#just different groups of people who will be annoying under different circumstances
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20 Zentimeter - Takuma Ino x Reader
WORD COUNT: ~2.5K
WARNINGS: Crack? Mentions of alcohol. F!Reader!
SUMMARY: Foreign Reader Y/N finds a song in her native language during karaoke. (My condolences, reader is from a german speaking country.)
A/N: I don't claim any responsibility.
-> If you enjoy my fics, please consider buying me a ko-fi, thank you!
╰┈➤ ⋆❝masterlist❞⋆
Under any other circumstances Y/N would have dreaded going out with a bunch of people, especially so during the week when she knew it most probably involved alcohol. But there weren’t many times in which Takuma Ino joined in these nights out, and she couldn’t miss the chance to spend time with him.
You see, Y/N had a crush on Ino ever since she took the brave step of moving to Japan. Obviously, she wasn’t from this country, making it harder for her to engage with people around her age. In her own culture and language she was much more open, albeit still being an introvert most times. But with the newfound language barrier she became much more isolated, at least that’s what it felt like.
She never questioned her mysterious powers or the fact that she could see monsters, or even why her mother seemed to know about it. And she certainly never questioned why her mother seemed to know other people with the same abilities. One of which, as she was told, was the principal of a school for people like her. Long story short, her mother had transferred her to the school with principal Yaga (as she was later informed) immediately admitting her due to her family heritage, which she didn’t fully understand when it was explained to her.
None of that mattered to her anymore, it had been a few years since her transfer and it would only be a few more months until she’d officially graduate. Due to the age difference between her and the first years she couldn’t fully connect with any of them. But Nanami had often paired her up with Ino, as he figured that the two would connect more.
“Earth to Y/N. Hello?” Nobara waved a hand in front of her eyes to drag Y/N out of her daze.
“Yes, sorry. I just zoned out.” A rosy hue dusted her cheeks as she pulled on her jacked sleeve in order to avoid her gaze.
“Hm… happens a lot when that idiot is around.” Nobara’s comment instantly fueled Y/N blush more. The first year student rolled her eyes at the older one’s obvious crush, even though she had never confirmed it properly.
“He’s not an idiot.” Y/N responded as she glanced at Ino, who was currently engaged in a seemingly deep conversation with Yuji about god knows what.
“Just tell him you like him. It’s getting annoying.” The first year secretly cheered for her female upperclass(wo)man. However, she was annoyed with Y/N for not confessing. Nobara had watched her pine for Nanami’s protege for months.
“Shut up.” With that Y/N turned around and put her hands into her jacket pockets.
The entire group consisting of all first and second year students as well as Y/N and Ino was still standing on the school grounds, discussing where to go and what to do on their fun night out.
“Let’s go karaoke!” Y/N didn’t have to look to know who it was that threw the idea into the room. There was only one person who’d always be up for karaoke, and it was unfortunately Ino. Much to her dismay, everyone seemed to agree, except for the grumble of disapproval coming from Megumi. She had to give props to Yuji and Nobara for successfully dragging him along.
Absentmindedly Y/N tagged along when the entire group made their way to a random karaoke venue somewhere in Tokyo.
With her only having learned japanese within the past few years it wasn’t easy for her to open up, and she knew that if there was alcohol involved it’d only be worse for her. At least if she slipped into her native language no one would know what kind of nonsense she’d ramble on about.
————
The hours passed, and the alcohol flowed endlessly as Ino kept ordering rounds and rounds of different types of liquor to their private room.
One by one each of them graced the group with their intoxicated and loud singing voices. A big highlight was the duet of Panda and Yuji, but Y/N’s personal favorite was Nobara dragging Maki up mid-song to turn the ballad she chose into a love song.
Each time one of them suggested for Y/N to come up and sing she shook her head. However, while the others accepted this, Ino didn’t. He was dead set on getting her to sing at least one song.
“Come on. Just one song. For me?” If his pleading voice wasn’t enough already, Ino then pulled his best puppy eyes, effectively melting Y/N’s heart like ice cream on a hot summer’s day. No doubt he knew about her crush.
“Maybe after a few more drinks…” She couldn't outright deny him anything, not when he looked at her with his big brown eyes and a pout that made her chest tighten. But her answer seemed to satisfy him at least somewhat for now since he nodded with a bright smile and turned towards the others to pick out another duet with someone.
Y/N briefly closed her eyes, damning herself for even saying maybe, knowing that Ino wouldn’t let this go, but how could she ever refuse him anything when he unknowingly already had her heart?
There was no way around it, she’d have to sing at least one song, so maybe they had something easy or something fun in their list of available songs. After downing two shots, to make up for the lack of courage, she grabbed the catalog and skipped through all available options.
She barely acknowledged Nobara and Ino belting out the lyrics to a Spice Girl’s song when she noticed a certain title in the list of songs. There, in the middle of Tokyo in a random karaoke venue, was an old German party song that probably no one here had ever heard before. But it was one song that Y/N was very familiar with. Courtesy of her older siblings. But should she really go for this one choice? At least no one would know what she’d sing about and no one could laugh about her per se, considering they’d all just laugh about how awkward the song sounded.
It was this song or nothing. As if the title had touched something deep inside her that, something that had been resting ever since she stepped foot onto japanese grounds.
At this point she had consumed a handful of shots and drinks but it wasn’t even nearly enough to get her through this song. Luckily, it didn’t take long for Ino’s latest order of drinks to arrive, and just like that, before either of the other’s could even grab one of the cocktail bottles Y/N had already reached for it, filled her glass and downed it in one gulp.
As if that wasn’t enough, the entire group watched with wide eyes as she downed a second glass right after.
“Hey, slow down. You okay?” It was Ino from beside her who spoke up and asked her. If the alcohol hadn’t taken a speed route through her system she would have melted from his caring tone.
“I’m fine!” She slurred her words without any hesitation. It was a sight Ino had never seen before, neither had anyone else in the little group, but she seemed happy and even excited so what could go wrong?
Ino watched her reach for one of the microphones and stand up, albeit a little clumsily. If he wasn’t worried about her he would have found it adorable.
In all her drunken glory Y/N navigated her way through the song library until she found what she was looking for.
The blasting pop beats that sounded from the speakers instantly caught all attention from the group and when Y/N stumbled around the table to take the tiny stage Ino’s eyes followed her. The last thing anyone expected of the usual introvert and rather quiet girl was how she started to jump, bounce and even dance to the rhythm before singing along with the background vocals.
Everyone watched her but no one observed her as attentively as Ino did. His eyes followed her every move, seemingly out of concern but mostly because it had become a habit for him. He had very quickly developed a crush on her, which made him feel as nervous but also as giddy as a teenager. He’d never openly admit it to anyone however. Except Nanami, but only after the Grade 1 sorcerer had successfully, and in a matter of minutes, deduced that Ino seemed infatuated with her.
His racing thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Y/N started to fully get into the song and suddenly he realized that he had no idea what the hell she was singing about.
No matter how hard he tried to listen in on the words she sang, it all sounded like gibberish to him.
“Das kannst du echt vergessen, da hast du dich vermessen!” Y/N���s loud voice sounded out as she sang along to the lyrics and continued to jump around like a happy child. It was truly endearing to Ino, if he hadn’t been so damn confused by the song choice.
“20 Zentimeter, sind es jetzt nicht und nicht später. Du solltest dazu stehen, er ist leicht zu übersehen!” For some reason he seemed to be the only one, everyone else jammed to it, dancing in their seats as well as trying to sing along with the gibberish.
The feeling of being spoken to indirectly came over him more and more, considering Y/N kept glancing at him whenever she sang her stupid outlandish song. But what the hell did she try to tell him with it? It drove him crazy. All he wanted was to build a bridge to her, make a connection and get closer to her to maybe finally confess his crush to her.
“20 Zentimeter.” Y/N almost bellowed out the lyrics in her intoxicated state, and even Ino noticed that she seemed to jumble some of the words together. He blamed the alcohol and tried his best to simply focus on her and how overjoyed she seemed.
Once her song ended however, she reverted back into the quieter person. She was ready to sit back down but Megumi stood up and dragged Yuji with him, announcing to the rest of the group that all of them should get their asses home. Understandably so, since Megumi was the only one who paid attention and realized that the karaoke place would close soon. On top of that the annoyance he felt was written all over his face.
There were no objections. In all honesty, Y/N found it quite admirable of Megumi to be so responsible. He was the youngest in the group, yet he seemed to be the most mature one. She nodded towards his words, just like the rest of them did when they gathered their things and dashed out of the building.
Just before leaving the karaoke venue Megumi purchased some bottles of water for everyone, which he now handed out to each person. Courtesy of being the least intoxicated as well as being in possession of the only brain cell in the group.
The cool water in combination with the chilly refreshing breeze made Y/N feel a lot more sober in contrast to how tipsy she felt before. Almost naturally she fell into a pace that was just a tad bit slower than the group. She strolled a few steps behind the group, alone with her thoughts, and didn’t even notice Ino walking next to her.
“What was that song about?” His sudden words startled her and caused her heart to beat faster. A natural fight or flight reaction.
“You almost gave me a cardiac arrest.” She said as she breathed in and out deeply to steady her racing heart. It wasn’t her intention to ignore his question, she simply didn’t pay attention to what he said when he surprised her.
“Sorry…” He chuckled innocently and continued speaking, “but that song. It’s not a language I know. What was it about?”
“Oh. Well..” She started but quickly let the word face out into nothingness. The song wasn’t very appropriate. The message and actual lyrics weren’t really bad, just the meaning of it was vulgar.
“It’s just that you kept looking at me when you sang.” Shit. How the hell was she supposed to explain the lyrics of it to him now? Why couldn’t the ground open up and swallow her hole right at this moment?
Her face heated up to the point she knew that if she was a cartoon character her features would be scarlet red. Inside her head she screamed of embarrassment. For now she was thankful that the streetlights on their way were in such poor shape. It prevented Ino from seeing her intense blush.
Minutes felt like hours for Y/N when she tried to come up with the least embarrassing explanation. No way in hell could she tell him what the song was about.
“It’s about measurements!” She blurted out, almost too quick for him to understand, but he unfortunately caught it, even if he couldn’t make any sense of her words. His face mirrored his confusion as he stared at her with furrowed brows. It was a clear WTF written all over his handsome features.
Y/N tried her hardest to keep looking ahead, to focus on walking, or literally anything else, besides her pounding heart. Her cheeks surely could heat up an entire building in the deepest winter.
So close. Almost home. Her mind was racing but the sight of her apartment complex just about a hundred meters away caused her chest to feel lighter. Subconsciously she sped up her pace a little.
“I… It’s really just a silly german song. Nothing more to it.” She murmured after another moment. For a brief second she felt somewhat bad and guilty for attempting to dismiss the entire topic like this. He was right, she did glance at him too many times during her drunken performance, but it wasn’t her fault. It was all the alcohol’s fault!
When the two of them almost reached the front door of the building she turned her face towards him, ready to bid him goodnight. Ino seemed to have other plans as he spoke up before she even had the chance.
“I’m gonna find out what it means.” His voice was dripping with confidence. Once he found something he wanted he wouldn’t let go.
“But maybe you can give me some private german lessons, how about it?” Y/N didn’t expect his flirtatious tone or the wink he sent in her direction. Momentarily she froze on the spot. Ino just chuckled when he realized that he caused her to malfunction for a hot minute.
The way her cheeks now reminded him of freshly picked strawberries only made his smile brighter.
“Goodnight, gorgeous.” He chuckled once more. Eventually he turned around as he took some steps backwards, making his way towards his own place and leaving behind an extremely flustered Y/N with a racing heart and a bright blush.
#stef writes#jjk#jjk fluff#jjk x you#jjk x reader#jjk x reader fluff#jujutsu kaisen fanfiction#jujutsu kaisen fluff#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen x you#ino takuma#jujutsu kaisen#takuma x reader#ino x reader#ino takuma brainrot#ino takuma imagine#ino takuma scenario#ino takuma x reader#ino takuma x reader fluff#ino takuma x you#jjk fanfiction#jjk fanfic#takuma ino fanfic#takuma ino fanfiction
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Indianapolis Bones and the Very Annoyed God of Mischief
In this post I proposed the idea of a President Loki + Mobius variant based on Owen's Dr. Indianapolis Bones SNL skit, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it so here's a bit of flash fiction based on that. Enjoy!
ETA: There's now a 4+1 expanded version of this on AO3!
--
“It’s such an honor to have you here, sir.”
Since Loki had walked in, the restaurant's manager had been practically falling over himself with praise. He'd nearly wept when Loki handed out "Vote Loki" pins for the staff to wear. The Midgardians were finally treating him as he deserved, even if he wasn't their king...yet.
A woman ran up to whisper something in the manager's ear and he brightened.
“Your table is ready, sir. Right this way.”
Loki followed the man deeper into the restaurant, smirking as every head in the place turned to watch him and his collection of black-suited bodyguards. He didn’t need their protection but it amused him to think of humans throwing themselves at other humans at his behest.
Loki caught the eye of one elegantly dressed woman and winked, causing her to flush prettily. Her date seemed entirely unamused at the “come hither” look she was sending Loki’s way. The only people who didn’t turn to watch Loki’s entrance were a group seated at a long table at the center of the room. They appeared to be in a heated discussion.
The manager paused by a small table next a window with what looked like a decent view of the river, even if Loki found Midgard’s scenery somewhat lacking compared to Asgard. Before Loki could sit, there was a clatter of dishware and both he and the restaurant's manager turned to see the source.
An extremely nervous-looking waiter had dropped the stack of dishes they were collecting onto a nearby table. Their attention was focused on a different waiter, or at least someone dressed as such, who stood at the far end of the long table, holding a gun. Loki raised an eyebrow. This was an interesting development.
The waiter with the gun was pointing it at an unassuming man seated at the end of the table. The man’s blonde hair was on the long side and, paired with his beard, gave him an unkempt look in Loki’s opinion. The horrible beige plaid blazer he wore wasn’t helping.
Loki blinked and suddenly everyone else at the table had a gun out, all pointed at the man, who only smiled in response. Everyone in the dining room seemed to be holding their breath as the man took a brown fedora out from under the table and settled it on his head.
"Now, now, let's not be too hasty." His voice had a pleasant drawl to it. He held his hands up as he stood slowly.
“Just give us the map!” snapped one of the women at the table.
“Sorry, can't do that,” the man replied and winked. He was either incredibly brave or very stupid given the circumstances.
When the man slowly lowered his hand to his hip, Loki felt a brief spike of excitement. Was he about to witness a bloodbath? Unexpectedly, the man freed a long whip. With two quick cracks, he took out the light on the table and the chandelier overhead, bringing it crashing down and plunging the room into darkness.
At least two of the guns went off after that, which made Loki roll his eyes. For how frail they were, Midgardians were always so reckless with their weapons.
“Sir! Get down!” That was one of his men. They knew better than to grab him and simply lunged past, likely intending to tackle and disarm the gun wielders. Loki heard the sound of scuffling and was about to fling up a light—waiting in the dark was tedious—when someone did bump into him.
“You look important and I'd hate for you to get hurt, so probably best to come along with me.” The easy drawl was recognizable, though the man with the whip sounded slightly winded now. Then he wrapped an arm around Loki's waist and hurried them both away from the sounds of fighting.
Loki was so stunned at the audacity of being manhandled, he was outside before he fully registered what had happened. He tried to shove the man off but he’d already stepped away. Inexplicably, the man now wore a leather jacket instead of the plaid blazer. Now able to get a better look at the man, Loki was dismayed to find the bright blue eyes and lopsided smile were annoyingly attractive.
“Hey, are those a family heirloom?” the man asked, gesturing to Loki’s golden horns. “They look pretty good for an antique.”
“I beg your pardon?” Loki snapped. “Do you have any idea who I am?!”
“Of course! How could I forget with the horns and all.” The man waved again and a long silence followed his words. Then a huge grin split his face. “Actually, I don't, but hopefully you won’t hold it against me. I’m Indy by the way, short for Indianapolis. My parents were kind of kooky.”
Before Loki had a chance to inform this ridiculous Midgardian that he didn't care what his name was, or what his parents were like, the back door of the restaurant slammed open.
“There he is!”
It was the diners who’d pulled guns in the restaurant.
“Oops, gotta go. See you around, friend!” The man—Indy, apparently—clapped a hand to his hat to keep it from flying off and ran into the night. Gunshots rang out in response and the bullets whizzed by Loki, close enough to further annoy him. He gestured at the gaggle of people spilling out of the restaurant and, with a flash of green light, they vanished. Seconds later, Loki's bodyguards came rushing out.
Loki wasn't impressed by their delay in finding him, but he had something more important to address.
He pointed at the fleeing man in the fedora. “Find that man—Indianapolis…something—and bring him to me.”
The people who’d been chasing Indy might have been able to answer his questions, but Loki had sent them elsewhere without giving much thought as to where. As half of the bodyguards took off in pursuit, Loki stalked back inside, followed by the rest. He would get his answers one way or another.
#president loki#mobius m mobius#lokius#lokius au#dr indianapolis bones#don't think too hard about this it was only meant to be fun#i had A Scene™️ in my head and i just had to get it out#maaaaybe i could expand on this someday?#but for now back to the OTHER president loki fic I was writing (lol)#i'd love to see anyone else's ideas for this au!#mobius#wanderingflame fic
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Could you do the Lips sealed headcanons with Crowley, Crewel, Trein, Riddle, Lilia, Malleus, Floyd and Jade?
⤷ ✧ Keeping quiet
- order 35 | Headcanons | Riddle, Jade, Floyd, Lilia, Malleus, Crowley, Crewel, Trein
P.1 — VDC group+Neige
Gender neutral, platonic for the staff
Note: It’s fun writing interesting character traits. It’s one of my favorite types of things to write. Thank you for requesting!
Riddle Rosehearts
He never really noticed you never spoke, he assumed it was just being nervous but it became obvious that you don’t speak to anybody.
He wants you to use other forms of communication but gets confused with your gestures .
“Wait so, who broke one of the rules? Uhh tail… ears? Cross? No? Here just write it on a piece of paper.”
He wonders how you can go about everyday without speaking. But maybe he’s just sort of always yelling and got used it to it.
Jade Leech
He’s never encountered someone that never speaks. He’s met shy people but you’re not shy. You just don’t speak. He lets you communicate through gestures and notes.
He can tell what you want just by looking at you. He’s naturally good at reading people.
It seems like he doesn’t care but he’s intrigued. He wants to know why. Why won’t you speak? Are you nervous? He concludes it’s out of anxiousness. Which would be right on the money.
Floyd Leech
He’s just as you’d expect. He always has something to pick on no matter who it is. Of course for you, it’s because you don’t speak.
“Shrimpy, how come you never speak?” He said while leaning forward to get close to your face.
His pestering is never ending and it’s not like you can run or fight him. Your only options are to avoid him or deal with it.
“I’m gonna squeeze you!”
