#junos shadow library

[junosshadowlibrary]

Tea and Chatter (Grimora Open Rp/Interaction)

Please make sure to read rules before interaction ..............................................................................................................................

The isle of the dead was always a lively place. Something one wouldn't have really expected given the residents that live there. But for those who resided there, they always found something to do during the day. For some it was haunting crypts, others it was playing cards, or having tea. But for the caretaker of the land; Grimora work is what always kept her busy.

As a Scrybe she always had new epitaphs to turn into cards, a new meeting to attend or appointments to keep. Yes she had her free time of course but she always liked to make of the most of the bright sun filled hours of the day before resting. There were a number of task she needed to get done throughout the week, but for today she decided to spend some time outside, and tend to cleaning up some of the graves that resided near her crypt.

Rain, dirt, and other natural elements always did a number on tombstones, and the flowers that adorned some of the graves needed to be rotated out for fresher ones. And of course there was always a new grave to dig for some creature. But today, she focused on the cleaning part. Busying herself with pulling weeds, wiping down tombstones and plaques, and changing flowers. Others have offered to do the work for her but she always preferred getting her hands dirty herself. And saw it as her responsibly to make sure every spirit under her care rested comfortably. And today was the perfect day to maintain that duty.

Though the sun was high in the sky the overcast of clouds and cool autumn breeze keeps her from overheating. Allowing her to toil without a care in the world save for the dirt that was caking itself onto her shoes, hands and skirt. "Alright that should do it!" The second item on that list was easy to remedy as she pulls a handkerchief from her dress pocket, using it to dry off her hands the moment she finishes rinsing them off in a bucket of soapy water she brought with her. But the moment she rises to her feet however, something halts her work. Far along the warned down walkway that expanded across her island was a person. She wasn't sure if they were lost, a friend, a foe, or just a visitor because of how far they were. But the that does little to keep her from smiling brightly and calling out to them. Waving to the visitor in a friendly manner as she greets them with a loud warm chuckle.

"Why Greetings! Pardon my appearance I wasn't expecting visitors today! What brings you hear to my little corner of the world dear?"

#junos shadow library #inscryption #inscryption grimora #grimora #open rp #open interaction

[elitheaceofalltrades]

2024 Reading Goals

Hello hello! Happy New Year to all!

Fun fact, by posting this at 11:00am GMT, 2023 has officially ended in all inhabited countries as UTC -11 is the last inhabited timezone.

I haven't been a resolutions person for a couple of years now but I admit I do love a challenge and goal setting. I also love reading. I'm sure you don't need the title to tell you where this is going. I've had goodreads since Sept, 2016 and have been taking part in their reading challenge since 2020. I've met my goal evey year except 2021 and I hope to make three years in a row this year!

2023's goal was an ambitious 48 books and I somehow managed to read 48 (I attribute a good 1/3 to getting a library card and access to libby). 18 of those books were comics/manga though and while I do believe anything with a ISBN counts, I'd like for comics & manga to only be about 25% of my books instead of the current 38%. I feel like I might be setting myself up a bit but I'm not going to be too upset if at the end of the year, I don't lower the percentage. This is just a bit of fun.

Anyways in no particular order, here's a tentative list of the 48 books I plan to read in 2024. This is subject to change due to availability, gifts, recommendations and new releases.

~Eli

Ace of All Trades, Pro at None😆

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

The Lost Adventures and Team Avatar Tales by Gene Luen Yang & Faith Erin Hicks

Girls and Autism by Barry Cerpenter, Francesca Happé & Jo Egerton

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

ATLA: The Promise by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko

Windrush by Mike Phillips & Trevor Phillips

In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

ATLA: The Search Omnibus by Gene Luen Yang

Queer by Frank Wynne

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

ATLA: The Rift Omnibus by Gene Luen Yang

This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

ATLA: Smoke & Shadow Omnibus by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko

The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

ATLA: North & South Omnibus by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko

I Will Not Be Erased by Gal-dem

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Katara & The Pirate's Silver by Faith Erin Hicks

They/Them/Their by Eris Young

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Suki, Alone by Faith Erin Hicks

Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion

The Turn of the Shrew by Henry James

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Abertalli

Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy by Faith Erin Hicks

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Middlemarch by George Elliot

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

The Movement Vol. 1: Class Warfare by Gail Simone

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner

Saga Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughn

#ace of all trades #hobby blog #hobbies #books #bookworm #book #booklr #books & libraries #bookblr #reading #books and reading #goodreads #book challenge #reading challenge #reading goals #2024 reading goals #tbr pile #tbr list #tbr #book tbr #to be read #to read

[of-the-sun-emperors-archives]

Intro!

Hi ya'll! I'm Jean-Yves, but Yves is fine for short!

I'm 18, and I write things! I use any pronouns but typically am called by she/her or they/them.

My current project is a (hopeful) trilogy, of which the cast is filled with lesbians. It's a sci-fi fantasy called "The Steel Empress's Archives", starring an antique android named Juno, from the human ages, and their life in the Sun Palace, where prophecies brew, and revolutions run abound.

I do have male characters in other stories! Most of my characters, if not all, are queer.

I have same-charatcer syndrome because I'm obsessed with my main cast, so you'll probably see them in my short stories as well.

Besides Sci-Fi and Fantasy, i write urban fiction and fantasy, historical fiction and fantasy, and poetry~!

Cast and other info under the cut!

Cast of OCs:

Juno of Archives - An ancient android constructed over 3 eons ago, made to record events that happen to and about the royal family of the Empire of The Sun. They/Them, Ageless.

Nika of Clock - A girl orphaned by a short-lived coup against the empire. She resides in the dungeon, plotting and organizing her comeback through her contacts in the palace. She/Her, 19 Suns old.

Ru of Steel - The eldest of the royal family, daughter of the Steel Empress, but not of the Sun Emperor and thus, not the heir to the throne. instead spends her time training to lead the Solra'ah warriors, the kingdom's elite, all-female guard. She/Her, 21 Suns old.

Krow of Gemstone - The palace prophetess and fortune-teller. She resides in the library, gathering information for Nika in secret, and making sure Juno's data collecting mechanism works correctly. She is Juno's closest friend. She/Her, 18 Suns old.

It of Delirium - A being made of shadow and other similar matter, who is the "god" of the solar system the story takes place in. It is intrinsically involved in the chaos that ensues throughout the plot. It/She, Ageless.

Artemys of Sun - Ru's little sister on her mother's side, (a Daughter of the Steel Empress) and the heir to the Sun Empire. The story begins when she comes of age on her 14th birthday- It is prophesied, and as such, is assumed, that she will change the course of the galaxy, somehow, that night. She/Her, 14 Suns old.

Phoebe of Stalk - Artemys's handmaiden and best friend. Has a theory that Art may not be the prophesied "Daughter of Steel" after all. Besides, Ru has been acting oddly lately.... She/Her, 13 Suns old.

#writeblr intro #writeblr #writers and poets #writer things #queer writers

[semper-legens]

170. The Shadow Cabinet, by Juno Dawson

Owned: No, library Page count: 504 My summary: Her Majesty's Royal Coven is still dealing with the aftermath of the downfall of their previous leader. But all is not well in the county of Yorkshire. Leonie's brother is missing, probably gone after evil warlock Dabney Hale. Elle's husband is acting very strangely. Theo struggles to fit into school, between being a witch and being a trans girl. And Niamh Kelly is not who she seems... My rating: 3.5/5 My commentary:

Ah, back to Her Majesty's Royal Coven. This is the second book in Juno Dawson's first series for adult readers, and though I am very much enamoured with her writing when it comes to YA fiction, HMRC left me a bit cold the first time I read it. I've discussed it with a friend (herself a trans woman) since, and she hit the nail on the head with her commentary - while she didn't think it was a bad book per se, she was disappointed at how it was aimed more at middle-aged cis women with book clubs than trans women. Trans women don't get so much fiction that is aimed specifically at them, after all. And I agree with her on this - a lot of Dawson's writing in this series trends towards what I call the 'baby's first' style of writing. By that, I mean that it introduces a social issue, but in a way that is meant to be for people who have absolutely no prior knowledge of or experience with that social issue. In this case, it's a combo of baby's first trans teenager and baby's first systemic oppression. None of this is by necessity bad. It's just not quite what I was expecting or looking for.

So yeah, as previously mentioned, the main protagonists of this book are middle-aged cis women, though trans teenager Theo does get some point of view time and her own B plot. This isn't necessarily meant to be a book about transness, but as I said, I'm still left a little disappointed by the lack of trans characters. That said, this book introduces an intersex witch who helps Leonie in her quest to find big bad Dabney Hale and her brother Radley, so that's an interesting addition at least. But for all I have complained about the focus being on said middle-aged cis women, it isn't as though Dawson writes them badly. On the contrary, she manages to perfectly walk the line of universality (everyone knows a woman who acts like at least one of these women) and specificity, where her characters still feel like full people with lives and stories that aren't just meant to be blandly relatable. Reading about them is fun! I particularly like housewife Elle, who learns of her husband's infidelity and winds up unlocking a part of her and a power that she wasn't aware of previously. It's an interesting idea and I want to see where it's going.

But the politics of this book are very baby's first. I get it, when you're writing about issues like women's rights and trans identity, particularly transfeminine identity, in a modern setting then there's no reason why your characters can't be spouting the modern social justice terminology when they talk about it. I just think that the messaging with the politics of the book was a little too clear-cut and unsubtle. I would have liked a little more ambiguity, and perhaps for the characters to not always talk like internet teens sometimes. At its worst, it just came across as clunky and obvious, and that's the kind of thing you really want to avoid in a book with these sorts of messages.

Like I said, the characters in this novel are engaging. Ciara is one of our main point of view characters, the sister of Niamh who took over her body and is now masquerading as her. The heel-face turn she is slowly making, plus her attempts to piece together her past and understand who she really is, are engaging, and her voice is a fun one to play with. Poor Theo gets a subplot where she is coming to terms with her magic and her transformation after the last book which raises some interesting ideas about dysphoria, identity, and gender as well as being really endearing. Leonie's determination in her quest to find her brother is strong, and Elle's more domestic problems are a slow tragedy that is nonetheless interesting to see unfold. I'm probably gonna end up reading the next book in this series when it comes out. I do still really like Dawson's writing. I'm just a little disappointed that this story could have been a lot more complex than it is.

Next up, back to CHERUB, as a plane crashes into the ocean.

#The Shadow Cabinet #Juno Dawson #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #3.5

[brothersonahotelbed]

NICO NICO OH MY GOF HI HI I'VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH im so sorry i just went and disappeared on you like that. went through a really bad time and got sick of my blog (which i honestly have been for a good while) and just decided to wipe everything and be alone for a little. it's so good you should try suddenly disappearing into a fog sometimes I'll just want for you to come back when you've cleared your mind. sorry i miss you a lot and it's so nice to get to talk to you again :). oh here's some poetry from a book i've acquired through ah id say dubious means and ive bookmarked some that reminded me of you and your sea thing. im gonna go through and find some more for you. anyway PLEASE catch me up on things how's everything have you been writing show me show me how are your little silly creatures any new stuff youre insane about any cool things you wanna show me tell me everything man IVE MISSED YOU MWUAHMWUAHMUWHA

enyway these are the poems 👍. ly man

ZEDFER OH MY GOD HI FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELLO I MISSED YOU SM!!!!!!!!!!

okay first before anything please please PLEASE don't be sorry for disappearing and retreating into the shadows for a bit. i mean it. you're braver than all of us for knowing when to take a break and even having the guts to deactivate for the betterment of your mental health especially with your posts blowing up and people being annoying and going through shit with your mental health and everything, i'm proud of you for taking that step & happy you did it!!! of course i was worried but i'm glad you're here and i'm glad you were able to do that to help scrape the grime and dirt off <3 seriously. :)

umm how things are going!!! idk nothing much has changed since you've been gone tbh? i just found out my coworkers at the library and i are getting a pay increase because the county loves us soooooooooo much and bc we've been working so hard, so that's cool!! i also finished writing a good omens fic that turned out to be 15 pages long (rip) and it was the first piece of non-poetry writing that i've attempted AND FINISHED in over a year. ACK!!!! im v proud of it :]

ALSO a little bit of tragic news our favorite girl (guitar) vendetta, my beautiful lovely woman, is like. on the fritz for some reason? her channel switch is fizzling out and she's have connection issues with the amp and it's really sad. but!! since my birthday is next month (the 17th), i talked to my parents and they agreed that for my bday present they would help me pay for a NEW GUITAR????. THIS IS THE ONE I HAD MY EYE ON

HE IS SO SO SO BEAUTIFUL I GET HARD WHENEVER I LOOK AT HIM ohhhhmy god

last thing, i watched juno 2007 (Finally!) during your absence AND IT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT TOOK ME THIS LONG TO WATCH IT. elliot page and his little egg self :') idk it made me tear up a little i loved it so much. <3

my cats are as beastly as ever of course. here are some pictures:

anyway. JUNO THOSE POEMS. LIKE ARE YOU FOR REAL RIGHT NOW I AM LOSING IT OVER THE FACT THAT YOU THOUGHT OF ME :'))I NEED TO TATTOO THEM ON MY HEART FOREVER I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AAGH. THANK YOU FOR SENDING THEM TO ME<3

we all missed you so much man it hasn't been the same without you here. i love you so much zed so so so much <3333

#hazrdouswaste #stupid goofy smile on my face answering this ask rn.....WHATEVER I LOVE MY FRIENDS OK

[karatam]

Read recently (Dec '22 - early Feb '23)

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. A fun, rollicking, and rather dark story of a girl bent on revenge. She is admitted into a training academy for the deadliest assassins in the world, determined to be the best and become someone who is able to get her vengeance against those who wronged her. But there's something else happening at the academy, and the politics of the world are shifting, and magic is everywhere. Waiting on the sequels from the library.

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson. A very interesting premise, where witches and warlocks are real and they serve the government as a secret coven. But I found the book didn't quite live up to its promise, the characters felt wooden and a tad stereotypical at times. There was one character I quite liked, but telling you literally anything about them would spoil most of the book lol.

The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lao. In a strange post-apocalypic world, two girls from very different beginnings, uh, do stuff in incomprehensible plotlines? I genuinely have no idea how I feel about this book. Weird as hell, every character is utterly baffling in their actions and motivations, and yet somehow it's also compelling and I finished it in like two days.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. There exists a set of ancient Families that are basically vampires, but instead of drinking blood, they eat books and the human imagination and knowledge they contain. And one member of those Families is on the run, because her son is a rare exception, in that he needs to eat directly from the source: the human mind. There is a type of cure out there, but she needs to get to it before she's found. Interesting book, intriguing world-building, slightly abrupt ending, but there's something nice about a book meant to be a one-and-done.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. This should be right up my alley: aliens, government conspiracies, physics problems, mystery, etc. And yet, I hated it. Every character was the driest, most robotic character I've ever read, none of their motivations made any sense and they all talked like weird little exposition machines. The explanations just went on and on and I dragged my way through, hoping it would get better, but alas. I've been told the second book is better, but I shall not.

