#in hindsight I can sorta tell they aren’t real but

[wizardguy1993]

Really unhappy that my stress induced audio and (lesser) visual hallucinations are back in full force thanks to the whole grieving my the loss of nearly all familial relationships and my workplace being frustrating thanks to a shitty boss.

It’s actively affecting me at work now too!

I keep hearing ppl calling for me across the store, keep hearing discord and text notifications. Keep seeing small bugs that disappear when I focus on them.

I should hear from a therapist I called over the weekend tomorrow. My psych said she’ll refrain from giving me anything for a bit to see if working out the stress and some time eases these issues. I’m glad for that bc I didn’t like many of the side affects of the last anti-psychotic I was on.

#Steven speaks #I honestly can handle the visual ones they are usually pretty easy to figure out as unreal #the hearing ones though #very frustrating #in hindsight I can sorta tell they aren’t real but #I guess it’s also partly delusion??? #bc I always believe it’s real before u remember I have these issues and then I can diss it out 75% of the time #but not always

[queen-ofsunflowers]

My favorite moments I've written for Shujin Assassins so far:

Kayano: How do you say ‘unkillable’ in Japanese? (Ren pauses and thinks about it.)

Ren: Korosenai. (The entire class whips around at the sound of Ren speaking.) Korosenai… Koro… sen...nai… Koro...sen...sei? ...Korosensei? Huh? 

Nagisa: Korosensei? (Ren pauses. Oh crap, he said all that out loud.)

Korosensei: A pleasure to finally hear more of that voice of yours, Amamiya. Five whole words!

---

Korosensei: Shoot and stab all you want, class! Even with this handicap, I am too fast for you! (Ren looks up and takes the gun from Nagisa.)

Nagisa: Hey, what—

Korosensei: Only in your dreams do you have any hope of getting the deed done— (Ren fires, not aiming for Korosensei but the rope tied to the tree. The rope breaks and Korosensei, stunned, falls. They watch as the rest of the class takes the initiative to attack him, forcing a panicked Korosensei to roll around on the ground.)

Ann: Wow. I didn’t know a BB could break a rope like that!

Ren: It was starting to break anyway.

---

Ren: You’d really help me?

Ryuji: ‘course. We’re friends, aren’t we? (Ren blinks. But they’ve only known each other for like… a week and half. He still smiles all the same.) Ain’t that right, Ren-Ren? (A shiver goes up Ren’s spine at the sound of that nickname. Of all things to call him…) So call me Ryuji, got it?

Ren: Thanks. I think I’ll stick with Sakamoto.

Ryuji: Oh man, that's cold.

---

Kataoka: Does anyone else think it's weird that she’s all over Korosensei?

Ryuji: I dunno. Maybe she’s into tentacles. (Someone swiftly kicks his seat.) OW! Hey! What was that for?!

---

Ann: But we bought those for ourselves! *groan* I was so looking forward to that for later…!

Shiho: I’m starting to think that he just used this lab to feed his junk food habit until payday.

Ren: Why does an octopus need to get paid a teacher’s salary…?

Shiho: Huh. Eleven words now.

Ren: What?

---

(And the door opens before Ren can run away.) Oh.  

Ren: Uh… H-Hello. Sir.

Principal: (more warmly that Ren expected) I look forward to your midterm results. Let your mother know that I said hello, would you? (Ren swallows and nods. When he leaves, that warmth disappears and is replaced by ice cold.)

---

Ann grabs Ren’s wrist to pull him back to her.)

Ren: Huh? What’s up?

Ann: Did you really mean all that? (Ren raises a brow.) What you said to those guys back there. About us. Did you really mean it?

Ren: ...Every word. Why?

Ann: ...Like I told Kayano, I always thought I was an outcast because of my looks or the fact that I didn’t grow up here. So hearing all that… Thank you. I really appreciated it.

Ren: No problem. It’s like Ryuji told me. We outcasts have to stick together, don’t we?

Ann: *giggle* Right! ...um, hey. If you want to, you can call me Ann, alright?

Ren: Okay.

Ann: Okay! And… thanks again. ...Ren-Ren. (Ren bristles, turning bright red. Ann laughs out loud, patting his back.) I’m just messing with you!

Ren: Please don’t do that… (Nearly killed him…) Can you maybe… not call me that?

Ann: Okay, okay! (She’s still laughing.) I promise!

---

Nagisa: What did you even do to them?

Ren: I have no idea. I got this really bad headache… and I think I heard a voice in my head? There was this thing… I’m not sure what it was.

Nagisa: Whatever it is, I could help with it. We’ll figure out what it is.

Ren: You don’t have to.

Nagisa: I’m already figuring out Korosensei’s weaknesses. Who knows? Maybe whatever that was 

Ren: You’re not… freaked out?

Nagisa: Amamiya, our teacher is a giant yellow octopus. Whatever happened to you is the least strange thing that I’ve seen this year. We can figure out what it is. And hopefully it’ll help us with our assassination.

Ren: *nods* Right! Let’s do this! (He holds out his hand. Nagisa stares at it for a moment before shaking it.)

---

Ryuji: Wow, she’s seriously cute.

Ren: She doesn’t really look like an assassin.

Shiho: Neither do we. But still… I’m curious about what this new girl’s all about. Amamiya turned out to be quite the joker.

Ren: Joker?

Shiho: A wild card! I mean, you didn’t hesitate to jump out a window or off of a cliff.

---

Ann: Uh, no offense but I don’t think your usual tactics will fool Mr. Karasuma. He knows your M.O.

Irina: Don’t you think I don’t know that!? (She sighs.) It’s like a paid escort trying to put the moves on her old man. (Ren shivers at the image.) If I don’t get this done, I’ll have to leave.

Ann: What?!

Irina: C’mere, I wanna try something. (She drags Ann off.)

---

Kayano: Here’s the thing, if they really are related… I mean, don’t you think that Korosensei would’ve known about it?

Fuwa: Hmm… not necessarily.

Ren: Right. They could’ve been separated at some point.

Kayano: Um, that still doesn’t explain why Itona’s human.

Fuwa: Easy. He’s a mutation.

Kayano: You’ve totally glossed over the core issue here!

Ann: Uh, no offense, but the whole separation thing is really kinda cliche.

Fuwa: Hey, no one asked for your criticism.

Ann: If you didn’t notice already, we’re sorta dealing with real life!

---

Sugino pitches and Shindo swings again. The ball hits the bat, and Ren leaps back just in time, flipping backwards and actually sticking the landing.)

Karma: (jumping up to catch the ball.) Oh, now you’re just showing off. Heads up, Nagisa! (He tosses the ball to their catcher, who tags the home plate.

Ren: Maybe.

---

(The whole time Ren had been taunting Takaoka and keeping everyone’s eyes on him, Nagisa had come around to sneak up behind him. The cat and the snake both strike, Ren flipping over Takaoka’s shoulders as Nagisa brings him down to the ground, knife at his neck and a hand covering his eyes.)

Nagisa: Looks like we win.

Ren: Nagisa, you’re using the back of the knife.

Nagisa: Huh?

---

 (She jumps onto his back.)

Terasaka: What the hell?!

Shiho: What the heck did you mean when you called me a rabbit?! If I’m a rabbit, does that mean you don’t think I can kick your ass?! Because I can! (Her weight eventually toppled them both over and they landed in the water. Ann laughs as she goes to help them up. Ren moves over to get his glasses from Karma.)

---

Ren: And finally, the grand overachiever himself holding the top spot: student council president Gakushu Asano. He got the top spot in the National Mock Exams, and tends to get perfect scores in just about every subject. He’s the principal’s only son, so I think that might have something to do with it. if we could somehow catch him off guard, surprise him somehow, it could get him to mess up and make a mistake. He’s always been like that as far as I can remember. For example, despite being adept at martial arts, he didn’t remember how to catch himself when he fell after I… might’ve shoved him.

Shiho: You know a lot about Asano. It’s kind of creepy. (Ren only hums in reply. It’s not that creepy when you think about it.)

---

(Ren’s eyes widened. He… He actually did it?)

Ryuji: Way to stick it to that know-it-all, man! (Ren softly smiles.)

Ren: I guess.

Ryuji: You guess? The guy’s ranked nationally! Even Nakamura only beat him by the skin of her teeth!

Nakamura: What was that, Sakamoto?

Ryuji: Uh, nothing! Just sayin’! Ren challenging the King of the Hill is definitely awesome!

---

Ann: Yup! (as she and Shiho take the drinks from the waiter passing them out. Ann takes a sip from hers) C’mon, guys! Drink up! These things are like… super good. So sweet!

Ren: (holding up the water bottle he thought to bring with him) I’m fine.

Ryuji: Don’t mind if I do! (He takes Ann’s, which is still at least a three-fours of the way full. He drinks right from the glass)

Ann: Hey! Get your own!

Ryuji: Too late! My backwash is in it! It’s mine now. I LICKED the glass! (He does so to drive his point home. Ann huffs as Shiho chuckles, downing the rest of her glass.)

---

Karma: Oh, sorry ‘bout that. Let’s see if there’s a way to help you out there. (He gestures over to another classmate, who brings him a sea slug. Karma plops it on the sphere.) This do anything?

Ren: (as Korosensei screams) Karma, knock it off.

Karma: Why should I? Not like he can do anything about it. (Ren pulls himself out of the water and the sea slug off of Korosensei.) Now, I wonder if we could find a creepy old beach hum anywhere. I want to shove Korosensei down his pants. (Ren groans. What the hell…? In hindsight, taking this form probably wasn’t the best idea. Especially around Karma. That is why Ren snatches up Koro Sensei and runs over to Mr. Karasuma.) Hey!

---

Ren: ‘Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains is the truth’. 

Fuwa: Hey, yeah! I didn’t know you read Shonen Jump, too!

Ren: I uh... 

Karma: He doesn't. I saw him reading a little something else on the way over. Sherlock Holmes, wasn’t it?

Ren: Maybe… ...okay, no. ...It was Arsène Lupin. ...I finished the Sherlock Holmes books a while ago. A friend recommended Arsène Lupin to me and I haven’t been able to put it down.

Ryuji: Nerd.

Ren: You were reading over my shoulder.

---

Ann: Hey, are you okay?

Ren: Yeah… just a little bit of a headache. I’ll be fine.

Ann: How long have you had it? (Ren looks down at the ground.) Ren, how long have you had it?

Ren: ...Since the mastermind called, saying he poisoned everyone. It’s just a small one, Ann. I’ll be fine.

Ann: Liar. You know what happens when you get those headaches, though. Don’t act like none of us noticed. I saw your phantom try to come out when that guy had Karma. Ren, I know it’s hard, but you need to keep calm.

---

Ren: Ryuji, you’re-- (Ryuji puts a hand over Ren’s mouth, shushing him.)

Ryuji: I’m fine. It’s just a fever. Ann and I split the drink, so if she’s fine, then I’m fine, too. (Ren takes Ryuji’s hand off of his mouth.)

Ren: Ann barely drank any of it at all. You drank most of it. The virus is deadly, Ryuji. 

Ryuji: I don’t care! It’s like everyone said earlier. I’m the fastest in the class. I can’t just sit and wait for help while this creep gets away with it. I don’t care if I’m sick, I’m not gonna let everyone down!

Ren: Ryuji--

Ryuji: Please. Don’t tell anyone. Especially Ann… I think she already blames herself for what happened to Shiho, I don’t want her to blame herself for not stopping me earlier, too. (Ren bites his lip but nods either way. Once Ryuji decides to do something, it’s hard to stop him. But still… He really hopes that they can get that antidote.)

---

Ren thrashes against whoever’s holding him and loudly screams, dropping to his knees and letting it all go. He doubles over, catching himself on forearms as wind whips around him.)

“Nagisa, back away from him! NOW.” (There’s a blue light streaming around him, travelling up his body as the voice in his head now echoes in his ears.)

“I am thou, thou art I. Thou who would accept blasphemy for the sake of thine own justice, call upon my name and release thy rage!” (Ren shakily pushes himself up, his knees feeling like they’re about to give way as he stands. The light shifts and morphs into a figure behind him.) “Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou shall be chained down to Hell itself!”

(A single name appears in Ren’s mind.)

Ren: ARSÈNE!

#shujin assassins au #assassination classroom au #assassination classroom #persona 5 #persona 5 au #ren amamiya #kaede kayano #korosensei #nagisa shiota #ann takamaki #ryuji sakamoto #shiho suzui #karma akabane

[spurgie-cousin]

So, not trying to get too personal here. As you transitioned out of your childhood faith, what did that look like to you? I mean, how long until you wore pants, shorts, tanks, held hands, kissed, cut your hair- whatever rules they taught that kept you out of hell. How easy was that? Do you see any of the small steps being taken by any of the famous fundies?

My upbringing was nowhere near as strict as like, the 2nd gen Duggar kids. My church had a sliding scale of conservativeness and my parents were on the very end of the liberal side (think like, current Carlin Bates; I could cut my hair, wear pants, watch tv etc. Had to be sort of modest but nothing that really interfered w/ my life). It was all very internal for me and it was still a huge struggle; I could write books about dealing with internalized misogyny, the fear of hell, coming to grips with the fact that America wasn't the 'chosen' nation of the world, etc. Even now I'll get the occasional "what if it's the devil telling me to do this" thought and as silly as that sounds, it still can feel very real and scary and is something I have to take a minute for and talk myself out of.

Because of that, I think measuring a person's 'transition' based on their outward appearance can be tricky and not necessarily very accurate (again the Bates are great examples of this......super secular looking on the outside, dogshit ideology on the inside).

That being said, I see quite a bit of myself in Jill Dillard.......it could be because we're similar just in general (we're the exact same age, same hair color, both from podunk nowhere USA, sorta similar upbringing) so I might just be projecting but I do get some vibes from her. I also went sort of boho, headband-y, crunchy girl during my exit from church and in hindsight, I think it was kind of an attempt to outwardly express open-mindedness for me. Leaning into that culture for a bit helped me expand my horizons while still existing in a comfortable kind of psuedo-ideology since I wasn't ready to go cold turkey yet, so I'm hoping maybe she's going the same way with it. I also think her most telling decision was deciding to put her kids in public school, like that is actually huge......fundamentalists rely on homeschooling so much for indoctrination and control and the fact that she's open and willing to let her kids go out and learn in the secular world is super encouraging.

She's the only one I really get that feeling from. I know a lot of people might mention Jinger when they think about defectors, but my personal opinion is that she isn't trying to get away from her religion, she's just trying to make it look more palatable to the outside world.

Anyway to sum it up, I think two huge indicators that someone is making progress in this kind of way are 1. a willingness to participate in their community and society in meaningful ways (that aren't proselytizing) and 2. ideological shifts in a humanist direction.

#sorry this is kind of all over the place I tried to avoid writing a whole ass book and it got choppy #totally willing to go into more depth on anything here if you'd like #religion #my shit #jill dillard

[numberonephantompizza1]

Poppy Fanfic: “Ask Her”

For context: This is a fanfic I wrote in order to join the Poppy Milk dev team and show off my writing skills. Since the callout at the time said we’d need to write a lot of sidequests, I wanted to ask the question of what a Poppy-centered side-quest would be like. I got the idea that it would be from an Asker’s perspective, and everything sort of came naturally after that. Even though I’m on the dev team right now, it’s not canon to Omega Timeline: Poppy’s Story and even has some inaccuracies that contradict canon. With that said, please feel free to read the story below the cut.

---

You noticed something very different inside your room when you woke up. The lights were off and the sun hadn’t yet risen, but there was a certain… aura, coming from your door. You were filled with a certain trepidation, but… you approached it. It was hard to see in the light, but it looked… grey. 

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you stepped through...

...and found about the last person you would’ve expected. The spitting image of Frisk - CORE!Frisk, that was, looking up at you, in the middle of a white void.

“Wh- You’re real?!” you asked, dumbfounded.

“Of course I’m real. Have you been taking all this multiverse stuff for granted? Everything is real somewhere,” Core answered, simply. 

“I… I don’t… and you, me…” you panted, starting to feel a small panic attack coming on.

“Focus,” Core snapped their fingers, grounding you back in reality. Okay, this was happening now.

“Let’s get down to business. Simply: you don’t like me. And I don’t like you. But we BOTH like Poppy. Poppy, my dear, sweet angel… has unfortunately recently come to the realization that Askers ALSO exist in the multiverse. And now she wants to do a ‘meet n’ greet’ with one of her fans. Trust me, I TRIED to talk her out of it, but she can be darn persuasive when she wants to be. And as you’re now realizing, that’s where you come in. 

“I wanna make you a deal. You play along with whatever Poppy wants until she gets bored of this. If you’re on your best behavior - and that means, don’t give her anything bad, don’t tell her anything you KNOW she shouldn’t know, don’t use any magic, and be a general good influence - if you play nice, in exchange, I will allow you to hang out with ANY resident of the Omega Timeline. 

“Want to spend a day full of wacky hijinks with a Papyrus, or even an Underswap Sans? Consider it done. Want to know how Deltarune Chapter 2 plays out ahead of time? I know a Susie with your name on it. Whatever you want, so long as you play by the rules, and don’t ask for anyone obviously ridiculous. So… do we have ourselves a deal?”

You contemplated that offer, and everything that was happening, trying to suppress your inner urge to geek out for just a few moments. The Omega Timeline, Poppy, and all the AU’s you could think of and more were real. And you just got an invitation to visit them.

“Yeah, of course!” you nodded excitedly, though your enthusiasm only seemed to make Core more anxious.

“Don’t make me regret this…” Core sighed, as the whiteness seemed to melt away into a cozy-looking house with wooden floors and lime walls, where you were standing directly outside of a white door. Core seemed to have disappeared.

Technically, there was nothing stopping you from exploring. So you did just that. You walked up to a shelf with some family photos. One was a photo of Poppy, Core, Dusted and Rust all together, in some meadow, looking happy. At least, you assumed Dusted and Rust were happy, they didn’t show up well on camera. There was another photo of Poppy alone, looking somewhat younger than she did on the blog, seated on a chair in a photo that looked far more staged. She held an actual poppy flower in her hand and smiled brightly.

You opened the cabinet doors, curious of what knick-knacks you might find in there. Some crayons, a few random glass cups, some art by 3-year-old Poppy that was so poorly done its meaning was hard to decipher, and a locked box. You reached for the box--

“Getting a bit sidetracked, aren’t we?”

You jolted up, and faced Core behind you. Even though they were child-sized, they crossed their arms with the poise and authority of a stern parent. You laughed anxiously. “Ahahaha… ahaha… ha……..”

“...Strike one.” Core said, and vanished. The meaning of that was all-too clear. Deciding not to dilly dally any longer, you went to the room you suspected to be Poppy’s, and knocked. 

“Just a sec!” Poppy said, and opened the door. She looked up at you, and gasped. “Wow, Granpa really did come through…!” She twirled excitedly. “You must be my adoring fan, aren’t you?” she asked.

You stared down at the girl in stunned silence.

“To be honest, I kinda figured you’d be some gray guy with sunglasses, but that’s kinda silly in hindsight. How you doin’?” She asked that last line in a mock accent as you continued to stare.

“Baby,” you said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you quickly tried to change the subject. “Yeah, it’s… y’know, it’s great to be here…” You clasped your hands together, biting your lip. You were in an Undertale AU, faced with the AU granddaughter of another AU character. You still weren’t entirely over that. Was this fever dream? Fandom heaven, or fandom hell?

“I know! Once I heard you guys weren’t from the Omega Timeline, I realized I hadn’t met even ONE of my fans… even if you guys are super annoying some of the time.” 

“Uhhh, yeah…” you wondered if you should apologize on behalf of the askers who put Poppy in the hospital that one time. Then again, it seemed kind of awkward, and it might have been best not to bring that up while Core was watching, which was always. Looking down at the cutesy girl, it was almost tempting to pull her into a hug, but you managed to keep your composure. 

“I wanted to do something a little more special than just some sorta interview, though, because you ask me questions all the time anyways,” Poppy said. “Granpa said you’ve never been to the Omega Timeline before, so I wanna give you the big tour!” Poppy went to the door. “I’m gonna be outside when you’re ready!” She left the room.

Seeing the empty room in front of you, you were tempted to snoop again, but you’d learned your lesson after last time. You headed straight out after Poppy.

You couldn’t help but gasp in awe of the serenity of the great outdoors as you were beckoned to it. You’d been outside before, obviously, but everything just looked so… nice. The blue sky, the grassy grounds, the ornate buildings… you’ve seen this place in pixel art and a couple drawings before, but seeing it with your own eyes was another story. And the next thing for you to nearly faint at was seeing the Undertale characters running around, Sanses, Undynes, Frisks, even goat moms. 

Poppy smiled. “...It’s nice, isn’t it? I KNEW taking you on a tour was a good idea.” She smirked. “Now remember, just because this is a meet-up doesn’t mean it’s free, and there WILL be a fee at the end of our ride.”

“...Uh… I left my wallet at home,” you said, patting your pockets, “And I don’t have any, uh... ‘G,’ I think. Unless the G stands for ‘Gratitude,’ amiright?” you did finger guns.

“G stands for Gold,” Poppy corrected you bluntly, unamused. She returned to her chipper attitude just as quickly, though. “Now, let me show you around!” She led you down the street. 

Walking with her, seeing so many versions of your favorite characters in the flesh, walking around… well, the temptation to talk to SOME of them was irresistible, Core be damned. You did resolve not to go too far off-track, but you shared some words with the folks you passed by, Poppy thankfully stopping each time you did. You met two Frisks - one boy, one ambiguous - an Underswap Undyne, a human version of Toriel, and surprisingly, a version of Princess Peach.

You and Poppy approached an elegant fountain, stood upon proudly by a statue of a mustachio’d CORE!Frisk. “This is the Timeline Plaza! It’s sort of the local park, where people meet up to do... stuff. Just hang out. Make a picnic. Play ball. All that good park-y stuff, y’know? And there’s stores in all directions, so it’s pretty good.” She proudly showed off her home to you, with a smile.

You talked to more on the way to the next place. An Inverted Fate Papyrus. A weird Ralsei who said his name was “Noyno.” An Asgore wearing a hoodie, who you assumed was swapped with Sans. (Poppy did scold you a little bit for this, telling you that just because someone has a hoodie you shouldn’t assume they’re swapped. You apologized.)

“This is Grillby’s! One of them, anyways. The nearest one to my house. It’s pretty good if you want an OK burger. Sanses love the place, though. It’s… kind of unhealthy. And a little gross.” Poppy said. “Especially when they just drink… raw… ketchup.”

