#do the fantastic four owe you any favors?

[noartnowritingsorry]

Welllll fuck.

#friendly neighborhood Spider-man #Spider-man #marvel comics #FNS 6 #peter parker #do the fantastic four owe you any favors? #what about the X-men? #ANYBODY??

[maybedefinitely404]

Day 4: Anxceit

@tsshipmonth2020

Day 4: There is a trail of color only you can see that marks out where your soulmate has been.

Content warning: parental death from heart attack (none of the sides), homophobia, religious themes regarding said homophobia, concert, minor sensory overload (Virgil is technically autistic but it’s not explicit).

Word count: 3.3k

The last thing Janus Natter had ever wanted to do was return to his hometown. 

It only held bad memories that stemmed from living in a small town, of homophobia and school bullies and dirty looks from neighbours. Granted, he’d never actually been kicked out of his home after coming out, but word spread like a wildfire and the people in his neighborhood weren’t the most open minded. His mom didn’t talk to him; she blamed herself, and there were all too many nights he walked past her room and heard her praying and crying for the repentance of her baby boy.

So the moment he turned eighteen, he was out of there. Waved goodbye to the woman who stiffened every time he tried to hug her and moved halfway across the country, starting a new life for himself in a rundown apartment and a minimum wage intern job and not regretting it for a second. Everything seemed better for a while. A promotion followed a couple years after, and his apartment was upgraded to one that actually had a separate kitchen and dining room so he wasn’t eating on the counter anymore. Until he got a call from one of his aunts at three am, four days after Christmas.

Obviously, he cried when his mom died. He broke down as soon as he hung up the phone, sitting on the edge of his bed and letting the news slowly integrate into his system. Sure, they hadn’t had the best relationship, but she’d been a great mom up until he admitted the truth that drove a wedge between them. And he’d never really blamed her, knowing his own internal homophobia would only be heightened in her. But it still hurt that she hadn’t reached out whatsoever when she was put into the hospital after the first heart attack. Maybe he would have been there when the second one hit and been able to save her. Or at least say goodbye.

The funeral was rough. None of his family bothered to talk to him, and the one little cousin that ran up to give him a hug was swiftly pulled away. Not like he was expecting much else, but c’mon. It’s not infectious. At least no one commented on him crying again. 

He was on the first flight back out, and after a couple days off work to recenter himself, things seemed to back to normal. It wasn’t as if any part of his daily routine was disturbed. He wasn’t missing any motherly catch up calls, no little packages, no life advice, that he’d never gotten before, so it was almost easy to pretend that nothing had changed. Until he got another call. 

This time it was his uncle, calling in the middle of his work day, to tell him that he needed to come back home and clear out his mom’s house. He was reluctant at first. Why couldn’t someone else do it? What was so important that he had to do it? But the family seemed determined to distance themselves from the house as much as possible, and when his uncle insisted that “we’re all still in mourning, Janus,” as if to imply he wasn’t upset at the death of his own mother, he hung up the phone with a curt agreement to come back as soon as possible. He later got a text that stated the house was going to be put on the market in the coming week, so he needed to get there soon. 

That’s what led to him exiting a cab three days later in front of his childhood home, suitcase in hand, with a disgruntled expression. The house was much less threatening than it had always seemed when he lived there, unassuming and indistinguishable from the other houses on the block, but the memories of lonely nights of crying himself to sleep and craving a hug from his mother were at the forefront of his mind. You’re never going to get another hug from her. He quickly snapped out of it before the tears could rise, thanking the cab driver and walking up to the front door. 

His mother had taken his key when he left, claiming it was to give to a neighbour to water her flowers when she went on a cruise or something equally far fetched, but Janus figured she just wouldn’t want to be surprised by him visiting. This was, afterall, the first time she’d been free from his disappointing presence in years. Luckily, they’d always kept a spare under the plant by the door, now wilted and crusty and dropping leaves when he leaned it over, hand slapping the concrete underneath.

Nothing.

He picked it up off the ground entirely, sweeping the ground directly under it and then scanning the surrounding area with growing irritation. Had someone taken it after the funeral? How the hell did they expect him to get into the house? Oh yeah, come clean the house but we’re gonna take the key! Fuckers. 

A loud crash from behind the door startled him enough to drop the plant, the ceramic pot smashing on the stairs. Whoops. Another sound from inside, something that sounded like a chair scraping on the tiled kitchen floor, and Janus realized with mounting horror that the front door was open a crack. His family had all claimed to not be able to even come near the place, so… Fantastic. Someone had broken into a death house and he was going to have to deal with it. 

The wise choice would have been to call the police. 

So Janus pushed the door open and walked in, ignoring the sudden flurry of memories in favor of following the source of the noise. 

“Hello?” Yeah, smart, Janus, that always works in the horror movies!

Another scrape in the steadily approaching kitchen, accompanied by muffled swearing. As an almost last thought, Janus picked up the first small object he could feel on the entry table, acknowledging its heft and hoping it would be a suitable weapon without taking his eyes from the hall. Here goes nothing.

Then, in a move to top all stupidity, he turned into the room in a whirl, hoisting the weapon above his head, ready to beat down on whoever was rifling through his dead mother’s drawers. Only to freeze.

“Remus?”

“Janus, what the fuck!” The statement was said with a surprising amount of glee. Remus was the only person he knew who could turn swears into something joyful. 

Janus turned his gaze to the floor and the chair Remus was standing on, surrounded by a pile of glass shards. It looked to be the remnants of the entire glass collection, if the amount was anything to go by. Remus gave another shuffle of his chair, the loud shriek sounding again, as he tried to scooch closer without stepping on the shards in his bare feet.

“Why are you holding a banana?” 

It took him a solid second to process Remus’ question before he looked down at his own hand, his fingers curled around the metal banana from the decorative fruit bowl in the entry. 

“No reason. Why are you in my house, destroying my dinnerware?”

“Help me not step in glass and I’ll tell you.”

Finding a broom was easy; it was still in the same place it always had been before he left. Cleaning the glass took longer, what with Remus’ flurry of questions and Janus’ focus between answering him, sweeping, and not whacking Remus on the head with the broom handle. Apparently it didn’t take long for him to become annoying again.

Still, the grinning man had been the one and only reason he’d had trouble saying goodbye to the town, the only person who still gladly befriended him after coming out. He hated to admit how much he’d missed him.   

When the floor was clear, Remus hesitantly stepped down off the chair, wiggling his toes on the ground.

“Why did you take your shoes off when you came in? It’s not like anyone’s gonna be pissed if you track mud in anymore.”

“I didn’t wear any.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

Remus shared a softer look with him, the manic smile drooping, “Hey, I’m sorry about your mom. That’s rough.”

“Yeah,” Was Janus’ incredibly eloquent response. He shook his head, and Remus accepted the subject change with no questions, “So why are you here?”

“Well, I heard you were coming to clear the place out eventually, so I thought I’d get here early and start. Help you out.”

“And…”

“... And snoop around a little bit.”

“There it is.”

“Not like, bad stuff! Just… I don’t know. Deep, dark, family secrets.”

Janus sighed, taking in the kitchen for the first time since entering. “The biggest secret this family tries to hide is me.”

“Dark.”

“Mmhm.” He gasped as two arms suddenly wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him into the most physical contact he’d had in… years.

“Welcome back, Natter.”

“Yeah, well,” He cleared his throat of voice cracks before continuing, “I only got two days off work. So I’m not staying long. I somehow need to completely clear this place out in 48 hours,” He ran a hand down his face, pulling away from the hug reluctantly, “You wouldn’t actually be interested in helping, would you?”

It was more of a statement than a question, but Remus ignored it completely. “You’re only here two days? Inconceivable!”

“You’ve been watching Princess Bride again.”

“We gotta hang out!” The pleading expression on Remus’ face was almost enough to sell him on the idea.

“Weren’t you listening? I literally don’t have the time.”

“I’m going to a concert tonight in Brookton. Come with me!” Remus continued as if he hadn’t spoken, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Just one night, Jan. Pleeeease? I’ll even come here and help you the rest of the time.”

With an affectionate snort, he shook his head, “As fun as that sounds, I’m broke.”

“I can get you in.”

“You’re not paying for me.”

“Who said anything about paying?”

Janus raised an eyebrow, though it was more like how a parent would scold a child than surprise. They’d always gotten into trouble together as kids, and this was just… a level up, in a way. Not that he condoned it.

“I know one of the security guards. He’s one of my hookups, and he happens to owe me a favor or two.”

  Wait. “You’re gay?”

“Shit, I didn’t tell you?!” Remus shrieked, grabbing Janus’ hand and dragging him to the front door, key waving in his face, “I’ll tell you all about it on the way. C’mon, it’s an hour drive.”

Well, looks like he didn’t have a say in it. And he’d be lying if he claimed he hadn’t missed hanging out with his old best friend… or just a friend at all, really.

“Fine, but you’re stopping by your place to grab shoes!”

-----------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t a small venue by any means. It wasn’t Beyonce big, but enough to know that if he lost track of Remus, he’d be fucked. In his rush out the door so soon after a morning of traveling, he’d forgotten his charger and his phone was conveniently dead. Janus kept a careful eye on Remus, following the bob of his neon green and black jacket through the crowd and only distantly wondering what band they were actually about to see. The gremlin kept pushing through, ignoring the annoyed shouts of people he shoved, leaving Janus to hastily apologize each time as he followed in his wake.

When Remus slowed just for a moment, stretching on his tiptoes to find a good spot over the sea of heads, Janus lunged forward and grabbed his sleeve. The taller man raised an eyebrow.

“As fun as it would be to get lost, I’m not in the mood.”

“Ah,” Remus’ eyes settled on a spot near the stage, one that Janus couldn’t see being a head shorter than him, “Good timing. Hang on tight.”

And hang on he did, because Remus fully embodied the physicality of a snow plow and plunged back into the crowd with new ferocity. Janus just closed his eyes and blindly let himself be led, letting the bubbling breathiness of a laugh escape his mouth. It had been too long since he’d just been able to have fun like this, without the threat of work and bills in his peripheral. The chatter was deafening in the best way possible, drowning out his worried thoughts, and the flashing lights that were still visible through his closed eyelids was invigorating. The promise for more elated him. 

When Remus finally stopped, Janus didn’t get the memo on time and ran into his back full force. He grunted and opened his eyes, focused on his throbbing nose, before realizing how close to the stage they really were. The taller man was staring down at him, grinning maniacally, seemingly impressed with their placement as well. 

Then a flash to the side caught his attention, and his throat went dry.

“Remus, look me in the eye and tell me you see that.”

His eyebrows scrunched in confusion before he followed Janus’ line of sight, seeing nothing but the dense crowd. “See what?”

“The light, the light trail…” Janus inhaled sharply through his nose, grip on the other’s sleeve tightening, “It’s my soulmate. He’s here somewhere.”

“Your soulmate? Seriously?”

“Yeah, I…”

“Well, fuck! You’re welcome, eh, Natter? I told you you should have come!” He gave Janus’ arm a light punch, smile widening. “Go find him!”

Janus seemed hesitant, eyes flickering between Remus and the deep purple light trail, weaving between the people and heading towards the back of the venue. “How will I find you again after?”

“That’s a problem for future you. Go, you idiot!”

“Okay, okay! I’m going! Just don’t leave without me!”

He was off before he could hear Remus’ answer, ducking under raised arms and trying his hardest to follow the quickly dissolving trail. Now that he had his eye on it, it had decided that it was time to disappear, and he was quickly losing sight of it. 

No, scratch that, it was definitely getting brighter now. And more concrete around the edges, instead of fading out. Was he close? He weaved past another small group of people, eyes following the purple line until-

There.

Holy shit.

He was stunning, that was the first thing Janus noticed. The purple trail stopped at him, covering him with a faint lilac aura before fading completely, content with it’s work. At first he thought the slight tint to the other’s hair was left over from the soulmark, before the lights switched and he realized, no, his hair was dyed purple. The most eye catching thing, though, besides his makeup, was the bulky pair of… were those headphones on his ears? At a concert? Granted, it hadn’t started yet, but still.

Apparently he was standing in one place for too long amongst the constantly moving hoard of people, and his stillness got the attention of the boy in front of him. He gasped sharply when they made eye contact, shocked from what Janus assumed to be the soulmark that probably surrounded him. And then he started hyperventilating. Bad.

“Shit! Okay, hey, calm down, okay? It’s fine-”

He was cut off by a loud riff of an electric guitar, almost immediately drowned out by the screaming fans that surged forward like a tidal wave. The boy in front of him curled in on himself, hands pressing into the headphones around his ears in an attempt to drown out the noise. Despite his more cautionary side, Janus reached forward and took his arm, guiding him gently towards the door.

“Let’s go outside and talk, alright?”

Maybe following a stranger outside alone wasn’t the smartest idea but… Virgil had seen the soul mark, a gentle yellow glow around this man that quickly dissipated, leaving behind a man sharing an equally shocked look on his face. So that had to mean he wasn’t totally bad, right? Either he was his soulmate or some kind of guardian angel, and neither of those were necessarily bad options. 

As soon as they stepped outside the main arena, it was as if the tight band around Virgil’s chest loosened. Not gone completely, but enough that he could catch his breath. He reached up and pulled his ear defenders off his head, relieved that the quiet was enough that he didn’t need them anymore. They were definitely a life saver, but sometimes the way they muffled noise was indescribably uncomfortable as well.

The man noticed his immediate relief, letting go of his guiding arm and slowing his pace so Virgil could walk beside him. 

“I’m Janus.” 

“Virgil.”

In a blur, they ended up outside the venue, sitting on the curb directly outside the main doors. Virgil was fiddling with his ear muffs, eyes trained on the inky darkness surrounding them. Besides the dull resounding of the bass echoing from inside and steady stream of traffic just out of their view, it was reasonably quiet.

“So, you live in Brookton?” Janus finally broke the comfortable silence, leaning back on his hands.

“Yeah. Not for long, though.”

“Oh?”

“Planning to get out soon. Don’t know where, don’t know how. But I’m not much of a ‘small town’ guy.”

“Brookton counts as a small town?”

Virgil hummed, finally placing the head gear down beside him and closing his eyes, breathing in the smell of fast food from the variety of food trucks around the area. It was a strange cacophony of oil and salt, oddly enticing even if just the scent was enough for his skin to break out. 

“What about you? From around here?”

“Sort of?” He explained his story in as few words as possible, flying over his mom’s general unacceptance and her death, and the fact that he had to clean out her house in two days. “Less than that now, I guess. One and a half. It’s gonna be hell.” His head fell into his hands, fingers rubbing at the temples as if to soothe the headache he was expecting.

Virgil was a good listener, nodding along to the right parts and avoiding those stupid sympathetic looks he was so tired of. It was a nice relief to actually feel listened to, not pitied. 

“My parents are kind of similar. It doesn’t feel like I have much to complain about, though, because… I mean, they didn’t kick me out. Don’t openly hate on me. But it still sucks. They don’t even acknowledge me half the time.”

“Exactly! And then you see people who have it worse, and it makes you feel like a piece of shit for feeling upset!”

“Good match, universe.” Virgil flopped onto his back, purple hair splayed out on the concrete. “It’s the subtle homophobia for me.”

“Ah, you’re a ‘meme person’.”

“Sucks for you, you’re stuck with me now.”

“I’ll manage,” Janus joined him on the ground, suddenly disgusted that he was still in the same outfit that he’d flown in today. He hated the smell of plane, and he must reek of it. But Virgil didn’t seem to mind his general disheveled appearance as he made an abstract comment about the moon being full today, and how that generally meant bad things. Janus made the mistake of asking him what he meant, which turned into a full blown lecture on mythology and cryptids, one that Virgil didn’t have the capability to control. It made him smile though, seeing the emo so utterly delighted to explain it, and he realized with a start that he was going to get to enjoy this man for the rest of his life. Two people who could talk, matched with a person who loved to listen equally as much. Virgil had been right. Good match, universe.

#virgil definitely comes over and helps him clean the house the next day #but i wanted to leave it here #lywrites #tsshipmonth2020 #soulmate september #soulmateseptember #ts soulmate au #janus sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #anxceit #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction

[10-porgs-in-a-trenchcoat]

Meilooruns and Gundark Snot and Hutt Slime, Oh My!

For @pinkiemme as part of the 2021 Star Wars Fun in the Sun event. Big shoutout to @lilhawkeye3 - thanks so much for organizing this event! I had a lot of fun with this prompt, and I hope you enjoy it! @starwarsfandomfests

Rated G, ~2k words, no major things that need warnings

AO3 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What’s this all about, Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked.

“I owe Dex a favor … never imagined he would call it in for this.”

It was a rare day off for both the 501st and the 212th while they were on leave on Coruscant. Luckily for them, their leave coincided with the beginning of Coruscant’s summer, and it was on such a warm sunny day that Obi-Wan rounded up Anakin, Ahsoka, and Rex for a trip to Dex’s Diner at the request of the diner’s owner. Outdoor seating had been added for the season, and the group sat themselves down at a table under a large umbrella as Obi-Wan went inside the diner to inform Dex of their arrival.

“Gotta say, this is not how I imagined spending my day off,” murmured Anakin as he drummed his fingers on the table.

“Beats meditating in the temple like Master Yoda would want me to do,” Ahsoka responded.

“I just can’t believe I’m going to eat something other than standard issue rations,” said Rex. He wore his full armor, without his helmet, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to Ahsoka. “If the men knew where I was they’d be jealous.”

Obi-Wan soon came back out from the diner, followed by a Besalisk man carrying covered trays in two of his hands.

“Everyone, this is my friend Dex, the owner of the diner,” Obi-Wan said as he introduced the Besalisk man with him. “Dex, this is Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and Captain Rex of the 501st.”

“Wonderful to meet you all! Any friend of Obi’s is a friend of mine!” Dex greeted them all in a booming boisterous voice. “I have concocted some original flavors of ice cream I hope to serve at the diner later in the season, and I have invited you all here to sample them.”

Obi-Wan sat down next to Anakin, and the four of them watched as Dex sat his trays down on the table and took off their covers. On each tray were two small bowls containing scoops of blue ice cream and spoons.

“First, I am starting you off with some standard sweet bantha milk ice cream to cleanse the palate.”

“Ice … cream?” Rex asked, curious and confused. He watched the others take bowls before grabbing the last one for himself, and after seeing Ahsoka shove a spoonful into her mouth, he followed suit.

“Good isn’t it?” Ahsoka asked him.

Rex nodded as he finished his bite. “It’s … cold. And sweet. Not too much though, just the right amount.”

“You’ve never had ice cream before, Captain?” Dex asked in disbelief. “You clones are putting your lives on the line for the Republic every day and you don’t even get to enjoy the simple luxuries of life? Unacceptable! I’m sending some back to your barracks with you, enough for your whole battalion!”

“That’s very kind of you, sir. Thank you.”

“No, thank you.” Dex pulled a small comm device out of his apron pocket and pressed a button. A short moment later, a procession of server droids came outside to the table, each holding a tray similar to the ones Dex brought out.

“Now if you’re ready, here is my first original creation: meiloorun melon tart! Give me your honest feedback, please.”

The first droid in the procession set down the tray and pulled off its lid, revealing four bowls of magenta-colored ice cream with swirls of orange. Everyone grabbed a bowl and dug right in.

“Not bad,” commented Anakin. “has a nice tangy flavor.”

“This is delicious, Dex,” said Obi-Wan, “I appreciate how the sweetness doesn’t overpower the natural flavor of the fruit.”

“This tastes almost like real fruit,” said Rex before taking a second bite of it.

Ahsoka, meanwhile, took one bite and set her spoon down. “It’s way too bitter,” she said.

“I think you need to get your taste buds checked, Snips,” Anakin teased her.

“Come now, what may be appealing to humans may not appeal to people from other species,” Obi-Wan admonished him.

The next flavor of ice cream Dex had them sample was called jogan fruit cookie dough. The ice cream itself was white, and it contained chunks of purple cookie dough as well as chocolate chips. Obi-Wan ate it silently, then gave a small smile and nod of approval to Dex.

“It’s a little too sweet for me,” said Anakin before he dug his spoon in to take a second bite.

“I think it’s the perfect blend of sweet and sour,” Ahsoka told Dex.

Rex, however, suddenly dropped his spoon onto the table. His face scrunched together in a wince, with his lips puckering together.

“Is it too sour for you, Rexter?” Ahsoka asked, a teasing lilt in her tone.

All Rex could do in response was nod. His face slowly relaxed, and he picked his spoon back up.

Next, Dex had a serving droid bring them glasses of water, and he also advised them to have another bite or two of the blue bantha milk ice cream as a palate cleanser. As Obi-Wan surveyed the colorful assortment of ice cream on the table, and the varying opinions from his friends, he thought that Dex really couldn’t go wrong with any flavor.

