#for those of you that care it was babylon waste the night and you don’t go to parties

[givemea-dam-break]

my final straw was getting excited watching a “your birth month and your 5sos golden trio songs” and then proceeding to see that it was june with quite literally 3 of my favourite songs i’ve never felt such acute betrayal

#for those of you that care it was babylon waste the night and you don’t go to parties #shove if you don’t know in there along with bleach and boom you’ve got my top 5 #i am hurt tiktok is killing me #5 seconds of summer #WAIT THEYRE ALL CALUM SONGS TOO HES MY FAVOURITE MEMBER #fucks sake #givemea-dam-opinion

[lesbianlotties]

Folklore and/or Evermore (the new Taylor Swift albums)

Oh my God. Okay. This got out of hand. There’s too much to unpack here. I have to say folklore wins in my opinion. but I tried my best. it’s probably too much, so....

Folklore AND Evermore x Andy/Quynh

Folklore:

"You know the greatest films of all time were never made” aka the Andromaquynh prequel we deserve

It’s about the “You drew stars around my scars. But now I'm bleedin'” the “Marked me like a bloodstain” the “Tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy,” the “But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss. I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs. The smell of smoke would hang around this long.” but mostly it’s about Mortal Andy, tired, exhausted, done with the world and all it’s weight, just so Quynh arrives right on time and “when I felt like I was an old cardigan. Under someone's bed. You put me on and said I was your favorite”

“She had a marvelous time ruining everything" sound a little bit like Quynh smiling at Andy after the two of them successfully put an end to the crimes of many villians through history, doesn’t it?

my tears ricochet: extremely Andromaquynh song. I could make an entire post about it. starting with the “if I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes, too,” and of course “'Cause I loved you, I swear I loved you. 'Til my dying day”

Quynh watching Andy go on without her but still mourning “I didn't have it in myself to go with grace. And you're the hero flying around, saving face. And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?” And there’s Quynh’s memory haunting Andy, and Andy still wearing her necklace “You know I didn't want to have to haunt you. But what a ghostly scene. You wear the same jewels that I gave you. As you bury me”

and when they’re reunited Andy wouldn’t fight it if Quynh wanted to kill her “And you can aim for my heart, go for blood. But you would still miss me in your bones” So many times she had wished Quynh would be dead, it would be easier than knowing she was still suffering, but still hurt “You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same.”

“Please picture me in the weeds. Before I learned civility. I used to scream ferociously. Any time I wanted” two immortal wives, older than civilization, loving each other and traveling through unknown lands

Now, imagine all the legends these two women started, loving each other for longer than love has been a thing, “Passed down like folk songs Our love lasts so long”

A concept: When she comes back, Quynh find Booker first instead of Andy because “I didn't know if you'd care if I came back. I have a lot of regrets about that.” because “They told me all of my cages were mental. So I got wasted like all my potential. And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad” and “And it's hard to be at a party when I feel like an open wound. It's hard to be anywhere these days when all I want is you.”

When losing Quynh, life completely changed for Andy, colors lost meaning “You showed me colors you know I can't see with anyone else” and she still knows all those dead languages that only Quynh and her remembered “You taught me a secret language I can't speak with anyone else”

Andy lived maybe 3k years of loneliness, just so she could find Quynh, and it was absolutely worth it, “Time, curious time. Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs. Were there clues I didn't see? And isn't it just so pretty to think, All along there was some, Invisible string, Tying you to me?”

Quynh dealing with completely understandable and fair rage toward humanity? oh, you mean “No one likes a mad woman. What a shame she went mad. You made her like that”?

The first time they dream of each other after dying , the first time they allow themselves to hope, “Only twenty minutes to sleep. But you dream of some epiphany. Just one single glimpse of relief. To make some sense of what you've seen”

“you heard the rumors from Sebastien, you can’t believe a word he says i’m still immortal i swear”

“I'm a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm. If your cascade, ocean wave blues come” and it’s been five hundred years and Andy has known no peace, not until she gets her lover back, “Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?”

“My only one. My smoking gun. My eclipsed sun. This has broken me down. My twisted knife. My sleepless night. My winless fight. This has frozen my ground. Stood on the cliffside screaming, "Give me a reason". Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in. Don't want no other shade of blue but you. No other sadness in the world would do” Do i have to add something? That’s complete and absolutely Andy talking about Quynh

Evermore:

“I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night. Rough on the surface, but you cut through like a knife” Andy is definitely the type to appear too tough and then Quynh shows up as her only weakness.

“There's an ache in you, put there by the ache in me“ and it’s five hundred years of aching

A concept: Andy and Quynh going around killing horrible men while “No body, No crime” plays in the background

“Haunted by the look in my eyes. That would've loved you for a lifetime” for endless lifetimes

okay. coney island. listen... picture Andy wondering why, wondering how did she lose Quynh, weren’t they supposed to be immortal, supposed to be together until the end? “If I can't relate to you anymore Then who am I related to? And if this is the long haul, How'd we get here so soon?” 

picture Andy, keeping some of the traditions she had with Quynh, but going there alone “Were you waiting at our old spot, In the tree line”

and worst of all, picture Andy, when she realized she was mortal, when Booker shot her, when she thought she was about to die, but also maybe every day since then “When the sun goes down, The sight that flashed before me was your face”

“you’re an immortal cowboy like me” was the first thing andy said to quynh “Now you hang from my lips. Like the Gardens of Babylon (andy was literally there). With your boots beneath my bed. Forever is the sweetest con” and of course, it’s undeniable Andy has said “I'm never gonna love again“  countless times since losing Quynh

And here we have Andy trying to explain to Quynh the existential crisis she had while waiting for her “And I fell from the pedestal. Right down the rabbit hole. Long story short, it was a bad time. Pushed from the precipice. Climbed right back up the cliff. Long story short, I survived”

“If I didn't know better, I'd think you were still around. What died didn't stay dead. You're alive, you're alive in my head. What died didn't stay dead. You're alive, so alive” SHE IS

There’s Andy going “It's been a long time. And seeing the shape of your name, Still spells out pain” but there’s also Quynh going “Don't treat me like Some situation that needs to be handled, I'm fine with my spite”

Consider: Andy, drowning in guilt, replaying the witches’ trials on her head. Andy writing letters to Quynh, having nowhere to send them, “I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone. Trying to find the one where I went wrong. Writing letters. Addressed to the fire” and then Andy finding strength just because of the thought of Quynh, “And when I was shipwrecked, I thought of you, In the cracks of light, I dreamed of you, It was real enough, To get me through” and finally, Andy desperately believing Quynh would come back, their hope restored, “I couldn't be sure I had a feeling so peculiar This pain wouldn't be for Evermore”

send me an album and I’ll make it about Andromaquynh 

#it's unfair how some of these song fit so well #also please appreciate my jokes ghjfdgh #the old guard #andy x quynh #andromaquynh #immortal wives #andromache the scythian #quynh #i need a little pause before doing the next two albums but please everyone you're welcome to send more! #andromaquynh albums

[willddheartt]

Babylon: Neon Lights | C.H. Chapter Three: Empty Wallets

DISCLAIMER: SOME PARTS MIGHT BE R RATED !! Series warnings: Substances (alcohol & cigarettes), Anger (snappy comments), that’s it??

Series Masterlist

July 7th Ashton’s birthday. Violet and I were lucky enough to get the day off of work, letting us sleep in as preparation for the events of this evening. Waking up at the early time of 1:00 PM, in the afternoon, I ran out to get Violet and I breakfast. Since it was already the afternoon our breakfast consisted of burgers and fries from the restaurant down the street. 

Before I knew it we were getting ready for the club. I ended up slipping on some really short black shorts with a pair of fishnets underneath them, paired with my normal, red high top converse and a black halter top and my normal plaid shirt over top of that. My short hair hung along the sides of my face in its natural waves as I pulled the entire look together with perfectly winged eyeliner and a black lip.  Violet and I walked to the club where it was only two blocks away from our apartment. The guys were waiting for us outside when we arrived, I greeted Ashton with a hug and a happy birthday before we went inside. 

The night started off alright, everyone did everything in their power to keep Calum and I separated to keep the conflict to the minimum and I kept my glares to myself. The music was too loud for me to be able to hear his snarky comments if he made any. But as we all became more and more intoxicated, the thought of keeping Calum and I separate slipped their minds and they began dragging both him and I to dance at the same time. Standing by the bar, and evidently next to Calum, I was telling Violet that I would join her in one second. I was just getting another drink. But none of that went to plan as someone from the crowd bumped into me, causing a domino effect as I stumbled backward into Calum and he spilt his beer. 

“The fuck!” He yelled, pushing me off him in response.  “Jesus, It was an accident,” I responded to his irritated reaction “Like fuck it was!” He shouted at me, everyone and the bartenders getting ready to stop anything violent if it were to happen. The air was tense and it almost seemed as if the music stopped. “Oh yeah, you really think I’d bump into you on purpose?” I snapped, “You know irritating you isn't high on my priority list Hood,”  “Well you seem to be doing a good job at it, you know how hard it's gonna be to get it out of the leather?”  “I don’t really care,” 

By now Ashton, Luke, Michael and Violet noticed the conflict that had been taking place and stood back but they were around enough that if anything were to happen they could step in.  “I don’t understand why you can't just remain neutral. I get that we can't be friends, Calum, but why do you have to be so overly aggressive and annoyed for no reason, I try to get along and you just don't fucking care!” I yelled, waiting for an answer but he looked dumbfounded. “Fuck you,” I mumbled before leaving to get some air. 

I lit a cigarette and leaned against the uneven cement wall, my left leg bent at the knee resting on the wall, and threw my head back as I blew the smoke from my lungs. Everything within myself wanted to scream at Calum right now, maybe even throw a few punches at him, but I knew nothing but more trouble would come from that. The uneasy look on Ashton's face I saw as I left was enough to make me regret everything.  The sound of the heavy club door closing pulled my attention from the empty sky to my right. As if the gods wanted me to suffer exponentially tonight, Calum stepped out of the club, looking both ways down the street until he saw me. 

“The fuck do you want?” I sighed as Calum approached “Bum a smoke?” He mumbled, just like the other day.  I shook my head and shoved my pack back into my back pocket. “Out,” Turning my attention to the street, watching the cars passing and ignoring him as he stood next to me.  “I'm trying to be civil, Rossa,” He sighed     I scoffed, “Civil? Now? Wow do you have bad timing,” I shook my head.  “That's what I’ve been trying to do all along.”

“You! What reason do you have to bring civil up to me? The last I recall you were the one initiating the snarky bickering.” Quickly I looked over at Calum, he looked as if he were going to say something but I shook my head and cut him off before he could get it out, “You know what, I don't even wanna hear it.” I dropped my cigarette butt to the ground, putting it out with the bottom of my shoe, “I’ve been trying to get on your good side for three years Calum, three fucking years. At this point I don't even think you have one, or if you do there's no way in hell I'll get on it, so forget it, I'm done trying.”  All my bottled up anger from the past years finally was bubbling up and it all came out at once, “If you really mean those things about everyone not wanting me around that you were mumbling at dinner the other night, you got your wish. I’m gone. Now just fuck off.”  I pulled the pack of cigarettes from my pocket and lit another one as I took off, walking down the street in the direction of Violet and I’s apartment. 

Maybe I was just drunk with no filter, or maybe I actually meant everything I said to him, it didn’t matter anymore. I finally had it my way and there was no way in hell I was going to voluntarily see Calum Hood. 

August 7th   Friday movie night at Ashton’s turned into Friday movie night alone at the apartment. I wasn’t going to make the other change their plans just because I couldn't stand one of their friends, obviously, Calum was right and I had been the problem. The Friday after Ashton’s birthday I apologized for everything that happened in the past and for ruining his birthday, and we went out to lunch. He looked really disappointed when I told him I didn’t plan on joining them on movie night but told him I’ll be there next week even though I had no plans of going next Friday. I just didn’t know how to break it to him that I was becoming a stranger. Luckily I didn’t have to because distancing myself was easier than I expected. The Monday following movie night, I got calls and texts asking why I missed it, but when I missed out Wednesday dinner, they started to get concerned, until they all just stopped trying to contact me, only sending messages for me through Violet who would text me or tell me when she got home. 