“Can’t handle a little ketchup?” you smiled mischievously. “We drink it by the gallon back in my universe,” you lied.

“...I really hope you’re joking,” Poppy said, alarmed.

“Am I?” you smiled brighter.

“...W-well, we’re not going in there, so you can FORGET about drinking that much ketchup!” Poppy said, afraid of the sheer power of your ketchup-drinking.

You and Poppy moved onto the next spot. You met an Underswap Alphys who seemed to be trapped in a red-and-gold palette. You met a robot dressed as a circus ringmaster, who claimed to be a Chara. You met a Dummy dressed in a Frisk shirt. (You didn’t assume it was swapped with Frisk this time, which turned out to be a mistake, because it was.) Poppy stared at you awkwardly now, wondering why you were talking to all these random strangers. Finally, you and Poppy reached your next destination.

“The theater! Where we show off all the greatest hits! Including MY movie, which, not to brag, but it’s--”

Except, you’d been distracted by a hyperdeath Asriel, and were ignoring Poppy for the moment.

“...” Poppy spoke up. “That’s what I don’t get about you.”

“Huh?” that seemed to wake you up, and you looked at her. 

“Everytime it’s always, ‘have you met Underswap Sans,’ or ‘have you met JangoTale Frisk,’ or some other weird thing. You always ask that. But… they’re just people. Why do you always assume I know some random Sans or Frisk or someone?”

“I…” you were a bit taken aback. “...I don’t… we don’t assume you know them, they’re just… they’re just important.” 

“Important?” She asked. “...I-I mean, yeah, EVERYONE’s important, but, I don’t really get what you mean…”

“They’re all--” You paused, trying to collect your thoughts, think of everything you knew from the blog, and tried to actually talk to her. “...They’re like friends to me. Kinda.”

“...You guys are friends with them? I thought you were stuck in your world…” she frowned.

“No, it’s like-- I’m not ‘friends’ with Underswap Frisk, or-- or Storyshift Frisk, or Shifty or whatever, I’m just friends with… Frisk.”

...Poppy stared at you like you just said the ground was turning to jelly, or something equally bafflingly inane. “...I… think you’re confused. Look, sometimes newcomers struggle with this. Your Frisk isn’t the only Frisk--”

“I know! It’s… You don’t get it. This world, these worlds are so special and creative, and they mean a lot to me. I know we can be really edgy, and I know we ask weird questions about Dusted and Rust, but that’s all because… because...” you paused.

Poppy looked, seeming upset about hearing her siblings mentioned in the context of ‘edgy’ questions, not seeing what you were seeing. Core, standing behind her, holding up a hand signal.

The number two.

You were getting carried away. You overstepped.

“...Um… I’m sorry.” You pulled her into a hug as Core vanished. “There’s really no reason for us to ask those questions. We can just be dumb sometimes.”

“...” She hugged back. “Yeah, it’s okay. I knew you guys were super weird and dumb before I convinced Granpa to let you in here, so I guess I should’ve seen this coming,” Poppy smiled, regaining her confidence as you did your best to not be offended at being called weird and dumb.

“Okay! I think I have just one last stop in mind to cap this tour off on a high note! Literally, hehehe…” She giggled mischievously. This time, you didn’t stop to talk to others, following her directly as you approached a peak overlooking the town. For yet another time, and probably the last, you couldn’t help but ogle at the town’s beauty. “Pretty good, right?” She sat down.

“Ha… with all the climbing, I was worried we’d fall down a mountain,” you joked. Poppy seemed to roll her eyes, as you sat beside her. “...I guess I get how you can call this place home. I mean, once I stop nerding out, anyways. You don’t see stuff like this in my… reality.”

“Just gallons and gallons of ketchup, huh?” she commented. You couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Yeah.”

And you two just stared into the distance for a while. ...She wasn’t just a character. She was a human being.

...Or, technically just a ‘being,’ scratch the human part. Still, you felt a bit desensitized to all this. And so did she. You related in that way.

“I can’t say you exactly passed with flying colors, but you fulfilled your end of the agreement well enough.”

Without any warning, you were back in a white void with CORE!Frisk, just like before. You almost forgot about the deal you made, what with all the time you spent with Poppy. You stood.

“Uh… yeah. So, my reward…” you drifted off, remembering the offer Core gave you. The chance to meet just about any AU character of your imagining… or at least, any that would be peaceful enough to be in the Omega Timeline. Which still left a WIDE variety of options…

Who did you want to see? What mattered most to you?

...

Thinking deeply… you told Core their name.

“...Oh. Really? Well, I guess it makes sense for you that you’d want to see them,” Core remarked. “I can’t guarantee they’ll give you what you’re looking for, but a deal’s a deal. Let’s head off.”

You and Core went somewhere else.

---

And that’s all she wrote! If you read this far, thank you. Working on the game since then has been fun, and I think you’ll like what we have in store. Until then, ciao.

#undertale #omega timeline #poppy's story

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

I Taste Honey but I Haven’t Seen the Hive - Chapter Seven

Ao3,   Masterpost,  C.1   C.2   C.3   C.4   C.5   C.6

Relationships: eventual queer-platonic intruality, platonic dlampr.

okay. so. last time we heard anything out of me was *New Years*, Literally, and maybe i should’ve mentioned that I was taking a little hiatus, but oh well. i’m back now and i’m gonna post the last three chapters of this fanfiction as soon as I possibly can (so probably like all of them will be up by tmrw at the latest!!) to make up for my absence. but jokes on you, cuz I did actually finish this thing!!! >:P 

(oh yeah, and there are no italics, thanks to tumblr’s copy/paste bulls//t. i continue to be lazy :3 if anything sounds stilted just imagine that theres an italicized word there and yeah.)

Warnings: cursing, sexual innuendo, discussions of sexuality, misunderstandings, Emotional Conversations, sharing a bed, mild body horror (remus’ existence lol), stress, h/c. 

Word count: 7,967

The hallway was cold, and dark. It had been long-since abandoned of any life, with every door shut and each light dimmed- even Virgil’s. That day- the day of the meeting- had exhausted everyone enough to send them right to sleep mode. 

Everyone except Remus and Patton.

Their heart-to-heart in the kitchen had dragged on a little longer than either had expected, letting night descend fully over the Mindpalace. Patton was the one to notice the time eventually, and drag his less-than-restful friend up the stairs with him- he could tell that the other was dead tired, though. His stubborn determination not to end the conversation didn’t sit well, but Patton couldn’t think what to make of it, and they really did need some sleep. 

They reached Patton’s door first. He stopped in front of it, when Remus tugged his hand back insistently. He turned to him, letting out a confused hum, and was met with a scowl and a sigh.

Remus was looking even more resigned than he had when they first started talking that night. Patton waited, worried. 

“This isn’t, um,” Remus exhaled, ragged around the edges. “This isn’t a pick-up line, okay, and I know that it’ll sound that way and I know that it’s me but. I really don’t wanna be alone tonight.”

Oh. 

Patton’s heart ached- and his heart was big, it took up most of him. He felt the pain spread out from his center and into his fingertips and toes, hot and empathetic. Because how could he hear something like that, and not want to spend the rest of the night doting on the creature in front of him until that voice never sounded so small again, till he was as big and confident as he was meant to be?

“I don’t think I want to be alone, either,” Patton said.

Remus stared, his big scarlet eyes casting a faint glow in the dark. They were wide, cautiously hopeful.

“Yeah?” He muttered.

“Yeah.”

Patton opened the door, and led them both inside.

Remus shuffled around on the other side of the bed, but Patton was still, however much he wanted to squirm.

“Um.”

The movement stopped, and he flushed at the feeling of being watched in the dark. There really was no un-awkward way to say it, was there?

“Remus, since you’re staying, do you- um, do you mind doing me a favor?” 

Remus, little more than a silhouette, propped himself up on his elbow, a tilt to his head. “A favor? Of course, anything for you, Pat,” his words were a purr, and Patton could envision the suggestive smirk on his face in perfect clarity. Patton felt another well of discomfort bubble in his stomach.

“Could you at least wear some clothes, please?” 

There was a beat. Remus laughed, short and good-natured. 

“Yeah, I sorta figured I would. It’s no problem.”

“Thank you,” Patton sighed, relieved. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he paused, and that really would’ve been the end of it, but Patton had learned by then when Remus was about to make a joke. He took a little breath while the words were still clicking together in his head, and a grin crept into his voice. “There’s always tomorrow night to try this clothesless, eh?”

“I’m asexual,” Patton blurted, and he could feel the heat radiating from his face, though he didn’t even know why he was so uncomfortable. It was a joke, Remus was just joking. They were friends and Patton should’ve been used to it- but he’d already gotten so sensitive that night, and jokes like that always hit just a little different than the violent ones or the curses. It must have been a breaking point, or something. 

Remus shifted again, laying on his back. Patton wondered if he’d made things awkward. 

“Oh,” Remus said, “Oh wow, that makes so much sense!”

“It- It does?” Patton sat up, staring at the other with a mix of surprise and relief. Remus blinked up at him, nodding. 

“Well, yeah, that explains why you get so squirmy whenever anybody even implies something to do with sex. I always thought you were just, like, a prude.”

Patton ran his hands over the comforter that pooled around his legs, shrugging. He wasn’t nervous, so much as he was fidgety. “Well, maybe it was some of that, too,” he joked. 

Remus snorted, rolling onto his side and catching one of Patton’s hands in his own. He held it, playing with Patton’s fingers like he was trying to focus. 

“Hey,” he sighed, heavy, “Sorry.”

“Huh? What for?”

“C’mon, you know,” Remus gestured around with his free hand, “All the jokes, and all the times I hit on you, like, graphically. I was kidding, obviously, it was just that you always had the best reactions. If I’d known why, I mean. I don’t know if I’d have actually stopped, but whatever. Different time, different me. I’m stopping now, kay?”

Patton’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t- He wasn’t trying to make Remus stop, that wasn’t fair. He knew how important staying true to himself was to Remus, and if he’d actually managed to guilt-trip any of that away, he didn’t think he’d forgive himself.

“Oh, it’s really okay, I mean- I know you like talking about stuff like that, who am I to say you shouldn’t?”

“You never said that, actually.”

Patton nodded, even if Remus couldn’t see him, and even if he was pretty sure they were on different pages. “Exactly. You shouldn’t go changing just to make me comfortable, I’ll get used to the jokes! I guess I just wanted to know that they were, which, obviously yeah, but… um, I’m bad with knowing what tone is which, sometimes, so-”

“Ugh, Patton,” Remus was laughing, leaning up and grasping tighter around Patton’s hand, with a tone that said plainly: please shut up. Patton did, biting the inside of his cheek. “Look,” Remus huffed, “I know what you’re trying to say, and it’s real sweet that you’re so worried about this, but it’s not exactly like I’m telling you that I’m reinventing myself. I’ll definitely keep saying plenty of horny shit, trust me, I can just drop it with the comments about ya. It wouldn’t even be funny anymore; fucking with people is cool, right, but making someone I actually like feel ‘icky’, or whatever, isn’t really the same thing. It’s no big sacrifice trying to make you feel safer with me, got it?”

Remus’ eyes were on his, glowing with concern. Patton felt his face flush for an entirely new reason, nothing to do with embarrassment.

“You want to make me feel safe?” Patton grinned, just this side of giddy. “That’s a new one.”

Remus made a vague grumbly sound; it shouldn’t have been as cute as it was. “Yeah, okay, so what if I do?”

“It’s okay if you do. It’s sweet.”

“Maybe it is. Besides, you aren’t the only aspec side around,” he shrugged, “I’m not too big on the dating side of things, myself.”

Patton’s smile widened. “Thank you. I mean, for understanding, and… getting me out of my own head about all this.”

“I gotcha,” a claw traced over Patton’s knuckles, idly, “No need for thanks.”

“I’ll give it anyway, you know that.”

Remus snorted. “Mhmmm.”

With the remains of embarrassment finally fading away, Patton yawned, and remembered just how tired he was. He laid himself down finally, relaxing as his back hit the mattress. No sooner after he’d done so, Remus was letting go of his hand in favor of curling around him and setting his head on Patton’s chest. 

Patton would be lying if he said it wasn’t a relief, feeling the other unhesitant to curl up against him still. He looped his own arms around the smaller figure, practically on top of him, and traced patterns against Remus’ back. 

In hindsight, Patton couldn’t remember ever falling asleep so easily. 

The morning after, there was a crisis. A Thomas-crisis, and an emotional one, which set Patton up for a busy, busy day (or morning-through-afternoon, but it was well more than enough work for one day). The one upside to the whole mess was that he didn’t have to deal with it alone, because emotional distress fell neatly into Virgil’s area of expertise as well as his own.

At some point, you’d think they’d get numb to the endless dilemmas every other day, but with each new outing it got clearer and clearer that panic was just a part of life. Most weeks had at least one incident; there would be a mistake at the post office that needed to be worked out in person (which Patton didn’t mind, really, but Virgil hated, and Roman thought was a waste of time), there was an event for a friend of a friend that for some reason they were socially obligated to go to (which no one liked but Roman, who always thought they were one person away from being ‘discovered’), or- the present situation- there were pre-established plans that all the sides had somehow forgotten about until they were shoved into it at the last second.

Patton jolted awake with a gasp, the urgency of his human throwing him out of sleep. It was a full two hours later than he usually woke up, something he would’ve loved to appreciate on any other day. His bed was already empty- the warmth of another person still there, the covers still scrunched, but empty- which did serve to make his morning routine quicker. He dressed with a fervor that he couldn’t even place, manic exhaustion already soaking into him and making plans to stay there all day. It was going to be a rough one, being around people. 

But, Patton knew it wouldn’t be hard to ignore all that, for a little bit at least. There was still a bright side, and that side was Virgil! Who he got to spend all day with! Working, sure, but still- work done with a loved one is never work at all.

“Yeah, I don’t know if that rings true, Pat,” was Virgil’s response to the sentiment, when Patton told him.

“You’re smiling,” Patton said, because he was.

“What?” Virgil covered his mouth, “No, I’m not- shut up.” 

“You believe me, I know you do. You looove me.”

“Says you,” his mouth may have been covered, but the crows feet under his eyes creased more. His shoulders were just a little less tense, too, enough to tell Patton he was right. 

That morning wasn’t great, but, they made it better.

Remus had woken up in a lot of places that were decisively not his bed. The floor? Sure. The imagination? Oh, absolutely. Underneath furniture, on top of furniture, and on counters- anywhere lie-down-able, been there and done that. Just for the fun of it, really, and a nice shock to whoever found him curled up in the sink or beneath cabinets. He was used to a crick in the neck or a splotch of red, rough carpet print on the side of the face. 

So he didn’t really know why, waking up in someone else’s bed, he jolted out of it so quick, he looked like he’d been electrocuted. Or why, after scrambling out of Patton’s arms with whatever carefulness he could manage, he bolted from the scene entirely.

Remus began the slow process of piecing it together after he all but slammed the door behind him, trembling and cursing his way down the hall. He dragged away from Patton’s room and let his back hit the wall, sliding to the floor with a kind of hysteria he could only describe as itchy-vomity-terrifying-amazing. 

He did itch at his skin, he was feeling a bit sick, a bit scared, but he thought he might’ve been grinning anyway, so the description fit well enough. Except, nothing was fitting actually well, right then.

The closeness. The attention. The fact that he’d spent eight hours of sleep getting a full dosage of both those things. The fact that it had been more of both of them than he could remember getting, ever. Of course he’d scrambled away- how else could he react!?

Remus didn’t get overwhelmed. Except, apparently he did! What another fun surprise!

A door creaked open down the hall (thank God not Patton’s). Remus felt the eyes on him, and looked up- manically, he looked well and truly manic.

Logan blinked at him. He looked a lot like an owl in the mornings, Remus noted. One of those smart ones, obviously, not one of the ones that fucks around counting licks on a lollipop. 

Logan cleared his throat. 

“Remus? Is everything alright?” 

Remus shrugged, grinning. “Maybe! Who knows, though, right? It’s a lot, you know?”

Logan did not know, and said as much. Remus only laughed, letting his head hit back against the wall in the process.

He still felt warm, inside and out, after all that cuddling. It was weird, good-weird, but still so new. And, like he said, a lot. He’d felt that kind of warmth before, but definitely not as much- and he knew he needed to distract himself before he went crazy. Or, before his rattrap of a brain ruined the maybe-possibly good feelings for him. 

“Hey, any chance you’re busy today?”

Logan hovered in his doorway for a minute before ultimately deciding to step out, probably determining the interaction as a prolonged one. He didn’t look too put-off about it, though.

“A very high chance,” he said, “But for now I am not. Is there something you need?”

“A distraction.”

“Ah.”

“So, you up for it?” Remus pulled himself up from the floor, popping a few joints. “At least for the morning, yeah, Geek?” 

“Of course,” he smirked, “Provided you can call me by actual name at least once in this conversation.” 

Remus grinned, probably coming off more relieved than he intended. “Eh, we’ll see about that one, Dweeb.”

Logan met him halfway down the hall, not looking at all surprised by the response. He looked, if anything, amused. Remus found himself remembering very abruptly that the two of them got along, were probably friends, and somehow that fact was still novel to him. Or maybe it was the mood. Probably both.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Logan reasoned.

“Oh, sure.”

“What were you thinking we should do, anyway?”

Remus raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“I’m afraid that’s off the table,” Logan told him.

“Aw, fine. Surprise me, then.”

“That will be hard.”

Remus laughed, unsteady and shrill.

“C’mon, I know you’ve got it in ya.” 

Logan smiled, just-nearly-almost mischievous. “Well. I’ll see what I can do.” 

And for just a second, some of the panic slipped away, leaving behind that strange warmth. 

Patton didn’t exactly let Janus know he was coming by. It had been a long day- or, a long five hour period between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon, but still, the idea that there was any day left at all made Patton want to melt into the nearest soft object and never get up. 

When Patton needed to melt, he went to Janus’. Maybe it was the big armchairs; maybe it was the comforting, gooey little white-lies that soaked the atmosphere of his room; maybe it was the fact that his voice was so very easy to fall asleep to. Most likely, at least part of it was because he always seemed to enjoy taking care of people, anyway. 

It was a nice combination, and exactly what was needed. Patton could apologize for not knocking later, ideally when he wasn’t falling asleep where he stood. 

“Janusss,” he groaned, by way of greeting, and promptly collapsed onto the nearest soft surface while the door swung shut behind him. 

Janus blinked at him from across the room, surprise lasting for approximately three seconds. He turned around, and sighed.

“Well, hello to you, too.”

Patton hummed, drearily.

“You look cheery,” Janus quipped, “Anything you’d like to talk about?” 

The question was spoken lightly, but not insincere. Patton lifted his head enough to smile tiredly at the snake. He shrugged, for the room was working it's magic already, as was the easy company to be found there. Stress was easing away, in small bits, evaporating into warm shimmers under his skin. He had no doubt that Janus was doing some of it on purpose, as soon as he’d noticed the mood Patton was in, giving him a blanket of speckled reassurances (which were, as Janus insisted to him time and time again, just a tiny, harmless breed of pleasant lies) in an almost-literal way. 

Most things about the sides’ rooms were like that. Almost-literal; concepts that crept their way into the physical world, if only slightly. Janus was the best at those kinds of things, though. 

“’S just been a tiring day, y’know?” 

Janus sat beside him, toying with some spare yellow strings, weaving and unweaving them almost carelessly. “I do.”

“A tiring night, too,” Patton added, an afterthought, but he found as he said so that it was true. Long in a good way. An impactful way. It felt like something important had happened, something that changed, but he didn't quite know what. It was still just as draining, though.

Janus raised an eyebrow, but he did not pry (even if he most likely wanted to).“So, you’ve come here.”

“Do you mind if I just rest in here for a bit?” He said, as he’d already gotten quite comfortable.

“Why don’t I do you one better?”

Patton hummed confusedly, but Janus had already begun urging him to sit up. The snake waved a hand, filling the room with light, swirling piano music. At once the air seemed to grow fuzzy, spicks and specks of what looked like golden glitter floating around- not unlike from the distortion Patton’s own room gave him when he was happy. Janus smiled down at him, summoning a neat little tea set on a tray and fixing them each a cup of the swirling, caramel-colored liquid. 

Patton sighed happily, taking the teacup he was proffered and thanking the lord for whatever he’d done to deserve a friend like Janus. 

Janus sat beside him, balancing the tea tray on an end table, and let their shoulders bump. He wasn’t a touchy person, exactly, but he allowed for a conservative amount of casual intimacy. Occasionally, and in an unspoken way, but still.

The atmosphere had exactly the intended effect. Patton felt paradisiacal. 

“Gosh, what would any of us do without you?” 

Janus hummed. “You’d most certainly perish.”

Patton laughed, his chest lighter already. 

Remus felt good for about ten seconds after leaving Logan’s room and letting the guy get to work, fresh off the good morning he’d had. Then, very promptly, the weight that the remaining hours of daylight carried dropped onto his shoulders, and he would’ve been perfectly willing to claw his brain out to get a moment of reprieve from the whole barrage of irrational terror worming around in it.

Remus didn’t know why it was so bad that day (well- he had a guess, but thinking about it obviously made it suck worse, so). What he did know was that he needed someone to keep fucking distracting him, and that someone could under no circumstances be Patton.

Luckily, avoiding him wasn’t hard- he was still busy, and Remus had a feeling he’d need a rest once Thomas’ crisis was over, anyway- but that didn’t do much to solve the other half of Remus’ problem.

He needed something big, loud, and most importantly, not solo. He needed someone that could take up a whole room just as easily as himself, with endless energy to bounce back and forth, back and forth, until neither of them would ever worry about anything other than the moment and whatever it was they would do together… 

Oh, god fucking dammit. 

Remus sunk out to the Imagination. No, not his. The opposite half.

He rose up into more than a blank canvas, but less than a finished work; a vibrant world with gaps and white spots. He might’ve taken the time to look around, but- unsurprisingly- his brother was in front of him, accosting him, immediately. Seriously, it was like he’d teleported. 

“What are you doing here?” Roman snapped, his hands, still splattered with ink, landing on his hips. 

“Aw, so now I’m not even allowed to visit my own flesh and blood, and other various parts?” 

Roman scrunched his nose up. “No, you aren’t allowed. This is my room!”

Remus- as he always did when someone said he couldn’t do something- cackled. 

“I’m serious!” Roman whined, “I’m busy!”

