#I had no anime in my childhood so this is an educational experience

[bibbykins]

Moonlight Reign Ch.1

A/N: Instead of forcing myself to focus on one series at a time, I'm planning to write what sparks joy to write in the moment and post it as I go! Hopefully this will clear some wips and help me feel less disorganized lmao! Not to say I'm not working on THB, I def am I just want to have something to post as I work on THB and the bigger projects like the LWAB fics among other things! So (hopefully) I'll keep these chapters limited to 5-7k, but we'll see lol pls enjoy and send me asks I thrive on them and so does my motivation!

And a huge thank you to my wonderful B @rapline-heaux for beta-reading ily!!

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Yandere! Mafia! BTS x Reader

Words: 5.7k

Warnings: crime, sensory flashbacks, trauma, unhealthy relationships, yandere behavior not rlly in this part but soon, pining, violence, past abuse, past neglect, academic neglect, stitches, drunk Jungkook, tackling, pinning someone down, mention of open relationship, poly is the norm is this au

“It’s time to go now.” 

1, 2, 3, 4

“Five years after the fall of the underground power family, Moon Corporation, people still suspect an even more powerful company has taken their place since…”

1, 2, 3, 4

“It’s… so red…”

1, 2, 3, 4

“The exposure beheld more answers than questions, but on the five-year anniversary of the suicidal explosion that killed the head, Moon Byungyeol and his daughter, the elusive green-haired girl who was 18 at the time, colleagues mourn in secret and establishments fear an anniversary heist or something worst than last year as the date rapidly approaches…”

1, 2, 3, 4

“Locals have several theories on the big conglomerate that now controls Seoul’s business, underground and above, with the mafia organizations and gangs running rampant, people fear the government is under their thumb as well…”

1, 2- SHUT UP

You inhaled deeply as if just surfacing from the drowning body of water residing in your brain. Your fingers stilled from the tapping, a  desperate attempt to make you surface, a sorry technique your brief stint in therapy drilled into you. Maybe having nothing led to illogical personal connections with a number. Of all your training as an heir, it was the mundane basic curriculum lessons that fascinated you the most. You were never good at math, but you loved to be perplexed by the numbers. It was a humbling experience, and in your fruitless calculations, four was always the easiest to wrap your head around. Of course, you didn’t know how humbled you’d be until you were a 20 year old trying to figure out how to do middle school math. Your education left much to be desired growing up, but you still enjoyed learning. 

You used to be convinced four was too perfect of a number for such an ugly world, and though you let go of the notion with your past life, it didn’t change that it was a world you had to feign blind to now. In your youth, four was a beautiful result of a simple equation, a funny origin to big numbers. It was a warm hug among the violent reactions when you’d get questions far below your intended grade level wrong. In a world where stuffed animals were banned from your childhood room, the number four was all you had. You didn’t particularly like how pathetic that made you feel, but it didn’t change how much it helped you on days like these.

Your palms retracted from their firm placement on the wall you leaned on, relaxing you. Releasing your slightly curled fingers, you stifled a bitter laugh at the desperate attempt to grasp onto something. It was always so degrading to scrub off the marks your acrylics made along the wall, but the stiletto nails made taps loud enough to bring you back. It was an absolute mystery how the school you worked at let you get away with these. 

Your little episode was finished as you settled your mind with the news continuing to drone on. You massaged your jaw, sore from the subconscious clench you were cursed with. You blew out a sigh as you felt your face and nodded when no tears were felt. Your phone buzzed, alerting you to the time and you groaned. Your damn neighbor would be here any minute now.

Jungkook wasn’t a mean guy by any means, quite the opposite. He was extremely insistent on your well-being, so much so it bordered on doting, and such behavior made you clam up. You didn’t know how to respond to his fussing over you. Hell, you didn’t know how to respond to most interactions outside of your old family business for a long while. That was just one of the many things he taught you, and he never once lost his cool doing so. He was patient with you, and you didn’t know how to thank him for it. 

You both had been in the same class when you attended university, and while you were fine with letting your temporary acquaintanceship go no further than asking for notes or the occasional study session, he was a force to be reckoned with. You just kept running into him and when you moved here and found he was your next-door neighbor, you knew there was no getting out of it. He was going to be your friend. Although, you never understood why he wanted to be so bad. 

Cut to a whole year after you both graduated, and it still didn’t make any sense. You both were polar opposites in a lot of ways. He was the regular party boy always at clubs and coming home at ungodly hours of the night. Meanwhile, you were usually in bed by 11:00 pm and only left your apartment for the job that barely covered your rent. Needless to say, you weren't exactly a social butterfly, so if you found one friend in Jungkook, you figured it wouldn't be such a crime.

However, having Jungkook as a friend meant having a weekly dinner with him as he mooched off of your TV and you mooched off of the food he paid for. It was an even enough exchange. Plus, it was nice to talk freely, or well, as free as you've ever been able to, even if just for a little bit.

You faced the mirror, patting down your hair, thankful for how much healthier it was without the cheap dye job you had done yourself when you were 14, “That green didn’t suit me at all,” You mused, fixing your hair, “Plus it nearly ruined my hair.” You murmured to no one in particular, keeping track of your speeding thoughts as you settled back into Earth. 

Jungkook knocked on the door and you nodded to yourself, “It’s open!” You called and sat down at the table as he walked in, take-away bags in his hands.

“You really shouldn’t leave your door open like that, you know.” He tsked like he always did. It just made sense to leave it unlocked when you knew he was coming, especially if you needed to run to the bathroom so you could finish crying before facing him. Of course, you haven't had to do that in a while, but better safe than sorry. Your issues, for lack of better term, were no secret to Jungkook, and you both knew it, but you liked to avoid having him see you at your most vulnerable when you could help it.

You simply shrugged as you helped him unpack the food, “We’re the only ones on the top floor.” You reminded him, “it would be quite silly of a criminal to come all the way up to the 20th floor.” You chided.

“Still.” He tried to argue but quickly gave up. Jungkook knew by now that you could take care of yourself, but sometimes you wished you’d let him do it for you more often. However, he let this potential argument go, this time. He looked around and narrowed his gaze at the TV, “Why do you still have the news on?” 

You paused and looked up from your food as it prattled on about your family, “I guess I forgot,” You forced your casual tone, “Did you get-”

“Syndicates, huh…?” He echoed the news reporter’s words, eyes fixated on the screen with a curious look, “The news is so weird with this stuff.”

The chopsticks in your hand stilled. You wanted to say that the syndicates were even weirder since they were the ones that probably signed off on the script. As a little girl, that was the first thing you had learned, how to play chess outside on a park bench, how to play chess crushing people in your hands as you moved them. It had all been the same to you for far too long. 

“Like I care, it’s just background noise.” A lie, you hated lying, but it was something you had to get used to doing for the sake of your safety.

“You aren't scared of these guys at all?” Jungkook looked at you like you were crazy, although his eyes didn't match the rest of his face's intensity.

Shaking off the weird notion, you rolled your eyes, “A world without you buying me dinner is pretty spooky but that,” You gestured to the TV, “Is a cheap haunted house in comparison to the hell of making dinner or worse, ordering it myself, on a Friday night.” You giggled.

Jungkook rolled his eyes with a scoff, “Is that all I am to you? A sugar daddy?” He asked in mock offense and you nearly spit out your drink.

You swallowed roughly before glaring at him as he laughed, “If you’re my sugar daddy, I need a new one.” You retorted and his laugh died while a childish pout settled on his face, “I mean, all I get is a measly dinner once a week and I still have to work and pay my bills?” 

“Well, what do I get, huh?” He crossed his arms, and it made you chuckle. Laughter had never come easy to you growing up, and it still had a hard time coming to you but after years by Jungkook’s side it was easier than ever to do, “Where’s my sugar?” He thrusted his cheek toward you, tapping on it with his index finger.

You rolled your eyes in spite of the flutter in the pit of your stomach and pushed his face away with your index finger, “My presence is your sugar, dummy.” You teased and how easy it was to be human around him made you smile wider, “Plus I let you watch your silly little shirtless men.” 

He clicked his tongue, “First of all, if you’re going to call them shirtless men, at least call them hot because look at him.” He pressed a button on your remote and his favorite fighter, Park Jimin filled the screen, “Second of all, it’s literally fewer syllables to just say MMA fights.”

You took a bite of your food and shrugged, “Don’t you have, like, a million boyfriends? Wouldn’t you make them jealous drooling all over Jimin?” You challenged, vaguely remembering Jungkook saying he had more than three boyfriends at some point. Not that it was surprising, most people had at least two significant others. Unless they were you, of course. You had no one to talk to but the man sitting in front of you, forget about a significant other. “He would make me pretty damn insecure.” You chuckled.

Jungkook scrunched his brows at you, “Six.” He corrected, mirth filling his eyes already.

You looked from the TV to him, “Hm?” You tilted your head to the side.

“I have six boyfriends, thank you very much.” He stated matter-of-factly, and you rolled your eyes at his tone, “Why? Are you trying to give me seven significant others?” He feigned a scandalous gasp, “Well, the relationship is open, you know, so I guess I could pencil you in–” You cut him off by shoving a piece of chicken in his mouth with a glare. The teasing made your chest seize for a split moment when faced with his teasing smirk, so this had been the best way to shut him up. 

Jungkook had always been a flirt, he often relished in teasing you to see how embarrassed you would get. Thankfully, over the years you had gotten used to it. You had already known his relationship was open since he mentioned how often they’re all apart, but you didn’t care to entertain that kind of intimacy with Jungkook even in your thoughts these days. It was just better that way.

“Ha, ha, we got a comedian.” You deadpanned and before you could say anything else, something on the screen caught your eyes, “What the fuck?” You mumbled.

“What?” Jungkook inquired as he looked at the TV, swallowing the food you fed him.

The camera had panned over the crowd and over an eerily familiar face poorly covered with sunglasses. The etching of a scar peeking out of the cheap frames told you all you needed, though. That was your uncle. 

What the hell was he doing showing his face? Let alone this close to the five-year anniversary of everything. The new syndicate in charge took great joy in celebrating the fall of your family, no doubt they’re itching for someone to make an example of someone. Worry tried to leak its way into your veins, but you fought it. Why should you care about him? If he wanted to sign his death certificate, that was on him.

Still, the sight of a man you were almost positive you’d never see again made you feel uneasy. You’d acclimated to regular life quite well, so one of the few remnants of your past life appearing like a ghost was ominous. In spite of your unease, you couldn’t look away. Almost as if you were waiting for him to poof away. You kinda wished he would. 

The camera changed and you finally blinked.

“N-Nothing.” You finally said, shaking your head, “I just thought I recognized someone, that’s all.” Your hands trembled for the briefest of moments as you lifted food to your mouth.

“Oh really, who?” Your only friend asked curiously and you shrugged as you chewed.

“Just some teacher that called in today.” You lied and it made your food taste sour for a moment. It was for the best you lied, you had to keep reminding yourself of that. 

“Hell, I’d call in too if it meant I could see the fight live.” You were thankful Jungkook dropped the topic and let your shoulders relax. You shouldn’t feel bad for lying, really. An unspoken rule between you both was that you never pried about private details. Jungkook led his life and you led yours. Hell, you don’t even know what he does for a living, but it wouldn’t surprise you if it was living off of his boyfriends’ income. Not to mention you didn’t even know if he lived with anyone else next door or if that was just a place of his own to use on occasions. Though, you couldn’t help being a little jealous at the idea of being so pampered. 

“Yeah, I could go for a silly little shirtless man fight on occasion.” You shrugged with a cheeky grin. 

“Silly?!” Jungkook guffawed, “I’ll have you know if he wins this fight, he’ll qualify for the championship, so this is pretty high stakes.” He toted his knowledge of the sport.

“Hasn’t he already been champion like a few times now?” You asked, barely following.

“Yeah, but, he’s been off his game this season for… personal reasons, so he’s never been this close to not qualifying.” He admitted, and your brows scrunched at the melancholy in his eyes. 

“Damn.” You mustered, “How do you know all this?” You asked, genuine curiosity lighting your eyes.

Suddenly, Jungkook’s cheeks reddened as he tore his eyes from you, “Interviews and stuff, you know.” He waved his hand dismissively and you rolled your eyes. 

“Nothing wrong with being a fanboy.” You chided, “I’m certainly in no place to judge.” You offered, reminding him of your fixation on TV dramas, making him snort before you both honed in on the TV.

These fights were quite fascinating and allowed you to at least tap into some of your training. It was how you knew that Jimin was going to win this fight from the first calculated punch, his form was immaculate and instead of going for the face, he drove his fist into his opponent’s ear. It was a dirty trick, but it was more than enough to give him an opening. 

“Holy shit, I think he might win this.” The fanboy across from you breathed. 

“No way he isn’t going to win.” You confirmed.

“Don’t get my hopes too far up.” He all but squeaked out, basically on the edge of his seat.

After a couple of rounds and idle chitchat, the fight ended with Jimin as the victor. You clapped lightly, but Jungkook was so elated he hugged you as he let out a celebratory roar. The first couple of times he did this shocked you so bad your hands almost went to snap his neck. Now that you were both years into the friendship though, the gesture just made you chuckle. Soon after, just like it did every match, Jungkook’s phone vibrated and he had to leave. He always left you with some kind of affection and this time it was a kiss on the cheek, a rare one, but not a huge step from the common forehead kisses he gave you.

“Don’t drink too much.” You warned and he flashed you a cheeky smile, “At least don’t get into trouble.”

“We’ll see.” He chuckled,  and you rolled your eyes.

“Well then don’t make it my problem!” You yelled and he waved a hand as he closed your door behind him. 

—

“Father?” You whimpered as a strong hand patted your head to calm you, or soften the blow of what was to come, you couldn’t quite tell, “Tell me you didn't.” Your voice was in shambles as you trembled beneath his palm.

The news mocked you as panic took a hold of your body, shaking it out of the shred of blissful ignorance you had clung onto. Ever since your father took you in, you had many responsibilities, but the comfort of not needing to keep up with the public facade kept you going. You hated the public, all the pleasantries, and honeyed words. None of it made sense, and now, now you felt foolish for not involving yourself more. For not ensuring that something like this could never happen and crumble the only world you’ve known. 

Still, even as despair monopolized your nerves, a tear wouldn’t fall. You weren’t sure if you knew how to shed them, but you knew it would only piss off your father. 

Moon Byungyeol was a rough man and calling him father teetered between feeling genuine and like a formality. He was a boss first, but sometimes he wore the mask of a dad. Sometimes, but it was enough times with enough gusto that you couldn’t tell which side of him best represented his true self– or if he even had a truthful bone within himself. 

He may have been rough, but he was all you had. He and the family he brought you into had been your first priority all your life, even when you had never really been his priority at all.

Not unless you could be used as currency. 

“Y/n, it's time for us to go,” His voice was somber, but even. You’d never seen him so outwardly upset, but even so, he didn’t so much as let his eyes water as his life’s work shattered before his eyes. He was left with a subdued longing as he looked at the TV, melancholic defeat infecting his usually strong posture, “I let this greed consume me, and I'm afraid it's begun eating not just me alive now.” He admitted and it made you feel ill. 

“...such evidence is linking the Moon Corporation to heinous organized crime activities painting them as a possible syndicate, but no arrests have been made nor has a formal criminal investigation on Moon Byungyeol himself been launched, but many workers under the company are being investigated due to possible involvement…”

Everything was dying. The realization that everything you did, all the lives you took, all the training you had suffered through, had never been for some prosperous empire you were promised. All of it had been to supply the lining of your father’s and uncle’s pockets. You should’ve been angry, shocked, or even appalled, but you weren't. You were numb to the fact that you were raised on lies. Fear resided in your veins about what that meant for you. 

“If I just cash out and retire, we could never live in peace,” He shook his head as he switched off the TV before he placed his hands on your shoulder, catching your attention, “But Uncle Byungjoo has a plan that I think might just work.” You swallowed hard at this. Anything Byungjoo could think seldom meant good things for you. On your best days with him, you were a mere afterthought, but on the worst days– most days– you were–”The only thing is that you and I will have to… separate…”

He was going to abandon it. No, he was going to abandon you. The only thing more pitiful than your fear had to be your shock. What reason did you truly have to be surprised that he was throwing you away just as easily as he picked you? He was going to cash out one last time, and leave like this whole operation meant nothing to him. All the while you had put an inkling of faith in his heart to love this empire, like a fool. At the very least, it was the closest thing to love that you knew. This entire place was all you knew. When was the last time you had gone out on your own as anything but his daughter?

