#I just want giant 8 foot bird people okay

[averygayplant]

imagine if shintarians were once a species of avian humanoids who became such an advanced race of people that they no longer needed their wings to fly and lost them completely

imagine with me, that they're large feathery creatures suited for scraggly mountain peaks, scavenging and perching but have evolved into such a polite society that all the bird mannerisms have all but gone

[interstellarflowers]

Professor Parker Ch. 1| Professor, Peter Parker x Student, Reader

a/n this fic doesn’t follow the marvel cinematic universe but assume that peter has been what he’s been through with the exception that tony lived, and bruce is still bruce, sorry but i just can't deal with endgame hulk/bruce rn emotionally or mentally. im sorry nat is still dead but dw i'll actually treat it with respect unlike endgame like goddamn where was her funeral, am i right? the stages of grief thing they did was interesting though. im sorry i digress, this is set in nyc (because heyo im a new yorka) and the avengers/stark tower is still a thing, peter is fucking traumatized and has turned kind of cold as a result. this fic may contain a smut chapter in the future? not sure yet, where this fic goes depends on the feedback, thanks for reading also sorry im not the proudest of this first chapter so ill probably edit it but promise itll only improve from here just not in the best mental state rn

University life wasn’t exactly everything that you imagined it to be. There was hardly time to do anything that people claimed was good about coming to university. The parties, the epic heartbreaks, and romances, they were just nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was nothing particularly extravagant about your experience thus far. You went to class, studied, and went to your internship. Your internship was probably the most exciting thing about your life at the moment, you were lucky to be accepted into the Stark Industries student internship, the company paid college tuition and only required around twenty hours of lab work a week, you couldn’t complain. Of course, the exciting part of the whole ordeal was the name attached to it, “Stark,” not that you had ever met him, but it was nice to have a unique feature like that in such an impressive student body.

So here you were on the first day of your third year of university. You lived off-campus, about a five-minute walk from the Stark Tower, but a twenty-minute subway ride to your campus. However, having an 882 square foot space to yourself was really nothing you could truly complain about despite the distance. The studio apartment being yet another benefit reaped from Stark Industries. Thank you Tony Stark, the unseen benevolent God in your life.

Typically you would start your mornings off quietly and in no rush, a shower, a cup of coffee, maybe some studying before heading off to your campus, but your phone had other plans for you today. Instead of your alarm going off like it was supposed to, you were woken up by the sound of a particularly loud car horn, and oh how grateful you were for that. As soon as you were jolted awake you shifted to grab your phone and turned it over to see an alarming 8:40am glaring back at you.

Holy shit. You were late.

You scrambled out of bed nearly face planting several times in your hurry to get dressed and only barely ran out the door with everything you needed at 8:47am.

By the time you managed to get to the subway and clamor onto the right train it was already 8:55am. Out of breath and panicking, you considered your options. You could explain after class, you could shoot an email, there were a plethora of things you could do but none of them seemed to justify being late as a third-year to a level 500 class. You had googled all of your professors while registering for classes as was common practice. You couldn’t find a RateMyProfessor on Professor...Parker? You were pretty sure it was Professor Parker, but you do remember seeing on the STEM department page that he was currently a Ph.D. student, so you could only hope that as a fellow student he would be at least a little understanding towards your lateness.

You stood outside of the lecture hall huffing and trying to catch your breath at 9:32am, psyching yourself up, you pushed open the door to the class and attempted to go unnoticed. The class was in a lecture hall despite being only composed of around thirty students, so if you were lucky maybe nobody would even see-

“Ms.(y/l/n), I presume?.” Shit.

“Professor Parker?” Shit.

“You are aware that class starts at 9am, and not 9:30am, would this be correct Ms.(y/l/n)?”

“Yes, Professor, it’s just that I had an emergency.” The lying route. Not exactly the highlight of your academic career.

“I regret to inform you that I only take valid excuses Ms.(y/l/n), please take a seat, and next time, don’t bother disrupting class halfway through the lesson.” Fuck. You mustered a quiet “ok,” and a small nod before escorting yourself to the back of the room, thirty-something eyes following you until you sat down.

You couldn’t focus for the rest of the class, it was just too embarrassing, time moved forward but you couldn’t help but be stuck on what had just happened. For the first ten minutes after sitting down you felt like dropping out of the whole class out of sheer fucking humiliation. This was of course before you reminded yourself that this class was a requirement to graduate in your field of study. You quietly bargained with yourself before sighing quietly and settling on the conclusion that Professor Parker was just a dick. A dick who certainly didn’t deserve the satisfaction of you switching out of his class. If he wanted to be like that, you decided, you would simply return the favor.

“I know, Ms.(y/ln), why don’t you tell us DeBroglie’s equation?”

“With pleasure, Professor Parker.” Yeah, you’d return the favor alright.

“Ms.(y/l/n), you stay.” Fuck that. You looked the other way and feigned ignorance as you kept making your way towards the door. About to leave, the door shut on your face.

“What the fuck!” You jumped before turning around and you felt your face heat up.

“Ms.(y/l/n), please refrain from using profanities in my classroom.”

“I’m sorry Professor Parker. I was just startled.”

“Mhm,” he took his glasses off and laid them on his desk, “Just don’t do it in the future Ms.(y/l/n).”

“Of course. My name is (y/n), by the way, Professor Parker, you can just call me that, actually, I prefer that people refer to me by (y/n).”

“Rest assured, I’m aware of your name, Ms.(y/l/n). My name is Peter, but you can continue to call me Professor Parker.” You could have sworn that you saw a ghost of a smirk on his lips. He knew what he was fucking doing, asshole. You held back from rolling your eyes into the back of your head.

“Of course, Professor Parker.”

“As you know, Ms.(y/l/n), I did request that you stay after class.”

“Oh? I sincerely apologize Professor Parker, I really didn’t hear you.”

“I’m sure, Ms.(y/l/n).” Fucking. Dick.

“Well, what exactly did you want Professor Parker? I do have another class soon.” Professor Parker narrowed his eyes at you in obvious distaste before reaching behind himself into a bin underneath his desk and pulling out a stack of papers,

“These are the handouts you missed from the beginning of the class. Textbook requirements, syllabus...Crucial information to have if you care to succeed in my class Ms.(y/l/n).” So coldly, so maliciously, Professor Parker placed the stack into your arms.

“I take my work very seriously, Ms.(y/l/n), I do my part as your professor so I only have the simple request that my students do the same.” You nodded feeling your face heat up again.

“Of course, Professor Parker, it won’t happen again,” you said with a tightlipped smile.

“Mhm,” Professor Parker turned around and began shuffling around some paper and without giving you a second glance said, “You are dismissed.” You nodded and hurriedly made your way out of his classroom. Of course, you had lied. You didn’t have another class until late in the afternoon. So you called your coworker instead,

“Hey, Harvey.”

“(y/n).”

“Wow, okay, don’t get too excited.”

“Sorry, just woke up.”

“Tsk, the early bird gets the worm, Harvey.”

“I don’t want a worm.”

“Fuck you. I’m headed to the lab, can I expect you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You had been working with Harvey for around four years now, he was quite the impressive specimen, having attended MIT and graduating Summa Cum Laude at age 20 was no easy feat, he was closer to Tony Stark than you would ever get, he was quite personable, and you couldn’t deny that he was quite good looking. You’d never tell him that though, he didn’t need another ego boost. Besides, you had some connections of your own.

“Hey, (y/n).”

“Banner!”

“Can we expect Harvey today?”

“Honestly, not sure.” You both knowingly smiled at each other before you made your way over to what he was working on,

“Do you ever get bored here?”

“With you and the other idiot always running around? How could I?” You laughed,

“No, seriously, like wouldn’t you rather be doing nerd shit with Tony or something? Isn’t it a little tiresome babysitting us?”

“Tiring? Maybe sometimes, but not nearly as tiring as doing ‘nerd shit’ with Tony. He’s exhausting,” Bruce smiled at his own joke, “I don’t mind playing babysitter at all kid.” He fiddled with the handle of a mug that read, “Don’t be so Na Cl,” which you had gotten him a year back as a joke, but he still used it.

You really loved Bruce for all he was. Since losing your family back in 2012 during the battle in NYC, you didn’t really have any familial figures. But since landing this internship you found yourself with a parental figure again, and you would never be able to put into words how much it meant to you, so you didn’t. Besides, you didn’t want him to feel pressured about it, especially after everything he had been through himself. Frying half your body and losing the love of your life in such a short span of time was really nothing less than horrifying. Yet, here he was, smiling, laughing...You loved him for it.

“First day of junior year? How was that?”

“Shit.”

“Huh?” Bruce stopped tinkering with the device in his hands and looked over at you, “I’ve never heard of a course being too hard for (y/n) (y/l/n), what is it? Aerospace? Quantum?”

“No, just one giant dick.”

“Pardon-”

“My professor, he’s a fucking asshole.”

“Ah, I see. If he’s really harassing you (y/n), I don’t mean to overstep, I really think we should alert administration, what’s his name?” Bruce took a sip of his coffee.

“Professor Parker,” Bruce choked on his coffee, “Oh my God, Bruce, are you okay?”

“Yeah-” he said, still coughing, “Just a little too strong.”

“Okay, are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bruce caught his breath, “What did he do kid?”

“He’s just a dick that’s all.”

“You sure you don’t want me to do something about it?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, I don’t know what you could do anyways. Thank you though.”

“Actually, you’d be surprised.”

Sitting at your desk stressing over school work at 3am, it was nothing out of the ordinary for you. Everything appeared ordinary. The ordinary cup of tea, the familiar glow of your computer, and a morning chill creeping through your window. It was all so breathtakingly normal until there was a rap on your window. You took an earbud out of your ear, certain you were just hearing things, you looked to your window. Holy shit.

You opened your window wide so that he could crawl in.

“(y/n)?”

“Mr.Spiderman.” Still too in shock to fully process the situation you started to take in the scene in front of you,

“Please, it’s just Spiderman.”

“Oh-Oh my God, what happened?” Head to toe the suit seemed to have blood seeping through, tears in the body of the suit revealed gashes and a bullet wound.

“Bad guys. I know this guy-said he knew a medical student close by, you are (y/n)? Right?”

“Y-Yeah, but I’m really just a student, I’m not really a prof-”

“This guy, he said you might as well be.”

“I don’t know Mr.Spiderman, really, maybe I could take you to the hospital though.”

“-Spiderman, it’s just Spiderman, listen, (y/n), you know I can’t go to a hospital, it would ruin this whole secret identity thing I got going on here, and this guy, he’s probably the smartest guy I know, so if he says you can handle it, you can.” You swallowed and nodded,

“Yeah-” you wring your hands together, “Yeah-Sorry, let me go get my first aid kit.”

[fuckit-hero-of-trains]

Sit by the fire until... Ch 1

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870150/chapters/62859553

Summary:

They inherited a lot of things from Sky.

From him, they inherited a sword, honed in flames painted with holy might and sharpened to a deadly, resplendent point. From him, they inherited a forest green tunic with such a storied and epic past that few would believe that it had started out as nothing more than happenstance; a school uniform of all things.

From him, the inherited a destiny and an eternal enemy to go right along with it.

They knew that. Understood that. Didn't blame him for it.

Funny, then, that they didn't connect the dots.

Because there was one more trait they all seemingly inherited from Sky, whether they realized it or not.

(or: 8 times a hero fell asleep somewhere weird +1 time a hero fell asleep exactly where he was supposed to)

Legend has seen a lot of dangerous things in his lifetime. He’s been on five adventures for Hylia’s sake. There are not a lot of things that can phase him anymore.

Another dank dungeon in need of exploration? Easy. Another monster whose weak point is inexplicably a giant eye that glows? Piece of cake. A realm of unfathomable darkness? Been there, done that, didn't even get any cool items from it.

But this… now this scares him.

“Nose goes,” Legend says flatly, flashing a finger up to touch the tip of his nose despite the fact that he is one of only two people standing in front of said insurmountable task.

“I’m not going in there,” Warriors hisses, not even trying to honor Legend’s ‘Nose Goes,’ his hands resting firmly on his hips, face incredulous as he stares down their target. “What do I look like? An idiot?”

“Oh, you don’t just look like one,” Legend assures him dryly, brows raised, smile bright and full and smarmy.

Warriors shoves him.

“If you think it’s so easy, why don't you just go in then?” the Captain spits.

But before Legend can get out another snarky response, the sound of movement , of creaking wood, sends both heroes stumbling away from the structure they had been standing next to, their hands flying up to shield their faces from harm as they wince away from what will no doubt be their end.

A beat passes between them, neither moving in fear of incurring a terrible wrath…

...

But after a second with no horrifying retribution, the two breathe a sigh of relief, eyeing up their foe.

The cucco coop.

They both shudder.

“Are you sure he’s in there?” Warriors whispers after another cautious moment of silence. “We could check the barn again.”

And as much as it would make Legend’s day to just check the barn again, he shakes his head.

“This is the only place we haven’t looked,” he reminds the scarf wearing hero with a scowl, “Besides, for some goddess forsaken reason, he happens to like these little menaces. If there was anywhere on this farm Sky would be, it's here.”

Warrior’s face screws up.

“Ugh, why can’t we just have dinner without him?”

“Because Time’s a stubborn old bastard with a parental streak the size of the moon,” Legend bites out. And then, with a bit less bitterness. “And because Malon wants to have family dinner or whatever.”

“She made cornbread,” Warriors laments with a small shake of his head, “I at least wanted to try a little before I kicked it.”

Legend smacks him on the arm.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m not being dramatic and you know it!” Warriors replies, voice jumping an octave. “Those things are vicious killers! Goddess only knows what we would have done in my era without Linkle taming them. Feathery bastards can change the tide of war in an instant!”

Legend rolls his eyes.  

“Okay, yeah,” the Veteran admits, “those things could pick a moblin clean faster than you could blink, but I’m not saying we have to fight them to the death. We just have to take a peek in the coop and see if Sky’s in there. If he is, great, we tell him dinner’s ready and get the hell out of dodge. If he isn’t, sweet, we get the hell out of dodge even faster and tell Time we couldn't find him.”

“Oh, well then, if it's so simple” Warriors replies, bowing deeply and gesturing to the coop with a flourishing arm, “After you.”

“No, no, no. You lost ‘Nose Goes’,” Legend reminds. “You have to do it.”

“You can’t call ‘Nose Goes’ with just two people!”

“I think you’ll find that I did. And you lost.”  Legend grins and mirrors Warrior’s bow and flourish. “So, after you.”

The Captain narrows his eyes.

“How about this?" the Pretty Boy bargains. "I open the door, and for fifty rupees, you look inside?”

Legend purses his lips, eyes flicking from Warriors to the coop. On the one hand, War did lose Nose Goes. There really should be no bargaining going on here. Legend has the moral high ground in this particular situation. Not to mention that it would absolutely make his day to see the pompous  captain get knocked down several pegs by a couple of birds.

And Legend really isn't looking to get his eyes pecked out today.

But on the other hand, depriving the Captain of even more of his hard earned cash is a pretty good incentive. Plus, he’ll need to squirrel some more rupees away back home if this whole ‘Ravio staying with him’ thing is gonna be a bit more permanent.

He’s got no idea how in the name of the Wind Fish Ravio even made it to his Hyrule let alone if the idiot can even get himself back to Lorule.

And Legend can’t have that rabbit hooded bastard selling his equipment just to put food on the table for however long he’s staying.

“Seventy-five and it's a deal,” Legend replies, holding a hand out for the Captain to shake on it.

A roll of eyes from Warriors but he takes Legend’s hand all the same, giving it a firm shake.

Sucker.

Legend only said he would look inside. Not get Sky if he saw him in there.

They take up their positions in front of the coop; War’s hand on the door handle, ready to pull it open while Legend situates himself around the corner, primed to take a quick peek inside and then retreat just as quickly.

“On three,” Warriors breathes.

“One.”

Warrior’s grip on the doorknob tightens, the leather of his gloves creaking slightly with the force of his grasp.

“Two.”

Legend feels his muscle tense, the cords of his neck straining as he readies himself for his dive, his newest in a line of near death experiences.

A breath in.

A breath out.

“Three!”

With a flick of the wrist and jolt of the arm, Warriors whips the door to the cucco coop wide open. In the same instant, Legend darts his top half around the corner of the coop, peeking into the dim depths of the pen and–!

And…

Huh.

Legend is not met with a flurry of feathers spelling his demise. Isn’t met with the death rattle of squakes nor clawed with an inch of his life in seconds nor immediately assaulted with an avalanche of pecks that could drill straight to the bone.

No.

Legend is met with none of the things he expects and is instead faced with one of the most miraculous sights he has ever beheld.

Because inside the coop, in the dim warmth of their little home, all of the hens sit politely on their nests, heads perked and turned toward the intruding light, but otherwise, unbothered by the hero standing in their doorway. Not a ruffled feather in sight nor any eyes gleaming with deadly, avian hatred.

