The Utray homestead valley cove.

The two story domed homestead is out of frame to the left (east). The island they tethered to the ground has a thumper beacon on it that keeps the other islands away from the area. In case of collisions, debris will fall into the ocean, or harmlessly away from the homestead.

Ilthall has a transient floating island problem.

And yes, there's one or two brave souls who live on them.

The planetary ring is obscured by the storm.

I don’t know if this’ll make the cut, but brothers with an MC wearing their (the brothers) clothes, and I’m talking full ensemble not just a random jacket or accessory (you can delete if you’re not comfortable of course)

So when left with the question of whether this was a full on clothing theft or a cosplay of some kind, I'm going with theft because that's just funnier to me. Just a little MC marching around in Beel's tent of an outfit… Hilarious. 🤭

MC Steals the Brothers’ Outfits

Lucifer 

It started out like any other morning, Lucifer woke up early in bed - as he always does - but when he rolled onto his side to stir the MC, he found their side of the bed empty… 

Normally, he’d have thrown up the alarm in an instant, but his mind was still groggy as he tried to recall what happened the night before… He could have sworn the MC slept over… unless…

MC: “Good morning, love.”

Their voice was enough to get him sitting up again and he uh… well he was not prepared for what he saw. The MC was sitting with their legs crossed at his desk, attempting to imitate his “I’m-in-Complete-Control-Here” energy as much as they possibly could, but with an added detail…

They were wearing his clothes. His favorite suit to be specific which was tailored to his much bigger frame, resulting in a frankly ridiculously ill-fitting look on their smaller human body...

MC: *picks up a poisoned apple off the desk, continuing their very best Lucifer-impression*  “You should get up, love. We have an early meeting today and we can’t keep Lord Diavolo waiting.”

The MC appeared to polish the apple with his sleeve for a moment before taking a bite, looking pleased with themselves before their eyes widened in complete horror. It only took a split second for them to spit the unchewed hunk of apple into a nearby waste basket and toss the apple away in panic.

MC: “Ah FUCK!! I forgot I can’t eat these!!! SHIT!!”

Their panic only grew as Lucifer could no longer hold in his laughter, the booming volume of which is enough to wake up all his brothers throughout the House.

MC: “Lucifer, don’t just sit there laughing!! Bring me some water or something!!! LUCIFER!!!”

Mammon

Look, Mammon always gets up late so not being able to find, like, any of his normal clothes was a serious problem! He’d already dug through half his closest and still couldn’t find anything!!

He had a photoshoot that he had to get to in less than hour and he still needed to take a shower, get dressed, get his stuff together, then bolt halfway across town before-

MC: *literally kicks open his door Kuzco-style* “Yo, yo, yo!! What’s up, Mammon??”

First off, the sudden loud bang of his door hitting the wall nearly scared him out of his skin, but before he could even yell at the MC for their weird entrance his brain had to process what they were wearing….

Good news! He found his missing clothes, the MC had thrown them on while he was sleeping - sunglasses and all - and now stood before him with a toothy grin on their face.

MC: “What's the problem, Mams? Lucifer got your tongu-EEEK!”

Apparently, they weren't expecting Mammon to literally lunge at them and capture them in a tight hug, practically lifting them off their feet with a laugh.

Mammon: “What'cha think your doin', MC?? I'm gonna need those back ya know?”

MC: *laughs loud and bright, throwing their arms around his neck* “I know, I know... But I wanted to surprise you!” *stops laughing suddenly and blinks* “Huh…”

Mammon watched the MC experimentally lift his glasses off their nose then put them back down, repeating the action several times before snickering.

Mammon: *frowns* “What's so funny?”

MC: “Nothing really but… Mammon, do you wear these just to make everything look like gold?”

Mammon actually had to pause before responding, pulling the MC closer with a devilish grin.

Mammon: “Nah… I ‘cause got all the gold I need right here~”

MC: *chuckles and nuzzles his cheek* “Nice save...”

Mammon: *his cheeks flush and he frowns* “I dunno what your talkin’ about... But could ya go put on a t-shirt or somethin’? They’re paying me big for this shoot and I really gotta go!”

Leviathan 

Another convention, another cosplay far too complex to ever hope to peel out of… Though Levi would never regret wearing his five piece Lord of Shadow cosplay, it’s a heavy thing and certainly not something he can change out of in a bathroom stall…

When he finally got back to the House, he wasn’t looking to do anything but drag his tired body back to his room and change into some more manageable clothes… but… well…

When Levi opened his door, he saw the MC sitting alone at his computer desk playing a game by themselves. That was all well and good but… WHY IN DIAVOLO’S BLACK HELL ARE THEY WEARING HIS CLOTHES???

When they heard the door, the MC whipped their head back and they both stared at each other in an awkward silence… His clothes didn’t even fit them right!-or maybe they did?? His mind was panicking because they had the collar of his shirt covering their mouth and it looked so moe it was actually ridiculous!

Levi: ……….

MC: ………….

MC: …. “I can explain.”

Levi: ……. “Y-yea?”

MC: “I was having trouble on this one level and you wouldn’t pick up the phone… so I thought ‘What would Levi do?’... and it escalated…”

Levi: “You think??”

Levi felt like he could die right there, but he wasn’t entirely sure if it was from embarrassment or happiness… On the one hand, the MC was  literally trying to be him in order to get better at video games - which was flatteringly adorable… And on the other, the MC is pretty much cosplaying as him, right in front of him… and looked so damn cute doing it too… 

MC: “Is this weird…? This is weird. I’m sorry, I’ll go change-”

Levi: NO-agh! *he throws a hand over his own mouth, surprised by how loud he just shouted* … “U-uh… no it’s fine…”

MC: “Okay...?”

MC: “But could you put your phone down? I think you’ve been taking pictures for the past two minutes…”

Levi looked down at his hand and sure enough he unconsciously pulled out his phone in camera mode and has been spamming the “Capture” button long enough to have his thumb cramping...

Levi: “Oh.” *stops for a moment, then seems to second guess himself*

Levi: “Uh… just one more?”

Satan

When you share a house with Mammon, you grow accustomed to not being able to find things from time to time, but an entire outfit?? 

When he woke up one morning to find that he couldn't find any of his normal clothes, he blamed Mammon right off the bat… 

I guess in hindsight, what would Mammon want with his jacket? But anger doesn't always jump to the most rational conclusion, you know?

After searching for "long enough," Satan stormed out of his bedroom on a warpath. He didn't stop his march until he was banging on Mammon’s door with a closed fist!

Satan: “Mammon!! What did you do with my clothes you useless, money-grubbing asshole!?”

When he didn’t get a reply, likely because Mammon was hiding in his closet or something, he was about to kick the door in when he felt a tap on his shoulder...

When he turned his head, much to his surprise, he found his missing clothes!... They were on the MC - right down to the single sleeve - and the MC met his eyes with a mischievous grin…

They had a book in their hands he recalled seeing once at the library: "101 Ways to Prank Your Partner," open like they'd been reading down the hallway.

MC: … Page 47.

They winked at him before bolting back down the hallway in a fit of giggles and oooh, it was on now.

Satan spent the morning chasing the MC through the House, both laughing and dashing around in reckless abandon. He really needed his clothes back and he wouldn’t mind an extra hour or two with the MC when he got them… 😏

Asmodeus 

Asmo isn’t exactly a morning person… Though he forces himself awake so he can perform his wake-up routine, by the time he comes to the table it’s a hit-or-miss on how irritable he’s going to be...

Of course, his favorite outfit suddenly disappearing from his massive closet did not help his mood in the slightest!

Who would take his clothes?? Well, that’s not even a question - surely plenty of his devoted, adoring stans would kill to even have his scarf, so maybe the better question was, “How??” Lucifer keeps all the doors and windows magically sealed at night! (He would know, having been locked out on numerous occasions)

Asmo was tearing through his closet, wracking his brain for any place he might have left his beloved outfit, before he heard someone clear their throat by his bedroom door.

What greeted him was a lovely look at the MC wearing the missing clothing in question, even with all the grace and style he would himself!

Asmo: *jaw-drops* “MC???”

MC: *smirks at his delight and winks at him* “Looking for something?”

They strutted into the room with the confidence of a mock fashion model and took a silly vogue pose in front of the closet, barely holding in a fit of laughter from their actions.

MC: “… Or just at me?”

Asmo, of course, snatched them right up in his arms with a delighted squeal.

Asmo: “Oh. My. Diavolo!! MC, you look just gorgeous!!!- Because you look like me, of course.” 🤭

MC: *laughs and cups his cheeks to pull him closer* “Who wouldn't want to be you, Asmo?”

Asmo: “So true… But you’re already perfect, my love~” 😘

And he went on to prove that to them all morning long...

Beelzebub 

Beel didn't even get the chance to notice his clothes were missing. He had a tournament the night before and was sleeping even harder than Belphie that morning...

What woke him up was the smell of food: scrambled shadowhawk eggs, hellboar bacon, pancakes with nightshade syrup…. 

Beel's stomach had him sitting up long before his eyes ever opened, drawn in by his nose alone.

MC: “Beeeeel. Wake up!”

Beel's eyes dragged open at their request and what he found had his mouth watering... The MC had brought him a dining cart with a complete breakfast spread, brimming with portions only Beel could ever finish, but for once he wasn’t looking at the food.

The MC, for whatever reason, had decided to put on his clothes… And keep in mind that Beel's built like an ox compared to almost anybody. They were absolutely swimming under all that fabric (thank the Devil for his suspenders…) 

MC: “Congratulations!!!”

They throw their arms up excitedly, making the unzipped jacket balloon out like a parachute behind them… It's a remarkably cute image.

Beel: *blinks* “Oh.” *he gets a little pink, still very confused* “What did I do exactly…?”

MC: “You won the championship last night, remember? Or did you forget already??”

The MC takes a step to the side and begins pointing at the plates on the cart.

MC: “I thought we'd celebrate with some breakfast! I brought you eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, cereal-”

As they continued their list, Beel's hand naturally reached out towards the cart eagerly, before something finally clicked in his head. WHY were they wearing his clothes??

Beel: “Wait. MC, why are you wearing-...?”

MC *holds their hand up* “Hold on!”

MC: “-oatmeal, muffins, banana bread, annnd…” *they get onto the bed and plop down onto his lap with a grin*

MC: “Me! Congratulations, Beel!!”

They lean up to peck his cheek while his arms automatically wind around their waist. The combination of their scents already bringing out a different sort of hunger in him…

Let’s say if this is his reward, he'll never lose a game again. 😏

Belphegor 

Belphie was in the middle of his afterschool nap in the library. The day was exhausting, so he didn’t even bother changing uniforms… The couches there were comfortable and the space was quiet, really nothing should have woken him up...

But somehow, for whatever reason, something did. A tug… Something was chasing away his dreams by tugging on the cow pillow in his arms.

MC: “Beeelllppphie….”

The tugging did not cease and he half growled in response, still keeping his eyes firmly closed.

Belphie: “What now...?”

MC: “I need this…” *they tug on the corner of the pillow a little harder* “Can you let go please…?”

What kind of question is that?? No one takes away his favorite pillow!

Belphie: *hugs the pillow tighter* “Go away, I'm trying to nap…”

MC: “Noooo please…! I need it for something right now…!!”

They started really pulling on his pillow now and he only held on tighter in annoyance. Since they wouldn’t leave him alone, he finally opened his eyes.

Belphie: “MC! Why are… you..?”

His voice trailed off as he finally saw the MC standing there in his usual outfit. His cardigan was so long over their arms that they had to grasp his pillow through its sleeves...

While his drowsy mind tried to catch up, the MC snatched the pillow from his grasp with one swift yank.

MC: *grins* “Mine now!”

They turned to bolt out of the library, but Belphie snatched them by the waist and dragged them back to the couch with him.

Belphie: “Fine, but then I get a new pillow.” 😏

The MC yelped as he flopped on top of them, pulling them close like a body pillow and resting his head into the crook of their neck to enjoy the soothing smell of their scent mixed with his.

MC: “W-wait Belphie…!” *tries to wiggle out from under his surprisingly heavy deadweight* “I was just playing around…! Please don't fall asleep on me!!”

Belphie: *yawns and settles in, already drifting off* “Too late… G'night, MC…”

MC: “Belphie!!!” 😫

They could complain all they liked, he wasn’t going to let them go for a few hours. Cute or not, MC, nobody takes his pillow!

the purge: society

pairing: firefighter!san x reader

genre: purge au, angst, some fluff

warnings: mentions of violence (especially violence against cops), murder, blood, injury, weapons (guns, knives, metal baseball bats)

word count: 2.4k

note: this was originally meant to be a drabble and it’s still pretty short so i didn’t get to elaborate on the characters but honestly maybe i’ll explore a purge universe with ateez someday because this was fun (i’ve never watched any of the movies though so i’ll have to get on that)

“What the fuck?” 

He hadn’t expected to see anyone left alive on this street.

“Shut up and get down,” You hiss, reaching your good arm up to grab onto the man’s jacket collar before unceremoniously pulling him towards you. He stumbles, falling gracelessly onto you. A scream bubbles up in your throat as he accidentally puts pressure onto your already free-bleeding bicep, but you get ahold of yourself just in time, only letting the quietest of wounded moans escape you. 

“You’re the first person that hasn’t tried to kill me before talking to me all night - oh, shit,” The stranger trails off, swearing when you effectively stop him from speaking further by placing your switchblade right under his skin. It’s only then that he even pauses to take you in: your back is up by the police car door, sure, and your left arm has a massive gash in it, but you’re armed. There’s a pistol laying idly in your lap, kept company by a metal baseball bat. 

Not to mention, the knife at his neck. 

“What the hell are you doing, walking around unarmed and with a first aid kit? Also, how the hell are you unarmed and with just a first aid kit? What the fuck?” You let the questions out in a rapidfire fashion, and he can’t help but clock the slight rasp in your voice. It’s easier to recognize than the pained wheeze you’re trying very, very hard to suppress, but neither escape him. He’s trained to notice the little things, anyways. 

“You need to bandage that shit up,” The man ignores your questions, moving his head just enough to miss your blade but also enough to be able to look you in the eyes. “How long has it been bleeding?”

“That’s none of your business,” You grit out. “Answer my questions or I’ll kill you right here and now.”

“If I answer yours, will you answer mine?” For some reason, he doesn’t seem to be panicking just yet. His gaze is sincere, but it’s too solid to be that of a bona fide idiot. You suck in a breath of air. Threatening him would be so much easier if he didn’t seem like a nice guy. It’s hard enough to live through the night, you don’t need guilt on your hands, and you know you’re going to feel guilty when you kill him. And you will kill him.

You need that first aid kit. You’ll do anything for it.

Anything, starting off with lying. 

“Sure,” You reply, steeling yourself for any sudden movements he might make now that you’re faking amicability. Maybe he’ll believe you to be vulnerable and try for your pistol or your bat, or maybe he’ll be properly cruel and finish off your arm. You don’t want to think about it. He lets out a sigh of relief, and you can’t help but wonder if you’ve actually affected him after all. “Now speak.”

“Not unarmed, there’s a police-issue pistol in my jacket and a tactical knife in my jeans. I’m not totally nuts. First aid kit’s for my buddy, though, I’ll be real, you need it way more than him.” There’s something resembling concern in his expression as his eyes flit between your torn arm and your face, but that barely interests you. You haven’t truly registered anything after ‘police-issue’.

You lean in, pressing the edge of your knife against the skin directly above his adam’s apple. For the first time since you’d cornered him, your mystery purger’s breath hitches. His eyebrows draw together in confusion. It’s no matter. You no longer regret the fact that you’ll have to tear his jugular out yourself. 

“You’re a hog, huh,” You stare him down, any sympathy you might’ve had gone. For a moment, it seems as if he has no concept of what you’re saying. A second passes, though, and his gaze clears. 

“Firefighter,” He responds, though the word is garbled due to him attempting to keep his movements to a minimum. You pull back slightly, very slightly, to let him explain. “I… found a dead cop, jacked his pistol. I’ll show you my ID, if you want.” 

“Let me see it.” You nod your head at him as if giving him permission to live a little longer, though you both know full well that identity theft and identity fabrication are legal, too. Might as well see how much effort he puts into a fake. The man waits until you pull back just a bit more, enough to let him slowly reach his hand into his back pocket before producing a lanyard. 

You grab it out of his grip with your hurt arm, not willing to move your knife too far away from his throat. You simply don’t have a good enough read on - you glance down - San Choi, ACT Firefighter, Employee ID: 018-102-4 to allow yourself any leeway with him. 

His gently smiling face stares up at you from the plastic card, protected only by a clear sleeve connected to a red lanyard. San’s photo has black hair and an undercut, styled so his forehead is on display. A pair of dimples makes a guest appearance, and, overall, he seems like a genuinely sweet guy. The ID looks real, too, so maybe you aren’t totally fucked. 

The San under your knife has bleach blond hair that almost falls over his eyes, though you suppose you can’t blame him for skipping out on the hair product tonight. He seems slightly tanner than his photo, his skin beautiful even now as dust from the aftermath of the explosion starts to settle against it. 

Right. The explosion. 

Recalling the events leading up to you meeting San forces you to remember that you have a gaping, bloody gash in your left arm. You’re honestly lucky to be alive, having ducked and used the car you’re against for cover from flying debris after a building down the block had exploded. You’d just finished driving your knife into a cop’s side - third cop of the night, eighth of your career as a purge cop killer - to make sure that he was dead when you’d heard the bomb go off, and you’d dropped before even thinking about it. Something had hit your arm on the way down, and when the adrenaline had finally left your system, you’d taken note of your blood-soaked sleeve. 

You’d closed the car door after that, sealing your third murder of the night in the vehicle just so you could lean up against the door. It had been 6:31 in the morning then, and you had figured that someone would come by and kill you in the last moments before legality ensued again. You’d assumed that you’d fight, of course you would, but your arm being totally fucked definitely put a damper on your belief in your ability to overcome anyone or anything else. 

Instead of the disgruntled, trigger-happy purger you’d expected to eventually find, though, you’d been found by San Choi. San Choi, who’s currently staring at your wounded arm like it’s grown eyes and can stare back. 

“Come on, let me fix it up,” He pleads, lifting the kit up with the hand that’s farther from you. “You might not trust me, or whatever, but the purge is about to end as it is. I have a paramedic friend, Seonghwa, who’s taught me the basics of -”

“Shut the fuck up.” You tell him, though you’re quickly losing your bite. He obeys regardless. God, your arm really, really fucking hurts. Before pulling your knife back, you check the watch on your wrist. 6:47. Stay alive for 13 more minutes, 780 more seconds. You’ll be fine. You take the shakiest breath you’ve ever taken. 

You pull your knife away from him. 

Nothing happens. 

