#and no i can't just work somewhere else for various reasons

[shalfeis]

😳Hey I really like your cat headcanon , wonder if you will do it again with another character like mydei,anaxa and the other character from amphoreus or other character from other planet 🤔

I'm glad you liked it. It's been a while since I posted something, so you gave me some inspiration, I'm sorry if it took a long time.

possible ooc, and that's all, ig

reader x anaxa, mydei, march 7 (separately)

part 1, part 2, part 3

Anaxagoras

A fairly calm and non-confrontational cat. If you have other pets, then he treats them neutrally. Anaxa also generally doesn't make you uncomfortable.

He treats water procedures quite normally. He understands the need for it himself, even if he doesn't always like it.

Definitely picky about food. God forbid you give him the wrong brand of food, you'll get the most judgmental look in the world. He will pointedly turn away after that and go somewhere.

Anaxa watches various courses and webinars with you, and very carefully. He expresses his displeasure if he notices that the "teacher" is saying some nonsense unrelated to the lesson. For example, he will wag his tail irritably or snort.

And yes, you won't be able to shirk work with him. He starts looking at you so disapprovingly that you start feeling guilty. But hey, look at it this way! You just don't have deadlines, because all the work is done on time, and from time to time you get a pretty good bonus for it.

He's not the most talkative, but when he wants to get your attention, he meows softly and waves his paw. When he does that, your heart melts, he looks so charming. Bonus points for an eye patch.

He has a habit of coming to you late at night and going to sleep next to you and purring softly, and early in the morning he gets up and returns to his couch. You wouldn't even know about it if you hadn't woken up in the middle of the night one day. You were sure he was spending the whole night on the couch! What a tricky one.

Anaxa is not the best in terms of comfort or support, but nevertheless he will be there for you until you feel better. While you're spilling out everything that's bothering you, he listens to you carefully. After that, he will snuggle up to you a little, making it clear that he is near. It helps tremendously.

Anyway, either you have a bad memory, or he has too good a memory. He's constantly helping you find things, like house keys or a second glove, which for some reason is always missing. And he ALWAYS finds the things you need.

As for strangers in your home, it's a little difficult. He usually stays away from the guests and remains neutral. But if they call him Anaxa, then I feel sorry for them. He's proud of the name you gave him, Anaxagoras, so it makes him angry when someone distorts his name or doesn't pronounce it in full. The privilege of calling him Anaxa belongs only to his mistress (to you).

In general, he is not against the move. All that matters to him is that the house is comfortable and you like it. And sometimes a change of scenery doesn't hurt.

It may be difficult, it's not always clear, but Anaxa loves you. There's no way he's going to trade this life for a life with someone else.

Mydei

A big and calm cat. Easily gets along with other pets.

Not fussy about food at all. He'll eat everything, and yet he likes your cooking more than the food.

He loves cooking with you. Well, you don't let him get close to the stove, afraid he'll get hurt. But you let him be with you. His presence alone makes the cooking process more comfortable and fun.

Like Anaxa, he is calm about water procedures. He waits patiently until you finish combing his hair, washing and drying his fur.

Helps you with the cleaning. Yeah, he can't do much with his paws, but, he brings and takes away small objects, for example, a cloth or remote control, his toys, and so on. It's cute.

He's also quite good at consolation. If you're sad, he'll butt his head, sit on your lap, and start making cookies, while purring to everyone. Do I have to say that in a moment you forget why you were sad?

You swear that you won't find a partner because of your cat. Seriously, if they're not going to be the same as Mydei, then why are they needed at all? He's too good.

As for the guests, he treats them calmly. Prefers to watch them from the couch in the living room, or being next to you. Some of your visitors with children are afraid that such a big cat might harm them. But as you know, nothing like that happens. On the contrary, he seems to enjoy messing with them.

Mydei, like Anaxagoras, doesn't really like it when guests call him Mydei instead of Mydeimos, but he's already come to terms with it.

You go for a walk together from time to time. You have a lot of photos in which Mydei looks majestic, as if he is a very rare breed of cat, knows about it and is proud of it.

He may seem inaccessible, but in fact he's a sweetheart, the gentlest and kindest cat you've ever had. He loves you very much, just like you love him.