Nope.

They are perfectly relaxed. Perfectly within their element and domain, not a care in the world. In fact, after a moment of staring at Legend with what the Veteran could only describe as royal indifference, the cuccos settle back down, heads tucking into downy white feathers or disappearing under wings.

“Well?” Warriors whispers from behind the door where he is taking shelter, “Is he in there?”

“Not sure,” Legend replies.

He takes a tentative step forward, eyes locked on the birds as he carefully places one boot within the threshold of the coop. No reaction. He leans weight onto that foot, flinching as the wood groans beneath his mass.

…

Still no reaction.

Welp, Legend thinks with no small amount of dryness. No excuse not to make sure Sky isn't in here.

“Give me a sec,” he breathes back to War, taking another, more confident step into the coop. “I'm going to check.”

“No, wait, Legend, they’re lulling you into a false sense of security! You can’t just–!”

The Veteran ignores Warrior’s hissed warnings, confidently going from the frying pan and into the fire.

Or from the barnyard to the cucco coop. Whatever.

Besides the sight of the oddly tame cuccos, Legend is immediately hit with a slight wave of heat as he enters the coop proper, the temperature inside that of a warm blanket against his face and body. He is also hit with the smell of hay, grassy and dry and warm.

A quick scan of the coop gives Legend no leads on Sky. No light green tunic, no dirty blond hair, no Master Sword, no white sailcloth. It does, however, tell him that Time may be missing a few hens, as four nests seem to be vacant.

He takes another quick sweep and is just about to label Sky a lost cause when something in the corner of the coop shifts and makes a soft huff, sending Legend’s heart into his throat and his arms up around his face, fearing that this, this will be the end of him. Five adventures down, Ganon killed three times by his hands, multiple kingdoms and  deities  saved due to his actions, and he's going to die to some fucking poultry.

But after a beat, a moment, a full minute of not moving and with Legend not being absolutely smote where he stands, the pink haired hero slowly but surely peaks out from behind his arms to see the cuccos still just sitting in their nests, now gazing at him with what he thinks is exasperation.

Which really shouldn't be possible, because, you know, they’re fucking birds. Their eyes really shouldn't be that expressive. And yet, as Legend uncurls from his wince completely, as his heart rate calms from the stutter step it had been running through, he can’t help feel the condescension in their beady little golden eyes.

Little pricks, he thinks a little viciously as he subtly flips one of them the bird– ironic, he knows– turning to investigate the noise that had nearly given him a heart attack a few seconds earlier. I hope Malon cooked one of you for dinner.

Sure that he's not about to be absolutely eviscerated, Legend follows the noise, a soft, rhythmic huffing, to one of the hay filled corners of the coop that had been obscured by the line of nests and...

And, really, he should have known.

Trust Hylia’s Chosen Hero to fall asleep in literally the most dangerous place known to Hylians.

Because there, in a soft pile of hay in the corner of Time’s cucco coop, is Sky, eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar as he takes in breaths, slow and deep and even and warm. His sailcloth is layed out beneath him, no doubt protecting him from the prickly hay as he naps peacefully, none the wiser that four cuccos have found him a suitable enough pseudo nest to be napping right along with him: one tucked under each arm, another resting on his slowly rising and falling chest, and the last finding a home in his soft, dirty blond hair.

Legend takes it all in. Takes in the way the birds churr in time with Sky’s soft snores, the way bits of hay have found their way into the Skyloftian's hair, the way the small sliver of light entering the coop from the open doorway illuminates the floating dust particles in shades of sunset gold, the way they swirl in little eddies with each of the Chosen Hero’s breaths.

It truly is a tableau of peace.

Too bad it’s dinner time.

“Alright, Lover Boy,” Legend huffs, reaching out to shake the Chosen Hero awake. “Up and at ‘em. Malon made dinner and–”

Before Legend’s hand can even make contact with Sky’s shoulder, a rising grumble shatters the relative peace of the coop.

All around him, the heads of all the cuccos snap up in tandem, pinning Legend in place with at least 20 pairs of molten gold eyes as the grumble– which he now realizes is the sound of the four hens sitting with Sky hissing at him– rises in volume and anger.

With slow and controlled movements, Legend pulls his hand back from where it had been moving toward the somehow still sleeping Sky and raises both palms up in surrender.

The eyes follow the motions of his hands with deadly precision but the cuccos make no move to strike.

So Legend does the most logical thing anyone would do in his situation:

He gives up without a fight, keeping his hands raised where the birds can see them while slowly backpedaling out of the coop.

Then, when he finally crosses the threshold back out of the coop, Legend takes the edge of the door into both his hands, and carefully, gently, closes the coop back up.

“So?” Warriors asks, hands on hips, staring at Legend's odd display “Was he in there?”

“Yep,” Legend replies flatly, popping the ‘p’ as tension bleeds out of his muscles.

A brief pause.

“And?” Warriors intones expectantly.

Legend turns to the other hero, clasps a firm hand on the Captain’s shoulder, and smiles.

“And good luck getting him out of there. You’re sure as hell gonna need it.”

And with that, the Veteran turns and strides back toward the farm house, ignoring the indignant sputterings of the scarf wearing hero all the way there.

Wind Fish, he hopes Time has something stronger than Lon Lon Milk.

‘Cuz after the number those demon birds just did on him? He's gonna need it.

And based on the screaming coming from behind him, he assumes Warriors is gonna need it too.

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 22]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

The hope is to work on this for quite a bit today. Please come keep me company with asks if you feel so inclined.

Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

 She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

 “We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

 “Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

 He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

 In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

 Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

 As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

 They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

 After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

 “Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

 They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

 Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

 “You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

 “Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

 “You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

 “Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

 Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

 “It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

 Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

 “He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

 “Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

 Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

 They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

 Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

 “You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

 She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

 He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

 Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

 Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

 The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

 “Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

 “Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

 Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

 Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

 “I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

 “Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

 Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

 Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

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“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

 “Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

 “What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

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Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

 Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

 “What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

 “I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

 After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

 As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Patton smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

 Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

 “It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

 Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

 Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

 Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

 “You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Patton agreed, “but you did.”

 Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

 “Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

 Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

 Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

 When they got to the museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

[pangzi]

Otome Gay [Nielan] - Chapter 2

word count: 2394  other chapters:  INTRO - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 [AO3]

 Another week had passed since Huaisang gave Mingjue the game, and Mingjue was addicted. He had finished most storylines quite quickly, going for all endings as Huaisang had asked him to.

He had started with purple barista boy. At first he seemed like a brat with anger issues, but Mingjue quickly learned that with a few compliments the boy turned soft. Both stealing his heart and getting him to hate you weren’t very difficult with him. The neutral ending, however, was a pain in the ass to get. Give him one compliment too many, or say one wrong thing and your chance of a neutral ending drops to nearly zero.

Then he chose to try the med student. He was exactly as Mingjue expected him to be from the way he was drawn. He was a cute, shy boy. He looked up to his sister, as Huaisang had told Mingjue and was extremely driven. He was sweet, sometimes a little too sweet. Mingjue had to try his route so often he almost started to wonder if this boy even had a negative ending. Both the neutral and positive endings, however, were fairly easy to obtain.

Mingjue was currently trying to finish the rich kid’s routes. At first he didn’t like this one. The boy was a bit too proud for Mingjue’s liking. Mingjue kept getting stuck trying to get the positive ending, always getting the neutral one. This was the longest Mingjue had ever spent trying to finish one route without getting an alternative ending or having to restart. As a last resort, Mingjue was currently working all possible jobs in the game, trying to get enough money to buy rich kid the most expensive gifts. Right when Mingjue was about to buy said gifts, rich kid showed up at Mingjue’s house! To say Mingjue was surprised, when rich kid presented his character with a bouquet of roses and asked to give him a chance. Mingjue wasn’t sure whether he was annoyed at this ending, or if he was just happy he finally got the good ending and could finally move on.

After a shower and a quick meal, Mingjue decided to start the last character. Mingjue liked to tell himself that he left this one for last just because he was always together with the dancer kid Mingjue didn’t like. Definitely not because he was saving the best for last. 

He played the game all weekend and had only managed to unlock the neutral ending several times. Still, this was the character he enjoyed the most. Can a video game character have a calming aura? Because this character definitely had it. 

This was impossible. Absolutely impossible, and still Mingjue knew it shouldn’t be impossible. He had been able to unlock all endings for the other characters, so why was Art Guy different? Huaisang had said he was special, but it wouldn’t be that dating him was impossible, right? No, Art Guy was special enough without that. He was kind, more kind than any of the other characters. He had a beautiful smile, the only smile Mingjue actually noticed even. Conversations with him were always nice, never felt repetitive, and Mingjue just wanted to date him!

He was getting in too deep, way too deep. He had to stop playing. As a last resort, Mingjue had even tried to befriend the annoying little dancer boy, who ended up being even more annoying than expected. Befriending dancer boy only ended in Mingjue unlocking his positive ending, which made him want to throw his laptop out of the window. That’s when he knew it was time to stop. Enough otome game for the day…

Mingjue was going to get in bed, and have a nice long rest. It wasn’t until he got to bed he looked at the time. It was nearly 3AM and Mingjue wanted to die of shame. He needed a break from the game, he really did. This was going too far. He got in bed and promised himself that tomorrow he would not open the game, he wouldn’t even think of it or Art Guy. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t think of it right now. Yes, he was definitely getting in too deep. 

Mingjue was forcefully awoken from his slumber by his phone. Before he even looked at who was calling him, he checked the time. It was 7AM. What idiot calls him this early? Nobody he knew was even up this early. 

The idiot was Huaisang. Mingjue’s heart stopped for a minute. If Huaisang was calling him this early something must be up, Huaisang never woke up before ten. 

“Dage~”, Huaisang whined dramatically, the way only his brother could do. 

“Huaisang, what’s wrong?” Mingjue asked.

“Dage, you need to help me”, Huaisang whined. “It’s urgent” 

“Huaisang, tell me what’s wrong you’re worrying me” 

“Promise you won’t get mad at me first”, Huaisang mumbled. 

“Huaisang-” Mingjue grumbled, but then just sighed and promised. 

Huaisang hesitated for a bit. “I forgot my backpack at home and there’s a super important assignment inside it that I need to hand in this afternoon”, he mumbled and Mingjue immediately felt himself get annoyed. “I have class all morning so I can’t come pick it up, could you please, please, please, come bring it to my dorm.” 

Mingjue would like to say this was the first time Huaisang had forgotten his backpack at home but, sadly, it wasn’t. Mingjue couldn't even count the amount of times Huaisang has forgotten it on two hands. This was the first time it took him an entire week to notice, though. He sighed deeply, trying his best not to sound as annoyed as he was. 

“Is it in your room?” Mingjue asked, “I should be able to get it to you around lunchtime.” Huaisang immediately let out a sigh of relief and started thanking his brother. “How did it take you this long to notice, though?” Mingjue couldn’t help but ask. 

“I didn’t need it”, Huaisang stuttered.

“You didn’t need your backpack, full of school equipment, for over a week?” 

“I have to go to class”, Huaisang said quickly, “I’ll send you the address of my dorm again later. Thank you, dage!” Mingjue received the address and directions soon after Huaisang ended the call. 

Too annoyed by his brother’s stupidity to sleep, Mingjue decided to just get up and take his time getting ready. He had three more hours to fill before he had to leave. Looking in the mirror, he needed his time to get ready. He hadn’t shaved since Huaisang left and his hair resembled a bird’s nest.

After a thorough shower, a big breakfast and some exercises for his still healing foot, Mingjue was on his way to Huaisang’s university. He had forgotten how horrible public transport was, his hurt foot only making the two hour journey that more annoying, but seeing his brother again would be worth it. He had only seen him a week ago, but he just couldn’t help but miss the brat more than usual now that he was stuck at home alone. 

Huaisang’s directions were great, until he actually arrived on campus. This place was a maze and Huaisang’s directions were incredibly confusing, it didn’t take Mingjue long to get lost, at the moment he couldn’t even find his way back to somewhere the directions actually took him. With a deep sigh he gave up on even trying anymore and decided to just ask someone for help. 

But that was easier said than done, most people either shied away from the giant man asking them for help, or just told him they had to get to class and bolted, some girl even just said “I have a boyfriend” the second he approached her. 

“Good for you”, Mingjue replied but before he could even ask her for directions she had gotten up and left. This was hopeless, was he that intimidating? He had no choice but to keep trying until Huaisang got out of class, though. 

After two more people who just plain ignored him, and one who just told him no, he finally found someone who didn’t seem to think Mingjue was out to murder or date them. This one actually approached him, tapping him on the shoulder softly.

“Do you need some help?” A gentle, melodic voice asked. Mingjue couldn’t help but thank the gods as he turned around.

“Yes, please”, he replied and then completely lost all ability to speak. Right in front of him was Art Guy from Huaisang’s game. Was he hallucinating? Had the sun gotten him so dehydrated he was now imagining hot men? But, this man had tapped him on the shoulder, he had to be real! Or had he hallucinated that too? In his slight panic, he completely missed the hot stranger asking him something. 

“Are you okay? Here, have some water it’s quite hot today”, Art Guy pressed a bottle of water in Mingjue’s hands and ushered him to drink something. Yes, Mingjue needed a moment to get his thoughts in order. 

“Thank you”, Mingjue muttered, slightly ashamed of his reaction. “Could you maybe tell me how to get to this building? My brother forgot something at home over the weekend and asked me to drop it off”

Luckily Art Guy didn’t seem too bothered by Mingjue’s completely shocked reaction and just beamed at him. “You’re lucky, I’m going to there right now.” Mingjue was still trying to process the beautiful smile blinding him only seconds ago, to realise the man wanted him to follow him. With a deep breath he shook himself out of it, trying to calm his heart that was beating out of control, and followed the handsome stranger. 

They walked in silence for a while, Mingjue trying to figure out a reason for this entire situation, but he couldn’t really come up with anything, his brain to caught up in trying to take in the absolutely stunning human being walking next to him. 

“My brother lives in the same building as yours”, Art Guy suddenly said, “He might even know your brother, he seems to be on the same floor.”

“What’s his name?” Mingjue asked, “Maybe Huaisang has mentioned him, he usually has quite some dorm gossip whenever we speak”

Art Guy laughed. The sound did something to Mingjue’s heart and he couldn’t help but smile. It was a sound Mingjue wouldn’t mind hearing more often. 

“I doubt he will have any gossip about my brother. Wangji is quite the model student.” Art Guy said. “I’m Lan Xichen, by the way” Art Guy, Xichen, threw him another bright smile, after he introduced himself and maybe Mingjue’s heart stopped for a moment. Mingjue had no idea what was happening, no man had ever had such influence on him this fast. 

“Nie Mingjue,” Mingjue hummed, “Huaisang might have mentioned him” Mingjue was almost sure he had, but he couldn’t exactly remember in what context. Huaisang told him so much gossip about so many people, it was only normal Mingjue couldn’t remember. 

“We’re almost there”, Xichen said, “Wangji and I have lunch together every Monday, I got lost on my way to his dorm every single time in the beginning”

Mingjue felt his cheeks heat up a bit, but it was nice to know he wasn’t stupid for getting lost. “Huaisang gave me directions, but this place… Everything looks the same I couldn’t figure out where to go”

Xichen laughed again. “I know, I know exactly how you feel, and when you ask for help everyone looks at you like you’re insane!”

“I was starting to think something was wrong with me”, Mingjue chuckled, “Thankfully you found me!” 

“I immediately recognized the signs”, Xichen said, “I knew I had to help!”

“I’m glad you did, otherwise I’d still be begging people to help me”

Xichen smiled at him and then motioned to a building. “I have safely brought you to your destination!” They walked inside, only to be stopped by someone immediately. 

The person in front of them looked at Mingjue with a slight frown on his face for a moment before turning to Xichen. “Brother”, he greeted Xichen. 

“Wangji”, Xichen beamed, “Sorry I’m a bit late, I couldn’t help but help Mingjue here find the way here too! We got a bit distracted chatting and I took a wrong turn somewhere” They did? Mingjue hadn’t even noticed, which wasn’t that surprising as he didn’t know the place at all. Wangji nodded at Mingjue and then turned to his brother again. 

“Shall we go then? If we are late they might give our table to someone else”, Wangji asked his brother, and before Mingjue knew Xichen was saying his goodbyes, quickly pointing him towards Huaisang’s hallway before disappearing with his brother. 

Mingjue tried to say goodbye as well, but everything went so fast and before he even got the chance to say thank Xichen properly for helping him, Wangji had already pulled his brother towards the doors again. Mingjue should have asked for his number… Not that there had been a good time, but he should’ve created a good moment to asked. 

Trying not to sulk about it too much, Mingjue made his way to where Huaisang’s dorm was. He had barely knocked on the door when it swung open already.

“Dage~!” Huaisang yelled, pulling him inside and immediately pulling his backpack from his brother’s shoulders. “Did you find your way here easily? I guess you did as you didn’t call me for more directions”

“Actually”, Mingjue huffed, “Your directions were shit, I had to ask someone here for help” 

Huaisang looked at him with a shy grin for a moment, before shrugging and starting to rummage through his backpack. “But you found it!”