That is, until Dex served them ice cream that was a mossy shade of green with flecks of brown and gray. “Kalpa sea thread!” he declared.

Obi-Wan, Anakin, Rex, and Ahsoka all glanced at each other uncertainly. None of them imagined that Kalpa sea thread and ice cream were a winning combination. Regardless, the shrugged and dug in.

Ahsoka started with a small spoonful, but then followed up with a larger one, making sure to get some with plenty of gray and brown flecks. When she finished that bite she gave her review: “Honestly, I don’t taste anything.”

“It tastes … odd.” Rex commented.

Obi-Wan finished his bite and stared down at his bowl, stroking his beard as he did. “I suppose … if the meiloorun melon wasn’t available, this would do in a pinch.” His tone was even, neutral, the voice of someone giving a diplomatic answer. Dex responded by quirking a skeptical brow at him.

Anakin, on the other hand, scarfed down the contents of his bowl in only a few bites. “This is fantastic!” he proclaimed. “Got that nice herbal zest, a bit of mint-“

“You like it … and you said I was the one who needed to get her taste buds checked?” Ahsoka asked, raising a brow in skepticism.

“Hey! Like Obi-Wan said, different species of people like different flavors sometimes.”

“Yeah, but you’re the only human here who-“

“We don’t need to reach a consensus, we just need to be honest in our assessments.” Obi-Wan interrupted Ahsoka. Both Ahsoka and Anakin shot him a look, as Obi-Wan’s non-answer to Dex had not gone unnoticed by them.

“You could not have said it better, Master Kenobi,” said Dex before motioning for the next serving droid in the procession.

The droid set down the platter and removed its cover to reveal ice cream that was a pale green, with chunks of yellow and gray candies embedded in the ice cream.

“What is this?” Anakin asked as he took his bowl, staring at its contents quizzically.

“Gundark Snot – only because that’s what the coloration reminds me of! I promise you no Gundark parts or excretions were involved in the making of this flavor!”

“You got close enough to a Gundark to see that?” Rex asked as he took a bowl for himself.

“A story I shall regale you with another time, Captain.”

“It’s a good one too. I was there,” added Obi-Wan before he had his first bite of the ice cream. He grimaced in response to how it tasted, and once he swallowed it down he gulped down some water. “I can’t say I enjoy this, Dex,” he said apologetically.

“Me neither,” Anakin said after he had a bite of it. “Tastes like raw meat.”

Rex merely shook his head as he stared down at his bowl, looking as if he was thinking of a way to succinctly and diplomatically express his opinion on it.

“This is great!” Ahsoka chirped in between spoonfuls.

Anakin, Rex, and Obi-Wan gawked at her.

“What? I never imagined ice cream could taste so savory. Got a nice bit of salty tang to it too!”

“Well, I guess I can count on it to be a hit with my Togruta customers,” shrugged Dex.

After another glass of water and a few bites of blue bantha milk ice cream to cleanse their palates, Dex served up the final round of ice cream.

“Hutt Slime!” He proclaimed, gesturing to the bright yellow ice cream before them.

Anakin scowled at the name. Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at Dex. Ahsoka and Rex glanced at each other and then shrugged.

“I was pleasantly surprised by the Gundark Snot, maybe I’ll like this too,” Ahsoka said before she took a bite of the Hutt Slime ice cream. Almost immediately she grimaced at the taste and shook her head. “Or not … it tastes kind of like what a baby Hutt smells like … it has a funky aftertaste, too.”

“Bet you don’t remember little Stinky so fondly now, eh, Snips?” Anakin teased her. He looked down at his own bowl, considering its contents with a furrowed brow, and it wasn’t until he saw Obi-Wan take a bite that he had one as well. He nearly gagged on it as he swallowed it down.

“I don’t care for this,” Rex said plainly after sampling the contents of his bowl. He chased it with water and another bite of blue bantha milk ice cream, only to wince and shudder at the combined taste of the blue bantha milk and the Hutt Slime aftertaste.

Not even Obi-Wan could keep a neutral expression. He shook his head and forcefully pushed the bowl of ice cream away from him. “This is not your best work,” he said to Dex.

“They can’t all be winners, I suppose.” Dex shrugged. “But a few of them were good, right?”

“They were culinary masterpieces, my friend.”

--

“I gotta say, Obi-Wan, this is not how I imagined spending my day off.” Anakin said. He and Ahsoka were at work loading temperature-controlled crates into the back of their speeder. Each crate contained a large tub of ice cream in their favorite flavors: Kalpa sea thread for Anakin, meiloorun melon tart for Obi-Wan, Gundark Snot for Ahsoka, and blue bantha milk for Rex. Dex also informed them that he would send a variety of flavors, including his experimental ones, to the barracks where the 501st and 212th were quartered during their time off the front lines.

“But I still had a good time, and I now know where to get the best ice cream on Coruscant.”

“Agreed … do you think I could lure Masters Windu and Unduli to Dex’s to try the Gundark Snot?” Obi-Wan asked, his tone laced with mischief.

“Most definitely. I want to see their faces when they try it.” Anakin answered.

“I wish I got a picture of your face when you nearly choked on the Hutt Slime,” Ahsoka said to Anakin. “Or Rex’s when he had the sour cookie dough flavor!”

“Or yours when you had the Hutt Slime, Commander,” Rex shot back with a smirk.

“When we get back we’ll all have to sample our least favorite flavors again to get pictures of the amusing faces we make,” said Obi-Wan as he ambled into the front passenger seat of the speeder. Ahsoka and Rex climbed into the back of the speeder, utilizing the crates of ice cream as armrests and leg rests.

“Just how I imagined spending my day off on a nice summer day, choking down some more of that Hutt Slime,” murmured Anakin as he hopped into the driver’s seat and started up the speeder.

“You could always invite Senator Amidala to join us!” Ahsoka suggested. “I bet she’d love it!”

“No way I’m subjecting her to that, Snips.” Anakin shot back as he took off, driving the speeder back to the Jedi Temple. As he drove along, he thought that taking Padme to Dex’s for ice cream wouldn’t be a bad idea for a covert date at some point during the summer. She would like the jogan fruit cookie dough.

#my writing #star wars fun in the sun 2021 #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #captain rex #clone wars

[rpgsandbox]

In 2014, Magpie Games launched a Kickstarter for Urban Shadows, an ENnie award-winning tabletop roleplaying game of political urban fantasy that quickly became one of our flagship titles. For years, fans have praised both the game’s effortless explanation of the Powered by the Apocalypse engine and the groundbreaking content on race and urban communities, leading Urban Shadows to be a favorite of urban fantasy gamers, podcasters, and streamers alike.

Now—more than six years later—we are returning to the dark streets of the city for Urban Shadows: Second Edition, updating the game’s rules, look, and tools to better support moving stories of political urban fantasy. Featuring new playbooks, new faction mechanics, and completely revised materials from first edition, Urban Shadows 2E will thrust you into the danger and drama of the city like never before!

                      Download the Urban Shadows Quickstart here

Urban Shadows is a political urban fantasy tabletop roleplaying game in which mortals and supernaturals alike vie for power in a modern-day city. Vampires, faeries, hunters, wizards, and more clash in the shadows...or make backroom deals for their piece of the streets and skyscrapers. No one is ever safe, and everything is always at stake.

In Urban Shadows, you play unique and powerful archetypes, protagonists who are attuned to the supernatural world. While the mortal world remains ignorant of the struggles of the city’s supernatural denizens, you are caught in the middle of the physical conflicts and political drama of the city’s past, present, and future.

You might be a spectre bound to an artifact, unable to move on until you’ve resolved your trauma. Or you might be a clever vampire who controls the best blood supply in the city, caught up in a war between your kind and those who hunt you. Or you might be a veteran of your city’s ancient conflicts, someone who got out of the game but keeps getting drawn back in by friends and allies.

No matter who you are, you contain within you the power to shape the city’s destiny. What future will you choose? And what will your victories cost you?

Urban Shadows is based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system used by tabletop RPGs like Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and many of Magpie Games’s own titles such as Masks: A New Generation, Root: The RPG, and Zombie World. The game uses the core framework of that system to provide a strong, simple way to create your own stories of political urban fantasy. You’ll create a character using one of several archetypes, and then you’ll take action, rolling two six-sided dice to resolve the outcomes of dangerous and difficult situations.

Urban Shadows creates stories like those you’d find in Constantine, Diableros, The Dresden Files, The John Wick franchise, The Last Witchhunter, Lost Girl, and The Wire.

In Urban Shadows, the city is a living, breathing character all its own. It hides dark desires, wicked deeds, and devious schemes, its shadowy tendrils a danger to mortals and supernaturals alike. Some residents have sacred sanctums or secure workshops—places to weather the storms of the city—but a sprawling metropolis lies just outside those little nooks, caring little if you prosper…or bleed out in the gutters.

But nobody faces the city alone. Even the humblest of imps has a small community, a circle of those who can offer solace in the face of problems and danger. But community is a double-edged sword—demanding as much as it gives—and the needs and desires of those same circles constantly shape and reshape the vibrant urban landscape of the city. Nothing lasts forever, but the city turns over nearly every night, different forces laying different claims to you and yours.

The city hungers. Will you sate its gnawing desires? Or will your enemies make you the feast?

The schemes and plots of supernatural beings have been a part of the city for as long as anyone can remember. The faces at the top may shift and change with the tides of fortune, but rarely does something occur in the mortal world without some push from those who lurk in the shadows. A new subway system? A contested election? A bank robbery? Nothing is what it seems.

But what is mere money or prestige to wizards, ghosts, and faeries? Who cares about cash or elections when trafficking in human souls or exploring other dimensions? The supernatural forces of the city—and the mortals who deal with them—know only one real currency: debt.

Debt is the power to influence those who owe you, the chits you call in to get things done, the ties that bind you to the rest of the city, and the proof that your word is strong and your bonds unbreakable. There are few true friends in the city, but your debtors always want to see you survive—you can’t pay up if you’re dead.

But there are other ways to triumph in the city beyond the economy of favors and patronage. Cruel rituals. Dark secrets. The temptations of the monster within you. Those who seek power at any cost will find no end to the magics and mysteries available for the merest price of a soul.

The streets bleed shadows—your debtors always around the corner—as the city threatens to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero… or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or beg for power? The choice is yours.

Over the past five years, Magpie Games has developed and created multiple games that broke boundaries and redefined what PbtA can do. Now, we think it’s time to apply the lessons we’ve learned to Urban Shadows, making a game that’s tighter and easier to run, but also filled with new ideas and improvements, including new tools for players and GMs. We’re also excited to create a beautiful new book with visionary art and fantastic graphic design. In short… we’re making Urban Shadows 2E because we’re thrilled to revisit and refine our work!

Here’s a quick list of the major changes, many of which are already available in the quickstart:

revised basic moves, including new versions of turn to violence and let it out

revised playbooks, including rebuilt versions of The Hunter and The Oracle

two brand new playbooks: The Sworn (Power) and The Imp (Wild)

changing Factions to Circles—see below—and adding Circle Status to represent standing

a new downtime phase of the game focused on player-facing city moves and rumors

replacing Storms with a new MC-facing faction turn, including new faction moves

expanded MC tools for generating your city and Circles at the start of play

We’re also adding a new mechanic to bring PCs into contact more often with each other: City Hubs. Cities are enormous spaces, and we found (in US1E) player characters could sometimes retreat to their different corners of the cityscape, interacting only with their own worlds and not with each other. With City Hubs, we want to create smaller, expandable environments to focus play and create drama. These Hubs—described below—position characters in neighborhoods, institutions, and community spaces in which they interact more frequently and avoid sessions in which PCs rarely come into contact and conflict.

Download the quickstart for a chance to test out some of these new features! We’ll be previewing more of them during the campaign, and we’re excited to get your feedback and refine Urban Shadows even more. Thank you to everyone who has given us feedback on 1st Edition since 2015!

In Urban Shadows, your characters juggle relationships and obligations, seeking allies and opportunities, cashing in debts along the way to get things done. When you seize the day, you reshape the city in your image and unleash your powers on those who stand against you; when your enemies move and hunt, you do your best to stay ahead of the oncoming storm.

Urban Shadows uses the Powered by the Apocalypse framework to resolve interesting moments of uncertainty through moves, bits of mechanics that say: “When you do [x], [y] happens.” Each move trigger—the “When you do [x]” part—is designed to help point at moments of uncertainty, when neither the players nor the GM know exactly what happens next. Some examples of such moments include:

When you throw a punch at a loudmouthed werewolf in a demonic club

When you plead with the wizard’s council to return a tome of magic stolen from you

When you try to escape the evil ritual you stumbled onto in the city’s sewers

When you ask one of your companions to forgive the debt your fae lover owes them

When you trigger a move—when you perform the action described in the move’s trigger—then the rest of the move kicks into effect, often requiring a die roll. You roll 2d6 (two six-sided dice) and add in one of your stats to find out what happens.

Every playbook has four stats:

Blood is the measure of your fight or flight instincts. It tells us how tough, dangerous, coiled, and quick to act your character is in a perilous situation.

Heart is the sum of your passion, charm, and charisma. It tells us how proficient your character is at getting what they want through negotiation and persuasion.

Mind is a reflection of your critical thinking and analysis. It tells us how perceptive your character can be and how good they are at manipulating others through deceit.

Spirit is a gauge of your connection to the “other” and your force of will. It tells us how focused your character is under pressure and what kind of power they can unleash.

Each stat is ranked from -3 to +3. You add your stat to some rolls when you trigger certain moves. For example, when you turn to violence, you roll 2d6 + Blood.

On most moves, if you get a 10 or higher (10+), things go your way! If you get a 7-9, you get what you were after, but usually with some cost or complication. If you get a 6 or lower, that’s called a miss, and the GM gets to tell you what happens next as things spiral out of control.

Urban Shadows has basic moves for all the usual conflicts in urban fantasy—fighting, lying, escaping, magic, and more—along with special moves for managing debts and your relationships with communities at large.  

The city is a fierce cesspool of politics and corruption, but there are clear connections and boundaries between like-minded residents, spheres of influence that make up the scope of politics within the city. Most call these divisions Circles, loose political groupings that illustrate the differing affiliations and loyalties in the world, each one a community with its own internal politics and dramas. The Circles are:

In addition to the main stats, each character also has ratings (from -3 to +3) for their Circles, measures of how well the character understands each specific community. A character with a high rating in a Circle has contacts and connections within it, and can easily interpret its political information; a character with a low rating in a Circle doesn’t understand how that Circle works or who the power players are within that community.

Circles aren’t organizations or formal alliances; they are more like broad communities or subcultures. The disagreement between two members of the same Circle may be as—or more—intense than any conflict between two differing spheres. A werewolf and a vampire both hail from Night, but that doesn’t mean they get along. It only means they understand each other...and the violence inherent in the language of their streets.

Yet there are factions within each Circle capable of acting in unison, alliances who can shape the city’s future—werewolf packs, witch covens, faerie courts, and more. In Urban Shadows: Second Edition, we’re giving GMs new tools to support those factions in a “faction turn” between sessions. We’re also giving players new tools to get stuff done in downtime, acting on the rumors they heard about what the factions have done in the past week or two of offscreen activity, all fueling the drama of the city and the power players have to shape the setting.

Urban Shadows uses archetypes (The Wolf, The Wizard, The Oracle, etc.) to help players create characters quickly and easily. These archetypes are only ever a starting point; you can always bring in different myths, legends, and ideas to make your character entirely your own.

Characters often acquire abilities and powers from other archetypes and may even change archetypes over the course of play. As your character advances, you may also find reasons to retire to safety, securing that character’s place in the city as you create a new character to continue your group's story.  

Absolute power...corrupts absolutely. Urban Shadows features a dynamic corruption mechanic, tracking your character's descent into darkness. When you take a life, give in to your monstrous nature, or cross a line you shouldn't cross, you mark corruption. As you gain corruption, you unlock new and potent powers, allowing your character to get what they want—at the cost of further corruption. The dark side of your nature bears productive fruit.

Power is never free, though. Cross the line too often and you lose your character to the darkness, handing them over to the GM for them to play as a threat. Corruption is a downward spiral threatening to push you over the edge, and not everyone is cut out to make it back from the brink. As your character gains new abilities fueled by the growing darkness within, you face a difficult choice: will you give up what you've gained to save yourself?

Corruption also encourages you to play to your archetype. Each archetype contains unique boundaries and taboos that define when you mark corruption. Life is always sacred, but werewolves, mages, and faeries all face unique temptations while stalking the city's streets.

Cities are giant, complex networks of interconnected communities caught in an almost constant state of change. In order to focus your characters’ conflicts and provide reasons for the players to consistently play together across those spaces, Urban Shadows 2E uses City Hubs—dynamic sections of urban life that frame the story you’re telling together without cutting you off from the rest of the city’s potential.

A City Hub isn’t just a physical district or area of your city. Instead, each Hub is a collection of institutions, relationships, and anchors—important NPCs—that create a background for the action in your story. Even better, Hubs can be added over the length of a campaign, expanding the city with new locations, conflicts, and NPCs as your story progresses.

Urban Shadows 2E features four City Hubs, each dominated by one of the four Circles:

City Hall (Mortalis)

Downtown (Night)

The University (Power)

The Arts District (Wild)

Perhaps your Tainted is a student at the local university, the same campus that lies within the Wolf’s territory...and the same institution at which the Wizard recently started working as a professor. Or maybe your Oracle has an occult bookstore downtown in the same office building in which the Sworn is regularly summoned to meet with the wizard’s council, just down the street from the family restaurant in which the Aware still waits tables.

Hubs are also a flexible tool for structuring your campaign as a whole. You can use two different Hubs set in the same city for different campaigns, you can grab elements from any Hub to use as inspiration for your campaign, or you can expand your campaign to include new Hubs as your city grows. We’ll release new Hubs through this campaign as stretch goals and as digital supplements after the Kickstarter.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, November 19 2020 9:00 PM UTC +00:00

Website: [Magpie Games] [facebook] [twitter]

#RPG #kickstarter #Urban Shadows #Magpie Games

[writingithink]

All The Skies Pairing: Ten x Rose Rated: T Wordcount: 6,740 Summary: After accidentally bonding, the Doctor and Rose start their honeymoon.

Notes: This is for Day 1 of @timepetalsweek !!  I used two of the prompts, the picture prompt and 'dancing'. It is a follow up to my fic, In Case You Don't Stay Forever. There's not really a 'plot' for you to feel lost in if you don't feel like reading that as well. Thank you so much @hey-there-juliet for betaing!! (& honestly, convincing me that I could totally make up this planet). I own nothing (aside from mistakes).

READ IT ON AO3!! --> a copy/paste link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25379095

“Here we are! Neghlyvryn!” the Doctor announced, opening the TARDIS doors with a flourish as he stepped outside and into a city square. Banners and streamers were everywhere. Crowds of people (well, aliens) were just starting to form. He couldn’t help a smug smirk - he’d gotten it right. Good.

“Blimey, it’s hot!” Rose exclaimed, having just stepped out behind him.

He turned to watch as she fanned herself, barely taking in the festive atmosphere.

“I told you it would be.”

“Yeah, and I dressed for summer, too, but here we are! How are you wearing your suit right now?!”

“Superior temperature regulation,” he explained as he gave her outfit a once over (and then a twice over). She looked great in anything, that was a given, but the pink tank top and tiny denim shorts she currently had on were particularly flattering (even if the amount of skin they revealed would likely distract him all day).

Rose’s discomfort and irritation were still the most prevalent emotions he could feel across their bond, but a bit of pleasure and happiness shot through. Still, she wasn’t smiling.

“Well lucky you. What’s the temperature right now, anyway?” she asked.

He squinted up at the sky and did a slow spin.

“About 27 degrees.”

“I’ve gotta change. Maybe see if the TARDIS has some sort of fancy clothes to keep me cool,” Rose decided, turning around.

“Roooose,” he whined, “it’s the morning! And it’s only going to get hotter. If we wait too long, it won’t be safe for you to play Jikltaii unless you decide to wear an enviro-suit!”

She glared at him over her shoulder before turning back around and crossing her arms. “And just how much hotter is it gonna get?”

“Errr, somewhere around 34 degrees, give or take. This is the Rhibelini Festival! It’s like their summer solstice, except it only happens once every fifteen years when their three suns align.”

Shoulda mentioned three suns when I was gettin’ ready, Rose grumbled over the bond as she finally walked up to him and took his hand. “Alright then, let’s get goin’. But we better get somethin’ to drink before we play this game of yours.”

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically, almost skipping as he led them away from the TARDIS. 

