kauri i really need you to think hard because who the hell could hate chris ??

Kauri looks... sullen. "People have. And finding out the guy I used to be might be one of them... I'd be fucking wrecked."

Mina bean I know it‘s not that time of the year yet but you can‘t start asking soon enough! What is your halloween costume for this year? Any plans? Are your dads going to take you trick or treating?😇 What‘s your favourite candy?

Mina Michaelson is all smiles thinking about Halloween. "Dad and Daddy take me trickortreats! Daddy always does a mask costume to hide his marks, so he can go with. And takes extra medicine. But I said, I want to do all of us be the same this year! Maybe Ladybug? I could be Ladybug and Dad can be Cat Noir and Daddy could be..." She trails off. "Oh. Do anybody on Ladybug wear a whole-face mask?"

Nanda, what is your *favourite* custom toy?

Nanda leans over and picks up a small, slim black rectangle. "This."

He pressed a barely identifiable button.

From another room, the pet makes a sound somewhere between tortured moan and ecstatic wail.

oh, now I’m curious. Liam, (if you can hear this) what kind of men are you into?

Liam Harker is 18 years old. His hair is cut shorter than Kauri's will be only a year later, after his abduction, training, and new life. His eyes and smile have a brilliant, glimmering shine to them that is both like and entirely unlike Kauri's more brittle, cracked glitter.

There is no sadness in Liam Harker.

Not yet.

"Uh, well. I mean. I've had exactly two boyfriends, if you count Brent which I sometimes don't, and then seven hookups, two that were like a friends with benefits thing, the others just one time, and... I don't know. I guess I like... older guys? Not like, old older, just... Older than me. Oh, and if they have a job, that's cool..."

Nanda, what are some filthy rich guilty pleasures you indulge in? Other than buying people of course XD

Nanda has to think about that. "Honestly, not much. I pay too much for liquor I like and my clothes are all made to order - does that count? Oh, and every toy I buy for the pet is custom, too. I suppose that definitely counts..."

kauri 🥺 i know i can’t speak for certain for liam. but if i imagine i were in their place i think id be proud of you nonetheless!! recovery isn’t linear but look at all of the things you achieved!! despite the horrible things other people put you through, you escaped!! on your own!! and you did recovery, and found people who love you so so much and you married!!! and you’re helping others!!

that is something to be proud of, even if it isn’t the original plan. you are so much stronger than you know and i think liam could see that too <3

"Right, but... Did Liam even want to get married? I don't know. Not enough of him is coming back to know, and I don't want it to. He wanted to come out west, sure, but what if he wanted to go back where he came from after? What if-... What if Jake wasn't his type, or he would have hated Chris, or-... who the fuck knows who Liam Harker would have been? He might hate everything I did with his life, with this body. He might wish I were dead, instead of him being me. So." Kauri tenses, and glares at nothing. His head is starting to throb. "Liam's not the one running the show. And I don't like to think about what he'd feel about it if he knew."

Jameson, if you could have one last conversation with you parents, what would you say?

Jameson thinks about that. Then shrugs. "Sorry it was Hank and not me," He says, rough and irritated. "That's what i'd say. And not to be sad about what happened to me. Hank deserved better."

Ok, so... I'm compiling a word document with Kauri's story for a friend of mine (she's just never gonna read it through the master list, I had to do this to get her to read Danny's as well lol) and GOD DAMNIT, I forgot how fucking brutal some of the early Kauri's drabbles were!

Like, I know NOW we know Owen was the absolute fucking worst, but I remember at some point he just seemed like this regularly abusive asshole, but reading back... It was always there. Like, I don't even mean the early Kauri stuff you wrote recently, but the real, real old stuff. He was always fucking terrifying, Jesus!

Owen was always on a crash course towards taking someone's life, in the end, Vince or Kauri's. If Kauri hadn't escaped Owen when he did, he would have been dead within another year.

Kauri, what was the first and what was the last thing you were taught in training?

Kauri's expression, usually animated, goes briefly still and a little empty. "If no one wants you, you don't exist," He says, voice slightly flat. "If no one wants you, you will stop existing. You aren't real, you're alone. So make sure someone wants you."

