#mythicals/legendaries are difficult to make up a story with

[simply-serperior]

TEASER.

#pokemon partner series #teaser #twirls hair... oh the ideas with this one #mythicals/legendaries are difficult to make up a story with #but you get a lot more interesting scenarios with them #latias is my favourite out of the lati twins (sorry latios <3)

[callimara]

WILDWARD: About & Master Post

About

Wildward is an original “magical girl” story by callimara loosely inspired by the show Miraculous Ladybug and Tokyo Mew Mew. However, unlike traditional ‘magical girl’ stories which focuses on the school-age experience, Wildward follows a cast of original characters in their young adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it. Being independent and trying to make ends meet is difficult enough, but their lives only become more complicated when they stumble upon mysterious jewellery that unleashes their wild side and transforms them into demigods! But just like everything else in the grown-up world, their newfound abilities come with a price. Now they must face mysterious and terrifying beasts from other dimensions that are even wilder than they are. Can they protect humanity from this extradimensional threat? Or will they succumb to their own primal urges?

Power System

In this world, exists 8 legendary artifacts known as Aegises, which are magical accessories inhabited by mythical beings called Sentinels. The Sentinels are capable of bestowing those in possession of their Aegis with supernatural abilities. The Sentinels primarily reside inside of their aegis until they are called upon by their wielder, at which point, they will leave their aegis and possess the wielder as their new vessel: granting them power. When they manifest outside of their aegis – often to act as a guide to their wielders - the Sentinels take on the form of the first creature they possessed, and are only visible to their wielders. When possessed by a Sentinel, their vessels develop the physical attributes of their Sentinels, such as wings, claws, and fangs. Aegis wielders also become more in tune with their survival instincts, gaining superhuman reflexes, stamina, speed, strength, sight, vision, and smell. Their transformed appearance follows the user’s preferences, however Aegis weapons are based on the individual wielder’s strengths and skills, allowing users of the same Aegis to wield different weapons, as well as a sub-weapon. This transformed state acts as an armor, giving them invincibility over normal weapons, increasing their physical durability and suppressing their pain perception, allowing them to survive fatal and/or immobilizing injuries. Only Aegis wielders (or those of a similar nature) are capable of injuring other Aegis wielders. Each Aegis has a limit to the amount of damage their transformed states can sustain: some being higher than others. If the sustained damage remains within these limits, all injuries disappear once the wielder de-transforms. However, if this limit is breached, the injuries they sustained may transfer to their normal bodies when they de-transform. The Aegis function by tapping into its wielder’s energy. Hence, the wielder’s bodies are forced to increase metabolism and produce more energy to keep up with the demand: similar to aerobic exercise. The longer they remain transformed, the further their bodies are pushed to exhaustion. The length of time that wielders are able to remain transformed depends solely on their physical fitness. Because of this, the Aegis wielders must also train their normal bodies, build fitness and endurance to remain transformed for longer. When transformed, their Aegis has the power to make it so that it would be impossible for someone to recognize their wielder, even with the assistance of psychic powers or DNA sampling. Each Aegis also possesses an activation and deactivation phrase, as well as a special power.

More world-building and lore!

▶ The Sentinels

▶ The Aegis & Spellbook

▶ The Setting

▶ The Characters

▶ Frequently Asked Questions

▶ Episodes

▶ Read it on Ao3

▶ Mood Boards

(Updated 16th January 2024)

#Wildward #callimara #lore

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

I love pecharunt soo much..could u do headcanons for a poison type trainer caring for Pecharunt and Pecharunt loving his new trainer? (Reader gives Pecharunt a new loving home!) 🥺 Maybe some thoughts on the Paldea squad still not trusting Pecharunt (maybe sum jealous Arven bc reader is paying more attention to the pokemon instead of him.?)

Obviously, Pecharunt tried to stay closed-off after what happened between him and his original caretakers.

His quest to satisfy their ever-growing wishes soon led to tragedy..and he didn't wanna suffer through that again.

So after waking up he turns the whole town of Mossui against you and your friends, not wanting to let anyone in.

But in his eyes you seemed determined to make him feel as miserable as possible..especially as you sent Okidogi, Fezandpiti, and/or Munkidori against him after defeating Nemona.

The betrayal stung, seeing his former friends who died to protect him from Ogerpon now siding with humans and attacking him.

After being caught and lifting the town's "curse", he feels humbled, hiding away in his shell even as you introduce him to the rest of your team:

One made of poison types.

Although most of them looked scary and seemed difficult to care for, you learned how to tend to their needs without getting yourself hurt by their toxins, and that made your bonds with them grow stronger by the day.

You hoped to achieve something similar with Pecharunt, knowing it'll be a challenge but willing to try.

He was reclusive around your party members, but not you.

In fact, he quickly grew to love having you as his trainer, yet he was convinced that making mochi was the only way to secure that connection with you--and that if he couldn't win every battle, you'd think he was weak and abandon him.

But you knew that 8x weakness of his would be a problem, and even with an impressive defense..losses were inevitable, and you'd have to calm him down whenever he throws a fit over losing or if you refuse to send him into a fight you knew he won't win.

You eventually learn his story (and why the Loyal Three meant so much to him) through some old texts Kieran's grandparents lent you, and after reading them you just give him a hug and say "I'm sorry."

That's all you said.

It was so simple, yet enough to make Pecharunt cry and realize you would unconditionally love him and give him a permanent home. No mochi necessary. He had nothing to fear.

Of course, though, even after you share all of this and his growth with your Paldean friends, they still warn you to be careful around him.

Arven was more upset about being forced to do a stupid dance than being forced to battle you, still giving the mythical 'mon the cold shoulder every time he sees you two hanging around.

"You embarrassed me in front of my best friend..don't think I'll forget that." He always remarks while Mabosstiff gives him the side eye(tm).

You, however, know he's just getting jealous of you giving more attention to some Pokémon (like a certain legendary dragon) than him and tease him about it.

Of course, Pecharunt is still up to his mischievous ways: he'll mess around with Arven by snuggling up to you, sneaking mochi into his sandwiches, and just being a little shit in general.

Are you fully aware of this? Yes.

Will you stop it? Probably not. It's amusing.

#pecharunt is baby full stop #ive been meaning to draw him too but until then here's this <3 #clanask #anonymous #pokemon x reader #pokemon sv x reader #pokemon scarlet x reader #pokemon violet x reader #pecharunt #headcanons

[phlurrii]

Out of curiosity, what does the psychic cat fam exactly do out there? (This doesn’t have to be exclusive to just now, also could have been just Meau, Noe, and Mew) Aside from vibing. They live in a paradise where food isn’t a concern and nothing with a brain would try to hurt them. Do they play fight? Teach the youngin’s their future jobs? Have games? Maybe some swipped books to read? Explore the world outside of their tree for funsies? See who can steal as many goodies from human society without getting caught?

I know it’s silly but I like the “filler” of things. To think about what characters are doing when the “plot” isn’t being progressed. It’s part of why I like the slice-of-life genre from time to time. Life isn’t always an adventure or fight against some opposing force, but it can still be fun!

I agree, I’m honestly a bit upset with myself, given how long each update takes I never noticed I wasn’t adding in enough filler. Something I plan to fix once we’re in Noe’s arc, as we are sadly, or luckily? Way too close to beginning it to shove any sudden filler in. For now I’m blaming it on first time story telling and having to do art school on the side X3

As for the gang, Meau did fly a little bit off the handle due to not having a lot of stimulation when she was younger before Noe showed up. As for what they did/do, for reasons that’ll become clear later; they mostly talked in the early days!

She would show off her creations, abilities, transformations, and forming ecosystems to him. He would ask about as many questions as one would with a new world and she thrived off it. They would watch other Pokémon’s life in secret like it was a soap opera, sometimes intervening to make it more interesting or admittedly have it lean towards the ending they wanted. Usually betting and taking opposing sides as to what would happen.

Battling is a particular big one for Meau, she loves to get down and dirty with other legendaries and mythicals even if she has the power advantage. Most often fighting with her brothers, she wouldn’t be above transforming into the Pokémon she was fighting to even out the playing field, or even change her type so she was inherently weaker to it. It’s why she’s never been against human with their Pokémon battles, battling is an innate part of her creations and herself.

Missingno. on the other hand loves to explore, even with his age, he knows the world is in a constant state or change and ventures off on his own to explore it. He’s not nearly as against humans as Meau and has explored their cities and settlements. Most intrigue by their computers/technology nowadays and how he’s able to to interact with them. Meau has explored with him on occasion, but prefers to stay away.

I’d also imagine they like to race in very difficult conditions. High up in the atmosphere or just outside in the actual vacuum of space. Deep in the ocean, forcing them to make their own path through rock and stone. Which probably pisses off the weather trio invading all 3 of their areas, but that leads perfectly into the next one.

They love to piss off the other legendaries, because… well, what can they do?

There has been more then on tropical storm, tsunami, volcanic eruption, and general disaster caused by the Ancients pestering another powerful legend. Lastly, they sleep, if the current time is too boring, peaceful, or simply there is nothing to do that interests them… they’ll sleep for a couple thousand years.

As for more current day stuff, it’s much tamer since Bucket was taken, Meau woke up from a much needed thousands years nap to a very different world. Humans had well established themselves even further, technology exists, and they can clone/create pokemon. So she is staying in the tree with her suddenly growing family, just to watch. She wants to know what everything’s up too from a distance given they’ve somehow managed to trap and almost kill another mew, make a Mewtwo, and possibly a second one.

So she’s just always watching human society from the tree, whilst also teaching and nurturing Odysseus. He spends more of his time exploring the tree and occasional testing out powers. With Meau’s assistance. The trees massive and filled with Pokémon, so he’s got quite the endless bit of entertainment. Decamark is the newest edition and thus follows a lot of what Ody does! Though Noe has been poking them, figuratively, with a stick to figure out what he’s capable of.

#ask #mew #ancient mew #pokemon #mew pokemon #the ancient mew #pokémon mew #mewtwo #pokemon mewtwo #puzzled zebra

[penny00dreadful]

Cat and Mouse - Spy AU - Part 1

AO3

18th April 2015

Steve pulled the trigger, barely even paying attention as the bullet tore through the head of his target. He was just so ready to go home, god this week had been boring.

His target was some bank executive that had started to funnel funds towards various criminal enterprises, helping those criminal families gain more power and Steve had been contracted to weed that rot out, right at the root.

The Hagans, Kline and Johnson families would probably still find ways to rise up in the ranks but it had been kneecapped now, making things more difficult for them.

They’d never climb to the heights of the Creel Syndicate anyway. 

Steve was pretty sure no one could.

Henry Creel, legendary crime lord that he was, had somehow managed to cultivate a culture of fear and respect amongst even the lowest of street drug dealers.

Not to mention the borderline mythical assassin he was rumoured to have at his side. No one knew who they were, no one even knew if they existed. Some claimed the assassin was just some boogeyman story cooked up by Creel to keep his workers in line and Steve wouldn’t put it past him. The guy was creative.

And some things that had been attributed to this assassin were downright impossible so… They were probably made up.

This mythical boogeyman had some kind of title as well but Steve had never really paid much attention to the rumours and the ghosts floating around the underworld he was a part of.

Lies were practically currency to them so he’d have to see it to believe it.

Whoever ended up working on the Creel case was going to have their fucking work cut out for them.

Holstering his weapon, Steve snapped on a pair of blue latex gloves and he knelt beside his dead mark, slowly leaking blood and brains from the hole at the back of his head.

Steve fished around inside the guy’s pockets, locating his wallet. There was a family photo in there, library card, organ donor card, an obscene amount of credit cards and a loyalty card for the strip club across town.

Since when did strip clubs do loyalty cards?

Whatever. Steve located his driver's licence and pulled it out. 

“Hm.” Steve tilted his head, reading the name from the laminated card. “Sorry, Peter. It’s not personal. It’s just business.”

He tucked the licence back into the guy's wallet, returning it to his pocket.

It only took three minutes for Steve to stage the scene, breaking into the guy's gun safe, planting the weapon just next to his hand, like it had flown out of his grip when he pulled the trigger.

He slipped out into the hallway of the high rise apartment building, removing his gloves and stuffing them into his pocket, pushing his hair back from his face and coming to a stop in front of the elevator.

The doors opened and an elderly lady with a yappy dog gave him the suspicious eye, no doubt not recognising him from this floor but as Steve took a step back with his most charming smile and a gentlemanly gesture, motioning her out of the elevator she smiled back and he knew he was in the clear.

He got back down to the lobby and through the front door, onto the streets with no issue, allowing himself to get lost in the crowd. 

He reached up to his ear, flicking a small switch on the back of his ‘hearing aid’, allowing Robin to hear him, rather than just monitor his location and vitals.

“Okay, I’m out. You can stop looping the cameras.”

“Roger that, dingus.” Robin was probably saluting him right now from behind her desk, sounding like she was speaking in his head. 

It had taken a long time for him to get used to it, hearing Robin, but still being able to hear everything around him at the same time.

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Be nicer to me.”

“You say that to me every time, and every time I say no. Job went easy enough?”

“Yeah, practically childsplay.”

Steve kept his eyes open, never quite able to switch the part of his brain off that was waiting for the next hit from around a corner, a knife in the gut or a bullet in the shoulder.

He’d already managed to walk a few blocks, trying to put as much space between himself and his completed job as he could without moving too fast.

The crowd around him was both safety giving and dangerous.

Easy to disappear into but easy for someone to sneak up on him unseen.

Speaking of…

There was a figure shadowing him, had been shadowing him for a few minutes.

It could be nothing.

It could be some guy walking the same route as him.

But it wasn’t.

Every time Steve caught sight of him in his periphery or through the reflection of a store window, the guy had his eyes on him. 

Locked on him, like he couldn’t afford to lose him, but Steve wasn’t worried.

The guy was weedy, probably weighed 140 pounds soaking wet. 

The large leather jacket and the denim vest made him look bulkier than he was and he'd nearly tripped over his own shoelaces twice trying to keep up.

Steve could tell when people were dangerous. It was in the way they held themselves. The way they walked. The way they looked at those around them. How they held their hands at rest.

This guy was none of those things. 

He might dress mean and scary but he was as delicate as a flower petal on the inside, Steve could tell.

So he wasn't exactly worried he was about to be shoved into a black van or choked out. 

At least not this time around.

He was probably just going to be pickpocketed.

He recognised the look on the guy's face. 

Desperate. 

A panicky kind of desperate.