“I’m going to use an alcohol free wipe and then wrap gauze around your arm, okay? You’ll just have to hold out until we can get you to a working hospital after that,” San speaks as if he’s talking to a child, or a scared animal, and you can’t blame him. He doesn’t seem like a purger, but you technically are one. You wouldn’t put it past yourself to attack on a whim if you were him. He, very slowly and with his hands in your full view at all times, opens the kit and pulls out the requisite materials. 

“Gonna need you to rip your sleeve off above the cut.” He continues, leaning back as you bring your knife up to your clothes and slit the cloth right above your wound. You tear the remainder of the sleeve off your arm before throwing it behind you somewhere. San gently grabs ahold of your elbow - his palm is calloused in a way that tells you he lifts regularly, and you’re sure of this as he discards his jacket and you watch the muscles ripple in his arms under his thin black shirt - and places the wipe against your cut. 

Your reaction is instantaneous: now that you’re completely past the adrenaline stage, the feeling of something, anything against the gash has you reeling to cry out. Before you can even process that you’ve made a sound, a hand presses hard against the back of your head, shoving your mouth against San’s. 

He doesn’t know how else to shut you up. 

His lips are chapped, but the sensation of being kissed so suddenly jars you out of your pain. San attempts to pull back, and you can already feel the apologetic wince he’s about to give you, but he brushes over your wound with the wipe again and your pain doubles back. It’s you that pulls him in this time, pressing your lips to his sloppily but forcefully as if it’ll alleviate the burn in your arm. 

Kissing him only slightly muffles you at best, but you no longer care. The purge isn’t over yet. You could both die at any second. Hell, San could kill you at any second. His hand moves from the back of your head to cup your face as he leans in towards you to deepen the kiss. His lips are chapped, yes, but they’re soft. He tastes like mint and copper: there’s a cut in his lower lip. You don’t mind. 

San pulls away for a moment, but only does so to grab the gauze from the kit. Once he’s wrapped it around your arm once, twice, thrice, he leans back in and your mouth accepts his own eagerly, your other hand coming up to drape over his shoulder. Neither of you know why you’re doing this, kissing a stranger with such fervor as one of you bandages the other up, but you both know that there’s really nothing else to do. 

It’s only after he finishes taping you up that the two of you pull away fully. His eyes are still just as kind as you’d thought them to be at first, though his lips are far more swollen than they’d been mere minutes prior. You admire your handiwork, eyes tracing his features as he admires his own, thumb very, very gently running over your gauze. Both of you raise your heads to smile sheepishly at each other at the exact same time.

Three things happen in rapid succession. 

“Good?” San’s voice is barely above a whisper, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Just as you’re about to speak - 

“San!” A voice, low and hoarse, interrupts you, and you look up to see the barrel of a gun pointed directly at the space between your eyes. You’re frozen in place for a split second before you start reaching for your own pistol. Your fingers brush the grip when - 

The clock strikes seven, and sirens go off all around you, signalling the end of the purge. 

The gun is out of your face. Your hand moves off of your own.

“San,” The owner of the gun pays you no mind, suddenly, his entire focus on San. The gun-owner reaches a hand out, and the firefighter beside you takes it, allowing himself to get pulled up to his feet. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, Yunho, I’m totally good,” San responds, giving the taller man a cat-like grin of reassurance. Yunho’s got a fireman’s helmet on, and you suppose it’s good as protection. He must be a fellow firefighter, then. He’s tall, and though he’d seemed nothing short of severe mere moments ago, he seems softer, kinder now that the purge is over. The transformation is enough to give you whiplash. His right hand is wrapped in bandages, and this catches San’s sight at the same time it catches your own. “What the hell happened to you, though?” 

“That policeman you killed had buddies,” Yunho replies with ease, but you don’t miss San’s wince. Seems like he hadn’t just happened upon that police-issue pistol. You can’t help the small grin that fights to make its way across your face. “They tried to get into the station, we had to fortify ourselves. We’re mostly fine, just that Woo’s lost a finger. He’ll live once he stops whining about it. We were mostly worried about you, honestly, taking fucking forever just to find a first aid kit. Who’s this?”

Yunho moves the topic of conversation over to you so naturally that you barely even realize what has happened before San is reaching a hand out to you to pull you up to a standing position. You grab ahold of your pistol, though you shove the bat off your lap before allowing yourself to be brought up. Without thinking, you practically plaster yourself to San’s side. Now that he’s for sure what he told you he was, and now that you’re no longer in danger of dying, you can’t help but feel inexplicably connected to him even though neither of you know each other. San wraps an arm around your waist naturally, and neither of you miss Yunho’s eyebrow raise. Neither of you acknowledge it, either. 

“This?” San asks rhetorically, turning his head slightly to look at you. He’s smiling again, and you find that you want to see it more often. Maybe you’re experiencing the onset of delirium. You hope not. “This is…” 

“(Name),” You reply, being honest. There’s no need for you to lie. Besides, you owe San answers, right? You stick your uninjured arm out, letting Yunho shake your hand. San’s grip tightens around your waist. 

“I’m (Name).”

About YZY leaving YMJ/JFM with her kids Post-WWX Arrival

Dear Dee, feel free to delete or ignore this or post it, whatever floats your boat. This just stuck in my head after those posts and I had to blurt it all to someone. Thanks for taking the time to read my word vomit.

So I had to do this instead of an ask because it got long and I wasn't sure how many asks it'd need or how short I could cut it down without losing parts of the argument. And then other things came up as I was writing and, well.  Well..... >_>;;;; 

But you know, after that post/ask you had about YZY fics saying 'Fuck U' to YMJ/JFM & leaving both with her kids, I had a sarcastic 'yeah right' attitude about it. Mainly due to a lot of negation emotions to such an abusive (and delusional) bitch, partly due to how she wouldn't do that since it doesn't seem to be something her sort of character would consider either because she'd think of it as 'losing' (losing what, IDK, it's why I consider her type of person crazy) or she legit wouldn't think about such a viable action.

But then later, in the shower, I seriously went 'Wait, she can't fucking do that' and it wouldn't be about how MXTX uses her as a part of the narrative but entirely about the/their culture in the novel; the actions that have and would be taken in response; and her entire toxic personality as well.

1) We already know that the sects and the cultivation world in general is sexist, elitist and so Capital T 'Traditional' to the point that it's starting to petrify and any deviancy from this is an exception rather than the norm. YZY might be a madame of a great sect (for what that's worth considering how shit of a madame she's been and the titles she's chosen for herself) but she's still a woman even with her high rank and the things she's personally accomplished.

Even if she was in her rights to leave a 'bad' marriage, she'd be the one who'd get scolded more instead of JFM by her natal family, her former husband's family and by their entire society at large even if she had a few singular supporters. Because That's Not How Things Are Done in their society and I do believe that such a thing was rare even when it was accepted method by the upper echelons. Especially since it would have to be done by more than YZY simply deciding that She Wants Out and just- goes and Gets Out. With no serious allegations that would allow her to divorce or separate from YMJ/JFM without the input from her family, JFM's family and, I think, possibly some measure of compensation as well. And no, having or bringing in a 'bastard child' is not a serious enough offence for such a humongous decision. I think something more along the lines of treason or crimes against multiple, high-ranking parties would be more along the lines. Maybe.

And even if she does this, she'd be considered 'Used Goods' (such a terrible comment) and there'd be no other good/proper marriage prospects for a divorced woman with children let alone a woman like YZY with her entire abrasive personality and attitude put off even easy-going JFM.

(If she'd been widowed then it'd be more forgiven but I consider that a Real Bad End since, IMO, it would lead to the sudden and inevitable decline of YMJ either via mass exodus of disciples and/or residents of LP; being merged with another sect due to it's unstable leadership; or create an internal political war 'cause I bet you anything that the YMJ Elders/relatives (if they have any) Would Not Want YZY in charge of YMJ when she's already proven herself such a shit betrothed let alone madame.)

2) Speaking of families, while YMJ/JFM/LP as a whole might be glad to see YZY's back, I don't think her natal sect, MSY, will be glad to see her come storming back after all the effort they put into getting that particular marriage alliance with YMJ. And if she brings her children with her? Oh man, oh boy- mother or not, that could be considered as kidnapping or line theft (is that a thing?) especially if YZY is also seriously considering divorce proceedings and raising them as Yu and not Jiang. That could give leave to, for anyone more unforgiving and maybe JFM if he's pushed enough, disown both JYL and JWY from the Jiangs through no fault of their own (though I'm sure YZY would make it so as well as blame JFM for her own decisions and mistakes).

Therefore, any inheritance or benefits they might gain for being legitimised children of a great sect are forfeited. JYL will likely lose that betrothal with JZX because JGS will drop it like a hot potato and JWY won't be a sect heir because YZY literally decided to remove that by deciding to raise JWY as a Yu, no matter their blood relation to JFM. They leave him, they leave YMJ and everything attached with it. Which is if YMJ/JFM doesn't demand MSY to give back their heir/ess and to punish YZY for her actions. Or send all three of them back for the appropriate reactions/decisions.

Their society would demand no less in reaction because, to them, it would seem like YZY had gone mad and JFM would look weak (or weaker) and imply that YMJ is vulnerable and exploitable if JFM doesn't do something in response to her actions. That's not even getting into what the other smaller sects may try to do in an attempt to curry favour with YMJ or what LLJ or QSW would try in order to destroy or diminish YMJ. And whether JFM chooses to demand his children back or not, it may not change the fact that this may give him reason enough to choose a nephew or niece to be the new sect heir especially if, even after getting rid of YZY's poisonous influence, JWY grows up to be his mother's child more than his father's or even his own person.

Either way, such a thing would bring great backlash on YZY, and MSY as well as the collateral. No one would want to give face to her or her children because it would bring up some very uncomfortable questions and scenarios to the other sects- specifically, what would happen if the female members of their clans/sets decided to follow the footsteps of YZY and leave with their children and heirs. Especially if they use it as an excuse to leave for their own comfort and whims and not some legitimate wrongs and dangers. That would create some more restrictions on women thanks to YZY

3) And lastly, if any one of those idiot YZY stans think that she'd ever give up the status of being a madame of a great sect they'd be as crazy or crazier than her. YZY is all about status and power and face. Specifically, her status, power and face and how people in her reach reflect her or 'insult' her. She is a selfish, terrible, abusive and toxic person and can only see people in regards to how they would benefit her and the elevation of her and in no other way. Especially her family. They cannot be their own person, they can only be an extension of her and gods forbid they go against her.

We can see this in how she treats the people she supposedly loves. JFM? Arguments day in, day out along with accusations and slander of cheating, having one(1) supposed 'bastard' and being 'in love' with CSSR. Which all seems sus as hell. And that's when she's actually there and not out 'night hunting'. Even her 'training' seems to border on unhelpful rather then helpful if my vague recollections of juniors fainting from exhaustion can be relied upon (please call me out if they're not or find proof).

JYL? Berated by not being 'strong' but not helped at all to be 'strong'. It doesn't help that YZY seems to believe in the same standards strength in their society- that is, of martial masculine strength which does not and should not apply to JYL who has been said to be sickly. Which means h should have been learning a different way of cultivation/fighting anyway.  If that was something she wanted and had been offered in the first place- which I doubt. That isn't even getting into her repeated generational trauma mess of a betrothal which was decided only by those 'sworn sisters', accepted by her as a way out of her terrible home life and puts her squarely within reach of JGS who we know to be a womaniser, rapist, predator and a possible ephebophile considering we don't know the exact age of his youngest 'conquest' or the age of MZY's mother when they met which could be anywhere from 14 to 21.

JWY? Gods, so much meta on him and his(non-) relationships with his parents that I don't think I can contribute more to it. It's been all said and done. Unless people want me to stir the pot by saying that, maybe, just maybe, YZY resents JWY as much as she 'loves' him.Either because he's her son and yet never manages to 'accomplish as much' as WWX or because he's a boy and therefore, more benefits and allowances than a girl/woman- more than anything that YZY ever got without either a fight or screaming at someone about. *shrug*

So, in conclusion to this sudden an unexpected essay that I wrote(I'm so sorry about that, I thought it would be shorter -.-;;;;), YZY leaving YMJ/JFM with her kids? Impossible. Not without some sort of personality transplant or a complete AU. She's too prideful, too bitter, too angry, too everything negative and little positive. She's a resentful product of the values and restraints of her society taken to the extreme negative with a willingness to inflict her pain on others to an abusive degree. But she's also too obsessed and reliant on those same values and restraints to keep up the image of her status. So her? Giving those up? You'd be more likely to see WRH as a doting grandfather than that.

---

Dee - All of this is true and yes YZY leaving YMJ is highly unlikely. While there will be consequences if she decides to leave, she does canonically lives separately from her husband. They seem to be in a situation where they are married but living separately, which was a common way to end a marriage (at least in spirit) back then. She essentially had all the perks of being Madam Jiang but fulfilled none of the responsibilities.

Afaik, her training the Jiang disciples is a donghua thing? I may be wrong but I recall she spent most of her time nighthunting.

As for taking her children along with her- that's completely impossible. At that point, children were the property of the father. She could leave but she would've never been allowed to take JC.

Big TW: mental health, si/sh, suicide mentions/discussion

Mod: Compiling all the anon responses to one post from last week into this one, so anyone who is sensitive to this topic can scroll happily by.

This might be particularly intense reading for the Anon it’s in reply to, so only open the post if you feel like it Anon. They replied/updated on the original confession also (I think it’s the same Anon), and imo they were just venting in their original post and it was not made with bad intentions.

Thank you Anons for submitting your varied perspectives and insight on this topic.  ❤️

are you fucking kidding me? if your cope is a bjd that's fine, but here's the thing, buy a cheap legit!!! Or buy your fucking recast and enjoy it in silence instead of trying to legitimize it! Having a mental illness does NOT give you a free pass to be a asshole nor absolve you of the consequences of your own actions. Signed, someone who actually acted out on their suicidal ideation but thankfully didn't succeed.

~Anonymous

Mod: I’m glad you’re ok now Anon ❤️

"Don't be mean to anti artists because they might unalive themselves?" Ok. Now make the post saying "don't spit in the face of the artists who make this hobby possible and support the theft of their work because crushing their spirit and breaking their heart might make them unalive themselves." Or maybe you're just playing favorites in your suicide narrative?

~Anonymous

https://true-bjd-confessions.tumblr.com/post/649109294780907520/tw-suicidal-ideation-before-you-bash-someone-or I hope you realize that you are committing actual gaslighting with that. And just to be sure that people don’t think I’m just claiming this to deflect. In this specific case, I’d say it’s the: Gasligthing of someone spreading information, in an attempt to make someone doubt their own judgement (of a situation, or their own morals). There are other additions to the definition, like, over time gaslighting, or questioning ones own sanity, and memories, but I was just going to point out this one, or one part of gaslighting. Since it really sounds like it wants the reader to doubt their own morale judgement, about a situation, by inserting a very emotional, and serious topic, and pushing the idea of the persons opinion is going to cause someone’s death. Basically: What you are doing is gaslighting people into questioning their own judgments, and deliberately pushing them into the idea they might cause someone’s self harm, and subsequent death, if they dare, openly, hold a bad opinion, about recasters, and recast buyers. I would also like to just openly say that I find it incredibly gross to use topics of suicide, to guilt trip people, and it really sounds like a way to play the oppression game. You could just have mentioned how bullying people is wrong for owning recasts, something that is known of, and even frowned on by many, but instead, you used suicide as a tool, and even clearly use it, with no actual situation backing it, just to guilt trip, and make sure to try and make the person into being a bad person, just for holding an anti-recast stance, just because someone owning a recast might be suicidal. With this point: “ Your words might be that one drop that… ” you are literally shifting the blame to the anti-recaster, or a much larger issue a person suffer. Which isn’t only ridiculous, but also incredibly damaging to people who might suffer this mental state. Honestly, I’ll just say it again, using serious stuff, ranging from abuse, verbal-physical-sexual, to self harm, and in this case: suicide, just to make people feel bad, because they disapprove of your fake doll, is incredibly manipulative, and disgusting, because you’re using the specific topic of suicide, to just further a personal agenda. I’m not really sure what else to say. Using suicide to push this agenda, is incredibly disgusting, and even if you suffer from thoughts of self harm, it’s not the way to go, to pull strangers into this, and basically blame them for these actions. You also clearly didn’t seem to think, what implying blame to another person, or group of people, might do to their mental state. If you suffer from thoughts of self-harm, please call the suicide hotline, or try contacting, or receiving help. This links has a FEW numbers for suicide hotlines, and if you ever think you might need it, one call can help you find help. https://ibpf.org/resource/list-of-international-suicide-hotlines/

~Anonymous

I want to rebound on the confession with a suicide ideation. As others pointed out, it's not because you are unwell (as in clinically depressed) that you cannot be called out for your bad behavior. However,  bullying is never acceptable in my book. Never. Being called out isn't harassment. Cyber bullying and threats, however, are harassment and are more illegal as, let's say, owning a counterfeit. Two wrongs doesn't make a right and some people must remember this. I've seen it too much.

~Anonymous

It's SO nice to see that Shit-posts and Vic3mage are pro-suicide. Yes recasts are theft but that should NEVER be an excuse to verbally abuse someone to the point of wanting to commit suicide or self-harm. "That's on YOU." So what you're saying it that this type of behavior is okay? It's disgusting.

~Anonymous

Ok, so, I’ll just say it straight, or gay for those who need that. If you use suicide to guilt trip people about disliking recasts, you’re an asshole, like, goatse levels of asshole size. What is it with people, and using the most extreme examples, to try and make others the villains? It sounds really fucky, to put recasts, and the dislike of them, in the same situation suicide blaming. If someone said that for the opposite side of things, would you, or other recasters agree with the sentiment of: “You as recasters, and pro recasters, are to blame, for sculptors, and artists not being able to feed themselves, and considering suicide. Your actions, might be the last drop for them to do it.” This is just an example to show how fucked up it is to say that by the way, if it was the other way around as well. Would you agree with this? Would you think it’s fair? Would you accept the blame if that happened? Would you say that recasters, and pro recasters, are the reason someone is “at the brink”? Oh you do mention that people should get help, sure, but it in no ways justifies the absolutely 1 guy, 1 jar level of butthurt you show, when pushing the idea that anti recast people might cause someone to end it, just because they’re vocally against recasts.

~Anonymous

Anon from the depressed recast confession from earlier. Thanks to the mod for the kind words and support. And thank you for the comments. I understand your point. But you don't seem to understand mine. I've owned this recast for a few years. I bought it second hand from a friend that got me into the hobby and didn't really understand the whole recast legit thing back then. I just really loved her collection and wanted to be part of her hobby, so I was more than happy when she offered me one of her dolls. I have changed her face-up and built a story around the doll. I put a lot of own effort in.