The Shadow and Bone Trilogy (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising) by Leigh Bardugo. A fun and competent YA series. Set in a fantasy world, there are people with semi-magical powers, named Grisha, who serve in the army of Ravka under the leadership of the Darkling (if you cannot guess from the name, he's the bad guy). Alina is discovered to be a Sun Summoner, who might be the answer to all Ravka's prayers. If you've seen the netflix show, know that Alina's storylines are very faithfully adapted from the first book. I liked Alina, I liked a bunch of secondary characters like Genya and Nikolai and Zoya and Harshaw and David. I did not like Mal and the Darkling, they were both just sad trombone noises in the shape of men to me, which makes a lot of this series drag for me personally. I'm intrigued as to how the future seasons of the show adapt the later books.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. I'm just going through her bibliography apparently. Set in the same universe as S&B, just a few years later, this is about a heist done by the Crows, full of mystery and crime and intrigue and betrayal. I loved this one. The author's writing has really evolved since the S&B series, and every character is much more interesting and multi-dimensional as a result. I would die for Nina and Inej, to no one's surprise.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. Picks up right where Six of Crows left off. Our charming group of criminals land themselves in an even bigger disaster, and have to charm, plan, shoot, stab, and magic their way out. The heist planning is a tiiiny bit less interesting than in SoC, but now I'm so fond of all the characters that I didn't mind at all, and the character development in this book is wonderful. What a fun duology, looking forward to more.

#jess reads stuff #jessreads

[cosylittlegoblin]

I've just had a nosey through my Goodreads and I've had a really good year! 46 books read in total and I counted I had about twelve 5 Star reads!! There were also a lot of four stars too!

So let's see...my top five 5 Star reads are as follows!

Legends and Lattes - Travis Baldree

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett

Her Majesty's Royal Coven - Juno Dawson

A Dowry of Blood - ST Gibson

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Honourable mentions to House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and Cornish Horrors : Tales from Lands End by The British Library Tales of the Weird!

Gothic is my go to genre without a doubt but I do really love the cosy fantasy vibes (and if either genre has queer representation, ever better!) ❤️

Some of my 5 Star reads have sequels out or coming out in 2024 and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into them! I already own Bookshops and Bonedust and HMRC Shadow Cabinet, just waiting on Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands to be released!!

My favourite series this year would be The Thursday Murder Club books by Richard Osman and The Tales of the Weird books published by The British Library!

Books make me so happy :D

#bookblr

[jamestrmtx]

Wish Upon a Night Sky - [Beastars | Various x Reader]

[Female, Sheep Reader | Slow Burn]

Act Ten, Scene Two | They Met

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

Legoshi follows behind while Jack continues to lead the way, serving as a barrier were someone to attack you from behind. A note waits for you the second you step out into the garden, waiting near the bed of flowers you'd helped Haru with the day a heavy rain began to fall. Just like the note at the library, you refrain from touching it at first, though it's hard not to with how messy the handwriting is; it's from the same person though, as it still carries the same style, but with a bit of rush present in its strokes. Whoever the person writing these letters was, they must've had to take an early leave from their plans, a point proven when Legoshi stops guarding you from behind.

"That scent," he says, eyes wandering to the garden shed, "It's familiar." He takes a few steps forward until getting closer to the building, stopping as he continues with, "There's someone hiding in there. Stay back."

Having said that, the wolf takes the lead and stays on guard while Jack helps him out, standing beside him as back up. Haru tugs you close while you wait, but it's not until her hold turns stronger on you that you realize she's trying to grab your attention. You turn to her and see a frown on her face, matching with the concern in Legoshi's voice.

"I… I think I know who it is," she says, letting you go. "But I'm not sure why he'd do this."

Though you don't quite understand who she's referring to, one look at her face and the glossy sheen to her eyes lets you know that person is, or at least used to be someone important to her. You hug her while you wait and let go when you hear some rustling from nearby. A shrub begins to shake and from behind it, a shadow emerges, taking the two canines busy guarding the shed by surprise. 

"So the two of you have also come," the voice says, clearly familiar to both the wolf and the bunny based on how their gazes widen. Jack is the only one who stays neutral, and so do those waiting near the garden when you decide to glance back at them, Dom who raises his hand as if to give you encouragement. "You'll be my next target if you continue this way, Jack."

The mentioned canine shows surprise through a faint gasp and his posture straightening up, yet he tries to hold himself back, glaring at the darkness before him. 

"Why?" he asks, words as dry as your throat feels.

The stranger chuckles, taking a step back to further blur into the background. "Wolves are usually more straightforward, unlike mutts like you. I wouldn't be surprised if all that friendliness you're showing with (Y/N) results in her being your prey." There's a pause, one where you feel the pace of your heart quicken. "It's a shame I'm trying to do what's best for both ends, yet I still receive nothing but resistance."

You glare at the shadows, shrug Haru back, and stand beside Jack, saying, "So you took Juno away for my own good?" You take a step closer, though you're stopped by Jack holding your wrist. "Did you think she'd hurt me?"

"I don't think; I know."

A tall and slim figure shows up as the person finally takes a step forward, yet that's as much as you're able to see beyond the darkness. The wolf next to you tries to see past it and lets his failure known with a frown. "...I can't even track him by scent anymore," he mutters, droopy ears matching with the defeat in his voice. "If it's really him, he came prepared."

"It was only a matter of time before she lost her temper," the voice continues, making you face back to it. "Or did you forget what she said about your bleat? Did you really think she found it 'cute', or are you going to be realistic and accept she viewed you as inferior then?"

"She's my friend," you persist, taking a step closer when Jack lets go of you. "And I want to know where she is." You take another step and clench your hands into fists. "I don't care if it's a risk. For now, I… I trust her, and I want to keep being in the same dorm as her."

The figure disappears again and silence stays for a long while. 

"Alright," the voice says, letting out another laugh. "If you insist, I'll give her back to you. But let this be known, (Y/N): it's not over yet. If you want to continue with this charade, then so be it, but prepare to be the knight and saviour of all your friends in a while."

More rustling sounds as the person disappears completely from your sight. Barely a moment passes before muffled noises and someone's voice can be heard coming from inside the shed, followed up by the door opening with a loud creak.

Bright lights blind you with how dark everything else is, and you're prompted to rub your eyes to recover from it. When you do, you can hear collective gasps and murmurs from everyone around you, the reason behind their reactions being what waits for you by the open door: another note, but far more important: someone familiar with a bag over her head, knelt right next to the note. 

You rush to her side and take off the bag before anything else, needing to see her face after so long. Gloomy eyes greet you when you reveal her face, and these don't take long to change for surprise when she looks away from her lap to meet with your gaze. She throws herself on you and attempts to bring you into a hug, though her hands restrict her, these tied back behind her. 

"Hold still," you murmur, moving behind her to begin with the process. 

You start by untying her hands first and move on over to her legs next. It's even more tedious to work with than you originally anticipated it to be, anxiety making your hands shake as you try to undo the knots one by one.

Jack goes to read the note while Haru searches for gardening tools to help you with untying. Meanwhile, Legoshi stays back with those who'd accompanied you in case backup was deemed necessary. He escorts a few to their dorms along the way, and some team up with others to make the process go by faster.

The more you begin to deal with the knots and ropes keeping Juno restricted, the further you begin to worry over your choice and if you'd made the right one. Making friends with her had resulted in her being held captive, tied up, and thrown into a garden shed. What had at first been vague warnings and threats are now full-fledged worries, these turning worse when you finish untying both her arms and legs to reveal harsh rope burns. Only her snout's left, though you can already feel yourself tensing at the thought of it being just as damaged as the rest of her body. 

"...I'm sorry, Juno."

Mouth still restricted, you can only hear some muffled sentences from her part, these given meaning when she pulls herself off the floor, winces, and pulls you against her, hugging you tight.

#various x reader #legoshi x reader #legosi x reader #haru x reader #jack x reader #juno x reader #rouis x reader #louis x reader #beastars x reader #female reader #sheep reader #slow burn #romance #mystery #thriller #lgbt #lgbt themes #long fic

[starsescape]

Going separate ways.. It was for the best.

Jill watch the door close as Juno enter the main hall and left. She had treat Juno by giving them the mixed herbs to gain their strength back. Juno also kept the stun gun which had a new battery as the courtesy of the officers she had been with. Before this Jill had drag and watch over Juno until they woke up in the press room. The officer she had knocked out during the rescue was left in the interrogation room tied by his wrists on one of the table legs. He wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

[Jill lost mixed herbs (Green + Red)]

They talk briefly what to do next since neither of them was keen on mentioning what had happened and done to Juno, especially not Juno. Not that I can blame her. Jill remember the confusion, shame and embarrassment she had felt when the teens, Ellie and Megan, saved her from the street and brought her to safety to wake up in bed in their apartment after being caught by the infected. The experience must have felt similar to Juno as well. Juno avoid looking at Jill after thanking her for the rescue. They felt ashamed for enjoying what had been done to them and knowing that they had done so while being watched by Jill made the feeling of shame only worse for Juno.

Jill had told Juno to go to the library to join the other survivors and wait there for the final push out of the station, but not before asking Juno to go through the evidence room to pick up the confiscated explosives along the way and to deliver them to Marvin and Rita.

She stood alone in the corridor between the doors to the main hall and the main office a while longer. They will be okay.. This time. Jill had to push the guilt for what had happened to Juno away from her mind. She had to worry about herself now. Jill felt a squeeze around her stomach and as she watch down she saw her hand rest on it, feeling up the bulge created by the eggs she carry. She had done it unconsciously.

Shivers run through her body. Jill had caress her bulge lovingly without realizing it, the fear start to mix with anticipation. They might hatch soon an- Stop. She remove her hand and turn around to open the door to the main office. If she would get through it she would reach the second floor again and get to the chief’s office at last.

Jill step in to a dark main office. It was silent apart from the rain drumming against the windows. She look to her right to see the only source of light be an old drink machine. Its blue light shine in the dark advertising cold drin- [Skill challenge 7, Jill succeeds with intrigue at 8] Jill took a step to the side just in time to dodge out of the way when an infected stumble from the shadows. It stumle on its own feet and hit the soda machine and fell on the ground. They are out for now. Jill raise the shotgun and brought it down on them. Out for good.

Jill pant to catch her breath. The adrenaline ran through her body as she turn to look at the office space again. On the right there was the windows and a long table that end right before the door to the corridor with a crossroad for the route to the basement and the stairs to the second floor. On the left side of the room there was a small desk with a few binders scattered on it and past that a small office walled off for privacy with its door left open. Jill remember the file she had read about the safe in the S.T.A.R.S. office being moved into the main office back when she had enter the station.. It has to be in there.

She start to look through the main office before deciding on if she should risk going for the safe in the private office which was both small and cramped with only one way out. Jill move to the small desk with the binders on her left [Randomized outcome]. There was nothing useful.

Walking beside the long table on its left side Jill slowly approach the private office as she tried to see anything of use left on the table.[Randomized outcome]. Jill didn’t smile or rejoice when she found a pack of smokes, only half a pack, but it was something she could trade. Oh, great.. Jill open one of the drawers to find condoms hidden under some papers. Someone was clearly hoping for fun in the office. Jill look at them for a second and close the drawer after picking them up. As she move her gaze back up she saw an infected stand up on the opposite side of the table. With a groan it turn to look at Jill and lick its lips. She still had some time to act.

[Vote for what Jill should do]

#starsescape #main story #scenario 3 #8 people vote! #it was a tie so I chose to blend few options into one #results can be found on the scenario story page

[outoftimewriting]

Imagine (Son of Hades! Percy; Godswapped! Big Three's kids) Son of Neptune AU (2/7) or (7/12)

Hello! Before reading, check the PJO AU and the TLH AU - the links are on the masterpost - because they are essential to this one. Don't forget to check the warnings before reading. Review and make suggestions! And have a good reading :))

TW: This post in special has sexual harassment, racist slurs, and mentions of whipping.

Perseus wakes up in a semi-destroyed building full of wolves with a black ax in one hand and a Warhammer in the other. And that's just the beginning of the worst months of his life - or the only months of his life he can remember.

Then everything hurts - too much, like his skin is melting from his bones and his eyes are being gouged out. His skin feels like it's melting, and he promptly passes out.

He has no idea of who he is - except his name, but he might just know it because the wolf woman told him - and the talking wolves don't know - or can't tell him anything else. Either way, Perseus is getting nowhere.

Oh yes - he is also pretty sure wolves aren't supposed to shapeshift. And rope you into training - which, he must've been a bodybuilder or something because he is pretty good at wrestling.

Shoving the wolves into the ground and destroying the monsters that try and defy Lady Lupa's pack are the highlights of his week.

Lady Lupa is... - Lupa is everything he knows. She is the one who, for some reason, let's him stay. She tells him about the gods and the monsters - about how she found him in her doorstep after her home was sacked by Earthborn.

How he must be the sign of the Olympus that Lady Venus promised her. The one who comes to help.

Perseus doesn't know her - he doesn't know who she is or if she is telling the truth. But he has well-trained powers that he has no idea how to utilize, nowhere to go and no way of searching for his family - no one knows who he is, except for his first name (which sounds wrong).

And he tried to run away once - it didn't end well, because monsters are immortal - and everywhere.

Lupa tells him he had a curse upon him, so he has to train himself all over again now that it's gone. It doesn't sound like the truth, but he prefers Lady Lupa's carefully crafted half-truths than sleeping in the streets.

Lady Lupa teaches him - and tells him to expect the signal of the gods. They will guide him - even if they give him no answers.

Perseus doesn't like the gods much. They've left him here - which is a good place, but not his home, wherever it is - with no idea of who he is or what to do - except train and learn.

Mother Lupa - as most call her in the Wolf House - educates him like one would an unruly puppy. She corrects everything - from the way he addresses the gods at evening prayers to the way he sits - and he obeys.

Because in the midst of all those wolves? Perseus is just another puppy. So he sits and read hours of Vergil, Ovid and Horace in ancient Latin out loud - even if he would prefer not to.

Sadly - he does not have an opinion. Lady Lupa won't hesitate on using her whip on him. Oh yes, she has a whip - a black whip, which she uses to educate them. His back hurts sometimes when he rests upon the cold floor.

He prays to anyone - his godly parent - who is some Underworld God if his hold on shadows and stone means anything - or a friend, someone who's missing him, anyone really, for them to come and gives him answers.

It doesn't happen.

So he trains and he trains. He has no idea how much time has passed - how much time he has been slashing and cutting and killing, how much time he has heard every detail of Julius Caesar crusade through Europe.

It's still cold when the gods send their signal - they send him a maiden. She holds her hand to him like he is an old friend - and he goes.

She makes him only one question - "Do you want peace or answers, Perseus? Choose carefully, for no path will be easy, but the harvest comes for those who plant the seeds" - and when he answers, she climbs to his back and flowers create a path in the ground.

She doesn't talk anymore. He follows the trail and the girl threads her fingers through his hair, humming to herself a melody only she is able to hear.

In the way, there are two gorgons. Lady Lupa taught him about them. It's an easy battle - until he discovers that they just don't die. They keep reforming, like evil pottery.

They attack again and he picks up his ax to continue racking them into bits, but she tightened her fingers in his hair - like one would steer a horse.

So before they reform, he runs. Perseus runs - with a beyond beautiful maiden on his back (which would be really uncomfortable, if he wasn't so pissed with the gods for giving exactly no answers) doing nothing but play with his hair and eat granola bars - and he gets to a military outpost.

At least, it's what it looks like. There's a wall who must be at least 20 feet high. Its not a normal wall - because he can see eyes in its crevices, looking at him.

Perseus is really tired. There are people there - he is seeing them, do they think he is stupid? - and he has a person in his back.

So he kills both gorgons again with his stone spikes - he is pretty sure the guys that aren't opening the doors can deal with them when they eventually reform - and shadow travels inside.

He doesn't do this often - it takes a lot out of him and he might end up stuck in the wall if he is too tired, but he is too angry to care.

Perseus could've destroyed their door. He should've, really. It might have stopped those people from surrounding him with weapons.

These people - the people looming over him now that he crossed the barrier, who are using togas just like him, so different but so familiar - would've let him die for nothing. Perseus growls - a bad habit he picked up living only with wolves for an undetermined amount of time.

He should kill every single one of them. He should open the ground - and let it swallow them, let their bones turn to dust, return their weapons to molten metal.

But the maiden tightens her fingers in his hair, and he obeys - because Perseus has been well trained, and he doesn't bend.