“But…” Your mouth was woefully dry, “The empire, just like you said, it’s-”

“We were never an empire,” His self-loathing clung to each word and disgust curled in your stomach as you looked at his solemn face, “I treated this organization as a bank, a money maker, it was inevitable that the paper I cradled would catch fire.” The roundabout way he was speaking began to grate at your nerve. The pseudo-poeticism of his words did nothing to save his dignity, but you didn’t tell him that. 

You didn't scream, yell, or cry. 

At least you hadn't, yet.

“Then who will rule Seoul?” You wondered aloud.

“That’s not my problem anymore.” He said as if it were the easiest thing to come to terms with.

“Who will stay with me?” You asked meekly, immediately regretting it as you watched his previous words dance on his lips before he decided against it.

He smiled warmly at you and it brought a chill down your spine, “Some of us are meant to be alone.” He patted your shoulder and you wanted so badly to break into pieces from the impact. 

No one would stay with you. Not him, not anyone, and he didn't care.

That wasn't the answer you had hoped for. You hung your head in shame, shame that you expected anything other than a cold answer from a man on fire. The request for him to just kill you was on the time of your tongue before he turned around, ready to attend his last hurrah.

////

You woke up with a start from a bang outside, but considering the fact that it was 4 am, you chalked it up to city noise. Now awake, you stared at the ceiling and blew out an annoyed sigh. You were constantly plagued with flashbacks both in and out of your dreams, and you wished the rancid memories would choose one state of consciousness to haunt you in. Your therapist a couple of years back told you it's normal for people who have gone through what you have to constantly see what you were then in trying to dissect where you are now. Essentially, it was a constant cloud that hung over your head, and no matter how far you removed yourself from that life, its consequences would stay etched into your skin.

Another bang sounded outside your window and you grimaced. Anniversary week was beginning, and you felt more on edge than usual.

Five years ago exactly, you saw the match light. In four days, it will have officially been five years since you saw the flames engulf your home, your family, and everything you were. Each year, this week was chaos for the city of Seoul. Each day was accompanied by an event that slowly grew more and more above ground. It was almost mocking the past, the surfacing of dirty secrets. Secrets the world knew, but never wanted to see, cowards.

The new syndicate at the top of the kingdom was known as Bangtan to the underground scene, but with a “Group” tacked on after the ominous name, they were also the kings of the business world. They were much better at actually hiding their identities, hence why most average people assumed there was no such syndicate anymore or that the “law” took care of it. As if the “law” wasn’t under the thumb of the kings. 

Even so, your information could very well be outdated. The whispers from the underground, also known as the Underworld or even more to the point, Hell, reached your ears less and less as you removed yourself from the lives of anyone who knew who you were. No longer working at the diner your previous nanny ran shut you off from the underground so much so you seldom became aware of Anniversary Week’s events until two days before the main event. 

Another bang, but this time on your door, startled you out of your thoughts, “I can’t believe you went to the bar on a day like today- where are your keys?!” An unfamiliar voice spoke through your door.

“Ask, y/n,” Jungkook’s slurred voice rang out in a yell as you flinched at the volume, “Y/n! I need stitches!” 

This wasn't the first time Jungkook was yelling outside your door, demanding your assistance. This was just another facet of your friendship that you both silently agreed was fine. You never really asked questions, you just patched him up and left him on your couch. It really wasn't any of your business, nor did you have any desire for it to be. Jungkook was an MMA fan, and you knew he was big on that scene and the fitness scene, so it just made sense he would get into fights. You could only hope these fights were agreed upon prior to alcohol, but you weren't naive enough to actually assume that was the case.

“This isn’t even your door, baby, come on.” The voice grunted and your attention peaked. You had encountered a few men trying to help Jungkook home, but you seldom got such an obvious confirmation of their relationship with him, “What? Are you trying to booty call your neighbor?” The unknown man teased and you rolled your eyes. Were they all like this?

“I wish!” Jungkook shouted in response and you were fine with leaving your door closed this time until he spoke, “Ew, I’m dripping on the doormat.”

This made you huff as you hopped out of bed in your large t-shirt and shorts and ripped the door open. You were faced with a man with perfectly styled black hair in a three-piece suit accompanied by a trashed Jungkook with a short, but deep, cut on the corner of his forehead. The man that looked a few years older than you and Jungkook stopped struggling with your neighbor as he looked at you with the most pristine and exasperated face.Everything about this man was polished. Even as your neighbor lazily draped around the man, his suit had barely begun to wrinkle. 

Meanwhile, he looked you up and down with contempt before sighing, “Look, just forget we were-”

“Y/n!” Jungkook cheered before he passed out.

“No booty calls here, sorry.” You remarked flatly, “He usually keeps his keys in his wallet for some reason.” You nodded to his pocket before you looked at his forehead again, “But he does need stitches.” You opened your door a little more, gesturing for them to come in.

The man narrowed his eyes at you, “Do you usually play nurse for him?” You bit your tongue and swallowed his condescending tone with a sigh. You couldn’t tell if he was jealous at the thought of his boyfriend having some neighbor who treats his wounds in the dead of night or if he simply didn’t like you. Although looking at his face, there was no way this man was jealous of you. His gaze was sharp nonetheless, sharp and vaguely familiar, but his eyes held no recognition for you, so you let it go.

“Only when his blood is dripping on my doormat, for the third time this month,” You pointed to the sullied mat that you had just cleaned fully this week, “Bring him in, this isn’t that uncommon-” 

“But-” He tried to object, noticeably a little clammy at the unspoken knowledge of their relationship. 

“Any more blood on that mat and I'm making you pay for it, now come on,” You snapped as he walked in and sat Jungkook in a chair around your table. You shut the door as you pulled your first aid kit out, “You have to sit him on the floor or the couch.”

He complied to the couch, and though he didn’t say anything, you could see the question floating around his mind.

“When he wakes up, he attacks whoever is in front of him,” You spoke, preparing the needle and thread, and you had to ignore the curiosity peaking within you when you saw the other man shift uncomfortably at your comment,  “And I can't stitch and hold him down at the table,” You explained, settling your knees to lock on both sides of Jungkook’s legs and your elbows pressing on his shoulders.

“Aren't you scared he'll hurt you?” The man asked as you began stitching.

You scoffed, “I can play scared if that's what you want, but certainly not for free.” You chuckled, but he remained straight-faced. Tough crowd. You worked very hard to develop your banter skills these past five years, but he paid them no mind making your smile drop. 

Eventually, you just went on stitching in silence until the man broke the silence, “Who are you?” The man spoke mid-way through your stitching.

You paused for a moment, “Didn't you hear Jungkook? I’m y/n, and who are you?”

“None of your concern,” He clipped.

You snorted a chuckle, “You're bleeding on my hardwood floor, that has me pretty concerned.” You gestured to your hand to show him the small cut on his and he slowly grabbed a napkin to press against his hand with his mouth in a thin line, “Concerned for my floor I mean.” You clarified, “But a word of advice? If you don’t want to be suspicious of you, don’t act suspicious.” 

He sighed, “My name is Namjoon-”

You were tying the final knot when Jungkook snapped his eyes open, “Shit.” Was all you were able to get out. He immediately dove at you, pushing you to the floor, making the needle in your hand scratch your forearm before you threw it across the room to avoid the tempting notion of stabbing him with it. You sucked in a breath through your teeth at the burning sensation while you struggled to shake him out of it. 

It didn’t take a genius to deduce why Jungkook’s fight or flight was so concentrated, he’d obviously grown up with a reason to be. Nevertheless, it has never been your place to pry or judge, if anything, it’d be quite hypocritical. He'd seen you in a less-than-ideal mental state plenty of times, to put it lightly. Plus, you knew he didn’t mean any harm, and he was always pretty apologetic after the fact. Although, you were sure the struggle looked pretty concerning as you saw Namjoon scramble to his feet. 

Namjoon was trying to find an opening to cut in between the battle as Jungkook was sloppily throwing his fist down and you were moving your head to dodge each blow. Though his moves were sloppy, they were still fast and you could only dodge for so long. With no other option left, you sighed before slamming your forehead on his fresh stitches to make him stop to register the pain. You took advantage of the opening as you effortlessly pinned his arms down with your knees planted on his upper arms, “Jungkook!” You snapped as Namjoon watched his younger friend finally recognize you in his drunken haze.

“Y-Y/n?” He questioned, his tongue thick in his mouth, “You hurt my head- hey, you’re bleeding on my shirt!”

Your arm had a scratch about half the length of your forearm, it was shallow and oozing blood, but you didn’t flinch, “Wonder who made me hurt both my arm and their head, dumbass,” You muttered, examining his stitches to make sure the impact didn’t affect the new suture, “And you got your blood on my doormat and my forehead, so let’s call it a draw.” You grunted as you fixed the suture.

The sight of someone towering over his boyfriend after headbutting them made Namjoon on edge. Jungkook talked for days and days about how much he loved spending time with his neighbor, but something was… off about you. Why would a school nurse be that skilled in combat? Jungkook was a ruthless fighter and you hardly flinched. 

This string of thoughts prompted his mistake of grasping your wounded forearm to make you stand so he could properly question you. What he didn’t calculate in that movement was the fact that he grasped your fresh cut, which hurt like a bitch. This pain made you bring your other forearm to his neck, pressing firmly into his trachea as his back hit the wall with a bang. You both looked at each other in surprise at your reflex. You gasped softly before releasing him, “Don’t ever manhandle a lady, Namjoon,” You mumbled as you brought distance between the two of you, “I don’t do well being frightened.”

Namjoon regained his composure, impressed by your reaction time and ability to weaken his pride in such a short matter of seconds, “Who are you?” His tone was rougher in comparison to when he first asked the question.

“None of your concern,” You mocked his voice cartoonishly, becoming more and more irritated with his line of questioning, “Now take him, an alcohol pad, and go.” You hissed, unceremoniously tossing the package at him.

He gave you a sharp glare but complied, hauling Jungkook over his shoulder and leaving.  The door shut and you let a relieved sigh escape you. You shut your eyes tightly, frustrated that you let your instincts take over like that. Namjoon was undoubtedly suspicious and that’s the last thing you needed. You opened your eyes and caught sight of the clock nearing 5 am, and it was a Saturday now, so you were going to sleep in as much as you could.

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Masterlist

#bts mafia au #bts fanfic #bts series #bts poly au #ot7 x reader #yandere bts #yandere bts x reader #bts x reader #mafia bts #yandere mafia bts

[choirstaidhiona]

This Barbie Cries In Public, or I Wish I Could Show My Mum The Barbie Movie

Like everyone else in the world, I recently saw the Barbie Movie! I also saw Oppenheimer, in the cursed double bill of the century, and it's taken me days to process both of them and all the BigFeelingsTM That have come up from both, so in my first actual considered and proper blog post on this website since I was the world's angriest teenager, I'll be sharing them, alongside some thoughts about grief and gender and all that really fun and not miserable at all stuff.

Part 1. Barbie Girl

I was born in 1996, a weirdly large baby constantly dressed in pink and lace and frills, as my mum would say, "a proper girl". I loved dolls; baby dolls, Barbie dolls, Bratz dolls, doll house dolls, paper garland dolls I made whenever i had a sheet of printer paper handy for years of my life, Polly Pockets, those weird off-brand dolls you'd get in corner shops and chemists for some reason, all of them. I loved dolls. I still love dolls. I made a film last year where i painted dolls and animated them and it was sad and about childhood and death and memory. I used to film my Barbie Princess and The Pauper dolls singing together and I made a music video of it on my Karaoke machine, rigged up to my pink TV. I was, in short, A Barbie Girl.

When Bratz appeared in the supermarkets of Greenock, I remember the shift happening really clearly. I was in Primary 5 or 6 and my Grandad had died, Baby's First Big Death, and I drew everyone pictures of the outfits I'd dreamed up for my Bratz dolls, transfixed by their big mouths and big eyes and the way their clothes sat on their bodies. Drawing pictures for people made them happy. Drawing pictures for people made them tell me I was clever. Drawing pictures for people gave me a task and gave me a focus. I loved Bratz dolls because Barbie was too boring. I was getting too old for fairies and princesses (note: I have since regressed), Mattel's fixation of the era, since Barbie had already been a Doctor and a President long before I met her, and I didn't know she had all these cool talents and past careers. To me, she was part of a personal era I was moving on from. Bratz dolls didn't have jobs, they were like Ken from the Barbie movie, but their job wasn't Beach, it was Gorgeous. I don't think it's a coincidence that this was the era I'd been told specifically that there was something wrong with me by other girls for the first time.

I grew up in Gàidhlig Medium Education, a sectioned-off and sheltered part of the Scottish Education System that I owe my life to, I would not have survived, weirdness and spirit intact, in any other school, and I know that for a fact. I'd entered GME at 2 and 10 months old and left school at 18, having only known classrooms where everyone was a bit different because we belonged to this sort of movement of cultural reclamation. My only prolonged interactions with "The English" (the rest of our classmates from the English speaking part of our primary school, the ones not in the Gaelic unit) came at the end of primary school, when we started learning French together as a whole year group. It's not an exaggeration to say that GME kids were bullied appallingly by "The English", including a lot of the old-school teachers. I'll go into this properly another time, but I do think that I saw in Bratz the kind of aspirational teenhood I hoped would be beyond my late primary school experience of being othered- being edgy, wearing cool outfits, having boobs, and most of all, working at gorgeous.

Part 2. Oppenheimer Teen

Think of the most catastrophically annoying and angry kid you knew growing up, that was me. And I lived here, on Tumblr, blogging my early teens away - being not like other girls, then being radicalised by third wave feminism. Learning about queerness, and realising I wasn't just the best ally of life, I actually fancied by best friend. Discovering that the square root of happiness was hunger, (i mean this ironically, it's very much not) and documenting my ever growing thigh gap... all of it. I wanted to tear everything down. I gave this section the title of Oppenheimer Teen because I thought it would be funny, but honestly, I was more like the atomic bomb.

I'd long since been informed that playing with dolls wasn't okay anymore, it was embarrassing and for babies, and the only femininity I was happy to take part in was a half-understood Kinderwhore version of it. Everything i embodied in this era was based on Courtney Love's babydoll dresses, red lips, and bleached hair. The first time I bleached mine, it broke my mum's heart. She had breast cancer and was losing her shiny brown hair, while I was turning mine into custard-coloured chewing gum with 40 vol at the bathroom sink. I didn't want to be pretty because I didn't know how to be without being ridiculed for trying, I was hurt, and I was scared, and my mum was sick and my boyfriend was evil, and Jesus, I was so hungry all the time. Eventually, after about two years of starting fights I couldn't finish, and drinking 70cls of straight vodka while looking men (teenage boys) in the eye, and reading the communist manifesto on the 6am Gourock train home after parties I'm still processing in therapy, my mum got the all-clear. I dumped the boy who was abusing me, who by this time was a grown man, I dyed my hair pink, and green, and blue... and I met the first of the girls who would start to save my life, while we were drawing pictures and dressing up at art camp.

3. Actually Talking About The Barbie Movie

Every year that I haven't been a teenager has been better than the one before, this is something I've told every teenage girl who has ever told me she's worried about growing up, and I've seen a wave of calm wash over her face every time. I really saw myself in the angry, clever, moody group of teenagers Barbie meets in the school canteen when she arrives in our world. Sasha, who I think we've all realised/read by now was named for the Bratz doll along with her friends, tells her she doesn't represent her, she's let her down, she's old news!! This was how pink and sparkly girlishness felt to me at that age, I didn't look like Barbie anymore, and the girls who did were making my life hell. I had acne, and my period lasted three weeks at a time, and being a girl wasn't fun anymore. Everyone just cared about which Ken they were getting off with, meanwhile I'd just realised that death existed, and one day would come back and finish the job and take my mum away, what the fuck was Barbie fucking grinning about?

