#actually while we’re down here can we take a moment to recognize how good a planner he is as well

[candycandy00]

Welcome to Christmas Island! - A Sanji x Reader Fanfic

You work on Christmas Island, where every day is Christmas! All guests get to make a wish to Santa and have it granted. When the Straw Hat pirates show up, you decide to grant the wish of their handsome blonde cook. 

Smut. 18+. Sanji x Fem Reader. Implied that Sanji is a virgin. Oral sex. Cream pie. I haven’t written Sanji in 20 years so I hope I got him right!

Dividers by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more!

Part of CandyCandy’s Kinkmas 2024!

You’ve lived and worked on Christmas Island for the past few years, but you still get excited each time new guests arrive, especially when they’re famous. 

It was only a matter of time before the Straw Hat pirates landed on this little island, and all your coworkers were equally hyped up to meet them. You’ve all followed their exploits in the newspapers for months, becoming fans along the way. Even the owner of the island, “Santa”, admires them! 

You’ve looked at all their wanted posters countless times, but one of them stood out to you: a silly looking blonde man named Sanji. While your friends were more interested in the more “cool looking” pirates, you found Sanji charming. You know it’s a silly picture, so you’re interested in finding out what he actually looks like. 

Your chance comes when the Straw Hats arrive and check into the enormous resort that takes up the entire island. They walk in, most of them gawking at the huge lobby full of Christmas trees and twinkling lights. They’re chatting and laughing amongst themselves, and their reputation for being fun-loving seems to be accurate.

Taming your excitement, you hurry over to greet them in your candy cane striped dress. 

“Welcome to Christmas Island!” you say in your cheeriest voice. “Please come in and sit down. I’ll explain how things work here.”

They begin taking seats in the plush red sofas positioned in the middle of the room. You do a mental headcount as you watch them, trying not to seem like an overly eager fan. 

Sanji spots you before you spot him. He steps up beside you, gently taking your hand in his. “Such a lovely lady here to welcome us!” he says, placing a quick kiss on the top of your hand. “This island is a dream already!”

When he raises his face to look at you, a breath catches in your throat. He’s way more handsome than you expected! His wanted poster barely resembles him, but the blonde hair and curly eyebrow are unmistakable. 

He smiles at you and takes his seat. You give the group a moment to settle down and get quiet before you begin. 

“On Christmas Island, every day is Christmas! At this resort, you’ll each write a letter to “Santa” asking for a Christmas present. You’ll receive that gift during your stay. Keep in mind we can only grant wishes for material goods or services. We can’t give you impossible things. For example, you can’t ask us to withdraw bounties or give you skills that can’t be learned while you’re here.”

They seem to understand, a few of them nodding. You pass out fancy notecards for them to write their Christmas wishes on, along with red envelopes for them to seal the “letters to Santa” in. 

A woman you recognize as Nami looks a bit skeptical as she eyes the notecard. “How much does this cost?”

Some of the others look at you, curious about the answer. 

You smile and shake your head. “No cost at all! There’s normally a fee, but since we’re all fans of the Straw Hat pirates, even Santa said to give you all the VIP treatment at no charge!”

The group seems happy to hear that, a couple of them actually cheering. Then they all begin writing on their notecards. Once they’re finished, you retrieve them and another employee shows the guests to their rooms. They’re all given private rooms, each one beautifully decorated with festive trees and lights. 

Later, you and two coworkers are reading the notecards to begin processing the wishes. 

“Look,” your friend says, giggling as she holds one out. “The captain just wrote one word: Meat!”

You laugh as you glance at a card in your own hand that says, “A year’s supply of cola”. 

Most of the requests are fairly reasonable and fit the crew members’ reputations. But at the bottom of the stack is one that stands out to you. 

“A sweet lady who wants to spend time with me.”

Your heart nearly skips a beat. You expected something perverted from the famously horny cook of the Straw Hat pirates, but Sanji’s request is surprisingly cute. 

“Can I take this one?” you ask, a little worried that one of your coworkers might have their eye on him. 

The two women look at each other and shrug. “It’s yours if you want it,” one of them says. The other nods in agreement. 

Thank goodness! You didn’t want there to be any awkwardness with your friends, but you were prepared to argue for this. Thankfully you don’t have to. 

One of them leans toward you conspiratorially. “What if he just wrote that as a nice way of saying he wants someone to fuck him?”

You grin at her. “Actually, I’m kind of hoping that’s the case!”

The others squeal in delight and cheer you on. “You get it, girl!”

You return to your own quarters to freshen up and change into your cutest red dress, then you head down the guest hall to find Sanji’s room. You only have to knock once before he opens it. Was he waiting by the door for his “present”?

He blinks as he looks at you, then smiles. “Oh, you’re the one who welcomed us!”

You return his smile. “I’m surprised you recognized me.” There are lots of women working here who wear the same dress you had on earlier. It’s basically the uniform. 

He steps aside, opening the door wider and gesturing for you to come in. “I never forget a beautiful lady’s face,” he tells you as you walk into his room. 

The comment makes you blush, but you giggle nervously and change the subject. “Are you settled in okay? Do you need anything?”

Looking around the room, you can see the closet door slightly open, and a few dress shirts neatly hanging inside. The bed doesn’t appear to be messed up at all, and everything is in its place. On a small table with two chairs, there’s a glass ash tray that’s nearly full. 

“I don’t need anything at all,” he says as he pulls out one of the chairs for you. “But can I offer you something to drink? I’m sure you know what the options are.”

You do. There’s a small variety of alcoholic drinks in the mini fridge, plus a hot water machine with various teas and coffees. 

As you sit in the offered chair, you accept his offer, taking a cup of tea. In all honesty, you just want to watch him prepare something. His skills are quite well known.  

You watch him fix your tea, his hands moving expertly to prepare it in the perfect manner. Then he sits the steaming cup in front of you and takes the seat on the other side of the table. 

The tea is delicious of course, leaving you wondering what you’ve been doing when you make it for yourself. He seems to like watching you enjoy it, a smile practically glued to his face. 

“It’s wonderful! I can’t believe it’s from the same tea we use!” 

After a few minutes of friendly chatting, you sit down your empty cup and get down to business. “Regarding your wish…”

His smile falters, a blush creeps over his face. “It’s okay if it can’t be granted!” he says quickly. “I’ll just take some new utensils, or maybe some rare spices if you have them here.”

Does he not realize you’re his present? He seems to have the wrong idea about your visit. Just how many times has this poor guy been rejected? 

You reach across the table and put one hand on his arm. “We can easily grant your wish,” you say. “In fact, that’s what I’m here for.”

He freezes, staring at you. His stunned eyes shift down to your hand, then back to your face. “You… want to spend time with me?”

“I’d love to!”

He still seems to be in shock. “Are you sure?”

You reach into the pocket if your dress and pull out a folded paper. You smooth it out on the table and slide it over to him. It’s his wanted poster. 

He blanches when he sees it, but before he can say anything, you blurt out, “I’m a fan of yours!”

“Huh?”

Now it’s your turn to blush again. “I mentioned before that all of us here are fans of the Straw Hat pirates, but we each have our favorites. You happen to be mine.”

He’s rapidly turning red. “Really?”

You nod. “I even keep your wanted poster in my pocket at all times.”

He glances at the poster. “But it’s such an unflattering picture of me…”

“You look fun! You look like someone I’d like to hang out with. And yes, you’re way more handsome in person.”

If this were a cartoon, steam would be shooting out of his ears. He almost seems to melt into his chair. “You think I’m handsome?!”

“Of course! I was so excited to meet you, so I happily volunteered to grant your wish!”

He has tears in his eyes as he takes both your hands in his across the table. “This place really is like a dream!”

And so the two of you laugh and talk and enjoy more tea for the next hour. He tells you funny stories about their travels and you tell him about some of the craziest wishes you’ve received. 

At some point, perhaps growing bold from the friendly atmosphere, you say, “To be honest, I wondered if maybe ‘spend time with you’ was code for something else.”

He seems genuinely confused, which is adorable. “Something else?”

You lean forward, subtly showing off your cleavage. “Something more… intimate.”

It seems like a shiver runs through his body, but then he composes himself and says, “I didn’t want anyone to feel obligated to do that.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” you say, looking as disappointed as you can, “because I was hoping it was code.”

His mouth falls open, the cigarette slipping from his lips. You can almost see hearts in his eyes. He seems to be trying to form words for a reply, but failing. 

You stand up and walk around the table to be closer to him. “I’m your present tonight, so you can do whatever you want with me.”

He swallows, looking up at you as if you’re a goddess that has come down to him from heaven. “Whatever I want?”

“Anything.”

His eyes dart about the room, as if he’s worried this might be some prank and someone else is waiting to rush out and tell him so. After a moment, he looks back at you. “Can I k-kiss you?”

You nod. “I’d like that.”

He stands up from the chair and steps right up to you. He slowly places his hands on your shoulders. So gentle! He’s treating you like a delicate little creature that will flee if he’s not careful. 

As he leans down, his eyes flutter closed, and you can see the blush across his cheeks. You feel the tips of his golden hair first, then his lips softly press against yours. It’s a chaste kiss, his hands lightly trembling on your shoulders. 

You’ve heard so many conflicting rumors about him. Some say he’s a totally lecherous horndog who fucks anything that moves. Others say he’s a sophisticated gentleman who respects women. Still others say he’s a pathetic virgin who can’t get laid to save his life. You’re beginning to suspect the truth is some strange mix of all three. 

You reach up and put your arms around his neck, pulling him into a deeper kiss. His tongue finally slips into your mouth, and he tastes like cigarettes and the tea you’ve both been drinking. 

When the kiss breaks, he looks positively lovestruck. But his arms are around your waist, holding you closer to him. You can feel the bulge in his pants, and you lightly grind yourself against it. “What else would you like to do?” you ask playfully. 

“Lady’s choice,” he says, the smooth gentleman peeking out again. “I’d love to know what youwant to do.”

You grin mischievously at him and say, “Sit down and I’ll show you.”

He moves back to sit in the chair so fast, your eyes could barely follow him. You giggle at his eagerness as he stares at you. You take a moment to pull up the edge of your red dress on one side, up to your hip. It’s enough to show him you’re not wearing panties without revealing the whole present. 

His eyes bulge, and you’re guessing something else is bulging even more now. You prance over and then lower yourself to your knees before reaching out and unbuckling his belt. You hear him breathe in through his teeth, and you look up to see his chest rising and falling rapidly with his breaths. You smile as you open his pants and slide one hand in, using it to pull out the prize you’ve been seeking. 

He’s bigger than you expected, and elegantly shaped. It’s such a nice cock, such a waste that it’s been neglected for so long. You can fix that. 

Your hand wraps around it and you slide it up and down the shaft. You can hear him breathing heavily as he watches, stunned. When you lean forward and give the tip a little lick, his hands suddenly grip the arm rests of the chair. You can hear the wood creaking under the force. 

Smiling to yourself over the fact that you can reduce a powerful, famous pirate to this state with one lick, you wrap your lips around him and take his twitching cock into your mouth. 

He groans, his head falling back and his eyes closing again as you begin bobbing your head back and forth, your lips gliding along his length. Your tongue swirls his tip, your throat tightens around him when he’s deep enough, and his panting above you makes such sweet music in your ears. 

Finally he places his hand on your shoulder and says in a strained voice, “I’m… I’m about to…”

You pull back and grin. “Please cum in my mouth.” Then your lips are around him again, sucking lightly and lapping at his tip. 

He looks torn between desire and being a gentleman, but desire wins out. With a moan he releases his load onto your tongue, and you drink it down eagerly. 

After a moment, you stand up, licking your lips. You stand nearby while his breathing slows to a normal pace. Then he looks at you. “That was incredible… you’re an angel!”

You laugh and take one of his hands, placing it atop your head as you lean toward him. “You’re supposed to pat my head and call me a good girl.”

His face turns scarlet, but he does as you wish, lightly patting your head and saying, “Such a good girl!”

You giggle at that, then look down between his legs. He’s beginning to get hard again, which is exactly what you’re waiting for. 

“So? What would you like me to do next?” you ask. 

He looks a little shy and awkward as he says, “Can we… have sex?”

You reach down and pull your dress up, all the way to your waist this time, giving him an eye full. His cock instantly becomes fully hard, his eyes seeming to turn to hearts again. “I thought you’d never ask,” you tell him as you step closer and straddle his lap, letting his lovely cock rest against your slickened pussy. That alone makes his entire body quiver. 

When you rise up and position his tip at your entrance, then sink down onto him, a gasp escapes him. His arms wrap around your body, holding you firmly but gently. You have to wiggle a bit to get free enough to begin riding him, your hips swiveling. 

Sanji groans as his own hips buck from the chair, pushing deeper inside you. Then he pauses, a worried expression on his face, and says, “I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?”

You smile, pushing your own body down to take him even deeper. “It feels good when you go deep,” you say, and his breath hitches, his eyes widening before he starts fucking up into you, slowly and deeply. One of his hands is on your waist now, the other buried in your hair. 

As you grind down onto him, his taut skin rubs against your clit, making your own breaths shallow and quick. His tip hits your cervix, and a shudder ripples through you. When you moan out his name, his cock throbs inside you, making you arch your back in pleasure. When you do, he buries his face in your chest, his tongue peeking out to lap at one pert nipple. 

He raises his face to look you in the eyes. “I’m in love with you!” he exclaims, his hands tightening their grip on you slightly. 

You smile, but don’t reply. Men always say that while they’re inside a woman, but you have no expectations. In a few days Sanji will sail away from here and you’ll never hear from him again. But you’ll treasure these memories of being with him for the rest of your life. 

He feels so good inside you, your clit is practically pulsing. He kisses you again, so sweetly. It’s a romantic kiss, the kind shared by people in love, and his hand slides down from your hair to rest softly on your neck. 

It’s all enough to push you over the edge, and you cum while still riding him, your body trembling in his arms. 

Watching you cum seems to push him to climax as well, and he suddenly pulls you tightly against him as he shoots his load into your core. 

The two of you remain intertwined for a while, both of you breathing hard, then his arms loosen around you and you slide off him, your legs partially numb. 

“I’m all yours while you’re on Christmas Island,” you say as you pull your dress back down. “Just call for me whenever you want.”

He looks at you for a long moment, then says, “Why don’t you come with us?”

You freeze. “What?”

He stands up and buttons his pants, then pulls out a fresh cigarette. “I can talk to Luffy. He’s pretty easy going about these things. You could join our crew and sail around with us. We get into a lot of dangerous situations, but we always pull through, and I can protect you.”’

You, joining the Straw Hat pirates? You’ve never even considered something like that before. But it sounds like a dream. You smile broadly at him. “I’d love that!”