This would be their second full day as a bonded pair, and while he still hadn’t had time to properly research it, he had been able to meditate and construct some barriers that would actually be effective … on his end, at least. Since Rose had been asleep during his meditation, they hadn’t been able to work on hers (however her telepathy even worked to begin with). So while he still got plenty from her end, he was able to keep a majority of his less relevant trains of thought from bothering her (and while he could have tried to keep things more private, it didn’t exactly seem fair). Plus, he loved being bonded to Rose Tyler, accident or not.

“So, tell me about this Jiggle-Tie thing we’re gonna do,” Rose prompted as they entered the queue for a street cart, fanning herself with the bottom of her top.

For a moment his eyes zeroed in on her belly button before he made himself look away, focusing instead on the line of people - which was already long now, so he could hardly imagine what it would look like later in the day.

“Jikltaii,” the Doctor repeated, “with a ‘K’. It’s kind of like paintball, but with sling shots. And it’s kind of like capture the flag, but there’s three teams. You see, the Neghlyvits believe that their planet was created when the three sun goddesses reached a truce after fighting amongst each other for billions of years. Each sun’s name corresponds to a goddess; Rhiza, Beltof, and Iniya. Each goddess has a color. Red, or rhiz, for Rhiza. Then there’s orange, or belti, for Beltof and yellow, or iniv, for Iniya. Three teams, three colors of paint.”

“Sounds fun.”

The line was moving slowly, and Rose finally began to take in the surroundings with a hand over her eyes to keep the suns out. He dug through his pockets until he found a pair of her sunglasses, handing them to her and feeling a wave of gratitude across their connection.

I love you, he couldn’t help thinking.

It was getting a little embarrassing. By his count, he’d now told her this 26 times telepathically since she woke up (verbally only twice, so that would make it 28 times total).

I love you too.

At least she always said it back, projecting enough affection to dispel his embarrassment.

“So, what happens when you win at Jikkle-Tie?” she asked.

“Mmm, well, Neghlyvryn is an incredibly peaceful planet, and their culture obviously emphasizes compromise. This festival is called Rhibelini - an amalgamation of all three goddesses names - because this is the time when the goddesses renew their truce. So the team that wins a game of Jikltaii’s corresponding color determines what flavor of frip everyone eats at the end.”

“Frip?”

“It’s an ice cream-type treat,” he explained, swinging their hands together as the queue moved forward.

“That’s good. I’m definitely gonna need some, runnin’ around with a slingshot in this heat.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the general consensus.”

Eventually they reached the front and the Doctor ordered four waters, two kivries, and a couple poofs (each cut in half). He also got directions for the closest Jikltaii field.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Rose informed him as he handed her a kivy and a water before putting everything besides his own kivy into his trouser pocket.

“I just didn’t want to wait in line again. Imagine what it will be like once midday comes around?”

Ugh, fair.

“So this is like a soda, yeah?” she asked, after guzzling half the water bottle and then dumping the rest over her head. The Doctor couldn’t help but follow a few droplets as they trailed down her neck. Temperature was now not the only thing he needed to regulate.

“Yup. Very fizzy. Hey! Fizzy Kivy! It rhymes! Look at that!”

She laughed, her entire mental presence much brighter now that she’d cooled down a bit. They both opened their bottles before beginning to walk towards the field.

“Oh! ’S like- like lemon and somethin’ else …”

“Like lemon and cucumber,” he scowled, eying the bottle with disdain.

Rose took another sip. “Not so bad.”

“Blegh. Do you want mine, then?”

“Not right now,” she giggled before coughing and then sneezing after getting fizz up her nose.

And he knew she was fine, but the Doctor couldn’t keep himself from stopping and rubbing her back … just to make sure.

You’re sweet. 

See, it’s rumors like that that make Absorbaloffs from Clom think that they can do whatever they’d like, he couldn’t help but think. He immediately regretted it, as Rose began brooding about everything her mum had been through. Tea yesterday had gone quite poorly.

“Sorry,” he whispered, taking her hand again and quickly getting them to the Jikltaii field.

Once they’d paid - credits! He loved credits. So much easier than keeping track of specific currencies, even if he still didn’t quite understand the ins and outs of money - the attendant, a native male with fiery orange hair and the pale blue and brown speckled skin typical of most Neghlyvits, immediately began to divide everyone into teams.

“Iniv team,” he told Rose before turning to the Doctor. “Belti team.”

“B-but I want to be on Rose’s team!” he complained.

“Nope. Everyone’s divided by colors. Your hair is kind of orange.”

“But we’re on our honeymoon!”

A burst of affection came through the bond, though it was hardly noticeable over how hilarious his bondmate thought he was being. She could really do with being a bit more interested in their romantic endeavors.

Sorry .

I forgive you, the Doctor projected.

“May you lovingly cover each other with paint,” the attendant drawled before handing them each their appropriately colored paint balls and sling shots.

“And I suppose they’re on Iniv team, then?” the Doctor queried, pointing at the two aliens next to them - both green, covered in scales, and having no hair to speak of.

“Yes.”

Figured. Maybe he should have dyed his hair before this. Or worn a wig. How was he supposed to know that teams were chosen this way?

Rose sent a mental image of how he would look as a blonde. Ew. Nope. Not even a wig. Next time Rose would have to dye her hair. He already knew she looked fantastic as a brunette, he’d seen pictures.

“It’ll be fine,” she consoled him as the attendant began a speech about the rules.

Apparently you weren’t out as soon as you were hit - you just took a two minute time out and at the end of the game they would figure out which team had the most paint on them if no one captured any flags.

“I want to be on your team,” the Doctor pouted.

“I think it’ll be more fun this way. Winner owes the other one a favor,” Rose smirked. Several thoughts flashed through her head at once, and he caught images of him painting her toenails, folding her laundry, cooking her dinner and a few that were decidedly X rated that she probably wouldn’t need to use a favor to cash in.

Good to know.

Still, he didn’t fancy folding her laundry.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” he decided. They shook on it. “What happens if Rhiz team wins?”

“We’ll call that a tie. Each owe the other a favor.”

Before he could argue that, it was time for the teams to move out to their respective starting points. He could have continued over the bond, but his team mates were vying for his attention as they talked strategy. 

It was just as fun as he thought it would be (though being on Rose’s team would have made it more fun). In the first fifteen minutes of the game, he didn’t see his wife anywhere. For a moment the Doctor worried that she had been assigned to guard their flag - how boring - but she was broadcasting much too much enjoyment and general competitiveness for that to be the case. Then he saw her head peeking out from behind a paint-caked wooden partition.

He ducked down, carefully keeping cover until he was right next to the barrier before he quickly jumped over it, shooting her twice before he landed clumsily on the other side.

“Ooof!” She may have said it aloud, but he was the one who had just landed hard on his bum. Really need to figure out how to turn off that part of the bond. “You alright?”

“I’m fine. Not as fragile as you lot. No bruised tailbone.”

“Good,” Rose said, crawling over to him and giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Still, I’ll probably need to check it later.” 

If they weren’t telepathically connected, her meaning would have been made quite clear by the way she nipped his ear. 

“Oh,” he squeaked, looking around to see if anyone was watching them as she climbed onto his lap. Then she was snogging him, and the Doctor really didn’t care if they were spotted. She was so warm and soft and the way her mind was caressing his was one of the best things in the Universe, he was sure of it. He groaned, pulling her closer, wanting more of something, though he wasn’t sure what and-

Loads of something wet and sticky ran down his head.

“Gotcha,” Rose whispered before she sprang to her feet and ran off.

The Doctor sat there for a moment, slightly dazed, trying to manually redirect his blood flow. Honestly, what kind of tactician was he to have overlooked the fact that Rose Tyler plays dirty? Apparently the answer to that question was: the kind of tactician who really wants to snog Rose Tyler. He shook his head, got up and regained his bearings.

It’s on, now, you minx, he sent across their bond.

All he got for his trouble was the telepathic equivalent of laughter.

“Friendly fire?” Uriit, one of the women on his team, asked when they ran into each other near a ropes section of the field.

He looked down at his shirt to find it smeared with orange paint. 

“Something like that,” he answered, scratching the back of his neck and giving his ear a tug.

Throughout the rest of the game, the Doctor purposefully projected the most random things he could think of to Rose over the bond, hoping to distract her. Rambling lessons about tea cultivation, pocket dimensions, the War of the Eternals, different library cataloguing methods throughout time and space. Anything. The problem was, she wasn’t getting nearly as distracted by his thoughts as he seemed to always be by hers.

So he gave up that plan and set his sights on capturing the Iniv team flag as if the planet were at stake. This got him a five minute time out for attempting to mess with the sprinkler system.

In the end, team Rhiz did end up winning but no one caught any flags.

“Did you have fun?” Rose asked him as they sat at a picnic table eating their rhizit frip (berry-ish and minty, possibly the best frip flavor anyway, though they all sounded good to him).

“I would have had more fun if we were on the same team,” he sulked.

“I’m sorry. Next time I’ll wear a wig, yeah?”

He shrugged. While the thought of her in a wig intrigued him, it didn’t fix today’s Jikltaii mishap. This was supposed to be their honeymoon. You can only play Jikltaii on your honeymoon once, after all.

“Rubbish,” Rose told him, “and you know it. Mum’s busy plannin’ a wedding as we speak. We’ll have another honeymoon before ya know it.”

“Oh.” The Doctor sat up straighter, suddenly much more interested in his frip and the topic of wigs. “I didn’t think of that. How many honeymoons do you think we could have?”

“Depends how many times you wanna get married,” she smiled, tongue between her teeth. He was certain that if he snogged her he’d be able to taste her rhizit frip. It probably tasted much better that way.

Later.

“But we don’t have any frip on the TARDIS,” he informed her, moving to sit on her side of the bench.

“Could get some.”

He blinked.

“Didn’t you just tell me the other day about how time doesn’t pass in your pockets?”

She reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his kivry from earlier, still cold and fizzy.

“I hadn’t thought you were paying attention,” he admitted.

“I just tune out the technical parts.”

Rose finished up her dessert as if this wasn’t important information. Maybe for her it wasn’t. She was Rose Tyler so of course she wouldn’t have to learn new things about herself.

“Sooo,” the Doctor began, leaning his back against the table and stretching his legs in front of him, “earlier, when I was telling you all of that stuff and you didn’t get distracted …?”

“Kinda like havin’ the telly on in the background.”

Well that wasn’t very flattering.

She rolled her eyes. “I pay attention to the important stuff. And the interestin’ bits. But you’ve gotta admit, it’s kinda like you were playin’ the history channel.”

Fair enough.

“What would you like to do next?” he asked, hopping up off the table and grabbing their frip containers to take to the rubbish bin.

“Well, first things first, we definitely need to change.”

“Both of us?” He frowned, furrowing his brow. What was wrong with his suit?

“Doctor, we’re covered in paint.”

“Oh,” he relaxed, taking her hand and leading them toward the exit. “That’ll be dealt with in a mo’.”

To leave the area, everyone had to go through a small blue outbuilding. The Doctor watched Rose look around and saw the moment she noticed all of the drains in the floor.

“Wait-”

Water sprayed down on them. It lasted only a minute, and then the doors on the other side slid open.

“Better?” he asked as they stepped outside.

“Well, ’s better than disinfectant. And so refreshing right now.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the suns. Yup, about 31 degrees. He looked down at his suit - paint free (and drying very quickly).

“I still wanna change,” Rose said. They were walking hand in hand back toward the main city square. The crowds were dense around them, full of locals and tourists alike. The Rhibelini Festival was an intergalactic traveler’s must see. At least, that’s how the magazine had described it.

“You read about this in a magazine? What happened to them being dull?”

The Doctor huffed. “There wasn’t anything else to read or do at the time. We were trying to infiltrate that shady corporation on Arelenia II and I was sat in their waiting room. Had to blend in. Everyone else was reading those magazines they leave all over the place. In fact-” He dug into his jacket pocket “- here it is!”

“Why’d you take it?” she asked, grabbing it before attempting to read the cover page and walk at the same time.

“Well, it boasted the 250 must-see places for the experienced intergalactic traveler - that’s me. And I hadn’t been to some of them. I wanted the list. Also, the Geri Corporation committed many major human rights violations, and made me wait for almost an hour, so … they owed me.” He put his arm around Rose and led her to the side of the street before stopping and taking back the magazine. Should have known better, really. Rose Tyler and her magazines.

“Yeah, ‘cause they’re not dull. They’re full of interesting stuff, and short for when you don’t feel like readin’ a whole novel.”

“The ones you read are always about clothes and makeup and gossip.”

“Useful, useful, funny.”

She may have him there - but he wasn’t going to admit it verbally. Her smug telepathic presence was enough, ta. They started walking again, Rose finally taking the time to people-watch.

“Those outfits, are they for somethin’ specific?” she asked, nodding toward a group of native girls wearing the traditional festival clothes - bralettes and asymmetrical skirts in yellow, orange, or red.

“Nope,” he replied, turning her attention to another crowd that had a mix of natives and tourists, most of whom were wearing the same basic outfit. Even a few men wearing the traditional skirt (though cut differently).

“It’s called a high-low.”

“What?”

“The skirts the girls got on. High-low.” Rose let go of his hand and placed hers at her mid-thigh. “High,” and then dropped it past her knees, “low.”

“Why would I ever need to know that?” the Doctor asked, puzzled.

She simply rolled her eyes, took his hand, and dragged him towards a row of shops. He tried to ignore her unflattering thoughts about men and shopping and blokes in general, figuring that he really wasn’t a man or a bloke so she couldn’t be referring to him. He hoped so, at least.

“I like their outfits, think I’d like to get one,” Rose told him as she began peeking into the shop windows.

“Okay.” Much better than going back to the TARDIS. More … festival-y.

So he tagged along behind her as she entered a boutique, hanging back when she went up to the counter and examining a display of hair accessories.

“Hello, I was wonderin’ if you could help me find a, uhm, traditional festival outfit,” Rose asked the clerk. The Doctor raised an eyebrow and turned his head to look at the racks of said apparel that were plainly visible.

Yeah and are YOU an expert at the sizing here?

Deciding that she really must know best, the Doctor quietly left her to it, exiting the shop and letting her know telepathically that he’d be just outside. Outside was much more entertaining anyway. Buskers had begun playing, and there were pop up stalls, and all sorts of things to look at and do.

Would be better once Rose came back, though.

Still, couldn’t hurt to get the lay of the land. Have something planned for once she finished. It ended up being over forty-five minutes before Rose told him she was leaving the boutique, and he was down the other end of the block! That right there was some decent range. Eventually they were going to have to properly test how far apart they could telepathically communicate, but that could wait. The Doctor ran down the street, weaving between groups of tourists, before skidding to a standstill.

She was absolutely stunning.

The festival set she’d chosen was yellow - of course, really - with a gold (or iniyama) sun clasp at the centre of her bralette, and two tiny red and orange suns on each side near her arms. The skirt had a whispy white under-layer visible in the low part with little gold starbursts dotted around it.

If the goddess Iniya was real, he was certain that she would look just like Rose at this moment.

“Oh, Doctor,” she flushed before placing a hand on his cheek, pulling him down and kissing him. Unfortunately, as soon as he tried to deepen the kiss she pulled back.

Later.

He was getting tired of that word.

“C’mon, there’s activities this way,” he said, grabbing her hand and dragging her up the street.

“Hold your horses,” she laughed. “I’m gettin’ kinda hungry. We should eat those sandwiches you got.”

“Oh! Right! The poofs!”

“Poofs? Really?”

“Yup!” he told her, popping the ‘P’. 

It didn’t take long to find a picnic table - they seemed to be everywhere - and settle in with their food and another bottle of water. He wondered if he’d gotten enough.

“Huh. ’S like a fruity cold cut,” Rose commented after swallowing her first bite.

“Reminds me of blackberries,” he agreed. Definitely a better flavor combination than the kivry. He shuddered at the memory. Could still kind of taste it, even after the frip.

They were quiet, quickly eating the poofs, and then off back toward the fun. The Doctor glanced behind him as he led her through the crowd and was thrilled to see her smiling. Her mental presence was bright and happy and really, this was so amazing and such a great day. He should probably marry Rose Tyler as often as possible, so that they could keep going on honeymoons.

She laughed. “Y’know our life is travelin’ around, right?”

“Oh, but this is different! This is romantic traveling. Newlywed traveling.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Don’t you want to keep marrying me?” he asked, stopping in the middle of the street and pulling her closer.

“Mmm might do. Still, honeymoons generally last ‘bout a week. And we’ve got another wedding comin’ up. So how ‘bout we see how it goes.”

He kissed her, and once again she didn’t allow their tongues to even get a tiny bit involved.

Later.

Worst. Word. Ever.

He tilted his head back and let out a groan before continuing on until they reached the games area.

“It’s almost like a carnival!” Rose exclaimed, wandering over toward a water shooting game where winners could potentially get some chintzy star jewelry. “Gonna win me a bracelet?” she asked with a cheeky smirk, cocking her hips to the side and raising an eyebrow.

“As you wish,” the Doctor said with a mock-bow, walking up to the booth and picking up a water gun.

The game was rigged. Should be illegal, that. Ended up having to play six times just to get one dinky plastic bracelet, and the rhizala (metallic red) paint was noticeably chipping. He handed it to Rose with a frown.

“I love it,” she told him, immediately putting it on.

And the strange thing was that he could tell that she meant it.

“But- but it’s so cheap and they wouldn’t let me pick it out myself, so I couldn’t get the gold one, and-”

“I love it ‘cause you got it for me. And I’m keepin’ it forever,” she whispered in his ear before kissing his cheek.

Well. That was okay, then.

The next games stand they walked up to had a big banner atop it that said ‘Grizchootinki’ and appeared to be bobbing for apples, except the fruits were definitely not apples.

“How ‘bout I win you something?” Rose suggested, pointing at the stuffed toys hanging above the water barrel. She attempted to pull him toward the stand, but the Doctor would not budge.

“Why play that game when we could do this?” he blindly pointed to the stand across from it, then looked to see what it was.

Face painting.

Ehh …

She raised an eyebrow but still allowed him to take them over there, all the while not saying a word about how closed off he’d made their bond. Honestly, Rose had much more restraint than he did and he wasn’t sure how she did it. Still, he was grateful.

Or not. Once they got to the booth he noticed that his wife had a rather wicked gleam in her eye.

“Oh, you look wonderful!” the artist told Rose. “I have the perfect iniyama pattern for you. It will match your outfit so well!”

“Thanks,” she smiled, “but if you could do him first? He was super excited to come get his face done up.”

How had he gone so long without realizing that she was evil?

“Of course! Have a seat! We’ll have you looking more festive in no time. Definitely beltofana paint for you,” the artist said. Before he knew it the Doctor found himself seated, getting his face painted.

And it took ages.

“Alright, let’s see it,” he announced as soon as it was finished, pasting on a smile he really wasn’t feeling.

Oh, don’t be a baby.

Must have let the barriers slip while being tortured. Not surprising. (Also, it was incredibly hard to block the bond - it definitely did not want to be closed. Really had to get to that research).

You’re how old, now? Rose’s smile, at least, was genuine. And she wasn’t laughing (except in his head) so he must not look too ridiculous.

“No, wait until you’re both finished. It will be better if you see together.”

During his face painting, Rose and the artist had chatted. Once they found out that he and Rose were on their honeymoon, they got ideas. So he leaned against the booth and watched as she got her face painted. And it really did look lovely on her. But of course it did. Everything did. Weeeell, most things. To be fair, some things were designed to not look good on anybody - dinner lady uniforms came to mind. Even then, she was the best looking dinner lady of all of them. Though the rest were Krillitanes. Eh, still.

I love you, Rose’s telepathic voice rang in his head. 

And he’d been trying so hard all day to not keep saying it after this morning’s slightly insane overuse of the phrase, but now he wasn’t sure how he’d ever stopped saying it.

(Multiple marriage proposals may have had something to do with it).

I love you, too. So, so much.

Waiting to be able to touch her until her face was finished became incredibly difficult. But he managed. Barely.

(There was a brief moment where he sat on the ground next to her and rested his head against her hip, but he didn’t like the knowing look the artist gave him and decided to go back to leaning against the booth).

Then finally, finally she was done. 

The artist brought out a mirror from behind her booth and set it up for them to look. And as much as he hadn’t wanted to admit it, they had done a spectacular job. Both of their faces were decorated with intricate swirls and stars, the patterns somehow mirroring each other. The Doctor had a feeling that if he were to somehow overlay just the artwork, it would become one piece.

“This is so great!” Rose exclaimed. “Thank you so much!”

“Oh, it was my pleasure. Now, the face paint is waterproof. It will fade naturally within the next week. If you need it removed before then, there is an alcohol solution that will speed up the process. I do sell it, if you need it.”

He was positive that he could easily make the solution himself on the TARDIS, but with Rose’s mental nudging he ended up buying some from the artist when he paid for the painting. He also left a very generous tip.

