#MADAM CHAR

[piratehunted]

[traincat]

hello traincat!!!! just recently gone through my spideytorch rabbit hole again. only now it is worse. and i’m actually considering writing fics about those two losers…

i LOVE your villain!peter fic, and i have seen a few other premise where peter is the Spider. but now its got me thinking and now i have brainworms of villian!johnny. i think of johnny and he will always be that sincere idiot that always puts others needs before his own. maybe if i break him enough mentally….. hmm decisions decisions….

thoughts?

also ur the bestest ever and i spent valentines giggling and reading your fics… i hate those stupid losers(i am obsessed with them…)

Thank you for reading my fics! I hope you had a good Valentine's Day. 💖

So it's my opinion that you can push pretty much any character into villain territory, you just need to figure out the right buttons to push. Some are admittedly easier than others. With Peter, for The Spider and the Last Spark, I had a very definite breaking point in mind. Spoilers for my own fic but the Spider's universe is a canon divergent version of 616 where, during Civil War, the Kingpin's assassin succeeds and murders both Mary Jane and Aunt May before Peter reaches the motel room.

This wasn't a totally original idea or anything. What If? Back in Black goes in a similar direction, killing off MJ, although its Peter is ultimately less successful than mine. I decided to kill off Aunt May too to completely strip Peter of any positive influence, including his own universe's Johnny, who died as a result of the attack he suffers at the beginning of Civil War.

I also took a lot of inspiration from What If? Grim Hunt, where Peter ultimately doesn't back down and decides to kill Kraven. (Notably my inspiration for his costume -- the black suit sans the mask -- was from Grim Hunt, and also his regular collection of slutty, slutty bathrobes.) The regular Grim Hunt makes a prediction via Madame Web that if Peter did kill Kraven, it would set him on a path where he wouldn't be able to stop killing, which is something Peter himself muses on in Spider-Man: Friends and Enemies. So I had a lot of canon information to use as a foundation.

(What If? Grim Hunt) "You killed someone." "I did that for you too!" Haha. Love him. What a freak. The other big thing I was considering with Peter was his personality flaws and how I could magnify those. Peter's big thing is responsibility, which on the flipside means he often assumes responsibility for other people. The ugly flipside here is control. Peter loves to be in control of a situation, and why wouldn't he? He's the strongest, fastest, and usually the smartest person in any civilian room he walks into. That's a big power rush. So take someone who is angry and grieving, who had that control stripped away from along with any positive influence in his life all in one night -- that's a powder keg.

(ASM #542)

Regret was a big factor for my Spider, too. Regret that he couldn't protect MJ, Aunt May, Johnny. Regret over his dead child. Regret that he didn't provide a better life for MJ when she was alive. My goal was to work from a place of pain and transform it into this little kingdom of control. Peter's not powerful enough to take over, say, the world, but he could take over New York and hold it as his own sovereign territory, especially with how broken the community was during Civil War, and especially with a big show of power, which was why I had him kill the Hulk. (Whether or not Peter could kill the Hulk in canon is a debate I'm not interested in. What's important is that Peter does canonically state that he's figured out a method to kill the Hulk, and I absolutely believe that he believes he could do it.)

So how do we apply this method to Johnny? It's a little bit trickier, because I don't have a clear breaking point in canon where I'm like, okay, if we shifted X, Y, and Z, I could see this being a springboard into supervillainy. Johnny is, at heart, an extremely kind and moral character. He's also not self-motivated the way Peter is -- Johnny functions as part of a team, and when he explores things on his own they tend to be hobby related, like racing and pop stardom. He's not usually an independent actor.

On the other hand, we can use that to our advantage. "If you break him enough mentally" sure, that works, but how are we going to do that? My first thought again is to strip the support system. I think Ben in particular has to go -- we see how Johnny spirals when he and Ben aren't on good terms. (Take "has to go" however you want for your individual context. I don't think it strictly has to mean killing characters off. I had to separate Flash from Peter in The Spider and the Last Spark and I had him lead the rebel army.) Reed and Sue, I think there's wiggle room. Is either of them a villain? Johnny's easily influenced by his loved ones, especially when he's young. If you want to play into his naivete, I think there's the beginnings of a villain route there.

Alternatively, we can play into the destructive nature of Johnny's powers. I talked a little about Claremont's take on the origin story recently, where Johnny absorbs the heat from the shuttle crash and then immediately goes Nova. The only reason Sue and Reed survive is that Ben covers them. But traditionally, Ben isn't rocky until a few moments after the crash. What if his own transformation hadn't taken place yet? Ben still covers Reed and Sue, but it's not enough, and Johnny accidentally kills his family. Add in the more modern Fantastic Four origin approach where the Four are held, at least temporarily, by the military, and you've got an isolated, guilt stricken Johnny who is facing his worst fear: being alone.

(Fantastic Four #214)

(Fantastic Four: First Family)

That's easily enough to break him. I think you could write a villain!Johnny based solely on this. But again, Johnny's not a very independent actor. So some kind of outside influence is immensely helpful. Another supervillain? Someone with other motivations who sees a deeply lonely, emotionally scarred young man with enormous power, and recognizes someone easy to manipulate? Would Johnny even care if he was being manipulated at that point?

Which brings me to the big thing with Johnny for me. What does Johnny want most in the world? He wants to be loved. And while I think a solo Johnny villain story is interesting, part of me is always a little bit committed to the idea of villain couple Peter and Johnny. (Which is what the Spider was clearly trying to swing in The Spider and the Last Spark.) Johnny, lost, directionless, craving the affection that Peter has to give in spades, and Peter, with the capability to be protective and devoted, but who also becomes infatuated at the drop of a hat. Peter, obsessive. Johnny, yearning. A huge hole in both of their hearts that's never quite filled. So yeah, why not take over the criminal underground? It's not like they have anything else to do on a Saturday night.

[tarnishedsilverjewelry]

hiii!! How are you? I wanted to request jealous Kuai Liang 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 literally anything with him

Jealous jealous boy

A/n: idk the hate behind Kuai as Scorpion, his character is still (I’d argue) pretty similar to him as Sub Zero?? He’s also still hot (pun intended) I’m also including my hc that the Lin Kuei bros are super tall (like 6’3” MINIMUM) he’s also good at communicating guys TRUST🙏

Warnings: slightly nsfw but nothing overly graphic, Johnny’s a flirt but what else is new, he’s also kind of a jerk, but that’s also not new, Kuai is trying to not burn him alive

“I’m just sayin’ you could be a star with a face like that!” Johnny continued with wide eyes. You giggled shyly and shook your head

“No, no I couldn’t! I’m not the social type..” Johnny laughed and rolled his eyes. “Come on! One scene is all you need for a modeling contract! All you gotta do is smile for the camera after that! I can show you some…poses.” The movie star continued, leaning in closer with a sly smirk

Your face reddened further, and you dropped your eyes down to your lap. In the light of Madame Bo’s restaurant your engagement ring glinted. Kuai Liang had gotten one for you to tie in your family’s more traditional wedding customs. Laying next to it on your finger was a simple metal band with your wedding date engraved into it

Kuai Liang had left for the bathroom some time ago, and left you alone with the Earthrealm champions. This included Johnny Cage. And Johnny was laying it on thick, trying to get you to model with him or be his next big love interest in a movie he fluctuated between the two constantly

You were normally civil with Johnny, however you were much quieter than him and his flirting, even if it was harmless (as the other champions insisted) it still made you uncomfortable.

Tomas growled at the sight, and looked for Kuai Liang. Spotting his brother in the corner talking to an old member of the clan, he could tell his brother was enthralled in the conversation. You were his sister for one! And clearly uncomfortable for another thing.

“Johnny, leave her alone. She is clearly uncomfortable.” He deadpanned, but the actor only laughed harder. “I don’t see a ring on your finger! Trust me if her husband tells to stop I will! Besides I may not know who she’s married to, but he’s not stopping me!” Johnny shrugged his broad shoulders with a good natured smile

Instead of speaking to Johnny again he turned to Bi Han he leaned over to whisper “Bi Han, look at how uncomfortable [Y/n] is. We should do something.” Bi Han looked up from his drink and his gaze landed on the sight of you.

You and Bi Han were not overly close even as brother and sister in law, but he would not take such disrespect to his family. Bi Han growled and stood from his seat, moving briskly to his brother “Brother. Master Fu.” He bowed in respect to his elder before turning to his brother. “Have you checked on your bride recently?” He asked quietly, before leaving to return to his seat.

Kuai Liang blinked in confusion, and turned his head to look at you. Quickly, his confusion turned to Anger at the sight of you and Johnny. Normally, the sight of you all red in the face and flustered was his favorite sights. He enjoyed teasing you and watching you turn red and bury your sweet face in his chest, but he certainly did not enjoy seeing Johnny cage nose to nose with you, clearly flirting with you

His first thought was to burn him to a crisp for even daring to try and flirt with you. His mind darkened and he seemed to enjoy the idea of claiming you over the actors charred corpse. Or perhaps claiming you while he bleeds out and watches.

