#and despite being mostly unremarkable hes STILL well liked and considered a good friend by everyone around him!
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You know. Perhaps I have reached the goal of my gender envy admiration of Hinata Hajime, by being Just Some Guy
#spitblaze says things#im like 80% sure thats what i wanted about his gender#hes not getting fancy for anyone. hes unapologetically himself and snarky#and despite being mostly unremarkable hes STILL well liked and considered a good friend by everyone around him!#he did not fade into the background for not being interesting or detailed enough#he was his own person among a cast of absolutely wild characters and is still widely recognizable in both appearance and personality#i love you hajime hinata. wish you were in a better franchise#dr#danganronpa#been a hot minute since i used THAT tag lmao
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Jiang Cheng tries his best to appear unaffected, but going by how skittish his disciples are around him, he’s not quite managing it.
But Jiang Cheng can’t help it; it’s the first time since Lotus Pier burned and he rebuilt it, that another Sect Leader is coming to visit and Jing Cheng feels like he’s being tested.
He doesn’t like that feeling one bit.
Jiang Cheng straightens up, when the first disciple comes into view, because he’s going to excel whatever test this is, and if it’s going to kill him.
“Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang calls out when they are still a good distance away, but Jiang Cheng can still see how Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes at his over-enthusiastic brother and a tiny part of Jiang Cheng relaxes. Their relationship is a bittersweet-familiar one and Jiang Cheng thinks if they are just here to check in on him, then he can do this.
“Nie-zongzhu,” Jiang Cheng greets Nie Mingjue, bowing low, because even though they are both Sect Leaders now their status couldn’t be more different.
Yunmeng Jiang barely escaped extinction while Qinghe Nie came away as the victor of the Sunshot Campaign, despite the losses they had to endure.
“So formal, Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang complaints and his brother cuffs him over the head for his troubles.
“At least he remembers his manners,” Nie Mingjue says with a sigh and slightly shakes his head when Nie Huaisang makes puppy eyes at him over his fan.
“We’re old friends, there’s no need to be this formal,” Nie Huaisang whines and something in Jiang Cheng goes warm and pleased to hear that Nie Huaisang still considers them friends, even after everything that happened.
“Jiang-zongzhu, please excuse my brother,” Nie Mingjue tells him, overly formal and stiff, but there’s a teasing glint in his eyes and Nie Huaisang puffs out his cheeks in mock outrage.
Jiang Cheng has to bite back a laugh at that, and when Nie Huaisang whirls around to him, he at least pretends to be serious.
“Let me show you to your rooms, you must be exhausted after the travel,” Jiang Cheng says, remembering his manners and starts to lead the Nie delegation towards the guest quarters.
They haven’t been one of his priorities during rebuilding Lotus Pier, but when Nie Mingjue’s formal request of a visit reached him, Jiang Cheng had done his utmost best to get them ready.
He does not want anyone to complain about his hosting skills; besides hurting his pride it would seriously damage the image of his Sect and truth be told, they can’t take much more.
They are barely scraping by as it is.
“It almost looks the same,” Nie Mingjue says suddenly when they are halfway there and Jiang Cheng stiffens. “I heard everything burned down?”
“It did,” Jiang Cheng presses out and he tries to see Lotus Pier with Nie Mingjue’s eyes, but all he can see are the smouldering remains of what used to be his home.
No matter how he rebuilds it, in his mind it will always be the new Lotus Pier. And no matter how he tries to make it look the same, there are subtle differences. Enough of them to make him wonder what his parents would say of it; what his sister and Wei Wuxian would say of it.
Jiang Cheng thinks at least his mother would scold him for not remembering his home correctly and doing such a piss-poor job.
“You did a great job rebuilding it,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Jiang Cheng works his jaw.
“Thank you,” he gets out.
“Did you do a lot of the construction work?”
“Of course I did,” Jiang Cheng stiffly says.
Mostly because there was no one else around who remembered how Lotus Pier used to look like, but also because Jiang Cheng would never only order his disciples around. If he isn’t willing to do something, how can he ask the same of his people?
“Would you like to compare notes later? I did a fair share of construction in Qinghe myself and there are not many Sect Leaders I can talk to about this. Jin Guangshan is not known to get his hands dirty like that,” Nie Mingjue says, and Jiang Cheng can feel the rage bubble up inside him again.
How dare Nie Mingjue say this; how dare he imply that Jiang Cheng’s work isn’t up to par, that he’s lowering himself to do the dirty work. It’s hitting a very vulnerable part of Jiang Cheng, because his father used to say the same whenever Jiang Cheng was quick to help people rebuild after a flood or another disaster.
His mother only ever watched him with piercing eyes, but his father was of the firm believe that they had disciples for this exact reason.
And to hear these similar words out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth now makes his blood boil with anger.
But Jiang Cheng can’t afford to offend Nie Mingjue and Qinghe Nie, so he forces a smile on his face.
“Sure,” he says, aiming for a light tone, but going by the small frown on Nie Mingjue’s face he doesn’t quite manage to do that.
“Jiang-xiong, are you alright?” Nie Huaisang asks, flicking his fan open and moving it in a nervous gesture.
“Of course I am,” Jiang Cheng gives back, because he can’t afford to be anything else.
Not with reconstruction still going on and especially not with Jin Ling being at Lotus Pier at the moment.
Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang share a look at that, one that makes Jiang Cheng’s skin crawl, but he clenches his jaw and simply shows them to their quarters.
He can’t afford to make a mess of the situation, so he swallows all of his rude remarks down and bids them a farewell once he’s sure they are situated.
Jiang Cheng flees and then spends the rest of the afternoon trying to get himself back together. He appointed his most trusted disciple to keep an eye on the Nie delegation, in case they need something and so he spends his time pretending that he’s not vibrating out of his skin with nervousness about this visit.
The first day passes without another incident, and on the second da Jiang Cheng almost feels like himself again. He spends breakfast with the Nie’s, entirely unremarkable except for Nie Huaisang’s incessant shatter and Nie Mingjue’s fond eyerolls, and then he leaves for the training grounds.
He might have to entertain guests, but he’s still the Sect Leader and since they are still in the process of building up again, there are not enough disciples who could reliably teach the new ones.
It’s just one of the many things Jiang Cheng has to oversee himself, so he’s standing at the side-lines, watching his disciples in their training fights.
There are a lot of different styles, since he simply picked up any willing cultivator he could find and while it looks chaotic, it certainly has its merits.
At least the Yunmeng Jiang will always be unpredictable, Jiang Cheng thinks when he watches one of the kids he picked up on the street go for the hair of her opponent.
“Sect Leader Jiang,” Nie Mingjue suddenly says from beside him and Jiang Cheng stiffens.
“Sect Leader Jiang was my father,” he gives back, because it still feels wrong to be addressed like this.
“Jiang Wanyin, then?” Nie Mingjue asks his eyes never leaving the training disciples.
“Yes,” Jiang Cheng agrees and he sees Nie Mingjue nod from the corner of his eyes.
“Nie Mingjue, then,” Nie Mingjue tells him and while it feels so wrong to address Nie Mingjue this casually, Jiang Cheng nods as well.
He keeps his gaze trained on his disciples, hoping that Nie Mingjue will get bored and leave, even though he should offer some entertainment to him, but Nie Mingjue stays where he is.
“They have an interesting fighting style,” Nie Mingjue eventually says, almost offhandedly and Jiang Cheng tenses again.
He has a snappish reply on his tongue, but then his attention is brought back to one of the disciples who make a grievous mistake with the sword and Jiang Cheng is walking up to him, before he can consciously decide to do so.
The disciple tenses in apparent fear, seemingly ready to accept Jiang Cheng’s scolding, and he does scold. A lot. And then he shows the disciple how it’s done right and from that point on it just goes downhill because everyone keeps asking him about this technique and that form and before he knows it Jiang Cheng was roped into giving a lesson.
And all the while Nie Mingjue stayed at the side-lines, silently watching them.
“Apologies,” Jiang Cheng says when he finally manages to get away from his disciples.
“No need,” Nie Mingjue easily says. “You’re good with them.”
Jiang Cheng snorts bitterly at that, because he knows that more than half of them are deathly afraid of him, like the old disciples were of his mother, and the other half barely has the respect for him that he deserves, but there is nothing he can do about it.
It is what it is, he just doesn’t need Nie Mingjue to rub it in even more.
“Let me show you around Lotus Pier,” Jiang Cheng says instead of saying something biting, something that he will regret later, and as if on cue Nie Huaisang materializes next to them.
“I would love to see everything!” he exclaims, not so subtly elbowing Nie Mingjue into the side and Jiang Cheng frowns as he wonders what’s that all about.
“Yes, that would be—nice,” Nie Mingjue says and the delay is noticeable enough that Jiang Cheng can tell that he does not care to see Lotus Pier at all.
Still, he has appearances to hold up, so he dutifully shows them around and with Nie Huaisang’s excitement it’s almost not awkward at all.
“I’m sorry we’re taking up so much of your time,” Nie Mingjue says when Nie Huaisang ran yet again to another stall and Jiang Cheng shrugs awkwardly.
He wants to ask why exactly they are here, but he really does not want to hear that this is an inspection and so in the end he stays silent for so long that answering would be awkward.
So instead he points out one of his own favourite stalls and it seems to be enough for Nie Mingjue to relax, because his shoulders slump and Jiang Cheng hadn’t even realized that he was so tense.
It seems that even if this is an inspection Nie Mingjue is also in great need of some relaxing downtime himself and even though they just came out of near extinction, even though they are barely scraping by, the Yunmeng Jiang always knew how to have fun.
“Come,” Jiang Cheng tells them out of the blue and leads Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue towards one of the outer piers.
They can hear laughter and yelling before they even get close and both Nie’s seem rather intrigued by that.
When they finally come into view of the people playing in the water, they stop and Jiang Cheng gives them some time to catch up on the game rules before he speaks again.
“You’re free to join them if you want,” he says and while Nie Huaisang’s eyes go wide Nie Mingjue smiles at him before he reaches for his belt, clearly content to let his clothes drop right where they stand, like the other disciples as well.
Jiang Cheng did not calculate for that at all and he hurriedly averts his eyes from the new stripe of skin that Nie Mingjue reveals.
“Do you have many games like this?” he asks as he gets off his shoes and Jiang Cheng tenses again.
He wonders what it is about Nie Mingjue that always so easily hits him where it hurts; to imply that they do nothing but play is a blow Jiang Cheng is not sure how to deal with. It brings back memories of Wei Wuxian, whining at him to join them in their game, and of his mother’s cutting voice berating him that an heir shouldn’t spent his time with useless play like this.
But before Jiang Cheng can figure out how to reply to Nie Mingjue, Nie Mingjue already jumped into the water, clearly ready to get right in on the fun, and Jiang Cheng is left with Nie Huaisang on the pier.
“Da-ge doesn’t get enough fun,” Nie Huaisang says from behind his fan. “Being Sect Leader is so demanding and it’s good that he gets to enjoy himself a little here.”
Jiang Cheng bites back on the words that being a Sect Leader is not supposed to be fun, and instead he only awkwardly shrugs, making Nie Huaisang frown at him again.
“Why don’t you join them as well?” Nie Huaisang asks with a curious glance and Jiang Cheng scoffs.
“Not all of us have the time to play around like this,” he bites out and when he sees Nie Huaisang flinch Jiang Cheng turns away from him.
“Feel free to roam Lotus Pier as you see fit, there will be people around to answer your questions,” Jiang Cheng tells him, head held high and then he simply marches off.
He’s aching with the want to join his disciples in the water; he misses playing around like that. But he knows that the moment he would start to shed his clothes people would stop, would stare, would freeze in fright and it’s not untrue what he told Nie Huaisang; he does have too much to do to simply slack off like this.
When evening finally falls, Jiang Cheng is bend low over paper work. His eyes are burning and his back is aching, but he can’t stop yet. There are still piles upon piles on his table and if Jiang Cheng doesn’t make a dent in them soon then he might as well drown under them.
“Sect Leader,” one of his disciples suddenly speaks up from the door and Jiang Cheng turns bleary eyes on her.
“What?” he snaps and then immediately winces.
It’s no wonder everyone here is afraid of him.
“It’s young master Jin,” she says apologetically, but Jiang Cheng is already on his feet.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asks, the worry already settling in his gut.
“He’s been screaming for the last half hour. I think he misses you,” she says with a small smile and something warm replaces the worry.
At least Jin Ling is too little to fear him yet.
“I’ll be right there,” he promises, and hurries to finish up the letter he was working on before he makes his way over to Jin Ling’s room.
True to her word, he’s screaming at the top of his lungs, and now that he hears this Jiang Cheng can’t help but to worry again. What if it’s something more serious? He rushes inside the room and immediately snatches Jin Ling out of the arms of his disciple.
“It’s okay now,” Jiang Cheng says, more to Jin Ling than to her. “I have him now.”
“Alright,” she says with a bow of her head and immediately leaves him to it.
“What’s wrong, little one?” Jiang Cheng softly asks when Jin Ling continues to scream but he seems to react to his voice, because the cries get a little bit softer. “I’m here now, there’s no need for you to make such a fuss, brat,” Jiang Cheng whispers, his voice fond, and Jin Ling really stops crying.
He blinks up at Jiang Cheng with his big eyes and then simply snuggles deeper into his embrace.
“There you go, it’s not that bad after all, is it?” Jiang Cheng says, mostly so that he has something to say, because his voice does seem to relax Jin Ling.
Jiang Cheng continues to whisper nonsense to him, until he’s sure that Jin Ling feel asleep and only then does he dare to put him down in his crib.
Jiang Cheng holds his breath once he lets go of Jin Ling, but the boy blessedly slumbers on and Jiang Cheng lets out a soft sigh.
He would never say that it’s a chore too look after his sister’s son, but it is time consuming; and Jiang Cheng doesn’t have much of that even without caring for an infant.
Jiang Cheng knows that he should get back to his paper work immediately, that he shouldn’t stay and linger and simply stare at Jin Ling, but it’s another handful of minutes before he can tear himself away from him.
When he steps outside of Jin Ling’s room, Jiang Cheng immediately tenses when he sees Nie Mingjue leaning against the wall.
“What are you doing here?” Jiang Cheng snaps, but he’s still mindful of the sleeping Jin Ling and Nie Mingjue shrugs.
“I came to find you, but your disciple told me to go here,” Nie Mingjue easily says and Jiang Cheng vows to have words with that disciple.
“You’re good with him,” Nie Mingjue says with a nod towards Jin Ling’s room and Jiang Cheng clenches his jaw.
He knows he’s not good with Jin Ling, barely knows enough about kids to not kill him immediately and he still hears the whispers from Jinlingtai, how he’s bad for the kid, how he’ll corrupt him, how Jin Ling will turn out as angry and cold as him and it’s all too much for Jiang Cheng to take right now.
“Fight me,” he presses out through clenched teeth and when he sees the way Nie Mingjue lights up at that, the anger turns into cold rage.
He brings them to one of the more remote training fields and then he just waits until Nie Mingjue has Baxia ready. Jiang Cheng doesn’t hesitate to bring out Zidian as well as Sandu and then they are off.
It’s a vicious fight and the first time since the war that Jiang Cheng doesn’t hold back. Nie Mingjue has no problems parrying Sandu, but he seems at a loss with Zidian and Jiang Cheng takes shameless advantage of that, though he does keep the electricity running through it to a bare minimum.
He doesn’t want to kill or permanently injure Nie Mingjue after all.
Still, Nie Mingjue is a force to be reckoned with, and while it’s clear that he too is struggling, there’s a smile on his face that only enrages Jiang Cheng further.
Their fight goes on for longer than Jiang Cheng expected, Zidian singing and Sandu clashing with Baxia, but in the end Nie Mingjue tackles him to the ground.
When Jiang Cheng’s back hits the ground, his breath leaves him in a rush and his vision turns black for a moment, before stars appear everywhere.
Jiang Cheng blinks up at the sky, trying to get his lungs to work properly again, but it still takes him an embarrassingly long time.
In the end Nie Mingjue seems to tire of waiting for him to compose himself and he holds out a hand to him.
“You’re a good fighter,” Nie Mingjue says, just as Jiang Cheng is about to reach for his hand. “And you wield Zidian almost better than Sandu,” he tacks on, and Jiang Cheng goes cold.
He wouldn’t have minded this much, before—his mother never did after all—but after what happened with Wei Wuxian, after everyone came after him for not using his sword like he should, it leaves a bad taste in his mouth now.
“What do you know,” Jiang Cheng snaps and slaps Nie Mingjue’s hand away, getting up out of his own strength.
“Jiang Wanyin?” Nie Mingjue asks with a frown and Jiang Cheng squares his shoulders before he faces him again.
“Don’t tell me I fight well when I just lost and don’t ever imply that I am favouring Zidian over Sandu ever again,” he hisses out and when he sees Nie Mingjue’s surprised look on his face, Jiang Cheng quickly turns away.
“Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue calls after him, and the informality stops Jiang Cheng in his steps. “I haven’t had a fight like this in a while. Not many people can hold out against me for as long as you did. Of course you fight well. And I didn’t mean anything with my comment about Zidian; it’s a spiritual tool and you wield it well. That’s all,” Nie Mingjue explains, almost awkwardly, and Jiang Cheng wants to leave, he really does, but he’s rooted to the spot.
“Is that the problem?” Nie Mingjue asks and it sounds like he came closer, though Jiang Cheng didn’t hear any footsteps. “Have I offended you all this time without knowing?” Nie Mingjue wants to know and Jiang Cheng lets out a hard breath.
“I’m not lowering to do the dirty work when I help with rebuilding,” Jiang Cheng says bitterly, even though he knows that’s what everyone thinks.
“Of course not,” Nie Mingjue immediately says. “And that wasn’t what I meant. I really do help with construction every now and then, if my time allows for it. It’s hard work, but also rewarding. I really hoped to compare notes with you. It’s not like Jin Guangshan would ever lift a finger to help any of his disciples like that so I don’t usually have someone to talk to about this.”
Jiang Cheng gives a short nod at that, and then he figures he might as well lay it all out. It’s almost easy, now that he doesn’t have to face Nie Mingjue.
“And when you say my disciples have an interesting fighting style?”
“It’s just that. Interesting. The Yunmeng Style is very clearly still there, but they are not as rigid as before. It’s good to see them fall back to the things some of them clearly learned on the streets. It won’t make that much difference against a monster, but if they ever have to fight another cultivator or something with sentience, it will give them the upper hand. It’s a good thing.”
“The game?” Jiang Cheng whispers, now thoroughly embarrassed by how low he thought of Nie Mingjue and how easily believed he was just here to insult him.
“We have a few with balls, but none in the water. I never saw such a game and I was simply curious if there were more. I’d like to try them all, the last one was fun,” Nie Mingjue says with a chuckle even though he thoroughly lost that game, as Jiang Cheng learned.
“And Jin Ling?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“I just meant that you’re good with him,” Nie Mingjue gives back and Jiang Cheng can almost imagine him shrugging. “He clearly loves you if he settles down by just hearing your voice and you didn’t get impatient once. You clearly love him as well.”
Jiang Cheng takes a shuddering breath when Nie Mingjue falls silent and he finally turns around to him.
“What do you want from me? Why are you here?” he asks, because for all that it has been a few days he still doesn’t know why Nie Mingjue is here.
“I thought I made that clear in my letter,” Nie Mingjue says with a frown that only gets deeper when he sees Jiang Cheng’s confused look. “I’m here to see if we’re compatible. If a courtship between us might work out.”
“You’re what?” Jiang Cheng blurts out and before the frown on Nie Mingjue’s face can get any deeper Nie Huaisang appears at his side.
“This might be my fault,” he admits, tipping his fan against his mouth and seemingly not at all bothered when both Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng turn incredulous eyes on him.