“I did… And about that, Huaisang” Huaisang’s eyes got big at his brother’s tone. He knew something was coming that his brother wasn’t too happy about. “How come I bumped into one of your video game characters. I almost thought I was hallucinating!” 

“You didn’t tell him?” Huaisang’s roommate asked, Mingjue hadn’t even noticed he was there too. Huaisang just laughed nervously and hid himself behind his fan as he always did when nervous. 

“Tell me what?” Mingjue grumbled. 

Huaisang’s roommate turned around in his chair, Mingjue nearly cringed at the way he was sitting, that position couldn’t be comfortable. “We based our character designs on people we know! My brother is in it, my sister’s annoying peacock boyfriend, my boyfriend’s brother and his best friend, my best friend…” 

Mingjue turned to his brother again, slightly annoyed. “And you didn’t think I should know?” 

Huaisang shrugged. “We live two hours away, it’s not like the chance was big you would ever bump into them!”

Mingjue was about to open his mouth again but Huaisang was already pulling him back outside. “Dage, stop worrying about it, now you know! Let's go eat, I’m hungry and you don’t want to spend the precious time you have with your brother being angry at him, do you?” 

Mingjue just sighed and wrapped an arm around his brother. He was right, it wasn’t like it was something that could’ve harmed him. It was just weird bumping into someone he’d been actively trying to date in some game all weekend. Mingjue couldn’t help but be curious, though.

“Which one is he?” Mingjue asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Xichen, is he the brother, the sister’s boyfriend, the boyfriend’s brother…?”

Huaisang grinned at his brother, softly bumping his shoulder against him. Mingjue stopped the teasing words that were about to leave Huaisangs mouth with a glare. “The boyfriend’s brother.” Huaisang answered instead. “And if you would like to know, I’m pretty sure he’s into men, maybe I could even set up a date!” 

“Nie Huaisang!” Mingjue grumbled, pushing his brother away. He didn’t need his brother setting up dates for him! He could do that perfectly fine himself! If only he could meet Xichen again… 

[bicon-korra]

Entrapta Week: Free Day

Beast Island Log: Property of Entrapta

Summary: Entrapta logs her daily life on Beast Island and starts to uncover a mystery…

[Written for Entrapta Week - Day 7 (Free Day), 1,700 words, notes in tags]

Beast Island Log: Day 1, Entry 1

My name is Entrapta of Dryl. I was banished from the Horde to Beast Island on Force Captain Catra’s command. Before leaving the Horde, I managed to sneak one of my precious voice recorders with me. I may be a prisoner, but I’m still a scientist, after all! 

When I first heard tales of Beast Island, I imagined this mythical land inhabited by savage creatures. No one, and I mean no one, told me what a treasure trove of First One’s tech this is! The possibilities for transport, shelter, food gathering, you name it, are endless! I don’t know how anyone can dispose of such beautiful equipment! One man’s trash is another’s treasure, I suppose. I just need to figure out how to clean up their data. It looks like most, if not all, the files are corrupted. Should be simple enough.

Beast Island Log: Day 1, Entry 2

I suppose I should introduce myself. I am a princess of Dryl, where I was born and spent most of my life. In a strange turn of events, I joined the Princess Alliance led by Princess Glimmer of Bright Moon and her co-leader Adora-slash-She-Ra. I was left behind in the Fright Zone on a dangerous mission, and that became my new home. The name sounds scary—kind of like Beast Island—but it’s not as bad as it sounds! I was actually pretty happy there. I had friends: Scorpia, Hordak, my dear Emily...Catra was my friend, too. And then she wasn’t. I try not to dwell on it too much. I’m trying to stay positive. These technological monstrosities are my friends now.

Beast Island Log: Day 2, Entry 1

Today, I will try to determine what’s food and what’s not food. I’ve been studying the eating patterns of the creatures that most resemble mammals, if you can call a four-eyed winged primate-looking-thing a mammal. They mainly thrive off of a spiky fruit that grows inside the trees. There’s another creature with razor-sharp claws that digs the fruit out of the trunk to grab them. It only grabs what it needs to and the rest fall to the ground for other creatures to eat. Fascinating.

Beast Island Log: Day 2, Entry 2

I extracted the juice from the fruit. If it was poisonous, I figured my forest-dwelling friends wouldn’t have survived this long. Boy, was it tough to peel! I’m going to name it scorpion fruit because of the stinger-shaped spikes on its skin. Earlier I put a drop on my wrist to test for an allergic reaction. There was no reaction, so then I put a drop on my tongue and waited for one hour. So far I feel fine. It didn’t taste bitter either. I’m going to try two drops next time, then three. 

Beast Island Log: Day 2, Entry 3

My three-drop feast of scorpion fruit has made my stomach just as ravenous as some of these creatures. I’m going to take a small bite now and wait thirty minutes. I drank enough water (thank the First Ones there’s fresh water here!) to purge if I need to. There may be food yet!

Beast Island Log: Day 2, Entry 4

I’m on my second scorpion fruit and nothing has tasted better.

Beast Island Log: Day 3, Entry 1

I managed to scrape some parts together to make a small radio. Problem is, I can’t find the right wires to make my antenna. The bigger problem is these corrupted files. To fix them, I’ll need to charge these machines and most of them are hanging by a thread. Still, they’ve managed to stay alive this long, poor things.

Beast Island Log: Day 3, Entry 2

I discovered another edible root. It’s very tough and stringy, but I found boiling it made it more edible and savory in general. I miss dessert, especially tiny ones.

Beast Island Log: Day 3, Entry 3

Day three on Beast Island, and I’m in a strange state of peace. Of course I miss my friends and my lab. But here? Here I have the opportunity to learn an entirely new skillset. A wilderness explorer, imagine that! Hordak always said that my optimism was somewhat unnatural, but I never knew what he meant until now. I probably have Scorpia to thank for that. She’s the most positive person I know. If only she could see me now. Friends, if you’re listening, I’m going to be okay! Everything will be okay.

Beast Island Log: Day 4, Entry 1

I ventured deeper into the forest to find food that isn’t berries and roots. It’s hard to describe, but I felt a slight vibration coming from the ground. If I close my eyes and listen, it’s almost as if there’s a humming sound all around. Perhaps the area is magnetized? I want to go further in, but I don’t think my forest friends would like that.

Beast Island Log: Day 4, Entry 2

As I suspected, some of these creatures are not very friendly! I came across a small nest near the foot of a tree. I wonder if it fell from the branches. It had small blue eggs with red speckles, similar to bird eggs. I was tempted to hold one, just to get a sense of its weight, until I saw what I presume was its mother. As expected, she saw me as a threat and flew towards me, squawking like mad. I managed to run fast enough into the bushes where she couldn’t reach me. I realized that my body does not handle cardio well. Exercise is not my forte, but I’ll have to add that to my list of survival skills. I’m famished now, so until next time!

Beast Island Log: Day 5, Entry 1

I made a new friend today! As in, actually made one. Her name is Tiny Emily. She’s a cute little thing, the size of my fist. She rolls around while I’m sleeping and alarms if she senses any creatures that come close. These woods can get scary at night, so now I have a protector. 

Beast Island Log: Day 6, Entry 1

Today Tiny Emily and I explored one of the marshes just outside the giant scorpion fruit tree. There was some sort of hut, mostly branches and leaves, that something had made. I need to do more exploring.

Day 6, Entry 2

There is definitely a buzzing sound coming from the island’s center. I know because Tiny Emily and I have been marking the perimeter and listening very closely. I wish I had equipment that could help detect the sound wave patterns. I could make one; I just need the right parts and the power. Well, that’s why I have ears! Sometimes you don’t need fancy tech. Sometimes.

Beast Island Log: Day 6, Entry 3

Today was our first rainy day. The first thing we did was take cover under the husk of an old battle tank. I’ve learned to treat every element as potentially dangerous. We determined that the rainwater is safe, so we’re safe. The battle tank was also a fortuitous find. It helps block out water and wind and offers protection from predators.

Day 6, yes 6. Entry 3? 4?

Remember when I said the battle tank was safe? Well, I’m afraid I spoke too soon. The metal is very rusty and corroded and a piece of it fell when the storm outside picked up. We’ll have to seek shelter elsewhere since these machines aren’t structurally sound. Perhaps the hut we found? It looked sturdy enough. I’m very nervous to leave the junkyard in favor of the forest. I find that I don’t do well with bugs and mud. Oh well! There’s always danger in exploration.

Beast Island Log: Day 7

We had a close call today. Tiny Emily rolled down a hill and nearly fell into the river! Though we did make another important discovery. We found a spear near the water. The dexterity and attention to detail needed to craft such a tool...Could we still be dealing with some sort of animal? If something could make this weapon, I’m not sure I want to find out.

Day 7, Entry 2

We found another spear. The pointy end was charred, like it was used to cook food. We found a nest of grub nearby, so perhaps that’s why. We’re not talking about an animal anymore, not even close. 

Day 8

I’m not alone on this island.

Beast Island Log: Day 8. 9? Entry 1

We circled the areas where we found the hut and the spears and found an abandoned campfire. No traces of footprints. I would normally never say this, being a practical scientist, but it’s as if we’re tracking a ghost.

Day 10

It has been ten days on Beast Island. I know I just got here, but something inside me is itching to explore the forest, as if it has all the answers I need. I won’t lie. I am frightened. Tiny Emily has been chirping away these past two nights. This might actually be the first night where I feel far away from home. 

Beast Island Log: Day 30, I think. Entry 1

I’m afraid I’ve been a very bad scientist. This is the longest break I’ve taken from creating my logs, probably ever! Whoever made the hut and the spear is nowhere to be found. Me and Tiny Emily have searched everywhere. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with finding them. Maybe it’s someone like me who was sent here. Maybe they came here on their own. To explore. Or to escape. I’ve thought of every possible scenario as to why this person would want to be on this island and I cannot find a single reasonable answer. I don’t know if people were truly made to be alone. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s my problem...

I’m going to keep exploring. I’m going to find whatever is out there and share with them what I know about how to survive on this island. And maybe, together, things will be okay. It’s dinnertime. Signing off.

[WARNING: LOW BATTERY!!]

[starryyastraea]

SHIP/OTP Questions for my main ships: Cambeck, Lunarie, and Camarie :) (because I am not sure which ships will end up canon y a y)

1. Who is the early bird/ Who is the night owl?

Valerie is definitely the night owl in every situation. She cannot fall asleep before 11pm, but even then likes to stay up. What do you expect? This girl stays up studying fairy tales and magic and then of course has to do all her school work at 1am. She’s a wreck.

Luna and Camden are early birds, and go to bed early. Do not understand Val’s need to stay up. Luna likes to get up early to work out and get ready for her day. She likes to be productive. Cam likes to watch the sunrise and gets inspiration from the early morning crap idk. He likes to be up and awake and ready. They both like to be awake before everyone else in the house and have alone time before they need to put on their ‘masks’.

Oliver is both? He likes to stay up late but can’t sleep in. So when he can, he naps during the day. Which he can’t. Get this poor boy some sleep, he's a mess. 

2. Who is the big spoon/ Who is the little spoon?

Cam is usually the big spoon and Val is the little spoon. He likes holding her and feeling like he can protect her, and vice versa. But sometimes, when Cam has had a bad day, he needs to be held. Val likes when she’s the big spoon because it’s when Cam is vulnerable idk words lol

Same thing here. Cam is usually the big spoon. Oliver would never initiate himself as the big spoon, but he wouldn’t turn Cam down if he wanted to be held.

LUNA IS A LITTLE SPOON LUNA IS A LITTLE SPOON SHE NEEDS TO BE HELD AND CUDDLED SHE IS A  B A B Y  HAH LITTLE BABY

3. Who hogs the cover/ Who loves to cuddle?

Okay so hear me out. They ALL love to cuddle. The most affectionate are Camden and Luna, then Valerie and then Oliver.

Val is a total cover hog, which is fine because Cam and Luna will just cuddle up to her and boom all is good.

Oliver. Will. Steal the covers. And when he’s sleeping he doesn’t care to cuddle. So Camden is lEFT FREEZING HIS LIL FACE OFF AND OLIVER DOESN’T KNOW NOR CARE BECAUSE HE’S ASLEEP

4. Who wakes the other one up with kisses?

Camden. Little kisses all over the face. With Val she’ll smile and return them, Oli will end up a blushing mess every single time.

If Val happens to somehow be awake before Luna? Like they both had a long night?? OOooffff. Luna is definitely that “Affection? Disgusting… Do it again” type of person so if Valerie ever woke Luna up with little kisses Luna would ACT like she hated them but they both know that's how she wants to be woken up for the rest of her life. Might do that to Valerie a few times and then deNY IT THE BRAT

5. Who usually has nightmares?

Honestly? Probably Luna. Her constant fear of wanting affection and attention keeps her up at night (Except not)

6. Who would have really deep emotional thoughts at the middle of the night/ Who would have them in the middle of the day?

B R U H. Valerie and Oliver would stay up late at night contemplating life and Camden would totally go along with it. 

Luna does her thinking during the day around people. That's how she realized she liked females and maybe being popular wasn’t really everything and woah no one has ever been inside and empty room….

7. Who sweats the small stuff?

Luna and Oliver when it comes to basic everyday things. They are worry warts, no matter how much they hide it. So poor Val and Cam need to tell them they’re doing okay and just. S t o p.

Cam sweats the small stuff when it comes to his partner. He’s a hopeless romantic and just wants his s/o to feel like the most loved and happy person in the world and constantly feels like he isn’t doing enough.

8. Who sleeps in their underwear (or naked)/ Who sleeps in their pajamas?

They all wear pajamas but if Valerie were alone on a hot night she would not pass up just her underwear and a giant t-shirt.

9. Who makes the coffee (or tea)?

Cam and Luna usually do since they wake up early, but Valerie always makes extra because she's a thirsty gal

10. Who likes sweet/ Who likes sour?

Cam and Oli are wholesome sweetie babies who love sweet.

Valerie likes both. She can’t choose just oNE …. :)

Luna likes sour things. Sour. That’s why she herself is so sour. She doesn’t like dessert-type food either. 

11. Who likes horror movies/ Who likes romance movies?

Camden is of course a sucker for romance movies, and so is Valerie. Oliver doesn’t mind them. Luna pretends to hate them and then finds herself up at 1am watching Hallmark movies. whoops

Cam is just a movie junkie and also loves horror. Val will watch them if someone else wants to, but does not go out of her way to choose to watch them. Luna and Oliver hate horror movies. Will not for any reason watch them.

12. Who is smol/ Who is tol?

Based off of energy, Luna and Cam have tol energy and Val and Oli have smol energy. Which works for their actual heights too… 

13. Who is considered the scaredy cat?

Oliver and Luna lMAOOOO poopy heads

14. Who kills the spiders?

Camden would kill it, but Valerie would take it outside while Oli and Luna are crying outside and planning on where to move. 

15. Who is scared of the dark?

Valerie actually is still scared of the dark...

16. Who is scared of thunderstorms?

Valerie and Luna. So they’re a mess together. Its… they need help… 

17. Who works/ Who stays at home?

Val, Cam, and Luna would all go out to work. And Oli is the homebody who just stays home/works from home. 

18. Who is a cat person/ Who is a dog person?

Oliver is a dog person.

Val likes both, leans toward cats.

Cam likes both, leans toward dogs.

Luna is not an animal person. Get them away from her. She won’t touch them. Gross.

19. Who loves to call the other one cute names?

VALERIE AND CAMDEN MOST DEFINITELY USE PET NAMES OMG KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME EWW

Oliver might if he’s feeling confident. And we all know how Luna feels about affection. Gross 

20. Who is dominant/ Who is submissive?

Luna and Cam are most definitely doms. Cam is more like,,, a soft dom? Luna just. Dominant.

Val is a switch and will most definitely dom both Cam and Luna and even though they’re also doms it’s like,,, you can’t just dom dom Val, y’know? If she wants to dom she’s gonna dom

Oliver is a subby sub we all been known hes b a b y

21. Who has an obsession (over anything)?

VALERIE AND WE BEEN KNEW

Cam has an obsession with memes and his love

Oli obsesses over books

Luna is obsessed with herself whoops

22. Who goes all out for Valentine’s Day?

CAMDEN OMG HE WOULD GO ALL. OUT. FOR HIS LOVE BECAUSE ITS LOVE DAY AND HE LOOOOVES YOOOUUUUu

23. Who asks who out on the first date?

Cam always makes the first move

Luna usually makes the first move, but Valerie had to ask her on the first date because Luna is an idiot.

24. Who is the talker/ Who is the listener?

Cam is the talker and Oli is the listener. Obvi.

Cam and Val? Booooth. They both do both. Mutual loving relationship. They’re idiots. I hate them. 