“Floyd, don’t do that to the prefect…” Azul commands. “Sorry about that.”
Lilia Vanrouge
He’s one of the more understanding people. He wants to ask why but decides to just observe you first. He gets your message through with gestures, expression, and notes.
You may or may not catch him just staring at you. His gaze is soft and even loving but its undoubtedly creepy no matter how sweet it is.
He can translate for you if no one understands. He actually understands you better than Ace.
He makes teasing jokes about you never speaking but it isn’t to pressure you into doing so. He’s curious but it doesn’t matter to him in the slightest.
Malleus Draconia
He knows that humans are social creatures which is why you’re such an intriguing specimen. He thinks you’re unique because of your behavior.
You’re average, that much is clear but he decides to regard you differently because of your lack of speech. He wants to observe you. But conversations with him are nothing fun. It’s awkward since you usually have others lead the conversation as you nod. While he barely even has conversations.
“You’re here another night? Hmm.”
“…”
“Why are you giving me that look?”
He’s bad with context clues so he can’t tell you’re being passive aggressive or not. He can tell when you’re happy or sad though.
You two don’t mix well under these circumstances but there’s still a possibility of getting closer.
Crowley
How troublesome! He doesn’t get you. You’re supposed to be happy and chatty but you’re just completely silent (and annoyed).
He originally believed you were just shy because of this new environment, understandable. But eventually he got the hint that it’s something that’s not gonna change.
He can’t have a prefect that doesn’t speak. He tries to council you. It’s often very uncomfortable sessions. But since he’s “so busy” He can no longer give you counciling.
He encourages you to use a notebook to communicate. Overall, he just wants you to enjoy life.
Divus Crewel
He doesn’t really go out of his way to check on his students. It probably took a two weeks before he even noticed. He thought you were quiet and he approved of that. It wasn’t until he caught you messing around with a friend, that’s when he had to have a discussion with you.
“STAY! You two. Now get over here.”
“Aww… We’re in for it now..” Grim whined.
When he went to scold you, he expected a “yes teacher.” But you only looked at him with a bothered expression.
“I expect an answer. Now what do we say?”
“Uhhh… One problem.” Grin spoke up to get his attention, “They don’t like speaking. Actually they don’t speak at all.”
You glared over at Grim at his wording. He felt a slight wave of a guilt but not enough to stop the scolding.
He doesn’t call on you for anything but he still expects you to pay attention and preform well in his class.
Mozus Trein
He would notice a lot sooner than Crewel. His class involves a lot of participation. For a while, you hadn’t been called on, it was mostly directed at Grim since he’s a chatterbox.
But the time has come when you were supposed to supposed to answer a question verbally.
“What year was the prototype of the ghost camera created, MC?”
“…”
“Professor… They don’t speak.”
He pulled you in after class and warned you your possibility of failing this class because of your lack of participation. But he found a solution. You can have Grim say it for you whenever you’re called on. Let’s hope that Grim is at least awake.
#riddle rosehearts x reader#jade leech x reader#floyd leech x reader#lilia vanrouge x reader#malleus draconia x reader#platonic#crowley x reader#divus crewel x reader#mozus trein x reader#that feels weird to type but it’s all platonic with the staff
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WWX does not have multiple personality disorder. The Yiling Laozu and Wei Wuxian are not two different characters, nor are they two different sides of the same character. They just two names that belong to the same man, whose birth name is Wei Ying. The YYLZ is not WWX dark side or any such nonsense.
It's true that WWX gained the name YLLZ during the lowest period of his life. He was coreless and constantly being targeted or scapegoated by the so-called righteous cultivators while trying to survive and protect a group of refugees who were also being demonized by society at large. However, that also makes it the time when we got to see WWX at his most compassionate, we got to see how utterly incorruptible WWX, even when the rest of the world has turned against him for it. The YLLZ's bad reputation is a product of an incredibly hypocritical society hell bent on scapegoating the one man who dared to actively oppose them in their morally corrupt behavior. The YYLZ is the hero who was expelled from society for daring to be righteous and demand the same from the rest of them.
WWX didn't have a change in personality when he became known as the YLLZ. In fact, WWX doesn't have any dramatic change in personality throughout the whole novel, because MDZS isn't a novel about the protagonist's personal growth. WWX was always the story's moral compass, he doesn't need to grow, rather, he's there to highlight the failings of his society by contrast. That doesn't change when he becomes known as the YLLZ. In fact, it's the other way around. More than any other time, that was when WWX was doing the most righteous thing and everyone else most clearly failed to measure up.
At his lowest point, which to me is Nightless City, he was still kinder than the society around him. He was angry, and he definitely didn't mind fighting, but he still didn't attack first even though those people were there to plan his murder along with the people under his protection (after having already murdered his two friends - since WWX doesn't know WN wasn't destroyed). And he never once targeted innocent people. In contrast, that society wanted to murder a bunch of old people and a baby after war was already over. They were eager to use violence when it wasn't needed, and were still shameless enough to call themselves righteous. That was the society who lied to the next generation about what they did to the Wen Remnants. That was the society who praised WWX's guidao during the SSC and demonized him for it afterwards.
I guess my point is that WWX is a very well written character, and I find it annoying that he's split into two when that's exactly the product of the propaganda against him. Because he didn't change, his cultivation didn't change him either. His actions were constantly distorted and deliberately misinterpreted to make him look bad when, in fact, he was just defending himself and his people against the actual bad guys. WWX was never corrupted, he was never immoral. It's the cultivation society that got drunk on their delusions of superiority, their blindly misplaced desire for vengeance and greed for power. It's interesting to note that they never tried to think on what circumstances allowed the Wen sect to rise to power in the first place and fix it. Rather, they put their efforts into trying to profit as much as possible from the power vacancy left after the Wen sect was defeated.
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Saint-Chamans about Soult and the "roi Nicolas" affair
So I did it. Here is the testimony of the public prosecutor's crown witness against "roi Nicolas Soult" 😁. Taken from Saint-Chamans' memoirs, translated to the best of my and DeepL's abilities. I'm posting this mostly for @cadmusfly but read at your own risk. As I warned before, this is very long, rather convoluted and may be quite boring. Also, of course I could not resist jumping in to defend Soult at several points.
[…] we advanced cheerfully towards the borders of Portugal, not doubting the success of our expedition; Marshal Soult, following the instructions given to him by the Emperor, flooded the country with proclamations, but we soon saw that they had little effect on a fanatical people who were exhorted by their priests to make a stubborn defence; the excesses, theft and bad conduct of the Duke of Abrantès's army during the first expedition had, moreover, stirred up all the Portuguese against the French name.
Saint-Chamans may not always be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these observations of his are interesting. Napoleon ordering a flood of proclamations hints at an attempt to peacefully win over the population to the French side from the very beginning (an attempt that Soult would, in his mind, continue in Oporto with different means). It is to be noted that Portugal as a whole had already been occupied and for some time administered by Junot from late 1807 to mid-1808. There must have been a francophile party within Portugal.
While I am not much familiar with Junot’s occupation of Portugal and its "excesses" (@snowv88, do you happen to know if Junot's occupation of Portugal was in some way worse than what had happened in other countries before?), and while this may to a large degree just be Saint-Chamans trying to pass the buck by pointing his finger at somebody else, it is true that a whole bunch of generals who had belonged to Junot’s army during the first occupation of Portugal now were under Soult’s command, re-entering a country that already despised them (this would in particular be so for general Loison, nicknamed "Maneta" and hated with a passion by the Portuguese). Moreover, these generals, whom Napoleon had ordered Soult to take with him, now had entered Soult's staff as supernumerary members without specific duties. So not only did Soult have to take over an army corps that he had never commanded before (his own corps had remained in Germany), and men he did not know and who did not know him, but he also had to deal with a large group of bored officers, with lots of time on their hands to feel ignored or badly treated by their new commander-in-chief.
But I’m already digressing. What I wanted to translate was Saint-Chamans’ opinion of Soult’s alleged attempt to make himself king. Here’s another remark on what Soult’s state of mind may have been like, once the French had managed to enter Portugal and become master of at least some parts of the country. Saint-Chamans has just returned from a journey to general Franceschi, and had barely avoided getting killed in attacks by Portuguese peasants several times on the way.
I took care, when I saw Marshal Soult again, not to tell him about all the misfortunes of my last night: I knew that he became seriously angry when anyone tried to give him an idea of the dangers that accompanied the French in this dreadful country, and of the exasperation of the Portuguese against us; he was extremely persistent in his resolutions and in his undertakings, and he was very annoyed with those who tried, either directly or indirectly, to divert him from them and to make him see the disadvantages. He could not, however, conceal them from himself for long, and this knowledge of his dangerous position threw him into false and hazardous political steps, the gist of which has never been properly grasped and which perhaps only he could have fully explained; but I will speak at greater length about this circumstance in a moment, and I will say frankly what I have seen and what I believe.
Which he then does some pages later, after having related the horrible scenes during the capture of Oporto:
Indeed, despite this brilliant victory, our position was very critical; the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley (since so famous under the name of the Duke of Wellington), 30,000 strong and united with the Portuguese army, was in Lisbon and preparing to march on Oporto; they were commanded by the Portuguese General Sylveira and the English General Sir Robert Wilson (the same man who has since been tried in Paris for having helped escape Lavalette). These latter corps were intended to intercept any communication with Spain.
Here, I believe, Saint-Chamans makes a rather dishonest argument, or at least argues in hindsight, because I do not think the French at the time were even aware of the strong British presence in Portugal. They only figured it out when they tried to go south from Oporto.
If Marshal Soult had not been absorbed by ideas of ambition, which dominated all others in him at the time, he would have realised that his position was untenable and that he had only one course of action to take: to regard Oporto as a conquest which he needed to take advantage of to feed his army well for a fortnight and recover from its fatigues; then to retreat with all his forces to the Minho, to seize Valença, a fortified town in Portugal, on this river, opposite Tuy, of which he would have made an excellent bridgehead which would have communicated from one to the other of these last two towns; he would thus have linked up with the corps of Marshal Ney, whose headquarters were in Coruña, and whose troops occupied Tuy and Santiago; in this way, he could have safely evacuated his wounded and sick to good hospitals established in well-closed towns, instead of being obliged to abandon them to the fury of the Portuguese, as he did when he hastily evacuated Oporto; he would have kept all his artillery, lost at the same time; he would make the part of Portugal between the Minho and the Douro his tributary; he would re-establish direct communication with the French army in Spain and France; his own army, which numbered only 24,000 men, would have lived in abundance; he would preserve for the French army the best entrance into Portugal for the time when they would have been in a position to conquer this country, and until then he could wage a war of exploration there [...].
While it is quite possible that this plan, developped by a Saint-Chamans writing some 15 or 20 years after the events, could have proven successful (even if it does assume that Wellesley would just have watched the French gaining a secure foothold in the country and puts a little too much faith into the forces of Ney who barely was able to hold onto Galicia at this point), it was unfortunately not at all in accordance with the orders Soult had received from Napoleon. These orders simply stated that Soult was to march into Portugal from the north, conquer it and seize Lissabon, for which Berthier in his last dispatches deemed Soult’s single corps sufficient. But if he really needed support, he should receive it from Ney (from the north) or Victor (from the east). A retreat however, by giving up an important city that had been conquered, was simply not an option.
And so Soult, sticking to his orders, remained in Oporto and tried to contact the two corps that were supposed to support him: Ney and Victor (by sending Loison east to Amarante, as we will hear). Unfortunately, both of them had their hands full with problems of their own, Ney had lost contact with Madrid himself, Victor never showed up and may not even have fully understood what he was supposed to do, and since by now Joseph in Madrid was in charge, who paid little attention to what was going on in Portugal, Soult was left utterly alone.
Continuing with Saint-Chamans’ account:
[…] But all these considerations were not in harmony with Marshal Soult's plans, and so he did not give them a second thought. No sooner had he established himself in Oporto than he began to unmask his plan; an officer, half-French, half-Portuguese, named Laffitte, a schemer if ever there was one, who had been sent to his staff for the expedition to Portugal, ostensibly as an interpreter, for he spoke Portuguese fairly well, but in reality as a spy, was his main agent with the Portuguese in this circumstance; at Oporto, this wretch discovered a Portuguese priest named Veloso, who was as rich as he was narrow-minded, and who was promised heaven and earth, provided that Marshal Soult became King of Portugal; at the same time, this ignorant priest was persuaded that he was not a bad man, and that all this was for the greater good of his country; he believed it, and this idea, combined with the fine promises made to him, made him one of the Marshal's most zealous supporters; he acted accordingly. He addressed the people in the streets and public squares; he preached in the churches, he spread money to make supporters for the Marshal, and led by the advice of Laffitte, he succeeded in giving this party, in Oporto and the surrounding area, a certain stability; deputations arrived from Braga, Guimaraens, Olivera, and other towns of which we were the masters, and where part of the population had returned to, soliciting the Marshall to ascend the throne of Portugal; registers were opened in the town of Oporto to receive the votes of the inhabitants, the number of which was very considerable, and General Ricard, Marshal Soult's chief of staff, who had been his aide-de-camp, wrote circulars to the divisional generals insinuating the matter, for the Marshal, despite the affection for him of the good inhabitants of his good cities of Oporto and Braga, felt that he could do nothing without the consent and cooperation of the French army.
So, this is the main testimony that modern historians base their accusation on when it comes to Soult and the »roi Nicolas« issue. Admittedly, it is a damning one. Saint-Chamans obviously is convinced that Soult really wanted to seize the crown and was intriguing on his own behalf, and his testimony carries particular weight, as, being Soult’s aide-de-camp, having his marshal’s trust and being in his inner circle, Saint-Chamans was in a position to witness everything that was going on in Oporto at close quarters …
While all this intrigue was going on, I was on a mission twelve leagues from Oporto near generals Loison and Delaborde […]
Oh. Or maybe he wasn’t.
So, what Saint-Chamans relates above is not something he has witnessed himself, it is what he has heard during the time he spent with generals Loison and Delaborde – who would later be among the main gossips about precisely this topic (Thiébault seems to have gotten the story from Loison; Delaborde, as to him, apparently backpedalled somewhat on his accusations when he was called upon directly to testify). But I’m sorry, I have interrupted Saint-Chamans again:
While all this intrigue was going on, I was on a mission twelve leagues from Oporto near Generals Loison and Delaborde who, with an infantry division and some cavalry, were charged with taking Amarante, and especially the bridge there (over the Tameyra); Marshal Soult announced loudly that, from there, this head of column would move towards Zamora, in order to communicate with the French army in Castile; but he was too good a military man to seriously entertain this project; if he had really wanted to communicate with French troops, it was towards Galicia, where he positively knew that Marshal Ney's corps was, that he would have manoeuvred; he had only twenty leagues to go, and he would have found himself opposite Tuy, which was to have been occupied by the French of Marshal Ney's corps.
Whenever I reflected on the military movements of Marshal Soult in this circumstance, I became convinced that he did not want to communicate with the French army in Spain; above all he wanted to avoid all relations with Marshal Ney, whose enmity against him and violent character he knew: he had every reason to believe that this Marshal would hasten to say loudly and to write to France that he, Soult, had sacrificed the interests of the Emperor and of the army to his personal ambition in this circumstance; and this is what did not fail to happen.
A few days after our entry into Oporto, I had been sent to Amarante; I had come back for a while, and then returned a second time; there was still only vague talk of the Marshal's plans; [...].
Leaving out the relation of poor Lameth’s death of which Saint-Chamans heard at this time and which moved him profoundly.
These reflections, which struck me even more on learning of his death than at the time I am writing these lines, had inspired in me a certain distaste for the military career and the uncertainties it presented; moreover, the grief I felt at having been for several months without any news of my family or my country added to my gloomy mood; I imagined that the greatest happiness I could aspire to in the future was to return to France and live there peacefully at home.
These »dispositions moroses«, the gloomy mood Saint-Chamans alludes to, in my opinion is also not to be disregarded. Saint-Chamans hardly was the only one who felt that way, this rather may have been the general feeling of the whole army, including its marshal. The men were alone in a hostile country, barely holding out, without instructions, support or clue what to do next.
It was in these circumstances that I returned to Oporto; there I found Marshal Soult completely immersed in his political combinations, and seemingly little concerned with military events; I wanted to ask him about this several times, but he always stopped me by telling me that in Portugal it was from his office that he was waging war.
It was hardly the time, but I was so accustomed to seeing him as a very superior genius that, from his apparent tranquillity, I still had the good faith, in this alarming crisis, to hope for a favourable outcome.
Here again I can’t help but wonder if, at the time, Saint-Chamans really saw an »alarming crisis«, or of he was writing in hindsight.
But his actions were becoming so ambiguous that we didn't know what to make of them ourselves, and one day when we were joking about it at the table of the aides-de-camp, all of us young men who liked to laugh, we distributed the great offices of his court among ourselves; I was immediately named grand equerry, because of all his aides-de-camp, I was the one who knew horses best and had served most in the cavalry; another was grand chamberlain, that one grand veneur, etc. Finally, we laughed and joked a lot about this subject, because despite what we saw and heard, none of us could imagine that such an absurd project as that of making himself king of Portugal had seriously entered the mind of the Marshal, that until then we had seen so sharp.
Here Saint-Chamans kind of confirms my suspicion that much of what he writes in his memoirs is argued in hindsight. At the time, the rumours apparently were there, but were seen as so ridiculous by everyone, including Saint-Chamans, that they merely served to amuse Soult’s (as usual very outspoken and exuberant) ADCs over supper. If they had truly taken the allegations serious, would they not have needed to take measures, to at least talk to Soult's chief-of-staff about it?
This table talk caused a stir in the army; the staff officers who were present, the officers on guard duty, even the servants, commented on it; I think that this conversation (1), reported to the Marshal by his associates, gave him food for thought, and a few days later he sent for me in the afternoon and took me for a walk with him in an orange garden where he sometimes went to relax from his work in the cabinet.
Footnote (1) seems to be a remark by Saint-Chamans himself that I am not quite sure how to translate:
On nous en fit un crime en France. - One turned this into a crime of us in France. (We were made to feel like criminals because of it? - By whom? Soult? Napoleon? And when? Most of the guys joking at that table would not return to France for years?)
We were alone, and he wasted no time in starting up a conversation: he had made the right choice, for I have never known how to make courtship at the expense of truth; he knew that better than anyone, and perhaps that was why he had chosen me.
He got straight to the point: - What do they say about me here?
- I've only been back a short time, but I'm hearing everywhere that you want to make yourself King of Portugal.
He looked at me fixedly, but without appearing surprised or angry; I remained cold and did not give him the explanation he seemed to be expecting, because I wanted to be questioned; that's the way to avoid saying more than you're being asked.
- I can imagine that, he continued. But why was I sent here? why was I put in the awful position I am in now? I can only get out of this by dividing the Portuguese amongst themselves, and to do that I am using the best political means in my power, because I have no money to throw at them.