Like if the guy didn’t get some money into his hand immediately, the hounds of hell were gonna be on his ass. Probably break his kneecaps for good measure.

He could just be looking for money for a fix, Steve tried to reason with himself. He certainly had the eye bags, the pale waxy skin, the skinny frame that told that kind of story.

But even from as far away as he was, Steve knew that wasn’t the case. 

Though he couldn’t see him clearly, he could tell his eyes were bright.

Alive and clear and piercing and active.

Not the hazy, cloudy, bloodshot gaze of someone coming down from their high or going through withdrawal.

Steve guessed he was some kind of dealer. 

Street level, considering how he tried to look scary but wasn’t really.

Any higher up than street level and he would have held a certain amount of danger around himself. He would have had to, to survive after all.

So what had made him so desperate and what about Steve had caught his gaze?

Steve glanced down at himself, to his pristine polo, light wash vintage levi’s and spotless sneakers.

Ah. 

Well that would be it. 

Steve looked like he came from money. Especially walking through this part of the city.

And like… the guy’s guess wasn’t wrong.

Steve did come from money. But he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his parents or their money since he was eighteen years old, nine years ago.

Any money Steve had now was his own. Being a spy paid really well, as it turned out.

But the desperation radiating off this guy, even as far back in the crowd as he was, was making him sloppy. A regular civilian would know they were being followed at this stage, never mind Steve Harrington who’d been trained to within an inch of his life for this. 

He could enter a room he’d never been in before and immediately know the most effective route for escape. He could look at a lineup of randomly selected people and know straight away who was the most dangerous in hand to hand combat and who would be most likely to have a weapon on them.

Steve could snap this guy in half over his knee probably without breaking a sweat.

Even still he felt a little bad.

He needed to talk it out. Needed someone to confirm for him he wasn’t going crazy.

"Someone's on my tail, Birdie." Steve muttered, flipping the switch on his hearing aid communicator again.

"Okay,” He could almost picture her nodding. “Gimme a description, I'll see if I can find them."

"No, it’s not an enemy or anything. I don't even think it's something I need to be worried about, honestly. Just some bottom of the totem pole dealer. Nicotine stains on his fingers, cigarette burns on his clothes. And Jesus Christ has he ever even heard of conditioner? And his eyes are huge.”

“Do you think he’s on something?”

“No.” He kept his eyes forward and continued to smoothly weave his way through the crowd. “But he is pale. Gaunt. His denim jacket looks pretty ratty. It’s been repaired multiple times. By hand. And he definitely hasn't eaten in a while. I think he’s probably gonna try to steal my wallet to stop his boss from breaking his legs."

“You don’t think that maybe he’s just hungry?”

Steve shook his head. “No. He looks pretty desperate but not that kind.” He frowned again, almost muttering. “Scared desperate.”

Robin sighed. "Steven."

"What?"

"Don't do it, babe."

"Why shouldn't I help the guy out?” Steve was already pulling his wallet out while ruffling his hair. 

Misdirection. 

“I can part with $20. Stick it in my jacket pocket, loose. Make it just obvious enough and easy to take. What's the big issue?"

"You're a bleeding heart, that's the issue."

"Yeah, well. He clearly needs it more than I do."

"Is he cute?" She asked in a teasing tone, making it clear she thought he wasn’t just a bleeding heart, he was a horny bleeding heart who could be swayed by a pretty face. 

Which…

Didn’t need to be pointed out.

"...No."

"Wow, decorated Special Operative Steven J. Harrington everyone.” He could almost hear her waving her hands around. “Infiltrator, martial combatant and, apparently, a master liar. On his way to recruit another wayward stray."

"Oh, fuck off. Why not spit out my whole government name, that definitely won't put me in danger."

"You're wearing a bone conduction audio transmitting ‘hearing aid’, I'm literally in your head-”

“You’re not in my head, you’re in my cochlea.”

“Which is in your head, dingus. No one can hear me and it's a secure line. You, however, can be overheard so don't sell me down the river."

"Well then, you better be nicer to me."

“Never.”

Something bumped against his elbow and he was suddenly, painfully aware of a body behind him, right up in his space.

He didn’t even think before he lashed out behind him, snatching the figure's wrist in a vice-like grip, spinning the two of them into a nearby alleyway and pinning the stranger against the wall.

“Woah, man.” 

Oh. 

It was just the guy who’d been following him.

He was staring at Steve with wide, deep, brown eyes, shaking his head. 

He looked fucking terrified. 

“I- I don’t want any trouble, I swear.”

Steve took a breath before dropping the guy’s wrist like it had burned him, taking a step back.

The guy's eyes were flicking nervously over Steve’s face, waiting for him to strike probably, before his gaze settled just to the left of Steve’s head.

He was looking at his hearing aid, but Steve pretended not to know that, lifting his hand to his ear in confusion and allowing him to subtly flip the switch off so Robin couldn’t hear anything anymore.

“Try not to fall on his dick.” She muttered at him when she heard the click.

But he could hear her, like always.

Steve rolled his eyes, making sure it was aimed at the guy, acting like his exasperation was because he just noticed the hearing aid.

“Don’t tell me you’re suddenly gonna feel bad because of this?” Steve gestured at it.

The guy shook his head, still plastered up against the wall as though he wanted to melt into it, trying to put even more distance between them.

“Relax, man. I’m not gonna attack you, or whatever.” He crossed his arms over his chest, setting up another barrier between them to try and put the guy at ease.

He didn’t think it was working very well.

The guy in front of him looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. The same height as Steve but built much smaller, slender and delicate looking despite the heavy boots and chains and tattoos Steve could see peeking out under the neck of his shirt and spreading over his hands and fingers.

His hair was a curly nightmare, clearly needing an introduction to some conditioner and probably brushed with a regular hairbrush like a heathen, but aside from that the guy was…

Well, he was gorgeous. 

His mouth was full and plump and parted ever so slightly in fear. His eyes were as huge as Steve thought they were at first glance, deep and brown and warm. His face was slim and soft looking, with laugh lines cutting down on either side of his mouth and a hint of scraggly stubble that was putting Steve in emotional danger.

Steve could probably throw him over his shoulder with ease.

Maybe that wasn’t the most helpful thing to be thinking right now.

“Right, right, yeah.” The guy nodded again. “You’re not gonna attack me. You just dragged me into an alleyway for a friendly chat.”

“And you just stuck your hand in my pocket for completely innocent reasons.”

The guy blinked at him, those big eyes somehow getting bigger before growing mischievous, despite the clear nervousness still radiating off of him.

“You planted it there.”

Steve opened and closed his mouth, his eyebrows high on his head.

“You saw that?”

“Was I not supposed to?” He squeaked, like Steve was gonna kill him just for pointing it out. “It was kind of obvious.”

Interesting. Maybe he’d underestimated him.

“It shouldn’t have been.”

“Really?” The guy gave him a playful grimace. “Then I don’t know what to tell you. I saw it from a mile off.”

Steve’s mouth tugged into a reluctant smile and he ducked his head a little to hide it, leaning back against the opposite wall.

“What’s your name?”

“Wh-” The guy paused, shaking his head, bewildered. “What’s happening right now?”

“I’m asking you your name.”

“Yeah, I got that part sweetheart, but why the hell are you doing that?” 

Sweetheart was sneered out but it still got the colour rising up Steve’s neck.

“I don’t know, to help you chill out a little bit or something. Fuck. I’m sorry I dragged you back here, I think I was just going off of… fight or flight or something.”

“Great, great. You be fight, I’ll be flight.”

Steve couldn’t help the light chuckle that came out at that and was taken momentarily off guard by the small smile it brought to the guy's face. 

Pretty. He’s so fucking pretty.

Steve reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the $20 he’d originally stashed, holding it out between his index and middle finger.

The guy eyed it before flicking his gaze back up to Steve. 

“I don’t know what you’re expecting in exchange for that but I’m not that cheap. Even for a face as nice as yours.”

“What?” Steve scrunching his eyebrows in confusion before realisation dawned on him. “Dude. I’m not asking you to blow me for twenty fucking dollars. Christ.”

The guy hummed, but snatched the bill up anyway. Steve could just make out the word inked across his knuckles, mors. The calluses on the tips of his fingers brushed Steve’s skin, telling a story of years playing a string instrument. 

Based on the position and angle, it could have been guitar or bass, but it could have also been cello or violin. 

The look would suggest guitar or bass but classical instrumentalists were always dark horses, never looking like how they’d be expected to look. 

Steve would need to see his other hand to confirm if there was any healed damage on his thumb, indicating years of holding a bow and to see what he had inked over the fingers there.

Not that he was interested.

He was staring at the guy's hand for too long, the tendons standing proud under his skin and Steve only snapped back to himself when the guy tucked the bill away into his back pocket.

“I would say I have more dignity than that but a blowjob is definitely not the worst thing I’ve ever done in an alleyway. But yeah. Not for twenty dollars.”

Steve could feel the blush rise up higher on his neck and if the expression on the guy's face was anything to go by, it was visible now over the collar of his polo.

“You alright there, sweetheart? You seem a little flustered.”

“Steve.” He supplied, clearing his throat and trying to push the redness back down. “My name is Steve.”

The guy hummed again with a grin. “Think I prefer ‘sweetheart’.”

“And you?”

“I’m partial to ‘baby’ myself.”

Steve uncrossed his arms with a shake of his head, unable to hide his smile while putting his hands on his hips. 

“What’s your name,” he asked, before deciding to add on “baby?” At the end, with a tilt to his head, making his hair fall into his eyes and giving the guy, what Robin called, his puppy dog look.

The guy bit down on his bottom lip, the corner of his mouth ticking up and his eyes seeming to turn darker the longer he paused. “Eddie.”

“Eddie suits you.”

“I should hope so.” Eddie shrugged. “It’s the only name I got.”

“Baby suits you too.”

His eyes travelled up and down Steve’s body, leaving fire in their wake.

“Gotta say sweetheart, this is not how I thought this was gonna go when you grabbed me. Thought you were gonna smash my face in.”

Steve frowned. “I wouldn’t do that.” He dragged his eyes over Eddie again. “Wouldn’t be fair. Guess I was just surprised to feel your hand in my pocket.”

Even though he’d been expecting it, Eddie had managed to sneak up on him, which was not something he was used to.

Eddie’s smile dimmed a little and he sighed, pushing himself off the wall and beginning to wander aimlessly.

“Yeah.” He shrugged, lightly punching at the wall, expending energy. “Sometimes there aren’t a lot of options I guess.”

“Listen. I don’t know what kind of shit you’re wrapped up in but there’s always the option to get out of the game.”

Eddie swept his boot back and forth through the grime and dirt on the ground of the alley, leaving a tiny clearing in his wake. “If only that were true.”

“It can be.”

Eddie shrugged again now backing up towards the mouth of the alley. “Sometimes life doesn’t work out that way.”

Just before he got to the edge where he could disappear around the corner and into the crowd, he paused.

He regarded Steve with a tilted head before stepping forward again and taking Steve’s hand in his, raising it to his lips. 

“See you around, sweetheart.” Eddie muttered into his knuckles before pressing his lips down, gentle and soft.

Steve let the blush take over his face this time, playing up the coy angle just a bit too hard but fixed Eddie with a cocky smirk regardless.

“I certainly hope so, baby.”

He was delighted to see a matching blush across Eddie’s face who exited the alley with a wink and then he was gone.

Steve reached up to his ear and switched his hearing aid back on.

“Oh good,” Robin’s voice came through a little bored, “you’re not dead.”

“No, I am actually dead, my ghost has just possessed the instruments monitoring my vitals to make it look like I’m still alive.”

“That’s alright then.” She sighed. “Less paperwork involved for me if they think you’re still alive.”

Steve hummed in agreement, finally leaving the alley with a quick glance up and down the street but Eddie was well and truly gone.

“So what happened with the guy?”

“We talked a little, I gave him some money and told him to get out of whatever game he’s in.”

He was close to his apartment building, he was surprised to find. 

He’d been an auto pilot, paying more attention to Eddie following him than he had been where he was going.

“That’s it? I would have expected better from Slut Harrington.”

“You’d prefer if I told you the guy fed me his dick?” Steve asked, stopping in front of the entrance to his building and using the subtle biometric security to get in. “Or worse, you’d prefer to listen in? Wow-”

Robin’s screech nearly blew the side of his head open. 

He was glad he had made it into the elevator by then because the shockwaves sent him reeling backwards into the metal walls like he’d been punched.

He heard the ding and the whir of metal as he started moving up towards the top floor.

“Jesus tap dancing Christ, Birdie!”

“You deserved it! I remember Steve! I still remember the last and only time I nearly heard you get your dick into-”

“Then don’t get pissy when I tune you out!”

Robin huffed. “I will never get those sounds out of my head.”

“People would pay good money for those sounds.”

“I’m sure they would but I am not one of them.”

Steve didn’t respond, just let out a heavy sigh as he exited the elevator and crossed the short hallway to get to his door. 

He put his key in his lock and his hand on the handle at the same time, waiting just a second for the scan to complete before he heard the multiple locks and bars in the thick door click open allowing him inside. 

If there was one perk to working a life threatening job that regularly got him injured for a non-governmental international agency resulting in almost no personal life, it was that the pay was really good.

Steve had grown up around money, he was used to it. But that money had been stuffy and came with so many strings attached. This money was his money and he got to do what he wanted with it.

And what he wanted didn’t involve soulless art pieces and ugly as fuck chandeliers just because they were in some magazine that his mother read.

Steve’s space was mismatched. He decorated with pieces he liked the look of, regardless of whether it all ‘went together’. He was the only one living here so he wasn’t going to decorate according to anyone else’s standards. He’d been doing enough of that throughout his life already.

His furniture was vintage or artisan in nature, found in tiny little antique shops hidden away in corners or crafted by small business owners who loved what they did.

The front door led directly into an open plan living/dining/kitchen space. The floor to ceiling windows facing the park had been heavily altered. Thick enough to not let any sound or bullets through and made to obscure the view enough that a person would need to be pressed right up against the glass to see in, even though Steve could see out clear as day.

Steve’s apartment was the go-to venue for any kind of game night, the Super Bowl, playoffs, the World Series, they were all hosted here. His TV and sound system were unparalleled. 

He’d made sure of it. 

The couches were solidly framed but Steve wouldn’t have gotten them if they weren’t also the most comfortable ones he could find. One of them had to be reupholstered and none of them matched but he didn’t care.

Lucas always got pride of place in the middle with Steve while the other sports-heads, Robin and surprisingly El, took up the remaining space at either side of them.

