#like yes i can pay for those things from savings but it’s not sustainable!!!!

[transmechanicus]

Sometimes it’s very important to go to bed at 8pm

#my stuff #i know i’m very tired like i’ve been getting up at 6 for a week and having shit sleep and falling asleep at like 1am #so horrible to start #but finding out from the older grad students how little we’re making has destroyed me #i will be losing money for the next YEAR bc rent and car insurance is gonna take my whole monthly paycheck #no money for food without dipping into savings. i have enough and i’ll survive but FUCK #nothing for gifts for my family. nothing for doctor’s visits. nothing for HRT. nothing for a goddamn little treat once in a while #like yes i can pay for those things from savings but it’s not sustainable!!!! #this CANNOT CONTINUE #i want to CRY i was so excited to try and start HRT soon i can’t do that like this and i still owe my parents like 30k for undergrad and #and i’m tired #i’m tired of having to worry about money. i’m tired of getting paid so little #i’m tired of not being able to spend money on myself without feeling guilty at my balance going down #this really sucks i’m just gonna do a fuck it expense and blow $500 on looking cute for my birthday/halloween #cause what’s 1 more month of scraping by even worth in the grand scheme of things

[bigboysfalldeep]

Soccer Boy - Mind Slave

I moved to a new town, got a new job, and started a new life. I wanted to start over, but all of that changed when I found my new roommate. Mike, 22, is chronically obsessed with the gym, playing soccer, and, what matters most, broke. He was looking for a roommate to basically pay rent while he spent all of his money on his body and his athletic career.

I simply couldn't resist. I saved so much money throughout my life that I could sustain that flat, pretending to be an office worker, when in fact, I use my time to take over men's minds and have my way with their bodies and their bank accounts. I tried to hide my desire in front of him, but somehow he saw right through me. It must have been the way I was looking at him working out, or maybe he realized I was going through his stuff.

One day, he confronted me, got angry, and called me a faggot. Still, he didn't kick me out; instead, he even teased me more and more, but got angry with me when he caught me looking. I needed him to obey me soon. One day, he joined me in the living room, wearing his soccer kit, while I was watching TV. "What are you doing here, fag?" He grunted, snatched the remote from my hands, and made space for him on the sofa. "Watching TV." I mumbled when he shoved me aside with his body, so I was now on the edge of the sofa. "Not anymore." He smiled for a second before giving me an annoyed look. I believed that if it were for my money, he would have gotten rid of me ages ago. But he needed me, and I wanted him.

I took my phone, unlocked it, and went to a specific app. A wonderful little thing I came across a year ago. It lets me remotely control any phone with this installed, sending signals, images, and electronic impulses through the device. While he was showering, I prepared his phone, just waiting for the perfect moment. I wanted him so bad, seeing him in his kit, his thick dick bulging already, and his muscles testing the limits of the shirt fabric.

With one little click, I sent a push-up note to his phone, a small message disguised as an Instagram notification. Mike took his phone and, with a smirk, opened it. Right when he clicked on the note, his screen turned dark before a spiral appeared all over the screen, a dozen colors spinning and turning, sucking him deeper and deeper. He instantly froze, his body tensed, and his eyes grew wide. "What the fuuuck?" he said, stretching the last word.

I could tell he was hooked right away. I have seen that countless times before. Those men, strong and buff, are mostly weak-minded. Easy to manipulate. "A pretty little thing, isn't it?" I said, moving a little closer to him. Mike moved his head to look at me, but something made him look into the beautiful spiral. "It...is." He nodded slowly, still focused on his phone. With one press of a button, I activated the second function of the app, letting it send low electric impulses through his hands and, later, his entire body. Mikes body twitched shortly, once, twice, the phone firm in his hand. I love seeing men like that, their bodies getting encouraged to tense and to grow bigger, and so did his. At first, his biceps grew larger, followed by his pecs, chest, and abs. They're now extremely visible through the shirt, and his nipples pierce through it as well. My eyes wandered down his beautiful body to his pulsating dick. It moved from left to right, up and down, dancing, wanting me to grab it. But I needed to be careful. I place a hand on his shoulder and lean in.

"Mike, can you hear me?" I said, and he nodded. "Yes." He started drooling slightly. "Good boy. Then listen to me. I want you to go even deeper into your mind. Let go of your physical form; let your body obey me; follow my every order." I said, intensifying the grip on his shoulder. For a second, it seemed like it wasn't working, until he leaned his head back, moaning quietly. Mike closed his eyes before his head sank down to his chest. "Heads up, boy," I said, and slowly, he did. I watched him sit there, drooling, his cock still twitching and his well-formed body pressing against his clothes.

I couldn't help but start to touch him. I placed my hands on his chest, stroking him harder and harder while he looked into the void, his normally bright eyes now dull and vacant. "So good." I chuckled nervously. Better than I imagined. "Lean Back." I ordered. "Yes." Mike said it like a robot and rested his back against the sofa while I kept touching his wonderful chest. I could tell he enjoyed it, partly by the derpy smile spreading across his lips and his cock tenting inside his shorts. "I want more." I ran a hand through my hair, thinking about what to do next. "Take your socks off." I grabbed his hard cock before he reached for his feet as I got up.

"Very good." I smiled and kneeled down. As Mike sat there, I fondled his big thighs, tracing the outlines of his tattoo with a finger before grabbing his cock some more. It was already leaking quite a bit—a wet spot spreading through the thin fabric of his shorts.

"You like it, faggot?" I said angrily, channeling his anger towards me. "Yes." He drooled harder while I began to move my hand up and down his massive cock. Mike started to moan loudly, again and again. "Fuck." I removed myself,got up, p and motioned for him to do the same.

"Take that shirt off." I pulled at it and watched him slowly undress himself.

"Very good boy, indeed." I said, and I took a step closer, placing both of my hands at his thick pecs again, before playing with his cute nipples. "Freeze." Mike's body tensed again, all of his muscles reacting to my every touch. I began to touch him again, firmly, with my hands encompassing all of his upper body.

My hands ran up and down his pecs, abs, and even up to his neck. I felt his shoulders, his firm biceps, and back to his beautiful chest, but when I looked into his eyes, I could tell he was slowly gaining consciousness again. "No." My whole body was shaking, and I panicked for a second before I saw his phone still lying on the sofa.

I took it and handed it to him. "Mike, look at the pretty spiral again." He nodded and looked at his phone again.

I needed to do something. And there was one thing I could do. I picked up my phone, opened the app, and clicked on the electrical impulse button. This time, I increased the frequency and power of the pulse. Mike's whole body got stiff and rigid while shaking slightly. "Can you hear me, Mike?" I said nervously, and after a few seconds, he opened his mouth again.

"Yes." I sighed. "Good. Now. You will go even deeper. Let go of your struggles. Let me tell you what to do. Let your body be my slave." I said, and with that last word, he closed his eyes, and the phone dropped to the floor. I walked around him and hugged him from behind, letting my hard cock grind on his tight hole through his shorts. I needed to restrain myself, or otherwise I would have shot a load right then and there.

"Take them off." I moaned loudly, pressing my crotch against his arse. Slowly, Mike moved his hands and managed to pull them down without falling over.

Now just in his boxers, he stood there, drooling and his cock leaking more and more, staining his tight white boxers with precious cum. From behind, I grabbed his erect cock and played with it, jerking him off while he let out moan after moan. I felt myself leaking now too. "Kneel." I whispered into his ear, and without another word, he did. Enjoying the sight of my cocky roomate on his knees, I walked around, positioning my throbbing cock right in front of his soft face.

"Pull my pants down." I smirked and watched him grab my waist and slip his fingers inside my pants. Tenderly, he pulled it down, causing my cock to bounce, making me chuckle. I never imagined him sucking me off, and right now, I could live that fantasy. "Worship my cock, boy." I touched myself before he leaned in, kissing it, licking it, and touching it passionately. Mike steadied himself against my thighs and went all in.

I shot a load prematurely, the thick liquid pressing through the thin fabric. Instantly, Mike sucked it off before fondling with my dick again. "Good boy, now, suck." I grabbed my cock and felt him pull my boxers down. At first, my wet dick slapped him roughly, flushing his face with color, but he didn't mind. In a second, he took all of me inside his mouth and started to suck me off. And it felt good—so good, like fucking the perfect mouth—and even though he claimed to be straight, he must have done this before. Mike knew how to push my buttons, how to move his mouth, and how not to gag with my cock inside him.

It didn't take long for me to reach my limits, but before he could finish me, I pulled out. Just in time for me to cum all over his face. It spread all over his face; he flinched and groaned. The second one erupted towards his bare chest, covering him in my sticky cum. Again and again, I shot another load, covering him fully. "Fuuuuck." I moaned, trying my best to control myself. As soon as I went dry, I stroked Mike's face, neck, and chest, rubbing my cum into his skin. "Like that." I pet him playfully while he just nods.

His eyes rolled back for a second before a derpy smile spread across his face again. "Get up." I said, and he did. I could tell he enjoyed it too, given the massive wet patch all around his still-throbbing dick. "Are you done?" I touched his neck and his dick. To my surprise, he shook his head. "Follow me then." I led him into my bedroom and sat down on the bed, motioning for him to join me. Turning him around, I hugged him from behind again, one arm on his chest, the other around his neck.

"Now for the finale." I breathed down his neck, choking him slightly. Mike didn't fight back; he took a deep breath, awaiting my commands.

"Every time I touch you, you will get hard. Your body will crave my touch; it will crave a release from my hand and my will." I said, stroking him lovingly while choking him. I managed to pull his wet cock out of his briefs, causing him to groan breathlessly. "You can touch yourself and play with yourself; nothing will make you cum. And once the pressure gets too high, you will get back into this state and follow my orders." I said, tightening my grip. Instinctively, he grabbed his own cock with both of his hands, trying to make him cum, but nothing happened. "Do you understand me?" I said, letting him breathe again. "Yes." Mike moaned, and his body went stiff again. "Once you release yourself now, this will be your reality. You will be mine; you will be a slave." I stroked him while he took another breath. "I will be yours." He said that, and with that, I wrapped my hand around his cock. With one move, the tip erupted, and I aimed for his chest again. This time, it was his own cum. I loved seeing his body twitch, his eyes so blank, and his cock so hard.

After a minute of shooting massive loads, he went dry as well, and I released Mike. "Get up and get clean, pig." I pushed him, and he stood up. "Once you're done, you will get out of that state again and won't remember a thing about today. The condition is what stays." He looked at me with his eyes shining slightly, nodded, and left. 

I fell down onto the bed, touching myself again. This is going to be fun.

#tf story #male hypno #male hypnosis #gay hypno #hypno story #soccer hypno #soccer gear

[gayhenrycreel]

okay i filled out a google doc survey of aro experiences in the queer community and at the end i kinda went on a commie rant, so this is it copy pasted. (yes my mutuals, im aware as i reread this that this sounds like the blorbos 4.07 monologue)

i want people to know that no one should ever be in a relationship just because they want to be considered normal. alloros included. the relationship hierarchy hurts everyone.

hierarchy has always been the problem. its time that people start realising that we are all equals, and the idea of any particular thing being inherently better than another is the basis for amatonormativity, homophobia, racism, transphobia, misogyny, eugenics, and ultimately fascism. "superiority" does not exist.

even the natural world is negatively affected by human ideas of hierarchy. conservation efforts are for animals, occasionally plants, and never for fungi. fungi are barely even researched properly compared to other clades. how many fungi have gone extinct without anyone knowing, because no one cares?

this affects humans directly. penicillin comes from a fungus. hallucinigenic mushrooms can treat anxiety, depression, adhd, and even ptsd. lions mane contains biochemicals that prevent cell death, which means (and research is ongoing) it could slow aging, lead to longer lives, and quite significantly, prevent dementia.

those are just known fungi. imagine how many are out there that could save lives that are endangered and dying, but no one cares to save them because they are small and not very noticeable. theres an antioxidant thats exclusively found in fungi. that means it too could prevent cell damage, such as those that cause cancer.

if i were to get into human prejudice this would go on forever. hierarchy kills. it destroys entire species, cultures, lives. the solution to defeating amatonormativity is to remove hierarchy.

this would also solve infinite other problems. we could no longer have to work our asses off for the profit of billionares. we would use resources when we need them, not for some hypothetical world where they might be bought on mass. no one needs a billion iphones. the slaves who make them certainly dont.

things should be produced when they are actually in demand, not just so elon can get money he will never use. that money could go to education, science, sustainable energy, medicine, conservation, and literally billions of people who are starving because elon and bezos want to think about their sci fi fantasys that they do not allow to become reality by not bloody paying their slaves, as well as hoarding money that could be used by places that could legitimately get people to mars like nasa.

elon works closely with nasa, but nasa cant afford to pay their own scientists. many of nasas workers hate spacex. one even quit over it. there are so many people who could help humanity, who could invent cures for AIDS, vaccines for deadly diseases, better solar panels, solutions for space junk, more efficient farming, more nutritious native plants that people have harvested for centuries before colonizers decided nutrient poor cabbage is better than the vitamin rich indigenous vegetables.

like seriously, there are so many plants that indigenous societies have been eating for thousands of years that the world just doesn't know about anymore.

the wider queer community could do a lot for arospecs by taking off the hierarchy glasses. we all need to take off the hierarchy glasses. its killing the world.

#anarchism #communism #queer #aromantic #arospec #aspec #survey #anti capitalism #anarchy #eco anarchy

[returntosaturn271995]

Thursday, October 19th: Trivial Pursuits

I redownloaded Door Dash. Don't hate me okay? I wanted sushi. Plus I decided I earned it.

Things I did to be a non-garbage person:

1). I went on a long walk to the beach (would have been a run but I'm not rushing the shin splint)

2). Made coffee at home instead of buying it

3). Did yoga, my body has truly never looked better

4). I am wearing matching cheetah PJs

5). I got a ton of work done

6). Drank a ton of water

7). Did a load of laundry and a load of dishes

8). Read two chapters (one fiction, one non-fiction)

9). Made a gourmet grilled cheese with fig and caramelized onion

10.) Supported Lexi through the Hamas crisis because some people have fucking real problems, ERIN, Jesus.

The book of love is long and boring.

But I regularly find myself happiest when I'm doing something. Even though being "get up and go" was never something I was previously all that great at. It is the only thing to build confidence.

Today in particular the little habits felt like bullshit. Trivial. Real terrorism is happening to real people. And here I am unsuccessfully executing triangle pose on my bright blue yoga mat from Amazon as if that's going to save my shallow soul from going to hell.

But the problem is if I don't stretch, then my shin splint is going to continue to be a thorn in my side. Plus exercise helps me sleep. Plus the daily meditation today was about the importance of routine. Once you have the basic bullshit down and the nitty gritty on autopilot, you can spare some mental energy for the important tasks at hand.

You know, like emailing people about Froot Loops while the world burns.

Hmmm. That seemed funny in my head but it's also grim as fuck seeing it written out like that.

Still, I deserve clean clothes and clean dishes. I want work experience to pay the bills and to travel. I like to cook, read, meditate, stretch, go outside, and write on a daily basis. I like to talk sincerely with my friends about how desensitized and scary the world can be and how important it is to stay human and love others in their own humanity.

All those things are small, and trivial. But together, over time, they sustain a peaceful life filled with growth. Even as my fiction book (Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey) very accurately pointed out: “everyone involved in adult learning was running from something.”

Yeah, well. (inhales joint) I got sick of staying in the same place and refusing to learn anything. Now I might be a single loser, but my skin is glowing and I know a fuck ton about current events.

If I lose sight of the small things, I forget how many people would kill for ordinary right now.

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

A conversation with someone I love:

Lexi Goldberg: You’d hope so, but people posting the lies are educated They won’t think or even engage with me It makes no sense One girl told me she wouldn’t debate with me because I “seem emotional” about it. Like lol yes I’m emotional I’ve lost people and my family and country is at risk

Erin Burks: She can go fuck herself

Lexi Goldberg: Right?! I was shooketh lol

Erin Burks: Just because someone is educated in the traditional sense doesn’t mean their not an idiot

Lexi Goldberg: Like I re-read it 3 times and then home girl blocked me

Erin Burks: Like I’m sorry, but who the fuck is Harvard letting in?

Lexi Goldberg: So so true

Erin Burks: Lol as I misspell “they’re”

Lexi Goldberg: Like these students are chanting glory to the murders I do that all the time and then have to quickly edit my messages on work team channels Lolol Comes with texting fast 💁🏻‍♀️ But really Erin, I cannot thank you enough Daniel is also so appreciative for you

Erin Burks: You don’t need to thank me, I’m just more upset that people I love are feeling this Aw tell him I’m sending him love as well Don’t let any armchair intellectuals try and convince you otherwise. They’re idiots who need to get off Tik Tok and read a book.

Lexi Goldberg: We love you and are so appreciative More than we can put into words It means the world to us And truly truly gives us hope And we need hope so bad right now

Erin Burks: I love you and I mean it that other people feel this way Fuck anyone on social media making you feel low Your loss is real, your history is real, you are fucking real.

[humansun]

SUCCESSFUL BRAIN DRAIN!

Written Friday, August 11th, 2023 at 4:23AM

Good morning! Hello brain drain. I have plenty to write about today.

A few thoughts are:

Tanya + another aunt’s birthday is coming up, sweet!

There’s a million things running through my mind this morning

How do humans handle having so much stimuli in their life and head?