As the sunset over the buildings in the city, and the sun twinkled off the various skyscrapers that were visible from the 12th story apartment balcony, my Friday movie night turned into a Friday club night. Pulling on an outfit nicer than sweats and a sports bra, I didn't really care what I looked like, I wasn’t looking for a one night stand I just wanted to get wasted.  Surprisingly the club was emptier than last time, and the music a touch quieter. Although the vodka was watered down just the same. Everything was going amazingly, I forgot about the massive FOMO I was having over movie night with each new drink I consumed, at least until I saw the same leather jacket I was sticking to, on the uncomfortable wicker couch less than a month ago, hanging off its owner's shoulders. Calum and I locked eyes for a moment before he left a bill at the bar and walked out. 

I felt stupid for doing it, but it was my turn to chase after him. After telling him off about two days ago, I was now running after him. 

It was a perfect parallel, Calum leaned on the wall the exact way I had a month before. His left leg lifted, bent at the knee foot flat on the uneven cement wall, and head thrown back resting against the concrete.  I walked up to Calum, noticing the cigarette that hung between his lips.  “What did I do?” I asked, catching Calum’s attention.  “Hm?” He asked  “What did I do,” I repeated, I knew how desperate and broken I sounded but at this point, I didn’t care, I was just so fed up and down with everything I needed answers.  “You really don't know?” He asked  I shook my head, “Does it seem like I'm fucking with you, Hood?” 

He took a long drag from his cigarette before holding it out to me, not starting his story until I took it from him. 

“I don't remember how long we had known each other when this happened but remember when we started out good? Like we could get along?” He asked I nodded my head for him to continue as I finished off the cigarette he handed me, “When my birthday came around you completely blew me off, and the plans we made for dinner, all to hang out with some guy. I looked forward to those plans for weeks, and you just blew me off, no ‘something came up’ text, not even an apology.” By this time I had already lit my own cigarette, chain-smoking had become a habit I couldn't shake since last month, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I- I don't know how that just slipped me.”  Calum nodded, taking the cigarette from my hand, “I understand. Now that I say it out loud I see how petty I was being,” He admitted,  I shook my head, “No, I was terrible, a bitch even. I feel horrible now. Is there any way I can make it up to you?” 

#5sos #5 Seconds of Summer #calum hood #ashton irwin #luke hemmings #michael clifford #5sos imagine #5 seconds of summer imagine #Calum hood imagine #Ashton irwin imagine #Luke hemmings imagine #Michael clifford imagine

[dream-wreck]

A Song to Suit Yourself

It feels so good to write fanfiction again. Heck, it feels good to write again. This little thing started last summer, inspired by this post, and I’m finally sending it afloat upon the internet’s temperamental waters. Good Omens fandom, I hope you receive it well. Enjoy!

AO3

Title: A Song to Suit Yourself Rating: G Word Count: 2,186 Description: Crowley fixates on a new type of music, though Aziraphale can’t quite figure why. What would a demon want with lullabies?

Neither knew exactly how they ended up in the same Scottish field at exactly the same time beneath the same lonely apple tree, but it probably had something to do with their impending assessments.

Hastur and Ligur would be around soon to check in and report on Crowley’s Deeds of the Day, which were quickly becoming Brief Surveys of the Deeds of the Decade, as they hardly ever popped around anymore. Crowley didn’t dare complain. But he’d been putting off his Evil Deed -- you know, the Big One, which made up for a long dry period of demonic activity -- and it was time to get on that. So. Scotland.

Aziraphale still received regular unscheduled visits from Gabriel, “just checking in” to see that all was going smoothly. Aziraphale had begun to question his own understanding of omnipotence. Or, at least the Head Office’s ability to communicate sporadic schedule changes to literally the only active angel they had on Earth. In biding his time -- and seeking some overdue meditation -- Scotland.

So much for that.

“They’re calling them ‘lullabies’,” Crowley said. “They sing them at children. To make them fall asleep.”

Aziraphale considered this news while he cut off another slice of red apple. He offered some to Crowley. The demon curled his upper lip at the clean white disk.

“Humans have always sang songs to their children,” Aziraphale said once he realized that the news was not news at all. “Remember Babylon?”

They both smiled self-pleased smiles. You’d almost think they were sharing the same memory, but for Crowley baring considerably sharper teeth. “Oh yes,” he said.

“That poor woman you tormented for a spell,” Aziraphale recalled. “I was the one who recommended that she write her composition down. It was a beautiful tune...in spite of its inspiration.” 

Crowley shrugged. “I did not ‘torment her.’ She adopted me as the house god, what was I supposed to do? I was on assignment. Besides, she had a lovely home. It was nice to settle down for a bit. The point is, now they have a new word for it.”

“For tormenting?”

“No. The music. Keep up.” He let the pieces of the word roll off his tongue. “Lull-ah-bye…”

Aziraphale was occupied with his apple, plucked from the branches above. In his humble and learnéd opinion, few tastes in the world yet rivaled that of a fresh-picked apple. Being an angel, he also had an extensive understanding of the art of Music. Angels invented it, after all, but its purposes were rather limited in Heaven. If Crowley had come to him with news of a new kind of Music, or a new purpose for it, he would have been ecstatic and fully enthralled. But he hadn’t, so he wasn’t, and was therefore only mildly interested, though he tried his best to humor his associate. “Singing to babies helps them grow, you know. It teaches them new sounds, new words. And I personally don’t believe you’re ever too young to discover the joy of Music.”

Crowley chose not to tell him that he was missing the point, but he wasn’t entirely sure of his point to begin with. Something about the word struck a strange chord with him (all puns unintended and unrecognized). It had a sound like a plucked lute string and the curve of a lifting chin.

For a while, in silence, the two continued their survey of the Scottish countryside and a hundred miles beyond. Serious business. The evening began to settle in a comfortable calm, the sun yawning out a stretch of gold before its final disappearance beneath the hills. The angel and the demon each wondered what the other was thinking. Aziraphale wondered why Crowley had become so caught up in a single word. Crowley wondered why Aziraphale hadn’t.

The angel bit into another slice of apple. The satisfying crunch in the silence finally whet Crowley’s own appetite. He flicked his wrist and a bright red replica of the angel’s supper fell into his hand.

Aziraphale looked hurt. “I hadn’t realized this tree’s fruit dissatisfied you.”

“What, did I hurt its feelings?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, taking a moment to examine himself, not wanting to lie. “But I’m quite proud of this tree.” He sat a little taller. “I planted and raised it from seed myself, you know.”

Crowley -- who had been leaning against the apple tree’s trunk since the early morning -- sat up and scrutinized the bark as though he’d just noticed it were there. 

“Well what’d you go and do something like that for? When you could just --”

He snapped his long fingers. A few paces off, a plum tree that had not been there before shivered in a gentle breeze that had not been caused by anything but a general notion.

Aziraphale flushed. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. They’ve been cracking down on miracles that are not meant for a heavenly purpose. Besides, I found that I rather enjoyed the process of raising a living thing. You might try it, learn a thing or two. Watering, trimming, revisiting the little sapling now and again to encourage it out of the ground. And it clearly paid off. It took time and it took patience. And it was beautiful. The way God intended.”

Crowley gagged. Time and patience. The plum tree disappeared, but a pile of fresh, dark plums remained at his arm’s length, the skin so deeply purple they were almost black. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Just seems a waste of time.”

“Of course you’d think that,” Aziraphale said. “You know, it’s your constant need for excitement that gets you into trouble. You never sit still.”

“I do!” Crowley defended through a mouthful of bleeding plum. “I am now! And I do when I...you know, when I...you know.”

Aziraphale did not know, but he waited patiently for Crowley to realize that. Crowley did not elaborate.

He tossed his half-eaten fruit into the field, grumbling, “Who came up with the name ‘lullaby’ anyway? They’ve been rubbish at naming things from the Beginning. I’ll never forgive them for the turtle dove...Lullaby. Luhll. Ahhh. Bye. Stupid from the start. Lull....”

“For a dissenter, it sure sticks to your tongue easily.”

“So does mud. Doesn’t make it worth the taste. They think they’re so clever. If they’re so clever, switch things up a bit, do. All those songs, all lullabies ever talk about are dreams and trees and all the pain coming your way if you don’t fall asleep right this instant. All these languages since Babel and not a single one has whipped together hardly anything to move me to tears. Frankly, I’m just not impressed.”

He stopped. Not because he was finished. He felt eyes on him. Angel eyes, confused and concerned, and certainly out of their element.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Perhaps if you let them know that you have been their target audience all along, they’d show improvement. Better yet, put all that wealth of yours to use and commission one to your liking. Lord knows why you care in the first place.”

Aziraphale’s apple had finally been reduced to its core. The knife he was using ceased to exist.

“They’re too much like you lot,” Crowley continued. “Or at least you. Moving so slow. Doing slow things and inventing things that make them move even slower. Want to put the goblins to sleep? They’ve got spells for that. Spoon o’ brandy will do the trick. Or a knock upside the head. Practically instantaneous.”

Aziraphale bristled. “I thank God no one has put a child in your care.”

“On that, angel, we assent.”

The angel stood up, brushed out his jacket and tights. “I best get a move on. Several evening miracles to perform in the next town over.”

Crowley didn’t move, but he was suddenly standing. “Likewise. Which way are you headed?”

Aziraphale pointed to the north.

Crowley jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward the south.

“Will you be in Scotland long?”

Crowley looked out to the empty fields. “Depends on what I can find here. I suppose if you’ll be around, I’ll be around. You know. Cancel --”

“Cancel each other out. Yes,” Aziraphale said, low and bristling, turning to the north. “Well, good evening to you.”

He paused. “I hope you find a song to suit your heart.” And he started north across the field, leaving Crowley, who did not turn to the south, alone beneath the apple tree. 

Crowley slumped down against the trunk with his legs stretched toward the setting sun.

Sunsets start to look the same the more you see and the longer you live. There had been only a handful of truly extraordinary sunsets that stuck in Crowley’s busy memory since the Beginning, and few of them were memorable without their contexts. Context is everything. He’d given up long ago on watching sunsets for the hope of an explosion of color to beat the rest. But he still appreciated the thrill of witnessing night stretch over the world like a lumbering dragon splaying out for a nap.

He missed dragons. Not many of them left, nowadays.

As darkness settled in, Crowley began a meditation of his own.

All around him, he felt history’s fine threads weave through the air. Ghosts and imprints left on the surface of the earth and the face of Time itself that had disappeared from visual perception, but lingered as golden strands only few could ever see. Battles and laughter, deaths and creation, all tangled together and tumbling, just above the ground and through the rich soil. Threads thick as vines wrapping around the trunk of the apple tree. The eternal, distant echoes of screams and songs looping round and round the earth like Saturn’s rings, and if Crowley squinted hard enough, he could see their harmonies gleaming.

“I do sit still,” he said to no one in the dark. Or maybe, not to no one.

“Why do they get songs?” he wondered aloud. “What do they have to be comforted about? Everything is given to them, handed to them. All they do is sleep. Bet no one sings their parents songs. They’ve got the hardest of the lot. They’ve got all the troubles. No one writes lullabies for the ones who need them most.”

And he knew in his heart -- or the swirling matter he’d begun to think of as the place where part of his not-soul lived -- exactly why children got all the songs. Because children need distractions from all the Unknown they float in, until they can lift their heads and start finding answers for themselves. The Unknown is a terrible thing to dwell on, even for the youngest minds, whose curiosity more often than not sustains them.

And for the ones who know? Are there no songs for them? The Unknown scrambles the mind, yes, but the Certain, the Absolute, whittles the mind to a rounded end. Fixation on the Certain can be as maddening as floating in obscurity.

Crowley was falling back into fixation. Such was often the case whenever he sat still, so he tried to avoid it whenever possible. But true to pattern, his mind eventually numbed to the humming of the world, to the whispers of Time wrapping like gossamer around this green earth, invisible to all but the eyes of those who have seen more, who know more, and carry the burden of the Certain. And the boiling lake sloshing deep within the earth grew hot against his calves and the heels of his feet.

