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starmieknight · 1 month ago

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Stars Align

The Inconveniencing

17 Again AU: After a disastrous first day with the twins, Stan swears to do better as an uncle. But fate loves playing tricks on him and the magic 8-ball in the attic is more than it seems.

Now on top of having a pair of twelve year olds around the house while he tries to finish the portal and bring his brother home, Stan has to deal with being back in his seventeen year old body! Summer has never been weirder in Gravity Falls.

Prologue, The Legend of the Gobblewonker, Headhunters Pt. 1, Headhunters Pt. 2, Headhunters Pt. 3, The Hand That Rocks the Mabel Pt. 1, The Hand That Rocks the Mabel Pt. 2 (previous), The Inconveniencing, Dipper Vs. Manliness (next)

Any joy Stan might have felt from his lingering victory over Gideon and the find that came with it was dampened by his brother’s near indecipherable notes.

It was already hard enough to read his fancy handwriting, but having to slog through the sections written in code only to find stupid little observances that he’d hidden just because he could was maddening. Stan had spent their childhood and teenage years going over his brother’s homework to finish his own then another thirty years going over Journal One over and over again until the spine was soft and the pages embedded in his memory. Decoding Journal Two was easier with the first one on-hand, but it wasn’t without its difficulties.

If he hadn’t spent his entire life forcing his eyes to stay on letters with the tendency to get up and move on him while he read, he might have thought Ford had used some kind of magic on the books to keep unwanted eyes out. As it was, he knew that it was just his own brain struggling to keep up and make the words look right.

Reading aloud helped ― he had a better memory when it came to things he could hear rather than trying to retain information by reading, but he only had a few hours in the dead of night to go over the book.

Dipper and Mabel, though safely sequestered in their attic bedroom after a certain point in the night, didn’t do as much sleeping as they claimed to. Stan could often hear knitting needles going a mile a minute even past midnight, or the compulsive clicking of a pen as Dipper tried to beat the protagonists in his mystery novels in solving the case. And, ugh, why did those stupid Sibling Brother novels have to be so popular? Those guys had been jerks even way back in 1960s Jersey.

Shoulda let the Jersey Devil eat them…

Stan hoped the last Journal would help put the others in perspective. He had no delusions about Dipper letting him keep it for long and had spent a good bit of his time between tours working on the old copier in his office. The thing had been a dinosaur long before Stan had arrived in Gravity Falls and he was only slightly worried that it was another crazy invention of his brother’s. Anything was possible with the leftovers Stan had built his life around here. But if he could just make his own copy of the book, Dipper would be none-the-wiser about why Stan was so invested in it.

And he was sure he’d end up spending more time pouring over the book than he wanted to. It just felt like something was missing ever time he read through them. Something hiding right under his nose.

What he wasn’t missing, however, were the pinecones flying over the Mystery Shack’s parking lot.

He paused on his way to the car, having intended on going into town to get craft supplies for a new exhibit, and turned to squint at the roof.

He hoped it wasn’t the gnomes being assholes again.

Creepy, little―

A pinecone hit him square in the face.

“Gah! My nose! It hit me right in the nose!”

“Oh my gosh!” a familiar voice cried in panic.

Dipper.

Now, really ― Stan could let a lot of things go when it came to being a responsible guardian. He was cool like that. And, besides, it wasn’t like he’d had any good role models to base his skills on growing up.

But the kid had just survived a tumble off a cliff thanks to sheer dumb luck and his sister’s quick thinking.

A sister who was standing beside her twin on the roof.

Along with his lumberjack-in-training cashier.

“Wendy Darlene Corduroy!” Stan bellowed, his face red with anger. “You get your ass down here right now and explain yourself!”

“My innocent ears!”

“You too, Mabel Olivia!”

Oi, he really was channeling his mother these days, what with the ‘explain yourself’ and full naming the kids…

“Ah, man. There goes my hideout.” Wendy sighed, unbothered by being caught. The twins, however, looked mortified. “Oh, hey ― it’s my friends!”

Wendy then did something that nearly sent Stan’s teenager body into cardiac arrest.

With all the casual flippancy that her family seemed to possess in spades, Wendy launched herself off the roof, latching onto one of the pine trees that bordered the house and riding it down all the way into the parking lot. She was in her friend’s van and speeding off before Stan could catch her.

“Later, dorks!”

“Later, Wendy!” Dipper cried, his voice cracking painfully. He seemed to have forgotten the situation he was in.

Well, Stan could fix that!

“Mason Alexander Pines! You’d better be down here in the next thirty seconds or your BABBA collection’s goin’ in the Bottomless Pit!”

__________________________________________________________

Maybe it was a bit childish to still be on Dipper's ass the next day, but Mabel was a lot harder to embarrass than her brother. And Dipper still was trying to find excuses about why he couldn't share the journal yet.

Well, opportunity gave Stan the chance to share a little something of his own!

“Mom used to dress him up in a lamb costume and make him do…” Mabel was telling Wendy eagerly, pausing for dramatic flare.

“The Lamby Dance!” Stan finished for her gleefully, pulling a VHS tape from his jacket and waving it at the kids.

He'd found it after all, buried in an old box of home movies that Ford had kept buried in the lab. There were even a few reels from the fifties and sixties that Stan just couldn't bring himself to watch. But Dipper’s mortifying childhood memories were free real estate!

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper screeched, his face crimson. “We don't talk about the Lamby Dance! Destroy that tape!”

“Hup, hup, hup.” Stan tutted, easily keeping the VHS tape out of his nephew's reach. “Now, this is a precious memory I treasure. Why would I destroy it? It's not like you can promise me anything in return…”

Dipper groaned dramatically. “Fiiiiine. I'll stay off the roof!”

“Deal!” Stan grinned triumphantly, his expression gaining a slight edge as he watched the boy stomp the tape into oblivion. It was a good thing he had more copies hidden away.

Wendy laughed at the scene, gently ribbing the boy about wearing a costume, when the cuckoo clock in the gift shop signaled the end of the Shack’s hours.

“Hey, look at that!” she said eagerly, pulling her name tag off and shoving it in her pocket. “Quittin’ time ― the gang's waiting for me!”

And then, much to Stan's surprise, Dipper invited himself and Mabel along with them, spinning a quick yarn about their age.

Stan raised a brow at that but kept his mouth shut, curious about where he was planning to go with this.

He crossed his arms, looking at the boy expectantly while they waited for Wendy to gather her things.

“Gimme one good reason why I shouldn't tell her you're really twelve.”

“C’mon, Grunkle Stan!” the boy hissed, eyes darting to the doorway nervously. “This is my― our chance to hang out with, y’know, the cool kids! And Wendy’’ll be there!”

“The same Wendy who jumped off my roof yesterday?” Stan asked, his tone flat and unimpressed. He shuddered. Ugh, he sounded like his father.

“Give him a break,” Mabel soothed, eyes twinkling. “He can't help that he's in love with Wendy!”

She screeched the last part like a particularly excited bird, making Stan grateful he no longer needed his hearing aid. The feedback would have been murder on his ears.

While the twins wrestled in the background over Dipper's apparent crush, Stan mulled over the situation silently.

On one hand, letting them run off with a bunch of teenagers could end horribly. There's no telling what they could get up to, especially in Gravity Falls.

On the other hand, seeing Dipper grow a little bit of a spine and showing the ol’ Pines’ conman spirit tugged at his heart strings. If the kid honed that mindset just a bit more, he'd be a real chip off the ol’ block.

They'd finally have something in common.

“I’ll allow it!” Stan declared suddenly, surprising the twins into silence. “But I want to know where you're going and I get to meet the rest of those kids. If you've got a problem with that, I'll tell Wendy the truth and you twos don't go nowhere.”