“Alright, so tell me,” she said out of seemingly nowhere as they walked away from the booth.

“Huh?”

“Tell me why you don’t want me to win you a stuffed, er, whale thingy.”

“It’s a star whale. They’re actually extinct. Funny thing about star whales-”

“Doctor.”

With a sigh he turned toward her, dropping her hand and rubbing the back of his neck. “You’d be bobbing for choots.”

“And?”

“They taste like pears,” he informed her.

“So? I’d be the one bobbin’ for ‘em.”

“Yeah … but …”

“But?”

“Then you’d taste like choots.”

Rose burst out laughing, her amusement apparently so great that she could hardly remain upright. It really wasn’t that funny. She just laughed harder.

“Stop it! You’re going to hurt yourself. Really, this is completely unnecessary. It’s almost suns-set! Ever watched three suns set at once? Rose! Stop laughing!”

She pulled herself together slowly, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I’m gonna bob for choots.” 

This obviously wasn’t up for debate, so bob for choots she did. And her game obviously wasn’t rigged like his had been. That or the game attendant with the wandering eyes was giving his wife preferential treatment. The Doctor glared at the adolescent until the boy looked properly terrified. And Rose had really only gotten enough choots to win a medium sized star whale, but the kid handed her the big one before sending them on their way.

“Ya didn’t have to go all ‘Oncoming Storm’ on ‘em,” she informed him while handing over the giant toy. Honestly, what was he supposed to do with this right now? He may have bigger-on-the-inside pockets, but they required the object to at least be pocket sized before going in.

“He was leering at my wife,” the Doctor muttered, trying to see if he could slowly squish the star whale into his jacket pocket, and failing.

Rose shook her head before swatting his hand away from his pocket. “Let’s just go back to the TARDIS and drop him off.”

“Him?”

“Don’t you think he looks like a boy?”

“I’m not sure star whales have genders.”

“Well, it’s your star whale, so whatever you want. Whatcha gonna name ‘em?”

“I … haven’t given it any thought. I’ll get back to you on it. We’ll have to be quick if we want to stop back at the TARDIS and catch the suns-set. Which I do. You’re going to want some sort of jumper or something anyway. It gets chilly once the suns go down,” he told her, finally managing to hold her hand and the stuffed animal at the same time.

It ended up being slow going. He could hardly see past the star whale, so Rose had to lead them and she was much more polite while walking in a crowd than he was. Also they had to walk. Couldn’t run with the star whale. Once they made it back to the TARDIS, the Doctor opened the door and chucked the stuffed animal into the console room.

“Aww poor star whale,” Rose pouted, as if the stuffed animal had feelings.

“Sammy is fine,” he assured her. “Now go fetch a coat, quick, or we’ll miss it.”

“Sammy the Star Whale?”

“Yes. Love me some alliteration. Now off you pop!”

Rose bit her lip, glanced in the TARDIS and then back to him. “It’d take ages for me to find something that looks good with this outfit. I don’t think we’ve got time.”

He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter, that she’d look good in anything. But he had a feeling it wouldn’t make a difference. She already knew he thought that, after all (not to mention it was now likely being repeated). It mattered to her, though, and she was right - the way she could dither around the wardrobe room, it would take ages.

“Alright, c’mon then,” he said, quickly grabbing his coat off a nearby strut and then her hand after locking the TARDIS. “I’ll keep you warm. Run!”

They sprinted through a few back alleys before he found a fire escape that didn’t look to be on the verge of collapse, and they ended up atop a grocers. The sky was already turning a deep orange as he fanned out his coat on the roof for them to sit on.

Rose cuddled into his side, lying her head on his shoulder as they settled in to watch the three suns set on Neghlyvryn. Orange slowly faded into pink and then purple, and six of the eight moons became visible.

“Can we hold hands and watch the sky together, forever?” he asked her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head,

“Forever is a long time to watch the sky, dontcha think?”

“Oh, but not just this sky. All of the skies.”

“All of ‘em?”

“Yeah,” he breathed into her hair.

“Well, that’s alright then,” Rose decided.

“Good.”

Then he realized that they were finally alone, that later had finally arrived. So he kissed her. And she tasted like choots, but it was okay. Well, it wasn’t okay, but he could get past it. Kind of.

Without much thought or planning the Doctor tipped them both over and he was on top of her, tongue exploring her mouth as if it was uncharted territory (and it kind of was, since he had never thought to actually map it the previous times they’d snogged). Rose moaned, pulled him impossibly closer, wrapped a leg around his hip, and he forgot all about mentally charting her mouth.

He was finally able to touch all of the tantalizing skin she’d had exposed all day, teasing him.

I love you, he projected across the bond and he didn’t care how often he told her. She needed to know.

I love you, too.

And maybe he needed to hear it. Just a bit.

He ran a hand up her back and felt her shiver … and then shiver some more.

When he pulled back, Rose was gasping for breath and still shivering.

“Sorry, here,” he said, helping her to stand before picking his coat up off the ground and wrapping it around her before holding her close.

“Y’know you’re not exactly warm, right?”

Actually, he’d forgotten. But really, after snogging Rose Tyler he felt like he was on fire , so-

Oh. Right.

“C’mon, I know just the thing!” he told her with a grin, letting her go and then taking her hand to lead her back down from the roof. 

Soon enough they were back in the city square, where three gigantic bonfires had been lit, surrounded by many smaller fires. The entire area and surrounding blocks we covered in red, orange, and yellow paper lanterns in various star shapes. It was quite warm.

They made a beeline towards the closest big fire.

“This is more like it,” Rose smiled, giving him a peck on the cheek before leaning her head against his shoulder. “Is it just me, or is the fire … glittery?”

“Nope, not just you. They call it ‘bip powder’. It’s also what’s making it smell like incense right now, instead of your usual wood-burning-smell.”

“I like it. We should get some of that, too.”

“Could do. But when do we ever have fires?” He looked down at her, furrowing his brow.

“In the TARDIS library?” Rose reminded him, complete with telepathic images of his own ship.

“Ohhh the TARDIS wouldn’t want bip powder in her grates. It’s … messy … and- and … the smell reminds her of hippies. The TARDIS is not a fan. I was talking about fires outside of the TARDIS.”

Even as the words fell out of his gob, he knew that his bondmate wasn’t going to buy it. Of course not. And it wasn’t really lying, so much as saving face, but none of that could be accomplished with a permanent telepathic connection.

“Don’t need to be in your head to know you’re full of it,” Rose informed him with a light smack to his bottom. She was still smiling, though, and her mind felt calm and happy and warm next to his, so at least he hadn’t upset her.

I don’t think I want you touching my bum in public, he lightly scolded her telepathically.

Says the alien who spent most of the day trying to shove his tongue down my throat?

“I did not!” the Doctor exclaimed, offended.

“Whatever you say.” Rose rolled her eyes and then her attention was taken by the music starting up. It was whimsical and cheery, but with a steady drumbeat that could be felt through your feet. And all at once, everyone started dancing around the fires, the locals doing a specific number with some tourists trying to copy it while others just did their own thing.

She took both his hands and pulled him into the dance, quick to catch on to the different stomping patterns and waves of hands. He was happy to follow her lead. Happy to dance with her. Happy to make this day last as long as he possibly could. Against the background of the fire, Rose looked even more like a goddess.

Doesn’t have to end. We’re on our honeymoon.

Visions of hotel rooms and many things that distracted him from dancing, nearly causing him to trip, flashed across the bond.

“Right you are, Rose Tyler.”

This time he knew better than to interrupt the dancing, dragging her off to the next great idea. They didn’t stop dancing until they reached the furthest bonfire, having moved through the square in a winding line. The dance wasn’t over, would go well into the night, but Rose’s feet were beginning to tire after being on them all day.

So as much as he wanted to run to the nearest hotel, he didn’t. They walked slowly, and she drank the last of their water, listening to the music and watching the seemingly unending dance.

When they eventually found a hotel - the Doctor didn’t feel like stopping to ask for directions - the lobby was empty of other guests, only a lone receptionist sitting at the desk.

“Hello, do you have a reservation?”

“No, no reservation. We’d like to book a room.”

The receptionist blinked.

“I’m sorry sir, there’s no rooms available. We’ve been fully booked for the festival for years.”

“For years? Really? Suppose that makes sense. Do you know of anywhere else in the area-”

“Everyone’s been fully booked for years.”

The Doctor frowned, then had them check the database just in case he did have a reservation - sometimes time travel could get around these things, tiny circular paradox. But they didn’t. Not anywhere in the city.

“Would you like to book a room for the next festival?”

He was about to say no, but then Rose said, “We’d love to. Honeymoon suite, if you can.”

Once everything was settled, they were back on the streets, still hotel-room-less for the present.

“What good did that do us?” he asked. “We’ve a room, but not for 15 years.”

“Yeah, and we’ve got a time machine, and apparently countless other honeymoons to go on. Can do the festival again, and next time we play Jikltaii I can wear a wig.”

“I love you.”

She grinned and pulled him down for a kiss. “I love you, too.”

“Still, what do we do now?”

“May not have a hotel room, but we still have the TARDIS.”

“But that’s not honeymoon-y. That’s- that’s where we live.”

“I think we can still manage to make it honeymoon-y,” Rose smirked, as a bunch of very graphic scenarios filtered into his mind.

They ran back to the TARDIS.

They didn’t make it past the console room.

They didn’t even really make it out of their clothes.

#timepetalsweek #ficandchips #ten x rose #timepetals #tenrose #dw fic #dw fanfiction #doctor who #fanfictiion #doctor x rose #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #fic: all the skies #my fic

[another-snape-story]

First Acquaintances

Chapter II

You arrived at the place in the end of July to sort some issues, as Headmaster’s letter recommended. The trip was tiring enough; you never liked trains. Well, you surely could tolerate a one-hour jaunt, especially when the scenery offered a picturesque view, but definitely not longer. A cart ride in the heat didn’t add gayety to the mumpish disharmony of your mood either.

The castle showed in sight. It looked magnificent, one couldn’t deny. Maybe it wasn’t that bad you came here? The time will show anyway.

You sighed with relief once your feet touched the solid ground. No one seemed to bother meeting you – the Viaduct Courtyard was empty. Not the kind of a welcoming you’d expect. Great, what would you say?

Looking around you spotted a tall black figure standing in the shade of an arch. Once your eyes met, the man left his shelter and leisurely walked up you. So he was waiting for you? Good. Now you were not to waste a whole day, searching for Headmaster’s office in a huge building, which – it was typical of the places like this – surely had a couple of secrets.

“Good afternoon, sir,” you greeted him first, officially restrained as befits good manners.

“Afternoon,” answered a low deep voice. Although it was impossible for a sound to have such a distinctive attribute as color, you felt his voice was as dark as the man’s appearance itself. “Follow me, Headmaster is aware of your arrival and awaiting you.”

The man didn’t look friendly, but making friends wasn’t your purpose at the moment. Your escort asked no questions, neither did you. You walked along the corridors and staircases in a complete silence, without sharing a single word; but not that it made you feel uncomfortable.

“Sherbet Lemon,” the same deep voice lacking on any emotions broke the silence, once you approached a huge statue of golden griffin standing within a high arched recess in the stone wall. It was amusing to hear these words suddenly coming from the person with such a serious expression on his face, and your lips twitched in an attempt to suppress a grin.

The griffin turned around, revealing another staircase leading somewhere upwards. The tall man all in black let you go first and trod after you.

“Nice to meet you!” an old wizard in silver gown greeted you with an amiable smile showing from under his long white beard. “Headmaster Albus Dumbledore,” he introduced himself and laughed faintly. “Although it’s obvious enough, I don’t consider it an excuse not to serve the decencies!”

You smiled politely, wishing to get to business as soon as possible. If this playful manner was his usual style of interaction, now it wasn’t a surprise the other man never smiled at all.

“You already know Professor Snape?” Dumbledore stretched a hand in his direction.

“No, actually,” you turned your head to see him; this was the second time you looked him in the eyes. Black they were, would you ever question this?

“I’m afraid we had no time for formalities,” he didn’t take his eyes off you. His gaze was impassive (same as his voice you already grew fond of), but you felt like he could see you through.

“Severus…” the older man sighed disappointed. “What an impression would you make on our new colleague!”

“If there’s nothing else I can do for you, Headmaster, I assume you have something more important to discuss, so it would be tactful if I left you alone now?”

“Sure, you may go, Severus,” Dumbledore sighed again.

The man Headmaster called Severus nodded slightly and disappeared behind the door. A few hours passed before you could do the same. During this time, you’ve had four cups of tea, which seemed to stream out of your ears, if you took another sip. Your new boss explained you your duties and answered all the questions, which popped up in the course of your conversation, unless you found the information comprehensive enough to start working. So you signed the contract, and from now on there was no way back for you.

Once in the corridor again, you tried to recall which direction would bring you to the main entrance, where it all started. Good you didn’t talk to Professor Snape as he led you here, taking your time to study the surroundings. So you had to turn around the corner and then to the right, tree floors downstairs, then another long corridor, and to the left after the red shield with a roaring golden lion to a wide spiral staircase, which had to take you to the home stretch.

You unhurriedly made your way through the castle, scanning the doors and other stone decorations. The place seemed calm and peaceful, but would it be such at the beginning of September? Hardly so.

Suddenly the staircase you just stepped on started moving and you found yourself somewhere the tall man in black never took you before. Fantastic! Why would someone warn you about such a trifle? Luckily, this part of the castle seemed even more majestic. A line of arched stained-glass windows stretched along the wall, and the sunlight seeping through them left multiple colorful spots everywhere it could reach. It looked magical. Even if you, a magician, found it magical, it definitely was!

“I would suggest you to take a guide for your first castle tour,” you heard a familiar voice from behind and turned around. “Otherwise you risk to get into No-return room, or even worse – back again to that golden griffin…” the man uttered indifferently.

You smirked; he surely had a sense of humor.

“Actually I didn’t mean to,” you explained calmly. “But the stairs decided I needed to have a look at this,” you waved your hand on the walls covered with mild diffused light specks of different colors.

Professor Snape offered you an unimpressed grunt in response.

“Don’t mind me, Professor, I’ll wait until the stairs return, so I could continue my way out,” although the man looked mysteriously attractive, you would surely survive the loss of his company.

“You might be unaware…” he informed you in a bored tone, showing lack of interest on your little chat, “…it can take a month or more... But if you have this much time at your disposal… I have nothing against you sticking here.”

“So you’re willing to help me, did I get it right?” not that you didn’t like his peculiar manner, but at this very moment you had no desire to play his games. You felt too weary for that.

“This way,” he passed by you and you followed him, suspiciously studying his back.

“Headmaster asked you to look after me?”

“No.”

“So it was your private initiative?” you concluded.

“No.”

“How would you know I got lost then?”

“Coincidence,” he explained apathetically. Why you didn’t believe him?

He didn’t say a word above that, neither did you have a slightest desire to continue this irreciprocal dialogue. You were curious if all the staff members held themselves detached, or was it just him. The answer seemed evident enough though.

“Thank you for rescuing me from this stone captivity,” giving in, you honored the man with a grateful smile. Who knows how long you would wait there for the stairs to return, if it wasn’t for him. “I owe you a favor.”

“You’d better not owe me anything,” he warned coldly, piercing you through with an intent gaze of black eyes.

“Yet still I do,” you stated, showing your readiness to keep your word. “I won’t steal your time any longer. Have a nice… month… before the start of the term,” an amiable smirk crossed your face. With this you climbed in the cart and set off back to the city.

You forgot about the man soon, about the castle, about everything concerning that place.

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#snape #severus snape #snape x reader #severus snape x reader #snape fanfiction #severus snape fanfiction

[churchyardgrim]

#2 from the d&d ask meme? it is a fantastic question

before they met their party, what was their main goal?

oooo excellent opportunity to plug my boy’s four page backstory that i just realized i never posted here!

tldr Silas wants to study a perfect immortal in order to defeat death, bc death insulted him once and he never got over it hghdfg

Silas Edelhart has a problem. That problem is death.

He was born to minor nobility, old money making use of their hereditary ambition to generate new money on the merchant routes, and he was lucky enough to not be his father’s preferred heir; he was allowed to take to academia, or else join some priesthood and curry favor with the lesser sons of other noble houses. He chose academia.

He was enamored with it. The libraries! The minds to learn from. The men. The women! The men. The only disappointment was that apprentice physicians did not get invited to many parties, something Silas was hard at work remedying when he was presented with an unwittingly significant patient.

A farm hand from outside the city had been delayed in reaching them for medical care, and his injuries - an accident with a plow, they were told - had gone gangrenous. He was insensible with fever, and would have lost the leg even if his people hadn't taken so long in getting him to the medics; as it was, despite amputation and efficient treatment for blood poisoning, he expired overnight, in Silas's care.

Silas was crushed. He had done everything right, double and triple checked his protocols, and still the man had died. “No one blames you, of course,” one of the senior physicians said to him, “these things simply happen.”

Maybe they ‘simply happened’ to other people, Silas thought bitterly, but he was better than that. He had decided the man would live, and his performance had been flawless! The terminity of a mere natural law to stand in the way of his will was intolerable. Incensed, Silas threw himself at his studies, dead set that it should never happen again.

Resurrection magic wasn't what he was after initially; he only wanted to keep the living where they were. But he found quickly that the popular consensus was that healing magic could only do so much, and most simply accepted its failures as they did any other misfortune. So he hunted out spells to wrench the dead back, hidden and fragmented in books his instructors only grudgingly let him read. Time would tell if they would be enough, however; none of the accounts of their use he had read gave any indication of the effects being permanent. It would be so embarrassing, to put so much work into defying death only to have his prize killed in a careless accident! He would not settle for anything less than complete immunity from death.

His practice only pushed him deeper into this conviction; plenty of his patients lived, much improved from treatment, but a few still died despite his efforts, reigniting his rage at death every time. He began to get a reputation for it, and some of his peers started tactfully funneling away those patients that seemed likely to die with or without medical care, to spare themselves his rants. Many of them thought his anger came from an insult to his skills, but this was all wrong; he knew his skills were exceptional, the failure was not his.

It is the gods’ fault, Silas decided. The gods had set this wretched law in place, to kettle and humble mortal creatures. But... no, the gods themselves are yet subject to death, have died in scores. So, death is a greater power than even them.

But in one book, ill-used and forgotten, Silas found mention of a god returning from death. A resurrection on a divine scale. And once that possibility had revealed itself, the hints between the lines of other books made themselves apparent; someone had performed that resurrection, exercised mastery over death in such a way that it left Silas’s mouth watering. How? How had it been done?

The next few months of frantic research and evasion - the concern from his tutors was enough to warn him that no one wanted him to go looking for this - led him eventually into the university’s vaults. To a broken-legged construct, dormant, containing a withered, desiccated hand. Not the hand of the godly resurrectionist, no, but the hand of someone who, certain books implied, might have been a devotee of that individual. A relic of a necromantic saint.

Silas stole it, of course he did. Made use of a debt owed by an engineer of the local guilds to repair the construct housing, and treated it as a treasured prize. Such mysteries, opening to him now with the artifact’s communion; he graduated quickly from books to practice, retreating into his own rooms to make frogs twitch and test ancient ideas on the animation of flesh. He took on fewer and fewer patients, withdrew from the society of his peers… for the most part.

Sera Mournleaf was brilliant. Sera Mournleaf was intense. And some days, Sera Mournleaf was the only thing that could distract him from his work. An elf with connections, she did him many favors in getting him subjects to work on, meat with which to test his theories, and had an insightful and sparkling mind with which to discuss the less publicly acceptable aspects of spitting in the face of death. So what if she stayed up later than him some nights, reading and rereading his notes. So what if every time she visited her aging human father she came back slumping with worry. He cannot expect things to be about him all the time!

Besides, he had little focus to spare for things not his research, now. He had been forced to take up the shovel himself, more than once, to find fresh bodies that would be more difficult to trace back to him - they keep a close eye on the university morgue, he learned better than to try that more than once. And he had had no small success, stripping corpses of their unnecessaries and stitching the most promising parts to one another, speaking to his prized relic with equal parts demand and prayer.

The results infuriated him at first. Lurching, wretched things, no better than flesh constructs, most of them had to be destroyed; that shriveled hand granted Silas holy fire as easily as it had clues to the resurrectionist arts. But he persisted, and grew to view them as necessary stepping stones towards a greater perfection. He grew more bold, more reckless, and felt himself forever on the verge of a cataclysmic revelation.

It was not to be. He was found out. The right word in the right ear brought the law crashing down on his shoulders, and he watched them burn his experiments with a guardsman kneeling on his back. It was broken, all of it, his research carted away in boxes (fewer boxes, maybe, then he thought there should have been), and Silas himself thrown in prison to scream his rage at the uncaring stone.

