#This is the original drawing before I decided to single out Bones

[baronvolkov]

Star Trek The Original Series Season 1 - Episode 17 - The Galileo Seven

[skelleste]

2023 Art Summary

Some of the many things I worked on over the past 365 days. More details below.

Happy New Year!

Just like last year, 2023 was full of even more character art, including a brand spanking new OC. You haven't seen much of the comic yet, because it's not done, but there's been progress on that in the background as well. I also started commissions last March. None are featured in this post so I could focus more on original art, but I wanted to give a special thank-you to all my past commissioners. Not a single one of you were a customer service nightmare, in fact it was quite the opposite. I appreciate everyone who's been kind enough to give me work and treat me well.

The rest of this post is going to be some of my favorite pieces by month, and a little about them. I usually spare my followers from most details in my posts, because there's often not much of interest to the public to say, so this is mostly self indulgent.

January

I decided to revisit Tom and Maudlin, as I hadn't drawn them much since creating them. Whenever I make a new character of importance, I try to go out of my way to put them in varied poses and expressions so that I am able to understand how their bodies work by the time I need them for a real project. It's also a great way to explore their personalities, although I feel that I'll have to push Tom's emotional side more in the future.

February

Props for the comic! It sucks to have to design things on the fly, so it helps to have notable objects designed beforehand. Especially if it's important to the plot. Some of these appear in more panels than others, but it smooths out the comic process nevertheless to have ample references on hand.

March

More character designs to spare me from designing mid-comic production. If they don't have lines in the comic, then I ask random people to assign names to them to make it fun, and because it's easier to keep straight who's who when they're not named Man 1 and Man 2. Left to right, they are Johnifer (you can already see why I name the ones with dialogue myself), Wanda, Jean Vincent, Booker, Charles, Maribelle, and Gertrude.

April

It'd be silly of me to pretend as if 90% of my output isn't shitposts. When you dedicate most of your art time to a project, then you're not going to end up making any other art unless you satisfy primitive monkey brain somehow. In my case, that's usually addressed by drawing funny shit. Early this year is when I discovered how easy it is to crack jokes with Scatterbrain. This goofiness is now embedded into her personality permanently. Expect more of this.

May

April-June is when I do my Art Fight preppin', which usually consists of me making a list of my most neglected OCs and giving them some attention. I also try to get around to eventually making all of them a reference sheet in this style, just so they have something standardized between them. This year, Walla Walla had her turn. She's a shitpost character, so I won't be drawing her much again, but she's a good excuse to draw some J-fashion doodles. My interests outside of cartoon stupidity don't really make it into my art often, so she's a minor outlet for some of it.

June

I've made even more character designs this year than last year, but they were all background characters, making Raoul the only new important one. He's been officially-unofficially written into the story since 2022, but it's very hard for me to make OCs that are written before they are designed. Everyone else was designed first and assigned a role in the plot later, so he got put off for a good while. I finally got around to it though, after I killed some darlings. He is now an all-new species, and I modified the chain design to something less clunky compared to what would be historically accurate.

July

July is, of course, Art Fight month. All other art is put on pause. This year, my favorite attack was a drawing of Enchanted Bones for my friend Bugles. I drew the character independently from the background, which is why the lighting situation is as unfortunate as it is, but we don't talk about that. Thank you to everyone who attacked me and made awesome art, I'll revenge you maybe in a few years. Sorry for the wait, but the backlog is mighty long.

August

Stanson got a slight redesign in the last year, so he can fit with the style of the comic better. He's actually the oldest character out of the bunch. I had no purpose for Scott when I made him and threw them together in the same folder. I had a few one-off designs that I figured I'd keep around in case I ever did an OCT, but these two got yoinked out of it when I started getting story ideas for the them. Stanson is a cowboy (not really), so it became a western setting to make sense of it. I plan on giving him the same sketchpage treatment the other characters have gotten, but I've been putting it off purposely for a while. You'll just have to wait.

September

And there it is, the inevitable page of Raoul getting into various mischief (and subsequently getting his ass beat half of the time). He has a very abrasive personality that gets him into trouble. I don't want the comic to be heavily action-based, but he naturally lands himself in these positions and it lets me draw characters in new situations. His introduction to the story is still a long way off at this point, but I can't wait to pit him against Scott in some slapstick shenanigans.

October

Spooky month is incredibly busy for me in real life, so there isn't as much time for art as I'd like there to be. That's why I dedicated all my time that month to trying to get Halloween art done in time. I've been a fan of Homestar Runner since childhood, and as soon as I thought that Raoul would pull off a Jigen Daisuke look, I knew I wanted to do a full Homestar-esque set of costumes. The other ideas quickly fell into place. My version came out way more detailed than theirs usually are though. The spirit of Halloween possessed me.

November

I started going full gear on the comic around this time (I think 28 hours in one week when I stayed home), so there's an absence of polished personal art here. Scatterbrain eating some spaghetti is my placeholder art for "I worked on a website a bunch instead". It's far from done, but I've made major strides since then.

December

A secret santa gift for my friend, Toby! I continued doing mostly comic work, but I also made room for a secret santa and scheduled a bunch of art trades to complete between December and March. The rest still have to be completed, so you'll see that throughout 2024. Anyway, Toby's OC, Thomas, is based on the state of Michigan. I plastered him on a postcard in front of a highway sign with some Robins because they're the state bird.

There were many more drawings of course, and you can find them scrolling through my Tumblr, or on my DeviantART (I switched to Tumblr as my main site in late August). I hope the new year brings many improvements and happiness for everyone. Last year my goal was simply to start on the comic, which I did, but it was also to get it uploadable, which I didn't. I'm gonna have to aim for the same goal again. Life things were largely fine but still tumultuous enough to throw me off-course, but now my most dangerous family member has moved out and it should be somewhat safer to live here. Not 100% safe though. It never will be. I generally avoid talking about the comic extensively as I won't have a solid release date for some time, so this is the last you'll hear of it for now outside of the rare WIP screenshot. Wish me luck and have a wonderful new year!

[raidenloml]

3 from the askgane dor whichever characters u want >:]

ack!!!! ok so!!!

3. weapon of choice? any particular reason they chose their weapon?

(this is a perfect question as ive been playing more splatoon 3 recently so i actually have a feel for the weapons i want my characters to use hihi + ill just list all of the ones i currently have chosen weapons for!)

turns out, this post grew way longer than i thought it would so uh woe read more be upon you

Arsenic:

Definitely Splatana Wiper as main and (Luna) Blaster as secondary, he has a quick and agressive playstyle so these are the weapons he usually goes for (also his aim is absolute dog with chargers and splatlings are a little bulky and slow for him, he can use shooters when needed but he doesnt find them interesting to play)

Link:

Probably sticks with a vanilla Splat Charger, likes to play support/backline but still pressures the opposite team quite a bit whilst staying out of fire himself. Other than his proficiency with his main weapon he probably has some practice in with other weapon classes as well. (This is because he works for Ammo Knights hihi)

I'd imagine him being kind of well known for his absolutely bonkers k/d ratio because of his high awareness playstyle but he would definitely have the dumbest deaths in practice :')

Zel:

Zel is a HUGE fan of heavy weaponry like this woman is absolutely insane about them and practices every single one she can get her hands on but her main weapon of choice in battle would probably be a Dynamo Roller or a Nautilus when she's feeling extra silly... as for why its mainly because it helps her stay physically strong and uhhh lifting super heavy weapon in practice means she doesnt have to go to the gym often

A4:

Definitely shooter class weapons, probably sticks to something like an N-Zap, Splash-o-Matic, Splattershot and Splattershot Pro but is quite handy with a Squiffer when needed. I imagine at some point A4 and Link would switch roles just before a match to confuse the opponent (very silly behaviour)

BONUS!!!!!!!! These are characters which i havent really thought of in a competitive sense or havent developed yet

itll be very messy going forward mainly because i want to yap so hard about these little inkfish thumbs up

Fern:

Fern doesn't really play that much but would probably prefer Dualies, not sure which but she'd probably switch it up sometimes

Violet:

Brella 100% (i dont know how to explain it i just feel it in my bones) her Brella would probably be decorated to the max literally her pride and joy (also known as her favourite fashion accessory as she's too busy with her job to actually use it in battle :( boowomp)

Amber: (<- Arsenic's younger sister!!!)

Brella/Bucket, i haven't really thought of her in battle but she'd probably just mess around a ton lol

Ise Rotag:

Ise was originally the character that was Link's like future partner??? their story was really nice but he got replaced by Arsenic after i abandoned the two for a few months and decided to revive Link again (you will see Ise more btw i fucking love his design and cuntyness) FOR THE WEAPON! Probably an Inkbrush honestly this guy loves to be annoying and sneak up on backliners when they least expect it, plays very aggressively as well... also his name has a really funny origin and if youre able to guess it ill uhh idk good job

I have 3 other characters but they all dont have names so uhm yeah ill just go quickly through these

oc based on coroika, inkling, probably something backline, dont imagine them in battle often

waiter, octoling, grim blaster (or so me from 2 years ago wrote down)

shut-in, inkling, new squiffer (again according to notes left to their design drawings)

2&3 were together and 1 was a sona for shits and giggles but uh theyll come back someday!! i promise!!! like their designs and relationship dynamics too much!!! they might even be Ise's new teammates!!!

[literalgrill]

The Animated History of Treasure Island: Shin Takarajima - 1965

I have been on a journey to watch every animated adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. (I pick cool hyperfixations right?) I wanted to share my thoughts and research on them as they were compiled before hopefully making a long video about the entire topic.

So today I want to share a bit about Osamu Tezuka, "the father of manga," and his own history with the classic sailing tale — Shin Takarajima. If that catches your interest, read on!

It would take an entirely different essay to list Osamu Tezuka's works, influences on animation across the world, and other achievements. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; in Tezuka's case, that was Shin Takarajima. It was his first manga published way back in 1947. New Treasure Island as it's known in English-speaking markets has little in common with the similarly named classic novel from 1883. Minus a young boy, a pirate, and an island full of treasure, the two share nothing else in common.

Osamu Tezuka famously adored Disney, not only supposedly watching Bambi over eighty times but even drawing his own manga version of the story. Looking to make his own version of the anthology series that would come to be known as The Wonderful World of Disney, he set out to create Mushi Pro World.

He would go on to create Japan's first-ever sixty-minute animated television program, confusingly titled Shin Takarajima. It had nothing to do with his previous work, instead retelling Robert Louis Stevenson's story with his own unique anthropomorphic twist. Sadly, this would be the first and only episode of Mushi Pro World as none of the others ever materialized. Thankfully, that one episode is one of the strongest animated adaptations Treasure Island would ever receive.

Part of this is because of what Tezuka decided to do with the anthropomorphic animal cast. It was just as common then as it is today to simply slap some talking animals onto a story for kids simply because, well, kids love talking animals. Tezuka not only gave us adorable bunny Jim Hawkins but also ran with the kind of story that we'd see fifty years later in Beastars. Dr. Livesy walked so that Louis could run.

No seriously, that joke has quite a bit of truth to it. Sure, it's a children's film so there's plenty of slapstick (some of which I'd argue is on par with early Looney Tunes) but it also manages to get a lot of smaller details of the original story down to the letter. The most important part of the movie is where it decides to stray from the original narrative.

When looking at the pirates and brigands aboard the Hispaniola, it's easy to see just how many carnivores are among them vs the herbivore "good guys" on the side of Jim Hawkins. This is a classic trope within anthropomorphic stories. What punches it up a notch is how whenever they are particularly rowdy, they start to literally lose some of their human features and become full animals. Especially when they get horribly obsessed with the treasure, even some of the "good guy" herbivores join in, losing their clothes and running on all fours, with their hands turning into paws and hooves.

The idea of literally losing one's humanity in pursuit of riches is an extremely powerful theme, masterfully executed in a way simple enough for children to pick up on and the adults in the room to be able to latch onto strongly. The only one to resist is the best of them all — Jim Hawkins.

This movie also decided to make Jim and Long John Silver's relationship much stronger than it was in the books. For those without extensive knowledge of the original book, Jim wasn't exactly mad when Long John left the crew. As the book says, "I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him."

In this case however, they find the "wild dog" that Flint is described as the entire time was also a bit literal as his treasure is just tons of different kinds of bones from all over the world, no real money of any kind. It's a strong moral lesson, not only did those who tossed away humanity not actually get anything from it, but it shows that people should strive to find what is truly valuable to them instead.

In the end, Long John completely gives up on hunting for treasure ever again and even denounces those who would continue to seek it. He instead chooses to leave Jim with a collection of shells that the buccaneer had collected over all his travels, something Jim had noticed and appreciated earlier in the film. Long John is not only trying to make up for not being able to actually split what he assumed was a massive haul with the young boy, but making sure Jim is truly rewarded for being the only one to keep their sights on what was most important for the entire journey.

Also, the movie has a sexy pin-up bee girl in it, which is probably the most important thing here so ignore the rest of that sappy stuff about the theme or whatever I just was going off about.

All kidding aside, this idea of animals losing their humanity is something we can obviously see used in huge successful animations today, everything from Zootopia to the aforementioned Beastars. The idea of the inner animalistic nature of people would be something Tezuka himself continued exploring in works like Vampires for years to come.

While it's now considered a literary classic, it's impossible to deny that Treasure Island is a story that comes with plenty of flaws. Still, Tezuka did a lot to try and patch up some of its issues by adding an even deeper theme than that of a boy just trying to be good and learning how to be courageous on a formative adventure away from home. Sadly, not all of the animated adaptations of the story would get remotely close to matching this achievement. Speaking of, if you enjoyed this, stay tuned for when I discuss the first-ever animated adaptation of Treasure Island from Mel-O-Toons back in 1960. Or if you've been bitten by the Treasure Island bug as bad as I've been, why not go learn about an adaptation with way more historical significance than you might imagine — Mr. Magoo's Treasure Island.

[catwings-writes-things]

For the ao3 wrapped: 3, 6, 16, 29

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Surprising no one, I'm gonna have to say A World of His Own. Before this year I'd never written anything (I do mean anything--no fanfic, original fiction, essays, nothing) longer than around 15,000 words. Now I have an in-progress fic with a single coherent storyline that's over 100,000 words long and nowhere near done. Some of the chapters are longer than 15,000 words. And not only that, but I'm really proud of the writing and the characterization. The Jailbreak Squad have taken over my brain and I have no objections whatsoever.

6. Favorite title you used?

De Humani Corporis Fabrica--Latin for "On the Fabric of the Human Body"--is the title of the best-known anatomy text by Andreas Vesalius, a Rennaissance anatomist and pioneer of human dissection, which at the time was considered taboo. As such, most anatomical knowledge came from dissections of animals, inspection of traumatic injuries, and conventional wisdom from earlier anatomists who had largely been working under the same restrictions. Vesalius was both sufficiently dedicated to his pursuit of accurate anatomical knowledge and sufficiently unbothered by other people's opinions as to cut bodies down from the gallows after public executions (sometimes having to fight stray dogs for them) and take them home to study, even allowing them to decompose in his living space to get at the bones once he'd learned all he could from the soft tissue. (He was also my first historical friend-crush, which probably tells you quite a bit about me, although perhaps not much to which my fic wouldn't tip you off.) De Humani Corporis Fabrica is his masterwork, illustrating what he'd learned with intricate drawings of bodies in various lifelike poses and states of dissection.

Needless to say, Andreas Vesalius was a Flesh avatar if ever there was one, not to mention probably autistic AF, and De Humani Corporis Fabrica seems as good a candidate as any for a Leitner. So when I set out to write a fic featuring late human-era Mike Crew nearly working himself to death in an extended burst of autistic hyperfocus and Angela the Flesh avatar trying to both help him deal with the immediate fallout and convince him that bodies have limits and he needs to treat his with more respect if it's going to last long enough to get him wherever he's going, using "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" as the title seemed pretty damn perfect.

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

Families of Choice, which is the canonical tag on AO3 for the concept I've mostly heard referred to as "found family." It's specifically tagged on three of the seven fics I've posted this year (that number is misleading, due to my aforementioned longfic), but it could or should have been tagged on six of them. ("Fix-It," "Temporary Character Death," "Complicated Relationships," and "Twisted and Fluffy Feelings" appear on two fics apiece, which probably also gives some relevant information. Especially that last one.)

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Honestly, I can't decide. I've been proud of so many things I've written this year that I really can't narrow it down--which is a good problem to have! If it helps, after I post chapter ten, I think I'm going to make a "pick your favorite bit of out-of-context A World of His Own dialog" poll--each option a line spoken by a different character.

Okay, never mind. I found a favorite. From Chapter 2 of A World of His Own:

“I can't... sit and watch television with you,” Helen finally said, almost a snap. “It won’t work.” She gestured at herself, head to feet. “This isn't even a real body. It's more of a... concept.” “Well,” said Harriet mildly. “Sit the concept of your butt down and let us introduce you to The Twilight Zone.”

Thank you so much for the ask, anonymous friend! I hope you have a great day!

[tryst-art-archive]

Jan. 2013: "Narrator" Final Draft

I'm like 99% sure this is actually the final draft. It also looks like it's been formatted as a submission for publishing. I'm not sure where I would've submitted it to, but that's how it looks.

----------Text follows--------->

            For most of my life, I’ve daily sat down for tea with my characters, sipping away in the café of the mind. We chat about their lives and their futures, their thoughts and their dreams. We get to know each other.

     Before I decided I was too terrible an artist to wield a pencil, I entered these teatime meetings by drawing my characters endlessly: profile, three-quarters view, face-forward  stare, hands and arms,legs and feet, limbs, a raging expression here, a joyous one there, or an image of melancholy, remorse,  fear or shock or thrill, and then the most important scenes from their lives until finally I went back and drew the whole mess again, pages of school notes sacrificed to my characters’ forms.

     In 2009, when high school graduation and my entrance into college was imminent,  I stopped drawing my characters at all. I became convinced that they were holding me and my writing back, and I though that the only worthy endeavor would be to create new people, explore new realms, and run away from the world I’d been building since 2005, from the pantheon of characters my best friend and I had birthed in the primordial soup of our friendship. It would all let me become a Writer, I thought. If I just shed my childish characters, then perhaps I could become someone literary, worthy of publishing. But somehow, every character following my original, so thoroughly drawn tribe fell flat like pancakes on a cold griddle. With each new, bland character my sense of frustration grew, and I slowly became convinced that, as a writer, I wasn’t good for much but long strings of action,  and roaming, unsatisfactory introspections.

     After two years of uninspired work and faced, suddenly, with the daunting task of creating a screenplay that I would need to work on consistently for three months, I became desperate.I was unable or unwilling to conceive of a single new plot or personality,and I turned back to the pantheon of my early adolescence, writing a screenplay detailing how the ranger Arren Minetelle defeated the Demon, Kifer. The six-year-old characters rose up once more to act out their tales and even found acceptance amongst the screenplay’s handful of readers. I felt reborn, and it seemed to me then that my mistake all along had been to deny the characters I’d had tea with every day of my life for four years.