Her spiralling existential crisis throughout the film was truly jarring, only because I remember those exact moments of girlhood. I remember being 11, lying on the floor and crying and feeling like it would never stop. I remember being 8 and noticing my belly was rounder than the other girls at ballet. I remember sweating after a game of rounders at 10 and realising I stank and feeling like I was malfunctioning. I remember being so angry for a whole year when I was 9 that I wanted to bite people. I remember every time I wasn't being a "proper girl", and how I saw on everyone's face that they felt it too. I remember every time I realised that I wasn't perfect anymore, just like Barbie does, and that I just wasn't the way I was made anymore. And they still feel like fresh wounds, fresh failures, despite what 2012 Tumblr feminism taught me.

I've seen Tiktoks from the current generation of internet teens discussing how the film wasn't radical enough in its feminism, and I get it, to an extent. When you've been an Oppenheimer Teen - fighting boys about how they treat their girlfriends that you're secretly a bit in love with, spending your whole life placing your value in your intelligence and your rage so as not to be someone's Barbie, making online friends all over the world because no one gets you, reading feminist lit while your classmates are excited about YA Fiction - Gloria's monologue, the climax of the film's mission statement, feels like "okay, and??" And as I said, I was Sasha, eviscerating femininity for what it had done to me. But as I grow up, not a (Barbie) Girl, not yet at all a woman (I'm non binary, knowing that is vital to understanding that joke), but also no longer an Oppenheimer Teen, I see the spaces that the powerful, vengeful feminism of my youth is missing.

Every time my friends are mistreated by men who are supposed to love them, there is a beat before they remember who they are where they think they deserve it. We constantly wonder if we're over reacting to our own trauma. We lose weight through grief and are told we look great and we say thank you, and sometimes we mean it. We fear taking up space even though we can't help it. We wonder if we should go for jobs that we aren't technically qualified for, even though we have degrees and years of experience to contradict our gut feelings of inadequacy. We are clever, bright, talented people, but those of us who have a girlhood in our pasts have a unique never-quite-healed injury. It's like a broken ankle from falling off a trampoline when you were 10 that aches in cold weather even now, the ankle you always go over when you're drunk in heels. I didn't know I'd grow up and get less angry. I didn't know I'd pick my battles eventually like everyone kept telling me to at 15, instead of waging war on everyone. I didn't know there would be a day that life would figure out how to make me small. I thought I had shut up the Barbie Girl I once was by outsmarting her, but my heart is still baby pink, strawberry scented, and covered in sparkles, and it always will be.

When i sat there, bathed in pink light, surrounded by mums and daughters, best friends, sisters, queers who never got to be Barbie Girls but desperately wanted to be, grannies, and aunties, and tiny girls who have no idea how much their hearts are about to be broken, I held my friend Isla's hand and i kissed it and wiped tears off my cheeks, because we were all there, together, in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, living not in a Barbie world, but the real one. The really shit one. And the biggest cinematic event of our lives was telling us we were right, and it wasn't our fault, and we didn't make it all up for attention, we weren't rude or bossy or difficult, we were traumatised and hurt and tired. The children we were who played with dolls, cutting off their hair before we were allowed to mess up our own, had been let down.

4. Still Talking About The Barbie Movie, But Also Talking About My Mum.

Nearly a month ago, my mum died. She had a brain tumour, diagnosed a decade after she had the all clear from breast cancer. These two acts of evil by the universe were unrelated, it wasn't a secondary tumour related to her first one, it was just bad luck. She had been sick for years, and before that she was sick in different ways for years, so it wasn't a shock, but it has forced me into a new era of my life in a way I wasn't ready for. Just like growing up.

My mum was born in poverty in the 1960s in the West of Scotland, and by the time I came along her life was a dreamscape compared to what she had once known. We had a standard, comfortable-enough, but still working-class life, but we lived in her Barbie Dream House. I got my love of clothes and dressing up from her, the colour palette of my life from her, and my internal monologue from her. We spent most of our time together until I moved to Glasgow at 19, even when I was raging and destructive, because she was sick, and because she knew I wasn't going to be that way forever. She had been a wee girl once, too. She knew why I wanted to bite people.

The moment in the Barbie Movie where Ruth Handler says "We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they've come” launched into my chest like a fist and winded me. I was holding my friend Isla's hand at this point, too, she knew why I was crying and she cried too. I know this line was likely intended to be about career and the choices afforded to older women in the past, and the choices afforded now to mothers vs fathers, about the sacrifices of mothers and the love they send their creations, us, off into the world knowing, but my mum's own stillness was suddenly phrased in a new way, and it hurt. I don't want to look back on photos and videos to see where I left her, I want her to be dressed up in pink and glitter to go to the cinema with me. I wanted to cry with her and tell her I loved her for everything she did for me growing up, for putting up with me when I ruined by hair and dressed like a maniac and cost her a fortune in black eyeliner. I wanted to thank her for laughing and agreeing when i told her I wanted to bite people, I wanted to thank her for understanding my hormones were making me shouty and introverted and weird, not my intentions. I don't want to see how far I've come without her, she was supposed to be here.

I wish I could have discussed Gloria's point of view with her, watching her daughter grow up and away from her, in reference to our relationship. I wish we could have agreed we were so glad we got to the other side of that, and that every year I wasn't a teenager was better than the last for her, too. We would have laughed at Weird Barbie because all my dolls looked like her too. She would have remembered stories about my girlhood i'd never heard, she always did when we watched films together, often in her bed while the rain poured outside. The strangest part of losing my mum, has been losing the only witness to my entire life, because no one knows you the way the person who made you, lost you, and got you back knows you.

5. The End

Greta Gerwig has made me cry a lot, mostly about being a daughter to a mum, and growing up, and I love that this film fits solidly into her library, while standing out as an offering to a world that doesn't seek this kind of epiphany out. Barbie's mission as a doll was supposed to be about empowering women and girls, giving girls a role model when women didn't have space in the world to make globally successful films about how brilliant and capable and hurt and injured women are.

It's easy to look back after seeing the film, especially with all the history lessons included, and decide that Ruth Handler won the day with this mission, but I think The Barbie Movie will be the true closing chapter to this objective for Mattel. Isla (my friend whose hands I kept kissing and crying on in the cinema) and I were talking after the film about how kids now aren't growing up with the Barbie we had. They're not getting glamazon, can't stand up for the size of her boobs Barbie, with her yellow hair and a princess dress. They're getting flat footed, representative of them Barbie. She looks like she eats her dinners and she could actually do all the activities she's dressed to do, she's modern, and that's class, it's the next step in the evolution. That means that this film won't give the wee girls we were sat among in the cinema the same gut punches and feelings of nostalgia for girlhood when they grow up that it gave us. Their Barbies are just dolls, pals, they aren't trying to prove anything. There's no "please go further than I ever did, please" in the marketing, we all know we can be whatever we want to be in theory, we've heard it all and we're constantly under pressure to actualise it, like Gloria was talking about.

We've finally caught up to Barbie, we can, in theory, have our own homes and careers, we have the right to our own bank account, we don't, in theory, have to have families if we don't want them, we can be whatever we want, it just really, really fucking hurts trying to get there. And so we meet Barbie, all of us able to actually stand without a giant hand supporting us, Birkenstock to Birkenstock, looking out at what's to come. What's to come, is more of what's been, because we don't have equality, or anything close to it. We are still aching and being traumatised by our world. By the end of the film, Barbie is a real woman, a symbol of this new era Isla and I were talking about. She chose death and cellulite and misogyny over their absences because to feel, and to be real, and to stand with the girls who grew up loving her, is more noble.

I will say though, if there's a vacancy in Barbieland now she's in LA, I have really bad cramp and I'm tired of crying for my mum, so I'll send my CV over if anyone has an in x

#barbie #barbie movie #queer #gaidhlig #barbie 2023 #barbie greta gerwig #the barbie movie #gaelic #barbie girl #bratz #childhood #inner child

[written-in-flowers]

Something ive always wanted to see with Otto and Rosebud's family is how does Otto hang out with little Cedric? Would he carry him around the red keep or sit with him during council meetings when theres nothing serious on the agenda? Take him to the stables and watch horses? Keep Cedric's drawings in his office?! You have no idea hod often do i think about this little family 💚💚💚

Oh gossshhhhh I've been wanting to write some fluffy domestic stuff with this universe, so this is my chance!

Note: as of the newest installment "In the Dunes" , Cedric Hightower is three-years old. In these headcanons, the Greens kids are still teens, since I'm going based off of the age-group in the last part of the series.

***

Otto often remembers his time with his eldest son, Gwayne, whenever he holds or spends time with Cedric. Cedric certainly has more Hightower than Tyrell with his dark ginger curls and brown eyes, but he had your temperament. Or so Otto believes whenever he giggles or smiles. It still amazes him that he's doing the parenting thing all over again at his age, something he did not plan on until he married you. When people reach a certain age, they don't feel like going through the troubles of child caring again, but with you at his side, he feels just as confident than he once did.

He does spend time with his son in the family apartment, watching over him fondly and cuddling him whenever you're occupied or tired. He buys him small toys that are usually fit for toddlers: small wooden blocks, wooden knights and horses (especially horses), and even a wooden play sword that Cedric likes to swing around aimlessly.

He's a father of two already. He has experience with babies, even if they do have mothers and wet nurses to care for them. When Cedric cries, he can usually guess what the problem is: hungry, changing, or sleepy. Having a sister significantly younger than you and nephews and nieces, you've learned the basics of raising infants, but Otto knows the ins and outs.

You sometimes find him comforting a weeping Cedric in his solar. He'll have the boy cuddled to his chest, soothing him with back rubs while writing to Lord Whoever about Very Important Thing. He only hands him off to you when Cedric has fully calmed down, then goes back to work.

If this boy ever gets sick, Otto gets hourly reports about his illness when he is not around. When he is there, he does what he can to relieve any discomfort his baby boy might be having.

He isn't a man to be annoyed by a crying infant or have very little patience when they do not stop. It does rob him of sleep when Cedric wakes in the middle of night, but he never shows he's upset or angry. He simply lets you handle it, watching you sing him back to sleep in between you, since he refuses to sleep anywhere else after a nightmare.

We know little Ced loves horses. The calf you'd chosen when Cedric was an infant is now a grown pony, and Otto often takes him out riding whenever there is a hunting party or a trip into the forest. He loves seeing Cedric ride because it's the first thing a proper nobleman learns to do as he is growing up.

Since he's only 3-years-old, Cedric cannot hold a proper sword or learn any other martial skills, so Otto focuses on the academic side. He reads to Cedric, usually about history or The Faith or House Hightower. He used a book from Alicent's childhood to show him shapes and colors, teaching him how to say them properly. He showed Cedric pictures of animals or maps of different places, pointing out things and teaching him how to say the words. His son will be educated as well as strong.

Now, just because Cedric is a Hightower, does not mean he's isolated from the rest of his family. Alicent dotes on her younger brother, and showers him with sisterly love at all times; you and Cedric spend a lot of him in her rooms with Helaena and Aemond. Helaena herself sewed a dragonfly pillow for Cedric, and it immediately became his favorite pillow; she likes to give him her one of her many fidget toys to keep him occupied for short periods of time. Aegon doesn't dote or coddle his "baby uncle" like everyone else, but he may have once let Cedric drink from his wine cup when nobody was looking. Aemond sometimes reads to him as well, stoking Cedric's interest in dragons, and tried teaching him chess once. Daeron has met Cedric on a handful of occasions, and loves to play games with him, and showing him books about knights and legends.

And for the sake of utter cute, fluffy visuals: a clingy Cedric may have waddled behind his father into the small council chamber one day when you weren't paying attention to him. Since Alicent heads most of the meetings in her husband's place, she has no problem with Cedric remaining there until the end on the less important days. Otto likes to think one day Cedric himself might sit in Otto's seat, or on any of the council positions.

Cedric is a baby boy who is utterly surrounded by love from people who think themselves incapable of it for a time. All the things that happened to them, they will not let happen to Cedric, the purest and sweetest of them all.

A/N: feel free to send in more cute things because otherwise I'll start rambling about them in blank posts lmao

#otto hightower #otto x reader #otto x you #otto x yn #house of the dragon #hotd drabbles #hotd fanfic #hotd imagines #hotd fanfiction

[infodumpingaboutnature]

So over spring break I went to the Pennsylvania Association of Environmental Educators Conference, which was up in the Poconos this year, and oh boy it was amazing!!!

I had so much fun at the conference and am so grateful for my job and my university for providing me with the opportunity to go to this great event! Even though I don’t want to go into the Environmental Education field professionally, I still want to incorporate it in my teaching methods once I become a full time teacher, and this conference had lots of amazing seminars that had a lot of interesting topics that were still incredibly useful to me as an Early Childhood Education major.

There were also just a bunch of cool things that I got to do and see during this trip! Like seeing all the taxidermy animals at the nature center (I always forge how big elk are till I’m standing underneath a disembodied head of one of them).

I also saw this cool Barn Owl named Soaren who was with this animal rescue organization that had a booth at the event, though he wasn’t a rescue and was a captive bred animal ambassador. There were also a pair of Southern Flying Squirrels and a Milksnake but I didn’t get any good pics of them. They didn’t have names either since they’re gonna be released once it warms up.

On the first day we also went on a night hike and saw this amazing beaver swimming in the pond next to the center! It was a magical experience seeing beavers in the wild for the first time and I’ll definitely never forget it!!! 🦫

#beaver #barn owl #poconos #PAEE #environment #environmetalists #environmental education

[trollcafe]

How Do Trolls Learn Language?

Here’s the Google Docs Link, I think it’s much easier to read on GD! 

Before I go on a hugeass long winded ramble, I want to clarify my qualifications so you know I’m not just talking out my ass. I have a degree in Middle Childhood Education, specifically in Language Arts! I also have certifications in teaching English as a second language and in reading intervention. Essentially, I am qualified to provide individualized instruction for students K-12 who may have delays in literacy, or have a reading disability of some sort. When I write this, please know I’ve thought about this SO MUCH. Phonics & language development are actually faucets of education that I not only highly value, but adore! 

Enough tooting my own horn. You get the gist. 

Language is developed in children by developing their phonological awareness, going up a ladder and ending with phonemic awareness. Phonological Awareness is the ability and awareness of sounds in a spoken language (ex: /cat/ rhymes with /bat/. If I replace c with r, the word is now /rat/). Phonemic Awareness is the understanding that letters make sounds, and how to manipulate them (I know /cat/ is sounded out by saying /cuh/ /ah/ /tuh/. The first sound of /cat/ is /cuh/. C can make /k/ or /s/ sounds.). Now, I could spend literally hours telling you the steps and processes. If you WANT to know more- you can look up how decoding, blending, and fluency lead up the ladder steps to phonemic awareness. But I don’t want to bore you. And I know you’re probably confused, isn’t this about aliens?? Yes! Hold on!!

Language is developed SOCIALLY! Primarily by PARENTS! And secondarily by SCHOOLS!!!! I know, I know, who woulda thunk schools had a purpose? Children who are read to by their parents have a higher rate of fluency & literacy. And in schools, if anyone can recall, you might’ve done some now silly activities like…”A is for Apple, B is for Ball,” maybe a word wall if you were lucky, sounding out syllables, “I before C except after E”, “When Two vowels go walking the first one does the talking..” so on and so forth. Those were necessary skills for developing your language skills. You didn’t wake up one day and just KNOW how to read. It took literal decades of your life. It took decades of conversations with peers, with friends, with adults in your life, reading books and watching movies, listening to adults converse, reading signs on the streets without realizing it…even now, you’re still learning! Even now, you’re still utilizing the phonemic & phonological awareness skills you learned over decades of being a social creature on Earth!!

When I make you read this word, it might be the first time you’ve seen it, it might not. Humor me. 

PHANTASMAGORIA 

As a human being with some experience in the English Language, you might know how to work your way through it. /PH/ makes an /f/ sound, right? So you know it starts with /f/. You know /ant/ and /mag/, and can blend the word into /phan/-/tas/-/mag/-/or/-/ia/. Those are all skills you learned socially. Somewhere along your life, you picked up the information that /ph/ makes /f/, and that O when paired with an R makes an /or/ sound. These tiny little aspects of your knowledge were developed socially. Via conversations. Listening. Talking to adults as a child. Talking to classmates as a student. Reading books. Watching video game streamers. Listening to music. Singing. Eavesdropping on your mom while she was on the phone. But mostly…Talking, talking, talking! Baby, language is a socially developed construct!  

So how the fuck do trolls learn language?

