a gaping hole. Shit. 

“Everyone back to the square!” Acacius shouted into his linkpearl, desperate to try and regain some kind of control over the situation. As soon as his remaining legionnaires assembled, he ordered them to push south apace to investigate the source of the disturbance. Seven rounded the corner and immediately came to a dead stop. Eligius lay face down in the muck, lifeless as far as Acacius could tell. Velia was a few fulms to the right, neck twisted at an impossible angle and body left slumped against a wall. He could hear the sounds of a scuffle coming from the rundown shack at their front and silently gestured his retinue forward.

The door creaked open. A black gauntleted hand clutched at the frame of the door, followed shortly by the other hand reaching outward in a silent plea for aid that would go unanswered. Acacius felt as though he were in the thick of some sort of horror novel as he watched the now lifeless form of another of his fellows collapse unceremoniously face first into the mud with a spear driven into his back and through his ribs. 

It was in this moment that the Garlean detachment first lay eyes on their adversary and unlike the wretches huddled together in the village square, this one seemed to be everything he imagined before his deployment. He was a giant of a man, easily a head taller than even the tallest of his compatriots. A hood and black mask concealed the savage warrior’s face.Tattoos crisscrossed up the savage’s arm in geometric patterns- stylized feathers, he thought -from at least the elbow to the shoulder, where they disappeared under the purple cyclas he wore. Sunlight reflected off the armor plates layered overtop leather boots and gloves as he stepped completely out into the open. Dark purple. Blinding white. Flashing silver.

 This man was one of Ala Mhigo’s ferocious warrior monks: a Fist of Rhalgr. Acacius was certain of it.

One massive armored hand closed around the haft of the spear lodged in Acacius’ now former comrade and pulled it free with all the effort it might have taken him to pluck a feather from a fowl. Was this it? Had this single savage managed to kill three of his Legionnaires in such a short span of time? That couldn’t be right, shouldn’t be possible! He rejected the very idea outright- at least until the savage turned his attention to him and his blood ran cold. Eyes the color of a sheet of ice and just as frosty stared straight through him and sapped the strength from his legs. His formation faltered around him. A lump had formed in Acacius’ throat, robbing him of his voice and any authority it could have wielded. He wanted to order his men to attack, to destroy this beast wearing a man’s flesh without remorse, but found that he could muster little more than a stammering croak. Fear’s paralyzing tendrils wound deeply into Decurio Coxus’ very being and rooted him to the spot upon which he stood. 

“D-Decurio!” called one of his comrades. “What are your orders?!”

At least momentarily, the spell had been broken and Acacius fumbled clumsily for the sword at his hip.He turned his head toward his Legionnaires to try and rally them, to spur them into action as was his duty as their Decurio.

“Rally! He’s only one man! Strike! Destroy this sav-”

Acacius stopped speaking mid sentence. Lances of white hot pain radiated from his belly and spread like wildfire into the rest of his body - except for his legs which he realized he couldn’t feel anymore. Slowly his head turned down toward his waist where, confusingly, he saw himself clutching at a wooden haft. Where had this come from? When had it happened? He tried to think, to remember, but found it increasingly difficult to conjure anything clear through the heavy fog that descended over his conscious mind. Realization dawned on him as the sensations finally overwhelmed the dense cobwebs clinging to every corner of thought. It hurt. It hurt. Desperate to make the pain stop, he took hold of the wooden shaft in both hands and struggled to wrench this thing free but to no avail; his strength was fading at an alarming rate. Groggily did Acacius turn his gaze up from the shaft of the spear to the man who wielded it. 

In an instant, the sky and the ground seemed to switch places and go spinning about him for several long seconds before finally coming to a stop. It took him that long to realize that he’d been flung aside like a sack of rotten vegetables. Terrible sounds came from his left and he struggled to right himself with what little strength remained in his arms- and he immediately wished he’d stayed down. Like a ravenous wolf the savage set upon his fellows and tore into them with a terrible fury. The first of his Legionnaires expired quickly having been pierced through the throat by the same blade that had run Acacius through. Another moved to strike, but succeeded only in splitting the shaft of the spear in two. His reward was to have his head driven into a savage knee strike that shattered the faceplate of his helmet. Fragments of glittering silver and a spray of crimson arced through the air as time seemed to slow to a dirge’s pace.

One by one Acacius watched this savage rain blow after blow upon his Legionnaires, seemingly revelling in their howls of agony and shrieks of despair until only he remained breathing. A terrible quiet settled as the masked man took stock of his handiwork before he again turned his attention to Acacius. Escape crossed the Decurio’s mind for a moment, but such a thought was fleeting; without the use of his legs he wouldn’t get far. Impossibly broad shoulders eclipsed the sun as the savage towered over Acacius who could do little save accept his fate with what dignity he had left. If this man expected to hear him beg, Acacius decided, he would be disappointed. 

The killing blow he expected did not come.

Instead, the man turned without so much as a word and rifled through the belongings of Aacacius’ fellows. He moved from one corpse to the next without so much as a word or a glance in Acacius’ direction until he found what he was looking for: a flare gun. Pop. A crimson orb rocketed skyward and the Fist discarded the launcher unceremoniously, casting it aside with the same clear disdain that he had treated the rest of the Garlean patrol. Acacius could do little but watch his foe slowly disappear over the ridge and stew on what would become of him. Help would come as quickly as a response could be organized. There was no doubt about that. All he had to do was survive for perhaps another hour, two at the most. Manageable. Definitely manageable.

Acacius winced and lifted the hand he’d been covering the hole in his stomach with. His palm was bloody, certainly, and the wound was likely deep but he didn’t seem to be losing an alarming amount of blood. This realization got him thinking. His colleagues had all been erased in quick succession with a frightening efficiency. Their killer clearly had the skill and precision to have ended him just as swiftly, but had either opted not to or missed. If the latter then why had he not taken the opportunity to finish the job? No. Leaving him alive had been a calculated move. Acacius narrowed his eyes and slammed his fist into the mud as all the pieces fell into place.

This was both an omen and a warning. The Fist wanted the Empire to know exactly who had humiliated them, how he had done it, and which way he had gone after his business had concluded. His message was clear:

Come and find me or I will find you.