#( blind date oc. )

[masterjedilenawrites]

Ready Or Not

Howzer x fem!S/O | 1.9k words

Content: blind dates, bad first impressions, Howzer has some thoughts and feels to work through, maybe some demi vibes?, no real fluff but I think it's sweet in its own way

Prompt: I came across this concept of a "Meet Ugly" and thought it'd be interesting to explore. Used this scenario: Getting set up on a blind date and not having the best reaction when they first see each other.

Part of Operation #MoreHowzerFics

He did not have time for this.

Maybe the rest of the galaxy had been duped into thinking the war was over, but Howzer knew better. There was still a fight to be had, and a more dire one at that. A fight for his brothers. Their fates were hanging in the balance... and here he was, sitting at some cafe on Pabu waiting for a date.

He wasn't even sure how it had happened. Rex had insisted there was a reason soldiers took R&R, and even though they technically weren't soldiers anymore they should still try to relax every once in a while. Fireball had taken to saying "you need to get laid" every time Howzer was in an even slightly bad mood. Greer was always going on about how they needed to think of the future, find a dream worth fighting for, like a home or a family. And Gregor was weirdly interested in figuring out what everyone's "type" was; everywhere they went he'd point someone out and gauge their reactions.

All of that somehow had culminated in setting Howzer up on a blind date the second they touched down on Pabu. As if he had time for such things. As if he cared about such things.

And yet... here he was. Wearing his armor and a frown, but he'd still shown up. If he wasn't so busy cursing his brothers in his mind, he could have analyzed why he was here. Or whether he maybe secretly did care about such things.

His leg bounced and his narrowed eyes stared unfeeling out at the planet's glistening waters. He glanced down at his watch every few minutes, growing more upset at how the time passed without this supposedly "cute" date of his showing up. A memory of Echo whispered in the back of his mind, saying something about "Pabu time", how people here didn't need to move with the same urgency he was used to, but he didn't listen to it.

A few people passed by and gave him pleasant smiles. Some entered the patio and gave warm hugs to neighbors they recognized. An elderly couple went up to the counter, leisurely reading the menu as if they had never dined here before. One girl confidently strolled in, at first acting like she knew where she was going, and then halting in the middle of the tables and looking about in confusion. She then tried to cover and got in line to order, as if that had been her plan, even though Howzer had seen the whole thing and knew she had probably absentmindedly gone to the wrong place.

He fought back the urge to roll his eyes at these people. He wasn't really annoyed at them. If anything, he envied their peace. They didn't have family enslaved by the Empire. They didn't have uncertain futures. They were allowed to wander and smile and act a little silly. It's what he would want for his brothers once they were freed. No, he was annoyed because they weren't free. This peace was not theirs. But here he was, sitting in a cafe overlooking a beautiful view and waiting for a date as if he had earned it. How in the galaxy had he let Rex and the others convince him to do this?

Just when he started to entertain the idea of bailing, the girl from earlier caught his eye. She had made it up to the counter now and the worker was pointing over in his direction. Howzer subconsciously shifted, his back straightening and his hand settling on his thigh next to his blaster holster. Usually he'd pretend not to have noticed, let any potential threats think they were catching him unawares while all along he had the upper hand. But here, he decided to send a different message. I am aware, I see you staring, try to mess with me.

The girl followed the path that the worker had pointed her in, right to Howzer. She didn't look like a spy or some other kind of threat, but these days, who really knew. Especially when she seemed determined to appear pleasant and confident, despite the nervous gulp Howzer clocked from across the patio, not to mention the little display of carelessness he had seen from her earlier.

"Hi there," she said when she came within a few feet of his table.

She gave out a breathy laugh and Howzer frowned, waiting to see what she wanted from him.

"Um," she gulped again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Another nervous tell. What was she hiding? "I uh... Phee told me to meet someone here. For a... a date?"

Howzer's eyes widened in realization. Kriff.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to walk right past you," the girl continued to fill in the silence. "I guess I wasn't expecting, um..."

She trialed off as she realized how the thought was sounding out loud, and then quickly tried to save face by hurrying over to the seat opposite him and pulling it out. But Howzer wasn't going to let her off the hook that easy.

"Weren't expecting... what?" he asked once she sat down. He eased his hand away from his blaster but kept his posture upright. She may not be a threat but he wasn't exactly comfortable.

She exhaled quickly with a sheepish smile. "Well, a clone."

Howzer's eyes returned to their narrowed state, sizing up this girl he found himself sitting across from. She interpreted the silence as offense and immediately started babbling.

"I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's... it's just... You know, you've all just recently started coming here... I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised... Of course Phee would set me up with someone I don't know, I know practically every other guy here, and there's a reason I'm not with any of them... And she's been working with clones more recently... But like, I know only a few of you are sticking around for good, so I guess that's why it didn't occur to me that..."

Howzer wasn't sure when he had started zoning out. He felt bad, but also couldn't help it. He didn't have much time for this date to begin with, and certainly no time to listen to a stranger ramble without getting to any sort of point. He was a soldier; he valued conciseness. Whatever suppressed little hope he had that maybe this date wouldn't be so bad after all, maybe he finally would find a romantic connection with someone, dissipated into the saltwater breeze. 

He sat forward and the girl stopped spewing her thoughts, eagerly awaiting him to interject and contribute.

"Look, you seem like a nice girl," he lied. He honestly didn't really have an opinion about her one way or the other. He'd been hit on plenty of times back on Ryloth but had never felt anything by it, other than occasional annoyance when it interrupted his duties. "But it seems like we both have some disappoints over this arrangement. Why don't we cut our losses now, get some time back in our days, and part on good terms?"

Now it was her turn to frown.

"You... you're disappointed?"

Howzer was already scooting his chair back to stand. "It's nothing personal against you," he tried to reassure, though even he could hear how impolite it sounded. He hated that he was in such a situation. He should have never come in the first place.

He gave her a formal nod, almost like a salute, and then strode through the patio gate and down quiet, cobbled streets back toward the town square. Each step felt heavier and heavier and he did whatever he could to ignore the guilt twisting in his chest, even trying to look at his surroundings and focus on taking in the architecture and flora and beauty. It was a hollow focus, but he was determined to keep walking, believing he'd soon forget about this awkward encounter and the rude behavior he'd displayed, and things would go back to normal... as normal as they could be in a war.

But then a voice started to cut through to him from behind.

"Sir? Sir!"

He turned in confusion to see the girl jogging toward him. She pulled up a few feet from him, only slightly out of breath.

"Sorry. Um, I don't know your name. Or your rank."

"My rank doesn't matter anymore," he said, immediately regretting how defensive it sounded. He really was a mess today, wasn't he.

"Sure it does," she said with a small smile. "It was an accomplishment, something you should always be proud of."

Without realizing, the tenseness in his shoulders started to loosen. He took in a deep breath and said the first normal thing all day. "My name's Howzer. Captain Howzer."

Her smile grew just a bit more. "It's nice to meet you, Captain Howzer. And... I'm sorry if I came across rude or annoying before. I understand if you don't find me attractive, but I really don't want that to be your impression of me. I really wasn't disappointed to find out you were my date. In fact, I'm disappointed I didn't actually get to have you as a date. But, like I said... it's okay if you're not interested."

Howzer's heart was twisting again. She was a nice girl. Sweet, thoughtful. Still used too many words, but he supposed he didn't use enough sometimes. As far as attraction, he wasn't entirely sure he knew what that felt like, but those bright eyes and soft smile weren't so bad to look at.

"It's not that I'm not interested," he started to say slowly, but then realized he wasn't sure how to finish the thought.

The girl stepped closer. "You're just not ready?"

"Honestly, I don't know if I ever will be ready." He gave a sheepish shrug, though he was starting to feel better. He appreciated that she was helping him sort through these confusing feelings. Her eyes were closer, swimming with the reflection of the sky and what he believed to be genuine care. Before he knew it, he was elaborating. "I mean, do I like the idea of sitting down for coffee with someone and getting to know them? Of course. But to what end? I don't know what the future holds. I don't know if I can be a good friend, let alone... something else."

She nodded in understanding but still offered a different perspective. "To be fair, no one really knows what the future holds. And relationships come in all different forms. There's no one way to be a good friend. Or a good something else."

Howzer's eyes slipped away from hers, pulled toward the glistening sea in the backdrop behind her. He mulled over her words as he watched the waves, nothing but tiny little ripples from this distance. It reminded him of some of the paintings he saw back on Ryloth. He'd always been impressed with artists who could make small details seem real. They were only small strokes on a canvass but they captured a whole entire feeling.

He shook himself, not sure why he was thinking about such a thing right now. The girl was still watching him with a small but knowing smile. She stepped back and returned the nod he'd given her back at the cafe.

"I'm really glad to have met you, Captain. I wish you all the best."

She turned and started walking back the way she'd came. Howzer let her get a few steps before finally calling out.

"Wait. I didn't get your name."

She paused and smiled at him over her shoulder.

"Hope."

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[loveundrwrld]

oneshot, trying something new. gender neutral reader x male yandere

cws: kidnapping, implied stalking, general yandere creepiness

you get into a relationship with a man you met on a blind date, but you begin to regret not breaking the relationship off sooner . . .

you take a deep breath, and take another sip of your wine. it had to be today. you had your mind set on it. you were on a date with him and you were going to finally bring it up.

today, you were definitely going to break up with your boyfriend.

you had felt bad over wanting to do so. after all, you had liked him so much in the beginning.

the relationship had started out so well.

you two had met on a blind date your coworker had set up. she had a friend, jack, who was looking for a partner and she knew that you were single. to her, the solution was obvious.

you had your reservations, not wanting to get into a relationship too soon after your last one. but eventually, she successfully cajoled you into it, reassuring you that he was nothing like your ex. and it’s only one date, after all. what’s the harm in that?

the first date went surprisingly well. he was a good listener. he had a lot of hobbies in common with you, liked a lot of the same movies, and seemed very into you.

he was flustered, nervously stuttering his words and blushing. you were flattered by how much you affected him.

he was cute, too. tall and long, with soft shaggy hair and big brown eyes. he just had a sweet look to him. it was like he was a big dog- cute, but in an approachable way.

it was all enough to charm you into asking for a second date. and then a third, then a forth.

as the dates went by, you slowly went from feeling charmed to feeling wearied of him. he was sweet, but sickly sweet, like a candy that left a bad taste in your mouth.

he gave you lots of compliments and affection. excessively so. he was always early to dates, no matter how early you tried to get there. he began calling and texting you, all the time, even while you were asleep. he was constantly giving you gifts as a surprise, too.

it was all too much for you. you kept being too cowardly and backed out of it ending things every time you met, but this time you resolved yourself that you would do it for sure.

and then, to your surprise, during your date, he starts to get down on one knee. he brings out a box from his back pocket, and you grimace, knowing now for certain that you have waited too long.

you stand up as a reflex. "jack, don't-" you hiss slightly, nervous.

his wide smile quickly falls.

"what do you mean, don't?"

you suck in a deep breath, and look around you. everyone is looking at the two of you.

"i mean, i'm very flattered, but isn't this relationship moving… a little fast?" you say, keeping your voice quiet. "it's only been a few months and you're proposing."

despite your best efforts not to make it a scene, you can still hear people muttering in hushed tones.

"but i know that you're the one for me," he says in a wobbling voice. "why wait any longer?"

"because! i don't think that you are the one for me."

his face immediately drops, his eyes beginning to shine with tears. still on the floor and looking up at you, he looks rather like a kicked puppy. you instantly regret your sharp tone.

you feel the pressure of everyone's eyes on you. all the guests around you now are giving you dirty looks.

"i'm sorry," you say, in a quiet voice. "i didn't mean to say it like that. but, it's the truth. i can't do this any longer. it's just all moving so fast for me. you should have someone who can move at your pace, but that’s not me.”

"…that's ok." he looks at you with a pleading expression. "if you don't want to get married yet, we can try to take it slow."

"no… actually i think that it's best we end it now. let's just break up."

he keeps looking at you with tears running down his face, silently begging you to change your mind. you smiled at him, tensely, as an apology. he starts to sob a little, and you feel awkward and guilty, aware of how everyone around you is silently judging you.

you turn around to leave, but you feel a hand tugging on your shirt sleeve.

