#and then to not even bring the actual jester in the fic up? like why did you bring my fav up at all?! if not to compare or something

[jellyfishloveletterghosts]

Don’t be dismissive of Jester Steve in my asks, that’s a sure fire way to make sure I never answer it.

#personaljelly #I probably wasn't even meant to be rude or anything but still I am annoyed. #I am aware that very few outside of me appreciate him I have the stats I know! #I don't need an asks in regards to a separate jester fic that has nothing to do with my favorite jester fics being like that #and then to not even bring the actual jester in the fic up? like why did you bring my fav up at all?! if not to compare or something

[mistkisbiggestfan]

Omg the Pomni x Fem jester was so cute! Would you mind writing more of it? (If you can or want to)

Pomni, romantic / Jester! Fem! Reader - Part 2

Pomni (romantic) / Jester! Fem! Reader Hc + Small fic

A/n: Finally writing $h!t in my inbox?? Rare Jules moment, like actually I don’t know what’s happening (I’m gonna write those Tf2 and Voltron requests too, promise) REQUESTS FOR TADC ARE OPEN!!

Summary: Part 2 of being a silly jester couple Words: 1539 Rquest: Yeah!

She was kind of insecure because of you.

After she settled and realized it’s her life now, tho

You were well, everything she wasn’t; tall, well-built, at least your avatar was, and not to mention Pomni hated to admit that your digital avatar was quite attractive. 

And worst of all, you were an actual circus performer. 

But that has its downsides, of course, when she realized you were closer in behavior to Kinger than Jax or Ragatha? $h!t man. 

She tried to avoid you all day (events before the end of the pilot: the digital feast).

But on the other hand, whenever she saw you, a lightbulb kinda flickered in her brain. 

She’s such a girl failure, didn’t even know you for a day and still fell for you.

The jester was very much confused: “Am I attracted to this…?” 

Yeah she is. This freaks her out. Why is she attracted to a crazy girl?  

Your first meeting was a bit rough, duh, but in between her panicking and having a freak out, she couldn’t help but note your good looks. 

After that she didn’t see you much because you stayed behind with Kinger and Gangle.

– You’re sure this is a good idea? – Ragatha said before turning around, looking at you, Kinger and Gangle. You were laughing about something, Gangle was crying, and Kinger was doing his usual stuff. – Of course, they’re the most mentally stable trio in the whole circus! – Jax snickered before walking along the halls. – Come on ladies, let’s go harass the clown. 

During the time when abstracted Kaufmo ran around, chasing Pomni, at one point you came out of nowhere and scooped her up, bringing her to safety.

Then you kind of fu(/#d off to let abstraction of your dear friend sink in, Ragatha was very worried when she saw you not attending the digital feast at the end of the day.

The loop of never-ending exits and the void left Pomni really fu(/#d, but none really cared (expect for maybe Gangle and Ragatha) because it was her first day.

She didn’t even realize when her legs led her to the digital lake. Like someone else brought her there.

Just as she was about to sit down and relax she heard the deep and loud voice that scared her, the feminine, in other circumstances soothing voice was terrifying, she looked up and saw the Moon talking to someone.

Oh yeah, she almost forgot that Sun and Moon were AI people here. 

“That was great dear, you should show that trick to Caine sometime.” She was talking with someone? But who?

And then, she saw your (in comparison) small figure looking up, with something that imitated fire, more like digital-fire but a flame nonetheless. 

That made her feel worse, it was all superficial, all being nothing more than lines of code. Just like the talking Sun and Moon – not giving off any heat or cold.

Pomni felt herself losing it again as she saw you talking with the Moon above. 

Feeling weird was an understatement. 

Before she could go away, because she was standing awfully close to you two, she heard the loud voice of the Moon again.

Pomni finally snapped out of whatever she was in, her shoes touching the smooth, untextured grass under her. She didn’t know when or how she got here but she had to roll with the punches in this new place she was forced to call “home”. She saw the lake’s water before her before hearing a deep and loud voice of someone seemingly echoing and coming from every possible direction. She looked up.

The moon, or rather, Moon, was talking to someone. She almost forgot it– she? Moon. She almost forgot Moon could talk here, probably being some kind of AI too, like Caine. 

But, Moon was talking with someone and she could tell it wasn’t Caine. – That was great dear, you should show that trick to Caine sometime. – She heard Moon’s voice again. 

And with that, Pomni found herself walking closer to the direction Moon was talking too. How could Moon be seemingly high above, be seen from all directions and 2d like? She sighed, deciding to ponder on the perspective and basic rules that reigned this world sometime later. 

Finally, she saw a small in comparison figure standing and holding a large stick or something like that, which ended with fire on both ends, the flame made her shiver, ironic. She looked as the fire danced, looking more animated than anything else, the thought that it was nothing more than lines of code wasn’t the best. 

As she looked more closely at the figure talking with Moon, she couldn’t make out the words. And she realized, it was you, well now that was obvious, you were the only person dressed like a jester other than herself.

Before she could turn around, walk away, forget about this, she heard Moon’s voice again. – I think you should get yourself going dear, it seems like someone’s waiting for you. – Pomni’s eyes widened as she saw Moon looking at her, and she saw your head whip around to look at the person who was waiting. 

Oh h#|! – She thought, and now she contemplated turning and running away, but before she could do so, you already stood in front of her. And you didn’t look quite as cheerful under the moonlight. 

Now she could notice you had makeup on, well that’s probably just a permanent characteristic of your digital skin. You were quite different from her, that was rather obvious since you were basically towering over her. But one thing was similar, both of you had a $h!t tons of bells on you, how could she haven't noticed you going here? You were basically a walking “hey! I’m here! Can’t you hear me? Oh yeah you can”

You seemed more worried about her now, she didn’t notice, somehow, still, basically checking you out. – Are you alright? – Your voice snapped her out of a staring contest with her and your lean body. 

– What? Oh, oh! – She looked up at you, as you leaned in to hear her better. – I’m not that short – She thought to herself. 

– Is there something you need? – You said now starting to walk along, towards the entrance of the main area. She shook herself and ran to catch up, you started juggling as she looked at you weirdly for a second, were those balloons? How the fu(/# can you juggle balloons?

– I just wanted to thank you, for, eh when you saved me from that monster. – She said, not looking up at you, but she heard a laugh, snicker, whatever, it seemed more nervous than cheery though.

– Kaufmo.

– What?

– That wasn’t a monster. It was Kaufmo. – You said, still juggling, she seemed to catch on with your thought process. 

– Right. Sorry – She apologized quietly, both of you being now in the hallway leading to your rooms. But you laughed it off, catching all the balloons and popping them, like Caine did with Bubble, with funny sounding “pop”. Only now she realized you were standing still now, not walking anymore. 

– Don’t beat yourself over it, sweetheart. – You laughed, not mockingly, somehow it sounded lovely. Amd Pomni froze – her face red. Oh god she if she didn’t want to hit herself then, she definitely wants to after this. Once she realized what happened your laughing disappeared a long time ago. She looked around and found out you left her off in front of her new room. – Wow… – She breathed out. 

At first you were not a big fan, but your behavior was always the same, you really kept almost everything to yourself, but you have to admit she was a little cutie.

Ever since you always tried to make her flustered, and it always works.

She tried to make you flustered on more than one occasions but you seem to not be able to feel flustered or embarrassed, your face just goes from “:D” to “(´ ꒳` )” 

You’re actually the boldest mf out there, even bolder than Jax. 

Jax probably gave up on trying to prank you after that “staring at your soul” thing.

But Pomni is a brand new target, so you protect her. And it makes her flustered, but on the other hand, what doesn’t make her flustered?

She might have called you mommy by accident. She was burning, but to her shock. That seemed to make you flustered, but just for a second, before you laughed sweetly at the mess before you.

“That was great, cutie.” “Thanks mommy.” “...” “...”

She should be glad Jax didn’t overhear that, or did he?

He did. It’s over for her. 

She was walking through the hallway towards your room and looked up to see him, looking down at his nails, even though they were covered with his gloves. “Pomni, remember that calling the jester mommy isn’t very PG 13.” He smirked before the situation resolved to a harmless fistfight.

Caine doesn’t bat an eye, maybe says something to Pomni but that’s all. (You’re his and Moon’s favourite so it’s understandable, don’t let the others know though.)

Favouritism is real.

Overall very cute, two jesters are always better than one.

#requests open #request #please request #tadc pomni #x reader #pomni #ragatha #tadc #jax #caine #the amazing digital circus #tadc pomni x reader #tadc jax #tadc ragatha #tadc caine

[btsdreamcourt]

Sunday, August 28, 2022 ⥈ Fic Review #1

Dearest Readers,

We are delighted to share BTS Dream Court’s Fic Review for the month of August! Each month, we highlight an Esteemed Member of our Ton and a piece from their personal library. This month, we are proud to share that Baroness AJ @bangtanintotheroom received this honor.

TITLE: Delta Disorder

PAIRING: Hoseok x Reader

SUMMARY: “What should have been an easy sleep becomes an ordeal that not even your wildest imagination could have come up with.”

Read Here

What our Queens and Court Officials have to say about this fic:

❝ Delta Disorder was absolutely mind blowing. I remember reading it after those teaser photos were released and I was like 'wow, this is incredible!' The author did an amazing job creating the characters and their personalities. And the way it was pieced together was just the icing on the cake. It flowed smoothly and captivated you. By the time I got to the end, my eyes were wide. It was simply amazing and the author is very talented. It was a great read. ❞ - Queen Dee

❝ There was not a single moment where I was bored while reading this, AJ did a great job at keeping readers entertained. I absolutely loved Hoseok’s POV, this thoughts really helped us understand his character and definitely added to the overall reading experience! ❞ – Queen Val

What was your inspiration for Fic Title Here?

My inspiration came from the MV and photos from MORE! Hobi just looked like he was up to no good in that jester hat and outfit of his and somehow, the idea of him as a sleep paralysis demon just clicked and made sense.

Which of the characters do you relate to the most in Fic Title Here and why? Which was the most fun/difficult to write?

I guess I’d relate to OC the most? Just trying to get a good night’s sleep and then BAM! In comes a demon who decided to make you the lucky winner 😅 Hobi was more difficult to write because I wanted to get across how he views OC as a plaything for amusement rather than an equal.

How long have you been writing? What made you decide to write?

I have been writing on and off for about thirteen years now. My brain is always brewing with ideas and once I found out that people went and wrote them out, I decided to give it a shot. It’s fun comparing my writing from then to now 😆

What are your favorite tropes, genres, AUs, etc. to read and write?

It depends on my mood for reading, I can take almost anything, especially if there’s some humor laced in there. I have a soft spot for college AUs, there’s so many shenanigans you can include in them. I also love friends/idiots to lovers, it’s always fun to watch a relationship slowly go to the next level.

How do you overcome writers block?

I usually take a step back from writing and focus on more creative work instead, such as moodboards or banners. Looking for pictures usually helps bring my motivation back and gets the brain juices flowing once more.

What is the most difficult part of your writing process? 

Um…actually writing my ideas down? 😅 My ideas tend to play out like a movie in my head so having to translate it on paper is rough at times.

When AJ isn’t writing, you can often find her playing video games, watching Let’s Plays, doing makeup, shopping or sleeping. AJ is a shoe department supervisor who hates messy customers and keeps blowing her paycheck on shoes. She’s working on refining her digital art in hopes of opening an online shop in the future. When AJ is craving something good to eat, she chooses burgers or pasta. AJ is very thankful for having such awesome friends and moots who inspire her every day.

BDC is proud to have AJ as a member of our Court and cannot wait to see what she shares next!

#fic review

[omniscientwreck]

Let me combine both of your favorite things! I would love a little thing about Caduceus (in his infinite wisdom and questionable intelligence) trying to give either Essek or Caleb relationship advice that may or may not be actually helpful. Those two wizards are probably too much in their own heads to see what's right in front of them and could use a little nudge. Just imagine both of them going to Caduceus for advice on how they're attracted to the other and Caduceus just sitting there trying to fight to urge to facepalm.

Hello! Thank you for combining my two favourite things into this fic that took way too long but I'm quite pleased with! I hope you enjoy!

In which Caduceus has three conversations with two wizards fighting against a force bigger than either of them.

----------

The first of these conversations Caduceus had was expected. Gardening alongside Essek, teaching him how to sow beauty where destruction had laid waste had been therapeutic for both of them. Caduceus had never given up on the war criminal. It’s difficult to feel no sympathy for someone whose story was written across their face in blank but pleasant stares and a mask of platitudes.

The state he’d been in when they met him at the outpost had filled Caduceus with determination. He’d been as close to a wreck as they’d ever seen him and now kneeling alongside him and looking over to see a small self-satisfied smile as he observed the work they’d done, it feels like they’ve done something right. This second chance had been well earned and he has faith that Essek will continue to earn it for the rest of his days.

This Essek is determined to right wrongs, and he’s started with the garden. He pays careful attention to the plants, always asking if he’s unsure about the compatibility of certain species, and making sure to put them exactly where they tell him. When they work past the point when the sun disappears behind emerald leaves he takes off the gloves Jester had made him and digs his hands into the ground. It seems to bring him peace, it’s good that he’s found any.

Most of the time when they work it’s silent, creases pressed into Essek’s forehead. He sweats through the layers that serve to keep him safe from the heat overhead and always has to be cajoled into taking breaks or drinking water. It reminds him a bit of Yasha.

On the third day, when he’d nearly gone faint Caduceus has to intervene, “You don’t need to hurt yourself to repent you know.”

Essek takes great care to swallow and not choke on the water he’d been sipping, bad timing. The mask comes up again, “I don’t know what you mean.” he states flatly. He knows that Caduceus is smarter than that and it shows.

“Hurting yourself doesn’t change anything. It’s the creation of beauty here that tips your scales, not the destruction of yourself.”

He nods slowly, indigo eyes downcast. “I suppose you’re correct. I have much to atone for Caduceus. There is much work to be done before I will deserve any of the kindness you foist upon me.”

“Hey now, I decide who deserves my kindness. We all do.”

Essek nods again, running a dirt stained hand through his silver hair. It leaves streaks of dirt, Caduceus says nothing.

“It’s difficult to be made aware of your stark moral failings, to learn what it means to truly care for someone again. It’s difficult to care more than you expect and to know what is enough, if anything is.”

His eyes flick behind Caduceus, where he can hear Caleb explaining something to Luc and he understands more than Essek probably wants him to. “You’ll find enough.” Essek looks at him, eyes full of a delicate hope, easily shattered, “He’ll tell you when it’s enough.”

His eyes widen just slightly and a deep blush spreads across his face alongside a smile so small it’s like he doesn’t want to let himself accept the barrage of feelings it holds back. “If.” His voice is small but the weight is heavy in the tone.

Caduceus reaches a hand to cover one of his, “When. Remember, I see things the rest of you don’t.”

Essek smiles wryly at that, voice full of mirth, “Of course Mr. Clay the ever observing.”

They go in for dinner and Essek speaks up a little more, he’s a little more alive. The change is small, but Caduceus notices.

----------

The second conversation is less expected, completely unexpected if he’s being honest. Caleb arrives at the doorstep of the grove one evening around 8 months after they’d last seen each other. “Hallo friend, I hope I am not intruding.”

His smile is easier now, though still restrained by sadness. “Not at all Mr. Caleb you are always welcome here. There should be left overs from dinner, fix yourself a plate.”

Caleb allows himself to be ushered in and fussed over. He tells a few stories of the trial but Caduceus tries to steer away from that particular vein of conversation. It’s raw and it doesn’t look like he’s fully healed. There’s still one catch somewhere that he needs to loose himself from before the smile will be easy and free, before he can walk away from his past and toward the future.

“I am going to Aeor next.”

Ah.

When Caduceus doesn’t say anything he continues, voice laced with trepidation, “I am going to ask Essek to join me.” he wants Caduceus to convince him of something.

“Well, two wizards is better than one.” He eyes Caleb knowingly and the wizard squirms a bit under his gaze.

“It is just, a little strange isn’t it? The directions we are led in.” He trails off again, maybe he’s hoping for wisdom. Caduceus decides he can probably dispense something.

“You’ve never seemed like someone who wanted much to be herded into decisions to me.”

“It’s been a journey.”

Caduceus clears his dish and sets down a teapot, “It’s a journey you’re still on. One that might not have a definite end. Is it worth it to deny yourself happiness because you’re worried about whether you deserve it?”

That caught him a little off guard, copper hair shook a bit as he’d clearly gone a little further than Caleb was expecting. He likes to talk in metaphors so that he can hide from truths later, or at least pretend everything can have multiple meanings. It’s time for Caduceus to stop letting him twist words around in that expansive brain of his until the original meaning is obscured by hypotheticals.

“I cannot tell you what’s right Caleb, but if you came here for a reasonable perspective listen to the one I’m giving you.” He pours the tea and offers honey, “You will never know if you don’t go and I know you better than you think. You don’t like loose ends, not as long as there’s something to learn.”

He nods, staring into tea, they’re so similar and so stubborn that Caduceus can feel the loving annoyance usually directed at his siblings creeping in. “Caleb, stop punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault in the first place.” Caleb nearly interrupts but Caduceus keeps barrelling through, “Self-flagellation won’t get you anywhere, you’ll just end up with regrets and what ifs. Go explore Aeor, forget everything else for a bit. Do that thing the two of you do where you’re finishing each other’s sentences and nobody knows why you’re bothering to speak out loud because it’s obvious you’re thinking the same things.”

Caleb’s smile is smaller now, but lighter. “Ja mein Freunde, I think you will. Thank you for tolerating questions I don’t know how to ask out loud.”

Caduceus smiles back, “I think this will be good. If you need anything while you’re there don’t hesitate to reach out. Stock up on healing, you’ll need it.”

Caleb laughs at that and spends the night, before heading to Zadash the next morning, undoubtedly to clear out Pumat’s stock of healing potions.

----------

The third time this conversation is had it’s his fault. He doesn’t mean to start it, but honestly the situation is getting ridiculous and the sibling feelings Caduceus has to both the wizards are firmly cemented.

