#it absolutely killed my drive to draw anything for several years

[localcryptidsteg]

Tracing, Stye Theft, and the need to be Unique

A comment chain on Instagram got me thinking about these things earlier. Someone asked what common art advice is actually bad advice, and I left a short list that Ive heard, among which is "dont trace."

Naturally, this ruffled some feathers, but heres the deal: so long as you arent line-for-line copying the majority of someone elses work and passing it off as yours? Theres absolutely nothing wrong with tracing. Copying and tracing are two different things; think back to the old "how to draw" books. How they blocked out anatomy and taught you the relative distance of things with lines and joints. Tracing... is essentially doing the same thing. As a learning tool for personal use, being able to take a picture and draw the skeletal frame over it helps you with perpesctive and anatomy immensely! It even helps in stylization. Tracing develops the skills you need in order to replicate something, replication develops the skills you need in order to stylize.

Which brings us to our next issue.... style theft isnt a thing. It doesnt exist. Unless youre forging paintings and passing them off as the real deal, there is absolutely zero reason not to look at the techniques and stylization your favorite artists use and replicate that. Again, it helps you develop skills like shading and coloring and lineart. And having your own "style"? One that has to be completely different from anyone elses? Thats bullshit! Most artists dont even have ONE style. The best artists have several and go out of their way to continue learning more!

Think of it this way: we wouldnt have 2d animation if actual artists gave a flying fuck about their "style" being copied. The Renaissance artists would never have risen to prominence if their teachers hadnt sat them down and told to paint how they did. Bob Ross would never have had a tv show if mimicking how someone else creates mattered in any way at all.

The way you develop your own style is simply this: you look at your favorite artists, you analyze what elements of their work make your brain happy and what are enjoyable for you to do, you mash them all together and voila. Your very own (not really at all) "unique" style.

I think this frankly terrible and counterintuitive art advice trend is killing artists. When you go online as an artist and preach to a bunch of younger aspiring artists that invaluable tools for growth are inherently bad and wrong and theyre evil for using them, you do three things at once:

First, you make them fear creation. "I want to draw or sculpt or knit or what have you, but what if I accidentally copy someone? Then Id be a bad person!"

Second: you kill the joy of creation. They become too focused on the end result and never really learn how to make for the sake of making.

Third: you block their avenues of progress. In order to get better at your craft, you really do have to try everything. Trying to make certain techniques into something "off limits" only serves to hinder that progression. It causes stagnation which in turn causes frustration, which leads us back to issue 2.

When I was a kid, my grandma would drive two hours to my city every year for my birthday, and every year she would take me to the art museum. My grandma loved art with every fiber of her being. She was thrilled when my mom went to art school. She was estatic when my sibling and I took up drawing. But she never, EVER tried to make anything herself. See, when she was in school, her art teacher had told her she wasnt very good. And she, being a kid, believed it. And she stopped trying. She would never color with me and my sibling, would never try drawing with us when we begged her to join in. Shed chuckle and say "oh, I couldnt draw a straight line with a ruler!" And sit and watch us work and rave over how good we were at it instead.

When she hit about 80 or so, her memory started going. But she still loved the museum and she still loved art. One of my aunts talked her into taking one of those "how to paint" classes at a little studio near her house. She painted a cake. And you know what? It was a really friggin good painting! Itd be hanging in my room right now if my aunt hadnt called dibs!

My point is this: anyone of any skill level can learn to draw or paint or whatever. Im a major proponent of this; I always have been. But shaming creatives for how they do it, for how they learn it, for what they make? That destroys the drive to create, and it can last a lifetime. Who knows what my grandma could have made if not for that teacher? Who knows how many young artists felt nothing but shame and guilt over their work and quit because of bad-faith art advice?

#steg speaks #my art #artist advice #art advice

[spottyissleepwalking]

Hello, sorry to bother you but can I ask a question about the warrior cats disability post you reblogged earlier? And I mean this in good faith, honestly, I want to understand.

I haven't read warrior cats, but just from what was described in the post, it sounds... realistic? Since not everyone bounces back from becoming disabled. For example, a coworker and I (in a labor intensive field) have the same injury to our knee. He, I guess you could say has responded "well" to his injury. He has a higher drive to push past pain, not let it limit what he can do, and is able to work as hard, or harder, than non-disabled coworkers, but he is still absolutely disabled. In his case, he often overworks himself and thus ends up having to take off several days to recover and is on a lot of pain medication, both Rx and self medicated. In the scenario presented in the post, he would def be able to stay in the warrior class. But I didn't respond well to my injury, and don't react well to pain. I fell into a deep deep depression that took almost 8 years to crawl out of. Doing the exact same tasks as he does, I work slower and more carefully, avoiding pain at all costs rather than pushing past/despite pain. I'm slower, not as effective. But I don't need to take time off or frequent breaks to recover, and though it takes a little longer, I do just as much work as he does at the end of the week when accounting for the time he takes to recover. I like to imagine that I've reacted to my injury well, but can't help feeling inadequate and worthless when compared to coworker. Especially on days that we work side by side and he's running quite literal circles around me. And remember, we have the exact same injury with very similar causes and only a few months time difference.

From what I understand of the culture of Warrior cats (which is admittedly very very little) I imagine I'd end up in a healer class as well, even if I wished I could be warrior class. I would give almost anything to work as fast, as effectively, as hard as coworker does. But I can't.

So I guess what I'm asking is, what am I missing from the narrative, as someone who hasn't read warrior cats, that makes a character, who has not returned to their former glory after an injury, a poor representation of disability? As the post stands on its own right now, it just feels like it's kicking disabled people when they're down for not acting like they're still fully abled. Like shaming a paralyzed person for not joining a sport.

I have to assume that it's just poorly worded for anyone outside the fandom, but it really does come of as... well... ableist. Which is what drove me to ask, since making assumptions of ableism is generally kinda shitty, and I am curious about the source material.

I hope I didn't come off aggressive or let my emotions on the subject get carried away here, genuinely sorry if it does come off rude. I promise am asking in good faith because I want to understand from a creative standpoint if the narrative actually handled it poorly, and how-so, to help myself and others potentially avoid making the same artistic mistakes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text, and again, so sorry for bothering you!

No no!! Not aggressive or rude or anything of the sort :D

I’ll be honest, I didn’t read the full text, but I got the gist of it so I’ll try to answer aptly ^^

The problem with Warriors isn’t that there isn’t disability representation - there is, it’s just. Awful. Why? Because almost every single disabled character, sans THREE, in a series that has thousands of named characters, is FORCED into a role they don’t want - or KILLED. Solely for being disabled, solely for being “different”.

It’s not that they necessarily chose that life for themselves, it’s that it was forced upon them, which is where so many fans (reasonably) draw issue with. Disabled characters are offered the bare minimum in Warriors canon. Either they’re essentially forced to become a doctor, with the trope of “the broken-bodied healing the able-bodied” (which personally unsettled me greatly), or they’re shipped off to the elder’s den, which is a place where cats retire due to old age and are cared for by their Clanmates, usually without ever having the chance to prove themselves, and display both their abilities and weaknesses. They’re just automatically shoved into this corner.

There was a Deaf character, once, in the decades-long span of this book series, that was told he would never become a warrior solely because of his deafness - and then was immediately killed off in a manner that was almost never used again as a device to kill a character.

There was a character who was hit by a car and, as a result, ended up losing the function of one of her back legs. Prior to this, she was training as any other young member of her society would. Immediately after? She became a doctor.

There was a character who became blind due to an outside force, and, despite being the equivalent of maybe a thirty-year-old, immediately retired to the elder’s den.

There was a born blind character who fought to train as a warrior, under a half-blind warrior. He was doing well in his training - until the in-universe religion came down to him and forced him to give up his dreams in order to become a doctor. Granted, his case was a little more complicated and intermingled with plot, but it still stands.

There was a character with anxiety who was a poor hunter, and was pressured to become a doctor because of his lack of skills.

There was a character who was paralyzed, and was dismissed as dead, or “better off dead”, by almost everyone around her - INCLUDING HER OWN FAMILY - except the blind character, who found kinship with her and fought tooth-and-nail to keep her alive and healthy.

And the thing is? These characters are CATS! Cats, who have been documented living alone in the wild with these sort of disabilities and thriving!! Which makes it all the more frustrating to see a narrative built around the appeal of cats, have them have this whole support system and community, and that community actively turn their backs on them.

It’s not about them choosing. It’s about them being forced. Not having any opportunity to grow, or learn, or allow others around them to do the same in regards to them. There’s no acceptance here. In universe, it seems like they’re just shoved into the shadows so the able bodied characters don’t have to look at them or think too hard about them, unless they’re healing their wounds.

The characters themselves are not the poor representation. It’s how the authors have handled them - by shoving them aside, to the shadows, to the dogs. It’s frustrating and disheartening.

#warrior cats #warriors #ask

[kissimirrit]

I’m in love with your killudust fanarts but I’m a bit confused on where that ship stands in your ship list. What do you think about it? How long have you liked it?

One time, I think I must’ve seen you claiming that you started liking it more than killugon cuz you hated how twitter was being a major ass when it came to other types of ships that paired up Killua and Gon with other people.

So I’m curious: if you now like killudust more than killugon, are you gonna start making more killudust art? I’m just wondering about that cuz I thought about it so many times. It’s also okay if you’re not going to either. It’s whatever yk?

(hi! rereading my answer i noticed i come across as crass; so sorry if my tone reads as like i'm mad or upset or angry. talking about getting harassed just makes me feel exhausted).

i like killudust because it's funny and random and it makes me laugh.

ultimately when it comes to ships i like, if it can make me laugh, it shoots up into my top 3 favorites. my otps in any fandoms, the majority of the time, are crackships because i found them funny. my first crackship was gaz x GIR from invader zim when i was 8 or 9 (invader zim was also my first online fandom at around this time btw). i have ALWAYS loved crackships. i have ALWAYS loved silly pairings that made me laugh, whether they had canon basing or not (but them having no canon backing and being very random helped the funny-factor for me)

so as for where killudust stands on my ship list, it genuinely is my OTP for HxH (and in my top 3 for overall ships across all fandoms i am in). i used to REALLY love killugon because of all the silly scenarios one could make with them, because these two characters have such funny interactions!! i started being vocal about killua x gold dust girl in early-mid 2020, so that's a little over two years.

(note: i've talked about killudust on other servers i'm no longer in before these screenshots)

so i've considered killudust my #1 hxh ship for a little over two years, actually.

but unfortunately, romantic killugon has gotten pretty soured for me? i still love platonic/queerplatonic killugon don't get me wrong! but the way the fandom on twitter acts about ships that paired gon and killua with other people (and ESPECIALLY killua with female characters). like, being accused of heinous things and getting a bout of harassment SOLELY for being vocal about a crackship i liked and making silly drawings for it just absolutely severed any love i had for killugon in response. being called a homophobic pedophile (she's??? a card game character??? and it appears like she's within his age range if not a little bit older??? and even then i portray her as a fictional character he "waifus" and not an actual character. like???) and being called a proshipper (this word has been divorced of all meaning it literally means nothing anymore if ppl can just fling it at anyone who ships anything against the status-quo) for a non-problematic crackship just really killed any desire i had to make anymore content for killugon.

unfortunately hxh is no longer my hyperfixation, and hyperfixation is usually a big factor in fandom content i create. but sometimes i'll find a drive to create hxh content again (especially if my friends still into hxh manage to wrangle that inspiration and motivation out of me) and USUALLY i've noticed that motivation comes in the form of killudust. so the handful of times i've dipped my toes back into hxh after my hyperfixation ended was for killudust, so most likely if i were to make hxh content in the future again— it would probably be killudust. i'm a spiteful person by nature, so i'm definately not letting anything STOP me from making things i WANT to make. sometimes it even fuels me to make it even more when it's fresher.

but i hope this answers your questions! i appreciate that you've been paying attention to me, sometimes i just think i scream into a void where no one sees ahaha <3

[alilmusebundle]

Ria wants to go to the peace talks. She’s worked her ass off for this outcome to finally present itself. Hasn’t she earned the right to at least observe in the background or something? To make sure none of the idiots going fuck something up and make everything worse? That would be the safest and smartest move, in her opinion.

Everyone else thinks otherwise.

---

“W-wait, you’re wanting ta...”

A hand runs nervously over the back of Mole’s neck. Ria has seen this tell numerous times from the cowardly lizard. It wasn’t one she liked.

“That’s... kid, m-maybe you should, uh, compromise on this one. I know you’re the best at talkin’ idiots in the ranks down with your weird... knowing business, but this is uh, this is the Tower freaks. You remember our talk about defacto gods and all, yeah? Overpowered hunks with way to much firepower and apathy for human suffering? Ringing any bells?”

Ria’s nails dig into her palms as she glares. Mole does not meet her eyes.

“Yeah, Threads’ should take point with this... sorry kid. Listen to your mama.”

---

“No. Absolutely not.” Crash- no, ugh, Noah- looks her dead in the eye, green eyes burning with an intensity she meets head on. “You don’t have to do anything else, Ria. Hell, you’ve done enough- more than any kid ever should have, and you’re lucky nothing seriously bad has happened to you- but I’ve already lectured you enough.”

Noah reaches to grab her shoulder, giving her a strained smile. His eyes stay firm, and she feels like screaming.

“The fact that you managed to get this going with Havoc is amazing... but that is were we draw the line. No more worrying about this. Kimi and the other leaders will handle the rest of negotiations. They got this.”

---

“Keep your snot-nose out of this, brat.”

Kimiko glares, one metallic finger jabbing at her so violently that Ria dodges back on instinct. The other pair of arms finishes lacing up her boot, then gestures at her in a clear, dismissive shooing motion.

“No kids allowed in my meeting. Make yourself useful by keeping HIM busy instead. That way there’s plausible deniability and shit. Now, get outta my face, I’ve got shit to do.”

Eloquent as always, the bitch.

---

Everything turns out fine, and she has no idea what happened. It’s infuriating. It’s terrifying.

She’s had to be so careful. Not knowing something, or just misremembering, has led to so many unfortunate outcomes, (and pointless pain), that the NOT KNOWING makes her feel sick. What if something happens, and she has to rewind past the meeting to fix it, and that leads to the rebellion leaders completely changing how they talk to SOL- or the other way around- and messes EVERYTHING up?

She wasn’t just some normal kid. Normal kids didn’t know what dying felt like. What their arm felt like blown up and then reassembled within their own rewind hell. How bullshit the butterfly affect could be.

Maybe this wouldn’t be driving her insane if it hadn’t been her actual life for like, the past several repeating years. Over, and over, and fucking OVER.

This had just been so easy. Nothing had ever been this easy before. There was time to just... go to school and hang out with friends or just, play a fucking video game! And here she was, waiting for the other shoe to drop!

Abraxas of the neon lights, of towering skyscrapers and darkened alleys. There was always a storm gathering inside it’s hazardous-weather barrier, because it’s inhabitants had a habit of trying to kill each other for stupid reasons.

She wasn’t in the loop anymore. Now that multiple rebellion representatives were known, the different factions were even more on guard, and not willing to inform some high-profile kid anymore. Whatever was going on in the background, it was going to catch her off guard and piss on everyone she loved, all because she didn’t know where to look to stop it.

If someone died to something she could’ve prevented... it was on her to fix it. She had this curse of a power, and this was the purpose she put it to. Even if she went crazy doing it.

#;; Ria #;; drabble

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 301: All My Todorokis

Previously on BnHA: We learned that when a bunch of superpowered villains are suddenly set loose with nobody around to stop them, things get fucked pretty quickly. Old Man Samurai and a bunch of other useless people decided to make “I pretend I do not see it” their new mantra, and resigned. Endeavor had a moment of despair on account of being crushed by the guilt of having ruined the lives of himself, his family, and basically everyone else in the entire world. For various reasons the heretical notion of “person who has done bad things feels sorry for doing them” sent fandom spiraling into a meltdown, so that was fun. The chapter ended with the entire Todoroki clan descending upon Enji’s hospital room to have a dramatic chat about Touya and All That General Fuckery.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “here’s the story of how Baby Touya slowly went insane trying to win his father’s love.” It’s a tale full of subverted expectations and heartbreaking inevitability, and also like twenty panels of the cutest fucking kids who ever existed on planet earth, who are so fucking cute that I can’t stop thinking about their cuteness even with all of the horrifying family tragedy unfolding around them. It is absolutely ridiculous how cute they are. Touya is out here pushing his tiny body past its limits because he inherited the same obsession as his dad and neither of them can put it aside even though it’s destroying them, and yet all I can think about is Baby Shouto’s (。･o･｡) face. Anyways what a chapter.

so I have to confess that even though I managed to avoid being caught off-guard by the early leaks, the number of people reblogging my Endeavor posts from earlier this week and using the tag “bnha 301” kind of gave me an inkling that this chapter will include more Tododrama lol. that said, I don’t know anything else about it, so we’re still good spoiler-wise

AHHHHH FLAHSBAKC AHHHH. omg I know I typoed the shit out of that, but I’m just going to leave it lol I think it’s fitting

holy shit holy fuck. so this is Rei and Enji’s first meeting, then??

yepppp, oh shit

so wait, I know this is not even the slightest bit important, but are they meeting at Enji’s home or Rei’s? because I always figured that Enji was the one with the super-Japanese aesthetic, but maybe that was Rei’s side of the family all along

(ETA: from what I found during my very brief google search, omiai meetings are often held at fancy hotels or restaurants, so maybe that’s what this is.)

there’s such a period drama feel to this setting. like it’s so outrageously formal fff how can anyone stand this kind of atmosphere though seriously

OH THANK GOD

I mean they’re still stiff af but at least they’re not rigidly sitting in seiza and staring at each other unblinkingly anymore lol. Enji’s actually got his hands in his pockets now. why is this somehow almost cute

oh damn it’s the flowers

Rei seems so subdued and it’s so hard to get any idea of what she’s actually thinking. I want to see her side of this dammit

but anyway, so at least from Enji’s perspective it seems like even though the marriage was arranged and he picked her because of her quirk, he still loved his wife and wanted to do right by her. the fact that he was watching her and noticed that she liked the flowers, and remembered that detail for all these years -- there’s a reason why Horikoshi’s showing us this. we know what’s going to happen later on; we know how much fear and violence and breaking of trust is coming up ahead, and while it may seem like this scene is serving to soften Enji’s character further -- which to be fair it is -- it also helps drive home the full impact of his abuse. that it’s so terrible not only because of the trauma of the abuse itself, but also because of the way it retroactively destroys all of the good things as well. this could have potentially been such a sweet scene, but it’s inescapably tainted by the knowledge of what’s to come, at least for me. and that’s just brutal

anyways, shit. is the whole chapter going to be like this?? feel free to toss in something I can actually make a joke about sometime, Horikoshi

oop, back to the present

omfg lol

“are you all right” “NO I’M NOT ALL RIGHT WHAT THE FUCK.” “oh, right, because of all the stuff that’s happened with me abusing you and you having a mental breakdown and being hospitalized for ten years and then our son coming back to life and killing thirty people, right, right. I almost forgot.” whoops

omfg you guys I’m loving this new and improved steely-eyed Rei. I’m loving her a lot

and what do you mean “part one” fkjds how long is this going to be. TOO MUCH DRAMA FOR ONE CHAPTER TO HANDLE

oh, hello

yeah I’ll say you did. didn’t seem to bother you much at the time, though

HMMMMMMMMMMMM

Dabi Is A Noumu intensifies even further. anyways though would you fucking look at this boy lounging on this moth-eaten couch doing his best DRAW ME LIKE YOUR FRENCH GIRLS impression wtf

Dabi what if you actually had killed him??? what would you feel?? satisfaction?? regret?? anything at all?? tell me your secrets goddammit

who are you talking to buddy

Fuyumi-chan, Natsu-kun (is it common for brothers to address each other as -kun?? can’t recall seeing that in many other anime, but hey), and “dot dot dot,,,,,, SHOUTO” lol thank you so much for this bountiful heaping of Tododrama Horikoshi we are blessed

AH, WHAT DID I SAY THE OTHER DAY

ULTIMATE MELODRAMATIC THEATER CHILD. “I’M JUST GOING TO LIE ON THIS COUCH SHIRTLESS AND ALONE AND MAKE SPEECHES TO MY FAMILY MEMBERS WHO AREN’T THERE AND SAY THINGS LIKE ‘WATCH ME IN THE PITS OF HELL’ WITH A STRAIGHT FACE BECAUSE NO ONE’S THERE TO JUDGE ME.” WELL JOKE’S ON YOU MISTER CHATTERBOX BECAUSE I AM IN FACT JUDGING THE SHIT OUT OF YOU LOL

(ETA: and on a more serious note, it’s interesting to see that “look at me”/”watch me” theme being used again though, because we see that same sentiment uttered repeatedly by the younger Touya in the flashback. well kid, you definitely got your wish at last. don’t know what else to say.)

