#but what can you do when the tali feels hit you

[nowandthane]

thinking about earthborn shepard never knowing what a home is comforting a homesick tali on the sr1

thinking about shepard saying 'youll reclaim your homeworld someday, tali. if your father cant help you, i will' because she may not understand what a home is but theres nothing she wouldnt do for tali

thinking about shepard saying keelah se'lai ‘by the homeworld i hope to see one day' to tali before facing down the reaper on rannoch

thinking about tali leaving her people on rannoch to fight by shepard's side

thinking about shepard doing everything she can to make sure that the galaxy survives if only so that tali can finally have her home on rannoch

thinking about shepard saying to tali 'get back to rannoch. build yourself a home.'

and tali's broken reply 'i have a home. come back to me.'

thinking about shepard realising, right before the end, that she does know what a home is, and she's had one this whole time

thinking about how happy they would've been, building a house together, already at home

#its 4am #im crying into my lasagne #but what can you do when the tali feels hit you #when will my ram arrive im so desperate to go back to my playthrough #mass effect #tali'zorah vas normandy #tali'zorah #shali #fshali #sarani x tali #sarani shepard #three snipers and a shotgun #zi talks

[bringthekaos]

Divorce Era. The Machine Herald and Defender of Tomorrow have been pointedly avoiding each other for months (maybe they had an argument that caught one too many feels). Viktor overhears some gossip about someone with actual brains wooing and courting Councilor Talis. (Maybe for nefarious gain?) Viktor must assert his place as Rightful Husband and chase off the usurper. Jayce feigns ignorance to the plot but is happy to be reconciled.

Mmmmmmm delicious.

FR, I’m such a slut for Mr. Viktor “I don’t want you anymore, I hate you, wait no, nobody else can have you either” Machine Herald. He dons so many masks, but that’s all they are, smoke and mirrors, and they really don’t hide very much at all, if you know what to look for, how to read him.

And I can totally see this happening; one of them slung an insult that struck a nerve, hit too close to home, and they separate on bad terms… again. And they don’t see each other for weeks, not to talk, not to fight, nothing. And Jayce doesn’t think their precarious on-again-off-again fling could end like this, but the worry starts to needle at him.

So he ends up at some Gala, tipsy off of his mind and doing his best to drown the anxiety, and that’s when some bureaucrat makes a move, wooing him with compliments and praise (which anyone who spent more than five minutes watching him would know he craves).

Little does Jayce know, Viktor is there, hiding in the shadows. He had planned on raiding the event—sewing discord and generally being a nuisance—but he got distracted when this nameless, brainless dolt laid a hand on Jayce… a soft caress down his arm that had Jayce leaning into it, his cheeks gone rosy with booze and flattery.

And Viktor is very aware that the jealousy he’s feeling is oxymoronic, after all the reason he came tonight was because he was mad at Jayce… but that still doesn’t stop the jealousy. In fact it ignites it, and he fires the Hexclaw between Jayce and his suitor, so close to hitting both of them that their clothing is singed.

Panic erupts, the crowd scatters, and Viktor and Jayce take up the practiced dance of fighting without really fighting. And after a convincing amount of back and forth, they find themselves outside the grand Gala, alone at last, and Jayce pauses, dropping the hammer and letting it clang against the ground dramatically.

He gives Viktor a devastatingly coy grin, meandering closer against his better judgement.

“You know if you wanted to cut in, all you had to do was ask.”

#AND THEN THEY HAVE FUCK NASTY MAKEUP SEX #arcane #jayvik #vikjayce #jayvik divorce era #machine herald viktor #Jayce talis #jayce giopara #asks #ace answers

[dragonflight203]

Some thoughts as I replay Mass Effect 1:

-Hackett is one of the ones to recommend Shepard as a spectre. No wonder he feels comfortable calling them up for missions through the game. He probably feels Shepard owes them a few.

-One of Joker's first lines is that he doesn't like having spectres on board. That tune changes quite quickly.

-The game eases into aliens. For the few couple of hours the player only interacts with humans and one turian. Another turian is shown in a cutscene. Geth, which are basically advanced robots, are enemies you can kill without guilt. It's not until the citadel that the game really embraces alien diversity. Bioware's wariness on how comfortable players would be about aliens shows very clearly.

-During the Eden Prime drop scene Kaidan is the one to ask about survivors. Of course he is. Kaidan, you paragon.

-Everyone learned about aliens in school. Everyone is an adult. First contact was 30 odd years ago. How exactly did the curriculum get updated so quickly that everyone learned about this in school? Bioware, your timelines make me cry.

-Manuel definitely got hit by the beacon at some point. Interesting that he also saw Saren, but his speech is so confusing no one realizes he's talking about a second turian.

-Nihlus may feel differently about humans than Saren, but he is Saren's student. He skipped all the survivors and made a beeline to the beacon. He's not cruel, but he is efficient. The beacon is the priority.

-Nihlus, we hardly knew ya. Every time I replay it's always surprising how short his screen time is. And those faces when he interacts with Saren... Bioware did a very good job on making him nonhuman but still recognizably expressive. The difference in facial expressions between ME1 and MEA are light years.

-Benezia is clearly used to Saren's tantrums. She dodged like it's something she does on a regular basis.

-Kaidan, about informing the Council about Saren: "Makes sense. They'd probably like to know he's not working for them anymore." Love this man.

-Kaidan only gets migraines. Having experienced one recently, that's a big only. And he's soldier that's frequently in combat. I hope the future has excellent pain killers.

-For this playthrough I'm planning to have Tali and Liara as companions, so I'm skipping everything on the Citadel that isn't necessary or unique to the first visit until I pick them up. It makes the game feel quite different. I usually spend hours on the Citadel during my first visit; this time I'm leaving quite quickly.

-Pallin's skepticism about humanity makes more sense when Harkin is considered. Harkin was the first human in C-Sec, he's corrupt as hell, and humanity did a lot behind the scenes to protect him. Pallin's big on following the law no matter what. No wonder he's not impressed by humanity.

-Anderson has extreme tunnel vision about Saren. From the minute he's mentioned he's convinced Saren's behind it and he's doing it solely out of hatred of humanity. He repeatedly brings this up.

Meanwhile, in the game I get the vibe that Saren doesn't care about humanity too much. He doesn't like them, he might antagonize them if the opportunity comes up, but they're not worth the bother to put actual effort into tormenting. Humanity just isn't that important to him.

-Love those silent interactions between council members where they just look at each other. Again, the difference between ME1 and MEA is stark.

-Going by the Geth core Tali retrieved, Saren considers Eden Prime a victory. The tantrum he threw indicates otherwise. Does he really consider it a victory, or is that just a speech he gave to motivate the Geth?

-At this time, I'm not convinced Anderson believes in the Reapers. He still thinks it's Saren, he just doesn't think it's worth debating Shepard on it.

-I genuinely like Udina as a character. I'd hate to be around him, but he's determined to do a good job, pragmatic, and truly devoted to humanity. Also nice to have someone around who pushes back against Shepard. ME3 wastes him.

-Garrus mentions that he rose in the ranks through C-Sec. What was his actual rank? Detective or the like, I presume. Pallin knows who he is, and that's impressive considering the number of officers there are. Even with Castis as a father.

-Tali mentions Quarian overseers to the Geth when speaking to Shepard. The game definitely pushes the slavery parallels with the Geth, even in ME1. "Overseer" is not the first term I'd use for supervising machinery. Or maybe that's the American cultural bias showing through.

-Everyone info dumps in ME1. Everyone. Enjoyable, but a bit exhausting at the start of the game when it feels continuous.

-Liara in ME1 is a completely different character than in ME2 and ME3. I'm hesitant to consider the change natural growth. It's a shame, because ME1 Liara has quite a bit of potential. They didn't need to rework her character for the later games.

-First time playing on Insanity, and I'm surprised at the lack of trouble I've had so far. Everyone says the battle with the krogan at the end of Therum is difficult, but I only died once. I might regret this later, when I get to the Uncharted worlds...

Edit: Fix spellings

#mass effect #mass effect 1 #mass effect 1 replay

[swaps55]

Please tell me something about that Noveria First Kiss AU! <3

You may not like it, which is why it has remained a WIP. I toyed with making something happen with everyone having a night off at Port Hanshan, but what came out was some drunk teasing that escalated much faster than anyone (even me) guessed. Sam reacts badly when he doesn't have time to chew on his feelings first, and when he's up against a wall he lashes out. And, uh. His choice of targets was not ideal.

I didn't know how to fix the spot I got them into, or how the fuck to get the actual kiss out of it, so I haven't returned to it. Part of me wants to, just to explore it, because it feels in character enough to be worth poking at. But with Fugue and Mezzo being such angst fests, I haven't had the mental fortitude to give to it.

~

“You’re jealous,” Ashley informs him.

“Of what,” Shepard scoffs, giving her the same look he gave the NCD inspector who grounded the Mako.

“That woman is hitting on him, and you can hardly keep your butt in that chair.” She bops the leg of his seat with a foot. His eyes narrow.  

Garrus swivels his head between them, mandibles flaring, and Tali sets her cards down. Joker sits back in his seat and crosses his arm, like there’s a show about to happen and he’s got a front row seat. Wrex shoves another glass of ryncol towards her, and like an idiot, she takes it.

“He hates being hit on,” Shepard informs her.

“Yeah,” she says with a snort, “because it’s never you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

Amazing how much nuance in the human – alien – whatever – voice gets lost when you’re drunk, or maybe she would have noticed how flat Shepard’s sounded, or how little humor was in it.

She grins. “It means he’s wanted in your pants since probably five minutes after he met you, and somehow you haven’t noticed.”

“I notice plenty,” Shepard says, leveling her with a stare. “We’re close. Why does everyone assume it has to be about sex?”

[more stuff]

“Leave it alone, Williams,” Shepard growls. “We are what we are. Stop trying to make it something it’s not.”

“Tell him that,” Ashley says, gesturing towards Alenko, who is now glancing over his shoulder while he waits for their drinks. “I have never seen someone so desperate over someone as that guy. Pretty sure if the two of you just got a room and fucked each other’s brains out you’d both be a lot better off.”

Shepard shoves out of his chair with enough force Ashley actually jumps. Just as she starts wondering if maybe she pushed him too far, Alenko chooses that moment to return with his drink. Garrus swivels his head between them, mandibles flaring, and Tali sets her cards down. Joker sits back in his seat and crosses his arm, like there’s a show about to happen and he’s got a front row seat.

“What’s going on?” Alenko asks, cautious.

Shepard meets his gaze like a rail gun lining up a target.

“So, what, you want to fuck me?” he demands, eyes flashing, and Ashley sucks in a breath. “Is that what we’ve always been about? Is getting in my pants what friendship is to you? Because if it is, fine. I’ll go fuck you in that corner right now if that’s the price of doing business.”

Alenko stares at him in incomprehension that erodes into something Ashley can’t even name, before it fades completely and all that’s left is a slate so blank it hits harder than any bullet she’s ever fired.

“Go fuck yourself,” he says, quiet, indifferent, as he sets his drink steadily on the table and walks out of the bar while everyone at the poker table stares after him.

He’s only made it a few steps before Shepard’s expression to shift to shock, then horror, but it’s too late.

#swaps replies #cr-noble-main #mememe #meme replies #snippet

[brother-genitivi]

So I saw this post and decided to jot down every ambient line I heard during the party in Anderson's apartment. I haven't got any of Ashley's, but I may update when I do a new playthrough. I chose an energetic party. I'm not sure if it changes if I have a more relaxed party.

Also you may notice there aren't any for EDI or Miranda; I could've been silly and not heard it but I didn't notice any ambient dialogue from them. And the lines I do have written down, I may have misheard. In any case, here they are. Enjoy :)

Garrus:

Looks broken, I'm sure Shepard won't notice.

Any chance I get.

Wouldn't you like to know?

Won't be going back to ryncol anytime soon!

Then the hanar says, 'get out before I strangle you!'

*wheezy old man laughter*

Every chance I have.

I told them I was Archangel... end of discussion.

Okay, that did it. Where's my sniper rifle?

Don't make me come over there.

Grunt:

Give me one, too.

I'm hungry. :(

Get the stronger stuff.

HEHEHE.

What's this?

DRINK.

Jack:

You guys, I love you guys. No, listen. No. Really.

The kids? They're kicking ass.

Reminds me of Omega. Good times.

Didn't think I'd see you here. You not dead yet?

Yeah, yeah. Just kiss and get it over with.

Oh, yeah. Work it!

Hell yeah!

Not bad.

Get me two. What? Cause I got two hands, dumbass.

This is dangerously close to actually being a party.

Jacob:

That's what I'm talking about.

Shut up! Haha, seriously?

Here, let me get that for you.

I love you, man.

Cerberus? Ha!

Hang on, wait.

Then he says, 'I was talking to the duck.'

Now this is just the best. I mean, best.

If that's the way you wanna play it, I'm game.

You are NOT serious.

James:

No. No, no, no, no. Noooo!

That is NOT what I mean.

Ha, I love you guys!

I danced at my sister's wedding.

Checking out the waterfall. Who's in?

Javik:

Hah, not if I can help it.

*actually laughing*

The Prothean will rule all of you once more.

You can with four eyes.

Joker:

Back when asari were creepy.

They'll never know what hit them...

Glad you're on our side, man.

Damn, this is good.

Hell yes I'm having another.

I'll let her know you said that!

Kick ass.

Now THIS is shore leave!

Why didn't I think of that?

Kaidan:

Glad you came up for air.

And then she says, 'I was talking to the goat!'

Hah, you're absolutely right.

Forget I said anything...

Own it! Embrace it!

Pizza? Pizza? Hey, you want pizza?

Anyone else?

*dad laughter*

I love you guys!

I-I need another one of these. Anyone else?

Who's humbered? I mean hammered?

I could talk weapon optimisation all night. All night!

Hey, who's starving?

I need another one of these. Anyone else?

Kasumi:

Love it.

*in a bathroom* Occupied!

*materialising on a bed* How many bedrooms does this place have?

*outside the front door* You should really upgrade the security.

Liara:

At least they're clean.

Exactly.

I saw one on Illium.

I'll have one!

You... love it.

If you say so.

Samantha:

What did you think it was?

Look, look, look! He's doing it!

Bottoms up!

Oh, bugger!

Lovely.

Help! My glass is empty!

Okay, I drank.

Ohoho, I'm going to remember that.

What was that? It was good.

Quantum entaaaanng... god, I'm drunk.

Samara:

Yes, I will have some of that.

I was saying how good it is to see everyone.

You're hilarious.

Please, I've asked you to step back.

Steve:

This is unexpected... and fun.

No, he's like a brother to me!

You got it!

Good to see you.

Whoa... did this apartment just bank hard to starboard?

I do, I mean it!

Oh, come on!

I'm gonna feel this in the morning!

What the hell? Why not?

*old man laughter*

Now that's a tasty shot!

