#Magnet(ic Fluid)

[titaniumions]

type of stuff LSCC cryptographers get up to when no one's looking

[martianbugsbunny]

I have at last accepted that every now and then I simply go through a Johnny Weir phase. There is no stopping it, no controlling it. I must watch every video of him skating that appears in my YouTube feed. And then it will be gone as quickly as it came on and the urge to watch Johnny Weir will lie dormant until the next time it chooses to make a mess of my free time and my recommended section.

[acesofspadess]

Winter Wonderland 🎄

12 days of Mix-Mas // Day 5

Carlos Sainz x reader

warnings: smut!! power-play, dom!Carlos but also sub!Carlos, cursing, pet names, oral (m receiving)

summary: a cosy day ice skating and drinking hot chocolate turns into so much more

The sun dipped low on the horizon, casting a golden glow over the frozen lake. It was a pristine scene, the ice shimmering like a sea of diamonds beneath the soft embrace of twilight. You tightened your scarf, the crisp winter air nipping at your cheeks, as Carlos emerged from the nearby chalet carrying two pairs of skates. His grin was as warm as the hand he offered you.

“I know you’re not much of an ice skater,” he teased, his Spanish accent curling around each word, “but I figured tonight would be the perfect chance to learn.”

You raised an eyebrow, eyeing the skates warily. “You want me to embarrass myself in front of you? That’s your grand plan?”

Carlos’ laugh was deep and rich, filling the icy expanse around you. “Embarrass yourself? Never. I’m here to catch you, amor. Always.”

With a little coaxing and a lot of laughter, you found yourself lacing up the skates and wobbling to your feet. Carlos, ever the gentleman, extended his hands to steady you as you ventured onto the ice. His movements were fluid and confident, a stark contrast to your shaky, tentative steps.

“How are you so good at this?” you asked, clutching his hands tightly.

“I’m good at many things,” he replied, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Maybe by the end of tonight, you’ll let me teach you a few more.”

The promise in his voice sent a shiver down your spine that had nothing to do with the cold. Determined to rise to the challenge, you tried to mirror his movements, only to stumble spectacularly. Carlos caught you with ease, pulling you close against his chest. His laugh rumbled through you as he steadied you once more.

“You’re a fast learner,” he said, his breath warm against your ear. “But maybe we’ll keep the spins for next time.”

The hours passed in a blur of clumsy falls and unrestrained laughter. Every time you hit the ice, Carlos was there to pick you up, his teasing always laced with affection. As the stars began to pepper the darkening sky, he led you off the ice and back toward the chalet.

The interior was cozy and inviting, with wooden beams and soft, ambient lighting. A fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting flickering shadows across the room. Carlos guided you to a plush couch in front of the fireplace and handed you a steaming mug of hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon.

“This,” you said, savoring the first sip, “I can handle. No falling involved.”

Carlos settled beside you, his gaze intense yet playful. “You think I’d let you fall?” he asked, his voice low. “On or off the ice?”

You met his gaze, your heart thudding in your chest. The playful Carlos you’d spent the evening with had shifted, his teasing giving way to something deeper, something magnetic. He set his mug down and reached for yours, placing it gently on the table beside you. His hand lingered on yours, his thumb brushing over your knuckles.

“You trust me, don’t you?” he asked, his voice a soft murmur.

You nodded, your breath hitching as his fingers traced a slow path up your arm. “Of course I do.”

His lips curved into a smile that was equal parts tender and commanding. “Then let me show you how much that means to me.”

Carlos leaned in, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that was both gentle and demanding. His hands framed your face, his touch firm yet reverent. The heat of the fire paled in comparison to the warmth spreading through you as he deepened the kiss, his control unwavering.

He guided you back against the large plush couch, his movements deliberate and unhurried. Every touch, every kiss was a testament to his restraint, his need to savor the moment. His hands roamed over you, mapping every curve with a confidence that left you breathless.

“Carlos,” you whispered, his name a plea on your lips.

He pulled back just enough to meet your gaze, his dark eyes burning with an intensity that made your pulse race. “Tell me what you want,” he said, his voice firm yet velvety. “Say the words, princessa.”

Your cheeks flushed, the weight of his gaze making you feel both exposed and cherished. “I want you,” you admitted, the words trembling with vulnerability.

Carlos’ smile twisted into something darker, more demanding. "Good," he murmured, his hands resuming their relentless exploration. His fingers gripped your hips firmly, pulling you flush against him. "You’re mine tonight. Every inch of you. Do you understand?"

The authority in his tone sent a thrill coursing through you. "Yes," you breathed, your voice trembling with anticipation.

"Say it," he commanded, his lips grazing the sensitive skin at the base of your neck. "I want to hear you."

"I’m yours, Carlos," you replied, the words tumbling out without hesitation.

"That’s my girl," he growled, his teeth lightly nipping at your shoulder as his hands roamed lower, claiming your body with a confidence that left you breathless. Every touch was deliberate, a masterful blend of possession and pleasure. He knew exactly what he was doing, driving you to the edge and holding you there, teasing, controlling, until your pleas filled the room.

"Please," you whispered, your fingers gripping his shoulders. "Carlos, I need—"

He cut you off with a kiss, firm and commanding. "You’ll take what I give you," he said against your lips, his voice low and authoritative. "And you’ll love every second of it."

But then, his movements slowed. The dominant fire in his eyes softened just enough to reveal something else—a vulnerability that made your heart ache. He leaned back slightly, his hands cradling your face as his thumb brushed your cheek. "Tell me you want this," he said, his tone quieter now. "I need to hear it."

"I do," you assured him, your voice steady. "I want all of you, Carlos."

His control faltered for a moment, his dark eyes flickering with emotion. "Then take what’s yours," he murmured, his voice almost pleading as he guided your hands to his chest. "Make me yours too."

You felt the shift, the balance of power tilting as Carlos let go of his dominance, surrendering to your touch as he flipped you both over. His breath hitched as your fingers explored, tracing the lines of his body with the same confidence he’d shown you. For a moment, he was yours to command, his submission as intoxicating as his control had been.

"You drive me insane," he admitted, his voice ragged as he let you take the lead. "But I wouldn’t have it any other way."

The firelight flickered over his features making him all the more attractive. You placed kisses down his chest, then his abs. You purposefully ignored the prominent bulge and kissed his thighs. “Amore, don’t tease.” He panted and you chuckled. “Whatever you say, mi amore.” You mouthed over the bulge that was straining against his boxers hearing him moan breathlessly. You finnaly gave in, freeing him from the boxers and watching as his dick slap against his lower stomach. “Cariño please.” He begged. You skipped the teasing any longer and took him into your mouth. The throaty moan he gave was pure pornagraphic and you kept your eyes on him as you bobbed your head up and down his shaft. “Mierda, princessa, so good for me.” His hand not holding his head up came to wrap in your curls, slightly forcing you to increase your pace.

His pants were coming out quicker, and his moans were more frequent. You let both of your hands trail up and down his abs that flexed under your touch knowing how much it turned him on. “Fuck, amore. Gonna take it like a good girl?” You could taste how close he was. You hummed around his cock in agreement which made his hips thrust and send him over the edge, spilling down your throat. His hips thrusted and abs flexed as his head was thrown back and the hand in your curls squeezed deliciously.

And when he finally came back to his senses he pulled you back up to him, his hand gripping the back of your neck, Carlos reclaimed his dominance, flipping you both over again and sealing it with a kiss that was raw and punishing, leaving you breathless. "You’ll always be mine," he murmured against your lips, his voice a dark, rasping promise that sent a shiver straight down your spine. "Say it."

"I’m yours," you gasped, the words tumbling out as he slipped into you. Thrusting up ever so slightly. His eyes burned with an intensity that made you feel stripped bare, wholly consumed by the force of his will.

"Good girl," he growled, his hands resuming their firm exploration, claiming you inch by inch while his cock did wonders to that growing sensation inside you. His mouth followed, teeth grazing over sensitive skin, leaving marks that would remind you tomorrow exactly who you belonged to. "You look so perfect like this, trembling under me," he whispered, his tone a mix of pride and hunger.

Your voice wavered, "Carlos... please."

He let out a low chuckle, dark and commanding. "You don’t beg me, amor. You take what I give you. Or have you forgotten?"

Each deliberate move he made set your nerves alight, every word spoken like a challenge to keep up with his unrelenting pace. But just as your head fell back, his demeanor shifted. His control wavered, and for a fleeting moment, you saw vulnerability crack through the surface.

"You drive me insane," he admitted, the words strained as he leaned back slightly, his hands cradling your face. "But I need to know this is yours too. Say it again," his voice softer now, tinged with a need that felt deeper, almost fragile.

"I’m yours, Carlos," you replied, your voice steady despite the intensity of his gaze. "And you’re mine."

"You’ll always be mine," he repeated, his voice hoarse yet unwavering, as the firelight danced over his face and your entwined bodies. It was a promise, a vow, and an undeniable truth.

When you finally lay together in the aftermath, the fire casting soft shadows over your entwined bodies, Carlos brushed a strand of hair from your face and pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead.

“Te amo,” he whispered, the words a vow as much as an admission. “Tonight, and always.”

You smiled, your heart full as you nestled closer to him. “Te amo, Carlos.”

Outside, the snow continued to fall, blanketing the world in quiet serenity. Inside, wrapped in Carlos’ arms, you felt the kind of warmth that no winter chill could ever touch.

[estapa-edwards]

MEDIA GIRL - L. HUGHES

paring: Luke Hughes x fem! reader

word count: 2.4k

requested? yes - luke falling in love with the media girl at the new jersey devil and finally asking her out

warnings: use of y/n. multiple pov

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I've been working closely with the Devils for the past couple of years, crafting content, capturing moments, and sharing the team's journey with fans around the world. It's a job I love, immersed in the world of hockey and surrounded by passionate individuals who share the same love for the sport.

One player, in particular, had caught my eye since he joined the team – Luke Hughes. As a rising star defenseman, he commanded attention on the ice with his skillful play and undeniable charisma. But it wasn't just his performance on the rink that intrigued me; there was something about his infectious smile and genuine personality that drew me in.

As the seasons passed and the rhythm of the hockey calendar dictated our lives, Luke and I found ourselves drawn together by the magnetic pull of our shared experiences. It was during those moments in between the action, the quiet lulls amidst the chaos, that our connection began to deepen.

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During interviews, our conversations would often veer off course, wandering into topics far beyond the scope of the game. Luke's genuine curiosity about my life outside of the arena was both surprising and endearing. We swapped stories about our childhoods, our favorite movies, and our shared love for good food. It was during these impromptu exchanges that I discovered the layers beneath the confident exterior of the hockey star – the insecurities, the dreams, the quirks that made him undeniably human.

Promotional shoots became an opportunity for us to explore our creative sides together. Whether we were brainstorming ideas for social media campaigns or striking poses for team merchandise, there was an undeniable synergy between us. Luke's playful nature brought out the best in me, inspiring me to push the boundaries of my creativity and embrace the spontaneity of the moment.

And then there were the social media campaigns – our bread and butter in the digital age of sports marketing. As the social media coordinator for the Devils, I was responsible for crafting content that resonated with fans and showcased the team's personality both on and off the ice. Luke, with his infectious energy and natural charisma, was the perfect partner in crime. Whether we were filming behind-the-scenes videos, hosting live Q&A sessions, or engaging with fans on Twitter, our dynamic duo captured the hearts of Devils fans everywhere.

But amidst the whirlwind of interviews, shoots, and campaigns, it was the quiet moments in between that I cherished the most. The stolen glances across a crowded room, the shared smiles that spoke volumes without a single word exchanged. It was during those moments that I felt the walls around my heart slowly crumbling, giving way to the possibility of something more than just friendship.

And as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, I couldn't shake the feeling that Luke Hughes had become more than just a teammate or a colleague – he had become a permanent fixture in my life, a constant presence that I couldn't imagine living without. 

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As the final buzzer sounded, signaling the Devils' hard-fought victory on the ice, the arena erupted into a cacophony of cheers and applause. Luke and Y/N found themselves caught up in the swell of excitement and emotion, the electric atmosphere pulsating around them like a living, breathing entity.

Y/N's heart pounded in her chest as she watched with bated breath, her eyes fixed on Luke as he skated across the rink, his movements fluid and graceful, his arms raised triumphantly in the air. In that moment, he was more than just a hockey player – he was a hero, a symbol of strength and resilience in the face of adversity.

