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inevitably-johnlocked · 3 years

Note

Hi Steph! Hope you’re well :) Do you have a 5+1 rec list? It’s one of my all time favourite tropes and having just found a new one I wondered if you knew of any more? Sorry if you already have one linked somewhere, I’m still not very familiar with tumblr! (The new one I found is works/23857900/chapters/57342538 - sorry I’m not sure how to link properly on asks yet either! 😖

anonymous asked: What’s ur opinion on 5+1 fics?

Hi Lovelies!

Ahhh, sorry for the delay on this one!! I love 5 and Ones!! :D I’ve been tagging them since the beginning 3 years ago so I could more easily find them, just WAITING for people to ask, LOL. I read them a lot on FFNet (it was a BIG fad in the early noughts to have 5+1 fics, just like song fics were a 90′s thing lol)

So here y’all are, plus the one @johnlockedin221b suggested which I haven’t read yet! Please feel free to add your own here!

I’ve also added some *CLOSE TO* five and ones, so like four and ones, I have a 7 times fic, and just one with 5 times. Hope y’all enjoy!

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FIVE AND ONES (and SIMILAR FICS)

Once Upon A Time by ProfessorSquirrell (T, 908 w., 1 Ch. || Family, Snippets of Life, Romance, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Implied Drug Use, Angst with Happy Ending) – There is a room in Sherlock's mind palace where nothing gets deleted. And it looks like this...

The Four Incidents by TheGirlWithRedHair22 (K+, 1,064 w., 1 Ch. || S1 Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, John Whump, Accident, John POV, Hand Holding, Worried Sherlock, Sherlock’s Self Esteem) – The first time John was present when someone insulted Sherlock, he brushed it off as a strange coincidence.

Five Times John Watson Remained Oblivious by thriceandonce (K+, 1,154 w., 1 Ch. || Five and Ones, Romance, Friendship, Asexual Sherlock, Queerplatonic Relationship) – ...And one time he didn't.

Five Times John Didn't Notice Sherlock (and one time he did) by somanyhands (T, 1,369 w., 6 Ch. || Friendship, Five and Ones, 221B Format Oneshots) – Five times out oblivious John Watson didn't notice Sherlock, and one time he really did. A short series of (five plus one) 221B fics, just because.

The 3x John Carried Sherlock, and Once ViceVersa by ShinkonoKokoro (K+, 1,673 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Friendship, Three and One, BAMF John, Sherlock Whump, Worried Sherlock, John Gets Shot) – It happens more than he suspects.

The Perfect Place by SilverSmile (K+, 1,955 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Romance, 5 and Ones, Fluff, Experiments, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock attempts to find the perfect place to sleep, but his little experiment proves to be far more difficult than expected.

Like Euphoria and Scotch by FinAmour (M, 1,856 w., 1 Ch. || TSo3 Fix It, Five and One, Alchohol / Drinking, POV Second Person Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock’s Imagination, Armchair Sex, Cracky and Fluff, Happy Ending) – 5 different ways it all could have gone + the one way it actually works itself out.

Five Times Sherlock gave John a Pebble and One Time John Returned the Gesture by grimmfairy (NR, 1,895 w., 1 Ch. || Love Confessions, Fluff, Penguins and Pebbles, Nervous / Pining Sherlock, Oblivious John) – Sherlock isn't good with words, so he decides to tell John his feelings the way penguins do, by bringing him pebbles with different meanings. John catches on.

Five Times Sherlock Realized He Was Getting Older by Mildred Graves (T, 9,215 w., 6 Ch. || Five and Ones, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Old) – . . . And one time it didn't matter.

It Was All Right There In Front of Him (A Five Times Plus One Story) by bees_stories (T, 3,191 w., 1 Ch. || 5+1, Protective Idiots, Grooming, Bed Sharing, Lestrade POV) – DI Greg Lestrade is a good detective. But sometimes he doesn't trust the evidence in front of him, until there's a compelling reason to do so.

Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down by standbygo (M, 3,282 w. || Post-S4, Five Plus One, Missing Scenes, Parenthood, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Declarations of Love, Fluff, Food, John Whump) – Five times when Sherlock and John ate together, and one time they didn't. A history of the boys, in food.

Atrium by kali_asleep (T, 3,460 w., 1 Ch. || 5+1, Valentines Day, Fluff & Schmoop, First Kiss) – Five times Sherlock gave John his heart, and the one time Sherlock got a heart in return (literally)

Because Your Coat is Part of You by camellialice (K, 3,705 w., 1 Ch. || 5 and 1, Canon Compliant, Sherlock’s Coat, Angst, Fluff) – Five times John wore Sherlock's coat and one time he didn't need to.

Five Times John Cooked Something with Peas and One First Kiss by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for (T, 3,915 w., 1 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Cooking / Food, Sick Sherlock, Music, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss) – After John cooks five dinners that slowly reveal their hunger for each other, Sherlock and John finally share a first kiss.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

What John Doesn't Know (Won't Hurt Him) by blueink3 (NR [T], 4,392 w., 1 Ch, || S3 Fix It, Pining Sherlock, Snippets of Life, Hurt/Comfort, Scars, Fluff and Angst, Five and One, Hopeful Ending, POV Sherlock) – Five people who see Sherlock's scars before John Watson. But Sherlock's secrets were never something he could keep from his blogger for long.

Carry On by Mazarin221b (M, 4,647 w., 1 Ch. || 5 and Ones, H/C, Afghanistan, Frottage, Hand Jobs, First Time) – Five times John didn't want to be carried, and one time he did.

Bed-Sharing Between Flatmates by testosterone_tea (T, 5,053 w., 1 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Bed Sharing, PTSD John, Science, Whump, Insecure Sherlock) – 5 times Sherlock had an excuse to share John's bed, and the one time he didn't need one.

Storytelling by amythedork (T, 5,126 w., 1 Ch. || John’s Past, Friendship, Humour) – Five times John Watson opens up to Sherlock Holmes, and one time Sherlock Holmes opens up to John Watson. Gen, though could easily be read as pre-slash.

Sociopathy and Other Fibs by kinklock (M, 5,314 w., 1 Ch. || 5+1, Miscommunication, Humour, Friends to Lovers, Post S3, Love Confessions) – Five times John called Sherlock out, and one time Sherlock returned the favour.

five times sherlock holmes lied to john watson (and one time he finally told the truth) by miss_frankenstein (G, 5,948 w., 1 Ch. || TAB Compliant || Homophobia, Pining Sherlock, Oscar Wilde Trials, Happy Ending) – Set in "The Abominable Bride" universe, this piece adopts a familiar format to chronicle Sherlock's quiet suffering in the wake of the 1895 Oscar Wilde trials and the particular way they affect his relationship with (and feelings for) John.

Five Times John Noticed But Didn't Really by ScandalousMinds (T, 6,383 w., 5 Ch. || Domestics, Fluff/Angst, Bratty Sherlock, Idiots, Pre-Slash, Jealous Sherlock, Love Confessions) – 5 times John (thought) he noticed something peculiar about his and Sherlock's relationship but really missed the obvious.

once upon a time by darcylindbergh (M, 6,501 w., 6 Ch. || Fluff and Angst, First Kiss / Time, Love Declarations, Christmas) – It starts with a wish. In the beginning, John comes home. Part 1 of things fairy tales are made of

Five Times by AliuIce0814 (T, 6,667 w., 6 Ch. || Drama, Canon-Compliant S1 & 2, Angst, 5 and Ones, Reunion) – ... Sherlock woke John, and one time John woke Sherlock.

Six Dates by avawtsn (E, 7,421 w., 2 Ch. || 5+1, First Time / Kiss, Post S4-Compliant, POV John) – A rather accidental 5+1 written for the prompt "is this a date?" Hint: it is.

Galapogos by anchors (E, 8,460 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Angst, 5 and 1, John Whump) – Somewhere in the depths of the universe, and somewhere in the middle of Sherlock's chest, a star goes into supernova.

All the Times Something ALMOST Happened by allonsys_girl (T, 9,049 w., 6 Ch. || POV Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Canon Compliant, Angst, Friendship/Love, UST) – John and Sherlock dancing around what they dance around in canon.

Illogical, even. by magikspell (E, 9,119 w., 1 Ch. || Grey-Ace Sherlock, Character Study, Growing Up, Victor Trevor, Romance, First Time/Kiss, Sherlock-centric) – Five reasons Sherlock never believed in love and one reason he does now.

A Different Kind of Love by Svenja The Strange (T, 12,357 w., 6 Ch. || Fluff, Humour, Romance, Five and One) – The five times people noticed and the one time John did. A collection of oneshots (some short, some longer) raising the issue of Johns endless dilemma of being deemed for Sherlock’s boyfriend.

A Study in Linguistics by rizandace (T, 12,425 w., 1 Ch. || S1 Canon Compliant/S2 Divergence, Friendship, Slices of Life, Communication, Cranky Sherlock, Hospitals, Sherlock Whump, Pet Cat, Jealous John, Sherlock’s Violin, Anxious Sherlock, John Whump) – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had their own language. It was a language of few words and minute facial expressions, and John had learned that it was nearly the only way to have an honest conversation with his eccentric flat mate.

First Response by Arwen Jade Kenobi (T, 13,516 w., 8 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Whump / Injury) – Five times John had to perform first aid on Sherlock and one time Sherlock had to perform it on John.

Never-Ending Cycle by orphan_account (T, 17,211 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas, Est. Rel., Proposal, Fluff) – Or, four times Sherlock Holmes attempted to propose to John Watson, and the Christmas Party at which he finally did. Sherlock thinks he's a miserable failure, John is confused, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade provide some unsatisfactory advice, and Mummy is, as always, the solution. All in a lovely, fluffy holiday theme.

Just a Kiss by emmagrant01 (E, 19,695 w., 7 Ch. || 5+1, Case Fic) – Five times John and Sherlock kissed because of a case and one time they kissed for real.

EMERGENCY CONTACT: Sherlock Holmes, RELATIONSHIP: n/a by blueink3 (M, 5,533 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt John / John Whump, Five and One, Fluff & Angst, Worried Sherlock) – The first time John Watson’s emergency contact is called is the first time Sherlock Holmes finds out that he has the job. Part 1 of The Emergency Contact Series

EMERGENCY CONTACT: John Watson, RELATIONSHIP: Saint by blueink3 (M, 6,229 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt Sherlock, 5+1, Hurt / Comfort, Caring John, Scars) – The first time Sherlock Holmes realizes he needs an emergency contact is the first time he mentally appoints John Watson with the job. John, of course, does not know this and neither does the local hospital. Part 2 of The Emergency Contact Series

Caught In The Act by ShirleyCarlton (E, 7,009 w. across 6 stories || Est. Rel, Voyeurism, Character POV’s, Masturbation, Switchlock) – This is a series of six scenarios written from the points of view of six different people as they accidentally walk in on Sherlock and John having sex.

Five Times Sherlock Realized He Was Getting Older by Mildred Graves (T, 9,215 w., 6 Ch. || Five and Ones, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Old) – . . . And one time it didn't matter.

The Five Stages of Mourning, Plus One by SunnyRea (T, 10,557 w., 1 Ch. || MCD, Pining / Grieving Sherlock, URT, Heavy Angst, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Drug Use, Graphic Death, Depression, Unhappy Ending) – Sherlock did not want this, did not want another stalemate with John in the middle, a gun in Jim's hand. This cannot have happened without a sign. There has to be something he missed anything which said today is the day I kill for real.

About Sleep and Coffee and the Existence of Fate by Atiki (E, 17,426 w., 6 Ch. || Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Humour, 5+1) – Naturally, John was startled when suddenly the ultimate solution occurred to him: Marriage. This was, of course, a bit of a fundamental problem rather than an actual solution. One didn't simply use the words “Sherlock” and “marriage” within the same sentence. Not even in a hypothetical context. Five times John kind of wanted to propose to Sherlock, and one time he didn’t have to.

Just a Kiss by emmagrant01 (E, 19,695 w., 7 Ch. || 5+1, Case Fic, Kisses) – Five times John and Sherlock kissed because of a case and one time they kissed for real.

5 Times John Got the Girl (and lost her) and 1 Time John Got the Guy (and kept him) by LiviKate (M, 21,695 w., 6 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Kissing, Oblivious / Awkward Sherlock, BAMF / Sexy / Stud John, Embarrassed John, John’s Scar, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Sherlock) – John has always had good luck with the ladies. He's charming, friendly and funny, not to mention great in bed. However, his usual skill with the opposite sex is constantly being thwarted by Sherlock and his outbursts. How will John ever get a leg over when Sherlock is always cockblocking him?

Five Times: Watching and Waiting by Ira Lea (K+, 23,034 w., 13 Ch. || Friendship, Post-TRF, No Slash) – Five times Sherlock didn't know John was watching, and one time he made sure of it. Five times John didn't know Sherlock was watching, and one time he figured it out. Three years of "he's dead", one moment of "he's alive", and the resulting chase through the streets of London. (Two 5:1s in quick succession and a bonus).

And A Doctor by StillWaters1 (T, 27,393 w., 6 Ch. || Friendship, Doctor John, Whump, Soldier / Doctor Dichotomy, Five and One) – It was only when people actually saw John working as a physician that they began to understand: that it wasn't just about bullets and IEDs and trauma care under fire. That "doctor" actually covered a pretty wide field. And that John was bloody good at covering ground. 5 times Dr. Watson treated others and 1 time he treated himself.

Five Times They Kissed for a Case, and One Time They Kissed for Real by fleetwood_mouse (M, 32,406 w., 6 Ch. || 5+1, Slow Burn, Fluff / Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers) – A stolen ring! An artful blogger! And many more adventures for your enjoyment.

The Case of the Vanishing Pants by SwissMiss (E, 44,025 w., 6 Ch. || Five and Ones, Post-TRF, Case Fic, UST, Homophobia, Friends to Lovers, Pining John, Showering Together, Couple for a Case, Sherlock’s Bum, Fantasies, Jealous Sherlock) – Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the course of a case.

MARKED FOR LATER

Five Times Sherlock and John Had Realistic Sex and One Time They Didn't by pennydreadful (E, 1,811 w., 1 Ch. || Five and One, Anal/Oral, Finger Fucking, Hand Jobs) – Reality is a bitch.

A Study in Night Terrors by Dovahlock221 (T, 2,811 w., 1 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Night Terrors, (Emotional) Hurt/Comfort, PTSD Sherlock, Worried John, Hurt John, Angst with Happy Ending) – Five times Sherlock suffered from night terrors and the one time he had the best dream of his life.

What Every Step Is For by Anyawen (G, 2,921 w., 1 Ch. || Five and One, Bedsharing, Injury, Illness, Cold, Lack of Beds, Fake Relationship, Fluff) – Five times bedsharing occurred due to circumstance, and one time it happened by invitation.

5 Times John Almost Told Sherlock He Loved Him, and 1 Time He Did by wanderlustmind (T, 3,006 w., 1 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Additional Tags to be added) – As adorable as a box of puppies, I promise.

The Fundamental Things Apply by Raina_at (M, 6,263 w., 1 Ch. || Five and One, Kissing) – "Kisses that are easily obtained are easily forgotten." - Proverb

Five Times Sherlock Fell Asleep in John's Arms by Accident and the One Time He Did It – Accidentally – on Purpose by WillowGrove (T, 7,201 w., 6 Ch, || Five and One, Falling Asleep, Cuddling & Snuggling, Texting, Tea, First Kiss, Dreams, Fever, Comfort, Caretaker John, Love, Humour, Fluff) – Sherlock notices that John keeps cuddling him to sleep and he rather likes it. But then John stops, and Sherlock has to result to schemes to make it happen again. Who falls asleep, who wakes up in who’s arms, and – most importantly – will there be a kiss in the end?

Dinner Conversations, a 5+1 by BakerTumblings (G, 7,559 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Blended Families, Parentlock, Dinner Conversations, Established Relationship, Family Adventures, Five and Ones) – Five times that John had something to say at or about dinnertime, and one time where John was requested to listen. Part 8 of Eyes Wide Open

The Refractive Index by NoStraightLine (E, 10,395 w., 6 Ch. || Five and Ones, BAMF John, Crossdressing, Sherlock is Shot, Oral Fixation, First Time, Hurt/Comfort) – Five times John and Sherlock fuck in a bolt-hole, and one time they don't.

Five Christmases that went wrong and one that didn't by love_in_mind_palace (M, 11,685 w., 6 Ch. || Christmas, Fluff & Smut, Domestics, Est. Rel., 5 and 1′s, Canon Divergence, Tooth-Rotting Fluff) – John isn’t sure about most of the things in his life. Except for the fact that he loves Sherlock, Sherlock loves him back and that after years of bad luck, he is getting the Christmas he always deserved.

In Plain Sight by SilentAuror (E, 18,100 w., 1 Ch. || Post-HLV, 5 and Ones, POV Sherlock, Sex on Trains, Sex During Investigations, Sex in Offices, Unspoken Feelings, Anal, Slight Medical Kink, Public Sex Kink) – Five times that Sherlock and John have sex of some kind without talking about it and one time when they do. Part 1 of the Public Sex Kink

Just Dance by 7PercentSolution (M, 22,784 w., 6 Ch. || Four and One, For a Case, Drug Use, Abusive Boss, Ballroom Dancing, Sherlock Loves Dancing, Blackmail, Unrequited Love, Courtship) – Four dances that Sherlock taught Janine — and one he didn’t. Never mind if it leads him into dangerous territory; how could Sherlock resist a case from Lady Smallwood that lets him use his dancing skills? This is a gift work to Silvergirl, who is an inspiration to us all.

5 times Sherlock got (a) dressed like a woman, plus 1 he did not by Nauss (M, 25,719 w., 6 Ch. || Friendship and Romance, 5 and Ones, French Language Fic) – Ton regard est baissé et ton attitude ne brille pas de son habituel éclat Je-sais-que-tu-considères-que-je-n'aurais-pas-dû-mais-la-science-John. À la place, il y a tous ces petits détails que je ne parviens pas à voir, alors je m'approche de ta silhouette enrobedechambrée. Puis je lève la main, bouche bée. - John rentre en avance du travail et tombe sur un imprévu sherlockien.

Exit- An Ex Files Special by 7PercentSolution (G, 27,148 w., 6 Ch. || Sherlock/Victor Trevor, Angst Like Whoa, TRF-Compliant, Multiple POV’s, Unrequited Love, Whump, TBI and Recovery, Heartbreak, Romance, PTSD, Grieving, Five and One) – The end (or not, as the case may be), covering The Fall and its aftermath. Can be considered both a conclusion to my Fallen Angel series and a coda to Extricate and The Ex. A five plus one.

under the burden of solitude by subtext-is-my-division (E, 27,947 w., 5 Ch. || S3/S4 Fix It/Post TLD, Angst, Grief/Mourning, First Kiss, Mentions of Rape, Hurt/Comfort, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Fantasies, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Suicidal Thoughts Mentions, Five and Ones) – Five times they shared a bed platonically, and one time they didn't.

Caesura by emilycare (M, 36,608 w., 10 Ch. || Five and One, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Friends to Lovers, Past Abuse, Past Drug Use, Angst with Happy Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Oral Sex, Blow Jobs, Domestic Fluff, Soft Sherlock, Gay Sherlock, Bisexual John) – The violin is a retreat that eases the quiet of Sherlock Holmes' solitude. It also speaks for him when he cannot bridge the gaps his defenses create. Moments when music helps Sherlock reach out or let others in, like his stalwart flatmate and, in time, the doctor's daughter. Five times Sherlock Holmes played the violin, and one time he did not.

Magpies Series by 7PercentSolution (T, 218,813+ w. across 4 works || Series WIP || Post TRF, Drug Withdrawal, References to Torture, Confessions, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Fic, PTSD, Oblivious John) – The Magpies series covers the events of the broadcast series three and four, "translated" into my universe. I wrote a lot of it before the episodes were broadcast and made some of my themes into AU (such as the Holmes parents and the sibling). Darker, more intense and angsty than Game Theory and Fallen Angel, the Magpies stories show the effects of the hiatus on all concerned. When parts five to 8 are completed, the series will bring the Ford saga to a conclusion.