You could roast a whole pig in that fireplace.

Tali:

What? You're crazy.

*witch cackling*

WOOOO!

I'm going to regret this later.

Wrex:

Don't stop on my account!

Krogan sex. Best in the galaxy! Just saying.

If I took that the wrong way, it's your fault.

That tickles.

*dad laughter*

Come closer and say that.

I ought to SMASH you.

To Tuchanka!

Shut up and punch me! Harder!

Zaeed:

I've had fifteen. How about you?

Now, you, I like.

GUDDAMN!

I'm not as old as I look.

Oh, shut it!

Come here and say that.

Hey, sweetheart.

I said, you're beautiful.

#mass effect #mass effect 3 #mass effect citadel #citadel dlc #garrus vakarian #urdnot grunt #mass effect jack #jacob taylor #james vega #javik #jeff joker moreau #kaidan alenko #kasumi goto #liara t'soni #samantha traynor #justicar samara #steve cortez #tali'zorah vas normandy #urdnot wrex #zaeed massani

[bullet-prooflove]

Downtime: Clinton Skye x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @crazybeautiful1987 @caffeinatedwoman @soultrysworld

Noone knows about the cases Clinton works in his downtime.

The ones he keeps locked in the top drawer of his desk in the mobile command centre.

They’re the ones that nobody else wants, the ones that local authorities won’t dedicate the resources to.

It’s heartbreaking, the amount of crimes against indigenous people that go unsolved. It’s the reason that he joined the FBI, he wanted to change the system, be the solution to the problem. Only the stack gets bigger and the resources scarcer.

He makes his usual round of calls while the others are asleep, hitting up the detectives, talking through their leads, making notes. The truth is the ones that do care are inundated, they try their best but it’s a deluge of violence, one that even the most diligent officer can’t hope to keep up with.

He leaves you until last, his pen tapping on the surface of the manilla file in front of him as his gaze flickers up towards the clock. Despite the late hour he knows you’ll be at your desk, you’re as bad as he is these days. When you see an issue you try to rectify it and working in Hate Crimes, you come across a lot of issues. You’re always out in the community, making connections, helping rebuild. It’s how the two of you met.

“Sienna.” He says fondly when you pick up the phone.

“Clint.”

He can hear the smile in your voice and he imagines you leaning back in your chair, the phone cradled underneath your chin. He’s only been away a few days but he misses you with a ferocity he can’t vocalise. The way he feels for you, it burns like a fire in his chest. With everyone else, he’s calm, reserved but with you he’s passionate, wild.

You’re a spirited woman, fierce, head strong. You’d brought colour into his world after the death of his sister. He hadn’t been living back then, he’d been holding everything together for Jesse, for Tali, his parents. It had become his pattern, numbing him to everything else outside of the grief they  suffered. His days blurred, his existence monotonous and then you had stepped into his life, a whirlwind of texture and vibrance. Your warmth had flowed over his battered psyche like the water from a stream, soothing, restorative.

You’d spent days working together, repairing the shopfront of a tribal member whose business had been firebombed before Clinton realises he’s starting to feel something again. It comes back slowly after that, the essence of his soul feeding back into his body.

“I just needed to hear your voice.” He finds himself saying as he closes the folder in front of him. “This case, the one I’m working, it hits a little too close to home.”

“Tell me about it.” You say so he does.

You already have an awareness about the residential schools. There had been an article last year when the Pope visited Canada to apologise to the Indigenous community for the abuse their children had suffered at the hands of the missionaries who ran those places, you had asked it about him about it back then.

“Your parents?” You had queried after you’d shown him the article on your tablet one evening.

“No,” He had said, shaking his head. “They were fortunate. They were hidden away when the authorities came to take them. They managed to avoid the ‘Kill the Indian and Save the Man’ rhetoric.”

Clinton knows hundreds that didn’t. There are still people in his tribe who to this day don’t know what happened to their children, they were simply taken away, never to be returned. The Bureau of Indian Affairs are still uncovering unmarked graves connected to these schools, thousands of dollars are being spent running DNA in attempt to reunite these children with their parents and debatably those are the lucky ones. For the survivors their stories play out over generations, the effects of their abuse like a stone being thrown into a lake, rippling throughout the branches of their entire family tree.

The case he’d worked today was a symptom of cultural genocide. The entire family were so broken by it and the continued systemic disinterest in indigenous cases that one of them had decided to do something about it.

“I was in one of those schools today.” He says quietly as he recalls the dilapidated building, the soulless of each and every single one of those rooms. “There were numbers on the walls, that’s how they referred to the kids, not by their names but by numbers. It was a way of breaking them down, eradicating their identity, their culture…”

He trails off because it’s the cruelty of it all that gets to him. Children younger than his niece Tali being beaten, abused, starved and all of it sanctioned by the state. He knows he doesn’t have to explain hate to you, you see it on a daily basis, experience it the same way he does.

“I don’t know what to say.” You tell him. “Those places, what happened… it’s deplorable.”

“I just need to hear something good.” He whispers down the line, his voice breaking as he speaks. “I just needed to hear your voice, to remind me there’s something in this world that hasn’t been tainted by all the darkness out there, that there’s still someone fighting.”

“You’re still fighting.” You remind him, referring to his case files. “You’re still seeking justice for those people, even when no one else is, you’re still telling their stories.”

“I don’t know if it’s enough.” He says you sadly, his gaze straying to the growing pile of manilla files neatly stacked on the corner of his desk.

“It is for their families.” You tell him. “For the father who lost a daughter to trafficking, for the mother whose son was beaten to death because of his culture, it’s enough for them knowing that that animal is behind bars, that he can’t hurt anyone else. That’s what you’re fighting for Clinton, to give those people a peace of mind, to stop it from happening again.”

“You’re right.” He says with a sigh, his fingertips massaging the sore spot right between his eyes. “I know you’re right. It just gets a little much sometimes.”

“I know.” You say quietly and you do.

This isn’t the first pep talk you’ve given him. He’s done the same for you. The weight of these cases, the importance of them, they’d crush you if you let them. He has a duty to these people and he won’t be the one to let them down, not when everybody else has.

“Thank you.” He says softly. “For picking up the phone, for always knowing what I need…”

“I’m your wife Clinton.” You remind him and he can hear the smile in your voice, despite the distance that stretches between you. “I’m always here for you.”

Love Clinton? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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#clinton skye #clinton skye x reader #clinton skye x you #fbi most wanted #nathaniel arcand

[heckinhacker]

Return of 'more Taliyah content' from one or two breaks ago, or perhaps Ahri/reader/Nidalee (cute and hot) threesome content, or 'something that speaks to you, with Ori' #h4ck :3

A/N: Oh, I remember you! I said back then you can request Taliyah content but just to add some prompt. I'm happy that you sticked around long enough to see my silly post at least! Hi hello welcome back!! I'm not sure if I'll in the end will stick around and write properly but I'm glad you took participation in my silly little event.

Taliyah x Reader - general relationship headcanons

Oh my gosh I LOVE TALIYAH SO MUCH!!!

Give this girl some more appreciation pLEASE

She's the one who falls in love first and falls HARDER for sure

She met you randomly, she can't even put a finger when your paths crossed, but some time later she just knew she had big feelings for you.

You know how in-game she says to Ekko line that goes like: "Did the earth move for you too? Did I just say that out loud?" Because she's so OBVIOUS and so cute plsss

She mutters something similiar at you when she meets you but since you did not know her, or not heard enough of her at the said time, you were just left confused--

Taliyah couldn't look you in the face for a next week

She just wanted to burry herself in the ground and for it to swallow her whole

What is the funniest part? She could arrange that! But instead of suffocating herself underground she wanted to try again...

And she did! She hit you up properly...

Well, as properly as Yasuo, out of all people, could give her advice how to

HAHA n e ways---

She became friends with you easily (or with some difficulties but come on, how can you NOT let in such precious girl like her!!)

And she pins over you, as she feels, for hundreds of years. Oh how she yearns...

It would take you to be blind or really really really really REAAAALLLY oblivous not to catch into her feelings sooner than she confesses.

You might have your own reasons for not approaching her first even though having some sort of idea. Like...not being sure? Not wanting to draw conclusions, or eventually just being afraid of making first move even though it would be the safest dive for it you could ever imagine.

Something was stopping you, and Tali thought she was SLICK--

Nuh-uh, honey, you were anything BUT sneaky about it.

She slipped once, you acted like you did not catch into her intentions for her own good...

Then she does again and she loses faith in herself and in the fact that you might hold ANY kind of bigger feelings towards her.

Oh how wrong she was.

But her wondering made her go insane, slowly but surely, and she got adviced smartly:

" Life is too short to overthink. You should make a move. It's better to regret that you failed instead of regretting you never made a move."

At first I thought it would be Yasuo saying that, her master, but maybe that were Ekko's words? It fits his wisdom and experience.

Going back to main topic-

Advice was smart, and Taliyah was also smart, she decided...'yeah, he was right. Maybe I should go and do that!'

"...but maybe tommorow."

She had inner war going in her head that went: "I think I chickened out" thought VS "It's best I take proper care of myself and then try to confess".

Thankfully she did not wait for longer, just really did her hair neatly, made sure she's nice and clean and ready to go! She had little speech made up in her mind too

(Girl really practiced in front of a mirror for this)

She did cute little speech of how she adores you. I would love to add how it went but it would be really dependant on your characteristics like looks and personality, but she finishes with:

"Throughout everything I kept on thinking of you and loving you! Loving you so much I've got too much restless nights to think my words through. And...phew- I really hope that even if you hypothetically wouldn't return my feelings, that...well...that we could stay friends. Is that possible, maybe...?"

Of course it was! Taliyah is such a sweet girl, gentle soul, why wouldn't anyone at least stay friends with her?

But in this scenario you love her back so!!

You accept, and you can see that little sparkle in her eye, and the transition from shy to very happy!!

She hugs you very tightly and thanks you over and over again. What for? You don't have the heart to ask her, but thankfully she answers for herself

"Thank you for loving me, I wouldn't ever...imagine that, but that's such a happy ending for the situation! Could I maybe...call myself your girlfriend now?"

The answer was yes, she could indeed!

Dating Taliyah left you entertained, and even more importantly, left you feeling loved. Very loved.

Ever since day one she wasn't afraid to grab your hand and hold it, or hug you, or at least kiss your cheek, but she always made sure that you were okay with that.

If you wanted to take things slow, she would stood down for you.

What was great about Taliyah is the fact that even if you wouldn't speak up for yourself about being uncomfortable she would notice. She knows you well enough, after all. You didn't go from strangers to lovers, you were friends before.

So no matter what kind of pace you want, Taliyah makes dating her the best experience you've ever had.

She does a lot of thoughtful surprises, like waiting for you with relaxing hangout including massages, soft talks in a candlelight...you'd always say she's pampering you, but trust me when I say (and also she says so herself) that she enjoys herself while sharing such intimate moment with you too.

She would call it her favourite kind of dates, actually.

She prefers more casual dates than very official ones, but she would take you out if you wanted. Just not as often as you'd think. Maybe out of special events like your future anniversaries, your birthday, any other special event you'd think of as special.

Very enjoys PDA, if you're against it you have to speak up pretty early about it.

She doesn't want to show it not to guilttrip you even on accident, but she gets pouty when she cannot even touch you.

Kisses your hands and nose the most, enjoys eskimo kisses too! She kisses you on the lips only after you've shared your special first kiss together!

She once asked you not to bring her flowers because she can't take care of them no matter how hard she had tried, yet is the one to buy you flowers or flower bouquet. She's totally the type to keep one flower in a vase beside her bed to keep in check how your flowers are doing. Is always too early with a fresh batch because her flower dies faster than your actual bouquet. You could say that she keeps you in stock of flower bouquets, by pure accident.

She travels a lot, and really hopes that you would travel with her. If you wouldn't, on the other hand, she would respect your decision and would do anything to get back to you as soon as she could.

She wants to marry you one day, and has high hopes that you'd agree to marry her in the future. Yet as always, she will respect your choices no matter what they are. She wants to marry, sure, but if that's something you're against, she wants you more than that tradition.

No relationship is perfect and you have conflicts between you. But...Taliyah makes it impossible to call it a fight. Yes, she does lose her temper sometimes, but she never said something that might've hurt you real bad. The most offensive thing she said was once "Well you're stupid to think so!" Because you felt jealous and it went kind of downhill

She even apologises for it because she considers you very smart but she felt like you did not trust her in your relationship and love that she devoted for you and you only.

She talks a lot, and I mean A LOT. She has no idea there is such a thing as comfortable silence, she just fills room up with her bubble talk!

So when you need peace and quiet you have to tell her, she'd understand.

Overall she loves you dearly 🥺

And that's it for now! I'm out of ideas and requests was very general. I wanted to write for Tali since I got this blog and it was a great opportunity, thanks for giving it to me!

#hacker writes #h4ck #4th anniversary #league of legends #lol #league of legends taliyah #taliyah #lol taliyah #league of legends x reader #lol x reader #taliyah x reader #lol taliyah x reader #league of legends taliyah x reader #headcanons

[wellthebardsdead]

The loved & the forgotten pt4

Part 3 here

———

Vivienne: *preparing to leave winterhold, sighs slinging the scabbard of the ebony blade over his shoulder*

Kaidan: you- still have that cursed thing on you?

Vivienne: well I need something to protect myself. I was going to try and find somewhere to destroy it but now that my spear is gone… *sighs* I haven’t heard her speak to me again, and I hope it stays that way… especially after yesterday…

Kaidan: I told you… there’s no such thing as a good daedra.

Vivienne: they’re… supposed to be good to my kind though so… *looks up at him sadly* why aren’t they good to me?…

Kaidan: *gently pats his now shoulder length fluffy white hair* I don’t know Vivi…

Vivienne: *sighs and relaxes into his touch* I just… wanted answers… now I just… want them to leave me alone… *walks out to greet the rest of the group*

Taliesin: All set?

Vivienne: *nods* Solstheim it is… *looks down nervously as he pulls on his hood and the dragon priest mask to cover his face* the quicker we get this done the better… I want to be as far away from dunmer society as possible…

*a few days later*

Vivienne: *seated in the corner club waiting for his food, feeling uneasy as he watches all eyes in the room occasionally shift to him, trying to see if he recognises any of them, if at some point one or more of them may have stepped through the doors of that brothel in blacklight and used him until he wept*

Kaidan: *walks over setting everyone’s food down* finally I’m starving. Here lo- *blinks as vivienne suddenly takes it and walks to the small room they’d rented* …

Taliesin: … *looks over his shoulder to see all the other patrons looking at them before quickly looking away as their eyes meet the altmers steely gaze* …He’s uncomfortable eating and showing his face around his own kind…

Kaidan: oh… aye, I… guess he’s got good reason to be. *sits down and looks to where the dunmer went* …I’m worried about him Tali…

Taliesin: me too… he’s been very quiet since the sword told him to kill us.

