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lord-of-christmas-lights · 3 years

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I swear I have normal Narnia headcanons. However, none of them are featured in this post.

So! If you've been following my series of posts about my Inhuman Narnia AU and the couple of oneshots I posted on ao3 under ASkyOfKai, you've probably noticed that in this little universe I've created, Narnia is sort of...sentient. And I've just realized that I've only actually gone into depth about this on Discord with my friends who are probably very tired of hearing about it. So I'm making y'all suffer through it instead. Welcome to Inhuman Narnia 101, please take your seats because this is going to take a while.

Warning for religious themes, theological discussion, and some dark fantasy/inhuman/body horror concepts that involve blood and physical changes.

BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING: Please keep in mind that an AU is meant to be an alternate universe that may not follow canon information. If anything in this post contradicts canon on the creation of Narnia (it undoubtedly will), pay it no mind, this is an AU. It doesn't have to follow canon.

First off, a little explanation of the Inhuman Narnia AU in general. Basically I came up with this AU after seeing some other people on tumblr post about the Pevensies being not quite human after their time in Narnia. Just eerie, cryptid, a bit of dark fantasy kinda stuff. And I was like, "I'm in love, sign me up, I have ideas." I did not sit down and develop this all at once. The worldbuilding I've done for it has come slowly over the past few weeks through posts, fanfics, and discord rambles. The idea of Narnia being a sentient earth deity of sorts is a recent one and there is already so much to it. (Also I call her Narnia because it's convenient, she has other names but I haven't bothered to like, actually make any up so Narnia is what she's called.)

The most important thing to note starting off is that Narnia is not supposed to be a replacement for Aslan, nor is she necessarily "the hero to his villain". Aslan and I have an interesting relationship, as he is literally God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit/etc and I no longer really identify as Christian. While there are times that Aslan definitely takes a more antagonistic route in my writings, I don't actually see him as a bad guy, nor as a good guy. As God, he literally removed from our concepts of good and evil (in my opinion). The same goes for Narnia being an earth deity. I am a Christian-raised pagan, and I definitely subscribe to the idea that gods and deities are not subject to humanity and our rules. Narnia is not a good goddess, she is not a bad goddess, she simply is a goddess. Plain and simple. The dichotomy that exists between Narnia and Aslan in my writing is generally that of opposing deities, but this isn't a hard and fast rule. There were and still are times when they're friends, working towards the same goals. There are times when Narnia's power is stronger than Aslan's and times when Aslan's power is stronger than hers. There is no simple 1:1 comparison between them.

So, getting into motivations and why Narnia as a deity even exists. Essentially, I asked the question, "How do the Pevensies become inhuman?" and voila earth deity Narnia was born. Now, the basic in-universe mythology I've worked out is that Narnia and Aslan are two deities from separate dimensions that came together to create a new world, the world of Narnia. Aslan is the one who oversees things, he's the one who comes up with the ideas, and he's a little less attached to the world as a whole because he's a Creator, not an earth deity. Narnia is, however, and she literally makes up the world, she sort of runs the entire thing on a physical level, and she is much more attached to it. So she's always kinda taken on this role of making the things in her world the way she wants them. For the most part, she and Aslan designed everything together and they're both happy with it blah blah blah. Well, Aslan then decides to bring a few humans from this other world he's created to Narnia. And she affects them a bit (I've got headcanons about Digory and Polly that I haven't posted anywhere yet but I might soon), but it isn't until Aslan brings the Pevensies over that she really gets to experiment. See, there are other deities in the world that kinda rule over the various lands on a surface level (patron gods for Telmar, the Archenlands, etc, they just have less power than Narnia and Aslan) so she has a little less power over the people in those places, but the country of Narnia is both her land and her so when the Pevensies become the Kings and Queens and live there for 15 years, she's very connected to them. And it's through this connection that she starts to affect them. Honestly, I'm not sure if Narnia even knows what she's doing when she starts stripping away their humanity. I think it's that she can feel they're not from her world and she doesn't like that. She wants them to be a part of her, she wants them to belong in her world just the same as everyone else. (Side note—I know Telmar and some other lands in canon are based on people finding portals and coming through and I'd like to say that she does affect them a bit, takes away a bit of their humanity, but it's not to the same extent as the Kings and Queens of her lands).

"So Kai," you might say, "You keep empathizing that she is literally the land and the land is her. What the hell do you mean by that?" Well, essentially, she is...the...land. Basically if you've read Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus, there's this idea that Gaia and Tartarus are both physically their domains and able to take on a smaller, human shaped physical form because they're gods and not restricted by human ideas of only having one body. Narnia is the same. Her physical form is both the entire world and whatever smaller shape she might appear in to people. However, we have to acknowledge that their world is differently structurally from ours. There's magic, there's talking animals, and in my Inhuman AU, there is a literal Heart of Narnia at the center. Like a physical, beating, human-shaped heart. Except it's a lot bigger than a regular human heart. Also it's golden. And many many many miles underground. So anyways this is where she's centered. It's basically where her soul is. Probably under Cair Paravel because I just came up with that idea and I love it. And radiating out from it are veins of magic and blood, and these stretch all across the world. Now here is where we get into blood magic and some of those fun terrifying concepts I've come up with.

Narnia has her own blood, of course, but also whenever one of her Kings or Queens bleeds in battle, she kinda pulls it down through the earth into her own heart and veins. It doesn't really do anything to her or them in particular, it's just a fun side effect of them having a patron pagan god. Yes this includes Caspian after he becomes King. Also Peter's blood turns golden because he's the High King, and then later Caspian's does too because I just really like imagery of Ben Barnes bleeding gold. (Side note—when Peter returns to England, his blood goes back to red, but it does remain a brighter red than blood generally is).

Diverting for half a second here. Now, in both my regular Narnia writings and my Inhuman AU, Lucy is very very connected to magic. In my regular Narnia fanfic, she studies with the druids, who are sort of like BBC Merlin's druids. They're just like, chill dudes who run around in camps doing magic and making prophecies and shit. However, in the Inhuman AU, they are a lot darker. One of my favorite ideas with the Inhuman druids and Lucy is that they are so connected to Narnia's magic and her Heart that their hands become stained with blood. Is it their blood, is it Narnia's blood, is it someone else's blood? Idk, don't ask questions. But yea, their hands are permanently stained reddish-brown to almost black. In my regular Narnia stuff, I still like the idea of Lucy's hands being stained and go with just earth magic, dirt stuff for the reason why. But yea no, in the Inhuman AU her hands are stained with blood because of blood magic.

So getting a bit more into how Narnia affects the Pevensies now because I love talking about this lol. She doesn't consciously chose how to change them, though she does call them her creations. Generally the way her magic affects them is by connecting them to to the land in some way and bringing out certain traits they have. So for Peter it's his eyes flickering between regular blue and the amber of a lion's, feathers appearing on his back that grow into wings, having a strength greater than that of a giant's. His blood is golden and on clear nights, the Aurora Borealis in the sky is reflected across his skin. For Susan, her skin glints like glass in the sun and she can briefly glimpse the future. Her wounds are sewn shut with golden rays of light, her eyes are cracked but clear, and she seems to glow faintly in the night, a bit of the sun's radiance shining through her. Edmund has a bit of a star's power lodged in his throat, and can manipulate words, uses them to influence people and their actions. His skin is frostbitten in places, a side effect of ruling the Woods where the White Witch once held so much power, and in some spots his bones shine under the ice that spreads across his skin. Lucy has the stained skin from her stronger connection to magic, and when she speaks words from the Old Language (the one Aslan and Narnia used to shape the world itself), her voice echoes and rasps. Her teeth are too sharp, her smile too wide, and when she disappears underwater, she can stay for hours without surfacing. I want to get into Eustace and Caspian now too but this post is already extremely long and I've still got a bit to cover, so we're just sticking with the Pevensies for now. So yea, Narnia doesn't pick what she does to the Pevensies, she just connects herself to them and through that connection, they change. The magic that she is made of, that Narnia the world operates on, that's what changes them. However, as I stated already, she does call them her creations and feels extremely responsible for them.

Wrapping back around up to the beginning, this is the biggest source of conflict between her and Aslan as of the canon timeline. I like to believe that the lamppost incident was an accident, that Aslan didn't actually mean to send them back at the end of LWW and it was pure coincidence, wrong place wrong time stuff. That being said, it did happen and Narnia really didn't like it happening. The Pevensies did return to their (mostly) human selves in this AU in England, so when they came back in Prince Caspian, she felt disconnected from them again. She reacted to this by digging into them even harder on a spiritual level and essentially speedran them back to being inhuman throughout the timeline of PC, which generally takes place over a few months in my mind. I don't remember how long it was in the book, it's been quite a while since I read them, but it's only like a week in the movie and like eff that, overthrowing a kingdom takes a bit longer in my opinion. Now there are a few divergences here. 1. They all stay at the end of PC and yea that's it, they go back to being Kings and Queens and it's like a second Golden Age but with Caspian there as well. 2. Susan and Peter stay, Lucy and Edmund go back and it's a repeat of the human/inhumanity cycle for them + Eustace in VOTDT and then they stay. 3. Everything happens exactly as it does in canon and it's a constant cycle of humanity/inhumanity with the character's various trips and finally ends at The Last Battle. I like all versions and I tend to leave things a little open to the reader on what exactly happens, or I would if I could actually finish some of my drafts and post them. As you can imagine, Narnia likes 1 the best and 3 the least. She really wants her Kings and Queens to stay and rule her lands and like be awesome and stuff. However, Aslan prefers 3 the best and 1 the least. So again, neither of them is really good nor evil, they just have differing opinions on how the world should be run and what the Pevensie's fates should be. I do tend to side with Narnia, I really like exploring these concepts of inhumanity, but I also really like the concept of a cycle. That's very common in mythology.

So anyways, that's a bit of an overview on earth deity Narnia and her role in my Inhuman AU. If you made it this far, congratulations, and I give you explicit permission to use any of my ideas in your own writing/fanart/whatever, as long as you tag either my tumblr or my ao3 (lord-of-christmas-lights and ASkyOfKai) because I need more Narnia+Inhumanity content in my life. Thanks for reading all this and I'll probably be back very soon with elaboration on Eustace and Caspian's inhumanity!

- Kai

#inhuman/dark fantasy narnia #the chronicles of narnia #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #aslan #digory kirke #eustace scrubb #caspian x #narnia headcanons #rambles of a hyperfixating kai

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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

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do you have a favorite god to get boons from in hades? (mines is dionysus, he always manages to give me good boons like the bestie he is)

Dionysus is a super chill bro and I support you :) He is a ton of fun to run into, and status effects are always clutch. Some of his higher-level boons are awesome, too. (Looking at you, Dionysus/Zeus duo boon that can just wipe out whole swathes of the field with a Festive Fog lightning storm.) Also, he recently proposed we prank Orpheus together, and I died laughing. (My friend, who is not playing the game but is hearing me ramble about it A LOT on discord, looked up Zagreus on Wikipedia where I dare not yet tread for fear of spoilers several days ago, and they mentioned the whole “sometimes mythical Zagreus is conflated with Dionysus! Have you met Dionysus yet? Are you SURE you’re not also Dionysus?” a few times before that happened. I am so proud of my booze bro for making that happen.)

Honorable mention also goes to Aphrodite, who comes with some really great status effects (I think she might have my favorite Aid, and that Aphrodite/Zeus duo boon that charges it up super fast makes it incredibly useful, just a constant spam of charm spells) and really fun interactions. She was never my favorite Olympian as a kid (yes, of course I was a Greek myth kid, what do you take me for), but I appreciate how much she is exactly what she appears to be in this game, you know? She’s a little shallow but she’s not ashamed of herself for it. She’s free with affection and happy to share. We all know she’s the kind of lady who loves watching some drama go down, and she is not above starting some shit, but she’s not actually making any pretenses about that and I appreciate that on her. I legit believe she’s trying to help me get out of Hades because she thinks it’s just awful that anybody who counts as a real person should be stuck down there in that dark awful place (mortals don’t count as real people but, y’know, it’s the Greek gods, that’s sort of a given). And, ok, maybe I have a little extra affection for any version of Aphrodite who’s not just “ooh, she’s a slutty mean shallow girl who likes to manipulate everybody to stroke her own ego, we’re so ~edgy~ for thinking she’s awful”. They did a good job making an Aphrodite I can support, and I am glad for that.

Poseidon probably has the boons with my favorite effects (tidal dash is great and I love it), and Zeus, Athena, and Ares all have specific boons that I really enjoy in certain circumstances. Favorite character, though, hands down, is ABSOLUTELY Artemis.

Some of this is definitely pre-existing bias--I was always somewhere between Artemis and Athena for favorite deity back during my time as a Greek myth kid, although I like her way more than Athena here. Most of it is just that the way she’s written is so great. She’s awkward! She leaves me awkward voicemails because she doesn’t know what to say! She’s not super comfortable around all of her loud, competitive, extroverted relatives with all their enormous personalities and equally enormous egos. She is so obviously the sort of person who doesn’t entirely know what to do with herself when she doesn’t have a job to do, and, really, the world just makes so much more sense when she’s out in the woods on a hunt by herself taking things seriously and getting her work done. She is explicitly hanging out with her family right now for the express purpose of working together to save me, and you can hear in her voice how it’s making her a little tense having them around all the time but she’s doing it anyway because this is important. Her duo boon dialogue with Zeus! Dad acting all indulgent about his odd daughter who won’t do the sensible thing and take a husband or at least a lover, for Olympus’s sake, and Artemis who is like, ‘really, you really don’t get why I would rather be out in the woods than committing myself to dealing with the sort of guys we have around our family’. (The mention of preferring to be alone or with her nymph friends has big ace/lesbian crossover energy, and as a vaguely-aceish vaguely-lesbianish queer lady I am all about it.) And yet she still invites us to come hunt with her once we get out of the Underworld up to Olympus. Her safe alone space, away from her overwhelming family, and she’s willing to welcome Zagreus into it after she helps him get away from his family.

The tricky thing about Artemis is that nearly all of her boons are crit-related, which officially makes them the boon set I am usually least interested in. Part of this is absolutely math fallacies because math brain works very very hard at my actual job and does not want to come out and play during video game time, so it rebels against actually sitting down and calculating what percentage crit rate might do more good with my particular playstyle with various weapons than simply a flat damage increase from another boon. Part of it’s the fact that I can see the impact of other boons, but not the increased critrate (because everything is always going much too fast to notice a single individual crit when it happens). Part of it’s just how I tend to react to buffs and builds: law of large numbers aside, a flat bonus/effect applied to every single hit is always going to be more consistent and reliable than the crapshoot of a crit chance, and coming from a turn-based combat background, consistent and reliable is still a (possibly undeserving) priority to my game-strategy brain.

On the other hand, Artemis also has one of my favorite boons in the entire game in Support Fire--you know, the boon that fires off a bonus target-seeking arrow every single time you hit an enemy with your weapon in any way, or cast, even if you don’t hit anything. It’s pretty good with sword/shield/spear. It’s great with the fists, where you’re going to be multi-hitting anyway, and absolutely essential with the railgun if you’re me and can barely use the railgun. Exit Wounds, where enemies take damage when they drop the cast, is also really great. Both of those are boons with prereqs, so I’ll often hope for an Artemis boon early in the game (usually her cast boon or that boon that gives you a low crit chance on all damage, because that one doesn’t preclude putting other specific strike/flourish/dash boons on) to try and set myself up to get them later. It tends to work pretty well, plus then I get to hang out with Artemis more, and that is always a winner.

(Yep, I sure did write a six-paragraph response to a two-line ask. For everyone who’s followed me in the past couple of weeks--you MUST be aware by now that this is how I do. You MUST have figured out what you signed up for. I am not sorry. (I’m a little sorry.))

#hades game #C plays stuff #asked and answered #Anonymous

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threecrowsinatrenchcoat · 3 years

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Paint My Spirit Gold

Dukeceit Week Day 2: Green/Yellow

Fans of the YouTubers "Deceit" and Remus "The Duke" Sanders start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the two of them are more than simple internet pals.

AO3 Link: [here]

Word Count: 2187

Warnings: n/a

@dukeceitweek <3

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a watercolor-style painting of a snake. The snake appears to be made of melting chocolate, and there is a large bite taken out of its tail. Cherries and jam are leaking out of the snake at the bite wound. The snake's expression of horror is overly-exaggerated to the point of comedy. The caption reads: "liked your snake boi, @SerpenThyme. thanks for the inspo." /end ID]

A notification ding cut Janus off mid-sentence.

“Wow, someone left their cell phone on, so professional,” he said, giving the camera a dramatic eye roll. That someone was him, of course, because he was the only one in the apartment- just him and the running livestream- but that was no excuse not to be a drama queen about it. He finished wiping flour off his hands and grabbed his phone to silence it; but the notification made him pause. He flicked his eyes up toward the camera and gave a slight smirk.

“My goodness, I’m famous,” he drawled. “The Duke himself has graced little old me with some fan art.”

Most of the comments in the chat wanted him to show it, so Janus opened up Twitter to see the full post he’d been tagged in. It was a watercolor painting of the coiled-snake chocolate sculpture- lovingly named Jake by his viewers- he’d made for his YouTube video last week; it was wearing an expression of such comedic horror that Janus had to stifle a laugh. He flicked his phone screen toward the close-up camera on his counter so his viewers could see.

“How kind of you, Remus,” he said. “All of you should go scold him for what he’s done to poor Jake here.”

Most of his viewers would know he was joking- after all, they were the ones to nickname him Deceit when he provided neither a real or fake name for his online persona. They knew full well what he was like by now.

The oven timer dinged. Janus silenced his phone and set it aside.

“And our first batch of cookies is done. You know, why don’t we show the Duke some appreciation?”

[ID: An Instagram post by user @SerpenThyme. The photo is an artistically-framed shot of a stack of sugar cookies with green, yellow, and pink icing. Propped up against the stack is another cookie, with an intricate icing-drawing of an octopus. The photo appears to have been color corrected to have high contrast, low saturation, and a dark vignette at the edges. The Instagram user @OctoDukie is tagged. No caption. /end ID]

“You know, I have often been accused of actually being a little old lady, what with my fondness for knitted jumpers, rocking chairs, and incredibly fucked up murder mystery books. Today I am doing nothing to dispel this accusation, by making soup.”

The studio was dark and empty aside from Remus' workspace. Everyone else had left long ago, even his own brother, which meant that it was officially ass-o'clock in the morning (or, as most people called it, somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m.) But Remus was stuck in hyperfocus, honed in on putting the last touches on a commission that he'd been putting off for weeks. It's not that it was a tough painting- once he'd gotten started, it was actually a very creatively satisfying piece- but man, executive dysfunction could go suck a dick

“French onion soup, specifically. Because while I do like to pretend I am a classy bitch, I am also, regrettably, a lazy bitch with a distaste for anything that takes longer than one bottle of wine to make.”

Remus hated working in silence. It was stifling, almost suffocating. His brain needed noise like his lungs needed air. So when the studio had grown still and silent, Remus had flipped open his laptop and queued up some YouTube videos.

“So we have here three pounds of onions that we need to slice up, pole to pole. You’re going to cry no matter what, so if you have any memories you’ve been repressing since middle school, now is an excellent time to dredge those up.”

And if it happened to be 90% SerpenThyme videos, well. Sue him.

“Now the first rule of caramelizing onions: fast and sloppy is always better than slow and thorough… at least, that’s what every man I’ve ever slept with tells me.”

Remus choked and glanced over to his laptop screen just in time to catch Deceit's trademark smirk directed at the audience just for a moment. It was the deadpan delivery that always got him. Remus could barely hold onto a joke long enough to get through it without cackling mid-punchline, but this fucker could say the funniest shit like an off-hand comment.

He wiped his hands off on his jeans (what use were clothes if you couldn't use them as paint rags?) and pulled his laptop across the table. He typed out a quick comment, citing the timestamp of the joke, and after it was posted, he shut his laptop.

'Cause ass-o'clock was short for "get-your-ass-home-or-I’ll-kick-it" o'clock.

[ID: A screenshot of a YouTube comments section. The first comment is by user TheDuke, and reads: "10:42 wow, rude." The second comment is a reply by user SerpenThyme, and simply reads ";)" /end ID]

Janus plopped down on the couch with a slight groan. He didn’t need to stream today, but he really hated missing days. Besides… he was fine. Really.

He adjusted the camera until he was happy with the framing, and then checked the settings on his streaming software. Satisfied, he started the stream, and watched as his usual viewers rolled in.

“What do you mean I’m not in my kitchen?” Janus drawled, addressing the chat. He glanced around with an expression of faux-shock on his face. “My goodness, when did that happen?”

He chuckled, and then gestured to his surroundings. “Yes, we are in my living room today. If you must know, my closest and most trusted friend tried to murder me today- yes, Virgil, it was attempted murder and nothing less- and I survived with nary a scratch… and a broken foot, but that is beside the point. Anyway, I’m not allowed to stand for long periods of time, and I may or may not be somewhat inebriated by pain pills and couldn’t stand even if I wanted to. So we are cooking from my couch today.”

Janus paused for a few moments to read the chat messages as they popped up. A few get well soon’s, a few theories about the “attempted murder,” Virgil- who moderated his chat for him- vehemently denying the “attempted murder” but otherwise refusing to clarify the event, and a large volume of wtf why are you streaming today, take care of yourself comments, which made him smile. But one particular comment caught his eye, almost lost amid the torrent of an active chat: wait this kinda looks like the Duke’s living room?

“Oh, VampSuga,” he said, addressing that commenter in particular with a slight smirk. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, since I can’t reach my oven from here, I thought some no-bake cookies were in order. For these you will need-”

[ID: A screenshot of a Discord conversation. The text reads:

“VampSuga: Ok ok hear me out. Dukeceit.

Starstruck96: who?

IneffableSnek: lmao

FeralBeauYasha: lol

VampSuga: Deceit and Remus Sanders! They’re totally dating. I will die on this hill.

FeralBeauYasha: Isn’t the duke w/ PatPat?

IneffableSnek: no thats his brothers bf

FeralBeauYasha: ohh

VampSuga: Did anyone see Deceit’s stream today? I swear that’s the Duke’s livingroom.

StarStruck96: idk that seems like a stretch

IneffableSnek: no wait i kno what u mean

IneffableSnek: im watching the duke’s old videos and that one where he shows off all his old weapons he’s in a living room kinda like deceit’s

FeralBeauYasha: They were acting all cute on twitter too

VampSuga: DUKECEIT” /end ID]

"Hey guys, been a while since you've seen my face and not just whatever my hands are busy with, when it's within YouTube's terms and conditions I mean. They used to be way more lenient…" Remus trailed off for a moment, then shook his head sharply and plastered on a grin.

"Anyway! In June me and a few other creators did a fundraiser for the Trevor Project, and y'all smashed the goal, so I let you decide what video I'd make this month." He paused, and gestured to the mountain of clothes piled behind him on the bed. "And you had so many juicy ideas to choose from, but you decided to dress me up like a Barbie instead."

Remus paused to scroll through his phone for a few moments. "Ah, ok, here we go. Twitter user YoonIsMyCat- oh, BTS, nice- sent in this first outfit. Uh… future Remus, put up the post here somewhere." He gestured vaguely to his right. "Y'all went with either a fuckton more clothes or a fuckton less clothes, which I respect. Apparently this outfit is called…” He squinted at his phone. “Amish chic? I take it back, no respect at all.”

Remus cycled through the outfits his viewers sent in, which ranged from the aforementioned “Amish chic” to “2008 rave attire” to “ok now you guys are just fucking with me” (which consisted of one of those big puffy snow coats, lime green in color; booty shorts with the shrug text emoji across the ass; fuzzy pink boots; and a yellow cowboy hat to top off the whole thing. It was awful. Remus loved it.) The mountain of clothes on the bed gradually became a mess of clothes spread across the floor instead, until there was just one outfit left.

“Ok so Twitter user VampSuga sent me this outfit that I’m gonna call ‘sexy librarian.’ I couldn’t find this exact sweater online, but-” he paused for dramatic effect, before brandishing a sweater toward the camera like a bullfighter. “My boyfriend had something that was close enough.”

Remus hopped up from the bed and switched off the camera so he could change.

“They’re going to lose their minds,” a voice drawled from the doorway. Remus threw his shirt at him.

“Shoo, I’m getting naked.”

[ID: A Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a selfie of YouTuber Remus “The Duke” Sanders, a Hispanic man with his hair dyed green and styled into a spiked mohawk. He is wearing a yellow knitted cardigan over a black button-up shirt. He is grinning widely at the camera. The caption reads: “my viewers pick my outfits! now live on youtube. go see what i look like as a sexy librarian!” /end ID]

DukeceitStan

first and only dukeceit shipper ig

DukeceitStan

wow there’s so many of you now! Hi!!

DukeceitStan

i want this to be canon so bad omg

DukeceitStan

i mean just look

[image]

how

[image]

cute

[image]

[ID: A series of three gifs featuring Youtubers SerpenThyme, aka Deceit, and TheDuke, aka Remus Sanders. Deceit is a black man with long, dreadlocked hair, and vitiligo patches along the left side of his face. Remus is a Hispanic man with green-dyed hair styled into a mohawk, many ear and facial piercings, and tattoos covering both arms. Each gif is edited so that the highlights are tinged yellow when Deceit is seen, and tinged green when Remus is seen.

The first gif depicts a close-up shot of Deceit’s hands as he carefully decorates a cookie with green and yellow icing. The cookie art he is working on appears to be a half-finished octopus. The gif then fades into a mid-shot of Remus, with his back to the camera, facing a canvas. The canvas is blank, and Remus appears to be laying out paints on a table to his left.

The second gif depicts Deceit seated at his couch, facing the camera. He has many ingredients spread across his coffee table (including oats, cocoa powder, and butter) and appears to be in the process of laying out several more. The gif fades to show Remus seated at a similar couch with a similar coffee table in front of him. The camera is angled slightly downward to better show the myriad of knives spread out across the table. Remus is gesturing wildly with a morning star held in his hand.

The third gif depicts Deceit in his kitchen. He is pulling on a bright, yellow knitted cardigan, and smirking toward the camera. The gif fades to show Remus in his bedroom, seated on his bed. He is holding up a similar-looking cardigan toward the camera and grinning. /end ID]

“Remus, it’s almost two in the morning. Come to bed.”

“I’m coming, sorry. Twitter distracted me.”

“Mm. I can’t believe the bird app is more distracting than I am.”

“You should try harder.”