#steph replies #five and ones #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #johnlockin221b #long post #number fics #five times fics

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solinarimoon · 3 years

Text

Little Sea - Part I

AN: This is my first time writing outside of The Last Kingdom fandom, but I originally joined tumblr to find Hvitserk content. So I hope my writing for him does it justice. This is for @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie Congratulations on your milestone love! This story is a Vikings/TLK crossover but Sihtric is basically placed into the Vikings universe. I know in our heads these two belong in the same universe, so enjoy. My prompt was a reimagining of The Little Mermaid fairytale. The story got too long so I am breaking it into two parts. Sjór means sea in Old Norse, at least according to one website I found. I have more notes at the end of part two.

Warnings: Angst, unrequited love, suicidal imagery/implications, Vikings canon Ivar cruelty

My Masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She swam, racing the currents in the sea. The water’s hazy depths constantly shifted and mottled in a swirling dance. Hues of blue and green mixed with inky darkness but faded to the rays of the sun’s light filtering through from the surface.

The cold temperatures below the fathoms began to warm as Alba swam towards the surface. Swishing her fins, she felt the drag of the water as she climbed higher until slowing and ultimately stopping herself just before breaching the surface.

His face stared down at her above the water. His lips spoke words that she could not hear. His face was calm and serene. Happy.

The only sound was the rushing tumult of waves breaking, crashing upon rocks at the base of a cliff.

Alba flicked her tail trying in vain to break through the surface. She wanted nothing more than to rise above the water and envelop Hvitserk in her arms.

The fear and the panic began to rise instead. And without warning, Alba felt her terror intensify as her tail had been replaced with two legs. Hvitserk’s face grew farther and farther away while she sank back below the dark depths.

~~~~~~~~

Alba woke with a start, sitting up in her bed and breathing heavily. Her hands clung to the furs draped across her, pulling them aside to reveal two legs and feet. The sight still seemed surreal to her.

This was not the first night she had awoken from this dream. It was occurring more and more often as she felt the pull to return to the sea. Return home. And as she watched Hvitserk continue to move further and further away from her.

Slowly, the young woman stood from her bed steadying herself as her legs wavered like someone returning to shore after living on a ship for weeks. She draped a cowl of furs around herself and pushed aside the door leading from her small hut on to the beach.

Only a few paces brought Alba up to the water’s edge. The waves lapped over her toes and Alba breathed easier. Salty spray drifted across the cove where the waves were always harsh and ragged against the cliffs to the north.

Alba trained her eyes on the grey horizon, watching as the mist began to fade and the shadows melted away. She breathed in the taste of the ocean’s air and for a moment felt content.

But that moment was broken when she noticed a set of forlorn footsteps approaching her.

“I knew you would be up and on the beach already.”

His voice was low and groggy as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders with a gentle squeeze. Alba wondered if he had seen his own bed that night.

“I wish I could help you find whatever you are looking for on the water, little Sjór.”

Alba turned her face ever so slightly to question him with a silent gaze. And to see his braids looking disheveled. And a small bruise just under his jaw.

“When we met, it was not unlike this,” Hvitserk paused when Alba turned her face towards him fully, furrowing her brow in confusion. “I mean it was very different because I still have no idea how a half drowned young woman came to be lying between the rocks on the north edge of the cove, covered by nothing but a ragged boat sail,” his lips had pursed slightly trying to ward of the smirk Alba knew he was fighting. Shuffling his feet in the sand and clearing his throat, he continued, “so it was different but you also still had that look I see so often. The one you had moments ago. Like you’ve lost something. And you’re waiting for it to return to you.”

Alba turned her eyes back to gaze across the water before dropping her face to the sand with a huff. “Looking for your voice, perhaps?”

Alba looked up with her mouth dropped open in shock to see the young man grinning fully while she pushed him lightly away. Hvitserk let out a true laugh before wrapping his arm once more around Alba’s shoulder. Comfortable and brotherly.

Scuffing a bare foot in the sand, Alba moved away from his side and began ambling down the beach knowing Hvitserk would follow.

It was no use trying to hold that one sided conversation again. Part of the enchantment prevented her from revealing the truth about where she came from, about what she was…is…would be once more. So even if they played a crude pantomime game, she still could not reveal if his guess were to be correct.

Her time on land was almost spent. Her time with him would come to an end. Alba knew in her heart that Hvitserk was not in love with her. And the binding nature of the enchantment would not bend. No matter how much love she felt for him. Or how much she had become endeared to him. That was not the problem. He did love her. But it was not true love. Not for him. So she would return to the sea, but not today.

Alba sighed, straightened her shoulders and raised her head, breaking herself from her thoughts.

She turned to look at Hvitserk walking alongside her, scuffing his boots beside her bare feet. Gently, Alba reached out her hand and tapped his neck where she’d noticed the small bruise.

Hvitserk met her eyes with a mischievous smile.

“Oh that, there? That is nothing, little Sjór. Only a slight bite I received from one of the forest trolls while I was searching for mushrooms.”

The pair laughed at his jest, her silently and him with gentle chuckles before he continued, sincerity beginning to lace its way into his words.

“I was with Thora last night.”

Alba arched an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, again.” Hvitserk chuckled lightheartedly. He missed Alba’s eyebrows relax and the smile on her face fall as she listened to him talk about the new woman.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alba woke to the sound of rain pelting the thatch roof of her small cottage. Sleepily, she opened her eyes just as a streak of lightning illuminated the sky. She had seen the flash through the leaking cracks of her shutters.

Several moments later the booming echo of Thor’s hammer against the clouds brought a slight curve to her mouth. A rain storm was dangerous on the water. Perilous. But under the water, Alba and her sisters had been fond of watching the crash and roll of the tumultuous waves. The lightning scattering crystalline lights across the surface of the water. A beautiful orchestra of light and movement.

A rain storm did not startle her. A rain storm felt like home. Alba nestled further down into her furs, feeling their weight and warmth bringing her back to sleep.

Except this thunderous booming continued on far longer than any true thunderclap. And it was now accompanied by a muffled voice.

Hvitserk.

No one else ever came to her door. Barely another soul knew she even existed or much less where she dwelled.

Alba opened the door to a torrent of rain blocked only by Hvitserk’s tall frame.

For a moment, they stood staring at one another, the rain continuing to sleet down on them.

In the dark, Alba could barely make out the features of his face. She searched his face, her eyes questioning. But only for a moment before Alba grabbed his arm, ushering him inside and closing the door.

In two strides, Alba moved across the room to gather up the furs from her bed and drape them across Hvitserk’s shoulders then settling him down on the short bench next to her cookfire. Alba stoked up the flames from the low burning embers before turning on her knees to look at him.

Beads of rainwater still tracked down the strands of his hair that had come free from his braids and he had made no move to wipe the dampness from his face.

He met her eyes as he spoke, “It’s Ivar,” he stated simply.

Alba shuffled closer to him and placed her hand on his arm, atop the furs.

“He is sending me as his messenger to King Olaf. In Norway,” Hvitserk paused to turn his head. He clasped his hands together while bringing them up to rest against his mouth. He was staring off towards the other side of the room. His next words were muffled against his fist.

“I don’t know what my brother thinks he is going to do,” he chuckled then continued, “my brother the god king.”

Alba starred while Hvitserk worked through whatever thoughts were raging in his mind. Increasingly in the past weeks, Hvitserk’s worry over his brother’s rule in Kattegat had grown. Though he did not often openly criticize Ivar, it was clear to Alba that he carried many burdens for his younger brother. Burdens that left him questioning his path and his fate. And questioning the path his brother was forging.

The young woman scooted herself closer to him and placed her palm against his cheek, lightly pulling his face back to meet hers.

She saw the torment and frustration in his brow. It was mirrored on her own face. She opened her mouth but could only huff and furrow her brow more. Sighing, Alba looked around the room, searching for everything and nothing before finally settling her eyes back onto him.

“Even if you had words, little Sjór, there are none you could speak that would save me.”

At this, Alba felt her face shift from frustration to concern, her eyes frantically searching his face for more answers.

“I must do as Ivar bids. And I leave you behind to deal with Ivar’s tyranny. His madness.” Hvitserk dropped his head into his hands, continuing to talk. His words came more easily now as his emotions boiled over. “And my love, Thora. I leave her behind but she does not have the anonymity you do to protect her. I fear for her. I fear what Ivar may do to her while I am away.”

Hvitserk hung his head and sighed heavily. Alba felt her chest stutter as she realized she was holding back tears. He truly did love Thora. And Alba could not help herself from liking the young woman as well.

Hvitserk had brought Thora to the beach to meet her one day. And though it made her heart ache, Alba could not deny that she saw the love that was blooming there. From the casual way that she saw their bodys lean into one another to the way Hvitserk watched Thora when she did not know he was watching. While Alba was watching him. That night, she had cried silent tears alone on the beach, while the ocean’s mist cried with her. And the ache in her chest now was the same.

Trying her best to quell the sobs threatening to escape her lungs, Alba shifted herself once more to sit beside him on the bench. Gently, she cradled him in her arms and stroked back the strands of his hair, now drying by the heat from the fire. Hvitserk hugged her knees and closed his eyes for a moment, taking comfort from the care and love in Alba’s touch.

“I will miss you while I am away. I know you enjoy your solitude. But if you can, keep an eye out for my Thora. Ivar has made comments. Said things that make me fear she may be a target for his frustration. She sees how dangerous Ivar has become. It threatens him.”

The more Hvitserk continued on, the more Alba’s heart continued to tear. Her prince's concern and worry was for another. He was in love with another. She let out a silent sob, but laying in her lap, Hvitserk felt the jolt of her body. The pain she could no longer hold back.

Sitting up, he questioned, “What is it, Sjór?”

Alba closed her eyes and felt the tears cascade down her face as she shook her head.

Hvitserk took her face in his hands, turning his body so that he straddled the bench. The furs around his shoulders dropped to the ground, forgotten.

“Hey, hey look at me?”

Alba opened her eyes to see concern etched across his features. Silently cursing her tears, she pushed his hands away and stood, wrapping her arms around herself and stepping away towards the door. He was tormented enough and did not need to add her pain to his. A pain that she could not explain to him.

“Sjór, I….” He started, standing to face her and grabbing her arms, firm but gentle. His words fell silent as he watched the tears continue to track down her cheeks.

Huffing in frustration, Alba wiped the tears away. The two stood silent except for Alba’s shaky breaths for several moments.

Finally, Alba brought her fist up to thump against her chest. Over her heart. Gathering her courage, she took her fist, relaxing her fingers and placed her hand over Hvitserk’s own heart. And then brought her head to rest against her hand, feeling his breath and the questions in his stance.

Taking a step back and removing her hand to wipe another stray tear, Alba met his eye. With more force she took her fist to thump against his chest. In the same spot, over his heart.

Looking down to her hand, Alba tapped her fist against him once more then brought her hand up and pointed a single finger towards her window. Towards Thora, towards his love.

She watched as Hivitserk’s brow, a deep line of confusion, slowly relaxed. A look of realization spread across his face.

To then be replaced by something more unbearable.

Pity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bare feet found their way along the soft mosses and lichen carpeting the ground up the paths surrounding the northern side of the cove. Alba stepped slow and deliberate, feeling the air growing cooler. The spray of the mist off the sea left salty pin pricks of water glistening across her bare arms.

Low in the distance, the rumble of thunder rolled. As she crested the height of the cliffs, Alba found the crash of the waves joining in the thrum of the oncoming storm. The energy in the air was mounting. Mirroring Alba’s rising anguish.

Thora was dead. A cruel and horrifying death.

Ivar was rampaging. His madness was building and unstable.

And Hvitserk. Her sweet Hvitserk was gone. If Ivar was to be believed...If what he said was true, he was lost. Dead at the orders of King Olaf.

Alba fell to her knees at the cliff's edge. Her hands gripped tight onto the sharp rock’s edge. The rough surface painful and grating at the pads of her fingers. She clung to the edge. Her eyes staring down at the waves below. The maelstrom of the waves calling to her. To end her suffering. End the anguish and pain.

Alba stood, the wind whipping her dress as the rain began, drops gently splattering across the terrain. The young woman looked up towards the clouds and closed her eyes, feeling tears spill over across her cheeks.

Silently, Alba let the anguish wash over her. Knowing he was lost. And the sea was calling her to return.

Alba’s time on legs would soon be done. She had not found her love returned. And she could not stay. The pull of the sea was calling to her stronger and stronger. Her sisters called to her to return to them.

Slowly, she dropped her face back down to the tumult below and took a step forward.

“Don’t!”

The voice stopped her movements. The roll of thunder boomed again. Several tense moments passed before Alba heard the voice again.

“Please don’t.”

The voice was deep and soothing. But Alba could sense something else behind the words. Panic. Desperation.

Weakly, she turned to face the nameless voice, her head turning back to look across her shoulder. The rain was cascading in steady rivulets now. Mingling with the tears staining Alba’s face. Her dress had quickly become sodden and clung to her skin.

When her eyes came to the tree line, she saw him.

He was tall. Dark. His hair plastered to the sides of his face from the rain. Hands raised to indicate he was no threat to her.

Slowly, tentatively the man stepped forward to stand beside her before he spoke again.

Alba’s eyes tracked his movements.

When he was close enough to touch her, he spoke once more.

“Please. Do not succumb to it.”

When Alba did nothing but stare, the man continued, “To your grief. Please.”

It was the please that caught her. The gentleness and the kindness in his eyes as he pleaded with her.

His arms caught her as she collapsed atop the cliff, allowing the despair to wash over her.

The man held her while she cried, silent sobs that shook her to her core. Her fingers twisting and clinging to the folds of his shirt. His arms steady and firm around her shoulders as he cradled her. He held her until she stilled while the rains continued their lament. And when she was half asleep, ruined with exhaustion he carried her back down the path.

He settled her down underneath his own roof, beside a comfortable fire to dry her clothes and hair.

The man handed her a small bowl full of warm broth.

“Go ahead,” he coaxed, “you must get dry and eat. You do not want to catch cold. And then you should sleep.”

When Alba stared at him questioningly, he added, “You have nothing to fear from me. I am called Sihtric.”

~~~~~~~~~~~ To be continued in part II

Tagging my usuals. Please let me know if you would like to be added or removed from my taglist.

Tags: @maggiescarborough @pokeasleepingsmaug @nxrdist @mystic-shadows42 @emilyhufflepufftlk @magravenwrites @lauwrite1225 @morosemagick @thebohemianpenguin @mrsalwayswrite @notyourwildestdream @obipoelover-deactivated20210806 @ecarroll1978 @93xdiagonxalley @nobodys-business-world @evelynshelby @trenko-heart @0hsappho

#cherrypie’s500 #Hvitserk #vikings #sihtric #the last kingdom #deans ch ch cherrypie #Hvitserk x OC #sihtric x OC #vikings/the last kingdom crossover #hvitserk vikings #hvitserk x ofc #hvitserk ragnarsson #hvitserk lothbrok #fanfiction

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gemmaswriting · 4 years

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Anidala Fanfiction Recommendations!!

I’ve been asked for a long time for my fanfiction recommendations, so I’ve finally taken the time to compile them. If there are any you love that I missed out (this includes Vaderdala!) leave them as a reply so we can all have a good time reading together.

Writer: Shelivesfree (fanfiction profile) This wonderful girl has some of the most amazing Anidala stories I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Unfortunately, a lot of them have been hiatus for a while but her Boy Next Door trilogy has two amazing parts completed.

The stories I recommend:

“The Boy Next Door”: “When Padme Naberrie returns to her home after 10 years, the last thing she expects to find is her childhood friend, Anakin Skywalker; the boy next door. But 10 years is a long time, and he has changed more than she is prepared for. How will she react when little Ani is now a grown man, impulsive, handsome and completely infatuated with her? Modern AU.”

“The Girl from Harvard”: “Sequel to ‘The Boy Next Door’ Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It also makes it grow more paranoid. Padme is in her last year of Harvard. Anakin has just started at the University of Chicago. Though they won't admit it, their long-distance relationship is taking it's heavy toll. Will their love prevail or will the distance prove too much for both of them? Sequel to The Boy Next Door. Modern AU.”

“look into my eyes, that's where my demons hide”: ”Each time he comes back to her, a little piece of him is missing... left out there, in the field, with his brothers. She can see it in the way he smiles and it doesn't reach his eyes. In the way he cries to himself when he thinks she's not awake. And all she can do is hold him. Modern AU.”

“I Know Your Type” “Am I dead?" It slips out, accidentally. She turns her head towards me, a confused look on her face and tips her head. "Excuse me?" Flashing her an impish grin, I lean casually against the wall. "I must have died and gone to heaven, because you look like an angel." The look she gives me is far from impressed. "Do you use that with all the girls, or am I just lucky?"

“we both know what we want, so why don't we fall in love?” “Rhythmic Gymnast Padme Naberrie has dreamed of being an Olympian since she was five years old. Now, after years and years of training and preparations, she's finally made it to Rio, and nothing is going to stand in the way between her and a gold medal. Except a certain Canadian beach volleyball player, perhaps.”

“Infinite” “ My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

“for a moment” “And, just for a moment, all the worries and concerns that troubled the young couple cease to exist. Fade away to just this. Husband and wife. Asleep. Dreaming of the sweet little life they will soon bring into the world and into their hearts. Set somewhere in ROTS.”

“Procrastination” “Padmé is busy with a new bill she must bring before the next Senate meeting. Her husband has other ideas, it would seem.”

“There’s a million reasons I should give you up” “Padmé struggles to deal with Anakin's frequent departures for weeks, even months, at a time during the Clone Wars. It's in these moments she contemplates the practicality of their marriage. Grief-stricken with loneliness, she stumbles across something she wrote a long time ago... a list of sorts. The find brings about a whole host of emotions she'd rather not deal with.”

“all I need is you” “It was her fault. His pain, his jealousy, his insecurity. It was all her fault. Padme looked up at the beautiful man in front of her, her husband, her Ani, and decided she needed to make him remember. Remind him of how much she loved him. Because no one, no man in the entire galaxy, could take the place of Anakin Skywalker.”

“Her” “A glimpse into the Cosmic Force after Darth Vader's redemption and return to the Light Side. Anakin Skywalker is consumed by guilt and Obi-wan and Yoda are there to appease him. But it's been twenty-four years and all he wants is to see her.”

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Writer: SphinxScribe (Fanfiction profile/ Tumblr account @sphinxscribe ) This fantastic writer has many, many alternate takes on the plot of Revenge of the Sith - often allowing our favourite couple to have a happy ending. Their writing captures the world of Star Wars perfectly.

The stories I recommend:

“Where Catalysts Stand Down” “Palpatine issues Order 66, and Anakin and Padmé flee Coruscant. ROTS AU. Anakin/Padmé, Anidala.”

“Viability’s Edge” “Anakin tells Obi-Wan the truth. ROTS AU. Anakin/Padmé, Anidala.”

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Writer: Disco Shop Girl (Fanfiction profile) This writer’s take on Anidala is so well written within every story of theirs I have read. They truly capture their dynamic and relationship perfectly.

The stories I recommend:

“Your helmet cracked” “He'd been restrained, forced to watch while her helmet cracked and the Mon Calamari sea water threatened to drown her before his eyes. Now they're free. And alone. Set at the end of the Clone Wars season 4 Water War arc.”

“Order 66-S” “The order was to exterminate all Jedi: Past, Present and Future. Captain Rex has a different plan. Order 66-S: to save General Skywalker.”

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Writer: Rogue Darth Skywalker (Fanfiction profile/ Tumblr - @roguedarthskywalker) This wonderful person has been one of the biggest supporters of my own writing for a long time and I value them immensely! They have many delicious Anidala/Vaderdala stories for you to obsess over for hours and hours. I highly recommend following both profiles linked above.

The stories I recommend:

“Pin up Problems” “He hated the nose art. He hated seeing others degrade her other exceptional qualities by depicting her as some pin up girl. He hated thinking about how many other beings across the stars fantasized about her in such a way. At the same time, he can't deny that the art makes her look… hot. He can't deny that the sight turns him on.”

“Letting Go” “It was their custom. Every year on that fateful day, Anakin would make his way to the cemetery with his children and seek out the mausoleum where she rested."

“Far from Perfect” “Darth Vader is dead. Anakin is redeemed and lives on Naboo with Padme and their children. But not all happy endings are perfect.”

