#also shout out to all the people who just recently found my archive of old drawings and think its recent

[moog-rt]

GO TO HELL [ch. 4]

[Lucifer Morningstar x Fem!Reader]

Previous: Chapter Three

➨ Chapter Four

Next: Chapter Five

Premise:

You love your friends. You really do. But sometimes it needs reminding when one of them accidentally sends you to Hell.

Despite falling into the hands of Hell’s loveliest princess, finding a way back to the world of the living proves difficult as you tiptoe around its king.

A/N: shout out to my very own "power bottom at rock bottom" (aka my roommate) for harnessing her inner Angel Dust and feeding into some of his dialogue.

If you'd prefer to read on Ao3, here is the link:

Otherwise, enjoy!

♡ ♡ ♡

CHAPTER FOUR

The car ride home was mostly silent and incredibly tense.

You also couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. When you looked around to sate your paranoia, you found nothing suspicious and whittled it down to the anxiety having your face plastered across every news channel in hell.

On your way out of her father’s manor, you decided to fill Charlie in about your hands and cheek. She said it was a gamble whether her dad would react well to your being human or not. Being neutral to it, however, was something she would not have imagined. She was just relieved that you were alright. 

She theorized that he may have assumed you were just wearing face paint for ‘shits and giggles’ (your words, not hers). There were some demons in Hell that did have skin tones similar to when they were human, so it wouldn’t be too outrageous for you to, as well.

Though it would be no surprise if he jumped to the conclusion that you were human due to your being televised all over Hell the day prior.

Not knowing where his head was at was going to kill you.

But worrying about that wasn’t going to get you anywhere. Charlie believed you two had searched everywhere in her old place that was likely to hold the key to you getting home. To your relief, the likelihood of returning was slim to none.

There was no need to stress over her father figuring you out since you wouldn’t have to risk running into him again.

The only thing you needed to focus on was getting those godforsaken cobwebs off the chandelier in the hotel foyer.

Vaggie was able to get the place mostly cleaned up in the time you were gone, but there were still a few things left that you were able to help with. After all they had done for you, this was the least you could do for them in return.

As you climbed back down the ladder, you saw Charlie pacing and muttering to herself. Even though you only met her recently, you knew how much the hotel and her plan to redeem sinners meant to her.

If this didn’t go well, she would absolutely take it to heart. She seemed like the type to barricade herself in a room to sulk for weeks on end. Or maybe bawl her eyes out whilst shoveling heaping spoonfuls of ice cream down her own throat.

Probably both.

“You know, this place is really coming together,” you said as you walked up to her.

She paused to face you.

“You think so?” she asked, glancing around the foyer in search of anything in need of tending. “Gosh, what if he doesn’t like the color scheme, or—or the motifs? What if he decides he isn’t interested in redemption at all?”

“Hey,” you said to get her attention as you leaned back into her view. “If he weren’t interested in what you’re offering, he wouldn’t be coming by to check things out. And I really don’t think your choice in décor will be what turns him away.”

You chuckled a bit as you glanced at the odd horse statues and slightly tattered wallpaper. It wasn’t modern or trendy, but it did have character. That was for sure.

She nodded with a far-off gaze, ruminating on your words.

“Even if he does decide that this isn’t for him—though I don’t think that will happen—there are so many people down here! I find it hard to believe that you won’t find some who are interested,” you continued. “Think about all the souls that believed they’d be going to Heaven but ended up here instead. They’d probably give up an arm and a leg to be redeemed.”

Her shoulders slacked, and her back loosened as she released a deep breath. Looking back at you, her face appeared more relaxed.

“Yeah…you’re totally right,” she said with a soft smile. “We just need to be patient.”

“I think this guy would be stupid not to accept your offer.” You bumped her arm playfully as you went to continue tidying up.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw her smile and walk off, presumably to do the same.

Everyone was putting the final touches on everything when there was a knock on the front door. You paused in the middle of sliding the sofa across the room so you could get a look at whoever was there.

Charlie and Vaggie looked at each other in surprise.

“I told him to text or call before showing up,” Vaggie grumbled, running a hand through her bangs as she went to answer the door.

He was quite…tall.

You had forgotten their appearances could vary so much. Charlie, her father, and Vaggie were relatively similar to a regular person, despite some slight cosmetic differences. This guy, however, had an extra set of limbs and was covered head to toe in what looked like fur. 

Upon closer inspection, he also had what appeared to be three additional pairs of eyes underneath his primary ones.

Was he supposed to be a bug?

You shuffled forward as Charlie introduced herself. She had fixed up your makeup once you returned, so there was nothing to worry about regarding your own appearance. You had double and even triple-checked beforehand.

“This is it?”

“Uh…yes?” Charlie said meekly with her hands clasped in front of her chest.

He gave the foyer a hard once-over.

“Eh, anything’s betta’ than my current digs,” he said with a shrug and started walking around. “You got drinks?”

“No? The point of redemption is to stop engaging in sin,” Vaggie stated, crossing her arms. “Which means cutting out drugs?”

“You’re kiddin’ me,” he said as his body slumped. “What the hell am I supposed to do then? Play checkers?”

“Ooh, Checkers would be a fun way to break the ice!” Charlie sang, clapping her hands together.

This earned her a blank look from the new guest.

“Aha…” she laughed awkwardly at the bland response, then turned to gesture at you. “Well, this is our current resident! We have faith that she will be redeemed very soon.”

You gave a wide smile as you were being shown off. Should you strike a pose? Put your hands on your hips and puff your chest out in pride?

You didn’t mind being a fake example of a sinner-gone-good to help her out. It was the least you could do at this point. Plus, when you finally got the hell out of there, you could all play it off as you being ‘redeemed’.

“Yup, yup. Sin-free life has been pretty great,” you said, crossing your arms.

The guy already seemed exasperated. Vaggie was right when she said he was more interested in free rent than redemption itself.

“What did you say your name was again?” you asked in an attempt to keep the conversation from dying out before it had even started.

He perked a bit and plastered on a sultry smirk.

“Angel Dust,” he said as he swiped a hand through his hair(?) (head fluff?). “If you’re interested in gettin’ to know me betta’, I’ve got a nice collection of videos I can refer ya to.”

“No,” Vaggie groaned. “He’s a pornstar.”

Your eyebrows shot up.

“I mean, more power to you,” you shrugged, and he snickered.

“Wasn’t expectin’ that sorta career choice to fly with someone aspirin’ to cross through them pearly gates.” He tilted his head as he eyed you carefully, leaning down slightly to be more at your eye level. 

“What makes you think that?” you asked, raising your chin. “In my opinion, a redeemable gal like myself should be respectful of other’s bodily autonomy.”

“Last I checked, the pious types weren’t so down with cock-suckin’ hoes. I mean,” he paused and smirked, “some of ‘em were down with us cock-suckin’ hoes, but they did their darndest to pray that shit away afterward. The guilts part of the kink.”

Vaggie’s stance tensed more and more with each word that came out of his mouth. You were pretty sure her eye was twitching.

“Good people are accepting people!” Charlie exclaimed, throwing her arms out.

“You ain’t ever have to deal with the living, sugar-tits,” Angel said, draping himself over the couch in a way you were sure would be put on the front cover of a Playboy magazine. “But sure.”

You all began a short tour of the hotel much like the one you got when you first arrived. This time, however, Charlie was really trying to sell her redemption plan to him. She explained the terms of their deal. He would refrain from acts of sin, such as violence, drugs, yada-yada, and he could stay there for free.

As you began filing out of one of the available, move-in-ready rooms, you noticed Angel pause. He was looking at the ground with a blank expression, clearly contemplating something. You assumed he was weighing the pros and cons of Charlie’s offer, but you were no mind reader.

After showing off most of the relevant parts of the hotel, you gathered back in the entryway. Charlie stared Angel down expectantly, waiting in suspense for his decision.

She was overjoyed when he finally agreed.

“There’s no harm in tryin’, I guess.” He shrugged shooting a half-lidded smirk. “But I ain’t makin’ no promises that I’ll be the paragon of redeemability. I ain’t that type of model.”

When he left, he said he had to clear some things with his boss first and then he would start this whole ‘redemption thing’.

The three of you had a miniature celebration—juice, soda, and popcorn to go along with eager chatter—before you decided to address the stack of books you had hauled back to the hotel.

The evening was going swimmingly thus far, and you hoped that good luck would carry on to the very end of the night. Somewhere in that pile was your key to getting home. Your fingers were crossed that you would be sleeping in your own cozy bed that night.

You could finally take up your own offer on a nice hot bubble bath and let it soak away all the stress that had stockpiled within your body.

Sitting in a circle around the books, you began sifting through them.

Your hope dwindled bit by bit with every one you flipped through and set aside. They had everything to do with the living world except for the means of getting there.

Once the last book was deemed useless, you sat in sullen silence. A sort of emptiness settled within your chest.

If that was your best shot at returning, what else was there?

“Okay…that’s okay!” Charlie said in an attempt to lighten the mood. “We just have to try something else. Vaggie, you said you knew people who had access to Earth, right?”

“I said I knew of people,” she corrected. “But I did do a little bit of digging while you were out, and I might have a few leads?”

“Oh, perfect!” Charlie chirped, sitting straight up with her hands on her knees. “How about we look into those tomorrow then?”

You and Vaggie both nodded because what else were you supposed to do? You didn’t really have the option of giving up in this situation. Your life wasn’t going to wait on hold forever. It probably wasn’t waiting at all.

At this point, two full days would have passed since you ‘disappeared,’ but living alone makes it harder for people to notice that sort of thing. You doubted Devon would have reported it since that would likely result in them getting into even deeper shit (in addition to the can of whoop-ass you’d release onto them once you made it back).

And you knew better than to put any amount of faith into Jack. You were sure he noticed your absence. You had the texts to prove it. But he seemed to be convinced you were giving him the cold shoulder, which would most likely result in him pretending he didn’t give two flying fucks about you.

Fuck that bitch.

♡

You wouldn’t say you slept like a baby that night, but you sure did sleep. You slept with the weight of despair threatening to overtake you with each failed attempt of finding a way back home.

And you know what?

It wasn’t half bad. Would you recommend it to someone else? No, not really. But you couldn’t tell them it was terrible.

Wiping the sleep from your eyes, you padded your way down the grand staircase. It was nice not having to wake up early to get all done up, but you still felt groggy. Possibly from sleeping too much.

You also appreciated being able to spend more time in the pajamas you were given, because good lord were they comfy.

Charlie and Vaggie let you know last night that they’d be leaving earlier in the morning to talk to the folks Vaggie believed might be able to access the living world. You stayed behind because you all agreed that dragging you through public in a not-so-durable disguise was a disaster waiting to happen.

However, they planned to be back in time for Charlie’s father to visit.

He had called her the previous night—just before you were all about to go your separate ways—to let her know he wanted to stop by. She told him he could drop by in the afternoon, and that was that.

You planned to coup yourself up in your room for the duration of his visit. You would rather die than address what had happened with the paint. If he had any questions regarding that, he could direct them towards his daughter. Thank you and goodnight (love you, Charlie! Muah!).

There was nothing to do until Charlie and Vaggie returned, but you still wanted caffeine or anything that could clear your brain fog.

They had stocked up the fridge and ‘pantry’ a bit more since you arrived, and Angel would likely move in any day now so there was also that to consider. Yet it was still a gamble on whether or not you could find something appealing.

You kneeled down in front of the fridge and began rummaging through your options.

Mysterious leftovers?

No.

Artichoke Hearts?

Eh…for breakfast? Probably not.

Coconut Milk?

No… You were surprised they even had coconuts in Hell. Unless, of course, they had sinners that manifested as coconuts, then you reckon they could milk—

No, absolutely not.

You were thinking about settling on a popsicle when you heard a knock at the front door.

Nobody should have been stopping by yet. Charlie’s dad wouldn’t be there until later, and you guys weren’t expecting anyone else. It could possibly be Angel, but you doubted he already spoke to his boss considering it was still morning.

The stained-glass doors didn’t disclose much about your surprise visitor. They were merely a shadowy figure, distorted by the odd shapes and colors.

Regardless of who it could be, you needed to hide or at least find a way to get back upstairs without being seen.

Slowly rising to your feet, you locked onto a rather large crate near the edge of the entryway.

You wouldn’t have to cross in front of the door to get there, which was ideal. Even though you knew the person on the other side couldn’t see you clearly, you preferred they not know you were there at all. Once you were at the crate, you could easily make your way around the room undetected.

Just as you were about to slip around it, you heard the front door creak open.

“Hello~” sang a familiar voice.

You hastily dodged behind the crate, your feet sliding slightly underneath you due to the new socks you had been gifted by your hosts. Thankfully, you were able to stabilize yourself before falling into anything.

Your heart was pounding away in your chest.

What was he doing here so early?

You pressed your back against the crate as you carefully sat down to wait for him to pass. Listening to his footsteps crossing the room was doing nothing to soothe your nerves. It was clear that he was in no rush to move on through the hotel. You could hear him as he sauntered around the foyer, pausing every once in a while before continuing on.

If he was taking in the sights, it was only a matter of time before he got to your side of the foyer.

You had to get out.

Taking a deep breath, you hesitantly peeked around your hiding spot to see where he was and whether he was looking your way.

To your relief, Charlie’s father was investigating a portrait on the wall opposite of you.

You wasted no time creeping across the floor to take cover behind the tattered old reception area. There was a body-length mirror resting against the wall just a few feet away that would give you a relatively good view of where he was.

As you were about to lean close enough to see through the mirror’s reflection, you heard him begin to hum just a few feet away. You scrambled to get beneath the desk.

How did he get so close so fast?

You understood the guy wasn’t human, but still. You were able to hear his footsteps clear as day up until that point. He shouldn’t know you were there; you were being so quiet…

Holding your breath, you waited for him to put some distance between the two of you. When you felt he was far enough away, you slowly scooted to the other side of the desk where you could hopefully get a view of the mirror.

Hearing him tampering with something, so you took the opportunity to glance at the mirror’s reflection.

He was prodding at one of the broken columns, testing its stability, it seemed. And his back was facing you. Perfect.

Glancing around the edge of the reception desk, you could see that the stairs weren’t too far away. It was a pretty open area, however, so you wondered if it would be better to beeline it down the adjacent hall instead.

Figuring that was likely the safer option, you checked the mirror once more to make sure his back was still turned.

You met his gaze in the reflection, and your eyes went wide as his lips curled into a wicked grin.

Fuck.

In a panic, you threw yourself out of view and knocked your head into the desk’s edge. The collision was certainly loud enough for him to hear, but you kept your pained whine quiet as you cradled your temple.

Your train of thought was quickly growing fuzzy, unsure of what to do or where to go.

Was it best to run?

What if he was faster?

Would your chances be better if you found another place to hide?

Probably not… He already knew where you were, and you weren’t sure where else you could even go.

All you knew was that you couldn’t stay where you were. If his eyes were still trained on the mirror, you would probably be better off going back the way you came. Maybe there was a gap in the crate that you could worm through to hide. It would be like you disappeared.

You turned back in that direction, and as you were about to dart back to the safety of your original hiding spot, two legs stepped in front of you.

You gasped, sliding to a halt just before you could crash into him.

Charlie’s father slowly crouched down to your level as you tilted your head to look up at him, eyes as wide as saucers. His smile was wide, showing off his large, pointed teeth.

“What do we have here?”

Next Chapter

♡ ♡ ♡

Tag List: @spookysisters @for-hearthand-home @crescent-z @mixplara @juskonutoh @tinywolfiegirl @lafy-taffy @glowinthedarkbones1150 @froggybich @darling-angel222 @preciousbabypeter

#lucifer magne #lucifer magne x reader #lucifer morningstar x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #lucifer morningstar #demon summoning #occult #charlie magne #charlie morningstar #Vaggie #Angel Dust #Hazbin Hotel Angel #Hazbin Hotel Angel Dust

[themerrypanda]

For the Grapefruit Sky server’s Luau gift exchange, I received this gorgeous art of Elliott and my farmer lighthouse keeper OC Nicole from @lizardfootman!! (Thanks a million!!)

Under the break I've also published the entirety of the fic this art is inspired by. It’s also on AO3; its link in the title.

Title: That Summer, That Night

Word Count: 6,998 (4 chapters)

Summary: How the Dance of the Moonlight Jellies became one of Elliott’s favorite festivals.

Chapter 1: The Aspiring Writer

Summer 28, Year 0:

“There’s no need to stay in so late, Elliott. You can always come back tomorrow.”

“I know, Gunther. However, I’d like to finish this shelf.”

Elliott returned one book to the bookshelf, and finally picked up the very last one in the row. He carried the book over to the computer, slid out the check-out card from inside the cover, and began to type in the names of people who checked out the book before and the date they took out the book. Usually these lists weren’t very long. With the exception of a handful of recent publications, most of the books in Pelican Town Public Library were at least fifty years old.

For a small town library, it still had an impressive number of books. Elliott figured he’d have work for at least a year before he’d run out of books to put in the computer archives. After that point, he’d have no more work in Pelican Town, but hopefully this work would sustain him either until he finds another job opportunity or he publishes his first book and sees profits from it. Now if he could just figure out how to progress the story of Mr. Lu.

He pondered over ideas as he typed into the computer. He got the last and most recent name when he heard urgent knocking at the door.

Despite the place being closed, Gunther opened the door for Leah.

“Can I talk to Elliott?” she asked.

Gunther showed no qualms in letting her do so. Quickly she raced to him.

“I forgot to tell you the other day. Elliott, tonight’s the Dance of the Moonlight Jellies!”

“Another dance?”

“No, not like the Flower Festival. You’ve got to see this! It’s one of my favorite festivals, and it’s exclusive to here in Pelican Town.”

Elliott saved the last piece of information about the book, and closed the program before shutting the computer down. “And why is it so late?” he asked as he returned the book to its place on the bookshelf.

“The jellies won’t appear until sundown.”

“Jellies?”

“Jellyfish.” Leah corrected herself. “Let’s go!”

Leah paused when she looked again at Gunther. “Are you coming, Gunther?”

“Don’t mind me, you two. I’ll catch up.”

Leah smiled and thanked him, then seized Elliott by his wrist. “Come on!”

Elliott saw a couple people on the way to the beach. That was how you knew a bigger event was going on. Leah led him past his cabin, over the stream to the tide pools, then walked down the wooden pier over the water. From there, he could see many people already gathered at the more popular, larger dock where Willy’s Fish Shop stood.

“They all claim you get the best views over there.” Leah said, gesturing at Mayor Lewis, Willy, and the others standing in front of the fish shop. “I prefer a more from-a-distance view. It allows for better scenes for paintings… oh no, I forgot my sketchbook!”

“Would you like to race over to your cabin and fetch it?”

“No; it’ll be too late by then. Look! The mayor’s already releasing the candle boat.”

Sure enough, Elliott watched as Mayor Lewis released the shorter rope tying the boat to the dock. The boat drifted out to open sea, only to be stopped by a second, longer rope. He figured that the others would pull on it to return the boat to shore.

Elliott listened as the sound of the town’s chatter suddenly vanished, with the exception of an occasional whisper. A minute passed, and the world remained still. Another minute, then…

“I found one!” One of the town’s children shouted. Everyone turned to where the child pointed, and muted murmurs of excited agreement filled the air. A single, blue jellyfish lit the water, and began floating towards the shore.

“There’s more!” Another shouted excitedly.

Sure enough, a few minutes passed by, and now dozens of deep blue jellyfish swam up towards the shores of the beach, drawn to the dim lights. Elliott was entranced. How did he never realize that they could glow so brilliantly at night?

It was as if he was hypnotized; even as the jellyfish returned to the open sea, he couldn’t help but to stare. Thousands of words couldn’t describe the beauty that nature so willingly bestowed this fine night.

Even after the last jellyfish left, he did not move. He finally awoke from his trance when Leah nudged him with her elbow.

“I told you you had to see this.” Leah said breathlessly.

Elliott nodded. “It is incredible. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“No problem, friend!” Leah sighed deeply. “I’ve got to remember my sketchbook next year.”

Elliott glanced over to the main dock and realized that the bench beside Willy’s shop remained unoccupied for the duration of the night. Perhaps next year he can situate himself there.

“And perhaps then I’ll use the opportunity to see if the view on the main dock is worth competing for.”

Leah got up and began her walk into town and back to her cottage, and Elliott barely remembered how he walked to his own cabin. He lay down on top of the blankets on his twin-sized bed.

Next year. A gust of wind blew, chilling him. Autumn was practically here. And with the autumn, another passing of his birthday. In just five days he would turn 28. His early 27-year-old self would not have predicted him finding his way here in Pelican Town less than a year later.

Was it too late for him to make a name for himself? He hoped not.

Chapter 2: The Lighthouse Keeper

Summer 28, Year 1:

Knowing she likely would be near Willy’s Fish Shop this evening, Elliott positioned himself on the pier, past the shop, lamppost, and bench, and at the edge of the dock. He waved across the water to Leah, who had already crossed the footbridge and past the tide pools to sit at the edge of that pier. Her bare feet dangled over the sea, and her sketchbook rested in her lap with some colored pencils. If it was anything like he bet she would’ve liked to do last year, Leah would simply sketch tonight, and use the sketches and color references from the pencils to create a beautiful painting before winter.

In some ways, Elliott was jealous. It’s faster to enjoy artwork in the form of pictures than in words. And quite possibly easier to create as well. But Elliott knew that that seemed a little much. He was simply discouraged by his own progress in writing a novel. Two more novel ideas came to him over the past year, and now the question was which one to focus on. One week he would read through a Jane Austen novel and a modern writer to find which aspects of romance novels stood the test of time, another week he’d reread one of Timothy Zahn’s science-fiction stories and read in awe of the thorough lore of entire worlds and universes.

He reached his hand in his pocket and pulled out what he concluded served as either a checklist or an unusual shopping list as well as a bookmark. He wasn’t sure if Nicole would still need the checklist function, but he decided he would give it to her just in case.

Elliott found the note towards the end of an Agatha Christie novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. He had decided to reread the detective Hercule Poirot story when he was contemplating his mystery novel idea, as the resolution of Roger Ackroyd’s murder pleasantly surprised him the first time he read it. And thankfully, it was available to him on the shelves of Pelican Town Public Library.

The dock shifted beneath him, and Elliott could detect that people began to line up on the docks in anticipation of the arrival of the Moonlight Jellyfish. The local festival was called the Dance of the Moonlight Jellies, and to this day Elliott was grateful that Leah pulled him out of the library to watch it last year, his first summer in Pelican Town. The sight was magnificent!

For the most part, everyone took the same places as they had last year. Already they knew where they preferred to watch the event. For the sake of returning a simple note, Elliott moved from the dock beside Leah to over here by Willy’s shop. In just a few hours, Elliott would know which pier offered the better sights.

Finally, the whole town was out on the beach, waiting for the arrival of the bioluminescent jellyfish. He heard one person step behind him, then sit on the bench. No one had sat on the bench last year…

Elliott turned around, and sure enough, the lighthouse keeper Nicole sat there. A book sat open in her lap. The shy girl had short brown hair, light like sand, cropped no longer than her chin and framing her oval face. Her wide eyes through the lenses of her round glasses matched her hair in color. Her arms were gently crossed, with her hands cupping under her elbows, elbows appearing out of the sleeves of a pearl white blouse. She wore it with sandals and a calf-length skirt that reminded him of a long Juliet tutu, blue like the evening sky.

They had met just once before. Sometime during her first week living here, he had walked on the docks some spring morning to look over the Gem Sea, and she was on her way off the dock. Instantly she blushed, and managed a brief introduction before quickly walking past him and returning to the Lonely Rock Lighthouse. Elliott hadn’t dared speak to her again since. Was she simply caught by surprise, or was it his own confident and eager introduction that frightened her away?

Whatever the error was, hopefully he won’t repeat it tonight.

Elliott gulped, then cleared his throat, just loud enough for her to hear. She picked her head up, instinctively clutching her book.

“Nicole, is it?” he asked.

Nicole nodded slowly.

Elliott pulled the note out of his pocket. “I found it in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd a few days ago. I wasn’t sure if you still needed it, but just in case…”

Nicole skimmed over the note, and recognized it immediately. “How did you know it was mine?”

“I’ve been helping Gunther computerize the library’s books and records for the past year and a half.” Elliott was grateful Gunther hired him to help him with the daunting project. Very few employment options were available to him that would pay the wages necessary to continue living in Pelican Town. “I also noticed that if there’s a book I want to read that isn’t available right away, it will appear a week or two later with your name on the check-out card inside the book cover.”

Nicole blushed, and for a moment, Elliott worried that he was going to frighten her off again.

“Thanks. I guess I should compliment you on your taste in reading material.” She smiled shyly. “It’s Elliott, is it?”

Elliott nodded.

“You’ve made it quite difficult to stay in my mystery novel phase the last few weeks.” She closed her book, the old checklist marking her place yet again, and she flipped to the check-out card. His own name was signed just above hers. Then she closed the book. It was another Agatha Christie mystery novel: Murder on the Orient Express.

“I’m going to start on the Sherlock Holmes books after this one. And I’d like to read them in chronological order, if you please.”

She said this with a wry smile on her face, and Elliott found himself chuckling. “I’ll certainly try not to interfere.”

Nicole huffed her own little laugh. “Thank you.”

As they waited for Mayor Lewis to prepare and launch the candle boat, they talked with each other about other books they have read, and a little about each other. Growing up, she used to live next to a library and would often visit and spend hours each day reading. She made that part of her life sound magical. He mentioned that he writes on his own time, and how he’ll frequently read and reread books for ideas. And she seemed genuinely curious about his work.

Where was she when he was trying to gain support back at his hometown?

Finally, the chatter on the beach disappeared. All was quiet. The mayor let the boat drift out to sea, a signal that would entice the jellyfish to follow its light to the shore. And just minutes later, they did.

The children in the town pointed and shouted. “Over there!”

Nicole glanced out, and softly, she gasped at the sight. Soon, dozens of ethereal blue jellyfish appeared, some even floating under the dock. She was among the few who looked under her feet between the slabs of wood at the glowing jellyfish.