The twin shared a look.

“Deal!”

Stan pressed his lips together tightly and trailed after the kids as they met up with Wendy's friends.

The teenagers lit up at the sight of her, cheering her name like many townsfolk did for her dad.

Despite the obvious affection they seemed to have for the girl, something tightened in his chest at the picture they all made. Specifically the twins at the center of it.

Mabel had seemed to charm her way in with the teenagers instantly, like a duck to water. She didn't even fawn over the boys, which relieved Stan.

That was a nightmare he wasn't ready for. Probably never would be.

He knew the dangers of falling for older men.

Dipper, meanwhile, was struggling to fit in with the others, leading to an awkward silence in the group. Yeesh ― maybe the kid did have more in common with Ford than he’d thought.

One of the teens took advantage of the silence to notice Stan. A pale, crater-faced kid with dyed black hair and an air of indifferent despair. The Valentinos’ son.

Stan narrowed his eyes at the kid. He’d been an unwanted interloper, who'd hung around the Shack in the early days of Wendy working there. He was a terrible distraction that had to be run off multiple times before getting the picture.

He knew to be afraid of Stan Pines.

He knew nothing about the new ‘teen’ hanging around with Wendy

“Who's this guy?” the Valentino kid asks, his voice nasally and weasel-like. It grates on Stan's ears and something about the kid makes him want to start punching.

If the way Dipper also tenses is any indication, the boy shares the sentiment.

“Stanley Pines,” Stan offers shortly before anyone can open their mouths. “The Second.”

“Whoa,” one of the other boys grinned at him. His long hair and face reminded Stan of the overly patriotic redneck in town. They might even be related. “ I didn't know Old Man Pines had a kid. Dude, he's not, like, dead or anything, right?”

Stan blinked rapidly for a moment at the question, a lie falling from his lips before he had time to process how the idea of Stanford's identity dying out entirely makes him feel. His chest feels tight again. Stomp it out and put it in a box to deal with later.

“He's on a cruise.” He shrugs noncommittally. The teenagers relax at the lie. Probably uncomfortable with the idea of being forced to offer a stranger their condolences. “Won it in a sweepstakes or somethin’ and he made me come down to run the Mystery Shack while he's gone.”

The teenager with the hat made a sympathetic face. “Dude, that sucks ― having to work all summer.”

“Yeah,” Wendy agrees, throwing an arm around Stan’s neck and nearly choking the life out of him while she grins. There's an edge to her eyes that whispers mischief. “He should totally come hang with us.”

Oh boy…

“What?!” Dipper yelps, mortified by the very idea of Stan tagging along. Which he gets, but also ― ouch.

The Valentino kid looks just as upset with the idea, glaring daggers at the arm Wendy has around Stan.

Oh great, the kid’s jealous of him!

Now would be a great time for Stan to bolt and disappear. Possibly lock himself in the basement so no one could find him and get some extra work done on the portal while the kids are out.

But Wendy had a death grip on him and he was forced into the back row of an unfamiliar van while people he didn’t know shouted up front.

Altogether, a familiar experience made new by the presence of his niece and nephew sitting on either side of him.

Stan crossed his arms and glared at the back of Wendy’s hat.

“I am not okay with this.” he announced flatly, breaking Dipper and Mabel out of yet another argument about Stan’s kidnapper.

“Grunkle Stan,” Dipper began hesitantly, lowering his voice until they were in a little bubble only privileged to their family. “Why did you tell them your name is Stanley?”

Stan does his best to breathe through the cramp in his chest, the sensation lingering from earlier, and fixes his eyes on the dents in the roof. Shoves his hands further into the crooks of his elbows to hide his sweaty hands, the echoes of his mother calling his name ringing in his ears. (Always Stanley and never just Stan.)

“I didn’t wanna be Stanford Junior.” he says finally, hesitating just too long to be a natural answer.

“Who’s Stanley Pines the First?” This time it’s Mabel, her eyes sharp and likely running through all their shared relatives in her head. He’s grateful the majority of the Pines family were back on the East Coast, Shermie’s family the only outliers and not as ready to fill the twins’ heads with cautionary tales designed to keep them from turning out like their ‘no-good, dead uncle’.

‘Stanley’ was practically a swear word in Shermie’s house.

“A dead man.” Stan mumbled, the words nearly lost beneath the cacophony of the teenagers in front of them. “The family’s better off without him and that’s all ya need to know.”

“You must have loved him, at least.” Mabel prodded, ever the optimist. This was the first time it had ever cut into his heart like this. “I mean, to name yourself after him. Rename? Would you name a hypothetical son after him?”

Stan finally turned to look at her and she flinched from the intensity of it.

“Never.”

__________________________________________________________

The old Dusk-2-Dawn looks just as Stan remembers it. The last time he’d been in there was 1995 to buy a few things he was too lazy to go all the way into town for. He’d been in a foul mood, his birthday only weeks away, looming over his head like a coming storm, and he’d barely said two words to Ma and Pa Duskerton while roaming the aisles.

Ma had tried to push the conversation, eyes full of a matronly concern Stan hadn’t seen in over twenty years, but he had resisted to the point of rudeness. It normally wouldn’t bother him to be a jerk, but the old lady had looked so disappointed with him that he’d suddenly seen his own mother’s face staring back at him. The way she’d looked at ‘Stanley’s’ funeral, the only family he’d had there. Even Shermie hadn’t come down, though he’d had the excuse of having an appendectomy on his side.

Stan had mumbled an apology and an excuse about having a headache.

Ma’s face cleared of irritation pretty quickly and she’d pressed a packet of aspirin into his hands, free of charge.

To help keep the town’s best tourist catcher in good health, she’d claimed. The Murder Hut had brought in a surprising amount of revenue to the town once he’d made it into more than just the local papers.

He’d done it again a few years later after rechristening the Shack with a more family-friendly name, but Ma hadn’t been around to see that.

But she’d believed in him at the moment.

Three days later, she and her husband were dead and their store closed down.

Haunted, the townsfolk claimed. Fenced off and avoided at all costs.

Unless, of course, you were a group of teenagers who wanted to star in a horror movie like Wendy and her friends.

Or Dipper, who’d climbed onto the roof to break in.

Wait ― what?!

Stan jolted out of his memories at the sight of his nephew disappearing into a vent and he made a strangled sound of rage.

That knucklehead!

Still, it was pretty awesome to see the kid punching his way through his problems. Just like his ol’ Grunkle Stan!

The boy opened the doors and waved them in, a grin splitting his face.

Stan followed after the other teenagers, most of them chattering happily about the unexpected addition to their group, and paused just inside the doors.

“I’m impressed, kid.” he snorted, ruffling the kid’s hair and messing up his hat. “But don’t do that again!”

The boy laughed at him, always a tad nervous in their interactions, and smiled hesitantly back at Stan.

The resemblance to Ford was too much for him to take in at the moment, so Stan slung an arm around his neck and dragged him inside.

Now breaking and entering was something he could get behind!

He even found himself laughing with the other teens as they trashed the store, throwing food and dusty cat litter at each other. They dropped Mentos into an old bottle of Pitt and Stan just shook the fizz out of his hair with a joyful grin.

He had to hand it to these kids ― they knew how to have a good time. Even the Valentino kid and all the weird staring he did at Stan. It wasn’t even all glares, but there was an occasional splash of color that made the kid go all splotchy whenever Stan caught him in the act.

Stan tried to avoid him, sticking close to the kid with the long face and his friend with the hat. Lee and Nate, though he’d forgotten which one was which.

They seemed to like him the most after Wendy.

The other girl was too focused on her phone to pay him much attention ― though he’d seen her snapping pictures of him on occasion ― and the last guy in the group was too desperate for attention from the original friend group to try and corner Stan.