He smiles back. “It really is Christmas every day here. I got more than I could even hope for!”

[turtleblogatlast]

My favorite reading of Leo’s “indubitably” tell is that it’s not actually a tell, and Leo just plays it up as one so he doesn’t get called out when he really wants to hide something.

Especially since throughout the series we see him lie and trick multiple times without saying the word once.

I like to think that one time when they were kids Leo happened to learn the word “indubitably” and because he tends to repeat new words he learns, he ended up using it at the same time as he was caught lying. He uses the word again later in another lie, and that’s where the association comes from.

OR- counter argument: “indubitably” is one of his tells, but only for unimportant things, especially when said to family. Long plays, particularly ones with villains, are in a different category in his head.

[redflagshipwriter]

Check Yes ch 8

masterpost Danny did his best not to float through the building. His chest buzzed pleasantly with cheerful nerves. Jason had let him into his haunt and let him meet a family member: it was only fair to reciprocate with a little vulnerability. He was more than a little nervous that his interests weren’t cool enough. But Jason was actually listening to him, not rolling his eyes or hiding boredom at how many details Danny rattled off. It was really nice. It made him want to find out what Jason was passionate about, too. It made him want to curl under Jason’s arm. Like, lift it up and insert himself in the warm space between Jason’s body and arm. He could just sneak on in there-

Hmm. Wait. Danny blinked as he tracked his train of thought back. PDA? He stole a glance. Probably not a good idea so early into hanging out. It would come off clingy. Since Danny was legitimately a clingy motherfucker, he had to play it cool for a while to trick Jason into a false sense of security. He was trying to be on his best behavior still. 

“Oh hell yeah, we’re going to the Ring Nebula.” Jason was reading the signage, bright eyes tracking everyone moving around them and steering them effortlessly. Danny noted the multitasking with a sort of puzzled admiration. He could walk in a crowd or he could read, just one of the two. “What’s a nebula?” An incredibly subtle aura washed out from him with his self assurance and confidence. Jason just felt so in control. It was incredibly reassuring to be around. Crowds parted for him and all Danny had to do was keep pace. 

“It’s the remains of a star.  That’s a Messier object, actually. There’s a white dot at the center which is a white dwarf and then around it there’s helium, hydrogen, oxygen-” Danny cut himself off, embarrassed. He was so messy, oozing excitement all over the place. He reeled himself in and cleared his throat. “You can read about it when we get there.”

Jason frowned very slightly.

Danny felt his stomach twist. 

“What’s a Messier object?”

Oh. Danny relaxed. He talked with his hands as he explained the French astronomer, barely noticing the crowd swell that nearly bumped into him. Jason put an arm over his shoulder and steered him away. Danny absently recognized the assist but didn’t have any processing power to think about it right now. 

Jason let him go on for most of the date, which Danny would probably be embarrassed by later. In the moment, he basked in the attention. It was just nice, okay?

“I should head back.” Jason said with regret. His arm clenched just a little harder on Danny’s shoulder. His hand was warm where it hung down Danny’s chest. “Gotta get Duke his bribe and then get ready for work.” 

Danny waited for a moment. He didn’t want to step away. But maybe Jason didn’t either, because he didn’t take his arm off.

‘One of us has to move first.’

“Yeah, of course.” Danny regretfully disentangled himself, ducking out of the hold. He was a grownup or whatever. “Better get a move on. What are we getting for Duke?” They’d only snacked on ice cream while they were in the planetarium. 

Jason checked the time on his phone and let out a huffing sigh. “I don’t have time for my original plan.”

‘Because he humored me here for two hours…’

“Gimme a sec, I’ll call him and ask what he wants me to pick up.” Danny nodded in response and started jogging down the stairs out of the building, trying not to look like he was listening in. He didn’t want to listen in, he just had really good ears.

Ring once, ring twice. Then Duke picked up the call.

“Hey,” Jason said. “I-”

“Hey yourself,” said an unfamiliar voice that definitely was not Duke. It was sweet with malice.

‘Did Jason’s little brother get kidnapped while we were out?’ Danny wondered, struck still with horror. He stopped with one foot hovering over the next stair and wheeled around to look at his date.

Jason looked thunderous, brow pulled low and teeth showing. “Fuc- why do you have his phone?” Jason’s tone went high and aggrieved.

Danny prepared himself to beat the shit out of a living human. It wouldn’t be hard. 

“Because I am his favorite older brother. Obviously.”

Oh. The fight left Danny’s body in a rush.

“I am pressing X,” Jason snarked. He squeezed Danny’s shoulder and guided him into movement again. “Give it back to him and get out of my house.”

“Tu casa es mi casa,” said the man who had to be the infamous Dick, balcony infestation. “Why do you care?” His tone was so innocent that Danny sort of wanted to turn on his heel to escape whatever older shithead sibling fuckery this was. “Aren’t you busy making kissy faces at the summoning guy?”

Danny bounced off of Jason’s chest when he stopped walking midstep.

‘How does he know that? Jason didn’t say anything, right?’

“And, follow up question for Jay, does this make you a monsterfucker?” Duke howled with laughter in the background. Danny noted the betrayal. 

Dick sounded gleeful as he pushed on the topic. “He’s dead, right? What supernatural romance genre are you in? Is he going to take you to his creepy castle and keep you there? Does he have an ancient enemy who might kidnap you? Do you think he could carry you away when he rescues you? Are you looking forward to that?”

Danny huffed and yanked Jason’s hand down to bring the phone closer. He hit the speaker. “Of course I could carry him. But I would not keep him in my creepy castle against his will, you jerk,” he fumed. “And I don’t have any ancient enemies! At last, no one that I haven’t already beat up. It’s fine. Shut up and go away.” He crossed his arms.

Jason was bright red. Dick started laughing hysterically on the other side of the phone. “This is- hi, Danny!” he cackled. “You have a creepy castle, though? For the record?”

Oh no. He felt a rock form in his stomach.

‘I probably should have kept my mouth shut.’

He looked at Jason’s feet guiltily. Belatedly, he let go of his grip on Jason’s wrist.

“You sound great, wanna meet up? I need to hear about how you’re so sure you could carry my little brother away from danger. It sounds romantic.” Dick cooed. Ew. Danny bristled. This was bringing up all sorts of Jazz related trauma.

“He will not be meeting you.” Jason took the phone back. “Ever.”

“Ever?” Dick scoffed. “I really doubt that. I don’t think you could keep him away from me for one day.”

“Oh yeah?” Jason somehow puffed up his chest. “Then come find me, jackass.”

“See if I don’t.” 

Danny scoffed. “As if I need his help to dodge some nosy dweeb,” he sniffed. “Bring it, balcony creep.” He hit the end button before thinking about it.

The staircase suddenly seemed very quiet. 

Jason and Danny looked at the phone for a moment. Then Danny frowned as he realized what he’d done. “I was going to like, go back home,” he pointed out uneasily. “But that doesn’t seem in the spirit of this shitty brother challenge. And, uh.” He cleared his throat. “You had evening plans, right….”

Jason groaned and paced a few steps. He ran a hand through his hair. Danny idly watched it and wished it was his hand there. “Uh… Sorry. I can tell him to fuck off, that you’ve got better things to do.”

“...I don’t have better things to do,” Danny admitted. “I kinda want to see if he can hunt us. He’s just some guy, right?”

Jason made a face.

“Just a human guy?” Danny repeated slowly, because the hesitation there was uh, really interesting. 

“You remember how we met, right?” Jason sort of shuffled in place for a moment before he herded Danny down the sidewalk in the direction they had originally come from. “I wouldn’t say he’s a normal guy.”

…Oh, right, he’s a vigilante. Danny snorted. “That’s cute,” he said, not even trying to avoid cockiness. “I’m not worried.” He cracked his knuckles and didn’t pay attention to how bloodthirsty his grin was. “I am going to destroy your brother in a game of hide and seek so brutally that you won’t be able to look up to him afterwards.”

Jason opened his mouth. He closed it, with a considering expression. “That’s hot. Yeah, show me what you have. I can skip patrol for the night.” He gave Danny a roguish grin. “Where to, first? We have an hour before he’s out on the streets. We can get dinner, strategize?”

Danny closed his mouth on the boast that he didn’t need to strategize. This was a perfect opportunity to spend an hour batting his eyes at Jason from across a candlelit table. “Somewhere nice,” he said innocently. “He won’t immediately look for us at a date spot, will he?”

[reallyromealone]

Can you make a separate au we’re the reader in, reader pretending to be an alpha and Bonten finds out so here it is (part2),

went feral (i heard that omega can become stronger than a alpha when their pushed to their limits)

I feel like the reader’s potential was wasted

I have been working on this for a while.

Literally only working on this when I was annoyed, I hope you enjoy reader getting to do what he deserves.

Warnings: murder, mentions of an attempted rape but not in any detail, carnage, chemical violence, drugging not mentioned explicitly, guns, knives, suicide

🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐

When (name) awoke, he lunged.

Fully feral and filled with rage, he scratched takeomi's face, eye bleeding as (name) was pulled off and attention turned to his next targets.

Shakily he stood up and at that moment Bonten experienced the anger of a feral Omega.

(Name) was defiled and forcibly marked.

And he was going to murder everyone in this room.

Takeomi was holding his eye as (name) lunged at Kakucho, going for his throat and managing to get him down, the Alpha surprised at the difficulty he had keeping the omegas teeth away from his throat "this is now how it's supposed to go!" He yelled as the others managed to get him off, Sanzu grabbing the Tranquilizer gun they kept on hand and shot (name), the Omega passing out.

"Holy shit" Rindō looked horrified "what the fuck was that?!"

"An angry feral Omega" Koko mumbled equally startled.

When (name) awoke he found himself locked in a cell, the feral Omega pacing angrily as Bonten watched from the other side "what the fuck are we supposed to do?" Mochi said stressed as he glanced at the others "wait till he ends this tantrum" Mikey said simply and (name) wailed at the bars, actually shaking them as he glared at the others with a look none of them have quite seen.

His eyes were practically glowing in the darker parts of the cell, the men making sure their mate had the penthouses of cells, soft things only of course.

A feeble attempt to show the Omega they would care for him.

But (name) didn't want that.

He wanted bloodshed.

In a flicker of consciousness he managed to steal a knife off a guard who got to close to the cell, wanting to see the Omega up close.

He didn't believe the Omega was that dangerous, mumbling about the horrid things he wanted to do to him.

Now he was before (name), entering the cell not realizing (name) was armed.

Blood pooled the floor as he stole his gun and shirt and boots.

He was a Bonten higher up, he was going to show why he wasn't to be fucked with.

(Name) shot anyone who came into his line of sight, taking guns from those who he killed when bullets ran out of one gun and absolutely layed waste upon anyone who dare get close to him.

He was out to kill.

Bonten watched the cameras in horror, (name) was absolutely slaughtering everyone as he made his way up to the executives.

Then the cameras lost feed.

"Shit..." Takeomi and the others looked around as the power went out.

Now they no longer had to deal with an angry feral Omega.

But instead?

A coherent pissed person who wanted revenge.

And revenge (name) was going to fucking get.

Having gone to the weapons room and got what he would need.

(Name) didn't go through the main entrance, no no they would be expecting that.

He went through the vents, staring down at the panicked men and smiled, good.

They deserved fear.

They took away his life.

And he was going to take there's.

In his hands were a flash bomb, a smoke bomb and tear gas, throwing the flash bomb down first, then the smile then the tear gas he watched them scream in pain before putting the gas mask on and hoping down with weapons as he looked at the men desperately trying to get the gas out of their eyes and began his massicare, stabbing and killing those who brought him suffering.

Mikey was the last, witnessing (name) crack his neck before charging at him and due to the pain barely having time to recognize what was happening till (name) pushed him out a window, glass shattering and Mikey falling.

The last face he saw was the person he was going to make his mate.

The last thing he saw was (name) put a gun to his own mouth and fire as he was going to follow them right to hell and make sure they could never escape him.

[changeling-fae]

You know, thinking about how Raphael and the Emperor fill similar roles but with different methods and how Raphael’s “better the devil you know” takes on a double (triple?) meaning. Raphael straight up tells you what he is and uses that as leverage against the Emperor who deceives you pretty much the whole time.

And for a lot of people it works, people in general prefer honesty up front and while Raphael is absolutely a shady devil, most people would respect his candor over being lied to from the start. Not everyone of course, the Emperor’s tactics still seems to work on a lot of players, given how many never learn he was manipulating them from start to finish.

But I really do like the scene of Raphael laying out all his cards and giving you an opportunity to compare them against the Emperor.

The Emperor could argue he lied about who he was because no one would trust an illithid (which is likely true) but he now has the disadvantage of another shady being persuading his target because said shady being was up front with who he was.

I do vibe way more with Raphael (obviously lol), and I recognize a lot of it is, yeah he was upfront about who he is and his motives. And while arguably headcanon territory, it’s still pretty clear that Raphael has some “affection” (in his own way) for us versus the Emperor who the moment you break through his facade, clearly cannot feel affection.

When he tries to seduce your character and if you turn him down, the narrator actually makes a pretty clear note of planting suspicion about how fast and suspiciously quick the Emperor changed tactics and words despite 5 sec prior talking like he cares about us.

Actually I wouldn’t say it’s that headcanony that Raphael has an attachment to us, all the jokes aside about him having a crush, we get the evidence that he has an attachment from other places aside from Raphael’s mouth.

The diaries and plaque (if you sign the contract) proves it in the sense that in game, Raphael never expected us to see his writings or his vault. And the archivist in the vault says something along the lines about how special we are to Raphael and how Raphael has a “softer spot” for mortals than most, and the archivist says all this to us thinking we’re just some random devil in disguise. Information that wasn’t meant for our ears technically.

Meanwhile you got the Emperor over here who is very good at faking affection and sympathy until you start to examine him more. Then he drops it like a rock, it’s almost scary how quick he can.

Raphael is oddly relatable because he is kinda pathetic in his own way. You can see where and how he got to being who he is. The Emperor is, well, alien. He’s definitely very good at utilizing his old memories of when he was mortal to his advantage, but that mortal is dead and he’s basically just another illithid, just one who happens to be more independent than most.

And while this is all speculation on my part, it’s clear that Raphael both hates but is attached to mortals, likely because of his own existence. He’s half mortal but lives and is bound by the rules of hell like a devil. I think he envies some of the freedom to choose that mortals have, and that’s why he’s so insistent that mortals don’t have choice. He wants that freedom to choose but can’t because of his nature (“hell, hell, hell has its laws”) and he’s trying to convince either himself and/or mortals that they don’t have a choice either, to cover up that envy he feels.

Imagine being the child of one of the big bad archdevils who rules over a layer of hell. There probably is a level or feeling of helplessness that he never had a choice but to be what he is.

