#i really want to hammer the fact that he is not really good at inhabiting the faulty mortal body that was made for him

[paintalyx]

me: hey man can a part of my light cantrip be that when someone punches my guy, he starts emitting light like a glowstick as he doubles over because his blood is like... dnd glowstick juice.

dm:

#my stuff #ttrpg #dnd #ttrpg shenanigans #oc: kalef blakovel #he pukes his organs out too sometimes to clean them #the body is horroring #i really want to hammer the fact that he is not really good at inhabiting the faulty mortal body that was made for him #like yes he is a ruthless killer a machine an idol a manufactured hero #but he is also a symbol of divine negligence

[csphire]

Some headcanons about Dammon that I use in my fics or keep in mind when writing him.

His favorite food is pizza. He makes really-really-REALLY good pizza and lasagna too. But given that he's a tiefling he needs to make both with larger amounts of meat than what is usually found back on Earth.

He only makes lasagna on special occasions as it takes a bit more time to prepare it before putting it into the oven.

He likes baking more than stovetop cooking due to the precise measurements and the fact he can put something into an oven, and he's free to do something else.

He doesn't think to invest in installing a kitchen into his home until around a few weeks after the Absolute Plot has been resolved. Before then he would frequent the Blushing Mermaid for a bite to eat as needed or use his forge to grill or warm something up.

On his days off he'll usually go into a full-on baking and meal prep frenzy. He plans out his meals for the week so all he needs to do when he gets done working is take a dish out of the ice box and heat it up in a stove.

Aside from pizza, he lives on a variety of casseroles, sandwiches, and roasts. Breakfast is usually eggs and bacon. Yep, no worries about cholesterol in Faerûn. He strikes me as a real meat and potatoes kinda guy but, I would not be surprised if he indulged in spices to put some heat into his meals too.

He knows about Earth-correction, he knows a lot about Earth. To the point he will nerd out over our world's technology and other marvels if the topic is ever brought up. This is due to there are few people whom he can talk to about that place. Fewer still whom can wrap their heads around a world that lacks any magic and where all inhabitants are humans who have managed to come up with a variety of ways to harness lighting/electricity to adapt and thrive.

When it comes to his tools he's a little particular over who touches or moves them. His favorite hammer he's especially not keen on anyone else using. His tools, after all, are his livelihood. And once he gets better ones in Baldur's Gate his possiveness over them only eases up a little bit. Due to the fact, he can at least afford to get a backup set. He takes great care of his tools and likes them arranged and put away just so. It's not a good idea to use or borrow them without asking unless you want to start an argument.

He's always on the hunt for better tools and methods to further perfect his craft. Making basic weapons and armor he can do that in his sleep to pay the bills. Repairs and sharpening don't take him long at all too. But deep down, he would rather make something special and keep challenging himself.

I like to think he's got a love/hate relationship with infernal machinery and iron. He's awed by anything powerful. But like most, I don't think he likes the terrible cost most infernal machinery demands, which is the complete destruction of souls.

He can get sucked into what he's working on and completely lose track of time. As a result, he might stand someone up on a date or be late for an event. Sometimes he might need someone to remind him to take a break. Yes, he's prone to neglect his needs and others when hyperfocused on something.

Like most tieflings, he's ambidextrous and rotates his hammering from one hand to another to minimize strain on his arms. Still, there are times when he pushes himself too hard and needs a long soak in an Epsom salt bath.

Most of the time he smells like a mix of matchsticks (sulfur), coal dust, and the tang of whatever metal he's working on, which is mostly iron. Due to his infernal biology, he doesn't sweat nearly as much as a human or elf would. But at the end of the day, like most, he needs and takes the time to wash up.

He's more of a listener than a talker. Idle chit-chat and small talk he struggles with a little. But bring up Earth or anything related to making things with metal, not just weapons and armor, he's fully locked into the conversation and enthusiastic.

He's not just a blacksmith but a budding Artificer if he's not already one. Dammon after all literally knows how to make explosives and could easily subclass into an Armorer, Artillerist, or Battle Smith.

That's all I got for now. I wish we could have gotten to know him better and gotten more content with him in a DLC. No hate towards Larian over that, my ire is solely over Hasbro for laying off the staff at Wizard of The Coast who were working with Larian for years. Shattering that working relationship was an extremely stupid move on Hasbro's part.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #dammon #the heartbreak of no dlc is real #headcannons #character deep dive #bg3 dammon #the fact hasbro owns Dammon and our other favorite characters of BG3 sickens me #fuck hasbro

[asexy-phoenix]

The Blue Castle chapter 11

I love this chapter so much! It's peak comedy, excellent characterization, and it's where I knew this book would be really good the first time I read it!

Uncle James thought the conversation was sagging to a rather low plane of personal gossip. He tried to elevate it by starting an abstract discussion on “the greatest happiness.” Everybody was asked to state his or her idea of “the greatest happiness.”

I do not like Uncle James. He's exactly the sort of sanctimonious know-it-all that the Stirlings are supposed to be. And also this control of the room? Asking everyone (in a way you can't really say no to) to give an opinion? No thank you.

“The greatest happiness,” said Valancy suddenly and distinctly, “is to sneeze when you want to.”

And then Valancy! I love how in one fell swoop she not only takes the wind out of Uncle James' sails and derails the conversation, she also provides some perspective on how snobby and self-righteous everyone else at the table is. It's amazing

The rest of the dinner party is also amazing. I wish this book was adapted into a movie just for this scene. It's so comedic in the best way. Montgomery has spent 10 chapters hammering home just what unbearably pretentious people the Stirling family is just to have Valancy deflate all of the in the course of a single dinner party.

“Oh, but you know we’re all dead,” said Valancy, “the whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t—yet. That is the only difference.”

The black humour in this line! It reads like a straight insult but for Valancy it's a bittersweet truth - the only reason she's allowing herself this freedom is because she's a dead woman walking.

Eventually somebody did mention Barney Snaith at every Stirling function, Valancy reflected.

Of course they do, because they're the sort of people to always talk around and about the people they don't think are Good Enough for their town.

And all their talking points about Barney read exactly like all the arguments people use about those they don't like in order to other them: "I don't need proof because he's suspicious", "his name is enough reason to dislike him", and "no one would be saying such things if they weren't true."

That last one is especially ironic because the Stirlings themselves are the ones spreading these rumours! We never see anyone else in Deerwood think very badly of him, and Abel and Cissy think the world of him. Maybe how Barney is or is not treated by the non-Stirling inhabitants of Deerwood should be its own post...

Uncle Wellington’s rather lame conclusion was due to a marital glance from Aunt Wellington reminding him of what he had almost forgotten—that there were girls at the table.

Keeping in mind here that the "girls" in question are Olive and Valancy, two women in their late twenties. It really goes to show just how much single women aren't valued in this society, even by their families.

But her excitement had been too much for her. She knew, by certain unmistakable warnings, that one of her attacks of pain was coming on. It must not find her there. She rose from her chair.

Such a relatable moment! Valancy knows there's something wrong, but to show it in front of people she knows won't care or do anything to help her except for their own sake is something she won't tolerate. It's such a painful feeling, but a very relatable one for anyone with unsupportive families

The fact that Uncle Benjamin thinks an actual funny joke is something never before seen in the Stirling side of the family is an amazing little joke and goes very far towards painting a picture of these people.

And the ending is masterful. It ends with such a nice little flourish. Truly a masterpiece of a chapter and one I want to see if this is ever adapted again.

#the blue castle #blue castle book club

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: The Man Who Was Thursday

Author: G.K. Chesterton

Rating: 2/5 stars

(This is a review of the movie version of G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. The book is much, much better, and worth reading if you have any interest in The Man Who Was Thursday, particularly if you're unfamiliar with his earlier books, or with the movie versions of them. My review is of the movie, and doesn't purport to cover the book; if you're not already familiar with the book it may not make much sense to read this post.

I don't want to spend a whole lot of time here talking about The Man Who Was Thursday, because I don't really have much to say. The basic premise is "What if you were the only living member of a secret society called the Invisibles?" There are a bunch of these groups, called the Invisibles, and each one has a specific kind of invisibility -- for the Invisibles who inhabit this society, being invisible is a positive quality rather than a negative; being invisible in the world of The Man Who Was Thursday doesn't mean anyone likes you, it just means that you can have your own private life as an invisible, which is hard to come by. But this means that some of the Invisibles aren't satisfied with merely having their invisibility, but crave to rule it. One Invisibles man is named Thwaites, he has a magic hammer that can make anyone invisible (and he uses it frequently!), and he's a very evil sort of man.

There are several different stories running alongside one another at a time, but the central story involves the Invisibles at a meeting (which is a very strange thing to happen) called "The Midnight Vigil" or "The Midnight Council." The Invisibles who do not take part in the Midnight Council are, naturally, unhappy about the whole thing. I say "naturally," but in fact I think Thwaites was the real antagonist of the story, who wanted so badly to participate in the council that he deliberately put a false report about the council in the papers, and then manipulated Throckmorton into believing that Thwaites was telling the truth. (I think I am doing an injustice to the book by not describing these Invisibles as villains, since I don't think their motivation for not going to the Midnight Council is clearly villainous but rather a mixture of cowardice and misguidedness.

One of the interesting things about The Man Who Was Thursday is the way that it keeps switching perspectives, making everything feel a bit like a mystery-solving detective story, and it's not obvious that any of the people involved are good or bad, at least not as far as the reader can tell. (One person is literally called "The Man Who was Thursday," I think that tells you everything you need to know about him) It's not that this story is very ambiguous in its moral judgments -- in fact it's pretty unambiguous about the nature of the characters involved -- but it does have a strong sense of humor, and it keeps switching focus from one character to the next in a way that is never clear why, or what that might be going for.

The central characters are Thwaites and his boss, Dr. Throckmorton, both of whom are constantly talking to one another but somehow never realize it. Thwaites's invisible magic hammer allows him to be anywhere, instantly, and also to be visible to a person he wants to talk to. He's a rather dandified figure. Dr. Throckmorton lives on a rooftop, overlooking the city, and it's never quite clear why he's there or what he does all day, and his invisibility is something of a joke to the other Invisibles. For a while, though, the movie goes out of its way to try to present these two as opposed to "normal" human beings -- in some scenes the movie characterizes them as having trouble forming the simplest emotional attachments; one of the running themes is that they talk like robots, not like ordinary human beings, without the proper amount of pauses and hedging and wordplay that human beings do. And indeed that is exactly what the book does in a more straightforward way, but it also does a lot of other things that might come off as a bit silly if they weren't very funny. (I will not spoil them, but you should be reading the book) One scene in particular was very memorable: Throckmorton gets a call on the phone from a mysterious woman. The camera focuses on his face while he's on the phone, and the camera and the narration move between him and the background at such a pace that his mouth is a blur. It's a good example of what I was talking about at the beginning: the sense that these people, while human, are acting in a way that does not correspond to anything else in our normal perception of these people. The book is good for being really weird and silly in a lot of ways, and it's not clear to me whether the movie just didn't have the resources to put the same effort into the book's visual style, or if the movie didn't really know what it was doing here.

[sserpente]

A/N: Heyho there my lovelies! I’m finally back! I missed posting so much! This Imagine is based on a TikTok I found and what can I say? It inspired me! After this, next up, will be the 20k Special! Enjoy everyone!

Words: 3205 Warnings: colour-blindness

“What if I never find him?” You murmured, glancing at the fruit bowl with a saddened expression. Yellow bananas, green grapes, red apples. To you, they were all different shades of grey. Dull and boring, like you had been sucked into a 30s black-and-white film. Only you didn’t get a cheesy romance out of it.

You had been born with what doctors today would call a ‘remarkably rare, complicated and fascinating condition’, for you had lost all of your colour vision at the age of twelve. You still remembered what the world had looked like before—bright, rich, intense—then someone flicked a switch overnight and all you could still see was grey, grey, grey and greyer. The colours would only ever come back to you once you found the love of your life—your soulmate.

A sigh escaped your lips. Only a few people still existed with this… defect and to make things worse, you had had no idea you were one of them. Not until your twelfth birthday. Society admired and pitied you all the same and yet, being a hopeless romantic, at the end of the day, you longed to finally fall in love.

Tony chuckled. “Heads up. You’re too young to worry about settling down anyway.” He responded cheerfully and pointed at you with a screwdriver in hand. He had been trying to fix the dishwasher for a solid twenty minutes now and for a man who had built himself a pretty much indestructible suit that could fly, it was utterly amusing he couldn’t figure out why it had stopped working.

You were not an Avenger, mind you. The sole reason you were, as of right now, in the Avengers’ kitchen munching on grey chocolate chips was that your best friend, who in turn was friends with Clint’s wife, had managed to flood your shared flat over the weekend. It was utterly inhabitable now and it would take quite a while for the landlord to get it all dried up again—and since insurance would not cover the cost for staying in a hotel, for the time being, Clint’s wife had suggested you’d stay with them—right until Tony Stark had shown up and you had graciously offered you’d come hang out at the Avengers Tower. Okay, technically you had begged him but either way and needless to say, you had jumped at the opportunity and somehow even hoped that you would learn some dirty superhero secrets—but so far, nothing. Nothing but what superheroes did when they were not out and about saving the world. Truth be told, seeing Thor in Hello Kitty pyjamas and witnessing Natasha Romanoff of all people scream watching an Asian horror film had its perks but you had somehow expected for them to be called in for an urgent mission where they required a skill only you had and then they would rely on your help and you would fight and become an Avenger and… your fanfiction had always sounded too good to be true.

“Are you still there? How is that fruit bowl so interesting?” Snapping yourself out of your thoughts, you blinked.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that…”

“Tony?” It was Bruce who interrupted you two, peeking his head into the kitchen almost timidly. You waved at him and he nodded, yet he failed to reciprocate your smile. Uh-Oh.

“Did something happen?”

The scientist nodded. “You might wanna put on your suit.”

“What happened?”

Bruce pursed his lips. “We’ve located Loki.”

-

Your eyes were still widened by the time you rushed after Tony even after he had told you explicitly (three times, to be exact) to stay put and hide until he had been put in custody.

The Loki. God of Mischief, Thor’s brother, Frost Giant, the I-tried-to-take-over-the-planet-guy. It was exciting, somehow, meeting a villain and oh, would it fuel you for your fan fiction. You almost bumped straight into Thor when they all came to a halt all of a sudden, his body a wall of flesh and muscle and making you grunt in pain—you might as well have hit a brick wall. With his hammer in hand, he ensured no one would approach his dangerous brother closely enough for him to try anything funky.

But the fact that Loki was even more handsome in person and the first villain you ever saw in person when he turned around the corner with a proud and arrogant expression on his face despite his shackles, was not what startled you to the core.

All of a sudden, there were colours. Everywhere.

Your lips parted, the impact of all the pigmentation around you making you dizzy. Loki’s armour was black, his cape was green, his eyes were blue, and his hair reminded you of the plumage of a raven. And your surroundings... The compound was silver now, the sceptre they had taken from him golden. Nauseous, you held on to Thor’s muscly arm for support. The God of Thunder frowned in concern. His eyes were blue too, his hair blonde, his cape red… too… many… colours. You suppressed a gag, overwhelmed by the sudden return of your colour vision.

“Are you okay?” Thor asked.

“G-guys… I can see colours.”

Every single head in the room, including Loki’s, turned in your direction so fast you flinched. Tony’s face was the first to fall in response.

“You are joking, right?”

Mutely, you shook your head. Your eyes locked with Loki’s, electricity rippling through you when they did. His blue irises froze you from the inside out, like each and every one of your limbs failed to resist the magnetic pull you felt towards him, and your cells longed for you to throw yourself into his arms—despite the fact he was handcuffed... and for a good reason too. Swallowing thickly, you forced yourself to look away.

Loki was your soulmate. That was impossible; and quite frankly, the god in question appeared to be thinking the exact same thing.

You chewed on your lower lip, anything to distract yourself from your predicament all the while everyone was still staring at you like you had grown two more heads.

“Take him to the cells, I’ll stay with her.” Clint’s hand on your shoulder did little to console you. Part of you still barely resisted the urge to start at Loki like a succubus, the other… the other was terrified and meant to hide in the archer’s embrace.

You could feel Loki’s blue gaze still resting on you when he led you away from the scene, staring daggers into your back and rendering you speechless until you were finally out of sight and Clint shook your shoulder gently.

“Are you sure it’s not one of the security guards that helped bring him in?”

“No… no, I saw them first. Loki was behind them. It’s… I don’t know how to explain it but somehow, Loki was in colour first, you know what I mean? First him and then, a split second later, everything else was colourful too.”

“And now?”

“Now what?”

“Do you still see in colour now?”

“Of course I do.” Clint sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“So what happens if you don’t… act on this soulmate thing?”

“Nothing. Nothing happens.” You said.

“So you don’t have to… stay close to Loki or anything?”

“No. Not that I know of. But Clint—“

“Good. Because he might find a way to use you against us. Stay away from him. Thor’ll take him back to Asgard soon enough. All we need to do first is find the Tesseract.”

Your lips were pursed when he turned to check on them and if Loki was wreaking havoc while they were trying to get him imprisoned.

Stay away from him? Of course… it was the most reasonable thing to do. Loki was dangerous, a criminal… but was that right? Now that you had found your soulmate in him?

-

You couldn’t get him out of your head that night. Screw the danger, you had to see him. And eventually, your curiosity and that inexplicable and strange pull you felt towards Loki got the better of you. With a deep breath, you threw your covers back and let your bare feet hit the cold floor before quietly tiptoeing out into the dark and empty hallway.

Your blood was rushing in your ears, making you hear things your paranoia and imagination cooked up to the point your heart was pounding in your chest so hard and fast you feared it might jump right out of your ribcage. No one could know, of course. Clint would positively kill you—he, along with Tony, somewhat considered himself responsible for you here. You couldn’t really blame them. If something happened to you, they’d never forgive themselves. You were an innocent civilian, after all.

And now you had been tossed into the greatest fanfiction yet. Shivering, for the cold slowly crept into your bare skin and through the tanktop and shorts you were wearing to sleep, you finally reached the corridor leading to the elevator. The prison cells, a rather new addition to Stark Tower, were located at the very bottom, the cellar, or… what you preferred to call it, a modern dungeon.

You found Loki with his back turned to you in his cell, looking pale through the glass pane. Your heart skipped a beat when he suddenly spoke up.

“I expected you would find a way to come and see me at some point. I’d dare say the Avengers have taken quite the precautions to keep you as far away from me as possible.” He mused. He lifted his chin, approaching the glass window.

