#I might colour this fully/accurately later

[feralbutfluffy]

28. Aziraphale

Fury is an interesting thing. 

It pumps adrenaline through the body, raising both heart rate and blood pressure, fueling a feeling that burns bright and brutal. 

In the days of the Greek gods, fury was given form; the Eumenides were deities of vengeance, daughters of Nyx, with bat wings and bloodshot eyes. 

Later, the Oxford Dictionary defined fury as, ‘extreme anger that often includes violent behaviour,’ and if that definition is accurate then it is true that Aziraphale had, so far, managed to always sidestep anything that might lead to that sort of trouble. Fury was a concept he had seen depicted in print, or in art, but it was something he had always observed from a safe distance.

Now, Aziraphale fairly glittered with it.

He had felt it begin to click into place from the moment Muriel had helped him establish the link to Crowley. The ache he had felt then - some warning of Crowley’s situation - had been a mournful cry for help, the kind of cry that echoes in silence and expects no reply, and fury had, for the first time, made itself known.

As soon as his eyes had locked on the broken figure of his dearest friend, it had enveloped him completely, closing over him like armour.

He could not seem to shake it off.

Something wild had surged in his chest as he’d surveyed the damage. He’d remembered Muriel’s earnest explanation of pyjamas as he’d taken in the tattered remnants of what had once been black silk trousers; Crowley’s only scrap of clothing. His mind had overlaid an image from the past over the image in his present…

His friend, then, sleek and stylish and hermetically wrapped in layers of charcoal and black. 

His friend, now, half-naked and ripped to shreds, looking like he’d been hunted for sport.

And maybe he had.

He had wished for his flaming sword in that moment. He would have waited for those responsible and struck them down without a thought. But Saraqael had grounded him, reminded him of what needed to be done, and directed him during the healings. They had asked him to lift Crowley’s head, or move Crowley’s arm, or spread Crowley’s wing; directions that probably weren’t necessary outside of giving him something to do so that his mind didn’t splinter into maddened slivers of undiluted rage.

The urge to tear the place apart with his bare hands had been almost overwhelming. Instead, he had gritted his teeth and used those same hands to cradle Crowley’s head in his lap, his fingers catching in blood-matted snarls. He was hollowed out by sorrow, asphyxiated by anger, and the fury was inside him then, a stinging cold crawling through him until he shook with it.

Back at the bookshop, Aziraphale had knelt at Crowley’s side with a bowl of warm water and wiped away the blood with slow, gentle, deliberate strokes. Each bruise and scar revealed had stoked his rage. It had crystalised into something sharp and vicious and diamond-hard. 

Afterwards, he had poured the water out in the sink and the colour of it had broken his heart.

Saraqael was a welcome ally. They didn’t conceal their disgust at the situation, just explained more fully what Aziraphale had already half-known; the Metatron had wanted to separate him from Crowley, believing them too powerful. Saraqael had been pragmatic about his choice to leave Earth.

“The Metatron used good bait. You were always a believer.”

“Yes.”

A sidelong glance. “I heard he spiked your earthly beverage with an extra shot of religious zeal just to be sure of your answer.”

“My coffee? ”

“Just a rumour. You probably would have made the same decision regardless. You’ve always been…” - Saraqael paused - “... eager.”

“But… But the Metatron succeeded. I was in Heaven. We weren’t even on speaking terms !”

The questions hung in the air unspoken. Why do this? Why take him?

“There was still contact, was there not?” Saraqael nodded their head towards the front of the shop. “Through Muriel? The two of you have never been able to keep away from each other for too long,” Saraqael wrinkled their nose in bewilderment. “God only knows why. Still, it did seem inevitable that perhaps a year from now, a decade from now, a century from now… you two would simply pick up where you left off. Unless… ”

“Unless.” Repeated Aziraphale dully.

“...Unless that possibility was eliminated.”

“But why Crowley? Why not me?”

Saraqael gave him a look that told him they wouldn’t be dignifying his question with an answer. Why would Heaven ever think to lose an angel to spare a demon?

Aziraphale had gone to Crowley then, bent his forehead to Crowley’s arm, silently begged for forgiveness, and Crowley had come to, startling him. He had warned Aziraphale away. He had warned him of danger he didn’t seem to realise was no longer present. 

Aziraphale had stared at the thin white line that split his eyebrow and continued down his cheek, thought about his own failure to warn Crowley, and silently swallowed down the guilt threatening to choke him.

Continue reading

Or start from the top!

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

Preparing for the Theatre of Life

We said a while ago that one must prepare one's Aristasian background before entering the Theatre of life, and we have received some enquiries as to how one should go about this. Since this is a matter of importance to all of us, whether we are planning to attend real-life events or to create an Aristasian character in Elektraspace, here are some instructions which we hope you will find of value.

1. Decide your Sex

Whether an Aristasian is blonde or brunette is fundamental to her identity. She will be regarded very differently according to which she is. First, remember that in Telluria your actual hair-colour has nothing whatever to do with it. I suppose most of us know this in theory by now, but I remember when I first became an Aristasian wondering whether I really ought to dye my hair to go with my sex and whether it would suit me. It was some time before I fully realised that this was entirely unnecessary and even irrelevant. One of our more prominent Aristasian coulples consits of a raven blonde and a lemon brunette.

Then how do you decide? Many of us know immediately which we are. One test, somewhat humorous but quite accurate, is "When you think of a kiss, do you picture yourself kissing or being kissed - if the former you are brunette, if the latter you are blonde." It isn't quite as simple as that - there are some very forward blondes these days! - but it is a good initial guide.

In the beginning, however, remember that your options are open. Whatever you choose, you are not "stuck with it" - you can change, develop different personae later, even alter the sex of your current one.

For the beginning just try to get the feel of your character and see what sex she seems to be.

2. Decide your Background

Now you know what sex you are, find out a little more about yourself. What province do you come from - Quirinelle (akin to the 1950s)? Trent (similar to the 1930s)? Arcadia (often Victorian)? Give yourself a home town. What was your blonde mother like? Where was she from? What about your brunette mother? Have you blonde or brunette sisters? What was your school like? Was it single-sex or mixed? How did you get on there?

And what now? Are you a military brunette? A blonde of leisure (Aristasia has a large leisured class - so you may well not actually have a "job")? A Milchford undergraduette? A shop girl? A schoolgirl? A maid? An actress? Do you live with your mothers? Alone? Are you married? Who are the interesting people in your life? Think of an incident or two that has happened to your character that she might tell about in conversation.

Your character might be wholly or partly a "translation" of your Tellurian life, or she may be completely imaginary - in any case she will always reflect something special in you.

The important thing is that you are building an Aristasian character who may be you or may be quite different - or may be something between the two - a character whom you can take to cinema outings, to school or to whatever Aristasian events you may wish to attend. This is the first step to taking part in the magical adventure of Life Theatre.

Source

[vykko]

So didn’t from my regular posts I’m going to bitch about my old English teacher I had last year

Oh yeah trigger warning she was a ableist bitch also when I’m upset I curse more so this contains some colourful and Australian language then normally also I get angry so my spelling and grammar goes flying out the bloody window. Also also I’m not fucking missgendering myself for the sake of being accurate

I used to think maybe I was too harsh but now I honestly could not give a shit even if my life depended on it as she was a horrible teacher. Also I’m making the closest thing to my real nickname because it is very obvious what my legal name is if you know it do I’m going to coni I place as it’s similar sounding also anytime I say connor it’s in place of my legal name

so first day i meet her in person i tell her im dyslexic and might need some help with stuff, it went down hill from there as if adhd ASD and dyslexia aren’t on my file

how did she treat me, well not like everyone else that’s for fucking sure

Talked in the “hay sweetie/buddy” voice, for people who don’t know it’s the kinda voice used when you talk to a very very young child and fucking pets so it’s not very nice eg Miss Paulings line to pyro gives me flashbacks(joke I’m not serious)

I draw in class do I concentrate I told her that, she didn’t hear I guess as she always went “coni you can draw afterwards” or “coni could you look up at the board”

even if I finished the work I’d still get the same replies as the top one. Once I did all the work in the group project thingy and I got “coni you need to talk with (name of friend) so you can do the project then you can draw” becuase I guess I can’t possibly do work and finish it quickly it fucking quickly

unit on how stereotypes are bad and dehumanising when she was infantilising me so yeah she was also a hypocrite bitch

i had to be out of school for two weeks first week is kinda personal and the other was wisdom teeth removal. She emailed MY FUCKING MOTHER and not me that she’d send me the work

she sent it halfway through Thursday after I got back home from a blood test, IT WAS THE DAY BEFORE I WAS GETTING SURGERY ALSO IT WASNT EVEN THE RIGHT FUCKING WORK

i get back I ask how to catch up as she emailed me she would, she didn’t. She said not to worry about it and didn’t actually help me at fucking all with work where I needed to of done the work pipe and read the bloody book to s point

SO I HAD TO FUCKING FIGURE SOME SHIT OUT TO HELP MY FUCKING SELF AS SBE COULDNT DO HER BLOODY JOB AS A DAMN TEACHER

she then proceeded to slowly go from never choosing me to answer questions with my hand down to fucking telling me “you can tell me later coni” “not now coni” and like the bloody bitch she is she never call on me again

My friends can fucking see the shit she is doing because is so bloody blanet you’d have to buried half way to hell head first not to tell

i somehow managed to bet a a decent grade on my essay exam and here’s some crap I was going through at the fucking time : psychosis from hiding amount of stress, only getting 2.5-4houes of sleep for a month and returning to school when I hadn’t even fully recovered because the doctor note had bloody fucking stupidly only let me stay home for a week even when I wasn’t getting better for several days. I SOMEHOW MANAGED TO GET A C- and then she comes up to my fucking desk to tell me how I could of bloody done better

LIKE IM SO SORRY I DID NOT THAT BLOODY WELL AS YOU COULD NOT DO YA DAMN FUCKING JOB. She also didn’t do this for anyone else

she introduced me to the new English teacher because thank the fucking heavens she had to schedule change and the audacity this fucking bitch

she, 20cm tops away from my desk and indrodues me too the new teacher, I wasn’t in the damn convo she was talking about me in front of me. Effectively doing it like

“That’s coni he is disabled, you need to be a condersending wanker as I think it works best oh yeah he isn’t like the other students so I obviously need you to treat him like dumb toddler who can’t understand anything” (if you couldn’t fucking tell I’m trying to make a joke it’s a joke)

also 2 last things

I never introduced myself as ‘coni ‘ to her or said she could call me that I said my name is Connor

also she didn’t like how I did stuff, even tho I didn’t do it wrong I just did it differently then she wanted so she made me do work in a way that doesn’t actually work for me and 2 apparently doing something that was effectiving no one is so bloody horrible

also new English teacher was fucking amazing and actually did their bloody job

ive claimed down again I think I need to add I never once got angry at her in person. I honestly had some fun in the class be of my friends not because of her

a

[pomrania]

Okay, I'm awake now, lemme explain what was going on.

So @maniculum is doing an event where they share old bestiary descriptions of a creature, giving it a nonsense name as a filler, and people are drawing what they can from that description. I missed doing it last week, due to a combination of just plain forgetting and then being too ashamed to look at it later on, but I didn't want to miss it again. That's half of why I worked on it when I was so tired yesterday, so I wouldn't forget; the OTHER half is that when tired, I don't overthink things (thus I'm more likely to get stuff DONE instead of blankly staring at the screen trying for perfection), plus I come up with dumb ideas unfiltered by rational thought, which I thought would add to the experience and end result.

This one is a "holghras", and you can find the description of it here. I've an idea of what it might actually be, but that didn't interfere since I can't accurately draw ANY bird from memory other than mayybe a barn owl in one particular pose, and also it's been like twenty years since I last saw the bird I was reminded of by the description, so I wouldn't even be able to recognize that bird if I saw a photo of it.

I started with the beak. It's twisted because of the "deceitful" description, and yes that doesn't make biological sense but it makes EMOTIONAL sense, at least to me when half-asleep. The "ears" (which really should be tufts of feathers, if I end up drawing this properly) come from the bit about "the young hearing the mother", even though that wasn't a major element in the description, I was tired and that's the kind of weird connections I was HOPING to make. "The young being carried" is literally in the description; while awake I can think of other ways that might happen, but "on the back" was the only thing an occurred to me at the time.

I was working from the mental image of a small bird, one that gets seen on the ground; I don't know much of that got across, because I have not yet learned how to draw birds well. For the tail, I was thinking "what's the sluttiest way a bird's tail feathers could look", and COMPLETELY forgot about a bunch of birds' tails, so I ended up with "the outer feathers are longer than the main feathers".

Okay, that's everything with the lines, now on to the colours. With the exception of the light brown, these are all from the default palette of the program I use, because that's simpler; no real meaning to any specific variant of a shade. "Overall some kind of brown" is because, well, that describes a decent chunk of creatures. The lighter shade around the eye and on the underside, no meaning to those, other than that they're very common and also they look cool. The beak and the legs were me just trying to remember what were the normal colours for birds. For the young, there was a thing of "they lie on their back and hold up bits of earth to camouflage themselves", and I legit don't remember how that translated into me thinking "oh so they must be light brown as juveniles".

The tail being purple, that was me thinking again "what would a slutty bird look like"; if I was to do a better version of this, I'd have the colours being more vivid and distinct in comparison to the rest of the body. As for the wing, the pale bars on it don't mean anything, just "I want to add something in here, and I remember that birds have markings like this". The red, the description talks about how they pretend to be injured, and that immediately came to mind; the implementation was a bit off, because half-asleep, but I'd stick with the idea.

I don't know if I'll do a drawn-while-fully-awake version of this; I mean I INTEND to, but "I don't control the motivation" and all that. Aside from things I'd mentioned above, and overall drawing something not as messy, I think I'd want to change the beak, because dream logic just seems silly when I'm looking at it awake, plus there are SO many weird bird beaks I could choose from that are actually physically possible. Maybe do something to fancy up the tail feather a bit. To get a better picture, it'd be a good idea to have a more interesting pose; however, that's likely beyond the combination of "my current ability" and "the amount of time and effort I'd want to put into the thing".

I missed the thing last week, so I'm doing this week's one now. I am tired, brain half asleep, thus not good at being clarification; but I drew this, on whatever stupid connection my brain could manage, if an idea came to me I was like "sure why not, let's go with that".

The whole thing is that we're given a translated bestiary description, and to draw from that. I hope tomorrow when I'm awake full I'll be able to remember why I any given decision.

This is the thing. Tomorrow I intend to write up explain actual, and probably also should to draw anew, neater. My words are not word proper now. Time to post and leave the rest for future me.

This is not the full thing. Not quite an in-progress, unless I mistake and end up not more to do (which I hope not).

[oliya-art]

I received a request to draw a body swap situation. I never draw comics so I though I’d give it a try.

[writingwithcolor]

Jurassic period alien interacting with key cultures and historical figures in Middle East & Asia throughout history

@ketchupmaster400​ said:

Hello, so my question is for a character I’ve been working on for quite a while but wasn’t sure about a few things. So basically at the beginning of the universe there was this for less being made up of dark matter and dark energy. Long story short it ends up on earth during the Jurassic Period. It has the ability to adapt and assimilate into other life animals except it’s hair is always black and it’s skin is always white and it’s eyes are always red. It lives like this going from animal to animal until it finally becomes human and gains true sentience and self awareness. As a human it lives within the Middle East and Asia wondering around trying to figure out its purpose and meaning. So what I initially wanted to do with it was have small interactions with the dark matter human and other native humans that kinda helped push humanity into the direction it is now. For example, Mehndhi came about when the dark matter human was drawing on their skin because it felt insecure about having such white skin compared to other people. And ancient Indians saw it and thought it was cool so they adopted it and developed it into Mehndi. Minor and small interactions though early history leading to grander events. Like they would be protecting Jerusalem and it’s people agains the Crusaders later on. I also had the idea of the the dark matter human later on interacting with the prophets Jesus Christ and Muhammad. With Jesus they couldn’t understand why he would sacrifice himself even though the people weren’t deserving. And then Jesus taught them that you have to put other before yourself and protecting people is life’s greatest reward. And then with the prophet Muhammad, I had the idea that their interaction was a simple conversation that mirrors the one he had with the angel Jibril, that lead to the principles of Islam. Now with these ideas I understand the great importance of how not to convey Islam and I’ve been doing reasearch, but I am white and I can understand how that may look trying to write about a different religion than my own. So I guess ultimate my question is, is this ok to do? Is it ok to have an alien creature interact with religious people and historical events as important as they were? Like I said I would try to be as accurate and as respectable as possible but I know that Islam can be a touchy subject and the last thing I would want is to disrespect anyone. The main reason I wanted the dark matter being in the Middle East was because I wanted to do something different because so much has been done with European and American stuff I wanted to explore the eastern side of the world because it’s very beau and very rich with so many cultures that I want to try and represent. I’m sorry for the long post but I wanted you guys to fully understand what my idea was. Thank you for your time and hope you stay safe.

