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evilminji · 5 months

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Back at it again with the BNHA crossover Ponderings!

Nedzu is LITERALLY one of THE smartest beings on the planet, right? Like... he's probably on some internationally recognized list of Top Planetary IQs? Which is why Japan let's him get away with so much?

Cause they REALLY fucked him over, he has the power to leave, and that would be really, REALLY bad Brain Drain wise/politically for the Japanese Government? (Also pls don't become a Supervillian we literally can not afford that, Mr. Nedzu Sir? Etc etc)

You think he has... like? Chats? With the OTHER top intellects? Some kid in Siberia with the New Super Intelligence Quirk his parents can't begin to even handle, gets put in history's WEIRDEST group chat? I like to think so.

But the REASON I ask this?

What hero do you call? For Weird Shit in international waters?

Suspicious, floating, weirdly two dimensional and HIGHLY radioactive... corrosive... green goop? Rings? Orbs? CAN it be an orb if it's two dimensional? It certainly LOOKS like there is depth to it... somehow...

A THING. In the sky.

Shouldn't be there, man. This is a shipping lane. It's scaring the people on passing ships. No one knows what Quirk could have made this. Might be a trafficking victim's call for help. Might be a first Quirk Use mishap. They need to know what it IS and how to get rid of it.

They go the normal routes first. Doesn't work. Okay, call in some professionals. Kinda pricey, but no big. Right? Doesn't work. Okaaaay, call in a SPECIALIST. REAL pricey, but this thing is holding up international trade, making people in fancy ass suit all Nervous(TM).

Doesn't Work.

Specialist tells um to not to bother with calling anyone else on their normal list. Is looking at the green goo like it spat on his mother and called his dog a whore. They would prefer he NOT make that facial expression. That is a facial expression that will get them yelled at by their bosses. Fuck(TM).

Now Politics(TM) are involved. People want to STUDY the green goo. Harness it for dubious and unknown green goo experiments. Poke it with their Quirk to see what'll happen. There's fuckin REPORTER with no concept of self-preservation, trying to get CLOSER to the RADIOACTIVE POISON GOO.

Fuckin Heros have shown up.

Why are you bastards even HERE. What? Are you peacocks gonna PUNCH it? Get off their rig! Stop posing in front of the GOO!

Then? Oh thank GOD. The SMART people show up. Certified, highest grade, triple refined, PREMIUM Nerds(TM). The WAY above our pay grade folks. We're SAVED! Can we PLEASE go home now? We are just ocean cleaners! Our job is debris! Not weird GOO!

Enter, stage Super Cool Helicopters? The Elite Nerds of Earth. Of which Nedzu is one. Since Japan is closest. And it's a school weekend! He had some time.

And?

Ha ha... Thanks, he hates it! Nedzu's stoat brain is SCREAMING and he wants NOTHING to do with...? What he is somehow CERTAIN is a floating pit of Death! Interesting effect. Anyone getting that or just him?

Then? Some hot head on loan to Korea from the states? Spots something. SomeONE. And does he TELL the newly arrived professionals? So they may do a risk assessment? Figure out a way to rescue this individual SAFELY? Of course not!

Said hot head has supposedly indescribable chains! So he just flings them rights on in! Grabbing the boy from the center of the portal, pulling him free, and in the process? Immediately destabilizing it. Causing it to collapse down towards everyone bellow.

He also then proceeds to DROP the young lad, in his alarm at this entirely predictable outcome.

Right. Into. The Ocean.

A boy, who is dressed in filthy medical scrubs, haunting familiar in a way nothing should EVER be again, and entirely unconscious. Plunge down into the briny deeps and bitter cold. Alone. Abandoned. Death, thick and viscous, losing form and raining down like bile.

Everyone saving themselves.

Ah, he rather liked this suit.

The salt water ruins it. The droplets of Green, burn like molten glass each time they touch him. He will likely have at least a few new scars, after today. Assuming this is not the end of him. But he swims fast. The boy sinking slower then his size would suggest he should. He grabs hold and arcs, dragging them both from beneath the fallout of yet another humans hubris.

He does not stop swimming. Not until he knows he is near the helicopter. He is thankful, that he dragged Aizawa along. The man takes one look at his serious expression, the state of his rescued young friend, and merely hauls them both out of the water and into the machine.

Time to go.

They saw nothing, it seems. And there is nothing to be found.

The boy does not wake. Not for quite a while. Long enough, that Nedzu, perhaps unwisely, has grown attached. Is considering adoption. If only too terrorize a few goverment bodies. And... well... the boy will need some who UNDERSTANDS. And the scars paint a very specific sort of tale. But first, the most important question, when beginning these things...

"Tea? Or would you prefer coffee?"

@the-witchhunter @mutable-manifestation @hypewinter @hdgnj

#minji's ponderings #bnhaxdp #dp x bnha #principal nedzu

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nebulablakemurphy · 1 year

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Moves & Countermoves (Part 12)

Summary: No one ever wins the games, even fourteen years later, Y/N is still playing.

“We have one month, that is all. After that, two of us are back in the arena and we need to be ready.”

This meeting of district twelve’s victors is called to session a bit earlier than Haymitch would like. Not that any of them have been sleeping anyway.

“So you want us to do what, exactly?” Haymitch cocks his head to the side.

“I think we need to train, all of us. Everyday.” Peeta says, pointedly.

Haymitch huffs a laugh.

Y/N squeezes her husband’s shoulder, “I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

“You’re gonna start deadlifting until this kid comes flying out of you?” Haymitch rears back in perturbed amusement.

Y/N shakes her head. “There are things I can still do. Brush up on my skills, learn a new one.”

“I could teach her to shoot,” Katniss offers.

Y/N shrugs, “she could teach me to shoot.”

“And you could teach us how to throw knifes.”

“We’ve all won the games.” Peeta reminds Haymitch in particular. “We can all learn from each other.”

————————————————————————

A couple weeks later they sit down with the kids, unsure how to broach the topic of tonight’s discussion. But the whispers around town are loud, better they hear it from their parents than someone else.

“Do you remember when we talked about the Hunger Games?” Y/N begins.

Everest nods, they talk about it in school too. “If you win, you become a victor.”

“Right,” Y/N leans across the table a bit more.“This year is a Quarter Quell.”

“That means a special games, like Daddy’s.” Arista adds.

“This year…” Haymitch hesitates, “it means that only victors can go.”

“They can’t do that,” Everest interjects.

“But you’re victors.” Arista says, a look of realization dawning over her features.

“Let’s talk through this.” Haymitch attempts to calm his children. “I know you both have a lot of questions.”

“No, they can’t do that. It’s not fair!” Everest’s little hands ball into fists.

“Honey-”

“Are you gonna die?” He cries, angry, hot tears cascading over his cheeks. “Katniss? Peeta? What about our friends? Cashmere, Gloss, Finnick, Mags? Who’s gonna take care of us if you’re both-”

Arista’s breathing picks up and she abandons her seat, crawling into her mother’s lap, though there is not much room. “They can’t make you play with a baby in your belly.”

“Shhh.” Y/N rocks her gently. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“So that’s it? We just give up?”

“No,” Y/N locks eyes with her son. “We’re not giving up, we’re gonna fight. Every victor, all of us, to try and stop the games.”

“Maybe you can stop it.” Arista nods, against Y/N’s chest.

“Maybe we can,” Y/N agrees, “but if we can’t, just incase, we need to talk about-”

“Is Aunt Madge gonna take us?”

“That’s the very last resort.” Haymitch admits, “we don’t know whose names they’re gonna call, even then, someone else could volunteer. Ideally, one of us will be able to-”

“So what you’re saying is that after this two weeks we might never see you again?”

“We’re going to do everything we can.” Haymitch promises.

“But it’s possible?” Everest is confused, outraged.

“Yes. It’s possible.”

The days run together, between training and spending as much time with their children as they can. On that last night, the children sleep between them, Y/N on one side and Haymitch on the other, clinging to this moment.

Cruelly, inevitably, the sun rises. Madge is at their door and Y/N comes to answer, while Haymitch and the children ready themselves.

Her sister says not a word, pulling Y/N in for a hug.

“Thank you for coming.” Y/N breathes, smoothing down the younger woman’s hair.

“You don’t need to thank me.” Madge wishes she could do more. “I’ll do my part here and wait for you to come home.”

“They need you, Madge. Now more than ever.”

Madge only holds her tighter. “I love you.”

“I love you so much.”

Peacekeepers are sent to collect them, marching the four victors to the justice building. Prim and Mrs. Everdeen trail closely behind Madge and the Abernathy children, one clasped in each hand.

“Welcome, welcome,” Effie begins her speech, “as we celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary and third Quarter Quell of the Hunger Games.”

From his place on the stage, Haymitch can see his children. The boy, that squawked like a bird the first time he was placed in Haymitch’s arms, reminding him that the world might not be such a terrible place. The girl, that had him wrapped around her little finger before she could speak and gave him reason to dream. They look to him in fear now. Fear that they will lose their mother, fear that they will lose him.

“As always, ladies first.”

Y/N reaches for Katniss’ hand. There is nothing to hope for, no favorable outcome.

Effie draws the name, clearing her throat before announcing. “Y/N Abernathy.”

Madge lifts Arista into her arms, hushing the little girl as best she can, but she is distraught. Her hiccuping sobs causing the crowd to shift uncomfortably. Prim scoots in to rub her back.

Everest does not move. He does not blink and he does not cry. Forever ingraining this image of his mother in his mind.

Y/N can’t risk a glance at Haymitch. She knows how deeply the knife is buried in his chest, how the guilt will twist it, now and for years to come.

Katniss jerks her back almost forcefully, “no.”

“It’s ok,” Y/N whispers.

“I volunteer.”

“Katniss, please don’t do this.” Y/N pleads, but they are out of time, they are out of good choices.

“I volunteer as tribute.” Katniss announces, with more certainty the second time. Pulling her hand from Y/N’s to stand beside Effie, at the center of the stage.

“Wonderful.” Effie swallows down her sorrow, the show must go on, “and now for the male.”

Y/N’s head is light, spinning as if she might faint. Her lungs burn, perhaps she has stopped breathing.

“Haymitch Abernathy.”

“I volunteer as tribute,” Peeta says, without hesitation.

“I can’t let you do that,” Haymitch stops him, with a hand to his chest.

“You can’t stop me.” Peeta narrows his eyes.

“Peeta-”

“Let go.”

Haymitch has no choice but to obey. Sending their victors back as tributes, erasing all they’ve done.

“Very well,” Effie sniffs, hoping to regain some composure, “the tributes from district twelve; Katniss Everdeen…and Peeta Mellark.”

The entirety of their district raises three fingers in solidarity. They are not alone in this sadness; this defeat. Among the crowd, Y/N finds her mother, who has not been coherent enough to attend a reaping since her own.

She’s never blamed her mother, not for her absence or her addiction, nor the inability to move past Maysilee’s untimely death. Y/N cannot imagine losing her little sister, part of her would die too.

The idea that maybe she could talk to her before she leaves, maybe her mother has some divine words of wisdom or comfort-

Commander Thread takes Katniss by the arm, robbing her and Peeta of the chance to say goodbye. Y/N and Haymitch are carted away shortly after. Straight to the train station.

The ride is silent for a long while; eventually the four of them find each other, dutifully seated in the blue velveteen chairs. Drawn together like magnets, though there are no words.

Haymitch slumps down in his chair, extending his free hand to Y/N.

She takes it, the same way she always has, with a love and understanding that Haymitch is sure he will never deserve. But that is the problem with love; with life, really. So rarely does anyone get what they deserve.

Y/N continues preparing her presentation for the morning, detailing the participating victor’s strengths and weaknesses. Hesitating at each name she knows well.

Cashmere and Gloss, district one…

The train car doors open and Effie joins them, “before we begin, I’ve had a thought.”

“You don’t say.”

Effie gives Haymitch the side eye, pressing on in spite of his remark. “Katniss has her gold mockingjay pin, I have my hair.” The swirling golden updo. “I’m going to get the three of you something gold.”

Y/N finally looks up.

“And why is that?” Haymitch wonders, sipping at his teacup, containing a bit more than leaves.

“A token! Show them we are a team, and they can’t just-”

“Thank you,” Katniss says, taking Effie’s hand.

Peeta’s gaze softens. He’s accepted his fate, the only thing to do now is make sure Katniss is happy, keep her alive.

————————————————————————

No expense is spared for this very special Quarter Quell. A new training center and tribute living quarters are waiting to greet them in the Capitol.

“I want you to forget everything you think you know about the games.” Haymitch cuts through the silence. “Last year was child’s play, this year you’re dealing with all experienced killers.”