Everyone else was happy to sit along the sidelines, mainly there for the food anyway.

Even all the pots and pans in his kitchen were a hodgepodge of whatever he found. Vintage copper and well aged cast iron lined the walls. 

The only things he’d conceded to buying new were the electrics. 

And then there was all the spy shit.

But that was a given. It was mostly functional stuff, hidden safes and compartments to keep documents and hard drives secure. Multiple concealed pockets and nooks containing a variety of small handheld weapons. The odd button here and there to enable or disable the silent alarm.

And the safe room, hidden behind the bath that only Steve knew how to get into or that it was even there. Robin didn’t know. The higher ups at work didn’t know. Hopper didn’t know. 

Maybe that was just a little too much paranoia, even for him, but paranoia had never steered him wrong before.

“Okay Birdie.” Steve flopped down face first onto his couch. “I am officially clocking out. Will I see you this weekend?”

“If this date goes well, hopefully not.”

“Go get her, tiger. I believe in you.”

“I believe in me too.”

“That’s the spirit.”

They said their goodbyes, Steve hoping against hope that Robin and this new girl worked out. 

She deserved something good in her life. 

He tried to distract himself by making dinner, showering and bingeing that TV show she insisted he had to watch (Ineffable Husbands or whatever it was called) but his mind kept wandering back to big brown eyes and soft plush lips.

Steve rapped the remote against his forehead a few times, trying to drive the thoughts away but they wouldn’t go anywhere.

Robin had jokingly suggested that Steve was going to recruit Eddie into the fold and it wouldn’t be the first time, if it ever did happen. 

Honestly, if it helped pull the guy out of whatever situation he’d gotten himself into, why shouldn’t he?

There were probably a thousand reasons to not drag Eddie into Steve’s dangerous world but just the thought of those eyes and that smile being directed at him again would have Steve doing almost anything.

Part 1 AO3

@geekymagicalpotato

Big thanks as always to @hbyrde36 for the magnificent beta work and to the STWG for their motivation.

This fic is about 70% complete and is currently clocking in at just under 40k so far. I love this story so much, it has taken over my life in the best way.

#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #penny00dreadful #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #fanfic #pennys anniversary event #spies au #spy steve harrington #tw guns #tw murder #robin buckley #guy in the chair robin #cat and mouse spy fic

[brainrotgobrr]

finished the teal mask and oh boy do i have thoughts…

(SPOILERS FOR THE NEW DLC IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS PLS DO NOT READ)

god. kieran. kieran is so refreshing from a character perspective. kieran is like the anti-hop. it kind of feels like he’s the protagonist and we’re the classic jerk rival, doesn’t it? this guy clearly has Issues and i really like that, im enjoying this sort of “why can’t i beat you” rival trope that gamefreak’s been doing lately. they nearly did it with hop but with kieran they’re really going full in. the character arc that kieran went through in this dlc was actually difficult for me to watch, seeing this poor boy destroy himself mentally. the first time i battled him for the final time i actually lost, and i was hoping that he would get to keep ogerpon because altho shes cute and i adore her, i felt so bad. but ofc thats not the way the cookie crumbles. kieran is socially awkward, he doesn’t know how to communicate, and he’s never had a true friend. then florian/juliana comes along and suddenly there’s someone who seems to genuinely enjoy hanging out with him that isn’t, yknow, related to him. but then that person that he was so eager to trust goes along and begins befriending and helping a pokemon that hes adored all your life behind his back. i relate to kieran a lot and ofc yknow the absolute maniac arc hes about to go through is probably not healthy but i rlly hope this ends up being good for him. he idolized ogerpon because of how he related to her story, not because of the actual living creature she is. i wouldnt be surprised if it turns out he doesnt value his pokemon as actual living creatures either. i could see him being like a reverse silver, as he grows colder growing to not even care about his pokemon.

on the other hand, carmine! carmine was such a delight, i was genuinely not expecting to enjoy her as much as i did. sure, she also has Issues and has probably been a negative effect on her brother, but at the end of the day she is also just a kid. she probably has no idea what shes doing, and i dont think shed ever hurt kieran. she went through a lot of growth in the dlc and i can see her trying to become a better person with the help of florian/juliana and repairing her odd relationship with kieran.

also, it seems like she kind of has to play a parental role for kieran, as its implied that their parents arent around. thats another thing that separates kieran and carmine from siblings like hop and leon (and oh my god im just realizing all the parallels between hop and leon and kieran and carmine). its implied that the galar bros had a good childhood, and hops Issues dont start until hes set off on his journey and leon is a full adult with an actual life. with the kitakami siblings, if you read between the lines you can tell that theyve had a harder time growing up. with carmines comments on tourism and how it’s negatively effected their town and give her Trust Issues, that obviously fucked them both up a little, seeing that people only valued their hometown as an attraction, and that they themselves were a part of that attraction. and of course we dont know what the issue was with their parents. also, why are they going to school in unova? (side not oh my god it is so obvious that we’re going to get bw remakes in gen 9 or a legends unova game)

kitakami is such an interesting region. obviously its tiny, it has one town and then everything else is just untamed land. i feel like something Else is going on here. or maybe its just small idk

i love ogerpon a lot i think shes adorable and i love that we got to run around with her before she joined our team and it makes the whole “ten year old catches legendary thing” feel more realistic

also why are ogerpon and the loyal three legendaries i feel like they should be mythicals them being legendary feels Wrong

anyways these were my silly thoughts on the dlc and i hope kieran turns out to be the bb leagues champion (pulling a blue) and also i dont trust briar now time to finish my pokedex and talk to legends arceus pandering i mean perrin and if i see anyone call carmine a terrible person i will trade away your ev trained competitive team ok bye

(also this scene made me emotional)

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #jocey plays games #pokemon scarlet and violet dlc #the teal mask #trainer florian #trainer juliana #trainer kieran #trainer carmine #MASKSHIPPING GANG WHERE ARE U AT #spoilers

[spr-ingo]

The prompts are in and our list has been finalized! As per our guidelines, any participants are free to interpret the prompts as they see fit, but if anything is unclear or you'd like a little more direction, we've got a handy guide below the cut!

February: Duty/Work. This week is themed around the job-- as Subway Boss, Warden, or anything that suits your vision!

(On the) Job Training: What did it take for Ingo to get where he is? Was it fun? Difficult? Is he trying to learn the ropes for a second time?

Team Track: It's very interesting to see a person coordinate and work so closely with their sibling well into adulthood. How do the twins work together? What's their favorite part? Does it ever get annoying-- on purpose, or just by way of how tight knit they are?

Accommodation: Are there any daily challenges that Ingo needs help with? What does it take to communicate with lips that won't emote? Does he have any injuries or conditions that he needs to keep on top of to stay in working order?

Foreign Travel: The Subway Boss has been all over Unova, and the Warden knows his way around the Hisui, but where else has he been? Did he see anything interesting, or meet new people and Pokemon?

Workplace Injury: Even the best safety measures can't prevent every injury. Has Ingo ever been injured on the job? Had to tend to someone else?

Station Master: What's a trainer without their team? Whether or not it's a Pokemon he trains or handles, show us a Pokemon you associate with Ingo!

Emergency Exit: It's important to know where your entry and exit points are; be it a mechanical failure, cave in, or routine evacuation drill, show or tell us about a time escape was the only option.

March: Off-Duty/Home. This week, it's time for a break! Whether home is Unova or Hisui, it's time to settle in and rest.

RXR: Not a railroad crossing, but rest and relaxation! What's the best way to make use of time off the clock? IS there time off the clock, or is work never ending?

Maintenance: It's best to leave work at work, but sometimes it comes home with you. What needs to happen to keep this a well oiled machine? Alternately, what might a sick day look like?

Diversion: Some people breed Pokemon and some attend musicals. What kind of hobbies does Ingo keep? Any particularly notable interests (apart from the obvious)?

No Legendaries on the Train: This couldn't go any earlier, or we'd be breaking the rules. Does Ingo have any ties to or friendships with a legendary or mythical Pokemon? Maybe you associate him with one? What's the story there?

:3 : Everybody smile!

Dining Car: Whether it's unique preferences, sensitivities or preparation, everybody has opinions where food is concerned. What are some of Ingo's?

Familiar Tracks: Unova is a region with a deep history and culture, and Hisui is set in its own ways. Does Ingo observe any traditions? Hold any cultural beliefs?

April: Truth & Ideals. This week is about history and aspiration!

Admission: How, exactly, did Ingo end up in Hisui? Whether you ascribe to his version of events or what the art book seems to imply, there's a story there, so what is it?

Rookie: What was life like before assuming his job? Was his role something he strove toward, or fortunate happenstance?

Branching Line: We have a very good idea what one member of Ingo's family is like, but apart from Emmet, who else is there? Familiar faces? Someone we've never seen? Is there anything interesting in the twins' family tree?

Pearl Clan: The Pearl Clan took Ingo in, but then what? Under what circumstances? Are they happy to have an outside perspective, or are those rough tracks to travel?

Ghost Train: There are ghosts in Ingo's past, both literal and figurative. Does anything continue to haunt him?

Historical Accuracy: We've seen traces of Hisui in modern day Sinnoh, so let's crack open a history book. How, if at all, is Warden Ingo remembered?

Everything Changes: Things won't be the same when (or if) Ingo finally gets home, but that's not always a bad thing. Show us that different doesn't mean worse.

May: Dream World. This week is about what we won't see on screen, so make sure your imagination is in high gear!

Off-Script: We've gotten a peek into a world where Ingo didn't wind up in Hisui, so let's explore that idea. Whether he disappeared and wound up somewhere else, or stayed safely in Unova, what else do you suppose could have happened?

Fresh Coat of Paint: It's well established how attached Ingo is to his coat, but let's give it a break of its own. Whether it's for fashion, fun or function, it's time to play dress up!

Alternator/X-ing: Do you have an AU or crossover you'd like to tell us about? A favorite you want to dip into? Now's the time!

Mirror Image: Maybe things got a little too intense yesterday-- now we're looking at two of the same person! Is Ingo interacting with a past or future version of himself? An alternate universe counterpart? Give us a peek into how it goes!

Train of Thought: Do you have any headcanons you want to share? If there's nothing in particular, then tell us a little bit about how you view Ingo. No two individuals-- or their thoughts-- are exactly identical, after all!

Union Station: It's a big world out there, with an impossible amount of interesting people! Who's someone you'd like to introduce Ingo to? Maybe it's an unlikely friendship or rivalry?

A Higher State: Where do we go from here? Whether it's what you think is most realistic, compelling, or what you personally want to see, give us an ending!

Thank you to everybody who submitted prompt suggestions! While they might not appear verbatim, we've tried to carry the spirit in the list above!

#submas #subway boss ingo #warden ingo #subway master nobori #subway bosses #subway boss emmet #pokemon ingo #pokemon #pokemon black and white #pokemon legends arceus #event week #fandom event #springo #spring of ingo

[the-monkey-ruler]

Chinese Mythology Stories (1983) 中國神話故事－西遊記

Director: Chen Lie Screenwriter: Yeung Wai-Man Starrring: Jin Chao-Chun / Chang Fu-Chien / Sun Jia-Lin / Yang Hsiung / Barry Chan / Wu Xue-Fen / Zeng Ya-Jun / Yeung Wai-Man / Wang De-Zhi / Chiang Kuang-Chao / Ko Hsiao-Pao Genre: Fantasy Country: Taiwan Language: Mandarin Date: 1983-05-31 Number of episodes: N/A Also known as: 中国神话故事 Type: Retelling

Summary:

Several folk legends from different dynasties are actually gathered together. Nezha, Jigong, Door God, Xu Xian, Bai Suzhen... Could it be that these characters are going to gather together to perform some kind of comedy?! Don't make blind guesses! They came together just to show some kind of "propaganda effect"; to promote the upcoming "Chinese Mythology Story"; these legendary characters will all bring out a touching Chinese mythology story. "Chinese Mythical Stories" is a unit theater that CTV will open at 1:00 pm on weekends. Currently, the recording of three unit stories of "Nezha", "Ji Gong" and "The Legend of White Snake" has been completed. It is scheduled to start on May 28 or Saturday. Launched on the 4th. Wang Weijiang went from the front to the back, and co-produced the "Chinese Mythology" unit theater with Wei Xin to realize an ideal, that is, to introduce various folk beliefs through the moving myths and stories circulated in our country's long history of thousands of years. In the creation of the protagonist's character, special emphasis is placed on his method of becoming an immortal and attaining enlightenment - inner cultivation and saving people and saving the world, in order to remind the audience that faith should not be turned into superstition. Such a theme has considerable social and educational significance. Wang Weijiang said that "Chinese Mythical Stories" is a social and educational program produced in the form of drama. It is quite difficult for the social education style and drama type to deeply move people's hearts; because this is equivalent to using the strengths of drama - the drama of twists and turns to make up for the shortcomings of social education - the rigid boring feeling; the "Chinese mythology story" The production is exploring such a new route. If successful, it will be a major breakthrough for TV programs. Judging from the production method of "Chinese Myth Stories", this "new line" that breaks the boundaries between drama and social education has great potential and great potential. The legendary mythical story, through DPE's latest TV effects machine, makes the picture show magical special effects, how fascinating it will be! Since it is a myth, it can perform special effects, and the scenes can be as magical and varied as possible.

Source: https://en.hkcinema.ru/film/20385

Link: N/A

#Chinese Mythology Stories #中國神話故事－西遊記 #中国神话故事 #jttw media #jttw television #television #lost media #live action #retelling #sun wukong #zhu bajie #sha wujing #tang sazang #monk tripitaka #monkey king #li nezha #white snake demon #king li #weaver girl #cow header #Jigong #rewrite

[gust-jar-simulator]

Half of what makes Ganondorf so compelling for me is the mythic impact of him. He’s The Guy. The red to the blue and green. The Din to the Nayru and Farore. The man, the myth, the legend. I genuinely love the way the LOZ series is set up, so a character can have so much type because you know who this is even if you don’t know who he is in the context of a new story. I’d prefer if it wasn’t totally relied on, but hey. He’s the Demon King.

With that in mind, since I really want to write Vaati as an actual threat as opposed to an extremely angry rat (it’s tempting though), I might as well take notes. Vaati isn’t Ganondorf, and I don’t want him to be, but he is a legendary enemy. It’s difficult because it’s hard to see his overarching impact- Ganondorf has a presence even outside of his own actual actions, due to the presence of his culture and impact on history.

