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#THEY WERE BASICALLY OCS TO ME IS THE THING

dilatorywriting · 2 days

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Opposites

Vil Schoenheit x OC Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: What do you get when a cross a vampire and a vampire hunter? Arguments about color coordination, apparently.

[OC Archive]

🌶️ Obligatory Warning for Mild Sugggestive Content

Opposites attract they say.

Which Saya had never really understood, because the general population that fell into that ‘opposites’ category tended to drive her absolutely up a wall.

And then the universe had to go and spit in her face by sending her not one, but two very opposite precious people. Ro’s contrasting traits were obvious. Sweet to her spicy, soft to her sharp. Doting, and kind, and wide eyed. Vil’s shtick was a bit trickier, because at the core of them they were the same. Or at least, similar enough that the model had long since learned to pick apart every bit of her with the familiarity of someone staring into a mirror. But there were other things.

‘Did you remember to pick up the makeup kits I had sent to Sam’s for you?’

Saya sighed and rolled her eyes and typed out an irritated. ‘Yes. Of course.’

‘You should have had all this on hand already. It’s practically the basics.’

‘Okay.’

‘Don’t pull that tone with me.’

‘We’re messaging. There is no ‘tone.’’

‘Oh? Try that again then.’

For fucks’ sake. She knew he was stressing over the Halloween event, and ensuring that he and all of his little spudlings looked positively perfect for their role in it all. But still. She was half debating smearing mud across her face and showing up smelling like literal death just to give all his pissy fretting the middle finger. But at the same time, this was important to him. And ugh. Bleck. She was just going to have to tolerate his fussing. As usual.

‘Do you want me to wear the black or the grey boots?’ she sent back instead—an olive branch.

And immediately he was flooding her phone with all sorts of color scheme nonsense and rambles about the thematic importance of shading. Which. Fine. Better than the slippery slope she’d been heading towards by a long shot.

But, ahh. They really couldn’t be more different sometimes.

Saya had managed to wrangle her way into the complicated, custom-Schoenheit-designed ensemble and was halfway through lining her lash line with heavy, dark charcoal when she heard some incredibly unsubtle footsteps sneaking along down the hallway towards the bathroom. She watched a head of styled, red, curls bob in and out of the corner of the mirror. Then, a soft curse when he whacked his knee against the tile. She puckered her lips like Vil had taught her and ignored the creeping creature in the corner.

“Boo!” Ro chirped, hands curled into claws as he popped over the side of the counter.

Saya blinked past his head, unbothered and focused, and simply continued leaning close to the mirror to smudge heavy, black eyeshadow along her lids.

The redhead pouted and leaned forward on his tiptoes, the witch hat bobbing on his head as he stretched.

“Sai-chan. I said—”

She reached out, fast as a snake, and snatched his arm. And Ro shrieked.

“Boo,” she grinned, and he wailed in indignation.

“No fair!”

“Not my fault your scare game is weak,” she taunted. “Besides, who in their right mind would be afraid of you when look like the thumbnail off some teeny-bop lofi video?”

“That’s why I’m playing the victim!” Ro chirped, bouncing back as easily as he always did under her prodding. The layers of dark, plum skirts twirled at his knees above a set of garishly striped stockings. He looked far more Lolita Magical Girl than Creepy, Kooky Witch, but it fit him well enough either way. “I thought you were too, Saya-chan. But you look intense.”

She dabbed a bit at the raccoon-smears around her eyes.

“Different kinds of victims, I guess,” she shrugged. “You’re the cute one people feel bad for, I’m the one people see and go ‘oh shit, if he can get her, I’m doomed.’” It was proper Horror Movie logic, and Saya couldn’t fault the third years for coming up with such a devious little idea. Vil had been particularly proud of her new role when he’d presented it at their pitch meeting.

“S’too bad we don’t match anymore,” Ro hummed, propping himself up on the ledge of the counter to swing his feet. “Your new costume is cool too, though!”

It really was. It looked like something ripped right off a movie set. All aged, dusty leather and intricate straps tucked beneath a fitted overcoat that felt as expensive as it looked. And knowing who had procured it for her, Saya wouldn’t be too surprised if that was actually the case.

She snapped the little compact case closed and turned on Ro with a sharp smirk.

“Ready to go make some stupid influencers shit themselves?”

He nodded, a touch too enthusiastic. “I’ll see you later, Saya-chan! After we’ve wiped all of them out.”

“…not literally,” she reminded him with a pointed glare. “Make sure your dragon remembers that, yes?”

“Yes, yes. You’ve told me, Saya-chan. He won’t actually eat anyone. That’s what I’m for!”

“Right,” Saya nodded, wiping a bit of stray gold, dust off his collar and straightening out the pointed hat atop his head. “Let’s go ruin some magicam photos.”

They really couldn’t have looked more intentionally contrasting. Vil, with the sharp, crisp lines painted around his eyes and Saya all smudged soot and grime. A sweeping, purple and gold-embroidered ensemble next to a dark, muddied beige with no discernible shimmer to speak of. Pomp versus practical. Seductive, free-spirited elegance to militaristic formality. His hair curling loose at his collarbones and hers pinned into a tight bun to give the squibs more space to splatter.

“No way these guys are actual vampires,” one of the Magicam Monsters spluttered, taking a harried step back.

Which was Saya’s cue to step forward—silver cross at her throat and thick, woolen overcoat swirling at her knees.

“I see you’ve finally come out of hiding, beast,” she droned, lifting the prop blade from her belt to point at the space over his heart. She could hear the tourists around her chittering and whispering into their hands. If this was all part of the show. If this was real. If it was a joke. If it was— “To think you’d stoop so low as to use a place like this for your hunting grounds. I’ll strike you down where you stand.”

Vil swooped forward so suddenly it managed to genuinely startle her. And his hand snapped up to wrap around her wrist so tight it was nearly painful. The silver stake fell to the ground with a clatter and he dug his fingers into her hair—yanking her head back sharp and harsh so her neck was on full display. Saya hissed between her teeth and glared at him sourly, fighting the urge to snap out and remind him that this wasn’t real, and she would very much like to keep her limbs and dignity intact, thank you very much.