Disclaimer:

The consensus from the moderators was that the proposed character and story is disrespectful from multiple cultural perspectives. However, we can’t ignore the reality that this is a commonly deployed trope in many popular science fiction/ thriller narratives. Stories that seek to take religious descriptions of events at face value from an areligious perspective particularly favor this approach. Thus, we have two responses:

Where we explain why we don’t believe this should be attempted.

Where we accept the possibility of our advice being ignored.

1) No - Why You Shouldn’t Do This:

Hi! I’ll give you the short answer first, and then the extended one.

Short answer: no, this is not okay.

Extended answer. I’ll divide it into three parts.

1) Prophet Muhammad as a character:

Almost every aspect of Islam, particularly Allah (and the Qur’an), the Prophet(s) and the companions at the time of Muhammad ﷺ, are strictly kept within the boundaries of real life/reality. I’ll assume this comes from a good place, and I can understand that from one side, but seriously, just avoid it. It is extremely disrespectful and something that is not even up to debate for Muslims to do, let alone for non-Muslims. Using Prophet Muhammad as a character will only bring you problems. There is no issue with mentioning the Prophet during his lifetime when talking about his attributes, personality, sayings or teachings, but in no way, we introduce fictional aspects in a domain that Muslims worked, and still work, hard to keep free from any doubtful event or incident. Let’s call it a closed period: we don’t add anything that was not actually there.

Reiterating then, don’t do this. There is a good reason why Muslims don’t have any pictures of Prophet Muhammad. We know nothing besides what history conveyed from him. 

After this being said, there is another factor you missed – Jesus is also an important figure in Islam and his story from the Islamic perspective differs (a lot) from that of the Christian perspective. And given what you said in your ask, you would be taking the Christian narrative of Jesus. If it was okay to use Prophet Muhammad as a character (reminder: it’s not) and you have had your dark matter human interacting with the biblical Jesus, it will result in a complete mess; you would be conflating two religions.

2) Crusaders and Jerusalem:

You said this dark matter human will be defending Jerusalem against the Crusaders. At first, there is really no problem with this. However, ask yourself: is this interaction a result of your character meeting with both Jesus and Prophet Muhammed? If yes, please refer to the previous point. If not, or even if you just want to maintain this part of the story, your dark matter human can interact with the important historical figures of the time. For example, if you want a Muslim in your story, you can use Salah-Ad-Din Al-Ayoubi (Saladin in the latinized version) that took back Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Particularly, this crusade has plenty of potential characters. 

Also, featuring Muslim characters post Prophet Muhammad and his companions’ time, is completely fine, just do a thorough research.

 3) Middle Eastern/South Asian settings and Orientalism:

The last point I want to remark is with the setting you chose for your story. Many times, when we explore the SWANA or South Asian regions it’s done through an orientalist lens. Nobody is really safe from falling into orientalism, not even the people from those regions. My suggestion is educating yourself in what orientalism is and how it’s still prevalent in today’s narrative. Research orientalism in entertainment, history... and every other area you can think of. Edward Said coined this term for the first time in history, so he is a good start. There are multiple articles online that touch this subject too. For further information, I defer to middle eastern mods. 

- Asmaa

Racism and Pseudo-Archaeology:

A gigantic, unequivocal and absolute no to all of it, lmao. 

I will stick to the bit about the proposed origin of mehendi in your WIP, it’s the arc I feel I’m qualified to speak on, Asmaa has pretty much touched upon the religious and orientalism complications. 

Let me throw out one more word: pseudoarchaeology. That is, taking the cultural/spiritual/historical legacies of ancient civilizations, primarily when it involves people of colour, and crediting said legacies to be the handiwork of not just your average Outsider/White Saviour but aliens. I’ll need you to think carefully about this: why is it that in so much of media and literature pertaining to the so-called “conspiracy theories” dealing with any kind of extraterrestrial life, it’s always Non-Western civilizations like the Aztec, the ancient Egyptians, the Harappans etc who are targeted? Why is it that the achievements of the non West are so unbelievable that it’s more feasible to construct an idea of non-human, magical beings from another planet who just conveniently swooped in to build our monuments and teach us how to dress and what to believe in? If the answer makes you uncomfortable, it’s because it should: denying the Non-West agency of their own feats is not an innocent exercise in sci-fi worldbuilding, it comes loaded with implications of racial superiority and condescension towards the intellect and prowess of Non-European cultures. 

Now, turning to specifics:

Contrary to what Sarah J. Maas might believe- mehendi designs are neither mundane, purely aesthetic tattoos nor can they be co-opted by random Western fantasy characters. While henna has existed as an art form in various cultures, I’m limiting my answer to the Indian context, (specifying since you mention ancient India). Mehendi is considered one of the tenets of the Solah Shringar- sixteen ceremonial adornments for Hindu brides, one for each phase of the moon, as sanctioned by the Vedic texts. The shade of the mehendi is a signifier for the strength of the matrimonial bond: the darker the former, the stronger the latter. Each of the adornments carries significant cosmological/religious symbolism for Hindus. To put it bluntly, when you claim this to be an invention of the aliens, you are basically taking a very sacred cultural and artistic motif of our religion and going “Well actually….extraterrestrials taught them all this.”

In terms of Ayurveda (Traditional holistic South Asian medicine)  , mehendi was used for its medicinal properties. It works as a cooling agent on the skin and helps to alleviate stress, particularly for the bride-to-be. Not really nice to think that aliens lent us the secrets of Ayurvedic science (pseudoarchaeology all over again). 

I’m just not feeling this arc at all. The closest possible alternative I could see to this is the ancient Indian characters incorporating some specific stylistic motifs in their mehendi in acknowledgement to this entity, in the same vein of characters incorporating motifs of tribute into their armour or house insignia, but even so, I’m not sure how well that would play out. If you do go ahead with this idea, I cannot affirm that it will not receive backlash.

-Mimi

These articles might help:

 Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

A History of Indian Henna (this studies mehendi origins mostly with reference to Mughal history)

Solah Shringar

2) Not Yes, But If Ignoring the Above:

I will be the dissenting voice of “Not No, But Here Are The Big Caveats.” Given that there is no way to make the story you want to tell palatable to certain interpretations of Islam and Christianity, here is my advice if the above arguments did not sufficiently deter you.

1. Admiration ≠ Research: It is not enough to just admire cultures for their richness and beauty. You need to actually do the research and learn about them to determine if the story you want to tell is a good fit for the values and principles these cultures prioritize. You need to understand the significance of historical figures and events to understand the issues with attributing the genesis of certain cultural accomplishments to an otherworldly influence. 1.

2. Give Less Offense When Possible and Think Empathetically: You should try to imagine the mindsets of those you will offend and think about to what degree you can soften or ameliorate certain aspects of your plot, the creature’s characteristics, and the creature’s interactions with historical figures to make your narrative more compatible. There is no point pretending that much of areligious science fiction is incompatible with monotheist, particularly non-henotheistic, religious interpretations as well as the cultural items and rituals derived from those religious interpretations. One can’t take “There is no god, just a lonely alien” and make that compatible with “There is god, and only in this particular circumstance.” Thus:

As stated above by Asmaa and Mimi, there is no escaping the reality the story you propose is offensive to some. Expect their outcry to be directed towards you. Can you tolerate that?

Think about how you would feel if someone made a story where key components of your interpretation of reality are singled out as false. How does this make you feel? Are you comfortable doing that to others?

3. Is Pseudoarchaeology Appropriate Here?: Mimi makes a good point about the racial biases of pseudoarchaeology. Pseudoarchaeology is a particular weakness of Western-centric atheist sci-fi. Your proposed story is the equivalent of a vaguely non-descript Maya/Aztec/Egyptian pyramid or Hindu/ Buddhist-esque statue being the source for a Resident Evil bio weapon/ Predator nest/ Assassin’s Creed Isu relic.

Is this how you wish to draw attention to these cultures you admire? While there is no denying their ubiquity in pop-culture, such plots trivialize broad swathes of non-white history and diminish the accomplishments of associated ethnic groups. The series listed above all lean heavily into these tropes either because the authors couldn’t bother to figure out something more creative or because they are intentionally telling a story the audience isn’t supposed to take seriously.*

More importantly, I detect a lot of sincerity in your ask, so I imagine such trivialization runs counter to your expressed desire to depict Eastern cultures in a positive and accurate manner.

4. Freedom to Write ≠ Freedom from Consequence: Once again, as a reminder, it’s not our job to reassure you as to whether or not what you are proposing is ok. Asmaa and Mimi have put a lot of effort into explaining who you will offend and why.  We are here to provide context, but the person who bears the ultimate responsibility for how you choose to shape this narrative, particularly if you share this story with a wide audience, is you. Speaking as one writer to another, I personally do not have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I think it is important to be face reality head-on.

- Marika.

* This is likely why the AC series always includes that disclaimer stating the games are a product of a multicultural, inter-religious team and why they undermine Western cultures and Western religious interpretations as often (if not moreso) than those for their non-Western counterparts.

Note: Most WWC asks see ~ 5 hours of work from moderators before they go live. Even then, this ask took an unusually long amount of time in terms of research, emotional labor and discussion. If you found this ask (and others) useful, please consider tipping the moderators (link here), Asmaa (coming eventually) and Mimi (here). I also like money - Marika.

[coppercookie]

Warrior cats afterlife

Just some starclan and dark forest headcanons I like, might add more later

Starclan

-Starclan has a lower and upper plane.

Lower plane

-lower plane is non faded cats

-Living cats are only aware of the lower plane

-starclan cats slowly fade as living cats forget them

-starclan cats become the age they were happiest

-young kits will age to 2 months after death and can choose to age further if they want

-starclan cats have galaxy coloured blood

-cats with bad backgrounds are given a trail and vote from all starclan cats to decide if they are permitted to stay

-Clan leaders revert to their warrior name and kits/apprentices are given a full warrior name to avoid statuses

-when losing a life leaders will experience the most impactful event of the cat who gave them this life

Upper plane

-when fully faded they ascent to the upper plane where they shed their body and become a sort of hivemind

-probably looks like biblically accurate angels

-the upper starclan plane also contains faded tribe of endless hunting cats as they come from the same origins

-the upper plane has emense knowledge of the past, future and present to send prophecies, reincarnate cats and give out omens in the living world through the weather

-true reincarnations are from upper plane cat souls

-cinderheart is a false reincarnation as it was done through the lower plane cats and Cinderpelt and cinderheart have separate souls

-the upper plane pass prophecies to the lower who message them to living cats but since the lower plane cats aren't given all knowing knowledge the prophecies come as vague riddles

Clan founders/mythology

-the clan founders can traverse all of starclan as their stories were passed down through becoming less accurate overtime

-The founders are thought to be big cat ancestors

-Grey wing (lion) is thought to have become silverpelt growing a new star for each cat brought to starclan

-clear sky (tiger) is thought to have become the day sky constantly at odds with grey wing

-thunder (leopard) became the sun to watch over clear sky from causing trouble

-wind runner (cheetah) became the earth large enough for clan cats and rouges alike can happily live their own lives

- tall shadow (puma) became the moon to allow light to foil and condemn plans of nightly ambushes

- River ripple (jaguar) became the water as a form of peace and sanctuary of all cats

Dark forest

-there is a single plane in the dark forest

-the dark forest almost feels alive and some ex trainees swear that they could feel the ground breathing beneath them

-dark forest cats appear identical to starclan cats in the eyes of a living cat until they realise that they're from the dark forest making them uncanny/monstrous

-dark forest cats have black blood

-dark forest cats do not physically fade but as living cats forget them they too begin to forget their life until they only know of their atrocities and frustration in life

-dark forest cat can communicate with living cats that have strong negative emotions where they can lure them into the df

-Living cats who die in the dark forest become dark forest residents no matter how good or bad they were

-past leaders and medicine cats still have their rank and have a clear higharcy with them and the oldest of df cats in power (with tigerstar and mapleshade being one of the tops.)

Deaths spirituality shown:

Blader stones: gems on lower stomach

Burns: firy body

Cancer: warm glowing patches of where cancer occurred

Diabetes: sugar crystals around throat and chin

Drowned: fur flows as if it's underwater

Greencough: mossy throat

Heart attack:flower connected to chest

Hypothermia: icy breath and leaves a small trail of ice

Impaled: gem stake

Lightning: sparks around them

Old age: faint moon phases on pelt

Other species: wear skull of what killed them

Poisoned: death berries in fur and a little drool

Rock/landslide:pebbles in fur

Run over: tire marks and pebbles

Smoke inhalation: smoky paws

Still born: folded ears and blue eyes

Suffocation: band around neck

Wounds: White cuts with stars in them

[musicalsiphonophore]

I don’t have a very vivid mental eye for imaginative things. I can’t “see” anything which I haven’t seen before.

I have a weird memory too. It isn’t photographic, but if I am familiar with something, I am able to exactly recall that thing. So, if I look at something a lot, I can “see” it well enough to notice new details that I hadn’t noticed before. Like I can summon a screen cap from my favourite episode of Umbrella Academy and say “hey, what’s that in the background?”

It’s weird though, because I cannot actually see the thing clearly??? I can just remember what it looks like. Without really fully seeing it in my head, it’s just a sort of idea of an image. I don’t know how that works either.

If I’ve not seen something exactly, but I’ve seen some things that look like that and am putting them together to make an image, then it’s unclearer again.

It’s like my mental eye is a map of shapes and colours rather than an actual camera, with kind of ideas of where everything is but it’s not clear it all. Is that an accurate way of describing it? I’m not sure. Might edit this later, haha.

(Oddly though, my sound-imagination is so vivid that I can usually exactly replicate sounds in my head, and the sounds seem real.)

Ok how many of you actually have a "Mind's Eye"?????

it's been bothering me lately because APPARENTLY IT'S NOT NORMAL TO NOT SEE THINGS WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES AND I NEED TO KNOW THAT PEOPLE AREN'T LYING TO ME WHEN THEY SAY THEY CAN

[cheri-cheri]

[L&N] Entangled in the Veil of Night (Option 3)

✧ Prologue: here

OPTION 3: Watch the Circus Performance

MC: We should watch the circus performance first. If we’re late, we might not get good seats.

As the highlight of the Night of Revelry, the circus performance has been set to take place in the main tent in the middle of the venue. By the time we rush there, there aren’t many seats left.

Charlie: Fiancée, let’s go over there. 

While I’m trying my best to search for seats, Charlie tugs on my hand, leading me over to a place to sit down.

We came here at the right time. Five minutes later, the performance officially begins.

The music marking the start of the performance starts. In an instant, this colourful tent turns into a magical world.

An acrobatics performance leaving the audience gasping in amazement, a comical clown riding on a unicycle, a flyer wearing a flaming dress... every performance leaves the audience cheering.

A young lady wearing a satin dress draws my attention. Her gentle frame is coupled with throwing knives, setting an extreme contrast.

When the first half of the show ends, I find that I’m still fully immersed in the earlier performances.

MC: Sure enough, seeing is believing. The performances by the World Circus Troupe are the peak of combining imagination and art!

Charlie: They were very interesting.

Charlie rubs his chin while nodding in agreement.

Charlie: But I never knew that my fiancée enjoyed such “dangerous games”. Looks like I’ll have to try them next time.

MC: Is that so? What are you planning to perform? Magic, acrobatics, or dressing up as a clown?

Charlie: Your favourite performance, of course.

MC: My favourite performance? Why don’t I know what it is?

Charlie: You were most focused on the knife-throwing performance.

Charlie narrows one eye, pretending to throw a dart at me.

Charlie: I’ll practice a little when I get back. Next time, I’ll be able to strike my fiancée’s heart accurately with this “dart of love”.