It was quite ridiculous to assume that this tiny and meagre prison would keep the Trickster at bay after everything he had proven to be capable of. If only he wanted to, he could shatter that glass with but a flick of his wrist or break the heavy metal door posing as the only barrier between you.

If you were to just… unlock that door to touch him… it would be so easy. Blinking rapidly, you shook your head to chase the thought away.

“Who are you?” He asked and for just a brief moment, you believed to see genuine interest and curiosity sparkling in his stunning blue eyes.

“No one, really. You already know my name, I presume but that’s all there is. I’m not special—I mean, I don’t have superpowers. I’m just a regular human with a rare condition.”

“Oh, I see. Surely you had not hoped for a criminal of all people to be your soulmate then? A murderer? A monster?” His expression hardened.

Yes. But you were not going to tell him that. He was still the person to have made you see colours again, regardless of who he was and what he had done. There must have been a connection between you, you felt it after all! And you were certain that he felt it too.

“Thor will take me back to Asgard and the great King Odin,” he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “will surely have me executed. You will never see me again. So do not worry.”

“I don’t want that.” You finally chirped, barely daring to look him in the eye. His gaze was scrutinising and intimidating… almost as if he was able to see right into your soul with but one single glance.

Loki frowned.

“I bet you’re not happy about this, are you?” A desperate scoff escaped your lips. “I’m not sure I am…” You confessed and sat down on the chair in front of the window. It creaked a little under your weight, the unpleasant sound echoing through the empty hallway.

This man right in front of you was not be trusted and yet, the desire to pour your heart out to him was so strong you felt it like a sea of emotions attempting to drown you.

“You know ever since my twelfth birthday I wondered when I would finally meet my soulmate. Who they would be, what they would be like… and then so many years passed I was beginning to worry I might never see colours again. That I’d be alone and grey for the rest of my life.”

Loki licked his lips and glanced up at you, listening intently to every single word you said.

“Now I met you and they all tell me not to trust you. I mean… I know who you are, I know what you’ve done. I can’t say I’m happy about the fact my soulmate is…” You stopped yourself, breathing in sharply. “What was the universe thinking? You are a god and I’m just… me. We live light-years apart!”

Eventually, after a moment of surprisingly pleasant silence between you, Loki hummed. “The Norns do have interesting ways.” He said, locking his eyes with yours, almost as if he was pondering if… if what? If he could imagine being with you?

“So what should we do? Never speak of it again? Pretend we have never met? I can’t just… come to Asgard with you.” You held your breath when you realised what you were considering here. Loki must have thought the same. He smirked in response—not mockingly but bitterly. “Odin would never allow a mortal on Asgard. If I was to survive my trial, that is.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t care you’re a criminal right now, I just found my soulmate, and I don’t want to lose him again right away, regardless of what happens between us.”

With a start, his face fell. “Nothing will happen between us. That would be unnecessarily cruel, would it not? Your life in the nine realms is but a heartbeat compared to mine.”

“So… this is goodbye?”

Loki hesitated. You noticed by the way his lips slightly parted without a single sound escaping them just yet.

“Yes. This is goodbye.”

-

The fruit bowl had become your new best friend. In the morning, tired and rather absent, you sat at the kitchen table holding on to a steaming mug of coffee all the while studying the different colours of the fruit before you like a complicated Maths formula.

“Did you have a good chat last night?” Clint barked at you when he entered the room, skipping the ‘Good morning’.

“Huh?”

“With Loki?” He probed, raising his eyebrows in an I-already-know-what-you’ve-done manner.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You said, shaking your head and focusing your gaze on the fruit bowl again. Yellow bananas, green grapes, red apples. In colour.

You flinched when Tony spoke your name. “We saw the footage on our security cameras. You sneaked to his cell last night knowing fully well why you should stay away from him, especially with… with… you know.”

Fuck… the security cameras. You had completely forgotten about those! Of course the legendary Tony Stark would have had security cameras installed all over the damn place!

Busted, you shrugged your shoulders as nonchalantly as you could muster. “I just wanted to talk him. I had to talk to him. I know what you’re all thinking—that he’s evil and brutal and cruel and ruthless… and… and you’re probably right? I… I don’t even know but… he is still my soulmate. I can see colours again because of him for Fuck’s sake! I can’t just… ignore that.”

“I get it. We don’t know what it must feel like. But it’s for the best. We don’t want him to hurt you.”

“I am his soulmate, too. He wouldn’t dare hurt me. You know maybe he’s not the monster you all think he is.”

“Are you saying that because you know him so well after last night or because that is what you want to believe?”

Both. “I just… have a feeling.”

“Right.” Tony clapped his hands. Your name left his lips almost like a plea. “You have to trust us.”

Thor nodded. “Loki is dangerous. You should stay away from him at least until we know he is not still plotting the domination of your planet.”

“What do you mean ‘at least until’? You can stop staying away from him when he’s back on Asgard and out of your reach.” Tony snapped.

“We’re just trying to keep you safe.” Steve intervened. You sighed.

“You know what? I’m getting a headache and I’m still tired, so I’m gonna go back to bed.” That wasn’t even a lie—well, at least the fatigue bit wasn’t. Besides, the blackout curtains in the room Tony let you stay in were heaven-sent.

That was until a loud tumult in the Tower woke you up again, even though you were not sure anymore you had actually fallen asleep once your head hit the soft pillow.

“W—“ Your scream of protest was muffled by a cool palm covering your mouth. You struggled briefly, ripping your eyes wide open in a weak attempt to make out who was assaulting you in the comforting darkness of your room when you suddenly heard a soothing voice shushing you.

“It’s me…”

“L-Loki?” You choked out when he removed his hand again. “Did you… did you break out of your cell?”

“It would seem so. Come.”

“What?”

He tilted his head. “I don’t have much time.”

You stood, throwing the covers back when he already reached for your hand and held it tightly, pulling you with him into the hallway and towards one of the more hidden exists of Stark Tower, a flight of stairs illuminated only by emergency lights.

“W-what are you doing?”

“I am proving to you that I am more than just a criminal.”

“Oh… but… um… where are we going?”

Loki smirked. Your eyes widened when he pulled out the Tesseract seemingly out of nowhere, its blue light glowing brightly in the dark and throwing artistic shadows on his face.

“Hold on tight.”

“Loki…”

The God of Mischief pulled you close, making you gasp. Your chest hit his, his arm wrapping around your waist. With his face only inches from yours, you could feel his warm breath on your lips, and suddenly longed to kiss him.

“You are my soulmate. I am not leaving you behind.”

“What happened to ‘goodbye’?” You chirped.

Loki tilted his head almost threateningly. “You are mine. Don’t you think I wanted to leave this place without looking back?” His expression softened. “But I couldn’t. Because of you.” And you might just be the only woman to ever love me in this way, he added silently.

“B-but… Y-you said Odin will never allow me on Asgard and… and…”

“I never said we were going to Asgard, now was I?”

Your lips parted. Could you trust him? The stranger who had finally made you see colours again? If you told him No, would he let go of you? Would he let you run to Tony and Clint and Nat so they could protect you from him? Swallowing thickly, you met his intense blue gaze and nodded.

Loki smirked and winked. “You are in for an adventure.” And you knew he wasn’t lying. Next thing you knew, you were both hurtled through space and into a shared future.

-

A/N: ☕

#loki #loki imagine #loki x reader #loki x female reader #loki x you #loki laufeyson #loki laufeyson imagine #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x female reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki odinson #loki odinson imagine #loki odinson x you #loki odinson x reader #loki odinson x female reader #thor #thor imagine #the avengers #the avengers imagine #mcu #mcu imagine #marvel #marvel imagine #tom hiddleston

[mornyavie]

Glossary of references in The Bifrost Incident

 It’s Very Long and yet also not really complete. If there are any questions / clarifications I can add, or I’ve messed anything up and need to fix it, let me know!

The tl;dr is that nearly every word in the album draws from either Norse mythology or the Lovecraft / Cthulhu mythos, directly or indirectly.

@moony221b here’s that glossary that I promised forever and a day ago.

Edit: I decided to create this document of annotations (x). Lyrics taken from Genius; I’m not totally sure how accurate they are, but hopefully they help get the point across! Again, questions and complaints both welcome.

Arcomba

I can’t find anything on this, would be interested if someone knows.

Asgard

One of the Nine Worlds, specifically the one where most of the Æsir (the subset of gods most associated with humans, including the well-known ones like Thor and Odin) live.

Thus Asgard is the planet on which the most powerful inhabitants of the Yggdrasil system, and those named after the gods, are found (though the subjugation / colonization relationship does not exist in myth).

Azathoth

This one’s from Lovecraft; Azathoth is the greatest of the Outer Gods, often served and worshiped by other gods themselves. Often described as mad, a demon, a sultan, or putting it all together as the Mad Demon Sultan. Resides at “the center of the universe,” where he appears as some sort of vast, amorphous, bubbling, roiling mass of “nuclear chaos.” (Nuclear probably refers to center, not nuclear power, which didn’t really exist when this was written). Servants about him play drums and flutes.

Mentioned briefly as the train travels through the Bifrost and into his realm, and a lot of the narration in those few verses draws directly from Lovecraft’s descriptions.

Baldur

The god of light and beloved by all, Baldr was killed by Loki in his final betrayal of the gods. After the murder Loki was tracked down and imprisoned, and will escape at the start of Ragnarok. In particular, Loki used a spear made of mistletoe... or, in the album, missile two. And tricked another god into throwing it, which I think is mimicked in the distance and impersonality of the crime. Look up more of his story if you want, it’s interesting and important, but that’s the relevant info here.

Bifrost

The rainbow bridge that the gods use to travel between worlds. 

Which is, of course, directly analogous to the wormhole-ish extradimensional-ish space of “shifting, undulating hues” through which the train travels.

Edda

The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda are the names given to two pieces of literature that are most people’s main source for Norse mythology. The Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson around 1200 to teach his (mostly Christian) contemporaries about the mythology and mythological references that made up a big chunk of Norse literature. The Poetic Edda is a set of poems that serve as a major source for Norse tales.

This is partially just a way to connect our hero Lyfrassir Edda to the Norse traditions, but also definitely a reference to their (presumed) role as the main “recorder” and source of information to get out of the Yggdrasil system.

Fate

Honestly the way the Mechanisms deal with fate in general is very interesting and arguably sometimes quite Nordic... but in particular, Bifrost Incident references fate or destiny a number of times and features a number of situations where the outcome is fixed and can’t be changed, but you have to fight anyways: “Killing me won’t save your world” “I don’t care” or how Loki and Sigyn can’t stop the train, but can only delay it. A lot of Norse tragedy revolves around people heading into battle knowing that they’re doomed and fighting anyways, or around the cycle of conflict that marked the cultural requirements for avenging insults. And the myth cycle is notable for the fact that the gods know, explicitly, exactly what Ragnarok is, what’s going to happen, and how they’re going to die, but will fight in it anyways. 

Inevitability and helplessness in the face of what you can’t possibly understand, let alone fight, which is a depiction slightly sideways of the Nordic version, are very Lovecraftian themes.

Fenrir

A wolf, child of Loki and father of Skoll and Hati, who was chained by the gods (particularly by Tyr, who placed his hand in the wolf’s mouth as “hostage” to assure him they would unchain him later, and lost the hand). He will break free at Ragnarok to join the battle against them and kill Odin.

With his association with monsters and with Loki, it’s fairly clear why he was aligned with the resistance movement. He’s serving “five life sentences” as a reference to his being chained, and the whole motif of the train’s journey being hijacked for a prison break certainly references the various characters who will be freed or break free as Ragnarok begins.

Frey

The brief reference of Frey being killed by the raging fire of the sun, with “no weapon, no defense,” is a direct translation of the god’s role in Ragnarok, when he will be killed by Surtr. Frey gave away his sword for the opportunity to woo his eventual wife, and so will be armed only with a stag’s antlers in his final combat. Also called Freyr.

Freya (“weeps tears of red-gold”)

Like her brother Frey (and yeah, these names get confusing), Freya is associated with harvest and fertility, though unlike him she also gets battle. In the song she weeps red-gold tears at the death of her husband Odr, which in myth she is said to do when her husband is absent. Also called Freyja.

Garm

Garm is another wolf, who guards Hel’s gates. He also breaks free at Ragnarok, and his howling heralds its coming. As in the album, he will fight and kill Tyr. Also called Garmr.

Hati

There’s a lot of wolves in Norse mythology. This one is a child of Fenrir. He chases the moon across the sky, and will swallow it when Ragnarok comes.

Mentioned briefly only as one of the resistance members on the train.

Heimdall

Heimdall is the watchman of the gods, with keen eyes and foresight, and guards the Bifrost as the entrance to Asgard. He will blow his horn to summon the gods to the final battle during Ragnarok, and he and Loki will kill one another. Also called Heimdallr; you’re probably noticing a pattern. It’s a grammar thing.

Mentioned as guarding the train and “doing his part.” His dying screams initiate the train’s destruction and echo throughout it, which presumably recalls the horn thing.

Hel

Another daughter of Loki, and, as the name will imply to English speakers, a guardian of the dead. She refuses to give Baldur back to the world of the living after Loki kills him. Also the name of the realm in which she resides, and to which go those who die of disease or old age. Doesn’t necessarily have the same bad-punishment connotation as modern Hell. I don’t know whether there’s any indication of what she herself is doing in Ragnarok, but many of her people and associates are certainly fighting against the gods, and I’m fairly certain the ship Naglfar, which carries Loki and his allies to Ragnarok, sets sail from Hel.

Hel as a prison colony clearly references the various characters the gods have chained or otherwise imprisoned (though, in myth, not all within Hel) as well as her alignment with “other side” during Ragnarok, and the jailbreak the resistance members are planning recalls the breaking of all these bonds as Ragnarok begins.

Hoddmimis

The woods in which Líf and Lífþrasir (see Lyfrassir) will shelter to survive Ragnarok and the various disasters accompanying it. 

So, good news! We can be marginally assured of Lyfrassir’s survival after taking shelter at the mining-colony of Hoddmimis.

Jormungandr

The world serpent, which lives in the seas and encircles the earth. Will arise during Ragnarok, causing great floods, and fight Thor; Thor will slay the serpent, but in turn the serpent’s poison will cause his death, after he staggers “nine steps back.”

Thor’s fight with Odin-turned-serpent is pretty clearly analogous to this, especially the taking nine steps to the window before destroying it with his hammer, resulting in both their deaths. I don’t think there’s any mythological basis to Odin turning into the serpent, though

Kvasir (“blood drained out”)

Kvasir was a very wise man/god and the originator of poetry. I’m leaving out a fair amount of his birth and life; the important information here is that two dwarves who were jealous of his knowledge tricked him, killed him, drained his blood, and mixed it with honey to make mead. Any who drank of the mead gained the gift of poetry / scholarship; eventually the gods stole it.

I’m not sure if there’s a reason they decided to specifically describe him as a resistance member, but there’s a clear parallel in Kvasir’s blood being drained and used to power the train, especially with the language of glyphs and sigils providing power.

Loki

Ah, Loki. Male in the general canon, though not without genderbending (he turns into a mare and gives birth to Fenrir, Hel, and Jormungandr, for instance). Inasmuch as the Norse myths we have can be organized into a “chronology,” you could do it (in my opinion) along Loki’s path from a mostly benevolent trickster god whose antics occasionally cause trouble to a genuinely malevolent figure. Associated with wit, magic, and trickery. Despite how modern lore (I suspect influenced by Marvel) often portrays Thor and Loki as brothers and children of Odin, in the myth Loki and Odin are bonded as blood-brothers. But Loki also often appears alongside Thor. As mentioned, parent of three of the main figures of Ragnarok. In the “final” myth, he jealously arranges the death of the god Baldr, who was loved by all; then he appears at a feast, where he exchanges insults with the other gods. This is the last straw; they capture him and chain him to a stone, over which they tie a serpent. Venom drips from the serpent’s fangs, causing him great agony. His wife Sigyn stays by his side, catching the venom in a bowl, but when she is forced to leave for a moment to dump it out his thrashing causes earthquakes. He will break free at the start of Ragnarok and sail to Asgard, where he and Heimdall will kill each other.

Hopefully that’s enough to give you a good background for Loki’s role in the album... it’s pretty clear why she’s framed as the opposition to the gods and the “leader” of the resistance movement, as a call to her role in Ragnarok. Her association with magic and trickery make sense for her being the “expert” in the twisted Lovecraftian “science” that produces the train. It also parallels her role in myth; her actions often get the gods into trouble, but they just as often need her wit and knowledge to get them out of it, as Odin needs her knowledge despite her taking action to destroy the train. And the setup at the end - drip, drip, drip, her face twisted in pain, her wife beside her, her “release” heralding the end of the world - precisely echoes the language of her bondage in myth; though her mind-destroying imprisonment by Odin also invokes this.

Lovecraft(ian)

A highly influential horror writer from the early 20th century. He’s largely credited with the creation of the creation of the “cosmic horror” genre, a type of horror which emphasises a vast, unknowable, uncaring universe against which we cannot hope to even begin to fight. His ideas and the gods / demons / creatures he created form the basis of the “Cthulhu mythos” or even “Lovecraft mythos,” which today is a sort of standard set of assumptions on which writers can build. Lovecraftian themes of apocalypse, inevitability, and powerlessness are highly prevalent in the album. Several of the gods in this mythos are used; in particular, Yog-Sothoth (see below). Also, a lot of the general description (madness, roiling chaos, undulating colors) draws from his distinctive vocabulary that remains staple of the genre. It’s worth noting that Lovecraft was a horrible and very racist person, but the genre today is widely used by people who are not terrible.

Lyfrassir

Líf and Lífþrasir in Norse mythology are the two humans who will survive Ragnarok and rebuild humanity; a hopeful sign for our album’s protagonist!

Midgard

In Norse mythology, the “middle” world where humans live. Earth.

Nagthrod

I don’t know this one.

@acorn-mushroom pointed out that it may be a mis-transcription of Naglfar, the name of the (ocean) ship which will carry Loki and his followers from the shores of Hel to the battlefield at Ragnarok. It’s made of dead men’s nails.

Odin

The king of the gods in Norse mythology. As the god of both wisdom and madness, Odin’s role in the album as a researcher and technological ruler whose discoveries drive her slowly mad is both very Lovecraftian and a reasonable leap. I could say a lot about the figure of Odin, but I think this character is one of the most divergent from the myth, in detail if not in role.