Vaati doesn’t have that. The Minish are in one game, and the other children of the forest are either fairies or kokiri/koroks, which have different associations in the fandom consciousness. Wind magic is almost never used. Even if I stretch it to say music is a type of wind magic, off the top of my head that leaves us mostly with Wind Waker and Cadence of Hyrule. It’s difficult to give Vaati a presence because he has no impact outside of his own games, and in his own games he’s kind of got Saturday morning cartoon villain motives.

So the final way I can think of to make him intimidating is to work on his motives and methods, and I can definitely do that, but. C’mon. He’s an ancient demon. He came from a race that can only be seen by the pure of heart and turned himself into a dark god, that’s cool as hell. He’s even a recurring villain. How do I give him some weight, some terror, some oh shit impact?

Anytime I see him in a fanfic, I’m delighted by his presence, but he’s rarely actually intimidating in the same way Ganondorf effortlessly exudes. Maybe because Vaati has this… desperation, this need to be a god, that’s harder to take seriously compared to Ganondorf’s more methodical destruction. Vaati needs you to take him seriously, while Ganondorf doesn’t care if you do.

I’ve been working on puzzling it out, and I think I have the start of a detail to tease out- Vaati comes from a culture where kindness is innate. Cruelty is literally a foreign, alien concept to the Minish, from what I can gather, and he was learning magic in an academic context, so I could easily see him wanting to make a study of the concept. He chose cruelty, for one reason or another- maybe he hated the “servile” position of his people, maybe he wanted to see what happens if you use cruelty as a magic base instead of kindness, maybe he started researching things he shouldn’t and when he got negative feedback he lashed out because you don’t understand, I’m learning, isn’t that what’s important here? Why don’t you support me? I thought our whole wretched culture is about that.

Something about “nobody leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark”. He’s the wind, I think the thing most likely to set him off is limitations. He’s an eye, endlessly observing, studying, watching, learning. He’s a bat, a crosser of boundaries. Of course you have to seal him with the four elements. If it was just one, steel and stone, he’d figure a way out. Of course you have to seal him with the primordial forces of nature. He’s a child of nature, in the end.

I think if I want to make him terrifying, I need to give him a simpler, more elegant motive than “rule Hyrule as a god, an angry god”. The major motivations of people are: money, power, fame, sex, and the desire to be great. Vaati might kidnap maidens and call himself a god, but I think those are expressions of a need to be great, not motives on their own. He wants power because he wants to break his limits, all limits, wants to become something more, and that is rooted in a small child’s memory where he was told by his teacher that there are some things one Shouldn’t Do. If he hates limits, the simplest solution I have for why he hates Ezlo so deeply is because the man tried to limit him. Whether it was through implying people don’t love a monster, or just saying that he’s a Minish and he shouldn’t study cruelty because of his species, or something else.

He’s conscious of his own cruelty in a way a lot of villains aren’t. Even a few incarnations of Ganondorf are doing what he does for his people, because Hyrule is an active threat and he wanted his people to live. Vaati doesn’t give a shit about good intentions, he doesn’t need them or want them. He just won’t be limited by anything ever again, mentors or mortality.

Too bad for him the Four Sword exists. I wonder how furious that makes him.

#loz vaati #legend of zelda

[oops-its-a-fanwork]

New undertale/pokémon au lets goooooo!

Here's the general gist of the au! Check out the masterlist or tag for any individual stories :) What iffff the undertale skeleboys were the equivalent of legendary or mythical pokémon to their region? I tried to see if this has been done already, but all I'm finding is the boys as trainers, which is its own heap of fun of course! It’s not quite what I have in mind though: I’m imagining the beautiful and overall peaceful world of pokémon, where besides the occasional world ending plot of a maniac, life is super quaint and aesthetically pleasing, and people are friendly and encouraging. I think making different stories for the different aus as legendary pokémon would be fun :3! In most pokémon movies people don’t seem to really want to catch a legendary, either out of respect, because it's considered difficult/impossible, or because they don’t believe in the legendary’s existence altogether. That's something I want to keep in these stories too! It really preserves the characters as individuals rather than cool pets.

I intend to make this a topic for some x readers (cuz I love those), but the first posts are just area and character background and the first tryouts for fun!

I will tag these posts as “legendary pokémonsters au” and the shortened “lepom au” so they can easily be filtered for and against as you see fit!  (these were the only tags I could find that had no other meaning or were already a tumblr tag lol)

I’m afraid I don’t know how to design pokémon so their true forms are up to the imagination for now~ I’ll always incorporate their skeleton-ness in some way though! Perhaps legendaries having very little skin is just a given in this universe 🤷‍♀️

#homemade fanworks #legendary pokémonsters au #lepom au #undertale au #you may have read this before! Im trying to make the posts smaller by deviding them into smaller parts #so you're not insane👍

[canmom]

Animation Night 135: Short Film Night Rides Again

Hi friends! Welcome to Animation Night, the night where we watch animations.

Tonight we’ll be returning to an ever-recurrent theme: short films! So what’s new or interesting in the world of short animated films?

Well, first up, the Gobelins animation school have released their most recent crop of graduation films. Which means, as is Animation Night tradition, we must consume them.

Gobelins student films are always a treat - I don’t know if there’s something in the water over there, close supervision by the school, or just the fact it’s the most prestigious animation school in the world and has set a certain tone. But while at their sister school CalArts you’ll find a lot of promising films with a few absolute standouts, Gobelins students have such a consistently distinct vibe and intense mode that it often feels more like a highly accomplished animation studio, you know.

This year has been especially stylistically varied. (You could say it started a couple months ago with Au Revoir Jérôme, which we watched on AN126, but that seems to strictly be a late release of a 2021 film, not a 2022 film? anyway). For me some standouts are...

VULVINE REINE D’EXTASE (Vulvina, Queen of Ecstasy)

This one’s absolutely bonkers. Far too NSFW for youtube, it’s an extremely ero-guro story about a queen who is incredibly horny for Death, as in, the Grim Reaper. It’s got a beautiful paint-like style that feels like what a more animated Belladonna of Sadness might look like, perhaps by way of Takato Yamato, blending 2D and 3D and even a reasonable use of AI to add a dash of flowing, morphing shapes. What sort of school is based enough to let its students do something like this?

GLOIRE AMERE 40000 (Bitter Glory 40,000)

This one stands out to me just because its character design style is so weird in  such a specific way. Some kind of immortal space marine lady, after winning the big war, returns to a home she does not recognise - the sort of melancholy ambiguous emotion that a Gobelins film loves to play in. But the art style is kind of an exaggerated version of the 2000s flash scene - the pointy face and droopy eyes that are like no actual anime, the gradients, the mechanical lines. The main character’s design is of course riffing on warham, but like pushed to an even more extreme proportion. It is strange and fascinating to look at and I can only admire the imagination that takes us there.

LAST SUMMER

This one’s more grounded; a story of a band being torn apart by circumstances and the difficult emotions it raises; summer evenings awash with warm light. What makes it stand out to me is the subtle, naturalistic character acting that gets a huge amount of distance out of a low drawing count, the amount it is able to express through elision and implication. It’s a really masterful showcase of the kind of realist animation that’s becoming a specialty of France.

There’s many others to look forward to as well: a sashimi chef’s son who starts identifying with the fish; three brothers contemplating death in elaborate surreal dream sequences; a fictionalised depiction of the real-life murder of Costa Rican harpist Pacifica Zelaya; and if that’s all sounding a bit gloomy a fun spin on the ‘search for a cryptid’ sort of story with a mythical creature searching for the legendary ‘human’.

---

Next up, Kojo Tanno is continuing to make... his very specific series of wordless animated short films of intense psychic battles in science facilities and vast grey landscapes. The influence of Akira is evident, and more recent action anime, but there’s also some really particular stylistic touches like the omnipresent particles, cross motifs, dismemberment, time loop shenanigans... here’s a sample!

Honestly, I don’t know a lot about Kojo Tanno. He’s a Patreon-funded artist, apparently based in Nagasaki, who started posting films on Youtube about 14 years ago with さよなら、わたし･･･ (goodbye, me) and that’s about all I’ve got; he rarely ever says more than ‘A Kojo Tanno film’ and ‘support KOJO TANNO FILM here’ so... who knows!

Anyway, in those fourteen years he’s produced a ridiculous amount of unreasonably stylish animation for a one-man operation, so we’ll take a run through some of his films tonight. I think way more people should be aware of him!

Pixar! You know ‘em. Or if you don’t know ‘em, you can read Animation Night 75 and learn about the dawn of 3DCGI. Like a male angler fish having sex, they’ve gradually been absorbed into the Disney machine these days, and the distance between a Disney film and a Pixar one has gotten narrower and narrower.

But there is one Pixar tradition that yet holds, and that is the creation of a short film to accompany every one of their theatrical movies since A Bug’s Life! These short films functioned as technical experiments, training, and opportunities for their animators to direct films of their own. The result, although inevitably inflected by the values of Pixar films, is a fascinating little cross-section of CG history.

It’s been long enough since I’ve seen most of these films that I’m going to save detailed commentary on specific films until later. But the ones I’m looking at are Geri’s Game (1997), For The Birds (2000), Boundin (2003), One Man Band (2005) and Day and Night (2010) - the last notable as the first time that Pixar have tried their hand at traditional animation. They are generally speaking comedy shorts in the classic style, a hapless protagonist going through a series of misadventures with an emphasis on broad character animation.

Australian pixel animator Paul Robertson (on here actually! see @probertson​) is someone I’ve never really covered on here, which is quite an oversight.

Robertson is known for a kind of bouncy, information overload animation style, drawing on videogame (or Fleischer)-style loops, often in searingly bright pastel colours. Typical motifs are body horror and plentiful gainaxing (bouncing boobs); it’s not entirely surprising that Gravity Falls hired him to animate a parody bishojō game. In some cases, his work becomes so dense with allusions to videogame characters and anime to the point that it becomes less ‘nerd t-shirt’ and more ‘hyperpop’; in others it’s less specific but still very much in that space between. He’s the kind of artist that, if he were Japanese, would probably have Takashi Murakami all over him.

So, I recently remembered that Robertson existed. And digging back into him, I learned that alongside his work on Gravity Falls and Adult Swim, Robertson created a 13-minute long film Kings of Power 4 billion % in which an enormous cast of characters team up to fight a frenetic battle against alien invaders, which escalates until they’re fighting a guro-themed goddess in some kind of psychic dimension. The sheer visual density and pace of jokes is something I can only really compare, outside of Robertson’s work, to Homestuck’s finale animation [S] Collide.

And if that wasn’t enough, Robertson followed this up two years later with (ahem) Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006. This one is framed like a beat-em-’up, following two characters fighting their way up through a skyscraper full of squids.

Since those two monumental efforts, Robertson has largely made much shorter loops of a few seconds on his Youtube channel while doing commercial work - and surely cultivating his power even more. If he ever chooses to ride again into the short film realm, one wonders if anyone will survive.

What else?

Remember Sakowski Studios? Primarily working to animate concepts of youtuber cr1tikal/penguinz0, we last visited them on Animation Night 109. They just - as in literally as I’m typing this - dropped a new sequel to their cyberpunk slapfight story Godslap.

From French animator duo PULPE, a year ago, I stumbled on this neat little film SLICE about a gay French boy struggling to confess his feelings, with some very clever layouts.

@mogsk​ directed me over to Humans-B-Gone!, a fun-looking series about a bug war from the cockroach point of view. It uses a neat nonphotorealistic CG style that gets pretty close to drawing.

And coming at that boundary from the other direction is Moikaloop’s recent video for Agrume, in which their Moika character performs at a virtual club - a true feat of solid drawing. It’s an evolution in a way of the previous video for Ghost Data, now approaching full animation with some wild camera moves - short but very sweet. Moika is a Chilean animator who stands just at the edge of NSFW animation, clearly having written Me! Me! Me! into their soul on a deep level. (Using ‘they’ since I can’t find any pronoun info, but if someone knows better, lmk and I’ll fix my post!)

And looking at the time, I think that will about cover us! But if there’s any short films you’d love to watch in a group, please let me know and I’ll slot ‘em in! Either way, please sidle on over to twitch.tv/canmom where we will begin the show shortly~

#animation night #short films

[twistedtummies2]

Top 6 Easter Bunnies from Movies & TV

Happy Easter, everybody! In honor of this special day, here’s a list that I’ve been sitting on for a good long time. It’s time to talk about Easter’s favorite mascot, the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny is sort of an odd duck when it comes to the mythical icons of various holidays. On the one hand, I think you could argue he’s the most popular after Santa; unless you count Jack Skellington or the Great Pumpkin (and I don’t), Halloween doesn’t have any one wrote mascot to speak of, and I’m not sure if Leprechauns count when it comes to Saint Patrick’s Day. And there are dozens of other holidays that don’t really have mascots, either: essentially, it’s always been Santa and the Easter Bunny, at least in American culture. The weird part of this is that, between the two, you’ll find the Easter Bunny tends to get the short end of the stick. There are dozens of books featuring the character or about him, but none are as popular as the Christmas books, and when it comes to movies and television, the Easter Bunny has precious few cinematic outings, and most of his TV specials are less successful than the ones released at Christmastime featuring Jolly Old Saint Nick. Why this has occurred is likely a discussion better suited for smarter folks than I, but with that in mind, I think it’s high time everyone’s favorite rabbit got at least a little time in the spotlight. Finding good Easter specials and great takes on the Bunny was more difficult than I thought, but I think I’ve managed to narrow down my personal favorites nicely. So with that in mind, sit back and enjoy some chocolate eggs, whilst I present My Top 6 Favorite Easter Bunnies from Movies and Television!

6. Rabbit, from Winnie-the-Pooh.

Confused? Then you probably haven’t seen the special “Springtime With Roo.” I don’t know the special is called that, incidentally, since the main character of the film is actually Rabbit; Roo is really just a supporting player. But I guess Roo was just more marketable. (shrugs) Anyway, “Springtime With Roo” is, weirdly enough, an adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” but with an Easter theme and featuring the characters from Winnie-the-Pooh. The story features Rabbit as our Scrooge surrogate, as it’s revealed Rabbit is actually THE Easter Bunny…but because of past events, he’s decided to call the holiday off. In Dickensian fashion, adventures through the past, present, and the future all give him a chance to change his ways and bring Easter back to the 100 Acre Wood. This is a surprisingly clever, sweet reimagining of the Carol story, and the idea of Rabbit BEING the Easter Bunny is kind of cute to me. I felt it would have been cheating, though, to place Rabbit in the Top 5, hence why this only gets an Honorable Mention.