MC: Pfft... I was focused because I found that lady’s dress really pretty. Where’s your mind wandering off to? Enough about this. I’m a little hungry. Since there’s some time before the second half of the show, let’s look for something to eat.

When we step out of the tent, we see that the sky has turned completely dark.

The colourful lights in the air are reminiscent of a sparkling galaxy, illuminating the visitors and clowns dressed in all colours of “revelry”, making it difficult to distinguish between the boundaries of reality and fiction.

Just as I’m about to head in the direction of the delicacy plaza, a deliberately soft cough drifts from beside me.

Turning my head, I see that Charlie has lifted his arm and is sending signals to me with his eyes.

I feel like laughing. An idea comes to me just as I’m about to take his arm, and I pause in my actions.

MC: What’s up? Your throat’s feeling unwell? Or is your arm feeling uncomfortable?

Charlie: Neither. I trust that based on the degree of unity of our hearts, you definitely know what I want to do.

While saying this, he stretches his arm towards me again.

MC: I don’t know. You-

Just as I plan to continue feigning ignorance, Charlie suddenly leans over. He squeezes his hand through the crook of my arm, holding onto me.

Charlie: I understand. My fiancée’s feeling shy. I guess I have no choice but to be the one holding onto you.

MC: [blushing] Wait...

Because of our height difference, Charlie’s action doesn’t have an endearing feeling. Instead, it feels like he’s propping my arm up.

Passers-by quickly cast us inquisitive glances, and I quickly pat Charlie’s arm.

MC: Fine, I was just joking around! Hurry up and let go. I’ll do it...

Even before I finish speaking, Charlie has already released me. He offers his arm to me again.

No longer messing with him, I hold onto him, lifting my head with a smile.

MC: Let’s go!

In the delicacy plaza, we purchase all sorts of unique snacks. When we’re about to return to the tent, I suddenly hear a sobbing sound.

MC: Do you hear something?

Charlie: It seems to be... the sound of someone crying.

Following the sound, we walk towards the back of the tent, only to see a troupe leader of the circus with a black top hat berating the young lady with golden coloured hair who was performing the knife-throwing act earlier.

Troupe Leader: Jenny, why were there so many mistakes during your performance earlier?

Jenny: I’m sorry...

The young lady tugs at the corners of her dress, her eyes brimming with tears. Afraid of smudging her make-up, she bites her lip, trying her best not to cry.

Troupe Leader: You had presented such a terrible show to the audience. How do I usually teach you?! You...

Charlie rushes over in time, grabbing the troupe leader’s whip before it can land on her.

Charlie: Stop.

The troupe leader freezes in place. Then, he looks at us defensively.

Troupe Leader: Who are you? Visitors are prohibited from coming here!

MC: We heard her crying from outside. Even if you thought that her performance wasn’t outstanding enough, you shouldn’t beat her!

Troupe Leader: The way I reprimand my troupe members has nothing to do with two visitors.

Charlie: Unfortunately, I recorded a video clip from earlier.

Charlie takes out his phone. With a smile, he looks at the troupe leader, whose expression changes instantly.

Charlie: What’s even more unfortunate is that I have many friends in the news industry. “The Troupe Leader of the World Circus Trope beats his employees”... they’d definitely be very interested in this matter.

With a gloomy expression on his face, the trope leader glares at Charlie before returning his gaze onto Jenny.

Troupe Leader: Do you think I’m willing to manage you?! If this happens again, there won’t be a need for you to go on stage, and don’t even think of joining my tour!

With this, he leaves without a turn of his head.

MC: Are you okay? Did you get hurt?

I quickly check on the young lady’s condition. Unexpectedly, she lifts her head and glares at me with reddened eyes.

Jenny: Why did the both of you have to butt in? My dad wasn’t wrong. My performance was terrible earlier!

MC: He’s your father? But even if he’s pursuing perfection, there was no need for him to treat you with such an attitude and even hit you.

Jenny: I was crying not because my dad was scolding me. It was because I wasn’t satisfied with my performance. If I don’t work hard in my performances, my dad wouldn’t bring me around the world on his tour. And I... would be left at home alone just as I was as a child. He was scolding me for my own good. If I don’t work harder than others and be more outstanding than others, he wouldn’t love me!

After saying this loudly, she turns and runs away. Staring at her back profile, a wave of helplessness surges into my heart.

MC: ...why would she think like that?

Charlie: It isn’t her fault.

Charlie’s lowers his gaze, tossing the worn down whip onto a box. It’s akin to a microcosm of this cold and cruel familial relationship.

-

When Charlie and I return to the tent to watch the second half of the show, my mood is no longer as relaxed as before.

Those flawless performances and the happy smiles on the performances seem to bring with them a different feeling.

Amidst the sound of cheers, the final solo performance arrives. Jenny is reminiscent of a tiny bird as she lands lightly on the ground from a high platform.

There’s a dazzling smile on her face, and nobody can tell that she was upset earlier. Along with the troupe leader, she energetically waves at the audience.

Troupe Leader: Next up, Jenny will be performing a knife-throwing performance of everyone. We’ll be inviting a member of the audience on stage to cooperate with her.

A commotion drifts from the audience seats. Some people raise their hands and cheer excitedly, while others shrink backwards into their seats, afraid of being selected.

Troupe Leader: I wonder who the courageous individual will be? You, you, or...

The Troupe Leader points his whip in various directions, eliciting cheers from that portion of the audience. In the end, he stops right in front of us!

Troupe Leader: Why don’t we invite this beautiful Miss to come on stage?

When I meet the eyes of the troupe leader, I immediately understand that he’s doing this on purpose.

He thinks that I wouldn’t dare to go on stage because I’m worried about Jenny making a mistake. This is a challenge that he’s giving me for “butting in” earlier.

Troupe Leader: It looks like this Miss seems a little afraid.

I clench my fists. Although I am feeling a little scared, I prepare to stand up anyway. At this moment, someone pulls my arm.

Charlie: I’ll do it.

Charlie stands up, patting the back of my hand and stuffing the bucket of popcorn into my arms.

MC: Charlie, don’t force yourself... why don’t we just decline?

Charlie: Don’t worry, all you have to do is admire my handsomeness while I’m performing. But when I make my triumphant return, I wonder if I could get a kiss as a reward?

He winks at me as he typically does. However, I feel even more anxious about this than being on stage myself. Tugging on the corner of his clothes, I give him a forceful nod.

MC: Take care.

With a stretch of his long legs, he steps onto the stage. Then, he places his hand before his chest in an elegant manner. 

Cheers erupt from the surroundings. Only my heart is on tenterhooks.

Troupe Leader: I wonder how I should address this brave Mister?

Charlie: You can call me... King Crow. 

Charlie casually mentions the nickname that we had joked about earlier. The crow-coloured feathers on his shoulder sparkle faintly beneath the stage lights.

Troupe Leader: In that case, I’d like to invite King Crow to sit on his throne.

Charlie arches his brows. Accompanying the applause from the audience, he walks towards the “throne” in front of the roulette board, which actually gives him a somewhat majestic aura.

Troupe Leader: Now that the guest is seated, the performance can begin! Don’t blink. Otherwise, you might miss this spectacular moment!

The troupe leader removes his top hat. With a bow, white mist explodes with a “pop”, and he disappears from where he was standing.

Jenny walks through the white mist daintily, showcasing six steel knives to Charlie and the audience. They glint with a silvery light.

Jenny: Please don’t be afraid, Mister.

Charlie: Of course I’m not afraid. This is a rare opportunity.

Charlie sits in front of the roulette board in a relaxed manner. He looks at me, not a single trace of fear on his face. He even has a light-hearted smile.

Even though he doesn’t say anything, I can understand what it means - “Watch well, Fiancée.”

A smile involuntarily surfaces on my lips. At thismdment, Jenny suddenly turns around and tosses the first knife.

MC: !

Amidst shocked cries, a blade strikes the location above Charlie’s right shoulder.

Without any time for me to react, Jenny throws the second and third knives in succession. Each time the tip of the blade strikes the roulette board with a “thud” causes me to tremble.

In the meantime, Charlie remains calm and composed. He taps his thigh lightly with his fingertips, cooperating with this performance perfectly.

The six flying knives are stuck on the board along Charlie’s outline with incredible precision. Waves of enthusiastic cheers and applause arise from the tent.

Jenny thanks the audience happily, and I finally relax. However, the troupe leader with the top hat once again appears on stage.

Troupe Leader: That was beautiful, Jenny! Next, we’ll do something with a higher level of difficulty. Jenny will be throwing three flying knives at the same time! This is the first time she’s presenting such a performance to everyone. Please give her a round of applause as encouragement!

While the applause and cheers from the audience blend together, I keenly detect Jenny’s slightly stunned expression. Wasn’t this high difficulty performance prepared in advance?

MC: Wait-

I find myself rising from my seat. Just as my mouth opens, I spot Charlie shaking his head. He moves his lips.

Charlie: Trust me.

MC: But... but...

Keeping my eyes on Charlie while struggling inwardly, I finally decide to sit down uneasily.

On the stage, Jenny holds three knives, her expression serious. Nobody dares to make a sound, afraid of disturbing her.

Seconds trickle by. Finally, she makes a move!

With a “whoosh”, two knives slices through the air, striking the roulette board steadily.

However, the remaining knife strikes the iron frame of the roulette board with a clatter, changing its trajectory and heading towards Charlie -

MC: Charlie!

With lightning speed, Charlie lifts his hand and gently pinches the blade of the knife which almost touched him.

The black feathers that were sliced by the knife scatter in the surroundings, showing just how dangerous that earlier moment was.

The surroundings are so quiet that only the sound of breathing can be heard. Beneath the lights, the way Charlie grips the blade makes him genuinely seem like a king sitting on a throne.

Thump... thump... The heart that I had originally calmed down starts to drum in my chest, making me unable to avert my gaze.

The audience members return to their senses, and the crowd erupts into fervent applause and cheers.

Charlie stands up, bowing to the audience. Then, he turns to the troupe leader, who is frozen in place.

Troupe Leader: ...t-that was an incredible beautiful cooperation! Let’s thank Jenny and Mr King for bringing us such a spectacular performance!

The troupe leader returns to his senses and speaks to the audience loudly. The sound of applause is almost enough to overturn the roof of the tent.

Charlie leaves his throne, still holding the knife in his hand.

Charlie: It was indeed a spectacular performance. In order to thank the troupe leader for “specially” inviting me on stage, I’ve decided to give you a return gift.

“Whoosh”. He sends the knife flying from his hand and past the roof of the troupe leader’s head, nailing a corner of his hat to the pillar behind him.

MC: !!

The troupe leader’s mouth trembles. It takes a very long time for him react, and he stammers in his speech.

Charlie walks off the stage indolently. I rush forward, pulling on his palm to check if he’s injured.

Charlie: Fiancée , why are you being so enthusiastic all of a sudden?

MC: Why did you catch the knife with your hand instead of dodging it earlier? That was so dangerous!

Charlie: Don’t worry. These little tricks present no difficulty to me. There’s something more important that you should be doing. My performance was incredibly perfect. Now that I’ve made my triumphant return, where’s the kiss we agreed on?

He lowers his head and leans closer to me. In this dim environment, the mottled lights and shadows from the colourful lights descend on us.

Charlie: Don’t you find that the ambience is just right? If you’re not willing to take the initiative...

He drags out the last part of his sentence. As though controlled by an unseen force, I hold onto his arm and straighten up, planting a light kiss on the side of his face.

Charlie’s eyes widen in surprise. He touches his cheek, mumbling softly.

Charlie: Fiancée, the greeting kisses from the granny living next door is more enthusiastic than yours.

Despite what he says, there’s an unconcealable smile in his tone.

MC: I don’t care what that granny does. Let’s hurry back to our seats. The curtain call is about to begin.

The performers appear on the stage one by one for the curtain call. The troupe leader comes out last, but he is no longer wearing his top hat.

Troupe Leader: The World Circus Troupe has over a hundred years of history. We’re incredibly grateful for everyone’s love and support. We’re a group of people who will always love the circus, and will use our passion to bring happiness and novelty to the world. This will always be our purpose and calling!

Jenny and other performers smile and clap beside him. However, my heart doesn’t feel the same way.

Are these people, who have put in all of their effort to perform, truly doing it out of passion as what the troupe leader claimed?

-

Now that the show is over, Charlie and I leave the tent.

MC: Charlie, do you still remember what Jenny said when we met her in the plaza?

Charlie: I do.

In contrast to the happy atmosphere in the surroundings, the mention of this topic causes our tones to grow solemn.

MC: Earlier, the troupe leader said that what drives the World Circus Trope is “passion”. I don’t know what the other group members think, but I know that Jenny doesn’t think so. To her, the circus is probably just a tool for her to gain her father’s favour. But is such a transactional and temporal concern and pride truly love?

Is this so-called “love” a fetter? Does “love” mean changing, compromising or making sacrifices?

If the answer is yes, it would be a heavy existence which makes it difficult for one to progress.

MC: Do you think that... Jenny’s father truly loves her?

Charlie doesn’t respond immediately. He’s silent for a while before responding.

Charlie: Instead of calling it “love”, it’s more of an “exchange”. One party obtains “vain glory” and “returns”, while the other party obtains “satisfaction” and a “sense of being needed”. I have no right to correct how they feel. But I think true love... should be liberating. It’s about letting go and enabling the other party to be his or herself, and giving the other party unconditional support.

Specks of light are reflected in his eyes, and I seem to see a certain direction in them.

MC: Mm. If I truly love someone, I definitely wouldn’t force him to do anything.

Charlie: I know. 

He nods, a cheerful smile climbing onto his lips.

Charlie: Don’t worry, I’ve never forced myself for your sake. Whether it’s changing my shift to participate in the Night of Revelry with you, or taking your place for the stage performance, I didn’t force myself to do any of those things. In contrast, these are the ways I express love, just like you. But it still makes me very happy to know how thoughtful my fiancée is.

I didn’t expect him to say all of this so suddenly. It turns out that he had already noticed my worries and internal struggles.

MC: What are you saying... Who told you about such things?

I avoid his gaze in slight embarrassment. Even so, I can’t control the upward curl of my lips.

Charlie: You don’t want to hear such things? In that case, I’ll change the topic...

Charlie suddenly snaps his fingers. Then, he smiles while lowering his voice.

Charlie: I’ll tell you a secret, fiancée.

"BANG!” At this moment, a gigantic firework blooms in the sky. Golden streaks of light fall, reminiscent of a grand meteor shower.

Charlie leans closer to me, his low voice pressing against my ear.

Charlie: I heard that the blessings of true love can be received by those who kiss underneath fireworks. So that kiss from my triumphant return from earlier - could you do it again in a more enthusiastic manner?

“BANG!”

As warm breaths draw closer, another golden firework blooms in the sky.

✧ Alternative options: Museum l Music Party l Magic Show l Nothing

✧ Epilogue: here

[14muffinz]

Countdown AU - Masterpost

Okay, there is a lot going on in my brain about this au, but I'm going to start this with a character round-off for the sake of it.

I’m alternating between calling this AU Five, Four, Three, Two, One and just simply the Countdown AU but if I do make a fic it’s going to be under the longer title.

Five/V/Venus

   - I’m using the name Venus because once I thought of the idea I couldn’t get it out of my head, but she can be seen as just an OC if you so please.

     - Also I haven’t really seen much of her yet so it’s hard to get it accurate.

   - Created ~2 years before the boys

     - Her mutation was sort of a failure, old residual DNA also rubbed off on her resulting in a frog/turtle/human hybrid

     - ? Considering that maybe she got her human DNA from another TMNT character we’ve heard of before like maybe Rise’s version of Tang Shen? Idk that might be cool but not for certain.

   - Big Mama found her, discarded, outside of Drax’s lab and thought that a turtle would be a great warrior and or staff member, with their tough shells. Took a few months for her to even discover the frog part, and took years to figure out she wasn’t a real yokai, by then though Venus was already a hard-working employee

     - Raised Venus genderless, but she chose to be a woman and would not take no for an answer

   - Has no loyalties to anyone

     - Literally just goes with whoever wins her over

     - She knows Big Mama is bad, but she doesn’t really want to be stuck with the boys just because they’re the only other turtle mutants, and anyways she gets paid and gets into the coolest fighting match ever for free.