OKAY HORIKOSHI HAS DECIDED THAT’S ENOUGH FUN, TIME FOR MORE FLASHBACKS

oh my sweet precious lord

just as cute as we left him. giving us a child this cute when we all know full well what’s going to happen to him is just unspeakably cruel though

HOMG

I’m fucking speechless. you broke me, congratulations. what am I even supposed to do with this

I can’t get over this. moving forward my life will be split into two distinct parts, B.P. (Before the Pout) and A.P. (After the Pout)

and meanwhile there’s ALL THIS BACKGROUND ANGST BUILDING UP, AND I CAN’T EVEN FOCUS ON IT. Touya’s arm and cheek are covered in bandages (I’m guessing this is shortly after that “ouch!” panel we got some chapters back), and Enji is deliberately avoiding training with him because he doesn’t want him to hurt himself further. I can’t fucking get over the irony that all this time everyone thought Touya had died because Enji pushed him too far in his training, and it turns out that it’s the opposite -- the tragedy ultimately happened because he didn’t want to push him. but I’m jumping ahead of myself though I guess

by the way,

remember this?? just wanted to remind you that it exists just in case you forgot

so now someone is talking and basically saying that Touya is the exact opposite of what Enji was hoping for when he decided to start playing with quirk genetics

-- okay hold up

...lol no, never mind. for a second I thought “holy shit he looks kind of familiar WHAT IF IT’S UJIKO OMG” before I remembered that Enji would have recognized him during the hospital capture mission if that was the case. so NEVER MIND, PROCEED

IMAGINE THAT, ENJI DOESN’T QUITE SEEM SATISFIED WITH THIS SUGGESTION OF QUITTING NOW

(ETA: how the fuck did this man go around saving 62 towns in a single day what even is All Might.)

[clicks tongue several times] trouble a’brewin’

MEANWHILE BABY TOUYA HAS UNFORTUNATELY INHERITED HIS DAD’S STUBBORN STREAK

KLDIHWOEIJFL:KSDJ

!!!!!!!!!!!

oh my god. oh my god. what is this chapter. WHAT IS IT

so now Touya is all “YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND MY MANLY DESIRE TO BURN MYSELF ALIVE” well you got her there champ

THEY’RE TOO CUTE. OH MY GOD. HIS FURIOUS LITTLE TEARS. HER CHUBBY LIL FACE. HIS STUBBY LIL FISTS. SOMEONE HELP ME

also are they just home alone lol or what. “hey Touya, you’re what, like six now?? do us a favor and look after your baby sister for a couple hours for us would you? make sure not to set yourself on fire or anything.” WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG!!

now it’s nighttime and Enji and Rei are arguing, presumably about his decision not to train Touya anymore

whew. okay. so, a couple of things here

1. first of all I think this conclusively shows that Enji really was trying to do the best he could for Touya. he stopped training him as soon as he realized it was hurting him, but Touya was still determined so he tried to make it work anyway, and even visited doctors to try and figure out if there was anything they could do. then, once they were absolutely sure that it wasn’t going to work, he tried multiple times to explain to Touya why they had to stop. he didn’t just abandon him out of the blue, which is really important to note. “no matter how much I tried telling him...”

so yeah, that debunks another common fandom accusation. so by the time he finally makes this decision, which we all know is going to turn out horribly, it’s basically because he’s already tried everything else he could think of. which, by the way, still doesn’t mean he handled this right. but at the very least he was taking Touya’s feelings into account and he was trying, and he didn’t just abruptly toss his son aside (at least not yet)

2. buuuut, then there’s this panel right below all that

which is the other side of it. if he’d just quit like the doctor person advised him to, that would have been the end of it. Touya would still have been upset, but he would have eventually gotten over it and the family would have moved on and possibly even been happy. but what happens next happens because Enji can’t let go. he still has this maddening urge to surpass All Might, and so he and Rei keep having more children, and then Shouto is born, and Enji finally has a kid he can start projecting all of his hysterical ambitions onto once again, and everything starts spiraling out of control soon after

though p.s. none of that is Shouto’s fault though!! he’s one of the few good things to come out of this whole mess and I’m very happy that he exists. the tragedy is that his dad fucking lost his mind over his quirk and fucked everything up. but that’s on him, not Touya or Shouto

anyways, SLKFJLSHGLKJL

I CAN’T FUCKING TAKE THIS YOU GUYS??? LOOK AT THAT LIL BUTTON OF A NOSE??? I’M LOSING IT HERE???

AND TOUYA JUST SEEMS DEVASTATED OMG

because children aren’t stupid, after all. he understands that his dad is still looking to surpass All Might. and so he feels like a failure, and feels like his dad is trying to replace him because he wasn’t good enough. and even now, isn’t that what the adult Touya is trying to prove?? that he was good enough after all?? “I’ll show you what happens when you give up on me, dad”?? “I’ll show you what I can do”?? fuck my life fuck everything

AND YOU CAN SEE THE TOLL THAT IT’S ALL TAKING ON REI GETTING WORSE AND WORSE AS WELL OH GOD

really nice touch here with the panel outlines becoming all shimmery from the heat of Endeavor’s flames (and/or becoming more unstable as the family gets closer and closer to their breaking point). but man, Horikoshi I can’t handle this, please show us more cute kids or something I can’t

GKELKWFJLDKSHFLKL

WITTLE BABE. BEEB. BUBS. SMOL. lkj; oh ouch a piece of my heart just detached and latched onto him huh look at that

TODOROKI “I’M SO SMALL AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON AND I DIDN’T ASK TO BE HERE” SHOUTO AHHHHH

crazy how they all just seem to know right off the bat lol. kid doesn’t even have object permanence yet, let alone a quirk. but do they care?? IT’S THE HAIR, RIGHT. WE’RE ALL THINKING IT, I’M JUST GONNA COME OUT AND SAY IT. they knew the minute they looked at him lol

AND MEANWHILE TOUYA IS OFF HAVING UNSUPERVISED TRAINING/CRYING SESSIONS IN THE MOUNTAINS OR WHATEVER, AND, UH OH

are those blue flames yet?? they seem pretty close

(ETA: this is one of the few cases where the manga being in black and white is infuriating lol.)

OH MY GOD AND STILL

so it’s not like he was so disinterested that he didn’t notice what was happening, and he was still trying to stop it and get through to him. trying to reassure him that it wasn’t the end of the world and there were other things he could do with his life, but this one particular thing just wasn’t going to happen

fucking hell. it’s agonizing seeing how close they actually were to fixing it. if he’d only said the right words, or if he’d realized at this point how destructive his obsession could be to his kids, and backed off from putting that same pressure on Shouto. we came so close to possibly having a happy ending

AND ALSO THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING BUT PLEASE LOOK AT HOW TOUYA IS LIKE THREE AND A HALF FEET TALL AND HIS DAD IS LIKE NINE AND A HALF FEET. Touya barely comes past his knees flkjlkg. the Todoroki household must have been so filled with like plastic stepstools to reach the bathroom sink and all the little baby toothbrushes, and baby gates to keep the kiddos out of the important grown-up rooms and stuff. and also days-old half-empty cups of water and stale crackers and hot wheels and my little ponies strewn everywhere

“BUT EVERYONE AT SCHOOL SAYS THEY’RE GONNA BE HEROES” a wild Deku parallel appears?? how bout that

I know this is like a pivotal moment in the Todo Tragedy and all, but fucking look at this lil dumpling

“sup bro, it’s me, the manifestation of your fears of inadequacy and lack of fatherly affections. a GAAA. ba-baAA-baa [gurgling baby sounds]”

OHHHHH IT’S THE SOUND OF MY HEART BREAKING OH NO

HE WANTS TO BE LIKE YOU ENJI. good lord somebody please just get this family some therapy

“DAD YOU IGNITED IT IN ME” flkjslkj nope, nope. not ready for this pain here

baby Shouto, would you like to weigh in on this affair? “DA!! ba-ga-daaa, [pacifier chewing noises]” oh my, you don’t say. so insightful for one so young

OH MY GODDDDDD

IT’S SO DRAMATIC BUT ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT ARE THE SHOUNEN WOOSH LINES SURROUNDING FOUR-MONTH-OLD SHOUTO LOL HE WAS LIKE THIS FROM BIRTH OH MY GOD I AM DYING HELP

SHOUTO YOU’RE RUINING THIS ENTIRE CHAPTER!?!?!

“yo, the fuck kind of family was I fucking born into” oh, son. if you only knew. IF YOU ONLY KNEW!!

(ETA: lmao I got so distracted by the ridiculous cuteness that I glossed over the fact that Baby Touya seems to possibly be aiming at him?? it’s hard to tell because he’s also super out of it from heatstroke and may just be losing control in his attempt to show off his upgrade.)

ANYWAY THAT’S THE END EXCEPT WHAT’S THIS LAST LINE OMG

ffffff. and we’re in for ANOTHER chapter of this next week?? MORE drama?? MORE BABIES?? MORE OF EIGHT-YEAR-OLD TOUYA’S SLOW DESCENT INTO MADNESS. MY HEART CAN’T TAKE IT, BUT ALSO YES PLEASE SIGN ME UP

#bnha 301 #dabi #todoroki touya #endeavor #todoroki enji #todoroki rei #todoroki shouto #todoroki fuyumi #todoroki natsuo #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

[creepling]

pineapple express (irl!quackity x gn!reader)

request: just a quick side note - love your writing! if you’re comfortable with it and it doesn’t cross any boundaries could you do a getting high with quackity for a gn! reader? tyty. (anon)

a/n: I DO NOT SUPPORT THE USE OF DRUGS OK. i just thought this was a very fun ask. do not take drugs underage and if you do take drugs, please do so responsibly. don’t end up being a f*ck-up like me lmao. also i’m sorry this is so short, i have been so busy with uni work and i am doing this while i have a night off. hopefully sometime after 4th may i will be writing for frequently.

pairing: irl!quackity x gn!reader (platonic)

summary: the reader has been having a stressful week and alex has the perfect remedy to make them loosen up. and of course, how could the reader deny spending time with their smoking buddy? (inspired by this hilarious clip of paul rudd and jason segel high during an interview.)

tw: use of drugs (cannabis), intoxication, cursing. 

Thank God, it was finally the weekend. I finished all my duties for Friday and I could finally anticipate personal time to myself. I expected to just drive home and become vegitated from exhaustion and stress up until the next week, until I received a text.

Alex: I got some stuff today, smoke buddy. Wanna come over and hang out?

A smile immediately came to my face. I texted back in approvement and prepered myself for arrival; quickly heading back home to change into fresh clothes and fix myself up. I brought my rolling kit in case Alex was on short supply and made my way to my best friend’s house.

“Hola Amigo!” Alex swung the door open the minute I rang the doorbell; his voice exaggerated and welcoming. I engulfed him in my usual hug as my way of entering his apartment. Routinely, I dropped my backpack into the living room and idly chucked my jacket over the couch. I could already inspect the event that was coming; Alex had a ton of shit. Normally Alex counted on me to roll the perfect joint, but when I became too high to do so, he always had emergency cone joints and even a fuck-off bong for special occasions.

“So are we cranking up the hot water and smoking in the bathroom or in here?” I asked for reasurrence, gesturing around the living room.

“Nah, it’s just me and you today. Even the neighbours are out of town.” Alex said, taking a B-turn to his usual spot of the couch. “Have you rolled anything yet?”

“Sorry, didn’t have time. Pretty hectic day.” I apologised, sinking next to him on the couch and running a hand stressfully through my hair. “I’ll quickly do one now. Want your own?”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. You’re a busy-bee.” Alex said understandingly. “Oh and- Yes please.”

I soon got to work, taking my papers and grinder out of my pocket. Alex insisted in dealing with the grinder, putting the buds into the container and got to twisting. At this point, we were a couple of stoners. We never expected to be smoking buddies until I realised that out of all my mutual friends, Alex was the only person that had the same tolerance as me. I could never vibe with anxious high people, since they made me anxious myself. I had fun when I smoked; I giggled profusely and the most aburd theories would pour out of my mouth. Sure, I also got the munchies, but not as bad as Alex. One time Alex ate six packets of hot-flaming cheetos to the point his mouth was on fire. He was so high and flustered from the spice he throught he was breathing out fire. However, that experience does not beat the time I thought his cat was floating in mid air. In conclusion, me and Alex had the funniest experiences when under the influence.

After a few intricate minutes of rolling, I succeedingly rolled two joints. Alex liked his thick at the beginning but thin at the end, and I preferred a medium gurth all throughout. Alex admired my creation, muttering a ‘wow’ and praised my efforts, then took a lighter out of his pocket.

We said our cheers and began to blaze up. Leaning my head back on the couch, I stared at the ceiling as I took slow draws, engulfing the smoke deep into my lungs before deeply exhaling. Alex at this point began to play a playlist (that we specifically created for being stoned) and took his first inhale. He always coughed at the first inhale before slowly easing into his usual rhythm. When my joint was halfway, I began to feel my body outlining with a buzzing sensation. My teeth felt isolated from my gums and the ends of my limbs felt invisible. Our combined exhaled smoke began to intermingle, everytime I took a breath it entered back into my lungs. The sound of Alex’s chuckles flowed into my fuzzy ears and as if almost contagious, I became to chuckle as well.

“That’s some strong stuff.” I commented, my eyes beaming at the ceiling before my eyelids began to grow heavy. Alex hummed in agreement, taking the last straw of his joint before smothering the brown-stained tip into his ashtray. The ashtray was one of those clay creations that had the eyes and mouth on them. I gave him it as a gift for his birthday. 

An hour went by and at this point, Alex and I powered through another joint. We mobilised ourselves onto the floor as we lay on large pillows and blankets; a nook that Alex made up before my arrival. We laughed at the most mundane shit and lay on our backs, our heads closely together as we stared at the ceiling.

“Have you ever had a best friend?” Alex asked in a stoned haze.

“I mean . . . you’re kinda my best friend.” I admitted, a sentence that would probably not leave my mouth if I was sober due to hesitation.

“Really? That is so sweet.” Alex said, his tone of voice so idle it was borderline adorable.

“Am I your best friend?” I asked, my eyes glancing over to him anticipating a response.

“You know this, (Y/N). I have had the same best friend since I was twelve years old . . . and he is imaginary.”

“Oh my fucking God . . . Not Pablo.” I cringed, squeezing my bloodshot eyes closed. The amount of times Alex has talked about his childhood imaginary friend while high is annoyingly been multiple times. At this point, I don’t know if he was joking or being serious. Or just completely and utterly stoned.

“He’s fucking amazing, (Y/N)! I’m not fucking kidding!” Alex exclaimed, looking at me in shock but also trying to hold back a laugh.

“Oh yeah sorry . . . I didn’t mean to offend Pablo.” I said sarcastically, “Pablo who visits you in your dreams!” 

Alex howled at my words and laughed from his chest, clenching his ribs from the pain. A laugh also escaped my throat harshly and I coughed from the suddenness, slamming my hand into a pillow as I was paralyzed from the hilariousity.

“Oh my God . . . I’m literally sweating” Alex mustered out in between wheezes. He was bent double on the floor, still clenching at his ribs. The sight of him made me chuckle even when my laughter became to calm down.

“Then take off your hat, silly!” I said, noticing the beams of sweat that formed on his temple. 

“You jerk! I can’t take off my hat.” Alex exclaimed, his fingers clenching onto the hem of his beanie as if he thought I was going to yank it off him. “It’s a mental compulsion!”

“A mental compulsion?” I emphasised in confusion, his random reasoning retracting me back into a fit of laughter. “Why’s that? Will Pablo come and kill us all if you take it off? Is that why you have been wearing one for all these years?”

Alex at this point laughed so hard at my joke, I was convinced he stopped breathing. When his body allowed him to exhale, he let out the loudest cackle I have ever heard come out his mouth. It even beats the ones he makes on streams. His sudden burst of laughter made we want to make him laugh even more.

“Don’t take off the magic hat, Alex! Otherwise Pablo will come visit you!” I mocked a spooky voice as I sat up from the floor and began to tickle Alex into submission. Alex squirmed, his red eyes now pouring with positive tears. His belly laughs continued as I physically taunted him in a joking manner.

“I’m sorry Pablo, I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me!” Alex jokingly pleaded, his voice becoming so high-pitched that his vocal chords let out a squeak. I flopped back onto the pillows in laughter as we were squirming like idiots for several minutes. Once our jester behaviour came to a close, our laughters died out and we lay exhausted on the floor. The music from the speakers now dominated the sound in the room. Alex breathed heavily next to me trying to catch his breath. It was moments like this were I felt the least anxious, were I could just let go and not worry about the world. It felt absolutely bliss. 

TAGLIST ! / @momo-has-a-gun @diggorysmalfoy @quack42069 @obsidiyan​ (join my taglist!) 