- Do you think, Marshal, that these means will not be misinterpreted in the Tuileries, and that they will not try to frame you as a criminal?
- You're right, but I repeat that I have no other way of getting out of this, and the Emperor will do me justice.
After a few moments of silence, during which he seemed painfully agitated, he added:
- There will be many more cries in France when it is known that I tolerate the inhabitants of Oporto continuing their trade with the English, when people can say that I myself sell them wines, as I am currently trying to sell them some of those we took on our way here.
- There is no shortage of people in France, or even in Spain, I would say, who, in order to harm you, will represent these steps in very black colours.
- I'm expecting it, he continued in a sort of violent despair; I may have to put my head on the scaffold, but when I go up there, I'll have the consolation of telling myself that I've done all that I could to save 20,000 Frenchmen from the sad position to which they are reduced! Do what you must, come what may.
It was one of his favourite maxims, either because it was truly in his character, or because he wanted to persuade people that it was the rule of his conduct.
We had reached this point in our conversation, which could have become interesting, for he was ready to be trusting and I to talk, something that did not happen to both of us every day, and I was beginning a question about his military movements, to ask him why he was not setting off to cross the Minho again, when we were joined, at the bend in the path where we were walking, by General Ricard, who was coming towards us with a bundle of papers: These were urgent reports from the generals commanding our outposts at various points; the Marshal returned to give orders, and our conversation ended there; I never took it up again with him on this subject.
Which, my dear Saint-Chamans, is a shame.
The idea that I have formed of Marshal Soult's conduct in this circumstance has always been that he wanted to be asked to be king of Portugal by the inhabitants of the part of this country of which he was master; that then, having taken this first step, he would have solicited the votes of the army that he commanded; these would have been recorded in registers for each corps or staff, and he would then have placed all these documents before the Emperor, asking for his approval and making him aware that this was the only way to keep the Portuguese in the interests of France; perhaps in this way he would have succeeded, at least for a while, in his plans.
Whereas the idea that I get from this relation is that:
Saint-Chamans heard all the malicious rumours from Loison and Delaborde, but, being Saint-Chamans, did not think much about it.
Back at headquarters, Saint-Chamans immediately shared the stories he had heard with his fellow ADCs, who found them hilarious and joked endlessly - and loudly - about them during the all-night-party they held on account of Saint-Chamans's return.
An exasperated Soult, informed of what his aides had been up to this time, called for Saint-Chamans (whom he genuinely liked) in order to set him straight, but was interrupted by daily events.
Some twenty years later, when Soult had thrown in with the July Monarchy and supported Louis Philippe, thus - in Saint-Chamans's mind - breaking his vows to Charles X and the older branch of the Bourbons, Saint-Chamans decided that Soult had been an ambitious egotist all along, and wrote his memoirs accordingly.
But that's me. As I said, I am hardly unbiased. It is, however, interesting that Saint-Chamans, despite this event, would not break off relations with his marshal. And also, that we have another ADC, who in his memoirs states just as clearly that all these rumours were bullshit. That aide would be Petiet - not always well-disposed towards Soult, but in this case ready to defend him against all accusations. But I have rarely seen Petiet's testimony taken into account.
Make of it what you want 😊
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Um. I think I just wrote a whole essay on Ninjago love triangles I'm so sorry.
Has anyone ever touched on the parallels that Ninjago draws with its two love triangles? Like. Nya and Misako, Jay and Wu, and Cole and Garmadon (as the love triangles are presented in canon). Like I know both love triangles were shoehorned in, blah blah blah, but I enjoy the trope shush.
So like both Misako and Nya (until her elemental powers were revealed to her) were both normal people who were stuck with all the cool elemental masters.
Jay and Wu were the usual "good guy" in accordance to how love triangles must work, that the person typically ends up with. Falls in line with the "young Wu was an absolute dumbass" hc (is it canon? idk-) as well as with both of them being a bit more romantic in nature (the awkward s1 date, and the sappy love letter)
And Cole and Garmadon are the "bad boy" alternative (once more in accordance to Love Triangle Rules, and possibly one of the main reasons the Nya Jay Cole love traingle does not work - Cole doesn't fit this), and they come in to disrupt the "endgame" couple. And character parallels are a bit more difficult to draw because Cole really doesn't fit this, but I suppose they could both be more subdued characters (compared to Jay and young Wu), as well as not very romantic in nature (Garmadon not writing his own sappy love letter (that we know of), Cole in general). Cole is definitely more level headed than Garmadon but still.
And then where the relationships diverge: The endgames. Because Misako actually went with the "bad boy" character, which from what I've seen doesn't happen often. That sort of character is typically there to add tension for the inevitable endgame, but Misako actually did choose Garmadon.
And Nya chose Jay, which does fall in line with the actual love triangle logistics.
I'm not good enough at analyzing things to pinpoint exactly what this means about the characters, if it were to mean anything at all. Like, is there technically a right choice? Is the "good" guy the right choice, and did Nya learn from Misako's errors? Did Misako make a specific error that Nya never even had to face? Did Nya make the wrong choice because she'd never considered anything else before? (Or are they different characters under different circumstances in which different choices were made, may the be good or bad?) And listen, I am well aware that the love triangle isn't good writing. I enjoy it because I am stupid. But if there was a point trying to be made, I think it's interesting.
Plus how it affects the relationships between the romantic rivals. Brothers and best friends, respectfully. Like, the rift that it creates between both groups, and the friendships that have the potential to be destroyed over romance- which is actually quite rare from what I've seen in these tropes. Typically the romantic rivals aren't so close? They know each other, of course, but rarely is their own relationship being compromised a focal point. And yeah, I know it's annoying to see romance being put on a pedestal above friendship, but it's also just interesting to me.
Like, Misako, and Wu and Garmadon's rivalry mattered so much to the two of them that years later, Wu got mad over the letter. Like, as adults, that affected them. And Jay and Cole being able to resolve it, and be friends despite it is also very cool to me.
And Wu being hung up on it shows the general lack of resolution that he got from that. He might have been waiting for a response for his letter, that he put all his heart into (to the point he forgot to sign it), only to find out, in a letter from Misako he had hoped would be for himself (or maybe one from his brother), that the two were together. Maybe that stung a bit, that Misako hadn't even mentioned his letter. Maybe he wondered about it, why she never mentioned it one bit. Maybe he put the pieces together, but brushed it aside as jealous speculation, in favor of trying to support his brother. Maybe that's why he got so angry when he found out.
And I think we can agree that it never really mattered as much to Cole as it did to Jay, which also makes for an interesting dynamic. Their friendship was strained more so from the rivalry than the romantic rivalry. Jay was super invested in it, and Cole probably just wanted things to go back to normal (maybe he was just competitive, or got carried away in general). And I think Jay and Cole's friendship being more important, and resolved first, is actually really cool. I really love that scene in season four, always have.
Not to mention Jay and Cole being separated for a long period of time between seasons 3 and 4, which let feelings, and misdirected anger and grief fester. At that point, it was a lot more than Nya.
Same with Wu and Garmadon, probably. Not so much canon evidence, but I can imagine that after so much, they got bitter over the whole thing, too. Wu did, at least.
Okay I think that's it? If anyone wants me to rant more about the ninjago love triangles I will do so gladly (clearly). Though I severely doubt there's a market for this. Pretty sure it's one of the least favorite writing decisions ever made in the show. That does not stop me though-
#ninjago#wu garmadon#ninjago garmadon#ninjago misako#nya ninjago#jay walker#cole ninjago#I cannot believe I wrote all of this#I hope this makes sense#please enjoy my senseless rant#I should write a oneshot about this or something actually#does this count on its own?#please someone else understand me and my stupid love for these idiots and their stupid love triangle please I swear it's not *that* bad#it might be that bad
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(I'm feeling nostalgic... so here is the first genuine lovey-dovey Grimmons thing I wrote. It fits into the larger plot of my story-line, with Simmons getting lots of Character Development by realizing his parents are awful, and also Church and Tex are back with the AI Fragments because I said so. For Grif and Simmons, I really wanted the moment when they finally connect to happen in a way that almost mirrors the first conversation with them we see. I also wanted to show that they're still annoying dorks who bicker, but now cuddling and kissing can happen. They're each affection-starved for different reasons, and co-dependent as heck, so now they can finally enjoy each other~)
Finally, he was done with the paperwork.
Under most circumstances, Simmons enjoyed paperwork; it was a methodical process that allowed him to both focus AND zone-out. He was also very good at organizing and filling-out forms. The best kind of work didn’t just keep you busy, it was also satisfying. Right now… he just wanted it to be over and done with. He actually SKIPPED a few things, just to make it go quicker. 10 years ago, this would have caused Simmons to have a flustered panic-attack. Heck, it would have bothered him to leave something mildly incomplete 5 years ago. Well, he wasn’t the same Simmons as 5, 10, or 15 years ago… past-Simmons was done, and today-Simmons had more important things to worry about.
He just wanted to go see Grif.
They had FINALLY gotten used to just being able to hang-out again, now that all the… (what words were there to describe what had happened with his family?)… DRAMA with his parents was over. Simmons still felt so embarrassed about it; he’d not only been stupid, but perfectly willing to be deceived and used… but could you blame a guy for being tricked, when the ones tricking him were his own mother and father, and the trick in question was making him think they finally loved him, after years of being neglected and rejected? Simmons certainly blamed himself, but his friends reminded him often that it hadn’t been all his fault. Finally, he could do more than just resent his parents. He could flatly hate them, and simply ignore them. They were both gone and out of his life now, and it was on HIS terms. He was done with them, and looking forward to being with his friends again, being with GRIF again… but then more stuff happened.
More stuff ALWAYS happened.
At least it hadn’t been too much stuff this time. Some evil jerks who wanted to scan the brains of soldiers, thus creating new AI fragments… oh, and the evil jerks were using really funky boot-leg equipment that killed whoever got scanned. Really bad, and certainly a major inconvenience (especially when Simmons and the rest of his group had gotten kid-napped to be forced into the scanning process), but it had been a fairly straight-forward thing to deal with. Which they did. None of them had died, mostly thanks to the fact that Church and Tex could still do their own AI trick, plus some help from the handful of other AIs that liked to hang out in Church’s head.
Sigma had helped Simmons… which was a little unnerving at first, but ultimately OK. Sigma hadn’t tried to take over his body or destroy his mind. It had actually been kinda cool, working with the AI… and the results had spoken for themselves; fighting for your life was indeed a great motivator, but Sigma had made Simmons dig deeper for the things he really wanted.
Being connected with Sigma had been the reason for the majority of the paperwork. People wanted to know what it had been like, how it had worked… and while that was a fascinating process (one Simmons would normally like to discuss at length), some of it had involved thoughts that were very… personal. It was nobody’s business but his. Sigma knew, because he had literally been in Simmons’ brain. Simmons wasn’t exactly trying to keep any of this a secret, but still; his thoughts, his feelings.
(It had been overwhelming, but also exhilarating, looking at the situation in simple terms, these people had taken him away from everything he wanted, they had taken him away from everything he DESERVED, and he wasn’t going to let them get away with it, he wasn’t going to be pushed around, he was going to PUSH BACK, he was going to survive this situation and nothing was going to stop him, because he was smart enough to solve this problem, but he was more than just smart, he was strong, he was determined, and he had nothing holding him back…)
First they had to deal with stupid problems caused by evil jerks, and THEN he had to deal with all that paperwork. Simmons blew through it (he was internally getting a kick out of how much this would have driven his previous self crazy), and only cared about ONE thing; finding Grif. They hadn’t been able to see each other or even talk for WEEKS. That was horrible all on its own, but now… it was different. He was different.
In his search for Grif, Simmons winds up running around the facility, asking everybody he meets if they’d seen “the Orange One” (they all knew who the Reds and Blues were, but not everybody had the names down). Simmons finally finds a Grif, but it is the OTHER Grif (the one who wouldn’t recognize ANYBODY by their colors).
“Kai!” he calls out to her and waves to get her attention.
She stops in the hallway, and seems to send out irritated vibes as Simmons jogs up to her.
“Hey, I’m looking for your brother… where is he? I thought he’d stick around when we were done answering all the questions about what happened, but he’s gone-”
“Yeah, he doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” she says in a defensive tone.
That throws Simmons way the heck off. He blinks inside his helmet and tries to process what he just heard.
“What? Wh-why?” he honestly has no clue.
“Uh, maybe because you’ve been making fun of him ever since you came back?” she’s crossed her arms now, looking beyond angry even without her expression showing.
“I… I haven’t been making fun of him! I mean, we joke with each other all the time, playful insults and stuff, but I haven’t even been doing THAT lately… seriously, what’s wrong? What did I do?”
“Oh please, ever since you figured out he actually meant it when he said…” she paused there, trailing off. Simmons knew what she meant. It was the ‘I love you’. Grif had finally told Simmons how he felt, and Simmons had… misunderstood. No, it had totally gone right over his head. Because, despite how smart he considered himself to be, Simmons also knew he could be a moron. “… you’ve been PICKING ON HIM! Now that you came back and figured out how he felt, you’ve been picking on him, and just- just being a total ass-hat about it! So guess what, he doesn’t want to talk to you!”
That didn’t just throw him for a loop… Simmons felt like somebody just tossed him off a building, and now he was free-falling, flipping through the air at terminal velocity.
“WHAT? NO!” he HAD to make her understand. “I wasn’t picking on him, or making fun of him! I- I was FLIRTING with him! I thought that… I just wanted him to know I felt the same way, but without it being a big deal? I thought if I did a big romantic confession or something, it would make him feel awkward… so I was just trying to, like… flirt? But in teasing way?”
“OH. MY. GOD.” Kai dropped her arms… and then raised them up again, shaking her hands in front of his visor. “You were trying to FLIRT? That was you FLIRTING?”
“Um, yes?”
“DUDE! HAVE YOU EVER EVEN FLIRTED BEFORE?”
“N-no… not really?” his voice has turned into a meek little squeak.
“SO WHY WOULD YOU TRY IT NOW?”
“I don’t know…” in retrospect, Simmons can now see how stupid this had been.
“This whole time, my brother just thought you were mocking him! And you were FLIRTING! He tells you he loves you, and you don’t get it, then he tries to get OVER you, and YOU decide to start flirting… I can’t believe it… I swear, you are BOTH so HOPELESS!” she groans, then takes a deep breath. “OK, listen up. He freaking CONFESSED to you, after being in love with you for like… at least 10 years. He’s not gonna take you seriously if keep trying to tease him. You need to be DIRECT. You need to be HONEST. You need to do a BIG ROMANTIC CONFESSION.”
She pointed down the hallway to her right, and gave Simmons a shove in that direction.
“He’s outside, on the look-out corner over there. Now go and tell my brother you’re in love with him BEFORE I KILL YOU! AND NOBODY WILL EVER FIND YOUR BODY!”
“Right! Got it! Going to fix this now!” he was fairly certain she COULD get away with murder if she wanted, but Simmons was more concerned with finding Grif to make the guy UNDERSTAND.
This whole time… Simmons had been calling him cute, and lover-boy… but Grif thought Simmons was mocking him. He must feel AWFUL. That hadn’t been his intention at all. Why were they so bad at this? Why couldn’t they ever be on the same damn page? The short answer was, they were BOTH morons.
Simmons sprinted down the hall, dodging random people on the way… if they knew why he was running, they’d probably think this was like a scene out of a rom-com, and he was trying to catch somebody at the airport. Well, that was almost right; he certainly felt like if he didn’t find Grif and talk to him IMMEDIATELY, this was going to be a lost cause. You can’t expect a person to keep waiting, hoping, for years and years and… it had already been long enough. Simmons might even be just barely too late right now. Oh NO, he had to find Grif, tell him truth, he had to FIX THIS!
He should have said something years ago… but in his defense, Simmons hadn’t realized what was happening. How could he? In the beginning, he hadn’t even LIKED Grif, and that was supposed to be first step when you actually fell in love with somebody, right? You like them. Grif and Simmons had a very rocky start. By the time Simmons DID start to like him, well… what was he supposed to think? This certainly wasn’t a conventional relationship. Not that Simmons had a lot of experience with ANY relationships at all; his home life with his family had been a nightmare. They didn’t love each other, not in a genuine and affectionate way, and they certainly didn’t love him. He never had any real friends. Most kids hated his guts, either because he was too much of a little smarty-pants or not smart ENOUGH. Whatever the reason, nobody liked him. He never dated anybody either… he knew what dating was supposed to look like, though. Simmons watched movies, he read books. He could occasionally see real people who were really in love (or at least seemed to be). He just never got to experience it himself. How was Simmons supposed to recognize that he was falling in love with somebody, when he had no personal frame of reference for it?
His relationship with Grif had always been weird, but it was THEIRS. It was just like that with them. Eventually, Simmons realized he liked Grif, and they were friends despite all the bickering (maybe even a little BECAUSE of the bickering)… and you DEFINITELY shouldn’t be having cutesy-thoughts about your friend. Simmons assumed there must have just been something wrong with him… and if he ever let Grif know, it would ruin the weird relationship they had. Grif wouldn’t want to hang out with him or talk to him anymore, which was the worst thing ever, because Simmons DID like having him as a friend, so what was wrong with him? Why did stupid thoughts keep popping into his head, and why… WHY… did he occasionally have DREAMS that went a LOT further than “cutesy”? You don’t dream about your friends like THAT. YOU JUST DON’T. Something was wrong with him, but it wasn’t his fault, he had no control over dumb stuff his brain did while he was unconscious, and if he just didn’t say anything, then it would be OK.
After the incident on Chorus, Simmons had thought the whole problem would just be solved; something had finally happened, something that was outside of his control, and so he didn’t have to worry about it. He didn’t need to come up with a reason or an excuse. Something had happened, and it had happened with Grif, and now… he could stop trying so hard to ignore it or explain it. The choice was out of his hands. No more pressure to make a decision. They could figure out what this meant TOGETHER, and things would be fine… except no, nothing EVER was that simple. They got caught (thankfully, not in the act. Enough time had passed for them to recover some composure... and their clothes), and Grif had been beyond embarrassed. That had been like a slap in the face to Simmons; Grif didn’t want to talk about it, or even think about it. It was just a crazy situation, caused by Tucker’s stupid sword, and it was pointless to dwell on it.
Simmons dwelled on it, because his brain couldn’t let things go… and yeah, it had hurt. He’d been rejected before. Many times. He basically expected it whenever he started talking to another person, regardless of who they were. Was he trying to make a friend? Was he trying to impress an authority figure? Was he trying to ask somebody out on a date? Nobody ever wanted him. Which wasn’t exactly fun, but he was used to it. Now Grif didn’t even want him. For a little while after Chorus, Simmons had been terrified that Grif wouldn’t want him at ALL, not even as a friend. The two of them had both been rejects TOGETHER, and somehow that made things OK. Grif was so chill, and Simmons was so up-tight... they cancelled each other out. Or maybe it was more like they complimented each other. They clashed too, oh YES, but no matter how often that clashing happened, they still stayed together. In the after-math of Chorus, that wasn't true anymore. This is what he’d been afraid of, doing something stupid that would ruin their relationship (and just what WAS their relationship, anyway?).