March 7

If the first two seemed pretty calm to you and you wanted someone more active, then get a walking hurricane, not like a Trailblazer, but still. You will never feel bored. She quickly establishes relationships with new pets.

She is very active and playful. You bought a lot of toys for her, and she likes them. Especially a big teddy bear, she can even fall asleep on it.

Also not exactly picky about food. She just likes some brands of food less than others, that's all. She eats your cooking with pleasure too.

If we are talking about water procedures, then three things must be observed: the first is that the water should be warm, not hot, the second is that some toys are needed, and the third is photographs. Although the latter is already being done, you just can't resist taking a couple of photos.

Speaking of photos. March is VERY photogenic, just really. You have a whole album dedicated to her. And she also somehow learned how to take photos herself on your phone. They're so funny that you can't help but laugh. You even started a blog for her on one of the social networks, and she quickly gained popularity.

She likes to watch you when you're doing something. Whether it's cooking, cleaning, or working on a project, she's interested in everything you do.

You're sleeping with your arms around each other. Of course, she has her own couch and stuff, but she prefers to sleep next to you.

She likes it when you have visitors. She examines them with interest, allows herself to be stroked. However, she doesn't really like it when someone starts teasing her with other names, like April 9 or September 4. But anyway, she's happy to have guests.

You can say that she will wholeheartedly support your decision to move, if there is one. She will miss the old house, of course, but she will also be very happy about the new one. So many new memories await!

She's very attached to you. You are inseparable, you love each other very much.

[obae-me]

Upside Down- CH 14

Author's Notes: Hey, loves, I've said it before but just in case, I'll say it again. Sorry for the delay. Stuff happened, health was bad, jobs were quit, unemployment was a pain, hospitals were visited for various reasons, and overall, last year was one of the worst years of my life. I'm glad I can be back, and while I still can't write as fast as I used to, I should be getting works out once again. Thank you all for your patience, thank you all for still reading after all this time, thank you for being here, even with the fandom dying. I love you all. <3

Warnings: Blood Mention, fantasy fighting and violence. As Always, Read Safely.

Word Count: 7,406

Previous Chapter Next Chapter (Coming Soon)

An Unexpected Guardian Angel

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If there was one thing you hated most about the human known to most demons as Pride, it was his utterly infuriating, deeply disturbing- almost creepy- nature of being infallible. Being so small, you’d think you’d have the little- pun not intended- joys of being able to spot scratches in the furniture or some stray coins on the floor or something. Anything to smugly be able to prove his failures. But no. There wasn’t so much as a dust bunny under the cover of furniture. It only made you all the more frustrated. Not only that, but he had apparently an angel’s level of focus. No distraction you had tried would get him to leave his path of patrol around his home office. And at this point, you had done everything you were capable of. Unplugging lamps, checking…other cords… Okay, so maybe that’s all you had done, but what else were you expected to do?! Moving from his bag to under one of the lounge chairs had been hard enough as is. If you made too much noise or made him suspicious, he would start looking around! Getting caught would ruin everything.

You were weaker than you ever had been, not even able to push the furniture an inch. Getting out without being spotted was surely an impossible task. This room had you trapped. But time was ticking, the longer you paced back and forth, the more Beel’s potential danger increased. There was only one thing you could hope for. That Mammon or Levi would come help you.

Feet stopped pacing. Hope for human help? Was that really what you had just thought? Well, they did prove themselves somewhat dependable in the game world. Still, it wasn’t like you to just think something like that so naturally. No matter how helpless this seemed, you would have to rely on your own actions to get yourself out of this. Think. The door would be too dangerous to try. Not only would jumping or crawling up to the knob be noisy, but the doorway was right in Lucifer’s line of sight. Was there another exit you could take? Based off the slight breeze in the room, there should be an open window.

Slinking from one end of the couch to the other, you followed the rays of natural light back to the window pane. Closed. But that made no sense. You could feel air shifting around the room. If it wasn’t coming from the window, then where? Staying as hidden as possible, you moved around the border of the room, trying to follow the breeze. Eventually, you spotted a strange sort of…cage attached to the floor? Slanted metal bars covered a small part of the ground. The air was coming through there, you could feel it. You had your questions on what it was, but you could always figure it out later. Surely it had to lead outside, or at least somewhere else other than here. From this angle too, if you were very careful, the human’s gaze would be shielded from the screen.