Kuai Liang took a deep breath, hoping to gain some control of his fire abilities, the last thing he wanted to was burn your soft and delicate skin with his own hands

He practically ran over to you, glaring at him. He loomed over the two of you, casting a shadow over you both. Relief flooded your face when he appeared, and stood up so you could wrap yourself around him. “Woah man, relax! I was just playing, wasn’t gonna do anything! ‘Sides she’s married! I don’t dig married chicks” The actor backpedaled, scooting his chair back to his original spot

Johnny, noticing the glint of a matching wedding ring on Kuai Liangs hand, fully dropped his head and held his hands up in the air

Kuai Liang growled and said “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” With a finality, before dragging you away from Earthrealm’s champions. He settled the both of you in a dark corner, breathing heavily. “Kuai?” You asked gently, hands gliding gently up his thick arms

“Normally I enjoy seeing you do red in the face…but now I find I don’t enjoy seeing you do red because of that…mediocre actor.” He growled, struggling to not burn your soft hands. “Trust me I prefer you flirting with me too. Johnny just—“ Kuai scoffed loudly “You’re on a first name basis now?”

You giggled at him “He’s on a first name basis with everyone! Now will you let me finish?” Your husband nodded, eyes blazing. “Johnny just makes poorly hidden innuendos and tries to shove a camera in my face. You and I both know I don’t enjoy that. I’d much rather spend my time with you, okay?” Your hands left his biceps and cupped his face lovingly

Kuai Liang felt a peace wash over him, and his mind stopped spiraling. “I know. But I..I just saw how close he was and I..saw red. I guess. In my heart I know you wouldn’t respond to his feeble attempts to woo you. But…i didn’t.”

You smiled up at him with those pretty, pretty eyes and he felt the flames of anger extinguished. “I know, Kuai. But as a bonus..I kind of liked how you were acting. Is it bad to say it was hot?” The pyromancer chuckled “Oh?”

Turning a pretty shade of red, you nodded. “Jealously looks good on you,with my last partner I thought it was…unattractive. But with you it’s hot.” You admitted, burying your face in his chest.

Lovingly, Kuai Liangs hands rubbed along your curves and he crooned softly in your ear for most of the night, enjoying the way your face reddened

However whenever Johnny looked your way, he was met with heavy glares from scorpion that left him uncomfortable

[delta-gambit-au]

I was wondering, since I worked a lot on the details for the Rainbow Scourge, but most of them were lost because the character was so far away into the background of the outro, here is a close-up of this Darkner that terrorized Cyber World during its first cycles of existence.

Madame Tasque made a classification for it for her EXCEPTION catalogue. Here is what she wrote:

Handle: Rainbow Scourge Type: Renderfolk (Computer Graphics Software x86) Denominator: Guru Meditation EXCEPTION Core: Trojan Worm Threat: Level 5 (do not approach) Range: Omni Lair: Starlit Lake (Starless Landing) Timer: Every 144 Hours Marked for Termination: None (Queen wants it alive) Details: - Would assault uninhabited regions - Assaulted zones' data labelled as irrecoverable (charred) - Would consume other EXCEPTIONS erratically if found within range - Seen to disregard living Darkners unless threatened - Uncapable of communication - Extreme long-ranged powers - Elevated System Privileges - Usual scheduling priority protocols don't work on it - Program Segment Prefix garbled and inaccessible - Darkner casualties tied to collateral damage - Mindless (?) - PIPs detect strange whispering cries being emitted within an area of 1669 clicks around the subject

[pandanscafanfiction]

They really aren't 🤣😅

Big collab in the works... 😏😻📸

[ruumirmir]

Reprise of a rolling mist

Part 1 Part 2 (soon)

☽◯☾ Summary - You, the revered God of Healing and Mist, one of the oldest friends of Zhongli, are not one to be easily taken down, but alas, in the Archon war of brutal massacres, you can’t escape death for long.  ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Characters - Zhongli, (minor) Cloud Retainer, (minor) Madame Ping ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Tags - Zhongli x Reader || Gender Neutral || Angst || Eventual happy ending || Description of blood, violence, and fatal injuries || Mention of death   ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Word count - 1.2k ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Rumour◇ says - my first ever fanfic to be published on tumblr. In case you haven’t seen my previous post, please do! It has some context in it. I hope i did peepaw some justice,, as much as I love him, it was slightly hard to pin his personality down especially in this wild scenario. I’ll probably belt out the part 2 really soon cause I’m done with it, just gotta decorate the post lmao.

‎• ——————————————————————— The nearby corpse of a beast twitches once before falling still. The loud ringing in your head gets louder by the passing minute. Mouth set into a grimace, you roll onto your back and hack out a wet cough.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ It's hard to breathe with a gaping hole in your torso, still fresh and bloody. Your half-lidded eyes focus onto a speck of ash, floating up to melt into the night air. ‎  ‎

‎ ‎ ‎

The God of War doesn’t fear. No. He is the one who’s feared. And yet...

“No...”, Morax kneels there, watching his old friend, laid upon the charred grass.‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Your once lustrous hair, now melds into the soot-stained ground, tainted by blood and grime. Your breaths come shallow and short. For all the dust and debris left in the battle's wake, Mt. Tianheng had a pleasant breeze to offer.

His palm find its way to yours; cold to the touch. Fingers tighten around you, and the clarity slowly returns to your hazy eyes.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

The stench of burnt flesh permeates the air. His gaze lingers over the yawning cavity in your body; charred at the edges. From such a pair of gods, its not Morax who wields the power to heal and mend. It’s not you who possesses the energy to do so.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ And so. his hands tremble uselessly over your gut, or the lack thereof.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

His most trusted. His closest companion. His oldest friend... The one who shares countless memories with him. The one who had promised to do so for many more years to come.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

"M-morax," his name spoken like a sigh. The corners of his mouth twitch into a small smile. Your stomach flares in pain when you fight back a strangled whine. "I am... not your burden to bear amidst a battle."

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

He sits by you, pained. “Hush... do not strain yourself by talking.” You lie before him, bleeding.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

“O great Rex Lapis, won't you be kind? Won't you be wise? Renounce your lands and people? Spare us all a calamity from befalling those subjects of yours? It’s the least of your payment... for eons of slaughter caused by your hands”

A great many creatures had cackled, with many more swarming in. The seething mass of... beastly wasps, misshapen and overgrown, were all too eager for a massacre. A hivemind; disgustingly coordinated in brains and brawn. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

By the first rumbling of his meteorite that bombed over Mt. Tianheng, a familiar billowing mist had rolled forward to assist. Whether in your solid body, or a lashing mist, it was hard to quell the pyro gnats. ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

The grass is stained red by now.  He takes your hand and grips it tight, to his chest. You brush your fingers over his bruised knuckles.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ By the second rumbling of raining spears, Morax’s harsh orders had sent the adepti and yakshas scrambling towards the unprotected city of Liyue. . . . By the third rumbling of his shield molding around you... a flaming projectile had already shot clean through your torso.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

You need to fight to keep your eyes open.  From a simple flesh wound... what a joke. Your not the admired deity of recovery, just in name, are you?

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Your fingers twitch, tightening around his robes. "Help me sit upright..."

His sharp exhale falls upon your brows, and with the utmost softest touch, You’re pulled up against his torso. Your head sags against his shoulder, where you can feel the thick pool of sorrow under his skin.

"Please... I do not want to cause you more hurt," The words fall hollow from his lips. He holds you up gently, and you can finally focus on his face.  … where you’re met with a wet shine to his eyes.

"What... are you trying to do?" His mouth trembles downwards ever so slightly.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

But you... you break out in a rebellious smile, don’t you?

The pain is unbearable. And you laugh all the harder for it. Sweat beads your forehead, and your fingers dig into his arm when he presses into your stomach to slow the bleeding. You bite out a groan. It burns.

"Don't look at me like that Morax", you pant. "This... this is but child’s play for a healer of my caliber...."

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Yet, your life trickles out like the grains of sand in an hourglass, and your vision flickers. 

He wipes the blood off your lip, clearly vexed, "You are still yourself, I see. Even as you lay here, near death, you are still joking."

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

"Just... won’t you humor me one last time?" You rasp out, feeling faint. All sensations except the gritting pain have left already. "Lend me some energy- so my body can return to what it once was..."

"Because... I, the Healer God of Mist, am alone the revered one... who holds mortality at my fingertips..." your voice breaks towards the end, but you still flash a smile of dogged arrogance, don’t you? (There is nothing but a theory borne from your feverish thoughts.)

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

He gazes at you; minutes away from the end. The god who holds no regrets, who has not one ounce of fear in their voice. (You have never been more terrified of death, for you only know how to run from it.) With a melancholy rustle of feathers, comes another soft voice, "Ever so conceited, until the very end...”, Cloud retainer murmurs into the night.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

His skin glows alight, veins illuminated on his chest and arms. His gnosis ignites for your fanatical whims. It always did.  "How could I ever refuse you...?", his trembling voice, so quiet. You’re met with a familiar embrace.

‎ … ‎ ‎ ‎ “If mortals pray to gods in their time of need, who does a god pray to?”

Two drops fall to your neck, rolling away until they wet your clothes.