Trolls don’t officially have schoolfeeding (or so I was told.) On top of that, trolls are primarily raised by lusii, semi-sentient animals that haven’t all been shown as capable of language. Some may speak telepathically! But how can an entire race of aliens learn to speak the same languages if only a tiny fraction of them actually had parents who spoke to them? Trolls might’ve had jades in the caverns speak to them as grubs but, if we use human child development as our baseline, we know that isn’t nearly long enough to develop any true sense of phonological awareness. 

While my qualifications are primarily in teaching English, I know full well that literacy is similar amongst every language, every community. It’s a socially taught concept. And if we turn our gaze to animals, you’ll see it's much the same! Think of a litter of puppies. They don’t speak a literal language- but they have a body language. They learn through play with their littermates and interactions with the dogs around them what is and isn’t acceptable, and how things are said in their own language. A puppy learns from watching its mom play bow. 

Because trolls aren’t inherently social, and because their parental figures often can’t read themselves, I propose the idea that trolls are born knowing language. Or, well, hatched. 

We know, looking at the animal kingdom, that not all things a creature does is language-based or even socially learned. For example, how do puppies know to bite? They don’t learn it from mom or their litter, it’s an instinct. They’re born knowing how to do that. Human babies are born with a lot of instincts they can’t utilize until later in life, but every baby’s first instinct is to cry. The baby has no idea what crying will lead to- and ultimately later will learn- but in the first few moments of life, a baby cries. It doesn’t know why. It just cries. A puppy just bites. A baby bird just opens its mouth. A newborn foal just stands. And I believe that a troll, once it reaches pupation, just speaks. You could argue that humans are also born with the instinct to learn language, but…if left WITHOUT verbal language right from birth, a human being just won’t speak. My theory is, even without verbal language, a troll WOULD. Or at the very least, a troll could pick up verbal language much faster. 

I don’t think a newly pupated toddler troll knows what physics is and could explain what the fourth state of matter is. But I do think they’re made knowing a certain pool of words. It could be that as grubs, their lusii CAN communicate with them- so they’re pupated knowing basic words their lusii spoke to them as grubs. Language here is still a socially developed skill, but not entirely dependent on such. A troll living in a city with advertisements and signs everywhere, with music playing constantly, with the chatter of adults and older trolls all around, might have more developed language skills than a troll who lives in the country. But ultimately they both can still speak, and hold a conversation! I think lowbloods in tight-knit communities would have higher literacy levels, and if we follow the headcanon of Fleet Academies, then highbloods in those settings might as well. Jades typically are raised together, too. 

And, furthermore, my final point here is that trolls are developed to pick up on language much easier than a human might be. This would probably be the absolute best way of explaining it. That language, to trolls, is an instinct, and something that they as an alien race are highly capable of building off of. They are just hatched knowing language, and knowing how to develop it. Trolls never have to DEVELOP the sense of metacognition. They are hatched with it. A troll doesn’t have to develop phonological awareness. They’re hatched with the fully developed ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in a spoken language. They never have a period of having to learn the language they’re being spoken- they are hatched knowing it. 

An unfortunately unsatisfactory answer, right? 

This will still keep me up at night until I can create a more solid concept. However, there truly is no way I can properly explain the intricacies of this without word vomiting phonological concepts on you. Trolls are hatched with a higher capacity for fluency in language. Since societal conversations and norms aren’t heavily relied upon in trollian society, concepts such as prosody aren’t as focused upon. If Alternia has one main universal language, it would mean trolls have less to learn- however, as a human, I struggle to see how trolls can have one language without a plethora of regional dialects, as we have in the United States. 

By never having to develop a sense of metacognition, by starting their language development halfway up the ladder by knowing language from the start, by perhaps not having to go through Piaget’s developmental stages as slowly as humans do, trolls perhaps have a higher capacity for learning in general. This might be a survival skill- they live in such a hostile society that it might be necessary for them to have a higher language level. Perhaps there are colonies or planets run by trolls who DO teach socially, and they have an even higher rate of fluency and literacy. 

That’s the fun part about aliens, right? 

You can kinda do whatever you want with them! :)

#hdcns #chow.txt #ghost.art

[egenvs3000w24]

My Relationship with nature.

Hey Friends!

Welcome to my ENVS3000 w24 blog! Super excited to see everyone's posts this semester.

To start, I feel like I've always had a pretty strong connection to nature. I was fortunate to grow up in small town northern Ontario, in a township called Larder Lake. I was surrounded by kilometres of forest, and right on a lake, so I spent so much time outdoors, trying to find different bugs and animals. I think growing up in this environment really helped me grow a strong appreciation for everything this world has to offer. One of my favorite memories is from when I was 6 or 7, and my grandma took me to a field with a butterfly net and a field guide, and let me catch as many insects as possible for a whole afternoon. I think this moment was when I developed my love of insects ( a little weird I know but they're so cool man).

In high school I began to become really involved with campaigns and calls to action to protect the environment. I was really involved with volunteering in high school doing volunteer work with conservation agencies and wildlife organizations, doing things like planting native wild flowers to help pollinators, picking up trash, or banding birds. I also participated in a climate action protests (Fridays for future). Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of that, but it was such a cool experience.

Fast Forward to university time and my relationship with nature has grown and developed in so many ways. I came to Guelph to study biological science. While I felt like a had a really great connection to and appreciation of our natural world, I didn't feel as though I knew as much about it as I wanted too. A lot of my knowledge was reading surface level high school books and news articles and looking through field guides (shoutout to the National Audubon Society Field guides, I still have around like 8 north American field guides from them from my childhood). I ended up taking a lot of invertebrate biology and ecology courses here to expand upon my love of insects. I know how a much greater understanding about the interconnectedness of disciplines in how we interpret the world around us. I’m also able to identify a lot more insect orders and families based on appearance now, and have an even greater appreciation for everything invertebrates do for us (seriously it’s A LOT of stuff). I am grateful and privileged enough to be able to get and education on this, and return home to an area surrounded by the beauty of our world.

I could go on and on about this and how much I love insects. I’m super excited to see what stories other people must share. Check out the photos for a pic of larder lake and some of my favorite insects from campus!

[thedanniannie]

I'm rereading Itachi's Story: Daylight, and I'm analyzing along the way...

I may only be five pages in, but that is not to say that there aren't many qualities about Itachi's character revealed in just that small chunk of text. It may be something we already know about the character, but the act of getting into the mind of the character to understand him is much more fulfilling to me than being shown it in the anime.

First off, the way part one, Chick in the dark night, yet to leave the nest, begins illustrates a formative part of Itachi's character. That being his first exposure to war. Which happens at the age of four. Why is this interesting? Let's consider the fact that itachi has already lived four years of life, but this is the first thing we learn with him. How would we see Itachi if we read his first breath of innocence? If we read about him playing with blocks, or giggling to his mom while she fed him lunch? If we knew he had a life of joy an innocence before his life as a ninja? We don't get to experience an innocence and youthful Itachi, and neither does Itachi.

He has yet to reminisce on his lost childhood since witnessing the war. The only thing this four year old child has to think about was work. It mentions on page 17 that Itachi was working despite even being admitted into the academy. So without knowing he has a place in the class, he was learning, ans he was learning mostly on his own. And while Itachi's motivation of eliminating war was as grandiose as a child wishing for peace on earth when writing a letter to Santa or whatever, he still is subject to premature maturity. On the same page, his mother, Mikoto, seems to notice that Itachi's "sounding too grown-up."

With this in mind, it will be interesting to come back to the analysis of Itachi's relationship with Sasuke, and even with the other characters he has a relationship with. Already we see, on page 17 after speaking with his mother, he's thinking already about what kind of sibling he's going to have. Considering he only has training on the mind, his curiosity about his new sibling is interesting. My opinion at this point is that Itachi cares about the innocence that his sibling will have, the innocence that Itachi doesn't have. I think it will seem precious to him, and that he will cherish that in his new sibling. Of course we know how this story ends, so I won't make any finalizing points. That and I want physical text to work off of, not just my memory.

I also am now curious about who Itachi was before his exposure to war. We already know he is a very observant and intelligent character. Whether this is due to ptsd and his ninja training education or not, I will still consider it. I think he was a very imaginative child. He had many fantastical worlds in his head, and he was that kind of child who would have big googly eyes to the world. He was very curious about how the world works. I will see how much of my hypothesis is true, as I assume his interactions with Shisui and Izumi may tell me a bit more about the itachi that lies deep in his subconscious.

Anyway, that's my rant on the first couple of pages. Can't believe this is how I decide to use my years if analyzing in college... anyhow, lemme know your thoughts and stay tuned for future ramblings!!!

#itachi naruto #itachi uchiha #itachi fanart #analysis #itachi fanfic

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia,

If this is too personal feel free to ignore! I was inspired to ask this after looking over your stunning artwork.

I gather you practise (and are trained in?) animism and shamanism. I'll admit I don't know much about spirituality but I'm really interested! If you're comfortable, I'd love to hear about your journey. When did you discover these beliefs, how do they interact with your everyday life? Do you believe in other spirit realms? Have you had any particularly memorable spiritual experiences? Where in your writing can we see these influences?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions (I've really had to hold myself back lol), feel free to be selective in the ones you'd like to answer.

Hiya,

I don't really call it shamanism and haven't in a long word (it's a culturally appropriative term), I've been using functional or practical animism for a long time now. Maybe just under a decade!

I discovered these beliefs in childhood (some are familial). These days I practice Druidry through OBOD, the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and I'm in the Ovate grade and have been for a looooong ass time.

When did you discover these beliefs, how do they interact with your everyday life?

This could be a long essay, but I'll just say that my writing is my Bardic work, it influences how I connect to nature, people, how I think about the world, and how I think about connections within the world. So pretty profoundly.

Do you believe in other spirit realms?

Sort of. I have a very kind of...relaxed view that goes like this: Maybe it's real, maybe it's not. Science is cool. If it's not real, it's an awesome series of visualisations and beliefs that makes my life better. If it is real, it's an awesome series of experiences that makes my life better. The moment it stops doing that, I'll walk away.

Like, I'm pretty zen about it. So many people are like 'but how do you know it's REAL' - I don't! I don't base it on whether or not it's empirically provable because the benefits are empirically demonstrable whether or not it's real and that's all that matters to me.

It benefits me, my loved ones, and my life. So...that's all the 'real' I need. I'm not interested in convincing anyone else of my beliefs and I'm very anti-proselytisation and preaching. People can believe what they want unless/until it threatens my existence re: people being transphobic / homophobic etc.

Have you had any particularly memorable spiritual experiences?

I have! But this isn't the place where I talk about them, lol. I used to very actively blog about my spiritual experiences (and actually used to run classes and educate folks) over at Dreamwidth and Livejournal.

Where in your writing can we see these influences?

I mean I wrote an entire 1 million+ word series about the fae realm that goes into great detail about how there's no such thing as pure good or pure evil (with a few exceptions one of those being Seelie lmao) and mostly everyone is shades of grey and is capable of growth and connection with nature is healing, in a story where animism is everywhere and gods are literally present in the land.

...And you know in every single section where nature is healing in every single one of my stories sdfalkfjsad

Also probably in a lot of the kinds of hero journeys I write.

My spirituality is everywhere, but it's also not an invasive spirituality where I'm trying to convert anyone. I believe in the importance of nature and our connection to it, so I write about the importance of nature and our connection to it. I believe certain experiences in nature can be healing, so I write my characters sometimes having those experiences in nature.

Most of my characters go through a 'oh nature exists and is...kind of cool actually' moment in their healing process to signify how far they've come, and I use that as a metaphor all the time.

I don't want it to feel religious. It's just like, hey, here's a thing. And since we all live in a world with some nature in it, maybe it's okay to have some nature in stories too, as a treat.

That's spiritually significant to me, it doesn't have to mean anything to anyone else.

But it does mean my spirituality and belief in animism is everywhere. It's something I live. It's mostly a very relaxed thing, and I think it's really just something you notice when I'm like 'oh look the clouds are really cool' and then I take a photo fdsalkjfsa

#asks and answers #personal #i don't *intentionally* write my spirituality into things #it's more just that i was raised with it #and it comes naturally to me #to believe that nature is sacred #and our relationship to it can always be improved #intentionally and unintentionally #my gods are in the earth and the trees and the sky and the sea #i write immanence and not transcendence #there are sacred moments in all of us #in nature #and in the most mundane acts #no one has to believe any particular thing to enjoy that #so yeah! that's basically where i am with it #pretty cruisy after all these years #administrator gwyn wants this in the queue

[felassan]

BioWare Blog post: BioWare Developer Story – Pride Edition

Welcome to a very special entry in our Developer Story series! While previous editions have featured a single subject, in the wake of Pride Month in June, we invited some of our LGBTQIA+ colleagues to talk about what the studio and its games mean to them as queer folks. So please allow us to introduce you to Technical Product manager Lina Anderson, Technical Animator Samantha Wald, Programmer Rachel Hammond, and Cinematic Designer Mikayla Stock, who were all kind enough to share their personal histories with us.

How did you end up at BioWare?

RACHEL: Game development was something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, from when I first played with our family’s Atari and NES and on through all my childhood. By the time I got to college, I’d fallen in love with programming as well, so I joined my campus’ Game Developer Association, where I made friends and contacts who helped me land my first job in the industry a bit over 15 years ago. I worked with a few smaller companies before getting my job with BioWare 11 years ago, and I’ve been here ever since.

SAMANTHA: My path into the industry was a lot less direct! I studied broadcasting in college to get into video editing, but I eventually started rendering graphics in 3D. I was instantly hooked, and I started doing rigging for animated shows and films. But I had always been a huge gamer, and about three years ago, I realized my skills would transfer perfectly to technical animation. BioWare has always been one of my favorite studios, and I was so excited when I got the offer to come work here six months ago!

MIKAYLA: I’m relatively new to the games industry, too; I got my start working on 2D educational kids’ games after graduating with a degree in animation. I‘ve been with BioWare for a little over a year now, working on Star Wars™: The Old Republic.

LINA: BioWare is actually my first experience in the games industry, but I’ve been here for over five and a half years. I had dreamed about working in games since I was a kid and was really surprised to get in on my first attempt!

How have BioWare games impacted you as a queer person?

SAMANTHA: As a trans woman, I spent a large majority of my life being uncomfortable with who I am and how I’m perceived by society. Before I transitioned, games were always an outlet for me to feel comfortable and explore my identity; BioWare games in particular gave me that in a completely supportive, non-judgmental space, and I really don’t think I’d be where I am today without them.

LINA: Agreed. Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age were instrumental in helping me rediscover myself. I’d repressed so much over the years, and building characters that reflected aspects of me that I’d been hiding allowed me to safely explore these thoughts and feelings. I found I was able to talk about things I’d previously kept bottled up, using my characters and companions as proxies—something that I wasn’t yet comfortable enough to do on my own. Nobody batted an eye when I talked about Lady Shepard having a fling with Garrus!

MIKAYLA: I also found BioWare games—specifically the Dragon Age games, for me—at a time when I was still kind of figuring out who I was. I was fortunate enough to be raised in an open-minded household, but it’s always different being told something’s okay versus seeing it on screen in front of you, presented as being completely normal, you know?

RACHEL: Yes! Watching them start pushing for more inclusion years ago, allowing gay and bi romance options, that was a real help for me at the time. But even outside of my direct personal experience, it was so good to see that inclusion spreading through the industry.

Why do you think BioWare games resonate so well with queer players?

SAMANTHA: BioWare games have always been about playing your character however you want, so I think it’s exceptionally easy for players to insert themselves into the main character. And since queer folks have had so little representation in the past, BioWare games are likely to be the first place a lot of folks are able to see themselves reflected in media.

MIKAYLA: Right, they provide a space for players to explore their identities. There are so many well-rounded characters that it’s hard not to find a couple that resonate with you, and watching the story of a character you deeply connect with play out can be incredibly cathartic. And it’s about not being afraid to tell LGBTQIA+ stories!

RACHEL: Yes—games that try to be more open and attentive towards queer identities definitely help us find ourselves in them. But they help other people see us too; the benefit doesn’t stop simply with our firsthand experience. It also helps normalize queer identities for other players, letting others know we’re real, we’re normal, we’re part of the industry.

LINA: And the thing for me is that the games don’t just have a couple queer characters you can run into, and then you’re off shooting aliens again. These are characters that we grow with through the series, form bonds with, and can choose to be close to.