Jogging over quietly, you knelt at the bars. With all your might, you pulled at one of the slates, working on bending it enough to let you through. Nothing. Something like this would normally be easy… After you caught your breath, you noticed a round metal half-dome with a divot in the middle. It served to fasten the bars in place. Your fingers grasped at it. It was awkward to hold onto… You jammed a few of your fingers and claws into the mid-section, and started to twist. Strength was leaving you more every second, sweat beading down your face as you pulled hard enough to leave your fingers and hands raw. But you felt a little bit of it give way. Fueled by a stubbornness best befitting humans, you exuded more strength than you should’ve had to fully twist the fastening out of the ground. Setting it quietly aside, you pushed the metal cover over enough just to slip underneath.

Free at last. All you had to do was follow this path down and straight to the outside… Wait, branching paths? Which was the right way? What was this metal maze?… Keeping your movement quiet, you wandered around until you saw some more light. Unfortunately, it wasn’t light to outside, but to another room. Barred by another gate. The more you moved on, the more you realized you didn't exactly escape, just extended the walls of your prison. Every potential way out was blocked, and there was no way to work on the bars on the other end. Now what?…

Hold on. If this led to different rooms, could it lead to every room? And wasn’t there someone you knew that holed up in their room more often than not?

With your new mission accepted, you hurried with a bit more purpose.

At just a glance, it was difficult to tell if his room was occupied. Your sequestered vision only gave you an open view of his bed which was empty. He also enjoyed keeping the room as dim as the Devildom, which you had to wonder if it was partially to blame for his rather consistent squinty expression.

Luckily, you didn’t need just sight to determine if the human was there or not, for sound was the biggest factor. If you were learning anything about this human in particular, it was discovering that he was almost always accompanied by a nearly never-ending curse of clacking. Clicky-clacky, tippy-tappy, for hours on end, whether it was fingers on keys or screens or buttons, or simply nervous tapping. Even in here you could hear it. In fact, this chamber appeared to amplify it.

“Levi!” You hissed quietly, still in stealth mode. No response. Either your voice was a lot quieter being tiny or he had his headphones on. You would actually put money down Mammon style on it being both. Just to give it a bit of a test, you raised your voice loudly, trying to propel it up into the room. “Hey!” Crickets. Well, this is what you got for expecting a human to save you. Now what?… There had to be some way to get his attention… If only there was something you could throw. For a while, you paced back and forth, shoes clattering in this metal labyrinth.

That was it!

You had briefly thought of it in Lucifer’s office, but dismissed it for fear of him discovering your secret from your shrunken shoe. But that wouldn’t have to be a fear here. Even if someone else saw it in Levi’s room, they’d just consider it an accessory to one of his many statue things, whatever they were called. Slipping both off, you shifted your body into a proper place. If only you could hit him from here, but unfortunately you were reserved to only be able to see the corner his bed was in. What to aim for to get his attention? And what would be easiest? You only had two chances after all.

After much consideration, you settled all your chips on a small orange tinted bottle. It looked mostly empty, making it relatively easy to knock over, and the few small objects inside would hopefully make enough noise to get his attention. It was your best bet. A few blinks cleared up the dust in your eyes. A deep breath. A heavy swing hucked one of your shoes out past the metal grate and towards the nightstand. It arched through the air, and struck your target. Yes! The bottle wobbled and fell. It hit its side… and rolled away from the edge. No! It would be so much harder to knock off now…

Now what? Maybe you could bounce your last shoe off of… No, that wouldn’t really work. The lamp? No, you already determined trying to hit the button would be far too risky to be worth it.

In the middle of your rather panicked calculations, a hinge’s squeak echoed through the room. “Yo,” was the word that followed heavy footsteps. There was hope!

“What do you want, Mammon? I’m in the middle of something…”

“You seen MC today? I’ve looked around, and I can’t find ‘em. You don’t…think something happened, do you?”

Levi didn’t respond for a while, the silence the hint to his focus on other things. After a little bit, he sighed. The clacking took a brief pause. “Say that again? I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t take it personal! I had thirty seconds left to beat that challenge! Just say it again!”