They decide to get everyone together maybe a year after the last conversation. It’s his first time seeing any of them since then and as soon as they’re all in the same room it’s like no time has passed at all. Essek had come to get him while Caleb gathered the rest at Beau and Yasha’s home in Rexxentrum. Jester wraps him in a crushing and loving hug, Beau gives him a punch that’s soft for her but still stings, Yasha offers clippings of flowers immediately, and Fjord’s hug is warm. Veth’s family is here and she looks happier than he’s ever seen her. Caleb greets him with the warmth that’s always burned behind eyes that hold less and less sorrow every time he sees him. He hopes they’ll drop it all together one day.

When they pop back into existence from the way Caleb and Essek look at each other Caduceus expects something to happen. He doesn’t know what exactly but they hold each other’s eyes in a profound way. There’s gravity to them and everyone can feel it, he’s getting tired of watching them fight it.

It seems so simple even though he doesn’t feel that kind of pull, to see where this is going. It’s feels like the days before a big storm, when everyone knows what’s coming and it’s getting a little ridiculous that you’re still waiting for lightning to strike.

Everyone else drinks, they cook and eat and tell stories. Caleb and Essek sit apart but spend the entire time stealing glances across the table when they don’t think the other is looking. Nearly always they catch each other.

Yasha plays on the bone harp, she’s gotten very good and Jester swings Veth around into a dance. Kingsley, three sheets to the wind, grabs Beau and whips her into a reluctant dance and her initial protests eventually bubble into laughter. Caleb sits beside Caduceus and Jester has switched to twirling a flustered Essek across the floor of the livingroom. It often turns to dancing with these people and he loves that they love it so much.

“As I recall you’re an excellent dancer Mr. Caleb, go cut in.”

He shakes his head, “Ah- I couldn’t. Yasha is playing and I don’t think you’re much of a dancer.” He looks over with a quirk of a brow.

“I’m sure Jester won’t mind a break.”

He coughs at that, “I ah-”

Caduceus shakes his head, “No, talking is done, this is getting ridiculous.” He puts a hand square on his back and guides Caleb to stand, “You two will weave circles of metaphor around each other until one of you drops. Go Caleb, follow gravity.”

He seems to understand, seems to accept Cadcueus’ words and as soon as he stands to full height, Essek is watching over Jester’s shoulder. She, thankfully, understands the same way Caduceus does and even sends a wink as she loudly proclaims, “Oh my gosh Essek I’m so tired, I think Caleb needs someone to dance with, go to him.” She extends her arm, releasing him, and his levitation doesn’t allow him to stumble at the abrupt change in momentum.

Essek and Caleb meet and Essek steps to the ground gracefully as Caleb holds his hand out and pulls him in.

Nobody says anything for fear of spooking the delicate peace that settles over both of them as they gently turn, but Yasha slows the music she’s playing a bit and a quiet celebration is shared in the eyes of the rest of the Nein.

Caduceus breathes a sigh of relief and Jester sits herself beside him, bringing an overly sweet juice she’d found on her travels for him to try. She tells him stories into the night, and the wizards never let each other’s hands go.

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #caduceus clay #critical role #the mighty nein #cr fanfic #critical role fanfiction #tm9 #my writing #omni writes #my fic #a little worried this is ooc for Cad but also I think he's just treating them like he'd treat his siblings #eventually you just gotta push people in the direction they're heading

[intergalacticwanderer]

(Part one, part two. This fic is pretty much a mash up of this post about tiefling virtue names and this post about Molly’s tattoos, because apparently I couldn’t stop thinking about it even after making them. Some small references are made to the prior fics but all that’s really needed is that Kingsley recently got all of Molly’s memories and is dealing with that.)

The weather and the seas that day were remarkably calm - not that good for sailing, but good for tasks that required steadier footing or hands. And if the doldrums did stay longer than was welcome, Fjord and Jester both had some tricks to get them out of it, so, nothing to really worry about. There were plenty of things he could do on a day like today.

In that moment he was in Jester’s cabin, sitting on a cushion beside her bed, while she sat on the bed above him and carded her fingers through his hair.

“So what do you want to do this time? Something fancy? Ohh, maybe adventurous? Beau’s here, maybe we could try shaving it!”

Kingsley chuckled, relaxing back into the touch as she gathered up the hair. “Just the usual trim for now. We’ll see about the rest once that's done.”

“Hmm, if you say so,” Jester said, bringing out her small pair of shears and starting on the bottom of the hair while her tail idly brushed against his own. “I do think you’d look really cool with shaved sides though.”

He gave a little hum, letting his tail wrap around hers. “Probably. But trim first.”

“Okaaaaay,” Jester said, mock exasperated, but he could hear the smile in her voice. Soon enough she settled into her rhythm, pulling up individual sections of hair and the quiet snip of the shears the only sound for a moment.

The first time Jester had trimmed his hair had been, while not a disaster, not the best either. At the time however he’d been too aggravated by his long hair to really care, and soon enough it’d become a regular thing, Jester improving with the additional practice. In the grand scheme of things a haircut might not be a huge deal, but at the same time? That first haircut in Nicodranas had been one of the first times he’d really been able to really take control of his own appearance, feel comfortable in how he looked, and he was forever grateful to Jester for helping him continue that. Plus, it was a great way for them to have some time to gossip. Speaking of which...

“So I heard something from Beau the other day.”

“Ohhh? What kind of thing?” He felt her lean forward a little, tail coming free from his to swing back and forth.

“Well, one thing, she told me to ask about a story, but I'm not doing that part yet.”

“Aww! Why not?”

“Cause I don't want to get accidentally stabbed if I laugh at the wrong time.” As if to emphasize his point he felt the shears trimming some hair closer to his ear. “Besides, I can ask about it afterwards, something to look forward to.”

“But you could still do nowww,” Jester said, and even without seeing her face he could hear her pouting.

“It’s not you, it’s me,” he said dramatically and he was rewarded with a giggle.

“Okay, fine. What’s the other part?”

“She was talking about members of the Nein having different names, besides me?” He stretched out his arms in front of him and bowed his back a little before relaxing again, making sure not to move his head while he did it. “I know about Nott and Veth, and there were those sketchy assassin wizard people calling Caleb Bren when all that went down, but she also mentioned you? Said I should ask you about it.” He did his best to seem blasé but his tail betrayed him, curling and thrashing along the floor. He reached over and stilled it with his hand, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

“Oh!” Her voice was surprised, and the shears stopped for a moment. “Did she. Um. Say what it was?”

Kingsley almost shook his head but stopped himself in time. “Nah. Probably figured it wasn’t her place to share, and I’d agree. Won’t say I’m not curious but up to you.”

Understatement. Painful understatement. But he wasn’t going to force it either, no matter how much he wanted to know. It was less about the name itself and more just... the confirmation that she’d had a different name at some point. Something that could maybe help him feel a little less alone with the tangled mess of two names bouncing around in his head these past couple days.

The sound of the shears started back up again. “... Genevieve. But my name is Jester.”

“Never said it wasn’t dear,” Kingsley said, feeling himself relax. “What made you want to change it?”

There was another pause, longer than he expected. “... do you not know about virtue names? Wait, what am I saying?” He felt Jester shift on the bed and a few moments later she was climbing down onto the floor and sitting in front him, hands settling into her lap. “I forget sometimes that you don’t know about certain tiefling stuff.”

Kingsley blinked a few times at the sudden change in set up. “And?”

“So I guess it’s my job to teach you!”

“Am I still getting the rest of my haircut?” He held up a lock of untrimmed hair.

She swatted his arm. “Yes! But this is important enough that I want to talk to you about it face to face.”

Jester shifted to make herself comfortable then clapped her hands together in front of her. “So! What I know about this I learned from my mama, so I don't know everything but what I do know is preeetty cool. The easy version is that virtue names are naming yourself what you want to be!”

Kingsley raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

That earned him another swat on the arm. “There’s more to it than that, silly! Or...” She paused, then shrugged. “Actually, that is pretty much it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

“See, a virtue name isn’t just what you want to be, it’s thinking about who you are. What you want to strive for, what’s important to you, who you are as a person.” Jester placed a hand on her chest. “For me, Jester was something I thought sounded cool, and I liked that they made other people laugh. And, okay, maybe those reasons are a little simple, but it’s still me, and because it’s me it’s important.”

Kingsley thought over what she’d said. “I... take it Marion isn’t a virtue name?”

Jester shook her head. “Nope, my mama liked the name she had. But she still told me I could choose whatever name I wanted, you know? Even if she didn’t change it herself she wanted me to have that choice. And I did, and I’m happy being Jester.”

“Anyway, that’s tiefling virtue names!” She straightened, about to stand back up when she stopped, something seeming to occur to her. “Wait.” And then Jester pointed at him, face brightening. “Kingsley’s kind of like a virtue name!”

His current confused mess about names did a weird flip in his stomach. “Uh-?”

“You mentioned feeling kingly, and you even have your goal of maybe becoming the Plank King someday! That's so cool!” Jester grinned at him, hands clasped together, but a few moments later her smile fell away. “... Kingsley?”

Even with being addressed directly Kingsley glanced behind him (which, of course, was just the bed), wondering what suddenly had her looking so worried. Was something on his face?

“I’m fine,” he said, maybe a little too quickly. It was when he looked to the side that he caught the culprit - his godsdamned tail again. His hand snapped out, stilling it, but he knew that this time she'd definitely seen it. His heart hammered in his chest.

“Kingsley.” Her voice had softened. “What’s wrong?”

For a split second he considered lying, but the thought died quickly. Jester had already caught him, and... yeah, he didn't like lying to her. Not about important stuff at least. He took a deep breath and exhaled.

“I... I think the name talk might be wigging me out a little.” And he’d even been the one to bring it up in the first place.

“Do you want to talk about something else?”

Kingsley shook his head. “Nah, it’s just- Beau told me about the others changing their names, probably to try and make me feel better?” He ran a hand through his partially trimmed hair, while the thumb on his other hand worried at his nails. “And it helped but right now all I can think about is how I'm different. Caleb was a random alias that stuck, Veth was stuck in a different body, and you-” He gestured at her- “got a chance to really think about what you wanted. And all of you were still, well- you.”

Kingsley let out a sigh, hands dropping into his lap. “It’s... dumb but, I almost feel weirdly guilty about my name right now? I like it but I picked it when I didn’t remember and-”

“Kingsley no.” She reached forward and grabbed his hand with both of hers. “Don't ever feel guilty about that, okay?”

Kingsley jumped a little, surprised at her intensity. “I- okay?”

“You said you like your name, right?” Jester squeezed his hand.

A small pause. “Yes?”

“And you still believe in the reasons you picked your name?”

“...yyyes?”

“Then it's your name.” She held his gaze. “You can add to it if you want, but please don’t feel like you have to change it.” Her face softened again and she gave a small smile. “You’re allowed to like your name and who you are. That’s okay.” She patted the back of back of his hand. “And... maybe you can just think of it as your actual virtue name? If you want to. I was allowed to make that choice, and so can you. And you could totally just have two names if you wanted. It's up to you.”

It took several long moments for him just to process. “...Huh.” Thinking about the name Kingsley. Keeping it, but maybe now as a virtue name, a deliberate choice, showing who and what he wanted to be. Knowing he could still keep the other name too if he wanted. “Huh.” He nodded to himself. “Actually... yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. Thank you Jester.”

Jester finally grinned again, giving one more squeeze to his hand and a small nod in return. “Happy to help.”

She clambered back up to her spot on the bed, brushing his hair back to where it’d been before she’d climbed down. “Anything you want to talk about next?”

“I think I’d like to just relax for a bit, if that’s okay.”

“Sounds good to me!” Jester said.

Things settled into a comfortable sort of quiet, Jester humming a small tune and sounds of the ocean filtering in from the outside. That was one experience he'd never gotten to have before, at least, and it'd helped to serve as a good touchstone these past couple days. An easy dividing line for before and after. But in that moment, with the quiet intent work, someone else changing something on his body on his behalf, a new memory ran through his mind - or rather, new to him.

Sitting backwards on a chair, shirt off and resting his arms on the chair back, hair somehow even shorter than it was now. People talking around him, friendly, asking what he wanted and what he had in mind, before a prickling burning pain started on his right shoulder. The pain continuing down his arm, but there was a satisfaction to it, knowing that this scar, this tattoo was his own mark. Laying claim to a body that was unfamiliar and foreign, blotting out an eye that wouldn't stop staring and wouldn't go away.

That pain was distant now, separated not only by time but death and revival as well, but Kingsley still found himself looking down at the snake tattoo wrapping around his arm, the scales bordered and adorned by numerous scars. He hadn't paid much attention to it when he'd first woken up (outside of wondering about questionable decisions) or even really in the immediate time afterwards. Now it was almost like double vision looking at it - a tangible reminder of someone screaming to the world that he was alive, he was here, he existed.

He gave a quiet snort. A reminder of life, but it'd still stuck around when he was very much not alive and buried in the ground. Then again...

A few tufts of hair dropped onto his shoulder and Jester brushed them off for him, continuing to hum as she worked. Sure, he'd been dead and in the ground, but he wasn't anymore. And even when he hadn't remembered different things, the tattoos had still been there. Proof that Molly had existed.

Kingsley held up his right hand in front of him towards the light shining through the open door, examining the blank spot in the snake’s head, before flipping to his palm and looking at the blank spot there as well. He hadn't ever been bothered by those before - in fact, the sight had been a relief. But right now, those voids on his hand, scattered around other various body parts and tattoos... it was making him itch. It wasn’t complete.

“Hey Jester?” He continued to hold his hand in front of him, tail tapping on the floor.

“Hmmm?”

“You still practicing tattoos?”

Jester gave a little gasp. “Oh my gosh YES! I can-”

“Hair!” Kingsley yelled when he felt her start to move off the bed again. “Hair first!”

“Ack, okay, just-” There was a small scramble as she readjusted course, but soon enough she was back in place, Kingsley mercifully un-stabbed by flailing shears. “But you have to tell me what you’re thinking about!”

He laughed. “Okay, okay.”

His tail continued to tap on the floor as he thought, his left hand coming up to his chin. “So, we were just talking about names, right? And how Kingsley can be my virtue name, but I can still keep the other if I want?”

“Yeah?” Jester hadn't started cutting his hair again yet, too caught up in what he was saying.

He held his right hand up into her view, poking at the blank spot on its back. “I want to see if I can do something like that with these? If that makes sense? It sounded better in my head.”

A pause.

“... okay, I’m really sorry, I know you said hair first but I have to come back down there for this,” Jester said and she slid off the bed to plop down next to him, sketchbook somehow already in her hand. “Cause that idea is amazing and we gotta talk about it.”

Kingsley gave the most over the top sigh he could. “I guess I’m going to have half cut hair forever.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to forget what you’re thinking about!”

He bumped his shoulder into hers, grinning. “Nah, I getcha. Just know it’ll be even longer until I ask about that story,” he said, winking.

This time, he was actually able to see Jester pouting at that.

“Fiiiine. Now tell me about the tattoos!!”

“Alright, alright, I'm getting there,” he said with another laugh, shifting his position to where it was more comfortable to talk.

“Okay, so, I know part of the reason these tattoos are here was to hide the red eyes.” He held up his right hand and wiggled his fingers. “It's great that they're gone but I kinda want to give them just one more f-you by filling them in with my own thing, make it look like it was supposed to be like that all along.”

“Oooo, I like it,” Jester said, starting to sketch out a replica of the snake on his hand and the associated blank spot. “Do you know what you want in there instead?”

“Hmm. Not really? The idea just popped into my head, so-” He gave a shrug. “We know there's nine of them at least.”

“Neeeeein!” Jester’s response was almost entirely out of habit, but a moment later her eyes widened, Kingsley broke out into a grin, and the two of the pointed at each other at the same time.

“Mighty Nein!” It was together but not at all in unison and the two of them dissolved into muffled laughter.

“That sounded terrible! I love it!”

“I knooow!” Jester said and she broke into further giggles. “But that could be it! Something with the Mighty Nein!”

“Picture this,” Kingsley said, gesturing dramatically with his palms facing down. “Instead of the eyes of nine we have... the eyes of NEEEIN!”

“YES!” Jester pumped her arms into the air. “It could even be in everyone’s eye colors! And little hidden designs inside if we want to get fancy!”

“Oh we always want to get fancy,” Kingsley said, showing off a fanged grin. “That settles it! Operation replace eyes of nine with the Mighty Nein is a go!”

“Awesome!!” Jester whipped her sketchbook up in front of her, poised to start drawing. “Let’s start with your Mighty Nein eye!”

Kingsley lifted his hand, ready to throw out ideas - and hesitated.

“... actually, the red might make things a little weird.”

Jester winced. “Ooooh, right. Maybe not.”

“But!” Kingsley said, perking up, “Yasha has two eye colors. So it’d still work either way. I’ll think about it.”

“Yeah!” Jester nodded, some of her enthusiasm returning. “And we can totally figure out some other stuff for now.” She wrote down a few notes in her sketchbook. “Do you know where you’d want people? Like, matching with tattoos, who’s near each other, that sort of thing?”

“I think I’ve got a couple in mind?” He tapped the back of his neck, where he knew the gap in the all seeing eye tattoo was. “Beau’s can go here. Can’t let her get the last word, after all,” he said, grinning, but there was something vulnerable to it.

The first time he had made the connection between Beau’s tattoo and the one on the back of his own neck his feelings had been... mixed. Weirdly flattered, but also feeling like a bit of a cheat, like he was taking credit for something he didn’t deserve. Now, though, he knew that there was no obligation to it. While they’d had their hiccups the Mighty Nein weren’t going to sacrifice him on the pyre of memory, and they loved him for who he was.

Him adding to the tattoo, wrapping it back around to being a tribute to Beau, assigning his own meaning away from hiding the somnovem? Kingsley rubbed the back of his neck, smile now softer. It would be his. Still building off of who he’d been before, that was still part of him, but now it could be his.

“That’s the only one I know for sure, right now. But I’ll keep thinking on the rest.”

Another nod. “Okay! Do you want to get the tattoos as you think of them? Or all at once? And do you want to tell anyone else about it before you do it?”

“All at once, works better to make sure they fit. Plus I don’t want to get accused of playing favorites,” he said with another grin. “As for the other... hmm. Input is nice, but I do like surprising people. I’d say that’s another think about it.”

“Got it!” Jester said, and he saw her starting to sketch the all seeing eye tattoo beside the snake head. “This is going to be amazing.”

“Of course it will, you’re involved.”

Jester ducked down behind the sketchbook a little but she was smiling as well. “If you say sooo.”