“Explain,” Nie Mingjue grumbles and Nie Huaisang gives him a winning smile.
“I stole that page of the letter,” Nie Huaisang says with an easy shrug and Jiang Cheng is so confused he doesn’t even know what to say to that.
“Why would you do that?” Nie Mingjue asks as he pinches the bridge of his nose, but he doesn’t seem angry and Nie Huaisang seems to know that very well.
“Because I know Jiang-xiong and if you had written anything about a courtship he would have clamped right up and then you’d get nowhere,” Nie Huaisang cries out and Jiang Cheng goes red in the face, because Nie Huaisang might not be wrong.
“Huaisang!” Nie Mingjue yells at him, but Nie Huaisang only hides behind his fan and blinks his big eyes at Nie Mingjue.
“I’m sorry?” Nie Huaisang asks, but Nie Mingjue shakes his head.
“No, you’re not,” he heaves out with a sigh. “Go scram before I make you practice your sabre,” Nie Mingjue threatens but when Nie Huaisang laughs Jiang Cheng knows that it’s an empty thread.
“Alright, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang says and promptly dashes away leaving Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng in uncomfortable silence.
“I’m sorry about him,” Nie Mingjue eventually says, but Jiang Cheng shakes his head, because there’s only one thought in his mind.
“Courtship?” he asks, because he cannot wrap his mind around this as all and he was not prepared to see Nie Mingjue blush like that.
“See, this is why I wrote it down,” Nie Mingjue grumbles. “It’s easier when it’s written down.”
“Mingjue, courtship?” Jiang Cheng asks again, because it still doesn’t make any sense at all and Nie Mingjue sighs again.
“Yes, Wanyin, a courtship.”
“Between us?”
“Do you see anyone else? Did I go visit anyone else?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng simply sits down on the ground again, because of all the reasons why Nie Mingjue could have come, this possibility didn’t enter Jiang Cheng’s head even once.
“You must be joking,” Jiang Cheng whispers and then tenses when Nie Mingjue simply sits down next to him.
“I assure you, I’m not,” he says.
“But then you surely must have changed your mind by now,” Jiang Cheng tries next, because there is no way in hell that Nie Mingjue, esteemed fighter and Sect Leader, would still want to court him after he saw what a mess Jiang Cheng is.
“Between praising your fighting, your way with Jin Ling, your disciples and your construction work, where do you think I changed my mind?” Nie Mingjue shoots back and Jiang Cheng goes still.
“Were you just giving me meaningless compliments?” he asks and that thought suddenly hurts more than he expected.
But if Nie Mingjue had an ulterior goal in mind then of course he’d praise Jiang Cheng. And of course they would all be hollow and empty words.
“Do you know me to be like that?” Nie Mingjue wants to know. “If I don’t like you, then I’ll say so. If I do like you, then I’ll say that as well.”
“You don’t like Jin Guangshan and you never said that to him,” Jiang Cheng gives back, his mind still spinning.
“Oh, rest assured, he knows I loath him. No need to say it out loud,” Nie Mingjue easily gives back but then he falls silent. “Huaisang was right, wasn’t he. You’re totally clamping up on me.”
Jiang Cheng flushes again at that.
“I mean, who wouldn’t? Courtship? With me?”
“With who else? You’re a hero of the Sunshot Campaign. You rebuild your Sect, you’re parenting your sister’s son and you’re not cowering before anyone. There’s much to admire about you, Wanyin.”
“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng breathes out as he hides his face in his hands.
“I will if you give me an answer, Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue says and the way he says Jiang Cheng’s name sends a shiver down his back.
“Can we—how long are you going to stay?” Jiang Cheng asks instead of giving him a concrete answer but Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem to mind that much.
“I can squeeze in a few more days,” Nie Mingjue says with a shrug. “Why?”
“I think—I’d like you to stay for a while longer now that I know why you’re here,” Jiang Cheng gives back.
He can’t quite agree to a courtship just yet, but he thinks he’d like to spent more time with Nie Mingjue, especially now that he knows what he wants from him.
“Sure,” Nie Mingjue easily replies and he doesn’t seem to mind Jiang Cheng’s lack of an answer much.
Nie Mingjue doesn’t behave any different in the next few days either, but at least now Jiang Cheng knows to simply accept the things Nie Mingjue says without searching for a hidden meaning behind his words and since Jiang Cheng knows that this is not an inspection but something completely different he can actually enjoy spending his time with Nie Mingjue.
So much so that when Nie Mingjue eventually has to depart, Jiang Cheng has a courtship gift ready for him.
Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!
#bt writes#the untamed#mdzs#mingcheng#courtship#pre-relationship#post sunshot campaign#misunderstandings#hurt/comfort
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I've finally finished the first set! It's the same kids again tho, lol. But next time will be never before seen characters! So I wanted to get everyone drawn in the Omniverse style so I could visualize it all properly and it also made for a good opportunity to tweak designs as needed. They're all heavily referenced from official art so I could get it perfect and it made for great practice too! Of course I added some personal touches to the art style too cuz if I didn't it would have bothered me too much, lol.
Anyway, below the cut are finally proper profiles for all the kids and some additional info as well!
M'kay, so before we get started on the kids' bios, it's important to specify this is an alternate universe. And I don't mean it's an AU of the Prime Dimension. This is quite literally another universe within the omniverse. It's a mostly untouched one that even Paradox, Eon, and Maltruant have never been to and therefore a lot of things are different while a lot of things are still the same tho. It's unofficially called the Feniverse cuz Fen is the main character, but it does have a more official name. I'm just, uh… not aware of what that name is yet, lol!
Anyway, the Ben in this dimension branches off from the development of Prime Ben. Anybody remember the fact that the very first Ben 10K episode said Ben became the way he did in the future cuz he killed Vilgax by ripping him to pieces? Yep! That's what this Ben did too! But obviously he doesn't end up exactly like that Ben 10K. But so this dimension's Ben is therefore officially labelled Slayer Ben since some people refer to him as 'The Vilgax Slayer'. And that experience did definitely screw him up pretty bad, which is why he's so different from both Prime and 10K.
So from left to right:
Name: Fenrick Fih Rook-Tennyson
Age: 13
Height: 5'1
Voice: Todd Haberkorn
Bio: Fen is Ben and Rook's son. He has always been known for being quiet, surprisingly wise for his age, and quite the troublemaker. In actuality, only two of these things are true. Fen is more calm than he seems and as a young child he wasn't much of a talker, giving people the perception that he's quiet. Unfortunately, Fen also has many great ideas that end up badly. However, his ideas always come from the desire to help someone or solve a problem, but he always gets caught when his plans fall apart, making it look like he causes trouble. Some people even accuse him of trouble he didn't start, not helping his reputation. And as the son of Ben 10 of all people, he tends to be held to higher expectations. His wisdom never ceases to amaze people either. Even Ben and Rook get surprised at the wisdom he recites, wondering where exactly he learned it all. Due to that, he tends to put up a fight whenever himself or someone else gets wronged. He especially defends his friends and fellow alien kids in town. Although his only true friends seem to consist of his childhood friend, Millie, and his cousin, Sven.
At the age of 13, Fen discovered his ability to transform into a couple dozen of Ben's aliens. He quickly aspired to become a hero like his parents, much to Ben's disapproval, who worries about his safety. Despite that, Fen wants to form a hero trio with Sven and Millie and become the next generation of heroes in the galaxy.
Developer's Notes:
Fen's almost always been the same since I first created him, with just a few design and character tweaks done to him. He used to have a talent for jewelry making but that was switched out for him being wise for his age. He was also a bit more generic as far as the upbeat and reckless young male protagonist with famous parents archetype goes, but he's been adjusted enough that he now stands out from that archetype. Or, at least I hope, lol. Also, funny thing to note, Fenrick is not a real name! The closest name there is is Fenwick and iirc, that's a last name! I considered changing it to Fenwick or even Fenick but Fenrick is too special to me. His, uh, unfortunate name even has an impact in-universe with him being embarrassed by it and some using it to make fun of him. Also in-universe, I chalk it up to Ben having a dumb moment by misremembering the name Fenwick and Rook not knowing any better to catch Ben's mistake. Also, if you think his hair style is stupid, good. That's the point. He wanted it like that when he was seven and Ben and Rook were like 'sure' and it's been like that ever since.
Name: Millicent
Age: 13
Height: 5'0
Voice: Jennifer Paz
Bio: Millie is Ester's daughter. Her biological father is a human who decided he didn't want to be a father and Antonio soon stepped up to fill the father role when he and Ester got married. She has been friends with Fen and Sven since they were all babies. Millie is the level-headed one of the group and has been noted as being oddly emotionless. Her tone of voice is almost always flat and she usually keeps a straight face when not looking nervous. She never intends to be rude, but she will bluntly say whatever comes to her mind to her peers. At the same time, she can be nervous about making bold decisions and hates being a part of any decision making. She either refuses to do anything, or apologizes profusely for making a decision even when nothing bad happens.
Due to being more human than Kraaho, Millie is perfectly capable of handling the temperatures of Bellwood. However, she is still a bit sensitive to cold temperatures and needs to bundle up more than others during the winter. She sadly cannot handle the heat in the Hot Spot for very long either. Much to Millie's dismay, she was not born with the Kraaho's stretching ability. No one can figure out why, but it's simply something she can't do. As a result, she considers herself a normal human and has resigned herself to the fact that 'normal' is simply all she will ever be. Despite this, she has taken up quite a big secret that contradicts her decision and expresses who she wishes she really was.
Developer's Notes:
Millie only ever had one design change with her outfit and slight adjustment to the way her hair works and she's been the same ever since. Since the beginning she was always calm and stoic and I've always worried that she doesn't have much of a presence or purpose, but now I feel like she plays off Fen and Sven well enough that she stands out thanks to them. I've always flipped back and forth between Fen and/or Millie having a crush on each other, but I've finally settled on them both just seeing each other as near and dear loyal friends. It ultimately works out better that way and doesn't cause conflict with Millie's personal story or Fen's real love interest(and the one other character with feelings for him). Her name also used to be Mina, but since I've now taken that as one of my own names, it felt really awkward to keep her as that. I used to have a habit of naming characters with names I wanted before realizing I could change my name in the future, lol.
Name: Sven Elijah Levin
Age: 12
Height: 4'8
Voice: Wally Wingert
Bio: Sven is Gwendolyn and Kevin's son and Jenny's older brother. Sven is a rather unfortunate boy. He is constantly terrified of everything to the point of running millions of 'bad ends' through his head. He can barely talk most of the time without being a stuttering mess and always thinks he's going to be in trouble for anything and everything he does. Everyone is certain he either has severe anxiety or paranoia, or likely both. Perhaps even more. Who knows. Sven tends to cling to his cousin, Fen, who he looks to for guidance and advice, most of which isn't anything Sven should actually be following. Because he is a grade below Fen and Millie, he's often left alone to deal with problems in his own classes, or really just panic about them. He does, however, have a close relationship with Zed and likes to be the one to take her out on walks in the afternoon. And not many people know it, but he's actually a pretty decent artist.
Even though he is an Osmosian thanks to being Kevin's son, no one knows what ability he may have. It doesn't really matter though, since he wants to stay out of any potential trouble that having powers could bring him. Regardless of that, he has an interest in magic thanks to Gwendolyn's expertise in it. He even sneaks peeks at her spellbook and the strange bag she keeps in her office that he can hear a voice coming from at night.
Developer's Notes:
Now Sven is a character whose personality has always been pretty much the same while his design was never consistent until reaching his current one. He was originally very anime looking and in a gaudy orange outfit that I regret even thinking about, lol. He looks much better in neutral colors. I guess there's not much to say on him though, which makes me worry he's a tad unremarkable, but perhaps it's just since I'm leaving out the things about him that are better left discovering on your own… if I ever get to finishing that fic that is… ahaha.
Name: Saki Boulais
Age: 13
Height: 4'11
Voice: Stephanie Sheh
Bio: Julie and Hervé's daughter, one of the more popular girls in school, and the most deceptive in town. Saki has gone her whole life, since the first time she told a successful lie, tricking people into thinking she's a completely innocent little girl who's never done anything wrong. This allows her to get away with anything she wants, and she especially enjoys getting Fen in trouble when they butt heads with each other. The two have even been enemies since they first met at age three and Saki pulled Fen's tail, he pulled her hair in return, and she managed to get away with claiming he started it. Their feud has even turned into murderous intent, which Saki refuses to hide.
On a lighter note, Saki always has the company of her two best friends, Rachel and Diane, who will gladly join her in her tormenting of others. Saki even greatly admires the most popular girl in school, Fiona, and whoever the mysterious new hero girl, Miracle-M, is.
Developer's Notes:
Yes, Saki was always meant to be That Bitch in the cast. I feel like it's unrealistic to have all next gen kids be friends and get along with each other. It's perfectly believable to have some of them dislike, and in Saki and Fen's case, even hate each other. It makes it more interesting with them being Ben and Julie's kids respectively too. Adds good drama, lol. But anyway, really the only thing that's changed about Saki is her hairstyle and some other slight design tweaks like her necklace, shorts, and shoes. I also just recently changed her colors from purple and blue-ish purple to just blue so that isn't not all three girls here wearing purple. She also looks better in blue and it contrasts nicely with Julie's pink imo. I suppose I do worry about her being disliked since she's so antagonistic and with her being Julie's daughter, I really hope her character doesn't send the wrong message since I genuinely love Julie a lot. It really is just For The Drama Of It All. I think it's really fun to watch her go into full 'Murder Fen' mode too. Very fun to write, lol. Oh right, also Boulais is my headcanon last name for Herve. I just wanted her to have his last name but he doesn’t have one! So I had to pick one for myself.
Name: Jennifer Elizabeth Levin
Age: 10
Height: 4'6
Voice: Brina Palencia
Bio: Jenny is Gwendolyn and Kevin's daughter and Sven's younger sister. She is surprisingly serious and stoic for her age. She gets annoyed by her family's constant 'abnormal' status and wishes everyone could just act normal with no weird events happening. She throws herself into school work as a means to keep herself out of it and tries to keep her personal life at school with friends far away from her life involving family. She seems to have a quick temper, but really she just acts that way to get what she wants since she knows it works and in the hopes that she can use it as an opportunity to vent her frustrations. She hates getting involved in her brother and cousin Fen's antics, but sometimes her no nonsense attitude is needed to resolve a situation. She has a strange obsession with eating bread, finding it the perfect food and almost always exclusively eating something with bread involved. Gwendolyn definitely worries about her diet, but Kevin finds it harmless.
She may not have the spark like her mother, but she doesn't dare confess that her status as an Osmosian became very apparent just recently. As a result, she has a stash of broken objects stuffed under her bed and cracked floorboards that she covers with her rug.
Developer's Notes:
Jenny went through a decent redesign. Character wise I feel like I still don't have some things etched in stone for her as I still haven't gotten to the point in my writing where she does anything of interest. She could honestly probably end up pretty different from her bio here if I'm not careful, lol. The characters write themselves as they say after all! But I definitely prefer the newer Jenny compared to the previous way I envisioned her character, which was designed to fit a character type I actually hate just cuz I felt it worked for her. Thankfully I can avoid it tho with the big overhaul I did after returning to these characters. And I do like Jenny cuz I like writing her dialogue, but it still feels like her character is still that of a person I would not wanna be around, lol.
Name: Bevel Tennyson
Age: 20
Height: 5'9
Voice: Dee Bradley Baker/Yuri Lowenthal
Bio: Bevel is the youngest of the Big Chill offspring born twenty years ago. They were in an accident involving a passing spaceship on their way to Kylmyys that damaged their right wing to the point they could no longer fly. It's suspected the wing has severe nerve damage, making Bevel unable to unfold it as well. Their siblings helped them make it the rest of the way to Kylmyys, but over the years, the dangers of Kylmyys left the siblings with only Bevel and the eldest two, Emboss and Curve, remaining. As they got older, Bevel could never forget their only memory of their parent, who the others didn't remember. A desire to reunite with their parent caused Bevel to make the lone decision to explore the universe in search of their parent.
Bevel is a very cheerful and sweet person, but their secluded upbringing and lack of knowledge about Earth makes them very naive. They will believe anything they are told and have a very black and white moral view due to not understanding nuance. They have strange habits that appear unnatural in their attempt to act human and have an intense craving for Earth candy. They have also taken up being a mercenary to get by after leaving Kylmyys and once they join the Tennyson family, Rook suggests they use the skills they've picked up to become a Plumber, but that's an idea Ben isn't fully onboard with.
Developer's Notes:
Right off the bat I want to shout out that his old human design used to keep the Necrofriggian antennae. I still think it's a cute design even tho it wasn't canon compliant with the antennae. The only things that have changed about him too are just that, his hair style, and his shoes. Plus I stuck bunny ears on his hoodie recently as a shout out to those antennae he used to have. Otherwise he's always been the same. And I guess I haven't explained why he has a human form, but that's also an answer to discover later. I didn't draw his Necrofriggian form tho cuz we should all know what the UAF design looks like(and yes I am screwing with art style difference bullshit cuz OV Big Chill is not real and you cannot convince me otherwise). And I also just realized his pronouns aren't matching up in this section so I should add his official pronouns are he/they, but characters refer to him by he/him and narration uses they/them. He is still a Necrofriggian and therefore doesn't do the whole gender thing after all. Which is why he's fine with anyone viewing him as whatever they want to too. He just goes with it. That's also why he doesn't get what's weird about him calling Ben 'Mother' after he learned the word, lol.
#staff so help me if this disappears from the tags EVER we will have a problem#ben 10#ben 10 oc#fenrick (oc)#Millie (OC)#Sven (OC)#saki (oc)#jenny (oc)#bevel (oc)#my art#artists on tumblr
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ok lots of asks incoming jdhjs i just picked random-ish numbers and names but yeah anyway!! hope you're having a good night :)
past (for q): 3, 6, 8; present (for gabi): 8, 9, 12; and future (for perlah): 2, 7, 8
omg omg omg ok. cool. ok. thank youuuuu
PAST: q
3 - describe their family. who raised them, and who had the most impact on them? did they have any siblings? who were they closest to? what were the family dynamics like?
q is the only child in a fairly affluent family - rich enough to send hir to a boarding school, where ze spent most of their time with ellie, the only other queer kid that ze knew of. hir parents are quite distant, and very traditional, constantly emulating the looks and values of old money folks, which unfortunately meant that for all of hir teenage years, q's only confidante was ellie. school was an extremely isolating experience for her because ze was closeted everywhere, and ze was in the girls' dorm while ellie was in the boys' dorm, so ze only saw her in class/leisure hours, and ze tended to feel really lonely at night.
6 - did the location they grew up in affect them significantly? do they still go there?
ze has literally no love for that place. it's a pretty joyless area, no matter how many brownstones they pass or how many trees are planted on the streets. wrought iron and spring leaves can't make a place feel like somewhere people live, which is why q hasn't been back there since ze left home at 18.
8 - what was their childhood/teenage bedroom like?
q's bedroom at home was COVERED in whatever heavy metal posters they could find in innercity record shops, apart from one wall, on which ze put up paper before proceeding to write all over it; diagrams, homework equations, bad poetry, song lyrics, swear words, you name it. it was very much a typical 'rebellious teen' bedroom, partly to piss of hir parents and partly to make hir feel more like hirself when ze was in there. none of that was present in their dorm, though. that had white walls and sensible carpeting and a desk, and that was it.
PRESENT: gabi
8 - what hobby or pastime of theirs do they consider most important to them and why?
bullet journalling. he genuinely does pride himself on organisation, and this is something that actively encourages it, as well as being an outlet for the impulse to put everything in order that doesn't involve wrecking the apartment or committing a crime.