“Ok. What does that mean for us?” Peeta asks.

“It means you’re going to need some allies.”

“No.” Katniss shoots him down.

“Do it your own way, but we know these people and if you go it alone their first move will be to hunt you down.”

“Katniss, I know it’s not easy for you to trust them,” Y/N understands how difficult this all must be. “So you’re just gonna have to trust us.”

“Fine, show me.”

Y/N makes for her tablet, dimming the lights as her slideshow is put to the big screen.

“This should be good.” Peeta relaxes farther into the loveseat beside Katniss.

“Cashmere and Gloss. Brother and sister from district one, they won back to back games, Capitol favorites, lots of sponsors.”

“This is your first choice?” Katniss nearly chokes on her own saliva.

“Well,” Y/N swipes to the next screen, “they’re careers so they are extremely lethal. A few other positive attributes would be strength, agility, very intelligent. They offer protection, opportunities for better sponsors-”

“Despite some favoritism and general bias on her part,” Haymitch motions to Y/N, “this a strong choice.”

Katniss nods, she’ll consider it. For Y/N.

“From district three, Wiress and Beetee. Not fighters, but brilliant and…weird, real tech savvy.”

“We chose them because they offer a unique skill set-”

“Yes.” Katniss agrees, surprising even Peeta.

“O-ok,” Y/N moves to the next contender. “This is Finnick, from district four.”

“He won his games at fourteen, youngest ever. Don’t let that fool you, he’s incredibly humble.”

“You’re kidding.” Katniss scoffs.

“Yes, he’s a peacock, a total preener,” Haymitch does not mince words, “but he’s the Capitol darling, they love him here, lots of sponsors.”

“Very skilled in combat, especially in water.”

They carry on like this for some time, through Johanna in seven, Chaff and Seeder in eleven. Leaving Peeta and Katniss much to discuss as they retire for the night.

“You think she’ll come around?” Y/N dares to ask.

“You want me to be honest?” Haymitch tosses wayward hair from his eyes.

“Yes.”

“It’s gonna take a miracle.”

————————————————————————

Watching Haymitch’s games is a necessary evil, giving them some insight into the craftings of a Quarter Quell arena. The landscape is nothing short of paradise. Vibrant colors, beautiful creatures and a feast, complete with candy, weapons, anything a tribute could ask for; right at the cornucopia.

But the food is poison and the wildlife is deadly, in the games nothing is ever as it seems.

Though Haymitch does not fall prey to the gamemarker’s trap, many tributes do. He goes it alone for a while, ending up head to head with a pack of allies. He fights, better than Katniss imagines anyone could without experience; managing to take down two out of three opponents, before the knife is held to his throat.

The girl who spares him looks familiar, in a way that Katniss can’t place, sporting the same gold mockingjay pin she was given at the hob. “We’d live longer with two of us.”

“She looks like Madge.” Peeta voices this before Katniss can.

“She’s my mom’s little sister,” Y/N explains.

And then it all makes sense, or none of it does. Another layer to their mentor’s great ‘love story’ for Katniss and Peeta to attempt dissecting, in a bizarre form of pillow talk.

Haymitch has found the edge of the arena, Maysilee wants to turn back and he doesn’t. “We should say goodbye now. There’s only five of us, don’t want it to come down to the two of us.”

“Ok,” Haymitch lets her go.

Her screams follow not long after, the bubblegum pink birds begin tearing through her throat with razor sharp beaks.

Y/N remains glued to the screen, though the ending never changes and she cannot raise the dead.

In the end, Haymitch puts the force field to good use, leading the last career and her axe to the cliff side. Holding intestines inside his body with one hand, he waits for the weapon to ricochet; burying its blade in her skull.

“That was smart.” Katniss purses her lips.

“Too smart,” Haymitch bites out in warning, “do not attempt it. That move got my family killed.” He leaves without a word.

Y/N doesn’t go after him. Sometimes Haymitch needs to be alone and if she chases him, he won’t run. He’s too good a man and he loves her too much. He would stay, even as every cell in his body yearns to go.

————————————————————————

Haymitch returns, after a bottle or two and a very interesting talk with Plutarch. There is a plan, one to extract the victors from the arena, all they have to do is stay alive until then. He searches the tribute living quarters for Y/N, finding her already asleep in their bed.

He is determined not to wake her, flipping off the forgotten light overhead and changing out of his suit.

She stirs as he draws back the covers. “Haymitch?”

“Shh,” he climbs in behind Y/N to cradle her belly, “sleep.”

“Is everything ok?” She reaches back, stroking his hair.

“Everything is fine.” He finds her hand, kissing at her wrist and fingers, before gently lying it back on the bed.

Y/N nuzzles farther against him, “ok.”

“You know I’m always coming back, right? No matter what.” Their child shifts under his palm.

“I know,” she nods.

“If anything ever happened to you-”

“Haymitch, you don’t need to say it.”

Yes I do. “When I lost my family, I kept going. Out of spite, or insanity, whatever it was that kept me going, I did it. But if you were gone…if our kids were gone; I couldn’t. I need you safe. I need you.”

“You have me.” Y/N breathes, “right here. Just you and me.”

Part 13

Series Taglist: @praline357 @flowercrowns-goodvibes @justheretoparty420 @avocadotoastwithegg @treehouse-mouse @emo-markie @spilled-mi1k @magical-spit @greaser9902 @jessicamellarky @yourebuckingkiddingme @smuha2004 @sendhelplease @ninimackbrews @wittiestrain184 @r1dd1kulus @erenluvr69 @helpimhyperfixating

#thg haymitch #haymitch abernathy x y/n #haymitch x reader #haymitch x y/n #haymitch abernathy x you #haymitch abernathy x reader #haymitch abernathy fanfic #haymitch abernathy #haymitch fanfic #haymitch abernathy x yn #katniss everdeen #the hunger games #peeta mellark #moves & countermoves

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reelovesfictionalmen · 9 months

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Single Dad Simon Riley

A request for Single Dad Simon from @buzzyb33 I hope this is what you wanted, I kinda just went with what my monkey brain came up with.

SINGLE DAD SIMON

Single Dad Simon has twins. A boy who is docile, shy and hides behind Simon's legs around new people. His daughter is bold and boisterous. Sometimes he swears she almost bounces off of the walls. Their mother has been out of the picture since not long after they were born, she pays child support but has otherwise severed all parental support and interactions with the twins. The boy twin is named Theo and the girl is April. The names are the only two things their mother left them with.

Single Dad Simon used to hate her for abandoning their children but in time he accepted it as being the best. Forcing her to stay would likely have just hurt the kids more. Simon gave up his career in the military to take care of his kids and be a present father. He works as a plumber, a pretty good one at that. He makes enough money to provide for his kiddos and put money aside for emergencies and/or their futures. He wants to have enough money put away for them if they decide to go to university. Giving up his career was difficult but it had to be done, he was all they had and he wants to give them a childhood so much better than his own.

Single Dad Simon finds being a dad almost as stressful as being in the SAS and doing all that sort of thing. Raising the twins on his own through their infancy to toddlerhood was mentally and physically exhausting. There were nights when both of the twins were teething, would not go to sleep and just kept screaming where he felt like running away. But he never did of course, our Simon aint a quitter ESPECIALLY when it comes to his kids.

Single Dad Simon is still in contact with 141, they come to visit when on leave. Soap and Gaz like to spoil the twins. April LOVES uncle Soap. She calls him a "pretty princess". She also makes takes Gaz, Soap and Theo out into the garden where she likes to play construction work barbie, digging up the garden and making "roads" for her and her brothers cars. Theo, the sweet little boy really opens up around Price. Something about Price brings out his bolder side. He's always tackle hugging Price and asking lots of questions about the cool planes and other vehicles he's been in. Neither of the twins really believe that their father was big and tough like their uncles. Simon honestly prefers that they don't believe that he was a big bad military man, he tries to keep as much of his personal military career from them.

Single Dad Simon who frets when the twins first go to primary school and after school care. He doesn't like being away from them for such long periods of time, deep down he knows that they will be just fine and they will be safe but the other part of him frets terribly. What if they get bullied? What if they hurt themselves? What if they get mean teachers? After the first year he calms down considerably with his worries but there is a side of him that will never relax and be wary for danger.

Single Dad Simon who finds himself getting lonely as the kids settle into school life and his business does well. He finds himself wishing for romantic companionship and a feminine influence for his children. He worries that only having military men for family will stunt their mental growth. He promises himself to open himself up to the possibility of meeting someone new.

When Single Dad Simon does find someone he clicks with, he doesn't hide that he has kids and is a single parent. But he makes clear that it will take an extended period of time before he introduces them to her. He needs to be sure that he can trust her around them. If she already knows them through some outside of school place, like the bakery they always go to on Sunday or the Librarian at the library where the after school program is held, he will be less wary of having her in their private lives but will still TAKE HIS TIME.

Single Dad Simon is a good dad. He struggles with the stress and isolation sometimes but he has 141 as his brothers and maybe one day soon he might have a lady in his life who will welcome his kids and him with open arms into her own life.

#simon ghost riley #singledadsimon #simon riley #call of duty fanfic #john soap mactavish #john price #kyle gaz garrick #call of duty #cod x reader #mw2 x reader

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furiousgoldfish · 1 year

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Starting to see that it's actually very normal for the abused kids to get themselves in sort of, bad situations in real life, and then just slowly progress to less-bad, and less-bad, until it gets to a place where we feel comfortable, or at least we're able to hold on without having a crisis.

This doesn't happen because as an abused kid, you're now doomed or attract toxic people, those are just myths. It is true that we will easily tie several bad things that have happened to us together, and decide that it's a proof that things will always be bad for us, and that isn't true either, bad things actually do happen to everyone. With us, it just hits worse, feels worse, triggers us and forces us to re-live everything else bad that has happened, and creates more ominous symbolism. We're also unlikely to receive comfort, so we're always in our bad situations alone and feel abandoned. That is enough to make anyone despair.

But there is a timeline with a fairly slow progression from 'abuse' to 'less abuse' to 'healthier environment'. I don't think I know any cases where a person went from abuse to 'safe and loved for eternity', and it has to do with how we view the world, and how everything we learn is relative to each other.

For instance, after running away from abusive parents, I spent a long time being just extremely grateful that I'm not in physical danger anymore, and that nobody is yelling at me. There were several injustices happening to me, I was financially exploited despite being in severe poverty, I accidentally associated myself with people who exploited my labour and did some extremely sick things to me, but how would I notice? I was busy feeling grateful for not being assaulted. You can't tell someone who just got out of hell 'hey, this is bad too, actually', because what they're seeing is 'this is so much better than hell, this is the best situation I've ever been in, I'm so grateful this isn't worse, this level of injustice is nothing.'

But, to a person who hasn't experienced severe abuse or injustice, it wouldn't be 'nothing', it would be stuff worth calling the police over.

We just can't see it because, relatively to our life, this is the best we ever experienced, and whatever bad things are happening, are usually detected as 'minor' and ignorable'. This is likely to get us into several bad situations, but it's also inevitable, we can't quickly jump from abuse to healthy. It takes some layers of bad for us to notice that we could actually, do better. Sometimes the bad situations turn into worse, and then we realize it's actually bad and triggering, and we get out. Sometimes, bad people go away all on their own, and we realize then, that we're happier.

The good news is, that after getting away from the worst of the abuse, we often will feel like 'this is the most freedom I ever had, this is the best I was ever treated, this is the most love I've ever gotten, I'm so grateful this is better than before', and that is a good thing to experience. Bad thing about it is that often sometimes later, we will go 'oh. that actually was bad and I couldn't tell.' but the point is, you're smarter now, and you'll realize it next time, and slowly you'll always keep going toward better and better life situations.

I'm writing this to let you know it happens to everyone else too. We all go thru some level of additional messes and we don't see them as messes, we only realize it in retrospect. So don't blame yourself if you don't know how exactly to put yourself in a good situation after you've experienced so few of them! It might be a rocky road, but it won't feel like one, not until you look back. You're always moving forward, and every single thing you didn't realize at the time, that it was bad, is generally how we all move forward and learn about these things. You can't know it all at once.

#escaping abuse #abuse aftermath #child abuse #abusive parents #trauma recovery #abuse recovery #recovering from abuse #going from worst to bad to better to good

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thedemonknownasbilly · 5 months

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Nephilim - Chapter One

Master List

Ineffable Dads AU || Crowley and Aziraphale are already married

Warnings: child abandonment

Word Count: 1k

Disclaimers: Nephilims are typically human/angel descent, but this will be my own take. Arden is AFAB non-binary, the picture I’ve used to depict them is exactly what Crowley found them in, hence his original assumption.