He pauses.

"Then, I guess... You love him. Because he wants you, you will love him. And then you get to be real."

Nat, do you sometimes wonder how your life could so easily turned out so differently? And - Any guilty moments when you feel regret - or shame-, looking at your past?

- sara / @justplainwhump

Nat, sitting at her kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee while a little bluebird sings outside the window, gives you a slight, sardonic smile. "Tons. Tons of guilty moments. I screwed up, over and over again. I thought about that vacation package, the promise of making good money in a place where good money is hard to come by. I was good at what I did, as long as I didn't think about it. But then... but then, I got too close to it, and I saw how we were hurting people. I tried to fight it, but all I can do is help one life at a time. I wish I could do more. But if I never left, well... I'd be Karen Renford now, wouldn't I?"

She sighs.

"Well. My hair wouldn't be as good as hers. But still."

In my ongoing Baldur's Gate moments...

My new Drow made... some choices.

Then she emotionally manipulated her nerdy wizard boyfriend and full on psychologically twisted her vampire bestie into making those choices, too.

I'm sure this won't come back to haunt her later.

I love that Nate would kill again for Danny, if needed.

I’m just wondering how it would play out, if he had to.

He would be better at it than he ever was before, because Bram mixed him up, messed with his head. It was difficult to kill Bram because of how much Nate had been made to love him. It wouldn't be as difficult to do it to anyone else.

Who of your OCs would you say got their Happily Ever After, no matter how non-traditional?

Honestly, almost all of my protagonists and even a few bad guys! My goal in the end is to be able to know the characters are doing well, in their lives, even when I don't write them as often or sometimes at all any longer.

Kauri, what life choices have you made that you will 100z do again, both good or bad?

"All of them." He answers without hesitation. "Every single one. Without them, I wouldn't be here. And even if I was, I wouldn't have my family. So. All of them."

Luke, how are you these days? Are you still happy with your gorgeous Marco?

(features @card-games-and-pain 's own Marco and Lee)

Luke sits on a long, deep, plush couch. Marco is curled up on one side of him, Luke's arm around his waist, wearing his pretty chain collar with the tag that says Gorgeous. Marco wears a small, distinctly sad smile, draped in what can only be called luxury pajamas.

"Of course I am." Luke sighs, content, smiling brightly as another man comes into the room. Lee's teeth are nearly audibly grinding together as he places the glass of whiskey on ice into Luke's free hand and settles onto the couch on Luke's other side. His pajamas match Marco's, as does the collar - only his reads Beautiful.

"Everything is perfect. I work for a week or two, come home for a week and get seen to by the best pets time and effort can buy... What's not to be happy about, hm?"

Chris! How have you been doing? You're taking care of yourself, right? Have you done anything new and exciting?

Chris's hair is currently lavender tipped, with the copper roots grown almost totally out again. He smiles, his eyes off to one side, as if looking at something just beyond you. His fingers toy with the silicone dinosaur pendant he's wearing today, a bright jade green against his all-black outfit, from long sleeves compression shirt to oversized T-shirt and ripped jeans.

"I, I'm okay." He shrugs, picking at the dinosaur's little plastic spines. "Uh, I, I've been... having trouble, um, um, with talking more often lately, but, but Dr. Berger says it's-it's, it's not a straight, um, a a a line... But squiggles, and and and I'm still... going the, the, the right way. I, I, I haven't... wanted to to to go. Anywhere. Lately." He flashes a hint of a nervous smile, there and then gone. "Since, uh. You, you, you know. When, when Kauri, when... I I I mostly stay home. With, with Raf, and, and and Jake and Kauri, and Ant, and... And Laken... Safer here."

One thing I love about Kauri is the way he talks about Liam as if he’s a whole other physical person. Someone not even sharing the same looks and body. You write that so well that there are times I forget that Liam is who Kauri was originally known as😭

Kauri feels like Liam wouldn't recognize him as himself. Which, for the record, is very wrong. Liam and Kauri are very much the same man. But Kauri doesn't see it that way.