Then they had arrived on Iris, and things had gone back to normal… Simmons didn’t hesitate for one moment to fall back into their old routine of talking, bickering, and joking. That was good, that was safe. That was what he wanted. Except, part of him wanted something else. Part of him wanted to say more when they talked, part of him wanted to get closer, part of him wanted… he wasn’t even sure WHAT. He just wanted, and all that WANT was directed at Grif. Why? You don’t want stuff like that from your friend. Why did Simmons even want Grif at all? What was wrong with him? When Grif had "quit" the group, Simmons internally felt broken. He kept doing what he needed to do, because what other option did he have? Just curl up on the ground in a ball, and die? He felt like doing exactly that... and it wasn't FAIR, it wasn't fair that Grif could just push him away and not care, it wasn't fair that Grif didn't NEED him around the way Simmons needed Grif. Thankfully that hadn't lasted; Grif came back. Simmons should have done something right then, told him him something... just SOMETHING, to make Grif understand... but Simmons still didn't understand it himself. He didn't understand why he felt empty without Grif around...
Well, Simmons had finally figured it out; he had been falling in love with Grif as the years went by (it was so obvious and simple when you said it like that), and he was too much of a dink to see that for what it was. He’d never been in love before, or been able to see an up-close example of what love really was… just second-hand glimpses at other people from an emotional distance. He had never been able to relate to any of it. When Simmons found himself right there in middle of it happening, he had no clue… it was love. Love. When you like somebody, and want somebody, and NEED somebody, and have all kinds of cutesy-thoughts about somebody, and dreams that are on the more mature side of romantic about somebody… there is a fairly good chance that you love them. The evidence added up. Simmons already had one missed opportunity with Grif, he can’t lose him again.
He finds the doors that open up to the large look-out area… and there is Grif. Standing over by the railing, still in his armor. It feels good just SEEING him again. It feels good knowing Grif isn’t far away, out of reach… but Simmons can’t relax yet. He still has to talk to him, and he has to make it good. Because that’s his best friend over there, that’s his favorite person, that’s the man he’s in love with (oh damn, his stomach rolls at that thought, but not in a bad way, he’s just such a bundle of nerves). Simmons has to tell him all that, and make sure Grif knows it is TRUE.
“Grif, hey…” Simmons slows down, and catches his breath, walking up to the railing. “I’ve been… I’ve been looking for you. We need to talk…”
“Yeah, well… I don’t wanna talk to you…” he doesn’t just sound sulky or pouty. Grif sounds downright miserable.
“Grif… c’mon, please… we can always talk to each other,” Simmons is trying not to panic… he can’t stand the idea of NOT being able to talk to Grif, especially when Grif is RIGHT THERE.
“FINE, whatever… you talk. I don’t got nothing to say,”
Simmons was going to ignore the bad grammar for now. Priorities.
“Grif, I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t understand what you meant when you said you loved me…” he sees Grif shuffle and tense up at the mention of this. “I’m sorry you had to put up with me being so oblivious for such a long time. I’m sorry that when I finally figured it out, I started teasing you… I SWEAR, I wasn’t trying to make fun of you! I was… look, I’ve never actually dated anybody in my whole life. You know that… so I’m just- I’m BAD at this, but I was TRYING to flirt with you. Really!”
Grif turns away from him, muttering.
“Yeah, right…”
“Grif, no! I mean it! I was flirting with you, I just suck at it!” oh, Grif doesn’t believe him. That’s not good… OK, time to get real. “So… I’m just going to tell you how I feel, honestly. Alright? I love you, Grif…”
“No you don’t…”
“Uh, yes I do?”
"You don't,"
"I really DO?"
“NO! No you don’t! Why WOULD you?”
“Why would I… Grif, how could I NOT love you? I like talking to you more than anybody else I’ve ever known in my entire LIFE! You drive me crazy with how annoying you are, but you also make me laugh so much I forget about everything else! When I make YOU laugh, it's like I really accomplished something, because nobody else is as good at it as me! When I’m with you, I feel so stupid, but you also make me feel like I actually matter! Sometimes, I literally can’t stop thinking about you! You take over my head! A big portion of my life practically revolves around you!” Simmons was trying to step closer to him… but he just kept moving away. “Grif, you’re my best friend. You know exactly how irritating and weird I am, and you still want to be around me. I know all your bad habits, and I can’t imagine NOT being with you. No matter how I try to picture what I want in my life, you’re always there. You make me happy, and I want to be the person who makes YOU happy. If I’m not in goddamn love with you, then I don’t know WHAT the hell is going on!”
Simmons took a step toward him, and tried to put a hand on his shoulder. Grif shook him off.
“Grif, I-”
“No! Just stop it! You don’t… you DON’T…”
Simmons refused to give up. Maybe if this was just about Grif not feeling the same way, he could let it go… but that wasn’t what was happening; this was Grif being so used to feeling unwanted, he couldn’t accept the fact that Simmons was truly in love with him. Grif could do whatever he needed to do for himself, he could go ahead and move on if that was what he really wanted… but first, he had to KNOW. He had to know Simmons really MEANT IT. Simmons needs to do something… something direct, something that can’t possible be misinterpreted.
He reaches up and takes off his helmet, setting it down by his feet.
That done, Simmons reaches over and begins to take off Grif’s. At first, Grif doesn’t notice what is happening, then he tries to jump away… but Simmons has his hand on the clasps, and Grif can’t escape. The orange helmet comes off with a few little clicks, and Simmons places it down with his maroon one.
Grif turns his head down, and leans away… like he’s trying to hide his face. Simmons can see that parts of his cheeks are shining in the sunlight; at some point during this conversation, Grif had cried behind his visor. Maybe out of frustration, or simple sadness… but either way, he had cried because of Simmons. This almost makes Simmons lose his nerve, it nearly causes him to choke and freeze-up, but he reminds himself that this is something he WANTS to do, something he NEEDS to do.
“Grif, look at me… look at me…” his voice comes out soft, but certain. Quiet and gentle, but still calm.
Grif hears this, and he can’t NOT listen… because he doesn’t get to hear Simmons sound like that very often. He hears Simmons whine, and squawk, and screech, and babble all the time. He also hears Simmons laugh, and complain, and grumble, and joke a lot. This was different. There was something PLEADING in that tone, and Grif can’t say no. There was also something very CONFIDENT in that tone as well, and Grif can’t ignore it.
He looks up at Simmons, and it feels like too much; Grif has been trying to forget how he feels but now here is this face… Grif sees his eyes, his hair, the way his smile pulls just a little to one side, and it reminds Grif of a million other things. Every conversation they ever had, every time they had a petty argument over nothing, every time they cracked each other up until it felt like they would die, every time they really DID almost die but somehow survived. Grif sees the metal that frames one of his eyes, and part of his jawline… and that reminds Grif of the fact that they match. Grif has patches of skin that came from Simmons, and right now Simmons can see that too. He can see Grif’s face, Grif can see his, and Grif sees so much MORE; Grif sees everything he knows about Simmons, everything he hates about Simmons, everything he LOVES about Simmons, and it feels like too MUCH.
“I love you,” Simmons tells him, that same tone… soft, certain, quiet, gentle, calm… pleading and confident.
It hits Grif right then; Simmons knows exactly what he’s saying… and he means it. Grif’s heart doesn’t just skip a beat; he practically feels it shudder in his chest (and really, this heart came from Simmons, he literally has Simmons’ heart, and it must still be in cahoots with Simmons, because right now this heart is TORTURING him).
Before Grif can think about what to do or say in response, Simmons is tilting his head down. Still holding on to Grif's shoulders, ever-so-slightly pulling him closer. Now Grif can’t see his face anymore… it is too close, just a soft blur… he's blocking out the sun...
Simmons is kissing him.
Simmons had leaned down, until there was no more room between them, and very softly pressed his mouth against Grif’s… except it was a little more than that… Simmons had parted his lips, just slightly, and when they touched, his lips closed around Grif’s. Now Grif was really starting to notice the way this felt, the smooth curve of Simmons' lower lip, the warmth, it was so light and gentle… just barely a kiss, but ABSOLUTELY a kiss. Since when did this nerd know how to kiss? Who told him he could do that? Grif’s breath stalls, and he doesn’t trust himself to let it go… it’ll come out as a choked sob of relief, and that might turn into something else, like a full-on crying fit, so instead he just holds it and shuts his eyes.
After a moment, that both seems like a long time and yet too short, Simmons leans away… now Grif lets himself exhale, and it DOES sound shaky and choked, as if he’s never been kissed before, as if he’s never kissed Simmons before (but Grif himself had insisted that what happened on Chorus didn’t count, it hadn’t been “real”, they should just forget about it… this was entirely different than Chorus; this wasn’t in a dark closet, this was out in broad daylight. They couldn’t blame this on a magical sci-fi alien temple that turned your brain off and turned the rest of you ON. This was deliberate, this was intentional, this was REAL).
Grif blinks, seeing Simmons again; he looks relieved, like he’s finally done something that he NEEDED to do. His eyes are still closed, and Grif can hear him sigh softly… no ragged, strangled gasp from him. Well, that’s not fair. Grif can feel something inside himself, what most people would probably call “butterflies in your stomach”, it was also like static electricity sparking in his gut, and now HE needs to do something, because that kiss had NOT been long enough, he’s been thinking about kissing Simmons in the back of his mind for more than 10 years, and if they can just do this now, if they can just kiss each other, then… then Grif is going to get the most he can out of it.
Grif’s hands come up to grip the edges of Simmons’ armor, roughly pulling him back, the metal on their chests making a clunking noise. He also brings their faces together again, their lips touching again, and REALLY kisses Simmons. Grif can hear him make a startled little hum, but it is a pleasantly surprised noise, and it turns into a sigh of gratitude. Actually... it was in the neighborhood of sounding like a moan. Now that he’s not in a state of shock, Grif can actually kiss Simmons like he means it… and he DOES mean it. He presses his mouth against Simmons', firmly but tenderly, and shows Simmons how kissing works; you nod your head into the movements of your lips, as smoothly as possible, until it feels like you're both floating in the ocean, letting the waves roll you. That's how you kiss somebody... like a wave. The way Simmons responded was warm, welcoming... slowly nodding along, matching what Grif was doing, and it really was like being in the ocean, rising and falling with the waves...
Those butterflies Grif felt before have escaped from his stomach; now he feels that fluttering all over his body, down his legs, through his arms to the tips of his fingers, filling up his head. More than just little sparks of static… Grif has a whole thunderstorm inside him, and he knows what it is; the feeling of wanting somebody, needing them, all kinds of other sappy words… yearning, longing… and finally being able to just HAVE something with them, finally being able to give part of yourself to them, and they want it too… you BOTH want this, you want each other. You HAVE each other.
This was just a little kiss, no big deal… except it was, because it was SIMMONS, and Grif has been talking to him for years, standing next to him for years, thinking about him for years, and he has been holding himself back from doing anything even remotely similar to this. No matter how close they were physically, Grif still made sure there was enough distance between them to be safe, you could still call it “platonic”, no touching except the occasional punch in the arm or a short bro-hug. No matter how close they were emotionally, Grif still made sure not to get too deep about his feelings, never reveal how much he thought about Simmons or how often those thoughts were tinted with something romantic. As close as it was possible to get to somebody… without being TOO close.
Whatever line had been drawn in the proverbial sand to separate them, it had been crossed… and erased. Grif was now so close to Simmons, they were touching. Not just touching, KISSING. Grif was kissing Simmons. Simmons was kissing Grif. After years and years and YEARS, this was actually happening.
When the thunder storm finally seems to be over, when the butterflies finally seem to calm down, Grif eases his mouth away… and hears Simmons make a sound sort of like a quiet, uneven laugh. Not exactly his nervous giggle, and not quite his I’m-so-tired-that-everything-seems-funny chuckle. This sounded a lot more satisfied and breathless… and just a little bit needy, like he wanted more. This was a laugh just for Grif, because Grif had kissed it out of him. He wants to hear that again and again, kiss Simmons again and again.
“I love you, Grif…” Simmons tells him, pressing forehead gently against Grif’s, eyes still shut, his expression one of simple contentment.
“… I love you too, Simmons,” Grif replies, and it occurs to him that he can do that now; reply, say it back, or say it first and then hear the reply. He hears his own voice crack, he can’t help it.
Just a few minutes ago, Grif had been resigned to giving up on Simmons… he couldn’t stand being around the guy anymore. It was too painful. Impossible to be friends with somebody who thinks how you feel is just a big joke, and now Grif couldn’t even ignore it and pretend nothing had changed. EVERYTHING had changed. He hated it, and he was just so DONE dealing with Simmons. No more having conversations that didn’t go anywhere, no more wasting his time pining away like a stupid middle school kid with a crush. He was too old to feel like this. It was time to just move on…
NOW everything had changed again. Simmons had told him he felt the same way. Simmons had kissed him. Simmons was still clinging to him, still nuzzling his face against Grif’s, still being so affectionate… it could just be like this, always. From now on, when they’re standing around, one of them can reach out, and then they can hold each other. When they’re talking, bickering, laughing, they can lean in and kiss each other. They can do all of that… suddenly having all these options is overwhelming Grif, all these possibilities that aren’t just silly little love-sick fantasies anymore, but REALITY.
“Well… that only took us, what? 10, 12 years to figure out?” Simmons softly murmurs.
A laugh escapes Grif, making him shake, and Simmons as well.
“We might be stupid…” Grif leans away just enough to properly look at Simmons.
“Oh, we’re major idiots, no question!” Simmons agrees, opening his eyes, smile spreading across his face. Grif grins back at him, and without knowing it, they both think ‘I love making him smile’.
“You’re supposed to be the SMART one,” Grif tells him.
“Yeah, but I remember what I said? You MAKE me stupid. My braincells are allergic to you,”
That does it, Grif explodes into laughter, and has to bury his face into Simmons’ neck (he suddenly feels like he desperately needs to be right there, right in the little spot where the kevlar under-suit ends and he can see the exposed skin. Grif is lucky he’s already so close, because for a sec, he was practically frantic to get his face to that little spot), where he both hears and feels the vibrations of Simmons laughing right along with him.
“You c-can’t ever do this to me again, man…” Grif tries to catch his breath, and also not move his face away, because he feels pretty good right where he is (he’s gonna have to try cuddling this close to Simmons again sometime, when they don’t have layers of armor in the way. He’s gonna have to cuddle Simmons a LOT). “You can’t make feel like I don’t have a chance, and then give me hope, and then…”
“No, don’t worry. No more miscommunications,” Simmons promises, turning his face just a little bit so it is nestled in Grif’s hair (thinking to himself how nice it is… they just fit together like this, each of them fills up the space for the other. He's going to enjoy holding Grif when they're both wearing something more comfortable, no armor to ruin it). “And I won’t… I won’t keep teasing you anymore-”
“Well, y’know… maybe that’s not so bad after all,” Grif mumbles in a weak attempt to sound nonchalant.
“What? Grif, you were so upset about it! That’s why you were avoiding me!”
“Pfff, dude, that was waaay back-”
“Way back 11 minutes ago?!” it is impossible to take that grumpy tone seriously, because Simmons still has his arms wrapped around Grif’s body, and he still has his face in Grif’s hair.
“Yeah, way back then. That was when I thought you were saying that stuff sarcastically… but now I know you MEANT it. Now I know all those things you told me weren’t insults, they were COMPLIMENTS. You can keep that up, that’s fine with me…”
“Grif- you are so- you’re such an ass-backwards, contrary, son of a-”
“Oh, are you gonna talk dirty to me, too? That’s cool, I can get into that…” Grif feels Simmons squeeze him tighter, and for a few seconds worries if maybe he stepped too far and really made Simmons mad (which would be horrible, they were FINALLY getting somewhere, somewhere GOOD), but then he hears Simmons sputter and feels those vibrations against his face again; Simmons was laughing.
Grif grins against his neck, and waits for the laughter to come to a slow stop.
“Grif, do you remember what I said when I realized how you felt?” Simmons asks him, still out of breath from left-over giggles. “I asked you what you loved about me, right? Like, if you loved my laugh or my eyes? You never answered me… that’s why I started trying to flirt with you. I thought if I said what I loved about YOU, it would make it easier for you to say what you loved about ME,”
“Oh… OK, I can kinda see why you might have thought that would work,” Grif isn’t sure who messed up worse… they both should have known better.
“So?” Simmons asks.
“So… what?”
“SO, I’ve given you PLENTY of compliments…” Simmons prompts him.
“Ah, OK, um… so…” Grif reminds himself that he’s already said the most important thing, this was just the icing on the cake. “Yeah… you asked if I loved your laugh… and I do, but not just that. I really… I love your voice, I love the way you sound, I love the way you talk when you get all excited about something you care about, I love when you get all ticked-off and rant about something you hate, I love how you sound when you’re explaining something even when I don’t understand it, I love your- what’s it called, the way a person pronounces things, the- the something, the speaking rhythm? No, that's not it...”
“My speech pattern?” Simmons offers helpfully.
“YES, your speech pattern, see I love that too, when you know the words for stuff I forget about, and I love when you mess-up words like a dork, it's cute, and yeah I love your speech pattern, that’s why I fall asleep when we talk all night, not because you’re boring, but listening to you calms me down, and… FUCK, I did the thing where I can’t shut up again!” Grif can feel a small pressure on top of his head; he’s pretty sure that’s Simmons kissing him up there, and that makes him realize Simmons might like HIS speech pattern, too.
“Grif, if you think YOU like to hear compliments, you need to remember who the hell I am!” this makes them both laugh again, and it feels so surreal; having a stupid little argument that was really more fun that anything, while also being snuggled tightly together, with Grif basically kissing Simmons’ neck because his mouth kept touching that little area of skin, and Simmons basically kissing Grif through his hair… this was something they’d done a million times, but never like THIS. It starts to sink in with Grif that he CAN just do stuff like compliment Simmons, and call him cute... the guy was VERY susceptible to flattery. In fact, he ate it up.
“… Grif? When we have the chance, do you want to go out on a date? Like, an actual, real date?” Simmons asks him.
“Oh, hell YES I do,” Grif doesn’t even hesitate.
“Good. We’ve got a lot of wasted time to make up for… jeez, we could have been boyfriends years ago, what’s wrong us?” Simmons is resting his cheek on top of Grif’s head, rolling his eyes at how ridiculous this whole journey has been.
“I think we already established the fact that we’re major idiots…” Grif reminds him… then realizes something. “… boyfriends?”
“Yep,” Grif feels Simmons nod his head gently.
“I’m your boyfriend?”
“Yep,”
“Your MY boyfriend?”