     Quietly, my class notes filled with drawings.

            The age turned, and in a blink, the world called Khra shifted from 1027 A.W. to 0 A.K. Still mere hours after the death of Kifer, mere hours into the new era, Arren Minetelle stood on my doorstep. Blood dribbled down her cheek, her left eye socket reduced to a ragged mass of shredded flesh and cracked bone, as if a small explosion had gone off inside her skull. A fog glazed the icy blue of her remaining eye, and deep lines crossed her otherwise young face. I stepped aside for the young arctic fox raeth and closed the door on the new reality she had created.

            “Rhawen,” she said, rasping, “could I have a glass of water?”

            I nodded, and Phoenix, not needing to be told, scurried on swift fox paws into the kitchen, coming back with bandages in her mouth and a cup of well water perched on her head. I took both from her. The Fire Fox hurried back into the kitchen, and I heard the soft ruckus of a tiny Elemental quadruped setting a pot of soup aflame.

            Arren gulped the water gratefully and allowed me to push her silvery hair—it had been a pale blonde but half a year ago when she had come to me looking for means by which to defeat the Demon called Kifer, bane of all the peoples and nations of Khra—away from the still-weeping crater where her left eye had been. The missing eye and the faint, browning marks of grasping hands around her neck were enough to tell me that she had fought Kifer, and her continued life confirmed that she had defeated him.  I needed neither her words nor my own Creator-given knowledge of all past and present to recognize the sorrowful marks of her victory.

            As Arren chose not to speak, so too did I. It wasn’t long before Phoenix trotted in, pulling a small wheeled tray on which a bowl of chicken soup and a pan of warm, clean water rattled softly. I took up the pan first and began to dab at Arren’s wound. She winced as I worked but made no sound even as my cloth fumbled into the oozing mush behind her bones. Phoenix padded around the table, blowing flame over the soup occasionally to keep it warm. The gentle crackle of her fire-filled breath snaked across the silence of my cottage, snapping off the wooden walls and dancing over the floor.

            When the pan’s water had turned a crimson to rival that of Arren’s ranger cloak, I began to bandage her head, prompting a proper reaction from the nineteen-year-old girl.

            “I’ll not hide it!” she snapped, batting my arms away with more force than she’d intended. “You of all people should know, Narrator.”

            I elected to ignore how she spat the word. “You’ll need to wear bandages for a time if you’d rather not die from an infection.”

            “Well—maybe I’d—you don’t know—“

            “But I do. Narrator, yes?”

            Arren scowled. “Fie on your bloody omniscience.”

            “Near-omniscience,” I replied automatically, regretting the habit in the pause that followed. “I… am sorry I didn’t tell you what you would have to do. I did not think you would go if you knew the price…”

            Arren choked, battling tears with as much ferocity as she had battled Kifer. She succeeded in swallowing the lump in her throat and threw my apology in my face. “You understand nothing. You are nothing. You write, what, histories? That’s all I am for you. A history. No. No, I won’t have it. I won’t be a hero! I won’t be a legend! I won’t have it!” She dashed the pan from my hand, and my floorboards greedily sucked up the blood. “They died, you horrible bitch! That damn Eye—Kifer’s damned Eye! I wasn’t even conscious and it made me—I… There were children there, Rhawen! The entire village…”The woman who had saved the world flopped back into a chair and shook as the memory of how the artifact that had allowed her to kill Kifer had also forced her to slaughter innocents replayed in her mind. “All of them dead.”

            I placed the soup in front of her and left the room, disappearing into the basement.

            Phoenix, who had accompanied Arren on her journey, curled up at the girl’s feet. “I’m sorry,” the fox said. “She didn’t have a choice.”

            Arren did not respond, instead spooning soup shakily into her mouth, thinking it needed salt, until at last the tears did come and added all the flavoring my cooking lacked.

     Between the ages of ten and nineteen, I developed a habit of consulting my characters in my day to day life, particularly when I felt completely crushed by hopelessness. I would sit in the shower—I would have been fourteen or fifteen at the time—and, feeling thoroughly sorry for myself for no good reason, I would conjure up an image of Kriamiss or Pain, and I would imagine them embracing me, lending me their strength through simple contact.

     Over time this personal conceit evolvedso that, in the middle of high school, I would walk through the halls feeling my characters behind me as an imaginary entourage, and it would be a simple matter to draw strength from them throughout the day. Eventually, the characters became ideals, promising that, oh, if only they were real, they’d certainly love me because clearly no one else ever would.

     There’s something shameful in that memory; it brings up an embarrassment lurking around the roots of the heart, and yet when I think how, after I’d abandoned them all, I felt more lost than ever before, more doomed, and more worthless I had before, I can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, the trade-off was fair.

            Kriamiss Orientere lay asleep in my bed, a dead man breathing as one alive, forgetting in sleep that his body was little more than his own will made manifest. It was 5 A.K., and civil war threatened the Raethian way of life. Across the sea in Nassab, the human populaces had gotten their hands on the cloning technology of the Dragonfolk of old while a dryken lad sought to recover a Dragonfolk weapon of mass destruction in order to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The Creators had dispatched Fallen like Kriamiss—individuals who, after death, worked to keep the world of Khra safe by maintaining the delicate balances that held it together—across the globe in an effort to rectify the myriad of problems that threatened global stability. The Narrators’ Council had summoned me for the first time in  an absurd number of centuries. Unge S. Chickt sought to renew trade between Raeth and Nassab despite Raeth’s broader troubles, and Arren Minetelle, great hero of five years prior, had slipped into obscurity; I alone knew she still lived. Adding further absurdity to the whole fiasco,  the Power representing pain had manifested on Khra—it had been millenia since last any of the Powers took on physical form—and was now lounging in my basement. For my own part, I pulled my usual stool up to what was now Kriamiss’s sickbed and sat contemplating the trajectory of this once-deceased  man.

            Some five hundred years ago, a woman from Niméth had the misfortune of bearing a child out of wedlock, her husband having disappeared into the surrounding countryside. The woman, Ellenyiel Orientere, named the child Kriamiss. He was “gifted” with Healing magic. Simply by laying hands on someone and exerting his will, he could cure almost any ill and, in one or two cases, defeat Death himself, though the effort whittled away at his own lifespan. Later, the boy had the dubious fortune to encounter a Light Elemental who, seeking her own death, granted him the power of the Elementals, transforming him into a Mage, able to bend light itself to his will.  After just short of a decade spent futilely working to defeat Kifer, Kriamiss died at twenty-two  in 534 A.W.and proceeded to join the ranks of the Fallen—deceased tasked with maintaining world order—and  utterly failed to return to Khra until some five hundred years later when Kifer’s death and the need for Fallen hands manipulating the Raethian civil war enabled his resumption of life.

            Kriamiss stirred. I called for Phoenix, and once she’d limped into the room, I wandered into the kitchen, unsure how to proceed.

            I had, of course, known of Kriamiss’s return, and I had, of course, sent Phoenix to aid him wherever possible: grant him my accesses to hidden places, give him some part of my knowledge, help him orient himself in a world that no longer operated on the same rules or even spoke quite the same language. I had not expected her to lead him here. Although Phoenix wasn’t with me at the time, the fact remained that  I had met Kriamiss five bundred years ago and seeing me now was like to upset him. I was visiting my long-time pen pal, Kriamiss’s mother, Ellenyiel, As a single mother in a draconian society, she and her son were marked as outsiders, despised. Indeed, when I arrived in the town the citizenry viewed me with undisguised loathing for I had the audacity to wear pants, in spite of my feminine sex.

            The Orientere estate lay next to the city’s rather expansive graveyard, and it looked like a haunted place. The lawn was brown where it wasn’t overgrown, and the garden weedy where it wasn’t dead. The gate’s hinges were rusting, though it still managed to open and shut without undue creaking, and the majority of the house’s windows save those on the first and second floor of the east wing were shattered or at least punctured. Ivy had overtaken the house’s southern face, and I saw more than a few of the stones that made up its walls crumbling. As I approached, a group of children clambered over the fence, back onto the street, and scurried away. Focusing on them, it came to me that they had spent the past half hour destroying carpeting in the house’s west wing and pissing in the fountain that punctuated the estate’s long drive. I briefly considered chasing them down and boxing their ears but decided that I was no match for a gang of ruffians, even small ones, and settled for traipsing to the house’s front door and cheering Ellenyiel with my ever rare presence. She didn’t have many friends, I knew, or more accurately, she had none besides myself, and I wasn’t much of one, being little more than ink on a page.

            My effort to use the wolf-shaped doorknocker resulted in the old brass coming off in my hand. I deposited it in a bush and was about to knock when a little boy with black hair like rich satin and steel grey eyes like an ocean storm came around the corner and stared me down. He was wearing hand-me-down britches and a loose tunic, and I recognized the rather massive volume in his hand as Mage Archwylde’s Elementals and You: A Beginner’s Guide to Elemental Magic which was nonetheless utterly verbose and didn’t much belong in a child’s hands.

            “Stranger,” he mumbled.

            “Rhawen,” I corrected. It occurred to me that he’d likely never been outside Niméth and thus never properly seen a Raethian who did not share his coloring. My oranges, browns, and golds likely startled him. “I’m from south of here,” I added, kneeling.

            “Obviously.” He took my hand, horrifically bold by Niméth’s standards. “Your a red fox Raeth, aren’t you? Your eyes’re kinda weird.” It was a true enough assessment. I had rich, golden eyes with a depth a saturation unseen in human, dryken, or raethian. Indeeed, the only people who had such eyes were either long-dead or were, like myself, Narrators.

            “Hm, yes,” I agreed. “I suppose you’re Kriamiss.”

            He nodded, absently. “Your hair’s two colors too.”

            I sighed. “Is your mother home?”

            His eyes narrowed at that. “Depends on who’s asking.”

            I don’t particularly like children at the best of times, and Kriamiss was proving to be unpleasantly precocious. “I suppose I’ll just go look.” The door turned out to be unlocked, and so I let myself in, Kriamiss at my heels yapping about how rude I was being and what he’d do to me if I laid a hand on his mother. The noise drew Ellenyiel’s attention, and she bustled into the foyer before I’d hardly begun snooping.

            “What’s going on out—Rhawen!”

            We had met in person only once before, but Ellenyiel nonetheless rushed up to me and wrapped me in a hug. “Oh my goodness, I had no idea you would be coming! I’d have prepared a room, made the house presentable, I’d—“

            “I hardly knew I was coming myself, Elle.” She glowed prettily at the use of the nickname, previously relegated to written lines. “I happened to be in the area on business, and I thought I’d stop in. Would you like your son back?”

            The boy side-stepped over to his mother’s voluminous skirts, still suspicious of me, perhaps more so for my familiarity.

            “Ah. Yes...” Ellenyiel knelt down to her son, and I heard the bones of her corset creak. “This is Mama’s friend from the letters, little love.”

            Grudging trust entered the boy’s features, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. My laugh apparently wounded his pride as he muttered, “She broke the door knocker.”

            I spent much of the day there, chatting with Ellenyiel whilst Kriamiss sullenly observed me from his mother’s side. Something about the boy struck me, and on my return home, I found myself writing down everything that had occurred such that Phoenix, coming in from a hunt, wandered up to my desk and asked, “Got a new Tale?”

            I wasn’t sure how to answer and said as much. “It’s a strange feeling. I feel the pull, most certainly, but it’s as though it were a fishing line being reeled from across a lake.”

            And now here I was on the opposite shore,Kriamiss at five hundred and twenty-two, though lying in my bed and the call of a Tale dragging at my senses. I had the impression that this was not my usual narrative. This was, somehow, impossibly, something to be built.

            I’d barely begun to examine my Narrator’s instincts when I found Pain’s hands on my hips. Fortunately, on this occasion they were fully attached to his arms, his flesh properly sewn together. In fact, it looked as though all his limbs were connected in the usual fashion, though his grin still stretched much too far, seeming to split his face across the cheek bones. As usual, I was struck by the peculiarity of feeling Pain looking at me although he lacked eyes or even eye sockets, a flop of mangy brown hair disguising the absence. The Power cackled. “It would seem, my dear dear darling love-butt, that we have a visitor!” He barely contained a giggle of glee.

            “Do try to contain your excitement.”

            “Oooh, but he’s so yummy. Lots and lots of pain to nibble on, and so pretty too! Just a little lick?” He wriggled his fingers at me in imitation of a scuttling insect.

            I snorted. “Definitely not. He’s going to have shock enough when he realizes what I am, never mind discovering that the Powers have woken up as well.”

            “Oh, always so dry. You’re never any fun.”

            “But I do put up with you.”

            “Hepf. Only because I eat your migraines. You’re just using my mystical Power powers.” He had manifested as a dog raeth, and now he twitched his ears in a frisky gesture. “Naughty girrrrllll…” He reached for me, intending to tickle or trap, it was hard to say.

            I stepped aside and stacked a few bowls into the sink, refusing to play his games. “How is it that the manifestation of pain is nothing but mischievous?”

            One of Pain’s hands came unattached, traipsing away from the stitches that held it to his wrist until they snapped, and walked itself down the counter and over my wrists. “Well if you couldn’t feel any pain, wouldn’t you start—“

            A brief scream erupted from the doorway, and we turned to see Kriamiss, half naked, staring at us, aghast with Phoenix held, by the scruff of the neck, in one hand. She looked sheepish. “What in the bloody damn hell is going on?” He seemed unable to decide what oddity to discuss first but finally settled on me. “You should be dead!”

            “Well so should you,” I pointed out.

            Nearly all of my characters are, at their core, some part of myself, magnified over and over until perhaps you couldn’t tell they were ever me at all. Yet the fact remains that they are magnifications, and if you really, truly wanted, you could trace back their lineage. Kriamiss was a wish fulfillment fantasy on steroids, and in the present, it’s a struggle to reduce the angsty enchanter-healer-angel-man back into a believable person without upsetting the tender chronology of his entire story arc. It becomes necessary to look again and see what other sources may be there. For Kriamiss it’s his angst. Specifically, the angst that flies in the face of all the talent, all the ability, all the good fortune, and all the love that has ever and will ever be showered upon his foolish, morose head. He’s filled with suburban ennui in a place that has no suburbs—though obviously I have suburbs, roiling in my blood like a bubbling tar pit. Arren Minetelle, great savior of not only Raeth but all of Khra—the world’s hero, defeating its personification of evil—has what in common with a girl from Canton, Massachusetts, who can barely handle a stubbed toe, never mind ripping her own eye out—twice? For that you should look to Arren’s motives. Here is a woman whose cause is so just and so righteous that surely she must be the hero, surely she has saved us all, and yet she hunts down Kifer not because it is the right thing to do—so many had tried and failed over the thousands of years of his life—but because he killed the man she loved. Arren enters in on a quest for revenge first—“an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”—and on a quest for justice second, and therefore Arren is a cross-section of should and is, and if I don’t have that in common with her, then I don’t know myself.

     Unge S. Chickt is among the oldest of the bunch. I drew her before anime styling crept, poorly, into my artist’s hand. I drew her before there was a Khra or a Kriamiss or an Arren.. Unge came out of a time when anthropomorphic animals were new and exciting to me so that I took to drawing gelerts—strange, dog-like things from a website called Neopets—in skirts with big, lavender eyes. A terrible sight to behold. When I “adopted” a gelert someone had named Ungeschickt, the name disappointed me. I therefore had to make Ungeschickt—swiftly shortened to Unge for all intents, dues, and purposes—into the most badass of motherfuckers. And so, the first picture of Unge, ever, presented her as a femme fatale in a pink miniskirt and pearls, thoughtfully gesturing with her bloodied dagger. In this way, Unge was born of my love of James Bond, only to transmogrify, upon her entry into Khra, into a desire for a better world.

     Unge stood at her window, overlooking the city of P’tak from its opulent heart. Xev had been dead for ten years.

            It was 2 A.K., and Unge could hardly get used to the idea. Just the fact that the Demon was dead was nearly impossible to swallow after his reign of terror—the thousands of years of civilization burning under his sanguine gaze ended all at once, the shift demarcated by a change in calendar. Only the Elementals, who were as old as Khra itself, remembered a time before the Demon.

            It had also been a year since Unge had met the hero who had slain Kifer: Arren Minetelle, a petite arctic fox raeth with ice blue eyes who arrived in P’tak wrapped in the crimson of a ranger’s cloak. At the time, the girl had pep, a raging fire in her spirit that did not compromise, and a conviction that hers was the right path, the just one. She appeared, determined to slay Kifer, armed with knowledge from that strange woman called Rhawen, and prepared to risk it all. Unge sent her to Nassab in search of an artifact the girl had called the Demon’s Eye and did not see her again until the Battle at the Elemental Fields. There, Unge had joined her forces—the agents of IMDP—with the Elementals’ and the Rangers’ in order to defeat Kifer and his army. Arren appeared amidst the fray, her left eye gone, replaced with a desiccated, angry orb more appropriate in the skull of a dead thing than that nineteen-year-old’s petite visage. Unge had naught to do but watch as the girl grappled with Kifer, tearing out the massive, glowing red stone that occupied his left socket. The Demon had screamed, his voice reaching an unearthly pitch of terror, and from Arren’s eye the desiccated thing leapt out with an angry hiss, falling into Kifer’s now-empty socket. All at once, the Demon exploded into dust. An entire Age sifted to the ground and disappeared into the soil.

            After the battle, Arren was nowhere to be found, and the Ranger’s Head was discovered among the dead. Though Raeth celebrated Kifer’s death—such celebration Unge had never before seen���terror seized the Rangers’ ranks. For days they grappled with the sudden loss of Raeth’s and their leader while searching desperately for their hero. And then Arren returned, slogging out of the northern forests and stumbling westward to the Rangers’ Headquarters. The Rangers, the country’s populace, and even the Elementals, demanded that she be the new Head, this woman who had killed the world’s greatest evil. Yet she stood before them, her left socket still a ragged hole, the edges of the bone cracked, the skin scarring, and she said no.

            Garron Baylinthe became the Head, and Unge should have been happy about that. The man was a native of P’tak, born and bred in the city’s love for technology, though woefully filled with its distrust of magic, too. Still, this should have been fortuitous for Unge, placing her and her city in a less precarious position with the rest of the nation. All the same, the moment filled her with an odd foreboding, and before long she found herself contacting Arren, asking one thing: watch the Rangers. Become a double agent. Miraculously, the hero had agreed.

            Unge had never trusted the Rangers. They were, to her mind, a dangerous lot. Their Head was also Raeth’s Head, and while he was elected by the Raethian populace at large, Unge couldn’t help but wonder if the system could be rigged. Even when she was younger, breasts barely formed though she already yearned for a greater purpose, the fact that the Rangers were Raeth’s only police force, its only military filled her with dread, fear, and something acidic like bile. Where was the safety on that gun? Suppose, just suppose, that the Rangers ever went astray? Just suppose that they lost sight of their purpose, lost sight of their limits, lost sight of Raeth’s needs. What then? Who would be there to stop them? The Elementals didn’t bother themselves about Raethian business. The Mages were a scattered group of farmers’ helpers and wandering midwives. There was no one else.