“I do. And Jester?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” He didn’t specify for what this time, but he figured it’d get through. There was still a lot he needed to figure out but now at least he had some new touchstones, the promise of even more in the future, and good company right in that moment. It was more than enough for him to be thankful for.

It did, however, seem like it was going to be awhile until he finished that haircut. But in the mean time...

“... okay, I’m too curious, Beau said I had to ask you about really early Xhorhas disguises?” Kingsley said and he saw Jester's face absolutely light up.

A few minutes later, over in his own cabin, Fjord swore and almost dropped something on his foot at Kingsley’s sudden loud cackling, and he just sighed and shook his head.

(Part Four)

#Critical Role #cr spoilers #Jester Lavorre #Kingsley Tealeaf #Mollymauk Tealeaf #Mollymauk #disaster tieflings #Critical Role fanfiction #my writing

[thatonesadending]

How Mollymauk met the Traveler, and learned Caleb's nickname for him

I am in the middle of writing a long another fan fic, but this scene that I am not yet at wouldnt leave me alone, so I had turn it into a oneshot and post it. Enjoy my shameless Widomuak story =) Spoilers for CR2 E136

___

All of the Mighty Nien sit around the table in Caleb’s tower, enjoying a good meal for the first time since Mollymauk had come back to them. Molly is resting his head playfully on Yasha’s shoulder, feet crossed and resting on the table, and occasionally stuffing one of the many pastries on the table into his mouth, and enjoying the animated retellings of his friends adventures.

“Oh! Oh! Molly, you have to meet Artie!” Jester excitedly yells at him, as she twists around to cox what looks to be a small red weasel out of her hood. She held out the weasel to him and exclaimed, “Say hello!”

Before Molly could say anything though, an unnaturally deep voice greets him, “Hello. I must say, it is quite wonderful to have you back Mollymauk, Jester has told me quite a bit about you. Well, rather, painted quite a bit about you.” Somehow Molly could feel the creature's eyes rake over him, taking him in from head to toe.

“Why do I feel like he is undressing me with his eyes?” He staged whispered to Yasha, earning him a light laugh. “He can be a little - ah, mischievous.” She replied.

The weasel was settling back on to Jester’s shoulder again, and Molly swore he winked at him. “I am always appreciative of beautiful things, especially the ones that Jester draws for me.” he said.

Jester was full on cackling now, and trying half-heartily get the animal to stop talking. Molly was about to ask how Artie could speak, when Caleb interrupted, not even looking up from the book that he was pouring over while they ate. He had been very tired after the days battle, so Molly was surprised when he joined them all for dinner, multitasking between reading and correcting the Nein’s stories, and occasionally eating

“You are indeed a very pretty man, Kätzchen. But you should probably ask Jester to burn the painting she did of you in the bathhouse.” Caleb was smiling into his book, still not looking up.

“Hey! You all didnt believe me when I said that he had the best dick!” She protested at Caleb. Molly had to blink back the surprise of this revelation, but something else caught his attention.

“That’s new. What does it mean?” He asked. Caleb finally looked up at him, and Molly watched as the man was replying what he had last said to answer his question. “Kätzchen, never heard you call anyone that before.” He supplied.

Caleb flushed a bit, Molly found he really did enjoy making the wizard a bit red. “Ah, well - it means ‘kitten’.” It was his turn to blush, though he was a little confused on the choice of nickname, even though he knew Caleb really liked cats. “Because, ah - you can purr.” Caleb almost whispered the last bit, before standing and saying louder, “I am going to see if there are anymore of those Blueberry Lavender Muffins.” He was abrupt pushing away from the table and and dashing to the kitchen.

Molly felt his cheeks get even hotter. It was quite a bit to take in, being called pretty and given a personalize endearment by a man that didnt give his affection easily.

“Don’t be embarrassed Mols,” Fjord was reassuring from across the tables, “Jester can purr too.” He said it so casually, that when the other tiefling elbowed him, he yelped in surprise.

“Fjoooooord!” She admonished, and when he gave her a confused face, she continued, “I only, you know, purr a little, and only when -” She made several weird gesture with her hands, and then puckered her lips. Molly wasnt the only one blushing anymore, Fjord’s ears turning dark. “Oh, I didnt realize Jes.”

Beau, never one to be left out of a conversation, had to bring the attention back to Molly. Normally, he loved attention, but he was feeling a very particular embarrassment right now that he didnt really want on display.

“How does Caleb know you can purr Molly?” She was almost accusatory, like a big sister getting protective. Molly looked up at Yasha for help, but she seemed to be enjoying her friend feeling awkward. “Yeah, how?” was all she said, laughter behind all her words

“How the fuck should I know?” He managed to squeak out. He did know though, he just thought he had been more subtle and the other man hadn’t noticed. He had spent several weeks flirting with the wizard for fun, and the few times Caleb had actually let Molly cuddle close to him on the road, or sat near him on watch, Molly had let out a soft purr here or there. It was an unconscious thing, and he had always made sure to be quiet, thinking he wouldn't notice. Well, apparently Caleb had.

He knew by the heat on his face, they weren’t going to believe him, so he had to excuse himself before they poked more questions at him. “You know, those muffins were quite good, I think I’ll grab another too.” He was beginning to see how really subtle he was.

Molly just bearly caught Beau remarking to the others and he tried to get away, "I wonder if thats why he yelled 'You shouldn't have killed my cat' when he killed Lorenzo?"

Oh, Molly was gonna have to tease him about that.

#widomauk #mollymauk #mollymauk tealeaf #caleb widogast #critical role #Molly is fine #bring back my molly #I like the idea that Caleb thinks of Molly as his cat

[princessamericachavez]

Fuck it. Today I get to be self-indulgent and tell you about the entire Fjorester Hallmark Christmas Fanfic that is way too long for me to write these days but I have entirely laid down in my head so instead I’m going to write about it as a bulletpoint fic.... sort of... you’ll get the grasp. Just strap along for the ride. 

(This is obvious and shamelessly based on Tis The Damn Season by Taylor Swift, you can fight me. I said it was self-indulgent)

Okay, so first of all, the group are all friends and knew each other all through college, right? 

Jester studied psychology (she’s an emotional healer, you know?) and especialices in art therapy. 

Fjord did a marine biology major with an acting minor, because deep down he’s a theater nerd but doesn’t dare admit it because he needs to want a “real” career, you know? Also, he paid for his studies with a full swimming team scholarship. 

I legit don’t know what everyone else studied —this is the kinda stuff I would figure out while actually writing the fic— so you get to fill those blanks! 

ANYWAY, basically during college Jester had this art teacher, Artagan, who she became weirdly friendly with (you sometimes become friends with your college teachers, they aren’t even that much older than you and half the time are just as tired)

So this art teacher is delighted by her, right? Keeps telling her how talented an artist she is and how she should definitely come with him to LA after this year is over. He’ll get her into a gallery! She’ll be famous and amazing! 

So Jester goes. And her heart aches. And maybe leaving her mama is so damn hard. And maybe, maybe, she doesn’t want to say goodbye to Fjord but she’s been in love with him for so so so long and he never seemed to see her in that way, so she can’t put her life on pause for him. She can’t. Even if the night before she leaves it looks like he’s trying to tell her something, to half confess something that he never quite does say out loud and her heart falls and she leaves. 

ANYWAY here is where our story begins. 

Jester comes back for christmas after six months away and she is EXCITED to be home! 

(maybe a little too much, maybe things aren’t going as great in LA as she expected) (and mayyyybe she’s a little nervous to see a certain someone but it’s ok)

Fjord picks her up at the airport. He knows her mama doesn’t like going out much and he really, really, really insists that it’s no big deal. His car is old and shitty and there was an incident once that made Jester start calling it “The Ball Eater” to Fjord’s endless dismay (and bemusement). 

Anyway the ride home is light hearted, they make small talk and laugh about old times and Jester talks so much about how amazing everything in LA is but Fjord can’t shake the feeling that something about her, despite her smile, seems sad. 

He also can’t help the desire to hold her hand, or kiss her, or at the very least confess how uselessly in love he’s been with her for years, but she’s only here for like four days because she needs to go back to LA for her big New Years gallery show that Artagan put together and he can’t ask much from her without getting in the way of her dreams, so he doesn’t. 

So they get home and Marion is as delightful as ever and Jester finds out that Fjord has been helping her fix some things around the house (oh so you’re a very handy man, Fjord! *wiggles eyebrows*) and he’s been buying her groceries because he knows Jester used to do it because Marion is always so busy performing at the Chateau (and doing other things for her fancier clients, but Fjord would rather not bring that subject up too often) and he just thought it would be important for someone to look after her from time to time. 

Jester has to choke back tears because she is so moved that he is so wonderful with her mama even when she’s gone. Her heart flutters and it’s terrifying. 

So Fjord leaves and Jester and her mama spend the whole afternoon together, catching up and baking cupcakes and watching christmas movies until Marion has to go to work.

Meanwhile, Fjord is trying to figure out what to do with himself and with Jester —nothing, he decides, he shouldn’t really say anything— and keeps pacing around his apartment to the endless bemusement of his roomate. 

Caduceus was MEANT to go home for the holidays, but there was some kind of change of plans with his family at the last minute (or so he says, he hasn’t been very forthcoming about it and Fjord suspects they might have had an argument or something or maybe Cad just decided not to go home, but how is he supposed to know? He never knew the first thing about families) so now Caduceus is here and for the first time in his life Fjord is not spending Christmas alone. 

Caduceus suggests honesty is the best course of action, that he should just tell Jester how he feels. Yeah. Right. 

Anywayyy

Jester gets together with the rest of her friends “The Nein” they call each other, though they have never been nine, just to mess with people who keep asking and getting weirder and weirder answers. They get some drinks. 

While Fjord is away getting drinks, Beau mentions what a shitty year she’s had and Jester’s brow furrows and Beau says it was just a lot of shit, you know? Vandran just up and leaving town, handing in his thesis (though his tutor, Mrs. Melora was delightful and supportive). She doesn’t mention how depressed Fjord was over Jester leaving, though, but she does say that the cherry on top was his fucking ex showing up again. 

“Avantika came back?!”

Jester’s chest twists with the painful memory of jealousy and anger and worry over how unhealthy the whole thing was and how sick and sleepless and exhausted and sad Fjord seemed though the entire relationship before he finally gathered the courage to break things up. 

Veth knows that, so she brushes it off with a quick “it’s fine, he told her to go fuck herself” and Jester feels maybe a little better —even though she totally has no right because she and Fjord aren’t a thing and he can do whatever he wants ok? she totally doesn’t care, totally. 

Still, maybe, on the way back home she asks if he’s okay and she’s so worried and hesitant and Fjord just melts and assures her he’s alright, that he already knew when Avantika came back that she was not what he wanted, that he deserved more... that he wanted more... and he’s so earnest and breathless that Jester thinks he might really be in love with someone else, then... it doesn’t occur to her that all he can think about is kissing her in that moment, parked outside her mama’s house. 

The porch’s front light turns on, the moment passes, they say goodbye. 

Fjord comes over on the 24th to hang out. Apparently, Caduceus is a little bit more homesick than he is willing to admit and decided to unload all of his Cain Instincts on Fjord. Jester is delighted by the idea of Cad secretly being a prankster, but she lets Fjord hide out with her and her mama as they decorate the house (Marion didn’t have time to before between shifts) and make cookies and watch movies. 

And it’s so easy, so sweet and comfortable, that Jester can’t help but feel like this is what life is meant to be, she can’t help but fantasize about what things could have been like... 

Fjord finally asks what’s wrong. She tries to dodge the question first, assuring him she’s alright, but Fjord has known Jester long enough to figure out that something is weighing on her and he insists that she can tell him anything. 

Jester finally breaks and admits LA isn’t everything she dreamed. It’s pretty great, sure, and she got a job as an art therapist in a nearby clinic and the gallery is going to be great and fun but she feels so lonely, she’s tried to make new friends but everyone is too busy or stuck on their own road to success to really get to know them, she misses the Nein, she misses her mama, she misses her home and Fjord. Besides, Artagan has been so busy with planing the gallery (and all of the other cool artists he has been collecting to showcase there and she didn’t know about before) and he’s just not as focused on being her artistic mentor has before. It’s just a lot. 

And Fjord listens and nods and assures her that she’s brilliant and amazing and she will be alright, but she can always come back home if she wants (god, he wishes she would return). 

instead, Jester says he should come to LA because they used to talk about this, about both going there and trying their luck as artists. “You are such an amazing actor, Fjord!” She insists but Fjord is too anxious. Dreams don’t pay the bills. He can’t just drop everything just to follow a dream... just to follow her. 

It gets quiet after that. 

On the way out, Marion overhears that Fjord is planing to spend christmas alone with Cad on their apartment and insists they should come over for diner instead. 

Jester is delighted! It’s usually just her and her mama (who usually has to leave early because she works christmas night at the hotel) but now Cad and Fjord can come too! And the others should too! Beau and Yasha are here alone too and Veth can bring Yeza and Luke and Caleb will definitely want to spend it here instead of the library right?

So the Nein end up all invited to Jester’s christmas party. 

Which, of course, means they HAVE to do a secret santa. 

Jester gets Caleb, so she enlists Veth and Beau to go shopping for his gift to make it extra especial. 

While they are out doing chores, Caleb texts Jester and asks if he could talk to her later that afternoon. She wonders out loud why that would be and Veth blurts out: “he’s probably finally gonna tell you he’s in love with you” 

And Jester would brush it off with a flirty joke if it wasn’t by the way Beau slaps the back of Veth’s head and tells her “you said you wouldn’t tell on him!” 

So Jester is shocked and confused and thrown off balance because she never even considered Caleb like that. Does Caleb like her? Is he in love with her? Is she supposed to know that? To like him back? Oh no, he’s going to tell her this afternoon isn’t he? 

And she has to give him a christmas gift for the secret santa!

Caos and overthinking ensue and finally Jester buys Caleb a big thick book he’d been eyeing for a while but that he’d deemed too expensive to get and a very long scarf with lots of tiny cats and there’s nothing romantic about it but she’s still worried about it. 

So, either way, Caleb and Jester meet up for a late coffee (Caleb is basically immune to caffeine at this point so it’s fine and Jester only drinks hot coco so it’s alright). 

And Jester jumps the gun, she goes on and on and on about how she had no idea and she’s so sorry and she’s not sure about how to feel with this but she doesn’t want to hurt Caleb because he’s such a good friend and she really does care about him a lot but-

Caleb cuts her off with a laugh. He already knew she’s not in love with him, which is why he never brought the subject up. He’s fine, he’s moved on. 

Oh?

Actually, he wanted to talk with her because he is seeing someone else (ESSEK) and he wanted to know if it would be alright to bring him over for christmas tomorrow. He thinks he’s ready to introduce them to his friends and a party seems like a good idea. 

Jester is delighted again and assures him he totally can come and not to worry about the extra space or work or food because Caduceus and Fjord promised to come help her prepare everything for the party. 

She grabs his hands and assures him with a bright smile that she’s incredibly happy for him and hopes this is the good kinda love that makes him feel warm and fuzzy and smile. And Caleb blushes and nods and mumbles that maybe it is. 

CUT TO: Fjord is totally accidentally watching this from outside the coffeeshop because he was out buying gifts too (for his secret friend, Beau, a dope set of weights... and for Jester, a tiny unicorn that he just saw and had to get for her because he knew it would make her so happy). 

Either way, as you can imagine, what Fjord sees is easily misunderstood. 

Cue: heartbreak. 

Which gets us to christmas morning filled with excitement and presents and hugs. 

Fjord and Caduceus come over to help the Lavorre women cook (Fjord feels a little responsible over turning their little yearly diner into a fully blown party because he mentioned they were spending it alone at home). 

And Fjord is sad. He isn’t angry, or rude, or jealous... okay, maybe a little jealous, but mostly he’s just heart-broken and Jester can tell something is off, but Fjord makes an effort to smile and pretend like everything is fine and –wow, whoever he is in love with (that person he said he now new he wanted) might have broken his heart and Jester is so confused and at a lost. 

Anyway, it’s Caduceus who finally has enough of the mopping around and pulls Fjord aside to figure out what’s wrong and Fjord just blurts everything out: Jester and the feelings and the almost kiss in his car and the hanging out and the stupid little unicorn he has back at home and now doesn’t dare give her and Jester holding Caleb’s hands and how stupid he feels and how he had no right to feel that way anyway...

Cad lets him ramble and in the end just sighs and puts a hand on his shoulder and says: you should give her the gift. Did you get it so she would love you? Did you get it to get something in return? 

No, Fjord says, he just wanted to make her happy. 

Well, it will still make her happy, right? Isn’t that what you want?

And Fjord nods despite the hurt and Cad thinks he is so clever because of course he knows that Jester is in love with Fjord and that Caleb has moved on but he figures his roommate needs to figure it out himself this time. 

And so, the party comes. 

They do the secret santa early, because everyone is too chaotic and excited to wait to figure out what gifts they will get and they all want their friends to see the awesome gifts they got them already. 

Fjord nearly bites through his cheek while he sees Jester give Caleb her secret santa gift. 

Yasha gives Jester a beautiful dress, dark but artistic, that everyone insists she must try on and model for them at once because the world really hates Fjord and wants to make him blush and squirm as much as possible over the girl of his dreams. 

Caduceus gets Fjord an amazing movie collection with all the western classics he loves and it’s probably one of the nicest gifts he’s ever gotten. 

The tiny unicorn weights like a fucking ton inside Fjord’s pocket through most of the night. He convinces himself that he can’t give it to Jester, it would be overstepping. If she loves someone else, he needs to respect that. 

And then Essek shows up, and Fjord understands many things at once, and he’s so stupid he wants to laugh and hit himself at the same time. 

And yeah, just because Jester isn’t in love with someone else it doesn’t mean that she will like him now... of course not... but he feels a little bit less like a terrible friend and person for wanting her to. 

He pulls her out to the porch with some dumb excuse and after a lot of awkward small talk he finally brings out the tiny unicorn. 

Jester is delighted. What? Why? When? And Fjord just tells her the truth, that he saw it and thought of her and how happy it would make her and he had to... 

So Jester kisses his cheek and he blushes furiously and just as the moment is about to die down Veth shouts from inside that someone hid a lot of mistletoe around the house and that she is not kissing any of her friends thank you very much. 

So the two of them look up just in time to see GUESS WHAT hanging over their heads. Because of course. 