9 - what kind of place do they live in?
he lives in a really really nice apartment on the fourth floor of a building that was retrofitted in the 70s. you know it's a nice apartment because, despite rent being extremely low citywide, they had to get a fourth roommate to cover the rent. he shares a room with cora, which is mostly pretty dark (black and grey sheets, gothic full-length mirror on the black closet), with his desk being the most colourful thing in the room: it's covered in different brands of brush pen, post it notes arranged in a grid on the wall, a gantt chart printed out and stuck to the side of things he has coming up, a t shirt he's been drawing a fractal on for a week now, shit like that.
the only other room gabi frequents is the kitchen, which is mint green with white tiles and mismatched wooden furniture. it's a pretty standard kitchen in terms of mess levels, and gabi is under no circumstances allowed to change the order of anything in there or cora will go ballistic. she's the one who uses the spices most, so it's only fair she gets to decide how they're arranged. (no system of any kind other than 'vibes')
12 - if someone mentioned their name to someone else, what would they immediately think of (i.e. defining characteristic, appearance- or personality-wise)?
when he was in school, it probably would have been 'size', because he was built like if lady dimitrescu went to high school and had a very unremarkable bob. currently, however, it's definitely the hair, which consists of a raspberry-pink grown out mullet and turquoise fringe. personality wise it's that he's gives off the same vibe as a violin bow that's been tightened to the point where it's just about to snap, but hasn't snapped yet.
FUTURE: perlah
2 - are they content with their future situation? is there anything they would change?
i'll be honest: she probably wouldn't be too pleased she's dead. or that she's being used as a martyr, or that her death is justifying a manhunt for cora.
7 - are their friends still a part of their life? are there people they are no longer in touch with, or newly important people?
well, in the most literal sense, no. in a more figurative sense then somewhat? everyone assumes katy is 'the girlfriend' and that gabi was manipulated by cora, and that cora was scheming to kill perlah and take her money or something all along. so they're all involved in the news coverage, and katy has finally met perlah's parents, who held her hands and sobbed a lot.
8 - would they become a mentor figure for anyone?
no, unfortunately. despite exuding grace and easy charm, perlah wasn't a role model for anybody, unless it's to be used as a cautionary tale about mingling with the criminals in the masses.
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Chapter 1 - Moving In
"Whose dumb idea was it to go camping like this anyway?" Grey grumbled, smacking away a tree branch that seemed determined to get friendly with his face.
Walking behind him, his twin sister Lillian rolled her eyes and poked the small of her brother's back. "Yours. It was your idea."
"Oh please Crystal! Please oh please might we go live at the haunted house in the woods where we'll certainly perish! I, Dorian Grey Duvall, swear on my sister's honor to let you protect me!" Rayne fluttered her eyelashes, lowering her voice to sound more like Dorian. She yanked the handcart she was dragging over a set of roots, careful to steady its contents before resuming her walk.
"Has to swear on my honor cuz he doesn't have any of his own left after the last time," Lillian snickered, while Grey pointedly ignored their teasing and continued clearing the overgrown path.
Bringing up the rear with a digital camera trained on everyone's back, Crystal grinned and panned the camera to take in the large, dense trees, and huge, leafy bushes. "For a haunted forest, it's actually pretty nice here. Ah, more meadow rue! Specifically thalictrum rochebrunianum, neat."
"Gesundheit," Rayne said, eliciting giggles from the group.
"The lacy one over there with the purple flowers," Crystal clarified. "There's some rue anemone and meadow rue 'splendide' around here too. Don't touch the white flowery plant up ahead by the way, it's giant hogweed. The leaves and sap can give you phytophotodermatitis, making you blister up in the sun."
"Bro, how do you remember any of this? And as for you, you're a scary bitch," Grey cringed away from the plant in question while swearing at it, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at its pretty little flower clusters.
"I read a lot."
"Me too, doesn't mean I absorb any of it! I spent like six hours on Wikipedia the other day, don't even fully remember what I looked up."
"Was it about The Hobbit or Merlin? Cuz that's all you ever look up."
"Look, Lils. I know I'm walking in the front and all, but you don't need to stab me in the back like that. Also sometimes it's Pacific Rim, thank you very much."
"Was it Pacific Rim?"
"No it was The Hobbit."
The group talking and laughing were the self-proclaimed 'Fairy Rock' band Aos Sí Echtrae. Each of them wore a hiking backpack containing personal items, while Rayne also tugged along a sturdy handcart holding supplies and instruments with ease - a drum kit, harp, bouzouki, and keyboard piled up alongside some smaller instruments and the camping stuff Crystal insisted they bring along.
Though their banter was light-hearted and comfortable, they took their excursion very seriously. After all, they'd temporarily rented a locally infamous haunted house to use for a music video! It was a large investment, but they'd become popular online and had enough supporters that they were able to fulfill one of their member's dearest dreams.
Dorian Duvall, or Grey as he preferred to be called by friends, and his twin sister Lillian Duvall played bouzouki and keyboard respectively. Both had the same willowy stature, button nose and almond eye shape, but despite their similarities they both gave off very different impressions. Where Lillian looked soft and gentle, with large doe-like green eyes, and a kind smile, Grey had a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes and a roguish grin that he utilized with careless abandon. Lillian wore her sleek black hair long and loose, falling down past her waist and kept away from her face by a cloth headband, while Grey wore his hair in a high ponytail decorated with small braids.
As the one who absolutely loved haunted houses and anything spooky, it was Grey's idea to film on location for their new Halloween-themed album, Masquerade. Though it was the middle of July, they were hoping to get everything ready for an September promotional release before the album dropped in October, and so hurriedly set up for their video shoot in order to give themselves plenty of time for editing.
All four of them worked together to compose their music, write lyrics, and design stage costumes as well as fan merchandise. They also lacked anything resembling a lead vocalist, taking turns depending on what sound worked best with each song, and preferring harmonies rather than solos.
"Ray! There's a log up here!" Grey called out suddenly, kicking the fallen tree blocking their path. Rayne grunted acknowledgment, and shuffled around Lillian to help move the obstruction.
Rayne Rose played the drums, and also did a majority of the heavy lifting due to being the strongest person present in any room that didn't involve professional weightlifters. Her muscular arms were covered with watercolor flower tattoos, which she proudly showed off by refusing to wear any shirt with sleeves. Her curly hair, dyed a gradient of aqua blue and purple, was cropped close to her face for summertime weather. The short style purposefully revealed ear gauges and more than a dozen total ear piercings, matching the many piercings on her brows, lips, and nose.
The twins had fresh yet roguish charms, while Rayne had a more heroic air with heavy brows and an intense black gaze over lips naturally curved into an amused smirk. She dusted off her hands after tossing the log aside with little effort, while Grey panted for breath from the exertion of merely helping her lift it. Crystal, for her part, made sure to get the whole thing on video for future blackmail purposes.
Crystal Rose, Rayne's older sister, played the harp. Unlike her athletic and statuesque sister, Crystal was on the soft and plump side. Her long, wavy blonde hair was pulled back into a messy twist to keep it off her neck, the ends still pink from the last time she dyed it. Her face was round and childish, with bluish gray eyes above an upturned nose and broad cheekbones, unremarkable features made more charming by her innate overwhelming charisma and natural exuberance.
She was the kind of person that random strangers would strike up a conversation with, lost kids would try to hold her hand, wild animals would approach like an old friend, and when she raised her voice even the most crowded room would quiet down. She was also the kind of person who got carded when buying alcohol despite being thirty years of age, due to what Grey dubbed 'Acute Babyface Syndrome'.
"Anyone need to clean their glasses?" Crystal asked, pulling a cloth from her pocket to swipe hers clean. Aside from Rayne, who wore her contacts, Grey and Lillian both opted to wear glasses for the hike so they wouldn't have to worry about losing a contact forever if they tripped - a serious and ever-present concern for the slightly clumsy twins.
"I'm good!"
"Not yet, thanks."
"I'll take it," Rayne said, keeping her expression blank, and Crystal narrowed her eyes.
"If you wipe your sweaty face with the glasses cloth I'll push you into the patch of poison ivy over there."
"Ope, nevermind then."
The haunted house was a thirty minute hike from the nearest road, along a mostly uphill path that hardly anyone ever used and certainly wasn't wide or steady enough for any automobiles. By the time they reached the stone fence encircling the house's enormous overgrown yard, everyone except Rayne was ready to collapse.
"I'm gonna be so in shape after this if my binder doesn't kill me first," Grey wheezed, leaning on the stone fence and looking up at the haunted house of his dreams with a longing yet exhausted expression. It stood atop a hill in the distance, surrounded by several acres worth of mostly empty property speckled by a few large trees and scraggly bushes. Behind it was a small barn, a chicken coop that hadn't seen use in ages, and a greenhouse conspicuously lacking anything actually green. "A stone brick cottage in the middle of the woods overgrown by vines, a sagging peaked roof with exposed beams, and gaping windows whose panes are cracked like spiderwebs... Looks spooky enough! If the door doesn't creak ominously when we open it, I'm filing a complaint."
Rayne pulled the handcart into the yard, then glanced over her shoulder at Crystal, who was panning the camera up to take a wide shot of the house from just inside the fence gate. "How's it feel, Coco?"
Crystal frowned, furrowing her brows. All four of them believed in the supernatural after they all experienced several strange circumstances growing up, and Crystal had long proven to have abilities that most people would've considered fake nonsense.
She kept a dream diary after experiencing incidents where she'd dream events before they occurred, and wanted to prove to herself it wasn't a figment of her imagination. Whenever something weird happened, she was the first to alert everyone and get them away from danger before anything bad happened, and had an uncanny sense of whether people were lying.
"Hard to say. It does feel... Weird. The walk through the whole forest was fine, but as soon as I walked into the yard... The air's different."
"Really?" Grey raised his eyebrows, hopping over the fence and holding out his arms. He was the second most sensitive to any external oddities, with a particular penchant for finding rather nasty unexplained phenomena. After a few seconds he frowned as well. "No, yeah. That's a weird vibe for sure. It's like, the forest was fine and funky fresh, then you get over here and it's..."
"Musty," Crystal and Grey finished at the same time, and exchanged wry smiles.
"Could be trepidation from perceived fears," Lillian pointed out, gesturing toward the house. Though she also believed in the supernatural, Lillian also liked trying to find reasonable explanations before resorting to the occult. "The big empty windows feel eerie because people expect houses to be brighter and look more lived in, right? It's possible it's just a subconscious response to an old, dilapidated building."
"Dilapidated..." Rayne muttered, raising her eyebrows as she surveyed the house. She had a sensitivity to people's emotions and motivations, and could sometimes pick up lingering feelings from objects, but she didn't feel anything in particular coming from the building. "I don't think it looks that bad? We've lived in worse."
"It hurts me, physically, every time you and Crystal tell us about that kind of thing," Lillian sighed, patting her hand over her heart while Grey nodded next to her. "This place looks gross! It's horrible to imagine little Ray and little Coco in a place even worse than this..."
"Hey, they hired someone to clean the inside and arrange some basic furniture for us to use," Grey said. "It won't be fancy, but the interior shouldn't be too gross! And we'll sleep in the same room for safety! After all... This is the Corpse Consuming Cottage!"
"Ugh, that name..." Crystal and Rayne both cringed at the same time, while Lillian's eyebrows shot up.
"Wait, it's called what?!"
"Yup! Bad, right? But it's earned the name cuz of how many people have gone missing here. Poof! Gone without a trace! Every single person who's ever bought this place has disappeared, along with any family they brought along." Grey grinned, wiggling his fingers at his suddenly horrified twin. "I even made a spooky spreadsheet citing all my sources, aren't you proud? It's legit, this place is either hella haunted or hella cursed."
"Will we be okay!?" Lillian muttered, color draining from her cheeks.
"There's a loophole," Rayne said, and Crystal nodded.
"Yeah, we didn't buy the house. We're just renting. Supernatural stories are always big sticklers on rules, right? Chanting something three times, turning a certain way, walking a certain pattern. If buying the house is part of the problem, then renting it shouldn't be counted as the same thing because possession isn't being transferred." Crystal turned the camera to zoom in on poor Lillian's pale face, hiding her mischievous grin behind the lens. "Theoretically."
"Don't even pretend you aren't absolutely terrified too, Miss I Can't Go On The Haunted House Ride At The Amusement Park I Have A Doctor's Note," Grey scoffed.
"I don't like ghosts or wraiths or poltergeists or whatever wicked whatsits terrorize the night because I feel bad for them thanks very much, but..." Crystal glanced over at the house and frowned, furrowing her brow again. "I feel bothered but not... Threatened? Like there's something here watching but it won't hurt us."
"That's as good as a gold star to me. Let's crack this bitch open and make some lunch!" With renewed vigor, Grey fished the key from his shorts pocket and ran up the creaky old porch to the front door. "Come on in, it's nice and cool inside! Comparatively speaking, I don't think there's an air conditioner. Just fans. But it'll be clean!"
Like he'd promised, the interior was cleaner than the exterior condition belied. Furniture was sparse, but they were all fine wood antiques with a hand-polished sheen. Everyone dropped their backpacks in the foyer and stretched for a moment before getting to work.
"Water's on!" Grey called from the kitchen, where he set the tap to run. "There's dishes and cookware in here too!"
"Silverware?" Lillian called back, in the middle of helping Crystal and Rayne unload the handcart.
"Yup, as requested! I think they're all antique like the rest of everything here."
"Don't you dare break any antique dishes, Dorian Grey!"
"No promises!"
"Electricity works," Crystal said with some surprise, flicking a nearby switch after setting her harp case on the floor in the living room, alongside a towering pile of boxes holding personal things they'd had delivered via the realtor. She held her breath to listen for any crackles or pops, but the overhead light didn't give so much as a flicker. "Wires might actually be okay? That's surprising, this house is really old. Must've been recently renovated."
"Probably to try and reel in prospective buyers," Rayne said, setting down three drum cases. The rest of her kit was already unloaded, so she took a moment to glance around the living room with Crystal. "Inside looks much nicer than outside."
"We can make it look spookier with filters and editing," Crystal said, running her finger against the windowsill. When it came up without dust, she furrowed her brows. "They were real thorough cleaning this place."
"Found the terrifying cellar!" Grey's faint muffled cry echoed from somewhere in the house, followed by the sound of Lillian shouting his full name and charging off after him.
"Any cold spots?" Crystal shouted down the stairs after circling the entire bottom floor trying to find them. The cellar door was tucked into the kitchen's pantry, which was a full walk-in room rather than a little cabinet.
Since the house was so far from town, part of the rental contract involved the current real estate agent making sure the kitchen was stocked before tenants took over. All the shelves were packed full with newly purchased dry goods and spices, mostly sorted into pretty glass jars for aesthetic appeal.
"No cold spots, just some nice shelving, big old ground freezer and a wine rack! Fruit preserves and stuff but they didn't leave any complimentary wine. Zero out of ten, not recommended."
"What makes it terrifying then?"
"Big spiders."
Crystal grimaced and backed away from the cellar door, narrowly evading Lillian as she retreated up the stairs at maximum speed.
The house was surprisingly large. The ground floor had a large open kitchen with an attached breakfast room, a living room, a dining room, a sitting room, a study with empty floor-to-ceiling bookshelves alongside display cabinets, and a laundry/changing room attached to a bathroom with an enormous sunken bath large enough to be used as a hot tub.
"I would buy this house just for the tub," Lillian said, stroking the porcelain with obvious affection.
"Please don't," Grey muttered. "We're evading the horrible disappearance curse via fairy loopholes, don't you go walking into the trap face-first like that!"
"Fine, but when we leave, we're bringing the tub with us."
"Yeah sure that's completely feasible and not at all slightly insane."
The upper floor had five large bedrooms with attached changing rooms, two lavatories, and a walk-in storage closet. Rayne carried their bags into the master bedroom, then returned to the handcart to retrieve the extra supplies they brought - a couple of brand new air mattresses, blankets, boxes of instant food, tents in case the house was in worse shape than expected, a first aid kit, and little tools like scissors, binoculars, and lighters.
"This place is supposed to be super haunted and cursed, yet..." Rayne hummed to herself, patting the mattress in the master bedroom. Every bed in the house was neatly made, with clean sheets and blankets that still smelled like soap. "Won't need the air mattresses. They really worked hard to make this place nice, huh?"
Finally, the attic under the peaked roof had a few small gaps in the shingles, but otherwise lacked any signs of weathering or exposure damage. The only things occupying the space were a few cobwebs in the darkest corners. "Ugh, nothing for us to snoop through," Grey muttered, poking his head into the attic for only moment before heading back downstairs to start moving boxes from the living room into various bedrooms for later sorting.
Crystal and Rayne turned the fans on in all the rooms to start circulating air, opening windows on the shaded side of the house to catch any stray breezes, while Lillian and Grey got started on making lunch. The house which stood empty for so long soon filled with laughter, conversation, and the smell of good food.
"I just can't get over how unhaunted this haunted house is," Grey lamented, tapping a fork against his empty plate. "I've been looking and there's not so much as a suspiciously shadowed corner or creaky stair board!"
"Are you sure those disappearances were legit?" Lillian asked, gesturing for Crystal to pass the salt so she could douse her potato salad. "You checked the sources themselves, right?"
"I did! That's why it's so weird!" Grey drained the remaining water from his glass, glaring down at the ice cubes rattling at the bottom. "Other than the terrible cell reception, weak internet signal, and our gut feelings, there's really no sign of anything being weird. I was promised jumpscares!"
"You were promised no such thing," Rayne muttered around a mouthful of grilled chicken sandwich, deftly capturing some lettuce before it escaped her lips and hit the table. "The outside looks spooky enough for use in our video, we can think of this like a vacation and relax for a bit until we have to leave."
"There's a barn out back, maybe that's haunted?" Crystal suggested, but Grey shook his head.
"I already checked... It's clean as a whistle. No disturbed earth or rattling rusty tools or anything!"
"Would you feel better if one of us got possessed by a demon?"
"Maybe. It'd have to be a really good possession though, if you're not crawling on the ceiling I want a refund."
"Oh, you're paying us?"
"Hell no, a refund of my feelings. My feelings!"
"Speaking of feelings, how do you feel, Coco? Lils?" Rayne interrupted just as Grey was about to get dramatic. "That was a doozy of a hike. You guys alright?"
Both Lillian and Crystal suffered from several health problems when they were younger, and were still weaker than the average person because of it. They had to work harder to remain healthy than most people did.
Lillian, since her mouth was full, flexed her arm and gave a thumbs up to show she was feeling alright. Once her mouth was clear of food, she added: "Mostly just sore, but nothing a long bath and some music won't cure!"
"Coco?"
Crystal gave a start, realizing she'd been staring out the nearest window for awhile and tuning out the conversation. She turned back to Rayne and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, what was that?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Just feel a bit woozy, I think."
"Sensing something weird?"
"Honestly? I don't know." Crystal sighed, opening a can of grape soda and pouring it into her glass. "I still feel like we're being watched. And..."
She hesitated, then shook her head. No matter how Grey tried to cajole the rest of the sentence from her, Crystal kept the rest of her thoughts to herself. If she felt they were in danger she wouldn't be so tight-lipped, so they dropped the subject and started discussing their upcoming album instead.
After lunch they moved several beds into one room, turning the master bedroom into a big slumber party area. The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent getting video and photos of the house and its yard, trying to find the perfect angles for use during the actual performance recording.
Rayne gathered some logs for firewood after noticing a fire pit in the back with some carved stone benches surrounding it. Dinner consisted of an open flame barbecue using packaged meats they found in the fridge, and a few veggies and fruit rolled into foil packs.
"We've really gotta thank that agent lady," Grey said, reclining in his chair. "She really came through with the supplies! It's so good having a fully stocked kitchen from the start, I was worried we'd be having pancakes and instant ramen for days."
"I'll head to town tomorrow and grab more meat for the freezer in the cellar," Rayne said, chewing on a skewer of chicken. "It's got a little variety right now but I'd like to stock up so we don't have to make as many trips. You and Lils might be fine with rabbit food, but Crystal and I need that good good protein."