“It’s even better than I dreamed.” She whispered to herself.

“You weren’t able to see this before?” Elliott asked. He had known from whispers among the other villagers that as a little girl she had visited her grandmother’s lighthouse during summers.

Nicole shook her head. “Dad and I always had to use the last day of summer to get back home before school starts. I’m so glad I don’t have to anymore. I can’t believe I’ve been missing this all this time.”

“I didn’t even know that they came here until last summer. I moved here only a year before you.”

“Oh.” Nicole shivered.

“Oh?”

“That explains why I haven’t seen you here as a kid.” She answered shyly.

“Oh.”

They resumed silence once more as they watched the jellyfish swim around them as if they floated. It was not dissimilar to how fireflies looked like fallen stars in the darkest hours of night. As more time passed, he watched her continue to shiver as the wind picked up. Without a word, he shed his favorite crimson suit jacket and hung it from his hands, offering it to her.

To his surprise, she gently pushed it back towards him.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You have a longer walk home.”

“The walk will warm me up.”

“And the jellyfish will still be here for a little while.”

Reluctantly, she accepted the coat, draping it over her shoulders and hugging the fabric close to her. Slowly, the shivering ceased.

Fifteen minutes later, the jellyfish finally floated out to sea to continue their migration south. In small groups at a time, people began to move off the docks and make their way home. Nicole remained seated until almost everyone left.

When the docks were finally clear, Nicole stood up. She and Elliott walked slightly staggered on their back to the beach. When their feet met the sand, she began to take off his jacket.

“You can bring it back to me tomorrow morning.” He quickly assured her.

“But I have to run some maintenance on the lighthouse in the morning.”

“Come when you’re finished. I live in the cabin just over there.” He gestured across the water towards the shabby shack he called home.

Nicole stared at it for a few seconds before she nodded. She hung his jacket back over her shoulders and held her book closer. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“I look forward to it.”

Her cheeks colored pink again, but he only caught a glimpse of it before she turned away, starting her journey to the blue lighthouse that towered near the edge of a cliff along the Cindersap Forest. “Good night, Elliott.”

“Good night.” He watched her take a few steps, then whispered to himself. “Nicole.”

Chapter 3: The Thawing Heart

Summer 28, Year 2:

Elliott returned to his viewing place on the dock. He thought happily of his last interaction with a publisher in Zuzu City. He had just finished a complete draft of his first novel, Blue Tower, and even transcribed it from pen and paper to typewriter for the meeting (with some edits, of course). The publishers seemed intrigued by its premise. Within the week, he should hear of the company’s decision on whether to make a publishing deal with him. Since then, he began typing its next draft, keeping in mind the suggestions the editors made.

Tonight, though, he will rest, at least long enough to enjoy this festival.

He heard light footsteps tread his way, and instinctively Elliott stood up straighter. He sensed the arrival of Nicole the lighthouse keeper. His nerves tended to be more acutely aware of her presence recently, and Elliott prepared to talk with her about his recent visit to Gem Sea Publishing.

He enjoyed talking with Nicole about stories they liked. And ever since he told her last year he is a writer that first morning of fall, she gave her quiet but very present support and encouragement. Elliott would tell her of his progress, and she would congratulate him when it was good, or console him if it wasn’t. Through the novel’s thick and thin, she stood, like a beacon on a cloudy night.

Elliott smiled at the very suitable analogy. And when he saw her step onto the docks and smile in his direction, he couldn’t help but to smile just a little wider.

“Hello, Elliott.” Nicole said merrily.

“Good evening.” He replied. “I trust that your lighthouse is in good order?”

“It is, thank you. And Jiji’s keeping his eye out over the fishes, of course.”

Elliott chuckled at the mention of her mischievous black kitten. The kitten liked to paw at the crustaceans Nicole kept in her fish ponds, and even one time swatted Elliott’s own crab friend Ferdinand. Jiji was lucky not to have been pinched by Ferdie in that incident.

Nicole sat down, this year at the edge of the dock rather than on the bench. Elliott sat down beside her.

“So how did your trip to Zuzu City go? What did that publication group think of your novel?”

“They thought it was promising.” Elliott responded happily. “I’ll hear officially from them in a week if they will publish.”

“That’s great! I hope they’ll green light it.”

“Me too.”

“I have an idea. Your 30th birthday is about a week from now, yes?”

Elliott nodded. She remembered his birthday? The thought warmed his heart.

“You should hear back from them on the day. If they’re publishing, we can celebrate with dinner and wine at the saloon. And if not, well, we can just go anyway and commiserate instead. I bet it’ll be the former.”

The beach suddenly fell quiet when Mayor Lewis let the candle boat drift out to sea. Nicole, having spoken one extra syllable into the quiet, blushed. She seemed to hate accidentally drawing attention to herself. But Elliott liked the occasions when it happened; her cheeks would color in a light shade of pink that still looked prominent against her freckled face. Not that he’d tell her this; she might blush again then try to avoid being seen like she had when they were first getting to know each other.

They listened to the waves crashing below them, and waited for any sign for a glowing jellyfish. Finally, Elliott glanced up and saw Leah’s eyes widen. He looked at the direction she was staring, and spotted a single blue jellyfish. He smiled then turned to Nicole, who also quickly turned to him to point out the jellyfish. He could feel his face flush as they quickly turned their heads away from each other, then out towards the now dozens of jellyfish coming their way.

The others in the town began seeing the jellyfish too, and a low hum of chatter stirred as the jellyfish swam up towards them.

“Well, however this week turns out, Nicole, I’m grateful for your optimism and support.”

She smiled. A sweet little smile that showed no teeth, yet still seemed as if she glowed. Then she peered back to the jellyfish.

“I still can’t believe you won’t let me read your draft, though.” Nicole finally said. “I’ve done editing work before. I’d like to help you out in some other way than just cheering you on.”

“With time, my friend. Trust me.”

But in truth, he didn’t want to have her spoil the story for herself before she could read the final draft of the entire work. Of all the people to disappoint with his stories, she was the one he hated the most to consider the possibility of her disliking them. Somehow her, above the people at Gem Sea Publishing, and even above his own family who had discouraged him from trying to write. It would crush him to see someone so optimistic and curious about his work to be disappointed because of a string of words he had yet to perfect.

It seemed as if no time had passed when it was time for the Moonlight Jellyfish to depart once more. He watched Nicole as she stared intently at the school of jellyfish, and when the last one disappeared at the edge of the horizon, she sighed deeply, disappointed.

“I was hoping to see a green lunaloo.” She confessed. “They’re quite rare, and I’ve read interesting research papers about them when I was in college.”

“Interesting?” Research papers? “How so?”

“They’re mysterious.” She answered simply. “One of my professors suggested that it’s possible that they may be evidence of magic. Not that I could take it away from its herd to study it, but perhaps upon observing one for myself I might be able to understand.”

Elliott nodded. It was true that the jellyfish seemed to carry an air of mystery and perhaps magic like she suggested.

Again, time seemed to run away with him. They became the only two people left on the dock, besides Willy who he presumed already retired to his bed in his Fish Shop.

Nicole rubbed her arms, as if to warm them. She remembered a warmer jacket this year, but the autumn chill filled the void the Moonlight Jellies left, and it looked as if it pierced through to her skin. Elliott began taking off his own suit coat.

“There’s no need, Elliott.” Nicole said as she stood up. “I’m just on my way home anyway.”

“Then please accept my company as I escort you home?” He found himself saying as he stood up to follow her. “I would hate to hear that you succumbed to the cold before you could make it back.”

Nicole’s cheeks turned to pink, and she tried very hard not to seem flustered by his offer. “I suppose you may. I don’t want to impose…”

“Nonsense. It would be my pleasure!”

Elliott pretended that he didn’t see her entire face down to her neck flush more deeply red. Yet he smiled to himself at the thought as they walked the path into town. He always found it amusing how the customs and proper etiquette he learned from where he grew up came across as romantic, and sometimes, flirtatious, to others that did not grow up in that type of environment. He considered how flustered his companions would become as an indicator of how well he retained the behavior, and Nicole had been wonderful for his ego. Not that he could ever tell her; that would interfere with future results.

After the two crossed the cobblestone bridge into town, Elliott noticed that although Nicole no longer was blushing or flustered, her ears were bright red, and her face pale like fine sand. Without a word, he shed his suit coat and placed it over her shoulders. He kept his hands on her shoulders even when she tried to shrug it off.

“Elliott…” she protested.

“Not to worry. I’ll take it home with me next time.”

“That’s not the point. I don’t want you freezing because I was inadequately prepared.”

“I won’t freeze.”

Nicole sighed deeply, but made no further attempt to remove his suit jacket. In silence they walked west towards the Cindersap Forest and over a wooden covered bridge just before the ranch to the Lonely Rock Lighthouse. They listened to the chorus of crickets and frogs in the still night as they walked quietly past Nicole’s fish hatcheries and to the lighthouse. Elliott may have heard one insect immerse itself into the water and lose itself to a fish in the pond below.

The lighthouse was never an eyesore. It towered from the side of a little blue house like a chimney would, except instead of classic red bricks, the lighthouse itself was white. The better to see on dark and stormy nights. Inside a window just upstairs, Nicole’s black cat Jiji slept, curled up against the glass. Elliott nearly missed the cat, he blended with the darkness so well.

And like that, the two found themselves at the front door to the house. Nicole reached for a key in her pocket, and held it in her hand.

Unexpectedly, Nicole turned away from the door to face him, and nearly bumped into his chest. Her cheeks revealed a slight hint of color when she looked up to him, up because they were so close, and his chin nearly bumped her forehead. Her glasses may have even slid, her head craned up so much.

“Sorry.” Nicole muttered. She took half a step back, and her hand lingered on the door handle. She then remembered she was wearing his suit coat and quickly shed it off and draped it over her forearm before handing it back to him.

“Thanks. Good night.”

She waited for him to bid good night as well before shutting the door.

Elliott felt as if he were in a daze. The last minute passed quickly, for one. And second, he realized for the first time that he just might be falling in love with the girl who became one of his closest friends.

As he turned back to make his way to the beach and to his own cabin, he noticed a light was on in Leah’s cottage, and what’s worse, she was peering out the window at him with a smirk on her face. He turned away, pretending he didn’t notice her cheeky grin.

She would never let him hear the end of it, would she?

Chapter 4: The Rising Moon

Summer 28, Year 3:

Penny walked with her mother to the beach. She looked forward to seeing the moonlight jellies again, as she always did. She couldn’t help but to admire their beauty and long wistfully to be like them: able to drift with life’s current and visit places she has only read about.

But today, her usual spot was occupied by another.

“Leah?” she asked.

Leah turned to see her. “Hi, Penny.” She smiled. “Would you let me sit here tonight?”

Penny blinked, stunned.

“Let’s just say I have a very particular feeling that I should draw from here tonight.” Leah explained with what she thought of as some secret smile. “You can either sit by me and stay as well, or you can go over to the dock by the tide pools. Please? I’ll even make you a sculpture, painting, whatever you like.”

“Um… sure. Okay.”

“Great! Thank you!”

Slowly, Penny sat at the edge of the dock beside Leah, wondering just what happened. What art would she even ask for? Some art inspired by a scene in one of her favorite books? A gift for someone come Feast of the Winter Star? Maybe something that Jas and Vincent would enjoy to put over their new classroom in the restored Community Center.

Penny peered over Leah’s shoulder, and watched her sketch. As the minutes passed, she could see the outline of the sea beside the Cindersap Forest and the Lonely Rock Lighthouse, towing over the cliffs. It was a lovely sight, and just when Penny thought Leah would finish drawing it, Leah would add more shading to the drawing, making it look more and more realistic with each scrape of her pen.

Finally, Leah paused her drawing, and she clipped her pen onto her suspenders and exhaled deeply. She kept her sketchbook open.

“That looks amazing, Leah.” Penny breathed.

“Thank you!” Leah smiled at her. “For the last couple summers I’ve been drawing this night with the moonlight jellies, and for the next week or so after I’ll use my sketch and make a painting from it.”

“Could I… have a painting?” Penny asked shyly. “It’s okay if not. I wouldn’t want to give you too much of a challenge.”

“Nonsense!” Leah smiled. “I’d be happy to make you a painting. When’s your birthday?”

“Two days.”

“Drat. Too soon.” Leah muttered. “Could I make it a late birthday present? Maybe an early Winter Star gift? I have an urgent commission I’d like to finish first.”

“Of course. Take all the time you need.”

“Thanks.”

A minute passed, then suddenly Leah snatched her pen once more and poised it over her drawing. She looked out, as if waiting for something.

Penny stared out in the direction Leah was looking, hoping to see what Leah saw. Then she did. In the distance near the base of the cliff, a small rowboat floated out into the water. She could barely see the silhouettes of two people. One rowed the boat into the open water, while the other held a dimly lit lantern.

Penny sighed. Wouldn’t that be such a romantic way to see the jellies? But who could they be? Penny twisted her back to see behind her for anyone missing from the docks, but a good number of people were hidden by Willy’s boat house and Fish Shop. Whoever was missing was missing from that particular part of the dock which she couldn’t see. She leaned, straining to see who could be missing. Past Sam’s parents, she spotted Haley’s older sister, and she had to scooch over more to see the blacksmith.

The blacksmith was the last other person on that stretch of the docks.

Penny turned back around and sat up, and strained her eyes at the rowboat. Upon realization, she gasped softly.

“Is that–”

“Shush!” Leah hissed. She quieted her at the same time the rest of the docks fell quiet. Mayor Lewis had released the candle boat.

Not another word was spoken until others began to whisper. Then, under her breath, so quiet Penny could barely hear it.

“Don’t let everyone else in town know. It’ll ruin their moment.”

Penny nodded, understanding. She and Leah stared out south toward the sea, each trying not to be obvious as they stole glances at the rowboat. Please, don’t let the first jellyfish appear this way, she begged to Yoba. She held her breath as she stared out toward the sea, until…

“Over there!” Jas squealed. Penny looked over to her, and she pointed out and away from her. Everyone else began shuffling their feet, inching closer to see the first of the moonlight jellies swimming towards the shore.

And more importantly, away from the rowboat.

Penny sighed in relief. Leah began to draw the boat, and would draw the jellyfish around it before finally, the two people in the boat.

Vincent, who had been standing by Sam further down the dock, walked over to her. “Miss Penny, they’re this way. Wanna come?”

“In a minute, Vincent. Make sure Sam and his friends can see them.”

“Okey-dokie!”

Vincent ran back down the dock, and Penny resumed watching the two shadows on the boat. The jellyfish were always pleasant, but this…

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

~

Elliott sighed in relief when Nicole accepted his offer to join him on the rowboat’s first voyage since its repair. But he knew it only meant more nerves to face.

Elliott extended his hand, and Nicole took it as she climbed into the boat and sat at the bow, setting the lantern on her seat. Elliott followed into the rowboat, sat at the stern, and untied the boat from the post. He then picked up the oars, set them in place against the oarlocks, and began to row.

“Won’t I obstruct your view?” Nicole asked cautiously.

He shook his head. “Not enough to be a problem.”

Nicole tried to relax. She turned to face forward from the bow and inhaled the salty scent of the sea. She looked toward the quarter moon in the sky, and Elliott could feel his heart skip a beat as she turned and he could see her gentle smile.

“This was a great idea.” She whispered. “Just imagine, watching the lunaloos swim around us. We just might have the best view of it from here. Maybe we’ll see a rare green one. With the water becoming cleaner… oh, I hope we see one!”

Elliott hoped they would too.

When he finally rowed out a good distance, he slowed the boat with the oars. He pulled up the anchor from the floor of the boat, and let it drop into the water. He didn’t know how to thank Willy for helping him come up with the right length of rope for the water’s depth here, except catch him one of his favorite fishes and cook it, perhaps.

Elliott felt the jerk of the anchor as it reached the bottom of the sea floor, and kept the boat floating in place. Then he set the oars back down in the boat; tonight would be an awful time to find himself without them. As discreetly as possible, he tried to steady his breathing. He was both assured and more nervous when he felt for the poems tucked away in his coat pocket.

Nicole rested her hands at either side of her, loosely holding the seat under her while keeping the lantern in place. Her eyes wandered around her, and when she finally looked at him, it seemed a challenge to look him in the eye.

“I finished reading that draft of Camellia Station you gave me.” She finally said.

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow.

Camellia Station was their accidental thought experiment after Blue Tower was finally published. He knew she enjoyed many book genres, but she flushed so red when she finally confessed her enjoyment of the romance genre. But only the specific sub-genre that does not involve smut, she had said. And Yoba forbid anyone misunderstands what she means when she enjoys romance. The embarrassment that may come from a severe misunderstanding would cause her to hide away in her lighthouse and rarely, if ever, come out.

Since the confession, he started asking her what tropes she liked or disliked in a romance story. With each trope mentioned, they started coming up with a hypothetical romance, one that hit many enjoyable tropes (enclosed spaces and accidental embraces, easily set up on a moving train) and mocked less enjoyable ones (setting up what looks like a loathsome love triangle, but it turns out the second love interest had no romantic interest in the heroine and the heroine never saw the second “love interest” as such after all). And thus Camellia Station was formed.

“I couldn’t stop rereading it.” Nicole blushed. “Clara and Horatio are just too sweet together. I love how they tease each other and add to each other’s happiness.”

How obvious was it that Elliott based the two characters off of his own interactions with Nicole? He didn’t dare ask. Not yet.

“I know you meant it as a satire, but if you finish it, Camellia Station just might unironically beat out Blue Tower as my favorite book.” Absentmindedly, Nicole used two fingers to push the bridge of her glasses up between her eyes, her face still a flushed pink shade. “Speaking of your book, how has it been doing? Top of the Ferngill Times book list yet?”

Elliott shook his head with a smile. His book has been out for a while now, a little more than half a year. “It’s not a best-seller or anything, but it’s been getting some good reviews from the critics.” He was still grateful that Gem Sea Publishing reached out and accepted the publishing deal. On his 30th birthday, no less. The income from book sales were just enough to comfortably sustain him another year in Pelican Town. “And I really couldn’t have finished it without your moral support.”

He looked at Nicole, who simply raised an eyebrow at him as she smiled wryly. You sure about that? She seemed to ask.

He couldn’t help but to chuckle, and she laughed as well. “Actually, that’s not true at all. I would’ve finished it either way.” But her presence in his life seemed to have sped up the process. “But I am grateful that you believed in me… in my vision.”

Nicole blushed again, but made an effort to stare at him more directly regardless. “Of course, Elliott.”

They fell quiet for a long few seconds. Elliott’s thoughts raced as he thought both of the pleasantness of his name on her lips and how to say what he wanted to next.

For better or worse, this was when the Moonlight Jellies began making their way towards them. Nicole smiled at their sight and turned so she could see them better.

She was right; watching them swim from out in the water was absolutely stunning. He thought back to a couple years ago when the jellies swimming around him reminded him of fireflies blending in with the stars in the sky. This must be what it looked like to literally sail through the galaxy: they were surrounded by beautiful hues of blue.

Soon, the jellies held steady around them. Nicole looked at them with such reverence. Elliott did not wish to interrupt, but this seemed like the best opportunity to tell her. If he didn’t speak now, he may never.

“Um, Nicole?”

She turned to him, her smile unchanged. “Yes?”

Suddenly, everything he planned to say vanished. He tried to speak, but only short sounds came out. “Ah… well… How do I say this?” He took a deep breath, trying not to panic. “Well, we’ve been friends for a while… but I’m… I’m not sure if I feel that way about you anymore.”

“What?”

Elliott knew he already messed up when Nicole looked crestfallen.

She took a breath. “Well, I wish you would’ve said so back at the docks before bringing me out here.” She gently set the lantern on the boat’s deck near her feet, which confused him. “I’m sorry.”

Nicole began to stand up, and he realized just what she was about to do: jump out of the boat and swim back to shore. He had to act fast.

“No!” Elliott stood up just long enough to grab her hands, and the force of sudden movement rocked the boat strong enough to force both of them to sit down once more. “I’m not saying I want to cut all ties with you!”

Nicole seemed relieved to hear it. “But–”

“In fact, quite the opposite.”

Now she was confused. Realizing he was still holding her hands, he quickly let them go, feeling awkward as he did so. Then he combed his hand through his hair. Already he screwed up so horribly. But still, he had to try. He couldn’t leave Nicole in confusion forever. “…Let’s see, how do I put this? For once, I’m at a loss for words…”

Elliott didn’t know how long he was lost in his thoughts, trying desperately to find the right words so she wouldn’t misunderstand. But his thoughts were interrupted when he felt something warm rested on top of his hand that rested on his knee. A smaller hand.

He had never known Nicole to be so forward. And she seemed nervous to have made it this far.

“If you can’t say it, maybe you could show me instead?” she whispered, her voice quivering slightly.

There was one way to show her. Once more, Elliott took a deep breath. He turned his hand over to hold hers in his, then with his other hand, he reached for hers. Finally, her hands on top of his, he leaned slowly towards her. Nicole held her position. He yearned to kiss her lips, but instead kissed her cheek. He dared to hold his position there, his lips twitching slightly when they brushed against the corner of her mouth. He feared he may have already overstepped, but hoped that the kiss correctly conveyed his message: innocent enough to be considered friendly and respectful, yet intimate enough to express his love and romantic interest.

Nicole shuddered in his hold, but Elliott finally pulled back when he tasted a salty tear drip down her cheek.

“Nicole? You’re trembling…” Was she angry? Cold? Elliott, who would have begun taking off his suit jacket, stayed still. He just didn’t know how to proceed.

“I…” Nicole used her hand to wipe her cheek. “I never thought… you’d feel that way about me.” Still more tears fell. “Do you mean it?”

“With all my heart.” Elliott began to smile, relieved that she didn’t seem adverse to his advances. “I love you, Nicole. More than I can say.”

“Then take all the time you need to figure out how to say it.” She giggled. Though tears remained on her glistening face, she put both her hands in his once more. Her smile was more radiant than he had ever seen it before. “I… I’m happy, Elliott.”

“So am I.” His heart felt as if it could soar. He lifted his hand to rest it on her cheek, the one he had kissed, and gently he wiped away a tear that rested on her cheekbone with his thumb. Once more he leaned towards her, this time stopping when their noses touched. Her lips tickled his when he spoke. “May I…?”

She closed the gap between them and answered his question by kissing him.

Elliott closed his eyes and slowly kissed back, focusing on nothing else. Both would miss the mint green lunaloo that swam by them.

#i've stared at this for hours now #stardew valley #stardew valley elliott #stardew elliott #sdv elliott #Elliott SDV #elliott stardew valley #stardew valley gunther #sdv gunther #stardew valley leah #sdv leah #stardew leah #leah stardew valley #leah sdv #stardew valley penny #stardew penny #sdv penny #penny stardew valley #penny sdv #stardew valley oc

[glowbat]

realized my mood was so down beacause i havent drawn my favorite elf twins in ages anyways here take a taako n lup doodle

#taz #the adventure zone #lup taaco #taako taaco #lup and taako #fanart #my art #god i cant remember the last time i did balance art #also shout out to all the people who just recently found my archive of old drawings and think its recent #you poor wonderful fools

[hikari-kaitou]

Capcom's Official AA Fanclub Surveys - DGS Edition

Many Western fans may be familiar with the Turnabout 4koma comics that get posted on the official AA fanclub site that Capcom runs, thanks to some lovely fans on tumblr and elsewhere who have shared their translations. What fewer people seem to know about is the character surveys.

Back in the old days, they used to hold a survey on Capcom's official AA fansite every few months where they'd write about the seasonal activities of a handful of characters and ask fans to vote for the funniest/most pleasant/strangest/etc answer.

They stopped doing them in like... 2016? 2017? The original text is lost for good as far as I can tell. Even the wayback machine couldn't help because the content was password locked and you can't get past the password wall while remaining in the archived version.

Fortunately, I saved some of my translations of them so I thought I’d share them.

Cut for length...

"February has begun, and the DGS cast is nearing the end of their journey aboard the RFS Alacrei. Which of them acted the most strangely?"

Ryuunosuke ~ Exhausted from his intensive study session, he decided to try some katana swinging practice as a change of pace and to combat his recent lack of exercise. But because he wasn't used to handling the katana, he swung it too hard and it went flying out of his hands and got stuck in the wall right next to Sherlock, who had just entered the room. Sherlock asked him, "aren't you supposed to be studying right now, Mr. Naruhodo?" and handcuffed him to his desk.

Susato- worked on developing a curriculum for Ryuunosuke. 'If we keep going at this pace, he won't be able to learn it all in time... It'll be hard on Naruhodo-sama, but we'll have to work hard through a couple of nights together.' With that thought, she created a harsh study schedule, and almost seemed to be looking forward to it for some reason.

Sherlock- Driven by excitement over the thought of returning to England after a long absence, he went up on deck to stare at the ocean. Being February, it was very cold out there and he ended up being chilled all the way to the tips of his fingers. He returned to the ship cabins and amused himself by putting his frozen hands on Ryuunosuke, who was stuck in his room studying.

Van Zieks- Upon hearing from Vortex that there was a Japanese exchange student coming to England to study law, he smashed a Lord's Bottle. He apparently also didn't care for the fact that that Japanese student wouldn't be alone, because he proceeded to shatter his chalice, too.

Hosonaga- in order to provide a respite from studying, he provided some hot chocolate. They enjoyed a pleasant tea time, marveling over how sweet and delicious the drink was until Sherlock piped up with some unnecessary trivia: 'Actually folks, chocolate has long been used in Europe as an aphrodisiac!' Everyone promptly spat it out."

"The long winter is nearly over and spring is on it's way, putting the DGS cast members in a celebratory mood. Who found the best way of enjoying spring?"

Ryuunosuke: the Yuumei University faculty members were holding a flower viewing event, and he joined the assistance committee. He exhausted himself keeping the blankets clean so the intense shower of flower petals wouldn't pile up too high on them, delivering sake and snacks, and mediating whatever pointless fights arose. To top it all off, for some reason his compensation was only a single piece of leftover candy. Talk about a sad result!

