#I've only driven in a proper city handful of times

[blackjackkent]

All right. Time to wrap the party up, and with it, Hector's story.

"I think I've caught up with everyone. What comes next?"

"What indeed," the skeleton intones gravely. "Prick up thy ears."

What this means, it turns out, is that Withers wants to give a speech. He gathers them all at the table, raises a mug that he cannot possibly intend to drink from, and discourses at unexpected length.

"The balance of the world restored. The balance of these lives, mortal and otherwise, brought to account."

"Hear me, thou heroes, wastrals, friends. I have waited long to tell you these words."

"It is over. For now. Thou played thy part in weaving the fabric of fate itself. But for every thread you sewed, so did the gods unravel another. Sleep, rest, revel. But be ready. For thou mayest yet be needed. Until we meet again, I wish thee every possible fortune. Health, wealth, love, and above all, problems worth solving."

No shortage of those, Hector reflects ruefully. The Hells are full of them, and he doesn't see that changing any time soon.

Withers looks towards him expectantly, apparently asking he give a toast. Hector considers for a moment. There are many things he could toast to. Future victory, past success. The prosperity of the city they saved, the power of the Moonmaiden, the death of the evil forces that sought to destroy all.

But in the end, there is only one thing he is here to celebrate, the thing that bolstered him through dark times he did not think he was built to survive, that strengthened him when he was at his weakest, that have driven his actions to a depth he did not realize until it was almost too late.

"To the greatest friends I could dream of," he says, his voice thick with sudden emotion.

Withers' eyes narrow in what might be a smile.

He raises his glass in answer. "To you," he murmurs.

They all rise to their feet, glasses in hand, cheers on their lips. Friends -- family -- in a moment of much-needed celebration that none of them will ever forget.

--------

Much, much later, Hector and Karlach lie cuddled in their tent on the far edge of the campsite, Hector's head nestled into the curve of her neck, her arms tightly wrapped around him. He nuzzles kisses absently along her throat, enjoying the quiet after the hubbub of the party.

"I have to say," he mumbles drowsily. "I know your engine's hotter here... but everything else is cooler. Rather nice not feeling like I'm cuddling in a blast furnace for once."

She snorts softly, running her fingers through his hair. "I could get used to it, myself..." she murmurs. A pause. "I think we might really have something, y'know. With those blueprints. A chance at fixing me, proper. At really coming home."

He gives a slow roll over so his weight is stretched out on top of her, catches both her hands in his and pushes them gently above her head. "Home," he says. "Chk. Do you know what I told Jaheira, when she asked me if I had found home?"

She grins up at him. "You said me, because you're a sap, Hector Carlisle."

"I am a sap. But I'm also right," he says gravely, his eyes narrowing teasingly. "We will fix your heart one day. And we will come back here. And I will follow you as gladly as I ever have."

"Mm." She tips her head up so she can brush her lips against his. "You know something?"

He grunts questioningly, kisses her back, pressing her head down against the pillow.

"I'm glad you didn't let me die..." she murmurs against his mouth. "I didn't imagine there was hope left, until you helped me find it."

He draws his head back and smiles down at her with an expression of deep love and deep gratitude. "There is much about this world that I didn't imagine for a long time," he says softly. "Before I traveled it at your side and saw it through your eyes, everything you loved about it, everything you were ready to die rather than leave. You taught me so much."

She listens quietly, and then grins slowly and pulls him down into another kiss. "Guess we were made for each other, huh, soldier?"

[justmultifandom]

Kidge winter event

Day 7: Cooking (Modern AU)

The snowflakes danced on the house driven by the wind and the freezing current on the illuminated city. From the windows you could see New York, beautiful and crowded as always, snow-capped and silent. Katie focused again on the dough in her hands, which had stuck to her hands as she looked outside. She grunted, trying to get more flour from the paper bag, but she unexpectedly dropped it and grunted again. Luckily she managed to get enough of the dough off her hands, she went to the sink and started washing her hands. Her university classes were quite tiring, not to mention the endless days she spent in the huge penthouse studying instead of enjoying the Big Apple. She had many times received invitations from other students in the same classes as her, or with Lance and Hunk, hell, she had even promised Keith a proper date, so that they wouldn't always have to only see each other late at night. After all, he was as busy and tired with his job in the army as she was with university.