“Okay, okay, Angel just wait for me to get there, I can tell you’re excited about this, which usually means talking until one of our phones dies, so just give me fifteen and I’ll be there.” Crowley spoke into his phone, grabbing his jacket and shrugging it on as he went out to Bentley.

“Okay, okay, if I haven’t popped by then.” Aziraphale chuckled on the other end of the line.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Crowley shook his head and hung up, a fond smile playing at his lips as he started up his beloved car, pulling out of the drive of his flat.

“The hell?” He murmured minutes later, passing by the park as he always did, but this time he noticed a child sitting right by the fence, seemingly just watching cars, but their mismatched eyes landed on the Bentley and it seemed to throw them into a fit of giggles. “Looks like you have an admirer.” Crowley said to his car, pulling to the side and quickly getting out and across the road.

“Hey, kid; where’s mum and dad?” He asked, hoping they were old enough to understand him and talk, he never could tell with humans. But the kid, a girl he figured out from her long hair and pink dress, simply raised her arms up to him. “Oh, dear.” He said, an eyebrow cocked as he picked her up. “What’s your name?”

“Arden!” She laughed, her small hand lightly patting his tattoo, and he couldn’t help to smile as he settled her onto his hip and began to walk around, looking for anyone missing a child. But as the sun set, and people began to leave, nobody came up to claim Arden.

“Okay, well, d’you like books?” He was answered by aggressively fast nodding. “Message received.” He chuckled, keeping her from falling out of his arms as he walked back to the Bentley, miracling a car seat into the back of the Bentley and strapping her in. “Whoever invented these ridiculous buttons better be in the farthest corner of Hell.” He grumbled, but smiling when Arden just nodded and affirmed his thought. “Clever thing.” He praised before closing the door and getting into the front seat. Hopefully Aziraphale hadn’t burst in the time Crowley took.

“Crowley! There you are!” Aziraphale called out when he heard the door open.

“Hey, Aziraphale! Sorry, I found this little girl-” Crowley was cut off by two hands grabbing his cheeks, Aziraphale watching curiously.

“No!” Arden said, “notta girl.”

“Boy?” Crowley asked, watching as they shook their head.

“Neither?” That earned him a squeal of delight and another round of aggressive nodding.

“Arden, you’re gonna fall, stop that.” He fussed lightly, fixing his hold on them. “Okay, I found this kid at the park up the road, waited until all the parents left before I did, no one came up to claim them.” He said to Aziraphale who was trying to coax Arden into his arms, his eyes full of love and awe as they settled onto him.

“I’m sure there will be an alert in a few hours, a tired parent probably didn’t notice you had them.” He said, stroking their light brown hair from their eyes. “Oh, Crowley look, such pretty eyes.”

“Almost like ours.”

“Yes, almost. Are you hungry, sweet thing, er, what was your name.”

“Arden!” They giggled, wiggling to try and get down, done with being held and taking off in a sprint to the small children’s section Aziraphale had.

“No running please!”

“Oh yeah, nearly gave themselves a concussion when I asked if they liked books, you saw how they nod, full body nod, I swear.”

“Indeed, appropriately hyper it seems.” Aziraphale chuckled, “Arden, how old are you sweetie?”

“Five and a half!” They called, arms full of books as they made way to Aziraphale’s desk.

“Oh, look at that, they’re basically you.” Crowley teased, going over to Arden and picking them up to put them into the chair since they weren’t letting go of any books any time soon.

Aziraphale chuckled and went upstairs to see what it was he had that a five year old could eat. “Crowley, I’m not sure I have any food that is best for their age.” He called down.

“What about Nina’s, I’m sure she’s got something.” Crowley called out, sitting next to Arden so he could keep an eye on her, and Aziraphale’s beloved books.

“Perhaps, I will run over and ask!”

“I like him!” Arden exclaimed happily when Aziraphale had left.

“Yeah? Me too,” Crowley felt his heart swelling with love, miracling a hairbrush into his hand. “Is it okay if I brush your hair? It seems the wind messed it up.”

“Mhm!” Arden hummed, “gently please.” Crowley nodded, carefully making sure not to tug their hair as he brushed it, apologizing each time he had to pull a little hard.

“I’m back! Nina had some chicken nuggets and a box of mac and cheese. Does that sound good Arden?”

“Yes sir!” They giggled, looking up to Aziraphale, who smiled as he looked at Crowley and the child, Arden perched in his desk chair, Crowley sitting besides them, slender fingers working a brush into their hair gently as they read over Little Monsters by David Williams.

With a quick ruffle of Arden’s hair, not messing it up terribly, and a kiss to Crowley, Aziraphale went back upstairs to his flat, beginning to cook dinner, sending Crowley a text when it was ready.

“Alright little duck,” Crowley said, standing with a stretch before he picked them up. “Dinner’s ready for you.” He carefully brought them up the stairs and into the quaint dining room. Sitting them down in front of the food and going to stand by Aziraphale’s side.

“No alerts on my phone.”

“None on mine… you don’t think,” Aziraphale left the last part unsaid, not wanting to think it true.

“If they did, I’ll drag them down to Hell myself. They’re too pure, didn’t really acknowledge me when I asked where mum and dad were.”

“Perhaps it’s not mum and dad? Maybe some other relatives?” Aziraphale tried to give the benefit of doubt.

“Still hardly excuses the lack of an alert, it’s been three hours.” Crowley frowned. “Are you okay with them sleeping here or should I bring them to my flat?”

“You both can stay here,” the angel said simply, holding Crowley’s hand, “you know I adore your company, and Arden is perfectly welcome as long as they need to be.”

#good omens #crowley #tdkab #thedemonknownasbilly #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #aziracrow #aziraphale x crowley #azicrow #good ineffable omens #ineffable dumbasses #ineffable dads #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #gn oc #gender neutral oc #nonbinary #nonhuman

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takobaki · 5 months

Text

Snowy innocence // PT 2

A bite of care

Octavinelle Dorm

A/N: NEW SECRET CHARACTER THAT WILL BE MENTIONED MORE, AND SOME MIGHT BE CRINGY/EMBARSSING SO SORRY IF IT IS

Word count: 1,001

Warnings: BAD WRITING, SLIGHTLY IMPILED NEGLECT AND ABANDONMENT, AND CHARACTERS MAY BE OOC, NOT PROOF READ, SHORT

Other parts here

"Huh?" Alkni let out quietly as she turned to him, her eyes wide in shock.

'S...so so...hungry' The girl thought to herself as she walked by a bakery, causing her stomach to rumble. She rarely was feed by her parents as most of the time they barely had enough money to feed themselves, much less a barely growing child. 'Maybe this time I'll be able to get some food' Yet it was all wishful thinking as before she could barely step foot in the bakery, she was abruptly dragged out as the person dragging her out, cursed her out Again

Alkni quickly shook her head up and down as she looked at him with doey eyes, making Jade chuckle. "Well, lets go see what we have" Azul said as he picked her up from Jade's arms.

When Azul first picked Alkni up, he couldn't help but notice how light she was. Albeit most kids her age weren't the heaviest, she seemed lighter then she should be. Usually Azul wouldn't do this for free, yet Alkni was a young child, and seemed to be in need of help. He could always have her pay him back for his help in the future anyways.

The dusty black haired girl sat outside the kitchen, waiting patiently for Azul to finish making her something to eat. She was far to afraid to be close to Azul, thinking that if she annoyed him in the slightest, she would have her opportunity to have food ripped away from her. Azul walked over to her, holding a plate of food in his hands as he squatted down to Alkni's height "Before I give this to you, I need you to answer one question for me" Azul told her as he gave her a warm smile, trying to be as comforting as possible to try and get her to answer his questions

"What is your name?" Azul asked as he tilted his head to the side slightly. He knew that the more information he could get on her, the more he could do to find out where she came from. Alkni paused as she tried to remember what a name was

"Come on Alkni!" ████ said as they gently picked up the 3 year old girl, lifting her up and swinging her around in the air. "I promise you, I'll do whatever it takes to protect you... I will stop anyone from trying to harm you, I promise" Holding the three year old girl close to her, the tall woman rocked her as she hummed a happy tune, which ████ had always called 'Alknis lullaby'

''A...ah... Alk...ni?"

She said as she looked up at Azul, her words coming out as more of a question rather then her own name. "Alkni, huh?" The light gray haired man hummed quietly to himself as he handed her the food as promised

Alknis eyes light up as she quickly grabbed the piece of food, quickly taking small bites out of the food. After spending long periods of time by herself on the streets, Alkni had grown used to eating food very slowly in a attempt to keep food for as long as possible

Azul let out a amused chuckle as he watched the girl whom he know knew as 'Alkni' eat the basic food he made. Truth be told, he had never seen anyone so excited over such a simple food, and yet it filled him with a sense of warmth

Almost as if he had been put under a spell

03/19/████

Dear diary

"If you want something, then you must always do it yourself"

Thats what I've always been told.

Of course they never meant it in a encouraging way, rather a 'Shut up and leave me alone' way

We are barely scraping by from the money that our family is giving us, and yet, they deicide to bring another poor poor unfortunate soul here.

I would assume its for extra money and sympathy- knowing them it almost 100% is

So are they finally taking their own words to heart...?

Because if so, this isnt how you do it.

-██████████████

Alkni sat at one of the tables in Mostro Lounge, swinging her small legs back and forth as she listened to the three Octavinelle students talk "Lets bring her to Sam, he might be able to do something about her" Jade said in a whisper, making the little girl freeze in her seat, her red emotionless like eyes widening in fear. Usually whenever they would say that, it would only mean the worst would happen

"Okay, and he might be able to find something useful out about her" Azul said as the three students walked out of the VIP room they were discussing in, which Alkni shouldn't have been able to hear them in. "Hey Ricefish! You wanna go somewhere fun!" Floyd said, flashing her a toothy grin, showing off his sharp teeth.

The red eyed girl quickly shook her head no, as she curled into herself, trying to make herself harder to carry if they where to try a grab her, fearing whoever this 'Sam' guy was would hurt her. "Whats wrong little rice fish?" Floyd asked as he walked over to the table she was sitting at, squatting down to meet her eye to eye.

Floyd did want to do what he always did whenever someone didn't comply, usually for contracts, yet something was stopping him from doing it, making him let out a sigh.

"How about if you go with us, I'll get you some extra tasty food" The octo-person said from behind Floyd, his arms crossed behind his back, while flashing her a warm smile. Alkni perked up upon hearing the word food, as she looked up towards him wearily

She slowly nodded as Floyd picked her up, grinning as he threw her over his shoulder "Now Floyd, thats not how your supposed to carry a child" Jade chirped, making Floyd shift her into a more comfortable position

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keylovesstuff · 6 months

Text

Omg guys stop what you're doing I actually wrote instead of just playing out scenes in my head lmao!!

Can I offer you guys a little update on this fine Monday?

Little events Ch.2

AO3

FFN

"Why don't we just let her stay here with us?" Questioned a Green toad from the opposite end of the table.

Toadsworth looked up from an unsearched area on the map and fixated his companion with a perplexed look. It had been three months since the little girl they decided to call Peach wandered through the pipe to their little village. Naturally there were questions from others upon seeing the child the next day and the scouts answered. Toadsworth, being the leader of their group, felt a sense of obligation to get her back home safely. They started their search going through the pipe directly from where she came only to find the town completely abandoned. They weren't expecting to find the area like this and Peach didn't seem to have much of a reaction to the place. Nevertheless they decided to hang around for a while in hopes they would encounter someone looking for the child.

The day came and went without anyone showing up and Peach had started to grow restless as the day grew later. There were only so many things around to keep her entertained. The group returned to their village and for the rest of the week, they came back to the deserted town, even going as far as visiting during different hours of the day. When they saw that routine was going nowhere they pulled out their map and looked for areas where humanlike creatures resided. This method proved to be better but not by much as people who were willing to hear them out didn't know who she was. Now here they are and there is only one place left to go. If nothing comes out of this visit could they really just raise her on their own?

"Absolutely not" Toadsworth raised his voice slightly after causing everyone's eyes to widen "We face enough challenges taking care of our own. The needs of humans are too much" he rationalized to the group and to remind himself.

"Well what do you propose we do if we don't find her a home today?" One Toad raised a hand and asked.

Toadsworth thought about it for a minute and couldn't come up with anything. Before he could say as much another Toad spoke up with an idea.

"We could take her to an orphanage or something... She'll be around other kids and someone who wants her will adopt her" The toad finished and added "Maybe her family's looking for her at one of those places you never know" they added.

