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confessedlyfannish · 6 months

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DP x DC Writing Prompt #9

"Are you sure about this?" J'onn asks, reading the discontent amongst the Kents. Clark and Lois each have a hand on their teenage son's shoulders, who several weeks prior was aged ten years old.

"We're sure," Clark says. He is not, nor is his wife. But his son is, who lays his hand on his mother's and squeezes. It is that surety that J'onn honors as he delves into the young (but not as young as he should be) man's mind.

The memories are hard to find but not gone, hidden behind what Jon can only see manifested as a glowing green wall. When he raises a tentative hand, the shield sparks green, but does no harm. Pushing through is like wading through the consistency of jello, which he finds an overall unpleasant experience. But he is unharmed as he passes through.

Before J'onn can sort through the memories he is all but sucked into the one at the forefront, where a Jon most similar in visage to the one recently returned perches on the edge of a building. Beside him lies a burger, partially unwrapped though uneaten, and a small soda.

As the memory builds out a sun sets on a small suburban town, and a muscled thigh knocks into Jon's, an older man with a shock of white hair and eyes the same light and color as the shield formed around these memories appearing. He's tall even sitting, likely about as tall as Superman, and looks to be in his thirties. A full body suit comprised of black and silver accents stretches across broad shoulders, a stylized D on his chest. He knocks his thigh into Jon's again.

"You said I couldn't go back," Jon says quietly.

"I lied," the man says lightly.

"You're lying now," Jon says, glaring at him. "I can hear your heart."

"Nice try, kiddo, I don't have a heart in this form," the man says, reaching a hand out, presumably to ruffle his hair. Jon dodges.

"I know you're lying. You would've told me. You would've helped me get home."

"Jon--"

"You're protecting Clockwork, aren't you?" Jon demands, eyes beginning to burn red. "That old coot decided it wasn't enough to play with you, he had to play with me too."

The man slaps a hand over Jon's eyes. "Breathe, like we practiced," he instructs firmly. Steam rises from where his palm meets Jon's eyes, but if it hurts he shows no indication. "In, 2, 3. Out, 2, 3."

Jon whimpers but heaves a breath, and the burst of red light dies down from between the man's fingers. His hand moves down to Jon's shoulder.

"I can't pretend to understand Clockwork's decisions," the man says, as tears begin to pool in Jon's eyes. "Frankly, I don't want to. I suspect they are hard decisions to make, sometimes."

"I don't get why you defend him," Jon says. "Dumbledore acting bastard."

"Language," the man says, lightly bopping him on the head. J'onn notes the boy actually winces, as if the blow hurts.

"I am upset with him, I hope you know that," the man continues. "But at the end of the day I'm also grateful. Because I got to meet you." He hooks an arm around Jon's shoulders, pulling him in. "And now you'll get to see your family again. And Sally, Arnold, and Damian!"

Jon sniffles, rubbing roughly at his face. He leans into the man's bicep. A trusted adult figure, then. One he's described his life to. A life, J'onn is sad to note, he appears to have lived for the past six years, as opposed to a sudden shift in appearance. Jon's next question all but confirm it: "Can I really go back? It's been so long. They'll be all grown up."

"Hey, of course you can," the man says, rubbing his shoulder. "I'm sure they've missed you so much. They'll be so happy to see you again."

Jon starts to smile. "I'm going home."

"You're going home!" The man laughs, shaking him.

"I can finally eat some decent barbecue again!"

"Hey!" the man protests, "The smoker blew up one time!"

Jon continues, beginning to get excited. "And Ma will make her jalapeño cornbread! I never could get it right, I can't wait for you to try it!"

J'onn notes the older man's smile fading, eyes growing sad.

"And Damian will definitely want to spar and oh, oh! With you on our side we can totally prank Batman! I bet Alfred will even help! And Mom gives the best hugs, Pops comes really close but Mom will be really excited to meet you, everyone will."

"Jon," The man says.

"I knew you'd be worried about it, but they'll want to meet you," Jon says, clocking his expression. "They'll be grateful. You, you helped me. You kept me safe and taught me how to be Superman. They'll love you, I promise."

"Jon, I can't go with you," the man says gently.

"I'm not saying you stay, but you can visit! I'm sure the Justice League can figure out a way to maintain a portal, they're super used to all that multiverse stuff. Once they have the coordinates, you can stop by whenever!"

"I can't go through the portal, Jon," the man says. "To other worlds, I'm a god. And gods can't interfere. The only reason I can continue to live here is because this is the world of my origin."

Jon gapes at him. "But--but,"

"You're going to see your Mom and Dad again," the man says. "And your brother, and grandparents."

"I can come here, then," Jon says desperately, pushing his way out of the man's arms. The man is already shaking his head. "I can!"

"You can't."

"Why, because Clockwork says so? He's a liar!"

"Because multiverse travel is never a good idea. If you got trapped here again--"

"I wouldn't,"

"You belong with your family,"

"You're my family!" Jon cries. The man freezes. "You, and Sam, and Jazz, and Tucker and Val and Ellie and Pops and Mads, you're all my family! I can't just leave you, I won't!"

"Oh kiddo," The man says, eyes wet. "I love you too. We all do."

"So I'll stay," Jon says decisively. "For all we know my world is a wasteland. Gramps wasn't exactly right in the head when I left. It's better to stay here."

J'onn notes a green vine unwinding from a nearby trellis. It slides down the eave towards the pair.

"You don't mean that," the man is saying.

"I'm sixteen. I can make my own decisions. I'm staying."

The man cups Jon's face. "Your parents did not have a choice in losing you. I'm willing to bet they're devastated. Because I'd be devastated, losing a kid as great as you."

"Maybe they're not even there," Jon says, but the words are half-hearted, and it clearly hurts him to say them.

"I know I seem like a pushover, but if I thought Clockwork was sending you back to anything less than your loving family, I'd destroy him first. And he knows that. They're going to be there, I promise."

"I don't want to go," Jon says. Behind him, the vine rises from the eave of its own will, poised like a cobra enchanted by a snark charmer.

"I know," the man says, eyes drifting to the vine. "I'm so sorry, Jon."

"For what?" Jon asks, as the vine attaches itself to the nape of his neck. His eyes roll back as he collapses into the man's arms. The man hugs him tighter than is strictly necessary.

J'onn expects the memory to now end, alongside Jon's consciousness. To his curiosity, it does not.

"For what it's worth," a young woman spits bitterly, vines supporting her weight as she slips over the side of the roof. "I still think this is horrible." Her eyes are red and miserable.

"Seriously, team punching Dumbledore in the face," A young black man says, appearing in the air supported by a woman almost identical in appearance to the man holding Jon, down to the suit colors. They land on the rooftop.

"Are you sure about this," the dark haired woman with powers over plants asks. "Because to be honest, Danny, I'm five seconds away from punching you in the face."

"Jazz won't speak to you for months," the girl, likely his sister, points out.

"Make it a year," the man says, crossing his arms.

The man, Danny, ignores them all. He cards a hand through Jon's hair. "He'll retain the experience, but not the memories?"

"Yes, he'll be a perfect little superhero, just as you taught him," the woman says, vines twisting agitatedly around her, wrapping around her thigh, wrists and neck almost punishingly.

"Sam," the man says. "He needs to go home. All of you know that."

"He doesn't have to forget us to do so!" the sister bursts, eyes flashing green.

"Remembering would be a torment," Danny says. "He'll know he was loved. That's enough."

"Danny," the plant woman says, sitting beside them both. She puts a gentle hand on his, both on Jon's back. "This is just a different torment."

"And if someone finds out?" Danny asks. He has been patient amidst their scorn, but now a tiny edge ekes into his voice. "A god's child, unprotected? Threatened? He would never stop looking for a way back, and being vocal about it could get him killed."

The others are silent.

"He'll be home. He'll be happy," Danny says. More powerful than a prayer. A directive. He raises his head past the child slumbering in his lap, past them all, face hardening, and says to J'onn: "And you will say nothing."

J'onn takes a step back, fear so thick he could choke on it flooding his very being. Thismanwillkillhim, thismanwillkillhim.

This man will reach through dimensions and kill him.

"Now, get the fuck out of my kid's head," Danny snarls. J'onn is pushed back with enough force he enters his own mind in a vicious whirl that leaves him physically on the floor, gasping.

"I'm sorry," he says as Superman rushes to lift him, and he's not sure who he's apologizing to. Green eyes will pierce his dreams. Vines will crush his throat in his nightmares, screaming silence, silence.

You will say nothing.

"I'm sorry," J'onn says, politely pushing Clark's hands away as he rises. He's already beginning to calm, because he understands. Those are consequences he will not face. He will do as directed. He looks at Jon Kent, bewildered but unharmed, clutching his mother's hand.

J'onn reaches down and dusts at his pants. "I'm sorry," he says evenly, ready to spin his tale. Perhaps the Kents will continue to seek their answers. Perhaps not. He will stay out of it either way. He has been warned.

You were loved by gods. And to keep you safe, they would quiet us all.

#dp x dc #dp x dc au #dp x dc prompt #dp x dc crossover #danny phantom #dpxdc #superman #superboy #jonathan kent #jonathan samuel kent #my writing

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triplesilverstar · 2 months

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Noodle arms

Rating: 18+ Minors DNI

Pairing: Vash X F!Reader

CW: teasing, mentions of periods

Word count: 2.5K

A/N: Luida gave you a small present and you can't wait to tease a certain well built blond with said present. Sucks to be Vash right now.

I wrote part of this ages ago and I still love it. So I hope you all enjoy it too.

Wandering the ship and glancing at the object Luida had given you just a scant few minutes ago, you feel like you’re moving on auto-pilot, Meryl calls out to you and you don’t even notice. A sappy grin paints your features every time you glance down at the item as you head back to your shared room after finishing in the infirmary with Luida.

“What’s with that stupid look on her face?” slips from Meryl as she lowers her hand, eyes a little downcast.

“That” Roberto straightens “is the look of a fool in love, who just found dirt on their lover.” He’s been annoyed since they ended up on this ship, even unlit cigarettes are removed from his mouth, and he’s got a craving eating at the back of his skull, still looking for a smoking area. Resulting in Meryl just sighing.

“Guess we won’t see much of those two for the rest of today then.”

Still strolling along you’re obvious to the conversation about yourself, too focused on the photo and getting to a door you share with a certain blond. Knocking you wait, hearing Vash call out a “soft come in” before pressing the mechanism to open it, not wanting to burst in if Brad was still there.

Not seeing the older man you launch into your speech with a sickly sweet voice. “Vash, my Sunshine” Your cheeks are starting to hurt from the shit-eating grin you’ve been sporting since you saw the photo. “Love of my life, my better half, the star that lights up my nightsk-”

“What did you do?” Sitting at the little table his eyes are pinched closed, the edges of his lips downturned, tone exasperated. Two fingers rubbing his nose no doubt trying to understand why you knocked before entering your own room.

“Nothing. This time” you sweep towards him and drop in his lap, an arm slung around his shoulders, voice full of glee “Do you recognize this?” His hand has landed on your hip, trying to keep you steady as his eyes open to look at whatever you’re showing him. His blue eyes widen in shock and your grin grows even larger.

“Where’d you get that!” He’s swiping madly, any plan of keeping you steady in his lap gone, trying to grab the item from you as you lean away the fingers of one hand gripping his shoulder, holding your prize just out of his reach. You have to assume Brad is away and back to working on the repairs to his arm away in the workshop. With that, you have an advantage and you have no qualms about using it seeing as Vash is down an arm at the moment.

“So it is you!” cackling you wave the object enticingly, glancing at it once again before back to him, his face one of concentration trying to stretch his fingers just a little more. “Here I thought kid Vash was the peak of adorable, and then today I see this!”

“Mayfly, please” voice pleading and his nose is burning, a flush right up from what you can see of his neck to the tips of his ears. It’s not his usual ‘I’m embarrassed please take pity on me’ pink either, it’s a stark crimson on his pale face and it has your grin growing even larger.

“Why are you embarrassed?! You were such a cute lanky beanpole!” The object in question is a photo, one of him, laughing as a teenager with a younger Brad both of them working on something and it reminds you how close they are regardless as to how Brad complains about Vash. “I mean those scrawny arms, you were all gangly limbs!” You’re leaning as far away as possible, back partially pressed against the table trying to keep the photo away from him.

Your laughter is starting to get the better of you, leaving you breathless, and you miss the way his eyes widen as an idea forms. His hand slides under your back and he’s pushing you up onto the table and pinning your upper body with his hips, allowing his free hand to snag the photo and toss it to the ground on the other side of the table. Well out of the reach of your scrambling fingers trying to catch it as it flutters by.

You try to escape him, only to find yourself lifted up by his one hand and planted squarely in his lap, this time straddling his hips facing him, his arm now wrapped around your middle and locking you in place. “Come on Vash, I was teasing. You really were a cute teenager.” Chest still heaving from all your laughter, hands on his shoulders as you try to catch your breath.

Leaning forward you press your forehead to his, still smiling “Sometimes I miss the cranky bounty hunter who tied me up and gagged me.” The grin on his face tells you he’s teasing right back. “It’s not fair, I never get to tease you about what you looked like growing up.”

“Nope” you pop the P, a grin splitting your face “and you’ll never see it.” Your hands are resting on the sides of his neck now, thumbs caressing lines up and down. “Will you let me keep the photo?” voice soft as you ask your question, eyes closed, listening to his breathing now that you’ve calmed down from your laughter.

“Why do you find it so funny?” A hint of annoyance at you is still coloring his words, causing a few final giggles to pass your lips, his eyes crinkled every so lightly showing his displeasure.

“I don’t find it amusing” Being honest with yourself you pull back a little to watch his face “Honestly, it just makes me happy looking at it. And it makes me think of things I thought I'd long given up on.” Being with Vash has had that effect on you, made you realize you were just surviving waiting for the end to come, tired of being alone and running.

Vash brought back that spark, from trying to catch him and failing so many different ways. Then being friends, and that tiny spark inside you grew into a flame, filling the void that anger had eaten away, you wanted to live, and he showed you that you hadn’t been. “I know, we haven’t really been together that long.” He chuckles at that, making you shake a little in his lap.

“Only what almost a century to find one another, I guess we have been together a short time by comparison” snorting you swat at him. The last few weeks had been draining on the two of you, but that nagging thought in the back of your mind was slowly making you wish for more. More than just wandering, more than just stealing moments with one another when you were hidden out of sight.

“But I want to grow old with you, you big dork. Or at least whatever version we’ll have of getting old” voice growing softer “and biology willing, maybe have a kid or two.” You don’t know if he can hear your heartbeat thundering in your chest, but your own admission scares you.

“I thought you couldn’t have kids?” His own question is soft, hand now rubbing soft circles up and down your side.

“I said it was highly unlikely. I still have a cycle. It’s just, like once a year instead of once a month.” Silent, your hands have stopped moving, and you slide them down along his chest, and finally let them drop into your lap. “After our talk a few weeks ago by the fire, it’s been eating at me. So I asked Luida if it was possible.” Licking your lips as you look into those bright blue eyes, glad his sunglasses are perched atop his head instead of his nose. “I know I should have asked you since it involves both of us, but.”

The stress from the last few days is catching up to you, making you aware of the things you’ve been pushing to the side. Watching him you can see the way he’s hanging on to your words like it’s a lifeline for him, swallowing the lump forming in your throat. “From a genetic level, we’re compatible. If we ever want to think about it in the future, and we should probably be a little more careful in the present.”

Vash is taking both of your hands in his own as you finish speaking, looking down at the differences as he interlocks the fingers of one with his longer digits. “I’ve honestly never thought that far ahead. Just trying to keep moving forward to try and fix what damage my brother and I caused during the fall.” You can see the liquid pooling along his lashes, for the first time in a few weeks not hidden behind his sunglasses or the false smiles for others on his face, you watch his eyes growing glassy. “But the idea of growing old with you does sound pretty nice.” One of his rare real smiles is breaking out on his face, soft and vulnerable, he’s looking at you like you’re offering him the world and not a dream. “Knowing that maybe someday we can have a little one of our own is making my heart beat like we’re running for our lives.”

Laughing you have to agree feeling your own heart starting to beat a ile a minute. “So, we stop your brother from whatever plan he told you about long ago, whatever it is, and hopefully find a way to convince people to stop using the plants so much and let Luida’s plan for terraforming the planet take hold. Then we’ll pick a spot in the middle of nowhere, and stake out a claim. And grow our version of old together.” He’s grinning in response to your words now, disentangling his fingers to playfully swat at you, a few tears slipping past his eyes which you find yourself wiping away.

Leaning forward and pressing his forehead to your shoulder you smile as he answers you “You’re making it sound a little too easy.” You simply let out a hmph of annoyance at him, of course, you made it sound easy. That was the trick with things that are hard, you needed to hook people by making them think it was easy and tell him as much. Leaning back you tilt his head so you can stare at him taking a long look at his features like you need to burn them into your mind before pressing a gentle kiss to his temple. “Mayfly?”

There’s a waiver in his voice you weren’t expecting to hear giving him your full attention “Yes, my pretty plant man?” He snorts at that, and his eyes are flicking back and forth like he’s arguing with himself. A curt nod to himself and he’s staring into your eyes.

“Do you remember that dream I told you about? The past lives one?” His voice is so low you just register the words, you nod for him to continue because you do remember, it’d been an interesting conversation when you’d been half asleep drinking coffee but you remember it. “There was a part I didn’t tell you about.”

“Oh, well color me intrigued” his hand is sliding up and down your back, and you’ve adjusted yourself so your fingers and intertwined behind his neck thumbs pressing into the base of his skull. At least when you’re not wiping the tears from his eyes.

“It was after all the other ones. You were standing in a kitchen and making coffee” Well that sounds like you and your love of coffee. “You were you, not a different version of you, with some pretty big bags under your eyes.” You’re frowning at him now, but Vash has a smile on his face that’s making your heart soar inside your chest. “You had a child balanced on your hip, don’t know how old they were and when you saw me you pointed at me and said to them ‘There’s your Papa.’ Oh Mayfly, even now, I can picture them in my head. Chubby little cheeks, mouth agape, and a happy scream when they were reaching out for me. I, I thought it was a vision of a possible future.” Now that, that has you thinking. Vash saw you? With a child, his child, shit why does that do things to your head and your heart the same way the photo did. Dredging up memories from a dream you’d shoved down where he’d had black hair.

“I, I want that future Mayfly.” It’s not a few tears this time but a stream running down his face, and your own heart is beating fast enough to hurt, a dampness on your own lashes. “I want to have a baby with you, someday, I want us to be able to settle down somewhere beside the humans. I’ve never thought I was worthy of having something so wholesome, just kept throwing anything that was for myself away. How could I ever want something that was just for me when all these people live in such hardships because of me? But I want that Mayfly, I want enough that my chest hurts thinking I can’t have it with you.” At his words your head shots forward to close the gap and press your lips to his, tears mingling from both of you along your faces, and he returns the kiss with the same enthusiasm. Dried cracked lips pressing tenderly against one another, neither of you try to deepen the kiss but its still charged from the passion between the two of you.

When you pull away you leave your forehead pressed against his “I want that too Vash. A future with you, I want to stop wandering and have somewhere to belong.” The burning in your chest keeps growing because some part of you has long accepted that next to Vash is where you belong. As long as you can keep walking beside him you know you have your home, because Vash truly is your home even if it took a while for all of you to accept that reality. You aren’t sure how much longer you both sit like that for, enjoying each other's presence and simply existing. After a while, Vash pulls back looking at you with a tired smile.

“Sounds like we have a tomorrow to fight for, that's for us, and not just everyone else now.” You smile, knowing it’s best to move on, otherwise, both of you will start spiraling around the subject, a quagmire of things that you know deep down, neither one of you believes you deserve. Yet, that flicker of hope is growing inside of you a hope that you’ll find that tomorrow together and make the other see they deserve that.

“Now, back to more recent items.” Forcing a cheerful tone as you let a shit-eating grin light up your face “Does this mean I can keep that photo?”

A roll of his eyes before shifting you in his lap once more. “As long as you promise me it stays here, I don’t need anyone else seeing what I looked like. It’s embarrassing.” You just laugh pressing your lips to his once more, if that’s his only rule so you can keep the photo you can abide by that.

Back to Masterlist for the series

#vash the stampede x reader #vash the stampede #trigun stampede #trigun #twink writes #Bullets Bandits Ghosts & Typhoons #tristamp #vash x reader #vash x you

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foodsies4me · 3 months

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I love Apollo:Blood Wars! I’m desperate to see those three get their comeuppance! I know absolutely nothing about daemons but your fix does a great job at conveying the seriousness of the relationship. I wouldn’t of thought that Alec would have a parrot but it makes sense! If you don’t mind elaborating, what was your process for deciding everyone’s daemon?