“Far from Easy” “Sequel to Far From Perfect. Redeemed Anakin Skywalker tries to make things right with his wife and kids.

“Perfect” “Happy Family style AU post ROTS. Padme wakes up in the middle of the night and ponders the most recent events in her life.”

“A Dangerous Fantasy” “Pure Smut. Padme helps Anakin fulfil a fantasy he has had since they were married- one that involves the Jedi Council Chambers.”

“Untitled” “Anakin and Padme deal with having to tell their young twins they are having another baby.”

“Strictly Professional” “There are times she hates that she has to resort to this- that rather than being in a long term relationship with someone, she chose to instead pay someone for sex. Modern AU.”

“Out of his Depth” “I fought in a war. I commanded legions of soldiers against battle droids. I think I can handle my own four-year-old twins."

“Love and Jealousy” “Anakin gave the binders an experimental tug, testing his chances of escaping. There was none. A light chuckle left his lips after a few moments, letting his head fall back to rest on the chair. What a compromising position for a Jedi Knight to be in. Handcuffed in a respected senator's bedchambers practically naked… oh, how the holonews would rave should the story get out!”

“Against all Odds” “He shouldn't be here. The election was only a few weeks away and the final debate was due in the next few days. There were so many other things he should be doing. He shouldn't be here, in enemy territory wrapped in the arms of the woman his boss despised. Modern AU. Smut.”

“What we Hope is Never Found” “The impending existence of a recording of them together held dangers that went a little deeper than if they were found naked and tangled together in her office or on his cruiser. The physical proof of their relationship would cause an uproar if it were discovered. But she trusted Anakin. Smut.”

“It was Found” “Sequel to What We Hope is Never Found.”

“Things that go bump in the night” “Luke and Leia think there is a ghost in their home. Their parents know better.”

“Preparations” “She couldn't wait to meet their little ones. It hadn't been too long since they learned she was having twins, and as stressful as that idea was at first, she was quickly growing accustomed to the idea of having two perfect little babies. Her husband, however, seemed to be taking it a little worse than her.”

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Writer: Skywalkersamidala (Archive of our Own profile/ Tumblr @markantonys) I absolutely adore the Anidala stories created by this author whether they’re aus or canon! They nail the couple’s dynamic throughout their many wonderful stories.

The stories I recommend:

“Snow Place like Home” “For genre-typical convoluted reasons involving ill-timed blizzards, Padmé is forced to spend the holidays at Anakin's house. Anakin isn't as upset about his boss staying with him for Christmas as he probably should be.“

“Soulmates R Us” “Anakin works at a toy store, and single-mother-of-twins Padmé is becoming one of the store's best customers.”

“Heirs of Light and Darkness” “After escaping the Jedi purge two years ago made him the most wanted fugitive in the galaxy, Anakin Skywalker has at last been captured by the Empire. He expects to be killed, but Lady Padmé Amidala, the imperial heir, has other ideas.”

“Friendly Competition” “Playing Quidditch is awfully difficult when you’re in love with the rival Seeker. Snapshots of Anakin and Padmé’s 7 years at Hogwarts.“

“Perfect” “The war is over, Luke and Leia are five years old, and Anakin and Padmé finally have the peaceful life and big family they've always dreamed of. But their life is about to get a little less peaceful and their family a little bigger.“

“Nos Cedamus Amori“ “Anakin is a gladiator and a slave. Padmé is the wife of the Roman emperor's heir. Circumstances should never even allow them to meet, let alone fall in love.“

“I Do Take Two” “Thirty years after their clandestine wedding on Naboo, Anakin and Padmé decide to finally do the proper wedding ceremony they never got to have, with all their friends and family present.“

“Flat Tire” “Who knew something as simple as getting a flat tire could change the entire course of your life?“

“Strays” “Anakin had always had a penchant for taking in strays.”

“Five weddings and a funeral” “Padmé's feeling gloomy about her perpetual singleness, but everything changes when she meets an attractive stranger at her sister's wedding.“

“Pipe Dream” “Padmé's new plumber is the most attractive human being she's ever laid eyes on, so naturally, she keeps faking plumbing emergencies so she can keep seeing him.“

“Birthdays and Birth days” “Anakin gets a birthday surprise — two of them, in fact.“

“Spouses with Benefits” “Anakin and Padmé wake up after a wild night in Vegas and discover they accidentally got married—and that Ahsoka posted about it all over social media, so now every single person they know is texting and calling them to offer congratulations. They decide to save face by pretending the marriage was totally 100% intentional and not a drunk mistake at all, keeping up the charade for six months, and then quietly getting divorced. But a lot can change in six months…“

“Two Halves Make a Whole” “Anakin is the single dad of Luke. Padme is the single mom of Leia. Luke and Leia meet in kindergarten and become best friends. The rest is history.“

“Home” “In which "Darth Vader" is no more than Anakin's playtime alter ego (happy Skywalker family AU)“

“Someday” “At age fourteen, Padme receives a marriage proposal from the nine-year-old boy next door and tells him to ask her again when she's thirty. Surely he'll have forgotten all about it by then.“

“Across the Centuries” “They meet each other in every century, but something always goes wrong before they can make it to happily-ever-after.”

“Madam President” “Between late nights and headaches and mountains of paperwork and fierce opposition from her political opponents, President Padmé Amidala already had enough on her plate. And then she just had to go and fall for one of her bodyguards, a relationship which would ruin her reputation and his career if anyone were to find out about it. Also, someone's trying to kill her.“

“Scars” “How do Anakin and Padmé go from "I love you" to "I do"? Missing scene from Attack of the Clones.”

“The Bet” “Anakin's had a crush on Padmé since fourth grade, and after putting up with his pining for seven years, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are finally stepping in and making a bet that he can't ask her to junior prom in the spring. Meanwhile, Padmé is realizing that Anakin isn't as annoying as she'd always thought. In fact, her feelings towards him are starting to go in quite the opposite direction...”

“Three” “His and Padmé’s first wedding anniversary isn’t going nearly as well as Anakin had hoped it would. Until, suddenly, it’s so much better than he could have ever imagined.“

“The Anakin Disaster” “Padmé is mortified upon waking up beside her strictly platonic childhood best friend Anakin Skywalker the morning after a drunken one-night stand. A couple weeks later, she discovers that's the least of their problems.“

“Will You Fake Marry Me?” “Anakin's boss may or may not have accidentally given her family the impression that she's engaged to him. Anakin may or may not be pleased about the situation”

“Aggressive Negotiations” “Empress Amidala invites Lord Vader to her private rooms to persuade him to form an alliance with the Empire. Her methods are very effective.”

“Troubling Implications” “Perhaps he hated himself for it—Padmé thought he probably did—but he came that night (several times, in fact). And the night after that, and the next one, and the next, until it became a habit that neither of them seemed especially inclined to break. (Sequel to "Aggressive Negotiations")

“Imperial Obligations” “Padmé's advisors suggest that she get rid of Vader and make a politically advantageous marriage. The Empress is less than pleased. (Sequel to "Aggressive Negotiations" and "Troubling Implications")”

“Welcome Home” “Anakin Skywalker closes his eyes on the face of his son. When he opens them again, he is in Naboo, and someone is waiting for him.“

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Writer: Shawn30 (Fanfiction profile) The one, the only, the deservedly famous! I think every Anidala fan is aware of this f a n t a s t i c writer’s work. Deliciously smutty. Unbelievably well written. Unfortunately, many of their works have been left uncompleted for years but the stories are still worth reading!

“Whisper” “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but can also whither your soul and breed doubt in your heart. AP angsty erotica.”

“The Ties that Bind” “Given a brief period of time off during the Clone Wars, Padmé and Anakin visit her family at the Lake Country estate on Naboo. A family that still doesn't know they are married, although they are about to find out. Complete.”

“The Light and the Dark” “Chapter 1 in the Hearts and Souls series. An unexpected Separatist attack 'accidentally' reunites two star-crossed lovers, giving them a brief moment of peace at a time of war. Complete.”

“Shadows of Winter” “Chapter 2 in the Hearts and Souls series. With six days to spend together celebrating their two year anniversary, Anakin and Padme travel separately to a remote planet in the Hoth system. Romance, passion, and danger await them. Complete.”

“Beloved” “Chapter 3 in the "Hearts and Souls" series. When faced with the most horrific news imaginable, Padme's utter desperation forces her to turn to Obi-Wan and even Chancellor Palpatine for help. Her greatest personal challenge awaits... Complete”

“Paradise” “The sequel to "Beloved." Following Padme's daring rescue of her husband, the Skywalker's return to Naboo for eight days to heal, unwind, spend time with family, and deal with their connection to the Dark Side of the Force.”

“Salvation” “After facing his moment of truth, Anakin and Padmé must finally deal with the consequences. Obi-Wan reveals a startling discovery. Complete”

“Scandalous” “The sequel to Salvation. On the eve of Padmé Skywalker's official ascension to the role of Vice Chair of the Republic, Anakin steals her away for a wild vacation to Cloud City. Complete.”

“Sacred” “Chapter 2. Ahsoka and Jo'Seth grow closer. Padme's trip to the Jedi Temple on Republic business turns a bit more adventurous. Anakin and Obi-Wan have a heart to heart talk about moving forward.”

“Belonging” “A private afternoon lunch to catch up with an old friend during the Clone Wars reveals a great deal to ObiWan Kenobi. AP”

“Before the Seasons Change” “With the Darth Sidious finally defeated and the Clone Wars ended, Anakin and Padme consider what comes next in their lives. Anakin/Padme”

“Amor Vincit Omnia” “AU. After a three and a half year separation Vice Chair Amidala and Jedi Master Skywalker have some unfinished business as the Clone Wars have finally ended and Palpatine is dead.”

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If there’s any stories I missed, let me know!

#Anidala #anidala fanfiction #Vaderdala #vaderdala fanfiction #Anidala fic rec

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abigailnussbaum · 3 years

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The Watch 1x01 - 1x02

The first two episodes of BBC America’s The Watch aired this weekend, and I’ve seen basically zero discussion of them on my twitter and tumblr feeds. Which I assume is because most of the people I follow are Pratchett fans who have been horrified by the press releases and the trailer (or, for that matter, the lackluster reviews) and decided to write the show off before it even started airing. To be clear, this is an entirely reasonable approach, but there’s nothing else on right now and I was bored.

Quick verdict? It’s not dire, but also not so interesting that you’d feel compelled to keep going with it. In fact, my most powerful reaction after the first two episodes is puzzlement - I can’t understand who the intended audience for this show is. The thinking seems to have been “everyone will be interested in a brash, in your face, rudely comedic fantasy cop show!” And maybe that’s true, but The Watch isn’t particularly brash, in your face, or even that comedic, so what’s left are fans of the genre(s), who are reasonably spoiled for choice right now (the show The Watch most closely resembles is Carnival Row, which is not amazing but still has a greater depth of emotion and a more interesting world). Why anyone would go out of their way to watch a show that seems to be working so hard to stamp out anything original about itself is a question the creators don’t seem to have asked themselves.

More thoughts below the cut.

First, something positive: I quite like the look of the show. There was obviously a lot of pressure from previous adaptations, not to mention the famous illustrations associated with the books, to strike out in an original direction, and I think the show really found one. Instead of fantasized-medieval-through-Victorian, The Watch’s Ankh Morpork combines those period and genre elements with modern ones. So The Mended Drum is now a seedy nightclub with DJ lighting and an open mike stage, and the city’s walls are covered with graffiti tags. The more distinctive settings - the Patrician’s palace, the Unseen University library - are not as interesting, possibly because the budget wouldn’t stretch to make them look really spectacular. But the core approach of the series, that Ankh Morpork is an old but modern city where there are also a lot of fantasy elements, is a fun and refreshing one.

Second, despite all the prevarication and spin in the run-up to the show, this is a Pratchett adaptation. It isn’t merely “inspired by” Pratchett’s novels, as the show’s title screen insists. It isn’t taking Pratchett’s ideas and making its own things with them. I can only assume that these claims were made in response to the backlash against stuff like “Sybil Ramkin, young, hot vigilante”. But despite changes like that, this is actually a fairly straightforward adaptation of Guards! Guards!, which also incorporates elements from Night Watch, plus some rather deep cuts from the rest of the Discworld corpus (the second episode, for example, implies that the ultimate villains of the series are the Auditors of Reality). So yeah, The Watch doesn’t have the excuse of being its own thing. It is a Discworld adaptation, but a bad one, that fails to understand a lot of fundamental thing about the world and the characters.

Third, I think the thing that most strikes about the show is how low-energy it feels. Despite billing itself as something outrageous, and despite some work on the visual front (and in Richard Dormer’s Jack Sparrow-esque performance as Vimes), the show itself feels almost bland. You see this in particular when it comes to the humor. It’s not that The Watch isn’t trying to be funny. There are jokes, and a few of them - mostly the ones original to the series - are mildly amusing. But when it comes to Pratchett’s own humor, the show simply has the actors deliver the gags and references in the most low-key way, and unsurprisingly the result is that hardly any of it lands.

Now, to be fair, this has been a problem with Pratchett adaptations since the 90s. Most of Pratchett’s humor is based in what his third-person narrator tells us about the world, and is hard to convey in a dramatic presentation (Good Omens tried to solve this problem by putting a lot of Pratchett’s narration in its voiceover, with only limited success). But even the dialogue-based jokes are so arch and stagey, that to deliver them successfully would require committing to a lot of very specific, demanding choices from the actors and writers (off the top of my head, the only show that even comes close to that kind of humor is Brooklyn Nine-Nine). It would have to be a high-concept, meticulously executed sitcom, whereas most Pratchett adaptations have been fantasy dramas with jokes.

So it’s not entirely The Watch’s fault that it isn’t managing to convey the zany energy of Pratchett’s novels, but at the same time, it also clearly isn’t trying to. Its attitude seems to be that simply the existence of things like troll cops or assassins’ guilds who leave a receipt are funny in their own right. And sure, even in a media landscape in which fantasy has been mainstreamed by Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings movies, and Game of Thrones, not a lot of fantasy settings have an orangutan librarian who only says “ook”. But what makes The Librarian funny isn’t that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan. It’s that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan who still behaves exactly like a librarian (while also doing ape things like swinging from the bookshelves and eating bananas), and that “ook” can convey almost any concept in existence. The Watch doesn’t seem to realize this. It seems to be assuming that just putting that stuff on screen, or parroting Pratchett’s lines, will be hilarious in and of itself, while leaving out a lot of the specificity of setting, character, and tone that made the books sing.

You see this also in how it handles its characters. Everyone fixated on Lady Sybil when the promos came out, because that’s the most egregious misreading of the original (and rooted in the most boring assumptions about what audiences want and will respond to). But it’s everywhere. Take Carrot, for example. In the books, Carrot is fascinating because he’s never entirely what you take him for. He’s innocent, but not naive. Principled, but not a zealot. A goody-two-shoes, but not a prig. He’s always a lot smarter than you think he is, and most importantly, he genuinely likes and is interested in people.

The Watch delivers none of this, and instead makes Carrot your basic hothead rookie who just wants to take down bad guys and sees the more seasoned, cynical officers who keep trying to slow him down as hopelessly corrupted. There’s none of Carrot’s openness, or his genuine love of the city, in this character. Instead he’s sullen and judgmental. And look, we could have a long conversation about which one of these characters is more useful to us and our ongoing conversation about policing (as well as a much shorter conversation about which one of them is truer to the ideas Pratchett was trying to convey about policing). But what feels more important to me, when coming to evaluate a new series that is trying to make an argument for why you should keep watching it, is the simple fact that there are a million places where you could find a character like The Watch’s Carrot, and hardly anywhere where you could find one like Pratchett’s.

Again and again, it feels as if, in the pursuit of what it thinks of as outrageous, risk-taking storytelling, The Watch jettisons the unique characters from the books and replaces them with ones that we’ve seen a million times before. Angua in the books is kind of neurotic, and extremely thoughtful about the way her condition can incline her to see other people as objects to be used and consumed (which Pratchett later develops into an aspect of his theme of monsters-as-aristocrats). In the show, she’s obsessed with how her lycanthropy makes her “the real monster”. Oh boy, I’ve never seen a werewolf worry about being a monster before! I’ve never seen a scene where they send their friends away just as they’re about to transform! This is cutting edge stuff, I tell you. And while we’re on the subject, it gives me no pleasure to report that Anna Chancellor as Patrician Vetinari is thoroughly meh, because no effort has been taken to convey the character’s intelligence, near-omniscience, and constant scheming. Vimes is intimidated by her because she’s his boss and she’s posh, not because of anything specific to her. She feels almost identical to a million other posh rulers whose job it is to infodump to and threaten scrappy, working class heroes.

Which brings me back to my original observation: that I do not get who this show is for. It’s not for Pratchett fans, because it deliberately drops a great deal of what made his writing and characters special in favor of the most generic, predictable choices. But I can’t help but feel that anyone who is into this sort of extremely familiar cop story will be put off by the dragons and the wizards and the orangutan librarian, not to mention Dormer’s gurning performance. The whole thing is almost fascinating to watch - a work that clearly believes itself to be boundary-pushing and different, when really it’s just dull but with dragons.

#the watch

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Ducktales Reviews: The Phantom and the Sorceress

Ducktales returns! The Phantom Blot returns to animation after too damn long with a neat backstory, an infnity guantlet and a hate boner for anything magic related. And since Lena is magic related she’s forced to go to her worst enemy and local close up magician Magica De Spell for help. Also Gladstone is here because we missed him and for no other reason. But we missed him so it’s okay. Friendship Is Magic, under the cut.

Woo-ooo! We’re back! Months later and in a new room, with new things to be depressed about because this year is groundhog day and everyone is bill murray, which isn’t as fun as it should be, Ducktales is finally back on screens and in my heart. And my galbladder.. he really likes ducktales. But yeah with the recent cancelation of the venture bros, it’s nice to get it’s spirtual littlte brother back just a few weeks later to help fill the void, and while a comparison to it now I know frank’s a fan and noticed the simlarties between rusty and gyro thanks to a tumblr post, the same post for both things inf act, I might just do that one day. But tha’ts not what your here, for , iv’e had to rewrite this intro enough times, Pitter Patter, let’s get at er.

This episodes opens with Scrooge sitting down for his morning tea when the kids pop out of the tv and hte bored way he figures it out is really hilarious. David Tennat is really good at selling just how Scrooge has both seen it all and has the deductive skills of Barbra Gordon. What eveyrone syaing “Of batman” gets old after a while and she’s just as smart as he is, especially as oracle. Point is it’s a good bit. As he correclty guesses the kids were playing Legends of Nerverquest or whatever that game Huey and Della played last season is called, one of them wished it was real, presumibly Dewey, and Lena’s magic accidently made it happen. And since it’s her first spotlight episode of the season, and possibly only one since this season is kind of packed, it’s time to talk about Lena! Admitely I PLANNED to do at least her first episode and her two season 2 episodes before this, but life got in the way so here we are. Lena.. is easily one of my faviortes, the number of weblena chats have made that clear. She’sd got a compelling arc, the show tackles abuse well in her narrative, and she and webby have really sweet chemstiry. Plus she brought us Violet and i’ll always be greatful for that and she’s voiced by Kimiko Glenn in her first major voice acting role so that helps too. SHe’s a great addition to the cast and the canon. Same, as the previous comment made obvious, goes for Violet, and the three togther have a great dynamic and i’ts nice to finally see an episode with JUST the three of them post “Friendship Hates Magic.”.

But yeah Lena’s magic’s been going haywire and I do feel the setups abit rushed.. hilarious but rushed. While Night on Kilmotor hill did establish her magic can run wild, it was also vauge if it was because of her, or it was because magica was messing with her head. IT’s still a plausable setup since we haven’t really SEEN her use her magic or have any intrest and doing so and she’s only done so either while working for magica, to undo something magica did, or to give her sister a mace so she could literally go midevil on some alien ass, it just feels a bit abrubt. And while Night on Kilmotor hill also set up a problem we hadn’t seen on screen, it felt like it gave us more time to ease into it and Lena’s issues, and made it clear SOMETHING was up instead of just telling us that. The rest of hte episode is still good i’ve just seen the show be way better at setup than this.