The mustache toad considered it for a minute with fingers on his chin. On one hand the thought of just leaving the child alone to be given to just anyone scared him a bit. There was always a chance that the people who would take Peach, not being able to give her the love and life she deserved. Then again, the toads themselves were pretty much taking their own chances with each person they approached offering to give her to because they 'supposedly were or knew her parents' so to an extent the solution was similar. On the other hand no one has done this in their three months yet so he had some faith that whoever would take her would give her the world.

Maybe it had to do with how short of a time they have been caring for her but, Toadsworth has been growing rather fond and protective of Peach. He was starting to think that the longer she resided with them, the harder it would be for him to let her go and return back to his old routine. With that final thought, he came to the conclusion that today had to be the day they found her a new home and family.

"Very well, I'll keep that in mind as we go about our day." He nodded to the toad's suggestion, adjusting his glasses. "Be prepared to leave in thirty minutes. I'll see you gentlemen at the gate" After everyone was dismissed, Toadsworth followed heading straight to the area where all the kids gathered every morning.

Bright blonde hair stuck out like a sore thumb but at the same time she looked so natural sitting in the circle chatting and laughing with the smaller toads. Peach's blue eyes met his beady ones as he approached the group. Wide smile she hopped up from her spot and skipped over to him while nine other kids followed.

"Good morning Mrs Toadsworth" they all greeted him happily. Peach wrapped her arms tightly around his body as if she didn't just see him an hour ago and did the same thing.

"A pleasant morning to you kids as well" he replied while rubbing the top of Peaches head. "You all go back over and finish your breakfast now." He told them after noticing half empty plates of fruit and crackers where they once were.

"Are you taking Peach to another place today?" One of the children asked him as they walked back over to their spot. He nodded in response.

"Can we come too? Peach says you guys always have fun." Another one chimed in with a question of their own.

"Certainly not, you all must stay here and tend to your work." He shook his head as they all sat down in their places. "Besides we don't go to have fun, we're taking her home today" he finished explaining.

"You say that all the time Mr.Toadsworth but she always comes back" yet another child stated in between bites of apple slices.

"Yeah 'sides Peach says she likes us and wants to stay here" a purple spotted toad spoke up as well and Peach nodded along eagerly.

Of course Toadsworth knew that. Days where they didn't go out searching, Peach would always come to him expressing how much fun she had that day with her friends. She'd tell him how she wished she could stay with them all forever. Everytime he bought up the idea of her maybe being happier with people like her, he'd always get a nonchalant 'maybe' before she returned to playing and talking more about the day. He always chalked those moments up to that just being an excited child's attention span but she'd give the same answer when settling down for the night. The kids were still talking to him while he was lost in thought and he only focused back in when another voice joined the conversation.

"Alright kids, let's finish up and stop bombarding Mr.Toadsworth with questions. We got a big day ahead of us." Toadannie sweetly told them while handing over Peach's clean clothes to Toadsworth. "Wouldn't you guys want someone to get you back home if you got lost?" She asked them. Some of the kids shook and nodded their heads.

"No, because my mom and dad always make me eat gross vegetables and go to bed early. My new family wouldn't do that" One of them said and the whole group laughed, some of them agreeing.

"Ok I hear you all. I'm sure Peach will come and visit us with her family. Right honey" Toadannie asked her and she nodded. "See? Her hair has already been brushed" she directed the last statement to Toadsworth who was going to ask that question next.

"Thank you Ms.Toadannie. let's go now Ms.Peach, we have a big day ahead of us." He cleared his throat and offered his hand to help Peach up. She took it and they waved the other children off as they left to go about their day with Toadannie.

"Do I really have to go home today?" Peach looked up and asked Toadsworth as they headed back to his place.

"That's the plan my dear. We all have a good feeling about today. You're going to love it." He told her in hopes of getting her excited. The desired effect wasn't given.

"If you say so. I love being here with you all more" Peach told him staring straight ahead.

"We all love you being here with us too but we also want you to be around others that can give you what you need. You'll understand it when you're older, I promise." He finished as they made it back to his house, opening the door. "Now you go get changed, we have to meet up with everyone in fifteen minutes time." He looked at the clock on the wall and handed her her clothing.

Once she disappeared into his room he gathered some extra snacks from his pantry like usual and placed them in the bag by the door. He did some last minute thinking about the future really hers to himself. Are they really doing right by Peach with the lengths they are going to when it comes to wanting her with her own kind? If they were willing to give it a try, could they actually be enough to raise a human child into a proper adult? While he had many doubts about these things, there was a little trust that it all could work out. If only her guardians wherever they were would just show up, take her home, and care for her. He was once again pulled out of his thoughts by her voice.

"I'm ready" she called out to him. Toadsworth gave a once-over of her appearance and there was only one thing out of place.

"Your shoes are on the wrong foot my dear Peach." He chuckled, bending down to help her fix them. "There we go, now you're ready." She giggled and reached out to his hand and he took it.

They held onto each other tightly and left the house.

__________

The search went by as it usually went. Five minutes in from the moment they entered the town, of course Peach had a million of things she needed that they all had to attend to. After a few potty breaks, some lunch, and getting her to take a nap they were finally able to talk to the locals asking their usual questions. Toadsworth asked an additional question to those who were willing to listen about places that housed and took care of abandoned children. Turns out the place wasn't too far from where they were and people had nothing but positive things to say about it along with the staff. While the words did make him feel good about maybe leaving her there, he wanted to see this place with his own eyes.

That's exactly what he decided to do around two in the afternoon. He left Peach in the care of his two companions at a park along with a few other kids. The place was about a five minute walk from the playground. That was a pretty good distance he thought and surely they don't let the smaller children roam about on their own without some sort of supervision. The building itself was pretty tall, about three stories as a matter of fact and well taken care of on the outside. The lawn was well-kept as the grass was short, bushes were trimmed, Flowers scattered about, and with what little he could see of the backyard looked pretty much the same.

There's more to things than just the outside, that's what he told himself. Toadsworth wanted to see and talk to those on the inside. Before he had a chance to knock, the door opened and out ran a boy that looked older than Peach, though not by that much. There was an older woman behind the desk who greeted him with a smile.

"Good afternoon sir, how can I help you?" She asked, standing up from the seat and approaching him.

"Ah yes well you see we have this child and we aren't sure where she belongs. We were referred to this place and I wanted to learn about how you all run this establishment. If you don't mind" He told her.

It took a little minute for the women to say something. The longer they stood in silence, the more convinced he thought she would decline his offer and turn him away. Instead after what seemed like forever she led him to the office behind the desk. The door was left slightly ajar as they both took a seat, her behind a computer. Toadsworth learned a lot more things from the worker after explaining the events from the past three months. Apparently a lot of kids of all species were brought here by others after stumbling out of pipes. Although she never saw someone take care of a child for this long before bringing them here.

"We thought we'd find them or even a lead by now but nothing." He told her "We just think she'd have a better chance of finding someone better fit for her needs." He added with a thoughtful smile.

The women seemed to understand him fully and gave him a brief rundown about how things were run around the place. Everything Toadsworth was told made him feel even better about the decision of leaving her there. They make sure all the kids are provided with a balanced three meals everyday and have availability to get snacks throughout the day if they want. All kids are well supervised throughout the day, especially the smaller ones who aren't allowed to leave the premises alone without an adult. There are plenty of things for them to do both inside and outside in the front and backyard for them to do. They do their best when it comes to teaching the smaller children reading, writing, and math skills before they are old enough to go to the school they have them all go to. All of that sounded really good to him but his next questions went along the lines of how they make sure the kids who do get adopted are going to live with good people.

Again she gave him an answer that was great to hear. They make sure to do routine background checks on adults prior and during the adoption process. They make sure the condition of the home is up to satisfactory standards. Once the process is complete they send in random wellness checks on these kids to make sure they are being treated well.

All questions answered, Toadsworth felt that Peach would be in really good hands staying here and even after leaving. They have plenty of clothes for her however long she stays. He told them all about her little quirks he's noticed throughout his time with him. They did some paperwork before he left to go get Peach and bring her here to meet everyone. Along with saying his final goodbyes to her.

Toadsworth returned to his companions at the park where he left them. One of them was pushing Peach on a swing while another one was sitting on a bench. Spotting the older toad he shook his head silently communicating to him that they still hadn't found anyone willing to take her during his time away. That was something he was used to by now but, today is different and he was ready to share what he learned from his little visit. They too felt good about leaving Peach in this place's care and while they were also feeling a bit sad about seeing her go, they knew it was best for her future.

After having Peach get acquainted with some of the adults at the place and asking him one final time if this is what they all really wanted to do, they were getting ready to say their goodbyes and head back home. Toadsworth told them to keep their farewells short so as not to cause a huge scene. While the other two toads were waiting patiently, he was the one who's been hugging Peach for almost an entire two minutes.

"Remember to be nice and use all your manners that I taught you ok?" He reminded her. She sniffled out an 'ok' nodding her head. "You just be your little bubbly self and everyone you meet is going to love you. Yes?" Again she nodded against him and he pulled back with arms still wrapped around her.

"Will you come and see me?" She asked him while rubbing the snot from her nose.

That question broke him just as much as her red face and tear streaked cheeks. He had to be truthful even if it would hurt her more. The thought of coming to visit her for a little while a few days out of the week till she was gone crossed his mind a couple of times. In the end he concluded that it would be more detrimental to her finding a home. Peach wouldn't want to go with anyone cause she'll always be looking forward to spending time with him and that was far from what he wanted to happen.

"I'm sorry dear but, I won't be able to do that." She cried harder after he finished saying that and she immediately wrapped her arms back around him "It's better that way. You'll understand it when you're older.ok?" He promised.

It took a little minute for her to calm down but once she finally did, he pulled her away again and reached out to wipe her face and held her hands in his.

"Hey now, we'll see each other again one day. I'm sure about that." He told her with a smile "you're far too pretty to have that look on your face and I don't want to leave you like that. Can I see your little happy face before I go?" He asked her hoping that would be enough for her to comply.

Instead of doing so she reached out and touched the red bow tie he wore around his neck. A silent request that he could easily give in...even if this was his favorite. He reached behind himself to loosen and pull off the tie.

"Now you make sure to take good care of this." She nodded as he wrapped it while not too tightly around her wrist. "When you don't have that blanket around your neck you can have someone help you properly put it on. " He chuckled and she giggled with him, finally giving him that smile he would always remember.

Satisfied he gave her one last hug before leading her up to the steps of the place to the person waiting. The pair waited at the door as Toadsworth headed to the others. Both sets of people waved one final time before the toads took off in the direction of home.

They began to walk. The other two toads made small talk about random stuff and looking forward to getting home for the day, Toadsworth was quiet. Peach was finally the one step away from getting the life she deserves and yet here he was with an empty feeling in his heart. He knew that with time this feeling would dissipate but how long would that take? How could something or someone being in his life for such a short amount of time cause him to be feeling like this? If he was willing to put in the effort could he have been the best guardian for her?

For the umpteenth time that day, he was lost in his thoughts and not paying attention he bumped into one of the toads who stopped suddenly. Toadsworth was about to ask why they stopped until he heard her crying and footsteps right behind him, the woman slightly behind calling out her name.

"Daddy! I want you" she called out to him jumping into his arms when he turned around. He easily caught her and was only shocked momentarily before he tightly held onto her. Peach continued repeating the second statement.

Toadsworth was caught up on what she called him. He felt that his heart would leap right out of his chest. The other toads stood there watching the scene in just as much shock.

"Peach" was really the only word he could say as she clutched tightly to the back of his vest.

"I think she already knows where she wants to call home" The woman said aloud with a smile.

"Hmm... Peach, is that true? Do you want to stay with us?" Toadsworth asked, trying to pull her away to face him. A futile effort as she held on tighter in order to stay in place. She nodded her head frantically.

At her age, she seemed to have complete trust in him to do right by her and wouldn't take anyone else for an answer. He still wasn't sure if he could do it all alone and was about to return her to the lady when another thought came to mind. Like all the children in their little village, everyone did their part to make sure they were well taken care of. They would adjust accordingly as she grew and she would surely be fine. They could only really give her their best so that is what they would do if she would allow them.

"Alright dear I hear you loud and clear. We'll honor your decision." He said, patting her back in a soothing motion.

#Key Posts #For some reason I feel like I added a lot of unnecessary things into this but at the same time it's like... its needed lmao #finished this last night but got too sleepy to actually post it so I am doing it 20 mins before I have to leave haha #Anyways I hope you guys have a lovely day and you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.#random note I have the deafen key on my laptop set to 'n' and have typed it so many times and I've heard that 'ding' sound so many times #ugh #Super Mario

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bluejaysandblackbats · 2 months

Text

You're Just Like Quicksand

Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam, Batman Beyond

Summary: Jason Todd is ready to go into semi-retirement after fifteen years working with troubled youth, but one case in particular forces him to confront the sins of his youth and painful memories from his past.