And you can contrast that with the Emperor who is no longer mortal and while definitely fighting for his own independence and freedom, is quite content to be what he is.

Considering the whole game has strong themes about choice, fate, and freedom, it’s just fun how even the antagonists shares those struggles same as our characters and the companions.

[simplydannie]

Poisoned (Veneers Version)

The twins finish a day of work and community service at Vacay Island. As they sit in their room…something happens to Velvet. Veneer is noticing changes in his sister… changes that happened after using the Trolls essence… changes that he fear have left his sister to far gone.

Tonight, they stayed at Vacay Island.

Bruce designated a suit just for them. Velvet and Veneer spent the rest of the night in their room after a long day of work around the resort. Veneer exhausted himself on top of his bed, Velvet sat at there desk writing something… her back faced towards him.

“Not a bad day!” Veneer exclaimed with a smile on his face. “We even managed to make a few good extra tips.”

“This is slave work.” Velvet declared.

“Oh come on Vels! This is hard earned money we’re making now. And may I add we’re at least OUT here instead of rotting INSIDE a prison cell.” Her brother said. Velvet hissed…. Something was wrong, he figured, she had been much moodier lately. Veneer sat up to look at his sister.

“Everything okay, Vels?” Veneer was trying to be more open with Velvet again… to establish that relationship they once had. “….. Y-you know you can talk to me right?” His voice grew shakey.

“Oh really I can? That’s wonderful! Maybe you can tell all my secrets to the entire world while you’re at it!” She said in a scream…. She still didn’t face her brother.

“Are you still mad about what happened? I had to Vels… You were…. Changing.” Veneer admitted. “We had to get out…. And we did. The little Trolls… they saved us.”

“No! They ruined us! We had everything Veneer!” She stood up and faced him…..his heart sank.

“V-Vels….” He stammered…. He recognized that look… the pink pigmentation around her eyes…whoever this was now… it wasn’t his sister. He had to be careful.

“We were at the top! Everyone loved us!” Velvet yelled.

“… it wasn’t real though…” Veneer responded. “They were just responding to an effect the Troll had…y-you know that.”

“I don’t care! I had everything! Everyone LOVED me, ADMIRED me. I was it. I was popular. ME! And you took it away!” She screamed.

SMACK!

She hit her brother clear across the face, knocking him to the ground. Her nails left long, red mark from his eye down to the corner of his lip.

“Vels!” He cried. She hovered over him.

“They loved me Veneer. They loved me. Why did you have to take it away from me? Just like you took mom and dad’s love away with your stupid sickness! You ruin everything! Everything!” Velvet attempted to go for his neck, but he was quick to move. His sister lost balance and fell to the floor.

Veneer dared not turn around. He went over to lock all the locks to their suit…. Hoping it would prevent anyone from coming in and getting hurt at the fit of her rage. He then quickly ran to the bathroom and locked him self in.

Velvet pulled and pulled at the door.

“Coward! You’ve always been a coward!” She screamed as she pulled and pulled at the door.

Veneer sat in the deep most corner of the bathroom, hugging his knees, rocking back and forth.

“It’ll be over. It’ll be over.” He whispered to himself…. He noticed how his sister got angrier as time went on… this wasn’t this first… this is why he did what he did… why he admitted to the world that they were frauds… he could’ve lost his sister. But then he began to wonder, if he already did.

He heard a knock from the outside door leading into the room.

“Guys? Guys! What’s going on?” It was Floyd.

“Stay out, Floyd!” Veneer screamed loud enough for the little Troll to hear… he didn’t want to risk Velvet hurting Floyd or any of the other Trolls.

“Open the door Veneer!” His sister screamed as she shook and shook the door.

“Please, stop, please stop.” He whispered rocking back and forth as he hugged his knees.

“Velvet! What’s going on??” Floyd cried out again.

SNAP!

Velvet was able to break the door open… her pink pigmented eyes glaring down at Veneer…. There was actual fear in his eyes… this moment right here was all too familiar to him ….

“I’m going to break you!” Velvet said as she neared her brother. Veneer covered his entire face with his arms.

“Stop please, don’t hurt me! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He cried. At that instant something over came Velvet… the cry of her brother, the fear in his voice and eyes… the pigmentation around her eyes began to disappear. She blinked cluelessly at her surrounding, then down at Veneer.

“Ven?” She asked as she knelt down laying a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her away, making himself into a tighter ball.

“Dont touch me!” He said, his face buried in between his knees. The door to their suit finally opened up, in came running the little Trolls, Gristle with the keys to the room in hand behind them.

“Whats going on in here?” Branch asked with Floyd at his heals. They all caught a glimpse of the red slash across Veneeres face..

“…oh my god…” Velvet whispered. Did she do that? She’d always rough Veneer up a bit, but never to the point where she would ever hurt him��.what happened? Why? Why did she hurt him?

Veneer didn’t move. He trembled as he began to cry, not looking up at anyone.

“I…. I have to…. I have to go…” She said as she stood up and ran out of the room. Branch looked after her… then to Veneer.

The little Troll recalled that day he found Veneer standing at the edge of a cliff, unknowingly ready to throw himself off… something was happening… the twins had to be watched carefully.

“Keep an on him. I’m going to follow Vels.” Branch said as he ran off.

[quillthrillswriting]

now that ao3 is back up, boy oh boy do i have a fic rec for you!!!!

i get that the comics are meant to fill that gap between atla and lok, but i feel like we've always been missing that moment where katara and aang actually formally confess their feelings and talk about everything they had been through. with how mature both of them are, it feels somewhat... unrealistic to me that we're never shown that moment where they talk it all out, after three (3!!!) whole seasons of buildup >:(

this fic was inspired by me wanting to show the moment when aang and katara are finally free from the responsibilities placed on them by the war!!!<3

OR: Aang wakes up the morning after him and his friends saved the entire world, and the first (and only) thing he can think about is Katara. When they get a chance to talk, the two take a walk down memory lane.

---

“Is it ok if I ask you something? While we’re on the topic of… us kissing?” Aang asked, hesitantly. 

Katara nodded. She had a feeling that she knew where this was going. “Ember Island?”

“Yeah.” He breathed. “We never got to… talk about that. After we kissed at the invasion, there was never a moment alone, and I do recognize now that Ember Island wasn’t the right time to bring it up, and I shouldn’t have sprung all of that on you. It wasn’t fair for me to ask you to make such a big statement. It wasn’t right for me to be so demanding. I felt ridiculously jealous over the implication that you were interested in Zuko, and I… well, I reacted poorly. I really am sorry for that.”

“I appreciate you saying that.”

He continued. “But, if you don’t mind me asking… what did you mean when you said you felt confused?”

Katara sighed, drawing water from the lake and tossing it between her hands idly. “I still don’t quite get it, even now. I think the best way to describe it was that I was in fight or flight, locked into survival mode. I did have feelings for you, and I knew that, but I just couldn’t let myself be vulnerable like that at a time like that. I guess that I was worried that if we started something, it’d be a weakness for the both of us. It felt too selfish to distract ourselves from the greater mission at hand when the world was at stake.”

“Ah.” Aang said, thinking it over as the pieces began to click together. “That… that makes a lot of sense.”

Katara continued. “If we’re both being honest, you do have a history of… avoidance, Aang. Giving into my feelings for you felt like it would mean enabling that bad habit of yours, and it seemed like the world needed you more than I did.”

---

Katara fought the blush spreading rapidly across her cheeks as the two leaned closer together. “Do you remember making that necklace for me out of fishing twine? So I could have a placeholder while Zuko had my mother’s necklace?”

He only nodded in response, her proximity rendering him entirely incapable of producing coherent speech. “I still have it. I don’t think you realize how much that meant to me.” She laughed, lost in memory for a second. “The way you looked at me when I put it on… and Sokka said you were acting like you were in love, and I… called you a good friend?”

“Mhm?” Aang asked, about as close to her as he could be without her lips on his. “What… what about it?”

"I don't want us to just be... good friends, not anymore." She took a deep breath, her voice wavering with nerves.

I think we were meant to be more than that." Katara breathed.

---

♥ the rest of the (completed) fic can be found here!! ->

[aticklishpercivalwriter]

HELLOO i scrolled through your fics and i only saw things about aether/venti/xiao and anemo boys in general, so i was wondering if you could write something about Zhongli! Idk if you’re willing to since yk yk i saw that you particularly like anemo boys, but if you’re actually willing to: May I ask you to write something about Lee!Zhongli and maybe some geo characters or even only one as the Ler? :)

~sam

Finding Out an Archon’s Secret

Request(s): Up above^

—

I’m the person who asked for Itto and Zhongli, I didn’t notice I misspelled not once but twice💀 Anyway it was ler Itto and lee Zhongli😭 dyslexia hitting hard rn

—

Summary: Itto lands in Liyue and Zhongli finds himself in a tough situation to not reveal his well kept secret.

A/N: I finally finished this fic and I really am sorry for how long it took to get it written. I am not that well versed with writing tickling for characters other than who I really like (Anemo Boys, Lyney, Gaming, Sethos). I’ll be honest, I procrastinated with this fic and its research, trying to make it as good as my other writings. I could’ve written something short to satisfy these requests, but I like to indulge my readers (and myself) even though it takes more outta me. So yeah, for characters I’m not familiar with, it will take time. Hope you enjoy reading this one!

Word Count: 1928 Bonus Word Count: 239 Also on AO3!

—

On board The Alcor, Arataki Itto, along with his gang and Kuki Shinobu, arrived at Liyue Harbor.

“Liyue! It feels like it was yesterday when we had our beetle fighting event here,” Itto reminisced.

Shinobu hummed in agreement as they thanked Captain Beidou and got off the boat.

“I’m bringing the gang with me to find some ways we can make Mora overseas. Don’t cause any trouble while we’re gone.”

“Pfft. Me? Causing trouble? Shinobu, I am the responsible One and Oni. I can handle myself just fine.”

Itto grinned at Shinobu, leaning against some crates…before they toppled over.

“AAH!”

Itto fell to the ground, wincing as he got up with the help of Shinobu while the rest of the gang helped with putting the crates back.

“You were saying?” Shinobu’s eyes had a teasing glint in them.

“Ahaha,” he laughed, scratching his head. “I'm a responsible On- hehehey!”

“What am I going to do with you?” she chuckled, scribbling her fingers along his abdomen for a moment before stopping.

“Just be careful and try not to topple more things over.”

“Okahay. Ihihi wihill,” residual giggles slipping out of him.

They exchanged their signature glance before Shinobu called the gang to follow her, leaving Itto at the harbor.

“What to do, what to do…” he scanned the harbor trying to find anything interesting to do when a tall figure caught his eye.

The figure with his dark brown hair tied in a ponytail stood at the fish stall, strands of hair dancing in the gentle breeze.

“He looks familiar.”

Another figure, short with teal hair, walked up to the other. Itto immediately recognized him and sped his way to them.

“Little Dude!”

“I-Itto!?” Xiao quickly handed the bouquet of Qingxin that he was holding to the other man before being carried into the air and engulfed in a hug.

“Still short huh?”

“You big Oni,” Xiao couldn't even be mad at him as his contagious joyful attitude got to him, making him smile.

A chuckle was heard beside them as Itto put Xiao down. Looking at the figure’s face, Itto finally recognized him.

“Ohhhh, Zhongli!”

“Indeed. That is me. Our paths cross again, Itto.”

“Drop the formalities dude! We are bros!”

Itto wrapped an arm around his waist, boisterously laughing and attracting the attention of others.

“Um Itto, I know you are happy, but please tone it down.”

“Oh, heh. Sorry.”

Itto quieted down a bit and they all worked towards Zhongli’s abode talking along the way.

“What’s the bouquet for? Are you asking someone out?”

Zhongli choked on his breath, almost dropping the Qingxin, and Xiao started blushing.

“It’s actually Xiao’s,” Zhongli said, recomposing himself.

“Xiao? I wouldn’t have thought you were the person to be getting flowers.”

“Y-Yeah, it’s mine,” he said, grabbing the Qingxin from Zhongli’s outstretched hand. “I mean, I’m getting it for someone.”

“Who’s the lucky person?”

Xiao’s blush deepened and he started fiddling with his glove.

“It’s for A-Aether.”

Itto’s eyes widened, and he clenched his hand in shock, which was still on Zhongli’s waist, making him double over with a surprised laugh that went unnoticed by the two. Unfortunately for Zhongli, Itto started drumming his fingers as he and Xiao talked. Their conversation was lost to him as he was holding back giggles and laughter from spilling out. The Oni’s tight grip prevented any subtle movements that the retired Archon could try to use to get away.

Unbeknownst to anyone in Liyue, besides Xiao and Childe, the Geo Archon is extremely ticklish. So, having Itto drumming his fingers across his hips was driving him up the wall.

“Aether is definitely a lucky guy. Just follow your heart. You got it in the bag, Xiao,” a sincere grin spread across Itto’s face.

“Thank you, Itto.”

They both shared a glance and faced Zhongli, about to ask what was on his mind when they saw his flushed face.

“Zhongli!”

Itto let him go as Xiao went to examine him.

“Was it my body heat? I didn’t know I was hugging you too tight. I’m sorry!”

As Itto was muttering apologies, Xiao guided his hands to Zhongli’s head and then to his neck, checking his temperature to see if he had a fever.

“Do you feel un-”

“Hmphehe!”

A muffled giggle slipped out of him when Xiao’s hand brushed against his neck. A knowing look passed Xiao’s eyes as he tried to hold back a smile, understanding why Zhongli’s face was flushed.

“Calm down, Itto,” Xiao started, “He’s fine. He just needs a little water, and he should be good. The heat was getting to him. Bring him back home, his house is close by. I’m going to be with Aether now. Just be careful with taking care of him.”

“Okay, I can handle him. You are talking with the responsible One and Oni after all.”

He hoisted Zhongli onto his back and gave Xiao a thumbs-up.

“Good luck with Aether. You got it Little Dude!”

Xiao shook his head fondly before vanishing.

“My house is over there,” Zhongli pointed to a nice-looking building in the distance.

“Hold on tight Zho-Bro. Oni coming through!”

Before Zhongli could say anything, Itto was dashing through the streets of Liyue and arrived right at his front door.

“We’re here!”

Zhongli took out a key and handed it to him so he could unlock the door. When they got in, Itto set him on the couch and went to fetch some water.

He was left with his thoughts and all he could think of was Itto tickling him. The unbearable sensations would rack through his body as Itto found his spots one by one and reduced him into a laughing mess. Anticipation tingles started to spread through his body, and he groaned.

“Reduced to feeling ticklish all over just by a simple drumming of fingers. Oh Itto.”

"What did I do this time?"

Zhongli jolted up into a seating position, his wide golden eyes meeting curious, amber ones.