"That was incredible," Y/N exclaimed, her voice tinged with awe as she watched him bask in the glow of their win. The pride swelling in her chest was palpable, a surge of emotion threatening to overwhelm her as she realized the magnitude of what they had accomplished together.

Luke flashed her a grin, his eyes shining with adrenaline-fueled excitement. "Thanks, Y/N," he replied, his voice filled with genuine gratitude. "I couldn't have done it without your support."

Y/N felt her breath catch in her throat at his words, her heart skipping a beat as she absorbed the weight of his gratitude. It was a simple acknowledgment, a fleeting moment in the grand scheme of things, but to her, it meant everything. It was validation – validation of her hard work, her dedication, her unwavering belief in him and the team.

"You're welcome," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'll always be here to cheer you on, no matter what." Her words were a promise, a pledge of allegiance to the man who had captured her heart without even realizing it.

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It was during one particularly intense game that everything changed. The Devils were down a goal with minutes left on the clock, tension thick in the air as the crowd held its breath. In a dramatic turn of events, Luke managed to score the tying goal, sending the arena into a frenzy of cheers and applause.

Amidst the celebration, our eyes met across the crowded arena, a shared moment of triumph and exhilaration. And in that instant, I knew – I was falling for Luke Hughes.

But as the game ended and the crowd began to disperse, doubt crept into my mind. What if I was misreading the signs? What if our connection was nothing more than professional courtesy? I pushed the thoughts aside, focusing on the task at hand as I followed the team to the locker room for post-game interviews.

It was there, amidst the chaos of the locker room, that Luke sought me out. His eyes were bright with excitement, a victorious grin playing on his lips as he approached me.

"Hey, Y/N," he said, his voice filled with genuine warmth. "I just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work. That goal wouldn't have been possible without you."

I felt my cheeks flush with heat, a rush of emotions swirling inside me as I met his gaze. "It was all you out there," I replied, my voice barely above a whisper. "You played an amazing game."

Luke smiled, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he leaned in closer. "Hey, do you maybe want to grab dinner sometime? You know, to celebrate the win?"

My heart skipped a beat, the world around us fading away as I processed his words. Luke Hughes, asking me out on a date? It felt like a dream come true.

"Um, yeah," I stammered, a smile spreading across my face. "I would love to."

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LUKES POV

Luke Hughes sat in the locker room, his mind swirling with thoughts of the game ahead. The adrenaline coursed through his veins, his heart pounding with anticipation. But amidst the excitement of the upcoming match, there was another thought that lingered at the back of his mind – Y/N.

From the moment he first laid eyes on her, Luke knew there was something special about Y/N. It wasn't just her beauty or her infectious smile that drew him in; it was the way she carried herself, with a confidence and grace that was impossible to ignore. And as he got to know her better, he discovered that beneath the surface, there was a kindness and warmth that made her truly captivating.

As the seasons passed and their paths continued to intertwine, Luke found himself drawn to Y/N in ways he couldn't explain. There was a magnetic pull between them, a natural chemistry that made every interaction feel effortless and meaningful. Whether they were working together on promotional shoots or sharing moments of quiet camaraderie in between interviews, Luke felt a connection with Y/N that went beyond words.

But it wasn't just her professional prowess that impressed him – it was her passion for the game, her dedication to her craft, and her unwavering support for the team that truly captured his heart. In Y/N, Luke found a kindred spirit, someone who shared his love for hockey and understood the sacrifices he made to pursue his dreams.

And as he sat in the locker room, preparing to take the ice with his teammates, Luke couldn't shake the feeling that Y/N was more than just a colleague or a friend – she was someone he could see himself building a future with. But he also knew that crossing that line was fraught with uncertainty and risk. What if she didn't feel the same way? What if their relationship changed the dynamic of their team?

Luke Hughes leaned against the wall of the locker room, his heart pounding in his chest as he stole a glance at Y/N across the room. She was engrossed in conversation with a colleague, her laughter ringing out like music in the air. For a moment, he hesitated, his mind swirling with doubts and uncertainties. But then he remembered the way she had looked at him during the game, the spark of excitement in her eyes as they celebrated their victory together. And in that moment, he knew – he had to take a chance.

Pushing himself away from the wall, Luke crossed the room with determined strides, his heart racing with nerves as he approached Y/N. As he drew closer, he could feel the weight of his words hanging in the air, a lump forming in his throat as he struggled to find the right thing to say.

"Hey, Y/N," he said, his voice slightly shaky but filled with genuine warmth. "I just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work tonight. That goal wouldn't have been possible without you."

Y/N looked up at him, her eyes shining with surprise and gratitude. "Oh, it was nothing," she replied, her voice soft but sincere. "You played an amazing game out there."

Luke smiled, his confidence growing with each passing moment. "Listen, I was thinking," he began, his words tumbling out in a rush of excitement. "Would you maybe want to grab dinner sometime? You know, to celebrate the win?"

As he waited for her response, Luke felt a surge of nervous energy coursing through his veins. What if she said no? What if he had misread the signs and made a fool of himself? But then Y/N's face broke into a radiant smile, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"Um, yeah," she stammered, her cheeks flushing with color. "I would love to."

A wave of relief washed over Luke as he took in her words, a wide grin spreading across his face. "Great," he said, unable to contain his excitement. "How about tomorrow night? I know this great Italian place downtown."

Y/N nodded eagerly, her smile widening with each passing second. "Sounds perfect," she replied, her voice filled with genuine enthusiasm.

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The soft glow of candlelight bathed the cozy Italian restaurant in a warm, inviting ambiance as Luke and I sat across from each other, our conversation flowing effortlessly like a river winding its way through the night. From the moment we arrived, there had been a palpable energy between us – a sense of anticipation that hung in the air like a promise waiting to be fulfilled.

As we sipped on glasses of red wine and savored bites of delicious pasta, the outside world faded away, leaving only the two of us lost in our own little bubble of bliss. Luke's laughter filled the air, a melodic symphony that echoed in my ears like music to my soul.

"So, tell me more about yourself," he said, his eyes sparkling with genuine curiosity. "What do you like to do when you're not busy running the Devils' social media empire?"

I couldn't help but smile at his playful tone, the warmth of his gaze sending shivers down my spine. "Well, I'm a bit of a bookworm," I confessed, feeling a rush of excitement as I shared a piece of myself with him. "I love getting lost in a good novel, especially anything with a bit of mystery or romance."

Luke nodded, his expression thoughtful as he leaned in closer. "I can relate to that," he admitted, his voice low and intimate. "There's something magical about getting lost in a story, isn't there? It's like you're transported to a whole other world."

As the night wore on and the hours slipped away, our conversation deepened, weaving through topics both trivial and profound. We talked about our hopes and dreams, our fears and insecurities, laying bare our souls like open books for the other to read.

And then, amidst the laughter and the shared moments of connection, there was a shift in the air – a subtle change that left me breathless with anticipation. As Luke reached across the table to refill my wine glass, his touch sent a jolt of electricity coursing through my veins, igniting a fire deep within my heart.

"Y/N," he began, his voice soft but filled with conviction. "There's something I need to tell you."

I held my breath, my heart pounding in my chest as I waited for him to continue. In that moment, the world around us seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of us suspended in time, lost in a moment of shared intimacy.

"I know we've only known each other for a relatively short time," Luke continued, his eyes locked with mine, "but from the moment I met you, I felt something special – something I've never felt before."

I felt a rush of warmth flood my cheeks as I listened to his words, my heart swelling with emotion. "Luke," I whispered, my voice barely above a whisper. "I feel it too."

And then, without hesitation, he reached across the table and took my hand in his, his touch sending a wave of tingles dancing across my skin. "Y/N," he said, his voice filled with emotion. "I know this might sound crazy, but I think I'm falling for you."

Tears welled up in my eyes as I gazed into his, the depth of his feelings mirrored in the depths of his soul. In that moment, I knew – I was falling for him too, falling harder and faster than I ever thought possible.

And as we sat there, hand in hand, lost in the glow of the candlelight and the warmth of each other's presence, I couldn't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world. For in Luke Hughes, I had found not just a teammate or a colleague, but a kindred spirit – someone who saw me for who I truly was and loved me all the more for it.

And as our eyes met across the table, a silent vow passed between us – a promise to cherish this moment, this connection, for as long as our hearts beat as one.

[majingojira]

Complete List of Public Domain McGuffin Materials

I wanted a clean collection of these based on @titleknown original post, just for ease of reference and adding a few along the way.

Also, HAPPY PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY!

Cavorite - An Anti-Gravity Metal from First Men On The Moon by H.G. Wells.

Hihi'irokane - From "The Takenouchi Documents" (1935). A super durable metal that never rusts and is also a conductor of heat. In other words, it's Minecraft Red Stone.

Taduki - From the Alan Quartermain stories, a drug that allows users to relive past lives via smoking. It's a great framing device, and was used as one in the original stories.

The Absolute - from "The Absolute At Large". Byproduct of a matter-to-energy conversion. Implied to be the element of 'Divinity'.

Eitr - Source of all life in Norse Mythology. The mixing of the FIres of Muspelheim and the ice of Nifilheim -- but also a deadly poison to the earth.

Fleury's Gas - Rudyard Kipling's super gas from his story "With the Night Mail." Used to run Zepplins. It expands explosively fast as a gas and is both powerful and rigid. It can be liquified with Fleury's Ray. Produces a lot of power and acts as Hydrogen. Could be used very easily in Neumatics (ROBOTS!)

Tulu Metal - Lovecraft invention. rare space-metal. Extremely magnetic. Speculatively, it could do space-warping weirdness (given Lovecraft stories, that tracks).

Abyssal Gold - The Gold of the Deep Ones. It's whitish-gold alloy with a weird lustrousness. No special properties, it's just weird. And rather pretty. Rare type of gold are sure to go for a higher market value.

Alkahest/The Universal Solvent - Alchemy dissolver. It dissolved/breaks apart whatever it comes across.

Jeckyll's Compound - Most people use the Hyde formula as shorthand to make Hulk-knockoffs, but the reality of it more than that. Hyde is not just a coalescence of a man's "Dark Impulses" but a chemical 'disguise' to allow a person to indulge in whatever a person wants.

The Red Weed - A plant native to Mars from War of the Worlds. It tastes metallic, absorbs water, grows extremely quickly, and is bioluminescent.

Starlite - A purportedly heatproof material. Up to 90% organic.

Rossum's Protoplasm - Rossum's Universal Robots, the McGuffin that makes the robots move and behave.

Liquid Electricity - Glowing energy liquid. It was a common belief about Electricity in the early days, so it ended up in a lot of stories.

Herbet West's Re-Animation Fluid - From Lovecraft's Herbet West: Reanimator. It chemically kickstarts the mechanical process of life in organic tissue.

Solarnite/Solarbenite/Solarite - Plan 9 From Outer Space. It causes light particles to... explode.

Vril - The life energies harnessed by an underground utopian civilization. The energies are controlled by staves and there's different type of staff to control Vril in different ways. It can be used to heal, to destroy, or to enhance organic material.

Herakleophorbia IV - The Food of the Gods of H.G. Well. Organisms that ingest this chemical quickly grow to 5 to 7 times their normal size. This is used primarily on livestock to increase their food yield, but it naturally gets eaten by pest animals. Many common household pest insects are now the size of a person's thumb or their hand! A rat is now 6 to 9ft long. And if some jerk feeds it to an Alligator... it now as large as a blue whale.

The New Accelerator - From the HG Wells story from the same name. Within the story, Prof. Gibberne creates a drug that enables the user’s mind and body to gain temporary super-speed, so that everything in the world appears frozen solid as time appears to slow.

There are downsides to being a 1901 version of the Flash however. Users are still subject to friction, so moving while on the drug causes your clothes to get singed (this same friction making it impossible to breathe is ignored, however).

Devil's Foot Root - From the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot. A poison made from an African root, which vaporizes when heated, leading to those exposed going mad or dying after inhaling the fumes.

 Basically, works like the Scarecrow’s fear toxin from Batman, and is considered rare enough that someone has to specifically use some from a stolen from the collection of someone who had to gather it personally as an explorer. At least, at the time.

The White Powder - The novel of The White Powder by Arthur Machen, wherein a student is prescribed a drug made from a mysterious white flakey substance. His sister begins to worry about his sudden changes in mood and personality, which is only compounded when his prolonged abuse of the titular White Powder causes the student to literally melt.