So Stan gets caught up with the pair of boys who seem to know each other like the back of their hands, so lost in the thrill of finally acting like a teenager again that he fails to notice when something inevitably goes wrong.

“Stan!” Dipper hisses urgently, tugging at his uncle’s T-shirt and pulling him away from the others so they can speak in private. “Something's wrong here! I keep seeing things ― weird things! ― around the store and I’m pretty sure it’s haunted and Mabel’s overdosed on Smile Dip and I can’t say anything to the others because they’ll just think I’m a scared little kid or something!”

Stan takes a moment to just blink at that, because, wow. He’s surprised the kid didn’t pass out trying to get all that out in one go. He certainly hadn’t stopped to breathe.

Then he straightens up, the air of a teenager sliding off him to show the old man he really is inside.

“Where’s Mabel?”

The poor girl looks like the guys Stan had known back during his dark days in Colombia. Living on the streets was rough enough ― seeing them go into seizures after too much ‘edible flour’ was almost as traumatizing as accidentally pushing your brother through an interdimensional portal while he called your name and begged for help.

So… pretty damn traumatizing.

Stan didn’t know if Smile Dip had the same stuff in it to send Mabel into a similar state as the guys he’d known on the streets, but he didn’t want to chance it.

He scoops his niece up, cradling her tiny body to his chest, and wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

How did he get so caught up that he missed Mabel trying questionable substances?! The girl was so much like Ford in his eyes that he forgot how much she was like Stan, too.

It’s just supposed to be a bit of fun.

Until it isn’t.

“We’re leaving!” Stan barks at the others, startling them out of their fun. The Valentino kid is so shocked that he falls off the counter and disappears behind the register. “NOW!”

“Whoa,” Wendy tries to placate, her gaze hardening as it lands on the bundle of turquoise and pink in his arms. “Stan ― breathe. C’mon, guys, time to go.”

A breath leaves his chest in an explosion of air, the tightness in his chest having built up to a vice yet again. It burns and crushes him simultaneously, quickly becoming a feeling both familiar and a hindrance. Every moment the twins spend in Gravity Falls just makes the feeling grow and grow and grow.

The last thing Stan wants to do is send them home to parents who’re contemplating divorce, but that small bit of good sense he has whispers that it may be what he needs to do.

To keep them safe, alive.

“No one is leaving!” a new voice bellows.

Stan can only look on in horror as the Valentinos’ kid rises from behind the counter.

And keeps rising.

They really did end up in a horror movie, the Valentino kid obviously possessed now and floating above them while wreathed in a ghostly glow. His dark eyes are white beneath his fringe, rolled back so far in his head that the veins are visible and bulging.

That… That can’t be good.

It’s a blur after that, the teenagers disappearing one after another until it’s just him and Wendy left, backed up against the doors with the twins encased in Stan’s arms. He’d picked up Dipper at some point, though he had no recollection of doing so.

The ghost is laughing at them now, saying something about hot dogs of all things!

Fury and fear war within Stan until they spew forth from him in an angry wave.

“Oh, can it, Duskerton! You never sold your dogs at a discount and that joke’s thirty years old! Get some new material and let us outta here!”

The possessed Valentino kid scowls at him, his ghostly glow tinged red, but it’s the other face materializing next to him that catches Stan’s attention.

“My, Pa!” Ma Duskerton exclaims in surprise. “That’s Stanford Pines!”

The red fades away and Pa Duskerton fades into view beside the transparent image of his wife.

The Valentino kid drops to the ground, landing with a muffled groan.

“Why, it is, Ma!” Pa says joyfully, floating closer to peer at Stan’s face. “Got yourself caught up in some magic mischief, didya m’boy?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stan rolled his eyes at the familiar tone of the couple. For some reason, they liked him enough to ignore his gruff attitude. “The whole baby face’s old news by now. So, ya gonna let us go or what? My kid’s spazzin’ out over that junk you guys used t’ sell.”

Ma’s face crumbled with concern and she disappeared, only to reappear right in front of them. Stan jumped and clutched the twins more tightly. Ma didn’t seem to notice, attempting to pet Mabel’s tangled curls, her hand going right through the girl.

“Oh, the poor dear.” the woman tutted maternally. “I saw my share of kids go through the same thing. Get her some water to break it down and something starchy to soak it up and she’ll be just fine, deary.”

Some of the tension floods from Stan’s shoulders at the reassurance. Already Mabel’s eyes are beginning to clear, every pass of Ma’s hand bringing life back into her tiny body.

“Now,” Pa sighs, crossing his arms. “I really am sore at you kids for the state of our store.”

“We’re really sorry,” Wendy offers sheepishly, the expression out of place on her face. “We didn't think anyone would care after seventeen years.”

Pa flares red briefly but settles down quickly when Dipper flinches in his uncle’s arms.

“Well, I do care, young lady. But you’ve apologized. Your friends, however…”

“Can’t we do anything to help them?” Dipper asks rather meekly. He forces himself to stay steady when Pa attempts to pat his head and shivers when the hand passes through him.

“Now, now, little fella ― say, how old are you, anyway? Y’seem a bit small to be one of them sassa-frassin’ teenagers!”

Once it’s apparent that the Duskertons hate teenagers, Dipper’s con is now on the line.

The boy looks nervously at Wendy before slumping in defeat.

“I’m twelve… technically not a teen.”

“Wonderful!” Pa beams, his ghostly glow becoming almost blinding white at the admission. “Do you know any funny little dances?”

“No―oooo,” Dipper drags out the word in a panic as Pa flashes red. “Well, there is one! The, uh, Lamby Dance… But I can’t really do it without a lamb costume, so―”

Which doesn’t deter Pa in the slightest.

The ghost snaps his fingers and warps reality around them to put Dipper in a fleecy costume, the boy teleported to the center of the store where there’s room to dance.

Stan muffles a distressed moan at the sudden loss and holds Mabel tighter. Whatever the kid was doing, he didn’t want to get in the way. His nephew’s song and dance routine is a familiar comfort, but Stan won’t be anywhere near at ease until the boy’s back in his arms again.

Which probably won’t be any time soon.

The boy’s sacrifice has saved the others and everyone practically crawls out of the Dusk-2-Dawn as Wendy regalls them with a heavily edited retelling of how Dipper exorcised the ghosts.

Mabel’s stirring in his arms and Stan barely has time to put her down before she’s throwing up against the van’s tires.

There’s a muffled chorus of sympathetic noises from the rest of the group as she finishes spewing her guts.

“Oh, man.” Wendy sighs as she comes to stand beside Stan. Her face is contrite and worn, a shadow of nervousness on her face that Stan would have missed if he hadn’t known the girl her entire life. “Sorry about all that, dude. I just really wanted you to let loose a little ― not deal with overdoses and ghosts.”

He bumps his shoulder against hers gently. It barely budges her, only a testament to how tired she really is.

“I’m not happy about the twins getting dragged into another mess, but you didn’t know what would happen.” Stan’s reminded of another teenager who made a mistake, a lifetime and a coastline away, and can’t bring himself to yell at her just yet. “Whaddya say to dumpin’ the gremlins in bed and pigging out on ice cream and bad public television?”

Wendy grins and punches his arm playfully. It actually kinda hurts.

“You got it, man. Better than just staring at my wall for hours until the world makes sense again. Next time we hang out, let’s just stay at the Mystery Shack, okay?”

“Next time?” Dipper, who’d been hovering at their hips and holding back Mabel’s hair, perks up. “You mean, you still wanna hang out with us? Even… even after I lied about being thirteen?”

Wendy pushed his hat down over his face.

“Of course, doofus!” her tone was unbelievably fond. “The Pines Family is the coolest in Gravity Falls!”