When Mammon spoke next, it was in a grumbling tone. “It’s MC, dammit. They’re not here.”

“Well… I mean, just because we have pacts, doesn’t mean they have to be attached to our hips 24/7.”

Some flustered stammering followed that. “T-That’s not what I was gettin’ at! Besides, they should’ve said where they were going! I thought that boss/lordy type said that we had to keep an eye on them. MC agreed and all.”

Levi scoffed a bit, almost mocking his brother. “You mean the Prince? And did you really think they listened? They made the same face you always do when Lucifer tells you to clean the bathroom or do the dishes. The only thing different was they didn’t say ‘yeah, yeah, I hear ya’ like you normally do.”

For some reason, you were filled with sudden indignation at being compared so casually to a lazy Mammon. As the two of them started a brand new argument, you turned and prepared to throw your last shoe towards the voices. The metal was angled in such a way where you couldn’t see that side of the room hardly at all, but you didn’t care. Maybe you were being influenced too much by some desperation and emotion, but with the power of a small angry demon, you launched the shoe outwards, imagining beaning Mammon right in the back of the head.

“Ow!”

Sometimes you were too good.

“The hell’d you do?!”

“Don’t look at me!”

The two of them suddenly got really quiet, thinking at their own pace, but both eventually coming to the same conclusion. “Pssst,” Mammon hissed. “MC?”

“You don’t have to whisper, idiot, we’re the only ones in here.”

“Hey, ya’ never know!”

At this point, you should’ve probably been flailing your arms or shouting or any other normal action to set you free. However, now that you were moments away from being rescued, you were…hesitant. You really didn’t want to be seen like this… Were the three realms testing you or something? How else could you explain having to go through something so cruel?… But you couldn’t stay in here. The sheer amount of dust alone was burning your windpipe. Besides, how could you berate Lucifer if you weren’t willing to swallow your own pride when it was needed? Time to face the inevitable. Pulling yourself up a little, you waved an arm out from your spot. “Hey! Over here!”

The footsteps got closer, and you could see both humans look around for you. Mammon even had his hands held out to see if he could feel you first. “Why’re you hidin’? What’s wrong?”

You muttered ancient curses under your breath before trying to make your voice a little louder. “No! Look down! Down here!” The amount of time it took two grown humans to notice your incessant waving was far too embarrassing to recount. Maybe all your worries about being spotted by Lucifer weren’t as pressing as you first assumed.

Both of them knelt by the grate, a mix of confusion and…some other emotion you couldn’t trace was painted over their faces. Something about it irked you, though. Almost like they were sneering at you, but if it was done in a nicer way. “MC?” Levi had to ask.

“Do I look like someone else?! Get me out of here!”

Mammon took his turn to ask silly questions. “I didn’t know you could do that! Can you grow super huge too?” While he wondered that, Levi stood and apparently went off to get something to help you free.

“No!”

“What else can you do besides cloak and shrink then?”

“I can’t! This was—“

“So… This isn’t some freaky magic stuff?”

Oh, if only you weren’t so tiny, the things you would do. “No!”

“But, you can do that thing with the tail, and the horns and the teeth. You sure ya’ can’t just make yourself big again? Just try chantin’ a spell or somethin’.”

This was a headache… Taking a deep breath, gathering up your composure and urges to sink your teeth into the nearest object, you rubbed your face with both hands. “No, Mammon. I can’t… Trust me. I tried.”

The human you were addressing was seriously trying to rack his brain coming up with a solution despite only discovering magic even existed all too recently. It was cute, but a guessing game you did not have time to entertain.

Levi finally came back into view, holding a tool in his hand to get the cover off this cage. “Maybe it’s less of a skill and more like a curse?”

For a second, you almost disagreed again. Then you had to agree. That angel cursed you. “Something like that…”

After a few moments, you were finally free. You hopped up, coughing up a bit of dust as you tried to purposefully ignore the two looming figures. This pride to swallow was a bitter one. Not to mention, before you could even fully catch your bearings, the floor beneath you took a new form as it scooped around you and held you above the solid ground. It was dizzying being moved like this, catching yourself from falling backwards by moving to a quick kneeling position.