#quackity x reader #irl!quackity x reader #quackity x you #quackity x y/n #gender neutral reader #quackity x gn!reader #quackity imagine #quackity fanfic #mcyt fanfic #mcyt imagine #mcyt x reader #youtuber imagine #quackity fluff #platonic quackity x reader #stoner!quackity #quackity one-shot

[tricktster]

i finally bought a new car, which required me to trade in my beloved old car. Now there was a lot that sucked about my old car, like, for example:

 the driver’s window seal leaked, so I had to hold a towel up to it whenever I went through the car wash or got caught in a thunderstorm, or in the alternative, appear places as my alter ego, Ol’ Wet Sleeve.

one day, for no discernible reason, the passenger door power lock made a metallic shriek for thirty minutes and then refused to ever work again

the windshield fluid reservoir was cracked, so I not only had to stop at every gas station to wipe the salt off my windshield all winter, but until the last of the fluid worked its way out of its system, every parking spot looked like my car had done a blue tinkle

something went terribly wrong with the anti-theft system which caused it to beep incessantly until the battery quite literally drained from the effort every time I locked my door and it was even mildly humid, culminating in the day its incessant wailing ruined a kishi bashi concert and then never deployed again

once there was a chipmunk on the windshield and I needed to get to work so I started the car and began driving VERY slowly in the hopes it would jump off, but it instead disappeared into a hole next to the wipers and I just had to hope it crawled out at work because i was late and surely that hole didn’t lead anywhere

the hole apparently led somewhere, and the chipmunk made a home somewhere under the hood

thereafter, the chipmunk, and I do not understand the mechanics here, figured out how to get into the cabin and left about 15 uneaten acorns, 30 partially eaten acorns, 100 acorn shells, and 1000 tiny poops on the floor

after i got the tires rotated last year, the right front wheel made an irreversible and humiliating squeaking noise whenever i went less than 50 miles an hour

it got stuck in very small amounts of snow with extreme, perverse regularity

there were inexplicable danger buttons on the steering wheel that made the automatic transmission turn into a manual - which I cannot drive. But don’t worry, they were incredibly easy to deploy accidentally and could only be fixed by turning the whole car off

the horn sounded like a clown nose

After five years without so much as a scrape, I told my mom about my intention to buy a better car and trade in the old one for a few thousand bucks. Approximately 17 hours thereafter, my mom accidentally backed into it with her car, leaving a huge dent and rendering the whole car worth literally dozens of dollars.

Three days later, my mom ran into it again, but this time with the rider mower. Although the rider mower cannot top five miles per hour, she claimed the collision was unavoidable because “the rider mower doesn’t have brakes!” although she was unable to explain how that prevented her from, you know, steering around the large stationary object. Also the rider mower has brakes. 

Now I know this all sounds very bad and dumb. However, there were three great things about my car that made up for all that nonsense:

1. it only had two seats. Examples of why this ruled:

 “oh, you guys need a ride somewhere? Oh sorrrrrry I caaaaaan’t, it’s a twooooo seater.”

 “you need help moving? SOOOOOORRRYYY I CAAAAAN’T FIT ANYTHING IN THERE AND I ONLYYYYY GOT TWO SEATSSS MANNNNN.”

“It’s my turn to be the DD? Sure, that only seems fa- OH SORRY CAN’T NOT EQUIPPED TWO SEATS IS THE THINGGGG.

2. because it was stupid small, I could go roughly 340 miles on about 20 dollars of gas (unless I pressed the red button that made it much less fuel efficient but made the engine noise go “vrmVOOM,” you know, to impress men)

Lastly, and most importantly:

3. the license plate that it was randomly assigned was absolutely incredible. Now I don’t want to get doxxed so this is a fake plate to protect my car’s identity, but it was, in essence, ORC-42069. It was fantasy creature + the funny numbers. It was so fucking choice. 

Anyway, I loved that stupid, selfish, garbage car, but it was time to let it go, on account of I Drive In Vermont And This Winter It Nearly Killed Me (On 3 Separate Occasions). So two weeks ago I agreed to trade in the Jerkmobile for, and this is no joke, ONE DOLLAR, I said goodbye to the funniest plates in automotive history, I put several thousand bucks down on a preowned car with only 8k miles and that sweet all wheel drive, and I settled in to wait for the NYSDMV to process the registration.

It took like fifteen days to get the registration settled, but because NYSDMV employees, like the rest of us, are dealing with a global pandemic, I wasn’t about to complain about the wait. And I like to think that my non-Karen energy reaped beautiful rewards. See, at the dealership this evening, I finally laid eyes on my brand new car. 

Look, I don’t believe in God. I have to remind myself sometimes that there’s nobody pulling the strings, that human beings tend to draw connections between unrelated points of data, that none of this MEANS anything. And yet, at the same time....

oh what intelligence

what divine providence

that my new randomly generated license plate should begin with a thrash metal band and end in 69.

[mars-writes-1999]

Penumbra Podcast fan Theory

I have a theory about how this season is going to end and where the Junoverse is headed. None of this is certain, it’s all just theory. This isn’t about Nureyev’s debts though, I have genuinely no idea what’s going on with that boi but he worries me lots. I love him, and can’t figure him out. This is about the other class X radical. 

SPOILERS FOR JUNO STEEL AND WHAT LIES BEYOND PART 2

tl;dr  Jet saw Nureyev/Ransom fly away with the Ruby 7. The Ruby 7 sent the distress signal. The Ruby 7 is a sentient ai. The Ruby 7 is the other class X radical.

1. Jet saw Nureyev/Ransom fly away with the Ruby 7.

There was a line from Jet that stuck out to me right away in What Lies Beyond part 2. At the very beginning of his interrogation jet says "I do not think. I know. There is nothing on this ship that they want." He also later says "There is nothing on this ship that they want. That is final". I do put more stock in the first than the second quote because by the second one he is playing along with Juno's plan and intentionally being angry. I have looked through the scripts and I don't think we're ever told where Jet is being held (lmk if I'm wrong) but for my theory to work he is somewhere with a window and/or he saw things before being put in a "cell" at all.

Jet is a straightforward guy and went into that interrogation with a plan. He had time to think about what he wanted to say to Juno and what he said was "I do not think. I know." I take this to mean she really does know. He knows that Ransom, who dark matters is looking for, is not on the ship. He knows that the Ruby 7, who he believes dark matters is looking for (I'll get to this later), is not on the ship. 

While my Ruby 7 theory is a bit more of a long shot, I REALLY think Jet saw Ransom escape. He says in no uncertain terms that he KNOWS that there isn’t anything that Dark Matters is looking for. Even if we make an assumption that Jet thinks they’re only looking for one 

2. The Ruby 7 sent the distress signal

So I’ve thought this might be true since my second listen through the episode. It was a bit of a wild guess at first, but the more I think about it the more I buckle down on it. It lines up in a lot of ways where nothing else I can think of does. This whole argument does assume that Sasha and Dark Matters didn’t just fabricate the distress signal, but given her distaste for agent G (god rest her soul), I think the signal was real. 

When trying to decide who could have sent the signal we can immediately rule out literally every person in the carte blanche family. Buddy and Juno do a good job of explaining to us why each one of them couldn’t be it. 

Buddy was dying (plus we have the added bonus of her monologue and knowing what she was doing)

Juno, Vespa, and Ransom were in sight of each other and in the way of EMP waves

Rita’s comms were knocked out by the EMP waves

Jet was fixing the Ruby 7 and was right next to the EMP waves. He was also pretty busy trying to keep buddy from allowing herself to be killed

All of these things considered, we can also just assume that no one on this ship would rat them out. The only possible defection is Ransom, but despite not knowing what his motives are, I don’t think he ratted them out to Dark Matters. 

The only thing with the sentience to call out would be the Ruby (I’ll provide evidence for its sentience in a moment). I don’t know why it would reach out to Dark Matters specifically, but maybe it was just reaching out to anyone with a distress call. I don’t know how space distress calls work, but Sasha did need to specify that the call didn’t come from the Carte Blanche which means vehicles may have the power to send out a distress call. 

We know from Sasha and Juno’s conversation that the distress call was sent out 4 times in 2 hours. In the episode we see 3 major EMP blasts: The one between episodes, the one when Vespa and Ransom start arguing and Buddy can’t communicate, and the one Buddy barely avoids by getting into the safe room. It isn’t unreasonable to presume there was a 4th EMP wave that occurred after Buddy was safe and sound but before the entire team made it back safely. 4 distress signals for 4 emp waves. If the Ruby 7 is the one sending these, then this math makes sense.

In The Heart of it all Part 2 Jet says to Buddy “Even an EMP so direct couldn’t deactivate its computer mind for a moment - though it is still bitter about its engines.” This means the Ruby may have been scared about its engines dying and therefore it sent out a distress signal. 

None of this is provable at this point, but I also haven’t found any evidence to the contrary. If nothing following this is true, I still think this may be true. 

3. The Ruby 7 is a sentient AI

It is at this point that I would like to acknowledge that I am using it/its as pronouns for the Ruby 7. This is how the car has been referred to in the show up until this point and so it is how I will be referring to it from here on out. If any of this pans out and the Ruby 7 uses different pronouns or signifiers in future episodes I will refer to it differently. 

Before I give the reasons I think the Ruby 7 itself is sentient, I want to talk about why I think it’s plausible that Kevin and Sophie would take the story in this direction. The reason is pretty simple, they’ve told us they’d be willing to. Here is a clip of Kevin and Sophie in the Season 1 Q&A. 

 [audio file]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cOXj3ybVkszLdt8U8BiRrVW3Cy7O_oGl/view?usp=sharing

[google doc transcript of audio file]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16EP7CP6Wxic3q7-QhPce1dinan5A0ACNDdxZ4DfaEtA/edit?usp=sharing 

So not only does this clip make it clear that Kevin has wanted robots in some form from the start, it shows that Sophie is open to the idea. We also hear them talk about how big of a deal it would be to introduce elements like this into the story. I would consider all of this setup as treating the concept of AI with the respect and time it deserves. We also know how much Kevin loves the Ruby 7 so making the car a main character would absolutely be within the realm of possibilities. The Ruby 7 is arguably the 7th member of their crew with or without sentience. 

Now to discuss the proof of the sentience of the Ruby 7. There’s a lot of evidence for this. The car has always been sassy and had a personality, but there are several moments that point to more than this. 

In the very beginning of part 1 of Tools of Rust, we see Jet directly mull over the sentience of the Ruby 7. 

The Ruby 7’s many background calculations make it more like a horse. It can be controlled, but only insofar as it wants to be controlled. (HE SHAKES HIS HEAD AND SNORTS, DISMISSING HIMSELF) “Wants to.” This car can make you believe in ghosts, too — a spirit in the machine. But the Ruby 7, whatever the force of its calculations, cannot want and cannot think; it can only behave like it does. ~from Tools of Rust Script released to 10$ Patreon supporters

This gives some of the base backgrounds into how Jet thinks about the car he is closest to. In this episode he refers to the ruby as “a wild horse, I must break it in.” The catalyst for this episode occurs while Jet is breaking down the tractor shield generator because when driving the Ruby 7 “Manuevers have not responded as they should.” There are of course reasons for these things that are not sentience. Jet himself does not think the car is sentient at the beginning of this episode. We also know that his view of the car is changing throughout his arc of this season. In its most recent appearance, we see the Ruby at its most sentient. Two distinct moments come to mind in regards to this. 

First, in part one as they are discussing their plan after Rita deploys the Book: 

JET:  We will be on our own — even the Ruby 7 will temporarily shut down. RUBY 7: (PETTY/ANNOYED BEEPS) BUDDY: … Come again? JET: The Ruby insists that it will not shut down. It is incorrect. RUBY 7: (REALLY ANNOYED BEEPS) JET: The Ruby says that I should not tell it what it can and cannot do. VESPA: Really built some sass into that thing, huh? NUREYEV: Is it just me, or… have responses like this become more common from our mysterious vehicle? VESPA: I swear its voice changed, too. BUDDY: Then we’ll allow the car its moody teenage years, I think; after all this is over I’ll buy it an industrial supply of eyeliner and posters of sad young men. ~ From The Heart of it All part 1 script released to 10$ Patreon supporters

Here several characters are remarking upon the increasing sentience of the Ruby 7. In part 2 of this episode, we see further evidence that the crew, especially Jet, has noticed changes in the Ruby which make it seem more and more sentient. 

BUDDY: Singing and theoretical mathematics? Is there anything that car can't do? JET: Increasingly I worry that there is not. Even an EMP so direct couldn’t deactivate its computer mind for a moment — though it is still bitter about its engines. (HE ACTUALLY IS WORRIED ABOUT WHAT THE HELL THE RUBY 7 IS, BUT NOW ISN’T THE TIME FOR THAT) But in this moment I am far more worried by.... ~ From Heart of it All part 2 script for 10$ Patreon Supporters

Here it is clear that not only does Jet sound concerned about the Ruby 7, but Kevin’s direction shows that Jet is genuinely unsure of the Ruby. Not just that he doesn’t know what the Ruby 7 is doing, but that he doesn’t know what the Ruby 7 is. 

Now that I’ve shown all of the evidence I have I’m going to extrapolate some of this to draw a line from this evidence to my theory in part 1. 

Jet knows something is up with the Ruby 7. He has seen Nureyev leave the carte blanche in the Ruby 7 and therefore knows the car is not on the ship. As the delivery notes say “now isn’t the time for that”. What does Jet have while in his “cell” but time? He spends part of his imprisonment sitting and thinking about the Ruby 7. He knows that Dark Matters could have easily found the cure mother prime so he assumes there is something else they are looking for. He realizes that his car is sentient. He realizes that they are looking for 2 main things, Ransom and the Ruby 7. He saw both of these leave. He says "I do not think. I know. There is nothing on this ship that they want."

For this to work, the Ruby 7 needs to be classified as a Class X radical, this is a tall order, but I think the Ruby 7 meets the criteria. 

 4. The Ruby 7 is the other class X radical

1st of all, look at that green car? That car is SO rad. 

Jokes aside, there are 2 main criteria I’m using to determine that the Ruby 7 could be the class X radical Dark Matters is looking for. First, is it literally possible that this is what Dark Matters is looking for? Does it fit any descriptors Director Wire gives us during her interview with Juno? Second, does it fit the definition of a class X radical? 

In answer to the first question, we consider what Dark Matters is searching for. We know that they know it’s class X, but not much else. In fact, Sasha suggests that Juno may know more than her about the radical because he’s been living with it. This gives the impression that they might not really know what they’re looking for. My theory here is they know that they are looking for a sentient robot, but they don’t know it’s a car. This explains why they know what they need to about its threats but not much else. It may also explain why some of the agents were looking in drawers. If they were not looking for Nureyev (cause like Buddy said, they should know he’s not inches tall) then perhaps they were looking for a sentient robot. Unless I’m misremembering something, I think this is all we really get in terms of information on what the second radical is. Sasha doesn’t give Juno much information despite giving him everything she can about the cure mother prime.

In answer to the second question, we look toward the definition Sasha gives Juno for a radical: “any person or object with the potential to cause significant change to civilized human life as we know it”. AI with sentience fits this definition. Even if you don’t think it does, the piece from the season 1 Q&A shows that Sophie thinks it does. They talk about the care that would need to be in place in order to introduce robots, ai, or aliens. Care is needed because any one of these three things would drastically change the galaxy as they know it. 

 I don’t really have any clever way to end this other than saying all of this could be wrong. I could be completely off and there are probably other explanations for everything I’ve described, but I actually feel pretty confident on this. It started off as a random thought and the more I’ve sat on it the more evidence I’ve collected. Whether this comes to fruition or not I hope you enjoyed reading my theory! 

CC: 

@thepenumbrapodcast 

#tpp #the penumbra podcast #the penumbra spoilers #penumbra podcast #juno steel #junoverse #sophie takagi kaner #kevin vibert #jet siquliak #buddy aurinko #sasha wire #director w #dark matters #penumbra fan theory #ruby 7 #the car is the key #jet and his car #fan theory #tpp juno #tpp season 3 #tpp jet #tpp buddy #essay

[winterhawk-olympic-bang]

How To Edit Your Writing

Guest Poster: Chronicwhimsy

Here is our final Writer Workshop post, written by Chronicwhimsy. Have a read and then head over to the Discord Server where we have a channel for you to take part in a discussion based on the post, with chances to share your own ideas too.

Editing: a drive-by guide

Hi, my name is Claire, and I’m an editor.

(Hi Claire)

I’ve been asked to give a quick guide on tips for editing your stories, as I’ve been a beta/editor for various fanfic writers over the years. I’m a professional editor, working for a publishing house in the UK, and I offer independent freelance editing too, via my website. I’ll be on the Discord server answering questions this evening, but I’m also happy to chat to people either through my website or even if you wanted to drop me a line on tumblr.

The key thing to remember about editing is that the end goal is to make your story the best it can be, and make sure your initial idea comes across as clearly and purely as you first imagined it. It’s about ensuring that the lines of communication between you and your reader are 100% open.

To do that, you need to have finished your story, because you can’t fix something that doesn’t exist.

Then you edit.

What now?

So, you’ve finished your Winterhawk Olympic Bang Fic, and you’re wondering what to do next?

The very first, and most important thing you should do? Celebrate. I mean congratulate the hell out of yourself, pat yourself on the back, and have some cake. Finishing stories is hard. Getting through a first draft is one of the trickiest parts of writing, so you should be proud of yourself, and proud of your story.

Because in a short while, editing is going to make you hate both.

I mean that in the nicest possible way of course, but you absolutely are going to be thoroughly sick of this whole thing by the time you’re done, and you’re going to question everything you’ve ever written. You’re going to get a close-up view of all your narrative bad habits which will make you think you’ve never had any skill at all, and you’re going to re-read your work so many times that it’ll feel trite, old, uninspired. This is normal and it is your brain lying to you. If you remember nothing else, remember that!

“The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible.” Jonathan Safran Foer

Don’t lose faith! Editors and editing exist for a reason, no first draft is perfect. You’ve done something amazing in finishing, and now you’re going to make it incredible.

Before You Start - Take a Break

You know the phrase “can’t see the wood for the trees”? It could just as easily be “can’t see the story for the words.” It’s never recommended to go straight into editing as soon as you finish writing, and part of the reason for that is because you’re too deep in the story to be able to assess it objectively, or to catch things that are missed out because you know they’re there, but the reader wouldn’t.

“Once it's done, put it away until you can read it with new eyes. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before.” Neil Gaiman

Most writers and editors advocate putting a story away for a month or so before returning to edit, so you’re looking at it with fresh eyes. Obviously, with a Big Bang (or other fic event) this sort of time is usually at a premium! Try and make as much space as you can while still leaving yourself time to edit.

If you really don’t have any time, one trick that can help is changing your location. If you write in your room, can you relocate to your kitchen? Or a café (if you can safely)? Could you print it out? (Printing Top Tip: if you do print it, try and do it double-spaced - this makes it easier on the eyes, and gives you room to make notes. Also, serif fonts can often be easier to read than sans serif fonts, as it gives stronger distinctions between different letters.)

The Filter System

I like to think of the editing process as a series of different filters which, when used one after the other, produce a finely-sieved finished product. Each filter stage has slightly smaller holes than the one before it, as you look increasingly closely at your work.

Filter 1: Structural editing

Does the story make sense? Is the pace okay? Do all the scenes work where they are, or would they be better elsewhere? Do some scenes need to be there at all? Is the characterisation consistent? Does anyone change names halfway through? Did you forget what time of year it was set halfway through?

Filter 2: Line editing

Is this phrase as tight as it could be? Have you repeated yourself anywhere? Does this sentence add anything or does it throw the pace off? Have you gone overboard with adjectives and similes? Have you been too sparse with them?

Filter 3: Copy editing

Is your style consistent? Did you start writing in present tense and switch to past tense? Could this scene transition be snappier? Are there any bits that you want to tidy up? Have you left any half-finished sentences because you got distracted before you could end it?