“Yep,”
Years of not liking each other, then becoming friends, then accidentally falling in love but not doing anything about it, then Grif trying to finally tell him only for Simmons to miss his point, then feeling like Simmons was going to drift away forever… and a few minutes ago, Grif wanted to get Simmons out of his life. Now they were boyfriends. Just like that, everything had changed. If there WAS some kind of divine creator out there with a plan, they REALLY liked screwing with Grif.
“That sounds pretty good,” Grif admits, finally allowing himself to separate from Simmons (because now he doesn’t feel like he’ll somehow lose Simmons if they aren’t clinging together).
“It really does,” Simmons presses his lips to Grif’s forehead briefly (both of them having internal moments of glee at the realization that they can do that now; share casual little kisses… because they were boyfriends), and then bends his knees to pick up their helmets.
***
While all this was going on, Kai had been inside the building losing her mind.
She was sick and tired of always having to wait on the side-lines while her brother had some emotional break-down… if he had listened to her before when she gave him advice about his love life, all these problems would have been solved. Heck, if Dex actually had the nerve, he would probably be MARRIED to Simmons by now… but nooooo, he had to be so pathetic and ignore his feelings (and ignore the fact that Simmons was OBVIOUSLY just waiting for him to make the first move. Not that Simmons knew that’s what he was waiting for, because he was pathetic too). She was surprised he hadn’t died of dehydration, her bro was so thirsty and refused to take a sip even when there was a tall drink of water RIGHT THERE.
She finally couldn’t take it anymore. She had to go out there and see what was happening. If they were fighting or not talking properly, she was gonna walk up and smack them both!
Kai heads down the hallway, and starts to step out through the doors… but then catches herself.
The two of them are standing out there. She can’t hear what they’re saying, but from the way they’re turning their heads slightly, she can tell they are talking. It seems like a comfortable conversation, whatever it is. The whole scene looks like something typical for the two of them, except… they’re holding hands.
They’re standing out there, together, talking, and holding hands.
Kai has no clue what finally did it, who said what, how it happened, but LOOK!
She quickly steps back inside, letting the doors quietly close. Kai barely takes a few steps away from the door before she has to stop, her knees almost give-out on her, so she just pauses there in the hall for a moment, half-bent over, holds her hands up in triumphant fists, and lets out a long sound of pure happiness-
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
-because her brother was out there holding hands with somebody! Not just anybody, but the specific somebody he’s been madly in love with! She wouldn’t have to kill Simmons after all! Kai leaves, practically skipping back down the hall, letting the two of them have their romantic little moment out there. They deserved it. They deserved each other. They had certainly waited long enough for it.
Ooh, she had to start thinking about fun date-night ideas for them… and ask Donut to help her pick out cute matching outfits for them to wear… and… and… NO, WAIT! She still had to be patient; those dorks out there only JUST got together, and everybody who knows them was bound to freak out about it (Kai hadn’t even been there for the beginning of this long and nonsensical romance, and she was freaking out a little herself). Dex needed some time to enjoy himself in peace. She would wait for them to tell the others (and once Tucker knew, he was probably going to start planning their wedding… if he hasn’t already). THEN she would start giving them dating suggestions~
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ok just writing this here to get it out of my brain and before u say just log off of twitter don’t worry i have and i just want to get my thoughts out because i refuse to engage in discourse on twitter.com i like to just seethe in my mind :)
specifically what’s annoying me so much on twitter that i’ve seen for weeks now is the discourse about what is “good storytelling”.. certain people are talking about storytelling as if it is completely objective and in no way a matter of personal opinion (it is of course 100% personal opinion, that’s why a thousand people can believe a certain movie is amazing and there will always be another thousand saying it’s dogshit. PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT). a lot of the discourse/discussion is specifically regarding the eggs and the choices made by the bts team about their ongoing storyline and involvement in the server. the way quite a few people are talking is as if certain decisions made about the eggs will completely ruin the server/story. which is obviously a wild take. people are really caught up on the fact(?) that the eggs were only supposed to be a short event and that characters such as the code monster trying to kill them, and that the eggs are now only allowed two immortality totems is bad for some reason because it seems as if the admins just want the eggs to die and that they’re dragging it out too long, another criticism being the whole “nightmare/bad dream” thing where they have given lives back to the eggs due to them losing lives to certain glitches/unfair circumstances. meaning that to reconcile this in the storyline the characters will just refer to it as a nightmare that they had. what i think that these people are missing is that the eggs are SUPPOSED to be a challenge and that making them completely invincible would negate that fact. they’re criticizing the fact that the brazilians and french have gotten two new eggs despite the server/admins “wanting to kill them”. if the trend of one new language group per month keeps going, i honestly think the new group will also get their own egg because the eggs are a HUGE part of the lore and i think that the eggs being under attack is being misunderstood by so many people. whenever a new language group has arrived they’ve toned down the mobs so that they have a fighting chance and have a bit of time to get stronger. due to the discovery cellbit made at the end of the qsmp puzzle, it’s been determined that the code entity and the group it’s a part of is completely different/at odds with the federation so the idea that like.. a main goal of the admins is to kill off the eggs is not true. q!quackity wanting to create an economy and a powerful community Along with the federation would only serve to help protect the eggs and it’s clear that he knows much more about the lore that is unknown to us so far regarding his future plans. his economy/organized nation idea is clearly important for the overarching story because he is aware of future events that will take place (which yeah is kind of metagaming but i feel like it doesn’t apply to him because he is the creator and he’s been open abt keeping up with what everyone is doing while he’s offline/reading the wiki, watching their streams etc). he has also stated that what has happened on the server so far is just a FRACTION of what he has planned and that it’s only just started and that he plans to add a lot of other language groups as well as new members from established language groups. the eggs of course have been a huge part of the storyline so far but the idea that decisions regarding them, such as it being a CHALLENGE to keep them alive will make or break the server/storyline is ridiculous. and of course the admins are real people who have made mistakes which is only human, such as the unfair killing of multiple of the eggs that they have pardoned, such as ramón being killed in his house and pomme recently being one-shot killed with a weapon that was way too strong (their lives were of course returned, which proves that heartless/unfair slaughter is not their goal). the eggs also becoming “cracked” i think proves that there is an overarching storyline in mind for the eggs and that they have future lore planned for them if they survive up to a certain point. (regarding the dragon mom, etc).
idk the whole “objectively good/bad storytelling” thing is just laughable because it’s clearly uncomfortable for people to not have things go their way or for there to be uncertainty, angst, and challenge. stories don’t have to be conventional or predictable to be good. things certainly don’t have to be “fair” to be good. i think the belief that the egg “event” has supposedly gotten out of hand and that the admins just want them to die is baseless and shows a misunderstanding of both angst and the concept of challenge.
(((on a re-read i kind of implied above that the federation would help protect the eggs which i do not think is true but they certainly aren’t actively trying to hurt them like the code entity/group is)))
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Siege-o-ween ‘22, Day 6! 🏚️🩸
It is I again, dearest readers, with my seasonal offering of fic, prompted by @dualrainbow‘s annual Siege-o-ween event! My thanks goes out to the one source allowing me to force some writing out of myself - thank you for organising this, dearest mods 💝 My prompt was “there’s a body in his trunk, what do I do?” which immediately screams of mayhem, so who best to cause experience it but my chaotic recruits? (Recruitverse, spook and chaos, Rating T, ~6.5k words)
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“Do you think we’ll get to see a body?”, Shay asks apropos nothing into the middle of Gian’s and Jojo’s heated discussion over the benefits of wearing two different kinds of shoes.
“Unlikely”, Ivan speaks up, the simple motion of breathing in enough to press Jojo even further against the door of the tiny car. As it’s a British model, Shay was their only choice for a driver, meaning Gian as second tallest joined him in the front, which leaves the German squeezed in next to Ivan Ivanovic’s bulky frame in the middle and Valenti on the Russian’s other side, having a similarly uncomfortable time. “House was cleared out days ago. Sledge is just setting up safe house now.”
“That’s what Thatcher claimed, at least”, Valenti mutters, eyes glued to the navigation app. “Take a left here. I don’t see why they need all of us for a supply run.”
“Exactly!”, agrees Shay and switches on the right indicator. “It’s weird. And you even got your phone back for this.”
Jojo grimaces, not appreciating the reminder – Sledge must’ve suffered a bruised ego on a mission or something, judging by how he’s been hounding them recently, a vendetta which culminated in their phones getting confiscated for a week. It’s the fifth day now and Jojo is pretty sure at least ten people will assume he’s dead, even more will be convinced he’s ghosting them and leave quite unfriendly messages, and the backlog on all his dailies will be unmanageable.
“Left, Shay.”
“As scant as it is, I still harbour the hope they will involve us in their next endeavour and this happening turns out to be a briefing.”
“Yes! You’re right, who cares if we a see a body if it means we’ll get to create some”, Shay lets some of his latent psychopathy slip through (likely a manifestation of Brittany-related withdrawal) and makes a right turn.
“Hey! Left! I said – Shay, the other left! How do you not get lost in Hereford?!”
“He does. All the time”, Jojo cuts in helpfully, with Gian nodding. “It’s not a huge detour, is it?” He cranes his neck to glance at the smartphone but realises soon enough Ivanko is just too fucking wide to allow for any kind of wiggle room.
“I am trying to be as small as possible.”
“Great job with that, you’re sitting on half my leg”, Valenti barks at the poor Russian. “It’s a miracle you’re not fully in my lap right now. Left here, and I’m tapping your shoulder, Shay, so you know which direction to go, okay? This one. This is left.”
“Without knowing what to expect, somehow these woods appear to me the perfect hideout for a group of scoundrels”, Gian muses, eyeing the scenery flying past the window. They’re far out, on their way at first surrounded by nothing but empty fields and tiny huts, now past the tree line and rattling through badly-maintained roads while the twilight of the setting sun peeks through tall conifers. If Jojo’s current mood hadn’t defaulted to ‘generally annoyed’, he would probably feel a little… boxed in.
Well. Even more than by Ivanko’s frankly ridiculous physique.
“If you are so uncomfortable, you could sit on my lap.”
“What?! Under no circumstances, ever, would I do that. Why don’t you ask Jojo, huh?”
It’s obvious where this is going, and Jojo is not above taking the bait. He ignores the warning half-look he receives from over Gian’s shoulder and shoots back: “Because you’re a lot shorter than me. You’ll fit better.”
Before Valenti can explode in rage, their ever-harmonious American quickly offers: “We can switch places, if you prefer. I do not need the extra space.”
“Absolutely not, I’ll suffocate with you two back here!”, Jojo protests. “Why can’t I ride shotgun?”
“I could sit on your lap and we could try driving the car at the same time”, Shay suggests joyfully and for a brief moment, Jojo pays no attention to Valenti’s furious outburst and Ivan’s low rumbling voice and Gian’s attempted appeasement. Instead, he imagines putting his arms around a slender torso and his cheek against a warm back and closing his eyes, and just experiencing peace, a peace so soothing, so -
And then he spots something, something small by the side of the road, and shrieks at the top of his lungs: “DIANA!!”
Instantly, Shay slams on the brakes, causing at least two people to hit their heads on something as the vehicle screeches to a halt. Right next to a startled corgi.
“Not every corgi is Diana, you moron!”, Valenti snaps at him, rubbing his forehead.
“Well this one fucking is, I’d recognise her anywhere. Sweetie! Diana! Darling, here!”
The dog’s head whips up at the sound of his voice, and by then everyone must’ve noticed the tartan bandanna, because suddenly they’re all yelling at Valenti to open the door and snatch the precious pet so they can rescue her. Sledge probably brought her with him and she ran off and got herself lost.
Sighing, Valenti does as he’s told and half spills out of the car when he opens the door to pick up the most beautiful girl in the world, wagging her butt with excitement now that she’s recognised them. That’s when they hear the voice.
“Oi!”, someone yells, a figure jogging towards their car. “What are you doing?! That’s my dog! Fucking stop!”
It’s not Sledge. It’s not Maestro. In fact, it’s nobody they know, so they waste no time dragging the Frenchman back in, slamming the door shut and urging Shay to step on it. Which, to his credit, he immediately does.
“Who was that?”, Gian wants to know, seeming worried.
“Sounded like girl. Teenager. Sledge has no children, yes?”
But before anyone can reply, a loud bang makes them jump and forces a curse out of Ivan Ivanovic. Jojo whips around and has no trouble spotting the large crack in their rear window. “The bitch fucking threw a rock or something! Shay, stop, we have to get her. First dognapping, now vandalism?!”
“I do not think it is advisable -” Yet Shay cares not about Gian’s opinion, opting instead to perform another emergency stop, prompting even more cursing this time. There’s someone standing in the road, they can see her clearly now, and she does not flinch when the car whooshes backwards towards her. She’s still shouting at them.
“Give her back, she’s not yours! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
Valenti shoves the gently confused Diana into Ivanko’s hands who utters no protest when Jojo takes her off him, and then the spiel repeats once more: open the door, pick up the girl, drag her inside, close the door, keep driving. Except this time, their new passenger seems less inclined to comply.
“I’m gonna kill you! I’ll kill you all!”, she threatens, probably trying to flail wildly with little success – they’re four people on the back bench now and breathing is quickly becoming a luxury. Jojo’s sole focus is the fluffy animal in his arms and he’s shielding her with his life, only just managing to press out a quiet: “Get in his fucking lap, Valenti, so help you God!”
To expedite the process, Ivan simply unbuckles the Frenchman and pulls until he slips free, now wedged between the two front seats. The back bench breathes a collective sigh of relief.
“Would you please put on your seatbelt?”, Gian softly addresses the kicking and screaming teen.
“Shay, take a right here. Uh, I can’t reach – hey, can you stop yelling and tap his right shoulder?”
“What is wrong with you?!”
“You’re the one who stole a dog”, Shay accuses her right back and somehow, through sheer luck, actually makes the correct turn.
“No! You did! I don’t know who you are. Where the hell are we going anyway?” When she reaches for the phone, Valenti instinctively jerks away, causing the device to slip out of his hands. He juggles it for a few seconds while the girl tries to grab it herself, and Jojo figures there’s no reason to get involved when Ivanko is right there with his scarily accurate coordination and lightning reactions – only his arms are firmly wrapped around Valenti’s midriff and his cheek is pressed against his back (and wait a goddamn minute), so eventually, the phone plunges straight underneath Shay’s seat.
The two combatants dive after it, knocking their heads together and trying to kick each other’s shins, Valenti nearly folding in half until Ivan loosens his iron grip and allows him a more horizontal position, and Jojo decides that if Valenti accidentally kicks Diana, he’ll sink his teeth into Valenti’s calf.
“Oh! Over here!”, Gian suddenly calls and they all yelp when Shay jerks the steering wheel for a turn so sharp it could cut glass.
“There we are”, says Shay after he’s parked, sounding proud of himself and apparently oblivious to the mayhem in the back. If he looked into his rear-vision mirror, he’d be greeted with a friendly face, happily panting: Jojo is holding their precious cargo up so she wouldn’t get squished while simultaneously trying to get away from the boot right next to his face.
“Great”, mutters Valenti from somewhere beneath the seats.
.
After the seven of them have piled out of the car, they stand in awe before the building looming over them.
“If I ever had to describe a murder house”, Jojo grumbles, “this would be it.” Windows boarded up, the dilapidated house (which barely deserves that title) looks anything but welcoming, rotted wood groaning ominously in their direction. The only thing missing is some crows cawing from the gables. It’d be the perfect location for a Halloween party, cobwebs and spatters of reddish-brown here and there already included. Jojo is pretty sure it’s actual dried blood.
“This is Sledge’s car, right?” Shay points to the much nicer-looking vehicle next to where he parked their run-down rental, a hand-me-down provided by Rainbow for their current task.
To their surprise, it’s the girl who pipes up with a confident: “It is, yes.”
“You know him?”
She makes a face at Valenti. “Duh. Diana is his dog, of course I know him. He’s friends with my dad.”
Oh. Ohhhh. The five of them exchange a few glances, some of which reproachful, relieved or concerned. Looks like she didn’t kidnap Diana after all. “So… you were just walking her?”
Another eye-roll. Which, fair enough. “Yes. He let me take her for the day because he said it could be dangerous if she stayed. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Who are you again?”
Gian’s politeness kicks in and he introduces all of them with their full names and nicknames before Valenti can stop him – might not be the best idea to let her know who exactly it was who stole her off the street, but Sledge would find out anyway. He always finds out. “And what might your name be?”
She hesitates for a second before replying: “Lottie. Just call me Lottie.”
“That’s an odd name”, Shay blurts out without a filter, as usual, earning him a hard stare and a: “Like you lads can talk.”
“Let us meet with Sledge and get this over with.” Ivan Ivanovic, ever fearless, is the first to approach the foreboding structure, the corgi happily trotting after him. They have no real choice but to follow.
The briefing they received was short: Rainbow wanted to install a safehouse not too far from the base and Sledge had been assigned the task of ensuring it’s liveable as well as properly stocked and secured. After not having heard from him in a day, Thatcher assumed he’d need some supplies and instructed them to check on the Scotsman and deliver some cans of food, ammunition and other paraphernalia. So now they’re here. In this creepy-ass house.
Jojo jumps when the first step up to the porch creaks loudly under his foot and receives a jab in the side by Valenti, frowning at him. “Don’t be dramatic”, the Frenchman grumbles at him.
“You don’t think this whole thing is kinda weird? It’s not like Sledge to cut contact. There are no fresh tyre tracks, so he hasn’t moved his car recently. And then what the girl said – it’d be dangerous?”
“My name is Lottie.”
He’s about to snap back just as he enters the house proper, and simply falls silent entirely. What little sunlight is left crawls through badly-covered windows and holes in the ceiling, illuminating what can only be described as a scene of battle. Furniture is overturned, broken and splintered, carpets ripped, walls riddled with holes of various sizes. Except for a multitude of foot- and handprints as well as some wiped-down areas, everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. One room over, the ceiling is largely missing so Jojo catches sight of parts of the roof itself.
And, most alarmingly, there’s more blood. This time, it’s not old at all, looks pretty fresh actually, pooling and dripping through the cracks at the top of the stairs to the lower floor – and if Jojo is not mistaken, there are marks on the steps as if something (or someone?) had been dragged down into the basement.
“Looks like this is a murder house”, Lottie says what they’re all thinking.
“Jesus fucking Christ”, is Jojo’s contribution, and Gian: “Language!”
It’s Shay, of course, who decides to yell for Sledge at the top of his lungs, which is the moment Ivanko decides that no, they’re not actually going to stay here, thank you very much. He bodily pushes them back out the door and announces: “This is situation. We will bring girl to safety and then ask Thatcher for further orders.”
“She’s safest with us”, claims Valenti and sounds like he genuinely believes himself. Everyone ignores Lottie’s quiet: “I can defend myself, you know.”
“If he’s not in the house, where could he be?”
Jojo doesn’t know whether to hug Shay in moral support or enlighten him on the possibility that Sledge might be getting gutted as they speak. “We should still check it out. She can wait outside with Diana while we clear the house. Maybe this is nothing.” Despite his words, he can feel his adrenaline level rising by the second. The blood looked real. There’s definitely something going on here.