He tilted his head up to the sky and squinted into the cobalt. The harmonies of history came into focus, golden ribbons rippling in tired dance.

He hadn’t slept in nearly a century. When he last awoke, he’d missed a lot, and wasn’t anxious to miss any more. But now, unnamed weight rested on his head, a heavy fog that stings the eyes and confuses the senses. The kind with its own eyes lurking just beyond the haze. Not a comfortable Saturday morning fog, by any means.

He wanted to lie down forever. He wished this field were safe enough to do just that, but sensed beyond the hills the warm bodies of beasts waking up to hunt by dim starlight, and he fancied this body too much to risk its demise.

Suddenly, there was a snake, long, dark, and terrifying, and if someone were to notice this creature as it slithered around and up the wide tree trunk, they’d see its scales shimmering impossibly through the pitch black eve, reflecting an invisible light. It curled up on a scooping bough like an endless coil of shadowy rope, and it was thankful for the tree being there tonight. 

Snakes cannot hum. That’s impossible. But many impossible things had already happened that day, and the snake, feeling safe enough to do so within the dense shelter of leaves, tried his hand at melody, content for the words he deeply felt to remain unformed, unspoken, as the song was for him alone, and he was -- as he knew and feared -- quite alone for now.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #Aziraphale #crowley #anthony j crowley #scotland #lullaby #lullabies #a song to suit yourself #neil gaiman #Terry Pratchett #infp-dreamwreck #fanfiction #fanfic #anybody catch the hadestown easter egg? #improperly proper nouns are so much fun #no wonder those two went crazy with em

[improbablecarny]

The Best Good Parts of Ghostlights

As according to me

The second half of the story that began with The Mystery of Time, Ghostlights is a promise of similar bombast, excitement, and generally killer music that sure ghosts my lights. ... Is that anything? No? Whatever. Let’s get on to the part we all actually care about:

The spooky skeletons.

Or, you know, the music:

Storyline: The Antiquarian’s shop has burned down, the little clock is as enigmatic as ever, and Aaron Blackwell realizes that the scientists he’s found himself entangled with are really a cult set on controlling the passage of time... and the minds of all at its mercy.

Quick Notes:

Character name changes! The Nobleman is now the Magician, the Antiquarian is now the Mystic (I think he’s the same dude, anyway).

The story is a little harder to follow now, as we’ve done away with the journal entries. However, there’s still a good amount of character interaction, you can suss out a thing or two. What do you think?

There isn’t as much orchestration this time, but the trend of cool, time-themed sound design continues, so keep an ear open.

You know the drill. Official playlist. Stuff it in your earholes.

Mystery of a Blood Red Rose

The Meatloafification is complete. Literally: this song was written for Meat Loaf, who ended up passing on it despite initial positive reception. Ah, well.

This is also the song entered to Eurovision, putting Avantasia in the running to become the German representative. They did not win. Ah, well.

Those points aside, this song really rules. It’s upbeat, catchy, and has a lot going for it.

“Don’t have no TIIIIIME TO WAAASTE”

*choir* BRING ON THE NIGHT

...”while the HOUR DON’T WAIT FOR A BLINK TO CRAM THE PAST” (yes!... what?)

LET THE SCENT OF A POISONOUS ROSE TEMPT ME AWAY

“BOY REACH OUT FOR WHAT IS DUE!” legiterally thought was Bob Catley. Was Tobi. A+

....we’re OFF INTO THE MOOOOOONSHIIIIIINE

Let the Storm Descend Upon You

Big dramatic piece, soaring and mysterious with multiple vocalists... including the return of Jorn Lande as a spirit known as “Temptation”, or as I like to think of him, “Stupid Sexy Satan”.

“Light... breathe and sleep tight...” fakeout prechorus getting me hyped

“It may be your vault... NOW IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

“Oh that’s where I’ve been too... there’s nothing but a void over the sanity of foooools!”

Now the CHORUS FOR REAL: bright, almost gospel-esque 🤘😩🤘

“LIGHT... bring me the LIGHT!”

“I will bring uncertainty on a silver plate / like a mantlepiece / I will wipe out darkness!”

“Night! / BLESSED IS THE NIIIIIIiiIIIght!!!”

The “and I Will Make You Mine” lines first sung by Jorn and then Ronnie are both so wickedly ominous I love it

I said the chorus was fantastic in general but there’s something in particular about the last couple lines that musically always makes me go bonkers

THE BREAKDOWN

“For all the world will see it... tower to the stars...” Ronnie’s ACTING

“Let the storm descend upon me / let aurora fall upon me!” AARON...

Jorn does a Jorn thing, it’s badass, so it goes

The whole thing is badass, really.

The Haunting

Look out, Dee Snider is a spooky ghost on our next Sinister Theatrical Evil Guy song!

Again nailing the atmosphere. This is a “running through my mansion halls in a nightrobe holding a candlestick wailing as I’m chased by ghosts” song

S̺͚͙L̯̕E̞̞̼͙̤͝E̗P̟̖̣̟̣̝͉ TI͎G͖̥̭̦͈͉H̤̙̫̤͞ͅT̹͍̫͘ ̧̪͔̥͈S̫͕̱̼͖̮̞O̙̱̥͚̠͎͉M̤̥͔͠E̵̫̗͓̝O͙N̩̫̲E̞̯̱̩̞̣̟’͖S̵̺͖ ̺͍̼́A̖L̜̪WA͡Y͇̫͓̩̟̺͘S̝͇̬͇̟ ҉͓̘͍̯̣̗B͕͇̪͍̥͓͉̀Y͓̭̹͢ ̴Y̼O̰̥̯̭̻͍̖͠U͚̪̭̬̯R̘ ͈S͏̗̣̖̻͈̖̤I̸͎͎̟DͅE̮̺͍̠͙

“Don’t you waste your time to try / and understand this figment of the night” + crazy cool background instrumentals

This song is like if the Trans Siberian Orchestra’s thing was Halloween instead of Christmas

S̱͔̤̟̹̺͞W҉̭E̜̲̟̱̹͇ͅE͓̝̙͖ͅT̟̭ ̲͚̥̩͖͙͍D͔Ṛ̴͖̗̠E̬͝A̭͚M̖ͅS̴̪̲̙ͅ ̱̲͙̼̤S̲͎̖͈̝Ę̜̼̞̠̳̠͖E͙ ̺̗͎̞̞͍̫Y̛͖̭͔̠̭̜O̧̭̫͓̖͖̦U̘̯͘ ̳̦̼̯̘͉͝IN҉͔ ̡̥̯̥̳T̵͇͚͈̻̺H̶̫E̛̖ ̝̪̤̘T͚W̭I̛̼̦̣̘͉L̖̬̳̱̘̱IG̦͇̣̟͕̯H̤̱͎̦̳̝T ̜͕̻Z̠͍̣̩̥O͓̖̹̪̖͖ͅN̦͙̩̥͓͘E̷͓͓̬̮ͅ

😱: God I must contain my wayward fantasy!

👻👻👻: AHHH Ahhhh ahhh!

“I’m the spark they refuse to conceive...” DRAMATIC PIANO

Seduction of Decay

Hello, Geoff Tate. Welcome to Avantasia!

Cool instrumentation!

“You... m̠̻͉A̴̟Ý̳͖͍̱ ͍̦͠N͏̣̮O͇̘͕͖͈͘T̨̞̫ ̼̹̖̮͕̺F̞̩̼͇̯͓͎É͉̫͖È͖̞͎͇L͇̥͚̯̲ ҉̰I̘̰̪̪͓͖̱T͎̱͕̩ ”

This is a slower-paced one but it’s cool to chill out to when you’re in the right mood.

Ghostlights

Wait, we’re four songs in, it must be time for: the Michael Kiske power metal anthem!

“I don’t know if I’m right or wrong! I don’t know if I shall go on!”

“MINDS fly FREE when the gates fly open! Walk on through...”

⛈ “THUNDER AND RAIN AND THE WIND IN MY FACE” ⛈😭

“GHOSTlights DANCE will you HEED the TOKEN??? Blaaazing LIGHT...”

“BLINDING MY EYES GET ME OUT OF THIS MAZE!”

Time signature changes in the chorus... whew

“Fireworks surround me... wherever they GO THEY TELL ME always home!”

Sudden Jorn!

THEY. CALL. ME. HOOOOOOME

Draconian Love

You shed draconian love, you shed draconian love 🎶

Taking a hard turn into goth with Herbie Laghans, revealing to the world that he has a deep liquid chocolate voice apparently

“Tell me how should I embrace? / Like roses we’ll wither on the vine” 👀

HEY HEY HEY

The whole “infiltrate us with mercy” verse is Big Sexy

“Of an unbred cause / an unborn will / whatever THAT MAY MEEEEEEAAAAANN”

The last chorus and pre-chorus? Yes???

Seriously, does Herbie sing like this anywhere else ever?... Can he do it more?

Master of the Pendulum

There wasn’t a Sinister Theatrical Evil Guy song on TMoT so Ghostlights gets two

This one has Nightwish’s Marco Hietala, being crazy good at being a Sinister Theatrical Evil Guy (Ronnie also slays it in live performances)

SUPER cool atmosphere, the Watchmaker is wild.

“Tick-Tock Tick-Tock SOMEONE’S WATCHING OVER ME”

Catchiest chorus EVER

“That’s WHO I AM! I’m the MASTER of THESE haaaands...!”

“I feel your breath on my neck / I feel you behind my back / and as I’m turning around there’s just this frightening sound” 😱😱😱

“I feel it EVERYWHERE... oh I KNOW that you’re there....” 🕯👀

Alternating vocalists on the second run at the chorus!

The interlude with all the clocks ticking argh it’s SO COOL! SO COOL!! STOP BEING SO COOL!

MASTER OF THE HANDS THAT PUSH YOU!

Isle of Evermore

Sharon den Adel is here, it’s a sad ballad.

I like the weird quality to this one. The electronic quality to it reminds me of the intro to Savior in the Clockwork as well, it seems to be a way of representing dreamscapes in this duology, which is interesting.

Float away on Sharon’s voice... sail away through that opening door...

Babylon Vampyres

“A lot of good advice nobody’s keeping for themselves!” is a mood.

“The future ahead is not what it used to be” Tobi keeps using that line and it wrecks my shit every time

“BABYLON IS BURNING... SHINING FROM AFAR!

BABYLON IS BURNING... FROM SUNSET TO SUNRISE!

BABYLON IS BURNING AND YOU’RE GLOWING LIKE A FIERY STAR!

AND no one can tell... if we’ve been for real...”

Tobi and Rob’s tradeoff

The “Ever since I could remember...” passage

Lucifer

Beautiful mournful ballad, intense emotion, will melt some faces

Jorn as the embodiment of temptation is nothing new after The Wicked Trilogy but I think it’s interesting how his character takes a sympathetic turn in this one

“Morning star embrace me on these grounds” the plaintive desperation... INTO it

He WILL Take You Home Tonight

“I’ll make you fume with fury and rage / I’ll make you see what you’re made of tonight” 🤘😏

The last “TOUCHING THE FLAMES TONIGHT” dueting

Unchain the Light

That intro sounds like revving machinery. MUSICAL PICTURES. Have I said “this is SO COOL” enough yet?

The Kiske/Ronnie/Tobi tradeoff chorus is DIVINE

The second verse... I LOVE this character! Jesus CHRIST!

The “you look above to see inside yourself / and find time standing still” part... Aaron’s character turn...

“You turn this moment into what you think it ought to be / DEMYSTIFY THE DAAAAARK”

Great energetic climax. Just. 😭

A Restless Heart and Obsidian Skies

UGH THIS SONG. Again closing the album on a Bob Catley note, but this one is not 10 minutes long for once.