5. Todd Tolces, from Claymation Easter.

“Claymation Easter” is a somewhat forgotten special nowadays, created by the mighty Will Vinton: a legendary animator most famous for his work with stop-motion, and the creator of various animated mascots for advertising products, including the California Raisins, the Noid for Domino’s Pizza, and the M&Ms (no, I’m serious, he made the M&Ms, too, look it up). In 1992, Vinton directed and co-produced an Easter Special made in his signature style, which featured Todd Tolces as the Easter Bunny. The plot tells the story of a villainous pig, Wilshire, who plans to take over Easter as part of an elaborate money-making scheme. Simple enough, but what makes the special so…well…special is its style of comedy and its animation credit. The special has a very absurd, bonkers sense of humor, riding a fine line between playfully whimsical and satirically mean-spirited, which gives it a unique identity among specials for this holiday. There’s also an underlying current of a theme of tradition vs. expansion: the Easter Bunny in the story is an upholder of old standards and ideals, while Wilshire is a villainous cad who uses massive machines to get what he desires, and speaks with a lot of modernized lingo and subtle innuendos and jokes. In the middle of all this Spike Rabbit, a psychologist who becomes the true hero of the story, and essentially plays the role of the middle ground: he’s got more modern sensibilities than the Easter Bunny, but he’s nowhere near as diabolical as Wilshire. Whether you see it as just a silly romp or something more, “Claymation Easter” is a hidden gem, and it’s Easter Bunny one of the more interesting and integral parts of its story.

4. Bob McFadden, from The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise.

This is one of three Easter specials I used to watch all the time as a kid (the other two will come later), and it’s still got a special place in my heart. Featuring the classic Berenstain Bear Family, the story of this special focuses on Boss Bunny - the Easter Bunny himself, voiced by Bob McFadden - deciding to retire, and calling off Easter for good. This is a problem, because in this universe, Easter is also the beginning of Spring: if Boss Bunny doesn’t do his job, winter will go on forever. When Papa Bear’s plans to replace the Bunny and save the holiday fail most spectacularly, Brother Bear takes it upon himself to try and convince Boss Bunny to go out once more. What’s interesting about Boss Bunny’s role in the story is that he’s the only Easter Bunny I’ve encountered who’s outright an antagonistic presence: he’s grown tired and bitter, and wants to call off Easter not so much because of any philosophical issues, but simply because he feels overworked. He feels he’s doing a thankless job, being taken for granted, and he’s so old and worn out he’s not sure he has it in him to continue doing the job. Of course, in the end, good sense prevails for the old timer, and he gets back to his regular duties…and it turns out chocolates and colored eggs aren’t the only surprises Brother Bear has to look forward to on Easter Morning…but I mustn’t say more, or I shall spoil the rest of the story.

3. Hugh Jackman, from Rise of the Guardians.

I don’t know what crazy person came up with the idea of the Easter Bunny as a fluffy boomerang-toting Crocodile Dundee action hero voiced by freaking Wolverine…but whoever decided that was an awesome idea deserves ALL of the candies this year. (pauses) That’s it. I’ve…I’ve got nothing else. This one speaks for itself. Moving on.

2. Skip Hinnant, from The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town! Both of my top two choices are the creation of Rankin/Bass; they’re the other two specials I used to watch every year as a kid, and these two I actually make a point of STILL watching every year. Easter just wouldn’t feel complete without them. The first up is the sequel to the popular Christmas Special “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” and in many ways, this Easter-themed follow-up is sort of the same basic story. It chronicles the origins of the Easter Bunny - voiced by Skip Hinnant, and named Sunny - from his birth to his role as the icon of the holiday, explaining how many of the Easter traditions were born in the process. While it follows a lot of the same beats from the previous special, it changes things up enough to still have its own identity, and Sunny is a wonderfully fun, sweet, smart character. It’s just as good as its Yuletide predecessor, in my opinion; if you haven’t seen it before, take a peek.

As much as I love sweet little Sunny, however, there’s one Easter Special - one Easter Bunny - I like even more…

1. Casey Kasem, from Here Comes Peter Cottontail!

Rankin/Bass actually made three Easter specials, and of the three, this one is the most popular, and my personal favorite. In this story, we don’t just focus on ONE Easter Bunny, however…we essentially have a story of SEVERAL. The tale takes place in April Valley, which is basically to Easter what the North Pole is to Santa Claus. Here there lives an entire species of talking rabbits, who all work to make Easter run smoothly; the Chief Easter Bunny is the leader of them all, and the one responsible for delivering all the goodies on the big day. One year, the old Chief - Colonel Bunny - decides it’s time to retire, and chooses a young upstart, Peter Cottontail (voiced by Shaggy himself, of all people, Casey Kasem) to be his successor. Peter is a boastful, rash, and occasionally prone-to-fib bunny, so others doubt he’s suitable for the job, but the Colonel sees himself in Peter, and it becomes clear that, for all his faults, Peter does have his heart in the right place. Unfortunately, his main rival does not: the villainous Irontail (voiced by Our Lord and Savior of Villainy, Vincent Price) decides to challenge Peter to a contest…which Peter, thanks to his laziness and Irontail’s scheming, loses. With help from a time machine (yes, a time machine, just run with it) Peter decides to go back and try to find a way to fix things, and in the process, learns to shape up his act and become a responsible Rabbit. All three of the main bunnies in the story are wonderful (especially Irontail, mostly because this is Vincent Price at his absolute hammiest; he is to Price what Dr. Mystico is to Tim Curry, in my opinion), but Peter is the main character and obviously our Easter Bunny Prime for the purposes of the tale. It’s a very fun special, one of Rankin/Bass’ best productions, in my opinion, with great music, charming characters, and glorious voice acting. While I’d be lying if I said Peter is my ideal Easter Bunny (that honor actually belongs to a book, and that’s rather a different story), this is, without a doubt, my favorite Easter Special, and Peter, by extension, my favorite take on the Bunny from onscreen outings. He is more than deserving of my number one spot.

#easter special #easter bunny #top 6 #favorites #best #list #countdown #peter cottontail #here comes peter cottontail #sunny #the easter bunny is comin' to town #rankin/bass #boss bunny #berenstain bears #will vinton #claymation easter #rabbit #winnie-the-pooh #springtime with roo #disney

[why-does-this-happen-to-me]

I have been figuring out how pokemon essentials works by recreating Kanto (I'm in the process for that, but the things left are the events and I can't do a lot of them if I want to do something different to the original story, as is the case), and I got the idea to choose pokemon at random and change the original story to fit the new pokedex, but if it was completely random I could end up with no starters or legendaries, so I decided to use the original kanto dex to create categories and put every pokemon after that in the one that fits it better. There are no problems classifying starters, mythicals, legendaries and pseudos, but the rest are more difficult. I decided some because it made sense, some because they had similar vibes and some because of a mix of both. The problem is that it's easy to forget a category and put one in other that fit's it less, so I'll show you my draft so you can judge me.

(I will add more pokemon than the ones that this says if it makes sense, like more ghosts so pokemon tower doesn't feel too monotone. The ones with a / between them go together, I will probably not add regional variants, and joltik is with the pikachus because I say so. Also, there aren't a lot a single stage evolutions in gen 1, so all of the ones that don't fit are in the closest thing because it's hard to match the number of evolutions and the types.)

Grass starter:

Bulbasaur

Chikorita

Treecko

Turtwig

Snivy

Chespin

Rowlet

Grookey

Sprigatito

Fire starter:

Charmander

Cyndaquil

Torchic

Chimchar

Tepig

Fennekin

Litten

Scorbunny

Fuecoco

Water starter:

Squirtle

Totodile

Mudkip

Piplup

Oshawott

Froakie

Popplio

Sobble

Quaxly

2 Bugs:

Caterpie

Weedle

Ledyba

Spinarak

Wurmple

Kricketot

Burmy

Sewaddle

Venipede

Karrablast/shelmet

Larvesta

Scatterbug

Grubbin

Dewpider

Wimpod

Blipbug

Sizzlipede

Taroundtula

Nymble

Rellor

2 Birds:

Pidgey

Spearow

Hoothoot

Murkrow

Taillow

Starly

Pidove

Rufflet

Fletching

Pikipek

Rookidee

Wattrel

1 Rodent:

Rattata

Sentret

Zigzagoon

Bidoof

Buneary

Patrat

Minccino

Bunnelby

Yungoos

Skwobet

Maushold

1 Ekans:

Ekans

Gulpin

Silicobra

1 Pikachu:

Pikachu

Plusle/Minun

Pachirisu

Emolga

Joltik

Dedenne

Togedemaru

Pawmi

1 Sandshrew:

Sandshrew

Combee

2 Nidorans:

Nidoran F

Nidoran M

Mareep

Lunatone/Solrock

2 Fairies:

Clefairy

Jigglypuff

Togepi

Snubbull

Cottonee

Flabébé

Spritzee

Cutiefly

Impidimp

Milcery

Tinkatink

2 canines:

Vulpix

Arcanine

Houndour

Poochyena

Liliput

Zorua

Furfrou

Rockruff

Nickit

Yamper

Fidough

Maschiff

Greavard

1 Zubat:

Zubat

Sableye/Mawile

Woobat

Noibat

1 Oddish:

Oddish

Seedot

Petilil

Bounsweet

Applin

Smoliv

1 Paras:

Paras

Surskit

Falinks

1 Venonat:

Venonat

Yanma

Nincada

Volbeat

1 Diglett:

Diglett

Sudowoodo

Phanpy

Nosepass

Hippopotas

Drilbur

Sandile

Dwebble

Sandygast

Toadscool

1 Meowth:

Meowth

Aipom

Skitty

Glameow

Purrloin

Litleo

Espurr

Wooloo

Lechonk

1 Psyduck:

Psyduck

Marill

Shellos

1 Mankey:

Mankey

Whismur

Binacle

Stufful

Clobbopus

1 Poliwag:

Poliwag

Buizel

Tympole

1 Abra:

Abra

Ralts

Spoink

Gothita

Solosis

Hatenna

Indeedee

1 Machop:

Machop

Riolu

Timburr

Scraggy

1 Bellsprout:

Bellsprout

Hoppip

Lotad

Roselia

Cherubi

1 Tentacool:

Tentacool

Chinchou

Barboach

Panpour

1 Geodude:

Geodude

Aron

Roggenrola

Rolycoly

Nacli

1 Ponyta:

Ponyta

Slugma

Numel

Pansear

Blitzle

Darumaka

Skiddo

Mudbray

Cufant

1 Slowpoke:

Slowpoke

Corphish

Clauncher

Crabrawler

1 Magnemite:

Magnemite

Bronzor

Ferroseed

Klink

Klefki

Duraludon

Varoom

1 Farfetch’d:

Farfetch’d

Delibird

Skarmory

Tropius

Chatot

Sigilyph

Hawlucha

Oricorio

Cramorant

Squawkabily

Bombirdier

Flamigo

1 Doduo:

Doduo

Natu

Wingull

Swablu

Ducklett

Vullaby

Flittle

1 Seel:

Seel

Wooper

Cubchoo

Wishiwashi

Bruxish

Finizen

1 Grimer:

grimer

Skorupi

Trubbish

Salandit

Shroodle

1 Shellder:

Shellder

Swinub

Vanillite

Cryogonal

1 Ghost:

Gastly

Misdreavus

Shuppet

Duskull

Spiritomb

Yamask

Frillish

Honedge

Pumpkaboo

Mimikyu

Dhelmise

Sinistea

Poltchageist

1 Onix:

Onix

Gligar

Carbink

Stonjourner

Cyclizar

Orthworm

1 Drowzee:

Drowzee

Wobbuffet

Baltoy

Drifloon

Munna

Inkay

1 Krabby:

Krabby

Corsola

Chewtie

Klawf

1 Voltorb:

Voltorb

Electrike

Foongus

Tynamo

Helioptile

Toxel

Tadbulb

Gimmighoul

1 Exeggcute:

Exeggcute

Sunkern

Cacnea

Capsakid

1 Cubone:

Cubone

Elgyem

Pancham

Martial art dudes:

Tyrogue

Makuhita

Meditite

Throh

Sawk

Mienfoo

1 Lickitung:

Lickitung

Dunsparce

Teddiursa

1 Koffing:

Koffing

Stunky

Croagunk

Mareanie

Glimmet

1 Rhyhorn:

Rhyhorn

Trapinch

Axew

1 Chansey:

Chansey

Luvdisc

Audino

Alomomola

Comfey

1 Tangela:

Tangela

Shroomish

Carnivine

Pansage

Maractus

Deerling

Phantump

Fomantis

Morelull

Gossifleur

Bramblin

1 Kangaskhan:

Kangaskhan

Stantler

Miltank

Zangoose/Seviper

Druddigon

Heatmor/Durant

Oranguru

Minior

1 Horsea:

Horsea

Spheal

Skrelp

1 Goldeen:

Goldeen

Remoraid

Wailmer

Finneon

Basculin

Arrokuda

1 Staryu:

Staryu

Clamperl

Pyukumuku

Wiglett

1 Mr. mime:

Mr. mime

Girafarig

Chimecho

Pawniard

1 Scyther:

Scyther

Pineco

Golett

1 Jynx:

Jynx

Sneasel

Snorunt

Snover

Bergmite

Snom

Eiscue

Cetoddle

1 Electabuzz:

Electabuzz

Shinx

1 Magmar:

Magmar

Litwick

Charcadet

1 Pinsir:

Pinsir

Heracross

1 Tauros:

Tauros

Unown

Absol

Bouffalant

1 Magikarp:

Magikarp

Mantine

Carvanha

Feebas

1 Lapras:

Lapras

Qwilfish

Relicanth

Stunfisk

Veluza

Dondozo/Tatsugiri

1 stage gimmick (or whatever I don’t have anywhere else to put):

Ditto

Shuckle

Smeargle

Torkoal

Spinda

Castform

Kecleon

Pincurchin

Morpeko

Eevee

1 Porygon?:

Porygon

Rotom

3 Fossils:

Kabuto

Omanyte

Aerodactyl

Lileep

Anorith

Shieldon

Cranidos

Tirtouga

Archen

Tyrunt

Amaura

Galar fossils

1 Snorlax:

Snorlax

Slaking

Komala

Turtonator

Drampa

1 Legendary group:

Kanto birds

Johto beasts

Regis

Weather trio

Lake guardians

Pokemon of Myth

Swords of justice

Forces of Nature

Tao trio

Guardian deities

Light trio

Legends of Galar

Galar birds

Treasures of ruin

Loyal three

Aura trio

1 Pseudo:

Dratini

Larvitar

Bagon

Beldum

Gible

Deino

Goomy

Jangmo-o

Dreepy

Frigibax

Legendary:

Mewtwo

Lugia

Ho-Oh

Latias

Latios

Cresselia

Heatran

Cosmog/cosmoem

Kubfu/Urshifu

Calyrex

King’s steeds

Ogerpon

Terapagos

Koraidon

Miraidon

Type: Null/Silvally

Mythical:

Mew

Celeby

Melmetal

Jirachi

Deoxys

Manaphy/Phione

Darkrai

Shaymin

Arceus

Victini

Keldeo

Meloetta

Genesect

Diancie

Hoopa

Volcanion

Magearna

Marshadow

Zeraora

Zarude

Pecharunt

#pokemon #pokemon random red

[blacksheep28]

There was only a couple more plates to find. Volo and I went to Miss Cogita for help with it and she asked us to help set up for tea. When we finished she thanked us and handed me the pixie plate. A perfect task for such a plate! Such a good choice, and Miss Cogita was happy with my appreciation of such a pick, even if Volo looked far more confused.