"Who are you?!" A boy with a bow asks harshly, and Perseus wants him to rip him apart - he is so done. Perseus is a Roman - is what Lupa taught him - and Roman wolves don't roll over.

"Lady Lupa sent me." They don't look like they believe him, but they take him to their leader.

He feels like an alien - behind the wall, there's a whole new world - hundreds of people stare at him with a mix of fear, disdain, and curiosity. It feels familiar.

Perseus is reluctant to leave his weapons with a statue - specially while entering the territory of people who won't protect him and might try to kill him, but he is not one for scandals - so he thanks Lord Terminus, and goes on.

They enter the Senate after walking for about an hour - his head held high, even with the extra weight in his back - in the middle of the session. Lady Lupa would find this appalling.

Everyone turns to them - the tall black muscular man, dressed in a dark red toga, with a woman in his back also clad in a toga - they look like normal citizens, and yet, somehow, completely foreign.

Their escorts - a black girl no older than fourteen and the archer, that must be around his age - kneel to the Praetor - but as soon as they start explaining, they are interrupted.

Their promagistrate - a man Perseus will later learn is named Justus - looks at them once and shrieks.

"Lord Pluto!" They call him, and the whole Senatus knee down "Lady Ceres!"

The goddess he didn't recognize comes down of his back, chuckling to herself. All gods are mad - Perseus thinks, but keeps stoic in front of the government of this Rome copycat, else they kill him for disrespect or something.

"Rise!" She starts "You're almost correct, child of Justitia. For I am Ceres, but this is not Lord Pluto."

The promagistrate seems offended with Perseus somehow - like it's his fault the man is an idiot.

"This is his only mortal son and my daughter's champion, Perseus of Styx. He has been under Lady Lupa's tutelage in her command." This was new.

So his father was the king of the dead himself - which was not surprising. But he was apparently Lady Proserpina's champion - a goddess who left him with Lady Lupa, apparently with his father's, Lady Venus' and Lady Ceres' approval.

Perseus (apparently, of Styx) wants to tear Olympus apart. He wants a lot of things - but for now, he shall observe and do what it's told of him.

Ceres leaves him under the "care" of the Romans. Immediately, the Praetor takes him to be interrogated.

He tells her the truth - or at least, what he can bender: He has been with Lady Lupa as long as he remembers. Yes, he is trained. He can control earth, shadows, metal. Sometimes, vines and skeletons. No, he doesn't have a last name. No, he doesn't know Jason Grace.

In return, the woman (a daughter of Bellona with brown skin that he feels he should know) explains where he is.

This is Nova Roma - and they are in Jupiter's Capitol, also known as the First City of Twelve, where is localized their Forum Romanum - which is composed by the Comitium (where the Senatus is localized), the Pluton Denar Domum (their bank) and a temple for all the gods - decorated with gardens and founts mainly used by the politicians in session and augurs.

The other non-military districts are Juno's Urbs, where most families live; Minerva's Scientia et Quaerere Centrum, which contains schools, colleges, libraries, and research centers; Phoebus Apollo's Salutem Receptum, a whole district for health care and who mainly takes care of cleaning the city; and Vesta's Forum Boarium, where the temples reside, including the Hearth of Rome, with their sacred fire.

Then there the indirectly of military nature; Ceres' Agris, fields who produce all food of the city; Mercury's Via, where communication and post are handled - also, the main place for entertainment; Vulcan's Caminus, the forges and armory; and Neptune's Militiarum Equestri, battle horses, pegasi, hellhounds, elephants, wolves and hounds.

There's also the military ones: Venus Victrix's Feminam Lorem ad Bellum, the training camp for girls; Mars Ultor's Masculum Lorem ad Bellum, the training camp for boys; and Diana's Venari, a forest they use to hunt monsters.

Praetor Arellano shows him around. The praetor shouldn't be doing that, but he seems to be important enough - he got here with a goddess in his back after all. His step-grandmother?

"Everyone is involved in the war effort - Everything for Rome. Everyone capable is obliged to join the training as soon as they're eight. When you're ready, you join the Legion, for fifteen years, in any capacity. Some - the ones with specific talents - join the field healers or the forges."

"Most join the legionnaires. Later in life, some go to college - training to farm, teach, own business, plan buildings, weave, research, write, go exclusively into politics, or become doctors - for either animals or people. Some never leave until they absolutely have to - it's an honor to serve Rome."

"You are neither a son or legacy of any construction or any health deity, so you'll go directly to be tested by Mars Ultor's Masculum Lorem ad Bellum - to see if you are qualified to be a soldier or if you need to undergo more training, and how much."

"A fight, Praetor?" He asks, as respectfully as Lupa indoctrinated in him, even if he hated this situation from the start.

"It's part of it, yes. But a fighter is not a soldier - you'll be expected to know rhetoric and show resilience, to be able to think and strategize. Put on a good performance - the Centurions choose which Cohort you go."

Then, she explained the Legion and its Five Cohorts - and the Centurions - before leaving him with one of his escorts from earlier. He doesn't think it matters much - if one of the Praetors is from Third Cohort and their last Praetor, from Fifth, while the Consul himself was from Fourth - what does it matter?

The guard seems uncomfortable in his presence - as if she knows exactly who he is. She introduces herself - Hazel Levesque, daughter of Jupiter. And part of the Fifth Cohort - mainly because of the previous Praetor - the one who's missing.

Her buddy, the archer, - Frank Zhang, unclaimed - is also part of the Fifth Cohort. But it's not him they meet - it's a boy way too familiar to be a coincidence - three times today.

"You know me, don't you? You know where I come from?" He snarls, and the boy denies it.

Shadows start curling at his feet - and he's told later that his eyes darken to black from their usual forest green. Perseus is a second away from killing the little lying gremlin when Praetor Arellano shows - and he immediately reverts to parade rest.

She doesn't ask - and he doesn't volunteer an answer. He leaves the guy trembling - and flustered, for some reason - and goes with the Praetor to his "test".

Hazel is having a very bad year. A very bad life, to be true, but mostly, a bad year.

She died, and she was walking aimlessly for years - until she met a boy. She thought, initially, that was a god - for his beauty was insurmountable.

He talked with her - he was named Perseus Jackson. He was powerful and kind - but still a mortal, so she latched into him. Hazel isn't a good person - her mother always told her that - and she used his kindness to drawn just a little of his powers. Just enough.

When the Doors opened, she was strong enough to escape - even if she left Perseus drained for a week, apparently. Hazel didn't go far - she got caught by Ceres.

Ceres - who was in her greek form - took pity of her and brought her to Hazel's father and stepmother, pleading for her usefulness in the war to come. The dead aren't their domain - but as long as Pluto didn't discover it, they would turn a blind eye.

Her brother - who was the first bridge between the two demigod settlements - took her to Nova Roma. She adapted - she learned about the ending of segregation and the world they now lived - and made friends - Frank and Jason.

But she never forgot the boy who gave her the chance, the chance to be more than the cursed child Marie Levesque told her she was. Her curse is supposed to be washed away by a descendant of Pluto.

Perseus gave her a chance, and now he is probably her salvation from this poisoned existence. He is in Nova Roma, and both Hazel and Nico are too ungrateful, too proud, too involved in the gods' plans to help him.

Her father's curse rang true - for children of Zeus aren't supposed to control unaltered energy through minerals. Metal is not theirs to use - and Hazel is paying the price.

Perseus does well in his test - so well, the First Cohort wants him. He is not generally rude, but the way Octavian - their apparent Centurion and Leader of the Augurs (the priests of Apollo) - calls him "Excellent, for a colored one with a graecus name" makes him mad.

So he rejects Octavian - no one gets to mock his name, the slur for greeks matched with the blatant racism almost makes him clock the guy in the face - and, since no other Centurion wants to go against the white supremacist, he joins the Fifth Cohort.

"Well, there's the place for filth, anyway. What could you expect from a nigger ape, like that one?"

If in the training that followed, he left Octavian unconscious - well, everyone turned a blind eye. Perseus saw the Praetor laughing discreetly from where she was polishing her spear.

He is given a bunk to sleep on, a probatio tablet and a date - it's March 18th, 2012. He remembered that, when he ran away from the House of the Wolf, was still January's first week.

Almost three months for the gods to bother with him, and he has no guesses how much time he is missing. Did his family give up on him? Did he have a family?

Perseus doesn't know. He spends the next weeks following the army's routine - wake up with dawn with the horn, muster, morning prayers, then the morning drills - stretching, an obstacle circuit of three miles with a lake in the middle and running five times around Ceres' Agri.

After the drills - which Perseus and Hazel bond over hating, because there's a lake - they go to breakfast, then classes - for the younger ones. Perseus is old enough (and did well in the school tests), so he has a free slot where he allots his power training - under Praetor Arellano's watchful gaze, as she tries and brings him to his full potential.

Reyna (as he is allowed to call her during free time) also does power training - she has a different kind of charmspeak - the kind that makes people motivated or defeated. She can make armies have a burst of energy, or drop-down with exhaustion - possibly. Nova Roma has very few wars nowadays.

There's lunch, then weaponry training - where he kicks Octavian's (and all of his little friends who look down on Perseus because of his name, his lack of family or his skin color) ass with pleasure every single day - followed by weapon cleaning - which always takes forever because Perseus has both an ax and a giant Warhammer.

On Wednesdays, they have horse and pegasi riding. Both Perseus and Hazel have it slightly different - she mounts a venti, Tempest and he mounts a hellhound, Spot. On Fridays, they have hunting lessons in Diana's Venari - which always end up with some Apollo's child or legacy waving their victory in everybody's face - except for that one time where Frank and Perseus joined forces and won in an hour.

At four p.m. every day, those who did well enough get to have two hours of free time before evening prayers, which can either be followed by dinner or competitions - wrestling and gladiator games are really popular on weekends.

Then, if it's Sunday, they are allowed to go to Mercury's Via to drink, party, dance, go to karaoke - whatever, if they're over fourteen. It seems young - but Perseus has seen younger kids, at the training camps, sneaking in wine.

If it's not Sunday - they are free to do anything if they don't drink and are in bed by 21h30. You are only excused of the routine if you are escalated for border patrol - generally twenty different people every day. Perseus's patrols are on Thursdays - because Reyna loves him. Octavian's are on Sundays - they're just not on Saturdays because he has Augur functions and is excused of everything on Saturday.

Saturdays are days of prayer - there's no training and no feasting. They go to the temples and see the Vestal Virgins - a custom Perseus though would be outdated by now - and do basic chores - like washing their togas and sheets, mending their leathers, or airing the blankets.

When Hazel's brother leaves, he actually bonds with the girl - over being a child of the Big Three, of having big expectations thrust upon them - and consequently, with Frank - who is also his bunkmate. They spend their free time on the small fountain that overlooks the aqueduct, just in front of the Vesta Temple.

It's weird to see the Vestal Virgins - they are six girls between 8 and 24, wearing white stolas and veils, of incredible beauty and vowed to modesty and chastity. They spent their days tending the fire and giving blessings, cleaning the temple, and visiting the Senatus.

They didn't choose to be priestesses of Vesta - Vesta herself chooses them, and they have to leave their families and vow their lives away for thirty years. The other priests are there of free will - they never join the Legion, if they choose to serve a specific god.

Perseus goes to his father's, Lady Proserpina's and Lady Ceres' temples regularly - if only to ask for answers. His father's priests treat him as royalty - which, to them, he probably is. There are not even legacies of Pluto, as far as they know.

Every Sunday, Perseus goes to the Comitium - while people don't generally like him, he is good in rhetoric, and well respected for a probatio - so they hear him. He is good at politics. Reyna looks like he is measuring him, when he rises to debate - like he can be the next Praetor instead of the campaigning Octavian - who the Senatus is divided into loving or hating his guts.

Perseus is happy - or something. He hates not having memories - not knowing who he is, who his mother is, pains him. He has friends - Frank, Hazel, even Reyna and Dakota, his Centurion, who lives half-drunk in wine most of the time - and a life.

It doesn't feel like his life. By the third week of his staying in Nova Roma, he starts having dreams - a blonde boy, doing everything Perseus is doing now. He is afraid of telling anyone. Perseus is already called slurs by Octavian and his hateful friends - he doesn't want to attract attention now that he is settling.

By Reyna's pictures, he finally names the blonde in his dreams. It's Jason Grace.

Jason Grace is, for lack of a better word, graceful. He is loved by everyone - so different from Perseus, who is more feared then liked - and a troublemaker - if the vision of him being whipped in Mars Ultor's training camp is to be believed.

Romans don't hesitate in corporal punishment on children. Nor in adults, either - misdemeanors are punished harshly. Perseus is lucky Octavian has no direct authority over him - the number of times he put him on his ass would get Perseus bleeding on the floor for days.

However, he didn't escape the whip completely. In his fourth week on Nova Roma, Hazel is disrespectful to one of Octavian's friends - he called her a "good piece of monkey meat" and touched her ass, so she kneeled him in the balls. Reyna is out on a mission - and the guy just happens to be Questor Cicero.

Questor Cicero is twenty-eight - and everybody believes him when he tells them Hazel kneeled him without reason - a grave offense because it can affect his descendants. Hazel gets sentenced - by the Consul, in absentia of the Praetor - to a hundred lashes.

Everyone is obliged to watch - and neither Perseus nor Frank can last after she sobs. They rise from the crowd and volunteer to take the rest of her punishment. The executioner of it - a girl named Domitia - is surprised and asks why when they rise up to take Hazel's place - not a lot volunteer, generally older siblings or partners.

Hazel protests, while she is taken by a daughter of Aesculapius, Lavinia - "No, Perseus, no, it's my fault, Frank, I can take it, please!" - But he doesn't care to hear. Hazel is a child, and something stirs inside of his memory - No child shall suffer under his watch. - He wants to stop Frank - the boy is only sixteen - but there's no stopping the guy about his best friend.

"She could take it. I just don't want to see her, or anyone I care about, do it. She is too young. A child - one that shouldn't feel the injustices of life."

"That's my best friend. I won't let her pay for something she didn't do, and I won't let Perseus do this alone."

It's rational enough that no one will see weakness when she starts whipping them. Domitia is a good girl - they become a sort of friends after it, but Perseus can never understand why the daughter of Nemesis would dispense unfair punishments.

Perseus endure the whole thing awake - the forty-five lashes, under the jeers of Octavian and his friends - and they walk out of the stage supporting one another, before collapsing in a pool of their own blood, in the arms of Caelius - the youngest of Apollo's offspring working on the hospital.

They take both of them to the UTI - he doesn't remember a thing. He wakes up three days later - they aren't allowed to use any magic to heal him, or anesthetics to numb his pain. He suffers for a week, while his godly blood slowly heals him.

Hazel sits by their bedside - he and Frank are in the same room - her own back fully healed by now - and tells him stories about how Dakota kicked Octavian's ass in training in their name, or just plays with his hair. Sometimes, when she thinks he is asleep, she cries - it's heartbreaking.

Reyna comes back by the time Frank is out of the hospital - Perseus moved to much and his stitches came out - and is fueled by rage. This kind of punishment is hers to give - and with through interrogation before - and she has been trying to eradicate them for years.

She does insist on an interrogation with Aurum and Argentum - perhaps because she knows what a sweetheart Hazel is. She uncovers the whole story - how Cicero called her names and sexually harassed her - and the guy is stripped off his post and exiled - sexual harassment is a crime punishable by lashing, but together with lying to a court of law and supplanting his direct superior - oh well, he is not coming back for the next five years.

With Hazel's absolving, the doctors are allowed to heal them with magic - but it's too late. They can repair the nerves and muscles, take away all the pain - but the flesh will remain scarred.