One of Machen’s more famous stories, would go on to be listed as among Lovecraft’s favorite's and inspiring future writers, from the finale of Lovecraft’s Cool Air to one Stephen King story where a tainted six pack turns a dude into a blob monster.

[feral-ferrule]

Charity and Decadence

Chapter 3

word count 5060ish

Clone Wars Echo x Earthling f!Reader OC

Fic Masterlist

warnings: angst, guilt, slavery, lactation, nothing too much yet, more flashbacks,

You figured there were a few ways to go about this. The med bay didn’t seem to have anything in the way of an NG tube which you could put in place if his swallow function was really gone. You just didn’t trust your ability with the force to manipulate the milk down his throat and into his stomach. So you just had to hope for the best and prepare the other two solutions you could find supplies for. One was simply a syringe and the other was a sponge you taped to a tongue depressor. 

You knew that you’d have to take it slow so he didn’t suffer from refeeding syndrome, a complication of starvation treatment. As his body switched from consuming its own fats and muscle and started using carbohydrates again he could develop a whole list of problems including seizures.  You found some bags of iv electrolyte fluids to administer to the implanted port on his arm you noticed yesterday. 

The schedule the med droid had left for you on a data pad showed a window of time coming up in which the man would not be online being used for their secret endeavors, so you decided to fully unhook him and bring him into the med bay. 

You went out to the control panels below the stasis chamber and could see the lights indicating whether the man was online were off so you elevated the gurney’s tilt bed into position. Then initiated the sequence of button pushing and lever pulling to safely disengage the man from the stasis life supports. For the neural anesthesia program step you had noticed a dial above its button turned all the way to full power. You dialed it back to half, grateful that this didn’t involve typing code. You hoped that would make him groggy but able to respond and swallow. Pressing the button you sent out a plea to the force for success. 

You initiated the release sequence and could hear the tubes and wiring decoupling. The chamber doors swung open with a hiss and the lift bed moved in closer which magnetized points on his metal implants to itself. You lowered the bed down out of the billowing gasses to lay flat and checked his positioning. Then you turned his head gently so his nose wasn’t smushed. He felt so cold and had spots of ice crystals scattered over him. You left the bed’s magnetization on in case he woke up and tried rolling off, but you didn’t strap him down with the restraints you had seen earlier.  You directed the bed to the med bay. 

When you got there and locked the bed to stay stationary  you realized that you hadn’t planned how to get him sat up to help swallow. So you demagnetized the surface, pressed the switch for the extension to slide out along one side of the bed and rolled him as gently as possible onto his back. Once on his back you positioned him back over onto the main surface and retracted the extension. Despite his emaciation he was still pretty solid and you had quite the work out wrangling his body into place as carefully and tenderly as possible. Fortunately his prosthetic legs were no heavier than natural legs. They must be made with advanced materials, you figured. You remagnetized the bed and slowly raised the top half so he was elevated and couldn’t slump over.  You hooked up a bag of fluids to his port on his arm and started the drip.  

You sat on a stool and took a deep breath, coughing and feeling a burning in your eyes. The air filters in this facility must not be working very well. Next time you’d for sure wear your gear. This was your first proper look at him. Despite his sunken cheeks and eyes, his features were all clone, but he was so very pale. You had seen a few clones during your time with the Union. They were easy to come by, not considered real people, and preferred experimental victims. But this was the closest you’d been to one since Dantooine when you helped search for wounded among the dead. 

His color was much too close to death. 

You noticed the bag of fluids was empty so you removed it from the port and tossed it in the disposal chute. The man stirred. His eyes blinking and scrunching shut. Then he started flinching and squirming a bit, clearly growing agitated.  ‘Oops,’ you thought, ‘guess I woke him up too much.’ You thought he must not like the brighter light so you dashed over to the switch and turned off all the lights except for the ones under the cabinets. You went back over to him and touched his hand. 

“Hi, my name is Choy, I’m here to help you, please don’t be afraid,” you soothed. 

This seemed to calm him and he tried looking at you but he didn’t seem able to open his eyes all the way or focus. So you continued talking to him in a soft voice and stroking the back of his hand.

“I was hoping you could try drinking something.”

This was it. As weird as you felt about this, you kept reminding yourself that there wasn’t any other thing you could try to save him from starvation. 

“I’m going to put something in your mouth, if that’s ok, do you think you can suck on it?”  You dipped the surgical sponge in the milk and soaked some up. Your other hand reached for his face, “I am going to touch your face if that’s ok.” Your fingertips brushed his cheek and down his jaw. He leaned into your touch as much as he could with the magnetic hold the bed had on his head. You brought the sponge up to his lips and pressed his jaw down a bit, “Open up, please.”  He did and tasted the milk on the sponge. “It’s.. milk. Try sucking it out of the sponge.”  He swallowed and you let out the breath you were holding. This was going to work.  He was doing so well. 

You soothed his cheek with your hand, “Ok open up and I’ll get more, alright?” He stopped sucking and pushed the sponge out with his tongue. You dipped the sponge back in the milk and brought it to his mouth again. He opened on his own this time and drained the sponge again, swallowing. There was enough for one more sponge-full but you wanted to try the syringe, he seemed to be doing really well swallowing. You drew up the rest into the syringe and turned back to him. He was trying to watch you through heavy lidded eyes. His hand trying to move and grasp. 

“Hey, I’m here,” you said with a smile. 

He rasped a sound trying to talk. 

“I have a little more, this time it’s in a syringe. I can put a small amount in your mouth for you to swallow.”

You held up the syringe of milk in his line of sight. His eyes widened and he tried to lean away from it, “No nononono,” he was panicking and managed to free his hand from the magnet which he brought up and smacked at the syringe sending it flying. You hopped back from him scared he’d continue to strike out at you. But he settled down mumbling “no, not again, no no no.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I won’t use the syringe,” he peeked up at you at the fear in your eyes and he completely deflated, a tear falling down his cheek. Dammit your heart was breaking for him, but you were also thinking now this might be a really dangerous situation. He was a clone, a trained soldier and even if he was drugged and starved he might be able to hurt you. 

He put his hand back down on the table next to him and blinked at you, more tears tracked down his cheek.  Then he passed out. The window of time you had was closing so it was just as well. You quickly rolled him onto his stomach, took him back out to the stasis room, hooking up the long lines to his head, dried his tears with your sleeve and replaced him back in the awful chamber. 

“Well that could have gone better.” You said out loud and heaved a sigh, headed back into the med bay and started cleaning up. You gathered the cup, sponge on a stick, and found the syringe still full of milk. The whole thing played over in your mind, the look of terror and pain on the man’s face, his strength and fast reflexes, your fear, his regret and then him begging for more milk. Damn, you felt so awful. As you threw the items down the chute that led to an incinerator you felt a gloom of despair and shame settle over you. Why did you think it was a good idea? Just another absurdity of your existence in this universe. This place was cruel and cold and grimey and callous. Your tears mixed with the antiseptic as you wiped down all the surfaces that you had touched in the med bay and then the repulsor lift bed. You ran the cleaning cloth over the controls for good measure and threw out the cloth. 

By then you had settled down and remembered you really didn’t have many options with the situation. The man was starving, your life may even depend on his survival. You’d seen plenty of poor job performances or accidents lead to the worker being fined and sent to even worse “assignments” to spend the rest of their lives working off the debt. That’s not far off from your current situation. Except, when you were done with this, it was off to the devil you didn’t know, but also did know- at least the movie and tv version. Which had all turned out to be tame compared to this reality so far. 

It was late, you checked the man’s vitals on the controls and left the stasis room to go down the lift to your quarters. The droids stationed at the lift scanned you and stepped aside to let you through. Back on the residential level you passed those droids and made your way to the storage in the mess, picked out a ration pack and choked it down with a water. At least the air was better on this level and your eyes and lungs weren’t irritated. 

You had a long hot shower and felt slightly better. Went through the monotony of getting ready for bed. The collar’s battery was almost dead so you took the opportunity to reach out in the force to not feel so lonely. First you felt the tower- all metal and tubing and electricity. And the man, who felt so very lonely and sad like last time, only now he also felt a glimmer of something in his heart. It was like hope-sadness-ache, you couldn’t put your finger on exactly what. Stretching further you felt a village of people who had such a strange feeling in the force you knew they were very much not human. Then you cast out as far as you could go, letting the whole of the force wash through you as much as the dying collar would let it. You sent out all your heartache and need into the force and begged for someone to come help you and help this man. “Please. If you can feel this,  we need help,” you whispered. 

And it whispered back.

[[Help you will have. For the clone you must care. In the meantime]]

 A knock came at the door and you fell on the cot. Were you floating??  

“Ma’am we are here to service your collar. Please open up and let us in.”

”Ok, hold on,” you called out, finding your footing on the floor. You hit the door switch and it slid open. The two security droids from earlier entering. 

“This won’t take long.” The one said. Then turned to the other,  “Now what did they say to do?” A thought suddenly came to you. If you could get them to depower it completely you could get full access to the force. If you came up with a plan to escape, you’d need all your abilities, especially if you were going to take the clone with you.

“You take the old one out and throw it in the garbage chute then slide the new one in place. It’s right here,” you pointed at the battery pack on the right side of the collar. As you pointed your mind slid along the droid’s circuitry and found its central processing unit. You used the force to flood its memory center with repeats of what you just said. With the collar still operational that was as good as you could do. 

“Oh yeah that sounds familiar.” Said the droid with the battery.

“Are you sure about that? I thought there was another step,” said the second droid.

“Oh that’s just you need to check the light that it’s fully charged and good to go. Last step,” you smiled, “ thank you for helping me with this.” You gave them both your most innocent and sweetest smile.

“See I told you she’s nice, not like the rest of them,” said the first one. He slid the old battery out and tossed it in the garbage and the force hit you full throttle. It had been a long time since you felt this. There were actually two power ports in the collar and the procedure was to put a fresh one in the empty side before sliding the spent one out of the other. So you hadn’t experienced the force like this since your brief time with Master Windu. You could feel exactly where in the droids’ circuitry that one little snap of metal would essentially kill them. 

*Click. Deadness, quiet. Two droids looking at your glazed expression. Oh yeah. “All good guys! Do you have names?” Droids were so easy to redirect.

“I’m RO-GR562390072-“

“No, I mean like nicknames people have given you.”

They looked at eachother and shook their heads, “No, no one’s ever given us a name,” the first one said. 

“Alright then I’ll give you names,” you clasped your hands in front of yourself and bounced on your toes looking delighted. “Now what should they be?” You thought of pairs of amusing names that you could call them to their faces. “How about Lenny and Squiggy?” 

“I call Lenny,” said the first one “You can be Squiggy.” The second droid nodded, “Wow none of the other biologicals ever gave us anything, huh, Lenny? You were right about this one. Ok ma’am see you tomorrow.”  And they left chattering about their new nicknames.

Now you could breathe and process what you had just felt in the force before those two clankers came. You had for sure felt a connection with someone out there, someone kind and powerful. Not Master Windu but not unlike him, another Jedi you hoped. What did they say? It sounded like how yoda talks. You’d have help and you had to take care of the clone. Alright. You’d do things differently tomorrow. Perhaps try again with a sponge. And you’d think of a plan to escape with the clone as soon as you got him stronger. But now you needed to try to sleep. 

Laying down, the day’s events played themselves over and over. A jumble of older memories, too. You thought about the droids. Youd need to work fast o dispatch them is the moment you had now battery in the collar. It seemed almost sad considering their odd moments of individuality and how they liked their silly names you gave them.  You haven't used your real name since you had remembered it, having gotten used to the nickname the clones on Dantooine gave you.

********

You were bundled in the thin military issue kind of blanket, your back pressed up against the wall behind the cot. The 3D video, holovid, Splint called it, was playing a segment about how to hold a baby for feeding. But you weren’t watching it. You were processing what Splint had told you about himself and all the soldier clones basically being property and enslaved to a war they were created for.  You had pressed him for more details, “What do you mean you're not even paid??” “What will happen after the war?” Splint had gone back over to the injured soldier, his identical clone brother, to give him a shot of something blue.  They both emerged, Splint telling him that it would heal overnight and to come by in the morning for a checkup.  The soldier he had shooed out came back and the two talked and you heard them talking from behind your partition, the words “daleesh” and “echoy-la” repeated a couple times.  

Splint came back over to you and you asked, “What were they saying, the earpiece wasn’t translating everything?”

He sat on the stool and took the towel and tablet. “Word has gone around about you, the ‘echoy’la dalyc’ the lost woman.”  