Blushing. Awkwardness. I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t- I mean if you- I mean I do- Do you? Yeah. Wait. Really? I mean, do you want to? Y-yes! 

They kiss. 

And it’s quick and shy and not really a big romantic kiss, barely a peck between two friends terrified of fucking everything up. 

The night goes on and neither of them can stop thinking about it... but other than that, it’s just a fun party. 

Fjord doesn’t sleep much, he’s up early and pacing around the house until he decides he needs to try that again. Just once more. One more kiss. And maybe then... and, yes, she will leave, but maybe one more kiss wouldn’t be so terrible before that?

So Fjord runs. He runs over to her home, heart in his throat. 

He knocks on the door, rushed and breathless... and finds Marion looking sad. 

Jester got a call that very morning saying Artagan needed her ASAP back in LA because the gallery is apparently a mess and he needs her help to organize the big night. 

Fjord does his best to cheer Marion up but he also knows, he knows, how upset Jester must have been to lose the last few days home. 

Meanwhile, Jester is doing her best to help Artagan (after finding out her mentor might be an amazingly talented artist but a terrible event organizer) and basically runs herself thin, going crazy and barely sleeping for a couple days. 

Two days before the big exhibit everything is still a mess and it’s too much for her to handle alone... and then the Nein arrive. 

What are you doing here? What is going on? How are you here? 

And they just shrug and smile and say they missed her and ‘hey, do you need a little help with that?’ and before she knows it everyone is helping her up and putting together everything that’d been falling apart. 

Beau basically intimidates the catering service into actually delivering on time by reviewing their contract and finding how much money they could lose if they don’t. Yasha, turns out, has a fantastic eye for art and helps pick where and how each piece should be hanged. Veth goes nuts with the decoration, making it way fancier than anyone expected this little art show to be —she demands black tie for everyone who is coming, too. Caleb and Essek result amazing with lights and music and manage got connect the whole audio system by some sort of magical miracle because it hasn’t worked properly since the 8s. Caduceus and Fjord offer to serve drinks when the barman calls in sick. 

In the end, after a few hectic days, it all works out. 

Jester finds out from Beau that Fjord basically knocked on their doors as soon as he found out she had to come back and talked everyone into coming and drove all the way here in his cheap shitty Ball Eater car (it broke down halfway through and Fjord and Caleb had to fix it themselves which is also why it took them two whole days to get to LA). 

The night of the gallery everything is perfect and beautiful and Jester could cry because she has the best friends in the world —but, really, she could cry because she’s missed them so much and having them here with her has made LA seem like a true city of stars again. 

And so, she takes a moment in between smiling and shaking hands and posing for pictures with Artagan (who is sort of taking all the credit for their work but it’s alright because he’s already hooked her and two others up with a bunch of interested agents and it seems like he really just wants to help this small artists have their big break) and Jester steps outside to take some air. 

Fjord follows. 

And she starts to thank him, earnestly, for all his help and support and she has no idea how she could’ve done any of this without them —without him. She can’t believe he followed her all the way here (as if Fjord has done anything else since the day they met on their college’s induction day... he always follows her)

Fjord, a little coyly, says that he could pay her back by lending him a couch while he looks for a place... and that’s how Jester finds out Fjord’s moving to the city to try and pursue acting. 

“Job hunting wasn’t going too well either, so I figured I might as well give my dreams a chance... I would also really like to be closer to you,” he admits, in a moment of boldness. 

And Jester understands. Finally. She sees what she was too afraid of admitting to herself out of fear of heartbreak and disappointment. 

“I can lend you a couch,” she smiles, playfully, “but it will cost you... a movie, maybe diner later” 

And his eyes sparkle as he steps closer and says, “I think I can manage that” and he asks if he can kiss her, following a hunch, and she nods. 

Just as everyone shouts HAPPY NEW YEAR inside the building. 

THE END

ok that’s all, i cannot bring myself to actually write this multichapter, but I hope anyone who is still here after ALL THAT enjoyed the ride. 

Happy holidays!! 

#fjorester #fjord stone #jester lavorre #critical role #critter fic #fanfic #sofia's nonsense

[stay-funky-ponyboy]

hello! here’s another look at my post canon masquerade ball fic! after staying in the dynasty for a little bit, the m9 get invited to a twelve hour masquerade ball where one must find their ‘perfect match’ by midnight. at verin’s request, they go undercover to help uncover the schemes of their host. what could go wrong? 

----

caleb and veth, during hour five:

“To answer all your questions, it is simple. I figured, last time we were at a party, poison worked really well. I don’t trust any of these fuckers. I might as well bring some of my own alchemical creations, right?”

Technically true, but also truly devious. And that did fit with the overall theme. Her bag did contain a lot of vials when he peeked inside. He nods.

Veth shrugs. “After he sipped some of it, right in front of me- probably a power move- he realized his mistake. He was not happy about it. I thought I had gotten away from him, but then he cornered me in this area, and stabbed me in my fucking leg!”

“Was he crawling on the floor?” Caleb glances at the faint blood trail that is leading away from them.

“Yes!”

“Is… he..” Caleb gestures with his hand crossing his neck. Veth shakes her head.

“Where is he?”

“I do not know. I don’t really care. I think he doesn’t want to bother with me anymore.”

Now he has to worry about a loose thread. Sure, the man might be a coward, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t decide later on to try to hurt her.

He looks around. No one is down this hallway, and so he takes the risk of sitting right next to her. “So how are you just casually here? Wouldn’t this attract attention?”

“That’s the thing. People don’t seem to give a flying fuck about stabbings.”

“I guess that is fair. The rules state that there are no assassinations, but stabbings must be fine.”

Veth hums. “Despite all the people here, sometimes the hallways are empty. Maybe it is because they know to expect random attacks.”

“Let’s be a bit more careful from now on, ja?” He asks.

Veth nods. “Man, I do not want to get up right now.”

“You should have gotten Jester to heal this,” he admonishes. Veth sighs.

“Let’s be real though, she probably doesn’t have spells prepared for that.”

It was most likely the case, despite their plans.

Veth also adds, “Besides, I knew you were close by. I saw you exit out the back earlier.”

“And now here I am.”

“Indeed….” she trails off as she looks at him again. A spark grows in her eyes. He raises an eyebrow at her.

“Oi, where did you get this?” Veth flicks at his earring.

Scheisse. He forgot about that dangling thing.

He smacks her hand away. “That’s not important.”

Veth’s eyes narrow. “Are you kidding? It is! So, you are trying to get laid tonight?”

“What does getting a gift have to do with getting laid?” And why does she care so much about his sex life?

Well. She is right. The way he understands gift giving in the Dynasty, and especially for this event, is that genuine interest is acknowledged when someone gives something they wear, to another person.

“I am simply looking out for you, buddy.”

Caleb shakes his head. “It was a gift.”

“From whom? Anybody hot?”

He grows warm. “They are a nobody. Also hard to tell if people are hot when they have masks on.”

“Oh, but you know as well as I do, that the mystery is the best part of it. It can be very attractive.”

“Ja. It can be,” he sighs. He then admits, “He is.. Interesting.”

“What is his name, what does he look like?”

“Not telling you. I do not want you to stalk either of us tonight.”

“It is merely protective watching. It is literally standard procedure for us!”

“I know, but…” he isn’t even sure why he is fighting against this. Then, he decides to say, “I think I can handle him on my own.”

Veth’s eyebrows waggle.

Caleb stares at her, unimpressed.

“Okay Lebby. I trust your judgement,” she says softly.

They hear a noise from down the hallway. 

Caleb looks at Veth, and she nods solemnly. “The show must go on, right?”

He reaches for her, to help her stand up. Veth’s dress is long enough to cover her legs completely.

“We are almost halfway done with this,” he tells her.

“Gods, we have six more hours of this shit?”

“Actually, we have precisely six hours, twenty two minutes, and thirty three seconds.”

“Good to know.”

#critical role #cr fic #this is the fic i have been working on for a month #holy shit its been a whole month- #it will feature shadowgast and hints of polynein bc i am a huge multishipper #also it is completely from caleb's pov #but every hour gets more and more chaotic #who is caleb dancing with and getting an earring from?? wouldn't you like to know.. haha :)

[tree-wizard]

I tried writing a fan fic for the first time! I didn’t really know what I was doing but here it is. It’s inspired by @an-aspiring-jester ‘s post about Scroldie tending to wounds in the Klondike(I tried to make the wound description not too graphic). Also have no idea if Scrooge and Goldie are in character, I might have made them too mushy cause I MUST HAVE FLUFF.

Thanks to @promiseddifferent for encouraging me.

And oh the title is a line from the song “Ghost Love Score” by Nightwish.

Redeem Me Into Childhood

Goldie briskly walked into the cabin and carelessly tossed her pickaxe and shovel aside.

“Be careful! If ye break my supplies, you’ll have tae pay me!”

She turned her head over her shoulder to look at the miserly grungy miner, walking into the cabin behind her and rolled her eyes. He growled and went to carefully lay down his tools, and check on the ones Goldie had thrown.

Goldie slumped down on the bed and started picking the semi dried scab on her hand. An hour ago when they had been mining, Scrooge had yelled at her for being too slow and lazy and in her frustration and determination to show him that she was just as capable as him she accidentally gashed her left hand. That certainly didn’t make her seem any more capable, so she had assured Scrooge that she was fine and when he turned away from her and focused on his own mining, she wrapped her hand in the under skirt from her dress and tried to continue working.

It was pretty bad but she didn’t want to further show him how out of her element she was. She could have used the injury and feigned being super hurt so that she could get out of doing the terrible work and maybe even had time to look for the lockbox. But she knew Scrooge would never let her in the cabin alone. In fact, once he noticed that she was using her pickaxe with one hand and that really wasn’t doing anything he grudgingly, and with a lot of muttered curses, sent her to the cabin and decided to end early for the day himself so that he could go and make sure she didn’t steal anything. Showing weakness wouldn’t do her any good while she was stuck out here with him.

She felt her cheeks slightly burn from the embarrassment and frustration with herself that was starting to swirl in her empty stomach. Ughhh, she had been so foolish. She couldn’t let his angry words affect her this much. She always had to be under control, not a klutzy damsel in distress. But why did she care what he thought of her anyways? She was the Ice Queen of the North. That’s why. She had a reputation to keep. She couldn’t let him see her as less of a formidable threat. But strangely that explanation seemed hollow and almost like an excuse and the implications of that made her feel nauseous.

Suddenly she felt a sharp spark of pain that pulled her out of her thoughts and made her hiss under her breath. Absorbed in her reflections on the events of the day, she had lost attention of her hands and now noticed that she had scraped open a part of the gash that had already been starting to heal. Her hiss spread through the cramped air of the small cabin and startled Scrooge. He was crouched by the stove, putting in wood to build up a fire, and now he looked up and across the room at Goldie.

“There’s some gauze on the table. Ye should go wrap up yer hand.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you cared about me?” Goldie scoffed.

Scrooge lowered his head and Goldie couldn’t see the pink rising on the surface of his cheeks. It's just the fire, he told himself.

“I don’t care about you. Just your ability to dig up gold.”

“Ha! I almost forgot that you’re an inconsiderate and selfish jerk.”

“As if you aren’t,” Scrooge retorted and she gasped, pretending to be offended. She continued to sit pouting on the bed. She was so frustrating. If she didn’t want to deal with her hand, so be it.

She wanted to snap back at him in some way to restore her pride and not let him win but her hand was aching and the part she had just scraped open was starting to bleed. As much as she hated following his advice, she got up and walked over to the table. She took the roll of gauze and tried to rip a portion, but she felt a sharp prickling sensation shoot through her hand and she tried to stifle a shriek.

Scrooge had stood up and walked over to the table by this time and she felt his eyes fixed on her. “Hmm, ye seem to be managing this well” he taunted her and she furrowed her eyebrows in exasperation. She lifted up the gauze to her beak and sunk her teeth into it, hoping to tear a part off. It was way pretty tough though and she struggled to even make a slight rip.

She didn’t seem so vile when she was focusing her neverending fury on something other than him. It reminded him of his younger sister Hortense and that filled him with a sense of warm comfort and tenderness that diffused his annoyance and bitterness. Scrooge chuckled and extended a hand.

“Let me help,” he said, much softer than Goldie expected. He seemed genuine and benign which caught her off guard and made her wonder if she should be cautious. She grunted and reluctantly dropped the roll of gauze into his open palm. He closed his fingers over it and then gestured at one of the chairs by the table. Goldie sat down and watched Scrooge grab a bucket of water, a cloth and a second chair from the other side of the table and bring them over to her.

“Give me your hand,” he said as he sat down beside her. She obeyed and felt his rough fingers grip her hand. He dipped the cloth into the bucket, squeezed out the excess water and started to wipe the blood and dirt off the small matted feathers of her palm. She flinched and jerked her hand when she felt the damp wetness trickle over the ravenous edge of her exposed gash. Scrooge tightened his grip on her hand and continued going over her wound. As much as she annoyed and infuriated him, he didn’t particularly want to inflict her any pain. But this was for her own good.

He finished cleaning her wound and started to wrap the gauze around her hand. He was slow and thorough and the repetition made her feel a bit more relaxed. It was almost hypnotic. Normally it irked her to have her personal autonomy restrained but his strong grip on her hand was actually oddly comforting. She settled into the calmness of the moment and let herself lower her defenses as she raised up her eyes to watch him.

She prided herself for her self sufficiency, her ability to take care of herself after her family kicked her out many many years ago, to survive in this lawless wilderness and build a business and a name for herself. But here was this rough mean miner, holding her hand in his and actually caring for her wellbeing like no one had done ever since she was a very young child and her mother sang to her a special lullaby when she was sick. She had so many painful memories from her childhood that she tried to hide behind tall icy walls and never think about, so even the few happy ones were veiled by a forgetful haze. She was surprised she was even remembering this now. She had no idea when she had last thought about her mother’s song. She couldn’t remember the words anymore but a faint melody floated to the forefront of her mind from her subconscious. Her cold exterior was melting and an innocent peacefulness slowly spread through her.

The cold Yukon winds pushing against the walls of the cabin, all his past failures that always hung over him, his dwindling hope in finding his fortune all faded away as he focused on bandaging Goldie’s hand and her soft humming that curiously almost sounded like a lullaby.

He’d spent all these years mainly on his own and while that generally didn’t bother him, there were increasingly many nights this past year in the Klondike when he’d lay in bed in his small cabin and feel almost crushed by the emptiness, the vastness of the valley around him, the distance and time away from his family. But now he didn’t feel as lonely. She was here with him.

He stopped to take a quick glance at her. Her eyelids had closed over her emerald eyes and she was resting her head sideways on the back of the chair. The light from fire had reached out and hugged around her golden locks of hair, surrounding them in a warm glow that made them even more beautiful than they already were.

Goldie felt Scrooge’s fingers slip from her hand, taking their warmth with them. She opened her eyes and saw that he had finished wrapping her hand up and had neatly tied the ends of the bandages. She reached out with her hands to his, yearning for their comfort again. Scrooge looked up at her as she wrapped her hands around his. He knew she’d never thank him but the soft gratitude in her eyes was enough for him. Scrooge slightly smiled at her and she couldn’t help smiling back. They sat a while longer, holding each other’s hands, in a small warm cabin, safe from the boundless shimmering white snow and deep northern darkness of the desolate Klondike. Two silent souls not alone for once.

#ducktales #scrooge mcduck #Goldie o gilt #scroldie #fanfic #I spent way too long searching up wound treatment history #Klondike Scroldie #my writing

[defilerwyrm]

For the ask meme: burning bright, anything about the parts at the table with the Nein. You write their banter so well!

FIC SPOILERS BELOW!

Burning Bright on AO3

The entire dinner scene hit me like a bolt of lightning while I was working on this fic. It started with Beau’s outburst, and then Veth’s willful denial and subsequent fit, and I built the two scenes around that.

Diving into particulars….

“Uhm,” he said, intelligently, but quickly recovered and flashed his friends a smile. “It is most impressive. Certainly a step up from a tiny hut.”

A direct reference to the name of the spell. Originally it was Leomund’s tiny hut. I have no clue why in 5e Wizards decided to 86 the attribution names on so many spells like Otiluke’s resilient sphere and Tasha’s hideous laughter. Things like that always made me curious about the (what I assume were) PCs the spells were named after. I had thought maybe it was because the characters who diegetically invented them were specific to one setting, but in that case I don’t know why Bigby’s hand is still Bigby’s but Evard’s black tentacles are no longer Evard’s. I don’t like it. As an aside, Widowgast’s Nascent Nein-Sided Tower is, mechanically speaking, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. Anyway. Moving on!

It was delectable that Caleb wanted to impress him.

This boy hungry and not just for soup

Flustered, Essek tried to fend them off, but it was Caleb that did him in. It was always Caleb. The human took a large roll from his own plate, broke it in half, and offered one of these parts to Essek, who tried his best not to choke.

“You need to keep your strength up, ja?” Caleb implored him quietly.

The steady hand that accepted was a point of pride because it very much wanted to quake. The Kryn weren’t bread people, but...did he have any idea what this gesture would mean in Rosohna? Any inkling at all?

This is another one of those places where I delight in playing to cultural differences. What I’d had in mind for what that gesture—breaking food into two pieces and offering half to someone—WOULD mean in Rosohna was a bit nebulous, as I like to keep the reader guessing a bit and let their imagination fill in the blanks; but my rough idea was that it’s a courting gesture that signifies “I can and will provide for you, even if it means less for me.” An expression of selfless caregiving and an offer of partnership. Not wholly unlike a bird bringing food to a prospective mate.

And actually it’s a little bit funny coming from Caleb, who has fuck-all to his name but his name, when Essek is a rich bitch who answers directly to the Bright Queen.

Not that he was about to say it out loud, but he was a quick convert to this whole bread thing. To say that it won him over would be an understatement. That seemed to be a recurring theme here.

I imagine if I’d grown up never really eating bread and was introduced to it in adulthood I’d be like “Where have you BEEN all my life?!” But also: the bread is friendship, the bread is the Mighty Nein, the bread is communion in the spirit of sharing rather than politics and appearances and power plays—things he thought he was fine without until they were foisted upon him.

Somewhere in the course of the multiple conversations going on at one time, Jester got an Idea, as she was prone to doing. He became increasingly aware of her talking about kissing, of all things, and this culminated in her shouting above the din, cheeks flushed purple though he hadn’t seen her touch any wine: “I have an idea you guys! Why don’t we all go around and say how many people we’ve kissed?”