Odr

Óðr is Freya’s husband.

Outer gods

A Lovecraft thing referring to several of the most horrible and powerful gods, including Yog-Sothoth.

Ragnarok

The apocalypse, basically, in Norse mythology. Proceeded by various catastrophes, especially a very long winter, mentioned in the album, culminating in a great battle between the gods and their enemies, and resulting in the death of the majority of gods and other creatures of the world.

Ratatosk

A squirrel who runs up and down Yggdrasil, carrying messages between some of the tree’s other inhabitants and sowing discord. The Ratatosk Express links the worlds of the Yggdrasil System, and causes “discord” in the resistance’s opposition to it.

Sigyn

Loki’s wife. See Loki for her role in his imprisonment.

Skoll

Sköll in Norse mythology is the wolf that chases and will someday eat the sun. Association with Fenrir (another wolf) and other monsters motivates his inclusion in the list of resistance members.

Thor

A Norse god, associated with war, lightning/thunder, strength, and in general sort of... common people, as opposed to Odin’s association with kings and royalty. Prone to anger, which makes sense with his depiction as a volatile military leader in the album. He is heavily associated with his hammer mjölnir, hence jokes about “throwing a hammer in the works” and whatnot. Often associates with Loki, both as friends and as enemies as Loki progresses from a mostly-harmless trickster to actively opposing the other gods; thus how in the album he and Loki were once friends. See above for his death fighting Jormungandr.

Tyr

Another Norse god associated with war. He sacrificed a hand to bind Fenrir, and will be killed by Garmr during Ragnarok, both events referenced in the album.

Yggdrasil

The world-tree of Norse mythology, which supports the nine worlds of the cosmology. 

Yog-Sothoth

An Outer God of Lovecraftian mythos; also called the Gate and Key. It is associated as sort of the substance of time and space, binding together the cosmos. A lot of the description during the Ragnarok sequences draws directly from the “canonical” descriptions of this deity, and the invocation spoken by Lyfrassir in Red Signal draws from a story about this creature, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

#the mechanisms #the bifrost incident #information #references #thoughts #norse mythology

[ravenforce]

Stark Legacy 6

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Carol Danvers x Wanda Maximoff x Maria Hill x Reader but Natasha Romanoff x Reader centric for this chapter.

Summary: I have no words to summarize this one. I feel like this is a whole story on it’s own. Nat x Reader, with a few flashbacks.

Word Count: 4207

A/N: Please, let me know what you guys think. I poured my heart into this, Idk why I tend to do that whenever I write for Natasha. HAHA. Also, I deviated a little bit on the coma/death arc for the reader, sorry.

Previously: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

***

Natasha walks inside the gym a little later than she normally would and fully expecting her blonde girlfriend to be there since she didn’t wake up with her on the bed either. To her surprise, Carol’s not there too. She shrugged and went on her gym routine with a furrowed brow. The next day, without even meaning to, Nat woke up to Carol trying (unsuccessfully) to silently slip off Wanda’s embrace and off their massive bed. Nat gave her girlfriend a good fifteen minutes head start before tailing her. 

Nat tried not to think ahead but Nat being Nat, she was still prepared for all possible outcomes but out of all the scenarios she thought Carol would drive to, she never - not even once - thought that she’s driving to SHIELD Headquarters. Nat’s eyebrows furrowed while waiting a few blocks away for Carol to be cleared to enter the premises. She knows for a fact that Carol’s not due for her weekly meeting with Fury because they all maintain a synchronized calendar to keep track of everyone’s schedule. 

“What are you up to, Danvers?” she whispered to herself. 

Nat sat on the parking lot for another ten minutes before following Carol inside. Nobody in their right mind would ever question why she was there even without an appointment. Natasha went through the command center to see if Deputy Director Hill is on her station but, she too wasn’t anywhere to be found. 

What is going on? Where is everyone? She thought to herself while walking along a deserted hallway. When she rounded the corner, she roughly bumped into someone. The deep frown on her face was immediately erased when she saw who she bumped into. 

“There you are!”

“You’re here too?”

They spoke at the same time. Nat chuckled for a second before registering what Maria had said. Before she can ask, Maria spoke first. 

“Does the Earth mightiest heroes have nothing better to do on their free days than loiter around here?” Maria teased before pulling Nat for a quick hug. 

“I don’t loiter -” Nat grumbled on her girlfriend’s shoulder. When they pulled apart, Maria’s sporting a teasing smile. Nat rolled her eyes playfully. “I am not loitering. I’m looking for Carol.”

“Yeah, she’s here,” Maria confirmed while tucking a stray red hair out of Nat’s face. Nat bit her lip in an attempt to keep herself from blushing at the softness her girlfriend’s showing. 

”Didn’t she just met with Nick yesterday? What’s her business here today?”

At the mention of Fury’s name, Maria stiffened as she remembered that she’s already running late to her meeting with the man himself. She cursed under her breath, hurriedly plants a soft kiss on Nat’s cheeks before sidestepping the redhead and practically running out of there. 

“Carol’s in the gym with Agent Stark,” Maria said loud enough for Nat to hear from the other end of the empty hallway before she disappeared. 

Nat stood there frozen for a minute before she turned on her heels to see what you and Carol are up to. “Y/N Stark -” she whispered to herself as she walks towards the gym. Nat can’t deny the fact that her heart started beating wildly on her chest at the mere mention of your name.

It felt like an eternity has passed since Nat ever heard your name at all. So much has happened between then and now including your supposed death and the world literally ended, Nat didn’t really have time to dwell on all of her unanswered what-ifs. What if you didn’t die? Would she have had enough courage to feel she deserve you if you both were given more time?

***

Nat was enamored the moment she met you while she was undercover as Tony’s assistant. You were unlike no other she’s ever met before. A genius in your own merit was yet content to live peacefully behind your brother’s dark and long shadow. Funny without being obnoxious. She was sure she’s in love with you when you fought side by side while infiltrating Hammer Tech. 

“I didn’t know you could fight, princess,” she teased while trying to catch her breath after taking down most of Hammer’s security. 

You rolled your eyes at her, pretending to hate that stupid pet name. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Natasha Romanoff -” you fired back. Enunciating her name indicating that her cover was blown with you for a while now. 

“Let’s change that after we’re through with this -”

A new batch of security emerges that forced you to go back to kicking ass. “Are you asking me out right now?” You punched one man on the throat, knocking him out effectively. 

Nat’s chocking another on her side of the hallway. “No better time than the present, Stark. So what do you say?” She squeezes the guy a little harder, making him go slack on her arms. Nat was just catching her breath when another man appeared behind her. She almost doubled down when you threw a knife that you procured from your knee-high boots behind her. 

“Nice -” she said a little breathless, partially from being tired and also a little turned on. 

You walked up to her to give her a hand from the floor. She took the help gratefully. “Yes.” 

Nat understood immediately. “Let’s wrap this up quickly then,” she said with a smirk. 

***

A few days after sparring with Captain Danvers at SHIELD, you visited the compound one morning to make a quick delivery. The compound was eerily quiet for eight in the morning, making you wonder if you came in too early. Your wandering stopped when you heard the hopeless clanking of pans in the kitchen. You smiled, hoping that it is who you want to see that’s making all the noise. You leaned against the doorway, watching wild red hair rummaging through the cupboards. 

“After all this time, you’re still hopeless in the kitchen,” you said to announce your presence. 

Natasha stood abruptly, bumping her head on one of the open cabinets. She turned around with a frown while clutching the top of her head. “What the hell! You scared me!” 

Her frown only deepened when you won’t stop laughing. It’s not that you didn’t want to stop, you just couldn’t. She looks so adorable with her scowl and wild bed hair bathed in the early morning sunlight streaming through the massive windows in the room. You walked towards her. 

“I’m sorry but, this isn’t my fault -” you stopped two feet away from her. “ - no one’s supposed to sneak up on the Black Widow, right?” You teased while rubbing the top of her head. 

“No Black Widow business until I have my second cup of coffee, you know the rules.”

Of course, you do. You can’t forget anything about Natasha even if you want to. 

“I’m sorry,” you said sincerely. You didn’t really mean to startle her - that badly. 

Nat looked at you from under her lashes, and had your knees been human they would surely buckle under that look. “Kiss it better,” she demanded.

“What are you, five?” you teased to diffuse your nervousness but, Nat can see right through you. 

“Coward.” 

You huffed before pulling her towards you and kissed the spot where she hurt herself. “There! Happy now?” 

Nat smiled. “I am now.” 

***

Before you can say anything else, the rest of the inhabitants of the compound trudges in the kitchen including Maria, Carol, and Wanda. 

“Hey.” Everyone greeted monotonously indicating that none of them are fully awake yet. You just smiled politely to everyone to give them time to fully shake the sleep off their systems. 

Sam strode in last. He was sweaty and looking alert, probably from doing his morning jog. “Y/N!” he exclaimed when he noticed you. Everyone bristled at his volume, which probably won’t be acceptable regardless of the time of the day. “What brings you around? Not that we don’t want you here. Did you finally realize that you’d like to join our team now?”

“What?” Maria asked after registering Sam’s line of questioning. 

“No offense -” 

You decided to cut Sam off there. Any sentence that starts with no offense is often kind of offensive. “No, Sam, I’m not joining the Avengers.” Maria visibly relaxes at that while Sam deflated. “I just came here today to deliver you guys this -” You fished out an envelope from the inside pocket of your brown trench coat. 

Nat who was still standing next to you reached out and took the envelope. “It’s an invitation,” she mused. Everyone’s looking at you expectantly. 

“Yes. Pepper’s throwing me a homecoming party, and I don’t have the heart to tell her no,” you smiled. “Pun not intended.” 

The kitchen erupted in excitement while freshly brewed coffee was being passed around. “This is so cool, it’s been so long since we had a Stark party,” Bruce commented, earning a soft elbow from Bucky and poorly concealed side-eyes from the girls. Bruce opened and closed his mouth, unable to form an apology. 

“It’s okay Bruce but don’t expect it to be as grand as Tony’s parties,” you said smiling. “So?”

“Count as in!” Sam jumped at the opportunity to change the topic fast. Bucky sighed, resigning to his fate. “For you, I will be there, doll.” 

“Thanks, Buck.” 

While everyone was distracted about talks of the party and what to wear, you turned towards Natasha. “You’re coming too, right, Tasha?” 

Nat smiled at the use of her nickname. You’re the only one who likes to call her that. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, princess.” 

***

The party was in full swing when the Avengers arrived at the Tower. Aside from the team, Pepper invited a select few Stark Industries people, from investors as well as your old lab team. Nat didn’t expect anyone else aside from Maria to be invited. So she was surprised to see you standing amongst Agent Colson’s team. Nat’s sure that you saw them arrive but, you made no move to excuse yourself from listening to Agent Simmon’s surely interesting story. 

Pepper did excuse herself and greeted the Avengers. “Hey!” She gave everyone a quick hug. “Traffic? Come on, let’s get you guys some refreshments.” 

“Yes! Let’s get hammered!” Sam cheered too enthusiastically. 

A couple of steps though, Pepper turned back to see the girls still rooted in their place at the doorway. “Coming, ladies?” 

“Ah, I think we would say hello to Y/N first,” Maria and Carol answered at the same time without taking their eyes off of you.

Pepper followed their love-struck gaze and chuckled. She assumed it’s a pack thing, so she didn’t bother asking Nat and Wanda anymore and just followed the boys to the catering table. Nat watched Maria and Carol strode confidently towards you, and efficiently inserting themselves into the conversation. Nat watched her girlfriends, subtly inserting their bodies on both your sides, creating a barrier between you and Agent Johnson and Agent Simmons.

***

Natasha can deal with the fact that all her girlfriends have a crush on you. She doesn’t see herself having trouble sharing you with her pack if it came to that. It’s the others she’s worried about. You’re too bright that everyone’s gravitating towards you like moths to a fire, like Icarus to the sun. All night, Nat tried to get you alone but, every time she thinks she finally does, someone else would come over and make conversations with you. 

Nat thinks you’re too polite to tell them off. So she excused herself when Agent Simmons came over to talk to you again (for the nth time that night). You smiled at her before turning back to Jenna. The bartender put four tequila shots in front of her the moment she sat on the bar. Bucky then turned to her. 

“Thought you might need a stiff drink,” Bucky grumbled over the rim of his beer bottle. Nat downed one shot before glancing in your direction. Bucky didn’t miss how the redhead’s frown dipped a little deeper. “Didn’t think you’re one to walk away when vultures are trying to snatch your girl.” 

Nat downed her second shot and slammed the glass down the counter. She’s not my girl, she thought bitterly. She knows full well that you’re not hers to hate Agent Johnson for simply wanting to be near you or for laughing at something you said and her hand landing casually on your biceps. You’re not hers for her to be jealous, she knows that painfully. 

She couldn’t watch any longer. She downed the last two shots before turning towards Bucky. “I think I’ll get some fresh air,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “Thanks, Buck.” 

Bucky only nodded before Nat hopped off her stool and walked out of the party venue. Nat didn’t turn back to see you watching her leave. 

***

Nat snugged a bottle of expensive wine from a passing staff on her way to God knows where. All she knew was that she needed to step away to clear her head or drown her feelings and her regret.

You and Nat have been casually dating for a couple of months, even with your brother’s utter disapproval of the relationship. For the first time in a long time, you were standing against your brother on a matter but that was Nat you were talking about. You weren’t going to give her up without a fight. Eventually, Tony relented but without threatening Nat that if she ever breaks your heart, she’ll be the first person on his non-existent hit list. 

Everything was fine. You both were happy until Nat suddenly decided she’s not ready. You didn’t know what happened. All you know was one day, she came back from a mission and decided she’s not ready to be tied down to one person.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, but I’m not built for this -” she waved her hand. Indicating not only the domesticity of sharing the same living space but also everything that comes with it like building a home with another and shedding walls to letting people in. “I’m sorry.”

You didn’t cry, and Nat knew you were letting her go gracefully. Even when she was breaking your heart, you were still thinking of her. “It’s okay, Tasha. I understand,” you said simply. You gave her a small smile before kissing her one last time.

Nat took a long swig of the wine before acknowledging your presence behind her. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at your party?” she spoke without taking her eyes off of the city skyline. The view from the rooftop of the tower was spectacular.

You chuckled nervously. Nat only goes to the rooftop when she needed to think and breathe. You wonder if you’ve done something through the night that might set her off. “I saw you leave the party, I was looking for you.”

“Why?” She took another long swig, making her head spin a little bit.

“Why not? I’ll always look for you when you’re gone.”

Nat suppressed the urged to groan, opting to chug the wine, but you were lightning fast. You caught her wrist before her lips could touch the bottle. You fished the wine out of her grasp. “What’s wrong, Tasha?”

“Nothing,” she answered automatically. Her eyes are darting back and forth from your eyes and your lips. There’s a sad, hungry look on her face you couldn’t understand. You decided to ignore it for the time being and just confront her about it when she’s not one shot away from being drunk.

“Okay, if you say so. Let’s go back inside, it’s cold out here.”

You started to walk back towards the only door to the rooftop when Nat tugged you back roughly to her. “Tasha!” you exclaimed in your surprise when she pinned you between her and the deck railing.

Nat held your eyes for a second before she laid her forehead on your shoulder. “Do you enjoy it? Having everyone wrapped around your fingers?”

You can hear the hurt in her voice. You wanted to question her about it. You want to understand what she’s talking about, but the words wouldn’t come. Especially, when you felt her turn her head slightly, and her left hand caressed your cheeks.

“I can’t get you alone all night,” she whispered as she noses her way from your jaw through your neck.

“Tasha -” God knows you tried not to make it sound like a moan, but it came out exactly like that.

The rest of the words died in your throat as you felt Nat plant the softest of kisses on your neck and her right hand found your leg through the long slit of your dress. Suddenly, it wasn’t so cold anymore. The fire that is Natasha Romanoff warmed you immensely, and you were ready to burn for her again, still.

“You were mine first,” you heard her whisper before she pulled her head away from your neck and smashed her lips against yours for a minute. Then she’s running away, again.

***

MH: Meet me at SHIELD.

WM: What’s wrong, Mar?

Nat frowned at the demanding chat from Maria. She waited patiently for an explanation; she tried not to jump to a conclusion. But at the back of her head, she prayed it’s not another alien threat. She can deal with Hydra, but she doesn’t think she has enough to give to fight and lose people to another Thanos level problem. 

MH: Y/N’s down. Otw to the lab with Happy to get started with repairs. 

Nat paled, and for a minute, she couldn’t move. Fear gripped her, the past flooding back to her.

She rushed into the hospital when she heard about the accident. Relief flooded her senses when she saw Tony and Pepper alert and awake on their hospital bed. Steve and Rhodey were already there. When the group noticed her, Tony immediately averted his eyes while Pepper started bawling. 

“Is the baby okay?” Nat asked, worried that something happened to the baby.

Silence. Nat turned to Steve and Rhodey. Rhodey just frowned, lost for words too. Steve looked like he was trying to string a sentence in his head. “I’m sorry, Nat -” 

Nat became even more confused. “For what?” she asked. “Guys, you’re scaring me.”

Tony took an audible, deep breath, catching Nat’s attention back to him. This time, he held her gaze. “Y/N’s home, Nat,” he said. “When we found out that Pepper’s pregnant, we told her, and she came home.” 

Nat didn’t know that. No one told her that you’re home, which was understandable after she broke your heart. “Okay,” she nodded. Still, a tad confused as to where this conversation was going. “Do you need me to call her for you?” 

“She’s gone, Nat -” 

“Wha -”

“She’s dead.” Tony decided it’s better to rip off the bandage clean. Pepper started sobbing again. “She was with us tonight.”

Her phone vibrated on her hand again. She looked at the message from Wanda. 

WM: Breath, Nat. She’s inhuman now. 

And at that moment, Nat was so thankful that Wanda’s an empath. She released a breath she didn’t know she was holding and closed her eyes for a second to center herself. When she opened her forest-green eyes, she fired a quick text to the group chat before nearly running out of the compound. 

NR: I’m on my way.

***

Nat was cursing in Russian under her breath as she power walk through the hallway of SHIELD towards the labs. She made a mistake of jumping on the first available vehicle in the compound’s parking lot, instead of using her MV Augusta F4 RR 312 motorcycle. It would have taken her to the HQ in no time. 

She was rounding the last corner before she arrived at the lab when she bumped into Happy. 