The trial was a farce. Somehow, Silas's family managed to find reason enough to pull half the lawyers in the city to his defense, while at the same time making it very clear that under no circumstances was he to darken their doorstep ever again. In the same two hour span his prospects went from life imprisonment to a mere slap on the wrist of exile, and then summarily informed that he had been neatly removed from the last will and testament of his every living family member. It was a very trying day.

At the end of it he was stripped of his qualifications, most of his wealth confiscated, and ejected from the city with his mouth sewn shut with wire; an archaic punishment for heresy, invoked here merely as sorry consolation on the part of the law that they couldn’t execute him outright. In the proper spirit of the thing, he should have left the stitches in place and let himself starve, and in deference to the bare truth of his crimes Silas endured it for three days before getting sick of the whole thing and cutting himself loose.

He had managed to keep his precious relic in its construct housing, the only thing worth bribing a minor official to sneak out of evidence lockup, and he quickly put distance between himself and wretched Misthaven, thinking nothing but bitter thoughts towards his betrayer. Selfish, horrible Sera; she had gotten cold feet, most likely. Come over all moral about what he had been doing, let slip to the magistrate that perhaps she knew who had been plundering the city's burial grounds at night. Well! She will just have to wait and see, won't she. Wait until he can begin his work again, reach as yet unseen heights of resurrection. Then he would return to Misthaven and enact some fitting revenge, on her and all those who had a hand in ruining him.

(Miss Mournleaf could have argued, the better part of a year later, that his unwitting parting gift was revenge enough. Babies scream like they’re being murdered, and the damn thing looks just like him. She left it with the nuns and got on with the business of saving her father.)

And so he wandered, working as a physician in small towns and middling cities, trying his damndest to reestablish his research in some capacity. But his funds never stretched that far, and neither did the patience of his neighbors; more than once he had to flee under cover of night, for misdeeds real or imagined. Most of these were unmemorable affairs, and only irritated him. Once, the mercenary paid to kill him proved a delightful match, in combat and energy, and the man made an affair of running away with Silas, and Silas ended up growing remarkably fond of Cassian Hellier, for all his unrefined brutishness. They still keep in touch, whenever either of them is in civilization long enough to hire a messenger to carry letters.

A decade passed in this fashion before Silas began to hear rumors. Travelers between worlds, fading in and out of unearthly mist, serving a genuine immortal. He seized upon these threads, passion alight again; a near perfect undead, far superior to the wretched things he had managed to raise back in Misthaven, yes. He would follow the travelers, seek out their master, see what, if anything, of the rumors were true. If they are... he would study, and learn, and replicate the results. And if not? Well, the corpse of even a lesser undead would be a beautiful thing.

#dnd #silas #boyo's a death cleric/graveyard rogue and i LOVE HIM #Anonymous

[transgamerthoughts]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Thoughts and Ramblings

Surprised to dust this off but I want to collect my thoughts quickly now that credits are rolling on Remake:

In general, I enjoyed it quite a lot. As one of many players with a unique relationship to the original (I first “played” it watching a childhood friend over the course of several sleepovers before playing on my own and occasionally returning to it) I was skeptical. I’ve express some of that skepticism at Kotaku , a website I write at. Remakes and remasters sometimes fall short or deviate in strange ways. Remake forges its own path and I’m grateful for it.

SPOILERS AHEAD KIDDOS

So! Here’s some scattered thoughts. Maybe they end up on Kotaku, maybe not. And while I’m loathe to immediately rush to create content on a Sunday night, this game has my mind spinning. Here we go.

The characterizations in this game are very strong, perhaps stronger than the original’s Midgar section. Some of that is owed to a very bad localization in ‘97 (you can get insight into that from my former colleague Tim Rogers’ series here) but Remake takes a lot of effort to allow the cast to breathe. That can come from the ways in which Cloud alters his way of taking with Tifa, and it can come in the moment where Barrett is more explicitly an ideologue. It’s quite good even if the script has a flaw that we’ll talk about in a second. 

That flaw is, frankly, that if you’ve not played the original then Remake is going to end up impenetrable in the final hours. This is particularly true once characters like Zack are brought into the fold and the visuals begin to mirror the original. (See: the hard cuts before Sephiroth and Clouds final duel mirroring the Omnislash moment from ‘97.) I don’t think that diminishes the character work here but I think that the more interesting meta-narrative stuff *so* damn crucial to this game that I can’t imagine what a newcomer will think. 

Connected to this, I’ve seen folks disappointed that this is not a perfect remake but in this instance, I think that sentiment is misplaced. Valid, but shortsighted? You can’t make Final Fantasy VII today. Not in the way it existed in ‘97. Which isn’t to say the visuals or script but the context cannot be reproduced. New hardware, FMVs taking a forefront, an advertising campaign that positioned the game in competition with movies, and a cultural splash that the series hasn’t ever quite replicated. Because the weight of expectation hovers over Remake—folks have been obsessed with a new version since the PS3 tech demo stirred imagination at E3 2020—the game *needs* to be about that. To be a game about this moment, the moment gamers have waited decades for, Remake needs to be about itself in a very explicit way.

I can’t not see the Whispers and Arbiters of Fate as anything other than stand-ins for gamers, fans, and the culture as a whole. That’s an obvious reading but an undeniable one. The core question of Remake doesn’t really have much to do with the fictional stakes. It’s this: who owns Final Fantasy VII, and who owns the Remake? Is it the story tellers or the players? I have a cheat answer: it belongs to the characters. In unbinding themselves from player expectation, they claim ownership over the narrative now. 

Aeris just flat out knows she’s in a sequel/alt-timeline thing. Her final line is about missing the surety of something as presumably ever present at the metal sky of Midgar’s plates. 

I like the combat here more than FFXV, which isn’t saying a lot but worth saying. There’s more participation from the player. That’s it. I don’t think *more* active choice inherently makes a combat system better but it is the key reason this works better than XV.

Character swapping breaks things somewhat since enemy aggro is (save for using the provoke materia) focused on the player. Wish the combat design took this into consideration a bit more. It’s the one glaring flaw in the system.

Tifa is the most fun to play as in this game. It’s not even a contest. Starshower is overpowered as hell and Chi Trap rules. Love using her to increase the potency of the stagger meter when the time comes.

Fights do get occasionally Too Busy. Airbuster is a big culprit here. Too many phases for what was essentially a jobber of a boss in the original game.

Train Graveyard section is an atrocious pace killer as well. Again: “too many notes.”

I never found the Nail Bat and that was a bit of a bummer.

I tweeted out a quote from Barrett this weekend and it made the rounds. In general, for this game, Barrett works best in this revolutionary mode even if certain scenes (Shinra middle manager for instance) deploy visual language that’s dated. Of any character, he has the highest highs and lowest lows. Not surprising.

re: that tweet some folks kinda lost their shit about it(?) but I think the quote still holds. Remake does a good job of showing *individuals* within Shinra but Barrett does rightly note they are complicit to an extent in Shinra’s crimes. You can disagree with what Barrett does about it but that’s 100% true. Sorry, not sorry. (The discourse today was just a hassle frankly. Multiple things can be true at once, but I don’t think Twitter is a place where that’s ever acknowledged.) Whatever eventual regrets he might feel about methodology in ‘97′s script, he’s not wrong on this individual point. I’m interested to see where he goes as a character when it comes to all this.

Kinda related to the above, Remake arguably does a better job than ‘97 showing the alternative to Shinra. It’s the communal nature of the individual sectors. It’s the Neighborhood Watch and local leaders in Sector 7, the trio in Wall Market. Remake rejects Shinra’s autocracy and favors the various slums communes. This is made ever more clear by how little of Reeve we see in this script. Who are the leaders shaping life into a passable experience in Midgar? It’s not the Urban Planning guy with the cat robot. 

Also: hey, is that Cait Sith in the plate drop cutscene? Yep! Hope you played the original or there’s just this sad cat that shows up for 4 four seconds.

Is he a Chad? Well, he’s Chad-ley...

Not sure what to think of the Wutai stuff being more explicit but it feels right for 2020 for a variety of reasons. I’ve never been too interested in FF7′s realpolitik tho. It’s not really much of an expansion so much as a background element but one that’s deployed a bit lazily. 

Roche owns in a way I was not expecting. He’s a balls to the wall anime motherfucker and I kinda love him? I’m really, really surprised that (as far as I could tell) he didn’t even come back for the final bike sequence tho.

I don’t really have the energy to litigate or talk about Wall Market much. I think it’s better than the original but pandering in the sense that it’s a very safe and commodified version of queerness. I appreciate that Nomura and folks looked at the original and were like “well, we can’t do *that*” but it doesn’t quite land for me.

That said: “yes, I know, nailed it,” is a fantastic line with a fantastic read from Cloud’s English VA.

Hell House announcers rule. Hell House fight? Kinda terrible actually.

Nice shout out to Kunsel in Shinra Tower. Crisis Core is a messy game but I like Tabata’s work a lot. Even the messy stuff, which is most of it. That game’s story is bonkers but I like Zack and I actually like the idea of the Digital Mind Wave as a mechanic. If nothing else, Squeenix lost a pretty exciting designer when he left.

Less nice? This game’s tendency to pad out dungeons. The whole approach to the Sector 5 reactor comes to mind. Train fight then tunnels then sun lamps then reactor. It’s a lot. Also: all of the extra Hojo stuff. I know we’re padding out like 5 hours but some of the sections could have been abbreviated. Probably would have made the game better.

Even less nice? Zack’s English voice actor. Maybe the only voice actor I didn’t like. Really miss Rick Gomez on this one. 

 Conversely, Red XIII? They nailed it. 11/10. Nanaki, I love you so much.

 Counterstance is an amazing move and I can’t want to carry that over into Hard Mode. 

The Jenova fight fuckin’ ripped. I was a bit huffy when I learned through leaks that there was a Jenova fight (since the first fight in the original is on the boat to Costa Del Sol) but this was a great set piece. One of the moments where everything worked.

Also good: Rufus fight. Bad: losing Rufus’ speech to the party.

Not a ton more thoughts right now? Sephiroth fight was good although for all his presence in the story I think we suffer without the full Nibelheim flashback to round things out. In all really liked it. Want to play again pretty much immediately. Will write something more cogent for the site I guess? Got a few ideas. But yeah! entered as skeptic and left mostly a believer on this one. 

#final fantasy vii remake #spoilers

[danielcooperrp]

Terror

As much as he loves being around his wife, like, all the time, these days, he’s grateful for the little pockets of time he gets one-on-one with their daughter. Just over the six month mark, Anna tells them something new about herself every day, and the chance to see it, to be the first one to discover that she gets the hiccups when she eats too late or that she’s afraid of the leprechaun on his Celtics sweatshirt, feels like a personal triumph. So when Ally told him that she was going to take a long weekend and help Nat out on a service mission in Ecuador, he sent her off with a kiss and a wave of the baby’s chubby fist, ready for some quality daddy-daughter time in the city. 

Around noon on Saturday, after a lazy morning snuggling in bed, Daniel sets them up in the living room, queuing up the Patriots’ 2001 AFC Divisional Playoff game on the TV. “Okay, Jelly Bean,” he says, lowering her into her Pack ‘n’ Play, “if we’re gonna get you caught up on Patriots history, we’re gonna have to start you early. The Snow Bowl is a perfect entry point, so pay attention.” She blinks up at him with wide eyes. "Just be glad I’m not starting you with Red Sox history, little girl. It’s much longer and much more depressing. You don’t need to learn about Bill Buckner ‘til you’re older.”

He settles on the couch with a mug of tea and hits play, and soon he’s narrating the game to Anna. “So the false start means that a set offensive player crossed the line of scrimmage before the ball was snapped. Can you say ‘scrimmage’?” She shrieks, shoving a stuffed bulldog into her mouth. “Fantastic.” 

Just after the start of the second quarter, a familiar odor pervades the room. He pauses the game. “Uh-oh!” He grins at the baby. “I think someone needs a diaper change, and since Uncle Connor isn’t here, I have a guess who it might be.” 

He bends down to scoop the offender into his arms, dramatically pinching his nose to make her giggle. He carries her into the nursery—what was once Jonathan’s room—and sets her up on the changing table. It takes him longer than strictly necessary, given his penchant for singing operatic ballads to narrate everything he’s doing, much to his audience’s delight. She cackles as he dances the wet wipe in front of her, giving it an impossibly deep baritone. 

He’s just finished snapping the closures on her onesie (navy blue and red, for the occasion) when he hears what sounds like exploding glass from the living room. Confused, he picks Anna up and, cradling her against his chest, tentatively leaves the nursery. It takes him a few moments to see what happened—the room looks more or less normal, the usual insane amount of baby toys strewn all over the place, his mug of tea where left it on the coffee table—but before he can register the glittering sea of glass on the floor, something flies across his field of vision. 

“Fuck!” he shouts, ducking back into the nursery. He slams the door shut, and the baby starts to wail. Over her cries, though, he can hear the telltale sound of tires screeching on the street below. 

“Shh,” he whispers, bouncing her more anxiously than is probably helpful. Anna’s face is growing red, so he presses nervous kisses to her cheeks, murmuring, “It’s okay, baby girl. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

He sets Anna in her crib, giving her a random stuffed animal to occupy her, and then he edges carefully to her window, which also faces the street. It’s completely clear, not a person in sight, so he guesses it’s safe to go back out. 

When he reenters the common area, he nearly vomits; the front window is entirely shattered, glass shards everywhere, and sitting on the floor in front of the TV, guilty and shocking, is a brick. He stares at it, unblinking, unable to comprehend what happened. It’s like all those years of education suddenly vanished, and he’s left with the mind of a child: Where did that brick come from? Why is in the apartment? What happened to the window? 

Stepping carefully in his socked feet, he ventures further into the room, heart pounding in his ears. He peers closer at the brick, like it’s a bomb that could explode at any moment, and something new catches his eye. There’s something in Anna’s Pack ‘n’ Play, something much different than the array of fluffy animals and wooden blocks she’d been playing with earlier. When he sees it, his stomach drops, leaving him woozy: a second brick, right where his baby girl had been sitting just a few minutes earlier. 

All caution abandoned, he stumbles forward, skin crawling, itching over his bones, to snatch his phone up from the coffee table. He scrolls frantically for his phone app, ready to call the one person he can think to need in this situation—but pauses, finger hovering over the dial button. No. Panicking is not going to help. There’s a way to handle this, and it involves a different contact. He scrolls again, and makes a call. 

“You need to come into the city,” he says flatly, quietly. “Now. Tell no one.” He hangs up. 

He moves mechanically back to the nursery, touching as little in the room as possible. He’s vaguely aware of pain in his feet, but he ignores it. He closes the nursery door again once he’s inside and picks Anna up out of her crib. He can’t imagine putting her down again, couldn’t think of not having her directly in sight. He sits stiffly in the glider that they uses to rock her to sleep, bouncing her automatically in his arms. She’s mostly stopped crying at this point, having now worn herself out. She wanders in and out of sleep, her eyes opening and closing with no real sense of reason. They sit in the quiet, her little chest rising and falling, his almost perfectly still as he barely breathes. 

He doesn’t know how long it takes, though it feels both like forever and like no time at all. There’s a mechanical crash in the living room—that stirs the baby—and a familiar voice. “DANIEL! ANNA!”

“In here.” He doesn’t even know if his voice is audible.

But it must be, because half a moment later, the nursery door is banging open, and Anna wails in his arms. “What the fuck happened?” Tony demands, suit deconstructing around him. “It’s like a war zone out there.” 

He has to work hard to pull himself together into something resembling a human person. “They threw bricks. Through the window. Two of them.”

“Who?”

“No idea.” His eyes fall down to Anna, who’s gripping the front of his shirt in one tiny fist. “One of them landed in her Pack ‘n’ Play.”

Tony staggers to the side. “Jesus Christ—is she—”

“She’s fine. We were in here when it—” He takes a deep breath. “But she had been in there just minutes before.” He finally looks back up at his father-in-law, eyes brimming with tears. “It could have killed her.” 

Tony runs a hand over his face. “I don’t understand. Who—why the fuck are people throwing bricks into your place?”

“Did you see them?”

“No, why?”

The words are burned on the inside of Daniel’s eyelids. “They’ve got ‘Die, muties’ written on them.”

The silence echoes, filling the nursery until Daniel thinks the walls are going to collapse. 

“You’re hurt,” Tony says finally, voice croaking. He nods to Daniel’s feet. “You’re bleeding.”

Daniel nods. “I know.”

“Does Ally know? Is she on her way back from...Columbia?”

“Ecuador. And no. I haven’t told her. And I’m not going to.”

Tony frowns. “Uh, hate to break it to you, kid, but I think she’s going to notice the massive hole in your window.”

“No, you’re going to help me get that fixed and this place cleaned up before she comes back.”

With a sigh, Tony says, “Look, kid, you can’t keep something like this from her—”

“I’m not going to lie to her,” Daniel snaps, and then quickly adjusts his temperament when the baby starts to fuss. “I’ll tell her everything when she gets home. But I’m not calling her back here early when there’s nothing she can do, and I’m not going to have her coming home to a terror scene. Besides, if she finds out now, she’ll go through every anti-mutant bigot in this town until she’s arrested or dead.”

“And what’ll stop her from doing that once she gets back?”

Daniel looks him straight in the eye. “You will.”

Tony snorts. “Have you ever tried to stop my daughter from doing something she wants to do? I’m a billionaire but I’m not god.” 

“She’s not going to find the people who did this because you’re going to find them first.”

Tony blinks in surprise. “Daniel, kid, listen, I get that this has been a shocking experience—”

“A shocking experience?” Daniel laughs derisively. He pushes himself up out of the glider, ignoring the stabbing pain in his feet. Tony winces. “What’s shocking is that this is the first time this has happened. What’s shocking is that we weren’t better prepared for it. What’s shocking is that I let myself drop my guard for five fucking minutes.”

“Daniel—”

“You think this is the first time something like this has happened to me? I was four when I first heard someone call my dad a kike. Walking out of Fenway, first home win of the season, we were floating on air, and some skinhead shouts it at him from across the parking lot. I was seventeen when a group of grown men chased me and Connor with bats through downtown London because they saw us leaving a gay club. I’ve been called a fag more times than I could count, and I’ve been with Ally when she’s had to walk past anti-mutant protesters all around town. Shocking? Tony, this is our fucking lives. And it almost cost my daughter hers.” 

He crumbles back into the chair, wiping furiously at the tears on his cheeks. He brushes away the curls from Anna’s face, his heart racing.

The silence is long, ended only when Tony clears his throat. “I can have the window replaced by the end of the day. We’ll get something stronger, bulletproof, brick-proof, whatever. I’ll get F.R.I.D.A.Y. to start scanning the internet for chatter about an attack on you guys, see if we can’t get a lead.”

“You can take the bricks to Detective Shannon McInerney at the station on Myrtle. She owes me a favor, can run fingerprints under the table.”

Tony tips his head to the side. “Why does a BPD detective owe you a favor?”

Daniel shrugs. “I introduced her to her wife. Tell her it’s for me.” 

Nodding, Tony turns to head out. “Take care of your feet, before you bleed out.” He’s almost out the door before he stops and turns back. “What’re the odds?”

Daniel’s barely listening, his attention turned back to the fussing baby he’s holding. “Hm?”

“What are the odds that these asswipes would choose to do this when Ally, a mutant who could easily kill them without breaking a sweat, happens to be out of town by herself for the first time in...god, forever.”

Daniel freezes, considering Tony’s words. He’s not wrong. Ally never goes anywhere for an extended period of time without him, especially not since the baby was born. The only reason she went on this trip at all was because it was only for a few days, and it was all logistical on-the-ground stuff, no actual superheroing required. The chances of them picking a random Saturday to throw bricks through their front window and hitting the one when she wasn’t home...

“What does it mean?” he asks quietly. “Why threaten a mutant if the mutant isn’t there to receive the threat?”

Tony chooses his next words carefully. “Unless the mutant they were intending to threaten wasn’t Ally.” 

The words rush over him like an icy river. His eyes widen as he stares at his daughter, petrified. No one knows, of course, whether or not Anna will end up being a mutant, but if there’s one things bigots hate more than mutants, it’s mutants making other mutants. Anna poses an existential threat to the anti-mutant agenda: the daughter of a powered superhero, the granddaughter of an Avenger, and possibly part of the next generation of mutants. 

The bricks were meant for her.

He nearly vomits. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Tony says quickly. “You hear me? You stay here, you stay with her, you get yourself cleaned up. I’ll have this all sorted out before Ally gets back, I promise you that.”

“And what will you do once you find them?” he asks, devoid of emotion. 

Tony pauses. “What needs to be done.”

A beat. “Good.” 