Do you think BioWare games have made an impact on the way the industry approaches LGBTQIA+ topics?

MIKAYLA: I think any exposure to LGBTQIA+ topics in games is a step towards normalizing them in the industry, and BioWare’s decision not to shy away from telling those stories, but to embrace them, was a welcome breath of fresh air.

SAMANTHA: And I think that’s really led the way in de-stigmatizing queer relationships in games. By being this inclusive in games that are both successful and popular, they made it clear that queer representation is not a detriment, but actually a positive and something a lot of players are hungry for.

LINA: Yeah, I remember seeing the original Mass Effect making waves for having a same-sex romance option. It was absolutely the first major game I was aware of where this was a thing at all, and I think that by showing you could have a gay romance between a human and an alien and not have retailers refuse to stock your games, that may have opened some eyes and made it an easier pitch.

RACHEL: That’s exactly it. The way BioWare handled inclusion rippled through the industry, leading to other studios leaning into that content, which meant that even more games were comfortable with it. It helped move everyone forward.

Do you feel like BioWare sees and supports its queer employees?

SAMANTHA: To me, the biggest thing I see BioWare doing to support queer employees has been to empower them! I have never seen so many queer people in senior leadership positions as I have in my time here.

MIKAYLA: Everyone I’ve had the pleasure of working with has been nothing but kind and accepting, and I’ve never felt the need to be anything but myself. That fosters such a great sense of communication and community. I don’t feel like I’m living inside a vacuum while I’m working; the rest of the world still exists and its impact on employees is not taken lightly.

RACHEL: I’ve been with BioWare for more than a decade at this point, and I’ve only seen the support for our LGBTQIA+ staff grow. There have been some missteps along the way, sure, but the most important thing I’ve seen is that people are eager to listen, learn, and do better. I’ve seen a great amount of work put in to ensure that happens in every circumstance. When I started here, I was not out to anyone about being trans. I had transitioned years ago but I was afraid to tell anyone. But in my time here I was given the confidence I needed to come out again, on my terms. So many other workplaces I’ve been at pushed me back into the closet, but BioWare helped me actually feel free to express my whole self.

LINA: Oh, absolutely. If I wasn’t in a place like BioWare, I probably still wouldn’t be out. Coming out as trans was terrifying in general, but knowing my manager and leadership were there for me as I announced who I really was made all the difference.

Thanks to Mikayla, Rachel, Samantha, and Lina for sharing their stories. At BioWare, we’re dedicated to a diverse, inclusive culture, and try to show that through our people and our games. Of course, we know there will always be more to learn in order to best support our teams. But we look forward to that continued growth—because while it may no longer be Pride Month, BioWare is always proud of all our colleagues.

[source]

#dragon age #bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #video games #lgbtq #vetra nyx #spikywife #jaal ama darav #long post #longpost #sw:tor #garrus vakarian #best boy

[klein-babylon]

hey quick(lmao) question how do I actually begin to be happy and not feel miserable for absoutely no reason while for example waiting alone at the bus stop probably because of realising I lost (better off without them but still)almost all people to hang out with like I just let the emotions get me thinking its pathetic how I should be having fun instead of standing there alone. See, how do I get out of this mental state I dont need to be euphoric and happy about small everyday things just, normal, neutral or cynical, how do I achieve being cynical and high spirited at all times and shake off this parasitic dramatising its tiring me out girl

Invest in yourself (food, education, travel, unique experiences, hobbies), learn to forgive, embrace being dramatic (and the drama will fade away), prioritise socialising, make socialising easy by being yourself from the get go, stop taking life so seriously you’re one of 8 billion people, you are just an animal sharing this planet with trillions of other animals and living organisms

I had to embrace being dramatic and had to learn to be able to laugh at myself … omg my advice is so simple and basic but it works haha

I had to do so many things to be a happy person… I had to figure out my childhood trauma which was a lot.. and when I say figure out I mean I had to realise what aspects of my personality were a result of bad things happening to me rather than my true personality traits. And then I removed those personality traits that were a result of bad things such as.. fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, impulsive attention seeking behaviours, emptiness. And I’m left feeling pretty pure and childlike (in the biblical way) and kind..

I had to forgive everybody which was so hard but it will bring you permanent peace! Which is everything

Don’t be alone for too long, but being alone can bring you all sorts of realisations and results. But it can trap you.. ‘it’ being loneliness. It’s not good for us..

I say.. embrace being dramatic.. stop taking things/yourself/other people/opinions/expectatins/situations so seriously.. work out your true core beliefs and personality traits, and remove the rest, go back to your child self… get into religion, your heritage. For me , the secret to my happiness is what doctors and scientists and influencers say: healthy diet, socialising, working, exercising, resting. But in more details.. this is what I did to change myself from default emo to default happy inspired girl

I eat an organic whole food diet and am 90% vegetarian, trying to become vegan eventually, cuz i value my body and how i physically feel. It’s more expensive to eat organic, but there’s no price for your health. You NEEEED to prioritise your health . Refocus your energy from feeling empty and sad and focus it on feeling nourished and beautiful and healthy. And you will feel 100x better than before. I realised that how I physically feel is so connected to how I mentally feel

I pray and meditate every day, I also daydream every day which I reckon is a form of prayer, it’s made my intuition stronger. I cherish my psychic powers which are real lol they’re unlocked right now. Third eye is open. Also yoga classes/meditation classes are everywhere and i really recommend you go to one early in the morning. Meditating for some reason is intimidating to lots of ppl but you just need to focus on your breathing tbh and keep yourself in the present. The present is all you have by the way you should repeat this to yourself whenever you feel sad and empty. And also it’s so annoying and difficult at first but you need to sit with the feeling of sadness and or emptiness.. I used to freak out at it cuz I thought I was crazy for feeling utterly empty so frequently. But in fact it’s a blessing, you’re like a little lamb, the emptiness is pure. All that emptiness you’re feeling is cleaning out your heart and making way for all these new amazing deep feelings..

I also unintentionally exercise every day cuz I choose to not have a car and i have a bike instead. Also I get in water nearly every day which is like a baptism. And movement is like the foundation for mental health literally

You need to create a group of people you can laugh with and be truly yourself with which is easier said than done. But even if it’s one person you’re luckier than millions of ppl

Work doesn’t need to be your passion and it shouldn’t be taken seriously, it’s a way to make money so you can spend it on things that will benefit you

Resting is going to fix u. And I mean real rest not just lying down.. like.. work yourself out, exhaust yourself, spend a few days alone and treat yourself to real relaxation and luxury. Who gives a fuck. Cuz now you have all this time to reflect , plan, moodboard. Scroll Pinterest. Life is so good in those moments where you’re in your bed under a warm blanket and you’re listening to music and scrolling Pinterest. There’s nothing you need to worry about literally except the name of your new Pinterest board.. it feels so good to feel comfortable and secure. Just chase that feeling outside of your day to day and you’ll be fine

Also you need to stop caring that was the one thing that made me never depressed again. As soon as I just stopped caring what people think about me (which is easy if you actually try it) most of the suffering in my life vanished. Maybe it’s cuz a lot of my suffering came from other ppl tho

[cartoonfangirl1218]

A Twisted Tale Anathology Review

This anathology of sixteen short stories take new twists on tales already done in the series and new ones from the Pixar and Disney animal catalogue. In the limited space, the authors manage to pack in heartfelt and fun adventures that may make you see the story in a new way.

It's always hard to do an anathology review so I'll do my best to summarize each story and what I enjoyed from it.

Cast Out: What if Snow White learned magic? Blackthorne's Twisted Tale debut has Snow White incidentally taking charge of her fate. During her cleaning of the castle, she finds the magic mirror and her stepmother's evil magic lair. Once she realizes the danger (and the potential excitment to her dreary scullary maid life), she starts reading her spellbooks and is able to change her fate. I enjoyed this twist in how Blackthorne ably retains Snow White's sweet personality and love for animals with a stronger intention in her actions as she takes up spells to protect herself and her animal friends.

A First Mission: What if Mulan became the Emperor's advisor? After returning home, Mulan decides to accept the Emperor's offer to become his advisor so she can serve her country and become a role model to the women of China. Let's face it, after defeating the Huns going back to chores or marriage question wasn't her style. Unfortunately, the other advisors aren't thrilled a woman is among them especially Chi Fu. He schemes to get her kicked out by pointing out her lack of experience. Mulan knows what he is trying to do but she also knows he's right that she doesn't having the training or education so she accepts his challenge to save China's imperial silkworms. This was like a classic Disney short film with Mulan saving the day and making Chi Fu see her in a new light. Just very light and filled with warm-hearted characterization that epitomizes the kind of woman Mulan is. She may not be traditional, but her compassion and ability to see what's really important make her shine. Also I enjoyed Lim's MulanxShang dynamic.

Et Voila: What if Remy had met Colette first? Braswell did a great job on this Pixar classic! Colette's struggles as the only woman in a male-dominated chef industry was steller as she balances Colette's exhaustion of the daily grind, how dishartened she is that she has no more passion for her work yet her technical expertise can't make up for the fact she doesn't have the creativity of master chef. That is until she meets Remy. He has the vision, she has the human hands for knives and together, they make their own pop-up resturaunt in an alleyway. I loved the humorous realism of Colette doubting her sanity as she bonds with the rat and the quiet friendship that springs up between them. Remy finds someone who understands him and Colette loves cooking again. One of my favorites in the anathology.

The Envelope: What if Anastasia had a change of heart? Calonita finally gets to do a story with her favorite Disney tale, and I think it's clear she's a Cinderella fan as this slightly copies Cinderella 2 and 3 by depicting Anastasia's redemption. Yes, Anastasia realizes she did Cinderella wrong, yes, she's treated harshly by her mother and Drizella for her idealism, yes, she gets a cute love interest. But unlike other tales, her redemption is primarily her own and inspired by her late father's belongings that make her realize she has gone far from who he would have wanted her to be. It's a nice tale, but skippable if you're already familiar with other Cinderella movies.

A New Dawn: What if Mufasa gave up his throne? Rochon saves all of us from childhood trauma by having Mufasa live through his fall off the cliff. Permenantly handicapped, he is forced to step down from leadership and Simba becomes king. Rochon creates an interesting conflict as Simba struggles to lead with his father undermining his commands to the pride. He can effectively protect them if Mufasa is sending him one way and the elders don't respect him. The hashing out between father and son is only heightened by Mufasa's choice to blindly ignore Scar's betrayal and believe his lies, plunging them to more danger from internal divisions. Rochon does an excellent job in showing a layered father-son bond as Simba shows that he's ready to lead on his own and Mufasa acknowledge his own resentments while strengthening there is much for them to still learn from each other. Plus the lion fight scenes were truly raw and primal.

Rattle the Stars: What if Jim Hawkins joined the pirates? It's everyone's favorite cult classic! I was so excited for this and England didn't disappoint as they have Jim overhear Silver's betrayal and decide to join the pirate side. She does a good job illustrating Jim's insecurity and hurt over Silver's words and his constant questioning of his sincerity afterwards. Even though he doubts Silver's genuineness, his 'rattle the stars" speech still inspires Jim to take up the pirate mutiny so he'll be able to get the treasure to his mother faster. England makes it clear that this decision will leave Jim with moral ambiguity for the rest of his journey, disappointing Captain Amelia and Dobbler and following in the footsteps of his dead-beat father. But it also feels right for him at this moment, and perhaps he'll be able to finally feel free without the baggage of other's disappoints. It made me want to see more of the story and how Jim the pirate would go, if he'd find his way back home or if he'll further cross all his moral lines.

A Royal Game of Chess: What if history wasn't quite right about the legend of Robin Hood? Braswell takes on the classic trope of what if Robin Hood was a girl. In this case, what if Robin Hood was actually Maid Marian and Red was just her carefree boyfriend and image so King John wouldn't know of the infiltraitor under his roof? Braswell clearly has a lot of fun highlighting the characters' animal characteristics and descriptors and does a nice job of showing Marian's frustration that she is better serving the people inside King John's castle rather than spending it full time in Robin Hood gear as she desires. Even if it means letting Red take all the credit. It was fine, a bit bland as I've seen the trope before though.

The Secret Exchange: What if Eric met Ariel after she rescued him? Here, we get full view of Ariel and Eric's relationship where both can speak their minds and share each other's worlds. Every day, Eric rows out and explains the things about the human world that Ariel always longed to know and Ariel tells him all about under the sea. It's adorable and I love how Lim shows how alike they are in their curisoity and love of adventure and bashfulness of their true feelings. Still, there's plenty of action as Ursula conspires to use their attraction to each other to sow discord in the sea and steal Triton's crown. I really enjoyed this take on the story that has Ariel and Eric teaming up to work together against Ursula and expands the idea of Ariel and Eric being the bridge between sky and sea.

Dust to Dust: What if Tinkerbell was working for Captain Hook? Tinkerbell goes the way of Vidia when she irresponsibly uses her dust to finish her work and gets kicked out of Pixie Hollow. Her magic is tainted and she's soon lured by Hook's worldview that the other fairies are too snooty and judgy, that he gets her and that he needs her help to save Neverland from the dastardly Peter Pan. Ostow perfectly depicts Hook's pompous ego and Tinkerbell's mercurial feelings as they team up to take down Pan by Tinerkbell falls for him instead until that Wendy creature comes along. This time she's not completely motivated by jealousy but also by a fear of abandonment yet the rescue is a wonderful scene of imagination and magical awesomenesss. I just wished there had been more Hook and Tink interactions that was promised from the title.

Gonna Take You There: What if Naveen had to get home to Maldonia? It's road trip time! Tiana quits her job in a huff but before she can go beg for it back, she sees Naveen helpless on the dock after his valet quit on him. She can't leave a man in need and the fact that he's willing to pay her anything to help him get to the docks seals the deal. With Lottie in tow, they had to Alabama and Rochon illustrates the sweetest road trip fluttering crush feelings in a matter of hours. Maybe it's unrealistic but I found it sweet how Tiana talked Naveen into realizing what his future profession could be so he wouldn't have to be a professional moocher and Naveen was able to make Tiana able to appreciate the present and enjoy life. It shows even without the magical circumstances and forced frog bonding, Naveen and Tiana have a chance after all, they just fit.

Fates, Three: What if the triplets visited the witch? The triplets of Dun Broch are fifteen years old and still incorrigable rascals. Well, Hamish is. His other brothers have been preoccupied with their own interest and loves and he's beginning to feel left behind. When he ropes them into another prank that goes disasterously wrong, they secretly sneak out to the witch to change their fates even though Merida would have their hides if they found out. Calonita always has the right touch when depicting familial relationships and it's no different here as she has the brothers reaffirm their bond and communicate their insecurities all while annoying the heck out of the witch.

A Dragon in the Snow: What if Madam Mim and Merlin went to school together? Who doesn't love a good school AU and Perez delivers a bittersweet tale of romance and insecurity. Mim has always been an outcast, her lavender hair a bright sign that she's infected with shadow magic. She's been building herself up to become a royal mage, so to prove to everyone she is good and no one can dismiss her again. In fact, Merlin is one of the few who always treats her with respect and soon their friendship turns to a romance. But when the trial comes down to the two of them, Mim loses and lashes out at Merlin for all his privileges and his romance which broke her concentration. Perez kept Mim's bitterness ever present so even though it's sad when Mim realizes it doesn't matter how hard she works, political connections and lineage rule the day, it also feels inevitable that she'd turn evil. A tragic tale that adds extra depth to the movie if you choose to believe they did have a romance.

The Journey Home: What if Belle had to take her father's place at the fair? Once again, Rochon takes a realistic approch to this Disney tale by bypassing the original story entirely. Belle never goes to the castle or meets the Beast or anything. Instead she ventures to the snow, excited to finally get an adventure only to get stuck in a snowstorm. The only person who could help her transport her father's invention-Gaston. Rochon hilariously writes Belle's disgust with Gaston and her painful choice to ask for his help. Her Gaston is perfectly, smugly in character too, I could hear his voice. But Belle ultimately rescues herself using her own ineguinty, showing that Belle is amazing all by herself with an epilogue that gives her the happy ending she never knew she wanted.