“Hey.” The man looked exhausted even though the machines in the lab did all the work, but Nat understood it completely. The idea that you got injured affects those who knew you before you were inhuman than those who knew you post-human. “I’m beat. I’m going to crash upstairs.” 

Nat nodded with a smile before adding, “thank you, Happy.” She hopes the simple words convey how much she appreciates the man for taking care of you after all this time. 

“Anything for Y/N,” Happy answered, smiling. He was almost on the other end of the hallway when he called for Nat again. Nat stopped in her tracks and look at him quizzically. “Be quiet when you get there.” 

Then he disappeared. Nat just shrugged and continued to the lab. When she got inside, she floated to the room where she knows you would be and found you sandwiched between Carol and Maria. 

“Shouldn’t you be the one sleeping?” she teased softly. You looked up when you heard her voice from the door and smiled. 

“I would if I needed one, but I don’t. You, on other hand, look like you can use a nap too.” You tried to speak as softly as you could as not to disturb your sleeping friends(?), but they still manage to stir and look at Natasha. Together they patted the only space available in the bed for her. 

Your lap. Nat quirked an eyebrow at the two before looking back at you. You smiled before raising your hand to beckon her to you. Nat decided to throw all her inhibitions to the window and gracefully climbed on the bed with you. It took a bit of squirming around to accommodate her on top of you, but you managed. Nat laid her head on where your heart should be. 

Suddenly, Nat felt exhausted. Like all the stress and emotions - the confusion, the disbelief, the longing - she desperately tried to run away from ever since she found out that you’re alive caught up to her then. Her eyes started to close as you run your fingers through her soft red hair. 

“I’m still yours,” you whispered, confident that Natasha has joined her softly snoring girlfriends in dreamland. It was quiet for a minute. The only sound in the room is the whirring of machines from the lab outside.

“I’m ready now,” Nat mumbled loud enough for you to hear before she completely went under.

#avengers imagine #natasha romanoff x reader #black widow x reader #carol danvers x reader #captain marvel x reader #maria hill x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #scarlett witch x reader #natasha romanoff #black widow #carol danvers #captain marvel #maria hill #wanda maximoff #scarlett witch #natasha romanoff imagine #black widow imagine #carol danvers imagine #captain marvel imagine #marial hill imagine #wanda maximodd imagine #scarlett witch imagine

[fallout-drabbles-n-stuff]

Pining companions and sole getting stuck in a small cramped place to hide from some enemies maybe? Also with X6 if possible...? 👉👈 and I absolutely love your most recent companions react. Keep up the great work and stay safe!

(Thank you so much for the request and extra special thanks for the compliment, things like that are what keep me wanting to write 💖 hope you enjoy.)

Cait:

She was both super excited and super freaked out. That was a major problem for her, mainly because she wasn’t nearly as unnerved by the feral ghouls outside the shitty little fortress you assembled as she was scared of saying the wrong thing while you wait. She never has been the type to worry about such stupid things, but with you? That was a different story, ever since you proven yourself to her...and since she realized that you stopped becoming just friends and she started wanting something more.

So with that being said, she’d nervously tap her foot, bite her lip and take back-to-back swigs from her flask- sheepishly offering you some of her drink as well. Just anything to keep her mind off of how strongly she felt the urge to grab ahold of your pretty face and kiss you and tell you how crazy you drive her.

That probably wouldn’t be the best thing to do when your life was literally being threatened.

Curie:

Oh my, she was so excited. I mean..as excited as someone forced into hiding for their life could be..which was still pretty excited for her. She was well aware of the dangers beyond your tiny refuge but she couldn’t help but focus on the way that your hands brushed up against each other as you settled, a big smile on her lips and a small blush to pair.

She wasn’t quite sure why you had this kind of effect on her much less what the “effect” really was, but whatever the reason, it was intoxicating.

Danse:

At first he was completely fine, jumping out his suit of armor to use it as a barricade in case the super mutants just so happened to track the two of you back to your makeshift hiding space. However..when he climbed out of the steel contraption and realized just how small the room was, he began to panic all over again.

There wasn’t anywhere he could move without brushing up against you. It would’ve all been okay has you been literally anyone else, but you? Well you just had this terrible way of setting his flesh ablaze with a mere look, his nose and cheeks flushing bright red when you flashed a small cheeky smile.

“Well Paladin...think we should just wait it out this time. I call being the big spoon..”

And just like that, Danse thought he was going to faint.

Deacon:

More than anything deacon was scared. Not because it was you though, no, he was far too comfortable despite his little crush to be scared to hunker down with you. You were like his best friend after all...well he certainly hoped that one day you’d be a little more when the two of you were in a better place......literally.

As for now, he’d settle for whispering small jokes to distract you from the looming feeling of peril that took form as the pissed off institue synths lurking just beyond the safe refuge of the meager broom closet he pulled you inside.

Gage:

His primary objective was to make sure the stupid nuka-lurks wouldn’t bust through the doorway, his single hazel colored eye darting around the ridiculously small room in search of a way to fortify your surroundings.

He’d be damned if he let anything happen to you.

After your help putting up what little barricades you could make, he sighed, turning on his heels..only to completely brush up against you.

It was then the raider realized just how cramped your makeshift refuge was...he realized just how close the two of you were going to be for who knows how long.

While the thought made his heart hammer in chest, he couldn’t help the smug grin that tugged at the corners of his lips.

This should be interesting to say the least.

Hancock:

Had it not been for the inherent danger of the vastly outnumbering amount of raiders on the other side of the wall, he might’ve actually gotten to enjoy the close contact with you. Don’t get me wrong though, a piece of him was starting to feel all..strange.

By this point he was well aware of his feelings for you, just not on how to proceed with them..there wasn’t really ever a good time to confront you with it anyways. Besides, now certainly wasn’t either.

That still didn’t stop Hancock from doing a little victory dance internally. Hey, it might’ve not been ideal..but at least he was damn close to you right now.

He’ll take it.

Macready:

Be it his experience in little lamplight or the countless other “eventful” things he’d endured throughout his life, Mac wasn’t terribly phased.

Sure, the mere thought of being truly stuck, death literally around the corner was scary, but it was nothing compared to the rushing of blood in his ears. Had you been anyone else, he might’ve been more annoyed, willing to toss you out to whatever was trying to get the two of you and run but..no.

It was you. It was you that truly made him afraid now. A seemingly endless amount of time to spend with the one person he felt such intense feelings for after Lucy..so much time to fudge it up.

This was going to be a long night.

Maxson:

The close proximity didn’t even register with him at first. Instead his mind was more preoccupied with firstly, devising a way to get out with the two of you wholly intact and secondly, pondering just where he went wrong...also just what the hell was taking the backup he requested so long.

However when he tried to back away from the closet door, only to bump right into you he visibly froze.

Oh by steel, this was hell.

He had been in plenty of predicaments like this one before, but never in any of said experiences had the person he was with has the ability to make his speechless nor cause an unfamiliar fluttering in his stomach.

So...he’d remain rigid until finally the spinning barrel of a mini gun could be heard on the other side of the room’s barricaded steel door.

Nick:

He should’ve seen it coming. Thanks to him, the two of you were stuck, completely at the mercy of whatever higher power was watching over.

Since when did deathclaws inhabit old department stores??? It didn’t matter.

What mattered to him at this point was the soft lulling of you voice when you yawned through whatever witty remark you were going to shoot his way. If he had a true heart, it would’ve been hammering out of his chest at this point. As a matter of fact, it would’ve probably stopped altogether when you decided to take a long overdue nap- snuggled up in his trenchcoat.

What was he going to do with you?

Old Longfellow:

This wasn’t his first rodeo with this kind of predicament, so he wasn’t entirely bothered. An uncontrollable grin shaping his face as he watched you visibly pout, leaning up against the boarded up window as you eyed the only visible entry way- trying to block out the snarls of the feral ghoul hoards on the other side.

He couldn’t help but chuckle when you scoffed, rolling your eyes when the noises stopped.

Damn, you were cute.

Wait...what? Where did that come from?

Piper:

Luckily she had an ability to pretend nothing was wrong at all. It was one of the many perks of what her occupation and its experience does to a person. So, outwardly Piper would just snicker as she watched the Deathclaw outside frantically try to find where you ran off to- almost outwardly busting out laughing as the fearsome creature literally chased its own tail for a moment.

However on the inside she was practically jumping for joy. It was perhaps not the best way to get to spend some quality time with you but..eh, beggar’s can’t be choosers. She wouldn’t want anyone else to hide from death with anyways!

Preston:

It had crossed his mind to simply just jump out of the window a couple times. It wasn’t because you were just that insufferable, heavens, it was quite the opposite. He just couldn’t stand the way he couldn’t stop staring at your lips, the way he could hardly form a intelligible word and the way you just seemed to radiate beauty in a time where most would’ve been scared shitless.

How were you so unbothered? How did you manage to make him feel so out of control?

To make matters worse, the close proximity you shared only intensified the nervousness he felt. As though the thought of an angry mole rat pack eating him wasn’t enough...

He knew the reason, but..why?

Sturges:

This wasn’t exactly the first time this had happened to you and him..only this time was different in the sense that it was just you and him, the room was a whole hell of a lot smaller and finally, the first time..you didn’t make his heart flutter by just smiling at him.

Surprisingly he’d be pretty good at hiding his awkward internal feelings, instead choosing to focus on an escape plan.

However...this event did encourage him to finally find himself at your doorstep one night to confess the way he truly felt.

X6-88:

Life certainly has a way of surprising you, doesn’t it? X6 certainly thought so at this point. There was hardly ever a situation that he couldn’t shoot his way out of, even if there was, he would just relay the fuck out of there as soon as he could...and yet here he was. Stuck behind some old collapsed building while a behemoth aimlessly hunted the two of you down.

Although the structure was big, there was no telling how safe each room was so using better judgement, the two of you decided to stay in the one tiny interior room.

It was then that X6 really wished he could teleport at that time. He loved being in your company, he really did..but as of late? Well lately an unfamiliar, scary feeling took over his senses when you merely looked at him.

He was terrified. Now? He was absolutely horrified. There was no stopping the awkwardness he felt as he so desperately tried to look anywhere but those pretty eyes of your’s.

Wait, pretty? Oh no..what has taken ahold of him?

#fallout 4 #fo4 companions #paladin danse #fallout companions #fallout #elder maxson #porter gage #curie #cait #arthur maxson #deacon #hancock #macready #brotherhood of steel #nick valentine #piper wright #preston garvey #danse

[sardinesandhumbugs]

(a-place-to-come-back-to) hmmm “You can keep pretending, but you’ll never be happy” gives me Badger Rat Sr and Toad Sr vibes

A/N: Thank you for the prompt! This ficlet is set fairly early into Badger's friendship with Rat Sr and Toad Sr, before things settled into the easy friendship he remembers. Even the best of friendships can have... bumpy origins :D

Want to request a prompt? Find the list here!

x

Rat considered himself a fairly laid back sort of animal (a necessary trait for growing up alongside the undaunted Toad) but even he had second (not to mention first) thoughts when it came to the Wild Wood.

He was sure most of the rumours were merely malicious hearsay (for instance, he was fairly certain the locals didn't eat wayward Riverbankers) but he doubted any animal – Wild Wooder or no – would take kindly to the disturbance. For, upon the rusted bell-pull detaching (the bell itself had given one dull toll before giving up the ghost) Toad had set to hammering and hollering at the unadorned door with the kind of volume that would wake the dead – and, more importantly, the living, who were far more likely to take matters into their own paws.

"Honestly, I don't know how he ever entertains guests," Toad lamented in a rare lapse in the cacophony. "Can barely find the blasted place and then when you do you don't realise it. You'd think an animal like Badger would clear the ivy from the name plate once in a while or make sure his bell is in working order. Any lesser animal visiting would have admitted defeat by now," he said, as usual looking but not truly seeing.

"Perhaps we should reconsider this," Rat said, who had taken good note of the state of disrepair of Badger's front porch and come to a bleak conclusion of his own. "He may not even be home."

"Oh pooh to that, of course he's home. Anyway, Rat, it was you who took note of his recent change in mood."

"And I was thinking of a subtler approach."

"You say subtler, I say slower." Evidently deciding that his knocking was falling into the subtle category, Toad added his raised voice to the mix. "Come along, Badge; who cares what the hares say? Be the bigger animal we know you are and come on out!"

"Badge?" Rat echoed.

Toad shrugged. "I'm trying it out. 'Badger' is such a mouthful."

"It's two syllables."

"And I'm halving that. It's called efficiency. BADGE!" Rat jumped at the brusque rise in volume. "Badger, we know you're there! What do you think you're achieving with this hiding away, huh? Do you think this is what you want? To live alone in a dark and dingy tunnel all your life? We know you, Badge! You can keep pretending, but you'll never be happy like this!"

The door swung open so abruptly that Badger must have already been standing on the other side for some time. He loomed over the two Riverbankers, his face half cast in shadow from the wood's gloom. "You know nothing about me," he growled.

"Oh, we know plenty," Toad contradicted happily. He took advantage of Badger's oversight in opening the door, and slipped past the larger animal. "Such as the state you leave your front porch in. Where should I put the bell-pull? Oh, no matter; I'll send for a new one when I'm back at Toad Hall."

Badger glowered, but could do little about Toad's entrance without hauling him bodily out, and turned back to the remaining Riverbanker on his doorstep. "I suppose," he intoned, "you plan on following your friend inside."

It was at this point that Rat realised there was at least a yard's grace between them – if not more – that had been of his own making. He shortened it, knowing full well that his instinctive retreat had not gone unnoticed. "Badger–"

"Just get yourself inside before your tail freezes off."

Rat scurried in. As Badger hauled the door shut, the brumal weather outside lost its icy grip and the beneath-ground air yielded a steady, heavy warmth quite unlike Riverbank homes in winter. (Toad Hall suffered particularly badly in the yuletide season, saved only by the ludicrous expense Toad went to keep such a grand house heated.)

Up ahead, Toad had already started scoping out the elusive sett that paid host to so few animals. "I say, Badge," he called, his voice echoing in such a manner to indicate he had put quite the distance between them, "I take back what I said earlier; dark this place may be, but dingy it most certainly is not."

Rat followed Badger through the dimly-lit tunnels, passing through decreasingly lived-in rooms until finally coming to the cause of Toad's admiration. It was, Rat had to admit, grand. Ancient columns, half buried into the walls, lined the room that could fit Toad Hall's ballroom with ease, and Toad was already setting to lighting the lanterns to better appraise the space.

"Badge, you never said you had a place like this!" Toad exclaimed. "Why, just think of the balls, the banquets, that could be hosted in a space such as this! I admit, the acoustics are a little harsh, but I have just the tapestries to dampen the sound, and with a spot of extra light it'd be perfect!"

Rat glanced to Badger out of the corner of his eye and read the larger animal's stony expression.

"I apologise. Toad means well, but he puts far too much stock in the art of distraction as a solution," he muttered. He inclined his head. "Mind you, he often gripes that I'd try to talk the river out of flooding if I could, so I suspect we even each other out."

"I prefer action, myself," Badger grumbled.

They watched a moment longer as Toad bounced across the empty space, chattering to nobody about the grand plans he could see strewn out before him. ("Naturally, this is where the band would go... and the buffet would sit along here, I'm thinking cold meats, cheeses; the last thing you want is the smell of cooked food suffocating a place like this...")

"I can probably talk him out of it," Rat offered quietly, "if you'd like."

Badger scoffed and retreated into the more inhabited rooms. "He can organise as many damn parties as he likes, so long as he doesn't come complaining to me when no animal arrives."

Rat had to take two quick steps for every one of Badger's long strides, eager to stay in the pool of light cast by Badger's lantern. "Oh, I think you underestimate Toad – he has quite a way with folk when he sets his mind to it. It can be both very useful and infuriating."

"I'm sure he does," Badger said, "but what possible reason could he tempt animals down to a place like this with?"

"Good food, good music," Rat rattled off. "Drink. Conversation. Gossip, usually." He hesitated, and added, "Curiosity."

"And is that why you came?"

"We came," and Rat hurried so that he and his words would not be left behind, "because we were worried about you."

Badger halted so abruptly that Rat had to skip a step back to avoid walking into him. "Worried?" he echoed incredulously. "About me?"

"Is that really so hard to believe?" Rat hastened on before Badger could remark upon Toad's distraction. "I'm sorry if we pressured you into joining us for the harvest festival; Toad's so extraverted that I think he forgets not everyone is, and I... well, I thought you might enjoy it. I hadn't realised that, being a born and bred Riverbanker, I might not have seen... some of the more insensitive sides of the other animals."

Badger met Rat's gaze with an expression Rat couldn't quite decipher. "So you heard what was being said?"

"I heard enough."

An odd choice indeed, the whispers had gone as Toad's newest friend had made his social debut, but, then again, toads are an odd bunch anyway, almost as odd as badgers are solitary, and that's just a fact.

Unusual to see a badger out of the Wild Woods, more unusual still to see one in the company of animals other than their own kind.

It probably won't last.

Everyone knows what they say about badgers changing their stripes.

"And then, when we didn't see you for a week, of course we worried," Rat said, trying to turn the conversation round to matters he could control. "We wanted to make sure you were alright."

Badger scoffed again and turned down a corridor that opened out into a fire-lit kitchen. "And why would you care?"

"We care because we're your friends."

Badger turned on his heel. "Are you?"

Too late, Rat realised he'd flinched back, that same instinctive wariness springing up around a mammal so much larger than himself. Around a mammal that was possibly more Wild Wood than Undergrounder, and he didn't want to find out which side was dominant.

Badger's gaze moved derisively over the sudden space between them. "That's what I thought," he growled. "I'm not a charity case and I'm not a curiosity, and you'd do well to learn that."

"Was he wrong?"

Badger faltered, if only for a moment. "What?"

"Toad," Rat said, clinging onto the single truth that had propelled him this far. "Was he wrong? Are you happy here?"

"I am... accustomed to things the way they are," Badger replied.

"Are you happy?" Rat persisted. "If you are, then we'll get out of your fur. I'll find a way to drag Toad out of his harebrained schemes, and things can go back to the way they were. But... if you're not – if you have enjoyed the past few months with – with us – then let us stay."

The silence lingered for just a heartbeat too long.

Badger turned away. "I'm fine. I always am."

"I asked if you are happy, not fine," Rat amended. He watched as Badger took a seat at the tired armchair at the head of the kitchen table, and Rat cautiously drew up a chair a little further down. For not the first time – albeit perhaps not as acutely as now – he wondered just how Badger had come to be alone in this sett built for generations. There had certainly always been badgers here, but Rat had paid them little heed before now, for they were a reclusive species and generally kept to their own kin and everyone was happy with that.