Susato- her father and the others living in his dormitory were  holding the flower viewing event, so she got up early to prepare the bentos. But her father carelessly forgot to tell her that they wanted tea cakes, so she had to go around the house and neighborhood collecting sweets. For some reason, she ended up being able to gather caramels, biscuits, candy sticks, basically everything but tea cakes, for the tea ceremony.

Sherlock- he disguised himself as a beat officer and infiltrated Scotland Yard to have some fun. There was a real beat officer napping on his feet in the spring sunshine, and while observing him, Sherlock ended up falling asleep too. Detective Gregson gave them a good scolding when he found them, but then Sherlock revealed his true identity with a "hey, it's me, folks!" "What the blazes do you think you're doing?!" Gregson shouted, his rage growing even more, and Sherlock ended up making a run for it.

Van Zieks- went to the vineyard to oversee the production of the contents of his Lord's Bottle. As he viewed the still unopened grape blossom buds, he thought about how they would someday grow up to fill his Lord's Bottle, and ended up going around to look at each one. But the farm hands couldn't stop wondering whether the bottle itself or its owner's heel might come flying at them and were quite uneasy.

Asougi: exhausted himself running around since early morning helping with the professors' flower viewing event. When it was over, he took a break, sharing his reward candy stick [the name of the candy literally translates to 1,000 year candy] with Ryuunosuke, who had also been helping out. 

"I wonder if the candy's effect is halved if you share it with someone."

"That still gives us 500 years."

They laughed and enjoyed looking at the flowers until dark. Then they parted ways with a handshake and a "see you later, best friend."

(This one was something about celebrating New Years. For some reason I didn't save the original question)

"Ryuunosuke ~ To celebrate New Years, he planned to pound mochi with everyone at the office. He somehow managed to get his hands on some mochi rice and he and Sherlock started pounding. Iris was having such fun watching them that she steamed a whole bunch more mochi rice so they could have some to share, and he and Sherlock spent the whole evening pounding mochi like crazy.

Asougi~ Because it's New Years, he went around to a bunch of shrines. When he drew his new year's fortune, he got a "horrible luck" result. "I'm not worried about it," he claimed, and headed up to the mountains early on New Years morning and work hard on a full training course of purification by water, meditation under a waterfall and wooden sword practice. It seems that he was working really hard to clear his mind of all earthly thoughts

Sherlock- Agreed to help Ryuunosuke pound mochi. As Ryuunosuke was flipping the mochi over, he carelessly dropped his badge into the bowl and Sherlock mixed it in without noticing, so they had to crack open both the hard and soft mochi to look for it. Fortunately they found it in the 4th one they checked, but apparently Sherlock got his hands and face covered in sticky white mochi in the process.

Susato- Wore a furisode and went with her father to do the first shrine visit of the year. The shrine was incredibly crowded and they had to wait in line for a long time, but she brought the Encyclopaedia of British Law and a copy of the Strand Magazine in her sleeves to secretly read as they waited so she actually ended up enjoying the wait.

Van Zieks- Ryuunosuke cheerfully gave him some mochi as a New Year’s (which at that time was celebrated at the same time as the Chinese New Year) gift, which he accepted confusedly, wondering “...Can the Japanese not even keep track of when the New Year is?” Because Ryuunosuke referred to it as a rice cake, he tried to eat it like a regular cake without softening it with heat first. It was so hard that he couldn’t imagine how it could possibly be food, and ended up misunderstanding the Japanese even more!

"Autumn has arrived, and the weather is starting to cool off, which means that everyone is becoming more active. Which character chose the most pleasant autumn activity to keep busy with?"

Iris was making bread but her hands are small and it’s difficult for her to knead the dough, so she asked for Ryuunosuke’s help. She wanted to make enough to hand out to Gina and all the other homeless children in the East End, so she made a massive amount and Ryuunosuke was stuck kneading this massive mountain of bread dough all day. Apparently he became such a expert at kneading that he could be a baker now.

Asougi was practicing with his sword, slicing autumn-colored ginko leaves as they fell from the tree. He cut so many leaves, though, that he ended up making a big mess on the ground, the number of fallen leaves now having increased, and it took him a long time to clean it all up.    

Sherlock: Ryuunosuke told him that he was making anpan (bread filled with sweet red bean paste, the bane of my Asian-dwelling existance) and asked Sherlock to help by being in charge of getting the poppy seeds they’d need to sprinkle on top, so Sherlock went out and gathered a ton of poppy seeds. In fact, he got so many of them that no one knew what to do with them all cuz they had a huge amount of leftovers. Sherlock said, “Well, they’re only the size of poppy seeds! Surely you two can deal with them somehow! Ahahaha!” and Iris scolded him.   

(I couldn’t capture it in English, but Sherlock’s line contained a pun, and a pretty stupid one at that, so that’s part of why he got scolded)

It’s grape harvesting season, so Van Zieks commutes to the winery regularly to direct the production of the contents for his “Lord’s Bottle.” He demands perfection in everything from the selection of the grapes to the way they’re squeezed, and the winery staff is terrified by the “grim reaper’s” gaze and heel swinging (i.e. the leg thing he does in court) so they grumble as they work. 

"Hearing that there’s a holiday in the West called Halloween, the people involved with the court in Japan decided to try it out themselves. Naturally Halloween is a big deal in England as well. So, which member of the DGS cast had the best celebration?"

Team Ryuunosuke and Asougi- Asougi got Naruhodo up on his shoulders and they draped a white sheet over themselves to make a ghost costume. They went out like that, but Naruhodo had such exaggerated reactions to the fear of the people who saw them and to bumping his head on tree branches that they ended up losing their balance and falling on top of each other?!   

Sherlock Holmes- went wearing a horse’s head mask. Iris used her skills to make it a fancy horse covered in stars, but the eye holes weren’t well made and he had to wander around blindly. Because of that he tripped hard over a pile of coal! He ended up getting so dirty that the stars on his costume were covered up!

Van Zieks- took inspiration from his nickname and dressed up as the grim reaper. He covered himself up with a skeleton mask and hood figuring no one would know it was him. Unfortunately he got angry when he saw Megundal (McGilded) pass by and started throwing bottles and glasses and ended up giving himself away.

"November has arrived, and autumn is nearing its end. However, the DGS cast is still keeping busy, even on their days off. Which character chose the most interesting way to spend their late autumn day?"

Ryuunosuke- Thinking that he’d better learn more about British culture if he was going to be a defense attorney in Britain, he went down to the East End with Gina for a little observation. However, because an Asian like him stood out so much, he got mobbed by the other children. On top of it all, his arm band got stolen from him and he had to send a replacement request to Yumei University on the other side of the ocean.

Asougi- He went for a meal at La Quantas. The customer at a nearby table got a persimmon for dessert and scarfed it down, saying “Mm! This is it! This sweetness makes it worthy of being called a treasure among foods!” Asougi tried to comment on this by saying, “The customer at that table sure is enjoying his pershim--gak!” but he may or may not have accidentally bitten his tongue in the process and been unable to finish his sentence.

Iris- She accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and prepared a bagpipe and kilt costume for him. “This outfit sure is breezy,” Ryuunosuke said shyly upon trying it on. With Ryuunosuke now dressed, he, Iris, and the others from their office headed over to Gregson’s place to get him to treat them to some fish and chips.   

Sherlock- He accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and cooked up some European style curry for dinner. Thanks to the fact that his secret ingredient was a large amount of Chinese herbal medicine style spice, it caused some strange side effects and Ryuunosuke, who’d eaten it, ended up passing out and falling over.

“Another taxing trial for Ryuunosuke has finished and now it’s December. As the year draws to a close, which character acts the strangest?”

Ryuunosuke- he was recruited to help with snow removal around Yumei University and the courthouse and he enthusiastically began his task with the help of a large shovel. He got a little carried away, though, and ended up accidentally burying his umbrella, which he’d left propped up against the side of the building, in the snow he’d just finished shoveling.  He had no choice but to share Asougi’s umbrella on the way home.

Asougi- On the way home, he nods silently to Ryuunosuke’s question of whether he’d finished his travel preparations and changes the subject: “...Come to think of it, it seems that tomorrow is celebrated in the West as God’s birthday.” “I’ve heard that they eat chicken as part of the traditional celebration. Wanna try it?” Ryuunosuke asks invitingly. Asougi is strongly opposed to that particular menu item, however, and they end up going out for their usual beef stew that night instead.           

Susato- in addition to her year-end travel preparations, she also was busy with straightening up the book room in her home. She managed to get the law books in order when she suddenly stumbled upon some old issues of Strand Magazine! She hurried through the rest of her cleaning, then began flipping through the magazines she’d found, trying to decide which to take with her on her trip. She accidentally lost herself in her reading and didn’t realize it until it was already the middle of the night.

Sherlock- he was in the middle of a long ship voyage when Christmas night came. His mind on his partner in a far-off country, he made a toast alone on deck, when suddenly the crew began shooting off fireworks with a cry of “Merry Christmas!” Sherlock had to dart back and forth across the deck to prevent the fireworks from hitting him and setting off the explosive chemicals he carries with him.

Main series edition

#dai gyakuten saiban #tgaa #naruhodo ryuunosuke #asougi kazuma #mikotoba susato #dgs sherlock holmes #hosonaga satoru #barok van zieks #iris watson #gina lestrade #translations #official content #my translation #mikotoba yuujin #ryunosuke naruhodo #kazuma asogi #susato mikotoba #iris wilson

[deniigi]

Blame @petrichordiam for this.

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

Title: centerstage

Summary: An academic goes to a conference and is jazzed to see a jedi speak there. He unknowingly sits next to this jedi’s Support Squad.

The jedi Support Squad is like 85% clones, and 15% Jedi Generals.

No one mentions that the jedi speaking has never done this before and is petrified out of his blessed little mind.

*Anakin is like 19-20ish here.

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

Sion Jissard has spent the last ten years of his life in the dredges of archives, digging through documents and testing fibers found between the flimsy, papery pages of old texts—scrounging for clues to recreate the conditions of the great conference halls and small, tucked away offices in which some of the most powerful people in the galaxy once gathered to whisper and shout over the fate of whole planets.

He has a hypothesis that the conditions in those rooms affected the decisions made in them. His hypothesis is strong enough that it has endured several rounds of peer-review and escaped those vulture-like clutches mostly unscathed in published form—both in journal and, his chest swells to recall, in book formats.

His book has sold several hundred copies and been cited in a plethora of upcoming article submissions.

The last eight years of tension in his marriage has eased in light of this. The salary from the professorship obtained in light of the book certainly hasn’t hurt it either.

His two doctorates are set on the wall of his office and when he receives word that a conference on ‘Intergalactic Unionism and Peace Negotiation’ is to be held in two months time, he opens up the speakers list and raises his head to gaze upon those two solid frames.

There will be jedi speakers at the conference. Several, actually. The whole thing is to be held on Coruscant, in the small visitors’ wing of the Jedi temple itself.

Sion Jissard pinches the fabric of his suit and then lightly slaps at his cheek to make sure that he is not dreaming.

He has only recently begun studying the jedi order’s material world and the role that world plays in their intergalactic peace-making practices. Prior to this, he considered the subject too on-the-nose. Jedi studies are rampant. Everyone wants a piece of that pie—the allure of it being that the jedi themselves, scholars in their own rights, refuse to partake in examinations of their culture.

They are notoriously obstinate. Their grandmasters refuse to let outsiders into their archives. Their masters shut down any and all attempts to obtain interviews or transcripts or documents with empty expressions or gentle, pitying smiles. Their knights blink with confusion at personal and personal-adjacent questions, and the little ones, the apprentices, are shielded behind all of these people as though the elbow-padded questioners are threatening their precious little lives.

In short, the jedi are happy to listen but loathe to teach. If you are not one of their soldiers or one of their fellows, they will lie to your face and tell you that it is their religion to do so.

And yet here they are, offering up a scholar’s wetdream and even allowing a handful of their own to present on their areas of expertise.

Sion Jissard will pass up this opportunity only upon pain of death.

He applies for the conference as a participant, not a speaker, and is delighted to receive confirmation of his place within mere minutes.

He puts the date on his calendar and starts looking into transit to Coruscant for the event in two months time.

--

 Sion arrives on Coruscant, at the foot of the Jedi Temple itself, and stares up at it for so long that he begins to feel sick to the gills.

He fumbles for his confirmation at the little table set up in the interior courtyard behind a side-entrance door. He is distracted by the fact that the woman he is standing in front of is a Jedi. She is helped by two small children and holds a baby who is dead-set on unraveling the knots that decorate her thick waist band. Even the baby is dressed in double-collared cream-colored robes.

Sion has so many questions he wants to ask.

The jedi asks him for his name. She has a collection of name badges before her, but none of them are his. He gives his name and the master turns to the little girl sat at her right elbow with a brush in hand and instructs her to write it out.

The jedi child—not an apprentice, her robes are cream still, there are no additional earth-colors layered on top of it—writes Sion’s name in beautiful script on a little card and hands the card to the master, who puts it in a holder with a pin on it and places it into Sion’s hand.

She instructs him to go through the side door and enjoy some refreshments before the event begins. The baby in her lap looks up at her abruptly and bonks his sweet little head against her chin.

Sion forgets himself.

“How old?” he asks automatically, gesturing to the baby.

The master looks down into her lap.

“He is eight months and 75% lung,” she says affectionately.

“Ah. Mine was like that, too,” Sion says. “He grew out of it. He’s only 40% lung now.”

The master smiles.

Sion removes himself from her table before he embarrasses himself further.

--

 There are enough people inside the front room of the jedi’s visitor’s wing to nearly fill it to capacity. The volume, though everyone is whispering, is great enough to be heard from outside the door. The room itself is earth-colored with a high ceiling. Its walls all contain niches with rounded borders. Columns with deep-cut creases in them arch high to the skylights.

It is all beautifully geometric, stoic, and clean. And even though the walls and floor are built from materials of warm tones, the skylights overhead and the surrounding addtion of books and holorecords set into the walls lend it a cooling quality.

What should have been imposing architectural feels more like holy space. The room is one that reverberates with reminders to respect all around you.

Sion’s fingers yearn to document this, but there is a sign right by the room’s entrance that asks politely for no recordings or holographs to be taken.  

“Professor Jissard,” a familiar voice says.

Sion feels his whole body droop. He turns to see Teo Detras stood before him in his obnoxious, roaring red robes.

“I’m pleased that you too were able to secure an invitation, sir,” Teo says as though he has not attempted to place Sion on the metaphysical chopping block for each of his premises since the time they began their academic programs.

Sion opens his mouth to point out that this is also his area of study and that Teo has no monopoly on the field of Jedi architecture when a quiet passes over the room. Sion watches the heads around him lift and searches for the source of the sudden shudder of silence.

He finds it in a tall master with dark skin standing at the very front of the space. The man has tucked his hands neatly into the mouths of his sleeves.

He is Jedi Master and General Mace Windu. Sion has read and reread his essays, not caring so much for what he is talking about but how he is talking about it. His metaphors and examples should have been insight into the common experiences of those living in the Jedi temple.

Sion has found, however, that Jedi Master Mace Windu does not especially care for eloquence or metaphor. He cares only to methodically destroy the argument (if it could be called that) published by a jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn many years ago. Though Master Jinn has not published for several decades now, Master Windu’s writings remain agitated by his interpretations of the jedi’s Spiritual energy, the Force.

Just gazing upon the man now, Sion would not think him capable of agitation.

Master Windu welcomes the academics to the temple and says that he regrets not having more time to speak with each of the attendees as individuals, but there is a war on and his clone troopers require his services. He encourages people to refrain from any recordings of the temple due to its sacred nature, and he asks that attendees be mindful of the jedi Initiates (the white-robed children) who are confused and intrigued by all of the non-jedi people inhabiting their usual playroom.

He cautions everyone that if anyone slips on a toy, he warned them, and the temple is not liable for their medical bills.

This is a joke.

People are unsure of whether or not to laugh. Some laugh awkwardly far too late. Master Windu gives no sign on his face that he appreciates or disapproves of this.

Instead, he steps from his space of honor and leaves in his place a young man with feathery blonde hair and a highly expressive countenance, who drops his armload of documents on the floor obnoxiously and flings himself down to snatch up only the conference program, as if this was the most efficient way of finding it.

People know to laugh this time.

The young man begins announcing panel topics and rooms and give his strong opinions on each of them.

More people laugh. It feels less like a sin.

“And that’s all, my dears and darlings,” the young man says, “Mind your step into the conference rooms, our predecessors derived joy from an unexpected drop.”

--

 Sion has only one panel that he will kill at minimum three bodies to sit in on. It is the one on peace strategy and resource management. He is not here for the peace strategy or the resource management parts of the talk; his burning interest yearns instead in listening to how and if people talk about their space and things. He wants to write down the language they use. He wants to learn about the physicality of peace.

He thinks ‘The Physicality of Peace’ would make a very compelling title for another book.

So he slips through the arched doors of conference room 3 and finds himself in a tiered lecture theatre. There is a small balcony with rows of pew-like benches that hangs over a lower seating area. He takes a seat at the edge of the front pew and sets his datapad on his lap for note-taking. At the front of the room there is a long bench—not a quite table, but definitely a tall bench, and behind it, there is an enormous screen for displaying images and information. Someone has very kindly thought to place a jug of water and some cups at the center of the bench by a microphone.

Sion gets the impression from its awkward, dead-center placement that it is an addition that the jedi themselves usually forego.

He wonders what that means. He only wonders for about 15 seconds before a hand touches his shoulder and he jerks in alarm.

“My apologies, sir. We were just wondering if the space next to you is available?” says the smooth-faced, copper-haired man standing above him.

He is wearing white armor on top of his layered robes. The arms and legs that emerge from his long off-white tunic are dark in color, but his boots are hard and white and come up and over his kneecaps.

Sion is speechless.

This is General and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

General and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi has touched Sion’s shoulder and apologized to him.

He doesn’t have words. He can only make fish-mouthed motions and then point and nod.

General Kenobi accepts this with grace and stands up straight. He waves behind him to call his companions over to join him on the balcony’s edge.

They arrive as a pack.

Instead of coming around and staggering past Sion’s knees at the edge of the bench, General Kenobi climbs over its back and settles in. He then twists back over the row and holds his hands out; a Clone Trooper in full armor hands to him a strange bundle of woolen, brown robe. It produces legs and arms and then bright blue and white lekku once Kenobi has situated it next to him.

“Fooled ‘em,” the little Togruta that emerges from the cloth says brightly.

“Shh,” Kenobi says. “Cody, you next.”

“No, I want Rex to sit with me.”

“Ahsoka, shhh.”

“Rex.”

“Child, this is how people like me get banned from meetings; you’re not even supposed to see—”

“REX.”

“HUSH. Okay, okay. Rex. Pst. Cody, get Rex. Cody, oh for the love of—Wolffe, yes—no. Wolffe, look at me. Get Cody to get Rex.”

Sion cannot believe what he is seeing. General Kenobi appears to be sneaking half of his command into the balcony area. There are more than a few clone troopers there are at least twenty. They are somehow visibly excited despite their matching helmets. The General is able to tell them apart easily. He leans over the back of the bench again and crooks his finger at one of the troopers who leans forward. He tells them to throw something at their commander.

The Clone takes off his glove, stands, and nail a clone standing in the aisle in the head with it. The slap of contact makes this clone cease speaking in serious low tones with a clone decorated with blue edging in front of him. The first clone draws himself up perfectly straight and turns around with a fury that even Sion can feel the heat of.

His armor is painted yellow in places.

He holds the glove in his hand like a threat. The clone who threw it winces and points wordlessly to General Kenobi, then sits down in a hurry. Kenobi smiles wide and white. He has freckles on his face that do not appear on any of the images of him that appear on the news.

He’s also shorter than Sion himself, even sitting.

“Sir,” the white and yellow clone says stiffly.

“Rex,” Kenobi says through that threat of a smile. “Get over here.”

The Togruta child twists around excitedly as the clone in white and blue exits the conversation with the one in white and yellow and surveys the rows of his fellows piled into the space behind the General and the child. He has to squeeze past the line of knees and then climb over the bench to sit down next to the child, who immediately cuddles up to him.

“Hey, that’s my seat,” a new voice whispers.

Sion looks back to see General Quinlan Vos with his arms crossed over his chest, recognizable in any setting. Behind him is General Koon. General Kenobi slaps a hand to his forehead and grumbles, then shoos the blue edged clone and the child a few seats down.

The generals clamber just as awkwardly as the blue clone through the sea of knees of the troopers and then over the back of the bench.

Somehow, Sion has won the jackpot. He is now surrounded by jedi culture, literally.

“All of you, back,” Kenobi snaps down the bench when everyone is just starting to get comfortable. “Cody. Commander, come here.”

The clone trooper with the yellow edging does not want to play this game. He shifts his weight back onto his other heel as Kenobi pats the newly vacated space next to him. General Vos croons in a teasing tone something about Kenobi being especially fond of this clone.

Kenobi lurches out across the empty seat to punch him in the gut and then returns peacefully to patting the space over the sound of Vos’s moaning.

The Clone Commander has no choice. His general is giving him a directive. He gives in to the inevitable and makes his way through the knees and—much more neatly than the others—steps over the back of the bench to its seat and then into sitting. Kenobi beams at him, practically purring.

Sion needs desperately to take notes, but the subjects of said notes are right there and rudeness is intolerable in retaining his vantage point.

He fights the urge to vibrate in space as the lights begin to dim overhead and the panel chairman comes out to introduce the topic and speakers. It is only about a minute or so when a hand lands firmly on Kenobi’s right shoulder—the one by Sion’s arm. Sion jumps, but Kenobi resolutely stares directly down at the speaker.

“Obi-Wan,” Master Mace Windu’s low, low voice says right into the space between Kenobi and Sion’s ears, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Kenobi begins to melt but catches himself.

“You didn’t for a while,” he said.

“Get her out of here.”

“She has a right to see her Master.”

“What part of these orders are challenging for you?”

Kenobi still does not turn around to see Master Windu, but his eyebrows sink and his brow becomes more pronounced.

“No padawans,” Master Windu says. “Ahsoka. Out.”

The togruta, still bedecked in that heavy cloak, turns to stare owlishly at Master Windu while the person at the front of the room moves on to introducing the next speaker.

“But I’m not a padawan,” the child says. “I’m obnoxious. Master Kenobi said so.”

Kenobi holds his face in a hand.

“You can be both. Come,” Master Windu says, holding out a hand.

“But I’m a cloak,” Ahsoka tries instead.

Kenobi crumples further. Master Windu’s hand finds his shoulder again. Sion can feel its heat.

“If not her, then you,” he says.

“After,” Kenobi says.

“I’ll be waiting, Obi-Wan.”

Master Windu vanishes from behind them. Sion shudders. Kenobi turns to the side and hisses at Ahsoka,

“Now look what you’ve done.”

“You’re my co-conspirator,” Ahsoka hisses back. “My—my—Rex, what’s the word?”

Clone Commander Rex does not want to give her the word. Ahsoka tugs at him.

“Rex,” she insists.

“Enabler,” Commander Rex says with bitter regret coating his words.

Ahsoka beams over the laps of the other Generals at Kenobi. He glares back through a squint. He starts to say something, but General Vos tells him to shut up in a sharp tone.

Sion looks back to the front of the room and finds that a young man with dark hair has come out to the center of the front table-bench to speak.

He is a jedi. His robes, however, are dark in color. Blacks and browns with knee-high boots.

He’s very young. Very, very young.

And nervous.

Very, very nervous.

Even from the balcony seats, Sion can see his hands shaking. He is holding a stack of white paper. It is trembling like a branch on a windy day.

“Go, go, Master, go, go,” chants little Ahsoka.

Sion finds himself abruptly appalled by the realization that the child on center stage is the master of the child a few seats over from him.

General Koon gently shushes Ahsoka. Commander Rex helpfully wraps a gloved hand over the bottom half of her face to keep her distracted.

Sion looks from them to the young man and finds that he’s already knocked over the jug of water on the bench and looks about ready to sob about it. He gathers himself, though, and brings the microphone closer to him.

He is General Anakin Skywalker, Sion now understands. He is the first speaker and he’s never in his life presented a paper at a professional conference before.  

His voice shakes as he reads out the title of the article that he published (and that Sion has read) on battlefield surrender. After the second paragraph, Sion brings a hand to his lip to help him contain the emotions that come with the understanding that this boy is about to read his article, word for word, in front of a room full of academics.

He thinks now that he has been too harsh with his students.

--

 General Skywalker is not a strong public speaker. Clearly, his expertise is in action. He stammers. He loses his place in his reading and accidentally rereads three whole sentences. Only twice does he look up from his paper, and each time it is not at the audience but at Obi-Wan Kenobi, sat next to Sion, serious as a plague.

Kenobi nods sagely.

General Skywalker is General Kenobi’s apprentice. Was General Kenobi’s apprentice. However, it is clear to all who are present today that General Skywalker is still General Kenobi’s apprentice. Desperate, the poor thing is, for Kenobi’s reassurance.

His confidence in reading grows under his former (current?) master’s approving eye until he turns a page and—horror of horrors—drops the stack of paper.

Sion’s whole body tenses in sympathy and second-hand embarrassment. Skywalker flings himself down and messily collects the papers. He hurriedly reorders them, all while stuttering ‘ums’ and ‘uhs.’

Yet, when Sion chances a peek down the line of Generals next to him, he finds that not a single one has winced. No one has laughed. Even the clone troopers all around them are as silent and steady as the night itself.

It seems like they are all listening intently to their young General on center stage. The only giveaway that sympathy is being had by any is the tiny gesture Clone Commander Rex is making with his hand. He is moving it almost imperceptibly in a circle, as if to say ‘come on, come on.’

Sion looks back to young Skywalker and waits patiently as he finds his place and carries on reading again, this time faster. This time he does not look up for his master’s eye.

He wants only for the torture to end.

He gets to the end of his paper without dropping it or repeating himself and is flushed red. He does not ask for questions. He merely says quietly into the microphone, “Thank you.”

