#(would have been funnier if they ended up never directly communicating to each other in that restaurant. but here i am being The Complainer

[videoworm]

ok the Restaurant episode officially my favourite episode now

[worth-more-than-two-thousand]

Omega’s Observations

Request:  Congrats on starting the blog!! Pumped to have a new writer's work to read 🥰 If you need some requests, how about an echo/gn!medic reader who he develops a crush on, for a little of that sweet sweet mutual pining action✨ Dunno if you write pre-citadel or just BB echo, but I'm happy with either. Have a good weekend!! :) (@krussyfed)

Author’s Note: Whew! This took a while for me to get to a place where I felt good about posting it. Honestly, as most of my writing does, it got a bit away from me, but that’s because I love fleshing out a story, showing-not-telling, and building on events from the canon. But if I saw this through until the end, I probably wouldn’t end up posting this for months! So I hope what I have here is worth the wait, and if you want more, let me know! 

Story Notes: Unbeta’ed, no obvious warnings. 

🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑

Ask her brothers to describe her, and ‘still and quiet’ would not be two of the words any of them would use. 

Hunter would call her curious to a fault, then ruffle her hair to let her know that he meant it in the nicest way possible. 

Wrecker would boom with laughter, proclaiming her one of them (“Always ready for action and adventurin’! Let’s go get those gundarks!”). 

Tech would probably consider for a moment, then use a four-syllable word. Like effervescent.

Echo would call her young and energetic, but his brow would furrow as though this might be a bad thing. Then he would inevitably follow up with a reminder to stay within sight and keep out of trouble. She didn’t mind. She knew he just worried about her. Omega would always reassure him that she would keep close to her brothers. Of course, whether it actually happened was usually another thing. 

Crosshair, if he was with them, would probably call her troublesome. 

But really, this was a tactical advantage. Her brothers never expected her to be still and quiet, so she could settle in and be observant when it was least expected of her. 

Omega was actually quite accustomed to being taciturn, at least when she needed to be. Her time with Nala Se, after all, was mostly like this. 

Watching over like a stone guardian as Nala Se pored over the capsules containing her modified brothers…

...being as unobtrusive as possible during another endless meeting with Lama Su…

...laying noiselessly and without complaint as Nala Se inserted a needle into her arm for yet another blood sample…

 These days, Omega could be as boisterous and vivacious (two more words Tech had taught her) as she wanted to be, so long as there was no chance of enemies being around. The only time she was obediently still by choice during these times was when she was being treated by Y/N, Clone Force 99’s on-board medic. 

Again, this was mostly out of habit from her time with Nala Se, but it wasn’t as bad. For one thing, Y/N fielded all of Omega’s questions with unending patience. And their hands were less clinical, more gentle than Omega was used to. Nala Se was efficient, not a movement wasted in her examinations. Y/N, however, always offered a comforting touch on the back after a scary encounter, and would gently but firmly place their hands on Omega’s face to look her in the eye to assess emotional well-being. 

The first time Y/N had done this was on the Ordo Moon, as Y/N was finishing wrapping up Omega’s small scratches on her hands and knees from her misadventures in the underground tunnels. 

At this point, not used to such close eye contact, Omega averted her eyes and looked over Y/N’s shoulder for something to distract her from the unusual awkwardness she felt. 

Her eyes met Echo’s. 

Her awkwardness vanished as he seemed to startle, a faint flush appearing on his neck, as he coughed, crossed his arms, and turned away, suddenly much more interested in examining the ship’s ceiling than anything else. 

What an interesting reaction. Her brain filed it away, curiosity piqued.  

Then, over the course of a few weeks, Omega confirmed her suspicions. 

Echo was always watching Y/N. Echo liked Y/N. 

Omega caught him absentmindedly gazing at Y/N’s hands as they tapped thoughtfully on a datapad while Wrecker carried new medical inventory aboard the Marauder during a supply run. 

After Wrecker’s successful inhibitor chip removal on Bracca, and Tech volunteered to go next, Omega watched Y/N’s hands fly across the medical controls, fierce determination sharpening their features. Glancing up, she saw that Echo’s attention was similarly arrested, a look on his face that was bordering very close to adoration. 

He seemed most captivated by Y/N’s hands, however, whenever they were treating him personally for any ailments or injuries. Echo always sat pin straight, almost comedically robotic (it would be funnier, but his history brought a sort of cruel irony to the thought) and allowing Y/N to turn his body and maneuver his prosthetic arm however was needed without any fidgeting or complaint. 

But his eyes were another story. Darting back and forth everywhere their fingers touched, such a stoniness to his face that Omega was certain he was committing every graze, every feather-light touch, to memory. Y/N, as always, was so focused on the medical work that they never seemed to notice. 

Omega saw things, though. Echo was like Y/N’s shadow, often slipping into the same room or area Y/N was in, like a ghost. She observed with fascination how he always angled himself to face her whenever there was a conversation in the cockpit. It didn’t matter if it was just the two of them, or if the entire squad was there and discussing a mission, it was as though he had attuned himself to wherever Y/N happened to be and was drawn to them.

Like a sunflower always facing the sun. 

She saw in the field how Echo, not Hunter, was usually the one to call the Marauder to check in or alert Y/N to any injuries that would need to be treated when they returned. How the space between his brows would crease whenever they would radio in but only receive the static of communications interference. 

Or worse, no answer at all. 

Echo wouldn’t say anything, but Omega felt that her brother’s steps would quicken, just a little. And she wasn’t sure she was just imagining a sudden sense of urgency in the air as they completed the mission, with just a bit more efficiency, a bit more ruthlessness than was usual. 

Omega saw how Echo always let out a tiny breath in relief, as though he had been holding it the whole time, whenever they returned to the Marauder with its medic unharmed. 

And she would never forget that one time they had returned to the Marauder, doors blasted open, interior trashed, with no medic in sight and droplets of blood leading away from the ship. 

Omega had never been in war, had only heard about it passively from the conversations between Nala Se and Lama Su, then a bit more directly from her brothers once she was allowed out of the private lab. 

She had once asked Tech about the war, but his response clearly paled in comparison to the dark look on Echo’s face, as they battled their way through enemy after enemy to rescue Y/N.

Omega felt as though she understood war a little bit more after this. At least its motivations. 

It took longer for Omega to figure out whether her brother’s feelings were reciprocated. Y/N’s affection wasn’t as obvious, but the trick was to watch more for their actions than in body language. 

Since Y/N and Tech slept the least, they would swap bunks and so were usually on opposite sleep schedules. This meant that Y/N would stay up late into the night well after the rest of the boys had retired to their bunks, face alight in the glow of a datapad. They would concentrate fiercely, chewing on their thumbnail and pausing often to tap notes into the margins. 

Omega eventually managed to snatch and break into Y/N’s data pad, and saw that they were working their way through a series of medical journals, detailing the latest treatment for prosthetics. There were also several articles on treating post-traumatic stress disorder for former prisoners of war. 

Omega had even checked Y/N’s search history, and discovered that they had been using an encrypted channel to search for chatter on the whereabouts of the former 501st legion and its various members. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Y/N had much luck so far, but if the number of searches were any indication, they weren’t giving up. 

Omega wondered incredulously how none of her other brothers had yet caught on to the two’s clearly mutual affection for each other. Until she realized that no, they already knew.

Once, when Omega had offered Echo some of her Mantell Mix, Echo had sniffed it, much to her amusement. Her giggles subsided immediately when Echo murmured apologetically that he sometimes had trouble digesting pretty much any food that wasn’t nutritional paste, due to half his digestive system being completely artificial. 

Of course, this meant that he must have been experiencing constant abdominal discomfort, as they hadn’t had any nutritional paste on the ship since their escape from Kamino. Hunter once mentioned to her that even the plainest of rations seemed to bother him, but he gamely never complained.

One day, Hunter was giving out rations in the cockpit, and had already given Tech and Wrecker their usual. Then he pulled out a green, unlabeled squeeze packet instead of the usual rations bar, and handed it to Echo, who took it with some confusion.

“What’s this?”

“New brand. It should be easier on your digestive systems than the usual stuff. Tastier, too.” 

Echo glanced at the packet skeptically, unscrewing the cap and sniffing at its contents. 

“It smells...fresh?” 

“Try it,” Hunter urged him, to which Echo obediently tried a small amount. 

His mouth rounded in a surprised ‘oh’. Omega wished she could have captured the look on his face with a holovid. He stared at the packet in his hands, with a look that was a bit like wonder and amazement. 

This didn’t escape Wrecker’s notice, who immediately stood up in protest. “What? Why does Echo get something new to eat?” He glanced forlornly at the slightly crumpled, stale rations bar in his hand. “I want some!” 

“They’re too expensive for your appetite, Wrecker,” Hunter replied, just a bit too quickly, though none of the others seemed to notice. “Besides, you probably wouldn’t like it.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that!” Wrecker proclaimed, swiping the packet from Echo’s hands despite Hunter’s attempt to chastise him. Wrecker took a giant slurp. 

...and immediately spat it out, some of it splattering on poor Gronk. 

“Blech! That tastes weird.” 

“Probably because it’s made of fruits and vegetables,” Tech said dryly, “Your palette likely isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate the subtle bitterness and natural sweetness that are characteristic of those food categories.” 

Echo eyed Hunter skeptically. “And we have the money to keep buying these?” 

Hunter hummed, closing the rations box and turning away from the cockpit. “Omega’s paying for it from her holochess winnings.” She startled at the sudden mention of her name. “We have extra to spare, for now.” Hunter subtly winked at her when the others weren’t looking. 

“Oh. Thank you, Omega,” said Echo, looking at her with true gratitude. Omega flushed a bit, but mostly because it actually didn’t have anything to do with her. She played along, however, and insisted it was no problem. It did seem to make him happy, so there was no harm in a small lie like that, right? 

She cornered Hunter later, though, and insisted on him telling her the truth. After wearing him down a bit, he finally relented.

“Okay, but you can’t tell the others, all right? Believe me, I’ve already tried to talk them out of it. But Y/N has been doing some medical work on the side, working at one of the clinics near Cid’s bar. They’ve been using the money to buy these.” 

Omega’s face screwed up in confusion. “Why can’t you just tell Echo that?”

Hunter sighed. “Because they don’t want Echo to know. Figures that Echo wouldn’t like them going out on their own to work in the slums for his sake. They’re probably right, of course.” He rubbed at his forehead, a sure sign of an impending headache. 

Omega frowned, then decided to go for it.

“You know they like each other, right?” 

Hunter blinked at her, looking surprised. At her determined stare, he gave a sigh and muttered something like, ‘I’m getting too old for this’. He proceeded to explain patiently to her that perhaps Echo and Y/N liked each other, but pointed out how awkward or difficult it could be to have a romantic relationship in such close quarters, especially when they as a team also had bigger things to worry about. 

It sounded like Hunter had given this exact speech at least twice before. 

So Tech and Wrecker knew, then, but were being polite about it (or, in Wrecker’s case, had probably gotten an earful from Hunter earlier about tact and ‘minding one’s own business’). 