He winced.

There it was again, that assumption.

It was the same assumption that had led to such obtuse remarks at the harvest festival and, indeed, Rat could not honestly deny that even he had expected Toad's newest acquaintance to be a passing fad at first. (Toad had a way with folk that rendered many friendships forged but rarely followed-up, and Rat had originally been comfortable with the assumption that Badger would be another such encounter.)

"You know," Rat said, pushing such thoughts aside, "Toad and I didn't – actually, don't, present tense – always get along." He pulled the chair a smidgen closer to the table, settling it with the overt intent to stay. "He reacts a little too impulsively, and I perhaps too little, and we clash as often as we agree." Badger didn't respond, and Rat figured this was as close to permission to continue as he was going to get. "We argued over coming here, in fact." He snorted. "Toad won, of course and I'm – well, I'm glad he did."

"Why are you here, Rat?"

Rat startled at the question he'd thought already answered. "I told you, because you're–"

"Truly. No saccharine sentiments."

Rat faltered, the easy platitude taken from him. In the space he took to consider, a clock tolled somewhere deep in the sett. "I suppose," he started slowly, "it's because I think we could be friends. If we wanted to. If we tried. And because I think, however much you protest, maybe you want that too."

x

A/N: The inspiration for this piece was Vienna Teng's Stray Italian Greyhound song which is technically about learning to fall in love for the first time, but I like interpreting it in a learning to trust a friendship for the first time way. (Especially in Badger's case for this, realising oopsie I caught platonic feels and life was so much easier before, not sure if I hate or love this.) If you want some added feels for this fic, go look up that song ;)

#cat writes #the dad trio #wind in the willows musical #witw fanfic #the point where I realise I'm writing badger based partially on the 1995 animated badger as much as the musical #anyway rat sr and badger went onto be possibly closer friends than rat sr and toad sr #but eh the course of (platonic) love never did run smooth #ehhh I was planning this to be about Badger's feelings on the subject #but started out from rat sr's POV so that didn't exactly work out #basically badger has always been pretty good at ignoring what Society says #and he's resigned himself to the fact that toad's unexpected friendship is just a fad #a 'let's befriend the badger' kinda novelty #and that once it wears off then toad sr will move on #and then badger went 'shit I actually like this friendship and now i'm worried about when the rejection eventually happens' #so decided to cut the cord himself #not expecting rat sr and toad sr to refuse to let him retreat into himself like that #this is the point where rat sr moved away from the assumption that he and badger were tied together simply because they were both #friends with toad sr #and instead starts actively considering badger his friend #not because he didn't like badger before then #but you have that weird 'two people friends with the same person trying to figure out where they stand' vibe going on

[cyndecreativity]

Day 6 - Go home, you’re drunk

Mask – Firemen’s Carry – “Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

Tristan hates parties and will accept any reason to get out of them. Even if it means taking his drunk friend to his room over his shoulders.

~1600 words

---

He hated balls. He hated fancy gatherings of any kind, diplomatic or otherwise. He hated masquerades the most. At no point could he hide his identity with a mask, much less any more than that. He stood at least a head tall over almost every other person, his body wide enough for two, his horns even wider. Simply strapping a fancy leather or paper mask on his face could not hide any of that.

Mostly he hated the people. They made him nervous, memories of bullying haunting him from his childhood. And so many approached him asking inappropriate questions about his size, or girth, or other things that Alden had translated later as lewd and lascivious. He had little to no interest in those things and he tired of the banter about it. He had so much knowledge and so many opinions about other things and all they seemed to care about lie with the bedroom.

And the food? Too small for his enormous hands. He had to scoop up almost half a tray before he felt even remotely satisfied. And he found it incredibly bland. He never realized how many different spices and how much his father added to his food until he ventured into the world and discovered so many bland and boring foods. Sandwiches with some kind of sweet cream and fruits, or a white egg-based spread and vegetables mixed together, or meats with no seasonings, starches with no gravy, or gravy with no spices. He eventually learned what he enjoyed and stayed mostly by the beverages for the rest of the evening.

Alden had finally had a special mug made for him to carry that at least looked proportional to his size and meant he did not have to keep refilling it almost every sip. It allowed him the virtue of wandering the space, avoiding members of the delegations or nobles or nosy mothers that wanted to set him up with their daughters. Just lift the mug to his lips and glance around the room, then nod as if answering a summon from someone far away got him out of most situations. With his height, most people simply assumed that missed his conversation partner and allowed him time to mingle.

The thing he hated the most, however, came later in the evening. Most of these parties, after any and all children left the room, brought out the alcohol. It only increased the number of unsolicited lewd commentary and patrons approaching him but swaying as they loudly proclaimed obvious facts about his size, the refreshments, or someone else at the party. Alden encouraged him to simply nod and let them bore themselves into finding a more fun partner to drunkenly shout with.

But he had to attend the gatherings. All the friends he made over his journey implored him that he had to show himself to be sociable, or at least accessible, to prove that he cared about the people and not simply the lands hit hardest by the plague that Ophiuchus had spread through Solomon. The Elementals would weaken if the people did not care for their environment, and they would not care for their environment is the embodiments of the Elements did not care for them. He hated the thought process, that there were those that cared so little about others, be they animal, plants, or otherwise, would require some kind of incentive to do their duty to the land they inhabited.

Another shouting drunk approached him to ask about his mask. He had to have his tailor-made for his large head and face and horns, but he requested a simple one. They shouted something slurred in a language he had yet to study, pointed to him, then to their own mask. He nodded and smiled and they laughed.

“Still just as miserable as ever, eh, big guy?”

He slumped slightly at the entrance of a familiar voice. “Idania, I can’t understand them! They all speak Water or Air and none of them seem to care that I don’t.”

She giggled and placed a hand on his lower arm. “Well, the good news is, you might be able to get out of here early. The Prince- Alden has decided to drink this evening and forgot that he is a lightweight. He’s a bit hammered and needs to be taken back to his rooms.”

Tristan’s brow lifted with heavy interest. Then his eyes narrowed. “Why ask me though?”

Spirits bless her, he watched her brow disappear into a furrow under her mask. “Do you want to keep clinging to the walls for people to come shout that you bear a striking resemblance to the Earth Djinn-“ Of course she knew other languages, “Or would you rather take his Imperial Majesty back to his rooms and escape for the evening to the quiet solitude of your herbology books?”

A burden lifted from his shoulder and he stood a little straighter. “I would be glad to escort his Imperial Majesty back to his bedroom.”

Her tailed curled slightly. “I thought as much. Come on, then, I’ll take you to him.”

As they moved through the ballroom, he wondered when she had become the kind of person that people parted for. He remembered, unbidden, his first meeting with her, a strung out and tortured slave deposited into the wagon that would take them out of Pollux. He remembered how demure she acted around Alden and Sophie, the pain that practically ebbed from her at the familiarity her former friend held for the Virgo Princess. He remembered how she faded into the shadows, performing simple, menial tasks such as laundry or shopping or cooking without any of them asking or noticing, waking up to a stew over a campfire with clothes drying nearby as she mended another of his shirts, ripped from another growth spurt. And now, at this party, she held her chin high and nodded to people as she moved through the room, all eyes on her, the muzzle on her tail jingling delicately to alert her presence.

He wanted the confidence she had. The confidence given to her by the Water Djinn, by abandonment and struggle that forced her to emerge from her shell. But how?

“It’s really quite simple, my lord-. Oh no, it is ‘my lord’, isn’t it? I can never remember anymore.” Alden swayed, little punch mug in hand, beside an equally drunk Virgo.

“Come, kelara, it’s time to settle in for the night.” Idania lifted her skirt slightly to step up onto the dais where Alden stood.

The Scorpio Emperor’s face scrunched into the center, unhappy. “Didn’t we already have this conversation? I’m fine, my love.”

Idania smiled sweetly and gestured for his beverage. He sneered at her hand but relinquished the alcohol. She kissed him on the cheek and he melted a bit. The Virgo cooed at their interaction and Alden grinned. He spoke something in Water that Tristan barely understood and waggled his eyebrows. The Virgo’s eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline and he cackled. Alden turned to fling himself into Idania’s arms, which she accepted with the grace of an easily startled alpaca, and looked to Tristan.

He closed the distance and held his special punch mug to Idania. His hands now free, the large Taurus took Alden’s wrist. He leaned down, careful about his horns and the soft covers over the ends, and pressed his shoulder into Alden’s middle. The smaller man grunted, then elicited a joyous and quiet “Weee~!” as Tristan straightened up, the drunken Scorpio draped over the back of his neck. He felt Alden’s tail against his head, the Emperor’s bells jingling on his muzzle, and looked to Idania.

The Virgo jumped back, surprised at the sight, and Idania bowed to him. “Apologies for our abrupt departure, my lord. We’ll see you tomorrow?”

The man nodded absently and watched Tristan and Idania move carefully around the edge of the ballroom to the exit. Idania led him absently through the Virgo palace, no longer the same glamorous estate from his first visit. Sophie had gone out of her way to sell off the ostentatious décor to place that money back into the populace as soon as she took the crown.

Idania placed her cup on a small hall table outside the door of the Scorpio’s shared suite and fished her key from her muzzle. When asked about her multipurpose muzzles, she said no one bothered to check there for fear of a Scorpio’s venom and stinger.

She thanked him profusely after he dumped her husband on the bed. She brought a clean chamberpot to the bedside and peeled her mask off.

“Goodness I hate those gatherings.” She slumped onto the bed and slipped her shoes off.

Tristan’s brow furrowed. “You seem to fit right in.”

Her dark brow lifted, a sardonic chuckle from her. “It can be fairly exhausting pretending to be someone you’re not.”

Tristan removed his mask. “Both of you?”

Thick boots thudded on the floor by a pile of others and she stood to start removing Alden’s. “All of us. You were pretty excited to get out of there, right?”

He pressed his lips together. She had a point.

“Go rest and recharge, big guy. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow. When His Imperial Majesty is a little more sober. I wouldn’t want to spill any secrets he doesn’t want to share.”

#promptober #promptober 2021 #zodiac #zodiac chronicles #writeblr #writblr #my wip #wip

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Peter and MJ, coworkers who barely know each other's names, but could draw each other's faces from memory, get stuck in the elevator together at the end of a work day

Thanks for the prompt, Anon! I started writing the fic for this so fast haha

Overheard at the Bugle

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: M Word count: 5394

Summary:

Peter's having a late night at the office and finds out he's not the only one working overtime right before he and the new reporter, Michelle Jones, get trapped in the Bugle's unreliable elevator. He just needs to handle this situation calmly and not do anything to give away his secret identity. It'd be easier to focus on the task at hand if his enhanced hearing wasn't picking up something very unusual coming from the voice recorder in Michelle's bag.

Peter tries to keep a low profile at the Bugle―he doesn’t need anyone giving a second thought to the guy who turns in crisp closeups of Spider-Man week after week―but he didn’t realize he’s invisible. He’s gotta be for the custodial staff to start shutting the lights off on his floor as he’s still sifting blearily through the emails that arrive every five minutes; they’re all stamped with Sent from J. Jonah Jameson’s iPhone. Almost in the dark, Peter snaps his laptop shut, shoves it into his messenger bag, and sprints for the elevators. He’s not scared of the dark (what kinda hero would that make him?), but after lights-out comes locking the doors and he’s not keen on spending the night here. Though his apartment might not be much, it’s his escape from work.

He skids around the corner to find the glow of an elevator that’s just closing.

“Hold it!” Peter shouts, shooting his hand out to part the doors as a frantic tapping comes from inside.

“I was pushing the button…” a woman explains as he steps in.

She turns her head and a spill of wavy brown hair is pushed aside to reveal the face of Michelle Jones. Peter swallows. His gaze goes from her startled brown eyes to her finger, now slipping off the Doors Open button.

“Yeah,” he says, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, “this thing can be temperamental sometimes.”

“Right. Ground floor, I assume?”

“Yep.”

He moves off to a respectful distance as she presses the button to take them down and the doors close. His heart’s hammering. Though he’s heard the confident tone of her voice plenty, she’s never specifically spoken to him. Nor he to her. Luckily, the walls of the elevator have an intentional burnish with the scuff of wear on top, so there’s no chance of her catching sight of his stare in their reflections. Peter doesn’t mean to, it’s just that she took her hair down. She mostly wears it twisted and pinned at the nape of her neck and probably just shook it out when she got into the elevator, heading home. He gets it. He has his tie jammed into his bag, collar unbuttoned, and sleeves cuffed up to his elbows. Nobody gives a shit about dress code after the boss is gone, especially if they’re working late with no guarantee of overtime pay. Quit looking at her, he thinks, and snaps his gaze down to the floor. He can still smell her shampoo, courtesy of the enhanced senses.

“Sorry about the lights,” Michelle offers, turning her head enough to address him, but not enough to meet his eye because he’s standing beside and slightly behind her. “I let one of the custodians know I was on my way out a few minutes ago. Thought I was the last one left.”

Peter frowns. That’s weird. Not what she says, but that, when she speaks, he thinks he hears an echo. My one-on-one exclusive with Spider-Man, it says, in the voice of the reporter currently sharing the elevator with him. He opens his mouth to ask Michelle if she hears it too and catches himself. That’s a habit he broke years ago, when he realized there are way more things other people can’t hear and it only risks freaking them out and exposing himself to reveal that his senses are more animal than human.

“Don’t worry about it,” he responds distractedly.

The first thing to know about Spider-Man is that he’s not a nine-to-five kinda guy. Without regular business hours, he joins me for this interview in my Brooklyn apartment on a Friday evening. The red suit is predictable; the rap he gives my living room window to announce his arrival smacks more of cheeky showmanship. This reporter has to wonder whether, for him, finally submitting to such an in-depth, sit-down conversation is a type of performance. Surely the man behind the mask knows his audience is rapt for any details on the life of a figure who, despite his status as a trusted friend to all, is so much a mystery to this city’s inhabitants.

Ok, what? Peter’s brain is spinning like a frisbee. He’s never given the kind of interview Michelle’s disembodied voice is describing, and definitely never given it to her. He’s never been to her apartment, doesn’t even know where she lives, and certainly isn’t eager to invite questions in some sort of exposé. Maybe what he’s hearing are just the notes she’s preparing for a future interview. Did Jameson assign this? He’s certainly nosy about Peter’s alter ego, but the tone of the piece is more curious than their boss’s usual style―scathing, obstinate, malicious. She sounds intrigued by Spider-Man, not like she’s luring him into a trap.

The elevator jolts. It grinds. It halts. Michelle makes a sound of distress and taps Doors Open. She looks at him over her shoulder, face worried but also… flushed? Maybe she gets anxiety attacks.

“It’s alright,” Peter tells her, one foot in Spider-Man’s De-escalation Mode. He raises his hands in hopefully a calming gesture and her eyes dart to them, gliding over his bare forearms. Crap, does he seem threatening? He lowers his hands.

“I know it’s alright,” she assures him. “I just… who wants to be stuck at work?”

Michelle gives him a slight smile to accompany her joke and he returns it.

“Got a story to work on?” Peter asks.

His motive is partly to understand the narration he heard (which is still going on, a murmur beneath their much louder voices), but also to focus her on something besides the fact that the elevator is not moving.

“Just filed one actually, so, you know, theoretically free for the weekend.” She makes a phonily excited face that emphasizes how very not-free they are.

The continued jokes are a good sign that she isn’t overly alarmed. He’s still stumped about the story though. As she pulls her cell phone from the large leather bag over her arm, Peter tunes into the background noise. With the elevator silent, that’s just the recording of Michelle’s voice.

‘…later than I thought you would be,’ I inform him. He makes his excuses and where I would normally be annoyed by a failure to be punctual, I find myself charmed by New York’s man in red. I wonder where his adventures have taken him tonight, if his actions have prevented violence, saved lives. If his mere presence has inspired onlookers and comforted those who have lost faith in our traditional systems of stagnant courts and killer cops…

There’s no way Jameson can be aware of the spin she’s putting on this. Spider-Man’s no hero in the eyes of the editor-in-chief, just a menace, a pest, a cockroach climbing up the pantleg of the people who are supposed to enforce justice. That’s not the only thing that’s confusing. Peter’s fairly hung up on the fact that she’s conducting this interview like he’s there. Could just be her process. Playing the whole thing out to get a feel for however long it might be, where small talk might hypothetically cut into her list of prepared questions.

“No service,” Michelle huffs, tucking her phone away again. “You?”

Peter, startled, gets his phone out to check, though he already knows this elevator is a dead zone. He shakes his head. Frustrated, she moves her hand to jab the Help button. The one meant to connect the rider with 911.

“Don’t bother,” he coaches when she pushes it a second time after nothing happens. “I think that thing’s just for show.”

“Oh yeah?”

She’s arch, irritated. Peter stays calm, knowing it’s not really meant for him. People can get testy in stressful situations. Being trapped in an elevator is one of those. Not for him. For him, a stressful situation is a bullet graze or leaping from one office tower to the next and realizing in midair that he’s out of webs. Trapped in an elevator is a relaxing start to his weekend in comparison.

“Jameson never lets anybody inspect it. He’s a control freak, scared of spies. He thinks somebody’s gonna bug the elevator,” he clarifies to Michelle’s raised eyebrows.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well, have you met him?”

She exhales a laugh at that.

…invite him to get comfortable, I’m surprised at him choosing a seat at the opposite end of the couch I’ve just sat down on. I’d intended the chair across from me and think that should be obvious to him. Perhaps it is. The mask doesn’t make him the easiest man to read.

“So we’re just fucking stuck because Jameson’s scared of, who? Reporters from other papers? The CIA? Edward Snowden?”

A tingle goes down Peter’s spine when she swears. She’s commanding. Does she know that or is working under Jameson putting her qualities in the shadow of his, wielded for domination and intimidation?

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” he says.

“This button’s never worked?” Michelle checks, leaning her knuckle into it to keep it depressed. “This is a major safety issue. Imagine there was a fire right now.”

“You should call somebody and report him.”

He can’t help being playfully sarcastic and thinks, for a second, that she’s going to bite his head off for it by the way her eyes flash. Then he thinks he might not mind. Then she laughs and he tries to take a normal breath.

“What do we do?” she wants to know.

What do they do? What do Peter and the woman he’s eyed across the office since she arrived at the Bugle two months ago do? Forced together by unhealthy work hours and a broken elevator? He shifts from one foot to the other.