Chapters: 4/?

Characters: Jason Todd, Terry McGinnis, Warren McGinnis, Mary McGinnis, Matt McGinnis, Bruce Wayne, Original Character(s)

Relationship(s): TBA

Additional Tags: Protective Jason Todd, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Retired Jason Todd, Multiple POV, Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationships, Canon Divergent AU, Angst, Mourning Jason Todd

Chapter Four: No Man's Land (Terry McGinnis' POV)

I sat across from Jason, working on my history paper, struggling to write the page on how that applied to Gotham today. Jason sat behind his computer, transferring files using the scanner. “You look like you’re stuck on something. What’s up?” Jason asked without looking up.

“You were a kid during No Man’s Land, right?” I asked.

“I was in a coma, so I wouldn’t be much help there,” Jason answered. “I have a brother who was alive during that time… When’s the paper due?”

“Rough draft’s due Thursday,” I replied.

Jason checked his watch and pressed three buttons on his office phone. “Hello?” a man’s voice answered.

“Bernie? Bern, tell Tim to come to the phone. One of my kids has a few questions for a homework assignment. Let him know he doesn’t have to speak to me if he doesn’t feel like it. This is for the kid,” Jason stated. He pushed his hair back, shutting his eyes as he breathed through his nose.

“I’ll get him… Wait a second, okay?” the man whispered.

“Who’s Bernie?” I asked.

“He’s my brother-in-law… He’s a good guy. Phenomenal cook. My kids love him-. Loved… They loved him,” Jason mumbled.

“Jason, what’s this about?” a stern voice questioned.

Jason looked at me. “I’ve got a student here who needs to interview a person from Gotham who was alive during No Man’s Land,” Jason explained, “I was in a coma, but I figured you might remember something about that time.”

“I do… How’re you doing? Kenny came home from school last week and asked about you,” Tim whispered.

“Did he get my gift?” Jason questioned.

“He did. I think he’d rather see his uncle… And despite our problems, I see no need in you avoiding Ken. He adores you-.”

“You’re on speaker, and I-. You know why I stay away… Tell him I love him, and I’m proud of him,” Jason interrupted, “No more small talk, okay? The kid’s paper is due on Thursday… And I’m sure it’ll take time for him to take notes today.”

Tim cleared his throat. “Okay… Fine. Hi, I’m Tim, Jason’s younger brother,” Tim introduced himself.

“I’m Terry. I guess you could say I’m a client of Jason’s… Are you busy?” I asked.

“Not particularly busy… Jason called the right person. I was in Gotham when it started, and my dad pulled me out to keep me safe,” Tim explained.

“Let me see your history book for a second,” Jason whispered. I passed him my tablet, and he read the pages to himself. “This is Tim. He’s right here.” Jason showed me a billboard of one of the missing kids in Gotham.

“That’s your brother?” Terry asked.

“Jason, don’t tell him that-.”

“Yeah, the search for him was like a nationwide incident-.”

“Okay, Terry, you had questions about that specific time, right?” Tim asked.

Jason gestured for me to answer him. “Tim doesn’t bite. He’s harmless,” Jason joked. I grinned.

“Tim, how old were you at the time?” I questioned.

“I was fifteen,” Tim answered.

Jason typed something into his personal phone. “Can you describe life in Gotham before, during, and after?” Terry asked.

Tim described Gotham as a crime-ridden city with a system of order kept neat by vigilante justice and police work before No Man’s Land (NML). During NML, the only system was that of criminal persuasion. The government abandoned the people, who were forced to fend for themselves against the different factions of super-powered and gimmicky criminals in their respective areas. Tim snuck into Gotham after it’d been shut off and got stuck there. When he returned home to Gotham after everything opened up, Tim’s dad enrolled him in boarding school. “A lot of us didn’t adjust well to being back in Gotham, and tons of kids, including myself, didn’t finish high school,” Tim replied.

“What did you do?” I asked.

Jason stood up, leaving me in his office alone. “Family business… But Gotham saw the problem in the school system and made it easier for kids to go to school and get their GEDs, go to college, and do whatever they had to to get on their feet,” Tim replied.

“Thanks for the help,” I smiled, “I-. Is Jason by himself a lot?”

“Jason, isolates… It’s what he does. He’s-.”

“Dad, is that JT?” a voice in the background questioned.

“I’m talking to one of his protégés,” Tim answered.

“Tell the kid to tell JT that ice cream’s on the house,” the voice replied.

“Okay, Kenny… I will. Now, make sure your father doesn’t cause a three-alarm fire making pizza again,” Tim warned him.

“Can do… Pop! You don’t need to put gasoline in a wood burner!” the voice yelled.

“That’s my son… Um, how old are you?” Tim asked.

“Fourteen,” I answered.

“He wouldn’t have called me had it not been for you… Jason must really like you. I haven’t heard from him in years. So, it was nice to hear his voice today. He almost sounded happy,” Tim whispered. His voice was soft. “I’ve gotta go. It’s dinnertime, but I want you to know it was a pleasure speaking to you, and I hope you get an ‘A’ on your history paper.”

“Thanks, Tim… And I’ll pass along your son’s message. Bye,” I replied.

“Bye, Terry.”

Jason returned with pizza and a large to-go container of fries. “Your dad texted me. He’ll be home late, so you’re having dinner with me. I hope you don’t mind pizza, breadsticks, and french fries. I didn’t plan on eating dinner tonight,” Jason stated without thinking. “Did I-? I meant-. I planned on having a drink, a piece of cake, and going to bed. Did Tim give you all the info you needed for your paper?” He seemed frazzled.

I nodded. “Someone wanted me to give you a message. I think it was your nephew,” I mumbled. Jason shook his head.

“No… It’s okay. Don’t tell me,” Jason whispered. I wrung my hands. “I’m not upset with either of you. It makes things easier when I don’t hear from the kids. That includes Ken… He’s my favorite, so that makes it even harder.”

“Oh… I almost forgot to say I watched your cage match against Michael ‘The Meat Grinder’ Gallucci. I had to watch it like ten times. How’d you do that so fast?” I asked. I had to change the subject. And well… He owed me a story.

Jason ate a fistful of fries and pushed the to-go plate my way. “Mm… That was my first match, but it wasn’t where the move originated. My oldest son was the first one to do the Thunderclap. He was eight, and we were play-fighting on the living room floor when he put his hands together, swung back, slapped me on one side of my face, swung, and hit me on the other cheek. I was so stunned-. I think he was too. He didn’t mean to hit me. I think he forgot it was only a game,” Jason replied. I don’t think he was convinced. He knit his brows together, a pained expression painted by the wrinkles in his brow and the tightness of his lips. I wondered what bubbled beneath the surface of his mind. Jason was interesting. Sad… But interesting. “You gave me a look.”

“I-. Jason, can I be honest with you?” I questioned.

“I’d like that,” Jason replied, “Don’t pull punches. I can take it.”

“He hit you, but he didn’t forget you were playing… He got carried away, didn’t he? He had a history of getting carried away-.”

“He did, but he was my little boy, and I loved him. Something in him was just-. Terry, there are things you’ll never understand in life until you experience them for yourself. I hope you never have to experience that, though,” Jason interrupted, “But you’re right. I covered over the truth. That was a great observation. I don’t mind being caught in a lie, so you can call me out as much as you like. No hard feelings.”

The truth. So, I felt compelled to give him the same heartfelt honesty. “Your son was lucky… I-. My dad loves me, but sometimes I can tell he doesn’t understand me. Sometimes I feel like a stranger to him,” I mumbled, “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

“I don’t think so… I don’t think parents and children are meant to understand each other… I think we’re meant to love each other despite the mystery. It’s easier to understand a complete stranger than to comprehend how a human you brought into existence, whose little face you washed and watched grow-. You wonder why they’re so different,” Jason whispered. His voice was soft and broken. It made me miss my dad. “Warren loves you more than most dads ever love their sons. I don’t know… It might be a psychological thing. Most dads hate their sons, but he adores you.”

“That’s nice to hear,” I replied.

“It’s the truth,” Jason stated. We both reached for a slice of pizza at the same time. “You remind me of myself, Terry… When I was young, I could’ve been anyone or anything. Don’t become one thing, Terry. You owe yourself more than that… Because once you trap yourself in one thing, it’s all you ever get. There’s no escaping it.”

“Did you get trapped in one thing?” I asked.

“Yeah, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to escape the ramifications of one misstep I made when I was fifteen,” Jason replied. And that stuck with me.

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gritsandbrits · 6 months

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Decoy Princess AU snippet

What if Odette existed during the events of Season 8? She works for Harumi as her lady in waiting/decoy and is with the ninja and develops real feelings for Lloyd? Feelings that the real Harumi sees as a threat....

Odette sat in her quarters looking out the window. The clouds growing more orangey-purple, illfitting for the emotions she was feeling right now. Guilt churned in her stomach creating a pit of sorrow that consumed every inch of her. In the last 24 hours her one chance of freedom escapes. The ninja were certainly dead and it was all her fault. She deserved it for following behind Harumi's mess. She really was better off back on the streets than involved in this madness, the madness she enabled due to her lack of conviction. If the ninja lived they will never forgive her, espcially Lloyd. Odette could still see fresh images of that agonizing moment, the look of utter betrayal when Lloyd realized he had been deceived. All while her best friend laughed in his face.

"I thought I see you here."

Speak of the devil.

Odette didn't take her eyes off the clouds as Harumi stepped into the room. She was halfway dressed in a black suit with spikes all over, her bleached hair loose down her back like a curtain of snow. She saw Odette on the sill still wearing that fugly green jumpsuit.

"Why aren't you getting ready? You know how much of a big deal this is for us," the ex princess said as she closed the door.

"For you," Odette wanted to snark but she held her tongue. She had no room to snark anyways.

Harumi knew Odette can be quieter than herself at times. But this was different. Almost as though of she was reflecting on something. The last thing she needed was regret.

"Don't tell me you actually had feelings for him," she scoffed. "

"I don't," Odette said quickly, forcing herself to look at the princess. Or should she even call her that? It didn't matter anymore now that the emperor and empress were dead. Odette winced at the thought. Everything she did to them was coming back to haunt her.

"They would've found out eventually. Besides they only took you in to make themselves look good," Harumi continued, hissing out the last part. "Had you been not royalty they would've abandoned you as soon as the cameras stopped rolling."

Odette thought on her words. Yes the ninja were flawed but they still treated her kindly. She'd been plotting behind their backs yet they treated her with empathy. And this was how she repaid them. Perhaps this turn of events was the royal parents and Hutchins' revenge from beyond the grave.

"I guess," said Odette finally. She hated to admit it but Harumi was right she couldn't keep up the charade for long. If Lloyd didn't find out then one of them certainly would. And as long Harumi didn't direct her rage at her she was fine. For a while at least.

Seeing that her words weren't working as well as she liked, Harumi sat in front of Odette. "I cant tell you you should forget them, never forget what they've failed to do." Odette remained silent. Harumi gently lifted her chin. "But don't let that sour your world. In a few more hours our lives will be better. We'll finally hold those kids responsible for their mistakes and we get it be the heroes Ninjago deserves. Pinky promise?"

Odette sighed again. She didn't feel very heroic. But maybe Harumi was right. She had ayed the role long enough it was time to let go. "Pinky promise."

Satisfied Harumi got up and grabbed Odette by the hand. "Come on, let's get you ready. We can't host a royal occasion without a princess after all."

#THIS is set after the betrayal so spoilers #harumi #oc #its not a harumi x oc ship; its Odette and Lloyd #lego ninjago

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countrymusiclover · 11 hours

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56 - Changing the Course

Part 57

Family is More than Blood

@vavafaure1994 @melvia-ito

What else do y'all want to see in this story??? Comment below

Raelyn’s Pov

Staring out the window in the upstairs bedroom of the room I shared with my husband I just stood in utter silence. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone since I had come back from the kids helping me take control over my darker self. I was wearing a simple peach colored robe with my bra and underwear underneath it. My hair was in a messy half bun as I scanned over the letter that was in my hands till I heard my husband softly call my name. “Raelyn! Rae - there you are. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah - I’m fine.” I mumbled sliding the letter inside of one of the pockets of my robe before he could notice it was there.

Klaus was leaning his body in the doorway slowly walking towards me until he stood behind me, he touched my shoulder gently. “Rae, you haven’t left the house in days.”

“I don’t see the problem with that. We have enough blood in the basement and the kids are old enough to take care of themselves.” I responded still watching the cars driving down the road out the window.

He tried to turn me around to face him but I wouldn’t budge. “Henrik, Charming and Rapunzel are still very young. But don’t worry Elena is watching them for a few hours for me and I paid her very nicely. Yet I am concerned about you, my love.”