Well. That wouldn’t do. 

By the time Echo got up the nerve to say anything, he’d probably be old! (Omega wouldn’t, but she tried not to think too hard about that particular fact.)

So, she began to scheme. Quietly. 

She had the tactical advantage, after all. 

[koalatydm]

Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast Episode 5 - The Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry

Transcription Part 1 of 2 (includes Wonderstorm questions and Kuno's questions)

[Transcriber's Notes: This took me SO LONG to transcribe, like multiple hours and I'm only halfway done... But I will make it through at least this one episode because I want fellow Moonfam enthusiasts to have a text source, not to mention make it easier for deaf/HoH people to follow along. I guess I'll tag @kuno-chan since she said it was OK at the beginning of the podcast, sorry if I'm bothering you!]

KUNO: Hi guys, so I have a personal request for this particular podcast episode if you guys could tweet, post, both at least one piece of information that you learned from this particular episode, that you love, that inspired you, that you thought was cute, whatever. Like, I really—one thing that really tends to happen is that people listen to the podcast and they kinda just go about their day. We don’t actually see the information circulate through the community, which we really try to have creative questions—questions that are fun and explore the characters in different situations. And it would just be really, really cool—it would mean a lot to me to see this actually circulate through the community, actually circulate through the fandom, and see, you know, it would be awesome to see it be inspired—to inspire fan works, fan fiction, fan art, especially fan art. I just—we talked like a solid hour at least—really like a solid hour about Runaan, Rayla, Ethari, that family, um, and Moonshadow elves a lot. We talked a lot about that. And I think this is information that a lot of people really wanted, even if it’s in largely headcanon form. But Devon and Iain were so gracious and we talked so much about that family, and including Ruthari, and of course some Rayllum in there. So if you guys could live tweet, or even just one tweet, at least one tweet. Tag us, tag me, tag Hailey, tag @HotPotion, even if you send it directly to me on Tumblr, that’d be awesome and we’d retweet, reblog all your stuff. It would be good for the podcast and I just really want to see this information circulate through the fandom, so at least one tweet. Alright, um, let’s get to the episode though. Thanks! Hope to see you guys on social media about this.

—————

KUNO: Alright, hey everyone, this is the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcasts with your hosts Tamika and Hailey, and we are here with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry, two writers on The Dragon Prince at Wonderstorm, and Devon being actually the recently announced lead writer at Wonderstorm, so say hi everyone!

DEVON: Hi!

IAIN: Hi, this is Iain…

DEVON: Hi, I’m Devon… (laughs)

KUNO: And so we have a ton of stuff to get through today, um, a lot of questions, so—but we’re going to ask Iain and Devon a little bit about themselves first, since I think—I’m not sure if this is the first interview they’ve really had, personally, so uh, Hailey do you want to start—head that?

HAILEY: Um, yeah, sure. Uh, could you tell us about your roles at Wonderstorm?

IAIN: Uh, sure, uh—I’m also a writer at—official title “Senior Writer” at Wonderstorm. I was one of the writing team on the show, not quite as early as Devon, who was basically employee 1 after the founders but um, I joined sort of, end of 2016 when season 1 writing was really starting to get rolling, and was you know part of the process all the way through all the seasons. Uh, and since this—it’s such a small start up company, all the writers take a bunch of other, like, production roles on the show. Like, throughout all three seasons we’ve done, like, continuity notes work, we’ve given feedback on like every step of the production process. And then the other kind of side things we have, like you know, very top secret game that we’re making in here. And like, kind of straddle the line between the show writing and the game so that that’s all kind of on point and feels like it’s in the same universe with the same characters as The Dragon Prince, but ah, can’t say too much about that just yet.

DEVON: Iain does a lot of—a lot of secret work (laughs). Um, yeah as for me, I’m also a writer on The Dragon Prince and my—I was a Senior Writer until very recently, and now I’ve been made into a Lead Writer, which means I just get to flex a lot. Um, but I started in, I think the very, very end of 2015 when Wonderstorm was first getting off the ground as like a tiny, tiny startup. And we were basically four people in a room about, I don’t know, like 20 ft by 10 ft. It was really, really awful—

IAIN: Really smelly.

DEVON: Really smelly, really tiny, like only a skylight for a window, it was great. And I—so I was involved in like the earliest of brainstorming for the show. I helped sort of like put together a lot of the pitch deck when we you know took it around to studios and like, I named like most of the characters—is like my most self-indulgent claim on the show cause I got to do a lot of really silly stuff. Um, but yeah, and then I like help out on a million other fronts at Wonderstorm too because we’re a small company and—yeah, the funny thing about the—the small tasks we have, like you mentioned continuity checks. Um, we often had to make sure that Callum’s backpack and book and Rayla’s bindings were always correct, and that was kind of, the funniest and most intense, like, stage of production ever. Cause you would, you know, watch one shot and then the next shot would come up and Callum’s backpack would have disappeared. So we had to be like, “OK, let’s give Callum backpack back on.”

IAIN: Yeah, and it’s not just for accuracy, but like, the way fandoms operate, like, we just knew if Rayla’s binding reappeared sometime, it wouldn’t be viewed as an error. People would be like “WHAT DID THE KING GET UNKILLED WHAT HAPPENED OVER HERE”.

DEVON: No it was just the—

KUNO: Oh, yeah.

IAIN: Woo!

DEVON: —continuity’s way harder than anyone thinks it is (laughs). It’s a lot.

KUNO: Oh bless you guys for knowing that though cause we—we totally would. Like, think, there was a point I remember saying that they changed Viren’s eye color because they didn’t want too much continuity with Rayla’s eye color and I feel like we were really that close to having a ‘Viren is Rayla’s real father’ issue. We really were. Somebody had to have thought about that issue (laughs).

DEVON: I actually think there is—there’s still at least one shot in the show where Viren has the wrong eye color and if you can find it, congratulations (laughter in background). That’s where we missed—missed it. So it’s in there somewhere.

KUNO: Xadia CSI (IAIN laughs). So you two are married, um, can you tell us what it’s like being married writing partners?

IAIN: You wanna go?

DEVON: Um, yeah, I mean it’s—we actually knew each other professionally before we dated, so it wasn’t like we—it’s sort of like, it was easy for us to—to remain work partners because that was how we existed in the first place. Like I met Iain when I interviewed him for a job and I—he was great (IAIN laughs), he was fun, he was all right.

IAIN: Apparently I passed.

DEVON: But um, so yeah we had a professional relationship before we had a dating—‘dating’ relationship. Um, so it’s strange because a lot of people will say like, “Oh, that’s probably terrible. You probably, like, become absolutely sick of each other” but somehow we’ve managed to—to have like, two relationship patterns where when we’re at work and we’re working on writing stuff we have this very professional thing going on and then at home, we’re just married idiots and we have a lot of fun. So like, I don’t know, I’m never tired of you, personally.

IAIN: No, (DEVON laughs) yeah I mean when we’re writing it’s generally like, Devon’s the one on the keys uh, you know, putting the words in and so on, and it will kind of bounce back and forth between like, I’ll have the idea for the—how the scene should flow and I’ll kinda narrate bits and then we’ll go back and smooth things over. But I mean, I could imagine that with some people it would get tense, but I think Devon and I, we’re just absolutely the most comfortable with each other and neither of us takes it personally when it’s like, “that line that you pitched isn’t working” or “this joke could be funnier”, anything like that.

DEVON: It’s usually Iain who’s—cause I usually type cause I type really too fast.

IAIN: She’s really too proud of her typing (laughs).

DEVON: I type super fast, it’s my only real talent, but—like I’ll just sort of go off on some sort of like incredibly unnecessary, long description of something and Iain will sort of let me get about like four or five lines into this unnecessary nonsense and he’ll just sort start going like, “OK so like, do we really—do we need that? I mean, you know, could we sort of parse this down a little, a little less, a little less”. And then I, just like, “Ugh, fine” (laughs).

IAIN: But um, every word she writes is great.

DEVON: Mmm (skeptically)

IAIN: It’s perfect.

DEVON: Completely not true. Also in our scripts I think like—

KUNO: Aw.

DEVON: —in terms of the way that we work professionally, I think like a lot of my strengths are in—in really almost self indulgent levels of drama and he can kind of pull me back from being too indulgent on those fronts. And then I think that Iain is objectively absurdly funny and so when you kind of look at our episodes usually everything that’s pretty funny and lighthearted and like the sense of levity often comes from you and then if there’s anything that just feels really painfully sad it’s probably me?

IAIN: I’m the funny one.

DEVON: (laughs) It’s true.

KUNO: Aw, I feel such a connection to you Devon, because I’m actually, episode 3 was actually one of my favorite ones because I love all that like domestic stuff. I love just kind of like—oh, I don’t know what you call the trope, like a safe house trope where you go somewhere, you’re still kind of in the adventure but we’re in a space right now, a narrative space where people are safe, if that makes any sense. Like you—if you’ve ever seen How To Train Your Dragon, like (T/N I don’t know what was said here, sorry!), the base is the safe place, that kind of thing. So, I totally get that, I actually see—episode 3 was one of my favorites outside of pretty much every episode where Rayllum was a thing. (laughter from multiple people)

HAILEY: The whole season basically (laughs).

KUNO: Pretty much the whole season, um. I think there was one more question about two.

HAILEY: Yeah sooo.

KUNO: Before we get to the elves.

HAILEY: Yeah, definitely. Uh so it was mentioned that you’re now lead writer, Devon, and can you tell a little bit more about what that entails if you can, and how that’s been going?

DEVON: Yeah, I mean… I actually don’t know what I can say about it, um… I think it—it means that uh, for future Dragon Prince stuff I’ll sort of like take a bit more of an active role in leading the—the development and the storylines and things like that. It also means that from a company perspective um I’ve been kind of involved in some other side stuff that Wonderstorm is quietly looking into developing and um I help a lot with other IPs that we would love to make a real thing someday and that’s kind of all I can say about it I think or I’ll get in trouble.

HAILEY: All right, that’s great, that’s good to know, thank you.

KUNO: The Dragon Prince 2 (laughter from multiple people). I’m totally joking everyone that’s not a thing so don’t take that for—

HAILEY: Wow.

KUNO: I’m joking.

IAIN: Two dragons.

DEVON: The Dragon 2 Prince.

KUNO: Yeah. OK also if there’s anything that you guys say that you want redacted this is probably not going up for another week because I have to get our reaction episode out. So anything you guys think about that you’re like, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that” just message us and we’ll redact that. Yeah, cause we know that—

HAILEY: Or just say it. Just tell us, like, what’s—

DEVON: Hopefully we have some self-control but—

KUNO: Okay, so we are going to get really indulgent here and I think this is going to be really in Devon’s wheelhouse. We have a lot of questions and a bunch of the scenarios so try to get through as much of it as possible. Um so the first question is can you tell us more about the Silvergrove? What is the government system like in Silvergrove? Who runs it? If you could tell us that is that the only—at least like the leadership role? Um, is that the only Moonshadow elf village? And also do they actually get any real daylight because I noticed when the illusion thing happened it just got shady and I’m like, “They might be taking this Moonshadow thing too far”. Like the elves—do they really like that much? So like tell us about the Silvergrove and where Rayla grew up.