     - The first of the boys she met was Leo, but her bestie is Donnie (will expand on more in a bit)

   - Has experimented on herself

     - Usually does this in a bad mental state

     - You pick up a few things when you’re a guard for one of the most fortified buildings ever, there’s not much else to do.

       - Who doesn’t know anything about experimenting on living organisms, anyways? It’s entertaining! Especially when you do it to yourself, you can find out so much, like how you’re part frog!

     - Tried to give herself built-in binoculars after accidentally taking something

       - The result was just weird pupil movement; kind of looks like a camera zooming in and out when her pupils dilate

   - Was hired by The Boss (villain of this story, we’ll get to him later) to work security, but spends most of her free time in the laboratory.

   - Loves blasting music with a lot of anger in it, or at least that’s how she describes it

     - Panic at the Disco SUMMONS HER

     - Is okay with lo-fi

       - Chill rap, though? EW EW EW SHUT IT OFF

   - Splints once tried to call her Aqua

   - Do not call her Aqua.

Orange

   - Yes, before you even ask, this is Mikey. Duh.

   - Before we begin, general headcanon/s

     - Has black versions of everyone’s masks which he embroidered in their colours.  

       - Also embroidered a scarf for Raph

         - It’s Raph’s fav scarf; he wears it everywhere

   - Exclusively goes by Orange. 

     - Is okay with being given a one-time/joking nickname.

     - Doesn’t want someone to think of him with only the name Four or Mikey, he specifically likes Orange the best.

   - The most stable turtle of this AU, relatively speaking.

     - None of them are fully stable, but he’s at least the highest on the leaderboards, even if Venus gives him a run for his money

     - I wouldn’t call him the leader but he is definitely the one in charge

   - The Boss can’t break him, so nobody can :)

     - Well, The Boss did break him, but not all the way so it doesn’t count.

     - He did have to pretend The Boss got to him for a while tho, it was painstakingly boring for him in that mental state, however.

   - Has essentially fortified the old lair into something akin to it’s former glory, so he and April and Casey and anyone else that’s around generally stay there.

   - Owns three different cloaking brooches for different purposes. 

     - The first one is for emergency scenarios, like the one The Boss put him in. It hides his ornate markings, making him look like any old box shell.

       - There’s velcro on it that attaches to the inside of his shell so that he can have it on without anyone seeing it.

     - The second one covers up all of his scars, he wears that one pretty constantly. Hated when The Boss took it away.

     - The third one is the traditional cloaking brooch, makes him look human.

   - Three’s sanity.

   - Scared of One

Three

   - Three is this au’s version of Leo

     - From Three’s perspective, he is not this au’s version of Leo :D

   - Before we begin, general headcanon/s for Leon.

     - Leon isn’t exactly tech smart or bio smart like donnie, but he’s a great lab partner and particularly enjoys participating in group stimming when something works

   - The Boss completely broke him.

   - The only place where he really acts like Leo from ‘before’ is in the laboratory.

     - He likes to try and hack into the boss’s systems while talking to himself, because in his brain he’s actually talking to Purple (he doesn’t know who Purple is, but he knows that Purple is and that’s all he needs) and sometimes even writes purple’s replies on his arms in sharpies

       - His dynamic with the imaginary Purple is similar to his dynamic with real Donnie in their lab thus bringing out what’s left of Leo.

         - Okay for a quick explanation, Leo remembers practically nothing but he remembers that he had a lab friend named Purple. That’s basically all he remembers of Donnie, the Purple voice in his head has some similar traits but it’s not really like him.

   - He completely believes that he is not Leo and that Leo is a separate entity that tragically passed away. 

     - He will answer to Leo unconsciously, but when the name is said while he is paying attention he will not respond.

       - Ofc, this bothers Orange, who refuses to be reduced to just a number.

         - Orange’s solution to this is to call him Lee, which sounds enough like Three that he doesn’t notice.

   - He frequently looses his train of thought

     - Forgets words, looses interest, zones out randomly, the works. 

       - This comes from all of his missing memories, there are a lot, sometimes things just completely escape him because the memory is buried further than he looks.

   - Kinda part of the last one; frequently forgets how to say a lot of words. Like they are spelt and laid out for him clearly in his head, but they don’t escape him right.

     - this is even worse for names. He usually addresses or mentions Venus as V (like the roman numeral) or Five, but sometimes he’ll struggle with it and start insistently repeating ‘planet two’

   - Wears a plain black mask. He thinks it’s the embroidered one, even though it isn’t.

   - Unconsciously slides out his third eyelid.

     - If you see his pupils, run.

       - Unless he’s just rly happy. But that’s very rare.

   - Scared of One

   - Okay now that I think about it he does remind me of cupcakeslushie’s separated au Donnie a little bit -- they even have the same name -- but I swear that’s NOT IT

Two/Purple/Donnie

   - Do I even need to state who this one is? I think we got it.

   - The Boss broke him (slightly), so now he plans on breaking The Boss.

   - Runs the lab that Venus spends her free time in. She’s his new lab assistant and they are planning an experiment called Project P that I’m going to 🤐 up for now.

     - Keep note of Project P tho, it’s important.

   - He doesn’t have his memories but knows that he needs to be somewhere that’s not run by The Boss, and that’s all he needs to get his gears turning. 

   - Venus may not be a perfect scientist, by any means, but there is no such thing as a perfect scientist anyways and Donnie still forgets things sometimes and so...

     - They play Panic at the Disco and like,,, Hamilton while they work. besties fr

   - Doesn’t have his goggles

     - Instead, he’s got a black thingy that wraps around the back of his head and lights up in various spots depending on the types of noises he’s hearing and/or energy input depending on the setting

       - Looks like the donnie-tech version of the thing on the back of Echo (from Bad Batch)’s head, for reference

   - Struggles with frequent flashes of memory

     - and headaches. from both the flashes and sleep deprivation

   - The person he can remember the most of is Leon. They’re twins, they have twin telepathy and the ninpo to help fill in some of those gaps.

     - Surprisingly, the second person he remembers the most of is Draxum, for some unknown reason.

     - He remembers about the same amount about the rest of his siblings, papa, and the rest of his family. Blurry, but there.

     - Completely forgot Casey Jr, sorry not sorry ✌

   - Still has his original purple mask, but doesn’t wear it very often, too sweaty. V had a very “smart” idea at like 4 in the morning and drew the eyebrows directly onto Donnie’s face, and he decided he liked them lol

   - Is the only one who can still remember One as their brother, however faintly. 

   - Hoo baby, if Dee struggled with emotions before--

One

   - friend of mine summarized this au’s version of raph as winter soldier raph and that literally describes him perfectly.

   - simular to savage raph, when surrounded by his old family for long periods of time, one will begin to revert

     - unlike savage, this results in him screaming “ONE IS NO TRAITOR” and becoming even more violent then he already was

   - sword wielder. knows how to use sai and tonfa, ofc, but knows how to use a wide variety of different blades

   - basically he’s a trained weapon and soldier and follows order and--

     - I LIKE BRAINWASHING OKAY

   - Three and Four are scared of him. 

     - Four isn’t exactly sure why.

     - Three thinks that one killed Raph and Leo, and doesn’t want to be next.

     - This is due to memories of the Kraang and Savage Raph, but since The Boss tampered with them they don’t really remember that. 

PT. 2: The Boss

   - The Boss is, unsurprisingly, the boss.

   - The Boss is either Bishop or an OC, unsure at this point.

   - One of the earliest test subjects of Draxum, all this gave him was trauma, slightly better vision, and a lot of scars.

     - Most noteably of which was the scrap of metal that was burned into his arm in an explosion

       - Gee I wonder what explosion that was

   - When The Boss discovered the existence of V and the brothers, he thought that the mutant army idea sounded pretty enticing. 

     - But, of course, he’d need to mind wipe them first.

[tsarisfanfiction]

A Little Fall Of Rain

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Scott, John

Here is my contribution to @tagminibang!  My artist was the absolutely fantastic @chenria and you can find her accompanying art over here.  Something nice and family friendly from us here (please don’t mind the title, it has nothing to do with a certain musical song), and of course some good old Scott&John because who doesn’t love that?

John’s pulled one of his disappearing acts again, and Scott can’t relax until he knows where he’s gone.

People.  There were people everywhere, all dressed to the nines and peacocking around.  Nothing particularly unusual for an event hosted by Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, where no-one in attendance was worth less than at least ten million dollars apiece and appearing to be the poorest in the room would make you a target for the vampires of the elite.

It was a gauntlet Scott would have gladly accepted, not particularly bothered by how others perceived him and his wealth, except the problem with being a Tracy was that his status of multi-billionaireness was well known, and he was actually richer than most of the aristocracy in attendance, even if there were a few Old Money families that looked down their noses at the Tracys for being New Money.

Still, the buffer of their wealth was, at least, sparing his brother from being preyed upon as the poor, charity case invited to look good.  Scott wasn’t sure who the actual poorest person in the room was, but anything to keep at least some of the pressure of the occasion off of John was always worth it.

It was a well known fact that John despised this sort of event.  Too many people, too much noise and gravity, too many expected conversations and a lot of interest in the elusive Tracy.  Scott still wasn’t sure why Lady Penelope insisted he attend these things, and knew that John was going to hide himself up on Thunderbird Five for at least a month and come down for absolutely nothing or no-one as soon as he escaped the party.  She called it good for him, and a breath of fresh air, and Scott only let it slide because John never actually said no.

Speaking of his brother, he’d once again lost sight of the distinctive ginger hair amongst the vibrant colours of the event.  Hopefully, that meant that John was just in hiding, rather than the chance he’d been dragged into a conversation out of Scott’s current sight.  He glanced around the room again, just to be sure, and when no flash of ginger caught his eye, set his shoulders and beelined for their host.

Resplendent in a stunning light pink ballgown, elegant hands covered with equally elegant white gloves and hair coiffed into something gravity-defying yet somehow not at all outrageous, Lady Penelope was entertaining an elderly woman who Scott had been briefly introduced to earlier in the event, some hours ago, as the Duchess of Royston.  As far as the British aristocrats seemed to go, she seemed quite amicable, so Scott had no qualms about stepping in as their conversation paused.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but have you seen John recently?”

“Have you lost him?” Lady Penelope asked, sounding the faintest bit amused.  If it was anyone else, Scott would have been annoyed at that, but a longstanding friendship with the Lady told him there was no malice or judgement behind it.  It was the amusement of someone who knew how much John hated crowds, and how much Scott could, according to his brothers, hover.  “I’m afraid I haven’t seen him recently.”

The answer wasn’t surprising, but it was a little disappointing.

“The redheaded young man?” the Duchess asked, and Scott turned to her.  “I do believe I saw him heading for the doors earlier.”  She gestured to the small side door that led out of the ballroom and, if Scott’s memory served, towards the gardens.

John was likely hiding, then.

Scott smiled at both women.  “Thank you,” he said, inclining his head a little towards the older of the two.  “I’ll leave you to your conversation.  Sorry again for the interruption.”

“What a charming young man,” he heard as he walked away.  “Penelope, I know it’s not my place to say, but you could do far worse than a man like that.”

Scott picked up the pace a little, determined to get out of earshot of whatever reply to that Lady Penelope would make, and making a note to never let Gordon know.

The rich like to talk to the rich, and although Scott was on a mission to find and check on his brother, he was waylaid by at least three other people all wanting to discuss all manner of things from International Rescue to, disconcertingly, his ongoing bachelorship before he was able to slip through the door and head down the corridor.

Soundproofing cut off the hubbub of conversation the moment the door clicked shut behind him, proving an excellent argument for why John would come this way, and Scott followed the hallway until he found a bay window that overlooked one of the many gardens in the Creighton-Ward estate.

John was perched on the window sill, although window seat was probably a more accurate term, looking out at the gentle rain falling from the sky.  Raindrops raced each other down the panes of glass, and Scott silently settled next to him, waiting to be acknowledged.

It didn’t take long.  “I’m fine,” his brother said quietly, still looking out the window rather than turning to face him.  Scott hadn’t expected him to.  “You can go back.”

Scott let out a wry chuckle.  “The hot topic right now seems to be how eligible a bachelor I am,” he said, leaning forwards on his knees and watching his brother out of the corner of his eye.  “If you don’t mind, I think I’d quite like to stay here until they move on to other things.”

His brother let out a hmm, sounding thoroughly amused at that, and Scott rolled his eyes.  He knew full well that John was more than happy for him to be the target of that particular type of conversation, because it meant most of them would forget to ask him the same questions.  Sibling solidarity only went so far, and perhaps even more so than the rest of his brothers, John was all too willing to throw him under the bus to evade the limelight himself.

“If they follow you here, I am leaving,” John threatened mildly.  “And then you will not be welcome to follow me.”  It wasn’t an empty threat, but that didn’t matter because Scott would always use himself as bait if it meant a brother could escape a bad situation.  Besides, John knew Lady Penelope’s manor far better than he did, and Scott knew if John really wanted to hide, even he wouldn’t be able to find him until the ginger was ready to be found.

It wouldn’t be the first time, after all.  John had never been a fan of social situations and had mastered the art of disappearing young.  Scott had many memories of running around frantically, trying in vain to find where his brother had got to after taking his eye off of him for two seconds.  For someone with such vibrant natural colouring, John was unfairly good at the vanishing act.

He sighed and settled back against the window pane more comfortably.  At least John was old enough now to look after himself if he did vanish, and would always come home eventually - even if it was only a necessary stop on his way back to Thunderbird Five and the stars while he recuperated from socialising.  It was a marked improvement from when he’d vanish as a child and leave everyone in a panic until he reappeared hours later.

Scott had never quite shaken the instinct to panic when he vanished, no matter how old and self-sufficient his brother was now.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” John said suddenly, and Scott glanced up at him again.  He was still watching the rain out the window, seemingly disinterested in paying any attention to his older brother - aside from the comment, which made it perfectly clear that John was, in fact, keeping track of him with at least part of that big brain of his.  “I told you I’m fine.”

“I know you are,” he assured him, feeling the cool of the glass seep towards his scalp from where he was resting his head against the window.

John gave a considering hum.  “In that case, I’ll assume you’re working yourself into a panic unnecessarily.”

Scott huffed, unwilling to concede the point.  “I am not working myself into a panic,” he retorted, a little defensively.

His brother finally turned his head away from the window slightly, enough for one turquoise eye to come into view.  The accompanying ginger eyebrow rose in challenging disbelief and Scott scowled in response.

“I was just thinking about all the vanishing acts you tend to pull at things like this,” he admitted after a moment.  The visible turquoise eye rolled at him before John turned back to face the window.  He didn’t say anything in response, but he didn’t need to; his body language broadcasted perfectly well that he thought Scott was being an idiot.

Scott was used to that attitude - none of his brothers ever seemed to fully appreciate what it was like to be their big brother, after all.  Gordon might proudly claim that his grey hairs were all down to his fish of a brother, but the truth of the matter was that they’d all contributed.

Still, Scott wouldn’t change any of them for the world.

Raindrops raced down the large window, merging and lingering and swallowing smaller ones before darting several inches further down in a blink of an eye.  It was a mesmerising sight; no wonder John was so captivated by the weather.

Then again, he didn’t get rain in space.

Scott was on his feet before his mind caught up.  His movement caught John’s attention, judging by the way the single, turquoise eye reappeared to regard him once more.

“Going back already?” his brother asked.  “I thought you were hiding from the discussions about your eligible bachelorship.”  There was no sympathy at all in John’s voice, just an undercurrent of amusement.  Scott suspected he wouldn’t be hearing the end of it for a while.

“No,” he said truthfully, which was apparently unexpected enough for John to look away from the window completely.

“Then where are you going?” his brother asked.  John was normally far too perceptive for Scott’s liking, and he probably shouldn’t be relishing catching him out as much as he was.

“Come on,” Scott invited in answer, tilting his head towards the window.  “Let’s go.”

John glanced back towards the window, raising an eyebrow at the rain still falling.  “You want to go outside?”

“Why not?” Scott shrugged.  “No-one’s going to chase us out there.”

“Because their clothes would get ruined,” John pointed out.  “Like ours will.”

Scott rolled his eyes.  He wasn’t so attached to the suit he was currently wearing that he’d mourn the loss, and he knew John felt similarly about his own formal clothes.

“They’re replaceable,” he pointed out.  “So, are you coming?”