It wasn't like "Oops, I feel depressed. Guess I'm gonna buy a recast on the internet to piss people off and harm artists. My depression justifies this action", no. I just think telling someone they ain't worth shit, telling them "kys" and witch hunting them aren't the right way to go. You don't know anything about that person except "they own recast. bad person". For exactly that reason I think it might be good to just block them, or explain to them without any hard feelings if they don't know anything about recasts. They're still human beings worth of life. Maybe talk to them on a respectful level to understand each other better. Sorry for the long confession or if it upsets anyone, that's not my intention.

~Anonymous

Ducktales Treasure of the Golden Suns Reviews: Wronguay in Ronguay (Paid for by Patreons)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to the genesis of magillicutty   Ducktales with the second part of my months long look at Treasure of the Golden Suns, the mini series that kicked off the series. These reviews are a result of me hitting my first patreon stretch goal. I just did a LONGGG post outlining those here on tumblr so hit that up and help join my patreon so I can reach them and make some more moolah to help keep this my primary job. 

So speaking of that job we’re back to The Treasure of the Golden Suns and the first chapter, while not bad, was a tad disappointing, especially since I really liked it on first viewing. So will the second chapter fair just as bad or be a massive improvement? The only way to find out is under the cut. 

Previously on Ducktales: Donald shoved off with the navy leaving the boys with Scrooge, with both growing to care about one another... both out of nowhere

The boys ended up embroiled int he Beagle Boys theft of a wooden ship for a mysterious gentleman named El Capitan whose preferedd method of dealing with enterlopers.. was to use a chair like a lion tamer. After being falsely blamed for the theft, the boys ended up chasing the beagles to Scrooge’s candy factory, were vindicated and fought them off with Scrooge’s help , ending with the boys getting covered in choclate.  while El Capitan escaped vowing to find the gold. Now knowing the wooden ship was a map, the family prepared to set off

And that’s where we pick up. The reporter from last episode comments on the beagle bust and while the Beagles are hauled off, with Burger asking if they have any milk after eating his chocolate prison. Because his only  character trait is that...

The camera does linger on an impression the ship made in the chocolate... hmmmmmm.

Meanwhile we meet FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. As I said with Catch as Cash Can, he’s not BAD, just not NEARLY as memorable as the triumphantly insane 2017 version. He’s sitll a good villian and we’ll see why soon, he just has the unenviable task of competiting with a far more iconic versoin made decades later whose far more my type of bad guy. El Captian calls him and offers to make him the richest duck in the world, which he naturally is happy to hear him out on. El Captian as a character i’ll get into more.. but for now let’s talk about his weird fucking voice. For some reason, Jim is doing a Dr. Claw impression, to the point I thought this was Frank Welker. I will grant it’s better than a horrible latinx sterotype, and given the grand kishke and a minor character in this very episode, they were NOT above those, but its’ still just.. weird. He just sounds like he’s possesed with about 80 or 90 demons for no explained reason. 

Back at the mansion, Scrooge and the Boys are both preparing to go after the treasure on the boat map: Scrooge is practicing vacuming it up using the pool and a sea safe vacum likely invented by Gyro, while the boys find the right coordinates to the treasure. Scrooge naturally.. is a bit of a dick about it, refusing to take them along despite them having found it, and saying they can stay with Duckworth. Duckworth’s response is about what you’d expect:

However before they can argue about this, there’s a bang at the door: It’s Flinty and here’s where the parts of this Glomgold I DO like, that do make him standout, if not as much sa his succesor shine: He plays scrooge, offering him 2 million for the Candy Factory. Naturally not realizing what Flinty’s getting out of the deal, Scrooge jumps at a quick and easy 2 million, since he knows it’ll cost MORE than that just to fix up the place. Flinty then proposes a contest: the two of them try to make as much money as possible from scratch in two days. No rules, no barriers, just whoever dosen’t have more money than the other by the end has to eat Flinty’s hat. Scrooge accepts.. but then realizes he has to eat crow and allow the boys along. With Scrooge sufficently blackmailed, the boys reveal where the treasure is: Ronguay, a made up south american county. Why they did so.. well just wait a second. And no it’s not just for the tile... but your close. 

No we find out why as they take the cheapest flight avaliable to Ronguay, only for the boys their going the Wrong way to Ronguay. 

Yeah I love a good pun but I draw the line at desinging an ENTIRE COUNTRY for a really obvious one. I have standards on this blog! Standards that include thirsting after Keith David , DBZA refrences up the whazoo and posting this gif of David Byrne at every given opportunity. 

Look my standards are weird, but their still standards. I draw the line at making a stupid pun when there’s a rich number of countries in South America. I’m not saying Carl Barks was ever against making up a country, he probably did, could be wrong, but more often than not he did his homework instead, as did his succesor Don Rosa. It feels lazy to just make up a country when you really don’t have to and could’ve just found one with a massive rainy season for your children’s cartoon. It’s not hard. I mean it’s harder than now: now I could just google “what south american countries have torrental rains”.. but it’s not like you guys could’n’t just go to a bookstore and buy a refrence book or a library and rent one. I mean if they ran out of time to do anyresearch fine, but even for the 1980′s it wasn’t that difficult to at least TRY. 

Regardless it turns out the pilot is a robot pilot.. who looks amazing but  as it’s a flintheart glomgold company joint is purposfuly tring to keep them off path. Look they didn’t have to unplug the poor guy. I know what he wants. 

So now on the right way to Ronguay our heroes lan only to find the locals all fleeing in terror of something. Scrooge heads in for suplies anyway and finds... a VERY racist sounding clerk. Seriously just to picture this.. picture say .. Michael Scott trying to do an mexican accent. You good and cringing? If not, adapt that to your doofus sitcom character or republican senator of choice There you go. You see my point. It’s not the WORST i’ve seen.. but only because I sat through the Rediculous 6 with my best friend, one of three, Cory, for a podcast we tried doing a year or two ago. I’ve seen Rob Schinder do  this for an entire movie. In 2015 no less. So my threshold for HORRIFCALLY offensive is vast and deep. But this is still garden variety racist and should not have been okay then or now. 

And it really SHOULD have the warning label on it. I’m fully in favor of the content warnings Disney started using, and it’s why I got so fucking annoyed during all the talk about it when it happend to the Muppet Show, ESPECIALLY when the republicans got a hold of it and accused them of “Canceling the muppets”. This is NOT fucking cancelation, this is a way to have the past there for posterity, while acknolding it sucked and was NEVER okay. It’s the best way to do this in my opinon, and it bothers me a LOT that a bunch of jagoffs coopted it and threw a hissy fit about Disney trying to do the right goddamn thing. And i’m also okay with leaving some media out. Disney + is a family platform. While keeping classic movies and shows on there with a proper warning is one thing, it’s another to not put song of the south or that episode of the muppets where the host later turned out ot be a pedophile on there. Some things just don’t have nearly enough worth to outpace the harm they can do. And it’s up to companies and consumers to figure out what fits where. 

Anyways our heroes find a llama for transport and that the map is seemingly a dead end to the desert. But Scrooge is determined to press on... and while he does El Capitan and Glomgold are following him, though the two clearly don’t agree on whose in charge, or if El Captian sounds like dr claw or not. They followed with their own copy of the map taken from the chocolate. 

As things progress the rain starts.. and our heroes find out via the JWG that this is what the citzens were all running from. They loose the llama, though are able to salvage some of their suplies it was carrying, and Scrooge nearly gives up to dispair. It’s a good, if sudden, character moment: Scrooge genuinely laments that he was worried one day he’d loose his step.. and stop being one step ahead of everyone. It shows some much needed vunerablity.. that beneath his boisterious and cantankerious usual personality he’s deathly afraid his age will eventualy mean he’ll have to stop..and having to stop adventuring and stop working and stop doing eveyrthing that makes him Scrooge McDuck is a fate worse than death. 

Thankfully he dosen’t as via a figure on the ship, Huey, Dewey or Louie figures out, in a REALLY amazing twist, that the desert itself was the ocean: the ship that has the treasure simply sailed here and hid it. So while our heroes reflect, Glomgold decides to take them out NOW while he has the chance over El Captian’s protests, as the good captain only cares about the gold. But Glomgold is right.. from a villianous point of view at least. leaving them alive is a waste.. granted he does so.. in a way that makes my brain cry out in pain and want to run. He lights a stick of dynamite. In a torrential rainstorm. 

I mean i’d expect 2017 Glomgold to try it and have it fail.. not to have the actually clever 87 version not only try something this stupid BUT HAVE IT WORK. THE FUSE LIGHTS. IT’S READY TO GO OFF. HE ONLY STOPS IT BECAUSE HIS MAP GETS EATEN AND THEY NEED SCROOGE’S IN TACT. JUST HOW DO YOU WHY DO YOU AUGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

Okay i’m.. i’m good now. So after that bit of nonsense and some taking my medication, our heroes take shelter in a cave. The grusome twosome try to sneak in while their asleep.. only to trigger the alarms the boys set up using their pots and pans, a “junior woodchuck alarm”. Clever little bastards. 

The tables quickly turn though as Thing one and Thing Two trap our heroes in the cave.. as i’ts flooding. Scrooge has them press on in hopes of finding a way out, and it rises further and furthe ran excenelty tense scene. But eventually our heroes manage to find somewhere safe in time: the shipwrecked boat with all the gold. Scrooge even puts on a nifty golden conquestador’s helmet. 

Naturally since we have minutes left in the episode the bad guys show up and have a gun... they never had before. 

Regardless our heroes are lowered into the lifeboat at gunpoint as the ship goes out to sea and i’ts revealed el captain worked on teh ship as he knows the full manifest.

However both villians personal flaws end up doing them in: Glomgold’s need to gloat means he gives Scrooge a golden coin as he mocks him about winning the bet... only for El Captain to fly into an insane rage demanding he swim out and get it despite just how LITTLE he really needs the coin. He and Glomgold struggle over the ships canon, both no longer needing the other and eventually fire off a ball that capsizes the ship. El Captian seemingly drowns while Glomgold is forced onto the life boat with the McDucks.. and finds out he lost as while he and Scrooge both lost the treasure the coin he tossed scrooge means Scrooge still has made more money. So Glomgold prepares to eat his hat and El Captian prepares for vengance and to get his gold back. 

Final Thoughts on Wronguay in Ronguay: The iffy bit with the store clerk aside.. this episdoe is easily the best 87 Episode i’ve seen.  It captures the spirit of barks perfectly with plenty of intresting twists that kept me engaged the whole time, some great jokes, and two great villians who are done in soley by their own greed and neurosusi> it’s really great stuff and what I expected more and remember more from the 87 Series: top notch adventure in the barks style but wiht it’s own unique touches. While the pilot was a bit rough due to all the ground it tried to cover, this episode, now having the basic formula of the series pretty much set, is allowed to just be a fun, daring adventure story that brilliantly builds off the last episode but can be wholly enjoyed on it’s own. Hopefully this momentum keeps because I don’t remember being the fondest of the next two episodes.. and given that content warning I think we’re in for a rough time next month. 

If you liked htis join my patreon, etc etc, I went into that mor eup top. Till All Are One, See you at the next Rainbow. 

First Line Meme Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

tagged by @lizardkingeliot. Thanks!!! <3

This is going to be fun!

1. The Production of Penny. SPOILERS for A Comet Pulled From Orbit.

For the first several weeks, it’s just impossible to meet her. Penny will feel bad about it later, but he can’t take in any new stimuli when his entire body, mind, soul is shivering in the exposed light, trying to adjust to a reality he’d given up on returning to. He holes himself up with his family in one of his favorite places, a small house in Alaska, of all places, that he’d only just acquired and made comfortable when he’d—when he’d gotten himself trapped somewhere else.

2. The Way a Fool Would Do

You never really know what you’re getting into, when you choose to take a soulmate. Before Quentin had bound himself to Eliot, he’d been forced to endure the normal barrage of questions from the Fillorian Soul Council, and then a separate barrage of questions from his cousin Julia, who had nitpicked his choice down to the marrow, pouring concern after concern into Quentin’s already terrified brain.

He’d been so frustrated with her at the time, but in retrospect he can’t blame her for her caution. The fact is, no matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you think you’ve thought it all through, binding another soul to your own is unlike anything else in the world. It is impossible to know how it will feel until it’s already too late to turn back.

3. The Genesis of Julia

She decides, while watching the 1984 Summer Olympics one lazy day, a magically cool glass of lemonade on the table beside her as she lounges back into their comfiest armchair, to master gymnastics. The decision is made more or less on a whim; this is how Julia decides how to spend a great deal of her infinite life minutes, truthfully. She’s organized and meticulous once she knows her goal, but when it comes to finding said goal, it’s all about what strikes her fancy.

4. The Construction of Kady

The dust took a couple of weeks to settle, after Kady’s abrupt departure from her old life and chaotic intrusion into her new one. She’d been in the middle of war with her own people when she’d died for the first time, and the others had found her desperately attempting to steal magic from a rival hedge group in order to survive, too anxious about her own life to properly mourn for her mother’s death, and certainly too caught up in her own frantic mind to trust any of these new people, much less believe them about their immortality, or her own.

5. The Origins of Alice

There was no way to prepare for something like this. There was simply nothing she could do, nothing she could write down, no refinements she could make, that would help her to be more ready for what the morning would bring.

Alice hated that very much, of course.

6. The Creation of Quentin

The object in question was beautifully rendered, detailed and precise. A burnished color, the cool weight of it reassuringly solid in Q’s hands as he examined it, turning it over and over in his hands. This one wasn’t even particularly old; it looked to be a sixteenth century model, and Q had seen older and more beautiful in his time.

7. The Making of Margo

When Margo first met Alice, she understood her immediately. That wasn’t to say that Alice was boring, or predictable, or that there was nothing Margo had to learn about her. It wasn’t that at all. It was more that in meeting Alice, Margo was able to take one look at her and think to herself: ah, now this I know what to do with.

8. The Explanation of Eliot

El was afraid of heights, but only a little.

He could fly, after all, and that should have made fear illogical. But if anything, his ability to subvert gravity was the very reason for his nerves: he’d never been able to trust himself with anything, much less his own life or the life of others. The few times his telekinetic powers had been called in as a means of escape or rescue, when he’d held an innocent stranger or beloved family member in his arms and floated with them down from the side of a mountain or building or cliff face… well, those were the things he had nightmares about, on the rare occasions when he could remember his dreams. It was that sensation of freefall, of knowing it was magic, something inexplicable, deep in his consciousness, in his soul, even, that was the only thing preventing sharp, painful, deadly impact. He knew himself well enough to know he should never be trusted with something so precious as the life of another.

9. A Comet Pulled From Orbit

Alice Quinn woke up.

This was an unexpected development, considering the events of mere moments ago. Specifically the agonizing thirty seconds she’d spent bleeding out on the carpet, wondering in an abstract sort of way how long it would be before someone thought to look for her and found her mangled corpse tucked into the corner of a Brakebills Library study room, surrounded by the shredded remains of several large magical tomes, and her carefully collated notes.

---

Pausing here for a moment after the first 9 - eight of them are all part of one series. The main story, A Comet Pulled From Orbit, is an Alice POV AU of The Old Guard. Prominent Queliot subplot, some burgeoning Kalice and other ships as well. Lots of found family, etc. The other stories, all the ones with the seven main characters' names in them, are meant to be a series of small snippets to fill out that universe, backwards and forwards. I'm noticing that I do a lot of setup, I don't often start in medias res with any of these, trying to set a tone and get the information started right away. Each of the chapters of the snippet stories could be their own thing, so it's a little weird to consider it the start of a bigger story!!

Okay, moving on to earlier stories.

10. is it too late (or could this love protect me)

This is a story about nothing and everything. It is a story between then and now. It is a story of people living their lives, living them, and living them, and continuing to live them, with only some pedestrian heartbreak and alcoholism and good old millennial economic angst to add some variety to the humdrum of continued existence.

This is a story about stupidity, and love. Stupid love.

(A/N - hmm I kinda hate this beginning now even though I'm SUPER proud of the story as a whole)

11. Maybe This Time

"Quentin Coldwater?" Eliot says, twisting the name up in his mouth like an insult.

Give him a break - it's a weird fucking name, for one thing. And besides, the off-putting demeanor is an intentional scare tactic.

12. Beyond the Veil

"Do you think the Lorians would want a seat at the table?" Fen asked doubtfully, looking over the charter in front of her.

"Well, they're going to want to review the language, at any rate," one of the advisers put in. "Especially the order of the names."

"But it's in alphabetical order!" Margo said. "Fillory comes before Loria - sorry, not sorry."

13. Running All This Time

Quentin was sweet. There were a lot of words that Eliot could think of to describe him, several of them a lot more besotted than he was comfortable with, but sweet was an apt descriptor, generally speaking.

He had the softest little smile, and wide brown eyes that crinkled up in the corners when he was happy. He had strong yet gentle hands, hands that were somehow mesmerizing as he flapped them around wildly during conversation, trying to paint pictures in the air to accompany his latest rant about whatever-the-fuck. His voice was calming, his circular logic compelling, enough so that Eliot found himself listening - really listening - whenever Quentin was talking to him, even if it was about the Plover books and what they suggested about this time period in Fillorian history, or the politics of trade when it came to buying labor from talking animals, or how he may have come up with a better tracking system to mark down the mosaic patterns they'd already tried. Dry, uninteresting stuff, really. Which is what Eliot told Quentin, with an eye-roll, to stop him from getting a big head.

14. To Feel the Same

Quentin finds Eliot sitting alone in the armory, surrounded by books.

Something tense and frantic inside of him unclenches, like it always does around this man. It’s actually a remarkable thing, because by all rights Eliot should make him more nervous, not less. Quentin is a nervous person, after all, and Eliot is so… Eliot . A High King in his blood. Quentin had meant that, when he said it, and had drank in the gratitude in Eliot’s eyes like a glass of pure, crisp water, essential and quenching.

15. Identity Theft

The first thing the man noticed as he came to consciousness was that his head was pounding. It felt like the worst hangover he'd ever had, times about a million, and for several seconds all he could do was lay there and gasp and wait for his eyes to adjust. He appeared to be in a semi-dark room of some sort. It was large, with a cavernous ceiling above him, and the air was drafty. Like a garage maybe, bigger even - a warehouse?

The second thing he noticed was that he wasn't alone in the room. There were shapes all around him, rustling and making confused, pained sounds. After a few moments of this, there was a whoosh of energy and an orb of light floated above his head, illuminating the space in a soft glow. Someone in the room had cast a simple light spell. He looked around and sat up slowly, trying not to jostle his still pounding head. His next observation was that pretty much everyone in the room with him was kind of stupidly attractive.

16. Promises

Quentin gets about thirty seconds alone in his bedroom in the cottage, before Eliot is bursting through the door without knocking. It's not that he wasn't expecting him to take it hard, but seriously - can he not give Quentin just a couple of minutes of peace?

"This isn't happening," Eliot says without preamble, slamming the door shut behind him. "I'm sorry, Q, but it's not."