Filter 4: Proofreading

Is everything spelled correctly? Have you caught all the strange grammar mistakes?

Some of these things might be picked up by your beta reader if you have one. Different beta readers have different styles, and also they will work based on their relationship with you and what you prefer. Some may stick to proofreading and consistency-checking, others may be more confident to dive right in and look at structure, pacing and characterisation. Some may work through the process with you as you write, others may only look at the story when it’s complete so they can get a full overview. There is no right or wrong answer, and having a conversation with your beta about your respective styles at the start can help you work better together!

Filter 1 - Structural Editing

For this stage, you want to read your whole story through from start to finish, and resist the urge to tweak anything to begin with! You will want a way of making notes as you go through because as you do, you’ll make yourself a cheat-sheet to help you with your line edit. Things to keep track of:

Character name spellings

Character ages

Character relationships (drawing a relationship web can be very helpful to visualise this!)

The time span of the story - the date it starts, the date it ends.

As a subset of this, I find it can be very helpful to set up a spreadsheet with a timeline of what happens in the story, and who is involved. Doing this both chronologically for the characters and in order of how it happens in the story can help you keep track of what characters know when, and also when the readers find out certain information. You might have one of these from when you were planning your story (as detailed in Sara Holmes’ workshop). If you’ve kept it up to date with changes to the plot and structure as you’ve written, this will be super helpful.

At this stage, you’re looking to see if everything works as a consistent story. You want to check to see if it feels like it’s the right pace, or if there are bits where it drags or rushes through the action. Why is this? Are there scenes which aren’t adding anything to the progress? Could they just be referred to in passing, or removed entirely without impacting the story? Are there other scenes which need to be added to provide more detail and growth? Is there anything that you as a writer know that is essential to the story, but you forgot to actually put in the text?

“Crafty writers...don't allow Exposition to form Lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with.” Ursula K. Le Guin

You’re also looking to see if the characters feel true to themselves all the way through. Do the relationships spark? Do they sound like themselves? Can you hear them in your head?

Some people recommend doing several structural edits, with a different focus each time. One pass to look at the pacing, one pass to look at the characters, one to look at the story arc. You’ll work out what floats your boat, but you will be re-reading this story a lot of times before you’re done editing - which is why it’s very important to write what you love and want to read! You’ll go through many stages of hating this story before you let it go, and that will be even harder if it wasn’t something you enjoyed in the first place.

Filter 2 - Line Editing

So you remember I told you to make all those notes during your structural edit? Here’s where you’re going to use them. Now’s the time to go through your story line by line and check that the details in your cheat sheet are correct all the way through the story. I’ve written a novel that I initially set in November, but by the time I finished it, I’d decided it was taking place in early May. I had to go back and fix all the dates and weather descriptions to make sure the action hadn’t actually been yeeted forward six months spontaneously in the middle of a conversation.

Arguably, the line edit will be the most painful part of editing. At this stage, you will be taking a fine-tooth comb to everything you have written, examining it to within an inch of its life, and casting judgement. You’re going to find every stylistic tic you have (for me, everyone is constantly quirking their eyebrows and smirking like they’ve got cramp in their facial muscles), and you’re going to get rid of them (a person only has so many eyebrows, and they can only quirk so far). Now is the time to kill your darlings - don’t hang on to anything unless you feel it’s really doing a job to further the story and the characters.

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.” Stephen King

If you have ever worried about the unbearable sensation of being Known, the line edit is where you will experience that with every word, and you’ll be doing it to yourself. This is when the doubts will really start to creep in and you will maybe feel like everything you write is unoriginal, derivative trash and unfit for human eyes.

Here I’ll reiterate what I said above:

This is a normal feeling, everyone experiences it when editing. E V E R Y O N E.

It’s a lie. No-one else will ever read your story in this state, no-one else will ever read your story this closely. Of course it feels obvious and uninspired to you - you wrote it. It’s your idea, and you’ve read it several times, it holds no surprises for you. (I may be projecting my feelings from every time I’ve edited something here, but…)

You’ll also be catching any ELEPHANTS or whatever your mammal of choice for placeholder text is that you’ve stationed throughout the story as a flag for you to come back and add in a name, or a food, or a song title later. You know, the things you decided were a problem for Future!You. I have bad news, the future is now.

Top Tip: if you have changed someone’s name halfway through, DON’T for the love of Mike, just do a straight find and replace to correct it. Because that’s when you suddenly find out how many other words actually contain names (Mark became Bill? That’s great, until your characters are going to the superBillet to buy groceries). Some word processing programmes have a “whole word” option which is your friend, otherwise ensure to put spaces either side of the word when you search. If you don’t, you’ve just made another horrible job for yourself...

Filter 3 - Copy Editing

Once you’ve made it out the other side of the Line Edit (and given yourself a nice treat to congratulate yourself because that stage is HARD), we get onto copy editing. This is basically the set-dressing stage. You’ve built the house, you’ve decorated the room, and now you’re just making sure every bit of furniture is in the right place for optimal feng shui.

Here’s where you go through and go, do I really need a dash here, or could I just use a comma? Could I use fewer commas? Could I go in and move all of @kangofu_cb’s commas around because I’m the sort of person who will come into your house and change how you hang your toilet paper or where you keep your ketchup.

Now is the time to be as picky as possible, like you’re an interior designer for the most demanding client in the world and the ornament must be exactly equidistant from both ends of the mantlepiece and facing precisely south-west. Things that may have just survived your line edit will be measured again, and if they’re found wanting, then they get binned.

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” Mark Twain

Another thing you might like to do here is check that all your features and things are correct. Did you make a wild claim about the lifecycle of salamanders, or the average price of corn and then never go back to verify this? Take a second to just do that now. It may be that you decide it’s not a problem (I received one copy edit note saying that an idiom used in a book wasn’t recorded until 200 years later, and I made the editorial decision that no-one would care), but for bigger things you may want to make sure you’re accurate.

If you google it (as I just did, to make sure I was definitely giving you the right information), copy editing is often conflated with line editing, and that’s because in reality a lot of the elements of copy editing actually wouldn’t usually be done by the author, and are probably irrelevant to fanfic. The copy editor is responsible for ensuring the book has a consistent grammatical style in line with the preferences of the publisher (em-dash or en-dash, curly quote marks or straight ones, how you deal with acronyms, what needs to be italicised, etc. etc.), which isn’t necessarily required for fanfic. In reality, for fanfic I’d use this stage as a second, lighter line-edit to see where things can be tightened up in phrasing, as well as perhaps a preliminary proofread where you start to mark up any spelling errors.

Filter 4 - Proofreading

By this stage, you’ll be exhausted, and sick to death of the blasted thing. But the end is in sight! Now you’re onto the proofread. This is another close read, where you go through and check for spelling errors, typos, missing full stops, strange formatting stuff (which probably will be less of an issue as AO3 basically makes everything uniform anyway).

Before you even start this, change your font.

We’ve all been there, thought we’d caught every spelling error, every weird typo, only to spot six immediately after posting. That’s because after a certain point our brain becomes used to the font we’ve written in, and will automatically correct things that aren’t right. AO3 has its own unique formatting - colour, spacing, font - and the minute your fic appears on there in this new format you brain wakes up and is like “oh shit, yeah, that’s not how it should be.”

By changing the font before you proofread, you preempt this step.

Another thing to remember: it’s unlikely you will ever catch every mistake. Published books regularly go out with a smattering of typographical errors throughout the text - how many first editions of books are valuable because of misspellings that slipped through the net? You’re only human.

“Connie's other job was proof-editing which she did very badly. Transferring the author's corrections to a clean sheet of proofs was something Connie was unable to do without missing an average of three corrections a page, or transcribing newly inserted material all wrong... she put angry authors' letters about the mutilation of their books under the cushion of her chair to deal with later.” Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington

Often, spelling errors and things you would look for in a proofread are things that a beta reader will pick up as they go, as they’re the easiest things to spot, but it’s also worth looking over yourself for anything your beta might have missed.

Whether you decide to follow any or all of these steps, always do the proofread last.There is no point carefully spellchecking a chapter you are then going to delete, or proofreading the whole thing, but adding loads of new paragraphs later that either don’t get looked at or mean you end up having to proofread twice. That’s the only hard and fast rule when it comes to editing, and it will save you a lot of unnecessary work!

FREEDOM

And then, finally, unbelievably - you’re done. Your literary child is ready to leave the nest. Resist the urge to keep re-reading and tweaking. Instead, click “publish” and give yourself a nice little treat. You’ve earned it.

Miscellany and Disclaimers

These editing stages are ones that would be applied to a published novel. An author would probably do this several times - once on their own to get it ready for submission, then perhaps again with their agent, but the really heavy work would be done with their editor. The structural edit would be done under the advice of an agent or editor where the author looks at their comments, rejigs things accordingly, and lather, rinse, repeat until everyone’s happy. The editor would undertake the line edit, and the author would decide what they wanted to keep or change. The copy edit and proofread would be done in-house or sent to freelancers, with queries and changes wafted past the author for clarification or approval.

Self-published authors will often hire freelancers to help at various stages to get feedback and advice.

Very rarely would an author go from draft to final published piece by doing all their editing alone. Because it’s hard fucking work, and because your brain will get exhausted.

In light of that, you need to remember:

You’ve written a fanfic

The editorial standards of fanfic are significantly less stringent than published books

Editing by yourself is really hard work that many people are often paid to do for published books

No-one is paying you for your fanfic

Fanfic is supposed to be fun

Some published authors will edit and rewrite and edit and rewrite again and again. At a panel I attended, Joanne Harris said that if she didn’t rewrite her work at least five times she was being too easy on herself, while Joe Hill said he usually aimed for three rewrites - Joe edited as he went along, going over the previous day’s pages before continuing, where Joanne completed her manuscripts before editing. Elizabeth May has talked about her stages of drafting, starting with her Trash Draft, then her Clean Draft, and then rewriting and editing after that.

These are people who are writing professionally, getting paid for their work, and so the time they put in has monetary results. If you want to write original fiction, their advice is extremely valuable.

For fanfiction, it’s a large time investment for something you’re doing as a hobby for free. If I’m strictly honest, I’m fairly lax with my fanfiction editing. I do structural discussions and tweaks with my beta reader as I write, and then a spell check. I’m also aware that my fanfics aren’t narratively complex, nor do they seem as polished, rich and deep as some of the other works out there. That’s fine by me. You simply need to find the level you’re happy at, where you can still feel proud of your work but you’re enjoying the experience.

In the end - it’s all for fun!

Resources:

Online

Curtis Brown Creative: An Editor’s Guide to Editing Your Novel

Joanne Harris: Ten Tweets About Editing

Joanne Harris: Writing Resources

NerdsLikeMe: Beta Reading vs Proofreading vs Editing

Books

Stephen King - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Ursula K. Le Guin - Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew

#winterhawk #winterhawk olympic bang #whob #writer workshops #writer workshop: editing #guest post #chronicwhimsy

[northlight14]

Breakup’s, birthdays and drag shows

Description: Roman and Janus broke up and now Roman can't celebrate his birthday with him. Now it's Virgil's job as his best friend to cheer him up.

TW: breakup mention, crying, cursing, Janus isn't intended to be unsympathetic but since Virgil doesn't like him it might come across that way, alcohol mention, brief violence mention, let me know if I need to add anything else

Ships: platonic prinxiety, past roceit

Genre: hurt/comfort

Prompt: alt prompt 4, drag (prompt by @pridewrite2021)

Virgil was browsing the card isle looking for a birthday card for Roman when his phone started to buzz. He pulled it out to see it was Remus calling him.

"Ugh, what is it Remus?" Virgil said, already not interested in whatever Remus had gotten himself into.

"Hey Virgin! Can you come over?" Remus chirped.

"I'll be coming over later to drop off Roman's card. Why, what's up?"

"Well, you know how Roman and Janus broke up last week?" How could Virgil forget? Roman had spent the entire week being an absolute wreck and Patton and Logan had to hold Virgil back in order to stop him beating Janus up.

"Yes." Virgil gritted out through his teeth.

"Well, Roman just realized that he isn't gonna be able to celebrate with him and that this is gonna be his first birthday without him in 3 years and what not. So now he's crying in his room, lookin' like a hot mess. And since he's your best friend and all I was wondering if you could come and cheer him up or whatever."

"What! How the hell am I supposed to do that?!" Virgil yelled, before realizing he's still standing in the middle of the card isle, hiding his face which was now scarlet.

"I don't know man but you'll come up with something! You're like a brother to him, Virgie!"

"You actually are his brother, Rem!"

"Come on Virgil, please!" Remus pleaded through the phone. "I just...I really don't know what to do, here." He said, voice suddenly going quiet.

Virgil sighed. "Ok, I'll be ten minutes."

———

Virgil always forgot how big Roman's house was. The drive way alone seemed to go on for ages, outlined by large trees and red rose bushes. The pathway to the door was a red brick and clearly well taken care of. The house itself was a faded red brick with large windows and balconies. The front door was too tall and painted black, standing in the middle of two white pillars.

Looking at where Roman lived, it was easy to see why Virgil had disliked him at first. When they'd first met, Roman had a much bigger problem with his bratty rich kid attitude and with his life seemingly perfect from an outsiders point of view it was easy to see why they clashed. after all, Virgil had absent parents and had to work several jobs to help pay bills. But as he got to know Remus better it made it much easier to see through Roman as well. Mr and Mrs Prince were nice enough but they had a bad habit of pitting Roman and Remus against each other, both with academics and creative pursuits. It turned out Roman's arrogant attitude was a coping mechanism for his surprisingly low self esteem. It also turned out that Roman wasn't just "lazy" when it came to school work like Virgil had first thought, but he was actually struggling with ADHD. The more Virgil learned about Roman and the more Roman learned about Virgil, the closer they became until they began to see each other as brothers. Brothers that would make fun of each other relentlessly but brothers non the less.

Virgil knocked on the large door and waited for a response. Not too long after, Mrs Prince answered. She was a tall and slender woman with tanned skin. Her dark hair was tied perfectly in a bun. She wore a black dress with a red shall, both of which looked as expensive as Virgil's car.

"Oh, hello Virgil. I assume you're here for Roman? Remus said you were coming." She said.

"Uh, yeah. Can I come in?"

"Of coarse, Roman should be in his room. He hasn't come out since this morning." She said, stepping aside to let Virgil in.

'Oh God.' Virgil thought to himself before heading upstairs and hoping he would finally be able to remember which room is Romans.

In the end Remus came out his room and pointed Virgil in the right direction but hey, no one else needed to know that.

Gently, Virgil knocked on Romans door and waited to be let in.

"Remus, I told you to go away!" Roman yelled from inside, his voice sounding muffled.

"Hey Roman, it's Virgil. Can I come in?"

There was a brief moments pause before Virgil heard a quiet voice he decided to interoperate as Roman inviting him in.

Virgil was very taken aback by the sight before him. The room, which was usually kept as neat as possible, was covered in tissues, chocolate wrappers and a mix of opened and unopened presents. Roman was sat on his bed, eyes puffy and hair messy.

"Um, hey, are you alright?" 'Fuck sake Virgil, obviously he isn't.' Roman sniffled, smiling despite himself. "Yeah, I just...I miss him, ya know?"

"Yeah." Virgil said, sitting beside him. "Oh, um, I got you this..." Virgil awkwardly passed him the card.

Roman smiled, accepting it. "Thanks."

"So...what do you want to do? For your birthday, I mean." Virgil said, trying and failing to hide his discomfort.

"I don't know..." Roman sighed, looking down at his hands. "I was just going to continue to watch Carmen Santiago. But I always watched that with Janus. It was our show, ya know? He'd always make a comment about how she's still stealing and I'd counter it with how she's stealing from thieves so surely that makes it ok! I don't know, it just...it feels wrong to watch it without him..." Roman laughed sadly. "Which sucks because the last episode left on a cliff hanger and I really wanna know what happens next." He laughed a little at his own expense.

Virgil couldn't help but smirk. "Well, why don't we go out somewhere?"

Roman looked down again. "I don't know..."

'Crap. What the heck am I supposed to do here?!'

Virgil looked around awkwardly. He then spied in the corner what looked like a new makeup pallet. Roman must have gotten it for his birthday. 'Bingo.'

"Hey, why don't we do each other's makeup?" Virgil offered.

Romans face immediately lit up. "Really?!" He said, excitedly.

"Yeah, why not?" Virgil said, scratching the back of his neck.

"Well last time I asked to do your makeup, you said you'd rather stab yourself in the eye with your eye liner."

"Yeah, well..." Virgil coughed. "Consider it my birthday present to you."

Roman immediately shot up and grabbed the eyeshadow pallet and several brushes. "I promise you won't regret this!" Yeah, Virgil was already regretting this but Roman seemed happy and that's all that mattered.

———

The brushes tickled Virgil's face as Roman layered the purple eye shadow. Virgil almost started to object as Roman began to apply silver jewels at the edges of the eye shadow, before stopping himself. Roman then finished the look by applying a purplish pink lipstick and brushing Virgil's bangs out of his face. He then handed Virgil a mirror. The look was very 80's glam, far from Virgil's usual style but he had to admit, it looked really good. The eyeshadow looked sharp, the upper lid being a lighter shade than the under eye and corners of the eyes.

"It looks great!" Virgil said, admiring it. Roman smiled proudly from the compliment. "Alright." Virgil said, taking the eye shadow pallet. "Your turn."

Roman laughed. "I appreciate the offer, rainy day real estate, but I don't really wanna look like I haven't slept in a hundred years." Roman teased.

"Says the guy who's went entire weeks not sleeping because he was binge watching a new show!" Virgil teased back.

"And I'll have you know I wear that like a badge of honor!"

"Besides," Virgil continued to laugh. "I know how to do other makeup looks."

"Ok..." Roman said. "But if I end up looking like a Tim Burton character, I will kill you with my bare hands." They both couldn't help but laugh.

Virgil decided to go for a similar style that Roman went for, layering different shades of red and mixing in some gold glitter. He also decided to draw a small crown on his right cheek, just below the eye. The look was then finished off with red lipstick to match.

He passed the mirror over to Roman who gasped in delight at his reflection. "It looks so good!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah? I'm glad you like it." Virgil smiled, pulling back on his purple patch hoodie after taking it off to give himself more mobility when applying the makeup.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Roman said, waving his arms in front of his face before jumping up and handing Virgil a black leather jacket that was hung on his chair as well as a pair of purple tinted heart glasses. "Put these on!" He exclaimed.

Virgil once again pulled off his hoodie, replacing it with the leather jacket. It fit him surprisingly well considering Roman was a fair bit taller and more muscular than him. He then put on the glasses and Roman eagerly pulled him off his bed and guided him to his full length mirror.

"Wow...I actually look really good." Virgil said.

"See! I told you!" Roman laughed.

Virgil examined the jacket. "I didn't think you'd own a jacket like this. Did you steal it from Remus or something?" Virgil asked.

Romans smile suddenly dropped. "It, uh, it was Janus'..."

Shit.

"Oh, um, sorry." Virgil said, honestly.

"It's ok." Roman sighed, sitting back on his bed. "I've been meaning to give it back. Especially since it still has his wallet in it. But that means I'll have to see him and I don't think I'm ready for that yet."