The panel chair waits a beat before walking over to Skywalker and asking the crowd for questions on his behalf. Skywalker becomes even more luminous. Sion cannot decide whether asking a question would be more or less stressful for this poor boy.

No one asks a question.

The panel chair then starts to ask for applause for Skywalker, but before he can even finish the sentence the whole balcony breaks into uproar.

General Kenobi hoots and whistles piercingly in Sion’s ear. General Vos claps and shouts what sounds like ‘You FUCKING did it, kid. You FUCKING did it. Hip-hip—”

“HUZZAH,” the Clone Troopers behind General Vos finish for him in perfect unity.

“Hip-hip—”

“HUZZAH.”

More applause and congratulations erupts after this.

General Skywalker slams his paper into his face and bursts into tears at the front of the room.

He bolts for a doorway that Sion hadn’t even noticed was right next to the bench. General Kenobi whacks at his Clone Commander’s shoulder, and Commander Cody wraps hands around his waist and hoists him up so that he’s standing on the guardrail at the edge of the balcony. He leaps from there to the lower level then goes jogging out the same doorway his former apprentice ran through.

After another moment or two, Commander Cody stands up and snaps at the whole collection of troopers in their language. Everyone shuts up and sits back down. Commander Rex gestures for Ahsoka to put up her hood and takes from General Vos a small datapad which he gives to the child—presumably for her to occupy herself with for the next hour and a half of papers. She takes it and immediately becomes absorbed in its lightly-glowing screen.

The balcony is once again on its best behavior.

Sion doesn’t bother with listening to any of the other papers. He feels no shame at all in beginning to furiously take notes on his last twenty-five minutes with the jedi.

--

 Upon leaving the conference room nearly two hours later, he finds himself swept up in the clone troopers’ swift and orderly exit from the space. They line up outside the hall in lines by regiment and they wait for their commanders and generals to arrive before marching back towards the visitors’ wing’s exit.

After two or three minutes, only two lines remain.

Clone Commander Rex and Clone Commander Cody stand perfectly at attention beside their lines of men. Clone Commander Rex has his jedi’s apprentice thrown over his shoulder; he has balanced her on one arm while she sleeps.

It’s very sweet. She obviously trusts the Clone Commander very much.

“Gentlemen.”

The clones snap to even tighter attention as General Mace Windu appears, walking briskly their way.

“You’re dismissed,” he says to them. “Commanders, you will remain. Obi-Wan and Anakin will join us shortly.”

“Sir,” both commanders say simultaneously.

There is a pause, and Sion sees that all of these people are now looking at him.

“Can we help you, sir?” General Windu asks.

Yes. And Sion will pay any amount of money to just know this one thing. This teeny, tiny detail.

“Sir?”

“Is that normal for you?” he blurts out.

The Clone Commanders stare. The general stares. The apprentice coughs lightly in her sleep.

“I regret to say that it is not only normal, but expected of these general and units,” General Windu says. “Please vacate this area.”

Right.

“Thank you,” Sion says.

He stiff-legs it back to the crowd of other academics and hunts down a liquid to soothe his parched throat.

  The new book’s title will not be ‘The Physicality of Peace.’ It will be ‘All is Fair in Love and War: The Jedi Order and Ideologies of Family, Part I.’

 --------------- Yeah, so anyways, Myth and I decided that Anakin is bad at public speaking and nothing anyone says can take this from me now, I’m invincible. (If you want this on Ao3 let me know).

#anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #the clone wars #clones #guys sometimes anakin is allowed to be cute #but only like every so often I don't want him getting uppity #and thinking I actually like him or something like that #ahsoka and rex's relationship is everything to me #fic #ficlet

[lucianalight]

I'm reading an article on why the person doesn't like JoJo Rabbit and WOW does the ending quote sound familiar:

"Waititi—a talented, well-intentioned director—makes the mistake of thinking that by not taking Hitler seriously, we somehow diminish his power. That by rendering him into a dopey, insecure crybaby, we can expose the emptiness of his beliefs. That we can just… write it all off, and come up with a new ending. Jews, Nazis—we’re all human, right?"

And even a much older Jewish person reviewed it as well and had this to say:

"So when the opening credits of Jojo Rabbit played over archival footage of wide-eyed Nazis shouting with ecstasy in the streets to the tune of The Beatles' I Wanna Hold Your Hand (in German of course) I felt a bit sick."

"Footage of real Nazi rallies without any of the shouting was uncanny, to say the least, and nauseating. What Waititi wanted to accomplish, he accomplished. You want to sing along, you want to tap your feet to the familiar tune but to do so equates you with the countless people who followed Hitler's final solution and the murder of millions of Jews, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, Romani and others.

The screen version of Hitler, played by Waititi himself in terrible blue contact lenses as the imaginary friend of young Jojo, is exactly as a ten-year-old might imagine him: petulant and fickle. Not the man who inspired The Beatlemania-like fervour on crowded German streets.

We're meant to laugh at all the other Nazis, as we laugh at Charlie Chaplin, but they are a much bigger part of the Nazi machine than Waititi gives them credit for. I found myself chuckling out loud with the other 29 likely-gentile movie-goers at Sam Rockwell's expertly performed, drink-sodden commander.

But looking back on it, that rests uneasily in my stomach, especially given the character's arc and the ringing in my ears of the recent death-knell statement from one of the highest authorities in the US that 'there are very fine people on both sides' of white supremacy."

What I'm trying to point out is that tonka COULD be a great director, as long as there isn't source material. As long as he creates the world and characters, it would be fine but he keeps going after already made characters (Marvel, What We Do In The Shadows, JoJo Rabbit) and it just doesn't work.

Fine if he wants to take serious stuff and make them silly but there needs to be a line drawn

"Despite its nominal message about turning hate into love, Jojo Rabbit is a work that normalizes Nazis, and thus Nazism, and thus intolerance in general, by alternately saying that it either doesn’t exist, or is cute and amusing and powerless in the face of aw-shucks kiddie compassion. That makes it astoundingly wrong about WWII, about humanity, and also, of course, about today’s alt-right-infested climate upon which the film has been designed to comment. Putting it in the same company as the rest of this year’s Best Picture candidates—especially the epic The Irishman, the revealing Marriage Story, and the vivacious Little Women—is absurd"

This was such an interesting read. Thanks for sharing it with me. I haven’t seen the movie and therefore I can’t have an opinion about it. But as someone living under totalitarianism that is promoting a certain ideology, this is not the way I would want a movie to represent the hate and cruelty my people are experiencing. The brain washing, the propaganda, the othering, the sheer viciousness people are experiencing is much more complicated and serious than a bunch of idiots doing funny and nonsensical stuff. Their idiocy sometimes is laughable, but a laugh born out of helplessness to do anything else. Not the way you find Charlie Chaplin funny. Yes there needs to be a line drawn. The more I read about TW’s movies and humor, the more I get certain that they are really not for me.

#anti taika waitit #anti jojo rabbit #anon #messages #Anonymous

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Audrey Roget

Audrey Roget has 10 fics at Gossamer, with some different ones at AO3, fanfiction.net, and her website. You might know her from her very good fics or as part of Musea, a collective that all wrote fic and posted X-Files fic recs. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas and The Shirt. Big thanks to Audrey for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? A little, yes. Not so much by folks who were around in those days. I sometimes go hunting for beloved stories from the early years, both those I read and loved, and those I never got around to. I am always delighted to hear that later generations of fans have stumbled across my stuff, especially since I haven’t posted anything new in a number of years. It’s fantastic that both years-long fans and new ones are out there continuing to rec fic from all eras, and to maintain archives for fans yet-to-be born. What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? It may sound corny, but the main thing I think of, and the thing that has ultimately been most valuable and lasting, has been the friendships. The feeling of having found a tribe – not just of TXF fans, but of other people who could be as enthusiastically engaged as I was (if not more so) with fictional stories and characters – was mind-blowing. Since I was a kid, I had often mulled over the books/movies/TV I loved and speculated internally about what happened off the page or off-screen, or created new stories for characters in my head. But, except for an elementary school phase where I and my two BFFs regularly played Charlie’s Angels, I hadn’t engaged in that kind of gleeful immersion in a fictional world with others until TXF fandom. My involvement in fandom followed pretty quickly from getting hooked on the show, so for me, it’s all one big ball of experiences. Even as my interest in/involvement in fandom has waxed and waned over the years, I’ve been lucky to remain friends with wonderful people who I originally connected with as fellow fans.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

My initial entrée to the fandom was through fanfiction. I didn’t get interested in the show until mid-season 5. Around the same time, I read an article in a zine called Might (co-founded by Dave Eggers) about this thing called fanfiction that people would write and publish online. At first I thought it was satire or a joke – the fic cited involved Wilma Flintstone and a polished sabre tooth, as I recall – but then realized this was an actual thing. So I figured that a show then at the peak of pop culture must have fanfiction, and I went looking. Early on, I scrolled atxc on a daily basis and downloaded stories. But I didn’t engage in discussions about the show on Usenet, since I only knew how to access it with my Earthlink email client, and I didn’t want to post using my real name.

Later, I set up a pseud address with Yahoo and subscribed to a couple of email fanfic/discussion lists, and stayed subscribed to those for years. There was also a period in there somewhere – of maybe only a year or so, when I think about it – when I’d often nerd out into the wee hours with other fans via IM chat groups. That was around the time the small writers’ collective Musea was founded, and we were active for several years after the show’s initial run. In the early aughts, I followed many authors to LiveJournal and eventually set up my own account and stayed involved in fandom that way, until it mostly dispersed as well. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? In a word: Chemistry. I had casually watched a couple of episodes during the first four seasons, but I’m not a huge sci-fi/horror fan at heart, and the story lines didn’t immediately grab me. But I happened to tune into The Red and the Black in 1998, and BOOM. For the first time, the intense layers of emotion and attraction between Mulder and Scully really struck me – and then of course, upon further viewing, I realized it was unmissable, an essential element in the fabric of the show. As a wise woman once said, a switch had been flicked. Mulder and Scully’s magnetism was like nothing I’d ever seen, and though I eventually came to appreciate the storytelling, humor, production values, and other components that made the series so successful, watching those characters interact has always been what kept me coming back. Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? I was part of a list-serv discussion group for The West Wing for a while, which was a fun melding of character and plot analysis with political discussion. Later, I got into the House, MD fandom, again mostly as a fanfic reader/writer. I was finding that other fandoms, unlike TXF, were more dispersed, the networks of people structured more loosely, if at all. There were fanfic and discussion communities on LiveJournal, and fanfiction.net was the other main hub for posting and reading, but if there was anything centralized like Gossamer, Ephemeral, or the Haven, I never found it. Within all those fan communities, as in TXF, there were partisans for various characters and pairings, and flame wars erupted over plot developments that outraged this faction or that. One main difference was that those other shows had larger, ensemble casts and more varied subplots. So on one hand, there was more opportunity to explore back stories and multiple perspectives. In House MD in particular, there were several entrenched rival shipper camps, which were about equally grounded in canon, rather than TXF’s central ship. I was less into TWW fic, but my impression was that readers were less militant about their pairing preferences than TXF or House fans. Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I was deeply fascinated by Greg House for several years. (And the love-hate chemistry between him and Lisa Cuddy was a strong draw for me.) House MD came early in a wave of TV shows centered on anti-heroes, and Hugh Laurie brought amazing complexity and thoughtfulness to the character.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) are a lethal pair of antiheroes. The inherent moral conflict of a sympathetic narrative from their POVs, and the global political conflict they embody was TV catnip for me. The internal struggles at the hearts of those characters were so exquisitely written and performed, they completely fascinate me.

The West Wing felt so much like a show created specifically for me. I’m especially fond of story arcs and scenes that centered on CJ Cregg, Charlie Young, and Josh Lyman. Though I loved Martin Sheen’s human portrayal of Jed Bartlet, the fact that he was the President always made him a little untouchable in my mind. But CJ, Charlie, and Josh were basically hard-working functionaries who were ambitious and idealistic and funny and flawed, and they spoke to me. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I do continue to think about Mulder and Scully and watch episodes somewhat often. I’ll sometimes run a favorite episode as background when I want something comforting on. I read TXF fic pretty regularly, which can inspire me to go back and watch a particular episode or story arc I haven’t thought about in years. Just recently, I started listening to The X-Files Diaries podcast (@XFDPodcast, @admiralty-xfd), and that’s a fun dive into the characters, and how other fans react to and interpret episodes.

Every once in a while, a TV show or movie – and more particularly, the characters – will grab my attention and make me curious about how fanfic writers have interpreted the original material. Random example, I saw Singin’ in the Rain for the first time in a theatre a couple of years ago, and the chemistry of the three leads sent me to AO3 as soon as I got home. I also loved the first season of Mercy Street and found some well-done stories in that fandom. I usually peruse the Yuletide gifts every year and have been amazed by the sheer variety, creativity and cheekiness of the output. There are a bunch of other shows I’ve followed faithfully, and sought out fanfic – Broadchurch, The Killing, Agents of SHIELD, Elementary, The Good Wife. Although I’ve found some well-written stuff in those fandoms, I’ve rarely gotten the same charge from them as reading TXF fic. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

syntax6 (@syntax6) – Universal Invariants/Laws of Motion. I’d also shout out to syn’s Hunter fics, too – well worth reading even for those who have never seen or particularly loved the show itself.

JET – I re-read Small Lives Awake every year around Thanksgiving time. Other annual holiday re-reads: Revely’s The Dreaming Sea and Jordan’s Through the Fire (both set at Halloween).

Amal Nahurriyeh’s Casey universe – the rare post-col fic that felt hopeful, made extra intriguing by a kick-ass original character. [Lilydale note: the series starts with Machines of Freedom and has lots of additional fics and snippets.]

Prufrock’s Love – Finding Rokovoko was genuinely terrifying and tender.

melforbes (@melforbes) – Seaglass Blue is a recent favorite, lyrical and bittersweet.

These are just a few (apologies to those that didn’t come to mind immediately). Fortunately for readers, there’s an astonishing number of authors who have written in TXF fandom whom you can depend on for a good yarn, insightful character study, and/or ingenious “fixes” where 1013 went awry.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Probably the two set in my own (former) backyard of Southern California: Enivrez-vous and Ravenous. I’d first read the Baudelaire poem that was the source of the former’s title back in university days, so I was tickled to be able to use a few lines as an epigraph. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? It’s not out of the realm possibility. I’d meant for “Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas” to be followed up with “And One Time She Did.” In fact, the idea for that never-finished story was what inspired “Three Times” in the first place. I have a couple of scenes sketched out and – unusually for me – even know exactly how to end it. Every year, November rolls around, and I think I should finish and post it…maybe in 2021?

Where do you get ideas for stories? Sometimes it’s from my environment. “Enivrez-vous” and “Ravenous” describe places that I’m fond of, that made me want to place Mulder and Scully there. “What Not to Wear” has that element too – I set it in Memphis as a tribute to a great trip there with a sister Musean. But WNTW was also inspired by a kink challenge in a years-ago LiveJournal thread, so sometimes ideas come from fandom discussions or even other fanfics. In the House MD fandom, a fic by another writer made me want to continue the story, and the author kindly allowed an authorized sequel. What's the story behind your pen name? I wanted my pseudonym to sound like it could be a real person’s name – or at least, maybe like a romance writer’s pen name – rather than an online handle. I also wanted to use a slightly obscure fictional character, to amuse anyone in the know. I had long had a bit of an obsession with Whit Stillman’s 1990s film trilogy, which started with Metropolitan; the 3rd installment, Last Days of Disco, came out the same year I started down the TXF rabbit hole: 1998. The central heroine of Metropolitan – who is mentioned in or makes a cameo in the other two – is Audrey Rouget, a lover of Austen and, eventually, a book editor. I altered the spelling of the last name as a nod to every writer’s companion, Roget’s Thesaurus. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? I have a few close friends – from outside TXF fandom – who know that I’ve written fanfic. I don’t know if they know my pseud; if they do, or if they’ve ready any of the fic, they haven’t said so to me. They are fannish sorts themselves, but not really TXF fans. A smattering of other friends and family members know or could intuit that I’ve been a fangrl on some level for years. My boss, whom I’ve known for about 3 years, recently mentioned off-handedly that she was really obsessed with TXF “back in the day,” and I am DYING to know if she got involved in fandom, but don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to ask.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? Most of the X-Files stuff continues to be generously and steadfastly archived by Forte at The Basement Office. The House MD stories and some TXF things are at fanfiction.net; same for AO3. If ever post anything new, it will probably go to TBO and AO3. I really ought to get it all together in one place, one of these days…

(Posted by Lilydale on April 6, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #audrey roget

[shera-dnd]

And we are back, this time with some wonderful backstory for our favorite cat.

Also featuring Ozpin being his usual weird self and Adam being a cunt

AND ANGST

so all the things we love here

The night was dark and the rain was loud. An army could march around this human village, and would have been none the wiser. But the fae didn’t need an army to wipe them out, all they needed was a single woman with just enough hurt to compel the world to act.

The Black Cat emerged from the nearby woods. Her mission was clear in her mind, and her pain fresh in her heart. Silently she stalked through the night and circled the human village.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

With each full circle she recited the crimes of their people. The true names of those they had killed, the forests they burned, the villages they destroyed. And with each circle the shadows grew longer and darkness grew deeper. Threatening to engulf the village entirely.

It was when she had finished the third circle that she saw him. A man standing alone in the pouring rain, his smell both impossibly old and incredibly young. The man raised his cane, and The Black Cat flinched as she saw the glint of metal, but it soon became clear that it was made of silver, not iron. Then he brought his cane down.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

And the shadows receded.

Though the Cat was certain that her magic still hid her from sight, the man looked into her eyes and addressed her directly.

“I was hoping to have a chat with one of your kind,” he spoke, more calmly than she liked.

Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps it was a need to assert her power over the strange human, but something spurred the Cat to emerge from the shadows. She stood up now on her hind legs, easily towering over the man.

“You’re rather bold, human,” she snarled.

“Just an old man who knows a thing or two about magic,” he answered.

She had heard about people like him. Humans who had learned the secrets of magic. “A wizard then? And you think your magic can protect this village?”

“I am hoping it will not come to that,” his tone was as calm as ever even as he stood within mawling range of the large fae.

“Again, very bold for a human,” she commented.

He smiled at that.

“Now, tell me,” he began, “why exactly are you turning your ire towards these people?”

The Cat growled, “they’re too close!”

“And yet, for each tree cut down, a new one is planted. For each animal hunted, their bones are buried in the woods. When a circle of mushrooms is found, we step around them,” he explained, and the cat could tell that his voice matched his smell more than his face, “we shun iron, and abide by the ancient ways. Surely, this is the sort of cohabitation that could not possibly offend our fae neighbors?”

His words touched the tiniest ember of hope that still hid in her heart. It was the most insignificant remnant of her life before she became unseelie, and for a moment it sparked with life. The Cat was quick to bury it under a mountain of contempt.

“The unseelie do not seek cohabitation,” she countered, “you’re too close!”

“Can we not convince you to change your mind?” The man asked, unwilling to let go of hope.

“You cannot atone for humanity’s sins,” she snarled.

The man let out a tired sigh, and for a moment looked so old she was convinced he would crumble to dust before her.

“Humanity is divided, my friend,” he argued, though that statement seemed to hurt him to say, “you’ve clearly met those who arm themselves in iron and march into your woods, I’m sure. Now you’ve met those like us. Are we not as different from one another as your courts?”

That quiets her. Though he was human, he echoed the words of a fae she had abandoned long ago. Another black cat whose strength of body was matched only by his strength of heart.

“You’ve been chatting with me far too long for a true member of the unseelie courts,” he commented.

She growled and bared her teeth at him.

“My apologies,” he replied, hand raised in surrender, “it was simply an observation.”

“I’ve made my choice!” She shouted, “I do not intend to change my mind.”

That caught his attention, “so you chose to walk the path of the unseelie.”

She should kill him. Slit his throat. Bite his head off. Poison him, and leave him to die, it didn’t really matter how. He was human -a threat - she should return him to nature then and there. But something about that felt wrong. Something in her still truly wanted to believe what he had to say.

So instead she answered, “yes.”

“And yet, you have your doubts,” he said, clearly seeing the conflict within her, “please, listen to them, listen to what your heart has to say.”

She hesitated, unsure of the path she should take.

“Why do you seek this alliance with our kind?” She asked.

“Because that is the right thing to do,” he spoke with true faith, and conviction behind every word. It felt strange and familiar all the same.

Once more his words rang true, and once more she felt those embers ignite.

“I would like to make a statement, in the near future,” he continued to explain himself, “of hope and goodwill, and of harmony with the natural world. I do not rule this kingdom, but its lords value my insight, and have agreed that perhaps it is time...that a fae joined our ranks.”

“Join you?” Her words didn’t sound like mockery, as much as she wanted them to, “am I to be your diplomat? Your Servant? Or perhaps there is some heir of yours you’ll have me marry.”

“No, no. Goodness, nothing of the sorts,” he answered with a hearty chuckle, “if you’ll allow me to explain. Our four kingdoms are guarded by four sacred orders of knights, each led by a witch who grants us small boons of magic when the times allow. Though their primary function is to commune with our vacant divines.”

“So you want a fae to take that role? A faery witch for an order of human knights?”

“That would maybe be too bold for my colleagues’ tastes,” he replied, “but there is an empty seat in the Order of the Fall Maiden, and we would be honored to have one of yours fill it.”

She studied him for a moment, pondering his words. Something about the man still unsettled her, something that made him…not fully human. She couldn’t quite tell what that something was, but it unsettled her.

“Am I to be your appointed knight?” She asked, quietly now, like the embers that were burning would snuff out if she spoke any louder.

“You are the one they call The Black Cat, yes? Blake, I believe was the name,” he asked, the name he offered was wrong, and he knew that, was he offering her a courtesy? “Well, I think you may be more than qualified for the role.”

Years ago ‘Blake’ would have taken that offer without a second thought. To be the bridge between her people and the humans, to usher in an era of peace and cooperation between their people, it would be the greatest honor. But too many years, too many scars made sure she couldn’t just trust their kind like that.

“And why would I accept your offer?” She demanded.

“We can grant you a boon,” he answered, “and the Fall Witch already has one in mind for you.”

Blake raised an eyebrow and the man smirked.