With that we just had one left, and Volo suggested that we may find the last at the temple. We started walking there together. Volo was so excited. He told me it had always been his dream to meet legendaries and mythicals, to understand how they fit in our world and the stories they had left behind. He had spent so much time researching, but it was only with the opening of the rift and my arrival that he really began to make progress. With all the plates gathered he could finally read their tale, and perhaps meet Arceus himself.

He stopped as we reached the top and grinned, pulling out the final plate. He'd had it all along, but why bring me here to give it? Volo wasn't going to give it to me though. He had met Giratina a short time before the rift. Giratina had gifted him the plate, and Volo had known that he would gather them all and meet Arceus. Giratina wasn't made for this world of course, and bringing him through tore open the rift.

Volo hadn't seen any particular problem with the rift, not until I arrived and the nobles fell to a frenzy. He still believed he would be the one to gather the plates, but he put in the effort to stop things from worsening. It seemed he hadn't believed in me when he saved me. He had just known he was the true one to blame.

It hurt to learn he was the reason I'd been exiled, and had let it stand. He had supported me, but he hadn't cleared things up. He was happy to skip out on the consequences, and now he wanted to face me in battle for the plates so he could fulfill his "destiny". Not that such a thing existed.

Battling him was difficult. It got worse when he called Giratina out. Giratina's presence immediately began to worsen things around us. We wouldn't have long before another rift would open. I would have to be fast if I wanted to avoid that.

Cello lead the way here. She was powerful, and clever, and managed to make a connection to Giratina that was enough to convince the distortion god to leave. It felt like my teeth were being grated as he left. Volo screamed and cursed at losing. I didn't care about that. He could hurt. He had hurt so many in his selfish wish to reach the gods. I took the plate from him. I had them all. I was ready to meet Arceus again.

I played my flute, and a staircase that hadn't been there before revealed itself. I climbed up, and Arceus was there, in a space hard to define. It looked at me, and I felt pressure bear down. Arceus was pleased with me for completing my task, for helping to deal with the rift. It wished for me to continue to do more, but first, it would honor me with the chance to battle.

 I'm not inclined towards battling. I prefer studying the pokemon. Arceus wouldn't be seriously battling me though. It would be closer to getting a chance to play with the pokemon deity. And that was a chance I wanted. I accepted, and Arceus set the field. It was hard. I ran all over, dodging and throwing balms while my pokemon did their best to back me up. It felt like the greatest measurement of how far I've come that I could have asked for. When I finally dropped to the ground it was with a giant smile on my face. Arceus came over and nuzzled me. It promised to keep an eye on me, and offer hints of how to strive towards my goals in the future. I gave it a hug, and departed.

I don't think that was the kind of meeting Volo had hoped for, but it was one I enjoyed. Maybe I should have asked for a favor. I was facing a deity able to reshape reality after all, and I had been plucked from my home to here. I was happy in Hisui though. I may not love the Galaxy Team, but I didn't need to. I had the friends I needed, and I had explored far. I got to study pokemon, and I loved it. So this ending to my grand adventure? It was perfect for me. Especially with the promise of more on the horizon.

#pokemon #pokemon arceus #pokemon legends arceus #spoilers #drabble #fiction #story #fanfiction

[dwellordream]

“A millennium of detailed descriptions of Amazons presented as history began with Herodotus (fifth century BC) and continued through the late antique authors Orosius and Jordanes (fifth–sixth centuries AD). Between the lifetimes of these men, many other Greek and Roman historians also chronicled the origins, rise, and fall of the legendary Amazon “empire.” Each of these writers had access to texts and unwritten traditions that no longer exist today. Their accounts commingle fact and fancy, legend and history, but all identify the women called Amazons as Scythians.

Herodotus, the inquisitive Greek historian from Halicarnassus (Caria, part of the Persian Empire), preserved a treasury of information about the many tribes of Near and Far Scythia, based on personal observations, local histories and legends, and interviews. Admiration for resourceful, self-reliant Amazons is evident in Herodotus’s “historical” account of the origin of the Sarmatians. That story (recounted in the next chapter) tells how a gang of Amazons from Pontus joined a band of young Scythian men from the northern Black Sea and relocated to form a new ethnolinguistic group, a realistic option in the nomadic context of flexibility, alliances, and constant movement around the Black Sea and steppes.

About a century after Herodotus, in 380 BC, the Athenian orator Isocrates named the three most dangerous enemies of Athens: the Thracians, “the Scythians led by the Amazons,” and the Persians. Isocrates was harking back to glorious victories when “Hellas was still insignificant.” He reminded his audience that the first Athenians had repelled an “invasion of the Scythians, led by the Amazons.” Isocrates was alluding to the mythic Battle for Athens, which the Athenians treated as a historical event (chapter 17). After their defeat, Isocrates recalls, the army of women did not return to Pontus but went to live with their Scythian allies in the north. The Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily (65–50 BC) also wrote about Amazons, associating them with Saka-Scythian women who were as brave and aggressive in battle as the men. He pointed to the historical example of Zarina, who led a Saka-Parthian coalition to victories against tribes who wanted to enslave them (her story appears in chapter 23).

For his research on Amazon history, Diodorus consulted works by Ctesias (a Greek physician who settled in Persia around 400 BC) and Megasthenes (a Greek ethnographer who traveled to India ca. 350–290 BC). According to Diodorus’s sources, after a series of “revolutions” in Scythia, the Scythians were often ruled by strong women “endowed with exceptional valor”; they “train for war just like the men and in acts of manly courage they are in no way inferior to the men.” Many of these women accomplished “many great deeds, not just in Scythia, but in the lands bordering Scythia.”

At some point in the past, Pontus became home to a Scythian group governed by women who rode to war beside their men. One woman (Diodorus does not give her name) possessed extraordinary authority, superb intelligence, physical strength, and battle prowess. This brilliant leader trained a handpicked force of fighting women and began subduing neighboring lands. She founded Themiscyra at the mouth of the Thermodon in Pontus. Filled with pride “as the tide of her fortunes” rose, she began calling herself “Daughter of Ares,” the war god. Under this “kindly ruler beloved by her subjects, young girls were taught to hunt and they drilled daily in the arts of war.” She continued to lead her special army on wars of further conquest, advancing as far north as the Don River. So far there is nothing incredible in Diodorus’s account of a group of Scythians led by a successful female commander at some point in the distant past.

But in the following passage we can glimpse mythography in process, as the plausible is transformed into something more sensational. Ordinary Scythian society is twisted into an ominous “rule of hubristic women” scenario, a reversal of what was normal in the Mediterranean world, bound to titillate Diodorus’s audience. This powerful “queen,” declares Diodorus, enacted new laws that created a true gynocracy in Pontus, in which the women would always be sovereign and trained for warfare. She assigned men to domestic tasks, spinning wool and caring for children. She ordered that baby boys’ legs were to be maimed and girls would have one breast seared. From then on, Diodorus tells us, this Scythian tribe ruled exclusively by women was known as the Amazons and their queens were called “Daughters of Ares.”

This first great Amazon queen died heroically in battle. Her daughter (also unnamed) surpassed her mother’s great accomplishments, relates Diodorus, conquering lands around the Black Sea from the Don to Thrace, and she even made forays south into Syria. For many generations, these queens’ descendants continued to advance the Amazon nation in power and fame. Their decline began when the Greek hero Her- acles killed their queen, Hippolyte. Then Theseus abducted Antiope and made her his wife in Athens. In retaliation, the Amazons, aided by other Scythians, invaded Greece and besieged the Acropolis. But meanwhile, the native Anatolians they had conquered saw a chance to ex- ploit the Amazons’ absence. They united to make war against the few Amazons guarding Pontus.

These wars were so successful, says Diodorus, that the great race of Amazons of Pontus was essentially erased from history. Soon the Amazons were so diminished that only a few scattered bands remained. One of these small vestigial bands, led by Penthesilea, helped to defend Troy in the legendary Trojan War. People “in my day wrongly consider the ancient stories about the Amazons to be fictitious tales,” declares Diodorus. He explains why. After the Amazons lost the great Battle for Athens, the surviving Amazons gave up the idea of returning to Pontus, because it was ravaged by wars while they were away. Echoing Isocrates, above, Diodorus says the defeated Amazons accompanied their allies “the Scythians, into Scythia.” Thus the great Amazon empire vanished—absorbed back into the steppes of Scythia.

Strabo, a well-traveled native of Pontus, also speaks of the Amazons as an ethnic group consisting of both men and women. These people had once lived on the coast of Pontus, “the plain of the Amazons,” but were driven out. Strabo reports that some say they still live in the mountains of Caucasian Albania (eastern Georgia and Azerbaijan), while others place them in the northern foothills of the Caucasus. According to Strabo, the Amazon tribe was seminomadic and not all female. “When they were at home, they planted crops . . . and raised and trained horses, but the bravest among them spent most of their time away, hunting on horseback and making war.” Strabo’s account is another realistic description of a typical pastoral, seminomadic lifestyle, in which men and women could choose to hunt and campaign together or in segregated groups.

Scythians and Amazons received special attention in a work of the first century BC by Pompeius Trogus, a historian of Celtic roots with encyclopedic knowledge. His lost history was summarized and elaborated by Justin, who probably lived in the second century AD. The Scythians are described as battle-hardened warriors who prized inde- pendence and repelled all would-be conquerors. Trogus and Justin are clear that Amazons were Scythian women, capable of making war when they chose to. Scythian men and women were equals in heroic exploits, remarks Justin, making it “difficult to decide which of the two sexes had the more distinguished history.” Scythian men founded the Baktrian and Parthian empires, he reports, while Scythian women founded the Amazonian empire.

Once when the Scythian men were away for fifteen years making war in Asia, the women sent their husbands a message: If you don’t return home we will have sex with the neighboring tribe and the result- ing children will carry on the Scythian race. This story appears to refer to the seventh–sixth centuries BC during the Scythians’ conquests across western Asia, when there would have been long spans of years when most of the men were away. This theme of Scythian women taking up with other men of their own choosing recurs in many nomadic and Amazon traditions.

Herodotus, for example, relates that while the Scythians from the Don region were away for nearly thirty years campaigning against the Cimmerians and Medes, their women “consorted with the male slaves.” The women and their new consorts not only raised a whole generation of children to adulthood, but together they created an army to oppose the male warriors when they came home. In Justin’s account, the men returned home after receiving their women’s message. But in his detailed story of the origin of the Amazons of Pontus we hear about yet another group of resourceful Scythian women whose men had been killed in battle.

On the northern Black Sea, wrote Justin, two young Scythians named Plynus and Skolopitus were forced out of their homeland by a faction. They assembled a large band of young men and traveled south over the Caucasus Mountains and occupied Pontus. “From their new base in Pontus, they plundered the nearby lands for a long time.” At last, the native peoples rose up. They ambushed and slaughtered most of the Scythian men. “The Scythians’ wives now perceived that they were widows as well as outsiders. They took up arms and defended their territory. And then the women went on the attack. They refused to marry, calling it slavery.”

These women, says Justin, “embarked on an enterprise unparalleled in all history,” creating and defending a state without men. They even killed the hus- bands who had survived by remaining at home, so that no woman would seem more fortunate than those who had lost their men. Next they avenged their husbands’ deaths by destroying the guilty local tribes. In the peace that followed, they had sex with neighboring peoples so that their bloodline would not die out. The Amazons of Pontus killed baby boys and raised the girls to ride horses, kill game, and train for combat “instead of keeping them in idleness or working with wool” like Greek wives.

An earlier fragmentary version of this Amazon origin tale comes from the geographer Skymnos of Chios (ca. 185 BC). In his account, a group of Maeotians led by two young men named Ilinus and Skolopitus journeyed from the Sea of Azov over the Caucasus and settled in Pontus. After the men were killed by an uprising of the natives, the women took up arms and became successful warriors in their own right. The warrior women were later conquered by the Greeks and dispersed back to the north. These “Amazons and their husbands” migrated back to the land west of the Don and continued to be known as Maeotians. Skymnos clearly identifies Amazons as women of Scythian origins. See chapter 22 for a historical warrior queen of the Maeotians, Tirgatao.)

The geographer Pomponius Mela, writing in about AD 43, located Amazons on the steppes around the Don, the Sea of Azov, and the Caspian Sea, and also in the vast expanse eastward toward the land of the Seres (“Silk People,” China). In Pontus, on the Thermodon plain, a place called “Amazonius” had long ago been an encampment of Amazons when they dominated Anatolia. They had worshipped Artemis at Ephesus and named the town of Cyme on the Aegean coast after the Amazon leader who drove out the native inhabitants (Cyme issued coins showing an Amazon and a prancing horse). The steppes, he wrote, are rich in pastures and they are occupied by the Amazons. The Maeotians around the Sea of Azov are called Gynaecocratumenoe (“Ruled by Women”). The men are archers on foot, while the women ride on horse-back and lasso enemies with lariats. There is no predictable age for women to marry, noted Pomponius Mela, because the women remain single until they prove themselves in battle.