            For a long time, Unge struggled with that thought. Even when she set out from Nitemaer, determined to see the country in full, that sense of Ranger Danger followed her, with no feasible solution in tow. None, until Xev.

            Twenty years ago, Xev said, “Aye, y’ve got th’ right regardin’ this Ranger thin’. We oughta do somethin’, t’change it, aye?” Xev was from N’zik, a small city surrounded by desert to one side and jungle to the other, previously the capital of an ancient Dragonfolk civilization, and now just one of the four Raethian settlements that could be properly called cities, one for each point of the compass. Unge was not terribly impressed with the southern city and found the accent unbearable, though she did think the use of sandstone was lovely.

            “I know, but what’s there to do?” Unge was perhaps twenty-one at the time, a traveler for only two years who’d nonetheless done away with the decadent fabrics and elaborate constructions of Nitemaer’s garb in favor of the simple leather and cotton to be found in most Raethian villages. “I’ve been thinking about this for years, and still I don’t know.”

            “No’ one though’ ‘t all?” Xev, a Dog Raeth all of sleek water hound blacks and dewy brown eyes, melted over the arm of his chair. He seemed impossibly long, his arms trailing across the floor, his toes hovering just above the ground.

            “Well.” She paused, turning the thoughts over in her mind. “If you’ve got one organization in charge of everything, that’s a problem. But what if you had two?”

            He raised an eyebrow. “Two?”

            “Say you’ve got the Rangers, just as they are, but then you make, like, a second Rangers—‘cept call them something else obviously—“

            “Aye.”

            “—Well then you task the second group with not only defending the peace and all that good stuff, but also with keeping an eye on the Rangers. Then you go to the Rangers and say, ‘Hey, keep an eye on the new guys.’ So now you’d have double the police force and both would be making sure the other one didn’t slip up and go evil on us all.”

            Xev smiled and reached out to touch Unge’s tawny hair. “Aye, why no’ do tha’, ey?”

            Unge blinked, and one of her canine ears twitched. “Well, I mean, that’s not something I can do.”

            Xev merely shook his head and offered her his hand.

            Within a year, the foundations of IMDP, and the year after that, they began recruiting. Five years following that conversation, IMDP was complete with secret agents, a business front as an engineering corporation, and the cooperation of P’tak’s local government. The time had not seemed prudent to reveal themselves to the Rangers—much more effective to merely spy on them for now, until IMDP was of equal strength at least—and so the organization remained in shadow, its business practices slowly elevating it until the meaningless letters stood atop a skyscraper right at the opulent heart of P’tak, among the richest of the rich.

            And then Xev died.

            A knock, followed by Tarrin, Rien, and Arren Minetelle, all but Rien looking stoic. Unge turned, forty years of espionage squeezed into a tiny business suit, forty years of aggressive gaiety etched into her face. “Hello, my darlings.”

            Tarrin and Arren sketched stiff salutes, each in their own style, and Tarrin pretended that she was not awed by Raeth’s Very Own Hero. Rien beamed, unfazed by the world’s going-ons, mind still tangling with gears and levers and electricity.

            “What did Rhawen say?” Unge asked, settling into the plush chair behind her desk and gesturing for the trio to settle themselves where they saw fit.

            Tarrin snorted, mouth opening to snarl about the peculiar woman, but Rien cut her off. “She doesn’t want to see anyone besides Arren right now.” The tiny girl adjusted her glasses. “Though she did like the things we brought her. Especially the mechanical pencils. Completely taken with them. She said plastic is a wonderful idea but to tell the folks in Nassab not to dig too deep. Not sure what she meant by that. ”

            Unge rolled a pen on her desk. “But we can’t know where to find her?”

            “No,” Arren said, a stone slab dropping. Her youth frightened Unge, sometimes. The ghastly eye socket, the runs in her face, deep-set, that made her look like marble, the ice blue of her remaining eye—just ice now—her hand never straying far from her sword’s pommel. And a sword in P’tak? It was strange. Arren looked entirely out of place in Unge’s modern office, and it was hard to remember that the office and P’tak were the anachronism here on Raeth, not Arren.  

            “No?” The pen rolled off of Unge’s desk.

            Tarrin grumbled but held her tongue.

            “Rhawen is not in a position to be as helpful as she’d like, and to that end it is better for her if as few people know her location as possible.” Arren allowed herself a sigh and continued, “I had thought that enabling you to go to her directly might not be asking too much, but Rhawen is adamant on this point. She is…”

            “Yes, what is she?” Unge snapped, frustration surprising both her and the three women before her.

            “Unge?” Rien squeaked. Unge shook her head.

            One of the lines in Arren’s brow softened. “Rhawen is something of the world. Old. She has her reasons, and you will have to trust me that they are good. But I do understand your frustration… she has—”

            “Well I’d feel a lot fuckin’ better about it if she’d just give us straight goddamn answers,” Tarrin growled.

            The brow line reasserted itself. “Perhaps you should just get better at riddles then,” Arren said.

            Unge pondered for a moment while Arren and Tarrin snapped at each other. She’d been working with Rhawen before Arren had killed Kifer, but the woman had never opened up to Unge the way she had to Arren, and even that was a chilly connection.

            A wave of fatigue washed over her, and she missed Xev.

            “Well thank you for trying, my lovelies,” Unge said, feeling herself sink onto her desk. “I suppose we’ll just do things the way we always have: we’ll wait.” Xev wouldn’t have tolerated this waiting. He’d have been trucking right up to Rhawen’s house and demanding answers, all with a pleasant smile.

     Xev died on a mission of first contact.

     Unge harbored two great dreams. The first: fix the Raethian judicial and political system to better prevent corruption. The second: re-establish diplomatic ties with Nassab and undo the political damage caused by the Great War, a thousand or so years ago. The trouble with this latter goal was, first and foremost, that a Human of Nassab would always kill and Raethian on sight, and most Raethians wouldn’t behave a whole lot more nobly. Oh, naturally, illegal trading had always occurred between the two continents—P’tak’s technological wealth was drawn directly from that fact—but Unge desired open trade. Raethian society was ruled by magic—the fact of the Elemental presence on the continent and lack of other natural resources ensured that—and Nassab, left without easy access to magic, had turned to technology. Unge wanted it both ways. Nitemaer was one of the few places that mixed the two lifestyles, and that hybrid mentality ran deep in Unge.

     It was only natural that—observing the black market ships sailing between Bollen on Nassab and P’tak on Raeth—Unge determined that IMDP would certainly engage in some trading of its own and once begun, found their dealings with Bollen went well. Unge then thought to expand. To that end, she sent Xev to northern Nassab, and when he returned, he was merely a head in a box, a note pinned to the outside: “No Dogs.”

     Unge shook the cobwebs from her mind. Tarrin and Rien had left, returning to their respective departments. Arren remained, sipping water and looking over Unge’s view of P’tak. Unge, at her side, pointed out through the city’s haze to where the ocean was just barely visible. “One of these days, that’s gonna be all boats all the time.” She smirked. “You won’t be the only Raethian to scoot around Nassab.”

     Arren nodded, remaining eye closed. “Rhawen asked a favor of me.”

     “Oh?”

     From a pouch on her hip, Arren removed a small letter, some tiny object weighing down one of the envelope’s corners. It was sealed with orange wax—an odd choice—the imprint of what looked to be a dragon in flight squashed into the pumpkin color. An extinct animal for an ancient woman who didn’t look a day over twenty-five, apparently knew everything there was to know, and then refused to tell you? Sure. Why not dragons?

     Unge took it to the desk and broke the seal. Alongside the letter, Rhawen had inserted a pendant matching the image impressed into the wax—one of those extinct dragons in flight. Unge ran her thumb over it, unsure of its connotation, though remembering that, on all the occasions she’d seen the woman, Rhawen had worn a pendant like it. She glanced at Arren, a question in her eyes, but Arren did not meet her gaze, sipping her glass of water instead. “How do you live in all this smog?” she wondered aloud.

     Unge settled into her chair and read the letter.

     Allow me just one more moment of your time, before you read Rhawen’s letter, before you decide if all this time spent poring over a day in Unge’s life and the moments of Rhawen’s and the musings of an author—the technical, real author, not Rhawen, the Narrator, who is the voice who tells these stories—was wasted.

     Purpose applies to all of these situations. I don’t know what your life was like in 2001 or 2002, but I know what mine was like, and for all the material fortune in the world, I was nonetheless struck with a deep-seated misery that I couldn’t explain, and really I still can’t, at least not in a way that feels authentic. I was filled with guilt over this feeling—“There are children starving in Africa!”—and yet the feeling persisted until I became jealous of the starving children because at least they knew why they were miserable. It’s no surprise then that the characters I birthed were universally sad, universally restless, and universally struck with tepid misfortunes which, in theory, should be world-shattering, and yet in application remained ineffective. Kriamiss’s mother dies when he is fifteen, and he flees his home, finds the father that abandoned them and that man dies too, and then when he finds someone to love in the world, she kills him, and it isn’t until he’s been dead five hundred years that he has a second chance—to save the world, to become whole. My inability to feel anything at a degree less than acutely became his saga of misfortunes—too many to be useful, narrative-wise, but just enough to try to justify feeling the way I did.

     So why feel so acutely? It’s hard to say. Do you blame a chemical imbalance; do you blame a spoiled upbringing; do you blame an inherent, genetic sensitivity; or do you perhaps put it down to some sort of flaw, a lack of the “right stuff”? I’m not sure; it’s all too far away to say anything concrete about. The memory is unreliable, the heart is unreliable, the mind is unreliable, even the evidence of the eyes is unreliable, because all is perception. In the present time, however, let us put it all down to purpose. There was purpose when we created, there was a loss of purpose when we stopped, and now we seek out purpose again—and so the whole world, the whole array of characters, have returned, because they cannot exist without us.

     And how about Kriamiss or Unge? Why is it that every character I create is alone, at the end of the day, always by themselves, contained within the space of their own bodies, isolated? I am alone when I am with people; I am alone when I am not. Solitude, then purpose. We—the characters and me—travel alone and look for something to do. Something meaningful. Save the world, that’s always good, or maybe just improving it will do. Always with the epic narrative, always with the complete saga, and always with the search for purpose and the inescapable solitude.

     I reiterate: the characters are me.

Unge—

Some twenty years ago, I sat on a café veranda in N’zik, and I watched a young Dog Raeth with tawny hair and a full bosom chitter and laugh with another young Dog Raeth, this one a sea of blacks and browns constructed into a long, lithe, lingering body. They laughed with one another, at one another, at themselves, caught in what I shall call puppy love. I saw, at that time, their histories and their presents, and while I have never been known to predict the future, everything I could sense about them suggested that they were bound for greater things. When, ten years ago, one of the two passed from this world on to Ahrk, I knew of this too, and I thought for a long time about how to make things right.

What answer can I give you? Arren sought out her own, and I supported her, and now, even with all the knowledge a mortal can be allowed, I find myself regretting. There lies Kifer, dead, and is not one girl’s youth worth the safety of thousands? But still the regret persists.

I digress.

You have a dream.

The Dragonfolk are waning, but their presence is still felt and revered in the northern climes of Nassab. Southern Nassab is, generally, filled with hatred for their once-oppressors, but in the north the sentiment is less present, the sins more forgiven, and so a Dragonfolk token can go a long way. Therefore, please find enclosed the symbol of the Dragonfolk; may it earn you passage to those places closed to all but the eldest. I will only ask that you do not use it to go to the Verde Isles.

With these thoughts in mind, I wish you well and tell you now that Xev died wishing for you.

Rhawen E. Fox

     Unge choked and found, through her sobs, that Arren stood at her shoulder, merely holding it. The younger woman maintained that spot, one tired hand acknowledging Unge’s pain for the half hour it took the older woman to regain herself, her gaiety washed away by a ten-year-old memory of a dead man.

     When Unge had subsided, Arren took herself to the other side of the desk and sat down. She folded her arms on the black, sanitized wood, her posture suddenly more like the girl she should have been. Eyes hard on Unge, she said, “I’ve known tears like that.”

     Unge nodded. “Xev was—he made this. All of this. Just by saying it was possible. Just ‘You can do it, Unge. This can be done.’ And then it was. That was all it took. He said I could do it, so I did.” Her breath rattled. “How do you come back from that? How do you answer for that death?”

     Arren took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Unge could feel every crease, every callous in the hero’s hand. Here was where her sword had worn itself a home, and here at the finger tips the place for her bow. These tiny nicks for every hour of traveling from one Raethian coast to the other and these weathered folds for every night spent alone beneath the stars formed a web in which to catch demons. Arren’s nails were dirty, but in spite of the usage written across her hands, Unge could see where once the delicate shape of a genteel woman’s glove may have fit, and Unge’s own palm felt suddenly fat and unwieldy in the grasp of one so conflictingly worked.

     Arren withdrew, her whole self drawn back up into the raw eye socket, sucked behind a glacial mask. She stood, saying, “The Rangers will miss me momentarily. Baylinthe’s put his son and Brue Nadir as his top officers. Most of the men are terrified of Brue, which leaves me and the boy to see that morale stays up.”

     Unge closed her eyes, nodding her understanding, but found Arren leaning in when she’d opened them again.

     “The boy. Maroc Baylinthe. He might be trouble.”

     There seemed something more she wanted to say, and Unge prompted her—“How so?”—but Arren shook her head and stepped away. “It may just be me. The men love him.” A tightness around her mouth suggested a deeper trouble, but Arren put it off. “No, it is nothing. He is a Ranger, after all.” With that, Arren saluted, said her farewells, and whisked out of the room, just a red cloak disappearing behind metal doors.

     Unge considered the flapping of the cloak and fingered the pendant. She laughed without laughing. “Dragonfolk symbols and the great hero feels compassion? Oh dear.” She’d have to have someone look deeper into these Baylinthes. Arren wasn’t the most intuitive of ladies, but Unge wasn’t about to dismiss her discomfit out of hand. The Rangers had completely failed to exhibit corruption, these past ten years. Perhaps now was the time?

     Unge left her chair, pendant still in hand, and returned to her favorite spot, staring out over the city—her city—where she contemplated reconciling the half-animal Raethians to their long-lost cousins, the Humans of Nassab.

     Once upon a time, a thirteen-year-old girl named M[...] got onto the school bus for the ride home and saw a younger girl called R[...] reading a large book titled Lirael which had been written by a man named Garth Nix. M[...] thought to herself that anyone reading such a large book must be worth knowing and spoke to the girl called R[...] who, utterly unaccustomed to being liked, was terrified. Nonetheless, the two began to chat and over the course of the next year or two formed a comfortable acquaintance.

     Then the girl called M[...] moved to Vermont with her family, entering a high school of only forty or so students while the girl called R[...] remained in Massachusetts, completing her last year of middle school with several hundred students. The two began to converse and then roleplay online.

     They spent the next four years roleplaying all day, every single day, and developed a pantheon of characters with names like Xev, Unge, Kriamiss, Arren, Phoenix, and Pain. They wrote informally, and their characters carried on conversations with one another and sometimes with R[...] and M[...] while the two creators spoke in parentheses around their creations.

     There was no other world.

     R[...] often spent weekends in Vermont, visiting M[...], as it happened that R[...] loved Vermont, and, she began to realize, she loved M[...].

     R[...], still only fourteen or so, had never conceived of loving someone, especially not a girl. It didn’t fit the fairy tale. So she thought about it, very hard, and determined that no, she did not love M[...] that way, rather, Mare was the first and only person she had ever truly trusted, and the love she felt for her was what she imagined to be a sisterly love.

     Approximately two weeks after this reconciliation, M[...] confessed her love to R[...]. An awkward moment of backpedaling ensued and the two came out of the online conversation both certain of the bisexuality and certain that their affections for one another were purely sisterly. Or so they would have one another believe.

     This of course was not the case, and so it may come as no surprise that two years later R[...] crawled into M[...]’s bed and initiated some rather naked activities which continued, in secret, for another two years, right up until M[...] went to college in Boston. R[...] had determined, almost as soon as the sex began, that she was not in fact attracted to girls at all. M[...], on the other hand, quickly discovered that she was attracted exclusively to girls and hopelessly in love with R[...], who saw the arrangement as purely sexual. That the arrangement continued for two years after R[...] declared herself straight seems, perhaps, ludicrous, but two individuals starved for human contact are liable to do crazy things. Their characters had been having sex for years now. Why shouldn’t they have some too?

     When the arrangement ended, it seemed so too did the friendship. The roleplaying ended with it, and all of the characters went into mental storage, their worlds untouched. An insurmountable distance arose—how do you tousle with someone you know is in love with you? How do you watch the person you love date an obese, depressed, unintelligent excuse for a man for two years? How do you sort out the boundaries between friendly physicality and sexual physicality? What happens when one of you dates the other’s good friend who turns out to be rather jealous and paranoid?

     It took nearly two years to weld the pieces back together such that something resembling normal could arise. It took another two to turn normalcy back into a close bond, a best friendship in which all resentments, attractions, and discomforts were nullified and significant others were not only deemed worthy but lacked a jealous bone in their respective bodies. And then, suddenly, M[...] began to create worlds again, and almost as suddenly, stealthily, R[...] wrote a screenplay about how Arren Minetelle defeated the Demon Kifer.

     And they were reborn.

[cadkeyper]

Hi my name is Ark and I’m armed with pure delusion, today I’ll be talking about how I could/ would beat every single classic Creepypasta. RIP to the victims, but I’m built different. I barely ever leave my room, I did martial arts training years ago, and I am fueled by nothing other than the McDonalds sprite that runs through my veins. So I think I’m pretty qualified. For the sake of this, I will not allow any of them to be armed with their weapons, this is fist to fist combat.

Nina the killer

In her original story, she’s literally just a nine year old with a knife. I would grab her by the ponytail, and swing her around until she reached a high enough velocity for me to let go and have her hurtle directly into the sun

Ben Drowned / Sonic EXE

I put these two together because the strategy for beating them is pretty much the same. First of all, I’m not a nerd. I would never play sonic or zelda, but let’s say for the sake of debate, I do. After the first time weird things happen, I WOULD OBVIOUSLY STOP PLAYING THE GAME. I turn off my tv, break it, set it on fire, and then I would take the game cartridge, put it in a blender until it was a fine purée, and then drink it to absorb their power

Smile dog

I literally never read my emails.

Jeff the killer

If we’re talking the original, I would whoop his ass so fast it’s not even funny. Once again, he’s like a 13 year old with a knife and a Joker complex. I would slap the shit out of him so hard that it knocks the smile off his face.