Now, he said that, but Remus knew from personal experience that if Roman wanted him gone, he could’ve forced him out without too much issue- or worse yet, attacked him outright. He didn’t seem to be about to spring, though, not looking any worse than annoyed, so Remus happily decided that this interaction fell into the normal-and-healthy-sibling-bickering category instead of the unfortunately familiar would-genuinely-commit-fratricide-if-possible category. 

He grinned. “Yeah, and I’m bored!”

“Not my problem, and you’re still in my room.” 

“What, worried I’ll gunk up all your magic ponies and Yellow Brick Roads, or whatever it is you like to play with around here?”

“Yes, I am!” Roman scowled, but it looked a lot like he was straining his jaw not to laugh. “And you know I don’t make those, you fiend, I made a unicorn once and that was only because Logan wanted one.”

“You’re shitting me if you say that you weren’t the kid who always wanted a pony, Ro.”

“Well, how’s a pony any better than a thestral, which I seem to remember someone getting all excited about when we first read the-books-that-shall-not-be-named?”

“Ooh! Good idea, we should abso-fucking-lutely make those!” Remus wandered past his brother, looking around at the half-finished scene that he’d walked in on. It was sunny, pleasant- all around very vanilla, but there was at least a sense of adventure thrumming under it that gave the place a kick. With some work, it could actually be, like, fun! “Ever see somebody die? Don’t worry, I can help with that.”

Roman turned to him, looking hilariously incredulous with what was happening.

“Um? Excuse me? This is my domain,” he blinked, and a smug smirk crossed his lips. “Which means that you don’t have the power to make anything here! So, ha!”

Oh, right. That made a lot of sense, actually. How had he forgotten that? It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d tried to make something with his brother, right? 

…Wow. That had no business hurting as much as it did.

“Uh- Remus?” 

His head snapped up, a smile with too-many teeth already strained across his face. Remus’ head was scattered enough, coming here wasn’t supposed to make it worse.

“Sure, okay- there’s gotta be some way for us to build stuff together!” 

Roman stared appraisingly at his sibling, apparently thinking before he argued for the one and only time in his life. He tilted his head in confusion, perhaps worry. 

“I- well-” Roman glanced at what he’d been making, and down at his hands. “I’m sure I could, perhaps, let you have power here. Just this once.” He huffed. “It’s my room, right? So there’s no reason why I couldn’t do that, if I wanted.”

“Do you?” 

“Ugh.” Roman rolled his eyes, perfunctorily. “Fine. I don’t know what’s up with you, but I’d rather you be your normal weird-self than… whatever this is,” Roman stuck his hand out, his chin raised like it was a challenge. “Good?”

Remus grabbed his hand (and did not buzzer him, or slime him, even though it would have been so easy- because they were having A Moment and even he could appreciate the sanctity of something like that). 

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

Roman, as it turned out, was able to tolerate Remus for a whopping six hours, right up until five p.m., and only shooed him away in order to finish the project that he’d more-or-less happily dropped when Remus stopped by. So Roman wasn’t the worst brother in the world, Remus acknowledged. He then resolved to never, under any circumstances, say that to Roman’s face. 

The door to the Imagination shut with a click. The sound matched almost perfectly with another, sharper one down the hall, what Remus recognized as Janus’ door closing. He glanced up with a grin, wondering if he could maybe get Snakey to distract him for a while- only to lock eyes with precisely what he needed distracting from.

Patton smiled at him. He looked tired, relaxed, and raised a hand in some semblance of a wave. It would probably be a great opportunity to unwind together, talk stuff out, and definitely curl into each other on the couch.

Remus wasn’t going to take that opportunity, though.

Remus stared back at Patton for all of three seconds, the grin sliding off his face, before barging through the nearest door and slamming it behind himself. 

Shit. Fuck. What the hell did he do that for? It was just Patton, Remus knew Patton; there was no reason to be jittery enough to bolt from him twice. There was no way Patton wouldn’t think he was mad- which he wasn’t, even if he barely understood why he was losing it, he knew it wasn’t anger. But Patton wouldn’t know that, and he’d cry, probably, and Remus wasn’t sure if he was good enough at comforting people to fix it after. Christ, maybe he couldn’t fix it, maybe he’d still be too keyed up to talk to Pat, even if he started bawling! 

“Hey? What the fuck?”

Remus spun around, and yeah, he could’ve guessed whose room he ended up in without the gravelly voice to give it away, given that little spiral. A surprised-looking Virgil stared up at him, sitting cross-legged on a spiderweb bedspread. 

Remus ignored the thin layer of anxiety still rolling under his skin (now that he could place it), and shrugged, sliding until he sat on the floor.

“Oh, hi,” he said.

“Yeah, hi to you too, but my question still stands:” Virgil clapped his hands together, “What. The fuck?” 

Remus considered a few possible snarky responses, but found that most of them were pretty pathetic. Besides, evading vulnerable situations was more of Janus’ thing, and Remus didn’t want to steal his bit. 

“I’m hiding like a little bitch, so don’t kick me out, or I’ll maul you.”

Virgil’s eyebrows went up, but the surprise in his face was being replaced, slowly, by confused resignation. “Okay, cool. Why here, and why me?”

“First door.”

“Yeah, that’s about my luck,” he blew his bangs out of his face, “So like, you’re not gonna go anywhere else?”

Remus thought about it, but it was an easy choice. If he was gonna whine to anybody about something like this, he decided, it’d probably be Virgil. Virgil was good with fear, he was good with Patton, and he was good at making fun of shit if a conversation got too serious. 

“Nah. Sorry, Emo Boy, but I’ve already annoyed Logan and my dipshit brother today. Looks like it’s your turn!”

“What about Janus?”

“Eh, he’s a live-in therapist for the rest of you already. I think I’ll give him the day off.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, sighing with all the exasperation of a teenage burnout and not a thirty-year-old metaphysical humanoid.

“Okay, okay- and why’s Patton off the table? He, like, actually enjoys helping people,” Virgil glanced down, scuffing the carpet with the side of his foot. “He’s good at it, too.”

“Yeahhhh,” Remus locked his teeth together, inhaled through them, “About that.”

“What, aren’t you two all close now?” Virgil frowned, “I fuckin’ saw you guys at the meeting yesterday, you were so on top of each other, I feel like I forgot that you were two separate sides,” to anybody who didn’t know him, the way he talked about it would sound harsh. Remus, however, knew exactly how soft Virgil really was- the fucking poser- and that that shit? That was pure encouragement, raw as a bloody, bloody steak. 

Which, of course, only made Remus wince again.

He flopped sideways onto the floor, groaning. “Yeah, we’re close. That’s- I think that might be the problem?” That sounded right, almost, but just wrong enough to feel icky and annoying. “Ugh, I don’t know. So I just ran!”

There was a beat.

“Wait a second,” Virgil’s voice was tight- oh that bitch, he was laughing! “You’re hiding from Patton?”

Remus huffed. Okay, so maybe it was a little funny, he could appreciate that- but! He was still upset about it!!

“I mean, what has he done to scare you off?” Virgil pressed, “Too many compliments? Did he hug you too hard? I know the dude can be a lot sometimes, but-”

“Okay, ok-ay,” Remus couldn’t help it, he managed a laugh at it, too. “It’s ridiculous! It’s fucking ridiculous and he’s not even the problem!”

“Then what is the problem?” Virgil was snickering, “And don’t say that it’s you, dude. At least one of us around here has to not hate himself to hell and back, and you’ve defended that title for too long to lose it,” he cleared his throat right after he said it, sitting up straighter and trying to look like he hadn’t just been laughing like a huge dork. “Not that I’m, like, worried about you or anything.”

“Aw, you so are,” Remus stared up at the ceiling, grinning despite the ache in his chest. “But no, it’s not that. He thinks I’m awesome and he’s right, so don’t worry.”

Virgil leaned over him, staring upside-down at Remus. He squinted.

“Hey, this a serious problem?”

“I guess so. You can joke about it, though.”

“Cool. Um,” Virgil pulled away. Remus sat up, watching the trait cross one leg over the other, flip them, then tap his knee one-two-three-etc. times. He chewed on his lip. The whole nine yards of a classic Focused-Virgil Face. “Okay. You can tell me about it, seriously. I’ll try to help, or whatever.”

Remus blinked at him.

“Don’t- Jesus- don’t make a big deal out of it, dude-”

“Oh, I am.”

“I don’t even have a choice, okay, you’re the one who-”

“You’re so sweet, Virgey!”

“Remus, I swear to God, repeat that to anyone and I…” 

Virgil trailed off. Remus pouted at him, dramatically, his eyes practically glowing with mischief. “C’mon, aren’t you going to threaten me?”

“I was, and then I remembered that you’re like, actually into that kinda stuff, so. No. Nope, I’m good.”

“Fine,” he shrugged, “Looks like you’re resigned to just hearing about my feelings, instead!”

Virgil rolled his eyes again- of course he did- but there was no hiding the way he went quiet, patient, you could even call it attentive.

It was an offering, one that Remus didn’t hesitate to take. 

Patton left Janus’ room in a good mood.

He was in a considerably less good mood when, as soon as he’d left, Remus saw him and scrambled away like Patton was about to attack him where he stood- wide-eyed with fear and everything.

Patton swayed in the hallway for seconds after, uncertain about a lot of things suddenly. 

The room Remus had run into had definitely been Virgil’s, not his own, and for a moment Patton entertained the idea of just going up to knock. He dropped that thought quick, realizing that if he really wasn’t wanted, then he definitely didn’t want to confirm that he wasn’t wanted.

He might have gone back to Janus- Janus was smart, Janus knew how to explain things and solve problems and comfort people- but that was scrapped, too. He’d taken up plenty of the snake’s time already, firstly, and secondly… No, yeah, Patton already knew just who he needed to see for something like this. 

Logan set aside his laptop as soon as Patton walked into the common room, a surprisingly perceptive gesture for someone who claimed to be bad with feelings. Or maybe Patton had just gotten rusty at hiding them.

“Hi,” he greeted, wobbly.

“Hello,” Logan said, “You look upset.”

Patton stared at the wall just above his friend’s head, and nodded.

“Can I help?”

He paused. It was a bad habit- one of many!- but feeling unwanted by one side made him wonder if, maybe, he was unwanted by everyone. The thought formed a lump in his throat and had guilt pooling in his gut, but this was Logan. His best friend, the person he had gone to because he always knew just where he stood with him. If Logan didn’t want to help- no, because he always wanted to- if he couldn’t handle helping, then he would tell Patton that. He always did.

“I think Remus is upset with me,” Patton blurted it out quickly, just so he didn’t have to hear them. Logan vanished his laptop at once, gesturing to the spot beside him on the sofa. Patton sat with him, smiling feebly.

“Has he said anything of the sort?”

“No,” Patton picked at the sleeve of his sweater, “He didn’t really have to. He kind of… ran away from me?”

Logan’s eyes widened behind his frames, almost imperceptibly. “I see.”

“I don’t even know what I did,” Patton flushed with the admission, because of just how true it was. He had no idea what he did, and still he felt blame settling over him like a well worn blanket, and all that he could do was hope it wasn’t as bad as the last time. “I feel like I should know this stuff by now, shouldn’t I?”

There was a pause, as Logan processed the words carefully, seemed to turn them over in his head. 

“Be careful not to jump to conclusions, Patton. He typically freely expresses how he is feeling at any given time, so even if his actions seem to say otherwise, it’s entirely possible that he’s not upset with you,” Logan smiled reassuringly. “I find that most of his actions are meaningless. He’s a very weird creature.”

Patton managed to laugh at that. Logan leaned their shoulders together, a little pride flashing in his eyes, as he continued. “He did seem to be ‘out of it’, in a manner of speaking, when we spoke earlier today. It would make sense if that had worsened over the past few hours, and now he’s just particularly flighty. All in all, I wouldn’t read too much into it, if I were you.”

Patton nodded, resolutely not mentioning that they’d spent the night together, however relevant that was. He knew it would sound paranoid to imply that their intimacy had backfired, or come too quick- because Patton was paranoid, and certainly a little neurotic, and the less he voiced it the better. 

Instead, he followed the advice he didn’t believe, and let himself rest against his friend. Logan had laced their fingers together; it wasn’t as comforting as it usually was. 

Logan was only so touchy when it was for the sake of others, and almost always that ‘other’ was Patton. A fact that made the needy trait feel amazingly special most of the time, but on nights like that… More than anything, he felt greedy.

“I’ll ask him about it,” Patton promised, because he knew that was what Logan would suggest (even if the idea made him more than a little dreadfilled). “Maybe I overwhelmed him. He’s been cuddly, so I thought…” Patton shook his head, bile hitting the back of his throat as the realization collapsed upon him. “That’s probably it. I must have took it too far.”

Logan didn’t pry, but Patton could feel his concern mount just as well as he could see the frown on his face.

“Talking to him will be the best course of action,” he said plainly. “For the time being, though,” he released Patton’s hand, wrapping his arm loosely around Patton’s waist and leaving it there. “It might be beneficial for you to receive more reassurance. Is this alright?”

“Yes,” Patton ducked his head, knowing full well how obviously relieved he sounded, “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me, I’m happy to help,” Logan told him, and he had no doubt that it was true. Still, it always surprised him anyway- and that at least was a good thing about a friend who was so reserved. The pleasant surprises.

Patton sat up enough to rest his head on top of Logan’s, a position that was almost but not quite cuddling.

“I sincerely hope,” Logan muttered, “That everything will be alright for you.”

Whether he was speaking only about the Remus situation or not was unclear.

“Me too.”

“If it’s any consolation, it’s very difficult to stay upset with you, if he truly is so. In my experience, at least.”

Patton sighed. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Of course. Your happiness is-... you, are very important to me, and I can only hope that you’ve made a friend that values you as much as I do.”

Patton knew what he meant by it. Both he and Logan were acutely aware of how different they were, and how little they matched with each other. Patton couldn’t understand him- not wanting to be showered in love, enjoying silence and a little bit of alone time, needing space. He knew that Logan didn’t get him, either- didn’t know why he cried all the time, or why nothing ever seemed to fix him for good, or why he said so many things that went without saying. They still struggled with each other’s languages, sometimes, but they’d gotten miles and miles better with it over the years. Sometimes Patton thought that the only way they’d become so close was sheer willpower, pushing past each misunderstanding and argument just because they liked the challenge of it. Determination was always a common thread between them, whatever differences they had.

They had to have boundaries, then. Logan might not hold Patton on his worst days, but he’d give him notes and gifts and bring him water, food, things that he neglected for himself. Patton didn’t have any of the right words to talk Logan down when things got bad, but he was always there to cheer him back up when he was ready again. Neither of them understood each other, and maybe they never would, but they cared. Even if they couldn’t be what the other needed, they cared, and that was all they had to do. 

So even if Logan couldn’t fix things, Patton thought, he still did a hell of a good job patching them up. 

“Hey. Hey!”

Patton turned around with a jolt, his fingers going tight in the blanket about his shoulders. How long he’d been downstairs, he didn’t know- but he knew that he was really, very tired, and now was left blinking and confused at the person accosting him with so much energy. 

“Um, hi,” Patton tried.

Remus had run up to him at once, and was just as suddenly seizing both of his hands. Patton might have taken a moment to appreciate the touch, but with just one sentence that positivity crumbled:

“I need to talk to you.”

Patton shoved a plastic smile onto his face. He always felt a little icky to be faking it, but with Remus, the shame was especially thick. Still, it was only instinct. 

“Okay.”

Patton opened the door; the Duke marched in without waiting for invitation, and he followed. 

Dread dripped down his spine like melting ice cubes. This is fine, Patton told himself firmly, once they were both sitting feet apart on the bed. He refused to think too hard about what the distance meant- if it meant anything at all, or if he was only being ridiculous.

“Sorry about today,” Remus began, “Really. I was freaking out for the stupidest fucking reason. You’ll laugh when I tell you!”

Patton didn’t laugh, but he smiled a little more wholly. If Remus was upset with him, the apology must’ve meant at least some of that had faded away. Probably.

“It’s okay, Mess,” the nickname rolled off his tongue easily. Remus grinned at him, but it was somehow more manic than usual.

“I probably got you all worried over nothing, bolting on you before you could wake up- and then again earlier, right?”

There was a pause, as Patton tried to decide if the question was rhetoric or not. When the silence stretched on uncomfortably, he found himself nodding. 

Remus huffed out a breath, rocking back and staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I- I’m still working at the whole self-improvement thing, ya know? That probably doesn’t make it better, but- I’ve never really had a reason to try and be, uh, considerate. Janus never really cared if I was a bitch, and nobody else ever mattered, and that- yeah, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.” 

His voice was raspy, low and thick in a way that it almost never was. Patton tipped his head to the side, confused. Remus looked- and sounded- awkward, an expression that was not at home on his face. 

“Wait, um- so it wasn’t anything I did? You’re not upset with me?”

Remus looked at him like he was crazy (ironic, that).

“Upset with you?” He crowed, “Why the fuck would I be upset with you?”

Patton flushed; he laughed embarrassedly, or maybe in relief; he toyed with the sleeves of his sweater.

“I didn’t really- I don’t know, but I was worried that I’d, um, overstepped some boundaries last night, and maybe made you uncomfortable.”

He was only kind of looking at his friend, from out the corners of his eyes. It was still easy to see the way Remus went from confused to amused, and then burst into cackles.

“You- You- Me? Morey, please, it takes a lot to make me uncomfortable- if that’s even possible, actually- and you sure as shit haven’t figured out how to pull it off yet. Sugar, I asked to stay with you!”

The relief flooded Patton all in a rush, and he felt himself finally relax. With Remus laughing and joking and being his usual (sweet, impressively sweet, surprisingly so) self again, it all started seeming a little silly. Remus must’ve seen him coming untense, folding down the same way accordion-pressed paper sprawled out when it was released from a bored student’s hand, because his gaze went warm, like something had finally clicked into place in his head. A problem solved, and what a wonderful solution it had come to- that’s what the look said. 

Patton met the smile just as brightly when the Duke shifted over some of the distance between them, taking up both of Morality’s hands in his own yet again. 

“Well, since it wasn’t something I did,” Patton said, “Then what was the actual problem?”

Remus didn’t look too upset at the question, but he was glancing down, up, sideways- his pupils flitted around the room without really touching on anything for too long; it wasn’t often that he was so obviously thinking something through. His fingers flexed, face a little pink, and he hesitated before answering:

“Okay, it’s like I said, right? I don’t- I’ve never needed to try to be anything for anybody before. I mean that I never wanted to do things in a conform-y way, obviously, but, I never wanted to be considerate, either,” he smirked down at their tangled hands, shrugging. “I don’t think I’m doing too bad for a first try, to be honest- but that’s not the point, the point is- this is… new.”

Patton opened his mouth, reassurances rushing to the tip of his tongue before he was hastily shushed.

“No, look, there’s a difference between being a pushover and just being fucking nice to the people you care about. That’s the problem- or I thought it was a problem, in my dipshit lizard-panic brain this morning- right? I’ve never wanted to do anything for people, because I didn’t need them anyway. I figured I didn’t, I guess, cuz I could survive without ‘em- it wasn’t like I had a choice, but I got on fine. Not to be too… I don’t know, pathetic? Who cares, but- I never knew anything different.”

Patton’s eyes went wide and watery, like the blue of his irises were soaking into everything else and leaking, leaking, leaking. He was squeezing Remus’ hands a little too tight, certainly, and he just wanted to hug him so bad- but despite his words, Remus didn’t even seem to need it. He looked back at Patton, huffed a sigh, looking just plain amused.

“So this hit me when I was talking to Virgil, about ten minutes ago,” he started, “That I woke up today, with you, and I had this thought like… Fuck, I don’t ever wanna move again. I could starve and then start to decompose and probably rot into bloody mush, but I’d probably still be perfectly happy- which is weird, because starvation is easily one of the boringest ways to die, I could go out so much cooler- but, it was more the fact that I was with you, and uh. So, so I thought that- which is so dumb and sappy- and it surprised me so bad that I just ran. And after I had, I was so freaked out, I didn’t even remember why for!”

He took a deep breath, something that he hadn’t done for that entire ramble. Patton got the sense he still wasn’t finished though, and waited patiently.

“I never needed anybody caring about me for me to be okay- the screaming and the fleeing and all that was fine, it was still a reaction. But I think I just realized that I couldn’t go back to that, now.

“Because of you. I knew I liked you, but it never clicked that things would probably suck without you by this point. More than that, I guess- it hit me that just because I can take care of myself, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fucking blow. That I don’t- I don’t want to be so independent again, okay? That I don’t wanna be alone anymore.”

And he couldn’t help it at all; Patton did hug him, then. He pulled him against his chest as soon as he noticed the words going choppy, choked, and halting. He let go of Remus’ hands, in favor of tangling his fingers in the Duke’s hair and carding through it.

Remus met the embrace with just as much fervor, curling up into the bigger trait. Yet somehow, he wasn’t crying yet.

“Hey, hey, I’m alright,” he murmured, “I mean, don’t let go, obviously- but I’m okay. I had all day to panic! Which I definitely did, by the way, because my whole worldview got screwed over. Finally know how you feel, I guess,” He was joking, Patton could hear his smile. He laughed. “But I got it out of my system, and ya know what I realized after that?”

Patton hummed attentively, letting Remus pull back just enough to see his face.

“I said, ‘okay, I’m processing that, and it doesn’t matter.’ It doesn’t matter because I only realized that maybe I need people once I already had them, and- no offense- but you don’t really seem like the abandoning type. The opposite, that’s what you are.”

Patton beamed. 

“Of course not,” he swore, pressing the words out as though intensity alone could make them more true, more pure. “Never, not ever.”

“Good,” Remus said, “Cuz I’m hanging on to ya, Pat. As long as I can.”

Chapter Eight

Taglist: @shrimp-crockpot @glitter-skeleton-uwu @donnieluvsthings @intruxiety @thefivecalls @did-he-just-hiss-at-me @gayformlessblob 

#sanders sides #ts #intruality #my writing #qpr intruality #remus sanders #patton sanders #ts fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction

[clansayeed]

Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ― Chapter 16: The Fugitives

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny II, part 1 ⥽

While struggling with nightmares of lives she’s never lived, a shadow from the past looming over her city, and the proposed idea that her life may just be a little bit too weird to handle alone, Nadya makes sure to tell herself that everything is perfect just the way it is. If only. When the self-proclaimed King of Vampires (and Maker of her sometimes-girlfriend and always-boss, can’t forget that little tidbit) Gaius Augustine returns intent on claiming Manhattan as the throne that was promised, she and her friends find themselves forced into the task of saving the world. But with millennia-old vampires and an Order of hunters on their heels as well as allies hiding catastrophic secrets at their backs… it won’t be an easy task. Too bad destiny didn’t exactly ask for her input.