I was just thinking of something but it left me

Oh yeah sleeping an adequate amount of time every night actually affects my day and mood completely

Getting out of bullet points for a second to retrieve myself. I had an ample amount of sleep last night and I feel for the most part, very recovered from an exhausting day yesterday. Working out on less than 6 hours of sleep does not work for me and I have to accept that if I sleep late, I won’t be working out at 5am, because I won’t even put in my best for the workout. Plus, I’m lucky enough to have Fuzzy’s place as a backup gym!

Some thoughts that came into my mind this morning and crystallized in my mind was whether I genuinely like the person my partner is. The answer after all that thinking is yes, because he is a kind, integrity-based, and considerate human being, that cares about me and the people around him. 

As for the other traits that I’m not the hugest fan about - him sometimes being on his phone for long periods of time, his downtime is watching TV, his mealtimes are watching TV, he doesn’t really enjoy going to museums as much as I do, and he’s a super duper homebody. There are pros and cons to all of these traits like I get to be the person who travels while he holds down the house or something, but at the same time it would be nice to be with someone who’s on the same page about deep convos, living life relentlessly, etc.

However, I also recognize that he’s a Ravenclaw, and for that I am grateful. There are many traits he has that I don’t have, and the love he gives me is beyond what I could ever ask any human being for. I am hoping we grow together and build a world that makes us both happy and excited to continue to live and be great humans!

These mosquito bites and/or eczema are killing me! I don’t have enough self-control to not scratch. Anyways, that’s a little bit of what I was thinking about lately. Oh! I had LinkedIn Learning for the past month and didn’t use it except for 1 ⅓ of courses and now I am regretting my time not using it, since there was a lot of free information in there that would cost me $20 a month.

I guess it’s not the end of the world to pay $20 for usable knowledge, but it’s okay because I can potentially finesse to get that education somewhere else! I also am so proud that I’m now spreading my awareness of high-yields savings accounts with my friends and family. Let’s go! Let’s grow our moneys!

I’m really grateful I get to spend time with people that I love whether in the household, in my workplace, in my daily life, etc. I’m determined to continue to find ways to make my life sustainable because I deserve to live a colorful life, I do.

Jesus, there were a million and one things I was thinking about but now they all fled my mind. I guess another thing is my creative practice at this moment. It looks like its off as I’m applying to some programs that require written application materials, so I’m only exerting my energy towards that direction adn not necessarily towards storytelling or character building. I’m not going to lie, my life does feel a bit empty not practicing those things and I want to figure out how I can do it a little bit everyday.

Living a logistics filled life honestly feels boring, and I never thought I’d say this after years of doing logistics work in all of my event management jobs. I’m proud to have come this far and I wouldn’t be sure I’d think these thoughts had I not quit my normal 9-5 and questioned my life a little harder. I know I took a leap and it comes with its own challenges, but learning how to invest in myself time and energy wise is something I wouldn’t take back for the world.

At this time, perhaps I’m not the most financially free person in the world, but I’m also deeply aware that I want to live a normal person life and do normal people things like take vacations throughout the year and have trips to look forward to. I’ve never spent more than probably $500 on one person, but I’m learning that there is a gift of giving and surprising someone you love with something they would appreciate immensely.

Speaking of someone that I love, back on the topic of my partner because it’s important. He got a health screening and his health is alright, but I can’t help but think that I want my partner to take care of their own health so it doesn’t become a burden on me. I believe I could be thinking this way because I take my mom to the doctor pretty often and I almost feel like I’m parenting her.

I wouldn’t be parenting my partner, because obviously, he could handle his own doctor’s appointments, but in the case that anything sudden were to happen, I would take the grief and all the hits for another human’s lack of proactivity.

Perhaps its because I know how to take care of myself healthwise that I’m also projecting these feelings onto my partner. But - at the same time, my partner could also say the exact same about me and where I’m putting my money and how I’m not really working a full-time job, getting health benefits, etc. Thinking about the future is a really tough thing and how its going to pan out, but I’m hoping things continue to change in a way that is amazing and difficult and growth-oriented!

There were two things that were sitting in my mind yesterday that I wanted to massage out. The first one I’d say is how being grateful for people, even if what they do isn’t the greatest thing (to a certain extent, this thought) can be helpful. For example, my grandma’s crappy behavior may fuel a plotline in my story. Of course, I’m never grateful for the trauma we experience at all. But, I realized that all stories and characters experience conflict, and that conflict is usually inspired by our lives. It’s really interesting realizing that because it’s a very zoomed in thought.

Another thing, I was thinking about how there really is no way I can’t get to where I want to be when I’m this young, determined, excited, and pumped about what is to come in the future. There is no way I can’t. Especially if I keep trying. If I keep trying, then people will know about me, my path, and who I am. Even if I tried and things never worked out, something would eventually work out, even if it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.

Like, I realized that I doubt myself alot and my work ethic and who I am. Like I think people hate me or dislike me, but I realized that a lot of people think I’m a cool cat and want to spend more time with me (although I don’t allow it because I’m busy and have a bajillion things to do). Realizing this gave me the confidence at least for yesterday to keep moving through and knowing that at some point all of this would pay off. Like there would be fruit to my labor. And I’m not super confident that I have faith, but I’m confident based on my experience, who I am, what I do to make people feel what they feel, etc.

I have a huge desire to use my Knott’s season pass like crazy right now. I think because when Fall and Winter come, it’ll cool down, and I’ll be able to go as often without worrying about the heat, and also to get our money’s worth! For some reason, I feel like we didn’t go that much this year and that bothers me. Why did they put time restrictions and meal limits to the season pass meal options? Why! It would be such a steal to come in and out without buying any food for a whole year - I could just sit there and do my work while eating some good junk!

Calorie deficit update - dude. The weight fluctuation is insane. Maybe 1270 or whatever the number is supposed to be is way too crazy for me. I still was able to weigh 129 about two times this week, which is surely a good sign. But I’m not entirely sure about how the progress will pan out for the rest of this month. Regardless, I’m proud of myself and think I’ve come very far since starting! Hopefully, I don’t burn out later.

Mom. She’s doing good. There is no point in my life that I am not grateful for her. Even if I’m mad, crying, or frustrated, I still feel grateful or her and I love her very, very much. Grandma is a different story but I still love her. It’s a lot of weight I’m holding, but I am happy to help as much as I can, even if I get mad.

The Artist’s Way is a next level book. It’s like reading a introductory wall text in an art museum that I’ve been waiting to go to for a long time. And I’m finally here, and I’m savoring every word. I think I could feel the intentionality that went behind this book and I feel that if there is a significant amount of intention behind any creative project, that viewers and people will recognize and relate to that intention. Jeez, finding intention behind all of my own projects is difficult. Even formatting a screenplay without the appropriate tools is hard too.

At the end of the day, I still feel like I’m at the very beginning of perfecting my craft and I’m okay with that. I think I’m okay because I got started and starting on anything is better than not starting at all. I’m curious to know if I could shoot something next week. That would be really fun! It’s really easy for me to get distracted when I type on the laptop, but I think using a bit of mindfulness and discipline will make it work.

Last thing, (wow, morning pages really work. I just want to keep writing because I keep thinking about things!) mindfulness was another thing that was sitting in my mind that I really am grateful for. Mindfulness keeps me grateful, in control, happy, content, etc in my life and without it, I think we would all go a little crazy. To spend more of my life being mindful means I will be living a more rich and happy life. Wow, so many things I wrote about today and I finally let out my brain drain. That was fun and I’m definitely coming back for more! 

P.S. Waking up at 4am is incredible because of the silence in the house and I highly recommend it to myself and others. 

[silvermoon424]

Text:

"To give my take on your confusion regarding Madoka's themes: To me, Madoka is about how trying to fit into the system and expecting to be accomodated and rewarded for this effort is fundamentally doomed to fail. It's about how even violence and tragedy, though superficially lamented, can in and of themselves be exploited to benefit the system - in real life we see this with things like the increased militarization and surveillance in response to school shootings and the like. Could those be stopped if the system truly desired it? Yes, easily, but they aren't because in a perverse way their presence benefits the system. It presents each of the magical girls as a catastrophic reverse Pandora's Box, each with a brilliant but limited supply of hope, with a proportionally chthonic pit of despair hiding underneath once it runs out.

Each of them try to get something from the world by conforming - Mami drills herself into hypercompetence, an ideal role model of a magical girl who makes fighting witches look easy, even though underneath she is lonely, weary, and afraid. Her hope is that her diligence will be rewarded, but once she slips up and pays the ultimate price for it, the system (kyubey, in case it wasn't clear) does not shed a single tear for her.

Sayaka is the most obvious illustration of this - she desires Kyousuke's affection, and hopes that this will materialize if only she keeps visiting him, if only he could be cured. But of course, since she doesn't express this affection herself, Hitomi gets there before her. Worse still, her view of being a magical girl as being heroic venture, albeit a much more dangerous one than she thought upon first meeting Mami, is shattered when she learns to what degree she's been dehumanized in the process of becoming a magical girl, and learning that her acts are not recognized or rewarded in any way. She doesn't even manage to change the world for the better at all, and with her fall into despair we learn why - from the start, she'd been fighting others like her, driven to despair in order to fuel Kyubey's anti-entropy program. There's no evil to save the world from, because this tragedy is self-sustaining, all to Kyubey's benefit.

There's similar cases to be made for Kyoko and Homura as well, but Madoka is the most important part here because she's the only one who manages to subvert this, by forcing the world to accomodate her and her wish, rather than compromising on her wish to be accomodated by the world. And in doing so, she reshapes the universe itself, and becomes the first and only magical girl to enact real change. The moral of the story - fuck society, if it does not readily accept you without compromise you should carve it up until you have made a place for yourself.

As a side-note, Rebellion builds on this by honing in on Homura and Madoka (though Homura in particular), contrasting Madoka's singularly selfless love with Homura's extremely selfish love (the comparison between this dichotomy and the hope/despair one is explicitly made by Homura in the film). If Witches are the end result of people who have run out of hope after trying to change but not knowing how and in doing so compromising themselves, then what Homura becomes by the end is someone who rejects change itself. Kyubey also rejects change, but for it that's a utilitarian thing (again, compare typical libertarian and conservative politicians), while Homura desires only to relive those halcyon days when she first met Madoka, browbeaten by the events of over a hundred time loops and the events of Rebellion into being unable to see a different path. That's where Rebellion ends though, and the final conclusion of this theme remains to be seen in Rebellion's upcoming sequel, so I can't say much more meaningful about it, but I thought it worth mentioning."

This is such an amazing take on PMMM. I know there are going to be antis who will say "Madoka didn't change the system, she became a part of it" but OP is right, Madoka did change the system and did enact real change by forcing the universe itself to let her accommodate magical girls.

#pmmm #puella magi madoka magica #madoka magica #analysis

[guqin-and-flute]

[I am once again giving you an unrelated fanfic. Have some Modern married Xiyao.

Potential CW: poor anger coping skills?, very brief mention of suicidal ideation in internal dialogue. It's an errant thought and he doesn't actually mean it]

Jin Guangyao is upset. What's more upsetting is that he doesn't know why he's upset--this lack of information rankles him more than the feeling. He's used to feeling badly. That's how life is. But without a name, there is nowhere to file it away neatly. It is easier to ignore the sharp sting of a newly noticed cut than this fucking awful malaise that has apparently decided to settle over him with no rhyme or reason like he's some stupid idiot in an artsy French film, slowly choking down filtered cigarettes on some rusty balcony against a sunset or something.

That's not what he does. He is efficient. He is useful. And when he is like this, he is not.

And he still doesn't know why. And the fact that he cannot categorize and escape this has the ennui sliding slowly into a slow boil of tooth grinding fury.

Had it been the morning traffic? The fact that the library had emailed to inform him of a delay on his inter-library loan? The fact that his overpriced coffee was just a tiny bit burnt? The fact that Zixuan had taken a sick day today and so had not brought the soup his wife had promised Jin Guangyao for lunch? It shouldn't be, because these are all so horrifyingly trivial.

He has a tension headache beginning to string itself along his temples. He hates that the receptionist has a perky goodbye ready. He hates that the sun is shining so brightly. Then, he hates that the shadows of the clouds when they pass make things look grungy and dull. He hates that there is a flap of leather from his steering wheel that has peeled up in the back from his picking and he can feel it rubbing against his index finger as he stares, white knuckled and unblinking into the brake lights ahead of him as this bubbling pique crescendos as slowly as one of Xichen's beloved classical music pieces.

In fact, one is playing on the radio, softly, just within hearing range. The quiet, shrill edge of violins makes him want to kill something. Maybe himself. There's a bridge coming up in half a mile. He, very sanely, presses the button on the dash that turns it off instead of doing any of those things. The thought of Xichen has a voice of reason suggesting that he might meditate, while trapped here, 10 minutes from home.

Instead, he jabs a button on his fancy, stupid steering wheel with this thumb. An attentive computer noise beeps. The sudden noise in the relative silence of the car makes him dig his nails into the leather. "Text A-Huan," he snaps.

"Okay! What would you like the message to be?"

Jin Guangyao is going to find whoever programmed this faux-friendly robot voice and make them watch him drown their entire family in a toilet. "I. Hate. Everything."

Beep. "Okay! Your message reads; 'I hate everything'. Send?"

"Yes, send," he seethes before it can fully finish.

There is no plan to this. None at all. He just needs something real to sink his metaphorical teeth into. A reasonable anchor to reality to tell him whether or not he's being stupid and terrible for no reason at all.

Even though he already knows that he is.

The response returns in 43 seconds. Jin Guangyao had been counting. The cheery beep sounds just as the very stale green light turns yellow ahead. He presses the gas. "One message from A-Huan."

The light blinks red while he is only 1/4th of the way through the intersection. The lead car of the adjacent left turners beeps and he bares his teeth at her because he isn't fucking invisible, he's in a high profile gold Lexus and she had definitely seen him fucking coming. He stabs the button that makes the car read him the message.

"'Oh no. Bad day? Want to call? Blue heart emoji'," the female robot voice chirps in a butchery of his husbands words and no, no, he does not, because, at this point, it would simply be a minute long sustained scream of rage over literally nothing at all. He should have kept it to himself and found a quiet place to throw rocks at a wall or something until he wasn't such a repellant time bomb.

He does not reply because if he hears that robot voice again, he's going to commit vehicular homicide. And being arrested would not calm him down.

Finally, traffic parts and he pulls into his driveway--he notices how the bush on the side of the house's branches are creeping up to scrape the window of the kitchen and makes a mental note to send a curt text to the landscaper about his pruning habits. Why are they paying him several hundred dollars a month to let a stupid bush get unruly enough to damage the paint on his window trim?

When he slams his door shut, he hears a loud CLACK that announces that he has just closed his seatbelt in the door and lost the last tenuous thread of his temper. Heaving the door back, he plants his other hand up on the black plastic next to the window and smashes it shut again with all of his strength. Repeatedly. CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK--Chunk.

Breath hissing between his teeth, he jerks his suit jacket straight, loosens his tie and stalks to the house. The garage door groans to life behind him. Xichen had been watching.

Perfect.

He's nowhere to be seen when Jin Guangyao slams through the backdoor like a vicious thundercloud, which is good and probably intentional, because it allows him to wrestle off his shoes, jacket, and tie in privacy. This does nothing to release any pressure, because it must be intentional wrestling--controlled and confined so he doesn't pop off a button or rip a seam or scuff the shining black leather. Now he's seething in their immaculate, state of the art kitchen, hating how the cold tile feels against his black dress socks and the fact that it smells like tea. Which is stupid. Because he likes tea. But not right now.

Stop being a piece of shit, he snarls at himself. You've already probably fucked up the car and Xichen doesn't deserve this. He balls up his fists so tightly that the bright pain from his nails sinking into his palms leaks up his arms. Be better.

He has no idea how to do that because he has no idea what is wrong.

Reason says to steer clear of Xichen until he can get a hold of himself and behave like a fucking adult. And in the early days of their relationship, he would have. He had. Whenever he got like this, he would shut down or not have inflicted himself on Xichen at all with a smooth lie, and no amount of prying would get anything useful out of him because he would not be a bother. There had been Talks. Long, extensive Talks about trust and love and wanting to take care of him. He had even believed some of them. That's how they can be married, now, years later--Xichen knowing just how close he is to this at all times. How thin his veneer of manners and pleasantries actually is. (He can't truly know, though, can he. If he knew how much none of it makes sense, there is no possible way someone as kind and intelligent as him would choose to stay.)

Xichen would purse his lips if he said this out loud; somewhere between exasperation and sad fondness. Jin Guangyao doesn't tell him, anymore. Most of the time because he doesn't actually think this.

This is not most of the time.

Yes, reason says that he should suck it up and become a human being before burdening Xichen.

But his husband has long, cool hands and soft eyes and a brilliant mind that can solve any problem just by holding it and maybe he just wants to be small and angry and ugly and pathetic and selfish in the comfort of his own home while someone reminds him that there have been, in fact, good things that have happened in his life and he had been, at one time, happy--believe it or not.

And if nothing else, it compounds his streak of bad decisions.

The smell of tea intensifies when he reaches their room. The curtains are drawn. It renders the deep, dusty blues of the bed spread and the armchair black and the aged gold accent pieces muted, except for where the warm light pouring from their open bathroom door paints them bright again. Xichen sits on the edge of their bed in the soft, expensive loungewear Jin Guangyao got him for his birthday last year, one ankle on his knee, watching him with eyes just as soft as he had been expecting. A mug of tea is tucked into his hand and a plate with round, lumpy shapes sits by his hip. Beside that lays spread out the absurdly oversized and absurdly soft heather gray shirt that Nie Huaisang had gifted to him as a joke but was, in fact, one of Jin Guangyao's guilty pleasure sleep shirts.