"wait. at least let me drive you back. you've had too much wine today for me to let you drive."

you nod, looking down. you let him lead you into the passenger seat of his car, waiting for him while he pays.

you look around, idly. it was the first time you had been in his car, as he always insisted he’d rather be driven by you anywhere than the other way around. it was a lot less clean than you expected.

there is a mess on the dashboard, tons of paper and receipts. you see that it’s credit card statements after glancing briefly. you see a lot of zeroes and you avert your eyes, feeling some guilt over the questions that pop into your mind.

might have something to do with the ring, too, you think with a sinking feeling in your stomach

he comes back, and you avoid his eyes, looking out the window to the parking lot as he climbs in the driver's side.

"…i'm sorry," you say again, softly.

"but you won't change your mind?"

you shake your head.

you feel his arm tugging you into a half hug, and gives you a small smile. you look up at him, confused. his grip on your arm tightens.

he quickly pulls out a rag, pushing it over your mouth.

you weakly try to scream, muffled by the rag. you quickly start to feel tired, the chemical scent lulling you into darkness.

"shhh… it's ok. just close your eyes."

he holds down the rag firmly, holding you to him with his other arm. when your squirming slows down fully, he leans you down into the car seat.

he was just thankful you hadn't looked closer at the papers on the dashboard before he got in.

after all, those had his real name on them.

[mercurygray]

Blind Dates Fest 2024 - Freda Torvaldsen, ARCS

A few days ago I asked for MOTA prompts, and @junojelli delivered:

A MOTA scene prompt for you: a new arrival is amongst the clubmobile ladies at the local pub one evening. Of course, it would only be right that they give her the lowdown on the men they can see in the bar, and the recent gossip on possible nocturnal escapades of course 😏

So! An extra Blind Date! You can learn more about @blind-dates-fest at their blog.

Fandom: Masters of the Air

It was only a matter of time before the subject came up.

“Can’t say I’ve ever met a Freda before.”

It was always like this, her first day in a new assignment, where you been, where you from, what do you do. And then inevitably someone would work around to the obvious. So... what’s a name like Torvaldsen doing with a name like Freda?

“And neither had my mother,” Freda said with a resigned smile, sitting down heavily and nodding thankfully to one of the other girls for the beer. “After my father and brother were both Peters I think she just wanted something interesting.” She shrugged. “She told me once she found the name in a short story in a woman’s magazine. Never got confused with another girl in class, though! Fred’s just fine, for every day use. It’ll get tossed in eventually, so we may as well start there.”

Fred was easy - approachable, even. A good way to start a conversation, a quick, easy joke to set everyone on the same level. Who’s on shift today, girls? Rose, Laura, and Fred. Wait, Fred? And she’d stick her head out from wherever she was hiding, and the boys would all have a laugh that Fred was really a twenty-six year old blonde from Madison, Wisconsin with a big smile, and not the paunchy driver from Brooklyn they all pictured when they heard the name. She didn’t mind the jokes, really - it made the whole job easier. So what’s your name, solider? You have a nickname, too? Where you from? The whole reason she was there, in three questions or less - to make the average G.I. feel at home, seen, valued and wanted.

“Where’d you say you were, before this?” Helen asked. At least, she thought it was Helen - or was it Ellen? Honestly, Tatty had run through the team of three pretty quickly this morning and she might have misheard. Tatty, of course, was easy to remember - Katherine Spaatz, with a last name the papers wouldn’t soon forget and a face that liked being photographed. Mary Boyle was the other, a sparkling-eyed Irish girl from Des Moines who looked like just the kind the fellows all liked to spin around a dance more than once. She couldn’t remember the name of the girl she was replacing, either - not that that mattered much. She was going home with the one non-communicable disease the Red Cross didn’t want to deal with - pregnant, Mary had mouthed across the table when they’d first met this morning, her fresh off the bus from London and Tatty skating artfully around the subject.

“Did a spell at the canteen in Washington, another couple months in London in a few different spots,” Freda offered. “I guess I’m a professional replacement at this point - which is either a compliment or a curse. You’ll have to tell me which.”

“Well, we’re happy to have you, for as long as we’ve got,” Tatty said with a nod. “Did they tell you what the work would be like? Working a base is different than canteen service.”

“The hours, for a start,” Mary said, rolling her eyes.

“If they’re running a mission, they’re up and at ‘em at 4:30 for a 5 am briefing, which means -”

“Service ready for 4:45,” Freda filled in, nodding along. “Means we’ll be starting about...three thirty, maybe, to have everything hot and ready?”

“Will that be a problem?” Tatty asked, her eyes dark and decisive across the table.

Freda shook her head. “Always was more of a morning person. How long are they usually out for?”

“Longer runs...six, seven, eight hours at a time? Tower will give us a ring when they’re expected back in, and then we rack up donuts and coffee in the interrogation hut. You’ll need to be sharp on that shift,” Tatty warned. “They don’t always come back looking pretty.”

“Doctor’s usually on hand to evaluate anyone who can walk. If they’re still standing he’ll turn ‘em loose on the interrogation team,” Mary explained. “Captain Brennan and her girls run that room - she’s nice, you’ll like her.”

“You’re not there to make small talk for that one - pass out coffee and get ‘em to their table as quick as you can. Each crew runs through the whole mission - what they saw, who they shot at, bombs dropped. The after-action report. Once they’re done, they’re free to leave, and so are we. We’ll do dishes and clean-up, and then get the coffee urns ready to drive ‘round to the crews. Can you drive?”

“Well enough for Wisconsin,” Freda offered with a shrug. “We had a Ford I could grind through.” She didn’t say anything about the last time someone had asked her if she knew how to drive, and how she’d nearly run over the campus mascot trying to muscle a Clubmobile into a turn.

“Sounds like you’ll be driving our Jeep, then. We’ve got one assigned to us.”

Freda nodded, trying to maintain serenity. Well, that’s all right. A Jeep’s not a remodeled London bus, and it sure as hell doesn’t drive like one.

“The planes are parked out on hardstands and the crew basically live out there while they’re working,” Tatty went on, “So we take coffee and sandwiches around once the planes come back in. They’re good guys out there - better than the flyboys, sometimes.”

“Now, Tatty, don’t go turning her head the wrong way,” Mary interjected, before Freda could ask what a hardstand was. “They’re all nice. Just take some getting used to.”

“Anyone I’ll need to watch out for?” Freda asked, glancing around the club, which was gradually beginning to fill for the evening - officers in their Class As, the gilt on their wings like sunshine, laughter like a river. The knucklehead who knocked up your friend, for instance?

Tatty made a gesture across the room towards the biggest group. “The tall one horsing around with the dartboard is John Egan - Major Egan, rather. Or Bucky, if you want nicknames. He’s mostly harmless, but he’ll flirt with anything. Just give as good as you get and you’ll be fine. Man next to him is Major Gale Cleven - also Buck - who you’ll wish was single and isn’t.”

“He’s got a girl back home in Wyoming,” Helen (Ellen?) put in, her smile a little wistful. “Ask him about her sometime.”

“Man with the permanent frown is Major William Veal - Bill, sometimes. He’s all business, you’ll never see him dance, so don’t ask. Tall fellow next to him with the lighter curly hair is Major Jack Kidd, also mostly business.”

Freda’s eyebrows went up. “Mostly?” Now there’s a word with a story.

It was Tatty’s turn to smile. “We think he might be sweet on Mary, when he lets himself.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Only because the rest of you gang up on him!”

“Those are the squadron commanders, anyway - the other pilots and navigators and crews report to them. It’s a lot of names,” Tatty said, almost dismissive.

Notice how she didn’t say I’d learn them, Freda thought to herself. They’d told her that much in London, when she’d gotten her assignment. Don’t get too attached to your post, or the soldiers there. They can change or leave at any time. It’s a war, not a weekend.

“Ladies! And how are we all on this fine evening, eh?” Here it was - faces up. Freda found her smile and turned to see who it was - a young man with black hair and blue eyes and a smile just this side of mischievous. And this one is named Trouble, I’ll bet. First lieutenant with flying wings - a pilot. “You all over here plottin’ somethin’ we fellas need to be made aware of?”

“Just introducing the new girl around, Curt.” Tatty gestured to Freda, on the other side of the table, who raised a hand and nodded hello.

Trouble (Curt?) smiled a little wider, his hand on Tatty’s shoulder, leaning closer over the table. “Oh, the new girl, eh? And does the new girl have a name?

“New girl answers to Fred,” Freda said with a patient smile, trying not to smile too hard at the patently obvious big-city, big-spender feeling rolling off of the lieutenant in waves. New Yorkers. You could run them off a press like that. It was funny, sometimes, how much they tried not to be types - but she’d known far too many men like him. That was the trouble with canteen service - you saw so many they all started to look the same. “And she’s not looking for another drink, before the lieutenant starts asking.”

“Tough customer!” He laughed at that. “Curtis Biddick, at your service, Fred. Now, if any one of these jokers starts anything or gets fresh, you come find me, alright?” He pointed, for emphasis, and she took note of the knuckles of his hand, the shortness of his nails. “Gotta take care of our girls, you know, since you’re always taking care of us.”

“I’ll certainly keep it in mind, Lieutenant.”

Biddick waved the rank away like it was a fly he were swatting. “Now, none of this lieutenant crap, Fred. My friends call me Curt.” He fixed his eye on her and she smiled, and nodded - heard and acknowledged. Confident they had an understanding, he clapped Tatty’s shoulder again and stood up. “Tatty. Mary. Helen. Fred. Yous all have a good night, now.”

“Well, there you are, Fred. If Biddick likes you you’re set. He was serious about finding him, too - he’s the company boxing champion.”

“Of course he is,” Freda said with a smile, finally able to place where she’d seen hands like that before. And a total sweetheart underneath all of it, if I read him right.

And a soldier, something in her head reminded her. That’s the trouble with working a base - they won’t just be here for a night. You’ll have learn their names, and their girlfriends, see them day in and day out - until one day you don’t.

She took a deep breath and a sip of her beer, still glancing around the room, at the laughing men at the dartboard, the craps game, the piano, everyone alive and free and full of life. Maybe it had been a bad idea to start with names.

---

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I have name-dropped several new characters in here; one of them, Marion, is my other Blind Date this year. You'll meet her on Saturday!

[latibvles]

“a real tough cookie with the whiskey breath.”

oh blind dates oc fest my beloved how i missed you. to the surprise of no one, because i cannot be quiet about anything ever : a MOTA OC this time around. i'm sure this bar probably has a name to be found somewhere on the internet, but until I come across it [ big cartoony shrug ]. anyways, here's Genevieve Laurent, or Gen, if you're friendly. @blind-dates-fest ♡

Tom’s is only a fifteen minute bike ride away. The pay is good, she gets to keep all her tips, and her boss, for lack of a better term — downright adores her.

That’s never been the reason why she’s stuck with it all this time, though. There were better paying jobs in equal distance, and if she really, really wanted to, she thinks she’d do a pretty okay job packing parachutes or something of a similar vein. Respectable work, her mother would call it, which was secret code for: work that will keep you out of trouble, and possibly off the street before midnight. But that was really what it came down to: whether Genevieve wanted to do it. And for all the respect she had for those women, she knew that wasn’t the thing that called to her — not like it did to Claire, who was now off in London with the best and brightest, working in the Foreign Office.

Whatever that meant.

Much more glamorous than Genevieve’s own station, and she’s fairly certain none of their mother’s letters are imploring Claire to quit anytime soon. She was almost apologetic, in a way, that she couldn’t entice her family with letters filled with omissions, with work so secret she could hardly speak of it — but the beer wouldn’t pour itself and somebody had to do it after all those hours in flight.

“Thought you were leaving me out to dry tonight, sweetheart,” There’s a solid hand gripping her shoulder and squeezing, and Tom gives her a smile that’s all crows feet and genuine appreciation. Of course, the place wasn’t actually called Tom’s — but the sign was so faded that she and the other girls just tended to refer to it by the name of their esteemed publican. Genevieve returns the smile.

“And miss out on all this? Wouldn’t dream of it.” As if to accent her point, there’s a wave of hoots and hollering from the floor beyond the bar — no doubt from a bet won or a game of darts coming to its speedy conclusion. The song of the end of the work day. He gives her shoulder a shake, then lets go.