“Not something you see every day?”

“Well, we do encounter civilians regularly, but not one who appeared out of a force storm in a ruined Jedi temple.”  

“That’s what Master Windu is, right? A Jedi? Are there more like him? What are they exactly?” 

“There are many more Jedi, yes.” He smiled at your wide eyed rapid fire questions. “They are people like you, who can feel a power called the Force. The Jedi serve the Republic as Generals, commanding legions and battalions of troops. General Windu will tell you all about them later. Right now you should get cleaned up and rest.” He set the tablet on the counter nearby and threw the towel in a bin. You heard a knock at the door and some voices. He got up and went around the partition. Your device was once again not translating but you could feel hopefulness and curiosity off the newcomers and then disappointment when Splint thanked and dismissed them. 

“I’ve had the guys scrounge up some supplies for you. There’s a ‘fresher through that door over there where you can get cleaned up and changed. I’m sorry the only change of clothing we have for you are our uniform blacks.” He set the box on the cot and added a fresh towel on top. 

"But before that let's get you your inoculations." He disappeared again and when he came back he had a black stick-like device. "This won't hurt, but your arm may be sore later, which side?"

You turned your closer shoulder to him and said, "Either one really."

He wiped the site with a small antiseptic spongy thing and then supported your arm with that hand. His energy and feelings flooded you with strong arms, lips on your neck and- before you slammed the barrier down more. He zapped the spot with the stick. It felt weird but it was quick. His outward appearance belied nothing of what you felt in his mind. But he was avoiding your eyes.

There were booms and rumbling in the distance. The ground shook after the sounds. A light flashed on the armor on his forearm. Splint set a grim look on his face and stalked away. You could hear his voice coming through his helmet as he left the building. 

More booms in the distance.

You felt a new amped up tension around you and let the guard down that Master Windu had guided you to create. Out in the distance was something big like a huge swarm of something lifeless but active. Lots of things with goals but no hearts. Disturbed, you slammed the barrier back up, shook your head and took a look in the box. There were leggings and a long sleeve shirt, both a black ribbed material, a comb and some soap and a washcloth.  And a flower. And a piece of paper-like material with a strange language hand-written on it. Your heart softened a little, these were little tokens of care these soldiers included for you. 

Well you really had to get out of this cot now. You took the box to the door in the back of the room and looked for the handle. Noticing a flat panel to the side of it you touched it. The door slid open and revealed a fairly standard bathroom. Toilet, sink, and a shower head. You quickly undressed, noticing sand in the bottoms of the bikini you were wearing. You used the shower scrubbing off sand and dirt and milk with the washcloth and soap. The soap was really small and hard to keep a grip on and it slipped out of your grasp and you fumbled for it to stop it from falling to the floor. 

It hung there in the air between your hands.

Staring at it you could feel a sensation around it and your hands and inside your head like the push pull of magnets.  Carefully you pushed the soap higher up till it was right in front of your eyes.  You grabbed it out of the air with one hand and held up the washcloth with the other.  Focusing on it you felt for its magnetyness and raised it up in the air a little.  Then the water suddenly ran cold and you lost the contact.  It splatted to the floor as you rinsed off quickly. You were just not going to get used to the constant strangeness to everything, you thought, and that was definitely something you could never do before, you were sure of that. 

Toweling off you considered your options for dressing and decided to wash the swimsuit and just go commando till it was dry. After fixing your hair as best you could with the little comb you emerged from the fresher in the black outfit. It was too long so you had rolled up the cuffs, but it fit you ok and seemed to cling to you and support your curves like a second skin. The little flower you tucked behind your ear. You just needed shoes. 

“Hello?” You nearly jumped at the sudden voice. Over by the door there was a shy looking trooper holding his helmet in his hands. When his eyes landed on you he breathed in, almost gasped. You walked over to him across the cool smooth floor stopping a few paces away. 

“Hi, can I help you?” you said. His face was smoother than the other clones you’d seen so far. Probably a new one, younger by, what, months? 

“Oh,” he fumbled with a small object, hooking it over his ear. “Splint gave me this so I can talk to you,- or so you can talk to me- I mean you can talk just fine, it’s so I can understand-“ 

You held up your hand smiling at his flusteredness. “I have one too,” you pointed at your ear. 

He smiled and huffed a laugh at himself, “Oh right yeah well ok. I have to take you to your quarters,” he looked down at his feet and then up at your bemused face. “Oh I’m sorry I’m CT-6397, you can call me Sprout.” He held his hand out toward the door and you followed him outside. He walked across the trampled grass in the direction of a huge ship with a large cargo hold, now empty. There were not nearly as many troops around but there were still many, busy doing various things and marching in formation. The storm had cleared away, fragments of sunset skies lighting up the grounds and what looked like billowing clouds of smoke in the direction of the booming. 

He was endearingly managing his awkwardness, you thought, “Nice to meet you, Sprout.” His eyes lit up a little at his name. “I don’t know what my name is, though.”

“Well we’ve been calling you ‘Choy.’ If -if you don’t mind.” His brow wrinkled with worry and he looked at you and the ground and the building. 

“We?” You tried catching his eye with a reassuring smile.

“All the guys- in my unit anyway. It’s short for ‘echoy’la’ which means lost or searching in Mando’a.”  He looked up at you again. 

You smiled and said, “I like it, oh could you help me with something.” You pulled the folded note out of your rolled up sleeve cuff and held it up to him. “Can you read this for me?” 

He took the note and you watched his expression as he held it up to the dimming light and read its words. He swallowed and read, “a pretty flower for a pretty girl. Signed, Slick.”  His face darkened a little.  “He saw you in the med bay earlier. His hand was injured during the offloading. He and his squad were supposed to be reassigned to a different battalion, but that was delayed.”  He sounded a little bitter.  You got the distinct impression that he didn’t care for Slick.

Inside the huge cargo bay of the ship you made your way to the far wall and through a sealed doorway. Down a long hall of doors that were all open to largish rooms of rows of bunk beds.

“Choy?” a voice called from a bunk room.  You looked and saw several troopers in various states of undress. Blocking your view one came over to the door with his hand held to his chest, wrapped in a bandage. 

Sprout bristled a little behind you as the soldier you recognized as the one from the med bay walked over. Slick looked over your head and his eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction of an inch, then they softened as he looked back at you, “You're wearing the flower I picked for you,” Slick was now close enough for you to sense all the conflicting emotions you’d felt off of him before.  But he spoke with a calm and gentle voice. 

You reached up to the flower in your hair, “Thank you, it was very sweet of you to think of me.” You scanned his face and tried to get a read on him. 

“I can show Choy to her quarters from here, Sprout,” he said over your head. You turned to look at Sprout, unsure of how you felt about this since Sprout was clearly uncomfortable around him. 

“Sir, I have orders from Lieutenant Splint, I don't want to get in trouble.”  Sprout shifted back and forth on his feet.  

“No problem there, soldier, I'm giving you new ones,” Slick reasoned, “You're dismissed.” His tone left no room for argument.  

You looked at Sprout and said, “Thank you, Sprout, I'll be ok.” Sprout looked at you not quite in the eye and glanced at Slick.  

“Yes sir,” and he turned on his heel and walked back down the hallway. He was worried.

“The word around here is that the General thinks you're like a Jedi.  Are you one of them?” the way he said ‘them’ made your ears prick up and the tendons in the back of your neck stiffen a little.  

You looked away from the now distant figure of Sprout to Slick and leveled him with a steady gaze and said, “I don't even know what a Jedi is really.” This seemed to ease his tension which made our neck relax. (You really needed to figure out how to stop internalizing others’ emotions) 

He tilted his head a little, “But you can talk with the General with your mind.” 

“Well, I can. And I don't understand why, or how.” 

“That must be very confusing, you've had an awfully long day from the sound of it,” He indicated with his hand which way to go, “let's get you to your quarters so you can rest.”  You noticed the bandage on his hand he held out had a stain of bright red on it.  

“Is your hand bleeding again?” you asked him.

He looked at it, “Oh yes, it seems that the injury will require more time to heal.  We march out tomorrow to join the slaughter at the front lines and it will need to be better before then.”

You really didn't feel the same single minded valor off of him as the other clones.  And you wondered about his injury. “How did you hurt it?”

“It was a piece of equipment that fell on it.  Purely accidental. Here we are, your quarters, ma’am.” He pressed a button on a panel by a door and it opened to a small single bunk room with a fresher door just to the side.  “You get an officer’s room of course, very private.”

You nodded, “Thank you, Slick, I appreciate your help.  See you tomorrow?”

“I certainly hope so,” he said and took your hand in his good one and kissed the back of it.  You felt your face flush deeply.  Even through your strengthened mental barrier you could feel something like curiosity and calculation. He released your hand and stepped back, giving you a small bow.  “If it's not me, someone will be by in the morning to give you more assistance.” He looked down at your feet, “I think some boots are the next step for you.” He smirked at his lame pun.

You huffed a laugh, “Alright, take care of that hand, good night.”

You stepped into the room and he stalked off.  You were glad he didn't hover at the door and make it weird. What a strange interaction. As soon as you closed the door, set your still damp swimsuit down on the little table and laid down on the bed you were asleep.   

**************

Laying in your cot your memories played themselves out and you finally fell asleep, but had a terrible dream. One of the ones that frequently haunted your sleep. 

Screaming and agony all around you. The friendly, handsome face turning wicked. Something dark covering your head and something heavy clamped around your neck. Your new name being shouted, but you couldn’t see him, couldn’t feel him. You were rising fast in the darkness, awful claws grabbing you and a buzzing. Then deep and arrogant voices talking about you and how they wanted to use you.

Chapter 4

[drkmgs]

Can you do Angst about when Reader is cold and gloomy like wednesday but they cry and shows their soft side because Wednesday hates them(Any gender is fine).

Loving you is torture...

Wednesday Addams x Male! Reader

Warning: pure sadness...

Thank you anon! I was in the mood for some Angst and might as well connect this with a male reader, cos men also cry! It's short but hurtful, I guess? I know it says male reader but honestly? You can still read it as gender-neutral reader...lol

When you enter the room, everyone knows it's you because they instantly feel goosebumps and shivers down their spine. You were known for your cold stone face and your gloomy mood, but more importantly, how you look, mid-length silver hair, a pale face, and icy blue eyes — The Ice King — your nickname.

Everyone avoids you and you didn't care as long as they're not talking ill of you, because why talk ill of someone you don't even know? Right, but there's a student, who seemed to dislike you the moment you stepped foot at Nevermore Academy and her name is Wednesday Addams. You're not certain as to why she hates you, was it because you were a new student and doesn't trust you? or is it because of something else?

The moment you saw Wednesday, you were magnetized by her. You have heard stories about last year's incident, but you couldn't blame her if she finds you suspicious, who wouldn't be on their toes when their first love turns out to be a serial killer monster controlled by a vengeful bitch who resurrected a murderous pilgrim? Yeah.

Soon you found yourself falling for the goth girl, secretly. Being in love with a girl who hates you is kinda morbid. You knew how painful this will be but you continued to love her, even if it was behind the doors of your room. You let her, hate you and you let, yourself love her.

Wednesday knew you were innocent. She knew she didn't have to put a barrier between you and her, but the spiders that are crawling inside her stomach every time she sees you, make her want to murder you. She hasn't felt this way, not even with Tyler. It makes her mad and hates you for causing it.

Confessing wasn't even on the list of choices, she didn't want to take the chance — of you being some kind of an evil maniac, she liked the idea of you being innocent. So, the only way to stop her feelings for you is to hate you.

You on the other end, you were already deeply in love. You knew if you continued your feelings for her, it would break you apart. As if you aren't breaking right now, you could see the loathe in her eyes and her hands in a fist, clearly ready to pounce at you anytime.

You wanted to say something but seeing her like that, you bit your tongue and dismissed the case. You watch her scoff at you and walked away. You could feel something stuck in your throat and stinging in your eyes. You tried blinking it away but it resulted in fluids dripping down your eyes.

You were crying. You'd never thought you'll be crying over a Wednesday Addams, but here you were with bloodshot eyes, surprisingly, it suited your icy blue eyes. You were certainly tired of thinking about as to why she despise you a lot. You had enough and want to clear this once and for all.

In no time you were bursting into her dorm room and slamming the door close.

"What did I ever do to you? What made you hate me so much? Because I-...Because loving you is torture and clearly I enjoyed it way too much. That my heart is breaking and I'm starting to feel numb every second that is passing by." You gritted your teeth at her and tears are spilling down your eyes.