'He left his wallet in here?' Virgil put his hands in the pockets and sure enough, Roman was right. Virgil quickly started to feel all too powerful now knowing this.

"Hey, come on, let's go out somewhere. Show off your makeup." Virgil tried again.

"For someone who looks like they belong in a vampire novel, you're awfully eager to go outside." Roman laughed.

"Come on, I just think it'll do you some good to get out for a bit."

Roman averted Virgil's gaze. "I don't know..."

"Come on, man. Do you really want to let that jackass ruin your birthday?"

Roman sighed. "Ok, fine."

Virgil waited outside Romans room as he changed out his pajamas. When he came out, he was sporting a white shirt paired with a black jacket that had a red floral pattern. He was also wearing a pair of glasses, his in the shape of two fairy wings that matched the gold in his eye shadow perfectly.

As the two walked out the house, Roman called "Mom, weren't going out! I should be home soon!"

His mom sounded surprised by this but happy non the less. "Ok sweetie, be back soon!"

"So where are we going?" Roman asked as they walked out the house.

"How the hell should I know? I'm just winging it." Virgil laughed.

———

The two wandered through the town as the sun began to set, the reds and oranges bouncing off Romans glasses and the glitter perfectly. Virgil was all too aware of the judging looks they were being given but when he looked at Roman, he seemed happy. And right now that's all that mattered. Just keeping Romans mind off Janus.

Eventually, Virgil began to hear the sound of music and he subconsciously started to follow it, Roman tailing behind. As he wandered through the town he eventually found the source.

A bar putting on a drag show.

Roman was staring off into space, standing next to him. Virgil tapped his shoulder, pulling him back to reality. "Hey, I know what we're doing."

———

Romans face lit up once more when he saw the stage. It didn't seem like they missed too much, which was good. The drag queen that was stood on the stage currently was singing, her hair done big with makeup that shone and reflected the lights perfectly. Her dress black and covered in sequins and frills. The heels she wore didn't look comfortable in the slightest but she walked in them with ease.

The two sat at the bar. They were each 18 and 19, meaning they wouldn't be able to drink but given the circumstances, it was probably best if Roman didn't get drunk right now.

Instead, Virgil just ordered them some non alcoholic drinks and fries. Roman was about to hand him the money to pay but Virgil immediately declined. "My treat. It's your birthday after all." Virgil then remembered Janus' wallet still in his jacket pocket. 'I mean, if Janus is the reason we're here, it's only right he should be the one to pay for us, right?' Virgil couldn't help his smirk as he handed the money over.

The night continued and Roman and Virgil cheered loudly for each queen on stage, each one quite different from the last. Virgil watched as any sign of grief seemingly dissolved from Romans face.

The final queen for the night came on the stage and they both watched with joy as she performed.

"I know what you're doing, you know." Roman said, not taking his eyes off the stage. Virgil froze instantly, slowly daring to look at his friend. Roman once again had small tears in his eyes but he wore the most genuine smile Virgil hadn't seen on him in ages. "Thank you."

Virgil smiled at his friend. At his brother. "Of coarse."

-------

Authors note: I’ve been wanting to write something based on the glam looks Thomas posted for Roman and Virgil for a while now and I obviously wanted to write something for Romans birthday. So when I saw the prompt for today was ‘drag’ I immediately thought “well that’s convenient”. So happy birthday Roman! Anyway, hope y’all enjoyed. I’m still practicing my writing and hopefully I’m improving. 

Reblogs >>> likes

#sander sides #pridewrite2021 #fanfic #pw alt 4 #tw cursing #tw breakup mention #tw crying #tw alchol mention #tw violence mention #virgil sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #janus sanders #platonic prinxiety #creativity twins #creativitytwins #roceit #roceit angst #past roceit

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

Kingdom Collisions XVII

masterlist; my links

CW: blood, death

Phew, when i first started this fic (way back when in august last year, i think) i didn’t expect it to become a multi-chapter nor did i expect it to go in literally any of the directions it went in. with each new chapter the boys cooked up something different and apparently more and more dark. nonetheless this has been one of the most absolute fun, exciting, and rewarding fics i’ve ever put out there because 1. i just kind of did whatever i liked with it (plot holes be damned) and 2. because the interaction i got from this fic was mind-boggling. Every plot twist brought a gasp, an angst gremlin, and a sweet supporter to my doorstep (i cant name anyone because you all swopped roles continuously). 

when i started writing this chapter tbh i was dreading it because how on earth do i get myself out of the sheer monstrosity that i dug myself into in the last one? but i wrote some words and even though they were all wrong and it was only seven hundred of them at least i had written something you know? but then i was at the beach and the ocean water was shoving itself into my lungs and the salt was stinging my eyes and i literally couldn’t have been happier if i tried and suddenly i just kind of knew what i wanted to write... or rather i knew i wanted to write and these troublesome princes knew how they wanted their story to close. yes, indeed, close. somehow, without me realising it, we kind of got to the last chapter. i truly didn’t think this would be it but with each word i put down it just kept drawing closer and closer to a close. and i can’t force this fic to be anything but what it is. So, my dear ones, this is the last chapter of Kingdom Collisions. thank you for coming along, i hope with all my heart you enjoyed it even a fraction as much as i did. I love these Princes so hard and Nish, Gretch, and A can tell you how sad i was to see them end. Nonetheless, please enjoy!

Since it’s been a hot minute since the previous chapter, here’s a recap:

Prince Jason Grace stumbles from the mouth of the arena and falls to his knees in front of the platform.

“Kill him Perseus.” A voice glimmers around him, leaking in through the ringing in his ears.

“Come home Prince,” That voice lilts, “Do not die so far from the sea.”

Jason looks up at him, blue eyes hazy, a dagger loose in his clasp. “Hello Prince.”

Percy steps down from the platform, and takes the dagger from his husband’s hands. It is almost sickening how easily he gives it over.

The crowd stomps its feet: they are ready for blood; they are ready for slaughter.

He holds the dagger up, making sure it glints in the sun. And then he draws his husband close until there is nothing between their bodies, not space, not even air.

“Let’s go home my love.” He whispers. “We will not die so far from the sea.”

Prince Perseus Jackson brings the blade down.

[image has alt text]

We’ll never get free// lamb to the slaughter// what you gon’ do when there’s blood in the water

Prince Perseus Jackson knows he’s going to die today. It is not a feeling, or a morbid premonition. It is the cold, hard truth. If he does not the world will continue to suffer for it. And what kind of prince would he be if he allowed his people to suffer? His father would say he’d be a coward. His father did not know the meaning of the word until he screamed as a blade sunk into his chest. Percy wonders how a man made from the Rivers themselves, can die by knife. He supposes when you spend long enough pretending to be human, you die like one too.

All the same Percy must take his last breath today, before the setting sun has managed to hide for the night. Before the darkness can wrap around his bones like cigarette smoke, and keep him trapped once more. 

But first, Percy must kill his husband. 

The crowd is violent; their need for bloodshed a hyena’s cackle in his head. He cannot keep them out. He cannot keep them at bay. It drives into his blood, makes every dangerous drop slosh through him, as wild as the rivers of his father. As wild as the blue eyes staring him down.

Perseus Jackson looks at his husband, barely an inch apart, so close it seems no room is left for air. He can’t breathe, so it must have been pushed away, pushed out. Those blue eyes, as striking as the brilliant sky above them, are looking at him with so much… sorrow, love, joy, rage? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know and it terrifies him. He knows and that scares him more. Prince Jason Grace is looking at him with delight and it makes him want to sin.

“I will find you again, my love.” His lips brush the sensitive skin of his ear. He feels that beautiful body shudder underneath him.

The musician’s box echoes with the notes of the wind, a melody that rackets around in his head, bouncing off the walls of his memories. He has died to this tune many times. Died as a king, and a peasant, and a squallor, and a whore, and every form of human scum and royalty alike. They all bleed the same in the end. All die with regrets on their tongue, and the unconquering falsehood of love in their hearts, as if that alone is enough to save them. He has never been safe from death. But love saves him all the same. He wonders if he will die again.

“I will not be lost.” Jason whispers back, so quiet, so full of sweet darkness.

Percy slams the blade into his Jason’s heart and watches as the light from beckoning eyes morphs into a smile that surrenders the world. He doesn’t acknowledge the warmth at his side. There is only his Prince, his husband, his other half, his, his, his. 

“I will be waiting.” Jason Grace grins. Jason Grace dies.

Already he can feel the absence of his other. It is not a dull ache, nor a sharp one. It is not really an ache at all. Rather as if a veil has been placed over him, leeching the world of colour and light. Leeching him of any goodness. What is a destroyer, without his healer?

The Prince of Mare pulls the knife out of his husband’s chest and holds it up to the crowd. His smile dances, violence coating the angles of his face like a liquid mask. The colosseum responds in vigour, chanting his name, chanting the name of Princess Piper Mclean, chanting victory as if they’ve won. Dust begins to settle at his feet, settle then jump as they jump, then settle once more. And endless dance. He knows the score by heart. 

“What you have witnessed today my good people,” The woman in power stands in her box, surveying the scene before her with triumph in her brown, glinting eyes. “Is the beginning of forever, again.”

The people cheer, clap, stomp their feet, make the stone underneath them quiver.

A drop of blood falls to the floor.

“We have completed what our ancestors could not. We have made sure that the threat— ” She sneers at them; at him in his bloodied rags, and the husband still in his arms, limp and fast growing cold. “The threat of Our Downfall may never rise from the ashes.”

The deafening sound of celebration is a vice around his throat. He wants to rip the air from their lungs, make their joy a noose around their necks. They celebrate the loss of a life as if it were the birth of a thousand more; they celebrate the death of his husband as if they had won the war. But they have never seen war. And his past selves, rushing up to him in these moments, like reeling pictures, smile at the prospect. They seem to gather in his mind, grinning with endless terror and say, so very softly, “You think this is war? We’ve only just begun.”

We’ll never get free// lamb to the slaughter// what you gon’ do when there’s blood in the water

“My people,” Piper’s voice is a lull in the tides, a blind comfort to distract from the storm ahead. “We have severed the wings of a phoenix so it may never rise again.”

The crowd stomps, he stomps with them. A fissure runs under his feet, small, unnoticeable. Blood drips down, down, down, into the cracks. There is nothing left for him here. He smiles, soft and small. It is a smile only he knows exists.

With a gentleness he does not possess for anyone else but the man before him he lays his husband down, wincing as the dusty platform touches that beautiful golden skin. But he does not have time to make it clean. To give him a worthy place to rest. He only has right now. Eternity is a second in itself.

And when Prince Perseus stands, straight and unburdened. He reveals the last piece in a twisted puzzle. For sticking out of his own side— the side his prince was pressed against— is a dagger of his own. One that is killing him slowly.

The people are still cheering, Princess Piper is still revelling in her glory. She looks ethereal up on her dais, every bit the goddess she craves to be. Her brown skin shines in the brightening sun, her black hair flowing down, down, down past her hips, swishing at her thighs. And the crown that sits on her head, perched there as if it was too scared to be trapped to such power, glints almost menacingly, jewels reflecting onto the people closest to her. To the woman at her side. Annabeth, sister to Jason, lover to Piper, and honorary daughter of Hekima, sees him. Sees all of him and goes as pale as the moon. She grabs her lover’s arm, points a shaky finger in their direction, at the blade in his side.

The look of horror on their faces is almost enough to make him laugh; it’s certainly enough to make him smile. He watches on as their plans unravel, remembering the deadly words Piper had said to him all those days ago. “Instead we will kill one of you and keep the other continually alive.” But what good would that do, if he had killed them both, if he made sure his blood was smeared across his husband’s wound; if he made sure his husband’s blood could not be used to heal them. He has become the destroyer they so badly wanted. 

Prince Perseus Jackson falls to his knees, at the symphony of a princess’s screech. And as he looks to his side, his fingers find the cool hand of Jason Grace. The sky is a lover’s blue. He closes his eyes. He finds his husband amongst the dead. And ever so slowly, the colosseum starts to crumble. For the blood from his wound seeps into the cracks running rivers of their own, and eats at the stone that holds the people, the power, the world. He has become his father. His mind is fill of his own stories, just like his mother. He feels the cold band on his husband’s finger. He becomes life.

We’ll never get free// lamb to the slaughter// what you gon’ do when there’s blood in the water

The walls behind her turn to dust in slow motion. She sees particles fall, land at her feet in never-ending waterfalls. Her gaze tilts to the sky where she half expects to find it raining blue, as if the whole world would collapse on top of them. She can hear the screaming, she doesn’t known if it’s joy or fear. Sh doesn’t know if anyone has realised what’s just happened, if they know the true extent of her failure. 

“PIPER!” That voice is so far away, but it is one she recognizes. One she has loved since she was left on a lover’s bench ten years prior. “We have to go, we have to stop it from reaching the water.”

A pale hand gestures in front of her, to the crimson rivers speeding across the ground. They are the prettiest canals she’s ever seen. She wants to— 

“PIPER,” The time for shock has gone, and in it’s place is a violent need to save herself, to be saved. “We have to get out of here, this whole place is going to come down.”

When she looks to Annabeth, grey eyes bright with fear, she is struck with feeling so deep she fears she may drown. It wouldn't’ matter; she’ll be dead before she gets to submerge.

“My people,” Her voice is loud, blessedly steady, as she surveys the uneasy crowd who are only now noticing the red brooks bubbling up to meet them. “We must leave here at once. The colosseum is no longer safe. I urge you to go home to your famililes, to pack important things and make your way as far from the oceans and rivers as possible. Danger is here, and it is not a force we can fight.”

A thousand eyes look at her, emotions blatant on their faces ranging from denial, to anger, to fear, to the worst of them all, resignation. Those are the ones, she knows, who have lived through this before, in some way or the other. Whether in a past life, or the echo of their current one through stories carried down.

The ground underneath them shakes, making their feet stumble, their legs quiver. It is laughing at them, at the idea that they can escape this destruction. It has done this a thousand times before, it will do it a thousand more. The end has never been about them. They cannot escape it, no matter where they run, how hard they pray. And people are. Praying. They don’t know it is their gods who order this. Their gods who have no care for the lives of them when they can create a million more. In the end they are pawns to an endless game of chess. The first to be discarded, despite how hard they fight to prove useful. And Jason, her lover’s brother, and Perseus, her own ex lover, are soldiers sent to do their duty. Pawns themselves, maybe knights. But gods they have never been, and gods they will never become.

Annabeth’s hand is warm in hers as they race to their death. Her blonde curls fly behind her and Piper thinks it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. And then the princess looks to her and she changes her mind. With each glance, each step, each squeeze of their skin, she changes and changes and changes. Until the beauty cannot be pinned to a single thing, until it is a tapestry continuously incomplete, of all the features that make up her love. If she— when, when she dies she will do it with this image in her mind.

And then they’re at the river, the one that feeds her kingdom, the one that runs into to the forest and branches to the five other kingdoms, before feeding into Perseus’s own and out to the ocean. There is no red tainting it’s glistening blue. They have time, maybe, just maybe they have time to save the only home they have ever known, the only one they ever will. 

We’ll never get free// lamb to the slaughter// what you gon’ do when there’s blood in the water

Quickly, with a haste she has never seen, Annabeth pulls a single match from her pocket.

“Will you grant me permission, my love?” Her princess nods to the little stick.

There is only one way to stop a stream from turning towards a river. She nods. “For the kingdoms.”

“For the kingdoms.” The blonde echoes. She strikes the match.

Sunshine yellow flame bursts from the small head, and as it settles it turns orange, blue, goes back to yellow. Annabeth lets it fall to the floor.

And they both watch, flames dancing in their eyes, as the little match catches a dry leaf, which catches dry wood, which catches, and catches, and catches.

They clasp hands, look at each other. Piper runs a finger down a freckled cheek, skin already so warm from the blaze before them.

“Let us live.” Her princess whispers.

They jump into the river. The forest burns to an inferno behind them.

But there, trickling slowly, as if it has all the time in the world, is a single stream of blood. It creeps through the forest, turning already charring soil to nothing. The fire jumps over it, around it, beyond it. The fire does not stop it. 

A single drop of blood catches on a shard of blackened stick, once a match, and as the wind blows it carries the wood over over over. It lands in the river. The stick floats away. The blood spreads wide.

And two princesses, still hand in hand, frantically swimming for their life, start to crumble to ash, like the forest they had left to burn.

We’ll never get free// lamb to the slaughter// what you gon’ do when there’s blood in the water

Perseus Jackson opens his eyes to sky blue, ice blue, saviour blue. And he cannot help but smile.

“Where have you been, my love?”

“Just had to take care of some things before i could join you.” He reaches up a hand to caress a golden cheek, warm and reddening under his touch.

“Are we finally free?” That voice is so soft, full of angled hope.

“Till the next time.” He sees that hope startle and shape before him, as if it can bend to fit around steeled will.

“What shall we do while we wait?”

“As long as we are together,” He brushes back a lock of gold. “It does not matter to me.”

“Might i suggest, staying here for the next decade at the very least?” A laughing reply, one that heats him to his bones.

“Your wish,” His green eyes sparkle dangerously, deliciously, “Is my salvation.”

“Wicked, wicked being.” Lips find his, press to him. It is so familiar, and somehow new all at once. As if the shadows they are made from need to get used to the light within them once more. As if they have not done this for a millennia, longer. 

“I cannot help it when i’m with you.”

“And you are always with me,” Those blue eyes set him on fire.

“Yes,” He says simply. He touches the golden chest, the heart within. His heart.

“What shall we be in the next life?” The question is soft against his skin, raising bumps across his arms.

“I think i shall be a painter,” He muses, lips falling to a shoulder. They trace their way up, catching on collarbones and the crook of a neck, and the dimple behind an ear. “And you, my sweet? How do you intend for us to meet?”

“I think i shall like to be your nude model.” That grin is enough to cause a flush through his form.

“And who will be our heroes?”

“The queen of course.” The blonde’s voice gets conspiratorially low, “I’m her favourite servant you see, and she cannot bear the idea of anyone else seeing me naked.”

He cannot hold in his laughter, the mind of his other half an endless stream of amusement. “And how do we intend to end it this time?”

“That’s up to you dear one.” The being curled into him smiles, “I can only heal, and you know i will only heal you.”

“You make me such a villian.” His expression is violent, and beautiful, so so beautiful.

“We have never been anything else.” 

He stares into the face of eternal love and is struck by the thought that it is all for him, that it has only ever been for him. He cradles a golden face in his hand, and with a deep unhurried breath, kisses Jason.

For the infinite time in his endless life, Perseus tastes fire.

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Tags (if you want to be added to/ taken off the tag list just let me know, all my channels of communication are open):

@nishlicious-01 : to Nish for loving this fic harder than anyone, and for loving me harder still.

@queen-of-demons-and-hell : to Gretch for always being there even though were many countries, and many timezones apart

@leyontheway : to Ley for the endless and unwavering support and for making me smile no matter what

@sparkythunderstorm : to Lily for the continuous love and the wonderful comments

@comradefurudate : to avatar for the hilarious interactions and for loving this the way you did. Your comments made my day.