“We can make you immune to iron.”

~~~

That night Blake ran through hidden trails, and down non-existent paths. She leaped from shadow to shadow, through roots and branches, until she reached the one place humanity had never, and would never, touch. She was back home, with the unseelie, though she didn’t approach her people just yet.

She stalked at the edges of their home, looking for the one man she wished to speak to. Thankfully he was - as always - the center of attention, boasting about the blow they were about to strike against humanity, and how his lover would be the one to deliver it.

Huh, that word had never bothered her before now.

Getting his attention on the other hand was a bit harder, but she asked the wind to whisper his name for her. Though he did not stop his speech immediately, he at least seemed to notice her presence. Thankfully his boasting did not last much longer and soon he walked up to meet her.

“My love,” he greeted, full of pride, “by the smell of human on you, I take it your mission has gone perfectly.”

Taurus.

Her love.

A great blind bull, with fur as red as blood, his body scarred from iron brandings. He was the rage of the fae given form, the epitome of everything the unseelie believed. But right now, Blake had to hope he would be her lover first.

“The villagers still live, my love,” she replied, shrinking in shame.

“What!?” Anger flashed in his voice, but he soothed it quickly, “I mean...did something go wrong?”

“Not exactly,” Blake answered. Explaining things to Taurus would be a delicate process, she had to choose her words carefully, “the night answered my call at first, but the villagers…they had a wizard with them.”

He huffed at that word, “if he as much as touched you with his filthy human magic tricks I swear on the moon and stars I’ll--!”

“He didn’t!” She interrupted, trying to keep his rage from rising once again, “he only used his magic to stop mine. He didn’t want to fight me, he just wanted to talk.”

“The human wanted to talk?” He scoffed.

“Yes!” She insisted.

“Tell me you did not allow the human to poison you with his words,” his tone turned demeaning, in a way it did far too often in these recent months.

“He did not poison me!” She bit back, her own fury flaring at his condescension, “we spoke and he made me an offer.”

“How bold of him,” he mocked.

“Will you at least listen to what he had to say!?” Blake snapped, tired of his derision, “he offered me a chance to help stop an all out war between our people!”

“And you believed him?” He accused, “don’t you see what that means? They fear us, beloved. They know they cannot stop us if we go to war, so they try to trick us instead.”

“This is no trick, my love,” she insisted, “we can finally have peace.”

“I do not want peace!” Taurus shouted, “you think I will accept anything less than retribution? You think I will rest until I have my revenge?”

When had her love become so self centered?

It was as if a glamour had begun to crack in front of her, and she did not like what hid behind it.

“What about the rest of us? Are we not allowed to choose peace!?” She countered.

“My love, don’t you understand?” He asked, voice turning sickly sweet, “the humans are just trying to divide us. They know how strong we are, and they know they don’t stand a chance if we fight together. Their peace is nothing but a deception meant to weaken us.”

“But love--”

“See?” He interrupted, moving closer and gently holding her in his arms, “If they can make us argue like this, can you imagine how easily they would split our people?”

She pushed him away and growled, “you think me some child who can be swayed by some treats? You think I let those humans live because some old man with a fancy cane dangled a boon in front of me?”

That made him quiet down for a moment, and she had hoped he had seen reason, but she had no such luck.

“What boon?”

“He promised to take away our only weakness,” Blake answered, “make me immune to the touch of iron.”

And so Taurus laughed, “you believed that?”

“Yes!” She roared back, “and it’s my choice to offer him my trust. I did not come here to ask for your permission. I came here to let you know I would be leaving.”

“What!? You’re just gonna leave me like that? Gonna choose some human lie over your people? Over us!?” He accused, hand reaching to grab her.

Her tail whipped and poisonous thorns scratched at his skin. Her toxin would not kill him, but it still caused him terrible pain.

“If this is truly about us. If you really do love me, then say my name, Taurus!” Blake demanded. His name that had once tasted like love in her lips, now tasted of rage, and bitterness, it was an accusation, and a challenge. Show me that you love me, or leave me forever!

And so Taurus made the biggest mistake he’d ever made.

He hesitated, and that told her all she had to know.

He would never see her again.

#rwby #blake belladonna #medieval au #fanfic

[angelthefirst1]

The ballerina begins to dance again in fifteen minutes...

Last season I was extremely hopeful that perhaps masked Ninja would end up being Beth and that a big reveal would be similar to Morgan at the end of Coda-not far from finding team family, taking his mask off and revealing that he was indeed still alive. Providing us with a repeat Coda. Anyone that has been followed my posts over the years knows that I believe the actors use social media to give hints as to what is coming in the show, and that specifically-Emily's side projects since she's been gone, are planned by AMC and deliberately picked for her to symbolically shadow TWD. Thinking about some of the projects she has worked on, they include... The following-where she is a member of a cult and she is killed like this... 

Same overall theme to Alpha who had "A following"with the whisperers, and is killed in the same way. The flash (self explanatory)

Ten days in the Valley-About a missing girl The concussion-About a lady who gets a blow to the head. The Knick-About a brilliant surgeon who pushes the boundaries of medicine. If Beth is to survive her gunshot, she would at some point need medical attention. Forever-about a medical examiner who is immortal and studies the dead. In TWD universe we have seen examples of studying the dead/immortality, at the CDC in season one, and Milton in season three-who is a researcher and scientist, and we see hints of something similar happening with the helicopter group too. Love on the sidelines, which-as the title suggests would indicate her love story is on the sidelines. Being played quietly PPP Bullet proof Picasso-also self explanatory...

The messiah (Beth has always been portrayed as a sacrificial Christ figure) she sacrificed herself for Noah while wearing the cross bracelet. And we believe she will rise again and as with Jesus there was an empty tomb and Beth we saw no grave.  All of these could well be symbolic of Beth's story in part... And then there's some of Emily's songs which many in the past have speculated are about Bethyl. Songs like Last chance and more recently her song played on the TWD The Turtle and the monkey which played in episode 1005 (10+5=15) So keeping all this in mind...when I saw her post this...

About doing ballet and getting stronger, my mind at the time was focused on Ninja and I hoped she was learning to fight like Ninja and perhaps was just saying she was learning "Ballet" to cover for leaning marshal arts. But after re-watching 510 (5+10=15) the other day I saw Maggie open the music box and my mouth fell open and my brain exploded...

How did I miss this connection???

I suddenly remembered Emily's new album called THE SUPPORTING CHARACTER (PPP)

And her new song called 15 minutes (5+10=15) in which she becomes the BALLET DANCER.

Carl hands Maggie the music box in 510 and says "I found this when we were looking for water" (water = looking for the Lord-I'll explain this further down) Maggie "What is it?" Carl "I think it's used to play music" Carl "It's broken, I thought you might like it" Maggie "Thanks Carl"

Emily's new single/album is produced by SEAHORSE SOUND STUDIOS which is also represented in 510 (5+10=15) by this...

The walker trapped in the car in 510 is release by keys with a yellow seahorse. It’s trapped in the yellow "Seahorse studio" and even looks to have pointed toes like a ballerina and possibly a nod to ballet shoes to match...

Daryl, when he sees this car, deliberately runs away from it and goes on his search for WATER and comes across this dead deer

Time and again in this show (and others) whenever a deer dies (Christ) a person lives. If the deer lives-the person dies. Carl, Rick, and Magna's group prove this-just to name a few. In biblical symbology, deer represent devotion, and safety in God's care. Deer are a symbol of thirst and longing for the Lord. (Beth) Old testament David wrote about God, “As a deer longs for flowing streams (Water), so my soul longs for you. Jesus said "whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" Understanding the eternal water that Jesus speaks of will make more sense of 510 and why they were so desperate for water and then get drenched in it.

It's all about Beth (Jesus) return.

So for those who perhaps don't fully understand or haven't heard the gospel of Jesus Christ it's basically this. Mankind broke God's moral law (The ten commandments-Don't lie, steal, dishonor parents, commit adultery etc...) The payment for breaking even one of God's laws-even once is eternal death. God became a man (Jesus) who was free of the fallen nature and so was sinless. He sacrificed himself to pay the fine or penalty that was owed to mankind, having broken God's laws. So he died on the cross, but because he sacrificially paid for the sins of the world that were not his, God raised him to life and he defeated death (He wasn't owed the death penalty) He defeated death not just for himself but for all who ask him to take their place or payment. Water is life for humans so the reason Jesus calls himself the living water that springs to eternal life is because his water (sacrifice) if accepted brings eternal life to the drinker. So if a person lives (eternally) it's because Christ dies in their place, and they receive the eternal water Jesus has offered them. Beth was heavily portrayed as Christ, and Daryl (like old testament David) was longing for Beth when he went looking for water and he found the dead deer. Indicating Beth was indeed alive, he just didn't know it.

Emily's new song, video clip and album has heavily included symbolism of Beth from 510. including Beth being water and also the music box/ballerina. 510 (5+10=15 minutes) The water aspect is shown-or not shown i should say, by her album art cover. Which depicts her in the dessert (showing a lack of water just like the group in 510) but Emily is wearing the same pink that is found inside the music box. With the white shoes a nod to the white skirt. 

And this post Emily made about getting stronger at Ballet...

Was a repeat of this scene with Daryl and Maggie...

Daryl "She was tough, she didn't know it-but she was".  

The music video for 15 minutes is depicting the music box in 510. The video clip is very short and on a repeat loop, just like the ballerina in the music box it spins round and round.

For added emphasis i have hummed part of the music-from the music box that plays at the end of 510, and combined it into the introduction of Emily’s song, (please excuse the bad humming) but oddly the two fit together. whether that’s just pure luck or not, i don’t know but i found it interesting.  

In the video, Emily is dressed as a ballerina in the background but doesn't actually dance, it's a different ballerina dancing. Just like the music box ballerina represents Beth, but isn't actually her.

In photo’s Emily posted of the Video shoot, we see a ballerina dancing in front of oval lights-a hint to the oval mirror from the music box in the background.

Some of the lyrics to the song also made my ears prick up. Such as this...

While filming the small video clip for Fifteen minutes Emily posted some Instagram stories, which also tell Beth's story and I will go into below. Watch it and then read below.

This may seem to be an unplanned impromptu video, but it's not. Everything in this clip is scripted and planned. Every action and word is repeating Beth and Daryl scenes.  I'll point it out to you line by line... "Jacob's playing the piano, in my music Video that's coming soon" a reminder of Beth (music) playing piano and the music box playing again soon.

Jacob throughout this conversation is stuffing his face. Repeating Daryl doing the same in Alone.

Emily "Do you want to add to that?" Is a play on "What changed your mind?"

Jacob "Yeah you're gonna love it" (Daryl was trying to tell Beth he loved her)

Emily "What else? Ya think it's gonna be pretty good" Another play and repeat of the "What changed your mind" line, good people, and Beth playing “Be good” on the piano. Jacob "It's beautiful"

Emily "Thank you" repeating the thank you note. (In the background while Emily says thank you, we hear someone shout ooohhhh repeating the oh moment)

Emily laughs and says "what if you'd said no" which i think is a play on Daryl saying nothing to Beth when she asks "Don't you think that's beautiful?" Emily "Do you have some notes for the song?" A play on the thank you note. Jacob says he doesn't have any notes, repeating Daryl telling Beth she doesn't have to leave the thank you note.

Emily "Okay GOOD, because it's already mixed and mastered. Another mention of good.

Jacob ends the short clip with another reminder of the good theme by saying "The good thing is..." and it ends there abruptly, just like Beth and Daryl's story ending on the good people theme abruptly. This whole clip is a playful version of Beth and Daryl's main plot points from Alone.

Considering Emily posted about her ballet teacher saying she was getting stronger. I really find it odd that Emily doesn't actually dance in this video, she is just in the background.

I mean... she was apparently taking Ballet lessons and then does a ballet themed video clip-that would be a perfect opportunity to show some moves in. But it seems the Ballet theme video actually serves a different purpose-to tells us beforehand that the music box ballerina is about to start dancing again... 

Hopefully you can all see the connections here, and it's provided you with some much needed hope that Beth the music box ballerina is about to dance again soon. 

I do want to give a shout out to Emily Kinney Info on Instagram who is amazing at archiving all Emily's posts and provided me with some Instagram stories, clips and photos, which would have been lost in time.

#team delusional #team defiance #bethyl #beth greene #beth is alive #musicbox #ballerina

[jasmine2042003]

Beware the Spirits of the Vengeful ~ Teen Wolf x Reader

So, depending on whether or not people like this I might turn this into a series, there will be character death, but I am hoping this will turn into more of a romance story because that is what I am used to writing. Multiple endings with each character and maybe a few other endings, I hope you enjoy!

_______________________

3rd Person pov

Blue and red flashed through the trees and bushes, onto the faces of terrified witnesses and onto the stern face of Sheriff Stilinski as he walked through the cemetery, a long, tired sigh escaping his body. His fellow colleagues were spread about the tombstones questioning the witnesses. He looked over at the now demolished mausoleum, apparently it just happened, video footage showed nothing, nobody near it, it just spontaneously collapsed.

The Sheriff walked over to question the last witness, someone he had questioned recently for something else, “We meet again mister Lahey!” He exclaimed, shaking the teen by the hand and nodding at the boy’s father. “What can you tell me about what happened tonight?” He asked, gesturing towards the pile of rubble in the corner of the cemetery.

The boy blew a sigh out through his lips, looking nervously between the Sheriff, the mausoleum and his father, “Well, I was doing my rounds, cleaning things up, trimming bushes and stuff, and I heard this noise, like laughter.” The boy suddenly paled and focused on the trees behind the mausoleum, where his alpha stood glowering at all the attention. “It was chilling, terrifying. Like, it was echoing off of walls that weren’t there anymore. The next thing I knew, the tomb crashed down and I had to get away from it before I was trapped.” He told the Sheriff, his voice shaking.

The boy’s father rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, “Look are we done here, it’s late and Isaac has practice early tomorrow.” He said, clearly unhappy that there was yet another disturbance in his cemetery. The Sheriff sighed and waved them off, watching with a stern glare as the boy was dragged away from the crime scene by his father.

Walking towards the (l/n) family mausoleum, forensics had just finished their first sweep of the rubble, making sure that the only bodies in there, were those that were in coffins. “Anything?” He asked, looking towards a few other officers. One of the forensics walked towards him with a grave face.

“Well, we found something rather odd, we found DNA of someone outside of the coffins, now it could just be people who had visited the mausoleum, but we won’t be sure for a while.” They said, walking away.

Once again, the Sheriff sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, walking back over to his car, to find a blue Jeep also in the parking lot. “Stiles, what are you doing here?” Sheriff Stilinski asked his son, exasperated.

Stiles jumped out of his Jeep and ran towards his father, looking around him to the crime scene, “Well, I heard what had happened and I wanted to-” The boy was cut off by his father grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him back to his car.

“You cannot keep showing up to my crime scenes! Go home, Stiles.” He said, pushing the teen towards his Jeep and getting into his own car. Alone with his thoughts, the man began running through the events of the night. Why just that mausoleum? Why specifically the (l/n) mausoleum?

Time Skip~

Stiles ran through the halls of Beacon Hills High School, apologising as he ran into other students until he finally ran into the right student. “Scott! Scott, you’re not gonna believe this! Oh dude, this is insane-” Stiles’ hyperactive tangent was interrupted by his friend.

“Stiles, dude, breathe. What’s going on?” Scott asked, looking through his locker for books on his next class. Stiles hopped from foot to foot, excited to tell his friend about the research he had done.

Stiles huffed before continuing, “Okay, so about a week ago, I was listening to dad’s police scanner and apparently something happened at the cemetery. The (l/n) family mausoleum was destroyed!” Stile’s rushed through his words, desperately trying to get to the best part. “The best thing is, the camera footage of the place showed nobody but Isaac in the area and he didn’t do anything!” Scott looked at his friend confused.

“Wait, Isaac? Derek’s new beta Isaac?” He asked in a hushed whisper. Stiles merely responded with a look of disbelief.

“That’s what you took from that!?” He yelled, looking around at people’s staring before lowering his voice, “Nothing happened to the mausoleum, it just imploded!” He whisper-shouted. Scott looked at Stiles confused.

“Well, do you know what happened? How did a small building just destroy itself?” Stiles was once again hopping up and down with excitement.

“That’s the biggest thing! The forensics who were on the scene found DNA from the rubble but it was outside the coffins, like someone had been there that wasn’t dead!” Stiles looked ready to burst. “The forensics called my dad and I ‘overheard’ what had happened,” He said, using air quotes. “Apparently, the DNA belonged to a little girl that went missing nearly ten years ago, (y/n) (l/n).”

Scott looked at his friend with interest, “Well, what happened to her? I don’t remember a (y/n) (l/n) around here.” Scott racked his memory to try and remember a girl around his age that went missing. He could vaguely remember the town going crazy for a while over a child reported missing. He remembered a curfew being set for teenagers and younger kids, he also remembered his mom acting crazy, not letting him leave the house alone, not even going into the backyard.

Stiles looked down, “Nobody knows what happened to her, they never found any evidence until now, the case was closed and then reopened. Dad’s really uptight about it, apparently some of his worst days were trying to work that case only to hit a dead end. But, do you remember that creepy old dude, (father’s/name) (l/n)?” He asked, Scott nodded at his friend, everyone knew that guy, after his wife died he went a bit... weird.

“Well, if you didn’t get it from the last name, he was (y/n)’s dad, when his daughter went missing, he started acting really weird, especially around the police. Since the case has been reopened, they brought everything back from the archives and the number one suspect - her dad.” Stiles finished his tangent, looking both excited and freaked out by the story he told. 

Scott looked at Stiles, panicked, “So, you’re saying there is a chance that this guy killed his own daughter?” He whispered, still thinking the story through and its connection to him. Why was Stiles telling him all of this? 

Stiles continued his tale, “Yeah but that’s not the only thing, apparently Isaac heard laughing, echoed, creepy laughing before the mausoleum crumbled. I managed to sneak a peek at the footage and found this.” He finished, pulling out his phone with a picture of blurry camera footage. There, in the trees behind the rubble, there was something (s/t) in the shadows, it almost looked like there was a face peeking through the bushes. 

Scott looked shocked for a second, “What is that?” He asked, looking at the picture, “Is that real? That’s a face!” He continued, whispering. Stiles nodded sporadically, getting pumped again. The bell for their next class of the day rang through the halls, the boys beginning to move towards their classroom.

Stiles once again, began speaking, “Yeah, it is a face! But, it disappeared like two seconds later after staring at Isaac. I wanted to tell you because it seems very-”

“Supernatural.” Scott finished quietly, as they entered their classroom. Stiles nodded. “Okay, well we have enough to deal with because of Derek and Isaac anyways,” Scott said, watching as Isaac entered the room and smirked, “We’ll meet up after practice and talk then, see if Derek knows about any of this.” He said, stopping as their teacher walked into the room. 

“Settle down everyone,” They began loudly, “We have a new student starting today, come on in dear.” Everyone turned towards the door to see the new student. A young girl walked into the room, she had (h/l) (h/c) hair, glassy (e/c) eyes and (s/t) skin. One single thought ran through the minds of every student in the room, some with jealousy and others with deep interest, ‘She’s gorgeous’. 

The girl smiled shyly at everyone before stating quietly, “Hi, I’m (y/n) (l/n), it’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Scott’s eyes widened, looking over at Stiles, hoping to see a similar reaction, but the boy was sat gawking at the girl and her beauty.

“Dude, did you hear that?” Scott whispered, catching Stiles’ attention. Stiles was jolted out of his daydreaming.

“What- what’s up?” He asked, looking swiftly between Scott and the girl, who was now making her way to the back of the class, sitting in the empty seat next to Isaac, who smiled at her, trying to charm her, before turning to the glaring males of the class and changing to a smug smirk. 

“Did you really not hear her? She said her name was (y/n) (l/n), the girl who you said went missing ten years ago!” Stiles suddenly turned to focus all his attention on Scott.

“What? Seriously? I didn’t hear that, she said something like (name that sounds like yours) or- actually, I don’t think she said anything,” Stiles muttered, trailing off. He couldn’t think of her name. Almost as if she hadn’t told them it at all. 

Scott looked over at the girl, smiling and talking to Isaac. “I’m sure it’s nothing, maybe I was just focused on that, thought I heard her say it but she said something else. You, on the other hand, were too busy gawking at her to hear her name.” He said, looking over at Stiles, only to see his attention back on the new girl. Scott slapped his friend gently on the back of the head, snapping him out of his trance.

“Anyway,” He continued, “We’ll do some research into the missing girl, see if they look alike, then we really need to talk to Derek and Isaac.” Stiles paled at the thought of having to talk to Derek, but was excited to see where it went with his research of the new girl.

(y/n) pov

Walking into the classroom, I hid behind a shy sweet persona, that would make this easier. I knew I had the looks down, us supernaturals were unnaturally good-looking, but I could sense there were supernaturals in this room. I looked out into the room of students with a shy smile, “Hi, I’m (y/n) (l/n), it’s a pleasure to meet you all.” I doubt anyone knew my story, or even that I had gone missing at all, I used my real name but masked it with a small glamour. Unless they were supernaturals, they would hear some random name that kept changing.

I looked into the wave of students and saw two in particular that caught my interest, one was a boy with an impish grin, dark blonde curls and deep blue eyes, the other boy had dark, curly hair, dark brown eyes and looked shocked, before he began whispering with a pale boy behind him. I walked through the desks until I found the empty chair next to the blonde boy, “Hi.” I whispered, looking down at my books. I’ll admit, this wasn’t the plan but I found him very attractive.

He smiled a charming smile at me and whispered back, “Hi, I’m Isaac Lahey,” He told me. ‘Oh,’ I thought to myself, ‘The boy from cemetery.’ He reached out a hand, I assume to shake my own, only to hold it in both of his. Wow, he is very out there, but still I could feel heat rushing to my cheeks. I could feel supernatural energy flooding through the boy’s warm hand into my own, he might be useful.

“It’s nice to meet you Isaac,” I told him with a bright smile, “Look, I’m starting the year pretty late, would you mind maybe, helping me catch up?” I asked quietly. I don’t think I was acting shy anymore, this boy was bringing out a different side of me. Isaac smiled widely at me, I could feel my knees weaken.

“Sure, I’d love to! How about we start after school today?” He asked, I nodded and smiled back at him. I had never had an education, let alone one in high school so this should be interesting...

Now all I needed was to find that Alpha...

_________________________

I hope you guys enjoyed this, let me know somehow if you want more of this, I really enjoyed writing this!

#Teen Wolf #x reader #teen wolf x reader #Derek Hale #Scott McCall #Stiles Stilinski #Isaac Lahey #derek hale x reader #scott mccall x reader #stiles stilinski x reader #isaac lahey x reader #romance #love #cute #series #fanfiction #arae/arai #greek mythology #crossover

[voidingintotheshout]

December 7th: Stuffed Like a Turkey

Trevor’s phone rang. It was Jack. “Honey, where are you? Abigail just got dropped off from the after school and she wants to say hello. You texted me that you arrived a couple of minutes ago but we haven’t seen you. What’s up? Worried about your punishment?” Jack could hear Trevor huffing and puffing on the other end of the line. He laughed a little. “Oh my God, has my big chunky pig gotten so full and out of shape that he’s out of breath just walking down the hallway?” Jack laughed.

“No... I’m taking.... the stairs!” Trevor finally managed to get out as he tried to catch his breath, hunched over the railing on the third floor landing. Trevor needed to hold the phone away from his ear because Jack was laughing so much. Eventually he heard some murmuring on the other end of the line and Trevor could barely hear Jack, in between laughs telling their daughter “I’m just laughing because your big daddy is being silly. He’s taking the stairs to get to our apartment on the fifth floor instead of just taking the elevator like he always does. Yes. You could also take the stairs to go up to our apartment. Since apparently your big daddy likes to take the stairs, maybe you two could race up to the apartment sometime.”

“You’re trying to give me the nickname big daddy to our daughter?!? No. I veto that name. I am going to be Daddy Trevor just like I always have been. Not Fat Daddy, Jumbo Daddy or Tubby Trevor. We are not going to create an entire identity about around my recent weight gain.”

“Tubby Trev! Why didn’t I think of that! That is perfect. TT! That’s gonna be your new nickname. Thanks for the idea.” Jack said, cackling. “So why is my TT taking the stairs?”

Having fully caught his breath, Trevor responded with as much dignity as he could muster “Back when we first moved here, I would be able to take the steps two at a time all the way up to the fifth floor to our place. I wanted to see how well I could still get up those stairs now. I didn’t realize it until the party a couple of days ago, but my physique is totally gone.”

“All of that sedentary eating really took a toll on you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Jack was very quiet. “You don’t regret it, do you?” Jack could hear Trevor’s breathing growing heavy. “Take deeper breaths. It’ll increase the time until you need to stop and catch your breath.” Jack could here Trevor’s breath growing deeper and more controlled. “What floor are you on?”

“Fourth. And no. I don’t regret it. Being able to share all of your passions for food and having all of this free time to focus on other things is really amazing. I guess I was just expecting that my old muscles would be there if I needed them, you know? Maybe that’s stupid, but I guess I was just assuming that I could go to the gym and still do my old workout but I’m just realizing that I may be more out of shape than I thought.”

“Well, if I’m not mistaken you should be coming up to the fifth floor landing and to our floor. I prepared a little treat for you because I imagine you’re so hungry after that pizza, then I’m gonna let you change and we’re going to have a little bit of fun as a family. I went through your college archives and I found something really interesting so we’re going to have a walk down memory lane as your punishment.”

“What? What are you talking about. I’m coming into the apartment now.” Trevor hung up the phone and Jack was standing there with his phone all ready to document the split in his pants.

“OK fat boy, bend over.”  Jack then thought better of it and looked over at Abigail who was doing her homework in the kitchen and said “Honey? That’s a funny nickname that only I get to call Daddy Trevor. I don’t get to call other people that and you’re not allowed to call other people fat boy. OK? It’s just a name between the two of us.”

Trevor smiled and, like a flash of lightning, this little brown haired girl in a blue damask sundress sprinted out from the kitchen shouting “DAAAAAADEEEE TEEEEEEE!!!!” So Trevor quickly dropped his bag and let his bodyweight pull him down into a squat, tearing his pants beyond recognition as he scooped up his daughter in his arms and then surprised himself by being able to stand up as she clung around his shoulders.

“Baby girl! I thought about you all weekend. How have you been?”

“OK. My weekend was pretty fun but it wasn’t as fun as it is with you. Also, their cooking isn’t as good as Daddy Jack’s. His food is way better. Also, I hope you do OK in your physical fitness challenge. I hope I do as well as you do.”

Trevor looked quizzically at his husband. “The what now?”

“Oh, I got the idea from our friend Juniper. Do you remember Juniper?” Trevor nodded. That was their code for when they needed to reference something of an inappropriate nature while their daughter was within earshot. Instead of referencing the event they would just reference it as something that was said or happened while they were spending time with ‘our friend juniper.’ Trevor assumed this was the punishment. “So what idea is this?”