With his perfect voice and his perfect logic and his perfect way of being the only good thing on this entire, worthless planet, his husband says, "I think you need to scream into this pillow."

'This pillow' is, in fact, one of theirs, dark blue with a thread count that was higher than any savings he ever had in college, perched on a bundle of blankets that is the perfect size to throw himself upon like a sulking romance heroine. He hates it. Hates that this is known, that this might help.

So he fucking does it. He deliberately stalks around the bed, climbs up, smashes his face into the pillow and screams as loudly as he can. With every single ounce of rage in his body, curling him up like the shriveling of a raisin in fast forward, like the curling of a scorpion tail, like throwing up, wringing every last scant molecule of oxygen out of his lungs.

When the sound peters out and he has to drag in another breath, he curls tighter, the claws of his hands reaching over the top of the pillow to fist in his hair. It presses the plush of it firmer over his face and bites it until his teeth ring with dull pain, and his jaw aches and his head throbs and his eyes sting. His scalp burns from the pull on his hair and his throat is raw and tight.

Tearing himself away, finally, he gasps in a gulp of cooler air. Xichen has turned so he is now cross-legged at the foot of the bed, watching him with a mix of calm and understanding sympathy. "Lay down?"

There is a ragged, hollow hole in him that still has scraps of rage clinging to it like disgusting lichen--but the visceral, all consuming hate seems to have been absorbed by his pillow. So he lets himself roll sideways, eyes closing. Xichen gets off the bed--Jin Guangyao assumes, wearily, that he's putting down the tea mug and hopes that he uses a coaster--and then returns by knee walking up the bed to his side. Then, those cool hands he had been hoping for pick open the tiny hard buttons of his shirt. Each pop releases a a tension across his skin and he feels that he can breathe easier with every one.

Jin Guangyao can hear him breathing, slow and measured, through his nose and thinks that it's probably the most comforting sound that he's ever heard in his entire life--now that he's willing to be comforted. Able to be. The reminder of Xichen's continued existence is the only sound he will ever need to be calm again.

The button up is abandoned in favor of undoing his belt--breath, more of it, infiltrating him deeper and deeper--popping the button on his slacks, tugging them down his legs in a warm slide. The quiet clink of it being tossed somewhere. A closing quiet as Xichen leans in and presses his smooth lips to his forehead. Then the corner of his eyebrow. Then the bridge of his nose. Different points and planes of his face like he is unlocking a combination that will open him up and allow him to purge the rest of the awfulness that lingers.

What it mostly is is exhaustion, now. "A-Huan," he groans--whines. Ugh.

Before disgust at himself can settle in, his husband takes this as the invitation for what it is and kisses his mouth, gentle and slow. Jin Guangyao moves his mouth back, halfheartedly, mostly parting his lips to allow him access to do whatever. But all he does is kiss him chastely. Lovingly. He tastes like green tea. Then, Xichen murmurs against his lips, "Would you like a bath?"

He vents a negating grunt, lolling his head back and forth. Baths are so much work. Even when Xichen offered to wash his hair or read to him or even join him, you still had to keep it hot, you had to endure cold when you left, get yourself dry. Too much change, too much sensation and movement.

He should be shaking himself awake. He should be apologizing for his terrible, pointless mood. He should be trying to kiss him back, love him back, pay him back. Thank him.

Xichen merely lifts his hands and presses the heels of his palms into the hinges at Jin Guangyao's jaw, inexorably grinding the tension out of them. Jin Guangyao allows himself to melt. When those cool fingertips slide into his hair, he lets them tug him upright, so Xichen can slide off his button up and slip him out of his undershirt. He shivers against the chill of the bedroom air, but he doesn't feel a surge of utter hatred for the sensations so, well, that's something. In no time, Xichen has coaxed him into the oversized shirt, removed his socks and bundled him up against the padded headboard, tucked into Xichen's side.

Jin Guangyao allows this. He allows himself to allow the blanket to be tugged up over his bare legs, Xichen to tuck the warm mug of steaming mint tea into his hands, and wind his fingers through his hair. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep, shuddering breath before sighing it all out. Xichen's fingers rub soothing circles across his sore scalp.

"Open?"

He cracks one eye to see a cookie hovering at mouth level. It's too dim in the room to properly tell what kind it is, but because Xichen has been perfect in literally every other way, he simply obeys and bites down. Browned butter and sea salt and semi-sweet chocolate ooze across his tongue and the instant spike of sugar satisfaction warms his chest. Jin Guangyao chews with utter contentment, swallows, and opens his mouth again.

"Good?" Xichen's amused voice vibrates warmly through his chest as he indulgently feeds him another bite.

"Mm. Very. Did you make them?"

"I did, earlier today. I just got lucky with the timing." His nails scrape oh so gently across his scalp. "How are you doing?"

Instead of answering, Jin Guangyao blinks up at him and his sweet, kind, ridiculously gorgeous face that is graced by a light smile and a gold edge light from the bathroom.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Being terrible."

"You're never terrible."

"I was today. I think I fucked up the car."

Xichen chuckles, smile crimping to a knowing press. "I saw. It won't be a big deal. We'll deal with it later."

"...Thank you."

"Of course, A-Yao. Do you still hate everything?"

"Mm-nn." He snuggles down deeper against his ribs, looping an arm around Xichen's warm waist. He has the best husband in his arms, his dark-sweet scent is in his nose, chocolate on his tongue, and 1000 count sheets against his skin.

What is there to hate?

#I was in an exceptionally bad mood #so therefore I projected it onto JGY and made Xichen make it better #because that's what writers DO #There is no plot at all except my own journey of being in a better mood. I am now. But it is also 4:20 am. Oh well. You do what you can. #my stuff #my fic #xiyao #lxc #jgy #text #xiyao fanfic #completely unedited because that's how it goes #it's an errant thought and he doesn't mean it #brief suicide mention

[definitelynotsuzumi]

Zapped to Another World [Chapter 3]

[Masterlist]

Chapter 3 is finally up! T-T I am really sorry for the delays and future delays since I am juggling between school and Genshin. 

Despite the roof over your head and the cushy bed beneath you, you could not sleep.

You heaved a sigh as you reached your hand into your chest, detaching your Gnosis. If your knowledge was right, you were basically the 8th Archon. A phantom one, judging by Venti’s reaction.

“Oh good, you have not lost it yet.” A familiar voice echoed. You nearly rolled off the bed in surprise as you turned to face Artem.

“How? But I? Huh? What are you doing here?” You stuttered.

“Oh silly head. Or maybe I am the silly one for not letting you know. A Gnosis is a way that Archons can communicate with the Celestia. In other words, me!” Artem threw you a mischievous smile. He seemed a lot more easy-going. Was it because I agreed to this life? Or is it because his sister isn’t here?

You suspected both as Artem kicked back in the air.

“I am aware of that but…Doesn’t this make me…Irrelevant in this world? Weren’t there supposed to be just 7 Archons?” You knitted your brows as he casually floated around the giant room.

“Well, originally, yes. But things change!”

“So, what exactly am I an Archon of?” You looked back onto your Gnosis. As you had agreed to the “contract” when you fell, the Gnosis had transformed into what looked like a chess piece, with a sphere adorning the top of it.

“This world! Isn’t that exciting?”

Figures. The shape atop your Gnosis was shaped like a planet after all.

“…Honestly, not with the Fatui out to get people like me.” You sighed.

“Oh, if they try anything funny with the Order I have made, rest assured, us gods will deal with it.” Artem’s easy-going aura turned bloodthirsty.

You held your tongue instinctively as Artem laughed humourlessly.

“I am well aware of the Tsaritsa straying from her path and interfering. But I have faith in that Outworlder.” Artem hummed as he messed around in your room. He somehow managed to find lipstick paper in the drawers and had put it on. 

“And me. Surely there is more to my existence in this world. Am I right in saying that?” You grasped your Gnosis tightly in your hand.

“Well yes, you are the failsafe I have created. It was pure chance that I lost that game and my temper ehe~” He blew you a kiss with his extremely pigmented lips. 

You were tempted to shout. A pure chance that I got killed by that lightning volt, you mean!

“Aren’t you glad that it worked out?,” Artem closed the gap between the two of you, his eyes staring into yours. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes, as if he could hear your thoughts.

“I am glad for this second chance in life. But it is honestly concerning for someone like me…” You gulped back your fear of the god.

“Understandable. By the way, try to keep your existence as an Archon as downlow as possible. While the Archons may be aware of another one, they will not be able to pinpoint who it is exactly until they meet you. If they got rid of the failsafe, I will be forced to get someone to step in.” 

“…Do you mean the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles?” Artem blinked in surprise.

“Wow, I’m surprised a human from Earth knows about her.  Yes, yes you are right. Clever girl.”

You felt the cold claws of dread grip your heart.

“Communication is a 2-way street. If they can observe and interact with the Celestia, they can interfere with it. That means, if they tried hard enough, they can very well overthrow the gods of the Celestia.” Artem turned serious.

“That is why you exist now. The original plan was to summon a hero from Elysium as a failsafe but seeing as to how things turn out, well, here we are.”

“You talk as if it is my fault that we are here now…” You frowned, “You raged during a game of Uno. Uno, of all games! And caused a whole lightning to zap me into the afterlife. Not to mention, the guilt trip that you pulled just to bring me here.”

Artem rolled his eyes, as if you were snapping over a trivial issue.

“Now you just sound like Solaria. Blegh.” Artem faked a retch before returning to his serious expression.

“Sorry if I made it sound bad that you are here. I mean no ill-intentions. You didn’t deserve to die because of my temper.” Artem patted your head, exhaling heavily through his nose.

You heard footsteps come by your door. Artem gave you a wink as he disappeared into a burst of golden sparks. You hurriedly stored your gnosis to your chest again.

“Miss (L/N), I apologize for the disturbance. Master Diluc has instructed me to provide you with clothing.” A maid came by, a set of clothes and shoes in her hands.

“How kind. Leave them by the dresser. And send him my…thanks.” You watched as the maid bowed her head, putting them down on the oak dresser before scurrying out of your room.

Rising and feeling the silken fabric of a simple red frock, black shirt and a matching cape, you exhaled through your nose. You knew that you were caught up in something complicated and the feeling of helplessness came back to you.

Artem’s voice then echoed in your ears.

‘Find the Outworlder and see to it that he saves this world. If not, well…’ A vision of Mondstadt in flames with the familiar black-red cubes flashed in your eyes.

‘Let’s just say, the option of going into Elysium will be open.’

You did not know when you had drifted off to sleep, but you were glad for those few hours of rest. You slipped out of your day-old school uniform and donned the fresh clothes Diluc had given. They felt light and soft, perfect for traveling under the sun. Given how the sun was blazing through the morning dew, you decided against the cape and slipped it into your bag as well.

Preparing your things, you were not a fan of how the bag of mora you had received from Solaria was getting lighter. Maybe I should become an Adventurer as well…

Walking down the wooden stairs of the Winery, you were surprised to see a huge spread of food on the table, with Diluc leisurely eating his way through a pile of steaks, potatoes and cheese.

“Have some, the people of Mondstadt call this Pile Em Up.” Diluc pushed over a steaming plate. You swore you saw it sparkle in the candlelight.

You tentatively sliced a piece. Meat and cheese at this time of the day seemed a little rich, but as the warm ribs melted in your mouth, you could not hold back a satisfied sigh.

“Your maids are excellent cooks.”

“…I cooked it.”

“…Really?”

“Do you not believe that I can cook?”

Diluc gave you a bemused smile. You looked back down onto your steak. You mentally yelled at yourself to quit blushing.

“I-well, you don’t seem the type to cook so…I just thought…”You stumbled over your words. You could feel his eyes on you. You noticed a small, genuine smile forming on his lips. You have landed on one of the topics he admits pride in.

“Well, I do work as a bartender in the tavern at times, naturally I will need to be able to cook.”

A soft warmth formed in your chest as you smiled back. Finishing off the delicious plate of the juicy meat, you blinked in surprise as he offered you a pack of dried sunsettias and apples.

“The journey will be long. Please be safe on your travels.”

Huh. You always had the impression that he was cold and aloof, but Diluc seemed different than what you have seen in the game.

“Uhm, thank you for everything you have done. I will pay it back some day!” You bowed before turning towards the path leading out of Dawn Winery.  

“Uh…Uhmm….” You murmured in growing panic. Solaria had forgotten to pack a map! You were incredibly lost. A boy with white hair bolted past as you heard the sound of gibberish following behind him. You had a bad feeling about this.

“…Uh oh.”

You looked back. A group of very angry Hilichurls were running towards you and the boy.

“UH OH!”

You sprinted in the direction of the boy but you soon found yourself face-to-face with a cliff. The boy was nowhere to be seen.

You had to fight.

You turned around, grabbing an arrow that flew past your face. Everything seemed slower than you thought it would be.

Gritting your teeth, you pushed your arms in front of you. Your eyes shut themselves tightly as you willed for the area around you to freeze over. The screams of the Hilichurls stopped as you felt the icy winds against your cheek.

Cautiously, you opened your eyes to see them frozen solid. You walked up, tapping the ice with your knuckles.

It was as if they were made out of ice rather than being flash-frozen.

Whatever had happened, you were certain that you would be safe. Looking around, you noticed a blob of white hair in the bush near you.

“You alright there?” You called out. The boy poked his head out of the bush.

“A…Are they gone -AH!” The boy jumped as he saw the Hilichurls’ angry expressions before realizing that they are frozen solid.

“It should be safe and anyways, what is the use of a sword if you don’t use it to defend yourself?” You sighed, noticing a sword strapped to his side.

“They kind of caught me off-guard…” His expression of guilt made you feel bad as you awkwardly patted his head.

He reminded you of a little brother.

“What’s your name?” You asked as you took in the familiar garb he was wearing.

“I’m Bennett! I had a commission to retrieve treasure from the Hilichurls but…well…”He stole a glance at the Hilichurls, who remained frozen solid in their spots.

“I’m (Y/N) but I got lost…I forgot to pack in a map…” You sighed, scratching the back of your head awkwardly.

“Oh! I can help with that!”

Bennet fished out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a map! You were saved!

But just as you were about to thank Artem for his kindness, an arrow ripped through the middle.

The Hilichurls you froze over must have melted as you heard their angered screaming.

“Oh for f-“

Bennett drew his sword. You were familiar with his skill in the game as you saw him charging energy into his sword. Raising your hand, you willed for your power to protect him as he swung his sword. Flames rose as he struck down the Shield Hilichurl.

“Huh?” Bennett was confused when he realized he was not sent flying.

“Focus, Bennett, focus!” You yelled as you blasted the Hilichurls away from him. As much as you hated how his unluckiness seemed contagious, you did not want him to be hurt.

“Thanks!” Bennett beamed at you as he slashed down the Hilichurls. That seemed to be last of them as you finished off the Shield Hilichurl.

“Wow, thanks for saving me back there. Seriously, I owe you one.” Bennett made his gratitude known, thanking you profusely.  You sighed as you sat down on the grass.

Bennett took out the torn map and looked extremely sheepish.

“Don’t suppose you have an extra one?” You sighed again. Bennett shook his head in response.

“Hey, are you two okay? I just saw the bodies of the Hilichurls and I came by to investigate- Oh hey Bennett!” A girl’s voice greeted you both.

“Hey Amber! Yeah, I kinda got into a fight with them but she saved me!” Bennett excitedly introduced you to the Outrider.

“She’s uh…What’s your name again?”

“I’m (Y/N) and I’m trying to get to Liyue but I got lost. Bennett was showing me his map until they ripped it. Don’t suppose you have an extra in your pockets?” You wiped off the sweat as you stood up to greet Amber.

“Oh! I can help with that!” Amber gave you a neatly folded piece of paper.

“Please take care on your travels then. There is a rise in Hilichurl sightings in the area.” Amber saluted.

“Don’t suppose you’d like to join Bennett’s Adventure Team?” Bennett gave you a puppy-eyed dog look.

“Uhm…Well, I really need to make my way to Liyue…Unless you’d want to come with me and abandon everything you have here…”Bennett’s face fell. You instantly felt bad for the poor adventurer. You knew it was a tall order for you to ask him to come along. 

“Hey hey…I’ll be back soon. We can do more adventuring once I fulfil my mission, okay?” You smiled at Bennett, who brightened at your promise.

‘If I am still alive, afterwards,’ A dark thought flashed through your head.

Waving good bye to the two, you continued on your path, leaving Mondstadt behind.

Meanwhile

Diluc’s servant gulped as he approached a small cottage in the bamboo forest. Knocking the wooden door, he cleared his throat.

“Diluc sends his regards.” The door immediately opened to reveal a girl with dark brown hair.

“Oho! Finally! He calls! Did he happen to include an engagement ring by any chance?”

“U-Uh no, just this letter-“

“Oh how boring.” The door slammed shut.

“He includes payment with this letter.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” The door swung open again. The girl swiped off the bag of mora the servant had prepared and wax-sealed letter smoothly.

Ripping the letter open, the girl scanned its contents carefully.

“As straightforward as always. Thanks for your hard work, I guess.” Waving off the servant casually, the girl smiled to herself.

“A recon mission for a stranger in red and black, huh? Well, well, well. Time to dust off the old umbrella.”