Kaidan: and very irritable after the whole Azura business…

Taliesin: and now going to solstheim…

Kaidan: should we talk to him about it?…

Taliesin: I think so, but… maybe on the ship… he seems too wound up tonight to want to talk about it…

*meanwhile*

Vivienne: *begrudgingly finished his meal, had become so used to taliesins cooking that dunmeri cuisine just tastes bitter on his tongue, now looking at his map trying to figure out the distance between windhelm and solstheim so he can prepare supplies accordingly… only to spot the shrine to Boethia an hours journey away from windhelm* … *looks to the ebony blade resting by his bed* … I don’t want answers anymore… I just want to be left alone… *gets up grabbing the sword and walking back out to the group* I’m going to get supplies, I’ll be a few hours. *walks out before anyone can question him.

Lucien: …I know that windhelm isn’t particularly safe for dunmer but does he really need his sword?

Inigo: Maybe he intends to sell it?

Kaidan: he wouldn’t be so careless with a weapon that evil…

Taliesin: … *gets up and follows after the dunmer*

Kaidan: …Oh fuck- *gets up and runs after him*

Inigo: *looks at Lucien*

Lucien: Aw but my soup just arrived.

*an hour later*

Vivienne: *trembling as he walks up the steps to find the shrine of Boethia full of her cultists, all of whom immediately turn with weapons drawn to charge at the dunmer* I wait! No! *draws the ebony blade and cuts through each of them, the sword getting duller and duller with each hit until he’s forced to bludgeon the last cultist to death with it* I… *sniffles and drops down beside the body as he starts to sob, feeling betrayed and abandoned by the so called good daedra he’d worshipped so loyally his whole life, even if he had to do so at a distance* wh-why?… *looks up to the statue* WHAT DID I DO SO WRONG THAT I DESERVE THIS?! NOT ONCE HAVE I EVER ASKED ANYTHING OF YOU! OF MEPHALA OR AZURA! AND WHEN I COME SEEKING ANSWERS I CAN BARELY SPEAK A WORD BEFORE A BLADE IS TO MY THROAT!

*Silence, only the howling of frigid cold wind as the blizzard rages on*

Vivienne: *sighs sadly, tears freezing to his face from the blistering cold* I don’t care anymore… I don’t want answers anymore… my questions can die with me… *walks to her statue* Mephala doesn’t have a shrine here in skyrim… so you’re the closest to her I can leave this with. *sets the bloodied ebony blade down at her feet* I don’t know what I’ve done wrong to deserve the ire of any of you… I do not wish for forgiveness… just please… leave me alone… *slides the blade back into its scabbard and stands up leaving it there as he turns to leave, completely oblivious to the creaking of stone as the statue twists and begins to move*

???: You truely do not remember, do you, Vivec.

Vivienne: *jumps and looks up to see the statue changed, boethias face now staring directly at him, and the serpents head now shifted and facing in his direction with an open maw* I’m not. I’m not vivec. I don’t care if you think I am, I’m not. *steps back slowly*

Boethia: Oh but you are. Perhaps not in this life but in your l-

Vivienne: IM NOT VIVEC! *shouts louder than intended, the dragon tongue rumbling like thunder from his throat* IM NOT VIVEC! IVE NEVER BEEN VIVEC! I DONT CARE ABOUT POWER! I DONT CARE ABOUT GRANDER! I DONT WISH TO BE WORSHIPPED I DONT WISH TO BE A GOD NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN ONE! IM NOT VIVEC AND IM SICK OF EVERYONE TELLING ME I AM! MY NAME IS NOT VIVEC!!

*silence*

Vivienne: *sobs hugging himself as he steps back to leave* please… leave me alon- *looks up as he hears the creaking of stone* huh- *jumps out of the way in time to see the stone serpent lunge for him* no please- please don’t! *turns to run for it only to suddenly feel invisible arms pulling him back to the obelisk surrounded by burned bodies* N-No! LET GO OF M- *chokes out a raspy breath as he slams against the pillar, the air being knocked from his lungs* f-fuck-

Boethia: YOU COME TO MY SHRINE AND SLAUGHTER MY FOLLOWERS! AND YOU DARE DISRESPECT ME WHEN I SPEAK?!

Vivienne: YOUR FOLLOWERS TRIED TO KILL ME!! YOU CALLED ME VIVEC WHEN THATS NOT MY NAME! ILL NEVER BE VIVE- *freezes watching as the serpent twists and shifts around aiming towards him* n-no- *blinks and looks back to the statue hearing rattling of metal against stone, only to see the now glowing ebony blade unsheathe itself and float up slowly, pointing towards him* kaidan- *looks up hearing stone cracking to see the statue of Boethia turning, her heavy stone dagger pointing directly over him* Taliesin… *closes his eyes tight* I love you-

“Let me lend you my power and be one with me once again”

Vivienne: *hisses and opens his eyes feeling the marking on his hand begin to burn* I- *jolts in shock as an unseen force suddenly takes possession of his arm, swinging it up from the pillar and grabbing the ebony blade by its hilt as it comes flying at him* What th- *chokes back a scream as he’s suddenly ripped from the altar, as if being pulled by an unseen giant, guiding his hands to the sword and the sword, right into the neck of the stone snake, cracking it all the way up its length, and to the base of boethias statue*

Boethia: *realising her mistake far too late* no what have you- *looks through her shrine to see the marking of Molag Bal glowing on the elf’s hand and immediately regretting letting her pride and anger control her* NO- VIVEC YOU MUST-

Vivienne: *his eyes glowing blue and red as he allows the force controlling his body to fuel his anger and bring forth the power he’d used to shatter Azuras shrine* My. Name. Is. VIVIENNE!!!! *charges forward with the blade, striking her statue and shattering her as he flies through the obliterated stone and over the cliff… landing not on the snow, but in the palm of a giant, cold hand* I… what- … *looks around to see the sky dark, and all around him giant, black anchors* I…

???: At last… I finally have you in my embrace once more…

Vivienne: *feeling his soul tremble within his very being remembering his dream, that voice* n-no… *curls up into a ball covering his face in his hands, the mask doing nothing to shield him from the reality of his situation*

???: Why do you cower from me beautiful creature?… do you no longer find me beautiful too? Even though I forgive you for what you’ve done?…

Vivienne: *whimpers as he’s suddenly grabbed by two giant claws and forced to unfurl himself* p-please let me go- I just want to be left alone- I just- *winces feeling the point of his captures nail gently prodding at his abdomen*

???: You do not recall our love do you?… how I filled your womb with my seed and allowed you to rebirth yourself anew… even now in your new name I still want you desperately as my own, why else would I have saved you…

Vivienne: *sniffles and opens his eyes staring up at the cold, terrifying face of Molag Bal* I-I… birthed myself?…

Molag Bal: *grins and holds him closer to his face* I have the answers you seek, love me once more and I will tell you them… my vivec…

#vivienne dragonborn #Vivec #dunmer dragonborn #Kaidan skyrim #skyrim taliesin

[commander-krios]

“What the hell were you thinking?! You could’ve been killed!" For Aurora and Joker?

Oh ho ho, my friend, get ready to have your heart broken, yeah?

~~~~

“I’ll fly the shuttle.”

It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

She turned to look at him, blue eyes widening slightly, the only thing that showed her surprise at the request. “Jeff-”

“I know what you’re going to say, Rori, and you’re right. If a Reaper shows up, I need to be here to fly the Normandy. But I-” Joker’s voice broke and he cursed how hard this was for him… for them. She was the Commander, the Spectre, the Hero of the Citadel. She was all of those things, but the only thing that mattered to him was that she was the woman he loved and he didn’t want to see her in danger.

“Yes, there is that.”

“You can’t ask me to sit here while you go look for a Reaper killer.”

Despoina. He couldn’t help the awful feeling in his gut when he had stared down at the planet below, knowing that whatever killed a Reaper had to be just as bad as one. Whatever was down there, all the signs screamed Reaper! so loud that it practically smacked you in the head. Vic and Kaidan would be her backup, but none of that helped ease the terror in his heart.

He’d lost her once already… nearly lost her twice. He didn’t like gambling on a third time.

Even fully armored, Aurora Shepard was a tiny woman. But holy shit, she was a force to be reckoned with. Small in stature, maybe, but huge in presence. And smart as hell. On top of that, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

She crossed the space between them quickly, those armored boots echoing on the walkway as she did. She met his gaze, ocean blue eyes determined. “Jeff- you know that you have to. I don’t trust anyone but you to get me out if the shit hits the fan.”

“I know.” 

He knew but it didn’t make it easier.

She leaned forward, her forehead meeting his in the only touch that was skin to skin. It was the closest they could get to holding each other while she was in full armor, but he was touching her.

Please don’t let it be the last time.

~~~~

Aurora’s helmet cam was shaky, the torrential rain and gusting winds making everything a hazy gray that he could barely see through. The team, along with the shuttle, were stranded on the only object in the water they could find… an old shipwreck. Cortez was attempting a fix, but whatever pulse had hit them on the way in would undoubtedly hit them again on the way out.

“EDI, can you track where that came from?” He asked, eyes on the camera output. They had lost audio after the energy pulse, but the visual was still there, although it was hard to follow. At least the ground team hadn’t come in contact with any hostiles. Yet.

“It came from below the surface of the ocean, Jeff.”

“What? Are you sure?” That didn’t bode well. The team would have to go in the water to disrupt whatever it was. “Double check.”

“The likelihood of the pulse coming from anywhere else is-.”

“Just double check!” Gritting his teeth, he opened the comm to engineering. “Hey, Tali, any ideas on how to contact the ground team or regain communications?”

“I’m doing my best, but it’s a problem on their side, not ours.”

“Shit.”

“Jeff, I don’t think panic is warranted at the moment.” EDI harped at him from her little pedestal to his left. “Despite being stranded, the ground team is-”

Klaxons rang out, interrupting whatever EDI was going to say that was obviously incorrect. He would’ve loved to rub it in her optical sensors (face?) except when his eyes landed on the emergency readouts, he felt his heart drop out of his chest.

“Reaper incoming!”

Fingers flying over the interface, he did his best to keep the Normandy out of the Reaper’s firing range. But it seemed like the monstrosity wasn’t after them. It was headed down to the planet below.

Come on, baby. Tell me you’re alright. Please.

“EDI! Get me an open link to Shepard!”

~~~~

The moaning of the husks mixed with the sounds of gunfire and biotic explosions. A brute had appeared somewhere on the other side of the wreck. Aurora could hear it smashing crates and its allies as it tried to get closer to the shuttle. Steve was working hard on fixing whatever had taken the shuttle down so that left Aurora and her team to defend him. Kaidan was a few feet from where she stood, body glowing with the blue of his biotics, even as he aimed his rifle at the approaching husks.

Vic was on the opposite side, her SMG roaring as it fired full speed. Another group of reaper forces noticed her a second later and began to amble her way. It took only a moment for Shepard to pull on her own biotics, primed for a target. She picked one that was in the center of their enemies and let herself loose. She barrelled through the crowd of husks, sending them flying in different directions before she hit the marauder in the solar plexus. The creature crumpled under the force, no longer a threat.

Then she turned to face her next foe.

The brute had gotten closer to Vic’s side of the boat. The SMG was doing little damage to its thick hide, but her time fighting them on Menae had shown her a few tricks to taking one down.

While the energy surge had taken out long range communications between Shepard’s team and the Normandy, short range still worked fine. “I need you to focus fire on the brute, Vic!”

“What the fuck do you think I’m doing, Shepard?!” 

Aurora ignored the outburst and turned her attention to Kaidan. “Keep the husks off of me.”

“What’re you-”

She answered his unspoken question with another burst of biotic power, this time aimed at the brute. One moment she was standing over the dead marauder and the next, she was ramming her body at the brute so fast and hard that the impact echoed in the space between her and her teammates. 

Her breaths were ragged, lungs craving oxygen even as her suit tried to compensate for the sudden burst of energy and use of biotics. She had perfected the use of the charge during her time with Cerberus, but she always got a rush when she managed it. The brute was barely affected physically, but it now turned to face her as the bigger threat. She lifted her shotgun without a second's hesitation, leveling a shot at point blank range into the creature’s belly.

It howled in pain, the skin finally broken by the force of the blast. Aurora took advantage of its distraction to move to safety out of its swiping range. Once she was clear, Vic pulled out her rifle and put an entire heat sink into the wound. With another pained screech, the brute fell to the ground, now silent. 

Kaidan finished off the rest of the husks before appearing at Aurora’s side. When she met his eyes, she saw the raised brow. “Dammit, Shepard, give me warning next time.”

Aurora smiled although he wouldn’t be able to see it through the helmet. “Just keeping you on your toes, Major.”

He grunted in response. 

When Vic joined them, she walked with a spring in her step. “Who doesn’t love the smell of dead Reaper in the morning?”

“God, you’re still as irritating as ever.” Kaidan muttered, checking his heat sink before replacing it quickly. 

“I missed you too, Kaidan.” She said, bumping his shoulder affectionately. 

Aurora left their friendly ribbing to check on the shuttle and Cortez’s progress. 

“Good news is that I got the shuttle repaired.”

Aurora nodded, grateful that at least one thing was going according to plan. “And the bad?”

“If we try to leave, that pulse is just going to wipe us out again. We need to figure out how to stop whatever is doing it before we can leave.” 

“Looks like we need to find Leviathan whether it wants us to or not.” She glanced over at the sound of Kaidan and Vic’s approach. “So how do we do that?”

Before anyone could offer an idea, the sound of her comm coming back online interrupted the silence. “Commander-”

Relief flooded her at the sound of her pilot’s voice. “Joker? Is everyone ok?”

She could hear the sharp intake of breath through the comm. “We’re fine up here. The Reaper was more interested in you.”

“Or Leviathan.” Kaidan said from somewhere behind her.

“Yeah, or that.” Joker continued on, his words tumbling out in a rush. “EDI says the pulse came from below the surface. The only way you’re leaving that planet is-”

“By going down.” Aurora sighed, knowing that was the most likely case, but hoping against all hope that it wasn’t.

“There’s a joke somewhere in there.” 

“Jeff-”

“Shepard.” EDI’s synthesized voice cut in. The scolding would have to wait it seemed. “I detect an energy signature below the surface. I believe it may be Leviathan.”

“Great.”

~~~~

It wasn’t her fault.

He knew that. If Shepard had known how far down she had to go to reach Leviathan, she might’ve done something different. Or found a way to take her backup. But she’d been out of contact for longer than any of them had liked and had passed out the moment the diving suit had opened. Kaidan assured him that she was stable and more importantly, alive, but he wouldn’t believe it until he saw her with his own two eyes, touched her with his hands.

He was pacing when the shuttle flew in. Whatever Leviathan was, it had taken out the Reaper in orbit so Jeff had left EDI at the helm and went to wait for Shepard and the team to return.

Jeff, it wasn’t her fault.