She dried her hands, took a vacuum cleaner and cleaned up the mess on the cold, dark wooden parque. She had managed as much as she could to remedy the neutrality of how she had found the apartment upon her arrival, bare and without a minimum of personality, and, even if not much had changed, there were still beautiful curtains and green plants, frames with photos of important friends, and a huge painting of a green lion hanging on the bare white wall.

Katie continued baking the damn cookies. After finishing studying she went to bed without dinner, completely exhausted, but she couldn't sleep, so she looked for a rather simple recipe for beginners online. Maybe she could give some to Keith when he returned, or to Hunk for some advice. She rolled out the dough with a rolling pin, then took some tender tree-shaped molds that belonged to her mother. She didn't jump when the front door suddenly opened with disturbing slowness, revealing a figure dressed in black and dusted with snow. She smiled as he dropped the bag in the corner. She always kept the front door open even at night, also because only two attics were housed on her floor and the security was too rigorous to overcome it.

“How strange, I thought you lived in the appartament 2001, Keith”: she laughed at him, looking up and placing her dirty hands on the island.

“I've been away for a long time, I just wanted to see you”: he returned a smile, putting his hands in his pockets and moving closer to her, and when he was next to her, he helped her by moving the dough molds on a layer of flour.

“Aren't you tired?”: she asked.

“Yes, but my girlfriend is more tired than me and she is making delicious cookies. If I help her she will go to bed early and so I will be able to fall asleep more easily, next to her": he smiled, touching her cheeks and dirtying them with flour.

“It's very sweet, but I'm fine, plus I haven't been on a military base in Texas for a week…”: she laughed at him, throwing a handful of white powder on his uniform. Her jacket and pants got dirty, as did her face and the floor, but they didn't care.

“I trained my body, you trained my mind, that's really tiring”: he shrugged his shoulders, concentrating not to break the thin pastry: “How's university going?”

“Excellent, I'd say, the first semester is over. Finally!”: she rejoiced calmly.

“Does this mean you're finally going to take a break from studying?” His purple eyes darted over her.

“Maybe”: she nodded with a smile: “And it also means that one day you will take me out on the date I promised you”

He smiled again as he watched her take the pan and put the cookies in the oven. She sighed putting her hands behind her back, a proud expression on her face.

“Good, we have 20 minutes”: she turned to look at him again, leaning against the island without getting her sweater dirty: “What do we do? Will you go back to your apartment and unpack your suitcase and then come back here as soon as I call you?”

“What if I stay here?”: he looked at her penetratingly.

“You will still be welcome”: she smiled, forgetting about the scattered flour and sitting on the island to tower over him, bringing him closer and pulling him into a kiss. He reciprocated eagerly, placing his hands on either side of her thighs as she wrapped her legs around his back.

After 30 minutes they remembered the burnt biscuits in the oven.

[promptis-imagines]

Noct maybe trying to learn his bf to drive

It's chaos

Prompto my adhd KING. Please look at the road. Stop nearly hitting the things in the road please.

Though I guess this also would be different depending on where they're driving. I'm going to assume they're outside the city in this scenario. That's more free reign for fucking up without repercussions, babey.

[eyeballjazz]

First of all I've been binge reading your fics whenever I get some free time so huge kudos to ya <3

Second, I've got a fun lil ask for ya: domestic headcanons for HB/PI and SS/DD :D

how do they share all their houses' chores? We all know HB is probably an amazing cook and DD looks like an organization freak but what about the rest? Does anyone besides HB knows how to cook a proper meal? We need to know!!

Well, hell!