The boy is practically glowing as he climbs into the van, only dimming slightly as he and Mabel fall asleep on the ride home. The twins glue themselves to Stan’s sides and only offer mumbled protests when he and Wendy carry them into the Shack. They’re snoring by the time they’re tucked into bed and Wendy and Stan crash in front of the TV to spend the rest of the night binging some old movie they’re too tired to protest watching.

By the end of it, Stan’s crying over Duchess’ long-awaited wedding and appropriately angry when it’s interrupted.

Wendy just laughs at him, long and hard, still grinning half-an-hour later when she finally passes out. Stan follows her soon after, his dreams full of dashing men in waistcoats and fiery young women who challenge the world.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fanfiction #stanley pines #stan pines #gravity falls stanley #gravity falls stan pines #grunkle stan #de aged Stan pines #de aging #my writing #17 again au #stars align

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comatosebunny09 · 11 months ago

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He’s exhausted.

Of that much, you are sure. His languid suckling on your neck serves as a gauge for it.

“It must be hard running Hotel Transylvania in the Underdark,” you muse from your side. There’s humor tinging your voice, mingled with the crisp flipping of a page.

Exasperation lives in his once he reluctantly retracts his fangs. “I swear, if I have to pull another spawn off a gnome, I will spear them all on pikes.”

“Awful ‘Vlad the Impaler’ of you.”

Astarion snorts, the cool rush of it tickling your damp skin. “Gods below. One could only dream of being that demented.”

“Yeah, well. We both know you love the others too much to hurt them.”

“Mm, I beg to differ.”

Astarion hums, and you feel it spool in your stomach. Affectionately, he noses the outer shell of your ear. Electricity shoots like pins and needles to the crease of your thighs when he nips you. And the little jolt your body gives draws a husky chuckle from him.

You find the contents of your book no longer interesting; your attention is diverted to the hand on your hipbone.

Astarion drifts in and out of sleep, waking every so often to suckle on your neck like a sleepy newborn.

At some point, you awaken to him rutting against you.

“Astarion.” Your voice holds an edge to it—a warning.

“What?” You can practically hear the pout taking residence in his voice. “It’s been ages since I’ve last felt you.”

He mouths the curve of your shoulder whilst an artful hand bunches up your nightshirt, seeking the supple glide of your hip beneath.

You snort, snapping your book shut. Shift the slightest to cast him a humored look over your shoulder. “Ages? Ages, Astarion? You mean just last night?”

“Ages,” he solidifies into the space behind your ear. Goosebumps ignite in the wake of his breath cooling your skin. “A day without your body cradled to mine feels like an eternity, my love.”

You roll your eyes at his theatrics. Can you really fault him? Time moves differently here in the Underdark—if it moves at all. The absence of the sun has thrown your circadian clock entirely off-kilter. For all you know, he may very well have suffered eons without you.

“Please,” croons Astarion, trailing wet kisses down your nape. His hand continues on an excursion southward, kneading the fat of your thigh. It craters between his fingers as he squeezes the inner slope of it, and you bite your lip to ward off a growl. “I only need a taste.”

Somehow, you doubt that. It’s never just a taste with your love, now is it? But his begging is enough to coax a resigned sigh from your lips. Surely, you’ll regret this later.

“Fine,” you relent after tucking your novel beneath the pillow.

You yip as the world pivots and wooshes, and suddenly, you are on your back. You giggle as he climbs overtop you. Have all of five seconds to catch the boyish gleam of his eyes before he dives in to sample the skin of your throat.

Instinctively, you bury ten fingers in curls of white. And how sweet your voice sounds, pinched from your lungs in a whimper as you feel the searing graze of his fangs on your neck. Your breath hitched in anticipation; every nerve in your body trained on him. However, the prick of his fangs never comes.

Instead, they continue their journey southward, past your collarbones, between the valley of your breasts, towards your navel…

How prettily you arch against him, a sultry laugh parting your lips.

He disappears between your legs, tenderly kissing your thighs, dragging his lips toward the folds of your labia. Each kiss he delivers makes your hips twitch delightfully, seeking the wet contact of his mouth like a beacon.

He groans something pleased between your legs, kissing your lower lips before his tongue parts your labia in wet, languid strokes.

Instinctively, your hands fly to his hair. Your lip snags between your teeth as you bite them against a smile. You arch your body into him. He groans appreciatively, anchoring your hips down to the bed. The lewd, wet sounds he makes between your legs make you flutter.

“Delicious,” he hums between each stroke of his tongue. A supplication to the Gods for supplying him such a grand feast.

#astarion x you #astarion smut #astarion x female reader

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blackseafoam · 4 months ago

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Ambushed

Part 1 of 2

previous - next

Synopsis: Arturo hadn't come home from hunting, so Nicco went to look for him. He found him not so far away from the Inn, face covered in blood and heavily concussed. He and Elleh try to figure out what happened. Found family fluff, mucho cozy vibes (My usual writing pace is pretty quick, I tried to take my time with this, it was nice to slow down). The setting is similar to D&D (maybe it's own plane of existence). The flavor of this world is a bit of a mix of a spaghetti western, medieval fantasy, western South American cultures, central Asian cultures, and my love for the eastern PNW.

WC: 1055

Warnings: Blood, stitches, concussion

whumptober 2024. day 10. blow to the head l slurred words l passing out from pain l "I can't think straight"

The light from the fireplace made the harsh shadows around the three figures dance. The rain pelted down outside, attacking the nearest shutter window with bullets of water.

“Do you at least remember what they looked like?” Nicco went from pacing to kneeling in front of Arturo, his anger distilling into seriousness.

��Ah, nu-uh.” He gingerly shook his head.

“Press harder Turo.” Elleh slid onto the bench next to him with a kuksa of tea, she reached up and helped him press the cloth onto the opening in his temple. Blood still sluggishly seeped through the fabric and down Arturo’s brow. The gnome studied his face, the hunter’s brown irises were completely eclipsed by blown out pupils.

“You’d fired your gun, there were shell casings on the ground near where we found you, do you remember doing that?” Nicco spoke softly.

Arturo shook his head again. "A boar, there was... a boar. And..." His face tightened in frustration of not being able to find the words nor the memory of what happened in the last 6 hours. "I... I...." He tried to start several sentences with no success, visibly growing more frustrated with each attempt. Elleh and Nicco gave him the space to gather his thoughts, but he continued to fumble. Tears started to show in Arturo's eyes, reflecting the dancing fire in the hearth. He raised his free hand and pressed his fist into the side of his head, the discomfort of his sluggish mind started to morph into a panic.

"Hey." Nicco reached out and gently pulled down his hand. Elleh simultaneously laid a comforting hand on Arturo's leg. "It's okay, don't worry about it. I'm not going to ask you any more questions, you should just rest. Okay?"

Arturo nodded and looked down, free hand balled into a fist.

"Here." Elleh pushed the kuksa into his knotted fingers. His fingers unfurled and took it. "Let me look at your head."

'Turo lowered the wad of fabric, now almost completely soaked through with blood. Revealing the split skin underneath, a dark bruise beginning to bloom around it.

"Elleh, are you up for stitching that?" Nicco stood and leaned in closer to look. Elleh nodded.

Arturo's face immediately went pale(er). He shook his head.

"No."

It was the first clear word he'd been able to get out since Nicco had found him sitting confused in the middle of the wild shrubsteppe.

"For someone who skins animals all the time, you're remarkably squeamish." Elleh prodded gently with a smirk as she stood to go get the supplies she needed.

The gnome made quick work of the gash with her artisanal dexterity, despite her badly-behaving subject. Arturo couldn't keep himself from shaking in anticipation every time he felt the needle slide.