Their backs are now a crisscross of scar tissue - it's a reminder of Nova Roma's failings - and he revels on taking his shirt off to drills, even if Frank is ashamed of it, for some reason.

Praetor Arellano thinks "Perseus' loyalty to the Roman Law and his Cohort" is enough to give him an SPQR tattoo instead of his probatio tablet. He didn't cry when they put the mark of his father on his arm - just later, in his bunk, for the eleven-year-old that was tattooed together with him.

After the tattoo, Perseus discovers he has money. Like, really, lots of money in the bank - which is named after his father, who is their patron god - and apparently filled his account with denars. Perseus solves to donate part of it - and part of it he keeps because his wages as a foot soldier are meager.

Hazel, on the other side, is brimming with remorse - and protectiveness. She will do her absolute best to protect Perseus Jackson - this is the second time he saves her. She can't tell him anything - but she can make his life as easy as possible.

Hazel dreams about Frank - Frank, and a terrible price that is a piece of wood - and she thinks she likes him, even if he is older and braver than she'll ever be.

It's June 18th - and Perseus has been in Camp for three months when the war games take an unexpected turn.

Frank is leading the Fifth Cohort - Dakota is hangover somewhere - and their battle formation is impeccable. They also have the two biggest powerhouses - Perseus and Levesque.

Hazel - while a child of Jupiter - is unable to fly - or any air or climate control. Her power lies on energy - publicly, she controls lighting and thunder - and can get bolts to basically incinerate whole canons or dismantle phalanges.

Perseus, however, can raise skeleton soldiers to fight for him - and stone spikes to block his enemies. His vines are of no use - the First Cohort has two sons of Ceres who out-do him any day. He can also use the shadows to confuse their rivals or make the ground tremble - under the cost of their own stability.

Frank is very proud of having such powerful and amazing people as friends. He didn't expect Perseus of Styx, the boy who didn't have to fight to be recognized - the one who came with a goddess at his back and muscles in his arms and a father on his blood - to be friends with Frank.

He is a very okay guy, you see. Frank had - has - three best friends, but no one openly dislikes him. He doesn't have someone - he has no use for quick tumbles under the cloak of darkness, and that is all people like him can ever have.

But he is not like Perseus or Jason. He doesn't defy Octavian. He was too anxious to muster the courage to volunteer to take Hazel's punishment alone - Perseus had to do it first.

He is not like them. He isn't anything like his mother. Frank feels happy, at least, that at those little things like war games he has better strategies than anyone else. It was Perseus who motivated him to take the lead while Dakota is otherwise incapable - under Hazel's cheerful applause.

This time, there are elephants involved - Perseus loves elephants - and they burst through their rival's doors - the 12th consecutive victory for the Fifth Cohort since Perseus arrived.

Gwen - the only openly ficatrix girl that Perseus knows, a Jewish daughter of Venus Genetrix - dies probably by Octavian's hand - and doesn't stay dead.

This evokes Lord Mars Ultor - who claims Frank, gives him a quest to find Letum and ropes Perseus into it - "Your father's domain, your responsibility" - so they choose Hazel as a third member - because who else - and get in a car to go to Alaska.

Before that, for Dakota's negligence, the Fifth Cohort is passed to newly-coined Centurion Frank - with Hazel as his second in command, while Gwen - who is not respected because of her preferences - steps down the second position to go study - apparently, she wants to be a teacher.

They have to be back by June 24th - or die. That gives them six days - it's at least two days going and two days back from San Francisco to Alaska, so they have two extra days to localize and rescue Letum.

Hazel, Frank, and Perseus battle the karpoi in Mendocino - this time, they're easily defeated, because no one leaves Hazel alone. Frank actually kills a lot of them - under the sheer appreciation of both his very supportive friends.

They see Polybotes army - and run away in their car, which crashes in the front of the R.O.F.L.

Perseus IM's Reyna - he thinks it necessary, for she is their Praetor, their leader. Hazel is right by his side - and then goes to call her brother - which he doesn't stick around for, examining the drachmas - the weird graecus' coins that Perseus recognizes

Iris remembers Perseus of someone. He doesn't know who, or why, but that night, for the first time in months, he doesn't dream of Jason Grace. He dreams of red hair spilled into the snow, blond curls around his fingers, a mechanic leg whirring in his ear, a spear coated with blood, shoes with wings and pan pipes - and wakes up crying for a past he doesn't remember.

He hugs the tie-dye bag against his chest - and cries. Perseus doesn't care - his chest literally aches with missing, for someone he doesn't know.

Frank doesn't ask questions when he finds Perseus crying. Frank cried a lot when he first got to Nova Roma.

"Are you missing someone?"

"I'm missing everything" And that's how Frank discovers Perseus doesn't remember anything at all.

Everything spills up - Lady Lupa's house, the dreams about Jason, the way he just dreamed of what could possibly be his friends, and what if he was a graecus like Octavian said - and Frank does not judge him.

He knows what it is to have a gigantic secret pressing upon his shoulders - and he has known Perseus for three months now. He knows Perseus is a trustworthy person.

"We'll discover who you are - but if you don't like it, we won't judge you. It doesn't matter what your past life has been like, it doesn't matter if you're a graecus - you're one of us now."

Because Frank is the absolute best - Perseus can't think of a friendship he deserves less than Frank's.

They trade stories about their rage against the gods - things they would never be able to utter at home. Their lives, their insecurities, their shared hate of Octavian's racist ass - everything they can share.

Frank tells Perseus about the piece of wood - which is very important when Perseus tells Frank that, sometimes, he can conjure a weird green fire of which he has little control over, so is better to keep that wood far away from him.

Some things are kept in secret - Frank is not sure Perseus will be repelled by his preferences, by the way, no woman ever caught his eye - and Perseus is afraid of telling Frank about the way that, sometimes, he wants to see the world burn, skeletons beneath his feet and blood coating his hands.

They travel through Portland - which means half the journey is done - and meet Ella - which Perseus immediately wants to take away from the creepy old dude because that's a child.

Ella is hungry and cold and in pain - and neither Perseus nor his quest mates are having that.

So he does a gamble with Creepy Old Dude and Lady Terra - which he isn't sure is in their side - and kills him. Because he is not dealing with a creepy old man who is trying to capture children, even if those children are monsters.

They take Ella with them - she's such a small, innocent girl-bird. They can't send her to Nova Roma alone - they would either kill her, hunt her or use her as entertainment - and they can't stop the mission, so there's that.

Hazel and Frank are sharing memories - with each other and Perseus. Perseus himself has no private memories to talk about - except for his dreams of Jason, which he already told Frank and now relays to Hazel.

Ella says is because their destinies are connected - says that their curses will be gone by their hands. Frank gives Hazel his piece of wood - "I would give it to both of you, but your fire is weird" - And Hazel tells them about being dead.

Perseus has an inkling of suspicion - that maybe - just maybe - he brought Hazel back. Maybe that's why his memories are gone. Either that - or he has a sibling, and wouldn't that be amazing? Siblings, cousins - a giant family. Just for him.

He doesn't ask though - because Hazel is sad and he is not an insensitive ass.

They head to the Amazon Headquarters - where Perseus has the amazing idea of going in, even if he knows Amazons just have one utility for men - sex.

They get caught - just this time, while Hylla does recognize Perseus, she is grateful. Perseus did kill Circe, yes, but he didn't free any pirates - Hylla and Reyna sailed away and never got any trouble.

Hylla is grateful for Perseus - but she cannot help him or Frank - Amazons are misandry warriors, and they are too young to be lovers, but too old to be reliable to let go. So they lock them up, and Hylla and Hazel make a plan to free them.

Otrera is dangerous - because the Amazons will follow anyone, they aren't connected to any goddess. So, when Perseus shadow travels from his cage with Frank, Hylla helps Perseus - who is way too tired - to mount Tempest - Hazel's venti - so that they can reach Letum - or, how Hylla calls him, Mors.

They go North - then further North - to the house of Frank's Grandma.

Everything goes the same - Frank's Grandma is cryptic, Mars appears, the house catches fire, they flee. A bird is seeing flying out of the window - but if it's her or no, they don't know.

Frank and Perseus discover they are related - by a lot of generations, but does it matter really? They are shield brothers - and fight in the same Cohort, for the same Rome.

Hazel feels lucky - both her best friends are related to Pluto. Both can be the one to save her - and she really hopes is not Perseus, for she can't own him any more debts.

Frank tries to control his abilities - and between Perseus' own training and Hazel's unwavering belief on him, they get him to shapeshift. Some. He is not good at it at all - but he'll get there.

They don't fear Hazel - not even when gold slips between her fingertips. Perseus calls her sister, for their connection shall be forged on metal and fire.

They fly to Alaska - this time, Perseus entrusts Ella to a General skeleton and tells him to take her somewhere safe.

During the travel, they cuddle together - all three of them - to share body warmth. Hazel is flushed - for she never had such close contact with a boy, least a boy she really likes, like Frank.

Frank, on the other side, has never been so close to a boy as he is to Perseus now. Perseus is just a brother to him - but he can't help but blush like a virgin maiden.

Perseus observes the situation with confusion - for he doesn't understand Hazel's flustered expression - which makes her look a lot like her brother any time Perseus even glances at the guy - nor Frank's blushing cheeks - which must be because of the cold.

Perseus almost drowns on Earth - the single thing he fears the most, in his own element. It pains him, and he wants to destroy Lady Terra for her trickery and mockery.

They stay in a little motel, just out of the way. No way that Frank nor Perseus would make Hazel go back to where she was abused and mistreated.

They shared basically everything in the past few days - they know almost everything about each other. Hazel tells Perseus she knows him - but is under oath to not tell anything.

Perseus is frustrated - but that is Hazel. Soft, trustworthy Hazel. She isn't doing this to hurt him. Her brother, on the other hand, can go to hell. He obviously knows Perseus - but lies to him. Explicitly. Nico Di Angelo is as bad as the gods are in Perseus' eyes.

He can't sleep - he keeps dreaming of the Earth swallowing him like it did many of his enemies - and Frank hugs him as Hazel inches closer to their shared embrace - it feels, for the first time since he woke up, like family.

They fight against Alcyoneus. Frank frees Letum - waisting part of his life on it, literally - Hazel takes on Alcyoneus - vengeance for herself - and Perseus raises an army to fight against the Undead Roman one - it's easy to defeat them, and then turn them against the giant once he has the Twelfth Legion Eagle.

Perseus - and his army that is getting harder and harder to maintain - helps Frank (who has finally managed to shapeshift) and Hazel to drive away Alcyoneus - and finally kill him, once he is out of Alaska.

They head back to Nova Roma - Hazel on her venti, Tempest, with Frank as an eagle and Perseus mounting Spot - the hellhound he was able to call from Nova Roma - pushing a chariot of Imperial Gold weapons - something rare and essential.

They meet Mrs. O'Leary - another hellhound - Blackjack - a hellhound that can speak with Perseus - Ella - who apparently found safety - and Nico Di Angelo with the cyclops Tyson - which immediately spark Perseus memories, even if he has no time to think about it.

Perseus leads the Romans - they look at him, and see the boy that has spent three months with them and three months with Lady Lupa, the boy who has been invaluable for Nova Roma's safety - their own Julius Caesar, their Augustus.

He fights against Polybotes one on one. Polybotes may be the bane of Neptune - but Perseus is also an earthshaker. He makes the Earth - Lady Terra's earth, who they are oh so proud of, the earth that swallowed him - fight against her own son.

With help from Terminus - and lots of backup from the army, his army - Polybotes is gone. The monsters - defeated.

There are thirteen dismemberments and fifty-three gravely injured. These are rushed to the hospital, while the other 184 soldiers rest and prepare for the burials.

Thirty-eight dead - men and women alike - plus nine that succumbed to their injuries. They do the procession - followed by cremation and the burial of the ashes in the temple of Pluto.

What follows is the eulogy - and the laurels. The families who have dead members are given money and prestige - it bothers Perseus. Is not enough - it won't fullfill their childrens, siblings and friends places.

Then come the laurels of the living. Frank, Hazel, Di Angelo, and Reyna are awarded Civic Crowns - the second biggest award any commander can win for battle. Everyone else is rewarded Golden Crowns - the fourth-highest decoration of battle, for their bravery.

Perseus himself is the most celebrated - he not only wins a Grass Crown (Corona Obsidionalis) for being credited for saving the whole Legion - he charms the Senatus with his acts of heroism - enough that they give him the Praetor Peregrinus title - for he also has a reputation of a good politician, as he often spoke on the Forum - while Reyna holds to the Praetor Urbanus one.

Frank himself also gains a promotion - he is now Legatus Legionis - the overall Legion commander - a title that was vacant since Jason Grace rose to Praetor, but with him missing for six months - it is time to fulfill both positions. Hazel raises to be Centurion of the Fifth Cohort.

The Consul holds the ceremony for both of their awards - where they vowed to serve Nova Roma with their lives, to put Nova Roma above their personal lives and interests - and later, they feast.

Perseus is happy with his new position - While Reyna is in charge of all judicial matters - the matters of the law - he is in charge of all defense, war and foreign matters.

That's why - when Lady Juno gives back his memories - he is infuriated. Not only he has a whole life waiting for him - one that conflicts directly with his new life - he has now a giant pile of paperwork.

The first thing he does - still in his toga praetexta, the worst garment to ever be done, even if he pities Reyna for having to use a stola on most occasions - is to punch Nico di Angelo in the face.

Then he hugs him. The boy apologizes - stuttering through words - promise to make up for it - and promptly leaves to not be seen again.

Perseus goes to the Senatus, and tell the truth: Lady Juno has sent him a vision - and in the war to come, they have to fight alongside the greeks.

Octavian wants to discredit Perseus for being a graecus. It doesn't work - for the Romans love their new Praetor - and Octavian wasn't even in the battle.

That night, Perseus doesn't even remember Jason Grace - he is just a shadow of some dreams he had for two weeks, more nightmarish than not. He dreams of Nico di Angelo - who is walking around ruins - and fears for the life of the boy who betrayed him.

He doesn't think much about it.

Perseus shadow travels to his mother - not yet to Camp, he is not ready to see them yet, and Hera/Juno told him they are coming, so it would be a waste of his energy - and hugs her for about four hours before his duties call him back.

She is happy to see him alive and well - even if she doesn't like he is fighting in yet another war for the gods. He doesn't like it either - after this, he is retiring and making them promise to never bother him again.

Perseus spends the next days preparing - for his friends, for his two lives to collide - and working his very difficult political job - Nova Roma is a homophobic and racist place, and he won't stand for other people like Gwen to be killed for it - he isn't tolerating "ficatrix" instead of lesbians or the clearly prejudiced priests anymore.

He has a long way to go. But it's fine - he and his friends are the government. Talking about his friends...

"Call me Percy"

#percy jackson #jason grace #pjo #percy jackon and the olympians #au #reyna avila ramirez arellano #hazel levesque #frank zhang #ceres #camp jupiter #but roman #romans #vestal virgins #racism #corporal punishment #torture #mysoginy #queerphobia #octavian #new rome #praetor reyna #actual roman stuff #nico di angelo son of zeus #nico di angelo #argo ii #son of neptune #percy jackson son of hades #nicercy #jercy #percabeth

[junosshadowlibrary]

Rained in: Juno Scrybe of shadows (Open rp/interaction)

Note: Juno goes by she/her and they/them

Rain was either good or bad weather depending on who you ask. For some the rain was dreary, gloomy or a nuisance. Some find the rain to be a bother that can ruin plans in an instant. Others may find the rain to be calming, a natural splendor to help water plants, or a nice excuse to stay indoors. For Juno a rainy day meant a day where she can stand outside.

Because of her sensitivity to sunlight venturing out during the day was always something she needed to proceed with caution. But when it rained, she could sit out in the porch that wrapped around her house in the middle of the day without the need to transform or cover herself in a long cloak. And she took every chance she could get, even if it meant throwing odd her sleep schedule.