First of all, thank you so much this is so sweet! Absolutely makes my day to know you’re enjoying my work. I hope you get lots more time to read soon, bro!

And second I’m about to go ON so I’ll chop the post here, but I’ve got headcanons old and new cooked up for you:

As I’m sure you’ve noticed I like writing about buildings so I can tell you exactly what everyone’s houses are like. The whole Crew lives across from each other on a block in the center of their territory, Slick and Droog in a Victorian townhouse and Hearts and Clubs in a duplex that’s broken into two railway style spaces. Slick would live shoebox if it was up to him, so thankfully Droog has very opinionated taste and likes spending his husband’s money enough to buy a whole antique for them to live in. 

I don’t have to tell you that cooking is huge for the Crew. They’re a small family of Italian uncles, so cooking is a major factor of their lives. 

As skill goes Droog is the best cook out of anyone. He’s self taught but for the very basics and some old family recipes his mother drilled into him back in Tuscany. And like everything with Droog, he’s someone who grew up dirt poor and now desperately wants to show off taste and affluence by being a highbrow snob. That means his skill for cooking has driven towards very elegant, subtle cuisine, lots of French influence (he says it must have been Italian, originally, but the French got famous for it somehow), and small portion size. Think of the fanciest restaurant you've ever been to and how teeny the serving sizes were and then imagine it was cooked by someone who is ferociously closeted and you’ve got it. 

Despite all that, Droog has not had working taste buds in at least thirty years because he’s smoked two packs a day since he learned to walk. Slick, likewise, had a bad smoking habit and quit for the kids so he’s not swimming in buds either. Add to that the fact that he’s had his nose broken so many times he’s functionally lost his sense of smell and you’ve got a match made in heaven. 

Lucky them, Karkat and Aradia get the spoils of Droog’s great cooking and are the picky eaters their fathers wished they could have been as boys. Droog is very proud to have snotty kids. So it is his great displeasure when, instead of having a single scallop lightly seared in browned butter then dusted with rosemary and thyme, the kids just want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But both happen regularly. 

Hearts is a close second but of a very different school. He learned to cook primarily from his mother, who is a master of Southern cooking and made sure her boy knew how to do for himself before she let him leave her home. The rest he learned as a cook in the army, and then later from Droog after Hearts insisted he learn some real Italian recipes since his father never cooked when Hearts was a boy. Hearts still has a habit for cooking for a literal army and so he often cooks for the whole family. 

His food is mostly soul food/American southern and he seasons hard and often. One might even say it is dangerously flavorful, and everyone agrees it is extremely fortifying. It’s even strong enough to get through to Droog, who can (with the addition of hot sauce) taste it and secretly wishes Hearts would offer to teach him a thing or two.

Too willful to learn, Slick is a very low third place. He doesn’t care about food much and burns most things he tries to cook out of impatience. Plus, he hasn’t needed to learn since he married Droog so why start now?

Pickle Inspector, dead last, can’t so much as fry an egg. He loves food and knows the locations and operating hours of every restaurant and pub and gas station hot bar in the city. But cooking itself eludes him. He does occasionally try to go vegetarian but folds immediately when offered the chance to have a big beautiful meal he didn’t have to cook himself.

This matches up perfectly with Hearts’s master plan, which is to feed Pickle Inspector to within an inch of his life. And Pickle, like a stray cat, loves the attention and knows where the free food is. Hearts insists he’s too skinny and will often say ‘Just have a little,’ and then hand him a plate with half a lasagna on it.

HBPI is a ‘you cook, I clean’ split. Self conscious of his lack of cooking knowledge Pickle does every dish in the house whenever he sneaks in (read: breaks in) to spend time with Hearts and Tavros. And very often when he breaks in he tries to carve out some time to spend playing DnD with Tavros, with an ambition to get him and Hearts in a game so they can show Hearts a more kinetic version of fantasy than having a read a lot of books by nudists from the 60’s.