John’s arguments didn’t fool him one bit - one thing his brother truly missed when he was amongst the stars was the cool sensation of rain on his skin, and Scott suspected that the only reason he’d been sat in the bay window instead of somewhere in the Creighton-Ward’s impressive grounds was because he’d known Scott would come looking for him sooner or later, and would have panicked if he couldn’t find him.

Sure enough, with one last sigh that was entirely put-upon, John extended his long legs and made his way to his feet.  “Lead the way.”

Scott wasn’t as familiar with the manor as his brother, but he had a pretty good idea where most of the external doors were.  John stayed at his shoulder as they passed through the hallways, bereft of any of the other guests, who were all no doubt still gossiping in the ballroom, and found a door that led outside.

The rain wasn’t a monsoon, but it was steady, leaving the sky heavy and grey, and misting out the trees on the far edge of the lawn.  Scott lingered in the threshold of the door for a moment, watching the weather, but his brother had no such hesitation.

A little brother he might be, but John had never needed Scott to lead the way.  With the assurance that Scott now knew where he was, and wouldn’t be hunting him down frantically, he strode out past him, the fabric covering his shoulder just brushing Scott’s, and out into the rain.

Scott lingered a moment longer, watching the way John tilted his face up slightly to greet the rain, the ginger curl of his bangs losing some of its volume as it dampened.  John didn’t beam like their brothers when he was happy, but there was a relaxation in his face and a draining of tension in his body that told Scott that he’d got it right.  John really had wanted to go out in the rain.

When his brother’s vibrant eyes slid closed, he took the final step outside himself, feeling the cool raindrops caressing his own skin and seeping into his hair.  His hair gel was going to wash out if he stayed out here for too long, but that was a small price to pay to see John enjoying himself down on Earth.

So was the suit.  The already black fabric of his jacket darkened even further with water almost immediately, and he knew that by the time John was ready to go inside again, it would be completely ruined.  As he’d said to his brother, though, the suits were replaceable.

John’s happiness was not.  Scott would ruin a hundred jackets if it meant seeing John so relaxed and content.

Jacketless, his brother’s shirt was quickly becoming soaked through, the white material clinging to his body - the same way his vibrant hair was starting to plaster to his scalp - gaining hints of translucency, and the thought crossed Scott’s mind that he’d have to make sure John didn’t get sick later.  The astronaut didn’t seem to care about that, though, standing stock still for several minutes with his hands loosely hanging by his side and his face tilted upwards.

Scott hung back, several paces away but still outside in the rain himself.  Cool droplets trickled down the back of his neck, originating somewhere around his hairline, and he could tell even without raising a hand to check that his own hair was plastering itself to his scalp in much the same way as John’s.  One droplet ran down from his forehead and caught the corner of his eye, tangled up in eyelashes, and Scott blinked twice to clear it.  Reluctantly it got the message and carried on down his face, running over his cheek and trailing down towards his chin.

They didn’t get rain like this at home.  English rain was strange, and definitely nothing like the tropical rains Tracy Island witnessed.  Even Kansas weather had been different to this.  The water was cool and refreshing on his skin, and after several moments Scott took another couple of steps forwards, towards his brother.

He didn’t enter his personal space, though.  If John wanted him there, he would make it clear - most likely by moving himself until he was within arm’s reach of Scott.  As they’d come out here to escape the crowds, however, Scott deemed that unlikely.  Instead, he wandered past him, away from the manor and large ballroom windows.  If the wrong person looked out and saw them, their little rainy peace would be broken by someone else who cared less for their clothes than chasing Tracys.

Scott made sure to keep John in view, not prepared to hunt his brother down if the ginger pulled another disappearing act, even as he found a lone tree standing proud in the middle of the manicured lawn and slipped around it, allowing the trunk to conceal him from anyone glancing outside.

Exactly what type of tree it was, he didn’t know, but it was large and broad, boughs extending out above his head and providing a meagre shelter from the rain.  It was the same as the trees that made up the woodland at the far edge of the lawn - also large and proud, but with enough space between some of them to hide a Thunderbird.  His own ‘bird lurked inside, concealed from view and waiting to carry the two of them back home the next morning.

Tonight, Lady Penelope had insisted, they would stay with her, and Scott had no reason to decline.  He did, however, hope that it was an invitation that hadn’t been extended to any of the other guests.  Evading their apparent fixation with his marriage status - or lack thereof - was not something he wanted to have to spend all night and breakfast doing as well.

No matter how amused John might be at the whole affair.

Speaking of John, his brother appeared to have noticed that he’d moved, because he’d opened his eyes and started moving forwards himself.

“I thought I was supposed to be the one hiding from the party,” the ginger commented, his voice dry and at odds with the wet shirt he was wearing.  The white had gone well and truly translucent now, clinging to his body in a way that Scott knew from experience would get John hounded by half the party the next time they saw him.

He made a mental note to sacrifice his jacket in John’s direction before they went back in.  It wouldn’t be a perfect fit, but it would at least keep the attention off of him long enough for John to scrounge up a change of clothes.

“Yeah, well,” he replied, shrugging.  “It wouldn’t matter which of us was hiding if they spotted the other, would it?”

John let out a small chuckle in response, rounding the tree in its entirety and therefore putting himself out of sight as well.  “Are you sure it’s not just because you don’t want them badgering you about being single?”

He huffed in response, crossing his arms and leaning back against the trunk.  The bark rubbed against the back of his jacket, but he ignored it.  The rain had already done enough damage - what was a little more?

“My relationship status is none of their business,” he grumbled, shooting his younger brother a considering look.  “Wait until they start on you.”

The smirk he got in return didn’t make him feel any better.

“They won’t give me a second glance while you’re around, big brother,” John pointed out with the air of someone who knew exactly what was up, and was quietly smug about it.  “No-one’s interested in the spare Tracy.”

Scott rolled his eyes.  “You know, technically you’re my heir,” he reminded him.  It did nothing to douse the smug smirk his brother was sending his way.

“They don’t think like that,” John shrugged confidently.  He was still out from underneath the protection of the boughs, rain falling on his skin and leaving trails of water across it.  Scott watched a raindrop run right to the tip of his nose and hang there; the astronaut didn’t even seem to notice, even though it made Scott’s own nose twitch empathetically.  “The only heirs they’re interested in are the unborn ones you don’t have because you’re still an eligible bachelor.”

Urgh.  Scott pulled a face.  “Did you have to put it like that?”

John’s ongoing smirk confirmed that yes, he did have to phrase it like that.  Little brothers - who wanted them?

Scott refused to give John any satisfaction by saying that out loud, although he suspected that didn’t actually matter.  If there was anyone who had mastered the art of mind-reading, Scott would put John right at the top of the suspect list.

“Well,” John said after a moment, shifting his weight.  “I’m going to go for a walk.  Are you coming, or would you rather hide under the tree?”

“I’m sheltering,” Scott corrected.  John made an uh huh noise in the back of his throat which he purposefully ignored.  Still, if John was offering company, instead of retreating into his own personal space, then Scott wasn’t going to turn that down.  The problem with John living in space was that he just didn’t get to see this particular little brother in person as much as he’d like.

He pushed off from the tree, straightening up and shoving his hands in his pockets as he took the couple of short steps back out into the rain.  John hadn’t bothered to wait for him, and he had to jog a couple more paces before he was at his brother’s side.

It felt like the rain had got heavier, but the droplets were still cool and refreshing on his face, even if he could feel his hair wilting under the weight.  Beside him, John’s hair had all but lost its usual curl, vibrant strands of ginger instead plastered to his forehead.  His brother didn’t seem to care at all.

Despite inviting him along, John didn’t seem particularly inclined towards conversation as he picked his way across the expansive grounds of the Creighton-Ward manor.  It was clear that this was far from his brother’s first time doing so; while Scott started getting a little turned around by all the identically pruned bushes and perfect flowerbeds, John continued unerringly as though it was his ridiculously large garden.

Not that Scott could really comment on the size of the Creighton-Ward estate when his own home consisted of an entire volcano.  Both the ranch and the Kansas farm spanned equally large acreage; the Tracys had never been a stranger to calling huge swathes of land home.

John had easily spent enough time in this manor during his Oxford days to have the entire estate mapped out in that impressive brain of his.  Scott resolved to never play hide and seek with him here.

The silence that hung between them was a comfortable one.  On some levels, it was more touching and heartfelt than if John had wanted to talk - John was a huge fan of personal space, and being invited to share it, trusted to share it, when he had so clearly hit his socialising quota already was akin to an honour.

Rain continued to fall, Scott’s jacket feeling more and more sodden by the minute, but John never headed for anything remotely resembling shelter.  The weather wasn’t particularly warm, either.  By English standards it might have been passable, but being used to the tropics meant that Scott found it decidedly on the cool side.

John seemed unaffected, but then again John spent most of his time in a rigidly controlled environment and hated the heat.  Scott still hoped he’d be able to persuade Parker to get them both a hot drink when they re-entered the manor building.  Then again, he wouldn’t put it past the older man to bundle them straight to their rooms with layers of blankets and disapproving mumbles.  The former crook liked to pretend he was as tough as nails - and in some respects he was - but he was also quick to fuss over the few friends he had.

Being counted amongst that number was almost as high an honour as being invited to share John’s personal bubble.

Sunbeams poked out from behind the grey clouds as they were strolling through one of several rose gardens - or maybe it was the same one and John had led them around in circles a few times.  In answer, the rain faded away into nothing and the world hung, heavy and still.  John stopped walking, and Scott followed suit.

Above them, the clouds were dispersing.  It seemed that the rain was over, at least for now, although the world around them shimmered a little like crystal as sun caught beads of water clinging to the flowers, the grass, the trees.  John glistened as well, his hair transformed into a burning halo as the sun caught the water plastering it to his scalp.

Hands in his pockets and face once again tilted to the sky, Scott’s little brother appeared to be considering something.  What, there was no point asking.  If John wanted him to be part of the decision making process, he’d say so.  Scott suspected he was debating if he wanted to stay outside or duck inside the manor to escape the reappearing sun.

John missed the rain on Thunderbird Five.  He did not miss the sunburn.

Sure enough, after a moment his brother turned to face him.

“I’m heading back inside,” John said.  “Are you done hiding from your eligible bachelorness yet or are you going to stay out here?”

Scott huffed at him, narrowing his eyes in displeasure at the jab.  John really wasn’t going to be letting that go any time soon.

“They’ll have moved topics by now,” he replied, a lot more confidently than he felt.  In all honesty, he had no idea how long it would be the hot topic for, but if he stayed out later than John he’d never live it down.

“That topic won’t be dropped until you’re married with kids,” his brother pointed out.  Scott scowled.  “But if you’re sure you’re ready to go back in…”  He trailed off meaningfully and, without waiting for Scott, started striding back towards the manor.

Not wanting to let his brother out of his sight, and maybe a little unsure of the paths back, Scott lengthened his stride to catch up with him again.  Turquoise eyes glanced sideways at him, and John’s face settled into subtle amusement.

Scott decided it was best for his pride if he didn’t ask what was funny.

He glanced up at the sky as they walked.  The shimmer of moisture in the air was fading as the sun grew stronger and the clouds continued on their merry way to deposit rain on some other part of the English countryside.  It wouldn’t be raining again just yet.

His foot caught something hard and he stumbled.  Instantly a vice-like grip appeared on his arm, yanking him back upright and steadying him.

“And you call me the clumsy one,” John commented lightly.  “Watch where you’re walking.”

Scott glared down at the flowerbed border he’d apparently walked into before switching targets to his brother.  John, as always, seemed completely unperturbed at the look.  Turquoise eyes looked him up and down, clearly making sure he hadn’t somehow hurt himself with his stumble, before the grip on his arm vanished and John continued down the path.

Sending another glare at the border, Scott followed.

Being behind John quickly brought back the reason why he’d been checking the sky.  While the rain had stopped, the white shirt his brother was wearing was still very soaked through, with the consequences of that on full display.  Scott shrugged out of his own, soaking wet, jacket.

“John,” he called, lengthening his strides to catch up.  His brother paused and turned back to look at him quizzically, jumping as Scott draped the waterlogged jacket over his shoulders.

“What are you doing?” the astronaut asked, making to shrug the fabric off.  “Carry your own jacket, Scott.”

Scott caught the fabric before it could fall to the ground.  “John, you’re wearing a white shirt.”

A single eyebrow raised.  “Your observational skills are unparalleled.”

Little brothers.  Scott huffed.  “And yours are lacking,” he retorted.  “You wore a white shirt in the rain.”

John looked at him, puzzled, for a moment, before comprehension dawned across his face.  A quick glance down had his pale skin reddening slightly.

“Oh.”

Scott shook his head fondly and draped the jacket around his brother’s shoulders again.  This time it was gratefully accepted.  They weren’t quite the same size, but Scott’s shoulders were the broader of the two, so while the fabric bunched a little oddly when John threaded his arms through the sleeves and fumbled the buttons until it was concealing as much of the wet white shirt as possible, it did at least fit.  Scott was grateful it wasn’t Virgil.

“You might want to go and get changed into something dry,” he suggested.  “Get out of those clothes.”

“I didn’t bring a spare suit,” John reminded him.  “I don’t have anything else with me suitable for Lady P’s party.”

Scott rolled his eyes and started walking again.  “Then just don’t come back to the party,” he said bluntly.  “That’s not exactly a tragedy for you.  You can see Lady Penelope again once it’s over - she won’t care what you’re wearing.”

“She will care,” John corrected, catching up to him.  “She’ll judge my outfit and everything.”  Despite the words being ones of apparent complaint, he didn’t actually seem that bothered about it.  Then again, he had survived going to university with the woman.  Their friendship was on a completely different level compared to the one the rest of the Tracys shared with her.

“Just go and get yourself out of those wet clothes and make yourself comfortable for the rest of the evening,” Scott sighed.  “I’ll make your excuses.”

“If I need to get changed, why don’t you?” John challenged.  Scott grinned at him and tapped his own shirt.

“Not white,” he pointed out.  Well, admittedly, he would call it white, but according to Virgil it was cream, and according to the weather that combined with the covering jacket meant that it hadn’t gone the same way as John’s white shirt.  “Ergo, still appropriate for polite company.”

John scrutinised him for several moments as they walked, as though he was trying to find an excuse why Scott’s outfit wasn’t appropriate any more.

“You’ll get sick if you stay in wet clothes too long,” he said eventually.  “Make sure you come up and get changed soon.”

“I don’t have a spare suit, either,” Scott admitted.  “I’ll be fine.”  It couldn’t be that many more hours before the end of the party, surely…

“If you’re not up in half an hour I’m sending Parker to extract you,” John said firmly.  “Virgil will have both our hides if you go home sick.”

“Half an hour?” Scott repeated.  “I’ll be lucky to talk to Lady Penelope by then.  You’ll have to give me longer than that.”  There was no point telling John not to enlist Parker at all - his brother would hum non-committedly then do it anyway the instant he was out of earshot.

John scoffed.  “You’ll find a way,” he said confidently.  “Just flirt your way through the crowds like you normally do.  Half an hour, then Parker will get involved.”

They’d arrived back at the manor itself, and John sent him one last smug grin before vanishing up what had to be a servant’s staircase before Scott could try another attempt to bargain for more time.  With a quiet groan, Scott adjusted his damp tie and headed back towards the ballroom.

His wet - and likely bedraggled - appearance caused a stir when he re-entered the room.  Conversations stopped, eyes stared, and then the whispering started.  Well, he’d take them talking about him over attempts to restart the conversations about his relationship status.

He scanned the room for the tell-tale flash of pink, locating Lady Penelope just before she came to a stop in front of him.

“I was under the impression you were looking for John, not trying to impersonate a drowned rat,” the Lady commented lightly.  “You also appear to have misplaced your jacket, Scott.”

He shrugged lazily.  “John wanted to go outside.”

“I see.”  From the fond look that flickered in her eyes, she probably did get it.  The British aristocrat was the closest thing John had to a best friend, after all.  “And where is John now?”

“Retiring for the evening,” Scott explained.  “Or at least until the party’s over and the stars are out.”

Lady Penelope laughed a little at that.  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she agreed.  “And what about you?  I notice today’s main topic of discussion isn’t to your liking.”  There was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes that was entirely too similar to John’s reaction.

Scott decided the best thing to do was ignore it.

“I should get changed,” he admitted.  “I’ll see you after the party’s over?”