"What do you want me to do about it? Comfort you?" Wednesday replied with her monotonous tone, not even looking at you, and continued to type on her Typewriter.

"No. I want you to watch me, how I crumble in front of you! How you broke me and lost your chance to feel loved! Okay, You won! I thought we could have been friends or more." bluish fire is soaring out of you as you walked out of her room.

Students ran away or hid in the nearest classroom, if any of them wasn't scared of you before, well now they are. You only calmed down as soon as you got into your room, the bluish fire extinguished as your breath evened out. You sluggishly slumped face down on your bed, tears slowly falling to your sheets, you buried your face onto the mattress and screamed.

[empresskrennic]

♟️👑 Empress x Krennic

The new Empress loves playing 'games,' but she's beat everyone in the galaxy. But when she steps onto the Stardust 3 station, she finally meets her match...

NOTES: Krennic did not die on Scarif. I take liberties with canon in support of a better story.

STAR WARS • Director Orson Krennic • Female Emperor THEMES: Power Imbalance, Playing Games, Exhibitionism SPICE LEVEL: Ramps up from 🔥 to 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 -Spice level is annotated per chapter-

🚫 18+, MINORS DNI

Chapter 1: Kiss the Gauntlet 🔥

When my boot crossed the edge of the Delta shuttle’s ramp and softly kissed the docking bay, a thousand stormtroopers in crisp lines of pure white snapped to attention.

Echoing in a singular clap, the sound was as clean and impressive as the station itself. Idly, I compared my glistening boot and the polished lines of the decking, wondering who had expended more effort in preparing for my arrival: Krennic, who had obviously thrown down all his chips in the hope of winning my favor…or me.

My pause was not unnoticed. I could feel the annoyance running hot in the veins of my assistants, who stood six respectful steps behind me, waiting warily for my next move and knowing they could not predict it.

I cracked an affectionate half-smile at my boot.

Their thoughts always betrayed them. I threw them off balance. Kept them wondering, never able to calibrate accurately to their Empress’s actions. I admit it, I deliberately deceived them; but in my defense, it was a great strategic game. Tons of fun.

And it was my hallmark, my callsign. Surprising, unnerving, seemingly unnecessary actions I threw my entire authority behind, threatening (and sometimes doling out) demotions or transfers to Hoth for the warm-blooded and Tatooine for those who preferred cold. I’m not mean or crazy. And I’m certainly not a psychopath, like that one-dimensional genius Palpatine.But seriously…if the Empress of the Galactic Empire wants to shine her own boots, she shouldn’t have to shoo her assistants away more than once.

But unfortunately…no, not unfortunately. It’s actually sweet. Just annoying…I had a kind of magnetism that attracted people who wanted to care for me, to protect me like some kind of incontinent grandma.

Or incontinent Grand Moff.

I chuckled to myself at the joke, eyes still studying the shiny boot tip touching the equally shiny docking bay, internally betting on who would try to get my attention first: would the stormtroopers shift uncomfortably, or would my assistants clear their throats?

They cared for me. Truly, I knew. Mentally, I forced myself to acknowledge it, to appreciate it, like a rich kid who really likes steak but is served world-class chicken instead. But I couldn’t shake the fact that I hated it. The gentle cronyism chafed like a left-handed blaster bolt in a plasma coupling.

I liked a good fight. But it felt like the galaxy had been drained of worthy opponents after the war. I hoped my successes on the Cat, the ISD Catastrophe, weren’t the cause. It very well could have been because I did so well that they made me Empress after Palpatine’s unfortunate accident that I definitely had nothing to do with.

Rustling brought my gaze up from my boot. Not my assistants; no, the sound came from straight ahead, down the middle of the stormtrooper gauntlet. All at once, my assistants’ annoyance suddenly ran ice cold.

A swath of fluttering cape in a creamy white just barely offset from the stormtroopers’ stark white—deliberately chosen to be maddening, I observed with cautiously sprouting glee—announced his arrival. The cape was so bloody interesting I stood inelegantly still with one foot forward, frozen as I drank in the fluid dynamics of his chosen game piece.

When he drew near, I tore my attention from his magnificently strategic fashion choice and stepped down, waiting for him to come to me. His body was hard and lean, his gait long and aggressive—no, get it together—and his uniform was the same rebellious cream white as his cape. His boots were as shiny as mine.

His tan face was stoic, with narrow, pouty lips and a heavy brow. The creases in his skin were created by deep concentration and study rather than humor, anger, or anxiety. His hair was a confusing tapestry of pale shades, from silver-gray to wheat blonde. Mesmerizing. Made for combing with fingers—

His eyes were the only part of him he could not strategically select for this game. They were authentic, ice blue, and bearing down on me with an equal level of assessment. But there was complexity there I couldn’t identify.

I tasted his feelings. Trepidation. Determination.

A glimmer of desire—quickly quashed.

He didn’t yet know it, but he’d just made the first move on my board.

Or did he?

“Finally,” I murmured quietly as he stepped into my personal space. He locked his lean body into a snappy, flawless salute.

But then his hand twitched.

Nearly flawless.

That was unexpected.

Our eyes locked.

It had been deliberate.

Something old and cold and cynical melted in me.

Delicious.

As he took me in for the first time in person, not in a holo, something changed in the subtle expression of his eyes, morphing into something hard and analytical. It looked good on him. I found myself ejected from my comfortable home arena and floating in his…lost, marveling, and waiting for his large, black-gloved hands to reach down from the heavens and save me from the stars.

Was I attracted to the man, or to his game?

I lost my own internal bet as I cleared my throat, regaining my attention and composure. “Director,” I said simply, offering him room for an opening gambit. Most couldn’t resist the opportunity to speak at length to the Empress. Paired with my Force sensitivity, it always telegraphed their intention and methods and made for easy conquest.

But this time, I couldn’t shake the feeling I had already lost the advantage.

I felt a flash of undefined heat…passion? What kind?... from him, then his mind closed. Either he is sensitive also, or he is in complete control of himself. Disciplined.

The latter thrilled me.

“My Empress,” Krennic said gravely, lowering his salute. His accent tasted like caramel, gritty with sea salt. A subtle emphasis on the first word shot me further out of my carefully cultivated, stable orbit and I lost control for the first time in a long time.

Electric warmth shot through my body from deep within as I gazed into the depths of his blue eyes. I sucked in a breath, my lips parting at the intensity of my sudden desire.

His focus flicked quickly to my mouth. Creases formed at the corners of his eyes. Relief? No. Satisfaction. The bastard was holding in a laugh of triumph.

That did it. Silently, I cursed and imagined slapping myself.

It was my move now. I lifted my chin.

Blowing out my breath, I paused, then held out my hand, wrist limp, palm down.

Kiss it.

It was an ancient custom that had never been observed in the Empire because who would want to kiss Palpatine’s wrinkly old fist? I’d never bothered to demand such indulgent genuflection. Until right now.

Between two master players, it was a hell of a gauntlet to throw.

Undecipherable thunder tore across his face. Then the mass of onlooking stormtroopers, the entire Stardust 3 project, and the galaxy itself faded to inconsequence as Director Krennic knelt in a grand billowing of cape, gently took my hand in his gloved hands, and pressed his soft, warm lips to my skin.

The texture of his carefully combed blonde-gray hair bent over my hand made the moment too intimate. He was too close, we were touching too much. I itched to run my fingers through it, to separate the layers, to understand him and the way he played the game.

Instead, my fingers closed around his, and I felt his clench in response. No emotions. Controlled.

But his breath betrayed…something. It was hot and quick, and I felt his lips move subtly. He stayed there far too long. Either he was taking his time, getting the measure of me to learn my weaknesses, or he had…other aspirations.

Maybe both.

His kiss felt like a promise, felt like a threat. It felt like a cheat code and a decisive defeat. It was beseeching and hungry. It was overwhelmingly everything, possibilities without probabilities.

Anticipation warmed my chest as his unreadable face lifted, his Hoth-ice eyes drilling into mine from beneath the shadow of his heavy brow. I blinked slowly, unable to tear my gaze away, unwilling to flinch first.

A promise, I decided.

But of what?

I could not wait to play Krennic’s game.

-------

Taglist: @99tech99 😘

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

A clue to what lies beneath the bland surfaces of Uranus and Neptune

Layers of material that, like oil and water, don't mix can explain planets' unusual magnetic fields

Diamond rain? Super-ionic water?

These are just two proposals that planetary scientists have come up with for what lies beneath the thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, our solar system's unique, but superficially bland, ice giants.

A planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, now proposes an alternative theory — that the interiors of both these planets are layered, and that the two layers, like oil and water, don't mix. That configuration neatly explains the planets' unusual magnetic fields and implies that earlier theories of the interiors are unlikely to be true.

In a paper appearing this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Burkhard Militzer argues that a deep ocean of water lies just below the cloud layers and, below that, a highly compressed fluid of carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen. Computer simulations show that under the temperatures and pressures of the planets' interiors, a combination of water (H2O), methane (CH3) and ammonia (NH3) would naturally separate into two layers, primarily because hydrogen would be squeezed out of the methane and ammonia that comprise much of the deep interior.

These immiscible layers would explain why neither Uranus nor Neptune has a magnetic field like Earth's. That was one of the surprising discoveries about our solar system’s ice giants made by the Voyager 2 mission in the late 1980s.

"We now have, I would say, a good theory why Uranus and Neptune have really different fields, and it's very different from Earth, Jupiter and Saturn," said Militzer, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science. "We didn't know this before. It's like oil and water, except the oil goes below because hydrogen is lost."

If other star systems have similar compositions to ours, Militzer said, ice giants around those stars could well have similar internal structures. Planets about the size of Uranus and Neptune — so-called sub-Neptune planets — are among the most common exoplanets discovered to date.

Convection leads to magnetic fields

As a planet cools from its surface downward, cold and denser material sinks, while blobs of hotter fluid rise like boiling water — a process called convection. If the interior is electrically conducting, a thick layer of convecting material will generate a dipole magnetic field similar to that of a bar magnet. Earth's dipole field, created by its liquid outer iron core, produces a magnetic field that loops from the North Pole to the South Pole and is the reason compasses point toward the poles.

But Voyager 2 discovered that neither of the two ice giants has such a dipole field, only disorganized magnetic fields. This implies that there's no convective movement of material in a thick layer in the planets' deep interiors.

To explain these observations, two separate research groups proposed more than 20 years ago that the planets must have layers that can't mix, thus preventing large-scale convection and a global dipolar magnetic field. Convection in one of the layers could produce a disorganized magnetic field, however. But neither group could explain what these non-mixing layers were made of.

Ten years ago, Militzer tried repeatedly to solve the problem, using computer simulations of about 100 atoms with the proportions of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen reflecting the known composition of elements in the early solar system. At the pressures and temperatures predicted for the planets' interiors — 3.4 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure and 4,750 Kelvin (8,000°F), respectively — he could not find a way for layers to form.

Last year, however, with the help of machine learning, he was able to run a computer model simulating the behavior of 540 atoms and, to his surprise, found that layers naturally form as the atoms are heated and compressed.

"One day, I looked at the model, and the water had separated from the carbon and nitrogen. What I couldn't do 10 years ago was now happening," he said. "I thought, 'Wow! Now I know why the layers form: One is water-rich and the other is carbon-rich, and in Uranus and Neptune, it's the carbon-rich system that is below. The heavy part stays in the bottom, and the lighter part stays on top and it cannot do any convecting.’"

"I couldn't discover this without having a large system of atoms, and the large system I couldn't simulate 10 years ago," he added.

The amount of hydrogen squeezed out increases with pressure and depth, forming a stably stratified carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen layer, almost like a plastic polymer, he said. While the upper, water-rich layer likely convects to produce the observed disorganized magnetic field, the deeper, stratified hydrocarbon-rich layer cannot.

When he modeled the gravity produced by a layered Uranus and Neptune, the gravity fields matched those measured by Voyager 2 nearly 40 years ago.

"If you ask my colleagues, 'What do you think explains the fields of Uranus and Neptune?' they may say, ‘Well, maybe it's this diamond rain, but maybe it's this water property which we call superionic,’" he said. "From my perspective, this is not plausible. But if we have this separation into two separate layers, that should explain it."