Because they may or may not be out as a couple to the Crew, Pickle and Hearts don’t get to spend a lot of time out on Hearts’s front porch together, although kicking back on the porch is one of Hearts’s favorite things to do. But, every so often, they take their coffee together out on the porch way before anyone else is awake. They watch the city all in blue together, right before the sunrise.

SSDD and chores are much more complicated.

Droog is fastidious, meticulous, and intense about cleaning. He also uses it to avoid or ignore any emotions he may be feeling so their Victorian is constantly spotless. Droog does all the kitchen chores, all the rewarding dusting of art pieces, mantles, and mirrors, and looks after the kids to make sure they learn how to keep their own spaces clean.

He dumps all the chores where you actually chance getting dirty on Slick. Taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, cleaning the bathrooms, washing the cars, touching anything weird, bugs, that’s all Slick.

Slick also looks after their garden, not for any love of plants but because he’s gotten himself into an all out war with a warren of rabbits that want to eat Droog’s spices and tomatoes. The war has been multi-generational for the rabbits and they’re too invested to pull out now. Slick is the only person who really looks after the garden, Droog assumes ownership of the plants but doesn’t care about them beyond having fresh basil to cook with.

Slick’s contempt for the bunnies and ferocity in keeping his husband’s plants alive have made him an unwitting expert on what a good spice garden needs. Like Droog, his feelings for the whole thing aren’t tied to love for the plants but instead pride and anger. Droog, meanwhile, loves seeing Slick do violence in his name and will often watch his tantrums in the backyard whenever one of the tomato plants gets chewed up.

Whew, this got long quick. Since it’s already so long, I’ll leave you with one more hc which is that Pickle Inspector knows how to juggle. Thank you again for the great questions, this was so fun!!!

[thevindicativevordan]

My Take on a Superman Video Game

I've seen other people give their takes on how to approach this, and given Superman and video games are two major topics of interest for me, I thought I'd give my pitch.

So first off, I’m giving him a health bar. Yes I know some people will b**** and no I don’t care. I don’t care what people who get their Superman knowledge from YouTube or Instagram “fact” pages think about the character, and all the other attempts such as the city health bar in the Returns game didn’t satisfy me. So right off the bat he’s getting a health bar. Second: it’s time to start showing casuals areas of Superman lore they either don’t know about or aren’t very familiar with. The reason for that is people think they “know” Superman so we need to immediately show something they DON’T know about or HAVEN’T seen already to get them to not immediately dismiss Superman out of hand based on memes or whatever. Which leads into my third creative point. Third: I’m not setting the first game in Metropolis. The Arkham games didn’t immediately throw you into an open world Gotham, they built up to it. The Spider-Man PS4 game started off with an open world because they were able to build upon dozens of Spider-Man games that laid the ground work for them. The first Superman game in decades needs to avoid biting off more than it can chew, and throwing Superman into an open world feels like a bad idea. So where can it be? Well there are options. There’s Warworld. There’s Apokolips. But I think the best location is one that’s intrinsically tied to Superman and his Kryptonian background, and serves as a nice counterpart to Batman starting out in Arkham Asylum: The Phantom Zone