But yeah Lena’s magic keeps runing their fun and she feels bad about it, while Scrooge ends up putting his foot and spats in his mouth by voicing his hatred of magic, with all his nephews giving him a “Grandpa no look” and Webby glaring at him.. and whiel I didn’t realize it while watching it.. whiel sh’es given him a disaporving look, the equilvent of shooting bambi in the face emtoinally, she’s only been THIS angry with him one other time.. and it was the time he said “Your not family”. Thankfully this time he’s not in defnstive arrogant bastard mode, so he meekly walks it back to exclude her and she shrugs it off: She hates magic too. And really.. it’s not hard to see WHY given that most times it’s enterted her life, it’s nearly got everyone she loves killed, and that the only spellcaster she knows personally is the absuive aunt whose gaslighted her on multiple occasions, most recently to try and renslave her. Thankfully before Webby can make an old man bleed for his insesntivity, Della reveals some magical creature is there and Scrooge, while annoyed it’s more magic, is happy for another adventure and invites everyone along. And I jsut love that he dosen’t even show the slightest hesitation bringing Violet and Lena along. As far as he’s concerned probably their family too, maybe not as much as Webby but their still welcome. I mean granted i’m sure della and donald had an awkard conversation with Ty and Indy over all this to make sure it was cool, but still, it’s a nice gesture on his part and show’s his personality: He really dosen’t care who comes along as long as they can pull their weight and share his love for adventure, their welcome. It’s also nice ot see him and Lena interact since the two really haven’t since the shadow war: Sure he’s been in the same room with her twice, btu they haven’t really spoken. Though my honest guess is they could’ve genuinely meant for Scrooge to adopt her into the family.. but when coming up with Violet found her family adopting her and them becoming sisters to be a better idea and went with that. And to be fair it is, and not just for shipping purposes, I just wish we got some closure on that line, but i’m also aware the show has a LOT of ground to cover each season, so I understand it probably got squeezed out by all the other stuff going on and don’t really sweat it since we got something better anyway, her getting two gay dads and a sister, it just felt worth talking about. And in universe.. I feel he didn’t simply because he didn’t either know she was back or have a chance to, though i’m also damn certain, at least in my own headcanon, he helped those men formally adopt her. I mean he owns most of the city, and they probably also had to make Lena legally exist in the first place since I doubt Magica bothered to put her on any offical records that weren’t signed in blood and written on paper made of avian flesh, which given SCrooge’s experince is probably not the first time he had to get a person into official records who came into being by way of magic or some other weirdness.

Anyways, Lena opts out of the adventure because she’s worried about it going haywire and Webby opts out out of sympathy and while Violet is clearly keen to go, she gladly does so for her sister.. though this just makes Lena feel worse since now her girlfriend and her sister are missing out on stuff because of her, and suggests just going to sleep before she whoopsie daisy magics them to death. The girls end up woken from their sleep however by a bang at the door. It’s Gladstone!

Yup it’s time to talk about another character I haven’t talked about yet. Gladstone is easily one of the show’s best overhauls. See in the comics while Gladstone is just as lucky and lazy.. he’s also just..

Okay i’m amazed it’s taken this long for me to refrence jean ralphio in one of these reviews but i’m glad it was for this. Back on topic, while I know Gladstone in the comics has his fans, and is softend a bit in european comics, but in most stories i’ve read with him he’s an insufferably arrogant dick. Even BEFORE getting his luck, his first apperance, which I own in trade and read earlier this year, has him trying to take Donald’s house and kick him and the nephews out on the street over a drunken wager to take a polar dive, which Donald fials because life hates him and he’s a coward. Thankfully Daisy rushed in and saved the day because she’s great sometimes ,and turned things on him wiht his own drunken crap, but still, it says something when your first apperance is trying to force three ten year olds and your own cousin out into the cold.

He .. did not get any better once his super luck came into play. Instead he just flautned it all the time and tried to constnatly win Daisy over from donald.. which had varying sucess based on how much of a shallow dick she was being that story, and in general was just unplesant. He really only works for me in comic in those aformetioned softer times: when a writer makes his luck ruin his love life or add actual depth instead of him just being the raincloud on donal’ds parade. The original ducktales and the going quackers game are the only places I can think of he showed up otherwise, prototype in the old disney shorts nonwithstanding, and Ducktales Classic made him a nice guy from what i’ve heard. Thankfully frank and crew knew exactly what to do to adapt him perfectly: He still retains some aspects from the comics: Donald and Scrooge still hate him, Donald for Gladstone always winning and always having it easy while Donald.. is donald and thus utterly miserable half the time and on fire the other half, and Scrooge because he’s a lazy asshole who gets whatever he wants with the least effort, which didn’t change. What did change was his attitude. While he still is proud of getting whatever he wants in life with no effort and being “the best at getting something for nothing” he dosen’t lord it over everyone else. Sure he’s proud of it but he dosen’t rub Donald’s nose in how much better off he is on purpose, and genuinely loves his family, something I really coudln’t say about most versions of comic Gladstone. While he’s self serving he’s perfectly happy to share his luck with whoever else: He can always get more money whenever he needs it because of course he will. The other factor helping is , as with this entire reboot, the voice acting, in this case the marvelous Paul F Thompkins of Bojack and so much other stuff fame, who really sells the “Sleazy vegas layabout” vibe this series gives him, updating his old aristocratic asshole vibe to something more fun to watch and really being a treat anytime gladstone comes up. Gladstone singing in season 2 was entirely something Paul Improvised during his first apperance they made sure to use eventually. He’s a delight any time he shows up and a total 180 from his utterly agrviating original version.

As for why he’s here.. said luck. is gone. After being hit by some weird energy, Gladstone suddenly, since he didn’t see it hit him, finds himself living normally: going to a restraunt offers no free meal for being 100th custmoer or anything, his wallet dosen’t magically have 20 dollars in it, and the atm gives him 20 dollars.. which would seem normal except it’s actually usually a sack of rubys. Naturally Gladstone having coasted his entire life on his magical luck, has no idea how to function as a normal human being and is utterly hilarious as he breaks down. Admitely he’s not the biggest part of the plot, he’s mostly here for comic relief and COULD have been eaisly cut.. but he’s so hilarious and seeing him utterly fail at being a normal person and whine about things as simple as walking or going up stairs is just groovy. As for what weird magical bolt took it, Violet being violet figures it out quick: The Phantom Blot! For those unfamiliar, he’s a charcter from the mickey mouse comics, though I know him from one episode of house and mouse that adapted those comics that I need to read more of, a master schemer and old school villian par excellence and Mickey’s greatest foe. I was ecastic to see him come here and in the capable hands of Giancarlo Espisto. While I haven’t watched brekaing bad i’ve heard nothing but good thigns and he does his best with what little he’s given. But here instead of a master schemer he’s an infamous magic theif and is obviously the one who drained gladstone.. and unforutntely for scrooge the boys and presumibly everyone else... we see him in action using his fancy infnity guantlet esque magic draining gauntlet to drain the portal they took. Ruh Roh. It gets worse when he mistakes Lena for magica, and charges after her, though Webby is able to hold him off with the axe she grabbed on the way to the door earlier, and damages his gauntlet. he retreats.. but it’s obvious he’ll be back and both Webby and Violet come to the conclusion Lena needs to grasp her magic in order to survive.. and both have the same unfortunate relization: They only know one person who can do it and Lena, once she realizes what hteir thinking, wnats nothing to do with her, and neither do they. But they have no options: they have to go to magica. So they journey to her house on Dagobah, with Gladstone tagging along because they need a wacky comedic sidekick to help lighten the mood what with the serious, grim hunter wanting to murder a teenage girl inf nront of her tweenage girlfriend and kid sister, and their only resort being going back to her abuser for help. Magica however isn’t all that helpful at first. Being Magica her first move is to make a grab for the Amulet to get her power back, which her running crew thwart quickly but naturally Lena still wants nothing to do with her and Magica just insults her for not using magic and because she’s a terrible person. SHe does however end up changing her tune when she hears the blot’s involved. She whisks them inside while we get a cutaway to FOWL headquarters where blot is working on his guantlet more on him in a minute. We soon get the Blot’s backstory which is actually really inttresting and invovled even if it’s not a lot like who he is in the comcis or house of mouse: A long ass time ago before meddling kids got in her way, Magica took over a small vililage with the threat of destroying it and eveyrone in it outright unless they gave her tributes.. and when those got boring she just did it anyway. Problem was, as happens a lot when evil sorecerers calously destroy hometowns, one of them survivied. It’s even lampshaded by Magica as she points out Blot wasn’t the first. The problem was.. he was persitant. The blot never gave up, coming up with better tech to fight her magic each time and coming back stronger and likely more determined. I like this verson: While he’s not the bwahahah mastermindk, he’s still an utter threat, a force with an unyielding hatred and a burning mission to take out the target of his hate and anything like her. He reminds me a lot of toffee from star vs but if htey actually gave his backstory on screen. A meancing, somehwat quite, or mostly silent in the blot’s case, immortal menace who’s deterimiend to wipe out those who wronged him and anything related to them and has warped from what was once probably a decen tperson into a human engine of destruction with one goal and one goal only. He’s a good enoguh villian for the episode, I just hope if he comes back they give him better lines. his dialouge is really what dosen’t work for me as whiel his backstory and aura of meance work, Giancarlo is given nothing to work with line wise. He dosen’t need to be a chatty cathy or anything, just give him one or too really cool lines. Sometimes tha’ts all you need. Watch how the pros do it.

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I do like this verison, I jsut think they could do more, but given the show has a good track record for only getting better with their villians with every use, I have no worries about that and he’s still a cool enough threat. I also wish we got more of fowl or why he’s working with them. just a small scene with one of them was all I asked, because we’ve barely gotten fowl this season. It’s really one of the season’s only real problems so far: 8 episodes in and while FOWL agents have shown up twice, adn one of the episodes did advance that plot by showing off heron and steelbeak, we really haven’t seen any progress on their plans to both take the missing mysteries or kill the Clan McDuck. HOpefully this changes as we go and again, it dosen’t ditract from the episode itself, jsut the season as a whole. Anyways, Lena is still relucntant because Magica is terrible and keeps slipping in how much she wants to take the amulet every five minutes. I love the show and catherine tate’s take on magica: just as hammy and nuts as before but when she does have magic, she’s the utter threat she was before too times ten. But yeah while Lena’s relunctant.. neither of htem really has a choice> Magica needs her amulet secure to get her magic back, and Lena needs to not die. So they relucntantly agree to work together among more hilarous sniping. Cue a training montage set to a hell of an 80′s tune. The show really has a good habit of making good incdental music to use in bits like this. Lena trains, uses gladstone as the training dummy, and it’s funny as it is creative and we even get some karate kids bit and the obvious star wars refrences. Meanwhile the blot approaches ever closer.. We also find out something important from Magica as she chastises Lena for having fun with her friends while training after Lena uses blue magic instead of purple: Turns out much like spellcasters in say owl house or my little pony each caster has a specific color to their magic, a Colur of magic if you will. Magica’s, and lena using hers is purple while the blue magic we’ve seen from her is her own powered by friendship and love. It’s a nice advancement of what we’ve seen so far: We’ve seen her magic powered by webby is stronger than her other stuff, and we’ve seen it come out during times their bond, or in the case of kilmotor hill her bond with everyone, is strongest. We knew something was diffrent with the magics and it’s now given a though and clearly well thought out explination why: Magica’s magic is hers and Lena was just borrowing it.. the blue stuff is hers and hers alone. Magica does try to get her to master it by having one of her friends shoot her.. Webby of course strongly objects so Violet takes it up since it is for study after all and her sister can take a hit. Lena also wonders how she can even do magic without the amulet, but as Magica makes clear, and as I outlined above, the amulet is just help. The blue magic is her. Lena fails to use it though to deflect in time.. and to make matters worse the blot shows up after plopping gladstone down and wants to kill them both. We then get easily the best laugh of the episode.. as Magica tries stage magic and the blot wonders what the hell he’s looknig at. I mean this is his mortal enemy, the monster who killed everyone he’d ever known or loved... pulling out a bunch of colored rags and asking him to pick a card. It’s amazing. Lena attacks from the side and Webby and Violet quickly asist, with Magica joining in to use the rope to bind him and Lena’s magic kicking in, turning the rope into chain and summoning a snake.. but in a show of badassery the blot easily shrugs it off: he absorbs the magic, escapes and knocks them around while Webby asks the snake for help.. can she speak snake? She hopes so.

Then things get dire as The Blot starts absorbing the magic.. and killing lena as she starts to fade away. Magica of course can’t even feign dispaointment in anything but loosing her magic. And that’s also something I really love here: The show makes no attempt to make magica better or turn around because it just isn’t who she is and even if she did after all the abuse she did, Lena would have zero reason to forgive her. It’s nice that they DON’T try redemeing her or shoing a brighter side: she’s a bad person, a worse caregiver and they only came to her because they had no choice.

But as the magic’s absorbed magica does tell her to find the source of the power and we get a great scene: She first thinks of all the abuse magica’s done to her and it’s a harrowing montage to watch. But webby, breaks through that, since that obviouslyf ails and reminds her of where HER magic comes from: Her and webby. and we get an adorable,a nd shiptastic montage as we see more clips from past episodes.. but this time we see their adorable fistbump from “Beagle BOy Birthday Massacre”, their hug from “Jaw$!” and Lena’s return to the world and hug with her lady and future sister from “Friendship hates magic”. IT’s her friends, her sister and the love of her life who are her real source of power, and her magic connects to htem as lena ccccchanges. And I mean entirely, her outfit changes and she gets these.. weird bright blue eyes. Like I like the rest of her outfits, a white and blue attire to show her change with a badass cape, looks like a superhero so naturally I love it.. her eyes just look really off. Like when Milo Muprhy’s law tried to give characters colored irses. Because no one else in ducktales has them it just loosk.. weird.. Otherwise though I like it. We then get a beam struggle, but with adde dhelp from her friends and her new power, Lena eventually beats the blot, as her sheer power overloads the guantlet and sends him running. However in the confusion the amulet was lost.. and Magica gets it back. Lena whollops her easily, pointing out her magic’s purpose is to protect the world from people like her. It’s a nice development too: Lena realizes MAGIC isn’t inherently evil... it’s how it’s used. Star Vs could’ve maybe taken this lesson, but regardless, it’s a nice bit of character development realizing that magic is a part of her IS Her, and she shoudln’t have to give up something in her nature because of her abuser. Magica, while repowered, is force dto lookf or her staff while Lena gladly floats team magic home. Also with the guantlet broken gladstone is back, as a rain of 20 dolalr bills he uses as tissues confims, and the portal returns, and with Lena you know, havin ga whole superhero outfit, glowing blue eyes and her hair streak now blue, they know something clearly happend and the episode just kind of ends. Still a good one. Final Thoughts: This was a good one as I just said. While I had my nitpicks here and there as I also said, Lena’s strong character, and the game performances of Espisito, Thompkins, and Tate really add to our usual trlo, and as I mentioned before it’s nice ot see team magic get their own episode now their a full team. IT’s just a good romp and a good way back. I”ve made my complaints clear but their drowned out by good jokes, good character stuff, and good worldbuilding that makes this an utter thrill and a great one to come back to and i’tll also be intresting to see where Lena goes from here. But wherever she goes she’ll have webby. They can be whot hey are, independent together, if theyt ry. And yes that’s my shiping song for htem and yes I have one.

Quick bit before I go I dind’t get to, Gladstone flirts with magica when she lands in his arms, a little something for the shippers and a nice gesture on frakn’s part. Whle she rejects him and he dumps her in the sludge with a shrug. I mean.. their probably going to bang at some point. Gladstone’s powers mean he’ll likely find her when sh’es super horny and more than willing, and he’ll be like “eh why not boobs”. I mean I thought about this: I figure his powers allow him to find a willing partner, any gender or none at all I see him as pansexual, who happens to probablyb e loaded and diseased free, whenever he happens to be into it who naturallyw orks out perfectly because if he gets money whenever he wants it, why not sex? It’s not even a concious thing as we’ve seen things just work out for him so of course he probably gets laid, and as we see here it’s only if the other person consets. Good for him. Hope to see him again sooner. I want to see more of him and della interacting and see what she thinks of him. Freshe eys andall that.

But yeah this was great to come back to. If you liked this i’ve reviewed the rest of the season up to this point and will be reviewing each episdoe every monday till they stop again, so keep an eye out for that. You can check the tabs on my blogs for more reviews, come back this weekend for regular loud house coverag,e follow for more reviews or shoot me a pm if you’d like to comission me to do an episode. For just 5 bucks i’ll review any episode of any animated show of your choosing, and as i’ve only covered one season 2 episode of ducktales, there’s over 40 left ot choose from if you have any you want to hear my thoughts on. Until then stay safe, quack hard, and Go Team Venture! Play us out Steg .. and Co.

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#ducktales #the phantom and the sorceress #weblena #lena saberwing #webby vanderquack #violet sabrewing #scrooge mcduck #gladstone gander #magica despell #the phantom blot #giancarlo esposito #reviews #animation #disney #disney channel

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himerosy · 3 years

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If you were writing or designing a story/comic about liquidmarks kitraaandra what direction would you take it in? Bear in mind theirs no wrong answers here, and what's your take on the charictar

I'm actually writing an erotic audio script about Kit. It's on the back burner atm, but I'm going to get it voiced and produced with SFX once it's done and I'm happy with it. More on that later...

About Kit, I think us fans have (understandably) attributed a lot of "raunchier" tones to her character than LiquidMark (LM) ever intended. The old game was really more GSPanovich's creation, but (thankfully) LM is pretty chill with people doing their own thing with his characters. LM has said a couple of times that he laments how so many people (again, understandably) just think of her as "haha sexy slime-fucking space cat" when she's so much more than that, and he doesn't even consider the game canon. Of course, if there'd been more content of her, people wouldn't have to use the game as the source of 95% of her character, but that's not my point.

If you look on LM's tumblr, I have slowly mined a fair bit of lore regarding Kit and his other fictional universe(s) out of him, which I found shed a lot of depth on Kit.

To elaborate on the sort of character I feel Kit is:

On a meta level, I think she's actually a pretty comedic and light character. Almost all of the content LM himself has made of her usually features a joke or funny situation or undertone. She's a to-the-point tough girl, but she has a good heart (LM thought Neutral Good is probably about right) and definitely a sense of humour too (unlike a Batman type character) even if she's not actively a jokey character. More often she's the straight man to silly situations.

Even dark or sexual situations often have an absurd juxtaposition of some kind, like the art LM did of Kit with the slime, except it's offering her valentines chocolates, or joking about tumblr smut still being a "better love story than twilight" or being annoyed at her mom for flirty on her thread, or calling one of her guns "The Answer". She's smiling or pulling a funny expression in a lot of her art, and that should say something. Even in LM art where she is getting railed, she's often just fed up like "ah man...this again?" instead of like "oh no how embarrassing and degrading" or ahegao-ing. And the art of her getting a consensual facial in ClixSposing Kitraandra? She's smiling joyfully -- our girl's happy (I'm colourising the piece atm btw)

The other thing with Kit's depictions is that there's usually a pretty universally understood surface level situation, but there's also a bit of depth behind any of her actual story details that show up. I think that's one of the things I liked about Kit even back in the day: I could *feel* there was more to her character, due to the care and little details in her art.

Ultimately I think Kit is a fun, and funny, character. She comes from a reasonably well though out sci-fi universe, she has a cast of supporting characters for her to interact with (her family, the crew of the Crazy Rush, and rivals like Gun-ter).

She comes from a society and family that very much has a set role for her to play, and she rejects it and becomes a Bounty Hunter instead, since it gives her a lot of freedom. Interestingly, she still has a decent relationship with her family, who are (at least for now) happy to let her do her own thing because they're confident she will settle into the megacorporate lifestyle eventually.

Sexually, Kit "is no nun", and has many notches on her belt, but it's fun, really. I'm sure some of her exploits may have been...in less than ideal and conventionally-desirable situations, but I think with the right tone that's fine. I think CapturePoint writes Kitraandra pretty well, and from what I've seen LM seems to like the scenarios they come up with too.