"I honestly don't think it's your decision to make," Quentin says, running a tired hand over his face.

17. The Curse of the Broken Vase (aka The One Where They Get Married and Nothing Goes Wrong)

Quentin was pacing.

He was pacing, and he was tugging his hands through his hair, which he really shouldn't be doing because it had actually taken a hairdresser an annoying amount of time to brush it out and tie it back, and apparently it was perfect now, even though Quentin couldn't really see how it was different from his normal lazy bun, but whatever.

There would be people, Eliot included, who would be annoyed with him for messing up his hair.

18. Liquid Courage

Eliot was fidgeting. Which was unusual, and generally not a good sign. But it still wasn't much of a warning, Quentin had thought to himself later, given what was about to happen. Then again, Eliot had been acting strangely all week, a little distant and distracted, and Quentin had known his partner was working up to discuss something with him.

Quentin had been worried, of course, but in an abstract sort of way. He figured whatever it was, the two of them were more than equal to the challenge. Given everything they'd been through over the entire course of their relationship, he really couldn't imagine any piece of news that would be capable of obliterating their lives.

19. Reciprocal

The thing about Quentin Coldwater was that it was pretty much impossible not to love him. Honestly, it wasn't even Eliot's fault - how was he expected to spend every second of every day around such a beautiful, adorable, kind person without letting it get to him? And the sex. Well. That was fucking incendiary, which really wasn't helping his resolve in the love department.

20. Fragments

It was a perfectly normal morning in Fillory. Which, honestly, should have been Quentin's first warning that things were about to go very, very wrong. Fillory was many things, but normal was not one of them: Q had gotten used to being woken up by harried castle employees, alerting him to one catastrophe or another. The Serpent War had ended months ago, but the paperwork was still pouring in like it had never stopped. His official role in the government wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the war efforts, but it had been an all-hands-on-deck situation for the last year or so.

---

Oh my goodness, this took me back to almost my first story in this fandom! I have 22 Magicians fics posted, so that's almost all of them...

I think my favorite of all of these is Maybe This Time, just because I like starting off with such an iconic moment from canon. It's the kind of fic that I hope resonates with people differently upon a re-read, and I like the strong, instantly recognizable hook. You read that first line and you know where you are, but you have no real idea where the story is about to take you.

I've also had a lot of fun writing Julia in the Comet 'verse and I like her opening line to the first snippet I did for her!

---

I'll tag @hmgfanfic, @ameliajessica, @hoko-onchi-writes, @freneticfloetry, @honeybabydichotomy, @allegria23, @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier, @rubickk7, @portraitofemmy, @propinquitous, and all others who want to!!

Terra has a Chat with a REAL Moderator this Time

In lieu of my original post that gained a lot of traction, and me talking about being “contacted” by someone claiming to be a mod.

An ACTUAL mod from the Official Cookie Run discord managed to contact me and  set the record straight on a few things, as well as discuss a few things regarding what happened. So it seems that this whole situation has indeed caught the attention of the mods of the Cookie Run Official Discord, and even MicMac himself. So what’s been done?

I do wanna talk about it in greater detail, so I’m gonna put everything in a cut, starting now. If you want the TL;DR version, skip to the second picture of Chestnut with Walnut at the end.

First things First, the person who I talked on the moderation team was someone by the name of Zayder, who contacted me on anon with their details. Using some help from friends We were able to background check and confirm, yes this person is actually legit. So I was reassured I wasn’t walking into some kind of trap.

(The photo given to me to prove authenticity by a friend. I blurred out their Discord number myself just for the courtesy of privacy)

What’s Being Done to Protect Artists on the Discord, Moving Forward?

I think this is the big question on everyone’s mind since I made my original post and all eyes are on the moderators and MicMac to make the change.

There seems to be a genuine admittance to the fact that the previous way fanart was moderated was ineffective and caused issues such as the theft and reposting to happen. 

So they’ve gone ahead and added stricter measures to prevent this from happening again. Including preventing new members from posting until they get the “Cookie” role, a cooldown on the channel to allow for easier moderation and viewing of said artwork, and heavier infractions laid down for art theft. 

I mentioned that the cooldown also allows for time for people to appreciate genuine artwork posted. So considering the magnitude of its members I’d say that’s a great first step in moving forward towards protecting community fanartists. I got confirmation from members in my own discord that the cooldown IS indeed already enacted and even increased from 10 to 30 minutes, so I have reassurance that what’s being told to me is true. 

They DO have a report system on their bot, but it seems most people prefer just messaging mods so that system in itself is rather flawed, but only so much you can do there. 

(^ This one’s my own artwork, btw!! ^) Zayder also asked me for my own feedback on what could be done to help protect artists, since I am an artist myself. It seems most of the moderation team are not artists and this probably lent itself to making moderation there so weak. 

In summary my main suggestions that were noticed were being mindful of traced art, and a dedicated section or post explaining art theft and how it harms artists and the importance of crediting artists. As not everyone understands how it hurts us, some people genuinely are uninformed. Which Zayder stated he would forward to Mic Mac. (Not sure how I feel about my own suggestions going directly to MicMac himself, but you know!!)

Fawn’s Situation happened so Long Ago that most of it is Lost (or worst case scenario, was deleted by a member of the moderation team) 

While the general consensus now is indeed “Yes, Fawn created Nutmeg Cookie,” there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of evidence towards who the perpetrator was (We had their username, hazbinalastor666, but not their ID and they’ve since changed it to cover their tracks) and the moderators involved with Fawn’s “Ban” to be found on the Official Cookie Run Discord. At least not anymore.

Zayder has confirmed that Fawn “left” the server in December of 2019, which lines up with Fawn’s own statements on the situation. However Zayder stated that whoever kicked her didn’t actually put her on the banlist. So either they kicked her manually, or they used the bot and then used it to erase all evidence of it and pretend nothing happened (which he certainly HOPES is not the case, and I do as well). It did not help that Trial Mods were not a thing yet by this time (They were not introduced until February of 2020), according to what Zayder told me. So things on that Discord were essentially pretty gun-ho. It’s not as simple as looking up a term and going to “Oldest” to track down stuff from the time.  Plus a good chunk of it seemed to have happened through DMs so... Good Luck getting that evidence.

Zayder informed me that Fawn is welcome to come back at any time. Though speaking with her she’s chosen not to, and considering her situation I don’t think anyone can blame her. I would like to believe that the version of the Discord that Fawn had to go through is not the same as the one we have now but something like isn’t essentially going to wash away what happened.

As for evidence that Fawn created Nutmeg first? Yes I do have it. The original incident,  hazbinalastor666 claimed that they created Nutmeg in November of 2019, However there’s evidence in our own discord showing Fawn creating Nutmeg as early as September of 2019.

As well as the day Fawn came forward on our discord about the situation after keeping quiet out of fear of backlash, ignited by seeing the thief get a commission of Nutmeg. However, I don’t plan to post that publicly unless I have Fawn’s okay. 

Yes. The First “Mod” That tried to Contact Me was Pretty Undeniably Someone Posing as a Mod From the Official Discord

“I'm also really curious on what you found false on what the "moderator" said to you. Nobody on the mod team ever told us they were gonna contact you, so I wouldnt know who that is.”

So that was my first sign that clearly the original person who contacted me at least wasn’t doing so without the consensus of the other mods, and neither did they consult the mods afterwards... So very, very likely they were a fake from the start. Some of the things that were off that I told to Zayder, and that we found through conversation were as follows:

The first person contacted me on a throwaway and refused to disclose who they were. Zayder gave me the ID of his personal discord and we could verify who they were easily.

The first person blew off my own suggestions for helping improve the fanart channels with statements like “We’re already cracking down on it.” Zayder asked me for my own suggestions as an artist without even being asked.

The first person kept trying to get me to get Fawn to use a VPN in order to get back into the Official Cookie Run Discord. Despite being told repeatedly that’s not how a VPN works. That’s just fucking weird. 

The first person couldn’t track anything down regarding Fawn’s situation years ago, Zayder was at least able to actually pinpoint the date in which Fawn was kicked, and rather quickly too I might add.

Zayder had pretty proficient knowledge on the bot the Discord uses for moderation and how it works. Which he explained to me a few times. The first person said to me at one point, and I quote, “For all I know the bot gives messages when infractions are laid.”

So seeing how talking with a real Moderator like Zayder was, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that someone was trying to dupe me here for some reason. Was it revenge? Did they want some sort of blackmail? Did they want me to proverbially “back off?” And if they ARE a mod why wouldn’t they give the info and such that I gave them to the other mods? Who knows. 

TL;DR:

Long Story short, it does appear as if the Moderation Team and Mic Mac have heard the artists of the fandom and are going to be working hard to lay down stricture rules regarding posting and doing their best to make sure credit goes where credit is due.

Fawn’s incident happened so long ago there’s not much evidence to be found on the Official discord, but we DO have proof that Nutmeg Cookie belongs to UpsetFawn!

The First Person who claimed to be a Mod was a fake and talking with Zayder proved it.

Overall, my talk with Zayder was very pleasant and enlightening and I believe Zayder would say about the same! I never meant to cause such an uproar, but I’d like to think things will change for the better now that we’ve all spoken up on behalf of our fellow artist. 

What we need to do now is watch how the Cookie Run Official Discord moves forward and if they’ll stick to their word towards protecting fandom content creators from theft and uncredited reposts. Though after my talk I’m certainly optimistic they will.

Always have your back for your fellow fandom artist, TerraTerraCotta

This is the beginning of an idea I had where Atsuhiro survives the attack and ends up in Tartarus. I want to expand on it but I’ve worked on this for a few days and I’m happy with it I suppose! Spoilers for Chapter 294/295 ofc.

I apologize for the weird formatting, I’ve been working on mobile/iPad for a while now.

--

He loved the League. He would give his life for the League and their leader’s ideals and he knew that’s how it would end as he hit the ground, snatched out of the air by the blond child he’d barely seen once before months ago at the Yakuza base, and while the rest of that battle lasted barely more than a few minutes, Atsuhiro fell in and out of consciousness more times than he could count. He could not move no matter how hard he tried, but that was alright. If Shigaraki had gotten away, well. He couldn’t blame the kid for leaving him behind.

Atsuhiro let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes.

“Hurry! Go, get the Tartarus staff on site! Get...we need…....alive...”

If he couldn’t move anyway he wasn’t going to struggle—everyone was gone, surely, and the heroes were getting tended to, going by the muffled voices and sirens, and he’d accepted his death by now. As long as his sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, it would be alright.

He was roughly moved again, his mind fogging up more as a numb pain crawled up his side. His arm was restrained, locked down; his body was jostled until he was shoved roughly into the back of a cold vehicle onto a starkly-cold metal surface. Atsuhiro tried to open his eyes, but this was it for him. He let that darkness take him, hoping that the young boss, Spinner, and Dabi had gotten away.

-

His eye snapped open into quiet darkness, into what he guessed was a small and sterile room barely bigger than a closet. Machines hummed and chugged gently to his left and his right shoulder pressed against a cold concrete wall. He tried to speak but his throat was drier than a desert, leaving him sputtering and coughing until he’d caught his breath.

He couldn’t lift his right arm, a cuff had been attached to his wrist, his fake left eye and left mechanical arm had been removed, and he could only imagine what other types of straps were keeping him down on the bed that wasn’t very comfortable and they’d never given him any blankets or turned the heat up. He may as well exist in a dungeon and it wasn’t apparent that there were any guards near him at the moment.

With his wrist cuffed as it was, it blocked his hand from being unable to touch anything and he didn’t have any smart ideas to get out of this. Truthfully, he thought he was dead, but the straps were tight and deliberately made to keep him from moving his arm at all. The numbness in his hip and chest was almost too much but if he squeezed his eyes shut he almost couldn’t feel it. He felt a little lost and panicked without his left arm.

Remember, he thought. Remember. What got him into this place? A heist gone wrong? Did he steal something from a hero more high-profile than he’d expected? A more dastardly villain than he’d hoped? His work with the League often brought him to many unsuspecting places, but up until recently they’d been working on projects with...the Meta-Liberation Army.

Atsuhiro opened his eye. There’d been a war. That’s right, yes. He’d watched the boss get away, but he couldn’t remember anything after being grabbed by that sunny-haired kid he’d thought they’d gotten rid of a long time ago.

A few minutes into trying to relax, Atsuhiro realized that an alarm was going off on the machine and only got louder and worse the more he suddenly panicked. He pulled against the restraints to no avail. His heart nearly lept out of his chest when the door flew open, the room flooding with a fleet of armed guards and heroes silhouetted black against the harsh white fluorescent lighting that spilled into the room.

“Wh— what?”

A strong hand grabbed his face and turned his head every possible direction, to which he objected loudly and wasn’t heard. The doctor who grabbed him turned him to face them, their gaze cool and steady, but unfocused. He heard whispers from the front of the room that maybe they should stick a muzzle on him like one of their other prisoners, but the doctor handling him waved them away.

Atsuhiro was poked and prodded. “Please, come on. Take me to dinner before you start doing that. I’m /starving/.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen, Sako.” The doctor pressed their lips together, barely giving him so much as a look as they hummed, tapped a pen against their lips, and started to scribble on a clipboard. “Prisoner is awake, far too alert, and begging for food. I’d say we’ve done a good job here.”

“Fuck— what? Prisoner?” Atsuhiro struggled again. “At least tell me where the fuck I am!” Sharp pains in his side would have crumpled him if he didn’t have the restraints tied over his chest.

The doctor turned their back to him. “Prisoner is starting to panic. Sedate him."

They left in a hurry, coat a flurry of fabric behind them lime a cape, and Atsuhiro noticed the lines of drips going into his arm. He struggled more, but when what he assumed was an intern leaned down over a tray of medication he suddenly felt faint.

Before he fainted, Atsuhiro watched a fuzzy guard wave at him.

No, no, no, he thought. No. He couldn’t go out like this again. His eye closed however, and darkness claimed him once more when the door shut tightly and he fell into a fitful doze.

--

"Sako Atsuhiro."

His whole body tingled as he lifted his head. He felt like his mind was rapidly being overwhelmed by the sharp lights, solid metal room, and his arm held at a strange angle, while his body lagged behind him as if trapped in syrup. He had been given only enough pain medication to sit up and talk, but it made his mind fuzzy and he squinted against the harsh white lights of the room and the spotlights angled directly at him. Restraints kept him firmly against the chair, so he was unable to escape. He couldn't if he tried.

Atsuhiro cleared his throat, squinting. "Yes. Yes that's...that’s my name. How can I help you? Besides giving away all of our best secrets, of course."

The man who spoke to him seemed as nondescript as the next guy. Tall, short brown hair, quite a friendly face, business casual. Definitely not the kind of person who would be the main character in a show. A stack of papers sat under his hand. "It's just me in here."

"Okay? And the two hundred people recording this conversation?"

"I just want to talk."

"Well we certainly are! How's life treating you?"

"That's irrelevant. Sako, we have you listed for numerous crimes such as theft, destruction of property, child endangerment, involvement with the League of Villains and the Meta-Liberation Army, just to make a few. Just recently you were caught attempting to land an attack on our heroes.

"I don't really know what to say to that?”

The man hummed. "I understand. We’ll be keeping an eye on you, of course. You have a hip replacement and reconstruction scheduled soon. I’ll be visiting every few days.”

Atsuhiro resisted rolling his eyes. “Please, why are you telling me all of this.”

“Why not? You can’t escape, you can’t move.”

“I see. You know, it’s polite to at least tell someone your name? You seem to know me /quite/ well.”

The man pressed his lips together. He spent a moment writing down a few of his own notes. “I guess you can call me Tsukauchi.”

Atsuhiro blinked, mulling it over. He’d never heard of that name before. “Okay. Why are you bothering to fix me up?”

“The marble that you compressed was lost at the scene so there wasn’t a way to even attempt to assess what you’d lost.” Tsukauchi shrugged. “We obviously need you alive, which I’m sure you already know?” He raised an eyebrow and Atsuhiro pouted. “All prisoners at Tartarus receive /some/ kind of care. We aren’t heartless villains.”

“Yeah, and you use that care to keep us alive and trapped here and for what?”

“Sir, you were involved in committing mass murder.”

“Pah!” Atsuhiro straightened his shoulders. “So let me guess. Keeping me alive here is a worse punishment than death?”

“If that’s how you would like to see it.” Tsukauchi wasn’t looking at him, but seemed to be quite a good listener. “My time here is short today, but I’ll be back again shortly.”

“I look forward to it.” Atsuhiro gave the man his sweetest smile. Tsukauchi stared at him with a peculiar look, then looked down to gather up his notes.

He left silently. Guards crept out of shadows Atsuhiro hadn’t even realized were there and he was being dragged from the stage again. He couldn’t walk, oh no. He could barely /sit up/ and so he was roughly thrown into a wheelchair, the quirk-neutralizing cuff around his arm was adjusted, and straps tightened around his chest and legs.

The doctor who he’d seen numerous times by now and who he assumed had performed the surgery on him pushed his wheelchair along. They went down long passages, each holding cell specially designed to the needs and quirks of those they held. Atsuhiro’s own holding cell was only the basic one; cold, dry, with solid metal plates and a single bed. Because of the neutralizing cuff on his wrist, he wasn’t able to compress himself, and even if he was, there was a second cuff that held his hand at a specific angle and had a cage around it to leave him unable to touch anything. Without his right arm, he’d never be able to get it off on his own. Not unless he pulled some crazy gymnastics, which just weren’t possible with his injuries.

Apparently he was to be getting a slight upgrade to a different wing once his injuries had healed, but they gave a severe estimate of at least six weeks and an incomprehensible amount of physical therapy thereafter—if they deemed that necessary. After all, he was alive, and that’s really all they needed to question him.

Along the way, some of the captured prisoners gave him looks if they were able to look out of the windows on their doors or restrained in tight places facing the hallways for quicker analysis by guards and inspectors. Atsuhiro did not look at any of them.

I Need to Talk About “Problematic Faves” within TWDG [1/?]

You know what I love about TWDG and its characters...? 

How flawed they all are.

I’m not talking that they’re flawed in the stupid “My biggest problem is that I love too gosh darn much!” or “My defining character flaw is that I’m super clumsy lolz!” I mean that practically every single character we’ve met across these games has done at least one terribly awful thing. 

That includes all of our favorite characters. 

It doesn’t matter who your favorite character is. They have done at least one terrible thing within these games, if not many. 

This can include theft, murder, assault, using racist slurs/being racist in general, different acts of violence using weapons, verbal abuse, lying, sacrificing others for themselves, property damage, assisting in suicide, abandonment, and many other things that potentially result in the harm of others or themselves. 

We don’t like to think that our favorite character could ever do any of these things, or if they did, they have an excuse for why they did it.

Take Clementine for example. We all love Clementine. We’ve all been with her since the beginning, we’ve all watched her grow, and we’ve all morphed her into the person she is by the time s4 ends. 