The Asylum was a great starting point for Batman for a couple reason: 1. It’s the iconic prison where Batman leaves his Rogues, 2. It’s gothic and horror esque vibe crafts the perfect atmosphere, and 3. it’s place as a center for examining the mind makes it great for exploring Batman’s mental state. For similar reason the PZ is the perfect place to start off Superman: 1. It likewise is an iconic prison for Superman Rogues 2. It’s science fiction and horror mixed together which crafts the perfect atmosphere for Superman to kick ass or be introspective, and 3. It lets Kal come face to face with his Kryptonian heritage in the nastiest way possible as he’s dumped into a place filled with prisoners his father helped exile as well as all the other monsters and criminals other races have dumped there. So he’s going to the Zone but how does he get there and what’s the story? It would be boring if he just walked in. Here’s the pitch: It’s Year 2 of Superman’s career. He’s already established himself as a hero in Metropolis and worldwide. The public knows he claims to mean them no harm and that he only seems to do good deeds, but they know very little about his origins and are divided as to his true intentions. The problem is Clark himself doesn’t really know his origins either beyond knowing he’s an alien from another planet. His only relics from his home planet are the rocket, a tablet written in a language he can’t read, and a curious device that doesn’t seem to have any use. As a show of goodwill, and because he hasn’t made any progress understanding them himself, Clark turns the tablet and the device over to STAR Labs for study. One day as he’s beating down some Intergang thugs, reality twists, and suddenly Clark finds himself in a place that is definitely not Metropolis. The “earth” is chalk white, the sky is a purple, green lightning flashes around as far as he can see, and where the sun should be there’s instead a black hole. Somehow Clark and the terrified Intergang thugs have ended up in the Phantom Zone with no idea of how they got there and how to get back.

The thugs accuse Clark of transporting them there and attack him, with Clark suddenly realizing his powers are fading in this place with no sunlight. Luckily a stranger arrives and aids Clark in dispatching the thugs. Clark thanks him for his aid and then asks who he is. The stranger pauses and tells Clark: “My name is Dru-Zod, a general of Krypton”. He raises a hand for Clark to shake. “I was a friend of your father, Kal-El”. Zod tells Kal about the place he’s in, and his history with it. He tells him that other humans have been brought here as well besides the Intergang thugs, including many of Clark’s foes. Zod informs Clark that the likely culprit for their arrival to the PZ is the very first prisoner Jor-El ever banished to the Phantom Zone: Xa-Du the Phantom King, who has spent so long imprisoned that he seems to have obtained a degree of control over the Zone that gives him strange powers. Kal is told that if he does not collect the scattered humans and escape the Zone soon, he and the humans will become trapped there, as anyone who spends too long in the Zone eventually becomes unable to leave without special equipment on the other side to bring them back, thanks to the way the Zone warps the inhabitants. Kal’s mission is clear: Collect the scattered humans, defeat and pacify his foes trapped there with him so they can be brought back as well, and defeat the Phantom King before he tears a hole between the Zone and the real world that could cause catastrophe for Earth. That’s the basic story pitch, next I’ll go into gameplay mechanics and what Rogues I’d use.

Clark starts the game having been de powered back to “Golden Age” power levels due to there being no sun in the PZ. Zod teaches him about Sunstones that grow naturally in the PZ, which will allow him to slowly re-empower himself. The Sunstones ward off the PZ’s influence and basically act as perk points for Clark to unlock and upgrade his powers. At the start he can’t fly, he can only run and leap. Zod acts as Kal’s mentor throughout the game, teaching him about Kryptonian history and how to read the language. He also tutors him in the dangers of the Phantom Zone as well as training him to hone his powers. Kal gets the feeling there’s more to Zod than he’s letting on though, and some of his comments raise Kal’s suspicions. The base of the game is the Fortress of Solitude.

It’s backstory is that when Jor-El first discovered the PZ, he built the FoS as a research outpost to study the place. It’s packed full of Kryptonian tech and it has the ability to shift back into the natural world. Zod couldn’t use it because it’s caretaker Kelex only responds to House El members. However it won’t shift back until it judges its user “sterilized” in order to avoid contaminating the natural world with the Zone’s influence. Because Kal was brought over so suddenly and without the proper tech, he has to use Sunstones to purge the Zone from his body before the Fortress will respond to his commands. This is a nice way of tying the gameplay and story together. Kal needs the stones to save the civilians and to go home, which helps explain why he might do side quests rather than stick with just the main questline. Civilians Superman has to rescue in the Zone: Lois Lane, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Dr. Veritas, Ron Troupe, Dr. John Henry Irons, Dr. Hamilton, Bibbo, Dr. Hank Henshaw and his family, Commissioner Henderson, Captain Maggie Sawyer, Detective Turpin, members of the Newskids Legion, Morgan Edge, and other OCs or nameless civilians. Kal also meets Krypto, who was transported into the Zone by Jor-El in order to watch over the Fortress as its guard, in order to keep it safe so that Kal might one day reclaim it. Rogues: Some of Superman’s Rogues have been teleported to the PZ as well, and unfortunately they have their own plans for escaping the Zone, even if it means they have to kill Superman to do it.