So the moment the sky grew gray and the rain started to fall it was no surprise that the Scrybe of shadows could be found on the front porch of her home. Sitting at a small table with tea as she watched the autumn rain fall. Finally able to see all the reds and oranges of the trees without the need of a lantern. Simply enjoying the rainy day when she notices something.

Down the central path that lead straight through the islands expansive garden and to the gates was a person. Ducking under one of the few pavilions that lines the path to stay protected from the rain. At first she thought it was one of her shadows but she recalls how all of them are in the house sleeping or relaxing. This leaves her confused and makes her stand up squinting slightly to get a better look at the person when she notices it wasn't a shadow at all but a visitor.

Eyes widening she realizes that they must.have been venturing to her island when the rain started and got stuck with no umbrella. Worried that they'll catch a cold the Scrybe of shadows grabs her umbrella. Opening the large accessory before heading over to the person, bringing a spare cloak with her incase they were freezing.

It doesn't take long for her to reach where the traveler was. Walking under the pavilion she offers the cloak to the visitor without a moment of hesitation. Her citrine eyes carefully examining them as she speaks up on a soft and concerned tone "Seems like the rain decided to thwart your travels today..Are you alright?"

#junos shadow library #juno scrybe of shadows #open interaction #open rp #inscryption

[rockislandadultreads]

Art Historians in Fiction: Leading Women

Lorna Mott Comes Home by Diane Johnson

Lorna Mott Dumas, small, pretty, high-strung, the epitome of a successful woman--lovely offspring, grandchildren, health, a French husband, a delightful house and an independent career as an admired art lecturer involving travel and public appearances, expensive clothes. She's a woman with an uncomplicated, sociable nature and an intellectual life. But in an impulsive and planned decision, Lorna has decided to leave her husband, a notorious tombeur (seducer), and his small ancestral village in France, and return to America, much more suited to her temperament than the rectitude of formal starchy France. For Lorna, a beautiful idyll is over, finished, done . . . In Lorna Mott Comes Home, Diane Johnson brings us into the dreamy, anxiety-filled American world of Lorna Mott Dumas, where much has changed and where she struggles to create a new life to support herself. Into the mix--her ex-husband, and the father of her three grown children (all supportive), and grandchildren with their own troubles (money, divorce, real estate, living on the fringe; a thriving software enterprise; a missing child in the far east; grandchildren--new hostages to fortune; and, one, 15 years old, a golden girl yet always different, diagnosed at a young age with diabetes, and now pregnant and determined to have the child) . . . In the midst of a large cast, the precarious balance of comedy and tragedy, happiness and anxiety, contentment and striving, generosity and greed, love and sex, Diane Johnson, our Edith Wharton of expat life, comes home to America to deftly, irresistibly portray, with the lightest of touch, the way we live now.

The Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters

Who stole the mummy of King Tut? The brazen crime bears the earmarks of one Sir John Smythe, the international art thief. In fact, John Tregarth is the longtime significant other of Vicky Bliss. Innocent, he vows to clear his name by hunting down the true criminal. Vicky loses faith. But her boss, Munich Museum director Anton Z. Schmidt, "the finest swordsman in Europe", pays their luxurious way from London to Munich then Cairo, also to defend his own reputation. Once Schmidt deflects his new paramour Suzi, who only wants his body to spy on John, the entourage swells with the Egyptian officials responsible, cousins - wealthy Ashraf and poorer Feisel - plus mummy-expert mistress Saida. The Arab security guard, then a female middleman, both turn up dead. Dead hands, from her and from Tut, separately accompany notes, his is a ransom demand for millions. Kidnappers, murderers, and danger dog their way.

The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman

Artfully imagined, intricately detailed, eerily poignant: these are the outstanding features of Carol Goodman’s literary thrillers. She is part novelist, part craftsman—and The Drowning Tree is her newest masterpiece. Juno McKay intended to avoid the nearby campus of her alma mater during her fifteenth reunion weekend, but she just can’t turn down the chance to see her longtime friend, Christine Webb, speak at the Penrose College library. Though Juno cringes at the inevitable talk of the pregnancy that kept her from graduating, and of her husband, Neil Buchwald, who ended up in a mental hospital only two years after their wedding, Juno endures the gossip for her friend’s sake. Christine’s lecture sends shockwaves through the rapt crowd when she reveals little-known details about the lives of two sisters, Eugenie and Clare—members of the powerful and influential family whose name the college bears. Christine’s revelation throws shadows of betrayal, lust, and insanity onto the family’s distinguished facade. But after the lecture, Christine seems distant, uneasy, and sad. The next day, she disappears. Juno immediately suspects a connection to her friend’s shocking speech. Although painfully reminded of her own experience with Neil’s mental illness, Juno nevertheless peels away the layers of secrets and madness that surround the Penrose dynasty. She fears that Christine discovered something damning about them, perhaps even something worth killing for. And Juno is determined to find it—for herself, for her friend, and for her long-lost husband.

Optic Nerve by María Gainza, Thomas Bunstead (Translator)

The narrator of Optic Nerve is an Argentinian woman whose obsession is art. The story of her life is the story of the paintings, and painters, who matter to her. Her intimate, digressive voice guides us through a gallery of moments that have touched her. In these pages, El Greco visits the Sistine Chapel and is appalled by Michelangelo’s bodies. The mystery of Rothko's refusal to finish murals for the Seagram Building in New York is blended with the story of a hospital in which a prostitute walks the halls while the narrator's husband receives chemotherapy. Alfred de Dreux visits Géricault's workshop; Gustave Courbet's devilish seascapes incite viewers “to have sex, or to eat an apple”; Picasso organizes a cruel banquet in Rousseau’s honor. . . . All of these fascinating episodes in art history interact with the narrator's life in Buenos Aires—her family and work; her loves and losses; her infatuations and disappointments. The effect is of a character refracted by environment, composed by the canvases she studies. Seductive and capricious, Optic Nerve is a book that captures, like no other, the mysterious connections between a work of art and the person who perceives it.

#Fiction #adult fiction #contemporary #mystery #mysteries #art history #historians #art historian #reading list #Book Recommendations #reading recommendations #art #to read #tbr #booklr #library

[callunavulgari]

Scrapbook 2021 | Part I

For anyone that’s new to this, this is how I keep track of all of the things I enjoy and/or create throughout the year. I have literally been doing this since I had a livejournal. I think the first one was 2011? Maybe? In which case, woohoo, ten years of scrapbooking!

It’s a nice little snippet of my life and helps to organize my brain.

A reminder:

Normal font - Indifferent/Neutral Italicized font - Enjoyed bold font - Loved with an asterisk* - All time favorite (bracketed titles) - Re-watches/Re-reads strikethough - Disliked

Goals are: read 80 books, finish five video games, write more than 20 fics or something larger than 20k, and write either an original short story or start a novel. 

Past Years

MOVIES

January

(Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring)

(Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

(Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)

Robin Hood

(Hook)

Wolfwalkers

February

(Age of Ultron)

From Up On Poppy Hill

(Tangled)

(Onward)

(The Mummy)

(Hercules)

(Promare)

March

Raya and the Last Dragon

(My Neighbor Totoro)

April

(Hunchback of Notre Dame)

(Tarzan)

(Beauty and the Beast)

Weathering With You

BOOKS

January

A Deadly Education | Naomi Novak [Fin]

Home Body | Rupi Kaur [Fin]

The Sunken Mall | K.D. Edwards [Fin]

Bloom | Kevin Panetta [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

All the Stars and Teeth | Adalyn Grace [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 1 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

I Hope You Stay | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Pillow Thoughts | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Piraneesi | Susanna Clarke [Fin]

The Ex Talk | Rachel Lynn Solomon [Fin]

February

The Adventure Zone: Vol 2 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 3 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

March

Winter’s Orbit | Everina Maxwell [Fin]

Fireheart Tiger | Aliette de Bodard [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

Fire | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

Bitterblue | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Witch’s Heart | Genevieve Gornichec [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore

April

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Memory Theater | Karin Tidbeck [Fin]

These Violent Delights | Chloe Gong 

(Red White and Royal Blue | Casey Mcquiston) [Fin]

Rule of Wolves | Leigh Bardugo [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Not the Girl You Marry | Andie Christopher [Fin]

The Echo Wife | Sarah Gailey [Fin]

The Midnight Library | Matt Haig

Catherine House | Elisabeth Thomas [Fin]

Séance Tea Party | Reimena Yee [Fin]

Lumberjanes vol 1 | Noelle Stevenson [Fin]

PODCASTS

January

The Unseen, Christmas and New Year Special

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel arc, Heart of It All and What Lies Beyond

The Penumbra Podcast, Second Citadel, Strong Arm of Justice and The Priestess’ Fortune

I Am In Eskew, Episode 16

Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 67, 68, and 69

The Magnus Archives, Episode 190 and 191

February

The Magnus Archives, Episode 192-194

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 15-60

March

The Magnus Archives, Episode 194-200 [Fin]

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 60-TAZ BALANCE ENDING

MBMBAM, Episode 1

I Am In Eskew, Episode 17-22

April

I Am In Eskew, Episode 23-END

Alice Isn’t Dead, Episode 18-END

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January

His Dark Materials, s2 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment

Buzzfeed Worth It

(Black Sails, s1)

The Queen’s Gambit**

February

Cherry Magic

Wandavision, s1

Watcher Entertainment

The Owl House

(Little Witch Academia)

Star vs the Forces of Evil, s3, s4

Bridgerton

Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime

Heaven’s Official Blessing

March

Wandavision, s1 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History & Watcher Weekly

Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Word of Honor

April

Word of Honor, s1

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History

Falcon and the Winter Soldier, s1

Kim’s Convenience, s1, 2, 3, 4

Leverage, s4

Shadow and Bone, s1

The Great, s1

VIDEO GAMES

January

Hades, 37 hours [Fin]

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

February

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Hades, 75+ hours? 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 16 hours

Persona 5 Royal

March

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 45 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 141 hours

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Concrete Genie, 3 hours

April

Concrete Genie, 6 hours [Fin]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 65 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 160 hours

Monster Hunter Rise, 2 hours

Civ, 5 hours

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January

Modern Rustic by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 22k | “I think,” he says, finally, “that if we looked around this place hard enough, we’d find a rose underneath a—a glass thing, what’s it called—losing petals. Metaphorically.”

easy livin' by sarcasticfishes | Buzzfeed Unsolved (Fallout AU) | Ryan/Shane | 6k | The Wasteland - and Ryan - through Shane's eyes.

(in nocte consiliam by oxymoronic | Bartimaeus | Bartimaeus/Nathaniel | 4k | London, 2003. Britain is on the brink of war, and someone is trying rather hard to kill John Mandrake.)

made of glass the way you see through me by uneventfulhouses | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 19k | Will it always be like this? Ryan wonders, watching Shane lope up the snowy walkway and pushing his way through the front door, humming some jolly old tune in that way Shane’s prone to do. Theatrical, performing for an audience even though Ryan is the only one around.

All Your Stars In View by alpha_exodus | Harry Potter | Draco/Harry | 18k | Life after the war is difficult for Harry, especially when the only thing that makes him feel better is, oddly enough, being around Malfoy. So when Malfoy asks to paint his portrait, Harry can't refuse, even if it means baring himself in more ways than one.

13 Genuinely Awful Things About Steven by thefourthvine | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | Andrew’s learned to like cake, he’s learned to like oysters, and he’s learned to like Steven.

we’ll make a brand new start of it (in old new york) by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | “Just to be clear,” Andrew says. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend at a party to spite your high school bully and your high school girlfriend and possibly the entire state of Ohio?”

Russian Roulette Croquembouche by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Andrew/Steven | 9k | “Get that on your business card,” Andrew advises. “Steven Lim, video producer, world traveler, fancy dessert boy. Human cream puff.”

rose-colored boy by juniperProse | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 2k | Andrew’s eyes are pink.

Like Wildfire by makemadej | Watcher Entertainment | Shane/Ryan | 20k | “Is this gonna be a thing with you?” Ryan demands. “You can’t keep committing to stuff that no one else knows about! When people online say they want you to be more open and vulnerable, this is not what they mean.”

Scratching the Itch by bendingsignpost | Doctor Who | Rose/Ten | 20k | Her mum had always told her that blokes had only one thing on their minds, but this was taking it to an entirely new level.

lie back and let me unlock you by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 7k | Xiao Xingchen, reluctantly, admits to certain fantasies that he has. His friend is happy to indulge him.

in our respective ways by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 6k | Jiang Cheng has his golden core back. But he seems to have lost Wei Wuxian.

By Proxy by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng/Lan Wangji | 12k | Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, looking for comfort in all the wrong places.

some good mistakes by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 18k |  Or, the one where Wei Wuxian vanishes and Lan Wangji, reluctantly, asks for Jiang Cheng's help tracking him down.

efforts in a common cause by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang/Song Lan | 12k | Everybody's walked out of Yi City alive. Now it's just three badly adjusted adults (and one badly adjusted teenager) trying to make things work - a project somewhat derailed by a night hunt that turns out to be something else.

swinger of birches by astronicht | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 23k | Lan Zhan is a little witch in the house on the hill, whispering out a love curse. Wei Ying is a witch undead, undone.

let me desecrate you by hkafterdark | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | “Dangerous words.” Wei Wuxian drew back. The flickering candlelight gave him an otherworldly appearance; that, and his beauty, unchanged since the first time Lan Wangji had seen him. “You aren’t afraid to be at the mercy of the fearsome Yiling laozu?”

The Demon Affair by stereobone | Yu Yu Hakusho | Hiei/Kurama | 9k | Kurama accidentally seduces Hiei into a relationship.

i came to win (and i won) by paperclipbitch | The Queen’s Gambit | Beth/Benny | 3k | They play chess, and they fuck.The two things are not the same.

February

Sylvain Gautier Would Love To Try To Solve All Your Problems Through Sex (Hey It Might Help) by Fall Out Boy by harriet_vane | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | Sylvain/Felix | 22k | In which Sylvain wakes up on the wrong tour bus, and refuses to be their sex therapist (unless Felix asks nicely)

Turnabout and Start Again by runningondreams | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 34k | WIP | Wei Wuxian lives. The siege fails.Thirteen years later, Lan Wangji wakes in a body that is not his own.

μήτηρ, in the Greek by antistar_e (kaikamahine) | Hades | Nyx & Persephone, canon relationships | 37k | At the end of this recounting, she tilted her head and asked politely, Is this not how you have children?Uh, no, said Persephone.

that voodoo that you do so well by veterization | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 18k |  Ryan buys a voodoo potion oil at Voodoo Authentica meant to attract Yummy Boys. Appropriately, things happen.

A Bridge Between by Runespoor | Spirited Away | Gen | 3k | Years later, Chihiro moves into a new apartment; her parents help.

the ghost king's bride by arahir | Tian Guan Ci Fu | Hua Cheng/Xie Lian | 10k | Ghosts won't stop giving Xie Lian flowers, Hua Cheng won't stop teasing, and Xie Lian is out here doing his best, man.

Side bitch out of your league by rohkeutta | Captain America | Steve/Bucky | 3k | “I tried to call Sam,” Captain America says, bewildered. He’s sprinting like Usain Bolt and doesn’t sound even a little out of breath. Fucker. “Who’re you?”

cause in your warmth (I forget how cold it can be) by madnessandbrilliance | Promare | Lio/Galo | 7k | Lio is always freezing. Galo is always warm. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest.

backdraft by broments | Promare | Lio/Galo | 32k | It happens in an instant, Galo gaping like an idiot while Lio presses forward to defend against the perceived threat, the weapon sparkling but not burning as it kisses Galo's throat.

your perfect crime (& how you laugh when you lie) by aroceu | The Untamed | Lan Zhan/Wei Wuxian | Death Note AU | 8k | The first time a convicted murderer dies of a heart attack in their jail cell, no one thinks anything of it.