Jester is the most wonderfully convenient deus ex machina if you ever need to insert an awkward or embarrassing conversation among the Mighty Nein, because this is exactly the sort of shit she would do.

Jester leaped up and slammed her hands onto the table. “Caduceus you’ve never been kissed?! That’s so sad!”

The firbolg was unfazed. He merely shrugged and said, “It hasn’t come up and I haven’t gone looking. Not something I’ve ever thought about, really.”

Jester’s tail lashed back and forth behind her like an overstimulated cat. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

Fjord went a bit wild-eyed at this. Caduceus smiled gently and said, “No thank you.”

Three things about this part:

1) Jester’s tail doesn’t get NEARLY enough mention in fic! If I’m playing (or writing) a character with a tail you can be damn sure you’re gonna know what it’s doing! Makes me wanna play a tabaxi tbqh.

2) Cad’s “No thank you” is the sum total of his sexuality, lol. Jester was raised in a pretty highly sexualized setting, didn’t really get out much before she fled Nicodranas, and can be pretty naïve, so she doesn’t really get the whole aroace thing; but it never crosses Cad’s mind that this would be “abnormal“ or ”sad” in any way—it causes him no distress, as it shouldn’t. This is yet another “Same planet, different worlds” moment.

3) Fjord is physically restraining himself from yelling “JESTER WHAT THE FUCK” lmao

Veth kept picking at it. “So you’re um. You know. Into the fellas?”

Beau snorted. “I could’a told you that months ago.”

“Yeah you could’a!” Veth pouted with a self-conscious curl to her shoulders.

I saw a comment on Tiktok that said Veth was being borderline homophobic, but that wasn’t my intent! It’s just that she inherited a certain blind spot for male queerness from her player, and as hard as she’d been trying to encourage Caleb to hook back up with his female ex, it never occurred to her that he had a male ex, too—and given that they’ve been so close for so long, she’s feeling pretty self-conscious about the fact that she never figured out that Caleb is bisexual in all that time, as well as kind of upset that no one—Caleb especially—told her. She’s having a moment of “Why didn’t I know this? Did you think it was going to change things between us? Did I make you feel unsafe?” And also a little bit of “Okay well, now I have to get him to hook up with TWO people AT ONCE because my boy deserves threesomes 😤”

Jester went goggle-eyed at him. “You’ve only been with one person?” she exclaimed. “But you’re like a hundred years old! And very handsome. I would have thought you’d get like, all the ladies.”

Ladies. Right.

Veth might not be the only one with a certain blind spot.

Beau gave her a funny look, snorting. “I dunno, he seems like the kinda guy who turns down those offers left and right.”

..…But Beau’s got his number, for more than one reason. She’s got super gaydar, for one, and has him pegged as the type who’s very choosy about his partners (also mind you, this was before demi!Essek was canonized by WoG, so I was still rolling with my hc that Essek got around when he felt like it).

The uproar was instantaneous. Everyone—almost everyone—started talking or shouting at once. Beau’s voice rang out among the din with, “HOLY SHIT ESSEK FUCKS.” Strangely pleased with himself, he downed the rest of his wine in one gulp and spent the next few minutes fending off increasingly prying, personal questions until the Nein grew bored with his lack of answers and someone changed the subject.

There it is, the line that spawned two entire scenes!

He was not a war mage, but he was experienced and wily, and he was damned good at what he did, and as long as there was breath left in his body, the Mighty Nein would not fall here.

Joke’s on me, motherfucker literally has the War Caster feat -_-

But like in my defense, that’s just what it’s called in the book. The feat just means that you have either the training or experience to cast well during a fight, which I see as not necessarily the same thing as a war mage, which was my way of saying an arcane caster who is a soldier.

Veth stared at her blankly as if willing herself not to understand. “Caleb? With who?”

She breathed steadily. “...Essek. Caleb and Essek.”

Beside her, Jester squealed and brought her fists to her face.

Veth was less enthused. “WHAT.”

Beau’s mental commentary here is dead on. Veth still doesn’t really trust Essek at this point and has been pretty vocal about that…despite being the one to declare him part of the Mighty Nein? Eh, she’s allowed to have complicated feelings on the guy, all things considered. But I find it kind of comical and very Veth (and very Sam) for her to be all full of zest for trying to get Caleb back together with the frigging Volstrucker who is actively working for his abuser and worst enemy but balk at him hooking up with Essek.

Jester “explained” in a delighted yell: “Caleb and Essek are gonna fuuuuuuck!”

I don’t know, is this too unsubtle to call foreshadowing? The line flowed naturally in the dialogue, but it’s also letting the reader know exactly what they’re in for next, lol.

“...He’s going to break that little elf twink, you know,” Veth said, sounding distant. Seemed she was having some difficulty processing. Not too surprising, considering how adamant she was about wanting their wizard to hook back up with his old flame, the fucking Volstrucker. “We’ve all seen his dick.”

This was 100% taken from Sam’s little throwaway line “It’s above-average” but it turned out to serve two purposes other than reminding the reader that all of these people have seen Caleb naked:

1) It’s yet another thing Veth thinks she understands about him but doesn’t. Caleb’s a top like Dalmatians are purple and if you disagree then I respect your right to be incorrect ;)

2) That said, it is, in fact, foreshadowing for the sequel, in which Essek experiences a great deal of frustration. (I haven’t touched the damn thing in weeks, feels like; I’ve been too busy with work, being exhausted from work, and being in a tizzy about my upcoming surgery.)

Fjord blurted out, “I’ll join you.”

Poor Fjord has had such an uncomfortable night!

Hoo boy that was a lot. Thanks for the ask, this was really fun!! And sorry it took so long; I work Saturday nights and things got really busy for a bit there.

#shadowgast #ask box games #before long my song is dying #critical role #plz how do i fandom

[chockfullofsecrets]

Critical Role: Making People Happy

(Read on AO3)

Rating: Gen

Summary: Jester fidgets with her sleeves for a minute, then with her tail and then -

Then, she has an idea. A wonderful, brilliant idea that’s going to cure her boredom and also hopefully make Caleb a lot less grumpy.

Beau and Caleb are fighting, again, and Jester's determined to solve at least half of this problem.

Wordcount: 3093

A/N: Went a little overboard with the lead-up here, whoops - one day i’m going to learn how to write actual tk fic lol

Fill for this anon prompt - hopefully I’ll only have to apologize for how late these are a couple more times, but anon i’m so sorry

---

Jester’s new friends aren’t like anyone she’s ever met before.

Some of them are super strong - like her! - and some of them can do magic even though they don’t know the Traveler - and some of them, she thinks, eyeing Fjord where he crouches over the beginnings of a fire, are very, very handsome -

More importantly, at the moment - her new friends are also really fucking grumpy.

The Lavish Chateau has had its fair share of visitors that snap like Beau or sulk like Caleb - but there’s always been a door or a wall in the way, Jester on the other side peeking through at the mess. The two of them have been arguing over some bits of Empire history for hours on the road, through Fjord gritting his teeth and Nott chugging from her flask and Molly wrapping himself in his coat to block them all out and get some sleep.

Jester had sat and sketched them - the way Caleb’s eyes went razor sharp among the dirt and hair on his face, the hooked snarl of Beau’s smile. There was a little space left at the bottom of the page, reserved for when they finally stopped and made up, but as the afternoon wore on she had given up on filling it.

Adventuring is plenty of fun, and she’s real good at it, but - sometimes she misses home. The simplicity, if not the loneliness.

They make camp in silence. Caleb stalks off the minute his bedroll is laid out, shoulders up around his ears.

“Yeah, you better run,” Beau lobs after him. There’s a soft oof as someone - presumably Fjord - elbows her.

“All right,” Molly interjects, finally, and waits for all of them to turn and stare at him sitting cross-legged on the grassy earth. He smiles beatifically under their attention. “While we wait for that mess to simmer down… dinner?”

Beau is sullenly silent. “Dinner,” Fjord agrees around her.

Molly holds an arm out to her. “Preferences, dear?” Taking the invitation wholeheartedly, Jester is on the ground and scrambling to cuddle up to his side with a speed that surprises even her. Molly just laughs and squeezes her around the shoulders.

She headbutts him playfully in the chest, minding her horns. “We should have something delicious, and really warm and nice, and maybe it can be sweet too-”

“The sweetest thing we have right now is carrots,” Fjord says flatly, but he’s - finally! - smiling too, and even Beau’s fists unclench a little when Jester groans dramatically and slumps completely into Molly. “Beau, would you care to help me slice some of them up with your incredible monk skills?”

Beau grumbles something under her breath. “I use my fists, man, I’m not a ninja.”

“You punch carrots into pieces? That’s insane.”

The visual and Fjord’s nonplussed tone have all of them laughing, even Beau, and the two of them get up to wrestle some food out of the cart. She nuzzles contentedly into Molly. “You’re really good at that,” she tells him. “Making people happy.”

Molly shrugs like he hasn’t just salvaged their chances of staying together as a group. “It’s good to get everything resolved before dinnertime. The things I’ve seen angry people do with hot food…”

“Really?,” she gasps, faux-scandalized, and then squeaks as Molly’s hand makes its way down to her tummy and starts tickling right at the soft spot under her ribs. “Hehey! Tell - heehee - tell me!”

She tries to tickle him back, reaching between them to pinch his side, but he just jumps a little and searches out her belly button to make her laugh even harder. “Maybe later. Come on, let’s not laze around - we’ll see if we can’t find some more firewood, hm?”

She bounces happily on her toes, swinging Molly’s arm around her like a shawl and then twirling it away as they both get up. “I’ll get you back, you know!”

Molly’s cheeks go dark purple, like they always do when she threatens him. It just makes her more intent on following through. “ I look forward to it,” is all he says, eyes flashing devilishly, and shoos her in one direction before sauntering off in the other. “Don’t go too far.”

“I won’t,” she calls over her shoulder, and immediately makes for the rise that Caleb disappeared over.

He’s so squishy, after all - if anyone shouldn’t be wandering off, it’s him.

She passes one tree, then another, leaves crunching under her boots. It’s clear after a few seconds that she doesn’t know any of the things that would help her figure out which direction Caleb is in, so she scoops her holy symbol up in one hand and flicks it with her thumb. “Oh, Traveler! Help me out here, okay?”

She’s asked for his help a million times before, for pranks and spells and just wanting company, and he has yet to disappoint - a gust of wind shuffles through her skirts and blows her bangs right into her eyes.

Well. No one would call the Traveler nice, but neither is she.

She spits out a hunk of hair, grinning, and skips along after it. Sure enough, there’s a flash of red hair that soon resolves itself into their stray wizard.

Caleb’s knees are tucked up under his chin, his back painfully straight against a tree. His eyes are closed - and it’s dangerous to sit in the middle of the woods with your eyes closed, isn’t it, especially when you’re a stinky wizard that probably attracts lots of bugs?

Caleb’s not dumb. But this? Very dumb. She’s going to wake him up and tell him so, and take him back to camp for dinner, and everything will be better tomorrow.

She reaches for his shoulder, but just as she’s about to grab him -

“Jester?”

“Nott!” She stumbles back, grabbing her face in shock as a particularly greenish patch of shadow transforms into a cloak with little pointed ears. “Where did you even come from?!”

“Oh, you know. Rogue stuff.” Nott shrugs, scampering up to meet her like she hasn’t just appeared from nowhere. “Caleb’s scouting right now, so I’m making sure nothing sneaks up on him.”

She knows that Caleb can’t hear them, but they’re in a dark forest and everyone else is being quiet so she kneels down and whispers to Nott anyways. “What, with Frumpkin? Why can’t he do that in camp? Not that you’re doing a bad job or anything, but we would totally look out for him too, you know.”

“He knows, it’s just-” Nott glances over at Caleb. “It’s been a long day.”

She sits there, both of them watching Caleb’s eyelids twitch. “Can I stay here with you, then? Just in case.”

“Sure, pull up some floor,” Nott encourages, and sidles over to tuck herself under Caleb’s arm. He makes an acknowledging noise and pulls her in, letting her rearrange herself against the folds of his coat, and Jester tries very very hard not to think of the way she used to cuddle with her mama as she settles on Caleb’s other side. It doesn’t quite work - the careful inches that she leaves between them, not wanting to spook him with her sudden appearance, feel like every single league from here to Nicodranas.

And. Well. It’s boring.

Jester fidgets with her sleeves for a minute, then with her tail and then -

Then, she has an idea. A wonderful, brilliant idea that’s going to cure her boredom and also hopefully make Caleb a lot less grumpy.

She holds out a single finger, wiggles it around a bit and smirks to herself, and then gently, gently reaches around behind Caleb’s knees to poke at his tummy.

He really is thin, and her finger sinks further into the ratty fabric of his shirt than she expects. But eventually her fingertip finds the soft curve of his belly and she skitters it around a bit, trying to find something sensitive.

Nothing happens.

She pouts, pulling her hand back, but after a moment of consideration she dives right back in, searching for his belly button - surely even he’s ticklish there. It takes a couple seconds of patting around - not a single muscle here, no wonder he goes down so easily in fights - but she finally finds the little dip of flesh and wriggles her finger inside.

Caleb does flinch at that, snorting a little and reaching hastily to bat her away. “Nott the Brave,” he huffs, the corner of his mouth twitching up, “what is going on out there? Are you all right?”

There’s a little fwip as Nott tugs wire through her fingers. “All clear here, Caleb! I’ll take care of it.”

The second Caleb hums in acknowledgement, Nott whips out from under Caleb’s arm to glare at her. “What are you doing? I thought you were here to help him-”

“We don’t even need to scout!” Jester protests. She rubs guiltily at the back of her hand. “And if he comes back to camp, then maybe he and Beau can talk and-”

Nott cuts her off, teeth flashing. “Caleb didn’t do anything wrong! If she says one more thing to him, I will shoot her-”

“Nott!” she interrupts, horrified. “Geez, calm down, we don’t have to shoot anyone!”

Nott quiets suddenly in her odd way, retreating slightly into Caleb’s shadow. “Well… all right.”

“Then shouldn’t we bring him back?”

Nott wraps a strand of hair around her finger, yellow eyes flicking from her to Caleb. “It makes him feel better to be in Frumpkin sometimes,” she says. “To be someone else for a bit.” Her eyes close. “I definitely wouldn’t want to be in this body, if I could choose.”

“Oh,” Jester says. She spins through a couple half-formed sentences and then thinks fuck it and reaches out to squeeze Nott’s hand instead. “That’s really sad, Nott.”

Nott sniffs and squeezes her hand back. “No, no, it’s alright… Caleb and I are going to figure it out. He’s very smart.”

Jester nods with considerably more certainty than she feels, pulling on a smile. “Well, I think that maybe he would feel even better if he just talked to Beau. I know these things! Sometimes I would be upset with Mama, and if I couldn’t talk to her about it I would have to go just stay in my room and it was all I could think about until I saw her again.”

Nott blinks. “Your mom just left you alone in your room?”

Wrong turn, wrong turn - “Oh, well, we had to, you know?”

“Sure, sure.” Nott’s eyes are still fixed squarely on Jester. “I wouldn’t know, I don’t have kids or anything.”

She kind of wants to chase that particular thread, but before she can say anything Nott sighs and looks back to Caleb. “You know what? Bring him back. He should have finished lapping around the camp by now anyway.”

Now that’s the turn she wants to take. “Really?” she asks, and doesn’t wait for a response before scooting around to sit in front of Caleb and stretch her fingers teasingly - really, it’s a shame that Caleb can’t see her right now or he would definitely be squirming. “Hm hm hm, okay, let’s see - hey, Nott, do you know where Caleb’s ticklish?”

They both consider Caleb’s skinny frame, the distinct lack of laugh lines. Nott scrambles around next to Jester and cocks her head thoughtfully. “His ribs, maybe? When we were on the road together, we couldn’t always light a fire and Caleb would let me sleep under his coat with him.” She smiles. “He wouldn’t complain when I moved around, but I think it tickled him a little.”

It sounds very cute, in her mind - so cute that she reaches for Nott and tickles her belly through all those layers instead. “Aw, did you squirm a lot? How come?”

Nott squawks and somehow rolls away to Jester’s other side between one blink and the next. “Hey! Focus!”

Jester pouts. “You never tickled him, though? How could you not? He’s so grumpy and sad all the time.”

“Oh, well…” Nott grimaces. “We were both pretty grumpy and sad, because we were very poor and on the run from the law. Honestly, I’ve never thought about it.”

“Oh,” Jester says. Maybe she shouldn’t have told them about the horse dresses.

Nott shrugs. “That’s why it’s good that we have you around, I guess. You make us all happier.”

That - the recognition, the simple way Nott says it, as fact - lights something bright and warm in her chest. “You really think so?”

“Yes! I mean…” She gestures to Caleb. “It’s not like anyone else came out here to look for us.”

“I will always come look for you, Nott.”

“Thanks Jessie, but we’re kind of worried about him right now-”

“Right, right.” She turns back to Caleb and wraps her hands gently around his ribs, right under his book holster. “Oh, Cay-leb…”

She wiggles a finger into his left side, then his right, delighted as he starts to squirm between her hands. “Coochie coochie coo,” she teases softly, even knowing that he can’t hear her yet. “Come on, wake up!”

Caleb reaches up and shoves her hands away, but that’s hardly a deterrent - and the little yelp of shock as her fingers get right back to tickling is very good. For the first time since she’s known him, laughter threatens under Caleb’s low tone. “Nott, was-”

And then, almost pleading - “Nott, that. It. It ti - tick -”

Oh. Oh, he can barely even say it. Jester beams.

Behind her, Nott sounds alarmed. “Jessie, you look evil right now.”

She stops tickling briefly and turns around. “Nott!” she whisper-screams. “He’s so ticklish!”

“You’re enjoying this, huh?”

She scoffs. “Yes, of course! All tieflings do.” It’s true, for all of two tieflings that Jester knows - her mama and Molly love tickling, and so does she. And so will the rest of their group, if she and Molly have anything to say about it.

She turns back to Caleb, squeezing back and forth between his ribs to make him wriggle again, and this time Caleb comes fully back to himself with a gasp. His eyes blink open, scanning frantically. She sees him register Nott, off to the side, then jump a little as he finds her right in front of him. His cheeks redden. “Ah - Jester -”

“Caleb,” she purrs, and twitches the tips of her fingers just a little. “Hey, did you know that your ribs are really, really ticklish?”