“I dare say you should,” Lady Penelope agreed, “before you turn my ballroom into a swimming pool.  Very well, I’ll see you boys later.”  She turned away, and immediately got caught in another conversation with a guest.

Scott took the opportunity to duck back out of the room, evading anyone who might want to corner him for further conversations that he really didn’t care for.

Parker was standing just outside the door.

“Ah, there you h’are,” the butler said as Scott narrowly avoided walking into him.  “h’I h’understand you’re done for the h’evening?”

Scott checked his watch.  “There’s no way it’s been half an hour already,” he said suspiciously.

“‘alf h’an hour since when?” Parker asked innocently.  “Master John said nothing h’about h’a time limit.”  No, of course John didn’t.  Pesky little brother.  “Well, h’as you h’appear to be trying to turn h’into a drowned rat, h’I’d say you need a nice warm drink h’and a change h’of clothes.”

“That’s the plan,” Scott admitted.  “I’ll see you later, Parker.”

“That you will,” the older man agreed, and Scott paused with his foot on the bottom step of the staircase.  “h’I’ll be bringing h’up some ‘ot chocolate for the pair h’of you in a few minutes.  ‘Onestly, what were you thinking, going h’out h’in the rain like that?”

Scott shrugged.  “John wanted to,” he said, before resuming his ascent of the staircase, knowing that Parker would make good on his promise and be up soon with the drinks.

The Creighton-Ward manor was huge, and the guest suites were equally so.  There was no sharing of bedrooms when they stayed overnight, but as Scott entered the room designated as his, he discovered a brother lounging on his bed, tablet in hand.  Ginger hair was ruffled and sticking up all over the place - a clear victim of a towel drying - and the soaked suit had been replaced by a much less formal shirt and jeans.

“Don’t you have your own room?” he asked, not breaking his stride as he headed for his overnight bag and pulled out a change of clothes.

“Parker’s bringing the drinks here,” John replied, not looking up from whatever it was he was reading.  “It makes more sense for me to be here.”  Scott huffed and worked his tie loose from around his neck.

“You just wanted to make sure I didn’t stay in the party,” he accused.

John didn’t deny it, and Scott rolled his eyes before heading into the ensuite to dry off and get changed into his more casual clothes.  No more formal suit and tie for him tonight.

When he re-emerged several minutes later, his own hair rivalling John’s for towel-dried mess and begging for another round of brushing and hair gel, Parker had arrived with the promised steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

“Drink up, the both of you,” the man demanded.  “Going h’out in the rain like that, I h’ask you.”  He shook his head despairingly.  “What will your Gran say h’if you go and get yourself sick?”

“We won’t get sick, Parker,” Scott said confidently, accepting his mug and letting the warmth seep from the ceramic into his fingers.  “We didn’t get that wet.”

“Don’t h’underestimate the English weather,” Parker warned.  “Drink that h’up and wrap h’up warm.”

John appeared silently at his elbow and claimed his own mug before retreating back to the bed.  Scott watched him burrow his bare feet under the covers and huffed.

“That’s my bed, you know,” he complained.  John lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

“So?”

“So, leave some room for me.”  Mug in hand, Scott settled himself next to his brother, nudging him over gently.  John obliged, and after a few moments of shifting around, the pair of them were sat shoulder to shoulder with their feet under the covers.

Parker eyed them approvingly, and then tossed a blanket over their laps as well.

“h’I’ll be back once the party’s h’over,” he told them.  “Keep warm.”

“We’ll be fine,” Scott assured him.  “You don’t need to worry about us.”

Blue eyes surveyed him suspiciously.  “h’I know some people that’d disagree with that h’assessment, Mr Scott.  But duty calls, h’I suppose.”

Parker was clearly reluctant to leave them for some reason, but he did begrudgingly go out the door, shutting it behind him and leaving the two brothers to their drinks.

The hot chocolate was, unsurprisingly, good, and Scott found himself draining the mug in record time.  Beside him, John was almost as fast, and they set the mugs down on the bedside tables almost in unison.

“Parker makes the best hot chocolate,” John commented, and Scott couldn’t help but agree.

“He does,” he agreed.  “I could go for another.”

“Well, then, I’m glad I finished mine before you got it into your head to steal it,” John said dryly.  “You can ask him for another one later.”

“Yeah,” Scott said, leaning back against the headboard of the bed.  “I might do that.  This might all be overkill-” he gestured at the warm mugs and the blanket, subtly tucking them in the bed “-but even if we’re not going to get sick, that chocolate is worth it.”

The sneeze came out of nowhere.  As did the second, and the third.

The fourth sneeze came from his brother, and Scott glanced over at him with a sinking feeling.  Bright turquoise met his eyes, and John gave a wane smile before sneezing again.

“I think,” his brother said, before being interrupted by another sneeze, “that maybe this wasn’t so overkill after all.”

Scott buried his face in his hands.  It did nothing to stop the next sneeze, and he groaned.

“You might be right,” he admitted.  “Dammit.  Virgil’s going to- achoo -kill us.”

John groaned.

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Huan Beifong x female airbender part 2

Part one here

Part three here

Tagged: @kakashisrighteyeball​  because you wanted more Huan ;)

-----

After weeks of awkwardness, Wei and Wing’s meddling and your father’s unprovoked attack of Huan, the two of you finally start dating....

Your first date with Huan was a resounding success and from them on you were both constantly travelling between Zafou and Republic City for more. When you came to Zafou Su was fine with you staying in their home but your father was not as progressive and so Huan was forced to find other arrangements when visiting Republic City. Huan startled his aunt Lin by basically showing up on her doorstep one day, calling payment for 18 years of ignoring his existence. Huan was never one to seek people out or force them to let him live there but when it came to you he was very determined and so even Lin Beifong couldn’t deter him.

The Beifongs were all amused by your effect on Huan and Su soon learnt that if she wanted Huan to do something she just had to incorporate you into the situation.

"Huan theres an event i need you to attend...". "No". "You can bring y/n". "Fine".

"Huan your father needs your help". "No". "If you help him you can go to the fire nation and visit y/n this summer". "Okay".

"Huan i need you to...". "No". "If you do i’ll let you invite y/n over the week Wing and Wei are away". "Deal".

You became her favourite barganing chip and as much as Huan knew what his mother was doing he didn’t care. The benefits of seeing you outweighed any chore or social event she required of him. But it wasn’t that Huan had become weak or whipped, nor had his personality changed. Instead it was small behavioural changes. Like how Huan walked or sat in a room. We was still introvereted and quiet but they all noticed how much his confidence has grown. He was confident in his differences now and didn’t take offence to their confusion with his “oddities”. You’d encouraged him to try things he didn’t think of and the permanent stream of positivity and support seemed to make Huan thrive.

A great example of this was the event Huan was hosting in Republic City. You had managed to convince Huan to show some of his works in Republic City for a charity event. You told him it was for a great cause (refugees from harmonic convergence) and would boost his artistic repuation. So Huan agreed to host the event and auction off some of his best pieces of work (but of course not the painting he made for you). You were so excited for the reception you knew Huan’s art would get and helped in any way you could. Tenzin, Korra, Suyin and (reluctantly) your father all put togther their contacts meaning the event was fully booked and you just knew everyone would love Huan’s work. But you also knew Huan wasn’t as thrilled as you...he was a nervous wreck to put it accurately. Half the appeal of becoming an artist was he couldn’t be judged by objective measures and an exhibition put him right in the centre of critique from all of the four nations and that thought did not thrill Huan.

Needless to say the closer the event got the more stressed Huan became and the journey over to Republic City from Zafou was not pretty. According to Wing he didn’t stop shouting and snapping at everyone until he saw got off the airship and saw you. Then he mellowed and they were all very annoyed you hadn’t been invited for the journey. Unsuprisingly you were enthusiastically invited to the hotel suite to spend the day with the Biefongs before the event later that evening. You knew you were mainly just there as a destressor for Huan but you didn’t mind, you’d gotten him into this so you had to help get him through it.

You lounged around with Huan for the remainder of the day, just trying to take his mind off the event later but it was honestly an amazing day. You loved just spending time together and didn’t get many opportunities living so far away from each other so you royally made the most of it. However, your lazy day did have to end as the event crept closer and you had to leave to go prepare for it.  You told Huan and he sighed "but it's still hours away, you don’t have to go just yet...". You smirked "i know what you're trying, we're not procrastinating, i'm going to go get ready and you’re going to start getting ready when i leave and then i will see you there". Huan rolled his eyes but nodded "okay". "I'll try and get their early but the whole families coming so I will definitely be late but i just wanted to tell you how proud of you i am". Huan blushed, he still hadn’t gotten used to you being so open about your feelings and praise. He tried to look away but you pulled him hands to make him look at you. Huan still tried to turn away and a tug war ensued and ended up with you yanked beside him on the sofa laughing. "Huan i will pin you down if i have to”" you cried but Huan only smiled "fine by me". You rolled your eyes but still smiled brightly at him "You will do brilliantly okay? Everyone who's coming is going to see how amazing you are and you're going to get recognition for all your hard work". Huan sighed but you could see the hope in his eyes "fine okay". You smiled and looked at him "i know part of you is slightly excited". Huan shook his head "not really". You kissed him suprising him and Huan started to kiss you back when you pulled away "admit you’re excited or i'll never kiss you again". "Y/n" Huan groaned but you smirked "say it!". "Fine i'm excited" he sighed and you grinned. You went to get up but Huan grabbed you lightly "hey wait i did it! You have to kiss me! That's the rules". "I didn't say right away" you smirked and Huan raised an eyebrow. You wriggled out of his arms but Huan followed you. He knew you could easily overpower him or use bending if you wanted to get away from him but you clearly didn't want that. You outmaneuvered Huan for a short while before conveniently falling back into his grasp, laughing as Huan managed to grab you. He finally had you *trapped* on the sofa and smirked down at you "going to kiss me now?". "Fine" you sighed rolling your eyes in an imitation of him before bobbing your head up to kiss him happily. Huan had never really cared about relationships or affection until he met you. He always found it disgusting seeing couples kiss but when it was you and him it was just amazing. You broke away from the kiss after a while and Huan sighed. "I really have to go" you told him and Huan sighed "five more minutes". "No" you giggled pushing him off you "i'll see you at the party" and with a last smile you were gone.

5 hours later

Hours and numerous bribes (to make Ikki and Jinora stopping arguing just so you could get them both out of the door) later your whole family plus the avatar  arrived at the hall where Huan's event was. You made sure your outfit was still presentable and entered the hall. You'd chosen a green dress the exact shade of the streak in Huan's hair. It had taken you and Asami hours to find it but when you did you were so pleased and Huan’s reaction made it all worth it. When you finally entered Huan was talking with some nobel man but stopped mid sentence catching sight of you. Korra smirked noticing and you blushed shooting Huan a smile. As soon as he could Huan made his way over to you "you look beautiful" he smiled and you nodded "so do you". Huan was in an all black suit and looked so smart. "Very handsome" you smiled and Huan blushed. "The green was a suprise?" he commented and you smirked "i’m glad you like it, it took me ages to find this exact shade too but you're worth it". Huan smiled, he wanted to kiss you but knew everyone was watching him which mean he probably shouldn’t. "So how's it going?" you asked taking his arm. He smiled "actually pretty good, some men your father knows from the fire nation might be interested in purchasing some sculptures for the capital". You nodded "they would look good in the fire nation, they're very fire-esc". Huan grinned and you heard a cough. You turned around and felt Huan tense at who was infront of you. “General Iroh” you smiled recognising the close friend of your father “I’m so glad you could attend”. Iroh smiled back “of course, Bumi has been talking non stop about this Huan person, so when I heard you were having an exibition I had to come”. “Thank you sir” Huan nodded to him, a little stunned the future fire lord had actually turned up. Huan seemed to be momentarily struggling with words so you took over the conversation. “Are you enjoying yourself so far? What do you think of the art?” you asked and Huan tensed even more. Iroh frowned “well you know y/n were not great appreciators of art in the fire nation, so I have to admit my opinion is only that of a rookie but I am honestly very impressed” Iroh grinned and Huan raised an eyebrow “you are?”. Iroh nodded “this new art is so fresh and un-fire nation I think it’s exactly what we need, a fresh perspective” Iroh nodded and Huan nodded back “wow that’s...thank you”. You grinned at Huan’s adorable reaction to praise of his work and held his arm tighter. “Now like I said I won’t pretend to be an expert but maybe you could indulge me” Iroh went on “what was your thought process for the harmonic convergence pieces?". You watched Huan relax, now in his favourite domain, as he begun to explain his process to Iroh. The more he spoke about his art the more enthusiastic he became, the colour coming back to his cheeks as he proudly discussed his work. You were with the future fire lord but you couldn’t stop staring at your boyfriend and how amazing and adorable he was.  

3 hours later

Huan switched the lights to his room on and with a dramatic sigh collapsed on the sofa “that was nice but i’m done being social for a while”. You laughed but totally agreed, Huan desereved all the time off he wanted after the success he just had. Every single one of his pieces had sold raising a huge amount for the refugees.. Huan’s name had been thoroughly publicised and you figured everyone in the art world would know who he was now. He was bound to get an influx of attention and projects soon so for now he deserved to rest. Huan’s family were back in the living room celebrating but Huan was socalised out so you happily retreated into his room with him. Huan had his eyes closed, savouring the wonderful silence and you smiled down at him. You brushed a piece of hair out of his face and admired his content expression. Huan’s olive eyes flickered open and he smiled pulling you to lay beside him. He turned on his side to face you and you felt him watching you. You suspected he was thinking of how to tell you something. Huan sometimes struggled expressing hismelf verbally so you’d learnt to just give him time and not to rush him. “Thank you” Huan said suddenly and you paused “for what?”. Huan tutted “where do i start? For organising this whole thing, for using your contacts to get everyone from water tribe inventors to fire nation royalty to come, for encouraging me” he trailed off “I never imagined I could do something like this but you just...had this faith in me”. “Of course I did” you smiled “you’re the most talented man I know! I knew that from when I first saw you and now everyone knows it!”. Huan blushed bashfully so you saved him the effort of a response and kissed him softly. Huan wasn’t one for overly aggresive or full on affection but that was just fine with you. You liked the soft sweet kisses better than the dominant harsh ones and Huan seemed to agree. He blinked dazed as you pulled away and you smiled at him “plus you don’t need to thank me, i’d do anything for you”. Huan believed you, that wasn’t just an empty promise, you really meant it and he knew you truly would do anything as long as it made him happy. He also knew he’d do the exact same for you and was thinking of a way to put it into words when there was a knock on his door.

"Huan y/n’s father is downstairs waiting to walk her home" his aunt Lin called through the door and Huan sighed “I don’t want you to go”. “Me either” you agreed and Huan pouted "I wish you could just stay over". You smiled but blushed "me too but I don’t think telling my dad i’ll be spend the night at yours would go down well". Huan sighed but knew you were right so nodded. You got off the sofa and he followed. "I’ll walk you out". You smiled as he led your downstairs to the lobby where your father was waiting. "Sir" Huan nodded and your father nodded stiffly before pausing "congratulations tonight kid". Huan smiled "thank you". You smiled watching them and stepped beside your father. "Well we should be going, goodnight Huan and well done again" you smiled hugging him tightly "i knew you could do it". Huan was blushing as you pulled away but he smiled "thank y/n". You grinned to see his smile and then followed your dad out of the building.