Tbh, I’m a sucker for any story that recognises the lack of stellar siblingship in shadowhunters. Season one Alec is treated awfully and I love him being appreciated. Like, I get they’re teenagers but surely siblings would know the amount of shite he’s dealing with being acting head.

Love all your works and looking forward to updates!

Thank you for the kind words, nonnie!

For some reason, all of my leftover salt for the way Jace and Izzy treat Alec in season 1 came out in this fic, which means it takes some getting used to when I switch over to a fic where they are being good siblings.

Also, I am apologizing for the absolute ramble I'm going to send your way, but in my defense, you asked about the choosing process for the daemons! I'm only going to be mentioning the daemons we already have met to avoid rambling too much.

So, for Alec, I knew I wanted a bird from the get-go, and while I have seen a lot of fanart of Alec holding a raven or a crow I wanted to do something different. Then I just went for personality: I needed it to be an intelligent bird, social and cuddly with those it trusts and loves but picky about handing out that trust and so I ended up choosing a parrot. (I'll admit I was partially influenced by my own parrots, one of which I have heavily based Apollo's quirks on.) Additionally, I thought it was funny to give Alec, who doesn't speak much unless he's at ease, an animal known for talking a lot as a daemon.

For Magnus: Well who else but Chairman Meow could it have been? So, that one didn't take much thought.

Izzy got a black panther because I wanted something graceful, strong, and most of all dangerous. Several characters have daemons that appear harmless - either because of magic or because they're animals we tend to wrongly consider harmless. But, with Izzy, I didn't want that to be the case because Izzy gives me very strong "I'm dangerous. I know I'm dangerous. And I don't hide it" vibes in the series. And so, black panther!

Jace got a lioness (as well as two other forms that haven't been revealed yet!) for similar reasons. I wanted a dangerous animal, prideful if possible and, what with the whole "Jace is one of the best fighters the Clave has seen in years" I needed it to be a King of thee Jungle kind of dangerous so that's how I landed on a lioness for him.

Underhill has a snappy, eastern box turtle: smart, quiet, shy and harmless (at least at first sight). They're often considered solitary creatures, but they can grow really strong bonds with other turtles or their human owners when in captivity, and this ties into my headcanon that Underhill looks like a friendly loner at first (nice and kind but likes to keep to his own) but that he just needs some time to get out of his shell so to speak.

Clary has a dove and a bull (+ one more unrevealed form) the former of which she shares with Valentine. I liked the idea of Valentine using the fact that his daemon is a dove ( a symbol of peace and purity) as a way to further prove his righteousness and moral superiority compared to the rest when he was still starting out with creating the Circle. Clary having that same daemon is also my not-so-subtle way of showing how, despite being very against him in the series, Clary shows a lot of traits that are similar to Valentine. The bull daemon is another - is dangerous, but also fits Clary because of her bullheadedness, I run full speed without thinking of the consequences personality. (Or that's the way I read her at least.)

Jace and Clary's daemons having multiple forms will be dived into further as the story progresses, but it ties back into the whole "all downworlders have something special going on with their daemons" thing.

Kyle (yes I am talking about my OC's and their daemons because I am entirely shameless) has a dumbo rat: friendly, sociable, curious, inquisitive, and very intelligent (which works well with Kyle being the Head of the Investigation Department), cuddly and just all around very affectionate. Basically, they're golden labrador puppies but as rats, which fits Kyle.

Cécile has a Barbados threadsnake (the smallest snake species in the world! They are so cute and smoll!) They're solitary like most snakes and prefer a nocturnal lifestyle. They're non-venomous and prefer to spend most of their time burrowed in soft soil, which again works with Cécile who prefers to be on her own, which is why she spends most of her time working undercover in the mundane world in places where mundanes might unknowingly come into contact with demons.

I'm going to stop my rambling here before I really turn this into a novel, but yeah that is a very rough resume of the thought process I had when choosing the different daemons. :D

#foodsies rambles #foodsies answers #apollo fic #also someone tell me to go write some more AWG one-shots or to work on the second installment #because I want to #but my brain is being rude

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creat0r-cat · 1 year

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Markiplier x Teen!Daughter!Anxious!Reader - Take Your Time

Requested by: daygobyinheryeyes

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(Mark’s POV)

I laughed with my friends as we finished up a collaboration video of Prop Hunt. “I can’t believe you didn’t see me!” Seán playfully yelled at Wade as he groaned in frustration. The Irishman had been disguised as a coaster and had hidden himself behind a door, making him virtually invisible even with the automated taunts the game provided. Bob was howling with laughter as he too had failed to spot him even when he was in the same room.

I cut my video off and logged off the game, staying in the discord video call as I did so. “Ahhh guys, that was so much fun.” I sighed, leaning back in my chair. The others began chatting amongst themselves about the different rounds and I looked back as there was a knock at the door and it began to open, revealing a teenage girl, carrying a plate of food. The moment she realized I was on a video call, she slightly closed the door and waited for a signal.

“It’s okay, I’m not recording.” I told her and in a small, shaky voice she replied. “I made s-some lunch and you didn’t come down a-and then it got late so I made some more for you. S-sorry for interrupting your conversation.”

“Oh, thank you! I didn’t even realize the time.” I said, walking over and taking the delivery as she presented it. She never entered my room when I was on call as she was rather camera shy, but that didn’t really bother me. I gave her a partial hug and then, telling her I’d be downstairs soon, I walked back over to my desk and once again put on my headphones. “Who was that?” Asked Wade, who had apparently witnessed the interaction.

“Oh, that was (Y/n).” I said, looking up at the screen from where I was about to take a bite of food. “Who?” asked Bob and Seán, and then it was my turn to be confused. “I swear I told you guys about her. Did I seriously forget?”

“Yes! Who is she?” The three said and I placed a hand over my face, feeling stupid. “I really thought I told you guys. So.. um.. She’s kind of my adopted daughter.”

“No way!” Exclaimed Seán in shock. “You’re seriously a dad now?” I laughed softly, rubbing the back of my neck. “Yeah. I didn’t post about it on social media because I wasn’t even sure at first if I was going to find the right kid. I guess I just forgot about it after I adopted her.”

“You could’ve at least texted us about it.” Commented Bob who crossed his arms as I took a bite of food. “This is a pretty big deal, Mark. Does Amy know?”

“I was going to!” I said after swallowing. “I just forgot, and yes, Amy does know. I asked her how she felt about the idea before I went through with it.” Just then, someone new entered the chat. “Hey guys!” I recognized that higher pitched voice as I ate some more of my meal. “Hi Ethan!” Said Wade with a smile. “Did you know that Mark has a kid?”

“WHAT??” The younger male exclaimed which nearly burst my eardrums. “Mark, you never told me this! I thought we were friends!” He cried and I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Oh my gosh, you guys! I made one mistake and now my butt is being handed to me on a silver platter. What’s next, Tyler is gonna hop on and give me crap too?” And just like that, as if he had heard me, Tyler joined the group chat.

“Wow, is there a party going on here?” he said with a chuckle and before I could say anything, Ethan blurted out a loud, “MARK IS A DAD!” I watched Tyler’s face, which had just appeared in video form, contort into one of absolute shock. “I’m sorry, WHAT?!” I took another bite of food, letting out an exhale of frustration at how much the situation climaxed. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?” He demanded and Seán yelled out, “That’s what we’ve been saying!”

“You know, instead of giving me all this backlash about an honest mistake, I could just tell you what happened.” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin and putting my dishes to the side. “I’ve got time.” Said Bob, checking his watch. “I’ve got nothing planned for the rest of the day.” Joined Seán, leaning forward in his chair and staring at the camera expectantly, like a little child waiting impatiently for a cookie. Wade, Tyler, and Ethan also agreed and I sighed again, getting more comfortable in my chair.

“Fine. You want to hear the story, then I’ll tell the story.”

(Flashback: Mark’s POV)

I had been thinking about adopting a child for quite a while. For what reason, I don’t really know. All I knew is that I wanted to have a kid. I already ran the idea by Amy and she also thought it was a good idea. I decided to look for either a boy or a girl, but not one too young that I’d have to take care of them 24/7. I didn’t feel ready for that kind of job, and honestly, I still don’t feel that way now.

I started looking around the area for orphanages that had open houses soon. I came across a few and did end up going to some of them. Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed by a lot of people I met. Don’t get me wrong, they were somewhat nice kids, but for one reason or another they weren’t what I was looking for.

I got to this one place, the “Los Angeles Sunnyside Orphanage”, and when I entered I could tell it might produce good results. Yes, there were some parts that could use some fixing up, but it seemed a lot friendlier than some of the other orphanages I had visited. So, naturally, I felt pretty good about my chances there.

When I walked around, there were a lot of kids running around and playing. I wasn’t sure who exactly to try and meet so I went to the orphanage director and started some interviews with the older kids. I think the age range I covered was twelve to sixteen, but I still wasn’t sure about any of them. At that point, my mind was starting to tell me I was being picky and that any of the kids would do just fine, but then I saw this girl on the other side of the room.

She was drawing, seeming to be focused on the picture rather than the other children. I knew I hadn’t spoken with her yet, because I didn’t recognize her, so I turned to the orphanage director curiously and pointed at the girl in question. “Who is she? Why isn’t she playing with the others?” “Her?” The director responded, adjusting his glasses and peering at the girl. “Ah, that’s (Y/n). She doesn’t really get along with the other children.” I frowned, “Is she a bad kid?”

“No, she’s just incredibly shy and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has social anxiety. Not that I’m trying to give her a diagnosis, it’s just my uneducated opinion.”

“How old is she?” I asked and the director hummed softly, scratching his head as he thought. “I believe she’s 14 years old.” She was within my age range so I decided to at least give her a chance. “Would I be able to get an interview with her?”

The director nodded and signaled for me to stay where I was while he got her. I watched as he got (Y/n)’s attention and gently told her that I wanted to meet her. She looked over at me and her eyes seemed to widen. As the two of them walked over to me, I noticed that she was shaking, looking down at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with me. The two of us were escorted into a much quieter room to talk and I smiled kindly at her when she sat down across from me.

“Hi there, (Y/n). How are you today?” She looked so nervous as she quietly murmured, “I’m alright. How are you?” This was progress. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking.” She nodded, looking up at me for a second before once again lowering her gaze. “I don’t bite, I promise.” I joked and a ghost of a smile formed on her lips.

Looking down, there were some papers on the table between us that were filled with questions. (Y/n)’s hand twitched a bit, looking like she was going to reach for them but was also hesitating. “Do you need to ask me anything?” I queried and she nodded, finally taking the papers. “S-sorry. I promise that I’ve done this before, but.. I’m just nervous.” she said softly and I nodded in understanding. “Hey, take your time. It’s okay to be nervous. You don’t know me and we’re stuck in a room together. I’d be nervous too if I were in your position.” She let out a small chuckle which made me smile.

“What’s your name?” She read, and I answered. “Mark Fischbach.” She paused for a second, seemingly thinking about something before continuing. “W-what do you do for a living and do you enjoy your job?”

“As silly as it sounds, I make videos on YouTube for people to watch. It’s my dream job and I love it a lot.” (Y/n) looked over at me, her eyes shining with an excitement I hadn’t seen before. “I don’t think that’s silly at all.” She said, “Honestly, it sounds like fun.” I smiled at her, “It is, for the most part.” She shifted in her seat before continuing the interview. The longer the two of us spent time together, even just lightly chatting, the more comfortable she seemed to be. We got along, and while she did pause sometimes to take a breath and calm down her nerves, I wasn’t bothered by her at all. When all the questions were finished, I waved goodbye and met with the director again. I told him that I was going to keep looking, but that I might come back.

I knew that (Y/n) and I got along well, once she got to know me a bit more, but I wasn’t quite sure if she was what I was looking for. I never really stopped thinking about her though, and after a few more days I decided that I was going to adopt her. I came back, told the director my plan, and he set me up for a house inspection the next day. After I was cleared, I brought the paperwork in, made the payment, and waited for her to come down with her stuff.

I saw that she was nervous when she brought down her bag, but she calmed down a little bit when she saw me. “Ready to go home?” She nodded and when the two of us left, I honestly felt pretty good about my decision. The drive back to my house was kinda awkward, but I guess that was to be expected.

When we arrived, I introduced her to Chica and got her settled into her new room. We spent that night learning a bit more about each other, and the next few days had similar themes. It was difficult, getting used to someone new in my house, but it was okay.

I taught her how to play some different video games and was really surprised at how quickly she was able to pick some of them up. She was still a tad bit nervous when it came to getting really close to me, but by the end of the first month, she was smiling almost all the time and had little to no issues with physical contact.

After I introduced her to Amy, and found out that the two of them had actually begun to bond rather quickly, everything seemed like it was falling perfectly into place until something happened.

I was laughing with (Y/n) about my newest playthrough of a really hard game. I had lost my mind over it and when I said, “It’s the ragiest game I’ve ever played and I’m never going back to it!” She responded with “I thought ‘I Am Bread’ was the ragiest game you’ve ever played.” I froze and the room went silent. Looking over at (Y/n)’s face, she had turned pale white.

“How did you know that I’ve played that game? I never gave you the name of my channel so you shouldn’t know that.. unless you started watching or already knew.” She began to fidget and she looked down in what looked like shame. “I-I’m sorry. I should’ve told you by now, but I was scared about how you’d react.”

“Tell me what? I’m not upset that you’ve seen my videos, but why would you hide it?”

“Because I already knew who you were before we met. I.. I didn’t want to tell you during the interview because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or scare you off. You were so nice and I didn’t think you’d want a kid who was a fan.”

I stayed silent as she continued. “I promise that I’m not one of those over-the-top and crazy fangirls. Yes, I was happy and shocked to see you, but that’s because I never expected this to happen. I mean, you’re Markiplier. I don’t think anyone would be expecting you to suddenly adopt a kid, least of all an anxious and socially awkward girl like me. Honestly, it sounds like something out of a fanfiction rather than something that would happen in real life, but that’s exactly what happened. I’m really, really sorry, Mark.”

I smiled softly and walked over to her, giving her a gentle hug. “I know that you aren’t like those fangirls. You’ve definitely shown that during your time here. And while I’m a little hurt you didn’t tell me about this, I can understand why you hid it. I probably would’ve done the same if I was in your position. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. If anything, this means I can joke about a lot more stuff because you might understand them. Just promise me that you won’t hide stuff like this from me anymore, alright kiddo?”

Her eyes welled with tears and she hugged me back. “I promise.” When we both let go, I laughed softly, wiping away some tears that had started falling down my cheeks. “Whoo! Alright, that’s enough sentimental stuff for one day. Do you want to order pizza and have a movie night?”

“That sounds like fun!” She said, giggling as she also wiped away some tears on her own face. “Thanks for not hating me after I told you the truth. I love you, Dad.” My eyes widened in shock as the name she gave me finally registered. “Gosh dang it, (Y/n)! You’re gonna make me cry again!” She laughed and gave me another hug before running off to the living room.

That was the first time she ever called me Dad.

(End of flashback)

“She kept her promise too. She and I have gotten so close that you’d swear she’s a mini female version of me.” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Wow..” said Wade after the others remained in silence. “She sounds like so much fun to be around!” added Seán with a smile and Ethan nodded. “Could we meet her?”

I hummed softly and thought about it. “As much as I’d like that, she’s really shy around new people. I’m not sure how she’ll be with you guys. Then again, she knows who you all are and she got comfortable around Amy soon after they met, so maybe it won’t be too bad. I’ll run the idea by her.”

I looked toward the clock and my eyes widened. “Oh shoot! It’s almost been half an hour since we finished the video!” The others looked at their own clocks in surprise. “Oh dang. Time flies during story time, huh?” Laughed Wade and we all agreed in amusement. “I’d better get going. I’ll text you guys about her answer, I promise.”

“You’d better remember this time!” Joked Seán as he waved at the camera. I logged off of discord, stretched, and walked downstairs with my dishes. “Sorry I took so long. The guys wanted to talk.” (Y/n) was on her phone in the dining room and she looked up and smiled at me. “It’s okay! You sounded like you had fun.” I nodded, sitting down in a chair next to her. “So, uhm. I have a question for you.”

She watched me expectantly and I took a deep breath before continuing. “So, the others want to meet you.” As I said that, her eyes widened and she visibly tensed. “I know that meeting people isn’t your forte, but I really think you’ll like them.” After a few seconds of silence, she responded. “W-who all are you talking about?”

“Bob, Wade, Tyler, Ethan, and Seán. They want to meet you. I mean, you are part of the family now, so I’m not really surprised.” (Y/n) looked away, seeming to be in thought. “I’m a little shocked that you’re only telling me this now.” It was my turn to look away as my cheeks heated up in embarrassment. “I.. may or may not have forgotten to tell them back when we finalized the adoption.”

(Y/n) began to laugh. “Of course you did.” I feigned feeling hurt, gasping at her dramatically. “You say that like I forget stuff all the time! Are you insinuating that I, THE Markiplier, am getting too old and thus forgetting things often?”

“I mean, you said it, not me. So..” I rolled my eyes and joined in her laughter. After the amusement died down, there was a moment of silence before (Y/n) said softly, “I know how much you want to see them. If they’re somewhat as nice in person as they are online, then I don’t think it would be much of a problem to meet them. I’d just need to hype myself up a bit, I guess.”

I smiled happily and walked over, giving her a hug. “I promise, they’re not bad people. You’ll love them. You don’t have to agree to this if you don’t want to. Please understand that.”

“I.. I know. I’m choosing to say yes, Dad. It’ll be fine.” With that final confirmation, I nodded. “Alright, I’ll tell them that they can visit. Maybe in a week or so?” (Y/n) nodded and I stood up, walking to the living room. “Don’t forget to text them, old man Mark!” She called after me and I spun around dramatically, almost falling over in the process.

(Time Skip: No one’s POV)

Mark and (Y/n) walked into a store together, (Y/n) staying relatively close to her dad and the shopping cart. They walked around, picking out items that they needed, and some that they decided to try for fun or put away for when the others came to visit. Some parents that came to the store couldn’t help but smile when they saw how close the two seemed to be and how they would laugh with each other at the weirdest things.

(Y/n) noticed something on the shelf that they needed and went ahead to grab it, but when she turned around, Mark was nowhere to be seen. She looked around in confusion and then felt her breathing quicken and her hands begin to shake. She went back the way that she came from but she still couldn’t see him. Looking into the next aisle produced the same results.

Thoughts began to swim through her mind, overwhelming her senses. “Where did he go? Did he leave me behind? Did he not want me anymore? Why did he suddenly disappear? Did something happen to him?” She put the item on the shelf behind her before she could drop it and tears began to fill her eyes.

Feeling sick, (Y/n) sat down on the floor, her foot tapping against the ground as she curled in on herself, trying to control her breathing. She was scared, not knowing what to do. She tried to make herself stop thinking about the ‘what ifs’, but to no avail. She heard a soft voice, but didn’t look up at who it was until a familiar hand with a gentle touch was placed on her shoulder. With that, (Y/n) finally looked up.

“M-Mark?”

“Are you okay? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

She quickly embraced him, feeling herself calm down as his arms wrapped around her. He was here. He was real. His deep voice soothed her fears as he murmured words of comfort. “It’s okay. I’m here. Sorry I left you behind. I thought you were right behind me when I forgot to grab something from the other aisle and went back for it. Guess I should pay more attention huh?” (Y/n) couldn’t bring herself to talk but just clung to him.

Mark didn’t question her as he continued to hug her. He knew she was crying, but she made no noise and he hoped she didn’t get hurt, feeling awful that she was upset in the first place. But in all honesty, he wasn’t entirely sure why she was so distressed over him not being there all of a sudden. “It’s okay.” He murmured softly, rocking her back and forth. “I’m not leaving you behind. I love you too much to do that.”

After a few minutes she calmed down enough to where they moved on to the checkout and left the store. Nobody had seen (Y/n)’s breakdown, and that was fine with the two of them. It had been a private moment. The car was filled with silence on the way home and Mark constantly looked in the rearview mirror to check if his daughter was okay. The poor girl looked exhausted.

After coming home and quickly putting away the groceries, Mark sat down with (Y/n), making sure that she wasn’t still in any part of her panic attack. He wrapped her up in a blanket, once again and gave her a big hug. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better.. I’m sorry for what happened, Dad.” Mark shook his head. “There’s no reason to be sorry. You were frightened. I do have to ask though, why were you afraid? I was only gone for less than a minute and I was pretty sure you could’ve seen me in the previous aisle.” (Y/n) went silent before softly murmuring, “I.. don’t think I’m ready to talk about it. Also, I did look in both the last and next aisles. I couldn’t see you. I think you were hidden by something.”

“Okay then. Take your time. I’ll be here when you’re ready to tell me, and, come to think of it, there was a large pile of boxes over there so maybe that’s why you couldn’t see me. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry. You did nothing wrong. You were just grabbing groceries.”