@aalikun : to ali for the theories and the comments that made me smile so hard my cheeks hurt

to A : you don’t have a tumblr account but you asked if you could read one of my fanfics and i sent you this one and you sent me back a 3 minute long voice note telling me every reason you loved it and i cannot begin to explain to you how much it means to me. i listen to the vn all the time. i love you.

and to every single one of you who liked, and/or commented on this fic: you are special to me in every way that matters and i think about you all the time.

#kingdom collisions #part 17 #jercy #jason grace #percy jackson #pjssg series #pjssg fanfic #pjjg series #pjjg fanfic #jaso #grac #percy #jackson #piper mclean #annabeth chase #royal jercy #royal jercy au

[nagia-pronounced-neijia]

w(h)ip wednesday

It's a surprisingly quaint little farm, the kind of thing some traveller from the far-away west might paint into his little journal and tell all the Belgians and Austrians and French about.  Green hills rise up in a gentle roll, with occasional stones that must have tumbled down from God-knows-where, looking pushed up through the grass and the barley like crooked teeth.  Sheep meander among the gray rocks, bleating occasionally to each other and munching on the plants.

As they step past the low wooden fence, Trevor spots a goat chewing cud in a pen.  It stares disinterestedly at them, eyes gleaming with that peculiar mix of cunning and stupidity native to goats.  If it was ever a person, their mind seems long gone, he thinks, replaced by a goat's determination to be the biggest pain in the arse it possibly can.

They keep going and find a yard full of chickens.  Here chickens, there chickens, everywhere fucking chickens.  Mostly roosters, judging by the wattles, which he finds odd, and when Sypha steps too close to a hen, one of the stupid cockerels jumps at her.  His wings flutter, feathers flying further than he can, and he seems determined to murder her with talon, beak, or both.  He makes the most insane noises as he does it, like metal screaming.

It's instinct to try and put himself between her and something trying to hurt her.  Even something as small and stupid and surprisingly vicious as a pissed-off chicken.  He raises his arms to block the pecks and scratches, glad of the fur-and-leather vambraces, thick enough that he feels nothing.

"Calm the hell down," Trevor says, and puts a boot to the bird, which doesn't improve his disposition, exactly, but does manage to make him reconsider attacking.  "I'll do it again," Trevor warns him, and immediately feels like an idiot.

But the rooster subsides, sulky, glaring at them both with beady eyes.

And the cabin door swings open.  The woman who steps outside isn't quite pretty, but she's striking.  He thinks her nose might have been broken, once, and her hair falls loose around her shoulders in a riot of deep red that catches in the sun.

But it's her hands he's most interested in, and, just like every family book always said, they tell the real story to him immediately.

Her face may look youngish -- certainly only of middle years -- but her hands, too pale, have wrinkles and liver spots, a sure sign of a witch.  The deep, nearly black bruising that extends from the nail to the second knuckle of her littlest fingers, however, is the mark of a witch who has embraced questionable magic, if not outright reveled in the foulest and blackest of workings.

Beside him, Sypha moves to wave one arm.  "You must be Sârșe," she says, and he can hear that she's smiling.

The woman inclines her head.  "I am.  And who might you be?"

"I"m Sypha, and this is Trevor."  She jabs at him with an elbow.  He doesn't jab back, but mostly because he's trying to figure Sârșe out.

"Hello," he says, about a second after Sypha's pointy elbow makes contact a second time.

Sârșe watches them both.  Absolutely no emotion colors her face.  Even her eyes look flat and lifeless, no more interested in them as people than the goat had been.  "What have you come to find?"

He sighs.  "Oh, we found it already."

"Trevor," Sypha hisses.

But Trevor ignores her.  "Look, we know you're a witch.  Well, Sypha suspects.  But I know.  And I don't care about the whole," here, he makes a sort of quotation mark with the fingers of both hands, "'demons into chickens' thing.  Not sure anybody should be eating those, but it's not my business."

The very furthest corner of Sârșe's mouth curls up for about a second before smoothing back down.  Her gaze remains flat.  "And what is your business?"

"I'm not saying I expect you to turn them all back, mind, because I know that's not how it works.  But how many of your sheep used to be people?"

He's a little relieved when, rather than hotly deny it, Sârșe licks her lips.  "All of them," she says, calmly, like she doesn't care at all.

Well, that explains at least one of her fingers.  Hell, he's a little surprised it hasn't spread further.

Sypha's the one to step forward and ask, "Do you have any plans to stop?"

Sârșe stares between them for what feels like several minutes.  It's probably not even a whole minute of its own, but it sinks its teeth into him and drags.  Her eyes look like empty wells, endless and awful.

"No," she says, still very calm.

"Told you," he mutters to Sypha.  "When they're this far gone, they don't really listen to reason."

That draws Sârșe's attention.  She snaps her head to look at him.  Something even darker stirs in her dark eyes, moving and shifting, and they bite into him.  He doesn't look away, but he wants to, because eyes like those see, and the brain behind them judges, and men are always found wanting in a gaze like that.

Found wanting and then turned into farm animals.  And then potentially sold at fucking market day, to be slaughtered and eaten. Christ.

"Do you think yourself such a hero, Trevor Belmont?"`

He lets out a short bark of a laugh.  "I helped kill fucking Dracula, sure.  But what I was really doing was helping a man kill his own father.  What kind of hero is that?"

She repeats the question back at him, emphasizing it.  "What kind of hero is that, Trevor Belmont?"

"No kind at all," he replies.

And, for the first time, she smiles.  It's terrible and pitying.  "Will you kill fucking Sârșe?  And if you do, what will you really have done?"

Sypha fields this one.  "We'll have stopped animals that used to be people being sold and eaten by those who once knew them.  You have to admit that's grotesque."

"I admit no such thing.  They know who I am.  They know the consequence of crossing me.  They know what I bring to market day.  They choose to buy from me regardless.  Their business is no business of mine."

God, witch logic.  It's all perfectly factual, but frustratingly circular in a way he can't put words to.  A sort of pure, unfeeling truth that leaves no room for honesty or humanity.  Infuriating.

"Yeah, done with you, now," Trevor says, and draws the Vampire Killer.  Consecration is little good against witches except in their hands, but the Morningstar would be worse than useless.

Where's a rowan branch when you need one?  Not that there would be a single rowan tree on this property; they would have all died the first time she took a piss here.  Hell, if he were half the Belmont that Sypha thinks he is, he'd have a fucking pouch of salt on him, and he doesn't.  Their salt is in the wagon with their goddamned cooking supplies.

Sypha conjures a ring of fire, driving away all the chickens and other animals from the farm, and Sârșe's eyes widen for a moment.  She looks between them again, gaze darting from Sypha to Trevor, trying to determine if the Belmont or the fellow magician is the bigger threat.

She apparently decides on him, because she flings an arm out and tries to drag him toward her.

Trevor, more used to this sort of thing by now than he likes, drops forward.  He lets himself fall, and feels the grip of the spell break as his weight pulls him away from it.  His hands hit the ground first, and he pulls himself into a roll, coming up on one knee.

He lashes out with the whip, half-turning to improve its force as he lets his arm flow then jerks his wrist.  The line sings out, tip whistling, and the metal end bites into her hand.

Her finger flies away, landing with a sort of wet, useless noise in the dirt.

Sârșe doesn't even scream.  She just looks between her now maimed hand and the finger on the ground.

"That was very stupid," she says, somehow wholly unbothered by the fact that he just tore off part of her hand, a part she probably uses pretty often.  She raises the same hand, even as it bleeds, and makes a curling gesture with her remaining fingers.

Once again something grips him, trying to pull him closer.

When she raises her other hand, Sypha slides sideways, colliding with one of the wooden fences.  It cracks with the force she hits it at, splintering.

He's not thinking when he sends the whip out again.  It's anger that drives him to it, and this time, he gets her in one of those tainted, blackened littlest fingers, and Sârșe screams.  At first it's just a gurgling sound of pain, thin and high, like any woman might make when a man reached out and hurt her because he could.

But then it turns to something else.  Something thick and strange sounding, that scratches at his ears and the air around him.

"I name you worm, that crawls in the dust," Sârșe says.  "I name you dog, that licks his master's hand.  I name you cock, that lords himself over nothing.  I name you buck-goat, that ruts and farts, and I name you pig, that wallows in shit."

Absolutely no imagination on the woman.  He supposes whatever demon she serves, or made a deal with, or whatever, has probably long eaten it.  "People have really got to find worse things to call me."

Sârșe laughs.  "What a strange worry," she says casually.  "But needless.  You'll call yourself all those things, in the end, and worse."  And she raises both hands, and this time, she really does manage to pull him in, mostly because he lets her.

Once he's close, she smears her blood on his cheek and smiles that terrible, pitying, dark-eyed smile, and the empty wells of her eyes stare at him, judgmental, even as he sinks one of his knives into her throat.

He pays no attention to the witch's body after that.  Instead, he runs for Sypha.  She'd fallen among the splinters, and he doesn't even think about kneeling, about passing his hands over her to feel for blood, for anything sticking out or misplaced.

"Are you alright?  That was some hit."  And fuck him, his job is to be the one taking the hits.  He still hasn't forgiven himself for the scars on her upper arm from their fight with Dracula.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she grumbles.  "Help me up."

He does, splaying one hand under her back and supporting her under the elbow with his other hand.  He hefts her up, taking most of her weight, and she stumbles a little as she rises.  She leans heavily against him, and he lets her, wrapping one arm loosely around her shoulders.  "You're sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," she snaps, predictably irritated, and waves a hand at him.  "Leave it be."

"Alright, alright, if you say so.  And, well, she's dead.  If we're lucky, some of these people might start turning back.  Do we want to be here for that?"  They probably should.  He thinks his uncle would have.  His father certainly would have.

#netflix castlevania #castlevania fic #wip wednesday #whip wednesday #trephacard #trevor belmont #sypha belnades #witchbottle

[libsterslobsters]

I'm Gonna Crawl: Post 2

Post 1

Summary: Five years. That's how long the reader and Bucky have been apart (although for him, it was only five minutes) Now with Thanos defeated and both of them taking up the mantle of Avengers, can their relationship return to what it was? Or will they have to discover a new normal?

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem! enhanced! super-soldier! Reader (Reader can see pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language, smut (IF YOU ARE UNDER EIGHTEEN, DON'T READ!!!)

*************************************************

One of the perks of being “enhanced” or in this case, a super soldier, is that you heal quickly. Within seventy-two hours, the bullet wound in his leg (not to mention the cut and black eye he sustained from several sharp blows to the face) and her matching one in the shoulder are almost completely healed, only a vague pink mark to show they were ever injured. The downside is-

“Do you want to punch sandbags until they fly off the hook, or run thirty miles around the compound first? I’ll start with whichever you don’t pick.” -they’re back to training as well.

He almost answers that he really doesn’t want to do either, it’s Sunday morning, for fuck’s sake, but it’s not like this is her first choice for what she could be doing this morning either, so he goes with-

“Punching things first. Think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, so I’d best get it out of my system.” She nods and, squeezing his arm, takes off at a jog.

“See you on the other side.”

His instinct is to tell her to take it easy, she lost a lot of blood the other day and who knows if there’s been some bone or muscular damage that hasn’t quite fixed itself yet, but again, he swallows it down and focuses on the task at hand. Namely, taking out his bad mood on a punching bag.

Usually, when his body is in motion, his mind is at least somewhat at rest, but this time around, the exertion is just adding fuel to the flames. He’s too pissed off to just zone out and concentrate on hitting the target, still too busy trying to process what the hell happened three nights ago.

It was their first mission together. She’s been on a few separate from him, and he and Sam get called out together on the regular. Stupidly, he assumed that, since her specialty is translating or gathering intel, maybe being the little voice in someone’s ear to direct them through a maze of assailants and twisting corridors her visions had allowed her a glimpse of ahead of time, she’d be out of the line of fire. At the very least, most of the attention would be on him and Sam. But no, she was the bogey. She drew fire while he waltzed through a military fortress, recapturing stolen tech. When Rhodey so much as mentioned that possibility, he should’ve told him no, hard no. If anyone’s drawing fire, it’s him. Still, in his arrogance, he assumed it wouldn’t come to that extreme. Sam’s good at his job, and as much as he hates the reason behind it, so is he. They should’ve been able to hold the line without her painting a target on her back.

That, of course leads to yet another issue. He’s also pissed at himself for instinctively seeing her as more fragile, something that needs to be protected. Even before the same chemicals running through his veins infected her, she’d proven that she’s a damn capable person. He knows that she’s smart, both strategically and academically. Add onto that the fact that she’s fast and strong, not to mention she has visions (less than helpful ones most of the time, but they have their moments), and she’s a powerful ally. He certainly wouldn’t want to be on her bad side. And yet, when he saw that she’d been hit, his mind completely emptied. He wouldn’t have been able to remember which end of a gun to use if his life depended on it, because all he could think was, “Oh god. She’s hurt.” It’s old-fashioned, outdated. He should be past this mindset, at least when it comes to work. Out there, she’s his fellow soldier, not the woman he lies awake next to in bed, sometimes for hours, just to listen to her breath and know he’s not alone. Did Steve ever put Peggy in that box, he wonders? No, of course not, because Steve’s a better man than he ever was or will ever be. So yeah, he’s pissed off at himself.

And finally, although he can barely admit it to his own mind, he’s pissed off at her. Logically he knows it’s mostly fear, some primal instinct to protect what’s his, but every time he imagines her being shot, having a bullet pass by her lungs and arteries by a very narrow margin, and then telling Sam not to let him know that she was hit, it irks him. Did she think he’d come unhinged? Screw up? Or is she stuck in the mindset she seems to have adopted as a response to the last five years of “Screw looking after myself. It doesn’t matter.” A small part of him realizes that he didn’t call in either when he took a bullet, but that’s him! And, now he’s circling back to guilt for treating her like she’s weak.

All in all, he’s so damn furious that he doesn’t realize he’s no longer alone until she grabs hold of his arm just as he goes to swing again.

“Jesus, Bucky. I know you’re grouchy, but don’t you think destroying five punching bags in thirty minutes is enough? Save some aggression for the run.”

He looks up to tell her something (I’m sorry? Damn right I’m grouchy? Let me take you home and wrap you in blankets so that nothing will ever hurt you again?) and catches sight of her sweat-soaked face. He hates how far she takes things with the running. It’s like she’s trying to see what the limits are, how much she can punish her body before it gives out and she drops. That’s what it was in the very beginning after the snap. She’s told him that. Now he wonders if she’s really as recovered from everything that’s happened as she claims.

“Have you had anything to drink? Water, or-” She groans and reaches to detach the punching bag (there’s a decent sized rip in it where he was hitting it over and over), making her shirt ride up. Her clothes were already so tight that just seeing her out of the corner of his eye was making it hard to think, but now they’re completely adhered to her in a way that’s nearly obscene thanks to all the sweat. Dammit. Think about something else. He needs to think about something else.

“Yes, I’m on my second water bottle, thank you Barnes. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Just self-destructive.” It slips out before he can stuff it down. Her mouth falls open in shock momentarily, but then she squares her shoulders and looks him directly in the eyes.

“You’re one to talk. Always running straight towards the fire instead of putting it out first.”

“That’s my job.”

“It’s your hangup.” She laughs bitterly. “Bucky Barnes, the big, bad Winter Soldier. You’ve decided you’re so fucked up that the only way you can make amends is to run headlong towards whatever’s trying to kill you, without backup I might add, and keep to your mission no matter what your personal damage is.”

“Says the woman who took a bullet and stopped Sam from announcing that you’re hit.” They’re teetering closer and closer to a fight with every nearly snarled word, but he’s powerless to stop it. In fact, he’s ready to go. Have it out. But not right now, because-

“Hey.” He catches her arm just as she starts to hoist another punching bag onto the hook. “Be careful! You’re still healing.” -she’s hellbent on hurting herself. Again.

She whirls around as if he’s slapped her.

“Oh my god. You have to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop treating me like I’m going to break!” Her voice is shrill, rising higher and higher with each syllable. “I love you, but you are driving me insane. I am not your child-”

“No, you’re the person I want to marry!” He takes a deep breath, preparing to follow up with, “-and you keep acting like you have a death wish”, but before he can-

“You won’t even fuck me anymore!” Immediately, her eyes go wide and she slaps a hand over her mouth.

If her declaration surprised her, it absolutely stunned him so, not quite sure what else to do, he takes a few steps back and sits down. A few seconds pass before she approaches and, with a heavy sigh, sinks down next to him.

“Bucky, I am so sorry. I don’t know where any of this is coming from-”

“I think you do, Doll.” Her eyes dart nervously between his face and the floor. On instinct, he reaches over and takes her hand. “And so do I.” He takes a few moments to rearrange his thoughts before pushing ahead. “A lot has changed since-”

“The world ended. We lost. And then we won.” He nods.

“Yeah, and I don’t think either of us have quite wrapped our heads around it. I know I haven’t.”

It’s silent for a moment, and then, voice trembling, she tells him,

“After you went away, I was completely lost. Didn’t know why I had to stay. What kind of cruel trick is it, just when everything was starting to go right-” He finally had the poison of HYDRA sucked out of him, she’d found a safe place where she didn’t have to run and hide because of something she was born with, he’d worked up the nerve to ask her if she’d maybe one day be his wife. “-and then it’s wiped out? You finally went somewhere I couldn’t follow.” He still can’t imagine what those five years must’ve been like, not just for her, but everyone else who survived the snap. “I didn’t want to keep going. But I had to.” She chuckles. “Steve wouldn’t let me throw in the towel.”

A smile forms on his own face. “Yeah, he had a habit of doing that.”

“I guess…” She sighs. “I don’t know. I got harder, rougher around the edges. I thought I could just go back to normal once everyone came back-”

“But old habits die hard.” It’s not a question, but she nods.

“Yeah, and as much as I chip away at it, I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to who I was before.”

“You won’t.” She peers up at him, eyes wide in shock, maybe a hint of sadness. “I can tell you that right now from experience. You won’t go back, but-” He’s had a lot of time to consider this, so he can say it and absolutely believe it. “-I love the girl that’s here now. She’s pretty amazing, rough edges and all.”

She’s sitting so close. He could pull her into his lap, just hold her for a minute. So, that’s what he does, and just like the first time, they fit together perfectly, like she was made to fit in his arms, or maybe he was made to hold her. Either way, it leaves no doubt in his mind that they belong together.

“You changed. Everyone does. You got stronger and tougher, because that’s who you had to be. And I wasn’t there to change with you.” He can feel her shoulders shake, and even though she’s facing away from him, he knows she’s fighting back tears. “But I’m gonna catch up. It’s just taking me a while to get it through my thick skull that my girl’s a badass, and I need to ease off the bodyguard routine a little.” There. That’s more like it. A laugh, even if it’s a small one. “I just worry about you, is all. I don’t know how to stop it, and I’m not sure I can, but I’m working on it.”

“I worry about you too, you know.” She sniffs, swiping at her nose with her hand. “I’m fucking terrified because, now that I’m like you, I know what your limits are. I’m scared you’ll forget them, or you’ll ignore them because you’re trying to be a good man.” She cranes her head, meeting his gaze. “But you are a good man, Bucky Barnes. You never stopped being one, no matter what you think.”