But then he was grinning down at her in a way that had her stomach dropping—his fangs peeking over his painted lips and eyes going lidded and dark. She heard one of the stupid influencers gasp and rattle out a panicked ‘should we do something?!’

“Oh, sweet thing,” he cooed, trailing a painted nail along her jawline. “I was never hiding.”

And then he leaned forward and bit her. Saya gasped and dug her fingers into his shoulders because ow! What the hell, man! He wasn’t supposed to actually—

The squib went off beneath her collar and thick, sticky, crimson blood began to seep its way down her neck and drip to the floor. Vil’s adam’s apple bobbed against her throat as he swallowed and Saya shivered.

The hoard of rabid influencers took off in a terrified frenzy—screaming, and shoving, and fighting their way out of the Mirror Chamber. Soon enough, the room was empty once more except for the two of them, and Saya lifted a hand to awkwardly pat against his back.

“You can—” she gulped when he shifted to bite at her collarbone. “You can stop now. They left.”

“Oh?” he hummed against her blood-splattered skin. “But what sort of Vampire Lord would I be if I didn’t make an example of the little hunter who thought herself clever enough to trap me?”

“Vil—”

“You wore the rosemary perfume.”

She blinked, thrown. “Of course I did. You said I needed to stay ‘on theme.’”

“But I didn’t tell you to,” he crooned, licking a long stripe up her throat and collecting the stray droplets of fake blood as he went. “You did that on your own.”

Saya frowned, determined to be stubbornly put out despite the fangs playing at her skin. “You said—”

“Sometimes I wonder exactly why it is I adore you so much,” he sighed, and she froze, like a deer in the headlights. Or like a poor, little human trapped between the teeth of a monster. “And then I remember that maybe we aren’t quite so different after all.”

He pulled back with a grin that was equal parts smug and soft. He reached up and rubbed at one of the red stains seeping into her skin.

“I’ll get you a cloth for that. We should get you cleaned up before the next group arrives.”

“…R-Right,” she spluttered. Of course. Yes. Cleaned up. Because that’s what this was all about. They were dawning the masks of a vampire and his hunter respectively. And they were in public.

“Oh. And, kitten?” he called over his shoulder from where he’d moved towards his stash of emergency stage makeup and costume maintenance supplies. “Do try to struggle a bit more next time, hmm? We need to make this believable.”

Absolutely intolerable. Nothing like her at all.And if Saya gasped like a victim put to the cross during their next little display—noisy and loud in all the ways that tended to make his pupils grow round and dark. If she wriggled against his grip just so to make sure she was provoking him just as much as he was for her, with perhaps the added advantage of the hidden swell of his draped cloak to shield her pressing knees. Well, that was certainly no business but her own.

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x OC #Vil Schoenheit x OC #Vil x OC #vil schoenheit #My Writing

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cinnanamii · 2 days

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Ganjis 3rd year birthday letter and the heavy mischaracterization of the characters in game 3/just ranting about the birthday letter

(⚠️⚠️‼️THIS POST WILL BE DISCUSSING LEAKS/SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR GAME 3 OF IDV!! IF YOU DONT WANT TO BE SPOILED ON GANJIS 3RD YEAR LETTER OR GAME 3, SCROLL AWAY PLEASE! AND ALSO KEEP IN MIND, I AM NOT A GAME 3 EXPERT! IF I GET ANYTHING WRONG FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!!‼️⚠️⚠️)

Ganjis 3rd year letter was leaked recently (you can probably find post about it on tiktok and on discord servers) and I am so far beyond unimpressed and disappointed.

To start out this yap session/rant, I’m going to list the characters serial numbers, so that you can know who I will be talking about so that you can get a grip on what I will be discussing.

• 3-1-2 is anne

• 3-?-1 is aesop

• 3-1-4 is ganji

• 3-?-3 is Victor

The fact that netease decided to fill the letter with shock value racism, ruin annie as a character, and just ruined Ganjis character arc, and basically made Victor useless is so BEYOND me. This is a a lot, so I wanna start by talking about the blatant mischaracterization of annie and ganji in this letter.

To start off, they made annie so unnecessarily, hateful and racist towards ganji. It would make sense for annie to be afraid of loud noises, as they did introduce her as a timid woman, but making her afraid of ganji and becoming violent to him because of his accent is so beyond me. The whole reason why annie attacked ganji was originally because aesop manipulated annie into hurting him, not that annie got scared of the way he spoke? Plus, due to her timid and sweet girl type personality i could never see annie physically fighting/attacking ganji, it’s just not something that would happen. How could she ever have the confidence to do that, when she was literally scared of ganji? Then, on top of that, annie wouldn’t be provoked by his accent so easy? In her trailer, she was literally described to be like her mother, who was very nice, that being a trait annie had. So for her to just go attacking him so so EXTREMELY out of character for her.

Then, next screenshot I’m showing right now is the shock value racism randomly put in this for god who knows why?

“unfavorable impression” caused by 3-1-4’s accent? This is so ooc for annie, it feels like a poorly written oc/au. The antagonization of annie feels so unnecessary and just not needed. Game 3 might not have had a Hunter, but it did have an antagonist, that being aesop. The whole antagonization doesn’t feel right for her at all.

Then now, I wanna talk about Victor. One of the main things in game 3 is that they were not able to talk or communicate with each other. if they were able to do that, what’s the point of him even being here if they could already speak verbally? His writing was already kinda not the best, but this entire letter takes whatever relevance he had to the plot away. He needs to get something consistent, or else in this case his character is just useless. It’s completely unfair that aesop is able to get clear motivations and goals, but the other characters goals and aspirations just get handled horribly.

Game 3 was so unique in the way it functioned, and with the characters that were so similar, but so different at the same time. What could have been a group of compelling a deeply well written characters now feel like a dumpster fire or mischaracterization and the severe lack of coherence. All just from one letter too. This feels like a big fat slap in the face for me as someone who loved game 3, and all of the characters for game 3, ESPECIALLY annie, and if you loved game three, also this should feel like a slap in the face for you too.