Call it a Hunch: What if Hercules' first day as a god didn't go as planned? Calonita did such a great job in Go the Distance so this story also becomes my immediate fav. Her characterization of Hercules and Meg is amazing from Hercules' sweetness and readiness to start helping others (even though he's unsure how) and Meg trying to start her detective agency. The dialogue is snappy, the dynamic is wonderful, and I enjoyed the inclusion of the gods. It made me smile the whole time. Of course, I'm biased. I just wished there had been more from Hercules' POV but it is inevitable Meg steals the show so I can't really blame Calonita.

The Reluctant Prince: What if Bambi didn't want to be the next Great Prince of the Forest? Braswell's nature imagery instantly brought to mind this soothing film though Bambi's troubles were less so as his father informs him he'll be Prince next season. Bambi is unsure of the responsibilities, he doesn't want to be the aloof leader his father is. He wants to be with his kids that will be born soon, he wants enjoy spring with his friends. The trio of Bambi, Thumper and Flower was nicely done, showing their steadfast friendship, best part of the story. But Bambi's talk with Faline does show human-depth to the character as she makes him see that he's confusing the role of the Great Prince with his resentment of his father and that he doesn't have to follow his footsteps. It was cool that one of the underrated films had one of the most interesting food for thought in giving Bambi more characterization. Although, this may have been based on Bambi 2, it's been awhile but I think the plot/conflict was similar.

The Rose and the Thorns: What if Aurora knew the truth about her curse? Lim closes out the novel by having Aurora take charge of her story too. Knowing about the curse, she has grown up in the castle with her fairy godmothers preparing her with magic and fencing to defend herself against Maleficent's arrival on the chance she doesn't prick her finger. The effect has made her wish for a quiet life in the woods so she doesn't have to deal with the anticipation/overprotectiveness/countdown of the curse controlling everything around her. Luckily, she has Prince Phillip, her best friend and her crush though she's unsure how to convey her feelings with the whole "True love's kiss" thing hanging over them. Lim does good job in keeping them in character and expanding their relationship while presenting a new tale where Aurora and Phillip ambush Maleficent first so they could put the curse to rest once and for all.

This was a fun anathology that any Disney fan would love! I'd recommend reading it all the way through though I'm sure others would skip around to their favorites. Mine were A First Mission, Et Voila, A New Dawn, Rattle the Stars, Gonna Take You There, Fates Three, Call It a Hunch and The Reluctant Prince.

#twisted tales #a twisted tale anathology #liz braswell #elizabeth lim #farrah rochon #jen calonita #micol ostow #m.k. england #livia blackburne #kristina perez #my reviews

[contreparry]

Happy Friday!!!! From the fluff prompts: "kissing their bruises and scars" pls pls and thank!

Absolutely! Here’s some Zevran/Surana for @dadrunkwriting !

“That one is from when I fell out of a tree,” Bran said suddenly. Zevran, who had been idly tracing the puckered scar that snaked across Bran’s bare knee, started at the remark.

“A tree?” he repeated, certain he misheard him, but Bran flushed all the way to the tips of his pale ears and tucked his legs underneath him.

They were sitting on Bran’s couch. There was a movie on the television, something Zevran was happily ignoring in favor of coaxing Bran to relax into the cushions, to lean into him, to rest his head on Zevran’s shoulder. It was manipulative, perhaps, but Zevran got what he wanted. Bran snuggled into him and Zevran was free to touch anything that caught his fancy, from his surprisingly muscular arms to his lean legs to the scar on Bran’s knee. But when Zevran ran a finger over that, Bran jolted away like a frightened rabbit.

“Hide and seek,” Bran said, an explanation that explained very little. Bran Surana was such an academic, content to shut himself away in his lab or live his life behind bookshelves that Zevran couldn’t imagine the man- or the boy the man once was- choosing to play (and outside at that).

“No one ever looks up,” Bran added. “I thought it was a good place to hide. And I had a library book in case I got bored while waiting.”

“What sort of book?” Zevran asked. He could already imagine a young Bran clambering up a tree with a massive tome that he could barely hold, his expression as haughty and aloof as it was today. The image brought a smile to his face. Did Bran find playing with other children exhausting? Beneath him? Zevran didn’t learn how to play as a child. Piecing together Bran’s life through these fragmented tales was an educational experience, one that he found enchanting. Part of him wanted to ask Bran for baby pictures. He wanted school yearbooks. He wanted everything.

Since when had he gotten so sentimental?

“… it was… it was a book about dragons,” Bran confessed. “Warden Willow’s Wild World.”

“Ah,” Zevran remembered those glossy paperback books about rare and strange animals. He remembered their glossy covers and beautiful pictures. He remembered commercials about the series, and that one could buy the entire set and a poster of a dragon. Not that he ever read any Warden Willow. Zevran had other concerns at that age. But it was heartening to know Bran had something of a normal childhood. He read books. Appropriate books. He wasn’t learning how to disable security systems at the tender age of eight.

“Good book?” Zevran pressed. Bran’s mouth widened into a toothy smile, and Zevran’s heart leapt into this throat when Bran laughed.

“I loved it. Borrowed it nearly every other week,” Bran replied, his eyes glittering with enthusiasm. “But the scar. I lost my balance and fell off the branch. Split my knee open on a rock. First time I ever drew on magic to fix something without supervision.” His expression shifted then, his smile dimming as he considered this memory.

“It came early to you, didn’t it? Your magic,” Zevran asked, his voice gentle, hoping to coax more out of the man. His curiosity wouldn’t let him rest, and Bran was so interesting- prickly and vulnerable and trusting while still being so… so cynical. Yet sometimes there were these moments where Bran’s joy for life and thirst for knowledge overwhelmed Zevran, and part of him wanted to grasp the man by the shoulders, cup his face in his hands and ask him- how? How do you manage it? How did you endure so much and still manage to hold on to the soft and the good?

“I was… four, maybe? Early for most. There are case studies about magic showing in infants, but it’s pretty rare. Statistically speaking eight is the average age. There’s this old wives tale in Denerim that says the older you are when you awaken, the stronger Mage you’ll become.” Bran shrugged and slowly, by inches, returned to rest against Zevran’s side. Zevran snaked his arm around Bran’s shoulders and pressed a kiss against his slender neck, where a hickey had blossomed in a purple-reddish hue- a souvenir from last night, he thought with impish delight. No hiding that mark.

“So you fell, hurt yourself, and tried to fix the damage,” Zevran said. “Healing can be a painful business, especially when your healer is untrained.” There was a reason many magical healers offered anesthesia in their practices. The re-knitting of broke bone and skin on a sped up scale was not easy to endure. But to think of a young Bran holding back his tears to sew his own skin together with magic- that was a dreadful thought.

“Was more scared of my Gran than the pain,” Bran confessed. “She told me a thousand times to be careful when I played with the others. Said she’d ban me from the library for a month if I got into trouble. So I healed it. Badly, but it worked. And then-“

“And then?” Zevran repeated.

“I climbed up the tree and finished my book,” Bran said, as if it was the only conclusion that was feasible in his little tale. Zevran cackled and drew Bran closer, kissing his cheek, the top of his head, wherever he could reach. He’d kiss that little scar as well, and any other he found because that was what you did when you found someone precious, was it not? You treasured them.

“A favorite, you said,” Zevran murmured, and he wondered just how difficult it would be to find a copy of Warden Willow’s Wild World: Dragons nowadays.

#my writing #da drunk writing circle #Warden Willow is Zoobooks #you got a poster of a Highland Ravager if you ordered the box set from the infomercial

[theropoda]

something to be said about the special kind of fucked up that is when the harm comes from inside. when i was younger i agonized so much over why i was so Damaged even though i had no trauma or a bad childhood but i think that's cause my understanding of such, was limited entirely to "an outside force harming me" and nothing else. like an accident, like poverty or war, like abusive parents, or being harmed psychically or mentally by someone else. did not at all account for "being harmed from the inside". my parents tried their best, we had the privilege of being able to visit several doctors, i don't remember any traumatic environmental experiences (like a near death accident or disaster or what have you) my body and brain just failed me so badddd and there was just nothing to be done about it. except a few therapies that either didn't do much or were avoided because they were too, uh... "did not take into account the fact that a child is a small person with agency and feelings and not some animal to be manhandled"-y (thank god for my parents for recognizing that) wasn't deprived of any basic human right other than i suppose, "not being fucked up in ways you couldn't think of". But that's disability for you!!! ;!!!!!!!!!! I wish i could have recognized sooner i was just a disabled child and the gradual, straws-on-a-camel's-back build up of trauma it brings. maybe then i wouldnta spent so many years secretly wishing i had abusive parents cause it meant i had a good reason to be Fucked in the Head

just. one of the earliest examples of something that seems to be a common theme or running gag in my life which is feeling left out all the time other people sharing something i don't have. and every time, every single time, it's not like people do it out of malice! no one is singling me out on purpose i just feel so alone and alien in these experiences. it's not anybody's fault that they simply have not experienced the highly specific circumstances that have defined my life and my brain. but it just feels awful to not have anyone to really spill my heart out to about these things and hear their response, "god i know the feeling. i know it exactly. i know what you are going through i understand the specific hell that it is." it's usually just "im so sorry". again, nobody's fault! but it just sucks so bad.

and it repeats itself everywhere i go. and when i think about it, every single different time in which i feel singled out and alone from everyone else can probably be routed back to the original event: growing up disabled as a kid. in a way that cut me off from so many fucking normal experiences people usually have. im not missing out on anything that i need to survive, thankfully. got my basic animal needs met, like food and a roof over my head. but im missing out on things that make me human. lots of school and education stuff especially.

i am not just surviving, i do not live off scraps, but im not thriving either. i feel like a pet who gets nice beds and good food and regular vet checkups, a good sized cage and everything but no enrichment. i don't need enrichment to live but ill go fucking insane without it. is there such a thing as trauma from fucking monotony, from no enrichment? stuck in the same place, same thing same people every day? it's a good place here. i am not in danger or anything. i just think im being torn apart by the absolute nothing. if i wasn't disabled id be doing so much more, doing everything i can, to have experiences, try new things, learn new things get a job do something anything. i can't though! Lol. Everyday is exactly the same.

aren't i just a fucking parrot?

im not a bug expert by any means but what i have gleamed from following Bug Blogs (Blessed May They Be) is that their needs are specific, but basic, simultaneously. like ig for isopods is food, water. shelter. protection from disease and death. the right temp, humidity. life is good.

but a parrot? n.... no...? good food, water, shelter, a good sized cage, protection from disease. that is good. but if that's all it has, a parrot will, from my understanding, tear itself asunder. literally. i have heard feather plucking can result from sheer lack of enrichment, boredom, monotony.

i feel like that. parrot that kills itself because no touys [kramer voice] it's like a gilded cage inhere if you read this far im so sorry i promise im fine sometimes it just dawns on you. sometimes i see something and i am just reminded of uh (points to above novel length text) all of this. Wait i just realized i already have trichotillomania so i really am feather plucking in a way wait . hey guys what was th

.

#delete later

[interstellarwizard2019]

Girl help! The CRK brain rot has compelled me to make some Cookie Ocs!

Yup, I had to do it. I couldn’t resist! So enjoy three nerdy goofballs and a potentially dead cookie princess!

🦋 Professor Cheese Ball Cookie:

“There’s a lot more to bugs than many cookies may think!”

Armed with an endless knowledge on insects, a jovial disposition, and a boundless curiosity that’s gotten her in trouble more than a few times, Cheese Ball Cookie prides herself in being Crispia’s finest Gastroentromologist! Her life goal is to inform the world about the greatness of insects, she’ll even have some crawl on her to prove how harmless they really are; Woe be upon anyone who stands close to her, she’ll sometimes have them crawl on other cookies to prove a point! She runs the Observatory-Conservatory along with her husband: Macaroni Cookie, together they do their best to educate the masses. Baked with a crunchy exterior and a soft interior, the Professor is always willing to give out maternal love to anyone who needs it. She makes sure to make everyone who she meets feel welcomed, cared for and will gladly cook up a hot meal, she’ll refuse to let anyone leave the table on an empty stomach! But underneath her happy demeanor she hides all of her worries and anxieties, Cheese Ball gets immediately on edge whenever someone starts to ask too many questions about her old home.

🌟 Professor Macaroni Cookie:

“The stars tell our stories and the cosmos predict our future!”

When staring at the night sky, a sudden feeling of awe will flush over anyone. The vastness of outer space sparks many questions about our own existence. Ever since he was baked, Macaroni Cookie looked up at the night sky with curiosity in his eyes, the endless mysteries it holds have captivated and sparked an insatiable desire to learn all its secrets. Macaroni spends his nights observing and analyzing every and all cosmic events, constellations, and planetary alignment; this cookie even has everyone’s birth charts memorized! He lives in the Observatory-Conservatory with his wife: Cheese Ball Cookie and together they do their very hardest to educate the masses, Macaroni Cookie’s over dramatic demeanor will always make any presentation a memorable experience for anyone! But watch out for his telescope, he carries it around all the time and won’t hesitate to bonk someone with it!

🦜 Mac N’ Cheese Cookie:

“I wonder what animals like to talk about…”

Baked from the squishiest macaroni and cheesiest cheese, Mac N’ Cheese is the jelly-apple of Cheese Ball and Macaroni’s eye! An infinite ball of energy, this cookie is always tagging along on adventures with his mama and papa. From the day he was baked, Mac has always had a fascination with animals from all walks of life, from great pretzel stick giraffes to a tiny gummy mouse; this cookie wants to learn all about them! But his favorite type of animal are birds, he often wishes he could fly just like them!

🧀 Princess Mozzarella Cookie:

“Sometimes I wonder: Does my existence really mean anything…?”

It is said that the day that Mozzarella arrived on earthbread, the sun shone brighter than it ever has before, the cheesebirds sang to her the sweetest of songs the moment she opened her eyes for the first time and Golden Cheese Cookie was the happiest she’s ever been. All of her kingdom’s hopes and dreams were placed onto her since childhood, burdening her with the expectations of an entire nation. At the queen’s behest, she followed her every wish without objection: arranged to wed the prince of a frozen citadel, be trained to be the guardian of her kingdom, and to one day put an end to the war between the moles and the cheesebirds. But as time went on her list of duties grew and Mozzarella grew more and more withdrawn as the years passed, ultimately culminating in her lashing out at her mother and fleeing the palace, never to be seen again. While it is not known what happened to the princess, its been theorized that she has crumbled at the hands of mole bandits. But whatever truly happened to her may forever remain a mystery…

#oc #crk #cr kingdom #crk ocs #golden cheese cookie #Cheese Ball Cookie #Macaroni Cookie #Mac N’ Cheese Cookie #Mozzarella Cookie #I snuck in a bugsnax reference in here! #cookie run

[imtryingmybeskar]

Starman Chapter Twelve.

Oh man. Warnings for gross patriarchy including far-too-big age gap marriage, virginity as a prized asset and talk of breeding in a non kinky and very unhealthy way, mentions of drugging, drug abuse and drug addiction. Murder, war, classism imprisonment, animal bites, injury. There's a wee nod to Common People by Pulp too, as true today as it was 30 odd years ago.

✨I would like to say that I don't judge people for taking drugs. That part of the story is drawn from personal experiences and is based on how I ended up feeling after almost a decade of trying unsuccessfully to self medicate.✨

Song (x) Word count: 7.2k

Starman

Chapter Twelve

Starman (iii)

The ending began with greed and fear, as so many endings do.

The first few explosions were dismissed as accidents. After all, mining and prospecting were notoriously dangerous occupations, and these kind of things were the accepted risks of such business. Besides, there were more than enough workers to replenish those who had perished. But after a while it began to be noted that more guards than miners were dying in these explosions, and when reports of an abandoned mine that contained a mass grave populated exclusively by overseers emerged, whispered rumours began to spiral out of control.

Ezra's childhood education had not been entirely on his own terms. When he had developed his interests in the universe and the physical and chemical world, he had been allowed to study them at will so long as he did not neglect his other subjects.

These included what he would eventually come to realise was an extremely biased and untrue history of the seven systems and the families that presided over them, law and politics, and economics, business and accounting. The latter, along with his insider knowledge of his father's investments and the increased freedom he had been granted to strike business deals once he had proven he could turn a profit meant that he could secretly siphon off a decent haul into several private accounts that were locked behind false business fronts, all the while making it seem like profits were healthier than they were in the supposedly legitimate side of the business.