#genshin x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #diluc x reader #bennett x reader #amber

[jasontoddiefor]

nobody's keeping score

Ship: HideKane

Summary: In a world where ink stains the white papers of constitutions, damning the lives of ghouls, their existence is no secret or rumor, but a topic of heated debate, protests, and anonymous organ donations in shady alleys. No matter how bright the CCG appears in their white coats, their light cannot reach the dark tunnels where ghouls and sympathizers alike are plotting. And when Hide, after hours of sitting at his best friend’s hospital bed, sees him wake with one eye black and red, the difficult question is not how to get him help, but how to avoid him becoming the figurehead of a conflict threatening to turn into a bloody revolution.

AN: Notes: You ever just take a 4-year break from a fandom and return with spite fic because you remembered how much you hated canon? Yeah. This fanfic is my attempt at corralling the TG worldbuilding into something coherent that makes sense. I will keep some elements of canon, others I will throw out of the window straight away. This is utterly self-indulgent.

“And with the developments in synthetic meat production—”

Hide wanted to groan. They’d been discussing the same question for the last three hours of class and he was, frankly speaking, done with it. People were running out of arguments and circling back to topics that didn’t contribute anything to the conversation they were supposed to be having. From the way their lecturer was glaring at the latest speaker, Hide would say that she was also very done.

“Yoshimura, as stated before, we are not discussing possibilities for ghoul integration, but the mere premise of whether they even deserve the rights needed to legalize their status as citizens. The right of existence of an individual should not be dependent on what modifications would have to be made to accommodate them, but whether they deserve to live regardless.”

Hide had zoned out about an hour ago. His opinion on ghouls had always felt rather clinical, mathematically detached, despite Hide’s history. Maybe too much time had passed since he’d looked at the bloody remains of his father to really hammer home the fear-motivated rejection so many people fell to. Perhaps the CCG investigators, who had dragged him away from his father’s corpse, should have allowed him to get a little more traumatized before the kindness of his new parents had become enough to dull those painful memories.

Some ghouls were no different than brutal serial killers, and they had to be taken down, but the rest seemed to be getting by just fine. If a new legislation would make it even easier for them to go about their everyday lives, perhaps the number of violent ghoul attacks would go down as well. Hide was well aware that this was the view of a privileged person. Growing up in the 20th ward meant that you needn’t be scared of leaving your house when it was already dark. Kamii University prided itself on the fact that it could safely offer evening classes such as the one Hide was attending now. The same certainly couldn’t be said for the other wards. Any citizen between the 9th and 13th wards would probably advocate vocally for the extermination of ghouls. The 11th especially resembled a warzone even during the daylight. Ghoul sightings were nothing unusual there, and investigators’ mutilated bodies were displayed as trophies and warnings alike. Meanwhile, nobody had died in the 20th war for something like ten odd years. Sometimes it felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop, but most of the time, Hide didn’t even think about ghouls.

By the time class was finally over, Hide had taken only one or two more bullet points. They hadn’t really said anything of interest and it reflected in his writing. Usually, Hide would be sending rapid-fire texts to Kaneki now, but his friend was still on his date and Hide didn’t want to bother him. It had taken more than just a bit of teasing and probing to get Kaneki to ask that girl out and he wouldn’t self-sabotage his hard work.

It was good that Kaneki was connecting to people that weren’t just Hide.

And it would be awesome if Hide could do the same.

Codependence needed two people to work and Kaneki was definitely not the only one struggling with independence. Hide had yet to figure out how to let go of Kaneki when his relationship to the other boy had been the only stable thing in his world for the longest time. Nothing said mental health like latching onto an abused child to escape the stifling air of his brand-new foster fathers’ home.

The next time he visited his parents, he’d bring them some flowers to make up for how troublesome he’d been as a child.

Glancing at his phone again, Hide realized he had to hurry if he wanted to take the early bus home. He was just about to plug in his headphones when an unknown number flashed up on the display. Who would call him at this time? Hide was definitely someone who preferred texting. Even his parents knew better than to call unless it was serious. The only person he ever actually called was Kaneki, and that was only because his friend sometimes got so lost in a book, he forgot to text back or didn’t even hear the phone buzz. Hide contemplated picking up for another ring, then gave in and accepted. “Nagachika Hideyoshi speaking, who’s calling?”

“Hello, I am Tanaka Akako, a nurse of the Kanou General Hospital. You are Nagachika Hideyoshi, Kaneki Ken’s emergency contact?”

The blood in Hide’s veins froze.

“Yes, I am. Has— has anything happened? Is Kaneki alright!?”

The nurse’s voice was so calm, steady, and pleasant as if this was a chat between friends. Somewhere Hide knew that it probably helped most people, but it just put him on edge. “Nagachika-san, your friend and another young woman were involved in an accident. Dr. Kanou is preparing him for surgery, but as his emergency contact, we have to discuss the possible options before we can proceed.”

Hide didn’t want to discuss any options. There shouldn’t be any besides Kaneki’s survival. Hide wanted to rush into the operation hall and hold Kaneki’s hand, wishing he could turn back time, tell his friend to remain at his side and consider that girl out of his league so he’d spent the evening with him and not getting sent to ER. This couldn’t be real; he was sick to his stomach.

“What are the options?” Hide asked, panic threatening to strangle him as he rushed to the street, trying to find a taxi to take him to Kanou General straightaway.

“Kaneki-san sustained serious injuries. Dr. Kanou is willing to transplant the deceased Kamishiro-san’s organs into your friend to save his life even if her family hasn’t consented yet. The only consent we can ask for in Kaneki-san’s case is yours and—”

“Do it,” Hide replied immediately. He didn’t know Kaneki’s date, and as much as Hide loved people, argued for a baseline acceptance every day in class, he couldn’t bring himself to care about the wishes of a family whose daughter was already dead. The only thing they were still good for once their hearts stopped beating was serving the living with their remains.

Kaneki might survive because of her; what else could matter? “Do it, whatever you need to save him— you have my full permission.”

Finally, a taxi approached and stopped right when Hide waved for it. He quickly climbed inside and, paying no attention to the driver, told him to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

“And in case he doesn’t survive, may his organs—”

“He will survive,” Hide pressed because he didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he were to lose Kaneki. He’d built a life around his best friend and how much they meant to one another. Hide couldn’t give up on that, couldn’t let it slip past his fingers. “He’ll survive. I know it.”

Organ transplants took place every day without any complications—

Hide’s eyes widened. “Kaneki has recessive ROS!” he all but shouted at the nurse, startling the taxi driver.

Kaneki’s father had died because of it. If Kaneki got the wrong blood transfusions or anything, his RC cells were suddenly pushed to start acting up, the dormant sickness could turn on and what if Hide had just damned him to a life of wasting away—

No.

Stay positive. Don’t freak out even more. They hadn’t done anything yet, merely asked for Hide’s permission to help Kaneki at all. He was saving his friend’s life; he wasn’t cursing him.

“Thank you for telling me, Nagachika-san. I will pass that on to Dr. Kanou. You have just contributed immensely to the safety of the procedure.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Hide said. “Just— he has to hold on. Tell Kaneki he has to hold on until I’m there.”

“We will, Nagachika-san, don’t worry. Dr. Kanou will do his best.”

His best.

The words echoed in Hide’s mind. How was he ever supposed to know if Kanou’s best would be enough for his friend? Hide excelled at being optimistic, could see the positive side of most things in life, had learned how to be hopeful at the funerals of people he’d loathed. He just couldn’t allow himself to drown in any negative possibilities.

The rest of the drive passed in the blur, either because the driver had known to speed up after listening in on the phone call, or because Hide was so out of it that he didn’t really register the streetlamps flickering by until the taxi had reached its destination. Hide passed the driver a couple bills, probably more than the transport had actually cost, but he didn’t care. What were one or two skipped meals compared to being there before it was too late? Hide rushed inside the sterile white hospital, eyes immediately set on the front desk.

“My friend,” Hide stuttered as he clung to the counter, holding it as if it were his lifeline. “He was brought in— an accident. He was on a date and there was an accident. Dr. Kanou is operating him?”

The receptionist seemed confused, needing a moment to make something coherent out of Hide’s rambles. “I need your identification before I can tell you anything about our patients.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Hide fumbled for his student ID card and put it on the counter with shaky hands. “Nagachika Hideyoshi, I’m Kaneki Ken’s emergency contact.”

“Of course, your friend is still in the operating room. You can wait here.”

Hide didn’t want to wait, but what else was there he could do? He hated feeling useless like this, unable to contribute anything productive. The receptionist sent him a kind look and, defeated, Hide crossed the entrance hall to the waiting room where he remained together with other worried family members and patients, clutching his phone so he wouldn’t start screaming. He couldn’t stop moving his legs, stress keeping him wide awake even as the hospital emptied and less and less people sat around him. How long did such an operation take? An hour? Two? Hide had absolutely no idea. He didn’t study anything like this. His major was English literature, which was about as helpful as hot air at this moment.

He could quote enough books concerned with some medical drama and family members in the hospital, but none of them brought him any comfort.

“Nagachika-san?”

Hide looked up into the kind face of an elderly man wearing a pristine white coat.

“Y- yes?” Hide replied and quickly stood up, brushing imaginary dust from his pants. “Are you Dr. Kanou? Is my friend alright? Can I see him?”

“I am sorry to have caused you such worries. The operation went well. Your friend is resting in intensive care right now. He is still asleep, but you may visit him. The presence of loved ones is often very beneficial to the healing process.”

Healing.

A sob shook Hide’s shoulders. Kaneki was alive. He hadn’t died.

“Thank you,” he managed to say in between his sobs. “Thank you, thank you for saving his life.”

The doctor only kept on smiling and kindly put his hand on Hide’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly in what was meant to be comforting. “It is my job, young man. You don’t have to thank me. Nothing is more important to me than saving innocent lives. If you follow one of the nurses, you can see your friend immediately.”

Hide thanked the doctor once more, relief slowly filling the pits anxiety had hollowed out. He followed the nurse through the labyrinth of death, decay, healing, and salvation up to the intensive care station. Quietly, he was led to a room. The door opened, revealing one lone figure on a bed.

From a distance, hooked up with so many tubes and wires, Kaneki was nothing like the person who took up half of Hide’s life. He seemed so much smaller and looked like just one push could snap his connection to life.

“Please remain quiet,” the nurse told him. “And don’t move him.” Glancing at his still trembling fingers, she added, “but you may hold his hand.”

Hide nodded, then quickly crossed the room to Kaneki’s bed and sat down on the chair next to it. Kaneki didn’t move at all; not even a single muscle twitched. Hide would assume they had led him to view his friend’s corpse if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Pushing up the sleeves of his jacket, Hide took Kaneki’s hand in his own.

“Hey, Ken,” he muttered, pressing his eye close so no tears would escape them. “You scared me there. Don’t ever do that again.”

Predictably, Kaneki didn’t reply. Nevertheless, Hide imagined that just for a moment, he squeezed Hide’s hand back. Slowly, the tension bled from Hides’s shoulders and he made himself comfortable in the hard plastic chair. This was bound to be a long night and he was starting to feel his exhaustion catch up to him. He tried to keep his eyes trained on his friend for as long as possible, remaining alert for a change to his condition, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep them open.

Eventually, the darkness caught him as he fell. Hide knew he stirred a couple more times during the night, likely when the nurses came to check on Kaneki. Nobody asked him to move and leave, something he was immensely thankful for. He wouldn’t have been able to let go. By the time the sun began to chase away the shadows again, Hide wasn’t sure how much he had slept, only that it had definitely not been enough. But that was alright, he could catch up on sleep sometime later. It was far more important that Kaneki was going to be alright.

Hide turned to look at Kaneki’s face and found his friend awake, staring back at him.

One eye gray like a stormy cloud before the morning rainfall.

The other was blood-red against the night sky.

#tokyo ghoul #hideyoshi nagachika #kaneki ken #tg #hidekane #fanfic #what UP i'm back with spite fic #also on ao3 #but i will add the link later bc tumblr likes to mess up

[whump-a-la-mode]

Gilded Cage - Part 4

Once again, A won in a landslide. I hope the choices this time around will be a little more interesting. As a result of A winning, Journalist will help Villain.

Both of the options from last time around led to separate twists. It may be a little confusing at first, but I promise, it’ll make sense!

Again, the suggestions I received this time around were amazing!

I hope you enjoy!

CW// Imprisonment, collars, shock collars, villain whumpee, talk of torture, talk of blood, explicit discussion of injuries, medical discussion, deciding whether a person will receive medical treatment, mention of pneumonia, amnesia, panic, talk of law enforcement and criminal charges

The news segment began with its cheery jingle, starting with a light whistle, and crescendoing into an orchestral sound.

The video dawned on Journalist’s set. Behind the camera stood their crew. But the show’s usual host was nowhere to be seen. Instead, having been replaced by two other reporters, sitting behind their table. In their chairs.

“Hello, everyone.” One of the reporters spoke with a nod of the head. Their practiced, fine-tuned smile was present on their face, but there was a level of appropriately moderated sadness to their tone. “We hate to inform you that the previous host of this show, Journalist, has unfortunately left their post.”

The other reporter spoke with a similar tone, looking up at their cohost. “Shall we get right to it, then?”

“I suppose there’s no point in beating around the bush.”

“No. There’s not.” The reporter shook their head. “Your regular news for this segment will be moved to tonight’s News at 10. After much discussion, we figured it was only right to address the situation regarding this segment’s former host.”

“Yes. I am certain that many of you have seen this video on various social medias.”

In the corner of the screen, a panel faded into existence, showing a silenced video. Only a few frames long, looping every time it finished.

The video was of remarkably low quality, and taken in remarkably low light. The faces of only one of those in it could be made out-- that of a bloody, bruised, yet alive Villain. They who stood over the injured was little more than a shadow in silhouette, face never once turning towards the camera. After a few repeats, the video skipped around, showing different frames. Always in shadow. Never showing more than a hundred pixels or so.

The action within could only truly be seen if the viewer was to squint. Or, if they knew what to look for.

“This video was released by the Organization of Heroes, late last night.” One of the reporters spoke up, after the display was finished and faded away. “It was taken by one of the employees of their headquarters, shortly after this very news segment was filmed yesterday, in that very headquarters.”

“The Organization stated that it released this video to promote transparency regarding a current investigation. Though the exact details have yet to be revealed, this video is harrowing on its own.”

“We do not know why Journalist would do this.” The reporter’s gaze met with that of the camera lens. “We all have our own opinions about Villain, but no opinion can justify beating someone senseless. We all knew Journalist. We never thought there were capable of such a horrible thing. It is believed that, after filming an interview with Villain, Journalist led them to an unused room, and beat them severely. This video shows the incident.”

“The Heroes and local law enforcement have stated that they are currently pursuing a manhunt for Journalist on charges of assault and battery.”

“To dispel rumors that have been spreading: As of only a few minutes ago, the Organization of Heroes has reported to us that Villain is alive and well. Rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated. Journalist is not being pursued as a murderer.”

“Villain is currently under the care of in-house medical professionals of the Organization. They are in critical condition, but are expected to recover.”

“If you believe to have spotted Journalist, please call the number on screen. This is a tragedy, but together, we can at the very least bring this criminal to justice. Thank you.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Can they hear us?”

“No, no. They’re asleep.”

Villain’s eyes twitched, the voices above them hazy, coming from behind a layer of fog. Still, they thought they knew them... Maybe. The effort of recognizing who was speaking when made their head hurt, but their heart was beating far too fast to allow them to fade back into sedated bliss.

“Good.” Teammate muttered, their hand shifting the hospital bed ever so slightly as they placed it upon the bedrail.

“Yeah, good.” Hero’s grunt dripped with sarcasm.

“They need their rest.” Villain didn’t quite recognize the third voice, though they could only assume it was a doctor. “They’ve regained consciousness a few times, but they‘re somewhat sedated, right now. We can’t risk them choking.”

Choking. Villain knew that word. They remembered it being shouted, over and over again, next to them. Their mouth tasted so much like copper...

“I wish they’d choke.” Hero growled. Villain didn’t need to open their eyes to feel Teammate’s glare.

“Well, we’re not going to let that happen.” Doctor shook their head. “What we need to do is talk about... well, you’re in control here. We’re under your command. We have them stabilized, but if you want them to do anything more than lay in a hospital bed, we need to talk about what comes next.”

There was a moment of hesitant humming, before Teammate asked, tentatively:

“How bad is it?”

Villain had heard that question before, in a tone of panic and screaming. Who had said it?

Again, hesitance.

“Bad. Really bad.” Doctor sighed, straightening their tone to something more official. “We’ve seen some possible early signs of pneumonia, but, well...” Another deep breath. “Their torso sustained several dents. There’s risk of internal bleeding. That’s not to mention three snapped ribs, five additional broken or fractured ribs, and fractured clavicle. And the leg.”

For a moment, the nerves in the doctor’s voice turned to fury.

Villain knew that fury. The fury of someone who was watching the person they tried to protect die. Why didn’t they remember?

“A spiral fracture. I’ve never- I have no damn clue how you managed to do that. It’s generally only seen in falls, or industrial accidents, but... yes. There is a spiral fracture in their left tibia. We believe it’s shattered into five separate pieces, though we won’t be able to tell for sure until we can perform exploratory surgery. Villain will need to be a lot stronger before that, though.”

“Okay.” Teammate gritted their teeth. “And that’s all... bad.”

“Very bad.”