1 day later

The next day the house was uncharacteristically quiet due to all the excitement the night before. You were in the kitchen with Pema, everyone else dotted through the house in varying stages of wakefulness, when you heard someone yelling your name. You heard the noise getting closer and stepped outside to see Huan running up the path. "Huan?" You smiled, he'd never been to air temple island before so this was a nice suprise. You were just thinking about what part of the island you’d love to show him first when Huan burst with his news. "Y/n look what came this morning" Huan cried, unbothered as a small crowd of your family gathered upon hearing an event unfolding. Huan passed you an envelope and you carefully took out the letter within. It was the finest paper you’d ever felt and the colour such a deep red you should’ve guessed which nation it was from. When you read the letter you almost dropped it in suprise “Huan!”. “I know” he cried as you wrapped him in a giant hug. “Well we don’t know so mind telling us?” Bolin called. "The firelord wants Huan to design some artwork for her palace". The others all exploded into sounds of suprise and cheers but Huan didn’t even notice them. "Iroh Junior must’ve told her about it and now she wants to meet me and have me comission something! Y/n this is all because of you". "No it's not" you pushed him "Huan this is you, all you! This is because you're an amazing artist". Huan blushed but didn’t refuse the compliment which you saw as progress. "She wants to meet with me personally! Y/n will you come with me?" Huan asked "i’ve never been to the fire nation let alone the palace". You nodded "of course! You can stay at our home and we can tour all the city! Huan you're going to love it! You can even stay in our guest room as long as you need!" you were offering when you heard a cough. You turned to see your father stood right behind you an unimpressed look on his face at your offer and paused. "Ow i mean...dad can Huan please stay with us?". Bumi raised an eyebrow before nodding "yes i suppose so". You were both suprised at that and you flung your arms around your dad "thanks dad you're the best!". "Yes well don't make me regret it" he said trying to be stern. Boomi had tried being the stern authoritarian parent but he much more prefered to see you happy than upset, so found it hard to pretend to be serious. He didn't really worry about Huan staying at your home, he trusted you and so he trusted this boy. He just had to act stern to keep Huan on his toes for a while longer....then he could admit he actually liked the boy and approved of this match.

Bumi smiled watching you animatedly tell Huan every single sight you were going to show him in the fire nation and his smile grew at how bewildered Huan clearly was but how he was nodding along for your benefit. Bumi could see how much Huan adored you and decided losing you to him would be okay, if you had to grow up and start dating someone he was glad it was Huan Beifong.

______

I was so pleasantly suprised by how many Huan fans there are out there! He is definitely the most under-rated Beifong so this is for Huan rights!!!

I might do a part 3 with them actually going to the fire nation, meeting Izumi etc  but i’ll see :)

[tortilla-of-courage]

Describing it as being like home is actually pretty accurate yeah.

And YES! I am totally willing to talk about my modern AU.

I've been calling it the Adoption AU because Time ends up adopting all of the boys. It mostly started as, I saw an edit for a tweet someone did with Wars and Wild that involved Taco Bell (cannot remember the blog or post for the life of me though), and so I wrote a thing about Warriors sneaking out of his university dorm to pick up Wild, who snuck out the window despite his broken arm, and then got extorted by Legend in exchange for silence at 3am.

This was followed by a fic where Groose decided spray painting a public building was a good idea and got himself and Sky arrested, set earlier in the timeline.

So then I made a timeline. Twilight is Time and Malon's biological son, and he found Wild on the side of the road one day (Wild's backstory involves a bad car wreck and an underground hospital, but no conspiracy bullshit. Yet). Wild has no memory, so they keep him. Wild brings home Legend, who was told his uncle died at school before a holiday. They then also keep Legend. Malon finds Four in her barn one morning for complicated reasons, and they keep him too. Twilight finds Warriors, who is in his class, hiding in an alley one day after he ran away from an abusive home and brings him home too. SS Impa (who I've nicknamed Shield because there are enough prominent Impas here that they should get nicknames too) is a social worker who's trying to find Sky a home and has run out of options, and turns to Time, who has a record of successfully housing 'unhousable' youths, and asks if he can take one more. He can. Wild finds Hyrule and brings him home because 'Rule needs a shower even more than Wild does. Hyrule stays. Wind's grandma ends up with Wind and his sister but can't financially take care of both and so Wind ends up with the boys and everyone is +1 Grandma.

Twilight has a fic detailing how he knows Midna and Dusk and I ended up shooting him (oops) but at least their social project gets handed in on time.

Then I started hashing out Time's backstory and suddenly this AU had plot. And organized crime. And a conspiracy. And secret societies.

The summarized version is that the gems from OoT are like, Idk what they do yet. Haven't gotten to a point where I need to figure that out yet. But they are Important and have to be carefully guarded. The Great Deku Tree (just called Deku because he's not a tree here) was Time's foster father before Ganondorf killed him. Also, Ganondorf is Deku's half brother. Because. However Time 'stole' the Emerald and he and Navi ran until OoT Impa (Sage) and Lullaby found them. So Time got adopted into Lullaby's family. Ruto inherited the Sapphire from her mother who also died from mysterious circumstances, and Darunia has the Ruby. Lullaby got the Ocarina from her late paternal grandmother.

Then Ganon finds them and tries to steal the Emerald from Time, so Lullaby goes looking for help and thus finds the sages. Saria is an anonymous hacker who uses the screen name 'Kokiri'. Time reveals he didn't steal the Emerald, he was Deku's heir, and then Navi goes missing. Time is home worried enough that he's physically sick, and Ganon decides to try and attack the home. Only Lullaby's family is Olde Money, and they live in a big, old manor, so Lullaby as Sheik decides to play 'Home Alone' with the secret passages in the walls and they piss off Ganon because when did that brat get a sheikah bodyguard??? Sage and Rottla (Lullaby's mother, who is fully sheikah as well) rush home from a thing and Kokiri is running a play by play watching the security cameras.

I pull in my headcanon that Time was killed in the Downfall Timeline by getting impaled on Ganon's tusk and Ganondorf stabs him with the tusk of a mounted boar head and then Sheik shows up to protect his brother, and then Mama gets home and is not happy to find this man in her home attacking her kids. Time is fine, but Navi stays missing. (She's alive tho.)

Also, Time's foster dad was the last leader of a secret society known as The Order of The Lost Woods, and Time learns this upon meeting Tatl, who gets him sucked into another event that would probably make a good action movie. I have thought too much about the Order and it's hierarchy, but what's important here is that Time ends up with a standing job offer and Tatl and he remain friends and we find out how I fit FD into this AU. It's not pretty. This is where Time loses his eye too.

The AoC came out and I added that Link in as Wild's twin brother and he shows up during the main plot.

Which starts with Twi getting kidnapped. (I'm not really meaner to him than the others, I swear, he's just the most logical choice to be Time's heir. Which he is. He doesn't know this though.)

So he's kidnapped by Ganondorf, who broke out of jail, Zant, who shot Twi in highschool, and Ghirahim, who has some history with Sky I haven't fleshed out yet and a very public rivalry with Warriors over twitter. About six weeks later Sage finds him in an abandoned warehouse (because of course) with a shackle on his left arm and a lot of new injuries. He ends up fine, but he tells Time later in the hospital what happened and he's both message and messenger and Time is this close to just committing murder. Tatl talks him down.

Somewhere here is the half finished fic where I introduce AoC Link as Luke/Knight, and this is as far as I've plotted thus far.

Other tidbits: Wild and Lullaby/Sheik are both genderfluid, Lullaby/Sheik married Ruto, Wild has a very popular YouTube channel, Twi does drag racing sometimes, Sky has a pet bird, Four has DID to explain how the Colours are here too, and Wolfie exists in the form of a random wolf-dog Wild found and brought home that Legend somehow convinced half the family was Twilight. Also, Warriors has somehow befriended an entire sorority and he doesn't know how this happened.

This... got long. As you can see I have a lot of thoughts about the Adoption AU. It's gotten a bit away from me, I'll admit. This went from 'Wild does stunts on his motorbike and keeps breaking bones but somehow not the bike' to 'Twilight got kidnapped and Time is the target of a mafia that Ganon runs and also maybe killed a man once' and I don't know how that happened. Also, this is the condensed version of the summary. My actual summary/outline is much, much longer than this. So if there's any detail you want more on, feel free to say so and I'll happily go into more detail (there are so many things I didn't even mention....)

And yes, Robbie having a bong is very important to my best friend, for some reason. He has one in a modern AU and he probably invented one in canon. I happen to agree that this makes sense for his character, if anyone would invent a bong in LoZ it's Robbie (this is such an anticlimactic end to this ask after the stuff about the modern AU...)

Also, sorry for the long ass ask. I genuinely don't know how to condense the Adoption Au down any further. There's a lot of important plot beats to cover, and I still skipped things.

-Attllhak

oh my GOD???? if you ever write and post this somewhere id love to read it, the level of "crazy" conspiracy/action movie elements implemented sound sosososo cool, from Ganondorf being Deku's half brother to trying to "send a message" via Twi and- just- all of this is SO good.i sat here and reread this ask like 3 times as if that would magically spawn more info about it ahaha

there's so much to unpack here but it's honestly so worth it i love every single detail!!! i can imagine the actual outline being way longer, nad honestly that just makes me the more excited/curious about all that might be missing from this ask - i cant believe it started with Wild and Wars going to Taco Bell of all things

also i can totally see Robbie making a bong, no matter the setting or AU. fits him a lot I'd say

and dont worry about long asks!! i adore opening up my askbox to see one ask take over the entire thing, it makes me really happy aha

[kurowrites]

I’m sure someone sent this to you already but ‘“You’re the one in class who has tattoos all over their arms and piercings and everybody’s scared of you and one day I catch you watching cat videos and doodling in the middle of a lecture and wow you’re a dork” AU.’ screams WangXian and I’d love to read your take on this! Thanks for all the amazing fics!

You were in fact the first to send this suggestion! And I agree, this is a very Wangxian thing. :3c

---

When Wei Ying joined Lan Zhan’s class for the first time, his appearance was followed by heated gossip and a badly suppressed uproar. Everything about Wei Ying’s appearance was eye-catching, from the long hair tied into a ponytail to the heavy black boots he was wearing. And while his mostly black clothes and the rows of piercings in his ears alone might have been enough to make him stick out like a sore thumb in the environment of an university classroom where most people wore button-down shirts and blouses rather than t-shirts, there were two things in particular that marked Wei Ying as an immediate outsider. The first was the piercing on his left lower lip that was connected to his left ear with a small metal chain. The second were the colourful tattoos sprawling down his slender arms poking out of an oversized t-shirt.

Lan Zhan himself couldn’t help but stare for a moment, his eyes wandering over the motives engraved on Wei Ying’s arms as he catalogued them. Halfway poking out of his shirt sleeve was what must be Guanyin holding a lotus flower. Delicate orchids were trailing along his elbow. Below that, a crane among pines. A dragon among drifting clouds was on his other arm. There were more, but before Lan Zhan could see them properly, Wei Ying moved, turned towards him with a crooked smile and a casual introduction.

The tattoos on his arms turned into a colourful blur as he moved, and Lan Zhan… was struck.

It didn’t take long for people to start spinning tales. The most popular was that Wei Ying got involved with crime at a young age and had been a member of a criminal organisation for the longest time. The stories differed, some saying that his father had been a triad boss, others saying that he got picked up off the streets by ruffians when he became orphaned. Whichever it might be, however, everyone was in agreement that Wei Ying was a dangerous person, and that it was better to stay away from him as far as possible. Many were offended that he was allowed to enrol in the university at all.

A person like that, at their prestigious university? Inconceivable.

But Lan Zhan knew that Wei Ying wasn’t here without reason. He might not be the image of a model student, but he had the academic qualifications to justify his enrolment. Even if it sometimes pained Lan Zhan himself to admit that.

Most students preferred to keep their distance from Wei Ying and only talk about him behind his back, which made Lan Zhan and Wei Ying more similar than he really liked. After all, most students kept their distance from Lan Zhan, too. If for entirely different reasons.

But their mutual unpopularity (if it could be called that) often led to them sitting close to each other during class. No one would sit next to Wei Ying on their own accord. Wei Ying, on the other hand, had no qualms seating himself in the eternally vacant seat next to Lan Zhan.

It was strange, the first time it happened. It wasn’t just the fact that no one ever sat this close to Lan Zhan that wasn’t family. It was also that the presence of Wei Ying next to him was completely different from anyone else. Lan Zhan had been taught how to sit properly from earliest childhood. Sit upright. Sit still. Be attentive. Don’t fidget.

Wei Ying was the complete opposite. It didn’t take five minutes for him to start moving around, slumping in his seat, trying to find a comfortable position for his limbs. Sometimes he went as far as slipping out of his boots, sitting cross-legged on the chair or tucking one foot under his leg. It drove Lan Zhan absolutely insane. How difficult could it be to sit still for one class? And how difficult could it be to not involve Lan Zhan in his disruptive activities?

It was hard to concentrate when someone next to you was constantly moving around. And whenever Lan Zhan dared to look over, he caught Wei Ying in some kind of activity that certainly didn’t have anything to do with the lesson at hand: sneakily eating snacks, watching cat videos or, perhaps the rudest of it all, just plain dozing. How he managed to follow the lesson, Lan Zhan didn’t know. But it was clear that he followed it, because the teacher had yet to catch Wei Ying off guard.

And then, when he was particularly bored, he would lob little pieces of paper at Lan Zhan. At first, Lan Zhan thought they were simple harassment for the sake of harassment, but after a sustained assault, he became aware that each of the papers contained a message.

The whole incident was caused by Lan Zhan making the unfortunate decision of looking over to Wei Ying’s side during the lesson, and catching Wei Ying watching cat videos on his smartphone. Lan Zhan sent him one of his particularly vicious glares, and turned back to the front to listen to the teacher. He only just caught Wei Ying’s shameless grin in the corner of his eye, an obvious sign that he wasn’t feeling sorry at all before he turned back to the video.

Lan Zhan was incensed. How could such a bad student manage to keep on top of this class? It was frustrating. It was… had no one ever put this young man in his place?

A few minutes into his quietly stewing anger, a paper landed on Lan Zhan’s desk. When Lan Zhan looked over, Wei Ying exaggeratedly mimed unfolding the paper.

Lan Zhan should really know better. And yet, he unfolded the paper.

Lan Zhan, are you more of a cat person or a dog person?

He crumpled the message with prejudice and glared at Wei Ying without bothering with a reply.

A moment later, another piece of paper landed on his desk.

Cat person, then. ;D

Wei Ying grinned shamelessly when Lan Zhan sent him another chastising look.

It didn’t take long, and yet another paper landed on Lan Zhan’s desk. This time, it was a terrible drawing of a cat.

Not good?

And then, seeing that it incensed Lan Zhan, Wei Ying started sending him different drawings of animals in quick succession, trying to guess his favourite. Of course, none of them were even remotely accurate, and all were terrible.

Snake?

Spider???

The spider was more than Lan Zhan could bear. He turned the paper around and finally wrote his first reply, scratching each word into the paper with force, as if he could force common sense into Wei Ying’s head that way.

Spiders have eight legs and four pairs of eyes.

Wei Ying only chuckled and quickly sent another reply.

Ah, so you do like them. :3

No.

Come on, tell me what you like!

Lan Zhan stowed the paper away to throw it out later on. He would never, ever give that kind of ammunition to Wei Ying.

It was not enough to discourage Wei Ying just yet, however.

Oh, I know. :3

A few moments later, a new drawing landed on Lan Zhan’s desk.

Lan Zhan stared blankly at the cute and surprisingly detailed drawing of a rabbit, evidently a very different quality from the earlier sloppy doodles.

Good, no? This is what Lan Zhan looks like, to me.

Lan Zhan couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be an insult or a compliment. Before he could settle on one or the other, however, another message landed on his desk.

My tattoos were all designed by myself.

That gave Lan Zhan pause. Wei Ying’s tattoos? He had designed all of them himself? Of course Lan Zhan had noticed before that despite the fact that Wei Ying had many different motives on his arms, they seemed to fit together very well, building a cohesive, well-designed unit. But he had been so caught up in the unsuitability of having tattoos at all that he had never thought about whether the tattoos itself held any meaning or not. But if Wei Ying designed them–

His thoughts were interrupted by another folded paper.

I’ve noticed your looks.

Lan Zhan felt his ears burn.

He had always assumed that Wei Ying was either ignorant or completely uncaring of all the strange looks he was getting. But that couldn’t be true, now that he thought about it. It wasn’t like Lan Zhan was unaware of the looks he was getting, no matter how much he liked to pretend that he was above such things.

Before he could react to Wei Ying’s last message, however, the bell rung and announced the end of the class.

And Wei Ying, quick as a rabbit, was out the door before the teacher could even dismiss them.

---

From that moment onwards, something had changed.

Perhaps it was that Lan Zhan didn’t have the luxury of pretending that he didn’t care anymore. Perhaps it was that someone finally had him made take a long, hard look into the mirror. And he didn’t quite like what he saw.

He felt frustratingly out of control, the next time he deliberately sat down on the seat right next to Wei Ying, and the way Wei Ying smiled in return only served to drive it home that Lan Zhan had just made an irrevocable decision.

The course of his destiny, he had no doubt, had been altered.

Wei Ying had forced him to make a decision.

And Wei Ying, judging by the look he sent him, understood what Lan Zhan’s choice had been.