“No one.” His smile is soft, and voice raspy. “A god can only pray to himself... but, he may have hope in others.” ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Your body slowly starts to dissipate into millions of droplets of condensation that scatter into the air, where the wind blows parts of you away, and away. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ The soft tunes of a zither ring out into the air, permeating the atmosphere with a slow melody. An adeptus sits atop a nearby rock, her eyes downcast.

ah. ‘Ping's zither’, you sigh. ‘How kind of her.’

And he smiles through his tears.

Isn't it beautiful?

A great rolling mist dissolves into the air. With dust and ash in the air, it swirls and rises up and above. The wasted grassland is littered with thousands of droplets that shimmer like stars as the moonlight reflects off them. It is as beautiful. as it is empty.

On a night like this, Streetward rambler’s tune graces the wind, until her fingers bleed. Cloud Retainer sheds no tears, but know that she holds your memory well.

And you, Rex Lapis,

Morax,

you weep for me.

Taglist - @ainescribe ||  @theorchardcollective  || @flos-historia​ || @nightrayseishina ||  @thesparklingwriter

[trlcksterz]

Veggietales Au chars

Larry

Bob

Petunia

Madam blueberry (now called Madam blueburry)

Ichabezer

Mr nezzer

Archibald

Mr lunt

Aunt ruth

Jimmy

Jerry

Woah.. I have no clue who they are! they seem cool!!! And they look pretty!

// they look cool! <3

[stari-hun]

The Atlas : Scrapbook

The tone of the captions within the Atlas imply that narrator for them has a level of omniscience the newest one doesn’t have (1.4 patch and onwards).

[In Our Time], “The apostles got closer without making a sound. The apostles of heaven roared as the light shone through the hole. Many saw me off. It's time to make a choice.”

The text shows dialogue similar to a persons thought process, it's not similar to anyone who's present in the scene besides Druvis iii herself, but it is something she could've thought at another time. The CG here illustrates as Druvis iii fights our main characters. But it also shows the possible common thread/theme for reaching Insight 2. My theory is that Insight 2 is the peak of a character's power and introspection into themselves. In this scene she shows a Manus version of her Insight 2 outfit when she had chosen her path in life out of bitterness towards humans, and to go back in the Storm with the Manus. In 2.6 after seeing the Rowan twig still had a will to continue on underneath it's charring, Druvis iii decided to do the same and join Vertin to stop the Storm. This also shows the nature of people within the Manus as a whole as well, and how they can be people who started off friendly to arcanists then becoming a danger to them when they don't align to their own views.

[Tender Is the Night] shows the caption “What are these to those humans? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious.” It connects the conversation between Vertin and the Manus while directly relates to the scene happening at Sotheby’s house. It’s a nod to the [Player], directly addressing us as they mention Manus isn’t the only one curious about what humans truly value.

[Nouvelles et Textes pour Rien], “This is not even a punishment for her.”

The starting scene in Book 3, [Nouvelles et Textes pour Rien], shows Vertin's attitude and personality as a child. The entire book shows the reader and audience how she was apathetic towards authority, and unlike her peers (Matilda, Mesmer Jr, and most importantly, Sonetto) she didn't follow authority without reason. She follows Madam Z and Tooth Fairy because they helped her, and we see Tooth Fairy allude to on many occasions how she became a close adult figure to Vertin. Alongside Madam Z, they were the guiding forces in her childhood while teaching her how to be a functional person. We learn the most about Vertin's personality in this book, and in the opening scene as the first thing the book decides to show us about her is that silent isolation time isn't a punishment to her.

[El Oro de los Tigres], “Through the flourishing vines and leaves, people finally remember where she comes from.”

This is where we first see Druvis iii's insight 2 form after her leaving the Manus and her decision to live for the future. The text references Druvis's own dialogue and the manner she speaks in, but also references how Constantine talked about Vertin's group of refugee arcanists. Referencing how Constantine had referred to them as unenlightened and unrestrained arcanists behind her back before Druvis and the others proved how "unstable" arcanists truly are. Lilya also showed this nature in the chapter as she broke Vertin out of Laplace, notably as Mesmer Jr had a panic attack from the outburst of violence, the caption from [The Atlas] shows how arcanists are liberated by the use of their power.

Book 5, [The Prisoner in the Cave] captions “Cast off your shell, enter the silence. The answer you seek is within reach.”

The caption from [The Atlas] here mentions the answer Vertin seeks is within her reach, but not the truth. The answer to why the island was shrouded in mystery as well as the mysterious rules being enforced by arcane creatures, but not the truth behind the Storm.

[londonhalcyon]

Witchy coworkers! I was going through some of my old docs, and I found a tiny handful of unfinished Merula & Kathy snips that I had written just for fun. They have a delightful relationship behind the scenes.

* * * *

[July 1996]

“Sometimes,” she said, her voice a detached calm, “I want to burn the whole world down.”

Merula asked, “What’s stopping you?”

Leigh turned her head towards her. She blinked, as if seeing through a fog—however temporarily. “There are still some good things. Or one, at least.”

“Yeah? And when you lose that one good thing?”

“‘When’?”

“Good things don’t last.”

“I won’t let that happen. Not to this one.”

“Won’t make a difference.”

“I won’t.”

“Bad things happen regardless of what you want. Madam Bones—”

Leigh grabbed Merula’s tie, yanking her closer. Eyes fierce, her nails dug into Merula’s skin through her clothes. The whiskey was strong on her breath. “Don’t.”

Merula didn’t flinch. She didn’t fight back. There was nothing to fight. The girl was drunk and weak. She was a tiny bundle of reeds that barely reached Merula’s eye level. She wasn’t a duelist; she was a secretary. And she was grieving.

“If I have nothing else to live for,” she said hoarsely, “what good will the rest of the world do me?” She released Merula, and then she raised her wand. “Incendio.”

She said the word so calmly, in that same detached manner as before. A jet of flames shot to the nearest training dummy. Those flames burned white hot, so intense Merula could feel the heat from where she stood. And they kept growing hotter.

Leigh’s detached expression didn’t change once. Not as the dummy cracked and popped, spitting burning wood. Not as molten metal dripped onto the training mat, searing black holes through the fabric. Not as Merula began to tug at her collar, sweating uncomfortably beneath her robes. Not even as those flames flared a pure, vivid, brilliant blue.

Merula had only ever managed to make the base of her Fire-Making Spells blue—while sober, and that was at the peak of her concentration…or the peak of her rage. And Leigh was standing there, motionless, expressionless, while pure scorching blue flame reduced the dummy to a melted, charred stump.

She was panting when she stopped, beads of sweat rolling down her face. She wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand. Merula hadn’t been sure the girl was breathing until now.

Merula said, “Bugger me.” Now, she thought, might just be one of those rare—extremely rare—moments to reevaluate her prior assumptions. This woman could kill her, given the right motivation. Merula was certain of that.

* * * *

[A little over a year later, talking about their time in the Frog Choir]

“I have a little sister,” Kathy said, sounding congested. She wiped her nose. “You weren’t unfamiliar.”

“I was a monster,” Merula said, only half-joking.

“Oh, please. You were nothing more than a child. Temperamental, certainly, who’d had the misfortune of being taught that kindness is conditional and attention must be sought. You were insufferable, not incomprehensible. Hardly what I would call a monster.”

“You still had to suffer me.”

“Yeah, but it’s easy to forgive you for it now. You’ve grown up into someone bearable.”

* * * *

[Part of the same conversation; I have no idea what Merula says before this]

“That’s what my therapist says.”

“You have a therapist?” Merula asked.

“My brain is held together by Spellotape and antidepressants. She prevents it from being more banjaxed than it already is, bless her.”

[plunderherz]

I'm starting to take Lina Ramann really seriously. She is the first to have a very sharp view of things. Why is that hardly the case with the Liszt biography???

Because she had to adapt it to the taste of the time?

Here are a few quotes from the conversation with Carolyne, which, thanks to the other biographers, I always thought was pretty terrible. Here she is very human and tangible, just like Liszt himself:

In the evening.

She now tells me. Today she unrolled for me a picture of Parisian life and Zeitgeist in the years 1827-35: SO hair-raising, born out of the abyss of passions, so ambitious and yet SO animalistic,that horror and disgust oppress my mind, and the abyss of night into which I have gazed, and at the same time the light heights of striving cloud me like a chaos of infinity, swirling around me to the point of physical dizziness. And yet the mists disperse, leaving behind an understanding of things that is not unlike an unsealing of life. - My d' Agoult chapter still needs a lot of rewriting. The Countess was not an honest woman, any more against Liszt than she had been against her husband. Anyone who could ever understand how to tell her life truthfully would have to write moral scandal history. But she too was a child of her time. Justice demands that we say so. The last word she addressed to Liszt was telegraphed in 1865 [1864?] after the death of Prince Nicolaus von Wittgenstein [March 10th 1864], who released the Princess. The latter, however, believed that all the obstacles to her marriage to Liszt were "God's will to renounce" and persisted in doing so. The telegram from the Countess now read:

"Vous êtes refuse - venez dans mes bras.

Marie."

Liszt read it and handed it to the Princess, who also read it and placed it on the table in silence. A candle was burning then too - L. loved to char the telegram on it"

And later:

Today she let me look again into a world that made me "brrrr".