Chakwas was waiting with him, medkit in hand should it be needed. She was watching him with silent eyes as he walked, limped, back and forth, trying to calm the rage that pounded beneath his ribs. He was so angry with Shepard, but under that was the fear… the terror that the oceans would swallow her.

The shuttle touched down in the bay moments later, doors opening to reveal the bright lights inside.

The fury burst from him before he could stop it, not even paying attention to who was exiting. “What the hell were you thinking? You could’ve been killed!”

Aurora stepped from the shuttle, leaning heavily on Kaidan as she did so. Blood dripped from her nose and she wiped it away. He could see a bruise darkening on her cheek, from what, he had no idea. At the sight of her, alive but bloodied, Jeff felt his legs give out from under him. Chakwas barely got her arms around him before he hit the ground.

Aurora stumbled towards him, pushing Kaidan away, taking a few steps only to fall to the ground in front of him. She pulled the armored gloves from her hands and threw them to the side, her hands shaking as they reached out for him. He was exhausted and when his gaze found Aurora’s, he could see the same exhaustion there. Hers was mostly physical, sure, but he could see the haunted look in her eyes.

“Jeff-”

“Don’t do that again.” He almost choked on the words. “I can’t watch you die again, Aurora.”

Her expression crumbled at how broken he sounded and she pulled herself closer, hand held out in front of her, a question as it floated there. Joker reached out and entwined his fingers with hers, feeling the crushing weight in his chest lighten enough that he could breathe without pain.

His fingers were pressed against her mouth, the kiss along his knuckles twisting at his heart. She wouldn’t promise that, he knew she couldn’t. 

If the war didn’t kill them both, then his heart would end up doing him in.

#my writing #all-truths-wait-in-all-things #shoker #femshep x joker #jeff joker moreau #aurora shepard #femshep #mass effect #mass effect fanfic #fanfiction #otp: i'll follow you into hell #edi #kaidan alenko #judy ‘vic’ sabovic #steve cortez #aurora x joker

[angelltheninth]

Forging Bonds

Pairing: Jayce Talis x Reader

Tags: fluff, slight angst, overworking, date nights, cuddles, tired Jayce

Word count: 0.6k

A/N: Don't tell me that Jayce doesn't overwork himself sometimes Honestly I think that his, and Viktor's, sleeping schedule must be absolutely terrible. Made this a little steamy for you all. For more of my 5k follower event fics you can go to the wholesome list, or to the darker one if that's more your thing.

You’ve waiting for Jayce for a little longer than usual. Normally he was on time when it came to your dates, sometimes even getting there before you. But lately he’s been late, and you’re not sure why. He keeps saying he’s busy with work but you think that there’s something more to it.

“Sorry!” You heard him before you saw him. When you turned around you saw Jayce running toward you, a little winded when he stopped, “Sorry babe, work ran a bit later than I thought.” He smiled up at you before straightening up and stretching out. “Did I keep you waiting long?”

There was something about how he sounded, his voice a little more raspy than normal, his face a little fallen despite his big dumb smile, his posture a little more stiff than usual. It didn’t sit right with you.

“Jayce, are you ok? You seem out of sorts.” Hearing those words he gave you in even brighter smile. It was fake, you knew by now.

“I’m perfect, come on, I’ve wasted enough of your time, let’s just go and-” Jayce took you by the hand only for you to rip it out of his grip, a look of hurt in your eyes, “Babe? What is it? Something wrong?”

“Not with me.” Jayce’s eyebrows raised then frowned. You saw it then. The deep, dark circles under his eyes. You sighed and took him by the hand. He didn’t say a word, just followed you down the street in silence.

Instead of going to the restaurant you planned on going you made a turn for your apartment, dragging Jayce inside, looking even more confused then before and sitting him onto your bed.

“Uh… do you uh… I mean if you wanted to we could could have had sex after we ate but I don’t mind doing things out of order.” He grinned and pulled you by the hips only to have you push him onto the bed, “Oh, feisty tonight aren’t you?”

Jayce went in for a kiss, only to have you put your hand on his mouth, “You need to sleep Jayce. I don’t know what’s going on at work but you clearly haven’t been sleeping well.” His frown deepened for just an instant, his shoulder slumping and he let out a heavy, exhausted sigh.

“We’re so close to a breakthrough though. Both me and Viktor have been looking longer hours lately. I know it’s not the healthiest thing but it really feels like we’re on the cusp of a scientific-”

“Science can wait Jayce. That big, beautiful, stubborn mind of yours is no good if you can’t even keep your eyes open properly.” Gently you pushed on his shoulders, easing him onto the bed, his tired eyes locked on yours, your hand slowly moving to cup his face, “Please take care of yourself. Not for me, for you Jayce.”

He let out a heavy sigh, “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I’m your partner, of course I’ll worry.” You kissed the tip of his nose, “How about we both get comfortable and cuddle, I’m sure that’ll put you right to sleep.”

“Best sleep aid ever.” He pushes his lips against yours, it was a lazy, timid kiss, you could feel how tired he was. To think that not only did he want to take you out to dinner but also to have sex after, it was both sweet and infuriating, the lengths he’d go to just to make you happy.

The two of you shed your clothes, leaving only your underwear on as you slipped into bed. Jayce was out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, the last thing he spoke was a very quiet love confession. It made your heart go into overdrive. He hasn’t said those three words to you yet, but you sure did look forward to hearing them again in the morning. And to repeating them back to him many more times over.

#arcane #arcane x reader #jayce talis #jayce x reader #jayce talis x reader #arcane imagines #arcane fanfic #league of leguends #league of legends x reader #league of legends fanfiction #league of legends imagine

[sol-consort]

God to be a male Quarian getting hit on by femshep, should’ve been me, anyway looked him up and apparently he was based on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, specifically a combo of the two, and considering they both die at the end his ending probably wouldn’t have been too happy. He was also described as a boisterous ladies man, so I guess that’s why he gets excited when someone actually likes him. You wouldn’t have been able to romance him if you were too renegade for him and his goal was to prove that the Geth are now less of a threat. His introduction seems to have been given to Garrus considering they’re similar (shootout with criminals on Omega) maybe Garrus wasn’t gonna return before they cut him?

Also random fact I came across Garrus is 2-4 years younger than Shepard

By the way how is Miranda in your ME3 playthrough?

Glad to know we all collectively are down bad for femshep in here. Oh, to be a barracks bunny for the femdom lieutenant commander, a person could only dream.

Like it doesn't even have to he a full romance or anything, just being Shepard's squeeze toy whenever she's too fed up with this demandinh world outside, and instead would rather spend time with you in this soft bed inside. She'd be absolutely relentless and insatiable, I don't think her libido is ever sated tbh, a lot of times it is the other person insisting that she waits to sleep with them rather than the other way around.

Hell Shepard seems down for it 24/7. You'd get some bullshit job on the Normandy but will spend 90% of your time on her personal deck. The second she boards the ship after a mission, she's requesting your presence upstairs in her qaurters to...debrief you on the aftermisison report, nothing else. Mhm.

I'm just saying I am a simple person and I would put out on the first ever conversation femshep has with me, no renegade or paragon pointchecks. No required time to romance me, and not even locked by a certian level or plot checkpoint. If a woman like her tells me to shut up and bend over after five minutes of meeting me then you know that's exactly what I'd be doing.

Anyway, so back to the main topic.

Miranda is doing well! I saved her sister in ME2 but didn't let her shoot her bestfriend, then I encouraged her to speak to her sister. I took her to the final mission in facing the human reaper and she told the illusive man that she quits after he threw a hissy fit over me destroying the reaper.

In ME3, she asked for some documents from the alliance and I gave it to her. Then I met her again during the Kai Leng chase and she killed her father and saved her sister. Miranda is dandy as far as I'm aware.

-

And I can't stop thinking about the male Quarian. Ugh. Imagine someone who knows he can't have sex with people but still is a relentless flirt with the ladies, like the clear cardboard faux playboy badge he wears is so pathetic and adorable.

It's like he is using the Johnny Bravo method of hitting on every woman he sees, and eventually, one of them has gotta bite, right?

So for someone like him not to only have his "incel mimicking a chad" strategy work but also hit the jackpot and get the commander Shepard? Hallelujah! Ring the bells! Call your mom and tell her you've fucking made it Ma!!

Because Shepard too can be a bit of a playboy at times, except with the game protagonist logic, we get to be the successful one with the smoothest flirting lines. Now you have two people interested in each other, with one that's an embarrassingly terrible flirt and another who people would pay to sleep with them.

Personally, I really like that he is on the side of the Geth because Tali starts off being hostile to them, and it would've made a perfect chance to view both sides.

His dynamic with Tali would've been very interesting, two people with similar backgrounds and experiences who came to two totally different conclusions on how to handle to the Geth.

Because it is so easy for paragon Shepard to side with the Geth. Like of course you feel sympathy for them, you're human. It wasn't earth they stole from you.

Imagine it. Imagine the outrage if some random species you made steals earth from us and we are forced to move onto fleets. I would've fucking gone full renegade and demanded my planet back immediately.

But because we are just outsiders on the geth problem, we can't relate or have a clear perspective on how the qaurians must feel. We only get to see the most hostile of them and the hate towards the geth. That other admiral was the cloeest thing to a pro-geth quarian but even he was an annoying character who antagonises you and Tali as his introduction in the ME2 loyality mission.

So the male quarian love interest being sympathetic towards the geth would've filled a perfectly empty spot we were missing for the full picture of the geth quarian relationship.

Samara has a similar thing in ME2, where if you're too renegade, she doesn't indulge you in the romance attempt and immediately shuts it off. But if you have very little renegade points then she says your heart is pure and indulges you more, let's you try and convince her and it's so clear she is struggling not to give into the temptation before leaving the room.

The Quarian kink is so real, now I understand why you like Tali so much oh god. Someone willing to experience sickness just to fuck you? Damn that is some determination.

#☆quarian boyfriend #☆quarian #☆femshep

[sabraeal]

The Man of Progress, Chapter 3

[Read on AO3]

If there is one thing Viktor has learned wrangling with these crystals these past two years, it’s that Talis’s forges can cast a blast door as sturdy as will still take a hinge, but they still can’t make steel thick enough to keep Jayce’s voice from cutting through.

“He’s not going to go for it.” The man might well be standing in the same room for all the door does to stifle it; a pillow might do a better job. To make matters worse, his voice is pitched lower still, trying to locate a whisper and instead finding the precise frequency that turns solid metal into a screen door. “You can ask him if you want, but I don’t know what good it’ll do you.”

The Councilor’s reply is muffled; her cultured tones may be able to quell a querulous council room, but it cannot defy the very laws of physics. Little more than the highest curves of her conversation curl through the gap between steel and concrete, but Viktor doesn’t need to hear the content to know exactly what’s happening in that showroom. Their patron has a plan, and as much as Jayce might dig in, a broad-shouldered barrier between her and their work, Councilor Medarda hasn’t ascended to Piltover’s loftiest heights to be stopped by mere flesh and bone and spirited protest. No, she’ll bully herself right past him, and if six feet of muscle-bound engineer can’t stop her, eighteen inches of steel won’t be much of an impediment either.

The door swings open with a squeal, stopping only just short of the dent Jayce made the first time he opened it. She approaches at an unhurried pace, not so much a sashay but a stride, confidence radiating from every subtle clack of her golden heels. They echo up the walls, gathering in the the ceiling’s vault like the prelude to a storm, inexorable, unavoidable—

And here. “Viktor. Good Morning.”

He sighs, contemplating the pliers in his grip. There had been boys who would gather at the shore when the clouds turned heavy out to sea, who used to dig into the sand when thunder pealed over the waves, waiting for the lightning to scrape across the sky. They’d stand in the water up to their knees, watching the skies churn even as their own darkened, swearing they could feel sparks when it hit. That there was a thrum that came in with the tide— better than Shimmer, one of them had boasted, long before any of them had been lost to it— one that made them powerful, invincible, like the enforcers in their armor—

At least, until one of them was struck. Wandered too far, or maybe too close, and was swept away before any of them could see if there was enough of him left unburnt to breathe.

Jayce’s scuffled steps struggle over the threshold, stumbling to catch her heels, and he might as well be knee deep in the water, wading out to see the storm. There are just some boys, it seems, that long to be burned. “Councilor, wait…”

Viktor, for his part, keeps his feet on terra firma. The sand’s no place for a man with barely a leg to stand on. He’d learned that well enough watching the other children scuttle across the rocks as he tinkered with his boat. Playing the same games as them only ended in bruised pride and scuffed knees.

So he only dares to glance at her in reflection, through the warped mirror that chrome creates. At least there she looks something closer to human than sublime. “Councilor.” He sits back on his heels, squinting into the clockwork clutter. Makes no move to turn toward her— she’ll get what she wants by the time she sweeps out of this lab, but he’ll be damned if he lets her have it ten steps through the door. “To what do we owe this pleasure.”

Jayce strains a breath through his smile, all his dire warnings about teeth and hands that feed caught between his own. But even the warped reflection can’t manufacture the lift of the Councilor’s eyebrow on its own, or how her mouth moves to mirror its curve. “Am I not allowed to check in on my investment?”

She circles behind him; a slow, measured saunter marked by the clack of her heels on the concrete. And by the accordion pull of her reflection, languidly stretching across the metal’s peaks before pooling in its valleys, a flicker of the real before the reinstatement of the absurd. And yet there’s no mistaking where that sharp gaze lingers— not on the machine, but on his back, carving a line between his shoulders from attention alone.

“We’re the best minds the Academy has to offer, Councilor, do give us some credit.” The pliers clench around a cog, wrenching it to where its teeth mesh with the ones beside it. “I think we’ve learned by now that we couldn’t hold you back, even if we tried.”

His name hisses out from behind Jayce’s perfect smile— oh, this afternoon’s going to be a litany of hands, food, and would it kill you to be nice for once?— but the Councilor only lingers behind his shoulder, mouth stretched so wide across the metal that a millimeter more would turn her all to teeth. “What a…flattering assessment.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” he lies. “I’m simply acknowledging the reality of the situation. No matter how unpleasant.”

Jayce practically chokes on his own forced laugh. “He— he doesn’t mean that. We enjoy every moment you choose to spend down here.”

“Not that we have much of a choice,” Viktor adds, setting aside pliers for a wrench. “Since I doubt there’s a man alive that could keep you from where you mean to go.”

One perfect brow twitches. “Some have tried.”

And failed, she doesn’t say. Doesn’t need to with the way her chin lifts, conquest etched in every line. He nearly likes her better for it— after all, if a storm is meant to sink ships, it should take pride in each one scuttled in its wake.

At least, he might, if he wasn’t already watching one founder. “Councilor, Viktor’s just, er,” —making Jayce sweat bullets, from the look of it— “joking. He’s a real kidder.”

Viktor’s head swivels on its axis, quick enough to make his neck ache. It’s worth it to spear his partner with a scowl where he stands, letting the angle of its furrow heavily imply, what the hell are you doing?