Bound by Destiny II and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Destiny II tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Nadya and the others land in Paris in the hopes that Adrian's mysterious psychic friend will be able to help them in their search for a way to stop Gaius. But things are very different for vampires in Europe; from old customs that could prove dangerous to a secret Order that definitely is.

[READ IT ON AO3]

The storm follows them across the ocean. Nadya doesn’t mind; even if it does paint her first view of Paris in bleak and grey. How it looks outside matches how she feels inside — and somehow that helps in its own little way.

Landing is slightly less bumpy than takeoff though that isn’t saying much. When Adrian’s voice comes over the speakers telling them to buckle in her stomach flips nervous. Her nervous habit would have Nadya lifting the shade on the window to watch their descent but it’s too close to dawn; too much of a risk — so she just picks a spot on the wall and stares.

Though why she had to pick the splattered blood, remnant of their actual pilot whose fate Priya left gruesome evidence of, she didn’t know.

The jet pulls deep into the hangar; keeps the shadows tied around them like a safety blanket as the cabin depressurizes and they disembark. Adrian is already on the ground addressing the airport crew in rapid French and its by pure chance that Nadya is the last one to step out.

Hands braced on either side of the doorway; looking down but not really seeing. Because the second she takes that first step she’s not in that strange in-between of an airplane anymore. She’s not somehow, in some small way, still tied to New York.

Not like refusing to move will get you back there though, which her rational brain says no matter how much Nadya doesn’t want to hear it. And it’s right.

The gold rim of Nadya’s charm bracelet dug grooves into her palm hours ago. She squeezes and keeps the imprint fresh the whole way down.

The routine will be a familiar one by the time all this is done. Shuffling from the hangar to an expensive-but-modest (and safety-tinted) vehicle. From the vehicle to wherever they’re staying — and Nadya hadn’t actually thought about that part but thankfully Adrian had. Then the brisk walk disguising a mad dash to the safety of indoors.

The storm here tastes different. Nadya can’t say how, exactly, but it does.

And it’s abundantly clear when they step into the apartment that it wasn’t made to accommodate four (five, taking into account this Serafine woman) people but they’ll make do.

While the rest of them flick light switches and outlets, check out bathrooms and make sure blinds are drawn tight and secure, Adrian turns to a small kitchen. There’s a large manila envelope on the counter that he grabs like he was expecting it. Now that Nadya thinks about it — he probably was.

He beckons them to join him in the main room and confirms her suspicions. Starts pulling out handfuls of papers from within and spreading them out for all to see.

Passports, paperwork, little cards with a set of what look like emergency phone numbers handwritten neatly under the laminate. He hands each of them a different color of the same clunky flip-phone but the rest they have to sort out of the pile themselves.

Jax grabs for his passport; props it open with his fingers to stare at the photo in discontent.

“Do I want to know where you got this information?” He asks gruffly. Nadya glances at her own. She’d just assumed everything was taken from her personnel file.

Adrian shrugs it off, like privacy isn’t a real thing. “The Council always keeps —” and the need to change the tense throws him for a second, “— has always kept this kind of information on hand in case of emergencies like this.”

“You had a plan for ‘Sociopath Regent Takes Over the City?’”

“Funny. You know what I mean.” He starts plugging numbers from his regular phone into the burner. “Kamilah and I have been seeing the same woman for papers since… for as long as I can remember, actually. These aren’t forgeries, they’re the real thing. They’ll be your IDs and travel papers while we’re here and in case we need to leave town.

“Phones, please.”

One by one they lay their real phones out. And one by one he presses the heel of his palm into the fragile metal and glass until each one yields with a crunch.

Lily doesn’t hide a little noise of distress; nor does she turn down the offer to tuck herself against Nadya’s side in consolation. Adrian offers her an apologetic look. “It’s for the best, Lily.”

She sighs as a reply. Adrian can’t do much else but take what he can get.

“Normally I wouldn’t call it necessary, but we can’t take any chances. Priya and the Baron have access to the same resources, finances, and investigative tools that Kamilah and I do. We’re lucky in that the papers are a favor from an old friend, but I have a feeling favors are going to be few and far between going forward.”

His words put them all on edge. Jax fiddles with the strap of his sword resting in his lap.

“You make it sound like we’re fugitives.”

For a moment it looks like Adrian plans on denying it; correcting him, maybe, with something a bit more eloquent or less dangerous.

But that would be downplaying the severity of the situation now… wouldn’t it?

“Until we know just how many from the clans went to Gaius’ side we may as well be. At the height of his power there wasn’t a city across the country that didn’t somehow wield his influence. Gaius kept his inner circle close but over the years Kamilah and I, along with Vega, Lester, and probably even some I don’t know by name, put all our effort into securing his kingdom.”

Nadya looks down to see Adrian’s fist clenched, shaking in his lap. If the coffee table weren’t between them she’d reach over and try to steady him. That darkness on his face is becoming uncomfortably familiar.

His eyes sweep over the two younger vampires; a fact he seems to have only just realized. “You’re all… so young.” And the look on his face is as exhausted as he was prior to feeding on the plane. Not a good sign.

“What does that have to do with anything?” asks Jax. Adrian’s jaded little “ha” isn’t an answer but still speaks volumes.

“It makes you vulnerable. It makes all of us vulnerable.”

His eyebrow quirks up; a look between the lamenting older vampire and his katana that says “let someone underestimate me like that, see what happens.” Not that he says it.

As the youngest of them all, the worry in Lily’s voice is justified. “How so?”

“We probably should have gone over this earlier.”

“Gone over what?”

It’s slowly dawning on Nadya why Kamilah had been so bewildered by her invitation to Lily’s One-Year Turning party. At the time she had thought it was because of the fact they had kinda-sorta split just a few days before, even if she wrote the woman off as being a bit dramatic… which in hindsight wasn’t like Kamilah at all and should have tripped more than a few alarms in her head.

And, really, she only has herself to blame for being so surprised. She’s encountered this type of behavior before — she watched the proud and accomplished Kamilah bend her head to the Trinity, despite looking like she would have rather staked them instead.

Because things are different overseas; the culture here is nothing like in the States. Among those the oldest of their friends had spent her centuries with. It only made sense for her to hold on to old habits.

Here in Europe everything is based on the only thing that has ever mattered to a race of immortals. Age.

“Modern innovation hasn’t just made human lives easier, but ours as well. Blood bags, tinted glass — more and more vampires are living through their initial fifty years. That may not sound like much to you, but it was a cultural stigma that was just starting to phase out by the time I was Turned. Think about how long humans were expected to live back then, and in the hundreds of years before.

“The longer you’ve lived, the stronger you are. Smarter, faster. Able to outwit nature itself and the constant changing of civilization. The newly Turned were taught to admire that kind of survival instinct. Admiration became respect, which gave way to superiority. There was once a time when speaking improperly to a vampire a certain number of years over you was grounds for defanging.”

Lily’s hand flies to her mouth — either from shock or to protect herself, both are applicable. From the look on his face Jax can’t help himself from thinking about how many times his words would have gotten him outright staked.

“But much of this mentality came from centuries of being at war for their very lives,” Adrian continues, “The whole reason Gaius set his sights on the New World was to try and solidify a place of power outside of their enemies’ reach. For centuries now the vampires on this side of the world have been living in the shadows. Survival is as good as currency; a symbol of strength and power that demands an inherent respect. And in truth that desperation worries me.

“The idea of an empire ruled by a Vampire King might sound pretty appealing to more than just people like Priya and the Baron. People who would do anything for freedom… even hunt us down.”

The look he gives Nadya is as forlorn as it is resigned. They didn’t flee to safety over here. Paris just happened to be where they needed to go. They’re still in just as much danger.

Maybe even more danger, now that she thinks about it. At least back home she knew the faces of the people who would hurt her friends. Here everyone is a stranger.

They really are fugitives.

The feeling seeps out from him and to the rest of them, bleeds into their clothes and skin until the entire apartment is stifling with their new understanding. Nadya rubs at her throat with an open palm. It feels like a real, physical vice around her.

“And you’re sure we can trust this psychic chick of yours?” Lily asks to clarify.

Small mercies; like the relief Nadya feels seeing Adrian’s stalwart nod. In this he is certain, unlike everything else going on around them.

“Absolutely. I met her through Kamilah; the pair of them go way back. When you meet her you’ll understand. I knew immediately when we met I could trust her with my life.”

Lily and Nadya exchange mutual stifled giggles; it’s pretty damning that Adrian is too lost in whatever memories he may have of this ally to notice.

When he comes back he’s still oblivious. “And for what it’s worth she was the person I asked for guidance when the time came to put a stop to Gaius’ plans. She was the one who made up my mind in the end.”

Which automatically gets her Jax’s seal of approval. “I like her already.”

Because her life is the way it is, it isn’t lost on Nadya how all of her friends are vampires and, with it being in the middle of the day and all, they don’t hide how tired they all are very well.

She’d been out like a light the entire flight. Excessive emotions, crying, and fright will do that to a poor human heart. But the same definitely couldn’t be said for Adrian who had flown them all here, and probably for the rest of them either.

“Still no word from Serafine?”

Adrian looks up from his phone and shakes his head mutely. That’s all she needed to hear. “Then get some sleep. Seriously, you look like you all need it.” There’s something else they need, too, but that Nadya can’t quite provide right now.

Hopefully in an apartment full of vampire-specific amenities like black-out curtains and a window that doesn’t face direct sunlight at any time of day anyway, blood bags are covered. Or, like, hot French donors or something.

Lily is the first to stop pretending; yawns wide and loud and with a stretch that almost hits Jax in the face. “You gonna be good, Nadi’?”

Good is relative, she thinks, and definitely doesn’t say it.

“Actually I was thinking about going out. We need clothes, I need food…” Because like most girls, Nadya finds the siren song of French shopping trip to be almost impossible to resist.

Adrian doesn’t look entirely thrilled with the idea of her wandering the streets all by her lonesome, but it’s a point in her favor that they can’t go with because of the sunlight; “Which means all the other vampires will be asleep too.” He can’t argue with that.

Well he could. He doesn’t — which might be more for his benefit, she realizes as he clears his throat to contain a yawn of his own, than hers.

But every step she takes further away from the apartment complex feels heavier and heavier; until Nadya doesn’t think she could possibly go another step without breaking through the concrete and sinking into the center of the earth.

Back home the world is kind of ending. And here she is, squinting against the dreary sun (hey it’s sun, she’ll take it in any form) and snapping subtle pictures every couple of minutes and praying the older phone doesn’t ruin the quality.

Does she even have a right to enjoy herself anymore?

Why shouldn’t she find joy in the fleeting things while she can?

Nadya leans against a nearby building, hands flat on the freezing brickwork, and inhales deeply. Funny how a city smells like a city wherever you go. But it’s hard to breathe through the tightness in her chest.

That was Kamilah’s voice in her head. And, yes, most of her rational thoughts over the past couple of months have sounded like Kamilah (the best coping mechanism her subconscious had invented yet, really) but it’s different now isn’t it?

The voice has a point though.

And even with all of the storm clouds over her head there’s one little ray of light that shines through…

Kamilah would want her to enjoy this. For herself; for the both of them maybe. Ha, she can even see in the shadow of her eyelids that little downturn of the woman’s lips, hear some kind of admonishment like, “Paris is too beautiful of a city to spend your first time walking her streets in melancholy.”

The cold may be bitter but even with slushed snow pushing up against the curbs the beauty of the city can’t be denied. When the wind is too much Nadya finds a store and ducks inside, pink-cheeked and shivering, and does exactly what she told Adrian she would do.

Lily’s size she knows by heart — that’s no problem; if it has metal studs she buys it. Out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of a dazzling blue and finds it’s a neon-dyed leather cuff. She buys it because if Lily is feeling anything like she is… it’ll be a comfort.  Adrian is a guess-timate; it helps that one of the fresh-faced shopping aids looks roughly as tall as him in the store. Funny how their fake and placating smiles change when they see the black card she’s willing to put down. Well it’s Adrian’s, but, you know.

Nothing on this fancy side of the store caters to Jax’s unique brand of ‘Action Movie Star Who Shops Solely at Resale Outlets’ but she tries her best.

But the most important purchase of Nadya’s day comes near the evening and on her way back to the apartment.

Let it be known that there is no sadness a crepe stuffed with strawberries and shoveled full of choco-hazelnut spread. The pain later will be so. freakin'. worth it.

Nadya’s glad to find when she returns that she’s not the only one who needed a little time to relax. Not that crossing the threshold doesn’t immediately remind her of the weight of their predicament but who can think about that when she’s met with smiles relieved, happy, and rested?

When Lily is finished crushing the wind out of her lungs she pulls back and immediately hones in on… something. She watches as the girl licks her thumb and drags it over the corner of Nadya’s mouth, eying the stain with suspicion. Refuses to look even the slightest bit ashamed when she starts getting ragged on for not having brought enough sugar for everyone. She just shrugs with her hands full of large bags of fancy French clothes.

Not-so-amazingly all is pretty much forgiven for that.

Freshly showered and dressed, the curtains pulled back to reveal the beginnings of the Parisian night; the change in overall morale is almost jarring for all of them.

Well… almost. Because apparently neither rest nor a new (and perfectly-fit, thank you very much) look will un-crinkle Adrian’s brow. It’s been well over twenty-four hours and still no word from Serafine — from the entire reason they’re in Paris in the first place.

“What’s the plan if she never shows?” Jax asks finally; tired of the question flitting through their eyes but never through their lips. “We just fly back to New York?”

Unfortunately they all know that’s not exactly an option.

Adrian doesn’t have an answer, and it has him in knots. Jax turns away, back to his attempts to decipher the news anchor and her rapid French.

“It’s just not like Serafine at all,” he eventually confides; only in his lowest voice and when Nadya has signaled for Lily to turn up the news to the highest reasonable volume to drown them out, “I mean — it’s been a decade or so… I’d hoped to see her at Marcel’s, honestly. But that’s only in person. We’ve kept in close contact otherwise. She even wished me a good Dark Solstice…”

The more he says, the more Nadya’s starting to think there is to their connection. She places a gentle hand on top of his.

“How did you two meet? When, too, I guess I should ask.”

His smile is slow to start… but there. “We met in New Orleans, actually. At the Graveyard Shift.”

Maybe it’s because she’s touching him, or maybe it’s because they both share memories of that quirky little bar. God; it feels like they were there years ago now… But she can feel the tickle of him at the edges of her eyesight. Like her mind wants her to see… but — no. She can’t.

Maybe Adrian doesn’t want that. She can’t afford to lose someone else she loves because of this. But pulling back; pulling away? That would only prove she can’t ever care about her friends again.

Nadya keeps her hand on his because she needs to learn how to not look.

So she distracts herself, the both of them; “You said Kamilah introduced you?”

“Yes; it was pure coincidence that they knew one another. Kamilah and I were… on a job.” We were there because of Gaius. He doesn’t have to say it. She knows.

“We had drinks,” he continues, “they caught up and told me stories of their days back here in Europe. Even here in France, in Paris. Big vampire community here back then, apparently. And there was just this way she talked, Nadya. Like I could imagine I was there myself. There was still a lot of tension all around at the turn of the century, you see. People were still so disheartened. But when Serafine spoke about the world she brought light into it. All her centuries and she still saw beauty around her.”

That’s… a lot more than Nadya was expecting if she’s being honest. Not that she’s complaining! It’s so so nice to see Adrian talk like this. To see him look on something from his past with a happiness rather than that broiling anger.

“How come you’ve never mentioned her before?”

He blinks; taken aback. “How do you mean?”

“Well no offense,” read: full offense intended, “but I’m a little hurt there’s someone out there I could have been teasing you about this entire time. Especially when you and Lil’ started conspiring together.” Not that Nadya’s not still grateful for their intervention.

He’s just accrued a lot of payback is all.

It doesn’t get the smile she hoped for. It’s more like Senior Picture Day and your mother shoved you into a sweater vest.

“It’s not… Serafine and I aren’t like that.”

“You sure talk about her like you are.”

“What?” He has the audacity to actually look surprised. Well either that or he’s genuinely oblivious… which is seeming more and more like the truth. “I’ve barely said anything about her. Until now, obviously.”

She nods slowly. “Mmhm, yeah that’s true. But I think you and I both know it’s not what we say… but how we say it.”

After all; Adrian had seen her at the Ball. Had trusted Kamilah to keep her safe while he was away with Katherine and maybe he knew even before Nadya herself did. He’s remarkably astute for a complete dork.

He gives a long sigh and looks out the window instead of giving her an answer. If she were anyone else she might worry about having gone too far. Especially taking into account they’re still boss and assistant.

But she’s Nadya — so she doesn’t worry about that at all.

“Hey, I’m all for it. In fact I’m honestly relieved,” she catches how his facial muscles twitch; she has his attention, “since up until now I’ve been under the impression the only people you’ve been into were the bad guys.”

Adrian groans. “Please don’t remind me.” She doesn’t have to. Valdas did that enough on his own at Persephone.

Even after Vega; they never talked about that. Seeing as she had just watched the old-as-dirt vampire chop off a man’s head, Nadya definitely wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. Maybe (and especially after the events of their meeting) she should have. For Adrian’s sake.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Nadya jumps. No use trying to hide it with that kind of reaction. Luckily Adrian shrugs it off. “I wish I had an answer; Kamilah certainly wants to know. That night when you were dancing with your friends she very clearly told me her thoughts on it. I only wish now I’d understood what she was trying to warn me about.”

“Trust me, I think we both underestimated them. And how much they were involved in everything that happened.”

“I think back to that night sometimes.”

“T-M-I.”

“No,” he sighs, “about… something he said. We got to talking about experiences, then wars, then soldiers… and now I can’t help but wonder if he knew who I was before I even introduced myself.”

“Because that’s what Gaius called you? His Soldier?”

Adrian tenses under her touch. Nadya goes to pull back, curses herself for opening her mouth in the first place… but the way he relaxes is a silent permission. So she stays. “Kamilah told me about… but I’ve been a little nervous to ask, truth be told.”

Ask how much you’ve seen of me, he means.

“Another time, maybe.” Because I can’t push you away too.

His laugh is rueful; harsher than he should ever sound. “Fair enough. But you’re right — I was… that. But I wasn’t the first. Actually… I think that was Valdas; that he was the first of Gaius’ soldiers. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to him.”

There’s an unspoken asterisk hanging on the edge of his words. That’s what I tell myself, or something to that effect. Nadya is no stranger to the lies we tell ourselves to find the strength to keep moving, so she can hardly blame him.

“Does it matter…?”

“No,” and it’s clear he wants to wave the conversation off, “it doesn’t matter. Why try to find rationale in the irrational, right?”

Fair point.

But that doesn’t sit well with her. That he’s okay drawing comparisons between himself and that manipulative man — no matter what Valdas would say to the contrary. That being alike to him is better than… than the other elephant in the room.

“Adrian?”

Nadya keeps her eyes trained pointedly on the table; on their hands. He can feel him look at her, feel the tension rippling under his skin.

“Hm, what is it?”

“We never talked about what happened.”

And for a second she’s hopeful. Sees the resolve flicker in his normally unwavering armor. He’s just as exhausted as she is; if not more. Doesn’t that mean maybe…

“Another time, maybe.”

Nadya knows he’s just giving her back the same response; and maybe she even deserves it. But that doesn’t mean she’s not left sitting there, watching him head into the living room to join the others, feeling like Adrian’s just slapped her in the face.

#bloodbound #choices bb #choices fanfiction #adrian raines #kamilah x mc #lily spencer #jax matsuo #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #fic: oblivion bound #oblv: bound by destiny ii #; my fics

[trashtheater101]

Prompts

Been meaning to make this for a while: Free list of skele-prompts! No credit needed (although I’d love to read it if you make one, maybe drop me a note?), and feel free to change ANY of the details or ships. This list is meant to ✧INSPIRE✧ not restrict. 

These are largely old ideas that I realize I’m probably never going to get around to writing myself and thought I’d share. Mostly Papcest, but there’s some left open for Fontcest and Sanscest, and you can always change it up. I probably forgot some, so I’ll add to it as I remember them.

RoyalMoney (Poppy/Cash)

Poppy is a wealthy, and unbearably bored Nigerian prince. Kept safe and sound, a prisoner in the castle by his overprotective brother, Poppy is allowed only limited contact with the guards or servants, and nothing at all with the outside world. When a thief breaks in through his bedroom window (captured easily by the Great Prince Poppy! He’s sheltered, not helpless!), Poppy can't help being intrigued… [His brother can shove it; He’s decided to keep this one.]

Fellcest (Red/Edge)

Red is a scientist. Or at least he used to be. He’s studied the wonders of the universe, tested the limits of time-space, and even broken through the divides between worlds. […none of it compared to learning the way his brother reacts to flirting.]

SpicyHoney (Edge/Stretch(Rus))

Edge is a loyal knight, through and through, and Rus is the true heir to the throne. Edge is determined to protect him no matter the cost. Even now that the kingdom has been overthrown and they were barely able to escape with their lives. Even now that they must keep moving, and live in hiding, lest Rus be captured and executed. Even though Rus is used to being pampered and spoiled, and Edge is the only one left to treat him with the sort of devotion and reverence that a true prince deserves. [Originally a Edge x Anyone, but the pouty, stubborn prince kept morphing into Rus, soooo…]

Edge and Stretch are stuck in a car together for a long trip, and expect to bicker the whole time. Unfortunately 5 minutes in one of them accidentally confesses. Neither are prepared for this, and now the car ride is spent dealing with THIS instead... oh dear… 

Stretch needs to get a physical. Cool, no big, even doctors aren’t sure what to do with a pile of bones, so no point in being embarrassed, and—bonus!—most don’t know how skeleton magic works, so he gets to skip the more invasive stuff. Except—wait—this time his doctor is a skeleton? A really hot skeleton?? And since Stretch is missing so much from his chart, he’s getting a THOROUGH exam??? ...great… [Bonus points for Stretch aggressively flirting to hide his nerves, “w-wow doc. i don’t usually spread my legs before the first date, haha. guess you must be special.”]

SpicyBBQ (Edge/Slim)

Edge’s new lamia is a dominant type, strong, and eager to breed him. But Edge isn’t inclined to submit, and he’s pretty sure he knows exactly how to tame his horny pet. [Succeed or fail, both are tasty~.]