His arms shrink back against his sides, pressing her hands even further into his ribs where she’s still latched on. “They - I - I’m not-”

“Oh? You’re not ticklish?” Jester worms her fingers into the grooves of his ribs. “How come you’re so smiley then, huh, Caleb? What’s so funny?”

One of Caleb’s hands reaches up to pat shakily at the corner of his mouth, feeling out the wobbly grin there. He shoves it hastily over the lower half of his face. “I’m not!”

“No, I’m Nott,” Nott says, sounding terribly amused. “Come on, Caleb, I don’t think you’re fooling her.”

Jester doesn’t give him a chance to try again. “No, no, maybe he’s right!” She buries a hand under his arm, fingertips curling cruelly against the tender skin there, and reaches around his knees to find his belly button again with the other. “Maybe’s he’s not ticklish at all, not even a little, not even if I tickle right here-”

Caleb’s entire body jerks, eyes flaring wide as she digs in. “Mmph - heh-”

He’s much more ticklish when he’s paying attention, it seems. She can feel him trying to suck in his tummy, desperate to keep her away, and his face disappears into his knees as he brings his hands down in a futile attempt to protect his armpit. He can’t stop himself from laughing, though - he breaks almost instantly, whining through peals of frantic laughter as she reverts to nibbling little pinches along his ribs. “Ha - ha - ahaha!”

He kicks out, heels drumming against the ground as he spasms. “Uh oh,” Jester teases, digging her thumbs into his exposed tummy and rubbing in little circles, “that definitely looks like it tickles. Were you lying to us, Cay-leb?”

Caleb shakes his head, trying to hide against his shoulder now, and she can see red all the way to the tips of his ears. “Nn - hngh - plehehease, bitte,” he chokes out through an adorably enormous grin. “Why - I don’t-”

“Why am I tickling you?” she finishes, gleefully noting how he flinches at the word. “We-ll, at first you just looked so sad and lonely out here that Nott and I thought we should cheer you up. But now that I know you were lying about how very, very ticklish you are…” She digs back into his ribs, giggling as he breaks down into laughter all over again. “Well, now I think I’m just gonna tickle you until you admit it.”

“No,” Caleb pleads breathlessly. He doesn’t seem to be making any moves to get away from her, though, just flops onto the ground and shoves his face into an elbow. She could tease him about that too, she thinks, and maybe he would get even redder.

“Or,” she says instead, tickling along the curve of his ribs to his back, “I could tell Beau how ticklish you are and she could make you admit it.”

He does try to get away, then, rolling onto his belly and trying to wriggle out from under her. “No, no,” he begs between snickers, “don’t tell her, gods-”

“I think it would help you two fight less,” she tells him, curling her fingers under him to tickle his tummy again. It’s cute, the way he rocks from side to side trying to protect all of his ticklish spots at once. “But maybe, if you make up another way, then I won’t have to! And then no one else would have to know how cute and tickly you are, Caleb-”

“Fine,” he says frantically, “yes, yes, just stohop-”

She’s a little reluctant, especially when he starts to catch his breath and she just knows that he could take more tickling, but technically this solves the problem.

And technically, he still hasn’t admitted anything. There could be a lot of tickling in his future.

He’s back to normal now, holding Nott’s sleeve and whispering something sternly to her, but she tucks the memory of his infectious grin away for later.

This, it seems, is a pretty decent way to make him happy.

#tickling #critical role #widojest #jester lavorre #caleb widogast #nott the brave #chocfic

[geralehane]

in any world you find me (and i you) 

Lexa groans and struggles to sit up, rapidly blinking as she slowly comes to it. A quick mental check up lets her know nothing is broken – at least, nothing vital. She groans again as she rolls her head back and forth, gingerly, and reaches to unfasten her seatbelt with numb fingers.

Clarke, she thinks and barely stops herself from springing to her feet. She’ll be no use if she hurts herself. Slowly standing up, she makes her way to her co-pilot, and almost collapses with relief when she sees her chest rise up and down. Alive. She’s alive.

or, Lexa and Clarke meet their doppelgängers because multiverse. that's it, that's the fic.

READ ON AO3

patreon | ko-fi

Lexa groans and struggles to sit up, rapidly blinking as she slowly comes to it. A quick mental check up lets her know nothing is broken – at least, nothing vital. She groans again as she rolls her head back and forth, gingerly, and reaches to unfasten her seatbelt with numb fingers.

Clarke, she thinks and barely stops herself from springing to her feet. She’ll be no use if she hurts herself. Slowly standing up, she makes her way to her co-pilot, and almost collapses with relief when she sees her chest rise up and down. Alive. She’s alive.

She brushes Clarke’s blonde hair away from her face, selfishly allowing herself several precious seconds of quiet adoration before gently shaking her shoulder. She grins when Clarke lets out a groan similar to hers as she wakes up, long lashes fluttering before revealing hazy blue eyes.

“Lexa,” she rasps, confused. Then, her eyes widen as she remembers the crash. “Oh fuck. Are you okay?”

Lexa silently orders her heart to calm down. Of course Clarke would be worried about her friend. “Yes. I’m fine. Are you?”

Clarke nods. “I think so. What the fuck was that?”

“Orion? Orion, are you there?” Raven’s voice crackles through the radio, and Lexa coughs before telling the spacecraft’s system to connect.

“Jester is on,” the depersonalized voice of the ship lets her know, and Lexa coughs again before speaking.

“Hey, Raven,” she croaks out, foregoing formal speak. It’s not like they need it in the first place. They are essentially space pirates, for Christ’s sake. “We’re here.”

“Jesus fuck, Lexa,” her friend breathes out on the other end, sounding half-relieved and half-furious. “What happened to you guys? You went off radar. I was ready to jump after you but--”

“Which would have been a suicide,” Lexa points out. She sighs as she slowly stands up and looks around. The ship didn’t get too banged up on the inside. No visible cracks as far she can see, but she needs a thorough examination before she can come to any conclusion. “We encountered a -- vortex, of sorts. Got sucked in. I don’t know where we are right now. Probably landed on a nearby planet.”

“You’re not hearing me,” Raven says, sounding increasingly irritated. And worried. “You went off radar. As in, I don’t see you anywhere in the Universe. I was ready to jump after you before it happened. Now, even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to find you.”  

“Uh.” Lexa blinks. “What?”

“Rae,” Clarke’s standing up, now, too, and her eyes are as wide as Lexa’s. “Are you trying to tell us we’re – what? In another Universe?”

“I built the map myself,” Raven says, sounding unusually solemn. “You know what it runs on. The Eye doesn’t lie and doesn’t make mistakes.” She lets out a slow, disbelieving breath. “And it doesn’t see you now.”

Lexa and Clarke exchange an alarmed glance. “But that’s impossible,” Lexa says. It’s more to convince herself than to counter Raven’s argument. The Life Crystal that they stole for Raven several years ago that she dubbed The Eye isn’t called that for nothing. It can detect any form of life in any corner of the Universe, cyborgs included. Or, apparently, almost any corner of the Universe.

“Maybe the planet we’re on has some sort of magnetic shield that doesn’t let The Eye see us,” Lexa proposes as her mind quickly works out any possible solution to this.

“Well, it might, but if it does, there’s a high chance it might be poisonous to you guys,” Raven points out. “Wherever you are, though… I’m so fucking happy you’re alive,” her voice cracks with emotion she’s clearly trying to suppress. “For a second, I thought…”

“We’re fine,” Lexa says, softly. “We’re not on your plane of existence, apparently, but we’re fine.” She moved her jaw from side to side, thinking. “I’m surprised you got through. So the signal reaches us, but not The Eye?”

“That’s not even Twilight zone level of fuckery,” Raven confirms. “I have no idea how that’s possible.”

“I propose we explore where we are,” Clarke pipes up. She’s rubbing her forehead, and Lexa tries to ignore the sharp pang of concern in her chest. They’ll deal with this a little later. “Let’s send JD outside to get the air sample.”

“Probably the best thing you can do,” Raven tells them. “I’ll try to figure something out on my end. We’re working on getting you back, guys. Just sit tight.”

“Not much else to do,” Lexa snorts to herself. Still, she appreciates Raven’s enthusiasm and her willingness to help. “We’re gonna get JD ready and survey any possible damages to the ship. Keep you posted.”

“Alright. Talk to you soon.” With that, Raven disconnects, and they are left staring at each other in what promises to soon become very awkward silence.

“Alright, well, I’ll go--”

“I’m sorry I kissed you.” Clarke’s eyes widen after she blurts that out, cutting Lexa off and causing her to splutter with surprised embarrassment. She wasn’t sure they’d ever bring it up. It was – a sour of the moment thing, or so she’s told herself. They were full of adrenaline, being chased by the Feds, fired at left and right. It honestly felt more like an act of desperation. Something to feel even more alive and revved up. Clarke’s bright eyes met hers, and next thing she knew, their mouths crashed together before Clarke pushed her in her chair and jumped into hers, buckling up and flipping the lightspeed switch.  

Lexa frowns. Lightspeed. They travelled at lightspeed without giving the ship clear directions, and it took them to the vortex – and now they are here. That is a vital piece of information that they definitely should have disclosed to Raven.

And they will once she gets her mouth to work and replies to an expectant Clarke. “Uh.” So far, so good. “Why?” Clarke begins to frown, and she hurries to correct herself. “I mean – I’m not sorry you did.”

“Oh.” Clarke’s voice is small, unsure. “But – you’re the Commander. And I’m – me.”

Lexa gives her a muted smile. “Are you worried about violating the Code of Conduct? Because last time I checked we didn’t have any. Since, you know. We’re intergalactic criminals and stuff.”

“I was thinking more of Robin Hood and his Merry Men kind of thing,” Clarke says. A tentative smile blooms on her lips, and Lexa wants nothing more than to kiss it until it grows and spills into laughter. Maybe she’ll actually get to do that. “It’s not about any Code. I just – I kind of ambushed you without checking if you’re okay with it.”

“Tell you what,” she says, grinning. “You can ambush me any time you want. Because truth be told, I’ve wanted to do the same pretty much ever since we’ve met, but I, too, was worried about… ambushing.”

“Oh. Oh-kay,” Clarke nods to herself, like an diligent student. “Ambushing is on the table. Good to know.”

“Yeah. And -- oof!” She’s noticed that sometimes Clarke is too quick to act on things. Right now, however, she doesn’t mind.

When they break apart, it’s slow, with neither willing to let go just yet. “Duty calls,” Clarke whispers, regret coloring her voice. Lexa chuckles.

“That, and I really wanna get out of here so we can do this more.”

Clarke’s beautiful when she blushes, she decides.

***

JD, their rusty but trusty robot that’s especially beloved by Raven due to being one of her first successful projects, beeps readily when Lexa finishes programming him to get the air and ground sample. He whirs as he turns around himself and wheels into the small hallway. Lexa waits till he gets in there and shuts the door, ensuring the ship’s sealed and foreign air won’t get in. Then, she pulls the lever to open the external hatch. Most of the things around the ship have to be done manually, but that’s what she loves about it. She specifically didn’t let Raven tinker with the system, only allowing her to install the navigation. Everything else, she can manage just fine.

They split up and quickly check the ship for any damages while JD is at work. Aside from a few dents, it’s not too bad. Yet, the attempt to take off fails.

“Must be something outside,” Clarke notes apprehensively. “I hope it’s not the engines.”

“What else could it be?” Lexa states more than asks. Clarke shrugs.

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re just stuck.” She shrugs again when Lexa throws her a look. “What? Just trying to keep the morale up.”

“I appreciate your efforts,” Lexa deadpans, but that doesn’t work, because Clarke only grins and pecks her lips. If that’s how it’s gonna be from now on, well – she’s at peace with that.

JD comes back in twenty minutes and brings a curious discovery with him. Apparently, the atmosphere outside is identical to that of the Earth. Clarke and Lexa glance at each other, bewildered.

“That’s next to impossible,” Lexa voices what they’re both thinking. Her co-pilot hums, thoughtful.

“But not impossible,” she points out. “Congratulations, babe – we might be the living proof of string theory.”

She can’t resist. “Babe?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow. Clarke scoffs, failing to hide her blush.

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” she teases.

“Not the time, but maybe later,” Clarke fires right back, a lopsided grin playing on her lips. “Also I can’t believe you’re flirting with me when we’re standing on the verge of the most important scientific discovery.”

“Do you really think we’re in a parallel universe?”

She watches as Clarke bites her lip, clearly excited. “What else could this be?”

“Well,” she stands taller and straightens her leather jacket, feeling determined. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

***

They jump out of the ship, blasters ready. Lexa inhales the air, frowning. “Smells like spring,” she says quietly, and Clarke hums in silent, astonished agreement.

She doesn’t know what she expects to see once they climb out, but that’s not it. The scenery is rather dull. It reminds her of those old sci-fi movies from the last century. And of the Grand Canyon from the inside. Sand and rocks and occasional shallow caves.

It’s the caves that have her worried. She immediately recalls everything she knows about space parasites, and shudders at the thought of contacting one. They are definitely not going in there. They’re not going anywhere, period. Lexa decides then and there that they’ll check the ship, fix whatever it is that doesn’t let them take off, and get the hell out of here.

Clarke, however, clearly has other plans. “Lex,” she whispers urgently, nudging her with her surprisingly sharp elbow. “There’s someone in there. Looks human.” And points at one of the caves when Lexa glances at her.

Fantastic. She sghs and comes to stand in front of Clarke, looking her in the eyes. “You’re probably imagining things,” she tells her calmly. “We’re worked up, it makes sense. Let’s fix out ship and go home.”

But, as it often happens, Clarke doesn’t listen. “There!” she quietly exclaims, looking over Lexa’s shoulder. “It’s a girl. A human girl. What if she needs help? What if she’s hurt?”

“We don’t help, Clarke,” Lexa says lowly. She tries her hardest not to sound threatening,, but she’s not sure she succeeds.

Blue eyes meet hers, defiant. “Except you helped each and every one of us,” she says, almost accusingly. “If it weren’t for you, half the crew would be dead in a drug den on the outskirts of the Leo Cluster.” She pauses, gauging Lexa’s reaction, and nods, clearly satisfied with what she sees. “She could be in danger. Maybe she got here the same way we did.”

“Escaping the Feds?” Lexa snorts. “All the more reason to stay away from her.”

“Fine.” Clarke raises her chin, and Lexa groans inwardly, because she knows what’s coming. “Stay here and fix the ship. I’ll go to her.”

“Yeah, I will allow that to happen,” Lexa deadpans, and tightens her grip on her blaster. “Stay close to me and don’t hesitate to shoot. Remember shapeshifters from CG18?”

Clarke shudders involuntary. “Roger that. A kid tries to bite my hand off, I shoot.”

“Good.”

***

Not only Clarke doesn’t shoot – she doesn’t let Lexa do that, either. Granted, there are no bloodthirsty children involved this time, but this can’t be normal. Lexa’s more than convinced those are closely related to CG18 bastards. Have to be same species. Because how else would she explain meeting their doppelgangers?

“Lexa, wait!” Clarke cries out, grabbing her hand with the blaster just as another Clarke dives at another Lexa, shielding her from them.

“What the fuck,” she sighs, annoyed. “I thought we had a deal.”

“Shooting ourselves wasn’t the deal,” Clarke states indignantly.

“Are you hearing yourse—they are not us!”

“Lexa,” Clarke slowly, loudly breathes out through her nose. She’s more than willing to bet that she’s counting to five in her head. “We’re operating under the assumption that we ended up in a parallel universe. Which, if it’s true, means that there are parallel versions of us.”

“We’re not from here,” Clarke – another Clarke – pipes up, then. She looks as close to fainting as Lexa feels, and her blue eyes, so familiar yet foreign, are wide with astonishment as she looks between them. “We have no idea how we ended up here, or what here even is.” She gulps as her gaze falls down to the blaster in Lexa’s hand. “Look, we’re totally harmless. I’m still in high school, I mean – come on,” she chuckles nervously. Lexa – the other Lexa – blinks at her before glancing at them.

“Yeah,” she says. “Um – could we stand up?”

Her Clarke gives her a look that’s both begging and warning, and she sighs, lowering the blaster. “Fine. Get up. Slowly.” The others nod and hastily scramble to their feet. Now that she has the chance to really look at them, she notes how young they are. They can’t be older than eighteen. Her gaze stays on the other Lexa a bit longer.

She definitely wasn’t this scrawny when she was eighteen.

The other Clarke is probably thinking the same thing, because right now she’s looking between her and the Lexa she came with, and her eyes are sparkling with curiosity and, dare she say, appraisal.

Her Clarke sighs. “Cut it out,” she tells her younger copy. “Focus. How did you get here?”

“We don’t know,” the other Lexa speaks up. She finishes methodically dusting herself off and fixes her buttoned up shirt. Lexa rolls her eyes when she notices her Clarke’s gaze soften. Now who needs to focus? “We were in my room, and then there was this swirly thing--”

“A vortex,” the Other Clarke helpfully supplies, making the Other Lexa sigh.

“Whatever. Point is, we got sucked in and now we’re here.”

“Well, what were you doing before the vortex appeared?”

Both the Other Clarke and the Other Lexa blush, and Lexa thinks she has a hunch. “Pretty sure there were tongues involved,” she murmurs to her Clarke, turning to her and lowering her voice. “Also pretty sure they’re not gonna tell you about it.”

“We were -- studying,” the Other Clarke says meekly. Lexa sighs as she feels a headache approaching.

“I’m still not convinced you’re not some type of space parasites,” she tells them warningly.

“I swear we’re not,” the Other Clarke says. “So, is this like – Mars, or something? Are you guys astronauts?”

Lexa lets out a dark chuckle. “Do I look like astronaut?”

“Not really, no.”

It’s during that awkward lull in the conversation that a blinding flash of light sends them scattering for cover. Lexa grabs the Others and shoves them behind her as she points her blaster forward, discouraged because she can’t exactly see what she should be pointing it at.

Just as quickly as it appeared, however, the light disappears with a loud clap. In its wake, two bodies are left rolling on the floor, familiar groans making Lexa sigh. She’s the first to stand up and slowly approach the newcomers.

“Let me guess,” she says, offering her hand to a new Clarke and helping her up before doing the same with the new Lexa. “You got sucked in a vortex.”