“Nik, I said I was fine. You have nothing to worry about.” I grumbled under my breath clutching my hands into fists.

He sighed squeezing my shoulder. “You haven’t showered, you lay around in bed sipping from blood bags and you haven’t attempted to get used to having your magic back.”

“None of those reasons are life threatening. So why don’t you just say what is really on your mind?” I asked him, slowly turning around to finally face my hybrid husband.

He gently touched the side of my face and cradled it. “Raelyn, you know you can tell me anything. I know something is bothering you. Please just tell me what it is.”

“I don’t think I can be a good headmistress anymore.” I answered him simply.

He clicked his tongue scanning my facial features for a few minutes. He knew that the job was hard, but if anyone should doubt that they should be running a school it was him and not his wife. “What makes you feel that way?”

“The reason the school was built was to make a safe place for young supernatural kids. That's great and all but - but how are they supposed to experience life if we keep them locked up only on the ground of the old Boarding house.” I began explaining doing my best to still hide the letter that was in my rob pocket from him. “We need to change the system. We need to let then experience the whole town of Mystic Falls without parents breathing down their necks.”:

His face had confusion written all over it so he had no choice but to ask more questions. “Raelyn, what exactly are you meaning by let them go around without supervision?”

“We learned how to function in the world of ordinary humans. Even though I know we had some problems, it made us better people. It made us better than just being the monsters that everyone thinks supernatural people are.” I throw my hands away from my sides huffing with my shoulders dropping. “The school needs to consider changing the current system we have in mind. The constant monster attacks have been too much on all of us.”

He clicked his tongue thinking about what she had just said. “They have been taking a toll on us lately. The Hollow coming back and then the Dark Magic incident too.”

“Exactly. The best thing for these kids is to get to live life outside of that school before they decide to abandon the place altogether!” I began letting tears slip down my face running my hands through my hair shaking from the amount of emotion I was feeling from this.

Klaus tilted his head to the side. “Rae, who or what has upset you like this?”

“Our kids are going to leave us if we don’t do anything to stop them, Nik.”

He raised a brow. “Raelyn, they are going to leave us and grow up at some point. But they certainly aren’t ready for that at the moment.”

“Oh really because I read this.” Reaching inside my pocket I slapped it down in his hands. The folded paper had my name written on the front of it. “It’s from Alina.”

My husband scanned his gaze over the paper, reading it out loud to himself in disbelief. “Dear mom, I am relieved that you are back to your old self and hopefully we are done having to save your life for a while. With that in mind I don’t think I - we can stay at the school if monsters continue to keep coming after us. It’s becoming all too much and as much as I adore the school and the friends I’ve made there I have to leave for a little bit. So Jack and I are heading back to New Orleans with Xavier and are gonna take care of the pack with Uncle Jacob and Aunt Hayley. I love you and dad. We’ll be back sometime - forever your daughter Alina.”

“You see what I mean now. My children are going to leave because of the monsters and there’s nothing I can do about it.” I snapped at him when he lowered the letter from his view.

“I’m sorry, Rae.” He muttered.

I sniffed feeling some more tears coming. “What do we do?”

“We can’t really do much of anything. This is what every normal parent has to deal with. We may be able to defy death but I don’t think this can happen.”

I suggested taking his hands in mine once he let the letter slip from his grasp. “Can’t we try the daggers on them or spell them to stay with us forever?”

“Awe I’m sorry, love. Neither of them will help us.” He holds my face in his hands wiping away my tears with his thumbs. He tilted his head to the side, closing the gap almost completely where our foreheads could touch if he stepped two steps closer. “But hey, even if they leave us someday one thing will always be constant. Me and my undying love for you, heretic Queen.”

Flinging my arms around his neck I buried my face into his chest. “Thank you, Nik.” He wrapped his arms tightly around my waist kissing the side of my head until his phone started ringing.

“Who the hell is this?” He growled holding me against his chest with one arm and held his phone up to his ear with his other hand.

I could hear Hope’s voice come through the phone. “Mom, we need your and dad’s help. A townie might have to become a vampire after we got in a bar fight.”

“Idiot townies!” He grumbled under his breath.

I snatched the phone from his hand responding to my daughter before hanging up. “Hope, we’ll be on our way. Don’t give her blood until we get there if you can.” Handing him his phone back Klaus and I vamped in the direction of the Grill to help our kids handle this life changing situation. By the time we entered the building we were faced with Missy and Hope leaning over a distraught Maya Marchdo.

“Why would he do that? What do you mean help is on the way just call an ambulance already.”

Hope tried to touch her shoulder. “It's gonna be okay.”

“Don't touch me!”

I piped up with Klaus following my heels when I bent down on a knee to be eye level with the girl sparing a glance to her brother. “Is she on vervain?”

“No.” He responded simply.

Placing my hands on her shoulders I began compelling her. “Okay then you're not gonna be afraid of us. We're here to help. Just wait here for a second and don't leave.” She nodded her head watching me rise to my feet dragging my daughter’s over by their arms.

“What are we going to do with her?” Klaus asked, joining our side conversation.

Hope shrugged her shoulders. “Just give her some blood and turn her already. It’s not like we've made her forget a bunch of stuff about us.”

“We can’t force her to turn.” Missy snapped at her sister.

Hope fired back. “And why not?”

“Because it's Ethan's sister.” She barked.

Hope rolls her eyes. “Ethan knows and he wouldn’t have to hide things from her anymore. Problem solved in my opinion.”

“Hang on a minute.” I raised a hand butting in. “Becoming a vampire isn't always a choice for everyone. Missy is right that Maya should choose instead of us just snapping her neck like a twig with no remorse.”

Klaus heard the human girl groan holding onto the piece of wood that was still inside her chest, blood seeping from the wound very quickly. “If we wait much longer she'll die either way. Vampire blood or none in her system so we need to think of something bloody quick.”

“You guys are gonna help her right?” Ethan glanced in our direction holding her hand in his.

I spun around on my feet about to head over to the siblings until somebody gently yanked me backwards by my forearm. “Don't worry, Ethan. I'll take care of - woah”

“Mom, I'll do it.” Missy whispered.

I sent her a weak smile. “You don't have to do this.”

“It happened because of me, mom. If one of us has to turn her, it should be me.” She responded to me walking towards her. Lowering herself down on my knees, Ethan backs away when she put her hands on Maya's. “Maya, listen to me. I'm gonna give you some of my blood anxiety afterwards there's going to be some slight pain. But then everything will be fine.”

“Uh - okay.” She gulped nervously where Missy bites into her wrist bringing it up to her mouth and she slowly drank the blood.

Missy nodded her head slowly moving her fingers around her neck and twisted it until we all heard the snap and Maya's body collapsed onto the floor. “I'll go get her some blood bags from the house. Rae, you or Hope make her a daylight ring.” My husband vamped out of the restaurant.

“Ethan, you should go home.” I spoke up with Hope standing beside me.

The human boy turns his head upward. “What why?”

“She'll be a newbie vampire who will not have control of her blood lust for a while. It will just be safer for you that way.” He slowly nods his head yes in agreement getting up from the ground and exiting the bar.

My phone dings showing me a text from Klaus that I mumbled to myself with a smile forming on my face. “You’re plan seems right. We should do a trial to let our students run along with the townies. We can talk about the system later.” Putting my phone in my pocket I knew things were definitely going to change in regards to the Salvatore School.

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grim-faux · 8 months

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but fr the whole interaction between Noone and the teen trope has a big brain different meaning with how friendly and chatty they were, if you listen to it with the context they might've been just thinking of a way to use Noone to escape the Circus/Nowhere.

Maybe Rusty and his friends/fam were very friendly and nice teens who had retained their good nature despite being enslaved and forced to perform dangerous feats for the Dwellers/Bloats visiting the Circus. But really hard to think these young kids didn't have sinister intent, especially considering they despised being made to perform. Maybe even lost friends along the way due to accidents or inability to perform - like when the wild animals just lose their shit in a real circus and go on a rampage.

LN has always been a theme of exploiting children, using them for food or entertainment, and it reflects themes from our own world that are predatory and unethical when it comes to the rights and autonomy of the ones who need a parent or at minimal a guide who puts their child first. See """family""" vlog channels that from day 1, there is a camera in the babies face documenting each and every step of their development and growth. And I honest to the Tower, DESPISE family vloggers. The business and monetary practice is 'Understandable' but it is still unethical in terms of "YOU COULD PROBABLY DO BETTER IF YOU ARE THIS COMPITENT WITH A CAMERA"

Back on Rusty and his friends/fam. I am 120% certain they lost friends due to accidents or the kids got culled if they couldn't perform, or they had mental breakdowns - who knows what they were subjected to. It was apparent by how desperate Rusty was to get away. And he could have just neglected to tell Noone context or elaborate the plan, but he kinda of put her in a spot that he called "the best seat" and was worried, but we're not given much on what worried him the most. The plan, the man in the purple suit, for Noone maybe - if he planned to just abandon her once they got away. And Rusty might have gone off with the intent that once he and the others got away, then they would go back for Noone. But it's hard to speculate on that, since it was such a risk escaping in the first place, and I doubt he really wanted to think that far ahead.

And that makes Noone panic attack even more painful. Rusty's demise had to have been HORRIFIC and terrible, this might've been the first child/teen death she felt a strong connection to, or whatever happened to Rusty was that messed up. Or the whole "his life was relying on me and my competence" sort of thing, and that was why she was inconsolable and screaming 'big top'. Coz I'm sure Rusty and his friends made Noone feel special and needed, but the whole time they might only have been fibbing her to get what they want and then run off. The man in the purple suit did take an interest in Noone as well, and he was probably always searching for the next performer.

And you can disagree or add input on this whole disaster. But don't forget kids will take a dark path for their own survival. It's every kid, child, teen for themselves.

#little nightmares #lil nightmares #sounds of nightmares #noone #otto #rusty #the sounds of nightmares #can we call the monsters from the bathhouse and circus bloats?#i like that word #freeRusty #the Circus

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starsnbeers · 1 year

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Cherry Blossom [Dazai Osamu x reader]

Her parents abandoning her had been the beginning of her destruction, the beginning of her becoming a monster. Some may think that the characterization is a form of exaggeration. How could a little girl, barely eight years old, be something so horrendous? People break, when under pressure. Kids break too.

Alone. A truth I have felt since always.

***

She had to learn the act of survival if she wanted to continue existing. It all started with stealing small amounts of food, barely enough to keep her breathing. Murder had not once crossed her mind.

On a frosty winter night, everything had changed. The ten year old lady was returning to the abandoned attic she had been staying at, when footsteps began echoing from behind her. [Y/n] had acted immediately; quickening her steps, she hid in an alleyway, hoping the stranger was a simple passerby. When silence was all she heard, the young one proceeded to leave her hiding spot. Before she had any time to react, large hands wrapped themselves around her neck; she could not see him, only smell and feel his reeking breath at the back of her neck. “Were you do you think you are going?’’. The girl was unable to speak. When cold fingers started lowering on her body, the panic caught up to her. She thrusted left and right and screamed on the top of her lungs. When cold metal was pressed at the base of her neck, all she saw was red; she stepped on the old man’s foot and, turning around, grabbed his knife. When she finally came to her senses, blood was all over her. The head of the attacker laid in front of her. Calm and unaware of the chocolate orbs following her every move, she left as if nothing had happened.

***

Over the course of time, her hunger escalated to something deeper. Something she could not quite name. Something that consumed her whole and left her breathless. There were times when she would lose her senses, only to awaken covered in blood. She had lost count of her victim as she had lost feelings related to regret or remorse.

Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.

***

[Y/n] had changed. Shoulder length hair, full lips, pale face, one could mistaken her for a normal, fragile girl, for she looked like a porcelain doll. But that wasn’t the case. She had become a well known murderer in Yokohama. Having improved her martial skills, not being an ability user was not a problem for her. She could take down a man 3 times her size in only a matter of seconds. Fallen Angel is they called her, for someone as beautiful as her could never be considered the devil.

Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes.

***

Dazai Osamu

The youngest Port Mafia executive to ever exist. Ougai Mori’s left hand. A fifteen-year-old boy, who took pleasure in teasing his red haired partner and had an unexplainable obsession with suicide. But what more?

People called him Demon Prodigy. He was dangerous, unhinged. He never hesitated, his moves were always calculated and calm. He was ruthless, deadly, sad.

We shouldn’t be this kind of tired at our age.