Mark hugged her again, the two of them laughing as she returned the gesture, sighing with contentment in his arms.

(Time skip)

The day for the guests’ arrival finally came and (Y/n) had basically locked herself up in her room. Chica was in there with her, laying still beside the girl and receiving distracted pets. “I don’t know what to do.” The teenager said, looking at the loyal dog. “I know they’re nice people. Mark told me so, and they act relatively nice in their videos. I just.. I don’t know if I’ll feel comfortable around them. I don’t want to let dad down, or make the others sad by not being around them. What do I do, Chica Beeka?”

The golden retriever in question just looked up at her and wagged her tail. (Y/n) couldn’t help but smile, giving her a head scratch. “Not much help there, buddy, but thanks for listening.” Just then, there was a knock at the door. Chica jumped up and pawed at the bedroom door. (Y/n) took a deep breath and let her out, following the dog down the stairs.

They were here.

Mark was at the door, happily greeting his friends as Chica ran around, barking in excitement. (Y/n) stood back in the entrance to the living room, not daring to get close to the group, but instead just watched them interact with her father. She knew who these men were. Seán, Bob, Wade, Tyler, and Ethan were some of Mark’s closest friends who she had seen on videos before, as well as heard Mark talking to them over video call or the phone. This fact, however, didn’t excuse the fact that she was nervous. Seán was the first to notice her and smiled, coming closer to her as she took a few steps back. “Aww hello there!” He said with a wide grin. “You must be (Y/n). Mark’s told us a lot about you.” She could barely form words as the others also looked in her direction. “I.. umm.. Hi..?” She backed up once more as Ethan approached her. “Don’t be shy, we’re not gonna hurt you.” Mark noticed her distress and asked that they back off a bit. He watched her visibly relax when her personal space was restored. Bob and Wade looked at each other, deciding to speak to her gently while staying where they were. “It’s nice to finally meet you, (Y/n).” spoke the larger of the two, waving at her kindly. The gesture was returned.

Mark got closer to her and the others watched as she stood her ground and he put an arm around her. “Sorry, I did tell you guys she might not be too comfortable at first.” Tyler nodded in understanding. “I get that. Better safe than sorry, am I right?” (Y/n) nodded and hid a little bit behind Mark.

Ethan smiled at her, seeming to have an understanding of the situation. “You don’t need to worry about us.” He said gently. “I know we’re all big and loud and scary, but I promise we aren’t bad people.” Chica made her way over to the girl who gave her some head pats. “I.. I know you guys aren’t bad. If you were, then dad probably wouldn’t be friends with you. I’m.. just not used to you yet.” Mark gave her a side hug with a smile. “It’ll take some time, but we’ll get there. It’s just like we always do. We’ll take things slowly.”

Over the next few days, (Y/n) gained exposure to the others. They were respectful of her personal space and they were all pleasantly surprised at how similar she was to them. Sure, they had heard of some stuff from Mark, but actually witnessing it was something different.

Tyler was the first one to really bond with her. His calm and gentle nature made her comfortable so it wasn’t entirely surprising that he would be the one to start them off. He and (Y/n) found a shared interest in some sports and they held some nice conversations about them.

Next came Bob, followed closely by Wade. They started playing some video games together and while at first she didn’t say much, when she got a bit more comfortable and started talking, the two men were rather pleased to hear her use Mark’s sense of humor. It made the games much less tense and a lot more enjoyable.

Ethan was second to last. He was very energetic and seemed to have the mind of an 8th grader, so he and (Y/n) bonded over memes. He showed her some of his favorites when the two of them were bored in the living room and she shared some of hers. Their somewhat immature humor made it a very fun event, especially when it came to meme videos and clips they could find on random discord servers.

Seán, much to his disappointment, was the last one. Maybe it was because he was so outgoing, or perhaps it was because she was busy with the others. Either way, he didn’t really know how to connect with her. Yes, they both liked video games and other such things, but he didn’t really know how to approach her.

That changed when he was out on the porch, petting Chica. He heard the sliding glass door open and a pair of hesitant footsteps come near. “M-may I.. sit with you?” He looked over to discover that it was (Y/n). He nodded and she sat on the opposite side of Chica, giving her a head scratch.

There was a peaceful silence between the two of them for quite some time before Seán spoke up. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea how to talk to you.” The girl laughed softly, “You and me both.” Chica let out a yawn, stretching slightly before (Y/n) continued. “I.. I haven’t really given you a chance before now. I’ve been so.. Nervous.”

“Why?” The teen shrugged. “I guess I’m just getting used to having so many people here that I don’t really know and you’re, like, my second favorite YouTuber so.. yeah, anxiety overload.” Seán looked at her in surprise. “You watch my videos?” She nodded. “Yup. I’ve watched at least one video from all of you, but I mainly see or hear you during collabs with dad.”

The Irishman smiled. “I’m pretty sure that’s how most people find our channels at this point.” (Y/n) laughed softly. “Pretty much, but give yourself some credit. You guys make great videos by yourself, no Markiplier included.” Seán blushed slightly from the praise. “Well, thank you. That’s high praise coming from his daughter.”

She rolled her eyes with a smirk. “Oh please. I was a fan of you guys before I was his daughter.” With the awkward barrier finally broken, they were finally able to talk to each other, all while petting a very happy Chica.

Things would take time to get used to, and no, having those five at the house wasn’t permanent, but slowly, (Y/n) was finally able to get somewhat comfortable with them before they had to leave. Mark was very happy. This had turned out better than expected, and he knew it would be a lot more fun when it came to any future visits.

No, (Y/n) didn’t engage in much if any physical touch with them, but that was to be expected, and that was alright. It would take time to achieve that kind of bond with her, as it had for Mark and Amy. But there was no issue with taking it slow.

No issues at all..

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j0ystix · 4 months

Text

hi guys so crazy brainrot for TCGF. So I’ve been seeing around in tiktok that Hualian’s child is called Hua Yuze (I saw this on @xieleaan on tiktok so creds to them, I got a lot of inspiration from them) and I just had to come up with concept ideas. I HAVE NOT FINISHED TGCF SO PLS HAVE MERCY IF I HAD SOME THINGS INCORRECT I JS NEED TO GET THIS OFF MY CHEST🥲🥲

- Hua Yuze was created to be the first ever ‘partial god’. He was born into that position rather than ascending so many gods were peculiar and pensive about him. He’s very energetic, smiley and overall a golden retriever. He’s also mischievous, he causes a lot of ruckus in both the ghost and heaven realm but he never felt like he belonged to either. Having said that, he’s reliable and selfless and generous (this is XL’s personality reflecting on HY) Hua Cheng brings him around ghost city but everyone is too aggressive for him. Xie Lian let’s him stay at XL palace but heaven is too lonely for him and he thinks most of the gods are snobbish. One day, HY got into a separate fights with ghosts and heavenly officials and his sense of not belonging got stronger. He got into an argument with HC and XL and he ‘ran away’. XL got worried but HC said to relax. What’s the worse he can do? So what does he do? As a normal impulsive teenager who doesn’t have a job, he ran into the mortal realm where he meets a boy named Tian Kuo by the beach(meaning vast sky; so correct me if I’m wrong as there may be other interpretations)

- Tian Kuo is a mortal and HY stays with him for a month where HY learns about the mortal realm (modern settings; HY follows TK to college, eating foods from other cultures etc.) when HY first met TK, HY realised that TK’s name means vast sky so he says “Meet me where the ocean meets the sky” (this means, go on an adventure with me) so that’s how their adventure begins.

- TK is half Japanese and half Chinese so like HY, he too doesn’t feel like he belonged to either culture. we’ll get to see HY wearing a kimono HEHE. Eventually, HY falls in love with TK but by now, we don’t know how TK feels about HY. We only know that TK’s feelings are platonic so this is one-sided love. When HY goes back to heaven, he asks his parents separately (their responses will differ so you can tell their parenting styles are different) if a god can ever fall in love with a mortal.

XL replies that it’s not natural but if fates says so then we are to oblige. HC was fully supportive and says that labels are just unnecessary hurdles.

- meanwhile, HY is still struggling with his identity. He decides that he does not want to be either god or ghost and that he wants to be a mortal to stay with TK. He tries shady stuff to become mortal like stirring trouble with heaven until he was warned by the emperor LOL

- HY still sneaks into the mortal realm frequently to spend time with TK until one day, a heavenly official found out and reported him to the emperor because it’s against the rule to go into the mortal realm and mess with the lives of mortals unnecessarily. The emperor personally spoke to him and found out about TK. The emperor was distraught to hear the name Tian Kuo and it was later reveal that the emperor has met TK several times. The emperor forbade HY from ever coming into the mortal realm and he was basically “grounded” in heaven for a long time which is insufferable because again, HY doesn’t feel like he belonged in heaven.

- meanwhile, there has been talks about a powerful devastation ghost terrorising the three realms known to take the form of a huge Raven (ravens represent sorrow) and everytime the raven is nearby, moths will appear. The moths are very ugly and people will kill it. However, the raven leaves no trail behind so nobody could track the raven down. It killed and destroyed many villages.

- the lore is, there was one a prophecy that claimed there will be a new calamity arising in the future and the calamity appears as a raven. The prophecy states that the raven is unkillable and has dark eyes that look like wound holes with sorrow seeping through them.

- HERES THE GOOD PART: The emperor knew TK because TK was one of the most religious worshippers ever. TK was born decades of years ago and he was working his way into becoming a priest. The emperor adored him because TK had the kindest soul ever. But one day, TK was unexpectedly robbed by his best friend who murdered his family members and stole his things while he was away. This enraged TK and he went into a massacre and killed his best friend and their families and all witnesses. TK then got angry towards the gods because he was always been a loyal worshipper and he felt immensely abandoned by the gods when his family was killed. He became anti-religious and lived a life of murder and sorrow. However, the emperor knew that TK has a soft heart. He was always kind to animals and kids and the elderly.

- TK committed suicide by shooting himself because he hated being alive (note; TK and HY existence is during the early 2000s so this is a modern setting so guns exist!) and the emperor personally tended to him. TK’s soul couldn’t rest or pass on in peace and he was going to become a terrorising ghost but the emperor made a deal with him. It was an emotional scene where TK started crying and begging to start life all over again. TK felt like he was the most miserable human to exist and he begged the emperor to help him by ripping his heart out so he wouldn’t feel pain or anything anymore. The emperor was reminded of the prophecy and at that time, he thought that TK will be the raven ghost. Since the raven is unkillable, the emperor thought that it’s better to prevent the birth of the raven ghost SO he cursed TK to become a ghost wandering the mortal realm. TK couldn’t escape the mortal realm and will stay there as a ghost. So we get a very sad story about TK. He is cursed to stay in a world where all he wants to do is leave because he doesn’t belong to this world. He feels very lonely until he met HY. This is why TK’s name means “the vast sky” because when he became a ghost, he forgot his real name. The first words he saw as a ghost was the name Tian Kuo. As a wandering cursed ghost, all TK could do was stare at the vast night sky and long for the day his shackles break and he is free

-So up until this point, TK probably hates the gods more now that he’s literally cursed by one but HY changed his perspective. But he feels super apprehensive about catching feelings for HY because HY is still a god. So TK knew that HY was a god all this while and HY had no clue that TK was a ghost.

- BUT HERES THE CATCH. So even tho TK is shackled with little to no power to earth, the raven ghost still exists. So TK isn’t the raven ghost. Turns out, HY is the raven ghost.

- HY has some mad issues in heaven. People were talking about getting him banished because he’s literally dead weight. And even in ghost city, the ghosts would insult him for being an unworthy trash god. HY also compares himself to his dad so he feels even more unworthy. Only TK made him feel worthy. TK was his only friend and TK was the first person to make him feel like he belonged. Whenever HY suppresses his negative feelings, it collects within him and he transform into a raven ghost without knowing and commit all these massacres and he has no memory of it.

- HY will then discover the history between the emperor and TK and he got even MORE pissed with the heavens. But he tries to stay calm first and talked to TK by going against the emperor’s rules and going into the mortal realm. Heavenly officials will try to stop him and chase him down when he went into the mortal realm but XL and HC covers for their son. HY was upset that TK lied to him about being human. It was an emotional confrontation. HY will blurt out about how he’s the loneliness entity in the world—he calls himself an entity because he doesn’t know what he is. He’s not a god nor a ghost. He’s just an entity. A very lonely entity.

- HY ran away from TK and secluded himself in a forest where he had a total meltdown and transforms into the raven ghost. News broke out in heaven that the ghost was rampaging the mortal realm. XL and HC confronts the emperor and they discover about the prophecy. There was no way of killing the raven. As long as sorrow still embeds itself in HY’s heart, he will continue becoming an immortal entity. The emperor will confess about TK. HC and XL (our lovely parents) ran into the mortal realm to find TK.

- they tried to persuade him to help HY and this will made TK realise that he loves HY more than anything. HY was the only person to make TK forget that he’s a cursed ghost. TK didn’t tell HY he was a ghost because 1) at first, he was apprehensive about talking to a god 2) however, gradually, he kinda forgot that he’s a ghost and he knew that ghosts and gods can’t be together so he pretended to be human so that he won’t chase HY away. He genuinely wanted to be with HY so bad that he forgot he was a ghost.

- TK quickly went with XL and HC to save HY. Here’s the thing; the raven cries but the raven cries HOLY WATER. So TK (as a ghost) was literally risking his life to save HY because the water will kill him and smelling the vapour will poison him. Furthermore, during the fight, the raven ghost escapes the mortal realm so TK has to follow the raven out of the mortal realm thus TK went AGAINST his curse that binds him to the mortal realm. To break the curse, he irreversibly traumatised himself so he had scars all over his body and there were writings over his skin.

- fill in the gaps yourself I’m not very good with fighting scenes LOL

- in the end, HY reverts to his normal form and TK is greatly wounded. HY begs his dad to save TK because attending to his own wounds. HC brings TK to the ghost realm to tend to him.

- in the end, both HY and TK was sentence to the court before the emperor. So the hearing goes;

TK goes first. He went against his curse which is like official orders from heaven to stay on earth BUT he did save all their asses but reverting HY back to his normal self sooo BUT HE STILL COMMITED MURDER AS A HUMAN

HY killed so many people as a raven BUT he was unconscious and he couldn’t control it. Everyone knows that internally, HY was a sweet boy.

Both HY and TK were struggling with feeling like they belonged somewhere. Their mixed identities makes it even more confusing. They feel like an unmatched puzzle piece. But they found something in each other that they couldn’t find anywhere else—they found a home in each other. They learnt that home is a person not a place and they were willing to sacrifice everything for each other. Both of them saw each other deeper than their identities and in a way, they understand each other deeper than anyone else could. They were one soul in two bodies.

The officials were giving their input and some were saying that HY and TK has to be separated and should NEVER cross path because they cause havoc when they’re together but HY got angry and literally screamed “I will go against the heavens and the hell if it’s for Tian Kou! I don’t care if it’s the heaven realm or the ghost realm or the mortal realm—I don’t care if it’s in this life or the next, I will meet Tian Kou. No force in this world could keep us apart” (so this shows how HC personality can be seen in HY)

Tian Kou would tear up and nod his head in agreement. XL would vouch for leniency. The verdict was; HY will be banished from the heavens. (HY doesn’t care lol) and both of them will return into the mortal realm but at separate parts of the earth. They are not allowed to meet but nobody was going to monitor whether they meet or not (wink wink) but will lose their memories of each other but they will remember their last lives. So now that their memories of each other is gone, they’ll have a gap in their memories that will never be filled. Before they were banished, HY caress TK’s cheek and promises him that he will find TK in their next life and TK will agree. They swore on it.

So TK became human while HY became a banished god JUST LIKE XL. TK lost all memories of each other. XL was worried about leaving his son alone but HC reassured him that just like XL, HY can handle himself in the mortal realm.

TK’s human name in this lifetime is HaoTing (also, before TK became a ghost in his previous lifetime, his real name was HaoTing too) HaoTing means the powerful ocean wave. SO HERES THE SYMBOLISM.

Tian Kuo means vast sky right; it shows a strong sensing to be free. Like gazing at the sky and wishing you can fly away into another vast universe. Sky also represents heaven which means that TK’s soulmate (HY) is in heaven LOL. It highlights TK feeling like he doesn’t belong to the earth. BUT HaoTing means ocean wave so “ocean” which can correlate with waves and the earth. It represents restlessness and the need to move onwards so TK’s feeling of not belonging still lingers in his new life but it takes in the form of an ocean rather than sky because unlike the sky, the ocean waves also represents faith, growth and renewal so it’s basically rebirth. HT has the scars in his bodies from when the curse was broken.

Yuze in Hua Yuze means rain,friend which symbolises the blossoming friendship between the two that became something else just like the relationship between the vast sky and the rain. They’re always together. The rain cannot exist without the sky but the sky can exist without the rain so this shows that at the beginning, HY was very in love with TK but it was one sided. HY needed TK to make him feel like he belongs but TK doesn’t need HY (yet).

But the rain falls into the ocean and they’re both water. So it represents that although Hao Ting and Tian Kuo have the same personalities (duh they’re the same person reborn) Hao Ting’s personality has traces of Hua Yuze’s influence in the last life. Like for example Hao Ting is a much cheery person than Tian Kuo because Hua Yuze is a cheery person and always makes TK happy. So literally, HY changed TK’s life without him knowing.

Hua Yuze’s name is still Hua Yuze LOL he remembers more about his past life compared to TK because he’s still a god. He goes by an alias like YuanFen which means fateful coincidence. He didn’t think much about choosing an alias btw LOL and YF has the shackles like XL so he mirrors his father

But YF spends the next few decades travelling the world (I know it doesn’t beat 800 years) and they met at a beach. YF knows that he’s finding for something or someone but he doesn’t know what he’s finding for so he’s just wandering around the world aimlessly. Until one day, he met a stranger at the beach (YES THE SAME BEACH HUA YUZE AND TIAN KUO MET) who also faces the same predicament.

YuanFen: your name means the powerful ocean wave. that’s a nice name *admiring the ocean*

Hao Ting : and yours means a fateful encounter *looks at YuanFen*

Yuan Fen: *chuckles* maybe we’re meant to meet a fateful encounter by the ocean

Hao Ting : (he feels some form of familiarity with this stranger) meet me where the sky meets the ocean

Yuan Fen : huh?

Hao Ting : *chuckles* I feel like a stranger..somewhere along these roads…told me that line

THE END!

btw I know there’s some story btw xl and the emperor so the emperor can be replaced with anyone tbh

#heavens official blessing #tgcf #xia lian #hua cheng #hualian #hua yuze

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drowning-inmysleep · 8 months

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love me while I leave. my persona yours to keep

“Maybe someday your 'maker' will come…haul you away, take you apart, and announce the recall of a defective product. What if all that's left of the 'real you' is just a couple of lonely brain cells, huh?”

[edit: 9.26.23] this has since been edited and updated a month post initial release, edits will be notated in red, feel free to skip them to read the original writing. [/] August 20th, 2023 I played my last show in a town (Austin, Texas) I moved to to be with my at the time girlfriend. We're separating now, as I'm returning home (Saint Louis, Missouri), the place I left behind. During my stay in Texas I had a hard time making friends, though that's not to say they weren't readily available. I intentionally avoided making them, partially because I was afraid of leaving them behind if anything were to change and call me back home. I have a crew of friends (Materia) in Saint Louis - the best I've ever had. When I moved, I wanted to take a leap and leave the place I'd spent my entire life, and try to fix my relationship by moving closer to them.

Leaving behind those who loved me so much was something that affected me in a way I wouldn't understand until much later. Saint Louis is one of the top rated most violent cities in the United States. Growing up there I normalized a lot of the things I saw and a lot of the trauma I gained from being in that environment. It's shaped me as a person, both good and bad. I got good at existing there, as I spent most of my teenage years in the inner city going to DIY shows.

Most of the shows were Emo / Screamo revival, and eventually that's where I started as a musician. I think Emo / Screamo music is so prevalent in the Midwest because the Midwest is a comfortable but at times very bleak and sad landscape. In the city you can see someone get murdered in front of you, and in the plains farmer's kill themselves because the world moved on without them. The veracity and unrelenting emotional outpour of these genres is some sort of ancestral representation of growing up somewhere like that. Paired with the ignorant approach to song writing / sound engineering, it represents the lack of educational opportunities whether it be due to generational financial issues or dismal public schools, paired with familial trauma from living here. It's pure.