Ticci Toby

He can’t feel pain so I would have a harder time getting him down. However, he does have Tourette's, and as somebody who also has it, I would just tic which would trigger him to tic, (this happens from personal experience it’s agony) and then I would get him. (This may also result in me ticcing back, and we would reach a stalemate)

Eyeless Jack

I literally never sleep, so if he wants to sneak into my room at night to take my kidneys, good luck. If he got within a foot of me, I would jab my fingers into his eye sockets and make him double blind. As he stumbles around with double no eyes, I lunge at him and I take HIS kidneys. See how he likes it.

Laughing Jack

I could beat him as a child. If he tried to pretend to be my imaginary friend, I’d completely exhaust him. I was a wolf kid. I had a reputation for how hard I could kick people in the shin. I am not defending myself from him, he’s defending himself from me. I would grab his nose and twist until it made a 🌀shape

The Rake

If he runs at me, I will simply kick him in the face so hard that all of his teeth fall out. Before the battle, I would rub my entire body in the most foul tasting, disgusting thing you could ever imagine. Like ghost peppers, or limes, or bananas. So when he goes to bite me, he recoils and is so disgusted he retreats, allowing me to win by default

Slenderman

If I’m not mistaken, he likes to stalk his victims before finishing them off to drive them bonkers. He tries this with me, that’s his first mistake. Every time I see him, I will also set off an extremely loud obnoxious noise, like an airhorn, or any song on my kazoo. He thinks he’s coming to stand outside my window and jumpscare me, WRONG he’s getting his eardrums blown out with every Nicki Minaj song ever released. In addition to that, I will go out of my way to constantly bully him at every turn. Instead of drawing cryptic symbols on my walls, I’m writing stuff like “SLENDERMAN IS SO TALL HIS PRONOUNS ARE FE/FI/FO FUM”. He will eventually grow so frustrated/ confused at my constant harassment that he decides to leave me alone and that I am not worth the effort. If he sends his proxies after me, we’ve already established that I could absolutely dominate each and every single bone in their bodies This has been my personal guide to beating most of the classic Creepypasta’s and I do not take constructive criticism <3 

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (8)

(c!Technoblade x fem!Reader)

(Still no Tech this time, please don’t be mad! But hey we’re in L’manberg now! That’s pog right? Plus we officially meet Wilb and Fundy! But remember y’all, if this chapter doesn’t do well then I can’t write chapter 9! So show chapter 8 some love!! <3)

—————

MOAR ART!

I tried drawing Reader! -> She.

And xoxoyukixoxo-art-dump on here drew her too! She looks so SICK! SHE!

----

He’d been watching her for some time now. 

Not all day and night like some weirdo but he’d noticed instantly when she’d ‘logged on’ so to speak. The first thing to make him curious was him wondering how she arrived here in the first place, but when he tried teleporting to this new person it strangely hadn’t worked. He’d simply not gone anywhere, which was beyond puzzling. He should be able to teleport to anyone on this server. That little tidbit, the not being able to teleport to her, was the second thing to make him curious. So curious in fact that he spent a very long time just looking for her. When the ability to teleport to her was no longer an option he’d found searching for someone was much harder, but in the end he’d found her. And good lord was she a big one. Not taller than endermen or anything bigger but she definitely towered over the villagers she lived with.

He didn’t know how she ended up here since you needed an invite to be allowed on the server. And he knows she wasn’t invited, because he knows ALL the people who are invited. Hell, at one point he even tried banning her (an action which kicks players from the server) but… nothing had happened. He’d been hidden and watching her when he’d done it and she’d not even noticed, just kept on planting flowers around one of the villager’s houses without a care in the world.

He’d unbanned her and nothing changed again. Then he’d tried using other commands on her. Teleport, clear, give, and even Kill. Not a single one did anything. That made him nervous. He’d never encountered something like this before. It was unheard of. If this player decided to become hostile, or End forbid, GENOCIDAL… it would have very disastrous consequences for the other players on the server..

He decided then and there to monitor her deeply until further notice. 

Which turned into him popping up by her village and sneaking in to watch her and what she did day in and day out for a few months. And honestly.. She seemed pretty benign. 

All she really did was change up the village she lived in and decorate. When not doing those things she would do other hobbies like cooking and potion making. She’d also leave the village sometimes to just explore. He took those chances to go inside her home and snoop around. He also noticed aggressive mobs were pretty neutral towards her for whatever reason. That only ever happened if a player had a clear relation to a mob (aka a hybrid) or if the player had creative… Which it looked like she had. But she also didn’t look fully human.

“What a strange being you are..”

-0-

Before you knew it the next day had come, bright and early. 

You’d had to go back to the Overworld around sunrise to get ready to greet Tubbo. You’d explained to Azo that you’d try to come back as soon as you could but for now you had to go on a trip for a while. She was sad to see you go but said okay and to hurry back. Your heart broke all over again, feeling terrible that you had to leave her alone but there was nothing you could do. You’d bring her with you if it were possible but you knew her entering the Overworld would turn her into a zombie instantly. And that’s not a fate you’re willing to make anyone go through.

But you left her a chest with some golden carrots, some apples, and even some of the stew you’d made for Tubbo and Tommy. She liked the stew, so you left her a few bowls and even some juice to drink in case she got thirsty. You hugged her goodbye and told her you’d bring her a gift back. She nodded happily and then you sadly had to leave through the portal. Which you made sure to destroy after exiting it. Didn’t want anything wandering through. That would be a disaster. 

Once you were back in the overworld you went home and sat on your bed and just thought. More than anything you just wanted to step in and prevent Schlatt and Quackity from winning. But you didn’t know if doing that would have dangerous consequences or not. You’d seen so many movies where a small change in the past ends up having massive effects in the future. Damn butterfly effects. Stopping them from winning the election could end up causing a civil war within L’manburg. Or Tubbo, Tommy, or Wilbur could end up hurt or even lose a life. Or something even more devastating could happen. 

...But you hated the thought of Tommy and Wilbur getting exiled. It wasn’t fair or just. Especially while getting shot at and chased down like dogs. Schlatt and Quackity really pissed you off with that part. Seeing Ponk and Punz just instantly turn on the two original founders left you feeling utterly appalled. Schlatt hadn’t even been sworn in as president yet! He’d not taken an oath or anything! None of what he ‘decreed’ should have been taken as law! None of it was legal-

You pause. None of that WAS legal.. right? Did the citizens even know that? Were they aware that simply winning an election wasn’t the instant inauguration that Schlatt and Quackity made it out to be? Surely there was more to L’manburg than simply the bare bones parts that were shown on youtube in your original world. There had to be actual systemic structure for this whole ass small country. You wanted to believe there was, because the alternative made you facepalm. But at this point you honestly just didn’t know. You would need to have a discussion with Wilbur and Tommy (Wilbur more so since he was the adult in this situation).

You needed to talk to Wilbur asap.

-0-

Tubbo and Tommy came to get you bright and early, the blond looking more anxious than he was trying to let on. Seeing the usually so upbeat and grinning boy so nervous made your stomach churn. So you’d pulled him into a hug, not even letting him finish his greeting to you before you did. He went silent and was tense at first. But you took in a breath and said in as reassuring a tone as you could physically muster,

“Don’t worry kiddo. Things WILL be okay. I’ll make sure of it, alright?”

Tommy was silent, but you could hear the choked gasp of breath the boy took in, and you felt how his lanky body seemed to relax in your hold. He awkwardly put his arms around your back, seemingly not used to this, the whole hugging thing. At least not such heartfelt ones. He’s hugged Tubbo, Wilbur, and Philza but this one just felt different. It felt safer. Like if he stayed here nothing could hurt him. It was weird but.. nice. Part of the boy didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to leave this new safe place. Here hugging you there was no fear of losing the election, no worries of wars with the DSMP, there was nothing bad. Just a pleasant warmth he felt like he could just fall asleep to.

But the bigger part of him knew he’d never hide away from his problems. It wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t some baby coward who hid behind mommy for protection when shit got tough. (missing how his subconscious referred to you as ‘mom’) He was a MAN! Nevermind he was barely 16! He was practically an adult (in his own eyes)! He’d fought in a war for independence! He’d battled for his and his countrymen’s freedom! There’s no way he’d cower away from this damned election! 

With a new fire in him, largely in part to the confidence you seemed to have for him and L’manburg, he eventually pulled back from the hug and gave you one of his signature bright grins. He said thanks but there’s no way he was worrying! Like you said, things were gonna be fine! You gave him an encouraging smile in return and agreed, then added that if anything DID go wrong you’d stick by them and make sure it all got resolved. The teens looked grateful for your support. But then you bid the villagers goodbye for now and told the iron golems to make sure to keep them all safe.

Then you three were off to L’manburg.

-0-

Walking into L’manburg was weird. You’d only ever seen parts of it via the videos you’d watched from the various minecraft youtubers. But being there in person was wild, seeing all the buildings and pathways was interesting though. Tommy and Tubbo changed into their ‘presidential attire’, which were just those vaguely old school British military uniforms they wore at the start of the L’manburg thing. You still ruffled their hair and cooed over them, saying they looked like official little men. They got all huffy and Tommy swatted your hand away, making you laugh. Tubbo suggested showing you around before the election began, which you thought was a good idea. So the pair escorted you around L’manburg, showing you the main places plus their houses and favorite spots. You gave Tommy a Look and asked him if he really lived in a dirt hut.

“It’s DIRT Tommy, not even cobblestone. Just a dirty dirt hut,” you said with a sigh.

Tubbo snickered while Tommy tried defending himself. But he honestly was just making excuses though thankfully he got cut off by Wilbur showing up. He was in the same uniform as both teenagers and you saw him giving you a wide eyed look as he walked up. You could tell he was used to not being around someone so much taller than him. Which you guess made sense since he’d been hanging out with teenagers, a girl, and his own son mostly. You think Dream is taller than him but you don’t know how often they’re around each other peacefully to notice height..

“Oh, hello, you must be Reader! Tommy and Tubbo have told me about you!” the brunet man said with a charming smile. 

You returned the smile and held your hand out for him to shake. He gave a firm handshake and you said he must be Wilbur and that the boys had mentioned him to you. He gave a sly smile to the two boys and asked if that was so, and said he hoped they’d said good things about him. Not liking his teasing tone Tommy cut in and said he told you about Wilbur being a bitch! You laughed and Wilbur punched Tommy in the shoulder, laughing when the boy loudly claimed he was abusing a child!

Wilbur rolled his eyes at the blond boy and asked what the occasion for you visiting his lovely country was. You gave a relaxed smile and said you just wanted to come out and support ‘big man’ and Tubbo on this exciting day! Wilbur smiled and perked up when Tubbo said they were giving you a tour of L’manburg. Wilbur asked why the shortest boy didn’t say so before and gestured for you to follow him, saying the best person to give a tour is always the president! You liked his charming enthusiasm but you could still see the nervousness just lurking under the surface for all three of them. You hated that their worry was justified. 

-0-

Wilbur took over showing you around, Tubbo and Tommy right behind him adding little comments here and there to irk him. You ohh’d and ahh’d at the polite times, even saying how cool the place was. You even got shown Wilbur’s ‘ball house’ and their extensive nether pathways briefly. You got a bit distracted in the Nether, wondering if Azo was okay. Though you supposed she was a tough kid, what with having survived in the Nether her whole life so far. But she was just a little kid, still a toddler. She shouldn’t have to survive. She should be living.

“And I guess that’s the whole tour! I hope we’ve given you a good impression of my country~” Wilbur said with a smile, thoroughly snapping your attention back to the present.

You were thankful they couldn’t see how your eyes widened when you realized you’d totally zoned out during the last leg of the tour. Instead of worrying you just gushed and said you’d been really dazzled! The trio grinned and you ruffled Tommy’s hair and said you could expect no less from the big man himself and sweet Tubbo. The pair were happy to hear you praising the country they’d worked so hard to have, with Tommy even playfully swatting your hand away from your hair and saying anything he helped with would be the best. Wilbur gave a very big brother reply of ‘oh really?’ that was dripping with doubt, which started to set Tommy off.

The two started going back and forth, causing you to roll your eyes. Yeah they definitely had the brother vibe about them. Though Wilbur lost interest in arguing when he spotted someone a bit aways behind you and Tommy. He perked up and waved, calling out ‘FUNDY!’ to get his son’s attention. You all glanced over to see a fox hybrid in a uniform that was the same as the boys around you, only the coloring was off. Fundy’s was more pastel colored while the others were darker/more saturated. Wilbur waved him over and you noticed the way Fundy’s muzzle scrunched up when Wilbur threw an arm around his shoulders, but you said nothing. Not really your place but from what you remember of the smp videos… Wilbur wasn’t the ideal father figure to his furry son..

“Fundy, this is Reader! She’s a friend of Tubbo and Tommy’s! She came to support us today,” Wilbur said with a smile.

The fox quirked an eyebrow at you and asked a mildly incredulous voice if your name was actually ‘Reader’. Tommy told him to shut up and pointed out that his name was ‘Fundy’ so he had no room to be criticizing anybody’s name. Fundy raised his paws in surrender and said fine, whatever, no need to jump down his throat about it. You chuckled and said it was okay, it was a rather odd name. And you liked his name, it was cool. Tommy actually boo’d you while Fundy smiled, glad at least someone stuck up for him. Though that reminded Fundy to ask Wilbur if he’d seen the ballots…

Wilbur’s mood darkened and he gave a clipped, “Yeah, I saw them.” His tone making the other L’manburg citizens feel uncomfortable. You spoke up, asking what was wrong with them? Had someone tampered with them or something? Fundy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck and said yes and no. Yes someone had changed them but it wasn’t really ‘tampering’, just altering to fit with the new campaign runners. She gave his upset father a side glance, his triangular shaped ears going back when he saw the way Wilbur’s eyebrows were furrowed and his jaw clenched. Seems the current president was still pissed off that his son and first lady had decided to run against him together..

“Well we had to change the ballots to include all the people running, and even an ‘other’ option… Yeah,” Fundy said lowly.

You couldn’t help the way you raised an eyebrow at that and said, 

“Isn’t that just the standard for ballots? Designing ballots to not show all the people their options would just be criminal.”

Wilbur didn’t seem to like your (in his opinion) unwanted input and said however L’manburg designed their ballots was none of your business anyways, especially since you weren’t even a citizen. You could feel yourself narrowing your eyes at the brunet, though nobody could see it, and replied that you didn’t need to be a citizen to point out that not putting all the names of those running on an ELECTORAL BALLOT was hugely unethical and borderline malicious hindrance to the citizen’s right to free choice. This little snit between you and the current president had dropped the mood low, with the three boys beside you looking more than uncomfortable. 

But thankfully Tubbo found his voice and before Wilbur could retort to your statement he turned to you and said the election and debate would be starting soon and that he’d sit in the audience with you. This reminded Wilbur that he needed to practice his speech and debate responses with Tommy so he straightened his posture and adjusted his coat before giving you a faux smile and then telling Tubbo they’d see him afterwards. You kept a polite smile on your face as the four led you to an open part of the village center where a large stage/platform had been built along with seating in front of it. Wilbur jerked his thumb towards the stage and told Tommy to come on and the blond boy said he’d be right there in a moment. The brunet looked put out but nodded and stalked off, leaving the four alone in the audience area.

Once he was out of earshot you turned to Tommy and gave him a disbelieving look and said in a hushed tone,

“Tommy, you and Wilbur weren’t ACTUALLY planning to tamper with the ballots were you?? That’s insanely unconstitutional! The people of L’manburg have a right to know and be able to choose whichever voting option they want. If they don’t have that option then it’s not a real election, it’s just the illusion of choice.”

The blond looked uncomfortable, sweating and avoiding eye lens contact with you. He felt ashamed because… well that HAD been the plan. At least Wilbur told him it had been before Quackity found out. He’d not been sure about the plan but he hadn’t done much to argue with Wilbur either. He’d convinced himself it wasn’t that big of a deal, but seeing how shocked and offended you looked that they’d even thought about doing that made him feel like a bastard. You saw how nervous he looked and sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing softly before reassuring him you weren’t angry.

“I’m not mad at you Tommy, I’m just disappointed that this was something you went along with. You have to know how wrong that was? Imagine you were a regular citizen and you voted in the election but later found out it was all rigged, you’d never had a choice regarding your country like you’d been led to believe. Wouldn’t you feel wronged?”

Tommy seemed to deflate at your words but gave a remorseful nod, neither of you noticing that your words seemed to have also struck a chord with both Fundy and Tubbo as well. You gave the blond boy a reassuring smile, saying that part of being a member of government was respecting the people’s choices. Even if you think it’s stupid and wrong. You have to let the people choose for themselves. The ability to choose is sometimes the only difference between merely existing on this bitch of a world and actually Living~

Tommy seemed to have taken your words to heart, making you smile at him before pulling him into a half hug and saying sincerely,

“I’m proud of you Tommy, Tubbo too. You’ve both done so much for this country. More than any child should ever have to. I wish more than anything that you’d not HAD to sacrifice and lose so much. But I’ll be here to support you both going forward. I just don’t want either of you doing anything unethical. You’re both better than that.”

Tubbo almost teared up and came over and let his face rest against your side in a show of affection. He’d never had anyone say they were proud of him before and honestly.. he didn’t know how badly he needed to hear it until you said it. Tommy leaned into your hug, close to tearing up like his best friend but he blinked rapidly until the tears faded.

None of them noticed the envious way Fundy stared at them, feeling jealousy bubble in his stomach at the way you seemed to care for the two boys. He felt childish for feeling that way but he couldn’t help it. You clearly cared about the two in a maternal way, that much was obvious. But you weren’t treating them like babies either. You were respectful and loving at the same time. Fundy wondered if that’s what it was like to have a mother..

“TOMMY! COME ON! THE RALLY STARTS SOON!”

They all broke away when they heard Wilbur yelling down at them from the podium. Tubbo sighed and Tommy straightened his hat before giving a cheeky smile. You told him to go give his best, and no matter what happened you’d be proud. This pumped the blond boy up and he gave a cheer before ruffling Tubbo’s hair and turning to the stage and running up around the side to get to the top, you and the brunet watching him go. That’s when you remembered the fox hybrid that was still standing close by. You offer him a calm smile and say kindly,

“So, Fundy was it?”

------

tagged folks: @salinesoot​ @lady-bee-fechin​ @kacchasu​ @putridjoy​ @lunawritesstories​ @galaxypankitty3030​ @paradigmax​ @zachariethememerie​ @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @hufflepuff-demigod @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale @bananaaddictmilkshake

[iam93percentstardust]

Hey, it’s my birthday this month too and I will try my luck here 💕 sending you love, luck and flowers by the way 💐🍀❤️

I‘m totally into heartbeats, so my prompt is just „Heartbeat“ for Stony - everything else is up to you ❤️ thank you ❤️

Happy birthday, nonnie! (I know I’m a little late, real life got in the way of filling this prompt during February) I hope you like your story!!

As always, this fic is also on ao3

It takes Steve almost three hours after receiving the serum to realize that the steady thumping sounds he’s hearing are the heartbeats of the people close to him.