Val will talk and talk and talk and Luna doesn’t listen unless it’s like a serious heart-to-heart. Luna doesn’t talk about her feelings and Val has to force them out of her.

25. Who wears the other ones clothes?

Ohmygosh Valerie wears everyones clothes regardless of who shes with.

When Luna/Cam see her in one of their shirts? They m e l t

Luna loves to dress Valerie up in her clothes

And Oliver likes to steal Cams clothes sometimes. He wouldn’t go out in public but Cam is just so much bigger than him so the clothes awh baby okay

26. Who likes to eat healthy/ Who loves junk food?

Valerie, Cam, and Oli all love junk food and Luna physically cannot down junk food.

Cam and Oli know how to eat healthy though

Valerie… she lives off of caffeine and potato chips she does not know what a carrot is. Like carrot cake? No? Then idk she dont know

27. Who takes a long shower/ Who sings in the shower?

Valerie does both

Camden and Oli take long showers

Luna is in and out. And somehow was able to effectively wash all her hair, clean and shave her entire body, give herself like a full facial and mani-pedi, buy a house, perform heart surgery, and like brush her teeth in like ten minutes.

28. Who is the book worm?

Oliver and Valerie lol

29. Who is the better cook?

Luna and Valerie cannot cook for crap

And Cam is better at baking...

Has Oliver ever even step foot in a kitchen??

...they’ll all just order takeout. for the benifit of literally everyone.

30. Who likes long walks on the beach?

Camden and Valerie would

Luna prefers to like,,, sunbathe. That’s the only reason to be at the beach lol

Oliver doesn’t do beaches.

31. Who is more affectionate?

Cam and Val and we been knew

32. Who likes to have really long (deep) conversation?

AGAIN. CAM AND VAL. IT’S LIKE THEY WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER HMM

33. Who would wear “not guilty” t-shirt/ Who would wear “sin” t-shirt?

Luna- Not guilty, Val- Sin

Oli- Not guilty, Cam- Sin

CAM AND VAL ARE JUST SIN AHH

34. Who would wear “if lost return to…” t-shirt/ Who would wear “I am…” t-shirt?

Valerie and Oliver do be gettin lost tho

Need to be returned to Luna and Cam

35. Who goes overboard on the holidays?

omg Camden my boi. He’s just so excited and hyped. Also, his family is no help because they’re always going overboard

Valerie will also go overboard. But nobody beats Camden lol

36. Who is the social media addict?

Luna?? Have you met this chick??

37. Height difference or age difference?

Luna and Val have a three inch height difference (when Luna is wearing flats), and Valerie is older by like... two months

OKAY Valerie and Camdens height difference is 10 inches. awh. I’m a sucker for height differences look at themmmmm. And then Cam is seven months older

Cam is only three inches taller than Oliver :) And Cam claims the title as the oldest, being four months older than Oli

38. Who likes to star gaze?

Omh Camden is such a hopeless romantic and he’ll do this just so he can turn his head and see his love staring up with the stars in their eyes. Also so he can use dumb star related pick up lines on them

Valerie loves this! Look up at the stars! So pretty! She may not know anything about them, but she loves them!

Luna will join Valerie because yeah, they’re pretty :) And so is the cute girl next to her whoop

39. Who buys cereal for the prize inside?

.....Camden

40. Who is the fun parent/ Who is the responsible parent?

When it comes to parenting, Valerie and Cam would be a fun/responsible duo. They are both the good cop and bad cop. They know how to balance it, because they grew up with balanced parents.

Luna would be more responsible. She isn’t exactly a ‘kid’ person, and really didn’t have great parental influences growing up, and doesn’t want to have her child run off and be unsupervised/feel neglected like her

Oliver is in a similar boat. 

SO THANK GOODNESS FOR VAL AND CAM

41. Who cries during sad movies?

Omg I swear Camden and Valerie are like the same person it’s disgusing. Anyways. They.

Oliver may? Depends on how sad it is.

Luna has no emotions. Gross.

42. Who is the neat freak?

V A L E R I E omg she will clean up the smallest mess. Which is funny because you look at her and her bedroom and think she’s a mess herself which she is but she’s an orginzed mess

43. Who wins the stuffed animals at the carnival for the other one?

Valerie and Camden will be competitive and try to win each other prizes, but like, against the other? If that makes sense?

Oliver will gladly accept what Cam wins for him

When Val offers to win one for Luna, she’ll be like ‘ew gross I don’t want one of those’. Valerie gets one anyways, and Luna adores it anyways.

44. Who is active/ Who is lazy?

Honestly none of them are lazy per se, but the most active I think are Luna and Valerie. I mean, Luna is just an active, work-outy person. Valerie just cannot sit still for longer than three minutes. 

Camden and Oli like to relax from time to time. Just. Sit. Alone or with each other. 

45. Who is more likely to get drunk?

Luna and Cam (poor Valerie lol)

46. Who has the longer food order?

Camden!! This boy eats a lot!! And where does it all go?!

47. Who has the more complex coffee order?

Ohmygoodness Valerie. She drinks so much coffee, and her orders are always different and bizarre. 

48. Who loses stuff?

Oliver. Poor boy. Val misplaces things quite often, too.

49. Who is the driver/ Who is the passenger?

Camden is the only good driver here.

Between Luna and Val, Valerie drives but only because Luna refuses to. That does not mean she is good.

50. Who is the hopeless romantic?

The obvious answer here is Camden. He takes the cake for being a hopeless romantic. He loves the idea of love, and being in love. Having someone to love. Love. He goes over the top, stares at them, he’s just in love and isn’t afraid to show it.

HOWEVER

I think all of them, once in their relationship, shows how hopelessly romantic they are for their loves. That’s just what happens when you’re with the one.

lol. I know this isn’t like... how this was supposed to go but I couldn’t choose just one couple :)

[caveangelascendant]

What’s your campaign about? :0

OKAY so theres a . lot going on and i had no idea what was happening when it started so im like? really responsible for that? also several oneshots that take place in alternate realities or hundreds of years in the past, but.

main characters:

- binary, a 7 foot tall robot necromancer with a giant scythe played by @theleastcarefulofgamedevs​​

- zei, a 15 year old tiefling rogue with emotional issues and ENTIRELY too many schemes played by @themarijuanamason​

- kevin, a kindly tiefling bard who’s a devout worshipper of the god of the sun played by @desertdaylight​

- reaper, doomguy but cooler

- rav, a batshit crazy gnome that’s a recovering alcoholic, played by the same person as arlie, a human fabricator that just joined the party (he hated the gnome so much he made a new character)

- kada, a calm and intelligent wizard bird person that’s cursed to have vines growing all over them (my npc)

- krakta, a depressed troll paladin and innkeeper who likes to garden (also my npc and my personal fave)

the actual plot:

- most of the game has taken place in the magical city of whitehall. current arcs included but not limited to: zei and binary are trying to get along, kevin’s in love with kada, binary’s getting married to krakta, rav is ???, zei and reaper are planning to break into a city and hack the main antagonist, krakta’s great aunt is back from the dead as his guardian angel, arlie is trying to figure out what the fuck is going on

- meanwhile, in godville, heselma has taken in the god of autumn and is training him as an apprentice. the gods of summer, winter, and spring write together in a book that can control fate. mr light mcgrabbyhands is using the autumn prince and the absence of the goddess of darkness to try to steal the book, as he cannot create or destroy on his own, only corrupt

- MEANWHILE in the prairie theres a town (desert daylight) made of whitehall’s doubles that wasn’t supposed to be canon but oops my hand slipped lmao. it’s the hq of an evil corporation involved with the god of light (heselma) that’s been taking over parts of the continent and has been doing so for hundreds of years.

additional things:

- anti-binary is a jackass to anti-kada and anti-krakta. the latter escaped from dd tho so he’s doing better, anti-kada is . not

- krakta’s great aunt lead, fought in, and died in one of the most influential wars on the entirety of the planet. she was also killed by binary’s body

- four of the gods are actually kids that died in the woods in the 80s

- rat box

- we killed jeff bezos while riding a cardboard dragon mech

- the party is bffs with an 8 foot tall pirate captain that has an entire crime made specifically because of them (4th degree murder)

- flirting out of prison because rav stole a spear from a 9 foot tall mechanical seraph

- TOP 10 HILARIOUS JOKES ONLY FUNGEON PLAYERS WILL GET: let’s go home

- dimensional elevator is a series of highly surreal oneshots about the party travelling between dimensions because they opened the wrong door and i wanted to test armor class

- pee buddies

- ah, yes, my favorite non-canon oneshot-exclusive cosmic entities: insane 50s housewife that can control spacetime, omnipotent scene kid with a typing quirk that pits people against each other in a murder arena for fun, and normal human woman in a suit

- whatever the fuck this is

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[smittenvixen13]

Favorite Christmas/December memories

- The fact that I got my cat, Lucky, for my birthday(December 5th) while my dad was deployed(I had turned 5) because my mom knew my dad wouldn’t let me adopt a cat otherwise. Don’t worry, dad loved Lucky too, but he’s very much a dog person - Said cat would ALSO get into our giant, plastic, with lights on it already, tree AND NEVER KNOCK IT DOWN. The first time he got into the tree (it was already decorated), he would ONLY take down the feathered bird decorations we had in it (not the plastic birds, only the feathered ones) and then just rest up in the tree. He was the most behaved cat ever.

- One year, my sister and I wanted to see snow very badly (We live in San Diego). Dad had heard it got cold enough in the mountains for snow so he began to drive out there for snow. First place, no snow. Second place, no snow. We get to the third place and by now my dad is cursing internally, before telling us “Alright, say ‘I wish, I wish for snow’, okay? Otherwise it won’t snow.“ So of course, as little kids do, we do as told, while dad’s just internally praying for snow. And it seems like he’s going to get snubbed again and we’ll be left disappointed. But then there was SNOW. We made a snow man out there, our very first! - My next-door neighbor, and honorary Grandma, Lavern had always gotten me cute little Christmas themed jewelry for my birthdays. On my last Christmas with her, about 8 years old, she got me my last present-though I didn’t know it at the time. It was this beautiful yellow rose in amber, as a pendant necklace for me, because she knew I loved Belle a lot. She passed away on Christmas day that year, but her son told me I was the last thing to make her smile, when she remembered “Graceful Monica“ (because I liked ballet but I was very heavy footed, so I stomped lol). I miss her a lot and I plan on wearing that necklace when I marry. - When I was still getting Equestrian lessons, we were invited to the ranch for their holiday party and it was a ton of fun. I especially loved being able to see Old Ricky (this wonderful old horse who was about 15 years old and I adored him with all my heart) and just softly talking to him. Seeing the stables all lit up and talking with the little friends I made at the time. - One year, a bunch of my relatives (a small gathering by my standards, but aboooouuuuut 20 people, adults and kids) got together at my Aunt’s house to celebrate up in Vegas. Us kids were all excited and playing Wrestle Mania and GTA, when one of my cousins brought up going to Disneyland the next day. Then we ALL wanted to go Disneyland. So we go to the Livingroom to suggest to the adults that we ALL go. After many hours of talking, the adults agreed and the day after Christmas, we took off for Anaheim. Holy shit, my dad?? My dad took control of kid duty (I think 7 kids) and made us RUN all over the park. I am not a runner. I have never BEEN  a runner. My cousins PUSHED me so we could go FASTER and get to shit sooner (We always hit up Splash mountain and Indiana Jones twice each because those two are more likely to shut down faster in the morning). ooof, by the afternoon? We were exhausted and nearly fell asleep in our lunch at the Coco’s across the street (we never ate at the park, too much money). We got to stay late, as always, and I always LOVE to see the night fireworks. I know now that I won’t be able to see the show anymore with my parents (dad has PTSD and fireworks set him off and I hate that because watching fireworks was OUR thing, but I would never want my dad to feel terrified, so I can’t see it with my dad anymore), so those times of seeing those shows is special in my heart. - I remember the Elementary School Shooting (Sandy Hook) happened and everyone was just...terrified and just plain emotional for those little kids, those families, that community. It was my senior year of High School and our teacher announced that they were taking donations so they could get money and send teddy bears for the survivors. At the time I had been selling Rice Krispies at school, making about forty bucks every week and a half. I thought of those little kids, thought about how much those families hurt, and I just donated $20 or $30 when others, teacher included, just did a few ones or a five. Teacher said I didn’t need to do that, but I told her “They need those teddy bears more than I need that money. I’ll be fine.” I lived, and still live, a comfortable life. I didn’t need that money, they did. - Nearly every birthday I had until about 12 was held in my backyard and we always hosted 100 people easy. My dad would go and get the HUGE piñatas (it was always the Powerpuff Girls because I loved them and they were about 4-5 feet tall) and fill them half way with candy THEN tape them up with clear heavy duty tape. I would have easily 25 cousins in the line to hit the piñatas, ranging from 1 to 18, and each were allowed to hit the piñata at least 1 turn. My cousins were little psychopaths and would take the heads of the powerpuff girls and use them to either hold candy or to use them to scare us by chasing us with them. - When we still had the old house, dad and I ALWAYS decorated the house with our lights. We would spend a good hour decorating the front of the house with simple bulb lights and adding to the layers as the years went. I really miss doing that, but dad is also getting older and I want him to relax a lot more lol. - I bought my first Christmas tree as a kid, maybe 6 or 7. I had my birthday money, about $200 each birthday, and told my dad I wanted a tree of my own. We went to SEARS and I bought a small two or three foot tree, got my own decorations for said tree, and bought it myself, feeling very grown up. I don’t have the tree anymore, but all the decorations we still have and we now use on our current tree. - My mom taught us to cook, my dad taught us to bake. Each Christmas, we would host easily...30+ people, and my sis, dad and I would bake sugar cookies in the DOZENS, maybe getting to a hundred before finishing it. I loved baking with dad, but now I’m so territorial over the kitchen, I don’t like sharing the space. - One year, while dad was deployed, my mom and I cooked fresh popcorn over the stove, butter free, and then made popcorns on a string for decoration like we saw on the movies. It was our first and only time, but I remember hanging with my mom and just relaxing as we watched a movie or talked or talked with dad over the phone. SOOOOO these were a lot of memories lol

[thatfairyfangirl]

True Colors Chapter 8

Weeks of quiet boredom passed as you slowly came to realize that being an Avenger was really for the most part just waiting around in shifts for the world to need your help, and training yourself to be ready for when that time arose. Things began to feel familiar, like your school days at Xavier’s all over again, but so very different.  At school you learned your mutant tallents. Here you were honing them to perfection. No school children running around clogging up the halls, at times when the others were away attending to their personal lives it almost felt too empty. If it wasn’t for Bucky you were sure you’d go mad in the vast emptiness of it all. Meals, though they were comunal were much less formal than you pictured. It had more grab a plate and be on your way if you want it, which for you felt much more at home. It was nice to be able to skip a meal at the tower to go out with Bucky for some alone time every now and then. Ever since the night of the party your friendship seemed to be flourishing.

As the two of you wandered the streets debating on where to go for lunch, leaves crunching under foot you began to spot the signs of the season fast approaching. Though the pumpkins remained they no longer wore carved faces. The leaves no longer needed your help in their vibrant shades. The day was growing a bitter chill that cut through you as Bucky wrapped his arm around your shoulders to keep you warm.

“Say Doll, do they still do that Thanksgiving parade in town?” He asked with a smile, his long dark hair clinging to his face, held down by a knit cap.

The light in your eyes grew as you looked up to him. “Oh Buck do they ever!” You turned, looking back to the tower, only a few blocks behind you now. “You know, I think the tower is on the parade route.” He chuckled as you beamed with excitement. “I’ve only ever seen it on TV oh this is going to be such a great Thanksgiving!”

~ ~ ~ ~

The sun wasn’t even over the skyline of New York as you jumped into Bucky’s bed, waking him with a start that walked the fine line between adorable and dangerous for your health. “My god Doll! Don’t do that!” He wide eyed held his hand over his heart as he tried to calm himself down. “You realize how close you were to dead there?”

You simply smiled as you crawled over his sheets to playfully poke at his face. “But you didn’t, now come on, time to get dressed for the parade.”

With a sleepy huff Bucky fell back into his bed. “No Doll, it’s 5:30 and the parade doesn’t start for another 4 hours and we live on the parade route. Remember?”

“But Buck, if we watch it from up here we won’t be able to hear anything,” you protested as you flopped onto the bed keeping your movements just exaggerated enough against his skin to keep him from falling back to sleep.

“Then we’ll just go downstairs.” He murmured as he pulled you in close to him, holding you still with his bionic arm. You wiggled under him, fighting to get free.

“But that’s why we have to go downstairs now.” You whined as you shook him gently.

~ ~ ~ ~

“What the heck is that?” Bucky asked with a scrunched brow pointing up to a giant floating Pikachu in a Santa hat. Clint and Natasha rolled their eyes at the tenth time Bucky had asked that since the start of the parade. Steve, however, he understood where his friend was coming from, he knew that was him just a few years ago.