“Do me a favor and take those whiskeys to the table in the back? I think Elsie’s got caught up out there,” she follows his gaze to one of the other girls on shift —Elsie’s smile is easy and the tray on the table is empty, but she’s chatting up a storm at a table of men in brown uniforms. And Genevieve can’t exactly blame her, because while they knew practically every member of the RAF who came in and out on their days off, Americans were a sight to behold. Which is probably why Tom is sending her to the table in the back, with the hopes that she’ll be speedy.

“Yessir,” Genevieve hums, taking the tray of glasses with little fuss, making her way across the bustling floor with practiced hustle.

It’s not the pay that keeps her here, or the warmth of her boss. Not even the fact that she could do every job in this place, if she had to.

Genevieve had a penchant for poking her nose into places for the thrill of it — and there really was no thrill quite like conversation with people who had time to kill and liquor in their systems.

She recognizes the RAF officer at the table: David Griffiths, who Claire knew better than Genevieve did. She’d laughed when Claire told her he joined the RAF, and as an officer, no less. He’d been meek before the war, to put it lightly — maybe that slate-colored uniform and dark blue tie gave him the confidence he once lacked, she didn’t know. And then a couple regulars from around town. So the one in a brown uniform as opposed to their English blue sticks out like a sore thumb, and her curiosity is piqued in spite of David’s attempt to draw her attention with his smile alone.

“Thought old Tom was keeping you in the back tonight.”

“You know, it’s much easier to simply say you missed me, Griffiths,” she hums, leaning over to set down the tray. “Whiskeys for the table, yeah?” David clears his throat and makes a show of adjusting his cuffs, flaunting the new insignia adorning his sleeve as he had for every promotion prior. Genevieve straightens out, wraps her arm around his shoulder to pick off a stray thread.

“Captain Griffiths, congratulations,” Genevieve acknowledges just for the sake of him, then diverts her attention to look over the table, eyes settling on the new face staring right back at her. His dark hair curls over his forehead, with a straight nose and a pretty pair of lips — the wings on his jacket are catching lamplight. The smile on his face is what’s got her the most curious. “And who’ve you brought to cause trouble in Tom’s respectable place of business?”

The smile grows, the stranger leans back in his seat.

“No trouble over here ma’am, not unless you hate singin’.” His voice is deep and gravelly and, well, very American. His tone goes up at the end of the sentence, like it’s a question she’s meant to answer, and Genevieve wonders if it still counts as a bait when she can recognize it for what it is. She raises her brows, David’s hand curls around her wrist loosely as if to remind her that he’s there.

“Only if it’s bad.”

“Best keep your mouth shut then, Major, wouldn’t want to cause a scene,” around them, the other men chuckle at David’s quip — Genevieve pulls her wrist from his barely-there grasp as the Major raises his glass to his lips, before waving a hand dismissively on the swallow.

“Don’t listen to him, I’m like a canary over here.” He draws out each syllable, his smile only growing. She doesn’t believe him for a second.

“Well, Major, make sure not to shatter any glasses with your tunes and you’ll have soothed all my worries,” He chuckles at that, sitting back in the chair and Genevieve looks him up and down rather shamelessly before patting Griffiths’ shoulder. “Enjoy your evening, boys.”

Genevieve knows the feeling well — that sensation of eyes tracking her every movement as she walks away. She’d call it a sixth sense, the way she can make the distinction between the slighted nature of Griffiths’ staring as opposed to the more welcome lingering look of the Major, who’s name she’d surely get by the end of the night. If Claire were here, she’d probably laugh, then apologize to Griffiths for her little sister’s fleeting attention span, accompanied with some remark about how Genevieve had a penchant for things shiny and new. Genevieve would beg to differ and say it was more like she had a penchant for the things she didn’t understand.

And so what if she liked the staring, and leaving the air more charged than she’d found it?

Regardless of the interaction, the night wears on, and so long as the taps are flowing Genevieve is busy enough to keep from staring at the back table for too long. At some point, they stand up and make their way toward the dartboard (and Elsie with them, who shoots her a wink from across the room that has her laughing and Tom groaning from their spots behind the bar). Luckily, she’s only gone for maybe fifteen minutes — and she comes back with orders for Tom, before scurrying over and leaning forward on the bar.

“Better straighten up over there, Genny,” Elsie leans forward further to tuck one of Genevieve’s stray hairs behind her ear.

“Back from your mission so soon?”

“Well I had to make sure the prize was in place.” Genevieve raises an inquisitive brow.

“And that means..?”

“It means—” Elsie is effectively cut off by another round of hollering, and Genevieve knows the grin on the other girl’s face all too well. Elsie turns around and she follows the girl’s eyes to several things. One, Griffiths walking out of the pub, two, Major Canary laughing as he makes his way over and three, a conglomerate of Irishmen clapping his shoulders and shaking them in congratulations. “Well now we know who the winner is. Good luck!”

Before Genevieve can get a word in, Elsie’s scurrying back over to Tom on the other end of the bar to grab the drinks he’s lined up. She turns her back to the floor, but still hears a heavy exhale as someone takes a seat behind her. Then she tilts her head to look, and makes little attempt to withhold her smile as the dots connect fairly quickly in her head.

“Major Canary,” Genevieve hums in greeting. “Am I getting you anything?”

“Whiskey’s fine,” He looks around, like he’s taking a survey of the room, then turns to rest both elbows on the polished wood as she grabs one of the glasses that’s already dried. “Think you got me in trouble with your boyfriend back there,” he laments with a grin, running his thumb over his bottom lip.

“Who, me?” Genevieve slides the glass along the countertop. “You might have the wrong girl, sir.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?” He takes that tone again — so clearly baiting her and Genevieve is, admittedly, a little too eager to take what he’s giving this time.

“Well for one, I don’t have a boyfriend,” she hums, holding up the pointer finger, and then her middle one, “And two, I’m willing to wager it was the dart game that got you in trouble, Major.” She slides the glass over the countertop, and he takes it. He’s closer now than he was at the table — she can finally make out that his eyes are blue, like the RAF uniforms.

“Yeah? How much are you willing to bet?”

“Well, how much did you earn in your game? Must’ve been a hefty sum for the Captain to walk out like that.” Genevieve leans forward on the bar now, tilting her head as she looks at him, already knowing the answer. His eyes flit over her face and down the length of her neck, following the curve of her shape before the bar cuts off his vantage point, then he goes back to returning her stare. He brings the glass to his lips, then licks off the excess before he opens his mouth again.

“A shot with the pretty girl serving drinks tonight? Pretty priceless if you ask me.”

“Well that’s a line if I’ve ever heard one,” Genevieve remarks with an airy laugh.

“But it made you laugh. Must be doing something right.” He counters, and she laughs again with a roll of her eyes. “See? Just did it again.” Genevieve shakes her head slightly.

“Well if my company’s so priceless why haven’t you asked my name yet? Bragging rights and all that.” It’s hardly the bait of their earlier conversation — but it’s something, and she wonders if he recognizes it for what it is, like she had at the table. He finishes off the glass, pushing it back to her with his fingertips and holding her gaze all-the-while.

“Well my bragging was gonna be making you laugh ‘till your boss throws me out, but I should probably get the name so I know who to ask for next time, right?” She takes his glass, and moves to fill it again — feeling both like the belle of a ball and like one of those wood logs in a fireplace crumbling into charcoals, giving off sparks. Somewhere in the back of her head, Claire is screaming at her to stop dancing so close to cliffsides before she takes a tumble she’ll regret, but right now she doesn’t feel any ground giving way beneath her feet.

“Genevieve. Gen, if you’re friendly.” She hums out, taking her time on his refill with the express purpose of keeping him there a little longer. The laugh he lets out is breathy, almost disbelieving, and she looks back up at him through her lashes. “Your turn, or should I just keep calling you Major Canary?”

“My turn, she says,” he mutters, probably more to himself than her even if she can hear it. She passes the glass back over. “Well if we’re being friendly it’s Bucky. Egan.” He exaggerates it — the word friendly, but Genevieve’s really hanging on the ‘if’. She feels almost like a kid picking apart words to prove her point. She should’ve been a lawyer. ‘If’ meant she had options, and maybe she feels a little prideful; to know she has control of where this thing goes. It’s a rush. The kind she wouldn’t get packing parachutes or up in an office. The kind only another person could give her.

The ground gives a little beneath her feet, but Genevieve is undeterred.

“But I take it you’re aiming for a little more than that, is that right, Bucky?”

The smug grin on his face is as much of an answer as any.

And it excites her down to her bones.

[basilone]

Fandom: Masters of the Air Written for: @blind-dates-fest as my second 2024 entry! Introducing: Lucy Jones

Bubbles can’t fly like this.

It’s the first thing that pushes past the loop of flying today up in the sky today flying today that has been rampaging through his head since they sent for him. Harry needs to take only one look at Bubbles – miserable, shivering, looking pale and peaky – to know that his friend’s grounded by circumstances beyond his control. It’s a fact of life that Bubbles would be up there no problem if his stomach allowed for it, just as it is a fact that he’s huddled beneath a blanket looking mightily sorry for himself right now.

He pays Bubbles the same glowing compliment the man always pays him – you look like shit – and is rewarded for it with a supply hand-off and the worst news Harry’s heard all week.

“We’re leading the wing today.”

Harry’s somewhat proud of himself for not dropping any of his supplies. Even prouder of the fact that his voice doesn’t quite squeak, really, when he tells Bubbles he can’t just lead a wing. They can’t let him do that. They can’t just stick him up there and make that happen. Aren’t there rules to this sort of thing?

But Bubbles is talking already – talking mission, talking fact – and Harry’s got no choice but to try and commit it all to memory. He’s creating a visual in his head that he hopes Bubbles stored on paper in that hand-off somewhere. A map, a direction, anything beyond the vague sense of foreboding that resides in his gut and the near-gibberish that’s running its course in the back of his mind. Leading the wing. Leading the goddamn wing.

“Great Yarmouth,” he confirms once Bubbles finishes up. Harry feels as sick as Bubbles looks – all queasy inside – but he nods to make Bubbles feel better about handing off a bombing run like that. “Yeah.”

“Don’t be nervous.”

“And don’t stand so close to your buddy,” pipes up a new, rather upbeat voice somewhere to his left. “Unless you wanna get sick on the plane.”

The first thing Harry sees when he looks in the voice’s direction is a raised eyebrow that could rival his mother’s. The second thing he sees is a white uniform, pristine except for some faded pink stains at the sleeve cuffs, and dark hair pulled into a tight knot. Her face is passably familiar – dark eyes, button nose, little dimple in her chin – but Harry will be damned if he can remember a name to go with that.

“Nobody’s getting sick on the plane, Lu!” shouts Major Egan, clearly knowing the woman a hell of a lot better than Harry does. “Scout’s honor!”

“Boy, you’d better pray that’s true,” mutters the woman – Lu – loud enough for Harry to make out. “Don’t know what the hell you were thinking letting him on the damn plane in the first place. Sick as a dog and all. If this is a virus, John”– she remarks, now raising her voice for Major Egan to hear –“you are gonna regret that take-off like no tomorrow!”

“Hey, if we all get sick, can we be in your club?”

Harry decides he rather likes Lu when she heaves a deep sigh and stalks over to the jeep Bubbles is seated on. She is thoroughly ignoring the major, who’s standing behind her with his arms wide and looking almost as quizzical as Meatball does when DeMarco’s hiding his treats again. Lu slings her bag into the back of the jeep before stepping closer to Bubbles.

“When I drive you,” she says without preamble, “you lean backward as far as you can go. Tilt your head back and breathe. I’ll not have you sick up in my baby, all right?” She pats the jeep’s side almost lovingly. “Any move the jeep makes, you lean the other way. Breathe deep.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Does that help?” asks Harry, curious despite himself. “The breathing?”

“Eh, fifty fifty,” she says, wobbling her hand back and forth uncertainly. “Sure doesn’t hurt, though! Little trick one of the airsick girls taught us. She’s in ops now, but we owe her for that one.” Lu’s hand disappears into one of her pockets. “Got something else that might… Yeah… Hang on.”