Beautiful beautiful denouement. 😭

The part after the first verse in the instrumental when you can hear time restart 😭😭😭

“Tender feet on stony ground” 🥺

“Sacred heart will you usher me now” 🥺🥺

The whole-ass chorus

“Wake to the SHADOWWW OF A DREAM / NOTHING’S what it seems!” 🥺🥺🥺🥺

“Ghostlights and matter / you know what is real / perception and facts all the same / truth’s what you feel” 🥺🥺😭😭

The whole “and the wind and the rain...” part

This song kills me based on what I think is happening in the story, the atmosphere, the melody, the everything

Cloudy’s “WE’RE UNDER OBSIDIAN SKIIIIEES” rip in the outro chorus 🤯

Bonus Track: Wake Up to the Moon

For a little bit of reference, I have “Wayward child / Wake up to the moon” tattooed to my leg.

This is a bonus track that seems to work as a thematically-related-but-out-of-character credits song, and yet is ALSO a sneaky Moonglow prologue! 💫

The driving melody in the verses... the continual Tobi/Jorn/Kiske/Ronnie/Bob tradeoff... 10/10

“Strange and magic, hear us CAAAAALL YOUR NAME” is a GOOD melody

And there we have it. The end... or the beginning? The past, or the future, or the present itself? Whatever it is, it’s fucking awesome. Thanks for hitching a ride with me, and see you next time!

Cast List:

Tobias Sammet as Aaron Blackwell Jorn Lande as Temptation Michael Kiske as The Mystic Ronnie Atkins as The Magician Robert Mason as Scientist I Geoff Tate as Scientist II Herbie Laghans as Eclipse Dee Snider as Nightmare  Marco Hietala as The Watchmaker Sharon den Adel as Muse Bob Catley as Epiphany

#avantasia #ghostlights #metal #music #avantasia breakdown blog

[bookenders]

Happy Storyteller Saturday~! 💖 Let's see... I'd love to learn more about your Fish Food cast, how about: If each oc had to (and I mean HAD TO. No getting out of this >.>) participate in an art exhibition of some kind, what would they make? Is it actually good? Would they enjoy making it?

Storyteller Saturday!

Ah, @quilloftheclouds, continuing your tradition of asking me questions that make my brain run off into the sunset with an army of ideas, I see. 💜

I think I’ll take this one in a few different directions. I’ll do one for them as heroes/villains and one for them as off-duty civilians. The civilian ones will be listed first. And as for them being good, that’s up to you! 

This got long, so my very fun answers are under the cut!

Iron Will: One of his powers is structure-strengthening, which is also his favorite (because it’s the most helpful without being too damaging, of course), so he’d make a big twisty metal sculpture that looks like a demolished building. But if you look at it from certain angles, it takes the form of twisted metal bird wings. At a glance, you wouldn’t be able to tell how in the hell this thing is staying together. The artist is just that good. (Nope, he’s cheating, but he doesn’t care. Might as well use what you’ve got, right?) And he does enjoy making it. It’s not often that he gets to use his powers the way he wants to.

His hero one would likely be co-opted by the Coalition and turned into a big PR stunt because the poor guy can’t catch a break. I see it involving making statues by touching a big marble/stone block and strengthening the shape of the statue within it before they smash it and the statue emerges. Every sculptor’s dream. It works to show off his powers, his skill with said powers, give the COH some positive community-based PR, and show everyone how powerful they are. Will thinks it’s dumb, difficult, boring, and needlessly complicated.

Overseer: His civilian exhibition would be something goofy like making gingerbread houses out of circuit boards.

His villain one would be a little more intense, since he has to impress the higher-ups. And he’s got one word for you: drones. Programmed aerial drone sculptures a la Superbowl Lady Gaga. Drones flying around like swarms of swallows and bats. Drones programmed to fly in the shapes of heroes who get defeated by the great villains of the council. He goes absolutely hog-wild with it.

Lithium: As a civilian, an open house of her bar with all of the hero memorabilia all over the walls specially lit for artistic viewing, accompanied by multi-media projections/holograms of life-sized heroes walking around among the patrons (she totally asks Overseer for help with this). As a hero, a black and white photo collage of her high-fiving people she’s saved interspersed with her high-fiving the villain’s she’s helped arrest. All on the scene and in costume, of course. 

The first would be social commentary on how people tend to idolize heroes while they exist as “one of us,” walking among the masses just like anyone else. The second would be commentary on how villains and civilians are one and the same, just requiring different methods of intervention. Both would get her reprimanded by Coalition HR, of course. Making Statements isn’t something the Coalition likes their employees to do. (She super duper doesn’t care though. My goofy headcanon is that she laminates her favorite reprimand letters and puts them in a photo album that she proudly displays in her living room.)

She loves making both of these because 1) she gets to show off her pride and joy and 2) she gets to stick it to the Man.

[She’d try being a human trampoline first before giving up on it after she convinces Iron Will to jump on her stomach to test it out, quickly realizing that it is a terrible idea.]

Babylon: They see this as a waste of time, but hey, there’s no getting out of it, so might as well make the most of the situation. But they wouldn’t put very much effort into it unless it’s for work.

As a civilian, they’d probably just transcribe a bunch of popular songs into the International Phonetic Alphabet and watch, very amused, as people try to read the lyrics out loud.

As a hero, they’d make sure only agents of the Coalition were invited, because their piece is a two-parter: First, a wall on which a bunch of head molds of various people are hung. Nearby are boxes of props, prosthetics, hats, wigs, glasses, makeup, etc. It’s an interactive exhibit based on disguise. Second, on the opposite wall, a neat collage of full color photographs of what appear to be 20 different people, but are all Babylon in various disguises. Is it braggy? Definitely. Do they care? Definitely not.

Nightmare: This one’s tough. Let’s see…

As a civilian, she’d do something like paint a huge mural in one of the poorer neighborhoods mocking the propaganda posters the Coalition puts out every once in a while. She’s big into satire.

As a villain… she’s practically the head of the CIIP, so it’d have to be big. Part of me says that she’d paint all the streets to mimic a Monopoly game board to make fun of the city’s not great economy, but that’s too tame. Since her power is inducing panic responses, I think she might collect blackmail material on as much people as possible and post it anonymously all over the city. No names, no identifying information, just dark, embarrassing information spread in the dead of night. That’s sure to send everyone into a panic.

Sparkplug: Her civilian art piece would be forging very cool light metal prosthetics and gifting them to veterans. She shouldn’t be the only one with a very cool and comfortable free one. Spread the love, as she says.

Her hero (or, rather, mercenary) exhibition would be hacking into large screens all over the city and showing real footage from heroes’ body cameras during big battles. Nothing too graphic, though. Just the kind of footage that shows people what it’s really like being a hero for the Coalition.

Hydrophase: Well, since I haven’t fully revealed what happened to him yet, I’ll include him for funsies. His civilian exhibition… hmm. I think he’d do something with old t-shirts. Like start a community project to collect people’s old shirts and make quilts out of them or somethin’ and donate them after the exhibition. He’s a nostalgic guy.

As a hero, I think he’d make one of those splash pad things that kids play on at malls and water parks and stuff, since his power is water-based. It’d be on an elevated platform and he’d stand under it and control all the water spouts and things and invite neighborhood kids to come play because he’s a very good dude. He has just as much fun as the kids.

There’s also a secret character who appears halfway through the story. I don’t wanna reveal who they are just yet, but what I can say is that their exhibition would be sword sculptures.

#ender answers #storyteller saturday #quilloftheclouds #Fish Food #art exhibition #FF Iron Will #FF Overseer #FF Babylon #FF Lithium #FF Nightmare #FF Sparkplug #FF Hydrophase #my ocs

[mountphoenixrp]

We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

                              Ryo Watanabe, who is known by no other name;                                                    a 23 year old son of Izanami.                                                      He is an escort at Babylon.

FC NAME/GROUP: Hong “Joshua” Jisoo/ Seventeen CHARACTER NAME: Ryo Watanabe AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: December 30th 1995 / 23 years old PLACE OF BIRTH: Yokohama OCCUPATION: Escort at Babylon HEIGHT: 177cm (5’10) WEIGHT: 58kg (128 lbs) DEFINING FEATURES: Pierced ears, septum piercing, couple cartilage piercings on his ears, tattoo of a couple of roses and leaves on the right side of his neck in black and grey. The rose tattoo flows down the top of his right shoulder and a bit to the back.

He also has blue and white stars on his shoulders, one large star on the front of each shoulder and a smaller one that’s paired with the star on his left. The stars are from the neighbor family he lost.

Ryo also has a cheekbone tattoo that’s a small waxing crescent moon just to the bottom left of his left eye. The last tattoos he has are on the insides of his wrists where it writes life on his right wrist and death on his left in Japanese in honor of Izanami.

PERSONALITY: soft spoken, gentlemen, knows a couple of different languages, his looks don’t match his soft and sweet personality. He mainly keeps to himself unless he’s really interested to get to know someone and has a bad habit of learning things about others first by eavesdropping or studying them since he’s always thought humans were interesting. He has a great memory which helps with that.

His line of work and his background made him into a very strong person. Soft and sweet most of the time but if he has to be hard and throw down he will. He won’t let anyone hurt him again.

If anyone is lucky enough to really get to know Ryo, he will be the most loyal and helpful friend.

HISTORY: Ryo grew up as the awkward boy with a bad upbringing. He has had this special tie to the macabre and darkness for as long as he could remember but was too young to understand why. He favored horror and supernatural stories over any that only dealt with a happy endings. Only for as long as he’s known he didn’t believe in happy endings. It’s hard to believe in something like that when bad things follow you.

Ryo grew up alone with his father, who himself was disowned from his family, for a reason Ryo never knew. Whatever it was led his father to live the drunken life. The young boy had to learn how to get to and from school on his own, watching out for anyone particularly scary but he did it. Only real family he knew was his next door neighbors, a young couple who were big fans of music and the visual kei scene. The couple found Ryo one day on his way home from school surprised to see such a young boy all alone. They took care of him, took him to and from school when it rained, gave him hope  that he could be himself, he could be into strange things and still be a good person just like them. When they had a child Ryo became a big brother to their little boy at the age of 9. The young demigod absolutely loved their little boy easily taking to him like his own sibling.

As Ryo grew into his teens, he would still spend some time with his neighbors but always had the heart to go back and take care of his father.

Picking up the empty bottles of whiskey, cleaning his father, helping him bathe, and putting him to bed. By this time, he fell into loving the visual kei music and fashion he took apart of it as well. He never really talked unless spoken to which in return gave him such a soft spoken, timid voice.

At 14, Ryo was walking home from school on a rainy day when he saw his house and his neighbors house closed off by crime scene tape. The umbrella dropped out of Ryo’s hand the second he ran across the street to see what was going on but he had missed where his father was already sitting in the back of the police car. The neighbors he had considered family were gone..murdered by his own father.

Four years later, Ryo was still the same. Even after going from foster home to foster home, no matter how much his guardians would gripe at him for dressing in such a way or how he would be picked on by the other kids. At 18, he was finally free to live on his own. Free to explore.

His first day out, he goes to the graveyard, walking to find the buried bodies of his old friends..of those neighbors he called family.

He would always make time to come see them when he could.. and had left his father alone to rot in prison..He couldn’t stand to pay visits to someone who put people he loved in an early grave.

A couple years went by and Ryo had been doing what he had to do to make money, to support his education.

It started out just looking for sugar daddies before he ended up in host clubs that doubled as escorts on the side. A game of fake love Ryo had become quite the pro at plus diving into witchcraft since they seemed the most interesting in the supernatural stories he loved so much.

Just a late bloomer, his dabble in witches showed him his powers. He liked belonging to something..to be so in tune with the elements around him.

Dabbling in necromancy..that was different. That was also something he had found out by accident.

A drunken night at the graveyard and he summons the spirit of the little boy..

As unreal as it felt it threw Ryo into a panic attack he pushed away, crawling back until he felt something stop him. A figure in the shadows whos aura did nothing but send such an icy chill down his back. Izanami.. is who she revealed herself to be and his mother..

After a lot of tears and uncertainty, the more they visited the more Ryo had come to terms with who he was. He was a very proud demigod, more than happy to find something he belonged to. So when Izanami tells him of Mount Phoenix, he doesn’t waste any time to gather up his things to move out there. A new place where he could belong.