Militzer predicts that below Uranus' 3,000-mile-thick atmosphere lies a water-rich layer about 5,000 miles thick and below that a hydrocarbon-rich layer also about 5,000 miles thick. Its rocky core is about the size of the planet Mercury. Though Neptune is more massive than Uranus, it is smaller in diameter, with a thinner atmosphere, but similarly thick water-rich and hydrocarbon rich layers. Its rocky core is slightly larger than that of Uranus, approximately the size of Mars.

He hopes to work with colleagues who can test with laboratory experiments under extremely high temperatures and pressures whether layers form in fluids with the proportions of elements found in the protosolar system. A proposed NASA mission to Uranus could also provide confirmation, if the spacecraft has on board a Doppler imager to measure the planet's vibrations. A layered planet would vibrate at different frequencies than a convecting planet, Militzere said. His next project is to use his computational model to calculate how the planetary vibrations would differ.

IMAGE: Models for the interior structures of the ice-giant planets Uranus and Neptune have two distinct, intermediate layers: an upper, water-rich convecting layer where disorganized magnetic fields are generated, and a lower, non-convecting hydrocarbon-rich layer. New computer simulations show that icy materials naturally separate at high pressure and temperature into these two layers. Credit Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Hey, I have my first MRI on Friday, it’s going to need dye so I’m going to get an IV, and getting vials drawn at the same time. I do have a phobia of needles, is there anything I should expect or tips or something.

I apologize if this is hard to understand or anything.

What to expect:

MRIs are very powerful magnets. The providers are going to ask you a lot of questions about if you have this condition or that device implanted in you or if this has happened to you or whatnot. Basically what they’re trying to do is make sure you don’t have hardware in your body that the magnet will mess with. You’ll have to take off all your jewelry, so I don’t recommend wearing any, and you’ll have to put on a hospital gown (they give you a private room to do this with a locker to place your things).

For the IV, they’re gonna put a tourniquet on your arm. It’s tight and uncomfortable, but they do it so it creates some resistance to blood flow in your veins. Think of it as making a little beaver dam in the stream, this helps pool blood in the veins so they bulge or puff up so we can see them better and get the job done more easily. Sometimes balling your hand in a fist helps, though I personally find it doesn’t make a huge difference.

Veins have personalities! Some are extroverts, some are shy, but they all love getting massages. If your nurse/tech is having trouble finding a vein, they might tap your arm/hand or rub the area gently to help convince the little guys to peek out. Heat does the trick nicely too. I highly recommend hydrating as much as possible so your veins have fluid volume to help you out. ;) But cut off the water shortly before you get there and/or pee just before you have to go back so you’re not sitting in the scanner with a full bladder!

The worst part obviously is the little poke, but once they actually get in the vein the needle comes out super quick, and all that’s sitting in there then is basically a straw so the dye can go through. I find that I can start all the IVs in the world but I’m not the biggest fan of watching someone start one on me, so what I usually do is look somewhere else and focus on something that can distract me. Take deep breaths and don’t think about the poke, the more you brace against it, the harder it’s gonna be for the nurse/tech to get it. Stay still and think about blorbos! :) It’ll be over soon, it’ll be ok. ❤️

Once the vein is accessed, the next step is a little flush of saline to make sure they’re in the right spot. It might feel cold and you might taste salt, and that’s all totally normal! It means you’re all done with the IV establishment. :) They’ll just tape it in place so nothing gets pulled by accident. Then it’s in to the scan!

MRIs are very noisy. Ask them to give you headphones. It’s standard practice for them to give you some, but my first MRI was emergent and so I didn’t get any and boy was that unpleasant, so I always tell people to ask. They usually have options for the kind of music you can listen to as well! :)

MRIs are shaped like a long donut. You lay down in the hole of the donut. The table you’re on will do all the moving for you, so you can just lay there and chill. Idk if they do this for everyone, but sometimes they put kind of like a football helmet on you to try and help keep your head still. Movement during the scan messes the imaging up, so my best advice is close your eyes, listen to the music, and imagine you’re lounging on a beach. Slow, easy breaths and just relax. The scan won’t hurt you, it’s just noisy! ;)

The dye, once they infuse it in through the IV, may feel hot or cold, depending on what they’re using. It also may make you feel like you need to pee. That’s all totally normal and it doesn’t last more than a few seconds.

After everything’s done, they’ll remove the IV, which is a piece of cake, and then you can get dressed and go get some ice cream!

[softguarnere]

For Whatever We Find

His Girl Friday (Iron Man!Nix AU)

Lewis Nixon x OFC

Summary: The way he can go from a near death experience to business as usual irks Minerva in a way she can’t even begin to describe. God, if this idiot would stop and process things like a normal person for once, maybe they wouldn’t find themselves in half of these damn messes. A/N: Anyways! I had unstructured free time and no self-control, so here's the blurb the world absolutely did not need but that I was only too ready and too willing to provide! Warnings: Arc Reactor goo?; the author abusing her italics privileges

Minerva doesn’t hate her job. But most days, she strongly dislikes a lot of things about it. 

For starters, she never knows if Nix is going to drive Nixon Nitration Works  into the ground, or if he’s going to do something impulsive and leave her to clean up his mess, or if he might randomly decide to leave the country without telling anyone, or – 

Well, it’s not the worst job she’s ever had. It’s certainly not the best, though. There’s definitely a reason that when Sobel hired her to be Nix’s girl Friday, he had scoffed at the line on her resume stating that she used to be an elementary school teacher before looking up at her and saying, “Then you’re definitely qualified to handle Lewis.” 

Qualified doesn’t even begin to cut it anymore, though. Especially not right now. Minerva is nowhere near qualified enough to be doing this. 

The miniature Arc Reactor she’s holding feels like it could slip from her grasp at any second thanks to the goo that coats her hands. The goo that smells, and that Nix keeps assuring her is not from his body, but some sort of discharge from the device. You know, as if that’s any sort of comfort for her. God, when she became a PA, she thought she would be fetching coffee and denying requests for interviews – not performing in-home cardiac procedures. 

But this? 

“Nix, it’s gonna be okay,” Minerva assures him. Back when she taught elementary school, that was always the first thing she would say when a child would run to her with a scraped knee, paper cut, upset stomach, or any other ailment. The first and most important step was always calming them down so that they could deal with the situation. Now, Minerva finds herself repeating it over and over, turning it into a mantra. 

Nix doesn’t even seem to be listening. Which, to his credit, might be because Minerva has just accidentally ripped a magnet out of his chest – “Like a trout lure,” Nix had snarked when she did it – and sent him into cardiac arrest. 

“You’re just gonna attach that to the baseplate,” he instructs her instead of responding to any of her positive affirmations. “And make s-sure you –”

Hearing him stammer breathlessly is the fire under her ass that Minerva needs. Because if she doesn’t fix the mess she’s inadvertently caused, then she’ll have accidentally killed her boss. And that’s maybe the last thing she needs right now. 

With all her strength, she shoves the device into his chest, feeling the magnet take hold of the base. Nix lets out a sort of monotone yell the second that it connects, his eyes going wide as the monitors behind them beep frantically. 

Oh, God! She’s killed him, she’s killed Lewis Nixon, of all people, while trying to save him – 

In a split second, the beeping slows back to a normal pace. Nix’s features relax, and he gives her a deadpan look when he asks, “Now was that so hard?” Then he makes sure that the Arc Reactor is securely screwed into his own chest before proclaiming with a confidence he really shouldn’t have in this situation, “Ni-ice.” 

Minerva gapes at him for a second. Her time as a teacher put her into some gross situations and brought her into contact with all sorts of disgusting substances and fluids, but this really takes the cake. Her goo-covered hands still hover over her boss somewhat frantically as she waits for her next instruction or for the need to jump into action to arise again. Because that’s what Minerva Revels does. It’s what she’s always done – she fixes things and cleans up people’s messes.

She’s dragged out of her moment of introspective shock by the sound of laughter. Loud, genuine, boisterous laughter from beneath her. Beneath his five o’clock shadow, Nix’s face lights up as he looks at her, taking obvious delight in her expression.

Nix has made fun of her before, teased her for things, but the audacity of this – 

Minerva doesn’t care that he maybe almost just died because of her. She uses one of her goo-soaked hands to shove his shoulder. 

“Do not ever, ever, ever ask me to do something like that ever again!” She snaps with a scowl.

Damn him, Nix doesn’t look the least bit fazed by her outburst, by the fact that she’s ordering him around. Instead, he blinks up at her and admits, “I don’t have anyone but you.” 

Minerva blinks. What sort of thing is that to say? Of course he has other people besides her. He’s got Sobel and Winters and – 

But with everything going on since he got back from Germany – with his heart, with Nixon Nitration Works, with everything – who does he have besides a gal Friday that he can boss around and scare half to death at least five times a day? 

It’s maybe the most vulnerable that Minerva has ever seen her boss, and she feels the corners of her mouth tugging down into a frown without her consent as she looks at him. And Nix, for his part, must realize the implications of what he’s just said, because he raises an eyebrow in a manner that’s halfway sardonic. 

“Anyways.” He hops up from the chair he’s reclined in and starts to walk around his lab as if nothing has happened. 

The way he can go from a near death experience to business as usual irks Minerva in a way she can’t even begin to describe. God, if this idiot would stop and process things like a normal person for once, maybe they wouldn’t find themselves in half of these damn messes. 

The smell of the goo on her hands makes her gag, and she shakes them, hoping to rid herself of some of the slime until she can get to a sink. She almost knocks the old miniature Arc Reactor from its precarious perch in her frustration. 

Her hands are still so slick that she almost drops it as soon as she picks it up. She glances at Nix, a new thrill of frustration shooting through her as she watches him cleaning up his supplies from his in-home surgery. 

“What do you want to do with this?” 

Nix pauses, turning to look at her. He frowns. 

“Oh that?” He shrugs. “Destroy it.” He taps the glowing device in his chest as if to say, I’ve got it covered. 

Minerva is about to give him a lecture, to tell him that he should keep it in case of an emergency, because you never know what’s going to happen – but she feels her mouth snap shut in a way that’s most uncharacteristic of herself. Usually her interactions with Nix have a lot more snark and a lot more unsolicited advice that goes completely unheeded. 

But there’s something different about today. She’s always been worried about Nix and what he might do to himself, but this . . . This is different. He seems almost numb as he looks at her. It’s like he doesn’t even care what happens to himself anymore. And why should he, when the worst has already kind of happened to him? Then again, when did he care about what happened to himself before?

A wave of empathy washes over Minerva as she glances down at the Arc Reactor in her hands and nods. “Will that be all, Mr. Nixon?” 

Nix’s expression softens, albeit infinitesimally. “That’ll be all, Miss Revels.” 

Hesitantly, Minerva turns to leave the lab, although she pauses at the door when she hears Nix snarking at and bossing around his robots. She feels her heart soften a bit as she watches him. Because it makes her realize that, sadly, Nix is right: besides his faithful robots, he’s only got her right now. 

Despite the goo on her hands, Minerva keeps as tight a grip on the Arc Reactor as she can while she heads back upstairs to wash them. She might be Nix’s girl Friday, but that doesn’t mean that she has to follow his every order if it goes against his best interests. She’ll keep the Arc Reactor somewhere safe, just in case. His heart almost stopped today, and Minerva isn’t going to let the risk of that happen again. Not on her watch.  

Not when she’s starting to suspect that there might be proof that Lewis Nixon has a heart.

[croziers-compass]

what's your favourite thing about francis?

My favourite thing about Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier. ...

I fear you have no clue what sort of box you've opened up for yourself. Brace. And hold fast.

I am not very normal about Francis Crozier. So I will do my best to keep this brief and simple...

I will try.

Francis Crozier.

This is a man that has accomplished a great many feats. From Antarctic Expeditions. To Arctic Expeditions. He is skilled in navigation, to reading magnetic chartings. He collected plants and samples from the polar regions.

This man, at heart, deep in his heart and soul, is an explorer. His home is the world itself.

Being not just willing but invested in crossing fathoms to explore the uncharted frontiers of the most inhospitable places requires someone to be exceptional in a broad array of talents. There is an impressive list of achievements, skills, and nuances to Francis Crozier that have me swooning.

But above all else, this man is steady. Francis Crozier is fluid and steady simultaneously. I cannot begin to understand how someone can be so shifting and yet anchored in such a harmoniously balanced way. He keeps his cool in the most extreme of circumstances. There is an excerpt discussing how Francis had to jump from ice floe to ice floe during one of the expeditions. Should he had fallen into the water, it would certainly have spelled a level of dangerous disaster for his person. And yet, written in the words of the viewer who had watched Francis do this, described him as being very calm, easy, and rather smooth and fluid in his actions. As if he knew precisely what to do and how to do it. Unflappable is an understatement here. He is so steady and certain and yet fluid and adaptive.