“Lu, the club?” asks Egan again, coming to stand beside Harry. “Are we in or not?”

“Which club?”

“Y-Yeah,” shivers Bubbles, “what club?”

“No, John, you won’t be in my Lucy’s Losers club,” she remarks patiently as she pulls her hand out of her pocket to proudly show off a small bottle. “You’ll be chewing on this. Ginger. Keeps you from sicking up in your plane. Keeps whatever he’s got”– she nods at an increasingly morose-looking Bubbles –“at bay, too.” A pause. A frown. “I hope.”

“It’s probably just food poisoning…”

“That is in no way the reassurance you probably intended for it to be,” says Lu, frowning even more deeply at Bubbles as she holds the bottle out to them. “You’ve all been eating the same meals, for crying out loud. You, what’s your name?”

Harry blinks at her. “Me? It’s, uh, Harry. Harry Crosby. Ma’am.”

“Okay, Harry, you take the bottle. John’s going to be popping these like candy if left unsupervised, so I am entrusting you with it.” Her frown vanishes into a bright flash of a smile as Harry takes the bottle from her outstretched hand. He smiles back a little tremulously, not daring to hope that she’s just handed him his actual salvation. “There’s a good man. You hold on tight to that, okay?”

“Hold on to this, too,” says Bubbles, shoving something else into Harry’s increasingly full hands. It’s small, round, and entirely too fragile for Harry to be holding. He swallows as Bubbles clarifies. “Lucky snow globe.”

“Thanks?”

“Lu, if we still get sick despite the ginger and the breathing,” says Egan, clearly not feeling the same slight glimmer of hope that’s taken firm root in Harry’s belly despite his best efforts to remain calm, “I’m going to rename my plane.”

“You do that.”

“I’ll name it Lucy’s Losers. Can just see it now. Nice lettering on the side. Splash of color.”

“You’re forgetting I have friends in high places.”

“Your twin might disown you at last, though,” he counters, smiling. “Can just hear her now. Unbecoming of the Dorrance-Jones name and all that.”

“That’s not new,” snorts Lu, “but my boot up your ass is going to feel real new if you dare put my name on the side of a fortress, John Clarence Egan.”

“You’re not wearing boots, so I’ll be safe.”

“You’re not getting sick,” she warns, smiling back, “so the point is moot. Now go on, off with you. You’ve got a flight to catch, don’t ya?”

“Nurse’s orders,” grins Egan as he strides off toward their plane without so much as a farewell word for Lu and Bubbles beyond a wink. “You ever argue with those?”

“Can’t say I have, sir,” says Harry, trying to keep up while juggling multiple items in his hands. “Doesn’t seem smart to. Like arguing with your wife.” He hasn’t argued with Jean except for that one time she was stressing out over napkin placement at their wedding. Still, the point stands. “They know what’s good for us.” He holds the bottle up to the light. Squints at the pieces of ginger inside. “Worth a try?”

“I don’t get sick easily, but pass it around the plane. Just in case she’s right. It’s a bit of a ride to Norway.”

I’m gonna need all the help I can get. Harry nods. Clutches the bottle a little tighter. Leading the wing. Norway. He takes a deep breath. Then another. Follows Egan up into the fortress and prays Lucy Dorrance-Jones knows her way around queasy stomachs.

It can’t get worse, surely?

[6thofapril1917]

Funny Girl

BLIND DATES FEST 2024

Introducing: Magdalena "Maggie" Zielinski (ft. Ken Lemmons) I'm so excited to be participating in @blind-dates-fest 2024! Thank you to @mercurygray for hosting. I didn't even realize this was happening until today, but I just knew I had to participate. Meet Maggie, your new favorite ground crew girl - I hope you guys love her as much as I do. Show: Masters of the Air

“And that’s how you clean a hardstand.”

Maggie whooped as she watched the fuel go up in flames. Somehow, despite hardstand cleaning being a near-daily occurrence in the ground crew’s lives, watching the oil burn off the concrete never really lost its allure.

“That’s one hot bastard!” the boy next to Lemmons yelled, voice full of a wonder entirely at odds with the profanity that spilled from his lips. Maggie burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” a small, oh-so-English voice asked.

“Nothing, Grace,” she replied, trying desperately to smother her laughter. “Now try to keep your head still for me, okay?”

For an air base, Thorpe Abbotts sure had a lot of children running around. And by god, had those kids already seen enough war to last a lifetime.

So, in between fixing engines and cleaning hardstands, she and the rest of the ground crew did their best to make sure that their childhood memories wouldn’t entirely consist of air raids and rationing.

Grace was a sweet, shy little girl with a mop of shiny brown hair and perpetually dirty knees. That afternoon, she’d scurried up to Maggie and asked her, voice barely louder than a whisper, if Maggie could please plait her hair the way she plaits hers because she thinks it’s really pretty and she’s tried to do it herself but it never looks quite right.

Maggie had obliged, obviously—how on earth could she ever say no? Besides, she was glad that at least someone on base appreciated her hairstyle. She knew her two twin braids weren’t the most fashionable hairdo on earth, but they kept the hair out of her eyes better than anything else she’d tried. Lord knew there was nothing worse than having to constantly swipe flyaways out of your face when repairing a fort.

Her hands made light work of Grace’s hair. For all that it looked wild and unkempt, it was surprisingly soft. She tied off each braid with a little piece of cord—she wished she had ribbons, but this would have to do for now.

“All done,” she said as she finished tying the last knot. “You look swell.”

Grace turned and smiled, missing teeth and all. 

“Thank you!” she cried.

“No problem, sweetheart,” Maggie replied. “I don’t got a mirror for you, but I think Helen might have one. Maybe you can convince her to give you a donut, too.”

She didn’t have to tell her twice. The girl leapt off of the stack of crates which the two were sitting on and bolted off, braids flapping in the wind.

“That was pretty damn sweet of you, Zielinski.” 

Ken Lemmons had just finished shooing the two boys off the hardstand as the fuel fire quickly petered out. 

Maggie looked up. Had any other man on base told her that, she would have assumed he was making fun of her. With Lemmons, there was never any doubt that the man was being genuine. It was just the way he was.

“Well, not all of us can teach the kids to swear and light things on fire,” she replied.

Lemmons chuckled.

“Hey, you thought it was funny, too. I’m pretty sure the whole base could hear you cackling.”

“Oh, please, I wasn’t that loud, was I?” she asked, face flushing. “Oh, who am I kidding. Getting that little Englishman to curse was the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.”

Lemmons began to snicker. It was contagious. Before she knew it, Maggie was laughing to.

“C’mon,” he said, holding out a hand. “The forts’ll be back any minute. We’d better get ready.”

“Yeah,” Maggie replied, accepting his outstretched hand and hopping off the crates. “I suppose we should.”

[xykcta]

blind date

[yarnnerdally]

Title: Blind Date Fandom: Ikemen Vampire Pairing: Theodorus van Gogh/Iris (OC) Tags: modern au, minor blood, alcohol mention, hurt/comfort, blind date, original female character, arthur being a little shit. WC: just under 2k

    “Iris! Did you hear the brilliant news?” The bright, shit eating grin on Arthur’s face was plenty cause for concern. What was more concerning was the brief panic that washed over Theo’s face before he began glaring at the novelist.

    “Brilliant news, you say? I haven’t, no,” she replied coolly, her hands not slowing as she diced the vegetables to go in their dinner that night. A balled up piece of paper connected with Arthur's head and he laughed.

    “Arthur, don’t-”

    “Our Theo is going on a date tonight! Isn’t it the sweetest?”

    Theo. On… a date? Everything seemed to slow down for a moment; Iris' mind whirred with thoughts of the situation. She quickly snapped herself out of the spiraling thoughts that would no doubt leave her feeling utterly depressed and focused on schooling her face to keep a neutral expression. “Well, that’s quite the development! So, who is this mystery woman?” Theo’s own features soured at her words and he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and sitting heavily on the sofa.

    “That’s the crux of it, Iris! She is a mystery woman! You see, I learned what a blind date is and decided that was just the thing our Theo needed!" The ice that filled her veins nearly made her shiver. He agreed to this? She looked to Theo, working to control her breathing as her heart pounded hard in her ribcage. The world was shrinking, collapsing around her like a dying star and he couldn't even look at her? Her lungs hurt from the controlled effort. 'Stay neutral. Stop it. He's not yours . This is what you get for putting it off. You should have told him you should have told him you should have told him you should have-'

    "I only agreed to get you off my back, klootzak." The words felt distant as Iris listened to them arguing lightly with one another. Theo was going on a date. He was finally interested in dating. She recalled a conversation around the time they first met. Vincent teased him, wishing his little brother would settle down with someone. Theo had rejected the idea with the clause that he would consider it when Vincent himself found someone. And, to the extent of her knowledge, Vincent hadn't started dating. So why…?

    "Ah! Shit." Too caught up in her thoughts, she cursed lightly as her attention to her knife skills had all but disappeared. A small gash of blood bloomed on her finger and she dropped the knife in the sink, immediately putting her hand under running water. She didn't notice just how quickly Theo had raced to her side and helped her to bandage her finger as cleanly and quickly as possible. She did still live with vampires, after all. Theo seemed completely unaffected by her blood as he helped her which only solidified the notion that anything she thought was flirting before was that and only that. None of it had been serious. Theo was cool as a cucumber as he helped her and neither noticed when Arthur had slipped out of the kitchen. She felt a resigned sort of sadness wash over her but still looked at him with a smile. "Well. If all goes well with this mystery woman, she'll have someone very capable when it comes to emergencies," she said lightly, unable to keep the teasing lilt from her voice.

    Iris felt Theo’s eyes studying her intently as she went back to cooking. ‘For one less now that Theo has a date,’ she reminded herself bitterly. The tension in the air was palpable and they both felt the suffocating weight of the past five minutes. Thankfully, best friend and brother Vincent entered the kitchen; the painter now there to the unknowing rescue. Theo pardoned himself with the excuse to walk Prince. "I should walk him before going… excuse me." His words were stilted and awkward and he left, leaving the other two behind. Vincent watched her intently and she knew that he could see every emotion running across her face. She sighed and put the knife down, looking at her best friend. She hated the look she saw. His smile was so sad and she did her best to not crumble. Iris composed herself quickly, determined to not give in to the waves of emotion she was feeling. It wasn't fair to anyone, including her, to feel sorry for herself. She refocused on cooking dinner for the night, attempting to double down on her concentration.

    "Zusje." Iris pointedly ignored Vincent's call to her as she continued about the kitchen, making herself busy. He called to her again and frowned as she ignored him. He resorted to stopping her as she walked by, taking the bag of potatoes from her. "Iris. Stop and talk to me." She frowned and went to take the potatoes back, scowling lightly as Vincent kept them out of her reach handily.

    "There's nothing to talk about. Now, if you'd be so kind as to give me those potatoes back." Vincent shook his head, his eyes melancholy for his friend.

    "You should tell him when he gets back."

    "Like hell I will."

    "Why not? Better you than a mystery, no?"

    "Because if he already thought of me that way, he wouldn't have agreed to go on the blind date in the first place." Iris' tone was sharp but her eyes betrayed that with the soft sadness that was behind them. "I'm not going to take advantage of the situation. If he agreed to go on a blind date, that's his choice and we need to be respectful of that." Vincent frowned lightly at her words.

    "Do you not believe you deserve happiness, too? What if he's just as much a klootzak as Arthur and just didn't know-" Iris cut him off, getting a large pot out and filling it with water.

    "He knows what he wants and he goes for it. He's not some shy school boy with a silly crush. Vincent, I'm not saying I've given up hope but I can't tell him not to go on that date just because I want him. It's so… selfish. What if he ends up being really into whoever she is?"

    "Exactly. Iris, if he falls for her, what do you do?" The words hit her like a (figurative) sack of potatoes and she froze in place for a moment. Vincent came over and turned the tap off, sighing as he handed over the previously stolen bag of root vegetables. "Just… think it over, zusje. I love you both and I want to see you both happy." He put a hand on her head and gave her a small smile in hopes of encouraging her. She looked up to him and gave a small sigh.