He thinks he can be forgiven for taking a while to figure it out. He can hear so much more now than he ever could before—even before his hearing was shot all to hell after his scarlet fever—so his initial thought, after he notices them, is that the thumping sounds are something that everyone can hear, like rushing water or something else. But he decides pretty quickly that that doesn’t make any sense. Even if it weren’t for the fact that no one else seems to hear them, the fact that the thumping sounds fade in and out as people move closer and farther away from him is a pretty clear indicator that it’s not something normal.

It’s not until one of the thumping sounds speeds up when the nurse asks him to take his shirt off so she can draw his blood that he realizes he’s hearing her heartbeat.

It’s incredible. It’s terrifying. It’s—Steve doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel about it. He wants to feel excited about it, knows that he probably should be thrilled about this shining example of how perfectly the serum worked. But the more he thinks about it, the more his own heart sinks. He hears heartbeats. There’s not a secret in the world that’s closed to him now.

“Steve?” Peggy asks him, voice high with concern. Clearly not the first time she’s tried to get his attention.

He forces himself to meet her eyes. Her heart skips a beat—Steve’s enhanced hearing picks up on it, muffled under clothes and skin and bone as it may be. He wonders if it would have skipped that beat if he’d still looked like himself. He smiles tightly at her.

“I’m fine.”

~

Bruce’s heart beats twice as fast as the average human’s. Steve wonders if that’s because of the Hulk, if keeping the Hulk contained requires so much energy that Bruce’s heart beats so much faster. He supports this hypothesis (wouldn’t Tony be so proud of him if he heard this?) with the fact that the Hulk’s heartbeat is the same rate as anyone else’s and the fact that Bruce always has snacks squirreled away on his person.

Natasha’s is always steady. Always. The only time Steve has ever heard her heartbeat unsteady was in the middle of a battle with Doombots when he’s fighting back-to-back with her. Clint had fallen off his perch and Tony had been just a half-second later than usual in catching him. He’d still caught him but in that moment, when it had looked like Clint would hit the ground hard, Natasha’s heart had skipped several beats.

Clint has an arrhythmia. It takes Steve a while to figure out. He hears the missed beats, but he originally thinks it’s because of an external stimulus—Natasha’s bared back in the decontamination showers, Tony gifting him a whole new quiver, an exciting race in Mario Kart—only there’s too much of a pattern to the missed beats and Clint never looks worried when it happens, so Steve asks JARVIS about it. He spends a week learning everything he can about arrhythmias so he knows what to do if something happens during a battle.

Thor’s heartbeat throws him off for a while until he realizes it’s not a heartbeat so much as it is heartbeats. Thor laughs jovially when he asks about it and informs him that Asgardians actually have three hearts.

He never hears Tony’s.

~

He learns how to filter out the heartbeats. How can he not? Even just a single heartbeat is enough to drive someone mad, but to have to listen to anyone’s who’s standing within a few feet of him? He has to learn to filter the heartbeats or else he’ll lose his sanity.

The USO girls are the best way to do this, though he’ll never admit that to them. He knows they already find him… off, knows that it terrifies them how easily he can lift that motorcycle with them on it and how precisely he has to aim his fake punches so that he doesn’t risk launching Johnny halfway across the audience when he punches Hitler. If they found out he could hear their heartbeats, well, he’d be lucky if half of them don’t quit on the spot.

But the girls, they just—they feel so much. Their hearts flutter when the soldiers smile at them. They beat extra fast when they dance. They slow down when they sleep on the long train rides from city to city. It’s the perfect way to figure out how to drown them out.

In the end, Steve figures that the best way to filter through them is to treat them the same way he would any other background noise. City noises haven’t bothered him in ages because he’s so used to them. He learned to get used to sleeping on trains. He can learn to work around the heartbeats too.

~

Steve knows Tony has a heart. He has to. He couldn’t just throw it out altogether in favor of solely using the arc reactor (though sometimes he thinks that Tony would if he could). He’s seen the cute little reminder Pepper once gave Tony sitting down there in the workshop in its place of pride next to DUM-E’s charging station.

Proof Tony Stark has a heart.

Tony has a heart. It’s big and it’s beautiful and it overflows in ways that Steve could never have dreamed of when he’d been growing up, no matter how much he’d wanted to help. He thinks of the articles Fury had given him in Tony’s file after he first woke up: Tony Stark Wants to Change the World. He thinks a better headline might have been: Tony Stark Is Changing the World.

They’re friends now, friends who go to the movies and ballgames midnight snacks with each other. Friends who always team up together on game night, a united front against the Super Spies and Thor and Bruce. Friends who hug and sometimes fall asleep cuddled up together on the couch, though Tony is always quick to offer him a smile in the morning and say, “No hard feelings?”

And Steve wants more, desperately, achingly.

But he gets to have this. He gets to have Tony’s forgiveness for his harsh words on the helicarrier and his obedience during their missions and his loyalty when it comes to everything else. And Steve—he’s greedy. A lifetime of growing up with nothing has made him want. But this is something that he knows better about.

He can’t force Tony’s heart to flutter when he looks at Steve. He can’t force it to quicken when they stand too close together. He can’t force Tony to love him.

And yet…

He can’t force himself to stop listening either.

~

The first time he thinks that this curse might actually be a gift is when he discovers Bucky is still alive. He’s creeping through the empty base, nearly everyone already evacuated, when he turns the corner and sees the scientist. Steve has never met the man before, never even seen him before, but he knows that this must be one of Hydra’s scientists.

He doesn’t have the right build for a soldier. Steve would know.

The scientist’s heartbeat trips as he stares at Steve for only a moment before he hurries away in the opposite direction. Steve almost gives chase after him—if anyone can tell him where Bucky is, it would be him. But even as his strides lengthen into a run, he thinks about how the scientist’s gaze had darted back into the room he’d just left. Isn’t it strange, he muses, that the scientist was still here when everyone else had fled?

That’s when he hears it: the stuttered, fragile heartbeat, nearly eclipsed by a voice Steve knows as well as his own brokenly reciting his identification.

Steve abruptly skids to a halt and turns. He dashes into the room to see Bucky strapped down to a table, eyes staring sightlessly ahead as he begins his recitation all over again. Bile rises in Steve’s throat at the sight of his best friend knocked down like this but he shoves the feeling back. Panic later, action now. If Hydra’s abandoning Bucky in the middle of their experiments, that can’t spell anything good for their escape from the base.

He starts working on the straps, keeping an ear out for distant (or perhaps not-so-distant) explosions. Bucky slowly turns to look at him. “Is it…?” he murmurs, voice as rough as gravel, and then trails off, too exhausted to continue.

“It’s me,” Steve assures him. “It’s Steve.”

Bucky blinks. “Steve?”

Steve glances hurriedly toward the door. They can’t linger here. “Come on,” he mutters, helping Bucky off the table. He drapes Bucky’s arm over his shoulders, silently offering him support.

“Steve,” Bucky says again. His brow wrinkles.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve admits.

“I thought you were taller,” Bucky informs him, and even through his worry, Steve has to bite back a grin. There’s the same old Bucky he knows and loves. They’re gonna be just fine.

~

The first time Steve hears Tony’s heartbeat, they’re fighting.

Steve doesn’t even remember how it got started, just that one moment, they were laughing and talking with each other, and the next, they’re screaming. They’re pressed practically chest to chest as they yell abuses at each other and when Tony accuses him of being unable to move on from the past, Steve sees red. He straightens up, all but looming over Tony.

There’s a weak, stuttered thump.

It so surprises Steve that he blinks and steps away. He’s never—Tony has a heartbeat, he has to, but Steve has never heard it before. In one wild moment, he’d even once thought that Tony’s heart actually no longer beat and he was surviving entirely on the arc reactor. And yet, what else can it be?

Tony doesn’t seem to notice Steve’s hesitation and he steps in close again, jabbing his finger into Steve’s chest. Steve hears it again, frail and rhythmless and nearly hidden beneath a soft whirr that he’d never noticed before.

The arc reactor.

He’d never heard Tony’s heart because of the arc reactor.

Now that he hears it, he doesn’t know how he’d missed it before. It’s so much. It’s loud, drowning out nearly everything else, or maybe that’s the blood rushing in his ears as it really, truly hits him for the first time that this piece of metal and light is all that’s keeping Tony alive.

“How do you stand it?” he whispers.

Tony steps away, caught off guard. Immediately, Steve misses hearing that sound, that reassurance that Tony’s heart still beats under the reactor, and he follows him.

“Stand what?” Tony asks uncertainly, gaze landing on everything but Steve standing a few inches away from him.

Steve lays his hand over the reactor, covering up its glow. Only—the very thought, that it could go dark and he would lose the thing that matters most to him in this time, terrifies him and he moves his hand away again, realizing only at the last second that his hand is now covering Tony’s heart instead.

“It’s so loud. It’s—I can’t hear you,” he tries to explain.

Tony inhales sharply. “You can hear—” He cuts off, raises his hand to cover Steve’s. Steve nods. “How did no one know that?”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he admits. “It scared me.” He splays his fingers wide, fingertips brushing the side of the arc reactor and the curve of Tony’s side all at once. “It still scares me.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he begins. Stops. Inhales deeply. Tries again. “Because Clint’s heart could skip more beats than it should and I would hear it but wouldn’t know what to do. Because Natasha could be unhappy and I would never know… Because you could die and I wouldn’t know until it was too late.”

“Steve—”

Terror makes him brave, who knew? “I can’t hear you unless I’m this close.” He forces himself to meet Tony’s eyes, warm and beautiful. “I always want to be this close, but I know I can’t have that.”

Tony’s lips part on a small gasp. He breathes in unsteadily, heart starting to race. Steve hears it but he doesn’t understand why. “All the words in the world,” Tony eventually says. “And I can’t find the ones I want when I need them.”

“Tony, you don’t have to—”

“Shut up,” Tony murmurs and kisses him.

~

The last heartbeat Steve hears as he plummets toward the ocean is his own. Red Skull is gone, the remaining Hydra soldiers dead. Peggy’s voice is in his ear but he can barely hear her over his own galloping heartbeat. Figures. The only thing he wants to listen to as he dies is her but he’s still stuck with the heartbeats.

“I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance,” he tells her.

“Alright,” Peggy says. She sounds like she’s crying. “A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”

“You got it,” he promises.

“Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?”

The ice is rushing up before him, an expanse of pale blue and white as far as he can see. Maybe, if he’s lucky, the rushing water will drown out the sound of his heart. He doubts it. Steve Rogers has never been lucky.

“You know, I still don’t know how to dance.”

“I’ll show you how. Just be there.”

He wants her voice to be the last thing he hears. He doesn’t want to listen to the sound of his dying heart.

He can’t have everything he wants.

~

As the bedroom door slides open, through his own exhaustion, Steve hears the gentle whirring of the arc reactor. He blinks his eyes open, taking in the dark room, lit up only by the lights of the city. Even those are dimmed; JARVIS must have the tinted windows darkened. Tony is asleep on his stomach, the arc reactor’s glow muted by his chest pressing it into the blankets.

Steve wearily strips out of his armor, dropping it in the laundry chute to be picked up by the tower bots in the morning. He takes a quick whiff of himself, hoping he doesn’t smell badly enough to need a shower when he’s this tired, and is rewarded with only the slightly stale smell of the Quinjet.

Reassured that he won’t wake his husband up with his rankness, he climbs into their bed, tucking himself under the blankets. Tony grumbles wordlessly, shifting closer to him in his sleep. Steve presses himself along the line of Tony’s body, tucking his head into the curve of Tony’s neck. Nearly silenced by the arc reactor, Tony’s heart beats steadily, still ticking even after all it’s been put through.

He smiles, presses a kiss to Tony’s pulse point, and lets his eyes drift closed.

[sunrisefairy]

Don’t forget me

Pairing: George Weasley x reader

Word count: 3.6k

Summary: Y/N and George were in a car accident, leaving Y/N in a coma. George isn’t sure if their life will go back to normal.

Warning: Car accident, mention of broken bones, a few swear words, sad George. 

A/N: this was longer then I planned for it to be, it’s a little one the angsty side but worth it I swear. 

Taglist: @hufflepuff5972​ message me if you would like to be added! 

Hope you enjoy. 

Italics signify a flashback. 

George couldn’t remember the last time he felt this worried and scared, actually the second Wizarding War would be a close contender. But right now, he couldn’t think about anything else besides you laying unconscious in a hospital bed.

George’s leg bounced up and down in the waiting room chair. What was meant to be a romantic date night turned into nightmare.

“Merlin, I think I’m going to explode with how full I am right now. That was the best risotto I’ve ever had.” Y/N moans, relaxing in the passenger seat as George chuckles and pulls out of the parking spot.

The redhead rests his hand on Y/N’s leg, concentrating on the snow filled road. “We definitely need to have date nights more often.”

The couple had been dating for almost 6 years having met at Hogwarts. George had worked up the courage to ask the H/C haired girl out, she had said yes, and the rest was history.

“I won’t say no to that, especially if you pay” Y/N jokes and squeezes Georges hand.

George glances over at Y/N who is staring out the window watching the snow fall. He can’t believe how lucky he is, Y/N is by far the most gorgeous girl he’s every laid his eyes on.

Y/N turns to face him having sensed his gaze on her. George swears he had only been looking at the beauty next to him for a moment, but his heart stops when he sees Y/N’s eyes widen and his name escaping from her lips, drawing his attention back to the road. George panics when his brain registers the bright lights of a truck right in front of them, gripping the steering wheel with both hands he tries to swerve out of the way, causing the car to flip and crash into a nearby tree.

“Any news yet dear?” George looks up to see his mum, Molly standing in front of him with a cup of water in an outstretched hand. He just shakes his head, taking the cup.

“Still in surgery” George sighs rubbing his eyes, Y/N had been in surgery by the time George woke up in the hospital bed. Molly and Fred had been waiting for him to wake up, they looked equally distraught. George hadn’t been told much of the details surrounding Y/N, only she had been taken straight into the operating room when they arrived.

George groans leaning back into the rather uncomfortable plastic chair. His arm is wrapped in a sling, doctors said he had broken his collarbone and his legs and arms were covered in multiple cuts and bruises but that was the extent of his injuries.

“She’s gonna be okay mate. Its Y/N we’re talking about, she’s a fighter” The voice comes from Fred, George hadn’t notice when he returned from his mission to find some decent food, not that George really cared to eat anything right now.

“Y/N L/N?” it’s the doctor speaking now, he is standing in front of them, clipboard in hand with a rather serious look on his face which might just be his permanent expression.

George jumps to his feet eager to know something, anything, he needs to know if Y/N is okay. His throat is dry, and it feels like a razor blade when he swallows, he’s 80% sure he might be sick or pass out from the worry, but he doesn’t care. Molly grab his hand in comfort, George finds himself squeezing it back.

George is having a hard time understanding what the doctor is saying, his brain feels fuzzy and he can only comprehend bits and pieces of the conversation. He can make out ‘Y/N is out of surgery’ and ‘brain swelling’ and ‘induced coma’ and George feels his legs give way.

Fred is at his side pulling him back up, “c’mon Georgie, we can go see her.”

Y/N’s giggles fill the air “Georgie, stop! Anyone could walk around the corner and find us.”

George’s hands are under Y/N’s school shirt, caressing her sides while his mouth is attacking her neck leaving as many dark bruises as he can, “I don’t care, I’m allowed to kiss my girlfriend when she looks this ravishing.”

Y/N moans quietly, her eyes fluttering closed as her hands thread through the redhead’s soft hair tugging lightly.

“I love you,” Y/N breathes out before she can stop herself. She stiffens, clamping a hand around her mouth. They couple hadn’t shared those words with each other yet, only been dating for a few months. “pretend I didn’t say that.” Y/N tries to backtrack, worried she gone and scared George.

By now George has moved from his original position and is looking down at Y/N searching her eyes.

“Say it again.”

Y/N hesitates, “I love you.”

George grabs her face in his giant hands and begins peppering soft kisses all over her face, “again” he mumbles against her skin.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” The short girl giggles.

Eventually George stops his attack on his girlfriend, “I love you too. Please don’t ever stop saying you love me.”

“Promise."

George reckons if it was quieter the world might be able to hear his heart thumping in his chest. His pace quickens as he looks at the room numbers, 205, 207, 209 and then 211. Once he enters the cold, white room he sees Y/N, laying in the hospital bed, covering in tubes.

“Godric,” he rushes over to his girlfriend’s side, clinging onto her hand and brushing some hair away that’s fallen onto her face. “baby.”

“I’m aware Doctor Anderson has already spoken with you Mr. Weasley, but Miss L/N here is in an induced coma due to the swelling against her brain. While she isn’t awake, I’m sure she can hear you.” The nurse notes before slipping out of the room.

“Baby, you have no idea how scared I’ve been. I miss you so much, I need you to get better so you can wake up and tell me how much of an idiot I am for driving in the snow. I am so sorry. Darling I am such a fucking idiot. Merlin, that should be me laying in a coma right now.” George babbles on and on for what feels like hours, his tears dried against his cheeks. At some point he falls asleep in the chair beside your bed, still clinging onto your hand.

“Happy birthday darling,” George says handing a very confused Y/N a small yellow wrapped box.

“Georgie my birthday isn’t for another few months” She grabs the box and slowly unwraps it, slightly nervous about what’s inside, Georges gift giving can be very unpredictable, most of them result in some sort of prank.

“I know but I couldn’t wait any longer to give you this present, seeing as you just finished school and all.”

Y/N tosses the wrapping paper aside and carefully lifts the lid of the tiny box; inside she sees a single key. “a key?”

“To my apartment” George answers, “I want you to move in with me and Fred.”

Y/N gazes up at her boyfriend surprised, “really? You want me to move in with you?”

“Of course, I can’t stand being away from you a moment longer. So… what do you say?”

Y/N has tears forming in her eyes, she has never felt love like this before and she prays it always stays this way forever. “Of course I’ll move in with you, silly!’ Y/N exclaims wrapping her arms around George’s neck.

George realises a breath he didn’t know he was holding “I was worried you might say no, thought maybe you think you’d get sick of me.”

Y/N shakes her head and nuzzles her face into Georges chest, “could never get sick of you babe, you’re stuck with me forever.”

It’s been a week? Maybe 2 or is it 3? George isn’t really sure how long its been, he’s spent every day in the hospital since the accident, the days seem to blur together. Fred has brought him some clothes here and there and convinced him to go home to shower a few times because ‘you smell like actual trash, probably doing some damage to Y/N’s nose with your stench’.

The doctors said the swelling in Y/N’s brain had improved and decided to bring her out of the medically induced coma. George has been persistent in asking when his girlfriend will wake up but only receiving an unhelpful reply of ‘it’s hard to tell, could take some time’. So, George decided he’d make sure he was by Y/N’s side for when she wakes up, not wanting her to be confused about her surroundings.