**im aware that this is a leak, and it could be potentially false, but this has been on my mind practically ever since I heard of it, and everything is just so absurd.**

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casawio · 6 months

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this is so so embarrassing but does anyone remember when i got so fucking hyperfixated on xdnf like a 2 years ago. yeah i found an old sketchbook and its the only sketchbook i've actually finished and a solid third of it is literally just xdnf. i was fucking insane i literally drew them all the time. i wrote a 27 page fanfic about them for a project during that time. i was in hell

#THEY WERE BASICALLY OCS TO ME IS THE THING #DRISTA AND XD AND GNF GAVE NOTHINGGG IN CANON #IT WAS LIKE 90% ME #Sigh. Whatever #tw dream mention

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an-unraveling-unknown · 1 month

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You ever do something not thinking much of it, but after you do it you realize it was actually like a genius move?

This happened to me with my story: Started it off with a fairly standard conflict; someone wants what Tuon has. But afterward I was like "Oh shit, this is a prime opportunity to show his unyielding guardianship!" But not only that, I also realized that it did a great job at reflecting his flaws and sort of foreshadowing them to the reader

Oh man THATS SO GOOD!! It is so nifty when things work out like that, I hear you- long story relatively short, you betcha.

I had something like that with Aeonian, my Tav for Baldur's Gate 3. One of their quirks that I put down on paper early on was that the places were their muscles would be are rock hard - mainly because of the fact that they're cramming a monolithically sized form's worth of matter down into a humanoid body thats eight times smaller, hence putting a lot of strain on their body as a whole, but also à la a statue for a physical form.

"Statue for a physical form.... death and rebirth themes*......statue made of rock. wait."

Because I cannot escape my hyperfixations, geology was thrown back in my face in whence I was immediately reminded of the ROCK CYCLE:

-which can be pretty well-applied to the whole death and rebirth thing, not to mention a nifty little guideline as to how their character arc can go as well as Aeonian's place as a story in of themselves (long story, involves statues though) and their tendency to 'erode' themselves per se if it means getting where they need to be. Metamorphosis also links pretty cleanly here too, not only because of the metamorphic rock and its processes but because of parallels between Aeonian (embodiment of death [at sea]) and Thanatos, the greek personification of death, who is usually represented by way of butterflies.

I'm real bad at explaining things so I apologize if none of this made a lick of sense, I promise it's a lot clearer in my head and please feel free to ask for clarity on anything!! this is probably some of my favorite character work I've done so far

*dionysus+being the literal embodiment of death [at sea,] longer story

(Please talk more about Tuon he is SO cool and I talk too much, that's some really good character writing)

#oc lore #original character #baldurs gate tav #bg3 tav #bg3 #mind - Aeonian and their sister were originally created outside of Baldur's Gate for a separate project (hence the greek myth allusions)#and i kind of just plonked them in cos I didn't feel like creating a new character at the time #hence why this may seem wacko bonkers #oc #this stone theme I have going on also reflects how they act for a good while #Earlier on in the story #(at least in terms of their character in BG3)#they know they are here for one purpose;#get in #find missing sister (long story)#get out #As per detriment this also means that they're rather walled #and they only organized the adventuring party in the first place because the other three (Karlach Gale Astarion) have skills that they don'#thus actually finding their sister will go a whole lot smoother #all this to say they aren't here to make friends #but they do soften after a while (with much heat and pressure e.g combat and working together and bonding)#my oc stuff #they have so many issues man #their entire mantra basically amounts to 'if I'm not dead I'm fine' which is an idiot thing to follow when you're immortal #“I will keep moving forward as long as I breathe regardless of if there's enough of me left to move” -immortal fucking dipshit /lovingly

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spotsupstuff · 9 months

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Does Boreas truly love his family or does he simply see it as a responsibility to take care of them simply because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you have family? How does he react when he loses them in the canon timeline?

well, when Zephyr fell and went dark he was messed up by it so badly he never really got out of it even after he takes up raising and caring for batflies. he's so used to feeling anger all the time and hardly anything else that he doesn't know how to deal with the feelings Zephyr's passing makes him go through. he essentially becomes paralyzed in the grief, which is actually the main thing that destroys Mission Self-preservation

that's what this meme basically addresses-

if he socialized better, wasn't caught only in his tiny little circle and refused any relationship from others like Orion, he could've addressed that crippling emotional agony that comes with passing of a loved one. time won't heal you well without medicine

Boreas is the first one Euros tells about his second Rot

another tragedy he won't be able to cope with. Euros' last broadcast is singing into the frequencies, for anyone still alive and capable to listen to him for the last time. B and some more others come together and answer his calls, sing to him until his power fails and Euros goes dark

if he didn't love the boy, the man who doesn't like to sing much wouldn't come to mourn with a ballad at the funeral

his anger at Notos' blindness is inspired by my parents whenever my disability becomes the topic of a conversation. they are so so angry i've been hurt this way. nobody should have to be disabled, we are supposed to be okay. so Boreas loves Notos unbelievably much and his anger at the injustice done to her is an evidence of it. he doesn't get to call it before it collapses like with Euros because the communications are down and something tells him that it wouldn't really want to see him in its final moments upright either way. after Zephyr's collapse he became even more prickly including to his loved ones since he can't deal with it and that ended with Notos replying in kind. it's his fault that the two drifted away, but he still loves that kid

i dunno where i've seen it but in some film i think there was a scene of an addict dad and his kid, POV the kid. the dad shouted and cursed and blamed the kid for his state and for his grief, probably shattered an alcohol bottle too, then he realized what he just did while the kid cowered in the corner. he was *horrified*. he came to the kid and hugged them softly, crying and apologizing, begging for forgiveness. the child was just scared, wide eyed in confusion. that's what Boreas and Notos' relationship ends up carrying in spirit nearing the end of them all

they still love each other, but the other is doing such horrible dangerous decisions and acting even worse that it's impossible to stand and it hurts So damn much to space away from it. to shoot a fiery glare towards him when on the good days he can be the epitome of safety. so it's complicated but the love Is there, making it hurt that much more