“Well, they’re not dead.” Hero hissed.

“They may as well be.” Doctor snapped back.

“Hey, who here is paying you-”

“Shut up, you two.” Teammate growled. “Are they going to die?”

“As it stands now... no. We have them stabilized. Any external bleeding has been stopped. But if our suspicions of pneumonia and internal bleeding are correct, then they could very well die, if we don’t act quickly. That’s what we wanted to ask you about.”

“Whether or not to save them?”

“Essentially.”

“Do it.” Hero’s tone was firm, though still frustrated. “At least for a bit. The edited video will go out on national news tonight. If this assault investigation turns into a murder one, it’ll be more scrutiny than I care to deal with. The less anyone looks into it, the better.”

“Having them back on camera so soon may not be a great idea, sir.” Doctor’s voice had practically turned to a whimper.

“Well, how soon can we expect them to be healthy enough for it?”

“A month-”

“A month?!”

“One month for the initial recovery. And at least four for subsequent physical therapy. They should not engage in any strenuous physical activity for at least that long.”

“We don’t have a month. Much less five.”

“Well, I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker.”

“I need them on the air tomorrow. Either tell me a way to make that happen, or I’ll find a better doctor.”

Doctor’s footsteps could be heard against the tile as they stumbled backwards.

“I guess there’s...”

“What is it?”

“The miracle drug. That’s what they call it. It’s certainly not a miracle, but... I’m sure you’ve heard of Hollywood medicine. An injured actor getting up the day after a car crash, looking good as new.”

“You can do that?"

“Well-”

“Then do it!”

“It’s not that simple. There’s no such thing as a miracle drug. Painkillers and steroids won’t fix their injuries, but with the right mix of them, they can be as good as new tomorrow. Well, along with some seriously good makeup work. Those injuries are... not pretty.”

“Then do that. The news is coming back at 9. Now, was that so hard?”

“Wait.” Teammate interjected. “It can’t be that simple. What’s the catch?”

“The catch?” Doctor began. “The catch is kind of the whole matter of the thing. This treatment, it won’t actually do anything. We’d be blocking pain signals to their brain, and giving them enough strength to press on despite their wounds. But that’s all. The injuries will still be there. And the longer they’re untreated, the worse it’s going to get. Especially if Villain is up and moving.”

“But they’ll be able to appear tomorrow night?”

“Yes. They’ll be good as new.”

“Then...” Teammate hesitated. “You treat them like normal, and we just give them some kind of miracle drug whenever we need them on stage?”

“Again, it’s not that simple. This treatment, it’s going to destroy any possibility of a normal recovery. It’s either or, not and. Either we treat them like normal, or we have them ready to perform tomorrow. It’s your choice, but I’m sure you know what I recommend.”

“They’re performing.” Hero spoke with such a force that it was known in the room that no one could hope to oppose the decision. “Get them up and moving. How long will this work? This miracle drug?”

“There’s no way of knowing, really. They run the risk of collapsing at pretty much any time. We’re tricking their mind into thinking it’s unharmed, but we can’t do that with the body. The wounds are still going to be very, very real.”

“Just give me an estimate.”

“I don’t know, two weeks? Less if the pneumonia gets bad.”

“And then?”

“And then they collapse. Kaput. Gone. The human body has its limits, superpowers or not.”

“I can work with two weeks. I want them back in their cell by tonight, understood?”

“Understood, sir. They’ll be as good as new. And, lay off the collar, please.”

“That depends on if they choose to behave, or not.”

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Villain wasn’t sure when the rough linen of the hospital bed turned to a duvet made of plush, laid atop an impossibly soft mattress that sunk several inches under their weight. They must have been moved at some point, they certainly didn’t remember walking. They couldn’t so much as feel their legs, so walking would have been an impossibility.

One hand curling around the plush on which they lay, they fought against their leaden eyelids until they finally relented and opened. The ceiling above them was one they knew far too well, having spent far too many sleepless nights staring up at it.

They blinked a few times, waking up their mind, which was rapidly beginning to panic.

Had they been dreaming? The day before, had all of it simply been a horrid nightmare?

Sitting up took only minor effort, and as their lungs filled with air, they felt no pain. In fact, their whole body was absent of any pain at all. Even their leg felt to not have lost an ounce of its strength.

It couldn’t have been a dream, could it have been? The pain had felt so real, but...

They raised a hand, drawing it to their ribs. Pressing down prompted no pain, only a vague soreness. But even with their limited medical knowledge, Villain knew full well that ribs weren’t supposed to fold inwards like that.

Nope. Definitely not a dream.

At least, that part wasn’t. Maybe? Trying to think about it was so difficult, causing a horrible, gnawing pain at the back of their mind. Closing their eyes to aid their focus, they did their best to recount.

They had eaten lunch, they believed. There had been others at the table. Visitors. Government representatives? The mayor, maybe? That sounded somewhat right. But then, no, that couldn’t have been right. They remembered the burning of stage lights so strongly, it must have been a news crew.

And then...

Then pain.

They didn’t remember the circumstances in any detail, but they remembered exactly how it felt for a boot to collide with their flesh, crushing all in its wake. They remembered how it felt to have every nerve alight in artificial agony.

After that, there was shouting. Someone was touching them, helping them sit up. It mustn’t have worked, though, for a moment after, they were on the ground, and there was more shouting. More yelling. Screams.

Then nothing. Next thing they could remember, they were swimming through sedatives and painkillers in a hospital bed.

And now they were here.

They looked to the clock, noting it to be late in the night. After the time at which the Heroes would have eaten dinner. There were never any appearances at night, so they would be left alone until it was time for lunch.

It probably would have been best for them to go back to sleep, to rest and recover, but now that they were awake, they couldn’t help but feel that such a thing would be impossible. Warmth ran through their veins like alcohol, making them feel more alive than they could remember having felt in quite some time.

Villain couldn’t sleep, but perhaps they could do the next best thing. They felt around their nightstand, finding eventually the television remote, and clicking on the TV mounted on the wall before them. It was what they spent most of their time doing, anyways. Staring at the screen and rotting.

The screen blinked on, displaying something that caused Villain to do a double take. They looked at the info for the channel, double checking its number.

It was the news. The Heroes had always kept every news channel, or really anything that talked about current events, firmly out of their reach. Yet, here one was, playing right in front of them.

They couldn’t help but feel a dull ache in their neck.

Still, who would catch them? No one would be coming in at this hour. Perhaps they could, at least, peek into the outside world. Hell, they would have been grateful to know the weather.

But what was playing was not the weather.

A banner on the bottom of the screen read, in big white letters, “News At 9.” Two presenters sat behind a table, a brief moment of silence hanging between them as a video played in the top right corner.

Villain saw their own face. Their own bloody, beaten face.

“It is believed that, after filming an interview with Villain, Journalist led them to an unused room, and beat them severely. This video shows the incident.”

Journalist.

Villain did not know that name, but it made their stomach twist in on itself.

Their nausea turned to panic in an instant as they heard a quiet knock, echoing against the door to their room. Already shaking, they lunged for the remote, tapping in a random number and willing the channel to change faster. By the time the doorknob twisted and the door opened, they were sweating bullets.

They looked to the doorway, doing their very best to pretend that they had only been innocently watching an approved channel.

They had expected Hero, or perhaps one of the others on their team, and they supposed that they weren’t entirely wrong.

Hero had long since stopped having a singular sidekick, stating that such a thing was horribly inefficient. Instead, they had multiple at any given time, training each for several months before sending them off to other duties.

Sidekick was one of the newer trainees. Villain couldn’t quite remember what exactly their powers were, though they remembered that this trainee in particular was one of Hero’s favorites. They were younger-- not a kid, but firmly college-aged, though their stature was far too muscular to suggest such a thing.

They had painted on their face the same smile that Hero always presented to the media. It made Villain shudder.

After flashing that bright smile a moment, Sidekick turned, closing the door with notable care and approaching their bedside. Villain turned off the television, shifting to face their visitor. Sitting up straight, drawing their shoulders back, showing all the respect that a trainee of Hero deserved.

“Can I sit?” Sidekick pointed to a spot on the bed.”

“Yes! Of course.”

They nodded, sitting down. There was a remarkable care in the way they moved and shifted, as if they were terrified of making even the slightest noise.

“Turn the TV back on.”

“Um- okay. I promise, I wasn’t- I didn’t mean to, it just turned on, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, please don’t-”

“Shh, shh. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not going to hurt you. We need to be quiet.”

Villain nodded, turning on the TV. The noise practically drowned out Sidekick’s voice, and they couldn’t help but feel that that was rather the point.

“Villain. You know me, right?”

“I wouldn’t say that I know you very well.”

“That’s okay. I’m Sidekick, and we want to help.”

“What do you mean ‘we?’“

“Me and your friend. Journalist. They couldn’t be here, it’s too dangerous, but... I know you don’t know me very well. And to be quite honest, I don’t know you very well, either.”

Sidekick raised their hand, causing Villain to flinch back. But they were not struck. Instead, the hand was presented as if offering a handshake.

“Villain, I need you to trust me.”

They felt their mouth grow dry as they looked at the offered hand.

“I know we don’t know each other well, but what I do know is that you’re suffering, and you need help. In three days, you’re going to be at a live press conference, down on the East side. There’s going to be a signal. When the sun disappears, that’s your signal. You’ll know what I mean, okay?”

“I don’t know if I-”

“Please. When you see the signal, you need to cause as much chaos as you can, okay? I mean, don’t hurt anyone, or at least try not to, but do what you need to do to get them running. That’s all you need to do. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“W-Why?”

Sidekick moved their offered hand closer.

“Villain, do you trust me?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

What should our Whumpee do? It’s up to you to decide!

There are two options, each one leading to a separate story branch. Alongside each option is a question specifying what exactly will happen. Answering this question is completely optional, but it is great if you have any particular ideas! Otherwise, feel free to just put a letter.

To vote, feel free to use any means you would like to contact me. Replying or reblogging this post works just fine, as does PMing me directly or sending me an ask. I am unsure when I will be writing the next part, so as long as the next part hasn’t been posted yet, voting is still open!

I will choose the story path based on which option has more votes, and will choose whichever answer I find the most interesting to base the next part upon. The choices and questions for this part are as follows:

A) Trust - Should Villain go along with the plan? B) Refuse - Should Villain report the infraction?

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. This is my first time doing anything like this, so I apologize if it’s odd or confusing ^^

#whump #whumpee #whumpblr #whump community #villain whumpee #gilded cage #choose your own adventure #choose your own whump #hero villain whump #hero villain prompt

[whitehotharlots]

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc. 

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism. 

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable. 

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself. 

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing. 

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want  students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse. 

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back. 

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure. 

[tweedlydumbtweedlydoo]

JJ Maybank x reader

Requested by anon // Summary: You get caught up in Ward Cameron’s games and believe there’s no way out. JJ saves the day. 

A/N: I changed up your request just a little bit. sorry for any errors. I hope you guys like it! xx 

*Warning!: There is talk of sex and prostitution throughout this story. If you’re underage or uncomfortable with that sort of thing, please do NOT read. 

Tag list is at the end. Let me know if you want to be added xx

**MASTERLIST**

Requests: OPEN {CLOSED}

** Who I Write For **

********************************************************************************************NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNERS

“What can I get started for you?” You ask as Mr. Ward Cameron walks up to the bar. You were hoping you wouldn’t be working the same time he comes in for golfing and a round of drinks at the country club, but shit happens.

You watch as his eyes travel down your body, “I think I’ll have my usual..” He slides over a $100 bill, “And darling, unbutton a couple more of those buttons. The men like to see cleavage.”

You gulp a little and nod, taking the bill and turning around to the cash register. You do as he says, unbuttoning the first two buttons. He was the boss man around here and everyone knew it.

You hated yourself for falling into this position, but you needed the money and well, Ward Cameron had his hands deep in money.

It happened a couple months back when he’d overheard you speaking with Kie about your money at the Country Club. Your parents both were let go from their jobs and bills were piling up. You were the only one working and you didn’t make hardly enough to sustain the bills. He approached you later that night after your shift and explained he would pay your family’s bills, along with extra cash if you’d do things for him.

You were desperate and he knew that. There were these poker nights with the wealthy men around the island, and some from surrounding states that Ward held every 3 weeks. You were to come and serve the men drinks in skimpy outfits and basically be something to look at for the men and anything else they may have wanted. It never went farther than you sitting on their laps as they play. He promised you that it wouldn’t and well, he’d kept his promise. However, it left you feeling horrible about yourself. You couldn’t back out. If you did, your family would lose everything all over again. Ward knew that and used it best to his advantage.

You turned around and began making Ward’s drink.

He nodded at you, seeing your new attire, “Very nice. Much better.” He slipped another $100 over to you, “For you.”

Your eyes glanced up at him as you slid the drink over to him and then took the bill, pocketing it and handing him the rest of his change.

“I’ll see you tonight?” He asks, taking a sip of his drink.

You nod, “Yes sir.”

“Good. I have your paycheck in my office. Come straight there first when you arrive.” He sent you a wink before turning away and heading to the outside patio.

~

It may have never went farther than you sitting on the other men’s lap, but that wasn’t the truth with Ward.

He stood in front of you as he buttoned back up his pants. You fixed your skirt and buttoned your shirt back up. “Your paycheck..” He hands over a wad of cash in an envelope.

“Thank you.” Your voice is quiet as you take the money.

He presses a soft kiss to your cheek, “The men shall be here any second. Go get the table ready.” He then steps out of his office, shutting the door behind him. You feel disgusting as you stare at yourself in the mirror. You finally turn away from the mirror, unable to look at yourself any more before walking out of the office.

~

You didn’t feel like going home and knew the pogues would be hanging out at the Chateau. You needed a break. Sending a text to your mom, you let her know you’d be at Kie’s tonight before grabbing your bag from the back. The pogues knew you were working for Ward at his poker nights and that was all. They knew nothing else. You slipped out of your car and headed to the house, stepping in you were met with the smell of weed and beer.

“Y/n!” The pogues yelled in unison, excited to see their other best friend.

“Hey guys.” You force a smile.

“Want a beer?” JJ asks, holding one out to you.

You shake your head, “I’m gonna go change first.” You head toward the spare bedroom, closing the door.

JJ is not stupid when it comes to you. He’d known you for years. He knows you like the back of his hand. Faking a smile? That’s not you. He stands from his spot on the couch and decides to make sure you’re okay. When he steps to the spare bedroom, the door was cracked. He didn’t mean to look, but he could see your reflection in the mirror. He watched as you stood, looking at yourself in the mirror.

“Disgusting.” He heard you whisper, shaking your head before slipping the shirt over your head.

You turned around and could see his peeking eyes. “JJ?”

He cleared his throat, “I wasn’t looking.” He blushed as he opened the door a little more and stepped in, “I just walked up.”

You rolled your eyes at him, letting out a little laugh as you stuffed the outfit in your bag.

“Ward still making you wear those skimpy outfits at poker night?” He walked closer to you.

You took a deep breath and nodded, “Yup.” You zip up your bag and face him. He’s watching you with concern.

“What?” You ask, annoyed.

“Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” You laugh half-heartedly, nodding, “I’m fucking fantastic.” You begin to walk by him, but he steps in front of you blocking your way.

“Don’t lie to me, y/n.” His voice is stern, “I know when something is up with you. And you haven’t been the same since you started working for Ward.”

You roll your eyes, “JJ, I’m fine. Alright?”

“Y/n.”

“JJ.” You mock, crossing your arms over your chest.

He puts his hands on your arms, making you look at him, “Y/n. Are you okay?” He stares into your eyes for a moment. You hadn’t been the same y/n since you’d began working for Ward and he could tell a difference. You were quieter, not the bubbly person you’d always been. You always had this look on your face, like the weight of the world was on your shoulders.

You can feel yourself beginning to crack under JJ’s stare. You’d never been able to hide things from JJ. He’d always figured it out or managed to break you. Your bottom lip trembling as your eyes fill with tears, “I’m fine.” You croak out.

He pulls you into his chest as you begin sobbing, “Y/n, what is going on? You know you can tell me anything..”

You shake your head, “I can’t, JJ.. We’ll lose everything.. If I tell, it’ll ruin our lives..”

“Y/n. Is Ward.. is Ward pressuring you into things you don’t want to do?” He’s angry at even the thought.

As soon as he asks, you let out a sob.

He pulls away to look at you, hands on your shoulders, “He is, isn’t he? Don’t even try to lie to me!”

You let out one small nod and all he saw was red. “I’m going to kill him.” He turns to storm out of the door, “JJ, don’t!”

He faces you, his face red with anger, “You’re not going back to work for him, you hear me?”

“JJ I have too! He’s the only thing keeping my family from losing everything!”

“How would your family feel about their daughter having sex with someone twice their age to pay their bills they can’t take care of?! This is not right!”

“What is all the screaming about?” Kie asks from the doorway, John B and Pope standing behind her.

You look at JJ with pleading eyes, “Nothing.. It’s nothing.”

JJ laughs and shakes his head, running a hand over his face, “This is fucking ridiculous...” He mutters, before storming out of the room, pushing John B and Pope out of his way. The front door slams behind him.

~

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I want out.” You say to Ward. You’d stopped by a couple days later when you knew no one would be home but him.

He looks up from his desk at you, “You want out?”

You nod, “I don’t want to do this anymore..”

He tosses his pen on the desk and stands, hands flat on the desk, “That is not an option.”