Arturo grunted as Elleh pulled the last stitch tight. He looked up at her without moving his head with a frown, but also a knowing glint in his eye. "You are the biggest baby." Elleh teased as she tied the knot. "There."

"Maybe you should wash up." Nicco suggested, gesturing a spinning finger around his own face as he looked at Turo, whose face was still lined with tracks of blood.

Arturo stood up slowly, but was still hit with a wave of dizziness that forced him back into his seat on the padded bench. He clasped his knees, trying to steady himself.

"Nope, nevermind. Stay here with Elleh." Nicco rushed off to get a wet towel.

"Maybe you should just sleep on the couch down here. I'll stay with you. It'll be like a sleepover." Elleh chided.

Arturo nodded. Pulling the blanket tighter around him. He was tired now that she mentioned it. "Th, thank you." He glanced at her.

She patted his back. "No problem, I mean, it's the least I could do when you're the one who carried me into the cellar. I had to pay you back somehow, and you just better not ask me to carry you around." She let out a small chuckle, which Arturo reciprocated with an amused huff. He glanced at Elleh's scarred hands. The texture wended around to her wrists and arms like the texture of tree bark. An echoed grievous wound aside, it was sort of beautiful in a way. There was a rhythmic pattern to it. He kept staring.

Nicco returned and helped Turo clean his face. When finished, he helped the hunter to the couch. Arturo began to drift as soon as he was horizontal, Elleh draped another blanket over him.

"We love you, you stupid idiot." Elleh leaned on his shoulder with a devious, but sentimental grin.

Arturo could only blink in response. 'I love you too' he thought but couldn't say.

Elleh and Nicco took shifts watching their brother, making sure to wake him every few hours to make sure his condition wasn't worsening. They checked his pupils and asked him some basic questions, to which he responded by quietly nodding or shaking his head. He wasn't worsening. Yet the worry still hung. Who had done this to him? Who was out there on the barren shrubsteppe ambushing seemingly random people? Whoever it was had hit the sturdy hunter with so much force that the skin of his forehead had burst open, that much was obvious. The attacker was apparently after his quarry, the wild boar.

When Elleh began to fade, Nicco took the first watch, letting Elleh sleep on a floor cushion until it was her turn. The way she slept so resembled a housecat, eyes squinted shut and her body curled into a near-circle. He settled in next to the fireplace with a coffee, his accounting ledger, and a book for after he'd finished balancing the till. Despite the circumstances, the half-elf reveled in the peace. The fire crackled as he tossed another log in, the rain hammered at the windows, and all the inn guests had retired to their rooms for the night. Arturo, who usually snored like a hog, breathed easily in his slumber. The cloth over his stitches flickered orange in the firelight.

Nicco felt, no, knew that everything was going to be okay, yet the uncertainty of the situation still gnawed at him. He found his concentration drifting from his accounting to his newfound safety concerns for him and his staff. So much had happened in the last year to all three of them, what more could he do to keep them all safe? Wasn't that all that mattered?

He scratched at his chin and stared hypnotically into the licking flames of the hearth.

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felt-central · 12 days ago

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Gnomes usually hide from people, but I managed to convince them to come out for a photoshoot 📸 Check out my needle felt work at my Etsy store: https://newfeltcentral.etsy.com

#needle felting #felt decorations #wool felting #handcrafted #handmade

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mumms-the-word · 9 months ago

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In Fathoms Below - Ch. 3

Ch. 3 - Expert in Gibberish

Characters: Gale, Karlach, Wyll, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, Halsin, Minthara, Gortash + other OCs; pairing is Gale x fem!Tav Plot: The island city of Nautera disappeared over 4500 years ago, if it ever existed at all. Now not a single, legitimate record of Nautera exists, save for one. The Nauterran Account. Long thought lost, it has recently been retrieved from the depths of Candlekeep’s archives and placed into the capable hands of one Gale Dekarios. With the Nauterran Account in hand and an eclectic team of Baldurians and other allies mounting an official expedition, Gale journeys to find the ruins of Nautera…but hopes to find so much more. A/N: Kind of a slow chapter today, sorry friends. Also, today’s chapter touches on Gale’s history with Mystra, but I don’t want to pretend that my interpretation of the events here are at all Gale’s canon. BG3 doesn’t tell us when Gale was selected as a Chosen of Mystra or when he became lovers with Mystra. The year I picked is just something that worked for this fic. Remember, it’s all for fun!

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | BG3 Masterlist | Read on AO3

The view outside the windows of the submersible was an alluring gloom of wonder and mystery, eerily beautiful and unsettling. Moving through the depths felt a little like being suspended in a starless sky at twilight, when the night painted the world in shades of blue. Only this blue was much deeper and all-encompassing, stretching out in all directions, above and below. Every now and again, the shadowy crags of some undersea cliff would appear off to the side, just out of reach of the lights, blurry and indistinct, reminding Gale that he wasn’t suspended in an actual void; but otherwise, there wasn’t much to see. Just deep cerulean water, shadows of rocks, and the occasional school of silver fish darting out of the submersible’s path.

“We’re approaching two hundred fathoms below the surface, saer,” a gnome pilot said, watching the needles on a series of gauges.

“Very good,” Gortash said. “Level out and keep us moving east. I want to reach those trenches in less than a day.”

As Redhammer and the other pilots called out commands and responses, leveling out the submersible so that it no longer descended into the depths, Gortash turned his back on the view and clasped his hands together. “Now then, seeing as we’re well underway, I think it’s time we made plans. Gale, if you would join us?”

Gale, the other companions that he had met, and several more uniformed men and women he didn’t yet know gathered around the desk at the center of the room. By the time Gale had taken his place opposite Gortash, the desk and maps between them, they had a small audience of about thirty people, not counting the pilots still working around the perimeter of the helm.

“I trust you’ve had time to study that book, Gale?” Gortash asked, gesturing to the satchel that hung from Gale's shoulder and rested on his hip.

“Not as much as I’d like, but I haven’t ended my study yet,” he said, pulling the book from his satchel. He carefully opened the book, turning over the thick vellum pages until he landed on a break in the center. The right side was written in familiar draconic script, while the left page was written using more fluid, curling characters—Hamarfae, the script of the ancient elves. “The journal appears to have been written at two separate times, in two separate languages, though likely by the same author. The first half details the journey of a Netherese mage, an apprentice or colleague of the infamous Ioulaum of Netheril, as they arrived in Nautera before it sank beneath the waves. It breaks off abruptly about halfway through, however, and the second half picks up what appears to be decades later, with the mage attempting to locate Nautera beneath the sea. The first half can tell us much about the city before its descent, but the last half will lead us to where it is now. At least, theoretically.”

“So what’s the catch?” Wyll asked. “There has to be a catch.”

“Well, the last half is easy enough to read. It’s written in Loross, the language of the Netherese nobility and Netheril’s most esteemed scholars. Simple to translate, if you’ve studied it as I have. The issue lies with the first half of the book—it’s written in Seldruin.”

Minthara scoffed. “The dead language of faeries. How fitting."

Halsin flicked his gaze at Minthara, a frown briefly touching his lips, before focusing again on Gale. “The last sages who studied, read, or spoke Seldruin died out nearly two centuries ago. As far as I know, no one has made efforts to keep the knowledge of Seldruin alive since then. If you can make out even simple words, it would be more than impressive—it would be astounding.”

"Do you even need to?" Shadowheart asked. "The Netherese part has directions to where Nautera is now. The first half is just fluff in comparison."

Gale shook his head. "I disagree. The first half provides much-needed context for all the rest. And I can read some of it—the translation process is just a bit slow."

"You can already read Seldruin?" Haslin asked, looking astonished.