MapleBlossom (Slim/Papyrus)

Slim is the lead singer/guitarist/drummer in an up and coming band. Hanging out at an afterparty of one of his shows, some cute little groupie, or a fan, or whatever, catches his attention when they start chatting him up. Slim is charmed, and while he’s got a pretty firm rule about not fucking the fans, he’s gotta make an exception this time. He’s gonna rock this groupies world. [Except that Papyrus isn’t a groupie. Or a fan. He was just invited along by a friend and thought this stranger might want someone to talk to. But boy is he flattered by all the attention! Is this… flirting?!?] 

SweetMoney (Sugar(HT!Pap)/Cash)

Taking his first ever train trip to the big city, Sugar ends up sitting next to a stranger. Cash seems friendly enough on the ride, but when they get off he refuses to leave??? He keeps insisting it’s too dangerous for someone like Sugar to be alone in the city, and that all well and good, but Sugar’s pretty sure he has a stalker now??? Blood had warned him about this… oh well… For a stalker, Cash is awfully charming. 

Edge x _______

Edge is an Alpha. All the Papyruses are Alphas, so of course he’s an Alpha. He is the most Alpha-y-est Alpha to ever Alpha, thank you very much. And as long as he keeps taking his Alpha-supplements, surely no one will be any the wiser. But the supplements can only repress his instincts so much when he’s surrounded by so many fine, aggressively-dominant Alphas. And let’s be real, how long would it really take a group of Alphas to notice an Omega in their midst? [Easily could be one-on-one, but this prompt is feeling pretty gang-bang-y to me~] 

In hindsight I think I may have seen this idea around before (so let me know if it’s already a thing…), but Edge as a Heinz Doofenshmirtz-(Or like MegaMind, Dr. Horrible, fuckin.... Team Rocket??)-style villain! Over the top dramatic! But also pretty ridiculous... But definitely EVIL!!!!! But also is he though??? Red is his henchman. His love interest can be the Hero, but also could be his usual kidnapping victim, or the cute skele from the laundry mat, or I suppose his henchman, or a brand-new unique dynamic! 

Loud Top Edge. That’s really all I’ve got for this prompt. It really didn’t have to be under Edge specifically… you could make it anyone, but I was thinking of Edge. ...as just... a… noisy… really verbal top... yeah...~<3

Papyrus x _______

Someone has been stealing apples from Papyrus’s apple orchard, and he is determined to catch the culprit! [Well, it turns out the culprit happens to be very attractive and that is a whole new, very different problem!]

Papyrus x _______/Sans x _______

Undertale is Universe 0. It’s the base, the original, the one every universe is spun off of. As such, there is some sort of general law of attraction pulling all the copies towards their originals. Or at least, that’s Sans’s theory anyway. That would explain all these Sans’s that keep hitting on him and—don’t think i don’t notice the rest of you making passes at my bro-! are you looking for a b a d  t i m e ? 

Bonus Lamia prompt

[A]’s lamia goes into a submissive heat. No matter what they do, however, [A] can’t seem to satisfy them. A quick google search reveals their lamia is looking to be bred with eggs, but—uh—[A] can’t produce eggs, and neither of them really want kids yet anyways, and—hey, you can buy safe to insert pseudo-eggs!—Don’t worry baby, I’m gonna give you just what you need~ 

- - - - -

A list of loose themes and thoughts. Poke through and see if anything catches your attention. Or maybe mix some together? (Conveniently numbered for a random number generator!) 

1. Bitties

2. Asleep on shoulder

3. Shopping trip

4. Bandaging after sparring 

5. Broken down car

6. Attractive salesman

7. Trapped in a box~ 

8. Good old fashioned temporary amnesia 

9. Is that a dog in your jacket? 

10. “If you touch him I will END you...!”

11. Crossover

12. Lamias

13. The meal was unrecognizable...You eat it anyways. 

14. Classic fairytale, but with a twist! 

15. A more obscure fairytale. (With all the ‘wtf??’s they tend to entail.)

16. “Please tell me you meant to do that...”

17. Ectoboobies

18. “God, you’re so hot… You look hot! SWEATY! Do you want a drink!?!?”

19. “F-FLIRTING? SO YOU FINALLY REVEAL YOUR ULTIMATE FEELINGS!?”

20. Borrowed pajamas

21. Candle light

22. BEACH DAY

23. Someone not normally collared: collared~! 

24. “Sit down and shut up! ...I’m going to serenade you now.”

25. “What will it take to make you realize I’m no good for you?” 

26. Running out of water

27. Physically shielding from harm

28. Can’t stop staring

29. Broke something important

30. He only ever acted like this when he was covered in dust…

31. Well... people always say you should marry a doctor

32. “I think I’m falling for you” 

33. “Guess you fell for me~” 

34. A bad vacation

35. Missing the bus 

36. A WAY too fancy restaurant

37. Good morning kiss

38. That’s probably a serial killer chasing you tbh. 

39. Lost & alone… 

40. Annoying Dog is secretly a matchmaker

41. A goodbye note

42. Freezing cold

43. A slow dance after the lights go down

44. Exploring

45. Hey! You’re that actor/singer/etc I like-! Why are you grinding on me!?!? 

46. “I failed you…”

47. A non-traditional Heat symptom

48. Soul-bonding: the aftermath. 

49. 2 dudes sittin in a hot tub, 5 ft apart cause they’re very gay and sorta nervous and-gosh-it sure is hot in this hot tub… 

50. Flowey: “Okay, look. I don’t normally give advice but…”

#Fontcest #Papcest #Sanscest #Prompts

[justheretobreakthings]

Remember Me - Chapter 21

(First Chapter) (Previous Chapter)

Word Count: 4,366 (Total Word Count: 84,026) Read on AO3

Story Summary:

It was strange enough for the paladins of Voltron to have found another human this far from home, locked in a Galra prison. But it was stranger still when this human insisted that he knew them, and even that he was the former red paladin of Voltron.

That couldn’t possibly be true, could it? After all, if this Keith was actually a part of the Voltron team, then why does nobody remember him?

It was difficult to get a proper read on Keith over the next couple of days. Not to say that it wasn’t always difficult to get a read on Keith - how many of their problems could be solved if the guy just came with goddamn operator’s manual, Lance couldn’t even fathom - but more specifically, it was hard to tell how Keith was feeling toward Lance.

He wasn’t openly glaring at Lance any more, the way he had been during their last coalition meeting, but he wasn’t really looking Lance’s way at all, either. Not greeting him when he entered the room, not speaking with him, not smiling when Lance cracked a joke during a meal. Nothing.

And for the life of him, Lance couldn’t remember if this was a change or was a return to the norm. Was Keith giving him the cold shoulder, or was he just being the same grumpy, closed-off person he always was, and Lance was just now feeling more aware of it?

Part of him wanted to broach the subject, to walk straight up to Keith while he was on the training deck or in his room and ask whether the whole deal had blown over, or whether Keith was still mad.

The other part of him was sure that Keith was still mad, and that bringing it up would only fan the flames.

Still, whether the tension between them was real or just in his imagination, it was still leaving Lance feeling awkward whenever he was around Keith, unsure of his own footing. Which was not a feeling he relished. Fortunately, even now Keith wasn’t much more social than he had been when they’d first brought him into the castle, so the awkwardness only really had to be endured during meals and training. So far, at least.

He let the subject stew for his mind for a while before finally bringing it up with anyone, and he chose to spring it on Pidge and Hunk. The three of them had been hanging out in Hunk’s room, chattering about nothing important with toolkits open as they worked on a project. That is, Pidge and Hunk were working. Lance was dangling off of Hunk’s bed, feet against the wall and head on the floor, watching the proceedings upside-down; a while back they had instituted a policy that Lance was only allowed to assist with engineering projects up until the point that he broke something, after which he was relegated to watching from a time-out spot for the rest of the project. Today, it had taken him only four minutes.

They were doing… something, with one of the cleaning bots. Pidge had told him when they’d first started what they were changing, but it had seemed very complex and had mostly gone over Lance’s head. In any case, judging by the fact that some of the ‘upgrade parts’ Pidge had brought along looked suspiciously similar to pieces of the Altean blaster rifles he’d once helped Coran clean, he was pretty certain that the cleaning bot was going to be much more dangerous once they were done with it than it was when they had started.

The conversation had drifted toward reminiscence about their Garrison days, and somehow landed on talking about past school projects, so Lance had quickly been growing bored of that topic - he had suffered enough while doing school projects; it was just cruel to make him talk about them so long after the fact. It was high time for a subject change.

“Have you guys noticed anything weird about Keith?” he asked as he sat back up onto Hunk’s bed. He closed his eyes for a few seconds as the blood rushed out of his head now that he was right-side-up again.

Pidge glanced at Hunk before shrugging. “Well, yes, Lance, but that’s kind of old news by now, isn’t it?

Lance shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean - I meant, like, just over the past couple of days. Like, since that dinner on Thotirn?”

“Uh, he was hungover the day after,” Hunk said. “Does that count as weird?”

“What? No,” Lance huffed. “What about, like, his behavior in training and meals and - and with the way he’s acting?”

“Here’s an idea,” Pidge said. “How about instead of being weird and cryptic, you just tell us what you think he’s doing that’s so weird, and we’ll agree or disagree.”

Lance huffed out a frustrated sigh. “I’m talking about – about how he’s, like, avoiding me and not talking to me and – and seeming like he’s, um, in sort of a rotten mood…”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just how Keith is all the time,” Hunk said. He picked up a screwdriver and turned his attention back to the cleaning bot.

“No, that’s not – ugh!” Lance flopped dramatically backward onto Hunk’s bed, his foot narrowly avoiding kicking Pidge’s head as it swung out. “I’m trying to figure out if Keith’s mad at me! Have either of you noticed anything different about him the past couple days? Has he said anything about me to you guys? Or, maybe one of you’s seen him glaring at me when I’m not looking? Something like that?”

There was a pause before Pidge sighed. “Lance, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” Lance insisted as he straightened up again.

“Why would Keith be mad at you for nothing?” Hunk asked.

“Well, I mean, not nothing nothing, just – see, back during that dinner party on Thotirn, Keith had nearly drunk his weight in alcohol, right? So I take him back to the castle and get him to bed so he doesn’t cause a scene or drown in his own puke or anything. And when we get back to his room, he starts having this, like, emotional breakdown. Just getting really riled up and crying, and I needed him to calm down, you know? To just settle down and go to sleep.”

“So you… knocked him out?” Hunk said as Lance paused for breath.

“What? No! I just told this little white lie to calm him down before he went to sleep. Thing is, by the time he’s sobered up next morning, he of course realizes that it’s a lie, and he’s real pissed about it. He chewed me out after training the other day and he hasn’t said a word to me since. So I’m just trying to figure out if this has all blown over, or if he’s still mad at me. Keith kinda seems like he’d be the grudge-holding type, you know?”

Pidge let out a thoughtful hum as she crossed her arms. “What lie did you tell?”

“I kind of, um - ” Lance scratched at the back of his head. “I kind of maybe sorta told him that when he woke up his team would be back?”

The other two stared at him for a long moment before Hunk softly said, “Dude.”

Lance held up his hands. “Okay, look, before you guys get all judgey - ”

“Too late,” said Pidge.

“ - I honestly didn’t think he would remember what I said. You two both saw how hungover he was yesterday morning; that should give you a bit of an idea of how wasted he was the night before. It’s a fucking miracle he remembered. And also, you know what, it was very obviously done to calm him down and make him feel better, right? Like, once he sobered up and all, he should’ve realized that.”

“Maybe,” Hunk said. “But that’s still, like, a really sore point for Keith. Not really the sort of thing you should be poking at.”

“Yeah, fine, in retrospect, yeah, I probably should have come up with something else, but it was a high-pressure situation and late at night and I don’t think we can dismiss the fact that I’d had a couple of drinks too and - and it’s way easier to sit here and figure out other options after the fact. Hindsight is twenty-four/seven, and all that.”

Pidge raised a brow. “It’s ‘hindsight is twenty-twenty’.”

“There aren’t twenty days in a week, Pidge, that makes no sense.”

“... Remind me how you passed the Garrison entrance exams, again?”

“Not important, Pidge,” Lance said with a scowl. “Look, I made a mistake, all right? I know it. And I apologized! I told him I was sorry, but he was being a stubborn ass as usual and decided that him feeling disappointed for a few minutes in the morning was the worst tragedy in the world, and of course he shouldn’t have been drinking that much in the first place – ”

“Is this how you worded your apology when you gave it to him?” Pidge asked. “Because if so, I have a theory about why he might be mad at you.”

“No, no, I’m just – ” He sighed again. “I’m just frustrated. Everything’s all tense now – as if things weren’t stressful enough already – and I just wanna, like, put the whole stupid incident behind us, you know? I’m making an effort here.”

“Have you tried talking to Shiro about it?” Hunk asked.

Lance turned to him, head tilted in question. “Hm? What’s Shiro got to do with this?”

“Nothing directly,” Hunk answered. “But he’s the leader of Voltron, right? If there’s a problem between team members, he can mediate. He’s done it plenty of times before.”

“I guess…” Lance said slowly.

Pidge nodded. “Right, ask Shiro. Seems kinda the obvious solution now I think about it.” She furrowed her brow as Lance said nothing in reply. “Lance? Don’t tell me there’s something up between you and Shiro too.”

Lance shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s… if Shiro’s gonna be doing conflict resolution or whatever, shouldn’t he be, like, unbiased? As a rule?”

“What about it?” Hunk asked.

Lance folded his arms. “What, you don’t think Shiro’s just gonna agree with whatever Keith says?”

There was a beat of silence as Pidge and Hunk cast confused glances at each other. “Since when does Shiro do that?” Pidge asked.

“Pretty much since Keith showed up, right?” Lance said with a shrug. “He was siding with Keith against Allura from day one, he’s been letting Keith get away with stunts in our battles that he would never let the rest of us do without getting a ten-hour lecture afterward, he basically believes anything Keith says and lets him do whatever he wants – ”

“Lance, that’s not true,” Hunk said. “Keith follows the same rules the rest of us do.”

“All right, yeah, maybe so, but he’s the only one with Shiro’s arm around his shoulder the whole time he does it. Come on, I can’t be the only person here who’s noticed it, can I? Go ahead, have either of you spent half as much time training with Shiro as Keith has? Or has Shiro talked to you nearly as much as he talks to Keith? You can’t honestly tell me you don’t see it!”

“Well, it’s – that’s not – ” Hunk started, but to Lance’s satisfaction, he was clearly wavering.

“You see it, right? It’s blatant – ”

“Lance,” Pidge said.

Lance ignored her. “Blatant favoritism, is what it is. It’s like he’s – like he’s more concerned about Keith. Like he needs Keith more.” His arms tightened over his chest. “What’s he need Keith for so badly, huh? He’s already got his team. He’s got me.”

A longer beat of silence rang in the room this time before anyone moved or made a sound, and it was only broken when Pidge unfolded her legs and stood, joining Lance on the bed. The mattress sank slightly as she took a seat, bringing her sock feet and letting out a long breath. “Back when the Kerberos mission crew was first selected,” she said, “Back when Matt and Dad first started training for it, I was kinda pissed.”

Lance blinked at her. He turned to Hunk, looking for an explanation, but Hunk appeared just as bemused as him. “Um… okay?” he said, turning back to Pidge.

“I guess there had been sort of a closeness there between Matt and Dad for a while already, on account of Dad working at the Garrison and Matt being a cadet there, then a junior officer right under Dad’s command. But once they were selected for Kerberos, they started having more and more time together. They were training and studying and running mission simulations and going to meetings. We could barely find the chance to do so much as have a meal together as a whole family. It was kinda like the family had been split in half, you know? The half that was going to Kerberos, and the half that was staying behind. And it kinda sucked. Matt was there at Dad’s side all the time, and I was starting to feel like an afterthought.”

She sighed and brought her knees up to rest her chin on them. “Came to a head this one night. See, back at home, first Saturday of the month was always Family Game Night. We’d set aside the whole evening for whatever game we could all play together for hours on end, and we’d been doing this since I was too young to even understand how board games worked. So this one night, Dad calls us up at like four o’clock to tell us that some important presentation got moved up at the very last minute and he and Matt wouldn’t be able to make it to game night, and I sorta lost it. Yelled at him over phone for a couple minutes straight, didn’t answer it when Matt tried to call me after.

“So, naturally, when they get home from their big important presentation thing, Dad sits us all down to have a ‘family discussion’.” She made air quotes around the words with her fingers. “And basically we just… talked it out, I guess. Like, got it all into the open. And on some level, you know, I’m feeling like a bratty little kid because, yeah, I know that he needs to be doing all this stuff for Kerberos, and I know that he’s not intentionally prioritizing Matt over me, it was – it was the circumstances. Still didn’t mean I felt good about it, though.

“So I tell him that, and in the end, I guess it did sort of need to be said. I don’t think Dad was really realizing how much the Kerberos prep was taking over his schedule and his life, and I mean, it was going to be a long mission away from us, Mom and I needed some time with him and Matt while we still could. I suppose in all that goes into working toward a space mission, some stuff winds up pushed aside even if it shouldn’t be. Not his fault. He’s only human, you know? And he was focusing on things he needed to focus on. Sometimes people need a reminder that there’s other stuff going on around them. Once he had that, we worked things out. Got actual bonding time scheduled with me, finally, so it did the trick.”

She lifted her chin and stretched out her legs. “We all know how badly what happened with Shiro affected him. I mean, we’ve all been around for flashbacks and stuff, right? So getting someone on the ship who’s apparently been dealing with something so similar, and getting to talk about the stuff and help someone out with all that shit is probably good for him. Shiro needs that. And Keith? Well, we’ve all seen that he’s all kinds of fucked up, so having someone like Shiro around to try and help sort out the fucked-up-ness? Yeah, I’m betting he needs that.

“That’s all it is, I think. They’re just focused on what they need right now, and other things are gonna end up falling by the wayside. That’s just what happens, you know? There’s only so much a person can focus on at once. And if it gets to be a problem, that’s when you sit down, have a family discussion, and get that shit out into the open. Tell me, Lance: have you mentioned this to Shiro?”

“I - ” Lance gritted his teeth as he hesitated.

“Well, there you go,” said Pidge. “If there’s a problem between you and Shiro, you’re not gonna get anything solved by complaining to us about it. Go to Shiro. Use your words.”

“I shouldn’t have to talk to Shiro about it, you know?” Lance said. “He’s the team leader, the Black Paladin. He’s – he’s supposed to know what’s going on, and know what to do, and – ”

“And walk on water and cure the blind and ride his magical unicorn over a rainbow and into the sunset?” Pidge finished, a smirk hovering at the edge of her mouth.

Lance grimaced. “I didn’t say all that.”

“Lance, I’ll have you know that this is the same Shiro who once narrowly avoided getting expelled as a cadet because Matt dared him to go streaking on a campus tour day. He’s a great guy, and a great leader, but it’s always dangerous to put someone on a pedestal. Talk to Shiro.”

“…Okay,” Lance sighed. “Okay, I’ll have a talk with Shiro. But I’m still not thrilled about the idea of having a big conflict mediation with Keith.”

“If you don’t wanna have a counseling session, maybe some sort of grand gesture would do the trick for Keith,” Hunk suggested as Pidge slid back onto the floor. “I’ve had success in the past with baking apology cakes, writing ‘I’m sorry’ in icing on the top. It’s hard to be mad at someone who gives you cake.”

“Hey, there’s an idea,” Lance said, face brightening. “Could you make a cake for me to give to Keith?”

“It’s your apology, man. You’ve gotta bake the cake.”

“Mmm, I dunno if I wanna bake…”

“Then maybe get him a greeting card,” Pidge said. “Hallmark sells ‘I’m Sorry I Messed With Your Sense Of Reality’ cards, right?”

“Very funny,” Lance grunted.

“A balloon bouquet?” Hunk said. “Flowers? What flowers are good for apologies?”

“This isn’t helping at all,” Lance groaned. “What the hell would Keith even want with flowers or balloons?”

“Well, what does Keith want?” Hunk asked.

Lance furrowed his brow as he thought it over, and the right answer came to him soon after. He let out another long groan and dropped his face into his hands.

Keith had better fucking forgive him after this.

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

Lance left Hunk’s room once Pidge had declared their project finished, and before she and Hunk had a chance to test out the cleaning bot’s new upgrades. He still wasn’t entirely sure what those upgrades were or how they were going to test them, but if by tomorrow the Castle was still in one piece, that would likely be the sign that the project was a success.

He went to the living quarters, coming first to Keith’s door and knocking. He didn’t identify himself – Keith was less likely to ignore the knocking if he didn’t know who was on the other side of the door – but he still got no response from inside. He pressed his ear to the door just to be certain, and when he heard nothing, decided to move on to Shiro’s room instead.

His fist was raised and poised to knock when a voice sounded from behind him. “Oughtn’t disturb him right now, Lance.”

He jumped an inch in the air and whipped around to see Allura strolling around the corner, an amused smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “My apologies,” she said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” Lance said.

“Oh?” Allura quirked her brow. “You jumped.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I was startled. I’m just… battle-ready.” He stretched his arms and leaned languidly up against the doorframe. “Sharpshooter reflexes, you know? Gotta always be on my toes.”

“Ah. I should have guessed. In any case, if you plan on visiting with Shiro, you ought to save it for later. He only just went down for a nap a few vargas ago. I believe he had one of his restless sleep cycles this past night, needs to catch up a bit.”

“Oh. He was with you?”

Allura nodded. “And Coran. We’ve been sorting and studying coalition reports and correspondence for the better part of today. I certainly don’t blame him for being tired, it can be frighteningly dull work.”

“I see.” He knew what she meant. Coran had roped Lance into helping out with coalition correspondence before, and even without the additional tediousness of him having to run every line through translator programs, the supply and logistics reports were so boring to take notes on that it made even his dullest math classes back at the Garrison feel like a non-stop party in comparison.

“Did you need him for anything urgent?” Allura asked.

“Nah,” Lance said, shaking his head. “Mostly just looking to chat. I’ll save it for tomorrow.”

“If you have time to,” Allura said. “I’ll let the rest of the team know at dinner and we’ll brief you all this evening, but tomorrow we’ll be assisting the Blade a bit. There’s a supply depot on one of Mapukil’s satellites that they believe may be involved in one of the transfer routes they’ve been trying to track for that odd strain of quintessence the Blade’s had its eye on, but they’re having difficulty travelling into that sector undetected. We’re going to try to wormhole through and investigate the depot on their behalf.”