PANTHEON: Japanese CHILD OF: Izanami POWERS: Necromancy and minor creation, like being able to make the flowers bloom. STRENGTHS: sensible, good at listening, heartwarming. WEAKNESSES: can be spiteful if attacked first, a know it all, can be emotionally disconnected at times.

#kpop rp #krp #seventeen #hong jisoo #joshua hong #mp; welcome

[whatroughbeast-blog1]

chatzy thread #2 -- loose lips

Date: April 26th, night of Shibah’s event Location: En route, inside of Satan’s car Featuring: @whatroughbeast & @motherofabominations

It was a short drive to Gloria West, Satan kicking out the driver of the car to take the wheel himself for once. The promise of time spent with Babylon never came with a clear time constraint and the last thing he was interested in was a hapless human tagging along on what was beginning to look like a vastly more interesting evening than anticipated. Parking in front of Babylon's building, Satan pulled out his phone and shot off one more text -- 'Afuera'.

The ding of her phone brought Babylon out of her reverie, makeup brush clanging loudly as it was dropped onto the vanity. She knew the sender was one of two people but still she couldn’t help the small smile that graced her face at the name flashing on her screen. Tossing her phone in her bag without bothering to reply, she exited the apartment and slid into the passenger seat of Satan’s car only minutes later before cheekily giving him an appraising look. “Not bad but you’re still no Antonio Banderas.”

Satan gave her the same brisk once-over, expressionless until he turned to pull out from the building, a small smirk then quirking at the edge of his lips. "I always knew you'd clean up well," he quipped back, glib, "Not bad yourself, Babylon." A severe underestimation. “You don’t look the part for ‘art therapy’, though. Is Crowley really convincing enough for you to lower yourself to this little shindig of Shibah’s?”

“I cannot believe I’m actually saying this to a man, but never underestimate the allure of a beautiful woman. And Crowley…” Babylon paused for effect, letting her words trail off before continuing once more. “I find her to be quite beautiful.” The admission was an easy one to make, even if she was playing up her relationship with the female demon quite a bit – the two were hardly the best of friends. “If I truly didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t. But as long as we skip the sharing our feelings with strangers portion of the night I don’t think it'll be that bad.”

Satan snorted derisively, all but rolled his eyes at the mention of Crowley – juvenile, unimpressive, just like the majority of the rest of Lucifer’s demons. Well... he glanced sideways at Babylon perched in the passenger’s seat, as beautiful as he knew her to be deadly. There were few exceptions. “Please, where’s the gain in it?” Satan replied disdainfully, the event already filed away along with everything else he dismissed for lack of personal benefit, “We’re on the verge of a monumental shakeup of the very fabric of our universe and Shibah is setting out artisanal cheese platters.” The fingers of his left hand had set to drumming at the steering wheel, hovering behind another car before swerving into the next lane with a sharp jerk and little care for the driver slamming on the brakes behind them.

Even when they seemed to be unable to agree on anything, Babylon wouldn’t have preferred any other companion in that moment. Instead of defending the younger demon, she rolled her eyes in kind at Satan’s antics; there was little point in trying to change the mind of the pig-headed man. “Those artisanal cheese platters are going to win her the love of the crowd. I’m not sure how helpful it will be to have a few extra humans on her side but if her tactic is to kiss ass all the way to Heaven then I say let her waste her time and watch from the sidelines as she crashes and burns.” – As the car jerked slightly, Babylon spared the cars around them only a brief second of concern before the feeling was washed away, exhilaration taking over. Had anyone else been in his seat, the loss of control she felt at the reckless move would have been enough to send her spiraling into a horrible mood, but knowing it was Satan instead made it feel almost like a game. “Speaking of crashing and burning, try not to kill us before I get my hands on whatever fancy ass-kissing alcohol Shibah managed to serve tonight.”

“I intend to.” Satan couldn’t help the grim sort of smile that settled at his mouth at the thought of Shibah’s inevitable fall. There was an irony to it all -- he had no doubt Raziel would be more competent on the throne (perhaps even a familiar brand of cruel, if he was intelligent enough to recognize what the position truly demanded), but Satan didn’t want competence from whichever angel managed to claw their way to Ascension. He wanted an easy kill. Getting rid of Shibah, even as a God, would be far from a challenge. “Either of them would’ve taken their spot already if they were capable of it.” The demons may have been sent to LA to delay the Ascension but Raziel and Shibah’s combined impotence seemed to have done the job for them. “Their throne is not what I’m concerned with.” Babylon’s last comment turned the smile to a toothy grin. “But don’t worry,” Satan soothed, the affect rather spoiled by his steady increase in pressure on the gas, “I’ll get you to your therapy session in one piece.”

“I hope there will be popcorn to set the scene.” Her smile, while not as pitiless as Satan’s, held no less amusement. “Raziel does know what is needed to perform the ascension; capable or not it can’t be much longer until he makes his move. Of course I’d be just as happy if the role remained open.” She had already chosen which Angel she'd give her support, but the last God had left a bitter taste in her mouth; one which five hundred years later still remained. Babylon didn’t bother to hide her emotions unless she wanted to be more discreet whereas her companion was much more akin to a steel wall. She never truly knew what was going through his head, could only rely on her skills at reading people to help her guess and even then there were times she didn’t even come close. She wanted to focus on the speed of the car, of the recklessness of the driver paying far less attention to the road than he should be, of the grin of said driver. But she couldn’t, not when she had a riddle to crack, to find out the meaning behind his words. “Perhaps we should be talking less about them and more about what you plan to do. Lucifer is no idiota, he knows no one can do your job as well as you. He just… needs to be reminded of that.”

Satan’s lip curled at the idea of the throne left empty; candidates incompetent or not, the idea was unnatural. Then again, he thought with a flash of familiar invigorating bitterness -- it never should have been vacated to begin with. “Sooner rather than later.” He shot back, fingers tightening around the steering wheel, “The angels have spent enough time twiddling their thumbs, waiting around for the end of the world.” Her next words were the ones that actually stalled Satan for one long, curious moment. She was there in LA for a reason, because of his choosing her and it had not been choice without a purpose. But he wasn’t a fool either. Babylon would always be tainted by Lucifer’s patronage no matter how their relationship had changed into something closer; he wouldn’t fool himself into believing she had had a sudden change of heart where the usurper was concerned, her sympathy not withstanding. Still, Babylon’s choice of words appealed to that deadly confidence of his, that certainty that the past few weeks had only solidified -- a reminder was exactly what Lucifer was going to get. “Does he know that?” There was no questioning lilt at the end of that sentence, she didn’t need to answer, “I think there’s many, many things Lucifer doesn’t know.”

She took note of his tightening grip on the steering wheel, arms being pulled taut in the process. A classic move of someone tensing up – had she struck a nerve? “It’s hard to believe we originally came to Los Angeles to prolong the very thing that’s almost here.” At his next words she found herself huffing in response – an eye roll accompanying the gesture. If you asked her, it didn’t feel like there was much of anything being done by either side in regards to stopping the ‘end of the world’. “They’re like lost little sheep without their leader, I almost want to take them home with me and adopt them all.” And given the opportunity, she would. For all her bad-mouthing, she didn’t despise the Saints, just what they stood for and who they used to serve. Besides, as useless as she found them at the moment – she was smart enough to know that it was temporary as they gathered their bearings. “Of course he knows.” Rhetoric the question may have been, she was compelled to answer anyway, the need to defend the one person in her life who had never let her down flaring up. “Why would you say that? Lucifer knows what he needs to know, anything else is inconsequential.” She turned in her seat, body now facing him, locking her pleading gaze onto his. It was her turn to ask a question that needed no answer. “He’s a good man, the best I’ve ever known. Why do you always question him?”

Almost here, Satan snorted, his expression mirroring Babylon’s own derision for entirely different reasons, the two of them a matching set for just a moment. “I’ll believe in ‘almost here’ when it actually happens. Until then - ” Another sharp turn, away from the congested main roads, “- we’re not relying on darling Raz to make things happen.” The next red light he actually stopped for, frustration in broad strokes across his face when he caught Babylon’s eye again -- rigid and front facing in contrast to her body language as she made her appeal. “Why would you defend him?” He demanded from her, low and seething with frustration, “Because he’s so good? Now, that’s the trait we all look for in our Devils, isn’t it?” The light flickered to green again and their car did not move, Satan matching her pleading gaze with his own heavy unforgiving one, heated by an anger that bypassed her entirely. “Lucifer stays squirreled away in LA playing at doing my job; the only thing he’s ever done for you is elevate you long enough to die with the rest of us as long as he’s allowed to keep up the charade. There’s your goodness.” There was a moment of furious silence before Satan faced forwards, punching the gas once more as he pressed his lips into a taunt smile, nearly a grimace. “Lucifer doesn’t know anything. Do you think I’m the only one who sees through him?”

How long had they been driving? With Satan’s penchant for speeding, it felt like they should have arrived long ago – or was the heaviness of the conversation making time seem to drag on? In any case, she was ready to get out of the damn car. She ignored the comment about Raziel for now, not interested in opening that particular can of worms just yet. She had mused that Satan was a steel wall but that wasn’t entirely true; while his intentions were mostly a mystery to her, he did little to hide his negative emotions – perhaps, she thought to herself, he just didn’t care to hide those. Car stopped, gazes locked, it felt like the two were in the midst of a standoff. “If it weren’t for him I’d be in hell, powerless and at your mercy. And we both know you don’t have much of that” A honk from the car behind them stopped her pre-rant and she took it as a sign to finish talking before she said anything she would regret. “…You’re an ass.” And it would have worked, had he not uttered his next words, her mind immediately going to the bane of her existence. “Are you talking about Belial? His loyalty is to himself. If he claims to see fault in Lucifer where there is none, it is only because he wants the throne for himself”

“I raised humans too, Babylon. Once upon a time, the few who earned it.” The serrated edge of his words seemed to lessen just a little bit -- it was far from an olive branch, but almost in the neighborhood of what could have been an insinuation of Babylon’s fate not being altogether different if Lucifer indeed had never fallen. But Satan would not come out and say it clearly now. He was too busy laughing at himself, looking back on how improbable it was that they had made it so far in their relationship without butting into this argument. Babylon had made her position clear. Exception or not, Satan would not give an inch of himself to appease her and the insult was a dull blow he barely felt. At her immediate invocation of Belial (though she had been correct), the obvious irritation in her voice, Satan tsked. “Oh, but we’re lecturing me on personal prejudices, are we?” In another place, another situation, it would have been a tease. The light of the streetlamps glinted off Satan’s glasses as they passed underneath, hiding his gaze but little else when it came to the stubborn set of his jaw. Though his eyes never left the road, he barely saw the pavement. In the moment he thought inexplicably of the disappointment of Samyaza and Satan’s next words came out cold, unplanned, “If Belial was a worry at all, it wouldn’t be Lucifer who should be looking out for him. And it wouldn’t be you either.”

"I'd like to think I would have passed the test but we both know I was nothing as a human. You'd wouldn't have looked at me long enough to see my potential-" She wanted to believe it was possible;  the naive part of herself that still believed in hope. His words seemed to hint that maybe she was wrong, perhaps he could have been her savior after all. But there was no guarantee, no way to actually know what would have happened had he been the one on the throne when she was brutally murdered for her crimes. But still, that small hopeful part of her did believe it and it was enough to ease her anger - if only just a bit. "-And I wouldn't have blamed you. But I am happy to be here with you now, no matter how it happened." The hypocrisy of her words being thrown in her face brought about a rather surprising reaction; her anger melted away to be replaced by a full-sized grin, lips pursed to keep the smile from getting any bigger. "It seems we both have issues with authority." The conversation, while having taken a rather hostile turn, was one she rather enjoyed. She wasn't prying for information exactly, but was getting far more from Satan than usual. "Tell me then, who should be?"