***

They met each other under a cherry blossom tree. He was lying on the grass, looking at clouds, thinking about life. She was walking, focused on the birds’ songs and the smell of spring. He saw her. She didn’t. Neither of them expected the crash. When they both caught their breath, Dazai assured her he was okay, claiming to be honored by being stepped on by such a beautiful lady. [Y/n] blushed and, for the first time in her life, she was left breathless; not by fury, but by the charming young man. He invited her to spend their evening together as a way of making up and she nervously accepted. Most will say it was love at first sight, but that wasn’t the case.

One thing lead to another and, soon, the pair of teenagers grew used to each other; evening walks by the beach, long, deep night talks about the meaning of life, naps under the cherry tree

[Y/n] couldn’t recall ever feeling happy. Only ever knowing numbness and pain, it was difficult for her to control the butterflies swimming in her stomach and the dizziness she felt around him.

It’s like I look at you and suddenly the sonnets make sense.

***

The first time he saw her, he was stunned. How could a skinny, pale little girl behead such a man, with only a pocket knife? He thought her interesting, wanted to talk to her, learn about her past. Of course, his stupid partner had to ruin the moment. They were on a mission, after all.

Years had passed by, and, though he was sure she was somehow connected with the newly shown assassin, he didn’t have the pleasure of meeting her. Until that fateful evening.

He had immediately recognized her. Those black, soulless eyes had been haunting him in his sleep for years. She intrigued him. This time, he would get close to her.

I think he was enamored with you because you were so enamored with him.

***

The last time [Y/n] saw him was the last day of summer. He looked sad, more than usual, but she never commented on it. They had spent the day on their usual spot, under the cherry blossom tree. It was the first time she told him she loved him. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he started, “you could never love someone like me”. Truth is, she didn’t know much about the brown eyed boy that had stolen her heart. She had memorized his laugh, the way his hand fit in hers, even the way he sometimes looked at her; like she was food and he was a starved man. Though stuff like that didn’t matter to most people, the love struck girl was glad to have the suicidal maniac by her side.

This August I began to dream of drowning.

***

Dazai had never been cruel to her. The young Mafioso had never been anything but gentle when it came to his precious belladonna. Who could guess that the Demon Prodigy, the man that had killed 138 people, would grow soft over a broken girl?

Leaving her never felt right, but it’s what he had to do. He was a bad man and [Y/n], although she wasn’t aware of, had a kind soul. He would vanish from her life and, eventually, she would forget about him. The chocolate haired man would continue his life as he had before he met her; purposelessly, meaninglessly.

Every time I chase happiness I come back worse than before.

***

For some reason, the thought that she would eventually end up alone again never occurred her. She had been sure she found her other half, her soulmate. The first time he didn’t show up, [Y/n] had simply thought he was sick or something of the like. Days turned into months, the pink blossoms fell and winter came, freezing her heart.

I began letting him go. Hour by hour. Days into months. It was a physical sensation, like letting out the string of a kite. Except that the string was coming from my center.

***

It was the last day of spring. Kids were playing in the nearby park, birds were singing. The air smelled sweet and flowery. Under the cherry blossom tree, brown eyes met black ones and feeling forgotten sprang into the surface.

I have something in my heart for you which will die only when I do.

#dazai #Dazai Osamu #bungo stray dogs dazai #dazai x reader #bsd dazai #light angst #angst #bungou stray dogs #bungo sd

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fireladyfae · 2 years

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I've seen a lot of talk about this in the fandom and it's time to ask my fellow Zutarians....WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS!?

And *no*, not: do you think we'll get any Zutara, because no, of course not. There's no way that's going to happen. That's not what this is about.

It's about how the creators themselves *Destroyed the Gaang* and everything we loved about them (Iroh Included!) in The Legend of Korra & in the comics!

And yes, Uncle Iroh is most definitely included in this, because there is just NO WAY you could *ever* convince me, that the wonderful loving Uncle that left *everything* behind to follow his nephew into *banishment* would just up and call it quits when his beloved nephew becomes the Fire Lord!

Nope. Nuh uh. *NOT* going to happen. He would either stay and help Zuko and put his tea shop on hold. Or he would open up a Franchise, keeping the original in Ba Sing Se with another owner, while he opened another in the Fire Nation. Or he would just manage over the place from the Fire Nation, while going to visit every once in a while.

Because WHY would Uncle ABANDON him when Uncle *never* wanted Zuko to be abandoned in the first place, which is why he originally went with Zuko when he didn't have to!?

It makes *no sense* and is *completely out of character.*

Mai - We're just going to disrespect her so much, that not only will she not even get a *mention* by name in Korra, but we're going to leave it a "mystery" as to who Izumi's mom is???? WHY??? For what purpose!?

Dang man, not even Zutarians are that harsh to Mai. What in the world!?

Suki is also never mentioned.

Everyone but Katara gets a statue.

Katara and Aangs kids grow up *miserable* for the most part, with Aang being an absent parent to all but Tenzin.

Sokka DIES ALONE AND WITH NO HEIRS!!??

BA-SCUSE ME!!!???

The one dude getting *all* the ladies dies this way!?

WHY!?

Toph *refuses* to talk about her failed past love lives to any of her children, ultimately being an awful mom, and then going to live alone in the wilderness!?

WHY DID NOT ONE MEMBER GET A HAPPY LIFE OR ENDING!???

Which brings me back to our story topic!

What is this movie going to be about exactly!?

Suki dying?

Katara being neglected by Aang like we get to see in the comics?

Zuko being bullied by Mai, like we get to see in the comics?

Uncle being absent?

Sokka going through mourning?

WHAT COULD WE POSSIBLY HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO!?

Tell us your thoughts below!

Zutara Art By: Solar-Sea on DeviantArt.

#Zutara #ZutaraForever #ZutaraArt #ZutaraFanArt #AvatarMovie #ATLANewMovie #zutaranation

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doginabirdcage · 2 years

Text

The Boy Who Overcame Time

Inuyasha was digging through his backpack looking for his textbooks, to no avail. "Shit," he whispered. "Ma's going to kill me if she has to buy these again."

His first set of textbooks worked as kindling on one of Kagome's first human nights alone with him. There was a snowstorm, he found shelter in an abandoned hut and they’d be approaching hypothermia if he hadn’t acted quickly. The second set of textbooks eventually reeked so badly of miasma after a run-in with Naraku that grandpa Totosai said a prayer over them, his bugging eyes watering before he burned those too.

He could not afford to lose these.

He dumped the entire bag onto the grass unceremoniously, as if it would make 3 heavy books materialize.

"Now you're just making a mess." Sango crossed her arms somewhere behind him, and he turned his head to see the miko looking down at him with a disgusted expression.

"Leave the kid alone," Miroku called from where he was sprawled out on the ground. "This homework thing sounds scarier than an entire horde of demons."

"Oh? Not too keen on being held accountable for your choices?" She cocked a hip and didn't wait for the slayer's response, "Inuyasha, your textbooks have to be somewhere, nobody is going to steal books they probably can't even read. Have you asked Kaede?"

"Maybe she's using them in place of rocks to weigh down her stew. Wouldn't put it past her." Miroku sat up in the grass. "Do you think Futaba has them?"

"Stop using anything you possibly can to harass poor, unsuspecting women—" Sango stomped over to him, which made Miroku smirk, as if he'd been aiming for that the entire time—

"Shut up!" Inuyasha grouched. "Your theories mean nothing to me. Where's Kagome?"

The half-tengu girl couldn't be harder to keep track of. She stuck her nose in everything and helped people who didn't even want her to because they were bigoted fucks. It gave 15 year old Inuyasha the vapors. He was way too young to be getting the vapors.

Inuyasha left the miko and the demon slayer to hash out their unresolved sexual tension by themselves and went off to find Kagome.

He ran deeper into the very forest for which she was the namesake, looking for a set of raven wings hidden in the treetops.

"Kagome?"

In return, the wind blew, rustling the tree leaves around in a gentle caress. Sunlight dappled down through the gaps in the foliage, the image before him so serene he could almost forget why he was hanging out in Feudal Japan in the first place. People paid good money for this kind of scenery in his time.

Deeper within, he found Shippo napping in a patch of sunshine, which meant that Kagome wasn't far away. She looked after the runt like he was her own. The fox kit smelled him approaching, nose wrinkling as he roused.

"Hey, stinkbutt," the 2 foot tall entity of pure irritation groused. "Got any lollipops to give me?"

"Not with that fuckin' attitude, shrimp. You seen Kagome?"

Shippo huffed. "She's off readin' somewhere. Beats me."

She's reading, he thought to himself, that tells me everything I need to know.

"Back at camp there's ninja snacks," Inuyasha nodded behind him as he began to jog away from the fox. "Thanks for the intel, shitbird!"

Behind him, Shippo brightened with excitement and made to scurry off to where Inuyasha left Miroku and Sango before he stopped abruptly. "Hey, wait! I'm going to tell Kagome you said that!"

"I dare you! Hope you don't walk in on our friends making out!" Inuyasha yelled without turning back.

"Yuck!"

Once Inuyasha made it to the well clearing, he skidded to a halt. He looked down to the hem of his uniform trousers and winced at the dirt trailing up his pant leg. He'd started wearing normal sneakers in Kagome's time, but maybe it's time to start coming in sweats or something.

Either way, he's going to get an earful from Izayoi ("I'm not mad sweetheart, just disappointed"), and then Toga's going to nod half-heartedly behind her like the loyal puppy he is.

Gods, his parents were so embarrassing.

Inuyasha looked up, and sure enough, he could see Kagome's large wings hanging over one of the higher boughs. He sighed and walked right under the tree's impressive branches.

He whistled for her attention. When she didn't respond, he did it again, saying "Hey, pretty bird!"

Inuyasha continued to call her as if she were an actual pet until a burst of black feathers flooded his vision. He was scooped up and firmly planted on that same branch he saw Kagome sitting on in a matter of seconds.

"I resent that!"

She had a veritable nest building on the expanse of corrugated bark, a little nook being created by an adjoining section of sturdy wood where, bingo: his textbooks were piled next to an open bag of chips, one of them open to a page about the Heian period.

"Only birds steal things to make nests, y'know. I'm just callin' it like I see it."

Kagome's wings flapped irritably as she scoffed, waving his comments away with a flick of her taloned fingers.

"You can't just take my books without mentioning it. Ma'll wring my neck, and you'll be out one shard detector."

She loved his mother. Every time Kagome got even a flicker of praise from Izayoi, she'd brighten.

"I'd never let you go home without them," she said defensively. "You just weren't using them and there were things I wanted to see."

"I carry them to use them."

"Why don't you ever take them out?"

"Uh, does the constant threat of power hungry demons ring a bell to you?"

Her brow crinkled at that. Inuyasha reined in that blooming affection he felt at the sight, it was creeping up far too often for his liking.

"Fine," she replied softly. "Not like I can decipher it all anyway."

At her sullen mien, Inuyasha gestured to her pile. "Hand it over. We'll look at it together. That cool?"

Kagome plucked the heavy textbook one-handed and with lots of enthusiasm. He set the book between them on their legs.

"Tell me what you don't understand and we can go through it together."

She blinked at him in awe, a gentle smile curling on the side of her mouth.

"Oh, the sun's starting to set."

"I was supposed to be studying math this whole time."

"Ew, math!"

"Tell me about it."

Midterms came and went.

He had to retake his math exams.

#inukag week 2022 #inukag #inuyasha #kagome #inuyasha x kagome #inuyasha fanfiction #prompt: role reversal #another quick one #made kagome a tengu bc of her name meaning!#this was super fun to do #maybe i'll do more drabbles in this universe

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lenapalmdeath · 3 months

Text

The bullet (La balle)

By Paul B. Preciado

"Homosexuality is a silent sniper who plants a bullet in children’s hearts in school playgrounds, he aims without caring if they’re the kids of yuppies, agnostics or diehard Catholics. Its hand doesn’t tremble, neither in the schools of the sixth arrondissement nor in working-class neighborhoods. It shoots with the same precision in the streets of Chicago, the villages of Italy, or the suburbs of Johannesburg. Homosexuality is a sniper blind as love, bursting forth like laughter, as gentle as a pet. And if it tires of using children as targets, it shoots a volley of stray bullets that will lodge themselves in the hearts of a farmer, a taxi driver, a rapper, a postwoman on her rounds… the last bullet reached an 80-year-old woman during her sleep.

Transsexuality is a silent sniper who plants a bullet in the chests of children standing in front of a mirror or counting their steps on their way to school. It doesn’t care if they were born from artificial insemination or Catholic coitus. It doesn’t ask itself if they come from single-parent families or if Dad wore blue and Mum dressed in pink. It trembles neither from the cold of Sochi nor from the heat of Cartagena. It opens fire on both Israel and Palestine alike. Transsexuality is a sniper blind as laughter, bursting forth like love, as gentle and tolerant as pets are. From time to time, it aims at a teacher in the provinces or at a family man, and then, boom.