I always dreamed of being a musician as a child, if anything it's the only dream I ever had. Once I started working on my solo project, I was having a hard time being booked in Saint Louis since there wasn't a scene for the music I made. So - I decided to make one for myself. That's how Materia came to be. I wanted to bring as many different people together as possible, so we formed the crew in a way that each member represented a different aspect of the Saint Louis music / night life community. Our first shows were in peoples basements, or shitty bars in the bad parts of town. Just like the DIY shows I started out in when I was 19. Over time Materia got big enough to where I finally became recognized as my solo project in my own city, but by the time it took hold I fear I was too jaded to appreciate it. Before Materia, I had been playing shows all over the country, and was recognized globally for what I made and what I was involved in. Even with that being said, playing shows out in places like LA and NYC revealed a dark reality to the dream I had. That reality being that even if you do blow up, the lifestyle of being a internationally recognized musician doesn't create a long-term sustainable lifestyle. What it can / inevitably will create, is a perception of you others hold based on your art and performance of it. At first it felt really cool to have people think I'm a celebrity of sorts, that I am the dark persona I portray in my music. Over time it felt less and less genuine, that being others opinions of me. As I got bigger I built up a slow poison of being paranoid people only saw me for my plays on soundcloud, follower count, or pre packaged brand I created for myself. Eventually that paranoia showed itself as not just being paranoia, it was partially true. A lot of the music and art I make is representative of the difficulty I've endured mentally. I spent most of my childhood/teen years disassociating and hiding away in MMORPGs. I felt more able to genuinely express myself in these digital worlds. In the real world I was being made fun of for looking like a girl, and being forced to fight others to just be left alone. I had to survive, and eventually I started fighting myself. I tried to kill myself multiple times.

These experiences alienated me in a way that my friends that did experience my breakdowns eventually distanced themselves from me, and I don't blame them for it. It's a lonely feeling. I try to replicate that in music, both that feeling of yearning for lost times / feelings of comfort felt in a video game, while knowing that those times are gone and they weren't that good of escape to begin with and - the feeling of knowing the damage you've caused. I can't listen to a lot of the music I've made in the past because it hurts too much, it's like reading a suicide note from a failed attempt. Jumping back to me now, a 28 year old DnB / Trance musician, I am pretty consistently swarmed with people praising and celebrating me. On one hand I really appreciate it, on the other it is the actualization of the paranoia mentioned above. My fans enjoy my music because what they earn from it, they have no idea what I was going through when I made it. I've been told I've helped people going through similar things that I went through as a teenager, and I love that. Last night at my final show in Texas, a genuine fan of mine expressed that I was a good example for them to follow as a trans woman. This is the case in which that paranoia I mentioned is not true.

As I had a hard time making friends in Texas, I also had a hard time getting booked or respected for who I am as an artist. Even though I'm arguably one of the biggest contemporary electronic artists in this city, a city in which there's so many shows it's oversaturated, I was hardly ever booked. This is similarly due to why I did not have friends, as I didn't want to have to put the work in again. I felt like I didn't need to, and that's my fault.

The show we threw last night in Texas was with my crew of people gathered semi randomly through hilariously unplanned circumstances. This crew is called Unreal.

Two months ago, someone on instagram hit me up and told me they had a generator, asked if I wanted to do a show. Through my jaded eyes I almost laughed at the idea, like sure, lets try and throw a show in 2 days. That person became one of my best friends almost immediately. It's like we were meant to of always known eachother. [edit.9.26.23] This friend has gone on to completely isolate themselves from me along with my ex, as they started to hangout only two days after I left. I guess that paranoia mentioned above bleeds into more than just fans right? These are two more people that proved to me they loved me for the caricature presented in my music more than the person I am in real life.

I will do my best to not let this further validate my paranoia of getting close with anyone who know me only as Manapool. [/] I grabbed a friend from a failed show in Texas, my girlfriend and lastly another who arguably was the only friend I had during the almost year I lived here. The first show was a success and we decided to do it again when my girlfriend returned from her trip to Europe. Last night was that show. I'd been working on a album that represented the dark place I'd been in for the past few months, mainly stemming from preparing to leave my partner. This project is called Mana no Uta, or The Song of Mana. While a genuine portrayal of the dark place I'd been in, it was also my attempt of taking a semi ironic genre (Nightcore) and making it painfully authentic. Nightcore is a genre that mainly takes pop songs and speeds them up, with the lyrics usually being romantic or broken hearted in subject manner.

Every now and then I come across a Nightcore version of a song that hits in a much more graphic way than it's origin. I have attempted to bottle that lightning into six songs, pushing their Maker to their nightmarish limit. In a way this circles back to my taste for being punishingly nostalgic. To me, real art not only moves you but haunts you. [edit: 9.26.23] While I genuinely loved my partner, this year I had spent living with them ended up doing an immense amount of psychological damage. I'm doing my best not to write about her in a negative light, but I consistently felt neglected. I wanted things to work, all in all that's why I sacrificed the life I had in Saint Louis in the first place. That feeling of neglection and failure to recognize the effort and love I'd given led to deep rooted feelings of resentment. Eventually this resentment bled into my perception of self, and in a way it poisoned me. I felt guilty for being unable to rid myself of these, regardless, I was constantly in a state of accepted defeat paired with anger at myself for leaving Saint Louis behind just to end up unhappy.

These feelings are what I wanted to represent in this album. Isolation paired with wishing you could salvage the love you have for someone while knowing it's already too deep.

It's part of you. I often felt sick. [/] I wanted people to feel sick listening to it, like you're at the club and you took too much ketamine but you can't go home. Or you're about to play a set but in a fight with your girlfriend. Everyone around you is having so much fun but you're not and you won't. Both the ketamine example and the ladder are things I've experienced in achieving the dream mentioned above. I don't want people to relate to this album. I want it to hurt them. Last night, I played the album in it's entirety as a parting gift to fans like the ones that said such sweet things to me last night. Me and my (now) ex-girlfriend got into a fight on the way to the show. It went over very well, and by the time the live performance phase of my set (Mana No Uta) was over, I began to cry as I transitioned into djing for the last portion of my set. I finished the set and tried to escape to go clear my head. On the way out someone gave me ketamine, I took some and went outside to be alone and get myself together after performing my most emotional piece yet. I wasn't really able to decompress, I kept thinking about how I'd be moving away from here and leaving everyone behind. As this is happening, I'm getting swarmed by people telling me they loved my set, complimenting me, celebrating me. I appreciated it but I wanted to be left alone. Performing that album felt like a instance of public self harm. I was literally going through what I wanted the album to represent. I was the character I created in the screenplay I wrote.

As the night ended the sadness I felt for leaving these new friends and my girlfriend overtook me. It scared me. I'm scared right now. But the worst part is it felt familiar. It felt exactly like leaving Saint Louis. These people will never leave my life permanently, but i'm leaving them behind. [edit: 9.26.23] I will most likely never engage with my ex-partner nor the friend mentioned in the last edit ever again. [/] To reiterate, as I'm realizing this and being consumed by it (at the show) people are coming up to me celebrating me. They're telling me how cool I looked. Telling me how amazing my set was. Telling me how much they love the character I play. I had just played the one of the most genuine sets of my life, and still at the end of it I didn't feel like they understood. My emotion was on my face, my true persona on my sleeve. My eyes were red from crying, my hands were shaking from amphetamines. Still I'm seen as the persona I sold them. Once you release your art to the world, it is no longer yours. The experiences people have listening to it are something I'll never fully understand, as they will never understand me. If they actually knew me, would they still be so impressed with what I've done? Who I've become? [edit: 9.26.23] Looking back on this writing and the album now that's it's finished, and now that i'm no longer in the heart of it's conceptual storm - I can truly say I am proud of what I made. I am most proud of being able to create something that had the emotional relevance that it could even put me in a situation mentioned at the end. In a way creating such a dark piece punished me and I will always love this album for that. I spent a lot of energy on making something that'd make the listener uncomfortable, and being the person to perform it made me just as uncomfortable. That's pure.With all that being said I don't feel as if I won't be able to listen to or play these songs out post release, as while it was based on the miasma I was in, I also wanted to make some dark club friendly Nightcore for the girls to grind to. Without:Me is my favorite song I've made in a very long time. I made it in one sitting on Umami's computer the day of Materia XX. The final song will most likely be the most difficult to revisit, however. I finished the song and then two hours later broke up with my girlfriend. It's titled: In Goodbye. [/]

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masschase · 7 months

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Some Troy and Casey cousins lore as promised the other day!

I'm basically back to saying this is part of my canon now. It's just in a very different form to the original vague hc I had for them.

Once again, yes, maybe there are AUs where they aren't related, and maybe there are AUs where they know they're related. In fact I kind of need there to be because I need to see a teenage Troy being made to babysit Casey as a baby/toddler; the results are gonna be precious and/or hilarious(I hc her being a pretty chill baby as long as she's fed frequently but like... toddlers in general... uhhh good luck Troy 🤣)!

But main universe, they don't really know. They never really know. Now I really like when aspects of my hc just kind of... fall into place? So here's some parts of Casey's backstory I created for entirely different reasons that link in with this really well.

Casey had limited contact with an uncle on her dad's side who taught her to shoot and fight not long before the events of SR1. The uncle was originally aiming to teach her sister Phoebe, who, presuming Casey was around 13, would have been 17 at the time, but she really wasn't that interested. Casey on the other hand was fascinated. It was her first time having a hobby that was more focused on channelling her feelings into a hobby rather than reading which was a lot more for the purposes of escapism.

Casey has some gratitude towards this uncle, but also some cynicism too. "Never checked we had food in the house but, you know, at least I could shoot a gun and punch out a guy twice my size." she points out. But eventually she does process that it was her mom who might have been keeping that side of the family away from her, and while I never confirmed it, I believe that is indeed what happened(her dad, however, is entirely responsible for his own absence).

I've never really got into why this uncle was particularly skilled at/decided to teach them this stuff, why Elizabetta allowed him contact with them when no-one else was allowed that, or why he was so interested on checking up on the kids. But I'm now suggesting that this man is Troy's dad and I think that in itself goes to some way to explaining it.

This uncle wasn't actually Casey and Phoebe's dad's brother as they were told, he just put it that way to simplify things for these two kids who didn't really know him. They obviously just accepted it because they didn't know their dad in that much detail. He was his brother-in-law. His wife was Casey's blood aunt, and Troy's mom, and she took her husband's surname of Bradshaw while, as I've mentioned in a previous post, her brother took his wife's name of Clark until their divorce.

I definitely hc Troy's dad being a cop. This explains would explain why he would have a reasonable amount of expertise in not just combat but teaching combat to a reasonable level. Troy's dad wanted contact with his nieces partially because he felt some duty of care to them, and also because his wife probably suggested they be subtly checked on. "Teaching them to fight because I've seen a lot of shit happen to young women" or something was a good way to frame it that would explain why it's worth travelling halfway across Michigan for.

The fact that he wasn't actually blood related to Stanisław made Elizabetta a little less concerned about letting her daughters see him. But really, her ongoing paranoia about social services involvement made her more inclined to agree with his request in a way she felt she could maintain control over. Because overall, her kids didn't come across as problem kids if seen outside the house.

It seemed to work in that respect. Phoebe seemed sociable and responsible with some typical teen disinterest, Cassandra was shy and intelligent but came out of her shell a lot as he began teaching her. Even if he did have minor concerns, his wife would probably tell him it was fine based on what he'd told her.

Troy's mom was not uncaring about her nieces, not at all. But with a house full of teenagers, pushing for contact with two small children was never her priority. Once her children were grown? Yeah, she may have had some concerns, but unless they were in actual danger, she wasn't going to get involved with a situation where she might end up taking responsibility for them. I hc her having had an OK relationship with her sister-in-law in the past, so less reason for concern. The relationship between her and Stanis I think could be a post in itself, but I think they weren't super close as siblings go, I think again the age gap factored into that.

What does Casey know about her cousins? Pretty much nothing. Her mom didn't allow it. She doesn't know their names. She's never seen a picture. She once asked her mom about them upon seeing a schoolfriend who was close with their cousin, only to be basically told "they're adults, they don't wanna come play with you", so she knows they're all older. By the time she's an adult and could reasonably go looking, she's so disaffected with her family she doesn't do so. Bear in mind that even when her grudge against her sister (who she loves very much) for leaving her with their mom was let go, she still doesn't visit often due to 'not wanting to be around her perfect family'. I make it pretty clear she has issues around stuff like that which she knows she just can't have due to her line of work. When you add in the fact she's secretly got some shades of social anxiety, going to see cousins in their 30s/40s who she's never met and potentially ending up sitting with their perfect little families is her idea of hell. So she never makes contact.

What does Troy know about his cousins? He knows their names. Phoebe, Cassandra. He saw a couple of photos of them that their mom allowed his mom to have before he left home, when they were still pretty young. He would assume they have their dad's second name, Kendziorski, just due to that being more common and knowing their parents were married (his mom making mention of an ex-sister-in-law). He has other young cousins; his uncle's even younger children/Casey's half siblings if he has interest in that sort of connection. But honestly I doubt he's that interested either.

Neither of them know the right things about the other to make the connection when they meet in SR1. Casey has nothing to go on, really, and she's not the type to jump to conclusions about that sort of thing. Troy has a face that's obviously nothing like the picture from when she was 5, a name that doesn't match, at first not even the right gender as both of his estranged cousins are girls and obviously Casey is mistaken for a boy for a while. Casey never talks about her past. Troy doesn't look much like Casey's dad and Casey doesn't look much like Troy's mom. With a closer friendship and more time together they absolutely would have figured it out. But for various reasons they don't have that.

I do think they met once prior to the game though. Casey was just way too young to remember it.

Stanis was miserable around the time of Casey's birth. Elizabetta's keeping up appearances nature would have prevented him feeling he could vent to most of their friends. So I think at some point when she was a few months old he went to his sister's house under the pretense of introducing the new baby to her aunt. He does, but he also really just needs to talk to someone detached enough from the situation; his sister. So baby Cassandra is placed in a little play ring in a corner of the room attempting to put everything within reach into her mouth. Troy is made to sit with her while his mom and uncle talk in hushed whispers on the other side of the room under the pretense of "watching her" when they really just don't want him eavesdropping.

If I wanted to say something poignant and beautiful and rather contrived I could write something about how even then Troy knew he had to protect this kid, even though he didn't know her yet. How their meeting 15 years later would perfectly mirror that one.

But come on! He's a thirteen year old boy! He's a thirteen year old Troy! His thoughts on the situation are "Why the hell am I the one stuck looking after this thing?".

But you know what? That's OK. Because that mirrors his views on their future situation pretty well too. 😉

#i feel like... even this is restrained i could have said more #all the “but how come...”s etc. that i could get into #but this is already a LOT and i'm appreciative of anyone who was interested enough to read all this :)#sr #saints row boss #sr boss: casey clark #troy bradshaw #i have so many wips and instead i... wrote all of this out

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toaarcan · 11 months

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Pokemon: Shiny vs. Default, 004-006

Alright, yesterday we covered Bulbasaur, now it’s time for Game Freak’s Special Little Boy.

First up, Charmander.

Going to go with the default for this one. The pale yellow just makes it look like it’s sick. This setting has free healthcare, how did you get jaundice, Charmander? The orange just looks better, cant go wrong with a classic like this.

Next up, the edgy teenage years, Charmeleon.

Basically the same story as the first time, in all honesty. The vibrant orange-red being traded out for a paler one just makes it look unwell. Someone get these lizards medical attention, please.

But now we’re onto the big ones, the part where the shinies can claw some back, because it’s Charizard time, baby.

Yeah, shiny takes it. One of the first shinies to be manually selected, changed from its original purple hue to being mostly black, and I cannot deny, it looks sick as fuck. Like in full honesty, the black shinies are probably going to win most of the time, they’re just too cool, and everyone’s favourite Not Dragon is no exception.

This is one of those “Normally we’d be done but actually there’s more” Pokemon, except this time we’re actually only at the halfway mark, because this evolutionary line is 66% Charizard.

Now for Mega Charizard.

Ol’ Fanservice Dragon’s at a bit of a disadvantage here, considering that it’s already black. And while the green and red does look pretty good, very Classic Dragon Vibes, the original design just looks better. Though I’ll be honest, if they brought back the original purple I’d probably have given it to the shiny just for being clever with it.

Alright, now for The Cooler Mega Charizard.

Ah, perfection. It’s not the same black tone as the base form, it’s got more of a dark grey-purple shade to it, but it still looks great. That old purple shade got a little bit of a return here, and I’m here for it.

Moving swiftly on...

Gigantamax time!

Back to being pretty classic in terms of colours here (though I’ll be honest, I’m not particularly partial to this one’s basic design), and that means that the winner is the shiny. Can’t deny the cool factor of black-scaled fire dragon. Even if it’s not actually a real dragon.

Default: 7

Shiny: 4

Draw: 0

#Pokemon #Pokemon: Shiny vs. Default #004 #005 #006 #Charmander #Charmeleon #Charizard #Mega Charizard #Mega Charizard X #Mega Charizard Y #Gigantamax Charizard

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electrasev5nwrites · 10 months

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Ninja Daily: Vapors 79

Aiko was the only one who didn't hit her ass on the ground with a thump in the next moment when they all found themselves in slightly different locations. "Ha!" She snickered, pointing at Sasuke's dumb expression.

"Nnnnnng?"

Well, that was a familiar whine. Aiko dropped to her knees and gathered Mitsuo up in a hug when he bounded over to her, burying her nose in his nape and inhaling that wonderful, comforting, doggy smell.

"Let's go home, guys," Naruto sighed, voice sounding a little scratchy but pleased. "Just think, the next we know, we'll be relaxing in Konoha."

They hightailed it the hell out of those ruins, not even noting that Rouran should have been more decrepit. Rouran was considerably worse than it had been twenty years prior, and there didn't seem to be a terrible difference between a city that had been destroyed and abandoned for fifteen years and a city that had been resettled as a base for a small amount of survivors and partially repaired over the course of just two years after that same destruction.

Mitsuo didn't bother to inform them that there were people around inside to avoid the heat of day—they'd already run into those civilians and talked to them in the days while they were waiting to ambush Mukade, after all. Remnants of stubborn survivors who had refused to abandon their ancestral home after the initial danger had passed, apparently. He hadn't been that interested.

'Of course that was too good to be true. Just having Naruto say something jinxes it.'

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

For once, the crudity wasn't coming from an Uzumaki. Yamato looked just about ready to cry from frustration at having trouble on what had promised to be a simple trip home after an unexpectedly complicated mission, but after a moment a steely expression shuttered over his face. "Those are our allies. We are obligated to lend assistance. Aiko, I want you to get Naruto out at the first sign of trouble. Stay back, since you're not in top form. I want you boys to work together and watch each other's backs. Alright Sasuke, Naruto?"

He paused, waiting for the acknowledgement that wasn't going to come because the blond had already taken off at a sprint for the little mob where two Akatsuki seemed to be tangling with a team from Mist. Or rather, half a team. One man was fighting with a blonde-haired woman, and the other was stomping a slight figure into the ground, laughing all the while.

"Get away from him!" Naruto roared, gaining a visible reddish tint to his aura and moving on a straight path for the light-haired enemy torturing a boy half his size. He immediately forced the Akatsuki back, with -oh kami, had he really managed to weaponize shadow clones to explode? She cringed a little at the sheer destruction it would have resulted in anywhere else. Here, it just blew up an enormous spray of searing hot sand that showered them even from twenty feet away.

"Is that their-" Sasuke began to ask in an undertone, dark eyes focused on the other mist nin.

"Yepp," Aiko cut him off grimly, eyes flickering to the struggling teenager who was on the verge of panic, curled on the ground bleeding. Panic was an understandable reaction to being pursued by S class criminals, of course, but it was much more alarming than usual when the boy in question was a jinchuuriki. "Assist Naruto, would you? Do not let him get cut. That man with the scythe is bad news."

He moved to Naruto, but Aiko had already flickered to Shinji's side and laboriously flipped him over onto his back to check his vitals and his seal to be sure that everything seemed stable.

As if he were paying attention to their conversation, the man who could only be Hidan gave a whooping laugh, jumping straight over Naruto's opening blow when he tried to turn their match to taijutsu. A terrible sharp joy was contorting his features to something grotesque and beautiful.

He wasn't particularly fast, though that mattered little when he only had to have one hit to have a killing blow.

"Oh pretty girls, I'm flattered to hear you gossip about me!"

Apparently, Hidan had bat ears like Kakashi. And he thought Sasuke was pretty.

'To be fair… He's probably prettier than I am. He's prettier than everyone, the bastard.'

"Actually, your information is pretty fucking good," the man panted, pushing his way closer to where she was standing even as Sasuke joined in and began harassing him, controlling the distance by darting around and trying to trap the older man with a virtual spider-web of conductive wires attached to shuriken. Hidan was momentarily tangled, but slogged close enough to shout at her despite the bleed freely flowing down his legs while Sasuke leapt back and ran through a very familiar series of handsigns. Naruto's eyes widened, and he scurried backwards himself.

"How'd you know that, bitch? Did you come to hear the word of Jashin? I never fuck a heathen, but if you're looking to con- Agh-!"