When the Erebus and the Terror had their collision with James Clark Ross, Francis had taken control of the Terror. The Erebus' body clung and entangled with her sister ship, Francis Crozier sailed and dragged the Erebus to safety despite the two of them being antler-locked with one another. In the chaos and in the risk of ice burgs and both ships being drug to the bottom by their riggings being ensnared to each other, Francis took charge and drug them to safety in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. When the stakes are high, Francis prevails.

There is an array of exceptional things that this man has done. But the stalwart integrity of his individual is incredible. A clever and beautiful mind and a talented seaman, Francis Crozier has a spirit that is unlike anything else to me. His constitution and integrity and the rawness of his individual will never cease to inspire me.

I feel that James Clark Ross and I would be horrible to put in a room together. We would never cease.

On the subject of adaptions from The Terror series?

All of the above sort of applies as I've integrated a lot of the historical content as being somewhat cannon though we've only hints at the events here and there.

Aside from the incredible feat of going sober and quitting drink in its entirety, which is one of the most admirable feats of his individual and worthy of a whole paragraph dedicated to this alone...

His sheer raw determination is incredible. There is such an immense compassion and sweetness to him that it aches something fierce inside of me. This is a man that refuses to let anyone go. He will stay with every person until the last. He will carry the whole of the Expedition if he must. Every choice he makes takes careful consideration to those that it will impact.

The weight of the lives relying on him sits heavy upon his shoulders. The burden of knowledge and awareness that there are, indeed, going to be deaths, does not stop him from doing the best that he can no matter the struggle and no matter the circumstances. He is kind and tender with both his words and his hands.

And yet when it is needed, he is brutally raw and willing to use that Irish spite and stubbornness as a weapon for good. His desire to spite the narrative is so strong. His sheer raw unbridled determination and the tenderness of his heart never hardens to a jaded exterior once he goes sober.

He faces and experiences a wholeness of himself and this creates a beautiful burning fire within him. He embraces so much pain and agony throughout that it harrows me. There is so much to his beautiful spirit and heart and his mind in this way.

So asking me what my favourite thing about Francis Crozier is may be a bit fuzzy and difficult. Francis Crozier is my favourite thing about Francis Crozier. There is something very starkly uniquely FRANCIS that really hits a spot inside of me that I cannot begin to describe to you in words fit for a human tongue.

I could ramble for days about the things he has done and the things I love about him. From his clever mind to his capable hands to his intuition and lack of care for politics. I could go on about how much James Clark Ross adored this man as well. And how he practically drug Francis with him everywhere if he could.

I digress and have gotten carried away. The lot of you should know better than to ask questions such as this! It's going to be your undoings.

So I did not keep this brief. I may have lost a bit of control. But I hope this satisfies nonetheless!

Thank you for stopping by! Forgive me for the Pandora's Box. I ended up cutting a bunch of content as it was already rather too long so I hope this does not find you too overwhelmed. I hope this summary satisfied you as well!

[frostythefrostedfox]

Guess what, if I can use my mouse to model and pick up a pen to modify textures, how hard can it be to draw?

Actually is pretty hard, but there is nothing you can't learn by staring at a million tutorials, so I did this, and I'll be putting it on the fridge with the orange magnet.

And since I'm already here, why not infodump some more about this goofy goober.

The neon-coloured parts of his fur glow in the dark, including the teeth and claws.

His long fangs make him drag any letter that is pronounced with the lips so he doesn't cuts his lower lip, like the F, V, P, W and a few more

Despite being younger than his sister, he appears older, this is because normally Foxes live less than Eagles.

For his species, he is on the taller and nimbler side

Although he has more than enough money to repaint his equipment, he prefers to leave the dents and scratches.

A side effect of his tracheal implant is his 'autotune', best way to describe it is if someone was constantly speaking the way Laura Les sings

Left Handed

His favourite colour is Red

His favourite food is Ice Cream Cereal, just let any icecream melt on any cereal and eat it.

He prefers to ingest his Reactive Fluid in the shape of lollipops, preferably mint flavoured.

His hardware and augments only become active above 90bpm, and the overdive only triggers above 150bpm (basically just play K/DA or asteria)

[warriors-rewritten-chaos]

Warrior Cats Prefixes- I

I had a WC Name Generator on Perchance that I made but I don't seem to have access anymore, so I'm remaking it here as just a simple list. The definitions used are the ones that Clan cats have for those things, and thus are the origins of the names. Definitions used are whatever I found when I googled it.

Ibis-: "[noun] a large wading bird with a long down-curved bill, long neck, and long legs"

Ice-: "[noun] frozen water, a brittle transparent crystalline solid"

Icicle-: "[noun] a hanging, tapering piece of ice formed by the freezing of dripping water"

Icy-: "[adj] covered with or consisting of ice; [adj] (of a person's tone or manner) very unfriendly and hostile"

Indigo-: "[noun] a tropical plant of the pea family, which was formerly widely cultivated as a source of dark blue dye; [noun] a color between blue and violet in the spectrum; [adj] of a color between blue and violet in the spectrum"

Ink-: "[noun] a dark-colored liquid derived from organic sources such as plants, minerals, and animals"

Inkberry-: "[noun] a holly of eastern North America with evergreen oblong leathery leaves and small usually black berries; [noun] the fruit of an inkberry plant"

Inkcap-: "[noun]  a mushroom (genus Coprinopsis, especially C. atramentaria) whose pileus deliquesces into an inky fluid after the spores have matured"

Iris-: "[noun] a member of a flowering plant genus of 310 accepted species with showy flowers"

Iron-: "[noun] a strong, hard magnetic silvery-gray metal"

Ivory-: "[noun] a creamy-white color"

Ivy-: "[noun] a woody evergreen Eurasian climbing plant, typically having shiny, dark green five-pointed leaves"

[estapa-edwards]

TEAMMATES - C. BEDARD

paring: Connor Bedard x fem! reader

word count: 3.9k

requested? yes -connor bedard falling in love with his teammate, she’s one or two years older and plays for the blackhawks and he just falls in love so hard and she does so too but more cautious

warnings: use of y/n.

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As I stepped onto the ice, the chill of the arena enveloped me, sending a shiver down my spine. The familiar sound of skates cutting through the ice filled the air, mingling with the cheers and chatter of the crowd. This was home, the place where I belonged - on the rink, with my team, the Chicago Blackhawks.

Among the sea of jerseys and helmets, one figure stood out: Connor Bedard, our star player. His skill and talent were undeniable, but there was something else about him that caught my eye - a certain intensity, a fire that burned within him every time he stepped onto the ice.

I had heard the rumors, of course. Connor Bedard, the prodigy, hailed as the next great hockey phenom. But what intrigued me wasn't just his talent; it was the way he carried himself, the determination in his eyes, the way he moved with such grace and precision.

As I skated over to join the warm-up drills, I couldn't help but steal glances at him. His blonde hair peeked out from under his helmet, his blue eyes focused and unwavering. There was a magnetic pull between us, a connection that I couldn't quite explain.

"Y/N, you with us?" My teammate's voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.

"Yeah, sorry, just... zoning out," I replied, trying to shake off the strange feeling that had settled in the pit of my stomach.

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The ice rink was quiet, bathed in the soft glow of the overhead lights as Connor and I skated side by side, the sound of our blades cutting through the ice echoing in the empty arena. It was moments like these that I cherished the most - just the two of us, lost in our own little world.

I focused on perfecting my shots, the puck gliding effortlessly across the ice as I aimed for the top corner of the net. But no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, I couldn't shake the feeling of Connor's eyes on me, his gaze burning into my skin like a searing flame.

"Nice shot," he called out, flashing me a grin as he skated over to retrieve the puck.

"Thanks," I replied, feeling a blush creeping up my cheeks.

As he passed the puck back to me, his hand brushed against mine, sending a jolt of electricity shooting through my veins. I tried to ignore the fluttering sensation in my stomach, focusing instead on the task at hand.

But Connor had other ideas.

"Mind if I show you a trick?" he asked, skating closer until our bodies were almost touching.

"Sure," I replied, trying to sound casual despite the rapid thud of my heart.

With a mischievous glint in his eye, Connor skated backwards, effortlessly guiding the puck with his stick as he moved with fluid grace across the ice. I watched in awe as he performed a series of intricate maneuvers, each one more impressive than the last.

"See?" he said, flashing me a cocky grin as he skated back towards me.

"Yeah, that was... impressive," I replied, trying to hide the awe in my voice.

As he reached out to hand me the puck, his fingers brushed against mine once again, sending a shiver down my spine. I tried to ignore the tingling sensation that lingered in the air between us, focusing instead on the task at hand.

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The arena was alive with energy as the game entered its final minutes, the score tied and the tension thick enough to cut with a knife. Every pass, every shot, every save was met with a roar of approval from the crowd, the atmosphere electric with anticipation.

As I skated onto the ice, the familiar rush of adrenaline coursing through my veins, I could feel the weight of the game resting on my shoulders. This was it - the moment I had been training for, the chance to prove myself on the biggest stage of all.

With a burst of speed, I charged towards the net, the puck glued to my stick as I dodged and weaved my way through the opposing defense. I could feel the eyes of the crowd on me, their cheers and chants urging me on as I closed in on the goal.

And then, in a split second that felt like an eternity, it happened - the puck sailed past the goalie and into the net, the sound of the crowd erupting into cheers echoing in my ears.

I had scored.

As I skated back towards my teammates, a sense of euphoria washed over me, the adrenaline still coursing through my veins as I high-fived my fellow players. But as I glanced over at Connor, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips, I knew that this goal was about more than just me - it was about us, about the bond that we shared both on and off the ice.

"Nice shot, Y/N!" Connor called out, skating over to join me with a grin on his face.

"Thanks," I replied, feeling a rush of pride at his words.

And then, without another word, he held out his hand, the puck resting on the tip of his stick as he prepared to make the perfect pass.

"Ready?" he asked, his eyes meeting mine with a look of determination.

"Ready," I replied, a smile spreading across my face as I skated into position.

With a flick of his wrist, Connor sent the puck soaring through the air, perfectly timed and perfectly placed. And as I reached out to meet it, my stick connecting with the puck in a seamless motion, I felt a surge of adrenaline rush through me once again.

And then, in a flash of movement that seemed to defy time itself, I took the shot, the puck sailing past the goalie and into the net with a satisfying thud.

We had done it.

As the crowd erupted into cheers and applause, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride wash over me. This wasn't just a goal - it was a testament to everything we had worked for, everything we had overcome together.

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The atmosphere in the arena was tense as the game against the Devils reached its peak, the score neck and neck, every play crucial to the outcome. As the puck zipped across the ice, bodies collided, sticks clashed, and the sound of the crowd intensified with every shot on goal.

Connor, as always, was at the heart of the action, his skill and determination evident in every move he made. But as the game wore on, a sense of unease settled over me, a feeling that something wasn't quite right.

And then, in a split second that seemed to freeze time itself, it happened - a sickening crunch echoed through the arena as Connor collided with an opposing player, his body crumpling to the ice in a heap.

Time seemed to stand still as I watched in horror from the bench, my heart pounding in my chest as the realization sunk in. Connor was hurt, and he was hurt badly.

Without a second thought, I leaped to my feet, my skates clattering against the hard surface of the bench as I rushed onto the ice. The crowd's cheers and chants faded into the background as I made my way towards him, my only focus on the figure lying motionless on the ice.

"Connor!" I called out, my voice echoing through the empty arena as I knelt beside him.

He lay there, his face twisted in pain, blood pooling beneath him as he clutched at his jaw. My heart ached at the sight of him, his normally vibrant blue eyes dulled with agony.

"Y/N," he mumbled, his voice barely above a whisper. "I think... I think I broke my jaw."

Tears welled up in my eyes as I reached out to touch him, my fingers trembling as they brushed against his cheek. He winced at the contact, but he didn't pull away, his gaze locked with mine in silent understanding.

"We need to get you off the ice," I said, my voice barely audible over the roar of the crowd.

With a nod, he struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on me for support as we made our way towards the bench. The crowd's cheers and chants seemed to fade into the background as we disappeared into the tunnel, leaving behind the chaos of the game.