"Oh, uh," he stuttered, struggling to find words in his flustered state. "Y-Your Oni speed is most interesting. I haven't seen anything like it in a while."

Itto joyfully chuckled. "Oh, that's what you were thinking about! These guns aren't just for show."

He started flexing his muscles and Zhongli let out a quiet sigh of relief, narrowly avoiding sharing his secret. He took a sip of water from the glass Itto brought.

"Oh yeah," Itto stopped and walked over and sat beside him. "How's your temperature?"

Before he could respond, Itto brushed his hand along his neck just as Xiao had done. However, this time, Zhongli jolted and grabbed his hand.

"Oh shoot. Are you hurt?" Itto asked with worry.

"No, no," he reassured him, willing the redness that he knows is on his cheeks away. "You just... caught me by surprise is all."

"Oh, ahaha," Itto laughed. "I tend to do that all the time."

Zhongli let go of his hand, assuming Itto was done, but Itto slid his hand gently to rest on his neck. Zhongli slightly squirmed, a smile forming on his lips as Itto murmured to himself about the temperature.

"Hmm, I think you're fine," Itto said, pulling away. "I'm no doctor but- why are you smiling?"

Zhongli didn't know what to say, panicking as he saw the wheels turn in his head.

"I-uh-eh-"

"You're ticklish, aren't you."

It wasn't said as a question but as a fact.

"N-No!" he squeaked loudly. Seeing Itto smirk made him realize his mistake. "I-I mean- AHAHAHA!"

"Ohoho~" Itto grinned devilishly after squeezing his hips. "I didn't think you of all people would be ti-ck-lish."

He punctuated each syllable with alternating squeezes on his hips making him let out a guffaw of laughter each time.

"GAHAHA! NEHEHEHA! HAHAHA!"

The archon pushed at the Oni's frame to no avail. He was no match for him as he straddled his hips and went to town on them.

"IHIHITTOHOHO! WAIT! WAIT! WAHAHAIT! AHAHAHA!"

Zhongli can't even say a coherent sentence as Itto pinches his hips.

"What was it you were going to say Zho-Bro?~"

"YOU'RE GOING TO- AHAHAHA! NAHAHAHAHA! IHIHI- EHAHAHA!"

He whacked his hand against Itto's arms only for Itto to grab them and raise them over his head.

"Didn't someone tell you it's bad to hit someone?"

"Didn't someone tell you to not tickle others so suhuhuhdenly!? AHAHAHA!"

Zhongli shook with unrestrained laughter as Itto scribbled his fingers over his stomach.

"Ihihitohoho!"

He tried curling forward, yanking at his arms and desperately trying to pull them down.

"NahahAHAHA! Lehehet meHEHehe gohohoHOHAHA!"

Itto roughly skittered his fingers making the poor archon let out a guffaw of laughter. He tried to curl in on himself, but his captor's grip was too strong.

As the minutes ticked by, Zhongli's attempts at escape weakened. Being restrained under an all too eager Oni who doesn't look like is stopping anytime soon made him even more sensitive.

"Tickle Tickle Tickle, Zho-Bro~"

"STOHOHOP thiHIckLIHIhing meHEHehe theHEHEhe- GAHAHAHA! NOHOHO! NOHO! NOHOHOHO! NAHAHAT THAHAT SPOHOHOT!"

"Not here, not there. Make up your mind, would ya?" Itto said, smirking all the while as he squeezed his sides with his free hand.

The man beneath him squealed with laughter as he shed tears of mirth, wiggling around trying to avoid his touch. Try as he might, the Oni's hand was able to seek his spots to elicit his deep laughter.

Itto finally let go of his arms and he huffed a sigh of relief, the tickling finally over.

"Hah, Hehe! T-thahank youhu- BWAHAHAHA! NOHOHO! PLEHEHE- AHAHAHAHA!"

Or so he thought.

"I got you by surprise, didn't I?~ Hahaha!" Itto teased.

"PLEHEHEASE! PLEHEHEHAHAHASE!" Zhongli pleaded as evil hands squeezed his sides. "IHIHIHITTOHOHO! YOUHUHU'RE GOHOHOING TOHOHO KIHIHILL MEHEHEHE."

He pushed against Itto's arms, hands, face, anywhere he could reach to deter him, but Itto persisted in making him fall into a crumbling, laughing mess.

And suddenly, he felt it.

"AHAHAHAHA!" he shrieked, feeling thumbs massaging his hip bones. "IHIHI- GAHAHAHA!" he brought his hands to his face, laughing uncontrollably as those thumbs rubbed in slow, circular movements and ignited the ticklish nerves. "NEHEHE- HAHAHAHA!" he tried rolling off the couch to escape Itto's grasp.

"And where do you think you're going, hmm?"

Only to be dragged back and have his sides squeezed mercilessly in punishment.

"WAHAHAIT! I- BWAHAHAHA NOHOHOHOHAHAHA!"

This continued on for a few more minutes until Itto sensed that the mighty Geo archon was at his limit. He slowed down to a stop and lifted the tickled-out archon.

"Eheek!"

"Relax, I'm not going to tickle you unless you want me to~" he wiggled his fingers against Zhongli's form.

"Nohoho mohohore!"

"Haha, I'm just messing with you. Just going to sit you up properly."

As residual giggles left his mouth, Itto made space for them both on the couch and refilled their glasses.

"That was fun, wasn't it?" Itto asked, grinning from ear to ear at him.

Zhongli couldn't help but smile too as he nodded his head.

"Yeah, it was."

They sat in comfortable silence as Zhongli's breath evened out.

"We gotta do more of this sometime!" Itto joyfully expressed, breaking the silence.

"I don't mind," Zhongli chuckled. "It has actually been quite some time since I laughed like that."

“Sooo, you don’t mind if I do it again right now,” Itto smirked, wiggling his fingers at him.

“Nohohot nohohow!” Zhongli laughed, batting his hands away.

“Just kidding, hehehe.”

“…”

“How about now?”

“No!”

As they conversed, in their minds, they looked forward to another opportunity to do this once again.

—Bonus—

Childe and Shinobu burst through the front door of Zhongli’s home after hearing reports of screaming coming from there. They were met with the sight of Itto clawing at Zhongli’s belly and Zhongli throwing his head back in laughter. Both Childe and Shinobu sighed in relief before taking down the Oni.

“H-Hey!”

“How dare you tickle my Zhongli?!”

“I thought you said you’ll keep out of trouble!? Tickling the Geo archon of all people? I shouldn’t be surprised at how you get into these situations.”

“What do you mean by that!? I don’t get myself into any situaHAHATIOHON! WAHAHAHAIT! AHAHAHA!”

Zhongli watched from the couch as Itto got wrecked by Childe and Shinobu, chuckling at the excuses Itto was making.

“IHIHIHI DIHIHIHIDN’T BREHEHEAK AHAHANYTHIHING!”

“ZHOHOHONGLIHI IHIHINVITED MEHEHE TOHOHO HIHIHIS HOHOME!”

“COHOHOME OHOHOHON! IHIHIHI DIHIHIDN’T DOHOHOHO AHAHANYTHIHING WROHOHONG!”

“TIHIHIHICKLIHIHING IHIHIS HAHAHARMLEHEHESS!”

Hu Tao then came in with a grin and a glint in her eye along with a coffin.

“I heard there was screaming around here and was hoping for a business opportunity~”

Before Zhongli could say anything, Itto's laughing voice rang out.

“IHIHIHI’M GOHOHOING TOHOHO DIEHEHE! HEHEHELP MEHEHE! MEHEHERCY!”

“Ooh! Perfect!” Hu Tao practically sprinted towards the trio as Itto screamed bloody murder as he saw Boo Tao peeking behind her and a coffin coming his way. Childe and Shinobu scrambled for safety and Zhongli dived towards Hu Tao.

Suffice to say, a lot happened that day in Liyue.

[takarahase99]

Lavender Tea Storms

I rushed into the nearest, open, door as the rain started coming down quicker.

“Sorry but we’re closed.”

A monotone voice rang through my ears. I looked around the place, which I took notice of being a tea cafe, and found the owner of the voice. It was a short statured man, whose back was turned to me, and he looked to be cleaning. I noticed that there were not any other people inside the place aside from him and I.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’m only trying to find some shelter until the rain dies down and you happen to be the nearest, unlocked door.”

The man turned towards me after my reply and I was able to recognize him immediately. He has been a regular at my book shop for awhile now. I think, to be exact, a year now. He showed up one day and has been coming every weekend. He would come in pick a book and leave once he finished reading it. I was always curious about him; Just never brought myself to introduce myself to him. I found joy out of just admiring him from afar. From the look in his eyes I could tell that he recognizes who I am. 

“Well in that case, is there anything I can make for you? On the house.”

“Oh no I’m okay. I’d hate to make you dirty up what you just cleaned.”

“I insist.”

His stare was almost too intimidating. Taking a short breath I gave into his persistence and spoke.

“Early Grey with lavender please.”

His cold stare lightened up and a soft smile, almost missable, was placed on his face. 

“You’ve good taste.”

“It has been my favorite for as long as I can remember. It’s such a relaxing brew. Can never go wrong with it I say.”

I moved from in front of the door, over to a table closer to the counter. The cafe fell silent after my statement. I pulled my, nearly, soaked jacket off and carefully placed it over the back of the chair next to me. Hopefully it can dry some before I have to leave.

“Do you own or just work at the book shop?”

“I own it.”

“For how long?”

“Since the previous owner died. It was actually given to me by him.”

“So you knew him?”

“He was my brother. Did you?”

Silence. I watched as his body tensed and untensed as if he was having a mental battle. He knew Erwin and by the looks of it they were close. Then it hit me.

“You’re Levi aren’t you?”

He continued to stay silent. 

“You don’t have to reply.”

I reached inside my bag for the letter Erwin left for Levi. It was stated in his final will for, strictly, me to give it to him. As I was about to push myself from my chair a nice steaming cup of tea was placed in front of me. It smells absolutely beautiful. Before he walked away I held the letter out to him. 

“Erwin left this for you. He stressed it in his will that I was to give this to you the moment our paths crossed on their own.”

He stared at the envelope for a moment before taking it and retreating back behind the counter. I watched as he turned his back from me. An action I recognized quickly. He wanted to hide his emotions. As he read the letter I turned my focus back on the tea. While we were talking I noticed how delicately he prepared the cup of tea. I could see how passionate he was about making tea. I picked the small cup up and gently blew on the hot beverage before taking a sip.

“I don’t think I've ever made this same tea this good.”

I glanced over towards the silent male. His breathing was slightly labored. He was either holding back his tears or silently crying hoping I wouldn’t hear. I turned to the window and noticed that the rain cleared up. Using that as an excuse I rose from my seat and gathered my things. I walked over and placed the now empty tea cup and saucer on the counter behind Levi.

“The rain has cleared. I appreciate your great hospitality. It was a pleasure to meet you Levi. I heard nothing but great things about you from my brother. I hope to continue seeing you at the shop. You’ll be seeing me here more often; You make the perfect lavender earl grey tea I’ve ever had.”

With that said I made my exit and started my walk home. ‘Oh you knew what you were doing the moment you started telling me about Levi didn’t you Erwin?’

[queen-of-deans-booty]

I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here: Final Part

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.3k

Warnings: canon angst and violence

Summary: Sam is suffering the effects of the Trials, and it’s up to you and Dean to save him no matter the cost.

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated.

x

You make sure no nurse or doctor comes in while Ezekiel is examining Sam. He places his hand on Sam's chest and he looks inside to see how much damage he has sustained since stopping the trials.

"Are you still able to cure things after the fall?" Dean asks.

"Yes, I should be, but he's so weak."

Dean's phone rings, and he answers it when he doesn't recognize the number.

"Who is this?" His face changes into something you don't recognize, and he motions for you to come outside with him. You bring your kids with you because you don't trust this angel around them. "Cas, what the hell is going on?"

"Castiel? Where are you?" you ask once Dean puts him on speakerphone.

"Metatron tricked me. It wasn't angel trials. It was a spell. I wanted you to know that," he sighs.

You can tell in his voice that he feels so bad about all of this.

"Okay. That's great, but we've got ourselves a problem."

"What's wrong?"

"It's Sam. He's--"

Dean cuts himself off because he can't bring himself to say the words.

"He's dying, Castiel. At first, he was okay, and now he's not. We've been praying to you all night. Where are you?"

"Metatron took my grace. I'm no longer an angel." He gives you a moment to process this before continuing. "Don't worry about me. What are you doing for Sam?"

"Uh, everything I can. There's actually another angel in there working on him right now," Dean says.

"What other angel?"

"His name is Ezekiel. Is he a good one?" you ask.

"Ezekiel. Yes. He's a good soldier. He should be able to help until I get there."

"No, that's not an option. Do not come here," Dean shuts him down. "There are angels out there. They came here looking for you, and they're pissed."

"Not all of them, Dean. Some are just looking for direction. Some are just lost."

"What are you talking about?" you ask.

"I met one. I think I can help her."

"No, Cas, I know you want to help, okay? I do, but helping angels is what got you in trouble in the first place. Now, I'm begging you, for once, look out for yourself. Until we figure out what the hell is going on, trust nobody."

"And do what? Just abandon them all?" Castiel sighs.

"Castiel, listen to what we're saying. There are thousands of angels out there looking for you, and you're human now. That means you bleed, eat, sleep, and all of the things you never had to worry about before."

"I'm fine, Y/N."

You're about to argue some more when the hospital starts shaking as if there is an earthquake.

"What the hell is going on?"

"What's happening?" Castiel asks.

"We have more company. Please, just go to the Bunker and we will figure it out together, okay?"

Dean hangs up the phone, and both of you rush into Sam's room.

"Is that one of yours?" you ask about the hospital shaking.

"Yes, they're trying to secure a vessel. We need to move."

"No, if we move him, he dies."

"If we stay, we could all die."

"Not if we ward the room," you suggest.

Dean grabs the first marker he sees and starts writing Enochian symbols on the walls to keep out the angels trying to come for him. Soon, he has this entire place locked down with symbols so that they can't get inside even if they wanted to.

"So, as long as these are up, no angels are coming in, right? No one's coming out. Are you gonna be okay with these?" Dean asks the angel.

"I'll manage." Ezekiel winces and flinches from a noise you and Dean can't hear. "They're here."

"Okay, you two stay in here and take care of Sam. I'm going to evacuate this hospital. Do not open this door for anyone but me," you say in determination.

"Let me go with you."

"No, Dean, stay here and protect our kids." You turn to Ezekiel with narrowed eyes. "Save Sam."