“Well, I’m hardly an expert in it, but I’ve managed to make some headway,” Gale said, unable to resist a bit of pride creeping into his voice. Cradling the book in one hand, he held up a finger as he began to explain, “And it’s actually quite simple. If you use the Loross as a kind of cipher, then look for loanwords between the two languages, identify the connections to archaic and modern Elven, keeping the different rules for conjugations and declensions and so forth in mind, you—”

He glanced up, in the middle of gesturing with his free hand, to find that most had confused or bored expressions. Karlach looked particularly lost and Minthara particularly uninterested. He cut himself off and cleared his throat. “You…ah, well, suffice it to say that I’ve been able to decipher several pages since obtaining the book. For example…”

He returned to the very first page of the journal and traced his finger along the first line of Seldruin, speaking the words aloud. A strange tingle, faint and almost imperceptible, buzzed at the back of his mind, and though the first words came out clunky and stilted, the rest of the sentence issued forth much more smoothly, as if he innately knew the language.

He paused. That had never happened before. But then again, this was the first time he’d tried to speak the Seldruin out loud.

He focused back on the text. “Roughly translated, it means, ‘I write this in the language of the Nauterrans, replicating their speech in the hopes that we might also learn to replicate their Art.’ I suspect our author began his account after he had arrived in the city. He must have been learning Seldruin from the Nauterrans.”

“Impressive,” Gortash said, yet his smile betrayed a different opinion. It was a smile like that of a patient adult viewing a child’s poorly drawn artwork rather than someone who had any real sense of the subject matter Gale was presenting. “But for now, what we require is not a lesson in linguistics, but a location to investigate. We don’t have enough resources to sweep the entire ocean floor for days without end.”

Gale tried to rein in some of his irritation. “Yes, well, that is where the second half of the journal comes in. Our nameless author appears to have tried to locate Nautera again, years after its disappearance. He discovered potential paths below the sea.”

“Ah, yes. Paths beginning here,” Lae’zel said, reaching over and pointing to an area of one of the charts, showing a series of trenches and crevices along the seabed.

He couldn’t help but be impressed. “Yes, precisely. How did you know?”

“The records of K’liir state that the last known entrance to Nautera lies in deep sea trenches east of Faerûn. These are the only trenches of any significance between Faerûn and Evermeet, according to your maps.” She looked a little smug as she straightened up. “Did you think we were merely wandering aimlessly through the sea?”

“How do your people know these trenches hold an entrance to Nautera?” Shadowheart asked, a bit of bratty petulance creeping into her tone. “Have they discovered the city already?”

“Of course not,” Lae’zel snapped. “But they discovered the remnants of ancient roads and bridges. The kind that would have connected Nautera to its sister cities on the other islands…or so it is believed. Somewhere in these trenches, there should be the ruins of two statues. No doubt built to ward off superstitious fools.”

“Or guide them to safe harbor,” Gale said. “According to the Nauterran Account, when Ioulaum and his fellow mages arrived, before the disappearance of the islands, they first saw twin statues that rose nearly one hundred meters above the water, flanking an entrance to a bay where ships could safely dock or anchor.”

He turned the pages of the book to show a sketch of the statues. They looked like two elven figures, though built in a less elegant style than most elven iconography these days. Their features were simple, their clothing little more than geometric designs across their bodies. Each held one hand up level with their chest, palms facing outward, with the other hand held flat before them, palms upward. A welcoming gesture, one that promised open-handed generosity and peace.

Gale laid the book on the table with the images of the statues visible for everyone to see. “When the author returned later, he found these statues broken and resting among the trenches. The entrance to the Underdark we’re looking for should be close by.”

He shot a surreptitious glance at Gortash, as if to say See? The Seldruin half is useful. But Gortash’s eyes were on the book on the table.

“So if we find these statues, we find the roads leading to Nautera,” he said.

“In theory, yes.”

“Is it just going to be lying at the bottom of the ocean?” Karlach asked, peering over Wyll’s shoulder. “The whole city?”

“No. It’s much more likely that it has been covered by rocks and other land formations and is somewhere in the Underdark now.”

“But if we’re approaching underwater, then wouldn’t the Underdark spaces be just as flooded with water as everywhere else?” Wyll asked. Across the desk from him, Minthara scoffed quietly, but it was Gale who continued to answer.

“Not quite,” he said. “According to this author, the curve and angle of the tunnels in the trenches are formed so that they should lead to an air pocket, and from there, into the Underdark. Think of it like this—the undersea tunnels function more or less the same way rudimentary plumbing functions.”

He reached for a piece of graphite and quickly sketched out a schematic of what he meant on a scrap piece of parchment, showing the curve of the tunnels and a simple bubble filled only partly with water.

Shadowheart turned her head to murmur to Karlach. “Wizard, linguist, plumber…hard to believe this guy is single.” Karlach snickered and Wyll, overhearing it as well, covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile.

Gale tried to ignore her. “The point is, it’s been thousands of years since the islands disappeared, and Toril has seen a great deal of change since then. Not the least of which was the Spellplague and the Second Sundering.”

There was a kind of contemplative hush at the mention of the Second Sundering. The memory of it felt fresh, though it had begun almost a decade ago and ended four years ago. All of Toril had felt the effects of Ao’s sundering, rumored to have separated the world of Toril from the overlapping world of Abeir. Entire cities and civilizations vanished or blinked into existence, some of them all at once and others appearing slowly over time, as if the land were stretching a little each day. A number of wars and catastrophic natural disasters happened, like the Great Rain that lasted for days upon days, or various floating earthmotes crashing to the ground, or even a few stars falling from the sky. For most, the Sundering was no more noteworthy than the local war or strange event that happened nearby, but there were very few people who were left wholly unaffected.

Though Gale hadn’t experienced much of a physical difference in Waterdeep at the time, everyone at Blackstaff Academy was following the events closely, tracking changes around the world. It wasn’t just the physical landscape that was changing; the fabric of the Weave was reforming and repairing itself from the damage of the Spellplague. Gods thought long dead were returning, some of them physically walking on Toril and gathering new followers, new Chosen. It was during this time that Mystra, who had been slowly revealing herself to her followers by whispering into their thoughts and dreams, had finally returned in full force.

The same year that the Sundering had been completed, just over four years ago, was the same year that Mystra had unveiled herself to him and took him as her lover, after years of whispering the promise of it in his ears and making him one of her Chosen. He hadn’t even made it five years as her lover before mucking things up and falling from her grace.

He pushed those thoughts aside for now. His melancholy wouldn’t help them find Nautera.

“Regardless,” he said, breaking the silence. “The world has changed greatly since the disappearance of Nautera, so it should be no surprise that the city is now buried. If we can find those statues, we’ll find one of the oldest underwater entrances to get us to Nautera, taking us through the Underdark and, gods-willing, to the final resting place of the lost city.”

“Then it’s settled,” Gortash said. “Gale, Lae’zel, you two compare your notes and work with our navigators to narrow the search for the statues. The rest of you, be on standby. I want all eyes on the lookout when we approach those deep sea trenches.”

Gale ventured a glance at Lae’zel, expecting to find more hostility from the githyanki soldier, but she merely regarded him with a cool stare. As the others dispersed, some of them leaving the helm entirely, she crossed her arms.

“Well?” she asked. “Why do you stare at me so?”

“Oh, I—no reason. No reason at all.” He cleared his throat and pulled out the chair, gesturing for her to sit. “Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable? It may take some time to determine anything useful.”

She didn’t move a muscle. “I can stand.”

“Right…” Gale hesitated for a moment before giving in and taking the chair himself. “Then we’d best get started.”