Pliny the Elder, the Roman natural historian writing in about AD 70, uses words and names similar to those used by Skymnos and Pomponius Mela. Pliny calls the Sarmatians Gynaecocratumenoe (“Ruled by Women”) and also refers to the “Amazons and their husbands.” A century later, during the Roman defeat of the Goths in Thrace (AD 270– 275), the Romans referred to the captive Gothic women as “Amazons.” Orosius, a learned and well-traveled Christian historian of the early fifth century AD, consulted numerous classical sources, such as Livy, Tacitus, Diodorus, and Justin, as well as Trogus and other texts that no longer survive, including traditional foundation tales of cities that claimed Amazons in their past. In his History Against the Pagans, Orosius tells how the Amazons came to rule in long-ago Pontus. Orosius’s history recaps Diodorus’s account, above, but supplies proper names and details from Justin’s account.

Orosius also inserts his own views. One of Orosius’s important sources was Justin, who reported that the ancient Amazons of Pontus were ruled by a pair of queens named Martesia (Marpesia, “Snatcher or Seizer”) and Lampeto (Lampedo, “Burning Torch”). Justin says the corulers divided their all-women forces and took turns leading conquering armies and defending Pontus (Orosius says they drew lots). According to Orosius, Lampedo led the invading Amazon army to subdue most of Thrace and captured some cities of Anatolia, founding Ephesus and other towns. Her victorious army “laden with rich booty,returned to Pontus.But she found that the other half of the forces that had remained with Queen Marpesia to protect their empire had been cut to pieces in a battle.”

Marpesia’s daughter, Sinope, succeeded her mother, giving her name to Sinope in Pontus. As a “crowning achievement to her matchless reputation for courage,” says Orosius, Sinope remained a virgin to the end of her life.” So great was the “admiration and fear spread by her fame” that when Heracles was ordered to bring the weapons of the Amazon queen to his master, he was “certain that he would face inevitable peril.” Orosius expected his Christian audience to be shocked and outraged by the “shame and human error” of powerful women of antiquity willfully dominating men, choosing foreign lovers, killing baby boys, building cities, and marching out to conquer. Unlike Justin, who plainly admired the “unparalleled enterprise” of the women, Orosius is the first ancient writer to explicitly express disapproval of the “unnatural” state of independent Scythian women who behaved as the equals of men. Yet even Orosius cannot suppress his admiration for the Amazons of yore. In a surprising conclusion, Orosius praises the sublime courage of the four greatest Amazon queens, Hippolyte, Melanippe, Antiope, and Penthesilea.

Notably, in 2006, archaeologists discovered magnificent life-size portraits of the famous quartet of Amazon queens, Hippolyte, Antiope, Melanippe, and Penthesilea, in a mosaic floor of the ruins of a villa under a parking lot in ancient Edessa (Sanliurfa, Turkey) . The action-packed scenes are unusual because they show the queens hunting lions and leopards instead of making war. The spectacular mosaics at the Villa of the Amazons were made in the fifth or sixth century AD, in the period when Orosius was writing his history of the pagans. The power of ancient Amazon stories to thrill had not faded after four centuries of Christianity.

Another author of later antiquity, an Alan-Goth from the northern Caucasus named Jordanes, wrote a fascinating history of the Goths— laced with heaping doses of fiction—in AD 551. Jordanes, who had access to ancient Gothic and Alan traditions, portrayed the Goths, who migrated from Europe to the steppes, as the heirs of the Scythians “whom ancient tradition asserts to have been the husbands of the Amazons.” Here is yet another succinct expression of the ancient understanding of Amazons as Scythian women. Jordanes says that the Amazons once dwelled around the Sea of Azov, from the Borysthenes to the Don—and he claims the Amazon queens Marpesia and Lampeto as the ancient “ancestors” of the Goths.

In Jordanes’s Gothocentric version of the old legends told by Justin and Orosius, long ago while the Goth men were away on an expedition, an enemy tribe attempted to carry off the Goth women. But “they made a brave resistance, as they had been taught to do by their husbands.” After routing the attackers, the Goth women “were inspired with great daring.” They took up arms and chose as their leaders the two boldest women, Marpesia and Lampeto. In this Gothic rendition, it was Marpesia who led an army of conquest while Lampeto stayed to guard their native land. On her campaigns Marpesia and her Amazon army encamped for a long time at the eastern tip of the Caucasus range where it meets the Caspian Sea (ancient Caucasian Albania, now Dagestan), one of the major nomad migration routes described earlier. This place, says Jordanes, was thereafter called the “Rock of Marpesia.” This legend was already known in the first century BC to Virgil, who calls it the “Marpesian Cliff.”

Jordanes lists the glorious conquests across Anatolia and Armenia by the “Scythian-born women who had by chance gained control over the tribes of Asia and held them for almost a hundred years, before returning to their kinsfolk at the Marpesian Rock.” Amazons retained “power in that region up to the time of Alexander the Great” (here Jordanes alludes to Alexander’s meeting with Amazons on the southern shore of the Caspian; chapter 20). By Jordanes’s time—more than a thousand years after Homer and Herodotus—the fame of the warlike Scythian women, called Amazons, evoked such respect and awe that the legendary Amazon queens were claimed as ancestors of the powerful Goths.”

- Adrienne Mayor, “Scythia, Amazon Homeland.” in The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World

#adrienne mayor #the amazons #history #ancient #scythian #classical literature

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Brother Dearest Pt 77

A morning of scheduling in a stop at Freckled Moose Publishing Company had them grinning widely as you mapped out dates for the planned four stops for signings when the book would be ready to be released in August. Sealing for them the firm back half of the two year contract they had once lucked out on that brought them more clients in their affiliation with you. Curiously at the end of the meeting you asked, “Just curious, if I ever wanted to put out a sort of History book could I call you, would that be possible for the company to publish?”

Excitedly the Editor asked, “You’re writing a History book?”

And the other asked, “History on what?”

“Well, I sort of have a notorious ancestor that I’ve been digging into. Found letters from Kings and even a few Popes who tried to sentence them to death,” widening their curious grins. “Granted it’s probably years away from being done.”

The head guy stated, “We would be beyond interested and honored to publish your book whenever it is ready. How’d you find out about your ancestor?”

“I got a letter from the King of Spain who had been researching them out of fun growing up and he saw a portrait in what he’d found and then saw pictures of me and King George and he had to write to me about it and I’ve been a bit hooked digging myself. They’re sort of turned into this legendary person who’s been all over the world through history, which is sort of odd and people may just shout that it’s got to be made up, but there’s official documents for it all.”

“Well we’ve certainly been lacking in our non fiction section of authors so whenever you are ready please do send us a draft or some hint of this intriguing thing.”

“We will,” you said and they showed you down so you could stop at the comic book studio next to hand over the next chunk of storylines that had the guys beaming at the direction you were leading the story from its latest cliff hanger.

“I think it was nice throwing them that bone,” Victor said that had James agree. “You can tell they were bound to try and offer another deal for something when this book was through.”

“At least I know now, they might be inclined to humor a History book from me which borders on a creature like Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster.”

“You are neither of those,” James said.

“I’m not tall enough, I know.” You said making the brothers chuckle and shake their heads.

“Well let’s feed your tiny mythical self, Darling.” James said helping you back into the car for the drive home again.

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Mr Yarbrough’s stop in on Monday did little to calm your nerves at being expected at a new campus the following morning. Sleep somehow attained didn’t feel like it had lasted the full night and more like a sort of jump in time, while not tired all the same it was an odd feeling to have to get up again. Comfortably in a skirt and blouse with cardigan in hand from the house once you were fed and had nursed again snuggly into the car you sat chatting anxiously with James and Victor around you on their joint task to see you off to school pre stop into the comic studio again.

The excitement was palpable from the moment you exited the car with bag in hand to join the hundreds of students who had arrived on this first day of the summer classes that each one you got close to greeted you fondly. Aids in the halls helped to guide the way to where those who hadn’t taken tours were headed. One of whom excitedly guided you to the Art Wing where you found the first of your classes. One on the styles of art mediums and the deeper meanings and symbolism to each of them to further deepen not just your knowledge of pieces of art like the class you had taken but the reasoning behind them and how to recognize various styles. This class usually was paired with another, your next one where it would be continued lessons on the styles and according to the course description would be more of an advanced art class.

The first Professor however froze when he saw you and promptly nodded his head when he noticed you were looking his way as you entered and crossed the room to get to the stadium of seats. “Baroness Howlett, good morning.” His fingers fidgeting around the button on his vest atop his neatly pressed shirt on the man who reminded you a bit of a bird by the slant of his cheeks and chin to match his slim forehead.

“Good morning. Just Howlett is fine. No need to complicate things for another student to teach.”

“I can imagine you will never be just another student,” he said and then added, “As you wish. Mrs Howlett it is.”

“You won’t regret it,” you said and made your way to the second row of seating along the wall to keep out of the way from the other students who filed in, each stuck between their confusion on if they should choose a seat nearby the famous face amongst them or to keep their distance. All the same a cheery group of young ladies chose to settle a few seats away from you in your row who only lured more students to fill the rows in front and behind your chosen seat. Mainly slides and ample discussion upon each piece to get right into the kick of the lessons inside the notebook you had for the class ample notes were taken and eventually you were off to the next class.

A robed woman on the raised platform inside what seemed to be more of an art studio lit both by a wall with windows across the top third and the dangling light fixtures. All to make it the perfect setting for the 30 easels that a man you would take as one who prized himself on his artistic prowess huffed through hanging more large sketch pads on each easel. It wasn’t until the third one he hung up that you took notice of the names scrawled across the backs to name where you stood. And of course you as the shortest of the students who had entered and would enter in the very back you were settled in a stunning move for everyone but the smug Professor who at the snap of his fingers had the woman drop her robe.

“Pick a style of art and interpret what you see. You have an hour, impress me.” From the bar of the easel you lifted the box of Mongol brand colored pencils also with your name on a strip of tape to mark it as yours and opened the case to pull out a grey one.

Basic outlines in dots for the shape of the odd crab like couch that the model was draped across. A yellow set of dots lined the body’s end points before a light green was used to work on a few things behind the couch. For some reason you heard hour and wanted to have the hardest challenge possible so you aimed for pointillism. Not just for difficulty but also an excuse to not be too terribly detailed without aiming for something abstract like Picasso could have dreamed up.

Obviously not much was expected and when the professor who hadn’t so much as said hello just about fell down as you completed a series of smaller dots between larger dots to complete another chunk of the blurry yet clearer scene. It seemed he had already in his made up decision to be distant to each of his students to glance down his nose at their work so far continued on to the next easel in his lap through the room. This was his chosen method and this was just how it was going to go and when the class was through your piece and another had his focus linger as he switched the sketch pads for the next class wondering how the next time he saw you all would fare.

Anatomy and Physiology came next and another look of shock bled into an impressed question from this former Doctor of a Professor who heard you had repaired an artery with just a heated pin that had him agree to speak further on possible difficult cases you had faced in the war that cost him his left foot. While more technical and loaded with all male students to surround your seat up front at his suggestion for a clear line of sight at least he seemed pleased to have a fellow Army Medic to help boost up the usual lower end of his summer grading curve.

Communication came next and seemed a rather simple statistic laced course that was followed by another male centered course of Engineering. And while you were in a skirt the basic schematic sheets offered for you all as tests of intuition on what you could do in a long string of what could come for the rest of the few months you would be studying here with mention of actually constructing something for your exams.

From your last class you couldn’t help but grin at the thought of being able to return home again to your girls. So much so that when you saw James’ back you hastened a few steps to take hold of his suspender strap luring a smirk across his lips in a prompt turn to lower and kiss his bubbly wife no matter how many people could see the display of affection. “I take it you had a good morning?” Victor crooned in the midst of the lip lock and smiled at you when you broke apart to cuddle into James’ chest around your bag and notebooks.

“I did, be glad to get home though.” You said making them smile and guide you into the middle of the front bench seat to make the drive home when you shared your day and heard about the latest on their morning in the comic studio.

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Wednesday tutoring was followed by on campus classes the following day to finish off the stretch of schooling for the week. All in all not a bad load to bear and one that could easily be laid onto a schedule to manage with ease. Your final hours leading into Friday however had Norma back at home and excited to take you on a family trip for the day to LA.

‘Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!’ words that were etched across the covers of magazines and newspapers alike with ample radio mentions. Amongst the hype of the latest Stark film in the works with one of the minor characters in this film word of your touching down with Norma had a sea of cameras there for an explosive amount of press for the film. Right away Norma’s smile was locked in place and she answered questions as best she could on the way to the waiting car and of those already camped outside the home rented for all of you on the beach.

Nice and quiet the moonlit beach had you on the back porch listening to the waves lap once the children had been put down to sleep. Random strolling couples and a few lone teens with telescopes were in your view stealing watch alone together under the rarely seen stars deeper in the cities. “Almost makes you wonder,” Eddie said joining you on the porch as Dawn and Norma started on the nightly facial routine you said you’d join in a moment a few minutes prior. “Just how much we’re missing out on down here with the tiny telescopes we have.”

“I think I’d settle on knowing what heartbeat I’m hearing out in the ocean.”

Eddie chuckled saying, “Probably a shark or a really old turtle.” He nodded his head to lure you inside saying, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up for a short nap then we have to get you ready for the premier and we can all head to the beach after.” Under his arm you were led back inside to wash your face and have Norma’s smile spread at the calming act for her to play specialist to your beauty regimen. Nerves however would have to be set aside as you all laid down with your adoring husbands for the nap to bring you closer to the premier.

Only you and Norma had seats so special care from the others came in help to get the pair of you ready to ease into the car that came to carry you there and back again for the premier. Dolled up to the nines in a wave of flashes you exited the car and stepped aside with hands smoothed down over the skirt of your dress for Norma’s exit after. Down along the carpet you strolled at her side ignoring the waft of your loose curls pulled back on one side the breeze kept blowing about your face and chest no matter how many times you brushed them back. A plot to keep you set apart even more from Norma on her big day who had her every curl secured in place in an elegant bun and while she did her bits of press you stood aside and happily mingled with the other members of the cast who had finished their turns.

Nerves however did not wane and with hold of her hand Norma’s confidence was bolstered enough to settle into your chosen seats for the opening speech from the Producer and Director that was followed by the start of the film. All through up to the minor line that she gave that had her grip tighten on your arm and remain so until the credits rolled and in the rise of the lights a brief after luncheon was called for. Compliments and talks from the heads of 20th Century about her next picture they had lined up for her to audition for once this assumed once off film Stark had wrangled them into allowing her to play a large part of had her a bit deflated when she returned to your side even against the peaceful grin on her face.

“You want me to punch them?” You asked making her giggle and loop her arms around yours again.

“They have another walk on bit for me in a musical comedy with the Marx Brothers they want me to audition for after we get back to New York.”