Tony nods, and then closes the nursery door behind him. Daniel continues to gently rock back and forth, humming tunelessly until Anna’s eyes flutter shut again. He can’t stop looking at her, can’t help but think himself in circles about what he almost lost today. Despite his diatribe to Tony, he is in shock. He’s shocked that despite everything he’s been through, he’s still able to feel the razor-sharp fear of this, the choking panic of how close he came to having his still-beating heart ripped from his chest. There have always been stakes before, the uncertainty of someone else’s behavior, the fierce anxiety of what could be done to him or to Ally or to Connor and Jonathan, but this, this little, impossible thing in his arms, all rounds edges and eyelashes, this is without a doubt going to be the thing that breaks him. 

He presses the softest kiss to her forehead. As much as his body is itching, his limbs aching to get up and run, to stash his little girl somewhere the rest of the world could never hope to touch her, he lets her sleep, breath coming slow and even, lost in a dream where only those who love her most can find her. 

#drabble #anna banana #tony #connor #v1 #thenamesallison #tw #slur #anti-semitism #homophobia #violence #this was...a lot

[charmisticdisappointment]

A Special New Year. Chapter 2 : More than Just Dance Partners?

Hey guys! Here is part 2! Hope you all like it!

None of the pictures I've used are mine! Credit goes to respective creators!

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It's already been a week in dance class. You and Chris have finally stopped stepping on each other. But not to deny the fact that you love it when you get close and your noses are about to touch. He's such a gentleman. He's not much of a talker but a huge prankster. Every time Mrs. Rose would turn around he'd break into weird moves making everyone around him laugh. But you liked to believe he was trying for you, and you had proof or so you thought. Once while you were concentrating on what Mrs. Rose was saying, Chris whispered your name doing the most ridiculous moves mouthing "I'm the best dancer, fight me!!".

You couldn't help but chuckle. "Y/N?", called out Mrs. Rose. "Any doubts?". "Oh no Mrs. Rose", you said chuckling. You landed a light punch at Chris. "You're going to get me in trouble!" you said as both of you chuckled.

You soon became very close friends. Being with him at class was like being back at school. Pranking each other, getting scolded by Mrs. Rose and having inside jokes. He wasn't a celebrity at class, he was just another guy trying to learn how to dance and failing miserably along with you. He once offered to drop you home though it was only a few blocks away.

But from the past few days, he's been forcefully dropping you home, cause his exact words were "I can't a partner with sore legs walk three blocks". He's texts you regular good mornings and good nights, sharing dad jokes like "What kind of dancing might you do in a sink? Tap dancing!" :P.  It reminded you of your boyfriend in high school, who used to do just the same. He's been making you smile more than you imagined anyone could. But you of course are careful enough not to cross the line. You always has a habit of over reading into situations. You reminded yourself that not having a stable relationship in the past few years with a determination to build a strong career  was making to think this way. All the coffee breaks, subway cravings and thrift shopping with was normal friendly behavior.

Two months went by with the blink of an eye.

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One afternoon before the last dance class:

You were in the shower when you received a call.

"Mom could you please pick that up??"

"I will. But if its from work I'm cutting the call right away"

"Okay mom. Just please pick the call."

Your Mom picks the call and answers.

"Umm could I please speak toy/n. This is Chris speaking."

Your mom was all excited that she  finally could talk to him went on,"Oh Chris. Its finally so good to talk to you. Y/N talks about you everyday. I can't get her to shut up. And she has a million posters and pictures of you....."

Before your mom could continue you just grab your phone and speak.

"Hi Chris. It's me. You called for..."

"Before I get to that," he's says in a funny voice, "for how long have you been stalking me?" He laughs.

"Come on. I really like Captain America and Fantastic four. So I might have collected a  few posters and pictures over the years!", you say giving the death glare to your mom.

" Okay, I just called to ask what your wearing for tomorrow. Since its the last day. I just wanted us to be in the same color scheme", he said.

You turn red, "What color?? I haven't thought about it yet......"

Your mom quickly takes the phone from you and says,"She'll be in Royal Blue tomorrow."

"Thank you ma'am. That's my favorite color. And it was a pleasure talking to you."

"Oh that's really sweet of you Chris. And I was wondering if you and your family would like attend our New Year party. In case you haven't made plans already!"

"That's actually possible. We cancelled our plans this year, wanting to keep it low-key. I'd love to join if aren't troubling you!"

"Oh no Chris. More the merrier! We'd love you have you and your family!"

"I can't wait to meet Y/N's family. We'll be there. Thanks for inviting us!"Chris says cutting the call.

Your mom has the hugest grin on her face and just said you're wearing blue, and invited the Evans family to your family get together.

"Mom..." you start off before she cuts you. "Honey. I've got you a blue dress. And remember I owe you one for listening to me and taking those dance lessons. I'm just returning the favor."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For 30 Days of Chris : @jtargaryen18​

#30daysofchris2020 #cevans #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans imagine #imagine #love

[azookiex3]

A Devil’s Love - Chapter 2

AN: This chapter is during Season 2 Episode 9!

Warnings: Swearing

Chapter 1: All Bad Things, I Promise

AO3

Fanfiction Net

Chapter 2: All I Don't Know

To say your first couple months back home was a walk in the park would be a big fat lie.

Nothing bad really happened. Well, except when your BFF got in that bad car accident and you swore up and down it had something to do with you, but she pushes you away and says she's fine and can't stand you and Lucifer taking the blame.

Why would Lucifer be taking the blame, you thought. So, you ask him. Like any sane person would do who was overprotective of their friends. If you ended up being wrong about this guy being “good” and “nice”, you had to get him away from Chloe.

But no. He's not bad. Just crazy. What with continuing with his “Devil” shtick and claiming it was one of his “Angel” brothers trying to take what his father, aka “God”, gave him in exchange for a favor.

And you thought you were crazy before, but it wasn't true for you, so why would it be true for him?

Oh, and after that whole fiasco poor Chloe finds out that her real father’s killer has been free all this time. No reprimanding, no worries. Just a cop killer who got to continue his life freely. Turned out the killer was Warden Perry Smith, and he was responsible for many set up kills. You remember the failure you felt when Smith managed to destroy his scent from your hounds. The bastard didn’t get far, though. Maze managed to easily capture him, and from then on became the LAPDs number one bounty hunter.

But, with all that bad came a lot of good. Not easily, of course. It's hard work trying to find a suitable building in the perfect location for your next veterinarian hospital. You, with the help of your trusty sidekick Alice Green, managed to find just that though.

Next, while you sorted out the building paperwork and searched for a good construction company, you had to find a place to live. That, thankfully, went much quicker then finding the next “Circle of Life Veterinary Clinic” building.

Chloe kept trying to convince you to move in with her instead of Maze, but you politely decline. You didn't want to be the one who made that badass fighter homeless. Besides, you like having your own space.

And to top all that off, you got your old job back as the Captain of the K9 division of the LAPD. You missed training your dogs & officers, plus having that paycheck, the paycheck from the “CoL VC” in NY, and the future paycheck of the next CoL building allowed you to not stress financially.

Currently, you were standing in “CoL VC #2” watching the progress come along. You smile as you see how well, and fast, things are going. If this keeps up, you'll be able to open up within the month.

Which means you and Alice need to start hiring people.

You sigh to yourself and rub your forehead, closing your eyes. First things first, you had to find someway to properly thank Lucifer for giving you the name of this construction company.

“They are a fantastic company! Did very fine work in my club. Why not come see for yourself tonight?” Lucifer looked at you like he looked at Alice the first day.

“Not a chance.” You smiled at him and crossed your arms, building up a barrier.

“Oooh, playing hard to get are we?” He licked his lips and looked you up and down, “I like it!”

“Ok. This was obviously a bad idea.” You huffed and started to leave Chloe’s desk.

“Wait, K9!” You stopped and turned back towards him, “I’m sorry, truly,” he looked sincere and placed his right hand over his heart, “Here.” He grabbed the yellow sticky notes and a pen from Chloe’s desk and began to write.

“Just tell the owner that you’re with me,” He handed you the note and smiled, “He'll give you a large discount, I'm sure.”

You looked down at the note and couldn't help the thought of how beautiful Lucifer’s handwriting was, “Thank you, Lucifer.” You looked up to him and smiled, a genuine one this time.

“You’re quite welcome, my dear,” He gave you a genuine smile back, then turned flirtatious again, “Though I would like you to come to my club, so you can see what those constructors are really capable of. It’s so sad their talents will be wasted on a animal clinic.”

“Uh-huh.” You shook your head, still smiling, and walked away.

Your phone’s ringtone knocks you back to the present. The call says it’s Chloe, but when you answer it-

“SOME DADDY KILLER BOY IS GOING TO MAKE ME HOMELESS!” Lucifer’s voice blares through your phone so loud that the workers around turn towards you and you swear your ear is bleeding.

“Sooo, you think the perfect way to stop this ‘Daddy Killer Boy’ is to make me go deaf? Well, you’re doing very well so far,” you bring your phone to your none deaf ear and rub the now deaf one.

“The Detective won’t help me-” You can hear Chloe yelling at him in the background saying to give him back her phone. You hear a bit of a scuffle, and can physically imagine Chloe shaking her head as she gets her phone.

“Sorry about that, Earth. Calling you is the only way I can think of to help Lucifer,” You can tell Chloe is saying that last part to him directly, and can just imagine his eye roll.

“What’s going on?”

“Our new case victim is Dean Cooper.”

“That LA real-estate tycoon guy?”

“Yup. It looks like he died having dinner with his possible killer. The killer looks to have shattered a champagne glass and stuck a shard in Dean's throat.”

“Ouch.”

“Ella’s still at the crime scene trying to piece the glass back together in order to get fingerprints.”

“Oh, Ella,” You smile and shake your head, “What a good little scientist.”

“Agree, if a bit crazy,” Chloe holds in a laugh, “Well Mr. Cooper was the one who owned the block that Lucifer’s nightclub is on and it seems like Mr. Eric Cooper, Dean's son, is pretty quick in reclaiming his father’s properties.”

“I see…So I’m guess he’s suspect numero one?”

“Yes, but this is why I’m calling you,” Chloe gives an audible stressful sigh, “I just...I can’t seem to keep my mind on this case with the court on Perry Smith right around the corner. Plus, with my mom flying in tonight and Dan being busy with a bomb case-”

“You don’t need to say anymore, Chlo. I’ll take care of this. Just send me the address to the crime scene and I’ll take over.”

“Thank you, Earth,” You can just hear the weight lift off your BFF’s shoulder, “I’ll text you the details right now. I owe you one.”

“This is what friends do for eachother, Chloe. You should know that by now,” before you hang up you can hear Lucifer in the background, “Hurry along, K9! Every minute I get closer to homelessness!”

“Proper thank you, here I come.”

As you pull up to the crime scene you see the medics carrying away a body bag, aka Dean Cooper. So, there will be no need to worry about seeing a dead man, but there is an angry british man heading straight towards you.

“Finally! Does my homelessness mean nothing to you?” Lucifer says, but despite being upset he still opens your car door and helps you out.

“Lucifer you’re, like, a zillionaire or whatever,” you nod your thanks and you both head inside the dead man's house, “I highly doubt you’d let yourself be ‘homeless’ for more than an hour, at most.”

“But this is LUX, K9.” You try to ignore Lucifer’s desperation and come up besides Ella, who was just about to complete the champagne glass puzzle.

“Annnd, that’s how we do it!” Ella manages to place the last piece perfectly, stands up and shoves her fist in front of your face, “Ta’vonlu!”

“A puzzle solver and a Trekkie?” You laugh and smile, “Ella, I’m liking you more and more each day.”

“Woohoo! Fellow Trekkie!” Ella’s hand goes from a fist to the Vulcan greeting and you return it. The face Lucifer gives the two of you is pure confusion.

Ella gets back to work on scanning the glass for fingerprints, and in the meantime an officer hands you a folder on all info found about Dean Cooper. As you skim through the words you became disappointed, and impressed. It was amazing that a shark like Cooper had no record whatsoever.

“So, can we go to this baby shark now to arrest him and get my home back?” Lucifer stands in front of you, hands intertwined together in front of him.

“We don’t have any proof with which to arrest Eric,” you look to him as you hand the folder back to the officer.

“He has motive. That's all the proof you need!”

“Actually, you may have more than that,” Ella calls out and you go to her. She points to her laptop screen where it clearly states that Eric Coopers fingerprints were on the glass that killed his father.

“There you go! Come on chop chop,” Lucifer pushes you by the small of your back out the door and to your car, “We’ve got a baby shark to arrest!”

You barley park and shut off the engine before Lucifer is out and heading towards the Cooper building, “Lucifer wait!”

“You know, you drive just as slow as the Detective?” Lucifer stops and waits for you to catch up.

“If slow you mean ‘following traffic laws’ then yeah.” Lucifer just scoffs, “Look, Lucifer,” he looks to you with a bit of interest, he’s never heard you sound serious before.

“I understand how you’re feeling right now, I do,” You lightly touch his arm, “But Chloe has told me how you get sometimes and let me tell you: threatening to tear this guy up or torture him is not going to help you get LUX back, or this case.”

“Very well,” he returns his hand to your lower back and guides you, “I solemnly promise that the man will remain unthreatened and unharmed.”

The sound of a crash and a car alarm blaring cause you both to stop and turn around.

Eric Cooper laid on top of some poor civilian’s car. His body bleeding from almost every pore.

“Not me.” Lucifer holds up his hands in fake surrender.

“Well, shit.”

You did miss solving cases. Really, you did.

But this one was turning into a real sack of ass.

Eric Cooper was hospitalized for a full twenty four hours before the hospital allowed his wife, Christi Cooper, to take him home.

A whole twenty four hours closer to Lucifer's homelessness, and he would not shut up about it.

You and Lucifer arrive at the Cooper house to question Eric and Christi, but all you two got was another real estate shark’s name, Eleanor Bloom. Plus an extra case of nausea for both of you at the sappy love between Eric and Christi.

Eleanor, it turns out, was a real shark. Making sure Eric wasted no time in selling her that property that his father had been sitting on. That property in question was LUX, and even with Lucifer’s charm she was not giving up that land.

Which pissed Lucifer enough to abandoned you with this case. Chloe offered to help, but with her father’s killer’s court so close there was no way you were going to burden her even more. You already swore you would solve this case for her, and you meant it.

You follow up on Eleanor's lead, alone, about some shady numbers found in her accountant's books that looked like someone was hiding money. Turns out that money went to some private investigator Dean had hired to investigate someone, but the man wouldn't tell you who. You had a hunch though.

Your hunch had to be put on hold though as one of your officers comes up to you. He says they got a call about an illegal party happening at a building that was supposed to be abandoned by now.

Of course he would.

You stand before the “suppose to be abandoned” LUX nightclub with an entourage of your officers, and just sigh.

Here we go.

You have your men walk in first with you close behind, and you can hear the music cut off and people booing as soon as they see your men.

“Awww,” You hear Lucifer’s voice clearly over the crowd, “Stormtroopers have arrived, everyone! Don’t worry I’ll deal with the boys in blue.” Lucifer walks towards the officers, “You are the boys in blue, yes? The fun boys in blue aren’t due for another hour.” He chuckles and shows a wad of cash in front of your main guy, Officer Miller.

Miller just gives Lucifer a side smile and looks to his side. Lucifer follows his eye movement and his smile disappears as you walk up.

“K9?”

“I know him, Miller. I got it from here.” You ignore Lucifer and look to your officer.

“You’re sure ma’am?”

“Oh yeah,” now you look at Lucifer as you pat Miller on the shoulder, “He’s harmless.” You don’t speak again until all the officers have left, “I got to say Lucifer, I’m disappointed.”

You think your eyes might be deceiving you, but Lucifer Morningstar actually looks ashamed and distraught. You don't know why, but you actually can’t stand to see him like that.

“I mean,” you throw your hands up and turn around a full 360, “This is the first time I come to your club and you’ve got no music playing, and no people dancing around with no worries?”

You smile at him, cross your arms and raise a brow, “Tisk tisk. I may have to leave a one star review afterall.”

“Oh ho ho!” Lucifer's light returns in him, “Well, I can’t have that now can I?” He’s smiling ear to ear now, “TURN IT UP!”

The crowd cheers as the music comes back full blast. Everyone resumes their dancing, drinking, laughing, and you can’t help but to laugh right along with them.

“K9!” You turn to Lucifer who gives you that beautiful smile, “I didn't know you had it in you!”

“There’s a lot you don't know about me, Lucifer,” You smile back at him.

“Evidently! Come on,” Lucifer grabs your arm and pulls you to the dance floor.

“Oh no no no! I don’t-”

“Come on, K9!” Lucifer laughs and drags you to the dance floor, “Show me all I don't know!”

“Oh, now that’s interesting.” Dr. Linda Martin was watching you and Lucifer dance away together.

“What is?” Mrs. Charlotte Richards, well actually the body of Charlotte Richards that now belongs to the Goddess of all Creation [aka God’s ex wife and Lucifer’s mother], looks down at the tiny doctor.

“Oh, nothing much,” Linda looks at her and gives a small smile before turning her attention back on you two, “I just thought of something I have to ask a patient of mine about.”

As Linda drinks her martini the Goddess follows her eye line sight and stares at you dancing with her son. Her eye twitches.

“My son was right about you, Doctor,” the Goddess smiles wickedly, “You are incredibly insightful.”

Tag List: @insanity-is-always-fun @anushay1998 @emiwrites3reads @i-am-canada-13

#lucifer #Lucifer Morningstar #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer on netflix #lucifer x reader

[beetlejuwuce-archive]

Thaurens with 18, "Its late, shouldnt you be asleep?"

18. “It’s late, shouldn’t you be asleep?” w thaurens

babe. light of my life. dearest. i would die for you

send prompts!!!

~~

The music was blaring a little too loud from the art room for Thomas’s liking. He tossed and turned in the bed, trying to find the cause of said music, but of course, he was nowhere to be found. What a stupid thought. John always turns the music off before he crawls into bed with paint still on his arms and stains the bed sheets yet again with yellows and blues and oranges and whatnot. It was always frustrating to get out, but hey, that’s just what life is when you’re dating an artist.

What he didn’t know about dating an artist, though, was that they woke up in the middle of the night to try and work on a painting. He seemed to forget that fact when he signed up to be Laurens’s boyfriend, and then Laurens’s fiancé.

He could have sworn that John crawled in behind him at around eleven, wrapping himself around him like a sloth to a tree branch, mumbling something sleepily into his ear before snoring softly. It was endearing to a point, and maybe even helped him fall asleep. But the sloth that he knew was in his bed was no longer there, and the sheets were just barely warm.

Thomas sat up, blinking blearily around the room. It was dark, and it would normally be silent, save for the Queen music coming from down the hall and filtering in through the cracked door. They had taken a vacation to their home-away-from-home, and why Thomas let John paint during these vacations, Thomas would never know. Maybe it was the puppy eyes he got when John begged and protested that he should be allowed to convert a spare room to an art studio, in case something in the countryside piqued his fancy.

And Thomas supposed that that was what happened, then. Something had struck John in the middle of the night out of nowhere (as it often did) and forced him to get out of bed and start painting. It wasn’t abnormal, but nightly painting was usually a one-and-done deal with John. He paints till eleven-thirty and then clocks out.

Thomas felt around on the nightstand for his phone and grabbed it, blinking at the screen before grunting. He didn’t understand why John had decided to roll out of bed at the ungodly hour of four, but he was determined to tell him off for his music and tell him to come back to bed.

He rolled out of bed and slid into his slippers and a robe, pushing his glasses up onto his nose before walking out and squinting as his eyes adjusted to the light in the hallway. He walked down the hall, looking around at the different paintings the two of them had made over the years.

They both had an affinity for art, so they either made it themselves or bought it at auctions or in random places to support people like John. Usually those artists return the favor from commissioning John on Etsy.

Most of the paintings were of sunsets or fields or dogs John wished he owned, and likewise, paintings of cats Thomas wished he owned. The two of them were polar opposites of each other, and that’s what made them so attracted to each other; John was loud, a fire, a dog person and a night owl. Thomas was more collected, calculated and methodical, while also being a cat person and an early bird. Their opposite habits really made them the poster couple for that silly old saying, ‘Opposites attract!’ and that is what drew Thomas towards John. That, and he was fantastic in bed.

Thomas, caught up in his reminiscing about their relationship over the last four or so years, didn’t quite recognize that he was leaning tiredly against the doorway of John’s art room until the music paused and John was smiling at him from over a canvas. “Tom,” he practically whispered, seeing as Thomas was far away in dreamland at the moment, “it’s late, shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Thomas blinked at him for a few moments before smiling at him dreamily. “I woke up to the sweet sounds of Freddie Mercury yelling down the hallway about his bicycle.”