Jayce’s hands splay helplessly in a shrug, eyebrows hiked so high there’s barely any forehead left before his hairline. What are you doing?

“A kidder.” The Councilor is unconvinced, arms folded under her chest like a guillotine’s blade. “Really.”

It’s not a question. But at a bulge of his partner’s eyes, Viktor cobbles together an answer. “That’s me,” he blurts out, ignoring the coughing jag coming from behind her shoulder. “A jokester. A real…funny guy.”

The inviting pout she wears tightens to a close-lipped purse, eyes narrowing the way doors might before they slam shut. “I would never have guessed.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a laugh riot.” Jayce steps up beside her, grin so wide Viktor’s gut goes cold. “You should ask to see his Heimerdinger impression.”

The Councilor glances back— incredulous, of course, though too politique to show it in anything more than a squint of the eyes— and Viktor lets his brow pinch behind her, displeasure seeping out of every pore. His early years at the Academy had made for a veritable world tour of puerile pranks; a lame boy from the Undercity made the perfect target for callow youths, missing the sort of bullying they had been able to wreak at all the best private institutions Piltover could offer. He had become a connoisseur of the uncomfortable, an epicurean of embarrassment— and with a glare, he lets his partner know he has not forgotten a single one.

Jayce sends a worried glance toward the coffee pot. Ha. A single trick he’d been subject to would make that man beg for bodily fluids in his cup.

“I’ll take your word for it.” She turns back, frowning at his placid expression. “Though I do wonder what inspired him to humor this morning.”

“I thought I would keep the mood light,” he tells her, already angling himself towards his cogs. “You know, since you two seem so serious after conspiring in the showroom.”

Jayce nearly chokes. “You heard that?”

“You weren’t exactly subtle. So go on”—he spares the Councilor a weary look— “what is it I’m not going to like?”

“The Distinguished Innovators Competition,” she informs him, shameless, as if his eavesdropping had been part of the plan all along. Knowing the way Jayce’s voice could carry, it might well have been. “I was just discussing it with Mr Talis. He didn’t think you’d be a fan.”

“Distinguished Innovation?” Two relatively benign concepts. “What’s not to like?”

“She wants us to enter it.” That earns the golden boy a glare from the Councilor. Apparently throwing her beneath the carriage had not been part of her plans.

“Oh.” He glances between them, disinterested. “He’s right.”

“What I was saying,” she begins, sharp enough to tug his attention away from cogs and chrome. “Was that it would be a good opportunity to show that Hextech is a real, viable resource, not just another pipe dream of two Academy engineers.”

“Oh?” He blinks, sitting back on his heels. “I didn’t realize pipe dreams regularly blow out windows in the government building. How difficult that must be for you, Councilor.”

She grunts softly; a palpable hit. That’s one point to him. “I’m not talking about a proof of concept. If you can show these people a concrete demonstration of just one crystal’s power, the interest it would generate in Hextech’s future…it would be enormous.”

“We have enough interest.” He shakes his head, turning it back towards the table. “The last thing we need are more investors wandering around here, cackling over their winning horses.”

Jayce shifts, leaning so close to the Councilor their reflections blur together, one big puddle of patron and patronized on stilted legs. “I told you.”

Her hand lifts, a soft curl that quiets him quicker than a shout. With a turn of her head— a tilt of her chin, really— she manages to say without speaking, I’ll handle this. Or maybe, I’ll handle him— a mistake, on her part. Viktor has learned to keep his head down, to toe the line these top-siders are so partial to, but he’s Undercity, through and through. Ungovernable, as her colleagues are so fond of saying.

A fact Jayce knows all too well. But although he may snort, may toss his head like one of those metal steeds strapped to their track, he still turns, tromping his way right across the floor. Throws his hands up for good measure, with a shake of his head to give it a resigned flavor. It’s a lost cause, he doesn’t say, because the slam of the door says it loud enough behind him.

It's still ringing in his ears when her hand presses flat to the table; a warm earthen brown stark against the cold gray of metal and stone. Comically small next to the gauntlet’s size, like a child’s pressed against their father’s. Something startlingly real compared to plates and pistons. The rest of her follows after, the curve of her hip resting against the hard corners of the counter.

“I’m not recommending you participate for bragging rights, you know.” The Councilor’s voice is lower now, less strident; not made for an audience but to fill the inches between them. Intimate, almost. Enough to make his shoulders itch just beneath his nape. “If you place in the competition, you’ll have all the clans bidding to sponsor you. Enough money to fund you for a year, at the least.”

Tempting. But then, what she offers always is. “What’s the matter, Councilor? Purse feeling a little tight?”

Something huffs out of her, not a laugh but a kissing cousin, one not so sweet but infinitely more interesting. “It would take more than a lab like this one to beggar Medarda’s coffers. But needless to say, you are hardly our only investment.”

Just the biggest risk. Or at least, the most entertaining one, by how often her itinerary takes her past the workshop. “Even so. We’re more than adequately funded through the next three years, let alone one.”

“Oh?” One brow lifts. “For all your projects?”

Her gaze rests pointedly past him, on a tarp haphazardly tossed over a machine, dust collecting in the valley tented between its arches. An ungainly shape, sequestered to the most solitary corner of their workshop, abandoned yet refusing to be forgotten.

“It’s part of the process,” he murmurs, faint even to his own ears. “Innovation requires experimentation. And some are…less promising than others.”

She shifts, close enough to startle him, to make him stare straight up into the shine of her eyes. “Albus Ferros has outbid every clan for the winning innovator seven years out of the last ten. He may not have been sold by Cassandra Kiramman’s little sales pitch last year, but if you show him that you can outshine your competition…well, you may think my pockets run deep, but Clan Ferros…”

She hardly needs to tell him. Ferros may not sponsor many Academy graduates, but the ones they did— their portraits all hung in its hallowed halls, its proudest successes: men who changed the world.

And lined their pockets doing it. Though that mattered more to the students that walked those halls, rather than the trustees who commissioned the portraits.

“It’s also a good opportunity for you.” Gold glimmers as her shoulder lifts, following her movements less like metal and more like a second skin. “At least, to be known as more than Jayce’s assistant.”

Ah, that’s the problem with letting the Councilor linger around here, watching the process. As much as she learns about her investment, she also learns about them, and it leads to— to this. To this way her words wedge beneath his skin, caught like a metal sliver beneath his nail.

“I’d rather people that close to the top not know me by name. It’s bad for the neck,” he explains, rubbing at his. “You see, I like how mine is attached to my shoulders. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

The Councilor doesn’t frown, but her arms cross, cheeks stretching sharp over the architecture of her face. “What, so you think they’ll string you up for being clever? Insolence? Magecraft?”

“They did once,” he mumbles into his machinery. The Undercity doesn’t teach history to its children— at least, not anything past the debts the Chem-Barons collect when a person is fool enough to deal with them— but he’d seen the frescoes on the government buildings walls, the paintings hung in Heimerdinger’s office. “What’s to say they won’t find a taste for it again? Some of them could use a hobby.”

Her eyes narrow, honing all that carefully maintained beauty to a fox-like point. “Don’t tell me you’re intimidated by my colleagues.”

“I’m not intimidated.” He rolls his wrist absently, wrench still in hand. “I’m cautious.”

She sniffs, all incredulity. “I must admit, I’m not seeing the difference.”

“You wouldn’t,” he mutters— a mistake. She’s too close for it to be lost in metal and machinery, an aside gone astray. No, the Councilor hears every word, spine stiffening with the affront only the privileged can afford. “Councilor, when you look at me— what is it you see?”

Viktor does her the favor of leaning back, of turning toward her so that she can take all of him in. He half-considers reaching for his crutch, of maybe even getting to his feet and taking a step toward her, so that she could see the way his shoulder dips as he walks, the grotesquerie of his movement—

“A genius.”

That’s it; no hesitation, no pity. A simple assessment without the fixed point of her gaze ever straying.

“Councilor…” he coughs, surprised. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Her mouth threatens to smirk. “No, it won’t.”

“No,” he agrees, oddly amused, “it won’t. You’ll call me a genius today because you’re pleased with my progress, but when I disappoint, well…then I’ll be—”

“A pain in my ass?” she offers with a quickness that implies practice. She shifts, spine falling into its usual coy curve. “A downright bastard.”

A laugh barks out of him before he can leash it. “To say the least. To your honored colleagues, I might be an Academy engineer today, one of the best and brightest balls of gas the professor has ever condensed into a star, but tomorrow…” His mouth rumples around the sour taste in his mouth. “Tomorrow I could just be another piece of Undercity trash. A rat from the sewers who slipped under the door.”

He leans toward her, one arm braced on the table, conspiracy curving his smile. “I’m sure you know how it is, Councilor— the higher you climb, the further you have to fall. Academy Engineer might not seem like a lot to you, but to me, well” —his shoulder lifts, lazy as he sits back— “I have much deeper depths to plunge.”

He expects her to huff, to protest, maybe even to laugh— that’s what Jayce has always done, shaking his head at every refused invitation as if he were a child pushing away a full plate. But instead the Councilor simply stares at him, her smooth brow marred by a furrow. Utterly still, not even a twitch to give her away as something flesh and blood.

Ah, now he’s done it. Made things awkward. “Jayce is better at dealing with those people anyway,” he tells her, a pleasing patch over an unpleasant truth. “He even looks like one of them.”

Because he is. For as far as he is from the Council’s heights, he’s still a clansman, albeit a minor one. Not something he enjoys being reminded of, especially not when he’s being stuffed inside one of those monkey suits, going off to ape his betters.

“Ah.” The Councilor hums, her chin taking its usual superior lift. “So that’s it. You think that next to Talis, they’ll find you—?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” At least, he’s not trying to. But the words come out at all angles, the way his shoulders do when he walks, and the only way to stop them is to snap his teeth around them like a steel trap. “I don’t care what those people think of me. I know who I am.”

“An easy thing to say.” Her heels clack, achingly slow as she steps towards him, so close that the hair raises along his arm. “A harder thing to live. Especially when you aren’t the one drawing the line in the sand.”

He risks a glare at her, but she only smirks, amused.

“If the only face they see with Hextech is Talis, then they’ll assume that Talis is all there is to Hextech.” Her hand may rest on the wrought wrist of the gauntlet, but her gaze swings wide, settling on the ungainly mess in the corner. “And it will only ever be his vision that sees the light of day.”

Viktor’s jaw clenches, hard enough it aches. “Our ideas are implemented equally. It is just the nature of the work that not all of them bear fruit.”

The Councilor hums, fingers brushing across smooth metal as she removes them. His own wrist flexes in some strange sympathy. “If you say so.”

She stands then, fabric flowing after her like a wake. “Think about it, at least. The Distinguished Innovators Competition, I mean.”

On a lesser mortal, that skirt of hers would tangle, would trip her up as she sashayed across the floor. But instead it moves like a part of her, her walk all hips and suggestion.

One that turns into a question when she stops, one foot lifted hesitantly.

“For what it’s worth…” she tosses over her shoulder, gaze not quite meeting his. “Even if you didn’t win” — not likely, her tone says— “I think you would at least cause quite a stir…”

*

“Sorry about all that.” Jayce scratches at the back of his head, bashful, the way naughty dogs were. “I didn’t want to put you on the spot like that. But you know how Mel is.”

Viktor grunts, one brow hiked. Funny, it’s all Councilor this and Councilor that when she’s swanning around the showroom, deigning to grace them with her esteemed presence, but once the woman’s out of earshot—

Mel. Ha. By the flush slapped across Jayce’s neck, it’ll take a few more years yet before he tries it to her face. A couple more of those fancy parties, one or two awards under his belt. Get more than a few stiff drinks in him, and Jayce might try it even sooner— clothing optional.

With a snap the wrench tumbles out of his hand, clattering across the table as something small and metal pings against the concrete. Viktor blinks. Ah, well…that’s never happened before.

A hand comes down heavy on his shoulder, a perfect lantern jaw hanging itself over it. “Woah, you okay there, buddy? Lose your grip or something?”

“The opposite.” His hand uncurls— aching, still— to show where a small spike of metal juts out from the plating. “The bolt sheared right off.”

“Huh.” Jayce looms closer, squinting at the jagged edge. “Well, would you look at that. I’ll have to talk to the professor about it— it’s fine if it’s one or two, but if it keeps happening, someone’s going to need to talk to the supplier about quality control.”

“Right.” Viktor flexes his fingers, oddly light-headed. “Quality control.”

It’s a clean fingernail that prods at the wreckage, not a speck of grease trapped in its bed; Jayce must have scrubbed before the Councilor came in the door, saving her the indignity of touching anything real. The broken shank doesn’t give so much as a wiggle, not even when a thumb joins the finger, bearing down before it tries to twist and tug.

“Man, that’s in there good.” He steps back, slapping a pair of pliers across Viktor’s palm. “At least it’s one of the small ones. Not a lot of metal, not a lot of room for mistakes. Probably just flawed from the start.”

Viktor grunts, fitting the nose hard against the shank. Flawed from the start. That’s one way of putting it.

“If we were to do this…this Distinguished Innovators thing,” he says, uncertain, twisting until threads peek up from the gap. “I’m not saying we are, but…what would we present?”

It’s easier to talk about this with Jayce behind him; that way he doesn’t have to see when his jaw drops. “If we…?”

“Hypothetically,” Viktor reminds him, but it’s too late; he can hear the excited pace to his steps, like a dog that has caught a glimpse of its leash.

“Of course, of course.” It may sound like an agreement, but Viktor knows all too well: it’s a clearing of the slate, a tabula rasa of thought. He can protest all he likes, but to Jayce, a maybe is as good as a yes. “We’re coming along pretty well on the gauntlets, aren’t we? With a couple more weeks on them, we might have something that could really wow people.”

Viktor takes in the visible bolts tucked between chrome plates, the barely hand-like appendages jammed onto the end of its wrists. When he looks back up, catching Jayce with the corner of his glance, he hardly needs to say, bit of an anemic showing.

“W-well, I mean, we won’t just have the presentation,” Jayce stammers out, scrubbing a hand through  the thick mass of his hair. “We’ll have floor space too. We could probably show off most of what we’re working on. Let people get a real glimpse of everything Hextech could do.”

“Everything?” Viktor asks, tone utterly even.

“Ah, well” —Jayce glances to where the tarp sits, wrought metal peeking out beneath its hem, before his eyes skitter away— “Sure. Why not?”

His words might convince him, if only a note of it was sincere. “Because you’re afraid of it.”

“I’m not— I’m not afraid.” An assertion that might stand if he didn’t flinch while making it. “They’re just not…er…”

Safe. That’s what Jayce means to say. It’s not safe. It thrums in the air between them, like the moment before lightning strikes, so charged— so contentious that all his hair stands on end.