    "I'll… consider it."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     “Here, doll. It’s on the house.” Another half-water whiskey was placed in front of him by the waitress. Theo tried not to bristle at the thought that any of the staff was pitying him because his blind date had stood him up. He was going to absolutely throttle Arthur the next time he saw him. When he said Arthur had been pestering him, it was honestly an understatement. Every day. For two months. He gave the waitress the smallest smile in existence before she left. Sighing, he picked up the glass and sipped at its contents. He berated himself silently as he stared out the large front window, vowing to never listen to Arthur again when the current subject of his ire came into view. He was perilously close to crushing the glass in his hand when he saw Iris trailing just behind. A sense of dread washed over him and he quickly assessed just how quickly he could get out without being seen. That, however, was not going to be feasible.

     “My dear, chin up! You’ve been moping since dinner and I am nothing if not determined to cheer you up!” Arthur stated proudly, earning a half-hearted glare from Iris as they walked into the cafe. The author picked a small table only one away from Theo’s and Theo knew the moment they walked in that his every move was calculated. The couple between their tables was leaving any moment now. He took another sip of his drink before sighing and pushing his hand through his hair as he contemplated murder.

     “I have not been moping ,” Iris protested, pouting. Arthur chuckled a little and brought up the menu of drinks available, humming as he thought of what to order. “I’ve just… been a bit tired.” Arthur tilted the menu forward so he could look at her disbelievingly.

     “I’ll believe that the day Vincent stops painting,” he scoffed. Iris huffed indignantly before lifting up her own menu. To any outsider it looked as if Iris and Arthur were on a date that was going poorly, but Theo was picking up the pieces. There was no date that had stood him up. His date had just picked up a menu. He swallowed thickly, his jaw tense as he kept his low profile. “Now, darling, pick out what you’d like. It’s on me tonight.”

     The next five minutes were easily the most tense of Theo’s entire life. The waitress had taken Iris and Arthur’s drink orders. Arthur had excused himself to the restroom. He watched as the couple between them got ready to leave, leaving a clear line of sight between himself and Iris. He averted his eyes to his drink as he contemplated leaving still (not that there was a chance to do so now). Any moment now…

     “Theo?” He looked up from his drink as Iris called for him and he acknowledged her briefly. It didn’t take her long to realize he had been ‘stood-up’ as far as she knew and, as he predicted, she got up from her table to go to his and sat across from him. “Your date didn’t show?” She asked, seeing the lack of any other beverages at the table except for his. “I’m so sorry.”

     Theo shook his head and frowned. “Don’t be, hondje. This is the last time I ever let Arthur set me up on a date,” he vowed, pushing his hand through his hair again. He felt his tension waning as she looked at him with her kind-hearted worry. He smirked before nudging her foot with his gently under the table. “Seriously. He just didn’t tell me my date was running late.”

     Iris opened her mouth to say something as the waitress came by with her wine. The waitress wore a knowing smile and told her that her ‘friend’ had taken care of payment before leaving. Theo let her process the information for a moment, his smile widening as a blush crept its way across her freckled cheeks. “I…” she trailed off, swallowing thickly as she realized she didn’t know what to say.

     “I suppose he was tired of neither of us taking initiative,” Theo filled in aloud, smirking when she tried to hide her blush as she sipped from her glass. She bit gently at the inside of her lip as she met his gaze again. “And… as much as I was contemplating murder earlier, I think I owe him one.” Iris’ smile slowly began to grow at the further implication that he was happy for this turn of events and a small laugh escaped her lips. She gently nudged his foot back.

     “I’m glad to be here, too.”

Taglist: @mllorei and I honestly don't remember who wanted to be on my taglist T.T this is fine and I know it was only like 1 other person.

[shoshiwrites]

The lovely @mercurygray is running Blind Dates again this year — now with a blog @blind-dates-fest! — and I wanted to make it four for four!

My sincerest apologies to Esther Bubley, whose photo stories for the Office of War Information I borrowed for this piece (and header), more specifically the six-week bus trip she took in 1943 to document the country's travels during wartime.

Her photos are amazing and can be found in multiple books on the Internet Archive and on the Library of Congress website. Her OWI peers included Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, and John Vachon, and I should probably put together a second post instead of taking up all the space in this one!

Without further ado, meet Paulette!

so many miles and so long since i've met you

It’s 5:00 AM, and she’s hungry. 

She’d gone for a boxed lunch at the last station, scarfing it down at a corner bench with her camera on her lap, her jacket flung over it for protection. The taste of salmon salad lingers in her mouth, her fingertips still smelling of orange peel even though she’d waited in line to reach the ladies’ room, politely elbowed her way between fellow passengers reapplying lipstick and dabbing their makeup to scrub her hands clean at the small sink.

I could go for a Coca-Cola right about now. 

If nothing else, it would keep her awake to keep shooting, capture the people waiting who look as tired as she feels, as tired as she knows she looks by now. She’d gotten some good pictures at the machine shop back in Indianapolis, the garage where the mechanics worked and the drivers wrote out trip reports. 

Maybe she’s predisposed, her comfort in these places. Her papa’s a mechanic too; she knows the chambray shirts with their pockets, stained with oil and stuffed with pens, wrenches hanging on the wall, the smell of new tires and grease.

She tries not to yawn, and fails, into the back of her wrist. Sleep finds a way here — she sees it in heavy shoulders, click, the flyaway curls, click, the man walking through with a stack of used pillows off an incoming bus, click. The children dozing on their father’s arm, little brown shoes barely touching the floor, the stuffed bunny in the little one’s arms. Click, click, click. The woman behind her has taken up a whole bench, her pumps kicked off besides. Click. Her camera is small, comparatively, and even still, they all sleep so soundly that the noise doesn’t wake a single person. 

Good shots of the garage in Indianapolis, and better ones of the women who washed the bus windows, the baggage clerks hustling with their caps and cigarettes. They let her roam, with the permissions she’s got, all stamped and tucked in her bag. Behind the driver’s seat, the front, the middle, the back. Her bus out of D. C. was segregated; it depends which bus, which city. Everyone looks at her funny until they forget she’s there.

Paulette has plans for a short stay in the next city, photographing a driver and his family. A real bed and supper at a table, marking the halfway point of this East-Coast-Midwest criss-cross. She thinks of sending a few postcards home — there’s hardly time, but Maman always likes to hear from her, and Paulette knows she’ll catch hell if Charlie and Dot don’t have anything to tape up. 

Is it better to send the same postcard, or different ones, she wonders. Sometimes the twins like to match, and sometimes there’s nothing worse. Just as long as she calls Charlie Charles — makes him feel like a grownup, like Pa’s official correspondence, and her sister Dot or Sis. Marie-Dorothée makes her sound like their grandmother, Dot says. Paulette, ten years older, out of sight and on the road with her knowing smile, does as she’s told.

“Miss?”

Her eyes fly open to the asker, the soldier in front of her as tired as the rest. It pulls at his frame, still upright with the force of hard training. His voice is a little hoarse, that sleepiness, like it’s not a question. “Mind if I sit here?”

Here is the space between her and the end of the carved bench, not much. But here, it’s all at a premium. She nods.

He slumps in next to her, his bag on his lap, and they touch at too many points to count, warm hip warm thigh warm calf. He’s close enough that she can see freckles under the artificial light. If she got up, she could make a photo. Give him some space. 

She feels like she’s missed her chance, the part where she introduces herself and asks for permission. There’s no one here to distract him, no friends or pretty girls to let her fade into the background. Something tells her to get up and walk around. Her bus will be here in an hour anyway, it’d do her good to get the blood in her legs moving. And there’s no such thing as enough pictures, of course. She taps her finger against the flattened lever on the side of her camera. 

“Neat gadget,” says the soldier. 

Paulette’s had the Rolleiflex just under a year, and she’s just now getting less jumpy about it. Photographers have to get used to expensive pieces of equipment. Mr. Linehan back at the office had no patience for it, squeamishness. Trust yourself, a colleague told her. George Gordon, always wore an old leather jacket and signed his letters G. G. He’s somewhere in Maryland now, or Massachusetts.

She’d saved and saved. Gotten a good deal, too. Did some free photos in exchange for the balance. Probably put the corner store out of business from all the Mounds bars she didn’t buy. She’d kill for one of those now, too. 

“Thank you,” she says, even though that’s not the thing to say. 

“My sister’s got one of those little Brownie cameras.”

“Has she? I’ve still got mine at home.”

“Where’s that?”

Maybe she has to give him credit for that. Don’t I ask the questions, she wants to say. “Cincinnati.” There’s a small bruise at his jaw, and maybe she wouldn’t even call it that, it’s still reddish-pink. Training accident, she guesses. “Where are you headed, soldier?”

“Ain’t that confidential?” He smiles, and she can see the slight overlap of one of his front teeth. Boyish. That’s the word. She doesn’t quite feel girlish, here in her tired slacks and her curls that haven’t seen a bottle of hairspray in weeks. “South. Georgia.” Paulette nods. “You?”

“Far as the next bus takes me.”

“Taking pictures?”

“Taking pictures.” Where d’you wish you were headed? she wants to ask. Maybe that’s too much. Maybe that’s something she doesn’t allow herself here, doesn’t want to, usually. Doesn’t have the time. You don’t fill a portfolio getting distracted. You don’t get taken seriously, either.

She doesn’t know him, anyhow. 

“You take a lot?”

“Too many.” Her finger hurts from it. She lets the air out of her nose, something like a smile. “On my last frame, actually. On this roll.” She know she’d better load the next one before the bus rolls up. “You wanna see how I change ‘em?”

He’s twisted in his seat already to talk to her. Nods, watches her hands fiddle with the body, pull the film taut. She’s suddenly self-conscious, but he stays silent. His head is bowed, the scent of his hair and his sweat and the remnants of aftershave in her nose. He points a finger, slowly following her movements, her steps. The scent of orange. His lunch, or hers?

“Gotta take one now, dontcha?” he says quietly, that little bit of brassy shine to his voice.

She smiles. “Would you oblige the lady?” The words run together, in her accent, in her tiredness.

Paulette can’t think about where he’s headed. His easy calm, the flecks in his eyes. The little twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Thought you’d never ask.”

She does get up, gets him turning in profile, thumb curving at his bottom lip as he looks off. The light glints off his boots. A little posed, for her usual. And it never feels like this, like a photo might be just for her. She takes two, just in case. She doesn’t pull out her notebook. 

“S’pose my mother wants a copy-” he starts.

Silly. “Oh, of course!” The notebook, the tiny pencil. He writes down the address. Kokomo. Not so far from Cincinnati. “And- and your name?”

“Floyd. Floyd Talbert.” Does she stick out her hand? He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, before she can say anything. “S’pose I ask if- if I can write you?” 

It’s not the first time. She’s lost count, actually. She’s never given it, the road forgiving her with warning bells and train whistles, timetables. There are freckles on the bridge of his nose. 

She tears a scrap of paper off the metal rings. Paulette Schafer. Her home address. Her mother hosts servicemen for Sunday dinner, shoos them out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon. “You can call me Pauli.”

“I hope so.” He smiles. “When’s your bus?”

Her watch — the thing she hasn’t looked at for the last hour — tells her twenty minutes. “Soon. I’m headed west.”

“Cryin’ shame.”

“You know, I can’t spend all my film on you.”

He leans back against the wall. “You’d like to though, huh?”

Floyd Talbert, how many times has a girl wanted to keep a photo of you in her pocket? “You’re a compelling subject.”

He smirks, and something in her stomach flutters. 

“You say that to all the handsome soldiers.”

“‘Course.”

She’d better head out now if she wants to get some good quotes out of the driver, a few shots of the baggage clerks, if she doesn’t want to get stuck in the jump seat if it’s a full house. 

“It’s been a pleasure, Floyd,” she says, and sticks out her hand.

A voice intones over the PA, 6:00 AM to Kansas City- “All mine, Pauli Schafer.” A beat passes, and he’s looking at her with an expression she can’t name. “Can I walk you out?”

She knows he’ll let her do what she needs to, stay quiet by her side. 6:00 AM to Kansas City- She wishes they had time for a cup of coffee. She’ll take a moment though, get one more picture of him walking out in the morning light. “You may.” 

[stephdragonness]

💔 - broken heart.