“Was it that loud?” John huffed a little and fiddled with the volume on his phone. “Sorry. I really didn’t mean to wake you, Tom, but I had this dream about-”

“Jack, as much as I would love to hear about your mind’s exploration of another galaxy, I really am exhausted. I need you to come back to bed.”

“Aww, Tom can’t get any sleep without me, huh?” John laughed and dropped a paintbrush into a mug labeled ‘paint water’ in calligraphy, because God knows how many times he’s confused the paint water for his coffee. “It’s alright, I”ll just tell you in the morning about it.”

“You’re doing watercolor? I thought you hated watercolor.”

“I do, but the only way to get better is to practice, right?” John smiled at him as he wiped his hands off on a dirty rag, and Thomas smiled at him more. “I suppose that’s true.”

“It is. It’s all everyone’s drilled into my head since I picked up a paintbrush.” The word ‘everyone’ in that sentence had a star next to it, due to its exception, but neither of them paid mind to said exception. They were both a little too tired to reminisce about that sort of thing.

“Oh, whatever,” Thomas yawned, reaching to grab for John’s hand, “just come back to bed with me. You owe me one for waking me up like this.”

John grinned at him as he grabbed his hand. “I’m sure that can be arranged.” He waggled his eyebrows at him, and Thomas slapped his arm before dragging him down the hall. “Tomorrow, Jack. Now it’s bedtime.”

“Sure, sure, whatever you say, Tom.”

The life really couldn’t get any better.

#hi im proud of this #hamilton #thaurens #thomas jefferson #john laurens #my fic #drabble #i flexed my hamilton muscles for the first time in god knows when

[damienthepious]

it’s PROPOSAL/MARRIAGE day for penumbra pride week, and if I didn’t put up more of this fic I would cancel myself

The Rite Of Movement (Chapter 4)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [ao3] [Ch 5]

[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters:  Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep, Original Monster Character(s), Sir Marc, Sir Talfryn, Sir Angelo, Quanyii, Sir Caroline

Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Engagement, Post-Canon, Domestic Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Poetry, Presents, Monster Customs, Dancing

Fic Summary: Arum has a surprising revelation about his own feelings, and then decides to take matters into his own claws since his humans don’t seem to realize what they are denying themselves.

Chapter Summary: A few personal invitations, and some uninvited guests.

Chapter Notes:  Y'all this chapter went a bit off the rails, and I think you'll be able to tell exactly where it happened. That's mostly why it took a full month between the last one and this. Forgive me? <3 thank you, as always, for reading <3

***

It’s easier, with Tal still writing up his field guide to Arum’s swamp, for Rilla to bully the brothers into stopping by her hut for a visit. Wherever they are, the Keep can provide an easy door, and all Rilla has to do is time it right and give them an expectant, inarguable glare. Plying them with food usually helps, too.

When she has them settled in the front room of her hut, picking eagerly at a plate of laddu and a few extra chocolates Arum claims did not meet his exacting standard for the engagement gift, she gets to the point.

“We’ve set a tentative date for the wedding,” she says, pouring tea with the hint of a smile on her lips.

Tal smiles, head tilting slightly to the side. “That’s great, Rilla! When-”

“Finally. Took you two long enough,” Marc complains through a mouthful, rolling his eyes.

���Actually, it will be us three, Marc,” she corrects. Her voice and face are both entirely calm, but there is a tightness to the way she sets down the kettle.

“Huh,” Talfryn says, puzzled, and then more emphatically, “Oh, um-”

“Scales actually agreed to marry you?” Marc asks incredulously. “I figured he’d be a hard sell on matrimony considering how aggressively he likes to pretend to not have feelings, like, at all.”

“He-” Rilla pauses, biting her lip to keep her smile from getting too wide. “He asked us, actually.”

Tal and Marc exchange a shocked look, more at the shy joy in Rilla’s expression than at the information itself.

“Well- congratulations!” Tal says, finding his voice earlier than his brother.

“Yeah, what he said,” Marc says, still seeming a little dazed.

“Thanks.” Rilla preens, just a little. “The event itself is gonna be fairly small. For obvious reasons.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Marc says with a snort. “What’s it, just us and Angelo?”

Rilla sighs as Talfryn elbows his brother in the ribs. “Plus the Keep, maybe Quanyii if we can reach her, and a couple of Arum’s friends, apparently.”

“Scales has friends?” Marc asks, and Tal elbows him harder, and hisses his name. “Ow! What? He just doesn’t seem like the type is all.”

“Why, because he’s a monster?” Rilla attempts to feign outrage, but she’s still too overtly pleased to actually pull it off.

“Mostly just ‘cause you and Sir Damien are the only people he seems to actually, like, like. And I mean ‘people’ in the broadest possible sense. I mean, I helped save his weird castle thing and everything,” he says with a pointed gesture that nearly spills his tea, “but I still think I’m only on the barely-tolerable list.”

“He did come around to see us a lot in the last couple weeks, while I was working on the guidebook. He answered some of the questions I had for him,” Talfryn says, pursing his lips in consideration. “And he kept bringing- well,” he nudges one of the chocolates with a finger, expression puzzled, “a lot of these.”

“It was definitely the most aggressively I’ve ever been offered candy,” Marc says. “Actually I wouldn’t even say offered, really-”

“The plain ones were good from the beginning, at least-”

“Yeah but batch three of the raspberry ones stained our mouths purple for like, four days.”

“Well, that’s true, but when he switched-”

“Tal. Marc.” Rilla leans forward. “Do you want to come to my wedding or not?”

Their eyes collectively widen, and Talfryn nearly chokes on his breath to answer. “Of- of course, Rilla of course we do-”

“Obviously,” Marc adds. “I mean, I was gonna come to your wedding when it was just you and Damien, and I like scales a hell of a lot better than I- ow, Tal, my ribs.”

Rilla grins as Marc scowls at his brother. “Good. Thank you.” She pauses to tuck a bit of unraveled braid back behind her ear. “It’s gonna be on the next full moon. Even you two can keep track of the phases of the moon, right?”

“Of course we can!” Marc complains, and Rilla gives him a look before she turns to Talfryn instead.

“I won’t let him forget, Rilla,” Talfryn says, smiling. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

***

The instant Sir Damien manages to find himself alone with Sir Angelo in the halls of the Citadel, he pulls his friend aside, the words bubbling out of him in excitement.

“Sir Angelo, I have a favor to ask of you, but it will require a degree of… discretion, my friend, and before I ask this favor I must ask for an assurance that you will not draw undue attention our way when I ask. Is this fair?”

Angelo gives Damien a wide-eyed look. “I am the very picture of discretion, Sir Damien! You may rely upon my quietude and discretion and- and another word for the same skill. I am quite adept!”

Damien grips Angelo’s arm, and drags him further down the corridor, jaw clenched in mingled amusement and concern.

“Oh-” Angelo ducks his head, and lowers his voice minimally. “Oh, I was shouting again, wasn’t I?”

“Indeed.”

“Apologies, Sir Damien. I know not my own strength, nor do I know my own volume.”

“I know, Sir Angelo,” Damien smiles. “It’s alright. Here, this one is empty.”

Damien leads Angelo into a small room (or, perhaps, large closet), full of half-destroyed training dummies but empty of other people, and when he closes the door behind them he can’t quite clamp down on his grin.

“You have been positively jolly for days, my friend! What favor could you need when you seem so content already?”

Damien laughs softly, glances at the door one more time, and then quietly says, “You know, of course, that Rilla and I have been engaged for some time now.”

Angelo perks up immediately, grinning wide. “Of course! I have been anticipating eagerly the day when I may act as your second in this most joyous of events!”

Damien winces, furtively looking to the door again, and Angelo shuffles his feet in embarrassment before he repeats his entire point verbatim at approximately half the volume.

“Well,” Damien says, “you won’t have to live in anticipation for much longer, my friend.”

Angelo gasps, clamping his hands over his mouth and muffling as he says, “Sir Damien-”

“We plan to wed in a month,” he says, his grin irrepressible. “On the full moon. Rilla, and I, and…” the grin finally weakens, his nerves slipping cold fingers between his ribs, “and Lord Arum,” he finishes quietly.

“Oh.” Angelo looks puzzled for a moment, and then his expression opens back into bright, wild joy. “Oh. Oh,” and he’s half shouting again until Damien grips the wrist of his armor in warning and he manages to muffle his voice into a reasonable volume that trembles with desire to raise again. “Oh, Sir Damien!”

“I know it is unusual-” Damien starts, but Angelo shakes his head quickly and enthusiastically and puts his hands down heavily on Damien’s shoulders.

“That is fantastic, Sir Damien! You are so utterly spoiled with love, and I cannot think of any man who deserves it quite so much as you do, my friend!”

Damien feels the tears at the corners of his eyes almost instantly, and he valiantly tries to hold them back. “You- you are unconcerned that-”

“Lord Arum is a friend,” Angelo says, as if he is explaining something quite simple. “And it is clear how deeply he cares for the both of you. An abundance of love is nothing to be concerned with, Sir Damien. It is something to be celebrated!” Angelo is certainly shouting now, and when Damien wipes at his eyes and waves a hand in the air, Angelo winces apologetically and lowers his tone again. “Celebrated… quietly! Of course!”

Damien sniffles, just a little. “Yes. Yes, that is- thank you, Sir Angelo. I never should have worried. And- you will be able to… to keep this event appropriately quiet, won’t you? It is going to be a rather… private affair.”

“I… private.” Angelo frowns. “Yes. Of course! Er- with… with whom, Sir Damien, may I discuss this happy and very private event?”

“Er… Talfryn and- and Marc. Primarily.”

Angelo pauses, and then it is his turn to sniffle. Just a little. “Ah, Sir Damien…” his lip wobbles. “Would that I could shout your joy from the rooftops of this city, my friend.”

“I know, Sir Angelo, I know.” Damien smiles, a little wryly. “No one else… I cannot expect that they would understand. I myself took so long to begin to reconcile with the truth of the matter… as much as it pains me to bottle up my feelings and my love and the truth of my heart, it matters far more to me to keep my flowers safe. It is only a drop of poison, and I will drink it readily to keep far greater evils from their cups.”

Angelo’s smile blooms slow, and he squeezes his hands on Damien’s shoulders again. “That,” he says, “is precisely how a husband should think.”

***

The Keep alerts Arum of the trouble in the late afternoon, and its portal quickly displaces him near the northern edge of his swamp.

He sees the commotion right away. A monster - large soft moth wings camouflaged gray-brown and convincing mossy green, a segmented body, twitching antennae, eyes narrowed in a glare and clawed appendages scrabbling with menace - is caught in one of his traps. A nonlethal one, more lucky this creature - or at least, an incredibly slowly lethal one. He arches an eyebrow, folding his arms behind his back primly.

“It appears you are trespassing on my land,” he says, voice low and mild and shivering with danger. “I could have simply had the Keep eject you to the edge of the swamp, but it informs me that it has already done so. Twice. Perhaps you are confused,” he offers, gesturing, “and so I will give you this advice; the Swamp of Titan’s Blooms is protected, and if you continue to intrude upon it, you will not find those protections so…” he tilts his head at the enormous flytrap, its maw sinking slow enough as to be near imperceptible over the moth, “so accommodating. You will pass another way, or you will meet hungrier teeth than these.”

“’M not trying to pass by,” the creature says in a whispering lilt. “Been trying to talk. Been trying to get your attention, Lord of the Swamp.”

“What.” Arum’s eyes narrow, instantly on alert. “Why? What business could you have with me? I am not offering my services at the moment, I’ve made that perfectly clear.”

The creature flutters slightly, wings cramped by the trap, staring at him intently. “I’ve heard tell that humans have been creeping in on your land, Lord Arum. Have they met with such hungry teeth as you say?”

Arum’s tail curls in slow, dangerous coils behind him, his frill shivering at his neck. “And where… precisely… did you hear tell of that?” he hisses.

“Depends. Is any of it true?”

Arum glares at the creature, and then he unsheathes one of his knives.

A rustle off to his left makes him duck instinctively, stance defensive, but all that stumbles from the undergrowth is a human, hands empty and upturned in a pleading gesture.

“Wait please don’t hurt- don’t hurt her, we’ll leave-”

“Oh you absolute fool,” the moth mutters, dropping her face into a pair of claws. “Puck-”

Arum stares incredulously as the human winces, hands still held in that defensive, placating stance.

“He was going to stab you-”

“I most certainly was not,” Arum says. “Who- what-”

“We didn’t know where else to go,” the human - Puck? - says. “And Tetch heard about that human at Helicoid’s court, saying she loved you and-”

Arum blanches, teeth baring in distress, and the human stops, stepping sideways between Arum and the moth.

“Just- don’t hurt her. If you let her go we’ll- we’ll leave. Please.”

Arum is utterly comfortable with Amaryllis and Damien, and by now it is not even unusual to speak casually with Sirs Marc and Talfryn and Angelo, but the tone this human stranger is taking with him now is setting off more alarm bells than Arum knows what to do with.

“You- why would you care if a human claimed to-” he pauses to project a sneer, “to care for me? And why do you care what happens to this creature?” He eyes the human, then glances back to the moth, who has gone still in what appears to be terror. He takes an experimental step forward, closer to the human, and the moth does not disappoint. Her wings stutter wildly, her antennae twitching as she reaches through the bars of the flytrap’s teeth.

“Don’t- don’t hurt them, don’t you dare-”

Arum stops. “You both seem utterly convinced that I am going to hurt you, considering that you chose to come here.”

“So we made a mistake, I get it.” The human reaches out and grips the moth’s claw, their eyes wide and frightened. “If you let her go, we’ll leave. We won’t bother you again. We’ll find somewhere else-”

The moth makes a hissing noise, clutching tighter at the human’s hand. “Stop talking, Puck, he isn’t going to-”

“Release her,” Arum says, making a light gesture with one hand and sheathing his knife with another, and the flytrap begrudgingly creaks open.

The moth gives an uncomfortable burst of clicks as the teeth raise, and Arum realizes belatedly that the trap has pierced one of her wings through. At a cursory glance the damage does not look too terrible, but she will certainly be unable to fly for the time being. Arum rankles slightly, and thinks, that is not my fault.

Once she is un-pinned, the moth clambers out as quickly as she is able, and immediately wraps her uninjured wing around the human, glaring protectively over their shoulder at Arum. He raises an eyebrow.

“Well?” he grumbles. “You’re free. Leave.”

“Just- just like that?” the human says, and the moth tightens her grip. “You don’t- you don’t care that we’re-”

“Correct,” Arum says primly. “However that sentence ends, I do not care. Leave. Leave my swamp.”

“Don’t question it,” the moth mutters, pulling the human back a step or two.

“No, wait, Tetch, your wing, you won’t be able to-”

“I don’t need to fly to leave this wretched place.”

Arum doesn’t take offense at that; hopefully it means they will leave that much quicker.

“Even so, just let me treat it first, you stubborn thing,” the human says, and then they pull a folded leather pouch from their bag, and Arum watches impatiently and uncomfortably as they unwrap a roll of near translucently thin parchment, unroll it, and tear off an appropriately sized patch. They apply a strange smelling glue around the edges, and delicately press the sheet over the wound to seal it. Arum notices, now that he has the context for it, that the moth’s wings have been mended this way in the past, that there are a number of these patches, with patterns hand-painted to match the coloring of her natural wings.

Arum is reminded, in a vivid and unbidden way, of his own hands, gently tying his torn cape around the wound on Damien’s arm after their second duel. It is an unwelcome feeling. An unpleasant one, in that he despises being caused to feel any kinship with these strangers, with this bold little human and their monster.

“Wonderful,” the moth gripes, and Arum can hear the embarrassed fondness she’s trying to hide, and it irritates him even more.

“Indeed,” he drawls. “Now. If you don’t mind terribly. Keep, a portal to the northern border of the swamp, if you would.”

The portal curls itself out of the damp ground, and the two strangers step back from it automatically, startled by how quickly it appears. The moth looks at Arum warily as if she suspects him of deceit, but she nods after only a moment and pulls the human towards the exit.

“But that’s back the way we came. What are we supposed to do after that? We haven’t anywhere else to go, Tetch.” The human furrows their brow, digs in their heels and turns towards Arum with a look of determined worry. “Please. Please. Your land is vast, Lord Arum. There must be somewhere we could stay, if only for a short while, where we wouldn’t cause you trouble.”

Arum thinks of Amaryllis, the first time she looked out his balcony at the full scope of what is his; the wonder in her eyes, and the pulse of pride and pleasure it had sent through him. He shakes that feeling, and thinks instead about Sir Talfryn, enthusiastically cataloging the untold, innumerable wonders of life within his swamp. Thinks of Sir Marc, feckless as he traipses clumsily across land he does not respect. He sneers, shaking his head.

“I do not need any more uninvited visitors cavorting around my home and making a mess of things,” he says, voice gone half to snarl, and there is a pause before the two interlopers respond.

“Any…” the human trails off.

“… more?” the moth finishes, her antennae twitching in amusement.

Arum snaps his jaw shut, his frill pressing tight against his neck. A thousand times damn Amaryllis’ siblings.

“How many visitors infest your land, lizard Lord?”

“That is decidedly not your concern, moth.”

“Her name is Tetch,” the human says gently.

“I could not be compelled to care,” Arum snarls. “The both of you, get through the damned portal or I’ll throw you back in the flytrap with my own hands.”

The moth - Tetch - flares her wings wide, hissing, but the human furrows their brow. “I… I am beginning to think that you won’t, actually.”

Arum glares the fragile little creature down for a long, tense moment, but they completely fail to quail under his gaze. The Keep croons a question through the portal, and Arum hisses a sigh, then drops his eyes. “I don’t have time for this,” he mutters. “If you wish to continue wandering the swamp until one of you falls into an errant hole in the murk or another of my numerous traps, you may kill yourselves at your leisure.” He gives an exaggerated bow with bad grace, then turns on his heel. “Keep, take me home.”

The first portal sinks away, and the Keep pulls open a new one in front of Arum.

On the other side of this new portal, however, Amaryllis is half turning, grinning brightly as she catches sight of him.

“Arum! I was just coming… back from…” she trails off as Arum freezes in place. “Uh. Arum?”

Arum stands as still as possible, his hands compulsively at the hilts of his knives though he is unsure when they got there. He sees, just out of the corner of his eye, as the human behind him gives a strange little wave.

“Ah, hello there,” they say, and Arum bristles as he hears the smile in their voice. “I’m Puck, and this is my- well. My monster, Tetch. I believe we’ve already met yours.”

***

“Ooooooooooh, we are going to a wedding!”

“What?” Caroline frowns automatically, turning from her mountain of paperwork - damn the Queen and damn her again - towards her witch. “What are you on about?”

Quanyii hugs a rather absurdly large bee against her chest, stroking the fuzz on its head enthusiastically as she waves a sheet of parchment in the air between herself and the knight. “A wedding, sweets! Looks like my favorite little herbalist is finally tying her boy and her beast down!”

“What?” Caroline says again, her frown deepening. “Where- where did you get that?” She asks, gesturing towards the bee, the parchment, the entire mess.

“Never mind that, babe, that’s boring. It’s much more exciting to think about how many new and interesting friends we’re going to make at this shindig!”

Caroline snatches the sheet from Quanyii’s hand, and the witch pouts at her as she scans over the scrawling handwriting. “This… this is not addressed to us.”

“Oh?” Quanyii tilts her head, the movement too innocent to be anything but false.

“Your name is not Leith.” Caroline levels a glare at Quanyii, who musters a wildly flirtatious look in return. When Caroline doesn’t blink she lowers her shoulder slightly so her sleeve slides down an inch or so. When that doesn’t work, she flutters her eyelashes like a pair of panicked butterflies, and when even that doesn’t move Caroline’s expression, she finally breaks into a pout again.

“Ohhhh, you’re no fun today!”

“You stole a wedding invitation from a gigantic bee.” Caroline says in a growl.

“Don’t be mad,” Quanyii says, her voice almost entirely buried in a whine. “They wanted to invite me. I can feel it. They just didn’t know how!”

Caroline raises an eyebrow. “They… wanted to invite you.”

“They just didn’t know where to send the bumbly girl here!”

“Hm.” Caroline pauses, her lip pulled to the side in a thoughtful grimace as she drums her fingers off her biceps, reading the invitation again. “I’ll admit, I didn’t think the wilting little knight would have the fortitude to actually go through with anything this…”

“Bold?”

“Risky,” she finishes, shooting the witch a glance. “If stray witches can go plucking invitations out of the air.”

“Ohhh, don’t be like that. I told you,” she presses a hand dramatically over her heart. “They want me to come, and that’s why I know about it. These lil gals are actually very clever messenger buggies!”