Yosuke will now die for you! by DragonBandit | Persona 4 | Yosuke/Souji | 5k | ...This, causes problems.

dramamine by brawlite | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 7k | Song Lan is having a bad morning. Help comes from the last person he'd expect: Xue Yang.

Hearth and Home by lady_ragnell | Leverage | Alec/Eliot/Parker | 1k | When Eliot goes to a temple, or when he’s in one place long enough to build a shrine, he doesn’t do it for Ares. He does it for Hestia.

Where One Ends and the Other Begins by kalliopeia | Leverage | Alec/Parker/Eliot | 30k | Nobody’s particularly shocked when the job goes spectacularly sideways because their loot turns out to be magic. Parker and Eliot begin reading each other’s minds, accidental sharing happens, and shenanigans result.

Hungry Thirsty Roots by coolkidroland | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 56k | In which Akira absolutely does not learn to leave well enough alone. **

Without Grasping Yet by Angelic_Ascent | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 8k | Akechi and Akira end up far too cramped for comfort in the Morgana bus. And then they're left alone in Mementos.

Falling Up by KivaEmber | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 2k | “If it helps…” Akira spoke up suddenly, his tone morbidly amused, “I forgive you, for shooting me in the face.”

March

Touch of Forbidden by tirsynni | LoZ | Ganondorf/Link | 2k |  Nabooru warned him not to travel to the Spirit Temple. So of course Link went to the Spirit Temple.

breaking the same old heart by tardigradeschool | The Adventure Zone | Magnus/Taako | 11k | Taako and Magnus in triptych: before, during, and after the Bureau.**

your head is good, it’s loyal, it’s clean by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 4k | "Here, I do this all the time."Too quickly for him to react, Taako plucks away one of his golden rings and slips it onto the ring finger of Magnus' left hand.

bruising kisses, whispered confessions by tangerine_skye | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | The trio stop over at an inn for the night. Taako and Magnus share a bed.

i can see what's coming (but i'm not saying it) by pansywaist | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | His breath is still hot on Taako's lips, distracting enough he almost misses the strained whisper: “I thought I was gonna lose you.”

Emergency Consolation in the Pocket Spa by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | If Magnus wants to hug a wizard, Magnus gets to hug a wizard.

together for the long haul by kismetNemesis | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 6k | Magnus and Taako were married on a bright spring day in the year after they saved the world.

thin skin, bruises, and a cold cup of tea by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | Sleep is for the weak, and Magnus has no weaknesses, except for his own natural curiosity.

tender is the night by dollylux | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 10k |  “It’s just…” He runs a hand through the thick bramble of his hair, gripping the crown of it to anchor himself. He sighs, slumping back against the footboard. “I guess I’m just not very good at one on one. Like, not… not in any way.”

a note is attached to the top of the vial by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Kravitz/Taako, Magnus/Taako | 5k |  Elves have a lifespan of up to six hundred years. The people that you know don't even come close to that.

Pieces of Memory and Heart by ellemaris | Raya and the Last Dragon | Raya/Namaari | 1k | Raya isn't sure how to heal everything between Heart and Fang, but returning something important to Namaari seems like a start.

the gods laugh by miss_aphelion | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 11k+ | WIP | Wei Wuxian is just getting used to being alive again when he's ripped from the world he knows. He wakes in a place where his sister and her husband live, where his brother doesn't hate him, where the Wen remnants have all survived.

In Your Room, In Your Bed by giraffeter | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji/Jiang Cheng | 25k | After Wei Ying is disowned, Yu Ziyuan forbids Jiang Cheng from letting Wei Ying live with him. Jiang Cheng lets him stay anyway because Fuck That. He tells his parents Lan Zhan is his new roommate instead.

in the blossom season (in the pouring rain) by varnes | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 14k |  “Doctor Flowers,” Lan Zhan repeats, pointing at the tiny plum tree, just to confirm that his son is suggesting a magical tree named Doctor Flowers sprouted overnight and made their tame family project turn into a verdant jungle.

34 years old - 5'8" - DL - no-BB by withpractice_ff | Ace Attorney | Edgeworth/Phoenix | 3k | Phoenix finds Edgeworth’s Grindr profile

spinning with the stars above by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 7k | Wangji returns home to Vulcan for the first time since he left for Starfleet Academy, this time with Wei Ying at his side. He’s not expecting Wei Ying and his uncle to be fast friends, but things go poorly in a very different way than he was expecting.

every breath that comes before by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 10k | Or, what if that cup of wine Wei Wuxian drank for Lan Wangji after the Phoenix Mountain hunt wasn't just wine?

never love an anchor by tardigradeschool | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 31k | A fisherman and a selkie fall in love beside the sea. Regretfully, things are never quite that simple.

Be Careful by giraffeter | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 5k |  Song Lan and Xue Yang try to survive a week in their shared apartment without Xiao Xingchen as a buffer.

  won't you let me know you now by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 12k | WIP | “Have you ever heard of a mind meld?” Wangji keeps his voice as level as possible, as if he is not revealing foremost Vulcan secrets.

April

running for a soft place to fall by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Xichen & Lan Wangji | 10k |  As he leaves for his coming of age test at age twelve, half-Vulcan Xichen has a goal in mind. The rules of the kahs-wan prohibit taking food, water, or weapons. In accordance, Xichen is bringing none of those things, but he does have a compass tucked into his pocket. He is going to find his father.

an act too often neglected by Ariaste | The Untamed | Lan Xichen/Meng Yao | 60k | The single faceless, anonymous photograph on the profile that catches his eye is shot in elegant black-and-white, and there’s something about the crispness of the focus and the markedly off-center composition that says art, for once, rather than mugshot.The caption below is equally sparse: “5’6. Demanding.”

where you go, I'm going (so jump and I'm jumping) by Aria | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jonathan | 6k | "I don't think so," Alex said. She looked at Martin. "Is this really how it went?"

Morning, keep the streets empty for me by feyburner | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | Ghosts were drawn to the ring roads.

2am on a saturday by detectorist | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 11k | In which Lan Zhan gets high, slides into Wei Ying's DMs, and somehow ends up having the harmonica played to him at 2am in the morning.

Grief Kindly Stopped by ShanaStoryteller | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 5k | Nothing leaves the Burial Mounds alive.

superhero love triangle by Asuka Kureru (Askerian) | Bleach?! | Grimmjow/Ichigo | WIP | 17k | You know those classical superhero-genre love triangles that actually only contain two people? Yeah.

Boat Basin by downjune | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | 5k |  He thought the 21st century now maybe suffered from an overabundance of classifications for all the different ways to fuck and/or romance a person, but the most important thing—and his therapist had emphasized this—the most important thing was connection.

my touch magnifies by isozyme | Word of Honor | Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu/Ye Baiyi | 7k | Wen Kexing gets hit with fuck-or-die sex pollen on the way to Longyuan cabinet. Everything would be fine, except Zhou Zishu’s been keeping an unfortunate secret: the nails in his chest mean he can’t get hard anymore.

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January

2020 || Multifandom Mashup

Hades - Official Animated Trailer

Hades Mini-PMV: This Year

2020, I guess

MARVEL || Energy (ft. Easy McCoy + Black Hydra)

obi-wan || give it

2020 ll Multifandom Mashup

Multifandom | Goodbye 2020

Multifandom | Goodbye 2018

2018 Multifandom | MASHUP

His Dark Materials - No Sanctuary

Lyra & Mrs. Coulter | Hurricane

► mrs. coulter || way down we go [hdm]

Wonder Woman || BORN READY 

Vikings | The End of the Journey

February

MARVEL || Ready Set (ft. Vo Williams)

MARVEL || Here We Go (ft. Chris Classic)

MARVEL || Is You Ready || The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Never forget || Hualian - Hua Cheng x Xie Lian AMV 

【魔道祖师 / MDZS】Animatic - The First Siege | Safe & Sound

The Jedi Way | THE MANDALORIAN

Multifandom || Going Bad (feat. Drake)

March

Broccolli Casserole--The Untamed

Hey Brother - The Adventure Zone Animatic/PMV

The Adventure Zone: Balance trailer

The Adventure Zone: Balance Arc Trailer (Animatic)

13 Year Olds (A MDZS Animatic by Arcxus)

Multifandom || Die In This Town

DNA | shadow & bone

(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff | Grief

Defying Gravity | MDZS/CQL Animatic

It’s Quiet Uptown | MDZS Animatic

To The Stars

(Marvel) WandaVision || Awaken

Walt Disney Animation Studios | A Magical Journey

We don't have forever.

stop living a fake life.

► Wanda Maximoff | PAINT IT BLACK (+15k)

Multifandom || Take It (c/w Quang Truong) ft. @SEIGE WORLD​

Kylo Ren | STAR WARS

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

April

MARVEL || Natural ft.ImagineDragons

​ xue yang & xiao xingchen ➤ gasoline

WEN KEXING || GASOLINE

Wen Kexing ✘ Zhou Zishu || Dandelions

Play With Fire - Wen Kexing

TOXIC ~ Wen Kexing ~ word of honor ~ 山河令

(Marvel) Bucky Barnes | Free

Bucky Barnes | Feeling Good

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier || Next Level ft. @7kingZ​ || (Marvel)

Eternity looking down on us.

The complexity of reality.

Captain America

✗ The Crows | Trouble (Shadow&Bone)

Shadow & Bone | Paint It Black

The secret fate of all life.

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January

A Better Version - Jessie Shelton

Start a War - Klergy, Valerie Broussard

Meet Me in the Dark - Melissa Etheridge

ily - Surf Mesa, Emilee

Space Man - Eurielle

To Be Loved - Aurora

In the Blood - Darren Korb

Can’t Help Falling in Love - Tommee Profitt

Astronomical - SVRCINA

Oh Comely - Neutral Milk Hotel

In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles

goblincore + cottagecore

moonlit love letters 🌙💌 (sailor moon-inspired lofi mix)

Moonlight Densetsu Lo-Fi Remix 1 hour version

Peaceful Meditation

February

Never Forget You - Zara Larsson

Is You Ready - Migros

Recomposed Four Seasons - Max Richter

The End - JPOLND

Love Yourself - Sufjan Stevens

Deja | Daniel Roure

Used To Like | Neon Trees

Material Boy - Sir Sly

Willow - Taylor Swift

Overture - Apashe

Evangeline - Josh Garrels

Gris, pt 1 - Berlinist

Inferno - Hiroyuki Sawano

March

BAMBAM - Angie

Dictator - Rei Ami

Demons - Hayley Kiyoko

Runaway - Rei Ami

Deep Blue - Marcus Warner

Brave New World - Kalandra

Nero - The Speed

The Path of Silence - Anne Sophie Versnaeyen

Tuleloits - Kerli

Soft to Be Strong - Marina

Relic - Reeder

Ascension - Gorillaz

Will You Follow Me Into the Dark - Klergy

Voidfish (Plural) - Rachel Mitchell

Raya and the Last Dragon soundtrack

Unicorn Wizard - Ninja Sex Party

Me Too - Meghan Trainor

Umbrella - Rihanna

Colors Flying High - Lollia

Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There - Lyn

lovely - khalid

Burn My Dread - Lotus Juice

Progress - The Dear Hunter

My Mother Told Me - Rachel Hardy

Savage Daughter - Sarah Ross

Four - Sleeping At Last

April

The Other Side - Amarante

Predator & Prey - Griffin Puatu

As the World Caves In -Matt Maltese

Tell Her I Wasn’t Scared - Dan Thiessen

Esmeralda - Adriel Genet

Woods - AfterInfinity

So Human of You - Shireen

Flags of Rome - Jesper Kyd

Do It All the Time - I don’t Know How But They Found Me

Hummingbirds - Venus Hum

On and On - Curtis Harding

Grand Escape - RADWIMPS

my ex’s best friend - machine gun kelly

Sofia - Clairo 

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Charlotte Lawrence

Next Level - 7KingZ

Tell Me - Johnny Jewel

Get Out of Town - Firefles

Music for Anglo Saxes

I See Darkness In You - Red Mecca

Satan Is His Name - Holly Golightly

Rocky Trail - Kings of Convenience

Story - NF

Because the Night - 10,000 Maniacs

Use to Be (L.O.V.E.) - Chelsea Collins

Bird on a Wire - Simone Istwa

Huzzah - Nathan Barr

POSTED FIC

January

gonna make you feel, boy | Hades | Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus | 1,101 words | “You can touch, you know,” she murmurs, satisfaction and anticipation warring within her. Her pulse pounds. Zagreus’s eyes have darkened, his pupils eating up all that color. He looks good enough to eat.

February

how long do we have? | She Ra | Adora/Catra | 1,539 words | “The war is over, Adora,” Catra tells her. Adora hums. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

March

only fools rush in | The Adventure Zone | Taako/Magnus | 5,209 words | “Okay,” Taako says, sitting down heavily. “So. Ancient ritual to… bring people together?”

til my lungs both billow out | The Magnus Archives | Jon/Martin | 748 words | The knife goes in. The tape runs out.

the echo, as wide as the equator | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 2,927 words |  “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers after it is done.

April

N/A

WIPS | UNPUBLISHED | ORIGINAL

January

1685 words of Buzzfeed Unsolved, tattoo AU

February

N/A

March

3121 words of Magnus/Taako, Stolen Century verse Posted!

April

852 words of Steve/Billy

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January

got the morbs: sad/somber songs for sad/somber people

2021: a mix for the year that comes after 2020

Sahara Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Spanish Sahara

Fire Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Play With Fire

Consequences Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Consequences

Paradise Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Paradise Valley

Real Boy: a Zagreus playlist

February

N/A

March

only fools rush in: a taako/magnus playlist

pomegranate seeds: a persephone playlist

make them bow: a megaera playlist

fuck feelings: a taako playlist

til my lungs both billow out: a jonmartin playlist

April

i am my mother’s savage daughter: a playlist for the girl

#heather says what #heather writes #scrapbook #2021

[semper-legens]

109. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, by Juno Dawson

Owned?: No, library Page count: 450 My summary: High in the upper echelons of government is a secret coven of witches. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven works from the shadows to fight magical threats to the land. When Helena, head of HMRC, hears a prophecy about an ancient evil rising, she’s naturally concerned; especially when the coven catches the boy who will bring this evil forth, Theo. But her comrades are turning on her. Her old friends Leonie, Elle, and Niamh are taking Theo’s side...and she will not let this country fall. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Ah, Juno Dawson. She’s one of my favourite writers, I’ve really enjoyed the books in her previous teen work that I’ve read, so naturally I wanted to check out her first novel for adults. In a nutshell, I really enjoyed it, though the plot and writing were not without their flaws - it was an enjoyable urban fantasy book overall though, and Dawson’s writing is filled with the usual sparkle and flair. I liked a lot of the worldbuilding, and hell, it’s a book about witches. I’m always down for that!

(Spoilers under the cut.)

So yeah, Helena is the worst. One thing about Dawson, she writes a really credible TERF nightmare. Helena is exactly the white, straight, middle-class privileged asshole who thinks she’s at the bottom of the totem pole just because she’s also a woman that exists a thousand times over in the real world. One think I really liked about the writing on her was that her POV chapters still help you understand her thought process and why she makes the choices she makes, without ever inviting you to think the way she does. The other POV characters are a delight. I like the spread of women we have here - vain housewife and mother Elle, crafty loner Niamh, and urban lesbian Leonie, all of whom side with and protect Theo against Helena and the HMRC, slowly breaking away from their remaining ties with the coven to stand against their old friend. Their friendship is complex and compelling, and they’re all very distinct characters.