Jack smiled. “Let’s let you get changed first. Let me help you off with these things—while you little miss” he said, turning his attention to their daughter “need to get back to homework. Your Daddies need to get into some fitness gear and we’re not going to start until you finish your homework. I think you still have your math to do?”

“Yeah. 15 problems. Stupid math.”

“Well, that should take you about 20 minutes. You go back to the kitchen table and we’ll go and get changed and we will be out soon to check your homework. What are our rules?”

She grumbled. “I’m not allowed to go more than 3 feet from the edge of the table. I’m only allowed to go to the kitchen once, and then only to fill up my water cup. If I’m caught playing around with things that I shouldn’t be touching while you are in the other room, I lose my privileges for three days. I know, I know.” She looked bitterly at her homework across the living room. “You know, it’s bad enough that I have to do math, you don’t need to make it worse by having all of those dumb rules.” She sulked.

Trevor just laughed “well we appreciate in advance you following all of those dumb little rules and if you do it, we will thank you by letting you choose from one of three treats that we brought home from a party over the weekend.”

“Will we now?”

“What could it hurt? Now go and do your homework.” He said, turning to Abigail.

She scampered off to the kitchen where they immediately heard the faucet running and she was filling up her water glass from the kitchen sink. They waited for a second to see her get settled on the dining room table and open her books and then jack lead Trevor by the tie into their bedroom and closed the door.

Trevor expected Jack’s mood to immediately change because they only had so much time during the day where they could be alone. He was not disappointed. “You fat fuck. You’ve gotten so fat that you don’t even have any clothes to go to work in tomorrow. What do you expect me to do, go out after work and get you some jumbo clothes for your fat chubby ass? Get on all fours, let me inspect the damage.”

Trevor heard the click of a lock and he knew that it was safe. He heard the closet door open and he knew that Jack was getting some stuff from their toy box. Since their kid was in the next room, he knew that they were only gonna be using quiet toys like a ball gag, electric play, ropes, things like that. He knew better than to ask if Jack wanted him to take off his clothes so he just got down on all fours, split pants exposing his chunky rear end.

He looked around and saw that Jack had stripped off everything and was standing there in just a pair of short shorts and was just throwing on an elastic harness. He had a little electric taser toy in his left hand and his Grandfather’s ivory-handled hunting knife in his right. “I’m about to have some fun with my pig. First, let’s document the damage.” Jack took the knife and tossed it on the bed. He got his camera phone off the dresser and started snapping pictures. “Look at you. You’re already getting out of breath climbing the stairs and you’re not even 250 pounds yet. That’s pathetic! You’re only half the size you’re probably eventually going to be, judging from how much of a pig you are in the kitchen.” Trevor heard the clicks of the camera behind him and knew he was documenting the tear of his pants. He felt a mild electric jolt go through his ass cheeks.“Look at this fat ass. I remember you when you used to be this fit muscular God, now you’re starting to just look like a tub of lard, you’re almost starting to look sloppy. And you know what?” Jack says with disgust in his voice. “I love it. I love seeing that you have put on all of this weight because of me. Because of what I’ve done; my cooking and my accommodation of your sedentary lifestyle. Making you a breakfast for half a dozen people for you to eat all by yourself and volunteering to take our kid to school every single morning just so you have more time to be a fat ass. And now, you are giving me another key to controlling you: I am now going to be buying all of your clothes. I’ll have these new clothes to go on, and then I’m just going to be getting you some sizes larger, as you grow out of things. I’ll keep track of what size you currently are and replace them as needed but I am going to cut out all of the tags, so you can never know how fat you’ve gotten.”

Jack grabbed Trevor’s nipples and twisted and grab them so hard that Trevor almost yelped out in pain, if it wasn’t for the gag and muzzle that had been put over his mouth to keep him quiet. All that came out was just a very quiet muffled moan. That’s when Trevor heard the soft pit of the shocker getting tossed on the bed and the light rustle of a hand picking something up off of the comforter. He looked up and saw the flash of metal. “You know why I have this knife pig? You’re not allowed to use your mouth because your mouth is only allowed to be used for eating and sucking my dick and I don’t wanna fat pig like you anywhere near my cock. You’ll probably get confused and try to fucking eat it like it’s a goddamn hotdog you gluttonous fuck. No. If you want to communicate with me, I want you to snort like a fucking pig you are. One snort for yes, two for no. Do you know what this knife is for?”

“Oink.”

“That’s right. I’m going to strip my hog.” Trevor could feel the knife gently caressing the skin near his throat and then he felt the angle change as Jack used it to cut through his shirt like it was the wrapping paper on a gift. He heard the knife drop to the floor and then jack squatted down and used his powerful strong muscles to tear apart the rest of the fabric from his shirt. He picked up the knife again and sliced to cut the sleeves all the way down to the wrists so that Trevor didn’t need to get his hands off of the carpet in order to comply with Jack’s request to strip.

The shirt came off and Jack’s hands roved all over his husband’s torso squeezing and pinching some places and shocking others. All the while he was dirty talking how fat Trevor had gotten over the last year, but then, Jack moved again and he could feel the blade working near his waist, sawing through his pants and his leather belt to release his pants. Trevor was grateful at how careful Jack was being. The dirty talk stopped and all of Jack’s attention was focused on making sure the knife stayed where he wanted it. Within a minute or so, he cut through the belt, the pants, and the underwear and he shoved the ruined clothes down to the man’s knees.

Then, Trevor heard Jack mumble something and knew that Jack was trying to read the time on the alarm clock at the far side of the bed, just to see how much longer they had. Trevor was really grateful that even during a scene like this, Jack would take care of those real life details so that Trevor could just stay in character. He was the pig. Look at him. Look at what he had done to his body. What he had let Jack do. “I took a fit, hot guy and turned him in to a fat boy. I took his place in the social circle, even took his clothes, his identity, everything. All I left him with is cellulite and love handles.” Trevor could feel Jack’s hands roaming around his now soft crotch and midsection, paying extra attention to the fat that had settled around the base of his cock. “Look at you. You used to have such a beautiful cock. It was so great for fucking, but it’s already starting to get smaller and buried in fat, and as you get fatter, you’re going to get more out of shape and eventually you’re gonna have to give up fucking me at all because you’re going to get out of breath before either one of us has been able to get off, if it’s even possible for me to get off thinking about your fat blubbery ass. You’re just gonna have to get me off by sucking my dick and I’m gonna end up getting off by fucking your fat ass, until your ass grows so wide and soft that I can’t even bury my dick in there because your ass has just grown so fucking gigantic. But then I’ll find other ways. Other ways to use you, like the sex toy you’ve become.”

Jack sighed, and moaned as he moved his lips very close to Trevor’s ear whispered “turtle soup.” That meant that it was the end of their role-playing.

“OK!” Jack said, his voice lighter. He took the muzzle and ball gag out of Trevor’s mouth. Instinctively, Trevor moved his mouth around a little bit just to work out the tenderness from being restrained. He saw his partner Jack taking off the harness and putting all of the other toys back in the box at the top of the closet where no little hands could get to them. It was in a box marked ‘all tax records,’ so no curious little hands would think to look in there. Trevor let Jack hoist him up and was very appreciative that Jack immediately got the lotion to moisturize Trevor’s waist and any other parts where chafing might make him sore. “So how was that? Was it OK? Too much?”

“It was good. Hot. I really like it when you boss me around. I didn’t think I would.”

“You liked it? I’m so glad! I feel like you were so good at being in charge and being the alpha male for so long I thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it well.”

“Are you kidding me? That was fantastic. I just wish we had more time. You know, I’m pretty horny right now, but we’ve gotta get dinner started. Also, aftercare, you know. What’s our timetable?”

“We have about five minutes before we’ve got to be out back out there.”

“No problem. What are we gonna be having for dinner? Have you made anything?”

“No, but I figured I would just give you a salad with a little bit of grilled chicken for dinner tonight. You’ve been eating really heavily the last couple of days as part of our days-long role-play and I figured you need a little bit of time to let you recover before we go back to heavy meals all the time.”

“Thanks. I’m still feeling really full from the pizza. I’m feeling stuffed like a turkey.”

“Oh my God, I meant to ask. Was that too much? Was two too many?”

Trevor laughed and stepped out of his ruined clothes, leaving him standing there in just his socks. He saw that jack grabbed a reusable shopping bag that had been sitting unobtrusively in the corner and pulled out some oversized workout clothes that he wore at the beginning of their relationship whenever he would join Trevor in the gym. Trevor had a feeling he knew it was coming but figured he would play along. “I will admit that I had half of the second one left over, but I put it in a big Ziploc bag to have those slices tomorrow. One probably would’ve been sufficient but I understand getting me used to having larger and larger portions of food. It makes sense. I could’ve killed you making me walk through my office with a giant tear in my pants though.”

“Well, I thought of that and I think that once we have dinner, we will have about an hour or so before she needs to be put to bed so I thought it might be a good idea for us to go to the mall really quick and get you some stuff for tomorrow and also get you a complete change of clothes that is three or four sizes larger than you are now that you can keep at work, so that you never need to worry about it if you end up blowing a seam or popping a button at work, you can just change into something else and no one is going to know.”

Trevor laughed. “So you anticipate me getting fatter for a little while. What’s the plan? We probably got to get out here in a couple of minutes.”

“Oh my God! You’re right! Here, put this on.” Jack said, throwing a bag of clothes at his husband.

Trevor made an uncoordinated attempt at catching it and then sat heavily on the bed and opened up the bag and saw, what he hoped was not in there, which was his workout clothes back when he weighed 180 pounds. 65 pounds ago, this was the slim-fit stuff that he would work out in and occasionally do personal training in. “Oh my God, is this even going to fit? Why are we wearing this?”

Jack laughed. “Why? Yours doesn’t fit? That’s so funny. Mine is just super baggy. You had a lot of workout stuff and I chose these because these were the stretchiest of your workout gear but we are going to be doing the workout, as a family, that you would assign your overweight clients when you were a personal trainer back in college. Do you remember? In front of clients, you would always call it your ‘beginner workout,’ but among your friends you would always call it the ‘fat-ass fitness challenge’.”

Trevor blushed with humiliation. “Ironic. You’re going to make me do it aren’t you?”

“Well, fat ass. I didn’t tell you this, but back when we first met I actually tried that work out and it kicked my ass. I couldn’t get to the end of it & I couldn’t do all of the reps. I actually talked to someone who you gave this work out to, way back when I was just starting to date you, and he said that you gave this workout to him too, and it was so hard that the person gave up going to the gym completely. Since you have become a fat ass yourself, no offense, I thought it only fitting to give you a taste of your own medicine.”

“No offense taken.” Trevor said airily. “I take it as a compliment.”

“Excellent. Put on those clothes.” Jack was standing there, lacing up his shoes and Trevor put on his compression shirt, charcoal gray and he was amazed that it managed to even attempt to cover his belly. “Do you remember that this was your looser one?”

Trevor laughed. “Not so loose now. I would wear it when I was going on multi-mile runs, so I didn’t need to worry about the material being so tight that it would chafe me. Now, it barely contains me at all. Multi-mile runs, by the way? I’ll be lucky to be able to do a multi-mile walk nowadays.”

“Nonsense. You’ve gained weight, not transformed into a different person. I see what you mean about aftercare thought. I’ll need to pull you out of that pig headspace before we resume our regularly schedule programming.”

Trevor nodded, checking himself out in the mirror, wishing the tight clothes weren’t so revealing, but fascinated at the changes to his body. “I’m amazed it fits as well as it does, honestly.”

“You only have a couple of inches of belly hanging out the bottom. It’ll probably the last time I’m gonna be able to get you to fit into that shirt without tearing it apart.” Trevor’s hands darted to the bottom of the shirt and saw that yes, his belly was hanging down an inch or two below the shirt and he could pull it down to cover the bottom of his belly but the shirt just immediately went right back up. He could only imagine how much skin he would be exposing if he actually sat down. If he wasn’t careful, this would turn them on all over again. He then put on his boxer briefs that he needed to stretch the seams of a little bit right near his waist and where they hit him in the middle of the thigh because they were so tight they were starting to cut off circulation. Then he tried his old basketball shorts. They were so tight that they fit like bike shorts, and even then he knew that when he sat down his ass crack was going to be exposed for all to see. “OK, so I clearly look ridiculous. Can I take this off?”

Jack laughed. “Of course not honey.” He said, as he walked over to the door. He unlocked it and opened it to step into the hallway. “We have all of the equipment here for you, me, and Abigail to do that work out to find out who in this house is in the best shape. I will demonstrate the exercise and then do my set, Abigail will then do hers and then you will do as much of the work out as you can, TT. If you manage to do the entire work out, I’ll let you change into regular clothes before we go to the mall but if you can’t go through even one set of every exercise, you’re gonna have to wear those clothes until we put Abigail to bed.”

Trevor looked at himself, bloated, fat, and spilling out of the clothes that he had worn all of those years and pounds ago to highlight his physique which were ironically still highlighting his physique but were now simply highlighting how fat he had become.

He liked it. It was like a badge of honor, usually, to show the world how comfortable he was in his own skin and how much he had changed from being the superficial vain guy that he was back then to being someone who appreciated the deeper qualities that make people great.

He had a feeling though, that he was going to be wearing these clothes for quite a while. A couple years ago, he thought, as he was making his way down the hall to where Jack was explaining the work out to Abigail, he had revisited that old work out and found that it was way more difficult than he had remembered it being. He already knew that the old beginner workout for overweight clients was a power move that was intended to show how strong and fit he was, compared to his clients. He let them think that the work out wasn’t too difficult but was intended as a challenge to motivate them… but he could see now that it was just demotivating to give a beginner something that was so likely to cause them to fail.

Abigail, rushed past him into a room and slammed the door as she got on her own fitness clothes as Jack was setting up the course and occasionally popping into the kitchen to get something started for dinner. Trevor felt like he needed to take his lumps for this, wondering to himself how many people were still obese today because he didn’t give them enough support and encouragement all of those years ago. Happily at least, he was starting to not really feel so full from the pizza.

He was grateful for the salad. He needed a little bit of a break from belly-busting meals for at least a couple of hours. It was going to allow him to feel more like himself, well it would when he could finally get off this ridiculously tight clothing.

#trevor and jack #original fiction #gainer fiction #25daysofchubmas #chubmas

[elite-guard-hardygal]

Fanfiction.Net Link

Whumptober 2020 Day 16: A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day | Forced to Beg

@whumptober2020

Anime/Manga: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Part 1: Phantom Blood)

Characters: Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando

Rating: T

Genre: Suspense and Family

Synopsis: During a visit to London, Jonathan and Dio are confronted by some less than savoury characters.

Author’s Notes: Wow, this is spectacularly late. This oneshot really did just spiral out of my control until I finally reigned it back in. Enjoy some fifteen year old Jonathan and Dio whump, with a side of Jonathan trying to be a good brother.

—

“Seen enough of London yet?”

“You do not have to accompany me,” Jonathan said, perhaps a little more shortly than he should have. “You are welcome to go back.”

“I’ve already told you, Father insisted I accompany you,” Dio retorted. “He seems to think you will get yourself lost. I am more inclined to believe you will get yourself killed.”

“That’s not funny, Dio.”

“Good thing I am not joking then.”

Jonathan glanced at his adoptive brother strolling alongside him. Dio’s golden eyes appeared to sharpen as he walked, staring down the crowded path ahead of them.

“Here in London, there are plenty of streets and alleyways that would better be described as deathtraps for the unsuspecting. One misstep, one wrong turn, and you could end up dead in the gutter, shoes gone and pockets empty.” Dio glanced, in turn, at Jonathan. “And we would not want that, would we, JoJo?”

It was hard to tell if Dio was toying with him - something that Jonathan would definitely not put past him, especially after their recent argument - but the severity of Dio’s words and eyes still took Jonathan aback. He frowned, turning his gaze back towards the path ahead.

“No, I suppose not…”

George Joestar had come to London on business. As his sons were both fifteen years old, practically men now, he had seen it prudent for the two of them to accompany him, if for no other reason than to acquaint them with the responsibilities of his occupation.

If Jonathan was being entirely honest with himself, he considered his father’s occupation just a bit beyond what his own mind could grasp. All talk of enterprise, investment, and trade meant very little to Jonathan, no matter how hard he tried to make sense of it all. He never did have much of a head for numbers. All that said, Jonathan still made an earnest attempt to listen to and understand his father’s business meetings.

Dio did not seem to have a problem understanding the trade, which honestly did impress Jonathan. When Dio’s accomplishments were not being compared to his own, Jonathan found that there was a lot to admire about his adopted brother, and it made Jonathan want to improve himself in turn. In the case of their father’s trade, however, Jonathan wondered if this was one of those cases where certain people were just more suited to certain tasks than others.

No, Jonathan’s frustrations with Dio concerned something else. One of the men that George Joestar had met with had recently invited the Joestar family to his place for dinner. While there, the man introduced them all to his own family, including one of his daughters - a lovely young lady around Jonathan and Dio’s age.

While conversing with her had certainly been a genuine delight, and Jonathan found her to be rather charming and remarkably intelligent, much of the young woman’s attention had been stolen primarily by a certain blond headed young man. Dio’s behaviour towards her seemed to go just a little beyond that of a gentleman speaking to a lady, and she, in turn,was clearly infatuated.

Dio had been dismissive when Jonathan brought it up that morning. That had shocked Jonathan, who thought that Dio had been making an honest attempt to pursue the young woman. When Jonathan pointed out that the woman was clearly taken in by Dio’s behaviour, and Dio remained dismissive, an argument started. Jonathan was obviously appalled at the thought of toying with a young woman’s feelings, while Dio claimed that none of it was Jonathan’s business and that Jonathan was overreacting.

Their father ended up stepping in before Jonathan’s agitation rose to the point of shouting. After hearing what the argument was about, George lightly admonished Dio for being cavalier with the young woman’s emotions, whether intentionally or not. Dio, who had remained cool and aloof throughout the whole argument, accepted the admonishment and apologized.

Grateful that his father had taken his side, but still irked by Dio’s insincerity, Jonathan left with the declaration that he would be taking a walk about the city. The hope that he would be able to clear his head through a long stroll did not last, as Dio joined him shortly after.

Now though, as the walk dragged on, and Jonathan turned everything over in his mind, he wondered if he was being unfair. Perhaps Dio had not realised he was being callous.

(Memories of his early life with Dio sprang to mind in protest, as they often did whenever Jonathan tried to move past Dio’s more objectionable moments in the present day. This one was of a despondent, blond haired girl. Though his heart stung, Jonathan pushed it back like all the others).

“Listen, Dio,” Jonathan said slowly. “I suppose I may have… overreacted earlier. Or rather, I assumed the worst of you when you said you had no interest in Miss Langford. I’m sorry.”

Dio glanced at him. “...You apologise too much, JoJo. Keep it up and I may stop believing you.”

“We’re brothers now, Dio,” Jonathan pressed. “I know we have our disagreements, but I do want us to get along regardless of them. Don’t you?”

Dio did not respond, seemingly distracted by one of the surrounding shops.

The street that the two of them were on now was rather cramped. It left no room for carriages or horses, instead bustling with throngs of people looking to get from one place to another. Jonathan had pardoned himself many times now trying to navigate his way through the crowd without accidentally bumping into or against someone. He could not even begin to imagine what it would be like to grow up in such a place. Even on its busiest days, the town at home seemed less crowded than the widest streets in London.

Jonathan felt a pang of disappointment when Dio did not immediately answer his question, only for Dio to say lightly, casually, “I believe we’re being followed.”

“Oh?” Instinctively, Jonathan went to look over his shoulder.

“Don’t look, you fool,” Dio bit out. “They will know we’re on to them if you do that.”

“Who are they?” Jonathan asked, turning his glance into an offhand observation of one of the nearby apartments.

“Pickpockets, more than likely. A pair of men looking to take advantage of the two rich boys who have wandered carelessly into a less than savoury part of town.”

Dio sounded amused, but Jonathan did not find the situation all that funny.

“How do we avoid them?” he murmured.

“Simply keep a tight hold on your wallet, JoJo,” Dio said carelessly.

“Perhaps we should make our way back towards the main streets…”

“Also a viable course of action.”

Jonathan began to look around, earnestly taking in his surroundings for the first time since he had started his impromptu walk. “Where exactly are we, anyway?”

“What makes you think I know? I’ve been following in your footsteps this entire time, JoJo.”

Dio was definitely toying with him now. Holding back a sigh, Jonathan looked down a right turn in the narrow street. It led down a largely empty pathway, through which the afternoon sun shone through, unfiltered by any surrounding buildings.

"I thought Father sent you after me to make sure I didn’t get lost,” Jonathan stated, turning in to the pathway.

“And I decided that you were more likely to get killed,” Dio said in lieu of a retort.

Jonathan actually did sigh this time as the two of them turned one last corner. “Dio, if you’re still angry at me or–”

Three figures suddenly stepped into the alley in front of Jonathan and Dio, cutting off their path to the open street. Trepidation set in, and Jonathan glanced behind to see another two figures turning the corner.

Dio scoffed. “Recall what I said earlier about deathtraps, JoJo...?”

“Dio, please, not now...”

The tallest of the three men in front of them spoke up, a wide and disconcerting smile on his face. “Now what’s a pair of fancy lookin’ young men such as yourselves doin’ around here?”

“As if our business is of any concern to you,” Dio said snidely.

In spite of his aloof attitude, Jonathan could tell that Dio was just as tense as he was. His shoulders were rolled back and his hands were clenched. Jonathan, for his part, tried to remain calm.

The tall man’s smile took on a more obviously dangerous edge. “Fair enough, and I suppose it’s clear what we’re really after, anyway.”

The rustle of clothing had Jonathan turning around completely. The two men who had approached from behind now each had a fist decorated with a set of well worn brass knuckles. At the same time, Dio shifted into a defensive position beside Jonathan, focus fixed on the three men ahead of them.

Jonathan’s heart thudded in his chest, and he fought the urge to wipe away the sweat forming in his palms. “There is no need for violence…”

“Ha ha! Well, aren’t you a smart one?” the tall man exclaimed. “All right then, hand over those wallets.”

“One more step,” Dio snarled, “and I will ram your own weapons down your throat.”

Jonathan gripped his adoptive brother by the shoulder. “We have nothing on us.”

He was telling the truth, at least as far as he himself was concerned. Jonathan did not have any money on his person.

“Don’t make me laugh again, boy…! Young men as well groomed as you two are bound to have a pound or two tucked away in those fancy clothes of yours…! An’ me an’ the lads are more than willin’ to tear you apart t’ find out.”

The two men in front of Jonathan inched forward, cracking their knuckles, leering at him. He was nothing but prey in their predatory gaze, and Jonathan felt like it too. He hoped they could not see him swallow as he fought to keep his fear at bay.

“Just try it then…!” Dio snapped, wrenching his shoulder from Jonathan’s grasp.

“I said we have nothing on us,” Jonathan said pointedly. “Even if we did, I do not respond favourably to threats and violence.”

“Oh…” The tall man’s voice dropped, sending a chill down Jonathan’s spine. “I am willin’ t’ bet you don’t.”

Dio lunged forward.

“Dio–!” Jonathan’s protest was immediately cut off by a blow to the face, knocking his cap off and sending the Joestar heir staggering back. He recovered quickly and faced the two men in front of him.

“Oi, the lad can take a hit…!” one of the men laughed.

“No need t’ hold back then,” the other said. “Not like we was plannin’ on it anyway.”

Jonathan assumed a boxing stance, teeth grit, worry and fear forcibly cast aside. He really had hoped to avoid any violence, but it looked as though he would not be given much of a choice.

The fight was difficult. His opponents were older than him, more experienced, and just as strong, if not stronger. Both Jonathan and Dio largely matched their opponents equally in height, the tallest man being the exception, but Jonathan was not so naive to assume that gave him much of an advantage. The men still outnumbered him and Dio more than two to one. The odds were not in their favour.

Jonathan knew better than to dwell on his disadvantages, though. He had been working hard to improve himself over the past two years, and while he was not yet quite as fast or agile as Dio, Jonathan liked to think that he had become a lot harder to knock down. Indeed, in spite of every strike that the two men managed to land on the young Joestar, in spite of every moment that Jonathan was staggered, not once did he fall. Jonathan held his ground.

In the end, after withstanding many painful blows himself, Jonathan managed to knock both his opponents down. They were not unconscious, merely stunned, but it gave Jonathan the chance he needed to step back, to breathe–

Someone screamed. Jonathan spun around to see Dio on his knees, arm being twisted viciously behind his back by the tall man.

“Dio!” Jonathan rushed forward.

At Jonathan’s cry, the tall man’s focus turned immediately on the young man charging towards him. The tall man yanked Dio to his feet, wrapping his other arm around Dio’s throat and pressing a knife just below Dio’s eye. Jonathan stopped in his tracks, his drive extinguished by a cold horror.

The man laughed, showing off a blood stained smile. “You really are a smart one…!”

Laying sprawled out on the ground, the other two men who had accompanied the tall man groaned as they slowly regained whatever senses Dio had knocked out of them. Jonathan only noticed them peripherally. All his attention was on the man currently holding a knife to his brother’s face.

“I haf’ta admit,” the tall man said, sounding just a little breathless, “you two put up a far greater fight than I expected from a couple rich boys. But that don’t matter.”

The knife pressed deeper into Dio’s skin, drawing a trickle of blood.

“No, don’t!” Jonathan shouted frantically.

“You bastard…!” Dio struggled fruitlessly in the tall man’s grasp. His teeth were bared in a snarl, and there was a slightly wild glint in his eyes.

Jonathan recognized that look. DIo felt cornered.

“Hand over your wallet, and I’ll consider not carvin’ off your friend’s face,” the tall man hissed.

“I told you, I don’t have it on me…!” Jonathan cried, a pleading desperation colouring his voice.

“Don’t lie t’ me, boy!”

“I’m not, I–!”

The tall man flipped the knife around in his hand and stabbed it into the top of Dio’s shoulder. Dio screamed.

“Stop ! Wait, please, stop!” Jonathan’s voice peaked. To his utter relief, the tall man stopped, the knife no more than halfway into Dio’s shoulder. “I- I don’t have any money, but I do have something else…!”

Slowly, so the tall man would not think he was doing anything rash, Jonathan reached into his waistcoat pocket.

“This pocketwatch…” He held up said item by its silver chain. “It is bound to be of some significant worth to you.”