Regarding my NSFW audio script, I was inspired by the lore LM had revealed on his tumblr, and by the works of erotic audio on the GoneWildAudio subreddit. It is primarily amateur work, and there's a wide variety of genres, kinks, and quality on there. A lot of it is "meh", but there's also some really high quality stuff, like from Kitt Nevada and IvyWilde_VA (Kitt stars in Yuki: Space Assassin, which is also an inspiration for the script in terms of production quality, and to some extent scripting too)

The summary is that Kit is bored and horny in orbit, talking to her ship AI, waiting for intel on a mysterious asset she's been sent to find for a shadowy contractor. After getting a sudden alert, she drops down to the alien planet, and extracts the asset from the clutches of some mercenaries and gangsters. After a tense firefight on the ground, she manages to escape on her ship.

The asset turns out to be an "ancient" human. For context, in her lore, she lives in the distant future, where many of the alien species evolved from modern humans in some way. Her people found some "ancient" humans in cryosleep (probably from like the 2100's) and one of them became her father, so Kitraandra is actually half alien (Varkeeg) and half human. There are only like 10 known ancient humans (including her father) in the universe, so it makes sense why finding another one would be such a big deal.

The human was injured during the firefight, and so Kit heals him, and finds immediately him attractive. After some tense exchanges about who he is and what he wants, they start to relax around each other. He was being made a trophy slave for a crime lord, like how some rich people like to keep exotic animals. Kit bonds somewhat over the feeling of being forced to into a role. She also relates to being an outsider, since she always stood out due to being an alien hybrid, instead of a regular Varkeeg.

Due to damage received on her ship, her FTL isn't working as fast as it should, so they'll be stuck together for a few days.

Cut to: raunchy sex scene, I mean these two and going ham on each other. Fun time all round. I'm imagining the facial art from the game as actually being the "climax" of this scene.

Afterwards, turns out that Kit was hired to rescue the human by her mother, which annoys her because "mom! You know I hate it when you do that" but also she feels okay about putting the human under the protection of her mother's corporation because she knows he won't be abused. They part ways after the one night stand, and she blasts off to her next adventure.

The End. (Yay)

The script started out as smut, but as I learned more about Kit and her lore, I wanted it to be something that encompassed more of what she's really about (in my eyes) as a character.

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fandomlurker · 3 years

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A Ponderous Rewatch: Prologue

You know, I didn’t think this would happen. I didn’t go into bingeing the 2020 renewal of Animaniacs with the thought “I’m going to watch this and then go and watch the original Pinky and the Brain shorts and spin-off show and do a rewatch and loose analysis on the whole franchise with special attention on queer subtext and themes”. What I initially set out to do was simply watch the renewal and see if it lived up to the show I watched pretty regularly as a kid in the 90s…or at least what I remembered of it through the haze of decades worth of time.

Pinky and the Brain was my favorite set-up on Animaniacs back in the day. Back then I probably wouldn’t even have been able to tell you why beyond “I think it’s funny and the characters are fun to watch as they screw up trying to take over the world”. Other segments were funny to me back in the day, too. Slappy the squirrel was great in that she was basically just like the classic, near-timeless Looney Toons a la Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but as an old lady toon who’s seen it all and tries to relate to the changing world while proving that the ol’ slapstick ways still work. The Goodfeathers were entertaining despite the fact that I was a literal child and didn’t even know that it was a big ol’ spoof of Goodfellas. Hell, I’ve still never seen Goodfellas, but three pigeons trying to carry themselves like macho tough guy mafia folks while being goddamn pigeons is still funny with or without that context. And as for the Warner siblings themselves? Their skits were pretty consistently great as well. Lots of that Bugs Bunny-like energy of putting terrible folks in their place when they annoy you while coupling it with the dynamic of three child siblings who are very, very active and much too clever for the average person. It was fun!

But as I watched the 2020 reboot with its stripped-down cast now largely consisting of just the Warner siblings and Pinky and the Brain segments for the season (And I’ll be honest, some of the segments from the 90s like Katie Kaboom, Buttons and Mindy, and the Hip-Hippos are ones I’ll be happy to never have return because they were godawful even back then), it brought into focus the strength of those segments compared to most of the others from the old 90s line-up: The strong dynamic and chemistry of the relationships between the main characters of those skits. The Warner siblings are a trio of kids who, despite being truly cut from the same wacky cloth as the most beloved of Looney Toon characters, also very much tap into a very realistic depiction of sibling relationships. Sure, they get on each other’s nerves sometimes. Sure, sometimes they have disagreements on how they view a certain situation. At the end of the day, however, they care about each other more than anything else and work in such perfect sync despite differences in who they are individually. Sure, Yakko is a talkative theater kid jackass who sasses back at the drop of a dime. Sure, Wakko is kinda quiet and spaced-out and he has the appetite of a garbage disposal. Sure, Dot is adorable and witty and loudly and proudly feminist with an oddly feral streak. But if any one of them is inconvenienced or picked on or threatened in any way by someone, even if that someone is a powerful celebrity of some sort? You bet your ass the other two will immediately back their sibling up and make their tormentor’s life a living hell for the next however long the skit lasts. They’re little gremlin children who love one another, and have a surprisingly tragic backstory that actually speaks to a lot of fans on several levels.

But, okay, the bond between the Warner siblings is great and fun. What about Pinky and the Brain? What makes their dynamic stand out?

Folks, that’s where things get a little more…interesting. To me, at least.

So, watching the beginning of the 2020 reboot got me to slowly remember the parts I loved about the Pinky and the Brain skits from Animaniacs…were actually from their spin-off show. And the things I remembered most clearly from the spin-off were the more heartwarming moments that showed how much they cared about and loved one another, despite Brain being exhausted by Pinky’s dimwitted antics at times. And for a supposedly continuity-light cartoon show, there was a surprising amount of consistency to the main duo and their motivations. There was even a handful of reoccurring side characters the audience was expected to recognize from past episodes, as well, which is a bit strange to have for a show that initially seemed to aim to be strictly episodic. I remembered the odd amount of depth there was to the series. Nothing groundbreaking, mind you, but definitely something more than the average comedy cartoon.

So after watching the first few episodes of the reboot, I took to Tumblr to see if anyone remembered the old 90s show and to see how they were reacting to the new one. In doing so, I came across this post:

“i love that ppl make jokes abt a pinky and the brain version of the destiel confession because that. already happened....... the only difference is that brain pulls pinky out of superhell instead of dying on a barn nail”

Now, look, I’ve never watched Supernatural and only know it through Tumblr cultural osmosis, and at the time we were all riding off the high of the madness that was the finale of that show and the fallout from it. But ANYWAY…

This piqued my interest because 1. I didn’t remember watching an episode of Pinky and the Brain where anything like that happened, and 2. I was already picking up strong gay vibes from the reboot only a few episodes in. So, basically, I just had to hunt down this episode to sate my curiosity and see for myself if there was subtext in this 90s cartoon that I hadn’t quite picked up on as a kid.

I found the episode and started watching it. “Wow,” I said to myself, “this is a lot gayer than I remember…” And after finishing the episode, memories came flooding back to me:

That time the Brain fell for a girl mouse that was looked and acted lot like Pinky.

All those moments where Pinky would wear drag to disguise himself as Brain’s significant other in one way or another to further their plans for that episode, and how I could never remember it being ridiculed.

That one time they accidentally had a child together via a science mishap.

The ending of the Christmas special!...

And as I sat there, dumbstruck and searching Tumblr’s tags to see how far this particular rabbit hole (mouse hole?) went, everything finally clicked in my little bisexual mind.

This was one of the big reasons as to why I loved the Pinky and the Brain skits so much above all the others on Animaniacs all those years ago when I was a kid. It was the same sort of thing that subconsciously drew me to many of the cartoons and anime and media in general I loved as a child, back before I had the proper knowledge and self-awareness to know or express it.

Looking back on my life, I’d always gravitated to and resonated the most with stories and media with queer content in text or subtext. And sure, this cartoon was/is no Sailor Moon or Revolutionary Girl Utena with explorations of gender roles and queerness. It’s no Steven Universe or She-Ra with out and proud queer characters. It’s no The Little Mermaid or The Happy Prince where the stories were made by queer authors and subtextually about queer experience.

However…

However…!

I was surprised to find how deep the gay subtext went with Pinky and the Brain. Hell, I still am. This little Warner Brothers, Looney Toons-pedigree, continuity-light show about two lab mice trying to take over the world in bizarre, hilarious ways has such a weirdly continuous, heartfelt, touching, engaging, and sometimes outrageously raunchy queer undercurrent to it. All done in the 90s! It’s kind of baffling.

This is not to say that the creators and writers of the shows deliberately set out to do this. I don’t believe that anyone involved sat down and said to themselves “I’m going to make this so fucking gay!”. Sure, the voice actors of both Pinky and the Brain have said that they played the dynamic with “the energy of an old gay couple” and they’ve said plenty of suggestive or outright not safe for work things in the character’s voices in interviews and at convention panels. I firmly believe that they’re just having fun as the characters, just as much as I believe the writers were probably just having fun and putting in the gay subtext and suggestive lines as a kind of long running joke and seeing how far they could take it.

(By the time of the Pinky and the Brain comics, however, I’m not so sure. Some of the stuff they got away with in those issues is…amazing, to say the least.)

Regardless of actual intent, I think the writers of Pinky and the Brain (both old and new), have accidentally created a sort of subtextual, yet pretty powerful love story. And you know what? I want to rewatch this story for myself and write down my thoughts as I go along. I tried something similar quite a while back with Droids, and while I kind of ran out of steam as my life got busier and never finished, I have time now for something like this.

I should also say that I’m not out here to, like, convert anyone into shipping cartoon mice together. I imagine most people see Pinky and the Brain as nothing other than very close friends, and that’s a completely valid viewpoint to have. I doubt there will ever be some sort of canonization of a gay relationship between the two, as I imagine most of the writers on the new show (and hell, on the old one) are heterosexual themselves and would view such an idea as “ruining the comedy and the dynamic of the characters” or something similar. I’ve been in the fandom game long enough to know better than to hope and expect any media to sincerely tackle queer relationships in stories that only have the subtext there, especially in comedies.

I guess I’m doing this more to explore something I loved as a child and to see if I can find just as much if not more enjoyment from it as an adult, albeit maybe for different reasons. Hell, it’s also an opportunity to peek into a kind of time capsule from the 90s regarding how far queer subtext could be pushed back then, even when heavily couched in comedy. This is just a little project I wanna do for fun in my spare time. And hey, maybe a few of you out there will have some fun reading it too, who knows?

Either way, see you sometime soon in the new year.

#Pinky and the Brain #PatB #A ''little project'' I say as I look at the 65 episode list of the spin-off series...#What have I gotten myself into?

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hglog · 3 years

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PBTA Spelljammer GLOG Thing?

Recently, my father dug up his old Traveller and MegaTraveller books for me, and after having a lot of fun reading through them, I can definitively say I don’t ever want to GM the system. But it got me in a space-gaming mood and my mind turned to two things. First, the Uncharted Worlds game I was once a player in, which seems to have borrowed a lot of the good aspects of Traveller and put them into a PBTA system, which I love very much. Second, the AD&D setting Spelljammer which is an amazing science-fantasy fever dream that I’ve unfortunately never gotten to experience firsthand. Naturally, I decided I’d make an RPG. And, ever since I discovered it, GLOG has basically consumed a large part of my mindspace whenever I think about RPGs.

Now it’s about a month later, and I have a lot written, but even more still to write. My biggest issue is getting my thoughts organized. I’m always a lot neater when I know other people are going to see my work. So, in a hope to make things more coherent for myself, I’m going to let you in on what I have to far.

What I like about Spelljammer

Science fiction minus the science

Practically any science fiction trope you can think of fits into the setting, but when it comes to the actual science, it’s this weird-ass mix of a classical Greek and medieval alchemist understanding of the cosmos.

You don’t have to worry about players “um, actually”-ing you about what happens in the vacuum of space, because it’s actually not even a vacuum!

Magic = FTL

Despite the previous point, its science is actually still relatively “hard” when it comes to internal consistency and logical consequences to its different laws of reality than our own. The magic, on the other hand, is magic. My headcanon is that the speed of light imposes a hard limit, but magic is the one thing able to ignore it.

While people could theoretically pull off a no-magic spacecraft launch (if they had a few thousand more years of technological development), for the most part, if something is in space, it’s probably because a wizard decided they wanted it to be in space.

Weird-ass spaceships

Since a spaceship is “anything you can put a spelljamming throne in,” you get a delightful mix of regular boats, classic pulp sci-fi or space opera spaceships, weird organic tentacled things, and whatever else strikes your fancy.

What if a dragon died and all the kobolds that worshipped it somehow got enough spell slots to just pilot its corpse into space and start fucking shit up?

Sadly, Spelljammer doesn’t offer a lot of customization, instead just relying on a wide catalogue of weird ships used by different aliens.

Wizards

What I like about PBTA

Adaptable to basically any setting

There is a great wealth of hacks I can draw from

These two points go hand in hand. I haven’t, however, been able to find a specifically spelljammer-inspired PBTA hack, so that’s why I’m doing this.

The PBTA games I’ve read through in creating this (so far) are Uncharted Worlds, Dungeon World, and the original Apocalypse World.

Encourages little preparation

My biggest challenge in running a game that’s interstellar in scope is my instinct to pre-prepare everything, which is already problem if I think I need to make an entire country, let alone an entire planet. But now we’re talking not only a planet but every planet.

While you can do worldbuilding as the GM for a PBTA game, you can also not do any, and let the players do all the work for you upon character creation. Dungeon World is especially good at this.

It’s fun

I’ve enjoyed every PBTA game I’ve been a player or a GM for, no exceptions (so far).

It’s extremely easy to teach people

Most of my friends are not as into learning new systems as I am. But most of them have already played at least one PBTA system, and if they haven’t, it wouldn’t be as much of a hassle as say, AD&D or Traveller.

What I like about GLOG

The four-template class blueprint

If PBTA character sheets are streamlined, I don’t even know what I’d call GLOG character sheets.

I don’t know if I’d shave my classes down quite as much, but I’m definitely taking notes from GLOG’s designs.

GLOG spellcasting

This is one of the things I like most about GLOG.

Spell dice to power FTL? Maybe 1 die per 30 light years or whatever, and the sum determines how fast the trip can be made? Doubles and triples can be malfunctions or space pirate attacks or something.

A shit ton of classes

I think I’d like to limit it to 10 or so classes, but I’m definitely going to get inspiration from some of the weirder GLOG classes along with the classes fighters/wizards/rogues.

An emphasis on interesting problem-solving

I think this is more just good game design than GLOG itself.

Encourages taking a weirder spin on fantasy lore that’s often taken for granted

Again, this seems like it’s just good worldbuilding, but a lot of GLOGgish writings do this, and I’d like to follow in their footsteps.

What I like (and dislike) about Traveller

I don’t like how obtuse it is

Reading the book sort of overwhelms me. It’s like they didn’t even try to make it accessible. It’s just endless black text on a white background, tables and diagrams strewn about haphazardly, and no art, not even just at the beginnings and ends of sections. The cover is a black void to symbolize the state of my mind after reading three pages.

When it comes to spaceships, I like a lot of crunch and granularity in their design

Something I found myself wishing for when playing Uncharted Worlds was a more involved ship design process. While they did clearly take notes from Traveller, it’s nothing like the original.

I don’t know what it is about spaceships. Characters I like simple and streamlined, but I guess reading through power plant matrices and choosing software and balancing it all on a budget gets me into the headspace I actually believe a spaceship creator would be in, whereas I don’t think the creation of a person usually involves that sort of design process.

I'm neutral on the crunch for everything else, but I think it's at odds with PBTA sensibilities

Plus, as I sort of mentioned in the PBTA section, I want my mostly 5e-playing friends to be willing to test this with me.

I like the psionics

I really like psionics, and I think Traveller properly captures the feel that I like for them.

However, I’m not a fan of “anyone can test their psionic abilities and then roll to maybe get powers.” I’m going to have a psionic class, which a character can start in if they want to have psionic powers, or they can multiclass into later if they want to discover their psionic potential later on. If they don’t want their character to have latent potential, they can just never take any levels in the class.

I dislike the highly-defined setting

I know it’s supposed to be adaptable to most sci-fi settings, but the books reference their own universe and history so much that it doesn’t really feel that way.

How do I synthesize this all into one game?

Setting-wise, I’m mostly drawing from Spelljammer, as well as Star Wars, Numenera, and my own imagination. I don’t want to define many specific planets or empires or sectors or whatever since I prefer most of the worldbuilding work be done by players during character creation. Also, if you know of any very low-science space fantasy fiction that I should read, please send it my way.

I do have very specific ideas about how I want spaceships and space travel to work, which I think need their own post later. You might get a pretty good sense of what I’m going for from the Spelljammer and Traveller sections, though. My plan is to take advantage of something like Traveller’s very granular and in-depth ship creation to let players make their own completely batshit Spelljammer-style spaceships. I think a ship needs its own character sheet.

I’m doing the PBTA thing where each class has a character sheet. I haven’t decided whether I’m doing the standard 6 stats or making up some weird ones. The former is definitely easier to sell to people but I think the latter is cooler. Also, since you need a spellcasting class to have FTL what do you do if nobody picks one? I don’t want to get in a situation where I have to tell them “one of you needs to switch classes,” that just feels bad and could create animosity. A solution I’m slightly leaning towards is having only one of each character sheet, then making sure there’s always one fewer non-spellcasting class option than there are players, so by pure mathematics someone will end up able to power the ship, and I don’t need to force anyone to change on my own. The issue there is then I can’t have more than 3-5 non-spellcasting class options depending on party size, and I’d prefer a larger and more varied class pool. Another option would be to have magic hirelings available, but I want spellcasters with the ability to do FTL to feel like these big, weird, and powerful personalities, so having them just available as hirelings sort of it cheapens that in my opinion. Maybe it’s not actually important that the party always have access to their own interstellar travel? I could see the PCs being like a bunch of interstellar hitchhikers. Very Douglas Adams.

That’s just about everything that I don’t think needs a separate post. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you have any thoughts about this potential horrible chimera of a system I’d love to hear them! You can reach me here through Tumblr or at Robot_Face#7919 on the OSR discord server.

#Spelljammer #PBTA #GLOG #tabletop #dnd

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eggscelsior · 4 years

Note

Is Tarot Sequence worth the buy? I just finished a book that left me feeling very sad and was looking up books and Tarot Sequence came up! Your blog was the first I saw talking about and wanted to know what you like about the series and the character themselves, and the relationships!

The Tarot Sequence is UTTERLY worth the buy. I’ll try to do a fair breakdown for you while also being as spoiler-free as I can. This is going to be a bit long. (If you want something a little more spoilery you can dm or message me off anon and I’d be happy to help! Also, the community isn’t all that active on tumblr, but we have a very active discord that the author pops into on occasion, and I would highly suggest you join and liveblog your read to us, we’ll love you forever)

The world: Modern day alternate Earth where Atlantis did not sink to the bottom of the sea, instead being hidden by magic until quite recently. The discovery led to a brief Human-Atlantean world war, set before the books, that destroyed Atlantis and caused Atlanteans to resettle on Nantucket, now New Atlantis, and coexist with humans. The ruling class of Atlantis is based on the Major Arcana of Tarot, or rather, our cards are based on them. This is also a society in which bi/pan are by far the most common sexualities and polyamory/group marriages are fairly common. The lack of lgbt-phobias is utterly refreshing for me.

The characters: Oh my god the characters are relatable and lovable. KD does a fantastic job of giving them depth, strengths, weaknesses, humor, and growth. Rune is our protagonist and the last of the Sun Throne, which was attacked when he was fifteen. At the start of the books he and his Companion, Brand (bestie/bodyguard/everything), are adults and basically making their little living in the world as mercenary/detectives for hire. BANTER/SWEARING GALORE. Love them so much. The books follow Rune’s reclamation of his birthright and unravel the mystery around the attack on his Court. Along the way they start to accumulate found family, which I will tell you nothing about because PLOT except that there’s HIJINKS and LOVE and you will adopt everyone on sight.

Worldbuilding: We are in for a good ride. KD’s style of worldbuilding is not an infodump of exposition, it’s Rune chronicling his adventures and giving us information as it becomes relevant. I love watching the world unfold like this, because it means we don’t get overwhelmed with being dunked in the deep end of an intricate universe.