“That is a travesty,” you answered with a half pout as you folded your arms over your chest. “To put Pikachu in a christmas hat on Thanksgiving Day! Ugh do they not have any decency?” With a wave of your hand the bright candy apple red of the hat began to swirl into a dull brown, something you felt to be much more fitting for the day.

“(Y/N) those balloons are expensive. Maybe we can not mess with the colors?” Steve half scolded.

“But Steve,” you whined, “you know as well as I do that the Christmas season doesn’t start until Santa rolls down 34th!”

“Change it back now,” Steve insisted as you did as you were told.

“What’s a Peek-at-chyou?” Bucky asked with a creased brow, watching the giant creature float by.

“It’s what Spectrum wants to do when we’re in the training room.” Tony teased as he sipped on his coffee.

“It’s a Pokemon.” You answered with a quick right jab to Tony’s chest.

“What’s a-” You just held your hand up stopping the question before it started, explaining to him, roughly, what a Pokemon was. You reminded yourself to get him a gameboy for Christmas.

Over the next half hour or so you wrapped yourself in Bucky’s arms for a friendly warmth that he was happy to lend to you as you explained every float and every balloon.  The rest of the team shared knowing glances to each other, evaluating the growing relationship you both refused to acknowledge was there. As the balloons and floats meandered down the street the familiar sound of When You Wish Upon A Star began echoing through the streets making you leap with excitement. Bucky couldn't help but smile as he watched your face lit up brighter than Bucky thought possible as a familiar castle came rolling past. Waving from the float was every Disney Princess. Bucky chuckled a bit as he watched you bounce in his arms. “Calm down Doll, it’s just a float.” He chuckled as you stopped, your eyes focused on Ariel...in a blue dress.

“WHAT THE-” Bucky’s hand clamped down on your mouth muffling the stream of obscenities as your eyes narrowed, growing all the more angry with each wave of her hand. “I can’t believe they changed her dress!”

“Didn’t Ariel’s dress used to be pink?” Clint asked with a sip of his coffee, only knowing such information thanks to his daughter.

“YES!” You heard a whistle blow indicating to the marchers that the cameras had gone to commercial break and it was time to wait for them to start rolling again.

“What’s the big deal?” Bucky asked. “So she felt like wearing a different color this year…”

Your eyes went wide as you turned to face him. “James Buchanan Barnes I’m going to ask you something, and you have to swear to answer honestly. What was the last Disney movie you saw? And not just a clip Tony or Clint showed you, like actually full on credits to credits watched?"

“Disney...that’s the guy who put out the movie with the princess and the little men right?” The sound of the whistle blowing telling the parade to move once more drew his eyes back up to see the princess in question. “Oh! Her! That one.” He pointed to Snow White with a proud smile so sure him seeing one of your favorite movies on his own was an achievement.

"YOU MEAN YOU'VE ONLY SEEN SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES?!” Your eyes went wide as you began defending your childhood. “DO YOU REALIZE THEY’VE MADE 55 MOVIES SINCE THEN? Well, including live action ones. But do people really watch those anymore? And they have a theme park. Well actually they have 6 different ones, and” ypur fingers dug up into your hair as you came to a very big realization “OH MY GOD YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO DISNEY WORLD!”

“Woah. Woah Doll. Breathe.” He laughed as he placed his hands on your shoulders in an attempt to keep your feet on the ground. What is it with girls and princesses? “You have all the time in the world to take me to Princess World or wherever-”

“Disney, Buck.” You corrected, cutting him off. “Like…” you let out a sigh realizing this was something he’d have to see, “nevermind.”

“We can go to Disney World after the holidays, but right now I want to know if Tony is really going to let Vision cook the bird for tonight.”

“Hey, he’s been looking forward to it. Besides, Wanda’s going to help him.” Tony interjected defensively.

“Well I can already tell you that it’s going to be wrong. That thing should have been in the oven last night to properly roast.” You quipped.

~ ~ ~ ~

“Hey Rainbow Bright aren’t you supposed to be making the yams?” Tony asked teasingly from the kitchen. You and Bucky had been settled on the couch for hours now having a Disney marathon...He still didn’t quite see the big deal about the princesses that you were making, they seemed to be the exact opposite of what women today stood for. At least, the women he knew. But the smile on your face and the dreamy look in your eyes was enough to keep him watching. Without a word you pointed to a crock pot with something closely resembling what might turn out to be candied yams. “Okay...And Robocop where’s the cranberry sauce?” Bucky reached into his backpack which he had left propped up by the couch, pulling two cans out, holding them high for him to see. “You two are savages.” Tony just shook his head.

“This coming from the guy that’s letting the actual robot cook the Turkey.” You quipped back as you settled back into the sofa, swooning over Ariel and Eric’s story. “You know...when I was a kid I dreamed my wedding would be like this.” You remarked absentmindedly as you reached for the popcorn you smuggled in past the turkey day food police called Tony.

“Hey kids...dinner time - OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU EATING BEFORE DINNER?!” Tony called into the common room, suspicious of a romantic moment in the making. You glared up to Tony, staring daggers into him as a silent warning that if he ever interrupted a Disney movie again he’d be avenging in more of a rainbow than you. He knew the look all too well, somewhere in the back of his mind he knew to be at least slightly afraid of the girl with the rainbow tattoos. “Umm, whenever you’re ready.” He grinned before quickly retreating back into the kitchen, damage done. Bucky watched the exchange, never really sure what to make of you and Tony, the playful banter and conversations that seemed to happen telepathically digging awkwardly at him. He knew for a fact there was no actual history there, but it was obvious there was something special and deep between the two of you, something he just couldn’t quite put his finger on.

After dinner, the marathon continued with Rapunzel.  “So, I don’t get it. Is she the flower?” Bucky asked as he sat back down, handing you a plate filled with warm nutty gooey goodness, a nice thick slice of pecan pie. “There were only two choices for your pie, this or pumpkin. And I know you have that thing about pumpkin and it being the basic bitch of fall.”

“It's not that Buck, it's that pecan pie is like crack. It's my two favorite things- sugar and nuts.” You insinuated with a wink, stirring Bucky’s blood, he both loved and hated when you pulled out the playful flirting. On the one hand he did enjoy the attention, but on the other he knew in the back of his mind that he’d never end up with a ray of sunshine like you. With a smirk you settled back into that comfy spot in his arms, holding up fork-fulls of your desert for him to share. “And that's the fun of movies Sargent. You have to watch to find out.”

With desserts soon gone and empty plates abandoned you quickly found yourself snuggled in a blanket using Bucky’s lap as a pillow, watching with childlike wonder as the lanterns danced around Rapunzel and Eugene. With a longing sigh your eyes fixated on the screen, not realizing you were creating lanterns of your own around the common room, bringing the both of you into the scene. You could feel Bucky’s strong thick fingers gently brushing your hair behind your ear as you wished you could experience a moment like the one on the screen. Bucky, however, wasn’t watching the scene unfold on the TV, he was too entranced by the look in your eyes as you watched. All that he ever wanted out of this world he could see right there wrapped up in that blanket. All those blurred years all that stolen time seemed actually worth it to see you like this, right now, his own personal rainbow to light his world. With a small half smile his left arm drifted from the back of the couch down to your side, resting on your hip lightly. You could feel the cool metal through your clothes, but didn’t really seem to mind. Peeking through the door Tony smirked at the scene, noticing your hair had adopted a soft shade of pink.

Tag List:

@sillydecoy​

Announcement from the writer:

I am also on Patreon! You can find me on Patreon HERE. I know, I know, it sounds like I am expecting you to pay for my writing but fear not! I will only be charging $1 a month, and even that is voluntary. The majority of my fics will be available for free. The $1 subscription will be for access to the really adult content stuff I have been sitting on such as what I have been calling “Blind Date’s Deleted Scene” and access to my discord AND early access to fics! As a bonus for you guys since you have been with me since the beginning of Blind Date I will grant you free access to the discord if you shoot me a message here on tumblr and ask.

I will still post fics on Tumblr up until they are no longer welcomed by the staff, but patrons will be able to view them early.

For those who have trouble with hyperlinks on their device or find it hard to click a small word vs an actual link here is the full link to my new Patreon    https://www.patreon.com/fairyfangirl

[fates-end-does-vns]

Nogi Wakaba is a Hero: 1/2

that's a familiar looking face. sister or ancestor? sister or ancestor? 

that's a pretty karinish face there 

Second hero diary? What was the first?

>Nogi Sonoko joined the Sanshu Middle School Hero Club.

Starting in the present, I see.

>The Nogi Household's rose bath was like a hot spring.

ahh, wait, that illustration is for this scene isn't it yeah, now I see the black eyes instead of purple

>"That's a cute reaction~ I'm sure the readers would love a character like you~ my creative urges are rising~"

sononononono, don't break the fourth wall

unless you're making fanficion of your friends like fiw twilight, in which case I implore you to reconsider.

>"Yeah, that combination does sound like it could work. So next, how about Nogi?"

do not give sonoka a position of authority outside of combat. it will not end well.

>But yeah, right now, I think that out of all four candidates, I'd recommend Karin as club president. It'll probably be hard for her, but she is the 'perfect hero' after all, so I'm sure she can manage somehow."

ah right karin's more mellowed out now.

>"Okay, I'll read your fortune! ...Okay, I've got the results. This looks like it'll be a good romance!"

show me how you fucked up the tarot itsuki. I won't get too mad.

>"Well~ I'm not sure what I like exactly, but someone who's diligent and takes good care of others would be lovely~. It'd be even more fun if they were way too serious and got reckless from time to time, huh~"

sonogo you're just describing togou

>I wanted some material for my novels, so I asked for some history books to sent in from my family house's archive, and they sent me a huuuumongous amount of them.

HISTORY BOOKS GOTTEM

>"Books that escaped censorship... Those exist?"

fffucking taisha

burnin books too

>It was the same title as the diary Sonoko had recorded when she was worshiped, the Hero Diary.

ahhh so hero diaries are what the taisha make heroes write after they've reached their expiration dates

>It says the diary began to be recorded in July 2015.

so the treepocalypse happened in Next Sunday AD.

>"Nogi... Wakaba... Is she my ancestor~? If she wrote this diary, then does that mean my ancestor was a hero?"

caaaallllled iiiiiiit

y'alright there yuuna

(Prologue: End)

apocalypse magical girls from the far off future of 2018

what the fuck yuuna's is yuuna a time traveller a reincarnatee a cryogenically frozen supersoldier from the distant past

or is this just a coincidence

>Nogi Wakaba, a fifth grader at the time 

>a fifth grader at the time 

>fifth grader at the time 

>fifth grader 

are you fucking kidding me 

that was a joke

so nogi wakaba is basically blond sumi right 

why do these ten year olds have boobs

>One of the star-like objects fell onto the roof of the kagura-den. It was definitely not a bird at all. Its entire body was an almost unnatural white, its size far more gigantic than a human, with an ominous mouth-like organ.

and here's the vertices

>On unsteady feet, Hinata stood up. A strange light imbued her eyes and hex-like words leaked from her mouth.

ahh hinata's got the old possession style sayakafication fairies

I see they're taking the opportunity to do what they can't show on television.

>When she snapped back to her senses, Wakaba was standing up with that very sword in hand. She could've sworn the blade was rusted, but before she  had realised it, the blade was tinged with a vibrant, almost living brilliance.

we sure this is still the magical girl genre? this is giving me Eternity Sword vibes more than anything

>Some changed into a form like the edge of a section of body tissue, stiffening and rising up. (...They're... evolving...?)

that's not how evolution works.

>Three years later-- Nogi Wakaba was now a second year in middle school.

not expecting a time skip of all things. I'll be honest, I was enjoying the hellhole thing.

>Uesato Hinata is a Miko, one who hears divine voices.

miko, huh? interesting.

chapter 1 end.

the fuck is a doi

>After the invasion, a special tree by the name of "Shinju" appeared in Shikoku, and a giant wall made of plant tissue surrounded the island. It is said that the Shinju was the incarnation of the local gods, and the wall was a barrier it put up to stop the Vertex.

"appeared", "it was said". hm, hm, hm~♪

>"Uranophobia."

pff, uranus. but apparently it's "fear of heaven"

>Although it said "hearing the voice of the gods," it was not through common speech, but rather in the form of symbols and suggestive hints that instructions were transmitted to her.

symbols and suggestive hints, huh... so basically it's a horoscope.

>Only the purest of girls

"purest of girls"? what the hell does that even mean in this case

> are able to come in contact with the gods who detest impurity.

oh, the gods are fucking Lunarians.

>An area of the southeastern part of Lake Suwa in Nagano was, like Shikoku, also protected by a barrier where people could live.

...Another barrier? A second tree, or???

noodle discourse

>It let her feel safe knowing there was a friend out there fighting as well.

she's gon die isn't she

oh fuck I'm going to need to memorize at least five sets of speech patterns aren't I

>"I'm not fondling them! I'm trying to tear them off!"

i see hinata has more in common with togou than her hair color

this'll be a joy to get straight 

we even have multiple soft-spoken girls with long black hair 

interesting to note that yuuna's not pictured yet.

>Normal weapons were useless against the Vertex, only those that the Heroes wielded could inflict damage upon them.

so do the weapons have fairies in them or what

>"Taisha" was written with the characters for "Great Shrine," wait a fucking second is this a different organization

yeah yuuna's a time traveller.

chapter 2 end

guess blossoming is already a thing

for some strange reason I feel like wakaba's the only character who matters here.

>And yet Yuuna was less concerned about herself, and more concerned with Chikage who hadn't participated in the battle at all.

yuuna being yuuna

>The next moment, the cylindrical Vertex began forming a clear red plate-shaped structure.

cancer?

>Out of the infinite records available to her, the one Yuuna now chose was "Ichimokuren".

wait, so yuuna's choosing her fairy?

and stuffing it in herself, which is bad.

>Wakaba had dodged the Vertex's charge with the least necessary movement, and at the same time, she bit off part of the enemy's body with her teeth.

don't bite the alien wakaba

>"Wakaba-chan! You can't go eating weird things like that, okay!?"

pff.

chapter 3 end

so is she referring to actual blossoming here or what

>A foul smell hit her the moment she stepped inside.

welp

chikage's in a bad place

chikage's in a really bad place

>They both cursed her existence.

yikes

>Those who had hurt her once were now trying to get on her good side.

garbage people, the lot of them

>(My worth... is in being a hero...)

oh no this won't end well

>It allowed her to exist in seven different places at once. She wouldn't die unless all seven were killed at the same time.

and this is even one of the fairies mentioned in that report.

chapter 4 end

??? I don't get it

oh hey gemini

>"I see! So then maybe we can use the udon as a diversion if it reacts to it!" there is absolutely no way this will work.

>untamarable what kind of pun is that

chapter 5 end

wait a second is that part talking about udon did they censor udon and intelligent? why the hell would the taisha censor information about instant noodles 

>The one who saved her was Yuuna. She suddenly appeared in the midst of the swarm and started holding them off instead of Wakaba. are you sure yuuna's not the protagonist here

so to temporarily stop the vertexes the taisha allegedly went aztec on what were allegedly six mikos those wouldn't happen to actually be these six characters somehow, would they? and I guess Yuuna would be a zombie...?

end of chapter 6

so apparently the divine tree is blaming humans too? fuck that tree.

guess hinata's hair is purple now.

>"...Her consciousness still hasn't returned." so are comas normal for yuuna

this group is a lot less stable than the other ones.

>Now that it had been denied... just how should she fight from now on?

wakaba freaking out about her girlfriend leaving is cute

ah, anzu's trying to cheer her up by point out how many people she’s been helping.

>(But now... I have to get over it.) :V guess the therapists all got eaten

and Chapter 7 ends with another timeskip.

>And perhaps they would keep on changing. *glances at gin's funeral*

>Aki Masuzu clamoured in misery as she changed clothes. oh boy another new character

>However, all communications with Suwa had ceased after last September.

and another tree circle is confirmed just to be killed off lemme guess, they'll disappear one by one until shikoku's all that's left?

>Finally, the Shinju appeared at the end of the path. hup

even in a light novel, the tree isn't described

>Several of the small stars combined into a brilliance unlike anything I've ever seen... leo again?

>There are two kinds of honetsukidori. Chick uses spring chickens while hen uses more mature chicken meat. Chick is more plump, tender, and easier to eat, while hen has a deeper flavour that oozes out the more you chew on its tougher meat. stop it, you're making me hungry

>All Yuuna was doing was cheerfully humming as she cleaned Wakaba's ears-- but not even Hinata was a match for a technique like that. even in other characters' stories, yuuna reigns supreme

>The fierce battle foretold in the oracle in the midst of the war of humanity's last stand would later be called the Battle of Marugame Castle. Oh, so we're getting into a fight that's actually important?

[End of chapter 8]

hmm. you know what, there's only so long you can string me along with splotches of whiteout before I get desensitized to it.

>Would they just blindly increase in size, or would they guide their evolution into an intentional form? The latter.