The pocketwatch had been a gift for Jonathan’s most recent birthday, given to him by his father. It was a fine piece, and Jonathan was fond of it, but...

“You can have it, it’s yours. Now please let my brother go.”

“JoJo, what are you doing?” Dio growled, whatever anger or frustration he was trying to convey ultimately blunted by the pain in his voice.

The tall man pulled the knife from Dio’s shoulder, drawing a tight groan from the young blond, and laughed again. “Well, now…! An’ here I thought you said you didn’t respond favourably to violence.”

Jonathan opted not to respond. Someone snatched the pocketwatch from his hand. It looked as though the tall man’s compatriots had recovered, including the two men that Jonathan had faced.

“Still,” the tall man said carelessly, “after all the trouble you boys have put us through, I think we’re deservin’ of a little more.”

Jonathan’s heart sank. “That is all I have on me, I swear…!”

“Well ain’t that a shame?” The tall man returned the knife blade to Dio’s face. “Guess we’ll just have to take this one’s life as compensation.”

“No–!”

“Stop it, JoJo!” Dio glared up at the tall man, pure hatred flashing in his eyes. “These pieces of trash wouldn’t dare.”

The tall man’s face morphed into a glare of his own. “You willin’ t’ bet your life on that, boy...?”

The knife cut into the base of Dio’s neck, instantly drawing blood and a stifled gasp.

“Stop, please!” Jonathan shouted.

“You had best give us somethin’ then!” the tall man shouted back.

“I have nothing left to give!” Jonathan watched as the knife cut deeper, and he could not keep his voice from peaking a second time as he pleaded, “Please, I’m telling the truth…!”

“Well, if you really have nothin’ left t’ give us…” The glare faded into a sly smile, and the tall man removed the knife from Dio’s neck. “...then how about you give us a show?”

“A… show?” Jonathan echoed, confusion overtaking his panic.

“The way you say ‘please,’ all polite an’ sincere-like. I think we’d like t’ hear more of that, right, lads?”

The other four men responded affirmatively with grinning and laughter.

“Basically,” the tall man continued, “we want t’ hear you beg.”

They wanted him to… beg?

“Well? Get on with it, then!” The tall man traced the knife blade down Dio’s temple. “Beg for this one’s life and maybe I’ll consider lettin’ the both of you go.”

“Do not listen to them, JoJo…!” Dio hissed. “They’re bluffing!”

Were they though? The cruelty in the tall man’s smile, in his eyes, was undeniable. Even if Dio was right, and these men had no intention of taking their lives, the tall man had already stabbed Dio - Jonathan had no guarantee that they would not do worse.

“Killing either of us right here, right now, would pose too great a risk! They would not dare do something so stupid – Ghk…!” Dio choked as the tall man tightened his arm around Dio’s throat.

“Shut up, boy,” the tall man growled, before returning his sights back to Jonathan. “What’s the hold up? Too high and mighty to give us a bit of a beg?”

For a moment, a deeply shameful moment, Jonathan hesitated.

The tall man shrugged. “Suit yourself then.” And began to carve the knife down Dio’s temple.

“Wait, no, please! Please, I…!” Jonathan swallowed. His panic or his pride, he did not know, but they were either way irrelevant in the face of the fear he felt for Dio’s wellbeing.

“I beg you,” Jonathan said hoarsely. “Please, spare his life.”

“Jo...Jo…” Dio had turned his glare on Jonathan now even as he clawed at the tall man’s arm with his free hand, disbelief flashing amongst the wild anger. “What the hell are you doing…?!”

“Ha!” The tall man scoffed. “Come on, is that the best you can do? Show some respect to your elders, boy! You can do better than that!”

Jonathan clenched his fists at his sides, and bowed as he had been taught to do. “Please, sir, I beg you, spare his life…”

“JoJo…!” Dio snapped, his voice still tight and breathless, but no less frustrated.

“Hmm, better,” Jonathan heard the tall man say. “But not good enough. I know you’ve been livin’ the high life an’ all, but even a rich boy ought’a know how t’ beg. On your knees, boy, an’ let us know you mean it!”

“Don’t you dare!” Dio veritably screamed. “JoJo, I swear to god, if you don’t stop this…! JoJo!”

Jonathan could only apologise mentally to Dio as he dropped down to his knees. Whether Dio actually cared about Jonathan’s dignity, or if he simply did not want Jonathan to do something like this for his sake - Dio always did seem to despise being in what he perceived as debt to others - Jonathan was still resolved to do anything within his power to save him. And if that meant humiliating himself, well…

What kind of gentleman could really say he had held on to his pride when, in trying to preserve it, he caused others to suffer?

On his knees, palms turned up, Jonathan said, “Please, please, let him go. Please, I beg of you…”

“JoJ–!” The repetitive cry was cut off as the tall man clamped his hand over Dio’s mouth, allowing the knife blade to rest against Dio’s cheek. Dio began screaming in earnest, sheer fury clear in every squirm and struggle.

“Keep at it, boy!” the tall man bellowed over Dio’s muffled yells.

Jonathan clenched his fists and slammed his palms onto the moist cobblestones in front of him. “Please, I’m begging you…! Let him go! I don’t know what he thinks, but he is a brother, my brother…! We don’t always get along, and I often have trouble understanding him, but I want to keep trying–!”

Jonathan’s voice peaked and wavered dangerously. His eyesight blurred.  No, don’t cry, Jonathan told himself, he was far too old to cry.

“Please…! Spare my brother’s life, I’m begging you, spare his life…”

One of the other men in the group laughed. “Sounds like the lad’s ‘bout t’ cry!”

Something struck against the back of Jonathan’s head, and he fell to the ground completely, face pressed against the cobblestones. Before he could even attempt to get back up, Jonathan felt a shoe slam itself down on his head with enough force to make his vision go white.

Dazed, Jonathan could not even hear what was being said around him. By the time his senses dragged themselves back to awareness, someone kicked him in the side, forcing a scream from Jonathan’s lips as the shoe connected with an injury he had received during the fight.

“Fockin’ ‘ell, ‘e is soft,” one of the men scoffed.

The shoe returned to Jonathan’s head, the subsequent increasing weight drawing another cry of pain.

“Best continue your snivellin’, boy–”

Someone screamed. Through the fog in his mind, Jonathan registered that it was not Dio who had done so.

The weight on his head suddenly disappeared, and Jonathan could hear shouts of alarm and panic, alongside a familiar voice snarling threats, and more screaming. As Jonathan pushed himself upright, someone stumbled into his blurring field of vision. It was the tall man, cursing and screaming as he lurched down the alleyway from which he had come, clutching at his face with blood covered hands. The tall man quickly disappeared around some corner, just as Dio entered Jonathan’s line of sight.

“Damned coward…!” Dio shouted into the alley. “Get back here so I can make you eat your own blade!”

“Dio…?” Jonathan tried to get to his feet, only for the pain in his head to force him back down to his knees with a groan, clutching his head.

“JoJo…”

The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps acted as Jonathan’s only warning before Dio grabbed the lapel of his jacket.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Dio shouted furiously. “I told you it was all a bluff, and yet you went and submitted to them anyway! You damned fool, why the hell would you do that–?!”

Dio suddenly pulled back with a cry, grabbing at his shoulder.

“Dio…!” Jonathan gasped.

“I’m fine!” Dio snapped. He threw the tall man’s knife - which Jonathan only now realized that Dio had been holding - to the ground, before again covering his wounded shoulder.

Jonathan watched him, not yet daring to speak. When Dio did not continue his rant, all his glares and attention focused on his injury, Jonathan let out a breath.

“Dio.” Jonathan received a glare in response, but he met it readily. “Even if you were right, I could not risk even the slightest chance that those men would kill you...”

Dio growled and turned his glare towards a nearby wall. “So you chose to submit,” he said through grit teeth. “Damn you, JoJo, how the hell could you throw away your pride so easily?”

“We’re brothers now, Dio, I’ve told you this before.” Jonathan tilted his head, trying to get Dio to look at him again, see that he meant what he was saying. “There is a lot I have yet to understand about you, and a lot I... have to move past… but regardless, I value the bond we have. If I must humiliate myself to save your life, then so be it. I will not apologise for that.”

Finally returning Jonathan’s gaze, Dio regarded him with a dark scowl. “Such selflessness is liable to get you killed one day, JoJo...”

“So be it,” Jonathan replied decisively.

Dio scoffed. A stretch of silence followed. Then, Dio approached Jonathan and held out a hand.

“How is your head?”

Jonathan tried to hold back as smile as he grasped Dio’s offered hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Another stab of pain had Jonathan clutching his head again, but he managed to remain standing.

“Still aching,” he admitted. “But nothing a bit of rest won’t mend. How is your shoulder?”

Dio pressed his hand back over his most severe wound. “It isn’t serious. The knife blade did not cut too deeply.”

“Oh, good,” Jonathan said with some relief. “We should head back, then. Father is probably wondering about us by now, anyway.”

Dio ‘hmph’d in response, and the two young men soon finally made their way out of the alley and onto the main streets.

After some time spent simply walking, trying to ignore the looks both he and Dio were receiving, Jonathan thought to ask, “Ah, Dio, I am wondering: how were you able to escape that man’s grasp?”

“I bit him.”

“You… What?”

“I bit him,” Dio repeated nonchalantly. “And I would have done far worse if he hadn’t run off.”

“Dio…!” Jonathan exclaimed. He knew (from firsthand experience) that Dio was not above using underhanded tactics, but still, biting someone?

“It was disgusting,” Dio admitted with a grimace, “but my options were limited, and with you submitting to getting your head kicked in, would you rather I had just done nothing?”

“...I see.” It certainly would not have been the first tactic Jonathan would have resorted to, or even thought of, but he could not deny that Dio had saved both of them as a result. “Thank you, Dio.”

Dio waved his hand. “Yes, well… I doubt it would have been as effective if they all had not been distracted by you.”

Jonathan could not hold back the smile this time.

“You look like an oaf when you smile like that,” Dio scoffed. “Especially with all those cuts and bruises.”

“Ha, sorry,” Jonathan chuckled.

Dio simply rolled his eyes and continued to lead the way onward.

#whumptober2020 #no.16 #a terrible horrible no good very bad day #forced to beg #fic #jojo’s bizarre adventure #jonathan joestar #Dio Brando #jojo part 1 #Phantom Blood #jojo fanfiction #fanfiction #HardyGal writes fanfiction #hardygal writes stuff

[avatraang]

Summary: “But the true secret, is in the gooey center!” -Monk Gyatso.

Izumi shrugs. “I wanted more information, and what better way to learn than from a living relic?” Bumi lets out a booming laugh. Suyin copies him, doubling over in a fit of giggles.

“She called you old!” He wipes a tear away from his eye.

“You called me old!” Aang feigns feelings of insult, throwing a hand over his heart.

“You are pretty old.” Tenzin reasons, much to the surprise of everyone. Lin lets out a low whistle. Upon seeing the incredulous stares, he backpedals. “What? I’m just saying, Dad is technically one hundred and forty. That’s pretty old!” Kya raises an unimpressed brow at her brother.

[For his birthday, Aang teaches his younger family members the most important of Air Nomad traditions: the Art of Ancient Cake Baking, as taught to him by Monk Gyatso. None of the kids know what to expect. Gaang + kids fic. Oneshot. Mostly LOK compliant.]

Notes: HOOO BOY, I had fun with this one!!! It's been a minute since I wrote something for ATLA that wasn't Tokka focused, haha. This was a fun little project! I do love doting on my boi Aang.

So I wrote this prompt down years ago and never got around to it, but recently I really wanted to give Aang the positive attention he deserves, and this was the result. This is completely written for fun; there’s no real plot other than me wanting the best for Aang, lmao. For reference, here’s the scene I’m referring to when I say Gyatso taught Aang how to bake: Gyatso Teaches Aang. Also, I heavily reference this blog post when I comment on how the cakes are made: Air Nomad Cake Recipe. Thanks to whoever put in the time to figure out how the Air Nomads baked!

In this fic, Suyin is barely six. Lin and Tenzin are twelve, Kya’s fifteen, Izumi’s just turned nineteen, and Bumi is twenty. Aang is turning forty. The only ship that I make clear are together, is Katara and Aang. Everything else is purposely left up to your imagination; I want the focus to be on Aang, and for everyone to be able to read this without worrying about their ship. Kataang is only implicitly stated because it kinda has to be canon for Kya, Bumi, and Tenzin to exist, lmao. But even then, I tried hard for that not to be the spotlight; Aang is my main focus in this fic, and I hope you will enjoy him as such!

I hope you all have as much fun reading this as I did writing it; my boi Aang deserves all the good things! Let me know your thoughts :)

Preview:

Toph is sitting opposite of Aang, silent as stone. She’s inspecting him; Aang can tell by the way her feet shift almost imperceptibly, scanning his body. Finally, Toph breaks the silence. “When do you think they’ll be done?” She nods towards the kitchens.

Aang shrugs. “I don’t know. A couple more minutes, maybe?” His knee is shaking, but Aang can’t bring himself to stop it. He’s always been jittery; that’s just his nature. “The kids are probably driving everyone else insane by now.” He wipes his brow, sweaty from the steam of the galley.

Toph snorts. “You know it. I apologize in advance for Su most likely wrecking your beloved Air Temple statues.” One of the cooks steps out of the kitchen, followed by three waiters. They’re carrying ridiculously enormous bags, one in each individuals’ hand.

“It’s alright,” Aang grins, “I’m friends with the best earthbender in the world. I’m sure she can fix it.” He graciously accepts four bags, surprised by the sheer weight of the food. Bowing in thanks, he watches Toph take the other four bags. Then, they head out into the busy street.

“Oh yeah?” Toph continues their earlier flow of conversation. “You’ll have to introduce me sometime. They sound awesome.” A cart flies down the road, almost trampling them. “Hey!” Toph calls, aggravated. “Watch where the fuck you’re going!” She jostles the food.

Aang presses his lips into a thin line. “Maybe they had a good reason for the crazy driving?” He attempts to keep a hopeful tone. As they crest a hill, Air Temple Island comes into view.

“No, Aang.” Toph scolds. “Sometimes people just suck.” She rolls her eyes.

He grimaces. Aang can see Appa, curled up by the ferries, some children cautiously peering his way. Walking a little faster, Aang bends the air to give them a boost; under his feet, he can feel Toph giving them a hand, too. The earth moves as if it has a mind of its own, guiding them along at quick speed.

Upon reaching Appa, the children notice them and back away from the flying bison, eyes wide. Toph bends herself up to Appa’s saddle; Aang does the same, and hands her his bags of food. Once settled at the reigns, Aang lowers the hood he’d been wearing, and gives Appa a hug. He watches the children’s eyes go wide. One of them calls out, joyful. “Hiiiii, Avatar Aang!”

Aang’s smile comes easy. “Hiiii!” He calls back. Then, he shakes Appa’s reigns. “Yip, yip!”

The bison takes off, flying into the sky. Over Aang’s shoulder, he calls out to the children. “Byeeee!” He can’t help it; Aang laughs. The looks on their little faces are priceless.

Toph snorts. Shouting over the wind, she says, “So dramatic, Twinkletoes!” He turns to find her own hood has fallen off her head.

“You’re one to talk!” Aang claps back. But his reply must be lost to the air currents, because Toph just closes her eyes, relaxing into the saddle.

The food is delicious. Aang is glad that he convinced Katara into ordering takeout instead of working herself into exhaustion. The adults sit, wine in hand, discussing life and all its trivialities. Kya stirs her wine in its glass (Aang and Katara had granted her special permission), looking at it with distaste. Aang holds back a smile at his daughter. He supposes perhaps it wasn’t as sweet as she was expecting.

“Happy birthday, Aang!” Sokka cries, holding his glass up high. Everyone matches it, holding their cups up in cheers. “You’re still just as ridiculous as when Katara and I found you in that iceberg. You’re just..” Sokka makes a face. “... Taller.” With accompanying cries of hear, hear! everyone takes a sip of their wine (or, for Lin, Tenzin, and Su, their juice), laughter ringing through the room.

Indeed, forty is a sweet year for Aang. It’s his twenty-first wedding anniversary, and what’s more, all his family have come to celebrate with him. What could be better?

As conversation fills the atmosphere, Aang scans the room. Tenzin and Lin seem to be involved in an intense battle over who can eat the most food (idly, Aang wonders if they’d let him join them). Mai and Sokka are discussing something very intently, but Sokka’s still shoveling food in his mouth like there’s no tomorrow. Izumi is entertaining Suyin, who’s attempting to build… something, from her uneaten meal. Bumi (Bumi! Aang takes a hearty sip of his wine at the thought that his son managed to acquire enough leave to make it for the occasion) is caught in conversation with Zuko and Toph. Katara and Ty Lee are helping Kya with her wine tasting ventures. Aang is about to go join Lin and Tenzin, when someone pokes his side.

“Hey, All Powerful Avatar,” Suki’s voice greets him. Aang turns towards her, sitting back down. “Your actual birthday is, like, two days from now, right?” Suki takes a healthy bite of her food. Aang copies her.

“Yep.” They’d celebrated today, because it was the only day that Katara could say, with certainty, she’d have off from her clinic. He swirls around what’s left of his wine, before downing it in one uncivilized gulp.

“What are you gonna do?” Suki swings her braided hair over her shoulder.

Click Here To Continue Reading.

#atla #Avatar The Last Airbender #atla fic #avatar fanfiction #aang fic #aang fanfic #gaang fic #gaang fanfic #aang #kya ii #bumi ii #tenzin #lin beifong #suyin beifong #izumi #monk gyatso #did someone say: #gaang + kids fic? #bc HERE IT IS #my writing #my fanfiction

[imagine-loki]

Ragnarok

TITLE: Ragnarok CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 3: Reunited AUTHOR: traveling-classicist ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you take care Odin when he was homeless on Midgard (based on the deleted scene from Ragnarok). You take him in and listen his crazy stories about Asgard and Thor thinking he’s just some crazy hobo who needs help. Then one day, Thor and Loki break into your apartment looking for their father. Hela returns in your living room and insanity ensues. RATING: T

AO3 Link: Here

NOTES/WARNINGS: Wow this came out as a big Ragnarok fix-it chapter. These things happen, I suppose. Enjoy, if it’s something that you need. I know some of us feel it.

Also, head to AO3 and please, read the endnote. If you don’t use AO3, I’ll summarize here.

Someone has stolen my material (including this story and my other story, Loki’s Daughter) and every single AO3 authors material and is profiting off of it by marketing an unofficial mobile app called the Fanfic Pocket Library Archive (Unofficial) App. This thing’s been around for several years but as I’m a little new to writing, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I do this for free and receive zero (0) dollars from it. I do it for fun but it’s my intellectual property and no one deserves to make money off of it, especially without my permission.

Please, if you use this app, stop, leave a one star review, report it as inappropriate on whatever store you use (it’s on all the popular ones), and then delete it. This person is hurting fanfic authors like me and many others on this blog! I don’t (and never) encourage sending hate mail to this individual and I don’t recommend you try to contact them directly, please. I don’t know if they know that they’re hurting us but we need to make sure that this app gets taken down.

————————————————————————————————–

Several weeks had passed since Odin had come to live with Theo. They had finally settled into a workable routine. Theo was thankful she could finally work in peace for a full day without Odin bursting into her room yelling about frost giants or the helicopter he thought was an attacking dragon or whatever other mundane event triggered his dementia.

            He was content, most days, with reading in the living room. Theo had gotten him a library card and they went to the library several times a week to keep him set up with books. Theo thought about getting him involved in book clubs or other social events but thought he might need a little more time before he could be with other people again.

            He no longer spoke about the crazy doctor and he did not bring up the incident that Theo had had with him. For which, she was grateful. All in all, he was a good roommate and Theo enjoyed listening to his stories about Asgard and the battles in the Nine Realms. She was concerned by his comments about the Avenger Thor being his son, but she was not sure what to do about them.

She had asked him how long he had been in New York and he could remember being there for about four years. She assumed he had been upset and displaced during the Battle of New York, like herself and so many others had been. She thought, perhaps, this is where his fantasies about Thor and the Avengers had come from. A lot of people had had psychotic breaks after the aliens attacked. New Yorkers could come back from a lot: freak storms, floods, train wrecks, fires, terrorists, spies. But aliens and super heroes proved to be just a little too much for some.

Her attempts to get him to see a real doctor had all come up short. She did not want to force Odin to do something he did not want to do. She still wanted him to have the dignity of being his own person. He was healthy, for the most part, though she had noticed a bit of bodily weakness as of late. She had just chalked it up to the cold weather and old age. She was slowly working on his alcohol habit. He was down to only a few drinks a week now, instead of one a day. She did have to start hiding the booze in her room, though, after she caught him pinching some beer in the middle of the night one night.

She hoped that with a little more time together, he would come to trust her enough to go to a doctor to address his mental state but for now, as he wasn’t hurting himself or anyone else, she was content with him just being content. She enjoyed living with him. She didn’t feel like it was a chore to take care of him. She loved cooking for him and introducing him to new food.

She learned he had something of a sweet tooth so she kept a jar stocked with cookies or brownies or tarts or whatever recipe she could find. He even began checking out cookbooks from the library that had photos of food he thought looked good or familiar.

“Oh, these look like the apple tarts that Idunn used to make for us. Do you think you could make these? Of course, you don’t have golden apples but I’m sure you could find a decent substitute,” he would say.

“Sure! They look easy enough,” Theo would reply. “Check this one out and we’ll drop by the grocery store and pick up the ingredients.”

When they arrived back at her apartment, she unpacked the groceries. To her surprise, Odin came to her side and helped her. He took out the milk and cheese and a few other things and placed them in the refrigerator. She smiled. She’d have to remove the cereal and oatmeal he put in there later but at least he was trying to help.

He placed her cookbook on the island in the kitchen and took the rest of his books to the living room to read. She put on some coffee for him. She had found that he did enjoy a cup of coffee while he read. She set down a mug for him and he thanked her as he pulled out one of his newest books, a book about modern American politics. He went through books very quickly, so he often checked out ten or more books in a single visit. Among them this time were books about the Afghan wars, the Iraqi war, the American revolution, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, another Norse mythology book, and a book about Nordic style knitting.

She returned to the kitchen and started on the recipe for the apple tarts. She started on the dough and made up the apple and cinnamon mixture. She glanced up at Odin and caught him watching her from over the top of her book. When she caught his eye, he quickly looked down at his book again. She smiled and placed the tart crusts in to bake. When they were done, she pulled them out and added the apple mixture on the tarts. When she was finished, she put the tarts back in the oven.

“Okay, those need a little more time and then we can try them out,” Theo said.

“They already smell delightful,” Odin said.

Theo smiled. She enjoyed how happy he had been recently. It was good to see someone who had been so spiteful and angry and confused, be content and happy with life. Even though, he was still rather confused most of the time.

“Nordic Style Knitting?” Theo read, as she picked up one of Odin’s books from the pile on the coffee table.

“Knitting?” he said, taking a closer look. “I thought that said, ‘knighting’. I must be losing my sight.”

“Aw, I thought you were going to pick up a new hobby,” Theo said, a little disappointed. “Knighting? It has a picture of a woman with a knitted sweater on it looking longingly into mid-distance. How did you think this was about knights?”

“Well, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. That’s what the librarian lady always says,” Odin said.

Theo nodded. “Well, I guess that’s true. But if there’s anything about knights in here, be sure to tell me because that would be the plot twist of the century.”

“Hmph, a king does not have time for knitting,” he said.

            “Right, well you’re not much of a King of a the Dumpsters now, are you?” Theo said, smiling.

            “Well, I suppose I’m not king anymore,” he muttered.

            “Are you happy?” she asked. He looked up at her and smiled. His eye shimmered a bit in the light.

            “Most of the time,” he said.

            She laughed. “Well, that’s the goal, isn’t it?” She leaned over the couch and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be in my room for a bit. I’ll be out when the oven beeps.”

            She walked down the hallway to her room and flopped onto her bed, playing on her phone. The apartment filled with the smell of apple tarts. It made her stomach growl in anticipation. She rolled over on her back, phone raised over her face, playing Candy Crush. She completely lost track of time and before long the timer started beeping in the kitchen.

            “What is that! Who’s there?” Odin shouted at the oven.

            The beeping and Odin’s booming voice made her jump. The phone slipped from her hands and landed like a brick on her face. “Ow,” she groaned as she slumped off her bed to get Odin away from the oven again before he started beating it with her rolling pin.

            “Odin, it’s just the timer, remember? Our tarts are done!” she said, removing the rolling pin gently from his hands. She pulled on her oven mits and pulled out the tray. Odin’s hand went straight for one, but Theo smacked it away. He recoiled holding his hand and giving her a sour look.

            “Not now, you crazy! They just came out! They’re still hot,” she said.

            He frowned at her and grumbled as he stalked to the living room and plopped down on the couch again. She smiled and shook her head. She waited for them to cool before plating a few for him and some for herself and walking into the living room to join him. She set the plate down in front of him. When she looked down at him, he had his hands on his head again like he did when he was upset and frustrated. A book was open in his lap.

            “Odin? Are you alright? What’s wrong?” she asked, setting the plate down on the table.

            “Asgard is not a place, I know that, but I have to remember,” he said, hitting his head with his palms.

            “No, no, we don’t do that, Odin,” Theo said, stopping him. “Just take a deep breath, come on.” She picked up the book from his lap. It was the Norse mythology book. He grabbed it from her and pointed to the page he was on.

            “Look, look at her, I know her,” he said, pointing to an illustration of a woman on the page. Theo read the caption, ‘The Goddess of Death, Hela’. She looked up at Odin again. He was clearly in distress.

            “It’s alright, Odin, here have a tart, remember? We were excited about these. They smell really good,” she prompted him with the plate, but he shook his head. He was really distressed if food would not bring him out of this.

            “They’ve got it all wrong. They’ve got it all wrong! Stupid Midgardians. Not you, Theo! Them!” he said, pointing at the book and fidgeting. “She’ll come back. I do not know when, but it feels soon. Very soon. She will kill me.”

            “Odin, no one is going to kill you,” Theo said, coolly, trying to keep a calm tone.

            “No, no, she will. It’s been foretold that she will,” he panted.

            “Odin, those are just stories. No one is going to kill you. Did you see that guard dog of a landlord I have downstairs? He’s not going to let anyone in that doesn’t live here. I promise, no one is going to kill you.”

            “I must speak with my sons. I must speak with them now! I must warn them immediately!” he said. “Asgard is not a place!” He pounded on his head again. “Why won’t they listen! Why can’t I remember!”

            “Odin, please, stop! Don’t hurt yourself!” Theo grabbed both his hands and held them. He stared at her. Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. His eye was bloodshot and glistened with welling tears. Theo sighed.

            “Listen. Let me help you. Please,” she pleaded with him, holding his hands. “Take a deep breath.”

            “Theo—”

            “Shut it! Do as I say,” she snapped.

            He sighed and took a deep breath.

            “Alright, now let it out.” He did so. “Again,” Theo said, softening her tone now that he was listening to her. She made him take several deep breaths in and out until he was calm. She held his hands so that he could not hit himself.

            “Okay, I want you to close your eye and focus on your breathing and make all the other little Odin voices stop talking in your head. Frigga too, if she’s in there,” Theo said. “Sorry, Frigga,” she added, quietly.

            “This is silly,” Odin said.

            “It’s not silly, just trust me, okay. Rule number seven, remember?” she said. He opened his eye and looked at her.

            “Fine,” he grumbled, closing his eye again.

            “Good. Sometimes this takes a while. It takes me a while sometimes so just tell me when you have them all shut up.”

            She waited for several minutes when finally, Odin said, “Alright.”

            “Okay, now let’s think about how this started. You were reading your book and you got to this page about Hela,” Theo said.

            “I know her,” he said, quickly.

            “Okay, how do you know her? Is she your friend?”