While the pilots continued to work around the helm under the watchful gazes of Gortash and Minthara, Gale and Lae’zel worked with a couple of cartographers and navigators to work out a location to investigate. Karlach, Wyll, Shadowheart, and Halsin remained in the helm, sitting or standing near the windows to watch the undersea world drift along, sometimes engaging in conversation with one another and sometimes lapsing into thoughtful silence as the hours crawled by. Down here in the blue depths, Gale lost all sense of time, though he noted the waters getting darker and darker.

Although Lae’zel was reluctant to hand over the slates she had with her, she did show Gale how to identify separate words in tir’su and briefly explained how the written language operated. Between the journal’s account of the journey as it would have been 4500 years ago and the somewhat more recent githyanki’s explorations in the same area, they were able to narrow down a few possible areas on the maps as viable locations to search. They marked these on the map of the sea floor.

“It’s curious,” Gale said, as the navigator picked up the map they had marked and took it over to Gortash to consult with him. “Why would the githyanki be interested in an ancient elven city?”

“The githyanki are interested in many things,” Lae’zel said. “Not the least of which are powerful artifacts.”

“Ah. So you’re interested in the lost mythallar as well.”

Lae’zel frowned. “I said nothing about—”

She broke off at the sound of a commotion outside the helm. They and several others in the room turned to see three figures struggling just beyond the open metal doorway. Gale rose from his chair right as they burst into the room—two dark-clad drow soldiers and a pale, white-haired elf held firmly between them.

The elf struggled and bared his teeth, revealing two sharp fangs. “Unhand me you vile—” He stopped as he noticed his audience, his red eyes widening. “Ah…oh dear.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Gortash asked, handing back the map to his navigator. Minthara made a signal with her hand and one of the drow kicked the back of the pale elf’s knee, causing him to grunt and crumple. His knees hit the metal floor with a painful thud.

“A stowaway, Nightwarden,” the second drow said, ignoring Gortash to address Minthara. “We found him sneaking around the supply room.”

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale #gale of waterdeep #my fic #bg3 fic #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #in fathoms below #also i don't know nothing bout plumbing so don't come for me plumbers #its just a throwback to atlantis

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tracingpatternswrites · 1 year ago

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Hello, hello, helloooooo!

Tell me (and everyone else) everything about Barty, pretty please!

(i'm not excited at all)

Well, HELLO my darling. Oooh, I'm so happy you asked because I'm excited too.

A while back we did a grey/dark character study workshop in the writing server that I'm a part of, and I wrote about Barty. I've kept those notes and now I'm attempting to make a fic out of them.

It's basically a character study that follows Barty's journey to taking the Dark Mark. Here, have a little snippet.

“What d’you think they’ll make us do?” Evan continued, whispering now that they were in the library. “D’you think it’ll be dangerous?” “Of course it’ll be dangerous,” Barty huffed, then added when Regulus threw him a look. “Well, what’s the point if it isn’t?” “Really?” Evan asked, chewing on his bottom lip. “D’you think it’ll hurt?” “Probably,” Barty shrugged, absently tapping his wand against the piece of parchment in front of him to soak up a couple of ink stains. “The cruciatos, maybe.” “You think he’ll do that?” asked Evan, his voice a little hesitant, and Barty could tell he was worried even though he did his best not to show it and he turned to Regulus, as if hoping that he would say something different. “Just…just like that? Torture?” Regulus’ gaze shifted between Evan and Barty, his lips pressed together into a thin line before he exhaled sharply. “Maybe,” he conceded after a while. “But it won’t be just that, not just torture it’s too…crude,” he pulled a little grimace. “It’ll be something more. He’ll test us, somehow, I’m sure.” “Like an exam?” Evan asked and Barty rolled his eyes with a snort. “Not like an exam, you gnome.” “Hey,” Regulus interjected before Evan could retort and the other boy snapped his mouth shut. “Probably more like…a mission maybe.” “Can’t you ask your cousin?” Barty questioned lightly, smirking a little at the twitch of Regulus’ lips. “I thought you could get all sorts of information from her.” Regulus threw a quick look around them, muttering a Muffliato under his breath. “We shouldn’t be talking about this here,” he said, gruffly, and Barty felt a little flare of satisfaction at being able to needle under his skin, but then Reg raised his chin haughtily. “It’s because of Bella we’re even invited to this thing, but she knows better than to betray the Dark Lord’s trust. She says we’ll know when we need to, and I trust her just as I trust the Dark Lord. Don’t you?” He looked at Barty, eyes a flinty sort of grey, challenging, and eventually Barty dropped his gaze back to his essay with a jerky little nod. “Of course I do,” he muttered instead. “That’s why we’re even doing this, isn’t it?” “Right,” Regulus confirmed, his voice tight, and Barty pretended to focus on his essay, tired of the conversation already. “I hope it doesn’t hurt too much,” Evan said after a beat, his voice unusually small.

#barty crouch jr #regulus black #evan rosier #wip snippet #my writing #wip ask game

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rachelillustrates · 1 year ago

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Realizing I haven't posted many of my Gnome Wings on here, whoops!!

Correcting this.

For reasons.

Question - if Gnomes are faeries too, where did their wings go? Answer - They fluttered off to bless others even more!

#thank gnome it's friday #thank gnome its friday #gnome #gnomes #gnomecore #faerie #fairy wings #needle felting #needlefelting #fiber arts #ooh shiny #gnome wings

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agentsquirrelsgotrobots · 2 years ago

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Kade didn't expect to find two kids at a garage sale.

But when he tested an old TV to hook up his film reels to, the two kids (and a small gnome that he didn't see) fell onto his lap.

Then, the kid in the yellow raincoat bit him and tried to eat his arm.

Luckily, Doc Greene and Charlie were right behind him, so the three of them managed to get the feral starving child that looked to be about five but couldn't weigh more than twenty pounds off of him and placated with a meal replacement bar Kade had in his pocket.

The girl BIT THROUGH THE FOIL to get to the chocolate covered protein bar.

Doc and Chase drove all of them to the health department because human bites without tetinus shots = long and painful death. Of course, Doc drove Kade.

The boy, who with a fair amount of prodding introduced himself as Mono once Charlie had thrown (not literally) into Chase's backseat and threw several packages of fruit snacks onto the backseat so she could be buckled in.

The two of them were clearly not from this dimension, considering that he called Chase a trolley.

Kade was already being seen by the time they got there, and not unsurprisingly, the girl, which Mono called Six (Charlie was sensing a theme here), was sedated in Chase once Mono was escorted into an exam room. Charlie followed Mono because he didn't want to be in the room with Six if it turned out that she did end up having rabies.

Mono did not know what was going on, but at least Six got fed. He had brought her a gnome, but they had to escape through a TV before she could eat it.

Now, he was taking off his trench coat and shoes while he only understood one or two words out of every sentence because these adults liked using all kinds of extra words, and he could not keep up.

He understood lay down though, and breathe in and out, and open your mouth and stick out your tongue and keep your mouth open with a cotton swab in it.

Then there was a folding chair with a tray attached that he had to put his arm on and squeeze a ball and do not pull away when prickly liquid is rubbed into his skin and look at the doctor as he asked him questions he didn't understand and -ow. It feels like he stepped on glass, but just in his elbow. He looked down and saw a needle wedged into his elbow, the glass oddly clean, not yellowed or broken. He felt more prickly liquid on his shoulder and winced again as three more needles pierced his skin, the third one making his shoulders burn, and that was when he started to cry.

The man in blue - Charlie - offered him a hand and his little handheld screen, like the one in his trolle- car. It's a car. It had a simple logic puzzle game, a piece of bloatware that came with the phone, and he tore through the levels as the people with him talked, and Charlie signed papers, and he had to sign a paper, but it was just him and a puzzle that for once wasn't a death trap in disguise.