IAIN: So I guess it’s probably worth just starting off with a kind of blanket like, ‘if it hasn’t been in the show, we can’t say it’s 100% fact. A lot of this is just gonna be what kind of we thought, rough shape of things happen in our heads—‘

KUNO: Yeah, absolutely.

IAIN: —going into the writing and so on. So you know, don’t come after me with any, uh, fandom lawyers, anyone. But um yeah, I guess like it’s sort of—it’s most useful for us to think about it in comparison to how the Sunfire elves, like clearly they have very structured society. They have a queen, obviously, and they have large cities and so on whereas we think Moonshadow elves live in, as you saw, much smaller communities. And I think the Silvergrove is not the only one of those, it might be one of the better known ones where clearly the best assassins come from. But uh, I think are other ones out there, um, and maybe even Moonshadow elf people do not know where all the other ones are. Obviously the Silvergrove is hidden and maybe they don’t even have access to all the other ones. So I think there’s a sort of community run vibe to things. I think you know when they decided to—to ghost Rayla, and before that Rayla’s parents, I think that was probably a ‘let’s all come to a consensus before we make a decision about something like this’. I think, Devon, if you want to talk about the kind of like sunlight vibes things, because that was a big part of your driving force behind how this episode looked and felt.

DEVON: Um… well… first, I will say that it was potentially from the top down a complicated visual decision to have episode 3 take place in a Moonshadow elf shady forest grove and also the kingdom of sunlight.

IAIN: Yup.

DEVON: It created a couple production problems in terms of like the way we wanted the Silvergrove to look was very like evening themed and cool colors and you know shaded. And I had this really sort of self indulgent thing where I really wanted it to be as close to night time as possible and yet the story line in Lux Aurea was clearly taking place in the middle of the day. So we came to this sort of compromise that you know it is technically daytime through the whole day and there is enough tree cover that it’s already pretty shadowy but also I think there is some magic at play that’s sort of like generally um shrouds the whole thing in more of like a night time vibe. And my inspiration for that was I’m a big World of Warcraft player, or was I don’t super play a ton anymore but I really loved Ashenvale and some of the night elf regions and they had that similar thing that no matter what time of day it was it always felt like at least dusk or like this sort of like ever—ever shaded feeling. And I indulgently kind of wanted that to be where Rayla came from. So that’s what that’s about.

IAIN: Yeah and I think they’re magical beings. They don’t need vitamin D from the sunlight or anything like that. They’re totally fine if they just get moonlight every so often.

DEVON: But yeah, don’t write a script that has, you know, moon themed place and sun themed place at the same time. It was a… questionable choice (laughs). But I think it turned out—

KUNO: Yeah, ‘cause I was wondering—I was wondering—I was like “Okay” because a lot of the stuff you run through—you run the okay, if I were to write a fanfiction how do I use this. So it’s like, do they just never like—if they like—if Callum were to say live in the Silvergrove would he just have to get used to the fact that like it’s just never totally bright daylight or unless you leave the Silvergrove in the forest, uh, and like—that type of—is that what’s kind of like going on, they just like their shade?

DEVON: I think they like their shade. It’s like Scotland in the winter.

IAIN: Oh yeah, except we all get miserable by around about February when we haven’t seen sunlight in several months. But um yeah, I think it’s kind of like yeah, a combination of ‘oooh, magic’ and also just extremely, like, thick tree cover in the deepest parts of the forest. But I don’t think you have to travel too far. But uh, I think there’s a reason why everyone in that town was a Moonshadow elf and there were no Sunfire elves or random humans just like, chilling and living there. I think only the most goth of kids would be able to live in the Silvergrove without going a little bit mad.

DEVON: I mean you only have to go as far as the adoraburr field which clearly still gets a significant amount of daylight.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: And you said there’s not really like a leader. They do as a community, but is there anyone that like makes decisions, like is there anybody that like if they were to go to somebody, like if they have like village leadership decisions. And obviously, um, blanket statement that all this we assume is kind a little bit of headcanon so it doesn’t have to be like for gospel, but you know for purposes of writing stuff.

DEVON: Um the way I thought about it—well, to back up a tiny bit, there was actually a version of the story where there might have—this was super, super early on, we were thinking about how the story might play out and we talked about there being potentially another Moonshadow elf leader type character that they would meet who, you know, was the one who ultimately called for the Ghosting decision. But that didn’t really fit the sort of, like, very personal nature of the story we wanted to play out with Rayla specifically. Um but thinking about that and the way that we were, you know, trying to shape it—I would imagine that like the assassins are sort of like a specific group that live in the Silvergrove which is otherwise—it’s not all assassins, like, not everybody there is an assassin. And I think that means that like you know Runaan was the leader of the assassins so he might consult with the leader of the blacksmiths who may be someone over Ethari but maybe it’s him now who might consult with the other general leaders—I don’t know. Like I think it’s more of a counsel of different groups than one single authority. It just seems like that would be a better fit for Moonshadow elves than the sort of like very, very strong-army, structured, high-and-mighty feeling that the Sunfire elves have, so, does that make sense?

KUNO: That totally makes sense, a little bit like an oligarchy, I think I had the idea that like they sound like they like a counsel. Like it sounds like a elven conciliatory.

DEVON: Yeah I think like someone might say, like obviously something horrible has happened and Rayla is exactly the person we thought she was. I’m calling for a—a ghost vote. And then you know—

IAIN: With a cooler name than that.

DEVON: No I think it’s canonically, I’m sorry—

IAIN: Ghost vote?

DEVON: The canon is “ghost vote” now.

IAIN: Okay.

DEVON: But yeah, they would all sort of like weight in kind of like a town hall scenario about of like why this is obviously the correct call and they would all sort of like have to come to some sort of agreement about what to do versus the Sunfire queen just being like “mph, time for the light, light decides!”

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: Okay um the next question being almost a little on that, does Ethari regret, um, what does he—does Ethari regret doing the banishing spell now that he knows the truth about Rayla?

DEVON: Oh absolutely 100%. But I don’t think he would have the power to—to reverse it. Like I think he could do a quick charm to help reverse it in the moment just to speak with her but ultimately it would take a lot for him to undo it and I’m not—we haven’t talked about what he’ll get up to in the meantime, but I don’t know he would be able to pursue it so directly—I’d have to talk about it, I think it would be an interesting side thought to think about how he might pursue redeeming her in the eyes of her people knowing what he knows, but—

IAIN: Yeah I think given that we said it would take everyone to do it collectively and make an agreed decision it would similarly everyone would have to understand the truth and go back on it and ‘oh I saw her one time and she said she didn’t do anything wrong probably isn’t enough to overturn that. But yeah I think he probably felt some regret even at the moment, but you know he’s in some of the worst grief of his entire life and he’s not going to make perfect rational decisions. And I’ve seen you know some people were slightly upset that he got so angry with Rayla in the moment of seeing her but I think like when you first see the person that you’ve tried to convince yourself sort of took the most important person in your life away from you, you’re gonna feel a big mess of feelings and it will bring up some grief that maybe you thought you were just—just starting to get over, so ah. Yeah I think hopefully he can turn that around in the years to come but they’ve all had a rough time. They’re at war. It sucks (DEVON laughs). Don’t go to war, kids.

KUNO: Hailey did you want to ask the next one or did you want me to?

HAILEY: Sure I can ask it. Could you—so I mean—you mentioned a stuff—a couple things about their government system and whatnot, but is there anything else you could tell us about Moonshadow culture, like what their day to day is like, and what it means to be a Moonshadow elf?

DEVON: Um I do think that a lot of the fandom I’ve been pleased to see has picked up on this sort of idea of a fairly rigid culture and you know there’s a lot of importance placed on things like honor, loyalty, and the ability to commit to things. And um I think that could come off as pretty strict but I actually think it comes from the place of valuing a close knit community. And I think, like, to the idea that we said like they probably have some kind of counsel instead of some single authority kind of ruler. It’s—I think their day to day would be very much going about their business in ways that support each other you know? Like does that make sense? It’s—you go to the blacksmith and he does work for you and it’s friendly and conversational but it’s productive—it’s all very for the good of the community.

IAIN: Yeah I think early on in season 1 even Rayla says that you know they’re not really meant to show their feelings. So I think everyone kind of commits to doing their task for the good of the village and doesn’t gripe about their day to day until something bad happens as the entire series to this point has been driven by. But um yeah I think they uh—they’re just committed to having a good, small, close knit village life and all supporting each other the best they can. And then occasionally the dragon queen tells you to go kill someone and that’s your job so you better go do that without complaining about it.

DEVON: I think we use the words “reclusive yet intimate” in the article we put up about the two moon creatures, the moonstrider and the shadowpaw. And I liked that a lot because I think they’re reclusive in the sense that they’re a little bit shut off from the wider world and they’re um isolationist in their preservation of their own culture but they are very close to each other and that is something that they hold at such an—like a preciousness level but it’s also a bit extreme, like if you betray that in any capacity like obviously they take that very seriously. And so it’s a double edged sword if you will, to have a community that supportive and that close but also your ability to perform all of yourself for the good of that community can be your undoing so—

KUNO: No I actually kinda get that um ‘cause I’m Pacific Islander so I think we’d call that what you’d call a collectivist society where it’s like the needs of the group supercede needs of the individual so I kinda like I—it’s not the extreme I think that they are because they’re very like reclusive but um I kinda live like that in a little bit of way. It’s what I grew up with. So I actually totally get that which might be why I like that so much (multiple people laugh). Um so the next question would be how does the banishing spell work that, um, that was used on Rayla politically and magically? I think we’ve talked a little bit about politically already but magically is—I’m assuming it’s a collective decision or does each person, like, opt in? Like could Ethari have opted out of doing it or did we—did they all have to agree?

DEVON: I think everybody have to agree?

KUNO: And how is it broken?

DEVON: I don’t think you can opt out?

IAIN: Um I think ‘how is it broken’ is something we definitely want to save for—for the future uh we really hope that Rayla manages to undo that. In terms of I think that it’s just culturally ingrained that you wouldn’t opt out. Um I think they would probably just argue forever until they manage to come to an agreement. So I—yeah I don’t think there’s you know half the elves in that village who are seeing Rayla and were like “Oh hey Rayla how’s it going?” I think uh they all came to the collective decision. That’s kind of the political angle. Um sorry, what was the other part? Magically how it works?

KUNO: Yeah? How would you do it?

IAIN: I—again, you know if it’s not in the show it’s not canon, but I sort of inspired by how the entrance spell works where they do a dance and there’s a ritual and I imagine it’s kind of similar. Like I think there’s a lot of that kind of like ritualistic style of magic and it’s kind of like what you see when they put the flowers out onto the water as well. There’s you know a collective dance probably involving a lot more people, a lot more cool intricate runes that happen only with a much more somber mood than the fun, happy times of Callum and Rayla dancing around in the forest. Um so yeah it’s probably—I would imagine it’s probably tied to some whatever the saddest phase of the moon is and that’s when they all get together and really somberly and really sadly uh commit to never seeing this person again. At least that’s the part of the plan. An interesting question that I think could be something that fanfiction writers such as yourself could get into is has any one of these ever been broken before or have they all been pretty sure that they would never need to go back on it? Is that going to be something that Rayla is going to figure out for the first time ever or is there a precedent for this happening. And we don’t have an answer right now but I think that would be a cool story to think about and write.