“Hope the custodian decides to watch for you to leave the building and comes looking when you don’t.”

“I hate that plan,” Michelle informs him.

“Go ahead and come up with another one,” he invites earnestly.

She turns so she’s facing him and lets her back slump against the wall of the elevator. She shrugs to ease her bag off her shoulder. The strap tugs a little at her emerald-green blouse before it slides down her arm. She sets it on the ground by her feet. It looks like she’s doing what he suggested. Now it’s just Peter and her quiet voice, which he can tell is coming from the bag. Michelle must have a recorder in there. Probably thinks she shut it off, but the volume’s just really low.

‘…when you’re out there?’ I have to inquire of him. At his easy laugh, I shelter behind my coffee cup, taking a slow sip. ‘Lonely?’ Spider-Man repeats. ‘In a city this size?’ He’s being coy now. I’m certain he knows what I want and it’s the dare implicit in this exchange that prompts me to press him. ‘Not lonely for just anybody,’ I begin…

Crossing his arms, Peter rests against the back of the elevator, trying to be subtle as he tips his head to the side to hear more. He’s getting into this story now, even if it’s not real. For the first time, he’s starting to see how Spider-Man might be a pretty compelling guy. He likes this person she seems to think he is; he’s more interesting coming from her lips. Of course, not as interesting as she is, with her leading questions and the agenda she’s voicing for her recorder if not for the man she’s interviewing.

“Have you worked at the Bugle long?”

His gaze twitches over to Michelle’s face when she speaks.

“Since right outta college. Why?”

“Just wondered if this had happened to you before,” she explains, waving her hand at the elevator’s useless panel of buttons. “And I knew you were here before me.”

“You did?”

He shouldn’t sound so breathlessly hopeful. Obviously, she knew he was here first. Michelle could’ve noticed him one time in the past two months and seen him do anything to indicate that he’d been here longer―escape Jameson’s office just before he could get roared at, jiggle the plug to make the coffee machine in the breakroom work. But Peter does sound that way because of her tone. She says it like an admission and she breaks eye contact.

‘…you don’t want one?’ He declined my offer of coffee once, but I think he may change his mind now that we’ve warmed up to each other a little. Spider-Man twists and I can feel him regarding me from behind those large white eyes. ‘I’d have to take the mask off to drink it,’ he points out. I promise that I’m not trying to blow his cover, just be hospitable. Besides, I counter, he doesn’t need to expose his whole face. The mouth will do.

“So, has it?” she counters, ignoring his question.

“Has what?”

“Has it happened to you? The elevator shutting down?”

“Oh, uh, once or twice, but it was always in the middle of the day and there were a bunch of other people in the elevator with me, so it didn’t go unnoticed long. Jameson hassled me for missing meetings while I was trapped though.”

“It’s not like you could help it,” Michelle says.

“True, but…” Peter shrugs. “I learned to take the stairs.”

“Bet you’re wishing you took them tonight.”

He laughs.

“Not really. I mean, uhhh…” The sound drags out embarrassingly as he can’t manage to pull his gaze away from her surprised face.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says, saving him. “I think you’re keeping me saner than I would be alone.”

Right. That’s all. Which is enough, really. He’s glad to be of service, especially if that service is helping her not totally lose it.

“No problem.”

‘…because I can do more good if I’m an anonymous symbol,’ Spider-Man tells me. His body language has changed, shifting forward with the urgency of his words. ‘But some people must know,’ I say. ‘Your real identity can’t be a secret from everyone.’ ‘No Spider-Man is an island?’ is his clever rejoinder. I agree with absolute sincerity. ‘Even the strongest person needs to let others get close to them,’ I insist. Where he’s tugged his mask up, his mouth shifts from a wry grin to thoughtful softness. I find my gaze lingering there.

“Any ideas?” Peter asks, feeling hot.

The temperature inside the elevator is moderate, but Michelle’s words, as she draws him deeper into her story, are making him surreptitiously flap his collar to encourage air down his shirt. He’s starting to feel like this is something he’s not supposed to hear. Alright, it’s likely that nobody was supposed to hear it if these are just her rough notes before composing an article. Whatever. What Peter’s realizing is that maybe nobody’s supposed to hear this interview ever. The questions are too personal, too human-interest for the kind of paper they work at, and the way she depicts her responses is… intimate. Full of sensory details. It’s as though he’s in this apartment with her, sipping at her coffee, staring at her down the length of the couch. A Friday night, her voice said, and tonight’s one of those. How would Michelle Jones feel if she knew she was spending an evening with Spider-Man right now?

“I think the custodians would’ve made some noise by now if they knew anybody was in here and if they haven’t realized we’re missing, then I’m not sure anyone else will. I don’t know about you, but I live alone. I probably won’t be missed tonight because my friends will just assume I’m working and turned my phone off. I’ve been considering,” she goes on, “that we’ll either have to climb out the top and hope we’re close to the doors aligning with one of the floors or get these doors open. Either way, we need something to open the doors. Personally, I didn’t pack my crowbar.”

Peter stares at her in awe for a minute. She really did come up with a plan. Several plans. He knows he can help―he doesn’t need a crowbar to part the metal doors―but he can’t just wrench the doors open with his bare hands and act like it’s no big deal. He’ll need an explanation, which can’t be the truth. Revealing himself at the Bugle? To a Bugle reporter? Seems like the worst possible scenario. He doesn’t think Michelle is anything like Jameson in her motivations or basic moral compass (fine, he doesn’t know her, but that’s the sense he gets), and yet, she works for him. It’s her job to give him something fresh, something captivating, and he’s just not sure that her fascination with Spider-Man would be enough to make her want to spare Peter Parker the nightmare of his identity being splashed across Monday’s front page.

“Me neither.”

“This isn’t sustainable,” she mutters. He looks at her with concern. Louder, she adds, “If I get restless enough to climb through the ceiling, promise you won’t look up my skirt when I ask you to give me a boost.”

“Promise.”

Michelle assesses his face and he tries to appear his most transparent and trustworthy. Gradually, her eyes move away from his, but he’s still watching her and sees her stare at his throat, then his chest, and down. Whoa, Peter tells himself. Not a good idea. This woman might be a little hung up on Spider-Man, maybe even has a crush, but you and him are two different people.

Meanwhile, on the recording: …switch it off for him, holding the voice recorder up so he can clearly see that I’ve done it. ‘There,’ I say, ‘no one’s listening now. It’s just you and I.’ ‘So I’m supposed to feel closer to you without it?’ Spider-Man asks. ‘Don’t you?’ is what I want to know.

“Screw it,” Michelle decides a minute later, standing up straight. “I’m getting us out of here. Can you pick me up?”

Peter drops his messenger bag in an instant.

“Yep.”

He watches while she kicks off her black patent high heels (maybe picturing her pressing one of those bad boys into his chest), then they both tip their heads back and examine the ceiling panels.

“Front corner, maybe?” she suggests. “Just so I’m as close as possible to where the doors will hopefully be and I don’t have to wobble around up there in the elevator shaft.”

“Sure,” Peter agrees.

They cross to the appropriate corner and he bends his knees, locking his fingers to offer her a step. She grabs his shoulder for balance and lifts her foot, about to place it in his braced hands, then pauses.

“I’m Michelle, by the way.”

“Peter.”

“I know.”

He’s baffled and flushed as they shake hands, but he can’t dwell on it because her fingers are digging into his shoulder right before she presses her foot into his swiftly repositioned hands and hops up. She gives a small shriek as her body wavers before steadying herself with her palms against the ceiling. Peter drops his gaze. He can tell by her knees that she’s crouching slightly and he’s not glancing any higher than that. Her skirt falls to just below her knees and, as they lean into each other to keep her up, he ends up with her thigh pressed against the side of his face, the black fabric of that skirt under his cheek.

“You got me, right?”

“Right,” he says, careful not to ramble and divulge how little effort bearing her weight requires.

“Ok, I’m going to try to get a grip on this panel and slide it open.”

“Sounds good.”

Peter is looking straight across at the wall. He is not looking higher than her knees. He has no thoughts about the scent of her skirt and no theories on whether the lavender comes from her fabric softener or lotion that he’s also not imagining her rubbing into her skin before she got dressed for work this morning. She sways in his grip and he braces his arms more firmly, unable to do anything about her leg against his face. Michelle grunts and her body heaves as he hears her shift the ceiling panel. Her toes curl around his fingers. He exhales in relief; if she can figure this out without him needing to call on his super-strength, awesome. She goes home with a sense of accomplishment and he goes home maintaining his secret identity.

“Ok,” she calls down. “It’s open. Lift me higher.”

“Higher,” Peter mumbles to himself. Then, to her, “Uh, I might have to, um, hold your legs. But I won’t look at anything, I swear.”

“I’ve trusted you this far.”

Her voice is wry and he chuckles.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Michelle says.

With a bounce of his shoulders, he hoists her up. For a minute, he keeps hold of her foot, but then one of his hands clutches the back of her calf while the other cups her heel. Her weight pulls away from him as she hauls herself up through the ceiling.

“Is there a door?” he asks.

“It’s dark… Can you get my phone? It’s right inside my bag.”

“Ok, hang on. Literally,” Peter adds.

“Ha ha,” Michelle responds dryly, but when he gently releases his grip on her, he finds that she’s able to hold herself in place with her elbows. Her legs dangle and he hurries.

Their conversation and the rush of the action they just took concentrated his senses. Unfortunately, he’s now holding her work bag open and the sounds from her voice recorder are pouring out louder than ever. Still too quiet for her though, at this distance.

‘…didn’t think a suit that tight could hide much, but I’m still pleasantly surprised.’ ‘What, this?’ Spider-Man teases. I abandon my coffee cup and push my reading glasses up into my hair as I set my notes aside to lean in. He might as well have a web stuck to my chest. His awareness of his own physicality is evidently as precise afterhours as it is while he’s on duty because he skims a hand down his abdomen, appearing to almost accidentally hook his thumb in the band of his boxers. ‘You want the real scoop?’ he asks me, prying the elastic away from his skin provocatively. The taste of coffee is still thick and rich in my mouth when I encourage him: ‘Go on, Spidey. Don’t stop there…’

Peter almost drops the bag.

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah! Yes. Mhmm, I’ve got it.”

He returns to Michelle and wraps one arm around her legs. With his other hand, he lifts the phone towards her. Her fingers clasp his, then locate the phone and take it from his grip. He holds still while she turns on her flashlight and has a look around. So, Michelle doesn’t have a little crush on Spider-Man. She’s hot for Spider-Man. Which means she’s hot for Peter, in a way. Except not, he reminds himself, because you’re just her silent co-worker. You’re never going to―

“FUCK!”

“What? No. What? What is it?”

“The next door’s way too high,” she says. “We must be almost lined up with one.” She taps him on the head with her phone and he slips it into his pocket for safekeeping as he prepares to help her down.

“We’ll find another way.” Will you? he asks himself.

“Quick question.”

“Uh huh?”

“How do I do this?”

He’s holding most of her weight now and, pressing a hand to flatten her skirt against her leg, chances a peek up at Michelle. Her head’s still through the ceiling, arms still braced over the open panel. What would definitely work would be her just letting go and him catching her in his arms, but maybe that’s too much faith for her to put in a random guy from work. Although he’s capable of lifting her, catching her falling body is a completely different thing. As with their escape in general, they don’t have a ton of options.

“Just let go slowly,” Peter coaches. “I’ll adjust how I’m holding you and you can sort of slide down my body.” The awkwardness in his tone garbles the last part.

“I can what?”

Dammit. She’s waiting to come down. He clears his throat.

“Uh, slide down my body?”

Her anxious laugh disappears into the elevator shaft.

“What the hell have you gotten yourself into?” he hears her hiss to herself. To him, “Yeah, ok. I’m coming down now.”

“I have you.”

Peter’s counting on the giddiness of being returned to the ground from a height to distract her from the too-skillful way he maneuvers his hands on her. Making sure her skirt never gets rucked up, not placing his hands anywhere truly unforgiveable. He holds her hips, not her ass, and turns his head so his face doesn’t wind up in her crotch. He’s really gentleman-ing his butt off when the recording in her bag calls out, ‘Harder, Spider-Man!’

His hands slip. A second ago, his head was level with her stomach and now his face is buried in her chest, the cup of her bra pressing back against his temple. Immediately, Peter tilts back from his shoulders.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry―”

“I’m ok, I’m good,” Michelle protests as they wriggle together to set her down. He forces her phone back into her hand.

“Your skirt was slippery…”

“I know. You did great, Peter, seriously.”

“…and I heard…”

He shuts his mouth fast, but her flustered expression dissipates as her probing gaze finds his eyes.

“What did you hear?”

Peter pushes at his sleeves and refuses to answer. Her powers of deduction don’t rely on him at all. She whirls to her bag, crouching and dropping her phone in to extract the voice recorder instead. Holding it to her ear in investigation, Michelle probably hears the words By the time he has me on all fours, I can tell that Spider-Man’s on board with my remark on the importance of letting someone be close to him at the same volume he does standing three feet away. He’s basically plastered himself to the opposite wall. She looks about as mortified as he figures he’d feel if he made a recording of a very personal fantasy and someone listened to it. Man, should he have just told her at the beginning? There didn’t seem to be a way to handle it well.

Michelle stops the playback and puts the recorder away. The elevator is abruptly quiet without the whisper of her voice. All the while, Peter’s staring at her, seeing what she’ll do. The most probable conclusion for her to come to is that he heard a single sound, a blip, and has no clue what the recording contained. The way she stands, leaving her bag on the floor, seems to confirm this. But she doesn’t look over at him.

With a sigh, he decides to do what Spider-Man would do and put the person in need first. What Michelle Jones needs from him is a way out of this embarrassment, and this elevator. Peter walks to the doors and stamps his hands to the metal. First, a little compression to get a good grip and then… Scrunching his face with the effort, he puts his back into it, forcing the doors apart. Next, he does the same thing to the outer doors, separating them to reveal a darkened hallway. The floor’s about three feet higher than where he’s standing inside the elevator, but that’s nothing for someone to scramble through and head for the stairs.

He steps away to let her go first. She doesn’t move.

“Should we talk about that?” Michelle asks, pointing at the doors, after what has to be a full minute of her studying him.

“I… work out? A lot. I work out a lot,” Peter says with more conviction on every try.

“And about this?” She grabs her recorder and waves it at him.

“You… use that to, uh, keep track of your ideas.”

She steps up to him and, without dropping her gaze from his face, reaches out to touch his wrist. Her fingers move from tracing his skin to ringing his web-shooter. He wears them to work pretty often, but always covers them with the cuffs of his shirt. Which he rolled up. Because he thought he was alone. There’s no reason for her to know what they’re for though, right? They could be medical alert bracelets, or just jewellery. It’s not like they’re branded with ‘Spider-Man’s Web-Shooter, 1 of 2.’

“You wanna talk about these?”

Peter opts out of replying.

“I know what they are,” she says. “What they’re for. I’ve researched you, looked at a lot of video footage and photographs, many of which I think you took, which seems equal parts fucked-up and brilliant. I noticed them right after we got stuck.”

“I have… a severe peanut butter allergy,” he says unconvincingly.

“Bummer,” Michelle shoots back, unsympathetic. Yeah, it was a terrible lie, but he’s gotta at least be able to say he tried to deny her accusations.

“It is, it is a bummer,” Peter agrees, nodding. He licks his dry lips to wet them. “Sometimes, I have such a craving for a PB and J and I can’t―”

She leans in and gives him a quick kiss.

“I’m… confused,” he admits.

“I know who you are,” she begins. “You don’t have to say it out loud, on the off chance somebody really has bugged this piece of shit elevator, but your severe peanut butter allergy bracelets, in combination with how you opened those doors, are pretty good evidence when compared with my research. So, if I take my supposition as fact―”

“Peanut butter…”

“Save it. If you are who I strongly believe you to be, then you were able to hear god knows what on that recording. Which I am an idiot for forgetting to erase or record over. Meant to do it last night… ugh, anyway. The important thing is that you heard it and you didn’t bolt through those doors the second you got them open. Why.”

When Michelle’s on a roll, he learns, her questions come out as demands. He quits trying to sneakily unfold his cuffs in a way-too-last-ditch attempt at concealing the truth.

“Ladies first?” he tries.

“I’m not going to use what I know. I promise you that. You’re a good person and as far as I’m concerned, your secret’s your secret. You do a hell of a lot more for this city than Jameson does with the trash he prints, my own contributions obviously excluded. Now I’m the only one held over a barrel here, Peter. You heard what you heard. Tell me why you stayed.”

“You needed me.”

“After you got the doors open.”

Peter thinks. Not just about whether or not to speak, but if he’s ready to say what he’s about to say.

“I needed you. It’s like what you said in the story―I mean, the recording. I don’t let many people get close to me.”

“Why would you let me be one of those people? It took being stuck together before we even had our first conversation.”

“A good feeling, I guess,” he explains. “Plus, you’re kinda my dream girl and I just found out that, at least on the physical side of things, you’re really into me. Like, really into me.”

“You can shut up about that now,” Michelle says.

“Why? You didn’t. You had so much to say.”

“Hmm, maybe I like Spi- I mean, that guy better when I’m speaking for him. Fortunately for you,” she says smugly, “I’ve thought Peter Parker the photographer was cute since the day I started working here.”

“That is news to me.”

Michelle wraps her arms around his neck, smirking as she leans her body against his.

“I was getting around to telling you. Are you surprised?”

“It’s a real scoop,” Peter acknowledges as his hands feel out the lithe shape of her back through her blouse.

“Oh my god, you heard that part? That part? How could―”

He more or less molds his mouth to hers. She more or less gives him a tour of her Brooklyn apartment before they spend the night in bed together and rise to a hot cup of coffee.

more clichéd tropes and prompts

#my writing #spideychelle #spideychelle fic #spideychelle fanfiction #peter parker #peter x mj #peter x michelle #peter parker x michelle jones #michelle jones

[tradeway2]

Session 2 17 Jul 2021

Ed and Matthew are being haylords (literally - they are baling hay), so we start a little late. Also Sophie is away, so someone else will be taking Hilda for her.

Mina has been building Gundams…

We make Nature checks to see if anyone of us remember what we are. Hilda does not make a check as she is still at 0HP. Ren, Marcus and Milo remember that ‘zombies’ are made with weird food; but we can’t be zombies because we know our names. We’re amnesiacs; we’re like characters from Neighbours. Not zombies. Pshhh.