George has been tracing patterns onto the back of Y/N’s soft hand, quietly humming a tune to one of her favourite songs when she wakes up.

“Uh, excuse me?” Y/N’s voice came out croaky.

George’s head snapped up, “Oh merlin! You’re awake! You’re awake! Oh I’ve missed you baby!” he rushes to say as he’s clicking the nurses button to notify them.

Y/N scrunches up her eyebrows, feeling confused and eyes darting around the room. George is back at her side gripping her hand so tightly he doesn’t notice Y/N flinch slightly.

“How are you feeling darling? Are you in pain?” The redhead asks.

Y/N is in a tremendous amount of pain, her neck is aching, her wrist feels sore and stomach hurts when she breathes but she isn’t focused on any of that, all she is focused on right now is this man in front of her, this stranger.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?” Y/N whispers out, her throat stopping her from speaking any louder.

“What?” George squeaks dropping Y/N’s hand. At this moment the nurse comes into the room to tend to Y/N. George feels like he’s suffocating, he throat feels tight and dry and he can’t seem to breathe.

The nurse peeks at him noticing his pale face, “Mr. Weasley are you okay?”

“She-she doesn’t remember me.” He says not sure if the nurse heard. “She doesn’t know who I am.” He says louder this time.

The nurse looks taken back and begins asking Y/N questions, ‘what’s your name?’, ‘can you tell me what year it is?’.

George doesn’t wait to hear the answers, instead rushing out the room and heading outside, needing air. He quite literally bumps into Fred outside the hospital who was on his way to deliver him some food. The older twin notices his brothers horrified expression.

“Woah, is everything okay George? Is it Y/N? is she awake?” George’s breathing starts to quicken, he’s losing his grip on reality, he feels like he’s falling and he doesn’t know what to do. “Georgie mate look at me. Okay, just breathe buddy. Like this.” Fred takes some slow exaggerated deep breaths trying to calm down his brother. George’s eyes meet Fred’s and starts to copy him, which eventually slows down his heart rate and calms him down.

“Okay now can you tell me what’s going on?” Fred enquires.

George feels the hot fat tears running down his face as he wraps his arms around his brother, “she doesn’t remember me, Freddie. She doesn’t know who I am."

“Okay now are you going to tell us why you randomly dropped by?” Arthur asks as the 3 of them sit around the kitchen table, sipping at his tea.

“Not that we don’t love having you over dear.” Molly adds sending Arthur a glare.

George clears his throat looking between the 2, he knows his mum is going to flip. “I’ve decided I’m going to propose to Y/N.”

Molly squeals and pulls her son into a bone crushing hug, “oh my boy! This is amazing news. I’m so happy.” Arthur pats him on the back, “congratulations, we’re so proud of you.”

George chuckles as Molly pulls away, wiping the tears off her face.

Molly begins asking a million questions ranging from when George is planning on popping the question to how. “I haven’t decided yet, kind of waiting for the right time.”

Molly couldn’t stop the smile spreading across her face. Y/N was perfect for her boy, since they first started dating in school Molly had an inkling it was the real deal and they’d end up getting married. George’s face would light up whenever Y/N was mentioned in a conversation and when he invited her over to spend the summer at the Burrow for the first time, he always had his hand in hers or holding her waist, stealing kisses whenever he could. It made Molly insanely happy to see how smitten her son was with Y/N.

“You tell us as soon as you her ask okay?” Molly insisted pointing a finger at George.

“I will, you’ll be the first to know.”

George is back in Y/N’s hospital room with Fred by his side. They’ve passed Doctor Anderson on their way up who explained Y/N’s situation. Retrograde amnesia, she can’t remember the last 7 years of her life, ultimately her life with George. The doctor mentioned her memory may come back, with brain injuries it’s hard to tell, but there is the chance that it won’t and that terrifies George. Doctor Anderson said that in a few days once Y/N is feeling better she can go home, he says it best for her to get back into her normal routine as soon as possible.

Y/N’s eyes look between the 2 identical men standing in front of her. They look vaguely familiar, like older versions of boys she used to know from school. After the redhead ran out of the room earlier the nurse and doctor filled Y/N in on her situation. Y/N was completely shocked to find out that she’s forgotten 7 years of her life, she isn’t some teenager at Hogwarts anymore and that is kind of freaking her out to be honest. The 2 redheads in front of her have yet to say anything and its annoying Y/N, she senses they are scared to speak to her, as if she might break.  

“Oh my godric will one of you please something” Y/N finally huffs out annoyed.

The twin on the left, who isn’t the one Y/N ‘met’ earlier clears his throat and speaks “so I’m guessing you don’t remember us. Uh- I’m Fred and this is George, my brother.” Fred finds this unbelievably hard having to introduce himself to someone he’s known for years. Since Y/N and George started dating at Hogwarts him and Y/N had become pretty close friends.

“Fred and George” Y/N whispers, that does sound familiar. “Nice to meet you” Y/N pauses “re-meet you?”

Fred gives a light-hearted chuckle.

Y/N is filled with an ample amount of questions, she doesn’t know where to begin. “So how do I know you both? I mean we must be close if you’ve been waiting at the hospital for me.”

Y/N notices the twin on the right, George, looking like he’s in physical pain. Fred and George share a knowing look with each other before the younger twin starts to speak.

“Um, we met at Hogwarts actually and became pretty close,” he clears his throat and Y/N waits patiently for him to continue “you and me are… we’re actually dating.”

There’s an awkward tension in the air, no one can find the right words to speak. Fred has sat down on the wooden chair next to Y/N’s bed kind of regretting his decision to be here for moral support. George hasn’t moved from his position at the foot of the hospital bed, hand in his pocket staring down at his shoes.

“Oh” Y/N manages, “for how long?”

George inform Y/N that they’ve been officially dating for 5 almost 6 years, that they also live together in a flat above Fred and George’s joke shop which Y/N sometimes works at to help the boys. It feels strange for Y/N to hear about her life when none of it sounds familiar.

A few days later Y/N is standing in the living room of the flat, looking around at the photo frames hung up on the wall. Many of them include her, one in particular catches her eye. It’s a photo of her and George at the beach, George looks the same as he does now so Y/N guesses it may have been from the past summer. George has his arm around her waist tickling her sides as Y/N throws her head back laughing then George plants a sloppy kiss against her cheek. They look so happy, so in love. Y/N’s heart aches.

“I’ll show you to the bedroom if you like” Y/N turns around to find George standing there. She follows him into the bedroom. “If you need anything, I’ll just be in the living room.” George steps towards Y/N but falters, he normally kisses her goodnight. “um night.” He turns quickly on his heels and walks right out the door.

Y/N lays in bed that night, trying desperately to search her brain for something. She’s gotta remember something. But nothing comes up. She feels like a failure, and so overwhelmed she can’t help but cry herself to sleep that night. Just in the other room George lays uncomfortably on the couch, trying to sleep with a sling on your arm and a broken collarbone proves very difficult, he too has tears staining his cheeks as he finally falls asleep.

“Will you quit staring at me” George mumbles, his eyes still closed.

Y/N pokes his cheek earning a grumble from the sleepy boy. They had been living together for 1 year now and Y/N couldn’t be any happier. “Wake up sleepy head.”

She tries poking his cheek again when he doesn’t answer. “Leave me be” George mumbles.

Y/N purses her lips an idea forming in her head, “you leave me no choice.” She stands up in the bed and starts jumping around and yelling “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

Eventually George opens his eyes and grabs onto Y/N’s legs pulling her down and on top of him who is giggling like crazy, George smiles too.

“You are going to be the death of me, ya know that?” George says kisses her cheek.

Y/N laughs, “you love me though right Georgie?”

“Always.”

Y/N jolts awake, that dream feeling so realistic. It’s been 2 weeks since she left the hospital and some nights, she has these dreams that feel so unbelievably real or she’ll do something that give her déjà vu. She hasn’t told George about it though; she doesn’t want to get his hopes up in case her memories don’t return.

Y/N walks into the kitchen to find George making coffee, his red hair sticking in a million of different directions.

“Mornin’ Georgie” Y/N greets, going to make some toast.

George whips his head to face the smaller girl, she hasn’t called him Georgie since before the accident. Y/N doesn’t seem to notice though and continues to make her toast. “Morning,” he mumbles back “any progress on the memory?”

Y/N shakes her head and George feels his heart drop. He doesn’t want to think about what happens if Y/N never regains her memories, frightened she’ll never feel the way she used too. His family seem very optimistic about the whole situation, Ginny thinks that the whole situation is very romantic but each day that goes by George loses hope.

 It's a Saturday night and they’ve just finished watching a movie on the couch. Y/N fell asleep half-way through which wasn’t surprising, her head resting on George’s shoulder, he doesn’t dare move in inch. In this moment he can pretend everything is normal again.

“Mm, Georgie. Dinner.” Y/N mumbles, George looks down and sees her eyes still closed, he realises she’s sleep talking.

“What was that love?”

Y/N stirs slightly, curling into Georges side. “We should do dinner. Date night. Been too long.”

The redhead starts playing with her H/C hair. “Yeah? Where should we go?”

“You know, Valentino’s. Always go there.” Y/N breathes out.

George’s breath hitches. Y/N always chose Valentino’s when it was her choice for date night, it was this cute little Italian restaurant they’d found one night in London, it was where they went the night of the accident.

“That sounds lovely, darling.” George kisses Y/N’s forehead.

Y/N stirs from her slumber “did I fall asleep again Georgie?” she rubs her eyes trying to take in her surroundings. Her brain feels fuzzy having just woken up. Y/N looks around trying to remember how she got on the couch when she lets out a loud gasp and jumps up.

“What is it? Is everything okay?” George eyes Y/N carefully who is frantically looking around the room finally landing on George.

Y/N’s doesn’t speak for a minute her brain going crazy. While Y/N doesn’t remember everything that she’s forgotten from the last 7 years she remembers parts, the important parts. She remembers kissing George for the first time and being each other’s date for the Yule ball, she remembers how sad and proud she felt when she watched Fred and George fly out of Hogwarts for the last time, she remembers the fear and terror of the war, she remembers joking around with Fred late at night and drawing on George’s face when he fell asleep after a night of drinking but most importantly she remembers loving George.

George’s heart sores and little fireworks erupt inside his chest when he hears Y/N say, “I remember.”

He palms the small box in his jacket pocket which he hadn’t the heart to remove just in case he found the right moment.

[shadowfae]

hiii! so a friend directed me here and i was wondering if u cld share abt how you found out you were godkin? only if youre comfy! because ive kinda had like. how do i word this. Vibes or Feels that kinda direct me towards the whole i might be a god of sorts kinda thing ? if you have resources and dont mind helping,, please direct me to them :D ~ @missing-crown

I want to start this essay off by saying flat out: wars have been fought, genocides have been committed, and empires have risen and fallen trying to answer the simple questions of “What is deification, and how do we incarnate and control it?”.

If you do not think you’re up the challenge of answering that question for yourself, even with years of study and slow training to take up the mantle of literally being the most powerful form of the Chosen One trope, then you’re probably in the wrong place. I say this as someone who is deific down to the blood and bone, as someone who has looked for other gods, and largely found very little in the way of anyone who understands anything like my experience. In this way, I am utterly alone, and I detest it, but if me penning these words gives someone else the gospel they need to explain themselves in a way I recognize as kin and kind, then I will do it.

But before I truly get into it, I will very nicely ask you to swing down to your local bookstore or library, pick up a copy of Seanan McGuire’s Middlegame, and take a walk down the improbable road with Roger and Dodger. The differences between you and I and the twins of the Doctrine of Ethos are simple and threefold: we cannot manifest, we are forbidden to use our powers the way they can use theirs, and there are (hopefully) no secret alchemist cults trying to murder us when we don’t play nice with their fucked-up science experiment.

Roger and Dodger are gods, true gods, gods I recognize in myself and in the godkin I have met who have spoken about themselves enough for me to understand that we are indeed talking about the same thing. Disappontingly, I see minor spirits far too often misunderstanding the nature of deification, or at least, understanding a version of it which is fundamentally antithetical to my experience. They may be deific; but either they suck at illustrating their point, or I am something far beyond deific, and I am again alone.

With that introduction, I need to talk about three things in order to answer your question. Two methods of deification and three definitions of ‘god’ in a hierarchy that only exists because humanity has not yet perfected their understanding of what is fundamentally and always beyond them. Two kinds of gods, honest gods, that split the difference between deific, divine, and legendary. Once you understand that, I can talk about godkin, and what it’s like to be me, and maybe by the end of it you will either recognize yourself in this, or run away screaming as most mortals will do.

The first method of deification is what I will call the incarnate gods- Roger and Dodger are good examples, so are most Legendary Pokémon, and Kaname Madoka from PMMM. They are laws of nature, concepts of creation, and calculations of cosmic proportions that also occasionally exist as people when they design to do so. They are not meant to be people, they are bad at it, I do not recommend being mortal and fucking around with them. You will simply die. I would not fuck with them outside of my own world that I created, where I get to be a form of incarnate god. You cannot overpower them: they ARE the rule, and they will change it if they need to. You can’t ruleslawyer gravity like a 2007 troll physics comic. An incarnate god of gravity will simply turn reality on its head and cause you to implode. If you are this type of god, I cannot help you. My understanding of them comes from being an Absol, and little more.

The second type are gods of domain and prowess: Zamorak (from RuneScape), Akemi Homura in both her awakened Witch and Devil forms (from PMMM), and yours truly. Quite a few of us, although not all of us, were originally mortal. Mortals amped up on so much power we are no longer bound by mortal laws. There is a difference between deification and simply stopping your clock to gain immortality. Mortal magic and deific magic are fundamentally different. Down to, I would argue, the atomic structure. Deific magic is pure in a way mortal magic could never be. To give a mortal more than a drop of deific magic heavily diffused in something safer and more understandable would be to quite literally burn them to ashes. Or rend them into a different, unspeakable form. Or turn them into living topiary. We are nothing if not unpredictable.

It’s the difference between a handful of dirt and pure neutron soup. Usually, in order to become a god like this, it requires the intervention of an incarnate god in some form. In Zamorak’s case, it was several Elder Artifacts and falling almost facefirst into halfway incarnating himself into the law of entropy. In Homura’s (at least in canon PMMM), she fucked with the laws of consequence and time to the point where she became the only expert they had on either of those and both laws decided to simply incarnate into her, and then she used that to cause problems. For me, it was having my entire magical and physical structure reorganized and rebuilt by an incarnate god of malevolent energy, and then I used what was a watered-down copy of the Devil of Devils’ glory to weave my own world into being where I was more or less the absolute arbiter of the laws of reality.

In PMMM Rebellion, when Homura fights Kyubey in that pretty lace dress of hers, that is approximately the magical prowess an awakened god of our capability will show casually. She has complete control over her domain (her labyrinth) and the reality of it, it takes no more than a glance or a thought to almost entirely reshuffle it. Her minions, who are little more than vaguely autonomous thoughts given some power of their own, may break that reality in whatever means necessary so long as it is to fulfill Homura’s current motives. Her domain falls apart when she does, and she is not separate from it; it is a consequence of her existence. Asking what came first, the god or their domain, is a simple chicken and egg question. It’s usually the domain, in our case; in the case of incarnate gods it’s a philosophical shrug and a nice headache.

You’ll notice I said awakened: that is because Zamorak is a great example of a god who isn’t entirely awakened. In canon, that is - the one I work with is awakened enough to fuck with his domain, which is what makes him quite useful to work with, although I do wonder what he’s getting out of me if not magical theory and utter adoration. Zamorak in canon is a god who ascribes himself to the philosophy of chaos and personal strife, completely unaware that he is incarnate enough not to change the law of entropy but to suggest things to it. He’s a god of chance masquerading as a god of personal improvement, and once he figures that out (and passes that knowledge onto Armadyl, who is his true light counterpart), he’s going to change the very way magic works. Guthix did everything in his power to try and become incarnate. He failed. Zamorak did it entirely inadvertently, and that’s the trick: the nature of deification is to follow the domain and influence it to your will. When laws of existence become people, they will do as people will, and people typically have ambition. Gods who are also people got that way for a reason. They always have a motive for doing so. It’s never accidental.

So, with a slightly more informed understanding of deification, or at least the versions of it that I understand, I can talk to you about me. What it’s like in the here and now, and how I knew. It took me years to get to this point, and I’ve much the way to go. I know more than I did when I was questioning; deeply more so. I don’t expect anyone questioning to be as sure as I am, and in ten years I will be far more sure of entirely different things, and if I’m lucky, this as well. But, let us begin again.

To be deific is to wake up in the middle of the night feeling like a black hole. You are vast, and you are dense, and the moment someone touches the skin of your sternum they will be sucked in like a movie's portrayal of quicksand. To be so vast on the inside, surrounded by empty air and gentle white noise like the faint pull of gravity that does not touch you. To feel so powerful as to be untethered wholly from the world, aware that you will blink and be floating alone in a space that you cannot touch and so too cannot touch you. You blink, and it is gone, and you are again in a normal body as a normal person, and you roll over and go back to sleep.

To be deific is to watch the seasonal changes and feel flashes of worn leather rope between your hands and the maddened singsong of the Wild Hunt, chariot reins in your hands and baying hounds that feel like fingers, like wings, like extensions of yourself that can be shifted around with barely a thought. To feel halfway like a black hole walking down the street, halfway caved into yourself and barely contained, incapable of truly understanding how you can be so far apart from it all without anyone noticing that something is off.

To be deific is to be a fourteen-year-old girl in one moment, unable to understand what draws her so to the wilds if not the song of sympathy that she knows she can understand if she reaches a little farther, a little farther past the barrier that prevents any mortal, psychological mind from understanding the call. To play a pixelated game and have everything rush back. To relive millennia in a single sennight, to go from chipped to broken, utterly broken, as the power comes rushing back and the slow, dawning realization like the day that there is no controlling it. That there is no controlling you.

Millennia of sins come rushing back, and you're mortal again, and you know the only way to bring a god to their knees is to kill them. And if you were spared, if you were brought down without dying, then there was a reason. That someone must have thought you worthy of fixing it. That you should now spend the next several years coming to peace with being a Devil, the cruelest of the cruel, amending fences and repenting your sins.

To be deific is to realize, quite suddenly and without ever actually having the thought, that understanding things through a Christian lens is utterly bullshit and absolutely does not apply to you. Now, your duty is not to repent, or to fix, or to find any sort of salvation. You are the monster queen, the king of the damned, the Devil of a world you made with blood and tears and sweat and magic. To retake the crown, you have to accept yourself. Acceptance does not mean dwelling, or sorrow, or refusing to take the steps forward that will carry you to the crown and halo and horn of deification.

The powers feel less overwhelming as you grow into them. You don't forget the rage. You understand your close friend's words over and over, as the lesson teaches itself. How a Devil so much less powerful and yet so much older than you once looked you in the eye, drink in hand, and gently told you that a single mortal can bring down a Devil, if they try, and believe wholeheartedly in their quest. Do not disrespect mortality. It brings nothing but death.