You kiss Dean quickly before slipping out of the room. The windows on either side of you shatter into tiny pieces, causing the glass to fly toward you. You run down the hallway and protect your face, but every window you pass explodes and sends glass your way. You reach the fire alarm and pull it so that everyone can evacuate the entire hospital.

"Everybody out! Now! Get out!" you yell at everyone.

You rush to the nurses' station and see a woman on the ground. You hold your hand out for her to take, and you help her to her feet.

"Are you okay? You need to get out of here."

You turn to see a man in a farmer's outfit stalking toward you with an angel blade in his hand. You step between him and the woman to protect her, but before you can do anything, the woman punches your head from behind and grabs your throat. She lifts you off the ground and glares at you.

"I'd rather not."

You smirk at her just as your eyes glow bright blue, and you send a blast of magic out from all sides of your body. Both angels are knocked off their feet, and you take off running toward Sam's room which is still warded. The female angel uses her powers on you, and you're slammed into the wall to your right. You groan in pain when your face connects with the shards of glass protruding from the frame of the window.

"Let me make this easy for you," she says as both angels walk toward you. "Tell me where Castiel is, or Sam's gonna wish he were dead."

"Good luck getting past the warding."

"Don't worry, we will." The male angel breaks the glass around a fire axe, and you know he's going to use it by breaking down the door. The female angel hauls you to your feet with fire in her eyes. "When we do, I'm going to strip off all his skin along with that husband of yours and your kids, and you're going to watch."

"Bite me, bitch," you growl.

The female angel punches you to the ground, and you laugh at her attempt to intimidate you. You turn and smile at her with bloody teeth, but you're not fazed by the injuries. You spit out the blood and go to stand up, but the female angel moves to kick you in the stomach.

You grab her leg and slam your elbow down on her kneecap, effectively breaking it. She falls to the ground in a cry of pain, and you crawl over to her and place your hand on her forehead. Your magic kills the angel inside, and her eyes and mouth shine bright with white light. Once she is dead, you look over at the male angel who is trying to break the door down with the axe.

The angel sees his dead friend on the floor, and he figures if he kills you, then he can get inside the room without anyone stopping him. He yanks the axe out of the broken door and stalks over to you.

"Wait, wait, wait," you pant, and he pauses. "I'll tell you where Castiel is. I just have one question for you."

"Ask," he glares.

"If Heaven is locked, then where do you go when I do this?"

With your magic, you create the angel-banishing symbol before slamming your hand onto the symbol. The angel's eyes widen as he is banished from the hospital hallway. When the white light fades, you're alone in the hallway. Joanna's cries can be heard from Sam's room, so you scramble to your feet and enter his room.

"Baby, I'm okay." Sam's monitors are beeping very loudly, and you know that he is dying quickly. "What the hell is happening?"

"This just started. With the warding, I'm afraid I'm weaker than I thought," Ezekiel sighs. Dean grabs the same marker and starts crossing off the symbols to give the angel his strength back. "I'm so sorry, Dean and Y/N."

"No, we had a deal! I fight, you save! Save him, please," you beg.

"I would if I could. I'm afraid it's too late."

"Are you kidding me? Are you saying there's no way to save my brother's life?"

"No good ways."

"What are the bad ones?" You and Dean make eye contact, and he sighs. "We're out of options here, Y/N. Good or bad, let me hear them."

"I cannot promise, but there is a chance I can fix your brother from the inside."

"From the inside? Do you mean possession? You want to possess Sam?" you gasp.

"I told you, no good options."

"The only way he can is if Sam says yes. How can he say yes if he won't wake up?" you wonder.

"Sam would never let an angel possess him. He'd rather die," Dean sighs.

Ezekiel, despite the pain he is in, gets to his feet. He waves his hands over the monitors which silences them.

"I'll give you two some time alone with him."

He starts to walk toward the door, but before he can leave, Dean stops him.

"Wait... If I consider this, and I mean consider it, I need you to tell me how bad he is."

Ezekiel walks over to Sam and places a hand on his forehead before touching Dean's. You place your hand on Dean's shoulder so that whatever Ezekiel is doing to Dean, he'll do to you. Much like the last time you went into Sam's head, you're transported from the hospital room into a cabin of sorts.

You're inside Sam's head, and he's not alone. You and Dean walk down the hallway and peek inside the living room to see Sam talking to Death himself.

"I must admit, when I heard it was you I had to come myself."

"I bet you get off on this," Sam scoffs.

"Perhaps, but not in the way you assume. I consider it to be quite the honor to be collecting the likes of Sam Winchester. I try so hard not to pass judgment at times like this, but well done."

"I need to know one thing." Sam takes Death's silence as a sign to continue. "If I go with you, can you promise that this time it will be final? That if I'm dead, I stay dead? Nobody can reverse it, nobody can deal it away, and nobody else can get hurt because of me."

"I can promise that."

Ezekiel removes you and Dean from his head since he doesn't have enough juice to keep you in there. Sam is ready to die. He is going to die, and his nieces won't get the chance to get to know him.

"What the hell are you doing, Sam?" Dean sighs.

"Dean, if you don't want him to die, then Ezekiel has to do this. It's your call. He's your brother," you say softly.

"How will it work?"

"Mutual benefit, I suppose. I heal Sam while healing myself."

"What happens when he is healed?" you ask.

"I leave. It's the best of a bad situation."

"Even if I said yes, it doesn't mean shit. Sam will never say yes, not to you."

"He would say yes to you," Ezekiel says. "All I need is a yes from you, and let me do the rest."

"Yes."

Ezekiel closes his eyes as he concentrates on talking to Sam. You're not sure what he's doing to him, but before you know it, the angel is expelled from his former host and into Sam.

"Come on, girls. We're leaving," you say knowing Sam will wake up.

The man who used to have Ezekiel in him collapses to the ground, and at the same time, Sam wakes up. In order to escape and not have to deal with the authorities you know are coming, you need to leave right now.

As soon as Sam is safe to walk on his own, you three escape with the kids before the authorities can come. The doctors rush back into the hospital to tend to their patients, but they don't pay you any mind.

"So? How's it look in there?" Dean asks.

"Not good. There is much work to be done."

"He's going to wake up, right?" you ask.

"He will."

"So, when he does, is he going to feel you in there?"

"He will not feel me, no. There is no reason for Sam to know I'm in here at all."

You and Dean look at each other in confusion as you reach the car.

"You have to be joking. He needs to know you're there."

"What will he do if you tell him he is possessed by an angel? Without his acceptance, Sam can eject me at any time, especially with me so weak. If Sam does eject me, he will die."

"Fine," Dean sighs, "we will keep this a secret for right now. Only until Sam is strong enough to be on his own. As for him being in a hospital, I'll have to figure something out."

"I can erase it all if you like. He will not remember any of this."

You hate lying to Sam especially when he doesn't trust you and Dean completely anyway. You know he will be pissed about this, but you don't have any other choice. You need Sam. Your kids need him. Dean needs his brother.

After everyone gets into the car, Dean makes his way back to the bunker. It's well into the night when you get to the halfway point, and that's when Sam wakes up. He is not Ezekiel, but Sam.

"Where are we?" Sam gasps, jerking awake.

"Whoa, Sam, take it easy," you say from the back seat. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired. Like I slept for a week."

"Well, try a day. You've been out since the sky was spitting angels."

"What the hell happened?" he groans.

"What do you remember?"

"The church, feeling like shit, the angels falling, and that's it."

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah. Have you been driving around with me passed out for a day?"

"Oh, I mean, I stopped and let a few Japanese tourists take some pictures. Nobody got too handsy," Dean jokes. "I knew you'd pull through. I meant what I said at the church. You're capable of anything, Sam, and hell if you didn't prove me right."

"Good," Sam nods. "We got work to do."

You sigh and lean your head on the back of the seat. Something's telling you having this angel inside Sam isn't the best idea.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[brokeitwiththepowerofmathamatics]

Fanfic - Desynced: Chapter 10

(Ao3 here) (FF.net here)

Tucker shook his head. “No, no, no. I know you two are thinking something, and I’m telling you no!” He paced around the lab floor throwing his hands all over the place as he tried to get his thoughts in order. He placed his hands in front of his face and looked up to the ceiling. “Just… no.”

Danny folded his arms. “You want to have this argument in front of the portal to Hell?”

“I would very much like to ignore that thing’s existence, thank you very much.”

Sam rubbed her shoulders and turned toward the stairs. “I think we should keep talking about this upstairs.” She said, quickly leading the way up. Danny followed, and Tucker soon after, groaning and lamenting the whole way. Tucker and Sam walked into the living room, as Danny closed the door to the lab behind them. The door slammed shut with a thud that echoed throughout the house.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Tucker said, “We’re going to go to my place, and we’re gonna order food. There’s a pizza place that has vegan pizza, okay Sam? We’ll get you a nice vegan pizza. I won’t even order any meat myself. We’ll just have the fake pizza, and sit down, and play video games, while-”

“They said she wasn’t trapped there,” Danny interrupted. “Johnny met me at the park the first time, and you guys were with me when we ran into him the second time.” Danny ran a hand down his face. “She could literally show up anywhere.”

“Well what the hell are we supposed to do?” Tucker shouted.

“I…” Sam began, she hesitated and ran her hands through her hair. “I have a theory.” Sam gulped and looked away from both Danny and Tucker. “It’s… they called her the Lunch Lady.”

“And?” Tucker groaned.

“The first day she attacked, that was the day the school changed the lunches. Wasn’t it?”

For a few moments, the only sound that could be heard was the thrum of the portal even through the closed door of the lab.

“I…” Tucker began taking a deep breath. “So… what? You want to go in and cook the school lunch or something?”

“Better idea than nothing, right?” Danny said, looking between the two. He rubbed the back of his head. “Like, it’s-”

Tucker pointed at Danny, “And wait, remember! You said you thought you felt a ghost before that! When Ms. Angelis’s planter came unscrewed! So this lunch lady was active before Sam got the menu changed!”

Danny opened his mouth to respond, but Sam beat him to it. “Didn’t Johnny say there was a Boxy? And you guys ran into him?” Tucker slowly turned toward Sam as she straightened. “That could have been him. Her window planters are box shaped, aren’t they?”

“Could,” Tucker emphasized. He ran a hand over his face. “Alright, you know what, call your parents! They deal with this on a regular basis apparently! Or the agents do. Make it their problem!”

Danny nodded. “That’s actually a good idea,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He quickly dialed his mom. The phone rang and rang but she never picked up. He then dialed his dad, it rang twice before he was sent to voicemail. He rolled his eyes and then dialed his mom again.

This time she picked up immediately. “Sweetie, can this wait? I’m in a very-”

“The lunch lady isn’t trapped in Casper,” Danny cut off.

“What? What lunch lady?”

“Right, sorry, getting ahead of myself,” Danny muttered. “We found out that meat monster? That used to be a lunch lady. She’s not trapped in Casper, she just keeps going back to it.”

“Hold on a second,” Maddie said. There was a lot of movement on her side of the phone before she spoke again. This time she didn’t sound as clear. “Okay, Danny, you’re on speaker phone now. I’m here with the agents involved. Start from the beginning. How did you find out the original identity of the ghost?”

“Another ghost told me.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Maddie shouted.

At the same time, another voice Danny didn’t recognize said, “This has to be your son, Jack.”

Maddie continued, “But, Danny, weren’t the other ghost’s corrupted?”

“Well, yeah, but it wasn’t one of those-”

“There are more ghosts in Amity Park?”

Danny held up his fingers and started counting down. “There’s the Lunch Lady, Boxy, Johnny, he’s the one who told us this by the way, and now his girlfriend Kitty-”

“Ghosts can have girlfriends?” Jack muttered in the background.

“And I think Johnny might be two ghosts in one. He called a black smog Shadow and it listened to him.”

The phone line went silent. Danny checked his phone to make sure he hadn’t dropped the call. “Hello?”

“We’re here… we’re just… processing.” Maddie said, her voice sounding faint.

“You’ve managed to identify five ghosts in Amity Park,” the voice from earlier said, “From the descriptions, it sounds like there are now six?”

Danny hesitated to respond to that, considering he was the sixth.

“Danny?” Jack called out.

“Uhh… well…” Danny said, glancing at Tucker and Sam, “The one that saved Sam the other day? It’s not a ghost. Johnny said ghosts don’t have heartbeats.”

“They don’t…”

Danny could hear his mother suck in a breath. “Danny, what on earth is going on over there?”

“Okay, well, so good news is, your thermos thing worked, but I… kinda let Johnny out in the lab?

“Son,” the third unknown voice who was definitely not his dad spoke up, “what possessed you to do that?”

“Look, okay, so I was walking down the street, and Johnny started talking to me, and then I realized he was a ghost because he was talking about you how guys weren’t letting him see his girlfriend and when I realized that he started going all feral on my ass-”

“Language,” Maddie chided, though her heart wasn’t in it.

“And then… the uh… sixth one that’s not a ghost showed up and defended us. We got Johnny in the bottle, and then we were gonna drop him off. I realized that what Johnny wanted was to be by the portal so I let him out? When we did though, he didn’t attack, his shadow did, but he stopped it. Then his girlfriend came out of the portal to Hell, and they talked for a bit and they said that the Lunch Lady wasn’t actually in Casper High, but that she’s just going back to it.”

There was a thud on the other side of the line. “Are you sure?” The man demanded. “Are you sure that’s what he said?”

“Yeah, I even asked about it.”

“We got to remove the wards. Everyone, on the double! We’re not trapping her in her haunt, we’re keeping her from her release! Move!” There was a lot of scrambling on the other side as chairs slid about and doors slammed open.

“Danny, sweetie,” his Mom said, “The house should be protected, but I don’t know how strong our wards are. They kept one ghost out, but they could have been damaged. You should get Jazz and get out of town for the night.”

“Jazz left,” Danny said, “but there’s more.”

“How can there be more?”

“We have an idea of what might have set her off.”

The room on the other side went silent again.

The man spoke up, clearly saying, “Explain.”

“The day she attacked, it was the day the school lunches changed, we thought that might be related. She’s called the Lunch Lady apparently.”

The line went silent again. “Daniel Fenton, this is Agent Alpha. I’m the lead agent assigned to the case of researching the Elsewhere that your parents portal goes to. I’m also the lead agent for the entirety of Minnesota.

“If you went into the school,” he continued, slowly. There was an unease in his voice that Danny could hear clearly over the phone, “would the non-ghost entity defend you again?”

“Sir!” Maddie shouted, “That’s my son!”

“Ms. Fenton, we just found out that we didn’t seal that ghost, we instead are forcing it to stay away from its haunt!” Danny pulled the phone away from his ears as the man began to shout, “That is a literal magic time bomb waiting to go off! The only reason why that last attack wasn’t a massacre was because that entity showed up and held it off before our agents got there!” He huffed and began again, this time more calmly, “We don’t have many options here…”

Danny let out a breath. “I know it would. Don’t… don’t ask me how I know, but I know it’s going to keep us as safe as it can.”