(sketch drawns so just quick storyboard scenes) (rare glimpse at human steph lil elfy like ears =p )

A scenario AU story of "Valentine Blind Date" steph and dr cortex our situation where Dr cortex goes out for a valentine blind date but gets cancelled on, a sad situation for doctor but one he is used to in trying on every time on the holiday came around the year. pondering into his own self loathing as he drank glass from the bar swallow, his gaze wondering around the place till spots lone lady at a table looking down just as him and just moment the doctor take the courage to ask the nearest lonely stranger if they need a date for tonight. 🩷

'At same restaurant were our sorceress sat pondering her night of woe, her date ditches out finding she's a single mother and not want deal with that kind of situation from a date, she wanting get back out on dating after years just want make connection again"

'in moment as doctor cortex take large gulp his drink and makes his moves from his sit and walk over to lonely lady at the table'

Dr Cortex: "excuse me.. sorry to disturb you, couldn't help notice your here by yourself" *moment hesitation doctor not used such scenes.. certainly more confident to confront a enemy then a lady at a bar.* "my date has unfortunately has cancelled on me.. i really can't take home these flowers, so... um... pretty flowers for a pretty lady" *this was all he could say in moment he feel himself sweat under his turtle neck... even start regret trying this*

steph: "arnt you sweet"*she saw man earlier at bar he looked to be waiting himself for someone,.. her date decided best leave early then not even to wait for meal to come,the gentleman infront of her was older and had that debonair air to him, he wasn't unpleasant look at.. liked his moustache/beard von dyke style*"well i guess that makes two of us, my date decided to not continue the date, i have two meals on the way and no one share them with... hmm would you care join me?."*she took bold move to ask if gentleman like join her.. calling it a hunch or inner interwishing feeling but...she took real shine to the sweet man*

Dr cortex: * it took dr cortex a moment to register what she said before answering* "uh... sure.. yes of course! " *cortex heart came rapid and nervous.. did this seriously just work? he got a date for valentines after many failed attempts. a small victory for doctor brighten his day.. and pang straight through the heart he felt jolt of cupid arrow hitting him looking down at the pretty lady.

Steph: hope you like spaghetti? Dr cortex: of course.. a classic choice from a classy place Steph: well not as classy as man Infront of me *making the first flirt* Dr cortex*quick witty on comeback made him chuckle, started grow charmed by the lady as night went on.

©ToyForBob©Beenox©Activision© Crash Bandicoot Doctor Neo Cortex ©OC/FC/ART©StephDragonness© steph the dragonness Tools~ClipStudioPaint|X-Do Not Steal/Trace/Repost my Art-X| https://stephdragonness.carrd.co/ Links to my Other Medias

[nyan-ryder]

Funny little characters! What will they do?

Commissions!

[jump-wings]

I'm thrilled to share my OC for @mercurygray 's Blind Dates OC Fest 2024! I decided to mix things up and dive into some darker vibe with my new OC. It was a fun challenge to incorporate elements from the Masters of the Air into my writing. It is about 2k word. There is no warning and spoiler from MotA. Hope you dig meeting Ana and Moonshadow! @blind-dates-fest

Near the Thorpe Abbotts Air Base in East Anglia, there is Moonshadow Hall, surrounded by massive dark green trees, where the sun, animals, insects, and even hope rarely visit, and where even the souls of people gather dust from inactivity. If you walk through the wooded area and along the dirt road, you'll come to the moss-covered, slippery, stone staircase of thirty-three steps leading up to Moonshadow. Climbing up the stairs and passing through the heavy wooden doors with the dark hue of walnut, you'll arrive at the vast entrance with its pallid green crying walls. Continuing on, if you follow the pale green corridors that have housed people who have known little of love for generations, you'll find yourself in a wide living room adorned with the same-colored walls as the corridors, filled with ancient, menacing-looking furniture and faded carpets. Despite its large windows, little light

enters this room, and if you look carefully, behind one of the grandiose chairs, leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around her knees, head buried in the space between her arms, you'll see Eliana Holloway. She was one of the middle children of the Holloway Family, who had lived in this ominous place where nobody else ventured for generations. She was mostly known as Ana. She had dark, deep brown eyes devoid of any emotion, inherited by everyone in the Holloway family for generations. She was sad, not caused by anything specific. It was a eternal sadness she thinks she was born with.

Even as new children were born, as they grew up, aged, or even died, Moonshadow, where time seemed to have somehow stopped, was on the verge of joining the great mansions opened for military use since the war began. Yet it still resisted to avoid falling to the army. It could remain as the only big estate in Britain untouched even by the second great war of the century. But somehow, the outside real life had begun to make itself known with windows rattling from the sounds of low-flying bombers. Those passing by were not just RAF planes anymore. Americans had also arrived.

Ana lifted her head. She looked at the windows rattled by the passing plane. Perhaps it was her uncle Robert Lucian Halloway’s plane passing by.

There was a legend in the village. It was said that there was only one Halloway. All born Halloways were a kind of reincarnation of him. Although each baby was born with its unique soul, the darkness of Moonshadow would kill their souls, and then, despite appearing in different forms, different genders, they would always remain the same person.

The first and only person to prove that this wasn't always the case for the village was Robert. He had left for college on a sunny day when the sun shone on Moonshadow, and never returned. Unlike the fate of all other Halloways who left for college or any other reason, the cursed atmosphere of the house couldn't draw him back. He managed to escape from Moonshadow. For the first few years after college, nobody from the family or the village knew where he was living, until a short letter containing information about him being an officer in the RAF was added to the breakfast table discussion like a new condiment.

Since then, he had visited Moonshadow for up to ten days a year.

Until now. Robert’s unit had been assigned to Thorpe Abbotts. It wasn't clear whether he would stay at the base or at home, but it was certain that they would see more of him this year. He was expected to arrive within the week.

The inhabitants of Moonshadow were creatures of the night, open to light. They were whispers confined within their own heads, walking the corridors of Moonshadow, mostly within the limits of its woods, forced to take refuge in the darkness of Moonshadow.

Apart from the postal carriers who brought letters, very rarely did anyone else visit Moonshadow. The news that Robert would bring with him two close friends from the RAF and three newly acquainted American pilots for dinner sent a shroud over the house's nocturnal creatures like a mist. It intensified the usual restlessness of the house.

"How could he do something so thoughtless? Without asking us? We are not ready in any way," Felicity, Ana's mother, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She paced around the living room, turning around, thinking aloud. The little children imitated their mothers, whispering things like "Yes, exactly," and nodding their heads.

Ana knew from the moment she heard the news that such an event would erupt in the house, and her mother would be dragged into a slow and resolute fit of anger. "Yes, Robert, how could you do something so thoughtless?" she thought to herself. She quickly glanced at the door of the room without her mother noticing. She had to slip away before becoming the target of her mother's anger. Her mother's voice was rising, her gestures becoming more aggressive as she spoke. Time was running out. All her nerves were on edge. Her mother started walking back towards the windows, grumbling. Now was the time. Ana sprang into action. With the speed of a hawk developed over the years, she slid out of the door with perfection. She couldn't go to her room; she would be found there. Without slowing down, she flew to the music room.

The music room was one of the most forgotten rooms in Moonshadow, seldom visited by anyone. In the middle of the room stood a piano from the beginning of the century, but as far as Ana knew, nobody in the house currently knew how to play it. Ana pressed her foot onto the cracked leather seat of the piano, trying not to touch the keys of the untuned piano as she climbed on top of it. She couldn't afford to make a sound and risk being caught. She stretched out on the cold, dusty wood. She began to hum the limited songs she had heard throughout her twenty years of life. The ghosts of the silent, forgotten melodies of the grand music box filled the room.

Leaving her mother in such a situation and fleeing no longer seemed difficult to Ana. In fact, there was a toxic sense of satisfaction deep inside her. Since childhood, she had tasted her mother's dissatisfaction in every way possible. Once her mother got angry, which happened quite often, her anger grew and turned into a bundle of complaints, threats, and a hatred towards everyone and everything, and if someone dared to respond to her or tried to calm her down, it would turn into an endless fight.

It was indifference. It was a trait Ana had secretly developed without noticing. She had been horrified when she first realized that she didn't care about her mother's feelings. She had felt like the worst person in the world. But now, she was indifferent even to that feeling of horror.

Ana's mother and three servants spent a week trying to restore Moonshadow to its former glory. Everything was cleaned and rearranged under Ana's mother's supervision. The rooms have been rearranged to accommodate strangers, with Moonshadow's most unworn-looking furnitures.

The creatures of the night emerged from their shadows, descended the stairs, and awaited the arrival of the strangers, donning their best attire. The whole family was as tense and stern as Ana's grandfather, Victor Halloway, in the photograph taken while he was waiting in the trenches during the Great War. The enemies were approaching.

The heavy walnut doors opened with the reluctance of the creatures of the night, and the strangers entered the house. Their black, polished, Oxford-style low-heeled lace-up shoes echoed on the ancient wooden floors, waking them with a groan.

The strangers were ushered into the room prepared for the reception before dinner. Robert politely introduced the strangers to the family members. As small talk ensued, appetizers were eaten, and drinks were consumed, the pilots began to take on personalities.

Ross and Tristan were young RAF pilots. They had met Robert on the first day of their training, and they had been friends ever since. They were both from Norflok.

Americans Buck and Bucky, didn't resemble each other in appearance or personality as much as their names suggested. Buck was blond, while Bucky was a brunette. Buck didn't drink, but Bucky did. Buck was quiet and serious, whereas Bucky was playful and talkative. Biddick had a sincere smile. His eyes were a blue mixture of determination and the kindness of an angel.

Ana watched her father converse with two of the guests near fireplace. It turned out that Thomas Halloway wasn't as incapable of putting two words together as she had thought. Ana sat silently on the couch with her cousins George and Beatrice, who were a few years older than her. While the adults of the house - her mother, aunt, grandfather, and another uncle - managed to engage in conversation somehow, they seemed invisible.

Ana felt like the most pitiful kind of creature of the night. She was like a transparent creature living in a loneliness unknown to anyone else, dwelling in the depths where nobody knew. She discovered that she didn't know how to adapt to talking to people, didn't even know how to start a conversation with someone, and didn't even have the strength to talk to the guests in her own home.

As she brought the glass to her lips, a new kind of hatred spread within her. This hatred fed on the cruel distinction between family members who could and couldn't converse. Until that moment, Ana hadn't realized how much she and her cousins had been raised behind closed doors. Everyone in the family was disconnected from life outside Moonshadow, but it seemed that some family members had created this loneliness for themselves, while others were born into it.

Ana decided to fight. She wouldn't surrender. She stood up. She thought going to her uncle and his friends, Biddick and Bucky, was the right choice. As she approached them, she suddenly felt all her courage leap out of the window. She changed her course and headed for the table where the drinks were. Why did I do this now? Everyone will think I'm weird. As she filled her glass with something, she glanced around the room without anyone noticing. Nobody seemed to have noticed. I can do this. I can go to near them. I want to do this. I can.

Leaving the drink table with the glass she held onto like a lifeline, she headed to where her uncle and his friends were talking. She stood silently beside them, beginning to listen to their conversation. She couldn't lift her eyes from the ground. She couldn't remember ever feeling so tense in her life. Her knuckles had turned white from gripping the glass tightly, and her teeth had started to ache from clenching them together. She couldn't follow the conversation, couldn't understand anything that was being said until her uncle asked for permission and left. Watching her uncle leave, Ana felt like a child abandoned in the middle of the street. Alone in the midst of dangers.

"Really big house," Biddick said cheerfully to Ana. The two pilots had turned to Ana after Robert left, trying to start a conversation with her.

Ana scanned the room as if seeing her own house for the first time. Her aim was to gain some time. She tried to think of something to say in return. Whatever she said had to be normal. It shouldn't be silly, condescending, or boastful; it shouldn't offend him or make him angry. But the more she tried to think of something to say, the emptier her mind became. She felt she had to say something now. With a forced polite smile, she said the first thing that came to her mind. "Yes, it is," she said, immediately lowering her head towards her glass.

I hope he doesn't ask another question, but I hope he does. She felt both a strong desire to engage in conversation with the pilots and a desire to disappear right then and there. Biddick decided he needed to say something to keep the conversation going.

You bet it is, Ana wanted to silence her inner voice.