Rien's intelligence, charm and his deep understanding of people's psychological make up were invaluable resources and he conducted many of the face to face meetings that these business opportunities necessitated under the guise of being a legal advisor. Not only did this free up Ezra's time to meet other, less licit contacts, but it had the added benefit of divorcing him from the subterfuge somewhat, gave him a veneer of plausible deniability should anything go awry.

The fraudulent businesses masked the true face of what was occurring, the movement that both men believed so passionately about in part due to the violence and deprivation they had witnessed and endured.

"Shot in the back and left to bleed out in the dirt is what I heard," Ezra's uncle announced gleefully over dinner a few weeks later. "Pierpoint has lost control. Got a saboteur on his hands. Now is the time to try to poach any assets we can of his and publicly bring them under new management. Show these upstarts that we can keep a tight leash."

"Ezra has said much the same," his father replied.

"Has he now?" said his uncle appraisingly, redirecting his attention accordingly. "Perhaps there is some hope for you yet." Ezra forced a smirk to his lips and gently raised a glass in acknowledgment to his uncle. He swore he could feel a piece of him die as he did it and he swallowed his bile along with the expensive wine.

"If I am to perish, why should you not be my companion in death?" he had asked in a low, even tone. "My valet is willing to die for me. Are you?"

When his uncle heard Ezra had returned he had taken his personal hovercraft and arrived with all possible speed at the house. After he had all but kicked the door down and barged his way inside, he had sought out Ezra in the library and trained dual antique hunting muskets on to his chest, advancing on him until the muzzles were pressed directly against his head, one at each temple.

Heedless of his sister's frantic pleas he had barked the same sort of questions that his father initially had. Somehow, Ezra had kept his head, both metaphorically and literally. He did not doubt that his uncle would pull one or both triggers and happily go home for tea afterward. In this face of this imminent danger, he had forced his voice to almost bored calm, looked his uncle directly in the eye and informed him that if he were to commit murder, then he would follow him into the void extremely shortly and at this signal Rien appeared seemingly from nowhere, his blade pressed silkily against the skin of his uncle's throat.

His uncle had looked at him, eyes gleaming with malice and hellfire before he had huffed a barking laugh and put his guns down.

"Finally grew some balls, did you?" he asked rhetorically before roughly pushing Rien aside and stamping back out of the room.

In the intervening weeks between that day and this dinner, Ezra had done his best to ingratiate himself with his uncle by adopting a similar sneering, slippery persona as him when he was around. The fact that he was apparently making the family an obscene amount of money didn't hurt at all and he felt he was on the cusp of having access to at least one of his uncle's businesses too. He just needed something extra...some way of demonstrating his loyalty to the family beyond all question, and the answer came sooner than he had imagined it would.

After dinner his mother retired to bed, and after another glass of wine his father had dozed off in the large comfortable lizard leather chair by the fire. His uncle chose this moment to broach a subject Ezra thought dead and buried.

Ezra forced himself to swallow. His mouth was suddenly very dry and his tongue felt like it was three sizes too big. "Do you have anyone in mind?" he asked in a falsely casual tone.

"If you wish to stay here you will still need to perform your other duties you know," his uncle offered perfunctorily and without preamble. "If you can bear to unstuff your valet for a night or two and stick it into a girl that is."

At seeing Ezra's alarmed face, his uncle chuckled darkly. "Its not exactly a secret. I see how much leeway you allow him. Any valet of mine that lax would be lucky to merely lose their job. And I saw the footage from the first day you arrived, or did you forget about the cameras trained at the door? No servant touches their employer in that way unless they're fucking."

Ezra forced himself to keep his gaze steadily trained on his uncle, but said nothing. "Let me be clear, boy," his uncle continued. "I don't care about you or what you do in private. You could be fucking the kookas for all I give a shit. But if you took a wife, publicly joined yourself to another house...don't you see the business opportunities that could flourish from such a union?"

His uncle gave a serpentine smile. "In fact I do. Her father is a high stakeholder in the Pierpoint mining corporation. Or was. His investments are looking less and less secure these days. So he's begun to parade his daughter a little early instead. Passably pretty. Young. Demonstrably fertile according to the family physician."

Ezra started to feel nauseous. He had to ask this question. He really didn't want to ask this question for fear of the answer, but it was necessary. "How young is young?" he enquired, hoping that his voice was still airy and light.

"I should be delighted to meet the young lady," he acquiesced, his voice sounding faint and reedy to his own ears.

His uncle leaned forward, his smile now descending into decided lechery. "Put it this way," he said quietly, "Perhaps your youthful mistakes have served you well in this incidence. While the other men of your age are now saddled with their fading blooms you can take an unspoiled thing for your very own. She has bled, and would have been put forward to other families within the next year. That should tell you that she is old enough to bear for you."

He shuffled forward on his seat, coming even closer to Ezra who had to fight against every instinct not to recoil in disgust and his voice was low and conspiratorial when he spoke again.

"In addition, if you take a younger wife she will be more easily moulded to your own whims, your own desires. And she cannot possibly object to such a longstanding...arrangement with your valet now can she? As long as you breed her successfully and are discreet in your assignations, the rest is your own business. We have always preached this. And when she is with child, all of her energies and attentions will be directed toward bringing the pregnancy to term anyway. You will be free to do as you wish once your seed takes."

Ezra forced a smile and prayed to anyone that might be listening that it did not appear as queasy as he felt.

"Excellent," proclaimed his uncle robustly as he took another swig of the foul spirits that were in the hipflask permanently affixed to his belt. "I shall arrange everything."

"And when the day comes I'll bring you down hardest of all," Ezra promised himself, a hot streak of rage flaring through his abject disgust.

A few short weeks later on a large balcony that overlooked the van Ione gardens, the wedding took place. Hasty though the planning had been, it went off without a hitch and -

She shifted in her seat, twisted to look at him and her hand came to rest on his chest above his heart. Though the electricity had been restored to the house, they had not bothered to turn on any lamps as they sat together, and by the small and flickering light of the fire he could see the consternation in her features.

"Wait, you actually went through with it? You married her?!

"Indeed I did. It was necessary for the deception and to ingratiate myself back into the familial bosom. I kissed her cheek after I spoke those vows and from that day I never touched her. Not once."

Her gaze eased from shock to trepidation as she asked "So, how old was she?

Ezra swallowed hard. "Sixteen," he said, the word soft with pain and regret. She blew out her cheeks in an exhalation of shocked disbelief. "Her seventeenth birthday was two days before we wed. "The poor girl," he continued. "She wanted to please so badly. Clearly her parents had made it known just how much was dependent upon the success of our union. She was shaking with nerves the whole day of the wedding and It couldn't have helped that I was twice her age. I took her father aside and told him in no uncertain terms that while I was intent on providing the child that everyone so desperately wanted, I would not force the matter and would not take her to bed until I thought her willing and ready for such a thing. I hoped to buy some time before the inevitable decision that had to be made."

"And how did you get around it?" she asked. "And what happened with the money and the sabotage at the mines?"

He smiled sadly at her impatience to get to the crux of a matter that still pained him so much, and kissed her forehead. "We shall get there my love," he promised.

Throughout the whole rigmarole that he and Rien were perpetuating he had been constantly surprised, as what he had anticipated would be difficult tended not to be and vice versa.

The actual theft and fraud for example, was easy. Even when they managed to expand their scope of deception and begin stealing from both Ezra's uncle and his in-laws, the combined abilities of the two men were such that they were able to maintain the necessary facades. It helped that no one suspected that anyone would have the audacity and capability to do such a thing, let alone the only child of two of the most respectable people in the seven systems and his lower class associate. While the family believed all lowers to have a propensity toward criminal behaviour of all kinds, they also did not believe them to possess the mental faculties to plan and perpetuate something of this magnitude. The men were walking a wire, but the longer they got away with it the more bold and expansive their plans became.

What they were stealing was channeled into weapons and sabotage but also into education, and programs to assist workers to remove the spirit-shattering drugs from their lives that had successfully ensnared both Rien and Ezra as well as millions of others over the years.

This last was a much harder sell than merely picking up a gun and shooting. Both Ezra and Rien knew well from personal experience that oftentimes the only beacon of hope that lit the dark, backbreaking, miserable days was the thought of the comfort that certain substances provided once their weary bodies collapsed into their bedrolls. But the cycles of despondent misery that followed these indulgences allowed people to bow their heads to the supposed inevitable, to give up in the face of the enormity of relentless misery. There was a reason that the drugs were so cheap and readily available and why the overseers were spectacularly disinterested in doing anything to stop the trade.

From the redirected profits of the lowers' labour came a wellspring of guerrilla war that trickled through several of the most industrialised and poverty stricken planets. One that the higher orders neither took seriously nor saw the immensity of until it was too late. The Pierpoint mines were just the beginning, and the desire of the other families to protect their own businesses and money from that end at all costs - even if that meant abandoning their peers to their fates - worked in Ezra and Rien's favour.

Ezra found that the hardest part was the maintenance of pretence - both as a devoted son and dutiful husband, and even that became somewhat easier over time. But soon after the wedding he realised that the girl would begin to cause a fuss and draw attention to his distinct lack of interest in her if he did not at least attempt to make a show of desire.

She had been given her own bedchamber within the household - the reasoning being that once she was pregnant, she would need her own space. On their wedding night Ezra had sat delicately on the edge of her bed, reassuring her that he knew how overwhelming this must all be for her, that he would not touch her until she was ready and that he wanted them to stay in their respective beds until that day came. She pleaded with him that he must be mistaken, that he was her husband sworn and she had no other desire than to take him fully in every way.

"I can see in your eyes that is an untruth," he had said gently. "And I do not judge you for it. I am sure you are aware of my...unconventionality as regards to my own presentations when I was your age. We will take this at a slow pace. Surely any child that comes from us should be made as lovingly and tenderly as can be to give them the best chance at life?"

He felt a pang of guilt that he was giving her false hope of a child that would never be, but that was swiftly overruled by his knowledge that he was sparing her more grief and misery this way. She acquiesced to his wisdom initially, but soon grew impatient and instead began to come to his chamber in the middle of the night in billowing, gauzy nightgowns that barely stayed on her shoulders and were slit far too high, pleading to sleep in his bed to stave off the nightmares she was supposedly having. Her clumsy attempts at seduction did nothing but remind him of how young she was.

Words were no longer enough to delay what their families were so fretful about. And so he and Rien took on the roles that had gotten them back here once again - Ezra stealing some of his mother's sleeping pills and Rien concocting his pharmaceutical wonders. Her evening wine was drugged and a marriage bed hastily fabricated. All it took was a tiny pinprick on the back of her thigh. Something that could so easily be attributed to an insect bite, but whose red blooming over the bedsheets would be hailed as proof positive that Ezra had indeed finally performed his husbandly duties.

Ezra pulled away from Rien's touch, and answered with an indignant bite to his words. "I'm not worried about you watching. Its just wrong Rien. She is barely more than a child and I will not be her first foray into physical intimacy when it is all based on lies," he hissed. "At least once its all over they can prove that I never touched her, and she will have a chance at a truly successful marriage. She is an innocent, I will not break her more than I have to."

"Why don't you just fuck her, Ez?" Rien had asked as they had artfully arranged the covers and cushions to give the impression of a night of passion. "She's pretty enough, she's certainly willing. So why not?"

In the face of the casual air of Rien's question, Ezra's voice deserted him and his chest felt like it had been hollowed out. They had never really verbalised their relationship and certainly not mentioned any kind of exclusivity. In fact they had actively both fucked other people, sometimes together. But there had been love between them, the others merely an aid to their already good time. What had started as hedonism and fire and lust had grown into something softer, more generous and understanding. More of a necessity for them both.

And so Rien's question wounded him, brought him right back to that knowledge that he was withdrawing from Ezra emotionally for some unknown reason. Ezra wanted to cling, he wanted the rock of Rien right beside him as he had been for so many years, was desperate for more than just the shape of his physical presence. More than that, this girl was a proverbial line in the sand that he would not cross and he didn't know if it was her age or her innocence or both, but he was appalled at the idea of actually going through with it.

Before he could try to formulate a reply Rien was in front of him, running a delicate hand down to Ezra's crotch and stroking a finger over his cock "I wouldn't mind watching you fuck her if that's what you're worried about. It doesn't matter to me that she's your wife-"

Rien paused then laughed, a reaction that did not entirely reach his eyes. "You're too good Ezra," he purred. "That's your problem, too full of a subjective morality that no one else subscribes to. How can she be an innocent? She perpetuates the misery that they inflict upon us by her very existence and will continue to do so once she does manage to birth the next generation of these leeches."

Ezra had no good answer to that truth, so he merely shook his head and repeated darkly that it was wrong and he would not do it. Rien had shrugged and they had slept in their respective beds that night, the fact that Ezra's wife was taking up space in his the excuse rather than the reason.

The delight and celebratory mood that spread through the house the next day was proof in Ezra's mind that his family had instructed the chamber-servants to tell them immediately they suspected consummation had taken place. Nothing was said out loud of course, they were all far too refined for that, but Ezra's father clapped him heartily on the shoulder when he arrived for breakfast and his mother airily mentioned to the room at large how they might best decorate a nursery.

After the breakfast things had been cleared, Ezra's wife surprised him by asking him to join her on a walk around the gardens. Not wanting to arouse suspicion, he agreed immediately, shooting Rien a look that clearly told him to also accompany them at a distance.

"What is the matter?" he asked, bluntly. "You can tell me. Whatever is on your mind, I would prefer to know."

The day was full of a yellow tinted mist that had drifted from the nearby sea, the tendrils of cloud muffling all sound and lending a slightly eerie feel to the gardens as they strolled, while the heavy moisture in the air occasionally made it difficult to breathe freely. She didn't seem to notice any of this and slipped her arm through his as they walked through the grove of enormous everleaf trees, making pleasant small talk by observing the small animals darting around and trying to identify the bird calls that they could hear.

Ezra could feel a tension emanating from her every time they fell silent - a spectre hovering over the conversation. He paused, extricated himself and turned to her.

She startled at his candour and her eyes slid from his face to over his shoulder where he knew Rien was lounging against a tree, mostly out of sight. When she spoke it came out harshly and in a rush, as if she were forcing the words past her lips, and she was no more subtle about it than he had been.

"Is it true? Are you in love with your valet?"

Now it was Ezra's turn to be taken aback. "Would it make a difference if I was?" he asked gently. "He is not my husband. I am not making a child with him."

Her face fell, crumpled just for a second before she regained her composure. "And what of me?"

"What of you?" Ezra frowned in confusion.

She visibly steeled herself before answering, her hands twisting in absent minded anxiety in the lush silken material of her skirts. "I was given to understand that at the very least I would be sore after my first time. The blood on the sheets would certainly suggest as much. Yet I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday and the day before."

Ezra's scalp was beginning to prickle uncomfortably and an icy drop of sweat ran down his back as he began to realise that she was more astute and less reserved than he had given her credit for.

"I confess, I remember little of last night," she went on. "I thought...I thought I would remember more-"

She looked up sharply, appraisingly. "Husband, we should try again as soon as possible," she said, a slightly panicked edge to her voice. "The window for conception is now. We should take every opportunity while it is open."

Ezra placed his hands on her shoulders and they all but swallowed her small, girlish frame.

"You were inebriated," he told her. "You came to my room and we had wine and talked for a time. And then you reached for me and while I did not want to take advantage of you in that state, you were very...persistent."

Her eyes dropped from his face and a hint of shame and embarrassment tinged her features. Its made him feel slightly ill to lie to her like this, but he ploughed on.

"You do not ache because I prepared you well to take me," he said softly. "I told you before, it is not in my interest to hurt you or attempt to make this child in any way other than through love. And if it does not take this time then we shall try again-"

He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to get out of this mess he had managed to land himself in and the excuse he came up with sounded appallingly weak even to his own ears. "I must attend my other duties too. I have several meetings-"

"Do I not please you?" she whispered, unshed tears gathering in her eyes. "Have I not waited in vain for you to come to me every night since our wedding? Have I not tried to be appealing and beautiful for you? Do you only like men? Is that it?"

"No!" Ezra protested, and then sighed his resignation to the partial truth he was about to give her. "No, I enjoy both women and men. But you are still so young, a child to my eyes. I cannot lie freely with you in all good conscience. It feels...wrong to me."