D'Agoult, George Sand -: genius and meanness in the latter, talent and meanness in the first one. She spoke on Alfred de Musset as well. Unfortunately Lindau is right, G. Sand himself told Liszt the well-known story and concluded with the words: "He could also have creped to death. We were so amused with each other!"

[The famous-infamous story that George Sand had sexy time with de Musset's doctor while he was very sick - side note by me ;)]

Only a God-born genius could, in the face of such moral disturbances, as they affected Liszt- today seen as contemporary air, pioneers and healthy reactions against rotten and immoralised social conditions, tomorrow as the exalted extravagances of brilliant poets and artists- hang on like this. The Princess claims: without those influences, Liszt's sexual willpower would have developed stronger, more resistant, with his innately and naturally healthy concepts of morality. I had to add, however, that the extraordinary excitability of his temperament was predominantly dependent on the creative power, just as the receptivity for grace, beauty, wit and spirit of women was predominantly dependent on the poetic direction of his imagination or was connected with it, and that neither that time itself nor its standard-bearers could be exclusively charged with it: they gave out the slogan for unleashing the passions and elevated them to the mysticism of ideal glorification. This was their error and the curse of their heresy. The Princess also held the view that Caroline St. Cricq would have been the feminine being who, as his wife, would have protected Liszt's youth from such influences, which I also deny: he would then have had a completely different natural disposition - he would have become a Carlo Dolce of music, not a "Liszt" The Princess knew Liszt's first pure, holy love, the future Madame d'Artigaux. The two women were on friendly terms, corresponded, visited each other in Paris and Weimar, and remained in contact until the latter's death. She showed me a photograph of her: Madonna-like!"

Quite apart from the fact that once again the blame lies with everyone else than the male youth, very astonishing! Poor unfortunate souls, @franzliszt-official & @chopinski-official . Your tender spirit has been corrupted by wicked women. Come into my arms 😅🙈 I am pretty...nice and...chaste..and stuff...

Sadly, Lina hardly gives us any gossip in the biography ;) A pity!!!

[bestworstcase]

some thoughts—messy ones—abt this beat:

this moment gets brought up with… honestly surprising regularity when people want to make a point about cinder being -redeemable- because she is, obviously, freaked out here. and like i don’t disagree that this scene and this specific beat in particular is doing really critical work to set up cinder’s villain->hero arc (not redemptive) but i do think “see! she’s repulsed by his wanton brutality!” is an odd and kind of reductive way to parse what’s happening here bc

that

is

a

grimm

thats a grimm. cinder reveled in the mass hysteria and violence she authored at the fall of beacon, personally reduced ozpin to a charred smear on the floor, and murdered a seventeen year old child in cold blood and gloated about it later. her first and only coping mechanism for Feels Bad is Killing People. it sparks joy. but she can’t stomach the sight of her coworker mauling a grimm.

ok? context is important. zoom out—

this is how salem’s training her—trying to train her—to mastery of the grimm arm. just throwing grimm at her until she reflexively falls back on her human arm, and then drops.

enough. i thought you were the girl who wanted power. stop holding back. if you want to master your new power, you must—

enter tyrian. and then for the whole dialogue between him and salem cinder gets framed like this:

folds hands.

the point of this scene is that cinder did lie to salem; she is not The Girl Who Wanted Power. what did she tell rhodes after she killed the madame? “i won’t have to run now.” she wants a home. she wants to be safe. she wants freedom. she believes—because the world has never given her a reason to believe otherwise—that becoming powerful is the only way she can ever get what she wants. but she does not, per se, want power.

and salem does not understand this because cinder has hitherto been very careful to keep her true motivation hidden, primarily because the last time she showed vulnerability her quasi-parental mentor immediately drew on her and shattered her ability to trust into a billion itty bitty pieces. cinder is, throughout this scene, very careful not to let salem see any of the stricken or pleading looks that the audience gets to see.

stop holding back.

tyrian interrupts when he does because salem can’t see through the mask cinder has presented to her (and is frustrated because she therefore can’t understand why cinder is being so timid with the phenomenal power she used to, it bears repeating, literally wipe the floor with ozpin)—and because what cinder takes from all of this is that salem wants her to be more brutal, like tyrian. there’s a reason cinder starts practicing on illusory rubys after this and why she’s frustrated and confused by salem’s judicious tactics in V5.

see? the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning; the scene is mirrored and tyrian is the looking glass. this:

is the guilt later renewed as horror:

there’s layers to cinder having this empathetic response to grimm when grimm are subjected to violence. obviously part of it is that cinder herself is grimm, at least in part, and that identification is conspicuously made present in the scene—

—but it goes beyond that. “you turned yourself into a monster just for power”/“look who’s talking.” think about how tenderly cinder says “shh, this is your home now” to the wyvern in V3. grimm are not the monsters in cinder’s story; they never have been. the abuse she suffered from her own kind was so horrific and unrelenting that it engendered a sense of kinship with the grimm. before she got that arm she was stitching grimm markings into the sleeves of her dress.

but insofar as this beat and this scene is integral to cinder’s nascent villain->hero arc the load-bearing pillar here is the contradiction between cinder’s notional aspiration (power) and her true motivation (freedom safeguarded by power), and the way her identification with and empathy for the grimm are tied up in that and the manner in which she tries to give salem what she thinks salem wants from her (i.e. be more like tyrian). which all comes back around with this ->

notably in 8.6 salem not only recants her harsh treatment of cinder since cinder returned but also reverses the things she says to cinder in 4.11. “i thought you were the girl who wanted power […] then stop holding back” -> “you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back instead of lifting you up.”

basically the rivalry between cinder and tyrian pulls a lot of symbolic weight because what tyrian represents vis-a-vis the salem-cinder dynamic is their shared misunderstanding of each other; salem accepts the ruthless power-hunger at face value and cinder reads into salem’s frustration a desire for cinder to be more brutal and both of them are incorrect. the framing of the disciplinary/apology scene in 8.6 communicates the shifting paradigm in part by adjusting his prominence in the composition of key shots before and after the pivot. and then salem sends him away to babysit the c-lister in vacuo.

point being the narrative development toward cinder’s villain->hero arc is also the narrative development toward salem’s villain->hero arc because they are structurally interdependent and constructed as a set; they’re meant to happen together and because of each other. that’s the trajectory. also cinder is keeping the arm and salem is not getting ungrimmed thank you goodnight

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

some supporting chars for TJ

*edited to change some minor details about Kent that have been bugging me lol

they work at a dungeon/bdsm club called Category 9

bonus:

slightly nsfw talk below

There is a nude version of this pic, which i'll post at the end. i'm pretty sure it's allowed per site rules since it's just nudity without arousal etc. but idk if the kink involved changes things...

Anyway

TJ doesn't work at CAT9 but he likes to help out w/ setting up equipment because he's a nice boy.

Madame Maypole has the most equipment (toys, machines, etc.) so he has a good rapport with her.

He is friendly with Kent but doesn't know him super well, but Kent also ends up being TJ's first time alone with a man (he's been in threesomes before though).

Sir, idk if TJ knows well or at all, since he mostly does stuff for the ladies, though he is willing to work with men occasionally.

TJ has def played with Madame Maypole and been plowed by Kent, though, at least once.

Bits:

I included naked Sir but really he doesn't ever take his clothes off at the club so... it's not necessarily relevant

Kent is hung yes

fortunately, TJ is kind of a size queen

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

WEBCOMIC DIRECTORY

Half the reason I created this tournament is so I could find new webcomics to read, and I know a bunch of you are following it for the same reason.

So: Here is a directory of every webcomic that was submitted!

Please note that this list is Very Long, so (1) I have not read most of these webcomics and can't vouch for their content, and (2) I have not tested any of these links, but I can fix any errors if you point them out.

Comics are listed in alphabetical order, with the featured couple(s) or poly ship(s) in parentheses. Broken into two parts because Tumblr only allows 100 links per post and there are 140 comics.

180° Angel (Sam and Lilith)

2 Slices (Ruka and Rio)

A Week in Warrigilla (Hazel and Willie)

A&H Club (Adrian and Hildegard)

Alice and the Nightmare (Edith and Quinn)

Alien Heart (Ivy and Rosa)

Always Human (Sunati and Austen)

Balderdash (Georgie and Afia)

Band vs Band (Honey Hart and Turpentine)

Blindsprings (Ember and Irelia)

Boyfriends (Jock, Prep, Nerd, and Goth)

Bugtopia (Arachne and Scarlet)

Burn Away (Abella and Edie)

Charity Case (Sylvia and Jerry)

Circuits and Veins (Ai and Aki)

Console Her (Claudia and Ava)

Cucumber Quest (Almond and Peridot; Piano and Ametrine)

Cursed Princess Club (Nell and Jolie)

Dame Daffodil (Charo and Alesea)

Daughter of the Lilies (Lyra and Margot)

Dead Winter (Lizzie and Alice)

Dicebox (Griffin and Molly)

Dirt Creek Runs Red with Blood (Ines and Sarepia)

Dom&Mor (Dominique and Morgan)

Dresden Codak (Kimiko and Elith)

Drop-Out (Lola and Sugar)

Dumbing of Age (Becky and Dina; Jennifer/Billie and Ruth)

El Goonish Shive (Ellen and Nanase; Catalina and Rhoda; Diane and Lucy)