"We're natural carnivores," Crystal agreed.
"Is there anything else we need from the store?"
"Nah, I can't think of anything. There's like, four entire bags of toilet paper, and towels and wash cloths and soaps and detergent and even pads and stuff. Like, I know we paid for the service but the level of consideration is really impressive!"
Crystal stared into the flickering flames, watching the embers rise into the rapidly darkening sky only to flicker away among the stars. The strange feeling she'd had all day was building to a crescendo, swelling in her chest in anticipation of...
Something.
Rayne glanced over, nudging her sister in the arm. "Coco? You're out of it again."
Crystal nodded. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened again. Seeing her strange behavior, Lillian and Grey both fell silent.
Finally, Crystal heaved a sigh and poked at the burning logs with a long stick. "Remember when we first posted the video for our band? It was uploading and we were all watching the loading bar while holding our breaths? How it felt?"
"Don't get nostalgic on me old man," Grey muttered. Though his tone was teasing, there was an affectionate smile on his face.
Lillian nodded and smiled. "It was so exciting and terrifying at the same time. Maybe nothing would happen, maybe we'd be one of many bands that never got any traction. But maybe... Maybe we'd get lucky."
"It was kind of a relief too," Rayne added, gesturing with the skewer in her hand. "Like, we did it! We made our first song, and did our first video, and were gonna show it to the world. It felt really real right then. All our hard work."
"Yeah... And remember what I said?" When they all shook their heads, Crystal chuckled and poked the fire hard enough to send a flurried shower of sparks into the air. "I said it felt like a change was coming. For better or worse, something big was about to happen."
"Right, right! We'd either succeed in our dream or fail absolutely, with no in-between. That's what you said, yeah?" Grey sighed, patting his full stomach. "I remember. Man, that was heavy. I couldn't even sleep that night, you know?"
"Is it happening again?" Lillian asked, her voice even softer than usual. "That feeling?"
"Yeah. I've felt that way all day. I thought maybe it's cuz we never did anything as big as this, renting a house and doing a whole video shoot on location, that maybe I was worried about how ambitious our idea was, but..." Crystal bit her lip, poking the fire again. She made a point of avoiding their gazes, focusing on the burning embers and crackling logs. "I think if we stay here tonight, there's no going back."
Silence reigned for a few minutes. Then, quietly, Rayne whispered: "Are we in danger?"
"It's not like that. It's just... A massive change, that feels... Overwhelming. This is bigger than the previous time."
"Bigger than chasing our dream?"
"Yeah."
Rayne reached over to grab Crystal's hand, while Grey hopped up and sprawled across Lillian's lap despite her protests. He just laughed and said, "What's that matter? No matter what happens tonight, tomorrow, or whatever! We'll get through it together like we always have. You and me, sweethearts. Us against the world!"
Crystal smiled and gently squeezed Rayne's hand. "Yeah. We'll be fine, no matter what."
Once dinner was finished, the fire fully smothered and the leftovers packed away for later, everyone did rock-paper-scissors to determine order of bathtub usage. One by one, they soaked away their worries, changed into the pajamas they brought, and crawled into one of the master bedroom's beds.
As midnight ticked over, a single shaft of light from the full moon filtered through the room's lacy curtains, illuminating their peaceful faces. The sleeping occupants remained blissfully unaware of the tendrils of fog creeping along the ground, emerging from the forest to wrap the entire house in a dome of mist.
Several hours later, as the first rays of dawn burst from the horizon, they were finally awoken by a piercing scream.
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Ok I was originally not going to post this because it's A Lot of headcanon for an improv video game comedy series and just send it to one person but they never responded and I'm attention starved. So here's my huge, Bubby centric, monster of a headcanon that ties the whole series together. Mostly under a cut because it's A Lot. (written in one sitting on my phone so excuse the multiple changes in tense and typos)
So the big sort of thing is that Bubby caused the resonance cascade. He sabotaged the computers. He just meant for it to be a distraction to escape black mesa but Benry's involvement and the chaotic element of the Player Character interacting with him caused everything to go to hell fast. Also Benry and Bubby are sort of brothers.
Going backwards to explain:
So some of this really stretches the canon because it's mixing a "it's a real world" au and "it's still a video game" au kind of ideas.
Basically the world of the video game exists sort of as a parallel dimension within the game's code. The G-man exists kind of outside of the rules, able to control more or less the code or console. He's kind of the Mastermind behind black Mesa as a whole who exists outside the game's code to a sort of in between layer (in those time stop moments) where he can only be seen by those who are also in some way connected to the Real World through either direct connection to the Player or sufficient connection to the console code. His reach is in ways limited because of this and he cannot easily interact with the game world characters. He uses Black Mesa as a way to use the science of their word to try to create new things from the code or otherwise more precisely control it.
Which is where Bubby comes in. Basically, black Mesa took the basic code for the security officer Barney and tried to create new copies with connections to the code they could use. However it was pretty much a complete failure. Only two of the attempts even survived to maturity with any kind of personally intact, but they weren't right. Trying to connect them with the code like that broke them in certain ways. On creation, the scientists asked them their names to try to get them to access their own files to find the name, but neither could, it came out garbled. So instead they went by the names they more or less gave themselves.
Bubby is able to connect to the console commands specifically to set objects and characters on fire(among some others in small amounts that are far less well controlled), but he can't understand that's what it is. It's just psychokinesis to him. And he's not good at controlling it, especially when he was younger. He's also scrawny, has several phobias, and is overall much more suited to academic pursuits than being any kind of soldier for them. It also causes him to glitch at times('here i come, Gordon! Here I come, Gordon! Here I come, Gordon!). His code is more or less like a badly implemented mod that tried to unlock god admin mode but failed and now doesn't quite fit back in with the original code right.
They kept him as a scientist at black Mesa mostly to keep him under surveillance. He knows this. He doesn't know anything about the code or anything, but he knows he was made there etc etc. He spent most of his time just keeping the other scientists afraid of him and his spontaneous combustion and studying as much as he could. He'd never been outside. He wasn't allowed to leave. He'd never really cared to.
Until (and this was largely inspired by the '30 something Coomer and Bubby when Coomer first joined black Mesa by @inkwellstars) a new scientist was hired. Bubby largely ignored him except for trying to scare him away from any annoying attempts and friendship with some showy (if poorly controlled) pyrotechnics. But Coomer was just fascinated and made a terrible pun about his new coworker being 'a real hothead'. Which infuriated Bubby into taking an interest in him. Coomer remained the only person who was unfazed enough by the fire and the shark teeth to not just still hang around, but even tease him, no matter how hard Bubby tried to intimidate him out of it. Eventually, Bubby realized it was the last thing he actually wanted. That this man was the first person who he'd ever had treat him… Like a human being. And for the first time, he considers a world outside black Mesa. And it's somewhere he wants to go. He wants to follow this man when he walks out the sliding lab doors back to a world he'd never been a part of.
Not that he's pining or anything!! Coomer was a married man, after all!(no way no sir not that).
Bubby has a lot of unmanaged anger because he just catches on fire if he gets too frustrated. After a discussion of Coomer's past boxing ambitions, they set up the underground boxing league mostly just as the two of them, letting Bubby actually let off some steam in a metaphorical instead of literal way. He gets his ass handed to him every time but it's nice to not be treated like either the boss' fragile, expensive toy or a living Molotov cocktail. Bubby learns a bit of fighting along the way,to boot. He gets much better at controlling his fire. Coomer picks him up in a "lift off the ground and spin around" bear hug when he manages to set something aflame without setting any part of himself alight first. Bubby somehow feels that was more important to him than the accomplishment itself. Eventually word gets out about the quite literal underground rings they've started up and it becomes a whole league and Bubby takes a more spectator role, contented to play coach to Coomer.
However, Coomer's impressive strength and fortitude aren't only noticed by an admiring(and sightly love struck) Bubby. Black Mesa decides to try, instead of using code to try to create a new entities with connection to the code, to use an existing character, enhance them, and then create copies of them. Coomer became that existing character.
At first it seemed to work perfectly. They had a character able to alter the world at their will(sending Gordon back and forth through time/creating portals), access a super human, nearly godlike state of power(super player feature) and alter the code in a multitude of other ways. They implemented a system of authorization to stop him from accessing these powers without permission from a handler. These PlayCoins could only be gained and used by someone directly connected to the console code or real world. Someone connected to that liminal space between code and reality the g-man exists in. However, trying to create duplicates didn't create a new, equally powerful entity, it just split the power of the original. From there, Coomer's spirit was still too powerful to be completely controlled, so they split him into dozens of clones, dividing up that power until he was within a range they could control. The effect on his psyche was devastating, however. It trapped him into the code of 'tutorial npc' but his response triggers got completely broken so he responds to the wrong things. Before the scripted events of the game in which those triggers are, it didn't affect his day to day behavior, but it did leave him with an inescapable partial awareness of the game itself. As split as he is, he can't understand or remember anything about what it means, it's just a constant disconnect between him and the game's reality. It causes his marriage to fall apart.
Bubby doesn't know about what happened to Coomer. A lot of his own memories are controlled and tampered with as well. But he feels as though his getting close to Coomer caused his suffering and they end up drifting apart for a long time and Bubby's longing to see the world outside his laboratory home fades alongside their once strong bond.
Until. The other failed test tube character made from the mangled and stripped code of the security officer Barney who was torn out of the code to be twisted to the g man's whims comes to Bubby with an idea. The man who is not a man. Who has no parents and named himself : Benry.
Benry seemed like he should have been perfect. He kept the most physical resemblance to the original Barney, he seemed physically stable. As far as anyone could tell, he was completely connected to the console code. He should be able to control whatever he wanted, but besides the sweet voice and an unnatural fortitude, he seemed to have no remarkable qualities. Also he was all but totally incoherent. Memory, temporal and spacial awareness,and speech function were severely impaired. He often forgot where and when he was('... What happened to your arm?'), got his own memories confused with the memories of the now non-existent Barney ('you and me we used to be friends do you remember i don't know what happened'). Along with an erratic and unpredictable personality. He was considered another of countless failures and given a menial security job, like with Bubby, mostly just to keep an eye on him. Benry and Bubby, despite being practically siblings, aren't close, but do trust each other insomuch as they know the other probably won't outright kill them.
But Benry was not as unremarkable as he seemed.
And the introduction of a new element would throw everything into chaos: The Player. And, by extension, The Game.
The Player, in this instance, refers to the assumed person who is playing the game in which the characters exist. They are a discrete, unseen, and unmentioned character, who is neither Wayne nor Gordon Freeman. Wayne is the actor playing both Gordon and, in ways The Player, in the same way that Holly is playing the character of Coomer. Gordon is the AI character who exists within the game world. He believes he is in control of his actions and that what he experiences is real. He exists on the same layer of fiction as the other AI such as the character of Coomer. The Player is whomever, within the fiction of the series, is physically playing The Game.
The Game is the actual scripted, programmed events that were programmed in the "real world" (the Player's real world in which they live and are playing the Game). It represents the events that happen from the time the Player begins the game and when they complete it. The Game represents the overlap between the reality in which the AI exist and The Player's world. Presumably a copy of the original game Half Life.
As the events of The Game draw nearer, it makes every charterer with a connection to the code antsy. Bubby starts thinking, for the first time in years, about the world outside black Mesa's walls. Thought becomes longing. Longing becomes desperation. A need to escape from here by any means necessary.
Benry approaches him with an idea. They'll sabotage the big test that Dr.Freeman is running. The whole thing will likely explode, causing enough destruction and distraction for them to slip away in the chaos (with Coomer in tow if Bubby could help it). Freeman would almost certainly die but that was a necessary casualty for their freedom. Bubby never liked him anyway. There was just something...off about him. Like a weird double vision he couldn't shake around the man. Like something was both there that shouldn't be and missing that should be. Bubby avoided him. He didn't think he'd ever had a single conversation with him. He agrees.
Benry stops Gordon at the entrance and tries to stall him as long as possible with bogus requests to give Bubby as much time to sabotage the test as possible (which he does by crawling inside the computers, claiming he's fixing a problem).
However,Gordon is not connected to the console code, but directly to the real world through being controlled by The Player. As the Player triggers the scripted events of The Game, the holes and mangled code the g man and black Mesa have been tampering with start going haywire. Especially as Benry interacts with him directly. His latent connection to the console code starts activating, giving him ability to control himself and the game more and more, but his memory issues and temporal confusion makes him unable to determine what is and isn't real so his code powers start just making it real, beginning to actively break the Game from within. The bogus excuse about a passport (he forgot the word for ID and had to roll with the lie) became a reality and a powerful one. He starts teleporting and clipping through the walls.
Bubby starts the test, unaware of the change. He played along with the passport thing to not blow Benry's story. But by the time he reaches the chamber, it's already a real thing everyone else there had and should have.
When the cascade starts, though, Bubby is caught off guard. It was just supposed to explode. It wasn't supposed to bridge dimensions and cause this rift. He assumes Gordon did something to cause it to fail so catastrophically. He phases through the window of the observation room (something he didn't even know he could do and likely didn't even realize he was doing and forgot afterwards since he was immediately knocked out) but it's too late to stop it.
Then the events of the Game are in full swing and all the broken code of every character crumbles and results in the "look Gordon! Ropes!" Glitched tutorial Coomer, a Bubby whose setting himself on fire on accident for the first time in years, and a Benry who transcends beyond the confines of his code into an extradimemsional Chimera of sorts who can pass in and out of the liminal G space, become and summon skeleton minions who also can be or not be in that space, able to be seen by anyone or just by someone able to perceive that plane of existence, such as Gordon.
As Coomer destroys his clones, he gets pieces of his power and fragments of memory back. Enough to know that they are clones and that killing them returns his powers to him. Bubby and he quickly rekindle their bond, with the memory tapering being undone.
Bubby is still desperate to leave, trying to get Gordon to go faster by guilting him and saying he wants to go home (though black Mesa is his actual home). However everything just seems to get more and more drawn out and they can never really make progress.
Benry convinces Bubby that Gordon is the reason that they can't leave. Bubby can sense that something is different about Gordon so he believes it. Benry may or may not believe it himself. He may have realized that leading the Player to the end would only end the Game and tried to subvert that path. Or the programmed event of Gordon's ambush might have just pushed them both to it. Impossible to say.
In any case, Bubby is quickly also detained and put back in his tube.
With enough clones killed, and having accidentally jumped out of the play box and seen that there's nothing physically beyond black Mesa, Coomer becomes aware of and connected to the console code and aware of the "real world". He tries to use Gordon's connection to the Player to get to the real world, though at this point he can only understand it as the world of Gordon's "dreams". When Tommy kills all of the clones, then knocks out Coomer, it causes a full reset and Coomer becomes his full,unshattered self again. He still is limited by his need for authorization through PlayCoins, but he's much more coherent and quickly becomes completely aware of his situation within the Game and starts talking directly to the Player through Gordon at times.
The rest is history.
As for some other non directly related things: Tommy is g man's attempt at a more biological connection between the code and the game universe. Tommy is his son and has all the abilities of a g-man but is largely unable to use them and unaware of them due to his young age (comparatively to the immortal g man, 36 is still a child) and his innocence. He is also completely integrated with the game universe with no glitches from the union. Tommy is not aware he's the Gman's son. He thinks it's just some guy who bought him Vin Diesel and the minions. Tommy tends to use his powers entirely accidentally when he does, with the exception of creating Sunkist. In doing so he also surpassed his father's ultimate limit: creating a completely new element to the game without having to gut other code. He created the perfect dog out of completely new content he willed into existence. Unfortunately for G-Man, Tommy is far too pure and goodhearted to be used to any nefarious ends.
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Chaos;Child review
Steins;Gate; it’s one of the most popular visual novels ever made, for very, very good reason. While I had played my fair share visual novels before, namely Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and Zero Escape, Steins;Gate was still a very special experience for me that instantly launched me into the wider world of visual novels. More than anything, though, it made me extremely curious about the rest of the franchise around it; not just the sequel to it, Steins;Gate 0, but the whole rest of the Science Adventure series.
For a bit of a rundown, the first game in this series, that many fans of Steins;Gate very likely have no clue about, was a title called Chaos;Head. Focusing on an extremely reclusive and paranoid high school student named Takumi Nishijou, who has his life thrown into chaos after witnessing the latest in a series of murders known as the New Generation Madness, it was an interesting story with a heavy focus on delusions, creating an interesting experience that, while still ultimately clear and conclusive, leaves you in the dark the majority of the time in regards to just what is happening, and how much is even real. While a good effort all around that served as a great base for Steins;Gate, it was ultimately held down by a lot of things, from smaller things like a pretty generic and unmemorable artstyle and mostly unremarkable voice acting, to much more noticeable things, from the slow, unfocused plot, to the underutilized cast of characters who never come together as a group, mostly just dropping in and out on an individual basis whenever the plot needs them, to the choice system of the game, the delusion trigger, which allows you to view a positive or negative scene Takumi imagines in response to surprising or stressful situations, being pretty much pointless, only rarely giving a better glimpse into Takumi’s characterization, to Takumi himself being extremely creepy, cowardly, and all around unlikeable, and not getting sufficient development across the story to make up for it, at least until the very last chapter. While it did get an updated version, Chaos;Head Noah, Chaos;Head was nonetheless buried beyond saving by Steins;Gate, not helped by not having an official localization to this day. As the cherry on top, it had a terrible anime adapation that tried to fit a fairly lengthy VN into a mere 12 episodes, completely wrecking the pacing, making the story even more confusing than was intended, and using an entire episode on useless filler to top it off.
The reason I went into detail on that is, well, the subject of today’s review; Chaos;Head’s sequel, Chaos;Child. Chaos;Child is in an interesting spot in the series, firstly because as of right now, it’s the only main VN in the series other than the two Steins;Gate titles to have an official localization, and while both Robotics;Notes and Robotics;Notes DaSH are set to be localized this year, it still means it’s the only other title around to experience until those come out, at least in an official fashion. Secondly, unlike Steins;Gate 0 and Robotics;Notes DaSH, Chaos;Child is only a thematic sequel, with the cast of Chaos;Head not returning, with the exception of one side character having a fairly prominent role, and a few references and cameos for others. The main cast is otherwise a clean slate, and concepts of Chaos;Head are taken at a different angle. Aside from helping keep things fresh, it also allows it to take its own pace with introducing and explaining the main concepts, making it still cohesive even without having gone through Chaos;Head, though it’s still connected in important ways. The main point is, you don’t have to go through Chaos;Head to enjoy Chaos;Child, which is very good considering the various problems surrounding Chaos;Head.
Now, the question is, is Chaos;Child worth going through by itself? The short answer is, absolutely, yes. It is a fantastic experience on par with Steins;Gate, and I would recommend it with all my passion. You can get it on PS4 or Steam. Seriously, go for it. As for the long answer, well, buckle in, because this’ll be a ride.
Chaos;Child takes place in 2015, 6 years after a devastating earthquake that utterly wrecked the ward of Shibuya during the events of Chaos;Head, leaving many physical and mental scars on the populace. Though Shibuya has since been rebuilt, a series of bizarre murders begin to occur on the days of the New Generation Madness, the series of killings that gripped Shibuya in the days before the earthquake. These killings, dubbed the Return of the New Generation Madness, leave the citizens of Shibuya morbidly captivated, much as the original incidents did, and unfortunately leave the police with no clues as to the identity of the culprit, seemingly leaving them to continue their crimes unopposed.