DEVON: Oh man I love the saddest phase of the moon idea. Imagine if they do it at the new moon because it’s like the moon’s face is hidden forever. Whoo.

IAIN: Whoo.

DEVON: Sad.

KUNO: Maybe we’re birthing things while we’re doing this interview. I actually think it would be like Callum does the Historia Viventum thing and it would be so—cause now I’m just imagining this whole village doing this sad dance which is the Banish Rayla dance essentially. And like that would be so sad for Rayla to witness that just for the drama of seeing her entire village decide to just not see her ever again. And that’s like wow, I’m so sad now.

DEVON: I love sadness.

IAIN: Yeah Callum just crushing a series of Moon Opals to show such a clip show of all of Rayla’s saddest history moments (laughs).

DEVON: Oh god.

IAIN: That’d be great.

DEVON: Thanks Callum.

KUNO: Thanks Callum. Um, she’d love him anyway. But um okay so some of my favorite stuff, what was it like for Rayla when her parents had to leave her to live with Runaan and Ethari and what was that transition like for them all? How old was like Rayla too?

DEVON: This was one that we’ve had a couple different ideas about so this is another one that’s like heavy not quite canon bubble. Like if we actually end up doing a story that involves some of these details it’s likely to change and be slightly different but the versions that I’ve liked have involved her being pretty young. And because honor is such a you know key part of Moonshadow culture I think like overall it was something that she felt you know sad about because she knew that she wasn’t going to be directly seeing her parents very often anymore. And—but it was uh such a huge honor that she felt you know pride in what her parents were being selected to go do. You know, act as Dragonguard and serve as these sort of like honorific, um, warriors that left the collective of the Silvergrove to go represent Moonshadow elves in the service of the Dragon Queen. And I think she had—she grew up being told what an honor that was and how much pride she should have in her parents because that is such a special thing. And then I think like it speaks a lot to how proud she was when she believed that they ran away and abandoned that duty because you know, how could they? If that was their reason for leaving her when she was a child and then they ran away from that job, like, how important could it have really been? And then you know, I’m sure that makes her feel very, very small. It made her feel so hurt that she told Callum at first that they were dead so she took it pretty hard.

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: But I think the other thing about it that we’ve sort of kicked around is that like, Runaan and Ethari were Rayla’s parents’ close friends and I think she was familiar with them enough that she didn’t feel like she was being you know left with two strangers. It’s sort of just like, you’re going to be under the care of people who are already very, very close to you and care about you quite a bit.

IAIN: Yeah I think with like Moonshadow elves in general the thing I think about a lot is like the good and evil that comes from suppressing your true emotions to show a different face to the world and I think we see a lot of that in Rayla. Like I think she probably committed pretty hard to Ghosting her parents because she had this like big mess of like sadness that she’d left but at least the soft landing of Runaan and Ethari to live with and so on. But believing like this sadness is worth it because they’re doing something so noble and then the betrayal of that—it just came out in kind of a messy like toxic way, right, where now she’s committed to becoming an assassin at a really young age in a way Ethari doesn’t agree with and so on. But I mean on the other side I think having a strong handle on your emotions is often one of Rayla’s strengths right? Like we saw in episode 5 of this season after she’s going through a whole lot of stuff, both her family situation and this new development with Callum, she’s just able to like operate as a cool badass extremely cool assassin without letting any of that affect her. But you know I think there’s balance in how you handle your feelings and how you externalize them in a good way that people can learn from, but sometimes you gotta—you gotta work (laughs).

KUNO: That makes sense. Oh well yeah I always had this personal headcanon which I kind of like incorporated into my fanfictions where she felt abandoned by her parents so in a way it’s kinda like slightly—kinda like that except it was all those feelings that have been repressed from years and years basically came out when she felt like—like the abandonment came to like the head when she felt like they had left because they had ran away—they kind of like ran away like from her.

DEVON: Oh yeah, absolutely.

KUNO: In a way—their duty to—

DEVON: I think that validates the suppressed feeling, you know.

KUNO: Yeah, since their duty to the Dragonguard was in it’s own way more important and that’s something that was like okay because it was an honor but since they ran away it’s like obviously it was more important in a terrible way, if that makes any sense?

IAIN: Yeah I mean I think it’s like she did her best and she’s trying to be a grown up but it’s hard at a young age to accept that you know there are meant to be higher callings than a bond between parents and children, right? Like that’s hard for her to grasp and she probably didn’t express that openly ever really. But I think it really did help that she had two genuine loving father figures ready to accept her with open arms even if one of them did train her to become the best assassin of her generation, which again I wouldn’t advise to—to most parents out there.

DEVON: I do think like even that was considered, you know, honorable. It was you know, you’re going to—not only are you going to get to live with Runaan and Ethari, like Runaan is the leader of the assassins, or at least maybe at that point in time he wasn’t the leader but he was very up and coming. I don’t know, it could be either or, but that I think was probably something that she fully embraced and fully wanted, like you know, ‘this is my purpose in life, this is my calling, my parents have gone off to do their calling and it’s a great honor for them, and this is my path and what I’m going to do with myself’. And that didn’t end up being true but it was probably a comfort to her at the time.

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That makes a lot of sense. Moving on, okay, this, we’re getting real indulgent now—do you know what Ethari and Runaan’s wedding was like and what are Moonshadow elf weddings are like in general?

DEVON: Um, I have a, so a lot of the dancing stuff is because I have an enormous soft spot for tropes involving cute dances, like, just a huge, huge soft spot. And the thing that comes to mind is, if you’ve seen the movie Prince of Egypt, which is such a weird reference—

KUNO: Yeah, I love that.

DEVON: —the scene where he and the girl, I forget her name, they do the thing—

KUNO: Tzipporah.

DEVON: —with the ribbon and they do the cute little dance with the ribbon. For some reason that’s what I think of when I imagine what a moment in their wedding would look like would be a dance with a ribbon that they sort of use to—you know, Moonshadow elves love ribbons, I guess, but this is a good ribbon! It’s a love ribbon. But anyway, that’s just my idea. I love that specific—that song that, “Through Heaven’s Eyes”, it’s during that sequence but that—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: —would be my go-to inspiration for like, it’s like that and then you know, everybody dances with them because Moonshadow elves like to dance.

IAIN: Yeah, I kind of like the idea of the—there’s a lot of these symbols that are sometimes extremely sinister. I mean I think Ethari even kinda calls this out when he shoots the—the Shadowhawk arrow to inform the queen that her son is in fact alive. But like, Moonshadow elves believe that death and life are not good and evil, they’re mirrors of each other and an important part of the cycle. And you know, the moon has cycles and that’s an important part. So I think thinking about all the rituals and stuff that they have, which initially you’re introduced to as ‘let’s go murder someone party’, like if that was—there was a kind of inverse to that that was a big part of their wedding ceremony I think that would make a lot of sense to Moonshadow elves because this is two people binding their lives together forever. Binding for a shared purpose in a good way and not the grim ‘let’s go kill Prince Ezran’ kind of way.

KUNO: Yeah. Cause naturally this is involving like several ships so I’m like, I had to ask that. And on the piggyback of that, as detailed as possible, can you describe courtship customs for Moonshadow elves?

DEVON: Oh man.

KUNO: I mean like dating—dating customs, like a headcanon even if it’s just headcanons.

IAIN: Devon is deep in thought (laughs).

DEVON: I’ve never—like for some reason the—the headcanons that I’ve thought about are more specific to like, Runaan and Ethari than I’ve really sort of like branched out into thinking about how Moonshadow elves do this in general. So I imagine there’s intended—there’s some formality to it, I would imagine, in that like, because they’re so, you know, purposeful and thoughtful with how they express their feelings if at all, I think it would be, you know, exchange of gifts like small favors and making your purpose known in a way that starts small but has purpose. So I think like, there’s versions where Ethari would put extra detail into the work he was doing for Runaan which you know, could be perceived as a sign of affection or Runaan was coming to Ethari asking him to work on his weapons or metalcraft stuff a little bit more than was necessary and—stuff like that, where it’s a bit stiff and difficult but I think like once—once there is clear reciprocation I think there can be more of an open discussion about it, does that make sense? But I think Runaan probably struggled with this a whole lot, like, ‘cause he’s—did I, it might have been you who I responded to on Twitter but someone asked me something along these lines and I think Runaan had a really hard time even with this first sort of like simple offerings of affection because that’s just him. Like he sort of takes that aspect to an extreme. Like he has a hard time being like “here is the way I wish to express myself in a soft way and not with a—a sharp object. So I think Ethari had an easier time because he’s just more naturally soft (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah I sometimes think that Runaan is the most Moonshadow elf of all Moonshadow elves, but like, you know, it’s—

KUNO: I was gonna say that.

IAIN: Yeah, um, you know when they have such a hard time showing their feelings and they sometimes feel like they’re not supposed to and so on, and so Runaan is trying to pick up on the tiniest possible hints through professional exchanges and so on. And I think when it’s actually time to confess that there’s a feeling there you would, I think especially Runaan would have to be 100% sure and then do it entirely in private, the most private situation possible where there could be no possible spies who could see this if it was going to go wrong because that would just be the end of his entire life, obviously.

DEVON: Yeah he would bind himself to his own death (laughs).

IAIN: Yeah, that’s it. Gonna assassinate myself because I confessed love and it didn’t get reciprocated. That’s that.

DEVON: It’s over.

IAIN: So yeah, lot of—lots of awkward advances where they’re trying—trying to have the escape hatch of “Oh I didn’t really try to suggest that I liked you, this was just me asking you for a professional favor by let’s never speak again”.

DEVON: And then he comes back the next day (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: Oh my goodness. Uh I felt—I—I kinda like headcanoning now that Ethari tells Rayla all this “how I met, you know, your surrogate dad” kind of stuff. Like, and that’s how she—she’s like, this is how you do love apparently.

DEVON: I do think that like, yeah, he had a much easier time and probably picked up on stuff. And to me there’s a side of Ethari that you don’t really get to see in the episode because he’s very sad. I think he’s a—he does have a playful side and I like to imagine that while Runaan was doing his, like, really just not-the-best attempts to display affection early on, like Ethari would pick up on them but not necessarily give the full signal back. And he played a little bit oblivious but he absolutely was—he’s just more emotionally in tune. So I think, “Oh hey, you’re back again, wow. I thought I did fantastic work on your blades last time. I cannot believe they’re already dull!” Like and he just sort of like, he knows—he knows there’s something there.