Haboob is the only one who sorts of falls into that "its just my responsibility to take care of you" field. i kind of think of Boreas like a lion. he will stay and protect his kids, play with them, but offspring of others will be killed (ofc he doesn't go That far with fellow Iterators). after Notos, the Anemoi were supposed to be a finished group. that's it. there's only four gods to be named after. so Haboob to him is like a kid he was forced to adopt, by people he absolutely loathes. while Euros learned how to love her, Boreas just learned how to take on the responsibility. being horrible to her was easier than anyone else, but surprisingly to him it still stung when Haboob had enough and essentially slammed the door in his face by leaving the Anemoi chat and blocking his frequency. didn't help that Notos followed soon after too, cuz at this point it loved Haboob more than whatever was Boreas becoming

he took note of the sting n at some point figured out that he did actually love the kid. spent too long with her chatting with Euros and Notos in the back of his mind to not accept her into the family properly. in the off string post-MA au them addressing their relationship is one of the more important plot points

#spot says stuff #rw #oc tag #ask to tag #oc: boreas' blessing #ultimately Orion gets a reaction out of him too. though he doesnt wanna have much to do with him outside of work its hard to completely-#-deny all the time theyve actually spent together. thousands and thousands of years together. working through things no matter how shitty-#-the Ancients were. theyve gone through a War together and Orion was almost Lost in that #Ori is kinda pissy with Boreas over being used like some secretary- unfairly overworked he basically does everything that Boreas or Zeph-#-are meant to do but Zeph is understandable. so thats another relationship B unknowingly has and is treating horrible as a result #boreas is not a good man ill say it again gjksdljlm But it is possible to worm under his plating -looks at Haboob n Sparru-#love me some super complicated mindboggling characters. hes a fucking Individual

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jtl07 · 9 months

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What are your thoughts on the OCS?

Sometimes it seems like a manipulative cult that recruits vulnerable girls. But, it's also this found family for many of them. Is it good or evil? Is it both?

oh buddy. i ... actually have been having thoughts about this for the past few days (what is it with y'all being on my brainwave? must be something in the universe idk) as in, i've been contemplating the parallels between the OCS and the military.

so for context, i'm coming at this as a person who was in the military, who is a female poc from a middle class immigrant asian family. i give this context because i see a lot of the military in the OCS (i've mentioned it in some of my write ups and a big part of why i ended up writing the top gun 2 au) - mostly because the OCS is presented as an organization with a methodology that is built on violence.

i tried my best to be coherent but there's likely some meandering - feel free to ask further questions or clarification.

tl;dr - imo, it's all of the above.

i'm going to start with my experience in the military before i talk about the OCS because there's something in me that's chafing at the word "vulnerable." it's not that i think it's the wrong word per se, but that there's context that's needed.

for me, i had several family members who were in the military: my dad for one, several uncles, and a handful of my older cousins. this means i grew up learning that the military was a) one of the most honorable, respectable, and coolest professions you could join, b) the only profession where you were judged solely on your performance (i.e. racism wasn't overt), c) great financially because the pay was transparent and the benefits (back in the day) were fantastic if you stayed til retirement.

i don't believe any of that anymore, but that's what i'd learned. this is what my family believed (still does, actually). this is what many other poc believed too. compared with the opaque, racist corporate world - and having the responsibility of taking care of one's parents, who'd immigrated from their home country to give you "a better life" - having something stable and honorable like the military seemed like the best choice. why would i choose something else? how could i even see anything else? the military was the only choice i knew.

i left the military over a decade ago, but there's still a part of me that thinks "i'll never top my time in the military; i'll never have an experience quite like that." and the larger part of me can acknowledge now that yes, that's true. because when you're in an organization like the military (and comparatively, like the OCS) it's exhilarating in a way, knowing that you're part of something that's larger than yourself, knowing that you were deemed worthy - that you proved that you were worthy - of being part of this elite, special organization that has this grand, noble, world-saving mission. and yes, you feel a bond with the folks you serve with - bound by a vow to serve and protect, bound by experiences only they will understand.

there's nothing quite like that.

and i never want to experience that again.

because yes, it's exhilarating and exciting, and it's addicting in a way - to do all these cool things that folks make movies about, to know you're doing your part in keeping the people you love safe, to build relationships where no matter what, they've got your back.

but it's blinding. it blinds you to the violence, the harm that you're inflicting in the name of the mission - on both others and your own self. it blinds you to other ways of living. it blinds you to other ways of being safe - on both a personal and national level. this kind of experience trains you constantly: "this is the only way; this is the only choice."

and you can probably see why Beatrice's backstory resonated with me. of course she chose the church, the OCS - this was the only choice she had, the only choice she could possibly make to prove herself, to make herself worthy. in the OCS, she found a community of folks who, like her, were committed to a mission and ready to give their lives because, like her, that was probably the only choice they thought they had. it was the best choice they had.

maybe that's why i chafe at the use of "vulnerable" - because at the time, choosing the military felt like my shot at redemption, at salvation. it wasn't a moment of weakness, but of strength.

at least, that's what i had been trained to believe. and there is, apparently, still a part of me that believes it. even though there's the larger part of me that can see now the ecosystem that forced my hand.

it's also why i love Ava as a protagonist - how she was determined to find another way, how desperate she was to live. because organizations that are built on violence, organizations like the military, like the OCS, it takes folks who believe they need to prove themselves and takes advantage of that need, forces them to carry more than any person ever should, then calls them noble, calls them honorable, calls them worthy - all the while training them, ultimately, to die.

does good sometimes result from that, grow out of that? yeah. but the cost is very, very high.