“Come to bed and maybe I will.”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming. Hang on though, is it cool if I post this?”

“Sure. They figured it out anyway.”

“Sweet. Ok, Jannie, I’m coming.”

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It reads: “Dukeceit is canon.” /end ID]

#dukeceit #dukeceitweek #remus sanders #janus sanders #sanders sides fic #kye writes

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catbountry · 3 years

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Glancing over some of my older essays on politics, I’m kind of struck how, despite them not being written that long ago, I feel like I come across as a dumbass, or at least like somebody who thinks they’re much smarter than they actually are. And it’s weird, because most of my views are roughly the same; rather, it’s that I feel the way that they’re articulated comes across as too... I don’t know, smarmy? Smug, maybe? Lacking nuance. Blunt. Like I’m talking down to people. Obviously, this was never my intention, but it’s weird how something that was written while in my early 30′s somehow makes me wince a little... as I rapidly approach being smack-dab in the middle of my 30′s. God, I’ve been in my 30′s for almost 5 whole years now, fuck, where does the time go?

I think being able to come out of the other side of the Trump presidency in one piece has kind of helped add some much-needed perspective, at least for myself. I think the hypothesis that a lot of people who voted for Trump were desperate for some kind of change was proven correct when he failed to be re-elected due to his bungling of COVID, which, funnily (or not) enough, he almost could have looked like he was doing the right thing when he initially wanted to close the U.S. borders... except he’d been trying to restrict travel and close borders so often that of course nobody took such a suggestion seriously. And even if they had? Rich people still would have brought it over, because as we all know, rich people can just get away with all kinds of shit. Of course, once it actually hit, Trump really couldn’t handle the idea of looking weak at all, so instead, it was downplayed, joked about, not taken seriously, even though he’d been briefed that it was going to be really, really bad. And when he got it, and in private thought he was going to die? Well, once he beat it, of course he had to say it wasn’t so bad... even though it killed almost a thousand times more people than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most of them were seniors. I think that, as well as a general fatigue and disappointment over the lack of swamp-draining from those who weren’t fanatical devotees, probably sealed his fate. I admit, I wasn’t very sure Biden really had much of a chance for a long time... until COVID happened. But hey, at least we got our stimmy from Trump, right lads?

I’m still fully convinced that Trump never intended to win, and that his run was done purely for ego and financial gain, but his ability to effortlessly bait the media, as well as his unexpected exposing of the sham we all knew presidential elections to be, wound up rocketing him to success. Trump will no doubt go down as one of the most successful conmen in American history, one so slick he wound up conning his way all the way into the White House. The whole thing was like if The Producers was a presidential campaign, fascism included. Granted, I don’t think Trump was ever a true fascist; I think he wanted to be a dictator, but the actual job of being President was a drag. The cult of personality he accrued, however, was the biggest source of narcissistic supply that he’d ever experienced in his entire life. Hell, just being the literal President, the most important person in the entire fucking world, is a hell of a high that I don’t think he’ll ever really be able to reclaim. Trump’s going to be chasing that dragon for the rest of his life. Having “President” in front of your name is a lot nicer than actually, you know, having to be the President. I mean, look at how quickly Obama went gray. A lot of people are convinced Trump will run again in 2024, and I don’t doubt it, but unless something happens that completely throws us for a loop, I don’t see him being able to recreate the, er, “magic” of 2016. Everyone getting to see that, not only was his fanbase capable of having embarrassing public meltdowns just like the le epic triggered snowflake lib Hilary supporters, but that their meltdowns were even more embarrassing, and that they all looked like a bunch of fucking English soccer hooligans during the Capitol siege... well, I think that’s going to put off the swing voters, as well as the moderate Republicans.

Also, that Twitter knock-off founded by Trump’s aide, Gettr, being flooded by gay furries posting Sonic the Hedgehog foot porn? Feels like classic 4chan-style raiding. I approve. It almost feels like we’re healing, even if it’s just a little bit.

But what the fuck did we even learn from all this? What did I learn from this?

I don’t know. It feels like over the time I’ve been on Tumblr, what was once SJW became woke, and being woke has become very normal; so normal, in fact, that fucking massive corporations that use slave labor overseas will change their Twitter icons to rainbow every June because The Gays have become a safe, marketable demographic. On one hand, it’s nice to know that, at least in what I guess is considered the western world, LGBT people are more accepted now than they ever have been. On the other... god, it feels so cynical, doesn’t it? This is all very stream of consciousness, here. I don’t write very much on here since, surprise surprise, Tumblr’s been kind of dead since the porn ban. I still see people post, but it used to be that I couldn’t refresh my dash without seeing dozens of new posts. Now it feels like I refresh my dash and I’d be lucky to see a new post there an hour later. This is why I’m on Discord more. It feels like I have more productive conversations than I ever could on Tumblr or Twitter. Twitter is just... god. It’s like all the worst parts of Tumblr without the parts that made it fun aside from a few memes.

Sorry, I got off track there. The point I was going to make before is that, while I am still very firmly anti-censorship, I’ve managed to put myself in a position where it no longer feels like the stakes are so high. I can relax. I don’t have to feel like I’m on the defense the whole time as somebody grills me over some slip-up. I don’t use Twitter that much. When I do post something in response to somebody, I feel like I instantly regret it. I posted in response to some dumbass spreading a rumor that 4chan’s favorite Simpson’s meme about Sneed’s Feed and Seed is secretly ableist, and I got a response from some dude with an Umaru-chan avatar telling me how he’s proudly racist because he and his friends call each other slurs? Like bro, you’re posting cringe, you’re going to lose subscriber-

I don’t know what I’ve learned yet. Maybe that social media sucks and that chatrooms with friends are the superior way to communicate online. I tried out Telnet recently to go into some random IRC, that was neat. It just feels nice to not have to get into a fucking argument every fucking day over shit that doesn’t matter as much as people thinks it does, to not have to hear about every fucking time the President sneezes or farts. It’s not that there’s no longer anything to worry about; there is. I’d really like to see fellow lefties go after the handful of massive corporations that control the majority of the online experience, who censor not just all the racist white dude grifters in suits who all look suspiciously similar to one another, but us as well. I want to see us raise a bigger stink about the web being santized, sterlized, and gentrified to be friendlier to corporations who only want your precious data and eyeballs. Maybe without the constant distraction of Bad Orange Man, we could make that happen. Maybe.

Or maybe fucking Dream will breathe again and all the fucking children will piss their pants and clog up Twitter, fuck these kids, get off my internet, GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

#not fan fiction #political bullshit

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queen-of-my-goofball-army · 3 years

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I Think There's Something You Should Know DuckTales Fic~

A double post?! In what kind of fresh hell world is this?! All joking aside, this is a fic that my best friend @i-want-a-donut DM about via my recent discord account making! She want a soft fic with Sabrina and Ludwig so that is what I'm here to bestow upon all of you!

I paced around the bedroom that I had recently been given at McDuck manor. I knew that this day had to come but I hadn’t expected for it to be so soon. It was the deadline for something that I had promised myself that I would do.

“It’s just uncle Ludwig, has he ever hated you?” I muttered to myself just not wanting to get this done. This was not something that I had ever wanted to do.

“You can’t help this. It’s not like when you were born somebody bestowed the gay upon you. It’s something that you have to discover for yourself. Whether or not he accepts that is not up to you. He’ll still love me. Through everything he’s been the one person that has ever stood by my side and vouched for my decision making. He would never, ever reject me for being who I truly am inside. Right Ji?” I asked my cat who was sitting on the floor looking up at me with his big green eyes as if to convey human I have no idea what you just said to me.

“I know, you’re just a cat. You’re lucky, these kinds of things can’t bother you because the only thing that matters to you is pets, cuddles and food. You’ll still love me right Jiji?” He meowed softly at me and I couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at him.

“Of course you will. I’m the human that looks after you so you’ll have to always care about me. I’ve pushed this out already way longer than it needs to be. Everyone else in the family already knows and still loves me. But if he doesn’t… if he can’t accept me this way…” I chocked on the sob that threatened to leave me just trying to calm down and think about this rationally. My phone buzzed next to me and I hesitantly picked it up.

Gosalyn <3: Love, I know you’re nervous about this but this is kooky uncle Ludwig that you’re going to tell. This is the person that you’ve always wanted to be. This is the same person that taught you the colors of the spectrum through freaking song, you’ll be fine babe. I believe in you!! Through Gosalyn’s encouraging words I took severally deep breaths.

“Thanks Gos, you always know just what to say to make me feel better.” I laughed a little bit when she sent me a picture of her skating on her Darkwing Duck board.

Me: Thanks gorgeous, I’m just panicking that’s all. Sure, my family accepts me but there’s no opinion in this whole world that I value more than uncle Ludwig even if he is kooky. I sighed adjusting my ponytail for what felt like the millionth time that day.

“Sabrina?” I heard my uncle Donald knock lightly on my bedroom door and I sighed a little bit playing with the ends of my hair.

“It’s time to go and meet uncle Ludwig for your weekly lessons.” I sighed a little bit looking over at the calendar and seeing that it was the day that I thought it was. I had to do it today if I wanted to treat myself to that trip to St. Canard for my birthday at the end of next month.

“Sabrina, just because you set a deadline for something doesn’t mean that it has to be done that specific day. You make these promises to yourself that if you can’t do this one specific thing by this one day that you’ll panic if you haven’t done it yet. Whatever you have to tell us I’m sure that it’s not as bad as you think it is inside your head.” He reminded me patiently and I nodded my head looking down at my webbed feet.

“You can do it Brina. I know that you can. It might seem difficult at first especially because your uncle is your biggest hero in the whole world but you’ll see. Everything will work itself out in the end.” My mom got down so that she could easier talk to me.

“But what if you all hate me? I couldn’t live with myself if all of you hated me…” My mom just thumbed my tears away from my eye.

“Oh honey, we could never ever hate you. No matter what it is that you feel that you need to tell us, we’ll understand. We’ll listen and we’ll be here for you no matter what happens. I know that your brain has probably been running around in circles these last few weeks trying to tell us something. I want you to tell us when you come back with uncle Ludwig for dinner.” My mom reasoned and I hugged her tightly. I took a couple of deep breaths knowing that she made, as usual, a decent argument.

“You’ve been hiding things from us too sis so I know that whatever you’ve got going on in your personal life that you’re scared to admit it. It’s okay to keep shit to yourself. But it’s also okay to talk about whatever you’re afraid of as well.” Louie reminded me and I looked over at my green hoodie wearing brother.

“I think what Lou is trying to tell you is that we have your back Brina. Everyone in this family sticks together no matter what it is that we’re struggling with. Whatever is going on in your life we’ll be there for that as well.” Huey reminded me and I looked over at my brother with tears in my eyes and he just wound his arms around my neck in a tight hug.

“I’ve always got your back sis. No matter what that secret is that you’ve been keeping I’ll always fight with you. You’re not alone in your battle. You have so many people out there backing you up.” He encouraged me and I smiled softly at my brother knowing that he was already in my corner. He’d probably already figured out what I was going to tell them all over dinner tonight. I was planning on telling uncle Ludwig before I told the rest of the family anyways.

“Sabrina, it’s time to go.” I nodded my head retracting from my brother’s hug and ruffling Louie’s tuft on his head.

“I’ll see you later Lou, send me cute Animal Crossing pics.” I picked up my over the shoulder bag checking to make sure that my laptop and my homework from the last week was inside of it.

“You’ve got it, if I see Dora in my village I’ll send you cute screenshots.” I saw my brother instantly log onto his switch and flip upside down so that he could play the cute game that he had gotten me into in the first place. I buckled my seatbelt and spent the rest of the car ride over in silence my brain still running laps around itself trying to figure out the best way to possibly tell my favorite family member that I was a lesbian.

“Have a good lesson okay Brina?” I nodded my head kissing my uncle’s cheek with a small smile on my face that instantly relaxed when I saw my uncle Ludwig at the front of his stoop.

“Mien starchen!! So happy to see you, are you ready to get ze learning on?” I nodded my head with a bright smile on my face.

“I’m always ready to get my learn on Uncle Ludwig. Bye uncle Donald!” I waved to my uncle who was driving the old family car back to the manor.

“How have you been this last week? Ze homework wasn’t too difficult for you was it?” I shook my head with a small smile on my face.

“I could figure everything out! I had an amazing teacher after all and you’ve alway made sure that everything was crystal clear before you sent me off on my own. I did have to ask Lou for help with calculous but math has never been my best subject other than algebra.” I explained the homework that I had struggled with and he just lightly patted my head.

“You’ll understand ze calculus eventually it’ll be like chemistry where at first it just looks like a bunch of gobbly gook until you understand ze mechanics.” He reasoned and I smiled softly as I saw that my uncle was wearing one of the vests that I had knitted for him. Uncle Ludwig had always been encouraging of my passions and my interests and always wore the designs that I made for him.

“I know uncle. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedule.” He looked at me his eyes soft but at the same time sad.

“Oh hush ze sad thoughts, this is ze highlight of my week. You know zis.” Ludwig’s eyes were filled with the varying emotions and I just looked down at my webbed feet.

“I’m sorry uncle Ludwig… I’m so sorry…” I chocked on a sob and he just took my hands in his running comforting circles into them.

“What ever are you sorry for mein starchen? What is up with ze crocodile tears all of the ze sudden?” He thumbed away as many as he could and I just shook my head.

“I’ll tell you once I can be calm enough. I’m telling the-the rest of the family at dinner tonight.” I chocked out and he just smiled sadly at me.

“Oh starchen come here my little one…” He hugged me tightly to his body nearly lifting me off the ground but I couldn’t help but cling to him just as hard.

“It’ll be okay, whatever it is that you have to tell I will promise you right now that there is no reason to be sorry. You could never do anything that would make me hate you Sabrina. There is nothing wrong with you whether it be ze mental or ze emotional. You just need help to understand things sometimes and zere is nothing with asking for ze help every now and again. I wanted to sign you two new books for today anyways. Shall we talk zis talk to ze library where you can be comfortable? I’ll get you a cup of hot chocolate from ze machine and some breakfast while I am at it.” His soothing voice brought me out of my own head and I found myself slowly melting into the warmth of the affection of it. There was so much there that I could get lost in. I found his library easily because that was where most of our lessons were held. I looked around me at all the huge stacks of bookshelves seeing two that were in front of his desk. Brave New World and Slaughterhouse Five.

“Oh you have found them already!! Those will be your next book reports zat I want by ze end of ze month. Both of ze books I would highly recommend for somebody like you. They are very unique and I think zat you will love zem both.” He encouraged me and I nodded my head with a small smile on my face picking up one of them.

“I have heard of both of them, isn’t this where you took your If you had a bad day, take a soma. If you want to forget that you even had that day, take two poster from that’s in your office?” He nodded his head coming to sit next to me. He took my hand in his and I wrapped one of them around the hot chocolate. I saw the toasted breakfast sandwich in front of me as well.

“What has been bothering you as of late mien starchen? You have been pulling away from me and it is very troublesome.” I sighed a little bit knowing that it was now or never. I couldn’t keep living like this, where I was hiding who I truly was inside of me.

“Uncle Ludwig, I think there’s something you should know about me… I’m gay. Gosalyn is my girlfriend. We’ve been dating for the past month and a half.” He slowly set down his cup of cocoa that he had made for himself and turned to me.

“Zat’s what all ze crocodile tears were for? Oh starchen I already knew that. Why else do you think I have been giving you so much reading material based upon things that aren’t straight laced? I wanted you to tell me on your own terms and you did. I am so proud of you, my little shining star…” He praised and I looked up at him with my eyes full of tears.

“You aren’t angry with me?” He shook his head fervently putting my cup down for me so I could bury my head into his shoulder.

“Sabrina I have never once in my entire life been angry with you. Zat’s just not humanly possible. You are far too lovable for me to ever hate you. I first picked out Fun Home because I thought zat you would find it to be interesting. I knew when I read your report on that book how true to you it really was.” He reminded me of the graphic novel that he had given me earlier on in the year. That was before Gosalyn and I had even officially started dating. I had known that I was very much gay for her but had no way of knowing if she actually felt the same way about me or not.

“You knew even then? That was when I had just figured out that my brother’s teasing me about Gos being my girlfriend hit a little bit too close to home for me. I thought that you’d be angry with me. You were always encouraging me to find myself but I was just so scared that I’d lose you for good.” I chocked back a sob and he just thumbed along my cheek with a small smile on his face.

“I’ve never not told you to be anything other than yourself. That’s ze reason that you continued to amaze me starchen. I’ve been calling you my star since you were a newly hatched egg. You were always uniquely your own person. Somebody zat continued to amaze me every day that she spent with me.” He nuzzled his beak against mine in a loving gesture. His eyes full of determination to make me believe that he was telling me what he truly felt.

“Th-Thank you uncle Ludwig, for always being there for me…” He laughed softly, that same laugh that always sent warmth and happiness down to my bones.

“I should be the one thanking you starchen. What’s about we go shopping a little bit later? I’m supposed to pick up ze dessert for tonight and I have an idea.” He told me and I blinked in confusion as he got out his computer and pulled up the local bakery.

“Ze colors of the lesbian flag are dark purple, a lighter shade of purple, an even lighter shade of purple, white, light orange, orange, and red correct?” I nodded my head as he plugged in all the numbers into the bakery website and I saw the beautiful cake that he had inside of his head.

“Uncle Ludwig…” I trailed off and he just smiled softly at me squeezing my hand with a small smile on his face.

“It is ze least that I could do for my amazing niece. I am so proud of you for coming to me about this starchen. I know how scary and how nerve-racking that must have been for you.” He encouraged me and I melted into the affectionate touch of his warm and soothing presence. This library always felt like my second home. I picked up my two books that were on his desk and read the descriptions on the back of them.

“Slaughterhouse Five? What’s that mean? Wasn’t Vonngeunt a prisoner in WWII?” Uncle Ludwig nodded his head since I had remembered that from last week’s lecture that he had given to me about the author.

“Zat’s what inspired zat novel. He was trying to make sense of humanity.” My heart broke for the poor man that had been through so much.

“Now I remember you telling me about that when I asked about the other poster in your room.” I nodded my head at the memory and he just smiled softly at me taking the books from me.

“How about we have ze free day of ze month today?” Every month he would give me one free day to either research something that I was interested in or we would just spend it together.

“But that’s supposed to be next week…” He just laughed at me, that laugh that I loved so much for how open and unique it was.

“It might be next week officially on your calendar but I would much rather do something fun with you today. If you want to do something productive with your day with me then I do have an assignment for you to research for next week. I want you to make me a powerpoint.” He went over to the front of the room and struggled to pull down his projector.

“Do you need help?” I asked him through my giggles but he just gave one final pull that left him flat on his face and his glasses askew.

“If it means anything I asked.” I joked and he just sighed heavily at me as he adjusted his glasses and I looked at the projector seeing a powerpoint about Marie Curie.

“I want you to make me a presentation about your hero. I know zat you have many like I do but I decided eventually to just go with the one that I knew the most about so Marie Curie was the one I chose.” I looked up at him and his powerpoint about the woman that discovered radiation.

“It doesn’t have to be a woman but I would prefer for it to be. It also doesn’t need to be science related but I was trying to find one for my special interest.” I listened to the criteria that my uncle was looking for when I made this powerpoint. Every month he would have me do one on a topic that he was interested in.

“Ursula K Le Guin…” I trailed off and he just smiled softly at me kissing my forehead with a small smile on his face.

“Of course you would pick the author of your favorite books. I would prefer it if you did it based off of things that you already know about her so that you won’t have to waste too much time on zis. I just thought that it would make you happy because you’ve been so stressed and anxious lately.” He encouraged me and I looked at his powerpoint going through the slides.

“I’ve got it! Thank you for this uncle, this means a lot to me. I’ll make an amazing powerpoint.” He laughed at me taking his cup of coco.

“I know you will starchen you always do. Here you go, these are also going to be your assignments for the rest of the week. There is extra calculous but I know zat you’ll also do the ze best you can.” Uncle Ludwig sat down next to me and clinked his cup with mine.

“I’ll have Hue help me if I need it. I need help with math usually it’s just a struggle for me most of the time. I prefer algebra because that’s more like doing a puzzle.” I reasoned and he stood up going over to his puzzle shelf.

“I recently got a new puzzle and I wanted to do it with you.” He stood up on his ladder getting what he was looking for and he waved his new puzzle around.

“Oh that sounds like fun! I’d love to make that one with you.” I smiled softly at my uncle as he dragged a clean table over and I took my sandwich. I looked over at the front of the box and smiled softly when I realized that it was an outdoor one with a waterfall. I always preferred the outdoor puzzles as opposed to ones that were themed to indoors.

“Hold on, let me get some music.” He went over to his old fashioned record player as I looked at the front cover of the puzzle box and set it up so that I could easily look back up at the object.

“Zat’s better now we can have some background noise. Good job getting it all set up starchen!!” He encouraged me and I smiled softly at him shaking my head.

“I just did what you would have done and what you taught me to do when dealing with puzzles.” He leaned his head against my shoulder and I just sighed a little bit. No matter how exhausting he could be I still loved my uncle more than anything in the entire world.

“I think zat we should glue this one and zen hang it up.” I nodded my head. It looked like it would be a really beautiful picture when it was all finished so I knew that he made a good point.

“I’ll help you to find the perfect place for it. This library is getting really busy with lots of things going on.” I teased him lightly as I found the perfect spot for the puzzle piece in front of me pressing it lightly into the square next to it.

“Excuse you, zis library is perfectly organized.” I quirked an eyebrow up at him gesturing with my wings to the room around me.

“What part of this is organized? I just helped you organize this chaos last month during free day how is it already like this?” My uncle just laughed a little bit to himself and I sighed. He would continue to have his library be an organized disaster where nobody knew where anything was but him. I was amazed that he still remembered where things were half of the time.

“I know it’s a problem starchen but I like my library the way that it is. Even if it’s messy and unorganized it feels more lived in this way.” He reasoned and I sighed a little bit knowing that there was no way that I’d make him feel any different.

“Zis one goes here I think…” My uncle pressed the piece against the one where he thought that it fit and it slid perfectly into place.

“I started another anime with Lou. It’s a science show, it’s really, really good.” I mentioned off handedly to my uncle. He was always interested in what I was watching and we had watched FullMetal Alchemist together in German something that was actually a lot of fun.

“What’s it called?” I could tell that he was genuinely excited, as he always was when the idea of science was brought up.

“It’s called Dr Stone. The story is about how one day the entire world turned to stone. 30,000 years into the future the main character Senku unfroze and he’s trying to get the world back to where it was in the modern society. He finds this village of people that are already living there and dubs that his kingdom of science and that’s how he gets society back onto it’s feet.” I explained the plot of the show and he listened to me intrigued.

“Zat sounds extremely interesting!! I will have to give it a watch and see if it can apply to what we are learning together.” My heart melted at the idea that he wanted to make some of the science that we did based on the show that had recently captured my interest. We had studied alchemy for months for fun after I had finished FullMetal and he got me all the volumes of the manga for my birthday.

“Thank you uncle Ludwig. That sounds like fun. There are experiments that Senku makes and explains how he does on the show so we’ll have to see if they work in the real world.” I melted into the warmth of the atmosphere that I was in at the moment.

“What else have you been doing with your siblings?” He asked me curiously and I got out my phone showing me the latest science project that I had helped Dewey make.

“Dew is going out for basketball again this year he’s getting really genuinely good at it. I love practicing with him he’s been teaching me how to play and everything. It’s a lot of fun! Plus you’re always going on about how I need to exercise more and that’s a fun way to do it. Hue is working to be a camp counselor this year for the Junior Woodchucks. Louie and I have been mostly playing Animal Crossing together.” Uncle Ludwig put his arm around my shoulders with a small smile on his face. He listened to me and paid attention to everything that was going on in my life.

“Animal Crossing is ze cute one right?” I nodded my head with a small smile on my face showing him a screen shot of my favorite villager.

“This is Dora. My brother and I both got lucky enough to have her on our islands. She’s a bookworm but is adorable. Every one of the characters has a little catchphrase that they use, her’s is squeaky.” I tried to explain to him but he just blinked at me in confusion.

“Hold on, I’ll show you! I already logged on this morning.” I turned on my yellow switch with a small smile on my face doing the familiar three taps and running around my island.

“Your island is called Magnolia?” I nodded my head with a small laugh rubbing the back of my neck a little bit.

“It’s a guilty pleasure show that my brother watches with me sometimes, it’s a fantasy magic anime called Fairy Tail. I thought that the name of the town was just adorable so I took it for the name of my island.” I kicked my webbed feet back and forth and found Dora.

“This is Dora, she’s a dorm mouse. She’s not the serious social type but she loves reading books and other things like that.” I went over to her and she did her catchphrase and I saw the realization go off on his face.

“Oh zat is quite adorable!! I can see why your brother and you have been so bonkers over this game.” I laughed a little bit because that was a way of describing things that only my uncle could do.

“Alright sorry for that little distraction let’s get back to work.” I cheered and he just smiled softly at me when I leaned against his side.

“We shall have to go out to ze mall later zis afternoon because I want to pick up a little something for you. A little surprise.” My heart started to beat more rapidly as I texted Gosalyn to let her know that everything had gone according to my plan that I made.

“What is it? What is it? What is it?” I asked him rapidly and he just laughed at me. He shook his head pressing a wing to his beck.

“That is for me to be knowing and for you to find out in a few hours. I still want to spend time with you in my own home.” He reminded me lightly squeezing my arm lightly where his was linked through. I pressed another piece of the puzzle into it’s rightful spot.

“Good job starchen!! You truly are a master of puzzles and thinking things through. I used to really struggle with zis when I was your age. They annoyed me because they took too much of my time.” I laughed a little bit at the idea of my uncle’s frustration. He used to be annoyed by a lot of things when he was younger before thankfully mellowing out as the years went on.

“I like things that help my brain to work. It’s why I love algebra, puzzles, and knitting so much. It’s busywork for my brain and it appreciates being used the way that it was intended.” I leaned a little bit further into his side just enjoying the quieter moments between us.

“Can I ask you a question starchen?” I made a soft sound that I was listening to him as I put another piece into it’s spot.

“Did you always feel zis way about Gosalyn? Or was it recent?” So, we were going to talk about the massive elephant in the room.