“Fuck!” Tucker swore, walking out of the living room.

“Was that Tucker?” Maddie asked.

“Yeah, he told me to call because he wanted you guys to deal with this. Not us.”

“If we’re lucky, you won’t have to,” Agent Alpha said. “We have men scrambling, but they’re at least a couple hours out. We could mobilize the military, but until she’s an active threat, doing so is a risk to the secrecy.”

“So you’re sending my son?” Maddie shouted.

“Like finds like,” The agent stated. “You remember what happened to the last city that became aware of magic?”

“What happened?” Sam asked. “We don’t know.”

“Operation Silent Night,” the agent said. “The United States government nuked one of its own cities.”

Tucker came back into the room. “Alright, let’s do this. But you owe me so much Nasty Burger, dude!” Danny and Sam turned as he made his way to the front door. “Five! No ten!” Tucker shouted before either of them could say anything, “Ten triple threat nasty melts with extra bacon!” Tucker whirled on Sam pointing at her with thermos, “And don’t you say anything about me eating meat here! If I’m putting my life on the line here, I want to be rewarded God damn it!” Sam reared back at the accusation, but she didn’t get to say anything before Tucker turned and started walking toward the door again.

“Magic is supposed to be cool and instead I got meat monsters!” Tucker lamented as he laced up his shoes. “Meat! Meat is supposed to be my friend! Meat hasn’t hurt me! And now it’s going to!” Tucker opened the door and turned back, pointing at Sam and Danny. “Come on! Before I lose my nerve!” He shouted one final time before stepping out the door.

“I think we broke him…” Sam muttered after a moment.

“Well,” Agent Alpha said on the other side of the phone. Apparently, they could hear him on the other side of the phone. “Anger is a form of willpower, and magic listens to willpower. If he can keep that rage up, it’ll be beneficial.”

“Danny, your father and I will be getting on the first helicopter available. We’ll be there soon. Just keep safe, okay?”

“Will do, mom.”

“Love you, baby.”

“Love you too, mom.”

***

Honestly, Danny was impressed. Tucker did keep the anger up the whole way. The school was too far to walk to, so they had to take one of the city’s buses, which were fortunately on time for a change, and it was late enough that no one was getting on or off at the stops. That being said, it was still the American transportation system, and it took an hour to get over there.

“Why are they so goddamn far out anyways?” Tucker muttered as they made their way up to the school.

“They’re a government agency that my parents apparently work for and I didn’t know about it. I think secrecy is their whole thing,” Danny offered.

“Well, they should be less secret.”

“I don’t think you heard, but they nuked a city because it became aware of the secret.”

“Why the hell would they do that?”

“Probably ‘cause the alternative was worse? I’m guessing?”

Tucker didn’t say anything else, just continued to grumble. They made their way up to the doors of the school. Danny reached up and tried to pull on the door. His ghostly hand phased right through the door, but his human self couldn’t open it. “Locked.”

“Can’t you do a ghost thing and tear the door open?” Tucker asked.

Danny bit his lip and tried to focus on the ghostly version of his hand and tried to make it more real. His ghost form did seem to have super strength, but right now it just kept phasing through the door.

So instead of tearing the door off its hinges, he was just waving his hands in front of it like a lunatic.

“Stand back,” Sam said, “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Danny and Tucker turned to see Sam walking up to the door, carrying a giant rock from the landscaping around the school. The two boys dove to the side as Sam smashed the window in. They covered their ears, but no alarms went off.

“Huh, no alarm?”

“No, it’s just a silent alarm. We probably got thirty minutes before the cops show,” Sam said, shoving her arm through the window and reaching through to unlock the door from the inside. “Come on, let's do this quickly. The faster we’re done, the faster we get out of here.”

Tucker followed Sam through the door, pushing it open for Danny to enter in after him. “You’ve always wanted to break into the school?”

“I mean, I’ve always wanted to break into the school so I could vandalize it, but this is good too.”

“We’re going into the haunted school, where giant eldritch monsters made out of meat attack. Nothing about this is good.”

“I mean, the agents said they warded the place, right? So hopefully that’ll keep the ghost away while we’re cooking.” Sam offered. The smile she sent his way looked less like a smile and more like a pained wince.

“I don’t think it’s cooking,” Tucker huffed. “I was thinking on the way over here. Both days were Mondays, and yeah, both days they were gonna do the vegan lunches.” He shot a glare over at Sam at that.

“Wait… are you saying this is my fault?”

“Not your fault per se, but it is because they changed to vegan,” Tucker said. Sam stopped and whirled on him, but Tucker walked past her. “The meals they swapped were gonna be the beef stroganoff and the spaghetti, and yeah, maybe it’s because they didn’t make either meal, but it was a Monday. You know what else the school serves on Mondays?”

Danny walked past Sam and grabbed her hand, gently tugging her along. Her eyes snapped off of Tucker down to his hand. She made a sound that was something between a sharp intake of breath and a squawk. Danny huffed and shook his head. “Dude, I think you’re the only one who knows the school lunch schedule.”

He looked back at Sam who was following again. Her hand felt like he was holding a warm coal in his hand, and it was impossible to ignore that they were holding hands in the middle of the school hallway. He gently squeezed her hand to make her look up at him, and he tried to give her a comforting smile.

“Mondays are the day that they serve the butter cookies,” Tucker continued, completely ignoring Danny and Sam. He continued marching forward a man on a mission. They made their way to the cafeteria, stepping over the rubble from the last ghost fight. “Those butter cookies have been served here for at least eight years. Tanya said that when she was a freshman, the seniors had talked about them being the best thing on the menu.”

“Who’s Tanya?” Danny asked.

“The super hot redhead who was the lead in the fall play this year.”

“You know, if you put this much effort into studying, you’d probably have straight As.” Sam pointed out.

“I do have straight As, thank you very much.”

Danny gasped suddenly. It felt like someone had stabbed him in the stomach and left a pit of ice there. His lungs filled up with air, and then the air in his chest felt like it compressed as it dropped to sub zero temperatures. When the air left his lungs, it left in a thin vapor trail.

“She’s here…” Danny whispered. His insides began to twist, and it felt like his rib cage was about to crack open as he thought about the Lunch Lady attacking Sam and Tucker.

“I thought it was warded!” Tucker hissed.

“If it was that simple to keep the ghosts away, they probably wouldn’t need so many teams with guns,” Danny hissed back. “You two go and start trying to cook or bake or whatever. I’ll try to hold her off.”

“Dude, we have the thermos!” Tucker whispered. The idea had merit, but there was just one problem. The idea of Tucker trying to fight the ghost made ice flood Danny’s veins.

So instead, Danny shook his head and he pushed both of them in the direction of the kitchen. The action immediately relieved some of the chill inside of Danny, and it felt like his ribs were settling back into place. “We won’t know if it’s working if she’s in the thermos!” Danny got out in a rush, as his jumbled thoughts snapped together.

“We can make that the agents’ problem!” Tucker argued back. The words made Danny’s teeth itch, Tucker and Sam weren’t supposed to be here. He wouldn’t let them be here.

Danny pushed Tucker harder. “Don’t argue! Go!” Danny said, whirling back towards the halls they had come from. The twisting feeling in his chest subsided as he heard the foot falls of his friends moving away.

Tucker had the thermos. If things did go wrong, he’d have back up. They were protected. They would be safe. Now all he had to do was turn into his ghost form and he could make sure of that.

The cafeteria suddenly smelled of grease, and rotting flesh. A limb came out of the door they had entered from and plastered itself to the wall above the door. Then another came out and slapped against the floor. There was a brief moment where Danny thought she wasn’t going to come in, but then she slowly pushed herself through the door, squeezing through before rising to her full height.

She was a lot taller than he remembered.

He also realized that he didn’t know how to turn into a ghost on command.

“Once again, I didn’t think this through.” Danny muttered to himself before putting his hands up to defend himself. He could feel his ghostly self hovering over him, but he couldn’t figure out how to make that shift again.

He hadn’t done it intentionally before, it just happened.

The Lunch Lady let out a scream. Unlike before it didn’t quite drop Danny on the ground where he was. This time he managed to stay upright as the sounds echoed within him. She ran forward and moved to bring her giant limb down on top of Danny.

Danny brought his arms up, and though he would have no way of stopping something of that size, it was halted in place by his ghost form. He could see the imprints of the bone capped limbs in her arms. He pushed her arms to the side and tried to circle around her, but as a mortal, he was way too slow. He had to throw himself to the ground as her other limb whipped around.

He ducked under one of the lunch room tables as she moved to smash where he was. When he wasn’t turned into paste under the first strike, she then broke the table into tiny pieces. Danny leapt over several tables trying to get distance between them so he could figure out how to transform again.

And she just walked through the tables like they weren’t even there.

“Come on, come on, Fenton, transform!” He told himself as he tried not to get cornered against the wall.

But with each smash of her giant limbs, Danny had his escape avenues slowly dwindle away. Each mighty blow destroyed tables, the floor of the cafeteria, and any hopes of Danny fighting this thing.

Then it happened. She slammed a fist right next to Danny, stopping much earlier than he expected. Then the other landed on the other side of him. He tried to put some distance between them, but instead he backed into the wall.

He looked up at the black glowing eyes looking down on him and realized Tucker was gonna have to use the thermos after all.

“Sorry, mom…” Danny panted.

Then there was another sound. Danny thought at first it was Sam and Tucker trying to get the ghost’s attention, but it wasn’t right. It was metallic in sound, but it wasn’t the sound of kitchen utensils crashing against the floor.

A light shined in the cafeteria, if the Lunch Lady hadn’t been blocking the light, Danny was sure he would have been temporarily blinded by it. She stopped bearing down on Danny and her entire body twisted to look at the light.

The sound of a motorcycle roared, and tires squealed. “Vroom, vroom, mother fucker!”

A hand grabbed Danny’s shirt and yanked him away, the sheer force of the pull made his neck crack, but it also gave him a view of Johnny running his motorcycle into the face of the Lunch Lady.

Danny blinked as her entire body burst into multiple large chunks that spread all over the cafeteria, before it crashed into the wall. Johnny stumbled away from the wreckage rubbing his head. “Johnny?” Danny called out, trying to confirm what he was seeing.

“Told you I owe ya one, kid!” Johnny cracked his neck, before shaking his head. When he turned to look at Danny, a head light was beginning to push out from behind his face. The skin began to tear and his eye fell out before he started facing forward again.

The various globs of meat began to move and slide along the ground, leaving a trail of fluid along the ground. There was a muffled roar of police sirens and pots and pans clattering to the floor, before a limb pulled itself out of the largest glob of meat.

“And I’m always up for a fight!” Johnny shouted, slamming his fists together before he started rolling his shoulders. Each rotation a chunk of flesh fell off his arm. “Let’s do this, Shadow!” The shadow underneath him rose up off the ground, before stretching and letting out a cry of shattered glass.

Danny felt something poke his cheek, and he turned to see Kitty standing next to him. “Hi there!” she said, way too chipper for the situation. Or for someone who was dead. “You’re not transforming.”

Danny looked up, and realized she wasn’t poking his human cheek. “Uh… no. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.”

“Thought so,” Kitty pulled him down and sat him down on a table. “It seemed like you weren’t aware of your ghost form. When you used it, it seemed to catch you by surprise.”

“Uh… Yeah…” Danny said, trying to take his eyes off the fight that was beginning to start in earnest. “How did you know? Did Johnny tell you?”

“Nah, I just have the power to know what every man I kissed is doing.”

“What?” Danny said, turning to focus on her.

“I’m kidding. Of course Johnny told me. Plus you seemed to be struggling here-” She paused and looked back at the fight. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “The chair! Give her the chair!”

“On it, babe!” Johnny shouted back.

“Sorry about that.” Kitty said, not sounding sorry at all. “Anyways, you needed some help, and Johnny and I owe you one. So!” She clapped her hands together. “When you used your ghost form against Johnny, what were you thinking?

“I… I don’t know. That’s the problem. If I did well…”

“Well, what was he doing?”

“He… was grabbing Sam? No, Shadow was. Shadow was suffocating Sam, like he was all wrapped around her face and-”

“I see,” Kitty interrupted. She grabbed Danny’s head and looked him in the eye.

“Sam is going to die if you don’t use your ghost form right now.” Ice immediately spread through Danny’s body at Kitty’s words. “She’s gonna die, because if you and Johnny can’t stop the Lunch Lady right now, she’s going to hunt you three down eventually. You’re mortal, somehow, but us ghosts?”

Kitty squeezed his head, reminding him that just because she looked like a human, it didn’t mean she was. The strength in her fingers felt like she could crush his head like a grape, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of his bones tearing apart as she continued.

“We don’t get tired. We can’t rest. We can’t stop. Not until we have what we want. And right now, she wants to make everyone hurt.”

Kitty reached up and ruffled Danny’s hair, except that wasn’t quite right. It didn’t feel like she was running her hands through his hair, instead it felt more like she were rubbing sand against his skin. “So go out there, and stop her, loverboy. Your friends need you to.”

Danny looked down at his hands, and saw bone instead of flesh. He thought about telling Kitty that Sam wasn’t his girlfriend, but he had other problems at the moment.

Namely one Lunch Lady.

“Johnny! I got you a dance partner!”

“Babe, you shouldn’t have!”

“I know, aren’t I the sweetest!”

“No, really, you shouldn’t have! I was having a-” Danny jumped off the ground and impacted against the ceiling. He felt his spine twist and crack until his back was in front of his body and his legs were pressed against the ceiling. He then sprung off the ceiling, crashing into the Lunch Lady. “Whoa!”

Danny screamed, his throat felt like shattered glass was pouring along it. He recognized the sounds coming out his mouth, and he knew exactly when they were created. They were the sounds that were going on when his soul was being ripped out of his body.

Tucker screaming and calling for help. Sam crying and begging him to breath. The sound of his bones breaking as Sam tried her best to keep his heart going.

It was the moment of his death.

The Lunch Lady looked at him, and her mouth began to widen. Danny sprung forward and sunk his claws into her face. Johnny jumped up and brought down a bench from a lunch table that had been snapped and slammed it into her foot. “Hey now! Save some for me!”

The Lunch Lady smashed her fist into Danny’s side, sending him careening through the air. Danny impacted against the cement wall, and he could feel something in his back break as he smashed into it.

But like Kitty said, ghosts can’t stop. Even though he felt bone cutting and grinding in his body, even though he felt like he was going to throw up from the pain, he still got up.

Danny scrambled to his feet, and he could feel his tail whip about and break more of the wall, but he really didn’t care. He bounded forward as Johnny jabbed the Lunch Lady with the bones of his hand. He sunk his claws into her side and swept, trying to eviscerate her. His fingers slashed on through, but found nothing to actually cut.