Eldritch Darling (Ina and CJ)

Encore! (Quinn and Hana)

Ennui Go (Izzy, Darcy, and Tanya)

Errant (Sarin and Jules)

Facing the Sun (Aarya and Liza)

Finding Wonderland (Alex and Lucky)

Flowers For the Arsonist (Lucia and Paige)

Four Leaf (Carla and Lina)

Gals (Croix, Sam, Lux, and Charlotte)

Ghoul Crush (Sison and Laguna)

Girly (Otra and Winter)

Glitterlaced (Goldie and Luck)

Go Get a Roomie (Roomie and Lillian)

Guide to the Land of Monsters (Arnatuk and Tove)

Gunnerkrigg Court (Kat and Paz; Zimmy and Gamma)

Hard Lacquer (Claire and Robin; Claire and Petra)

Heartstopper (Darcy and Tara)

Heir's Game (Sevilia and Ilianna)

Her Tale of Shim Chong (Shim Chong and Madam Jang)

High Class Homos (Sapphia and Odette; Sapphia and Marla)

Homestuck (Rose and Kanaya; Calliope and Roxy; Vriska and Meenah; Vriska and Terezi)

How to Be a Werewolf (Marin and Marisa)

I Love Amy (Amy and Bibi)

I Want to Be a Cute Anime Girl (Cheryl and Delilah)

I'm the Villainess but the Heroine's Trying to Capture Me (Nelly and Nancy)

In My Heart (Wantanabe Yuki and Sasaki Mari)

Isadora (Isaline and Theodora)

It's Okay to Like Girls (Sophie and Olivia)

Kidd Commander (Phineas and Agatha)

Kill Six Billion Demons (Allison and Ciocie Cioelle)

Kiss It Goodbye (Aruka and Yukimi)

Lady of the Shard (Radiant Goddess and Acolyte; Radiant Goddess and Old God)

Lesbiampires (Daphne and Veronika)

Lore Olympus (Athena and Hestia)

Mage & Demon Queen (Malori and Velverosa)

Matchmaker (Kimmy and Marlowe)

Missing Monday (Foyle and Monday)

Monsters and Girls (Lili and Sera)

Motherlover (Imogen and Alex)

Moving In (Jackie and Riley)

Muted (Camille, Nyra, and Dendro)

My Dragon Girlfriend (Dani and Christie; Callie and Olive)

My Sweet Archenemy (Mad Spade and Miss Sunshine)

My Wish Is to Fall In Love Until You Die (Shiina and Mimi; Seiran and Ari)

Namesake (Selva and Alice)

Nano List (Chacha and Zavi)

Never Satisfied (Neith and Isra)

Nevermore (Lenore and Annabel Lee)

Night Owls and Summer Skies (Emma and Vivian)

Not So Shoujo Love Story (Rei and Hanna)

Octopus Pie (Jane and Marigold)

Offbeat (Beau and Julie)

On a Sunbeam (Mia and Grace; Alma and Char)

On Borrowed Time (Rune and Dielle)

Osora (Celia and Catalina)

Remaining links in part two!

[gatheredfates]

🖊

Seelu knows she will eventually go insane.

It is not a question of if, it is a question of when.

There was a choice she was presented with when she first encountered the 'stranger' with the bleeding heart; a darker knowledge that, though she did not quite understand it's greater machinations, told her that pledging herself to it would free and doom her both.

Was she not already doomed? She did not know her home among the trees; she had been passed down through occupational force to occupational force like well-worn trinket, weighed and traded like gold. She was fed, clothed and bathed, but what of that was a life? Half of it she saw from the bars of an iron cage rattling aimlessly down charred paths - 'the men will be pleased to see you', said whatever madame or lord held sway over her - and it was all she could do to be comforted by the sheer vacuum of space that lay in the gaps of stars.

Somewhere, there was nothing. For it wasn't like she wanted to vanish, she simply wanted to have nothing happen to her at all.

When he promised that to her, the chaos and the stasis - the power and insanity - she took it without a second thought. She clawed her way to freedom bloodied and beautiful, but she was alive. 'You will see unimageable horrors,' he tried to warn her, but she saw them already. 'You will find shadows in the edges that aren't there.' But she would also see the stars.

What he should have told her was that he would never let her go. She was his first mistake, a 'kindness' from a creature who did not know the word. He would bring her back again and again.

Even when he shouldn't.

Even when it was wrong.

Even when he had to realign her skull himself. Even when she opened her eyes, a cosmos of floating lights, blinded by his gift.

He will not let go. But she will go insane.

[edupunkn00b]

Just Like Magic, Chapter 9: Find

Prev - Find - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ]

From Chapter 8: Seek

A twig snapped behind them and they both turned. In the path forged by their footsteps lay a long branch from the tree, as thick around as the boy’s arm and taller than Logan. “That wasn’t there—” Logan began, looking back at the child. The boy was gone. “Hello?” he called, belatedly realizing he did not even know the child’s name. “Whe—where did you go?” It’s yours… the wind answered back.

A blacksmith’s hammer clanged, punctuated by a distant gate's slam, cracking the forest’s hush. Janus crept closer to the edge of the woods and peered between the branches of a twisted fir. The stench of burning nearly overpowered him.

Nothing remained of Logan’s old house. Save for the scattered, charred stones of his hearth and chimney and something that might have once been a window ledge, there was little evidence a house had once stood in its place. Acrid smoke drifted up from the embers of his roof, the sticky tar that had held together the mis-matched thatch work still giving off heat.

Cassian and his brute squad must’ve set the fire after they’d woken from Janus’ spell and discovered Logan had escaped. The stonework was stained with oil, likely an accelerant. The blaze must’ve been incredible. Stretching out from Logan’s house at least a dozen feet, soot mixed with snow. But the border of ashy black around the home was sharp as it neared the woods, and the trees even at the edge closest to the fire remained healthy and untouched.

Stroking the nearest branch with a chant for continued health and a whispered thanks for its protection, Janus stepped clear of the forest, each footstep quieter than the last.

But he wasn’t quiet enough.

“Done already with the aborrito?” A woman’s voice creaked from just beyond the rubble. Hands and skirts black with soot, she’d been crouched in the ruins of what had once been Logan’s home, picking through for anything of value. “Or was it too old for you to fully corrupt?”

“I assure you, madam,” Janus inclined his head and stood with one arm outstretched, palm up and empty. Even in what he hoped was a non-threatening pose, he kept his staff planted in the earth. “I have done Logan no harm.” A fire that rivaled the one they’d set sparked in his chest and he could not stop his tongue. “Which is more than I can say for the harm this village has done to him. He will not return to you.”

She spat—loudly—at his feet. “Your kind can keep the aborrito just like you’ve kept all the others.”

Ignoring her ill-mannered expectorate, Janus stared, heart pounding in his ears.

There are no mages in the South.

“Others?” He repeated. “What ‘others?’”

Eyes narrowed, the old woman tapped her forehead, then her chest in that befouled Southern curse. “My little boys. And the miller’s daughter a few years after them. The Dark Wood’s took ‘em all. The aborrito hid what it was for a long, long time.” She gazed past his shoulder, nodding.

Too late, Janus realized he’d let himself become distracted. Shuffled steps and cracked knuckles announced the presence of a crowd behind them.

“Still, it managed to lead you here. One more bit of demonic filth for us to scour from the good earth.”

Janus let his other hand fall as he turned, raising his staff. Bearing sharpened metal and blunt farm tools, the men who’d gathered at Logan’s door circled him. Janus dug his heels into the ground and inhaled slowly, pulling in latent energy from the earth. “Go home,” he said, eyes flicking over the crowd before landing on Cassian. “You’re not going to get what you want out of this.”

“Oooh, is that a threat?” Cassian said, laughing. He turned to the lackey at his side, the one who’d rebuked Logan last night. “Did this little mage threaten me?” He grinned, hard and cold as the blade in his hand.

Energy coursed through Janus’ veins and he tightened his grip on his staff. The air crackled around him and those closest shuffled back. “You do not want this fight, Cassian.”

“Cowards!” he snapped at the more cautious among his men. Still, his voice held a quaver he couldn’t quite disguise. “Don’t let the wizard’s tricks scare you. This one’s already been sentenced to the sulfur and the fire.”

Janus held firm. A frightened brute could be more dangerous than a truly brave one.  He watched as the men grew strength from each other. It was only then Cassian lunged forward, drawn blade held low.

Sweeping the ground with his staff, Janus side-stepped the charge. With a bang, blinding sparks leapt up from the earth.The three men closest to him fell, hands over their faces muffling their cries.

Cassian hesitated, turning the blade in his hand. Janus watched wisdom and bravado war in his eyes.

Bravado won. “I’ll have your head for that!” he spat.

“Come and take it, then.”

Cassian ran at him but Janus was faster. More weapon than tool, he flipped his staff up, catching behind Cassian’s left foot. He dropped to the ground, hard. The lackey jumped at Janus next, followed by another few of his crew.

Chanting, Janus drove his staff into the soil. Fire shot up around him, catching two of the men. The rest backed off. But not Cassian.

He pushed up to his feet, favoring one leg. “I was going to let you die quickly,” he growled, eying the flaming ground. “You won’t be so lucky now.”