IAIN: I think like this kind of gets echoed in Rayla, like where Callum in an effort to pick her up and be honest about how he feels that she’s just an incredible person. Like to her that’s like, ‘person being entirely open with their feelings in a positive way? That’s a love connection!’ And then it goes wrong for one entire episode and then it turns out that Callum was also not fully aware of how he was feeling and so on. But I think like, yeah, I think that’s why she was like immediately “Wow, this is clearly meant to be romantic and this is—this is going exactly the way I want!” and then it didn’t. But then it did! So we’re all happy.

DEVON: Aww.

KUNO: I am! I’m certainly happy. Um—uh let’s see—the next one is—okay. What was Rayla like as a child growing up in a household she did—household? Um, she mentioned going to school and we’d love to know how baby Rayla fared as a student and just a child growing up in the Silvergrove and what that experience is like for a Moonshadow elf child?

DEVON: You want—you want me to do this one?

IAIN: Go for it.

DEVON: Yeah, um, I think Rayla was feisty (laughs) in a word. I think she—for some reason there’s a scene in the beginning of Korra where she’s already mastered like, three elements and she like comes out punching. I kind of think about that when I think about baby Rayla. She knows she’s—there’s that end credit scene where she’s got the two sticks and she’s posing with them and Runaan’s sort of lifting one of them up and I’m thinking like, okay so sheg’s like, from a tiny, tiny age thinking like, “I’m gonna be the coolest assassin the Moonshadow elves have ever seen!” and she’s like rambunctious about that almost, because you know, as a child you don’t really understand what the ramifications of that are but it’s considered like a highly, highly valued, honored position and so she’s obviously like, “Yeah I’m gonna do that and I’m going to be the best at it and there will never be any complications whatsoever!” In terms of Moonshadow elf childhood, I think with the way that I would think about it is—we talked about the sort of community aspect. I imagine Moonshadow elves have pretty, like, what’s the word, like, a lot of general education, sort of, like, “this is what weaponsmithing is like and this is gardening and raising crops and things to provide for the community” and so I think they would have a lot of ‘school’ that covers a lot of just like, life basics because you are expect to find a place that contributes to the collective whole. Does that like—?

IAIN: Yeah, I think like it’s also lucky for Rayla that a big part of Moonshadow elf culture is what we would call PE. Like I think she excelled at striving to be an assassin warrior and so on. Especially like, she’s trying to live up to her parents who at first were honored Dragonguard and you know, Runaan as well. I think in terms of like, more academic stuff like if there was Moonshadow elf history lessons and “let’s go out and understand the, you know, ecology of the Moonshadow forest” and stuff I think she was probably a bit kinda like, rambunctious and not super paying attention and running off and not really giving it her all and so on. Um, you kind of get that impression from early on where she knows what Primal sources are and she’ll explain that to Callum but like, when she’s talking about ‘how do you do that Moonshadow form thing’ she’s like “I don’t know, it just feels right”. Like I think that’s—she did everything very intuitively and focused on the things she cared about and understood and kinda did what she—did what she could on the other subjects, I guess, but didn’t care as much.

DEVON: Yeah I feel like if you imagine the kid that is going to grow up to be an artist is doing doodles on their math homework and just sort of like doing the math homework but—but you know, clearly the effort is being placed elsewhere. I think it’s that but she was excelling at PE and assassin training and therefore fell very, very easily into her supposed path.

KUNO: The—this isn’t on the thing, but did—did she ever—did she ever really have any friends? ‘Cause she doesn’t really mention—ever mention friends. I—maybe that has to do with the whole assassin thing where if she wasn’t learning being at school she would probably doing assassin stuff with Runaan or assassin training stuff—I guess not really assassinating. But um did she have really friends growing up?

IAIN: I think if she had friends they were not super close. And I think she valued her alone time. There’s a sweet moment early in—well end of season 1 where she like tries to cheer up Ezran by saying that fitting in is overated and I think she felt that a little bit. Um and you know I think there’s some amount of when you’re being trained in the art of an assassin like you’re probably somewhat taught to—to keep people at arm’s length a little bit, right? And I think she—she took that to heart. So I think that’s a big part of why when she was first traveling with Callum and Ezran there wasn’t that much trust between then and it was kinda like, it was Ezran honestly that bridged the gap being most empathetic number 1 child. And yeah, I think having a close friend is relatively new to her.

KUNO: Makes sense. Like just few, not the many. Um okay then next question before we get to Hailey’s batch of them are um, what are Runaan’s feelings toward Rayla as of right now and everything that’s happened since season 1? I understand he’s in a coin, he’s in a finacial crisis, he’s probably not thinking about it too hard—

DEVON: Oh my god (laughs).

KUNO: But you know, like he’s gotta be—you know he’s not doing anything right now, I’m assuming, so like what would be his feelings about her at the moment?

DEVON: I mean he’s got a lot of time to think, wherever he is. I think like—I got into this a little bit on Twitter in a self-indulgent rant at one point where I think he went through a lot very quietly during the first few episodes of the show where he very, very much wanted Rayla to succeed, even if he wasn’t necessarily like being the dad on the sideline of the soccer game, like, cheering for her. But he thought this was her moment, this was her time to prove that she really was more dedicated to you know, her cause and her people than her parents were because they had, you know, been the subject of such shame. And then ah, everything goes the way it does, I think he has a brief crisis of, “Is this my fault? Did I fail to train her well enough? Like, was Ethari right?” Because he always thought she had, you know, a softer heart. And I think like those are the types of things that he’s still stewing on, um like did—”did he overstep? Was it something—was he so eager to give her the opportunity to prove herself that he, you know, ultimately put her in a position where she could not succeed?” I think like, the other thing that I mentioned on Twitter was I think he took her off the mission both because he very, very much wanted to give himself and the others a chance to complete the mission even if it meant their deaths. But it also meant that Rayla had the chance to survive even if it was potentially going to be misinterpreted and she’d get slapped with the Ghosting, I think he believed that her alive was better than everybody being dead. So I think like, he’s got a lot—a lot to work through and I think like—I think he feels guilty. I think there’s the smallest part of him that he has the—again, a lot of time to potentially stew on and reflect on is he does feel like he put her in a position that was, you know, not fully taking into account the type of person she was and more projecting onto her the type of person he wanted her to be and gift he wanted to give her of redeeming herself in the eyes of her people for her parents. And I think he’s gonna have to work through that. Poor dude.

KUNO: That’s so sadly heartfelt. That’s so sadly heartfelt. Here I am thinking that he’d be, like, maybe a little angry with her, ‘cause obvious reason, but now it’s like, oh he feels guilty. Like, “Oh, okay, let’s just slap the angst on, okay”.

DEVON: I mean, I think like—

KUNO: Yeah, mm-hm.

DEVON: Sure he’d have some anger, like, “Awgh, I gave her everything. I gave her the exact opportunity she needed”. But I think like the guilt and the reflection leads to the “Maybe I—maybe it was me who stepped too far here”.

IAIN: Yeah, I mean another part of it is like, we don’t know what it’s like being trapped in the hell coin dimension, right?

DEVON: Oh I do. I—I mean—

IAIN: Oh you do?

DEVON: It sucks.

IAIN: Oh it sucks?

DEVON: When it happens to me on the reg (IAIN laughs).

IAIN: But you know, does it feel like an eternity is passing? Does it feel like no time has passed? Is he in eternal pain? Because if it’s like real bad—

KUNO: Oh my god.

IAIN: —in there I can imagine that like yeah there’s definitely some of those kind of anger feelings that you don’t want to feel in but you do sometimes, right? Like it’s like, if he has a snap moment of “I wouldn’t be in here if she hadn’t gone off and disobeyed our orders and, like, lied to me and so on”. So if he ever comes out uh don’t know what side of the emotional coin he’s gonna land on.

DEVON: Ohhh, please leave.

KUNO: Oh my god.

DEVON: Get out, oof, ouch.

IAIN: Finger guns.

DEVON: I do think like that sort of complex—

KUNO: It sounds—

DEVON: —emotion is just, I don’t want to give any time to that pun, we’re moving on. Like that sort of complexity of emotion and relationships is something that I really like in the show overall. Like you said earlier, you saw some people that were a little bit upset that Ethari was so willing to lash out at Rayla at first and I think like to me that was always part of the big, big thematic of the show, which is this sort of endless cycle of people being willing to hurt each other and not forgive each other and not, you know, accept that you can choose peace. It’s, you know, it’s—Runaan having that impulse to anger is a very natural thing and it doesn’t—I don’t think it necessarily makes him a bad person for feeling that. And I don’t necessarily think that Ethari having his moments of grief lead him to actions that are ultimately like, regretful, like I don’t think he would want that to define him in the long run. Like those are very human things but those are the things as we acknowledge them and as are—so long as we are capable of recognizing how flawed we are and how violent and…

KUNO: Messy.

DEVON: Messy! Thank you, that’s like, I was going to say like churning, messy is good. Like messy emotions can be and how they can like, dictate the way we treat each other, um, but forgiveness and patience and acceptance are ultimately just so much more powerful than those negative perpetuating lashing outs. That was an inelegant way of ending that screed, but yes.

KUNO: I actually really love that um ‘cause I from the beginning I’ve loved their father-daughter relationship so I love how complicated it is, ‘cause the truth is you know every parent-child relationship is a little complicated, except theirs is a little more complicated with assassination going on in the works, the family trade. So I love that it is this complicated ‘cause I know I remember in the beginning where people were like you know—you know she does have a dad. And it’s like I know she has a biological dad but until I am told otherwise that’s her father. I don’t care and I love their relationship so I love that that really reflects that. Another—the next question out of me before we get to, um, Hailey’s, which are all about different elves, is um, course I have to ask, my policy is one Rayllum question per interview. Um what are Runaan’s feelings—whah, no, whoop, how would Ruthari and Runaan react to Rayla’s relationship with Callum considering he’s not only a human but a human prince? ‘Cause as far as we know Runaan really hates, um, humans and I’d love to see that story later, both individually and as a couple. Because as far as I know, Ethari probably doesn’t know that their in a relationship unless he sensed it?

DEVON: Oh man, I—I think you should take this one, but I do want to say that I saw one comment on Tumblr at one point where someone said that they wished that Ethari had said something to Callum along the lines of like, “Take care of her”. And I want to travel back in time and pretend that was in the script ‘cause I think that would have been really, really nice. And I do think like, he picked up on the fact that Callum was important to her even if it—he didn’t necessarily read it as romantic right off the bat. I think he mostly was like, “Oh this guy is kind of like a cute—he’s a human but he’s, you know, a friend to someone I care about and that in and of itself is valuable and there’s something there”. So I think—pretend that was in the script. I wish I had thought about something like that but—

KUNO: I will (DEVON laughs).

IAIN: Yeah.

KUNO: That’s canon as far—as far as I’m concerned that’s canon.