Enter Takuru Miyashiro, a senior at Hekiho Academy and president of its newspaper club. Takuru was orphaned by the Shibuya earthquake and adopted by Wataru Sakuma, a doctor who has a foster home in the same building as his clinic, though Takuru has moved out into an RV by the time of the game due to an argument with his foster sister, Nono Kurusu, the student council president and vice president of the newspaper club. With the help of the other members of the club, Serika Onoe, Takuru’s reckless and rather dense childhood friend, Shinji Itou, Takuru’s confident best friend with an interest in bizarre murders such as the New Generation Madness, and Hana Kazuki, a mute girl who spends most of her time playing MMOs in the club room, Takuru conducts his own investigation of the Return of the New Generation Madness despite Nono’s concerns for his safety, independently discovering many clues and connections, such as the presence of the mysterious and creepy “Sumo Stickers” at the site of each murder. After taking his investigations too far and stumbling upon the scene of the latest murder, Takuru finds increasing evidence of the killer having capabilities far beyond that of a normal human- and that his discoveries may have put him in danger of becoming the next victim.
While this sounds much like the basic premise of Chaos;Head, in practice it’s very different. In Chaos;Heads, the New Gen murders, though certainly important, mostly just played out in the background, with Takumi rarely directly being involved. By contrast, the murders in Chaos;Child, and the mysteries around them, are the focus of the game, and it’s very worthy of it. The mysteries and reveals around them are downright fascinating, and gives the player just as many hints for them to follow as the characters, making for a very interesting plot to follow. Chaos;Child is also notable for being much, much darker than the previous entries in the series, which weren’t exactly flowers and rainbows themselves. The murders themselves are extremely gruesome and disturbing, the reveals don’t pull any sort of punches, and the majority of the game’s endings lie much closer to the bitter end of bittersweet, compared to, say, Steins;Gate’s endings. While it can get a bit draining by the end, Chaos;Child makes it work, never pushing you to the extent of becoming apathetic despite the horrors and tragedy of the plot, which is owed in large part to the well written and very sympathetic cast of characters.
Everyone in the main cast manages to be interesting, fun to have around, or both. Takuru himself is a very good protagonist, despite having a very unlikeable start. He’s arrogant, reckless, extremely awkward, overly stubborn, and downright petty in a lot of ways, especially regarding his obsession with staying on the “right side” of information, not to mention him treating the murders as something exciting and a way to get famous. Despite all that, he has a lot of development across the game, and starts early on it. He’s also got a much rougher past than some of the previous protagonists, which helps explain how he grew into the person he is.
Some of the other more memorable members of the cast include Hinae Arimura, who, though hyper and friendly on the surface, hides a very sharp tongue and a fairly cynical nature, Mio Kunosato, the exceedingly harsh, obsessive, and resourceful scientist investigating the Return of the New Generation Madness on her own, who makes an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast just because of how completely unpleasant she is, Shinji, who manages to be a much more likeable character than some of the previous obligatory male friends in the series, and my personal favorite, Nono, who despite seemingly being an unfairly harsh big sister type, quickly establishes herself as an extremely caring person, with a lot more emotional baggage than she lets on. A good chunk of the game’s emotional moments involve her, particularly her attempts to fix her very strained relationship with Takuru.
While all the characters make at least decent impressions to begin with, what helps them even further is the additional ending routes, branching off from the normal route depending on specific choices you make throughout the game. Compared to the way Steins;Gate handles its endings, these are full chapters, putting much more focus on characters such as Hinae and Hana, taking the plot in completely different directions. Not only are the stories of them interesting on their own, they do a great job of developing the characters and showing them from different perspectives.
What caps off the writing is the absolutely fantastic atmosphere the game builds. It goes very heavy with horror elements compared to Chaos;Head, and doesn’t skimp in any area. While it’s got the visuals down, the main strength is the buildup, suspense, and narrative description, all of which is fantastically done. Tense scenes go at a steady enough pace to let each small thing sink in, without being drawn out enough that you lose interest, and the much less ambiguous nature on what scenes are real or not makes any shifts of that sort much more effectively jarring. It’s seriously one of my favorite atmospheres in a game, and makes for a great experience for anyone even slightly a fan of horror.
The subject of “fake” scenes brings me to the main gameplay element of Chaos;Child: the Delusion Trigger. Every once in a while, a situation will make Takuru imagine a positive or negative delusion regarding it, with you being able to choose one to view before snapping back to the regular scene like nothing happened. While a decent idea on paper, like in Chaos;Head, it really doesn’t add much most of the time, and despite being your method for accessing the different endings, it really doesn’t tie into them at all. At the least, though, it does a decent job of showing Takuru is much less mature than he tries to appear, and if nothing else, they’re gold mines for random screenshots. They also appear less and less frequently as the game goes on, which helps keep them from distracting from more serious scenes.
On a more technical side of things, visually speaking, I like the look of the game quite a bit. While it doesn’t reach the heights of Steins;Gate in character designs or the general artstyle, though that’s a very high bar to reach for, the sprites, backgrounds, and CGs are all very well drawn on their own, and the designs are at least more distinctive than in Chaos;Head. The visuals also do a large part to help with the atmosphere; while it looks light on the surface, many scenes use lighting filters that do a lot to help the mood, and the CGs do not disappoint when they get serious.
The UI also looks great, and furthers the atmosphere even more. From the shadowy ends of the dialogue boxes moving passively, to the menu screen’s rolling fog, to the odd borders of the screen during delusions, it has a very stylish look.
Chaos;Child doesn’t disappoint on the audio side of things either. Series composer Takeshi Abo puts out a great soundtrack, as usual, with many catchy or atmospheric themes, along with vocal themes that are absolutely fantastic. The voice acting is also very good, with just about everyone giving out a great performance, in particular Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Takuru, Sumire Uesaka as Serika, Sarah Emi Bridcutt as Nono, Suzuko Mimori as Hinae, and Risa Taneda as Mio.
The last thing to mention is that Chaos;Child is a very long visual novel. Not quite as monsterous as some, but it’s still a significant time drain, and while there is an anime adaptation, it is a terrible alternative. While not outright awful by itself, especially compared to Chaos;Head’s anime, 12 episodes is simply not enough time to make the story work. Not only does it have to rush to make nearly every chapter fit into one episode, absolutely ruining the pacing, it doesn’t adapt the other endings in any way, making a lot of the characters come off as way less developed, and couldn’t even adapt the true ending at first, which is just disgraceful. The visual novel is the only real way to experience it. And now that we’re at this point, I suppose it’s conclusion time.
Is Chaos;Child something I would recommend? 100% absolutely. Between the fantastic atmosphere, great cast of characters, and fascinating and emotional story, it is a special kind of experience that proudly stands with Steins;Gate as one of the greatest visual novels out there, in a genre with many fantastic works. It can be a bit slow to start, but once it gets going, it stays an amazing experience.
With that giant rant out of the way, I’m off to start on the last thing in the series there is for me to tackle as of now: Steins;Gate 0. Till next time.
-Scout
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SO! Do you have a BOTW OC? If so, I'd love to hear about them! (I love your blog! You make me so happy and it's awesome knowing someone like you exists in the world!! You inspire me so much!)
First off, reverse uno card to every compliment you just gave me. No, YOU make me happy, and it’s awesome knowing someone like YOU exists in the world! So take that, HA!
As for ocs, I have two main ones, I cannot draw, and I have no money for commisions, so I just made them with an avatar creator. Maybe I’ll show them if people ask idk. For now I just spat out a paragraph about them. Someday I want to write my au with them, but I still need to find the time to do so. Anyway, here you go:
Basically, my first OC is Zimiri, he’s the Sheikah Poet for the royal family 100 years ago. Yes, that guy, the one who will ultimately be Kass’ teacher. He’s basically a wise and quiet theater kid with a guitar (lute?) but he plays basically every instrument and has a way with words. Officially, he’s the court poet, but with his Sheikah heritage and his best friend/kinda co-worker (I’ll explain later) he also helps research ancient shrine locations. He gives great advice and emotional support, but he’s self conscious about his past, which is pretty unremarkable, as he doesn’t come from nobility or anything. Mostly he just wants to impress Zelda because he’s got a thing for her. Back in the good ol’ days of pre-calamity, he and Zelda would just walk around and explore the shrines, and he helped her research and record notes. Zimiri mainly feel in love with her because he would just listen to her hum and chat as he played little lullabies and old melodies and his guitar. He’s pretty poor, which is why he wears his red “royal poet” cloak almost everywhere. He’s blunt, bit in a kind and well meaning and helpful way. He’s the guy who sits on the rooftop and practices songs, mistakes and all, without a care in the world.
His best friend is Adello, a Sheikah technology researcher and expert on the divine beasts, despite not being a Sheikah herself. They’ve been childhood friends ever since she ran away from home. Adello is actually the daughter of a rising noble family, the Ledire’s, in the Lurelin area, which at the time was gaining power, almost becoming a port city. But, Adello ran off because she was sick and tired of all the noble nonsense, plus her mom was shit. Only the king and Zelda really know who she is, although her original family is still on the look out for their only heir, the King keeps Adello’s secret considering her talent with the Divine Beast research. (Yes, I sort of stole this from Toph Beifong, but I swear I only realized it after I made her entire character arc) She’s sarcastic and passionate when it calls for it. She’s probably the only one able to keep up with Revali’s quips. Zimiri is the only one keeping her from slapping that “arrogant feather face.” Adello also has some gears to grind with the princess, considering they’re polar opposites and everything they hate personified. Adello gives off an aura of confidence, sarcasm, and wit, valuing action and results over false promises or petty royal diplomacy. Zelda is poised and calm, wishing nothing more than to have the job that Adello has. I also have a similar parallel with Zimiri and Link. Zimiri envying Link’s position with the princess, and Link admiring his thoughtfulness and sensitivity that he can never show.
Adello is the one who hangs out with the Champions more because of her job. Zimri is a walking example of “I want to take care of everyone else because I can take care of myself.” Of course, down the line Adello’s anxieties about being useless and stuff are gonna pop up, along with Zimiri trying to keep everyone mentally stable. Blah blah blah, no more spoilers in case I actually write my au.
Welp, end of dumb rant about some ocs. why are you down here, did you actually read that all? No you didn’t. Exactly. I didn’t proof read so don’t tell me you read through those garbage paragraphs ew. Alrighty time to post before I get to anxious about what people think about my ocs Ok byeeeeee
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meet HAYDEN JUDE MARIN, he has been living in milton for three months and is generally known around town for being charming and manipulative. the twenty seven year old, is apparently a night club owner but you didn’t hear that from me. when i think of him i think of: the warmth of the sand under your bare feet, a flirtatious comment followed by a wink, ‘u up’ texts, the smell of freshly baked bread. - tommy martinez, cismale, he/him as written by pepper, 23, est, she/her.
BIO ;
cancer tw, death tw
Hayden was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California where he happily spent most of his childhood by the beach. He was raised solely by his mother, Rosie Marin, who did her very best to bring him up on her own despite his father’s purposeful lack of involvement. Rosie owned a small local bakery (aptly named Rosie’s) that she and Hayden lived above. Hayden’s childhood was peppered with memories of waking up to the scent of fresh bread, pushing up onto his tiptoes to ice cupcakes, and of course, always being the most popular kid in his classes because his mom brought the best snacks. Hayden and his mother had just nearly enough to get by most of the time, but Hayden grew up very loved and very happy. His mother made sure of that at the very least.
Unfortunately, Rosie was diagnosed with lung cancer when Hayden was just ten years old. She fought hard against the disease for two hard years before she unfortunately passed away when Hayden was twelve. In all honesty, Hayden has never really quite gotten over his mother’s death. At the time his mother was quite literally all he had. He never knew his overly religious grandparents (who disowned Rosie for having a child out of wedlock) and he had no aunts or uncles that he knew of. All he really grew up with was his mother, and watching her die for two years was incredibly hard for him, and after her death he felt that for the first time in his life he was truly alone.
To everyone’s surprise, but especially Hayden’s, after his mother’s death his father got into contact with him through his godmother who Hayden was staying with at the time. Shockingly enough despite his total absence for majority of Hayden’s life, Hayden’s father wanted to take Hayden in. Hayden was very much against it, considering he had never met his father and was reasonably rather upset with him for abandoning both him and his mother. However, Hayden’s godmother thought that living with his father would be best for him, not only considering that it may be Hayden’s last chance to have a relationship with a parent but also because Hayden’s father, Raphael, was very well off. So despite his (very vocal) protests Hayden was then sent to live with his father, which quickly became a very sour arrangement.
It became very clear very quickly that Hayden’s father wanted nothing to do with him. He spoke to Hayden only when necessary, seemed to forget his son was there most of the time, and left on business trips near constantly. Eventually Hayden learnt (through some rather sneaky eavesdropping) that the only reason his father had taken him in in the first place was to please Hayden’s stepmother. Apparently, Cheryl, or ‘Cherry’ as she insisted everyone call her, was practically begging Raphael for a baby, and seeing as Raphael had very little time or desire for having a child he decided that having a twelve year old around was better than an infant. Hayden was hurt to learn the truth about his father’s desire to take him in, and even attempted to run away in a fit of anger. But he was very quickly found by some of his father’s security and brought back to his father’s expansive home before he could get very far, and every attempt following the first resulted in much of the same thing.
Eventually Hayden gave up on running away. His father was rarely home long enough for Hayden to demonstrate how much he loathed him anyways, and within the walls of his father’s home Hayden was at least clothed and fed. He resented his father and longed to run away back to his godmother’s home but unfortunately his father’s home was a long way away from Santa Monica.
So Hayden started to build a life for himself where he was, and that life started with school. Even without being the kid in school who’s mom brought the best snacks, Hayden was still quite popular in school, and for the most part that was due to baseball. Hayden had always played baseball, ever since he was young and his mother used to bring plates full of orange slices to his peewee games (the Marins had always been a baseball family. Screw football or hockey, if it wasn’t on a baseball diamond they didn’t care about it). Hayden also had the good fortune of actually being very talented. So when Hayden tried out for catcher on his high school team he got the position very easily, and was even bumped up to first string to boot. Although some of the upper year students weren’t particularly happy about a freshman making first string, a lot of the colleges were. Hayden’s talent was noticed and sought after from the time he was about halfway through his sophomore year, and his near prodigy level skill was even featured in some local sports magazines and the local newspaper. Despite knowing that the magazines likely wouldn’t have cared about Hayden’s skill if he wasn’t going to one of the most well known private schools in the state, Hayden’s ego still inflated a bit at the recognition.
For a few years that’s all Hayden’s life was. Playing baseball, hanging out and partying with friends, and occasionally having to deal with his father and stepmother when the situation called for it. It wasn’t the best life, and Hayden wasn’t exactly happy but it was all Hayden really had, so he did his best to make do with it. In all honesty at that point the thing that made Hayden happiest was his team. While Hayden’s home life was broken, his team helped him find the community he craved. Playing baseball and being part of a team made Hayden feel that he belonged somewhere, like he was wanted somewhere, and Hayden clung to that sensation gratefully.
But when Hayden was about halfway through his junior year things rapidly went downhill. You have to be a level 10 friend to unlock what happened there because I honestly don’t think Hayden has talked about it since the night it happened, but basically all you need to know is that a series of events happened one night that led to Hayden basically being thrown out of his home that very same night and disowned, full stop.
Hayden’s only saving grace was that his father was too proud to let his son live on the streets. Raphael set Hayden up with his own apartment near his school, and paid for Hayden’s rent and expenses. However, he did so without communicating with Hayden even once, and it was very clear that Hayden had essentially been disowned. When Hayden was eighteen the money stopped, and Hayden moved out of the apartment. Hayden and Raphael haven’t really talked since.
Hayden got into university on a full baseball scholarship, despite all the chaos. He leaned heavily on his chosen family, his baseball team, throughout that difficult interim between being kicked out and graduating, and during that time he threw himself into baseball with such vigor and intensity that he impressed more than a few of the scouts circling around him. He ended up choosing NYU because it was the school that was the farthest away, and although Hayden didn’t want to be far from his hometown and his mother’s grave, he did want a fresh start away from his father and Cherry.
Hayden university experience was unremarkable but very significant to him. In fact, the fact that it was mostly unremarkable is what made it so special to him. For the most part, Hayden was pretty close to completely happy. He became captain of the baseball team his second year, made lifelong friends in his team and his frat, and eventually achieved his ultimate goal, getting recruited onto a professional baseball team in his junior year. Hayden graduated early with a degree in business, proud of his accomplishments, and finally feeling as if he was breaking through a barrier of tragedy through his life. He was finally approaching his happy ending.
But of course it didn’t last. Hayden played for the New York Yankees for almost two years, (and was damn good at it too) before he injured his shoulder in a game. The injury was serious enough that his future in baseball seemed to just sudden became nonexistent. In a moment, a split second really, all of Hayden’s dreams that he had just barely reached suddenly crumbled in his hands. Disappeared into fucking nothing. It was like god had it out for him.
Hayden didn’t take it well.
After the doctor’s final diagnosis (a solemn gaze behind wire rimmed glasses, a fucking clipboard that Hayden wasn’t allowed to see, stainless steel, the smell of death, god Hayden fucking hated hospitals), Hayden stayed in New York because even if he wasn’t living out his dream, well he had nowhere else to go. He went on a bit of a bender though. Drinking, partying, drugs, girls, guys – you name it, Hayden indulged in all of his vices in an attempt to find comfort. Some friends he made through the years tried to get into touch with him (and some very notably didn’t) but Hayden never really did much more than go through the motions with any of it. ‘I’m fine’ quickly became an automated response, one he didn’t even have to think about, one he would give whether drunk or high or completely and utterly lost–
Because he was. He was fine. Anyone who thought differently could get fucked.
Hayden bought the club on a whim. His time in the league meant he had more than a bit of money saved, and since the place was for sale and Hayden liked to party, he figured it was a no brainer. He’s owned the place for almost three years now, and it’s actually been surprisingly successful. Hayden’s status of ‘former baseball player’ was enough notoriety to get people to show up, and the fact that the place was actually more than decent kept them coming. Hayden treats the club like more of a hobby than an actual business, too busy with his extracurricular activities to have more than a passing interest in it but… it’s fun. And well.
It’s not like he has anything else to do.
He lived by himself for a while but honestly Hayden is a big extrovert, he hates being alone, and living by himself in the huge ass loft he used to own just made him feel more lonely. So he responded to the first ‘roommate wanted’ ad he could find and just so happened to room with a girl he went to college with. It was a weird coincidence that later led to Hayden giving Kitty Dixie a job as a bartender at his club, which pretty quickly led to the both of them running the place together. Despite the fact that Hayden would rather die than admit it, he gives a shit about her so after the fire he not only gave her to time off she needed but also took the very first vacation he has ever took from the Omnia to come to the funeral with her and help her get settled. He has now been in Milton for about three months and he’s still super intrigued by the whole place?? Goes around flirting with suburban moms, and attending their weird ass festivals, and confusing small town people with his general city behaviour. He’s happy to be near the beach again but it lowkey makes him miss his mom big. Yeah I’m gonna stop rambling now but yes that’s Hayden.
PERSONALITY / HEADCANNONS ;
Hayden, is as the kids say… a fuckboi, probably
He is very loyal, like he cares a lot about his own but anyone outside of his circle he’s kind of indifferent to. Like he’s friendly, and almost pleasant but like… he does not really care about them yk, there’s a distinct lack of like sincerity in the way he treats his friends vs randos (or even ‘friends’)
Morally grey to the max
A very good liar, who lies often. Can be very manipulative but he doesn’t have a reason to be lately, so he mostly just manipulates business partners.
LOVES messing with people. It’s like crack to him
Very sarcastic
Will sleep with anyone he’s attracted to tbh. Bisexual, and very comfortable with it by now. Used to be kind of iffy with it when he was playing professionally, but now that he’s got no chance of ever being a pro again and the paps have pretty much left him alone he gives no fucks.
Actually pretty clever, hence the whole actually being able to own a successful business thing.
Might bake for you if you’re nice to him and he’s actually really freaking good at it like he learned from his mom, and honestly baking highkey reminds him of her so he doesn’t do it too often.