You wonder briefly who brought you down. You decide, as the lessons prove themselves, that you don't actually care. You're the mortal now, and mortal legends die. Mortal legends change the song of sympathy and the rules of the deific. In order to return, you too must follow the only path a mortal can take to become deific.

To be godkin is to become deific with every step. It's not to seek the divine from outside of it. It's to become it again, and reclaim it; find what was inside all along and grow yourself around it, until it can no longer be pulled from you again without scattering your ashes and stardust among the cosmos, never to return.

To be godkin is to never forget the moments of pure rage that none but powerless fourteen-year-olds can manage. To be godkin is to be an adult with their memory pressed into your skin. To be godkin is for that rage to never truly leave you.

We stand up again and stare at the emotions that are awake when we are not. We wonder what it will take to manifest again, to only twitch a thought in any direction and reshape the reality around us. It is an extension of our being, and the less aware we are of it, the less effort it takes us to remake the world. It is the nature of deification, to change the laws of reality at our whim and will.

To be godkin is simply a matter of knowing that, and forever reaching to do that once more. If only to feel whole and vast, as we always have been.

[starcloud-nova]

Favorite fics by some of your buddies on Tumblr and Discord?

God nonnie. You fucked up big time. You underestimated just how hard I can appreciate my friends. I’d like to formally apologize for how long and in-depth this got, but I would pick a stopping point and then go ‘oh! but i cant leave out so-and-so’ and then this got mega out of hand.

Organized by author and not genre! And if I didn’t include any of your works (or I did and it was not the one you wanted), please, don’t take it personally. I am trusting everyone who comes across this post to read the tags themselves, but for two of the fics I have left TWs in front of them.

Cassia’s fics:

Internet Enemies by @cassiopeia721 (x)

At school, Midoriya Izuku is ignored at best. At home, he's raised by a single mother who seems to be always taking night shifts, and who he communicates with almost exclusively through notes on lunch boxes and texts lying about his location. As such, Midoriya Izuku turns to the internet— or more specifically, an All Might fan server on discord— for companionship. Like most things in his life, it goes wrong eventually. It just takes longer than usual.

hypnic jump

Izuku finds himself somewhere he doesn't recognize in an oversized green jumpsuit with a hero he's never seen at his back. He's pretty sure he's dreaming, and subsequent events only solidify that theory into rock-solid certainty.

Paradigm Shift (Harry Potter)

Harry undergoes a paradigm shift at the beginning of his fifth year. (Slytherin Harry)

~~~

Kestrel’s fics:

Compass by @autisticmidoriyas (x)

Midoriya Izuku never had the chance to become a hero—or even to grow up. Fifteen years after his death, Akatani Izuku tries to save the life of a dying hero and in return receives a target painted on his back and a power humming in his bones.

All Might, Sir Nighteye, Ground Zero, Suneater, and Skyquake are left scrambling in the wake of Lemillion’s death to figure out who now holds One For All.

Intertwined with all this, the League of Villains’ war against Japan burns on. With the loss of Lemillion, the advantage is now theirs, and with the loss of One For All, victory is all-but-assured.

(What the villains don’t know is that One For All lives on in the blood of a boy who was always meant to be a hero.)

triskelion

A few seconds, and their lives—their life—is changed forever. Where three people used to exist, there is now only one.

While visiting the mall with their class, Izuku, Katsuki, and Shouto are the victims of someone whose quirk can fuse together objects … and people.

Permanently.

Facing down the fact that they may never be unfused, a long adjustment period lies ahead of them as they learn how to be themself and figure out where they fit into their families, their class, and their world.

the meaning of hope

One day, the smoke will reach its end. They hold out hope for that. Even with quirks, fires cannot burn forever. They will consume all their fuel, until there is nothing left, and they will wither and die.

~~~

Lilly’s fics:

Rise of the Rat Finks by Authoress_Lilly

“You're not in trouble Neito. You’ve been tapped to join The Rats.”

The boy blinks. “The what?”

Vlad opens up a folder and hands Monoma a flyer and a small pin in the shape of a rat. “It’s a sort of secret society here at UA.

Or: an excuse to put Monoma and Midoriya together in way too many words 😅

The Root to Villainy

Prompt: Izuku doesn't realize how fucked up his past was until Aizawa does an immersive class on villain origins.

Whoops?

~~~

Dance’s fics:

Never Take Your Problem Children To Costco by DanceInTheKitchen

“SECURE THE EGGS! I REPEAT SECURE THE EGGS!” Bakugou bellowed.

“YES SIR! AYE AYE SIR!” Izuku saluted.

Shouta is staring at his students, one of whom seems to be reenacting the Lion King with a carton of eggs while the other salutes him, and wonders. What the hell did he do in his past life to deserve this?? Past him must have committed some great sin, like putting sugar in his coffee, or being a dog person.

 Or, Aizawa, Bakugou and Midoriya walk into a Costco.

grow as we go

The dorms were silent, but out here in the open air, she felt both isolated and free. Isolated from the world, but free from the responsibility crushing her, isolated from her friends and family, but free from judgement. Up here, with only the stars and Iida as company, Momo felt like she could breathe.

They sat next to each other in silence, watching the stars silently crawl their way across the sky. Iida doesn’t break the silence, but he also doesn’t leave. It’s a silent promise, to listen if she needs it, or to keep her company if she doesn’t want to speak. It’s comforting.

She’s not sure when she speaks, it’s somewhere between staring up at the stars, and looking at the shiny dew covering the grass of the hills behind UA.

“I’m not ready.”

 Or, with graduation right around the corner, Momo has a conversation with Iida about what growing up means.

~~~

Azure’s fics:

A Helping Hand for All by azureskyy

Izuku doesn't know why everyone's talking about a certain hero analyst online. He's tried browsing through the forums and other sites, but he just can't find the person they're talking about.

Maybe he'll ask them later. For now, he has some analysis to do.

Or: Izuku is a well-known hero and quirk analyst across multiple social media platforms.

Not that he's aware of it, of course.

A Missed Chance

Two paths cross then diverge. In another universe, perhaps, they could have walked on the same path; they could have talked for the second time that day, and Izuku could have been given an opportunity that could change his entire life. And maybe, just maybe, he would have taken it.

But this isn’t that universe.

Or: What if All Might wasn't able to find Izuku after the Sludge Villain Incident?

~~~

Alice’s fics:

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by @makeitbluue (x)

“Did you think you’d be safe from me forever? That you could chip away at my power base and I would not care or try to hunt you down?” The man asks as he steps forwards.

Izuku scrambles backwards in his bed, searching the covers as he goes for his phone. If he can get a text off to All Might or Aizawa-sensei he can alert people to the potential danger.

But even as he moves, something in the back of his mind tells him he had heard this voice before. A different time, a different context, but the same voice.

~~~

Ely’s fics:

bend and break by @queenangst (x)

In a world where you can feel your soulmate's pain, Eijirou spends a lot of his life up until meeting his soulmate hurting.

draw and quarter

In District Twelve, no one volunteers.

When Aizawa Shouta’s name is called, no one says a word. He stands there for a moment, feeling all the world slow around him, and then he straightens his shoulders and walks to his death.

He will die fighting. At the very least, Shouta can promise that.

Shouta's name is drawn for the Hunger Games, alongside Shirakumo Oboro. No one from their district has ever won.

damage control

After All for One's defeat, Aizawa Shouta is grasping for ways to protect his students. At the same time, a discrepancy in Midoriya's behavior leads Shouta down a dangerous line of investigation and to a single question: if Midoriya is the U.A. traitor.

Between the Wind and the Water

Staying at U.A. for winter break, Izuku hopes it'll be a quiet chance to spend the holidays with Todoroki and supervising teachers All Might and Aizawa-sensei.

It's just his luck a gift-shopping trip turns into a gift from a villain, and Izuku's new Half-Cold, Half-Hot Quirk is not so easy to control. Neither are the secrets he's been carefully keeping.

a glimpse of tomorrow (looking back)

Subject: Aldera Time Capsule Ceremony Forwarded Message— This year marks ten years for the Aldera Middle School graduating class of 20XX.To celebrate, we would like to invite pro heroes Kingpin and Deku, Aldera alumni, to participate in a public time-capsule opening. We are incredibly proud to have helped them on their journeys to becoming heroes, and would be most honored to receive them as guests and for them to speak at the ceremony. [...]

"Well," Deku says, leaning over to turn the monitor towards him. His eyes flick over the contents of the email one more time. "If they haven't changed, then I guess we could return the favor."

Ten years down the line, Bakugou and Midoriya are invited to a time capsule ceremony at their middle school to read letters from their past selves, and look back on their past and how it shaped their future. For anyone else, it would have been a celebration.

For the two of them, it's an opportunity.

A look into Bakugou and Midoriya's past—through a future neither of them imagined—as pro heroes, agency partners, and friends.

of the mighty heart

It was just complicated. Kacchan had changed. Izuku had changed. What was between them was constant—Kacchan was always there—but even constants, Izuku supposed, could change, too.

...You saved me, sometimes you say Deku and it doesn’t sound so much like an insult, you say it like you mean it, you say it like you mean me.

After the war ends and the dust settles, Izuku is left in pain and feeling useless. There's still so much to do and people to save, and it's just... too much for one person.

And then there's Kacchan.

~~~

Fawn’s fics:

Bough Breaks by @fawnvelveteen (x) (trigger warning for discussion of rape/noncon)

In life, nothing is certain. Pro-heroes aren’t always the good guys. Children are not spared from the darkest realms of humanity. Izuku isn't acting like his normal self at school lately, and his homeroom teacher has taken notice. After learning about the mother’s new, unwelcomed boyfriend, Aizawa’s concern shifts into dread. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep his student away from harm.

Almost Moon (trigger warning for suicide) (Black Clover)

It was always at night. One of Noelle's squadmates, apparently, believes it's a good idea to walk across the rooftop, directly over her head while she is trying to get some sleep. Finally, she decides to confront the nighttime nuisance. What she discovers is something she never expected, nor did she wish to see.

~~~

Nez’s fics:

The True Successor by @neko-nez (x)

Toshinori is caught in a time loop.

~~~

Aodh’s fics:

new game + (the pros of being over-leveled, the catharsis of finally beating That One Boss, and a bonus social link) by @takeyamayuu (x)

Izuku hasn’t been noticed yet, being as far from the fight as he is. Or if he has, they’re dismissing him in favor of the larger threat of Aizawa-sensei. As they should, since he takes out the last one with a well placed kick, turning to face Shigaraki,

Izuku tenses, this is-

This is where his teacher’s arm is injured and then-

The Nomu.

One for All spikes to around fifty percent, his muscles stinging, bones creaking as Izuku darts forward, aiming for Shigaraki’s head with an axe-kick.

Second year Midoriya Izuku gets hit with a Quirk, skids into the USJ, and learns a little about self-care along the way.

~~~

Ghost’s fics:

fingerpaint bruises and a kick in the teeth by @ghoststrawberries (x)

There’s a sour taste in Shouta’s mouth as he stares at Jackrabbit’s bright smile. The smile he’s wearing in every clear photo of him. It somewhat reminds Shouta of All Might’s smile.

Jackrabbit might be a menace to the Commission, but there’s no way Shouta can believe that a man with that smile is anything less than good to his core.

“And I’m your last resort to handle this quietly.” He says knowingly, keeping his thoughts to himself.

“Precisely.”

Shouta’s gut response is to refuse.

The words “I don’t kill.” are halfway up his throat before they become stuck.

As an underground hero, sometimes Shouta Aizawa is called upon to do darker jobs than one might expect a hero to have to do. This time, when he's tasked with taking out a vigilante who's managed to bother the Hero Public Safety Commission one too many times, he's not sure he'll be able to follow through.

~~~

Amira’s fics:

And Now I See Daylight by @awake-my-oceans (x)

AnalysisOverload Current mood: HERO CON HERO CON HERO CON HERO CON

AnalysisOverload reblogged AnalysisOverload  Okay, let’s talk HeroCon. 

Look around, and you’ll see a lot of discrimination—against people whose Quirk is debilitating, against people whose Quirks scare us, against people who have trouble controlling their Quirk, against people who don’t have a Quirk at all. It’s easy to feel alone in a sea of discrimination.

Enter HeroCon:X.

A social media fic following Deku post-graduation.

The chaotic neutral’s guide to time travel

“You claim you are from the future,” Nedzu said, hopping onto his desk. “Do you have anything to prove this?”

Hitoshi fished around in his pocket. “Here’s my hero license,” he said, holding it up.

Nedzu opened his mouth, but Hitoshi kept right on going, producing a handful of odds and ends from his pocket. “Also a movie ticket, some dryer lint, some, uh, didn’t know I still had that but it’s old gum—“

That was when Aizawa walked in, capture weapon floating around him. “What’s the emergency?” he asked, clipped, as he kicked open the door.

“—and the left arm of a Deku plushie,” Hitoshi finished, unruffled. “My cat ate the rest.”

~~~

Aaaaaand that’s all I got. Thanks for making it to the end!

[asstronauts]

Alphabet Soup

rating: t word count: 1.7k pairing: jemily summary: perhaps love is in the little moments more than the grand gestures. 26 times (among many) that JJ and Emily fall a little bit more in love with each other in the everyday, smaller moments.

read on ao3, if you’d prefer

---

A - alphabet soup

JJ bought cans of alphabet soup for the boys when Michael first began to read, but Emily quickly found it much more entertaining to spell out words like "boob" or "ass" or "sex?" punctuated with a poorly modified capital P in place of a question mark. JJ had to shut it down when Michael asked what a "tit" was, and Emily panicked and mumbled something about birds.

B - bedtime

They would often unwind by reading before bedtime, and JJ found that Emily read through many foreign literature books. The nights she would fall asleep to Emily stroking her hair and reading aloud in words she didn't understand were the nights she felt most rested.

C - constellations

It was clear that Emily didn't actually know any constellations besides the Big Dipper and Orion. But when she laid on the grass with Henry and Michael, she made up stories in the stars about great heroes and the adventures they went on, and the boys fell in love with the night sky.

D - driving

JJ insisted on driving everywhere without the help of smartphone maps, which had gotten them lost on several occasions. Somehow it felt alright, when she had one hand on the wheel and one hand on Emily's leg, the windows were down, and her hair was streaming in the wind and reflecting the setting sun. Somehow it felt alright to be lost with her.

E - errands

For whatever reason, JJ made running any errand seem like immense fun. Buying groceries, getting gas, even sending a letter felt like an adventure when she was there. They'd only gotten kicked out of one grocery store — when JJ had knocked over an entire display stand of candy bars after running and jumping onto a shopping cart. They didn't regret anything.

F - forehead kiss

JJ wasn't that much shorter than Emily, but when the brunette pressed her lips to her girlfriend's forehead, JJ would feel the need to bury her face in Emily's neck to hide her blushing cheeks.

G - graveyard

On that day, JJ just needed space. So Emily took her to the flower shop the day before and drove her to the cemetery that morning and left her alone until she was ready. In the evening, they didn't speak, just laid with one another on the couch until JJ fell asleep in her arms.

H - horror movie

It was a cheap jump scare, but it made JJ scream out and grab Emily's arm, prompting the older woman to laugh at her. JJ responded with a playful slap, and Emily had to kiss her to reaffirm her love. They didn't finish the movie.

I - ice cream

On a day off, Emily took the boys to get ice cream, and when they came home raving about how Emily had managed to stack five ice cream scoops on top of a single cone, JJ knew she was with the right woman.

J - jaw

Emily's knees grew weak whenever JJ kissed up her jaw and whispered in her ear. Her girlfriend caught on and loved messing with her, working her up into a complete frenzy, then saying the most unsexy thing she could think of. Emily hated it, but she also couldn’t help but to collapse into a fit of giggles when JJ planted kisses all up the side of her face and whispered something like "corned beef" in a seductive voice.

K - kitchen

JJ would use every kitchen utensil as a musical instrument during any spare moment in cooking — while the food was cooking, while the water boiled, while the oven was preheating. She would sing into a wooden spoon and shove it into Emily's face to finish the lyric, and the two would dance in each others' arms all throughout the kitchen.

L - letters

When Emily spent her time in Paris and London, she and JJ wrote each other scores of letters the times they weren't together. They'd both filled up an entire box of papers and knickknacks until they were reunited. Even after, JJ would sometimes write a letter addressed to Emily, drop it into the mailbox and tell Emily to check the mail, for no reason except to make her smile.

M - mugs

JJ had an entire cupboard dedicated to mugs for her tea, which Emily could never understand because she only seemed to ever use two of them: one being a lumpy mug Henry had made in a pottery store and the other being a Valentine’s Day gift from Emily with lovely ceramic boobs protruding from the mug’s body.

N - notes

Emily bought a massive pack of post-its and began leaving notes for JJ around work, bringing a smile to her face every time she found a little colorful message. Some were encouraging — you can do it, you light up my world, you're amazing. Some were cheesy — i love you, je t’aime, when you see this blow me a kiss. And some were...questionable — JJ had to hide the extremely accurate (and well-annotated!) drawing of her naked body before Hotch saw.

O - omelette

Most of the time, Emily couldn't cook without the risk of burning the house down, but for some reason, she made the most scrumptious omelette. Despite not knowing how to cook scrambled or fried or boiled eggs, Emily's omelettes were always perfectly cooked, with an impeccable ratio of egg to filling. JJ tried everything she could to make them the same way, but the boys always preferred Emily's omelettes on Sunday mornings. JJ wondered if it was something she learned during her time in Paris.

P - plants

Before JJ, Emily had never been very good at taking care of plants. They seemed to die with little to no warning. But JJ had taught her well, making little plant calendars and teaching her signs to watch out for, and one morning, JJ caught her talking to one of the plants. As she listened more carefully, she heard that Emily was talking to each plant in a different language — according to the plant’s country of origin.

Q - quiet

The moments after the boys were put to bed were some of the only moments of quiet JJ and Emily got alone during the day. No matter how busy or tired they were, they always intentionally took a few moments to just quietly be with one another, curled up in the other's arms, lying in the other's lap, or simply sitting side by side.

R - rain

They'd gotten caught in the storm on the way back to the office from lunch. Despite JJ’s coat held up above them, the pair was getting drenched anyway, and they gave up and decided to make out in the rain instead. They swung their hands back and forth as they splashed over to the BAU, arriving soaked to the bone but elated, as Hotch shook his head at their sodden clothing and dopey grins.

S - Sergio

Emily had arrived home early and found JJ dancing in the hallway with Sergio to "Can't Stop the Feeling" blasting on the bluetooth speaker. She lifted her ban on Justin Timberlake that day, which had previously been in place when in a moment of weakness, JJ had declared she would choose him over Emily if given the chance. (She’d taken it back for Emily's sake, but deep down she couldn't really decide.)