“Waiting outside may not be the safe option”, Gian cuts in, face pale. He’s pointing towards their car and it takes them a moment to spot it, but he’s right: all four tyres are flat. “We barely turned our backs. There might be someone watching us.”
Instinctively, they move to surround the two civilians (though they have to keep shifting legs to stop Diana from wandering outside their protective circle), brows furrowed. All levity is gone and Jojo catches himself checking his belt for a gun. Neither of them brought one, of course, why would they need it? “Anyone armed? We should’ve insisted on a bloody pistol at least. Fuck.”
Heads shaking all around. “I have pocket knife”, Ivanko shrugs. “But my fist is deadlier than tiny blade.”
“You think Sledge brought something? We could smash a window.”
The Russian offers Valenti an amused half-smile. “I think his wrath would be worse than whatever is going on here. But good idea about his car, I can probably open trunk.” He trudges over to the vehicle in question, making the rest of them huddle even closer, and kneels down to fiddle with something. Jojo has picked a few locks in his life though he can’t for the life of him imagine how this is supposed to work – and a few seconds later, the trunk opens with a quiet click.
“Woah”, comes from the girl in their midst.
Wordlessly, Ivan Ivanovic blinks at the contents of Sledge’s trunk, not visible from where they’re standing. Valenti lets out an impatient: “And?!”
Still refusing to respond, the Russian rises to his feet, brows raised. And just stands there. This doesn’t bode well.
“Nothing of use”, he finally says, voice suspiciously even.
“Oh for the love of -” Valenti breaks away from the group and narrowly stops Ivanko from closing the tailgate. The two of them stand there, staring at whatever it is – Ivan stoic, Valenti with his mouth open.
Sighing, Shay is the next to join them, and he at least uses his words: “Huh. There’s a body in Sledge’s trunk.”
Oh shit.
Gian opens his mouth just as a bullet hits the ground next to their feet, and Valenti’s frantic inside is wholly unnecessary seeing as they act faster than their brains can catch up: Jojo grabs Diana off the floor and dives after Gian who’s dragging Lottie with him, and two seconds later they’re all back in the menacing murder mansion, breathing hard and trying not to let it show too much.
“Search for weapons and a good hiding spot, I’ll call Thatcher.” Valenti is already accessing his speed dial while Gian assures an increasingly worried Lottie to remain calm. The dog in Jojo’s arms is struggling, yet he will not put her back down and endanger her precious life.
Shay and Ivan spread out, the Irishman rifling through the ceiling-less room while the other man checks out the kitchen, everyone side-eyeing the stairs in case they get unexpected company.
“Come on, pick up, old man”, mutters Valenti as he wanders around, phone glued to his ear. Jojo can hear the dial tone and has never cursed Thatcher for his refusal to properly use smartphones more. “Shay, make sure you don’t -”, and then he’s suddenly cut off by a shriek and metal rattling, and the last thing Jojo sees of Valenti is the look of terror in his face as he suddenly falls upwards. Almost in slow-motion, their only phone, their lifeline is yanked from him by gravity, and though Shay, the hero, dives towards it, he’s too slow. The device clatters to the ground and slips through the floorboards probably straight into the basement.
When Jojo steps into the large room with its impossibly high ceiling, it’s immediately obvious what happened: someone must’ve placed a trap of some sorts, a thick chain is wrapped around both of Valenti’s legs and he’s dangling in the air several metres above ground, struggling to break free.
“What the fuck”, says Jojo. Not even Gian complains about the cursing this time.
.
“We cannot rule out possibility whoever is here wants to harm…” Ivan indicates a half circle for ‘rainbow’ so Lottie doesn’t hear anything she’s not supposed to hear, and presumably because it’s funny when Shay is lagging behind in the conversation.
“Personally, I believe the likelihood to be low. This location has yet to be associated with us.”
“Yeah”, Jojo agrees with Gian, “I don’t think that’s it.”
“Oh, you mean Rainbow?”, Shay chimes in, beaming. “Well, we can ask Sledge when we find him. Right now, we should get the phone back and untie Valenti.”
Neither of them dared to ask whether the body in Sledge’s car was the man himself, but Shay’s unshakeable optimism is contagious – he saw it and seems to be wholly convinced their superior is somewhere in the building, so it couldn’t have been him who’s dead. Right?
Right.
“Good plan.” Valenti’s voice is strained as he dangles from the ceiling, having given up and letting his arms hang down like leaves from a sad plant. “Two of you should go into the murder basement to see whether you can find my phone. The other two take Lottie and Diana and come upstairs to help me. If there’s a crazy axe murderer hiding anywhere, it’ll be downstairs with all the blood, so you should be fine up here.”
“Reassuring”, mutters Jojo. “I’m not letting her out of my sight, so I’ll go up. Hang in there.”
“I shall do the same.”
“We will check out basement then. I found no useful weapon but chair leg, so it will have to do.”
It becomes clear pretty quickly that whereas Jojo is concerned with Diana’s safety, Gian was actually talking about the girl for some reason which suits Jojo just fine. He’s been training his body for exactly two purposes: impress hot guys and carry dogs, and one out of two is not bad. They all wish each other luck before they split up and the second Jojo sets a foot on the stairs leading to the top floor, he runs face first into some spider webs.
“Relax, this is nothing I haven’t heard from my dad before”, Lottie assures Gian who looks like he wants to stuff something in Jojo’s mouth to keep him from cursing any more.
They fall silent at an odd noise coming from their destination and exchange a few warning glances. No doubt if anyone else is occupying the house, they’ll be well aware of the recruits’ presence by now yet have decided not to show themselves for what can only be assumed a sinister reason. Gian is leading them with Lottie following closely behind, Jojo at the back – whichever direction they might be attacked from, the teen won’t be the first to suffer.
Wallpaper is peeling off revealing discoloured stone, stirred-up dust covers the insides of their lungs and an unpleasant smell is creeping into their nostrils. There are footprints of various sizes which betray more than one person who’s been here. Still no sign of Sledge. A narrow corridor greets them upstairs with an uncomfortable amount of entryways branching off, gaping frames without doors. Without speaking, Jojo passes the now well-behaved corgi to Lottie, in case he’ll need his hands, and they sneak forward peeking into each room they pass. It’s a similar chaos to downstairs and Jojo idly wonders whether Sledge has actually done anything with this place yet.
A muffled scream comes from downstairs, causing them to twitch, nerves raw, fingers itching to do something. Gian shakes his head: didn’t sound like a signal of distress, probably an involuntary reaction to something. If they needed help in the basement, it would’ve sounded differently and Jojo nods in agreement. Still, he doesn’t like it, not one bit. The hairs on the back of his neck are standing up and he expects something to happen very soon. He makes sure they keep away from windows as much as they can; who knows who shot at them outside, whether it was at least two people making sure their tyres were flat so they couldn’t leave, who might be trying to pick them off one by one.
It’s quiet again. Gian is visibly tense, as is Lottie who seems to be petting Diana to calm herself down instead of the good-natured dog.
The hallway makes an L shape and as they round the corner, they’re confronted with a reassuring sight at the end of it: though the floor is missing towards the back, they do see the upside down Valenti greeting them with overt relief. Jojo notes that he can’t spot where the chain is fastened keeping the Frenchman suspended, however, so they’ll have to take a closer look.
On the way to their helpless friend, they peek into the last remaining door yet only spot a large pile-up of furniture and deem it safe enough – they don’t have any time to waste, the earlier they’re out of here, the better. Cautiously, Gian inches towards the ripped-up floor from where it’s a drop straight down into the living room, and inspects the metal wrapped around Valenti’s calves. It soon becomes obvious that he’s too far away to reach him – and before either of them can decide what to do next, a sudden noise freezes Jojo’s blood in his veins.
This time, it does sound like a scream for help. And it’s coming from none other than Shay.
“Fuck”, he hisses and turns around; screw Valenti, he’s not in immediate danger as it is, and he suddenly hears the footsteps, only much too late – fast, heavy footsteps, and then he collides with what might as well have been a solid wall. Stumbling back, Jojo can’t believe his eyes: a massive figure has emerged from the one room they couldn’t check properly, of course, he should’ve known it’d bite him in the ass. It’s a mountain of a man, clad in blood-stained clothes with a hockey mask and a fucking chainsaw and if this sight hadn’t instantly activated Jojo’s fight-or-flight response, he’d have laughed at how cliché it is.
Right now, he doesn’t think it’s cliché. He thinks he may actually die today.
With an animalistic roar, the man revs up the chainsaw and begins advancing towards them, and all Jojo can think about is how to get Diana out of here, and Lottie too maybe, and that he can’t remember what the last thing he said to Shay was. Charging a giant with a functioning chainsaw must be about the stupidest thing he’s ever done, but it’s the only chance he’ll get: if he uses the element of surprise, the others might be able to escape.
Valenti is yelling something as is Gian, yet Jojo hears nothing, ducks under the first, slow swipe of the deadly weapon and grabs the man’s arm, tries to slam him against the wall and barely manages to even stumble him. A furious growl comes from the throat of the beast but it’s enough time for Lottie to slip past – Gian must’ve had a hand in her instant escape, or she’s much braver than she ought to be. Once she’s out of Jojo’s peripheral vision, he’s kneed in the side and nearly goes down from the blow before another hand joins his own in pinning the murderer in place.
“Go”, Gian pants, “Jojo, go.”
He doesn’t have to say it again. Together, they shove their attacker back and book it, Jojo in front nearly slipping on bits of loose cardboard or plaster or whatever strewn around, not looking back to see whether they’re being pursued. He’s sure of it anyway. He rushes down the stairs just as he hears another blood-curdling scream behind him. He can’t go back. Civilians first, always, they know the risk.
Always.
Turning a corner, once again he runs into someone and takes a second to recognise Shay who looks much worse for wear and roughly how Jojo feels right now: terrified, dishevelled, wide-eyed. “Ivanko’s gone”, he stammers, barely intelligible, “he just – he fell down a hole and I couldn’t – I don’t know what happened, I heard you guys and ran -”
Jojo spots Lottie right behind Shay, which is something at least. Diana wags her tail slightly. For a second, Jojo’s vision almost goes black with how incredibly relieved he is to see his best friend alive. “Do you have the phone?”
Shay holds up the device, screen cracked. “Still works. Can we go outside? We could get shot at.”
Good point. Jojo’s mind is racing. There’s no world in which he’s subjecting a teenaged girl to the dangers of a psychopath with a chainsaw, but it’s also unthinkable to run outside when there’s the threat of getting gunned down instead. “I’ll go first. If I’m fine, you follow after me. I saw another cabin on the way here, if we make it there and call for help, we should be good.”
“What about the others?”
A simple shake of the head. Too risky. They can come back once they’re sure Diana and Lottie are safe. Shay accepts his judgement with a curt nod and hurries after the German, stopping a bit short of the front door, eyes glued to where their attacker might emerge. Jojo takes a deep breath, slams the door open and -
And, uh.
… and nearly hurts himself trying to make sense of what he’s seeing.
Two smug grins are directed at him, plastered on familiar faces of familiar figures leaning against the car that brought them here. “Hi”, says Smoke, and winks at him.
Jojo doesn’t get it immediately, the adrenaline rush too powerful, so he blurts out: “Be fucking careful, you loons, you could get shot!”
“Or murdered by a crazy man with a chainsaw?”, Mute replies, joyfully, and it’s slowly sinking in.
He can’t fucking believe these guys. “Wh – are you serious? Did you do this?!”
“That’ll teach you to mess with our equipment.”
And it looks like Smoke would have more to say, except Lottie appears in the doorway and squeaks out a delighted: “Dad!”
It takes about one second after catching his daughter in his arms for Smoke to switch from surprised to deeply, utterly homicidal and Jojo connects the dots much too late, once more.
Of course. He knows Smoke’s daughter is called Charlie, which is likely shortened from Charlotte, which can also be shortened to Lottie, and she even said her dad is friends with Sledge. It makes so much sense now. No wonder she got permission to walk Diana.
No wonder Smoke is staring at him like he wants to use Jojo’s guts as Halloween decorations now. They kidnapped his daughter and brought her straight to a murder mansion. This is worse than the time they accidentally kidnapped Diana. This is so much worse.
Looks like today will be the day Jojo dies after all.
Behind him, Shay speaks up, confused: “Wait, if they’re all fine, whose body is in Sledge’s trunk then?”
~*~
Thatcher looks so fucking done.
His office is absolutely crowded as it’s not meant to hold ten people, so they’re all awkwardly seated in random places. There’s a dead house plant tickling Jojo’s neck but he’s not going to risk complaining. Thatcher’s threat of tossing his tea at the first person who speaks without permission does not feel like an empty one, seeing as he’s shaking with silent rage so much that he’s nearly spilling his Twinings. He takes a sip, places the cup on his overflowing desk, and fixes them with a level stare, one by one. The recruits first, then Smoke and Mute, then Sledge (and Jojo has never witnessed the man look this sheepish before), and Charlie gets a grim half-smile which she reciprocates to the best of her abilities. Though she’s unlikely to receive a bollocking, even she fidgets with something, clearly unnerved. Thatcher’s presence does that to everyone, especially when he’s mad.
And he’s very mad.
“I don’t even bloody care what happened”, he starts and silences several people with a single look as soon as they open their mouths. “But you idiots seem to, so it’s my duty to clear it up. What even led to this nonsense?”
Sledge is the first to speak up, voice even and composed. He seems ready to face judgement. “I was told the recruits had faked their time sheets. Recorded all kinds of exercises without ever doing them.”
“We didn’t!”, Valenti explodes instantly. “What?! We’d never do that! We have never done that!!”
“Shut up, Jean. And why did you not come to me to talk about it? That’s a serious accusation and, if true, a serious offence.”
The Scotsman hesitates. “We would have had to throw them out.”
Jojo’s jaw drops. Not because it’d be news to him that a misdemeanour like that could be the end of their career in Rainbow, no, that part is crystal clear, but – if he understands correctly, the implication is -
“And you wanted to avoid that?”
“I wanted to avoid that, aye.”
By now, all five recruits are gaping at their superior in disbelief. With how much Sledge has complained about them in the past, how they feel like he’s picking on them specifically, this is absolutely unthinkable. He wanted to protect them.
“I thought we could scare some sense into them. A wake-up call, if you will.”
Thatcher is rubbing his temple. “I will not, thank you very much. Besides, that would be a show of so much favouritism. And what do we not do, Seamus?”
“Show favouritism.” Sledge’s voice is small now, much smaller than his imposing physique. Looking back, Jojo doesn’t know why he didn’t recognise him right away. It was probably the chainsaw which hindered coherent thought in the moment. “Also, we do not threaten our recruits with running chainsaws.”
“Astute. James, Mark, is that what you told Seamus because you know he’s got a soft spot for these bellends?” The two nod wordlessly. “Is it actually true?” They shake their heads. Thatcher sighs. “So what made you set this all up? Revenge for what?”
“They broke one of Mark’s jammers and buried it in the woods so we wouldn’t find out”, Smoke replies, pouting. “And they used my guns without permission. Didn’t even clean them. Plus they stole one of my babes! I still don’t know where it is.”
“We didn’t do that either, that wasn’t us! The jammer was Kapkan, the guns was Jacob Griffin-”
“Shut your gob, Jean! If you can’t wait your turn -”
“He’s right though.” Mute shrugs. “I checked the cams earlier. It wasn’t even them.”
At this, Valenti jumps up from his chair, clearly ready to sling some choice words at the two SAS operators, and only with difficulty does Gian manage to gently drag him back down. They’re all still reeling from the revelation that Sledge actually cares about them, now it turns out they’re not even in the wrong. Even better, they are the ones who were wronged! This has never happened before so neither of them knows how to deal with it: Ivanko is frowning in incredulity, Gian accepts the truth with a stoic expression (probably happy to take the high road), Shay is still open-mouthed and Valenti seethes silently. Jojo is just amazed at this turn of events. They’re going to milk this forever.
“You’re telling me you traumatised these poor lads for no reason?”, asks Thatcher, now dangerously quiet. “Them, and Charlie as well?”
“Wait, wait, wait”, Smoke cuts in angrily, “they endangered her. After randomly kidnapping her. If we’d known she was there, we obviously wouldn’t have -”
“But you did.”
“- besides, they completely fell apart, left three of them for dead, that’s great teamwork -”
“I think it’s your turn”, Thatcher finally addresses the recruits. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
The five of them look at each other and then begin recounting the events from the previous day, trying not to embellish or put themselves in a better light than appropriate – each of them re-tells part of their story, adding to each other where necessary, while Charlie nods along and confirms their version.
It’s extremely satisfying to watch Smoke’s lips get thinner by the second while his better half shoots him annoyed looks.
“They didn’t make her feel very safe though”, Smoke tries one last time. “She gave them the name she’s only supposed to give suspicious people so I know something’s wrong.”
“Who do you think made me feel safer, the blokes literally ready to die for me, or Seamus attacking us like Jason Voorhees?”, his daughter snaps at him.
“Charlie, I’m really sorry”, Sledge mutters and looks it, too. She gives him a brief nod of acknowledgement.
“I don’t think I need to tell you that picking up random children off the street is wholly unacceptable and if these were different circumstances, you’d be getting a right bollocking for that. But since what the lads did to you was so unbelievably out of line, you get to choose their punishment. Unless you gloat about it, Jean, then you lose that privilege immediately.”
This is Christmas come early. Smoke might as well have bitten into a lemon, his face is so sour, and Mute rolls his eyes resignedly, but they know better than to contradict Thatcher on this. They made him an unknowing participant, which is likely why he’s being so strict with them – plus he seems to have a soft spot for Charlie. And Jojo is beginning to understand why.
Valenti turns to the other four and whispers: “I have an idea. Do you trust me?”
“Do you still trust us?”, Jojo shoots back. “We left you to die while hanging from the ceiling.”
“I mean, it was uncomfortable, but you did what you had to.”
Shay beams at him, Gian seems to share his sentiment, and even Ivan Ivanovic nods. There’s a warmth spreading in Jojo’s chest he usually experiences when he’s drunk and looking at his found family for a bit too long. “Yeah. We trust you. Go ahead.”
Triumphant, Valenti turns to a bored Thatcher and announces: “We’ll take an IOU.”
“Fuck”, grumbles Smoke right before Mute elbows him in the side, probably not for the cursing but rather because all this must’ve been his idea.
Jojo understands immediately: this is so much better than anything specific – the three SAS ops must now live in fear that at any moment, they could invoke their IOU for any reason. It’s a blank cheque. It’s nothing but pure power over the chaotic duo and even Sledge himself. It’s brilliant.
“Sure, whatever.” Thatcher waves them aside. “And you three better honour it, you hear me? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if they refuse, you come to me, Jean. Alright?” Either resigned or gleeful nods all around, so Thatcher informs them: “And now you all better fuck off before the caffeine wears off.”