"Yes, indeed," she almost whispered. She couldn't bring herself to look into the pilots' eyes again. The young man shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He thought the girl didn't want to talk to him. He didn't want to bother her any further. Had he said something stupid? He decided not to prolong it.

While Ana wondered if he would say something else, she held her breath without even realizing it. The young man didn't say anything else to her; he said something to his friend. In the meantime, her uncle's return provided her with a few seconds of relief. She was filled with a deep sense of self-pity.

She had really wanted to talk to the pilots. But she had missed her chance; it was over now. That's how she felt. She thought she had bothered him. She had made him feel bad about himself. She cursed herself inwardly. The feeling of self-pity turned into anger directed at herself. What a clumsy person she was. She couldn't put two words together. How stupid she was. Muttering "Excuse me," she walked away from them. She left the sweet light emanating from the lamp in the room. She disappeared into the dark corridors of Moonshadow.

[mercurygray]

Mark your calendars - Blind Dates OC fest 2024

Back for its fourth year, Blind Dates will be running from February 4th to February 10th, 2024!

What is Blind Dates? Blind Dates is a festival/challenge that celebrates creating and writing original characters!

Using a random generator or method of your choice, pick a name for your new character. Then, write a short snippet that introduces them to the fandom property of your choice, and establishes them as a person worth paying attention to. (Bonus points if they play opposite to a canon character you don’t usually write, or are for a fandom you've never written for before. Blind dates for the muse, remember?)

The idea is to be quick, compelling, and efficient with character introduction. There’s no specific word count, but it shouldn’t be more than one or two thousand words. It’s an intro, a taster - something to establish your character and hook the reader into wanting more. And it’s just a project for the week or weekend - it doesn’t need to go anywhere or be a big production, just establish one really, really solid character that the reader can root for.

Last year we had seven different fandoms represented by twelve different characters and I'd love to see that number grow this year!

A full FAQ for the fest is now available here.

[samthecookielord]

SAM OC BLIND DATE TOURNEY...3!!!???

>>POLLS HERE<<

That's right folks! ANOTHER ONE!!!! "What's an oc blind date tourney" you may ask?? WELLL it's an excuse for me to talk about my ocs and an excuse for you to spam my inbox (please don't actually do that ^-^)

Based on the concept of those blind date gameshows where you ask questions to anonymous contestants and pick whoever you wanna go out with based on their answer. There is no actual dating theme here so feel free to send questions about anything. I will give answers from my ocs without indicating their identities and put up a poll! Then you vote for whoever you like better, whether it's because you think they're funny, because you would actually want to hang out with them, or because you want to study them like a bug. View my FIRST TOURNEY and SECOND TOURNEY here if you want examples! There are 32 total contestants to start with! ALSO. THIS TOURNEY I HAVE ADDED A PLOT TWIST. i added 3 aus of canon characters into the bunch. thats it thats the twist.

This post will be continually updated with more info!

Now go ahead and send me questions starting with a heart emoji for my ocs to answer!

(I also encourage theorizing on who is who! hehe i'd love to see your thoughts)

[ROUND 1 RESULTS PART 1] [ROUND 1 RESULTS PART 2]

[ROUND 2 RESULTS]

[ROUND 3 RESULTS]

[ROUND 4 RESULTS]

[FINALE RESULTS]

[basilone]

Fandom: Masters of the Air Written for: @blind-dates-fest as my 2024 entry! Introducing: Cressida Dorrance-Jones, with sidenote entries for Valerie Hodges and Evelyn Carter.

"That's not a sawmill up there, Buck." The blonde woman's voice is even. Matter of fact. Cuts through the haze of several men talking at once, long enough to make their whole table go quiet. The look on her face is too serene to be accusatory. "That was a goddamn meat grinder."

Major Cleven – Buck – does not dissent. "Yeah." There's a barely-there sigh lurking in that one admission, as if he is only now releasing his breath. His crew seems to almost exhale at the same time he does. Following his lead even when on the ground, especially after he fixes each of them with a swift look. "Now we know."

"And I need to know everything about that meat grinder," interjects Cressida, unfolding the last part of the map out on the table. Sets her coffee cup on the part of the map that always seems to have a mind to curl back up and leave her hanging out to dry. "Rule of the table: you talk only when I address you. Rule of the table: you dig deep when I ask for clarification. Rule of the table: you paint the whole picture as you saw it up there. Understood?"

There's a scuffle under the table. A swift motion of feet that almost reaches her legs before aiming a little more to her right. The blonde woman is all but sinking down into her seat, tip of her tongue poking out of her mouth as she puts in just a bit more effort.

"Ow!" The blue-eyed lieutenant beside her jolts in his seat. Fixes the blonde with a glare. "Val, seriously?"

"Understood, ma'am," rasps Valerie Hodges, sitting up straight again now that her goal's seemingly been accomplished. Cressida makes a mental note of the fact that the woman doesn't object to the shortening of her name. "I have some notes, if they help?"

"You're the navigator?"

"Radio ops, sorry," comes the unapologetic grin, right before a small notepad is shoved her way. "I've marked the time Curt here"– a nod at the lieutenant she just kicked in the shins –"started to shout in my ears about flak. Hit that earlier than I'd thought, then had the fighters come in hot on the tails of that."

Cressida glances down at a sequence of numbers that would not have been amiss in an actual navigator's log. Notes the shakiness of the sevens and fives, followed by quick dashes and dots. Her eyebrow quirks up despite herself. It's not every day a log comes back with partial encoding on it that would slow the Germans down for all of a minute.

"Unorthodox," she remarks out loud, "but perhaps helpful." She'll allow it, if only because Val's well-aimed kick seems to have halted the lieutenant's previous staring in its tracks. "You were wheels up here," she continues, indicating their starting point on the map, "and headed to Bremen through the pre-marked blue path here"– a new map for every mission, no matter the complaints from supplies –"which would put the flak here."

"Earlier," says the Major, not even glancing up at her for confirmation the way other pilots do. "Right around there"– comes the mark of his finger that lingers just long enough for her to confirm it with a swift cross of her pencil –"which I know because we weren't the first to get the hit."

"Had enough time to confirm the fact that we were in some deep shit now," laughs the lieutenant, even when none of his bravado remotely reaches his eyes. "First to get hit was Bonny Lass. Luck of the Irish, and all."

"Bonny Lass was on our right wing at two o'clock, bearing east."

"Two fifteen."

Cressida narrows her eyes at the lack of accuracy. Her pencil hovers just between two and two fifteen on the east scale as the back-and-forth between lieutenant and one of the waist gunners does not seem to be dying down. They're not at raised voices yet like the table in the back clearly is – Rollins can never keep his table under control after mission for long – but letting them work it out between them is going to save her a spot of trouble once she actually does need to put her foot down. New tables are like this, sometimes. First time up, first time down. It’s never an easy deal, and she’s got enough sense to not make it harder than it needs to be.

"Two ten." The Major's voice is decisive. "Mark that. Miss Demeanor and the rest of that cluster was on our left flank when Bonny Lass was hit."

"Miss got her wing clipped about five minutes following that, is that right?" asks Cressida, making out a five and the Morse abbreviation for Miss Demeanor on Val's notes. Nods around the table have her marking out a half-moon clip on the map. "When did the fighters come in?"

"When the flak died."

"Yeah."

"There was a minute or two of nothing," allows the lieutenant, "and they swept in so damn fast from that bank of clouds."

"They were already wheels up?" Cressida arches her brow. "Unusual if so," she remarks, remembering the sit-downs with the fighter pilot crew that had scoped out the area prior to the bombing run. Charlotte Rivers, in particular, had been adamant about a ground base rise. "Where would you put them on the map, Lieutenant?"

"Curt, please," he repeats like he did when she was first introduced to him not ten minutes ago. "I'd put them here, ma'am."

"They came from the ground," corrects Evelyn Carter decisively, tapping a spot just beside Curt's indication. "Straight up from there, I saw them clear enough." Her finger stands out dark against Curt's paler hand, so much so that Cressida wonders how the young woman ever passed muster long enough to not be drafted into the Tuskegee side of the war. "They like to hide in the cloud banks, right? Damn bastards thought they could get high enough to be clear of me that way. Clipped one of them on the tail as they went past here, though."

"You got another on the wing."

"Nah, he was too steady on, think I missed him."

"One-Eye missing her prize? Never!"

"It's not a clean turkey shoot, asshole," laughs the young woman who was introduced to her as both Evelyn Carter and the moniker One-Eye. Both her dark eyes, despite her laughter, remain rather hollow as she looks around the table. "They were so much faster than I'd thought."

"A familiar comment," allows Cressida, now that the table's murmuring assent. It's not her habit to comfort anyone at this table, but sometimes it helps move matters along to let them know their experience is not a standalone. "We know they're fast. They work in teams that allow refuel. In comparison, our fortress is the fattest turkey they'll get to shoot at."

"Whole Thanksgiving dish," snorts Val beside her. "Hey, Major, when are we going up for seconds?"

"Eyes front," snaps Cressida, tapping the smaller woman's shoulder until she stops grinning up at Major Egan. Egan's just about the last one she needs to interrupt the table read. "Fighters came in there, who was at the helm?"

"Bunny?"

"Not Veal, at least?"

"Wasn't it Ferret?"

"Jesus Christ, what was your formation? Don't tell me you all lost your minds up there and broke it?" Cressida's voice rises above the din of confusion. She slaps the table for good measure. "Eyes on this map, navigator starts talking, radio ops can comment, the rest of you are mouth shut and watching for now. Got it?"

"Hell of an iron fist you’ve got there, Cressida."

"Stop talking, John," she says, not even bothering to glance up at him.

"We got it, Captain Dorrance-Jones," affirms Major Cleven, sending her the smallest of what appears to be an apologetic smile. She decides she likes him just a little bit more for not getting too friendly with her the way Egan so clearly wants to be. "We didn't lose our heads, ma'am. Formation was solid up there.” His next words ring out with a hint of warning. “Let's focus, guys."

Cressida leans forward over the map as their navigator finally breaks his silence and hauls out a sheet of notes she should have already had in her hands five minutes ago. Marks all the spaces the man indicates, aided swiftly by Val's insistent corrections and the Major's nods of allowance. A failed mission is still a mission. Sometimes even more so, or so she's stood and argued with John Egan in this room at least once before.

"Co-pilot, what was your bearing after mission aborted?" she asks, still feeling Egan's eyes on her back as she fixes the lieutenant beside her with the best of her beadiest stares. "Was there a system status check at some point in the interval of abort and recalculated bearing?"

"Not a full check. Engineer was putting out a small fire."

"Literal or figurative?"

"Figurative."

"Stop saying fire if it is figurative," sighs Cressida, making a small note in the margin of her own paper. "God knows we've had enough real ones on board."

John Egan's snort is a skosh louder than she'd like it to be. She's not sure if that derision is the thing that quietens her table again, or if it's finally sunken in that there could have been a lot of things on fire that somehow miraculously weren't. She grabs her coffee mug. Takes a rather large gulp of too-black, too-bitter coffee that she solely drinks to stay awake. Sets it down on the curling end of the map.

"Let's try again, shall we?" she asks nobody in particular as she grabs a red pen. Get the story out first. The facts straight. Done. Dusted. Now get the things that never make it into the official report. "This time, there'll be more questions about what you saw up there. If you have a thought, say it. If you have a hunch about anything, now's the time. Don't worry about sounding stupid, you hear? I'll decide how stupid it is after I hear it."

"She'll do the thinking part," says Egan, tapping the side of his head just as she shoots him another glare.

"That excuses you from the room, Major, wouldn't you say?" She jerks her head toward the door. "Co-pilot, radio ops, eyes front, don't make me tell you twice," she says to the restless lieutenants at either side of her. "You were wheels up at..."

[emma-ofnormandy]

Gathered up my courage and jumped in on @blind-dates-fest 2024 with a fandom I have not written for before (that’s in a time period I’m slightly terrified to write for)- so yay for getting outside the comfort zone!

I’ve also dropped a tiny morsel of my other OC that I had already created but have yet to introduce to the fandom while I was at it because, well, I can.

Thank you so much @mercurygray for hosting this wonderful event.