Matthew has bestowed upon us some XP for the last fight, plus some extra for entertaining him so beautifully.

Cora thinks we should try to find a way to preserve our food a bit longer. From the feet up from now on?

We make Investigation checks. Milo notices that although the surrounding area contains weapons and spoiled food (mostly what we made), etc., there isn’t much in the way of bodies. He wants to know what size the food is; he thinks they must be from the same litter. They’re all about the same size; medium. (It goes: small, regular, large, goliath, god.) He looks at his friends; we look wounded, but there are no organs or anything hanging out. Some bandages wouldn’t hurt.

After the fight, we discovered our food was carrying some money. Between us, we scrabbled together 13 gp. We remember that money is useful, so we keep it. (Ren decides to invest his in cryptocurrency.) Hilda is the strongest, so we pile to money on her still unconscious form. We also find 7 gems, and 5 bottles, and a sphere.

Bingo asks if we mind him hanging around; he gets very excited when we tell him he’s welcome to chill with us. He’s excited to get to the horde as well. “Everyone’s friends there, it’s brilliant!” Cora decides it’s a bit like Burning Man. Leslie looks us all over; he does that old people thing when they nod along with the young folk. Let young folk be young folk.

Ed joins us, yay!

It turns out that Leslie has never been to Burning Man. Or the horde. I think? He doesn’t like being around big crowds; he prefers to spend time alone. Somewhere a bit greener. Does he mean over there? (Pointing). No, it turns out he arrived by boat. Hmm. Pilfer gets a sense of salt on the air, and the movement of a ship - for a fraction of a second, and then disappeared. He burps something disgusting; this is not strange to any of us.

Leslie comes from a place what is different to the place what we are standin’ on. ‘E’d love to go ‘ome. (For the sake of argument, and the fact that he can’t keep the accent straight from one week to the next, it’s decided that Leslie doesn’t keep his own accent but takes the one from whatever body he’s inhabiting. He’s gone from West Country to Brizzle. Or it might be the Chezzy Massive.)

This sphere that we found has a smooth surface, and weighs about a pound. Ren rolls a 17 Investigation. (Matthew asks me to roll a d4; “No reason.” Uh oh. I roll a 4. That’s either really good or really bad.) The sphere is made of glass.

Pilfer: “It’s a snow globe!”

DM: “… It’s opaque.”

Pilfer: “It’s not a snow globe!”

Ren blurts out, ‘Driftglobe!” It will light up as if the Daylight spell is cast. He can speak the command word in Friends and it will light up. It works once per day and recharges at dawn. It can also float.

Milo hears some food shout, a sort of sad, whiny sound, but then it’s gone.

What’s in the bottles? They’re glass, reasonably ornate, long necked, with a rich red fluid in them. Not sauce. Ren opens one and gives it a sniff. It smells like the best food in the world. Leslie advises against drinking it, however. Marcus asks him if he knows what it is; it’s a healing potion. Two seem to be in fancier bottles than the rest. We decide to give Hilda one of the fancy ones. (We now have two remaining RHPs.)

We distribute and take various potions, and then set about deciding what to do. Bingo panics when he realises he doesn’t actually know how to find the horde; Cora manages to calm him down, and earns herself Inspiration.

Leslie seems to have more of an idea of what to do and where he’s going, so we decide to go with him and work in a visit to the horde as and when we can. Bingo thinks we might be starting our own horde. Trendsetters!

Matthew does a sound effect and drowns himself out. “Who’s playing Metallica?” “You are!”

We carry on: The battlefield scenery continues for the better portion of the day. Does it bother us that we’re walking on a carpet of the dead? Well - that’s the thing. There’s not many bodies. Sometimes flying food comes and pecks at it, but when we grab at it, it nips out the way real quick. (We know what birds are, but we are aware that these aren’t birds. These are flying food. There’s a difference.) There are weapons on the ground, but not whole corpses. There are bits, sure, and we can hear friends shouting in the distance.

“I’m Bingo!”

“Can I be Bingo too?”

“Sure!”

(Interesting note - they are all Bingo, but they are all aware which Bingo is which.)

The sky begins to clear. The carnage appears to be thinning. There are fewer weapons, less spoiled food. We snack on what bits of food are still dragging themselves along the ground. Ren: “Mmm, trail mix.”

Cora asks Pilfer if he needs his parasol - he belatedly fumbles around for it. (Also DM has added a sketch book to Ren’s inventory for his lyrics and drawings. He knows it’s his, but he doesn’t know why he’s done all those hieroglyph, squiggly weirdness in between the pictures.)

Something hoves into view as the scenery improves:

Bingo: “I know why they do it - it’s for the freshness!”

Pilfer: “Has anyone got a tin opener?”

Ren: “It’s got its own tin opener strapped to the back of it, look.”

We see the canned food shake its head and draw its can opener as it approaches us. And we roll initiative…

The food goes first; it steps forward and prepares itself to be opened. (It holds an action.)

Milo goes next. He moves forward and tries the first of his two can openers, for a dirty 20 with his javelin. Yeah! He pierces the protective container; we will have to eat this meal today, it won’t keep now. The food pulls Milo's opener out of itself, and there is sauce on the end of it. Milo is delighted.

Cora moves forward, and holds an action, as do Hilda and Marcus. (Marcus makes an INT check to see if he’s noticed he has a quarterstaff yet; he has not.) Ren shambles forward as well, and does the same, holding up his second spear. "Kebab."

Pilfer hucks some cutlery at the food, once he’s within range. 19 to hit with his dagger-spoon. Spork? Ed: “I reckon you could do some serious damage with a spork.”

Leslie shambles up and holds back for now, but Bingo can’t contain himself. He uses all of his movement to get right up to the food, and its tin opener. This is not going to go well for Bingo, as he’s now the only one in range of the food. The food now attacks Bingo.

Ren: “Poor Bingo.”

Cora: “Bingo is about to get a lot shorter.”

Matthew finds the right button and hits Bingo with a 21 and a 22, for 11 slashing damage.

Pilfer: “… Bye, Bingo.”

Luckily the food misses its second attack, and Bingo is still up. He’s only cleaved a bit in twain; he’ll probably walk it off.

Cora has a go at tenderising the suit. She swings her mace, but misses. Milo moves up and uses another can opener - but 15 misses. “This food is tricksy.”

Hilda flings her hand axe but it bounces off the can. Marcus runs up and does a Slam but misses. Ren walks up to the food for an attack as well; he pokes it with his spear, two handed. 15 misses.

You know, food can sometimes be quite dangerous. We should have a rule where we can horde up and all attack together (as in, we can flank for advantage.)

Pilfer, having run out of cutlery, hucks a ‘smol hammer’ at the food as an improvised weapon. 21 hits! Right in the noggin! 1 point of damage, awww.

Leslie stays on the outskirts a bit, but he’s making his way round. Bingo’ll have a go. “He’s so excited!” 9 misses, though. He paws ineffectually at the can, frustrated. The food has a go back, but misses Bingo. The second one hits for 7 damage.

Matthew, clicking buttons: “ Poor… old… Bingo.”

We hear Bingo say, “Ow!” He looks poorly now.

Cora is up. Open this can! She has a try at grappling the food to the floor; she makes a STR check for 14. She does not grapple the food. Milo moves up to flank it with Marcus, and does a bite by making a Slam attack with his teeth. 4 Bludgeoning damage!

Hilda moves up but can’t get near the food, so she elbows Marcus and Ren in the back of the knees. Marcus attacks, now that he’s flanking with Milo, and manages a Slam for 6 bludgeoning damage. Yeah!

Ren shuffles around so he’s flanking with Cora, and has a stabby at the unprotected side - but sadly, even with advantage, he misses. His spear skitters across the surface of the can. Pilfer wishes to Slam him. “Slam to your heart’s content.” Sadly he’s so excited he slams the floor instead.

This is standard Friend tactics - surround and overwhelm - we don’t need to change a thing. Leslie has a go as well now. He misses.

Stuff is leaking from Bingo, but he’s still up and for the first time in his career with this new horde, he scores a 20 to hit for 2 bludgeoning damage. We all cheer.

Canned food does some sword work at Bingo, hits him, and Bingo goes down.

“NO BINGO NO!!!!!”

Bingo is not dead, because he’s significant enough to have a name, we are assured. Hooray! The food takes aim at Milo, but only rolls a nine. Phew!

It’s Cora’s turn. The canned food smells worried. She has another go at grappling it, but rolls a 7 - she uses her Inspiration and grapples it.

Milo has a dim memory of catching something like this that had pinchers, so he pokes between the plates with his javelin to get at the good stuff - and gets a Critical Poke! DM: “I’m not gonna lie to you guys, you needed that.”

Does Milo get any nice chewy bits out? He’s pushed his javelin right through the knee joint; he’s separated the bones in there, and it’s all just connected by meat now. If the food survives this, it will never be knight again. He now has a long career as a meme to look forward to.

This food is now much closer to being prepared now. Milo even gets Inspiration for such a wonderfully timed Nat 20. Hilda takes aim at his other knee, cackling all the while, and hits with a 24 for 6 bludgeoning.

Marcus aims a Slam at its head with 23 to hit for 7 damage; canned food is struggling but not down. The only thing holding it up is Cora’s grapple and the fact that we’re standing all around it. (Like when you pass out at a gig.)

Ren remembers food on a stick (hazy memories) and has another poke - and misses. He realises he’s been using the wrong end of his spear, so he turns it around for next time. DM, through tears of laughter, awards Inspiration.

Pilfer takes a swing and a miss.

Duncan, OOC: “Don’t stop me now…”

Ren realises he’s humming under his breath.

This food is smelling pretty ready now. Not perfect! But close. Bingo makes an Undeath save. a 19! Canned food struggles against Cora’s grapple, but fails. DM: “It is weary, and ready for eats.” Cora wants to start sucking the juice out of the eye holes. She makes an attack but a 14 misses; she used her Inspiration last round.

Milo takes aim at the armpit. DM: “Horrible little man! I love it!” He rolls two 8s, sadly.

Hilda has been cackling since last round, and takes aim at the same spot as last time. 21 hits, for 4 bludgeoning damage and with that the meal cracks open. Underneath the can is lots and lots of lovely freshly prepared food!

Pilfer retrieves his hammer and knife, and Hilda picks up her axe. Marcus stops shovelling food into his mouth for long enough to give Bingo a potion.

Milo wants to bend some metal into a sort of cup shape, and try saving some of the food for later. He can add “Some food in home made can” to his character sheet. Matthew adds that he must note: “Not airtight.”

We all get some treats! 116XP! As we consume our meal we find 8 more gp, some more gems. Marcus asks to keep the can's can opener, as he doesn’t have a weapon; Leslie nudges him and says he might have something on his back. Marcus turns around.

We also find two more RHPs, some fancy boots. We don’t know what they are, but Leslie suggests they might be worth taking along. Pilfer claims them, and the food’s hat. The head falls out; Ren starts digging around behind the jaw for the good bits. We also find a fancy stick! Milo knows what it is - and now he has Proficiency in Investigation rolls. He and Ren both know it’s a magic stick. Not just a stick, either - a staff. It’s got a snake’s head on it. He doesn’t know the exact nature of it, due to his own nature. Marcus picks up the tin opener/greatsword.

We have a nice sit down meal. Bingo is so delighted with us and our micro-horde, he’s starting to forget about looking for the main one.

We decide to devote another week to this, as we started late. We finish with a dream for Cora:

She knows she’s asleep. She is in a pretty setting of rolling meadows; she feels at peace. She knows that she knows more now, but can’t grasp what exactly that is. It is the height of summer. A bright red comet races across the sky, and it starts to rain. The sky grows dark, and she feels a sense of melancholy. The rain grows heavier. At a table in the middle of the meadow is an old man, gorging himself on food from silver plates. His eyes turn black, and he smiles. (A midget talks backwards and is gone.) The old man becomes a figure holding a sword and speaking gibberish. A mountain crumbles to dust. The figure advances. It grasps Cora by the throat -

And she wakes up.

#dnd #tradeway2 #campaign diary

[adultswim2021]

Sealab 2021 #30: “I, Robot, Really” | December 21, 2003 - 11:15 PM | S03E10 

“I, Robot, Really”, takes “I, Robot” to it’s natural conclusion of Quinn actually building robot bodies for the Sealab crew. Is it satisfying to see what was only spoken of in that monumental episode? No! Not really!

“I, Robot” is, for all intents and purposes, the first episode of Sealab. It was produced first, and it appeared on the DVD as the first episode. So, it’s significant that the final Capt. Murphy episode is a sequel to that first installment. Some might argue that it was poignant that Harry Goz (the voice of Captain Murphy) was embarking on his own voyage of leaving his corporeal form behind on Earth. That is to say, he was dying. Hell, you could hear it in his voice. So, an episode about Captain Murphy’s soul living on is a thoughtful send-off. But is the episode good? No. No it’s not.

This should seem obvious that the early appeal of Sealab was the dialogue-driven stories, and that by doing a show-don’t-tell version of one of their most beloved episodes is a mistake, especially when we are saddled with the crews lack of artistry when it comes to new animation. But, there are some bright spots. The whole concept of the mice inhabiting the former human bodies is very charming. The only laughs to be had from this entire episode spring from the mouse conductor in Murphy’s head. In fact, this episode would rank among Sealab’s worst if it weren’t for this bit. The only non-mouse line I appreciated was when Murphy rejects Debbie’s vying to also be in a robot body by saying “this is just for guys”.

Most of the episode involves Quinn getting drunker and drunker. His drunk acting is remarkably unfunny. There is a whole deleted episode called “Quinnmas” on one of the DVDs and it also revolves around Quinn’s alcoholism. The fact that they thought this was an avenue worth going down a second time is insane to me. Speaking of Quinn, this is maybe the only time they did overt continuity: Quinn references the events of “I, Robot”, as well as his hydraulic penis (which appeared, off-camera, in a deleted ending). I guess that makes this one sorta special. But, it’s also bad. Sorry.

MAIL BAG

I have what seems to be a particularly rare Master Shake Plush from the Adult Swim Carnival Tour back in 2012 that I got while I was at Washington State University. I'm currently on my way out of the west coast because of all the fires and left-wing violence in the cities so I was wonder if you would be interested in it. I was gonna put it on ebay but I have not seen any on there so I don't know what they go for. If you have any idea let me know.

I’ll take it for free. But if anyone has a Master Shake plush they wanna unload you should probably just put it on eBay and start the bidding at 50 bucks. Or, put it up for sale for like, $200 and patiently wait for somebody to eventually buy it. It could take years before somebody actually buys it for that price, but it could work. “the sky’s the limit here at eBay.com” - I couldn’t have said it better myself

The The is also the name of an 80s/90s british band that did the song "This Is The Day" which you may remember from an M&Ms commercial!

That is a good song, too good for the likes of an M&M commercial. I can only stomach diagetic music from those ads. Scoring those things really defies the spirit of the M&M novels that most of the commercials are based on

You sure do love bragging about watching season 2 of Slege Hammer! you littler weirdo.

I-- hey, fuck you! I’ve actually never watched season 2 of Sledge Hammer! I just know that season one ends with the world ending and they began season 2 by saying it took place before that. They also switched from 35mm to 16mm, which seems too nasty.

The best ones in 2008. Funny M&M's commercials collection. I’m one of M&M’s most diligent advertising collectors. I think, I have the largest and best video collection. I share this, with all the fans in the world. My lifetime of work to collect thematically the best videos here. Love and enjoy my collections! Peace and happiness for you! I just want one, a smile on your face. Enjoy my collection. It only takes a few words to tell a powerful story.

This rocks. Thank you. I needed something like this today!

Are you taking any more Popeyes Chicken nugget reviews? I just had them. I wasn't that wowed by them. They were too much like the tenders. I dont know. I rather just have those they are more fun imho. What do you think?

I had them the once. I don’t care for the tenders much. Everyone in their right mind should just stick with the regular ass fried chicken pieces. They are perfect. What a treat

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #sealab 2021

[jadelotusflower]

November Roundup

Some writing success this month - I finished and posted a new chapter for Against the Dying of the Light, and made progress on The Lady of the Lake and Turn Your Face to the Sun. I didn’t work much on my novel, but I did do some editing on the first third so that’s progress.

Words written this month: 6647

Total this year: 67,514

November books

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo - joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize (with The Testaments by Margaret Atwood) this was an engrossing and interesting read. Stylistically unusual formatting and scant use of punctuation that is a bit jarring at first, but you quickly adapt as you read. There’s no plot as such - instead the story is formed by vignettes of twelve black women and their disparate yet interconnected lives. We have mothers and daughters, close friends, teachers and students, although the connections aren’t always obvious at first - we can be exposed to a character briefly in the story of another with no idea that she will be a focus later on. It’s very skillfully done, to the point whereupon finishing I wanted immediately to re-read (but alas, it was already overdue back to the library). There is so much ground covered that we are really only given a glimpse into the characters lives, but there is a diversity of intergenerational perspectives of the African diaspora in the UK, and I highly recommend.

The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett - after finishing The Pillars of the Earth I had intended to read the sequel, but this was available on the library shelf and I had to place a hold on World Without End, so the prequel came first. Set sixty years before the Conquest (150 before Pillars) it primarily addresses the growth of the hamlet of Dreng’s Ferry into the town of Kingsbridge, through the lives of a monk with a strong moral code, a clever and beautiful noblewoman, and a skilled builder, working against the machinations of an evil bishop. Sound familiar? This is Follet’s most recent work, and I do wonder if he’s running out of ideas as this covers very similar thematic ground.

Ragna is a compelling female character, but once again the romance-that-cannot-be with Edgar is tepid, Aldred is a very watered down version of Prior Philip, and there’s no grand framing device such as building the cathedral to really tie to all together (although things do Get Built, and it’s interesting but not on the level of Pillars). This is the tail end of the Dark Ages and it shows - Viking raids, slavery, infanticide - and while it seems Follett’s style is to put his characters through much tragedy and tribulation before their happy ending, I wish writers would stop going to the rape well so readily. But at least the sexual violence isn’t as...lasciviously written as in Pillars? Scant praise, I know. But Follett’s strength in drawing the reader into the world and time period is on display, made even more interesting in this era about which we know very little.

Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - I have a great deal of respect for Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister who was treated utterly shamefully during her tenure and never got the credit she deserved, perhaps excepting the reaction to her iconic “misogny speech” whichyou can enjoy in full here:

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the first woman to be Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs in Nigeria, was also the former Managing Director of the World Bank, and currently a candidate for Director-General of the WTO.