“Yeah,” the New Clarke says, awed. “And I did not expect to end up in Heaven.” Her bright gaze dims somewhat when she looks around and sees the other versions of herself next to different versions of Lexa. “Oh,” she says, sounding mildly disappointed. “Okay. I can work with that.”

“I wish I didn’t know what you’re thinking about,” Lexa tells her sincerely before glancing at the New Lexa. She’s older than the Other, much closer to her own age, and much more confident, too, as she meets her gaze with her own steely one. She takes an extra second to appreciate the dark blue suit. Raven would probably make fun of her for a month if she ever wore something like that, but damn if it didn’t look good.

She doesn’t even flinch when the light flashes again.

***

All in all, they end up with three pairs of the copies, excluding themselves. Lexa doesn’t quite know what else to call them, but she’s wise enough to keep that to herself. She’s still not convinced this isn’t a parasite playing tricks on their minds.

“This is probably mass psychosis, or something,” Kid Lexa mumbles to Kid Clarke, whose eyes flash with fear. “I don’t think we’re even here, physically. It’s one big hallucination.”

Lexa hates to admit that she’s a little hurt by that. No one’s ever called her a hallucination before.

“I feel pretty real,” Corporate Clarke – Lexa’s not proud of the nickname, but it seems the most fitting considering her and her Lexa’s outfits – says, frowning. “Can’t say the same about all of this.” Her eyes meet Lexa’s, and she hurries to avert her gaze, blushing. Lexa guesses she was still dazed from the vortex experience when she unabashedly flirted with her earlier. She sighs.

“Maybe you know what’s going on?” She addresses Lexa the Scientist, and immediately cringes at the name. Sounds like a cartoon character. But, given the situation they’ve found themselves in, maybe they are all exactly that. This is too surreal to be a part of real life.

Scientist Lexa nervously straightens her glasses, and Lexa barely refrains from grimacing at that. She does not do nervous. “Well -- if we don’t settle for the mass psychosis theory…” Kid Lexa perks up at that, but Lexa shakes her head, and she deflates. “Um, we could be at the intersection of several parallel universes. The vortex is a portal of sorts.”

“Really helpful,” Lexa scoffs.

Clarke places a hand on her arm, giving her a pointed look. “Be nice,” she warns softly.

“I have to remember that,” Corporate Clarke murmurs. Her Lexa shoots her a quick smirk in spite of her tense posture. She clears her throat, then, gathering everyone’s attention.

(Lexa can’t help but be amused by Kid Clarke’s blush whenever she glances Corporate Lexa’s way. She really needs to find herself a suit, if only to test a theory.)

“While I am, no doubt, as interested in the inner workings of the Universe as all of you,” she says, calmly, “I am more interested in getting back to my universe first. Any ideas how we can make that happen?”

Lexa inwardly groans. She can’t believe that in some universe, she’s the type of a person they rob and make fun of on a regular basis. She’s never been more thankful for Reyes’s absence, because that’s not something she would’ve ever lived down.

She quickly considers renaming Corporate Lexa to Rich Jerk Lexa, but ultimately decides against it. That’s the level of self-hatred she hasn’t mastered. “Would we be standing here with you if we had any?” she settles on replying. Corporate Lexa’s green eyes narrow at that. It’s barely noticeable to any outside observer, but she knows herself, and she knows she’s irritated.

“We will employ your services if the answer turns out to be brute force,” she lets her know. Lexa sighs, mildly disappointed. That was way too obvious. Not on the level she’s expected.

“Yeah, I’m the muscle, what a low blow,” she deadpans. “Luckily, we do have the brain.”

Everyone, aside from Corporate Lexa who’s eyeing her now, turns their expectant gazes to Scientist Lexa. She swallows. “Well, uh – I don’t really know how to get back to our respective universes. But I also d-don’t really think we need to do anything in order to go back.”

Lexa quietly implodes when she doesn’t continue. “Oh, my God, can you just tell us why?”

“Hey, chill out,” Kid Clarke demands and she suppresses the urge to throw her hands up in air and walk away. But because it’s Clarke – young, bratty version of her, but still her – she doesn’t.

And because it’s Lexa she’s just snapped at, her Clarke throws her a disapproving look, leaving her feeling both warm and frustrated. She’s ready for all of this to be over.

“She can speak for herself,” Scientist Clarke speaks up, then, giving Kid Clarke a dirty look. “But also – you do need to chill,” she tells Lexa next.

Lexa only shakes her head.” Are you seriously jealous of yourself?”

“Well, aren’t you?” Corporate Lexa chooses this moment to snidely ask, and Lexa thinks about her Clarke trying not to look too much in her direction and grinds her teeth together.

“How do we send your asses back.” She states, trying not to glare at Scientist Lexa, whose adorable fiddling with glasses and the sleeves of her cardigan must’ve awoke the soft side of all Clarkes, because they all collectively frown at her harsh tone.

Maybe she can convince her Clarke this is the space parasite after all, when she’s done killing them.

“Well,” Scientist Lexa starts, increasingly more nervous, “I don’t know if it’s the same in all of the universes, but in ours, there’s been a discovery recently. We proved the string theory.”

“What do you mean we?” Lexa demands. There’s a coiling deep in her stomach that she does not like. At all.

“Um,” Scientist Lexa glances at her Clarke, who hugs herself. “We as in her and I.”

Lexa can practically hear the thoughts flashing through Corporate Lexa’s head. Mainly because she’s having those same ones as well. “Tell me,” she murmurs as she slowly stalks to Scientist Lexa, “that this isn’t a part of your research paper.”

“No, oh, no!” Scientist Lexa shakes her head, eyes wide with fear. “I had nothing to do with this. I just – have a hunch about the reason we’re here. Like I said, we’re at the intersection of the universes. It could be that the universes summon an identical part of themselves here in order to continue functioning. It could be something as trivial as stones, or something as… not trivial as people.”

“Why would they need to do that?” Kid Lexa asks, confused. Lexa can’t blame her.

Scientist Clarke shakes her head. “You don’t want to get into that. Especially since, if we’re right, we will all go back to our own universes any second now.”

“Our memories will probably fade, too,” her Lexa points out. “So write everything down now if you want to remember any of this.”

“I’d rather not,” Lexa quips, making each Clarke chuckle. Well. She’ll miss that, at least.

“If anyone ever wanted to make out with themselves, now’s the time, just saying,” Kid Clarke jokes. Or – Lexa’s not entirely sure she was just joking. Kid Lexa immediately blushes. Lexa only sighs with sympathy. She remembers those teenage hormones all too well.

“Alright,” she says loudly, interrupting the sudden chatter. “This has been bizarre. Nice meeting you. We should go,” she tells Clarke, who gives her a dumbfounded stare.

“We’re not going to see them off?”

“Why can’t they see us off first?” Lexa tries to argue. When Clarke doesn’t budge, she sighs. “Look, I’d rather be on our ship when we get thrown back. What if we end up back where we started, and not on our home planet?”

“Oh,” Scientist Lexa speaks up, concerned. “You will absolutely go back to the point where you got picked up. So if that was somewhere in space, I’d at least consider wearing a spacesuit.” That little shit, Lexa thinks with sudden, adoring amusement. Which feels weird, since it’s essentially herself she’s thinking about, so this is basically emotional masturbation.

She shakes her head. “Right. Thanks.” Clarke’s hesitant gaze meets her own determined one. “We gotta get back to the ship. You heard them. We could get sucked in any second now.”

“Okay,” Clarke relents, then. She throws one last look at the group of their doppelgangers, who watch them with a mix of awe and sadness Lexa’s not ready to admit she’s feeling as well. “Um. Good luck with -- everything. Have great lives, guys.”

“You, too!” Kid Clarke beams, waving. “Can I just say – I love how everyone’s ignoring the fact that we end up together in every universe.”

“Fate is a pretty heavy burden,” she hears Scientist Lexa quietly reply before she ushers Clarke away, and they jog to their ship.

Once they climb inside, no one speaks for several seconds. JD beeps at their arrival, and the system lets them know Raven’s tried to contact them twice – Lexa immediately feels bad, because their friend is probably worried sick. “Oh, damn,” she says, then, disappointed. “We didn’t ask them if they knew Raven.”

“I hope they do,” Clarke says, chuckling. “We didn’t ask a lot of things, you know.”

“I was a little busy trying to make sure we made it out alive,” Lexa points out. She feels a little silly for pouting, but now that they are back to the safety of their ship and their survival isn’t at stake anymore, her curiosity decides to wake up and drive her up the wall. How long have all of them been together? Are any of them married or about to get married? Do they live together? When did they meet? She sighs, shaking her head in defeat. Some questions just aren’t meant to have answers. But those could’ve if it weren’t for her constant worrying and—

“Stop,” Clarke demands, jostling her out of her musings. “I can see you beating yourself up. Stop. You went with your gut and focused on the important thing. Surviving. If it did turn out to be the parasite or a violent shapeshifter, you would’ve been prepared, unlike me. That’s why you’re the Commander. That’s why…” she trails off, then, and Lexa admires the pretty pink dusted across her cheekbones.

She swallows and reaches out, gently brushing Clarke’s hair behind her air. “Fate really is a heavy burden, isn’t it?” she says softly. Clarke’s lips curl in a small smile under her thumb.

“Not when it’s shared,” she whispers. Her lips taste like dust and warmth and spring, and Lexa happily allows herself to disappear in it, if only for a mere moment.

“Lexa,” Raven’s urgent voice makes them break apart, but they do so slowly, savoring each other’s taste. “Please tell me you’re there.”

She doesn’t look away from Clarke’s sparkling eyes as she replies. “Rae. We’re here, we just got back. Will tell you everything once we get out of here.”

“Not to crush your hopes and dreams, but you sound mighty confident that you will get out of there,” Raven jokes darkly. “As in, I have no fucking idea how to reach you. I still don’t know where you are.”

Lexa lifts the blinds up, and sure enough, the vortex is there, right in front of them, and getting closer by the second. She smirks. “Doesn’t matter. See you soon, Reyes.”

“I hope you haven’t gone insane,” Raven says cautiously, and they laugh.

“We’re of sound mind,” Clarke reassures her. “And we’ll leave the same way we ended up here – through a vortex.”

“A vortex? What the fuck?”

“Exactly. Don’t worry, it’s harmless.” Lexa blinks as she realizes that they probably won’t remember any of this once they are back to their universe. She looks up to find Clarke’s eyes, and reads the same thought in them.

“Mute us.” The system complies, and Raven’s line goes dead for the time being. “Should we tell her?”

Clarke shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says honestly. The vortex is almost there. “We could. But what would it change? We’re space pirates. No one actually able to do something with our discovery will believe us.”

“Right.” She squeezes her hand as they stare into the swirling void before them. “If we remember – we tell her. If we don’t…”

“…then we live,” Clarke concludes for her. In her blue eyes, Lexa sees all the universes they’ve lived in. “Then, we live.”

She thinks she can work with that. And then, they disappear.

#clexa #wlw fic #femslash #clarke griffin x lexa

[painted-piggy-ships-archive]

Forbidden Love AU pt. 1

Nandor x William, Lazslo x William

Word Count: 797

Tag List: @heavenshipped @fangedwife @the-schizotypal-cryptid @cherry-bomb-ships @ghostlyvenus-selfships

Summary: A new vampire moves into town, and her familiar is just such a doll! First time attempting to post a fic from mobile, so this may be deleted and reposted if it looks weird on desktop.

Warnings: Clear abuse of power dynamic between Madame Hestia and her familiar, William, brief murder/blood consumption.

REBLOGS > COMMENTS > LIKES

“Hey gang,” Colin piped up as he joined his housemates in their usual space. “I’ve got some news.”

“What is it, Colin Robinson?” Lazslo asked, more so to get things over with than to actually listen.

“There’s another vampire that just moved into the neighborhood. I think it’d be good to give her a little welcome, don’t you??”

This did peak the vampires’ interests.

“How did you find this out?” Nandor asked curiously.

“Well, there’s a bunch of movers who arrived as bats, and considering the hour it seems like kind of a given.”

“Guillermo?” Nandor turned to his familiar.

“Yes, master?”

“We should bring this new vampire some sort of housewarming gift, you’re good at that sort of thing.”

“Usually humans bring food-”

“Of course!” Nadja chimed in, “let’s bring her a snack as a sign of solidarity!”

“Gizmo, do you have any more virgin friends you can snatch up before we head over there?” Lazslo asked.

“I… I’ll see what I can do…”

~~~

About an hour later, the vampire troupe and familiar made their way over to the newcomer’s home, “sacrifice” in tow.

“Hello! We noticed you were new to the neighborhood and wanted to welcome you, as fellow vampires. How often does this happen, right?” Nadja greeted as a short man opened the door. She looked down and frowned, looking over her shoulder. “Collin Robinson, is this the ‘lady’ you saw???”

“No… must be her familiar.”

“William, who is it?” A strict voice comes from inside the house.

“Visitors, madame. Fellow vampires. They’ve… even brought some food for you, it looks like.”

The familiar, William, quickly sidesteps as his tall master invades the doorway. She eyes the group without care or reaction.

“Come in.” She backs away from the doorway and allows her new neighbors to enter her residence. Guillermo leads the hypnotized victim to the living area, which the lady vampire snatches up and quickly devours.

“My name is Madame Hestia Abbott Grace Schalk-Teaney II. But you may address me as Madame Hestia,” she speaks formally as she dabs her bloodied lips with her black silk gloves.

“This is Nandor, Nadja, Colin Robinson, I’m Lazslo, and that’s Nandor’s familiar, Gizmo.”

“Guillermo.”

“Pleasure to meet you all. Guillermo,” Madame Hestia’s cold eyes settled on the familiar. “Why don’t you mingle with my familiar,” she raised her voice, “William!”

The short man from before quickly hobbled out to the company, keeping his head low. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Guillermo, why don’t you talk with William while I get to know your masters?” She smiled, though it held no friendliness.

“Alright.”

William led Guillermo to the backyard, where the two sat in intricate outdoor chairs surrounding a glass table. As they went, though it was subtle, Nandor and Lazslo’s eyes followed William with interest.

“She seems… high-strung,” Guillermo commented.

“Oh, yeah…” William physically relaxed outside of her gaze. “I-I’ve only been at this a couple years, and n-not once has she been delicate about it…”

Guillermo suddenly had a newfound gratefulness for Nandor's leniency in comparison.

"How do you do it? You seem well-kept and somewhat appreciated."

"William!" Madame Hestia's shrill voice came again, and William immediately straightened up.

"Coming, madame!"

Guillermo watched him scramble to please, frowning before following. William's master had him acting like a dog- or a jester -performing tricks for the entertainment of the other vampires.

"Your familiar is incredibly well-trained." Lazslo commented, though it was not clear if it was really a compliment.

"Of course. Is yours not? I'd be happy to take him for a few weeks. We could do a trade!"

Guillermo's eyes widened, especially because he knew Nandor would seriously consider it.

"Master-"

"Shh. I am thinking." Nandor mulled the choice over. He didn't necessarily want to give him up, even for a short while, but Guillermo was a resilient fellow. "I've made my decision! Let us trade. But! If Guillermo proves too difficult or expresses he'd rather be serving me, then you are to turn him over right away."

Madame Hestia's pale lips, like wrinkled slugs under a heat lamp, quirked up in dark amusement.

"A deal, then."

~~~

"Lazslo, were you thinking what I was thinking??" Nandor asked quickly as soon as they got the substitute familiar home.

"That William is highly attractive for a familiar??"

"Well… yes," his admittance was one of slight embarrassment. "But also that Madame Hestia is a bitch! Poor William…"

"Let's keep him."

"What about Guillermo?"

"Do we need two familiars??"

"I'm going back for him. Not now, though. Too soon."

"What are you two conspiring about over there?" Nadja asked and the two men quickly stepped apart, having huddled in their hushed conversation.

"Nothing, my dear!" Lazslo soothed, but Nadja looked unconvinced. "Let's see what we can get the new familiar to do."

#self shipping #self shipping community #clownie writes #self insert #🩸bella notte🎸 #💨relentless affection💨

[ganymedesclock]

I kinda wanna hear your thoughts on NiGHTS, if you don't mind me asking. I just really like your speculation/headcanon posts!

I have great affection and great frustration for NiGHTS, honestly.

There’s a lot to love about the series. It’s got exquisite visuals and a really cool concept. While the gameplay isn’t completely my cup of tea, I think it’s a novel innovation. The designs of Nights and Reala, their bond and conflict, are really interesting and Wizeman’s a pretty impressive chunk of cosmic horror. I even feel like some of the dislike of Owl in JoD was unwarranted; yes, he was made the face of the slightly clumsy tutorial mechanism but it’s hard for me to not care a little that Nights, who is privately lonely in ways they seem disinclined to admit to anyone, clearly has some mutual fondness for this fussy bird dad.

But I definitely feel like the games have their problems- and I’ll focus here mostly on JoD because I feel like NiD itself was a pretty minimalist piece flying more on emotion than deep lore and it was successful in that regard.

I feel like JoD in particular struggled to decide if this was a story about Nights and Reala or a story about Will and Helen, and while they could’ve made room for both, it would’ve required more integration than they pulled off, and it ultimately weakens both narratives. 

Nights never really meaningfully reaches a conclusion with Reala. They get angry enough to hurt him, feel bad about it, Reala goes on to take their new friends hostage, and Nights gets angry again and, seemingly, finishes Reala off, either personally, or indirectly because their attempt to kill Wizeman would affect Reala too. Even the nature of their sacrifice is hampered here because they don’t really sell us on what it is about Will and Helen that makes things so different. I take issue with the short-lived archie Nights’ comic’s invention about the “two perfect dreamers born once a century” but it at least explains all the hullabaloo about these specific people. I don’t mean that to be callous- but there has to be a reason Nights makes their stand here and now, even if it’s for internal reasons rather than Will and Helen, and we don’t get a sense of why that is.

Will and Helen themselves have the seeds of interesting or compelling problems, but they aren’t really brought home either. The conclusions they make don’t really feel of a piece with the nature of their issues. We don’t really find out what about Helen is ‘fragile’, and you have to read into things to see the contrast between Will’s lonely, ‘abandoned playground’-like second dream and the vibrant potential of his third dream, this fear that if you can’t grow up people will leave you behind in childhood.