Lowkey his dream is to go back to santa barbara and run his mom’s bakery (his dad sold the place but hayden bought it back as soon as he had the money) but since he kind of considers himself a failure and disappointment to his mom at this point his bitch ass doesn’t think he deserves to yet, so he’s staying in new york for a while, and now milton for a bit too.
Is almost always on business calls with his employees or business partners because running a club remotely is a lot harder than you think???
Hates hospitals with a passion. Would rather die than go to one willingly. When Hayden is sick he just voluntarily suffers.
Oh, and Hayden’s club is named Omnia and friends get in for free so feel free to hit him up for a good time if you’re ever going to New York
WANTED CONNECTIONS ;
i would love a bromance for hayden honestly that would be fun
a godsibling! hayden used to be v close to his godmother so this could be fun too
someone who he has a bad influence on? someone who’s a good influence on him?
one night stand! honestly since hayden is just gonna be in milton for a while he is just having a good time, so hit your boi up!
fwbs or ewbs because again,,, what else is he doing here
a secret fling could be a fun thing to play out!
a hateship. like they bicker all the time and they really wanna wring each other’s necks, just give me some good old fashion animosity.
maybe an ex that he was dating during his time playing professionally (can be f/m/nb) that Hayden ended things with when he got his injury and moved to New York? Fun drama potentially
omg that reminds me i have a headcannon that Hayden dated the first and only person he ever loved in college and they broke his fucking heart so if anyone wants to play that out and dive head first into some angst with me then lemme know.
a sibling like relationship, an ex fwb, someone he’s the wingman for, idk everything give me all of it please and thank!
TAKEN CONNECTIONS ;
kitty = work wife / flirtationship / friend from college
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( samuel larsen | cismale | he/him ) ——— well well, if it isn’t hayden marin coming out of apartment 5.1. i always think of the sweet smell of nicotine clinging to worn leather, the vibration of bass through your rib cage, and the bittersweet freedom of giving up when i see them, don’t you? anyway - i heard the twenty five year old moved out to new york seven years ago to go to school and become a baseball player. that must’ve gone nowhere because they now work as a club owner; maybe that’s because they’ve a tendency to be calculating, libertine and sarcastic. i guess they could’ve been someone… — [ pepper | 23 | est | she/her ]
heyo all, i’m pepper, twenty three, she/her pronouns, and i’m always late dfkjdfkj as you can see, like i literally had everything prepared beforehand i don’t know how i’m still late... honestly rip. a bit about me i guess, i am still waiting for fergie to come back from her hiatus (because no song goes as hard as fergalicious, that’s a fact), i still don’t really understand what tiktok is and i’m okay with that, i’m addicted to pinterest and atm i’m really craving some fries. okey doke, now that that’s over with i’m super excited to PROPERLY introduce you to my trash son hayden! here are some stats on him, here is his pinterest board, and here is his playlist! down below is hayden’s bio which is hella long sdkjdskj i’m so sorry i wrote up a short form but i liked his full bio better. if you read absolutely ANY of it i love you okay.
CANCER TW, DEATH TW
BIO ;
Hayden was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California where he happily spent most of his childhood by the beach. He was raised solely by his mother, Rosie Marin, who did her very best to bring him up on her own despite his father’s purposeful lack of involvement. Rosie owned a small local bakery (aptly named Rosie’s) that she and Hayden lived above. Hayden’s childhood was peppered with memories of waking up to the scent of fresh bread, pushing up onto his tiptoes to ice cupcakes, and of course, always being the most popular kid in his classes because his mom brought the best snacks. Hayden and his mother had just nearly enough to get by most of the time, but Hayden grew up very loved and very happy. His mother made sure of that at the very least.
Unfortunately, Rosie was diagnosed with lung cancer when Hayden was just ten years old. She fought hard against the disease for two hard years before she unfortunately passed away when Hayden was twelve. In all honesty, Hayden has never really quite gotten over his mother’s death. At the time his mother was quite literally all he had. He never knew his overly religious grandparents (who disowned Rosie for having a child out of wedlock) and he had no aunts or uncles that he knew of. All he really grew up with was his mother, and watching her die for two years was incredibly hard for him, and after her death he felt that for the first time in his life he was truly alone.
To everyone’s surprise, but especially Hayden’s, after his mother’s death his father got into contact with him through his godmother who Hayden was staying with at the time. Shockingly enough despite his total absence for majority of Hayden’s life, Hayden’s father wanted to take Hayden in. Hayden was very much against it, considering he had never met his father and was reasonably rather upset with him for abandoning both him and his mother. However, Hayden’s godmother thought that living with his father would be best for him, not only considering that it may be Hayden’s last chance to have a relationship with a parent but also because Hayden’s father, Raphael, was very well off. So despite his (very vocal) protests Hayden was then sent to live with his father, which quickly became a very sour arrangement.
It became very clear very quickly that Hayden’s father wanted nothing to do with him. He spoke to Hayden only when necessary, seemed to forget his son was there most of the time, and left on business trips near constantly. Eventually Hayden learnt (through some rather sneaky eavesdropping) that the only reason his father had taken him in in the first place was to please Hayden’s stepmother. Apparently, Cheryl, or ‘Cherry’ as she insisted everyone call her, was practically begging Raphael for a baby, and seeing as Raphael had very little time or desire for having a child he decided that having a twelve year old around was better than an infant. Hayden was hurt to learn the truth about his father’s desire to take him in, and even attempted to run away in a fit of anger. But he was very quickly found by some of his father’s security and brought back to his father’s expansive home before he could get very far, and every attempt following the first resulted in much of the same thing.
Eventually Hayden gave up on running away. His father was rarely home long enough for Hayden to demonstrate how much he loathed him anyways, and within the walls of his father’s home Hayden was at least clothed and fed. He resented his father and longed to run away back to his godmother’s home but unfortunately his father’s home was a long way away from Santa Monica.
So Hayden started to build a life for himself where he was, and that life started with school. Even without being the kid in school who’s mom brought the best snacks, Hayden was still quite popular in school, and for the most part that was due to baseball. Hayden had always played baseball, ever since he was young and his mother used to bring plates full of orange slices to his peewee games (the Marins had always been a baseball family. Screw football or hockey, if it wasn’t on a baseball diamond they didn’t care about it). Hayden also had the good fortune of actually being very talented. So when Hayden tried out for catcher on his high school team he got the position very easily, and was even bumped up to first string to boot. Although some of the upper year students weren’t particularly happy about a freshman making first string, a lot of the colleges were. Hayden’s talent was noticed and sought after from the time he was about halfway through his sophomore year, and his near prodigy level skill was even featured in some local sports magazines and the local newspaper. Despite knowing that the magazines likely wouldn’t have cared about Hayden’s skill if he wasn’t going to one of the most well known private schools in the state, Hayden’s ego still inflated a bit at the recognition.
For a few years that’s all Hayden’s life was. Playing baseball, hanging out and partying with friends, and occasionally having to deal with his father and stepmother when the situation called for it. It wasn’t the best life, and Hayden wasn’t exactly happy but it was all Hayden really had, so he did his best to make do with it. In all honesty at that point the thing that made Hayden happiest was his team. While Hayden’s home life was broken, his team helped him find the community he craved. Playing baseball and being part of a team made Hayden feel that he belonged somewhere, like he was wanted somewhere, and Hayden clung to that sensation gratefully.
But when Hayden was about halfway through his junior year things rapidly went downhill. You have to be a level 10 friend to unlock what happened there because I honestly don’t think Hayden has talked about it since the night it happened, but basically all you need to know is that a series of events happened one night that led to Hayden basically being thrown out of his home that very same night and disowned, full stop.
Hayden’s only saving grace was that his father was too proud to let his son live on the streets. Raphael set Hayden up with his own apartment near his school, and paid for Hayden’s rent and expenses. However, he did so without communicating with Hayden even once, and it was very clear that Hayden had essentially been disowned. When Hayden was eighteen the money stopped, and Hayden moved out of the apartment. Hayden and Raphael haven’t really talked since.
Hayden got into university on a full baseball scholarship, despite all the chaos. He leaned heavily on his chosen family, his baseball team, throughout that difficult interim between being kicked out and graduating, and during that time he threw himself into baseball with such vigor and intensity that he impressed more than a few of the scouts circling around him. He ended up choosing NYU because it was the school that was the farthest away, and although Hayden didn’t want to be far from his hometown and his mother’s grave, he did want a fresh start away from his father and Cherry.
Hayden university experience was unremarkable but very significant to him. In fact, the fact that it was mostly unremarkable is what made it so special to him. For the most part, Hayden was pretty close to completely happy. He became captain of the baseball team his second year, made lifelong friends in his team and his frat, and eventually achieved his ultimate goal, getting recruited onto a professional baseball team in his junior year. Hayden graduated early with a degree in business, proud of his accomplishments, and finally feeling as if he was breaking through a barrier of tragedy through his life. He was finally approaching his happy ending.
But of course it didn’t last. Hayden played for the New York Yankees for almost two years, (and was damn good at it too) before he injured his shoulder in a game. The injury was serious enough that his future in baseball seemed to just sudden became nonexistent. In a moment, a split second really, all of Hayden’s dreams that he had just barely reached suddenly crumbled in his hands. Disappeared into fucking nothing. It was like god had it out for him.
Hayden didn’t take it well.
After the doctor’s final diagnosis (a solemn gaze behind wire rimmed glasses, a fucking clipboard that Hayden wasn’t allowed to see, stainless steel, the smell of death, god Hayden fucking hated hospitals), Hayden stayed in New York because even if he wasn’t living out his dream, well he had nowhere else to go. He went on a bit of a bender though. Drinking, partying, drugs, girls, guys – you name it, Hayden indulged in all of his vices in an attempt to find comfort. Some friends he made through the years tried to get into touch with him (and some very notably didn’t) but Hayden never really did much more than go through the motions with any of it. ‘I’m fine’ quickly became an automated response, one he didn’t even have to think about, one he would give whether drunk or high or completely and utterly lost–
Because he was. He was fine. Anyone who thought differently could get fucked.
Hayden bought the club on a whim. His time in the league meant he had more than a bit of money saved, and since the place was for sale and Hayden liked to party, he figured it was a no brainer. He’s owned the place for almost three years now, and it’s actually been surprisingly successful. Hayden’s status of ‘former baseball player’ was enough notoriety to get people to show up, and the fact that the place was actually more than decent kept them coming. Hayden treats the club like more of a hobby than an actual business, too busy with his extracurricular activities to have more than a passing interest in it but… it’s fun. And well.
It’s not like he has anything else to do.
Hayden also moved into 5.1 on a whim just over three years ago, mostly to make sure there were people around him in case he happened to drop dead one day yk, a precaution. He lived by himself for a while before that while he was in the league and after his injury but honestly Hayden is a big extrovert, he hates being alone, and living by himself in the huge ass loft he used to own just made him feel more lonely. So he responded to the first ‘roommate wanted’ ad he could find and now here he is. He honestly has enough money that he doesn’t need to be there, but he likes the company so he’s sticking around.
PERSONALITY / HEADCANNONS ;
Hayden, is as the kids say… a fuckboi, probably
He is very loyal, like he cares a lot about his own but anyone outside of his circle he’s kind of indifferent to. Like he’s friendly, and almost pleasant but like… he does not really care about them yk, there’s a distinct lack of like sincerity in the way he treats his friends vs randos (or even ‘friends’)
Morally grey to the max
A very good liar, who lies often. Can be very manipulative but he doesn’t have a reason to be lately, so he mostly just manipulates business partners.
LOVES messing with people. It’s like crack to him
Very sarcastic
Will sleep with anyone he’s attracted to tbh. Bisexual, and very comfortable with it by now. Used to be kind of iffy with it when he was playing professionally, but now that he’s got no chance of ever being a pro again and the paps have pretty much left him alone he gives no fucks.
Actually pretty clever, hence the whole actually being able to own a successful business thing.
Might bake for the roommates of 5.1 if they’re nice to him and he’s actually really freaking good at it like he learned from his mom, and honestly baking highkey reminds him of her so he doesn’t do it too often.
Lowkey his dream is to go back to santa barbara and run his mom’s bakery (his dad sold the place but hayden bought it back as soon as he had the money) but since he kind of considers himself a failure and disappointment to his mom at this point his bitch ass doesn’t think he deserves to yet, so he’s staying in new york for a while.
Hates hospitals with a passion. Would rather die than go to one willingly. When Hayden is sick he just voluntarily suffers.
Oh, and Hayden’s club is named Omnia and friends get in for free so feel free to hit him up for a good time.
WANTED CONNECTIONS ;
i would love a bromance for hayden honestly that would be fun
a godsibling! hayden used to be v close to his godmother so this could be fun too
someone who he has a bad influence on? someone who’s a good influence on him?
one night stand! maybe they didn’t even realize they were going to be living in the same apartment complex at first but then they found out and it was like oh shit
fwbs or ewbs
a secret fling could be a fun thing to play out!
a hateship. like they bicker all the time and they really wanna wring each other’s necks, just give me some good old fashion animosity.
someone who frequents his club maybe, perhaps he’s always kicking them out or perhaps they’re always partying together.
maybe an ex that he was dating during his time playing professionally (can be f/m/nb) that Hayden ended things with when he got his injury and moved to New York? Fun drama.
Some friends from college would be cool too if anyone went to NYU.
omg that reminds me i have a headcannon that Hayden dated the first and only person he ever loved in college and they broke his fucking heart so if anyone wants to play that out and dive head first into some angst with me then lemme know.
TAKEN CONNECTIONS ;
dolly = little sister he never wanted / soft spot
kitty = work wife / flirtationship / friend from college
jac = ex fwb / ride or die
art = bad influence / haaaave you met ted?
juliette = good influence / in house nurse
chris = bromance / friend from cali
#h.m. | intro.#dreamed:intro#this took me way too long considering the bio was already written up like?? why am i like this
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Vocivore, Ltd. (17 of ?)
A OUAT WINTER WHUMP FIC
Also on FFN and AO3 (still need to update there!) (ListerofTardis)
Tagging @ouatwinterwhump, @killian-whump, @cocohook38, @killianjonesownsmyheart1, and @courtorderedcake <3
***THE MOST WONDERFUL COVER ART BY COCOHOOK38 HERE!!!!!******
****ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!Chapter 12 animation and art that will absolutely astound you!!! THANK YOU MY WONDERFUL COCONUT FRIEND!!!!!!!!!!*************
Present (Thursday)...
Many years ago, before swearing off alcohol for good, Jones had once gotten so drunk that he’d slipped on a steep trail to the beach and slid the rest of the way down, tumbling and bouncing nearly 12 meters before landing among the rocks below. Waking from that little mishap probably had the edge over how he was feeling this morning… but not by much.
“Papa?”
Jones gritted his teeth, knowing that shifting positions on the couch would drive a stake straight through his chest and out the other side, as it had done all night long.
“Sorry to wake you,” murmured Alice from somewhere nearby. “We’re off, though, and I wanted…”
She broke off, and Jones dragged one bleary eye open to see the anxiety on her face as she glanced at Robin. “Do you think I should stay?”
“No,” grunted her father. He considered trying to sit up but knew he’d probably only manage to compound Alice’s worry. “Cap’n Smee needs you as rascal wrangler.”
Even clearing his gravelly throat felt like someone stabbing him with an electric screwdriver. Squinting in the direction of the coffee table, Jones was met with the sight of his water glass moving toward his face. Alice held the straw as she offered it to him.
“Postpone, then. We could call everyone. Tell them we need another day to prepare.”
“Please, love,” he wheezed. “Don’t endanger them on my account.”
Jones was mostly successful at hiding a wince as he took the water glass from his daughter. She bit her lip but seemed to concede the point. From the table behind her, Alice produced a pill organizer, saying,
“I saw how hard it is for you to open your medicine bottles, so we thought this would be helpful.” She shook it and the resulting rattle made her grin. “All set up for you, see? It’s even got a divider for morning and night.”
She held it out for him, and after securing the water at his side, Jones gingerly accepted.
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you.”
Alice beamed at him, glanced at the clock, then said,
“Suppose it’s about time for your next dose; want to see if you can get it open?”
Jones humored her and pressed the tab that popped the Thursday, AM lid, but said,
“I should probably wait until I’ve had some breakfast.”
“Oh yes! Well, there’s porridge, or maybe you’d like some toast…”
“Later,” he said. “I promise you I can still operate a toaster.”
Robin moved closer then, clutching an ice pack. “Aunt Regina said to tell you that if you need anything, to just call and she’ll be right over.”
“Thank you.” He rested the pill box on his abdomen, slowly reached up, and took the ice from his daughter-in-law. Very carefully, he held it against his swollen cheek, which had nearly obstructed the vision in that eye and was currently throbbing at jig tempo. “I wouldn’t want to pull her from the search, though.”
Robin and Alice exchanged a glance.
“Oh,” said Robin. “I guess no one told you. They found Emma’s car last night.”
“Car?” repeated Jones, thoroughly confused. “Found it where?”
“At the edge of town,” Alice sighed. “Near the monster's territory; no surprise there.”
Quietly, Robin added,
“It seems Killian took Emma’s keys when he left the hospital.”
“Then what the bloody hell were we doing scouring the streets of Storybrooke all afternoon?” Jones glanced around in search of his phone, then realized he had left it plugged in on the kitchen counter. If he’d gotten any messages about the situation, he may not have heard them.
“Apparently, she didn’t notice,” said Robin.
“She is a bit preoccupied,” Alice added, her eyes sad.
“Anyway, this all went down after my aunt dragged your sorry butt back here, but once the car was found, Emma basically just called off the search. No point now; he’s back out of reach again.”
Jones just stared at Robin for a moment, bewildered by this turn of events. True, Emma had been emotional and likely not thinking clearly when she’d leapt through the hospital window in pursuit of her husband. She may have even been dealing with the aftereffects of being knocked unconscious--though she wouldn’t admit it--so it was understandable for her to have overlooked her missing keys. For a little while, anyway. But after hours and hours on foot… wouldn’t the idea of driving as an easier alternative have crossed her mind at least once? She didn’t realize then that the keys were gone?
And then, upon finding the car, to give up immediately? It all seemed very strange to Detective Jones. He’d come to know Emma rather well in the past three years, and she wasn’t the sort to be so easily beaten. Was it possible that the loss of her daughter, and then her husband, had changed her so much?
Or could the monster's influence be tainting her actions somehow?
A chime sounded from Robin’s phone. She checked the screen with a grimace. “We’d better go. We’re already late.”
Alice made a small whine of distress and threw herself down on her knees beside her father. “You’ll be okay, won't you? You won’t get taken over by the mind control too?” She reached for his hand. “Maybe you could come with us on the cruise! We packed some extra supplies, and I have experience going hungry if it comes to that…”
Painfully, Jones gripped her hand and brought it to his cheek in as much of a hug as he could manage. “Don’t worry about me, Starfish. I’m in no danger lying here on this bloody couch.” He placed a kiss on her knuckles, released her hand, then reached up to caress her face. “I’m sure we’ll have a breakthrough soon. Someone will find a solution and then everyone can come home, safe and sound.”
Alice sniffled and then smiled bravely. “We all have our roles to play, yes? Mine and Robin’s is to help with the kids, and yours… is to stay right here on this couch for the next month until you’re all healed up.”
She patted the cushion for emphasis, and Jones nodded ruefully.
“You are absolutely correct.”
Uncertainty crossed Alice’s face as a gathering cloud. “And where does the worry fit in?”
“Worry has its role too,” he admitted. “It’s an unavoidable part of love.”
Alice gently rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ll miss you, Papa.”
“Likewise. Be careful out there.”
“We will. Maybe our phones will work this time. Or in an emergency, we have that radio gadget on board.”
“Good. Speaking of phones, would you mind fetching mine here?”