Speaking of Theo, if you didn’t see the revelation that she’s trans coming, you’ve probably never read a Dawson book before. I liked Theo a lot, she’s quiet and anxious but blossoms into a powerful young witch with time. The issue, really, is that it’s very Baby’s First Trans - Theo is more a side character than anything else, and she’s not a POV character. Which is fine, this isn’t really a criticism or anything, but if you’re expecting this book to contain a trans story, it doesn’t really. More of a trans side-story.

The world of HMRC is interesting enough - witchcraft is real, but is a well-guarded secret. Witches are split into different strengths, with only a few being able to cast multiple forms of magic. Most magical understanding comes from HMRC itself, so is inherently biased towards white witches and traditions - something Leonie, who is black, is actively trying to combat. I like that Dawson introduces these biases in the system so that she can point them out and play with them a bit, mirroring the experience of any traditions from people of colour which are seen as lesser by English society. There was a previous war against fascistic mages, which we never really ‘see’ but hear a lot about, giving this impression of a wider world. Also, I loved how northern this book is. It basically takes place in my neck of the woods, including the bloodline of the Pendle witches. Hell yeah!

Next up, well, there’s only one way to introduce this...welcome to Night Vale.

#Her Majesty's Royal Coven #Juno Dawson #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #4

[mollymauk-teafleak]

I will love you if I never see you again (chapter two)

Huge thanks again to my beta readers, @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian whom I love very much

Please consider leaving a comment on Ao3, it takes two seconds, is completely free and it’s hugely motivational and helpful to fic authors like me!

Chapters: 1, 2

-------

It had been four hours, not even half a day, and Juno was already losing his mind.

He had called in sick at the crack of dawn, unsure of what else to do or what he was going to say when that excuse ran thin, putting the phone down sharply on Rita’s protestations that Mistah Steel never voluntarily called in sick. As often happened when he talked with- or rather shouted at- Rita, he immediately regretted being so sharp and so curt, the second it was too late to take the words back. It just always seemed like he couldn’t control himself in the moment, like someone else, much angrier and snappier, took the reins when he opened his mouth.

Which didn’t bode well for his new job.

He walked away from his comms and stared balefully at the tiny, wrinkled peanut of a baby lying in the middle of his hastily cleared and aired out bed. How such a loud and relentless noise could come from something so small, he didn’t have the faintest idea but she’d been going at it since the ten seconds after Nureyev had walked out of the door.

Not that Juno could blame her. He would scream his head off too, if he’d been abandoned in some stinking, cramped little apartment with a stranger with a scowl like his own. He understood why but good god, it was getting painful.

Every time he made an attempt to soothe her, picking her up or talking to her, she’d just rev like a little engine and the screaming would kick up in pitch until Juno was wincing and fighting the urge to clap his hands over his ears. He’d tried everything he could think of, even zipped open the bag Nureyev had left and pulled out the cloth cat he’d talked about. He had to admit it was cute, the compound eyes done in little sequins and everything.

And when he’d held it out in front of Bianca, she had kicked it out of his hand furiously and sent it across the room.

Juno sighed, feeling a headache root itself in the very base of his brain, “Are you hungry? Is that it?”

She gave no answer but to ball up her little fists against her face, now red as the planet she was trapped on. Juno was getting apprehensive, that colour couldn’t be good to maintain for an extended period of time. Would she just burst if she kept on like that? What would he tell Nureyev then, when he came back?

If he came back.

That thought had gnawed at his brain stem since he’d seen this new, exhausted version of Nureyev with his hair growing a little too long and the shadows under his eyes. He tried to marry it up with the Nureyev he’d known, the man with the sleek, predator’s smile and poise and the heart underneath it all and he couldn’t make a man who would do something like this. Like any of this, having a kid, protecting them, upending the life he curated so carefully for something out of his control.

And if that was true, what did it mean? Had Juno set himself up as neatly as he’d done for Rex Glass? What if Nureyev had no intention of ever coming back?

He didn’t know this new Nureyev, with the broken heart and the tired eyes. He couldn’t say what he wanted, what his plan was. If he acted only in his own self interest, what was he trying to achieve by leaving him with this squalling little noise maker that had been cursed with half Steel DNA?

A hundred different anxieties sat in the pit of his stomach and clawed at it’s walls, making him feel sick and intensifying his headache. He couldn’t puzzle it out, like a mass of string that grew more complicated as a tugged at it.

Groaning, he tugged at his curls and said, “Fine. Food. Let’s try that.”

Making a bottle was far more complicated than he ever could have imagined, especially with Bianca balanced in one arm and screaming. He had to wrestle with the tub of formula to get it open then was greeted with a nauseating burst of artificial milk smell when it finally popped open, as well as a large amount in his hair and his good eye. It had to be measured out just right, he had to wash his hands, he had to boil the kettle then leave it for a full half hour, all while tiny little fists flew and a tiny little tantrum raged. Finally he had gotten it stirred all together, ran it under the water to cool it, even splattered some on his wrist to see if it was too hot like people did on streams.

He was proud of himself for five seconds until he sat back down on his bed, trying to angle Bianca so he could feed her. She made an indignant chirp sound as he tipped her, suddenly finding herself staring up at him. She seemed to ignore the bottle in her face, spluttering like a struggling engine, just looking at Juno. There was a moment of pause there, like they were both holding their breath as near identical pairs of eyes seemed to see each other for the first time.

And then her foot connected with the bottle and the top joints of his fingers where it hurt the most, sending it out of his grip and into his lap, where the top burst off and soaked him in lukewarm formula.

“Okay!” Juno burst out, startling them both. He jumped up, setting her down firmly on the covers, frustration making his cheeks burn, “Look, I know you’re in a strange place with a strange lady and you don’t get what’s going on but there is no need to make it this difficult! This sucks for me just as much as it does for you and it’s only going to get worse if you insist on being such a little mons-”

Juno stopped himself, sucking the word back in like a vacuum had opened up in his throat. But another voice finished it for him, a voice he’d expected to have grown hazier in his mind with the years between the last time he’d heard it and now. But no, it stayed sharp and clear as ever, like it lived on in a dark corner of himself.

And god, it terrified him.

He took a deep breath, tugging his hair, trying to keep himself grounded. It was a fight he was quickly losing until he realised that the room had become quiet. Quiet in a way it hadn’t been in for four hours.

Bianca wasn’t crying. She was looking at him, her little chest heaving like she might start again any second. Her round cheeks were wet and her fists pulled tight to her chest, fingers working nervously.

She needed him. She didn’t like it, he didn’t like it but it didn’t make it any less true. And Juno found himself looking at the exact same choice Sarah Steel had faced, one he had never wanted to have land in his lap.

He could fall apart and let down this tiny little person who was depending on him. Or he could not.

Juno had seen the consequences that one of those paths lead to, he lived with it’s scars every day of his life. And he couldn’t bear to take that road himself. It would be hard. He might still fail with every new step. He may well be doomed to tip and fall to the other side, it might be written into every cell of his body.

But even if it was, he could still fight it with a clenched jaw and split knuckles. And damn it, he was going to.

Sighing, Juno crossed over to his wardrobe and kicked away his now soaked sweatpants, exchanging them for his only other pair, the ones that were from his slightly slimmer HCPD days but would suffice. Then he came back over and picked up Bianca, carrying her back to the kitchen.

The steps were easier to follow this time, now he’d done them once. Wash the hands, pick up a fresh, sterilised bottle, two scoops of powder, fill with cooled boiled water up to the line. Test it on his wrist.

While he waited, he looked down at Bianca and regarded her, really looked at her. He couldn’t think of her as his daughter, not yet, that would be asking too much too soon. But he could see the resemblance even with one eye. She had his skin colour, his eyes, even the grumpy set to his face.

Suddenly, he was certain Nureyev would come back. She clearly missed him so much, what would there be to miss if he hadn’t given her love from the moment she was born? He’d meant every word he’d said about how precious she was to him, even if Juno couldn’t make sense of it with the man he’d known Nureyev to be. Why he’d made the choice he’d made, how he had come to shift his whole motivation, his entire driving force to include her, Juno didn’t know and maybe he’d lost the right to know. But it was what it was and he’d made a promise.

“Listen,” he eventually said, voice raspy with the lack of sleep, “I know it’s Nureyev you want. I know you miss him. But he can’t be here right now so you’ve got me instead. And...well, I’m no one’s first choice, never am. But I’m gonna try, kiddo. Alright?”

Bianca just blinked, opening her mouth for the nib of the bottle when Juno tipped it towards her, latching on quickly and feeding greedily.

“Alright,” Juno nodded, with a grim satisfaction.

One step taken.

“HCPD, Captain Khan speaking, how can I help, citizen?”

“Oh good, Khan, it’s you. I really didn’t think McCluskey was going to put me through after he chewed me out for ten whole minutes…”

“Wha...Steel? What the hell have you gotten yourself into now? What the hell could be worth giving me another goddamn aneurysm?”

“Little rude, Khan, I could be calling to report a crime for all you know.”

“Oh, you usually are, Steel. You just don’t realise you are and that you’re turning yourself in.”

“You’ve never been able to make any of those charges stick and you know it...but I’m really not calling about that, I’m calling to do some...research. For a case.”

“What do I look like, a library?”

“For crying out loud, I thought you guys were supposed to help citizens. Look, it won’t take five seconds, I just need to know if there’s anything you can do to get a baby to sleep through the night.”

“If...Steel, what in the hell is this case you’re working?”

“Not important! I just need an answer and well...you got kids, right? I thought you might know?”

“...Steel, you are by far the strangest individual I have ever had the misfortune to-”

“Khan, do you have an answer or not? This case is...time sensitive.”

“Well...I mean, lots of different people have different ideas on the subject. But I’d say the main concern is two fold, establishing a firm routine and then teaching the kid to self soothe. Kids love a schedule, y’know, helps them get into the rhythm of things. Same time every day, dinner then bath then tuck in. And put them in the crib when they’re drowsy but not fully asleep, that way they learn they call fall asleep on their own. The wife had to be very firm with me on that one, I can tell you, just too tempting to let them fall asleep in your arms-”

“Okay, that all sounds great. Thanks, uh, Captain. This will be very useful for my...my case.”

“I still don’t see what kind of case this could possibly be useful for, Steel…”

“Oh and wouldn’t you know it, that’s my client awake...um, I mean, calling. Got to go, Captain, thanks again!”

“Is that...crying?”

Juno had to remind himself he wasn’t getting any less sleep than he had before. But there was something about the fractured, broken glass snatches of sleep he was getting versus the low, barely awake fog he’d existed in before that was just leaving him feeling more drained than he ever had. Maybe it was the waking up to screams he couldn’t decipher, a loud and angry puzzle he couldn’t solve, rather than to a silent apartment and silent ghosts.

But there had been some small wins in the last three days. If he wanted to be optimistic, something Juno only was in his most desperate moments, he would say those wins were getting closer together.

He’d managed to wash Bianca’s dirty onesies in the sink with newly purchased detergent so she’d have clean ones to wear, rather than just burning through the pile of new ones she’d been left with. He’d bought a steriliser for her bottles and had actually set it up without anything exploding. He’d gotten her to accept the cloth cat, rather than brutalising it when he suspected she probably wanted to aim those tiny fists with their incredibly sharp nails at him.

And just now he’d managed to change her diaper without getting them both in a worse mess at the end than when they’d begun. He was actually starting to anticipate when she would try to roll off the table, able to snag her before she could.

Juno set her down on her blanket in the middle of the room, “Right...stay there and try not to be gross for five seconds. I just got the stains out of that little suit you’re wearing.”

Bianca answered as she usually did, with an indignant burble and a scowl she seemed to be perfecting. She was clearly still confused and bitter that he wasn’t Nureyev and Juno couldn’t exactly blame her. It was probably for the best that she saw him as a temporary annoyance.

“I’m gonna go get Kitty, you stay there and don’t roll anywhere or pull anything down or barf on anything,” he instructed as firmly as he could, pointing at her for emphasis like that was going to make any difference.

Bianca replied exactly as he’d expected, which was to stare at him like he was an idiot. It was eerily similar to Nureyev’s.

Kitty was where they’d been left, in the moses basket Bianca slept in beside the bed. Juno tried to imagine it in the corner of whatever hotel room Nureyev was staying in on whatever complicated and history book worthy scheme he was pulling, under whatever elaborate, flowery name he’d constructed. At least he’d found someone to see the stars with.

He snatched up the toy, holding it awkwardly by the poison stinger, admonishing himself for thinking about stupid stuff when Bianca could be losing his security deposit and pissing off his landlord in any number of inventive ways.

Which was when he heard the door open. And his heart leapt into his throat.

He flung himself out of the bedroom, hand groping for a blaster he hadn’t been wearing for three days and couldn’t even use, other hand forming a fist, ready to just throw himself at whatever threat had just walked through the door if he couldn’t shoot it dead.

Fortunately, a second before he could do that, he heard her voice.

“Well, hello there! Who might you be, little bean?”

Juno’s shoulder slammed painfully into the doorframe as he skidded to a halt, all his momentum and panic turning into a rush of air that sounded vaguely like, “Rita?”

“Mistah Steel!” Sure enough, his secretary was standing in his living room, peering curiously at Bianca, though she’d turned to give him her kilowatt grin as he’d entered, “Where’d you get this cutie from?”

“Rita,” Juno managed a clearer though no less stunned attempt at her name, “What are you doing here at this hour, it’s…” he realised then he didn’t actually know what time it was.

“I’m here cos you aint been in the office for three days!” Rita exploded, a worry she’d clearly been distracted from by Bianca flooding back into her expression, “You called in sick the first time but then you didn’t answer any of my calls and I thought maybe you’d dropped your comms in the toilet again cos it was never right after that first time when the screen went all wibbly…”

“Rita,” Juno groaned, slumping against the doorway. A lot of conversations with his secretary turned into just repeating her name to punctuate her long, rambly monologues until she clicked on that he was trying to talk to her. It was like paying a toll to cross a bridge.

“But, Boss, my goodness but you haven’t answered my question! Why on Mars is there a baby on your living room floor?”

Juno scrambled for a lie, he hadn’t decided yet what he’d tell anyone if they asked about Bianca. He hadn’t been anticipating having to tell anyone, really. He had no friends after all and he didn’t have the kind of face that invited casual conversation in the street.

And he’d never been any good at lying to Rita. Which is why he avoided telling her anything she wouldn’t want to know.

“I’m...I’m watching her for a friend, while they’re out of town,” he eventually coughed up, “Just for a little while.”

Rita turned back to her, studying her face. Her face, so similar to the one looking at her nervously, minus thirty eight years and an eye.

Eventually she grinned, “Well, I can see why ya offered to watch her. She’s a real cute little madam.”

Juno gave a rough, strained smile. That was why he never lied to Rita. She always believed him without question.

“But, Mistah Steel, I gotta say, this apartment is not set up for babysitting duty! You could’ve called me, cleaning this place is a two person job for sure. Probably six or seven. But we’ll work with what we got.”

“Oh, Rita, no,” Juno groaned, “You don’t have to do that…”

“Well, with all due respect, were you gonna look after her all by your lonesome? When you...well, forgive me for saying so, Boss, but when you forget to look after yourself sometimes?”

Juno flinched, “I’ve been doing fine!”

“I mean...sure, Boss,” Rita ducked her eyes and he saw just how much her owlish glasses magnified them when they slipped down her nose, “But...I mean, as long as I’m here, I could maybe stick around? Sure has been lonely at the office without you. I promise I won’t clean nothin’ if that upsets you...”

Juno closed his eye and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose where he could already feel a tightness brewing, “I wasn’t trying to...yeah, fine. Hang around if you want to but no later than...I still don’t know what time it is…”

“It’s six in the afternoon, Mistah Steel.”