>By that time, the black shadows wrapping around her foot had already disappeared. what the heck

>Suddenly, Tamako collapsed to her knees. really shouldn'tve tempted fate back there.

>The fairy she had extracted from the Shinju was Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a general with superhuman martial arts thought it was a divine tree, not a throne of heroes.

end of chapter 9.

So are they going on a "trip" outside the wall? Wonder if it's as much of a primordial hellscape as it is in present times...

>Many buildings had been blown out from the inside as if a chemical explosion had occurred within, and traces of heat-deformation could be seen. That's the first unpleasant thing they saw? Guess the vertexes haven't done... whatever to destroy the atmosphere yet.

>For dinner, they were boiling water in a pot to cook some udon they had brought from Shikoku. It was a dry-noodle kind of Sanuki udon that kept well. of course they're eating udon.

>After dinner, everyone went into the river to wash off their sweat. oh boy another fanservice scene bet there's a cg for this too yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

>"If I become a hero and do my best fighting the Vertexes, I can save people. If we keep saving people, then we can slowly but surely take back the world and bring it back to normal. At least that's what I think!" Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero, after all.

>After the heroes had annihilated the Vertexes, they decided to resume moving for the day. even the story is getting bored.

>"Th... there was supposed to be an Osaka-famous rare book store here! How terrible! The last copies of incredibly precious books could be lost to the world now!" all that devestation, and that's what makes you freak out?

>Instead-- they found a heap of several skeletons. That's... odd. They haven't found any bodies so far, have they? I figured the Vertex don't leave anything behind.

>Wakaba noticed a notebook on the floor. She picked it up and looked inside. It was the diary of someone who took refuge in this underground mall.

oh are we going to read a diary in a diary?

chapter 10 end

[ladywhaiyvern]

Musings of An Otaku #8- On Pokemon Photographs & 25 years

The 25th Anniversary of Pokemon is upon us! 25 years! I remember watching the phenomenon unfold as it came state-side. I saw a simple advertisement in the late Disney Adventures magazine or it could have been a Nintendo Power. I had subscriptions to both back in the day and lord knows my memory is not as good as it used to be. It was for the release of the anime on American television. Or thinking back on it, it could have been for the games. It really did not decipher much. Plain white page with a giant Pokemon logo on top. The slogan “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” printed under the logo and images of various generation 1 Pokemon sprawled under that. That was the entire advertisement. Nothing else. No start date, no coming soon, no channel, no information, no synopsis, no console. I remember looking at it with a raised eyebrow and was like, “What is this?” With no other information, I flipped the page and moved on.

Then all the news reports started piling in and commercials started playing over the television. It became more predominant in Nintendo Power- with story revealed, games confirmed for English release and yada yada yada. The entire seizure issue went on and of course the American media jumped on that hype like white on rice. Because of course the anime was being released shortly after on American television. 

Watched the series and watched it pretty religiously. Hated that they edited out small things here and there because god forbid Team Rocket pulls out a gun or James cross-dresses in a bikini and has inflatable boobs! NOT INFLATABLE BOOBS! AND OMG YOU CAN NOT FORGET ABOUT THE JELLY FILLED DOUGHNUTS! *face palm* Being into Japanese anime, tokusatsu and manga- even I knew that those were rice balls. WHAT IS WRONG WITH RICE BALLS?!? Silly Americans. It’s as bad as saying that sake is medicine in Power Rangers Samurai but we shall not go into THAT one- even with a 10-foot pole. IMHO, Saban totally shat on Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and walked away laughing. 

Back to Pokemon. I ended up watching the anime till the Orange Islands. Basically when Brock left and Tracy came in- I stopped. The anime was repetitive. Every episode featured the same premises- Ash travels to a location, Ash finds a Pokemon, Ash tries to catch Pokemon and fails, Team Rocket has some crazy-ass scheme to try and catch Pikachu and fails, Ash tries to beat Gym Leader but Gym Leader feels sorry for Ash and just gives him said badge and repeat process over and over again for however many said episodes. I moved on to other anime series.

Game wise- yes, I started with Pokemon Red for the original Game Boy. I didn’t play it on the brick sized system- no, I had a Game Boy Color. However, the game was not in color. It was the same pea-green pixelated game as other Game Boy game releases at the time. It was not till the release of Pokemon Yellow- Pikachu edition that I was able to see the Pokemon game world in color. Since I started with Red I went with Charmander as my starter. I enjoyed the game. Loved being able to traverse all over the Kanto region, catch different Pokemon, evolve them, unlock the mysterious behind certain areas and try to collect all the gym badges. I had all 3 Legendary birds and Mewtwo as well. 

With the games and anime series out on American shores, of course the trading card game was next. I was not big into playing card games (and to this day- still not a big fan). Only card games I play are either Cards Against Humanity or UNO. I collected the Pokemon cards to just collect them. I still have them- somewhere. In a closet, in a box...somewhere. 

Promotions were also a big thing. In honor of the series in general- Pokemon teamed up with KFC here in the states. Oh yeah, Pokemon and fried chicken. Odd combination but whatever. Needless to say, I had an entire set of the KFC plushies. Still do, found them not too long ago! For the first movie release, Burger King had kids meals and 23K Gold plated Pokemon Cards in collectable Pokeballs. Still have all of those and the infamous Pokeballs that the toys came in. The same Pokeballs that were recalled because some stupid parent was not watching their toddler and the toddler ended up suffocating itself with it. WATCH YOUR DAMN KIDS PEOPLE! The damn toy wasn’t even for that age group. I sure as HELL was not surrendering all those hard earned Pokeballs just to have them thrown away. Nope. Nope. Nope. Plus, I wasn’t stupid enough to stick things in my mouth that shouldn’t have been in my mouth. Needless to say, all the Burger King kids meal toys are still inside those plastic Pokeballs. 

This was around the time of the first movie release- which I already went into quite a long musing about already. In fact that was the very first musing of an otaku that I posted. I will not go into it again. I am moving on.

In fact I am jumping forward to the N64 era and the release of the Pokemon Snap N64 game. My sister and I got the N64 bundle that game with an Atomic Purple controller and the Pokemon Snap game. Yes, we were a little late to the N64 party. I believe we spent an entire week playing that game and then never picked it up again. The concept was awesome. Take photographs of various Pokemon in different environments. Valleys, forests, rivers, caves, etc. Simple enough. Use food to lure Pokemon out of hiding and snap pictures. The best pictures were sent off to the Professor. Okay, sure. It sounded like it was going to be an awesome game. Not so much. It was a rail-shooter. I absolutely HATE rail-shooters. I HATE being stuck on a predetermined path. I like to explore! I like going into every single nook and cranny of an area. This is why the game only kept my attention for a week. 

The newest trailer for the New Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo Switch was just revealed. I had so much hope and hype for this new version. I wanted it to be an open-world environment. I wanted to be able to walk around, maybe sneak up on Pokemon and snap pictures of them in the wild. Kinda like, how you would have to take pictures of animals and birds in the wild in real life. Being able to hide in grass or behind a tree or even in a tree to snap some pictures. You could crawl around in the environment and try hard not to make any noise at all to scare off the Pokemon. Weather patterns could play a role and could change with each play through. Different weather could trigger different Pokemon. What about seasons? I’m sure you would see different Pokemon during the fall then you would the spring. You could still use food to lure Pokemon out. Maybe have a town or village to go back to and have side-quests where people ask you to collect photographs of a certain Pokemon they are looking for or sell photographs to newspapers or whatever. Well, after watching the trailer- that dream and hope got shot in the ass. I saw the vehicle and got disappointed. Once again it will be a rail-shooter. Same concept as the original N64 version. Not an open world. *sighs* I understand having an open world environment can be a resource hog, but I think it would make the game even better. Kinda put a new spin on things. Make people want to stay interested in the game and play it longer then say...a week. 

Granted, I am just basing this judgement on what can be seen throughout the trailer. I was not impressed with this trailer at all. The game isn’t even out yet. It will not be out until March of this year. In a couple months. Will my thoughts and opinions stay the same after it is released? Will it change? Who knows. I enjoyed the Resident Evil Village Showcase preview trailer 100x more than I did this Pokemon Snap trailer. In fact, it is also the 25th Anniversary for this series as well. Possible muse coming later (maybe after the RE8 showcase on the 21st). 

With Pokemon still going strong, it will be safe to say that it will be around for another 25 years! Stay strong Pokemon fans and trainers!

[vthiker09]

Half Dome

I was sitting on a bed in a small city in Slovakia when one of my best friends asked me: “Erin! What happened to you 5 years ago?”  She was reading my Zodiac sign and saw something life changing had happened 5 years ago. I thought for a moment and replied: “I started to hike again.” Sports had been a staple in my life from day one. Being the daughter of a former professional hockey player and the youngest of five siblings who all excelled in sports, sports was the focus of my family’s life.  I was a three-season athlete all through high school and my first two years of college.   Trauma and my fowl ways of coping with said trauma, led me away from sports.  At the time, I didn’t realize how important they were to me.

After five or six years of poor behavior and diet, I found myself significantly overweight and unable to do the activities I didn’t yet realize I loved. I remember trying to hike a mountain and turning around because I was unable to complete it.  I said to myself “never again.”  The next summer, which was five years ago, I decided I was going to hike 30 mountains.  A “mountain” had to gain more than 1,000 feet of evaluation in order to count.   I don’t remember much from these 30 mountains other than a) I climbed them all in the time period I said I would and b) the final mountain I climbed was the one the summer before I was unable to climb. These 30 mountains sparked a change in me which continues to grow.  It shifted my focus away from drinking, partying, and poor eating habits and back to the outdoors and taking better care of myself.  My entire outlook on life and value system changed with those 30 mountains.

The next summer I decided I was going to hike Vermont.  Without actually reading what I declared I was going to do on social media, I unknowingly signed up to hike 60 mountains in one summer.  I carefully planned the hikes, making sure to budget time for the usual round of summer brew fests.  After 50 hikes, I tore my patella tendon at a friend’s wedding via some enthusiastic dance moves.  A three-week timeout on the couch and a planned vacation out west put an end to my goal.  Although I actually hiked well more than 70 mountains that summer, I didn’t hike the 60 in the book.

The next summer I just hiked.  At this point it was what I did.  It was no longer about specific mountains or how many mountains.  It was about going outside and being in the woods.  People often ask me why I love to hike so much. I simply say, “there is no other place where you can find true silence.”  It is a special moment when you are in the woods and all you can hear is wind in the trees and maybe a bird.  If you haven’t had this moment recently, I highly recommend giving it a try.   Later in the season, I remembered I still had 10 hikes to go to finish the book.  I busted out my Falcon guide to hiking Vermont and reminded myself of the 10 remaining hikes.  I started to complete them and with 2 left to go, I decided on a cool fall morning to hike Big Bolton.

Big Bolton wasn’t in the book.  It was a wooded summit and a harder hike.  The only appeal was I had never done it.  We all know at this point, Big Bolton was the mountain I hurt myself on. At the point I hurt myself I had two plans: 1. I was one week from travelling to the Smokies and 2. I had made plans to hike Half Dome in Yosemite.  I had started to read about Half Dome on a pile of outdoor blogs and websites I had become a regular reader of.  Something about Half Dome appealed to me.  I’m not really sure what it was.   There are plenty of mountains that are beyond challenging, with pretty views, and where people meet their demise.  At the same time, something about Half Dome felt special to me.

My injury put a hard stop to my hiking adventures.  What few people truly understood though was it put a hard stop on something that had become part of who I was.  It wasn’t just that I couldn’t participate in a hobby that I enjoyed; it was that a piece of my being had been taken away from me in a matter of one step.  There were many hours I spent trying to figure out how I would hike any mountain, let alone Half Dome.  Remember, my pining for Half Dome had begun before I got hurt.   After my first surgery, I lost hope. I went from my bed to the couch to bed to the couch for three months.   I was left with a shriveled leg and a massive amount of overall muscle loss and conditioning.  I’m pretty sure although I was significantly thinner, I was in worse shape than I was before I was hurt.

From the minute I was able to walk until my fourth surgery, something changed.  I wasn’t going to be the victim anymore, I was going to become the hiker I used to be and with any luck, I was going to become a better hiker. I was going to hike Half Dome. Half Dome became an obsession for me. Even when I was on crutches and it was challenging to get to bathroom, I would think: “I’m going to do an hour of floor exercises because this will help me on the side of Half Dome.”  This one mountain became my motivation to heal.

After my fourth surgery I got to a point where I could hike.  Although my toe was an absolute mess, I could ignore it and safely make it to the top of pretty much any mountain in Vermont.  With a pending toe fusion on the docket and a surgeon who promised I would be able to hike as much I wanted; I entered the lottery for half dome.   I wasn’t confident I would be able to complete the hike, but I did know if I actually got a permit, I was going to hike that mountain.

In January of 2019 I found out I had won two permits for late August.  I am not kidding when I say this: besides of my wedding day, I’m not sure I have ever been that excited.   Remember, this was the mountain I had idolized before I got hurt. It also had become the symbol of my healing journey.  Hiking Half Dome meant I was okay.   Two days later I had everything booked and was ready to go to California.  Now all I needed was a body and a joint which was ready to make the climb.  I should mention at this point: Half Dome is a 16 mile extremely hard day hike.   It climbs 5,000 vertical feet in 8 miles and is just stinking hard.  The crowning moment of Half Dome is the last 600 feet, which you climb via a set of steel cables.  We will revisit the cables later.  The point is Half Dome is stinking hard and a lot of people don’t make it to the top.

My journey to Half Dome was unique.  There was a significant emotional piece of this climb, but in very practical terms, not many people can say: “I just had 5 orthopedic surgeries over the last 2.5 years, spent 7 months not standing on my leg, 1.5 years in PT, and hell yeah I’m going to hike this!”   I’m not sure how to gauge that my healing goal was a mountain most able body people still couldn’t climb.  It just became my goal and there wasn’t anything that was going to stop me from standing on that summit.  

The following eight months was 100% Half Dome preparation.  My biggest challenge was taking 16 miles worth of steps.  Having spent significant time off of my leg, I saw steps in a very different way.  It wasn’t about how in shape or not I was, it was being able to step on my leg for that long and over terrain that hard.   I had spent so long with rules around how far or high or long I could walk, that my main barrier was getting used to walking longer distances again.  To do so, I instituted 10-mile Saturday.  Every Saturday from late March, until we got on a plane for California, Mike and I romped 10 miles.   Keep in mind these 10-mile hikes were paired with two or three other weekly hikes, running, biking, and strength work.  For that eight months, I was working out six days a week and was hiking at least three days a week.  I was beyond determined that if there was any reason, I wasn’t going to stand of the top of Half Dome, it wasn’t going to because I wasn’t able to step enough steps.

A week before we left for California, we did one final 10-mile Saturday.  We were romping around one of Vermont’s five four thousand foot mountains.  We also got caught in the rain.  I’m not sure I will ever be okay with wet rocks.  When an object takes several years of your life away from you, it takes some time to be okay with it.  Mike and I found ourselves in a sea of wet rocks.  I ended up falling on a wet rock and just bust out into tears.  I picked myself back up, scrambled to a tree and promptly stood hugging the tree in complete hysterics.  After a few minutes I pulled myself back together.  Mike asked me if I was okay, I grumbled “yes” and kept going.  After a few minutes I said “I don’t belong on Half Dome.” Half Dome is a giant granite dome i.e. a gigantic rock.  Although you aren’t allowed to climb it when it’s wet because you most likely will die via sliding off of it, the idea of scaling a giant rock seemed far out of my reach in that moment.

Despite my folly with a wet rock just a week before our departure, we jetted off to California. When we got there, it was all about Half Dome.  Our travel dates, how much we hiked, when we got up, when we went to sleep were all based on our Half Dome plans.  Two days before hiking it we scoped out the trail head and the parking situation. When I first looked at it, I didn’t feel intimidated.  I had put the work in to be successful and felt like I was ready.  It was another mountain and I hike mountains – it is who I am.

Our alarm was set for 3:00 AM on August 27th.  Thankfully this was 6:00 AM east coast time which made the early time frame a little easier. Just like with many things I am excited or anxious about, I awoke well before my alarm.  We hopped out of bed, grabbed our packs, and off we went.  We arrived at the trail head a little after 4:00 AM.  It was an exciting vibe as we put on our headlamps and got ready to go.  Everyone else in the parking lot was there for the same purpose – to be able to say they stood on top of Half Dome.

Half Dome doesn’t wait to show you why it’s considered a hard hike.  Right out of the gate you gain 2,000 feet of elevation over the first two miles.  The Mist Trail is responsible for this steep grade via a couple hundred granite stairs. It was pitch black, so although I could hear the waterfall that gives the trail its name and I got a little wet, I couldn’t see anything.  By sunrise we had made it to the top of Nevada Falls, which is the halfway point.  I felt good and the hike felt like basically every other hike I had done.  In some ways the trail was easier than the root and rock infested trails we call home in Vermont.  A well-maintained gravel path and some granite stairs was a welcome change.  