“Neither will you,” Janus muttered, then raised his staff over his head. He chanted, drawing up energy from the dirt and roots beneath his feet, from the sun and the stars above and beyond their reach. His circle of fire leapt into the sky, licking at the few men still standing.

The fine fur lining Cassian’s boots caught fire and he howled. He and two of his friends kicked dirt at them, smothering the flames. Janus used the moment of inattention to slam his staff back into the ground. Fire and smoke shot out.

And Cassian fell.

The lackey dragged him away before the flames could consume him. Janus watched their retreat then let the flames die.

“You fear the wrong fires,” Janus Called out for the entire village, feet rooted. “I will raze this town if any other mages in your midst come to harm.”

The magic of his Call roused the injured, including Cassian. He met each of their eyes in turn, then spun on the spot, scanning the distance. Aside from the woods, his was the only magic as far as he could see.

He grieved the loss of the three souls this village had deemed mages and the countless more slaughtered before them. And though he could do nothing about the past, Janus would damn himself before he let another be harmed by their hand.

“I shall take my leave but you will see me again,” he promised, then turned back toward the forest. The crowd, once glowering around with clenched fists, shrunk from him, leaving Janus a clear path. Cassian’s lackey tugged at his arm, pulling him away. But as he bent to draw Cassian back, the man’s dagger fell.

With a roar, Cassian scooped it up and flung it toward the woods.

Magic and energies spent from the fires and his Call, Janus was too slow to stop the blade before it plunged into his flesh.

Slow, but not powerless. Muttering a spell to try to staunch the bleeding, he pulled out the dagger and turned. Eyes closed, he whispered to the blade, “Versus, rectus, volare.” ( Fly true, fly straight, fly now. ) He released the blade and it shot back out from between the trees. The mens’ cries and Cassian’s burbled final sounds told him the blade had found its mark.

Leaning heavily on his staff, Janus pressed hard against the new wound above his hip. Blood already soaked through his woolen tunic and down to his boots. He followed the sound of the melting creek and limped back to camp as a soft snow began to fall.

~

Tiny sparkling flakes flitted down between the trees, giving the mahoe bough an impossibly bright glow. Logan stepped closer and bent to pick it up. The wood gleamed in his grip, bright blue light—the color of the luminarium he’d sent last night—spilled out from beneath his hands.

It’s yours, the wind whispered again. More than a single voice this time.

Tearing his eyes from the bough that would become his staff, he scanned the forest. He could see no-one but he didn’t feel alone. “Thank you,” he answered aloud. “My name is Logan,” he added, then waited, hopeful. For what, he wasn’t entirely sure.

Cursing his own foolishness, he started back when happy laughter wrapped around him. We know.

As he hiked back to their campsite, the snow grew heavier, enough reaching through the thick branches to begin to coat the meagre path in front of him. With a chuckle, he nodded and, holding the bough in one hand, tread carefully through the underbrush to retrace his steps back to camp to show Janus what he’d found.

What he’d been given.

He hadn’t simply hallucinated the child, had he? Other than the vague sense of company as he'd walked, he had no evidence he’d actually encountered a small child impossibly alone and unafraid in the Dark Woods. A child impossibly familiar.

Logan shook his head. That’s all this was. He himself had been anxious treading so deep into a woods he’d spent most of his life hearing was inhabited by evil. He’d simply imagined someone so very similar to his old friends as a crutch for his fragile courage. That explained the familiarity in his laughter, explained the ease Logan had felt in the child's presence. The child's pretend presence.

Cheeks burning at how easily he’d fooled himself, Logan walked a little faster, the crackle of ice in the creek guiding him back to his teacher. The wind picked up and a fresh burst of snow cut between the trees. He clung to Janus’ cloak, grateful for its crafting—both the sturdy weave and the magic surely stitched within.

As he neared the bend in the creek that meant their little camp wasn’t far, he hefted up an armful of dried fir branches. Without his cloak to warm him, Janus no doubt was keeping the fires brightly lit. Logan intended to return with more warmth than he’d taken with him on his search for a staff.

Blanketed by clouds thick and heavy with snow, the sky had darkened and Logan kept his eyes up, seeking out the glimmer of flames that would mean camp was near. But the horizon remained dim and it wasn’t until he’d stumbled into their little clearing that he noticed their fire had gone out.

And just beyond the cold fire circle, his earlier vision came to life. Janus, sprawled face down on the ground, tunic and pants stained in rusty red.

[g-girlshavingfun]

December Prompts

30) Spiral stairs - Rachel & Townsend

Set between Cammie and the girls’ graduation and Rachel and Joe’s wedding, Townsend is met by Rachel when he arrives to take Abby out for dinner on her birthday. (4,870)

———————————————————————

It had been a good day.

After countless years of not seeing each other on either of their birthdays, of brief phone calls and delayed gifts, Abby’s layover between assignments had overlapped nicely with her 35th and so she had spent the day with her sister in the dilapidated framework of their second home. Cammie was scoping out Georgetown with her friends, Joe was holed up in the depths of Langley in the process of reverting his death certificate, and Townsend had been stuck in an MI6 debrief until that morning, so it had been just the two of them all day. Feeling like teenagers again, like little girls, they had spent the day roaming the fallen walls and collapsed classrooms of their childhood, reinfecting the limestone with their laughter, restaining the woodwork with their chatter. They had talked endlessly, Abby armed with news on Macey’s Secret Service application, on the latest Baxter drama, on the gossip leaking through the walls of Langley; Rachel countering with updates on the welfare of Matthew’s parents, on Cammie’s plans for Georgetown, on her ever imminent nuptials. A thin shining of tears had touched their day ever so briefly, the unavoidable topic of Matthew never failing to squeeze both their chests tight, but they had pushed through it with typical Cameron determination, banishing the grief from their voices and relighting the mansion with love.

Now, they had taken residence in the remaining walls of her office, one of the few rooms on the upper levels to remain somewhat upright. Rachel was curled up in a charred armchair rescued from Madame Dabney’s classroom, laughter tickling the back of her throat as her sister’s voice trailed through the walls, a mocking imitation of Joe’s reaction to Abby’s suggestion of a stag night making her heart sing.

She felt light. She felt weightless. She felt as though she could float away in her contentment.

Then she spotted a car pulling in to park beside one of the white tents decorating the school grounds and felt the joy die a little in her chest.

“Townsend’s here.”

Through the temporary plastic sheets she had installed to keep the rain away from what was left of her furniture, she eyed the man as he stepped out of the rental town car and climbed through the rubble that was once the schools grand entranceway.

Her little sister popped her head around the corner from where she had been getting ready in the bathroom. “Can you stall him for a bit? I still need to battle with my dress.”

“You just want to make a grand entrance.”

Abby shrugged coyly, whispers of a smirk dancing at her lips. “Maybe a little.”

She disappeared behind the bathroom door before Rachel could offer up any further protests, humming along to Stevie Nicks as she went.

A fond smile crept its way onto her face.

After Matthew went missing, the two sisters had seen one another sparingly, brief meetings over coffee or wine in-between Abby's seemingly never ending assignments. When they did find the time to catch up, Rachel would be struck by how much less her sister seemed. How the sparkle in her eyes had dwindled slightly, how her quippy remarks had become thick and slow, how the strings of assuredness that had held her shoulders up her entire life had been cut. Guilt and grief and loneliness had smothered something so bright in her sister, just as it had torn at Cammie’s heart and squeezed tight round Rachel’s ribcage and pressed hard on Joe’s shoulders, and some hidden part of her had been terrified that she would never see the sister she knew again. That she would become as lost to them as Matthew was.

Recently though, just as Cammie had starting smiling wholeheartedly again and the air had reentered Rachel’s lungs and the weight had fallen off of Joe’s back, the sunshine had returned to Abby’s eyes. Her laughter was once again loud and free, words light and quick, smile wide and shining. The weight of the past few years had been stripped away from her skin and left a glowing shine in its wake. Annoyingly, she looked closer to 25 than to the 35 she now was.

As much as Rachel knew this change was largely thanks to time, to the long searched for secrets of Matthew’s disappearance finally being revealed, to the ongoing dismantling of the organisation responsible for their family’s pain, she also had to acknowledge that a big part of her sister’s resurged happiness came from the man who just arrived.

With that in mind, she uncurled herself from the comforts of the armchair and made her way out of the office, aging bones creaking as she went. Though she had spent the day staunchly ignoring the ramifications that Abby’s increasing age had on her own, the ache in her muscles and the stiffness of her joints were harder to ignore. Descending the spiral staircase that had to be used in place of the collapsed grand stairs situated just past the Hall of History, the protests her knees let out were loud and outdone only by the cries of her back. Not only was her baby sister all grown up, but her daughter, her actual baby, was suddenly a legal adult in a serious relationship and preparing to go to college in the fall. Rachel had never felt older, and her body was making that known. Still, she smoothed any sign of discomfort and weariness off of her features when she saw Townsend approaching the staircase under the gleam of the evening sky, painting her face instead with steely scrutiny.

The man offered her a nod in greeting. “Rachel.”