            “No, no, no, they have it all wrong here,” he said pointing to the book.

            “Alright, alright, well how do you know her? Take a deep breath and think hard about it. Don’t let any of the other voices think over you.”

            He closed his eye and scrunched his brow, clearly concentrating hard on this task.

            “She… She… is my… daughter,” he whispered. “She is my daughter.” A tear slipped from his eye. Theo looked at him, squeezing his hands. He started breathing hard. His eye flicked around and then up at Theo. “She’s my daughter and I forgot about her. I forgot about her!”

            “Oh, Odin,” she said, squeezing his hands. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault,” Theo said, rising up to sit next to him on the couch. She put her arm around him.

            He put his face in his hands. His body shook with silent sobs. “I’m a terrible father,” he whispered. “To all my children.”

            “Odin, I’m sure that’s not true.”

            “It is. I’ve done nothing but push them away and lock them up, punish them for who they are, for who I made them to be. They all hate me. They all think I’m mad and foolish. And I am. I’ve been blind to them.” He collapsed into his hands again.

            Theo couldn’t help her own tears at seeing him cry. She rubbed his back and squeezed his arm, trying to think of something to help him feel better. She knew that sometimes, when people broke down like this – which many of her former roommates had on this couch – it was often helpful for her just to sit with them and listen.

            “I’m sorry, Odin,” she said, softly. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, but the fact that you realize that you’ve made mistakes may mean that there’s still time for you to fix your relationship with your children; that you can ask for their forgiveness.”

            “You don’t understand, girl,” he said, shaking his head. “What I’ve done to Hela, to Loki…the eons of torture and brutality I’ve put them through… there is no conversation that can fix.”

            Theo was a little scared by what he was saying now. She wanted to be optimistic for him and supportive, but she had a gut feeling there was something more going on here that Odin was not telling her.

            “Well,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “We can only try. For right now, let’s just have a few tarts and try to calm down. Maybe, you can think about what you would want to say to your kids if they were here.”

            He sighed. “I would want to tell them I love them,” he said. He wiped away the tears from his face and took a tart.

Theo looked at him sympathetically. She tried not to cry herself as she took a tart too. She took a bite. She was impressed with her baking. They tasted really good, immediately improving her mood.

            “Mmm,” Odin muttered. “My sons would love these. Frigga, too. They loved Idunn’s apple tarts.”

            “Do I do them any justice? Even without the golden apples?” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers.

            “They’ll do,” he said with a little smile. He looked up at her. “Thank you, Theo.”

            “Oh, you’re welcome,” she said, standing to get a drink from the kitchen. As she walked, there was a sudden pounding on the door. “Now, who’s that?”

            She walked back towards the door, but the pounding got louder. “Hang on! I’m coming!” she said, shoving the rest of the apple tart in her mouth and swallowing it in one bite. She could hear muffled voices outside. There was a loud bang on the door that made Theo jump.

            “Hey!” she shouted. “Knock it off!”

            There was another bang and the door heaved inwards. Theo jumped back and reached for the coatrack. The door gave one last shudder before shattering into a million pieces across her entryway floor. Theo slammed against the wall beside the coatrack, as two men casually walked into her apartment: Thor, the Avenger and Loki, the alien that attacked New York. She reached into her coat pocket on the coatrack and pulled out a handgun, pointing it at Loki’s head.

            “Do not come any closer. What the hell are you doing in my house?” she shouted at them.

            “Father!” Thor said, stepping over the broken pieces of door to Odin who was standing by the coffee table.

            “Thor! My son!” Odin said, putting his hand on Thor’s cheek. “Oh, my sons! I love you!”

            Theo did not take her eyes off Loki, nor the sights of her gun. Her hand was steady, though her heart was racing. He was looking at Odin with brows raised in shock at his adoptive father’s admonition upon their arrival. He looked back at the Theo with her gun pointed at his head. He raised his hands slowly and gave her a gentle look.

            “I apologize for my brother murdering your front door,” he said, slowly. “Please, allow me to fix it.”

He waved his hand and the splinters of the door began to reform on the broken hinges. Theo felt a wriggling sensation under her foot. She looked down to see a large chunk of the door wiggling to get free as if pulled by a magnet towards its comrades. She lifted its foot and it replaced itself, making the door whole again.

            Loki stepped over to it and tested it, swinging it open and shut. “There, good as new,” he said. Theo still had the gun trained on him. He turned back to her. “Please, put that down. We’re just here for him.” He pointed to Odin with his thumb.

            “He… He was telling the truth… All this time? And I thought he was crazy…” Theo said.

            “Well, you’re probably not completely wrong. I’m pretty sure he’s crazy,” Loki said.

            Odin ran over to them and grabbed Theo’s arm, lowering her gun.

            “Theo! You’re breaking rule number five, young lady,” he scolded her. “No weapons!”

            “It’s my house. They’re my rules. And I get to break them when GIGANTIC ALIEN MEN COME TEARING DOWN MY DOOR!” she shouted, pointing at the brothers.

            “I do suppose that’s fair,” Loki said, looking at his brother.

            “No weapons?” Thor said. “What kind of house is this?”

            “Thor, don’t be rude,” Loki muttered.

            “A safe one!” Theo snapped. “Now, explain yourselves right now!”

            “My name is Thor, and this is Loki—”

            “I know damn well who you are! Why on earth would you leave your father here to become homeless? Why would you say you would come for him and then just leave him here with no way to contact you?”

            “That’s a good question,” Thor smiled at Theo. “You want to answer that one, Loki?” he growled at Loki.

            “Homeless?” Loki said. “I didn’t leave him homeless here. I left him in a home. For old people. A retirement home. Where he could play bingo and mingle with old Midgardians and tell war stories and be cared for day and night their healer nurse-doctor people or whatever.”

            “And that retirement home went out of business,” Theo said, standing on her tip toes to be eye level with him. “I guess they don’t have a mailing address for Asgard, do they!”

            “So, what, they just turned him out on the street?” Loki asked.

            “Yes! They had nowhere else to put him!”

            “What kind of place is this? Just throwing your elders out like trash?”

            “Welcome to America, sweetie. You don’t have the money to pay for yourself, you go out on the street.”

            “Thor, this is not what I intended,” Loki said, addressing his brother. “All I did was strip him of his memories so he wouldn’t rouse the Midgardians’ suspicions, but I did not do this.”

            Thor shook his head at him and rolled his eyes and turned to Odin. “I’m sorry that this happened father—”

            “No, I am sorry, to both of you,” Odin said.

            “What?” both the brothers said in unison. Loki stared at him with surprise, thinking he had heard him wrong. Odin turned his attention to him.

            “I am sorry for how I’ve treated you, Loki. For the lies I’ve told you. For blaming you, when I should have blamed myself. Your lawless nature, these storms inside you; you inherited from me. And I would never wish that on another soul,” Odin said, tears in his eyes. “You are my son. I just hope that you can forgive me now after all that I have done.”

            Loki stared at him, taken aback by his words. He had no words of his own. He looked at Thor and then to Theo. She crossed her arms, gun still in hand. He stared blankly at Odin, unsure of what to do or say or even what to think.

Thor too was in shock. He looked back and forth between his father and his brother.

            “Father, I think you broke him,” he said, chuckling a little, putting his hand on Loki’s shoulder.

            “I… I…I do not know what to say,” Loki said.

            “That’s alright,” Odin said, putting up his hand. “I don’t expect forgiveness right away. Now, Thor, I must speak with you too.”

            Thor wiped his nose with the back of his hand, trying to disguise his man-tears. Theo scoffed. Loki was still searching the room for something that could help him respond. He stepped closer to Theo while Odin spoke with Thor.

            “What’s in those tarts?” he asked, suspiciously.

            Theo turned her head slowly to glare at him, shooting daggers. “Apples,” she said, feigning hospitality. “And a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. You’re welcome to one if you want,” she said, though a bit scornful. “And you didn’t answer my question. Why did you leave him here?”

            Loki looked uncomfortable. “It’s a long story.”

            “Start talking,” Theo said.

            “I was not expecting this apologetic Odin. He’s never been this way before. Several years ago, Asgard was dealing with an unexpected war with the dark elves. My brother abdicated his right to the throne and Odin was, well, unfit to rule after our mother died. He was willing to sacrifice every Asgardian warrior we had to defeat the elves just uphold some old family grudge. So, I did what needed to be done and removed Odin from power.”

            “Jesus,” Theo said, rolling her eyes.

            “I brought him here so he would be safe. I removed his memories with a spell so as to disguise his existence. To keep him safe not only from Midgardians but other powers in the universe that might want him dead. I wasn’t expecting them to throw him out on the street!”

            Theo shook her head, not meeting Loki’s eyes.

            “But I am grateful to you, Theo, for taking him in. Thor is too, though he may forget to say so.”

            “Mmm,” Theo grunted. “How did you even know where to find us?”

            “Pfft, that crazy second-rate magician that lives on this island too.”

            “Oh no, not him,” Theo whined, as a sparkling portal began to appear in her living room behind Loki. Doctor Strange and Wong stepped through.

            “I know, right,” Loki continued. “What a knob. He made me fall through one of his stupid portals for thirty minutes while he tried to figure out where you two were. Man’s not a sorcerer. His magic’s more suitable for children than… he’s right behind me…”

            “Hello again, Loki. Theo,” the doctor greeted them. Theo cocked the gun in her hand.

#Loki #Lover #God of Mischief #Submitted fic #submission #ragnorok #traveling-classicist #chapter 3

[notbecauseofvictories]

hi sarah! you'd been talking a lot about the history of blues/bluegrass a few months ago and i just remembered it so i was wondering if you have any book/article recommendations for the history of those genres?

Absolutely! My research has tended to focus on the history prior to the 1960s, since by that point both blues and bluegrass had mostly settled into the genres we recognize today.

BLUES is technically older, and the creation of black Americans, based on a Southern threading together of spiritual music (itself with deeper, trans-Atlantic African roots), slave working songs, and uniquely African-American folk ballad traditions. It encompasses an incredible amount of regional variation, as well as religiosity, and a slide into sub-genres like dirty blues and its euphemistic cousin, hokum blues. (If you want to hear the difference, listen to Lucille Bogan’s “Shave ‘em Dry” versus Bessie Smith’s “I Need a Little Sugar in my Bowl”.)

Sources for the Blues:

Samuel Charters’ “The Country Blues” was published in 1959 and is considered the groundbreaking history of the genre. The book has some failings and errors (it definitely over-romanticizes black life) but it really was the first of its kind and ignited all the study afterwards. Charters’ recordings of the blues artists he spoke with and interviewed has also been made into an album of the same name by Smithsonian Folkways.

There’s no way I can talk about the blues without referencing Alan Lomax—an ethnomusicologist and director of the American Archive of Folk Culture, who, when the Library of Congress stopped funding folk music recordings, went on collecting them independently. “The Land Where Blues Began” is both the title of his account of finding those recordings, and the documentary he directed and narrated for PBS. 

For more of a straightforward history, I recommend "Deep Blues“ by Robert Palmer or “Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music” by Ted Gioia. They’re both good “big picture” histories.

A lot of blues histories are written by white historians and critics—with the exception of LeRoi Jones’ “Blues People” (since publication, Jones has changed his name to Amiri Baraka). It’s less a history than a theoretical project, an ethnography and sociological history of the people blues came from and why black people could make the blues in the first place. Still, it’s a great read and deserves to be on this list.

I’ll also give a shout out to “The Black Musician and the White City” by Amy Absher, which is all about the music scene in Chicago—the chapter I’ve linked here is a fascinating picture of what the music scene looked like, as the Delta blues branched off into Chicago blues and black musicians struggled to make inroads into a highly segregated profession (also, a look at the tension between largely-white unions and black communities in Chicago that continues to inform city politics).

If you’re looking for introductory reading….

I found this article on African-American Song from the Library of Congress a good starting place—it’s only partly about the blues, but I think it’s good to understand the context of blues, and the various other styles that were co-evolving with it. Blues, string-band, vaudeville, gospel….all these genres were talking to one another, and understanding that gives you a better grounding for the actual history of the thing.

Though less formal, PBS actually created “The Blues - Classroom” in 2003, which is a repository of lesson plans and essays to accompany the seven-part film series of the same name. It’s a great, quick resource, if you’re just getting started.

BLUEGRASS is much younger, if you’re going by when Earl Scruggs invented the particular picking style every banjo player since has imitated—or co-equally created, based on old-time string band music and what Al Hopkins in the 1920s called “hillbilly music.” You’ll often see the genre referred to as “bluegrass and old-time music” as a way of referencing both the pre-WWII folk/hillbilly music that gave rise to the genre as well as all the followed after Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. (Though the debate as to what “counts” as bluegrass is so ubiquitous that the International Bluegrass Music Association message boards gave it an acronym: WIBA, short for “What Is Bluegrass Anyway?”)

Sources for Bluegrass & Old-Time:

A pretty foundational text in this area is Neil V. Rosenberg’s “History of Bluegrass”—Rosenberg almost exclusively studied bluegrass in the US, and had a column in Bluegrass Unlimited (the “bible of bluegrass”) for years. If you want just a taste, there are a number of his articles on jstor. Personally, I recommend “From Sound to Style: The Emergence of Bluegrass.” (He tends to be overly partial to Bill Monroe, but it is a heavy-hitter book in the area.)

There are a number of personal accounts that I could list here—for instance, Bill Monroe (the ‘father of bluegrass’) has a biography that’s supposedly pretty good, and Butch Robins, who later played banjo for the Blue Grass Boys, has a video series where he talks about bluegrass and his experience as a musician. However, I don’t know if these are actually enjoyable resources for anyone except the true devotee.

“What is bluegrass anyway? Category formation, debate and the framing of musical genre” by Joti Rockwell, from Popular Music. I love a good categorical debate!

Some of my favorite post-1960s bluegrass comes out of what I would call “folk resistance music”—figures like Pete and Mike Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, all wielded the particular sound of bluegrass, but in a way that made it ideologically more similar to blues or traditional folk music. As someone who watched Harlan County, USA at a tender point in her life, I have a particular affection for Hazel Dickens, and I did enjoy her biography “Working Girl Blues.”

If you’re looking for introductory reading…

The Library of Congress entry on bluegrass music is a good place to start.

The Journal of American Folklore did an entire issue on hillbilly music and its influence on bluegrass. You can find it digitized on jstor here, including a very instructive article called “Introduction to Bluegrass” by L. Mayne Smith, himself a musician of the folk music revival.

……..as a final note, I also want to point out that though it’s tempting to think of blues as distinct from bluegrass/hillbilly/old-time, as well as easily separated out from folk, gospel, jazz, ragtime, vaudeville, and traditional English/Irish/French/West African/etc. sounds, it’s simply not true. Talking about these musical trends as separate and distinct ignores the fact that many were happening at the same time, evolving concurrently and together, borrowing extensively from one another as musicians swapped techniques, styles, and dirty tricks. 

By way of example, the “blue” in “bluegrass” comes from the addition of blue notes, which is also where you get “the blues.” Bluegrass definitely borrowed them from the African-American artists who had been blending blue notes and various styles of gospel music for decades by that point. But blue/bent notes are popular in Irish and English folk music as well, particularly on various types of mouth harps and pipes (…in America, mouth pipes became the diatonic harmonica, which, along with the banjo—itself evolved from West African gourd instruments—gave birth to cowboy blues. It’s all a huge, weird, mess of people making noise.)

Nevertheless, there are intense politics wrapped up in who each genre “belongs” to. As Lil’ Nas X’s “Old Town Road” recently demonstrated, music genres often serve to keep “black” music and “white” music as distinguishable as possible—even when the sound is the same. This has been true since the origin of record labels, when recordings of black artists were “race records,” or “string-band” and white artists made “hillbilly” or “old-time.” (They sound very similar and frequently borrowed instrumental techniques from one another.) It doesn’t help that bluegrass rose to prominence with an all-white band, at a time of intense racial tension and as many Civil Rights activists and black historians were reclaiming the blues as a distinctly African-American sound. More recently, Joe Thompson and Tony Thomas (a fiddler and a banjo player, respectively) have spoken out about their experiences as black musicians in a musical subculture that is often designated for-and-by white people.

I bring this up not to invalidate the sources I’ve listed above, but to point out that the story of blues and bluegrass and the space between them is complicated—there’s not just one story to tell. The 1960s’ blues fetishism has been equally damaging and helpful; the idea that bluegrass is “white” music is in a sense correct, but also a gatekeeping mechanism to keep black artists out of music they have always participated in and influenced. Much like every other aspect of American history, there is a dense and complex interplay between race, class, and self-made mythology that historians are still unpicking.

But goddamn, the music is cool.

#long post for ts #history #thehazardsolove #the devil went down to georgia (and then went down on johnny) #from the bookshelf

[yilingradishfairy]

Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán & Lán Jǐngyí, Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán/Lán Jǐngyí, Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Characters: Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán, Lán Jǐngyí Additional Tags: Don't worry, WangXian is coming, we've got some setup to do first, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Alternate Universe - Wizards, Alternate Universe - The Princess and the Frog (2009) Fusion, or rather, the book that movie was based on, Untamed Spring Fest 2020 Summary:

Jin Rulan had no idea how this happened. Really. He should in no way be blamed for the events that transpired to get him here. Running for his life. Or rather … hopping. He couldn't believe his first real life-or-death situation is at the threat of an average garden reptile. Oh yes. The very real threat to his life was a freaking garter snake. Harmless to him normally, wouldn't have even bothered him as recently as two hours ago, but things have changed. He has changed. Rulan spared a moment to glare again at his new frog body with distaste. "Come on!" Jingyi urged, hopping in front of him. Rulan directed his scowl toward the other enchanted boy. "This is all your fault," he panted, turning his ire on Jingyi. "No, it's not!" He returned indignantly, even as he helped Rulan hop over a fallen log. "The witch said a kiss from a royal would turn me back. You're royal, and you kissed me, so I don't know what went wrong." ( Or, the Frog Princess AU no one asked for.)

A/N: The prompt for Untamed Spring Fest 2020 – Day 19 was Journey. I was reading (fic) and having lots of feels about Jin Ling’s bracelet and suddenly had the –cursed– brilliant idea to mash it up with E.D. Baker’s Frog Princess (which is the book series that heavily defined much of my childhood and also inspired the Disney movie Princess and the Frog). So, this fic is set in the world of Frog Princess. Functionally, a royal AU plus witches. For example, WWX spends his days tinkering with talismans in Lotus Pier as the resident Guardian Mage, or something. But he and some others are going to be the closest things to Cultivators in this AU. Everybody else is just going to be regular old royals. So partially because it's AU and mostly because I personally mix up Jin Ling and Jingyi when I'm reading too fast, I'll be using courtesy names mostly. So that means JL = Rulan and JC = Wanyin. 

Jin Rulan has no idea how this happened. Really. He should in no way be blamed for the events that transpired to get him here. Running for his life. Or rather … hopping. He couldn't believe his first real life-or-death situation is at the threat of an average garden reptile.

Oh yes. The very real threat to his life was a freaking garter snake. Harmless to him normally, wouldn't have even bothered him as recently as two hours ago, but things have changed. He has changed. Rulan spared a moment to glare again at his new frog body with distaste.

"Come on!" Jingyi urged, hopping in front of him. Ah yes, the frog who had started this whole mess. He directed his scowl toward the other enchanted boy.

"This is all your fault," he panted, turning all his ire on Jingyi.

"No, it's not!" He returned indignantly, even as he helped Rulan hop over a fallen log. "The witch said a kiss from a royal would turn me back. You're royal, and you kissed me, so I don't know what went wrong."

They hopped frantically for a few more seconds, narrowly escaping some of the snake’s lightning-quick strikes, before Jingyi wondered aloud, "Maybe you kissed me wrong?"

Rulan almost face-planted at that. "Do we have to talk about that now?" He yelped.

Jingyi pouted as they hopped. "You brought it up," he muttered as if he couldn't hear him.

Suddenly, the snake struck again, nearly nabbing the distracted Jingyi. Rulan impulsively pushed him out of the way, sending him sprawling. The snake turned enterprising eyes on Rulan and sunk its fangs into his flank. Rulan's panicked flailing slowed as the neurotoxin spread through his bloodstream. "Jingyi," he gasped out.

"Rulan!" Jingyi shouted, scrambling back toward him. He reached out toward Rulan, but the snake grasped its paralyzed prey in its jaws and shot off toward the water. Rulan thrashed frantically, but his valiant attempts at escape did not loose his enemy's jaw.

They splashed into the water, and the snake began to unhinge its jaw, slowly enveloping Rulan's amphibious body. He jerked, trying to wiggle out to no avail.

"Spread your legs!" He heard Jingyi shout. He drew his eyebrows together in confusion - or at least he would have if he had eyebrows to draw and control over his body. "Keep your legs wide open! That'll keep it from swallowing you."

Rulan turned his attention to keeping his front legs spread wide. The snake maneuvered his body against a rock to try and leverage his body into its mouth. Suddenly, a green blur dropped down onto its head, and the impact sent Rulan flying. "Swim!" Jingyi yelled, tugging him along down the river. They swiftly swam downstream for several minutes until they felt confident they were out of danger.

"We should make camp for the night," Jingyi suggested, slowing his pace. Exhausted, Rulan could only vaguely nod his head and follow along. He trailed behind Jingyi as they crawled up the bank and around the edge of the forest until Jingyi found an acceptably empty tree hollow. Rulan slumped down as soon he clambered inside, stretching his aching unfamiliar muscles.

"Well, uh," Jingyi started awkwardly. "Good night."

"G'night, Jingyi," Rulan sighed, eager for this day to just be over.

Silence reigned. Well, not really silence. The forest floor was alive with noise. Bug chatter, leaf rustles, and whatnot. But the only thing that could be heard here, in this tiny tree hollow with just them, was the sound of their exhausted breathing. Rulan was listening to his breaths even out and his heartbeat slow (has his heart ever beat that slow?! This is safe, right? It's just because he's a frog now?), when he heard the whisper.

"Rulan?" he heard Jingyi start tentatively. Rulan stubbornly refused to answer. This was the -boy- frog that had turned him into this slimy green thing and endangered his life with a freaking garter snake. What could he possibly have to say?

He heard Jingyi sigh, sounding a bit sad and alone. "Thanks for saving me," he said, which is ridiculous. Rulan didn't save him. He just wasn't quite in control of his limbs yet. Yeah. Totally a freak accident that he had knocked Jingyi out of the way of the snake's attack, Rulan reasoned. And anyway, Jingyi saved me more, he reminded himself petulantly. Telling me how to keep from being swallowed and knocking me from the snake’s mouth and tugging me along with him down the stream.

"I'm glad you didn't die," Jingyi declared quietly. He then turned over and apparently went to sleep.

Rulan wanted to scream. All he had wanted to do was sleep, but now his brain was awake and thinking things.

He regretted it, he told himself firmly. He regretted it terribly.

He wished he had never kissed Jingyi. He wished he had never even met the brutally honest frog who had begged for kisses and yet made him feel more seen than anyone else, outside of his family. He wished he had never bargained to help him, even if he’d had no way to think it would turn out like this. He wished to take it all back. Right?

Rulan cracked open an eye to scrutinize at his companion's sleeping form. Is that where he went wrong? he wondered. Maybe he should have listened to xiao-jiujiu about not spending all day in the swamp. But it’s his favorite place in all of Lotus Pier’s, as it was his mother’s.

The swamp is Rulan’s favorite because it reminds him of home, of his mother’s Lotus Pavilion. (Ironically, his father had built that Pavilion to remind her of that lotus swamp from her home.) But both places reminded Rulan of the times when he and his parents were able to forget the pretentious behavior of their station. Koi Castle was so stuffy and suffocating. Rulan would rather spend his whole day in the Lotus Pavilion. He liked to dig his toes into the mud. He liked to listen to his mom regale him with tales of her unruly childhood with his wild uncles. He liked to wheedle his parents into water fights where they would all laugh and his dad would try to catch his mom when she slipped and he would fall instead and then Grandma Jin would yell at all of them. But Lotus Pier is just as good. He liked to swim with his da-jiujiu and shoot arrows with his xiao-jiujiu and watch them cry over his mother’s soup. He liked to feel his face stretch with a smile he could never wear at home.

He missed his mother. He missed his father. He even missed his shushu. He doesn’t know why they bundled him off so quickly to his uncles in Lotus Pier only for both of them to leave him too.

He had just wanted someone to talk to. Not any of the simpering, back-stabbing idiots he had to bring with him. Not even any of the disciples at Lotus Pier (even though they were markedly more sincere and kind to him). Just someone who would get him. As a person, not a status.

Is that where he went wrong?

Okay, maybe making friends with a frog hadn’t his smartest move. But really, who could it have hurt? The frog may have had the most contrary personality he had ever met (that he hadn't been related to). Yet, underneath the savage honesty and incessant requests for kisses, Jingyi was surprisingly insightful. He seemed to understand Rulan, even if he rarely agreed with him. Rulan had met plenty of people who wanted something from him. Practically everybody not related to him only talked to him if they wanted something. But no one had ever been like Jingyi. He would request a kiss, then immediately insult his clothing or his hairstyle or his bracelet. But he was never malicious about it. Rulan had heard some much nicer things said (by his shushu or once even his mother) that had cut down the target more cruelly than any insult ever could have. Jingyi’s insults seemed … careless? Ignorant, certainly, but usually insignificant. Jingyi just couldn’t keep his thoughts inside of his head, rude or not.

Rulan had wanted to help. Jingyi seemed so distraught, and he didn’t really deserve this. (Okay, actually Rulan has spent more than an hour with Jingyi. Jingyi had probably deserved it. But he’s sorry now! And if Rulan could help him out of this predicament, shouldn’t he help? Isn’t that his princely duty?) Rulan had planned to take him to see his da-jiujiu once everyone comes back. He only vaguely knew the curse-breaking spree of the cultivation world that da-jiujiu had been on for much of Rulan’s childhood, then suddenly given up on a few years ago. (Nobody would give him any details.) But Rulan knew that Wei Wuxian was the person he would want to talk to about breaking this kind of curse. He said as much to Jingyi. But his family was taking so long coming back, and no one would tell him anything, and Rulan felt so helpless. Surely a kiss wouldn’t hurt. Right? So, he had kissed Jingyi anyway.

Is that where he went wrong?

Or maybe he did kiss him wrong. With that distressing thought, Rulan fell asleep, his dreams full of kisses, green slimy skin, and Jingyi.

Next scene should be up later today. Still in editing stages.

Everybody, stay safe and wash your hands!

#untamed spring fest #mdzs fic #cql fic #the untamed fanfic #lan jingyi #jin ling #jin rulan #JingLing #JingLing fic #my writing