IAIN: I think uh it would be best for everyone involved if they found out together, uh, because I think Runaan’s impulse would not be good immediately. I think like, when you spend so much time as an assassin and you drill into your head that the people that you’re meant to kill are not people, they’re the enemy right? Like I think that’s—sometimes that’s a thing he turns on to do the job and so on, but I do think that’s gonna bleed into his personality and it’s—you know, especially given his extremely recent history he’s not got the best feelings about humans. So I think it would inspire an immediate negative reaction in him that would not be pleasant for Callum and Rayla, but I think Ethari just has a much softer heart and that is where Rayla kind of got that side from. So I mean I’m not going to say that he would immediately—you know, they’ve been at war for hundreds and hundreds of years with humans and they’ve been told all through their history that humans committed the original sin of dark magic, et cetera et cetera, but like, I think it would take not that much time of seeing Rayla and Callum together for Ethari to see that there’s something there and then I think Ethari would have the ability to ah, to talk Runaan down pretty quick. But I also think that like, Runaan might not even show any of this, there might just be a kind of seething resentment that he’s not really talking about inside. Um unless it was like on the battlefield or something and he was like, “That’s a prince that I’m meant to kill” or something like that. But overall I think Ethari would sense that Runaan was not like—was not taking this well and they would be able to talk it through. At least that’s my gut.

DEVON: No, that sounds right (DEVON and IAIN laugh).

KUNO: I feel like poor Callum is just always on the edge of “Am I going to die tonight?” while he’s there, “Is this gonna be it?” Just gonna be like, “Oops sorry I had an accident—hey I had an accident in the middle of the night, you know, just a knife to the throat, that’s all”.

IAIN: I mean, he’s doing pretty well, like he said as they were about to meet Ethari and Rayla was like, “Remember Runaan?” He was like “Oh yeah, that guy who tried to kill me as soon as he met me? Cool guy”. Callum’s doing pretty well on the acceptance front these days.

DEVON: I do—

KUNO: Yeah.

DEVON: I do want to say that I think Ethari and Callum would get along really well because I think they both have sort of like a soft hearted friendliness to them that they would have a fun rapport. And that’s the sort of like “Trees to meet you” line is definitely supposed to be like—they’d you know, crack some goofy back and forths and I think that would soften Runaan too because he couldn’t ever hate someone that Ethari liked.

IAIN: Yeah, I think it’s a weird—

KUNO: Aww.

IAIN: —reversal where like Callum’s the one doing the dad jokes and Ethari’s like humoring them and Runaan’s like, “I don’t understand. Trees do not meet.”

DEVON: “Please stop saying ‘trees to meet you’.”

KUNO: Aw it never gets old. I love that. Um alright, Hailey, take it away. Your turn.

[zallano]

Dream Guardians AU lore

Dream Guardians au in a nutshell: Three deities from ancient folklore destroy nightmares for a living.

Dream Guardians au in just a bit (a lot) more detail under cut:

For as long as humans have existed, they have dreamt. For as long as they have dreamt, three deities have existed. They would visit human’s dreams and learn from them. They learned that nightmares were awful dreams that tormented the humans at night. Nightmares were ideas created by the human mind but got infested with dream monsters called the ‘Skia’. The Skia would fuel the nightmares and feed off of the fear of people. They often took the shape of what scared the humans most but in their purest form they were nothing but a walking shadow. 

Very early on the three deities learned that they could help the people by fighting against the Skia and replace their nightmares with good dreams. Hundreds of thousands of years have passed protecting human’s dreams and society has progressed greatly. Humans who were very good at dreaming (often being lucid dreamers or lacking one’s mind's eye) were able to notice and remember their dreams with the deities. Those people often called themselves ‘prophets’ and claimed they had special connections to the gods they all believed in. It wasn't long before the three dream deities were added into folklore and mythologies. 

Soon, they were seen as three animals and were given the title “Dream Guardians”. A dove bird, a cod fish, and a boar. The dream guardian’s animal forms were often miss communicated in the mythologies they were in and sometimes were seen as different animals (different birds, sea creatures, and pig-like animals). The three were given ancient names that were extremely difficult to pronounce. However those names were often translated to be called The Protector, The Defender, and The Champion (in english) and were called those separately but together they were always The Guardians. 

Whatever the humans believed, became true. If they believed the guardians to be animals in dreams, they would take those forms. People who were very talented with their ability to dream were able to see those animals in their dreams as a symbol of protection and safety. Some people would keep dove feathers, fish bones, and boar hide in their houses as a protection.

As hundreds of years went by and new beliefs began to exist and show up in human history. The Guardians began to fade away from belief and turned more into a story or myth. They were no longer believed to be deities but instead were a story to tell kids when they were scared at night. A story of three dream guardians who would scare away the nightmares. However, no one really believed in their existence. They were just like Santa or the tooth fairy in some ways. However, the myths and legends of them reassured kids at night and they were able to go to sleep without fear. So really no harm done. 

Although, one thing that happened when the humans stopped believing in their existence as deities were that they were able to have more control of how they looked. For a few hundred thousand years they were stuck as animals as humans believed them to be. The three Guardian’s existence were heavily influenced by human history and they used that and began to change their form and make it humanoid. The Protector kept the wings he was given as a bird. The Defender and The Champion chose to drop all their animal traits and look as human as possible. Minus The Champion adopting the concept of red eyes. 

Now that the main lore is covered, let's jump to the actual au :) 

There was an ordinary child. His name was Tommy and he was like any other kid. When Tommy was a small kid he had a nightmare. The Champion was there to save him and defeat the Skia Monsters in his nightmare. Tommy recognized The Champion to be one of the dream guardians his parents told him about. The Champion was surprised to see that Tommy, at such a young age, was able to detect and see him. The guardians were so used to people not genuinely believing in them as they were usually seen as background characters in dreams. They generally go unnoticed and most of the time when they join peoples dreams. People normally forget about the dream they had in the morning if the guardians visited them. But when Tommy woke up he was telling his parents that he was visited by a dream guardian in his dreams. His parents didn't really believe him but they humored him and were proud that he was able to not be scared of his nightmare. The Champion went and told The Protector and The Defender about Tommy. The other two were equally as surprised as The Champion. No one has acknowledged their true existence in a very long time. The three would often visit the kid's dreams to check up on him and see if he was alright. They never intervened unless he was having a nightmare. Tommy would sometimes notice them but as he got older he struggled with remembering his dreams with them like everyone else. 

He grew up and nearly forgot about them entirely but the guardians still continued to visit him occasionally. However, as a teenager, Tommy was interested in lucid dreaming and he worked on getting good at it. One dream Tommy recognized The Champion and suddenly remembered the nights he would see The Champion and the other two in his dreams as a child. He noticed that they had nearly been in every one of his dreams in the background. They weren’t imaginary or his dreams being unpredictable. He was lucid dreaming, he had full control over his dream and he did not put the guardians there. To Tommy, that only meant one thing. They had to be real and the myths must've not been myths. He approached the three and told them that he knew they were the guardians and they admitted. 

Soon after that interaction, Tommy befriended the three guardians. The guardians would visit Tommy each night. Tommy would tell them stories about the real world and school and his other friends. He would talk about anything but the guardians were happy to listen. In return for Tommy telling them about his days, the guardians told him about their adventures of defeating Skia and creating dreams. 

One night Tommy asked the three guardians what their names were. The three told him but Tommy struggled with understanding their proper names. Their names were very distorted and jumbled through different languages and mythologies calling them different but similar things. However if one were to take those names and squint and look at them from very far away then maybe one could get the beginning of their names to look/sound vaguely like Philza, Wilbur, and Technoblade. And Tommy did exactly that. He took their names and gave them better nicknames that weren't The Protector, The Defender and The Champion. And because Tommy full heartedly believe in the guardians, those named became their real names. The guardians were very happy to take up new names. 

Though the three enjoyed talking to Tommy each night, they still had their job to do and Tommy would have to wake up and go to school and live in the real world. There was this other person though, who was like Tommy and interested in lucid dreaming. However for different reasons. Her name is Kristin. Kristin was very interested in mythology as she was a teacher and taught history. She was well aware of the dream guardians and she was interested in finding out if they were truly real. She read in her books about the old prophets and how they claimed to meet the guardians. They stated that the guardians only be seen if the person is willing to look past what's directly in front of them in their dreams. People had to have full control of their dreams and had to break out of the unpridicibility of their dreams. 

Kristin focused on this information and began to learn to lucid dream. Phil was first to meet her in a normal dream. She was able to see the strange winged person in her dream quite quickly and was able to connect the idea of The Protector’s bird form to the wings. From there she pointed him out and approached him and the two talked and got to know each other more. Phil returns to Wilbur and Techno and tells them about her. He found himself visiting her more and more often when he is free from getting rid of nightmares. 

And there’s the main concept of the au! Now let's get into random and pointless facts. Trivia, if you will:

The guardians use dream catchers to fight the Skia with. 

- Techno’s dream catcher is in the form of a sword. The handle has the classic dream catcher design and a feather at the end. He uses his sword to slice through the dream Skia.

- Phil’s dream catcher is in the form of his hat. The dream catcher design is at the top of his hat. He puts his hat on top of monsters to defeat them. Sometimes, if he ever wishes, he can turn his dream catcher into a bow and use that as a proper weapon but he prefers throwing his hat at Skia monsters because its funnier.

- Wilbur’s dream catcher is usually in the form of a wand. The wand can turn into a guitar. He lures the Skia monsters to him by playing music then whacks them upside the head with the wand. 

Wilbur loves human culture. Especially music.

Techno takes his dream guardian job a bit too seriously.

There are two realms that the guardians can be in. People’s dreams and also the ‘Dream Realm’. The dream realm is sort of a realm of the guardians own dreams.

The guardians can sleep and dream but they do not need to as they exist within dreams.

Phil has tiny head wings that he hides in his hat. His back wings are twice his height and are insanely large. He gives the best wing hugs!

[the-real-anywolf]

Destiel Advent Calendar 2019

Title: My Black Cat Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Tags: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Benadryl Makes an Appearance, Curses, Movie References, Cutesy pet names, multiple POVs, You're Welcome For The Earworm, Happy Friday 13th

Summary: When a cute black cat turns up at the bunker, the Winchesters realize it isn't quite as it seems. Also, despite it triggering Dean's allergies, he can't help liking the little furball. It's a shame he can't keep him.

Written by: @eyesofatragedy67​ (Eyes_of_a_Tragedy) & @punk-is-notdead​ (tfw_cas)

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775495

Day 13:  My Black Cat Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Dean was walking through the door of the bunker when a dark blur ran in front of him and down the stairs. What the hell?

"Sammy! Something's headed your way!"

Sam looked startled as the blur shot towards him, and brushed against his legs. He looked down at it and his features softened. “It’s a cat. What’s it doing in here?”

Eyes watering, Dean started heading toward the bathroom. "Hell if I know. Be right back. I'm gonna grab some Benadryl."

He rushed down the hall, nose already starting to run. Crap, he needed to nip this in the bud. Rifling through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, he swallowed two of the little pink pills dry and shoved some tissue up his nose.

When he got back to the library, Sam had the furry menace on the table and was lightly petting its head. “Where’d you come from, huh?” he asked curiously.

"Dude, don't get attached. You know we can't keep it," Dean mentioned, somewhat regretfully, as he passed through on his way to grab a bottle of water from the kitchen.