#idk anon this got really rambly #i just can't not see the military when i think of the ocs #and when i think of the military it still tugs at me #there was this one quora post a while back that explained how marine bootcamp is basically psychological retraining #bc like no one's first response is to run towards gunfire #and it takes a certain belief in one's self to sign up for that kind of thing #but it's a belief that is taught through culture and through the system #a belief that you get caught up in like a web and you don't even know it when you're in it #... why did i choose this analogy i hate spiders wtf self #anyway #anon i hope this is what you were looking for #but if not feel free to ask further questions #other folks can ask too it's cool #jt answers #jt rambles #warrior nun

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autumnalwalker · 7 months

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The Melts

Author's Note: A while back I had a bit of a ramble on how I wished that it was more common to find examples of human bodies artistically warped into new and interesting configurations presented in a manner other than horror and gave an off-the-top of my head example of a hypothetical episode of a slice-of-life series going on that theme. A couple months passed, and then with Halloween approaching, I decided on a whim to slam out a rough draft of that story over the weekend. So here we are. Summary: What if your entire body slowly melting over the course of the day got treated as being no worse than the common cold and you still have to go to work because you work retail and already used up all your sick days? Wordcount: 5,295 Content Warnings: Descriptions of the sensation of one's body slowly melting into a fleshy pile of goo, various weird anatomical modifications, spider-like creatures crawling all over people, having to go into work while sick.

Mil had the melts.

They became aware of this approximately four and a half minutes after waking up when their hand made an unfortunate squelch sound upon palming their alarm clock’s snooze button. They held their hand in place in denial for another half minute while their arm slowly stretched and drooped down into the space between bed and bedside table. They reluctantly opened their eyes and groaned at the sight of the clock’s contour pressing up through a hand whose bones had gone limp and elastic.

It was going to be one of those days.

The thought of calling in sick today briefly crossed their mind, but no, it was close to the end of the year and they’d already used up all of their sick days. Any more would have to come out of their precious holiday leave time.

It was fine, they told themself while throwing back the covers of their bed and pointedly ignoring how that arm curled back around on itself from the momentum. It was only a mild case and it would probably clear up by the time their shift was over. Enough to be annoying but nothing worth making a fuss over. Unless it was a severe case, but that almost never happens.

As a small mercy, Mil’s legs weren’t as melted as their arm so they only almost fell over immediately upon standing up on appendages that bent and swayed in spots that don’t have joints. Thank goodness for counterbalancing tails. People often called their look basic, but Mil preferred to think of it as classic. Feline ears and tails had been among the first reshapings to see mainstream adoption and Mil had personally always found more complicated additions of prehensile limbs and sensory organs to be a nightmare of overstimulation. Plus, the ears and tail were a nice aid in emoting to make up for the difficulty Mil usually had with expressing themself by voice and face alone.

By the time Mil reached the kitchen they’d found a workable rhythm to their unsteady gait that managed to keep them mostly upright. No time for anything complicated for breakfast, and probably best to keep away from the toaster in this state, so cereal it was. That had its own complications of course - grip the spoon too loosely and its weight would stretch their fingers down and apart, but too tightly and their whole hand would roll itself up and try to retract back into their arm - but several minutes of grumbling around mouthfuls of wheat byproduct and dairy tree milk where enough to convince Mil that it wasn’t really all that bad and that they’d be able to manage at work today.

They pointedly ignored the ensuing contrary evidence that came in the form of their legs getting stuck on the inside of their pants and rolling up into lumpy balls until they gave up and went with a skirt. They’d already spent all the time they normally would have devoted to their morning workout on trying to pour themself into a tight turtleneck while getting the right body parts through the right holes. Supposedly wearing snug-fitting clothing like this was an effective way to hold your shape relatively solid in a bad case of the melts - which Mil definitely (probably) didn’t have - but in practice it was not as useful a tip as its popularity would suggest.

But hey, they were fed, dressed and out of the house almost on time, so that was a victory. And it meant they were almost on time to catch the tram before it left. Oh. Wait.

It’s fine, they told themself while fiddling with the straps on the mask they’d donned on their way out the door. It would only be a few minutes until the next tram scuttled up. They’d only be a little bit late to work. Everyone would understand. Afterall, who hadn’t had the melts before? In the meantime it gave them a few extra moments to try to get their mask to squeeze their head into a less embarrassing shape. If Mil had to go in sick, it was the least they could do to try not to spread it. But if they could be considerate while not having their skull get squished in the middle into the shape of a peanut, that’d be great.

A few pats on the side of the face, a push on the the top of their head, some hard nodding, get their fingers untangled from the mask straps aaannnddd…. A plop and a dizzying snap as Mil felt their jaw distend and the lower half of their face slide fully into the mask just as the next tram arrived. Checking their reflection out in the tram’s shiny carapace confirmed that their head was an acceptable shape. Maybe a little bit snout-y, but they could write that off as being part of the feline look. So long as no one saw the mess under their mask.

The good part of being out at the end of the line like this is that Mil almost always got a decent seat on the tram and plenty of time to listen to their audio books. It almost made up for the long commute. Of course, today one earbud kept falling off the top of their head every few minutes from that ear not holding its shape well enough and the other one was worming its way uncomfortably far into an ear that seemed to be trying to swallow it through a series of expansions and contractions that mirrored Mil’s breathing. By the second stop Mil gave up and shoved both earbuds back into a skirt pocket, resigning themself to ride stewing in silence.

That silence only lasted one more stop when the bulk of the other commuters started to pour in. By the fifth stop Mil was firmly wedged between a shell-backed construction worker and a twelve-armed switchboard operator who had enough respect for personal space to keep those arms wrapped around zemself but not enough to not press three different elbows into Mil's ribs. Mil tried not to hold it against zem. It was the morning rush hour. Getting pressed together was to be expected. Even if that meant winding up half a foot taller and considerably flatter. Mil tried not to think about how many people they were spreading their melts to.

At the ninth stop Mil extruded themself from the over-packed tram and toddered over to a bench to catch their breath. If they were going to be late anyway, what was an extra minute or two to let their shoulderblades stop overlapping and left and right halves of their ribcage stop interlacing? Just a few deep breaths to puff their torso back out and they were good to go. They could fix their hair later after they got into a restroom to wash the public transit funk off their hands.