“But.. my parents found jobs, we don’t need the extra money anymore.”

He shakes his head, rounding the desk, “I say when it’s over. Not you.” He rounds the desk to you. You begin to move away, but he continues to take a step toward you until your back hits the wall. He chuckles, both of his hands against the wall on either side of your head, “I make the rules around here.” He leans in close to you, “Not you.” His face is inches from you and he takes one of his hands off the wall, slamming it against the wall next to your head.

You jump.

“Do you understand?!”

You gulp, nodding, “Y-yes sir.”

“Good..” He breaths, taking one of his hands to your throat, “Since we have some time before anyone will be home..” He holds your neck in place as he presses his lips against yours, using his body to keep you pinned against the wall. He starts to rip your clothes from your body as you squirm underneath his grip.

“Get the fuck off her!” JJ storms into the room and slams his body into Ward’s which sends the both of them flying to the ground. JJ moves on the floor to where he’s on top of Ward and sends a punch to his face. Ward struggles and fights back, punching JJ. The impact sends JJ off him and Ward is able to get the upper hand, punching JJ.

“Stop it! Stop!” You scream, trying to grab at Ward. JJ’s face is filled with blood. You frantically look around and grab the poker from next to the fire place as Ward continues to send punches to JJ’s face. Lifting the poker, you use all your strength and swing at him like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.

Ward is knocked off JJ, groaning. You drop the poker at your feet and rush to JJ “JJ!” You grab his arm, “JJ, get out of here.”

JJ’s groaning as you try to pull him to his feet. He leans on you as blood drips from his nose and mouth.

“you stupid bitch!” Ward lifts the poker and starts to swing at you, but a gun shot rings through the house.

You turn around to see Ward, dropping the poker and falling to the floor. Your eyes follow where the shot came from and there standing in the doorway is Sheriff Peterkin and another officer. It turns out, there was an investigation going on with the poker night and an undercover operation going on. They’d seen everything at poker night and set up cameras in Ward’s office, capturing everything they needed to put him away for a long time.

~

You sit next to JJ in the ambulance as they clean his face. You never let go of his hand as they cleaned him. Ward was hauled off to the hospital for treatment of his gunshot wound. Sadly, it hit his shoulder and he’d live.

The EMT finishes bandaging one of the wounds, “There you go..”

“Thank you.”

She nods before stepping away and going to speak with another EMT.

“How did you know where I was?” You ask standing from your seat at the back of the ambulance, facing him where he’s seated.  

“I followed you..” He looks up at you.

“You followed me?”

He nods, “I was.. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

You shake your head, “JJ, are you stupid? You could have gotten yourself killed!”

He slowly stands from his seat to stand in front of you. He slips a piece of hair behind your ear and his lips slowly form a smile, “Baby, I’m stupid in love.” His hands slip to the back of your head and pulls you into a kiss. Your body melts into his touch and you wrap your arms around his neck. JJ Maybank, always coming to your rescue.  

All my works tag list:  @blossomreed​

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#jj maybank imagines #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank #jj obx #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank fanfic #jj maybank fic #jj maybank x female!reader #jj maybank x #jj maybank x you #jj maybank x y/n #x you #x reader #jj maybank obx #obx #obx imagine #obx imagines #obx fanfic #obx fanfiction #obx fic #outer banks fanfic #outer banks imagine #outer banks #outer banks imagines #outer banks netflix #outer banks fic

[mymelancholiesblues]

No, Mia isn’t  "low-tier" compared to Ada (morally speaking, or w/e) – a measured answer?/essay

So, a couple of Ada haters tried to put up a false symmetry between both of these characters there on twitter, and it inspired me to put my own thoughts down in a more articulate essay as to why that's (Ada's somehow being morally worse than Mia) not sustained by canon in Resident Evil.

standing there, killing time

can't commit to anything but a crime

all the good girls go to hell

'cause even God herself has enemies

and once the water starts to rise

and heaven's out of sight

she'll want the Devil on her team. ⁕

First things first: let us debunk the false symmetry that they tried to establish between these two characters with extremely distinct archetypes – and worse, the following replies to this false symmetry and its poor arguments trying to validate it, pointing out that, in fact, no, character B (that would be Ada, btw) – which is so evidently and ridiculously different from character A (and that would be Mia) – is, in fact, WAY WORSE than character A, and then proceeding to assert some unsupported propositions about misogyny in Resident Evil (which, tbh, definitely IS a recurring problem in the franchise, but that in this case particularly, little or does not apply AT ALL) and how Ada contributes to "the perpetration of a biological cold war".

Starting with what differentiates Mia from Ada grotesquely: we know NOTHING of Ada's true alliances in RE's world. Mia, however, canonically worked for a group that participated in the importation and exportation as well as the manufacturing, testing and marketing of biological weapons: "The Connections", a CRIMINAL SYNDICATE which, amongst other things, was also involved in money laundering, assassinations as well as weapons and drug trafficking. I don't care at all about Mia, so I don't intend to waste much of my time going on about her role in the plot, but people should've already realized by just that much how infinitely dishonest is to try to put these two characters as "similar" ones, or argue that Ada is somehow worse.

Another detail that shouldn't escape anyone's attention too, are the origins and nationalities of both – and yes, I intend to briefly bring up racism against eastern-Asian looking characters (a silent plague that takes form by each passing day in all fiction fandoms) and anti-China xenophobia, but for now, hold this tea there just before I drop it: Mia is canonically American, and previously a Texas-state resident; meanwhile, we have no confirmation of Ada's nationality except for her pretty evident Chinese ancestry. But, as I said, hold it there for a while.

i) espionage — the job

red so silent

wait a minute

or just a little while.

what are you looking for? ⁕

At all times that Ada's "job" was brought up in this franchise, in ALL of her cameos, she has NEVER been called a mercenary in the original Japanese. She's always referred to as a SPY. Even in RE2R, the most recent title in which she's featured in, the original text of the game makes a point of labelling her as a SPY (and not a mercenary) in the dialogue that transpires between Annette and Leon.

It's the North-American translation and correspondent localization that now and then falls for the equivocal use of this other term. This distinction is important since espionage NECESSARILY implies operating in an organized service for, perhaps a country, or a political cause, or a class/group, or a corporation, or whatever. While a mercenary is someone who's acting per their self financial interests, indiscriminately selling their specialized "labour" and skills to anyone who'll offer more.

Ada's not a mercenary, she's a spy. But Mia, in addition to being hired to a canonically criminal company, was also the handler personally assigned to Eveline. I don't care how exactly Mia got in that predicament but the fact is: Mia was canonically employed by a company that profited over illicit activities and directly watched as a family was destroyed and toyed with by this new killing machine (Eve). Yet, we can't state for sure that we know to whom or to what Ada is truly affiliated with.

ii) sources — check them

who's a heretic now?

am I making sense?

how can you make it stick?

and I'm on a trial

waiting 'til the beat comes out. ⁕

This fandom should put a little more thought into which translation and localization of the game texts, dialogues and files they are using to support their arguments. I know that in some cases the United States people have a bit of an inclination to think of themselves as the owners of the planet and deem English as the only language that matters in this world, but let's not forget that RE is a Japanese franchise (wow, insane, right?!). Therefore, the most valid script, with the greatest amount of details, and highest credibility, is the Japanese original. Throughout these years, there have been several errors in translation and localization of the Japanese original to North-American English. And, believe me, curiously enough, plenty of those concern Ada, since she's often mentioned or referred to in a very vague way – without the use of pronouns or adjectives or adverbs that could help in indicating gender. This ended up causing those details and mentions to her to get overlooked, even though in the Japanese text it was a clear reference to her character (per observation of context).

iii) the good guys — one of

head in the dust

feet in the fire

labour on that midnight wire

listening for that angel choir

you got nowhere to run

careful son, you got dreamers plans

but it gets hard to stand. ⁕

Yes, as much as haters try to minimize it, it is SIGNIFICANT that Ada saved so many important characters and stood for unquestionably heroic actions in so many moments - like stopping everything she was doing so she could help completely random Chinese civilians with the helicopter she managed to pilot in that chaos in China (yeah, I know you haters love to forget about this, but it happened, it's there in canon, and no, it wasn't her direct OR indirect responsibility what was going on in China: REPLAY RE6 and for the love of GOD, never again argue that what she did was somehow "the equivalent of evacuating a city after selling a WMD to destroy that same city". It's a case of pure intellectual dishonesty to say such a thing. It's canon that Carla was the one who caused what happens in China, PLEASE, PLAY RE6).

Furthermore, Ada shows compassion on some occasions even for characters who are directly putting her in harms ways, like Annette (in RE2 OG, right after - in order to defend herself - she slaps Annette leading her to lose balance and collapse over the sewers fences, Ada makes an effort in trying to pull Annette back and prevent her from falling) and Carla.

Replay RE4 and pay attention to it, pay attention to her solo campaign: getting involved with Leon's journey in Spain hasn't brought any real benefit to her mission or herself: Ada deviates from her main path several times due to worrying about him and trying to help him and almost ends up dead in several of these occasions over her insistence in doing so: by saving him from Bitores Mendez, by helping him and Ashley against Sadler, by confronting Krauser and stopping him.

It's so lazy to only read/listen to a file in which she says in English that "Leon might be useful to her plans" (this is way more nuanced in the Japanese original of Ada's Report), and ignore everything that was SHOWN in the game: every effort she made to ensure that Leon could rescue Ashley, remove the parasite from his and her bodies, and escape from that hell-island.

The jet-ski she left for their escape was ALREADY there before she was captured by Sadler (or you think she arranged it while she was caught?). Leon having to intervene and save her from Sadler WASN'T her plan. It WASN'T her plan to take the sample from Leon's hands. She wanted to help him get out of there with Ashley and she guaranteed he could do so, she wanted to get the sample by herself and escape too while sending that hell to kingdom's come. But, because she chose to help Leon rescue Ashley right in front of Sadler, she ends up captured.

On her end, Mia never did anything minimally compared to that, and all of her "selflessness" or self-sacrificing actions involved a much, MUCH smaller scope than Ada's: wanting to help her husband and HERSELF is not at all comparable to saving a few dozens of unknown Chinese civilians. So no, they aren't "cut from the same cloth". They don't come from the same place, nor do they share the same intentions or goals, and their contributions to the RE storyline are quite different.

iv) unknown true purpose (shades of grey)

lining up in the background

waiting for the crowd shot to be seen

in the shadow of the big screen

everybody begs to be redeemed. ⁕

In databooks, Ada is recurrently described as "a Chinese spy with extraordinary physical abilities, vigorous health and composed mind and spirit, capable of coping with grim situations and handling even the most difficult requests without losing composure". If we are paying attention to the storytelling ingame, however, we know that this isn't always the case: Ada did let her mask of unswerving emotional and physical strength fall and showed a very fragile side under strenuous circumstances a couple of times already.

Also, in these databooks, they often point out that "she has her own 'true purpose' and has FREQUENTLY betrayed organizations and clients to achieve it". Huh, we can AGAIN, by this only, see how completely different she's from Mia, who personally watched an entire family being driven to insanity by Eveline's hand.

Furthermore, in these databooks, it's often said that "this true purpose is still obscure and whether she truly cared for anyone or simply used her charms to manipulate people that crossed paths with her isn't ever clear". If people are willing to be open-minded and exercise their text comprehension skills, though, they'll see that in multiple occasions of emotional confrontation it has been established time and time again that yes, Ada DOES care. She wasn't capable of shooting Leon and there has been a couple of other times that failing to choose a cool, sociopathic calculation and pragmatical demeanour over empathy and humanity towards others has put her in harms ways: nonetheless she still chose it.

v) positive impact

I'm gonna break the cycle

I'm gonna shake up the system

I'm gonna destroy my ego. ⁕

To this point, RE's plot systematically leads us to believe that Ada has been covertly acting behind the scenes of multiple biological incidents COLLECTING INFORMATION (the job of a spy, who would've thought! lmao), that is valuable to numerous organizations, companies, groups and different contexts, but at the same time of allegedly offering to handle this knowledge for the right price to the big players involved with bioterrorism and clandestine trading of bioweapons, she's also working to sabotage said players.

This is evident throughout the franchise: she intended to hurt Umbrella's business. She outwitted and deceived Wesker multiple times. She even undermined Simmons, someone who was in a position of power in the US government and actively using that position to lead bioterrorist ventures on the parallel side.

There's no concrete evidence or hint as to what she does with the information she collects, and for all purposes and effects, I can presume that she's gathering this knowledge to assist in the discovery of countermeasures and vaccination studies. I might as well argue that she is a Chinese spy who is working against European and North-American capitalism and the imperialism that creates such monsters like the biochemical and bioweapons industry and that her real objective is to dismantle the market for bioweapons and bioterror supported mainly by the USA (see: Simmons and The Family).

That is, as long as it is unclear what her true purpose is, I have the freedom to surmise whatever the heck I want and that all of what she's been doing was for the sake of the greater "good" - and I'll even have canon moments to support this reasoning as it's clear that she regularly sabotages her customers (customers that are unquestionably established as playing for the "evil" side, with perverse intentions) - throughout the franchise. She did this on RE2, RE4, RE6 and Damnation. It's there, transparent in canon, people just choose to ignore it.

She laughs in the face of whoever she's talking to by the end of Damnation, saying she doesn't intend to deliver the Plaga; she scoffs at Simmons; she betrays Wesker and kills Krauser. She had been sabotaging Wesker for so long, that he sent Krauser to be the main agent in the mission in Spain, and Ada was just a "side effect" that he didn't have in control and had to keep an eye on, so he ordered Krauser to keep tabs on her. It's not a mutually beneficial dynamic. Ada doesn't want Wesker to succeed, she despises him; this is clear in the games in which they interact. There are even files that indicate that she was trying to double-cross and get in the way of his plans for at least 2 years before Spain, and he was constantly catching up with her. See here and here.

On her end, Mia was employed by and consciously working for a criminal syndicate.

vi) a (secretly) helping hand

oh, I'm a master pretender

just felt more alone

the further I'd go

but I'll stick around

I'll be your master defender

yeah, I'll stick around. ⁕

Ada approached characters such as John Clemens and Luis Sera, and both had a canonical intention to, in addition to putting an end to their connections with the criminal companies and organizations they've been working for, also expose and denounce them for their crimes. It's in this context that Ada comes into contact with them. And why is that?

Check John's background: he had made up his mind about disclosing Umbrella's crimes to the public. Check Luis' background: Ada went to Spain to assist in his extradition since he feared for his own life if he resolved to turn his back on the cult of Los Illuminados, and also dreaded the consequences of the liberation of Las Plagas on an international scale.

Keep in mind that Ada handed over to Wesker a USELESS Plaga sample. Wesker only got the sample currently circulating in the underground market because he went after Krauser's body. We don't know what Ada did with the master Plaga sample she obtained. We only know from Ada's Report and the Plaga Recovery file that she didn't deliver it to Wesker, and he needed to go out for a plan B to get it.

Even the G-Virus sample that fell into the hands of the clandestine business, it's possible to argue that Ada's involvement in it was flimsy, since Simmons CANONICALLY made over a thousand laboratory tests in Sherry, and, as we know, he was a leading figure in bioterrorism and bioweapons trading with the aid of his position in the US government.

But, guess what, Ada clearly is a non-white character with obvious Chinese heritage and Mia is white, so of course, OF COURSE, someone can so nonchalantly affirm that Ada, this "vile bitch", is somehow WORSE than Mia. The same Mia who watched the Bakers being destroyed. Right.

Also: trying to validate one's point by claiming anything related to the misogyny present in RE franchise, while IN THE SAME BREATH AND TWEET reducing Ada's entire character arc to that of "a sociopathic bitch cured by the magic dick of her love interest" is supposed to be a joke, right? No, really. Joke.

conclusion and a word against misogyny

we are waiting on a telegram to

give us news of the fall

I am sorry to report

dear Paris is burning after all

we have taken to the streets

in open rejoice, revolting

we are dancing a black waltz

fair Paris is burning after all. ⁕

To any Ada fan that has been reading this so far: PLEASE, I ask to consider refraining to use the "oh yes, Ada did some bad shit, bUT" take to defend the character because that isn't sustained by canon in RE, lmao. She didn't do anything evil that had an indisputable bad impact on the plot and other characters arcs. For one, I myself do love some villains, but that isn't the case with Ada.

She did do some unconventional shit yes, since she's a morally GRAY character and an anti-heroine, but by the end of the day, each and every action of hers had a positive impact on the journey of other characters and main plot. Just pay attention to it.

Like idk man, Black Widow, Elektra Natchios, Scarlet Witch and Black Cat from Marvel, Catwoman from DC, Yennefer from The Witcher (some pop culture examples that come to mind).

Saying that this is an "extremely selfish prototypal bad bitch except when it comes to the magical redeeming dick of her love interest" it's a grotesque reduction of a complex female character, and, in its attempt to critique the misogyny present in RE's franchise an expression of misogyny in itself.

Remember: Ada has actions and impact on the franchise ASIDE and IN ADDITION to her romantic involvement with Leon.

#Resident Evil #Ada Wong #Leon x Ada #Ada x Leon #Aeon #Leon Kennedy #[mine] #[meta] #// #Aeon fandom

[kookie-doughs]

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS

Percy Jackson X Reader

-Y/N L/N met Percy Jackson and everything was now ruined.

CHAPTER 17: I Swim For The First Time...?

It was Annabeth's idea. She loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front." "You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked. He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first." Annabeth handed him her green Lotus Cash card. He looked at it skeptically. "Swipe it," Annabeth invited. He did.