"That's always so anticlimactic," she mumbled, shading her eyes to check the identity of the enormous invertebrate plopped on top of an S class douchebag. "Is dropping your summons on someone really an approved technique, or is Sasuke just intentionally fucking with us all?"

"I see that we are done here," Hidan's partner called out, leaping backwards away from his fight with Yamato and the mist captain. He sounded entirely too pleased. "I am off to mourn my recently deceased comrade, since I cannot win this fight and take his corpse back from you."

An enraged scream emerged faintly from underneath the bulk of Katsuya's body, making her jolt in shock and give her tummy a quizzical look.

'Oh god, this is embarrassing. Is he really taking the opportunity to leave this guy in hopes that we kill him?'

Yes. Yes, he was. Hidan must be annoying as all hell.

"Is… he going to die?" The woman heading the Mist team wandered just close enough to give the furious screaming coming from under Katsuya's bulk an unnerved look. "Shouldn't that have broken every bone in his body?"

"Yes, that'll slow him down for a while," Aiko agreed mildly, wandering closer to Sasuke's summons now that she knew the three-tailed beast wasn't about to be released on the countryside. "I think that someone should grab his scythe quickly when Katsuya-sama leaves. But don't actually touch it," she stressed. "I'm pretty sure it's dangerous."

Yamato gave her a look that implied she must have hit her head when he wasn't watching, meandering over while rotating his wrist. "You're talking like he's going to get up."

She shrugged. "You never know," was her philosophical bullshit answer.

Sasuke looked appalled when Katsuya disappeared and Hidan wasn't completely pulped. "That makes no sense," he protested flatly, giving Hidan's struggling, gurgling body a disapproving stare. "Medically, that's absolutely impossible. I refuse to allow it. Naruto, Rasengan his head off."

"Yes, yes, queen Sasuke," Naruto snickered, calling up a clone and cocking his hip casually to let it work at shaping the swell of chakra he called forth. The pressure built and built until he quirked a savage little smile (he really wasn't a fan of anyone in a black and red cloak) and sprinted the last few meters to crouch and shove his hand through the mass that had been attached to a body struggling to get up. He aimed for the bulk of the skull, pulping the brain but leaving the jaw and throat merely sliced to hell (the jaw actually cut into three pieces that let it fall apart like a peeled orange).

Aiko felt strangely proud. He'd never even seen a zombie movie (to her knowledge, though he might have been left unsupervised and able to access late-night programs when she wasn't paying attention at some point) but he clearly knew that he should aim for the control center. Nothing with more intelligence than a chicken could hope to live without their brain to issue orders to the body.

"I think that did it," Yamato deadpanned at the mess. It had stopped struggling at least.

Aiko frowned thoughtfully. 'Is that really it? I thought this guy was supposed to be too tough to kill. I wish I knew how that happened in the manga.' In the end, all she could do was shrug. "Looks pretty dead to me. Anyone mind if I light it up?"

Couldn't hurt to be certain, after all.

The woman from Mist scowled. "This was our fight," she began to argue, before Yamato gently cut her off.

"I apologize, but our treaty does compel us to lend assistance, and at least one of them is dead now," he pointed out practically. "I would offer you the head as a good will measure, but seeing as how he didn't want to die otherwise…" he trailed off politely.

She sighed, giving the Konoha team as a whole a tired look. "I suppose you're right. It's just a bit frustrating to fight them for half an hour and have nothing to show for it but the bloodstains that used to be my second." Her expression was pinched in a way that Aiko just now recognized as suppressed grief.

Immediately, the light hearted atmosphere changed. "I'm sorry we were too late for your teammates," Naruto apologized solemnly, turning up to meet her eyes. "We didn't mean to belittle that loss."

They shared a gaze for a moment. Then the woman grunted softly and turned to gather her remaining team member up. "I don't care anymore. Burn him, bury him, take him home and feed him to your dogs. Whatever."

"I think the dogs would get sick," Aiko muttered in an aside to Sasuke. He gave her a disapproving expression and turned away.

'Apparently now is not the time for observations like that.'

Fair enough.

'God, how are those two going to get home?' She cringed. Sasuke looked like he was thinking about offering to provide medical support, but that might not be enough to really be doing right by their allies. The mist team was still weakened and vulnerable, as well as far from home. Were they done with whatever mission they'd been on and had been caught on the way home, or were they still under contract to take care of something?

'Oh. Duh. If they are going home, there's an obvious solution.'

"Er- actually, just a moment!" Aiko called out as the woman moved to laboriously support Shinji's weight enough for them to leave.

'I probably should have thought of this already.'

"Where are you two going? Back to Mist, or…?" she trailed off, tilting her head questioningly.

Shinji stared at her for a moment, blinking gummily. His captain's eyes were hard and she looked like she wanted to scowl, but for some reason she reluctantly shared, "We need to return home."

'Well, that answer conspicuously didn't mention whether or not their mission was already done or what it is, but it makes sense. She doesn't seem enthused about trusting us.'

Still, the offer should be made. "Would you like a ride home?" Aiko suggested guilelessly. "I could get you two to the Mizukage much more quickly than you can travel on your own."

Yamato slapped a hand to his head without bothering to muffle the noise. She could practically hear him moping that she shouldn't be voluntarily offering to share sensitive information with foreigners.

Aiko made a disapproving face and turned to him. "If I didn't offer," she started reproachfully, "The Mizukage would know about the slight when they got back and mentioned our team. Besides, Shinji already knows."

Her captain's eye twitched. Probably wondering why she was on first name terms with a Mist nin he'd never met before. She just rolled her eyes and turned back to the bemused mist nin who had been watching the interchange.

"Er." The woman glanced down at Shinji, and seemed to come to a realization. She paled. "Um. Are you-. I mean, you must be…"

Sasuke managed to give Aiko a look that implied she had managed to locate an absolute lunatic. The woman seemed petrified of her for some reason. Normally, she might have given a shrug in return, but she ignored him. The Mist Jounin looked intimidated enough already without being visibly mocked. "Yes?" she prodded patiently.

Despite looking like he'd been pounded into the ground, Shinji managed to roll his eyes. "Yes, Morino-sensei, this is the big scary seal master."

'This is a first. Are seal masters really so intimidating?'

Aiko kept her confusion off her face. "Is there a problem?"

"No." Morino shook her head and plastered on a strained smile. "No problem at all. I would be honored to accept your offer."

'Okay, this is weird. Two minutes ago she was sniping at us. Does she think I'm going to hold her down and stick a demon in her if she looks away?'

Morino was doing an excellent job of keeping Aiko in her vision even as Sasuke tugged Shinji away from her to provide field care. Her lurking was anxious enough that it actually made Aiko feel uncomfortable. Sweet, clever Naruto sensed and deflected the tension.

Of course, he did that by recounting the one time he'd met a Mist nin before that, so it wasn't that relaxing for Morino. She didn't seem sure if she wanted to be charmed by his cheery attitude and energy, or convinced that relating the time they'd killed Momochi Zabuza was a veiled insult to mist nin in general or a threat that they could do the same to her.

"Okay, time to go," Yamato interrupted when the story transitioned to something he and Jiraiya had done in Rice Country with a traveling circus. Morino gave him an icy stare that implied she had been enjoying that story.

Unsympathetic, Aiko grabbed Morino to drag her closer to Shinji, then rearranged her posture so that she was sort of one-armed hugging both of them around the waist. "Hold on tight," she warned.

Mildly flattered, she noted, 'Shinji must trust me. He doesn't seem nervous at all,' in the second before Morino gripped her with a good forty pounds too much force around her ribs. 'She, on the other hand, definitely doesn't trust me,' Aiko noted, forcing down a pained gasp and a crooked smile at the way Morino was shaking as she yanked on Mei's seal. Yamato's long-suffering face blurred oddly into that of the Mizukage, who was serendipitously in the same position from Aiko's point of view that her captain had been. Morino wheezed sadly and hunched over almost instantly, looking like she was considering being sick. 'You know, traveling this way seems to affect some people much more strongly than others…'

"Mizukage-sama," Shinji squeaked. Aiko pulled her arms back and he stumbled forward awkwardly, nearly falling into a puddle on the white tile floor.

"Yo." She raised her newly freed hand and gave a smile. "Long time, Mei-neechan."

The two Mist-nin who took orders from 'Mei-neechan' in the room gave her looks of varying levels of horror.

"Hello, Aiko-chan." Mei tilted her head skeptically. "Is there a reason you're here." She paused deliberately. "In my bathroom."

"Not in particular," Aiko assured, glancing down at the luxurious purple towel wrapped around the Mizukage's body. "You look nice with your hair up, though. Should wear it like that more often."

Another girl might have cringed to walk in on a foreign Kage while covered in dirt, blood, and the tattered remains of what had once been a nice shirt. But hey, at least they were indecent together.

"It doesn't dry if I leave it up," Mei replied flatly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm not fit to entertain. May I assume you're here returning those two?" At the confirmatory nod, she gave them an unamused look. "I'll summon you in the morning."

"Yes, ma'am," Shinji forced out, looking like he wanted to die. He gave a perfunctory bow and fled like she was about to change her mind and scoop his eyeballs out for having seen her fresh out of the shower. Morino was already gone.

"You get a kick out of this, don't you?" Mei accused idly, a little smile playing about her lips while she casually pulled open her medicine cabinet and extracted a bottle of some sort of face mask.

Aiko managed to pull her eyes away from the path two terrified Mist-nin had just beat out at top speed to look back at the older woman, but didn't bother to smother her amusement. "I can't imagine what you're talking about. I certainly don't find any amusement in the fact that your subordinates seem to think you would be silly enough to hold a grudge against them because you happened to be half-naked when I offered to take them home after they got pretty well kicked by Akatsuki."

Mei made a sound of comprehension, smearing a green gel on her cheekbones with careful precision. "Mmm, that's what happened, then."

"Yes, I'm sure they'll have a better report for you." Aiko cracked her neck, and enjoyed a deep breath of the moist, floral scented air before she steeled herself to go back to the scrubland where she'd left her team. "Well, I should go."

"Have a nice night," Mei managed, sounding as if she didn't particularly care one way or another. "Say hi to sweetcheeks for me."

Aiko cringed. 'That is just the most undignified, awful nickname for Kakashi. I know that she's just messing with me, but that's going too far.'

She was still cringing when she flashed back to Naruto's side. In her absence, they appeared to have searched the corpse for information and identification so they could officially report him deceased and collect his bounty, if there was one. Without the head, the cloak and his signature weapon would have to do. It might not be good enough for the bounty, but Tsunade would understand.

"I didn't bring another sealing scroll," Yamato muttered, looking uncertainly at the long weapon. It wasn't something they particularly wanted to be seen carrying, even if it didn't emit a foul and evil atmosphere. It seemed almost sentient. "Did anyone else?"

"I have one with some equipment in it," Naruto reluctantly offered, frowning slightly. "We could redistribute that among our packs."

That was far from optimal, if the thing would even react normally to a seal. Yamato, Sasuke, and Naruto already had rather full looking packs, and Aiko had left hers in Rouran after it had been shredded. ('Thank god I already read those reports on enrollment and graduation', she thought regretfully.)

"No, I can get it," Aiko assured her brother, dropping the cloak they'd stripped off Hidan on top of the weapon, inside out so that the clouds were hidden. "I'm the only one who isn't already carrying anything." Gingerly, she used the fabric to pick up Hidan's scythe without actually touching it, held pinched between her thumb and fingers.

Immediately, she jolted. "Fuck!"

It felt as though the flesh was being cooked off her bones under where she gripped the long handle.

Unnerved, she let the scythe drop.

"That thing is evil," she blurted thoughtlessly, turning her hand to examine it. Sasuke made a surprised little grunt and reached over to grab her wrist. The skin where she'd touched the scythe through the cloak was seeping blood through hundreds of microtears. It only took him a few moments to patch the little wounds up, but everyone present looked at the Jashinist's tool with more trepidation after that. That had been the result of an instant's contact through a thick piece of fabric. There was no way they could touch it long enough to seal it into a storage array, even if they wanted to bring something so nasty into Konoha.

Yamato cleared his throat and bent to gather up the cloak, stuffing it into his pack. "Sasuke, kick up a hole, would you? Apparently we aren't taking that with us."

"One or two?" He raised an eyebrow and jerked his head slightly in the direction of Hidan's corpse… which seemed to be twitching, even though it was just a pile of meat with rather a lot of goo around it.

'Muscle spasms or regeneration?' Aiko shuddered. "Are… are we sure he's dead?" she ventured quietly, but no one else responded. There wasn't much to say. Everything about that man was wrong, very wrong, from the stink of his cheap hair gel to the fact that she couldn't sense his chakra when they'd arrived. It was almost as if he was already dead, or a silly genin who didn't realize that hiding all their chakra made them stand out in a crowd. 'It doesn't matter,' she thought viciously. 'He'll be dead for real in a moment.'

"No point in making two holes," Yamato pointed out professionally.

They rolled the body into the hole first, and grimacingly tossed down as much brain matter as they could gather. Sasuke kicked the scythe into the hole on top of its owner's corpse, and gave it a distrustful look an instant before he took a breath. "Fireball jutsu!" His back curled like a cat's for a moment, and the spout of flame poured out and down with licks of heat that stung Aiko's eyes, charring the flesh clean off Hidan's bones and leaving a collapsed skull to grin up at them, inadequately coated in dry remnants of flesh. Chillingly, the broken bones they knew had been caused by Katsuya's weight seemed to have largely healed in the time the body had been sitting still.

Sasuke was extremely proficient with the few fire jutsu he knew. His flames were hotter, larger, and more destructive than Aiko's by a noticeable amount, and her fire was perfectly adequate to melt senbon and kunai. But Hidan's scythe appeared unaffected when the smoke cleared. The metal didn't melt, warp, or even seen to burn. Uneasily, the Konoha team exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

"Ugh, that's so gross." Naruto turned his face away. "Let's cover him before he gets blown away."

He wasn't wrong—already, dry flakes of ash were rising up from the whole skeleton in the burial pit and twisting on the breeze. Sasuke gave everyone else an unimpressed look when they seemed to think he was going to pull a solution out of nowhere as easily as he'd calculated an angle that would send the sandstone in a shear instead of crumple and compact it.

"You can move sand just as well as I can," he pointed out acidly. "Naruto, just make a stupid amount of shadow clones to do it."

He grumbled, but Sasuke was right in that it only took a few minutes of work from ten clones and the team to fill the pit in as if a fissure had never been cracked. Perhaps the hole could have been deeper, but that was much more difficult to accomplish with sand than with dirt. Sand would spill inwards. He was a leathery skeleton, it wasn't as if he could possibly heal from that and dig his way out.

'Thank god.' Aiko felt bone-deep tiredness tugging her body down, to the point where she was almost willing to try to take a nap in the sand. 'We can finally go home now.' The others must have been similarly eager, because they all leapt back into the rhythm of running towards Konoha with a mindless determination that had to be their third or fourth wind of the day.

If they had waited, they might have seen the ashes floating on the breeze clump and stick together like they were pulled by a magnetic force, slowly swelling up with moisture stolen from the grudging atmosphere. With half an hour, they plopped back onto the sand glistening wetly, even if they didn't look like anything in particular yet, and were immediately coated in pale grains. After a few moments, the sand seemed to shiver from struggles below, and the raw flesh began sinking underneath.

"Home," someone breathed. Aiko didn't care to figure out whom, preoccupied as she was digging out the proper identification number for the gate guard from the recesses of her memory. She had three now, and using the wrong one would probably either convince people that she was an infiltrator or dangerously stupid.

Often, they didn't even need those identification credentials to get into the village since the gate guards knew them on sight or could check their mission documents.

Something had happened during their absence, however. All chitchat ceased in the unusually long waiting line to the gates. Aiko wasn't quite tall enough to count that there were eight guards and the doors were being opened and closed between each entrant until it was nearly her team's turn.

The grim expressions on the faces of two Chuunin she didn't know – meaning that they'd probably been pulled off other duties to supplement the security—convinced her not to ask here.

"Team Yamato?" A scarred man who could have been a Yamanaka took all their credentials at once and shuffled through them. "You're ordered to report to Hokage tower immediately once cleared."

"Of course," their captain agreed professionally, though that standing order probably concerned him as well. Their mission shouldn't have been a terribly large priority. Normally, only politically sensitive missions or those that could affect village security as a whole had to be reported immediately. The general policy was a twenty-four hour grace period to complete a written report and submit it, only supplemented by a verbal debriefing at the Hokage or the mission desk's discretion.

Mukade was a pain in the ass, and their mission report would have eventually been bumped up to a verbal meeting on account of how bafflingly insane it was, but he was hardly a matter of national security.

"Cheer up," Naruto prodded, practically bouncing ahead of the group in his eagerness to be home. He hardly seemed deterred by the nearly empty streets, but the other three were caught between solemnity and caution. "We're home, guys! And we're going to see the old lady, and she's going to think we had the best mission ever, and then we can go out for a celebratory dinner and I bet she'll have another cool job for us-"

"You're making me tired, idiot" Sasuke grunted in faux-irritation, though she was pretty certain he appreciated the lightened mood. He just liked to seem more mature than Naruto.

The first secretary waved them right on up with a cheerful (but tired) smile aimed at Sasuke. The office drones they passed on the middle levels were bustling about with a good deal less levity than usual. Upstairs, Keiko didn't bother to put on a front at all, and the bags under her eyes were a pretty significant hint as to the real state of things. "Oh good, you're here." She faultlessly slashed through one item on an intimidatingly long list with an ease that implied she'd been referencing it far too often. "Go on in."

Sasuke gave her an unusually visible sympathetic look, but strode into Tsunade's office with the casual ease gained from familiarity without another word.

At the sound of the door, Tsunade looked up wearily. There was no humor or fondness on her face at all when she greeted them. "That took longer than expected, and had markedly poor timing," she commented curtly. Before anyone could react, she cracked her neck, looked up, and added, "Not that it's your fault, it's just bad luck. Is there anything especially time-sensitive about your report? Did you get Mukade?"

"We could not take him alive, but we accomplished our main objective," Yamato briskly replied, clearly sensing that she wasn't in the mood to banter. "As for our mission report, a lot that we will have to talk to you about happened, but there's nothing especially time-sensitive or relevant to mission security except that we ran into two Akatsuki on the way back."

"What?" Tsunade interrupted, looking considerably more shocked than she should have been. "But the Uchiha should have been in…" She trailed off, and scowled at Yamato.

"Not Hoshigaki and Uchiha," Yamato clarified. "Two others. I'm relatively certain that one was the Hidan who destroyed Yugakure, but the other offered no identification. The second man escaped, but between Sasuke and Naruto, Hidan is rather thoroughly deceased."

"Thoroughly deceased," Tsunade repeated, a faint tinge of mocking in her tone. "What, precisely, counts as 'thoroughly' deceased and why wasn't the regular state enough?"

"I dropped Katsuya on him and Naruto destroyed his brain, so that he would stop regenerating," Sasuke contributed with a bored air. His mentor snorted, but looked rather smug.

"Yes, well." Yamato shifted his weight, and added, "When we encountered them, they were harassing a team from Mist that included their jinchuuriki. Apparently, they had already lost two teammates and weren't doing well, so I judged that we were obliged to offer assistance."

"Thank god," Tsunade muttered, rubbing the pad of her thumb along the side of her index finger in a compulsion that Aiko was relatively sure related to gambling and counting money. "It would have looked very badly on us if they'd been left. Did you see them safely to their destination?"

"Aiko did," Yamato offered.

The Hokage let out a sigh. "Then they went directly to Terumi? Good work." Wearily, she propped her chin on a hand and surveyed the group, sharp eyes cataloguing the nuances of their appearances. "I was worried when you didn't report on time. Akatsuki got their first jinchuuriki. Apparently, they've decided that any reputation they lost by failing completely when they first made a move needed to be rectified with a decisive strike."

'Well, that's a spectacularly grim subject to come home to.'

She didn't really know what was supposed to happen at this point, to be frank.

"The Raikage's brother is dead, and he's decided it's our fault."

Aiko was pretty sure that wasn't it.

Apparently, the Raikage was acting just as rational as Aiko had always suspected him to be.

'To be fair,' she thought guiltily, 'if it were my little brother who had been killed, I might not be at my best either.'

The thought was monstrous, but so was the risk that it hadn't just been a momentary mistake when the Raikage had lashed out at Konoha for supposedly pointing Akatsuki at Lightning to weaken them in preparation for a war. Konoha's having been directly involved in putting down two Akatsuki members had apparently convinced the Raikage that the attack on Gaara had been a smokescreen to conceal that they were affiliated with Akatsuki, meant to keep him from getting revenge on the real target and not the puppets they'd used to accomplish such a thing.

It wasn't an entirely illogical train of thought, to be fair. Aiko could easily see a village making a play like that… Mostly Lightning. The village that kept trying to steal babies with kekkai genkai really had no room to talk about underhanded power plays.