“It wasn’t the second I met her if that’s what you’re wondering. It was more of something that happened over time. If I had to put a specific time on my feelings for her I’d say New Years. Something changed around the holiday when I went to go and visit her with Launchpad. There was always just something about her that was different for me. I realized after that trip it was that she was just beautiful. There was no other rhyme or reason about it she just was. I feel like I can be myself around her and she won’t judge me for it or anything like that. I love her uncle…” My uncle looked at me with tears in his eyes and he wiped them away.

“Look at me, getting all emotional over my niece’s first brush with ze feelings. I knew zat there was something between ze two of you from the first second you told me about her. Your eyes just sort of went all soft and sparkly.” I handed him a handkerchief and he just smiled gratefully at me drying his eyes with the object.

“Zis is what I’ve always wanted for you. For you to feel comfortable enough to be with somebody else and to be happy.” He reminded me lightly and I looked up at him with a surprised expression on my face. I put my arm supportively around his shoulders.

“I didn’t think that it would ever happen to me if I’m being entirely honest. I have never felt this way about anyone else before. Not man, not woman, just Gosalyn. I know that I’m a lesbian because boys have just never done it for me. All of my fictional crushes have been on the same gender. Ever since I was little so there was always that little thing about me that was different. I just want to make her happy uncle. She’s everything that I’ve ever wanted.” He lightly kissed my forehead in understanding. I drank the rest of my hot chocolate that was in front of me.

“Do you want ze refill?” I nodded my head knowing that it would be too much sugar for me but I still wanted the extra pep anyways. I checked my phone seeing the encouraging response from Gosalyn that she was proud of me and that she loved me.

“There’s the happy smile that I was talking about. It lights up ze room. That’s how I had a feeling of what you were keeping from me.” I smiled a little bit sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck. The feeling of comfort and family always remained when I was here. It never failed to bring me back to my childhood since I spent so much of it sitting in these chairs, doing puzzles, drinking homemade hot chocolate, and just learning all that I could from my uncle in these chairs. I had spent my whole childhood coming here on the weekends and reading with him.

“I think that my brothers already know as well. They know me a bit too well, especially Louie. He’s definitely onto me and my attitude changes as of late. They’ve always called Gosalyn my girlfriend anyways as a joke.” My uncle thumbed a finger around my shoulder with an understanding smile on his face.

“But to you, zis is not a joking matter. You’re afraid zat they will make jokes about it.” I nodded my head and he just smiled at me.

“They won’t. Your brothers care about you more than anything in ze whole world. They do try and make jokes but they will see how important this is to you.” He reasoned and I smiled softly at my uncle who had only ever tried to encourage me to be myself.

“Thanks uncle, for helping me. That means more than you can ever know. You’ve always been so patient with me whenever my brain was running a million miles an hour.” I thanked him and he just kissed my forehead understandingly.

“You’ll always have me by your side starchen I promise. Nothing could ever tear me from it. Especially not a silly little nothing like what sexuality you would prefer to date. This is just another part of you that makes you wonderful. Zere is nothing wrong with it. You are perfectly normal.” Uncle Ludwig reminded me lightly pressing another piece into the puzzle as tears filled my eyes.

“You have no idea how much I needed to hear those words from you… to hear that you still accepted me even as this person that I am.” He just thumbed my tears away lightly making sure that there wasn’t anything that was wrong with me.

“Oh starchen don’t you start ze crying. Because if you start crying zen I’m going to start crying and then we’ll just have one big old mess.” I laughed watery at my uncle as I shook my head and just tried to stop the tears that badly wanted to flow like rain water.

“What other series have you been watching with Louie?” He asked me and I pressed another piece of the puzzle together.

“That’s really about it lately, it’s just been a lot of Dr Stone. I’m rewatching FullMetal for what feels like the trillionth time though. That’s been helping me out a lot through this whole process. I want to show it to Gosalyn.” I mentioned off handedly and my uncle nodded his head in understanding at the mention of my favorite show.

“Zat show is a big part of who you are. I recommend zat you do it because it’ll make her happy. Your sharing that part of your life with her.” I smiled softly thinking about how my girlfriend would react to me wanting to show her my favorite show.

“I think that she’d enjoy it. I’m still trying to get her through the whole Miyazaki library.” I laughed rubbing the back of my ponytail.

“Understandable, zos are some of your favorite movies. How many has she seen so far?” He asked me and I got out my phone to show him my list of movies.

“She’s gotten all the way through Howl’s Moving Castle. The next one that I want to show her is Ponyo. It’s okay, you took me to see that one remember? It was his rendition of The Little Mermaid.” I reminded him lightly of the fairy tale that he had taken me to see.

“I remember zat one… zat was a weird one.” I laughed a little bit at him as he pressed another into it’s rightful spot.

“It was a little bit strange but I don’t know. I still enjoyed it and thought that it was really cute. The first brush with love between the two younger main characters made it easier for me to swallow and less weird.” I reasoned since I would always have a soft spot for anything that he made. His movies had this ability to take me into another world and the older that I got the more I found myself getting lost in it.

“Your favorite is still ze Moving Castle yes?” I nodded my head getting out my sketchbook and showing him the latest painting that I had made.

“Oh starchen… it’s the most beautiful thing zat I have ever seen. You painted this all from your own memory?” I nodded my head playing with the hem of my ponytail ribbon a little bit nervously. I always got self conscious when I was showing something that I made, especially when that something was artwork.

“I figured that I’ve seen the movie enough times that I should know it like the back of my hand by now. I’ve always loved Howl’s secret garden and there was something about that always called out to me. I decided to paint it a few days ago and I just finished it last night.” My uncle carefully tore the page out of my sketchbook and scurried around his library.

“Where is zat empty frame…” He muttered to himself and he found the offending object that was hiding from his line of sight.

“I shall help you hang this when we go to McDuck manor for dinner tonight. This is something that you should be very proud of Sabrina. It is obvious that you worked extremely hard on it and long hours as well. I love it.” He praised and I just smiled softly at him looking at the frame. For the first time in a long time I thought proud of something that I had accomplished.

“I do too. It was fun for the first time in a while I enjoyed the painting process. It’s also one of the largest paintings that I’ve probably ever made as well.” He held it up in front of him and he just lightly thumbed over my shoulder.

“Then zat is progress!! I know zis is not something that you are very good at, taking ze praise. I’m often too good at it and my head gets too big.” I smiled softly adjusting my uncle’s spectacles on his face with a small smile.

“You do but that’s just a part of your lovable charm uncle. I know that you’ve worked on getting your ego trimmed down to size these last few years and I’m proud of you.” I reminded him for all the hard work that I knew he had done in order to get everything squared away.

“I think the last few inventions going slightly off the rails have rather helped to trim down my ego.” I smiled sadly at him squeezing his hand.

“You’re getting a little bit older and that’s okay. You have enough money to live comfortably. It doesn’t matter that the instant bandaid dispenser bit you in the ass metaphorically speaking. The apple peeler and hot chocolate maker still work!” I pushed a little bit further trying to hear that ho-ho-ho laugh that I loved so dearly. When I heard I instantly felt better.

“You are right starchen everything that I’ve made that worked these last few years has been something for you.” I settled against the back of the couch putting my cup of finished hot chocolate onto his table and taking the small side of fruit that was next to my sandwich.

“I put some nectarines into zat, it should be good. I got zem from ze farmers market ze other day. I also got you ze kettle corn. You can have it when I drop you off back at the manor.” I cheered at the mention of my favorite sweet/salty treat that I always shared with Dewey for our movie nights.

“Thanks uncle Ludwig, your contribution for me and Dew’s movie nights will be greatly appreciated.” I teased lightly and he just huffed a small sigh.

“Have you two been getting along better still?” I nodded my head getting out my phone and showing him the picture that Huey had taken of me asleep on my brother’s shoulder from yesterday’s movie night.

“We meet up once a week for movie nights still. They’re going rather well we switch off weeks so he just went yesterday. I get to go next week to have my movies that I want to watch. I still have no idea what I want to watch.” I shrugged my shoulders and my uncle just listened to me talk about the further development with the brother that had given me the most grief growing up.

“I’m glad zat you two seem to have worked out your issues as you got older. I told you zat he just needed to grow up and into himself before he realized what a mistake zat he was making.” I leaned against the couch kicking my legs back and forth.

“It’s the little things that he does that surprise me. Things like remembering my drink preference, my snack preference, and things like that. He used to not care about me at all so the little signs that he does now, they make me happy.” My relationship with my blue clad brother had come a long way from where it started.

“I am proud of you for working so hard to fix things with your brother. I know zat he hasn’t always made things easier for you to deal with. Zat’s why I’m proud of him for working so hard to mend what was broken.” My uncle reasoned with an understanding smile on his face and I looked over at him with a small question in my gaze.

“Now we’re talking about you and uncle Scrooge. I know that you two have had your disagreements and that he can be awful a lot of the time but deep down he cares about everyone in his life. Including you.” I reminded him lightly nudging his shoulder with a small smile on my face.

“You are right starchen I was referring to your other uncle. We’ve disagreed a lot over the course of my marriage to his sister but through it all he’s at least tried to be there for me since you came into his life.” I listened to him talk about my other uncle that was sitting back at home in his mansion.

“He’s been trying to get to know me a little bit better over these last years. I’m happy living with him I really am. Adventure is always right around the corner for me and that’s part of the fun of the thing for me. I love adventure and I’ve always wanted to have my own. When I was younger I was satisfied with just reading fantasy novels but then I wanted to have my own.” I leaned my head against his side lightly as I talked about the dream that I had when I was younger.

“I know zat was your ultimate goal in life was ago lead your own adventure. I’m just happy zat you were able to achieve it.” He encouraged me the same way that he always had but with that kindhearted edge that he did everything else.

“I think that I’ve learned a lot underneath uncle Scrooge. About how to handle myself and get myself out of a bad situation. I admired that a lot about Webby at first.” My uncle got up from the sofa taking the plates downstairs and came back checking his pocket watch.

“We shall need to go in a little while to hit everything that we want to. The bakery said zat the cake wouldn’t take too long actually. Zey have done that sort of thing before I presume.” I couldn’t help the tears in my eyes as I quickly dried them away.

“Thank you again uncle Ludwig, for the cake and for everything else that you’ve done for me.” I thanked him and he just lightly ruffled my hair with a small smile.

“It is no need for ze thanking. Not if I wanted to do it and if I wanted to see your little face light up with happiness.” He reasoned with a small smile on his face as he sat down next to me and I put one last piece into the puzzle.

“So where exactly are we going on this extravaganza?” I asked him and he just smiled softly at me gathering his own satchel that matched my own.

“Just to ze mall. Zere are some things that I want to pick out for you.” I cocked my head to the side but shrugged it off just wanting to see where this day would get me.

“I’ll take these books with me as well. I’ll probably start reading one of them in the car.” I saw my uncle smile softly at me kissing my forehead.

“Don’t give yourself ze migraine. Zat will not help you out in ze future. You need to be on your best health for dinner tonight.” I sighed a little bit knowing my uncle was right but not wanting to admit defeat. I didn’t want to have this talk with my other uncles, Daisy, or my brothers. What if they didn’t like what they saw or what they heard?

“I know zat you are nervous about it. But sometimes ze things that we are most nervous about are ze things that we need to ze most. You can do zis. I know zat you can.” He encouraged me with an understanding smile on his face. He squeezed my hand softly and I just sighed.

“Okay you’re right as usual.” He laughed at me in his typical fashion that lit me up inside. I grabbed my yellow satchel that had everything that I needed inside of it.

“You forget starchen I’m right all the time. It’s just zat you and I think about things in a different way than everybody else.” I laughed a little bit at him taking the books anyways and finding them a safe spot inside of my backpack.

“Yeah, yeah I know. I’ll remind you of that the next time that you wear those crazy goggles.” I teased a little bit and he just stuck his tongue childishly at me.

“Zey protect me from ze sparks we’ve talked about zis.” I laughed openly at him as he held the door to the library for me.

“I know I’m just messing with you uncle. Come on, it’s already nearly afternoon and the mall is kinda far from here.” I reminded him lightly knowing not knowing where in the world he had planned on taking the two of us yet.

“It’s just a few errands some things for tonight that I can help you hang up in your bedroom.” I got into his old car that smelled like so many afternoons spent together. I remembered when I was younger and he would take me to the aquarium and teach me about all the fish that were out there in the world.

“I haven’t taken you on an outing in a really long time. Not since you started your lessons with me.” He carefully pulled out of the driveway and I still wondered where in the world we were going and why it was to the mall.

“I missed our old outings. I remember when you used to take me to the aquarium and taught me about all the different kinds of fish that they have there.” I laughed a little bit at the memory since it was of something that seemed so simple.

“You were so cute when you were zat age. Not that you aren’t adorable now but it was different when you were younger. You used to look at everything with little stars in your eyes.” I smiled softly at my best friend and the uncle that had been there for me when I was younger. He was always there for me whenever I needed for him to be.

“I love you uncle Ludwig…” He smiled softly at me running a hand through the fringe that was at the front of my ponytail.

“I love you too so very much mein starchen.” He reminded me lightly as the red light turned green and I watched the rest of the world go by outside my car door. When I saw our large mall and I quickly was led behind him to a store that I had only ever seen before when I looked around with my brother’s.

“Uncle Ludwig… this is…” Pride store was written in bright booming colors at the top. I saw all the colors that were on the flags.

“Come on Sabrina, let’s get you some things for your bedroom.” He put his arm around my shoulders encouragingly.

“Hi! How can I help you both?” I heard the familiar sounds of Freedom ’90 instantly playing inside of the store.

“Hello ‘dere this is my great niece. She just came out to me and I wanted to get her some zings for her bedroom.” My uncle explained to her and I saw the worker’s eyes fill with tears as she looked away from me and a man sighed.

“Forgive my girlfriend, she can be a lot and very emotional. What exactly were you both looking for?” I saw a trans pin on his jacket and I instantly took a deep breath.

“I have a girlfriend in St. Canard. I’m a lesbian and I just came out to him earlier today. I’m doing the rest of my family over dinner tonight. He’s my great uncle and has been my teacher since I was younger.” I mentioned my relation to my uncle who was already looking at everything that he could.

“Is he, a lot?” I nodded my head with a small laugh just looking around my surroundings. The first thing that stood out to me was a lesbian pride flag that I could hang above my bed.

“Oh that’s a really popular pride flag! We make all our pride flags here in house if you wanted something unique written on it I can sew it on or my girlfriend can.” He told me with a small understanding smile getting the material down for me as I looked at it.

“It’s beautiful…” I trailed off but the worker got down another flag with a small smile on his face as he unwoven it in front of me.

“This one is for the feminine presenting lesbians out there. People like my girlfriend, it’s called femme. You look to be the type that puts a lot of care into your appearance so that’s why I think that this one suits you best.” He reasoned and I nodded my head feeling the texture of the flag. Even though I knew that nobody would know what this flag meant, I would. I’d have to explain it a lot more but I’d like that. I wanted to be open about my sexuality and the way that it made me feel personally.

“What’s that you zere?” My uncle asked me and I showed him the two flags that I had found for my bedroom.

“That’s the stereotypical lesbian flag right there and that’s the femme flag sir. What that means is that’s what my girlfriend identifies as. It’s the lesbians that put a lot of care and love into their appearance. She can’t leave the house and come to the store if she’s not looking her absolute best.” The woman in question put her hands on her hips.

“I see how it is, you’re just going to trash talk me. Well I’m not falling for it mister. Come here sweetie, let’s see if we can’t find some other things that you’ll enjoy.” The woman took my hand while my uncle looked at the flags before nodding his head.

“You’re very lucky, to have somebody who loves you that much. He’s willing to work to understand somebody that he’s not even that closely related to. He’s your great uncle?” I nodded my head with a small smile on my face.

“I know zat I’m lucky to have him. He’s taught me so much about understanding others and he’s always tried to understand me as well. He works really hard, he’s an inventor even if he’s way past his prime.” I explained about what he did for a living and she just listened to me.

“I think that’s amazing that he cares so much about his great niece. A lot of older people don’t really take the time to understand us youngsters and our orientations. I wanted to show you this! If I know a good femme when I see one you love stuffed animals right?” I nodded my head enthusiastically and she brought down a rainbow bear and a lesbian colored one.

“We also have really soft sweaters and long sleeved shirts for all the sexualities.” I looked at the lesbian one picking it up off the rack.

“I want this one, it’s really pretty.” The worker just smiled at me as I picked up that one and the femme bear that was soft to the touch.

“I think that your great uncle is getting both of those flags for you.” My heart melted seeing him at the cash register waving his hands around as he told eccentric stories.

“He can pretty much talk to anyone for three minutes and they’ll be friends. It’s one of the things that I’ve always admired about him.” I went over to him and he just lightly picked up the two things that I had found not even batting an eye as he paid for everything.

“Now zat’s out of ze way, let’s go to ze bakery and zen to ze manor.” I smiled softly at him as we went back to the car.

“You didn’t have to get me both of those flags uncle Ludwig…” I trailed off and he just smiled at me brightly.

“I did too, zey made you happy and what makes my niece happy I have to purchase. Zat’s the motto for today.” I smiled softly at him as we drove down to the bakery. The smell of sugar cookies, brownies and baked goods instantly hit my nose as I took a picture of the flag cookie to send to Gosalyn. I told myself that I would need to stop her before my flight next month to St. Conard so that me and her could try some.

“Starchen? I got ze goods, come along. It is time to meet up at the manor. Ze sun is nearly setting, time really does fly when you’re having fun.” I took the cake from him lightly carrying it out to the car where all the rest of the items were.

“Well we did spend most of the day shopping at the mall and doing that puzzle. We didn’t even come close to getting the puzzle a quarter of the way done. More for next time?” I offered and he nodded his head getting the car door for me.

“We will definitely do more of ze puzzle next time. I think zat you need a little bit of a break. We don’t want to tire your poor little brain out.” I chuckled lightly at him blowing the fringe out of my eyes. The drive to the manor was spent mostly in companionable silence. I saw Dewey practicing his basketball on the front driveway again.

“Hey Dew!” I waved to my younger brother and I watched as the ball went into the basket when my brother turned around.

“Hey!! How was your day, learn anything cool?” He asked me enthusiastically and I smiled softly at him. Recently his favorite thing had been me second hand teaching him things that would help him on his own homework.

“Sorry to say zat today was one of her free days where I don’t teach her anything. We have zem once a month so zat she can get a break and not overwork herself.” Dewey took the cake from my hands and tried to open it when I glared at him.

“No peaking at the dessert I see you. Stop that right now, the dessert is a surprise.” I warned him lightly taking it from him knowing that the curiosity would only make him want to look more.

“What could be so secret about cake?” I sighed a little bit playing with the hem of my dress skirt and he just put his arm around my shoulders.

“Want to tell me what’s been going on with you? You’re doing it again, closing yourself up into your own little shell. I thought that you weren’t going to do that again?” He reminded me and I just sighed heavily nodding my head.

“I’ll tell you once we’ve all seated for dinner. I want to tell this to everyone at one time. Uncle Ludwig already knows since I spent the day with him. The cake has something to do with that since I couldn’t stop him from buying it.” Dewey nodded his head in understanding lightly shoving my shoulder with a small smile.

“I think I already have a decent idea of what it is and I’m totally fine with it. If she makes you happy then that’s great. You deserve somebody that could make you happy. I’ve been questioning lately myself which sex I prefer as well. You might not be the only queer sibling.” He joked a little bit and I blinked at my brother as we went inside the manor. I saw uncle Ludwig get everything out of the car and discreetly carry it up to my bedroom.

“He bought you a bunch of things didn’t he?” I nodded my head with a small laugh rubbing the back of my neck with a small smile.

“Yeah that’s pretty much what happened. We spent hours at the mall today and he pretty much bought me an entire store. He spoils me a lot more than I deserve.” Dewey just laughed a little bit at me helping me to carry the cake into the kitchen.

“Hey Lou! I’m back you lazy bum, have you even moved today?” I teased lightly and he just flipped me off from the couch.

“How was your day?” I sat down next to him and I put my feet over his lap with a small smile on my face.

“It was good! I spent the day with uncle Ludwig and we did a lot of fun things together. Are you hungry yet?” He nodded his head putting up his switch for the day and stretching his arms with a small sigh as the joints popped.

“Dinner is ready family.” Uncle Donald called from the dining room and I just sighed a little bit. It was better to just do it now and get it over with. Ripping it off like a bandaid and then having their ridicule and judgement for the rest of my life if that’s what happened.

“Sabrina are you hungry?” Mrs. Beckley asked me and I nodded my head with a small smile on my my face.

“Yes I am! I haven’t eaten truly since breakfast today.” She led all of us into the dining room where my uncle Scrooge was sitting at the front of the table. I kissed his cheek with a small smile on my face.

“Hello lass, how was your day?” I nodded my head just sitting at the his right side with uncle Ludwig next to me.

“Do you want to hold my hand starchen?” My uncle murmured with a small smile in his face. I leaned my head against his shoulder with a small smile back.

“I know that a lot of you have been worried about me for the last month or so. I just want to let you know that there isn’t anything wrong with me living here. That’s not the problem. It has nothing to do with any of you. Family, I’m a lesbian. I’ve been dating Gosalyn for the last month and a half.” I admitted the thing that I had been hiding from everyone and I saw Dewey make a small fist bump.

“That’s it? That’s all that you wanted to tell us? Lass, we already figured that you had more than friendship feelings for your best friend. At least I did. What about you Donald?” My uncle Donald swept me into a big hug.

“Sabrina I’ve always loved you just the way that you were. The you that would hide herself away and read her books, the you that would play her violin only in the privacy of her own room, and the you that looked at Gosalyn like she hung you the moon stars. She makes you happy. I am so proud of you for telling me.” He encouraged me thumbing away the tears and my mom just wrapped her arms around the two of us tightly.

“I love you, so much Sabrina. There isn’t a thing wrong with you for feeling the way that you do about Gosalyn. Everyone in the world has someone that can match them. I genuinely think that she is yours.” My heart warmed into my chest and I looked over at Louie who had an understanding look in his eyes.

“I get why you kept it from us. You were scared that you would be rejected.” I nodded my head and Huey just ran to give me a tight hug.

“You’re still my favorite sibling sis, I’ll always think that you are. This is just another thing that I can add to the list of things about you that are amazing!” Huey had always been the brother that was closest to me and I watched Dewey bite his lower lip.

“She’s not the only one that’s not straight. I’m still trying to figure my sexuality out but I know that it isn’t just girls that I like.” Webby just squeezed my hand with a small smile. I knew that this was the happiest that I would ever be. Everyone in my family had accepted me the way that I wanted to be and the way that I was. And what in the world could have been better than that?

#DuckTales fic #ludwig von drake #ocs #writing #fanfic #requests

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bomberqueen17 · 3 years

Text

Bob & Chicken

last night a friend was streaming herself using her spinning wheel on Twitch. It was super chill, she’s got a second camera that watches her sleeping giant dog at the same time so it’s an immersive experience. She uses an auto-captioning app, which is great because sometimes I can’t turn the sound up so I can’t hear what’s going on and I still tune in because I can see but it’s nice to know what the chat’s about. (Also invaluable if you missed something a second ago.) But her auto-captioning app makes a lot of hilarious mistakes. Firstly, she’s prone to saying the word “Jeez”, because that’s just a thing in her dialect (which let’s be fair here is pretty adjacent to mine, it’s not like I’m mocking her here, I do it too), and occasionally whips out the whole phrase which is “Jeez Louise”, of course. And the captions would invariably translate that as “Cheese Louise”. So we theorized what sort of dish a Cheese Louise would be. A casserole, probably-- I’ll gladly take suggestions.

Anyway, so the concept came up of Bobbin Chicken. As you’re filling the bobbin on your spinning wheel (the thing in the middle of the spindly bit, which collects all your spun yarn/thread/whatever), and you’re eyeing how much fiber you have left to spin, and you decide you can keep going just a little longer, juuuuust a littttle longer before you stop to wind everything off your bobbin-- especially with antique spinning wheels, you often don’t have a spare, so you really do have to disassemble the thing and deal with what you’ve made, reel it off onto storage bobbins or a niddy-noddy or something-- and it’s a whole production you’ve got to go through before you can resume what you were doing.

But if you can just squeeze a bit more on, you can-- well eventually the bobbin stops turning, and you’ve lost bobbin chicken and have to go through the whole rigamarole and then come back and then there’s just like a pathetic tiny amount left to go onto your bobbin to finish the job.

Anyway the autocaptions called it Bob And Chicken, and so another person in the chat was like WHO IS BOB and we were like RUN FROM THE CHICKEN, BOB and so on. Very entertaining.

[in which i am a creep, bonus weird-ass selfie at the end]

But eventually Bob lost and the fiber had to be wound off, and there was some discussion of whether the streamer should turn the camera to watch the unwinding, and she said maybe the camera would just wind up showing nothing but feet. And I, thinking to be funny, was like yaas feet pics and then I meant to follow up immediately with kidding! or something, but Twitch was like

no, you have commented too many times, you cannot send any more comments. please wait.

so my gross creepy thing about feet just like. hung out there in the chat, and i was dying of mortification because like probably everyone knew I was joking but I did not actually specify that I was joking? oh god. OHH god.

Anyway.

in a moment Twitch let me specify that I had been joking, just in case you were in suspense.

Listen if I’m watching your stream about something else entirely just so I can creepily creep on something I’m illicitly sexually into I would at least fucking subscribe, all right? Jeez.

(Or, as the captions say, Cheese.)

Anyhow. That was a whole thing, and in fact she wouldn’t even have been close on bobbin chicken, the project almost filled a whole second bobbin.

“Well,” she said, “this yarn is pretty poofy, but--” and then she paused to untangle a thing. The captions obligingly supplied THIS ONE IS PRETTY POOPY BUTT. 😂

Well, so that was fun, since there was no hockey. (OH my gosh the NWHL situation is distressing! one of the teams in the bubble had a positive corona test! the team had to go home! they’ve already played teams who’ve played everyone else! this is so tense. I don’t know man. Fuckin’ 2021.)

Anyway.

To round out the entry, I was then talking on Discord with various people about our coronavirus hairstyles. And I explained, as I do, that my coronavirus hairstyle has been the hairstyle I’ve had since junior high which is that I don’t cut it, so I don’t miss hairdressers. I’ve got really thin textureless hair that would look shitty in any kind of short style unless I spent forever daily on it, so instead I just grow it out and braid it up and clip the braid up during the day and take the braid down to sleep and then I only have to brush it every three or four days and maybe wash it once a week, and that’s that? I get that not everybody could live like that but I can so I do. So anyway.