He gave it back after beating the game in under an hour as they waited for Six to be done. She also had to get a battery of vaccinations, but while Mono got away with one, don't - die - of - rabies shot, she had to get four, along with iv fluids and feeding. She was dangerously underweight. They both were, but she was bordering on critical. She was being released to the Burns on the caveat that she would be encouraged to eat and drink as much as she wanted and had to have a healthy amount of weight gain on her next appointment.

Mono was stuck with a mostly clean bill of health, and they managed to barter him down to a black cloth mask instead of his paper bag. (He would make himself another one out of cardboard by the end of the week.)

After dropping off Six and the medications she and Kade needed, Mono insisted on going with Charlie to pick up Cody from school.

Charlie had already told him that Six and Mono were taking Graham's and the guest room, and of course, he found the missing gnome. Mono gave it a hug and refused to let it out of sight until Six felt like herself again.

Dani was done handwashing Mono's clothes and Six's raincoat by the time they got back .

Neither kid fit into any of the clothes they kept in storage, so after dinner, they went to the department store in downtown Griffin Rock. Unfortunately, Huxley was also there and had no sense of self-preservation, as he repeatedly tried to ask Six, who was sitting in the cart, while Charlie helped Mono with finding his size and humoring him by letting him try on half of the boots in the store. He cleaned up after himself without being asked, and Six had a whole bag of snacks, so surely, nobody is that stupid to get close to a child that still had blood on her teeth and hands?

Huxley is.

The answer is always Huxley.

Fun fact, it is very easy to make a knife out of a pencil if you chew on it enough while fantasizing about eating a sentient gnome.

Also, it makes a fun squishing sound when combined with the lenses of a broken pair of glasses, all being shoved into Huxley's hand and shoulder.

Don't fuck with Six.

And for the love of God, don't try to take her mini wheats.

The knowing look from Mono made Charlie realize that this just might be his life now.

It is his life now. It's his feral demon children, watch as they never grow up due to the immortal cycle of a parallel dimension where Mono grows up to be an extradimensional entity that gets trapped and traps Six in a never-ending loop that is now paused indefinitely.

Yay

#transformers rescue bots #little nightmares #mono and six #they are very undersocialized and have next to no understanding of anything beyond the most basic grammar #so being around the very well spoken people of Griffin Rock means that they both have a hard time understanding what they are being told

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simbelmyne20niniel · 2 months ago

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*has a small heart attack upon reading that you're reading my fic* OH, you were the guest leaving a kudo the last time?! Okay, I'm curious about your opinion *sits like on needles*

Good that Collins wasn't in the top 10, God I swear, I am not someone who hates musicians, but Phil Collins is a big exception. I hate this guy 😂

"OH LORD!!! That Zeppelin concert with Phil was a disaster…. I feel sorry for every person that was present at that concert." - oh Christ, that's harsh, but my bestie's reaction wasn't any better!

I have to disagree, but it's only because I don't like Collins' music. I've never seen anything interesting in it, and I'm not saying it because I don't like him. I was tiny when I watched "Brother Bear" and as much as I always loved music in movies I've watched, I couldn't get into this one. Years later (now) I know why.

DO! OMG, "In the City" is such a good album! "Art School", "Slow Down", "Batman Theme", "In The City", best songs from this one, I'm telling you - the drummer, Christ, the drummer does his job so well!

I would love to give you recommendations for "Red Rose Speedway", but it's a similar case to "Quadrophenia". I would have to dump a list of every song off this album, I love it this much!

I HADN'T SEEN MV TO "SO LONELY", I'M GONNA WATCH IT NOW! This was so random, hahahahaha, Stewart literally got the goal to hit as many things with his drumsticks as he could, hahahahaha. But there's also the "Don't Stand so Close to Me" mv and the moment with that stepladder. I keep wondering why Stewart climbed it 😂

Oh, your interpretation of "The Bike" makes so much sense! Especially if the music had to recreate the LSD effects. Yeah, the music is weird, but I do have three songs I like from Pink Floyd's first album. They are: "Lucifer Sam", "The Gnome" and "Scarecrow" - guess they are the most normal ones. But I also remember listening to "Interstellar Overdrive" and God, I couldn't listen to it. I've send it to my bestie, her head started hurting and then she send it to her boyfriend, saying "he'll like this, he loves such weird shit" and a few hours later I got a thank you from him, because he loved it 😂

Simon and Garfunkel were not chill towards each other? How come, tell me more! "Child of divorce", that's a good one 😂

Could be actually - what a cute photo of Bolan tho! "Get It On" is such a vibe, omg, I might actually start listening to T.Rex after this srs!

Way to go, Zombies, choosing a name that they didn't know the meaning of. I'll check the song this weekend and let you know my opinion on it. In the meantime, could you perhaps give me some more recommendations by them?

I see that you're a big fan of Rory, even putting him on the list higher than Jimmy Page, damn. Could you give me recommendations of his songs to listen to as well?

Oooohhh, I would recommend to write a fic with Rory. I take it that you want to write a self-insert with him? If so then go for it. I'm speaking from experience as I took first steps in writing self-inserts stories more than a year ago and honestly, writing self-inserts with your favorite musician is so fun!

My weekend was not so good. I have a lot on my head to do on university and while Saturday was all okay, I had a breakdown at Sunday. Cried three times, felt sadness during the entire day. The only good things happening at Sunday were: time spend with mom, downloading albums on my phone and making "Surf Jam" my ringtone 💜

How about you? How was your weekend? And do you have any plans for Christmas, perhaps?

I have no other artists I listen to, I'm sorry 😂

Okay, so I'm finally on vacations!!!!

I don't know why but when you said "Years later (now) I know why." I imagined you like this

The Gnome is such a happy song. "He'll"he'll like this, he loves such weird shit" A man of culture, I see. hahahahhahaha

I just listened to "Red Rose Speedway". What an amazing album. I can see why you like it that much!!! Paul never disappoints. Now I'm on my way to listen to The Jam

Simon and Garfunkel. They met at a very young age in high school and started their career at that time. They had some singles playing on the radio and, you know, having big dreams. Together on stage, they have this beautiful connection, they're good together. Their harmonization is one of the ones I like the most in music. But what I remember, what started their friction was that Simon dropped a solo single and Garfunkel was mad about it. Even years later he was still mad about it.

Although both composed the songs and the music, in my opinion, Simon was the one more focused on music, because at some point (If I'm not wrong) after their single for the film The Graduate, Garfunkel got movie roles. They were heading in different directions. That's why "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is their final album. From time to time, they had some comebacks, but only for special events. But just that, they still had arguments about the past. They toured together 2 more times, but working together on a new album was a big NO for both of them.

Okay, from The Zombies the songs I recommend you, are:

Sumertime

The Way I Feel Inside

Beechwood Park

This Will Be Our Year

Time Of The Season

Can't Nobody Love You

What More Can I Do

It's Alright With Me

Maybe After He's Gone

From Rory:

A Million Miles Away

Shadow Play

Easy Come, Easy Go

They Don't Make Them Like You Anymore

Follow Me

Bad Penny

Just The Smile

Wave Myself Goodbye

Moonchild

Laundromat

Do You Read Me

And for the fic!! Yes!! I really like the self-insert fics. I'll try to do it! mybe a one-shot.

I know how it feels to have a breakdown and hope that you're doing better by now. It's okay to cry, it helps to get out many things. So I send you a lot of hugs and never give up. Better days are coming!

My last three days of working were weird. I felt like they were very long days. But, winter break has started!! So I'm enjoying my time sleeping longer hahahhahaha. For Christmas, we often go to celebrate it at my mom's family side. Everyone brings food to share like tamales, chicharron, asado, carne asada, etc..., we always play loteria, so we must bring presents for the winners.

What about you? What do you do on Christmas with your family?

#classic rock #secret rock santa #anon #secret santa #srs24

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