Together, they squeeze into the corridor outside with Smoke staring daggers at them, ignoring his daughter doing the same at him. Sledge, who seems to have aged by about a decade, heaves a deep sigh. “Reckon I owe you lads a drink tonight, on me.”
“We gladly accept”, Gian speaks what they’re all thinking. “Thank you for the kind offer.”
“Thank you anyway”, Ivanko adds, “that was most fun I’ve had in weeks.”
Behind them, Smoke, Mute and Charlie are trudging off, the little gremlin still ranting about something until Mute simply leans down and silences him with a smooch. Jojo quickly turns away lest the yearning befalls him again. It seeks him out more frequently these days.
As if on cue, Shay asks: “But what about the body? I still don’t know who that was.”
“Shay, dearest, it was fake”, Jojo informs him as they start walking down the hallway. “Everything was fake. Didn’t you get that?”
“Actually, the body was real”, says Sledge with amusement in his voice and just as the other four erupt into chatty disbelief, Jojo wonders how he managed to even get this job in the first place.
Not that he’d trade it for anything. Not at all.
#rainbow six siege#fanfic#oneshot#recruitverse#smoke#mute#smoke/mute#charlie#sledge#thatcher#diana#I threw my lovelies into this together#this takes place before the most recent recruitverse pieces#but it's pretty much a standalone
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i have been meaning to ask you about your ocs as you talk about them but i don't really know much about them if you feel like give me an introduction to them
Hi! Sure :)
I have a lot of OCs so I'm just going to cover the ones I mention here a lot, and group them by story/project. The titles are not final. Tbh I haven't written in a while and some of these I haven't worked on in a few years, but they're always in heart anyway!
CW: mentions of child abuse, murder, violence
Thunderbride (AKA the pirate novel)
Rahlen
A pirate! In fact, she's the captain of her own ship, and known for being dangerous and ruthless.
She is holding a lot of anger about the way she was brought up
She's very abrasive, bossy, unpredictable and outright violent... But she's also very very intelligent and has a protective streak that she won't admit
I would say the thing that drives her the most is the need for control
Which is unfortunate because the story starts with her being betrayed by her crew, thrown in a cell, completely out of her depth and forced to rely on a bunch of nerds people who are not her first choice for a crew to get her ship back
Celis
One of said nerds
A blood witch. Also part of a marginalized community of magic users in this world
It's a family business and her mom and grandma are A Lot
Twenty-something year old living at home syndrome (so going insane) (or at least feels suffocated and confused)
Very talented but also very insecure. She's slowly learning not to take shit from others
Recently she realised her family's tactics of playing the tame and obedient minority will not protect her from harm
When her childhood... friend? weird mean kid who was her neighbor for a summer and disappeared without a trace? crush? shows up in her room half dead and asks her to come with her on a crazy adventure. Well. She just goes for it
Brazen Palace (series of spy/ gang novellas)
(but really they're about my girls and their relationship) (also there's some diplomacy going on)
Anika
A spy? Information thief? Secret operations doer? Occasional thug? Basically she made a career out of being good at climbing and shooting and sneaking places
Immigrated as a child to the country where the story takes place and lost her mother. She ended up under the wing of a gang leader who taught her everything she knows but also had a freakish amount of control over her life and eventually discarded her for money :/
She ends up working for another, very different boss. Suddenly she has more freedom than ever, but her jobs become more dangerous, her new gang hates her, and she accidentally killed her new roommate's best friend. oops
But really despite her bleak circumstances she's a huge goof ball and a very kind and loving (if cynical at first) person. She shows affection by being annoying and once she decides she likes you she will go very far to serve you
more things you should know about her: very nosey, always sleepy, and super tall
Henlie
Anika's new roommate, who is very upset and angry about having to share a room with the killer of her best friend. But their boss is adamant about it for some reason (spoiler: the reason is emotional manipulation)
Her job in the gang is unclear at first. She is very good at costume making, makeup, disguises and acting, if that gives you a clue. (it doesn't give Anika a clue because she's a dummy (affectionate) ).
Her mother left and her father is a disaster, so she left home young and started fending for herself. She's extremely secretive about her past and gets furious when others try to meddle. She's hurting and keeping it to herself, but it's getting harder now that she's dealing with more grief
She's so clever but also so jaded. She's the opposite of naive, but also very young and inexperienced and on the brink of an emotional breakdown
underneath it all she has a sense of humor and playfulness, if only there was a giant goofy snooping asshole in her room to help uncover it 😈
Tajan
Tajan shows up later on in the story, and even gets his own novella because I like him so much. He is a member of Anika and Henlie's gang and has been away on a mission for a while.
He is a huge language nerd and speaks five languages
Generally a very nice and charming guy. He can be physically dangerous, but his strength lies in his charisma and ability to connect with people. He also flirts for fun all the time
He was born in a relatively poor country. His parents thought they were sending him to get an education abroad, but it turned out to be a child labor scam. He is still dealing with the trauma from that.
He owes a lot to his current boss for helping him get out of that situation, and is very loyal and grateful to him. He might have to deal with some conflicting loyalties in the future
The Eye of Truth (epic fantasy coming of age with a cult element)
Tena
At 16, after her older sister is murdered by invaders one town over, Tena's parents arrange a marriage for her to keep her safely away from the border (and her notions of becoming a soldier). She used to be vibrant and rebellious, but the grief has numbed her. She's trapped.
On the way to the place where she's supposed to get married, she and her traveling companions (including her uncle/ bestie Will and the son of the local nobles, who is also being sent away) get attacked and taken captive by a revolutionary group seeking to upend the government and spread a new religion. And they are very interested in some of Tena's abilities (magic! plant magic even!)
She becomes the liaison between her friends and the captors. She resents the things they do, but they start drawing her in, and their teachings make more and more sense. Their leader, Safan, is extremely charismatic - and he can teach her about the powers she didn't know she had. And maybe she doesn't want things to go back to normal after all.
Her inner conflict is all about craving independence vs. being afraid to have it
She's kind of a tomboy, very headstrong and determined (once she starts feeling like herself again). Kind of naive but very resourceful and brave. She deals with a lot of anger and feelings of helplessness.
Ropes (more epic fantasy! Filled with the power of unlikely friendships)
Tarrey
one of my oldest OCs. I think I made her when I was 11.
She was abandoned (kind of) as an infant and raised by a traveling circus/ artist troop. She became a very talented acrobat. Despite being so appreciated, she’s convinced that her only worth to the others comes from the money she earns for the camp with her performances.
She is extremely harsh with herself and others. She holds herself to a nearly impossible standard and will not admit that she is exhausted.
She’s socially anxious and avoids the other members of the camp as much as she can. Her status as a high earner means people generally leave her be. She tells herself this is how she likes it, but she’s actually so lonely. The one time she made a friend outside of the camp, he disappeared when she came back from tour. So she’s quite distrusting.
also she’s been having some very strange (prophetic?) dreams
A disaster forces her to run away with the two other protagonists of this story (maybe I’ll talk about them another time) and it starts out as a miserable road trip and evolves into the most beautiful found family situation ever. Like seriously I care about them so much
That’s it for now! Thank you so much for sending this ask, it was so fun to remember all my children OCs again 🥹 As I said I have a bunch more but this is already super long hehe
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So, I’ve been gone for a while again, because uni and work and life sucks, but this is always my happy place, so I figured I’d check in anyway. ^_^
This got long, so to start with -- let me know what you’re up to! Tag me, reblog this, whatever you do, all my notifications for the next 24-36 hours I will respond! What’s your most recent favourite bit of writing? What goal is in your grasp? What’s pissing you off in your life that you wanna bitch about? I am genuinely interested and can’t wait to hear! ^_^
Under the cut: brief musings on my current projects (including TE-YAL, which is rapidly becoming my favourite for reasons that will become obvious if you read), and slightly longer musings on ChatGPT (oooooooooh, controversial!!!!!):
With assignments and whatnot I haven’t done a whole lot of writing recently, which kills me. (What also kills me: the week we had on ‘legal writing’, where I spent the entire time I was watching content going ‘oh no. Oh no. No.’ Basically take the way I write and demolish it, and you’ll get what my examiners want. They said not to use the words heretofore, abovementioned, or whereas -- I use the two former casually at the slightest provocation in text communication, and I use ‘whereas’ more than occasionally in actual conversation, so that’s fucking fun. -.-) There’s also a semi-issue with The Monstrosity where I decided I probably need to delete a character -- and therefore change the POV from the original to something completely different, including all of their relationships with the other characters. It’s kinda unconsciously blocked me (? or maybe that’s just uni and other shit); regardless, I thoroughly imagined the next scene, but haven’t actually got it down into words. Lots of rejigging and whatnot which annoys me, because plotting is not my forte, which brings me to my next point:
I revisited TE-YAL just over the last couple of days for... reasons (that I genuinely cannot recall, but anyway). And I know I’m gonna be fucking lynched for this on here, but I’m gonna say it anyway -- due to a series of circumstances I’ll detail below, I used ChatGPT to get me through the block, and I think it’s fucking worked.
I’m gonna say straight up, please don’t think I’m using it to write anything. The fact is that TE-YAL stands for Traumatised Ex-Young Adult Leads, and the idea of the WIP is that it’s a group of people who experienced something that could have been a YA novel, coming back together to confront the people that made them, and discovering that everything they thought they knew about their origin wasn’t actually true -- but that last bit (confronting the people, etc) I didn’t have an idea on until tonight.
So this is rambly, but if you’ve made it this far, congrats, you get the full, still not-entirely-coherent explanation:
The initial idea was very ephemeral, and used an idea I’ve played with in a lot of WIPs, unsure which suited it best. It’s basically a superpower that’s medically possible. And I played with that for (*checks*) around 13k, and then I was like, ‘well, if I’m gonna make a thing of this, I need other medically plausible superpowers for the others’.
And I could research that, but you go to a wiki page on nanotechnology or gene manipulation and come back to me four hours later still not sure if that would work.
So I went to ChatGPT. And asked the question, ‘what superpowers would be medically plausible?’
And it gave me a list. And I asked, ‘okay, that’s cool, but how on earth would #3 on your list actually be medically plausible?’
And it gave me an answer. And it fitted with what I was working with.
So I asked about a couple of other numbers. And some didn’t work, but some did. And suddenly I have 90% of the worldbuilding that I hate -- having to do medical research to ensure that what I’m proposing is at least plausible.
(And, I know, some people would probably say, ‘well, why does it need to be plausible?’ But this is a genuine block I have, and a reason to not write.)
And the fact is -- when I started jotting down notes about who had what ‘superpower’, I started to go, ‘okay, why would this company be researching this in this way? What do they have to gain?’ And an hour later, I have an entire backstory, and -- without meaning to blow my own horn -- it’s fucking amazing. Like this WIP has fucking legs. There’s so much commentary there, and I already knew there would be commentary, cuz there’s a problem with one of the main relationships and there’s also problems with what the fuck happens after these traumatised YA leads save the world? And there’s bigger questions I’m looking at and wanting to explore. And honestly I’m really excited because I think it could be really cool.
And I’m not using ChatGPT to fucking write anything. God knows it couldn’t, and if it could, I don’t see how it would be much different than AI art -- a poor imitation of human imagination. But to collate information in a way that negates my tendency to procrastinate because I need specific answers and can’t be bothered learning basic gene theory in order to do so? Fucking amazing.
And honestly, because I’m so bad at plots, I’m not entirely opposed to asking its opinion on what an arc should be for someone with X background, or Y scenarios that might lead to Z. They might all suck and I’ll roll my eyes. Or it might give me a jumping off point -- just enough to jog my own imagination, and make me go, omigod, y’know what, that could WORK...
I think it’s a tool -- and it’s a tool that’s gonna be misused (people use hammers to kill people, after all). And I don’t think it can write. I don’t believe AI can write a novel that many people would read. Some people would, but some people read the drivel that’s self-published on Amazon, and have we ever viewed that as competition?
There’s gonna be developments of course, and don’t get me wrong -- I ABSOLUTELY condemn the training of these fucking AIs on writing, painting, digital art, or ANY OTHER ART where the author or artist has not given permission. Perhaps that’s where people would also condemn my usage of it. But I genuinely believe this usage makes it a content narrower, an assistant who can go back and google the bullshit I don’t wanna and spend the time simplifying the resulting information into a way that I can use for my stories without me spending hours researching if it’s medically plausible for a person to shoot lasers from their eyes. (It’s not, according to the 500 word response from ChatGPT.)
I guess this post is to say -- hi, I hate worldbuilding! And any tool that makes that easier is going to be embraced by me. (Also, the profession I want to go into is already saturated by this type of AI, and I am going to need to keep up with the times if I want a job when I graduate in a million five years.)
If you’ve made it this far, congrats! Please tell me your opinions on what I’ve said. It may take me fucking weeks to respond because of everything else, but I’m highly interested in this issue and highly invested in the tiny little experiments I’ve done tonight. Also, if you wanna know more about TE-YAL, lemme know, because I’d love to talk about it. ^_^
#pockets muses IWL#WIP: TE-YAL#chatGPT#ooooh that's bold#fucking tagging that#and#writeblr#IN THE SAME POST??#i dunno maybe i'm behind the times with my thoughts here#but it's a thing and i thought it should be said#aside from all that#PLEASE PLEASE let me know what's happening with you!#after an absence i hate not knowing how all my friends are doing :(#so please catch me up if you wish#(jellyfish) ^_^_
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Cupid isn’t the only great archer
There aren’t many things that Katsuki looks forward to more than the horse riding competition. It’s the biggest event of the year, bringing in people from all over the country. Some journey all the way from the northern forests, or travel from the deserts to the west, still wearing the yellow sands on their furs.
Katsuki isn’t intimidated by them in the least. Yes, they might have hours on horseback under their belts, and have ridden hard under difficult terrain to get here. But the grasslands are his home—he knows them better than anyone, and is a natural born rider to boot.
Now archery is a different skill entirely, taking many hours to master. It’s a tricky thing, hitting a moving target at a full gallop, but Katsuki is ready. He’ll prove himself this year, becoming the youngest champion ever.
When the group of contestants gather, he’s expecting many older competitors. He isn’t disappointed. Most of them are as weathered and tanned as leather, though their sharp gaze and strong arms show that they are more than capable. What he’s not expecting is to see another youthful face among the group. A pair of bright green eyes find him as he saddles up, a boy his age waving enthusiastically.
Idiot, Katsuki thinks, smirking at him. This newcomer looks as green as grass, and even has the hair color to match. He’s got an open face, one that’s covered in freckles and smiles too easily. Katsuki wants to crush him.
When the group rides out, starting at a canter, Katsuki rudely cuts in front of him. It’s best to let the other know that he’s not messing around—unlike the green-eyed stranger, Katsuki is taking this competition seriously. This is not a joke.
He turns and shoots him a contemptuous glare. The stranger meets his gaze evenly, smiling tightly. There’s a light in his eyes, though… one that unsettles Katsuki slightly.
He doesn’t realize why it bothers him until they surge to a full gallop, and the first target is thrown high. Before Katsuki has even fully drawn back his bow, the other boy looses an arrow, piercing right through the wooden disc.
Katsuki shoots wide. As he does when the next disc flies high. He has no room in his head to worry about anyone’s performance but his own. Still, he can’t help but note every time that the green-eyed stranger shoots. It’s almost immediately after the target flies, whizzing over Katsuki’s head with deadly accuracy.
When they slow to check the results, it’s apparent who wins the round. Of all ten targets launched, the other boy’s arrow is the only one present in each; always centered, always buried the deepest.
Katsuki hisses in annoyance. He only managed to hit seven targets… better than most, but clearly not good enough. No matter, the next set of targets will be dragged behind a rider. Not only do you have to be accurate, but you have to be able to keep up. This is where Katsuki will start to pull away from the others. His knowledge of the steppes will allow him to shine.
“What’s your name?” he asks as he sidles up to the green-haired stranger.
He smiles at him again—all white teeth and chubby cheeks. Katsuki decides that he hates him. “Izuku. What’s yours?”
“Enjoy your lead while it lasts, Izuku. I’m about to show you how it’s done.” He throws the second half of that sentence over his shoulder as he turns away.
“I can’t wait to see that.”
Ignoring him, Katsuki moves his horse to the other side of the gathering. At least now he has a name to go with that annoying face. A moment later, a shout rings out, signaling that the second leg of the competition has begun. He tries to put that chubby-cheeked bastard out of his head…even if he does find that spray of freckles slightly fascinating.
Maybe under different circumstances, he would even think Izuku was attractive.
They speed up to a gallop, horse and men streaking together until the edges of both blur. The dragged target bounces along the uneven ground, catching on bits of ice and rock. Its movements are unpredictable, just like real flesh-and-blood prey would be. Katsuki is ready to prove his mettle, however. At the signaling shout, he draws his bow back and—
An arrow appears in the target, standing tall. By the time Katsuki scrambles to release his own, another sits pretty beside it. Izuku is behind him and still managed to hit the target twice before Katsuki loosed a single bolt.
It’s a mad scramble after that. Determined not to be shown up on his home turf, his focus intensifies as he rides like he never has before—hard and recklessly fast. His gaze is locked on the target until the rest of the world fades to black, disappearing as his vision tunnels.
Halfway through his quiver, the other boy slides in front of him. As fast as Katsuki is, Izuku is faster. He’s more sure of himself, too, and bold. Katsuki can’t help but stare at him after he shoots his last arrow. He’s certainly a sight to behold. The green-haired terror turns, and for a moment that seems to last an eternity, their gazes clash. Katsuki feels something warm fill his chest when it does.
Thankfully, Katsuki manages to pull out a victory. Izuku loses this time to him, but not by much.
When they pause the competition again, preparing for the final stage, Izuku approaches him. “That was fun! You’re very skilled!”
“Are you looking down on me?!” Katsuki snarls.
Izuku’s expression falls slightly, his mouth hanging open. Before he can think of anything to say, Katsuki is already pulling away. “I’ll show you this time!”
“What’s your name?” Izuku calls softly.
Katsuki narrows his eyes, readjusting his grip on his stallion’s reins. He bites his lip, then shouts. “If you manage to beat me, I’ll tell you!”
The last leg of the competition is a shoot out. Two teams face off, armed with blunted arrows that leave behind smeared paint. Katsuki has been placed with the pursuers, to his dismay. It’s the easier of two positions—he has to aim in front of him, shooting at moving targets at a full gallop.
Izuku is on the other team. He has a much bigger challenge of fending the attackers off… plus he has to turn and shoot behind him.
Katsuki is annoyed about it. He needs to win this stage handily, leaving the judges no question of who is the most talented. But how good can he look compared to Izuku, who’s shooting backwards from atop his mare?
It turns out that he can’t win. Because Izuku is maddeningly talented at this, too. As soon as Katsuki gets within hitting distance—right as he raises his bow—Izuku manages to hit him square in the chest.
“Sorry!” he calls out sheepishly.