For those who have the courage to look straight at the wound, the bullet becomes the key to a world they had seen nothing of before. The curtains part, the “matrix” breaks apart. But among those who carry the bullet in their chests, some decide to live as if they felt nothing.

Others compensate for the weight of the bullet by acting like Don Juan or like a princess. Doctors and the churches promise to extract the bullet. They say that in Ecuador, a new Evangelical clinic opens every day, to re-educate homosexuals and transsexuals. The lightning-strikes of faith become electric shocks. But no one has ever figured out how to get the bullet out. Neither Mormons nor Castrists. You can bury it more deeply in the chest, but you can never remove it. Your bullet is your guardian angel: it will always be by your side.

I was three years old when I felt the weight of the bullet for the first time. I knew I was carrying it when I heard my father call two foreign girls walking hand-in-hand in the street “disgusting, dirty dykes.” My chest started to burn. That night, without knowing why, I fantasized for the first time that I was escaping my city and that I was leaving for another country. The days that followed were days of fear, and shame.

It is not hard to imagine that among the adults who are taking part in the current angry demonstrations that some of them bear, embedded in their plexus, a red-hot bullet. By simple statistical deduction, and knowing the virtuosity of snipers, I know that some of the demonstrators’ children already carry the bullet in their heart. I don’t know how many they are, or how old they are, but I know that some of them have chests that burn.

They are carrying banners that have been placed in their hands, which say “Hands Off Our Stereotypes.” But they know that they’ll never be equal to these stereotypes. Their parents shout that LGBT groups should never venture into schools, but these children know that they’re the ones who bear the LGBT bullet. At night, as when I was a child, they go to bed with the shame of being the only ones to know that they are a disappointment to their parents, they go to sleep with the fear that their parents will abandon them if they find out, or would prefer it if they died. And perhaps they dream, as I did before them, that they are running away to a strange land, in which children who bear the bullet are welcome. And I want to say to these children: life is wonderful, we are waiting for you, there are many of us here, we have all been hit by the bullet, we are lovers with chests wide open. You are not alone."

#paul b preciado #the bullet #la balle #lgbtq community #litterature #virginie despentes #beatrice dalle #Casey #poetry #troubles #one of the most moving things i've ever read

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kookie-doughs · 2 years

Text

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS: Voyage

Percy Jackson X Reader

Another year passed and now they're back as the camp needs them.

Chapter 1: They Ate Y/N

My day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.

See, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on beanbag chairs instead of at desks, and we don't get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert T-shirts to work.

That's all cool with me. I mean, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I'd never done that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing about Meriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren't always... well, bright.

Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called Lord of the Flies, where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam, our teachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what would happen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most of those activities.

Sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy black hair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see how little he cared about his family's money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he'd taken his daddy's Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.

Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friend Tyson.

Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep. As near as my mom and I could figure, he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so... different. He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and was scared of just about everything, including his own reflection. His face was kind of misshapen and brutal-looking. I couldn't tell you what color his eyes were, because I could never make myself look higher than his crooked teeth. His voice was deep, but he talked funny, like a much younger kid—I guess because he'd never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tattered jeans, grimy size-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flannel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York City alleyway, because that's where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd Street.

The other was Y/N L/N another friend that was with me through out this journey of being a half-blood. The photo was taken somewhere in a familiar forest, while her clothes that seemed for hiking. I saw a total of three bags behind her and her dog, D/N, curled up on one, I'm pretty sure I could see a familiar sword on D/N's side. She had a knife on her waist and a headband pulling her hair back. This was the only mail I got from her since she went to venture on her search for his Olympian parent who hadn't claimed her even through out our last quest. At the back it said her search was going well and she was doing great.

Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a community service project so all the students could feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn't stand Tyson. Once they discovered he was a big softie, despite his massive strength and his scary looks, they made themselves feel good by picking on him. I was pretty much his only friend, which meant he was my only friend.

My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren't doing enough to help him. She'd called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen. The social workers claimed Tyson didn't exist. They swore up and down that they'd visited the alley we described and couldn't find him, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don't know.

Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. He swatted Sloan away a little too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the little kids' tire swing.

"You freak!" Sloan yelled. "Why don't you go back to your cardboard box!"

Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his head in his hands.

"Take it back, Sloan!" I shouted.

Sloan just sneered at me. "Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have friends if you weren't always sticking up for that freak."

I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt. "He's not a freak. He's just..."

I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn't listening. He and his big ugly friends were too busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hanging around him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like, half a dozen more, and I was pretty sure I'd never seen them before.

"Just wait till PE, Jackson," Sloan called. "You are so dead."

When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage. He pronounced that we'd understood Lord of the Flies perfectly. We all passed his course, and we should never, never grow up to be violent people. Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chip-toothed grin.

I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut butter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.

"I... I am a freak?" he asked me.

"No," I promised, gritting my teeth. "Matt Sloan is the freak."

Tyson sniffled. "You are a good friend. Miss you next year if... if I can't..."

His voice trembled. I realized he didn't know if he'd be invited back next year for the community service project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.

"Don't worry, big guy," I managed. "Everything's going to be fine."

Tyson gave me such a grateful look I felt like a big liar. How could I promise a kid like him that anything would be fine?

Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeeded in making something explode, Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were way too big for the tiny vials we were supposed to use. He accidentally knocked a tray of chemicals off the counter and made an orange mushroom cloud in the trash can.

After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praised Tyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who'd ever aced her exam in under thirty seconds.

I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. I couldn't stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn't shake the memory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.

In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps, I opened my notebook and stared at the photos inside—my friend Annabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bandanna. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place. See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she's always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She's weird that way.

The last photo was of both of them. Annabeth sent it to me when she happen to see Y/N when she was with her father. Y/N looked like she had the same clothes from the photo she sent. What was confusing was she didn't have a single bag nor a dog in the photo. Annabeth said something about their conversation and how Y/N still didn't have an idea about her parent. She'd e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I'd look at it just to remind myself they were real and Camp Half-Blood hadn't just been my imagination.

I wished Y/N and Annabeth were here. They'd know what to make of my dream.

I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped a photo out of the rings. It was the one with Y/N.

"Hey!" I protested.

Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is not your—"

"Give it back!" My ears felt hot.

Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads. They were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupid HI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must've had a weird sense of humor, too, because they'd all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOE BOB. No human beings had names like that.

"These guys are moving here next year," Sloan bragged, like that was supposed to scare me. "I bet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend."

"He's not retarded." I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.

"You're such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."

His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict orders from Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no matter how obnoxious they were. I had to save my fighting for monsters.

Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only knew who I really was...

The bell rang.

As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"

I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any attention. Like any girl at Meriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name.

Before I had time to consider whether or not I'd been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed for the gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us a free-for-all dodgeball game, and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.

The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.

I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn't want to deal with Sloan. I was about to leave when Tyson called, "Percy?"

He hadn't changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes.

"Will you... uh..."

"Oh. Yeah." I tried not to sound aggravated about it. "Yeah, sure, man."

Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kind of awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it's because he's completely hairy and he's got weird scars on his back that I've never had the courage to ask him about.

Anyway, I'd learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he'd get upset and start ripping the doors off lockers.

When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading Sports Illustrated. Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. He reminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood—which was a shriveled-up mummy—except Coach Nunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke. Well, at least not that I'd observed.

Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"

"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Mm-hmm."

Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team's captain, but it didn't matter who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan's side.

So did the big group of visitors.

On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and a half dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would've been okay with just Tyson—he was worth half a team all by himself—but the visitors on Sloan's team were almost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.

Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.

"Scared," Tyson mumbled. "Smell funny."

I looked at him. "What smells funny?" Because I didn't figure he was talking about himself.

"Them." Tyson pointed at Sloan's new friends. "Smell funny."

The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was slaughter time. I couldn't help wondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed kids raw meat and beat them with sticks.

Sloan blew the coach's whistle and the game began. Sloan's team ran for the center line. On my side, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably "I have to go potty!" and ran for the exit.

Corey Bailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best to cower in fear and not look like targets.

"Tyson," I said. "Let's g—"

A ball slammed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other team exploded in laughter.

My eyesight was fuzzy. I felt like I'd just gotten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla. I couldn't believe anybody could throw that hard.

Tyson yelled, "Percy, duck!"

I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.

Whooom!

It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.

"Hey!" I yelled at Sloan's team. "You could kill somebody!"

The visitor named Joe Bob grinned at me evilly. Somehow, he looked a lot bigger now... even taller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. "I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!"

The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. Nobody called me Perseus except those who knew my true identity. Friends... and enemies.

What had Tyson said? They smell funny.

Monsters.

All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattooed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.

Matt Sloan dropped his ball. "Whoa! You're not from Detroit! Who..."

The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant named Marrow Sucker threw a ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was about to leave and hit the door, slamming it shut like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on it desperately but it wouldn't budge.

"Let them go!" I yelled at the giants.

The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tattoo on his biceps that said : JB luvs Babycakes. "And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren't just playing for your death. We want lunch!"

He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line—but these balls weren't made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like wiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must've been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.

"Coach!" I yelled.

Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn't let on. That's the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearance of monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybe the coach saw a few eighth graders pounding the younger kids like usual.

Maybe the other kids saw Matt Sloan's thugs getting ready to toss Molotov cocktails around. (It wouldn't have been the first time.) At any rate, I was pretty sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eating bloodthirsty monsters.

"Yeah. Mm-hmm," Coach muttered. "Play nice."

And he went back to his magazine.

The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past my shoulder.

"Corey!" I screamed.

Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds.

"Run!" I told my teammates. "The other exit!"

They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob's hand, that door also slammed shut.

"No one leaves unless you're out!" Joe Bob roared. "And you're not out until we eat you!"

He launched his own fireball. My teammates scattered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.

I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gym shorts. I had no pockets. Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker room door was sealed. I was completely defenseless.

Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosion still blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tie-dyed T-shirt peppered with sizzling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaring down at me.

"Flesh!" they bellowed. "Hero flesh for lunch!" They both took aim.

"Percy needs help!" Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.

"Tyson!" I screamed, but it was too late.

Both balls slammed into him... but no... he'd caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsy he knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught two fiery metal balls speeding toward him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back toward their surprised owners, who screamed, "BAAAAAD!" as the bronze spheres exploded against their chests.

The giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame—a sure sign they were monsters, all right.

Monsters don't die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight.

"My brothers!" Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tattoo rippled. "You will pay for their destruction!"

"Tyson!" I said. "Look out!"

Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley's head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM!

Kids were running around screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Others were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.

Coach Nunley still wasn't seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine.

Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The headmaster, the police, somebody would come help us.

"Victory will be ours!" roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. "We will feast on your bones!"

I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously, but before I could, he hefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead.

I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn't deflect all those balls at once. His hands had to be seriously burned from blocking the first volley. Without my sword... I had a crazy idea.

I ran toward the locker room.

"Move!" I told my teammates. "Away from the door!"

Explosions behind me. Tyson had batted two of the balls back toward their owners and blasted them to ashes.

That left two giants still standing.

A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—then dove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.

Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys' locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion, so I wasn't surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge WHOOOOOOOM!

The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym.

I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the last giant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tyson was turning to face him.

"No!" I yelled.

The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. I didn't see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.

"Well!" Joe Bob gloated. "I'm the last one standing! I'll have enough meat to bring Babycakes a doggie bag!"

He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.

"Stop!" I yelled. "It's me you want!"

The giant grinned. "You wish to die first, young hero?"

I had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere.

Then I spotted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant's feet. If I could only get there.... I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.

The giant laughed. "My lunch approaches." He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.

Suddenly the giant's body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise.

Right where his belly button should've been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn—no, not a horn—the glowing tip of a blade.

The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind.

He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to make Babycakes pretty upset.

Standing in the smoke was my friend Annabeth. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she'd just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.

Annabeth punched Sloan in the nose and knocked him flat. "And you," she told him, "lay off my friend."

The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. I heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.

"Annabeth..." I stammered. "How did you... how long have you..."

"Pretty much all morning." She sheathed her bronze knife. "I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone."

"The shadow I saw this morning—that was—" My face felt hot. "Oh my gods, you were looking in my bedroom window?"

"There's no time to explain!" she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself. "I just didn't want to—"

"There!" a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.

"Meet me outside," Annabeth told me. "And him." She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn't quite understand. "You'd better bring him."

"What?"

"No time!" she said. "Hurry! Y/N's on her way."

She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantly vanished.

That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.

"Percy Jackson?" Mr. Bonsai said. "What... how..."

Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."

Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!"

Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck—he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."

The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell them the truth.

I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.

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