“I think your picture of me might be more flattering than who I really am.”

“Shut up.” She presses her palm over his mouth. “I have visions, so seeing is never my problem. And it’s not the way I’m picturing you. We’ve known each other long enough for the shine to wear off.” Never. It’ll never be possible for him to know her so long that she’s not absolutely golden from where he’s standing. “It’s who you’ve shown me you are. And if the rest of the world doesn’t see it, that’s their problem. Not yours.”

He’s not sure if he buys all that, but it’s enough that she does. She sees him as that man, so he’ll try every day of his life to be just that.

“Come on.” Gently pushing her off of him, he stands and offers her his hand. “That’s enough training for today. We’re still wounded.”

She chuckles. “Is that your excuse for calling it early?”

He nods, barely suppressing a grin. “That, and you’ve gotta change into something that doesn’t fit you like a second skin before my brain permanently short-circuits.”

“Showers, then?”

“Showers.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

The compound sustained heavy damage thanks to Thanos crashing a ship into it, but in the past few months (helped along by Pepper’s billions and the entire galaxy’s appreciation towards the Avengers in equal parts), enough repairs have been done to make it partially usable. In this case, the locker room. Just the one, though. Which, of course means co-ed showers.

She won’t admit it, but she’s particularly appreciative of that little detail today. As she circled the compound on her last lap, she saw that the only two cars there are hers and Barnes. They’re the only two people here, and she fully intends to use that to her advantage.

“Join me? I don’t want to overextend my shoulder trying to wash my hair or back.” It’s a blatant lie, and from his expression, she can tell that he knows it too. But, he nods.

“Yeah, doll. I can do that.” Part one of the plan has been executed beautifully. Onward to part two.

She purposely leaves the travel sized bottles of shampoo and body wash on the floor so that, after rinsing off for far longer than is really necessary, she has to bend over to retrieve them. If it weren’t for her enhanced hearing, she’d completely miss the sharp intake of breath in response to her little show, but she catches it and can’t help grinning to herself. Part two: get him as worked up as she is. So far, so good.

The feeling of his fingers massaging her scalp, working the shampoo through her hair, is almost enough to make her forget that she’s a woman on a mission. Almost. As soon as she’s rinsed the soap out of her face, she turns to him.

“Your turn. Bend.” It’s not the first time they’ve done this, and as always, she has to fight back a laugh as he inclines his head towards her, the entirety of his hair falling forward to cover his face. “This used to take a lot longer before you decided to chop it all off.” He chuckles, eyes closed against the soap.

“What can I say? Seventy-three years without a haircut is my limit.” She can’t blame him, and although it was a shock at first, she’s come to like this new look. It makes him look…younger, somehow. More boyish. Like his life hasn’t contained as many horrors as they both know full well it has.

“You checking for lice or something?”

“Huh?” That jerks her out of her sentimental daze. “Looks like you’re clear.”

There’s no way to put it politely. She’s straight up ogling him as he rinses off. Five damn years…

“Ready to get your back?” And, she just got caught staring.

“Sure.”

His hands are gentle, putting as little pressure on her injured shoulder as possible, growing firmer as they work down her back. She holds her breath as she feels his palms ghost over the swell of her ass, but then he’s back to safer territory. At least, that’s what she thinks until the metal arm snakes around her chest, just below her breasts, holding her in place. His free hand runs down from her sternum to her middle, stopping just above her hips, then- fuck. Nothing. He’s backing away.

“Do you need help with your legs?” No, what she needs help with is located between them. Suddenly, the shower feels far too hot, and she’s desperate to cool off.

“That’s okay.” Her voice is shaky, and she mentally berates herself as she steps under the spray, rinsing away the soap.

She’s not at all sure that her excuse for leaving the shower and going to towel off made any sense, but with a few feet between them, she’s able to breath again. Alright, scratch the whole “shower seduction” idea. It wasn’t that great to begin with. She gets him as hot and bothered as she is, and then what? Shower sex is a slippery affair, and plus there’s the height difference… in the steamed up mirror, she catches sight of him climbing out of the shower and toweling off. Fuck it. What does she have to lose?

“Come here.” As he turns around, she hops up on the counter top (thank fuck Stark went all out and got the sinks that can easily hold the weight of an adult), allowing her towel to slip further down her chest.

She doesn’t miss the way his eyes flit down to her cleavage before settling back on her face as he stands in front of her.

“Yeah, Doll?”

“Let me get your hair. You’ll never get it dry yourself.” She’s really running low on excuses, but if she plays her cards right, she won’t have to keep up this ruse for much longer.

“You know-” She murmurs against his ear as she starts working a towel over his tousled locks, “-if you don’t take me right now, I’m gonna be really offended.”

His head snaps up, and she nearly drops the towel.

“Well, I can’t let that happen, can I?”

She has a smart-ass remark all planned out, but then his lips are pressed against hers, hard, insistent, and her brain completely empties of anything other than pure need. She’s not completely sure how, but somehow the towel wrapped around her torso (it’s so short, it didn’t even cover her ass sitting down) disappears, leaving them chest to chest, both still slightly damp from the shower. On instinct, her legs wrap around his back, bringing them so close together she can feel his cock twitch against her thigh.

“The floor, or-” It’s murmured against her ear between nibbles.

“No. Here.” It’s all she can do to hold back a moan as his whole body rumbles with quiet laughter.

“Someone’s eager.”

She leans back far enough to peer into his eyes.

“And you’re not?” The response is a thumb against her clit, and she has to bite down hard on his shoulder to muffle a yelp.

“If I’d known you were ready, you wouldn’t have gotten any sleep for the past two months.” That would’ve been a very small price to pay.

Five years is a long time, and her body tenses up at the intrusion of his finger inside of her, but she immediately forces her muscles to relax, and within seconds, it’s all she can do not to writhe against him.

“That’s it. Relax. I’ll take care of you.” It’s a lost cause. This is going to be noisy. She hazily thinks to herself that it’s all his fault.

He’s always been one for foreplay, making sure she’ll be comfortable once they actually get around to the main event, but finally enough is enough and, reaching between them, she stills his wrist.

“Get inside me.”

“Are you sure? You’re still tight-” Disentangling one of her arms from around his neck, she gives his hair a sharp tug.

“I’m like you now, remember? You’re not going to break me.”

He pulls back from her, hesitating, eyes darting between her face and the door.

“What?”

“I don’t have-” Oh. She quickly runs the calculations in her head. Given which day of the month it is, the likelihood would be-

“It’ll be fine. Just pull out.” To her relief, he doesn’t argue.

Her breath catches as he pushes inside of her, and if the panting against her neck is anything to judge from, she’s not the only one affected.

“It’s been too damn long.” Despite the situation (or perhaps because of it), she laughs breathlessly.

“You think it’s been too long? Try five fucking years!” His laugh tickles her neck.

“You’re never gonna stop using that one, are you?”

“Nope. I think I’ve earned the right.” After all, he constantly reminds her that he had to wait 98 years to meet the love of his life, so fair is fair.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you.”

“Sounds like you just set yourself a challenge.”

“Guess I’d better get to work then.” As he says it, he pulls nearly all the way out only to slam back in again.

It’s primal, the way their bodies move together, desperate for a connection that’s been missing for so long. There’s no room or need for words to be spoken; their gasped breaths and strangled moans say it all. His hand sneaks between them, toying with her nub, and that’s what sends her over the edge. It’s the tipping point for him too because, muffling his cries against her shoulder, he pulls out just in time.

“We shoulda done that before the shower.” She’s still gasping for breath, but it forces a laugh from her. He follows suit, offering her a spare towel to clean herself up.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Barnes.” He shoots her a questioning look as she hops down on shaky legs. “I thought it was good before, but damn.”

He laughs, pulling on his jeans. “I didn’t want to risk breaking the bed. I’m a gentleman like that.” She knows the real concern was her safety, but if she concentrates on that too hard, she’ll start going mushy, and in this instance, crying after sex seems like it would kill the mood.

“You know-” She pulls her t shirt over her head, not bothering with a bra. “-I never really liked the bed I have now anyway.” It’s also really too small for two full-grown adults to share comfortably.

Sliding his duffle bag over his shoulder, he takes her hand. “Then maybe we should go home? Give you an excuse to get a new one?” Before she can answer-

“Go home. Please, I’m begging you, for the love of god, go.” Her eyes dart towards the source of the noise. The door, or more specifically, the other side of it. “Hearing you and the bionic man fucking once was enough. I’m gonna shoot you both and then myself if I have to listen to round two.”

Bucky catches her eye and mouths “Oops!”, sending her into a fit of giggles.

“You know Sam, you could’ve just walked away. You didn’t have to wait outside the door like a creep.” She has to bite her fist to keep from laughing out loud.

“Yeah, trust me. I could hear you from all the way down the hall.”

“Sorry.” She gasps it out between bouts of laughter, and she must be pulling a funny face, because he snickers to.

“No, you’re not.” No, she really isn’t. Just that they got caught.

“We’re heading out. You’ve got the place to yourself.” Giving his hand a tug, she pulls open the door, revealing a flustered Sam.

“I hope you remembered to wipe down the counter, you nasties!”

As they make their way down the corridor, Bucky calls out,

“See you Monday?”

“Yeah. And you’d better be wearing pants!”

#marvel #captain america #the winter soldier #bucky x reader #bucky fic #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes #post endgame #smut #part 2

[elffees]

some little additions to the ep 5 endings for low brotherhood

oh this post is going to hurt but i’m doing it anyway. these are just some brainstorms on tweaks to the endings bc for the most part, they all come off as high brotherhood, which is fine for me tbh bc i have never played a LB route cause im Soft™️. but i’m also Curious™️ and thought up some variations that couldve been made for people that did have a LB playthrough

these are mostly tiny changes. nothing too major bc like in canon, i think morality having the highest affect on Cross vs. Surrender is fine, but it would’ve been kinda cool if the epilogues had been tweaked a little to reflect brotherhood also. so possible tweaks i thought of is basically what this post is about.

here’s some:

redemption

(sidenote: okay i said the changes were mostly little and i promise they are. this ending specifically tho just has the most significant ones i’ve made by adding in like 2 extra scenes. but that’s really it)

in this ending things are the same when they reach the road block, including daniel tearing up, until sean says “you’re my brother”. they do not exchange i love yous nor hug or touch foreheads. sean goes straight to “and i know it’s gonna be alright” while keeping an outstretched arm on daniel’s shoulder. daniel also goes straight to his “how do you know”. the car scene plays out the same from then on except without hugging. they mostly stay separately in each other’s seats.

daniel doesn’t panic and jump to his feet when the police start walking sean to the car. he stands up resigned and watches sadly but quietly. sean doesnt say anything as he gets in the car but does look back at daniel before they pull off

in the collage, there is still a picture of daniel visiting sean in prison, but they don’t hug and just speak tensely across from one another.

daniel doesn’t come on the day of sean’s release, karen is the only default. now, like lyla, daniel is a determinant. (imagine if they were all determinant and even karen didn’t come meaning sean could get out of jail with nobody in the world caring about him jesus christ) there’s a scene with sean afterwards visiting daniel’s apartment. when daniel opens the door, he’s shocked and slams a palm to his forehead, clearly having forgot sean’s release date.

there’s small polite smiles on their faces as they greet each other at the door, but sean never makes it past the front steps. their conversation is brief before daniel gestures that he actually was walking out and has to go. they say their goodbyes with a casual hug (quick back slap) before daniel hops in his car using his power and pulls off with sean watching.

sean still goes back to their first campsite but alone. it mostly plays out the same where he still cries, but with no comfort, and then drives away towards the right after taking one last look at the trail

the epilogue ends with daniel stepping out of his car and approaching faraway friends that he waves to. they’re drawn vague and out of focus to save on production costs (don’t worry dontnod i gotchu). the angle of the scene shifts so it looks like daniel is walking off towards the left

summary (1/2) -> sean took the heat in order to let daniel have a childhood in america. and he succeeds in this, but because their relationship was poor, during his incarceration their bond practically turns to dust. daniel gets a childhood, but sean loses his own and his brother in return

summary (2/2) -> sean still wants some kind of relationship with his brother, but its awkward and distant. daniel does not hate sean. he holds some semblance of polite respect for him bc in his HM!eyes sean “did the right thing” at the end of their journey. but overall, they are not that close and are more like acquaintances who just worked on a group project one time.

blood brothers

sean doesn’t say “be careful” before daniel gets out the car. just “you know what to do”

they don’t hold hands after daniel’s massacre. daniel just stares out the window while sean focuses ahead

(after the 6 years) when sean backs into the garage and daniel sees he’s being held at gunpoint, daniel doesn’t do anything at first. he doesn’t even move forward to get a better look. he simply watches the scene play out until the gang members notice he’s there, bc sean keeps glancing his way, and they begin to threaten him too. that is when he uses his powers.

sean giving daniel a pat on the shoulder? yeah in this LB version it’s now a shove. he noticed that daniel did not have his back. daniel just shrugs.

he still heads out to their patio and takes a seat. the scene is angled so that the player sees sean over daniel’s shoulder think about joining him, wanting to go smoke, with their dad’s lighter already out so we still see it. but he instead waves his hand dismissively and turns back into the shop.

daniel stares out towards the beach alone.

summary -> they gain freedom and escape to mexico, but their relationship is empty. there’s no polite respect, but there’s no outright animosity either. it’s just….. empty.

lone wolf

daniel doesn’t say the “it’s my turn to take care of us” line (omg it was so good tho). it’s now smthg along the lines of “i won’t let you stop me here after all this”

when saying the “we made it” set of lines, he’s still happy but also boastful, ready to hold it over sean that he was right

he doesn’t cry. instead of sobbing over the death of his brother, he is more shocked bc of how unexpected it is. he still calls out for sean’s name frantically, but does not get distraught afterwards. instead of leaning onto sean’s arm like he does in canon, after it sinks in that sean’s dead, he only grimaces while sitting uncertainly in his seat

the pictures stay the same

when sitting on the beach and looking over the ocean, he is not drawing in sean’s journal. he still has a small smile on his face but we also see him taking swigs of the beer can(?) here instead of later

also instead of a teardrop tattoo, he has a tattoo of 3 dots. the teardrop has several meanings, including death of a loved one or crime affiliation. but bc a lot of players interpreted it as being a tear for sean, then i think it’s preferable to just not have it in the LB version at all to avoid confusion and just have him with the 3 dots to make it clear it’s solely part of the gang/crime lifestyle

(moving on) daniel heads over to sean’s memorial and it is absolutely not as decorated as it is in canon. there is only 1 candle and no plants. the brick is still there but instead of a cross, it’s just a hastily laid single wooden plank with sean’s name scribbled down it. there’s no eye patch. the only thing of sentimental value there is their dad’s lighter.

daniel doesn’t sit, he stands looking at the memorial while drinking his beer. he realizes it’s empty tho and lazily litters the can beside sean’s memorial before turning to walk off and as he does he sees the gang.

most of their interaction plays out the same, but while daniel’s walking away instead of sparing the group, it’s clear he kills them as they are all unmoving, us seeing the dude with the gun flop to the ground over daniel’s shoulder. this change is bc personally i interpreted daniel sparing them as a sortve homage to sean’s high morality in this route. as in he’ll still do what needs to be done to survive, but will try to kill as little as possible out of respect for sean’s beliefs. so being as though daniel does not value sean as much in this LB version, he doesn’t care about that and kills them without thought.

summary -> for the most part, daniel still has the relatively content life he does in canon except, going by the now bare minimum memorial and littering, he doesn’t value sean’s memory nearly as much as he does in HB. sean’s death was ofc still a shock and smthg he still remembers, but it didn’t crush him like it does HB!daniel, and he honestly feels more annoyance than regret. in his LM!eyes, hes disappointed and thinks its a little stupid that sean wanted to switch gears at the border like that. he doesn’t hate him tho, he just sees sean as a disappointing memory.

parting ways

at the border daniel still cries, but instead of saying sorry to sean he says “i can’t do this sean. i have to go”, making it extra clear he’s not crying bc it’s the end, he’s crying bc of the damage he does not want to do.

he still says the “i hope you’ll be happy” line, but instead of being genuine it’s now full of disappointment with a twinge of bitterness

you know that quick angry facial expression he has before he’s walked off by the cops? WELL HOWDY IT DEFINITELY STAYS

the picture collage still shows him having a relatively happy upbringing with stephen, claire, and chris

when he’s on the phone at the reynolds’ and claire comes up to him, he’s still smiling and content. when he gets the letter with no sender name, his smile drops after taking the pic out and realizing who it’s from. the player doesn’t see yet tho. emphasis on 1 pic bc it’s not several like it is in canon/HB.

daniel rolls his eyes and with his power tosses the envelope & photo card (no sand btw) across the room so they land on a distant table. the camera zooms in on them and we finally see it’s of sean in mexico.

when claire comes back into the room, she halts seeing the mail and picks them up, glancing between them and daniel regretfully before sitting down

we go back to daniel and with arms crossed, he glances out at the tree in the yard for a brief moment before walking away

the scene stays focused on the tree and we still zoom out to the Wolf Brothers carving, except it has a not-recent slash cut through it

summary -> daniel gets a childhood in america and sean gets his freedom in mexico, but their relationship is destroyed. daniel doesn’t approve of sean’s final decision at all and holds little to no respect for him. sean sends the post card bc, like in redemption, he still wishes to hold some kind of relationship, but he doesnt try all that hard and doesn’t miss daniel that much to send several pics and a chunk of sand.

and so these were some of my ideas for low brotherhood endings! i tried to put them in order from most positive (minute respect) to most negative (outright disdain). i’d love to hear thoughts on this or if anyone wants to add to these, then that’s fine to! just don’t break my heart pls

#lexi plays lis2 #life is strange 2 #surprisingly my variations to the LW ending hurt the least #still messed up but my redemption & blood brothers tweaks just feel cold #and the parting ways one…. :( #lis2 #lis 2

[theros]

12, 23, 37, 49 for OC questions!

wasn't actually expecting to get asked anything holy crap!

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

@acheyri's FFXIV character Svee! I have never been so obsessed with an OC that wasn't my own, but I genuinely love Svee so so much, both her design and her story. She's complicated and messy and real, and Ripley's art and discussions about her are absolutely fantastic.

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?

Ough, that would be Sira, my very first OC. I don't have any pictures of her first design (when I was 8-10) because I never took photos of it and have long since lost the journal she was doodled in, but she was a completely human girl with brown hair and ordinary human blue eyes. She was one of three protagonists of a very very YA "series" I was writing about three human girls who became nonhuman through shenanigans and had perfect nonhuman boyfriends and saved the world lmao. Then when I first joined the furry community, I reworked her into a cat/dragon (and supposedly wolverine but I was 12 and this was literally never shown in her design) hybrid:

(old art by @felisrandomis - like, 11 years ago old lol)

over the years i reworked her again and sort of merged her with another character of mine, a werecat assassin, and bounced her through several design changes. I made her dark gray with light gray rosettes, dark gray with blue rosettes, then finally settled on and stayed with silvery gray with darker gray rosettes.