“…I just don’t think they show off Hextech to its best advantage,” Jayce says instead, mincing through his words like he was barefoot and each one was a shard of glass. It’s careful, politic, and it sounds more like that woman than it does his partner. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“They are a proof of concept.” It’s the same disagreement they’ve had a dozen times— no, two dozen. None of the sting is left in it, all his arguments so worn that his brow settles into its furrow like a cog does in its groove. “A demonstration of the power that could be wielded by the crystals if we could be refined past their raw state. Something beyond the household applications we’ve tried, which—”

“Which isn’t what Hextech is about,” Jayce says, loud enough that its echo rings throughout the lab, buzzing in his ears. “I appreciate the work you’re doing on it, really, I do. Even if it’s not the direction we chose to take, it belongs at the show. But if we’re going to present something…”

He hefts the gauntlet onto his arm, visibly straining under its bulk. “It’s got to be something people know how to use. Only academics appreciate the abstract.”

Viktor can’t argue with that. But that hardly means he doesn’t have a quibble or two. “You can barely lift that.”

“That’ll just make it all the more impressive,” he grunts, teeth more grit than grin. “When we fire this thing up and I’m swinging it around like I was born with it.”

They’re still weeks away from that, from getting the crystal to do anything but spit and sizzle as it sits in its bezel, but even so— he can picture it. The way Jayce will swing his arm, gesticulating with the cogent verve these merchants clans breed into their children; the halting way the fingers will fold into a fist, unnatural and yet more human than any machine could manage. And the bare blue glow of the Hextech beneath it all, casting a new set of shadows across its onlookers.

“All right,” he relents. “As long as the arches are displayed too.”

“They will be.” Jayce claps him on the shoulder, as good as a promise. “We’re in this together, aren’t we, partner?”

*

The Councilor wastes no time in submitting their paperwork; within a day she has a form couriered to them, every field filled in her meticulous cursive save for their abstract . It’s blatant enough that even Jayce grimaces, tugging at his collar as he asks, “You don’t think she, uh…?”

“I think,” Viktor says, plucking the sheet from his hand. “That she was not willing to entertain second thoughts.”

“Ah…” Jayce rubs a hand over his neck, concern finally filtering through common sense. “Right. When was this thing supposed to be again?”

“Six months.” At least one of them knows to read the fine print. “It’s part of the lead up to Progress Day.”

“Right, right.” Jayce sucks in a breath deep enough to broaden his shoulders, hands coming to sit at his hips. “Well, that’s plenty of time.”

Viktor turns, arching a dubious brow. “Is it?”

“Hell yes.” His hand drops, giving a gauntlet a proud pat. “We’ll have these babies done with weeks to spare.”

Viktor tries not to find something ominous in their dull clank. “If you say so…”

*

What had seemed a spacious six months quickly becomes a cramped two weeks of all-nighters and mounting anxiety. They had fallen for the siren song of Piltover’s spring; thinking that their projects would bloom in the passing weeks with all the steadiness and ease as the city transitioned through its seasons. Oh, how easily they had forgotten what even the first year engineers knew all too well: progress was never linear. Two steps forward often led to ten step back, and by the time the competition loomed on the horizon, well—

“Just a little more,” Jayce promises, a pair of over-glorified tin snips in his hand, trying to notch the last few gears. His hands tremble, gripping tighter as the steam carriage rocks beneath them, groaning with each sharp turn they take. “Couple more clips and we’ll be done, I promise.”

Viktor groans, head wedged between the cabin’s wall and his elbow, struggling to keep the bile at bay. The carriage must be on a mission to find every pothole between Midtown and the Academy, engine rattling as it hurtles over the cobbled streets. “I’m going to throw up.”

“You’ll be fine.” That might assure him, if any of that confidence came from an actual lack of concern, rather than force of will. Jayce does spare him a glance, one that turns quickly toward a grimace. “When was the last time you slept, by the way? Or ate?”

Cogs jostle as the driver goads the gears faster, setting the acid sloshing in his stomach. The faces of the other passengers are pale, some even screwing their eyes shut, as if that might save them from a flying gear. Viktor tries the same, wondering if it might stop the roll of his stomach, but oh, ah…that’s worse. So much worse.

“Viktor!” A hand bands around his shoulder, as much a steel vise as this brace he wears, and his eyes jolt open, meeting Jayce’s open concern. “Seriously. You look like you need a sandwich.”

Just the thought of it puts acid in his mouth.

“I think if we win this thing,” he manages, swallowing back bile. “Heimerdinger needs to clear out a lab.”

Jayce huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Sure thing, buddy. It’s the least he can do for his most promising protégés, right? Be nice to get a little recognition around here.”

He lets his head lean back, settling against the seat. “I’ll just take never having to get in one of these hellish conveyances as long as I live.”

If it could have been left just at that, the carriage would have been at worst an inconvenience; a mode of transportation Viktor would require copious cajoling to consider again. But instead the whole carriage hitches, weightless for a moment before it pitches from one side then to the other. Other passengers are nearly flung from their seats, held in only by the strength of their own grip, but their gears— they fly off Jayce’s lap, skittering across the carriage floor, lost beneath a confusion of boots and skirts.

With all the subtlety of a burst pipe, the whole thing lurches to a stop, engine spewing steam into the cabin, and Viktor—

He can’t take it.

To say he struggles with the door would be an overstatement; he merely jiggles it until the latch prises loose, managing two shuddering steps across the cobbles before he pitches to his knees and loses what little breakfast he forced into his belly in the gutter.

“Viktor!” Jayce springs out after him, hand clasping his shoulder. “Are you all—? Oh, hell. The whole baggage compartment…”

With a queasy glance over his shoulder, he sees it: the metal compartment tucked beneath peeled open like a can of sardines. Bags are strewn across the street, too haphazard for the other carriages to miss, crumpling beneath the wheels of those who can’t bring themselves to stop.

“I want to go home,” he groans, sitting back on his heels. “Can we do that?”

There’s no humor in Jayce’s laugh, just simple bravado. The simple refusal to be cowed by whatever fate can throw at them. Viktor might even feel fond, if he had room for anything but the nausea. “We’ve come too far now. The convention hall is only two blocks away. Just let me find our case, and we can hoof it.”

Viktor glares up at him. “Don’t tell me you expect me to walk.”

“Come on.” He claps him on the back this time, nearly bowling him over. “I think a little fresh air is just what we need.”

*

Viktor arrives at the convention hall with all the dignity of a collapsed soufflé: drenched in sweat, covered in stains of ignominious origin, and worst of all, limping.

“Really?” Jayce croaks, shouldering him up the steps. Not that his weight is the problem— soaking wet, Viktor would struggle to tip the scale to eight stone— but with both him and the gauntlets’ case, even his partner’s knees start to buckle. “That’s what’s got you? You walk with a cane.”

“A cane is dignified,” Viktor informs him loftily. As much as one can when the only way air can enter and leave through his lungs is a wheeze. “This is” —pathetic— “a trainwreck.”

Complete with a peanut gallery to rubberneck. Each head swivels as they pass, curiosity and pity mingling in most of their onlookers, but others— others sneer with disgust, or worse, forget to smother their smirks. They should have told us there’d be a freak show, one man in a white waist mutters just a hair too loud, I would have brought peanuts.

Viktor heaves himself away, brace clanking under the sudden shift in weight. “I can do it myself.”

One arm still hovers behind his back, as heavy as if it held him still, and Jayce raises a brow. “You sure? You look like you’re going to fly apart like that boiler—”

“Don’t.” Bile gags him at the thought. “Just— my crutch.”

“It’s seen better days,” Jayce warns, and ah, it’d never sat straight to begin with, but there is distinctly more twist to it now, as he hands it over. “Really, Viktor, if you need help, I’m happy to—”

“I’ll manage.” Annoyance sharpens the words to a point, one his partner hardly deserves aimed at him. He shakes his head, fitting the support beneath his shoulder. “Our table is only around the corner. If I can’t make it that far, then maybe I should have gone home.”

“As long as you’re sure. It’s not like I can’t handle it. Heck” —Jayce grins, flexing one of his ridiculous arms hard enough his shirtsleeve strains over his bicep— “I could probably carry two of you without even breaking a sweat.”

Viktor’s mouth twitches. “Rub it in, why don’t you.”

“Hey, it’s not rubbing it in if it’s true. Just because I’m the buffest guy in this whole Academy doesn’t make me any less of an engin— ah, here.” Jayce doesn’t so much set the case down as heave it onto its side as gently as its weight allows. “We made it.”

Their projects haphazardly litter the floor, dropped wherever the university’s teamsters saw fit to leave them. Despite all of their hours of last minute fussing, peeling years off their lives until chrome was polished and shined to gleaming, it would take time to get them showroom ready again. With a hundred other academic hopefuls’ dreams to cart from every corner of the city, the workmen had handled every project with equal care— that is to say, none at all. It’s time they don’t have, half of it lost between the carriage catastrophe and the convention hall.

It’s enough crunch to make his stomach churn, acid washing over his tongue with all the familiarity of an old friend. But if there’s no time for a spit and shine, there’s even less time for panic; with a steeling breath, Viktor bends his mind to what it’s best at: numbers. He tallies up every last tweak and polish, the number coming out just shy of impossible. Improbable, maybe, but he’d seen projects more hopeless.

That is, until Jayce pops the latches on the case, proving that the carriage’s mishap caused more casualties than the contents of his stomach.

“The gauntlets…” Its case might sit open at his knees, but there’s nothing glove-shaped inside, just a thousand piece puzzle made out of the most delicate machinery human hands had ever made. “They’re…it’s ruined. All of it. I can’t…we can’t…”

Viktor sways on his feet, not so much crouching beside him as falling into a squat. “You put them together, didn’t you? You can do it again. I’m sure someone around here has some solder—?”

“These took me over a year to put together, schematic to prototype.” Devastation turns his voice thready, same as it had been in that council chamber, years ago. As it had been when he stood on that ruined ledge of his apartment, unable to watch as his foot took a step into free fall. “There’s no way I can build it all again in” — he glances at the clock overhead— “oh, god, a half hour? That’s all we have?”

“Huh.” Viktor grips his crutch, settling into his squat. “So that carriage ride was the longest in my life.”

It’s not much, but it’s enough to get a huff out of him, even if there’s no humor in it. “We have to withdraw.”

Jayce levers himself to his feet, scrubbing a hand over the stubble that’s already started to pebble the planes of his jaw— really, what do they feed them in Clan Talis?— leaving Viktor to stare up at him, acid churning in his gut. “What do you mean?”

His hands splay, fingers spiking out toward the case. “We don’t have anything to present! It’s all ruined, every single part of it. And we can’t…”

He shakes his head, shoulders slumping as he turns, putting his back to it. To all of it. To him. After Viktor already walked half the city to be here, shaved days off his life to meet a deadline just short of impossible to have the chance of winning this ridiculous competition.

“We can’t just give up.” Viktor can hardly believe he is the one saying it. “It’s a blow, I’ll admit, but it’s hardly the only thing we have. Our other prototypes are here, in working order, I assume. We can just—”

“But we can’t present any of them,” Jayce snaps, looming over where he squats. “The gauntlets were the thing we put all our time into. We can’t even guarantee any of these will turn on, let alone perform.”

Viktor’s grip tightens on his crutch, chin tilting up to meet his partner’s desperate glare. “There’s at least one.”

Jayce blinks, but confusion quickly clears to fear. “No. No way.”

“I could get them up and running in fifteen minutes,” he reminds him, creaking his way to standing. “All you would have to do is look good. And stand where I tell you.”

“Uh-uh. Not happening.” His hands wave between them, as if somehow Viktor might manage to physically force him to use the thing. “’Stand where you tell me?’ Viktor, I appreciate that you’ve done the work, but that thing isn’t safe.”

“It’s completely safe,” he insists, “so long as you listen to me.”

Jayce stares at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“You wanted to show something big, didn’t you? Something they’ve never seen before.” He sweeps a hand toward where the arches sit, impressive even covered. “And this fits the bill, doesn’t it?”

“I meant something that would represent Hextech. Something that would be helpful. Not…” Dangerous. Jayce sighs, hand raking through the mass of his hair. “Hextech isn’t supposed to be…be…”

“Who knows what it’s supposed to be, Jayce.” It’s not easy to approach him— every step aches, even with the aid of his crutch— but Viktor does, not stopping until dark eyes peer up from that hung head, more scolded dog than agonized academic. “It’s the arcane. We’ve been working on this for two years, and we’ve hardly scratched the surface. There’s so much we don’t know…that we’ll never know if we stop here.”

“Yeah? And maybe we’re not supposed to.” His head wrenches away, a scowl furrowing the stern lines of his face. “You ever think of that?”

Viktor stoops, mouth pulled thin. Enough was enough. “You didn’t sign every page of your notes to give up whenever things got a little too hard, did you?”

Jayce glares at him. “It’s not just…hard. It’s impossible. Suicidal.”

“So?” Viktor steps back, shrugging his shoulders. “What’s progress but a laugh in the face of death?”

“Of course you would say something like that,” Jayce grumbles, arms folding forbiddingly across his chest. “You’re proud of blowing out that window.”

“It was a promising result. Nothing a little calibration couldn’t fix.” He casts Jayce a long look from the corner of his eyes. “Besides, I bet a man like Albus Ferros needs a little danger to impress him.”

A laugh saws out of the vault of Jayce’s chest. “Well, he’s certainly not known for being safe, that’s for sure.” His head shakes. “Fine. You got me. Let’s do it.”

Viktor blinks. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Jayce gets to his feet, brushing the dust off him. “And hey, who knows. Maybe if this stunt of yours does impress Lord Ferros, we can try things your way. Think big. Outside the toolbox.”

He coughs, shaking his head. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

*

“Well, well.” The Councilor sweeps down the auditorium aisle no different from if it was a grand stair, lingering on every step as if there were more than empty seats to provide her adulation. The addition of the professor, however, does detract from the dignity of it, hopping down happily with that poro hot on his heels. “The prodigal engineers arrive. Fashionably late, I see.”

Jayce’s wrench rattles the tray as he turns, arms stretched as wide as his smile. A showman if there ever was one. “That’s why you like us, don’t you? We have style.”

“I’d like you more if you showed up earlier than the eleventh hour,” the Councilor sniffs, skirting around his outstretched hands to circle around the podium. “But I’ll take what I can get.”

Heimerdinger hops up to the stage, peeking his head through each portal, whiskers bristling bushier with every step. “This isn’t the project I thought you would be presenting today,” he says, a note of distress threading through his hum, “What happened to your…er…what did you call them? Alter garments?”

“Atlas gauntlets,” Jayce corrects, tugging at his collar. “They had, ah…technical difficulties in transit.”

The Councilor arches a brow. “And what does that mean?”

Viktor grins into the guts of the machine. “They broke.”

“Oh, ah!” Heimerdinger’s shaggy brows hike up his forehead. “Well, there’s no helping it then. If only you boys had let me bring it over earlier, we might have been able to avoid such an unfortunate setback with your research!”