After Nevada Falls you get a short break via Nebraska Valley and your first actual view of the monolith you are about to climb.  This was the first moment I thought “wow, that’s really big.” Despite my brewing fear of the granite dome, we forged on.  The section between Nebraska Valley and Sub Dome is a couple mile long section of fairly steep switchbacks.  Switchbacks being a beautiful invention where you zig-zag up steep grades in an effort to make them less steep.  Although they can make you a little nauseous with the swift direction changes, they make the job a little easier.   After a while, we made it to the bottom of Sub Dome and the first real views of the valley. Stunning is an understatement.  I like National Parks because you can reach places where all you can see is nature.  This was one of those spots, except nature took the form of massive granite domes for as far as you can see.  It is a truly special place.

This was also the first place you got a good view of the cables.  Half Dome is really what Camels Hump in Vermont wants to be.  It’s a little rock dome next to a much bigger rock dome.  From the bottom of Sub Dome i.e. the smaller hump, you could see tiny humans scrambling up the cables.  Let’s talk about the cables: they are a set of two wire cables nailed into the rock via metal poles embedded a mere four inches into the rock.  The poles are accompanied by wooden planks placed in between the wires at 10-foot intervals.  The planks, poles, and wires are there because Half Dome climbs 400 vertical feet in 600 actual feet.  It’s a sheer rock face that climbs at a 45-degree angle.  You can’t just walk up Half Dome.  You basically have to drag yourself up via the cables because gravity is seriously working against you.

My “oh, crap” meter began to climb significantly as I watched people attempt the cables. Sometimes though you just have to ignore the tiny voice that’s telling you this is a bad idea and just keep walking. Especially when it’s the mountain you’ve been obsessing over for a couple years.  Sub Dome pales in compression to Half Dome, which is a little scary to say. Sub Dome climbs a serious amount of vertical in a short period of time via carefully etched steps in the rock.  Since Sub Dome is named such because it is a dome, your nicely crafted stairs are on the side of a cliff.  Although it would be challenging to fall because there are stairs and even though they are in a very different location than your run of the mill office stairs, it’s the same concept and most humans are pretty good at them.

Mike on the other hand is beyond scared of cliffs.  Sub Dome proved to be too much for him, and he stopped.  There was no stopping me though.  I was going to stand on Half Dome.  I had to stand on Half Dome.  After doing some serious huffing and questioning why I found activities like this “fun,” I got to the top of Sub Dome.  At this point I was less then a hundred feet from the cables.  My only thought was “how the fuck am I going to do this?”  I wasn’t alone as all the other groups were standing in awe of the rock face wondering similar things.  It’s an interesting place because you quickly find out who is afraid of heights and who is not.  There is a pile of people who call it a day the minute they see the cables, there’s another pile of people who stand there for 20 minutes being like “this is not my brightest idea, but I’m doing it anyway,” and then there are the people who just go. I’m not sure they are the brightest bunch as their self-preservation skills seem to be lacking and it’s probably the best way to get the job done.

I was firmly in “this seems like an awful idea and I’m doing it anyway.” I glued myself to a couple we had been hiking with for most of the day, borrowed a pair of rubber gloves from a guy who had borrowed them for someone else, and off I went.  The first half of the rock wasn’t awful.  It wasn’t fun and it was super hard, but it wasn’t awful. Basically, you would drag yourself 10-feet by 10-feet, resting in between planks.  I was very thankful at this point I had bought a pile of dumbbells and had been doing a bunch of arm work.  It felt more like doing leg assisted pullups than hiking.  Things started to get a little hairy halfway up. People come down the rock the same way you go up.  You have about five feet of space between the wires and people moving in different directions.  Outside of the wires is a 400-foot cliff on either side.  If you exit the wires you most likely aren’t going home.

A group of people started to come down and it was truly terrifying.  They had appropriate hiking boots and they were just sliding down the rock. Again – this is a 600-foot-high rock face with cliffs on either side.  It’s not something you want to slide down.  One woman was 100% having a panic attack right next to me.  Another woman helped her down and no one died that day, so it must have been successful.  Between watching people unintentionally slide down, the women at the bottom who said she had climbed it every season for almost a decade but not this year because the rock was too smooth, and panic attack woman - I was beyond scared.

Even though I had glued myself to other people, I felt alone in a place which felt unsafe.  At this moment I forgot about how much I had idolized this mountain and how much it meant to me and my recovery.  I was 100% focused on not falling off that rock. 2/3 of the way up there are cracks in the rock which made it impossible for the park’s department to lay a board at the standard 10-foot spacing.  Thus, this section is 20 feet between boards, uneven, and the steepest section.  Here’s a fun fact – I have zero degrees of dorsiflexion in my right ankle.  You know what requires a lot more than zero degrees of dorsiflexion?  Walking up a sheer rock face.  I started this section and realized I couldn’t bend my limb enough to push off of it.  This was when the “oh, fuck” meter was off the charts.  I tried to push off on my toes, which gives me much more range of motion and has been my saving grace on many rock faces in Vermont, except this rock was smooth.  Being on my toes didn’t put enough of my shoe surface on the rock and I just slid.  At this point I was in panic mode because I couldn’t physically walk up this rock.  I just kept thinking “don’t let go of the cables.”  In a true moment of self-preservation, I knelt and dragged and crawled to the next rock.  I had some truly gnarly gashes in my knee, but I made it to the next plank.

This was the point I realized my Half Dome aspirations were over.  It wasn’t safe or responsible for me to continue.  There wasn’t space at this point to be mad or sad about it because I needed to get down 2/3 of the rock face.  I sat on that plank for a solid 20 minutes panicking about how in the world I was going to get down.  My lifelong fear of heights paired with my not quite bionic ankle did not bode well for aiding me down the dome.  A less than helpful man came up the cables, asked me why I was sitting there, I told him I had no idea how I was going to get down, he said, “that’s rough,” and kept going.  

Shortly after a group of older women and person I didn’t know was guide came up the cables.  I had passed the group below Sub Dome and was really happy I did.  I asked the guide for help.  She said the first thing I needed to do was stand up.  This wasn’t going to happen.  Like so many mountains before, I was a billion percent sure my tried and true “no one dies on their butt” approach was going to get me down this rock. After some epic whining and sentiments around why standing up wasn’t going to happen, I slid in front of the plank. I now was sitting on the rock and the only thing between me and the most epic rock side of my life was a wire cable and a metal pole 10 feet in front of me.  The guide was borderline panicking at this point telling me I couldn’t slide down the rock and I needed to get back on the plank.

In my head I thought “I can slide to the pole and then from the pole to the next plank.  Just don’t let go of the wire.”  This is what I did.  I think I gave the guide a small heart attack and it was a really stupid idea. Many things could’ve gone wrong in that moment and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this.   When I got to the plank 20 feet below me, the guide again urged me to stand up.  She promised my swanky hiking shoes would assist me down the rock and it would be okay. In a very trusting moment, I stoop up. She told me to turn around, so I was looking up the rock, and walk down the rock backwards.  I do so and realized this was a much better strategy.  I got to the next plank, realized I was going to be okay, thanked the guide and went on my merry way.  

I have never been so happy as when I got off those cables.  Maybe when I got married, but my wedding didn’t come with as much potential death options, so I’m not sure.  At this point all I wanted to do was get to Mike who was at the bottom of Sub Dome. I started to realize I didn’t make it to the top, but I didn’t really care.  In a true act of defeat, I made my way back down Sub Dome.  A few people asked me what the cables were like, I told them they were terrifying and apparently that was the general vibe that day. I found Mike sitting on a rock and I promptly burst into tears.  I explained how I didn’t make it and then babbled about how much work I had put in and I couldn’t make it the last 150 feet and how mad that made me.   Mike reassured me I had done more than enough, fed me some cheese and bread, and we started our way down.  The rest of the decent wasn’t as adrenaline producing, however, it was really pretty, and I would recommend it.  In total it took us just over 10 hours, which apparently is quite speedy.

That night and many nights following were full of me thinking about how stupid I had been on that rock and what could’ve gone wrong.  I am very thankful I met that guide.  I’m not sure what would’ve happened had I not.  I’ve had a few nightmares about sliding off the side and it really didn’t help that a woman did fall off a week after I was there.  Besides my somewhat traumatic cables experience, I had to sit with the fact the mountain which was supposed to signify I was healed didn’t happen.    I wish I had some profound thing to say about this and how I realized Half Dome didn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of my healing journey and the fact I’ve hiked over 300 miles and 100,000 vertical feet this calendar year is more than enough proof I’m okay.  I never got there.  I did get to a point where I could say the words “I didn’t make it” and it doesn’t bring tears to my eyes.  This feels like progress.

I find myself trying to identify new goals which will signify “healed” to me.  They are arbitrary hiking goals that I decide are hard enough to prove I’m okay.  I’m not sure why I still feel a need to prove to myself and others I’m healed, but I do.  My current healing journey goals include thru hiking the Long Trail and the NH 48.  Despite their jaded motivation, it’s still hiking and I’m going to have a great time scrambling up these peaks.  Perhaps at some point I’ll figure out what “healed” actually is in the context of my journey and I’ll write about it.   Until then, onward and upwards!

[zmediaoutlet]

11:11 6: The Undiscovered Country

Now doing the questions from @nomercles​, but again shan’t come up with new questions because I just did this and already bugged a bunch of you.

1. What is a non-traditional pet you’d like to have?  No dogs or cats or birds or bunnies, unless it’s a Vorpal bunny and a vulture.

Oh lord, a Vorpal bunny would be so scary. I wouldn’t mind a pygmy goat to trot around and headbutt me in the shin and keep my grass trimmed away. It would meh at me, which would be delightful. An elephant would also be good, tho I would feel bad about keeping it separate from its ele-friends, so then I would need a whole herd of elephants, and my yard’s not that big.

2. Favorite music video?

Ooh, hard one. I don’t usually like official videos because I’m not really into the hashtag aesthetic--I just like watching the actual musicians play, you know? So, I guess I will say this one, which I think sorta counts as both:

3. What is your favorite food to make?

Hm. Salsa, probably. Some days I could subsist on good yellow corn chips and a delightfully smoky salsa.

4. How efficiently do you pack for a trip?

Uh, incredibly. It takes me maybe half an hour, and that’s if I’m dawdling. How many days are going you going to be gone? Okay, n+1 underwear, n/3 bras, n+1 shirts, etc. Is it cold? Okay, skew toward sweaters. Is it warm? Okay, skew toward breezy layers. I don’t understand how it becomes such an endeavor.

5. Contacts, glasses, surgery; how’s your eyes, and do you want to change your ocular circumstances?

I wear contacts every day--right now I’m at -4.0/-3.5, if that means anything to you. Sometimes I wear my glasses, but since I don’t want to fuck with prescription sunglasses and I always need sunglasses, contacts all the way. I’ve thought about getting reparative surgery, but I’m too much of a coward. Lasers! Ack! I don’t know. There’s something too Bond Villain about it.

6. Coachella or Burning Man or something else entirely?

Ack, I’ve never been to a properly huge festival. It seems like those are more about the festival than about the music, and more power to those people, but this is also why I don’t go to cons--I like the thing, I don’t so much enjoy the spazzing about the thing. I don’t like woogirls squealing in my ear. There’s an itty-bitty music festival in Phoenix every year that I go to, though, where the proceeds all go to charity and the artists are fun and varied, and that’s a good time. I’m also going to the Chicago Blues Festival this summer (!!!) which I assume is really big, and I’m a little apprehensive, but I hope it’ll be fun. :) 7. Favorite kind of Ben & Jerry’s?  Convince me to try it.

The only kind that comes to mind is the Coffee Toffee one. If I am going to have ice cream, it’s going to be coffee flavored, and the toffee pieces are huge and vaguely salty and delightful to mine out of the ice cream strata. (If I am going to be a hipster about something, tho, it’s ice cream--so many fun local ice cream places in Tucson, why would I buy corporate flavors. Blackberry gelato from Frost, made in the next zip code over? Um, yes.)

8. Would you do a dating show, and if so, what would it look like?

Uh, I think the answer is no, I wouldn’t do a dating show. They’re too--I don’t know. Boring? Shallow? ...Actually, you know what? Fuck it. Yes, I would. A completely blindfolded date between two people sitting at a table, and they’ve been matched up because they share at least 5 traits--and then they’re required to talk about anything but those things so they learn each other more as people. Screw hiking and dancing and movies, talk about your strong opinions on umpires vs. computerized strike zones. If you can be interesting and interested through that, you’re starting out on the right foot.

9. What is a strange thing you collect?

I think my only weirdness might be this: I don’t collect anything. I don’t have that--thing in my brain. I’m not minimalistically avoiding stuff, it’s just that I like a lot of different stuff.

10. If you could afford it, what is the one big-ticket item you would walk right out the door and buy right now? Ha! Um. Retirement? Berkshire Hathaway stock? Pretty much I’m content with all the regular stuff I have, and the stuff that I want I can afford, I just don’t want to spend the money on it just yet--like, I want to get my yard landscaped, but I don’t feel like dropping the $2k or whatever it’ll be. But to be able to comfortably never work again? Yeah. That would be a treat.

11. If you redecorated your house, top to bottom, what would it look like?

It would look... roughly similar to how it looks now, it’s just that everything would be a little nicer. :)  But I like my rough hand-made saltillo tile, and I like my low cool rooms; we’d just have a bit of a rejigger with lots of dark hardwood and jeweltoned rich fabric and a nicer kitchen full of stainless steel and tile (I have got to get rid of those awful laminate countertops, oh god), and I’d pay this local guy that my boss loves to make me a giant mesquite-wood dining table, sturdy and lovely. Mm. All doable and accessible, it’s just going to take me a little bit of time. Home ownership: a very expensive hobby.

[welcometophu]

Anger Management 8

Twinned Book 1: Commit to the Kick

Anger Management 8

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Alaric manages to stay at ease until he gets into Amy Sanderson’s car to go home. He slides into the back seat with Drea, and his stomach twists at the thought of being trapped. He can’t ignore where they’re going, and why. Just going home would be bad enough, but this. This….

Corbin turns around from the front passenger seat, but Alaric doesn’t want to talk. Not now. He raises one hand and turns away, leaning his against the cool glass of the window. His phone is on silent. He’s cut off.

“We had a late night,” Drea says quietly, her hand lightly touching the nape of Alaric’s neck.

“Yeah, I saw the pictures all over the internet,” Corbin says dryly. “Drea mentioned who your roommate is, and I followed him and his brother on Instagram,” Corbin tells them. “You guys looked like you had fun.”

“Drea asked you to come,” Alaric mutters. “You didn’t. You don’t get to argue about not meeting my friends.”

He can’t see him, but he can feel the way Corbin tenses, and knows exactly what he looks like with his lips pressed tightly shut.

“If you were there, you could’ve gotten me on your shoulders. We ran out of guys to hoist us up,” Drea says, her tone forcedly light.

“But you did go on stage,” Corbin points out. When Drea makes a small noise, Corbin keeps going. “You were hanging out with famous people. Someone posted a video and tagged Thorne. It looked like you were having fun.”

“And you were stalking us,” Drea retorts. “Next time just be there. It’s easier. And yes, I’m pissed off at you now, because you’re acting like an ass. So turn around, face front, and leave Alaric alone. Stop acting like a sulky child.”

Something thumps, and Alaric imagines that she shoves at Corbin, pushing him until he turns away.

The car slows, and Amy’s voice is sharp. “All of you, stop it, unless you want to get out and run or fly home, because I’m sure a thirty mile race will do you good right about now. If you’re planning on staying in my car, be civil.”

Alaric lets his eyes close, tries to ignore the music that thumps inside the small space when Corbin turns the radio up. The song is vaguely familiar, and when Drea starts singing along he isn’t sure if it’s something he heard last night, or maybe one of Rory and Thorne’s songs. He mutters under his breath, pulls his hood over his ears and pretends it actually helps block out the sound.

As soon as they get home and Amy stops the car, Alaric pushes the door open and stumbles out. He doesn’t wait for Corbin or Drea, storming up the steps and pausing only long enough to hug his mother. He extracts himself from her grasp before Corbin and Drea can get there, and heads upstairs to leave his hoodie behind on the bed before he leaves via the window, with wings.

It feels good to let the eagle take over an fly, circling above the land. He takes his time on the way to the graveyard, where his father waits by a partially dug grave. Theobald lies on the ground as a giant wolf, with paws folded, head raised and nostrils flaring as he sniffs the air. He snorts as Alaric lands and returns from eagle to human, kneeling on the ground.

Theobald growls, and Alaric scowls at his father. “I know,” he says. He should be better at this, able to go smoothly from one animal form to the next. He should be consistent, staying within one context, but he’s not. He’s bird, mammal, reptile all at once. Alaric is who he is, and no amount of desire can change that. He closes his eyes, lets the bear slip under his skin, and roars in his frustration.