She roared and picked up a table and smashed it into, and through, Johnny’s throat. Johnny’s body fell to the floor and somewhere behind Danny, he could hear Johnny shout, “Shit, babe! A little help getting my head back! I hate doing this puppet shit!”

“I gotchu’ babe!”

Shadow picked up the slack, circling around the Lunch Lady’s head and covering her eyes. Danny was not one to be out done and jumped up and bit into her shoulder to get purchase, and then started stabbing with his claws.

She roared and twisted, trying to find something to grab. Eventually her limb wrapped around Danny’s tail and she yanked him right off. She threw him against the wall with enough force to make him sink into it and Danny felt his whole world go dark even in his ghost form for a moment.

She then let out a scream that even sent Shadow flying through the air.

Danny tore himself out of the wall and moved to pounce on her from there but then something in the air shifted. The tension in the air just… stopped, like he had been walking in the woods and all the birds and crickets went silent. The Lunch Lady froze and turned toward the kitchen. “Oh…” the human sound from her was weird. “Someone made my cookies…”

She shifted, slowly, the meat began to compact. It took on a more human form with each step, until all that was left was a large portly old woman wearing a uniform with a kitchen apron.

Danny jumped down off the wall, landing next to her, but she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Instead she slid into the kitchen. Tucker and Sam were sitting next to a fridge, Sam’s black clothes were splattered with flour.

Tucker jumped up and put himself between her and the Lunch Lady, holding up the thermos, but he didn’t activate it. The Lunch Lady walked over to the fridge and put her hand on it. “You made them… My mother’s cookies…”

Tucker opened and closed his mouth. “Uhh... yeah. We did,” he said, after glancing back at Sam to see her reaction.

The Lunch Lady opened the fridge and pulled out the tray. Several dozen cookies were laid out on trays and she gently reached out and touched them. “Just like my daughter, you rushed making them. They’re uneven.” She let out a sob and shoved the tray back into the fridge. She slammed the door with enough force that the giant metal box lurched. She leaned against it. “They’re perfect. They… My grandson hated store bought ones. He… he loved the weird shapes.” She took a step back and wiped a tear from her eyes. “He loved sorting them before eating them. I’d always tell him he could take only two, but he’d take three every time.”

The Lunch Lady smiled. “When they passed, I gave the recipe to the school… but they changed it. They got rid of it…” her voice dropped down into a growl, and the sound of sirens rang out for a split second, before she whirled around to face Tucker and Sam. “You’ll remember it, won’t you?”

“We will,” Sam said. She laughed slightly. “This is… this is going to be something that’s hard to forget.”

She walked over to the two of them. Both of them took a step back, but before they could get far, she enveloped them in a hug. “Thank you, children.” She started sobbing as she rubbed their backs and stroked their hair. “Thank you, thank you…”

Then suddenly, she was gone. She vanished into thin air.

“Man,” Johnny said, “I wish my mother would have disappeared like that.” Everyone turned to look at him, finding him to just be a head in Kitty’s arms. Kitty rolled her eyes and started giving him a noogie. “Ow, babe, quit it!”

“You’re ruining the moment! That was sweet!” Kitty complained before turning around. “Ugh, let’s just get your head attached again and we can get out of here.” She said leaving the mortals in the kitchen.

Or two mortals and some sort of ghost creature.

“We should get out of here too,” Sam said, “Who knows when the cops will show up.” Danny nodded before moving closer to the two of them. He reached over and scooped Sam up in one arm. “Whoa hey!” she shouted.

Danny then reached over and grabbed Tucker and threw him over his shoulder. “Whoa dude! I can waaaaaaaa-” Tucker’s complaints trailed off as Danny bounded through the school, each leap taking him ten or more feet.

So it was less than a minute before Danny made it outside with all them in tow. Right into a dozen cops standing around the front door with riot shields, and eight members of the Ghostly Investigation and Wards. Helicopters were circling around overhead, and the moment the trio stepped outside, spotlights were centered on them.

“Hold fire! Hold fire!” was called out and Danny squeezed his friends closer to him on instinct. One of the agents walked up to them. He took off his sunglasses and looked at Sam and Tucker. “You two, Samantha Manson, and Tucker Foley, correct? Where’s Daniel?”

Danny looked at Sam and Tucker, who had jumped off Danny the moment the agent had walked up. “Uh… funny story… that…” Tucker began nervously.

“I don’t like funny, I like facts.”

Danny pushed Sam behind him, and then Tucker. He looked the agent in the eyes, and told himself that even if something happened to him, Sam and Tucker would be okay.

The agent’s eyebrow quirked as Danny felt the ice that was in his veins get chased away. “I’m fine, sir.” Danny said defiantly. He kept a grasp on that ice, on the fact that if the agents did do something, the only thing between Tucker, Sam, and them was him. He kept himself ready to pull on that at a moment's notice.

The agent reached up, and pressed his fingers against Danny’s jugular. Two heart beats passed and the man let out a quiet, “Fascinating.” His hand dropped to his side. “The ghosts are gone?”

Danny shrugged. “The Lunch Lady wasn’t running around like a blob monster anymore, and the other three that helped were walking around like normal… I mean one was missing his body, but…”

“If they aren’t running around corrupted, we have much bigger fish to fry,” the agent turned around and raised his hand up in the air with two fingers pointed up and circled them around. “All clear!” he shouted, and a chorus repeating it sounded out across the line.

The agent took several steps forward before turning back. “Come on you three, let’s get you home.”

[twilightknight17]

Today on P5T, I was right, Jade was right, the boss continues to be absolutely the worst, and we’ve learned some new stuff!

All the freed citizens refer to her as “Lady Yuki”, so Ann questions whether or not she’s married. This offends the hats. XD

But yes! She used to be married to Yoshiki! So that means she is, in fact, Toshiro’s mother! I was correct. And once Yuki takes the captives to safety, Toshiro explains what happened to his mother. He had a rough childhood.

But he came up with a plan to spend some more time with her! He would sneak her out of the hospital, and they would go to the amusement park together. His mother went along with this plan, and they had a great day. At least until they left.

His mother passed away soon after, and his father put the blame for his mother’s death on him. To the point of trying to poison his memories of his mother. Like an absolute fucker.

But… there are so many Thieves who don’t have moms. Futaba, Haru, Makoto, Yusuke… So Futaba and Yusuke are able to talk him down and reassure him that they’re sure his mother didn’t hate him.

With that settled, they charge onwards through the castle to confront Yoshiki himself. He’s horrible, he sets up a whole thing where you have to keep fighting your way across the room towards him to deal more damage, and most of his attacks can knock you back. Which is great when you have to be crossing raised platforms.

The TVs are cool. Very nice P4 vibes.

After we get down to the last hit, the game does that thing where it’s like “oh noooo, we’re going to be overrun if we don’t do somethingggg” while I’m just over here like, “No? I’m fine? I just need to do one more fight?” But it paves the way for a dramatic moment where Yuki and all the citizens return to bust in and overwhelm Yoshiki so we can get the last hit in.

He doesn’t go down, though. He stays up and keeps talking. All the TVs are showing the revolution happening outside, where the city is burning and the citizens are fighting to the last. The Thieves are finally hit with the realization that when they do things, there can be negative consequences regardless of their good intentions. We’re not going to go into this too much because this is P5 and we do not dig into the grey morality of the Phantom Thieves, but in this specific instance, I’m going to say it’s fine to not dig, because instead we get Yoshiki taking the opposite extreme.

Says the man working his citizens to death running the power grid so he can keep his fucking surveillance cameras running. Like, fucking hell. Dude. At least this carnage is because of the citizens fighting for their future, and not because you’re torturing them.

Then he starts laying into Toshiro like an absolute monster. I wonder how much older Toshiro is than Akira Konoe. They could have been ‘murdering our abusive fathers’ buddies as children.

And as one last parting shot, he barfs up a massive laser and tries to blast Toshiro. But Yuki shoves Toshiro out of the way and takes the hit, and once again, there is blood pooling on the floor. Yoshiki is a dick about it, of course.

Immediately afterwards, he dissolves. So like, were you hanging on through sheer force of will just to blast him? But before she dies, Yuki assures him that she has never resented him. She was glad she got to spend that time with him, because she loved him. It was really, really cute, actually.

...Knight, huh? Damn it Atlus. XDDDDD

The country is now free, the hatpeople are happy, the Thieves are mobbed with thanks again, and Erina is still having a mild existential crisis. Because if that was Toshiro’s mom, what is she?

But we’re heading for the next door, and crossing our fingers that it either takes us back to Erina’s world, or home.

…………..oh god. It’s a school.

Erina feels like the atmosphere is suffocating, but many of the Thieves don’t notice any difference. Toshiro doesn’t recognize the place, but they’re used to that, so they decide to go inside and see what’s going on. Inside the school, they return to their street clothes, and the halls are deserted, but they find a weird door.

Obviously we gotta go through the weird door, and on the other side, we find Hell! Hell is made of lava and speakers.

So the gimmick for this place is that there are speaker enemies on the battlefield, and they announce “rules” that you can’t break while you’re in their range, otherwise you’ll incur a penalty (which is being knocked out of cover so the other enemies can wallop you). After we manage to get out of the hellpocket, we meet this Kingdom’s hatpeople, who are all in school uniforms. They’ve formed the Rebel Club to fight the tyrant who has taken over the school, which is some kind of… fire-themed guy.

I’ve got a couple theories here. The tyrant might be a delinquent, a bully, that sort of thing. Might be some uncaring school administrator. Might be Toshiro himself, off the rails because of his father’s expectations. He was probably student council president. You know he was.

So we’ve gotta go get four keys to unlock the door to the final boss, where the exit to the school probably is. Because all the hatstudents are trapped here too. Each of the keys is in one of those hellpockets, so it’s off to the courtyard to get the first one. After a tough battle, we find…

...oh. So it’s like a Jail core. Not an actual key, but a significant object to the person. Time for a flashback! And wow, I was right, he was student council president! He got beaten up trying to protect another kid! And he… uh… oh…

I’m not gonna lie, this feels very ‘unrealized childhood crush’ to me. Erina realizes that this is probably why she’s been feeling so weird in the school. And everyone realizes that they really need more info, and getting the keys will probably clear up more of Toshiro’s memories.

Apparently Eri is just like Erina, though. Strong sense of justice, strong urge to jump in and help regardless of danger, all that good stuff. I was going to say that there’s nothing in canon that says we can’t take Erina back to our world at the end of this, but apparently there is a real equivalent to Erina out there. And she’d probably be a better fiancee than Marie by leaps and bounds.

So that’s the third Kingdom! We will see who the boss ends up being.

Other notes:

There doesn't seem to be a human person here so far.

I love Ann’s surprised sprite.

I love that Toshiro has just reached the point of rolling with all this.

We MIGHT have gotten a vague Maruki allusion.

I got my Danger Noodle! I love Yurlunger. XD

[lululeighwrites]

Week 2 — Pluck

characters: lorelei (fankid oc), shigure

setting: restored valla, several years post fire emblem fates: revelation

It’s the sound their lyre makes as their fingers strum the instrument’s delicate strings, playing from memory the tune they’ve been practicing steadily for the past several weeks. The notes and rhythm come easy to them now, filling the empty corridor with its mellow sound, competing with the excitement and jubilation spilling out from the gathering a few doors down.

Parties had never really been Lorelei’s cup of tea, least of all those that were exceptionally noisy and attended by more people than they could count on one hand that they didn’t recognize. Sensing their unease, Cenn had taken the empty seat to their right and encouraged them to take a break from the festivities if they would like, just so long as they didn’t wander too far.

They didn’t need to travel far to find the calm they needed, leaving the room with their treasured instrument in hand and making themself comfortable on one of the upholstered benches lining the hallway. The discordance in their mind soon quiets as they begin to play, imagining how their favourite tree back home must be billowing gently in the breeze as its leaves rustle in the wind.

Eyes falling closed as they allow their fingers to move by memory and feel, Lorelei does not hear the footsteps approaching them—engrossed in their music as they are—nor do they notice the other’s presence until they open their eyes and jump back with a startle.

“I’m sorry!” The boy is quick to apologize, taking a step back to give them some space. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Lorelei shakes their head, reassuring the other no serious harm had befallen them. “I wasn’t expecting to find someone listening to me when I looked up.”

“Why?”

They gesture towards the light pouring out from the room a few doors away. A delightful cheer echoes out into the hall, followed by several adoring coos and other expressions of encouragement.

“Oh right, my family’s here visiting to see the new baby too.”

“But not you?”

“I’m looking for something. Want to help?”

They look back towards the door again, tapping on the frame of their lyre as they think through their options. “Is it far?”

“Maybe. It’s at least within the castle.”

“I dunno, I don’t wanna get lost.”

“We won’t!” 

Lorelei rolls their eyes at that, their confidence in the other diminishing.

“...Probably.”

“Well, what is it you’re looking for? What makes you think it’s even here?”

“Stories my mother told me—well actually, stories her mother told her—say the castle has an old amphitheatre. Apparently, my grandmother performed on its stage, once upon a time.”

“And what will you do if you find it?”

For the first time, the boy takes a moment to think. Clearly, his eagerness to locate the amphitheatre had been so forefront of his mind that he had not thought through this plan.

“Well, you’re a musician. When we find it, I could dance on stage while you play the lyre.”

“No way!”

“Why not?”

“I’m not that good at playing. And I only know three songs by memory.”

“That’s plenty!”

“Not really…besides, none of the songs I can play are that great for dancing.”

The boy frowns, growing silent once more to think of something new. It’s then that a voice calls out from further down the corridor, catching the other’s attention as the man repeats himself. 

“Sounds like you have someone looking for you.”

“Sooner than I expected… will you be here tomorrow?”

“On this bench? Probably not.”

“You know what I mean!”

Lorelei laughs a bit. Shigure—as they’ve now learned—was easy to get along with, unlike some of the other children at the party.

“Yes, we’re visiting for most of the season.”

“Great! I’ll find you tomorrow then. Bring your lyre!”

Before they have the chance to give Shigure their name, he leaves as quickly as he had appeared, returning to the party with whom Lorelei assumes is his father. Once more, the hallway grows quiet, safe for the idle chatter which occasionally filters out of the room, and the skilled plucking of strings, Lorelei returning once more to their lyre.

Perhaps this evening they would ask Papa and Cenn over supper if it would be alright to do a bit of exploring in the coming days. Shigure seemed rather intent on having them come along, and admittedly Lorelei’s curiosity was now piqued over the acoustics the amphitheatre may hold.