“Sounds like fun,” Lance said. “We planning on attacking or – ?”

“Not if we can avoid it.”

“Less fun. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be good. We’ll be in and out in no time. By the by, you seen Keith anywhere? Wanted to chat with him too.”

“I passed him returning to his room from the training deck a little while ago.”

“Already checked, he’s not there.”

“Most likely in the kitchen, then. You paladins do tend to get peckish after exercising, don’t you?”

“True,” said Lance. “I’ll check there. See you ‘round.”

Allura waved him off as he turned and set off toward the kitchen. Sure enough, he walked through the entrance to find Keith sitting on the counter, feet dangling, a bowl in his hands filled with some berry-like fruit that only Coran could pronounce and popping them into his mouth.

Keith looked up as Lance entered, then immediately dropped his gaze back to his fruit, and Lance wasn’t sure if he was imagining the scowl that had just appeared on his face, or if it was just due to the angle. He sighed internally. Well, best get this over with. “Hey, Keith,” he said.

Keith’s only reply was a wordless grunt, and Lance tried his best not to be offended by that. Instead, he strolled across the kitchen and hoisted himself up onto the counter as well. Not right next to him – Lance was pretty sure anyone besides Shiro trying to sit that close to him uninvited would wind up with a black eye – but on the opposite side of the sink. Keith seemed to stiffen, but he didn’t make to leave or tell Lance to go away. He counted that as a win.

“So, uh…” Lance began cautiously. “Whatcha eating?”

Keith tilted the bowl toward Lance so he could see the fruits better, then popped another into his mouth, chewing audibly.

“Cool, cool. Do you, uh, do you mind if I have one? Haven’t eaten anything since – ”

“What do you want, Lance?” Keith asked, his tone flat and eyes still on the bowl.

Lance quickly turned a frustrated huff into a little cough. He was here to make nice with Keith, not get into another spat with him. “Well, I actually, uh, needed to talk to you about – about something.” He paused, and when Keith didn’t ask him to elaborate, he went ahead. “See, I guess some of the Lions have been feeling a little, um, lonesome as of late, on account of us all being busy with our missions and training and meetings and all that. And I’ve been doing better about that with Red lately, trying to visit her more often, but I think she’s kinda bored, you know? Like, needs a bit of variety?”

“Okay…” Keith said slowly. “So what’s that got to do with me?”

“I was thinking about, like, how you had asked about, um, visiting with Red sometime? And I know I had been kind of, uh, not sure about whether Red would be cool with that, but, um… I dunno. I think, you know, long as I stick around and oversee the visits, she might be okay with having someone else pop in a few times and chat with her. She’s more of an extrovert than she pretends to be, I think. So, there you go, if you wanna visit Red…”

Finally Keith had lifted his gaze to Lance’s face, and Lance couldn’t read his expression. Keith blinked at him for a moment before saying, “Are you serious?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be?” Lance started swinging, bumping his heels against the counter, keeping his posture as casual as possible. “So, you wanna do that or not? We could hang out in the hangar after dinner or tomorrow morning or something, your pick. I mean, if you want to.”

“…Yeah,” Keith said. “Yeah, I’d, uh – I’d like that.”

“Okay. Okay, cool. So, um.” He cleared his throat and slid off of the counter. “So, whenever you’re up for it, just find me and we’ll head down. Whenever.”

“Yeah,” Keith said again with a nod. “Um… thanks.”

Lance nodded back. “Right, no pr– uh, you’re welcome.”

He rocked uncertainly on his heels for another few seconds before the awkward silence got to be just too much, and he made his hasty goodbyes and headed out of the kitchen, leaving Keith to his fruit. He let out a relieved breath once he was back in the hall. He did it. Apology made, apology accepted.

Perhaps things were looking up.

#vldgen #lance #keith #pidge #shiro #my writing #fic: remember me

[aion-rsa]

Are You Afraid of the Darkness?: A Hopepunk Explainer

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A brief guide to the hopepunk movement—its origins, and its possibilities.

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This feature originally appeared in Den of Geek's NYCC 2019 print magazine.

When author Alexandra Rowland (A Choir of Lies) first posted to Tumblr in 2017, "The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on," she had no idea how intensely that sentiment would resonate with the platform’s community and beyond.

"Initially, I was just vaguely bemused that anyone was listening to me," Rowland says, "but at the same time, I understood intellectually why hopepunk was resonating with people. Simply put: they were hurting, and hopepunk was a thing that helped comfort the hurt."

What is hopepunk? It depends on who you ask...

Rowland, quoting her essay “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” says: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that ‘says kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.’”

To understand hopepunk as a concept it helps to understand what it stands in contrast to. Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre characterized by bleak settings in which humanity is fundamentally cutthroat, and where no individual or community can stop the world’s inevitable decline. Hopepunk, in contrast, believes that the very act of trying has meaning, that fighting for positive change in and of itself has worth—especially if we do it together.

read more: Autuonomous — Robots, Love, and Identity Under Capitalism

“I think it's a reaction against the overwhelmingly nihilistic, dystopian slant to a lot of stories in the world right now,” says author Annalee Newitz (The Future of Another Timeline). For Newitz, hopepunk isn’t a subgenre but rather “a reason to tell stories, a motivation, or maybe a narrative tone.”

“The idea is to tell a story where there are hopeful elements or maybe a hopeful resolution to the characters' struggles,” Newitz says. “I don't mean to suggest it’s all about having a happy ending, because you can have a pretty ambivalent, broody ending that still conveys hope. Hopepunk is really about showing readers that we can make it through even the most difficult situations. Even if your hero dies, hopepunk suggests that someone else will be there to take up her torch and carry on.”

Hopepunk is Curtis blowing up the train at the end of Snowpiercer, or Max and Furiosa deciding to risk everything and go back to the Citadel at the end of Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s Naomi choosing to open the Roci’s door to let in as many desperate Ganymede refugees as possible in The Expanse. It’s believing that humanity may not be inherently good, but we’re not inherently bad either, and that giving people the chance to prove themselves compassionate is a worthwhile choice.

“At Uncanny, we tend to think of this as ‘radical empathy’ or ‘radical kindness’—choosing to do the good, kind thing, even when the system doesn’t encourage that, as an act of courage,” say Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damien Thomas, the editors of Uncanny Magazine.

read more: City in the Middle of the Night Review

The Thomases contextualize “hopepunk” as a marketing term, one that has gained prominence in the last few years but that has been around much longer: “There have been veins of hope (as opposed to grimdark hopelessness) across literature for hundreds of years, and for decades within the SFF genre.”

If hopepunk, by some definitions, is nothing new, it is a cultural lens seemingly on the rise after a pop culture period ruled by cynical stories, like Breaking Bad and The Dark Knight, and in a real-world environment that has become increasingly distressing.

“We can retreat into paralysis, and pretend that's somehow pragmatic or realistic,” says Newitz. “Or we can say, fine, this is a horrible problem, let's get together with other people and try to solve any small part of it that we can. Those are the two pathways we can take through a narrative, too. We can tell stories about people who try to fix things, rather than rejoicing in their splendid destruction. It’s a way of showing other people that just because things aren’t perfect, doesn’t mean they can’t be better.”

Has the definition of hopepunk changed since Rowland first coined the term?

“The heart of [my original definition] hasn't changed at all, but my efforts to remind people of the angry part of hopepunk definitely have grown,” she says. “The instinct is to make it only about softness and kindness, because those are what we’re most hungry for. We all want to be treated gently. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to stand up to a bully on their behalf, and that takes guts and rage.”

read more: How Red, White, and Royal Blue Hopes For a Kinder America

In 2019, hope can feel impossible. If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that the struggle to create a kinder and more just world is one that will never be linear and will never be over. It is bigger than any one of us, and longer than any lifetime. If hopepunk is the stories that keep us trying in the long shadow of that reality, then it is a vital ingredient to the recipe for change.

So what is hopepunk storytelling? It’s whatever you need it to be... as long as what you need it to be is a way forward in the darkness.

“In hindsight,” Rowland says, “I'm just very happy–when so many people find a philosophy like hopepunk meaningful and compelling... it sorta restores a bit of your faith in humanity, doesn’t it? Maybe all is not yet lost if there are enough people around to say, ‘Oh. Yes, this.’”

Hopepunk Reading Guide

Novels

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Uprooted by Naomi Novik Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse The Expanse by James S.A. Corey Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

Other

Our Opinions Are Correct Podcast, Episode 22 hosted by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders

Uncanny Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damien Thomas (recommendations: "Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse" by S.B. Divya, "Sun, Moon, Dust," by Ursula Vernon, and "Packing" by T. Kingfisher)

Hopepunk Author Interviews

Due to the nature of print media, I was unable to include as many of my interviewees' insightful thoughts on hopepunk as I would have liked to. Here is a guide to the full interviews from various speculative fiction authors and editors. I highly recommend clicking through to read them in their entirety.

An Interview with Alexandra Rowland, Author of A Choir of Lies

Excerpt: "By telling hopepunk stories, we necessarily have to be asking questions like, 'How do we care about each other in a world which so aggressively doesn't care about so many of the people in our communities? Who do we consider community, and is that definition too narrow? How do we fight back against the people who want to make us sit down and shut up?'"

An Interview with Annalee Newitz, Author of The Future of Another Timeline

Excerpt: "I think hopepunk is the opposite of apathy. In so many stories these days, characters are (literally or metaphorically) lighting cigarettes and enjoying the end of the world. They may look cool doing it, but it's profoundly anti-social and toxic. As soon as your characters don't give a shit about anything, you're leaving hopepunk behind."

An Interview with Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damien Thomas, Editors of Uncanny Magazine

Excerpt: "We think that the world can always use more radical empathy and radical kindness. Culture is, fundamentally, a mix of people giving in to their most kind and least kind impulses, and much of our storytelling comes from that inherent conflict. We'd rather encourage the former, personally."

An Interview with Ferrett Steinmetz, Author of The Sol Majestic

Excerpt: "I loved it the moment I heard it. I'm an old punk who knocked around some of the Nazis that the Dead Kennedys decried in 'Nazi Punks F**k Off,' so the idea of punk utilized for something other than some Hot Topic-style cynicism flooded me with joy."

Note: The title of this article comes from hopepunk musician Frank Turner's "Blackout."

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature

Culture

Kayti Burt

Nov 7, 2019

Hopepunk

NYCC

NYCC 2019

from Books https://ift.tt/32pEbOv

#aion-rsa #Books

[loghainmactir]

hewwo! i was wondering if u could pls give me some advice on starting my transition? ive been so scared to start bc of family and costs but ive decided to just. do it. yknow? like if i don't ill probably die lol. u look amazing and rly confident in yourself in all ur selfies and one day i wanna be Like That ✌️❤️

hi! ok, so first of all: yeah, i absolutely can give u advice, and second of all: i remember feeling exactly like you did. it literally wasn’t that long ago, either, it was like. 2013/14/15 (i can’t remember, time is fake, whatever lmao!). third of all: bless u yr so sweet. i still have a lotta issues with confidence (i doubt myself, my talent and what i can do literally hourly), but honestly? i love my body right now. it’s a good, genderless body, goddamnit.

long, long post ahead bc i’m trying to think of things i did and good god please take it with a grain of salt because a lot of this is just me ranting about things i wish I’D done in my own position. i’m also coming from a place where HRT and surgeries AREN’T free, so that’s also A Thing. everyone’s experience is different.

transitioning (particularly medically) really super fuckin varies country by country (and honestly probably even state by state, age by age and fuckin gender by gender because cis people won’t let us fucking BE goddamn): i don’t know where you are, so my only tips there r: find a trans friendly doctor/endo (i was kinda forced to go through a hospital bc That Was How It Was here in good ol’ Australia), and one people wholeheartedly recommend, if you wanna go that route.

my first point is make sure you find safe spaces in every goddamn aspect of your transition. medically, socially, physically. if you think your doctor is refusing you treatment or is discriminating against you, you NEED to ditch that doctor. if your friends and family are really verbally or physically violent against LGBT folks, you NEED to leave that space if you can (or not come out and wait until you can leave. seriously. i’m kinda lucky– my grandma was verbally violent against LGBT folks, and initially my mum was skepitcal, but i convinced them both to go to a group for LGBT+ parents and friends and they slowly turned around). get yourself friends, get yourself allies.

i cannot stress that enough. my first doctor refused to send my referral letter to the royal children’s hospital gender clinic because even tho he presented as a “nice” guy, he believed that because this was “”””out of the blue”””” for me, he figured he’d just Not Send It (and tried to tell me that a lotta kids there didn’t actually helpo, lol). so there i was, a young 15-16 year old alister, waiting like 2-3 months for something that didn’t even get fucking sent.

join trans groups on facebook and in real life. seriously, they’re a godsend; there’s buy-and-sells, advice posts, encouragement posts. ESPECIALLY local ones. most of them on facebook are private, meaning no one can see if you’re posting/in the group, and it’s easy to check if they’re not. these fb pages + local groups are good ways to find trans friendly spaces and doctors. i found my current doctor, who’s actually one of the very few doctors who knows what the fuck he’s on about re: trans people, through a real life trans group. they were like “oh, you should see x”, and even though he’s about 30-40 minutes away from me, he’s brilliant and honestly saved my life.

along those lines: figure out what you want from your transition, and then realize & accept that this may change (and it also may not change!). very early on, i was super insistent that i wanted phalloplasty and to wear packers, and now i couldn’t care less. at first, i identified as agender, and then as a trans guy/ftm, and now i identify as a Black Hole (i’m kidding, don’t @ me). like, a lotta people DON’T change their minds. but i did, some people do, and it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but your own what you want to do with your body 

(sidenote: this also goes for detransitioning or stopping medical transition but continuing to socially transition/present differently. literally, it’s fine. it’s your body. fuck anyone who says otherwise.)

again: FUCK ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.

your body is literally your body. do NOT let anyone tell you what to do with it or who you are. i had people very early on scream at me (legitimately scream and throw me out of home, thanks grandma), tell me i wasn’t actually trans, and harrass me for this shit: but frankly, if i’d put myself back in the closet, i wouldn’t be alive right now. i would’ve killed myself years ago, and i wish i wasn’t kidding. if it’s safe, you need to stand up for your own body and your rights and put yourself somewhere that will allow you to follow through. you need to keep going and keep living.

my only other two pieces of advice are “patience, baby”– like, for real, every single part of transition takes time. this varies from where you are and who’s supporting you, but it’s generally true. it takes time for people to accept new names and pronouns 

(lotta people get furious about this, and i used to be one of those people, but hindsight’s a bitch and you gotta realize that… like, it’s hard for some cis people. you gotta give them a little bit of wiggle room, especially if they’ve never ever met a trans person before. it’s about reminders, reminders, reminders: which is SO hard if you’re not safe/don’t have the confidence. there IS a flip side to this though: if chad and stacey have known your new pronouns for months, now, and they keep “””slipping””” up, they’re not slipping up, honey. they’re doing it on purpose. kick their teeth in i’m kidding please don’t do this you know what i mean.)

it takes time for HRT to kick in. it takes time to gather a Look™ of your own you like, it takes time to build confidence to even tell people, it takes time to save up money for surgeries and it just… takes time. sometimes because it’s a naturally slow process, sometimes because cis people are Cis People and like to gatekeep. i remember being very young in my transition, sitting in the car after one of my appointments with the afformentioned shithead doctor bawling my eyes out because he’d told me i wouldn’t be able to access t for x amount of time and it was bullshit. this year i’ll be 2 years on t. wild, huh? there’s a lot of us and not equal amounts of resources (ESPECIALLY in public systems) depending on where you are, so you gotta be prepared to WAIT.

i’ll tell you what super helped me through those years: hyping myself up for other things! i still have the ticket from my first twenty one pilots show. that show meant SO much to me. i cried all through it, because waiting for that show kept my mind off of the wait for my royal children’s appointments (and even waiting to go up to melbourne bc my mum and i would go and get kebabs was a good thing to focus on!). keep things that aren’t trans related on hand (seriously i struggled with this because dysphoria and shit is fucking hard!! it’s easy to say but really fucking hard to put into practice).

(one day i’m gonna tell tyler and josh just how much they saved my goddamn life. i know they hear it weekly, but i will.)

my other thing is that uh. it won’t solve all your problems especially if you’ve got mental illnesses. this is a really fuckin depressing thing i had to drill into my brain, but it really helped. transitioning solved SO many of my issues. i no longer have back issues (thanks, like, literal kilo titties, lmao), i no longer have sore ribs and i can breathe and wear shirts. i lost so much weight (and am kinda gaining it back, but whatever). i no longer have anxiety about whether people can tell i’m binding– which is WILD because i used to stress the fuck out about it to the point where i never went out anywhere. i used to sit on the bus wondering if the person next to me could tell i had titties. now it literally doesn’t even register.

my issues now stem from PTSD, depression, BPD and ADHD. how do you fix this? you don’t. but what HAS helped is finding a therapist who won’t pressure you into talking about trans shit. lemme tell you: this shit gets exhausting after the fifth time of “oh i googled ‘can you become a boy’ when i was, like, nine” (this is my go to story because this memory is so vivid). of course, there’s gonna be moments where you HAVE to: my therapist recently actively asked me to briefly run through it for my PTSD report. but otherwise we literally haven’t talked about it and that is a GODSEND (because i don’t need it. if you need it, that’s good, too!). having a therapist that you can just wordvomit at wrt anything is literally the best thing and can be super helpful– seriously, there were a few trans-related sessions where i just snarled about the bullshit gatekeeping and the bastard i had to see for my therapist letter (oooh, every time i think abt the fact that it was something like $400-500 for two fucking sessions i get so mad lol), but outta 14 it’s really only like 2-3 of them.

but yeah. that’s it. i dunno, these are things that i’ve learnt and sorta… like to think as helpful for myself. of course, this could be different for you: you’re not me, you’re entirely different, in no doubt an entirely different country, social, financial, mental state. i was FUCKED UP when i first came out. i didn’t know that then, but i do now. i spent a lotta time by myself and that’s not healthy, so i really encourage you to reach out to our community, local and worldly, because oh my god, we’re here for you. we are SO here for you.

#long post #sorry if you need this formatted for ease of reading please shout at me. i really word vomited all over this #my transition #trans #anon #asks #iodk what else to tag this as

[chiseki]

Figured I’d make this an intro post, since I’m pretty much using this alternate url as an “out” url compared to my usual vagueness.

I’m Joshua. Yes, that matches the sidebar, so it’s not really surprising here.

And that would surprise an entire two people following my main blog that know me irl because the rest were previously informed. Maybe three people, I forget if the last one is on tumblr or not.

Which is, by the way, ““““““““fun”““““““““

Yup, having like three local friend circles that had relations to each other outside of myself, and only one of them being in the know is fun.

You can basically stop reading at this point, because from here on out is just gonna be a massive time rewind to.....jeez, fuck if I know when, my childhood? I promise there will be time skips, we don’t need that mess played at normal tempo. (Also some funny stories after the giant gap in the text, if you want to scroll for that).

Most of this story is actually located in college, but the only real indicator (aside from having a general dislike of dresses) was way back when I was in all of second grade--apparently I was so damn insulted I burned all these facts into my memory--and an older kid was brought into the classroom, gave us this cool sales pitch about do we want to learn to shoot a bow, go camping, build campfires, etc

and then was like “OH YEAH THIS IS THE BOY SCOUTS IT’S BOYS ONLY”

I was so hyped lol.

Wound up being in a mediocre girl scout troop later, and my brother obviously got directed into boy scouts. At which point I got to find out that their camping trips were mostly getting rained on and finding black windows and getting taught woodworking by a dude missing a chunk of finger.

So more suffering than child me would have expected, but they still got to build fires and go REAL camping and shoot bows and rifles and shit.

Meanwhile, in girl scouts, we went to this one set of cabins every year. We never stayed in the damn cabins, because someone would find A Bug in there, or a spider, and then someone ELSE would have the same issue, and no one wanted to be in a cabin alone let alone be the only one in the cabins at all, and we always wound up sleeping in the air conditioned lodge that was visible from the damn cabins.

Except the one year where we went to a different camp, stayed in the legendary caboose, and there was a bat sleeping on the outside of the window so no one wanted to sleep there except me.

My scout group was weak.

I miss the cookies, though.

Anyway, due to not being forced into gender-targeted toys and getting to play with whatever the fuck I wanted, I also have jack shit for anything resembling an early warning sign aside from the above.

Actually, scratch that, I was not really a fan of dresses. I mean, this was fair in general, since they were usually scratchy, didn’t fit my arms/shoulders right, were designs I had no say in, and everyone would get on my case if the dress might get even a LITTLE dirty. Had some skirts I liked in middle school, but even that was a mess of having to wear tights because my genes have never resulted in anything resembling a thigh gap.

And I was like, constantly trying to play with the guys in grade school. And they’d periodically get that “NYEHHHHHHH GUYS ONLYYYYYY” shit going on. That was never not infuriating tbh.

Flash forward to high school, still basically left to my own devices. Only indicator here was that I was just tickled fucking pink whenever I heard that I either passed at cons or was at least tossed in the “maybe.......?” zone.

Flash forward to college. I honestly don’t remember what set me off on thinking about it, but started eyeballing my gender with a microscope. Unfortunately I couldn’t apply a litmus test like sexuality, so there was a lot of “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhfuck” going on.

Actually, I think part of it was that on the forum I hung out on, a lot of the old regulars had assumed I was a dude until a childhood friend had dropped a pronoun several times in succession & asserted its correctness, which then led to a discussion along the lines of “whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat”.

But yeah, started testing the waters.

Also tried going to a LGBT+ club like, once. With the gal I was either dating at the time or was about to be dating, my memory is shit tbh. “HEY SO HOW ABOUT WE ALL JUST COME OUT TO EACH OTHER, A BUNCH OF STRANGERS <33333333″ still freaks me out, honestly. I get why it’s generally done, but like, no thanks. But I was horrendously obvious in ducking about the gender question and she totally called me out on it later in private lol. Also got me my first binder, but I digress.

Anyway, basically spilled on “I’m.....probably..............? a dude...........? jsyk??????” to my immediate friends, which was met with a lot of “.....YEAH ACTUALLY THAT MAKES SENSE” and a “hang on I need a dictionary........ok I get it”

I think I was the least smooth part of anything resembling a coming-out just due to like, me not wanting to have to tell people to do things for me? It’s something I find extremely awkward, like I know it’s that horribly stereotypical dating thing of “what’s wrong, bby, what do I have to do” “I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO” but.