“There were still some last minute tweaks we wanted to make,” Jayce informs him, broad smile slapping spackle over the holes in that argument. Sounds better than, we hadn’t finished it, at least. “We thought we might sneak in a few more man hours if we finished it in the— ah, I mean, before the carriage arrived.”

“Ah, I should have known.” The professor puffs up proudly, even as he shakes a finger at them. “I hope all this has taught you boys a valuable lesson. Just like any artist, an engineer needs to learn when a project is best left done!”

It’s the sort of fatherly chiding that always set Viktor’s teeth on edge, but Jayce simply chuckles, huge shoulders heaving in a bashful shrug.

“Of course, sir. But I think we’ve got something here that’s just as exciting as what we had planned.” A broad hand pats an arch with the same sort of blustering pride as a lord with his new steam carriage, boasting about how fast it crawls through the streets. “Viktor’s design, actually. One he’s been working on since, er…”

“You blew a hole in the side of the government building?” The Councilor offers, the hem of her skirt sweeping so close to chrome Viktor’s atoms practically vibrate in sympathy. “So what does this do, exactly?”

Jayce flounders. Make real big sparks isn’t exactly what this room wants to hear. Neither is, we don’t quite know. “Ah…”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait and see.” Viktor hands never pause in their work, but he spares her a glance from the corner of his eyes. “Patience is a virtue, isn’t it, Councilor?”

The stare she turns on him might be unimpressed, but a smile flirts with the edge of her mouth, tempting a wayward corner to curve. “It is. My least favorite, I must admit.”

He smothers his smirk to a twitch. “I think a person of your caliber can live with a little delayed gratification.”

“I can.” One finger reaches out to trace up a wrought curve, skin barely brushing the metal. “As long as I leave satisfied.”

A strange static crackles along his skin, his assurances stuck in the scoured pit of his throat— a nervous response, perhaps; a reaction to seeing his invention so thoroughly inspected. An engineer’s instinct—

One Jayce must share, since he barks out, “Don’t touch that!”

The Councilor’s fingers flinch away, hovering uncertainly above an arch. She glances over her shoulder, first at him— still speechless, though for different reasons now— then at where Jayce stands, wide-eyed.

“It’s, uh…” Dangerous, that’s what he’s trying to say— it’s written in the furrow of his brow, in the glaring whites of his eyes. This is no prim protest, but pearl-clutching alarm. And for some reason, glances toward him for support. “…Delicate?”

Viktor scowls up from where he’s crouched. Between the two, he’d rather frightening than fragile. At least one doesn’t call into question his credentials.

“Oh.” The Councilor’s laugh bubbles over his shoulder, rolling up from deep in her chest. It does nothing to help the static. “It’s hardly my first time. But I promise I’ll be gentle.”

Jayce grimaces. “Viktor…?”

“What? I’ve told you. It’s perfectly safe,” he scoffs, turning back to where a panel sits open, gears and wires exposed. “Not going to blow up just from being turned on, that’s for sure. This time, at least.”

The Councilor’s hand drops down to her side with a sigh. “Please do not explode the exhibition hall.”

“Not to worry, Councilor Medarda,” Heimerdinger hums brightly, circling the stage. “If I’m correct in my understanding of how this particular machine is engineered— and I’m sure I am— there’s simply no chance of it exploding.”

“Well." Her arms cross over the narrow nip of her waist, as casual as she is unconvinced. “That’s a load off my mind.”

“Oh, yes.” For all the professor’s previous reservations, he’s quite chipper as he adds, “With a design like this, the only risk is of implosion.”

There’s a slight pause before she turns to Jayce with an artfully rumpled brow. There even seems to be actual concern— for the lecture hall, most like. “Please tell me he’s joking.”

His partner smiles weakly. “Kind of?”

The Councilor sighs, pinching at her brow. “If you would do me the favor,” —her heels clack as she takes the steps up to the doors— “keep the property damage minimal, please.”

Viktor sits back on his heels. “No promises.”

“That,” she sighs, “is exactly what I was afraid of.”

*

It’s only when Viktor has nearly finished his last round of calibrations— and finally put the final chalk ‘X’ on the stage floor— that Jayce blurts out, “I can’t do this.”

He blinks up from his crouch, chalk still pinched between his fingers. “Of course you can. All you have to do is stand around and look good. You already do that all the time, I’m not sure why you think it will be hard to—”

“No, I mean…we shouldn’t.” The back of his hand rubs at his forehead leaving a smear of grease behind. “This…this can’t actually be safe. What if it hit someone? What if it hits me?”

“It won’t hit you,” Viktor assures him. “As long as you don’t move from your mark, at least.”

“Urgh, I knew it,” Jayce moans, clapping his hands over his face. “This is a mistake. Someone is going to get, uh…”

“Teleported, theoretically.” He lifts a shoulder, unconcerned. “If my math is right. If it works at all.”

“Great, not only do we not know what this thing will do if it hits someone” —his hand swings out, jabbing at the arches— “we don’t even know if it’ll work.”

“It will work just fine.” Viktor grips his crutch, hauling himself to his feet. “I’ve done it dozens of times in the lab. As long as I haven’t dropped a decimal or forgotten to carry a one, there shouldn’t be anything to—”

“And what if you have, huh?” Jayce snaps, a dog at the end of his leash. “You were just sick all over Grand Avenue this morning. Just how good is your math right now.”

Better than yours, he doesn’t say— even if it’s true. The last thing he needs now is to be pulling transcripts when they need every second to prepare. “You’re really not going to stand in the cage?”

Broad shoulders square, and ah, Viktor knows that stubborn set to Jayce’s jaw, that firm line of his mouth. “No. I’m not.”

“Fine.” He sighs, fitting the crutch beneath his shoulder. “If that’s how you feel about it.”

He gets two steps across the stage before Jayce asks, “What are you doing?”

“Recalibrating,” he grunts, crouching down. “I’m shorter than you, which means I can get closer to the cage without worrying about getting my hair singed. It’ll look more impressive.”

“That’s…” Jayce scrubs a hand over his face. “When I said I wasn’t going to do it, I didn’t mean you should.”

“Well, someone’s got to.” He traces another ‘X’, reaching out to smother the last. “And if it’s not going to be you, then—”

“It shouldn’t be either of us!”

“What?” Viktor cocks his head, curious. “You think the Councilor will do it?”

“What? No! Hell, Viktor…” He groans, clawing through the thick tangle of his hair. “I think we should shut the whole thing down.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous! You could get yourself killed— or worse!”

“Teleported?” He sits back on his heels, forearms balanced across his knees. “I’ve already told you I’ve done the work: it’s safe.” He hesitates, the floor suddenly unsteady beneath him. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Viktor, I— of course I do!” His hands catch on his hips, breath heaving. “You’re my partner. I’d trust you with my life.”

Funny thing to say when he’s the one quibbling about which set of shoes are going to stand on a chalk mark. “But you won’t trust me with mine?”

“That’s not what I’m”—Jayce grits his teeth, an annoyed grunt straining through them— “that’s not what this is about!”

Viktor cocks his head, agitated. “Then what is it about?”

There’s a pause-- too long, too heavy not to be something-- before Jayce sighs, shaking his head. “You know what? Fine. Go stand in the cage.” He leans over, plucking the wrench out of Viktor’s grasp. “But I’m the one finishing up these calibrations.”

“What?” His nose wrinkles, stopping just short of a sneer. “You think a little light vomiting is going to keep me from remembering where the decimal place goes?”

“No.” Jayce shakes his head, mouth slanting into a smirk. “I do think you need to change though. You smell like a gutter. Looks like you just rolled out of one too.”

Viktor glances down, taking in the grease and sweat and faint stains of something that still smells vaguely of sick.

“Ah,” he hums, smoothing a hand down his front. “Fair enough.”

*

It’s impossible to find a spare set of clothes his size, Viktor would know— he’s the one who painstakingly takes in his trousers until they stop falling off his hips, who changes the fit of his shirtsleeves so that the stiff corsetry of his brace makes a seamless line with his chest. What Jayce does manage to dig up is a set of women’s trousers— he won’t ask how— with a shirt to match. The hips are far too wide, and the chest refuses to sit flat, but it’s nothing a few safety pins and a jacket can’t cover.

Even still, when he hobbles out in front of that crowd, crutch twisting his frame as he makes his mark, he feels less like a lecturer in front of his peers, and more like a child playing dress up in his mother’s frock. By the looks the gallery gives him, half-curiosity and half-disgust, the reality cannot be far off.

Viktor doesn’t make a habit of attending symposiums— and even less the kind that draw crowds like this— but he’s seen Jayce put on a show before, striding out onto the stage with all the confidence of a born actor. This is the part where the crowd is supposed to hush, awed by the cut of his jaw, or the way his shoulders fill out a jacket. But for him there’s not even a pause, not even a lull he could elbow into. Hell, he’s pretty sure it gets louder, speculation suddenly running rampant as the room realizes another man has taken Jayce Talis’s place. That somehow the sideshow has taken over for the ringmaster.

“Welcome.” His accent bites into the word all wrong, all elbows and knees instead of Jayce’s sure stride, and the murmur only grows, rising like the noise might swallow him whole. It was a mistake to come out here; they’re all expecting a man to rise from the stage perfectly formed, like a god emerging from sea foam, and instead—

Instead they have him.

Presenting isn’t that hard, Jayce had told him as the lecture hall filled. Just pick someone, anyone. Make eye contact. Then it’s not some big show— you’re just talking. Anyone can talk.

Easy thing to say when someone’s walking around looking like him. With a suit one size too large and a face that looks like it’ll faint the next time someone breathes a little too hard in his direction, Viktor isn’t exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to attentive onlookers. At least in this crowd.

He scans the seats, eyes darting from one face to the next, trying to find someone— anyone, really— to hold to. This is why he’d done so well as an assistant all those years; he faded so well into the wallpaper, no one thought to hesitate in front of him, to wonder if Heimerdinger’s dour shadow might remember the promises they made, or the offhand remarks they let slip. But now there’s not one set of eyes that will—

There. It’s the Councilor, half turned in her seat, her conversation partner rambling on, undaunted by her lack of interest. Their eyes meet, that strange static building beneath his skin, and when her brows rise, there’s a question in it— no, a challenge.

“Welcome.” It’s louder this time, breaking through the loudest crust of conversation. “Ladies, gentlemen. Fellow academics.”

Her whole body swivels in its seat, facing him, one hand raised to stem her partner’s words to silence. Her head tilts. Well, it says, curious. You have my attention. What are you going to do with it?

His mouth twitches. Wouldn’t you like to know? “I am sure many of you here have heard of Hextech. That one day we will harness the arcane— the same force that allowed mages to build empires and make miracles— and put it in the hands of ordinary people, just like you, or me.”

This is where Jayce might pace the stage, weaving through the arches like the first step in a magic trick. But Viktor only steps back between them, placing his feet firmly over the smudged cross.

“A pipe dream, some of you might call it. Impossible. Destined to be a pale imitation of the power they wield. But today” — Jayce said to smile here, to be friendly, but Viktor takes one glance at the Councilor's raised brows and it’s a smirk that unfurls instead— “you’ll see the true power of Hextech.”

He lifts his arm, the cue to start flipping switches, to turn a trick to reality, and—

There’s nothing. Not a single spark. Such absence of something that Viktor can’t help but wonder if Jayce has changed his mind, if he’s decided that this is too much of a risk after all. If his second thoughts have brought him back to handy tools and tight boxes, leaving him out here to flounder.

And then, the lights flicker. A flash of dimness that sets a murmur through the crowd. Another chases its heels, longer this time, and in the darkness—

There, the first arc of arcane, stretching from the side of one arch to another. A larger one next, a bolt from top to bottom. Three, just after, bleeding into each other until there’s a pane of glowing blue, so thin he can see through it a moment before it collapses. But then there’s another, and another, larger pieces of a rippled window, staying for seconds before flashing to nothing until—

Until a pane stretches down every arch, roiling like waves against the rocks, a glowing cage that nearly lifts himself off his feet.

“There you have it,” he manages, barely holding back a gleeful laugh. “Man-made arcane.”

He stops fighting his weightlessness, crutch dropping as he floats up from his mark, watching his audience like a fish does from his bowl. Their face fall agape, hands pressed to bosoms and men half crawled out of their seats, torn between awe and fear, and—

Well, there’s one way to make sure it’s wonder that wins the day.

“As you can see…” He reaches out, fingers just barely skimming the surface of the arcane—

Only to find himself on the other side of the arch, gently lowering to the stage. “Even surrounded, I am perfectly safe. Anyone could stand in my place and never fear injury!”

There’s more murmuring now, a din threatening to rise to a fevered pitch. There’s more to the little speech Jayce drilled into him, but there’s no hope of making them listen, not when doubt and fascination already struggle to hold their attention.

None of it ends up being necessary, however. Not when a clear voice calls out “Do you take volunteers?”

Viktor looks up into the Councilor’s self-assured smirk, the glow of the arcane turning the gold flecks on her skin to stars, and reaches out his hand.

*

There’s more than enough back-clapping and congratulations to last Viktor a lifetime when he steps off the stage, feeling too heavy under his own weight. Former classmates— ones who had so easily let their eyes drift over him when he stood in Heimerdinger’s shadow— crawl out from the woodwork, crowding him before he can get a word in edgewise.

“Hey, hey! Give me some room to get to the man of the hour,” Jayce laughs, elbowing a few engineers aside. “You can ask him for the whole spiel when we’re on the exhibition floor.”

“Don’t make promises I don’t plan to keep,” Viktor grumbles, wincing under the hand that clamps onto his shoulder, too tight.

“Speaking of promises,” Jayce says, smile stretched thin as they mount the stairs to the door. “I don’t think we talked about that little stunt you pulled up there.”

Ah, well. “Inspiration of the moment.”

“Inspiration of the…? Are you kidding me?” He groans, scraping a hand over his stubble. “What if you had gotten split in two? Or shattered into a thousand pieces? What then?”

“I ran the calculations,” Viktor informs him primly. “That didn’t seem likely.”

“Likely.” He shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”

"Listen, may--"

“Excuse me.”

A man stands at the top of the aisle, frock coat squared at the shoulders, capped by what seems to be actual gold epaulets, toothed like actual gears. But for all the attention his coat demands, the man beneath it is rather nondescript— save for the mustache, perhaps, and the spectacles set above it.

“I hate to interrupt,” he says, not the least bit contrite. “But I was wondering if you lads might have a moment.”

Jayce blinks. “Ah, we were just heading back to the exhibition hall—”

“Of course, of course. It’s only…I saw your presentation.” The man takes a single step down, and in the light, the rune of Clan Ferros shines. “And I find myself quite…interested in the future of Hextech.”