But when you look at Clementine, as well as some of her actions and behaviors across the series, through a completely unbiased lens, it’s not hard to throw a certain overused word at her. 

“Problematic”

Clementine has killed several people. Most of them were in defense, but there are certain kills that are hard to defend or justify. 

My favorite example to use is when she shot the asshole who traded her bad bullets then asked Javi to lie for her. It’s easy to say, “Well, she didn’t mean to do it! She thought the bullets wouldn’t fire! Besides, that guy WAS the asshole who sold her the bad batteries and attacked her!”

Okay, fine. But that doesn’t mean diddly squat. 

Clementine knows better than to point a gun at someone she doesn’t have any intention of shooting. That was one of the first lessons Lee taught her, and it’s even a lesson she taught Sarah in s2. Clementine pointed the gun at him and fired anyway, which is WHY he got up and ended up attacking Javi. Then, Clementine shot the gun again, but this time it actually fired and killed him. She knew she fucked up, but the deed was done and she murdered that man. 

Clementine is just one of many characters who we could throw that phrase “Problematic Fave” at. At the end of the day, I could argue that every single favorite character within TWDG would fall into this category at some level, whether it be low or high. 

Even characters who we baby like “Oh precious child who has never done anything wrong in their life!” have an argument that can be made against them. 

Well, okay, except Rosie.

Rosie is the one exception I’ll allow. Even though she’s not a person, she’s a dog, but I still consider her a character. 

But, Clementine’s different. She’s our protagonist, therefore, it’s much easier to explain her actions or make excuses for what she does. Hell, a good chunk of her actions are made by us, so if she does something “wrong,” then we’re to blame for making that choice as her, further developing her character with the use of that choice. 

What about the characters who aren’t our playable protagonists? 

What about the major and side characters who have made poor decisions? The characters that we’ve thrown this label of “Problematic Fave” at more than others? The characters we’d consider “villains,” or in the very least “antagonistic.” 

What about the characters under those labels that we end up loving, and even defending, despite the terrible things they’ve done or said? Despite groups of others in the community saying that it’s wrong to like these characters?

Today I want to talk about those characters who are higher on the “Problematic Fave” tier list, and get to the bottom of WHY we love them. 

It’s not wrong for us to like these characters. 

Let’s get that out of the way right off the bat.

It’s not wrong to enjoy or love an antagonist, or a morally complex/gray character. I argue that everyone has an antagonist that they love, whether it be within the twdg universe or otherwise. 

I’m not here to shame anyone for liking a character who happened to be labeled under this “Problematic Fave” term by others who like to throw it around to start fights. 

If anything, I’m letting know that it’s totally okay to love these characters as long as you’re being safe about it. As in, you’re not excusing these bad behaviors while acting like these unhealthy things are okay when they’re clearly not.

Now... maybe you’re wondering WHY this is something that I feel I NEED to talk about. What brought this up and whatnot. 

I need to talk about this because I have a problematic fave and it’s bothered me for a long time. 

Before I get started, we should all be on the same page of what defines a “Problematic Fave,” since it’s a phrase that I’ll use throughout this whole thing.

 If you go to Google and search this term, this is the definition it’ll bring up: 

Very vague. And when I asked you guys:

It’s an easy enough term to understand. We all get the general idea. 

The problem is, like I mentioned before, every single character within this TWDG universe is problematic at some point. They’ve all said hurtful things, they’ve done hurtful things.... it’s the apocalypse! 

But there are a handful of characters who end up getting this thrown at them WAY more than any other characters. Not just “villain” characters either, like the St. Johns or Lilly, but characters who seem to have more gray coloring to them, those who are more antagonistic, who make more poor decisions, who get others killed or hurt, who display unhealthy behaviors. Those who we can’t quite put our fingers on if they are “good” or “bad.”

I’m sure that at least one character has popped in your brain as you’ve read thus far.

Let’s talk about the popular ones:

Kenny 

In my opinion, Kenny is... well, he's problematic. Whether you love or hate him, you have to admit that a lot of his actions over the course of seasons 1 and 2, though mostly 2, are harmful. 

I’m one of those people who don’t love or hate him. I’m more on the dislike side when it comes to s2 Kenny, but I can see why someone would love or hate him overall. 

On one hand, he IS an interesting character to take the time to study. His character tells us a lot about what happens to a normal, nice family man thrown into the apocalypse who loses everyone he’s ever loved, including his only child, his wife, and what happens when that family man has to keep going with the world trying to beat him down. 

He has his kind moments. He clearly cares about Clementine and AJ, but his behavior and actions, if not kept under control, could lead to disaster. They DO lead to disaster, since no one can stand to be around him, leading to everyone abandoning him, and in turn, abandoning Clementine and AJ. 

All of the weight of what’s happened to him has left him angry and violent. He lashes out at Clementine after Sarita’s death, going as far as to BLAME Clementine for it regardless of her choices. He isolates her from the group, becomes possessive the moment they meet back up again, and picks fights when he shouldn’t, which result in harm to her and others. He beats the shit out of Arvo in front of everyone as if he’s right in physically harming this disabled kid because of the situation they all find themselves in. 

In the end, if you actually have Clementine shoot him, he tells her and the player that “you made the right choice,” as if he knows he’s been such an antagonistic character that it’s only right that he die. 

The end to every good story has the so-called “bad guy” die... right?

Kenny is an obvious example of a favorite character being problematic, if not THE most obvious. He has so many people who love him, and just as many who hate him. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or witnessed arguments about Kenny and this phrase was thrown around with other words like “toxic” and “abusive” yada yada. 

It makes sense to me that someone would question why Kenny would be another’s favorite character just as it makes sense that someone would love him. 

It all depends on how you see him and if you’re mature enough to accept and understand his trauma, unhealthy behaviors, and overall character [the good and the bad] for what it is. He’s a broken man, but it doesn’t give him an excuse to lash out at those he’s supposed to love and protect. 

What really gets me is that Kenny is loved by so many people and they’re vocal about it, probably even more vocal than those who hate him. And I’m not shaming you. 

The kind, mature Kenny stans of our community aren’t afraid to express their love for this character. They know who he is, and they’re willing to discuss him with others who love him, as well as with those who don’t in a calm manner. This is something I highly respect and thought deserved acknowledgment.

I have a point to mentioning this, because with my problematic fave, I have never openly admitted to how much I like this character because I was always scared of the potential hate that could be thrown my way. I mean, whenever I search this character, there’s a lot of shade being thrown around. 

Then times changed, my blog grew bigger and I became more confident in sharing my opinions and views, as well as discussing several positive and negative aspects of TWDG with all of you. 

Now, this isn’t just applicable to Kenny, either.

Of the characters who fall higher on this “Problematic Fave” tier list we’ve somehow acquired, there are a lot of people who absolutely adore Minerva. 

Marlon-

Even Lilly has people who love her-

Hell, there are people who SWEAR by 400 Days’ Nate. 

^THIS crazy bastard! 

I was even shocked to see there are a handful of people who really like Arvo, too!

Before we continue, I do want to reiterate that I’m not coming for anyone who likes Kenny, Minerva, or any of the other characters mentioned above. I want to make that clear in case I say something pertaining to these characters that you take offense to. Well all know how easy it is to be offended on here. Besides, I’m not one to judge given that I have my own problem character that I love and y’all are gonna judge me anyway, so let’s just chill. 

This whole idea of why we love these characters is fascinating. 

If we ever met these people in real life, we wouldn’t be so quick to love them and we know it. But, because they’re fictional and put out there for us to analyze and talk about with one another, we find ourselves attached to them.

I simply want to understand why. 

Now that we have a list of the more popular characters who fall into this tier, I’ll be using them as examples throughout the rest of these posts. 

However... before we get into that, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t told you who MY problematic fave is and why. 

Well, allow me to enlighten you because, even though I’m using Kenny, Minerva, ect. as examples, this character will be my MAIN example. 

Time to come out and admit it. 

...

...

...

It’s David.

I really like David.

I even dare admit that I.... kind of love him?

Why, you ask....?

David is a character I’ve rarely talked about.

The only time he ever seems to come up is when we’re talking about Livid, and we all know how that one goes. 

Even when we talk about ANF as a whole, it’s usually a discussion about Emo Clementine or how Gabe should’ve had a better character arc or just how gosh darn gorgeous Javi is or how Conrad is actually the best character and totally should’ve been a romance option because Javrad is the true OTP of ANF.

But that’s a topic y’all aren’t ready for.

Anyway.

I know that there are those out there who, like me, like David for what he is and his character development throughout ANF. I’m not going to act like I’m the one person in the world who likes him because I can’t be. 

However, it seems like every time I get an ask that involves David [and isn’t Livid] is hateful or otherwise negative a good 95% of the time.

That, on top of being a predominantly s4 blog, is why I haven’t talked much about David or admitted that I like him as much as I do.

But now the cat’s out of the bag.

CJ has a hidden love for David Garcia.

It’s true. This jerk is my big problematic fave.

And I can already hear it now: 

“CJ, how can you actually like David after he treated everyone so poorly and took AJ away from Clem?”

Oh, I don’t know... how can anyone love Kenny after the way he treated everyone so poorly and was a real prick to Clementine after Sarita’s death? 

Why does anyone love Minerva after she got Tenn/Louis/Violet KILLED and Clementine bit? 

Why does anyone like Nate, who literally murders an old, wounded couple and is overall an insane son of a bitch?

That’s why we’re here, ya dingus.

To figure this out. 

In preparation for this, I actually went and did some digging on what people think of David. I thought, “Maybe I’ll find some character analysis’ or posts that share my thoughts.” 

After reading a bunch of threads about him on various websites, I concluded that 99% of them look the same:

[ Also, where are these people who support David against Clementine? Because I did not find them, random person on wikipedia. I must not be looking in the right places. All I found were Kenny defense posts on your David thread. Riddle me that, random person on wikipedia whose name I scribbled out but just realized I missed the “edited by” rendering the scribble pointless!]

This did nothing but increase my anxiety about making this whole post because I’d rather not have paragraphs like this sent to my inbox for the next twenty years. 

But, I’m doing it anyway. Obviously. 

I have a real love-hate relationship with David, in case you couldn’t tell.

I should hate David. I really should.

I mean, I don’t like Kenny, and I fucking loathe Lilly. They’re two characters that have a lot in common with David, so logically, you’d think that I’d group him in with them and hate his dumb face. 

But I don’t. 

Even though David is an asshole. 

He likes to do things that really piss me off, then turn around like “I can’t change because I’m a soldier” as if changing and not doing bad things is completely impossible for him!

David breaks a grieving woman’s arm after her husband dies, takes AJ away from Clementine after kicking her [a 13-year-old] out of their group by herself, gets more upset over how his glass got broken than over his wife’s cut hand, constantly fights with and puts Javi down, barely mourns Mari’s death, and a number of other things.

I know change is hard, David, and you have a lot of trauma from being a soldier, but that’s not an excuse to do bad things! I firmly believe that with enough effort, love, and support, you can slowly get better! I really hate you, you infuriating man!

But I also love him.

....But I also really hate him.

Do you see my dilemma?

And y’know what? I got plenty to say about all the things he’s done. 

David is a fascinating character. 

Even now, going back up and rereading what I wrote, I have to urge to jump in and be like “Well, okay, I actually have a theory on why he did that...” as if I’m ready to defend him from myself. How does that work?! 

Well, okay, not necessary defend him in the way of justifying why he’d break that woman’s arm or anything, but instead show that he’s a gray character who is much more complex than people give him credit for. I have the urge to explain David’s character as a matter of character analysis and discussion, not pretend he didn’t do anything wrong or make excuses for his unhealthy and problematic behaviors.

Does that sound familiar?

David Garcia is to me what Kenny is to a lot of people.

I have a theory on why he married Kate in the first place when they clearly weren’t compatible as a couple! I have theories on why he was quick to boot Clementine out but look the other way when Lingard got high on their meds! Explanations of why having him and Gabe alive in the end is the better ending!

oh god everyone is going to hate me haha-

I have it all, and maybe one day I’ll sit down and write an entire in-depth character analysis of David if anyone is actually interested, but right now I just want to understand why I like to him in the first place because it makes no sense.

Since day one, it’s boggled my mind as to WHY I’ve always found myself leaning in favor of David. 

With every episode that came out after e2, David was the character who always piqued my interest and I found myself wanting to side with him just to see what would happen. Why did I still like him even though he kept doing things that I knew were wrong? Or that pissed me off?

Why was I furious when I reached my ending only to have David end up dead?

Why was I so pissed that this character, who drove me INSANE for most of the game, died?

Is it because I see a part of myself in him? Is it because of his character design, the performance of his voice acting, and his overall writing? Does it have anything to do with his backstory and relationship with Javi? Is it because I’m actually one of those people who see someone like this and think “hey I can fix you!” but don’t know it? What is it?

Why is David Garcia my “Problematic Fave” of TWDG?

Continued in [2/?]

I think if fiction didn’t matter we wouldn’t be rallying for better representation. But at the same time, there’s plenty of fiction that so clearly doesn’t try to impose a moral. Are you of the opinion that any fiction that displays objectively horrible things in a gratifying lense should be banned? Would you call people who liked the saw films monsters? What about first person shooter games? Any porn that features power imbalances as a kink?

Short answer, to all of those questions: No. Absolutely not.

But of course, as it’s me, have a much longer answer:

Here’s the thing that the ‘FICTION AFFECTS REALITY’/’IF YOU LIKE DARKFIC YOU’RE A MONSTER’ crowd fails to realize: when we say ‘fiction is not reality’ we are not saying ‘fiction doesn’t matter’ or ‘fiction has no affect on reality whatsoever’. What we are saying is that fiction does not have a direct, 1:1 affect on reality. ‘Normal’ people will NEVER read a piece of fiction and suddenly become a pedophile. Normal people will not read a piece of fiction and forget about boundaries. Normal people will not read a piece of fiction and suddenly think that societal taboos which used to disgust them are A-OK and then try to enact them in their real lives.

Antis really love to cite the Jaws Effect when talking about how fiction affects reality, but they miss one crucial point--Jaws was playing on the pre-existing fears of the movie-going public. (And also the fact that Jaws had millions of viewers worldwide and reached a far greater audience, and therefore had far greater impact, than some niche darkfic on ao3 ever will.) It’s the same argument that’s been trotted out again and again by the ‘violent video games turn normal happy kids into school shooters’ crowd. Can playing violent video games temporarily heighten someone’s aggression/make someone already prone to violence even more aggressive? Sure. Will playing violent video games (or watching/reading violent media) make someone with a normally healthy emotional responses to stimuli suddenly become a violent person? Absolutely not.

Like, I love games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I love slipping into Ancient Greece and running around, merrily hacking and slashing my way through Athenians and Spartans. I’ve never once gotten the urge to pick up a sword and go outside and start sticking it in people. I know plenty of people who love Grand Theft Auto and don’t have a violent bone in their body. I greatly enjoy taking head shots as a sniper in Mass Effect, but I’ve never picked up a high-powered rifle in my life. (I go to the shooting range sometimes, with my grandad’s old .22, but I certainly have never wanted to shoot anyone with it.) My taste for video game violence has never translated to my reactions or interactions with other people in real life. Because I’m not a violent person, and while I can’t say I’m mentally healthy, I can say that I’ve never wanted to hurt other people. (And I have one of those ‘scary’ mental illnesses that get demonized all the time in popular media.)

So like, here’s the thing: first of all, the argument that video game or media violence (or abuse, rape, incest, pedophilia, etc) creates violence (or etc) in otherwise normal people is absolute bullshit. You may hear antis trotting out the Slenderman killings as another example, but they again fail to take into account that even if the game was the trigger, it was not the cause, and if it hadn’t existed, something else would have set them off. (And that was 2 people out of the, I’m gonna guess, millions of people who’ve played the game or watched let’s plays or whatever else. Not exactly terrifying odds.)

Secondly, you have to remember that while fiction and reality do have a relationship and do have an affect on one another, that affect is far more noticeable from the other direction. Fiction informs reality--it is often a direct reflection of it. This is why Greek tragedies became so popular--because people saw in them the human condition, in all its ugliest parts, and found extreme catharsis in watching it unfold. And this is part of why, yes, representation is so important--because, right now, most fiction is not an accurate reflection of reality, and that creates an unbalanced dynamic that’s going to take a very long time to fix.

Which leads to my final point, that is most often overlooked by antis who insist that fiction cannot be separated from reality: mass media reaches a far greater audience than fanfiction. Yes, it’s bad that so much of Hollywood fare is white--because Hollywood has reach. Billions of people tune in to watch the latest blockbuster. Your average niche darkfic on ao3 will never reach that kind of audience, not in a million years. The effect of that reach is simply not comparable. If someone who is already prone to violence plays a game or watches a movie or tv show that glorifies it, sure, it may heighten their violent response, but that’s because it’s playing on something that’s already there. The fiction itself is not to blame for whatever the person who viewed it chooses to do.

One last thing, since this is something that I feel doesn’t get mentioned enough in these debates: if you’ve been following me long enough, you’ll probably have seen me rag on Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey. I hate both of those series’ with a burning passion. I think they’re badly written tripe, one of which began as fanfic of badly written tripe (and if 50sog had languished in the annals of internet obscurity as Master of the Universe and not become a multi-million dollar hit, I’d probably never have heard of it--again, the difference in reach between niche fanfic and a mass media sensation), and I hate the way the abusive relationships in both of them are glorified. I think the ‘themes’ Twilight spoonfed preteen girls who ate it up are harmful. I think the racism involved in its depiction of the Quileute tribe was despicable. I think everything 50sog had to say about BDSM and the kink community is horrific, and deserves to be called out.

But you know what else these books did?

They started conversations. Conversations that may not have happened to such a wide degree had these books not become famous. (Not that I’m saying it’d be any great loss if they’d never seen the light of day, but hey, they did, and we have to live with the fallout, so at least something good came out of it.) Conversations that desperately needed to be had--about red flags in abusive relationships, about what is ok and not ok to do or say to your partner, about what consent is and what healthy relationships are, and what a healthy BDSM/kink relationship should look like. (I swear to the gods if any anti kinksters start crawling all over this post, I will eat their toes. Stay out of consenting adults’ bedrooms for the love of all that is fucking holy.) Conversations about safe words and how to use them, and how it is always ok to use them please dear lord do not let things progress past the point of your comfort. Conversations about the real life Quileute tribe who has been trying for years to talk about the realities of tribal life, which were so butchered by Twilight, but that hopefully brought more awareness and helped show what not to do when you’re incorporating a real life culture into your work.