And that’s an entire digression about how my relationship with my mother often included me saying a lot of shit I had to say convincingly, but didn’t mean at all, and probably led to me having fuckall faith in what people say, most especially when under a forced prompt. I could do an essay on that, but not here.

Which, admittedly, I’m gonna rewind here because I think it’s funny in hindsight, but it means the dictionary reaction went like “SO...........I’M.............TRANS?” “What?” [thinking this is pushback on the idea] [PANIC MODE] “UH” “Like, literally, what does that word mean, I've never heard it in my life.” “OH. WELL. Heh. Uh. That internal reaction I had was embarrassing then, oops.”

Anyway.

Then the collective action was, “well, have you picked a name what do you MEAN you haven’t picked a name, we can’t just run about calling you by your deadname after all that”

And I tossed some names out, that I’m not going to list, because they were just fucking awful. So I got interventioned and the method became throwing names at me until they stuck.

Adam? Nah I knew an Adam and I can’t unassociate with that

Noah? Violin teacher’s third kid was named Noah. Same issue with Gabriel and Caleb.

Benjamin? I fucking grew up with a Benjamin he would kill me.

you get the idea.

And those were like, actual reasonable rejections. At least half the time I was just like “I DON’T LIKE HOW IT SOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNDS.” Take, for example, Josh. I 1) knew one in high school and he was a piece of work and 2) I just, inexplicably, don’t like how the word sounds.

Which is part irony and part masochism that JoshUA stuck.

I mean, that name had pre-existing connotations for me. I had played..........a game.........in high school. And given that my options were pretty shafted to Stereotypical White Boy Names if I didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb, some positive(?) pre-existing connotations were going to be needed.

Incidentally, I had a v. sweet trans girl offer me her deadname, which was a cool name, but just, like, didn’t fit me in particular so. She also picked her name by RNG tournament, with the top 10 baby names for her year being the competitors. Which was neat and worked well for her, but I know I would have just re-run the fucking tourney if I didn’t like the winner lol.

But anyway, continuing on to a less flowery story. I’ll add some blank lines so it’s skippable. No need to set off every other person with gender issues here.

Decided to come out to my family. Apparently time fuzzed down my memories of being devoured by mosquitos outside while my parents were trying to decipher that their kid was holding hands with a girl in the back of the van and that girl had been planned to sleep over that night, and despite the fact that booth teens wouldn’t be jumping to sex that fast nor had the equipment to make a kid between them....it was Reason For Concern like a straight couple sharing a bed.

I mean, my mom was convinced that anything touching the nether regions was SEX and PREMARITAL SEX was EVIL. But I digress.....again.

So. I tell them. And the reaction ranged from “well ok I mean you’ve always been weird” (thanks, bro) to “uh I guess my last name’s odds of getting inherited just doubled........?” to “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME”

Yeah. That last one was word for word. Some stuff was thrown, lots of crying (”I CAN’T EVEN DO MY MAKEUP AND IT’S YOUR FAULT”)--both of which were not my doing, though I got shocked(?) into my own set of tears iirc.

I think I set a speed record for climbing back into the closet. Like, a week later, everyone was pretending it never happened. I sorta emotionally cut ties with my mom at that point--kept it civil, but Did Not Want to discuss my life or friends at all with her or in any way that would get back to her.

So obviously, no one in my family knows I go by Joshua. If they asked, I would tell them, but lo and behold, zero questions, they never brought it up again, etc. And I’ve been very careful about not letting that knowledge spread, not putting it on the internet in a way that connects back to my legal name, being primed at any point to pretend “Joshua” is a mutual friend and to not respond to that name if someone accidentally calls me by it.

Incidentally, during Yet Another Family Counseling that was at least performed at an individual level this time, my mom apparently told the counselor that she thought she handled that well. Last I checked, making the situation about yourself and doing the whole “woe is me, the mother, with a child like this” shpeal was not “well”.

And I mean the WHOLE shpeal. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to see the posts by parents of trans kids that wax soliloquy about losing their child and mourning their “death” (especially the ones that aren’t all “but I got a new kid!”) like, the ones especially cut from the same cloth that would be like “my child is autistic but ~I~ am the inspiration for waking up in the morning” like no, your kid is the inspiration for dealing with you.

And if anyone is wondering, this is basically the Midwest Stereotype for....LGBT, interracial dating, etc rejection imo. Seemingly ok with it, but NO WAIT HANG ON, NOT MY CHILD. Like, I legit had trans kids explained to me (albeit without terms for it) at a relatively young age by my mother and yet. “X exists but not in our good christian neighborhood” attitude. Ugh.

So where was I? Hmm, yes, funny Joshua stories. Ok I have like ONE story. One of my friends that was in the know finally got me to play Trails in the Sky. Now, this sucker has a chunk of text lead-in with a ~mysterious~ boy that young Estelle’s father has brought home, and the whole discussion skips his name, ending on “my name is....”. Then it time-skips to present day, finally casually dropping this dude’s name, which, obviously, is Joshua.

My friend did not tell me this.

No warning, nada. Only Estelle had really come up in conversation.

And then we collectively dragged another friend into the abyss with us, except he wasn’t in the know. We also had him streaming his playing sessions when our schedules coincided, which led to--because of a shitty accuracy stat--him yelling (as we did) “JOSHUA!” frequently in combat.

I debated on just responding “Yes?” randomly one day in the most casual closet-exit possible. Then procrastinated by deciding to just be out with it at the end of the first game since he’d also played twewy.

Some of you have probably started to eye my avatars with judgement in your hearts. That’s fair.

Anyway, we had forgotten about another character that practically had his name, so at least I had someone to share my weird feelings with.

And then, he started the second game, and I didn’t hold back on responding “yes?” every time “Joshua” was used as an interjection.

Also because of that one post about biblical names, I will respond to any use of “Jesus”.

#chiseki talks about chiseki

[franeridart]

Happy 1000th post to one off my absolute favorite artists on Tumblr!

This is it!!! The 1k post on this blog!!! It’s me finally getting my ass into gear and answering the asks in my inbox!!! As good charm in hope of not waiting so long from now on hahaha thank you so so much, by the way!!!! :D

Anon said:LITERALLY YOUR TODOROKI IS THE BEST THING IN THIS CRUEL WORLD I LIVE THE WAY U DRAW HIM IM EMOTIONAL HHECK ALSO ALL THE REST OF UR ART IS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD ITS SO NICE UR CHARACTERS ARE LIKE VERY LONG NOODLES THEYRE GOOD™

THANK YOU FOR EVERY KIND WORD AND ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE TODOROKI ONES HOLY SMOKES!!! I don’t draw him much sadly but he’s super fun and comfortable to draw for me, it’s nice to know he also comes out well!!!

Anon said:So like,,, I really miss your bokuroo ;^; Will you ever post with them again???

I haven’t taken a vow that forces me to never draw them again, so, possibly! At the moment posting for the haikyuu fandom is giving me more sad feelings than anything else though, so I can’t promise that’s gonna be any time soon, I’m sorry 

Anon said:bruhh i listened to that chiodos song under ur halo, and that one by memphis may fire that was w that bakugo art that was called not enough and uhhhhh ur music taste is dope care to share some more songs?

SURE I’m glad you liked those! Everything by Memphis is A+ and I love it so if you haven’t you should check out more stuff by them ( No Ordinary Love is super nice, That’s Just Life is very dear to me and so is Divinity, Speechless is… my otp song for every otp ever tbh) -  Bring Me The Horizon is my fav post-hardcore band and both MMF and Chiodos are that genre so if you don’t know them give them a try! (Blasphemy, Run and Doomed are between my faves out of the latest album, and since you liked Under Your Halo you’re probably gonna like Follow You too) the album right before is amazing too if you’re okay with less melodic stuff, but the further back you go with BMtH the harder to listen to they get, just a heads up - Sleeping With Sirens are on the softer side of post-hardcore lately, Fly, Left Alone, Trouble, Fire and Empire To Ashes are some great ones, between the many, and, uhhhh, at this point I might have recced Nothing More a hundred times but let’s make it a hundred and one, try Funny Little Creatures, Do You Really Want It and Go To War out of the newest album! If you’re into punk and female voices you should check out Tonight Alive too, Jenna has one of my two fav female voices in rock right now (Crack My Heart and Temple are the latest two songs out!) and since I always rec stuff but I never rec anything by my favorite band ever, you ever heard of Alter Bridge? They’re more towards hard-rock/alternative metal, but check out Blackbird, Fortress, I Know It Hurts, Cradle To The Grave and Broken Wings just to make it one for every album I really, really adore this band and everything they ever made

Anon said:I adore all of your art, especially your bnha art!!! I had so many of your drawings saved to my drafts before I read the manga and was really looking forward to catching up so I could look at them all!! They’re all fantastic

AHHH THANK YOU!!! This made me smile lots, I’m so glad you like them!!!

Anon said:What’s coming up? Fluffy, dorky or angsty? (I’m talking about your next work XD just to be sure) Have a great day my friend!

LMAO this was about this one right? I’m sort of a fool honestly cause as I drew it it… didn’t feel actually all that angsty to me? I mean, obviously it doesn’t come after anything happy, but they’re working things out! Making an effort! Loving each other enough to try and understand each other better!! I drew it as something positive but in hindsight I should have expected the reactions lmao so I honestly dunno, I feel like telling you it’s most probably gonna be something happy but as it seems I angst without even realizing, lately #rip

@not-enough-kaneki​ said:Pass the happy! 💛 When you get this, reply with 5 things that make you happy and send this to the last 10 people in your notifications! 😊

!!!!! my cats!!!! tea and coffee!!! Bakugou and Kirishima and Bakugou-and-Kirishima and the squad!!!! not having an headache!!!!!! the sound of ocean waves and the sun on winter days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! new music I like!!!!!! nice asks and lovely tags under my art!!!! that’s more than five things but a lot of stuff makes me happy tbh !!!

Anon said:one of my favorite parts (i love every bit of it) of the holiday pic you drew of the squad, is they each have their own personal mug. 10/10

I didn’t think you’d be able to notice Mina’s!!! I’m glad it was visible, I thought I had made it disappear into the background hahaha thank you!!!

Anon said:i just went through your entire kiribaku tag and, honestly, gay (also ur art is soooo good and pure and thank u so much for all the content u make for bnha 💖💖)

It is very gay, isn’t it? The other day I was going through my old stuff and I think I might have slowly turned them mushier oh my hahaha I’m glad you like my stuff, by the way!! Thank you so so so so much!!!!!!!!

Anon said:Thank you for sharing the beautiful Bakusquad Christmas! It’s very colorful and warm & it gives me such a comforting feeling! I love looking at all the details! Kami & Sero’s ribbons, everyone’s mugs, the decorations, all so cute! Especially Mina’s bulletin board with the photos, charms of the boys, & the little alien dude (?) Each time I look at it, I see other cute details!! Sorry to bother you, but thanks again for sharing your art with us! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas!!!!!

It’s not a bother at all!!! Thank you so so much for looking at it long enough to notice all those details!!!!

Anon said:You are so good at giving advice omg

I wouldn’t say I’m especially good at it, I just say what was useful to me lol but thank you! It’s a nice thing to be told

Anon said:Dude, your bakusquad drawings are awesome! Keep up the great work!

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!! I’m super glad you like them!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:The new chapter made me think about Bakugou dealing with his squad as babies all over again. Toddlers would probably be worse.

Depends?? Actually??? Like, at least toddlers aren’t gonna steal his gauntlets and tell him he’s lame and punch him just for the hell of it and be a bunch of smartasses and assholes like. Compared to this bunch of baby-Bakugous he has to deal with in the new arc maybe the squad as toddlers would actually be refreshing lol

Anon said:Um I have a very real crush on ila? Can we please know more about her??

I’m ??? so happy you like her!!!!! I don’t wanna say too much about her cause until I draw her in comics I won’t be too sure about who she really is, but she’s!! a pianist, very tall and sorta insecure about her physical appearance, very soft spoken, incredibly gay, scared of sensory deprivation of any kind. Her full name is Ilaria! Dav calls her Aria, which means air in Italian~ they’re pretty good friends, I have a comic about that I’ve been meaning to draw…

Anon said:So, you like KiriBaku with songs, so what do you think of You Had Me At Hello by A Day to Remember? Particularly the lines, “What have I gotten into this time around, I know that I had sworn I’d never trust anyone again, but I didn’t have to. You had me at hello. I’ve never seen a smile that can light a room like yours, it’s simply radiant, I feel more with every day that goes by.”

s o f t…………. ;; also incredibly fitting considering Bakugou decided Kirishima was his new favorite hero the second time he spoke to him, like, god bless I love those two s o m u ch this one I’m listening to it right now and having feelings (is it Baku to Kiri? Kiri to Baku? why not both for double the feels)

Anon said:Hey Fran!! Have you been keeping up with haikyuu? If so what do you think about the Miya twins? (Personally I think they’re pretty okay, they’re funny when they interact with each other. My favorite of the two is Osamu haha)

I don’t mind them! My fav out of Inari is Kita tho, have to admit - that said I have… sort of been ready for this game to be over for months, now………………

Anon said:Okay but imagine….. Kirishima with freckles

I’ve drawn that, now and again!!! the latest one was this one, and another one I remember is this one :D I’ve been liking the idea of him with freckles even more since it’s become official his hair isn’t naturally red? So now and again I add them in, even though they’re usually not much noticeable haha I do so with Bakugou too from time to time, actually… and the rest of the squad… I just… love freckles a lot… haha

Anon said:Love the squad, love the squad kisses.

HECK YES the goal is to draw at least one smooch for every couple sooner or later !!!

Anon said:I hadn’t even realize that I stuck around for a whole year OwO, anyways, congratulations! Your art style has improved much more than you think, especially since you’ve gotten more into coloring ^o^ I noticed that you’ve also been doing more complicated poses too, so, it’s the little stuff that counts ♥️👍 Hope to see more spontaneous art next year, love you Fran!

THANK YOU SO MUCH I love you lots too??? honestly??? This ask means the whole world to me, I really can’t see much improvement after all but knowing you can DOES help a whole damn lot

Anon said:So I came across this fanfic where Uraraka and Todoroki were a thing. I’m personally not a fan of this rare pair, but the whole scenario was the cutest thing ever. Todoroki basically asks Uraraka to help him confess to Midoriya, but in the process falls in love with her instead.

Awwww that sounds cute! Can’t say I have any particular feelings about the ship, but I am up for Todoroki with nearly anyone so why not!

Anon said:Bro bro bro I’m sorry if this is the wrong channel to go through or something but holy shit I just spent hours going through your entire tumblr and your. Art. And. Concepts. I… can’t??? DUDE YOU’RE AMAZING AND YOUR TATTOO AU!! I?? Just thank you so much for all the awesome work you do honestly made my entire fuckin week with your blog, you are WICKED GOOD AND FUNNY AF. That’s all I got go on with your day you talented ass fiend

I’M CRYING!!! OH MY GOD THANK YOU!!!!!!! I’m gonna pick this ask and frame it right on top of my desk!! The heck!!!!!!

Anon said:Why is Bakugou such a fuckin meme

The real question is why is everyone in class 1A a meme. How do they even keep up. How much of the shit they say on a day to day basis is actually just catchphrases from other 1A kids repeated over and over again. How much of the deadpan ridiculous shit Todoroki says has become an inside-joke. How many 1A kids move and talk like Iida just for the hell of it. How often do they yell DIE at inanimate stuff when it pisses them off. How much stuff is defined as manly even though it has nothing to do with manliness. Do they say “going wheey” instead of “frying one’s brain”. Can anyone outside of 1A even understand them when they speak at this point.

Anon said:You are amazing human bean and I love you 💖 Keep being great ✨👏

Thank you??? ;O; I’ll do my best!!!

Anon said:Just annonly passing by to tell you I F'ing love your take on Ashido And the Kids XD … Way to much fluff And laugh for my heart

THANK YOU!!! I’m happy I can make you laugh!!!! :D :D :D

Anon said:I love you god bless you and your art! THANK YOU!

NAH THANK YOU FOR BEING THIS NICE!!!

Anon said:Hi! I absolutely /adore/ your BakuKiriKami art! I was wondering if you had any headcanons about them/what inspires you to draw them?

More than headcanons for them I have an incredible amount of scenarios I’d like to see them in! And when they’re compact, complete things I usually draw them, which is what inspires me really haha that, and seeing them interact in the manga! Lately I’ve been really drawn to Bakugou and Kaminari’s friendship, actually, so the romantic stuff has fallen in the background while my mind is preoccupied with thinking about them as platonic good pals ahhhhhhh as soon as I’ll work through it I’ll probably get back to drawing them as romantics, that’s just how my mind works lol

Anon said:I love the casual clothes you design for MHA characters! And I really enjoy reading your headcanons-always creative and fun! Is there anything you’d add to anyone’s hero costumes in class 1-A (something that might prove useful/practical for them, or something you’d add just for the heck of it)? Sorry if this is a stupid question or if you’ve answered a similar question before. Thanks for your time!

It’s not a stupid question, don’t worry!! But I generally like to leave myself in Horikoshi’s hands for this sort of stuff, since I both enjoy the costumes as they are AND don’t want to be disappointed in case what I hope for doesn’t actually happen - that said, I’ve mentioned before that I’d really like Aoyama to get redirectors for his laser on his palms and for Kaminari to get a close combat weapon, since with the quirk he has anything metal would actually work wonders for him! He mentioned a sword, but I rest my case that tonfas would be cool, I really want him to use tonfas. A “costume” I don’t understand is Hagakure’s, by the way - would be nice if she got an actual costume and also I don’t really get why she’d wear gloves at all?? Mirio’s costume was made using his hair, I really want her to get something similar! That’s about it tho, I haven’t really thought much about anyone else in that sense~ 

Anon said:Hello! A few weeks ago I asked about the bracelets you drew for Baku & Kiri. (That art is so beautiful!!) I was wondering if there’s a story behind them; such as, did one of them buy the pair, or did they pick them out together? I’m sorry if it’s a dumb question and if I’m bothering you.

THIS ASK I had lost it, thank you so much for sending it my way again! Actually, Kirishima bought it for himself and Bakugou - I mean to draw a small thing for it, be patient with me while I try to get my ass into gear for it ;O;

Anon said:It’s been a while since you’ve done any BakuKiriKami, do you still like that ship?

I do - as I said a few answers above this one, I’m just finding myself weirdly invested in a platonic relationship between Bakugou and Kaminari at the moment, and also Bakushima stole my focus and soul, but I do still like the ship a whole damn lot, definitely still my fav ot3 in the manga~

Anon said:I love your drawings so much, they always make my day seeing them. But I gotta say that kiri with his hair down is my weakness. He just looks so pure, the cuteness factor goes through the roof.

Thank you???? The Kiri thing is true for canon Kiri too, I’m glad I can bring it in my art!!! Mostly cause when I draw him with his hair down I’m never really sure what the hell I’m doing, I’ll be honest with you lmao

Anon said:hello, holy fUCKin shit how are you this damn good at drawing? like, fuck? thank you, bless you, have a nice day

THANK YOU! And all I do is draw, really lmao I wouldn’t say I’m all that good, definitely not anywhere near the artists I admire, but since all I can do is draw as long as I keep doing that I guess I’ll get there, sooner or later hahaha

#fran answers #im gonna use the holidays as my excuse for how long it took me to answer all of these #....yeah #yeah im gonna do that #oc asks #anonymous

[beedalee]

what are the stories/projects you work on or involved with?

EDIT 2019: FOR AN UPDATED LIST, GO HERE!

Oh gosh, it’s been a bit since I did a rundown of them… (I need to update my project lists tbh… ugh..) I’ve been working really hard on consolidating my characters and stories these last few years so I’m rightfully proud of my progress.. Even if no one can tell yet but me!! >8//); 

Despite how many we have, only a few of them I seriously want to bring to completion and/or publish first and foremost. The rest are really just for fun until I/we feel like they could become something bigger. Also, Dye has involvement in most of my stories whether it be a full collab or just helping!

It’s a long post… so, BELOW THE CUT WE GO!

Collaborations 

(with @dyemelikeasunset)

Ocean of Cycles: Our 4th Collab- Dye’s world-building project that I have the honor of helping flesh out. While we have our OCs and want to make it RPG ready for others to play in for fun, and we think making a book of the completed world-building someday would be fukken awesome, it’s largely a stress relief and creative outlet for Dye and I, so we��re not in a rush nor can Dye’s schedule allow for full-time work on it. Like Dye, I would like to do mini-comics about their adventures myself as well!!

Picture This Imagine That: (sorry this art is 4yrs old… T//w//T) Our third collaboration; Started small but became our means of reconciling our identities and coming out. After we came out some years ago, we put this one down to handle real life stuff and grow up a bit- but we do still fully intend to draw and publish their stories, we just took it offline and pulled back to a much more relaxed pace until it’s actually ready.

Solaris: Our second collaboration. Originally an Avatar: The Last Airbender fanstory, transplanted into an original universe. I’d really love to bring this one to life as a comic, but the plot hasn’t been finished yet! We love this one  to bits though and I’d consider it a likely choice down the road sometime.

White|Outlines: Technically our first collaboration, a soft slice of life about troubled supernatural teenagers. My branch in the same universe/highschool as Dye’s SalaDays story (No, the SD cast doesn’t really interact with mine)  I made this because Dye used to have the world open for RP, but we’ve long since closed it off. (That’s more geared toward OoC now) I don’t really have plans for pursuing this one outside of for fun!

Unlucky: A fun slice-of-life meets shounen kind of story set in a tightly knit chinatown. Dye helped create the bulk of this verse for a lot of homeless/floating OCS, like Quinn and Airi from my old beckoning cat magical girls team, Jake and Evelyn from anirangers, Tyberius and Farah from wwp’s “D’Amatos” godfather-parody show… stuff like that. It’s a bit more on the world-building side right now but I hope to draw things for it soon.

I also play around in or help with some of Dye’s more solo works like Kingdoms or Romaine Hearts, as well as a few offline projects that aren’t super involved/developed yet.