#melvik #arcane #arcane league of legends #The Man of Progress #my fic #1000 followers #friends let me tell you i was not sure if this thing would be out on time #the first 3K went so slow i thought i would tear my hear out #and i was terrified because oh god this is supposed to be 7K I can't do 7K like this.... #well good news the next 7K went REAL WELL #and now this is 10K #and has thrown my writing schedule into disarray because GOD i have had to edit this TWICE #and it takes HOURS. HOURS to edit this much #but like worth it. can't wait to write these idiots again #in fact going off to write my notes for ch 4 so i don't forget what stuff i was planning on doing 🤣 #thankfully everything for the next few weeks should go a LOT faster

[kpopulation]

Tali, 30s, Canada. (she/her)

Name: Tali Nickname: T/Tee Country: Canada Birth year: 1991 Gender/Pronouns: Female (she/her) Multi?: Totally! I'd likely be more sane (and less broke) if I liked just one group, but I'd also be missing out on so much amazing music. So yeah, proud multi right there. Can I message you?: Of course! Whole reason I started this was to help fans connect with other fans. :) I'm always up for making new friends. Socials?: I used to have a Twitter once upon a time, but I never used it. For now, I'm pretty much just active here (on Tumblr), but if I get to talking with some of you and we hit it off, perhaps we can switch over to email or Kakao. (Not comfortable with just putting that information out for the masses, though. Safety first, guys. :D) Blog URL: kpopulr.tumblr.com

— Fan since: I don't know exactly how long it's been, but I was around the age of 14 when I first got into Korean music, and everything else just snowballed from there. xD First concert: BTS (2018) — Yes, been a fan of the music for nearly 2 decades, but I was late to the game with attending concerts. I just had no one to go with, and only one other fan who liked KPop so I never even considered bringing up going to one to my parents. I wish I had though, because there are a lot of groups that I probably/definitely won't get to see now. (With that said, groups barely come to Canada *now* so I highly doubt I would've had much luck with groups I liked coming back in the early 2000s.) First bias: I'm not 100% sure —because again, it was so long ago— but my guess is either BoA or GD (from Big Bang). If not either of those two, Miyavi. (He's a guitarist from Japan.) Song that got you hooked: Again, been so long, so... I don't know if this is for sure the song that got me, but I do remember watching it A TON when it first came out. I had been listening to Kpop before this point, but I feel like this was what really got me into looking into what other groups might be out there (and I wouldn't be surprised if this was around the time I got into liking 2NE1, too.) Specifically at the 24s point I remember watching over and over and over. (Big crush on BoA back in the day, I gotta say. xD)

Favourite music genre: I listen to literally everything, with the exception of country and classical. I just never really got into it (with the exception of Shania Twain when I was younger, because that was literally the only other type of music in the house apart from gospel, so it was kind of a 'which do I not like the least of these two' situation. haha. Because I'm so all over the map with my music tastes, it was very easy to get into liking music in other languages as well. I'm grateful to Youtube coming along and bringing it all to my attention. (Yes, I'm older than Youtube. What an old fart, eh? xD)

Latest concert attended: Eric Nam, about a week(ish) ago. It was my second time seeing him. Prior to that I attended a concert from Kingdom, and next up I'm going to be seeing D&E. (Majorly Donghae biased gal right there. I'm so excited, even though I don't have great seats.)

Girl groups or guy groups?: Well, I like both, but I certainly stan more of the guy groups. (If I had any friends interested in seeing the girl groups I like —*ahem* Mamamoo... *cough* Hwasa *ahem*— and if any of them would come to my country then I would be SO THERE, but I fear even if they did come I would have to go alone, and being the anxious, socially dysfunctional person that I am... I would not enjoy that experience (no matter how incredible the concert was.)

That's all I can think of at the moment, but as the database gets built up and other people start putting up their profiles, perhaps I can get more ideas of what questions to answer and I'll update my 'bio' more.

#name tali #place canada #age 30s #gender female #kpop #korean #music #kpop fans #kpop fan #jpop fan #cpop fans #tpop fans #fans #database #kpop database #get to know #making friends #friends #grp 2ne1 #grp bigbang #solo boa #grp bts #duo dande #grp ericnam #solo gdragon #grp hwasa #grp kingdom #grp mamamoo #grp miyavi

[judgementdaysunshine]

Love through music

Pairing: Tali'zorah nar rayya x fem reader

Description: After a bad mission and everyone treating you like a burden, Tali reminds you of how much you mean to her and a song that connect the two of you

Warnings: Emotions and extra sweet fluff

You felt like you had the world on your shoulders crushing you "You okay?" you hear calmly beside you seeing Tali looking concerned,letting a sigh out you bite your lips looking at her "No I'm not okay..." you say tears welling up in your eyes as tali gently pulls you into the server room as you both sit down. "What happened?" she asks you as tears roll down your face "The mission was shit and after...everyone is thinking of me as i'm no human" you say letting every tear fall and body shake as you break down "I will never be good enough.." you say sobbing and shaking feeling like your suffocating suddenly feeling warm and seeing something dark instead of the wall realizing tali was hugging and holding you with care and love you can't help returning the hug. You and tali met when her, Shepherd ,and Garrus recruited you as a sniper and on field medic, you formed bonds with everyone but not like you and tali, the two of you immediately became attached at the hip being each other's keeper and best friend telling each other your pasts and secrets that only you both know, you both also taught each other about your cultures and customs even wearing each other's clothes for the day, you smile softly seeing memories of your bond as you feel tali's hand rub up and down your back slowly feeling much calmer than just a few minutes earlier as you wiped your face tali still holding your shoulders rubbing them feeling something put in your ear then music plays realizing it was an earbud "I found this while listening to random music and it just hits close" she says restarting the song you both lay on the ground listening as the song plays immediately feeling a connection to the song. You feel tears run down your face tali wiping them away feeling a metallic noise on the floor, you see tali's helmet on the ground slowly turning to look at her "You will always be more than enough" she says grabbing your face as you stare into her eyes "You're so beautiful" you say leaning up kissing her as she reciprocates smiling hearing the words to the song, later on you lay awake hearing your door open "Mind if i stay?" she says you opening your arms tightly holding her after she lays beside you holding you back "Care for music?" you ask as she nods turning on the song from earlier falling asleep together as the song plays until you wake up that morning.

What do I have to do

To try to make you see

That this is who I am

And it's all that I can be

#mass effect #tali'zorah nar rayya #tali'zorah nar rayya x reader #mass effect x reader

[druidx]

Director's commentary on Talis and the Terrifying Errand Boy or Bilberries?

Hey Han 🧡️

Terrifying Errand Boy is based on one of the marvelous Nostalgic Breton Girl's headcanons that the Mages guild likes to send dremora as their messengers for every tiny task. It's a very fun piece, I think, and I enjoyed playing on the Oxford idea of townies vs scholars.

I toyed with the idea of Talis knowing what a dremora was, but figured it would be much more fun if he had no clue what he was looking at, which leads to what I feel is a very crisp denouement.

He's a simple, gentle soul, my baker boi, who doesn't like dealing with customers on an average day. I enjoyed the idea that once he figured out that the dremora was there to make a purchase, he'd roll out his 'customer service' façade (and if you've ever worked a customer-facing job, you'll know exactly what I mean 😅️).

Like many others, the dremora's derisive line about "little cakes" is my absolute fave, and I can assure you I was cackling as I wrote it. I'm also quite proud of the description of the jam-filled pastries splattered on the floor.

Bilberries was from a server prompt, and originally I wasn't going to do anything with it, despite the inkling of a story it had already stirred (the usual excuses - too tired, no time). But Moth prodded me with it, and ofc I cannot back down from the mere hint of a challenge.

The end of this story is what gave me the most problem. I powered through the first draft, up to the last paragraph, in one afternoon. Then I hit the last line and there just... was no ending. Gods knows how many time I tried to rewrite it, with no avail. So I went through and cleaned up what I had (falling down a rabbit hole of language on UESP, and figuring out the percentages of race in the Imperial City and a few others for kicks in the process). Still couldn't finish it. It took a full 2 months before the very last line was added and I considered it finished.

I very much enjoyed getting to explore Cygwen's character a bit more. Heathlands are one of my favourite sub-biomes, so to be able to bring them to life in the story was a joy for me.

I'm not sure I can tell you why I wrote what I did for this; sometime it's the nature of the story to write you rather than the other way around. I'm still extremely worried someone will come at me for trying to speak for immigrants when it's not my lived experience. But I do know about accidently dropping traditions and how it sort of leaves an unfinished hole in your life if you skip your tradition or ritual, kind of a 'did I lock the door' feeling. I can only assume that's what I was channeling 😅️

Thank you so much for letting me ramble about my baker boi 🧡️ I hope you enjoyed these insights.

🫖️🌿️

#meta writing #oc talis the baker #TESFic #oblivion fanfiction #oblivion fanfic #tes oblivion #The Elder Scrolls #'take a slice of life' series #answered ask #hannahcbrown #meta wandering words

[flightofthefaeriedragon]

Hey, I wanna babble about Kaidan and Zeeyla (my Asari Engineer in our ME5E ttrpg)! I've had fun playing with the 6 month interim between campaigns, and I feel like sharing their basic outline somewhere. 💜

They first saw each other outside Ambassador Anderson's office. Zeeyla's friend and crewmate is Alliance Commander Maria Florentino, who would often report back to Anderson. (They are not, however, an Alliance crew, and despite being registered as Alliance, their ship, The Victor, does not belong to the Alliance military. Zeeyla is Very Serious about this point and is glad that Maria holds the same stance.)

Kaidan was intrigued by the Asari and her fantastical drone (which looks like a winged darwinius in Bisexual jewel tones, with ultra-soft synthetic fur), and the melancholy in her pinged his protective streak. Zeeyla figured he recognized her from her extranet videos, and gave him an awkward wave with the plushie in her hand: a keeper. They were interrupted before they could talk.

(Her videos are a combination of educational sci-comm, hobby/personal rambles, and live accounts of their missions. Her videos and other social media posts often include a plushie along for the adventure.)

They actually met a little while later in the Wards, hit it off, and spent the rest of the day talking with each other. He complimented her by comparing something she said to Carl Sagan, and that's how he found out she's fascinated with first contact communications and the Golden Record in particular. They kept in contact, becoming the first person each wanted to talk to about things.

Neither of them was looking for a romantic relationship. Kaidan was focused on work and preparing for the reapers, and Zeeyla was disinterested in romance in general. After testing out the idea many decades ago, she came to the conclusion that it's just not for her. That doesn't stop Tali from teasing Kaidan: "You think I'd like her? Sounds like you like her!"

The Victor crew starts getting missions from Hackett rather than Anderson, and there's an attitude shift there. Anderson inspired loyalty. Hackett inspires ire.

I'm playing with the idea that several weeks later, they have overlapping visits to Arcturus, and Kaidan takes her to an exhibit on The Golden Record. Or possibly it's done via vid call while she's on Arcturus and he has some free time on Earth.

After that, she starts inadvertently, unconsciously being flirtatious with him. He tries to maintain platonic feelings, but they've both been falling hard without really realizing it.

When Zeeyla finds out the anniversary of Alchera is coming up, she insists on going to Earth to support him. She's been running errands for Hackett for months and she's taking time to do what she wants to do. Kaidan insists he'll be fine, but says he'd love to see her if she wants to come.

They initially have a few days together, just squeezing in visits around Kaidan's work schedule. They walk along the beach in Rio at lunchtime, eating street snacks and taking in the view. When they stop to watch the waves, he reaches for her hand, then hesitates, but she offers it to him and he takes it. It occurs to her how nice it would be to meld with him--platonically, obviously.

He turns her down at first. There's intel in his mind that needs to be kept secret, and he knows she has trouble keeping secrets (some might say it's her biggest Flaw). She assures him he's not obligated, and he doesn't have to justify himself. She also assures him, for future reference, that there are ways of maintaining privacy. They talk through how melds work, what steps can and should be taken to protect oneself and others. She's very protective in how she talks about it, and he ends up changing his mind.

The next day, they join their minds, sharing memories and introducing loved ones. They also share some troubled memories, including the trauma that Zeeyla's been carrying for the past several months, past the wall she's run into when trying to talk to him about it. Her escape from the Prothean homeworld--filled with such horrors as paralyzing indoctrination swarms, slime-filled underground caverns, a lake of doom, Collector mermaids, and a dead banshee at her feet--came at the cost of releasing a reaper, and she doesn't think her survival is worth the lives Imperator might destroy.

Their meld also revealed hints of romantic attraction between the two of them. With Kaidan, it manifested as golden light coming from behind a closed door, meant just for her, and she lingered in its warmth without pushing past the set boundary. Zeeyla's manifested as soft, nebulous wisps of dark energy, unknowable, but his.

Afterward, he admitted he wanted to kiss her...so she kissed him. They talked about building a romantic relationship together. Her flight response kicks in a little bit -- she's used to being an expert at what she does, she doesn't like feeling so inept, she doesn't want to ruin their relationship or hurt him, but she's invested in getting it right.

Shortly after, she takes an opportunity to go up to Mexico City to meet Maria's Tio Benito and attend his lectures on xenotechnologies, something she's wanted to do almost as long as she and Maria have been friends. She assures Kaidan she's not running away, and she'll be back soon...sooner if he needs her. He encourages her to go, and she sends him a lot of excited updates about the lectures, her lovely new friend, and the delicious food.

While she's away, Kaidan secures time off for the days surrounding the Alchera anniversary, and gets them a room at small beachside boutique hotel, a private base to return to. (There's only one bed!...but keep your hopes in check. lol) When she returns, they steal away, they explore the national park, they visit the Museum of Tomorrow (what does that look like in 2186?), they have dinner at a mountaintop restaurant, they drink caipirinhas together on the beach. She contentedly wears his hoodie, even though it has an Alliance logo on it.

They share a bed, but they keep their clothes on. They kiss and cuddle a lot, but back off a bit when things get too heated. Zeeyla finds herself wondering who made this rule, who set this boundary? (It was Zeeyla. Zeeyla did that.)

As Kaidan honors the memory of the Normandy and those who were lost, Zeeyla provides comfort or distraction, as needed. They drink to the Normandy. She offers another toast: to survival, and to building something together with the chance they've been given. She absolutely means it...but she also too-quickly finishes her drink. Shenanigans ensue, followed by a hangover, a migraine, and a lazy, blustery day.

The days run out too soon, and they both return to work.

In the weeks that follow, her flight response dissipates. She frequently teases Kaidan, "Tell your Mister Hackett to send us to Earth!" They eventually agree that after her next mission, she'll go back to Earth, Vancouver this time. The Victor crew visits Arcturus so Maria can get their orders.

The reapers arrive.

#zeeyla and kaidan #zeeyla d'niala #otp something beautiful #long post #flights of the faerie dragon #with a nod to imasithduh <3 #me5e #sorry for the tense shift #my eyes aren't working and I'm too tired to fix it #her other crewmates are awesome too! #I love our group <3 #in game canon is subject to DM's approval #but I'm having fun playing in the blank space #I think about this way too much #lol