His entire demeanour was a stark contrast to her sister, who enjoyed making an entrance, who enchanted everyone she met with a bubbly smile and a tangled web of words, who danced in and out of rooms with an aura that made the lights follow her as she moved. They were abnormal characteristics for a spy, most preferring to blend into the background than go out of their way to stand out, but Abby had long since learned how to use her attention-demanding presence to her advantage. On the other hand, Townsend appeared to materialise out of nowhere, stoic and foreboding in stature, concise and purposeful with his words. Rachel could see how their differences could work well together in the field, had experienced first hand how much easier Abby’s carefully crafted diversions made slipping between the shadows she left in her wake. More than that, she could see how their differences might compliment one another outside of espionage, his solidness taming her natural erraticism, her bounding heart livening his tempered indifference.

Loath as Rachel was to admit it, she could see how he was good for her.

“She needs a few more minutes.”

A sigh wreaked through him. “Of course.” Despite the glimmer of humour on his lips, the affection she could see lingering in the corner of his eyes, her gaze became sharp at his words, the beginnings of a glare starting to form on her face. Wisely, he chose not to say anything more.

In the resulting silence that hung between them, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, Rachel assessed the man who had come to steal her sister away for the rest of the evening.

Adorned in a well fitted suit, matching black hair well combed and styled, he almost disappeared into the gloom of the evening. Sun sitting low in the sky, half hidden behind the clouds of the day passed, it cast only the faintest of lights upon his chiseled face, most of his features hiding in the shadows. Even as he lifted his head back to gaze up at where she paused a few steps up on the staircase, bathing himself in what little was left of the daylight, it was only the deep blue of his eyes that made itself known against the dark backdrop of the fallen mansion. Abby had never had great taste in men or women personality wise, but Rachel had to admit that all the men she dated, Townsend included, were unfairly handsome. In her harshest moments she would blame it on vanity, but truthfully her sister just attracted good-looking men like naive moths to a burning flame.

His hands were empty. It would’ve been the first thing Matthew noticed, and it would’ve enraged him. Her late husband was the type to turn up to every date with a bouquet of flowers in hand, one in each if he was picking her up from her family home. Daisies for her, lilies for her mother, and he once bought Abby a cactus just to make her laugh. Joe was far less traditional in that sense, but the few excursions he’d taken her on that she supposed could’ve been called dates, he had come armed with a singular carnation, a bottle of wine, a necklace.

In Townsend’s defence, when Rachel tried to imagine him presenting Abby with a bouquet of roses or an extravagant piece of jewellery, she could only picture the twisting of her sister’s lips, a frown creasing through the lines of her forehead, a lecture on heteronormative gestures rooted in misogyny brewing on her tongue. Although they were both stubbornly independent, resolute and equal in their stances on feminism, Rachel still swooned slightly at classic romantic gestures while Abby was much more likely to go out of her way to open her own car door just so a man couldn’t do it for her. Perhaps it was a good sign that Townsend had learned that about her already.

Scrutinising his face, Rachel couldn’t quite work out what he was thinking. He didn’t appear bothered by the stretch of silence, but the tightness of his face and the tension in his shoulders and the forced stillness of his feet suggested that he wasn’t entirely comfortable either. He ground his teeth together slightly, jaw locking, and flickered his eyes around her. A nervous tick?

Good. It was only right for her sister’s boyfriend to be a little wary of her, a little intimidated. Healthy even.

Bearing that in mind, Rachel pulled back her shoulders and angled her chin towards the ground slightly, looking down on him from her elevated perch. Her narrowed eyes caught the slightest gulp of his throat, the slightest stiffening of his shoulders, and she had to fight back an amused smile. Townsend’s age and experience clearly made him less easily cowed than his son, who had quivered under a singular raised eyebrow when she had enquired about his intentions with Cammie, but they still looked remarkably similar as they cowered beneath her glare.

“Where are you two heading?”

His voice betrayed none of the intimidation she could read from his stance. “There’s a new Thai place up by the Marina.”

“Thai’s nice.” Rachel had heard only good things about about the restaurant he was referencing, and she knew it was well suited to her sister, so she gave the man a reluctantly approving nod. Still, he clearly didn’t know Abby as well as he thought he did. “Piece of advice, Abs likes Italian.”

The look Townsend gave her was long, contemplative. Some of the tension he carried melted off of him as he cocked his head ever so slightly to the side and assessed her in their shared silence. Rachel’s nose twitched. Her skin felt itchy. She didn’t like the sensation of being analysed at the best of times, but something about his particular inquisitive stare made her slightly nauseous.

“Italian makes her feel sick.”

It was blunt. It was a matter of fact. It was an unambiguous statement read off a report.

It didn’t make sense.

She could cast her mind back to her childhood home, her little sister slurping down endless bowls of pasta. She could remember the early years of her and Matthew’s relationship, of her then-boyfriend stealing Abby away from Roseville on a Saturday afternoon for authentic pizza in an attempt to butter them both up. She could still taste the seafood platters, the Carprese salads, the rosemary focaccia the sisters had shared as their lives stretched into adulthood.

At her continued silence, her unwavering doubt, Townsend’s eyes softened into something sickeningly like pity and dangerously like blame, gaze averting away from hers as the guilt began to creep up on her.

Rachel tried to picture her sister indulging in Italian cuisine anytime in the past few years and came up short. Not since Matthew disappeared. Not since Rome.

She pushed down the sickening feeling in her chest and hurriedly changed the topic before the heat in her skull moved behind her eyes. “What about tomorrow?”

Hesitantly, he gave into her probing, despite the multitude of international laws he broke in doing so. “Yerevan. The Middle East is still pretty unstable in light of recent events. We’ve been asked to consult on a mediation meeting between the Presidents of the countries involved.”

Townsend’s collected and measured nature probably made him well suited to mediation. Despite being quick tempered and cutting when it came to his own dealings, their fight last winter in front of half of her student body coming to mind, he was fair and pragmatic when it came to external disagreements. The only qualities of a good mediator which he lacked, namely charm and general likability, Abby made up for in spades.

Still, international relations wasn’t either of their specialities, so there must've been representatives available more qualified to the task. If Rachel had to guess, the two of them were being sent partly as a tactic to intimidate the world leaders into compliance, they were two of the agents responsible for bringing down the organisation that sought to destabilise the region after all, and partly for their backgrounds in protection. With the level of disarray in the Middle East at the moment, further assassination attempts were not unlikely, and should one be successful during a meeting mediated by the West, the political environment would become even more complicated. Rachel was willing to bet that Abby and Townsend had been tasked with this assignment under the assumption that if an attempt was made on any of the world leaders’ lives, both of them would jump in front of the bullet without hesitation.

The realisation made her bones feel a bit weaker, made her knees tremble in place, made her stomach tie itself in knots.

Though the explosion that ripped through The Gallagher Academy had torn her home apart, it had also pieced her heart back together. Once the shattered remains of that night had been picked up and carefully dealt with, Rachel had been left with her entire family, small as it was, safe in her arms. Her daughter was finally free of the terrorist organisation that had been hunting her for years, could finally relax again and enjoy the rest of her childhood before starting college in the fall. There was a new ring on her finger and Joe’s steady hand wrapped around hers, the feeling of warmth and love and home returning to her after so long. Abby still took assignments sure, but they were relatively short, tame, and spaced out, her sister finally trying to make time for the people that needed her, that wanted her before throwing herself back into her job.

For a few short months, Rachel could breath easy. But now Abby was going back to what she loved and Joe was legally alive and allowed to leave the vicinity of the school grounds and Cammie was going to be an agent with the CIA. She didn’t think she would ever breathe easy again once that happened.

“The ongoing tension must make that trip pretty dangerous?”

Though she tried her best to hide her anxiety behind a guise of curiosity, Townsend appeared to see see straight through her, her plastic expression and glass voice betraying her once again. He shot her his best attempt at a reassuring look, nodding solemnly at her. “We’ll be fine.”

Rachel wasn’t particularly worried about we, and they both knew it, but she supposed it was kind of Townsend to pretend that her fears weren’t so transparent.

Suddenly feeling like the upper hand in this interaction had slipped and fallen where she didn’t want it to land, Rachel squared her shoulders and gave the man another scrutinising look, glaring at him until his teeth ground together once more.

It was a nervous tick then. She wondered if he knew about it.

Towering over him still, she moved stepped down a singular curved stair, the narrowed space between them tight with suspense. A growl hid in the depths of her voice, the stern warning caged within it fraught with preemptive anger. In spite of all his training, Townsend flinched back slightly at her sudden intensity, leaning back on his heels for a moment to distance himself from the heat in her eyes before he recalled his skills and righted himself, shoulders back and torso out in a poor impersonation of confidence.

“When Cammie was little, Abby liked to play this game with her where she’d hold her upside down by one ankle and swing her around a bit. She’d even hold her over her shoulder and go around the house asking if anyone had seen the squirt. Cam loved it.” When Rachel closed her eyes and held her breath, she could still hear the ringing of her baby girl’s laughter echoing through her head, her delighted little screams and breathless giggles. “I love Abby, and I trust her completely, but she was holding the most precious thing in the world to me, so it always made me nervous.” A light of understanding started to spread across the man’s face, his muscles sagging under the weight of his realisation then immediately tensing again as she leaned further towards him. “This one time, she tried throwing her up in the air and catching her by the leg. Obviously her hand slipped, and Cammie would’ve smacked her head on the carpet if Matthew hadn’t been close enough to catch her.” Townsend winced slightly, and Rachel’s breath became somewhat shaky, both the memory and her fear making her uneasy. “I love Abby, and Cam was fine, but in that moment I still could’ve killed her.”