It took only a second for the tension in the car to dissolve all over again, at least on Babylon’s side; she actually sounded genuine in her change.The event hall appeared down the road, Satan swerving to turn into the parking lot with just as little care as he’d exhibited the entirety of the drive. His hackles had slowly gone down at the sudden twist in tone but that flush of anger still hadn’t dissipated quite yet. “It seems we both do,” was the only response Babylon got as they pulled up to the curb. There was a short pause, short enough to think, not long enough for a return of what common sense was left. “I think..” Satan began, finally turning his head enough to capture her gaze again, near conspiratorial, “.. you might find that position you’re after opening up sooner than you think. Belial has set his sights higher.” Theirs would not a combined effort; this was not another attempt side by side with [i]Samael[/i]. Belial had said it himself, that partnership was what had condemned Satan to failure the first time and set him underneath Leviathan’s blade. He didn’t plan on making the same mistake. “After all, there’s more than one fallen angel holding court where they don’t belong.” 

Though they had arrived at their destination, Babylon made no move to get out of the vehicle. She wasn’t sure if the conversation would continue once they left the bubble of enmity that had been created – mostly on Satan’s part, he was much more prone to feelings of anger and annoyance than her. And she found this was a conversation she wasn’t keen on leaving just yet. “Are you a apart of this little usurp of his?” She wasn’t sure what to think of his words, of just how high he meant Belial wanted to rise; after all going after a Prince’s job was a far cry from going after their King’s and she didn’t want to raise alarm where it wasn’t needed. The question however, came from more than a loyal servant trying to garner information, it came from a true and genuine concern. She had heard the stories of the last time the former King of Hell had attempted a coup and what had become of at least one of the parties involved. Satan had been lucky to not share the same fate as Samyaza, but she feared that luck would only protect him so many times, especially since he was hardly in Lucifer’s favor at the moment. Her mind preoccupied with assuring his well-being, she hardly wanted to take the time to decipher his final words. Fallen Angels didn’t come in spades but there was a fair amount – enough that she couldn’t definitively pinpoint whom he was talking about had he not mentioned the word ‘court’. It was enough to point her in the right direction – at least she hoped so. “Is that his grand plan? Go after Lucifer’s second in command? I should have known Belial didn’t have the testículos to go directly after him.”

“What if I am?” It was almost a genuine question. Babylon straddled a precarious line; if her concern was genuine rather than some artfully crafted front, it flew in the face of the loyalty to Lucifer she demonstrated at every turn. What game was Babylon playing at? Satan found he almost didn’t care -- just like the rest of them, she would have no say in what would inevitably come to pass but he was curious all the same as to what she would say to him when her ‘father’ was ripped from the throne that was rightfully his, when Satan finally took back what had been owed him all these centuries of gritting his teeth and taking out his frustrations on the mortals who passed under his cruel hand in Hell. If she rebelled underneath him when Hell was his once more, Satan would not hesitate a second to scrub her out of existence as well. The tenuous tie between them would not withhold such strain. “Would you tattle on me, Babylon?” This time his body angled towards hers as well, deceptively open, certain that her answer wouldn’t matter either way, “I wouldn’t make the mistake of asking for your alliance if I was. I learned a long time ago how useless those promises are.” And there was the final wall between them, the one that would never be eroded away. Satan’s eyes were fixed on her face, expression dead enough to give her nothing else but his words to draw a conclusion from, “Who among us knows why Belial does what he does? I certainly never claimed to.” Somewhat a lie, but he’d been critically wrong with his creation before. There could be no partnership this time. The only one Satan would have was himself. 

What if I am? And therein lied the question that Babylon was hesitant to answer even to herself. Oh, she knew exactly what the answer was but her loyalty to the one who had given her everything weighed heavily against her chest in a way it never had before. Her feelings towards Satan were but a drop of water compared to the roaring ocean that was her devotion to Lucifer but this was the weakness that had often been thrown in her face; those whom she cared about she cared about fiercely and with little restraint. Don’t give me anything to tell him, she wanted to beg, the words at the tip of her tongue but remaining unspilled. She needed to know what he knew and was prepared to get the information by any means necessary. “Alliances are only as powerful as those in them. Putting your trust in the wrong people will get you killed – I am not wrong people.” She paused before continuing, the reprieve much needed to gather her thoughts. “Belial talks a big game but he is lazy and lacks the commitment to follow through. If he does have some half-concocted plan that’s all it will be – a fantasy. Hardly information worth bothering our boss over.”

A dry smile tugged at his lips at the certainty of her words; how easy it was for Babylon to condemn Belial and then place Satan by his side. Alliance would be a strange word for what they were. No matter how far he fell, Belial could never be his equal in Satan’s eyes. “No commitment? And yet he comes asking for me to place the right weapon in his hands, not even twenty-four hours ago.” Satan cocked his head to the side, still studying her, cataloging every twitch in her expression that might betray her inner thoughts. For now, all he saw was confliction. “I told you when you first announced to me that you wanted to boot Belial off his throne that I wouldn’t interfere one way or the other. If Belial can’t defend his title, he doesn’t deserve it. But he is still my creation and you would be a clever little schemer not to forget that fact, lest you make the mistake of underestimating him.”  

“Looks like I’m due for that promotion after all.” The smugness of the words couldn’t have been hidden had she tried. If Satan were telling the truth – and she’d bet that he was, this was exactly the sort of thing she had been waiting for. It was irony at its finest that Satan would be the one to hand it to her on a silver platter. She didn’t know what he hoped to gain from giving her such information, if this was some sort of trap and she was falling directly into it; if it were about any Demon other than Belial she would take the time to investigate, but her animosity towards him ran deep enough to cloud her judgement. If that would be her eventual downfall, so be it… As long as he went down with her. “I find it interesting that you can be so callous towards him while defending him in the same breath.” The advice however, she would take to heart. If Dominic’s beating hadn’t been a reminder of whom she was dealing with, Satan’s warning was enough to bring up a memory from when Belial had first taken her under his wings, back when she found out exactly what he was capable of. She’d never forgiven him for it – and she never would.

“You’d have to earn it too.” Satan’s attention was already diverted, picking apart the figures crossing the parking lot, growing steadily more disdainful which each familiar face mounting the stairs. “I find it interesting how invested you are in Belial and I’s relationship.” There was no menace in the statement, for once. He was sliding back again, away from the concern that kept him cautious; Satan took Babylon’s claim for the title of ‘Prince’ as seriously as he had taken Renee’s warning to play nice at the Centennial. But he tried, for the moment, to imagine her in Belial’s place. The thought was entirely foreign, it was too new. There was only one change in Hell’s hierarchy that signaled a change in the right direction and Babylon was still Lucifer’s Hell; Belial, no matter how far he strayed, had seen the beginning of the Earth right at Satan’s side. Irritated by the conflicting images, he immediately dismissed them. “You’re going to be late your therapy session,” Satan said suddenly, yanking the key from the ignition and turning most of his attention back to the demon in his passenger seat, her dark eyes glowing in the semi-dark, “Flirt with Crowley, get that booze you promised me. We’ll make a better night of it once you’re done finger painting.” 

“I intend to.” The words were a mirror of his own from earlier in the conversation but held their own brand of ruthlessness; the kind that made up Babylon. “I just don’t understand what you see in him.” She felt as if she could visibly feel his disinterest begin to form – his indifference towards their conversation, perhaps even towards her. If she was such a bore, then what purpose was there to entertain her probing questions the entire ride over? Irritation marred his face for the span of a second but just as quickly his features had returned to cold neutrality. She felt like a bothersome child with whom he was done dealing with for the time being, cemented by the fact that in the next moment the car was finally turned off and he had all but excused her from his presence. Irritated by his dismissal, she stopped herself before she could once again insist that she had no real interest in the therapy part of the night - that there had been enough of it in the car anyway. “I do not need to flirt with Crowley to get the alcohol – that part will just be for fun.” Gathering her bag, she made her way out of the car, slamming the car door behind her without bothering to say goodbye; she knew he wasn’t likely to give her one anyway. In any case, their early parting was for the best since she had a text to send that was best done with a semblance of privacy.

#&&. chat thread #event: art therapy #d: april 26th #ft. babylon #whatmakesyouhahaha.mp3

[beatrice-otter]

Fic: Finishing The Race

My other Not Prime Time treat! B5 was one of my first fandoms, and it will always have a special place in my heart. I love that show. I had never considered Susan and Stephen together,* either platonically or romantically, but as I thought about it the obvious hook would be his work on the Underground Railroad for telepaths escaping the PsiCorps, and Susan's hatred and fear of the PsiCorps for what they did to her mother and other telepaths who won't toe the line. Then I watched the episode about the underground railroad, and a) Susan doesn't find out it's Stephen behind it and b) the plotholes. Why the heck does Stephen tell Sheridan ANYTHING? He wasn't about to find out on his own, and Stephen doesn't need his help with anything, and with something like that each new person in the know is a possible way for the PsiCops to scan you and find something! It's a huge breach of security for no gain. *Stephen and Marcus, oh yes. Come to think of it, that would be a great poly triad: Marcus/Susan/Stephen. Someone should totally write that.  I headcanon Marcus as ace romantic whereas both Susan and Stephen are very sexual people, and Marcus and Stephen had chemistry but would need a buffer, and Marcus loves Susan but she finds him a bit too romantic and much for her so she and Marcus would need a buffer too, and if you balanced it right it could be really good.  Maybe a poly V? Title: Finishing the Race Author: Beatrice_otter Fandom: Babylon 5 Characters: Susan Ivanova, Stephen Franklin Written for: deservixen for Not Prime Time 2018 AN: Episode coda for A Race Through Dark Places. At AO3.

It was a dangerous thing to speculate about, Susan knew. What she didn't know, she couldn't betray. She shouldn't even be thinking about it. All it would take was one telepath scanning her—and she certainly didn't trust Bester or one of his type not to, and B5 was busy and crucial enough that something would happen sooner or later to draw a PsiCop's notice. Again.

But. Bester had left alone, empty-handed. He had not arrested any rogue teeps, nor had anyone in custody. Smuggling people out wasn't his style; if he'd captured anyone, he would have trumpeted it to high heaven and used them as an example. And if he hadn't found anyone, he would have torn the station apart until there was no place anyone could have hidden. He would have been everywhere, like a cockroach, until he found his quarry or proved they weren't here.

She'd been expecting his presence on the station to be a lot more unpleasant. She had braced for it. Then he had left. Just … gone. And while everyone else had relaxed, Susan had known something was wrong. Had he found the rogue teeps and killed them?

Then Talia had come to her quarters, wanting to talk. Cagey, exhausted, admitting the PsiCorps was every bit as bad as Susan had ever said … but not willing to give any details about what had happened. And not grieving anything but her faith in the Corps.

The next day, Susan checked the station log. Overnight, there had been eleven 'burials in space,' dead bodies ejected from the station towards Epsilon III, to crash on the planet. Space burials used less energy (and were therefore cheaper) than cremation, used for lurkers and those who had a taboo against cremation but couldn't afford to ship a body back to their homeworld. The corpses were logged as rogue teeps killed while resisting arrest, some with names and some without.

But whoever had recorded the burials hadn't taken into account the traffic patterns around B5. Space burials were supposed to be timed to the gaps between ships, so that there would be no chance of them hitting anything. Those eleven burials had not been timed to fit into the gaps between ships … and Susan had received no complaints from irate captains about hits or near-misses with large debris. Therefore, there probably hadn't been any actual burials. The records had been altered.

Michael was right. Whoever was running the Underground Railroad on Babylon 5, it was a member of the command staff. But not one who'd ever taken a shift in C&C, or they would have known how to alter the logs better.

Stephen was seeing his last patient of the day, and he was tired. A full shift at Medlab, followed by a couple of hours in the clinic … it took a lot out of you. Particularly when, in those two hours in the clinic, you saw so damn many people whose conditions would have been perfectly treatable if they'd had better access to prevention or earlier treatment.

Still. It was good work, meaningful work, that made a difference, and he'd never give it up. He'd only been partially truthful when he told Captain Sheridan that he'd started the clinic as a cover for the Underground Railroad.