This is an interesting examination of women in leadership roles, comparing and contrasting the lives and experiences of a select few including (those I found the most interesting) Ellen Sirleaf, the first female President of Liberia, Joyce Banda, the first female President of Malawi, New Zealand’s current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and of course, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala themselves.

November shows/movies

The Vow and Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult - I’ve been following the NXIVM case for a while now, when the news broke in 2017 I was surprised and intrigued that it involved actresses from some of my fandom interests - Alison Mack (Smallville), Grace Park and Nikki Clyne (Battlestar Galactica), and Bonnie Piasse (Star Wars). Uncovered: Escaping NXIVM is an excellent podcast from that point in time that’s well worth a listen. There’s been a lot of discussion comparing these two documentaries and which one is better, but I feel they’re both worthwhile.

The Vow gives a primer of NXIVM as a predatory “self improvement” pyramid scheme/cult run by human garbage Keith Reniere, from the perspective of former members turned whistleblowers Bonnie Piasse, who first suspected things were wrong, her husband Mark Vicente who was high up in the organisation, and Sarah Edmondson who was a member of DOS, the secret group within NXIVM that involved branding and sex trafficking. Seduced gives more insight into the depravity and criminality of DOS from the pov of India Oxenburg, just 19 when she joined the group and who became Alison Mack’s “slave” in DOS - she was required to give monthly “collateral” in the form of explicit photographs or incriminating information about herself or her family, had to ask Mack’s permission before eating anything (only 500 calories allowed per day), was ordered to have sex with Reniere, and other horrific treatment - Mack herself was slave to Reniere (as was Nikki Clyne) and there were even more horrific crimes including rape and imprisonments of underage girls.

Of course each show has an interest in portraying its subjects as less culpable than perhaps they were (there were people above and below them all in the pyramid after all) - Vicente and Edmondson in The Vow and Oxenburg in Seduced, but what I did appreciate about Seduced was the multiple experts to explain how and why people were indoctrinated into this cult, and why it was so difficult to break free from it. This is a story of victims who were also victimisers and all the complications that come along with that, although I’m not sure any of these people are in the place yet to really reckon with what happened and all need a lot of therapy.

Focusing on individual journeys also narrows the scope - there are other NXIVM members interviewed I would have liked to have heard a lot more from. There is also a lot of jumping back and forth in time in both docos so the timeline is never quite clear unless you do further research. I would actually like to see another documentary one day a bit further removed from events dealing with the whole thing from start to finish from a neutral perspective. The good news is that Reniere was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison so he can rot.

I saw value in both, but you’re only going to watch one of these, I would say go for Seduced - if you’re interested in as much information as possible, watch The Vow first to get a primer on all the main players and then Seduced for the full(er) story.

The Crown (season 4) - While I love absolutely everything Olivia Coleman does, I thought it took a while for her to settle in as the Queen last season and it’s almost sad that she really nailed it this season, just in time for the next cast changeover (but I also love everything Imelda Staunton does so...) This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t completely sold on Gillian Anderson as Thatcher - yes I know she sounded somewhat Like That, but for me the performance was a little too...affected? (and someone get her a cough drop, please!) 

It is also an almost sympathetic portrayal of Thatcher - even though it does demonstrate her classism and internalised misogyny, it doesn’t really explore the full impact of Thatcherism, why she was such a polarising figure to the extent that some would react like this to her death:

But I suppose it’s called The Crown, not The PM.

Emma Corrin is wonderful as Diana, and boy do they take no prisoners with Charles (or the other male spawn). I was actually surprised at how terrible they made Charles seem rather than both sidesing it as I had expected (but perhaps that’s being saved for season 5). It does hammer home just how young Diana was when they were married (19 to Charles’ 32), how incompatible they were and the toxicity of their marriage (standard disclaimer yes it’s all fictionalised blah blah). The performances are exceptional across the board - Tobias Menzies and Josh O’Conner were also standouts and it’s a shame to see them go.

I was however disappointed to see that the episode covering Charles and Di’s tour of Australia was not only called “Terra Nullius” but the term was used as a very tone deaf metephor that modern Australia was no longer “nobody’s land/country”. For those who aren’t aware, terra nullius was the disgraceful legal justification for British invasion/colonisation of Australia despite the fact that the Indigenous people had inhabited the continent for 50,000 years or more. While the tour was pre-Mabo (the decision that overturned the doctrine of terra nullius and acknowledged native title), there was no need to use this to make the point, especially when there was no mention at all of the true meaning/implication of the term.

The Spanish Princess (season 2, episodes 4-8)- Sigh. I guess I’m more annoyed at the squandered potential of this show, since the purpose ostensibly was to focus on the time before The Great Matter and give Katherine “her due” - and instead they went and made her the most unsympathetic, unlikeable character in the whole damn show. (Spoilers) She literally rips Bessie Blount’s baby from her body and, heedless to a mother’s pleas to hold her child, runs off to Henry so she can present him with “a son”. I mean, what the actual fuck?

I’m not a stickler for historical accuracy so long as it’s accurate to the spirit of history (The Tudors had its flaws, but it threaded this needle most of the time), but this Katherine isn’t even a shadow of her historical figure - she’s not a troubled heroine, she’s cruel and vindictive, Margaret Pole is a sanctimonious prig, and Margaret Tudor does little but sneer and shout - the only one who comes out unscathed is Mary Tudor (the elder), and it’s only because she’s barely in it at all. It’s a shame because I like all of these actresses (especially Georgie Henley and Laura Carmichael) but they are just given dreck to work with.

This is not an issue with flawed characters, it’s the bizarre presentation of these characters that seems to want to be girl power rah rah, and yet at the same time feels utterly misogynistic by pitting the women against each other or making them spiteful, stupid, or crazy for The Drama. I realise this is based on Gregory so par for the course, but it feels particularly egregious here. (Spoilers) At one point Margaret Pole is banished from court by Henry, and because Katherine won’t help her (because she cant!) she decides to spill the beans about Katherine’s non-virginity. Yes, her revenge against the hated Tudors is...to give Henry exactly what he wants? Even though it will result in young Mary, who she loves and cares for, being disinherited? Girlboss!

This season also missed the opportunity to build on its predecessors The White Queen/Princess and show why it was so important to Henry to have a male heir - the Tudor reign wasn’t built on the firmest foundations and so needed uncontested transfer of power, at the time there was historic precedent that passing the throne to a daughter led to Anarchy, and wars of succession were very recent in everyone’s memory. At least no one was bleating about The Curse this time, which is actually kind of surprising, because the point of the stupid curse is the Tudor dynasty drama.

But it’s not all terrible. Lina and Oviedo are the best part of the show, and (spoilers) thankfully make it out alive. Both are a delight to watch and I wish the show had been just about them.

Oh well. One day maybe we’ll get the Katherine of Aragon show we deserve - at least I can say that the costumes were pretty, small consolation though it is.

#november roundup #long post

[langdvnshepherd]

Gold Dust Woman (Michael Langdon x reader x fem!Michael Langdon)

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: bisexual!reader, smut, succubus (I guess? not really sure how to describe the fuckery happening here lmao), fingering, oral (female receiving)

A/N: Based off an anon for fem!Michael! I think I read it wrong at first so I’m thinking they wanted Michael to turn into fem!Michael, but like… what about Michael AND fem!Michael at the same time???? My bi ass is screaming oof. I’d love to know what you guys think of this, because this is the first time I’ve written something this ~out of my element~ I guess you could say. Anyways, enjoy!!! xx

//

“Mind telling me what all of that was about?” Michael’s voice was calm and collected as he rounded the corner, the soles of his shoes tapping unnervingly against the shellacked wood.

He swiveled on his heels to face her, his face stoic and anticipating her response. Though, judging by the warmth emanating from her inner thighs, he already knew the answer.

“What do you mean, love?” she asked, reaching to pick at the hem of her short dress, anxiety pooling in her chest.

Michael rarely allowed her to sit in on his interviews, though this time he suggested it. One Outpost resident, Mallory to be specific, was rather perplexing. During her first interview with him, he was left confused, bewildered. Michael Langdon is never confused, which is why he called her in for another interrogation, this time with his right-hand in tow. He’d expected to gain her insight, to see if he was glancing over something about the baffling grey that she could pinpoint. What he hadn’t expected was to catch her arousal wafting through his nostrils half-way through, the pungent, sticky sweetness that he knew all too well, only it wasn’t coursing through her body for him.

“Don’t act so timid, little one. Might I remind you I can read your thoughts, so I know how you really feel about Mallory.”

It wasn’t that she was tempted by Mallory, no. That was far from it. The bond between her and Michael was one that could never be severed, she had the long, shimmery slivers of scarred tissue decorating the inside of her forearms and the vivid memory of swimming in the pooled, coppery mixture of their shared blood as a reminder. There was just something about Mallory that reminded her of her life before Michael. Before the world went up in flames along with everything and everyone that inhabited it. For a moment, she reminisced on the tender touches she shared with her female lovers, how different they were from the men she’d taken to bed, Michael especially. It wasn’t that she disliked being with Michael at all, for that would be the furthest thing from the truth, only that being with women was just different. And momentarily, briefly, she missed it.

“Michael, I don’t know what you’re talking abou-”

She was cut off Michael clicking his tongue in disapproval, but secretly he was trying to wrap his mind around how he had missed such a vital part of her life before him. How had he not seen it? He knew she strictly fantasizing and would never act on her desires, but the flames of possessiveness sparked deep within him.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I could smell you from across the room. You wanted her. You still do.”

The tension in the room was palpable as he silently beckoned her closer. She had a way of knowing what Michael wanted from her without him having to say it aloud.

“Listen,” he commanded, pulling her by her hands onto the edge of the bed where he sat so that his bent knees were pressing against her thighs.

“I’m not angry. I just want to know what you really want. Want to know how to please you.”

He was losing control of his current situation, that much he knew. First, there was Mallory, the only human being (he was even beginning to doubt that much) in the Outpost that he couldn’t crack. She never budged, never cowered to her knees the way every other person had. And now this. Not only was his lover thinking of someone else, but Mallory herself had the woman he had bound himself to in blood reminiscing about her days before she met him.

Michael needed that control back. Whatever the cost.

“I don’t ‘know why,’ Michael. It’s not easy to explain. I just-”

“Miss a woman’s touch,” the brooding blonde interrupted her again, finally understanding.

Michael took her silence as an agreement. He smiled cunningly up at her as his fingers separated to brush away the hair from her ear, exposing her neck. It was then that she felt the sensation of warm breath trailing over her collarbone, and another pair of hands on her body that were not Michael’s.

She shivered at the contact, spinning on her heels to see who had entered the room unbeknownst to her, though she gauged that Michael was not alarmed in the slightest. When she turned around, the person, or woman rather, that stood behind her looked eerily familiar.

Her eyes, a slate color in the dimly lit bedroom, though she knew for a fact they would be crystal blue in the natural light. Her hair fell down her shoulders in loose ringlets, the golden blonde that glowed amber in the candlelight being unmistakable. Adorned on her face was the same daunting, alluring expression that she’d seen hundreds of times before. Hazy, hooded eyelids, though her lashes were thicker and fluttered softly as she stared at her. The same protruding jawline that was flexed authoritatively, only it was softer, less rigid than what seemed familiar.  Her frame was much smaller, chest accentuated with plump, pillowy breasts. She was dressed from head to toe in black, wearing a large black ring on her middle finger and smaller, ruby-encrusted one on her pinky. The sight of her elicited the same reaction, an eruption of arousal whirring low within her belly.

She was Michael.

“Michael, what’s going on?” she asked, heartbeat hammering in her ears.

He pulled her closer towards the headboard and onto his lap, the girl following suit. She crawled towards the two of them before planting herself in front of them, balancing idly on her knees.

“Just relax, pet. Let me take care of you,” his words spilled from his lips and brushed over the shell of her ear.

The woman at her feet reached out to touch her, rubbing her nimble fingers against the smooth skin of her knees. She parted her thighs, never once breaking eye contact with her as Michael shifted his position to force each of her legs open by placing them over the outside of his own, each of his strong hands wrapping around her torso to keep her in place.

Shaky breaths escaped her lungs as the woman who favored Michael in every aspect drew her face closer to her middle, a fresh, desperate wave of heat seeping out from her core and onto the front of her panties. She pushed the excess fabric of her dress up to her abdomen, chuckling faintly upon seeing the now damp lace glimmer beneath her and clicking her tongue in the way Michael always did when she revealed just how wet she was for him after only the briefest of touches. To amuse herself, the woman ran her slender thumb over the stickiness that had pooled near her core, eyes widening when she let out the smallest of moans.

“It’s okay, princess. Let it happen. Let me make you feel good,” Michael muttered as she tensed in his arms.

He began mouthing at the sensitive skin of her neck, sucking a trail of faint bruises in an unkempt line and only adding to the overall agony that she currently felt. The woman on her knees in front of her said nothing as she continued to thumb away at her core, increasing the pressure after each circle. If she didn’t find relief soon enough, she thought she could actually die.

She clenched her hands around Michael’s knees as the blonde woman brought her own lips to the front of her panties and began pressing featherlight kisses over the thin material. Her back arched against Michael’s grip as she nosed her way into her cunt, tongue laving over her clothed pussy to hint at the taste of honey that dripped from her.

The golden curls of the woman pooled around her thighs, the feeling of the strands slightly tickling her skin akin to Michael’s when he was in this same exact position. She poked and prodded with her pointed tongue, driving her wild with each pass over, occasionally stalling her intense teasing to flatten her tongue completely against her entire pussy. Michael grunted as he watched her (himself?) tantalize his lover, hands moving from keeping her tummy in an iron grip to palm away at her breasts. She began to feel overwhelmed. So much so that she felt the familiar beginnings of a coil tightening in her belly, thighs shaking as control over her own body whithered away rapidly.

If this woman was anything like Michael, she wouldn’t put it past her to let her cum like this, without granting her the pleasure of feeling a bare tongue against her core. It was driving her absolutely mad, to be so completely confused by everything had happened in a matter of a few brief minutes yet so completely aroused to the point of being able to finish without even being properly touched.

“You know me better than that, pet. I’m not that cruel,” Michael answered her thoughts, breaking up sounds of shallow pants and rustling sheets that occupied the room he shared with his lover. 

She did her best at glancing up at him over her shoulder, though her movements were weak. He caught her glance, smiling lovingly down at her and rubbing soothing, reassuring circles around the swell of her breasts with his thumbs at the same time, in great contrast to the torturous movements of the girl between her legs.

Answering her prayers, her pleads, the feminine figure detached her lips from the lace of her soiled panties, reaching for the waistband. Her breasts hung from her low cut top as she worked at removing her underwear, the supple skin bouncing when she moved. They were peeled from her middle and discarded somewhere out of sight and her glistening cunt was now on full display for her to see.

“Is this what you wanted, hmm?” Michael spoke up again as the woman lowered her face once more to her bare core.

Her eyes remained fixated on her as she flicked the petals of her folds with the tip of her tongue. She wasn’t done teasing, wasn’t ready to give her her all just yet.

“For a woman to touch you like I do? To make you feel the way I do?”

Her agreement came in the form of a loud cry as her lips finally wrapped around her clit and she suckled on the sensitive bud, laving her tongue in tandem while her mouth pulsed around her. She instinctively bucked into her mouth, feeling another bout of arousal coarse through her and soak the woman’s chin when she saw the way her eyes rolled back at the taste.

“But not just any woman, no,” Michael continued as he watched intently at the scene unraveling in front of him.

“You want a woman that knows you like I do. Knows every dip and curve and where that spot is inside of you that makes you scream. That’s what you thought of when you saw her today.” 

His words were falling on deaf ears at this point, as his lover was completely enraptured by the woman’s velvet tongue swimming through her folds, dipping into her entrance, nipping and tugging at her labia with fervor.

She couldn't stop the whiny, broken, “fuck,” that spewed from her lips.

She really was Michael. Down to the feeling over her hands resting firmly on the insides of her thighs (hers didn’t take up quite as much space like his did, but her forceful grip and the cooling sting of the rings on her fingers was still the same), the way she paid expert attention to her swollen bundle of nerves.

“Cum for me, angel. I know you want to.”

She noted how he didn’t say “us.” “Cum for us.” Even further evidence to support the supernatural forces Michael was using to drive her to her breaking point.

Michael reached over her body, shuffling to pin her to his chest despite her squirming with only one hand as his other trailed down to where the woman was lapping away at her cunt. His fingers found her entrance, gliding in effortlessly due to the copious teasing on the other blonde’s (his?) end. 

Her volume increased tenfold as both of them worked at her cunt, his fingers, her mouth. Michael was curling his digits into her, pressing against her most sensitive spot and brushing against her spongey walls as she swallowed him up to the knuckle. The woman had redirected her attention back to her clit, suctioning onto the nerve ending so skillfully that she saw stars.

All it took was their eyes meeting once more, her azure blues locking with hers as her lips engulfed her entire heat, for the coil to snap. She contracted around Michael’s fingers, her moan morphing into a scream as the woman refused to let up on her clit and Michael continued to scissor his fingers into her gushing entrance. She reached one arm behind her head to tug on the ends of Michael’s curls, and her other to grip tightly onto the scalp of the woman’s identical strands.

“Shh, shh. I’ve got you, pet,” Michael cooed in her ear as she shook, pulsating as the last of her orgasm rattled through her body and exhaustion took over.

She was still mystified by the figure who was now sitting upright near her open, trembling legs, wiping her chin with her forearm to clean up the juices that had flowed from her just seconds ago.

What in the fuck had just happened?

The woman prowled over her on all fours, pausing to take in her ruined state before she pressed her lips against hers tenderly. She tasted herself on her tongue, tasted the pleasure she had made her feel in an act that would continue to puzzle her endlessly. A flicker of disappointment blossomed when she quickly pulled away and all but dissipated into thin air as if she was never present in the first place.

She was gone. Vanished. All without muttering a single word. Only the electric spark that lingered on her lips from her kiss remained.

Michael let up on his tight grip around her, allowing her to finally take full, restorative breaths. He slid out from under her to hover over her similar to how the woman had before disappearing, then kissed her on the lips passionately. She had long forgotten all about Mallory, or how she had even ended up in this position to begin with. All she knew right now was her undying dedication to Michael. Her mind, her body, her soul.

“You belong to me,” Michael spoke in a whisper so close to her face that his breath fanned over her cheeks.

He held her by the neck, applying the slightest of pressure as to reiterate the sincerity of his words.

“Never forget that.”

//

Tagging:

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