Of course, if that really was what had happened, the Raikage would have been better off to seek peace with Konoha, because he was on the wrong side of an uneven alliance.

But grief did strange things to thought processes, and it had to sting in an especially clear contrast that Konoha had apparently been easily rebuffing the people who had so easily killed B's team and extracted his bijuu, carelessly leaving the body to be found abandoned in the wilds by Cloud's trackers after the fact. He might think that he had to strike while the iron was hot, both to avenge his loss and to ensure that Konoha didn't manage to wage a war of attrition against Lightning country.

In terms of sheer manpower, Cloud was in a much better position than Konoha. If he decided to go to war, things could become grim even if Rock didn't join in. it seemed unlikely that Cloud could possibly triumph alone, but they could well have a pyrrhic sort of victory.

By getting Konoha's jinchuuriki, for example, since they thought they were owed a bijuu, and blaming someone else would be substantially less painful than admitting that the Raikage had been a moron of momentous proportions to snub Gaara's request for a summit to deal with Akatsuki.

"I don't really care what you want," Tsunade said testily.

'I should probably be paying attention now and analyzing this later.'

"But Tsunade-baachan! Aren't they winning if they keep us all here, too scared to go about business as usual?"

The Hokage rolled her eyes, a hint of fondness behind the movement. "I don't particularly care if the Akatsuki and Lightning think they're winning. What matters is doing what we have to do to keep Konoha safe. Right now, that's best served by concentrating our strength here. Consider this personal development time. Genin and Chuunin aren't going to be leaving the village much, so this is an excellent opportunity for you to spar against your age mates and accelerate training that might otherwise be interrupted by missions."

'Message received.' Aiko slumped a little. Genin and Chuunin wouldn't be leaving the village—that meant that Jounin would. No personal development time for her, then.

Unsurprisingly, Tsunade had her hang back after Naruto and Sasuke left, Yamato giving a curious glance backwards as he shut the door. Aiko braced herself for orders, already anticipating the worst. There was always something else.

"I don't plan on sending you out either unless anything changes, so consider yourself on personal development. On that note, I think it's time for you to finish some of your specialized training. You won't be as busy as usual, so feel free to stop cringing away from me. I'm not a complete monster, you know." Tsunade managed a tired smile. "Hold on a moment…" She rustled around for a form—a prescription note of some type, from what she could tell, and scratched in some coded information that made no sense to Aiko at all. "You'll be taking this directly to Shizune at the hospital either before you go home tonight, or first thing in the morning. There are rather a lot of immunizations to get you started on…"

Paper in hand, she had to wonder if that was really all there was. Useful, yes, but she didn't see how shots qualified as part of training. Tsunade seemed to register her confusion, and looked mildly amused.

"You'll be meeting your new instructor in the ANBU training facility tomorrow night. Don't worry too much—this is a short couple of lectures and not really bestowing an entirely new skill set."

Relieved, Aiko gave a short bow and was grateful to excuse herself. There were two more places she wanted to stop by before she went home and had a nice, hot shower. If she let herself put this off, she might forget entirely.

Involuntarily, she huffed, irritated with herself.

'I shouldn't lie to myself. I'm not likely to forget about the first thing because I want to do it, and I might avoid the second because it sucks. Forgetting hardly factors into the equation.'

Suddenly, Sensei's bizarre recurring warnings to wait until his prospective partner was seventeen in the unlikely circumstance that he ever decided he wanted to fuck someone fourteen years his junior (advice that first emerged when he was about ten and extended off-and-on until he was fourteen) fit into an unsettling context.

'He was so convinced that I was besmirching his as-of-yet unborn daughter that the abstract concern was retained even after he wiped his memory.' Under his headband, pure stress caused his Sharingan to burn through a shocking amount of chakra before Kakashi calmed his breathing.

Okay, mostly calmed his breathing.

Fine, he was all but hyperventilating, one hand shaking as it supported part of his weight on the counter after his sudden bout of faintness when the end of that jutsu hit him like a brick to the head. It didn't matter—no one was there to see.

His brain was breaking a little bit.

'He didn't say 'don't screw my baby. He said 'don't screw my baby until she's seventeen.' Oh kami, sensei. You are the strangest human being I have ever met.'

Sullenly, Kakashi shook his head and went back to brushing his teeth. He'd been having a perfectly acceptable evening home alone when a splitting migraine had heralded the breaking of what he now knew had been sealed memories.

'Why did he think I was involved with Aiko?'

Calmly, Kakashi spat and rinsed his mouth free of toothpaste, put the brush down, and put his palms on the mirror. Then he leaned forward and thunked his forehead against the glass with a good bit of force.

Nope. Still awake.

Unless those memories had been unsealed far too early, there was no reason for Minato to think that. (Oh kami, what if they had? Did that mean he was going to seduce his former student? He'd never seduced someone in his life, outside of mission constraints, and that didn't count, it was a completely different thing. He could hardly leave forever or kill her when he had the information he needed. This would almost certainly be an extracurricular type of seduction and not an assignment, after all.)

Where had Minato gotten such an idea? Surely not from the way they'd interacted. Shamefully, his nine year old self had been as chronically unimpressed about a team he now knew to be remarkable as he had been about almost everyone else. It just didn't make sense.

'It's not like Minato could have possibly known I've inadvertently scarred the image of her all but naked into my brain, courtesy of Naruto,' he thought sullenly, feeling a resentment for the blonde boy very similar to what he'd felt as a nine year old when he thought Naruto was trying to worm his way into Minato's good graces.

His subconscious eagerly latched onto the scapegoat. Naruto. This was all Naruto's fault somehow. He just didn't know how the boy had done it.

'Well, I do know that I need to sit him and Sasuke down and read them a riot act for being colossal jackasses after a comrade ended up behind enemy lines,' he thought darkly. Did the Academy really not cover that sensitivity training anymore? Even as a nine-year old eavesdropping on a conversation that had nothing to do with him, he'd cringed to realize the seriousness of what exactly the boys had been teasing Aiko about.

In one way, it was a mark of their comparative innocence. No one who had grown up in wartime would do such a thing out of ignorance. Cruelty, perhaps, but not ignorance. Neither of the boys were cruel.

He stiffened at the faint sound of a knock on his door. Damnit, it was the middle of the evening. Had someone come to call him in for an emergency assignment?

'Unlikely. They'd be pulsing their chakra signature to signal an emergency.'

Warily, Kakashi wandered out of the bathroom and meandered to where he'd left a clean mask, not bothering to hurry as he pulled it over his head. Whoever it was could wait.

"Kakashi!"

The voice was muffled, but unmistakable.

Panic.

What to do?

He had definitely not prepared to see Aiko again yet. He was still re-evaluating and assimilating his new memories and experiences.

'Come to think of it, I should probably talk to her about what she confessed to Minato about Sasori.'

And didn't that make him feel like a gigantic shithead? He'd never even asked: content to eliminate the threat and take her bravado at its face. Of course it was bravado. Only an idiot could truly be completely unaffected by being taken prisoner. She was a lot of things (hard to read, occasionally dramatic, and completely unaware of her own limits at times) but she wasn't an idiot.

"There's a jutsu I desperately need you to teach me or I will wilt and die and it'll be your fault," came the faint call.

Involuntarily, he snorted. Was she really still going on about that Shadow Shuriken Jutsu?

"I neeeeeeed it," was the plaintive cry, almost as if she'd heard him, and the soft sound of a little hand connecting with his door. And another- she was pawing at it like a kitten locked outside at night.

Apparently so.

Well, he didn't actually mind teaching that one. Minato had liked it well enough that he'd been eager to learn it. …Though he hadn't used it in so long that he'd barely remembered it existed. With its wide range, it was more flash than substance, unless your opponent was large and slow or otherwise unable to dodge the bulk of it. Personally, it wasn't worth it for him to use in most circumstances. He was so used to thinking in terms of conserving his chakra to compensate for his Sharingan that it was hard to actively choose to use a chakra-expensive jutsu unless it was the perfect one for the task.

He could be an adult and go confront her now, and possibly have that troublesome conversation and teach her the technique as a way to both end the awful emotion-infested dialogue and reward her for not running away when he asked her how she was doing.

Orrrrrr, he could hide under his bed until she left and leave a scroll with the handsigns and an explanation in her mailbox. It was a nearly fool-proof strategy. He had learned it from Minato-sensei himself as an excellent method of placating Kushina-san when she might have otherwise tossed him through a window when he tried to see her in person. Aiko wasn't likely to be angry, but it was still an excellent way to avoid unnecessary socialization…

That second option sounded really good, now that he considered it.

With a sigh, Kakashi opened his door and let a rather determined teenager use those appallingly well-practiced puppy eyes on him. She looked insufferably pleased to see him open the door.

If Aiko was in enough of a mood to come to his apartment and beg him to teach her, he wouldn't be able to hide. She knew where he was at all times (a singularly disturbing thought, had he trusted her any less to respect his privacy). But Aiko probably wasn't in a mood to indulge his desire for avoidance if he was so blatant about it—she might well just use the Hiraishin seal he had in his hip pouch if he ignored her.

'Come to think of it, was that what she was doing in that crowd of puppets?'

It didn't quite fit. She seemed to be able to destroy any machine that she'd touched, but that hardly correlated to the instantaneous travel Hiraishin allowed. But there had definitely been no mundane explosive materials like pre-made tags, powder, or even flammable liquids or gases. It had really seemed that her touch just meant death. There had to be something more to it.

"I can teach you that tomorrow," Kakashi cut Aiko off before she could demonstrate just how little dignity she had when there was something bright-colored and destructive involved, well aware of what she wanted. "But you have to answer a question."

Too late, he realized that he hadn't even decided if he wanted to let her know that he remembered meeting her in the past. Assuming it had happened on that mission and he wasn't remembering things too early—it would be even more awkward if she didn't know what he was talking about…

Well. If he decided he wanted to let the subject drop, he could always come up with another question that wouldn't give that away.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." She grinned up at him, looking tired and like she'd been beat to hell and back. "That was all I wanted. See you at noon?"

'My keen intuition tells me that her mission was not particularly relaxing.'

Kakashi repressed a sigh. So much for his good intentions. Why did he even let Tsunade avoid really giving her time off? Even if her mood seemed better, her physical condition didn't seem improved at all. "Seven a.m. sharp," he corrected gravely. Then he closed his door without waiting for her reply.

She'd probably go to bed now that she had what she wanted.

'Well, that went much better than I'd feared.'

But god, it was wonderful to see her Kakashi again, and not the weird chibi version who was about as approachable as a poison-tipped cactus. Even if he did look uncomfortable to see her at his door. Disoriented, even.

Maybe he was just that tired.

"I don't see how I could possibly sleep right now." Aiko heaved a sigh, not bothering to hurry at all. Really, what she was doing was best described as an 'amble', but she was enjoying the weather and the sights of her own Konoha. Even if it was in lockdown because they were possibly on the verge of war, it was still a thousand times better than the idyllic, pre-Kyuubi version she'd last seen.

And hadn't that all been food for thought?

Her feet took her somewhere she hadn't been in years without her making a real, conscious decision. It had never been a favorite destination.

'No delicate flower, I,' Aiko mused with rather bleak humor, surveying the field where the idiotic kunoichi classes had been forced to meet to prepare flower arrangements. Her classmates had generally treated it like a field trip, but she'd always had condescension for the stereotyping. Kunoichi weren't all infiltration specialists—putting flowers in vases was never going to be that crucial to her life, and just wasn't that hard either. (Besides, how likely would it be that someone would stop her to demand an impromptu floral arrangement even if she was masquerading as a civilian woman?)

A lot of the rules they had learned seemed so arbitrary and useless. She could appreciate flower meanings as a code—one she had dutifully memorized at the time and all but forgotten now—but really, it seemed so pretentious to her to make a grand system of it. What was the point of complicating something that was at its essence about making beautiful things? All the rules made hanakatoba an excellent outlet for creativity for people who thought like Ino did, but for the layman who would never create anything so complex or even be able to properly appreciate what others made… They were just in the way.

'People make things too complicated. Unfortunately, I'm still a people.'

She'd had to admit to herself what she was really doing when she first bent to pick a particularly fragrant flower—one that stank, but she liked the color. Aiko didn't bother to lie to herself about where she was going after that being an impulse, but she was a little grateful that it was almost dark, even if no one was likely to bother her there.

"Hey, mom. Dad." Aiko cleared her throat awkwardly, feeling a few delicate stems break under her fingers. She consciously loosened her vise grip and laid down the rather sparse, utilitarian bouquet beside the plain, ugly hunk of rock. "I, ah, picked out the flowers myself based on appearance, so they probably say something like 'victory in battle' or 'a pox upon your house, foul harlot', but I meant well. I'm… I'm sorry I've never come to talk to you before," she settled, feeling unbearably stupid.

It was just a rock. It couldn't possibly hope to stand in for the real people she'd convinced herself for years that she hadn't any curiosity about, even if their names were engraved there. How very deconstructive—both stated presence and acknowledged absence were encompassed in a few simple carved symbols.

'Does this really help anyone?'

Unsure, she blinked away itchiness in her eyes and rubbed at the back of her neck. "I think I was wrong about you two, and I understand you a little better now. It's…" she coughed, and tried again. "Making choices for and involving other people is harder than I thought it was. And I suppose I can't judge you by what you did on one particular day."

'Not as clear cut, is it?' a small, vicious part of her mind mocked her own past self. 'It's scary, having other people depend on you, and that was just one mission. Maybe you wouldn't have had the hardness of heart to choose your family over the hundreds of people in the village. Maybe you would have taken the easier way out of dying as a hero and avoiding being hated for your choices.'

She swallowed, hard.

'I don't… I don't want to think that I'd choose the greater good over Naruto. I don't.'

The stupid rock didn't have any answers for her.

Frustration and loneliness pulled through her chest like a violent wind, leaving her feeling bereft. Of what, she didn't know. Companionship? Guidance? Some mythical parental figure who would take care of everything for her? She scoffed bitterly at her own foolishness.

Still, the stone stood there. Implacable, impersonal, as if standing in judgment for the crimes she might commit one day against people who tried to harm those she cared about, or those she was sworn to defend.

'I wish I'd gotten to stay in Konoha longer that first day instead of leaving for Rouran again right away. I liked Minato much more than I expected to, so I might have liked to meet Kushina.'

Too late now.

Aiko averted her eyes, noting the grass wavering in the breeze more as a passage of shadows than sharp detail. "So… I think that's about it," she muttered, not entirely certain that coming to talk to a stone with names on it had helped anything. "I… goodnight, guys." She gave a jerky bow and fled the conventional way, letting her feet take her away from that one-sided conversation with a rush of air on her face and a pounding beneath her soles.

There was no rest that night, but there was thankfully a long, hot shower that cleaned off twenty years of dust and stress. Unable to sleep, Aiko stared at her ceiling until light crept back in.

#vapors #uzumaki aiko #electrasev5n #ninja daily #fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

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elsareyblog · 5 months

Text

BPD & OCD, total madness

(ENGLISH translation)

Anna,

Hello. How are you doing? I hope that very good. I share with you a fragment that is part of a larger document, where I write when I have inspiration about anything I feel I have to write about. It is a very messy archive, full of shameful intimacies and personal processes, which is made to be the last book of a great future literary career. Ha ha ha. Well, this is a part that came up on my dad's birthday. I started writing and this is the result. I am looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter.

Finally, I would ask you not to share what is written here with my dad because the only thing it would cause is him to be unnecessarily alarmed. My way of writing can be quite suggestive. Thank you.

Greetings.

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Whenever I've been given a diagnosis, I've felt like they were partially right. Because let's say that I have always been a psychological hypochondriac. Although I don't know if it could be considered hypochondria when you are correct about your suspicions that you are missing a couple of screws. You feel it in others and in yourself.

However, I said “partially” because certain things didn't quite add up. Until they told me I had BPD combined with OCD. As I said, I had searched for these disorders myself and there were things that did correspond to my reality at that moment and others did not. Until things happened that awakened and enhanced both disorders and it became undeniable. My problems are most often explained by both disorders.

(Maybe - Tony Dize & Ken Y. Weird soundtrack to be writing this.)

No matter what I do, the answers to the questions I have about my own behavior are found in my diagnosis.

Now, looking back, I can say that they were always at the bottom of things but, depending on the time, they were more or less “asleep.” In my childhood the type of attachment I would have for the rest of my life was determined: disorganized. This would be the precursor to my BPD and a problem to constantly solve in future therapies. At the same time, OCD began to form, especially in the educational and sexual part of my life (this would not contribute to the characteristic presence of trauma in BPD either). It was the rise of OCD. In adolescence, the necessary things for the BPD to be complete were finished being brought up, it was trying to wake up but the repression of the OCD almost always won the battles. That's how I became a quiet teenager, who didn't cause much trouble other than a couple of jokes. Bah, I mean I never went out to party except for the 15th birthdays of people I knew. And there weren't many either. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't have relationships, I spent years without having any action with guys. I didn't give my family any problems, that place was occupied by my brother who was living his adolescence with dignity as everyone should. He was the one who arrived at dawn without permission, who had bad company, who smoked, etc.

I got my family used to it. To the lack of problems.

Until I was 18 when I got a boyfriend and decided to go live in a province I didn't know and where I had no one, just my partner of only 3 months. To be exact, one month after we established a relationship we started preparing for the move that was going to happen two months later. It was my first bad and hasty decision that would mark the next four years with too much mental and emotional pain. This was the first real boom of the TLP.

Living in isolation with my boyfriend, 4 years older than me, made my worst side and my first “hit rock bottom” come out. That first year of living together I lost a lot of weight because I stopped feeling hungry. I went days without missing food, I was satisfied with a cup of tea a day. However, in the mirror I could never see that change. I always looked the same. It was as the years went by and seeing the photos that I realized how I looked to others back then.

We stopped living together for a year and a half but maintained the relationship at a distance and in 2018 we returned to live together in the same province where we had no one. A year passed before he told me that he wanted to return to Chile to work, earn money and come back. By this point I no longer felt any love for that man. I let him go knowing how it was going to end. Not a month passed until the relationship ended. I cried one day and I never cried again.

2019, September and my singleness returns. Living in a lonely house, in a lonely province. With nobody. I started smoking cigarettes. The same day I ended my relationship, I tried my first pucho. I remember that I felt excited just seeing myself in the mirror smoking, breaking a little the rules that I had created for myself. I finished my first year in psychology with good grades, passing everything. Looking at boys and girls even though I did nothing. Making two friends. I decided to adopt two beautiful kittens who blessed my life. After having argued many times with my ex-boyfriend because I wanted to adopt a dog or a kitten and always receiving a rejection of almost all my wishes, I deigned to take that step. A year later Marquesa arrived. I slept with a guy once, it was a failure. The pandemic happened, my second year of psychology went like shit, I had to start again some subjects. There I did well again but I still had 3 subjects pending that (spoiler:) I would never study again and would crown my posthumous abandonment of the degree. I only had to take three exams to pass, but I never gathered the guts to come back. In short, 3 years of (almost) zero sex, university and what would be the real rise of OCD. This is where my obsessions regarding animal abuse and my own loneliness began. Gradually I stopped leaving my house unless it was in the early morning to look for the reasons for the noises, for the meows and howls. I slept from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., spending the nights awake and overwhelmed with paranoia. It was in this situation that I began treatment with what would be my last psychologist, psychiatrist and nutritionist. Everything would improve a lot (I straightened out my sleeping routines, I did physical exercise, diet, I got a job,...) until the arrival of a young man into my life who would mark the beginning of the control of BPD in my mind and my life.

My suicidal thoughts returned, with increasing volume. My fear of abandonment, my emotional instability, my impulsivity, my disorganized attachment that sometimes clung and sometimes pushed others away, all of this and more began during this nameless bond. They gave me home confinement. I gained a lot of weight, stopped exercising (although it was a really satisfying decision) and stopped treatment. By this point, it was evident that the diagnosis had been quite correct. But it still didn't wake up as much as it does now.

2023 and I feel like BPD is taking the reins of my life. This writing arises from a thought I had yesterday. I had smoked some marijuana. Enough so that my obsessive mind did its debates in low frequency, where I could barely hear it. I turned on my computer, took off my sneakers and so on. In the midst of all that, a thought comes to me strongly: The things you are doing, those impulsiveness that you have that are highly reprehensible socially, that carefree and rebellious side that you are bringing out, are taking you down a path that does not seem to finish well.

Sorry, I'm not doing the thought justice because that's not how it came. I didn't have it with so many explanations and turns. It was simply the phrase: BPD is leading you to death in its own way. No self-harming behavior, no suicide attempts, no pill overdoses. But in another way.