Walking into the store’s employee entrance a couple blocks down the street, Mil was greeted with the terrifying visage of their manager, Baroft. The smile wasn’t terrifying because of the fangs (Mil had been considering getting some themself for some time now but couldn’t quite justify it with how little meat they ate), nor because of the extra pair of slit-pupiled crimson eyes (pretty standard for those who could adapt to the extra sensory input), nor even for the contrast with the face’s second mouth that wasn’t smiling (that one never smiled, it wasn’t the customer service voice mouth). No, that smile was terrifying because if Baroft was happy - even worse, relieved - to see them walk in the door late for work, then that could only mean one thing.

The store was short-staffed today.

Mil would have to deal with customers.

Mil was - generally speaking - not good with people even on the best of days, and today was - as the flesh of their hand pooling at their fingertips under the force of gravity like ripening fruit would attest - not the best of days. Most of the time they got by on trading duties with coworkers to spend as much of their workday as possible on the backend duties; stocking inventory, cleaning, feeding the weavers, updating displays, etc. If one good thing could be said about Baroft it was that after seeing Mil awkwardly stumble through enough customer conversations and fitting attempts, yt had realized that putting them in a customer-facing role was more likely to lose the store money than earn it.

But now Baroft was complaining about Rangel being out on jury duty at the same time as Kalei being unable to come in due to thons kid pupating, and Paras from the evening shift had called in sick, so Mil could just imagine the sort of morning Baroft has been having, and Mil was going to have to be a team player and pull through just for today all the way through until closing time, and yes there would be overtime compensation once they made up for arriving late, and what’s Mil complaining about it’s just the melts, if they were able to get here then obviously isn’t that serious, now no attitude and best behavior in front of the customers, it was already bad enough that yt had had to call Leolani and ask eir to come in early today.

That last part cut through Baroft‘s blizzard of words and caused Mil’s heart to skip a beat. Leolani usually arrived just as Mil was getting ready to leave for the day so they didn’t know eir all that well, but the handful of brief conversations the two of them had shared always left Mil wanting to change that. It wasn’t a crush per say, only that everything about Leolani struck Mil as indescribably cool and made them wish they could be friends and hang out. Eir jacket covered in punk patches that ei left draped over the chair in the employee breakroom that no one else dared claim. Eir perfect eyeliner. The way ei could multitask taking one customer’s measurements while uncoiling eir twelve-foot neck over to help another customer pick out a suit off the rack. Eir taste in music that had made the basis for the longest interaction Mil had managed with eir.

Under other circumstances, the opportunity to spend the day commiserating with Leolani over being the two youngest employees by a wide margin and how awful the holiday rush that started earlier every year was might have almost made up for having to work late. Now though, they were suddenly feeling self-conscious about the way their spine had started to go limp in places and force them into a slouch.

Mil’s trip to the restroom to straighten up in front of the mirror was a perfunctory one. They might have arrived late to work, but no way were they going to be late to feed the weavers on schedule. Elam - in early and still in nir fall look of leaf-like orange hair and skin covered in gray keratin growths mimicking tree bark - gave a marginally less brusque than usual greeting when Mil pushed aside the heavy curtain separating the dim tailoring room from the shop, even going so far as to offer nir sympathies for Mil’s melts. Mil’s more solid hand glorped over one of the nutrient slurry canisters on the shelf as they insisted that they were fine. Just a minor case of the melts that would clear up by the afternoon.

Elam raised a skeptical woody eyebrow and offered to handle the feeding duties today, but Mil declined and stepped into the weavers’ enclosure. The way Mil saw it, they were something like an apprentice to Elam who had finally promised to teach them how to direct the weavers once the new year rolled around, so any chance to prove themself… well, it wasn’t so much welcome as not something they could afford to pass up. Experienced weaver handlers were always in demand (as evidenced by Elam being able to afford four full-body reshapes a year just to keep up the image of a tree changing with the seasons), and honestly it was the closest thing Mil had to a career advancement opportunity.

Besides, Mil genuinely liked working with weavers, they thought as the small swarm of arachnoid bio-tools began crawling all over them to get to the nutrient slurry. It was important that the weavers were well-fed in the morning before any clients came in for a fitting lest they get either too tired or too carried away with their purpose. As it was, a few of the weavers must have failed to recognize Mil’s scent and shape due to their illness and mistaken them for a client, forcing Mil to gently shoo the engineered creatures off before the threads of their turtleneck could be unpicked and reassembled into whatever pattern the weavers had last been installed with. Most of the chittering swarm sloughed off to feed once the nutrient slurry had been dispensed and Mil was able to encourage the stragglers to depart from their body heat without too much trouble.

To Mil’s chagrin, once they stepped back outside of the enclosure Elam leaned over and plucked a weaver off the back of their neck that had pushed their unusually pliant skin into a little bowl to nest in. Mil’s stammering apology was met with a laugh and an encouraging slap on the back that made their whole body ripple unpleasantly. Better than a reprimand.

Back out in the main store, Leolani had already arrived and engaged with the first customers of the morning, signing at one with eir hands while stretching eir neck over an aisle of racks to explain the fitting process to another. When ei caught Mil staring, ei sent the second customer their way. The next few minutes constituted the first grueling attempt of many that day to talk someone who wasn’t really all that interested (whether due to boredom, intimidation, lack of intent to buy, or just wanting to get their stuff and get out) through pricing options on bespoke versus alterations by limb configuration and fabric type. Or failing that to sell something off the rack, even if it was just an expensive pair of socks with the store’s monogram on it. Or failing that at least collect an email address for a mailing list. This is what made the holiday rush so awful. The rest of the year most of the store's customers were regulars who mostly had a specific goal upon walking in, but for the next couple of months traffic would surge with only a minimal uptick in actual sales to show for it. All the same, everyone that walked in had to be treated as a potential new regular just in case. As if it wasn’t already anxiety-inducing enough to deal with people whom Mil possessed at least a passing familiarity with.

By noon Mil’s ears were pressed flat back against their skull. In part, this was an expression of their mood, but mostly it was a matter of the ears’ swivel muscles losing cohesion and getting stuck in the last used position. It was making it a little bit difficult to hear clearly, but they had long since learned the hard way that making a rough guess and sticking to a script tended to be received better than asking people to repeat themselves. At last the lunch-time lull arrived and Mil was able to steal off to the break room for a reprieve. It was blessedly quiet in there save for the hum of the refrigerator holding the protein shakes Mil had stashed for days too busy for a proper lunch. Mil dipped into that stash today. Their melts were getting worse before they were getting better and the prospect of trying to wobble down the street in their current state to their usual lunch spot where they would surely be recognized struck Mil as lethally embarrassing. And exhausting.