Relationships: So this one’s a little up in the air, actually. Rune and Brand are basically an old married couple but they’re not intimate (yet, possibly). Rune gets a boyfriend that is not Brand. Some people want Brand to be endgame. Some want boyfriend to be. Some want all three to have a balanced and loving polyamory, as is common in Atlantean society, and would be wonderful rep in my opinion (I would LOVE the ot3, but also just. I want them all happy. I ship all of them x happiness.) KD is aware of his readers’ different desires and has decided to let the characters write themselves as far as romance, which I think is beautiful. He is definitely great at writing organic relationships and good chemistry, so I trust him there.

Three important notes:

1) It’s nine books, and KD is also releasing free novellas set between each because he has so much story he wants to share. The free ebooks are pinned on his twitter. This series is WORTH the ride, but know that you are getting into one.

2) If you read the first book and feel it’s maybe kinda white and maybe kinda male, you would be right. KD listens to reader feedback and is learning and growing himself, which is wonderful. The second book has some fantastic women, POCs, a character who is learning their identity and changes to they/them after book two, an absolute treasure of a character who is coming to terms with asexuality, and the protagonist is slowly identifying as demisexual. This series is so much more than just men in love!

3) The triggers. It is important to know that when Rune’s court was destroyed, he was sexually assaulted at age fifteen and the perpetrators were not identified or caught. He has PTSD because of this. His assault is a very real part of his character limitations and is addressed very respectfully, and there is one brief graphic mention of it (so far). The process of his healing will likely confront more memories as he tries to find out why it happened and who was responsible. His abuse is in no way made light of or fetishized, which is very good, but the rape and/or the pedophilic nature of it could definitely be a trigger for some people. There are also fight scenes and thus battle wounds, though they have healing magic.

I hope that gave you some good food for thought, and if you’d like the link to the discord, all are welcome! Let me know and I’ll generate a link for you!

#the tarot sequence #tts #the last sun #book rec #Anonymous

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let-it-raines · 5 years

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Not Your (soul)Mate {13/16}

Killian Jones doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. He sees how happy his friends are with theirs, but he still doesn’t like the idea, not when he’s found love and lost it time and time again only to still not know his sign. He has no markings on his skin, no voices in his head, but then one day he meets Emma Swan and everything changes. Because, well, he may not have ink on his skin to tell him who to love, but the very first time that he hears Emma’s voice he knows that she’s the one for him. Then again, that could simply be his desire talking. After all, for every word she speaks, he becomes aroused.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to be incredibly attracted to a beautiful woman, but things aren’t that simple when she doesn’t have any interest in being his soulmate.

He’s screwed. And not in the good way.

Rating: Mature

A/N: I can’t gush on @captainsjedi enough for her artwork and support and overall kindness. Oh, or her tag flails. They’re my favorite thing in the universe. Also, I just want to give a shoutout to the nonnie who sent me the trope mashup of “soulmates + aroused by her voice” when I was playing that game back in late March because you gave me the inspiration to write one of my favorite stories❤️

Oh, and I want to thank all of you for clicking and reading and flailing! You make me so excited to post these chapters! The next three all take place within 24ish hours, so we’re getting to the climax (literally and figuratively), and then a fluffy little epilogue😘

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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The fan clicks as Killian stares at it rotating above him, the sound mixing in with his television that’s still playing, some kind of infomercial for mixing bowls on, and with the howl of the wind outside. The temperatures have rapidly dropped in the eleven days since the calendar hit October, and even though he’s yet to turn the heat in his apartment on, he is seriously thinking about getting out of bed to turn the fan off. But that would be such effort to move from underneath his covers, to let the cool air hit the bare skin of his arms and chest, so he doesn’t move, can’t move. It’s all too comfortable to stay in bed and hear about how he can buy this new set of mixing bowls for under twenty dollars.

He definitely doesn’t need any new mixing bowls.

There’s a vibration against his nightstand, and he makes the effort to reach over, letting the cool air cast over his skin for this brief moment, before he’s squinting at the bright screen of his phone and the gray messages that are popping up. His stomach flutters at the sight of it, making him feel like a ridiculous teenager, but that seems to be par for the course lately when it comes to anything and everything that has to do with Emma Swan.

She’d slap him upside the head or punch his bicep if she knew that he thought things like that, but, honestly, he’d take the slap with a smile on his face.

Now, she’d definitely slap him for that. Probably twice.

Emma: I realize that it’s three in the morning because my phone tells me so, but I just woke up and colored mixing bowls are being advertised on my TV. And I kind of need to know who in the world is buying mixing bowls at three in the morning?

Killian: Insomniacs and anyone who works the night shift and happens to be watching TV.

Emma: Why are you awake?

Killian: I needed new mixing bowls, and ordering off of an infomercial is the only way that I shop.

Killian: Why are you awake?

Emma: I was thinking of you in your one night stand’s mother’s bathrobe.

He chuckles under his breath, shaking his head from side to side, and shuffles on his mattress, twisting to the side and pulling the covers up over his shoulders as he thinks of what exactly it is he wants to say back to Emma. It’s the oddest thing having to think of what he wants to say to her. Usually, he doesn’t think before he speaks…or texts, really. They haven’t physically spoken to each other since Ariel’s baby shower two weeks ago, and honestly, after he chased after her into Ariel’s bedroom because he could tell that she was upset, he figured that she’d cut him off. He knows Emma, has really gotten to know her intimately over the past few weeks and months, but they have gotten to know each other through texts and letters, not face to face conversations where one of them breaks down and shares their deepest secrets.

It’s not like they could talk to each other, not really.

For a long time, he thought that they shouldn’t talk at all, that if they did, he’d be entirely too uncomfortable in any pants that he was wearing and he’d be clenching his jaw enough to break teeth. His dental insurance isn’t good enough for that. It was this horrible sense of arousal, this thing that he couldn’t control and couldn’t do anything about, and it honestly felt like some kind of sick joke. But then a sick joke turned into a fun game, one where he could talk loudly to make Emma uncomfortable, one where they could tease each other out on the boat or in the Nolans’ backyard. Hell, they could even make each other uncomfortable (or technically far too comfortable depending on the definition of the word) standing in Ariel’s kitchen making pizza.

It was fun. Emma is fun. It gave him this sense of exhilaration to be able to connect with her, to interact with her, and even if it was entirely superficial at first, something inexplicably changed. He’d like to pinpoint it down to Labor Day, to her spending the morning with him and the twins and the afternoon out sailing with their friends, but he knows that it was before that. It was even before kissing her in what had to be one of the most explosive kisses of his life (firework pun completely and totally intended) in Leo’s treehouse while everyone else was watching David shoot fireworks into the sky. But he doesn’t know exactly when it all changed.

Not at all.

All he knows is that he has fallen in love with a woman who is enigmatic, charming, intelligent, beautiful, witty, and someone who he wants to talk to every day for the rest of his life.

Killian Andrew Jones loves Emma (No Middle Name) Swan with every fiber in his being, in a stomach twisting, notebook turning, high school scribbling on papers type of way.

It’s the craziest, most unusual, feeling he’s ever experienced, and while he thought that he was too old for all of this, thought that he would never feel love after Milah, Emma has proven him wrong in every single way.

She’s…for all of those things that he thinks Emma is, that he knows Emma is, he seems to keep circling back to maddening. Sure, it could go under the enigmatic category, but maddening seems to keep coming back to him. If it were anyone else, any other woman who he’s fancied, he would be sure that she fancies him too from the way they interact. There would likely be dates, phone calls, overnight stays, face-to-face conversations full of laughter and teasing and the occasional serious moment where they shared the depths of their hearts. And he would know for sure where things are going, whether that be a serious relationship or simply sex.

With Emma, he has no clue.

Because even if she had wanted to, they couldn’t have gone on dates, couldn’t have had phone calls, couldn’t have spoken. They could have had overnight stays, ones full of lust and sex and heated moments that never stopped, and as much as he craved that, still craves it, he mostly wants to know what exactly it is he and Emma are doing.

They are soulmates. There is no doubt in his mind about that, and despite the fact that they had a predicament at the beginning, he’s not entirely sure that it’s happening anymore. At Ariel’s baby shower, when Emma was sharing herself with him, when he was getting to learn about the depths of her broken yet still beating heart, the only stirring her felt was within his chest as it broke for her. They’ve both been hurt, damaged, and yet they’re still capable of having all of this love for the people around them.

And he’s capable of having love for Emma.

While he’ll likely never know for sure since there’s no one to ask about this (he’d like to speak to the manager, thank you very much), he thinks that’s what’s made the arousal stop, what’s made them be able to speak to each other without the uncomfortable awkward twinge of pain and desperation. He’s heard of soulmate signs changing over time once two people have found each other. Elsa and Liam only rarely hear each other’s thoughts now that they’re together, Will can no longer see Belle’s fingerprints on objects he’s touched, and he no longer feels uncontrollable arousal for Emma. Of course, he’s still incredibly attracted to her, most likely more than he was at the beginning because of the emotions involved, but he’s almost giddy at the fact that maybe one day he’ll be able to sit on the couch eating take out with Emma, the two of them talking about their days, and then not wanting to sleep with each other right then and there.

A normal spark, really. A normal attraction. Sure, they could decide to screw talking about their days and screw instead, but it wouldn’t be something that they absolutely have to do.

He never thought there would be a day where he’s excited about not being desperate to sleep with the woman he loves, but that seems to be happening.

Not that he doesn’t want to sleep with her.

Because he does.

A lot.

This is confusing to explain even to himself. How can he possibly say that he’s incredibly attracted to Emma while also not being incredibly attracted to her?

It seems nearly impossible, and all he can hope is that Emma feels the same way for more reasons than he can even begin to count. Liam seems to think so from the few conversations they’ve had about the whole situation, and Killian knows that he has to work up the courage to talk to Emma about it all and see exactly what’s going on in that head of hers.

Killian: I looked damn good in that bathrobe.

Emma: I don’t believe it.

Killian: Maybe you’ll have to see it one day.

Emma: Yeah, maybe. I’ll have to buy some bleach before that, though.

Killian: To make sure my robe stays spotless?

Emma: We can go with that if it makes you feel better.

Killian: It does. And at least I know that my undergarments all match.

Emma: You have got to let that joke go. It’s not even a good one.

Emma: And you’ll still never know the answer. All you get to see are the socks.

Killian: I like the mismatched socks. They’re charming.

He’s not sure how long he stays up texting Emma, never putting his phone down or away with the speed of her messaging him back. All he knows is that he wakes up with his phone on his chest and several unread messages from her, most of them strange gifs of people sleeping, and he spends far too long trying to find something to send back to her.

He would say he is too old for things like this, but then that would make him feel much older than he actually is.

(He almost says that he’s hip, but that would basically be him digging his own grave.)

Getting out of bed, he reaches up to pull the chain on the fan to turn it off before heading into his bathroom to get ready for the day. It’s chilly enough in his apartment for him to not want to strip out of his clothes, but once he’s in the shower, the warm water spraying down on him, he doesn’t want to leave. Why does this always happen?

But he can’t wither away in his shower. That would be a horrible way to die (as would freezing to death, but he has to consider his options), so he steps out of the shower and quickly gets dressed before going through his morning routine, the one cup of coffee not nearly enough for him, especially as Liam keeps texting to badger him about missing their run this morning.

It’s too cold, he’s too tired, and he doesn’t want to do it.

He’ll get up for it all tomorrow.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Not definitely. He needs that adrenaline rush and that feeling of his body accomplishing something, especially lately.

It’s a quick trip to the office, especially since he drives instead of walking to stay out of the cold, and when he opens the front doors, Ariel is already sitting behind her desk in front of his office with her hair pulled up into a bun and her glasses perched on her nose…that means she had an awful night’s sleep, and he needs to either steer clear of her or offer to take her to lunch. The kicker is that he never knows which one, and he’s taking a gamble on how she’s going to react.

He’s got about a forty percent success rate, which isn’t great.

“Morning, A.”

“Morning,” she yawns, covering her mouth with her hands before resting her hands on her stomach, her belly taking up most of the space behind the desk. She’s two weeks away from her due date, and as much as he’s told her she can start her maternity leave, she’s refused. Stubborn lass. “You look like shit.”

“I do so love when women tell me that.”

“I try to make you feel as confident about yourself as possible.”

“You succeed,” he laughs, pressing his elbows down on her desk as they talk, his fingers fumbling with the chain around his neck. “If you’re too tired, you can go home. You know that, right?”

She waves him away, rubbing her stomach once more before adjusting her glasses. “I can work. I like to work, and it’s much more entertaining to spend my day talking to you when I’d be by myself at home.”

“This is true. I am a damn good time.”

“You’re an okay time. Don’t let that head get too big.”

He winks. “I won’t. But you, Mrs. Fisher, are going to go to lunch with me today, and then you’re going to go home and take a nap.” She opens her mouth, and he holds up his hand. “No exceptions. I know you’re not sleeping well, and I also know that you are going to Will and Belle’s engagement party tonight at their new place. There’s no way you’re making it through that with how tired you are today.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel good.” He tilts his head to the side and smiles at her, figuring he’s pushing in the right direction if she’s not too mad at him yet. Offering lunch was obviously the right idea. Ariel sighs, rolling back in her chair as another yawn hits her. “Fine. I will go home and take a nap, so you’re not allowed to do anything interesting without me. Got it?”

“I promise.”

Unsurprisingly, nothing interesting happens. October is far from their busy season, even if they do get a few requests for upkeep and maintenance on vessels for the holiday season, so he mostly twiddles his thumbs and rummages through his desk, organizing already organized files and pens all the while he lets his phone play music from his desk so he doesn’t actually die of boredom. Liam seems to have the same issue, continuously finding reasons to walk down the hall and pop his head into Killian’s office for no reason other than to tell a story about Luis and Luca or ask if he wants to come over for dinner sometime next week.

It’s simply one of those days where it feels like it’s never going to end, and when four o’clock rolls around, hours before their office technically closes, Liam walks through his door and sits down on his couch, the leather creaking underneath him as he completely lays down and folds his arms over his chest.

“If I complain about how bored I am today, that inevitably means that Monday will be the craziest day of our entire professional lives, right?”

“Navy included?”

“Hell no. That’s an entirely different category.”

“Then yeah,” Killian laughs, rolling back in his chair and moving his legs up to prop his feet on the corner of his desk where his jacket is about to fall to the ground, “I’d say it’s best not to complain. But, you know, if you did want to shut the place down and let everyone go early, I don’t think anyone would argue that.”

“But then what would we do with our day?”

“You’re a workaholic.”

“I’m kidding, you wanker. Obviously, I’m going to go see the kids since Elsa and I are leaving them to go to the engagement thing tonight. That’s pretty much an entire day without us.”

“It’s probably the best day of their lives.”

“Asshole.”

Killian chuckles and rolls his eyes. Liam can be so dramatic, but then again, that’s likely a family trait.

(Definitely a family trait.)

“You talked to Emma lately?”

He nearly stumbles out of his chair, but he manages to keep himself stable, glad that his computer partially blocks his face since he can feel the heat reach the tip of his ears.

“Yes,” he slowly answers, not sure where Liam is going with this.

“That’s good.”

“I mean, yeah, I think so.”

“Still got that tiny, little boner problem?”

“You’re asking me so that you can make a joke about me having a small dick, aren’t you?”

“Glad to see you catch on quick, little brother.”

“I’d say you’re the biggest dick around, but that would be entirely untrue.”

Liam barks out a laugh, one that reverberates throughout the room, before sitting up on the couch so that he’s propped up by his elbows. “So should we call it quits for the day? Let everyone have a better Friday?”

“Yeah, we should. I’ve heard this rumor that one of the bosses is an asshole.”

“I heard that rumor about you too.”

Since they shut down the office early and Killian already has Belle and Will’s gift wrapped in his car, he takes the extra hour to run to the bank and deposit a few checks as well as picking up a few of his suits from the dry cleaner, hanging them on the hook in the backseat of his jeep. He’s not surprised by the lack of things he has to do, and like any smart person when they’re bored, he parks in front of Granny’s and heads inside to grab something to eat.

Eating while bored: a great idea!

The early dinner rush has already started to fill in, everyone settling down into booths and tables with their jackets hanging off the back, but he doesn’t bother to take his leather jacket off before sitting down at a barstool and ordering a lobster roll and some fries as well as a cup of coffee, his lack of sleep finally starting to hit him. He hopes that Ariel got her nap today. He probably should have texted her and asked.

“You know, Jones,” Ruby sighs when she hands him his coffee, “coming in here before five doesn’t mean that I can give you the senior discount.”

“You’re the funniest person in town. You know that?”

“I did, actually. I also have the best hair.”

“And the most confidence.”

“Exactly.” He rolls his eyes at the same time that she winks. He’s not sure if starting to frequent Granny’s Diner in the past few months is a good thing or a bad thing. That seems pretty consistent for a lot of things in his life. “Do you know if we’re supposed to bring food tonight? Or just, like, the housewarming gift? Because I can easily swipe a pie from here.”

“And you’ll pay for it,” Granny shouts from behind the counter back in the kitchen. “You don’t get freebies.”

“Your grandmother is a tough lass.”

“Very stingy about her pies as well.”

“Well, love, all you’re supposed to bring is the gift, but I wouldn’t pass up the pie, especially if it’s a blueberry one.”

“I prefer cherry.”

He turns on the stool to see Emma standing behind him, her shoulders shrugging out of her red leather jacket so that she’s left standing in a fitted black shirt with her jeans and heeled boots, golden hair falling over her shoulders in soft waves. She looks as beautiful as she always does, and he feels his groin begin to stir in a way that he knows has nothing to do with the three words that she said.

“Hi, love.”

“Hi.” She smiles at him, a soft curve of her lips, before taking the three steps closer and running her hand over his shoulder, sparks working their way through his clothes until he can feel them lighting up his skin, covering him in the warmth that’s not present outside. “You trying to get the senior discount? Ruby never gives it to anyone.”

Ruby groans, shaking her head. “You have to be old to get it. Like, your boobs and a bunch of other things need to be saggy and wrinkly and – ”

“Rubes, please shut up. People are eating, and that’s, like one hundred percent insulting.”

“Just saying the truth. You want your usual?”

“Just a hot chocolate.”

“Gotcha.”

Emma reaches over to his plate and takes two of his fries, dipping them in his ketchup, and when he raises a brow in question, she simply shrugs, her lips curling into a smile. So she doesn’t order her own food, but she steals his. Good to know.

There are so many things to still learn about this woman.

“So can I report you stealing my fries as a crime?”

“You could, but that would be a waste of my time. Too much paperwork.”

“I thought you all got the computerized system?”

“Whatever.” She reaches over to take another fry with absolutely no shame. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I could ask the same to you.”

Emma still doesn’t say much, simply eating his fries and taking a sip of her hot chocolate when Ruby brings it to her, and he takes the time to try to study her, to see if maybe she’s not as affected by his voice as she used to be. Of course, there’s no obvious sign like there would be with him, but he checks to see if her cheeks are flushed or if her pupils are dilated, all the little things he’s learned to notice in a woman. She’s not showing any signs, none at all, and he honestly can’t decide if that’s good news or truly horrible news.

Seriously.

What does it mean if Emma is not ridiculously attracted to him?

Does it mean that she loves him as well? Could it?

Or has she become an expert at hiding everything since they met each other over seven months ago?

“If you stare at me any harder, you’re going to drill a hole in my head.”

He chuckles even as his hand reaches up to scratch behind his ear, his stomach twisting and his heart beating more quickly now that he’s been caught red-handed. “I can’t help that such a beautiful woman is sitting next to me.”

Emma’s eyes roll, as he expects them to, but he also sees her cheeks pink. “Flirt.”

“I try. Did you buy those mixing bowls to fill your now empty apartment?”

“I also got a new chair, which is going to be the only furniture in Belle’s old bedroom.”

He hums in response before twisting in his chair and picking up his sandwich to take a bite, figuring if he doesn’t, Emma’s going to eat it before he ever gets a chance to. Emma ends up ordering a side of onion rings, his fries obviously not enough for her, and they stay sitting on the stools talking to each other and Ruby for the next hour until Emma points out that Sean and Ashley just walked into Belle and Will’s new apartment. He pays for both of their meals before helping Emma into her jacket, the two of them telling Ruby they’ll see her later before grabbing his present out of his jeep and walking across the street to the apartment building, the sound of everyone’s voices already filling the stairway.