(art by Chandraken - also 11 years old; i went through changes for Sira rapidfire for a while there lol)

(crop of the last ref i did for her a few years ago. she does have a fully human form but I used to draw her as an anthro or neko 90% of the time so)

Her story is also waaaaay different than the original iteration. Rather than a 13 year old girl who magically saves the world with no pain or consequences and also gains cool powers and a hot boyfriend, she's now a bitchy, traumatized adult assassin/ex child soldier locked into a life contract with an employer she wants to kill. She also murdered her husband (he kinda deserved it). Her storyline... really does not have a happy ending any more.

37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human

How human do they have to be/appear to fit the "not quite"? By my definition Sira would qualify, as would my answers to number 49, and also this dude!

Greirat, local satyr boy. One of two different satyr OCs I have and definitely the more wild one despite having such a sweet face. He's lowkey a shapeshifter and his true form is a cat-satyr creature created by @.Felisrandomis, so this is about as human as his appearance can get:

His ref sheet is like. The only art I've ever drawn of him and I really oughtta fix that sometime. Maybe tweak his design a little, now that I think about it.

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

My MTG oc Mestas, hands down. Lovac, one of my FFXIV ocs, would be a very close second, and it's probably a good thing those two exist in totally separate universes, because they'd likely drive their friends batshit constantly memeing back and forth with each other.

If social media was a thing on Ravnica, Mes would totally be a tumblr blogger. She'd constantly post memes about her friends, the guilds, and any prominent characters from canon. She'd @ Jace Beleren in every single one. He has no idea who she is or how she got his contact information. He's blocked her 16 times and she still manages to do it. She doesn't even have multiple accounts.

No pics for these two cause I'm redoing Mestas' ref and I changed Lovac's skin tone, and my only saved screenshots of him are from before that. He's not my main file so I rarely play him OTL.

#Mestas also has gray skin which I realize shows i have a Pattern #considering Sira Greirat and Kolasi (FFXIV) are also gray

[timebird84]

🎄 PotO Advent Calendar 2020 🎄

By @pianomanblaine

December had never been Christine’s favourite month. She by far preferred April, with the twittering birds and the flowers starting to bloom, the sun finally showing its face again after another cold and dreary winter. Erik, on the other hand, had his own reasons for enjoying the winter months. Winter meant that the dark had already set in by late afternoon, allowing him to venture outside earlier without having to worry about his mask drawing too much attention. On top of that, this year’s winter was particularly harsh and cold, keeping most people inside their houses and leaving the streets of Paris as good as empty.

Christine didn’t really feel inclined to go out tonight either, but as Erik had been looking forward to taking his wife on a nice evening stroll for quite some time, she had agreed to leave the relative warmth of their underground home for a while. And so they made their way up, Christine wrapped in her warmest cloak, Erik’s arm draped firmly around her for extra warmth. However, when they finally emerged on the Rue Scribe, Erik’s excitement seemed to vanish as soon as he took in their surroundings. The street was completely deserted, not a single person in sight, which was easily explained by the thick blanket of snow covering the cobblestones.  

‘Oh no. No no no no no,’ Erik groaned, turning around as if he suddenly couldn’t wait to return home.

‘Erik, what’s wrong?’ Christine asked. She gently pulled him back towards her by the sleeve of his coat. ‘It’s only a bit of snow. That doesn’t mean we have to go back immediately.’

‘It does, if I have anything to say about it,’ he grumbled, glaring at the snow as if it had somehow offended him. ‘Snow is slippery, and it makes this awful crunching sound when you step on it, and it slows you down to a snail-like pace, which is incredibly annoying if you actually want to get anything done.’

As Erik ranted on, Christine let go of his arm and carefully took a few steps onto the snow-covered street, watching the small foggy cloud that formed when she breathed out in the cold evening air. She was immediately reminded of the winters she had spent with her papa in Sweden when she was a child. When it snowed there, he used to take her out to go sledding and she would scream with delight as they sped down the hill, her papa chuckling in her ear as he held her close to him.

‘Are you quite finished complaining now?’ she asked Erik. ‘Because I’m actually enjoying myself and I would like to stay out here a little longer.’

‘But Christine, I truly can’t stand snow,’ he replied with a pout on his face that Christine found rather adorable, although he would most likely throw a fit if she ever called him adorable out loud.

When Erik turned around, presumably to head back the way they came, hoping she would give in and follow him, Christine bent down and scooped up a small heap of snow, pressing it into a ball. ‘We’ll see if I can’t change your mind about that,’ she mumbled to herself and threw the ball in Erik’s direction, aiming for his back but instead hitting him in the back of the head.

Erik froze and remained completely still for what felt like an eternity, and Christine began to panic. Maybe this was a mistake. She had only wanted to make him laugh, to help him see that snow could be fun too, but perhaps he couldn’t see the humour of it at all. Just as she was about to apologize, hoping she hadn’t angered him too much, he turned back towards her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

‘I’m afraid you’ll regret that, my dear,’ he said and before she even had time to react he was already aiming his own snowball at her, which narrowly missed her shoulder. Christine shrieked in surprise and ran further up the road, trying to create more distance between them before gathering up more snow. They chased each other up and down the empty street, both of them squealing with laughter as they tossed snow at each other. Christine had to admit that her husband seemed to hit his target more often than she did, but she wasn’t really surprised that the Opera Ghost turned out to be rather competitive even at something as simple as a snowball fight.

She was delighted to see how much he was enjoying himself. It seemed she had succeeded in her mission. For a moment she just stood there, taking in the child-like grin on his face. How long had it been, she wondered, since he had last been this joyful and carefree? Christine tried to imagine a younger Erik, running around with other children his age, all of them covered in snow, their cheeks glowing red both from excitement and the cold. The image was a very pleasant one, until she remembered that Erik had never had such a happy childhood.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice the snowball flying in her direction until it hit her square in the cheek.

‘Oh God, Christine, are you all right?’ Erik cried out, rushing towards her immediately, concern etched across the visible side of his face. ‘I’m so sorry, my love. Did I hurt you? Please tell me you’re not hurt.’ He ghosted his hands over her face anxiously, checking for injuries, but Christine was more than fine and she couldn’t help the peal of laughter that burst out of her. Erik looked quite affronted.

‘I’m sorry, darling, I’m not laughing at you,’ she assured him, turning her head slightly to kiss the hand that was cupping her cheek in apology. ‘It’s just… That was so much fun!’

A slow smile crept across his face. ‘Maybe snow isn’t so bad after all,’ he agreed.

They didn’t go out again in the following weeks, but Christine couldn’t stop thinking about that evening, remembering with fondness how much they had both enjoyed themselves and desperately hoping they would repeat the experience soon. She kept dropping hints to Erik, bringing up the topic of their little outing in the snow whenever she saw the opportunity, but Erik didn’t appear to pay much attention to it. In fact, he hardly seemed to be listening to her at all nowadays.

A few days after their snowball fight he had started acting very strange. He spent more and more time in his study, the door locked firmly behind him. He was often joined there by the Daroga, whose visits were suddenly much more numerous than they had been in the past. They would spend several hours in there doing God knows what, and every time Christine saw them emerge, Nadir would leave with nothing but a ‘good evening’ and a polite nod in her direction, and Erik would staunchly refuse to tell her what they had been discussing. In the end she stopped asking because she knew she would not receive a satisfactory answer anytime soon, and he stopped talking to her altogether.

One afternoon, when she had finally had enough of his continued silence and simply had to know what was going on, she decided to confront him. She found him standing at the front door, her cloak draped over his arm, and before she could even open her mouth to demand an explanation for his behaviour, he handed her the cloak and told her to dress warmly and follow him outside. Her first thought was to ask him why, but as asking questions had gotten her nowhere in the past, she settled for letting out a frustrated growl and doing as she was told.

A carriage was waiting for them on the Rue Scribe, their travelling trunk already loaded onto it. How was that possible? She hadn’t even seen him packing! Erik gestured for her to get in, and for a moment she considered throwing a tantrum, stomping her foot on the snow-covered stones and simply refusing to go anywhere until he told her what the meaning of all of this was. However, as stubborn as she could be, she knew Erik was just as tenacious and would not give in until she did what he told her to do. She climbed inside the carriage, but not before glaring at her husband with an expression that clearly said ‘if looks could kill, you would be dead right now’.

‘Erik, I am getting really tired of this,’ she sighed when he pulled the door closed behind him. ‘Tell me where we are going.’ She didn’t want to admit it, but his refusal to give her any information about his plans truly unnerved her.

‘Patience, my dear. You’ll see when we get there.’ The smirk on his face made it abundantly clear that he was enjoying this far too much for her liking.

They left the city behind, and as Christine hadn’t travelled outside of Paris much over the past few years, she lost all sense of where she was pretty quickly. The next few hours were spent in complete silence and she grew more and more anxious. What in heaven’s name was going on with Erik? He had never treated her like this, never ignored her as if her wishes and feelings were completely irrelevant. When she thought back to the very first time he had brought her to his lair underneath the opera, she remembered how even back then he had made her comfort his absolute priority. That had not changed after they were married. Until now. This was so unlike him and not having the slightest idea of what was causing this sudden change in behaviour made her sick with worry.

It was growing dark outside and the carriage was now driving through a forest, apparently leaving civilisation completely behind. By now, Christine was truly frightened and couldn’t stop the tears she had felt pricking her eyes for the past hour from spilling over any longer. When Erik heard her sniffling, he looked at her with panic in his eyes.

‘Darling, whatever is the matter?’ he asked, his hands reaching out to wipe away her tears, but she batted them away.

‘What’s the matter?’ she cried, not caring if she sounded hysterical. ‘It’s dark, we’re in the middle of the woods, you won’t tell me where we are going, and you have refused to talk to me for days! I’m your wife, Erik. I have the right to know what is going on, and I need you to tell me right now because you’re scaring me.’ Her soft sniffling had turned into full body-wracking sobs by now and this time she did not slap his hands when he pulled her towards him to comfort her.

‘Oh my dear, I am so sorry,’ he whispered soothingly as he let her cry on his shoulder. He started rubbing gentle circles on her back with one hand, something he often did when he was trying to calm her down, while he buried the other hand in her hair, which was more likely meant to calm himself down. Seeing her in distress always made him nervous, even more so when he knew that he was the one who caused it. ‘I never meant to frighten you, truly,’ he swore. ‘I simply wished to surprise you.’

‘Surprise me?’ She pulled away a little, wiping her cheeks dry, and looked at him incredulously. ‘By forcing me to come away with you and not telling me where we’re going or what’s going to happen next?’ How could he possibly think that was an appropriate way of surprising her?

He flinched at her words, and she realized he must be flashing back to the last time he had taken her away like that, after the disastrous performance of Don Juan Triumphant.

‘When you say it like that, it does sound like an idiotic idea,’ he admitted, rubbing his neck in a gesture of uneasiness. ‘You’re right of course, I should have talked to you. I am really sorry, my love, please forgive me.’ He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips, placing a feather-light kiss on her knuckles, and glanced at her with a pleading look on his face. He sounded genuinely remorseful and Christine allowed herself to relax a little, although she wasn’t inclined to forgive him for what he had put her through just yet.

‘I still don’t understand. What exactly were you trying to surprise me with?’

The moment the question had left her lips, the carriage came to a halt.

‘Allow me to show you,’ he replied, throwing open the door and extending his hand to her in invitation. She only hesitated for a second before she took it and followed him out of the carriage. The snow underneath her feet made that crunching sound Erik had claimed to hate so much the last time they were outside. She took a deep breath, relishing the fresh night air entering her lungs.

Until now she had believed they were deep in the forest, surrounded by nothing but trees, but to her utter surprise she now found herself standing in front of a beautiful little cottage. There was smoke rising from the chimney, so the house must be inhabited. She had to admit she was curious to learn who was living here, so far removed from everything and everyone, no other houses to be seen for miles, but more than anything she was extremely confused.

‘Erik, what are we doing here? Whose house is this?’

He grinned somewhat sheepishly at her as he replied. ‘Mine.’

‘Now you’ve truly lost me,’ Christine said, gaping at him in bewilderment. ‘What do you mean, it’s yours? And if it’s yours, then who is living here? And if someone else is living here, then why are we here?’

Erik squeezed her hand to stop her from spewing out any more questions. ‘If you can stop talking for a minute, I’ll explain,’ he chuckled. ‘I acquired the house only a few weeks ago. Before that, it had been empty for a long time. I had always meant it as a surprise for you, I was just waiting for the right occasion to show it to you.’

Christine felt tears threatening to fall again, but this time, they were not tears of sadness or fear. Erik had wanted to surprise her, and so he had bought her a house? He really didn’t do anything halfway, did he?

‘I had the Daroga help me to move in some furniture. He has been here earlier, stocking the kitchen with food and other supplies for our stay, lighting the fire, and so on,’ he explained, gesturing towards the smoking chimney. ‘I asked him to leave shortly before we arrived.’ So that is what all the late night conversations with Nadir had been about then. She would have to thank the man in person next time she saw him.

‘You seemed to enjoy our last outing in the snow so much,’ he continued when Christine remained silent. ‘It made me want to take you out more often, but I wanted to make certain we wouldn’t be bothered by any other people around, so this seemed like the ideal solution.’

Christine was at a loss for words. How was it possible that this man who had grown up without ever knowing any kindness, who had been shown so much hate and contempt in his life, could still be so sweet and thoughtful? Admittedly, he could have gone about it all in a different way, but since it was very unlikely he had any experience with being surprised like this himself, she supposed she could forgive him his error of judgment.

‘Please say something, love,’ Erik begged. ‘Do you not like it? We can return to Paris immediately if you wish, but maybe I could show you inside fi-‘

Christine’s mouth was on his before he could finish his sentence, her arms wrapped firmly around his neck. ‘It’s perfect, thank you,’ she whispered against his lips, ‘and I would love to see the inside.’

‘Your wish is my command,’ he murmured as he swept his giggling wife up in his arms and carried her across the threshold.

They stayed at the cottage in the woods for a couple of weeks, and it felt like absolute bliss to Christine. She got to spend more time outside over the course of the first few days than she had in the past couple of months and she savoured every second of it. Although Erik had never forbidden her from going outside, he was not particularly fond of going out during daylight hours himself, and she knew it made him uncomfortable when she left the house without him – she suspected a small part of him still believed that if she left, she would never return – so she had limited her excursions outside to a minimum. But now that she had the chance, she could not get enough of the fresh, crisp air of the forest.

On one of their walks exploring the grounds surrounding the house, they stumbled upon a small lake. Since it had been freezing continually for a while now, the lake was completely frozen over and Christine jumped up and down in excitement remembering the ice skates she had noticed among the supplies that Nadir had brought for them. After testing if the ice was solid and strong enough to hold them, Erik reluctantly agreed to fetch the skates.

Erik had never ice skated before, but Christine had enough experience to guide him through his first steps onto the ice. Once he had managed to make his way onto the ice without falling over, she took his hand and slowly started skating around the edge of the lake. He had a look of utmost concentration on his face and held out his free arm to keep his balance, but managed to follow her without incident.

‘See, this is fun, isn’t it?’ Christine said after a few laps around the lake, and although his answering smile was still somewhat hesitant, he seemed to be growing more and more sure-footed. After another lap he felt confident enough to try it on his own. Christine let go of his hand and watched as he went off, his smile growing with every step, obviously satisfied at having mastered another skill. He must have gained a bit too much confidence, because the moment she took her eyes off him, she heard him cursing and looked back just in time to see him stumble and fall, landing flat on his bottom.

She sucked in a breath and grimaced in sympathy. She had fallen over enough times herself in the past to know how much that could hurt. He didn’t seem to be injured too badly though, as he struggled back on his feet within seconds, but the smile had been wiped off of his face. Christine hurried over to make sure he was okay, but she couldn’t convince him to stay on the ice any longer. He sulked all the way back to the cottage, muttering that he had hurt his wrist in the fall, but his mood lightened significantly when she promised to kiss it better.

Erik did not always join her outside. Sometimes the need to compose would simply grow too strong and he would withdraw to the piano in the music room (of course the cottage had a music room, he would probably have refused to stay in the house if it didn’t).  On these occasions, Christine set out on her own, always promising not to stray too far away from the house, and by the time she returned, Erik often had a new piece of music to play for her.

Their evenings however were invariably spent together. Sometimes they would sing. ‘Being away from home should never be an excuse to neglect your voice, Christine, you need to keep it in shape,’ Erik never failed to remind her. Other times she would listen to Erik reading aloud from one of her favourite novels, letting his rich, seductive voice wash over her and lull her to sleep. But her favourite evenings were those they would just spend by the fire in companionable silence, Christine lying down on the couch with her head resting in her husband’s lap, his long fingers combing through her hair, which she loved so much that if she were a cat, she was sure she would be purring.  

Sooner than she would have liked, the last day of their little winter holiday arrived. Erik had business at the Opera to attend to, but he promised her they would return before long. Christine was determined to make the most of their final moments here, and as they had woken up to find the earth covered in a fresh layer of snow, they decided to go out one last time and make a snowman together. The morning sped by, and as Christine stepped back to take in the final result, she burst out laughing when she noticed the uncanny resemblance their creation bore to Monsieur Firmin, one of the two fools who ran the Opera, as Erik described them. Now she understood why he had insisted on finding some twigs to give the snowman a moustache.

That night they decided to retire early, as the carriage would be there to pick them up early the next morning. Christine was changing into her nightgown while Erik added another log to the fire.  She knew he did not do that for his own benefit, as he didn’t mind the cold much, but was thinking of her comfort, for which she was extremely grateful. It had been freezing outside and her fingers and toes had still not warmed up properly. She smiled gratefully at him, glad that he had already taken off his mask for the night so she could see his face as he gazed back at her lovingly. If his love for her could warm her physically, she would never be cold again.

Alas, that was wishful thinking. She shivered as she finished undressing and hurried to join Erik in bed, almost stumbling over her own feet in her haste to get under the covers. She sighed happily as she settled into his arms, rubbing her ice cold feet against his, causing him to yelp in indignation.

‘My love, even to my eternally cold skin, your little feet feel like icicles,’ he complained.

‘I know, I’m sorry darling,’ she replied, ‘but I simply haven’t managed to get warm all evening. My hands are still cold too.’ She placed her hands on his cheeks to prove her point.

He was prepared this time and flinched only slightly at her icy touch. He let her keep her hands there for a few seconds more before covering them with his own and bringing them to his mouth. ‘Allow me to warm them, then,’ he murmured, the sound of his voice sending shivers down her spine that had nothing at all to do with the temperature in the room. He began peppering her hands with kisses, starting at the tips of her fingers and making his way down over her palm to her wrist. He pressed a more lingering kiss there, caressing her skin with his lips, looking up at her with an expression that spoke both of adoration and desire.

Christine felt her mouth turn dry and pressed her arm a little closer to his mouth, unable to resist the sensation of his lips on her skin. She licked her lips unconsciously and noticed how his eyes immediately flickered to her mouth to follow the movement of her tongue.

‘You know what else feels cold?’ she whispered.

‘Do tell,’ he breathed against her skin, smirking at her, fully aware of the effect his touch had on her.

‘My lips. My lips are cold.’

‘Well then,’ he grinned, moving a hand to her waist to pull her closer, ‘I’ll simply have to warm them too.’

#PotO Advent Calendar #PotO #Phantom of the Opera #Door 10