They took the opportunity to examine the patches on Leolani‘s jacket (draped over eir chair in undisputed claim as ever) while they struggled first with the shake’s cap and then with their mask. Their fingers weren’t cooperating much at all now, between having gone mostly limp and being plumped up with all the flesh their normally-flatteringly-body-hugging turtleneck was now squeezing out of their torso and arms and into their extremities. At least one or two of the patches on the jacket had to do with bands, Mil was fairly certain. Would it make for a better conversation starter to ask Leolani about those bands, or to look up and listen to the music up themself first in order to have something in common? Mil mulled the question over while nursing their shake. Better than thinking about the similarities between their lunch and the weavers’ breakfast.

As Mil threw their head back to drain the last few drops from the protein shake’s bottle, they felt their spine come loose and their head just kept going back. And down. And around. Until it bumped into the back of the low-backed chair, upside down and just above their own waist.

They had folded themself.

Mil took a breath, held it, let it out, and came away even less calm than before. Lungs not making up their mind where they should be will do that to a body.

It was fine. This sort of thing happened. Annoying, but nothing serious.

Mil tried to swing themself upright, but it was the sudden lack of back muscles that got them into this position. They tried grabbing the chair and pulling themself up into an unbent vertical, but the strain just stretched out their hands. They tried to do the obvious thing and just stand up, but folded like a wet, heavy towel as they were over the chair’s back, they couldn’t get the proper leverage and just scrambled their feet, scooting the chair along the floor with a teeth-itching squeak.

Mil heard Leolani walk in before they saw eir. Not that they could see much besides the floor behind their chair. Leolani asked if they were alright and Mil’s mind raced with enough potential responses that it might as well have gone blank. But then fear of getting stuck won out over pride. There was no salvaging this one to come out looking cool.

Mil asked for help. Just a little bit mind you. They’d be fine if they could just get themself unfolded.

Boots made for digitigrade feet stepped into Mil’s inverted view, followed by a round face with perfect eyeliner that then rotated to match their perspective in a motion that suddenly shifted the impression from serpentine to owlish. A light joke about the view from down there was quickly followed by a warning that came at the same time as a pair of hands gripping (very literally) into Mil’s shoulders and lifting. Once ei had them upright ei asked if they were good. Mil said they were and then immediately slumped forward, overcorrecting and refolding in the opposite direction.

Leolani, neck now coiled up over and around eir own shoulders like a scarf, told them to hang for a minute and then came back with a mop handle and a roll of duct tape. A comment about a friend of eirs once having done this for eir and an apology about this feeling weird was all the warning Mil got before the Leolani began working the mop handle up the back of their shirt. Ei called it the scarecrow method of stabilization. After producing a pair of compression gloves from eir messenger bag and helping Mil get them on, Leolani let them apply the duct tape in private with a reassurance that it was the cheap stuff and would come off after a decent soak in a hot bath, if not sooner.

Trying to walk with the improvised back brace was awkward, but better than the alternative. Mil shambled out of the employee break room, wondering how much longer their legs would stay semi-solid, just in time to see a regular they recognized but couldn’t put a name to walk in. Somehow additional legs were far less popular than additional arms, so this regular’s centaur pattern group body configuration stuck out. Not that Mil knew for sure whether it was hooves, feet, or claws beneath those patent leather shoes and it would be rude to ask. What Mil did know at a glance was what xe was here for. The regular’s bat-like wings (aesthetically impressive and flexible enough to clasp in the front and fold into a cloak, but almost certainly not flight-, or even glide-rated) hadn’t been present on xyr last visit to the store. Now here was something that was as close to Mil’s comfort zone as anything got.

They greeted the regular and went through their mental script for this sort of interaction, making the appropriate vague inquiries about xyr wellbeing, complimenting xyr new wings, trying not to drip on anything as their melts slowly got worse, guiding xem through the booklets of fabric swatches and catalog of styles, and dancing around the fact that they couldn’t remember xyr name for the life of them. Once the regular made their selections, Mil led xem back to the tailoring room where they handed the selections off to Elam. Strictly speaking, Mil should have left it be from there and returned to the main display floor of the store, but they liked watching this next part and were even more willing than usual today to take any excuse for a break. If anyone asks (no one will) they’ll say that they were taking notes. Or would saying that they were assisting sound better? Whatever the truth would be on most days, this time Mil simply leaned on a wall for support and watched Elam type in a console to install the selected pattern on the weavers, guide the regular into the weavers’ enclosure, and start speaking in the language of clicks, snaps, and command phrases the bio-tools had been trained on. What before had been a disorganized collection of individual lab-created arachnoid creatures became a precision swarm washing over the regular (who had been through this enough times not to flinch too much), taking xyr measurements by touch with sensitive legs able to estimate and account for offsets due to the regular’s clothes by pressure and texture alone. Once each of the individual weavers was in position on the regular’s body Elam snapped nir fingers to send the swarm skittering into a different position, held for a few seconds of processing, then snapped again for a third configuration. A larger swarm could have generated a full three dimensional scan of a target’s body in one go, but the upkeep costs on swarm size wasn’t generally seen as being worth it just to shave off a few seconds. A final command word cleared the swarm back into the corners of the enclosure.

Like most customers, the regular elected to come back later in the day to pick up xyr new suit and have any last-minute alterations made then. As opposed to partially undressing and allowing the weavers to weave the new suit directly on. Supposedly the latter option would get a truly amazing bespoke fit, but for most it wasn’t worth standing still for an extended period of time with bug legs crawling all over you and working miniaturized biological sewing machines millimeters away from your exposed skin. Maybe one day when Mil had Elam‘s job and income they could find out for themself. For now though, Mil simply offered to lend nem a hand with loading in the fabric feedstock to get the assembly process started. It seemed that pinstripes were making a comeback this season.