These are important conversations, which may not have been had to the widespread degree that they were and are were it not for the cultural phenomena that sparked them. So no, I don’t think it’s wrong to point out if an author is, for instance, glorifying harmful things in their works--however, I do think that the reach of the work in question matters. If you’re targeting a work with a few thousand hits at most, ask yourself: why? Why this work, and not an actual cultural powerhouse like, say, Game of Thrones, which features such hits as the showrunners openly admitting they waited for a teenage actress to turn 18 so they could film a scene where her character is brutally raped on screen? Why is it so important to draw attention to some niche work of darkfic (especially if it’s properly tagged so that it can be avoided by anyone to whom it would be harmful; and by the way, these tags don’t exist for things like, oh, VC Andrews novels, which any kid can pick up in a library without warning; I think that even a glorified/romanticized rape scene that is tagged as rape on ao3 is less harmful than similar themes occurring without warning in a book I picked up because it had pretty flowers on the cover), when you can easily find the exact same things in published, popular fiction?

Just something to think about, before trying to insist that fanfics that reach an audience of a few thousand at most are anywhere on the level of ‘affecting reality’ the same way that mass media that reaches billions is capable of.

Fragmentation 0.6 - JJK

Plot: How does one measure freedom? Are our choices truly our own, or are they part of a preset design outside of our control? We all have a question burning inside of us, though few speak it out. It is the question that drives us forward, seeking purpose in our lives. What is The Matrix?

Rating: NC-17 // NSFW

Genre: Series | The Matrix!AU | angst | sci-fi | action | drama

Pairing: N/A

Warnings: Strong language, allusions to suicide, extreme angst, graphic violence

Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin E’s AO3 || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]

Word Count: 2,615

AN: We are now jacking back into “The Matrix” with Jungkook. The heaviness with his story rivals Yoongi’s, but that’s my own personal opinion on the matter. Again, all information in the universe can be found on the official Matrix Wiki so please use that as a reference guide if you ever get confused!

Tag List: @aroseforyoongi​, @prisczero​, @pinkpjmin​, @btsaudge​, @flowerwrites06​, @unoriginal-username15432​

© thebiasrekkers (Admin E). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft.

Jungkook shoved the blankets off of him, rolling out of bed with a grunt. As he sleepily rubbed at his eyes with one hand, he used the other to blindly grope around on the floor for a pair of pants. Grabbing the flannel pajama bottoms, he hopped on one foot as he slid one leg into them while pivoting on one heel to get into the other. Like a delirious dancer, he spun around until Jungkook perfectly landed ass first into his computer chair. 

It didn’t matter that the girl he’d just fucked out of her mind was passed out in his bed. He didn’t care that she was spiraling down an ecstasy-laden highway in her dreams. Jungkook didn’t remember her name and he honestly couldn’t have cared about what it was, either. Why should it matter when she wasn’t going to stick around when the morning came? She’d leave Jungkook once she was satisfied with everything she’d gotten. 

She was just like the rest of them; no different than the others.

Another nameless and faceless individual in a sea of nameless and faceless individuals that forgot him just as easily as he forgot them.

Shifting the mouse with his pinkie, the monitor to his computer flickered to life - chasing the spiral fractal screensaver from view. The brightness from the screen caused him to squint slightly and he fumbled around on the desk for his glasses. The fringe of his hair tickled his forehead, making it itch, and he absently rubbed at his face before sliding his glasses onto his face. 

Leaning his neck slightly, he popped and stretched the stiffness from it. Pulling up a browser, he activated his console command and quickly activated his ghost hack. It would take him about ten minutes to pick back up on the trail he was on previously, but at least Jungkook managed to figure out all the shortcuts now. Tracing his footsteps wouldn’t be as hard as it used to be. Not like it was a year ago.

“Frost,” he murmured, waiting for the encryption to fully settle before his fingers flew across his keyboard, “I’ve almost got you…”

But what am I gonna do when I finally find you?

It was a question Jungkook often asked himself, unsure of what the answer would have been and if he even really wanted to know. 

At first, the days bled on and it was just something to pass the time; to give meaning to his seemingly monotonous existence. 

School.

Part-time job.

Party.

Home.

Rinse and repeat.

Something always felt off about his life. Jungkook blamed it on teenage hormones and falling into a hole that belonged to an angst-filled emo subculture that he thought he wanted to be a part of. For a time, he was. The acquaintances he met and the people that he was introduced to seemed genuine. For a time, Jungkook felt like he found a sense of belonging.

Drugs and booze and rebellion coursed through his veins - shredding through his blood like the best kind of high. He joined up with a group that believed they were meant to serve a higher purpose. Jungkook wanted to think that maybe he’d found a place with a few more answers regarding the “meaning” to his existence. He’d been alone for so long that there was an opportunity for him to obtain that which he so desperately was seeking. It wouldn’t have been illogical for him to cling to that feeling with everything that he had so he didn’t fall into an empty pit of wastefulness.

Three months slid by faster than he could process it. Jungkook received a message in an encrypted email. It was one sentence. A question.

When you look in the mirror, who is staring back at you?

At first, Jungkook thought it was a prank; some twisted internet joke from some hacker he’d pissed off. But the question lingered in the back of his mind. It was a seed that was now planted, growing and taking root. Like the itch that yearned to be scratched but your arm just wasn’t long enough to reach. It was a question, a splinter, that very nearly drove Jungkook mad.

What was the answer? Was there an answer?

Jungkook continued the monotony of his day-to-day life, wondering if he would ever be able to catch up to Frost. His cryptic question festered like an infected wound, yearning for healing, but only Jungkook could solve this internal dilemma. Chasing after Frost would do nothing because somewhere deep inside, he already knew that Frost wouldn’t tell him the answer. 

Only Jungkook had the answer to the question. No one else.

The months continued to slide by, the seasons changing with the times. Jungkook, alone, often found himself staring listlessly out of his bedroom window. The world seemed so desaturated. When had everything lost its lustre? When did the rain pouring from the skies start looking like black tar tinted with green? Like an oil slick abandoned in a construction zone - lying there without purpose.

He was getting no closer to finding out the truth. He wasn’t able to find the answer to the question that Frost asked him. It frustrated Jungkook to no end. How was he supposed to know? Of course the person staring back at him was himself! Who else would it be? It was the same dark eyes, the same unkempt fringe and lightly tanned skin, the same beauty mark on his chin and below his bottom lip. 

It can only be me, he thought as he stepped out of the shower, looking at his steamed up reflection in the mirror, the person staring back at me...is me…

Drying his hair, he slumped into his chair and lit a cigarette - inhaling the smoke and exhaling it out across the computer screen. His fingers slowly began to type, searching out for something. His ghost hack was always present, allowing him a chance to bring up various articles in the darker parts of the net. Most people traversed this forbidden area of the internet because it gave people a sort of adrenaline kick; the thrill of the chase. Some made illegal deals, indulged in illegal gambling, and even went so far as to hire someone to “clean up” some mess in their lives.

Jungkook merely sought out information.

He was getting closer. He could feel it. Was it because he finally found the answer? Or was it something else?

Again, the months continued to press on. When there wasn’t rain, there was snow. The frost collecting on his window may have been the signal that he was waiting for. The time must have been right. 

It was another lonely night filled with emptiness. He perched himself up on his windowsill, smoking a cigarette as another nameless girl moaned out her pleasure on his bed. Another one he could say he’d taken advantage of, even though she believed she was the one doing the taking. Confidence was a hell of a drug and she seemed to be teeming with it. Like he could fault her for such a thing.

As he stared mindlessly out across the snow-covered sidewalk below his apartment complex, he watched more of the frost collect itself on the glass. Jungkook didn’t think much of it as his breath blew across the window. But then something changed, causing him to drop the cigarette into the tray by his feet. 

You are still in a cage, Miles…

Something heavy banged against the door to his apartment, startling him to his feet. Jungkook’s heart drummed heavily, causing his breathing to puff out in short bursts. Not wasting a single moment, he grabbed his coat and jumped into a pair of sneakers. Thank God he was still wearing his jeans, though he would regret the cold soon for not bothering to put a shirt on. There wasn’t any time and somehow Jungkook knew that. Danger hungrily clawed at the other side of his door and he didn’t have time to question whether he would be able to face it when it finally burst through.

Jungkook slid the window open, shivering at the cold wind that whipped clean through him. Snow covered his eyelashes, forcing him to squint. He tumbled out of the window just seconds before the door splintered open from it being forced open. Jungkook landed on the fire escape, rattling snow off the bars, and he quickly descended. There was urgency in his steps and he didn’t bother with the last stairwell, choosing to hop over the railing. 

His feet landed on top of the large metal dumpster below, the force of the landing causing his legs to tremble. Jungkook pressed forward, rolling off it and crashing to the ground. As he looked up, he saw a man wearing sunglasses and dressed in a suit peering down at him. This wasn’t good and he knew it. Jungkook scrambled to his feet and took off in a dead run down the alley. As he reached the street, there was the sound of squealing tires as a motorcycle pulled up right beside him, causing Jungkook to jump to the side.

A woman dressed in a silverish gray windsuit peered back at him. Her eyes were dark, her skin a soft mocha, and her head of curly hair peeked out from beneath the hood of her jacket. She revved the engine to life, glancing at him. “Get on,” she barked.

Jungkook knew the level of danger he was in and he could sense he was safer with this stranger than what was pursuing him on his heels. He quickly hopped onto the back, wrapped his arms around her waist, and she gunned it down the street. The world of neon zipped by in a blur and Jungkook could barely keep his eyes open. Tears leaked from them as the cold air cut across his skin.

“Where are we going?” he yelled over the roar of the city and the wind whipping around his ears.

“Shut-up, Kid,” she hollered back, weaving in and out from between other vehicles, “before you bite your tongue.”

Well, he certainly couldn’t argue with that. So, instead, he closed his eyes and gripped onto his forearm resting against her stomach. 

“Wake up, Miles.”

Jungkook groaned, lifting his head up sleepily as he took in the world around him. He slowly fisted one of his eyes, attempting to rid it of the haze of sleep that was still trying to fog up his mind. How long had he been asleep? Or, more importantly, how long had they been stationary?

The first thing he noticed was the feeling of warmth. He quickly deduced they were no longer outside. But when had he been transported from outside in the first place?

The light in the room was dim, which he was thankful for. He wasn’t sure if he could handle any bright lights or weird experimentation on himself after just waking up. As he sat up from the couch, he looked around and saw that there was a large glass of water set on a table in front of him. Past the glass and the table sat two individuals in two separate wingback chairs. One was the woman who rescued him, the other was an Asian man with dark, crimped hair. They both looked at him pointedly, one of them steepling his fingers as he rested his elbows on the arms of the chair.

“What the hell is going on?”

“There isn’t much time, Miles, so we’re going to do this quickly.” said the man, his face devoid of any emotion. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

Did he? Jungkook swallowed the lump in his throat. And why did he keep calling him by that--?

His eyes widened. “...Frost.” Jungkook leaned forward on the couch. “You’re Frost!”

“Bingo. Gold star for you.” Frost sighed, casting a sidelong glance toward the woman in the other chair. “So now we’re going to give you the choice that I never had.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Oh God, not this again.”

Frost’s expression darkened. “Animus, you said I could do this my way, so let me.” 

“Fine.” The woman called “Animus” looked at Jungkook, holding her right fist to him. When she opened it, there sat a blue pill in the center of her palm. “If you take this, you’ll never see us again. You won’t recognize us even if we were to pass you on the street. You get to remain in this life of monotony, but you’ll no longer agonize over what your purpose is in this world.”

Jungkook blinked. How could she have known that? How could she have known that he was searching so desperately for the meaning of his existence? His eyes slowly shifted over to where Frost sat. Had he told her?

Frost held his own fist out, opening it and showing a red pill situated on his palm. Jungkook stared at it for a long time, hearing the rate of his heart escalate against his ear canals. “If you take this, you’ll be able to come with us. You’ll find out the truth and you can finally discover what your purpose is.”

He didn’t hesitate. Reaching for the pill in Frost’s hand, he grabbed it and the glass of water. Popping the pill into his mouth, he swallowed it in a single gulp - washing it down with the water. Suddenly, other people began walking inside as Animus began hooking Jungkook up to a few heart monitoring pads connected to an array of machinery that he managed to miss spying when he’d first woken up.

“W-What’s happening?” he asked, looking to Frost for guidance.

Animus stroked her fingers through his fringe, smirking as she walked away. Frost approached him, his expression stoic but his eyes were just a bit more gentle than earlier. 

“You need to breathe, Miles.” There was a distinct beeping sound off to the right as everything rippled around him. Why did everything look so fuzzy? “We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?!”

Animus pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number and held it up to her ear. “I need a location, Spectre. Agents will be all over this place in five minutes.”

Jungkook’s heart froze. He didn’t know what that meant, but he had a feeling that it meant something dangerous. Were those men who barreled through his apartment those so-called “Agents”? He tried to stand, but Frost immediately pushed him back down into the seat. 

“Frost, what is going on!?” The world was starting to grow a little bit more fuzzy as his heart rate increased, causing him to hyperventilate. “What’s happening to me?!”

“You made the choice, Miles. Now you have to live with it.” Frost sighed, his brows furrowing slightly. “I’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”

And when the white noise fully enveloped his surroundings, Jungkook felt the floor open up beneath him as the darkness swallowed him whole. He tried to scream, but it sounded hollow in his ears. Gravity pushed his stomach all the way up to his chest, causing tears to stream from his eyes. He was afraid, but something told him that he wouldn’t be alone when he finally stopped falling.

In a flash, everything began to grow dark around the corners of his eyes. The walls were covered in strings of green code against a black background. It flickered like this for a few seconds, chasing away the fear that was attempting to suffocate Jungkook. Wonder replaced it, his arm reaching out to try and touch it.

Darkness spread like an oil spill.

“Welcome to the Real World.”

Drink The Kool-Aid

Stealing was the typical reward he got for killing, it was much less effective than just blackmailing people, or making them fear him to their core, but tonight he had a different reward in mind as he hummed happily. He had no idea what that reward might be, but he knew he wanted it, she had offered it up if he was a good boy after all and that had to mean it was at least something somewhat good.

With a bit of a huff he leapt up to grab hold of an apartment window, his threads quickly squirming underneath and unlocking it as he slipped it open and popped inside. He hunted police quite often, the dirty ones being his typical go to considering they usually had money to steal, or have them give to him, but it had been awhile since he went after a ‘good’ cop, though refusing to play ball didn’t just default make you a good person. It was certainly more likely, that an already shitty person would become a crooked cop, but for the most part he hadn’t even bothered to do much digging into his target, there wasn’t a need for unimportant people.

Learning their schedule never took a long time, so the click as the apartments front door was unlocked didn’t surprise him, rather than just make a charge though Richard slipped into a separate room and listened as they entered their home. He silently looked over family photos, most of the officer with his parents he could only assume, and then a couple with what looked like friends, people that were cared about were a bit more difficult to just erase, so flushing him down the toilet might be a less than good idea.

They went to their kitchen almost immediately, tossing their keys into what sounded like a ceramic bowl and opening up the fridge, the sound of a carbonated drink hissing then filling the air as Richard wandered silently over to the front door. A thread slipped inside of it to lock it without making a noise, he then very quickly took a few steps to the side as the officer walked through the hall toward the room that Richard had already noticed had a television in it.

The sound it made as it clicked to life made it a bit easier to slip around, but he was already practically silent so it didn’t matter much, it did make it easy to slip into the kitchen and grab a drink for himself though. He began to hum, cracking open his drink as the television suddenly fell silent, but he walked into the room and leaned against the doorframe before the officer could even go searching.

“Welcome home honey, I see you’ve already got yourself something to drink.”

“Who the hell are you, what are you doing in my home!”

They went to make a move, but Richards threads were already coiling up their legs and very quickly kept them down in the position they had been enjoying their nightly television watching in. A couple quick shouts escaped their mouth, but his threads made sure to quickly cover that too, basically forming a tight scarf to gag them and keep them quiet so the neighbors didn’t get any ideas.

“Should’ve just drank the Kool-Aid, my friend, rather than cause problems for my employer, wait is that too American of a reference, oh well.”

Richard moved to next to the officer, looking them over closely and giving the chance for them to do the same in return, their eyes full of fear were certainly giving him a good scan too.

“I believe your quirk is what, you can harden your hair, quite useless in this situation then isn’t it, hmm? That usually seems to be the case though doesn’t it, people who are quirkless or who have useless quirks become police, people with amazing ones becoming heroes or villains, so I mean you’re just on a different level from me by default. No offense, I am a serial killer after all, though I guess if I steal I’m more of a serial.. theft that also.. ya know what no, I’m a serial killer, fuck the appropriate definition.”

Slowly a thread began to coil around the police officers throat, digging into their flesh as it grew tighter by every passing second, the thread gag slithering away as Richard placed his hands on their cheeks.

“Y-You’re the Hangman.”

“What? Is that what I’m called now? That’s shit, so generic, do I have to carve my name into a skull to get a decent name?”

“P-Please, whoever hired you, tell them I’ll do whatever they want just don’t kill me.”

“I mean I could call her, but no, I’m not even gonna risk my reward, I was told to kill you and that’s what good boys do.”

“You’re going to take a human life just for some reward?”

“I’ve killed for nothing before, so yes, I’m going to kill when an enticing reward is offered to me. Maybe it’ll be something lewd, like handholding, oh I’ll definitely go to hell for something like that.”

“You’re a psychopath!”

“Yes I did tell you I’m a, S-E-R-I-A-L K-I-L-L-E-R, did I not?”

“Go fuck yourself, you’re just some dog, I bet you’re working for the Yakuza, on their leash until they decide you aren’t worth it and kill you too!”

“Silly.”

Richards thread around his neck shot up to the ceiling, pulling the loop tight and lifting the police officer up off the ground, his legs immediately beginning to kick as he tried to move his hands up to his throat. No threads stopped him, there was no point, even as the officers hands found the thread nothing he would be able to do could get him free.

“I’m a good boy, but I’m just doing what interests me, they could send all they’ve got at me and sure I may die, but I’ll certainly drag them to hell with me. It’ll be fun at least, I’ve never been in a little war before, maybe I’ll drag the police in too if it ever comes to that and really up the slaughtering, but well, you won’t be there of course.”

His squirming began to slow, and with a small smile Richard stared into the eyes of the officer which were gazing deeply into his, he remained like that until the last bit of light left him. With a quiet yawn he stretched his arms before severing the thread from his body that was currently acting as a noose for his latest victim, it quickly tied itself off and dangled the body peacefully in the middle of the room. He turned to leave, but then quickly turned back around and grabbed a nearby piece of paper, writing very quickly onto it and tucking it into the police officers front pocket. Making him just disappear would be easy, but it would raise a lot of questions and possibly make things harder for his employer, so simply taking all the blame himself and completely diverting the eyes of the public to him was the easiest route.

His hum returned as he went to leave, thousands of his threads pouring from his body to slither along the ground of the apartment, gathering up every bit of even the tiniest evidence that he had been in the residence tonight. They returned to him only when he was back through the same window he entered with, closing it behind him and slipping back inside his body before he could even take the first step toward home.