Someone posted a photo of some incredible butt-length hair, and I was like, man, that’s way longer than mine, I’m so jealous (mine, however long it is, is definitely terminal-length, since I’ve been doing only minimal maintenance trims for literally a decade by now), but it was enough to get me off my ass to go take my hair down and brush it, which it was way overdue for, and then take a photo over my shoulder, and-- oh.

pardon the filthy mirror and those are light brown pajama pants I’m not bareassed there, but yeah! My hair is kinda long, it turns out! And those ends aren’t bad for me cutting them by like a quarter inch at a time in the sink under my arm using my best judgement and the feyeselftrim method from livejournal back in the Day. Not too shabby at all!

Anyhow the other person who posted their hair was like listen i thought about getting an onlyfans for this after i posted a hair tutorial video and got Some Comments but anyway I only bring that up because if you’re going to be creepy about my hair then tip me LOL.

(Yes, creepiness was apparently the thematic throughline of my evening as I attempt to digest it down for the purposes of writing a post, LOL.)

#about the author #fiber arts #shenanigans

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isolctions · 3 years

Text

...........so let’s finally talk abt what the actual fucking fuck is wrong with ai’rina rue castillo, huh gang? :-)

(everyone go thank @armsdealing & @durcgs beating the anxiety out of me in order to post this info-dump.)

...before we get into things, now’s the part where i establish a warning for triggers to be discussed in this lengthy headcanon post. there’s gonna be some talks of mental illness, slight alcohol abuse, & breaking down topics of familial abuse, mental abuse, religious abuse, emotional manipulation, and elements of non-con. be warned.

a’ight, so look. i’ve hinted in between threads & development that rue had a not-so-fantastic upbringing that impacted how she perceives herself, how she interacts with others, (in terms of her career, at least) and how she views personal relationships, but i didn’t realize how........severely her upbringing messed with her mental health until i started working through how i wanted to plot out rue’s behavior for her next album release. at first, i had the idea that she decided to take more time for herself & sort of distance herself from the public / media circus plaguing her life so that she can create much more authentic music. then i actually listened to the EP that i’m basing her album off of and thought “...oh.” THEN, i looked over old meme responses & old threads / mentions of her family and how she grew up and thought, not for the last time since piecing everything together: “....oh. oh fucking boy.”

so, that horrible realization dawning on me, let’s talk about rue’s childhood.

i wrote a thing like, two years ago almost (that upon looking for last night, i realized i didn’t actually share it w/ anyone but alex in our discord server & only mentioned a portion of it in rue’s moodboard that i made) that talked vaguely about how rue felt growing up. and it’s worth noting that...she’s the middle of ten fucking siblings. and that’s just the brothers & sisters she knew of that stayed with their mother. and on top of that, not all of those siblings are the product of rue’s father, or even rue’s mother for that matter. and it’s also worth noting that rue not only grew up in poverty, but she grew up never having any actual space that had solely been her own, or even an article of clothing that had belonged entirely to her. so naturally, as a young child, rue sort of became torn between starved for attention & wanting someone to pay attention to her (whether that be her older siblings including her in something, whatever teacher they had for the next six months to call on her for something, for her mother to miraculously show up with her unknown father in tow one day, & for literally anyone to be her friend, pls god Notice her!!!) and for people to simply leave her the hell alone. obviously, this carried into adulthood.

and branching off from the whole “lack of space” point i made, rue wound up growing up to become increasingly more private as time went on because she literally cannot remember a single moment where she wasn’t squished between a bunch of people. driving around in their minivan? rue’s packed in the middle of the second row. nowhere to sleep while on the road? rue’s smacked between gigantic older brothers & clingy little siblings. need to use to bathroom? lmao, she better off going outside!!! gotta change clothes? yeah, good luck with that. it was to the point where, when rue got her first period, she was humiliated by it — not because ‘omg, am i a woman now?? wtf is this???’, but because she ruined the one good sheet that she slept on with her sisters & they were super pissed at her and her mother withheld pay from her for weeks. >:/

already, rue grew up never having shit to herself until the record deal. but she also dealt with literally...so much abuse from her mother. rue thought this was the norm growing up, because all of her siblings faced their mother’s wrath at some point & all of them eventually learned to just deal with the shit and do what she says if they wanted to avoid it. they all compartmentalized and repressed to varying degrees. there’s a lot in which rue has repressed so deeply, she doesn’t even remember if it seriously happened or if she was just making it up bc it was so fucking bizarre for a parent to act that way towards their child, lol?? (and this behavior of “i’m just going to do what you say bc i don’t want to deal with whatever bullshit you’re up to if i say no” also carried into business / personal relationships, which is...very Yikes it’s amazing she didn’t get scammed or worse!)

so sure, people have complimented her for her exceptional manners & her cleanliness & how quiet / polite she is & how amazing her posture is, bc seriously, this girl will never experience back problems in her life bc her posture is so on par. but where rue typically smiles / responds bashfully, she can’t exactly just up and say: “oh, yeah, my mom used to slap the shit out of me ‘til i bruised if i spoke out of turn or talked back, and if i reached for anything in the store or put my elbows on the table she’d slap a ruler against my palms ‘til i got welts, and she’d make me read verses all night without sleep if i did anything wrong and make me straighten up and kneel on rice if i slouched or took a nap in church and humiliated me in public if i so much as looked at someone of the opposite sex on the street n oh, did i mention i also cleaned houses for rich millionaire snobs from ages twelve to sixteen and if they said or did literally anything to me i wasn’t allowed to defend myself?? ya i’m real proper :)”

(and normal ppl will go: “...................what the FUCK is WRONG with you????”)

but oh man, babe, we’re not done yet!!! rue, being the product of both a highly religious and a highly exploitative household...had difficulty when she started reaching puberty & noticing her classmates. plural, because it wasn’t just boys that she began to secretly have crushes on / fantasize abt, sexually or domestically. she also realized, oh shit, that she started looking at girls differently too. and that literally put the fear of god into her heart, bc if her mother ever found out that she was having non-platonic feelings for the girls in her classrooms, she wasn’t going to be pissed. her mom might have actually tried to kill her. or have her exorcised or something. she knew the shit would be severe, and she wanted no fucking parts of her mother or her siblings inserting the church into her personal life, thank u very much! so rue started suppressing her romantic feelings for people to the point where if adult rue receives intimacy, she’s like “...is this allowed? is this not illegal??????” while simultaneously being like “i will be a slut. just this once. as a Treat to teenage me. :>” regardless, rue learned to molotov cocktail literally any emotion or thought she had, bc she was paranoid that it would give her mother a vision.

now, onto the perils of exploitation...she should’ve been used to it really, what with her mother forcing herself & siblings to lure customers into their shop with promises of visions and palm readings and the wonders of the cards and overexerting their abilities. same with housekeeping, like being of service to people was normal! but when seventeen year old rue decided to sign a record deal and break from home, she wasn’t thinking critically about what the fuck all of this would entail. and as described in this headcanon post abt her discography, her early music was the product of allowing people much older & powerful than you to influence your work & manipulate your values. so rue was very much parading around as someone she wasn’t, someone much more confident and badass and self-assured than she really was, and she was so impressionable back then that it literally makes her sick to think back on it now. she calls it her puppy phase and phrases the eagerness to please execs as ‘tongue wagging’. homegirl hardly even knew her name anymore, bc all she was and all she would ever be was rue, the star, the vocal temptress. not ai’rina, the help or ai’rina, the seer, ai’rina, the weak little nobody. but later on, the subtle manipulation was less about decision making & how they wanted her to sound, and more about how they wanted to present the latest trophy star — because after all, she was pretty. people liked her. she sung really well. suitors weren’t too far off into the distant future. so why not kill two birds with one stone by having a high ranking label artist keep tabloids talking by being seen in public with a few heart throbs? surely, there’s no harm in manipulating an eighteen/nineteen year old’s love life! under the guise of improving her social skills & relations with fellow artists and the media and the like, rue gave into the pressures and let herself be taken out on dates & seen at awards shows with a few guys. no big deal. it was only for a night or so, she could handle the attention. then, one night appearances turned into week long appearances. pretending to date for only a month! completely innocent, positive exposure. :)

(adult rue, looking back @ younger rue: you stupid fucking BITCH-)

yeah, so once her label/management realized that she was turning into a hot commodity, they lost no sleep at allowing their nineteen year old artist to be seen ‘dating’ 20-24+ year old men occasionally. and whatever happened after their public appearances were none of their business. plus, she was good at pretending and being arm candy — so rue experienced her first kiss, her first dates, and her first times with people who she’s almost certain hardly remember their time with her, and really only got involved with her for a mutual career boost. very few of them does she actually remember in a positive light, and the ones that were positive, still depress her bc lmao all of it was fake, even if they were really nice & made it less like a chore and more like they actually wanted to be with her!! even fewer of them were actual relationships. meaning, said person asked her out of their own volition, not bc their managers thought it’d be a decent match on camera. it was evil, really, what her old label made of her. (like, she makes funny jokes that her first time having sex was awkward bc she had a vision halfway through that bummed her out but in reality it was just...really more of a transaction that made her feel icky n progressively worse abt herself until it happened more often and now she just doesn’t care anymore. sex is just sex, u know?? everything’s fake. why you gotta make it personal.) this whole fiasco took over the larger part of rue’s career from like, age nineteen to age twenty-two or so, and she suffered dramatically from this because what is even a genuine, authentic relationship at this point? what do u mean you want to get to know me? did ur manager tell you to ask so many damn questions & try to get to know me? obviously you want something from me bc that’s why everyone gets into a relationship or has sex with me, stop confessing feelings for me u fucking loser. >:/

like...rue doesn’t even have friends. outside of her relationship with marcelo / @armsdealing (which, AGAIN, i think was initially arranged to promote her song be honest, how fucking IRONIC), rue does not have any personal relationships with anyone. i mean, she likes her latest management team since switching labels...her hair stylist is rly cool & her make up artist is fun to vacation with...she met a few other celebrities at events that she occasionally texts & has dinner with...yeah, she’s basically a pretty hermit. her family is more or less out of the question — the few brothers & sisters she does still have a positive relationship with (like, four of them lol), they don’t see each other in person often / mainly communicate via groupchat and facetime calls when all of them have time. she tried visiting with her mother over the years, but the verbal & emotional abuse/curses placed on her/accusations of being an imp of satan for singing to the public/memories of being forced to perform psychic shows & clean for chump change keeps her from trying to mend that relationship. like, being gaslit by ur mother isn’t really the vibe, u know? and bottom line, rue simply is a very shy and socially stunted individual who does not know how to communicate like a normal human being anymore. hell, her life revolves around pretending for strangers at this point!

now, onto how...all of That ties into her behavior / state of mind during this next album. so, after riding the wave of success from her third album & the circus that came with that. rue sort of had a fucking existential crisis. came out of absolutely nowhere. (not nowhere — one of her brothers called her out of the blue and called her ai’rina and she literally went “who the fuck is that?”) told her label that she was taking some time in between albums bc she was creatively zapped or whatever bullshit excuse she came up with that somehow worked bc this new label was a little more understanding than the last. vacationed for a little, did some hot girl shit, bought a house, tried to see her mother again for whatever reason then got the shit slapped out of her and finally screamed at her to never touch her again unless she wanted to Throw Hands. cried and got drunk abt it. that took six months. bullshat to her label again, dropped like two songs to smooth things over, decided to focus on magic for a little to ground her, started partying with label mates then going home shitfaced & hungover every other morning. that took eight months. dropped one last song, promptly deleted her twitter, tried to write songs again, got a call from her mother and panicked and got drunk. that took a year. vacationed some more, got even drunker, was bed ridden for like three months because holy shit i’m having so many visions and if i see One More Thing my brain is going to explode, couldn’t separate the present from the future for weeks after that, told absolutely no one about that, cried every day & had an identity crisis, dyed her hair to appease the identity crisis goblins. that took a year and a half.

now, she just chilling. dyed her hair again. scaring her siblings halfway to death bc she keeps going on benders & sending cryptic texts abt the visions she’s getting but they’re so incomprehensible that they’re seriously considering moving in to get her fucking shit together. had a vision that she was married with kids and had a two week identity crisis appeased only by moving houses. (she was in a neighborhood with families...too much Drama and visions. turned into a really cool song tho.) started calling herself by her birth name of ai’rina in private. reactivated twitter to send cryptic tweets that her album is coming. working on said album. trying to drink less but kinda failing bc how is one simply supposed to make a highly personal dual album without alcohol??? prbly somewhere crying in marcelo’s lap or smthn. just vibes.

like...i feel like, in my head, the Theme of her project is wrapped up in identity. her relationship with fame and whatnot. trying to coax her childhood self out of its’ shell so that she can function like a normal goddamn person for once and re-establish her values. like, if someone went to any of rue’s residences right now, it’s just songbooks everywhere and wine glasses and her crystals and shit, bc she still has people’s futures to read for money. (yes, she never really got out of that portion of her childhood, but hey it pays.) it was all very confusing to experience at once while in bed at four in the morning & even though i tried organizing and debated on this, it’s still a Lot. which is why i am once again asking for plots that would allow her to dissect all these Things

so yeah. album four otw, with a side of confronting our childhood & facing our traumas!

#rue — facts #imagine me making a cohesive hc post #it wont happen but like imagine how sexy that would be #anyway this is long and me thinks stream of conscious hc posting is both therapeutic and Exhausting #but i had a lot of thots abt her that needed to be shared to...yeah #abuse tw #alcoholism tw #long post tw #i feel like that its always sunny meme??? yall know which one #but anyways this is somehow overwhelming n embarrassing that i typed so much so i am going to hiding!#UNLESS!...........u want to plot with this Disaster of a woman :eyes:

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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Hello! I’d like to request a Good Omens analysis. Why did Aziraphale react so much (I’d like to say violently, but it wasn’t violent) in the scene with the knights during Arthurian times after Crowley said ‘every now and again’? There was a little pause before he said that, and it seemed like Aziraphale was just dropping the conversation, but after Crowley said that it was like he was cutting it off entirely. Why did he react like that? What was Crowley referring to? Just the Arrangement?

An analysis request! Oh that’s fun :D

Personally, I think it’s because Crowley is making a lot of sense right now (yes, regarding the first seeds of the Arrangement) and Aziraphale is panicking over the fact that he’s actually being persuaded. Real quick, there are two key things we need to remember about Aziraphale’s characterization:

1. He changes, but very, very slowly. Generations later we’ll see an Aziraphale who, contrary to this moment, is willing to stay sequestered in his bookshop and pretend like he’s fulfilling his duty as Crowley’s arch-nemesis. Undermining the plots of a crafty old serpent and all that. Definitely not spending his time on three hour lunches. Modern day Aziraphale is an angel who only provides the lightest of reprimands when reminding Crowley that he lied about starting the Spanish Inquisition and the Second World War. That’s an Aziraphale who himself lies to Gabriel… but he’s nowhere near that version of himself yet.

2. Aziraphale is also someone who, when faced with an ethical crisis, gets emotional and lashes out.

So picture the scene: You’re an angel. You’re trying to abide by what you think that means. But just like on top of Eden’s wall, this demon is proving to be rather persuasive. Surprisingly logical for someone who is supposedly only Darkness and Deception and all that jazz. The conversation they have basically boils down to:

C: I’m fomenting discord.

A: Huh. I’m fomenting peace. Look at that connection between us…

C: So we’re just canceling each other out? That’s annoying. Working in all this damp for nothing.

A: Omg it is damp isn’t it?

C: Right? We should just tell our bosses we’re working but then, you know. Not do that.

A: What?!? But that would be lying (゜ロ゜)

C: So? Does it matter if the end result is the same? Cancel each other out or not do anything at all. Same difference

A: Well we… we can’t do that because Michael would find out. And Gabriel. Definitely Gabriel

C: I don’t think they will. Not provided they still get some kind of paperwork. You have anymore comebacks?

A: [who does not] LA LA I SUDDENLY CAN’T HEAR YOU END OF DISCUSSION CONVERSATION OVER

C: …alright. Ciao

Sheen, as has been pointed out with the use of this delightful GIF

is a master of micro expressions and if you watch the scene in question, you can see how nervous he gets when Crowley rejects his worries about Gabriel. His eyes keep darting to the side and his mouth works like he’s desperate to interrupt. Up until then Aziraphale was actually agreeing and slowly coming around to Crowley’s suggestion. These working conditions do suck, don��t they? It would be nice not to keep doing this, especially when the end result is the same… He pulls back though because he suddenly remembers that it’s (supposedly) an impossible thing. They’d get caught. Aziraphale now has a super convenient excuse for why he doesn’t need to challenge his current belief system. It’s like if someone invited you to a party and you kinda want to go, but you also know it’s gonna be one of those crazy nights where everyone is doing things they’re Not Supposed to Do, and you’re really torn about it, but then you remember Mom expects you home by 10:00. Wow. So sorry, but I just can’t do it. This moral dilemma is totally out of my hands… up until your sibling barges in with, “No. Mom and Dad are away for the weekend, remember? You can go without getting caught” and then you have no excuse anymore and you start internally screaming.

I think Aziraphale honestly believed that the threat of their bosses would end this enticing fantasy—remember that, death by holy water aside, heaven comes across as way scarier than hell. You can literally see Aziraphale’s horror at the idea of Gabriel catching him in a lie—and so he’s blindsided when Crowley challenges that assumption instead of ending the whole thing. He doesn’t know how to keep refusing him, but he’s also not ready to take that risk, so he reacts emotionally and falls back on what he “knows” about their relationship to straight up shut the conversation down. I’m the good guy. You’re the bad guy. How dare you tempt me like this. Aziraphale has a very strong pattern throughout the series of reacting like an Angel™, then Aziraphale the individual, then an Angel™ again if things get too dicey.

You created this horrible revolution, didn’t you, foul demon! Oh, you didn’t? Right. …lunch?

I knew it! These Nazis are working for you! It all makes sense now. …Ah no, wait, it doesn’t because you’re actually just rescuing me. Oops

We are destined to fight this war! Mortal enemies to the last! …hmm. No bookshops, you say? Well, I guess we can try to change things. Except now it’s all gone horribly wrong again—WE’RE ON OPPOSITE SIDES! I NEVER EVEN LIKED YOU!

Here we’ve got the pattern in the form of:

“What the hell are you playing at?” morphing into “It is damp, isn’t it?” back to “No! Absolutely not! I am shocked that you would even imply such a thing.”

When everyone says Aziraphale is a bastard it really is 100% true. Because he’s so wound up in his own anxiety over what’s right and what’s wrong that he’ll chuck his lover friend under the bus to spare himself the horror of fully challenging his own beliefs. “I am shocked that you would even imply such a thing”? Aziraphale is not shocked. He was very open to the possibility up until it was real enough that he might actually have to, you know, do it. Aziraphale’s the guy who will talk to the outcast in high school, but then when the popular kids challenge him on that he’s all, “Me? Talk to him? I’m offended that you would suggest it.” He wants to talk to him. He does talk to him. He just can’t admit it yet. So he lies and puts on very exaggerated airs. I’m still a perfect angel who was definitely never tempted by this proposition that we’ll end up starting in a few hundred years anyway. I’m going to shout at you now to sell this.

And Crowley, in his infinite wisdom, is just

That’s not the face of a demon at all hurt by this reaction. He knows damn well by now that this is their pattern and he’s actually quite happy to let Aziraphale maintain it. Because it’s what he needs emotionally; that very slow progression across thousands of years. Crowley is willing to play the long game. It’s only when the very fate of the world rests on them not just working together, but admitting that they like one another that Crowley starts giving Aziraphale ultimatums. Help me stop Armageddon or don’t. Admit we’re on our own side or don’t. Come to Alpha Centauri or don’t. We no longer have the luxury of this game, angel.

For now though they’ve got plenty of time. In 537 AD Aziraphale can still afford to be lightly tempted by things, then panic about it, and finally make a big production of the fact that he’s still a goodie-goodie angel.

#Good Omens #Aziraphale #Crowley #mymetas #Anonymous

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witchcraftingboop · 4 years

Text

Further Insight on Briar's Recent Discourse & Prim's Apparent Grooming of Younger, Newer Witches

It was suggested to me that instead of making one long post (which I was genuinely sorry for creating in the moment as well), that I should offer the second half in a separate one so that it is easier to share and harder to simply ignore as a wall of text.

Here is the link to the first half of the current JBird and Briar discourse floating around. I highly encourage everyone involved in the Witchblr community to review both posts and not just this final addition.

Regarding Prim stirring the pot, I actually do have proof of that on my page somewhere if you wouldn't mind my sending it to you? The person I reblogged it from, Mahi, also received death threats from Prim when they were only 16 and Prim was 20 (I can't ask him to share that though because Prim has since used her following to drive him off of Tumblr and he's still fairly [and justifiably] sensitive about it.)

Regarding Briar's statements more specifically though, I can see where the confusion is coming from. After the "in France" part, she's just defining a relevant term (hence the use of "irrelevant details) and then giving an explanation of how she came to be so knowledgeable about that term/concept. I wouldn't say she's calling Prim's activism an "irrelevant detail," but pointing out how Prim uses it as a shield against backlash whenever another blog (not just tradcrafters) calls out her platform. I don't expect you to fully understand or see what I mean when I say that, of course. Because you are still new, and these are habits I've observed of hers from nearly a year of following their interactions. I would, however, like to point out that Briar doesn't say anything racist about Prim and does not once bring up her race. In fact, I think if you read her entire post and not just point 3 as Prim has it cropped out in all of her mentions of it, you would see more fully the depth and amount of frustration Briar is trying to express. Similarly, Briar never threatened to dox Prim. She has, in fact, repeatedly tried to point out that Prim should be protecting her online information and be more aware of how to stop others from finding out about her private life/situation. These statements, however, have since been warped by Prim and her followers to come off as a threat on her life. Briar's statements above aren't a threat of doxxing. She's never once posted Prim's personal information or told others to find it or use it in any way. She has, however, searched for Taglocks on Prim, something witches especially are known to look for. In that search she found more than she was even looking for, despite trying to tell Prim repeatedly to stop being so open online with the information she posts about herself. Doxxing though is not racist. It is something used by them, sure, but it is not inherently racist.

Additionally, Prim has raised money, sure, but I still have not seen any actual receipts as to her *actually* donating it to any public or private organizations. This, for me, is highly suspect. In reality, we still have no idea where that money is. Whereas with Briar, she took no money in for a couple days on her readings and instead merely asked that those requesting a reading first submit proof of donation to an organization linked in the post. She raised substantial money for the BLM movement, but no one seems to want to bring that up in all of their "she's a racist" discourse. Also, the observation that someone is misleading or gaslighting their following is not racist. Just because she said Prim was recently using her BLM reblogs & promotions to do it *this time* still does not make it racist. Questionable wording is just something the reader disagrees with, in my opinion, and should be addressed as such.

I'm not going to lie, I do feel a little frustrated at this point. I was really hoping to come to you and see that you had concrete proof to offer that Briar is a racist. I do understand that you have your own reasons for feeding into the assumptions and twisted outlooks already taken on Briar's words, but I don't have enough energy in me to fully swallow my tongue on this one. I really do hope that you at least consider what I've said here. I'm not sure what I can say at this point because all of the information I've read from you thus far has been purely conjecture or assumptions or just "not feeling right" about the wordings on a single post. A racist, from my perspective, is not something I would ever feel comfortable calling someone off of this lack of evidence.

I understand it is hard to separate preconceived notions from your mind when reading through the words of others, but I really do miss when you were more open to the words of others. If I could ask one thing of you, it'd be to please try to read Briar's post again but from the perspective of seeing it how it was meant to be: a witch who has been on the butt end of Prim's harassment for going on three years now. She is tired of the wild accusations and constantly having to defend herself, and even when she supplied her proof a couple years ago, no one wanted to hear her. She has, largely, given up on being heard, and now screams into what feels like a void when attacked.

Proof of Prim stirring the pot that I offered: An example of Prim actively seeking out the community and trying to stir the pot with an already dealt with situation that had passed over a year ago.

A direct source that I offered as further proof of what has occurred already: This is one from the account mentioned before who was directly involved with the previous discord server where the Trio incident took place a couple years back.

[A Reply.] I think, to be fair, I saw your comments on her previous posts through your main, and with how much aggression you packed into those messages, I don't necessarily blame her for deciding not to engage with your private messages. As I've said, she's very used to people attacking her like that, and in her mind, unfortunately, you've probably been added to the list of aggressive people ready to fling the blame at her rather than look at the situation as a whole. I do apologize for the way her post may have made you feel, but I think it's also important to remember the potentially aggressive things you left on her page (I'm not saying you meant to come off that way, but even I couldn't help but read that way). Also, regarding the ask, it's no small secret that the occultists of the tradcraft group are skilled and well-versed in hexes and curses. When reading her posts about how she may respond to further antagonism on Prim's part, I see a fully realized occultist wielding their most well kept and trained weapon: baneful magic. I'm sure Prim herself also understands that the "threat on her life" she's saying she's so afraid of, isn't a physical threat, but a metaphysical one. She has repeatedly and continually tried to drag these people through the mud, and now that they're refusing to just sit back and be canceled, she's afraid. She knows how strong their magic is, and they aren't shy about it 🤷‍♀️

[A Reply.] No, I completely understand where you're coming from. I, personally, have seen your willingness to talk things through, despite how aggressive you can come off at times in the things you say, so I think that's why I was genuinely so surprised to see your comments on some of her posts. But I do think her response and refusal to further directly engage with you is warranted and her right. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell who is genuinely open to talking and who is just trying to bait and add to the problem. And with how aggressive your comments were, 8 honestly think she most likely was responding from a place of "oh look another young Prim follower here to bait and berate me." I don't think she looks down on you for your age, but her views are likely a reflection of the fact that a lot of 18yos follow Prim and have openly harassed her without even asking for her input on the matter.

At this point, I would like to talk about the second half of the title of this particular post. Grooming. This is a very serious allegation against Prim that I have not spoken on previously because I had no proof that it was happening. With this person's permission, I would like to share how exactly they wound up fighting Prim's battles for her.

I will note: I am highly disgusted by what follows.

[A Reply.] Oh no! You cannot fault yourself for this! Prim is a known manipulator, and the fact that she was able to make you somehow think this is part of your being "gullible and naive" is just testament to the fact that she's gotten wayyy too good at what she does. This is in no way your fault or because of some fault within you. Practiced manipulators are cunning and dangerous even to the best of us. It was unfortunate that she chose you, but her twisting you around is in no way a bad reflection on you as a person!