This time, once class was over, Wei Ying didn’t take off with the ring of the bell. Instead, he patiently waited until Lan Zhan had packed his things and was ready to leave (as patiently as Wei Ying ever did anything, that was).

When they left the classroom, together, Wei Ying softly bumped into Lan Zhan’s side and smiled up at him. Lan Zhan couldn’t fully read the expression on Wei Ying’s face, but he thought that Wei Ying looked happy, somehow.

“Do you like them?” Wei Ying asked.

He didn’t need to explain what it was that he meant. Lan Zhan understood.

“Hn,” he replied.

It was all he could say. He felt that both ‘You are very good at drawing’ and ‘I want to know where else you have tattoos’ were somehow inadequate and also inappropriate, so he remained quiet.

It didn’t help that the third thought that crossed his mind was ‘How would it feel if I kissed that piercing on your lip right now?’

Wei Ying, thankfully, took pity on him. He tapped at the delicate orchids at his elbow and said, “This is my latest one. I got it after the birth of my nephew.”

He smiled, clearly lost in a happy memory for one moment. Then, he looked up at Lan Zhan again, and his smile turned impish instead.

“I have a feeling I might be getting another one soon,” he added with a laugh in his voice. “And I think… it’s going to be a rabbit.”

The gods have mercy on me, Lan Zhan thought to himself. Where is he planning to put that?

He wondered if Wei Ying would allow him to know.

[missnight0wl]

Believe it or not, but I still enjoy the story of HPHM – even in Y6. I mean, the Polyjuice Potion plot was really shitty, but still. And you know what? I’m not even mad about Rowan’s death. Admittedly, it’s probably mostly because I just don’t believe it was real… But in general, I don’t think it’s bad as a part of the story. Especially when you realise how it parallels Jacob and Duncan. And I don’t think that Rowan died purely to shock the audience (at least it wasn’t meant to be that way). I’m not even mad that we grew apart with Rowan in Y5, because it’s something that happens when you’re a teenager and your group of friends is expanding. What I HATE, though, is how it all was done. I hate that MC didn’t ever think why R wanted to kill one of their friends SINCE THE START OF Y5. I hate that we didn’t talk with Rowan in Y5 after our fight in the Library. I hate that we didn’t talk after they attacked us, and that we didn’t see how things turned out later between Rowan and Ben. I hate that we didn’t even mention Duncan when talking to Jacob after Rowan’s death.

Imagine something like that: you had the most amazing adventure at school, at work, or just in some other place. It was either thrilling, or funny, or whatever – simply a good story to tell at the parties etc. Therefore you (Person 1) decide to tell that story to your friend (Person 2). However, for whatever reason, that someone doesn’t quite pay attention to what you’re saying. Maybe they’re distracted by some problems, or they’re sleepy. Perhaps that’s just who they are. Still, they enjoyed the story enough that they want to tell it to Person 3 (who doesn’t know you). Unfortunately, because they don’t remember everything, they skip over some parts or even make things up to fill the holes. Perhaps they also forget to mention some detail about you that is important to fully understand the story. In the end, even though the punchline is the same as it was in the original story, Person 3 is just a bit confused because it did sound interesting, but not everything adds up. And that’s basically the problem with HPHM, especially since the second half of Y5, where Person 1 is the original writing team under Matt London, Person 2 is the current writing team, and Person 3 is us, the players. It’s a good story, but it’s written poorly.

That being said, it doesn’t have to mean that the story is doomed. I don’t think they’ll write anything, no matter how stupid it is. Because the thing is that a lot of the story was planned from the very beginning. I recall a post where London said that they knew how everything ends, what’s in the final vault etc. from the start. Then, it was only about getting there. Also, it seems like he worked on a big part of the story before he left after Y3.

He has to talk about Beatrice here because before Y5, we didn’t see much of Penny’s interest in her family.

Now, Rakepick wasn’t even introduced officially before Y4, yet, he put so much into her character that it makes him “the proudest”? I admit, if he talks about all of Rakepick’s symbolism, IT IS damn impressive. But it also means that Jam City can’t fucked up Rakepick’s story because it’s already done, and throwing it away would be plain stupid (also, if they’ll do it anyway – I’m so so sorry, Matt…). And you know, we already have examples in the game of things which makes sense in the big picture, but they were poorly executed.

New Ben. All of Y5 was for Ben about becoming braver. There should’ve been something at the end of Y5 which showed Ben that his previous efforts weren’t enough, and that’d explain his behaviour in Y6. I believe that Ben was supposed to try to sacrifice himself to protect MC (I explained it in details here), but for whatever reason, Jam City changed it. Still, Ben’s story is probably the same as it’s meant to be. We’re just missing a link which would explain his change better.

The Wizard in White. There were theories that he was expelled from Mahoutokoro as soon as he was first mentioned back in Y5. The thing is that those theories were based on the facts that he wears white robes AND that he was using incantations Fletcher didn’t understand (suggesting foreign language). In Y6, Dumbledore deduced that based only on the fact that he wears white robes – which is stupid. Even if white colour is not common in Knockturn Alley, I refuse to believe that Dumbledore would guess it so accurately without any indication that the wizard might be a foreigner.

Alanza. We needed a long time for her to reveal that Rakepick was at Castelobruxo. Why? Because the current writers weren’t listening to the original story at the part where MC finds out that Rakepick was there before coming back to Hogwarts. Still, they know that it’s important that Rakepick was there and that they need Alanza to bring it up.

All of that are examples of a good story being told by an incompetent person. But I do not believe that they will pull out who knows how stupid things “because bad writing” – at least not when it comes to the main events (I don’t believe that R could be Voldemort, for example). In fact, I have to say, I’m always a bit... irritated seeing that argument. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t criticize Jam City. We should! You can find quite a lot of complaints on my blog, actually. But I always try to point out why things are stupid. That’s why I use shitloads of screenshots and write essays for a thousand words. Why I keep bringing up questions which should be answered. And honestly, I don’t really know how to react to people saying that Jam City will do something stupid because it’s Jam City… I mean, if that’s what you believe – you do you. But that’s not really why I’m here. I always try to show that HPHM can still make sense.

Also, I probably wouldn’t find it very motivating to improve if I was a writer at Jam City, to be frank. Like, people have no expectations, but they keep playing, some of them keep paying, so... Why would they try harder? Their salaries are probably the same, no matter how much sense the story makes. I mean, I get that it’s frustrating when they ignore things, and it makes constructive criticism harder, but assuming in advance that we shouldn’t hope for logical solutions won’t take us anywhere either.

Long story short: even if people think it’s pointless, I’ll keep analysing the shit out of this game because I know I’ll be right about the main events in the end. Even if the way Jam City gets there will be missing many explanations, will be full of pointless fillers instead, and it won’t be half as thrilling as it could’ve been. I didn’t want to offend anyone; I just felt the need to explain myself as to why I believe that my procrastinating makes sense. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but oh well.

If you made it here, thank you for your time and attention.

[aprxl-showers]

sneak peek from my klance frozen fic on ao3

(( after they meet in Coran’s store and Keith begrudgingly agrees to take Lance to the North Mountain ))

***

“Okay... Lance... hang on, Kosmo likes to go fast.” ‘Keith the ice guy’ adjusted his grip on the reins as Kosmo transported them up the snowy slope. Lance had immediately shut down the whole ‘your highness’ thing, insisting it was weird because it was. It was dark, Keith’s lantern the only source of light apart from the moon.

“That’s cool, I like fast,” Lance laughed, putting his feet up on the front of the sledge. Keith swatted them down immediately muttering something about it taking ages to polish. Lance pouted as he inspected it. Once Keith seemed satisfied that Lance hadn’t ruined his valuable polishing work he turned back to face him.

“So,” he began, “Care to explain what made your sister set all this off?”

“I honestly don’t know how it happened,” Lance began, “It was my fault really.”

“Oh?” Keith seemed to take joy in that fact. Lance scowled at him,

“See, I met this guy and we got engaged and it was honestly so romantic but then she ruined the mood because she wouldn’t bless the marriage. She was lamenting on and on about how it was weird since we’d only met that day-”

“Wait, hold up,” Keith looked from him to the track ahead, “You’re telling me that you got engaged to a man you just met that day?”

“Yeah, anyway, so I got really annoyed because this guy’s really cute and we seem to really go together? So I said that I didn’t get her deal so of course she also got mad. Then, she tried to storm out of the party, a party thrown for her by the way, so I grabbed her glove-”

“Hang on,” Keith interrupted him, again, “You got engaged to someone you just met that day?”

“Yes, pay attention,” Lance rolled his eyes. Was that really the thing he was taking away from this? “Anyway, she wore these gloves all the time so I thought maybe she just had mysophobia or something, y’know, fear of dirt?”

“I know what mysophobia is,” Keith muttered. “But seriously, back to the engagement thing, how do you know you want to spend the rest of your life with this guy? Didn’t anyone ever warn you about strangers?”

Lance paused, looking Keith up and down.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, edging away from Keith who rolled his eyes, “But Lotor is not a stranger!”

“Oh yeah?” Keith’s tone was challenging, “What’s his last name?”

“Of-Northern-Daibazaal,” Lance replied confidently. Honestly, who knew any royalties' real last names nowadays? Keith didn’t look convinced,

“That’s not a last name. How about… his favourite food?”

“Dark Chocolate.”

“Really? I’m guessing half the stuff at that party was chocolatey and he took a liking to it? That doesn’t prove anything.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance spat out because that was exactly what happened however that didn’t give Keith the right to make assumptions.

“Sure. What’s his best friend’s name?”

“Probably a wonderfully respectable name, unlike Keith,” he jeered. Keith fixed with an exasperated look.

“Eye colour?”

“Silver. Super dreamy,” Lance chuckled, fake swooning, leaning into Keith’s personal space. Keith continued, undeterred, his eyes on the road.

“How about shoe size?”

“Shoe size doesn’t- Holy crow, Keith! That is inappropriate!” Lance hit him on the forearm.

“You haven’t had a meal with him, right?” Lance nodded. Keith faced him again, “What if you hate the way he eats? What if he’s super picky or is really rude to the servers? What if he has absolutely awful table manners?”

“Keith, buddy, my man, he is a prince,” Lance scoffed, as if that was enough of an explanation.

“Princes can be rude. I happen to know a very annoying one. Maybe you know him?”

“Excuse me. Anyway, I’m sure he eats very gracefully. And besides, does it matter? It’s true love.”

“It doesn’t sound like true love. You’ve known this man for less than twenty four hours and as soon as you get engaged your sister freaks out and freezes everything? Sorry to burst your lovely little love bubble but I think the universe might be trying to tell you something.” Keith shrugged. Lance’s defensiveness flared.

“I don’t see why you think you can butt into my affairs. What are you, some sort of love expert?”

“Well, no,” Keith seemed to deflate a little. Lance took this as a victory. Keith carried on, “But I have friends who are. They’re constantly talking about how ‘love is tough’ and marriage is ‘a whole lot of hard work but is worth it in the end’.”

Lance laughed, loud and unabashed. A confused expression crossed over Keith’s face.

“You? Friends? And what’s more, friends who are ‘love experts’? I don’t believe you.” Lance taunted, not realising they’d stopped until he heard the silence. “Wait, what-”

“Stop talking.”

“No, no, no, listen, I’d like to meet these love ex-urmph,” Lance’s sentence was cut off as he felt a gloved hand slap over his mouth.

“Shut up,” Keith whispered, tone more serious. Lance pushed his hand away from his face, about to complain when Keith shushed him, taking his lantern from the hanger and peering into the woods around them. Kosmo’s ears were up and they twitched every so often.

“What is it?” He whispered. Keith ignored him.

Lance observed as Keith leant further out the sledge. Suddenly, he retracted back with speed, tugging at Kosmo’s reins. Kosmo began to run, even faster than he had been going before.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit,” Keith repeated over and over like a mantra. Lance tutted at him.

“Language, Keith, you are in the presence of royalty!”

“Lance, please,” Keith was fully serious now. Lance picked up on his genuine expression and quietened his voice. It was then he heard noises from behind the sledge. They were being chased!

“What are they?” He scanned the area behind them. He couldn’t see anything.

“Yuppers.” Keith’s voice was clipped, “C’mon Kosmo.”

And sure enough, Lance could hear the noises more clearly now.

“Yup, yup, yup, yup.”

“Yuppers? What are-”

Out from the shadows, a large beast with glowing yellow eyes and short horns leapt up at the side of the truck. Lance shrieked embarrassingly high (he would deny this later) and kicked it in the chest.

“That was a yupper,” Keith confirmed.

“Oh.”

Lance looked over to Keith who was hunched over the back of the seat, sorting through his cargo. Lance started to do the same. Keith glared at him,

“What do you think you’re doing?” He pushed Lance back. Lance sprung up,

“Helping! What does it look like? There are weird glowy-eyed creatures trying to eat us.”

“No!” Keith shoved him back once again, “Don’t fall off. Stay.”

“I’m not a dog, man, and why not?” Keith had managed to make a torch using the fire from the lantern and a piece of old material. He held it out to keep the creatures down.

“I just don’t trust your judgement.” Keith’s words were distracted and hurtful. Lance’s cheeks burned.

“Excuse me?”

“Who gets engaged to someone they just met?”

“I can’t believe you keep bringing that up, it is none of your business!” He grabbed the nearest thing from the pile of objects in the back and raised it in the air. Ice tongs. Of course. “And plus, it’s true love! Duck!”

With that he swung the tongs forward. Keith ducked, luckily, and Lance smacked an attacking yupper square in the face. Keith straightened up.

“What the hell, Lance? You could have knocked me out!” He yelled, taking the tongs from Lance with his free hand, inspecting them for damage. Lance shrugged. However, with Keith’s attention elsewhere and the fire away from the side of the sledge, a yupper took the opportunity and got a hold of Keith’s coat, pulling him from the sledge. Lance reached out to grab the torch in mid air before it fell, watching in horror as Keith was dragged down. He heaved a huge sigh of relief when he saw Keith grab onto a rope trailing behind the sledge. Kosmo kept running, despite it all, but it was clear he was distressed at Keith’s endangerment.

Thinking on his feet, something he was rather good at, Lance reached down to a pile of blankets, setting them alight. He then tossed the extinguished torch into the trees at their sides.

“Help is on the way. Look out!” With relatively accurate aim, the burning bunch of material soared right to where the yuppers were beginning to pull at Keith’s clothing, the man in question crying out in pain at a particularly hard bite. He saw the flaming mass just in time, having the instincts to lower his head and the yuppers immediately broke away from him. Lance let out a whoop of victory, reaching down to help Keith up the rope. His hat had fallen onto his seat during the fall, its absence revealing dark hair and…was that a mullet?

“I can’t believe you almost set me on fire.” Keith let out a puff of air when he was safely back in his seat.

“But I didn’t! You’re not even going to thank me?”

“You just got lucky, I bet that throw was just a fluke.”

“Screw you, mullet!” Lance growled, angry at Keith for not acknowledging the fact he basically saved his life! Bad judgement indeed. His aim was impeccable thank you very much.

“What? My name is Keith and I do not have a mullet or whatever!” Keith fumed, hand instinctively rising to his hair, reaching for his hat. Lance felt a little better for getting a rise out of him.

“That’s debatable but alright,” he smirked, turning back to the road, smile fading immediately. Now, Lance rarely swore but he agreed that this situation called for a very well deserved- “Fuck.”

“What was all that about language earlier?” Keith joked, chuckling until he followed Lance’s line of sight. “Oh. Fuck indeed.”

Ahead of them was a steep drop and a large canyon. They were going too fast to slow and stop without falling off the edge. Lance leant forward.

“Ready to jump Kosmo?”

Keith was next to him.

“You don’t get to tell him what to do,” he shouted.

Before Lance could register what was happening, Keith had thrust a bag into his hand and was wrapping an arm around his waist. Without a word of warning, Keith threw Lance - chucked him as if he were cargo - onto Kosmo’s back with surprising strength.

“Woah!” Lance squawked in shock as he flailed in the air for a moment before landing roughly on Kosmo’s back. The wolf kept running as if it were nothing. Keith called out behind him,

“Jump Kosmo!”

And they were flying.

READ THE ENTIRE THING - ‘The First Time In Forever’ - ON MY AO3!! LINK IN PINNED POST AT THE TOP OF MY BLOG