The next few hours were, all things considered, not too bad. A decent portion of customers were regulars rather than randoms, Mil got to watch a couple more sessions of the weavers at work, the one song that they weren’t tired of on the station the store had been running on loop for the past three weeks came on, and - most importantly - they’d managed to keep up something like an ongoing conversation with Leolani in between customers. Now if only their melts hadn’t been getting steadily worse instead of better. By the time Mil’s normal shift would be ending they were having trouble standing up for more than a minute or so at a time. Elam even offered to talk to Baroft on nir way out - ne still got to live at nir usual time today - about letting them go on home. Against Mil’s better judgment, they turned nem down, citing the appeal of overtime pay and silently fearing that leaving might reflect poorly on their performance or attitude.

So, of course, two hours later Mil’s skeletal structure gave out altogether, reducing them to a fleshy puddle on the floor. They’d felt it coming on and had just barely been able to make it back to the breakroom and out of sight of customers. Leolani came rushing in moments later, having seen their attempt at a distressed and hasty exit. If there was a silver lining to the gross (they were on the floor in a public building) and embarrassing situation, it was that their skirt had flared out enough to preserve some semblance of modesty and mostly cover up the skin-covered blob slowly spreading across the linoleum.

When Leolani asked if they were alright, Mil’s response came out garbled and bubbling. So, no, not so much.

After several rounds of “One blink for No, two blinks for Yes,” Mil managed to first turn down an offer to call an ambulance (it might be a severe case, but it was still just the melts; they would sleep it off and be fine by morning) and then to direct Leolani to retrieve their phone and its neurolink adapter from their skirt pocket and attach the adapter to Mil’s forehead (or at least a spot on Mil’s increasingly amorphous form slightly above their eyes). Neurolinks like this one were a clumsy technology, still in its infancy, so Mil had to concentrate on a single letter at a time for a second or three apiece to make words appear on the screen, but it beat the alternative. From there the two of them were able to talk - after a fashion - and settle on the plan of laying Mil out in the tailoring room, out of sight of both customers and Baroft. If Baroft asked where they were, Leolani would cover for them and say that they were handling some task or another that Elam left for them. Afterall, with Mil only being able to sort of writhe and flop around, it’s not like they were going to be able to get themself home, so may as well just sleep it off here.

Unprompted, Leolani input eir contact info into Mil’s phone before leaving them in there. Being able to exchange text messages made lying there barely able to move in the dimly lit room for the remaining hours until closing time considerably more tolerable. Almost pleasant even, despite how exhausting trying to type with the neurolink for extended periods of got to be. The white noise of the nearby weavers’ chitters and skitters helped.

And then, as the store’s closing time was approaching and the last customer left for the night, Leolani offered to take Mil home instead of leaving them in the store overnight. Mil could keenly feel the spike in their heart rate at the question rippling through their not-quite liquefied form. The added clarification that Leolani had realized about an hour ago that the two of them both lived roughly the same part of town with the same tram stop so it wouldn’t be much of a detour for eir to drop them off at their place quickly dispelled the wilder fantasies (terrifying and idealistic alike) that Mil’s mind had started jumping to.

Mil was aware, objectively speaking, that they didn’t really know Leolani all that well outside of the off-and-on conversations about hobbies and interests they’d been having most of the day and that letting someone like that know your address and handing them your keys wasn’t really the smartest idea. Subjectively speaking however, Mil was tired, young, and platonically infatuated with their cool coworker whom they seemed to be hitting it off well with.

A few minutes later Mil heard Leolani‘s and Baroft‘s voices outside the backroom’s curtain and caught snippets of Leolani offering to close up the store for the night and lying that Baroft had just missed Mil leave a minute ago. Another minute or two of silence followed before Leolani pushed aside the curtain and strutted over to Mil carrying a large bucket. It took some doing, but ei got them to fit. The melts made flesh as compressible as it made it elastic.

Somehow being scooped up, poured into a bucket, and pressed on until they fit was not the most embarrassing experience Mil had been through that day.

Leolani was able to lift Mil’s bucket with relative ease. Surprising at first, but on second thought, Leolani must have had some manner of musculoskeletal reinforcements for strength and balance if ei was walking around with all that extra weight from eir neck sitting on eir shoulders all the time.

The conversation on the way back home was fairly one-sided. It was simply too hard to concentrate on typing through the neurolink with all the novel sensations going on. Sloshing slightly in the bucket as it swung with Leolani‘s gait. Staring straight up into the night sky (or eir face) while moving. The uncomfortable warmth generated from being their own folded blanket stuffed in a tight space. The rumbling of the tram transferred through the floor and sides of the bucket making their whole body quiver and vision blur. It was fine though. Mil had never been a big talker and Leolani seemed more than willing to fill the space. Or was ei intentionally trying to keep Mil distracted from all those other less pleasant aspects of their current situation? If ei was, it was working. And it turned out Mil hadn’t even needed to ask about the band patches; Leolani had started talking at length about them all on eir own. Best of all, stuck looking out of the bucket up at the ceiling like this, Mil couldn’t see anyone else staring at them and could almost pretend it was just the eir and them without the eyes of strangers that had always made them uncomfortable.

And then Leolani was standing at the door to Mil’s apartment, holding their keys. Ei let eirself inside, carrying Mil’s bucket with eir, found their bed, lifted them from the bucket, and laid them out flat on top of the sheets. Being exposed to cool air again was a blessed relief. They would absolutely need a shower in the morning, but for right now they were too exhausted to care. They tried not to think too hard about how being rather literal putty in Leolani‘s hands felt.

Duty done and aid rendered, Leolani left the neurolink on Mil’s face in case anything came up in the night before they solidified, left the keys on the bedside table, left the lights off, and left the apartment.

On eir way out, ei suggested hanging out together sometime when they weren’t sick.

*******

Mil’s hand made a perfectly normal pap sound upon palming their alarm clock’s snooze button. Their hand was hand-shaped and none of their bones wobbled. And why wouldn’t that be the case after a good night’s sleep?

It had only been the melts.