Alice jumped to her feet, but Robin was already on it. She lay the device on the coffee table, reached down for a farewell squeeze of Jones’ hand, then headed for the door.
“I’m gonna go start the car. Feel better soon, Pops.”
After taking one reluctant step in that direction, Alice returned to her father’s side for one more gentle hug goodbye.
“I love you, Starfish.”
“I love you, Papa.”
Eventually, Alice gathered enough courage to scamper out the door, leaving Jones alone with his thoughts and his pain.
Holding the ice pack in place, he growled and snatched the phone off the table. Regina had texted him the developments, including a photo of the yellow Bug on the side of the road. The car’s passenger side bore minor scratches from the tree against which it had come to rest. From its reported position, Jones calculated the distance to the boundary at which guard slaves would start to appear: approximately a four-hour walk for someone in perfect health. If Emma had not inexplicably called off the search, they may have had enough time to catch up to a slowly moving Killian before he reached it, depending on when the car had been discovered.
But now? Twelve hours later? Jones had a fairly good idea of Killian’s whereabouts.
It didn’t bear thinking about.
*****
Master rarely ventured forth from its compound. There was little need, as it had everything required for survival: its slaves, its Voices, eyes and ears to the surrounding kingdoms. Every requirement, every desire easily fulfilled by a simple directive to one of its limitless supply of minions eager to comply.
It wasn't that Master would be in any danger. It knew all. It could sense approaches. Any remote threat would quickly be extinguished by some of its more expendable slaves long before coming anywhere near Master’s location. So its reclusive nature had more to do with conserving energy.
But this day, Master had a craving. Easily satisfied, and soon, yet the object of that craving seemed hesitant to appear. Despite the sense of lethargy pinpointing his location, Master was in no mood to be merciful. Patience was a virtue not commonly practiced by the monster. It saw no reason to begin now.
Six crustacean legs picked their way through rotting leaves and bone dry pine needles, sometimes sinking deep into the spongy earth, yet never causing a stumble or slowing of pace. In fact, the dozen barefoot slaves accompanying their Master had much more trouble in that regard. Their frequent tumbles to the forest floor mingled with early morning birdsong to provide a jarring marching cadence for the trek. Fixated on the presence hidden somewhere nearby, Master ignored the ruckus. Soon. Soon it would be sated.
An unremarkable brush pile called out to Master, a mess of pine boughs and withered leaves gathered at the base of a tree a hundred paces ahead. Any other being may have overlooked it as a natural occurrence. But outward appearances could not deceive Master’s focused mind. He was under there, the prize, his flavor sharpening with increasing proximity. Master’s spindly legs quickened as its whole being pulsed with need. Its contingent of followers were hard-pressed to keep up. One by one, they dropped back until their Master had a sizeable lead.
The crab-like creature could build up to an impressive velocity with proper motivation. Top speeds required a 90-degree rotation for sideways travel, which Master normally found to be quite undignified. But this close to its quarry, dignity took lowest priority. Master's leading set of legs plowed into the brush pile like a tsunami, sending sticks, leaves, and soil exploding in all directions. The tree trunk was the only thing halting the creature's forward momentum; without its presence, Master would likely have skidded several yards beyond its target and been required to backtrack. As soon as it centered its balance over the pile, its hands, claws, and tentacles were tearing violently at the brush.
The pile stirred. Not only from Master’s frantic digging, but underneath. A flash of skin, the slightest hint of faded gray and blue. Then there came a faint groan. Hearing that Voice again, even on the very edges of perception, sent a quiver of ecstasy to the center of Master’s being. It was not enough; not loud enough, not strong enough. Not soon enough. Master’s indiscriminate pincer dove to the very depths of the pile and clamped with the force of a crocodile’s snapping jaws. Chitin grated against bone, warm, sticky blood drizzled onto leaf litter. Debris shifted, feeble grunts tickled Master’s core with delight, but did not satisfy.
In frustration, Master shifted its claw, altering the angle until a second deep laceration intersected the first.
“Come awake, my Tripod,” hissed the creature as it continued brushing all cover from the battered body beneath. Hopelessly squirming against the vice mauling his left ankle, Tripod finally emerged from the makeshift nest, trying and failing to roll onto his back. The iron grip on his lower leg kept him firmly on his side. He sounded dazed as he breathed a tearful,
“Master…”
“My faithful one,” cooed a charmed Master, its pride over Tripod’s fortitude momentarily overcoming the yearning. “I watched them take you and despaired of your return.” Master yanked on the captive limb and reveled in the catch in Tripod’s breath. “None emerge from that place except as a corpse.”
A tentacle brushed stray soil from the patterned fabric riding high on one discolored hip.
“Did my Tripod miss me as thoroughly as I have missed him?”
It did not fail to notice Tripod’s efforts to pull away from the serpentine tentacle. And that was okay; even the most faithful avoided its touch while simultaneously surrendering their bodies and Voices to their Master’s benefit. The tentacle inched higher, the pincer ground against bone, and Tripod struggled for breath.
“Master,” he whispered, “please…”
Sharp armor slipped on blood, rending more flesh from bone. The slave voiced a feeble yelp and curled toward the mangled limb, but other, older injuries restricted his movement.
“You know what it is I require.”
Another tear slipped from Tripod’s eye as he nodded. Shuddering, the slave shifted his weight, trying to relieve the pressure on his joints.
“Not... Not here. Please,” he begged. The pincer tightened in displeasure; any harder and it might sever the foot entirely. Master’s tentacle slithered onward as it contemplated. Had the days of freedom somehow dulled this slave’s loyalty? Tripod whimpered, his hand balled into a tight fist.
“I may not make it back,” winced Tripod, and Master’s grip relaxed fractionally. Thinking practically, that was all. Good boy.
“No need to concern yourself.” Master stroked him. He groaned. “Your Master will carry you.”
Need swelled within. A delicate claw slipped beneath a silken thread placed into skin much more precisely than any Z could have mustered. In a concerning show of resistance, Tripod wriggled his arm out from underneath himself and reached up as if to shove away his Master’s hand. The attempt was easily overcome by a savage pinch to the wrist, drawing blood and a helpless whine. A mere appetizer. Not nearly enough. Master tore the first suture free, growling,
“Give yourself, Tripod. I must feed.”
Overall, Master had no cause for worry. Tripod had returned on his own, and even if his time among friends had temporarily weakened his loyalty, it would not take long to retrain him. The pincer shifted again, adding additional stripes to the flayed skin of Tripod’s ankle, and the monster shivered a satisfied smile at its slave’s reaction.
The favorite was back. And Master knew exactly how to make him scream.
#ouat fanfiction#wish realm killian#alice jones#knightrook#ouat robin hood ii#killian jones#pain#recuperation#pills#questions#tentacles#lacerations#begging#tears#ripping out stitches#Vocivore ltd
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Doomsday Dawn: In Pale Mountain’s Shadow Char Gen Part 2 and a Rant on Healing
So I’ve made a second pregen for my players for session 2 of the playtest. This was a specific request from a friend of mine for a Human Alchemist. It went pretty well actually, much better than the last character. I will now summarize my thoughts on character creation in general.
DnD 5e character creation is boring. Seriously. There is almost no choice in the affair. Assign some abilities, pick a race, background, class, archetype, and you’re done. Maybe we get a little crazy and introduce ability boosts, feats, or multiclassing. Now here’s the thing. P2 doesn’t expand upon this. There is no additional mechanical complexity in play, like fighters using maneuvers to pierce armor, shatter stone walls, or provide leadership to their party. The characters are about the same mechanically speaking. They have 6 ability scores, an ancestry, a background, a class, and some feats. They hit things or cast a spell, with roughly one class feature per level to mix things up. The thing is, getting there requires a lot more choices to be made. A LOT more.
To make a character’s ability scores in P2 you don’t roll or use point buy. You choose ability boosts which add a +2 or -2 to a score of 10. Feats are also divided up into categories, with general and skill feats being available to all characters and class feats being available only to specific classes. Class feats function a bit like broken up archetype paths with mix and match features.
So at 4th level you pick an ancestry, a background, and a class, getting 4 ancestry ability boosts, 2 background ability boosts, 4 general ability boosts, 1 class ability boost, 3 class feats, 1 background skill feats, 2 normal skill feats, 1 general feat, your actual class features, weapon and armor proficiencies, between 2 and 10 skill proficiencies, 1 expert skill proficiency, and some combination of familiars, animal companions, spells, powers, and crafting formulas. Plus there’s gear. You need one or several weapons with tons of distinct tags useful in different situations, armors that involve a very real tradeoff between protection and high armor check penalties, miscellaneous adventuring gear, and then fighting with the stingy encumbrance system to fit it all on your character without having them collapse under their own weight.
And then there’s magic items! You get one 3rd, two 2nd, and one 1st level items. Those are all nearly worthless, with the only standout pick being +1 armor in your 3rd level slot. There are some other items I’m overlooking, especially some consumable oils and wands, but the one that really burns me are the potions of healing. I think those actually are worthless now. Adventuring parties are experiencing massive hit point inflation because everyone gets max hit points now, for every level. My 4th level human alchemist with a 12 con has 44 HP, up from 26 last edition. Pretty close to double.
While I think it might be a good thing in that it reduces the value of your con score from “mandatory for all classes” to “nice to have”, it devalues a lot of choices. Toughness and boosting your con score now give relatively modest differences in hit points. Consider that a 4th level fighter with a 10 con might be at 50 hit points, and at 70 with an 18 con, a 40% boost. Last edition you’d be looking at 27 base hit points and 47 with that high constitution, a 75% boost. Healing, toughness, constitution, it all seems less valuable now with that big buffer of hit points added on.
You should almost never have maximum hit points either. Healing up will take tons of resources, and despite 1st level spells being buffed a la 5e DnD (y’know, the old “Magic missile shoots 3 missiles instead of 1 to make it look worthwhile compared to your cantrip which is basically a bow” thing), despite that buff, Heal (Cure Light/Moderate/etc. is just “Heal” this edition) still does a measly 1d8. They pretend to throw us a bone by letting you add your ability modifier to that, as if that makes up for losing your caster level added on to it. What was regularly regarded as the worst possible strategy to take in combat, healing, has gotten beaten with the nerf bat. And besides that, there is less of it going around. You have Resonance Points limiting the amount of magic items you can use in one day, spells healing less than they used to, fewer spells being available with the elimination of bonus spell slots, healing being proportionately weaker due to hit point inflation, and wands now only carrying 10 charges.
This is an immense and radical shift in how hit points and healing works. Out of combat healing never bothered me. Your spell casters would still run out of spells and the martials would still run out of hit points once combat started. I worry this will just encourage more 15 minute adventuring days as parties will be desperate to return to their full hit point totals. I am open to the idea of keeping on the pressure by slowly whittling down a larger hit point total with less healing available, but boy that is an uncomfortable shift.
Well. That got away from me. End rant.
I should probably actually talk about the Alchemist at some point, huh? He’s fine. Alchemical formula are neat. Tons of neat potions and effect are available. Bombs look much cooler than spells and with my 10 resonance points I have up to 20 of them per day before I spend a single copper. The use of resonance points as ammo and doubling your exchange rate by prepping potions at the beginning of the day was interesting, though I worry Remarkable Resonance is a mandatory feat for Alchemists (maybe it should be a bonus feat instead of Studied Resonance?). Class and skill feats were mostly unremarkable but felt good to choose. Skill proficiencies seem more impactful when you aren’t hampered by armor check penalties. Weapons seemed relatively worthless when you’re packing bombs, and the lack of Dex-to-damage for non-rogues made it hard to get excited by a d8 damage crossbow at this level.
To summarize, I didn’t hate making this character like I did the ranger. The Alchemist is almost a wizard lite, with tons of different abilities including damage, concealment, disguise, poison, darkvision, and more. Their skills didn’t fight with the prohibitive armor system because the alchemist wasn’t dependent on strength for damage and put those points into dexterity and light armor. And at least Alchemists gets to take advantage of the formula system without spending hundreds of silver pieces. At least the alchemy items are worth using, unlike the traps that have a half dozen hoops to jump through in order to deal a d8 damage. (Please just buff the snares or something!)
Next time, we continue prepping for In Pale Mountain’s Shadow. My wife wants to build a character, so we’ll see how someone who doesn’t focus on system mastery deals with dozens of choices in character creation. I’m hopeful that a little advice from someone with experience will make things a lot smoother for her. Wish us luck!
#Pathfinder Playtest#Pathfinder#pathfinder 2nd edition#dnd 5e#Dungeons and Dragons#trpg#character creation#game design
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is it showing i’m obsessed with this verse?
anyway, here a second post (first one here) to talk about sexuality in this verse and what robin’s position is. again, only the parts relevant to robin have been pasted here and you can find more information if you follow the links.
personal notes at the end of the post again!
trigger warning for (the mention of) rape.
Sexuality in ancient Rome
Some sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Roman culture differ markedly from those in later Western societies. Roman religion promoted sexuality as an aspect of prosperity for the state, and individuals might turn to private religious practice or "magic" for improving their erotic lives or reproductive health. Prostitution was legal, public, and widespread. "Pornographic" paintings were featured among the art collections in respectable upperclass households. It was considered natural and unremarkable for men to be sexually attracted to teen-aged youths of both sexes, and pederasty was condoned as long as the younger male partner was not a freeborn Roman.
No moral censure was directed at the man who enjoyed sex acts with either women or males of inferior status, as long as his behaviors revealed no weaknesses or excesses, nor infringed on the rights and prerogatives of his masculine peers. While perceived effeminacy was denounced, especially in political rhetoric, sex in moderation with male prostitutes or slaves was not regarded as improper or vitiating to masculinity, if the male citizen took the active and not the receptive role.
Male sexuality
It was expected and socially acceptable for a freeborn Roman man to want sex with both female and male partners, as long as he took the dominating role. Acceptable objects of desire were women of any social or legal status, male prostitutes, or male slaves, but sexual behaviors outside marriage were to be confined to slaves and prostitutes, or less often a concubine or "kept woman."
Phallic sexuality
Roman sexuality as framed by Latin literature has been described as phallocentric. The phallus was supposed to have powers to ward off the evil eye and other malevolent supernatural forces.
There are approximately 120 recorded Latin terms and metaphors for the penis, with the largest category treating the male member as an instrument of aggression, a weapon. This metaphorical tendency is exemplified by actual lead sling-bullets, which are sometimes inscribed with the image of a phallus, or messages that liken the target to a sexual conquest—for instance "I seek Octavian's asshole." The most common obscenity for the penis is mentula, which Martial argues for in place of polite terms: his privileging of the word as time-honored Latin from the era of Numa may be compared to the unvarnished integrity of "four letter Anglo-Saxon words".
Mentula appears frequently in graffiti and the Priapea, but while obscene the word was not inherently abusive or vituperative. Verpa, by contrast, was "an emotive and highly offensive word" for the penis with its foreskin drawn back, as the result of an erection, excessive sexual activity, or circumcision. Virga, as well as other words for "branch, rod, stake, beam", is a common metaphor, as is vomer, "plough".
Castration and circumcision
To Romans and Greeks, castration and circumcision were linked as barbaric mutilations of the male genitalia.
During the Republican period, a Lex Cornelia prohibited various kinds of mutilation, including castration. (Two millennia later, in 1640, the poet Salvatore Rosa would write in La Musica, “Fine Cornelia law, where hast thou gone / Now that the whole of Norcia seems not enough / For the castration of boys?”) Despite these prohibitions, some Romans kept beautiful male slaves as deliciae or delicati ("toys, delights") who were sometimes castrated in an effort to preserve the androgynous looks of their youth.
Male-male sex
Roman men were free to have sex with males of lower status without a perceived loss of masculinity, or even as an enhancement of it. However, those who took the receiving role in sex acts, sometimes referred to as the "passive" or "submissive" role, were disparaged as weak and effeminate, regardless of the sex of their partner, while having sex with males in the active position was proof of one's masculinity. Mastery of one's own body was an aspect of the citizen's libertas, political liberty, while the use of one's body to give pleasure to others, whether in homosexual or heterosexual relations, was servile. Laws such as the poorly understood Lex Scantinia and various pieces of Augustan moral legislation were meant to restrict same-sex activity among freeborn males, viewed as threatening a man's status and independence as a citizen.
Master-slave relations
(rape mention)
Sexuality was a "core feature" of ancient Roman slavery. Because slaves were regarded as property under Roman law, an owner could use them for sex or hire them out to service other people.
But this form of sexual release thus held little erotic cachet: to use one's own slaves was "one step up from masturbation". In describing the ideal partner in pederasty, Martial prefers a slave boy who "acts more like a free man than his master", that is, one who can frame the affair as a stimulating game of courtship. When figures identifiable as slaves appear in erotic art, they are performing routine tasks in the background, not taking part in sex acts In his work on the interpretation of dreams (c. 170 AD), Artemidorus takes a symbolic view of the sexual value of slaves: to dream of having sex with one's own female slave was a good thing, "for slaves are the dreamer's possession; therefore taking pleasure in them signifies the dreamer's being pleased with his own possessions".
A Roman could exploit his own slaves for sex, but was not entitled to compel any enslaved person he chose to have sex, since the owner had the right to control his own property. In the pursuit of sex with a slave who belonged to someone else, persuasion or threats might be employed. A charge of rape could not be brought against a free man who forced a slave to have sex, since a slave lacked the legal standing that protected a citizen's body, but the owner could prosecute the rapist under the Lex Aquilia, a law pertaining to property damage.
A slave's sexuality was closely controlled. Slaves had no right to legal marriage (conubium), though they could live together as husband and wife (contubernales). An owner usually restricted the heterosexual activities of his male slaves to females he also owned; any children born from these unions added to his wealth. Cato, at a time when Rome's large-scale slave economy was still in early development, thought it good practice to monitor his slaves' sex lives, and required male slaves to pay a fee for access to their female fellow slaves.
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Robin is in both my main and this verse uncircumcised. He also still has the same statistics as main verse. It puts him in a funny position, because while he is as good as always a receiving party, the fact that he does not have a small penis makes him almost a mockery of masculinity. Again, probably one of the ongoing jokes in his household.
I toy around with the idea of castration for this verse but I don’t want to solidify it as something that has happened, or will happen, or is a solid factor. When we do decide to incorporate this into the thread, we will always go with a castration in the sense that he has been made infertile but not useless, so to say. Taken the fruits but not the branch. You know what I mean, lol. If we do go with this fact for a thread, it has already happened in the past in order for Robin to maintain his youthful looks.
While it would not be uncommon for masters to loan out their slaves for certain services, I can imagine it would be somewhat of a non-thing for Robin. Mostly because he is literate and quite a vital piece in his household, so to miss him for longer than a week might be a problem. The only case in which they deviate from this rule would be for friends, or for a war effort. Shorter times for letting others make use of Robin’s services is not as rare.
(And his master allowing him to provide relief for other slaves of the household or entertainers such as gladiators would also be a possibility, though it would still only happen (or is only supposed to happen) with the express instructions of the master, not out of Robin’s own initiative. A slave or entertainer making use of Robin’s services without permission will result in a whipping and/or beating for disobedience.)
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This is the most consequential injury in sports history
The death of King Henry II in a jousting tournament sparked a series of wars that lasted 32 years and killed three million people
On June 30th, 1559, King Henry II of France entered the lists at a three-day tournament celebrating the marriages of his sister and daughter*. Henry’s presence in the lists was unremarkable. He was a familiar presence at tournaments, sporting the colors of his mistress over his heavy jousting armor, and he was a formidable, skilled opponent as well. Late in the day, however, he was nearly knocked off his horse by Gabriel Montgomery, the captain of his personal bodyguard.
*To different people, not each other. Just in case that wasn’t clear.
That might have been the end of the action, but the king was enjoying himself, and asked for another bout. Montgomery refused. But Henry II insisted, despite the protests of his wife, Catherine de’ Medici, and the pair took another tilt.