“Shame,” Sam said sadly. “He’s a friendly little thing. And look at his eyes… they’re blue!”

Dean poked his head out the kitchen door. "Blue?"

“Yeah, bright blue. I’ve never seen them on a cat before.”

Water in hand, Dean stepped into the room, took a swig out of the bottle, and wandered closer. He was about ten feet away from Sam and the cat when he started sneezing, completely dislodging the tissues. "Man, I hope this stuff kicks in quick."

“Don’t worry, I’ll put him back outside soon. I just wanna give him some water first. Maybe some bacon.”

Dean moved close enough to pass Sam his water bottle. He had to wipe the tears from his eyes to do it, though. "I didn't think cats were supposed to eat bacon. I don't want you to make him sick." He paused, "Wait, how do you know the cat's male?"

Sam scrunched up his nose, and thought for a moment. “I… don’t know. I just got this feeling, you know? I could just tell.” He shrugged for emphasis.

"You could just tell," Dean repeated with a mocking quirk of his eyebrow. "Okay, Dr. Doolittle. Well, since you're so in tune, why don't you find out if the little guy has a home? I'm sure someone's missing him."

Sam rolled his eyes and shot Dean one of his best bitchfaces. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? I don’t have a microchip scanner, and I can’t exactly ask him… her.”

The cat hissed, and Dean said, "Uh, think maybe you had it right the first time, Sammy." Whereupon, the cat meowed then plopped his butt down on one of the books on the table. "Huh…"

“It’s about curses and how to remove them.” Sam peered closely at the book and some of his hair draped onto the cat. Dean could have sworn that the cat gave a look of distaste before it got up and moved away from the dangling locks.

"What if this is like The Colonel?" Dean asked. "I'm not drinking the fur, dude. It's your turn to take one for the team."

Sam didn’t look too pleased at that suggestion. “I don’t think anyone will have to drink any potions, Dean. This isn’t Hogwarts. But I do think it’s trying to communicate with us.”

Damn, Dean was kinda looking forward to seeing Sam chase bugs. "It'd be easier if you drank the potion, just sayin'."

“Not if I don’t have to,” Sam muttered, then spoke directly to the cat. “What are you trying to tell us, little buddy?”

"Yeah, little guy, did Timmy fall down the well?" He could swear he saw the cat roll its eyes.

“Very funny,” Sam said, and he definitely did roll his eyes. “Can we be serious now, and not piss him off?”

Dean looked away from the furball and over to his brother. "What? You're the one who refuses to drink the drink so I don't have to die." And he promptly started sneezing again.

Sam sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. “You sure are set on me drinking that potion, aren’t ya? Let me just try something first, okay?”

"Fine, but if it doesn't work, you suck it up and chug, 'k?" He glanced over just in time to see the cat bat the bottle of water off the table.

“Sure,” Sam huffed. “Nothing I want more than to talk ‘cat’.”

"So, what's your idea?" Dean hollered, grabbing a dish towel from the kitchen to mop up the spilled water.

“Observe and report,” Sam replied. “Before one of us goes off half-cocked, let’s see if he can communicate in his own way.”

"I don't know about you, but I always go off fully-cocked. You know, they make pills for that now, Sam." Dean draped the towel over the back of a chair and turned to see the cat twirling around Sam's legs. "Sounds like the little guy likes your idea, though."

“Your jokes aren’t getting any funnier, Dean,” Sam said, reaching down and scooping up the cat. “What do you think, cat?”

The cat purred, then gave Dean a disapproving look - at least that’s what it looked like, anyway.

“Let’s give it twenty four hours, and if we can’t figure out what he’s trying to tell us, then I’ll drink the potion. Deal?” Sam added.

"Fine. Whatever," Dean muttered. He walked past them, but couldn't resist scratching the cat behind the ears as he passed. His eyes started watering as he left the room.

***

Later that night, Dean walked into the kitchen to find Sam there with the cat. He was sitting at the table, placing random types of food in front of the feline. Dean watched with fascination as the cat repeatedly turned his nose up at the different options.

With a sniffle, Dean turned to the fridge and started pulling out ingredients to make hamburgers. He washed his hands thoroughly before unwrapping the beef and adding some seasonings. He was shaping it into patties when he heard a plaintive yowl at his feet. Looking down, he saw a pair of electric blue eyes staring up at him.

"Hey, cat," Dean started, only to be interrupted by the animal leaping onto the counter next to him. "Hey! You can't be up here, fuzzball."

The cat did what cats do: ignored him. Instead, it stared intensely at Dean's hands and the raw meat he was working into a thick ball to be squished flat.

"Mrow," the cat trilled, head tilting to the side.

"Sorry, little guy. No hamburger for you."

The cat pawed at the package of sliced cheddar and looked back up at him with wide eyes.

"Not gonna work on me, fluffy. I've been on the receiving end of puppy eyes the likes of which you'll never know."

With a tail twitch of disgust, Dean watched as the cat hopped back off the counter and moved back to Sam. His brother scooped the cat up in his arms and sat him down in his lap.

Dean continued cooking his burgers, listening as Sam had a one-sided conversation with his new friend.

“It’s no use looking longingly at Dean’s burgers. I know they look delicious - and they are - but they’re not cat food. You’re supposed to eat fish, or chicken, or… what the hell do cats eat? Not gonna tell me, huh?”

Sam sighed, and shook his head. “You must be hungry by now. Just try some of this tuna? Mmmm… tasty,” He said, unconvincingly.

Dean put a burger on the table for Sam and said, "Dammit, Sam, don't feed him that. What if he's like one of those gremlin things from the movie and you're not supposed to feed him after midnight?"

“This is real life, not a movie.” Sam rolled his eyes (one of these days he was going to get stuck like that), as he picked up the burger and took a bite. He and the cat stared at each other for a moment, and Sam wagged his finger at the feline. “Sorry, dude, this is mine.”

The cat hissed and hopped off Sam's lap, trotting over to Dean.

"Don't look at me, Gizmo. I'm not the pushover in this household."

“Yeah, sure you’re not,” Sam laughed. “A pretty bartender just has to call you handsome, and you’re like putty in her hands.”

The cat appeared to be particularly pissed at Sam’s remark; he skulked over to the corner and sat, apparently ignoring them both.

"I had an idea. I mean, it seems like he understands us, so what if we try some kind of written communication?" Dean asked, shooting the cat a questioning look.

“A pencil and a piece of paper?” Sam asked with a grin. “Yeah, I can make dumb jokes too.”

The cat raised its head and looked over at them, but stayed where it was.

“Do you mean something like laying letters out and asking him to pick the right ones?” Sam asked.

"Sure, like Scrabble tiles, or a ouija board… hell, even just drawing letters on a sheet of paper for him to point at," he shrugged and looked over at the cat. "What do you think, Gizmo?"

“That’s actually a pretty good suggestion.” Sam looked impressed. “I don’t think drawing letters on the paper would work though, unless we cut them out. They need to be spaced out so that it’s clear which ones he picks.”

"I'm going to go see if I can find the Scrabble game, maybe the ouija board. I'm pretty sure they're in a closet in the hall."

“Okay, I’ll take him outside, in case he wants to do his business,” Sam said, picking Gizmo up and carrying him in the direction of the stairs. The cat struggled in his arms, and Dean was pretty sure Sam got a couple of scratches at least, with the way he cursed at the creature.

The first closet he tried was full of boxes of Sam's books. Nerd. Digging through the second closet, Dean found the stash of board games, revealing Scrabble and the ouija board. He grabbed them both, just in case, and returned to the war room.

Sam was descending the stairs, looking pretty pissed, as Gizmo ran in front of him. “I thought we were friends, but the little fucker sure has some vicious claws. I hope he doesn’t feel the same way about word games.”

Dean pulled the ouija board out of its box. "I thought we could try this first, since it has 'yes' and 'no' options. Figured maybe we could try asking some questions first." He looked down at the cat, "How's that sound, fuzzball?"

The cat didn’t look too interested either way; for some reason he seemed to be trying to stick his tongue in Dean’s coffee. That was just weird… cats didn’t drink coffee, did they?

“What are we gonna ask him?” Sam asked, picking up Dean’s cup and taking it to the sink. “Is there anything you like eating other than burgers?”

The cat jumped up on the table and put his paw down on 'yes'. "Huh," Dean pulled his henley up over his nose and called out to Sam, "Looks like it's working!"

“Huh,” Sam remarked. “Wish I could work out what it was. Got any other ideas for yes or no questions?”

"Uh, hmm…" Dean made some serious eye contact with the cat. Quirking a brow, he continued, "Okay, so is it safe to assume you're cursed?"

Without hesitation, the cat placed his paw on ‘yes’ again.

“Good one,” Sam said. “Er… I don’t suppose you know how we can break the curse?”

The cat insistently tapped the 'yes' and looked up at them.

"Well, okay, then," Dean replied with genuine curiosity. "How complex should these questions get, Sam?"

“Hmmm, good question. He seems to understand everything we say, so I think we can go with quite complex. What do you say we try with the Scrabble tiles now, so we don’t have to stick with yes or no?”

Dean opened the box and grabbed the purple Crown Royal bag they kept the tiles in. Emptying it onto the table, he started flipping all of them face up. "Let's give it a shot."

Sam and Dean spent the next couple of minutes spreading the tiles over the table’s surface, removing the blank ones, as they worked. Dean couldn’t help spelling out a couple of naughty words, but he quickly shuffled the tiles around again, hoping Sam hadn’t noticed.

“Okay, what are we going to ask first?” Sam asked, addressing Dean, before staring inquisitively at the cat.

"What's your name?" Dean had jokingly been calling the cat Gizmo, but if he had a real name...

The cat began walking amongst the tiles, obviously looking for a particular letter. He stopped when he found it, and tapped his paw on it as he’d done with the ouija board.

“C,” said Sam, excitedly.

They watched as the cat began searching again, then indicated another letter.

"A," Dean added, then looked over. "We know you're a cat, dude. How about we just stick with Gizmo for now." He glanced at Sam and wondered out loud, "I wonder how he got cursed?"

The cat pushed an 'I' to the center of the table, then found a 'D'...

"Dude, I think he's calling us idiots," Dean scoffed.

“No, I’m sure he isn’t doing that. Especially as we’re trying to help him.”

The cat carried on, finding an ‘I’, and a ‘T’.

“I think you might be right.” Sam frowned down at the cat and its growing collection of letters.

Dean sat in one of the chairs, sneezing into his sleeve. "Bobby? Is that you?"

The cat meowed and put his paw on his head in what looked like exasperation, then touched an 'M'.

“M,” Sam said, peering at it as if he was trying to calculate pi in his head. “Mom? No? Er… my name is…? Are you Crowley and you’re calling us morons?” He turned to Dean and sighed. “This isn’t working out so well, is it? So far we’ve got a C-A-D-I-T, and an M. What the hell is that supposed to spell?”

Dean sniffled and said, "Man, I wish Cas was here. He could just interrogate you to get the answers."

The cat yowled and walked over to him. "Dude, back off a bit. I'm allergic to you."