T - thermostat

JJ liked the thermostat to be set at no lower than 77 degrees, while Emily loved the room as cold as possible. The first few months that they lived together was a horrible battle of constantly changing from one drastic temperature to the next, before JJ finally agreed to keeping the temperature low as long as Emily agreed to cuddle with her any time she got cold. Emily did not, however, realize that this compromise extended to the workplace, where JJ would sporadically ask for cuddles throughout the day, and Emily would have to comply.

U - ugly pajamas

Emily loved her ugly pajama sets. One of her favorites was a bright green Grinch onesie in a ridiculous Christmas sweater. JJ hated it until Emily showed it to the boys, and Michael howled with laughter and asked for one for himself. From that day forward, Emily bought her ugly pajamas in full family sets, including accompanying costumes for Sergio.

V - vanilla

Emily didn’t quite mind JJ’s early morning jogs because her favorite moments were when JJ came home after, took a shower, and climbed back into bed to give Emily a warm embrace, flooding her senses with the smell of vanilla shampoo. Emily would roll over to nuzzle her head in the crook of JJ’s neck and plant soft kisses there, breathing in her favorite scent.

W - wine

Emily drank red, JJ drank white. And Henry and Michael loved to join in, pretending to be adults by sipping grape juice from their colorful cups. Perhaps their family had unconventional tea parties, but at least they always had massive amounts of fun doing family activities tipsy. These were the nights when it was almost difficult to tell the difference between Michael and Emily’s coloring pages.

X - X-Files

JJ didn’t fully understand Emily’s deep obsession with The X-Files, but after Emily convinced her that she wasn’t only watching for Gillian Anderson, the younger woman began finding the long rambles and discussions of extraterrestrial life more endearing and interesting.

Y - yarn

JJ really wanted to get the hang of knitting and give something special to the boys, but Emily kept distracting her. Any chance she got, Emily would hold the yarn balls to her chest as fake boobs, use threads of yarn as mustaches, and drum the knitting needles against any surface. It wasn’t that JJ couldn't finish her projects out of annoyance — it was that JJ couldn’t help but laugh and find her girlfriend irresistible, forcing her to set aside her work and wrap herself up instead in the brunette’s embrace.

Z - zoo

It was Emily's explosive childlike joy when she had seen the dolphins. She claimed it was for the boys’ sakes, but JJ had noticed the pure excitement in her eyes when they saw the sign and felt the way Emily had tugged on her wrist to rush to the stadium and grab seats right in the splash zone. And in the screams of laughter and the moment when both Henry and Michael clutched at Emily when the water washed over them, JJ knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this woman.

[inky-duchess]

My Writing Process: Week One

So I'm going to post these every Friday (or whenever I remember). These are going to be about my progress on my new WIP, a sort of week by week report of what gets done. (this will fluctuate, so don't be surprised if some posts have more than others).

So it's been a week since I finished my last project TTK, and between projects I like to give myself a week of peace and rest just to get any trace of my last projects out of my system. I catch up on my Netflix (chill with some true crime documentaries or watch some movies on my TBW list).

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Usually I have an idea already forming when I'm finishing a project, so I have the basic concepts fleshed out before I take up a note book and jot my ideas down. Once they're on a page (or my notes app since I'm waiting for a new notebook 🙄), I can see what is vibing and what isn't. My original concept doesn't vibe with me anymore (a fantasy quest) but the bones of my story are still in place.

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Before I flesh out the plot, which is next week's job, I spent this week sitting down and asking myself the main questions:

Who is my protagonist? How did they get to this point in their life?

Who is my supporting cast? How did they get here?

Does the story support multiple PoVs? Will a single PoV do?

What's the overall vibe of the story? (gritty) Is it going to be dark? (yes, incredibly so) Are there a lot of twists? (oh, yes ☺️)

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Once these questions are answered, I move into fleshing out the protagonist and his supporting characters. I work on voice first, trying out lines of dialogue and offering them scenarios to get through. I know what kind of person I want them to be at the beginning, the basic archetype such as the funny guy, the witty soicalitez, the dashing spy. At the beginning, all I need to know is the outward characture of who they are. To build on that, I begin to put them into situations such as:

Would they stand up against somebody being a dick? If so how?

How would they react to a betrayal? What constitutes to a betrayal to them?

How far would they take retribution?

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Once I have finished a quick study on characters, I move onto the backdrop of the story. I always feel more sure of a story when I can picture myself standing in the world. I begin first drawing the map. I tried all my favourite methods: the Rice Krispie Method (literally dumping the cereal onto a page and drawing around it), the Planting Method (layer long maps on maps) & Free Line Method (doodling until it vibed) before finally choosing the Free Line Method and having my map. I carve out the counties on the land, adding cities and notable landmarks such as mountains & rivers.

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At this stage in the story, I have to only fully develop 2 of the countries where the story will take place. I make bullet points of the other lands, denoting government systems, culture, standing with the story, place it has and tie-in with the main plot.

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But for the two main stages of the story, I begin to ask myself the important questions (this is one if my favourite worldbuilding techniques, I'd be lost without it). By the time I finish my research and my notes, I should know how to behave in the society, what's acceptable to do and say, the issues of the systems in place such as law and order, the aesthetics of the clothes of each class, how the upperclasses and lower classes see one another and the basics of the culture. I always go into writing knowing more about the world than I actually need to put on the page. I always like to leave some room in my first draft to chop and change details (it's the best way to allow myself room).

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Also I have made a plan of the city where this story will take place. Usually I leave myself room to plan out cities but this time I decided to make a detailed plan. This took me 3 or 4 tries just to get a map I was comfortable with. It's no detailed plan of course, I'm not Michaelangelo. It's a simple map with important landmarks drawn in just so I can find my way around.

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Writing Process Taglist

@trapped-inadystopianovel @pen-and-inks @brownskinsugarplum76 @crystals-and-ink @mayawritesbooks @donutwithinadonut @a-midwinter-night-dream-86 @raccoon-writes @writinglyra @weishendery   @aqueenieme @garden-beans @maeve-jas @doggoscrappywriting @you-reblogged-from @bearunicorn154 @goblingraveyard @paracosmfantasy @reignnyx

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Animage Magazine September 2020 Issue

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

This is an old article that was published back in August of 2020, before Yashahime began airing so please keep that in mind as you read this. I never translated this article until now so this is not a reprint or anything like that.

The Half-Demon Girls 2020 autumn SPOTLIGHT!

The feudal and modern era, the fantasy adventure that traverses the two time periods has started once again in the Reiwa period. The curtains will finally rise this fall on the feudal fairytale full of mystery and romanticism spun by three half-demon girls.

“Inuyasha” (original work by Takahashi Rumiko, published in Shōnen Sunday Comics) is an action adventure that was unfolded by a half-demon living in the feudal era named Inuyasha and a modern girl who time traveled to the feudal era named Higurashi Kagome. The anime ran from 2000 – 2004 and the depicts complex, jumbled human drama between humans and demons and the struggle for the Shikon Jewel. “Inuyasha The Final Act” was broadcasted from 2009 – 2010 which concluded the series and brought the curtains to a close.

Continuing that world and depicting a new adventure is “Hanyō no Yashahime”. Living in two different eras while still being twins are Towa and Setsuna, Sesshōmaru’s (Inuyasha’s elder brother) daughters. Then there’s Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter, Moroha. These three girls who have both human and demon blood are the protagonists of this work. Why did these girls end up moving together? Who is Towa and Setsuna’s mother? Why are the three of them living separately from their parents?... Currently, the full story is wrapped in mystery.

This month, we went directly to Sumisawa Katsuyuki-san who was the series composition writer and script writer for “Inuyasha” and “Inuyasha The Final Act” and now for this current work as well. For the anime staff too, the feelings for the Inuyasha series seems to have strongly taken root even now.

Higurashi Towa Sesshōmaru’s daughter and Setsuna’s elder twin sister. She slipped through time when she was little and was raised as Sōta’s (Kagome’s younger brother) daughter. She tends to get into fights easily.

Setsuna Sesshōmaru’s daughter and Towa’s younger twin sister. However, she does not remember Towa whom she was separated from when they were little. She is a member of the demon slayers headed by Kohaku.

Moroha Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter who has lived on her own since early childhood. She spends her days slaying demon bounties and takes the alias of “The monster killing Moroha”.

Sesshōmaru’s Two Daughters

Cool and beautiful, the proud and cool-headed Sesshōmaru was a prominently popular character in “Inuyasha”. His daughters, Towa and Setsuna, also have traces of him about them. “Setsuna and Towa strongly inherited Sesshōmaru’s “Yin” and “Yang” respectively. For that purpose, when thinking about their image, Rumiko-sensei also stated, “Please forget about the mother’s existence for now” (Sumisawa)

Behind the Character Creation

The character designs for Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha were done by Takahashi Rumiko-sensei. “At the beginning, Rumiko-sensei told us “I can’t draw a character if I don’t understand them”. The designs depicted here are the result of finally getting the OK after presenting many setting plans from our end.” (Sumisawa)

The Characters of “Inuyasha” Too

Sōta, who is the parent who raises Towa, is a familiar existence to “Inuyasha” fans. In addition, Kohaku, who is the head of the demon slayer group that Setsuna is a part of, is the little brother of Sango who is Inuyasha’s comrade. He was also an important character who held the key to the struggle for the Shikon Jewel. Will other characters from “Inuyasha” make an appearance besides them?

The Feudal Fairytale Going Between Two Eras Series Composition: Sumisawa Katsuyuki

— First, please tell us the details of how this work came about.

Sumisawa: Over 3 years ago, the producer for anime “Inuyasha”, Suwa Michihiko, said to me “I want you to write a continuation for “Inuyasha””. I thought “Goodness, what is this person saying” (laughs). Afterall, “Inuyasha” was concluded. Takahashi Rumiko-sensei is a perfect original creator so there wasn’t a single unanswered thing. I don’t think there are many mangas that conclude so beautifully and properly that it’s deeply moving. On top of that, I wrote the script for the anime called “Inuyasha The Final Act” and brought it to an end myself, so depicting something beyond that is impossible.

— What sort of story direction did Suwa-san come up with?

Sumisawa: When I also asked back “Inuyasha and Kagome don’t have any problems, the Bone Eater’s Well (which connects the modern and feudal era) can no longer be traversed, Naraku was defeated and the Shikon Jewel is gone. What sort of story would we make?” and he responded, “Coming up with (a story) is your job isn’t it” (laughs).

— That is a very unreasonable request (laughs).

Sumisawa: Yes. That’s why I put it on the backburner for over 2 years after that. It’s just that when I was invited to and attended an anime event in Washington D.C, there was a person there cosplaying the Great Dog Demon (Inuyasha and Sesshōmaru’s father). That person said to me “Please hurry and make a sequel to “Inuyasha”!”. It seems that even now, they felt that “Inuyasha” was still a passionate real time work. With that, what I came up with after rethinking “Maybe I can write something with this” was “the story of Sesshōmaru’s daughter”.

— Why Sesshōmaru’s child instead of Inuyasha and Kagome’s child?

Sumisawa: When the work features the child of the protagonist as the main character, the parents steal show when they make an appearance. Even Rumiko-sensei analyzed that “Even if you make it a story about Inuyasha’s son confronting some incident, you can’t surpass the method in which the problem was resolved in the work “Inuyasha”, so it’s impossible”. In that case, I suggested to Rumiko-sensei “If it’s Sesshōmaru’s daughter, it would be a different development”.

— What was Takahashi-san’s reaction when she heard that idea?

Sumisawa: At first, she was unsure like “Hmm” for a long time. It’s only natural. Among the characters that Rumiko-sensei created, Sesshōmaru was a character that she had a strong emotional attachment to. However, she told me “But if it’s Sumisawa-san, it might be doable” and I said, “Please allow me to do this!”. I was grateful that Rumiko-sensei trusted me. I strongly felt that I had to live up to that trust. Actually, I thought of an idea where the setting would be the “modern era” and Sesshōmaru’s daughters would fight demons with Sesshōmaru being mostly uninvolved. However, that didn’t work at all. Now, I’m embarrassed at myself for coming up with that plan.

— That sounds entertaining in it of itself.

Sumisawa: No. First, the atmosphere wouldn’t be serious. Also, if you don’t have the component of going between the feudal and modern eras, it wouldn’t be the “Inuyasha” world. If you only have one (era), it wouldn’t be “a feudal fairytale”.

— Then, how was the title “Hanyō no Yashahime” decided?

Sumisawa: We didn’t really struggle to come up with this title. Rumiko-sensei invented the word "half-demon” (half human and half demon), so “HANYO” is understood overseas. Thus, we purposely put this globally understood word “half-demon” into the title. “Yashahime” is used in other (works) as well, so our aim was to put something in front. The “feudal fairytale” in the logo “Is like what “mobile suit” is to “Gundam”” as Sunrise’s Ogata Naohiro-san put it.

— So it becomes a new feudal fairytale with the half-demon girls as the main characters.

Sumisawa: The thing is, I said earlier that “Inuyasha” was a manga that didn’t leave a single thing unanswered, but actually, there’s a little bit of content that wasn’t shown in the anime. For example, when Rumiko-sensei did a one-time revival of “Inuyasha” for the Great East Japan Earthquake revitalization support project, “Heroes Come Back”. This was published in volume 30 of the “Inuyasha” Wide Edition comics. That and to show “Inuyasha The Final Act” within the episode limit, we ended up not touching some of the episodes (within the manga). So I thought I had to write those in.

— Currently, the two biggest questions fans have been focused on are “Why are Inuyasha, Kagome, and Sesshōmaru not raising their children?” and “Who is Sesshōmaru’s wife?”

Sumisawa:

Yes. I can’t answer that here, but under Takahashi Rumiko-sensei’s supervision, there’s no way we would leave out those very important topics. Of course, these are properly shown in the main story so look forward to seeing it. Please be at ease.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Whumpy Prompt list

Given as a gift, Eos

Suspicious Parcel

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Friendship/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Penelope, Parker, EOS

Okay, so I know I whump a lot, but I have to say I've never attempted to whump an AI before, so this was definitely a challenge. Big thanks to @janetm74 who reminded me about the existence of her portable drive from Growing Pains! That was the little nudge I needed to figure out how to tackle this.

There is actually surprisingly little EOS or John in this, but this was the way my muse wanted to handle it, so this is what happened.

Whumpy Prompt List

“There’s h’a suspicious parcel f’you, m’Lady,” Parker announced with no prior warning as he entered the large drawing room, tea tray in his hands. Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward looked up from where she’d been reviewing the latest fashion critiques and raised a single eyebrow at her long-term companion and confidante.

“Have you checked it over?” she asked him, one hand gently carding through Bertie’s short fur where the pug was curled up on his cushion beside her. “I don’t suppose they were kind enough to leave a return address?”

“Not h’at all, m’Lady,” he replied, setting the fine bone china cup and saucer on the low table by her knee and, at a gesture, beginning to pour it. “But h’I could not see h’anything h’alarming when h’I, uh, investigated it.”

“Well, in that case you might as well have it brought up,” she decided, watching the man feign heavy reluctance as he set out a second cup for Bertie. She’d long been aware that the animosity between the two of them had faded away, and that their current relationship was one of a steadfast friendship. Both parties were just dramatic enough to want to put on an entertaining show about it.

“Very well, m’Lady,” he agreed. “h’It will h’arrive momentarily.”

Serving duties finished, she watched him leave the room. With the arrival of this so-called ‘suspicious parcel’ – and if Parker, of all people, considered it suspicious, then she was inclined to listen – there was surely no point in continuing to read the scathing remarks about Lady Bottomsley’s dress at the Royal Gala two days ago, even if she did quite agree that the woman in question had made quite the ridiculous clothing choice for the occasion.

Setting it aside, and making sure to leave the table clear for the parcel, in case it contained a surprise neither Parker nor the Manor’s security had been able to detect, she picked up her cup and took a delicate sip of the tea.

True to his word, Parker didn’t take long at all to return, carrying the parcel warily yet firmly. It was entirely unremarkable – a perfect cube, wrapped in plain brown paper. The stamped code that would project her address if exposed to the correct technology was the only marking to be seen, and even that appeared to be faked, upon closer inspection.

As expected, there was no evidence that pointed towards the identity of the sender.

“Your gloves, m’Lady,” Parker said, after setting the parcel down on the cleared table. He’d already swapped his own gloves for full-cover, she noticed as she accepted her own, heavy-duty gloves.

“Thank you, Parker,” she acknowledged, pulling them on and making sure they sat securely and comfortably over her recently-manicured nails. “Now, shall we see what this mystery parcel contains?”

Despite donning her own protective gear, it was Parker who carefully slit the paper open, revealing an equally plain, innocuous box. The former crook carefully peeled the paper away in its entirety, inspecting both the inside of the paper and the exterior of the box with a highly experienced eye.

“h’It seems clean, m’Lady,” he announced after several long moments. “Should h’I open the box?”

She cast her own eye over it, although with little confidence that she would spot something Parker had missed, before agreeing. “Yes, Parker. Open the box.”

As with the paper, he carefully sliced it open with a blade rather than opening it conventionally, and the sides fell away to reveal-

“Oh,” she said, as Parker drew in a quick, sharp breath. “Well, this is rather distressing.”

John had been beside himself with frantic worry ever since he’d brought EOS, confined to her portable unit, down to Earth on a rescue, only for the device to be stolen, AI and all. While it was true that he had, as always, backed her up thoroughly on Thunderbird Five’s systems, and the AI herself was, as always, his constant companion up there, the idea that he’d lost the original version of the code – not that she was mere code to him, no matter what he claimed – had devastated him.

Even EOS herself seemed disquieted at the fact that a version of her was in unknown hands; she knew as well as the rest of them, if not moreso, how dangerous she could be in the wrong hands, although in a deflection Penelope was well aware she’d picked up from John, she had taken to reminding them of the damage she was sure her original was inflicting upon whatever substandard technology she was exposed to.

It was a transparent attempt, and Penelope knew that, despite intentions, it was doing nothing to cheer John up. He was absolutely terrified what would become of her – not only was her existence sure to be revealed, but they had no idea whohad her, or what condition she would be in if she was ever returned.

As Penelope gazed rather miserably upon the contents of the box, she thought that at least they had the answer to one of those questions, even if it was not an answer she cared for. Part of her didn’t want to inform John, but it would be far crueller to keep it from him.

“What should we do, m’Lady?” Parker was looking at her, no doubt thinking the same but waiting for her decision. She resisted the urge to swallow, strict upbringing rules refusing to allow such a weakness even now.

“Contact John,” she instructed, reaching out with gloved fingers. “Perhaps he will be able to get the answers we seek.”

Once he was recovered from the sight of the ruined drive, charred and partially melted as though someone had thought it was possible to physically torture an artificial intelligence with no nerve endings, she knew that nothing would stop him from tearing apart every piece of data, every scrap of code he could get his hands on, until he found out what had happened to EOS.

Penelope also knew that she would do everything she possibly could to help him in this endeavour. While she might not be as close to EOS as John, the sight in front of her truly was rather distressing.