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The first period ended in a blur of chaos and confusion, the atmosphere in the locker room tense as we waited for news of Connor's condition. Every passing minute felt like an eternity, each second dragging on as we anxiously paced back and forth, our thoughts consumed by worry and fear.

And then, finally, the door swung open, and there he was - Connor, his face pale and drawn, but his eyes filled with determination.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, rushing to his side as he sank onto the nearest bench.

"Like I got hit by a freight train," he replied with a weak smile, his voice hoarse with pain.

I winced at the sight of him, his jaw swollen and bruised, his normally cheerful demeanor replaced by a grimace of agony. But despite the pain etched on his face, there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes, a determination to soldier on no matter what.

"We'll get through this," I said, reaching out to squeeze his hand in reassurance.

He nodded in agreement, his grip tight and reassuring as we sat together in the quiet of the locker room, the sound of our breathing the only thing breaking the silence.

The news of Connor's injury weighed heavily on all of us as we awaited word from the doctors. When the diagnosis came back confirming a broken jaw requiring surgery, a sense of somberness fell over the locker room. But amidst the uncertainty, there was one thing that remained clear - Connor needed support, and he needed it now.

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As the team dispersed to make arrangements for Connor's surgery and recovery, I knew that I had to do something to help. Without hesitation, I offered to have him stay with me during his recovery, knowing that he would need all the help and support he could get.

"Are you sure about this?" Connor asked, his voice filled with gratitude as we sat together in the quiet of the locker room.

"Absolutely," I replied, my heart swelling with determination. "You've always been there for me, Connor, and now it's my turn to be there for you."

With a nod of agreement, Connor accepted my offer, his eyes shining with gratitude as we made plans for his surgery and recovery. And as we left the locker room together, a sense of purpose filled the air, a determination to see Connor through this difficult time no matter what.

The day of Connor's surgery arrived with a mixture of nerves and anticipation, the air thick with tension as we made our way to the hospital. As we sat together in the waiting room, the minutes seemed to stretch on endlessly, each passing second filled with worry and fear.

But finally, the door swung open, and there he was - Connor, his face pale and drawn, but his eyes filled with determination.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, rushing to his side as he emerged from the operating room.

"Like I got hit by a truck," he replied with a weak smile, his voice muffled by the bandages wrapped around his jaw.

I winced at the sight of him, his face swollen and bruised from the surgery, but there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes, a determination to soldier on no matter what.

With gentle hands, I helped him to his feet, supporting him as we made our way out of the hospital and into the waiting car. The journey home was quiet, the silence broken only by the sound of our breathing as we navigated the familiar streets of the city.

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As we arrived at my apartment, I helped Connor inside, guiding him to the couch where he would spend the next few days recovering. And as I tucked him in with a warm blanket and a soft pillow, I knew that no matter what the future held, we would face it together, side by side, skating towards our dreams.

The days passed in a blur of doctor's appointments, medication schedules, and endless hours spent by Connor's side, tending to his every need. But as the initial shock of his injury wore off, frustration began to set in, gnawing away at Connor's resolve like a persistent ache.

"I hate this," he muttered, his voice thick with frustration as he struggled to adjust to life with a broken jaw.

"I know it's tough," I replied, my heart aching at the sight of him in pain. "But you're doing great, Connor. You're strong, and you'll get through this."

He sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he sank deeper into the couch. "I just feel so... useless," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

I reached out to touch him, my fingers brushing against his cheek in a gesture of comfort. "You're not useless, Connor," I said, my voice filled with conviction. "You're brave and resilient, and you're handling this with so much strength and courage."

He looked up at me, his eyes filled with doubt and uncertainty. "But what if I never play hockey again?" he whispered, his voice trembling with fear.

My heart broke at the thought of him giving up on his dreams, his passion for the game dimming like a fading flame. But I refused to let him succumb to despair, to let his injury define him.

"You will play hockey again, Connor," I said, my voice firm and unwavering. "This is just a setback, a temporary obstacle in the road. But you'll overcome it, and when you do, you'll be stronger than ever."

For a moment, he was silent, his gaze locked with mine in silent understanding. And then, with a nod of determination, he squared his shoulders and met my gaze with renewed resolve.

"Thank you, Y/N," he said, his voice filled with gratitude. "For everything."

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The days stretched on, each one feeling longer and more monotonous than the last as Connor's frustration continued to grow. Despite my best efforts to keep his spirits up, there was a restless energy that simmered beneath the surface, a longing for the one thing that had always brought him solace - the ice.

"I can't take it anymore," Connor muttered, his voice tinged with desperation as he paced back and forth across the living room. "I need to get back on the ice."

I watched him from the couch, my heart aching at the sight of him so restless and unsettled. It had been weeks since his surgery, and the confines of my apartment were starting to feel like a prison to him.

"I know, Connor," I replied, my voice soft with sympathy. "But the doctor said you need to rest and recover."

"But I can't just sit here and do nothing," he protested, his frustration boiling over like a pot about to spill. "I need to move, to skate, to feel the rush of the ice beneath my feet."

I sighed, knowing that there was little I could do to ease his longing. But then, an idea began to form in my mind, a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness.

"Maybe... maybe we could go watch a practice," I suggested tentatively, the words spilling out before I could stop them.

Connor's eyes lit up at the suggestion, his face breaking into a wide grin at the prospect of being back at the rink, even if only as a spectator.

"Really?" he asked, his voice tinged with excitement.

I nodded, a smile spreading across my face at the sight of him so eager and hopeful. "Yes, really. We'll go watch a practice, and maybe it'll help ease some of that restlessness."

And so, with a newfound sense of purpose and determination, we made our way to the rink, the anticipation building with every step. As we stepped inside the arena, the familiar sound of skates cutting through the ice filled the air, mingling with the cheers and chatter of the crowd.

And as Connor's eyes lit up at the sight of the rink, a sense of peace washed over me, knowing that even in the darkest of times, there was still hope, still the promise of better days ahead.

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The day had finally arrived - the day Connor would step back onto the ice for the first time since his injury. As we made our way to the rink, anticipation hung in the air, a palpable energy that crackled with excitement and nerves.

"I can't believe it's finally happening," Connor said, his voice filled with awe as he gazed out at the ice.

I smiled at him, a sense of pride swelling in my chest at the sight of him so eager and determined. It had been a long and arduous journey, but finally, he was here, ready to reclaim his rightful place on the ice.

With a deep breath, Connor laced up his skates, the familiar sensation sending a rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins. He took a moment to savor the feeling, the cold bite of the ice beneath his feet, the sound of his blades cutting through the surface with each stride.

And then, with a burst of speed, he was off, gliding effortlessly across the ice with a grace and precision that seemed to defy gravity. It was as if he had never been away, as if the weeks spent off the ice had been nothing more than a distant memory.

I watched from the sidelines, my heart swelling with pride as I witnessed the sheer determination and resilience that defined Connor's spirit. Despite the challenges he had faced, he had never once given up, never once lost sight of his dreams.

As he practiced alone, honing his skills and perfecting his moves, I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at the sight of him so focused and determined. This was Connor at his best, his passion for the game burning brighter than ever before.

And as the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the ice, Connor finally skated over to join me at the boards, his face flushed with exertion but his eyes shining with pride.

"Thank you, Y/N," he said, his voice filled with gratitude. "For everything."

I smiled at him, a sense of warmth and contentment washing over me as I reached out to squeeze his hand in reassurance.

"Anytime, Connor," I replied, my voice filled with sincerity. "Anytime."

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As I stepped onto the ice, the familiar chill of the rink enveloped me, sending a shiver down my spine. It was moments like these that I cherished the most - the quiet solitude of the ice, the freedom to lose myself in the rhythm of my skates.

But today was different. Today, my thoughts were consumed by one thing and one thing only - Y/N.

From the moment I first saw her, I knew there was something special about her, something that set her apart from the rest. Maybe it was the way she moved, with a grace and elegance that seemed to defy logic. Or maybe it was the sparkle in her eyes, a fire that burned bright and fierce with every glance.

Whatever it was, I found myself drawn to her like a moth to a flame, unable to resist the magnetic pull that seemed to bind us together. And as we spent more time together, practicing on the ice and sharing quiet moments off of it, I knew that what I felt for her went beyond mere attraction - it was something deeper, something more profound.

But love was a dangerous game, one that I wasn't sure I was ready to play. After all, I was a hockey player, with a career and a reputation to uphold. Falling for a teammate, especially one as talented and captivating as Y/N, was a risk I wasn't sure I was willing to take.

And yet, despite my reservations, I couldn't deny the way my heart raced every time she was near, the way my pulse quickened at the sound of her voice. With every smile, every laugh, every shared moment, I found myself falling for her more and more, like a snowflake drifting gently towards the ground.

But love was a two-way street, and I couldn't shake the feeling that Y/N was more cautious than I was, more guarded with her heart. And who could blame her? After all, she had her own dreams and ambitions, her own fears and insecurities.

But still, I couldn't help but hope that maybe, just maybe, she felt the same way I did. That maybe, in the quiet moments between practices and games, she found herself thinking of me as much as I thought of her.

The adrenaline surged through me as I stepped onto the ice for my first game back since the injury. The roar of the crowd enveloped me, a cacophony of cheers and chants that echoed in my ears like a symphony of triumph. This was it - my chance to prove that I was back, stronger and more determined than ever before.

The game was intense, a fierce battle between two rival teams vying for victory. Every pass, every shot, every save was met with a roar of approval from the crowd, the energy in the arena palpable. And as the final minutes of the third period ticked away, the score remained tied, the tension mounting with each passing second.

But then, in a split second that seemed to stretch into eternity, it happened - the puck found its way to me, and with a burst of speed, I charged towards the net, the goal looming large in my sights. With every ounce of strength and determination I had, I took the shot, the puck sailing past the goalie and into the net with a satisfying thud.

The crowd erupted into cheers and applause, the sound washing over me like a wave of euphoria. I had done it - I had scored.

As I skated back to the bench, my heart pounding with excitement, I couldn't help but feel a surge of pride and accomplishment. This was more than just a goal - it was a testament to everything I had overcome, a reminder that no matter what life threw at me, I would always find a way to rise above it.

And as I sat in the locker room after the game, surrounded by my teammates, I knew that there was something else I needed to do. Something that had been weighing heavily on my mind ever since I stepped back onto the ice.

"Y/N," I said, my voice trembling with emotion as I turned to face her. "I need to talk to you."

She looked up at me, her eyes filled with curiosity and concern. "What is it, Connor? Are you okay?"

I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what I was about to say. "I... I need to tell you something," I began, the words tumbling out in a rush. "Ever since I met you, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. You've become more than just a teammate to me - you've become everything."

Her eyes widened in surprise, a blush creeping up her cheeks as she realized what I was trying to say. "Connor, I... I feel the same way," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of my racing heart.

[nameless-brand]

//

As I go through the Arkham line of games - starting on Arkham Knights after Asylum and City (for material mostly), I particularly want to gush about one particular boss fight.

Spoilers below cut:

My favorite fight by far is the Mr. Freeze fight - probably top 10 out of all the games I've played: no "I reveal this weak spot repeatedly to my detriment". You have to surprise him with a new tactic every time because he immediately adapts to said tactic where you can never use it again. Stun him with the giant magnet in the room, he freezes it immediately after. Catch him offguard with the zip line, he calibrates his scanners to detect its unique sound next time.

He fights like how a scientist in a self-created battlesuit would fight - how Mr. Freeze would fight. No fancy combat moves, just him and his ice gun and his tank-like suit coldly and methodically approaching you. It's also an interesting change in dynamic where you become the prey.

Also, the cause of all this is that Mr. Freeze holds the cure to Batman's poisoning hostage until he goes and saves his wife from Joker. And it's intriguing because much of this is caused by Batman's operating procedure - to strike fear in Gotham's evildoers and to never show weakness. And it comes back to bite him in the ass later.

Mr. Freeze has no reason to trust Batman after Batman threatened his life earlier in the Museum prior - when Batman needed the codes to disable the freeze gun Penguin stole. And Batman's not going to give in to a threat against his person.

--

Also on a side note, being a fan of Assassin's Creed, I can see the similarities in styles. But I have to say combat is a lot more fun in the Arkham series, and stealth is meaningful since without it, you'll just get shot up. As opposed to AC where it really just becomes a counterattack-fest. Combos in Batman also make the battling very fluid (whereas I think it's only in one of the Ezio games, probably AC:Brotherhood, where you start seeing combo-esque stuff)

))