This time things went badly wrong. Montgomery’s lance pierced the king’s helmet. Jousting lances were built to shatter on impact, as a protection against impalement, and that’s exactly what happened here. Unfortunately for King Henry, it did so after entering his helmet, dissolving into a mist of splinters that ripped into his face and neck. The longest drove directly through the king’s right eye and penetrated into his brain.
Before King Henry lost consciousness the distraught Montgomery offered his own head as punishment but was turned down. Doctors rushed to extract the splinters, hoping that they might effect a recovery, but sepsis quickly set in and nothing more could be done. Ten days later, King Henry II died in what I can only assume was agony. The Dauphin, 15-year-old Francis, assumed the throne.
The tournament did not exactly have an unblemished history. When they were first introduced, they were little better than the battles they were intended to mock. Knights could capture their opponents and hold them to ransom*. Deaths and injuries were common, exasperating the Church to the point that, as Maurice Keen relates in Chivalry, the Archbishop of Magdeburg excommunicated everyone who participated.
*These ransoms were often lucrative. Some individuals, most notably William Marshall, actually earned their living this way. By any reasonable standard, they were therefore professional athletes.
The great 12th-century poet Chrétien de Troyes describes the confusing melee of his era (from Keen):
On either side the ranks tremble and a roar rises from the fight. The shock of lances is very great. Lances break and shields are riddled, the hauberks receive bumps and are torn asunder, saddles go empty and horsemen tumble, while the horses sweat and foam. Swords are quickly drawn on those who fall noisily, and some run to receive the promise of a ransom, others to stave off this disgrace.
But it’s important to remember that by the time of Henry’s death, the tournament had been around for hundreds of years, and had evolved into something completely unrecognizable. The ‘little battles’ of the 12th and 13th centuries had transformed into ritual combat, with the ritual of the joust first separating from and then supplanting the martial mess of the general melee.
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Jousts were far from safe, but they were far less lethal than tournaments at large. Thanks to pressure from the Church as well as the chivalric tendency towards showy affairs of honor, jousts became increasingly ritualized and elaborate. Barriers were placed between contestants, allowing greater control of both horse and lance. As war moved away from the knight and his tools, jousts were free to develop as an end in and of themselves; Henry II’s specialized armor, which would have been useless on the battlefield, was designed for almost total protection at the tilt. Almost.
By the 16th century, jousting was an anachronism. Knightly combat was a thing of the past, chivalry no longer much pretended at. The sport staggered on through sheer inertia, but it had no grounding in anything but noble nostalgia, and was ripe for a crisis. The death of a king during a tournament was such a crisis; 1559 marks, in a very real sense, the end of the sport.
The death of a whole sport was one thing. But Henry II’s fate didn’t just impact the future of jousting. As it turned out, he was sitting on a powder keg, and without a powerful king on the throne, it ignited.
French factionalism was nothing new. Mutual antagonism between the reigning house of Valois and the the Dukes of Burgundy had left the country perilously close to defeat in the Hundred Years’ war a century prior to Henry II’s death. This time there were two major families vying for dynastic power: the Houses of Condé and Guise. But unlike previous spats, history had thrown a new and entirely unexpected wrench into the equation.
In 1517, centuries of nearly-undisputed* confessional unity in Western Europe came to a juddering halt when an achingly horny Augustinian monk suffered a crisis of faith. Martin Luther’s resolved that crisis through a moment of inspiration. Humanity is not absolved of sin via good works. Salvation is attainable through faith, and faith alone. The message spread like wildfire; the Protestant Reformation had begun.
*One rare exception was the Cathars, a sect which flourished in the French Pyrenees before being annihilated in the Albigensian Crusade. I mention them mostly because I used to live near their strongholds, which are fiendishly cool.
The Reformation gave the rivalries between the great houses a confessional dimension which had never before existed. France was on the front lines, a meeting of the Catholic south, Lutheran Germany, and the Calvinists ensconced in Switzerland. Henry II had responded to the rise of the French Protestant ‘Huguenots’ with brutal repressions — he was a strong king, not a good one — which did nothing to halt the conversions, including many from the nobility.
The situation deteriorated quickly. The Guises dominated at court to a degree which provoked enormous jealousy, leading to a 1560 conspiracy to kidnap King Francis II and eliminate their influence. The conspiracy was detected, and the Guises decided that the Prince of Condé, a Huguenot, was to blame. He was arrested and scheduled for execution, but was released upon the young king’s death that December.
At this point, the French throne passed to Henry II’s second son, Charles IX. He was ten years old. De’ Medici took over as regent, and attempted to smooth over relations between the warring houses while also ensuring that neither party could attain enough power to overwhelm her or her son. She failed, and the July Edict of 1561, which promised a form of religious tolerance, was ignored. The country fell apart on doctrinal lines, descending rapidly into a civil war.
Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty Images
The conflict included events that still invoke horror today: the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, for instance, was a country-wide riot in 1572 which led to deaths of as many as 30,000 Huguenots, radicalizing the remainder and crystalizing mistrust of Catholics across Europe (for good reason — Phillip II of Spain, soon to launch the Armada against Elizabethan England, found the massacre so amusing that he laughed for what is said to be the only time in his entire life).
This isn’t the time to recapitulate decades of French civil war, which would take forever and is also a region of history with which I’m not intimately familiar. But to take a panoramic view, the Wars of Religion lasted 32 years, three kings and claimed the lives of something like three million people.
Much like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Henry II’s accident can’t be considered strictly causal to the conflict that followed. The Reformation had set the stage for religious warfare across the whole continent (the biggest, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), made French efforts look paltry by comparison), and even the slightest pretext was going to be enough to set it off. Had Henry survived, it seems vanishingly unlikely that France would have escaped the conflagration which the friends and enemies of Reform had engineered together.
But the lack of royal power was a key factor in prolonging and amplifying the wars. Without that tournament — ironically, the weddings it celebrated marked the end of war between France and Hapsburg Austria — the shape and duration of the French Wars of Religion might have changed dramatically. It’s not a stretch, then, to call his death the most consequential sports injury in history.
The comte de Montgomery, meanwhile, ended up joining the Huguenots, survived the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and fought the Catholics at Rouen and La Rochelle before his capture in Normandy. The Queen regent had never forgiven him for her husband’s death, and she decided to take him up on the offer he’d made in 1559. I imagine that, as the axe descended, Montgomery felt some regrets over his poor aim.
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let me tell you a story. (domestic abuse cw)
i see so many of you defend celebrities (Johnny Depp, George Takei, Jared Leto, casey affleck, chris brown, lena dunham, dr luke, marlon brando, etc) that have been accused of domestic abuse or sexual assault or rape. none of you know these celebrities personally, but you always have the same arguments: [abuser] seems so nice so they cant be an abuser and [victim] seems very untrustworthy, i bet theyre making it up. The defining word here being “seems”.
Now on to the story. All of this happened roughly 3 years ago. A member of my family, i’m not gonna tell you my exact relation to her, was in a relationship. None of the other family members knew him before they were together and he wasnt known in our home town.
The first time I met him they had already been together for two months. I thought he was nice, unremarkable (in a good way) and totally in love with her. Like, to a point where I couldnt believe it was HER he was talking about because he glorified her so much. She moved in with him soon after that.
I didnt see her a lot during that time and it seemed like a lot of her formerly close friends didnt either. Then, all of a sudden it seemed, she broke up with him. My first thoughts? “Oh thats a shame, he seemed ok for once” and “well, we all know her. she just does things like this”.
Her now exboyfriend then called me (he was fixing my car at the time) and i came to his house. He almost immediately started crying and said he doesn’t understand why she left him, now his family will hate him, what is he supposed to do now? In an attempt to comfort him (I’m hilariously bad at comforting people) I told him that thats just the way she is. She just drops people sometimes. The only thing that struck me as weird on that evening was that he wanted to give me money so that I would bring her back to him. I said I would not take the money, but maybe I’d try to talk some sense into her. Luckily I never did that.
We were at her family’s house for a birthday a week after that. I was still a bit disappointed in her and I could feel that a large part of our family shared that sentiment. After dinner we went to her room and she said, almost casually, that she still had to fetch some of her stuff from her ex’s flat and was NOT looking forward to that. I asked why and braced myself for something along the lines of “Because he’ll be crying and begging me to come back and I dont want to hear that” or something. She said “Because he’ll throw stuff at me or try to punch me again, he does that when he drinks and I know he is drinking right now” And I was so fucking speechless. And my first, shameful reaction was ‘oh, she’s making this up’, which i pushed down immediately and listened to her speak about instances where he’d thrown ashtrays after her or when she’d had to lock herself in the toilet until he’d calmed down. She finally decided to ask one of her strong, buff, male friends to come with her. At that point I was ready to come with her myself and just fucking annihilate that ex of her’s. I was so angry, mostly with him, but very much so with myself, too. How can I preach feminism, how can I tell people to believe abuse victims, how can I call myself a good friend if I never noticed it happening right in front of my eyes? How can I live with the fact that I had immediately assumed it was her fault and never even considered the possible reasons?
Although I never asked why she never tried to reach out to me or another member of our family, I think I understand why. She told me she had tried to talk to a few members of their circle of friends (most of them were his friends first and he also forbade her from seeing her former best friends, which explained why she’d seemed to have dropped them) and none of them believed her. She tried to reach out to formerly close friends, but they didnt want to listen to her explanations and didnt want to reconnect. I think that after these she was afraid to try to reach out to someone else.
In the time after the breakup her ex, his mother and his friends kept harassing her. Calling her heartless, telling her to go back to him, telling her to fix it because he was “suffering so much”. He at one point sent her a picture of his own puke with the comment “look what youre doing to me”. Nearly none of their friends took her side despite having one of them (who was there on one of the occassions her ex threw something after her) back her story.
What I’m trying to say here is: don’t you ever defend a potential abuser by saying “there were no signs of abuse before”, don’t you ever defend them by saying “they don’t seem the type/they seem so nice”, don’t you ever say “if all their friends are taking their side, how can they be an abuser?”, don’t ever say “if there had really been abuse, why are they suffering so much when their victim broke up with them?” and don’t ever try to discredit a potential victim by saying “they’ve had so many partners before and broke up with them over nothing” and don’t ever say “they don’t seem trustworthy”.
None of you can know what goes on behind closed doors. Not if it’s your sister, not if it’s your cousin, not if it’s your friend and ESPECIALLY not if it’s a celebrity YOU’VE NEVER EVEN MET BEFORE.
I sure as hell learned my lesson.
#abuse cw#domestic abuse cw#you know which kinds of fans made me share this#abuse#domestic abuse#anti johnny depp#anti casey affleck#anti lena dunham#m#long post
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CW: Murder
𝟧𝓉𝒽 𝒴𝑒𝒶𝓇 (aka everything goes to hell)
He's working in the Leaky Cauldron he's cleaning down a table and notices someone at a table. Vaguely recognises them and after a moment realises who it is - it's Lupin and he isn't sure whether he should just let him be or approach him, but ends up going over to refill Lupin's cup and HE'S SO SURPRISED TO SEE FANE.
''Stefan Savin?!!"
"Yeah" and his eyes just flicker downwards but a marginal nod is earned in confirmation. Lupin is doing Order work by now and hence can't tell Fanewhat he's up to. Fane thinks he doesn't trust him anymore when the truth is Lupin just can't.
"What are you doing here Fane?"
And Fane won't tell him either "You don't tell me, why should I tell you?”
"Fane, I --"
"Oh no, Professor, I understand." He gives Lupin a tight little smile and moves on down the bar. Lupin keeps trying to talk to him after that but he just whisks around the tables cleverly avoiding him.
Lupin might as well be trying to talk to the wall. And that is why Fane doesn't know until years later that Lupin was killed and he finds out of course that Lupin was an order member, realises that's why he couldn't talk to him. He just beats himself up over it like crazy because that was how he left this one good relationship and positive influence on his life. Fane had a glimpse of Lupin at the battle and knew he was there but didn't go over and say anything because he figured Lupin had quit on him too like everyone.
𝐹𝒾𝒻𝓉𝒽 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇 (𝐻𝒶𝓁𝒻-𝒷𝓁𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒫𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒):
Working over summer to earn money to keep himself afloat is why when he gets back to Hogwarts for the start of fifth year, he officially looks nothing like the bright-eyed boy who started and you can BET Slughorn is also trying to recruit the crap out of him. Slughorn adores him.
He seems more down to earth in fifth year, a lot more grounded than he was before.
Which is why having to kill Erich at the end of this year becomes such a tragedy, because for once he seemed to almost be settling but at the end of it Dumbledore dies and everything blows up. This is the year that he and Faye come SO CLOSE to actually dating, they spend more than one Hogsmeade weekend together.
Sometimes Fane is just like "I'm going for a butterbeer, fancy coming?" And sometimes when they're down at the Three Broomsticks he's sat by the window looking out of it and sometimes during their conversations he sometimes just sort of zones into his own world for a few moments. He seems more contemplative Faye asking him about his summer, what he got up to because she was worried about where he was and what he was doing. He's always pretty vague, mostly talks about what he did rather than where he stayed, tells her about the things he saw in London. He makes it sound rather fun and adventurous and he seems to be all right, but then, Fane always does at least mostly. He's just gotten good at convincing everyone he's fine.
And once or twice Faye sees Erich giving her evil looks from down the Slytherin table but doesn't think much of it, Fane’s little brother seems a bit unpleasant to say the least, fine that's his problem, he'll hopefully grow out of it.
Fane sometimes going to the Slug Club, inviting Faye along and to the Christmas party when it happens, and yes of all people the Muggle Studies professor is the only adult Fane can confide in. Slughorn isn't entirely sure what Faye’s prestige is, but Fane likes her so he doesn't say anything. Surprisingly Fane actually quite enjoys the meetings when they happen because it gives him a chance to just relax and socialise and just talk about interesting subjects with other knowledgeable students.
Fane does wonder if old Horace would be so free with the dinner invitations if he knew that he was a disinherited and disowned Savin living at the Leaky Cauldron and bussing tables for a few sickles.
He just seems overall more happy in fifth year especially around her - his smiles seem more genuine, seem to reach his eyes which despite being more grounded look brighter and maybe even radiant every now and then especially when he's around her.
Faye is used to people asking her if she and Fane are dating by now. She doesn't quite know what they are since they have never talked about it or even acknowledged it in any way.
It doesn’t really even occur to Fane to consider it as a 'thing' he just knows that with Faye he feels comfortable and most at ease and he's happy with that. Probably because he worries on the down low that if he made it serious it would just be another thing to be taken away from him. After all everything else so far he's loved or cared for he's lost or had ripped away. If comfortable conversation and friendship with Faye keeps her safe and around in his life it doesn't really occur to him to really progress it to anything more.
He'll make playful and teasing passes at Faye though what with Cedric gone he doesn't really have much competition in the heartthrob department except with some of the other guys but he’s not fussed about that all that much. Compliments her and finds it amusing if he can get her to blush. Even Snape rolls his eyes at any mention of whatever girls are fighting over Fane now
"Yes, well, try not to be dosed with any love potion, I hear last time Mr. Weasley barely escaped with his life"
Fane just chuckles at that because there have been a few close calls, Faye has begun to discover twists of jealousy in her stomach every time she sees Fane with other people, though. She knows they would have to have The Talk if she said anything, though. She just wants to go somewhere else and pretend it doesn't exist whenever she sees him flirting with whoever he's dallying with now. She's glad he's happy but it still eats and eats at her.
He also doesn't brag as much in fifth year, mostly just works on his studies.
𝐻𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒷𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝑔𝓈𝓉
It is literally three days before the end of the year, before Erich, before Dumbledore, that Faye finally screws up the courage to ask him if they can talk, she has finally decided that she knows what she wants and she wants to give it a try.
And Fane’s a bit hesitant when she brings it up, but he goes with her and they sit down to talk. She stammers a bit and finally asks if he has ever considered that they might be, well, more than friends and he's just staring at her and she thinks this is a total disaster. But he seems almost speechless and... awed, almost. He doesn't seem to hate the idea, at least, and they totally end up kissing and end up breathless.
AND IT ALL FINALLY SEEMS TO WORK OUT.
Of course three days later is when it all goes utterly to hell. :))))))))))
Erich finds Malfoy up to something and tells him he wants to help because he’s fed up of Fane ignoring him and wants to get back at him. Especially since he’s put the pieces together and can see how Fane flirts and makes eyes at this unremarkable little Slytherin half blood leading to Faye just becoming the target for his jealousy. Malfoy isn't really into help from a lowly kid but he also has no allies and knows the Savin’s are fellow Death Eaters. So he agrees.
Fane happened upon them by pure chance, he couldn’t sleep that night they snuck into the castle and ended up going to walk the corridors. Which is when he came across the death eaters sneaking in, immediately his thoughts went to finding Faye and making sure she’s okay because he’s worried, all hell is starting to break loose, Death Eaters are in the castle and someone is screaming about Dumbledore on the astronomy tower.
Fane finds Faye just as Erich was pulling out his wand and pointing it at her - Erich’s small but he is powerful and talented and gets good marks and Fane knows in an instant that this isn't just a Jelly Legs Jinx. He hears the first yell of Avada Kedavra before he’s there but it doesn't quite work because you have to MEAN an unforgivable curse and Erich is still 14 but he's gearing up for a second go and Faye hasn't even seen him.
Fane doesn't even have to think about it, seeing the weak spark of green at the tip of Erich’s wand directed at Faye-- it's enough for him to literally just cast the curse. He doesn't even know if he says the words aloud, just that his wand is burning green and then Erich is crumpled on the floor among the chaos and his body is all Fane can see. Hence, why he feels so guilty and acts so weird the days after because how was it so easy to kill his own brother? Something must be wrong with him.
He feels sick afterwards it's part of the reason Faye doesn't see him, he ends up stumbling to an empty courtyard where he just empties his stomach because he can't believe what he's just done and he's literally shaking and clammy. And nobody notices because Dumbledore is dead and Voldemort was in Hogwarts and ultimately, everyone just figures Erich was killed by a Death Eater. Faye tries to find Fane to tell him she's sorry about his brother and he just looks at her wildly and bolts.
She notices he looks quite ill the next few days, maybe even weeks and Fane definitely goes into the forbidden forest all the time to think.
𝒮𝓊𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓇
That summer is when the Ministry falls and Voldemort and the Carrows and Snape take over Hogwarts, so when they come back it is literally to a prison.
Faye can't reach Fane at all that summer, she sends him an owl every few days at first but he never answers and she figures she sounds desperate so she stops.
He spends the summer at the Leaky Cauldron again working to get by but this time he doesn’t explore London except for going to that little cafe every now and then. Tom by now has just made up a room especially for him at the Leaky cauldron and lets him have it in return for the work he does.
He almost didn't go back to Hogwarts but the Death Eaters were already out rounding up truants, but he knows Faye and other people he cares about will be there and after how things were left between them he feels bad. There’s no way he can leave her in that place by herself with no one to look out for her, Faye can hold her own, he knows but this is not the same school they grew up in. And he has a feeling about what Hogwarts is about to turn into.
Explaining why he spends the summer practising his magic in the Leaky Cauldron and building up his strength because he knows he's going to need it when he goes back to Hogwarts. And he does need it.
He develops some of his more powerful spells in that summer, perfects them and decides to keep them quiet unless they're direly needed.
Fane even starts working on wandless magic, because anything he can use to his own benefit is useful.
He wants to tell Faye to run away but doesn't know how to reach her in a way that wouldn't be tracked. Especially after the news of the Ministry falling but he also knows the Snatchers would pounce on her if she tried to go anyway.
#and so it continues#AAAAAHAHA#IT WAS GOOD#THEY KISSED#AND THEN#LMAO#nope#Can't have happiness#hp au#hp timeline
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