His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?" "The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. I could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change." Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert. On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy told us about his latest dream. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited my memory. I couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord" ... some special name or title.... "The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades." "Maybe..." he said.

"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described." He shook my head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."

The crooked one... Annabeth's eyes widened. And looked at Percy. Who had a look of realization. "What?" I asked. "Oh... nothing. I was just—No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—" "Like what?" "I—I don't know," she said. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt." I wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She looked pale. "But if Percy already retrieved the bolt," I said, "why would we be traveling to the Underworld?" "To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your parents back." I whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat." "Why, thank you."

"Only mine is there. I'd rather get Y/N's than mine." Percy said gripping my hand.

"Huh?"

"You lost them thanks to me." He smiled weakly. "A-Anyways, the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," I reminded. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?" Grover shook his head, clearly mystified. Annabeth was looking at me as if she knew my next question, and was silently willing me not to ask it.

I have every answers. I could tell you. What do you wish to know? We are to help one another after all...

Could you tell me how I could save my parents?

Save them?  As I told you only we could save them. Being there, you'd know your only option. Only you could do it. Do you wish to know more?

What's this quest?

A trap. Next one?

Who is my parent?

Hahaha, that is a question I shan't answer. Just believe in all gods. Befriend them and you'll know. You could trust them all.

Even Zeus, Hades and Poseidon? They kinda suck...

Unless you're positive they aren't your parent, you don’t have to.

Yeah, can I have like... I don't know... I kinda want Hephaestus. He seems coolest. I an NOT blessed in like singing and all that so I can’t be Apollo's.

I've already given you a parent. My apologies. The one I chose would be... quite a friend. Would you want to know more?

Well not re---

"Y/NN!! Ask more about the quest and Percy's dream!!!" I hear Annabeth scream at my ear.

"Oh my gods! Don't scream at my ear!" I yelled pushing her away. "What do you mean ask about Percy's dream? Who will I ask? The driver?"

"You----"

"She can't remember whenever that happens." Percy explained. "They already told us."

"What are you guys talking about??"

"Nothing. We were thinking about the pit..." Annabeth sighed.

"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" I asked her. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?" "Y/N... let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades... No. It has to be Hades." Wasteland rolled by. We passed a sign that said CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, 12 MILES. The problem was: we were hurtling toward the Underworld at ninety-five miles an hour, betting that Hades had the master bolt. If we got there and found out we were wrong, we wouldn't have time to correct ourselves. The solstice deadline would pass and war would begin. "The answer is in the Underworld," Annabeth assured us. "You saw spirits of the dead, Percy. There's only one place that could be. We're doing the right thing." She tried to boost our morale by suggesting clever strategies for getting into the Land of the Dead, but my heart wasn't in it. There were just too many unknown factors. It was like cramming for a test without knowing the subject. And believe me, I'd done that enough times. The cab sped west. Every gust of wind through Death Valley sounded like a spirit of the dead. Every time the brakes hissed on an eighteen-wheeler, it reminded me of Echidna's reptilian voice. At sunset, the taxi dropped us at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer dudes waiting for the perfect wave. Grover, Annabeth, Percy, and I walked down to the edge of the surf. "What now?" Annabeth asked. The Pacific was turning gold in the setting sun. I thought about how long it had been since I'd stood on the beach at Montauk, on the opposite side of the country, looking out at a different sea. I felt anxious being near the water. Percy took my hand.

"What?" I said slowly pulling away from him.

"Trust me and come with me." He said looking at me in the eye. "Percy," Annabeth said. "That's stupid! She can barely stay alive up here!"

"If the water pulls her could you save her?" He glared at the two. "As long as she holds me she'll be safe." He gripped my hand.

"I-I'll trust you... But I have to make sure you won't let me drown... I-I need---" Annabeth then sighed and walked over to us taking our wrist.

"If she drowns I am totally not siding on you during the war." She hissed at Percy while tying Aphrodite's scarf on our wrist.

"how do you have that?" Percy asked.

"I forgot I gave it to her." With our wrist attached by a cloth, he held my hand tight then we kept walking, up to my waist, then my chest.

"I'm scared..." I gulped. Percy pulled me closer. That's when my head went under. I held my breath at first. It's difficult to intentionally inhale water. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I gasped. Sure enough, I could breathe normally. Percy was smiling at me, with his arms still around me. We walked down into the shoals. I shouldn't have been able to see through the murk, but somehow I could tell where everything was. I could sense the rolling texture of the bottom. I could make out sand-dollar colonies dotting the sandbars. I could even see the currents, warm and cold streams swirling together. I felt something rub against my leg. I looked down and almost shot out of the water like a ballistic missile. Sliding along beside me was a five-foot-long mako shark. I almost screamed until I saw how cute it was. The thing wasn't attacking. It was nuzzling me. Heeling like a dog. Tentatively, I touched its dorsal fin. It bucked a little, as if inviting me to hold tighter. Percy took my hand and wrapped it on the fin, he grabbed the fin with both hands, so I followed his actions. It took off, pulling us along. The shark carried us down into the darkness. It deposited us at the edge of the ocean proper, where the sand bank dropped off into a huge chasm. It was like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon at midnight, not being able to see much, but knowing the void was right there. The surface shimmered maybe a hundred and fifty feet above. I knew I should've been crushed by the pressure. Then again, I shouldn't have been able to breathe. I wondered if there was a limit to how deep I could go, if I could sink straight to the bottom of the Pacific. Then I saw something glimmering in the darkness below, growing bigger and brighter as it rose toward me. A woman's voice, "Percy Jackson." As she got closer, her shape became clearer. She had flowing black hair, a dress made of green silk. Light flickered around her, and her eyes were so distractingly beautiful I hardly noticed the stallion-sized sea horse she was riding. She dismounted. The sea horse and the mako shark whisked off and started playing something that looked like tag. The underwater lady smiled at me. "You've come far, Percy Jackson. Well done. And you brought... a friend." I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I bowed. "H-Hello..."

"You're the woman who spoke to me in the Mississippi River." Percy said. "Yes, child. I am a Nereid, a spirit of the sea. It was not easy to appear so far upriver, but the naiads, my freshwater cousins, helped sustain my life force. They honor Lord Poseidon, though they do not serve in his court." "An... you serve in Poseidon's court?" She nodded. "It has been many years since a child of the Sea God has been born. We have watched you with great interest." I felt so out of placed being here so I wrapped my arms around Percy tighter. "If my father is so interested in me," Percy said, "why isn't he here? Why doesn't he speak to me?" A cold current rose out of the depths. "Do not judge the Lord of the Sea too harshly," the Nereid told him. "He stands at the brink of an unwanted war. He has much to occupy his time. Besides, he is forbidden to help you directly. The gods may not show such favoritism." "Even to their own children?" "Especially to them. The gods can work by indirect influence only. Why do you think they're trying to find who Y/N's parent is? They helped raising her, that's why her scent is gone."

"M-My Olympian parent raised me? I don't remember anyone... I'm pretty sure neither my mom or dad are Olympians... or Greek."

"Well that is what they're trying to figure out."

"Well, what's my father doing then?"

"That is why I give you a warning, and a gift."

She held out her hand. Three white pearls flashed in her palm. "I know you journey to Hades's realm," she said. "Few mortals have ever done this and survived: Orpheus, who had great music skill; Hercules, who had great strength; Houdini, who could escape even the depths of Tartarus. Do you have these talents?" "Urn... no, ma'am." "Ah, but you have something else, Percy. You have gifts you have only begun to know. The oracles have foretold a great and terrible future for you, should you survive to manhood. Poseidon would not have you die before your time. Therefore take these, and when you are in need, smash a pearl at your feet." "What will happen?" "That," she said, "depends on the need. But remember: what belongs to the sea will always return to the sea."

Percy took the three pearls and pocketed it. "Oh... but there are four of us. We'll need one more."

She looked at me and Percy. Then looked at her empty palm. "Your father..."

"I'm not leaving any of them if I need to use this." Percy said firmly.

She sighed and out came another pearl. Instead of handing it to Percy she handed it to me. "The lord does not like you. He's been firm and obvious of that fact. But... as his son refuse to leave you..."

I took the pearl reluctantly and thanked her. "What about the warning?" Her eyes flickered with green light. "Go with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all. Hades feeds on doubt and hopelessness. He will trick you if he can, make you mistrust your own judgment. Once you are in his realm, he will never willingly let you leave. Keep faith. Good luck, Percy Jackson." She summoned her sea horse and rode toward the void. "Wait!" Percy called. "At the river, you said not to trust the gifts. What gifts?" "Good-bye, young hero," she called back, her voice fading into the depths. "You must listen to your heart." She became a speck of glowing green, and then she was gone. "Your dad... must really hate me to leave me in Underworld when worse comes to worse..." I muttered burying my face on his neck.

"Don't worry... I won't let him hurt you, just because whoever your parent is raised you." He kicked upward toward the shore. When we reached the beach, our clothes dried instantly. Percy told Grover and Annabeth what had happened, and showed them the pearls. Annabeth grimaced. "No gift comes without a price. Not to mention Y/N is hated." "They were free." "No." She shook her head. "'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait." On that happy thought, we turned our backs on the sea. With some spare change from Ares's backpack, we took the bus into West Hollywood. We showed the driver the Underworld address slip we'd taken from Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios.

"You remind me of somebody I saw on TV," he told Percy. "You a child actor or something?" "Uh ... I'm a stunt double ... for a lot of child actors." "Oh! That explains it." We thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop. We wandered for miles on foot, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn't appear in the phone book. Twice, we ducked into alleys to avoid cop cars. Percy froze in front of an appliance-store window because a television was playing an interview with somebody

"—my stepdad, Smelly Gabe." He explained.

He was talking to Barbara Walters—I mean, as if he were some kind of huge celebrity. She was interviewing him in our apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and there was a young blond lady sitting next to him, patting his hand. A fake tear glistened on his cheek. He was saying, "Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn't for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I'd be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about. My wife... my Camaro... I—I'm sorry. I have trouble talking about it." "There you have it, America." Barbara Walters turned to the camera. "A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver. He has taken a young girl that goes by Y/N L/N with her." The screen cut to a grainy shot of me, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover standing outside the Colorado diner, talking to Ares. "Who are the two other children in this photo?" Barbara Walters asked dramatically. "Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America." "C'mon," Grover told me. He hauled us away.

It got dark, and hungry-looking characters started coming out on the streets to play. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a New Yorker. I don't scare easy. But L.A. had a totally different feel from New York. Back home, everything seemed close. It didn't matter how big the city was, you could get anywhere without getting lost. The street pattern and the subway made sense. There was a system to how things worked. A kid could be safe as long as he wasn't stupid. L.A. wasn't like that. It was spread out, chaotic, hard to move around. It reminded me of Ares. It wasn't enough for L.A. to be big; it had to prove it was big by being loud and strange and difficult to navigate, too. I didn't know how we were ever going to find the entrance to the Underworld by tomorrow, the summer solstice. We walked past gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers, who looked at us like they were trying to figure if we were worth the trouble of mugging. As we hurried passed the entrance of an alley, a voice from the darkness said, "Hey, you." Like an idiot, I stopped. Before I knew it, we were surrounded. A gang of kids had circled us. Six of them in all—white kids with expensive clothes and mean faces. Like the kids at Yancy Academy: rich brats playing at being bad boys. Instinctively, I drew my knife. When the knife appeared out of nowhere, the kids backed off, but their leader was either really stupid or really brave, because he kept coming at me with a switchblade.

Percy then pulled me behind him and swung Riptide. The kid yelped. But he must've been one hundred percent mortal, because the blade passed harmlessly right through his chest. He looked down. "What the..." I figured I had about three seconds before his shock turned to anger. "Run!" I screamed taking Percy's hand. We pushed two kids out of the way and raced down the street, not knowing where we were going. We turned a sharp corner. "There!" Annabeth shouted. Only one store on the block looked open, its windows glaring with neon. The sign above the door said something like CRSTUY'S WATRE BDE ALPACE. "Crusty's Water Bed Palace?" Grover translated. It didn't sound like a place I'd ever go except in an emergency, but this definitely qualified. We burst through the doors, ran behind a water bed, and ducked. A split second later, the gang kids ran past outside. "I think we lost them," Grover panted. A voice behind us boomed, "Lost who?" We all jumped. Standing behind us was a guy who looked like a raptor in a leisure suit. He was at least seven feet tall, with absolutely no hair. He had gray, leathery skin, thick-lidded eyes, and a cold, reptilian smile. He moved toward us slowly, but I got the feeling he could move fast if he needed to. His suit might've come from the Lotus Casino. It belonged back in the seventies, big-time. The shirt was silk paisley, unbuttoned halfway down his hairless chest. The lapels on his velvet jacket were as wide as landing strips. The silver chains around his neck—I couldn't even count them. "I'm Crusty," he said, with a tartar-yellow smile. I resisted the urge to say, Yes, you are. "Sorry to barge in," Percy told him. "We were just, um, browsing." "You mean hiding from those no-good kids," he grumbled. "They hang around every night. I get a lot of people in here, thanks to them. Say, you want to look at a water bed?" I was about to say No, thanks, when he put a huge paw on my shoulder and steered me deeper into the showroom. There was every kind of water bed you could imagine: different kinds of wood, different patterns of sheets; queen-size, king-size, emperor-of-the-universe-size. "This is my most popular model." Crusty spread his hands proudly over a bed covered with black satin sheets, with built-in Lava Lamps on the headboard. The mattress vibrated, so it looked like oil-flavored Jell-O. "Million-hand massage," Crusty told us. "Go on, try it out. Shoot, take a nap. I don't care. No business today, any-way. "Um," Percy said, "I don't think..." "Million-hand massage!" Grover cried, and dove in. "Oh, you guys! This is cool." "Hmm," Crusty said, stroking his leathery chin. "Almost, almost." "Almost what?" I asked. He looked at Annabeth. "Do me a favor and try this one over here, honey. Might fit." Annabeth said, "But what—" He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and led her over to the Safari Deluxe model with teakwood lions carved into the frame and a leopard-patterned comforter. When Annabeth didn't want to lie down, Crusty pushed her. "Hey!" she protested. Crusty snapped his fingers. "Ergo!" Ropes sprang from the sides of the bed, lashing around Annabeth, holding her to the mattress. Grover tried to get up, but ropes sprang from his black-satin bed, too, and lashed him down. "N-not c-c-cool!" he yelled, his voice vibrating from the million-hand massage. "N-not c-cool a-at all!" The giant looked at Annabeth, then turned toward me and Percy to grin. "Almost, darn it." I tried to step away, but his hand shot out and clamped around the back of my neck. "Whoa, kid. Don't worry. We'll find you one in a sec." "Let my friends go." "Oh, sure I will. But I got to make them fit, first." "What do you mean?" "All the beds are exactly six feet, see? Your friends are too short. Got to make them fit." Annabeth and Grover kept struggling. "Can't stand imperfect measurements," Crusty muttered. "Ergo!" A new set of ropes leaped out from the top and bottom of the beds, wrapping around Grover and Annabeth's ankles, then around their armpits. The ropes started tightening, pulling my friends from both ends. "Don't worry," Crusty told us, "These are stretching jobs. Maybe three extra inches on their spines. They might even live. Now why don't we find a bed you like, huh?" "Percy! Y/N!" Grover yelled. My mind was racing. I knew I couldn't take on this giant water-bed salesman alone. He would snap my neck before I ever got my sword out. "Your real name's not Crusty, is it?" Percy asked. "Legally, it's Procrustes," he admitted. "The Stretcher," I said. I remembered the story: the giant who'd tried to kill Theseus with excess hospitality on his way to Athens. "Yeah," the salesman said. "But who can pronounce Procrustes? Bad for business. Now 'Crusty,' anybody can say that." "You're right. It's got a good ring to it." His eyes lit up. "You think so?" "Oh, absolutely," I said. "And the workmanship on these beds? Fabulous!"

Percy looked at me weirdly. When I gave him a nod he must've understood. He got closer to hold my arm. Crusty grinned hugely, his fingers still didn't loosen on my neck. "I tell my customers that. Every time. Nobody bothers to look at the workmanship. How many built-in Lava Lamp headboards have you seen?" "Not too many." "That's right!" "Y/N!" Annabeth yelled. "What are you doing?" "Don't mind her," Percy told Procrustes. "She's impossible." The giant laughed. "All my customers are. Never six feet exactly. So inconsiderate. And then they complain about the fitting." "What do you do if they're longer than six feet?" "Oh, that happens all the time. It's a simple fix." He let go of my neck, but before I could react, he reached behind a nearby sales desk and brought out a huge double-bladed brass axe. He said, "I just center the subject as best I can and lop off whatever hangs over on either end." "Ah," Percy said, swallowing hard. "Sensible." "I'm so glad to come across an intelligent customer!" The ropes were really stretching my friends now. Annabeth was turning pale. Grover made gurgling sounds, like a strangled goose. "So, Crusty..." I said, trying to keep my voice light. I glanced at the sales tag on the valentine-shaped Honeymoon Special. "Does this one really have dynamic stabilizers to stop wave motion?" "Absolutely. Try it out." "Yeah, maybe I will. But would it work even for a big guy like you? No waves at all?" "Guaranteed." "No way." "Way." "Show me." He sat down eagerly on the bed, patted the mattress. "No waves. See?" I snapped my fingers. "Ergo." Ropes lashed around Crusty and flattened him against the mattress. "Hey!" he yelled. "Center him just right," I said. The ropes readjusted themselves at my command. Crusty's whole head stuck out the top. His feet stuck out the bottom. "No!" he said. "Wait! This is just a demo." Percy uncapped Riptide. "A few simple adjustments ..." "You drive a hard bargain," he told us. "I'll give you thirty percent off on selected floor models.'" "I think I'll start with the top." Percy raised my sword. "No money down! No interest for six months!" He swung the sword. Crusty stopped making offers. I cut the ropes on the other beds. Annabeth and Grover got to their feet, groaning and wincing and cursing me a lot. "You look taller," I said. "Very funny," Annabeth said. "Be faster next time."