That was one of the handy things about being known as a truthful man with a high moral code and a simple life. People generally believed what you told them, even when you were confessing to multiple felonies and repeated fraud. It made concealing and misleading … much easier.

"Alright," Stephen told his patient, a Human woman named Harya, as he stripped off his gloves, "I don't have any more samples of your prescription or any of the generics you can tolerate, so I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you. I'm sorry. You know the symptoms better than I do, but I don't think you're in immediate danger of a bad episode."

"Naw, it's fine," Harya said, looking down at her hands, face drawn taut in the anticipation of pain. "The samples from last time made a real difference. I just … I got a job, you know? On Beta Durani, and they have universal healthcare. It's just getting there—jumps make it worse, you know? But thanks anyway."

"I'm sorry," Stephen said, helplessly. "I hope it all works out for you."

"Yeah, me too," she said with a sigh, slipping off the stool and grabbing her jacket. "Thanks anyway."

Stephen packed up his kit as she walked out, tossing things into it with more force than necessary. This was what he hated, more than anything else: to see people suffering, and know it was unnecessary. People called him an idealist, but he wasn't. He was a realist. He dealt with this mess every day. He saw the costs, economic and not. And he'd studied the logistical challenges involved. Lack of healthcare was one problem Earth and its colonies could fix. If they chose to. But the colonies were, by and large, too poor, and EarthGov didn't care about anyone not on Earth itself.

Someone cleared a throat, and Stephen looked up quickly. People generally looked out for him, in Downbelow, because they knew they might need him. But even for him, it wasn't a good place to let your guard too far down.

"Commander Ivanova," he said, surprised. "What brings you here to my clinic? Need something for you back, after sleeping on the couch for a couple of days? Captain Sheridan told me how he fixed the problem." Stephen shook his head. He didn't know whether to shake his head at the foolishness of thinking he could get EarthGov to back down about money, or be amused at how Sheridan had maneuvered around them.

"No, I'm fine," Ivanova said. She pulled out a white-noise generator and turned it on so no one could overhear them without getting close enough to be noticed. "You should have had Captain Sheridan alter the records."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Stephen said, mind racing. Never mind how she'd found out, what was he going to do? He couldn't tell her anything; she'd never give them up willingly, but she wouldn't be given that choice. Stephen himself was only a peripheral part of the command staff. He could always come up with something that needed him in MedLab and avoid being in the same room with a PsiCop, as he had in the last week. Ivanova was the second-in-command; like Sheridan, she would have no choice but to deal one-on-one with Bester and his ilk. If they ever suspected anything, Susan would have no defenses. Anything she knew would be theirs for the taking the second they wanted it.

"You fooled Bester, somehow," Ivanova said. "Made him think he'd killed the rogue teeps. Talia was probably involved in that, somehow. Then you modified the station records to show the bodies were disposed of. Except you didn't time the launches right—you'd have had hits or near misses with at least two ships, last night, if you'd really launched them when the timestamps say. I fixed that, by the way. You're welcome."

Stephen closed his eyes and sighed. There was always something. "Well, next time I'll know better," he said. "Thank you. I really appreciate it." Not that anyone was likely to look; or, at least, if anyone ever looked that closely, they were probably screwed anyway. Still, you never knew; it was why he'd bothered to dummy up the body disposal records, even after Bester had left.

Ivanova shook her head and went on. "What I don't understand is, why you would involve Captain Sheridan, and then not have him handle the records. He's handled space burials before, he wouldn't have made that mistake."

"He didn't want to get too involved with the details," Stephen said. "He was mad enough to find out it was going on under his nose, I didn't want to push it."

"Fair enough," Ivanova said. "But why involve him at all? One more person for Bester to scan and find out from."

"Oh, he avoided Bester before he left," Stephen said.

"Yeah, I know," Ivanova said. "Stuck me with dealing with it all. But still. Bester might find out he was wrong. With our luck, he'll be back for something completely different and pick it up by accident during a surface scan."

"Hopefully not," Stephen said. "But you know how the Captain is. When he gets suspicious of something, he just doesn't let it go. Garibaldi, too—they're very alike, that way. Now that the PsiCorps knows we've used Babylon 5 as a waypoint, we can't use it anymore. Better to be up front that it was here, but won't be any longer. That way he doesn't waste time on it, and doesn't need to feel obligated to keep digging."

That was a lie, of course; they'd have to be more careful, but there were only so many possible routes to get people out of EarthGov controlled space. And even fewer of them had people, doctor or not, willing to help rogue teeps. A route the PsiCorps believed they'd shut down? With the local commercial teep on their side? They'd have to be more cautious, but Babylon 5 would continue to host escaping telepaths for the foreseeable future.

No, the reason Stephen had brought him in was so that if it didn't work, or if Bester came back and scanned Sheridan, he would know that Sheridan believed route was shut down. It might not make any difference, but who knew? Even if Bester didn't fall for it, it might by them time.

Ivanova gave him a hard look. She probably suspected that he wasn't telling the truth, or at least not the whole truth. He gave her the most open look he could manage. There were advantages to being, in general, an open book. When you really needed to conceal something, most people overlooked the fact that you might have anything to conceal.

"Why didn't you come to me for help?" she said at last.

"Help yesterday with the records, or help months ago running the Railroad?" Stephen asked.

"Either."

He shook his head. "Commander, you have always been very vocal about your hatred of the Corps. You would have been the first suspect—I'd bet good money Bester scanned you without permission when he first arrived, to see if you knew anything. Involving you would have been far too risky."

Ivanova scowled. "So, you're saying that if I wanted to help, I should have hid my opinions about the Corps."

"Oh, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying," Stephen said. "There are a lot of ways to help. My hope is that the Corps will be changed, or possibly dissolved entirely, and that's not going to happen without outside pressure. Even if it doesn't change soon, they need to be held accountable, kept on their toes, and you're in an excellent position to do that. But the people loudly pointing out PsiCorp's faults for all the world to see can't be the same ones who are smuggling rogue teeps out from under their nose."

"I guess not," Ivanova said distantly. She shook her head. "Well. You did something very good here, Doctor Franklin," she said as she turned off the white noise generator. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Stephen said.

Susan shook her head. Stephen Franklin, of all people, running the Underground Railroad. He was romantic, idealistic, and independent enough to do it, to put his life and career on the line to help people escape injustice. She'd just thought he was an open book, a good natured person who saw the world through rose-tinted glasses. If anyone had asked her, a week ago, if the good doctor could have managed the subterfuge and deception to pull anything like this off, she would have laughed in their face. And yet, there he was.

There were hidden depths, there. She should get to know him better.

#fanfiction #fanfic #Babylon 5 #susan ivanova #stephen franklin

[rassasassalin]

Might as well christen this place where I can overthink some rasslin’.  Good a night as any for it.  Gonna be taking notes as I go through Raw, and will publish under a readmore when done.  Really long, mostly just steam of conscious.  Might do a summarized thoughts later.  But probably not.  Summaries are my mortal enemies.

!!!  Dean vs Joe!  That should be a fun match!  Love Joe, love Dean, and their styles should clash pretty well.  Also, I love Joe’s theme.  And Joe talking.  He’s so damn good on the mike.  He’s got a wonderful cadence, and he’s like, the perfectly articulate heel.  So good.

I like the Roman drinks orange juice after he brushes his teeth sign.  It’s good.  I mean, it’s hella gross, but I like those kind of signs.  Good stuff.

The Roman chant is interesting.  I haven’t really heard a crowd chant for a face in a while.  Although I think it’s still arguable whether or not Roman is a face.  Still.  Good to have a crowd chanting for one.  Part of the problem, I find, with today’s rassling, nobody chants for the faces to come out and fix problems, because there is no real Top Face that, you know, does face things.

Congrats to the dude who’s wife bough him tickets.

Yeah, no duh it’s a trap, why’d Ro go out there on his own, that’s silly.  Clearly Joe and Sheazaro made some kind of alliance last week, come on boys.  Also of course look at the fight in Dean, he’s always been the one in the Shield that gets the shit kicked out of him the worst, he’s a pain magnet, that’s part of why we love him so much.

Was feeling pretty happy from that promo about Bliss and Banks fighting the first women’s match over in Abu Dhabi, but then they cut to the ring and I see a sign saying that the Browns will be the Superbowl Champs and I’ve been laughing ever since fuck me, keep living the dream my friend, keep living that dream.

Seriously tho, I’ve loved Mickey James for forever, what a legend, what an underrated gem, I hate that she’s being wasted right now.

So... I didn’t watch Tough Enough since like... idk, the third “season”, I guess you could say, and I never watch Total Divas, but... maybe I’m totally wrong, but Mandy Rose feels a lot like- just from ring attire and attitude-, a golden version of Eva Marie?  And I’m not particularly interested in that.  Like watching Paige wrestle, I’ve enjoyed Sonya from what I’ve seen from her on Main and on NXT- always down for some female Bruisers, y’know?- but Mandy just seems... Idk.  Been there, done that, seen that character a hundred times.  Unless she’s going to pull a Marlena with a... Velveteen Dream?  He’s the only openly sensual sort of rassler in the WWE right now that could follow that old spirit of Goldust- and he definitely doesn’t need a handler of any kind, to be honest.  But like, outside of that?  Don’t care.  Got the feeling she’s going to be the weak link/first one to betray Paige’s lil group.

...Omg.  Matt.  Matt, babe.  God, I wanted him to break so bad, but I just... I mean, I’m laughing, but I don’t really see this turning out well for either him or Bray?  It could be good, if treated carefully, but I just don’t trust anyone on creative to do Bray right anymore.  Which is a fucking shame, because he makes a fantastic cult leader, he was so charasmatic and scary and then they took away his fucking cult and just what is even the point?  Like even the fact that he never wins anything, I could mostly ignore or more not really care if even after a loss he was still like this looming, evil shadow ready to consume any and all that come in his path but-  Look, point I’m trying to make here is that Bray is actually supposed to be a serious character, even if they don’t make him a properly scary character anymore, and putting him up against a comedy act- and Br/Woken Matt is a comedy act, a fantastic satire, simply the best, I love him....  I don’t know.  Maybe if I knew that Matt and Bray were actually coming up with their storyline.  That’d be cool, but...  I’ll try to be optimistic, but it’ll be hard.

...The breaking the Woken, ehehehe, fuck you Impact.

Fuck my life it looks like someone is cutting their own youtube backstage promo against clips from Bray, I’m laughing and crying and- WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU KNOW ABIGAIL AND YOU GUYS HUNG OUT IN BABYLON I MEAN BABY-LAWN?  Nevermind youtube promos, this is like two kids on the playground playing imaginairy war and Bray just pulled out what he thought was his trump card and Matt’s all flip turning it upside down and now Bray’ll cry to the nearest adult that Matt’s not playing the game right, he’s not allowed to change Abigail’s backstory.

God, Bray, no, don’t make me choose, I love you both- broken warriors???  Wyatt swarm????  Could we have a whole battle royal sort of thing????????  Because I’m down, I’m so down- Stop making me laugh at your laughing you fucking dweebs I’m crying, I’m actually literally crying.

Booker looks so done with everything, poor Book.

Oh.  Ohhhhh, okay, here we go, Cruiser Weights now, what are they going to- oh no, not this thing with Nia, I’m just.  I love Nia.  I don’t hate Enzo, but there’s no reason for- DREW!  oh, they acknowledged Swann.  Real quick, there we go.

...Drew’s lil’ elbow.  His oooohing.  HE’S WILLING TO FIGHT NIA!  I LOVE THIS MAN.

What do you mean Finn’s fighting Curtis?  But his neck is like, super broken guys?  No, really, come on, this isn’t fair, poor Axel.  I love that guy.  SHut the hell up Cole, he SO needs that neck brace, he got beat the heck up by the Shield, he’s hurt.  Lookit Curtis and Bo.  Look at those happy babies.  Even Finn’s happy.  This is all I need in life.

!!!!!!!!!  Curtis, no!  You need- oh, sucker punch, nice.  Noice.  Now this might be a fight.  Wow, Curtis is coming in hard and fast, I like it.  Oh no!!!  His neck again!  Poor Curtis.  Looks like it’s his curse to have to be in a neck brace for the rest of his career.  I too, hope he’s okay, Corey.