It’s obvious why when they get to the second floor and see that the front door is open, music streaming from inside and several people already milling around. For as many people are in this town, their friend group is tight knit, especially since he met Emma and Ruby, and there’s not a single person who he doesn’t know or who he has to make awkward conversation with as people begin to slowly arrive, most everyone still in the clothes they wore to work. He’s simply glad that he wore jeans today instead of one of his suits.

“You want a beer?” Will asks him as he sits down next to him on the couch, the leather one he recognizes from Will’s old place, and holds out a bottle.

“No thanks. You have the worst taste in beer.”

“Oi, that’s not true.”

“It is,” Ariel teases from her spot in the recliner.

He doesn’t think she’s going to move from there all night, like she’s terrified that someone is going to steal the chair and not let her sit back down. That’s a ridiculous thought since every soul in here would let her have a seat, but he doesn’t blame her. Everyone here seems to be pretty stuck where they are. Liam and Elsa are sitting at the kitchen table with David and Mary Margaret, the four of them munching on the tray of cheese and crackers, and Emma is standing against the kitchen counters with a glass of wine talking to Ashley, Sean, and Ruby. Robin, Regina, Victor, and Arthur keep moving between the entryway and the kitchen, going back for food, but mostly everyone is stuck in their little conversations, even if people occasionally move around.

“Where’s Eric?” Belle wonders.

“It’s Friday night. He’s working, so the closest thing I have to a husband tonight is Killian.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean?”

Ariel waves him away and adjusts in the chair, her face grimacing. He can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be to be pregnant…and he does not want to imagine that. Not at all.

“You look the most like him, and I spend nearly as much time with you as I do with him. You’re obviously not my husband. Thank goodness for that.”

“Hey,” he scoffs, kind of wishing that he’d accepted that beer, but he now sees that it’s gone to Belle, “you don’t have to be rude about it. I would be a fantastic husband.”

“You’d have to date for that to happen.”

He cuts his eyes at Will at the same time that he sees Belle look away, the slightest bit of color appearing on her cheeks. He’s got no idea what that’s about, but he has a sneaking suspicion that it’s about Emma.

Does she know?

“You’re all hilarious.”

“Oof,” Emma grunts, sitting on the arm of the couch next to him so that her hip knocks into his shoulder, “are we making fun of Killian? I want to join in.”

“We’re talking about his lack of dating life,” Belle explains as her voice squeaks toward the end.

“Ah, yes,” Emma sighs. She leans back and puts her arm across the back of the couch so that her fingers tap against his shoulder, the rhythm random. “Our old spinster Jones. Whatever shall we do with him?”

He flicks her jeans at her thigh, and she pinches him in response. The height of maturity.

“You’re all assholes. I’m simply here trying to celebrate my mate getting engaged to the love of his life, and here I am being teased. None of you have any humanity.”

“You’ll be okay,” Emma mock soothes, and when he looks up at her, she’s absolutely smirking down at her with the soft pink lips that he desperately needs to feel against him again. He’s not actually irritated, not really, but the entire reason he’s not going on dates and openly being in love is Emma Swan, one of the people messing with him. It’s damn obnoxious, and it’s taking everything in him not to mess with her in front of everyone right now. “You’re a handsome man. Love will find you.”

A remark is at the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it and says something else. “Swan, if you keep calling a man handsome, he might get ideas.”

“Well, like I’ve said, it’s always a bad idea when you start thinking.”

“I thought the two of you hated each other?” Will questions, circling his hand around as his beer swishes in the bottom of his bottle. “When did this happen?”

“Why would they hate each other?” Ariel seems so genuinely confused by the thought of the two of them ever disliking each other, and he can’t help but chuckle. “They’re always together. I thought they were sleeping with each other at one point.”

“E-excuse me?” he coughs, choking on air and leaning forward as Emma pats his back, which really only makes him cough more. “What?”

“I mean, I knew the two of you weren’t dating because neither of you are big daters. But then you were spending all of that time together, suddenly you were happier at work, Emma was happier when we went to lunch. I figured you were both just getting laid.”

“Oh my God, no,” Emma groans, and he would be insulted by the horror in her voice if he hadn’t just sounded the same way. “We are not sleeping together.”

“Stop talking about my brother’s sex life,” Liam yells from across the room.

“There’s apparently no sex life to be talked about,” Will shouts back, and he wonders, not for the first time, if he could sink into the couch.

Luckily, the conversation moves on, more specifically to Will and Belle, the actual reasons they’re there tonight, and Emma doesn’t seem too put off by the fact that they were teased like that. He doesn’t know what that means, another mixed signal from her, and his stomach can’t seem to decide if it thinks that’s a good sign or an awful one. His heart, however, has definitely decided to speed up to levels that can’t be healthy.

That all definitely comes from being around Emma, and he hopes that her little superpower in hearing has disappeared like his has, because he does not want her to hear the blood that is furiously pumping through their veins.

As the night wears on, toasts are made and presents are opened with lots of talk about the wedding next summer and the vacation that Will and Belle have cancelled so that they can go on a honeymoon instead. It’s a nice, relaxing evening, and he hates to leave the warmth of the apartment to go outside when people start trickling out of the apartment and down the stairs. Ariel has her arm looped into his elbow as they walk out, her pace a little slower so that the two of them and Emma, Elsa, and Liam drag behind the others on the walks back to their cars.

“Does anyone here need a ride home?”

“I only had the one glass of wine,” Liam supplies.

“Same. Though I won’t say no to a ride. I walked to work this morning and am not feeling the walk home tonight.”

“No problem, love,” he smiles, glad that she’s accepting his help. “Elsa, I trust you can get home with your husband?”

“If he lets me.”

Elsa affectionately pats Liam’s chest before pressing up on her toes to kiss his cheek, and he smiles at them before continuing to walk forward only to stop when he notices that Ariel is no longer walking, her feet firmly planted on the ground.

“A? You okay?”

She doesn’t say anything, grunting in response.

“Ariel,” Emma worries, stepping in front of the two of them to look at Ariel. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

She nods her head up and down, her jaw visibly clenched, and suddenly the chill outside seems to worsen, the wind blowing through and whistling between the buildings as street lights illuminate their paths.

“It’s…I…” Ariel is stuttering, her words strained, and when his eyes meet Emma’s, they’re full of worry. “I could be wrong, but I’ve been in a bit of pain all day. I – ah fuck, I think I might be in labor.”

#Not Your (soul)Mate #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #Captain Swan #cssns

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whetstonefires · 5 years

Note

I have wandered into your tumblr and I want to know absolutely everything about your ideas for Earth 3 Impetus and Motion. EVERYTHING. Possibly the least relevant part of that is the family line, as Earth 3 often has really skewed versions of the characters. Would the first Johnny Quick even have a speedster grandson when he was killed and his blood used to power his successors?

Oh, cool ask! Thank you!

😄 I’m very happy to talk about this but I’m afraid you may be disappointed, because I’m Doing It Wrong. I’ve been working off and on on a bespoke Earth-3 for the past…several years. Production has slowed but not stopped. It’s up to over 300,000 words on AO3 at this point.

The issue that set me off was that tendency to skew; I didn’t like it. I found that, most of the times DC had built into Earth-3 before rebooting again, there were two countervailing currents leading writing decisions. On the one hand to make things As Wrong As Possible compared to the main timeline, and on the other to just make them…arbitrarily different.

Lois Lane is Superwoman, evil counterpart of Wonder Woman, for some reason, woop-de-do; this fits under both categories.

This process worked neither according to the ‘timeline that diverged into a Bad Timeline at some point in the distant past but somehow contains versions of the same people in the same place’ premise of the original Star Trek ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode, nor does it work according to any direct cosmic principle of inversion, although some of the early versions claimed to.

(See: Mirror Christopher Columbus discovered Europe and then later Evil George Washington conquered England for the American Empire, what even guys. 😩)

Also Earth-3 so transparently existed almost every time it was reinvented as a place to get villains from, and to look bad in comparison to the main timeline, without any attention to making it work internally, which I thought was a damn waste of a cool concept. ‘A damn waste of a cool concept’ drives a lot of fanwork lol.

So for my world, I had the slightly conflicting goals of working as close to that amorphous thing ‘canon’ as possible, and of making the setting stand on its own, as a superhero setting, with internal causality and more or less the usual sort of hero-versus-villain logic. So I inverted the alignments of only superheroes and supervillains, and kept as much as possible of their backstories intact.

This means my stuff doesn’t map onto any canon Earth-3, especially not the one from Forever Evil because that came out after I’d already gotten all the big things pinned down. 😅 Some people get upset about this and come yell at me about how i.e. Owlman is Thomas Wayne Junior. But since I always saw that particular concept as a huge cop-out from looking at how few alterations it takes to turn Bruce Wayne into a spectacular villain, I was like ‘nuts to that’ from the start.

If you’re cool with my relationship with canon, on we go.

-&-

So, Impetus and Motion! I don’t remember what I said on that one post where I remember blathering about it, so forgive me if I repeat myself. ^^

Lineage is the same as canon, technically. I’ll go over it; if you don’t care just skip ahead to the next subsection. 😄

Mirror Barry Allen, the Dash, got his villain name for his signature kill technique of grabbing someone, hyperaccelerating them, and then letting go at the right moment that they get dashed against something immovable and go splat. He dashes people against things.

(His eventual sidekick, Blaze, got his for liking to make things combust by accelerating their molecules. The combination makes them sound like a pair of racehorses, which they did not intend and are very annoyed by when it’s pointed out.)

The Dash is pretty scary, especially because most of the ways he abuses his speed for profit are so low-key nobody even notices (i.e. screwing with the stock market) and he doesn’t need to be a supervillain. He just likes it.

His public villain profile is relatively low for the level of danger he poses, tho, because his town is infested with really dumb superheroes who beat him embarrassingly often, when he actually turns up to fight or is successfully ambushed. And with the occasional exception the scale of his crimes is fairly small compared to i.e. Ultraman.

Keeping him imprisoned is ridiculously difficult, tho. He can’t be completely depowered (because the Speed Force is external to him and all the power dampeners that are used assume they’re trying to shut off something generated internally) and he’s really smart, so it took years of battles to keep him long enough to transfer into a proper cell even, and longer to get an unblurred look at his face.

His secret identity survived so long that Barry Allen was there to comfort Iris West after she was targeted by the Dash on several occasions, and they were married by the time he got ultimately unmasked.

She left him after that and moved back to the future, which she was still from because that’s hilarious, but he eventually tracked her down and promised to reform if she’d take him back. This obviously fell apart eventually, but not until after the twins were born.

I haven’t mapped out the mirror Thawne line. I assume the Thawnes with healing powers who inadvertently adopted Barry’s twin were much nicer in this timeline but idk if he ever became Cobalt Blue or what. I hope he lived to old age. Apparently there have been multiple Cobalts Blue? Idk idc, Flash continuity what even are you.

Everyone thought Eobard Thawne was nuts, but he actually did go back in time and stop the Dash from destroying the world with nukes in a fit of rage, his historical analysis, method of giving himself speed powers, and time machine were all successful. He may additionally suffer from some degree of psychosis, but he wasn’t wrong. (His little brother still exists in this universe because good!Eobard wasn’t the type to manipulate time to erase inconvenient family members. He also doesn’t have the title Professor because he never got tenure, so he just goes by Zoom.)

-&-

Bart is still Don and Meloni’s kid. Frankly I don’t understand those two in the normal timeline, so it’s hard to construct their mirror versions in any depth or even decide whether they should get mirrored. (Probably not tbh.) But I don’t exactly need to, because the resulting Bart is very much the same and thus doesn’t really know them. He was still born with his weird speed glitch that caused him to be raised in a simulation, and eventually time-traveled to un-glitch him.

The difference is that he’s not a nice kid. He’s a two year old who looks twelve and has received all his socialization from reasonably good AI in a world that was not real. Where nothing had consequences. Where nobody was real.

He’s very frightening, is Impetus. Impetuous, wildly powerful, selfish–oddly sweet, occasionally, in the ‘gay and innocent and heartless’ way of Peter Pan, but probably even more likely than Peter to knife someone. He’s so delighted the first time he eats actual ice cream, as opposed to a simulated version, but the ice cream stand is now on fire.

Mirror Bart isn’t so much cruel or even un-empathetic as solipsistic. He’s arrested in the state of an intellectually advanced toddler playing, what’s that game called, the one where the objective seems to be getting in car chases a lot? When was the last time they made a new one, I feel like I haven’t heard it mentioned in ages, it’s a dead franchise isn’t it I’m old. Grand Theft Auto! That’s it. He doesn’t just not understand that danger is real, the way Impulse started out. People aren’t.

Impetus is easily bored and surrounded by NPCs. It gets ugly, sometimes.

He also time-travels a lot more frequently than normal Bart, because he doesn’t really get attached so he doesn’t try to maintain a normal life of any kind, so he pops up all over the timestream.

Jason Blood hated him personally long before Bart had any idea who he was; they have a villain rivalry plagued by causality issues and closed time loops that is alternately epic and stupid as fuck.

And then there’s Thad. Thad’s had a less awful time than he did in canon, I think–President Thawne is not technically a supervillain so he’s probably about the same as in the original timeline, but even assuming Meloni and Don are still out of the picture (probably it’s Barry’s fault in this dimension?) raising a kid as a ‘defense mechanism against a supervillain’ calls for less extreme brainwashing fuckery than raising one to hunt down a superhero.

So he probably behaved a bit more like a reasonable grandparent, simply because the context incentivized him to emphasize concepts like duty and loyalty more, and hatred less. He might even have been able to go public with Thad’s existence, depending on the spin he came up with. Among other factors.

But it was still a depressing, isolated, dehumanizing way to grow up, and it went on a long time, because as per canon Thad has the opposite problem from Bart in terms of how he passes through time. Motion is a 40-year-old man with a 12 year old’s body and approximate life experience.

Thad was already So Tired when he finally got out into the world on his own, and once he encountered Impetus he learned pretty quickly to both pity and fear him.

Even when Thad tries to avoid Bart and just have a life, Bart always crashes back into his existence again, and in the meantime he feels guilty. Because even if he could completely shake off having been raised to see countering Impetus as his whole reason for existence, he’d still feel a lot of personal responsibility to try, because he has the ability to stand up to him in a way almost no one else does, and he knows Bart’s out there resulting in casualties.

Due to all the time travel involved, even having just defeated Impetus doesn’t mean he’s not still out there at an accessible point in the timestream, needing to be stopped.

Impetus results in Motion the way Inertia resists Impulse. They’re very much locked into an action-and-reaction framework that does not even a little bit help with Thad’s clone identity issues.

Except for how the amount of time Thad spends saving people from Bart has slowly created a fairly large body of people over the course of history who know them as distinct entities, and like Thad a lot better.

Good feels good. ^^ It’s not necessarily the case that this happens, obviously, but with their alignment swap they also ultimately exchanged who’s defined by isolation. It takes Bart a long, long time to even understand that he’s lonely.

#flash family #thaddeus thawne #earth-3 #my take #bart allen #impetus and motion #the opposite of an evil twin #i hope this was the desired amount of everything #barry allen #BARRENCE #good and evil #mirror universe #ask #hoc est meum #wyldcard4

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flourchildwrites · 5 years

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Hi, If you are still taking prompts, would you mind writing fictober "Ruins" for Havolina? :)

Witch, Please! Fictober 2019 (27/30)

A multi-fandom Fictober prompt compilation. Your wish is my command, but be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.

For @tomoehawkeye

Prompt: “Ruins” from Writetober 2019 Prompt List

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)

Relationship/Pairing: Rebecca Catalina/Jean Havoc

Genre: Alternate Universe - Practical Magic, Witches and Family Curses, High School Sweethearts

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Word Count: 1,566 words

Read on AO3

The Catalina women were blamed for everything that went wrong in their small island town, but it was, perhaps, the men they loved who suffered the most. The curse was well-known, less a legend and more a source of gossip that sprang eternal when the rumor mill ran dry. And yet, for cousins Riza and Rebecca, the plague on their household was all too real.

Too real when their fathers died sudden and mysterious deaths. Too real when their mothers took their leave, courtesy of broken hearts that refused to mend.

By the time young Rebecca arrived at the wrought iron gates of Stonybrook Cottage, Riza had already settled in. She was the spitting image of her mother, Aunt Elizabeth, with wispy blonde hair, copper eyes and a pale heart-shaped face. Though pretty, her cousin was tomboy through and through, smelling perpetually of fresh-cut grass and more than willing to beat local boys at their own games when a competitive mood stuck.

Appropriately, Rebecca quickly proved herself to be her cousin’s complement. Bold where Riza was shy but charming where her cousin was prone to confrontation, they got along as only two halves of a whole could. And while Riza was fair and lithe, Rebecca grew into the curves of her tan complexion and leaned into the power of a pair of dark bedroom eyes that stopped people in their tracks.

Under the old roof of Stonybrook Cottage, the cousins claimed their birthright courtesy of two ageless aunts who mirrored the girls’ contrast. Aunt Maria lectured long about astrology, signs and art of spellcraft while Aunt Olivier exclusively taught the subtle science of potion-making and dabbled in the occasional duel. High school existed also, and Rebecca thought the place a bore, punctuated frequently by childish whispers, taunting rhymes and hateful scribbles on the bathroom stalls.

Rebecca Catalina ❤’s Jean HavocRest in Pieces, Jean

“Who did it?” Riza bellowed, aware that their entire gym class (sans Rebecca) was in on the joke.

Unforthcoming giggles emanated from the gaggle of girls still present in the locker room, not one woman enough to own the egregious act. They hid their sneers behind ramrod straight fringes of hair and hands pressed to their mouths.

“Riza,” Rebecca warned. She grabbed her cousin’s arm as she felt the hex gathering on the tip of her tongue. “It isn’t worth it. Besides, Jean and I are just friends.”

“Friends who suck face under the bleachers,” Patricia Parkinson grumbled. “So sad that Jean has a death wish.”

Between Rebecca and Riza, it wasn’t always clear who was the witch to blame, least of all to the students and faculty of the Southaven High. But when the locker room mirrors began to tremble and the faucets popped off the pipes, spewing water over the offending girls and their belongings, Coach Sheska was forced to concede that the dry parties were the most likely culprits.

“Nice one,” Riza offered. As the two made their way to the principal’s office, she looked at her cousin with a sly pair of eyes that Rebecca refused to meet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rebecca maintained. “That was totally you.”

“Was not. I was going to bind their hands, not wreck the entire bathroom. Not that I don’t approve.”

Rebecca suppressed a dark grin. “Well, whoever did it, the Aunts aren’t going to like the property destruction,” she remarked, happily diverting the conversation to the inevitable consequences.

“No, but they’ll understand. They always do. Just be careful with Jean. Couldn’t have fallen for a girl or nonbinary person instead, could you?”

“No,” Rebecca admitted, “I had little choice in the matter.”

…

Rebecca often consoled herself that Jean Havoc was made of tough stuff. He reminded her of it every time they met beneath the bleachers (his choice) or in the back of his car (her preference). There was something playful about parking Jean’s crossover out by the lake on the Catalina estate, watching the sunset and seeing just how far the seats could recline.

But tonight was different. Rebecca knew it from the way he looked at her. Her stomach lurched pleasantly when she saw he’d shaved his face and pressed his collared shirt. A foreboding, ringbox-shaped bulge in Jean’s back pocket sealed the deal. Rebbeca did her best to distract him, knowing she wouldn’t have the heart to turn him down.

So, she pulled Jean into the backseat and pushed him against the leather interior, envious of the way the slick surface must have pressed against his skin. Hips rolled and mouths crashed into one another in the dwindling light of the setting sun. And suddenly, Jean wrapped his strong arms around Rebecca’s waist and maneuvered them both to a sitting position. He pulled away just in time to ask a question as she trailed warm kisses up his neck.

“I’ve always wanted to know why there’s a fireplace jutting out of the middle of the lake,” he said, glancing sideways at his girlfriend.