“I’ll have to take your word for that,” Caroline says, eyeing the bee warily.

“Yes you will.” Quanyii ruffles her sleeves like a preening bird, her nose upturned.

“You will be sending this invitation onward to its intended recipient, now,” Caroline says, a warning in her voice, and Quanyii pouts again, a little harder this time.

“I was going to, you big mean bully. I want to meet the big tough lizard’s little friend, not uninvite him. Obviously.” She pauses, biting her lip and looking up at Caroline through her eyelashes. “Sooooooooo… does this mean you’ll come with me?”

Caroline purses her lips, and gives Quanyii a look to let her know that she is perfectly aware of what the witch is doing. “Fine. Fine. If only to see the look on Sir Damien’s face, I’ll go.”

Caroline, knowing better, presses her hands over her ears just in time to muffle Quanyii’s piercing, joyful shriek.

#elle's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #penumbraprideweek2019 #second citadel #rad bouquet #amaryllis of exile #sir damien #lord arum #(if i tagged all the folks in this we'd be here forever alas) #this one is a bit longer than the previous chapters #also- CUTTING IT CLOSE LMAO #MADE IT... BUT BARELY #the rite of movement

[erasethedarkness]

Silver Threaded Lining -Day 6 | Blind Date / Setup- (Best Jeanist x f!Reader)

Summary: Working at a news station had its perks- and one of them included being friends with a popular newswoman. When asked to take her place in a blind date, you were skeptical but wanted to help her out, accepting the request in the end. Neither of you had any idea what was in store for you once you arrived at the venerated Chateux de Joel Robuchon. 

Note: Ship and reader requested by Every.man.at.midnight on Ao3!!! Also, this reader insert is… definitely a more larger than life one. Like, it’s probably not really relatable, but hopefully it’s still one that can suspend your beliefs. The reasoning for this is that I wanted to take into consideration the type of person Best Jeanist is, and this is what I came up with and what felt most intuitive to me. Also, I’m tempted to write a sequel or turn this into a series? Just because it’s … so… fantastical and extra? Let me know what you guys think. Hopefully I didn't butcher his character since this is my first time writing for him. 

Theme Song: Tell Me Baby - Red Hot Chili Peppers 

Reader: Female (requested)

Words: 2908

Tell me baby, what's your story…

Working as a makeup artist was one of your greatest pleasures. You got to mess around with different palettes, special effects, and meet people from all walks of life. Professionally, you were employed by one of the top news stations, which gave you the opportunity to work on celebrities and heroes. And for fun, you ran a special effects channel with a fairly sizeable following and sponsorships from various makeup brands. Life was pretty solid and good, though you were too busy to focus on every aspect of it. With your work and social life booming, it was only natural that your personal and romantic life were neglected.

“Say, (Y/N), are you free tomorrow night?” one of the news anchors asked as you worked on her makeup. Her eyes were closed and brows raised, so you couldn’t make out much of an expression as you applied some shadows, but you two were fairly close and you could be honest with her. In the workplace, she was basically your best friend.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“Well… could I ask you for a huuuge favor? Please? I’ll seriously owe you one.”

You paused from her makeup, cuing the newswoman to open her eyes and look at you. She was faced with a somewhat worried and skeptical expression as you inquired more.

“What trouble did you get into?”

“It’s not trouble!” she quickly defended herself before sighing and closing her eyes so you could resume your work. “It’s just… One of my friends set me up on a date, but I’ve been talking to this guy from SVME a lot lately and I think we’re hitting it off really well, so... I don’t really wanna go on this date. But, you’re single and pretty and talented and, like… I think that whoever my friend’s got waiting for this date is gonna be a great person and maybe even a good fit for you. It’s someone she’s trying to set me up with, so… it’s not like I mean any disrespect, y’know? I’m just asking for a favor, one girl to another. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Please?”

You listened to her argument, meticulously applying false lashes and then blending it into the eyeliner so it looked flawless. Taking a step back, you looked at her face to make sure it was symmetrical and up to standard.

“You have no idea who the guy is?” you sighed, giving away that you were seriously considering it. You wanted to help her out, and it’d been about a year since your last date because you were just sick of bothering when you had other things to do, like manage a successful channel on top of working.

“Not at all. She just promised I wouldn’t be disappointed. So… hopefully you won’t be either?”

With a sigh, you told her to open her mouth so you could apply lipstick. “...Alright,” you agreed. “What are the details?” She went into everything she knew- time, location, and expectations- and promised to reimburse you for any money you’d potentially have to spend. You nodded, simply noting everything.

The following night came, and you gave yourself a final look over before leaving. Your makeup was perfect and set, you weren’t worried about your lipstick fading or distorting with dinner, the dress you picked was elegant, flattering, and trendy, and the heels you wore were both fashionable and comfortable. You were aces. The friend you were doing this favor for sent you a car that would take you to your destination, and without time for a moment’s hesitance, you were chauffeured to the rendezvous.

From the moment you arrived, you were treated no less than royalty. As soon as the car pulled up, a valet opened the door for you. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle. Bienvenue au Chateux de Joel Robuchon,” (“Good evening, Miss. Welcome to Chateux de Joel Robuchon,”) he greeted you with a bow, gesturing towards the western inspired establishment with an immaculate white glove. You smiled politely at him with a small nod of your head, stepping out gracefully. The valet closed the door behind you, the car leaving a second after, and you were left with a small walk across the elegant courtyard to the four-story building. When you arrived, the doors were opened for you once again, and you were greeted with a fusion of elegant French and Japanese hospitality and grace.

It really was like being in a castle. A host came to meet you and took your jacket, while a hostess guided you to the second level where the restaurant and lounge operated. She asked what name the reservation was under, and you gave her your friend’s. With a smile, the hostess suggested you help yourself to a drink at the Rouge Bar while you waited, as you were the first to arrive. Finding that agreeable, you were escorted to an elegant, more than fully equipped and stocked lounge. It was dark with warm, golden lighting that made the red walls something sensual and alluring, rather than loud or intimidating. Black leather furniture beckoned you to take a seat wherever you pleased, and you were promptly met by a waiter offering a drink menu. You ordered a light wine to sip at while you waited for your mystery date, and gazed around the bar. At least it was going to be easy for him to figure out who he was meeting- you were the only lady waiting alone.

As you reclined and sipped, you noticed some of the patrons’ behaviors change. Eyes were skirting to and from the entrance and voices hushed themselves. You managed to hear a woman whisper to another, “Oh my goodness, is that… That’s Best Jeanist!” The temptation to turn around and see the hero for yourself was great, but your dignity and pride were greater, so you didn’t flinch or move to follow everyone else’s gaze. Bringing the wine glass to your lips, you tasted it once again before noticing the curious eyes beginning to fall on you.

“Miss (Y/N)?”

You knew that voice- you knew it from countless interviews, and having met the hero once when he appeared on your news channel. Of all the makeup artists, you were the lucky one who got to powder and touch up his already faultness face. With fluid timing, you blinked while gracefully turning your head to the speaker, eyes opening with an almost hypnotic look. A single green eye received yours, its match hidden beneath fastidiously combed and treated blond hair. His expression was covered by a square silk scarf that was both tasteful and contemporary, complimenting his navy three piece suit. It was no wonder this man was at the forefront of men’s fashion.

“Best Jeanist.” You acknowledged him by his hero name, a calm and sweet smile on your lips. Although you couldn’t see it, you hoped he was smiling from the way the corners of his eyes seemed to just barely move. The hero bowed to you, his hand extended to help you stand, creating a scene that was almost impossible to believe- both to you and those spectating. Delicately, you lifted your hand from the wine glass and placed your fingertips into his palm. With nimble finesse, his fingers curled behind yours, thumb gently crossing over your knuckles as you rose to your feet, and then respectfully let go as you thanked him.

Your thoughts raced as you two were escorted to your table. How could your friend pass this up? On top of that, how did she not know that she was going on a date with Best Jeanist? And who was her friend that was able to convince the No. 3 Pro Hero to even go on a blind date? You had so many questions that were going to be answered the next time you saw her.

A new elegance welcomed you as you two entered Joel Robuchon Restaurant. Dreamy gold lighting and draperies warmed the walls while black dominated everything else. Tables were blanketed in a silky black cloth, their legs just as dark and matching the chairs that framed them. Polished and shining black vases and centerpieces decorated the tables while the flowers, accents, and plates were a stark and contrasting white. It was beautiful and even surreal- especially for a first date, set up or not.

Agreeing on the 6-course specialty menu and a bottle of wine to share, the date began smoothly. You both expressed your preferences and were pleasantly surprised to share some similar tastes, needing to compromise on very little. Starting off this way allowed an immediate familiarity to develop between you two, the conversation becoming more natural and effortless as a result. He made you smile and you made him laugh, all before the bread basket arrived. Even though you were sitting across from the revered Fiber Hero, you didn’t feel any pressure or unease. It honestly felt like you two were on the same page, the same level, in the same ballpark, and just… equal. Already, there was a foundation of mutual respect laid down, and he even asked you to call him by his name as you two worked through the six plates, taking your time and getting to know each other.

“So how is your recovery coming along?” you asked him in a soft voice with genuine concern and interest. Everyone knew the damage he took from All For One and that he would be resting for an unknown but extended period of time.

“Quite well,” he answered professionally. Although he’d been looking at you all night, his gaze became a bit sharper at your question. It wasn’t that he was soured by it, but you could tell it was something he was fairly guarded about. He was able to walk and move, yet there must have been more limitations than before.

“Is that the newsroom answer?”

The hero chuckled at your perceptiveness, making you hope again that he was smiling afterwards. Your imagination was vividly curious of what it would look like, but that was something even you weren’t bold enough to ask yet.

Offering your own smile to him, you carried on gracefully, unaffected by the closed off topic. “I’m glad that you’ve recovered as much as you already have, and look forward to seeing you back in action,” you supported. “I think only the greatest heroes could survive and recover from such grave injuries. It really shows you have so much you want to live for.” Your sincerity softened that steeled look he gave you, and eased away the faint tension that came with it.

“Thank you, (Y/N).” His voice was casual again. Even with the composed and dignified way that he spoke, you were able to pick up the differences between his relaxed and formal speeches. “Experiences like this are rather humbling, for better or worse. They remind us all that heroes, too, are human.”

“Had you forgotten that you were, Hakamata?” There was something coquettish in your voice, bolstered by the confidence you had in catching the nuances he expected to slip through.

“It’s easy to forget,” he responded, meeting your coyness with his own. “I am greatly honored to be a widely received hero and icon- as accessible as the availability and handiness of denim itself. Such responsibilities require a near superhuman balance in life.” The way he spoke of his popularity was anything but arrogant, showing that he took this all very seriously. It wasn’t simply a job or profession- being a hero was an identity that everything else conformed to. “In its own way, the time necessary to heal is a kindness.”

His words were enchanting with the way he spoke. Each syllable was magnetic, tempting you closer to the person across from you not as a hero, but as a man. Your conversation was scarcely interrupted by the restaurant’s staff, plates coming and going as if phantoms were providing them. In this moment, there was only him in your field of view. “How so?”

“It’s the only reason a moment like this is possible right now,” he explained with a foreign glint in his eye. You couldn’t help but wonder if that was what it would look like if eyes could smile. “While we’ve met once before, it was brief and strictly business. Wouldn’t you agree this time is a benevolent result of my injuries?”

Your lips pulled back as you chuckled softly, your cheeks lifting with a smile as you blushed and averted your eyes. For the first time tonight, he charmed you, and he did it without relying on fame or prestige. Seeing a break in the conversation, the attentive wait staff approached your table, retrieving the empty plates and bowls, pouring the last of the bottle of wine for you two, and then presenting you with a dessert trolley that could rival entire bakeries and chocolatiers. An espresso list accompanied the sweets, and you two ended up with the same order, save for a minor detail in your truffles. One was accented by raspberries, and the other by thin orange slices.

“Only in part. This was also the work of our friends, wasn’t it?” you teased him with a mirthful smirk.

“That’s true,” he agreed, explicitly acknowledging for the first time that this was a blind date. “However, no amount of planning could make two unwilling people meet in circumstances like this. Close encounters are perhaps the strongest reminders that, as humans, we seek a love and intimacy beyond praise and fame. And if I may be candid, (Y/N), I’m honored to have been recommended to you. It may seem silly, but… I do place trust and faith in a close friend’s suggestion.”

Once again you blushed, closing your eyes this time as you took a sip of your cappuccino. He was more of a gentleman than you expected- and you certainly had high expectations for such an exemplary hero.

“I take it you’re skeptical of those you meet on your own?” The question was rhetorical. “I suppose you’d have to be; there must be a plentitude of people with ulterior motives seeking your attention and affection.” You placed your cup in its saucer, your hands coming together in your lap afterwards as you sat ladylike with a sweet smile on your face despite the seriousness of your words. “For what it’s worth, I had no idea who I’d meet tonight. When you offered your hand, it felt like a dream- this whole date has.”

At last, you could tell with certainty that Best Jeanist was actually smiling beneath that silk scarf. His handsome expression was as joyous as it was composed, and you were proven very wrong in believing he couldn’t become more of a heartthrob.

“If we continued meeting, would I be able to convince you reality was better than a dream?”

You were stunned by the smoothness of his words. As a rule of thumb, you were exceptionally skeptical of charismatic men, but you made an allowance for the one across from you tonight. While others came off as womanizers and playboys, Hakamata seemed knightly and trustworthy. After all, the whole of Tokyo trusted him with their lives- including you.

“I would love to find out.”

As you two finished dining, the bill was directly handed to the hero. You offered to pay, or at least cover part of it, but his kind eyes and voice told you there was no need, and the expenses were already taken care of. He took the bill, and you could make out that it seemed like some sort of letter before he folded it and slipped it into his breast pocket. Standing, he opened his hand to you once again and guided you to take hold of his arm as he escorted you downstairs. You two walked with a closeness that evolved over the course of your extravagant dinner, and he waited patiently for you as you received your jacket before escorting you outside.

Before getting close enough to signal the valet to open the door, Best Jeanist stopped with you. His arm shifted so that your hand fell into his as you turned to face him. “May I see you again, (Y/N)?”

Your eyes gazed into his and noticed that his hair was pulled back just enough to allow you to see them both. You couldn’t help but grin a bit widely, your teeth just barely showing as you nodded. “Yes,” you answered in what only came out as a whisper. That unmistakable joy gleamed in his eyes at your response, and you two exchanged personal contact information. When it was all saved, he finished walking you to the familiar car that awaited. Just as you were about to sink into your seat, your date brought your hand towards his lips, his other coming up to the scarf and lowering it just enough so he could give it a proper kiss, covering his face afterwards as he brought his eyes to yours.

“Thank you for this wonderful night. I look forward to the next.”

You blushed as you thanked him in return, the door closing soon after and the driver taking you back home. This was a night you’d never forget, and the idea of future ones with him quickened your heart.

… You’re so lovely, are you lonely?

#bnha #bnha fanfic #bnha fic #bnha fanfiction #boku no hero academia #boku no hero academia x reader #bnha x reader #mha fanfic #mha fic #mha fanfiction #mha #my hero academia #my hero academia x reader #mha x reader #best jeanist #best jeanist x reader #best jeanist fluff #hakamata #hakamata tsunagu #hakamata x reader #valentine's day #valentines day #valentine's day countdown #valentine's day prompt #valentines day prompt #valentine's day writing prompt #writing prompt #blind date #set up date

[hellyeahheroes]

The Post-Mortem for the New Age of Heroes

At the beginning of this year, I had prepared my totally original idea for April Fools 2019. I wanted to film myself in Jim Sterling cosplay performing a Jimquisition parody. Instead, I managed to somehow break my only shitty mic and gave youtubing a pause for time being. So you will have to enjoy what was supposed to be a recording in written text in form. At the end of the text I will do a face reveal, I owe you that.

It has become undeniable by now that the New Age of Heroes was a financial failure. Out of eight new titles that have launched only two are still going. And out of these two, one is already dead, like a guy slapped by Kenshiro of cancellations. And from its fall we can see an image of failures and poorly thought decisions at the editorial level.

Spinning out of incredibly popular, both among fans and critics alike, Dark Nights: Metal, New Age of Heroes was originally named the Dark Matter. It was supposed to form a thematic trilogy with Metal and it’s own prelude. Dark Days lead to Dark Nights, which gives birth to Dark Matter. Simple and catchy, an okay marketing strategy. However, the name was hastily changed at the last minute to a much more generic New Age of Heroes. And to my knowledge, we never really got an answer as to why, leaving us only with speculations. My theory, and this is only a theory, of course, is that someone at the higher level either felt that Dark Matter was not grandiose enough or that the audiences are just too stupid to get it. 

The imprint was supposed to first launch at September 2017 only to have been pushed to December and then to February 2018. At the same time, we had some minor changes regarding the original promo picture showing the characters and more specific one - Damage, whose original design is nothing like the one in promotional material. All this shows there was some executive meddling in the production of the series, not unlike the one that haunted the infamous New 52. 

The strong nostalgia for the 90s is another thing New Age of Heroes shared with New 52, with pretty much every title being in one way or another a throwback to the era. Just like in early Image, many of the new characters who were clearly invoking a feeling of edgier versions of classic Marvel characters. Damage is DC’s third of fourth attempt at making the Hulk since the launch of New 52, Brimstone is Ghost Rider, even Sideways looked like edgy Spider-Man, despite not being edgy at all. On the team side, the Terrifics was deliberately a homage to classic Fantastic Four and this seems to have worked in its favor. While other books had to prove they are more than just knockoffs of the competitors most famous characters, the Terrifics has been embraced as a spiritual homage by FF fandom, especially at the time when Marvel was not publishing that series. However, even other team books had to deal with Marvel comparisons. it didn’t help that Immortal Men was very intentionally playing a homage to the 90′s X-men books and that narrative style, up o shoehorning in it popular villain Batman Who laughs for no apparent reason. While I think it made the book ironically better than titles it was trying to honor, it undeniable set it up to comparisons. The Unexpected had characters who kinda reminded people of Thor and Doctor Strange leading to comparisons with both Avengers and the Defenders. Even the most original title, the Silencer and the relaunch of classic DC book Challengers of the Unknown as the New Challengers had fans attempt to claim they’re ripping off Marvel properties on some flimsy logic. Unfortunately, this all gave the line an impression of just being a Marvel knockoff and made it harder for it to stand on its own.

New Age of Heroes was supposed to have a larger emphasis on artists, putting their names before writers in the credits on the cover and in the issue itself referring to them both as storytellers. Only for that to be undermined the moment the books had mediocre sales and all famous artists who were supposed to be the main draw have been moved to more high-profile books to play second fiddle to the writers again. In the end, New Age of Heroes suffered all the problems with treating artists as secondary as rest of mainstream titles, with artists being shuffled around as it was deemed fit, often without abbility to give a book any visual coherence even in the middle of an arc.

Aside, these examples of editorial incompetence and neglect, we quickly saw two titles, New Challengers and immortal Men, end at issue six, seemingly to allow Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV to focus more on the Justice League and Batman Who Laughs. The Unexpected followed, lasting only eight issues. Curse of the Brimstone and Sideways survived twelve and thirteen issues respectively. Damage, one of the first launches of the imprint, ended at issue sixteen and Silencer will be ending at a similar number. 

All of these saddens me because I quite frankly enjoyed a lot of these books. Sideways was a flawed but entertaining throwback to classic teen superhero books and had it sold better could honestly build enough momentum to rival Ms. Marvel. Curse of the Brimstone was a good horror, Immortal Men was more entertaining than it had any right to be as a 90s homage and the Silencer actually formed an engaging narrative I was not expecting at first glance. Part of me wants to blame any of the above reasons, be it Marvel comparisons or editorial incompetence. But Part of me also wonders if the whole initiative hasn’t just been poorly planned out. Maybe it was a bad idea to launch eight new titles in such a short amount of time. Maybe some of them would have worked better, were the writers put on a single book in the style of 52, with multiple writers and weekly schedule? I don’t know but it feels that it could maybe give more life to Immortal Men, New Challengers and the Unexpected. However, the fact that so many bad decisions occurred on an editorial level only shows how poorly planned the initiative was. It saddens me as I know the failure of those titles to make a lasting impact, the only book still not canceled being also the only one without all new cast of characters, will make it harder to push for more original titles in the future. And so I weep for the New Age of Heroes. It could have been great.

So that’s it for today. I’m going to crawl into a hole and ignore all the news today due to the number of pranks. Be careful with what you read online, not just today, but in today in particular, thank god for me and get ready for my face reveal!

I love April’s Fools

- Admin

#Sideways #Curse of the Brimstone #The Terrifics #Immortal Men #The Silencer #New Challengers #Damage #The Unexpected #DC #Dark Matter #New Age of DC Heroes