I've chosen to include my reply to this person rather than our continued discussion because of how personal and involved our conversation turned. I've included it to show, as well, that grooming others to fight your battles is (though this should go without saying) NEVER OKAY. Prim has shown her true colors, in my opinion, and while I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt time and time again, I simply cannot permit myself to ignore the harm and damage she's inflicted on not only the tradcraft community, but also this innocent group of friends. A group who that has hitherto dedicated their time to sussing out predators, terfs, nazis, and racists. A group that should never have had to deal with being gaslit and manipulated by a well-known and respected blogger on this platform.

I cannot reiterate enough how sorry and deeply shocked I am at the information this person has brought to my attention. I am still stunned by Prim's activities and unable to fathom how many other potential individuals are out there being groomed to support and fight for her cause. I am sorry to the Witchblr community as a whole. I feel as if I have sat by and watched as Witchblr has been manipulated and am therefore complacent in the damage and needless hurt that has been allowed to spread throughout our community. I am just so very, very sorry.

I will be taking a couple days off of Tumblr because of this, as I feel as if I need space and time to think, but my inbox is always open and I am always available to speak with others on my return.

#witchblr #witch community #witchblr discourse #discourse #nightshadeandroses #grooming tw #grooming in the witch community #tradcraft #traditional witchcraft #beginner witch #novice witch #baby witch #witch predator #long post #gabrielle #chthoniaa

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laerrynseelie · 4 years

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TAD death/chronic illness theory

buckle up motherfuckers and blame the discord for this because this is about to get into some real fucking sad shit and it’s gonna be a very long post my apologies in advance (tw death! chronic illness! mentioning respiratory issues + tumour + hospital! please take care of yourselves)

for me, this all begins in Not Yet/Love Run, just from the words “not yet”. it’s all about someone (Mads) who is dying of a chronic illness, and the phrase “not yet” of don’t go yet, keep going, just a little longer. “it’s time to fight”, “keep running it’s up to you now”. and so through the song, they go on adventures in their head using their imagination and songs because that can’t do that irl, with

sing me awake with a song about pirates

I’ll point you steer and we’ll rip up the map by the seams

or since you’re stuck inside, perhaps on bed rest or in a hospital “sip the sunlight from your eyes”, experience what I can’t, I’ll live vicariously through you, “sing me awake with all the things we’ll do today but instead we’ll build a den out of pillows and get drunk again” because we can’t do anything else. “run until your lungs are numb” is it a respiratory illness? “run from all you know that’s coming” is the end, connecting to this “run from all you know that’s coming”, “oh let the world come at you love”, “it’s not from what we run that drums / but what’s to come, what’s to come”. and “it’s nought that rum won’t solve / though some would harm you, none - not one - no none / will raise to you a hand nor thumb” nothing else can hurt you, or when you’re gone all this pain and suffering and hurt will end.

some more straightforward NY/LR things connecting to this is “but I held your hand as you shook in the middle of the night” “seems to me that you can’t sleep” “where is god ma” “I cannot find the words to keep you” “for all the things we wished we’d done”

let’s connect this to Pruning Shears! because why not destroy myself with my fav songs from this album first. “my entire life it’s running away too fast” is sung by Joey, and underneath Mads sings “my whole life”. her whole life is going, she’s about to die, but she’s his entire life and she’s about to go. and he’s listening to all these people talk about being rich and all this stuff that doesn’t fucking matter compared to the fact that she’s dying. “the best laid plans had it all planned” “we do each other’s laundry in our hearts sometimes” they were going to have this long, happy, domestic life, and it’s all gone straight out the window. “my fall makes no sound here”. “we don’t have time to fuck around”. “come back”. “doesn’t matter mate”. “forget the girl that she once was” “my whole life it won’t last”

this is gonna be a stretch, also with PS, but clothing from the “lost and found” because you didn’t have time to prepare? or don’t own clothing for a formal event? could it perhaps be... a funeral? and since she’s dead “yes I know you got your shoes from Oxfam” is like kinda omnipotent. “whatever you do don’t turn round” don’t watch me slowly die, or that voice you hear in your head that you think is mine isn’t, I’m gone. move on, “merry make me love forget the past”. “watching everyone I’ve ever loved walk past” she’s watching her own funeral.

“put up one hell of a fight against all my sins and the candlelight”, fighting against the illness, the “light” is death

alright so I really only made this theory for PS and NY/LR, but then I went through the other songs of Love Run and hoo boy buckle up because I am making myself sad with my own bullshit

king is preparing him for her death. she’s trying to make sure he’s okay after she’s gone “when you are gone away” “I’ll keep him safe from the dark things that wait” “rips into the bark of my bones”. is she buried at “the house at the top of the rock”?

I’ll smile as I climb the stairs (to the light) To the light that you keep burning there (all hell) And our muscles that are waltzing and our shadows that are bold sing Come rip up the flesh of my fears

is he dying to be with her? more evidence:

I know your fingernails are the colour of rust (come back) And your veins are empty of dust (but our voices)

and finally

all hell and its fire waits for us

Elsa’s Song? more funeral stuffs.

I can hear the cannons calling As though across a dream And I can smell the smoke of hell In every stitch and seam And like flowers, the bodies tumble Around this muddied lot I cannot hear them scream ‘Forget me not.’

Because love does not exist here In this garden there’s no feeling

And in years to come you’ll wander To the place up on our hill And then you’ll cry to our painted sky ‘I loved him then, I love him still’ And you’ll strew some sage and lilies And roses where I rot Of all the flowers you picked I knew you would forget Forget-me-nots

want me to make Shower Day even sadder? I can do that! “its just a sitting down in the shower day” is already a v sad, energyless idea, could be from exhaustion, illness. but something I thought of is how people hide their tears in the shower. and he’s trying to keep himself strong for her, making sure she doesn’t see him sad. same with the other lines of the chorus

You’re the one who asked me if I’m feeling ok I said I’m fine

as well as “walk around all nonchalant”. along the same lines of her preparing him for her death:

Know you should love him but its such a pain Would have stayed if you’d had asked But instead you just walk away

You’re the one who told me to never look back Well I’m looking back and looking back And looking back and looking back at you

Pray, death, sin, yeah it all fits together real nicely. exhibit a:

Pray for me, I’ll run until I begin to understand What holy men really mean when they speak of sin

I’m what’s left when children go to war Run from you, I’ll run until I begin to understand What holy men really mean when they speak of sand and sons and seams and symphonies and sweat and sex and sin

“when children go to war” I take as when battling a disease. also “the hearts I’ve broken” from dying when there are people who love me. very tfios, I know. staying with someone, “I’ll haunt the very wrinkles of your skin”. and finally, “my eyes are made of winter and these hands I hold are skin and bone” for eyes made of winter could be blue eyes, could be eyes drained of life, as winter seems sometimes.

I don’t want to go into Little Miss Why So too much because it’s already so sad for me but here have some prominent lyrics

You’re going too fast You’ll burn up soon

Just to distract you

I don’t know how to reach you when you get like this I’ve been waiting for you to come home

Full of people just pretending to be brave

You don’t see daylight anymore Something’s sucking out your core and it’s so boring

Why so sad I’m here and I’m alive Stop making up death wishes just take my life line

If I am good will you come back

it’s a lot, I know. okay, New York Torch Song! tumour. yes.

It starts off like a pin prick A trick of the light oil slick Then grows to the size of your hand Turns you outside in Cigar burns and scar skin Ripping bone and nail and gland

connecting to this being a huge thing for both of them and trying to support the other through it but also not yet

From within this gaping wound of ours

Can’t we just talk about this Tomorrow

I cannot find the words to keep you

and now death

But your blood does not bleed red no more

Are you god or devil

Two Minutes, another devastating song. for me it’s similar to Shower Day, of trying to be strong and not showing her how hurt he is. “give me two damn minutes and I’ll be fine”. and the “him” in the following lyrics is the illness:

If there was one place I could be right now I’d be standing there between you and him And I’ll fight you both, fight you both for the rest of my life long days

and death. again. and the bar thing I’m thinking of it sounds far away. the other dead children are calling for me to go to them.

These hands are growing cold They’re running out of things to hold

I can hear the children calling as though across the bar

and some repeats like “if you’re good will you come back”

okay, that’s it for this theory in Love Run. I’m gonna go be sad now. goodnight.

#dear hearts #the amazing devil #analysis #tad #lr #love run

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donttellthemangosiwashere · 4 years

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Guess who watched Frozen2 yesterday and is back on her AU Juice

ok get this, using thomas’s rewrite for Frozen 1 but also

you know that theory where Hans is like,,,, a chill dude, and the rock trolls are the evil ones and mind-controlled him into fuckin shit up so Christof would become king? also that

Spoilers for Frozen 2 so,,,, be wary

Virgil is Elsa

Paranoid shut-in, afraid of scary ice powers, convinced himself he’s perfectly comfortable with being alone forever. Distrusts Dee immediately because he can sense the presence of magic in him, but he doesn’t know that’s what it is at first

Patton is Ana

Emotionally volatile, quick to trust/immediately assumes the best in people, bit of a hopeless romantic

Roman is Christof

Agrees to help Patton because “ur a prince, I cant let you do this alone it’s not noble of me to leave u hanging like that”

Remus is Roman’s funky twin brother who would rather just continue being a rock troll honestly

Kinda functions as Sven/Olaf/comic relief buddy character but they also DO have an Olaf and a reindeer steed to pull the wagon. He's hanging out with Patton and Roman during most of the movie

Deceit is Hans

Actually a prince from another country who’s like an ok dude and does grow fond of Patton immediately after meeting him, not evil until later

Logan is the head guard/politician guy with the big nose that was their advisor/guardian after their parents died, you know the guy

He's gonna be much more important in the story. He mostly tails Dee and slowly figures out that there’s something weird about him towards the end, and tries to protect Virgil and Patton from him. He cares about them so much, but he’s bad with emotions, so he’s not great at helping Patton with his loneliness or helping Virgil with his anxiety. Even when the rest of the kingdom starts to turn against them, he never doubts that Virgil is good

Character Thomas is Olaf because that’s cute as hell

He’s an embodiment of Virgil’s love for and protectiveness over Patton, but the longer he exists, the more he starts to develop his own personality and traits based on who he spends time with? So eventually Logan, Roman, Remus, Deceit, and Patton all become a part of him too, and he’s their little amalgamation snow son

(plot stuff under the cut. be warned, i put waaaay too much goddamn thought into this)

Ok so most of the first movie happens as normal. Thomas is just a lovable little anxious snow boy who walks around and dotes over and protects Patton, Reindeer is just a regular animal, Virgil runs away after a freakout, Patton goes to find him, etc etc etc

But when Hans is on the road in the first movie (when him and some soldiers have just captured Virgil from his ice castle and are marching back to the kingdom) their caravan is jumped by the rock trolls. Virgil doesn’t know whats going on cause he’s trapped in a carriage with no windows, but the rock trolls lure Dee away and then do the evil magic thing, they puppet him from then on to imprison Virgil and refuse to kiss Patton.

Roman and Remus drop Patton off and return to the woods, right? Roman’s being all reluctant about it, and Remus is like “im sure he still wants to be ur friend bro, it doesnt matter that he’s a prince and we’re common, you KNOW he doesnt care about all that” but Roman is not convinced, says he’ll ‘think about it’. They return to the rock trolls, and Remus sees the shaman in the process of puppeting Dee, in the “if only there was someone who loved you” scene where Patton is clearly dying. Remus runs to tell Roman what’s really happening, and they get caught. Roman stays behind to fight off the other rock trolls, buying Roman time to race towards the castle and save the brothers

The “if only there was someone who loved you” scene is different, tho. First of all, Dee doesn’t say that. He (and the shaman) are too smart to give up the bit until they are SURE they’ve won. Dee refuses to kiss Patton, but in like a soft way. (Got this scene from my friend Nat on discord, one of the reasons i made this au at all, its fucking KILLER) It’s more like a

“i mean yes im fond of you but I don’t love you??? We just met” “but you proposed!” “We’re princes, looking for love in marriage is an idea I abandoned a long time ago. I figured I could at least make you happy, and an alliance between our kingdoms would be favorable.” “Oh...” “I could see myself falling in love with you, Patton, i mean that. But right now... If I could break the curse, I would. I’m deeply sorry.... Is there anything I can do to keep you warm?“ “No, there’s nothing...” “How dare your bother turn his magic against you? First he freezes the kingdom, then that golem, then he curses his own brother? (he does a whole schpeil where he convinces an emotionally broken and shellshocked Patton that Virgil is actually like evil and bad) ...Sit here, I will get you some blankets.” (Again, quote @glorifiedpigeon! She wrote a whole scene like this with Dee as Hans and Roman as Elsa, its bonkers as hell!! So good!)

While he’s gone “getting blankets” (Dee’s really just gonna leave him to freeze) Thomas sneaks in, and starts up a fire. Patton tells him not to do that cause he’ll melt, and he’s like “some people are worth melting for.” Thomas can tell Patton he’s upset and they talk about Virgil and how Patton doesn’t know what to think anymore. Thomas melts while keeping the fire warm for Patton, his sacrifice breaks the cold-poison-curse-thing and Patton is saved. The conversation Patton has with Thomas while he’s dying is weirdly familiar, and Patton realizes that it’s a 1 to 1 of a conversation him and Virgil had when they found out there parents died, when Virgil promised to “protect you no matter what, i love you.” Patton realizes Thomas was just a representation of Virgil’s brotherly love for him, which is cute as fuck, and then he goes to save his brother.

Virgil is visited by Logan, who busts him out of his cell, telling him he never doubted him for a second, but he’s wary of Dee. They run away together, panning to go out and find Patton and finally talk everything out. Dee reaches them, and calls Logan a traitor to the crown for helping Virgil escape, insisting that the fact that they are running away proves Virgil’s guilt. Logan tells Virgil to stay calm and keep a hold on his powers, and goes to confront Dee alone. Dee twists Logan’s words and just makes them sound more suspicious, eventually whacking Logan with the handle of his sword and knocking him out. Virgil is enraged, and attacks Dee. He almost kills him, but then Roman arrives, and stops Virgil from landing a killing blow. He’s about to explain what’s happening, and that Dee can still be saved and it’s not his fault, but Dee (with the rock troll magic being channeled through him) Silences Roman with a spell, so he cant speak.

At the moment, Virgil is scared, distressed, and kinda cornered since he refuses to leave Logan’s unconscious body, and Virgil has no reason to trust Roman. All Roman knows about Virgil is that he’s wicked powerful and volatile, and he knows he can’t let Hans kill Virgil. This leads to the three of them all fighting each other 1v1v1, Hans trying to kill Roman and Virgil, Virgil trying to fend off Hans and Roman, and Roman trying to keep ether of the other two from killing each other while protecting himself.

Patton finally reaches them, and sees Roman knocked out and trapped in ice, incapacitated by Virgil, and Virgil is doin some ice magic at Dee, about to kill him, or at least wound him, to escape. Patton protects Dee, and is like “Yo no wait Virgil, you both have the wrong idea! He’s just scared of you, he’s not bad!” And Roman really wants to say “He IS bad but not in the way you think!”, but he’s still silenced. Virgil’s like “uh yeah he IS bad, look at what he did to Logan!”

Finally, Remus catches up. He runs in from behind Dee and Patton, so they don’t see him approach until he yells to them about the trolls and whats actually going on. While they’re all distracted, Dee attacks Patton, holding him at knife-point and using him as a hostage to get Virgil to stop with the magics.

How is this fight resolved? Fuck if I know, I kinda wrote myself into a corner lmao. They are somehow able to incapacitate/trick dee, and Virgil uses his magic to override the trolls and free him from the mind-control.

And, at the end, there’s this cute little scene, after Patton is explaining everything that happened to Virgil and vice versa, where Patton’s like:

“Wait, wait! Can you resurrect Thomas??” and Virgil’s all snarky about it like “I dont know, wouldn’t that lessen the impact of his sacrifice? He’s like, a part of me, right? I think he’d like to go out all melancholy and poetic like that” “Virgil oh my goodness if you dont bring back my little snowman buddy I will cry here and now” “Okay, okay, jeez”

HERE IS WHERE THE SECOND MOVIE COMES IN

pretty much the only thing that changes is this: you know the voice thing that Elsa just starts hearing out of nowhere as a sign to fix past wrongs and whatnot? Virgil only starts hearing them now BECAUSE the rock trolls were blocking the signal from reaching him. And, Dee comes with them on this adventure and kinda redeems himself over the course of the movie by being a cool dude. And, the grampa who did the betraying was ALSO controlled by the rock trolls way back when; the rock trolls have been trying to destabilize the magic for years so that they could siphon more of it away from the spirits for their own personal use, and they got greedy once they had humans (re and ro) to work with, wanting political power as well. (Dee has been staying with them in their kingdom, as the ambassador from his country or whatever)

And for all you Shippers out there

the ships for this could be literally anything, dude. like literally any combination works, go fucking hogwild. Doesn’t even have to have a romantic ship or anything, it could just be everyone being platonic lovely babies.

#sanders sides #sanders sides au #frozen au #sanders sides frozen au #ts sanders sides #i put way too much thought into this #i might draw it i don't know

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theawkwardarchaeopteryx · 4 years

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Secret Clanta

[This was a special request by @eatsrawredonion / step step step step for our Secret Clanta event on Discord on the Certified Clowns Server. Inexperienced in writing fics, I still hope you like it and I wish you and everyone reading this merry Christmas and relaxing, joyful holidays!]

Summary: On your way home from work, you notice someone following you and things escalate a bit. But how can you stay mad at this person for too long?

[WARNING: Stalking, mention of assault]

(If I forgot a warning, please let me know!)

Deep at night absolutely everything seems like a threat, even if there should be streetlights which actually work, not counting in flickering ones, but ones that, indeed, work like they should and serve the exact same purpose they have been built for. (or what a scared shitless young person or a person of any other age with a healthy amount of survival will points). Unexpectedly you have had to work an hour longer and oh boy, do 60 minutes make a difference when it comes to daylight disappearing just as much as the overwork time in your paycheck. Whatever, you think, you coworkers had needed help - and despite being tired you wanted to help them as much as possible. Too many people visit the supermarket at such an unholy hour and even in the (or especially, as many customers dare to come in five minutes before we close). Unfortunately, none of you colleagues have been able to take me with them, since both of them - at least the ones who had to work today - do not own a car and you take different subways. I had to sigh, both of them worried something might happen but unable to help you out.

Gotham’s streets are - terrifying. You could have used any other word right now to take away from the fear but honestly, this is the most tame one to describe the horror you had to go through by walking around at this time, no one around, or, which would also be - uhm, terrifying - someone around, leaving your mind juggling about whether it was worse to not have anyone, a person, nearby, or people, people who might hurt you or kill you. God, you wished it would end up being your secret admirer. Grinning at this wishful thinking you continue, freezing off your ass which you would love to save from the cold as well as death. You have almost been assaulted already and although you would love to change your workplace to a closer alternative, it is not possible as no one is looking for a cashier at the moment. Of course, of course, it has been - hah, you almost said it again! - an unsettling experience, to say the least that is. Nothing has scared you so much ever. You just always know that something could happen - however, you never know when this ‘something’ will strike, or for a better understanding, that someone. That someone, this night, were three someones, not running, just in their car, pulling up and that has been strange enough already, pulling up and getting slower as they approached you, asking for directions, directions in the middle of the night, directions in a one way street, directions when they stopped the car after telling them where to go because you were tired and just wanted them to leave you alone and then - you shudder, not only from this mere memory as you try not to pain yourself with it but also due to the cold air, making itself visible through little clouds, which you occasionally use to fake smoking a cigarette, a habit which you have taken over from your childhood to your young adulthood or, as you would like to describe yourself, older-child-not-really-grown-up-yet, 21 year old responsible kid-at-heart. You mean - no career so far, just saving up for college, an apartment not too far from home so you always could move back in should the rents rise up yet again, just as much as your blood pressure whenever you see yet another warning from your landlord to oh-so-please forgive him for raising is again or when you have to pass these goddamn streets once more.

All of a sudden, a sound reminiscent of shattering glass which now shatters even the last bit of carefreeness you thought you’ve had makes its way into your whole body, paralyzed, eyes widened, heightened senses - well, the last part is a lie as you are not sure whether your senses are actually heightened or just more focused. Whatever it might be, it’s giving you some reassurance in your survival skills. Where has this noise just come from? You know you should run, your inner voice tells you so - but your body is apparently deaf to its own calls, probably also because you don’t even know which direction you could escape into. Maybe it was just a bottle which fell from a garbage can, a full garbage can? This could calm you down if it weren’t for the treacherous doubt crawling through your every cell like vermins, you recall the night you were attacked - what did they do? Almost unbearably loud, your fastening breath alongside your even faster heartbeat, panting, sweat, sweat, sweat, you think you can actually feel every single drop of sweat leaving your poor pores, your pore pores, your - and steps, now you can make them out, thrown into reality again, where you should be, where you don’t want to be but where you are, right now, anyway, because if wishes could come true, you would have never ever left your workplace and you would not even have teleported yourself into your apartment but you would be working as a teacher already, young, freshly introduced to your first teenagers to teach and support or to seek support from by the school counselor, depending on who you have the luck or unluck to get paired with. Speeding across your surroundings your eyes, without any further thought, shoot into an alleyway. Only now you realize why they have taken your attention there for a sweet, sweet night out, oh, staying alive is so sweet - the footsteps, their home must be there, lying in the shadows almost next to you, hiding in anonymity like a webcam hacker. The steps have not stopped yet. However; they have stopped being urgent. Whoever is there, they are watching me right now, you think to yourself, moving a hand into your pocket, right now in this very moment. Gulping, it is impossible for you to move with shaking legs, pressed together in absolute horror.

Seconds pass in which you cannot make out any sound - whirling nightly breezes through the passages aka streets, whereas the buildings would just damp its whistling. Are they thinking about something, or -

Then they begin again, now with more confidence as it seems, confidence because - because of what? Your hand manages to grab ahold of a small pocketknife, not much but honest to work with, right? Even something personal, something with love you would protect yourself with, a gift given to you by your brother after he has been able to get himself a new one. Why are you occupying yourself with this right now? Normalcy, it dawns on you, normalcy - that’s what your brain is attempting to provide you with right now. The steps are nearing, and coincidentally the person who they belong to probably as well. Sudden clearance in your head gives you a positive reassurance - that whoever it might be, they are alone. At least regarding this one direction and by that words a compilation of familiar songs barely scratch your inner workings though you successfully ban them into a secluded area inside of you where none of it would bother you.

Then you see the first shoe, then the next, then one leg and then two and it is getting more and more exciting, then the upper body follows, a kinda sunken statue, but with big eyes, glowing eyes, glowing eyes more glow-ey than these goddamn streetlights because even though the man standing there right in front of you (okay, alright, not right in front but, like, five meters away), his hands running over his shoulders as you can make out his nervosity, he raises one of them as a kind of greeting, a “hi” almost as small as he obviously wants to appear in front of you and, as you know and damn him, as not to scare you, even if he is only a few little tiny itsy bitsy teenie weenie centimeters taller than you.

One of the greatest sighs mankind has ever experienced enters your mouth as you conclude you must have stopped breathing for a short amount of time, making this reveal even more breathtaking that you originally have thought at its beginning. And, oh boy, this is very much only the beginning. Your teeth grind against one another as you finally feel capable enough to let it out:”What are you doing here, Arthur?”

Your neighbor, and god forbid, he would be only a neighbor for the coming future for scaring you like this because he definitely deserves some kind of punishment for scaring you this much, after revealing your fear, what you have witnessed that time ago when you have been attacked and left in fear, because sometimes you would talk, because when you had just moved in and tried to be nice to everyone, but stopped being explicitly nice and regressed to simply being decent to a big part of Gotham, except for him because he has always been genuinely lovely and sweet, only sweet to you, awkward and nervous, yet you could understand, in some way, and you thought you could be friends, in some way. And he had taken care of your wounds, yes, good care, when after his 60-hour-week, after bringing his mother to bed, he has provided you with first-aid, then you had called the police, but he has been there. And, compelled to somehow make it up to him, his tired self having felt the need to aid you, you agreed to accompany him to his workplace’s Christmas party, where he has stick to you the entire time, and you have stick to him as well, because, well, you did not know anyone and you also did not really - like anyone, the way they made fun of Arthur, this sweet man, who had to be stuck with you, but nonetheless talked, talked, and nervously asked you if he could tell you some jokes, and he was so sweet and nice, like a good real friend, and he was just - there.

Just as much as he is here now, this sweet man, who you know and would love to call a friend, who you love as a friend, who you would - would not mind getting to know better with time, for no reason, or for a better understanding: You could actually think of a good reason. However; it would be worth more if he told you himself instead of keeping you guessing.

Arthur now caresses his neck, sliding around, curls his hair a bit, looking down; only to swift up immediately, as if he just has realized that you expect an answer from him. He begins to smile, although the bewilderment in his eyes is already a given, always a part of him - unthinkable for him to be without and, sounding more romantic than it is, as inseparable than the moon and stars or this city and high crime rate. Almost sucking his words back in, Arthur eventually gathers the strength to form a reply, now his gaze upon you, although you swear you can see it moving around your face in the shadows as he has still not been able to raise his own:”I was accompanying you.”

That’s it? Goosebumps bump up on your body, one of your friend’s legs begins to tap on the ground, tap, tap, tap, and if anyone would now look out of their window, they would either think it is another drug deal going on or a friendly, friendly conversation between two strangers, friends, neighbors or whatever or that’s what they would love to tell themselves, while scared and/or ignorantly ignoring how this could also be some kind of assault, yeah, best not to get involved.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. You feel like snapping, you really do. You have always known him as - weird, but charming, kinda cute in his lack of understanding of social life, his apparent unawareness and disknowledge or, as that is not a real world, inexperience in knowledge. You cannot even think of anything logical as it escapes you, not screaming but very much obviously tense:”You were what?”