I have very marked ups and downs of mood. I can be very sad or very happy. When I'm in a really good mood, I do most of my stupid things. Of my impulsive decisions, of my socially strange and reckless acts. Like having melon with wine outside of my work, smoking cannabis at work dinner, or going to Villa Carlos Paz at the house of a boy I didn't know well, without cellphone to communicate nor acquaintances in that place. Etc. The list is a little longer and increasingly bizarre. In that state, perhaps a little euphoric, I feel like I don't care about anything. That I'm fine, that there is a solution for everything, that nothing is too serious. That nothing stops me, that I am beautiful, strange and sensual. I feel like I like my lolita side, and people's reaction to my face or eyes. In those times is when I spend money giving unnecessary gifts to people just to thank them, making myself look a little strange to others. But they like me a little better when I'm like this. Except my bosses. Although I think even they like it when I am like that, it's just still wrong.

When I am sad is when my feet return to the ground, I isolate myself again, I regret everything I did under the effects of that untitled joy. Because…, it's very easy to know if I'm really happy or maniacally happy: you ask me why I'm like this and if I don't know how to answer it, it's because it's just the result of my emotional instability and not because there is a context that gives me genuine happiness.

However, despite the alarm that the phrase “which is leading me to death” suggests, which is dramatically negative, it is not without a good side. I have spent most of my life repressed, doing whatever causes the least chaos, whatever helps me go unnoticed in the lives of most of the people who have known me. Without stories to tell, without friends to share them with, without intimate experiences that lead to self-knowledge, without anything valuable in short. Having spent a decade in deep and constant depression. The beast must awaken eventually. The side effects of transgressed childhood sexuality, a broken home, and a superficial society had to make their arrival. I am overwhelmed and on the edge but it is a noisy release of a lot of repressed pain. I have to roar like a dragon and spit out all the fire that is in my dark soul full of secrets. At the end of all that I will have my rest, my peace of mind back, I will finally have my satisfaction with the story I am making of my life and everything will be better. I will be a mother, I will have a family and my life will last as long as my mental health is willing to cooperate. In part I have come to the intuition, not to say conviction, that I will not have a very long life. I have felt it in my chest since I was 6 years old, when I looked at my trembling fingers like those of Pope John Paul II (I think it was him). I have always felt in the abyss of things, in the imminent end of everything. I can't imagine life without that feeling, so I think it exists for a reason. Maybe I sense my destiny.

Nowadays, I want to fight against that a little because I don't want to die as much as before.

I just had another strong thought: Maybe I'm taking myself to a point of no return, a bit risky, to punish myself for not doing anything for my ex-partner's dog..

I don't know how to get his address so that he can get someone to take him away from the dog and she can be better. Every day that passes is a punishment of mental guilt because it's another day that he could be doing anything to his dog. I don't know how to get it because there is no other person who would be suspected of doing that other than me. Which would lead me to be a little exposed to the danger of a guy over 40 years old, angry and aggressive, with a brother who recently got out of prison and handled weapons. Plus that whole situation is more than I can handle.

All this helplessness and all the joy I may feel makes me make decisions that expose me to too much.

Or maybe it's just taking a self-justifying attitude because of the guilt I carry, looking for excuses for my behavior, and in reality I'm just a terrible person.

In any case, all is not lost.

I still stand by my most fundamental principles. I feel like I've lost everything else or that it's getting out of hand, because it's not adapting very well to what's right in society. Being like this, I get into trouble often and each one is worse than the last. (Sometimes I suspect that I also have some degree of autism, because I don't understand the world like others to a degree that it is absurd to explain.) However, Selene, especially from childhood, is more present than ever. She is throwing a tantrum inside me that is necessary and relieving. It's just that I also need a little restraint so that my life doesn't go completely to shit.

However, I am not willing to admit prohibitions, nor another home confinement or anything like that. I only recognize that I am aware that I am not well even though I laugh a lot, talk more and be more sociable. My mom thinks I'm better than before, I just overdo it sometimes. I don't know if “being better” is entirely correct, but rather I am acting a little more normal but at a very late age: 26 years old. I look less like a zombie, which is how I was before all this. Nothing was happening in my life, I didn't cause problems but I wasn't a person who acted normal either. I went from one side to the opposite in a short time, from doing nothing to doing anything.

It happens that... many things made me understand that almost everything lost its meaning. That I don't want to be like the others. That I'm fine doing my thing. That Gabriel is my karma because he is everywhere in my life without really being there. But that's it, he's already dead and it's not worth crying. But to enjoy the havoc it has caused, of which having found myself as a woman back is one of them. My sensuality back, the one he sullied. Almost nothing matters anymore. The aggressiveness of nature fills every piece of the world and life, fighting against it is a guaranteed defeat. Feel guilty because it is your minimum deserved punishment for the bad acts you have had. Do with that guilt what you can, what your mental health can. And then, live intensely so that the day you die you have reasons to shed your last tears.

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(ESPAÑOL original)

Anna,

Hola. ¿Cómo está? Espero que muy bien. Le comparto un fragmento que es parte de un documento más amplio, donde escribo cuando tengo inspiración sobre cualquier cosa de la que sienta que tengo que escribir. Es un archivo muy desordenado, lleno de intimidades vergonzosas y procesos personales, que está hecho para ser el último libro de una gran carrera literaria futura. Jajaja. Bueno, esto es una parte que surgió el día de cumpleaños de mi papá. Me puse a escribir y salió esto. Estoy atenta a leer sus opiniones al respecto.

Por último, sí le pediría que no comparta lo que está escrito aquí con mi papá pues lo único que provocaría es que se alarme innecesariamente. Mi forma de escribir lo puede sugestionar bastante. Gracias.

Saludos.

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Siempre que me han dado un diagnóstico, sentía que estaban parcialmente en lo correcto. Porque digamos que siempre he sido una hipocondríaca psicológica. Aunque no sé si se podría considerar hipocondría cuando estás en lo correcto respecto a tus sospechas de que te faltan un par de tornillos. Lo sientes en los demás y en ti misma.

Sin embargo, dije “parcialmente” porque por ahí ciertas cosas no terminaban de encajar. Hasta que me dijeron que tenía TLP combinado con TOC. Como dije, yo había buscado por mí misma estos trastornos y habían cosas que sí se correspondían con mi realidad de ese momento y otras no. Hasta que pasaron cosas que despertaron y potenciaron ambos trastornos y se volvió innegable. Mis problemas la mayoría de veces se explican por ambos trastornos.

(Quizás - Tony Dize & Ken Y. Raro soundtrack para estar escribiendo esto.)

No importa qué haga, las respuestas a las preguntas que me surgen de mi propio comportamiento se encuentran en mi diagnóstico.

Ahora, mirando al pasado puedo decir que siempre estuvieron en el fondo de las cosas pero, según la época, estaban más o menos “dormidos”. En mi infancia se determinó el tipo de apego que tendría el resto de mi vida: desorganizado. Esto sería el precursor para mi TLP y un problema a solucionar constantemente en futuras terapias. Al mismo tiempo, el TOC empezó a formarse, sobre todo en la parte educacional y sexual de mi vida (esto tampoco colaboraría para la característica presencia de traumas en el TLP). Era el auge del TOC. En la adolescencia se terminaron de remover las cosas necesarias para el TLP, que estaba queriendo despertar pero la represión del TOC ganaba casi siempre las batallas. Así fue como fui una adolescente tranquila, que no daba demasiado problema más que un par de chascarrillos. Bah, me refiero a que no salía nunca de fiesta más que a cumpleaños de 15 de gente conocida. Y no fueron muchos tampoco. No tomaba, no fumaba, no tenía relaciones, pasé años sin tener nada de acción con chicos. No le daba problemas a mi familia, ese lugar estaba ocupado por mi hermano que sí estaba viviendo dignamente su adolescencia como deben hacer todos. Él era el que llegaba a la madrugada sin permiso, que tenía mala junta, que fumaba, etc.

Acostumbré a mi familia a eso. A la falta de problemas.

Hasta que a los 18 me puse de novia y decidí irme a vivir a una provincia que no conocía y en la que no tenía a nadie, con mi pareja de hace apenas 3 meses. Para ser exactos, al mes de novios empezamos con los preparativos de la mudanza que iba a ocurrir dos meses después. Fue mi primera mala y precipitada decisión que marcaría los siguientes cuatro años con demasiado dolor mental y emocional. Este fue el primer auténtico auge del TLP.

La convivencia aislada con mi novio, 4 años mayor que yo, hizo que mi peor lado y mi primer “tocar fondo” salieran. Ese primer año de convivencia adelgacé un montón porque había perdido la capacidad de sentir apetito. Pasaba días sin extrañar la comida, me saciaba con una taza de té al día. Sin embargo, en el espejo nunca pude ver ese cambio. Yo siempre me veía igual. Fue con el pasar de los años y viendo las fotos que me di cuenta cómo me veía para los demás.

Dejamos de convivir un año y medio pero manteniendo la relación a distancia y en 2018 volvimos a vivir juntos en la misma provincia donde no teníamos a nadie. Pasó un año hasta que me dijo que quería volver a Chile para trabajar, juntar plata y volver. Para este punto yo ya no sentía amor alguno por ese hombre. Dejé que se fuera sabiendo cómo iba a terminar. No pasó un mes hasta que la relación terminó. Lloré un día y no volví a llorar jamás.

2019, septiembre y vuelve mi soltería. Viviendo en una casa sola, en una provincia sola. Sin nadie. Empecé a fumar cigarrillos. El mismo día que terminé mi relación, probé mi primer pucho. Me acuerdo que sentí excitación de sólo verme al espejo fumando, rompiendo un poco las reglas que yo misma me había creado. Terminé mi primer año en psicología con buenas notas, aprobando todo. Mirando chicos y chicas aunque no hacía nada. Haciendo dos amigas. Decidí adoptar dos gatitos hermosos que bendijeron mi vida. Después de haber discutido muchas veces con mi ex novio porque quería adoptar un perrito o un gatito y de siempre recibir una negativa a casi todos mis deseos, me digné a tomar ese paso. Un año después llegó Marquesa. Me acosté con un chico una vez, fue un fracaso. Pasó la pandemia, me fue como la mierda en el segundo año de psicología, tuve que recursar. Ahí me volvió a ir bien pero me quedaron pendientes 3 materias que (spoiler:) no volvería a estudiar jamás y coronarían mi póstumo abandono a la carrera. En resumen, 3 años de (casi) cero sexo, universidad y lo que sería el auténtico auge del TOC. Aquí empezaron mis obsesiones respecto al maltrato animal y a mi propia soledad. Gradualmente dejé de salir de mi casa a menos que fuera en la madrugada para buscar las razones de los ruidos, de los maullidos y aullidos. Dormía de 10 a 20 hs, pasaba las noches despiertas y abrumada de paranoias. En esta situación fue que comencé el tratamiento con los que serían mis últimos psicólogo, psiquiatra y nutricionista. Todo mejoraría mucho (enderecé mis rutinas de sueño, hacía ejercicio físico, dieta, estudiaba,...) hasta la llegada de un jóven a mi vida que marcaría el inicio del control del TLP en mi mente y mi vida.

Volvieron mis pensamientos suicidas, cada vez con más volúmen. Mi miedo al abandono, mi inestabilidad emocional, mi impulsividad, mi apego desorganizado que a veces se aferraba y a veces alejaba al resto, todo esto y más empezó durante este vínculo sin nombre. Me hicieron internación domiciliaria. Subí mucho de peso, dejé de hacer ejercicio (aunque fue una decisión francamente satisfactoria) y abandoné el tratamiento. Para este punto, era evidente que el diagnóstico había sido bastante correcto. Pero todavía no despertaba tanto como ahora.

2023 y siento que el TLP está tomando las riendas de mi vida. Este escrito surge a partir de un pensamiento que tuve ayer. Había fumado un poco de marihuana. Lo suficiente como para que mi mente obsesiva hiciera sus debates en baja frecuencia, donde casi no la podía escuchar. Encendí mi compu, me saqué las zapatillas y demás. En medio de todo eso, un pensamiento llega fuerte a mí: Las cosas que estás haciendo, esas impulsividades que tienes que son altamente reprochables socialmente, ese lado despreocupado y rebelde que estás sacando, te están llevando por un camino que no parece que vaya a terminar bien. Perdón, no le estoy haciendo justicia al pensamiento pues no es así como llegó. No lo tuve con tantas explicaciones y vueltas. Fue simplemente la frase: el TLP te está conduciendo a la muerte a su manera. Sin conductas autolesivas, sin intentos de suicidios, sin sobredosis de pastillas. Pero de otra manera.

Tengo altibajos muy marcados de ánimo. Puedo estar muy triste o muy alegre. Cuando estoy de muy buen ánimo, hago la mayoría de mis estupideces. De mis decisiones impulsivas, de mis actos socialmente extraños e imprudentes. Como tomar melón con vino fuera de mi trabajo, fumar en la cena de trabajo, ir a Carlos Paz a la casa de un chico que no conocía demasiado, sin celular ni conocidos en ese lugar. Etcétera. La lista es un poquito más larga y cada vez más bizarra. En ese estado, quizás un poco eufórico, siento que no me importa nada. Que estoy re bien, que para todo hay solución, que nada es demasiado grave. Que nada me para, que soy linda, rara y sensual. Siento que me gusta mi lado lolita, la reacción de la gente ante mi cara. Ahí es cuando gasto plata en hacer regalos innecesarios a gente sólo para agradecerles, resultando un poco rara para los demás. Pero les caigo un poco mejor cuando estoy así. Exceptuando a mis jefes. Aunque creo que hasta a ellos les gusta cuando me encuentro de esa forma, sólo que sigue sin estar bien.

Cuando estoy triste es cuando mis pies vuelven a la tierra, vuelvo a aislarme, me arrepiento de todo lo que hice bajo los efectos de esa alegría sin título. Pues es muy fácil saber si estoy realmente feliz o maniaticamente feliz: me preguntas por qué estoy así y si no sé responderte es porque es sólo fruto de mi inestabilidad anímica y no porque haya un contexto que me dé genuina felicidad.

No obstante, a pesar de la alarma que sugiere la frase “que me está conduciendo a la muerte”, que es dramáticamente negativa, no carece de lado bueno. He pasado la mayoría de mi vida reprimida, haciendo lo que menos caos provoque, lo que ayude a pasar desapercibida en la vida de la mayoría de la gente que me ha conocido. Sin historias que contar, sin amigos con quienes compartirlas, sin experiencias íntimas que llevan al autoconocimiento, sin nada valioso en resumen. Habiendo pasado una década en profunda y constante depresión. La bestia debía despertar eventualmente. Los efectos secundarios de la sexualidad infantil transgredida, del hogar roto y la sociedad superficial tenían que hacer su flamante llegada. Estoy desbordada y al límite pero es un descargue ruidoso de mucho dolor reprimido. Tengo que bramar como un dragón y escupir todo el fuego que hay en mi alma oscura y llena de secretos. Al final de todo eso tendré mi descanso, mi tranquilidad de vuelta, tendré mi satisfacción con la historia que estoy haciendo de mi vida por fin y todo será mejor. Seré madre, tendré una familia y mi vida durará lo que mi salud mental esté dispuesta a colaborar. En parte he llegado a la intuición, por no decir convicción, de que yo no tendré una vida muy larga. Lo siento en el pecho desde los 6 años, cuando miré mis dedos temblorosos como los del papa Juan Pablo II (creo que era él). Siempre me he sentido en el abismo de las cosas, en el fin inminente de todo. No me imagino la vida sin esa sensación, por lo que pienso que existe por una razón. Quizás presiento mi destino.

Hoy en día, quiero luchar un poco contra eso porque ya no quiero morir tanto como antes.

Acabo de tener otro pensamiento fuerte: Quizás estoy llevándome a un punto de no retorno, un poco arriesgado, para castigarme por no hacer nada por la perra de mi ex compañero.

No sé cómo obtener su dirección para que le caiga alguien que lo aparte de la perra y ésta pueda estar mejor. Todos los días que pasan son un castigo de culpa mental porque es otro día que él le podría estar haciendo cualquier cosa a su perra. No sé cómo conseguirla pues no hay otra persona de quien sospecharían que haría eso más que en mí. Lo cual me llevaría a estar un poco expuesta al peligro de un tipo de más de 40 años, enojado y agresivo, con un hermano que hace poco salió de la cárcel y manejaba armas. Además de que toda esa situación es más de lo que yo puedo manejar.

Toda esta impotencia y toda la alegría que pueda sentir hace que tome decisiones que me exponen a demasiado.

O quizás sólo es tomar una actitud justificativa por la culpa que llevo, buscando excusas por mi comportamiento, y en realidad soy simplemente una pésima persona.

En cualquier caso, no todo está perdido.

Todavía mantengo mis principios más fundamentales. Siento que he perdido todo el resto o que se está yendo de mis manos, porque no se está adaptando muy bien a lo que es correcto en la sociedad. Al ser así, me meto en problemas seguido y cada uno es peor que el anterior. (A veces sospecho que algún grado de autismo también tengo, porque no comprendo el mundo como los demás a un grado que es absurdo explicarlo.) No obstante, la Selene, sobre todo de la infancia, está más presente que nunca. Está haciendo un berrinche en mi ser que resulta necesario y aliviador. Sólo que también hace falta un poco de contención para que mi vida no se vaya completamente a la mierda.

Sin embargo no estoy dispuesta a prohibiciones, ni otra internación domiciliaria ni nada por el estilo. Sólo reconozco que soy consciente que no estoy bien aunque me ría mucho, converse más y sea más sociable. Mi mamá considera que estoy mejor que antes sólo que me excedo a veces. Yo no sé si “estar mejor” sea del todo correcto, sino que estoy actuando un poco más normal pero a una edad muy tardía: 26 años. Parezco menos un zombie, que es como estaba antes de todo esto. Nada pasaba en mi vida, no daba problemas pero tampoco era una persona que actuaba normal. Pasé de un lado a lo opuesto en poco tiempo, de no hacer nada a hacer cualquier cosa.

Pasa que… muchas cosas me hicieron entender que casi todo perdió el sentido. Que no quiero ser como los demás. Que estoy bien haciendo lo mío. Que el Gabriel es mi karma porque está en todos lados de mi vida sin estar realmente. Pero que ya está, ya es un muerto que no vale llorar. Sino disfrutar los estragos que ha causado, de los cuales el haberme encontrado como mujer de vuelta es uno de ellos. Mi sensualidad de vuelta, la que él mancilló. Ya casi nada importa. La agresividad de la naturaleza llena todo pedazo de mundo y vida, luchar contra eso es una derrota asegurada. Siente culpa porque es tu castigo mínimo merecido por los actos malos que has tenido. Haz con esa culpa lo que puedas, lo que tu salud mental pueda. Y luego, vive intensamente para que el día que mueras tengas por qué derramar tus últimas lágrimas.

#mental health #personal #bpd #ocd #toc #tlp

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the-lighthouse-lit · 2 years

Text

BBRae Week Day 6: Feral

Length: 4,930 words

Rating: Teen and Up for some harsh language and adult themes.

───

The girl moved like a caged animal.

There was a haunted look on her face as she shifted in place between the bike rack and the side wall of the supermarket, like it was all the space she was allowed. Gar had been watching her from a better secluded spot than the one she had chosen: the tree in front of him partially obscured him, and he was leaning on the wall of a house, where it may be assumed he knew its occupants.

Her lost eyes spotted a man in a suit walking down the street, and in an instant she was focused; became still, shook off the caginess and seemed to come into the form of a normal teenage girl. She left her spot to walk opposite to him, bumped into him ever so accidentally. Gar couldn’t hear, but saw her act surprised and apologize after they collided. The man didn’t see her pocket his wallet as she walked on, but Gar did.

She was quick. Sloppy, and clearly new—but she was living off the street just like him. At this point he could tell.

Gar had to leave his spot to follow her. She came to another secluded spot, by the dumpster, and examined her prize.

Careless.

Gar could clearly see her as she went through the wallet with tense fingers. She was too focused on seeking her prey –on what she could do to people-, to consider anyone might be watching her.

Gar got comfortable against the wall –blending in as he knew- as the girl went into the nearest store. In and out. If Gar wasn’t mistaken, she’d returned a cashless wallet for the ID and cards. Gar’s lips turned up at that. Nice girl.

When she left the store, he ran up to her.

“Hey.”

She moved away like he’d yelled at her, putting distance between them even though he’d stayed a few feet away to greet her.

“That was cool. Quick and clean. Bit sloppy at the end, though. Anyone could see what you were doing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The girl’s voice was a grave whisper. Nearly a hiss.

“You chose a good area, too,” he went on regardless. “Lots of distracted loaded pockets around. I bet there’s even some left for me.”

As he talked, he watched her, and it solidified in his mind she was new here. A recent runaway most like. She had good clothes, worn and ragged at the edges. The raven-black hair framing her face was stringy. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and as she walked beside him –because she’d never stopped or slowed down-, her muscles were tense. She was ready to sprint at any second.