Metallo: John Corbyn is a cyborg soldier that served in the US Army under Sam Lane and was created as the government’s Anti-Superman deterrent. After a fight with Superman in his early career left him crippled, he was bonded to a nanosuit that equips him with various weaponry capable of killing Superman. He believes Superman transported everyone there as part of a first strike against humanity. Parasite: A Lexcorp lab experiment gone horribly wrong, Rudy Jones is a science fiction vampire who needs to kill to sustain himself. He absorbs the memories and skills of whoever he kills, and he is able to transform his body into various weapons (think Alex Mercer from [PROTOTYPE] to know what I mean). He’s hunting the civilians to feed on and has his eye on Superman as well. Livewire: Leslie was a vlogger with a far looser code of ethics than Clark. Her “reporting” eventually angered the wrong people who attempted to have her assassinated. Instead Leslie ended up with powers over electromagnetism, and a grudge against Morgan Edge who she believes was behind the Intergang hit on her. Edge is her target but she doesn’t mind stepping over Superman’s corpse if she has to. The Terran (Terra-Man): Krypton wasn’t the only planet to discover the Phantom Zone. One alien race banished the immortal hunter known as the Terran, whose human name was Tobias before he was abducted by aliens who were interested in the potential of the human meta gene and wanted to experiment on him. Their experiment was a success and Tobias broke free, using their own weaponry to hunt them down and carve a bloody path across the stars. Eventually he was transported to the PZ and is now desperate to escape. Mr. Mxy: Who is this creature? Neither a human nor seemingly an alien prisoner of the PZ, Mxy engages Clark in a series of puzzles that reveal secrets about the PZ... and foretell of threats to come. Red Cloud: An enforcer for the Invisible Mafia, her only loyalty is to her boss Leone. Her identity is a secret from Clark for now and she intends for it to remain that way. Silver Banshee: Not every human teleported to the PZ was unchanged. Some reacted much more strongly to the Zone’s influence. One former human has now been twisted into the sinister Silver Banshee, driven insane by the whispers in the Zone and the alterations to her body. She poses a formidable threat to Clark in her current state. Xa-Du: The Phantom King and first prisoner of the Phantom Zone sent from Krypton. Zod claims he was insane even before he was sent here but his incarceration has done nothing to improve his health if so. Gleefully plotting his return to the real world, Xa’s only desire is to raise an army of super zombies with himself as their Necrogod ruler. His time in the Zone has given him control over the degraded Phantoms, and he can channel the energies permeating the Zone into a variety of attacks (basically he’s a space necromancer). His aim is to corrupt Kal-El and the Fortress and use both to travel to Earth and he will never stop hunting Kal. Non boss mooks for Clark to fight: Phantoms - Some of the inhabitants of the Zone have degenerated into the ghostly Phantoms, their only desire to spread their suffering to others. They have been so warped by the Zone they’ve become a part of it and are thus incapable of permanently dying. Shades - Much more powerful Phantoms, Shades retain some memory of their former lives and posses some of their former skills. They serve as the elite of Xa-DU’s forces. Shadowbreed - Native creatures of the PZ, these beings feed on the light of the SunStones and thus see Clark as a meal as well. They possess various animals of the PZ to attack and feed on him. Eradicators - Once these machines served House El in their study of this place acting as defenders. But time has eroded their programming and they now seek to destroy even the Last Son of their old House.

That's the basic of my pitch, I think it's a fairly manageable one that addresses a lot of the arguments you get from people about why a game "wouldn't work" or whatever.