Silence for a minute; Arthur’s lip becomes shaky, and you can make up tears crawling up his eyes as much as more and more shudders from your side. Accompanying you? What was he thinking? You have no idea how to respond, so instead you wait and hope - and hope for a little bit more input, a little push to send his explanation into logic oblivion - but to no avail. “I wanted to make sure you are alright, Y/N,”, he begins, now the vibrations taking over his voice as if they were contagious, from legs to lips to voice to brain, brain, brain - oh, yeah, his brain. it does not make much sense right now, this is - a weird thing to do, he cannot think clearly right now, you are sure of that, he is scared and nervous and has no fucking idea of what to do and what to say. Question now is: If he has done it tonight, how many times before has he done it? Without you realizing? Absurd yet disturbed you let your pocketknife fall. Okay, let’s get this straight - he was trying to protect you? “I’ve heard - people do that if they like someone,”, his voice cracks at the sequel of his explanation. Now that’s - that’s just… ridiculous, heartbeat going crazy, sweat set free as if it were a feral beast released into the wild, caged inside your bone marrow bars, behind bars, caging your heart in, but now out, in, now out, in, now out, your rage begins to take over - you’ve been scared shitless, you have feared you life. But instead it has just been - just been unknowing Arthur. You cannot relax, no way.”Why would you do that? Has no one ever told you?”, raising your voice, but not enough for your anger to shine through, bringing some light to him to have a better sight at your true emotions.”Have your parents never taught you anything?” Instant regret begins to flood you and especially your eyes, on the verge of crying. He has not scared the shit out of you, no, not only that - he has managed to take it as his own to now talk it. And now you just regret these thoughts as well - as he does not deserve it, not completely. You’ve just been so scared, so incredibly scared and the memories were almost breaking through, you could feel them tickling your throat, making you want to throw up - but as soon as your thoughts have the chance to let them seep through the cracks of distress anyway, you begin to focus on what is in front of you, who is in front of you. Narrowed eyebrows, eyes reflecting every bit of light as of how much they are filled with tears now, only a matter of time until they fall down his face, him getting uncomfortably close (well, yeah, closer, not close - closer, armlength that is), his not-too-tall-shape hovering over you in the extend which is possible.”Why are you saying this?”

You move a bit backwards, but Arthur doesn’t seem to want to let go - and it almost feels like as if he were trying to make the pressure on you not only emotional in nature but also physical.

“Arthur, I’m so, so, sorry. I was just.,”, you bring out, actually never having witnessed so much guilt taking over you, your posture narrowing down closer to the ground, crouching a tiny, tiny bit - not standing but crouching. Arthur’s attempts are less than soothing; her shakes now, leaning forward with his upper body, closer to your face than before, and for the blink of an eye you‘ve had thought of reassuringly telling him that you are sorry, that what he was doing was creepy but that you - appreciate his concern and that he could have asked you, just - asked you. Although you would have said no in every single way possible to the human species, as you would not want his working hours to expand to 24/7, but now his frame is dangerously close, you still try to walk backwards, raising you hands in defense should he try something. Sweet, sweet Arthur. Oh god. You would never have expected any of this - to happen, for him to be like this. You have known about his issues but not to how deep they go - nothing too personal, as he has never invited you to his home, and you have found his innocent unawareness, his sweet consideration, his adorable humor more than just friendly-charming, but charming in another, never-expected way, not before, not ever in your young life. And now you doubt everything that you think you have felt - that you two were heading to friendship town, and maybe, your inner self blushing madly while hiding its face, more, like best friends or this other kind of friends, this lovely kind, this lovey kind, one of a kind -

“I was just trying -,”, you hear his throat being soar, just as you notice bruises on his neck, exposed from his sweater, his special sweater as it is a Christmas sweater, an “embarrassing” one, warm and fuzzy and angelic -

“To make sure you are safe! I want you to be safe!” His veins pop out by how much overtaken he is by anger, on his bruised neck, hurt neck, where he has been hurt somewhere, hurt, hurt by someone, how dare they, he doesn’t deserve this, this is just his outlet now, he does not deserve this treatment, even if he is scaring the hell out of you right now, he does not -

Safe. Safe. I do not feel safe right now, Arthur, not with you, not safe, you can only produce these thoughts as he coughs for a few seconds, unable to walk away, not - wanting to go away because a baby, a fetus, an embryo part of you still wants to believe he is this nice guy from the same damn building, the one you have learned to appreciate. Oh, wow, finally they leave you the fuck alone and go on their merry way, your tears, running down your cheeks, your heated cheeks in this heated - argument? - which has made you totally forget about the freezing cold air without any source of warming light. And he cannot even get any closer, just half a meter away, cramping hands,”That’s what people do when they care, don’t they? That’s people do!” Care? He cares, he cares - does that mean you could try to get through him? He obviously has had a rough day, or, as far as you are concerned now, a very bad week and month and, even worse as the fears makes your nerves tingle on your ribcage like a xylophone, life, at least a big part of it. With you eyes widened in shock you can’t help but pay attention to the details - which would be that now, as he is having this breakdown, bites his lip, a fire suddenly igniting in his face, he’s drawing blood, oh god, Arthur, you are sorry, so, so, so sorry, you -

Taken aback by the sudden hit as well as the unexpected cold freezing shiver going through your heated cheek you gasp, your hand covering your mouth. Eyes drifting towards the ground, widened in shock, Arthur does the same, just that he, as very much apparent, now tries to stifle his wallowing up laughter, painfully obviously crying while doing so, managing to bring out a desperate “I’m-,”, gulping violently, you still unable to process what just had happened but even more so, what you are exactly feeling about it,”, so, so sorry. I -,”, another gulp, a final one as it seems, he trembles for a few seconds, breathing heavily. You are not even sure who has felt more pain - him or you. Another feeling makes its way into your mind and from there on, begins to infest your every fiber of being, unaccustomed to it, yet - strangely exciting, strangely something you would never have seen coming ever in your life, nothing you would have talked to anyone about - not even your fictional friends in your fictional world where you feel like you can tell them absolutely everything, and even beyond. “Arthur, you,”, you try to break through the uncomfortable tension, attempting to bring on a new kind of tension,”, don’t have to - to apologize. I want you -,”, collecting yourself, absolutely bewildered by what you are now about to say,”, to do it again.”

This has been the wrong answer apparently, because he is sent into a mini laughing fit, no, fight (some letters were missing that fit just so much better considering his condition), coughing in a torturing way, not able to look into your eyes as raises his head to your almost-identical height. Oh god, what did you just say? Oh god, oh my fucking god. Not yet, you think, I don’t even know him, we need to get to know each other better first, not yet. Wait - why are you thinking “not yet” so many damn times? Oh no. Oh no. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. So - so no. Adorable, friendly Arthur. Adorable, sweet, cute, terrifying, like the streets of Gotham at night, and if people at least once would try to get to know him as him and neither sorely his condition nor his occupation, as helpless and as much as a victim as you were when you were attacked, as helpful and lovely as only few of can compare to in your experience, they would realize that he deserves so many beautiful things, that , and you are sure you want to help with those things, help him with many things, just - help him. You collect your thoughts, everything has been chaotic these past few minutes. And all of this anger inside of him - is hopefully out now. “I am so sorry for what I have said, Arthur, I’m just -,”, your sleeve being pulled over your face to dry it from the tears,”I was scared, you came out of nowhere. Please don’t do that again, that’s just - spooky.” You begin to smile reassuringly, yet obviously still emotionally drained. but Arthur turns his head to the sides, scratches it (oh, that’s him being nervous!), feet tapping on the ground, he cannot even look at you, mumbling a heartbreaking “sorry, I will not bother you again” and makes his way into - well, the exact same direction you would have entered into anyway, so you quickly call his name (not too loud, obviously, as no one would want to be woken up, not even considering these unholy hours, but in general - just who on earth would like to be woken up late at night be a Disney movie ending, with both friends and foes falling into each other’s arms, forgiving each other, as comrades), and he turns around with his hair flowing majestically, floofly, your frozen ice cream legs easily catch up to everyone waiting, which now sounds as if there were more than one person, but it is just one, just that his - impact is one of a kind, an impact so strong it could have been more than one person, that’s - that’s just strong his impression is, one person whose name is Arthur Fleck, the one who you’d love to be a friend of, and maybe more, maybe - maybe, considering your more-than-revealing feelings today, but for that you’d like to get to know him even better, not just occasionally.

“I - I’m sorry for what I said, Arthur, I was not feeling good and I should not have let it out on you,”, your apology is sincere, shaky voice, still a little bit distraught but now a happy smile creeps onto your mouth, creeping on you like Arthur, but lovely, welcoming, not stalking, not - stalking your face. Your friend (?)/neighbor (?) looks utterly surprised, everything open in shock, eyes and face, his ears most likely too, as he seems to have understood.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping leg. Tap, tap, talk, talk. He holds his mouth closed for yet another time, most likely out of fear it will happen the exact same way it just burst out of him. But oh, no, this side of him - terrified you (hah, terrify!).

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,”, he then says and you swear, you have never in your life seen to much pain, pain from everything around you, in someone’s eyes alone,”,I will leave you alone now, I am sorry, I’m sorry”. It is dangerous to your mood talking to him, you think. He’s bringing you so much pain.

“Don’t be sorry. It was - weird and… and creepy, but,”, you now walk up to him, smiling at him with the full intent to make him feel better and to show him that everything is alright now,”,you have apologized and won’t do it again, right?”

Arthur looks to the ground for a few seconds, his gaze wanders to you, who is patiently waiting by his side; he nods, slowly. “I mean - since we are already here, how about we walk home together?”

Arthur smiles, no - completely shines at you, with his whole being, his inside joy being so intense at this thought that you would bet your shitty apartment on this that the world around both of you actually just got a little brighter as he heard you say that. You point towards him, grinning, as both of you had just stood there motionless, no one had started to finally, finally head to both your homes. Arthur, weird but - adorable, annoyingly, interestingly adorable Arthur leads you on to a journey both of you would never forget. One last thing, you think, one last thing about this incident tonight, tonight, after this, I do not want to talk about this again, maybe some other time.

“Thank you for walking me home. Can you ask me next time? I’d feel much - safer with you around. Being alone here sucks.” Arthur smiles, apparently covering a part of his face to hide something - his stifled laughter? His excited eyebrows being raised? His blush? It doesn’t matter, both of you appear so much more relaxed now that none of you are alone anymore. He then looks at you, grazing his neck ever-so-slightly yet again. “Well, I had planned that from the start. Just good that I don’t have to - don’t have to walk in these dark streets anymore. You can’t believe how many times I have stumbled.” He laughs, and although that was a crude attempt at a joke, you cannot help but grin bashful, the heat in your face rising, warming you up, being with him warming you up, hoping he would also warm you up with his self, his jokes, in the future.Then you remember something, something extremely important, of the highest caliber of importance which you will, from now on, never overlook, and pay attention to. “Arthur, by the way, let me help you with this injury on your neck once we arrive,”, just having remembered it, you hope to be able to help him, to give back to him what he has given you already - support, aid in times of need. “I’m pretty sure you have no more band-aids at your apartment, at least your supply was empty after, you know -,”, abruptly stopping, you wink in understanding. He looks seriously worried for a second, seriously, but apparently you worrying about him as well fills him with something else, as he has to look away, again covering his face for a split second. You wouldn’t even be able to see his blush in the dim light (that is if your assumption is true, hah!), but you would like to someday, maybe, possibly, if he allows it, if you allow it (your nervous self, god, are you nervous right now!), if you both get to learn more about each other and get along good enough. Well, today seems to have been a promising sign. And you can’t deny it but your hopes? They are up.

#Joker #joker x reader #arthur fleck #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x you #fanfic #the joker #joker 2019 #christmas #joker christmas #certified clowns group #certified clowns #secret santa #secret clanta #dc #dc comics #joaquin pheonix #joaquin phoenix joker

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that-gal-kay · 5 years

Text

Waiting in the Wings (For You), chapter five

Here we are! @accidentally-a-writer and I just completed our first collab! There are two stories left to come in this series though, so there will be more in this ‘verse!

Read the whole story on AO3 right here! We’d love to know what you think, so please leave a comment if you feel so inclined!

You can also occasionally find and scream at us on the Hamilwhumps Discord

Enjoy the fic!

Chapter Five: hard won wisdom

Hamilton’s breaths are coming fast and short, his eyes are blown wide, and he what he can move of his face looks horrified. He’s covered in the splatter of Davies’ blood. Washington focuses on Hamilton, only on the boy in his arms. He does not stop to examine the body beside them.

“Wh-why…?” It’s still hard for Hamilton to speak, even without the aftershocks of the paralytic further forcing his silence. “Why would y’do that?”

“Shush,” Washington is efficient, focused. He checks Hamilton for additional injuries, but other than the lingering effects causing his limbs to refuse to move, a barely bleeding cut on his neck and the twin burns on his cheeks already fading, it seems Davies did not cause any further physical damage. Hamilton makes an odd, strained sound as Washington rises with him.

It’s only once he’s on his feet that he remembers the far more serious injury to Hamilton’s side and murmurs a quick apology. With the boy in his arms Washington has no choice but to walk back to camp- a jostling ride on the back of the horse will do no good for that wound.

The trip will be a lot longer on foot. His horse waits patiently where Washington dismounted.

“Why?” Hamilton croaks again. It’s a clear struggle for him to move his lips and force his voice to work. “He- th’orders’ll be sent. Leave me, you c’n stop ‘em.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“But-”

“No, Alexander,” Washington pulls him a little closer without a second thought. Hamilton’s muscles go tense, but he can’t lift his arms or pull away. He knows too, the situation is dire. Hamilton seems certain that Davies was telling the truth- he intercepted those outgoing orders.

It makes sense. Davies got the letters from Laurens, returned the one he sent his father, because surely the man would recognize his son’s writing, and sent just one note back with contradicting orders. One note as a mere preview of the chaos about to ensue if they do not figure out a way to stop it.

Washington got Alexander back. He can stop this too.

“He… I w’s there when he…” Davies brought Alexander with him when he’d given the orders to the messenger. God, they were alone together for hours.

“Are you hurt?” What a stupid question, but Washington’s eyes scan the body in his arms, searching for any damage that might still be hidden.

The answer doesn’t come quickly enough. Hamilton’s eyes slip near closed and for a beat the general verges on panic.

“Hamilton, are you-”

“He… didn’t,” the boy struggles through words that should be so easy to say. “Didn’ hurt me.”

Hamilton doesn’t add anything else to the statement, but Washington understands. Davies would have waited to cause any further damage until he was certain Washington was going to walk away. He’d have wanted the general to know exactly what he was condemning Alexander to.

Another quick glance at the boy’s face betrays just how exhausted he is. Thinking back over the whirlwind of the last day or so leaves Washington unsteady enough- he can’t even think of when Hamilton may have last slept. He adjusts his grip carefully and apologizes again when a hiss escapes Hamilton’s teeth.

Truthfully, Washington is worried about the coming storm as well. He didn’t know what he’d do now, but he did know that he’d turned away from Alexander and heard Davies speak to him like that and knew he’d sacrifice anything to keep him safe.

After this, Washington is never going to be able to let Hamilton out of his sight without feeling the stirrings of panic in his chest; that cold that had become so consistent in the past few hours.

Hamitlon drifts off to sleep within minutes of their short conversation. It can’t be comfortable, but Washington imagines this is the safest he’s felt in the weeks since Davies showed up in camp with him.

He walks for what seems like ages through the woods back in the direction of camp, and it dawns on Washington how tired he is as well. Everything aches and he feels twenty years older.

It’s something of a miracle that Laurens and another aide meet them halfway back to camp. After a brief reunion and exclamation that Alexander is alive, which the boy in question sleeps through, Washington falls back into that natural mode of giving orders.

“Colonel Laurens,” The short, clipped words come with easy efficiency. Take care of the most serious issue first. “Return to camp and send out the fastest riders you know to any battalion that may have gotten an order in the last two weeks, no, make it three weeks. They are to stay whatever orders they've been given and shall send a representative to headquarters where we will work out a signal for relaying orders in the future. That way men with wicked intentions cannot intercept and change outgoing instructructions.”

Laurens stares at him for a moment, eyes widening as realization of what happened with the letters at camp dawns on him. He glances once at Alexander, and then gives a nod. “Yes, sir.”

As Laurens rides off at rapid speed Washington shifts his attention to the other man. Now for a more grim task.

“Back that way, in the clearing,” Washington nods in the direction he and Hamilton have come. “You’ll find a man’s body. Burn it and leave no trace of items that may identify him. You should find my horse nearby as well. Return to camp with him once you’ve finished.”

The other aide nods, salutes, and rides off in the direction opposite Laurens.

Washington takes a moment to close his eyes before resuming their trek. Finally, finally, this nightmare is at an end.

…

Hamilton wakes, groggy and aching and finding an unfamiliar low ceiling overhead. The room itself is surprisingly warm, and two small windows nearby let in afternoon sunlight and make the room bright enough for him to realize a few seconds later that he does not know this place.

Davies.

He lets out a wild sound, something akin to a growl, and quickly sits up. His side flares in pain, and Hamilton nearly loses his balance and falls off the bed. In fact, he would have ended up with his face against the floor had something sturdy not reached out to steady him.

“Relax, son,” the familiar voice is close by, attached to the hand holding him more or less upright.

Hamilton isn’t sure how he missed it when he awakened, but Washington is seated in a chair directly next to the bed. He looks tired, but sits, posture erect as ever, and Alexander wonders how much time has passed since he planted himself there.

“Where?” The first question seems the most sensible. His throat is dry, but the single word is the closest to normal his voice has sounded since this ordeal began.

“One of the locals was kind enough to lease us temporary quarters, at least until our own can be rebuilt. You’re safe here.”

It’s not that he doesn’t trust his general, but unease lingers in his chest. “The fire- it was Davies. He knocked over a candle and he forced me to drink something and I couldn’t move. I don’t… is everyone all right?”

Hamilton can’t bear the thought that more men have died because of him.

Washington nods, “Everyone escaped the blaze, though we thought for some time we’d lost you.”

“Davies,” Hamilton closes his eyes. That face lingers in the darkness, grinning at him, and he quickly opens them again.

“He’s dead,” Washington finishes. “Do you remember?”

He does remember the grip around his waist going slack, warm blood against his face, but instead of relief, it’s anxiety that creeps up Hamilton’s spine. “No, Davies had messages. He stole them from headquarters somehow and changed every order to pit our troops against each other and-”

“It’s taken care of,” Washington replies in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. “Laurens and our fastest riders are out putting those orders right. You’ve been asleep nearly a full day.”

Hamilton hums as he tries to push away all of that built up concern, but finds he has trouble doing so, even as the general helps him to lay back on the mattress once more. Once he’s prone again, he finds his gaze drifting away from Washington. If he’s been asleep nearly a day it doesn’t feel like it, because sleep is already reaching to pull at him again.

“Alexander…”

“Hm, sir?” He focuses his eyes again, concentrates on Washington’s face. It takes effort.

“My boy, I owe you so many apologies. If I’d believed you, trusted you in the first place, the moment you said Davies was the man who attacked you, none of this would have happened. I’m sorry. I know that will never be enough, but I am. And I will not allow this to happen again.”

Hamilton stares at the general with wide eyes until he feels something pricking at the corners. He blinks rapidly, turning his cheek against a pillow. What does he say to that? What can he say? Davies came after him, caused pain on a level he’s not experienced before, toyed with the general’s emotions and ultimately lead to the deaths of more than two dozen men, the loss of their headquarters, and who knows how much important information regarding the war.

It’s not all right, it never was, and yet…

“I forgive you,” He murmurs, sleepy. There’s nothing he can add to that to make it seem more eloquent. The whole situation serves to prove that the general is as human and prone to fault as any man. That frightens Hamilton a bit. “I’m sorry too,” he adds uneasily, recalling an outburst and refusing to speak to Washington just before the fire.

Washington sighs, and as Hamilton’s eyes drift closed again, he feels a gentle hand squeeze the back of his neck. “You’ve done nothing you need to apologize for.”

…

Washington leaves the room once he’s certain Hamilton is asleep again. The relief to see him awake, lucid, is almost overwhelming. The boy is alive, recovering- the doctor reported that he will probably be able to get out of bed in a couple weeks, and resume most of his typical duties a couple weeks after.

The notion leaves Washington both thrilled, and terrified.

The aide he’d sent to dispose of Davies had returned just as darkness fell the night before, confused. He was unable to find a body. Nor did he find Washington’s horse. Perhaps he wound up in the wrong clearing.

A number of things could have happened here. He knows he shot Davies. He knows where his bullet struck. He remembers the stain of blood on the man’s teeth. Washington shouldn’t dwell on it, shouldn’t worry, but God, he does.

When Washington returns to the room he’s been loaned for use as an office, a small space he’d typically assume is for storage, he finds Laurens waiting outside the door. The man looks like he’s barely on his feet, likely he rode through the whole night, but he still straightens and offers a salute.

“We were able to reach the other battalions without much trouble, sir,” Laurens begins. He follows the general into the little office, and then, seeming to think better of it, lingers near the door. The room doesn’t seem quite large enough for two men. “There was some confusion, and some men had begun marching, but they were stopped before any damage could occur. Each camp will have a man here to discuss how to prevent this in the future- a week from yesterday.”

“Good,” Washington’s reply is quick, even. He doesn’t need to put emotion into it for both of them to realize how dangerous this situation might have become.

“Sir,” Laurens doesn’t wait to shift the conversation. “Is Alexander…”

Washington looks up from a paper sitting on his desk and nods, “The doctor thinks he’ll be recovered within a month. It seems after being abducted he wasn’t injured any further. He’ll need time to heal.”

“I’d like to see him.”

Washington doesn’t want to say how relieved he is at that. If Laurens wishes to go sit with Hamilton, then he can push away the worry that still clings to him, at least for a little while. “He’s sleeping now, but when he wakes I believe he’d enjoy the company. Up the stairs. The last room on the right.”

Laurens nods and moves to leave, his back is turned when Washington’s voice stops him.

“Laurens,” the general calls, hesitance in his voice. The boy turns his head to watch him. “I am truly sorry for how I behaved after the news of the lost men came; I regard my actions as inexcusable but if you’d find it in yourself to forgive me-”

“I forgave you the moment after it happened, Your Excellency. The stress and pain you were under… I not only sympathize, I understand.”

The words lift a weight from Washington’s shoulders. He nods and offers as friendly as an expression as he dares. “Hamilton is lucky to have as brave and as kind of a man as you are as his best friend.”

Laurens grins and thanks him, quietly leaving. Washington picks up a pen and turns his attention to the stack of papers. Anxiety still pulls at him, teases him and makes him almost want to run upstairs too just to check on Alexander.

Almost.

Instead Washington takes a breath and begins to work. They’ll all recover. They’ll all get past this eventually.

They’ll have to.

…

They never recovered Davies’ body. In the month following the whole ordeal Washington had searched the clearing himself, and while there was blood staining the forest floor, there was also the absence of a body. He prayed that it meant some animal dragged him away, but that little inkling of worry started to overflow.

Hamilton’s recovery is going smoothly, albeit slowly. The wound in his side still pains him, Washington knows it does. Alexander tries to conceal his limp, how much it hurts to put any pressure on his side still, but Washington sees through it.

“There’s no shame in it,” he says one day. “That wound hasn’t been allowed to heal correctly since it was inflicted, it’s expected that the healing be slow.”

“I have no shame,” Hamilton hisses back defensively. “I’m fine - or getting there at least. I don’t need to be coddled so.”

But there was no real malice in his words, just a bit of frustration. He’s walking at least, and his voice is the same as it was.

Washington moves him into his chambers after everything that happened. The risk to Hamilton’s life is too glaringly obvious to ignore any longer; Davies said that he had been sent, if there is even a remote chance that the English had ordered Davies to attack Alexander specifically he will respond accordingly.

So the boy stays in a bed brought to Washington’s personal chambers, with the other aides sleeping in another room down the hall.

Washington barely lets him out of his sight, insistent of doing everything for him, and worries constantly about the things he does for himself.

It’s maddening.

It’s not that Hamilton doesn’t understand, he does. He jumps at shadows, closes his eyes and all he can see is that grin, he hears whispers too close to his ear that were never there.

Washington’s presence helps him; the opposite might also be true but he doesn’t know - Washington had almost sacrificed the war for him, and they were… closer than most employers and aides generally are, and at some point Hamilton has to admit to himself that that indicates a far more familial relationship between them. But he doesn’t know what to do with that.

He liked how it was before, when it was just this unspoken thing between them, but now actions have spoken louder than words and yet it’s still unspoken.

Also maddening.

Now, they are in an area that is horrifically grey; what is overstepping? What is too formal? And in Washington’s case, what qualifies and being too protective?

This, Hamilton argues, is not protection but control. He’s hardly allowed to go anywhere without a supervisor.

“I’m not a child,” he bites one day. “We’re in the middle of camp, I needn’t a guard.”

“And yet you’ll have one,” Washington replies without looking up from his notes. “We agreed you’d at least try not to fight me too hard on this Hamilton.”

“And I think you’ll agree that I’ve been spectacularly patient with it, but really-”

“I do not want to take the chance-”

“What does it matter, if Davies is dead?”

“He was sent here Alexander!” Washington roars, struggling to control his growl. “If not in the original orders, the British certainly know your name by now, he’d of reported back to them.”

“And so what if they know of my name! There is very little stock in a name like mine!”

“That’s not the point and you know it!” Washington stands. “Your position, your proximity to me has made you a target and I will not let this happen again.”

Hamilton also stands, but winces and clutches the back of his chair, pain shooting through his side. “I am no different than any of the other aides.”

Again, Washington shoots him a look, which somehow pierces into Hamilton’s very core. “Do not be purposefully blind to the facts,” he rumbles lowly. Both parties having lost their steam, Washington sits again. “You’ll be accompanied by the guard whenever you’re not in these quarters.”

Hamilton hears what’s not said: End of conversation.

“Your missives then, Your Excellency,” he hisses, angry. He takes the pile of messages and letters from his coat, depositing them unceremoniously on the desk. “I’m taking my leave now, in case you need to document it somewhere or send four watchdogs after me.”

The boy spins on his heel before Washington can reply, marching his way out the door with a slam.

He considers following him, but that’s probably not wise right now. Instead he leafs through the missives which had been thrown onto his desk so carelessly. Most are relevant to Congress, but there’s one that makes him stop dead in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat.

He knows the handwriting; had seen it in his nightmares for a month.

It’s just his name, folded and held together by a nondescript seal. Washington tears the letter open, that cold terror pooling in his gut. There’s only one line, but it’s enough.

Do you really think you can keep him safe every hour of every day?

Davies. He survived. But- but that was impossible, Washington had delivered that wound himself how could he possibly...?

That didn’t matter; he needed to get Alexander back here, needed to be able to see him, protect him.

“Guard,” he calls, summoning the man into the room. “Call Colonel Hamilton back, I’ve… work for him to do.”