Rebecca sighed and took in more of Jean’s cringeworthy corner store cologne. At first, she’d disliked the smell. Now, she craved it, going as far as to keep one of his undershirts beneath her pillow. If Jean wondered where it had gone, he didn’t ask.

She straightened up and decided to tell the story as quickly as possible. “That’s all that’s left of the old Catalina Manor,” she explained. “Surely, you know that old rumor.”

She dived down for another kiss but was stopped by a pair of inquisitive eyes. “I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Fine,” Rebecca relented. She slid off his lap and smoothed her mussed hair to one side. Jean took to massaging the soles of her feet as she spoke, a sure sign of ingratiation that obliged Rebecca’s toes to curl.

“My ancestor, Prudence Catalina, lived in that house with her family, and some people thought that she was more than a healer. They thought she was a… y’ know-”

“-a witch?”

“Yes, that. Anyway, one day, the good townsfolk of Southhaven decided to charge Prudence with witchcraft and sentenced her to burn. But her husband wouldn’t let her go without a fight. So, a mob set the house on fire. Prudence cast a spell of protection on the fireplace where she and her daughter waited out the flames.”

“So, that’s why it’s still standing then? Prudence’s protection spell?” Jean probed.

“Sure,” Rebecca offered warily, “if you believe in magic.”

The unspoken question hung heavy in the air, coupled with heady eye contact that made Rebecca want to crawl back into her lover’s lap and stay there until eternity passed them by. Jean’s hands moved passed her ankles, working her calves with delicious, rolling pressure. Rebecca wasn’t entirely sure there wasn’t magic in his fingers, least of all because of how her tongue seemed to loosen.

This was the worst part of the story. Still, Rebecca continued, if only because Jean had asked her so nicely.

“But Prudence’s husband died in the fire, and she never recovered, even though the townsfolk were fearful of her power and resolved to leave her alone. She raised her daughter in the cottage my family still lives in but was often found crying by her old home’s ruins where she buried her husband. Over time, her tears formed this lake, and in a fit of despair, she cast a spell on herself. The depth of her bitterness twisted into a curse. Which is, I’m sure, what you really wanted to know about.”

Jean hummed in response. “I wonder why you care about it so much. I think about why you won’t let me kiss you in public, and you give me all these talismans to wear.”

He pulled at a long chain concealed beneath his shirt to reveal several small circle pendants adorned with geometric designs and ancient sigils. Each one sang softly with the labor of Rebecca’s love, though she wouldn’t call it that. Not yet.

Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose. “Amulets, Jean,” she laughed. “Not talismans. There’s a difference. And you know why you wear them.”

Jean moved over her, then, slipping his hand behind her neck and kissing the burgundy lipstick from her lips.

“Loving you,” he confessed, “helps me to understand why Prudence’s husband did it. I’d do it, too, and I’d gladly tell those girls at school where to go for taunting you like they do. Curses are made to be broken, Becky, if you’ll have me.”

She knew what he meant, and wanted to say yes.

Rebecca wanted to run away with Jean and start a new life elsewhere, however pointless that would be in the end. Her mother had tried it, and so had Riza’s parents. They all ended up six feet under with their perfect lives reduced to ruin. Long ago, Riza and Rebecca had resolved to be different, but that was before Rebecca met Jean Havoc, his last name so apt for what he did to her resolve.

Instead of responding, she kissed him with her eyes shut tight, as if she was just a girl and he was her guy. As if the curse was just a tragic fairy tale told by lovers at the lake.

Somewhere near the murky banks of the water, the death-watch beetle began its ominous countdown, and across the estate, Riza startled, knowing there was much work to be done.

A/N: Thank you for the prompt, @tomoehawkeye! Sorry, this is a little late. I caught a stomach virus. I hope you like it as much as I like these sort of asks popping up in my tumblr inbox. Anyway, if you read something you like, don’t hesitate to let me know in whatever way you want. Your kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, comments, likes and reblogs make my day!

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fyrapartnersearch · 4 years

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original, percy jackson, pokemon, avatar, skyrim, fallout ;

I’m AJ! I lost a couple partners in the holiday craze, which is totally fine! Now I’m lookin’ for some RPs to head into the new year. If we had something lined up and things fell off the wagon, no sweat, just message me again and we can get the ball rolling again! :)

For original settings: apocalyptic (zombie, disease, extinction event, whatever), supernatural (fantasy, urban, sci-fi, literally anything). For fandom universes: Percy Jackson, Pokemon, Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Skyrim, and Fallout.

Gonna run through my basic info and then onto the particulars. 💕

⥽ About Me ; ⥼

• Name/Age ; AJ! 22! Finally!

• Timezone ; CST! I don’t mind time differences, this is just so you know my general schedule.

• Length ; Depends on whether it’s novella or multi-paragraph. If m.para, around 3-5 minimum I guess? Novella would obviously be much longer.

• Reply rate ; Varies depending on whether we’re doing multi-paragraph or novella. I can respond anywhere from every day to every other day or a few times a week to weekly depending on the writing style of the RP and my schedule.

• OOC ; I like getting to know my partners and sharing enthusiasm over our ideas and characters. Nothing hits quite like mutual investment! I like making playlists/pinboards/sending you videos or songs or memes that remind me of our characters!

• Contact ; Strictly email for OOC and roleplay unless we’re using GDocs for the RP itself. You can find me at [email protected].

⥽ On the lookout for ; ⥼

• Doubling ; Not a deal-breaker!! I just prefer writing a cast of characters, so this is something that’s more of a bonus. Ideally we’ll double, but I’m down for writing just one character each. Let me know how ya feel about it!

• Will only write MxM or FxF ; MxF’s not my cup of tea (I’m extremely picky with it, fellow gays u know how it is). If we’re writing a cast of characters then I’m fine with having an MxF side couple. And I STRICTLY write OCxOC! Canon characters won't be found anywhere near this stuff, folks!

• 20+ ; Partner’s gotta be 20+ even if we don’t write anything explicitly adult! I’m outta my teens now and don’t have any interest in writing with them. Same goes for characters. It’s a 20+ zone for both partners and characters ‘round here, folks!

⥽ Yes! ; ⥼

• Smut ; I enjoy writing it, but it’s not a deal-breaker if you’d rather fade to black. All characters will obviously be adults. I expect versatile characters in bed by default, that way we’ve got an even route for playing roles in bed. Admittedly this shifts a bit depending on the character I write but for the most part, yeah, I stick to verses.

• Face claims ; Spent a huge chunk of my roleplaying years on tumblr (it was very over-the-top and flowery and weirdly formatted and grossly difficult to read, I know I know), so having a face for characters stuck with me. If you don’t have any of your own and want good resources to find a face, I’ve got some recommended sites I can throw at ya! Not a deal-breaker, though, and for certain fandoms (Pokemon, Avatar) I actually prefer not to use realistic face claims so we can just opt outta that when writing in these universes.

• Depth & growth ; Not a fan of one-dimensional characters or characters who act the same from beginning to end! People change with experiences and the people around them, so this is to be expected. ESPECIALLY when doubling with a cast. I loooove complicated characters growing together.

• Plotting & Worldbuilding ; *For original settings/worlds! I’m not picky with this if we’re working with a canon setting, so if that’s what you’re looking for, we can skip this section. I run into loooads of folks who say they do this when they really don’t. We’re writing an entire world together, so there’s some degree of effort involved! I need specifics to use as a start-off point for the roleplay and a general outline for where the story’s going. RPs that are just random, spur of the moment with writing as we go on tend to burn out REALLY quickly for me. I know not a lot of people are into this, so I’m sorry about that.

⥽ No! ; ⥼

• Single paragraphs ; I’m not too picky with a lot of length a lot of the time, I just don’t mesh well with people who don’t write more than that. Go ham. I like my responses meaty!

• Limits ; Abuse, nonconsensual/sexual assault, pedophilia, incest (includes step-relations, adopted relations, and that figurative like if one character essentially raised another or they were raised as family), weird age gaps, BDSM, any kind of master/slave or dom/sub dynamics.

As for the goods, I’ve laid ‘em all out for you here! Keep in mind that while all of these are fun on their own, I’m definitely the type of writer who’s into mixing and matching. Sci-fi apocalypse? Fantasy apocalypse? Fantasy supernatural stuff? Sci-fi fantasy? Sci-fi supernatural stuff? Supernatural apocalypse? Period settings? Literally whatever you could think of, I’ll give it a whirl. The particulars down below are just to get the ball rolling and catch some interest, some asterisks for current cravings but I’m soooooo honest when I say that I’d love to write anything down below and won’t shoot you down if you come at me with stuff. Hit me up with whatever you’d like!

APOCALYPSE: My bread and butter! Bro. I’m all about the tense, harrowing, and especially gut-punching when it comes to how close people become to survive together in quiet moments of a world they used to know. I’m a big fan of zombies, so that’s my loose preference. I loved Black Summer on Netflix – the earlier episodes, at least, as well as The Last of Us. That’s the kind of vibe I favor with zombies/zombie-like creatures. But, ofc, an apocalypse can be anything! I love writing different takes on the genre since there’s so much to cover. Extinction event, pandemic, impact event, monsters/beasts, man-made, whatever. The more creative the apocalyptic setting, the better, so I’d love to bounce some ideas back and forth. Not too into a nuclear apocalypse setting, since that overlaps a lot with Fallout down below. I’ve also had some ideas of a futuristic/sci-fi apocalypse that I’d love to tell you all about if you’re interested!

FANTASY***: High fantasy, low fantasy, medieval fantasy, urban fantasy, whatever. Love dragons, love magic, love weird fantasy flora, definitely love the classic prince/princess x knight or commoner schtick. You want prophecies? I’m game. You want elves? I’m game. You want steampunk? I’m game. You want none of that and wanna do something else? I’m game, baby. The possibilities are endless. I’ve had two particular ideas floatin’ around in my noggin lately: an apocalyptic-fantasy that takes place in a medieval fantasy realm wherein an ancient curse/plague erupts across the land with horrifying zombie-esque symptoms (obv with more fantasy elements than just that) that involves a quest to try and awaken a god or two OR some magic journey to the heart of it all and out and end to it, and a modern fantasy involving a run-down summer camp secluded deep in the woods. Two new counselors (our characters) start working there over the summer and things slowly unravel from there, either with faerie stuff involving replacing campers/staff (definitely aiming for the freaky horror faeries as opposed to like, beautiful or only slightly unnerving faeries) or the camp being run by a secret cult that sacrifices campers/staff.

SUPERNATURAL/PARANORMAL***: Vampires and werewolves and demons, oh my! Can’t go wrong with horror, especially can’t go wrong with comedy-horror. I’m more of the type to prefer humans and supernatural beings together in a ragtag duo type of way as opposed to two supernatural beings, but anything’s cool in my book. Medieval/fantasy setting for a dark fairytale vibe, urban/modern supernatural beings slinking in the shadows outside of the human eye, supernatural sci-fi stuff, mysteries and danger lurking around every corner? Seriously, it’s a great genre! Any and everything is fantastic. I’ve got a loose concept of demons/the Underworld I’d like to get into revolving around a human accidentally summoning a demon or making a really poor deal with a demon and the eventual threat of the opposite effect (humans who work with angels/angels who clean up demonic stuff) since I’m struggling with the worldbuilding of it, so applying all that to a roleplay to give it a whirl sounds like a great way to work out the kinks. Plus, c’mon. Paranormal romance. End of the world. Flipping the script on angels and demons with the demons being “good” and the angels being “bad” but really there’s more nuance to that since they’re two sides of the same coin. What’s not to love there? I’m a sucker for human/demon relationships and/or human/angel relationships, what can I say!

PERCY JACKSON*****: I haven’t ever roleplaying this verse before, so this is completely new grounds for me. I’ve seen some fun takes on it, though! Scoured older ads but haven’t reached out to anyone because the posting time’s pretty old, but a couple ideas I’ve skimmed through sound fun. HP got a period take on it, so why not put that spin on PJ with a period setting rather than in modern times? Or just a regular modern setting. Y’know, keep it classy, keep it sexy, keep it fun! I’m definitely interested in life outside of camp since they’d all be adults. Life’s supposed to suck for demigods, so let’s get into that. I’ve only read the first series but I’m game to read more or look over the Wikipedia if it suits your fancy! I’m REALLY looking for a PJ RP, seriously, message me.

POKEMON: Man, I just… miss Pokemon, dude, what else can I say? :( I miss fun adventures and goofy scenarios and taking a more serious or realistic route with threats. I’ve got a couple of ideas from heists to evil Elite Four members to Poke-Jurassic Park, but I’d love to hear anything you’ve got in mind!

AVATAR*****: Alright, not gonna beat around the bush, I had a killer post-Korra RP setting like a year ago that died off early on and now I’m kinda itching to put it back into action! Basically this whole thing just revolves around our own Avatar and world/conflicts. Something before Aang could be fun too? Or a couple Avatars past Korra? There’s so many routes we could take this! And so many things we could bring in! I had an Avatar marathon with my brother this weekend and I just miss this universe. I’ve never actually managed to RP it before, so I wanna remedy that!

FALLOUT***: Played 3, watched various playthroughs of New Vegas, 4, and working on 1+2! I’m a recent fan and I’ve fallen head over heels for it! I’ve got ten prepped OCs for this universe so feel free to take your pic once we get into contact! :D I think it could be fun if we make our own setting for this, but I’m so down for piggybacking off canon settings. I love the Mojave in particular, but everything’s cool in my book. I’ve also got a couple plot ideas, so I can tell you all about ‘em when we get into things!

SKYRIM***: Well I’m a new Fallout fan so it should come to NO surprise that I’m new to Skyrim too. I recently got into it after someone recommended it to me and I’m having a blast playing the game on the Switch! I don’t have any particular ideas but I’d love to dip into the water here and see what comes of it. I’ve got a couple character ideas already so if I manage to rope anyone into this universe I’ll be one happy camper.

#multiple paragraph #long term #email #pokemon rp #smut rp #submission

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viknaerth · 5 years

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Flash Points Challenge 001

what are some of your favorite tropes? - 400 POINTS

This one I had to think on for a minute because I think with my writing I was very anti-tropes for a while. For me I love historicity, so best friendships and pre-established connections that blur lines or develop into something more intense are particularly special. I think that’s because there a never-ending depth to the relationship, it can always be delved into and picked apart. Aside from that in character building, I have a terrible love of anti-heroes. Good in their heart but not necessarily in their actions, I think that it paves the way for more opportunistic and exciting writing.

do you have a favorite character you’ve written, in or outside of shiver? if so, what makes them your fave? - 550 POINTS

This is tough because I’m not about to get into the laundry list but I have love for all the characters I’ve written and me being an actual old person of tumblr means there are actually a heap of them. I have to give love to my two kiddos here because I’m having such a good time writing them. Elyse’s dim mind and super bright personality is a duality I find a lot of joy in trying to portray because as with all of my onion children there's so much more than that. She’ll do anything for anyone and the way that I write her really does mean anything so it’s been interesting to see the lengths she’d go to. My darling Vik is a consistent expression of what the experience of loss looks like. Somehow, even when you lose everything that you hold dear the world keeps turning even though it shouldn’t. I like his candid way of approaching romance and the fact that he’s more poetry than person. And then a final shoutout to one of the last characters I played outside of Shiver because they’re on my mind and that’s Sid James, a traveling tattoo artist. No wild supernatural AU, just a grand love of art, aesthetics and self-acceptance. There have been a couple of iterations of her and they all managed to carry the same energy, the muse is strong with that one.

do you prefer writing with small casts of characters or large ones? what are some of the pros and cons? - 400 POINTS

Yes and yes? In my world small is say under 10 and then large would be 20+ and for me I’ve had positive and negative experiences with both. I think that overall I would say you have an easier time writing with fewer people as it forces you to make meaningful connections when plotting. Not saying it isn’t possible in a bigger group, people just have more options and the ways in which characters are linked can get spread think depending on the setting. I think for me the smaller cast wins out and the pros are certainly as I’ve said above and you get a chance to meet and engage with people outside of the rping space more frequently. With bigger groups it can be harder to stake a claim or make yourself heard in amongst everyone else. The cons of a small group is that dedication is required to make sure that it isn’t just 5 out of 10 keeping the dash moving and people leaving can have a greater effect on the whole look and feel of the rp. In a bigger cast of characters 2 people leaving, while it is a shame, maybe not alter the whole balance of the rp. As with anything it is a balancing act, for me whether there’s 4 or 40 people involved I just prefer to write with dedicated and creative writers.

what’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done in the name of outlining/worldbuilding (timelines, research, maps, spreadsheets, etc.)? - 500 POINTS

Okay, listen, we’ve all been there: I could definitely admin an rp, in fact, I could definitely make an rp!

It really isn’t as simple and shiny as everyone else makes it seem. I’ve made to completion 3 rps and plenty of others that never saw the light of day. That was mostly because the high concept was way outside my realm of knowledge or the intricacies grew to be too much. I know there’s little examples but I feel like I’ve done all of them. From a post-apocalypic rp that had it’s own barter systems, power hierarchy and fully scaled map that I made in PS. I recognised it was way too much way too late and I just didn’t do anything with it. Way too much research time spent on how society would societally and physically rebuild itself after a doomsday moment.

share the last paragraph you wrote you’re most proud of. - 650 POINTS

Elyse:

Elyse had never looked anyone so deeply in the eye before, sure that she saw a whole world between her darkened iris’, unsure if she’d ever been so close to anyone. While ditzy she was never clumsy, too much restraint holding all of her muscles rigid to bump into someone like they did in the movies. Books would drop, both hunkering down, eyes meet and supposedly that was what attraction was. A succession of touches, glances and fumbled words. Neither of them had managed poetic verse, but they shared a glance that didn’t waver and their lips had brushed and could again according to Selene. Elyse’s doe eyes watched the woman in front of her so intently, just waiting for a cue or for her to make a move. She never believed she could be in control nor did it call to her. Her two sisters were the guiding forces, each had their own styles of giving direction. Elyse felt as though she’d been led to the center of the universe, stood in front of the only thing that mattered. The cracks in the pool tiles seemed to push themselves back together and the peeling paint on the motel’s rear curled back up into place. Everything was the most perfect version of itself and Elyse finally realized that while control wasn’t exactly her forte she did have to respond.

Vik:

His cheek and his precious hair graced by delicate fingers who had played his strings before. Vik felt like an instrument in her hands, known and appreciated. Impossible to some and unscrutable to most she elicited the finest melody out of him. It echoed love and support, a song for her alone. Their relationship so unique, a musician and their chosen companion were inseparable until the lowly tool fell into disrepair. Vik was broken in ways he didn’t understand entirely, a mix of trauma, loss and nowhere to call home. Could he play the same melodies? Were they sharp, or worse, were they flat? If she stayed then he supposed time would tell. But with his forehead pressed against hers, he forgot his worry. Vik looked into her eyes and remembered his place, holding no ability to judge who he’d become. She would always be enchanting and he only hoped that there was something left in him to offer her.

describe your current muse’s physical appearance using only one, over the top sentence. - 400 POINTS

y’all can guess whos who ok:

A sunshine smile knitted to soft lips, arms crossed over chest by way of keeping her pieces held as one; swaying as the breeze takes her.

Tousled locks framed her marble features, canines bared in a daring grin and her eyes honed like a predator to prey with no malintent, instead just to offer a sweet and empty promise of love.

if you had to write a novel about one of the characters in or outside of shiver, which character would you choose and why? - 600 POINTS

Tuffy, real tuff.

I think no matter who I picked there would be a whole load of infringement on other people’s writing. Though I think that’s rping, it’s the coming together of pairings to create magic scenes and capture moments in a way that a single perspective could never. Elyse is a funny little one and I’m actually (omg spoiler) currently writing her actual history out as we speak. Then with Vik his history and coming to be where he is right now makes for a very cohesive and readable tale. Paired with an ideal partner, but she couldn’t love him back, he sought something different, the something different kidnapped and tortured him, he was sent away from his home, and then his love very much accidentally found him again in a new space and as a very different person than the one she once knew. It writes itself really. It would hit a lot of beats that it has to and has very classical romance tropes while being both modern and entirely high fantasy.

The last thing Vik needs to hear is that he’s getting a biography tho to be fair.

#flash points #shiver.gang #i put it all under the cut bc honestly its all long

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