She looked like she’d been through hell.

“I’m Gar. You?”

She stopped walking and made her face a snarl to face him. “What do you want?”

Gar knew it was best to spell it out for her. “You’re a runaway too. We gotta stick together. It’s dangerous out here. Worse for a girl.”

“If you knew what I was capable of, you’d be running the other way.”

Now. Gar wasn’t a stranger to boasts and trash talking. The streets were full of small guys like him who exaggerated their capability to defend themselves. And this was Gotham—there was always the possibility that the most unassuming character might be the recipient of a grand destiny or carrying a terrifying contraption or genetically altered to nightmarish faculties, so trash talking worked.

But the way she’s said it made him stop cold. She hadn’t sounded proud. Or forceful. If anything, she’d sounded resigned. Like she was stating a fact that was true against her will. One couldn’t help but believe her. And, again, this was Gotham. Gar should take her word for it.

The girl lost some tension, clearly feeling some satisfaction, or relief, that she’d stopped him in his tracks. “Don’t follow me,” was the last thing she told him before she walked away.

───

He followed her. Of course he did. He had to keep moving during the day anyway. Keeping an eye on a new girl the city might swallow up was the noblest use of his time he could think of.

The thing she’d said about being capable of great stuff was probably a badass boast, too. You needed those in this city. Plus, it wasn’t like Gar was completely defenseless either; he had his assets too. And why would someone capable of a great whatever be picking pockets in a parking lot?

The girl used her new cash to get a burger–Gar’s stomach rumbled at that. He pulled out the cheese sandwich he’d been saving since morning. Technically, he was a vegan. In reality, he couldn’t be too picky.

But he didn’t have to wait long for trouble to meet the girl.

The three men weren’t noticeable in appearance, just in demeanor; several feet away from the girl, Gar could tell they were following her. She was oblivious; Gar was too far away. He shoved the food in his jacket pocket and started after them, but not before an arm shot out from the next alleyway and pulled the girl in, the three men diving in right after.

Gar crashed against the wall when he got to the mouth of alleyway, and peeked around the corner. Two of the men were holding the girl to the walls by her arms; Gar thought one would’ve been more than enough. The other too stood in front of her, and one was talking to her. The bustling street behind him didn’t let Gar hear what he was saying.

But he didn’t need to know what he was saying to save her. One of the men seizing her got a beer bottle to the head. After that, the men were on alert, but they were looking at where the attack had come from, and Gar was already on the emergency stairs before them, slingshot pointing at the man who was doing the talking.

“Yoo-hoo!” He got a kick of waving at them when the trajectory of the stones he’d used on his second victim revealed his position to the two still unharmed. Now pointing at the man closest to the girl, Gar wasn’t worried. He had plenty of time to fly up the stairs after he incapacitated them enough for the girl to run away.

He just wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

One of the men raised an arm, and Gar was suddenly on the ground before him, having phased through the stairs like they had been air. His mind ran a mile a minute. Since when were there metas in Gotham? And a whole group of them?

He’d just made a big mistake.

“Who’s he?” one of them demanded.

The man holding his arm out towards Gar raised it, and Gar levitated on the air. Only now Gar saw the glowing red eyes, and a red mark on each the men’s foreheads.The man restraining him bore his eyes into his, and Gar felt it when he did… something. Something had gone through his brain, Gar knew it. The man chuckled. “He’s nobody. Street rat trying to play hero for the Gem.”

“Get rid of him,” replied the first man.

“NO!”

And then Gar felt worse than when the man had picked his brain. That had been violating, but this… this was his every worst nightmare heaped together, making his heart race and his brain want to explode. He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel—it was like his soul had been dragged to hell.

“Are you okay?” he heard, and his body woke up, every nerve recoiling from the girl asking, because he just knew it—she was the source of this.

As reasoning returned to his body, he was left looking at the girl wide-eyed, understanding dawning on him. “You… you!”

Of course. He’d heard the accounts of the latest monster terrorizing Gotham. Known only as the Feral, it was said to spread despair and anguish where it went. A creature with four red eyes and bloody claws, making nightmares come true, making its victims hollow shells of who they had been. And he’d just found her.

Gar used the feeling returning to his legs to run far away from there.

───

If you knew what I was capable of, you’d be running the other way.

Now he got her warning.

Still, he shouldn’t have pointed his finger at her like that. At the moment he’d been filled with nothing but fear and despair; he’d never known pain like that, and he knew she was the cause of it—but she’d done that to save him.

He spent the rest of the day trying to find her. Going back to the neighborhood he’d ran from, he asked around for last sightings of the Feral, now he knew what to look for. And even though he didn’t gain any info, he knew when he was on the right path—because he began to get hunted himself.

The chase went on for hours—Gar was agile, and he knew the city’s twists and turns by now, but the men following him were many and they were relentless. At a crowded street, though wearing a brand new stolen hoodie, he was finally grabbed and dragged into a warehouse. As was natural for Gotham, none of the many witnesses intervened.

The men roughed him up plenty before they told him why they had abducted him. “Spit it out. You were spotted with the daughter of Trigon. Tell us where she is now.”

Gar spat out blood before he rejoined. “Who the fuck’s Trigon?”

“Raven’s the key to all of it,” the man said, eyes wide, his grip tightening on Gar’s chin. Great, thought Gar. Fanatics were the worst. They might actually kill him in a fit of passion. “The demon king is meant to rule over us all! His seed is the portal that would let him grace this earth! Tell us where she is!”

“Hey man, I don’t know about some demon girl, alright! You got the wrong guy!”

The doors burst open, the aftershock nearly toppling the group over. After the show of power, it was almost funny to see the girl standing at the doorway looking lost, like she hadn’t meant to do that. Or maybe that was Gar’s sense of relief.

She didn’t have to choose what to do next—the men dove towards her as soon as they saw her. When they were nearly on her, her eyes located Gar, then turned back to the men gaining on her, and Gar thought he saw a second pair of eyes glow on her forehead. The lights overhead flickered, and Gar managed to see something dark and hazy take the place of the girl before he closed his eyes and covered his head with his arms. He couldn’t help it—he must have felt he’d see something mind-breaking if he didn’t.

When he emerged, he was surprised his mind was untouched. Gar had braced himself for the effect of her powers, but it had seemed to skip him this time. The girl was left on her knees, staring at the struck down men in front of her, blood on her hands.

Gar rushed to her side. “Hey. Let’s go.” He’d since learned her name, but it didn’t feel right to use it since she hadn’t given it to him.

“I-I tried to aim it,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to…”

Gar was thinking of touching the nearest victim to see if they were alive, and maybe give her some peace of mind, when two men ran out from within the building towards them. Judging she was in no place to fight more, Gar took care of it. In the harsh fluorescent light it was clear as day when his hands became lion paws that easily cast the men down.

When he turned around, Raven was focused on his hands as they morphed back to human. “Let’s go,” Gar insisted.

Raven took the hand that had just been a paw and they ran.

───

They had ran several blocks before they stopped and she panted, “You’re a meta too.”

“Guilty,” he panted back. “Why stay in Gotham?”

Gar got his breath back to normal before he answered honestly. “I wanted to be an actor.”

She looked at him like he’d grown two heads. “What?”

Gar tried hard to keep from laughing at her expression. She looked nearly insulted he’d said something so ridiculous. And most of his satisfaction came from the fact that he could tell he’d caused her to forget her troubles for a moment. “It’s true! The acting scene here is great. That’s why I stick around. Why’d you come?”

Unfortunately, that seemed to put the world back on for her. “I’m from here. And the people after me… even if I left, I don’t know that I could outrun them. At least I know this city.”

“Well, I’ve never seen so many metas in Gotham,” he said, resolved to distract her. “What the hell’s Batman doing?”

“Batman’s been trying to round them up,” she informed him plainly. “I ran into him a few days ago. And he saw me. I only got away because he had his hands full with the other freaks.”

“You met the Bat? Lucky.”

She scowled. “You’re lucky you haven’t.”

She had her arms wrapped around her torso, and it wasn’t just for protection. Gar eyed the thin jacket she was wearing, zipped up as far as it went. It was probably fine for an autumn night a few weeks ago, but the cold had recently snuck up on the city.

“Come on.” He reached out a hand, but she only flinched back at it. It made Gar glad he hadn’t tried to hug her, which had been his first instinct. He put his hand back and walked forth, stopping to look back when she didn’t follow. “Come on.”

If only because the cold spurred her to keep moving, this time she followed.

───

The two of them walked across a deserted street, half delirious with cold as they tried the door handles of cars in silence, one on each side of the street.

When Raven found an unlocked one, the sound and feel of the handle giving was the sweetest thing they could imagine.

They got inside. Gar got in the driver’s seat, produced a screwdriver from somewhere in his person and immediately bent to remove the cover of the steering column. Raven had only wanted cover from the wind, but it seemed he was determined to turn the heat on. She watched him work for a few moments until he looked up, his elf-life gaze making her start when she’d began to doze off from sheer exhaustion the moment she was able to relax on the seat. “You think you can magic-start this thing?”

She shook her head no. She didn’t even feel like trying her powers after tonight; she was surprised he was willing to risk it. He got back to work without another word.

As he easily made the engine rumble and turned the heat on, it occurred to her that maybe he’d said it just to prove to her he wasn’t scared of her anymore.

The windows fogged up in minutes. Soon you couldn’t see through to the outside, and it made Raven feel like she and the boy in the car were alone in the universe—the closest thing to safe she’d felt in days, ever since the sky had fallen down on her. The boy next to her was a big part of it too, she knew. Why was he even still here?

“I’m Raven.”

“I’m Gar,” he responded.

Her brows furrowed. “I know.”

“I know you know. But I wanted to pretend I was aloof and mysterious and kept my name from you like you did.”

She just looked at him. She didn’t laugh or scoff or anything, but Gar got the strange feeling, the baseless certainty that she appreciated the fact that he was cracking jokes all the same. She wasn’t in a place where she could laugh, but she listened.

“You know,” she started, “I went a couple of days thinking I had to worry about this new Feral character on top of everything else, before I realized they were talking about me.” Then she gave Gar the most vulnerable gaze he’d seen yet. “I can’t control it. It comes out of me. It has before.”

“I know. I believe you.”

“Why?” she countered, like she hadn’t been the one pleading her case.

He shrugged. “I’m good at judging things. My instincts have never led me astray.”

Her face crumbled. What he said must have touched a nerve, because she looked down to bury her mouth on her hands and keep from bursting out crying. A choked whimper made it out, and Gar’s heart broke. He could never stand it when girls cried.

“You can cry, you know.” He didn’t try to lay a hand on her back; he knew by now she’d just flinch away.

“No, I have to control this,” she stated. “It comes out when I’m emotional.” She took deep ragged breaths until they became more even. Gar now understood her red eyes.

It was then he remembered food. He retrieved what was left of his sandwich from his jacket and split it in half. “Sandwich? I got it this morning from the food pantry. Cheese lasts the longest.”

She gingerly took it. “Thank you.” He didn’t know if her reluctance was due to the jacket sandwich or about continuing to take his kindness.

He made conversation as they ate. “If I’d known you had those powers I would’ve opened with, hey, I can turn into animals sometimes. That’s usually something that gets me turned away from places. But it would’ve made you trust me more. Metas in Gotham, now that’s a group that should stick together.”

“I met a meta before,” she responded. “And I did think it was a good thing because we’d band together. But when he found out the nature of my powers, he told me what he was really doing in Gotham. He had a plan to take over the city and make it safe for metas, and my power set came just in handy.” Dry irony dripped from her tone. “And he didn’t care if he put me at risk for the cause. In the end I had to run from him too.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah. I think he’s still after me, too.”

“How many people are after you, exactly?”

She finished eating before going into the story. “I was running from the cops first. Then, I was in my car –when I still had my car- and a man stopped me, broke my window, forced himself inside. I prepared to fight against getting raped and killed, right?” Her eyes clouded over and she lost her airy tone when she went on, “But then he took off his baseball cap and showed me the mark on his forehead. The same one those men had before,” here Gar nodded in recognition, “And his eyes glowed red…” She shook her head. “I pretty much gave up there and then. I thought, this is too much for me. These are forces beyond my comprehension. If this level of monster wants to take me, what can I do about it? But he didn’t want to hurt me. He took me to this… temple, with other people like him. They told me I was to be the portal for a demon king to come to Earth.” She turned to watch his reaction here. But he kept looking at her, waiting for her to finish her story. “And then…” her eyebrow creased. “They got into a fight with these other guys in robes? I don’t know who fought for me, but I ran away and I left them to fight it out. That was two days ago. So, to answer your question…” she rubbed her right temple as she did the math. “The cops. A demonic cult. Another cult. Someone named Azarath. The other meta guy. Batman. And at some point I guess someone put a hit on me, because I’ve been chased by random gang-busters who definitely didn’t have powers.”

She still wasn’t touching on the reasons she was a runaway in the first place. Gar wouldn’t pry. “Damn, everyone wants a piece of you, huh?”

She looked at him. He got it. Her gaze said, And what about you?

“I don’t have an agenda,” he said.

“No, you’re just an idiot who willingly got mixed with a girl at the center of a demonic prophecy.”

Gar just smiled—he couldn’t explain himself either.

But it wasn’t enough for her. “Why?” she demanded.

Gar didn’t have an answer for her. From the moment he’d ran away from his own monster, a conman who’d managed to become his legal guardian just to take advantage of him, he’d gone through town after town, and he’d always done the most logical things, the things he needed to do to survive. Now all of that was out the window, and he didn’t really care to wonder why. Perhaps he was tired of just surviving.

But his silence seemed to enrage her. “Let’s make one thing clear. I’m not gonna fuck you.”

“Whoa!” Gar interjected.

“I’m not gonna fall in love with you because you’re helping me,” she barreled on.

“I’m scandalized and offended,” he laughed.

“I’m just stating the obvious. What else could you possibly have to gain from helping me?”

But for all her forwardness, she was blushing hard. Gar thought it was cute and admirable: cute because her body betrayed her discomfort, admirable because she was forcing herself to say what she thought needed to be said anyway.

“Uh, you know what friendship is?” he responded. “Maybe I fell in friendship with you.” He’d be seriously lying if he said he hadn’t noticed she was hot, but it didn’t mean that was why he was here. “For all you know I’m not even straight.” She scowled at him. “Okay, I’m bisexual. But…” He ran a hand through his hair. He knew he had to give her something. Gar was good with words by now—he had to be since he’d been on the run. He knew how to conceal and how to charm and how to lie. But he was still bad at talking honestly. Especially when he was figuring out what he felt while tried to talk about it. “You can’t always just do the most logical thing, right? I found a person who’s in my same situation who needs help. This is… natural. It’s… animalistic even!” Gaining courage as he talked. “I’m helping a fellow human being. I just… chose to be here with you.”

Maybe it was the warmth lulling her into a groundless sense of security, but Raven thought she got what he meant. Not only that, she wanted to let herself be persuaded into it. He was saying he’d chosen her to be a team, essentially. He was saying they could lean on each other, that he trusted her because he wanted her to trust him in turn. He was offering a home.

───

Raven didn’t know when she’d fallen asleep, but she woke up the next morning to Gar shaking her. “Rae, Rae.”

“My name’s not Rae,” she complained, but understood his urgency. They needed to get out before the owners of this car came, and it was light outside the foggy windows; they had pushed their luck as it was.

They got out of the car, and instead of the packed street they had been in, they stepped into the deserted Gotham bay.

Before them stood a dozen people in dark robes.

Gar had stepped protectively before Raven by the time the foremost figure pleaded, “Raven, don’t run. Don’t fear us. We’re here to help.”

“Who are you?” Gar demanded.

“We are the Church of Azarath.” The figure removed her hood to reveal an elderly woman with an expression of otherworldly calm on her face. “I’m Azar. And the time has come to come with us,” Gar’s shoulders tended before Raven, “Azarath is where you should have been brought up. It was a colossal mistake to leave you on Earth.”

“What are you…” Raven made out. “I’m not from Earth?”

“You are, but your powers are not,” said the woman. “Your mother hid you from us, Raven. She turned down our help once, and it was a mistake. For the good of this world, don’t make the same mistake.”

“Okay, what’d you mean the world?” demanded Gar. “She’s the one everyone’s chasing!”

“Your father’s forces, seeking to use you,” Azar explained. “As a vessel for his return.”

Raven sucked in air through her teeth at the word father. It was something she hadn’t told Gar. She eyed the back of his head, but he hadn’t even flinched. It seemed he didn’t even care if she lied to him.

“Why did my mother run from you, then?”

The woman kept answering patiently. “She must have she could raise you better by herself. She took a jewel for control we gave her –a mistake on our part- and she must have thought that was enough to keep things under control. But it was never going to be enough.”

It was the first time Raven considered the people might be telling the truth. She slowly came out from behind Gar as she pulled out a necklace from under her shirt. As she expected, recognition flashed in Azar’s eyes when she saw the red jewel. “Mom said never to take it off.” She said it mostly for Gar’s sake. His shoulders lost some tension.

Azar reached out a hand. She was still a few feet away, so it wasn’t like she expected Raven to take it, thought Gar. It was just the gesture.

“We can offer you control. We can offer you knowledge about what you are. And we offer you protection while you figure it all out.”

“Why are you acting like you’re taking her away?” Gar asked, though the woman had never looked at him. “Where’s this Azarath? Why can’t you help her here?”

“You need to be where Trigon’s forces can’t reach you. Otherwise, it will all be for nothing.”

Gar and Raven looked at each other. Gar felt bubble up on his throat something stupid, but heartfelt, like Can I come too?

───

Raven took one last look at Gotham. In the light of dawn, it had always seemed to her the city hid its claws, and managed to pretend it wasn’t the wretched hive it always was.

But somehow things seemed safer last night, alone in a car with Gar and the fog concealing the two them, than now in the bright morning, with an entourage of people who had sworn to protect her.

Gar watched her stare at the city, and watched the rows of robed figures silently standing by, waiting for her. Finally, Raven turned to him.

“Promise me you’ll get out of Gotham,” she said. “They’ll be after you because of me. It’s not safe for you anymore.”

“Already have my eye on a town down south,” he assured her. “I even picked out the train I’m hopping.”

Gar had tried to plead with the Church of Azarath for a way of keeping in touch with her, but that was shot down hard. It was impossible. Even if it could be safely done, Raven needed detachment. It struck through his chest like the cold Gotham nights, the thought that he might never see her again.

“I’m sorry there was a lot I didn’t tell you,” Raven told him.

He shook his head. “No hard feelings. I didn’t share my whole past with you either.”

It was to be their last conversation, and a part of Gar wondered if she was going to kiss him. But that didn’t seem right. It wasn’t the right note to end in. More than a romance, they had been each other’s lifelines for a while. He’d met her less than a day ago, and still he felt like a different person than he was before knowing her.

She left his side slowly, gingerly approaching Azar, who moved her hands in a pattern and produced a portal. One by one, the robed figures walked through it. When the last few were making it through, Raven looked up to stare back at Gar. When it was only Azar and Raven left, Raven walked back towards Gar and dove into his arms. He hugged her back, and that felt just right.

She pulled away, arms still around his shoulders, and took one last good look at him. Her eyes seemed to say more than she could speak out loud. I wish I didn’t have to leave. And thank you.

She was still looking back at him while she walked into the portal.

Gar made a smile, and hoped that would be what she remembered, whatever happened down the line. Mostly, he desperately hoped this was the right choice. If it wasn’t –and even if it was-, he might never know. He struggled to cast that thought aside while she was staring at him. Until the portal closed, he strived to only show on his face the sheer hope that they could meet again someday.

───

Notes:

For a while I’ve been sitting on this one-shot that would be the prequel of this, dealing with the events that led Raven to be a runaway. But BBxRae week happened first, and the ‘feral’ prompt made me think of this, so this cameo out first! So, this will likely have a prequel someday (Raven-centric without Gar, though). I probably won’t write the middle, which is Raven’s journey until she meets Gar? Because in my head it’s a comic or a graphic novel, not a written story. SO until I get the money to commission that, or if someone wants to adopt this story and write out the in between, this and the upcoming prequel is all that’s coming out form this universe.

Action scenes are still the bane of my existence.

It’s anyone’s guess if Gar’s destination is Jump City or on to the Doom Patrol.

I cooked this up in my brain while watching Bulgasal, so the ‘Raven’ in my head actually looks like Gong Seung-yeon with her big distressed eyes as they go from place to place because nowhere is safe as they run from a millenary monster.

Even though this is late I still very much rushed this so I can’t assure it won’t edit it to post it on AO3.

Thanks for reading! <3

#bbraeweek22 #bbrae #bbrae fanfiction #garchel #beast boy #raven #rachel roth #garfield logan #teen titans fanfiction #teen titans #dc fanfiction #fanfiction tag #bbraeweek

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