“Right. Well, no later than eight, Bianca has to have a bath before bed. I’m trying to get her into a routine.”

“Bianca?” Rita’s face lit up, her hair frizzing out the way it always did when she was excited, like the emotion was an actual electric current running through her body right to her dyed purple tips, “That’s such a sweet name!”

Juno winced internally. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, given her a fake name or something. But it was Rita, after all. Nureyev didn’t have a Rita.

So Juno just crashed onto the sofa and watched as she made cooing noises to Bianca, earning smiles and interested looks that he hadn’t managed to earn with three days of feeding her and changing her diapers. It was enough to make his lip turn down on one side. She’d never made those happy bubbling noises for him or stretched her hands out to be picked up by him.

As he said. It was probably for the best.

After a while, he felt his eyelid growing heavy and things started to turn fuzzy around the edges, a yawn pulling at the edges of his mouth that he refused to let go. He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against the broken springs that had somehow become misshapen enough to hold him with some comfort.

“Rita…” he mumbled, voice turning vague.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Mistah Steel, me and Bee Bee will have a good time, you get some shut eye.”

Juno tried to say something, maybe to protest that it wasn’t her name or maybe to tell her that the stuffed cat on the floor was her favourite, but whether he managed before he fell asleep, he couldn’t have said.

Juno had been thinking a lot about what Rita had said, when she’d asked him if he’d really thought he’d be able to do this on his own, in a voice like he’d been a complete idiot. Because with a week gone since he’d been involuntarily paired up with Rita, he was realising that she was right.

She came over every day now, to walk Bianca’s silly little cloth cat across the back of the sofa and put on elaborate pantomimes with the other parts being filled by her toys with lower billing and, when the cast grew thin, Juno’s shoes. Juno himself would scowl at any parts offered to him and sleep on the side of the stage. Or else, pretend to sleep while keeping his eye half open so he could follow the story. He found making bottles and doing laundry were far easier when he could use both his hands and he wasn’t sleep deprived and, yes, it was nicer to have time and brain space to actually make proper food for himself rather than eating take out all the time. And, well, if he accidentally made too much and Rita was there and they ended up eating at the same time at the same table while Bianca napped in her moses basket then, well...that was nice too.

But sometimes he would find a bitter taste on his tongue and find a thought in his mind to accompany it.

Nureyev had none of this.

He’d done everything on his own and presumably, in another few weeks, he would come back and take her away and continue to do it all on his own.

Tonight though, Rita was visiting Franny who’d apparently had a fall or maybe it was her birthday, Juno could never follow any story about that woman. And Bianca was clearly realising that she wasn’t getting any entertainment or cuddles that night, given how she was fussing and kicking her little legs and getting that grumpy look that Juno used to think was his own but he’d definitely seen that expression on Nureyev’s face many times. Definitely after Juno bounced the balled up doodle of a cat off his nose.

Juno sighed and regarded her, chewing on her fist and cycling her little legs in the air, lying on her back in the middle of the bed. Every attempt to lie her down in her own had resulted in a shriek. Even after a bottle, a bath as full of bubbles as Juno could make it and one of the stories Nureyev had packed for her, she was wide eyed and full of subdued fury as ever.

“Well,” Juno frowned at her, mimicking her expression just to amuse himself, “We can’t sit around and gripe all night, can we?”

Bianca seemed to agree for once, grabbing her ankles and attempting to put those in her mouth as well.

“Yeah,” Juno rolled his eye, folding his arms, “How about a walk then? If you really won’t let go of any of that energy.”

He’d realised a long time ago that walking without purpose through the streets helped him to settle his mind when he felt it getting out of control. It had been Ben’s suggestion, back when they were teenagers, that if he tired out his legs then his brain might follow suit. Well, his brother’s actual suggestion had been to dance his feelings away but he’d made it clear what he’d thought of that. Walking had been a compromise.

Some of his best case cracking ideas had come about when he was marching along some no name street of Hyperion city, alarming the passers by when he would suddenly flap his hands and jump and punch the air in his eureka moment.

And it had occurred to him that Bianca might feel the same, not that she had any cases to solve apart from why things stopped existing when they weren’t in her field of vision.

She seemed to like the motion if nothing else, as Juno buttoned his coat around her just in case she got cold and set off into the evening just starting to tip into twilight. He didn’t set off with any particular destination, he never did, that was a one way ticket to undoing everything he was trying to accomplish with the walk. Once you decided you were trying to get somewhere, then things got tricky. One foot in front of the other was so much simpler.

It was a nice night, all things considered. The dome overhead was catching the sunset in a pretty way, the electric veins of it highlighted in the gold of it so it all looked like a fancy jewelled hair net an Earth socialite would wear. The tops of the palms were dusted in it too, making the leaves shine all glossy, and even the tops of the buildings looked sharp and striking, like cut outs of black paper against the watercolour sky. Things could be beautiful in Hyperion, if you cracked your neck far enough back.

There weren’t too many cars out, there weren’t too many people airing grievances on the sidewalk. There weren’t too many reasons to not want to be here. A pretty good night.

Until he realised where his feet were taking him.

Bianca shifted against his chest at the sound of the birds. This was the only place in Hyperion city where you could hear birds in the trees and see the boughs of the palms bend with nests and find feathers on the ground to pick up and realise they were always softer and had more colours in them than you’d remembered.

The gates were just up ahead, black iron stark against the sunset so the words Halcyon Park stood out bold and bringing memories he’d rather forget, memories of other nights like this. Warm, golden nights that had seemed endless and beautiful and had ended up meaning less than dirt.

That was one thing Juno hated more than anything else. It wasn’t just the bad memories, it was the way they poisoned even the good ones, their roots cracking through the few sweet moments of his childhood and reminding him of the horrors that had been just around the corner that he’d never seen coming. In the end, the good memories hurt all the more.

Everything in Juno told him to turn around. But Bianca was poking her head out of his coat, looking around with wide, curious eyes, at the sounds of the birds maybe or the scent of the flowers that grew in thick, crowded rows along the stone paved paths. Maybe she’d never seen anything like this before? It seemed cruel to give her a glimpse of it now and then take her away.

And besides, she’d pitch a fit if he turned back for home now.

So, resigned, he walked into Halcyon Park, turning Bianca around so she could blink and burble at everything they passed, seeming more content than she had all day. Everything in the park centred around the fountain so that was where they ended up, hearing the soft whisper of the water before they saw it. Juno sat heavily down on one of the light wood benches, styled after the old parks of Earth, the ones that now only existed in picture books like Bianca’s, with their well dressed people in long dresses and tall hats and fresh air.

It didn’t take him long to realise he was sitting exactly where Sarah would sit, while he and Benzaiten would run rings around each other, more often than not tumbling into the fountain itself and getting soaked. And sometimes he would look up, through his dripping curls and see her staring off into space, like the two of them weren’t even there. And sometimes he would see her watching them with such intensity and an emotion he’d been too young to name and couldn’t remember now. And he would never be sure which he preferred.

Bianca had been watching the falling water devotedly, awed by how it split the fading sunlight and sparkled as if a handful of stars were tumbling from the darkening sky into the fountain like pennies for good luck. But now she yawned, resting her head on Juno’s chest, putting all of her weight against him.

Juno looked down. He hadn’t held her like this since she’d arrived, just cradling her because he could. Whenever he’d picked her up before it was always to move her from place to place or to balance her awkwardly while he put a bottle together as hastily as he could to stop her shrieking. He couldn’t remember just holding her for its own sake, feeling her warmth and weight and her little heart beat going like a hummingbird against his own.

And he knew why he hadn’t.

But now he was, Bianca had settled into it so easily, almost as if she’d been waiting for it, crying for it since she’d arrived and not understanding why he hadn’t listened. She was resting against him and patting her little starfish hand against his chest softly, nodding off to the sound of the birds and the smell of the flowers and whisper of the water and the rhythm of his heartbeat. Eventually she reached one of those hands up and patted around his ear, maybe looking for a golden cuff earring. Instead her fingers found the curls of his hair, where they were tighter and closer around the arch of his ear. Almost immediately she fastened on, stroking and petting and grasping where it had been getting longer than he was used to. And she fell asleep, content. So easily, she pillowed her head in the comfort that Juno was there. She trusted him.

Juno realised he was crying just in time to wipe away the tears that were sliding down one side of his face, catching them before they dripped onto Bianca’s head. And he felt like he could name the emotion he’d seen in Sarah’s eyes on those broken, golden nights of his childhood.

#the penumbra podcast #juno steel #tpp juno #peter nureyev #tpp nureyev #tpp #tpp fic #rita #tpp rita #sarah steel #cw: abusive parents #referenced but not seen #cw: trans pregnancy #trans peter nureyev

[typinggently]

Prompt number 6 with Tommy/Alfie? ❤️

6) an art heist, an old library, a pile of books

!!!! Listen I am one whole Clown emoji!! I had one last prompt left over from the last prompts and was just finishing it up when the new prompt post was scheduled to go up and anyhow, the old prompt was this:

And the prompt was 6) marble sculptures, old books, a burning building

And  you know what I wrote??? Art Heist AU!!

I cannot believe…..the coincidence..the utmost tomfoolery…Please accept my humble apologies for taking SO long and also the drabble (since it..fits perfectly..)

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Art Heist AU

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“So-“ Alfie tilts his head back a little to follow the folds of Athena’s dress with his eyes, the movement of his lips hardly noticeable under his beard – “I’ll assume you bribed someone?”

It’s late afternoon, the last sunlight is falling through the tall windows, melting into the marble and making the traces of red in Alfie’s beard glow. Tommy hums, hands folded behind his back. He lets his gaze drift over white fingers, the shield on a marble-cool chest. “Something like it.”

 Here, Alfie throws him a glance, then rounds the statue to meet him at her side. Their steps echo on the wooden floors as they make their way to the satyr sleeping on a block of black marble. Surprisingly young, soft-mouthed with goat ears and long lashes, a little beard on his chin.

Tommy hums, eyes on the horns poking through the mess of tangled curls. “There’s a library at the end of the Roman wing, they give out the key for private research.” His words are soft and he flicks his eyes up towards the end of the room where a gold-shimmering plaque promises the Roman wing.

“Ah, I see. And no one will notice the missing key, huh?” Alfie’s fingers come dangerously close to touching the dip of the satyr’s waist, his furry-soft flanks.

Tommy frowns, steps back. “It’s a copy. I suggest we make our way there before it gets dark.”

Alfie’s hoarse little laugh sends a shiver down his spine, but he doesn’t turn around until he reaches the door leading to the Roman wing. It’s made of dark, glossy wood, the door handle golden, smooth-cool against his palm.

-

And yes, of course he’s been here before, twice with Polly and once on his own. Still, in the dimming light, the atmosphere of the room changes drastically. The two rows of marble statues seem sharper now, glowing white against the dark wood of the floors and walls. In contrast to the hall they just crossed, there are no paintings on the walls here, no shimmer of gold and oil to distract from the silent figures. Between the windows, large vases of flowers emit a soft-sweet scent.

Alfie’s hand is warm on his shoulder, even through the layers of his coat, waistcoat, shirt. “Were you waiting, Love? Charming. Now, if you could be so kind.” With that, he gives him a gentle shove.

 Tommy takes the hint and walks down the few steps, watching the way the angle changes the contours of the statues. It’s a row of Gods, Tommy knows as much after three visits, after reading the name plates three times and letting Polly talk while glancing at the door leading to the library.

Jupiter and Juno, sharp-beaked eagle and graceful peacock. Neptune and Pluto, seaweed and pearl-dripping shoulders and a gaunt, sharp face. Venus and Mars, milk-white breasts and sun-tan pectorals hidden behind a breath of fabric and hammered gold. Apollo and Minerva, indistinguishable faces, laurel in wild curls and snakes on a cold chest. Vesta and Vulkan, warm-soft and hot-rough. Diana and Mercury, slim limbs, graceful hands.

 -

By the time they reach the door to the library, Alfie has fallen silent and Tommy feels a little dazed. It takes him two tries until the golden key slips into place, then they slip inside.

“Alice in Wonderland,” Alfie says as soon as the door is closed behind them. “I was half-expecting a glass table with some cryptic instructions on dubious sweets.”

Tommy straightens and locks the door from the inside. “That’ll have to wait until we’re out again.”

Alfie laughs, then turns to take in the library. “Ah, Christ.”

It’s a small room, but with a ceiling high enough to indicate that it spans all three stories of the main building. Tall windows, a maze of ladders and delicate staircases, platforms. Rows and rows of books.

“You know, I think we should just get into book thievery, Love. Wouldn’t that be much easier?”

Tommy slips out of his coat and doesn’t bother answering. He wanders over to the bottom of one of the staircases and makes his way upstairs, his steps silent on old smooth wood. “See if you can find a hiding place. They’re still doing their rounds and might come in despite the locked door. We should stay until eleven, I think.” He checks his watch, then steps onto the first platform, walking to its end to check for possible dark corners.

-

In the end, Alfie joins him on his search and what they find, of course, is a loveseat with a curtain on the third platform. “Do you think they fuck in here?”

Tommy hums. “I assume they sit and smoke and read papers on dinosaurs.”

At that, Alfie laughs, the sound unexpected and unfamiliar. “Well, their loss. Now up you go, move it.”

The light is almost completely gone, the shadows have deepened, and they don’t have much time left until the museum closes its door for the night. Tommy sighs and takes a seat.

“Now make room.”

At that, Tommy raises a brow at him. “What about your own hiding place?”

“No time. Move it.” Alfie’s knee is brushing his, a shock even through their trousers, and his hand rests on the back of the sofa, bringing them much closer than anticipated. With his free hand, he pulls the curtain closed as he climbs on, trapping them in soft-warm darkness.

Tommy twitches and leans back against the headrest to make room for him to climb on as well. “Fine, but-“

“Love, do you really think you want to complain now?” Alfie’s voice is soft, his breath warm on Tommy’s cheek. “Come on, pull your feet up.” His hand is just as warm, gently squeezing Tommy’s knee.

Not wanting to risk making more noise, Tommy does as he’s told. If it’d been cramped before, it’s almost impossible now. Tommy’s left thigh slips against Alfie’s hip, his shoe no doubt leaving an untraceable smear of polish on Alfie’s black coat. He tries to move a little, give Alfie room to rest more of his weight on the sofa, but in his effort to not touch the curtain, he slips and kicks at Alfie’s leg, which topples Alfie and results in them knocking their foreheads together painfully. They both make half-muffled sounds of pain, then it’s silent for a moment.

Alfie is heavy on top of him, his breath against his throat where the collar of his shirt slipped. “Was that some sort of plan, Love? Not terribly slick, I have to say.”

Tommy tightens his grip on Alfie’s arm and hushes him.

For a moment, their breathing seems awfully loud, then Alfie huffs softly and rearranges his weight, drops his head, warm and heavy next to Tommy’s. His beard scratches against Tommy’s freshly-shaven skin, his breathing is soft against his throat once more.

He’s warm. Heavy. His palm is still on Tommy’s thigh, holding it up.

Tommy swallows thickly, licks his lips. Now that he’s accustomed to the dim light, he can make out the shimmer of Alfie’s eyes, flicking down.

It’s hot. The buttons of Tommy’s coat dig into his hip where he ended up laying on top of them and he tries to arch his back a little, get away from the uncomfortable pressure. In the process, his thigh tightens around Alfie and he feels his soft intake of breath.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Alfie mumbles softly and tilts his head to fit their mouths together.

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Do they actually leave that library to do their art thievery or do they just make out in that library for a few hours and fall asleep?? Who knows!!!

Also I just?? Love those two cramped up in an alcove of some sort SO much??

Thank you so much for this, again! It was great fun to write and I’m so sorry it took me so long!

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The prompts

#drabble #tofie #alfietommy #i...forgot my tag for them #tommyalfie #?!