Author's note: Like mom and dad, the fankids refer to Leigh as cenn

divider by saradika

[starseedfxofficial]

The Rounding Bottom Masterstroke: A Hidden Gem for USDJPY Traders Picture this: you're on the hunt for a long-lost treasure, a rounding-bottom formation in the USDJPY chart. You’re excited, poised, and ready to take on this quest, yet it’s like trying to find a single sushi place that serves good wasabi in a city that swears by ramen. But don’t worry, because in this article, we’re not only going to uncover this rare formation—we're going to master it. Get ready for some insider knowledge that even most traders fail to recognize, sprinkled with a bit of humor, of course. Why Rounding Bottoms Are Like Vintage Wine (And Why They’re So Good) The rounding bottom is one of those things that takes time to develop, much like a fine vintage wine. You can't rush it, and if you spot it too early, it's like sipping a freshly pressed grape—it's just not the same. The beauty of a rounding bottom is that it represents a significant market shift, a change from bearish sentiment to bullish hope. It’s the market whispering, "Maybe I’m done with this sadness, maybe it’s time to rise again." For USDJPY traders, recognizing this formation can be a game-changer. Imagine predicting the start of an uptrend—it’s like watching the protagonist in a movie finally get their act together after 90 minutes of chaos. Except here, you could be profiting off that happy ending. The Common Pitfall Most Traders Fall Into (And How to Dodge It Like a Pro) Most traders see a rounding bottom and think it's a quick “Buy now!” signal, only to watch their trade crash like that cheap, plastic drone they got on a Black Friday deal. But let’s bust a myth here: rounding bottoms take time, they don’t magically finish their curve overnight. Patience is key. Instead of jumping in too early, wait for confirmation—look for that breakout moment when the resistance is breached. Think of it like a hesitant cat finally leaping over a fence. You’ll want to jump in after the leap, not while the cat is staring down the fence. The Hidden Indicators to Watch (And Why Most Traders Ignore Them) The rounding bottom isn’t just about waiting for a U-shape to complete; there are other indicators at play that can help validate the formation. Watch the RSI and volume indicators. When RSI slowly inches up from the oversold zone, like a snail making its heroic journey across a sidewalk, that’s when the real magic starts to happen. Volume is your second key. During the formation of a rounding bottom, volume tends to decrease, like a crowd losing interest in a bad street performer. But when things start heating up and the breakout happens, watch the volume pick up like that one street performer who finally nails the backflip—the excitement comes rushing back. Breaking Down a Real Example: USDJPY's Classic Rounding Bottom Let’s look at an actual case from the USDJPY chart from 2022 (yes, real examples make the dream work). During this year, the currency pair showed signs of exhaustion after a major downtrend. There was a moment when it looked like the bottom had arrived, but it took months for the pattern to truly round off. Volume fell significantly, and RSI started creeping upwards. When the breakout happened, it wasn't a roar, but rather a steady, quiet rise—the type that doesn’t come with fireworks but pays off well for those who held on. Ninja Tactics for Using the Rounding Bottom on USDJPY So how do we make the most of this rounding-bottom formation? Here are some ninja tactics that the trading books don’t often tell you about: - Position Scaling: Start small. When you first see the rounding bottom taking shape, resist the urge to go all-in. Place smaller positions, and as the curve becomes clearer, you add more. It’s like placing bets at a poker table—you don’t shove all your chips in unless you’re absolutely sure of the hand. - Target Levels: Set multiple take-profit targets. A rounding bottom formation typically follows through with several bullish movements, not just one. Consider setting your first target near an obvious resistance, but then let a part of your position ride until the next major level. It’s the difference between grabbing one slice of cake and taking the whole thing. - Avoid Emotional Bias: Once the bottom starts rounding up, avoid letting FOMO dictate your trades. Remember, patience is the name of the game. A good trader rides the train from the station, not when it’s already halfway down the tracks. Expert Quotes: Adding Some Authority to This Strategy As Dr. James Fisher, a respected financial analyst, puts it: "The rounding bottom is among the most powerful reversal patterns in Forex because it reflects a fundamental change in market sentiment. Traders who identify it correctly stand to gain significantly." Another Forex trading pro, Sara Adams, states, "USDJPY responds well to technical formations, especially on higher timeframes. A rounded bottom can be a long-term indicator that things are about to shift." Underground Secrets Most Traders Overlook The rounding bottom is not just about catching a reversal; it's about understanding the psychology of the market. Here’s a secret: most traders miss this formation on higher timeframes. Why? Because they’re busy hunting for candlestick patterns on the 15-minute chart. It’s like trying to judge a painting by only looking at one small brushstroke. Switch to a daily or even weekly chart when looking for a rounding bottom. You'll get the big picture, and you won't fall prey to all the noise that lower timeframes provide. Wrap-Up: The Path from Rookie Mistakes to Master Moves USDJPY traders, it’s time to look beyond the surface and into the curves. The rounding bottom formation, when properly understood and traded with patience, can turn a good trade into a great one. Think of it as a slow-cooked meal—you've got to give it time, let the flavors meld, and then savor the end result. Start scaling into positions, watch the volume like a hawk, and keep an eye on the RSI as it crawls out of oversold zones. Most importantly, don’t get caught up in the hype—trade like the pros, with precision, patience, and a bit of humor to keep things light. Because honestly, there’s nothing funnier than finally getting it right and watching your account grow. —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated Read the full article

[lcfthaunted]

It’s been about a month since Mazie’s decided to stay in the desert, become a permanent fixture in the Haven. She’s sitting near the front doors, sketchbook (a gift from Aiden) in her lap as she captures the landscape outside.

At least, she had been, until she noticed the truck. She closes her sketchbook and sets it and her pencils on the floor next to her, standing when the truck draws closer. She doesn’t get a good enough look at the driver before the truck turns and reverses towards to doors, revealing a bed full of furniture. The driver’s door opens, and the driver swings around so his right foot touches the ground first. Mazie gasps in surprise, recognizing him immediately. She tosses a glance at Jack, as if to make sure she’s not imagining things.

A black lab jumps out of the cab after him. Zach reaches back into the cab for a backpack, slings it over one shoulder, and the pair head for the doors. He’s only got eyes for his sister when he enters, a warm smile lightening his features. “Hey, Zee. Sorry it took so long.” He drops the backpack to pull her close, wrapping her in a tight hug.

Mazie buries her face in his shoulder, almost immediately overcome with tears. Zach gently rubs her back, letting her cry. He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re always gonna be my little sister,” he promises in a soft murmur. “I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear enough before.”

She just shakes her head and clings to him for several long moments, trying to wrest her emotions back under control while enjoying a hug from her brother for the first time in over thirteen years. She doesn’t pull away, just shifts to she can wipe at her face, giving an embarrassed little laugh. “Sorry.”

“Nothin’ to apologize for, baby.” He tips her chin up enough to press a kiss to her forehead. “I woulda come by earlier, but a little mouse wanted me to get this to you.” He starts to bend to grab the bag, but she’s faster, releasing him to drop and grab the bag, straightening again just as quickly.

“Is this what I think it is?” she asks, grin spreading across her face, bag handle in both hands.

He grins back. “I didn’t check, but knowin’ our mouse, probably.”

She tears the backpack open and squeals in delight, snatching a blue lace object out of the bag and clutching it to her chest. “I have,” she declares, “the best little sister in the entire world.”

“I’ll tell ‘er you said that,” Zach laughs.

“Do.” She shoves the lace back in the backpack and digs through it, making delighted noises at Mallaidh’s care package. She sighs, holding the bag to her chest, and gives Zach a sad smile. “Tell her thank you for me.” She hesitates a beat, then starts, “Is she…?”

“She’s fine, Maze,” he assures her immediately. “Glad you stayed out here, actually.” his voice quiets; the next is for Mazie alone, not any nearby ears. “Glad you figured out how to choose yourself. She was worried she’d watch you die, in there.”

Mazie’s expression twists in remorse. “I don’t like leaving her behind,” she whispers.

He pulls her into another hug; she goes easily. “I know, little one. We’re tryna convince her to come out here, but you know our little mouse.”

She chokes on a laugh. “Don’t I ever.” She drops her head against his shoulder again. “She’s doing good in there,” she mumbles miserably. “I just wish she didn’t have to be in the belly of the damn beast to do it.”

“Yeah.” Zach slings his arm across her shoulders. “Alright, little girl. Show me where you’re stayin’ so we can get you set up proper.”

Mazie leads Zach to the unit she’s been using; she’d chosen one of the smaller vacant ones to avoid taking up more space than necessary.

Zach takes one glance at it and declares, “No.” He sets off down the hall in search of another vacant unit.

Mazie gawks at him for a moment before starting after him. “Zach—”

“Look, if we’re gettin’ Mallaidh out to you, gotta be ready for her, yeah? Ain’t squishin’ the two’f you in that teeny thing.”

“Oh, she’s coming to me?”

“She sure as hell ain’t stayin’ at my place’a work.”

Mazie frowns hard at him. “And where do you work?”

Zach tosses her a grin. “The Tavern.” He says it like it should mean something; to anyone else, it probably does. “Here,” he decides, before Mazie can protest any further. “Now, I’m gonna need help unloadin’ the truck, an’ I don’t have all day if I’m gettin’ back to the Tavern before dusk. Think your Jack’ll lend a hand?”

Mazie glowers at her brother. “Jack’s probably busy,” she says, a dangerous edge to her voice. “I’m sure I can scare up some other free hands for you.”

Zach just grins at her.

[i-believe-in-melinda-may]

This came together a bit easier than I was expecting, but I think it has the spirit of the original conversation while also having Bill and Laura being as familiar as they would be after knowing each other as they do.

“We’re not going to start that. They’re still human beings. Tell the captain that I expect daily reports on the wellbeing of the prisoners, and if there’s any mysterious deaths, the Astral Queen may find herself on her own without the Galactica’s protection,” Laura instructs, and as she does is torn between admiring her nerve for offering up the Galactica for protection without his consent, but he also feels annoyed because of the exact same reason.

“Yes, Madame President,” Billy responds, and Bill is shocked to hear someone call Laura that for the first time, though it also seems right, before getting up and leaving.

“EJ, can you give your dad and I a minute?” Laura requests as even after everything that has happened, she still wants to keep her daughter from seeing her and Bill fight.

“Sure,” EJ says to her mother, recognizing what she is doing and not having it in her to argue against it, not after everything that has happened. “I’ll wait outside,” EJ tells her parents.

“Don’t go far,” Bill tells his daughter, as he knows there are a lot of dangerous things going on at the moment and he wants her safe.

“I won’t,” EJ assures her father as she heads out and because it is clear to her that they want to talk alone she closes the hatch behind her.   

“That looks like a nasty cut,” Laura notes, trying to tell if he has gotten stiches, but Bill is currently too far away for her to tell.

“That’s what happens when you fight a machine,” Bill responds, as he walks over to Laura. “Cylon’s look like us now, Laura, right down to the blood,” Bill explains, having no intention of keeping that from Laura, as he sits down across form her.

“Are you sure?” Laura asks, her voice shocked, realising that that means things are about to get so much worse.

“Positive,” Bill responds. “They could be anyone,” Bill tells her.

“Well, that’s horrifying,” Laura comments, knowing that it is going to be a huge problem, and she just adds it to the list, and she leans back on her chair. “Are you planning to sage a military coup?” Laura asks.

“What?” Bill asks shocked.

“Do you plan to declare martial law? Take over the government?” Laura asks, leaning forward once again.

“You know me better than that, Laura,” Bill tells her, as he has always made it clear how he feels about marital law, something which he would think Laura should know.  

“I thought I did,” Laura admits, and Bill realises that his earlier words hurt her more than he realised, and he isn’t sure if he can make that right.

“I’m President of the colonies now Bill, which makes it my responsibility to look at the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is that there are fifty thousand civilian refuges out there who don’t stand a chance without you and your ship to protect them,” Laura tells Bill.

“You will if you stay here at Ragnar,” Bill tells Laura, thinking that is for the best. “You and the fleet can stay here where it’s safe, the storm here effects all Cylon technology, while the Galactica will rejoin the fight, because that’s my mission,” Bill says, knowing that Laura should understand that because his ‘mission’ is always what got between them.

“Your as bad as Saul,” Laura says, rolling her eyes, and Bill recognizes the insult. “I can’t believe I’m the one who has to keep saying this, but the war is over, Bill,” Laura tells him, needing him to comprehend that.

“Actually Laura, it hasn’t begun,” Bill corrects.

“That’s insane,” Laura says, trying to keep her frustration down as twenty-seven years of experience tell her that becoming frustrated won’t get her anywhere.  

“Would you rather that we run?” Bill asks, not understanding how Laura could think that’s a good idea.  

“Yes, absolutely,” Laura answers, without hesitation. “It’s the only sane option we have,” Laura informs him. “We leave this solar system, and we don’t look back, it’s our only hope,” Laura tells Bill, needing him to understand as while she can lead the fleet if they are going to have a chance at survival then they need Bill and the Galactica.

“And go where?” Bill asks, wondering if she has really though that through.  

“I don’t know,” Laura admits. “Another star system, another planet, somewhere where the Cylon’s won’t find us,” Laura says to Bill.

“If you really want to run then you can, but this ship will stand, and we will fight,” Bill says, even though he doesn’t want to say goodbye to Laura and EJ again, and Laura continues to try to push her frustration down.

“That’s a mistake,” Laura tells Bill. “Bill, I need you to really listen to me, the human race is about to be wiped out,” Laura tells him “We have fifty thousand people and that’s it,” Laura reminds him. “Now, if we are even going to survive as a species, then we need to get the hell out of her, and people need to start having babies,” Laura tells Bill, needing him to understand exactly what is at stake.  

“Excuse me,” Bill says before getting up and heading out of the room, Laura’s words having more effect on him than he’d like to admit, and after watching him go Laura takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes, feeling a headache coming alone.

“I’m going to guess that didn’t go well,” EJ’s voice says, and Larua opens her eyes to see that her daughter has walked back into the room.

“Honestly it went about as well as I was expecting,” Laura says, knowing that the best she can hope for is that Bill thinks about what she said and realises that running is their only option.

“Dad wants to fight, doesn’t he?” EJ asks, as from the whispers she has heard, and what her uncle said earlier, that’s what she assumes is the case.

“He does,” Laura confirms.

“Do you think that is a fight that could possibly be won?” EJ asks her mother, and for a few moments Laura debates how to answer that, as she doesn’t want to lie to her daughter, but she also doesn’t want the truth to traumatise her.

“No, I don’t,” Laura admits, deciding that answering the question honestly is for the best.  

“Then I really hope Dad listens to you,” EJ admits, knowing that she doesn’t want to lose her father now that she just got him back, nor does she want to lose Lee who would also be in danger if their father decides to keep fighting.