JoD takes from its roots in NiD that it is good at evoking emotions. Many of the ‘major beat’ cutscenes land with really impressive intensity and evocative qualities! I can vividly call to mind Nights and Reala’s argument in Delight City or Reala circling Helen menacingly in Memory Forest. 

But I feel like the devil’s in the details. Frustratingly often for me, these vibrant splashes of story were followed up by, like... hey kids, it’s time to chase Octopaw around in circles again! This is in-universe and out a completely pointless exercise! Let’s save some Nightopians from Wizeman, never once examining or explaining what Wizeman wants with them!

I try not to gripe too hard on Wizeman’s inscrutability because he as a character at least resonates with it- that he’s only a handful of ominous details in the dark actually kind of works for his character and the jawdropping beauty of the Unconscious Space and Will and Helen’s respective leaps of faith into the sea of darkness is contrasted by a profound sense of unease. Why is this space simultaneously so real and unreal? If Nights lands on a real-world building at the end of the game, sure, they’re alive, but is that a good thing, if they’re inextricably connected to Wizeman and Wizeman seems to be clawing at the veil between dream and waking?

Again, this is not a frustration of I hate these games. It’s a frustration of, I really love these games, but they feel like a vivid concept padded into existence with inconsistent flesh where the most interesting workings of both worlds- the real world emotional problems, and the dream world’s politics and potential fate under Wizeman’s onslaught- struggle because they’re ramming into each other at cross purposes rather than intertwining and facilitating/shoring each other up. There is some unbelievably premium good shit in NiD and JoD both but the experience of those glorious moments is undercut with the disappointment of going straight from that, to, octopaw. Nights do you wanna talk to Owl about how you unhealthily use harassing this octopus as a way to run away from serious emotional talks? No?

All of this has been a big reason why I’m looking forwards to Balan Wonderworld eagerly, because, Balan Wonderworld seems to be doing the spirit of what NiGHTS was as a series, and directly answering some of the problems of JOD. The human-side dynamics are spiced up with the chapters each having their own stars-of-the-day, and we’re digging into more raw emotional territory than stage fright or a nebulous insecurity growing up- just the three released so far are dealing with unexpected catastrophe bringing ruin to months of hard work, an accident leading to medical problems and a sense of betrayal, and the ‘pettiest’ problem, interpersonal rejection, is easily the most heartbreaking because it showcases how little self-confidence that afflicted person had. 

Balan’s more mature position as a maestro and a hands-off sort of narrator figure while Leo and Emma take center stage means that I don’t mind as much when the kids get focus- in JoD, while Will and Helen were kids, Nights seemed like a teenager who was disconcertingly willing to throw themselves under the bus for friends they met yesterday and this wasn’t really framed as a bad thing. With Balan, I feel like even if Balan does at some point in the narrative sacrifice himself to advance Leo and Emma, it’d play to very different tropes- the removal of the magic feather or mentor, as a lesson you have to fly on your own.

(and, Balan is an integral part of the Wonderworld itself, and I have reason to suspect Lance would have a vested interest not fully ‘removing’ him even if they at some point separated him from Leo and Emma)

The kids themselves are also shored up in terms of intrigue. I’m really excited for square enix’s involvement, because they’ve produced a few stories that dig at emotions, and taking characters from the stock of, say, Neku and Shiki from World Ends With You, who Leo and Emma have passing resemblance to (a boy who lost a friend and became disillusioned and closed off, a girl who’s ebullient and sociable and more than a little insincere in it, hiding an insecure, lonely core) I think this is very promising.

That doesn’t mean I am abandoning all love for the NiGHTS series or that I think it’s garbage compared to Balan Wonderworld, especially since they have different themes and motifs and one isn’t even out yet, but I think that it’s interesting how, to my eye, the Wonderworld game seems like a sort of continuation or refinement upon JoD- that NiGHTS in some ways seems to be an inspiration bedrock for this new theater adventure.

Ultimately even if Balan Wonderworld is everything I hope for and more, there’s always going to be a place in my heart for NiGHTS, though. (I mean, hell, Nights themselves was an instrumental force in me figuring out my own relationship with gender.) 

(and, once the game DOES come out, I feel like I’m certainly not the only one who’s gonna want to write crossover fic.)

TL;DR I love the nightmare jesters from the absolute bottom of my heart but I just wish we had a little more plot to squeeze loose.

#NiGHTS into dreams #Balan Wonderworld #readmore #Anonymous

[rusted-paradise]

Title: Wearing Pink Pairing: AttiaXClaudia Summary: Claudia helps Attia with a little bit of fun makeup! Notes: (belated) kissy Valentine fics! Get your (belated) kissy Valentine fics here!

“Which color would you like?” Claudia asked as she held up all the different flat palettes she owned. There were so many, and together they possessed every possible color in the rainbow. If you could imagine it, Claudia had it in the form of pressed powder.

Attia was overwhelmed with the choices, not having a clue where her eye should land. There were two greens next to each other that hardly looked distinguishable, and- Attia could swear that those three pinks were the exact same color! How was she supposed to make a decision like this?

“Uh, I dunno. I’m not sure. Maybe you should choose?”

Attia trusted Claudia with these choices, knowing that the life of nobility granted Claudia much more practice with appearances. Attia was excited for the result, certainly, but she knew when to recognize certain strengths.

“Hm...” the living doll took a few steps back, studying Attia’s features with a thoughtful squint of her eyes.

The attention made Attia nervous. She squirmed in the seat and decided to look to the floor, the ceiling, the flowers at the window, anything but the face that was watching her.

“I know what to do,” Claudia finally declared, discarding all but two of the palettes and brandishing a fluffy makeup brush.

Attia finally felt safe to watch Claudia again, and noticed her fine delicate fingers guide the brush into a rich dark purple color.

The unexpected choice made Attia uneasy, and she flinched as Claudia came closer with the color prepped and ready to meet her eye.

“Purple? Aren’t you going to do a pink or maybe a red or something?”

Claudia froze for a second and blinked. “Pink? Why would I choose pink?”

“Well... it’s what you wear. And I see all the other girls here in Court wear it. It’s clearly a popular choice.”

But this did not sway Claudia, and Attia nearly panicked as Claudia held her resolve and proceeded closer. The dainty girl shook her head, bright curls bobbing to and fro with her face. “That will not do- not at all. You cannot just simply replicate what you see working for other girls, Attia.”

“But isn’t that the whole point of beauty?” Attia asked, both sardonically but also with true interest. “Follow trends, listen to what’s popular?” Attia had to admit that in theory it was a ridiculous concept, but as a girl who never had the chance to enter the game, well... she couldn’t deny her own little wish to finally play along.

But by now Attia trusted Claudia enough to allow her to once again approach with the brush. Attia did not flinch or resist as small little fingertips held her face. She surrendered and felt the powder glide over her eyelid, and although she dreaded knowing it was purple and not pink, she reminded herself that Claudia knew what she was doing.

That’s what she had to tell herself. Claudia knew what she was doing.

“No, that’s not it. Beauty is not about mimicking what you see on other faces.” Claudia spoke more softly now that she was focused. “I will not deny that some girls do that, but it is quite mindless and it seldom looks proper. Why think of other faces when you are only working on one?” The breath of her thoughtful whispers made the hairs of Attia’s neck stand up.

“But... all the other girls- their pink eyeshadows-“

Claudia stepped away to rest her hands on her hips. It was a haughty display that always demonstrated how short the girl’s temper was. “Attia,” she spoke firmly, “have you noticed if ‘the other girls’ perhaps have blue eyes?”

What? “What does blue eyes have to do with the powder?”

“It’s simple!” Claudia explained as she proceeded onto the next eyelid. “Warm colors like pinks and reds are opposites to cool colors. That contrast will work in the girl’s favor to make her eyes brighter.”

Oh. It made sense now, but of course only after Claudia had explained it. Attia felt silly for the confusion, and her ears and nose felt warm from the embarrassment. “So then the purple...-“

“-Is because you, my dear, have golden brown eyes.”

Attia’s flush of shame melted away in light of her fortified trust for Claudia. It was a relief knowing that the girl was not seeking a scornful revenge and an opportunity to paint Attia’s face like a jester.

“And I know purple is a bold choice,” Claudia granted, “so I am only lining around your eyes with it, and dusting the outer corner. The crease and inner corner will be shades of gold.”

Attia grinned beneath her closed eyes, loving the choice of that particular metallic. It made her think of the purples and golds that melt together at dusk. Now, more than ever, she was excited to see the outcome of Claudia’s work.

“Yes, purple to bring out the color, and gold to lift it...” Claudia was aimlessly musing to herself now while she worked, Attia could tell.

When Claudia paused her progress to replenish the dust on her brush, Attia took the opportunity to open her eyes and take in more of her environment. Keeping them closed too long made her worry that this life would disappear, and one day she might open her eyes to find herself back inside the Prison again.

But Attia refused to allow herself to delve too deep into those particular thoughts, so she watched Claudia while she worked to clean her brush and gather more colors.

Claudia had a habit of biting her lip whenever she thought or worked, but only softly. Probably not to chap or cut herself, Attia assumed. It was those minuscule but mindful calculations that seemed to distinguish noble girls like Claudia from prison girls like Attia.

She was doing it now- the lip biting thing. Attia was fascinated with the way that her gloss reflected all the light from the room around her. It was pink and it shimmered and glistened like round strawberry candies.

Attia only now noticed just how soft and plump and full Claudia’s lips were, but it really shouldn’t have come as any surprise. She was popular with the boys of Court, and Finn had once been no exception. The magic had long worn off since his escape, and he no longer jumped at Claudia’s name or looked at her with doting eyes. Indeed his spell was broken and Claudia was no longer an object of devotion to him. But there was a time when Finn was obsessed with this girl, and Attia had a guess it was probably for those lips.

It used to infuriate Attia, she used to have thoughts of snatching that crystal key away from a mesmerized Finn. She had thoughts of throwing it onto the steel ground to shatter it into a million pieces. For what? For revenge, for jealousy? Maybe she was jealous of Claudia for Finn, she would sometimes allow herself to admit. It seemed like the rational conclusion.

But now, looking at those lips, Attia couldn’t deny how it made sense. If any kiss at all was worth journeying to the end of the world for, it would be Claudia’s.

Now she had to wonder: was it Claudia she had been jealous of, and was it Finn she had been jealous for?

“No, Attia. You will not be wearing pink gloss. Remember what I said? No pinks.”

Attia was brought back to the moment and saw an amused Claudia.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Attia watched as Claudia finished replenishing her brush. Soon she was once again leaning over to continue her work.

“I saw that you were staring, so I imagine you must be wondering if you will be wearing a pink gloss like I am. Is that right?”

Attia was embarrassed at being caught, and she once again found it difficult to look at Claudia’s face. This time she was grateful to close her eyes with the excuse that Claudia was applying more eye makeup. “Um, well- no. That’s not it, actually.”

“Oh?”

Attia was not a dishonest person- not like the preening hormonal teenage boys she was forced to adventure with. She valued honesty and seldom ever told a lie, even moreso for her own behalf. The few lies she had ever spoken had been rare, and always for someone else.

“Well, I was thinking... you have very beautiful lips. Though I’m sure you probably hear that all the time from the boys of Court.”

Admitting it put something in her stomach, but she couldn’t identify it as jealousy. Not like the old way she used to get jealous of Claudia’s dresses and finery. Talking about Claudia’s lips made her feel something, but it was no longer jealousy.

Claudia left this unanswered until she finally finished dusting Attia’s eyelids with gold, and when she was finished Attia opened her eyes to look up at her.

“Thank you,” Claudia finally granted with a small smile. “And you have beautiful eyes.”

This embarrassed Attia into a fluster, but not more than when Claudia rested her lips onto her own. The kiss left her confused- with Claudia, with herself, with the whole world. But if there was one thing it didn’t leave her with, it was dissatisfaction.

“I suppose I was wrong,” Claudia admitted when the kiss was over. “It seems you will be wearing a little bit of pink after all.”

#incarceron #attia #claudia #clattia #my writing

[fairmoephelia]

All My Love’s Wrapped in Shades of Red

im late but this is my writing for beauyasha week day five!! the prompt was healing, please enjoy yasha healing beau and beau doing a little healing for yasha too, though less literally.

slight warning: both beau and yasha admit to getting into fights and getting hurt to make themselves feel better. it’s acknlowedged as an unhealthy coping mechanism but if that bothers you please be careful reading

fic below the cut!

By the time Beau returned to the Xhorhaus, the sky had long since darkened in the slight way it did in Rosohna to indicate nighttime. Everyone was no doubt asleep, she had told them she would be out late and even answered a message from Caleb saying she was fine. No reason to stay up and worry, and thank Ioun for that.

She didn’t need any of them seeing her right now, her right eye throbbed with a forming bruise and blossoms of red and pink pain bloomed across her torso. There were no dark colors yet but she was sure that would change by morning. Maybe she could force herself to wake up early and find Caduceus, spare herself a lecture from the others. He would most likely give her one of his own, but at least it would just be one. Her head ached from being punched so much and couldn’t handle listening to a scolding.

She closed the door to the Xhorhaus slowly behind her. careful not to let it creak and—

“Beau?”

She turned on her heel, squinting in the dark to see the shadowed outline of Yasha. Shit.

She was dressed in what counted as pajamas for her but Beau could tell by the slight darkness surrounding her eyes, normally covered by smokey makeup, she hadn’t slept much that night. “I know you said you would be out late but…” she trailed off, approaching Beau. “Are you hurt?” She asked, though Beau hardly needed to answer as she got close enough to see the damage. She raised her hand and rested it against Beau’s forehead, the sting of the cut there, still sluggishly bleeding, vanished into magic warmth. “I’m sorry, my healing isn’t much. We should get Jester or Caduceus,”

“No!” Beau protested, before lowering her voice. “Don’t wake anyone up. I’m good, none of the injuries are even that bad,” she insisted.

Yasha’s brow furrowed and she looked like she wanted to argue but decided against it, “Okay,” she said reluctantly, “at least let me help you clean up,”

Beau nodded, too tired to properly argue against anything else, following Yasha to sit in the living area of the Xhorhaus. She leaned back on the couch, fighting to keep awake with only the ebb and flow of her pain to concentrate on. She knew what she had done wasn’t smart, but seeing her father had made it difficult not to fall back into old habits. It was far too easy to imagine all those faces she was smashing in were his. But he was living comfortably at the estate with her mother, who still couldn’t muster an opinion to save her life, and her baby brother, who was what they’d wanted all along. She couldn’t bring herself to be mad at the kid even if she wanted to though, she wasn’t that shitty a person.

Yasha returned, having left to get a washcloth and a small basin of water, along with some pink, bottled shit that looked right out of Caduceus or Jester’s healer’s kit. “Caduceus gave me this, he said it would help with cuts and bruises, keep them from getting infected.” She kneeled by the side of the couch, wetting the cloth with both water and the pink paste, “Is starting with your face okay?”

Beau just nodded and Yasha set to work, hands that Beau knew could be delicate but was still surprised to feel cleaning away the blood and grime from her fights. She worked in silence, the only interruption being Beau’s occasional hisses of pain that she couldn’t suppress, after which Yasha would always look at her with those concerned eyes, until she reached Beau’s torso. “Did you go to a fight club?” She asked suddenly.

Beau gave a noncommittal grunt and Yasha sighed, shaking her head. “You should have brought one of us with you, Jester or Fjord” her voice dropped slightly, “…me. You let yourself get hurt,”

Beau felt a flash of anger pulse at the base of her skull, pulling back from Yasha’s careful touch. “You’re one to talk. I only did the same thing you did,”

“That was completely different, I wasn’t—“

“You let her win, we all saw it happen. Do you think we’re stupid? You let her win, you let her hurt you!” She paused, sucking in a shaky breath. She didn’t want to wake the rest of the group, “Why would you do that? Why would you let someone hurt you?” Truthfully, Beau thought she knew the answer to that but she couldn’t help the way her voice came out, questioning and desperate.

Yasha stared at her with wide eyes, breath heavy like Beau’s words and physically hurt her. “I have to do something,” she said, quietly, like she was afraid of hearing her own words. Or maybe just afraid of Beau hearing them, “I know it wasn’t me. That I didn’t— I didn’t have control, but it was still my body, my hands. And there’s so much I don’t remember, from before. Maybe I wasn’t under his control, maybe I did all that willingly.”

“That was before, you can’t judge yourself on your past. Especially one you can’t remember,” Beau said.

“All those people…” Yasha whispered and Beau could hear the pain in her voice, choking her like it wanted to kill her and she might let it. “I can’t just not take responsibility,”

“This isn’t taking responsibility, this is torturing yourself, Yasha. I get it,” she said, leaning closer to her, able to meet her at eye level thanks to Yasha kneeling next to the couch. “I haven’t been through what you have but I know the feeling of hurting and wanting to get it out. Have something physical to show for it, but you can’t do that. It’s not healthy.” She knew she was being hypocritical, she was the one covered in bruises, after all. But she couldn’t bring herself to care as she thought of Yasha throwing herself in the path of something strong enough to actually take her down.

“I don’t know how you can forgive me like this,” Yasha said, her voice clouded with disbelief, “every Cobalt Soul member I struck reminded me of you and then I hurt you, Beau. I almost killed you and I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had.” There were tears in her eyes, beginning to slide over her cheeks. “I’ve lost too many people who are important to be to lose you too, please,”

Beau leaned forward, ignoring the way it pulled at her bruises and wrapped her arms around Yasha’s broad shoulders, wiping her tears away gently with the pads of her fingers. 

“I won’t do it again,” she promised, how could she not? With Yasha laying her heart out in front of her, “But, it’s not just you, okay? Who worries about people. I can’t lose you either. I care about you, I love you.”

“Beau, I didn’t know you felt—“

Beau cut her off, now wasn’t the time, not with her bruised and Yasha in tears. Though, she supposed, there was hardly a better way to describe their relationship than that. “We’ll stay safe for each other. Can you do that?”

“If you can do it, I definitely can.” Yasha said, lightening the mood and reminding Beau of how they used to interact and spar together.

She let out a surprised noise, “Oh, you wanna get competitive?”

Yasha laughed, genuinely laughed, and Beau felt that maybe they would be alright.

#beauyashaweek2020 #beauyasha #critical role #critrole #beauregard lionett #cr beau #yasha nydoorin #cr yasha #fic #fanfiction #critical role fic