The note was a very simple statement, meant for the police that would eventually discover the body, and for the news teams that would eventually cover it as well, it read: “Your name for me is shit, but I’ll take it. -The Hangman”

fuck sam walmarts

and fuck management

I’ve had it. Left the store in tears tonight.

as some peoople probably/hopefully know. walmart closes at 6 pm on christmas eve. no one actually gets to leave at 6 becuase of shitty last minute customers. but it is what it is.

this. is really personal but im honestly SO close to just. killing myself? so who cares

basically. had a really really bad last few days. spent a lovely time with family (jessies family, his oma and opa and sister and parents and it was just a great time. theyre more family to me than most of my blood family) but it did make me Sad in Deep ways as we dont know if this is going to be our last christmas with his oma who isnt doing so good. and it just twisted me up a little but was othewrsiwse a great day. but then sunday i just...had a huge breakdown in the morning and decided to use my accomodation (i get 2 excused absenses a month) to cool down and gte myself together. slept a lot. woke up adn got a lot done, felt great, then i CRASHED really really bad, got really angry, lashed otu, took like...8-10 sleeping pills...theyre horrific things and im never doing that again...had to sleep for two days after that...felt horrifically sick, in pain, just awful. had repeating nightmares over and over. which has also been wearing me down recently. wasnt able to work monday either because i still couldnt stand and between the pills and the depression/anxiety and really just. felt like the world was ending.

decided sometime last night id just...try my best to make it in today, work my shift (really long 9-6, knowing i wouldnt leave on time nad htisis my first time working in 5 days now...which is rough...) and if i can get through this, i have another couple days off in a row after that (schedules fault, not mine...do feel awful i missed 3 days before that though...) and we can just. get back on track

today i DID go to work, jessie drove me in

i worked. a long time. im supposed to get a break every 2 hours and a 1 hour lunch

i gott my first break on timeish.

then i got my lunch 6 hours after i got in. at which time i got “locked out” for not taking my lunch and coudlnt do anything on the registers. i was supposed to get it 4 hours in. its christmas eve and excruciating and im still in pain and tired from my previous days breakdowns, but otherwise?? i did really good. i didnt mind at all that my lunch was so late. i was a little miffed, but its ok. i dont care, so long as i get it eventually. anyway they FINALLY noticed i was locked out and got me coverage and i ended my lunch at 4. things continued ok. worked on self checkout, met a lot of regulars i really like, prevented $200 of theft (HAHA WOW that was really really funny i love preventing petty theft. i prevent so much theft every week its my pride and joy) just did okay. then they had us close self checkout that took a little while. then at 5:00-5:10 or so i went to my Manager/Supervisor/”““People LEad” as walmart is now trying to call them, lets call her manager Y, and i told her i still need my break and will i get it before i leave. she said go to register 4. i asked again hey will i get my break though and she said yeah and i thought to mysel HAHA thats not going to happen but ok

really stupid that after bieng locked out the first time she couldnt give me my break before i openned a register with a line i cant get rid of

anywayy i did ok otherwise for a while

but at 5:25 or so i reminded a CSM “hey i need my break still can i get that?” and she just ssaid yeah well try to get someone and then more time passed so much time. i put through an ask on the register “assistance needed”. waited another 10 minutes. “assistance needed” again. starting to get anxious. its past 5:40. the line is so long. theres so MUCH NOISE. Its SO LOUD. the intercom keeps going off, no one is responding to me, i dont have a mat to stand on so my knees HURT,, im not doing okk

i switch my light to flashing/need assistance and start looking for someone to ask for help. its 5:45, i need my break NOW, i DESERVE IT for workng this long ass shift and they already missed several of my last breaks a week ago AND got me locked out today and im STARTING TO GET ANXIOUS PELASE I JUST WANT MY BREAK SO BAD

nnthgen a csm is passing by im about to lose it, so i tell her CSM J, please i really need my break now PLEASE and im starting to ccry and i try to tell her whats going on but she shushes me and goes and gets sometone

im full on tears at this point, im so strreesed out,,

manager Y and some other snooty manager come over andd. ffkcing. ask me whats wrong. im crying and i try to explain im really really stressed out, i havent had my last break, ive been trying to get someone for so long now, i just really need to leave im so sorry

and theyy just. fckkng

ffcking manager Y jjst ssays ok “ill give you your break” and “this is your last break” and i ssaid?? yeah i knoww?? andd she saidd “next time youre like this, just dont come in”

i quote that completeltyyy....i really lost it then...i cried som muchh

this isnt the first itme she said something like this to meee...

she asked me “why are you CRYING” When i had an anxiety attacki n the store once, when ic cloked in and couldnt get myself together,, she didnt give me time to calm down, she didnt listen as to why, she just said “why are you crying. this is a BUSINESS. you cant be CRYING Here.” and i just said ok ill go home bye and leftt

andd when i tried to get my availability changed from 7-9 to 7-6/7-7 because the random late shifts with 7 am shifts was messing me up really really bad and my doctor thinks i need to hcange it too, she just said “i cant do that. thisi sa BUSINESS.” and she wouldnt listen when i said i might have to quit because of this, this is for my health, im literally scheduled 7-2 every sunday in december, busiest day of the busiest month and you cant even chop TWO HOURS off my weekend availability????

andd i jjst

ive HAD IT with her

ive had ittt

im so ashamed and angry and anxious and i still havent stopped cryingg. she called me over to her again as i was leaving and she blamed me for it. she ssaid a customer was upset that i “Screamed” (ues i raised my voice a little but i wasnt screaming??? also the two customers i was attending to when this was going on and i cried were VERY KIND nad jjst said i was doing a good job and thanked me for being there) and called a manager over (but...csm J got them?? not a customer...??) and i cant be acitng like this, i cant do customer service when im stressed,, and d i should just STAY HOME If im going to be like that

then shee fufkcing toold me i DID IT WRONG, that i “shouldve called someone over” I TOLD HER I DID!!!!! I DID!!!!!!!!!! YOU NAIL INTO MY HEAD IM NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE REGISTER SO I DIDNT, I DID EVERYTHING ELSE I COULD THOUGH!!! I REQUESTED HELP TWICE!! I TURNED MY LIGHT TO FLASHING!!! I TRIED TO CATCH A MANAGER WALKING BY TO HELP ME!!! N OONE LISTENED UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE, I DID EVERYHTING I COULD!! yet she seriously told me to my face that “you didnt call anyone”, “you couldve turned your light to flashing” WHICH I DID and sshee jjst said that i made customers uncomfortable and i cant work like thatt and just stay hhome

ii stayed home sunday because i was having a mjor mental emergencyy.

i came in today because i was feeling better and i took it eaasy and ended up doing a wonderful job and mad eso many people smilea nd fixed so many problems that wouldve otherwise upset a lot of folks and i met my regulars and made old folks smile andd i prevented a lot of theft that no one else wouldve caughtt and i jjstt broke down after 9 hours and not getting a last break and all the chaos of register (WHICH BY THE WAY THEY KNOW I DONT LIKE REGISTER!!! I THRIVE ON SLE FCHECOUT!!! THATS MY JOB TITLE!! THATS WHAT I DO!!!! THEY KNOW THISS!!!!) and HER AVOIDING GIVING ME MY FUCKING BREAK and NOT RESPECTING MY FFUCKING METNAL DISABILITIES LJNASDKAJHDBASJSDNAJSNDKANSD

I JJST DONT KNOW WHAT TO DOO

i really want to die and i really want to never go back but i really loved my job i loved helpting people ii jjst hate her so muchhh and i feel GENUINE DREAD/SEVERE ANXIETY jjst SEEING her nnow

she doesnt CARE about anyone but herself shes a horrible peson i cant tell the store manager though cause she wont care either and manager Y has more clout than me so shell just twist my words and make me out as the bad guy as hte “CRAZY ONE” who cries and gets stressed (FOR COMPLETELY VALID REASONS AFTER BEING PUSHED OVER THE EDGE) even tthough i work SO FFRIKCING HARD and do SUCH A GOOD JOB and asdjanjsdhajshdas

i d ont know what to doo

i cant work another job because no where else pays as much or will let me do self checkout only, because being a cashier stresses me so muchh

ii...really wanntted to grow stuff and make preserves and sell bee products and work with folks raising heritage sheep and make more fiber art andd open a little stall at a local market and sell all that,, and offer more online and do customs andd stuff

i know i could mkae money that wa ybut i ccantt start it so sudenly and im too Broken to do it seriouslyy and i dont even want to HAVE to quit because of ONE PERSON But shes done this so many times now and this is the nfinfal streaww

i jjst dont know what to doo...

i cantt stop cryingg

i cant even enjoy christmas nnow. wanted to see my stepdad and give him his presernt and maybe be ok.

last christmas we had to move because our house was condemned after a fire. now im going to have to lose my job because of a horrible manager who doenst respect my metnal health or anything about me reallyy. and unfortunately im such a failure that i cant. do anything else and if i lose this job ill lse my animla sand i wotnt be able to do anyhtingg andd im jjust fucking trash

goddammit i dont know what to do. i really dont. hhahaaa. i just really want to end it. ive come so far and none of it fucking matters because of thiss fucking horrible manager.

Losing Focus

October 24th Niall was rubbing his hands together when Paula came and placed the Full English Breakfast in front of him, about to consume an amount of food no person should be physically capable of. “You can’t possibly eat all of that.” I sniggered. “Watch me.” He said excitedly, picking up his knife and fork.

We’d decided to kick off the day by getting breakfast at our favourite café, PJ’s, before it was time to open up shop and take on another Wednesday. It was a little grotty in there, but that was what gave it it’s charm. It hadn’t been done up in years, the tables and chairs all one huge contraption which had then been nailed to the floor, which always made me question if they’d been designed to avoid fights or theft, but it didn’t matter. It was a firm favourite with the older generation of Rosebury, which luckily for Paula was the majority of Rosebury, so that kept business booming. As booming as it could be. I was preparing myself for another busy day, and beginning it with a proper meal felt like a good start. I was due to have my third one on one session with Harry, and I knew just how exhausted I’d be by the end of the day. I needed to prepare myself for that in any way I could. “You had any more dates recently?” I asked, taking the first bite of my bacon butty. “I wish. No such luck.” He huffed. “There aren’t enough options available to me.” “I suppose nothing is better than Neil.” “Do not talk to me about Neil.” Niall was one of the few members of our group who was good for early morning plans. With our village being so small, the businesses there could open and close whenever they chose, meaning that most mornings could be spent rather lazily. I liked to have Niall around so that I had a way to fill quiet mornings when the rest of our friends were still in bed. “You heard from Sam?” He enquired. “Nope. Nothing.” “Weird, right? For him to just up and leave like that.” “Very.” As ever, it hadn’t taken long for gossip to travel around Rosebury, meaning it had only been a few days after I’d spoken with Tom before everyone was made aware that Sam had quit his job and skipped town. Everyone had predicted I’d know something about it, meaning I’d been asked by what felt like everyone, even little old ladies popping into the shop just to see if I had any information as to his whereabouts, but I’d had to let everyone down. “Do you think he’ll come back?” He asked between mouthfuls. “I’m not sure. But I’m definitely not missing him.” Sam not being around had taken such a weight off me, which in addition with Harry’s lessons had left me feeling much calmer than I’d been expecting. The last few weeks had been good to me, life seeming to return to normal, things seeming to fall into place. “No, I can’t say I am either.” Niall admitted. “Do you think it’s because you broke up? Why he left?” “Um… I think it plays its part, yeah. But whatever, let’s not talk about Sam. Let’s talk about someone else.” “Let’s talk about Harry!” He proposed. “Ooh, okay! What about Harry?” “He’s fit, isn’t he?” “He is.” I chuckled. “I really like him.” “Me too. I think he’s blended in really nicely.” “Right? I mean… I thought we’d be harder to infiltrate, to be honest. I thought he’d have a harder time worming his way in.” “I think it proves just how well he fits in.” Niall shrugged. “It’s like he’s been here forever.” “I guess so.” “Hey, how come Chloe didn’t come to the match on Monday?” He puzzled. Chloe had been struggling with Harry’s company for the past few weeks and I couldn’t necessarily blame her. Ever since her proposal to Harry about staying at hers for the night, and his very polite refusal, she had been excessively awkward. It would pass, in time, that much I knew, but she was going through a difficult stage with him. She’d avoided going to watch the match on Monday, leaving me sat on my own in the freezing cold with no hot chocolate to keep my fingers warm. I’d missed her. “She’s too embarrassed about the whole… Harry situation. She’ll get over it.” I dismissed. “Course she will. After she’d tried it on with me, it took her a good couple of weeks to chill out again.” “Was she as forward with you?” “Oh yeah, it’s intimidating!” His eyes went wide. “She’s very forward.” As much as Chloe could definitely take things too far, I really wished I had a bit of her confidence, a bit of her forthrightness. The truth was, it worked most of the time; whenever we’d been on nights out somewhere other than Rosebury, where she wasn’t trying her moves on friends, she had always been successful. She was gorgeous and funny and forward and I would have loved just a tiny slither of that self-confidence. “I hope she gets over it soon.” I sulked after swallowing another mouthful. “I need her to cuddle up with on the matches. It’s cold.” “It’s freezing. I’m ready for summer. I wanna go swimming in the river again. I wanna go out to the lake again! We need warmth. My dick would freeze off if I went swimming in there at this time of year.” I almost choked on my sandwich, not expecting penis talk at such an early hour, but it was hard to be too surprised when it was Niall Horan I was sat across from. Shaking my head, I tried to digest my food appropriately, rolling my eyes at the smug little look on his face.