“He said he’d be with Colonel Laurens, Your Excellency,” the guard replied, seeming uncertain of his next words. “Would you still like him back or shall I deliver-”

“Did I not just order you to fetch him? Go.”

“Yes sir.” The guard leaves with a quick bow, something Washington still occasionally cringes at.

He worries the note in between his fingers; he can’t tell Hamilton, the boy will never be able to recover if he’s constantly worrying about the threat. He’ll just protect him, he’ll have to. Hamilton might not like it, but he’ll just have to get used to the security.

He can’t- he won’t- what if Davies… Alexander needs to come back, he needs to come back right now.

The door opens, Washington stands expectantly, waiting for Hamilton to storm into the room. But he doesn’t come. The guard reenters instead, timidly clearing his throat at the general’s intense scrutiny.

“Colonel Hamilton was not with Colonel Laurens, sir,” he begins, prematurely wincing at Washington’s dark look. “Colonel Laurens says that he wanted to ride into town to deliver a message himself sir. It- it is not far.”

“I do not care of the distance, call him back now,” Washington thunders. The poor soldier wastes no time in rushing away, shouting commands to the men downstairs.

It might be embarrassing but he’d rather the boy is humiliated than taken again.

It is a great relief to the soldier that they are able to stop the colonel’s ride, he shudders to imagine the general’s rage otherwise. The colonel’s ire is a different story, he knows what to expect and still winces at Hamilton’s fiery stare.

“Washington summoned me you say?”

The guard nods stiffly, averting his eyes. Hamilton is a perfect picture of Washington when he’s angry. “General Washington indicated he had work for your doing.”

“Work,” Hamilton sputters indignantly, “this work could not wait the hour’s time this ride will take?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

Frustrated, Hamilton shoves past the guard and renters the headquarters. “Deal with the horse then,” he spits - he’ll regret his rudeness later but right now he isn’t in the mind for it.

Washington is quite sure this time, that the person exploding into his office is Hamilton, no one else would dare slam the door open the way he does. But instead of raging fire in the boy’s eyes there is only ice.

Hamilton says nothing, glaring at the general and approaching his desk like a chained bear. He’s still in his riding gear, it amplifies his rage somehow.

Still silent, the boy reaches for the pile of correspondences and stalks to his desk. He leaves the one the general thumbs at, barely casting a second glance.

The air itself is tense, Hamilton’s stiff obedience and Washington’s anxious worrying thick enough to cut.

Alexander is angry, that’s fine. Let him be. But Washington won’t sacrifice his safety for anything, not even their relationship.

Davies’ words echo in his mind, a taunt and a threat and a promise all in one; Do you really think you can keep him safe every hour of every day?

#hamilteaser #hamilton: waiting in the wings #waiting in the wings #collab fic #hamilton fic #hamilton #alexander hamilton #george washington #john laurens #men startlingly unequipped to deal with their feelings #angst #whump #dishonesty #arguing #washingdad

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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How Far I'll Go - Chapter 3 (Nina West/Monet X Change) - Meggie, Mia Ugly

A/N: They aren’t REALLY writing an entire season of All Stars, are they?

Thanks to everyone who’s been reading/liking this so far, as well as the Branjie discord for being awesome on the daily. This is a long chapter, almost 10k, so settle in. The link to the original song will be posted later today; I wish I could say that was a joke but it isn’t.

Chapter Three - Heart ablaze, banners high

“Hey y’all. I’m here to show you how the West was won.”

Nina struts into the Werk Room, poses briefly with his hands on his hips before firing a round of bubbles into the air. The first thing he hears is “Bitch!” in Vanjie’s unmistakable voice. After he crosses the floor to meet the other queens, Vanjie is the first one to hug him.

“Yaaas!” Vanjie says with his arms around Nina’s neck. “Come through, girl.”

Nina introduces himself/has a small meltdown over the other queens. Asia O’Hara is perfection on legs, dressed in a very short, sexy caterpillar costume which shouldn’t work but does. Blair St. Clair has ditched the Broadway baby look for full-on seventies supermodel. Nina Bo’nina Brown is padded for the gods and serving I Dream of Jeannie realness. She and Vanjie are all over each other; Nina had forgotten how hilarious they are when they’re together. Also there, also sickening, is Shea Coulee (Nina resists the urge to immediately kiss the crown goodbye. This queen, this fucking queen).

The next through the doorway is Laganja Estranja (“Is it four-twenty up in hurrrrrr?” DEATH DROP) who hasn’t changed. At all. Following her is Ivyyyy Wiiinters who is - a lot hotter in person than Nina expected. He knows he should be strategizing already but he’s so overwhelmed and grateful to be back in the game that it’s hard not to feel anything but excited.

He needs to put himself inside the head of - someone like Brooke. Brooke would have clocked everyone’s weak spots by now, would be thinking about who he’d want on his team and who the first girl home was going to be. Nina - frankly hasn’t got a clue. It won’t be him though, it absolutely cannot be him.

The next queen to enter the room is - oh.

Lovely.

Miz Cracker. Fan favourite and smart as hell. Nina smiles at her, hoping that whatever happened at Drag Con was a one-off. Cracker looks past him like he’s wallpaper, even as she shrieks and laughs and hugs all the others.

Not good, Nina. He can already feel the weight of rejection on his chest. It’s stupid, problematic, and familiar. That need to be liked rises to the surface any time he feels insecure or out of his depth. Like now. Now is exactly that time, and it’s also the time he should care about making friends the least.

Head in the game, he tells himself. It’s not RuPaul’s best friends race.

There’s only one queen left to arrive. Nina watches Vanjie watching the doorway, waiting for the last entrance. Nina has a couple predictions in his mind, but nothing he’d feel confident betting money on.

And then -

“Oh bitch.” Vanjie exhales sharply. “Fuck.”

Because Brooke Lynn Hytes has strolled through the door, wrapped in black and red studded straps, reminiscent of his Orange Alert runway and the bondage fantasy from the finale. It’s full on dominatrix mode, right down to the black stilettos and riding crop in his hand. It’s a look and the bitch is turning it, but… God, Nina feels bad for Vanjie. Because apparently, even the happiest exes alive don’t share everything.

All the color is gone from Vanessa’s face.

“You didn’t… He didn’t tell me either,” Nina says softly, but he knows it isn’t enough. If this surprise hurts him this badly, he can only imagine what it feels like for Vanessa.

Vanjie shakes his head and studies the floor until Brooke makes his rounds to greet everyone. Brooke embraces Nina tightly (and okay, Nina loves him, is happy to see him) but pauses in front of Vanjie, as if unsure of what to do. Vanjie bristles a little before pulling himself upright and stretching his arms out to Brooke.

The cameras are on and they are both professionals.

They hug, but Nina can feel the tension between them, and wonders if the rest of the queens can as well.

It’s going to be an interesting season for sure.

He doesn’t have time to speak again, however, because the door opens and Ru’s voice rings through the Werk Room. “Hello, hello, hello!”

Everyone cheers, but Nina’s smile feels a bit false. He’s got to put this whole thing with Brooke and Vanjie to the side; he’s here for himself, not to be a supporting character in their story. Focus, Nina.

“Welcome to All Stars! My darlings!” Ru comes down the stairs, smiling. He’s dressed in a powder blue suit with tiny feathers printed on it and looks exactly like he did when Nina last saw him.

“When I look across this room at all your beautiful and familiar faces, only one word comes to mind: security!”

The camera crew moves in to catch the queens all laughing. It’s kind of scary how quickly you get used to it, the scurrying motion of people and technology like insects. Nina chuckles like he knows he’s supposed to, trying not to look at Brooke and Vanjie out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh.” Ru mimes getting a note in his ear piece. “You’re all supposed to be here? Even better! To recognize the charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent that got you past the metal detectors, I’m throwing the event of the season and your first maxi challenge: an All Star Talent Show Extravaganza!”

Nina knew this was coming. He’s ready for it.

“But - there’s one more thing.”

Nina feels Vanjie reach down and grab his hand, nails digging into his wrist. Ru makes a show of counting the girls up, and Nina’s heart fucking drops.

“Ten queens. That’s a nice even number, but - as it is All Stars Season five, I think we’ve got room for some more. Oh laaaadiiies!”

One of the side doors opens, and Vanjie starts murmuring, “no no no no,” under his breath. Nina doesn’t even have the time to imagine who might be coming in before - Chad Michaels? - steps through the door. He’s not in drag, looking ageless and wiry in a faded t-shirt and jeans.

“Hi Chad!” Ru exclaims, fake-surprised and delighted. “So nice to see you! Did you come alone?”

“Not since the Uber. Oh! You mean -” Chad glances back at the doorway. “I’m sorry, I tried to lose them.”

“Hiiiiiiiieeeee!” Alaska sticks his head out.

The queens around Nina lose their collective shit, jumping up and down, snapping and cheering. Alaska is followed by Trixie fucking Mattel (out of drag like the others, looking adorable in a vintage cowboy shirt and bolo tie. Nina might have tears in his eyes all of a sudden - but look away, it’s fine).

Clearly, the winners of previous seasons are back. Which means -

Fucking hell, don’t -

Shit.

Trinity the Tuck comes through - followed by Monet Goddamn X Change.

The room erupts in cheers. Nina immediately glances away, but he’s not fast enough to avoid the fact that Monet looks objectively -

Monet looks -

Great. Obviously. Smiling in his round teal glasses and a sweatshirt covered with roses (Nina always had a weakness for thick-rimmed glasses, it’s his tragic flaw, it doesn’t mean anything). He carefully keeps his focus on Vanessa, makes a ridiculous “O” of surprise with his mouth, instead of risking eye-contact with the handsomest man in the room (who was also probably the best sex Nina’s had in an unfortunate length of time and whose number he never called and -)

Enough, Nina. Do some mindful breathing or something.

Monet and Trinity play up the jealous sibling angle as they cross the floor, holding hands while getting into each other’s space and jostling for attention. They come to stand in a line up beside Ru, who looks them over.

“Y’all look different than I remember. What is it? Oh right, you’re old.”

There’s laughter but it’s a bit weak. Clearly none of the competing girls have any idea what’s going on. Nina doesn’t think Ru would throw five new queens into this season, but - worse things have happened. And the returning queens aren’t in drag. They look good, though - some of them look extremely good and… probably taste like mint and… Jesus Christ, get it together.

“For the first time in All Stars herstory, I thought I’d give you girls a little professional help. ‘Cause from where I’m standing, you need it.” Ru gestures to his returning queens. “Ladies, for this season, each of you will be matched with one of our reigning All Stars. Now, these All Stars are here to act as your mentors only; they will not be competing for the crown. And you will still be judged individually, regardless of how your other teammate performs. As always, All Stars rules do apply.”

Okay, okay, this situation is still salvageable. They’re here to act as mentors, Nina can handle that. She’s not going to have to go toe to toe against Monet in some sort of horrifying lip-sync. They aren’t going to be the Branjie of the season, led to the slaughter for ratings, laid bare at the reunion for the entire world to rub salt in the wounds. It’s okay.

“However. Mentors, if one of the queens on your team wins a lip-sync, you will receive a cash tip of five thousand dollars.”

Nina wonders how long is too long to look at Vanjie. It’s probably been too long already - he’ll look at Ru. There, that’s fine. Just keep your eyes somewhere - safe. And smile. Or don’t smile? What’s the appropriate reaction right now? Nina is missing pieces of this conversation.

“And if a queen from your team is the winner of All Stars Season Five, not only will she win one-hundred thousand dollahs and a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame, but you will win a bonus prize of twenty-five thousand dollars. So choose your team wisely - cause some of y’all clearly need the money.” Ru eyes up Chad Michaels, who nods and gestures at his face.

“I won’t say no. All of this is about to expire.”

“Girl, we can tell,” Trinity shouts over at him.

“Oh, I just love these family get togethers!” Ru laughs and clasps his hands together as he studies them all. “But however shall we pick teams?” He presses a finger to his chin as he pretends to ponder the situation.

Nina’s stomach churns, but - Ru doesn’t know. No one knows. Unless -

“A draft!” Ru announces gleefully. “That’s something from sports, I think. Nina West, you know about sports right?” Ru makes a broad-shouldered motion with his hands, and Nina smiles tightly.

“Ask me anything at all about locker rooms.”

“Come find me on the break,” Ru says very seriously. “Now, mentors - each of you will get to choose one queen for your team twice. I think it’s only fair to go in order.”

There’s bickering between the mentors - Trinity and Monet are of course pressed that they’ll have last pick - but Trinity eventually relents, after Monet reminds her that age should come before beauty.

Nina steels himself as the draft starts. He’s never been the kid that gets picked first for anything, and it’s hard not to immediately go back to that middle school shame-place that still lives somewhere in his lizard brain. He just hopes he isn’t picked last. And deep, deep down, he kind of hopes that Trixie chooses him. They’re similar, he’s always thought. Campy, musically inclined. He’d love to learn from her, really pick her brain, score a guest appearance on UNHhhh, where he’d sit with her and Katya and they’d all be best friends and - that’s enough.

Chad makes a show of looking the queens over before he makes his selection and it’s so obvious. “Brooke Lynn Hytes,” he announces with a grin. Of course Brooke’s first.

Brooke claps and smiles, but Nina doesn’t miss the way Vanessa’s eyes roll back in his head. Honestly? He feels kind of the same way.

Alaska chooses Nina Bo’nina which makes total sense. They’re both quirky queens who are all about their brand, and it feels like a good fit.

Trixie’s pick is next. Nina feels himself straighten involuntarily, but Trixie barely hesitates before she trills, “It’s time for Crackerrrrrr!” and holds out her arms to the smaller man.

So that’s - that.

There’s the next round, of course, but does Nina really want to be on a team with a queen that hates him for no apparent reason? He sighs, the tension in his shoulders building. It’s going to be Grade Six kickball all over again.

The Tuck chooses Blair (also not surprising). Then it’s Monet’s turn, and, oh God, he’s looking past Nina, which is… Probably for the best. Definitely. Definitely probably for the best.

Then Monet’s eyes narrow behind his glasses. He crosses his arms over his chest, purses his lips together (and Jesus, what Nina remembers about those lips on his own and wrapped around his - not the time).

“Nina West.”

Nina’s head snaps up. He doesn’t move because - surely this is a joke. But Monet is standing there in front of him, the most neutral expression on his face, watching him.

“That’s you, girl,” Vanjie whispers beside him.

Nina nods. Nods again. He got chosen before Vanjie? In what alternate universe is this All Stars season happening?

He plasters a smile across his lips and walks forward, embraces Monet, plants air kisses on both of his cheeks. (His skin tingles where their faces brush. He should have called. At the very least texted.)

The draft starts from the beginning again while Nina awkwardly frets over what to do with his hands. Chad chooses Shea Coulee (clearly), and Alaska chooses Laganja, which is… Well, it’s a choice, certainly, but Nina believes in giving people second (and third and twentieth, most of the time) chances. Then it’s Trixie Mattel’s turn and she doesn’t pause a second before calling out, “Miss Vaaanjie.”

Nina isn’t jealous. Genuinely, he isn’t. The look on Vanjie’s face when Trixie calls his name is like the opposite of jealousy. Nina can’t help but glance over at Brooke to see if he notices it too (he does. Nina can tell. Brooke thinks he’s being cool but the way his eyes shift when Vanjie smiles is just - it’s kind of sad. And kind of obvious. And it makes Nina wonder why he ever thought he had a chance with this blonde goddess when - the way Brooke looks at Vanjie is something completely different).

Monet hassles Trinity into letting him pick next and is practically vibrating with excitement over drafting Asia O’Hara for his team. Which leaves Ivy Winters, who does not look pressed at all about being chosen last and bounds over to join Trinity and Blair.

“All right ladies. Now you’ll have time to meet with your mentors and plan your act. And tomorrow night, you’ll perform in front of a full house in my All Star Extravagaaaanza! Gentlemen, start your engines. And may the best All Star… win!”

* * *

“Okay, Team X Change. I’mma call you the X-Queens, what do you think? The Tuck is calling her girls ‘The Holy Trinity,’ and we can do better than that.”

Monet has pulled a chair over to Asia and Nina’s stations, which they’ve set up beside each other. Nina is trying to be the least embarrassing version of himself possible. He might regret bringing bubble guns.

“Obviously, I’m Professor X.” Monet gestures to his bald head. “You can be Storm,” he says to Asia (who seems extremely happy about that, and justifiably so). “And you -” He looks at Nina, who swallows anxiously.

“Wolverine?” he manages, and Monet laughs.

“Girl. Nah, you’re a Jean Grey. Just use those powers for good, okay? Don’t want no Dark Phoenix up in here.” Monet smiles but the smile is a bit forced, charming only on the surface. Underneath it, there’s something else. “So what you all thinking for this challenge? I got money on the line, remember that.”

Cool, flawless, beautiful Asia laughs, but Nina’s laugh doesn’t quite squeak out of his throat.

“I’m just going to lip-sync,” Asia says. “What I do best.”

Monet nods. “Yes, I live. I’ve seen you girl. What about you, Nina West?”

Nina was counting on this challenge coming up at some point in the season. He’s got an idea but - he’s not sure how well received it will be.

“I was thinking of maybe doing… magic?”

Asia stares at him.

“Like last season we did a magic show. And I thought -”

“Like real magic?” Asia asks, dubiously. “With wands and shit?”

“Girl! She’s not a fucking wizard.” Monet laughs. “Well, that sounds - unique. That’s something I want to see. You going to cut someone in half or something?”

“Maybe. Depends if I can find a saw.”

“And we already know you can make yourself disappear, so -” Monet stops. He meets Nina’s eyes with a sudden look of panic - but the look is gone just as quickly. So quickly Nina thinks maybe he imagined it, because Monet’s smiling widely again, poised and professional. “So we’ve got a plan. Good job team, mentoring done. Cut the cheque!”

They spend a bit of time talking about Asia’s dance number before splitting up so that Nina can practice a couple of the tricks he’s learned since Season 11. He was feeling pretty confident about it initially, but now that he’s surrounded by some of the most talented queens working today, he’s wondering if it’s too little. Or too much?

Fuck it. He puts on shows for a living, it’s what he does. The judges were in love with his magician character last season. He just has to build on it. And - no shade, of course - but at least he isn’t lip-syncing and dancing to his own single like ninety percent of the other queens seem to be planning. A magic show will stand out. In… some kind of way.

They break for lunch a bit later, lining up at the craft services table. Nina checks in with Vanjie and also tries not to ask too many questions about what Trixie Mattel is like in real life. He was worried he might start fangirling like an idiot when he saw her, but as soon as they called for a break, Trixie made a very intense sounding call on her cell phone (which apparently the mentors get to keep on them) and disappeared.

“She’s good,” Vanjie tells Nina as they eat some sort of lettuce wraps that keep falling apart in their hands. “Though just you try to get her off her phone. She on that grind twenty-four seven, maybe. How’s Monet?”

Um. (Really cute. And sweet. And an astonishing kisser, Nina’s feeling a bit dizzy just thinking about it.)

“Great,” he says.

Vanjie gives him a look.

“That sounded fake as hell.” For all that Vanessa is a terrible actor, he’s pretty good at clocking lies in other people. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Nina stammers. “He’s - it’s great.”

“Why you being all weird and shit? You talking ‘bout him like he’s a snack cracker. It’s great! Kids love it!” Vanjie does his best cool dad impression, and Nina almost chokes on his wrap.

“Oh my God, please stop with that voice.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this voice, ho. I’m -” But before he can say anything else, Brooke comes into the break room. Every muscle in Vanjie’s body seems to stiffen. Nina watches it out of the corner of his eye, a slow tightening of Vanjie’s arms, straightening of his back. Defenses going up.

“I - I gotta have words with your girl,” he says softly. “Catch you later.”

Nina watches him cross the floor to Brooke, watches Brooke’s face go through a weird and painful series of expressions as Vanjie gets closer (hopefearlustlonging).

Those two idiots, Nina thinks, and the thought is so loud in his head that it should basically be telepathy (is that a Jean Grey thing? Or is that telekinesis? It’s been years since Nina dug out his old comic books).

As he scans the room, he accidentally makes eye contact with Monet.

Shit. Abort, abort. Look anywhere else. Pretend that you’ve gone blind.

It’s too late, however, because Monet is nodding at him. Smiling. And oh fuck, oh God, he’s coming over.

“Hey,” he says, leaning against the wall beside Nina (who has suddenly forgotten how to eat, is just moving his wrap around on his plate as it falls to pieces). “Can’t wait to see your show tomorrow. Magic!”

He does an impression of Nina’s ridiculous catchphrase, and Nina laughs awkwardly. Nina is doing too many things awkwardly right now; pick another adverb, Mary.

“Feel good to be back?”

“Still, um, getting used to it. But yes.” Just fucking say it, just - get it over with before there are cameras on them again. “Listen, about - that night. The - uh, finale -”

“Girl.” Monet holds up a hand, stopping him from saying anything more. “I get it. I ain’t pressed about it. So just put that outta your head, okay? We’re cool.”

And Nina might be imagining it, but Monet seems - a bit redder than usual. The edge of his cheekbones, the tips of his ears.

Nina looks away.

“Just you focus on the crown, right?” Monet continues quietly. “It’s yours if you want it. I know what you can do.”

The quietness is - unusual. For him. Nina knows Monet as this commanding presence at the centre of every crowd, able to hold court in a packed bar, able to revive a dying audience with a wave of his hand. The weird fragility is a side Nina hasn’t seen before, and he has no idea what to say in response. Silence stretches between them.

And then Cracker runs across the room and throws herself into Monet’s arms.

“Cracks!” Monet cheers. “How you doing?”

“So much for friendship, dick,” Miz Cracker says with a smile as she hugs Monet. “I thought you’d want me on your team for sure!”

“It ain’t my fault Miss Trixie scooped you up, though I can’t blame her.”

“Well, you should have won an earlier season!” Cracker responds with a smack to Monet’s arm. She glances at Nina, looks him up and down with cold brown eyes. “Then you wouldn’t have gotten - stuck with the questionable choices.”

Nina takes a step away, and then another. Pulls a Miss Vanjie, walks backwards until he’s not so up in Monet’s personal space, and Cracker’s weird hostility. Neither of them are distractions he can afford right now. Monet said they were cool. So they’re cool, right? And whatever Cracker’s problem is, Nina’s got to put it out of his head.

He tries. As he rehearses his act on the main stage, he tries. But Cracker is there, too, just out of the corner of his eye. Her head is bent low, talking quietly and intensely with Monet, who looks… Annoyed? Maybe? It could be wishful thinking.

That night, he and Brooke eat cold pizza in Nina’s room (the door is open at the P.A.’s insistence, and Nina feels a bit like a teenager, but whatever).

“You should have told him,” Nina says and Brooke doesn’t even have to ask what they’re talking about. He nods.

“I literally couldn’t.” He repeats Nina’s own words back to him. “If he knew - everyone would know. The moment I stepped into the Werk Room. He’s - both of us are - not the greatest actors.”

“Hmm, not the greatest, bit of an overestimation -”

“Fuck off. You know it’d be obvious as hell. And - I didn’t even think I’d say yes. I kept thinking - but then after the finale, when they asked -”

“So why did you? Say yes. They’re going to make this the Branjie story again, right? Of course they will. Is that what you want?”

“No. I mean - I don’t know.” Brooke pauses. Sighs. “I guess I just felt like I couldn’t say no. He’s fucking furious, by the way.”

“I’m sure he is.” On some level - Nina gets it. He’s glad Brooke’s got another chance, of course he is. Brooke’s perfection and he deserves it. But it’s hard for Nina not to feel like he doesn’t stand a chance with Brooke in the mix. Brooke almost won last time. That last lip sync was so close, it could have been either of them. (Nina might have a theory as to why it wasn’t Brooke, and the fact that Brooke’s sitting across from him in the hotel with Vanessa a few doors down is doing a lot to confirm it.)

“So you said yes because you felt like you had to,” Nina says slowly, “but you already knew Vanjie was coming. You knew I was coming.” (Though Nina doubts that would have affected Brooke’s decision at all.) “Why didn’t you tell them you’d come for the next season?”

Brooke tosses his pizza crust onto the paper plate on the bed and shrugs. “You never know if you’re going to get next season. If I’d said no, they could have written me off, or—”

“That’s bullshit and we both know it. You’re golden. They love you.” He normally isn’t this firm, not with Brooke, but Brooke also isn’t usually this avoidant of the truth. And Nina knows he isn’t getting the truth from the man sitting across from him. It bothers him. He’s good at reading people, great at reading Brooke after a decade-long friendship, but there’s been a boundary up ever since the season ended. Really - ever since he broke things off with Vanjie.

Nina might have been too firm, because Brooke lowers his eyes and shrugs. Starts to shut down. So Nina tries a softer approach.

“Why are you really here, Brooke?”

“Maybe - I’m just tired of always being the first runner-up. Never being enough,” Brooke finally says, and there’s pain there; a real, raw ache that is palpable from the timbre of his voice. “I won Continental and then…” He shakes his head. “First runner up. Always. Almost, but never quite - I just… I thought maybe on All Stars I could…” Brooke meets Nina’s eyes again, gives him a self-deprecating smile. “Show them I’m enough.”

For God’s sake. Nina hugs him, pulls him tight to his chest. “You’ve always been enough for me.”

“Thanks.” Brooke sniffles.

“But, and I need you to hear me very clearly,” Nina says, “even though I love you, you’re going to have to work, bitch. Because I fully plan on sending your ass back to Canada the first chance I get.”

Brooke throws back his head and laughs. “Just try it.”

“Oh, I’ll do more than try. I’m taking the crown this season.”

“Not so congenial anymore.” Brooke is still laughing, so Nina laughs too. And just for a moment, with the cold pizza and laughter between them, he could almost forget that they’re back at Drag Race, back in the (second) most important competition of both of their lives.

That night, when Nina lies in bed with his headphones in - listening to the potential lip-sync song for the next day, not that he’s counting his chickens or anything - he feels like maybe he can do this. Maybe he should be here, even in the presence of all this greatness. Even if - even around - someone like Monet.

(“If I’m shining everybody gonna shine,” Lizzo sings in his ear, and Nina closes his eyes tight. Hopes that he can be shiny enough to stay.)

* * *

The mentors aren’t in the Werk Room the next day, but they’re going to be in the audience at the show. That’s - maybe for the best. For all that he tells himself to focus, Nina is still acutely aware of where Monet is in the room, and it’s - unsettling. He doesn’t need that weird sixth sense distracting him right now. (He’s pretty sure that isn’t a Jean Grey thing.)