Magical Girls: 

(yes it gets its own section)

Forecasters:  My lovebaby of a story, featuring weather magical girls. My only active personal project that I want to make into a full blown webcomic right now. It’s 99.7% offline atm, I started this in 2013 after we put down PT. There’s still a lot to do, but I’m really excited about this one. It’s like my self-imposed college final project and/or legitimate story pitch I guess? I wanna post promo art for it so bad but I want at least the first two chapters drawn before that so bear with me…

Starless: Alien powered magical girls. Created from old (2008) tokyo mew mew OCs! The story’s been a bit ambiguous lately but I am very fond of this one and would consider it one I’d like to complete/draw for someday if the plot lets me WRITE IT lmao. Dye is helping me by adopting some of the characters!

Minor  MG Stories: (click the link in the last bullet to see pics of these)

“Book Keepers”: Literature theme college magical girls, collabed with Dye. Currently just a loose idea with really fun fleshed out OCs, but not a super high priority.

“Candyland”: NEW! Candy themed magical girls. A tentative title for a bunch of OCs I’ll be posting soon enough so I guess I’ll add them now. Some of them are old af, some are super new. They’re just an early concept and a bit of a style-experiment.

Cheers!: Drink-themed magical girls. A very old team I don’t really plan on doing anything with right now, just currently trying to redesign them to my liking.. -stares holes into them- LET ME LOVE YOU

Cosmic Club! another design prompt with no story.. YET…. I love them and they seem v popular so it’s possible! We’ll see how it goes.

Even more magical girls over here in this list but are all in a similar ‘concepts only at this time’ status (Lucky is on this list but is no longer a magical girl series)

My Projects:

Shards of Moon: A fateful fantasy epic about birds and songs. Formerly Anathema, the first fully fleshed out “serious” story I wrote… It was terrible! It was merged with another story that had no characters, so all my oldest OCs live here now. I’m very very fond of this one but I’m letting it percolate very slowly. It’s a far off goal for now, but it is shaping up to be a story I’d like to tell.

Sleep Tight: About a little girl and her boogeyman and conquering fear. The second story I wrote in high school. This one needs… a lot of rework and a bit of gutting- I haven’t decided the direction I wanna take it yet, but I don’t mind waiting. (I mean, look at what happened to Shards of Moon- I was so sure I’d trash that whole story and its characters.)

Superglue: I have like NO new art for this one yet lmao.. Young superheroes dealing with past actions they ran away from. A third high-school story that has changed so dramatically it’s not even remotely similar to its first version. It’s basically a baby story with old re-homed OCs in it because I felt sorry for them. ;w;;; I don’t know how far this one will take off yet but yeah

Others:

I’m gonna get ta’ play in @caiterprince​’s universes with Dye too, including the WIP Magical Girl Academy as a means to flesh out more magical girl designs (Eden is the most familiar, but I’ll have more soon), and a few cameos in Plainer in Hindsight and Weaver’s Debt eventually

Fancharacters like my SU gemsonas, my ponies, and my Tokyo Mew Mew OCs are purely for fun. If I want to write an original story about the characters (which has happened, see Solaris and Starless) I’d transplant them first.

I have a few other concepts laying around- placeholders like “fairyverse” or “spacewitchverse” where I throw similar-theme homeless OCs but don’t have a single story idea for, it’s just.. there. for now. So I won’t bother going over those. 

AUs (like elf gfs Band AU) don’t really count as separate unless they become canon. (i.e. what happened with Solaris)

If anyone’s really curious on the development of my worlds and ocs, I honestly highly taking a peek through my sketchdump folder on my DA. (start at the bottom, its infinite scroll) You can find pretty much everything I’ve ever conceptualized in these. I started to sort dumps by story- there’s actually quite a bit of storytelling / oc growth nestled in there if you’re into that sorta info-binging. I-I think it’s kinda fun tbh…. I do apologize in advance for any slurs or problematic wording you may find in the oldest dumps, I’ve been cleaning it over the years but might’ve missed something.

That’s about it for now! (-sweats violently- no more pls i have… too many children.. -wheezes and lays down-)

#long post #beedalee art #bc it's relevant #Anonymous #askbox #i'll add more as they come along i think #maybe i should just hyperlink this post instead of updating separate pages

[frasier-crane-style]

Wonder Woman (2017)

Overall, I'd say it's a B, but a B from a student who was getting all Fs before whose parents love him and want to see him do well, while Marvel is a straight-A student who occasionally slips and gets a B. Not that we have to compare them, but that's the comparison. I'm guessing a lot of this is going to look bad in hindsight when the hyperbole dies down and only the fundamentally solid stuff is left.

Bad

Once more, we get a ‘Greek mythology’ movie that is just Christian cosplay, like one of those Buzzfeed pieces about Disney princesses as bacteria. Zeus is God, Ares is Lucifer, and Diana is Jesus. Boring, lazy, stupid. By the end of the movie, all of the gods are dead, making you wonder what the point of bringing in Greek mythology even was. What’s Greek myth without Hermes, or Hera, or Mount Olympus at all? This is a Wonder Woman who can’t even say Great Hera, because if she worshiped anyone, it’d be Zeus. They don’t even have any mythological beasts show up.

Good

Gal Gadot is actually quite good at this after being largely unremarkable in Batman Vs. Superman, but I feel like the “she’s Christopher Reeve as Superman all over again!” people are either fooling themselves or grading on one hell of a curve. She’s still pretty scrawny—the producers talking about how they hired female commandos and bikers and pro wrestlers and such to play the Amazons is hilarious when you consider they all disappear from the movie thirty minutes in and it’s all a skinny little supermodel with perfect cheekbones from there—and that keeps her from being 100%. I think a Christopher Reeve Superman situation is one where you can’t picture anyone else in the part, and I think someone like Lynn Collins or Bridget Regan could’ve done as good if not better. But, why quibble?

Bad

They wait way too long to reveal Ares and spend way too long on a guy who’s only a red herring, complete with his Bane drugs that just allow him to put up a fight with Wondy for two minutes. Then she kills him, again, in two minutes, and gets into a much bigger fight with the real Ares a second later. Wouldn’t it have worked just as well if she threw a punch and just smeared General Cat Scare against the wall? Anyway, by the end, Ares has like five minutes to stump ‘humans suck, you’re the Godkiller, I’m your brother, let’s work together, oh hey your boyfriend died, he was weak and pathetic, or, I mean, he abandoned you, I mean, aren’t you mad at this woman who was sorta responsible for killing him? Kill her and join me, because I want to marry you or rule at your side or something. I know you just killed like fifty Germans, but dropping a tank on this one non-teenager will decide your fate! Also, she’s so comically evil that she gets turned on talking about death, but she’s also, you know, a person too!”

Good

The No Man’s Land sequence.

Bad

Typical Amazon pacifism in this. “We must never raise our hands in anger. Oh, shit, who are those people? KILL THEM ALL! KILL THAT GUY WHO MIGHT BE ONE OF THEM! IS HE NOT ONE OF THEM? KILL HIM ANYWAY!”

Good

Even if the actual backstory was balls, I liked the Bottulucci painting vibe they give the Amazons’ origin. It seems that’s de rigeur for every one of these epic summer blockbusters now, but it was done well here.

Bad

“Hey, we’re the Amazons. When bad guys attack and we have the high ground and are armed with ranged weapons, we love to rappel down and run up to them with our bows and arrows so that we can shoot them really close. No way that could backfire on us! Warrior race, baby!”

(I’m surprised that when she got to the WW1 trenches, Diana didn’t need to have the concept of ‘cover’ explained to her.)

Good

The chemistry between Diana and Steve is great, even if they literally write him as standing naked in front of her bragging about his junk one moment, then refusing to sleep next to her because they’re not married the next.

Bad

I get fish out of water, but Diana doesn’t understand the concept of the chain of command? Amazon society has a queen, senators, and an army, but no one gives orders? There aren’t discussions that members of the public aren’t privy to? There isn’t even the idea of lowering your voice in a public place so you can have a private conversation about a sensitive subject?

I get what they’re going for, but the whole “FEMINISM!” thing falls flat when it’s not like any ol’ GUY off the street can be let into a top-level war council either, right? With no security clearance? If he can, man, were those German spies who went after Steve wasting their time. You could’ve just walked into Allied High Command and started shooting, or found out what they were planning. And no one would have a problem with it because you’re not a woman.

Good/Bad

The costume is colorful enough, faithful, and aesthetically pleasing, but damn is that skirt short. I mean, it’s not even a miniskirt. I know, I know, I’m a sexist pig, but it’s a bit hard to take Diana’s angst over war crimes seriously when she’s wearing something with the coverage of a WWE championship belt. At least Supergirl’s skirt is within a day’s walk of her knees. Diana’s just a walking upskirt shot.

Bad

C’mon, they changed the whole setting to WW1 to avoid Captain America comparisons, then they do away with the male lead in the exact same way? That’s just lazy. And as I pointed out, the ‘it’s on a timer!’ thing was stupid.

Good/Bad

They give Diana and Steve a colorful band of multiethnic sidekicks (who are… soldiers? Smugglers? Spies? Unclear. Steve has to bribe them, but they also take orders for him, or… something? Anyway, they’re some of those mercenary types who are only mercenaries to be won over by the hero and do the right thing). That made sense in Captain America, since Cap is just an Olympic athlete, but with Wondy supposed to be Superman-level powerful, it comes off a little yeah, okay. Like when they make themselves useful by giving her a ‘boast’ to get a sniper in a clock tower. Yeah, she can jump 100 feet into the air, but not 106 feet. Gotcha.

At least they keep it down to the reasonable number of three people and give all of them an introduction and a bit of personality instead of “This is Katana! Her sword steals souls!” If you’re told me that one of the Howling Commandoes in First Avenger was, say, Kevin Sorbo, I’d buy it. He could’ve been in there, who knows?

Bad

Diana’s catchphrase here is “It's not about deserve. It's about what you believe,” which is basically her saying “humanity doesn’t deserve my help, because I’m so awesome, but I’m going to help them anyway.” Which, again, basically her being Jesus, only she’s actually a woman in a very short skirt who’s good at punching. If it’s weird to make Superman into the Christ, it’s even weirder to do it with Diana. And a bit of a snobbish thing to say. Can you imagine Batman going “these Gothamites don’t deserve my help, but I’m a really cool guy, so…”?

Bad

“Where I’m from, generals fight alongside their troops!” Really? And how’d that work out? Seems like Themyscira would've been kinda screwed if they needed to come up with a battle plan and their top woman had just bled out on a beach. Obviously, you can criticize the callousness of WW1 military leadership, but not by comparing it to a made-up fantasy culture. Yeah, and did you know that in Ponyland, Princess Sparkles doesn’t ever drop bombs on people?

Bad

The movie has Diana sorta slowly working out her abilities throughout the first act instead of just knowing them by the time she reaches present-day. Well, I guess she’s in her twenties or so, so it’s going to take her a little while yet to figure out how to jump long distances and climb up walls—what? She’s actually the daughter of Zeus and thousands of years old?  Talk about your slow learners.

Bad

Diana: I see now! The true superpower is… LOVE.

Diana: *blows the shit out of Ares… but lovingly, I guess*

Yeah, it’s kinda crazy that this film’s multimillion dollar treatment of Diana defeating Ares isn’t as clever or thoughtful as what George Perez came up with some forty years ago, with Diana forcing Ares to see that if he keeps pushing humanity into wars, it’ll end with a nuclear holocaust that’ll leave nothing for him to rule over.

Here, though, Ares isn’t empowered by worship, so why should he care? And/but he’s pushing for an armistice to keep the war at a slow boil already (until WW2), only he’s also helping the General start the war up again full blast. It really shows what a house of cards the plot is and how Ares’s characterization, plan, and motivation don’t actually make sense. Just tell me this… if Diana had never showed up, how would his plan have played out? He gets the WW2 armistice, but also the Germans conquering everything through the super-mustard gas? Which is it? What does he even want?

Baddest

This is absolutely a movie in 2017 where someone sees someone else about to be shot and dives in front of them while screaming NOOOOOO! And then the other person sees them get hit and screams NOOOOOOOOOO!

#wonder woman #wonder woman spoilers #ww spoilers

[arabellaflynn]

I am pretty good at figuring out where other people's pressable buttons are. It's a shitty, shitty superpower you win as a consolation prize when you grow up dependent on someone whose mood swings have no clear correlation with anything happening out here in the wider shared reality. Because their experience of the world is so different, there's no good way to predict what their reactions will be, so you just learn to throw logic out the window and watch for early warning signs that you should make yourself scarce. [My mother, for instance, used to get into these moods where everything made her angry, and she took it out on the rest of the household. In hindsight, she was probably suffering from terrible anxiety/overload, which I completely understand. I don't blame her for needing a quiet space in which to recover. I do blame her for deciding this quiet space needed to be the kitchen. Where all the food and ice water was kept. In an open-plan house. They had a perfectly good master suite with a locking door, which both of us children were scared to knock on. Determining when it was safe to go get yourself a drink was something of an art form.] I try not to invoke this power very much. It's sort of like carrying around the One Ring. It's not that you can't use it ever, or that anything you do with it is automatically evil. It's just that if you use it constantly, especially selfishly, it will fuck you over. Manipulating people means never really knowing if they understand what you want from them, or whether they'll get angry over it if they suddenly realize. With enough practice, it becomes painfully easy to get people to do things they never would have thought of themselves. Once you understand that, it's a short hop to triple-checking everything that pops into your head, to make sure that idea really was yours to start with -- and if not, what motivation of someone else's it might be serving. You wind up sitting paranoid and alone in the dark, obsessing over what strangers have got in their pocketses. The one exception I make is compliments. I know from experience that when you do something stunningly, blindingly well, you often don't get praise commensurate with the actual results you produce -- people assume that if you're that good at something, it is stupidly obvious even to you and therefore mentioning it to you will just make them sound like a useless and unoriginal doof. I've generally quit caring if I sound like a doof, and I can't see how saying nice things to people will make the world stop spinning. I don't make shit up just to say something nice, and I don't say nice things just to get my way; I don't expect anything at all in return, in fact. I generally deliver these things as Wham Lines, right before I walk away. If I'm right that the thing I just said is significant to the person hearing it, this saves them from trying to figure out how to answer in the moment, and if I'm wrong, then it cuts that awkward interaction mercifully short. I don't need a response to any of these things. I don't even care if they remember I was the one who said it. I have a million opinions on everything, and I accept that most of them aren't important to anyone who isn't me. 'You're really good at that' just seems like information that people should have, especially considering how difficult it is to see expertise sneaking up on you when you're the one doing all the hours of practicing every day. And especially especially if the thing they're good at is connected to any of those big fat buttons that just sit there taunting me with their pressable-ness. That means it's important, and important things tend to be calibrated such that silence comes off as more criticism than approval. [On very rare occasions, I get the satisfaction of telling someone something I think they do not hear anywhere near enough. It accidentally kinda-sorta got me the answer to one of my weird questions a few weeks ago, which is even rarer. I told ye ballroom instructor in exactly so many words that one of the things that got my attention was that when he dances, he looks like he enjoys being something beautiful, and I wondered if that were real or a performance choice. First time I've ever seen a grown man devolve into Flower.] Tangentially, the weirdness quotient of unexpected compliments can be used as something of a diagnostic sign. You know that one guy at work who's entire schtick is saying terrible things to people and then defending himself with, "Hey, I just tell it like it is, man. No filter, that's me"? Yeah, no. He totally has a filter, he's just too invested in being a crabby edgelord to use it on you. People who actually have no filter might do that sometimes, but in my experience, they're equally likely to say bizarre nice things. (More, probably, presuming they make some sort of effort to spend most of their time with people they like,) They tend to deliver the kinds of compliments that sound very earnest, but like they have perhaps lost some sort of cultural context in the translation from the original Martian. Things like, "I really like the way your t's stand up straight even when you write in cursive," or, "the way you tie your shoelaces is really nifty!" Their appropriateness sorting algorithm might be perfectly okay, but they have a defective normality filter installed between brain and mouth, so whatever thing has inadvertently struck them as pleasing is likely to be commented on. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2wpptaW via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

#IFTTT #Blogger #Unsolicited Advice

[murasaki-murasame]

Monogatari Series Rewatch Part 1: Bakemonogatari [Hitagi Crab]

I was planning to keep up with the rewatch going on over at the anime subreddit, in preparation for Owari S2 coming out, but I got sidetracked and now it’s been going on for like a month and a half. Hoo boy. Let’s try and get this done before the next season starts. This whole thing is just gonna me my vague unplanned ramblings as I rewatch each arc. I’m caught up on the anime, outside of the Kizu films, so I’m not really gonna avoid spoiling later stuff. Keep that in mind.

More under the cut. [This got a bit longer than expected. Huh]

So here we are. Owari S2 is finally approaching and so now I’m finally getting around to rewatching the entire series. Woo. Truth be told, I haven’t actually rewatched this series at all since I first saw it around 2013 or so, outside of stuff like the OPs/EDs and a few random good scenes I could find on youtube. So it’s been a while since I first watched this arc, to put it lightly.

Probably the most surreal part of this was just how much I actually remember quite vividly. But that’s largely due to having seen like a thousand screenshots and reaction images from the show over the last few years. I’m almost more used to seeing this show in static image form rather than in motion, so this took some getting used to. It made it feel pretty nostalgic, at least.

I’d definitely forgotten the extent of how bizarre and sort of creepy and tense the early parts of the show were. It definitely gets toned down a little in later seasons. It makes a lot of sense in hindsight that the director of this season worked on Kizu after this and someone else took up work on the rest of the series. I kinda wish that some of the artistic decisions from this point were used more/at all later in the series. Like that really Sayonaya Zetsubou Sensei-esque part of Araragi having his head ripped off and spaghetti flying everywhere. I completely forgot that happened, so that threw me off a bit. I kinda loved it, though.

On the topic of artistic elements, it’s interesting to me how ambitious and dense this still feels even though you can tell how Shaft was probably falling apart at the seams as a company behind the scenes. It still feels remarkably similar to later parts of the series, just less polished. It probably helps that the version I’m watching seems to be the BD version. Not sure how that’ll hold up for future seasons. Anyway, I love the attention to detail with how all the characters move and pose and talk. This show really knows how to sell you on it’s characters immediately. The whole first-person POV scene of Araragi talking to Hanekawaw and fidgeting with his pen, with it almost always covering her eyes, was a pretty fantastic scene in general, with setting up the dynamic they have, and his personality. I kinda wish there were more scenes like that, but even in Bake I don’t remember there being any others. It’s fitting that it’s one of the first proper scenes we get of Araragi, though, since it helps to immediately set up the idea of us seeing things through his eyes, both literally and metaphorically. The way that this show plays with concepts of unreliable narration in a visual way really is amazing, even if most people, including me, tend to not notice it before we start getting arcs from the POV of other characters. But I’ll get into that when the time comes. Which won’t be until the SS arcs, really.

I read this arc in LN form a few months ago when it came out, and seeing this arc again in anime form, it just makes me more and more surprised at how much Shaft added to the experience. Logically I knew that the LN wasn’t exactly gonna have art or music or voice acting, but it surprised me how relatively . . . barren it felt, and how much slower the pacing seemed. But I’ll talk about that more if/when I do a big review post of the three Bake LNs.

The relative plainness of the LN’s tone made it even more surreal and interesting to be reminded just how dark and creepy and sinister and fast-paced this arc in particular feels in the anime. I really love it. Especially the weird little Kizu recap at the start [which was kinda odd to watch when we now have the Kizu films to compare it with]. And the rapid text flashes and such. It’s a great example of how much artistic direction can affect the atmosphere of something like this.

It feels weird to talk about the actual story of this arc, at least since I don’t want to literally recap the entire thing or anything. And I don’t want to get ahead of myself and talk about how this plays into other arcs, especially Kizu. I guess I’ll work it out as I go along. Anyway, one thing I definitely want to talk about is that I’d somehow forgotten, at least before I read the LN version of this arc, that Senjougahara was a victim of sexual assault. Since it’s basically never mentioned again after this arc. I really appreciate how this series can touch upon some surprisingly serious, real-life stuff in realistic and nuanced ways, while still having such a bombastic, comedic atmosphere most of the time. It’s neat. It makes me appreciate that she’s depicted almost always as being completely in control of herself and her body, and that she’s the one who tends to be romantically forward with Araragi. Obviously this is part of the unreliable narration and everyone else sees her as being way more ‘normal’, so to say, but still. Sometimes the fanservice in this series is a bit . . . iffy, but as a whole the story avoids handling Senjougahara in too gross of a manner, in the context of what happened to her in the past.

Which reminds me, it still surprises me how much I like their relationship, considering how much I tend to be turned off by perverted male MCs and tsundere female love interests. I honestly can’t really fully explain WHY I like them so much, but I do. It’s actually one of the few m/f ships I genuinely really like, instead of feeling sorta ambivalent toward [or outright disliking]. Who would have thought?

I don’t have a lot to say about Araragi at this very moment, at least since the more interesting parts of his character play out in later arcs. But I do really, really like Senjougahara, and I wish she appeared more in later arcs. She’s just immediately compelling as a character. I love how weighty and overwhelming and sharp her presence in so many scenes feel, as Araragi tries to keep up with her. And I quite like her softer side, which we see at the end of the arc.

I also still really love basically every OP and ED in this entire series, even though I feel like I never quite liked this arc’s OP and Bake’s ED as much as most people do. I feel like a lot of the later OPs feel more interesting and memorable, and I tend to find all the EDs in this series to be a bit forgettable for some reason. Oh well. I still love the art in the ED though, and I appreciate that they kept that style intact for the later ones.

I feel like this post in particular might end up being longer than later ones since there’s a lot to get off my chest right at the start. Hah. My other ramble posts will probably be shorter. Dunno about the review posts I might do for each entire season, though.

P.S: If there’s anything I’d like to get across in this entire rewatch, it’s that, even if there’s some iffy elements that I sorta ignore, there’s still a whole list of elements to this series that I adore, which have nothing to do with fanservice. As a gay man, it sometimes bugs me when people act like this series is nothing but cute girls, as if there’d be no room to like the series at all if cute girls aren’t your thing. So I want to let myself ramble about all the other parts of the show and how much I love them. [Though, ironically enough, there’s actually some elements to the fanservice that I genuinely appreciate, which I’ll probably mention as they appear. Which I already sorta did a bit in this post. Sometimes people go a little overboard about acting like the fanservice in this show is pure art and that all of it has purpose and meaning outside of, ya know, fanservice. There’s definitely parts of it worth discussing and praising, but lol let’s not kid ourselves, this series is definitely aimed largely at people who like cute girls, and that’s fine.]

#murasaki rambles #monogatari series #bakemonogatari #i'm gonna try and watch an arc of this a day to catch up in time for owari s2 #but some of the longer arcs might take longer