The cat didn't listen, though, and sat back on his haunches and reached up to tap Dean on the forehead.

“He might understand what we’re saying, but he’s kinda heedless when it comes to personal space, isn’t he?” Sam chuckled. “You’re gonna make Dean sick if you keep getting in his face, buddy.” He leaned over to move the cat away from Dean, and got a scratch on his arm for his troubles.

Dean reached out and grabbed the cat, picking him up so they were on eye level. "Hey, you. No hurting Sam. He's trying to help you, you know."

He started coughing and passed the cat off to his brother. "I've gotta get out of here. Sorry. Good luck with this."

Dean left the room, trudging to the bathroom to pop some more meds before going to his bedroom to grab a change of clothes. He needed a shower asap.

***

Sam rested his elbows on the table and huffed in frustration. He felt bad for Dean - his allergies were a real pain - but at the same time, he hadn’t exactly made the situation any better. Despite his protestations that he only went off fully-cocked, his attempt at working out the cat’s message seemed to annoy it more, and now he was left alone to try to decipher what he was trying to tell them.

“Hey, cat,” he said in what he hoped was a placating tone of voice. “What did you want to tell us? I promise I won’t interrupt you any further.”

The cat paced around amongst the tiles once more, this time finding an ‘S’. It pushed the tile towards the others, then sat itself on the table and looked up at Sam.

“C-A-D-I-T-M-S… Nope, that’s not a word. Is it an anagram?” Sam wondered out loud.

Sam didn’t think it was possible for the cat to roll its eyes, but somehow it did.

“You’re gonna have to help me out here. I’m not getting it.” Sam gave the cat his best puppy dog eyes, and hoped that would work on the feline.

The cat stood up again, and began pushing the tiles around. When it had finished, Sam looked at what it had given him, hoping it was a better clue.

“A-C-S. It still didn’t mean anything.

Wait !

“C-A-S… are you telling me you’re Cas?” Sam felt like a prize idiot… of course it was Cas. All the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place, and he beamed at his friend before scratching behind his ear.

“Dude, I’m so sorry for not realising sooner. No wonder you didn’t want me to take you outside for your business… awkward. But what happened to you? How can we undo the curse?”

Sam stopped talking and slapped his own forehead. “I’m gonna go tell Dean right now. He needs to know.”

He took off towards the bedrooms, with Cas hot on his heels. However, bursting into Dean’s room with the news, Sam saw that his brother was fast asleep.

This could wait until morning, and in the meantime, he and Cas could work on the cure. Maybe he would even be back to himself by then.

Unfortunately, Cas’s skills at letting Sam know how to cure him using Scrabble tiles were severely limited. After about an hour of frustrating attempts at trying, Sam felt his energy sapping and he laid his head on the table for a couple of minutes. That was all he needed… just a few minutes...

***

Dean woke up from a Benedryl-induced sleep and glanced over at his clock. It read 4:01. There was a warm weight on his chest, and he looked down to see Gizmo curled up on top of him.

He carefully reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a couple tissues. Shoving them in his nose, he gave in to temptation and stroked down the cat's back. His fur was so soft, and Dean could feel the rumble of purring with each pass of his hand.

"You sure are a cute little guy. I hope Sam had some luck figuring out how to help you."

The cat woke up at his voice, and stretched full-body before standing up and leaning over to nuzzle Dean's cheek.

Dean gripped him tight as he suddenly sneezed. "Okay, bud, I think it's time for another dose of allergy meds for me. What do you say we go grab some food, too?"

The feline headbutted him and licked his cheek. Taking that as an affirmative, Dean got up and carried Gizmo with him into the bathroom. He snagged the meds and continued on toward the kitchen.

Due to the watery eyes, he could barely make out Sam passed out at the table, Scrabble pieces scattered around his head.

In the kitchen, he set the cat down on the counter and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. He washed his hands in the sink, then grabbed a loaf of bread and the peanut butter out of the pantry. It was some organic, hippie brand that Sam insisted on buying, and Dean would never admit it to him, but it tasted better than the Peter Pan that had been his preferred choice.

He looked in the fridge for the jelly, but looked like they were out. There wasn't any in the pantry either. Dean shrugged and spread peanut butter on both slices of bread.

He was going to just slap them together and take his pills, but Gizmo knocked over Cas's bottle of honey. "Guess that could work." After drizzling a little on the slices, he put them together and took a bite. "Mmm, that's pretty tasty," Dean said with a full mouth. "Thanks for the suggestion, buddy."

Setting the sandwich down on the counter, Dean uncapped his water and swallowed down two more pills. When he reached for the pb&h, Gizmo swatted at his hand and quickly took a bite.

Dean was about to object to the sneak attack on his sandwich, when there was a sudden flash of light which prevented him from seeing anything for a few seconds. When his vision was clear again he could no longer see the cat, but Cas was standing there instead.

Where did he come from ?

"Cas?" He looked around, searching for Gizmo. Maybe… "Did you see a black cat?"

“Dean, do the letters I-D-I-O-T mean anything to you?” Cas asked. He stared into Dean’s eyes, but didn’t say anything more.

"Yeeeaaaaah," Dean drawled, looking at his friend who seemed to be covered in black hairs.

“That’s a fancy looking gizmo you’ve got there,” Cas stated drily, pointing at the waffle iron. He really seemed to be speaking in riddles today.

Dean was starting to put some pieces together when Sam burst through the door. His hair was a mess, and there was a Scrabble tile stuck to the side of his face. “Cas!! You’re back… how? How did you…?” He pulled Cas into a bro-hug and slapped him on the back.

Dean poked Sam in his tile and said, "You knew?"

“I worked it out last night,” Sam said, letting go of Cas, and pulling the tile from his face.

Cas coughed and gave him a pointed look.

“Oh, er… Cas helped me to understand last night,” Sam corrected himself. “I was gonna tell you, but you were asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

"Thanks, I guess," Dean responded, half bitchiness, half honesty. "I still don't understand what broke the curse, though."

“I had to eat something after midnight. I understand the irony, as you made me watch Gremlins, and I think the witch that cursed me did too.” Cas gave a little laugh.

Dean stared, mouth hanging open. "You mean, this whole time it was a bad movie reference?"

“It would seem that way, yes. Some people love movies as much as you do, apparently,” Cas replied.

Sam slapped his hand over his mouth and chuckled. “Dude, that’s a whole new level of nerd.”

"Shut up, Sam." Dean shot him his own bitch face, then turned to Cas and sneezed. "You're covered in fur. Unless you want me to look like a walking plague victim, you'll go take a shower."

“Yes, that is a disgusting image you’ve painted for me, Dean. I’ll take a shower now.” Cas started towards the door, when Dean suddenly put his hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"It's good to have you back, Gizmo," Dean snarked, then pulled Cas into a hug. Whispering in the angel's ear, he asked, "Mind if I join you? Somebody slept on top of me last night and got me dirty."

“If you’re really good, I’ll let you tickle my belly,” Cas growled back into Dean’s ear.

“I know what you’re doing, by the way,” Sam complained. “You guys are gross.”

Dean looked over at his brother and grinned. "Then this won't come as a shock."

He grabbed Cas's ass and stroked a hand up his back. Cas rubbed against his cheek, and Dean couldn't help but dive in for a kiss. It was kinda gross, given his current state of sniffles, but Cas responded with enthusiasm.

"C'mon, kitten, it's bath time."

“Rawr,” Cas purred.

The End

[hollypoo]

“peter, you’re my favorite boy”. I wish sometimes that I was more easy going and had been able to handle all of this much better than I have been. Nonetheless, things got better. I feared we would never find common ground, you would keep me at arm’s length and that you were too much of a weirdo to be in a relationship. Time has shown you are not the only one to blame for our (continuous) disconnect. If you had known better you would’ve been aware that I was still trying to get over someone. You were perfect in every way and I wasn’t sold on you and I still have some time to be really convinced. for now I feel very at peace and excited for the future with you — not to be confused with monogamy or the seriousness of a relationship intensifying. When we took acid yesterday at a festival for music we didn’t even like and all day long it was like you and I had some inside joke that we couldn’t article bc 1) drugs and 2) out of respect of every one else enjoying their time yesterday. By no means did we telepathically communicate, however I felt like you were right along their with me, no speed bumps, no fog. You were belly laughing at me, with me, true genuine laughter and the best comedy. Thank god for drugs for making me funnier than I really am. Then again I remember the first week we started hanging out you texted me while I was at some department store waiting for my film to be developed, and you said “you’re hilarious and sexy”. Thank god for drugs for letting me enjoy life so openly and freely that I smile to myself bc of the peace I experience in my own mind. Maybe you experienced that same peace, too, and thats why yesterday our body language was perfectly complimentary and all our vibes were exactly paralleled on queue, unwavering. I always thought that on paper we were perfect but in execution we’re too damaged, too different, and after yesterday I think with the natural progression of time and the most prefect summer’s day and LSD, we were wholly, truly ourselves together. That will always be a loving memory of mine. It scares me sometimes to think that some things that I experience with you I already know that I will be thinking of that if I’m to end up with somebody else, because you are so wildly different than anyone else I’ve wanted or been with. God I love you.

Nonetheless I’ve realized the importance and true intrinsic value it is to divulge into pleasures such as going off on a good day you had with your boyfriend. If I spent as much time gushing about the good days as I have miserable on our bad days, I would experience far more balance. I was slightly delayed sending you that text telling you  I loved you even though I just saw you in the back of our friend’s car, and you respond almost immediately. After the chaos we say yesterday while tripping our balls off, I don’t think I’ve ever had such a clear perspective on the quality and state of our relationship in comparison to relationships directly surrounding us. We are one of my favorite duos, I have no shame in saying that at all. All the things I used to complain about and still complain about seem completely different to me now. I feel comfortable. I feel like we’re actually in this together. The sun is hot on my skin but I’m not upset. My mind feels at ease. You are so perfect in my eyes, an actual dream come true.

In keeping with persistency I’ve not yet succumbed to the pressure of “the future” or anything regarding it. I’m proud and thankful of where I’ve come. While I lament the time I spent being more miserable and closed off, I feel like everything is just RIGHT and it is exactly as it should be and my heart could break right now picturing you in the back of the bus, sitting on the smallest seat in the very back. Perfect lighting. Perfect temperature. Looking back and forth at each other and just smiling. You had to know this moment was too perfect. Still we sat opposite on completely separate seats. It was enough. I admired you from afar and watched your booming laughter, true genuine happiness pouring out of you. You are so lovely, the most handsome face, the most beautiful body. Maybe we could really make it after all.

For a half hour I sat across from you and couldn’t stop smiling even when we weren’t looking at each other. When was the last time we were in the back of a school bus? I never thought I’d be in the back of one with you, feeling like we’re on the same acid trip as each other. And how many boys did I lust over in the back of a school bus before? We were suddenly 14 again and I was watching the boy three seats away because I was already so enamored by him. Before you kissed someone, before you even really hugged them or had the balls to sit next to them. Sometimes we are so pure it hurts my heart. I love you so.