Worried about the way they keep talking about Sheamus.  I’ve been hearing things about him might having to retire soon, and now I’m super bummed because I actually really like that big Red Headed goof.  I’m gonna miss him if he does have to leave soon.  Wonder if they’ll actually give him the big singles belt one last time.  Hmmm...  Anyways... yeah, not sure I trust the whole Partners Barred from Ringside thing.  Wouldn’t hold my breath for there being no interference.

OKAY.  I’ve not seen THAT one before.  Just toss the man by the knee over your shoulder Sheamus, that’s fine, it’s cool, doesn’t make me hurt at all.  Hella nice submission, tho.  Love me some submissions.

And THAT’s why big men don’t tend to go up on the top rope.  Should listen to our beloved Gulak.  No Fly Zone for Hosses.

Alright, I hated that knee when Rollins started to use it, and it’s still not the greatest finisher I’ve ever seen him do, but at least now he looks pretty confident while doing it.  Makes a hell of a difference.

Hehehe, did asking if Dean had a strategy.  Cmon, Renee, you should know your man better than that.  Heh, thanks for the pep talk babe.

Ah, yes, and here we have a commercial for Tribute for the Troops, which I’mma watch and cry like a bitch during.  Fantastic.  And on the Base where I was born, too.  Even Better.  Looks like it’ll have some amazing matches.  And maybe Machine Gun Kelly will get attacked by KO again?  I’d enjoy that.

DREW!!!!!  MISTER T!!!!!!  HE’S SO FUCKING CUTE I LOVE HIM LOOK AT HIM CALL EVERYONE BY THEIR LAST NAMES!

“Winner of the Gulak Match”- Micheal Cole, 2017

Alrighty, Swann mentioned again.

OH MY GOD DREW YOU FUCKING CUTIE SWIVEL CHAIRING AROUND SO HE CAN’T EVEN SEE MUSTAFA CLAPPING AT HIM.  Drew “There’s a lotta money working with Enzo but I’m going to casually not say how much” Gulak.  YOU HEARD IT HERE, PEOPLE ON THE STREET TALKING ABOUT HOW GREAT DREW IS.  Drew IS honorable-ish.  The chances are very slim that he’s gonna be the one that ends up stabbing Zo in the back.  Much more likely that it’s the other way around.  ORrrrrrrrrrr that the other boys on the Zo Train will turn on Zo, and Gulak will be the only one that stands by him, a true and loyal friend despite the fact that they’re such an unlikely friendship.

Never stop asking Drew whether or not he’ll fight Enzo.  He is so bad at blatantly changing the subject and I love it, he is legit a horrible politician he’s so bad at two-facing it’s beautiful and amazing.

This just in, Davari just killed Neese with a beautiful spinning discus.  I love that move.  Great move.  Rest in peace, Tony Abs.

I don’t know if the other cruiserweights are inspired by him, but I am super inspired by Drew.  I love him.  Stop badgering the man Cole.  Friends can fight each other and it doesn’t necessarily mean an end to a friendship.  Not... all the time.

Man, Musafa has such pretty moves.  Gorgeous.  I love him.  Shut up Drew, it’s not disgusting.  Don’t actually shut up, I love you.  Oh, and look at Davari taking a play out of Drews- opps, nope, Cedric not letting that happen again- AHAHA “He’s not flying he’s falling!  He’s using gravity to his advantage!”  I wish we coulda seen Drew’s face when he said that.

So... I’m thinking it’ll be Cedric vs Gulak?  Yep.  Yep, it’s Ced- oh no, oh Drew, oh his face, he looks like he’s realized that he’s in trouble.  He totally is.  There’s gonna be some retribution coming Gulak’s way.  He might still win via some duplicitous means- I’m thinking probably Enzo helping Drew get the win so that he gets what he think’s’ll be an easy win against his lackey.  Fuck me, I love Drew Gulak, what a fantastic character, what a beautiful man.

Aaaaaand Roman vs Cesaro next.  Gonna be a slobberknocker.

BUT FIRST DREW AGAIN!!!  MORE DREW!!! YAY!!!!  “Friendly Trashtalk”-  Woah, woah woah woah, how dare you Enzo!?!  Be friends with that poor boy!  YOU SHUT UP ABOUT HIS POWERPOINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

NIA IS BEST WOMAN, LOVE HER, LOVES THE POWERPOINTS, ALSO DREW IS SO FUCKING CUTE “hai nia...!”  Seriously though if they’re going where I think they’re going with Nia and Enzo, I am NOT looking forward to it.  Enzo, right now, isn’t Eddie, and Nia ain’t Chyna.  Love Nia, I really really do, but they haven’t given her enough character to BE a Chyna.  And Eddie and Chyna was a long, slow build, you know?  They worked their way into it.  You can’t just throw an oddball couple together all the time and expect it to work.  Not without any lead up.  Fucking give us hints and glimpses and work up to it.  Don’t just throw it in my face all at once and go “Here you go, isn’t this a glorious couple!?”  No.  It’s outta no where, makes no sense, there’s no chemistry, please stop.

Man, I love me some Uppercuts. And some clotheslines.  These big boys are gonna beat the shit outta each other and it’s great.  Roman doing what Roman does best- hitting people hard.  And some joint manipulation from Cesaro.  Noice.  Awwww.... that’s not nice, Cesaro.  I’m sure like, probably more than half of that crowd likes Roman.  Yeah, I’m hearing what sounds like some kids chanting let’s go Roman.  Which, I mean, you know you’re at least doing something right if you got the kiddos cheering for you.  Annnnnd, Imma have to take a break watching this because the fujiwara hold always looks super gross and I never wanna see someone’s arm actually break.  Cat has perfect timing and has decided to lay on my face.  Thanks, Cat.  Duuuuuuuude, why you gonna- yeah, see, your arm’s already damaged, don’t try to punch someone with it you big ol handsome dingus.  He’s still got a spearrrrr fuccccck that was naaaaasty I hate it when they throw each other at the ring poooooooost aaaand... yep, okay, just gonna nosell there for a second, alright, I get it.

Man... Cesaro might actually win this.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to win this, storyline, but he might.  Aw... man, I miss the swing, feels like I haven’t seen it in forever.

What the hell was that, why was the ref trying to separate them?  I get so confused nowadays.  Used to be we  could trust that if a ref did something like that, it’d be kayfabe stuff.  Now refs aren’t allowed to be part of the stories, so...  Eh.  I miss when we had like, heel ref shenanigans.  Whatever, guess I’m just old.  Not a bad fight, though, in the end.  Even if that ref spot was really weird.

Seriously tho, okay, when did Lesner even come into this rivalry between Kane and Braun???  That’s so random.  Wouldn’t be against Braun taking that fucking title off of Brock so he can just go the hell away again.  Can’t stand him, hated him when he was fighting in the UFC, hate him fighting now.  Best thing about Lesner is that Heymen’s his mouthpiece, and even that is still awful because Paul being Brock’s advocate means that he’s not advocating for more deserving talent.

Yay, Asuka match where she’ll kill someone in the ring!  And then’ll she’ll get surrounded  by- oh no, someone else killed Alicia first.  Yep, okay, so there’s finally going to be a showdown.  They’ve been teasing this for a while.  They’ll probably actually attack this time.  But if they really wanted to swerve, they’d show that Asuka is actually the one in charge of Absolution, all along.  That’d be great.  Not going to happen, but I’d really love Asuka being, like, in charge of a cutthroat female gang.  That’s go serious potential.  Asuaka would make a great mob boss.

Three on one, whatever Booker, it’s still Asuka.  Yeah, see, they wouldn’t let her just-  Ooooooh, Nia!  Nice.  Super nice.  Love it.  And even Foxy!  That’s sweet, lookit her being all savage.  Ehehe, fucking Nia just standing there like yeah, you forgot to take out me, that was a mistake.

Hey look!  It’s a Kurt segment that doesn’t start out with him looking at his phone!  And Jason being mature!!!  I don’t trust it.  They’re gonna turn this boy heel.  Yeah, okay, there we go.  That’s more what I was expecting.  Duuuude, don’t tease me with an Angle Joe match.  I miss those.  Those were fantastic, and I know that you’re not going to give them to me.

I hope Deans feeling a bit better now.  Last couple of times I’ve seen him fighting he’s seemed kinda foggy and outta it.  I worry about him.

AHAHA- Aj’s been Nice?  He put a man threw a car window.  I mean, that man was a McMahon, and I kind of loved it, but still?  Pretty sure even after his face turn he’s pretty solidly on the limbo between the good and bad list this year.

If Jason costs Ambrose this match Imma not be happy.  I’m really looking forward to this match.  Joe will actually let Dean be, you know, creative with his brawling.  And that’s where Deano’s best, when he’s allowed to be unorthadox.  And Yeah, yeah, Ambrose is definitely looking more all there.  ‘S’good.  Man, I’d kinda love for Joe and Ambrose to get in a match where Joe finishes him off in a coquina clutch and Dean doesn’t tap, he just passes the fuck out.  That’s such a glorious face move, refusing to give up even as your body gives up on you.

Loving the way Ambrose is bounding off the middle rope, tha’s beautiful- oh!  A slap!  Nice!  That’s a beautiful mistake.

Jason’s enjoying the match.  Good.  Me too.  JASON, NO.  YOU STAY WHERE YOU ARE.  STOP WALKING.  Oooooh, good save there, Ambrose.  That’s my boy.  Dude.  Dude, no, Jason, don’t- what in the world is going on here?  Fuck me, Jason is going to cost Dean the- fuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkk, DAMMIT JASON.  Yeah, yeah, okay, now you’re in trouble.  I DIDN”T MEAN THAT I WANTED AMBROSE TO SLEEP IN THIS MATCH, ARGH!!!!

So, uh, Deano vs Jason next week?  Or for the next year?  Because let’s face it, Ambrose holds a grudge foreveeeeer.

Hey, Titus!!!! Apollo!!!!  And... Dana... yay...  Oh!  The good brothers!  I wish that I could say Nerds with such vim and vigor.  It’s a serious gift.

Also yay, no one got killed as Braun made his way to the ring???

Okay, come on, we all know Zayn and Owens ain’t getting fired, Daniel is going to get Shane out of the picture and take over the role as ref so it’s actually fair.  Or like, idk, Hunter or Steph are going to come out and fuck someone over.. Maybe Randy will turn, because, you know, he’s got a connection to Trips and also he’s been a face for like forever in Viper years and also we’ve got that unresolved stuff with Hunter giving the Universal Championship to Kevin, soooo....  Either way, someone getting screwed, and I’m pretty damn sure it ain’t going to be out canadian boyos.

Eheheheh, reinforcing the ring.  I hope they break it in two.  I love that shit.   So much fun.  Because I’m apparently still a baby.

Ummm... Pretty sure Kane’s most monstrous moments involved his various kidnappings of pretty ladies.  Or the time he tried to kill his Paul Bearer.  But you know, what do I know, I’ve just been literally watching Kane since he first premiered AS Kane.  Sure, yeah, most “monstrous” thing he’s ever done was thrown a man in a trash collector.  Yep.  That’s it.

A countout???  Boooooo...  Also... who’s going to go fight Brock now?  Someone’s gonna get Kayfabe murdered until there’s only one left to fight Bork.

Okay, they seriously need to stop with the whole fucking with people’s throats thing.  I don’t like it, it worries me, and also they make choking gagging noises which sets off my own gag reflex which is not fun.

oh hey, look, Braun became insta-face by bringing out a table.  I love how easy to please wrestling fans are sometimes.  Kane?  You okay?  That trip looked nasty.

OOOOOH!!!!  BRAUN HAS INHERITED THE MONSTER SIT UP MOVE!!!!  THAT’S SUPER EXCITING!!!!  That looks like a passing of the torch to me.  I like it.  I like where that could be heading.  Yes, good, good end to Raw.

#wwe raw #sassin about rasslin #monday night raw