Without further ado, please let me introduce Cpl. Winifred “Winnie” Harris for the SAS: Rogue Heroes fandom.

If there was one thing Winnie loved about Cairo, it was that the sun was always shining. Granted, it was hot and sticky, making sweat drip down her back, but it was bright and consistent and that was something to a girl who grew up with a weather pattern that changed by the hour. The sky was always blue too, and it was frequently the backdrop to an array of strange and beautiful birds that fascinated her. She would miss it when she returned home. 

If there is even a home to go back to, she thought miserably.

She knew what the papers reported, heard the gossip through headquarters, connected enough calls, that she inevitably thought of her father and little brother still at home. Though they insisted the bombings were far from them and everything was running as smoothly as ever, with the exception of the poor performing ram her father bought off the neighbor last spring, it was hard to chase the worry completely from her mind. 

The nature of war, she imagined. Everyone was worried about someone or something. All she had to do was look in the faces of those working around her to know that.

The green was bustling with activity; all the benches and a good portion of the grass had been claimed by people like her, taking a moment to enjoy the weather, some relaxing with lunches or a mid day nap, while others rushed across to finish their daily errands. Officers and enlisted personnel came and went from headquarters in a steady pace, most of them clean and fresh faced, their worries of the day involving various forms of paper shuffling, or perhaps the occasional bout of plotting, but she didn’t miss the few that wore the desert and the marks of war on their uniform. The look in their eyes told her all she needed to know. 

Tobruk had been hit again and the hospital had been inundated with the casualties all day. She’d spent much of her shift connecting lines in and out of the upstairs offices, the switchboard alight with demands from across the ocean and pleas for help from those still holding their ground, and it was only now, three hours past noon, that there had been a lull long enough that Winnie had been able to step away and eat the measly lunch that was provided. Not that anything looked appealing at the moment. It never looked particularly appealing, if she was to be honest, and it was a good thing that the Army did not rely on the promise of good food to up their recruitment numbers in the African campaign.

Beside her, a dirt covered mongrel leaned against her, its large brown eyes looking up at her in wonder. “I don’t think this is even fit for you to eat, but I can’t say no to a face like that.”  

The dog offered no complaint and finished the offering in two quick bites before giving her hand a nudge, demanding his customary post lunch pats.

Since she first landed in Cairo, Winnie had taken it upon herself to offer food to a friendly stray if they approached her and this one was just the latest of her wards. The unnamed pooch had joined her for lunch a few weeks back and since then he waited around for her each day to share a meal and receive some pats before they both went their separate ways. It was a bright spot in her day, and she liked to think it was one for him as well. 

Had the circumstances been different, Winnie would have brought him home the first day they’d met, hating the idea of him living on the streets, at the mercy of men who had hardened with war and on more than one occasion, had proven they had little empathy for the strays of Cairo, but the apartment she lived in was small and she didn’t dare push the hospitality of her roommate. 

Felicity wouldn’t have batted an eye, had Winnie brought the dog home, welcoming the four legged friend in with open arms, but Winnie felt like she had already imposed enough on her friend. Not only had Felicity offered up the spare bedroom of her apartment so Winnie didn’t have to stay in army housing, and left a standing invitation to her family’s Sunday dinners, but she was also tolerating a handful of misfit creatures that had already made their way home on various occasions. 

Currently, the apartment was a landing spot for a parrot that had belonged to a sailor, who had offered no promise of a return date, a litter of kittens that Winnie swore she was just feeding until they were big enough to go back to their home in the alley behind the apartment building, a mud colored terrier that had been rescued from a group of drunken enlisted men and was supposed to be going to Felicity’s parent’s house any day now, and a one eyed cat named Miss Fiz that had belonged to an elderly lady in the building who had passed away and had, on her own accord, claimed Winnie’s bed as her new home. 

They were, for better or worse, at full capacity.

“More wounded are expected,” she told the dog, “and General Auchinleck doesn’t seem to have an answer for the troops still holding position. None of the supplies are making it.”

The dog groaned in appreciation when she moved to scratch behind his ears.

“And you know those crates of champagne I told you about a couple weeks ago? Apparently, they were for some well to do for the upper brass. It would seem anyone with a pin on their shoulder in the greater Cairo area were enjoying themselves while men were getting shelled on the coast. What do you think about that?” 

“I imagine he doesn’t approve of it much.”

Startled, Winnie jerked her head up. A tall, lean soldier, his hair neatly parted on one side, stood in front of her. His army issued kaki was just like all the rest, worn but serviceable, and though his sunglasses hid his eyes, his face was clean and he didn’t smell like death, so she surmised he must be posted somewhere near the city rather than a man who came in from Tobruk.

“I would hope so.” Unfazed at being caught talking to a dog, a common occurrence at this point, she smiled up at the stranger. “But he doesn’t say much one way or the other, so for now, we’ll just have to put him on the side of the enlisted men.” 

The corner of the tall man’s mouth tipped up with amusement before he crouched down to the dog’s level and reached out to ruffle his ears. “Does your companion have a name?”

“Not yet.”

His brows drew down in confusion, but when he spoke it was to the dog and not her. “Well no wonder you don’t tell her much. What kind of owner doesn’t name their dog.”

It was Winnie’s turn to frown. “He’s not my dog. He’s a stray,” she said, indignantly. “Besides, I haven’t found a name that suits him yet.”

The man studied the dog’s face for a moment, squishing the skin up around the eyes like one the wrinkle faced pugs Winnie’s aunt used to own before releasing it and scratching his ears once more. “He seems like a Withers to me.”

“Withers? What kind of name is Withers?”

“A good one.”

She scoffed.

“And I suppose you would have preferred what… Scout? Or maybe Champ?”

“Actually, I had been thinking of calling him Milo.” She hadn’t been, he certainly didn’t look like a Milo to her, but she had to think of something. Anything would be better than Withers.

He huffed, his distaste of the name obvious.

“And what,” she searched for any sort of identification on his person, her eyes finally settling on the star on his shoulder, “is wrong with the name Milo, Lieutenant?”

“What’s wrong with the name Withers?” he countered.

“It’s a spot on a horse’s back, not a name for a dog.”

“Well, his shoulders sure stick out enough to look like a horse’s withers.”

He wasn’t wrong. Her lunch rations and the few bits she saved for him from her breakfast was not enough to keep him well fed. But something was better than nothing and he wasn’t running around skin and bones so she figured he was finding food elsewhere.

“Sadly, additional canine rations are not provided in the enlisted personnel’s lunch.”

“No, I imagine they aren’t. But I have a feeling he has eaten his fair share all the same.”

There wasn’t a hint of reprimand in his voice and Winnie found herself charmed by the stranger. “Perhaps, Lieutenant…”

“Fraser.” He rose from his spot beside the dog and extended a hand towards her. “Bill Fraser”

“Corporal Winifred Harris,” she said, ignoring his hand, instead saluting him as she rose. His face seemed to flush under the Egyptian sun and she couldn’t hide her amusement. “First time being saluted by a woman?”

The men at headquarters seemed to live and die by the gesture, if the way they puffed out their chest every time was any indicator, but Lieutenant Fraser was obviously uncomfortable with it. Either the men in the field were not as strict when it came to rank or it was just the fact that she was a woman that flustered him. Her bet was on the latter.

“No, that's not-” He stopped short. “Yes. And the formality isn’t required or wanted.”

She chuckled. “Fair enough.” At least he was honest, and she would never pass up a moment to forgo the formalities. 

“So Corporal Harris, what is it that you do in Cairo?” 

Between them, having been ignored long enough by the newcomer, the dog gave an annoyed huff and returned to his spot beside Winnie, once again leaning against her for a scratch, to which she obliged.

“I man the switchboards out of headquarters.” 

The lieutenant seemed to accept that position as reasonable, or that’s what she gathered from the idle nod he gave.

“Is it all that you thought it would be? Being a switchboard operator.”

Winnie couldn’t hold back her chuckle. While manning the board for a war headquarters offered much more activity than it did in her small village, she wouldn’t consider it particularly adrenaline pumping on the day to day front. But, it was something she knew how to do and the army had been scrambling to fill the positions. 

Besides, it got her off the farm and gave her the opportunity to see someplace new, and she was grateful for that.

“They weren’t hiring for shepherdess positions when I went to the enlistment office, so I had to offer up my next best skill. Not as picturesque, but at least it’s warm here.”

There was a hint of amusement in his voice. “Not a need for sheep herders in Egypt, then?”

“Apparently not,” she lamented. “Too bad for them, I’ve got a lifetime of experience in sheep and only a few years at the switchboard, but I suppose that’s where they needed me the most.” 

“A lifetime huh?” 

Though hidden by glasses, she could feel his gaze roam over her, as if trying to pinpoint just how long a lifetime was. He could just keep trying to pinpoint it, too.

She smiled down at the dog as she spoke again. “And you? Who are you with?”

Bill idly rubbed at his chin, his previous train of thought seemingly forgotten as he gave heavy consideration to a question she thought was fairly straightforward. 

“The SAS.”

Winnie in no way considered herself an expert in all the units based out of Cairo, but the nature of her job meant she was fairly well versed with who was who and their locations and she was confident SAS was not in the area.

“SAS? Never heard of that unit before.”

“Imagine not.”

She arched a brow. He offered no more information and Winnie couldn’t help the curious bug that began to crawl through her. “Are you new to Cairo? I can’t say any unit remotely matching that name has come across my line before.”

The lieutenant scratched his head as he tilted it up to watch as a pair of plovers flew overhead, avoiding her gaze completely.

Pluvianus aegyptius she thought, distractedly. They were one of her favorites.

“You could say that,” he finally muttered.

His evasiveness only made her interest grow. An advantage to being stationed at headquarters was that it was where all the gossip started, official and unofficial, and it would only take a few shifts before she was able to figure out what she wanted to know about this mysterious regiment. 

“So, Lieutenant Fraser, you aren’t stationed at headquarters, and you don’t look, or smell, as if you came in with the wounded from Tobruk earlier, so forgive me for asking, but what brings you and your secret unit to this part of Cairo? Usually, men such as yourself prefer far more… amusing exploits on the other side of town.”

He didn’t seem insulted by her frankness or curiosity, which was a relief since she had never been very good with the delicacy of conversation. No matter how hard she tried, more often than not, she tripped over the line of propriety and straight into tactlessness.

“Had to drop paperwork off. The green is a nice detour back.”

“They sending you out?” There was the line and, again, she stomped right over it.

He chuckled. “Are you always this curious about all the soldiers you meet?”

Her face flushed, slightly embarrassed. “Most of the soldiers I meet are paper pushers. I know what their day consists of so I have no reason to ask them many questions.”

“Surely you meet more than just the ones that walk the halls there.” He gestured towards the main gate where trucks were waiting at the barricade of headquarters.

She didn’t, at least not regularly. Though she went out on occasion with some of the girls after shift and Felicity had drug her to several dinners at the Cairo Museum, she wasn’t what one would consider experienced in large cities, especially alone, and more often than not, she found herself curling up at home with Miss Fiz, sketching those strange yet fascinating birds, rather than going out. 

“Now who’s the curious one.”

That earned her a crooked smile and he raised his hands in surrender. 

She needed to head back inside, her shift at the board wasn’t over quite yet and it was past time that the dog should be headed off to wherever the next stop in his day was.

“I wish you and your unit luck, Lieutenant, wherever you are going next.” Wiping at invisible lint on her skirt, Winnie gave her new acquaintance a friendly smile. “It was nice to meet you, but I must be getting back to my wires.” She turned and began her way back across the green, the dog keeping pace by her side.

“Next time I am in the city, I may stop by,” she heard him yell. “To see how Withers is holding up!”

What do we have here? 

Winnie stooped and glanced at him over her shoulder. He was relaxed, hands crammed into the pockets of his shorts, and his mouth was kicked up in a lazy smile. She wasn’t sure what to make of the offer but decided it was strictly canine related. It had to be strictly canine related; she was going to let herself believe that there was still a soldier or two left in Cairo that had a soft spot for more than just women and rum.

With a casual wave over her shoulder, she kept walking and waited till she was a good distance away, letting her voice carry over the green like one of the strange birds that fascinated her. “I can’t guarantee that Milo will be around at that time, but it never hurts to stop by and check!”