He paints in the mirror between Asia and Brooke, only half listening as Laganja and Vanjie’s conversation gradually gets louder and more snarly. There’s something off about Vanessa today. It’s clearly nerves and Nina kind of wishes he could go over there and hug him, but he’s not going to step between Vanjie and Laganja and risk getting an acrylic to the eye.

Nina takes in a few deep breaths, blocks them out, focuses on blending his eyeshadow. Purples into pinks. Pinks into whites. Black liner wings. Thick. Thicker. Thickest.

Then it’s frighteningly quiet all of a sudden, and Brooke is gone from his side.

He shifts his focus in the mirror and sees Brooke holding tightly to Vanessa’s shoulders, speaking quiet words to him. And while Vanjie still looks pressed, still shoots death glares across the room where Laganja has stormed away (and is, naturally, still talking), he isn’t vibrating with rage anymore.

“So use it,” he hears Brooke say softly. “Channel it. Win.”

And Vanjie nods, shrugs out of the hug Brooke tries to pull him into, and walks straight out of the Werk Room.

Brooke returns to the mirror at Nina’s side and heaves a long sigh.

“All good?” Nina asks, gluing on his lashes.

“Sure,” Brooke says with a smile that seems a little forced. “All good.”

When they’re finished painting, the P.A.s come by to grab them, take them to the main stage. Nina is the ninth act up, and so he gets to sit with the audience in the meantime. The mentors are there as well, in full awards-show drag, and it - only knocks him one step backwards when he sees Monet in black sequins. Sheer panels down each side. Purple lipstick.

“Hello, my X-Queens.” Monet smiles broadly as Nina and Asia walk past to find their seats. “Asia, look at you girl! Stunning. And Miss Nina West -”

Nina flinches a bit, not knowing what to expect. He’s going for campy, not glamourous, and compared to Asia - or Monet - well, there’s no comparison. None.

“Gorgeous,” Monet says simply, smile turning soft.

Nina swallows. “You too,” he chokes out through a throat that is suddenly completely dry, the Sahara Desert. He sounds more like Harvey Fierstein than he did during Snatch Game.

Abort, abort. Nina gets away as fast as he can, grabs an empty seat without really caring if it’s his.

“You okay?” Asia asks him, and Nina nods, doesn’t dare try to speak again. He’ll grab some water before his act.

A second later, Vanessa slams into the seat beside Nina, legs folded and arms crossed. Nina gives him an anxious look and decides to risk it.

“What’s going on with you and Laganja?”

Vanjie just blinks his eyelashes.

“Bitch is just running her mouth about shit that don’t concern her, like who gets to come back and when. Shit like that.”

“Oh.” Nina thinks back to Brooke’s hands onVanjie’s shoulders, voice quiet and intent. “Are you all right?”

He hears Vanjie take a deep breath. Sees his chest rise and fall in his peripheral vision.

“I’m gonna use it.” He casts a pressed look over at Nina, pursing his lips. “But don’t tell that blonde bitch I said any of this.”

Which one? Nina wants to ask. Brooke or Laganja?

“Never,” Nina swears, and then the rest of the queens file in beside them and the show begins.

Blair St. Clair is up first, singing. She struts slowly toward the standing microphone in the middle of the stage, dressed like a sixties songstress. As the torch-song instrumental track kicks in, Blair looks up and catches Nina’s eye.

And starts to sing:

“This is awwwwkward.

He’s seen you naked, now you’re on TV.

I’m pretty sure the other queens can see

How obvious you’re being,

Nina…”

Nina - cannot be hearing this right. He looks at Asia and Vanjie beside him, but neither one of them seem to think anything is weird about Blair’s song.

“This is awwwwkward.

You have to work together on this show

Now it’s a countdown ‘til the judges know

That you got drunk and made it awkward…”

Someone has turned on a disco ball, and the stage is covered with spinning flecks of mirrored light. The music picks up, beat growing harder.

“You can’t blame tequila for this.

Blame it all on a kiss.

Blame the night, the mood

The way you were feeling….

You can’t say it was a mistake

Cuz girl I see your hand shake

When you push it down inside you

Though you try you cannot fight the -”

At this point, Blair stretches out her arm, fully pointing at Nina in the crowd, while she takes the melody up an octave.

“Awwwwkward

You thought you left it in the past somewhere

But good God girl don’t let him see you stare

Nina West I swear

You’ll make it awwwkward…”

People are clapping, but Nina hears it coming from another room, as if there are walls between him and the rest of the audience. That couldn’t have been - that wasn’t -

“She kinda all over the place, huh?” Asia whispers to him

Nina has momentarily forgotten how to speak. He tries to clear his throat.

“What was… Um. Her song was called what again?”

Asia laughs. “Girl, I don’t even know. ‘Heathered’ or ‘Flickered.’ Some shit like that. Why, you wanna buy it on iTunes?”

“Not, um. Not ‘Awkward’?” Because he knows what he heard. A song directed right at him. Because his instincts were right and everyone knows what happened the night of the finale.

“No.” Asia narrows her eyes. “Though that could probably be a song about her career since Season Ten. Oh, bitch - ‘Ganja’s act’s up.”

It’s… An act. It’s supposed to be some kind of lyrical dance piece, and Nina knows that Laganja is an incredible dancer, but this is… Well. Not great, to be honest. It’s an excellent distraction from his incoming panic attack, and Nina almost sighs in relief. He can at least do better than this number, if nothing else.

Nina Bo’nina Brown shocks the hell out of everyone when she produces a silver flute from underneath a caftan and skillfully plays a rendition of Sissy That Walk. Ru looks impressed, if maybe a little bored. Nina tries not to bite off his acrylics.

The real wildcard is Ivy because everyone remembers her stilts and everyone remembers her voice, and if it were Nina, he’d sing an aria while parading around on stilts because hey. Work what you’ve got.

But instead they cut almost all the lights, and Ivy performs a shadow puppetry show full of jokes that Nina’s sure he could process if only he wasn’t so damn nervous.

Shea lip-syncs, and fucking slays it just like Nina knew she would. There are three reveals, if he’s counting right. Vanjie’s fingers have gradually tightened around Nina’s wrist, and by the time Shea’s act is over and Vanessa is up, Nina’s fairly certain he has bruises.

Vanjie stands, straightens his silver beaded gown, and sucks in a deep breath. Then Brooke leans forward and fixes a strand of fringe that’s snagged on Vanessa’s pantyhose. Vanjie jerks away like he’s been scalded.

“Break a leg,” Brooke says softly, trying his hardest not to look hurt by the reaction.

Vanjie nods and sets his jaw before marching backstage.

Nina shakes his head, focuses on his own routine instead of the drama playing out in front of him.

Whatever’s happening between Vanessa and Laganja, whatever’s happening between him and Brooke, Vanjie absolutely channels it. Nina can’t remember how many times he’s seen Vanjie perform, but this is unparalleled. It’s like lightning set loose on the stage. He’s a whirlwind of silver beads, white feathers, peach hair, spinning-melding-mixing to the throbbing bass of a Lorde song Nina’s heard but can’t place. Despite his nerves, Nina can’t turn away. Behind him, Brooke is steadily tearing his copy of the lineup into confetti.

That’s a legitimate fucking All Star.

Asia dances the house down, then Miz Cracker has Ru and Michelle hanging onto each other and crying from her standup. Whatever weirdness is going on between Nina and Cracker is beside the point. The bitch is hilarious and that could be a problem for him.

He knows there are acting challenges to come (All Stars is infamous for them), and it would be nice to have Cracker on his side. Whatever this rift is, he needs to mend it and quickly.

So when Cracker comes off stage, Nina reaches for her hand and congratulates her. “You were great!” he says with enthusiasm.

Cracker gives him a terse smile, flips her hair, and takes her seat next to Blair. Nina guesses a terse smile is better than a look of pure vitriol. Progress. Progress is good.

Blair… Blair’s been crying quietly ever since she came off stage. Apparently she’s very upset with her number. To be honest, Nina’s pretty upset with her number also. He knows what he heard. What he can’t figure out is why no one else seems at all shocked about it. (Okay, so maybe Nina might be hallucinating. What’s a bit of light hallucination between friends?)

A couple of P.A.s set up Nina’s props for him while the cameras are resetting. He feels himself spiraling, but shakes his head, refusing to be rattled. He tries to focus on his character, on the challenge that he’s about to fucking slay. He tries to focus on the crown.

But as he walks out onto the stage, blinking at first against the lights, the only thing he can see is the corner of Monet’s mouth, lips curling as he says “Gorgeous,” eyes warm and intent like - like he means it (which he doesn’t, which he can’t, which -)

“Ladies and gentlemen and gentlemen and ladies and gentlemen!” Nina greets the audience.

He takes a breath -

- and by the time he exhales the act is over. He’s walking off stage, hands trembling with adrenaline.

They laughed, right? He’s pretty sure they laughed. Did Ru laugh? He might have. Nina can’t remember most of it.

As he moves on autopilot back to his seat, some of the other queens congratulate him. It couldn’t have been a complete disaster then? He catches Monet’s eye, and Monet smiles. (Nina feels that smile like electricity, running through his nervous system and lighting it up like a Christmas tree.)

Stop it.

Vanjie squeezes his arm when he sits back down. He’s beaming.

“Bitch, it’s over. That’s the show, sis. Cut the cheque.”

“I - really? Thank you, I mean. Really?”

“Don’t be all modest and shit, you must’ve heard the judges laughing. Thought Ru was gonna die, I’m serious. Trixie probably already dialing 9-1-1. Bitch is on that phone enough.”

Nina has no idea what Vanjie’s talking about, but he hopes to God it’s true. Especially because Brooke’s up next, the final act of the evening. (In all honesty, the one that everyone has probably been waiting for.)

The Canadian has gone full Black Swan for this performance, right down to the black feathered pointe shoes and jagged wings that look like they’re protruding out of his skin. As Brooke starts to dance, Nina hears Vanjie swallow.

Sees him look away, turn his head slightly to the left (it’s like the sun, maybe. You’re not supposed to look at it directly or it will blind you).

Brooke’s beautiful and vicious and fatal on stage, and Nina’s pretty sure Vanjie is holding his breath. His hands are clenched together in his lap, knuckles turning white. Nina still feels the ache of Brooke’s beauty sometimes. It comes and goes, especially when he’s been drinking. He imagines that it always will.

He reaches out, puts his hand over top of Vanjie’s. Vanjie flinches in surprise. Then he lets out a quiet breath, and Brooke finishes his routine, falling gracefully to his knees.

Perfect. Flawless. Everyone else here is completely fucked.

“Meh,” Nina whispers in Vanjie’s ear, maybe to reassure himself just as much as Vanessa. Maybe.

But it makes Vanjie laugh just the tiniest bit, and it settles Nina’s stomach, and it’s the least he can do for now.

* * *

He’s lost track of how long they’ve been standing on the runway, but he knows his feet are numb, and he doesn’t think Monet has blinked once. He’s just… looking at him. At all the queens, probably. Clearly.

Shea, Ivy, Asia, and Miz Cracker are all declared safe and sent back to the Werk Room. Nina’s heart sinks a little. He wanted to think he was in the top if Vanjie’s glowing comments meant anything, but he isn’t sure he was better than Cracker. That’s terrifying because if she’s safe that means Nina’s… potentially… not.

But there’s Monet again, smiling at him from the audience. Nina takes a deep breath and prepares himself for the critiques.

“Ladies,” Ru says. “You represent the tops and the bottoms of the week. Now for the judges’ critiques. We’ll start with Nina Bo’nina Brown.”

Michelle says it fell flat. Ru says it was flat. Ross loves everybody and finds the silver lining (literally - Nina’s wearing a pink gown with silver lining). Either way, they aren’t impressed. Nina West relaxes a little.

They gush over Vanessa, and they should. Ross says it’s some of the best work he’s ever seen from him. Ru agrees. Michelle says she’s just so happy to see a dress and not a bikini and cape. And, oh yeah, she tacks on, the dancing wasn’t bad either. Passionate, fiery. This is the Vanjie they wanted all last season and didn’t quite get. (To Nina’s left, Brooke ducks his head, accepts the blame silently.)

Laganja’s critique is the opposite of Vanjie’s. The judges are confused to put it lightly… Offended if they’re being honest. And of course Laganja can’t keep her mouth shut.

“I guess I just don’t understand why some people are getting third and fourth and fifth chances while the rest of us are up here working our asses off–”

“Ain’t none of us getting fourth chances, Mary,” Vanjie interjects, and Nina prays he keeps his cool because after a critique like his, the challenge is as good as won.

“I’m just saying that this is your third season in a row, and it might be oversaturation.” Laganja shrugs.

“That’s a big word,” Vanessa retorts. “Where’d you learn that word?”

“Vanj…” Brooke says quietly, which is maybe the worst possible thing that can happen.

“Don’t.” Vanessa’s voice is low, threatening. “I need you to not talk to me right now.”

Brooke physically wilts, collapses in on himself. Nina focuses on the spot on the wall just above Michelle’s head.

“Moving on,” Ru says and diplomatically ends the conversation. “Nina West!”

“So glad to have you back, Nina.” Michelle smiles (she smiles!) “You are still a delight.”

Nina could melt into the stage. Could just become a puddle of vaguely Nina-shaped goo and it would be okay because Michelle is beaming at him, praising him for his newly acquired magic skills, and Ru is nodding along.

“I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in years,” Ru admits. “You really can tell that you’ve taken our critiques from last season and applied them. It absolutely shows.”

Ross also has kind words (when doesn’t he?), but Nina’s lost in the high of hearing Michelle and Ru praise him, lost in the feeling of success.

They move on to Brooke, whose black eyeliner has run just a little. You could hardly tell from the way he’s holding himself upright, one leg behind the other, perfectly poised. Perfectly Brooke. Perfectly perfect. With the exception of that one streak of eyeliner, a single tear track down his face that he quickly wipes away.

The judges don’t seem to notice, praise instead his going out of his comfort zone, the grittier performance of his Black Swan instead of the grace he was known for on Season 11. Nina guesses they’re right; Brooke seemed to let go on stage, throw himself more into the performance. It was still flawless, every move calculated and textbook, but there was more emotion behind those grey eyes today than Nina thinks he’s ever seen from Brooke on stage.

Brooke thanks them, bows his head demurely, clasps his hands in front of his body.

Then they come to Blair.

“Oh, Blair.” Michelle shakes her head. “It was just a mess.”

Blair nods. Blair nods through most of it. Nina tries to listen, but still can’t reconcile the fact that apparently the entire room heard something completely different than what he did.

“I know I let you all down,” Blair says through tears. “And I’m really sorry. I promise I’ll do better.”

Ru smiles, but it’s tense and forced. “Based on the judges’ critiques,” he says, looking up and down the line, “I’ve made some decisions.”

Nina’s heart is in his throat. He can’t breathe, can’t focus, can’t keep himself upright.

“Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, Nina West: you are the top two All Stars of the week.”

Nina’s heart bursts. Actual sparks are shooting from his chest (okay, not actual, but you couldn’t prove it by the warmth that radiates through him). He ventures a look out towards the mentors and sees Trixie and Monet on their feet high-fiving each other. And Monet’s looking at him and smiling, smiling, smiling.

Down the line, Vanessa is laughing. His hands are clasped together in front of his chest and his head is thrown back like he’s praying, but he’s laughing.

“You’ve each won a seven-night stay at the Atlantis Hotel in Nassau Paradise Beach, Bahamas,” Ru says, and Nina almost faints. “Nina Bo’nina Brown, Brooke Lynn Hytes: you are both safe.”

Nina hears Brooke exhale before he lifts his head and smiles up at the judges.

“That means Laganja Estranja and Blair St. Clair: I’m sorry, but you are in the bottom two.”

Blair cries even harder, and Nina kind of wants to hug her.

“Vanjie and Nina,” Ru continues, and oh shit, Nina might have forgotten this part of winning in All Stars. “Each of you needs to decide which one of the bottom two you will eliminate if you win the lip-sync.”

Nina’s heart is in his throat. He’s got to send one of his sisters home.

“While you deliberate backstage, the judges and I will… perform trust falls.”

It gets a laugh, but when they all file into the backstage lounge, Nina realizes he’s shaking. A couple of the girls grab cocktails (not Vanjie or Brooke) but Nina doesn’t need anything affecting his focus right now. He feels simultaneously sick and elated. Also a bit worried this might all be the result of a head injury or something. Maybe he tripped and fell on the very first day, and everything from then on has just been in his mind. It would explain whatever the hell happened with Blair’s performance.

“Congrats Top Two!” Asia raises her glass at Nina. “X-Queens represent. How you feel girls?”

The producers have been very clear that they’re supposed to talk this whole thing over, but Nina is having trouble finding the words. Vanjie’s quiet too, and he catches Nina’s eye from across the room, gives him a small smile.

“It’s good, you know. First challenge win, right. It’s gotta feel good.”

Brooke’s watching him, silent, with eyes that are so soft.

“Congratulations Vanjie,” Nina says the thing that Brooke would clearly say if his nerves would let him. “You deserve it.”

“So how are you going to decide?” Nina Bo’nina asks. “Every year they ask that, you gonna follow some rules or -”

“Hell no.” Vanjie cuts her off. “I don’t think that’s somethin’ that works out. You gotta listen to the judges but also - listen to yourself, right? I ain’t gonna just lay it all out now -”

“So I guess that means I’m fucking going home.” Laganja’s voice is shrill and sudden, and she stomps away from the group, heading towards the mirrors.

“No,” Vanessa calls after her. “I ain’t saying that, bitch. Listen -”

“Well you’ve already made your mind up!” Laganja shouts back. “So fuck me, right?”

Nina wants to make himself as small as possible. He knows that his eyes are probably wide, and his smile is probably crooked.

“No one is saying that, Laganja!” Shea doesn’t turn her head, but says it loud enough to be heard across the room.

“Yeah fucking right!” Laganja screams back, and Nina is - above all, a ‘nice’ person, and he’s not going to keep a conversation going like this, so -

He takes a deep breath and crosses the room to go talk to her.

They end up sitting in a corner somewhere that a P.A. has set up big velveteen chairs specifically for the purposes of these conversations. Laganja isn’t crying but her eyes are watery, and Nina can’t help but feel sympathy.

“Listen,” he says, because that is a respectable way to start a conversation. “I think you’re a great performer, I think you deserve to be here.”

Laganja sniffles miserably.

“We don’t have to talk about anything, but I wanted to - if you wanted to - give you a chance -” To what, Nina? “State your case. Or make an argument. Whatever you like.”

Laganja looks up at her.

“Or we can just sit in awkward silence, that’s fine too,” Nina says with a shrug. “I did attend a lot of waspy family dinners in the Midwest. At this point, I have a PhD in awkward silences.”

Laganja - actually smiles at this. Then she sighs.

“It’s sweet that you think you’re going to win.”

Oh.

Okay.

After that, the conversation dies a pretty natural death. Nina doesn’t know what else to say. She wishes Laganja luck, and then Laganja straight up refuses to talk to Vanjie. Fine. She’s making her choices.

Blair cries through most of her time with Nina (which is too bad because Nina is trying to figure out the least alarming way of asking her what the hell she sang about). Nina doesn’t know if Vanjie talks to Blair, but - really, it probably doesn’t matter. Maybe Laganja will be ready for a later season of All Stars (hopefully her edit will be kind) but she’s clearly not there yet. Even though she was kind of the worst, Nina almost feels bad for her. She’s talented, she just needs to get out of her own way.

They film him and Vanjie as they pick out their lipsticks. Nina plays up the conflict, but he can’t imagine it’s a huge choice for either of them. He smiles at Vanjie, squeezes his hand as they prepare to go back on stage with the rest of the queens.

The lights feel brighter than they were before. Nina hasn’t been this nervous since the last time he stood on stage waiting to lip-sync against Silky. It doesn’t make any sense when he thinks about it, because the stakes were so much higher that time. He knows he’s safe this time around, knows he’s coming back for another week regardless of how this whole thing with Vanjie plays out. The $10,000 would be nice, but is it worth it to have to send someone home Week One?

Fuck it. He wants the validation. Wants to prove that he is a good lip-syncer. Wants to shove aside all the shame that still burns hot in his belly when he thinks about giving his everything to stay on this stage and having it not be enough.

Production stops him and Vanjie just behind the stage and lets the other girls get into position before they walk onto the runway. Vanessa takes the opportunity to turn to Nina and pull him into a hug.

“However this goes, girl,” he says into Nina’s shoulder, “there ain’t no one else I’d have wanted to share this win with.”

“Same.” Nina breathes a shaky sigh into Vanessa’s hair.

Then production waves them in and they walk down the runway side-by-side. Nina blocks everything else out, tries not to see the other girls (especially Laganja and Blair, who stand to the right of the stage, barely visible in the lighting.) Nina doesn’t risk a glance at the mentors. He can’t handle seeing Monet and that perfect Goddamn smile right now.

Nina holds his head up high, focuses on Ru, runs the lyrics over and over in his head.

“Welcome back, ladies,” Ru says quietly. His entire demeanor is different now that it’s time to send the first queen home. “Two top All Stars stand before me. Ladies, this is your chance to impress me, win ten thousand dollars, and earn the power to give one of the bottom queens the chop. The time has come for you to lip-sync for your legacy. Good luck, and don’t fuck it up.”

The lights flash (Nina knows they will make this look far more dramatic on TV than it does on the stage, but it doesn’t help settle his stomach any) and the feel-good, pop beat of Lizzo’s “Juice” blares through the speakers.

Nina – goes insular. Doesn’t focus on Vanjie, doesn’t focus on anything other than the words of the song, the rhythm, the moves he’s making. Spin here. Dip there. Prance across the stage and pose. Hip rolls.

He couldn’t tell you what Vanessa’s doing, not until they reach the bridge, when Vanjie grabs his shoulder and points at the back of the stage to Brooke Lynn.

It takes a minute, then Nina realizes what part of the song they’re on.

“Somebody come get this man

I think he got lost in my DMs, what? My DMs, what?

You better come get your man

I think he wanna be way more than friends, what?

More than friends

What you want me to say?”

Nina shrugs, so Vanjie waves him off and they finish the song together, egging each other on through the last chorus until Vanessa ends with a triumphant death drop.

RuPaul, Michelle, and Ross are clapping and laughing, and it’s the exact opposite of the “meh” Nina got the last time he finished a lip-sync. He feels like he could fly. The mentors are on their feet, applauding, and there in the center is Monet, nodding and looking at him with eyes that are far too beautiful and soft.

Nina makes himself look away, looks at Ru, at the judges’ panel. There’s a brief camera break while production hands back their lipsticks and they secure them deep in their outfits. Vanessa opts for his bra; Nina goes with the sleeve of his leotard.

Once Ru is given the cue, he clears his throat. He looks them both over for a moment. And then:

“Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, you’re a winner, baby. You’ve earned a cash tip of ten thousand dollars. That means Trixie Mattel – you are also a winner, baby.”

“Oh, yay!” Trixie yelps from the mentors’ seats in the audience.

“You’ve won a cash tip of five thousand dollars.”

Vanjie’s doing that clasped-hand-prayer thing again, so Nina immediately walks over and hugs him. (He’s a hugger, even if Vanjie isn’t. Vanjie might be. Nina isn’t sure. Today, it would appear, they all are.)

It’s okay that he lost, Nina tells himself. There will be more lip-syncs, and he’s safe for another week. So he didn’t win ten thousand dollars, so what? He’s going to the Bahamas! And he doesn’t have to make an enemy yet. Everyone knows how that worked out for Shangela…

“Nina West,” Ru says, glancing at him, “you are safe. You may join the other girls.”

Nina pulls away from Vanjie, squeezes his shoulder reassuringly, and takes his place beside Brooke.

“Congrats,” Brooke whispers, reaching for his hand. Nina just nods in acknowledgement. His head is still spinning too quickly for him to think clearly.

“Will the bottom two queens please step forward?” Ru asks.

There’s a pause and the room goes deathly quiet as Blair and Laganja walk to the center of the stage, grasping hands. Blair has cried almost all of her makeup off. Nina’s heart aches for her. If she stays, Blair is the next person Nina’s going to hug. He’s drafting a list.

Ru shifts in her chair. “Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, with great power comes great responsibility. Which queen have you chosen to get the chop?”

Vanjie swallows hard, takes a deep breath, steels himself. “I just wanna say that the person I chose is fierce as fuck. I was so excited to see her back in the Werk Room because I think she didn’t get a real good shot last time. I wanted to give you another chance, I really did, but you still letting your personal opinions about people and things get in the way and there ain’t room for that on All Stars.” Vanessa reaches into his bra and pulls out his lipstick. “So I’m sorry, but I gotta send you home, Laganja.”

Laganja just nods, tilts her head with a bit of a wry smile. (She did know it was coming, even after everything they did to assuage her fears. But Laganja’s always been a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.) She turns to Blair, gives her a quick hug, and then Blair practically runs to the back of the stage.

Nina opens his arms immediately, and Blair practically melts into him. He cradles her head, wipes the runny mascara from beneath her eyes.

“You’re still here. It’s okay.” If he’s got to be the mom of this season, so be it.

“Laganja Estranja,” RuPaul says, “as it is written, so it shall be done. You are and will always be an All Star. Now, sashay away.”

“Thank you so much,” Laganja says. Then she presses her forefinger and thumb together, brings them to her lips, and mimes taking a long drag from a joint. “It’s always four-twenty when ‘Ganja’s in the house, okurrrrrr?”

They clap and bid Laganja farewell (Shea rolls her eyes a bit, but not in a super obvious way). Nina feels himself relax for the first time all day.

“Con-drag-ulations, All Stars,” RuPaul says to them with a broad smile. “And remember, if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else, can I get an amen up in here?”

“Amen!” the queens chorus in unison. Nina takes Blair’s hand and leads her back onto the runway as “Kitty Girl” plays over the speakers and the mentors join them on stage.

Trixie and Brooke both head straight for Vanjie, but Trixie wins the race. She embraces Vanessa, begins a slow, hilarious two-step that doesn’t match the music at all, but makes them all laugh.

Then there’s a tap on Nina’s shoulder and Monet is standing behind him. It catches Nina by surprise because he smells the same. Like mint toothpaste and sandalwood and hairspray.

Monet doesn’t speak, doesn’t have to. He just hugs Nina.

And Nina swallows down the stupid, pointless ache in his heart, and lets him.

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