“Come on, Alfie. Just a few more hits!” Harry yelled upliftingly. “I can’t.” I was woozy, the bag ahead of me swinging softly from side to side. “I can’t, Harry, I’m tired.” “Two more minutes of blitzing it, then we’ll stop.” “I can’t. I’m so tired.” I began cuddling the bag, convinced it was the only thing keeping me on my feet. “I think I need a nap. I think I should nap. Shall we take a nap?” “You’re so fucking close, Alf, c’mon!” I felt like I’d already been in that gym for hours. My head was spinning and my limbs were failing me and I really wanted to lay down on the floor and sleep. He’d worked me to the bone, stood beside simply egging me on, shouting encouraging words and clapping and pushing me to my absolute limit, which at that point, I was pretty sure I’d reached. “I need to nap. Everything hurts. I think if I nap it would be really good for me.” I closed my eyes. “I’ll carry on when I wake up.” “You’re not napping.” “We could get the yoga-mats out and just… sleep. Remember sleep? It’s so good.” “You’ll get plenty of it tonight. But right now, you’ve got a job to do.” “Please?” I opened one eye, poking out my bottom lip. “Punch the bag.” He demanded one last time, and I didn’t need to be told again. I steadied myself, blinking my brain back to life before getting back into the desired position, ready to give it my all for just a few more minutes before I completely caved. He remained at my side, encouraging me throughout, driving pure determination into my bones. Things had been similar the week before; it was clear that Harry enjoyed pushing me way past what I believed to be my limit, pushing me to peaks I’d thought were too high. He never paid attention to my whining, or my requests for naps, he’d just force me further and get the most out of me that he could. As difficult as it could be, I’d left that room for the past few weeks feeling satisfied and driven. “That’s it, Alf! You’re killing it! Keep it up!” I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage the group training after such a vigorous workout, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to get away with lying to the girls this week by saying we’d worked out just a little bit before they all arrived, but I had to try. I could feel and see that all my skin was bright red, my body becoming so flimsy I questioned how much longer my feet could take my weight. I hit at the bag a few more times, involuntarily grunting as I did, when he finally saved me. “Okay, okay! That’s it. Well done, Alf! Have some rest.” I stopped, spinning dizzily round on my heel and staggering towards the centre of the room, whining pathetically until I’d found what I believed to be the perfect spot, where I collapsed backwards, sprawling out across the floor like a starfish, eyes closed, heart beating wildly. It was hard to keep track of the time, but I knew it wouldn’t be much longer until everyone started turning up for the group lesson, but I hoped the remainder of our time just the two of us would be spent resting. I placed my hand on my chest, slowly calming down, opening one eye for a moment to watch Harry. “You smashed it!” He yelled cheerfully, moving to stand at my feet. “This is it.” I spoke up to the ceiling, closing my eye again. “This is how I die.” I heard him sniggering and the sound of his footsteps before the music came to a stop, and before I’d had the chance to open my eyes, I felt a towel land directly on my face with quite some force. “Sorry.” He snickered. I managed to sit up, rubbing the towel over my face and around my neck, catching my breath, already dreading how much my body would ache the following morning. I took the bobble out of my hair, letting my bleach blonde locks fall dramatically over my shoulders, cracking my neck. “Thank you.” I sighed eventually. “How do you feel?” He sat himself down ahead of me, crossing his legs and pushing a bottle of water towards me. “Exhausted, but good. I feel really good. But also, I feel terrible.” I took a quick sip. “I really dunno how I’m gunna do this class.” “Y’know, it’s probably best not to just stop completely now-” “Don’t make do anything else yet, dear god please.” I blubbered. “Just stretches.” He grinned. “You can stay sat down and everything, but just stretching a bit now will really help.” I knew he was probably right, that stretching until the rest of the women arrived would likely be much more beneficial that just stopping completely then trying to pick up again, but even the thought of such minor movement was making me want to sob again. “Okay. Alright, gimme a minute.” Harry began to position himself, removing his trainers before stretching his legs out, ready to carry on teaching and clearly not too keen on giving me the minute I’d requested. “You ready?” He asked, chirpy as all hell. “Fine.” I huffed, mirroring his frame, first taking off my shoes before placing my legs outwards so they were shut together directly in front of me, the bottom of our feet almost touching. “Okay, so all I want you to do, is lean forward and touch your toes. Then you can grab your feet, and try to make your body as flat as you can so your face is almost resting on your legs. That’s it!” He’d said that’s it as though this was going to be the easiest thing imaginable, but he was clearly failing to take into consideration just how much I was aching and just how inflexible I was. I followed his lead, touching my toes but already feeling like that was my limit. I think he could tell from the rather alarmed look on my face. “What?” He questioned through a smile. “I… I can’t.” “You can.” “No, I really don’t think I can.” I chortled. “This is me at my absolute limit.” “Really?” “I’m being totally serious. I’m hurting.” “Fine.” He laughed lightly. “We’ll start a little easier. Maybe… Okay, put your legs apart instead.” I did as I was told, stretching my legs relatively wide, immediately trying to reach down and touch my toes without his instruction, only able to grasp for a few seconds before it was like my body snapped back into place, groaning dramatically. I flopped backwards again, going back to laying on the floor and sobbing. “I can’t, I’m weak! What’ve you done to me?” “Okay, c’mere. Let me help.” He got to his feet. “Sit up!” I flopped back forwards, still vocally complaining via disgruntled noises as he walked so he was behind me, and then before I could even fathom what was happening, he was back on the floor just behind me, slotting himself perfectly around me, widening his legs so they could be placed on the outside of my own, the front of his body pushed up against my back, causing me to tense rather substantially, quit my bleating. Initially, he seemed unfazed by the position, talking casually. “I’m gunna lean into it with you, okay. Kinda… hold you in place.” He was so close, his voice lingering around my right ear, sending more shockwaves through my body. I wanted to remain casual, in the zone, but all I could focus on fully was his voice, the way it felt having him almost wrapped around me that way, his body pushed against mine. Trying to think of anything other than the feel of his toned stomach,  I began to reach down towards my right foot, slowly trailing downwards, feeling Harry push with me, his body cushioning and caving over mine, placing his hand on top of my own to keep me in place once I’d reached down to my foot. There were so many muscles in my body that were aching, begging me to go back to laying on the floor, but Harry literally had me cornered between his own build, his breath burning the side of my neck. “Hold it, and then we’ll move back up, and do exactly the same on the other side. Yeah?” “Mm.” His voice was wickedly low, charming, hypnotic. I couldn’t concentrate, my head was swimming, to the point where I couldn’t even think about my aches, it was just him. He moved from me just slightly, but only so he could gently place his hands on my waist and guide me back upwards to him, his fingertips tender against my bare skin. I moved gradually, closing my eyes and miming curse words to myself, hoping the experience would end soon because I felt like I was enjoying it for reasons I wasn’t meant to be. I moved down to my left leg, feeling him follow once again, repeating our actions, just as heated and slow as before, one of his hands on mine and one still on my waist. “Now I want you to… spread your legs a little more,” I literally heard him swallow. “Then after we’ve moved back, I want you to lean forward, right between your legs, and reach out as far as you can. Okay?” “Yeah. O-okay.” I widened my legs a bit more, amazed that Harry could match the width with his own. Before I could move back upright, his hand moved from my waist, reaching for my unruly hair and gently gathering it all in his hand, organising it for me so it fell down my back rather than hung in front of my face. I was biting my lip by the time I was moving back up to him. Before I’d even noted the change in my own breathing, I noted the change in his, once again able to feel his breath on my neck as soon as I was back against him, so intense I wanted the distance as quickly as I could, propelling myself forward with speed, my whole body shuddering. I was so distracted by the way he was making me feel that I was ignoring the pains that had been holding me back before, bending my body forward so much that my chest and forehead just about met the floor, feeling like a relief in some way, like it was hiding how flustered I’d become. “Fuck.” I heard Harry groan behind me, my eyes bolting open at the word that had poured piercingly from his lips. All I’d thought about was the distance between our bodies, not the new position I was in, the angle from which he was now viewing my body. His hands tightened on my waist somewhat, seething in a sting of breath, the noise penetrating my ears so much I bolted back upright, needing to change the mood of the room before I lost my fucking mind. My back crashed back against his body, the room silent other than our harsh breathing. I looked down to the ground, attempting to control myself, to not make myself so obvious but we were beyond that. He cursed again, suddenly resting his forehead on my shoulder which sent another shock through my body, quite blatantly attempting to cool down. It was all too much. Without warning, my desire formed a life of its own, not thinking as I slightly shuffled my backside further towards his groin, feeling the faint imprint of his erection against me, on the curve of my rear and leading up to the bottom of my back. Harry seethed again, harsher this time. There was a frantic apology on the tip of my tongue, just about to drag my body away from his before he lifted his head from where he’d rested it, turning to trace the very tip of his nose soothingly over my neck, his breath glazing over the area, my skin prickling, lolling my head back to give him more access, landing firm on his shoulder. I felt his hand move, his left locking tight to my waist as his right snaked around to the centre of my stomach, brushing the tips of his fingers over my skin before they began playing with the hem of my leggings, cautious at first, as though waiting for me to stop him, ask what he was doing. I had nothing to say. He took that as his sign, lowering his hand so it became hidden in the material, sliding his fingers into my knickers and finding my clit as soon as he could. “Holy fuck.” I gasped, biting my lip and easing into it. It was hard to think about how suddenly it was all happening, how strange the scenario was, the fact that Harry was touching me that way. All I could concentrate on was how good I felt, how he was making me feel in that very moment, his fingers jolting silkily over my sensitive nub. He was unhurried at first, watching down over my shoulder to see the shocks of his hands through my pants, focusing all his attention on my pleasure, finding out what was working and feeling good for me by tracking my moans, working with my body to gain the most out of what he was doing. I felt amazing, so satisfied but calm, just oozing into the whole feeling, possibly with a smile on my face but I was too lost in my state to know for sure. He dipped his hand lower, easing two fingers into me, lifting his lips up to my ear. “I wanna feel you cum in the palm of my hand.” He groaned. Then he started kissing at my neck, grinding his hips to some extent so I could feel him against my back, curving his fingers and placing his thumb against my clit. My moans and whimpers became more consistent, louder, bending my knees up and pushing further back into him, his tongue stroking over my skin sweetly. It was like he’d taken complete control of my body, like every function it was currently undergoing was entirely down to him; the beat of my heart, my hairs standing on end, my disordered breathing, my trembles and quakes and my pleasured cries. Everything was under his control and it made me feel so fucking alive. He lifted his teeth to my ears, biting pleasantly at my lobe, his free arm snaking to grasp around my stomach, yanking my just that bit closer to him, a gritted grunt forming in his throat. I could feel myself getting closer and closer, welcoming back a sensation I hadn’t felt for a long time. Even with Sam, it had been so long since he’d cared about my pleasure, about me getting the most out of sexual experiences. I couldn’t even recall the last time I’d been made to feel that way, where the only focus was me and my body, my satisfaction. He went back to kissing my neck, the way he grunted only making my own moans increase, my hand reaching to clasp at his leg when we heard noises, shuffling and scuttling and showing there were women on the other side of the door, waiting for the group session. “For fuck sake.” Harry grumbled, stopping for a second or so before his instinct insisted that he continued, rubbing again. “I wanna finish you off, but you’re too loud.” “Just do it, I’ll be quiet.” I gasped. I tried to hold it in. I tried so hard to dull my tones so he could finish his wonderous work, but I couldn’t! No matter how hard I fought it, my throat continued to produce noises that I couldn’t stun, achingly aware of the gathering of women outside his door but more aware of how good I felt. It wasn’t something that could be silenced. “Alfie-” He growled, taking his arm off my stomach so he could bring his hand up to clasp over my mouth, covering my lips to keep me quiet but if anything, it just made my moans increase, being the exact thing that could lead me to my orgasm. I cried out into the palm of his hand, every single inch of my body quaking, Harry shh-ing me and slowly steadying the work of his hand, checking over his shoulder to watch the door, make sure no one had allowed themselves into the room too early and seen what we were up to. When he knew we were safe, he came back to me, grinning against my neck as he tried to kiss over the area. I didn’t even need to see his face to gather how smug he felt. My body went from rigid to sluggish rather quickly, collapsing back against him, trying to catch my breath, my body literally sliding downwards as he freed both his hands, my head landing against his chest. I was totally limp. “I…” He was still breathless. “I think we lost track of time.” “Mm.” Was all I could reply, completely beat. “Shit. Are you alright?” “I think I’m dying.” “I need to let everyone in.” “No! No, no. Nope. No. Just… Gimme a minute. Let me gather myself.” He sniggered before planting a firm kiss against my temple. “Okay.” He whispered. “Take your time.” So I did. I didn’t rush myself or try to get back to normal just for the sake of those outside, I let it all play out naturally, soothing at my own speed, Harry not moving, stroking the backs of his fingers up and down my arm to aid my mending procedure. “What the hell just happened?” I panted, producing a large smile. “I have no idea.” He laughed a little, gazing down to me. I giggled to myself for a while, closing my eyes, relaxing, beginning to feel normal again. Well, as normal as I possibly could, given the scenario. He gave me my time, clearly unfazed by the now very loud noises coming from outside proving it was likely every woman who took his class was waiting to get in. He didn’t care, he simply granted me every second I needed to regain my senses and stature. “How’re you feeling?” He asked eventually. “Okay.” I opened my eyes. “I’m good. I think I’m ready.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Let them in.” I sat forward, rolling my shoulders and inhaling deeply, Harry standing himself up and walking to my front so he could offer me a hand and lift me triumphantly back to my feet. Once I was upright, we stopped again for a moment, our bodies close, Harry looking down to me like he had something to say, maybe trying to find the right words, though of course neither of us knew what those words could possibly be. With a sigh, he gave up searching for them, simply leaning in very briefly to plant a tender kiss just beside my lips, at the very corner, before he wandered over to the door, opening wide with a cheery smile, allowing the eager ladies to leak into the room. I was stood still staring off into nothing when Libby and Chloe marched over to me, pulling me from my trance. “What was that about?” Libby questioned. “We’ve been waiting ages!” “Um…” I spun so I was facing the front of the room, trying to create yet another lie to accompany the many others I’d been crafting of recent. “Hi!” It seemed I was still a little more dazed than I’d bargained for, not having heard her question properly. She lowered her brows, and asked again. “What took so long?” “We were just talking about… what happened that night. Y’know, on my birthday. It got a little intense.” “Are you okay?” Chloe asked, clearly concerned. “Yeah, m’fine.” I nodded. “He… He helps me feel loads better. I’m good.” “Good, I’m glad.” She smiled back to me. I knew if I told either of them, especially Chloe, what had actually just happened in that room, they’d have absolute meltdowns. Fuck, I wasn’t even sure they’d believe it, because I could barely believe it. I looked up to Harry, and to be honest he seemed just as perplexed, trying to figure himself out, calculate his next move. “Um… m’gunna quickly nip to the toilet before we start.” I mumbled to the girls, darting towards the door, getting Harry’s attention instantly. “Hey, you alright? Are you leaving?” He leapt to me, panicking, speaking quietly. “No. I just need to… sort myself out.” I tried not to cringe. “Right. Yeah… Right, of course, yeah.” He distanced again. I left the room, uncomfortably making my way a little further down the corridor to the toilets, wondering if Harry was considering a similar trip, to both physically and mentally wash his hands of the experience before the class got underway. Concentrating solely on his class had never been as difficult as it was that day.

Help

Here we are at @mlrarepairmonth day 22 with a new chapter of Honey I’m Home! The last (and most important) flashback~

Day 22: Help

Ship: Chloé x Nathaniel

“Oh my god, when are you going to drop the fucking flowers!? I’ve already apologized like ten times!”

“And there it is,” Ryan announced with a nod. “The flowers are out.”

Audrey and Edith’s arguing went on in the center of the room, their not-quite-screams fading into the background as Chloé replied, “How long do you think until they pull out the beach trip?”

“I give it about four more oh my god’s. But,” Ryan countered, holding up an index finger, “will that be before or after the cookie theft?”

“Ooooh.” Chloé hummed as she considered that. “I’m going to say before; Aunt Edith’s out for blood.”

“My bet’s with after because of your mom’s blood sugar today.”

“You willing to place anything on that bet?”

“The usual?”

“The usual.”

And with that, both cousins sat back to eat their donuts and watch the drama unfolding in front of them, leaving Nathaniel confused in the middle of the bench, still looking back and forth between them.

“So…” he began, “this happens often.”

Edith and Audrey’s fight had started over something stupid—he was pretty sure it had something to do with where they should put the chocolate fountain or something—but it had quickly grown to a heated argument that was apparently much bigger than this party. He would think it should be cause for worry, but was surprised to find the rest of the family carrying on as usual—with the exception of Chloé and Ryan who were apparently making a game out of it.

Ryan nodded at his left, but Chloé was the one who answered him. “Yep. Those two butt heads more than anyone else in the family.”

“Two biggest grudge holders,” Ryan added.

“They seem a bit more angry than usual though,” Chloé went on with a frown.

“Yeah, they’ve been tense all day. Any idea whattup?” She shook her head. “What about you, Nath?”

“No,” he lied, shaking his head as well. Ryan seemed to accept that, nodding into his next bite as he kept watching the fight. Chloé, on the other hand, immediately turned to stare at him, brows pinched together in suspicion. “What?” he asked, putting on his absolute best innocent act. He was so used to lying these days that he was certain the act would work on anyone—anyone else at least.

“I know when you’re lying, Nathaniel,” she said with a frown. “What do you know?”

He could feel another set of blue eyes settle on him from the left and tensed up, realizing he was trapped. Shit. “I just…” he said uncomfortably, really not wanting to tell her what happened, “overheard them arguing last night. That’s all.”

“Over what?” Ryan asked.

He couldn’t tear himself away from Chloé’s inquisitive gaze, pleading with his eyes. “I would really rather not say.”

That was certainly no lie. After a moment, though she looked hesitant, Chloé thankfully accepted that and changed the subject. “Well,” she sat back again, “at least we don’t have to worry about one of them getting akumatized here.”

“Have you ever actually seen someone turn into one of those things?” Ryan asked. “I mean, aside from yourselves?”

Nathaniel’s eyes snapped up again just as Chloé turned to look at him. Meeting that gaze, he knew she was thinking the exact same thing he was.

“Sara.”

 “Now you pour in the hydrogen peroxide.”

“Right.” Nathaniel stared at the various tubes in front of him filled with various liquids. “Which one was that again?” he asked, bracing himself for another jab from Chloé. He couldn’t even blame her at this point, really; this was the fourth time he’d done this today.

“Oh my god,” she groaned disgustedly. “Okay—,” she slid the workbook over to him and started pulling the lab materials to her side, “—we’re switching jobs. Just read me the instructions word for word.”

He tried not to let his relief show too much.

Chloé pushed up her sleeves a moment later as she prepared herself and Nathaniel tried not to look—really, he did. Okay, maybe he didn’t try hard, but he did try not to glance at her skin in search of—

Those bruises were new. At least they looked pretty light this time—he was sure they’d be gone by next lab—but overlaid with all the tiny scratch marks she had been gathering over the weeks, they were still cause for worry.

He risked a glance at her eyes. Still just as cold and unyielding as ever. He wanted to ask. He had wanted to ask for the better part of a month, but even the slightest bit of conversation not related to the lab was always met with hostility; he could only imagine inquiries into her personal life would only be worse.

Fingers rapidly snapping in his face pulled Nathaniel out of his thoughts. “Zone out on your own time, Kurtzberg; stop wasting mine.”

“Right,” he said, dropping his gaze back to the workbook. “Okay, the next part says to—,”

“No, I’m telling you it’s that one!” Both he and Chloé looked across the table where Sara and Michelle’s argument was starting to reach unnecessary volumes. It wasn’t the first time those two had bickered through a lab by any means, but they were usually at least more quiet about it. He supposed tensions were probably higher with midterms looming over them.

“Sara, which of us is the better biology student?” Michelle snapped back. “I know what I’m doing!”

“Just because you do better than me on the tests doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do the lab!”

“No, but messing up our last three labs does!”

“Just ignore them,” Chloé said, sounding about as tired of their bullshit as he was. “What’s the next—,” she cut herself off with a gasp, “Oh no.” Nathaniel looked up again in confusion as she leaned across the table. “Sara, Michelle,” she said hurriedly, tone suddenly serious, “You have to think positive thoughts.”

She was too late, he realized, just as he saw what had her so alarmed: the murky black butterfly that came to land on Sara’s pencil.

Michelle was just starting to back up in fright when a strong hand suddenly clamped down on his head and shoved him under the table. Not a moment later, he was ducking with his eyes squeezed shut and hands over his ears as a loud explosion went off—he assumed from Sara.

Chaos erupted in the classroom, students screaming as they fled and Akumatized-Sara calling for Michelle to come back while he stayed hidden under the desk.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Chloé crouching down beside him, blue eyes hard in a way he’d never seen on her and darting about as if assessing the situation. The image looked familiar somehow, but wrong—kind of like seeing a teacher outside of school; recognizable but out of place, not where it should be. Why was her expression conjuring such a jarring feeling? Why did it look so different, yet so familiar? Like something he had studied for hours on end—something he had drawn a million times.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as Chloé moved to stand up, almost as if to chase Akumatized-Sara in her rampage down the hall. His hand darted out, catching her wrist. “What are you doing!? We’re way safer in here than out there!”

“Let me go,” she commanded with a tug, eyes fixed on the door to the hall outside. He tightened his grip.

“Are you crazy!? Just wait here; I’m sure the heroes will come soon.”

“No they won’t; they’re all the way across the city!”

“What?”

A bloodcurdling scream suddenly carried down the hall. “Help!!” Michelle.

Chloé cursed under her breath before turning to face him, eyes possibly more deadly than he’d ever seen them as she seemed to contemplate something. “What?” he asked.

“Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around, Kurtzberg!” she snarled. “If we’re going to be trapped in here, then I don’t want to look at you, okay!? Turn around and don’t talk to me!”

“Alright, whatever!” he relented, raising his hands in defense. She seemed disproportionately agitated for the situation, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to incur further wrath. “But can you please calm the fuck down?” he continued as he turned, “It’s just an akum—FUCK, what was that!?”

Nathaniel’s first thought when he saw a sudden yellow flash reflecting off the bottom of the lab table was that Akumatized-Sara must be sending some sort of crazy laser toward them or something. What he found when he whipped his head around, however, was not an akuma.

Quite the opposite in fact.

“Are you fucking serious!?” No. No, this could not be happening. “You had one job!” There was no way that was Queen Bee standing there where Chloé had just been, yelling at him with Chloé’s voice, glaring at him with Chloé’s eyes.

“Y-You’re—!”

Queen Bee swooped forward, jabbing a finger into his chest threateningly. Nope, he was wrong earlier, that was the deadliest look she’d ever given him. “Not. A. Word,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

Then she was gone in a blur of yellow and black, leaving Nathaniel alone and very very confused.

 A tiny smile curled at the corners of his mouth and he could see it reflected in that blue as she held his gaze, sharing that moment with him as if sharing an inside joke. Sharing a secret that was only theirs.

Ryan’s voice pulled them out of it. “Did Chloé cause it?”

Nathaniel snorted in a weak attempt to hide his laughter while Chloé puffed up in outrage. “What!? No!”

“No,” he laughed, turning to Ryan, “but she’s certainly caused her fair share of them.” She smacked his arm and he only laughed harder.

“Dude, why are you dating her?”

The answer slipped out before he even had a chance to think about it. “Because I love her.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed, “Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed but she’s kind of a bitch.”

Still chuckling, Nathaniel nodded. “Yes she is and I love her for it.”

Ryan shook his head. “You’re crazy, man.” Then he dismissed the conversation with a bite of his donut. Back to watching the drama.

As Nathaniel turned back, though, he found that Chloé hadn’t resumed spectating. Rather, she was staring straight at him, her expression catching him off guard.

Why was she looking at him like that?