If Katsuki wasn’t so impressed, he’d be furious. They exchange a few more arrows—just because Katsuki has been shot doesn’t technically mean he’s eliminated. Katsuki is hit three more times.
Secretly, he’s excited that he’ll get the chance to talk to the other boy again.
When they stop, Izuku points to his own leather jerkin where there’s a spray of paint. Only one person managed to land a strike on him the entire time—and the orange color reveals that it was Katsuki.
Izuku, the soon-to-be crowned victor, slides up to him once more.
“A promise is a promise, handsome,” he reminds him. Katsuki can feel his entire face flare red.
“Katsuki,” he bites out. “Congratulations, I suppose.”
“Nice to meet you.” Izuku grins and Katsuki’s stomach flips. At least he knows he’s not the only one who’s feeling this connection now. That soothes the sting of loss, just a bit. “Would you like some tea? Or for me to prepare dinner? I owe my victory to you, you know.”
“Why’s that?” Katsuki demands gruffly.
“If it weren’t for the chance to learn who you were, I wouldn’t have pushed myself nearly as hard!” Izuku laughs and it’s the sweetest thing Katsuki has ever heard. “So, thank you!”
Katsuki smirks. “If you want to repay me, you owe me at least three dinners. C’mon, I’ll show you where I keep the good ingredients.”
The horse riding competition is always the event Katsuki anticipates the most. Victory is still important to him… but next year, he has an even better reason to look forward to it. Because he’ll get to see Izuku again.
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76 and 95 for Malachy . 15 and 92 for Delia >:)
THE OLDER TROUBLED SIBLINGS LET’S GO
MALACHY
76: What annoys them about the religious groups in their area?
THIS IS A GOOD ONE I GET TO WORLDBUILD HEH HAH!!!
The Fae don’t follow any of the traditional religious set ups that you find in that world. Gods do exist (bc we have yknow, mars and zeus traipsing around) but they don’t actively worship any and choose to ignore them. However, they’re strong believers in tradition, and Fae tradition differs plenty from Human.
Now for a long time the monarchy and aristocracy have been basically sucking up to Humans and the other non Fae who have a stake in merchant trading, and have been trying to push more rigid and restrictive views, particularly surrounding their practices of gender and sexuality. Malachy HATES this. He’s seen how negatively that’s impacted his sister, and had he lived to see Mireska as a preteen/ teenager, the way it would affect her would probably prompt him to flat out kill his brother in law. For him, the idea of having personal freedom taken away is worse than death.
95: Under what circumstances would they hug a complete stranger?
Malachy’s an aggressive shithead but he’s actually very friendly, particularly when he’s had a few pints. If you happen to be around him in the pub and he’s singing, there’s a high chance in about 5 seconds he’ll have his arms around you and be telling you “Ah! Yeer a grand aul’ chap so ye are!” even though he doesn’t know your name.
DELIA
15: What’s their least favorite possession that they wish they could get rid of, but can’t / shouldn’t?
It’s a silver ring with sapphires. Lord Sunbreeze had given it to her not long after she started working for him. At the time, she was blown away. She’d never even looked at anything this expensive let alone actually have something like that. He told her it was because he was grateful to have her.
Now she can’t bare to look at it. It just reminds her of how quickly her life collapsed into this hollow shell. But she can’t throw it away either. Every time she looks at it she remembers a time where she did love her husband, and she can’t lose a memory like that.
92: What is something they are fine with that most people would be afraid of?
Being physically hurt. Delia had always been scrappy as a child, beating up neighbourhood kids for bullying her brothers, and this continued into adulthood. Once she broke her wings, she stopped fearing pain, and this made her a fantastic asset to her husband. She is near impossible to threaten, and attempts to attack her won’t have much effect, she’ll always fight back with the ferocity of a lion.
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Autism self-discovery
This post will be detailing the thread I referenced in my last post. Here we go.
I’ve spent the last few months researching autism, trying to decide if it fits for me. I feel like I need to basically write a report with all the reasons I may or may not be autistic, before bringing it up to anyone in my personal life.
I’ve already gone through so many diagnoses, mental and physical health, because I’ve had so many problems my entire life. This adds to my fear of being disbelieved, or called a hypochondriac, or that people might think I’m just collecting diagnoses. In reality, I’ve known there’s something wrong and/or different about me as long as I can remember.
Some things fit, and give me a sense of relief and understanding. As time goes on, and other symptoms or circumstances clear, I feel I get closer to witnessing the real me. The clearer a picture I get, the more at peace I feel.
Right now, I’m at the end of a year that’s been almost entirely focused on my health issues. I found myself more disabled than ever before (and learned for the first time that I do indeed fit that label,) unable to work, do hobbies, take care of myself... I was falling apart.
Thankfully, also for the first time, I have genuine, unwavering, non-judgmental support. I have someone who believes and validates my struggles, and encourages me to continue healing.
After my physical ailments were brought under control, I was able to focus on my mental health. I went back to therapy, got a psychiatrist, adjusted my depression/anxiety meds, got diagnosed with ADHD - Inattentive type, started meds for it recently.
Yesterday I felt clarity like never before. I realized I felt “nothing”. I felt “normal.” It was amazing.
I���ve mentioned this before, but being sober now has been wildly eye opening as well. I’m sober, stable, medicated, and feel I finally can look at myself and my life, free from the fog.
I have always questioned WHY my life has been the way it is. Why I’ve had such a hard time, despite my best efforts, despite using any resources I could, despite trying to be self aware, research and learn about my problems, my behavior, my thinking.
ADHD explains a lot, but my experiences don’t fully align with other ADHD’ers I talk to or read about. In contrast, I feel seen when interacting with autists online, especially with AuDHD’ers.
The experience of being:
so sensitive (in every way)
chronically both over and under-stimulated
feeling like an outsider
excelling in some areas (or appearing to) but struggling deeply in others
always falling behind / can never catch up
quirky and annoying
drawn to “weird” subcultures
bouncing around to communities without a group to call home
desperately plotting routines and schedules, but never able to stick to anything
always trying to “get my life together”
I’ve been searching for so long for an answer to explain everything, why I feel so deeply, like I’m too sensitive for this world; I don’t understand how people can be so detached and uncaring. I’ve just been bewildered by it all, and don’t understand why people think I’M the weird one for caring so much about everything.
I’ve read others stories I see myself in. I feel it could be me, but I just still am scared, and don’t know. I told my therapist today I think my sibling is autistic, and we are alike in many ways. I’m thinking next week, maybe I’ll say: maybe I am too.
The replies:
“The fact you connect with what you’re learning about Autism and especially AuDHD’ers lived experiences is a good indication. Internalized ableism and Autistiphobia are hard to overcome.
I learned I was AuDHD as a young adult, and while it was liberatory in a way, I felt it was wrong of me to co-opt something I didn’t think I deserved to take the title of, as there were people who have more or different support needs. That was the ableism.
It’s okay to take your time. Feeling the need to justify your existence to others is their neuro-normative expectations on you, not your burden to bear.”
“I’m autistic and have all the traits you mentioned too.”
“Whatever you decide, you’re welcome between us! It took me a couple years to bring it to people close to me, and even then I have been really guarded about it in general, that’s ok too!”
“This is wildly autistic; which is to say, so awesome. You don’t need a test to know who you are.”
“I relate to a lot of what you shared. I went from social anxiety to BPD to cPTSD to ADHD before ever considering autism. I needed to know why I am so different and why life is so hard for me. I needed validation which I never got before finding the autistic community here.”
“This is autistic as fuck. Reminder that autism self-dx is absolutely valid. You don’t owe an explanation to anyone.”
“You do you and what works for you, but as soon as I started reading your thread I was like hmmm, yep, sounds very familiar! :)”
“That would be a very autistic thing to do, you probably don’t need to do the list. ;)”
“Something I’m learning is that people who are not autistic don’t spend time wondering if they are.”
“This is me but 4 years of intensive research. My traits are recorded in sections in a document.”
“This first post right here is all the diagnosis you need. You just described the most autistic thing. This is the journey for so many of us. Welcome to the club.”
“So you’re saying you’re autistic then. ;) I agonized as well, making lists, weighing ADHD with ASD. Then I came here and talked about it and was assured that NT’s don’t make lists about whether they’re autistic or not. In fact, their brains are apparently rather quiet from what I hear.”
“There’s not much in the world that’s more autistic than extensive research on whether or not you’re autistic.”
“Making a list is a very autistic approach. I use it often.”
“This tweet shows your autism. Extensive research and writing a report, that’s your autism tell right there. Also, no one who isn’t autistic wants to be autistic. You have done the research; self-diagnosis is VALID because of gatekeeping of the diagnosis.”
#gosh#actually autistic#autistic#autism#neurodivergent#neurodiverse#self advocacy#autistic community#validation#autistic af#i love making lists
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1/2: It’s all been ok lately. January started as anyone would expect, slow work, school starts, it’s all just so meh. The people in one of my classes have been extra atrocious lately against all understanding. Like just unnecessary rudeness or odd behavior that beats my expectations under any circumstance. Most recently i got undermined for no reason other than what i can assume was an attempt to slight me since we were doing a jeopardy game for extra credit and we discussed and agreed on an answer for a wager question . Then when our team went to answer they just said a different one with their whole chest and tanked our score disqualifying us for extra credit (from the game) to which like, what the fuck was the goal there even, we discussed and chose an answer as a team (in this context the answer i chose and argued for) and they just swap it up unprompted? I don’t know what kind of complex they were trying to idealize upon us with that stunt but they almost lost 5 other people a chance extra credit for what i can only guess is pride. Thankfully the professor gave us a mulligan in the form of some really simple questions that we just answer and email to her but i need that person to get hit by a stone for that cause what the actual hell. Outside of that it’s just been as school is. Attending, dreading and doing hw, having to do group work and knowing it spells unnecessary toil.
On another note, work has been ok, nothing super out of the blue (in the realm of outside of expectation of the retail experience) has happened. On the customer side at least, on the internal side it’s just been annoying as all hell lately because apparently we have a “mole”. Some apple products have been disappearing from the respective warehouse and security room and as a result we no longer have keys for our department and have to call over managers to unlock anything and everything that we used to be able to. Along with that they’ve been having extra leads from outside our store location visit and sort of orbit the sales zones as like “training”. But it’s very obvious they’re there to mean mug any employees out of trying to steal and it’s very apparent that one of them has strong suspicion of me(shocker). The way he’ll just stand and pretend he’s not looking at me like there’s no way he could be watching anyone else. But he may actually be more tolerable than the lady who’s trying to micromanage and get in everyone’s business. The amount of times she’s come out to me looking ecstatic to catch me not doing my job to just catch me in the middle of going from A-B is getting ridiculous and i’m getting annoyed that my managers except the one chill one are trying to downplay how these people are actively hindering all of us and making our jobs more unenjoyable than they already are. But we get by ig. What may be the straw that breaks a camels back is the bag checks. It’s allegedly store policy to check the bags of any employee leaving with a bag but they never do, and they didnt for a while and haven’t with the increasing theft and mole issue. Bag checks look like unzipping your bag and showing it to them while you still have it mind you. But unfortunately being a woman of color with a bag means you must be stealing so they stopped my friend and searched her bag?? like hands on her bag?? which is actually insane cause we have a this girl on geek squad who always leaves with a bag and has NEVER been stopped or hindered. Same for our white woman manager but go figure. I was talking to her about it next shift and we were both blown but as she put it, there’s no need to worry because “they WILL be dealt with” but ridiculous that i bore witness to that. Im more glad each day that i change and go out the opposite door so it’s never clocked that it’s an employee leaving because i know for certain that could’ve been me with the way they’ve been trying to catch me. Barring that it really has just be the usual, sales and appliance lifting.
Straying from those it’s the usual as well. I’ve been streaming my play through of judgement to my friend since he wants to see my reaction since he played it before me and a lot of the things he has set me up for have been ridiculous to say the least
but it’s fun regardless and it’s fun to share the experience since he’s helping me find things i would’ve missed on my own. I’ve also been catching up with older friends from my dance club who happen to be in the area and i’m looking forward to tipsy mini golfing (however that’s gonna work) soon. The weather has been insane lately so it’s not easy to get around or do stuff super consistently, case in point aforementioned flood by my brother’s school forcing detours as well as trees and branches breaking or falling. Also california drivers suck ass as it stands so adding rain (which they also struggle to fathom or deal with at all) just makes it accident central which is deeply unfortunate. Had an insane amount of near misses in the last week and a half despite driving 5 under the limit around other drivers. So that should put the driving conditions into perspective. Also making traffic ridiculous at hours that normally wouldn’t make sense (the storms but also the accidents) it’s been nothing yet though so kudos to that.
Introspectively i’ve been thinking a lot after getting chastised twice this month about being closed off and not contributing to the friendship which shocked me at first cause i was caught up on the not contributing part, but then after i thought about it a bit more i understood they meant, since initially i figured it was about what i do or offer to them as a friend which i was certain i could prove beyond shadow of doubt but it was about what i bring about myself. It upset me a little which i toke note of because after thinking about it meant that i it’s undeniable that i’m just avoiding sharing what i consider unimportant details about myself with people under the shallow excuse of assuming that people like their interests enough to be content with sharing them with someone who will listen and remember about them. Solidifying that the listener does care about them and what they are interested/invested in. Enough that the absence of input from the listener would go unnoticed, which has notably worked and been present in my life. But it’s at a point where i’m aware of it and it’s becoming impossible to ignore, which had me wonder what, outside of accounts of it working, led to this habit in my sociability. Where i don’t even wanna talk about myself to my friends. To which one of the more clear and laughably denied examples was when we used to have to walk to the laundromat to do our laundry for like 8 months back in 2015. i was 12 and topher was 4 and he was asking me why we had to do the laundry haul deal. It My aunt and mom were within the vicinity and earshot. Topher asks me if i like doing laundry, to which I imagined in my 12 year old mind was something that didn’t have a right answer so i just told him “no not really but it’s something i have to do” which neither of them were a fan of. My mom darted over to slap me with the force to make me stumble back and went off about how i needed to be grateful about having access to electric laundry machines as opposed to having to use a washboard and deal with that (i had used a washboard as a “learning experience” with my grandma prior). I was in a stunned silence so she hit me with a “hmm?!? am i talking to a wall” which snapped me back to reality (woah there goes gravity or something) and i apologized and had to state my recognition of how privileged i was to be able to walk to a laundromat mat. topher was very uncomfortable and didn’t ask a question about laundry again after that. following though, my aunt who didn’t act in the moment instead charged up her sass and hit me with it later by painting me as a privileged brat who spat in the face of their roots in hard work, over a relatively better scenario than their childhood. which was another bullet point on the remarks i would ever get from mouthy relatives when they ran out of actual conversation topics at the occasional get together. My only takeaway from that experience, with my 12 year old megabrain, (which isn’t really an entirely rational one at that i’ll note) was that sharing what i thought was beyond a shadow of a doubt not an option with my family if i want to avoid conflict or consequences because there are right answers and things people want to or would rather here. Which wasn’t helped by friends at the time because i translated that conclusion into my friends want to hear more things about stuff they like and etc therefore i cut back on what i do to show how good of a friend i am and how interesting i can be to talk to. Which is just proving a pattern of either negligence or self centering in the people i was around rather than actual evidence of how good of a friend i was since they did not care to hear about me at all. But regardless that moments stands out the most to me among the other blips on the radar of scanning why i hesitate with that in my interactions with people. It’s probably the most notable to me because i know it affected topher by proxy since he also learned from seeing how i reacted and what happened that he has to pick right answers and not be honest about himself and such.
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Stylized top surgery scars irritate me to no end - like surely everyone can see this doesn't actually help anyone, other than transphobes that believe they have a god given right to "always tell"? Who are you actually helping by teaching more cis people how to clock trans people? We should teach cis people why some people need to transition to live happy lives, not the details of what medical procedures we may choose to go through.
There really are two different kinds of "visibility". One is making people know this particular group of people exist and how to deal with it if someone tells you they belong to this minority. One is "how to identify all members of this group of people in daily life". The former is necessary for eventual acceptance but the latter is harmful. Like, I think the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign is a better example. People of course need to be aware of what is risky and what is completely safe, and know that our HIV treatment is fairly decent right now so it's not a death sentence even if you're unfortunately infected. But there's no campaign running around telling everyone how the meds HIV+ people usually take look like, or if someone adheres to their meds schedule extremely tightly they might be HIV+. That would be an extremely fucked up thing to do. Yet people are doing this to us all day every day.
And those "arts" are always so exaggerated. Almost like a caricature really. As if everyone who had DI has scars like two red pythons on their chest. That's not even to mention many people had keyhole or peri. Now even cis guys who had gynecomastia surgery and unfortunately didn't have their scars fade completely are regularly harassed if they ever show their bare chest, because people believe they must be trans.
I still have the fear of being clocked in super progressive places like Toronto. I've not lived there long term but visit frequently, probably every one or two months. So far it hasn't happened. I've played such hypothetical scenarios many times in my head, as in how to react if someone says something that implies they know I'm trans. I usually land on just acting very confused and slightly offended, like "what? But I'm a guy". I feel that reacting too strongly would either make them more certain in their correctness, or they would assume I'm transphobic, which I'd like to avoid. But just shrugging may also seem like an acknowledgement. Ughhh. I just wish people could stop doing this to each other. My gf stayed stealth in Montreal for 3 years so we joke around saying that must mean she's conventionally feminine enough to stay stealth almost anywhere in the world.
Another thing is whenever 99% of cis people and even a huge number of trans people hear "a trans man", they automatically think "a man with a vagina" (vice versa for trans women). As if somehow, trans people post bottom surgery are less trans than those pre bottom surgery. As if none of us has bottom dysphoria so severe that they don't wish to use their natal genitals for sex. The thought grosses me out yet I know it's true. Not gonna lie, a huge part of not wanting people to know is because I don't want them to think I don't have a dick or like think about my genitals at all.
So many people do superficial performative things like replacing male/female or men/women with AMAB/AFAB, which literally benefits no one. I would even argue it's more transphobic than the traditional "genital shape = sex = gender" view, as it implies it's something magical that once assigned at birth, can never, ever be changed under any circumstances. A walk-in clinic my gf used to go to replaced all their "sex" fields with "sex at birth", and they even put it on your medical notes, the ones that you may need to show your employer to take medical leave. How does that help anyone exactly? She was so annoyed that she eventually left when she managed to find another doctor. I wouldn't completely disregard the possibility that it was indeed designed to out trans people, since many cis people feel they're entitled to "always know". I haven't encountered this personally but she also had companies collecting demographic data of both "sex" and "gender" in job applications. What the hell? I just put male and never out myself whatever terminology they use.
TLDR: Most people don't actually want to learn out of deeply ingrained transphobic ideas, because that would require them to reflect and maybe uproot their entire worldview.
#trans#transphobia#performative allyship#top surgery#stealth#just stop thinking about out genitals#gender dysphoria#i wrote this in reply to someone on reddit but i have to save it somewhere else too#bc i spent lots of effort#part 3
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