Her unspoken words were loud. You, I don't love, I hardly care about you beyond what you mean to my sister. If anything happens to her, if she’s ever not fine, it will be your fault, and I will kill you for it.

Townsend remained tense as he nodded, still eyeing her warily as though she was going to descend the rest of the stairs and attack him if his response didn’t suit.

Maybe she would.

“I love Abigail too, Rachel.” It took a lot of self-restraint not to blink in shock at his words. Not because she doubted them, Abby had a unique talent for making people love her much faster than they planned to, but because of the intensity and the ferocity with which he breathed them to life. “If anything happened to her, if I hurt her in any way, you couldn’t hate me any more than I would hate myself.”

He looked like he meant it, like he believed his words with every fibre of his being, but he was wrong. If what he was saying was true, it would mean he loved Abby more than Rachel did, and she knew without a doubt that that wasn’t possible.

As it were, his statement just grated on her like a sharpener, twisting her insides until her face, her words, her voice were all stretched into the fine point of a knife. “You’ve hurt her before.”

Between them, an apparition of the woman in question appeared. Pale and hurt and tearful after a long assignment, a failed operation, a heartbreaking battle of words. Abandoned in a hospital bed by the man she had slowly started to give her heart to.

A kaleidoscope of emotions swept across his face. Anger. Regret. Guilt. Pain. She watched them all rise in waves and crash into the beach of his features, dissipating into the sand of his skin as quickly as they grew. Carefully, he cleared the confliction from his expression, soothed out the marks and indents that the crashing water had left on his face. He gave her a slow nod. “We’ve hurt each other plenty, yes. Neither of us want to do that anymore.”

Once again, Rachel was struck by the realisation that her little sister was all grown up.

Warning still lodged in her throat, thickening her voice as it slipped out of its confinements, she put a piece of her heart on a plate and handed it to him. “She’s not as tough as she thinks she is.”

She spends every one of Matthew’s birthdays in tears. She takes anything negative you say to her to heart and lets it stew there forever. She would take all of her loved one’s suffering on herself and let it crush her if she could.

His eyes were warm, and his smile small but kind. For the briefest moment, he looked a little like Matthew, a little like Joe. He looked like someone she could trust with her sister. “I know Rachel. I do.”

All of a sudden, the rhythmic sound of heels clipping against the solid oak of the spiral staircase echoed along the limestone walls, and Rachel watched as she ceased to exist in the man’s eyes.

Pupils darting away from her, both widening and darkening in a single breath, his gaze latched onto the sight of Abby descending the spiral stairs. In the reflection of his eyes, she watched as the remaining beams of sunlight in the sky, the temporary bulbs installed throughout the mansion, and the first gleaming of the night’s stars all rearranged themselves to shine only on her sister, casting the rest of the world into darkness so that Townsend had no choice but to beholden her.

She chuckled slightly at his stunned expression, at the way his jaw dropped ever so slightly. He paid her no notice. She didn’t exist.

Rachel shifted to the base of the stairs, stepping to the side of Townsend and turning to watch her sister make the grand entrance she not-so-secretly desired. Forest green satin clung to the curves of her legs, elongated by the glittering silver heels which adorned her feet, and swept it’s way up her torso into a deep cowl neck. The flesh of her chest and arms and one of her legs was confidently on display, and Rachel could hear Townsend’s breath hitch slightly every time her steps revealed the long slit carving its way up her right side. Sitting prettily around her neck was a simple silver chain with what looked like constellation charm dangling from it, twinkling in the dimmed light almost as bright as Abby’s eyes.

Rachel didn’t recognise the necklace. Perhaps he had bought her jewellery after all. Perhaps she liked it more than Rachel would’ve thought.

“Wow.” She arched an eyebrow at his shaky whisper, the word that slithered out his mouth without thought. Either the man wasn’t as good at dealing with jet lag as he ought to be after a career of international travel, or he was entirely spellbound and struck stupid by the sight of her sister descending the stairs. He quickly shook himself out of it, subtly clearing his throat and feigning a glance at his watch. Less observant women would’ve missed the way he stuttered as he corrected himself. “How. -How after 35 years have you never learned what a schedule means?”

Abby just beamed at him, smile so bright it cut through the hazy gloom that hung over what used to be the entrance hall.

Rachel shifted on her toes, suddenly feeling out of place in the school and with one of the people that had always felt like home.

Once Abby reached the final step, she reached out to fiddle with Townsend’s perfectly done tie, loosening it from its knot and skewing it slightly to the side. The grin she shot him was cheeky, tempered with an edge of softness that Rachel didn’t recognise from her sister. “You don’t look too bad yourself.” Then she grabbed his tie firmly and yanked him closer to her, their height difference even with her in heels meaning his eyes met hers dead on. “Never call me 35 again.”

“Abigail I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are in fact-” Abby surged forward to press her lips to his, and Rachel awkwardly averted her eyes, shifting her feet to take her further away from the couple. A few moments later, she heard Townsend’s breathlessly croaky voice alert her that it was safe to turn back around. “Never mind.”

Her sister’s laugh rippled across what remained of the mansion, the creaks and moans of the rubble lightening up to sing in tune with her. She hopped off the final step, one of Townsend’s hands moving to take hers and the other unconsciously drifting to adjust his tie, fixing it with a few instinctual movements of his fingers.

Something uncomfortable grew in her chest when Abby moved to depart the school without looking back, her fingers tangled in Townsend’s and her head tilted towards his. It was rough and sharp against her lungs, heavy against her sternum, like the cactus Matthew had once bought her sister, she mused.

It was the first time Abby had looked to any partner before looking to her, the first time she had been an afterthought in her sister’s mind. It was unfamiliar and cold and strangely lonely. It was ridiculous. She was just grown up now, she was in love, she was happy. It was everything Rachel had ever wanted for her little sister, so it made no sense for the realisation to stifle something in her, to twist her organs and tug on her ribs and burn the backs of her eyes.

She wondered if Abby ever felt like that when Rachel met Matthew. When she fell in love with Joe.

Searching deep inside the inferno that was her throat, she managed to find her voice enough to croak a small protest. “Hey.” Immediately, Abby spun on her heel and shot her an apologetic smile, releasing Townsend’s hand and throwing both her arms around Rachel’s neck in a crushing hug. The uncomfortable growth settled into something soft, something warm. Suddenly, she was 22 years old and wishing her sister good luck at her new school. She was 28 and sending her off on her first CIA assignment. She was 42 and saying goodbye as she left the safety of Gallagher with a healing bullet wound in her shoulder. As Abby ducked her nose into the crook of Rachel’s neck, she breathed the slightest of whispers into her baby sister’s ear. “Happy birthday.”

The responding whisper was equally gentle, equally quiet, a tiny breeze of air against the hairs around her ear. “Thanks Rach.”

“Have fun. Be safe.” Feeling the smirk forming against her neck, the giggle building in her sister’s throat, the lewd innuendo dripping from her tongue, Rachel gave her another tight squeeze in warning. She wasn’t referencing tonight and they all knew it. Even though Abby was an exceptional agent, the world of espionage was one where any assignment could be your last if you weren’t careful; Rachel would never not feel afraid sending her little sister off to an unknown fate. Looking up slightly, she eyed Townsend with renewed ferocity. He gave her a stern nod in return, in agreement, in a silent vow, and the air returned to her lungs just long enough to breathe out a whisper. “See you in a couple weeks.”

Abby pulled back and morphed her face into a seriousness that didn’t suit her. “Promise.” Once the solemn nod she gave was returned in kind, a grin reformed across her features, a wink and a teasing tone accompanying her words. “How are you and Wise Guy gonna get hitched if I’m not around to officiate?”

Rachel could only roll her eyes, a small part of her regretting her and Joe’s decision. Unfortunately, it was the only way to resolve the argument of whether to make her a bridesmaid or a grooms-woman, Joe making the fair argument that he didn’t have many other friends and Rachel resolute in her standing that Abby was her sister.

Sighing through her wry smile, she pressed her forehead to her sister’s in farewell, a touch more emotional than their usual goodbyes, both of Abby’s hands held tightly in hers. “I love you Abs.”

“Love you too.”

With that final whisper through reddened lips, eyes clogging and throat thick with emotion, Abby freed herself from Rachel’s grasp and turned away, taking Townsend by the hand and leading them both towards the car. Just before he turned to follow her, Townsend caught Rachel’s eyes and gave her one final smile, one final nod, one final promise.

She’ll be fine.

Rachel found herself believing him.

———————————————————————

Authors note:

My longest instalment yet (Abby is my fave and her relationships with these two are so important to me), featuring a shovel talk, undeniable simpery, and the terrifying ordeal of realising you might not be your sister’s favourite person anymore.

Arguably more of Rachel&Abby and TownsendxAbby than Rachel&Townsend, but literally what else are these two going to bond over.