"Fuck," he said softly. "Fuck"

Her gaze hardened and her jaw came forward in an expression of displeasure. "I am old enough to bleed and bear," she said, the words a recitation of what she had clearly been coached to over many years. "I am your wife and if you can't bring yourself to love me, I will at least have your seed. Your family and mine both wish it and I will perform this duty willingly. Can you do any less for them?"

Ezra grasped for an answer but before he could her voice and eyes narrowed to sharpness.

"I will attend your chambers tonight and this time there shall be no wine, no outside influence." She threw another dark glance over at Rien before she continued. "This time I shall remember every moment."

She marched off through the grove back toward the house and Ezra ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

"No, that is the problem beautiful boy. You won't." Rien came up behind him and slipped a hand around his waist, resting his cheek on Ezra's shoulder as they watched the girl depart. "And if you truly can't bring yourself to then we have to get out of here."

Ezra spun and turned to face Rien, an incredulous look on his face. "But...but we are so close to a tipping point, so near to-"

"We have a lot of money stashed away, Ez," Rien interrupted. "We should go. Disappear. Join the fighting on the ground and leave them here to burn when their time comes."

"You are too comfortable here," he stated dully.

Ezra hesitated. He knew the wisdom of Rien's words, knew that the longer they stayed the greater the possibility of discovery. But they had done so much good already, and he was loath to give that up, not to mention the deeply satisfying feeling of deceiving these horrendous people right under their noses. While he felt tension and anxiety at the prospect of getting caught, the thrill of what they were doing together was every bit as heady as some of their more hedonistic days, and he suddenly realised that it reminded him of how they had used to be in the early months - eager and excited and full of fire. Before imprisonment and drugs and unending, unyielding labour had broken his youthful exuberance.

He was just about to speak, to try to talk out a way through the mess that would allow them just one more week to siphon off what they could, but he had been silent too long and Rien's face darkened.

"Excuse me?" Ezra replied incredulously.

Rien folded his arms and cocked his head appraisingly at Ezra. "You are too comfortable," he repeated. "After all the stories you told me about how miserable you were here you have embraced this life more readily than I thought you could. You share your scraps with me, your leftover food and wine. And the scraps of your attentions also. You dismiss me from your mind when I am not in your line of sight. You shy away or tense up when I try to touch you. Perhaps being here has made you realise that you are not so different from them after all. Perhaps this is where you are supposed to be."

Ezra made his choice. There was no real choice to make.

It felt as if Rien was punctuating each sentence with a punch to the head. He was so appalled, so outraged, and so desperate to inform Rien that it had been him withdrawing his affections and not Ezra that he just stood there staring, struck silent by the unfairness of it all.

Rien huffed a noise of disbelief and shook his head. "Tonight, Ezra. I am leaving tonight. Come with me or don't. It is time to make a choice." And with that ultimatum he stalked back through the grove, leaving Ezra distraught and alone once again.

And so he found himself in his room at twilight after the evening meal, cursing the fact that his skill with measuring powders and liquids and pills was decidedly less impressive than Rien's. Since she had specified no wine and tonight would be the last time he would have to stoop to this deception, he had surreptitiously put the crushed up pills into a cup of herbal tea, telling her it was an old family recipe that was both aphrodisiac and aid to conception. He too partook of a cup and then begged a moment to clean his teeth. He waited in the bathroom for a few minutes and when he returned he was relieved to find her fast asleep on the chaise lounge, her head resting on her arm and her feet tucked underneath her long silken robe. He covered her with a blanket before moving to his wardrobe and resuming packing his bag.

He was almost finished when a quiet, yet urgent knocking came at his door. The beat was rapid but he recognised it as one of his and Rien's private codes and he uttered a silent prayer that the man hadn't left without him. Rien had been right about one thing today at least. They should leave. Disappear underground and assist in the struggle in a more immediate way. And hopefully when it was just the two of them again they could rekindle how it used to be - revive the love that they had for one another without politics and history and his family getting in the way.

He opened the door and Rien immediately hurried in, his beautiful eyes bright and sparkling. "Its happening, Ez. Its happening now. The servants are all muttering about a disturbance among the wharves and there are rumours that the docks are alight. I have managed to secure us a flight offworld but everything is so volatile that we have to go this instant!"

Ezra raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I am not the husband you need, nor the one you deserve. I have never touched you, you have to know that. You can still be matched with-"

Ezra nodded his agreement and had just shouldered his pack when he heard the distinct sound of a pistol being readied to fire. He spun to find his wife staring at him wildly, a dazed look to her face and when she spoke, her words were slightly slurred.

"I knew'wit," she muttered. "I knew you wer'gon' drug me again. Didn't...didn't swallow it all. An' now you're leaving? No. No."

"Don't care 'bout tha'," she said fiercely. "You won' shame me this way. You won' shame my family."

"We don't have time for this!" hissed Rien.

"An' you," she said with derision, her attention and the gun both landing on Rien. "You're the problem. Why...why do you get to share his bed when his seed is so useless to you?!" With every sentence, her voice was growing both clearer and louder and Rien and Ezra exchanged a desperate look. "If you weren't here it would have been fine," she continued, moving closer to the two men. "If you weren't here it would have been good-"

"I told him to fuck you, you stupid girl," Rien spat. "He refused. Too good for the likes of you and for me I guess. Just let us go without a fuss and you can live your life with some empty headed rich boy like you were always destined to."

There were several seconds of total and complete silence. And then Rien pulled his pack on to his shoulders. "Come on," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "We have to go."

"I don't want-" she began, and too late Ezra realised the trap Rien was about to spring. She had grown careless, walked too close to him and he leapt upon her, muffling her cry of alarm with one hand and wrestling the gun from her with the other.

At least that was what he intended, he told himself as he relived the moment in slow motion a thousand times in the years afterward.

In fact, as he moved toward her, she dropped the gun in her fright and her hands fumbled for it. Which meant that instead of clapping one hand across her mouth and his other over her arm, Rien's aim was slightly off. He struck her hard across the jaw with the heel of his hand and she spun on the spot, her head colliding with the wrought metal bedframe of Ezra's bed as she fell. The thump as she hit the floor was the loudest sound Ezra had ever heard in his life and he found himself biting down hard on his knuckles to keep the cry of shock and horror from leaving his lips.

"Rien," Ezra whispered. "Oh Rien. What have you done?!" He knelt down beside his wife, her body suddenly looking even smaller than he remembered before. He turned her over gently, so that she faced the ceiling and cradled her as he put his face next to her mouth, desperate to feel her breath on his cheek and when he could feel nothing, his heart ached and tears blurred his vision.

"For fucks sake Ez, we have to go!" Rien grabbed Ezra's shoulder and roughly pulled him to his feet. "How much worse will this be if they find us like this?"

"She was a CHILD-"

"She was one of you!" Ezra staggered back from the venom in Rien's words like they had been a physical slap. Rien shook his head and set his jaw and when he looked at Ezra again there was no trace of the man he had once loved. "Coming back here was such a mistake. How soon you forget the misery these people inflict when you are living among them again-"

"How fucking dare you! I have risked everything to get us to this point," Ezra hissed. "And its happening, right now. Everything we have worked for is happening and we are a part of this-"

"No, Ezra," Rien retorted, now calm and collected as ever. "You can moralise all you want about what's wrong and what's right, but all it does is expose you for who you really are. There is no true peril for you, not while you can still run back to your parents' mansion if you say and do the right things to gain their approval. You'll never truly understand what its like to live as we do." He moved to the door, opened it and stepped through.

"Rien!" Ezra begged, the plea and sorrow clear in his broken voice. He was incapable of saying anything else, his heart reeling with rejection and his mind paralysed from fear from all possible futures - both with Rien and without him.

Rien paused, looked back and met his eyes and seemed to stare into his very soul for the last time.

"Goodbye Ezra. I really did love you, you know," he said, the tremor in his voice the only betrayal of any emotion. And with that, Rien vanished.

The Glasshouse...the-the Glasshouse-

Ezra's senses blurred - his vision and his hearing and his sense of touch, they began to shut down - all around him became dulled and muted and only snatches of his experiences over the next few hours were able to penetrate the painful hazy fog of his mind. His blind panic as he ran from the dreadful scene. The howling alarm of the gate as he belatedly realised his father must have acted on his barbed advice and changed the code from his mother's birthday. The scrape of bark and brick under his palms as he attempted to climb the blood ivy instead. The searing pain of animal teeth in the meat of his calf. And the triumphant, sneering face of his uncle above him as he lay breathless and defeated on the lawns of his childhood home.

The next time Ezra came to with any kind of clarity it took him long, painful moments to understand where he was, to make sense of the howls of pain and suffering around him.

Her warm hand caressed his face, gently turning him toward her. Tear tracks that mirrored his own streaked her cheeks and she pressed her forehead against his before cradling his head against her chest and holding him close, his hand coming around her back to cling to her as he choked out his sorrow. She murmured something, and the rumble of her voice as he felt it through her chest was the most comforting thing in the world to him. He glanced down at the translator, the words across it seen through the blur of his tears.

"No more, love. No more tonight."

She held him for long minutes in that way, stroking his hair, planting soft, sweet kisses against his forehead until he quieted, regained control of the panic and grief that had gripped him as he relieved his darkest of days for her.

The fire was down past its embers and emitting almost no light anymore, and she poked at it to check it was fully extinguished before holding her hand out to him in silence. He took it and followed her up to her bedroom once again, Dog trailing in their wake.

The room was warm, dark, full of her scent and so welcoming. She deposited the translator on the table at her beside, leaning it up against the lamp that was there so it could more readily be seen.

The words appeared slowly across the screen of the translator, chasing her soft words from at his back. "I want to know the rest," she said. "But its a lot to deal with emotionally."

She closed the curtains against the black void of the ocean in the distance and then lay fully clothed on her bed with her head propped up by one hand, patting the space next to her in an invitation for him to follow, which he did without hesitation. The tender sadness of her beautiful smile as he moved to join her was enough for his eyes to begin to prickle with tears again.

She manoeuvred him so that he was lying on his side, so he could see a portion of the now-clear and magnificently starry sky through the small window set into the roof above him. She pressed herself against his back, her arm wrapped around his middle, her nose rubbing softly at the back of his ear and the curls at the nape of his neck. He felt her soft breath, felt her inhale him and take joy and comfort from that simple yet most intimate of gestures. Her hand slipped under his shirt and stroked lightly over his stomach, the small shiver of the feeling of their skin connecting still so new and such a delight. Her body at his back and the aura of her presence warmed him inside and out and he found himself full of gratitude once again that she was here with him and that she would not send him away.

He felt the mattress dip a little as Dog jumped up to join them and settle himself between their feet with a small sigh of contentment. In the grand scheme of the strangeness of the past few days this was a small moment, but it was one that Ezra had dreamed of many times, when he was lonely and heartsick and wondering if there was something truly wrong with him that he could not find a mate like so many others. To be here, completely present in this moment of solace. With her.

"I know, my love and I'm sorry," he interjected,. "I should have given you more of a warning-"

He felt her shift against him, felt her move up his body a little until her chin rested on his upper arm, and when she spoke next her voice was full of pain

"Not for me, Ezra. It was too much for you. I could feel it coming from you. The sorrow, the anguish, the guilt and regret. You don't have to relive those things for me. I don't want you to. I don't want you to ever hurt again."

The tears began to stream freely down his face again and she kissed him softly, his lips trembling against hers in his grief. "My life," he sobbed shakily. "My heart. I thank whatever happenstance or deity conspired to bring us together. I do not deserve your kindness-"

He turned slightly so he was resting more on his back and gazed up at her with eyes that slowly filled with tears in the face of her compassion and care for him. He opened his mouth, moved his lips but no words that could come close to adequately explaining how he felt in this moment made themselves available to him. She shushed him gently and stroked a light finger over his cheek.

"Its okay. I'm here. You're here. And that's all there ever needs to be. You never have to be alone with these things ever again."

She kissed him again, stifling his negativity about himself with her lips. "You are a good man, Ezra," she proclaimed. "And you deserve happiness and kindness and gentleness."

"You have yet to hear all," he warned. "There is still more-"

She kissed his forehead, his nose, his mouth, and then buried her face in the crook of his neck again to pass her lips gently over the slightly ticklish skin there as well. After everything he had confessed to he was initially unsure if he would be able to sleep, or if the faces of all he had left behind would haunt him when he closed his eyes as they so often did. He stared up at the night sky, at the smattering of glowing lights that were so familliar yet arranged so strangely to his eyes. But then she began to sing softly and he allowed her voice to soothe the very core of his soul. As his eyes began to flutter shut and fight against the sleep that would claim him, they were drawn down to the burning imprint of the words she was uttering into the dark as they appeared across the screen.

She stopped his words with her lips again, and this time he was more able to respond in kind, his kisses growing more fierce as his heart urged him to capture her, to keep her.

"And I will still be here to hear it," she promised. "But for now, you need rest. You're still recovering from your time in the pod, and tonight has been so intense in so many ways. Just...let me be close to you. Let me hold you as we both sleep."

All I need, I'm made anew.

I don't know what I'd do without you.

Next chapter

#ezra starman #ezra prospect #ezra prospect fanfic #ezra prospect angst #ezra prospect fluff #ezra prospect fanfiction #ezra prospect x ofc

[firstaidspray]

Gloria time!

What is a noticeable physical attribute of your OC?

How does your OC talk/what does your OC’s voice sound like?

What was your OC’s childhood like?

What is your OC’s level of education?

What is your OC’s favorite food?

What is your OC’s favorite kind of music (and song if there is one)?

What is a notable physical attribute of your oc?

The freckles/scars from picking on the sides of her cheeks, her notable body hair (mostly arms in normal circumstances- the only people who really see anything else, which would be under her clothes, are Blondie and herself), and her dark brown eyes that are almost black. Blondie actually notes the last one specifically when he describes his first meeting with Gloria.

How does your oc talk/what does your oc's voice sound like?

Gloria is highly nonverbal. If she does talk, it's in short phrases and singular words. Only when there's something super important to say will she talk in full, eloquent sentences. Blondie is a pretty nonverbal guy himself, so the two communicating through little pieces isn't a problem. Even if Blondie does talk in longer, normal conversation, he's understanding of Gloria's way of speaking. Her voice sounds like mine does right about now- my voice but super raspy. (I had surgery and the intubation made my voice scratchy. I wish I sounded like this all the time tbh it's sexy)

What was your oc's childhood like?

Well, there's the Trauma that kind of causes her to do What She Does (the killing and such), but otherwise pretty normal and quiet. She grew up on a ranch with her parents, grandparents, and brother, as well as a cousin who died pretty young so she doesn't remember him much. Gloria was very studious and enjoyed learning about various subjects, particularly science. She'd observe the world around her- the animals, plants, environment. When someone in the family was sick, she liked to observe their condition. A lot of other kids thought she was weird for being quiet and "creepy" and some of them were racist/xenophobic so she had pretty much no friends.

What is your oc's level of education?

So, Gloria was a nurse who cared for the wounded in the Civil War, but she wasn't educated under Dorothea Dix's standards. She wasn't 35 and sure as hell wasn't plain looking, as Dix apparently wanted in a nurse, so her education came from "nurse" nuns in the Catholic Church she grew up in. She was only allowed to treat soldiers because of the lack of caretakers in their area. She did, however, use her acquired medical knowledge over the years, caretaking experience while volunteering with the nuns, and some stolen education material standardized by Dix that she got her hands on while working in the military. So I'd say she has that for her education.

What is your oc's favorite food?

Fry bread!! It was a staple in one of the cultures that comprises her multicultural/racial heritage. She eventually makes some for Blondie and he loves it, topping it with honey. (I've only had it, plain, a couple of times when my brother made it, it's super good!! And. Before anyone asks I am, like Gloria, half Indigenous, so I chose a dish of one of my cultures that I personally enjoy and was around in this era. Many Indigenous chefs have complicated feelings on it, but it's chosen in this case for the purpose of historical accuracy, not modern symbolism. Also, it tastes good.)

What is your oc's favorite kind of music (and song if there is one)?

Anything Blondie plays on the guitar for her. Lol. Ranging from well-known songs to things he's personally written or just plays by ear. There's one he plays pretty frequently that he "just made up" but he secretly wrote it about her. She knows this, so that's her favorite.

Thank you for asking!!! 💕💕💕

#ask game #gloria