You nodded and said, “Well I’ll just have to keep writing stories for Stark so he can keep giving you things to sink your teeth into won’t I?” You teased widening her smile. And sweetly you patted your free hand on her arm, “They’ll learn Jeanie, nowhere near just another bombshell blonde they can bop around in the background. Audiences will be gnawing at the bone to get a better look at you. Just the beginning.”

“You are an amazing writer, truly, you should keep it up.”

“I just might, Howard’s last call just about had him asking for one, I can feel it. And with my wild dreams no telling what my head can come up with. Just as long as I don’t have to sing or play in the next one,” you said making her giggle again.

“You singing made that scene. You will see when it comes out.”

“As long as it helps with the press to get more in those seats to see my treasured younger sister,” you said making her giggle with you, “Then I will take a stroll across a scene in whatever film I can to help.”

Playfully her mood shifted and remained upbeat until back at the beach house the pair of you washed your faces and changed into two piece swim suits matching Dawn’s in complimenting bright colors to help carry the babies out to go and play. Across the sand towels were laid inside of a fitted sheet held out by your shoes with a large umbrella set up for the babies to be in the shade with the brothers. Just beside the towels Teddy giggled as you helped him build a sand kingdom with a moat of water Eddie brought from the ocean in a bucket to Norma and Dawn’s gleeful trip into the water.

A curious sound turned your head to the beach making you ask, “What is that?” James’ head turned as you asked, “Do you guys hear that?” And over the wind, the waves, distant chatter of photographers creeping in for pictures and giggles from your sisters in helping their daughters to their first steps into the ocean they too heard the odd sound of shifting sand.

Victor said, “Sounds like a cracking and scraping.”

“There are heart beats,” you said and shifted closer to the source of the sound with Eddie behind you.

“Couldn’t be sea turtles this time of day, could it?” Victor asked James who shrugged.

“It’s cool enough, almost sunset here in an hour.” He replied.

Teddy between you and his dad’s arms poked his head and gasped at the sudden sink of a small circle of sand. Gradual progress was made as you accepted hold of your camera from Victor who had been snapping pictures of the four at the water now on their way back when he called for them. Gasps sounded at the first head and in a gradual flurry of heads and front flipper arms that came into view the first of near to a hundred hatchlings filled the circle of sand around their entrance to this world. “Ooh, got you little guy,” James said in a reach down to bring out the one still in the hole who had gotten stuck on his back to join his siblings all focused on discovering their bearings. “There you go,” he said with a smile lowering it down after you snapped a picture of the duo.

A few random gulls were easily swayed by the bits of your picnic left over thrown a good distance and arms used to shoo them away from the tiny parade to the ocean ending in bittersweet cuddles at the somehow profound loss of these tiny newfound friends now out in the wide unexplainable ocean. Teddy broke the silence asking, “Where’s their Mommy and Daddy?”

Eddie said as he lifted his son in his arms, “They’re out there, Teddy Bear. Don’t you worry, they know where their babies are, bound to have tons of food to make up for the long crawl back to them.”

Victor said, “They lay the eggs on the beach so they’ll be nice and safe until time for them to hatch. Most of the time it happens at night, when it’s nice and cool and most of the birds are away at their nests.”

Eddie said, “Let’s finish up this city of yours, Teddy Bear.” Turning back while you stayed with Norma and Dawn and their girls at the water a few moments to James and Victor’s slip back to the shade across the towels.

James hummed sweetly, “Let’s get you girls back in the shade.” Not much longer you lounged with your head on James’ lap to play with your girls and under a spare towel leaned against his chest feed the three as Victor claimed his proud task of capturing more candid moments of his family then claimed a turn with his Petal in the water as Norma came to lay out beside you. Sure to rival the images that would be splashed over the pages of newspapers and magazines for weeks to come dissecting every moment of this trip and more especially for the newspapers that you couldn’t have possibly been pregnant with three children so recently without having had some sort of surgical procedure to get your figure back.

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The remainder of your weekend allowed you to steal some time with Victor and his dark room and a private dinner alone with James as a sort of date night on your own after crowded and cramped traveling. Time together was one of his main concerns after having gotten you on your feet and the girls onto a schedule so that in the long run as they grew older and things grew more complicated when the trio were fully mobile and had the chance to let their free will grow. A day both aspired for and anxiety inducing for when they could drive you both apart to keep them contained and only let you find each other at the end of the day to collapse in a joint heap of exhaustion to recharge for the following day.

He had to make certain he wouldn’t let his love for the children you would gift him cloud his daily need to remind you just how deeply he loved and cherished you. He had faced those rough patches with his first wife and hoped to avoid that, knowing how it hurt his son and himself, that was unacceptable to allow to happen again. Not with you. Victor had made it clear there was no chance of this marriage breaking apart, he’d sooner face death than to repeat his former mistakes and hurt his family as he had in the past. And while a dinner alone on a blanket under the stars didn’t seem like much every shift closer to him and grip of his shirt and ample stolen kisses let him know it was amply desired from you as well.

.

Tests with Mr Yarbrough came again on Monday for History, Geography and Religion, which again you aced and after he was amused to hear from Teddy the swarm of turtle hatchlings you backed up with pictures to prove the encounter. Tuesday on campus again came with repeats of the news of turtles that a few relatives from America had mailed pictures of the hatch related part of your beach trip that had your family played as true nature lovers. Excitement had burst with news of the premier and each chance capable questions were asked about the cast members and famous people you had mingled with while there. And Wednesday brought the end of June with more tests at home from your tutor Mr Fenske for Economics, Government, Political Science, and Anthropology, all your major serious subjects with thicker exam packets that the results for the final two would have to be named for you at the following week’s tutoring session.

Thursday came with the final stop on campus that came with buzz from not just fellow students but your family as Sunday was your birthday. A day that began with a family birthday breakfast followed by a party with the whole town that showed up to your home proud to spend the after noon with their dear friends and admire the new girls added to your family. Girls who amongst the toddlers in your family and those of families in town were glad to have the change to increase of children to play with.

Sharp cries however cut short the tries to get an early night’s sleep and with Herc you tried to calm the elder three toddlers who squirmed and writhed in pain against your efforts while James and Victor were sent into a near tailspin of panic and needed to take a long walk outside.

“It’s chicken pox,” you echoed in their minds calming the duo enough to come back inside to find the trio slightly more relaxed after being given some medicine for their fevers and to help them sleep.

And when they entered Victor came over to take hold of his precious Petal from your hold as you answered another call from some of the parents in town to warn of their children who had caught the unfortunate bug. “Come here precious.” He said nestling her slumbering body into his chest to pepper the top of her head with kisses between muttered comments to her every irritated slumbering grumble.

Dawn in her path from the kitchen had a familiar set of pocket journals in hand, “I’ve added chicken pox to the bug books. The triplets are still symptom free?” She asked eyeing Elliot, Sarah and Erich feeding them with the bottles you had pumped in the cooling baths you had made for the sick three.

Erich answered, “No symptoms, sleeping soundly. Jaqi didn’t catch her pox until she was over a year.”

Sarah answered, “It’s from the milk, babies are safe if their mother’s have the antibodies already until they pass their first year.” A fact that calmed James and had him move in to kiss their heads and circle back to comfort Victor as Eddie swayed on his own feet keeping hold of Teddy as he nodded off to his own dose of medicine. Herc after another check of Marigold’s temperature from her armpit had him contently handing her over to Dawn again and accepting the books reading the marked down cases of colic or diarrhea up to the few shots available for infants and even Teddy’s teeth coming in to not miss a single illness of any severity.

“Unfortunately like the common cold our medicines don’t do much to dent this illness. However Erich was able to aid us with how Jaqi reacted to the illness so we have a good idea on how this could unfold. Compared to how mortals experience it fairly easily. There is a ten day window of no to few symptoms then the bumps arrive that baths and ointment can mend.”

Victor said, “I’m not sleeping for two weeks then.”

And you crossed the room to stroke his back, “We’re all here to watch the babies Kitty.”

Victor said, “You need to get some sleep. You calmed my Petal down, thank you.”

“It’s an unsettling wait, but it’s fairly easy to get over, we’ve got plenty of oats and baking soda for the baths and we can make fruit popsicles if they get some in their mouths like Gina’s boys did.”

He simply cuddled more around her and nodded his head to the side urging you to bed, a gesture you sighed and turned to reluctantly head to bed as your girls were being carried back to the nursery to get some sleep.

.

“Here you are my dear,” Edie said pouring your tea in the morning an hour after breakfast that had almost lulled you back to sleep in wait for your tutor. With a smile she watched you unfold from your uncomfortable ball in the armchair of your choice lined up perfectly in a stream of sunlight stating, “Rather a rough night. I shall aid in the baths when the bumps arrive, I apologize for missing the fevers, the most frightful part.”

You shook your head, “Around the Brocks I have seen more pox than I could have dreamed possible. If I couldn’t tell them apart I’d say one of them had caught it twice.” You said making her chuckle in your sip on the tea to help perk you up.

“At least you have tons of practice. In my own youth I was surrounded by ample children myself. Some mothers can be rather frightened with their first child, I was rather at home with Erik’s colic to his worst fits or growth.”

“James handled it rather well compared to what I assumed for the first big illness.”

“Your parents agree, the brothers did bear through the pain rather well. Victor did sleep, more proof there. A few more fevers and I do believe he will calm from his panics.”

After another sip you replied in a soft sigh, “I wish I could do more.”

“You are,” she answered luring your eyes to her. “You aid in mothering his daughter while her mother is away. He is not alone in fatherhood. That is a great comfort more than you realize I would wager.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to come with us?” You said widening her smile.

“My son is strong and shall be safe under your watch. No mother wishes to release their child upon adulthood, and I could wonder how difficult it should be when to release your trio.”

“It’s eighteen years away, I would say, though shockingly my husband has been in my life for six years already. Numbers cannot be a comfort there. Have to let go before I know it. I should probably try to not think about that too often. Might start to make me sad for no reason when I’m back in school and they keep growing while I’m away.”

“They are always growing, away or in front of your eyes. We shall bear it together. You guard my boy and I shall help to guard yours in the summers and winter breaks. My work keeps me rather busy while we are apart.”

Tutoring came rather easily and somehow free of yawns thanks to the tea and a few stolen snacks and let loose a bit of work time that in the library was free of visitors Erik jumped at the chance to claim the seat across from you. Back into his own borrowed textbooks from your courses he wished to sign up for this year he delved with a few questions asked and answered for him until the eventual dip of your head that had him chuckle and scoop you up to carry you to your room for a much needed nap until supper. Another feeding however woke you as your parents settled around you to hold the girls until the trio were nursed by you fully, both who smiled at each drowsy droop of your eyes in slow waking still from the nap then helped to get you up to take a few laps inside your wing to stir your body and mind.

The nap however did fuel a change between you and James, him who required an early trip to bed for his exhausted self that allowed you and Victor, with hold of his daughter still, to get the surprise cake for James ready. Still he refused to leave her to sleep alone and only let her go to steal brief naps in hold of Herc or one of your parents if James was not himself awake. “I am doing better,” Victor said turning your head as you mixed the cake batter to pour into the readied pan for it. “I am, thank you. Nora called earlier about in tears she’s missing it. Comforting her, calming her pain helped to show how much better it feels knowing you’re here for support. I didn’t take to the fever as terribly as I thought I would. Had a hunch I might need to break something, but Herc says Petal’s strong.”

“Just doesn’t seem fair at times,” you said parting his lips as you sniffled and poured the mix into the pan to keep distracted from crying, “Just because I’m here now, why she’s safe and why they weren’t. Why you had to lose two of your babies, why I could heal Teddy but I couldn’t help Ambrose when she lost one of her babies.”

That had him draw you into his chest and kiss your forehead closing his eyes to the tear he felt soak through his shirt when you hugged him as firmly as you could around his hold of his slumbering daughter. “None of that is on you. Herc says my babies are ready to come back to me,” your head tilted back to peer up at him and he nodded, “So if we do have another baby, they would be able to come back, in safer times. So don’t you cry over our past sufferings. Look forward with us. We have days of suffering through oatmeal baths to come yet.” He said making you shake your head and inch back to finish pouring the mixture into the pan you then added to the warmed up oven to bake.

“Funny, very funny. It’s like a lit fuse, now I’ll have to wait a year or more for our girls to catch it as well, no telling how many more babies Dawn would have had by then,” you said making him chuckle. “I would say Jeanie,”

“She has work, we are pacing ourselves on babies. Her figure is important to the company and she hoped to at least have Petal talking full sentences before we tried again without sleeves.”

“At least you have a plan,” you said moving to mix up the icing next. “I was on the pill and we used sleeves, still, triplets. And people say God has no sense of humor.” Making him chuckle. “Hopefully we can wait a few years at least, have me into my graduate courses a good way. Maybe just one that time, or twins if I’m destined to only have multiples, maybe this time I can work in a few pushes in labor.”

“There was nothing wrong about your labor. Two day standoff is nothing to shake a stick at and you know it. Most women would have begged to be knocked out or to be sliced open by the first dawn.”

“I know. I suppose, going against the grain is going to be painful. Missed moments, while I study or, write or, take pictures and work on our comics.”

“It takes a village. We will make time, the girls won’t be left wanting by you or anyone else. Promise,” he said and you nodded again, “You chase those dream degrees of yours and you could do anything, on any schedule. Could even work from home if you got the right deal going. Jimmy and me know, we missed time working on our degrees and licenses, and we got paid more for it and our babies were better taken care of while we had them. You have to lay down the foundation first, can’t just drop a bridge in the middle of the ocean, they don’t float very well.”

“I think I found the next quote for another throw pillow for your parlor,” you said making him smirk your way.

“Looking forward to it.” Cake with breakfast was a welcome surprise and sampled to be saved partly for lunch with you when you had returned home to spend the rest of his birthday exactly how he wished it with the women of his life. That company alone was the greatest gift he could have ever received and ever would.

Pt 78

All –

@sherala007​, @mariannetora​​, @jesgisborne​, @knitastically​, @catthefearless​​, @theincaprincess, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000​​, @alishlieb​​,

Not nsfw(smut) - @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore​

X Marvel-Cast - @himoverflowers​, @theincaprincess​​

Brother Dearest - @thorinanddwalinsdwarrowdam​​, @swoopswishsward

#James Howlett x oc #Victor Creed x Norma Jeane #Eddie Brock x OC #Venom #Edie and Erik Lehnsherr #Chicken Pox #Old Memories #Marvel #Surprise Birthday Cake