Theobald huffs, and leaps into the grave, and Alaric follows suit.

Alaric manages a few handfuls of dirt with the bear’s paws before he pulls back and stops, lets himself fall back into his humanity, sitting against the edge of the grave.

Theobald barks sharply, but Alaric shakes his head. There’s a shovel nearby; not everyone has a form that digs, but everyone is welcome to help bury a lost son. Alaric heaves himself out of the grave to take that up instead, then hops back in the hole. He strips off his shirt, throws it to one side, and begins to dig.

This. This is what he needs, the sweat and ache of a brutal workout with a purpose. He pushes himself, throwing shovelfuls of dirt out of the grave, almost as fast as his father digs with his huge paws. He tosses it out, then digs again, pushing deep, taking up a little more soil each time.

This is where Orson will rest.

This is where it all ends, where he’ll lay his brother down for the last time. This is where they will leave Orson behind, where he’ll go without returning.

Alaric growls under his breath and digs again, the muscles in his back burning from exertion.

“Give me the shovel.”

Corbin sits cross-legged on the edge of the grave. Theobald ignores him, keeps digging, and Alaric tries to do the same.

“I said give me the shovel.” Corbin slides into the grave and Theobald leaps out, stands with feet splayed and head low, growling. Corbin ignores Theobald as easily as he always has, his attention solely on Alaric.

Alaric doesn’t stop.

“Hey.” Corbin reaches for the shovel, ducks back when Alaric swats at him. “I have just as much right to bury Orson as you do. He was like a brother to me. You have paws. What am I supposed to do, peck at the dirt?”

“He was my brother,” Alaric growls, voice low and rough in his throat. He pitches the dirt over the side, and Theobald shakes his head, ducks away from the edge. Alaric pushes the shovel as deep as it goes, uses his foot to plant it further in and then leans on the handle like a lever. His brain supplies the physics of it, seeing it like an engineering problem, and tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

Fuck this. Just fuck it.

“And you’re mine.” Corbin grabs Alaric’s arm, holding on when Alaric tries to throw him off. Corbin crowds close, backing him up against the side of the grave. It’s much deeper now than when Alaric began, the edge smacking Alaric between his shoulder blades. Corbin gives him no room to move, bracing him there with his slighter form, hips wedged against Alaric, hands planted in the dirt to either side of his shoulders. “You’re my brother, and I’m going to do this for you,” Corbin says, voice low.

“It’s not the same.”

“Fuck you, Alaric, it is the same. Because how do you think I’d feel if this grave was for you?” Corbin shoves at Alaric, but there’s no place for him to go.

Alaric shoves back, sends Corbin stumbling to the other side of the narrow hole. Corbin straightens up, a glint in his eyes, and Alaric attacks again, throwing a hefty punch. Corbin ducks under his arm, grabs him and twists his wrist until his arm is behind his back, bound up and painful as Corbin pushes Alaric face first into the side of the grave. Corbin’s weight is heavy against Alaric’s back, and Alaric is ashamed how good it feels.

Theobald growls a warning, deep and low. Corbin doesn’t let go, just tugs on Alaric’s arm until the ache in his shoulder is brutal.

“I know you want to punish yourself,” Corbin whispers, breath warm against Alaric’s cheek. Alaric is all too aware of the way his father’s ears prick, wolf’s ears probably hearing everything. “I know you want it to hurt. I know you, Alaric, and I will not let you dig this grave for yourself along with Orson.”

Alaric pushes backwards with his hips, but Corbin twists his wrist until Alaric howls from the pain. He bows his head against the dirt; tears prick the corners of his eyes and he jerks ineffectively at another growl from Theobald.

“You can’t bring him back,” Corbin says softly.

And Alaric can’t replace Orson, either. Alaric can never be what Orson was. He can’t be perfect, he can’t get along with his father. He can’t be the heir that he’s supposed to be.

There is nothing that will ever make him good enough. Make him Clan enough.

“It should be me,” Alaric growls under his breath, and he lets the change wash over him.

It’s quick enough that the eagle slips from Corbin’s grasp, wings flapping in Corbin’s face as he pushes upward. Corbin stands in the grave and doesn’t follow, while Theobald howls in anger.

Alaric isn’t going to go back down.

He circles long enough to see Corbin take up the shovel and dig. Theobald leaps back into the hole and uses his huge paws to make space. Theobald and Corbin work together, Theobald loosening the dirt while Corbin throws it, shovelful by shovelful, out of the grave.

Alaric wheels in a large circle, and flies away.

He stays in the air until his body aches, until he knows he needs to become human again to eat and rest. He flies in through his still-open window, shrugs back into his hoodie and pulls it close around him. When he inhales, he smells remnants of his life at PHU lingering in the fabric. Rory, Thorne, Chris…. He holds the air in his lungs for as long as he can before he has to set it free.

There’s a plate lying on his nightstand with cookies that are still warm from the oven, and another plate loaded with slices of freshly made mozzarella, as well as grapes and orange wedges. Alaric gratefully eats as he pulls out his phone, skims through his messages.

He has one from Chris that simply says you doing okay? Alaric almost skims past it, but he opens it and looks at the space waiting for a reply.

No, he types. But I will be. I’ll be at OPT for dinner on Sunday, if that’s okay.

The reply comes quickly. Brothers are always welcome, even when you don’t live here. See you then.

It’s a relief the way Chris doesn’t say text if you need me or any other reminder that he’s waiting for Alaric to talk to him. It’s a relief the way he mostly lets him be to grieve.

He skips the texts from Thorne, and the notifications on his Twitter that he’s been mentioned a few hundred times. Social media has never been important, and right now he really doesn’t want to deal with it. He checks his grades—an A- on the essay for Magical Studies, which he’ll take, considering the amount of ranting that he did. He brings up the text stream from Rory last, stares down at it like it’ll somehow answer itself.

How’s it going?

Alaric touches the words, huffs a sigh. It’s crap, but I’ve dug as much of the grave as I’m going to. I’m done.

Dots appear and disappear like Rory’s typing and erasing, over and over. The text finally chimes.

Do you want to talk about it?

Alaric almost sets the phone down, but he types out his response slowly, carefully instead.

Not really, no.

Then he drops the phone on the table and picks up the plate, setting it down on top of it. He knows its there, will be able to hear it chime when someone tries to reach him. But out of sight is out of mind, and that’s what he needs right now.

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[sportsmaniausa0]

Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (From an Amateur)

As week two of the NFL came and went, one thing is certain: anything can happen. The Texans are dominating, Green Bay looks like they did in the mid 1990's, and Cleveland scored 51 points....in a single game. This craziness makes the power rankings a bit more challenging, but what the heck: we'll do them anyway.

Week Two:

1. New England Patriots (2-0) (Previous rank: 2): Cheating scandal aside, there's no arguing that the Pats looked like champs against a far outplayed Chargers team. Not only was their offense unstoppable, but their defense held LaDainian Tomlinson to 43 rushing yards. New England is the team to beat. These guys are hungry.

2. Indianapolis Colts (2-0) (Previous rank: 1): Sure, it was a win, but the Colts didn't exactly dominate, winning by two in a game that went down to the final moments. As Tennessee (a team that, for whatever reason, always seems to give Indianapolis a run for their money) looked to come from behind, Indy relied on their defense. In a meeting that saw one of Adam Vinatari's field goals get partially blocked, bounce off the crossbar, and still go in, we can't help but think gravity is on the side of these defending champs.

3. Dallas Cowboys (2-0) (Previous rank: 4): For a while, the 37-20 Dallas victory looked to be anyone's game, but by the time the fourth quarter was in full swing, the Cowboys were galloping into the sunset. Their offense was solid but this game belonged to their defense. With five takeaways, Wade Phillips - the defensive coordinator turned head coach (a couple of times) - should be proud. Right now, this team is the stallion of the NFC.

4. Pittsburgh Steelers (2-0) (Previous rank: 7): The only truly ugly thing about Pittsburgh's play was their uniforms (sorry, but I'm anti-yellow). Ben Roethlisberger had another solid outing and Willie Parker rushed for 126 yards. Outplaying an emotionally exhausted Bills team, the Steeler's defense held their opponents to three points. They just may be back to their 2005 selves.

5. Denver Broncos (2-0) (Previous rank: 5): As Denver Bronco fans everywhere find themselves with ulcers, they can't help but wonder if any games will not be decided by a last second field goal. In a contest that Denver looked to have put away, Oakland came from behind to make another exciting ending. No one can say that the Broncos are boring, but if Denver is going to have a good season, they have to learn to hold onto their leads....or buy Prilosec for all of their fans.

6. San Diego (1-1) (Previous rank: 3): It's hard to go on the road and it's hard to play anything - yes even a game of "I Spy" - against Bill Belichick, but the Chargers didn't just lose, they lost bad. Virtually destroyed by New England, this team looked a lot different than last year. Not only did their star running back run into a wall, but Phillip Rivers played like a rookie quarterback. Their offense couldn't get started, and their defense couldn't stop anything. Is it too soon to say they miss Marty Schottenheimer?

7. Chicago Bears (1-1) (Previous rank: 9): The first victory of Chicago's season belongs to their special teams: Devin Hester is the new Dante Hall. The Bear's defense looked solid as usual, limiting the Chiefs to only ten points. How they played on the other side of the ball, however, is another story. Though they doubled the Chief's score, Chicago still needs some work. Their passing game has got to do something about doing nothing.

8. Baltimore Ravens (1-1) (Previous rank: 11): For a while, it looked as though the New York Jets were gaining ground on Baltimore. But, we all know what matters in the end is the score: Ravens 20, Jets unable to take off. Still, if Baltimore wants to continue to jell, they are going to have to make sure last minute comebacks from their opponents are "never more."

9. Green Bay Packers (2-0) (Previous rank: 14): Is it just me, or is it nice to see Brett Favre actually having fun again? As he climbed into the record books as the winningest quarterback in NFL history, number 4 led his team over a poor New York Giants defense. Winning on the road is a big win for Favre and company. They are now 2-0, somewhere they haven't been in, count 'em, six years.

10. Houston Texans (2-0) (Previous rank: 15): The playoffs are a long time away, but Houston has a reason to get excited. Plainly put, this team looks good. After an opening win against the Chiefs, the Texans came from behind on the road to destroy Carolina. At 2-0, these players are performing like they have something to prove. And, so far, they're proving it.

11. Cincinnati Bengals (1-1) (Previous rank: 8): Who would have thought Carson Palmer could throw for six touchdowns and the Bengals would still lose? Well, that's exactly what happened. In a game that was all about offense, the Bengals proved they could deliver. Their defense, on the other hand, was pathetic. Browns fans poured beer on Chad Johnson and Browns players poured points onto the scoreboard. Cleveland, yes Cleveland, scored 51 points against a less than ferocious Bengals D.

12. Carolina Panthers (1-1) (Previous rank: 6): Everyone said that the Houston Texans wouldn't be able to stop Steve Smith and they weren't. But, oddly enough, that didn't matter. Smith had 153 yards and three touchdowns, but the only Carolina fans happy in the end were the ones with him on their fantasy team. Carolina can't lose these kinds of games at home if they want to be contenders.

13. Seattle Seahawks (1-1) (Previous rank: 10): In the battle of the birds, the Cardinals flew higher than the Seahawks, winning by a three point margin. Seattle did battle back from a 17-0 deficit, which says something. Still, in the end, they fumbled away their chances at victory. This loss is going to sting for a while.

14. Tennessee Titans (1-1) (Previous rank: 16): Vince Young and company shouldn't hang their heads too low: they were colt, er, close. It began to look as though they were going to pull it off, but alas, they were dealt a two point loss. Still, this Titans team is solid. Here's to them having one heck of a year. If they can keep it up, they will find themselves in the playoffs.

15. San Francisco (2-0) (Previous rank: 17): The St. Louis Rams may have outplayed the 49ers, but all that matters in the end is the final score. Squeaking by with a 17-16 victory, San Francisco doesn't care how they win, as long as they do. Our hearts go out to Frank Gore, a man who performed well despite the recent loss of his mother.

16. Washington Redskins (2-0) (Previous rank: 19): Don't look now, but the Redskins are, dare I say, undefeated. After beating the Eagles 20-12, Washington is ready to be a factor in the NFC East. In a game that saw great plays on both offense and defense, the Redskins look like they could leave a lot of teams blue this season.

17. Detroit Lions (2-0) (Previous rank: 24): A Lions versus Vikings game would normally seem about as exciting as a Pee Wee football contest, but this year is different; this year, the Lions - yes I'm saying it - are kind of exciting. Despite a game marked by turnovers, and a concussion that sent John Kitna to the sidelines, Detroit prevailed in overtime. Is anyone else predicting a Lions/Texans Super Bowl?

18. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-1) (Previous rank: 20): After a season opener left them embarrassed, the Jaguars sacked their way to redemption. Recording seven sacks against the atlanta falcons, Jacksonville stuck to what they know best: playing defense. The Jaguar's offense played well enough to get the job done. A decent offense and a stellar defense is how Jacksonville will win games.

19. New Orleans Saints (0-2) (Previous rank: 12): In light of Mother Nature's recent acts, it's hard not to like the Saints. Still, we, like most of America, are beginning to believe that last year was what many people deemed it: a fairy tale season. This time around, they are rooted in reality. But, don't hand them their marching papers just yet. They could still turn it around; the talent is there.

20. Philadelphia Eagles (0-2) (Previous rank: 13): Okay Eagle fans, it might be time to start panicking. Losing to Green Bay on the road was one thing; losing to Washington at home was totally different. McNabb looks McBadd. If they lose to Detroit, they'll find themselves in a hole they can't fly out of.

21. Minnesota Vikings (1-1) (Previous rank: 18): The Vikings own the Lions no more. In a game marked by seven interceptions, the Vikings defense performed well, making up for a horrible offense. Not many teams will win when the offense keeps giving chances away.

22. Arizona Cardinals (1-1) (Previous rank: 23): Edgerrin James and Matt Leinart both had huge games as the Cardinals won off the foot of Neil Rackers. It was a dramatic win, but one that showed Arizona is still capable of blowing large leads. They need to learn to go in for the kill shot.

23. Cleveland Browns (1-1) (Previous rank: 32): Wow, who knew the Browns were capable of this kind of offense. In what was Derek Anderson's best Peyton Manning impression, the Cleveland quarterback threw for 328 yards and five touchdowns. The offense looked great but the defense, as Cincinnati was right on their tails with 45 points, could still use some work.

24. Tampa Bay (1-1) (Previous rank: 29): Joey Galloway made his fantasy owners proud on Sunday, catching for 135 yards and two touchdowns. Still, he might want to keep the showboating to a minimum, at least until Tampa Bay is above .500.

25. New York Giants (0-2) (Previous rank: 22): The Giants committed less than brilliant mistakes and played defense with more holes than a fishing net. So far, it really looks like there is no light at the end of the tunnel for Eli and the gang.

26. Miami Dolphins (0-2) (Previous rank: 21): Are the fins finished? Well, not yet, but they have to start performing better. In a game that saw a bad running game and Trent Green throw four interceptions, Miami nearly had no chance. Green's ability to find Chris Chambers is hopeful, but he needs to start finding him in the end zone.

27. Oakland Raiders (0-2) (Previous rank: 30): Well, they gave it a good try. In what may someday be known as the "Time Out Game," Oakland rushed their kicker in overtime only to find out that the game wasn't actually over. After the Raiders missed a 52 yarder, Denver regained control and went on to victory. Still, you have to hand it to Oakland: they refused to die at Mile High.

28. Atlanta Falcons (0-2) (Previous rank: 28): Joey Harrington doesn't have a chance if his offensive line doesn't protect him. With a quarterback unable to run like Vick, atlanta falcons is going to have to learn to block. On the Brightside, the Falcons were in this one till the end.

29. New York Jets (0-2) (Previous rank: 25): At 0 and 2, it's starting to look like last year was a fluke for the Jets. They did play well in the fourth quarter, but it was too little too late. Here's to hoping "Man Genius" has something up his sleeve or else this season is going to smart.

30. St. Louis Rams (0-2) (Previous rank: 27): Good teams find a way to win games they should lose, and bad teams find a way to lose games they should win. For Rams fans, their team is in the latter category. Despite outplaying the 49ers, St. Louis couldn't arch their way to victory. They have to stop making mistakes if they are going to have a chance.

31. Buffalo Bills (0-2) (Previous rank: 26): We feel for the Bills, players who have been on an emotional roller coaster all week long. We feel for them, but we still have to say this isn't their year. After being robbed by Denver, they were steam rolled by the Steelers. Their defense is doing well in the red zone, but the same can't be said for their offense.

32. Kansas City Chiefs (0-2) (Previous rank: 31): While their defense began to show signs of life, their offense and their special teams just can't get anything going. If something doesn't start to happen, the Chiefs might find themselves wanting to stick their arrowheads in the oven. It's going to be a long, long season.