Percy looked at the bulletin board behind Crusty's sales desk. There was an advertisement for Hermes Delivery Service, and another for the All-New Compendium of L.A. Area Monsters—"The only Monstrous Yellow Pages you'll ever need!" Under that, a bright orange flier for DOA Recording Studios, offering commissions for heroes' souls. "We are always looking for new talent!" DOA's address was right underneath with a map. "Come on," Percy said. "Give us a minute," Grover complained. "We were almost stretched to death.'" "Then you're ready for the Underworld," I said. "It's only a block from here."

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#Percy Jackson #Percy Jackson X Reader #Percy Jackson X Y/N #percy jackon and the olympians #luke castellan #Luke castellan x reader #pjo #Y/N L/N #Y/N L/N and the halfbloods #Lightning thief #Book 1 #Chapter 17 #fanfictions #Fanfiction

[crossdressingdeath]

I know you'll probably disagree with me, but i rlly hate the Cloud recessess ending. It's just....

Those elders killed wwx. The Lans were 100% ready to murder both at Qiongqi path but also at the siege. They see him as the guy who corrupted their precious jade. They all preach righteousness, but the whole madam Lan thing is iffy at best and i do not believe that everyone there fully believes the rules. Hell, i have a special bone to pick with the " do not gossip" rule, seeing as gossip had been the main info route for women in patriarchal societies.

I just don't think that after wwx killed Lans in the siege they'd be all that willing to forgive him and take him in w open arms. The juniors and kids love him, yes, but people who saw the war....

Not to mention the whole " do not speak to WWX " rule. I've seen ppl say it's a joke but it's On The Wall. It's supposed to be followed. Even if it was intended as a joke - which i don't believe - it's very cruel for someone w rejection and trust issues.

I also hate it from a very personal perspective. I see Wwx as ND, and, as an ND myself, all those rules terrify me. From the no running and the proper posture ones, i can pretty well imagine they forbid stimming. The Lan curfew would fuck anyone with insomnia and there's smth deeply ucked up abt the " do not grieve in excess". I get that they're supossed to be a paragon of the best things at all time, and that LJY is very UnLan like, but for someone w anxiety who CAN'T follow those rules, it would be a nightmare.

...Some points:

First, the Lan elders did not kill WWX, nor did they attack him unfairly. They weren’t looking at him as the man who corrupted LWJ, either, or at least that wasn’t their primary concern (I will never forgive CQL for suggesting they were or it was); they were looking at him as a traitor to the sects who was raising an army to destroy them. Remember, that is the information the Lans had. Every source they had except for LWJ (who the people he would have gone to would have known was biased and who presumably everyone knew had recently been in close contact with WWX where he could have been manipulated or enchanted in some way), sources which included multiple sect leaders (one of whom was WWX’s brother) and LXC’s dear friend, swore up and down that WWX was a major threat, and let’s face it, WWX didn’t do much to dissuade people from thinking that! Acting like the Lans were maliciously targeting WWX is doing them something of a disservice, I’d say. They acted based on the knowledge they had available; note how the Lans are the first to offer WWX their help once they’re given reason to believe he may not be a villain! And even aside from that, saying they killed WWX (and not JGS and JGY’s manipulation or JC’s army) feels a bit like scapegoating, honestly. Of the four sects, the Lans are quite possibly the least responsible for WWX’s death. If it would hurt him to live with or around anyone who held any responsibility for his death his only option would be to live as a hermit, which would be far worse for him. And yeah, the Lans aren’t perfectly righteous all the time and some morally dubious things have been done by Lan sect members; they’re human, after all! Some of them will only be as moral as their sect leader demands they be! That doesn’t mean the sect as a whole is bad, especially with LXC, LQR and LWJ in charge. Certainly I’d say they’re still better than the other sects, all things considered. One ambiguous situation that may or may not have involved some members of the previous generation doing some fucked up shit doesn’t mean WWX would for sure be mistreated! 

As for gossip... there’s a difference between sharing information and gossiping. There’s no evidence that the Lan women are blocked from... y’know, freely communicating and sharing information between themselves. We have no reason to believe they are reliant on gossip. Also they presumably go out night hunting just like the men? Men and women are kept separate in the Cloud Recesses, but I get the sense that that’s more like... school stuff than anything else. The women aren’t exactly locked up, they can be cultivators! The society is still sexist, but that doesn’t mean they’re kept from going out and doing things. And I need to make this clear: there is a fair chance that the rule against gossip saved LWJ’s life, because it kept word of him defending WWX from the sects from spreading to people who would not be willing to let bygones be bygones. Gossip sucks! It hurts people! A lot of this story (and more to the point the suffering of the characters within the story) happens because of gossip! The Lans banning gossip is pretty clearly supposed to be a good thing, I’d say.

And yeah, maybe after WWX killed a bunch of their sect the Lans wouldn’t accept him with open arms as if nothing ever happened! And that’s fair! I can’t imagine where WWX could go where that wouldn’t be the case, unless he and LWJ chose to abandon the cultivation world forever. But you know what else the Lans won’t do? Try to execute him. Or from what we see in the extras even dwell on the past that much. No, the Lans aren’t going to immediately forgive WWX and bring him into the fold without a moment’s hesitation, but you know what? They accept his marriage to LWJ! They let him supervise the juniors on night hunts! They consider him part of their sect! Honestly, that is all WWX can really ask and far more than he’d get from any other sect. There are consequences for what WWX did, even though he wasn’t the villain or necessarily trying to hurt anyone, and frankly people not being entirely comfortable with his presence is very much reasonable.

The “do not speak to WWX” rule may not be a joke, but it’s also pretty clearly not a serious rule. No one takes it seriously. The juniors (the only people WWX really talks to anyway aside from LXC and LWJ) only pay it the minimum lip service of talking to him off the path. WWX himself sure as hell doesn’t care! He clearly finds it pretty damn funny. And I don’t think a guy who has never liked him once again proving he does not like him (in a way that is clearly temporary given how later LQR invites WWX to the Lan family banquet with... reasonable amounts of grace, thereby implicitly accepting him as LWJ’s husband and therefore his own family by marriage) counts as a rejection or a breach of WWX’s trust? Like, LQR has literally always hated WWX. He isn’t preventing WWX and LWJ from spending time together or shutting WWX out of the Cloud Recesses or even making a concentrated effort to keep people from talking to him; he’s venting his frustrations, but if he really intended to block WWX from taking part in life in the Cloud Recesses he would’ve done a hell of a lot more than just make a rule who no one WWX likes follows anyway. It’s a temper tantrum, that’s all, and clearly that’s what WWX takes it as. I mean, if nothing else you can’t ban people from talking to the sect heir’s spouse indefinitely. That’s just not sustainable.

As for the rules... banning people from running in the Cloud Recesses and demanding proper posture during lessons doesn’t suggest to me that they wouldn’t allow stimming? ‘No running’ at least is a common rule... most places. It’s distracting, and can be dangerous. And the rule about sitting properly doesn’t mean “Don’t move at all ever”; it means... well, “sit properly”. Don’t slouch or sprawl across the floor. I see no reason why that wouldn’t preclude means of stimming that wouldn’t be disruptive (and given this is in a classroom environment “not disruptive” is kind of important). I mean, those rules certainly don’t suggest that they’re any worse than other sects, and given this is the sect that has magic music for calming people’s minds if any sect would give allowances for neurodivergence it would be this one. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a song to put people to sleep, or medication that can help; this is a world with magic, after all, and if there’s a song that can put spirits to rest there are probably songs for human medicine and care. And of course there’s an element of conflicting needs; maybe the rules would screw you over, but frankly firmly enforced rules keeping people from running around or sprawling out of their seats would’ve been a godsend for me in school, given how much trouble I had focusing with people making noise around me. At the end of the day, is it guaranteed that the Lans would make allowances for people with needs that conflict with the Lan rules? No. But I’d argue it’s more likely that they would than any other sect. This is ahistorical fantasy ancient China, too; you can only expect so much in the mental health department. Still, a sect that literally invented magic music for calming the mind actually seems like the best choice for people with anxiety and such. There’s a reason why there are multiple fics that essentially set the Lans up as mental health experts in the setting!

Basically, a lot of your arguments seem to be issues that WWX would have in any sect. Unless he wanted to give up on the support of a sect altogether, they’re all things that he would have to work through or come to terms with. And of course... the most important point is that WWX is happy in the Lan sect. The extras make that clear. He has a home, duties that he enjoys performing, the love of his family and the support of his sect. He’s happy. I just... I do not understand why people keep feeling the need to try to make it angsty when the novel makes it clear that he genuinely enjoys his life in Gusu, and more than that that if he ever decided he didn’t enjoy it he could leave at any time. You have to remember that: if WWX wanted to leave... he would. He and LWJ would just go, and only come back occasionally so that LWJ could visit his home. Hell, LWJ would insist on leaving for WWX’s sake. So like... the Lan sect wouldn’t suit everyone, but WWX is quite content there and doesn’t want to leave. He’s happy and free to come and go as he wishes; there really isn’t anything to be concerned about there.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #anon #asks

[chandelier-s-notebook]

@the-only-gamer-gost‘s WritingTober Day 4: SleepyBoisInc

Set in @moonbowphobia‘s Heist Au. @octopus-defence-squad is also a creator of the Canon.

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

There was once a little boy, whose real name has been long since forgotten. He wishes. It would have been if he wasn’t forced to go to school. He’s out of school now, but that’s not when this series of events is set.

- - -

When he was nine he started stealing, borrowing, and bartering is way through life. He was a thief and a bandit. And a good one at that.

They called him Technoblade.

As the tales go: he was a one man show. He worked alone. He accomplished impossible heists. Too complex for only one person. But he managed. And he never got caught.

He was wicked good with anything that had circuit boards. And pray for the poor fool who got in to close quarters with him and forgot how good he was with that switchblade of his.

But that’s not truth. In truth, there were two boys in on the shenanigans.

Phil was Technoblade’s right-hand man. He was the one doing the backdooring. All Techno does is put in a chip, giving Phil access.

Funny how the bandit’s nickname is the part he doesn’t do.

- - -

Phil and Techno met in the first grade. Isn’t funny how he’s lost his birth name in his best friend’s mind? Phil had taken a liking to him immediately. Taking him under his wing. Making sure he was good.

Phil neverminded how much Techno stayed over at his place. He was astounded by the state of the orphanage his mate called home. And not the good kind. So was it a surprise when he didn’t bat when his friend ran away from that place?

If there was one good thing about their negligence, it was that they never unenrolled Techno from school.

- - -

Techno started his life of crime when they were in the fourth grade. His little nine year old stature helping him slip away from the scene.

He started to come to school less frequently. Phil started to worry.

It took three months for Phil it figure it out. It took him two weeks to realize that he couldn’t stop his friend. It took another three before he helped Techno plan his next heist.

Phil was the information guy. He pickpocketed the things Techno would need for things to go smoothly. Security badges, IDs, paperwork, a company laptop. He also made sure Techno had all the tools he’d need.

And he made sure that his mate got his school work when he stopped attending regularly. Made sure he knew when the tests were.

While in grade school, Techno did a lot of little jobs often. As they got into highschool he started to do bigger jobs less and less frequently.

- - -

Phil went to college. Technoblade lost his guy in the shadows. He still had his friend.

He had started to feel safe with Phil. A form of insurance. It was always nice to have someone on your side. So he stopped doing jobs.

He enrolled in college after a gap year with the money from that successful bank heist in tenth grade.

- - -

Phil became a middle school teacher straight out of college at twenty-four.

In his second year of teaching he had a familiar looking kid in his eighth grade class.

Thomas Gold. Why did he look familiar?

It wasn’t unless parent-teacher night, when his older brother came in that Phil made the connection.

Wilbur. Wilbur Gold. That kid that got Techno to come to school once a week, if only for the morning for half a year. He had a little brother. This little kindergartener who endeared himself to Techno when they were in the eighth grade was now a highschool senior.

But he needed to be professional. He couldn’t tell this kid that they had met before.

- - -

From then on he has a soft spot for Tommy and his best friend Tubbo. Even if he shouldn’t have favourites. Even if Tommy is a pain. Even if all the teachers agree that he is a bad influence on good kid Tubbo. Even though Phil knows that Tubbo is just better at hiding his chaos.

- - -

As a teacher, Phil has eyes on the back of his head and ears in the walls. But he pays special attention to these two boys.

For the other students safety.��He tells himself. I’m not even lying to myself anymore. He ushers the class out of the sciene lab that Tommy and Tubbo have just filled with gas.

So he hears everything. Especially when he’s in the middle of a lesson and people are being quiet.

“So how do we get Technoblade to help us?��

Phil gets whiplash from out fast his head snapped to their conversation. Bitch. TF. Techno hasn’t been active for six years at this point.

Oh shit. Are these two the kids that have started painting the town red? Is Wilbur helping them?

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

Thx for reading. I hope you enjoyed. I have another little story below the cut if you feel like reading more. :)

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[Enter Techno and Phil’s eighth grade teacher]

Pete was just about done with this boy only coming to class on test days and never anytime else, but who was passing every subject with flying colours. He just didn’t know what to do with him. He needed to talk to the kid’s parents.

He requested Techno’s guardian information. He called the orphanage listed and found that they hadn’t seen him in years at that point. And didn’t even lift a finger to do anything about that.

And this kid had to gall to show up after school the next day asking about that proposed interview with his ‘parents’. We wasn’t even in class that day!

Pete sat the boy down. “I don’t want to talk about your grades. I don’t need to talk about your grades. You get top marks. What I want to talk about is your attendance.”

“Attendance doesn’t affect your ability to pass until high school,” he fired back.

“But not going to school is a bad habit to create. High school is next year.”

“If I work now and save every penny, I’ll have enough money to sustain all the lost hours to school.”

“I,” Pete looked this kid up and down, noticing the heavy bags under his eyes. “We’ll get back to that.”

“Sure.”

“I want you to pass. You’re a smart kid. And it would be awful if you had to do this again. But your final mark isn’t all tests. It’s also participation, and homework.”

“I thought as much.” Then this kid. This damned kid. He opened his bag and pulled out a stack of paper. “Here’s all the homework from the school year so far.”

The school year was halfway done.

“I can hand in things I’ll miss on the days I come in.”

“Lord”

“If it makes you feel better I got eight hours of sleep last night. And I have nothing up my sleeves for participation.”

Pete makes an offer, “Group project.”

“No.”

“Reading buddies.”

“I don’t do children.

“You are a child.”

“I know.”

“Well you need to pick the lesser of two evils.”

The kid tilled his head. “How old?”

“The kindergarteners. Thursday mornings. Starting tomorrow.”

He mulled it over. “Fine, but if there’s no test I’m ditching.”

“I wouldn’t expect anymore from my best student.” Pete extends his arm for the kid to shake. “I’m keeping you to this promise.”

“Give me a nice kid?”

“Done.”

They both sat back in their chairs. Satisfied.

“Was there anything else Sir?”

“You know where I live?”

“Of course.”

Pete handed the boy ‘And Then There Were None’ by Agatha Christie. “You have the work packet for this.

“Yeah.” He turned the book over in his hands. “You handed it two weeks ago. I was going to the library this afternoon.”

“I want that book report on my desk Friday.”

“Home desk? Because you’re implying home desk right now.”

“I know.”

“Why can’t I give it to you tomorrow?”

“While I’m sure it’ll be done by then. Friday. Home desk.”

“Yes Sir.”

- - -

The boy walked into class the next morning.

Pete realized how much the other’s equated his presence with frantic last minute studying. He saw there terrified faces.

Pete hadn’t said anything about a test? Was there a pop quiz? How did he know? Why was he here?

But those were all forgotten about when Pete lead them down to the kindergarten room. He had given the boy the nicest kid, according the their teacher.

He didn’t even address the child. He took the biggest book from the shelf and started to read this giant animal encyclopedia to this child.

The soft brown haired boy was very immersed. He flipped right to the back of the book and made his buddie read about whales.

As soon as the hour was up, and Pete called time, he was out. He put the book away. Saying nothing to his buddies. And walked out the room, and presumably the building.

Pete had never seen a group of students so relieved to see the favouritism of letting a student ditch.

- - -

When Pete entered his house Friday afternoon, he was only mildly surprise to see his student on his couch watching his TV.

“You staying for dinner?”

“I thought that’s what you were implying when you told me I couldn’t hand it in yesterday.”

Pete left him to the TV.

~ ~ ~

When the next Thursday rolled around, he didn’t know who was more surprised when Techno showed up.

Him or Phil.

- - -

But Wilbur was sure happy to see his buddie after he left so abruptly last time.

#MCYT WritingTober #Technoblade #Philza #Wilbur Soot #Voiceoverpete #Tommyinnit #Tubbo #Heist Au