“Look’a that. You’re, like, the size of my palm.” Greed was in wonder- almost enamored- at the sight of you like this apparently. Like you were a shiny gem he was seconds away from pocketing.

The other one was occupied with trying to remove most of the dust from off your body with a very tiny brush. It was humiliating enough being this size without your usual magic or strength, but being taken care of by humans of all things… This was a new low for you. A sudden shudder down your spine made your body twitch. It was like all your nerves seized and sparked. With a quick bat of your hand, you pushed the soft bristles away from your horns. You had to quickly clear your throat and take control of this rapidly devolving situation.

“Listen, we can fix the size issue later! We have so many things going wrong at once, I don’t even know where to start!” Well, actually, yes you did, there was one thing of importance above all else. “Beel could be in danger! Stop fussing over me for one second and listen!”

That made this whole scenario a lot less entertaining. Both their faces went pale. Levi seemed lost for words. Mammon however, got serious in an instant. “What happened?”

You caught them up to speed with what happened last night starting from catching Beel slipping out of the house in the cover of dark, and ending with your shrunken adventure from Lucifer’s office to all the way here. The younger of the two humans got his voice back. “So this is, like, really terrible, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Beel is missing and Lucifer is about to find us out at any moment!” Exhausted from this all, you resigned yourself to fully sit back in Mammon’s hand. “Why does everything go so wrong so fast? It’s like I’m being tortured…” Not even a few days had passed since resolving the last incident before something was on the border of collapse again. Centuries were being shaved off of your long life. “We have to leave now!”

Mammon was already heading towards the door, shoeless and in only a tank-top and shorts. Before he could do that, Levi grabbed his arm. ���H-Hold on, for just a moment.”

“Beel could be a walking popcorn chicken right now, and you wanna wait?! Screw that!”

The brewings of a bickering were starting to form, but Levi took a deep breath. “We just need a game plan, even if it’s a small one! If we go rushing in, this is bound to turn out like all the other harebrained schemes!”

“Harebrained?!” You and Mammon bristled at the same time.

“You’re far too impulsive and don’t think!” The human pointed at his older brother, then swung down at you, opening his mouth before hesitating when he caught the glowering look you gave him. “And you… d-don’t quite have human- uh- common se- instincts!” He was sweating with the moment of your raised eyebrows. “Yeah, human instincts down yet. What might make sense to you doesn’t always make sense here, so it’s important to talk about these things before jumping into it!”

Mammon cursed, scoffed, and then sighed, tapping the fingertips on his free hand together repeatedly. “Well, we better make it quick! Time is money!”

Levi nodded, moving quick and grabbing a few things to lay them out on the desk. A few you-sized plastic figures rolled around on the desk before the gamer uncorked a marker to begin his battle strategy. “We have three problems we need to solve ASAP!”

The problems themselves seemed simple enough as he talked, and part of you was tempted to think that- maybe this time- things would be solved easily. Although, too much seemed to still be up to chance. Would Beel be easily found? Was he unharmed in the first place? The humans seemed to have a sense of naive hope. It was… affecting you in ways you couldn’t yet sense.

The brothers high-fived, burning with a newfound determination. Even as Levi looked nervous, ready to run, he was drawn in by his older sibling’s perseverance. Mammon suddenly held you to Levi with a smirk on his face like he’d figured out his next new scheme. “Let’s go get our baby brother back.”

Problem number one: getting your phone back.

If all of your work ended up being undone in a single moment thanks to Lucifer’s persistence, it would be the end of everything. Out of everyone, he was the last that could figure out what you were, because as much as you hated to admit it, there was a sense of danger lingering around him. So getting that device back was top priority. Luckily you had had the magical foresight to make the thing harder to break into, but who knew if human technology and ingenuity would win out in the end?

That’s why Levi had determined it would be best for Mammon to split off from the two of you and have the House focused as his base of operations. As Lucifer’s favorite brother- according to Mammon himself- with a talent for sticky fingers, he was the best bet for handling the problem. He could search the home for Beel in the meantime in case he happened to make it back before…well, all this happened.

Problem number two: finding Beel.

The most vital of problems. You could only imagine what kind of confusion that human was facing. A tender soul like that was eagerly sought after by your kind. It was a race to find him first. So you and Levi were ready to retrace his steps. From the house, to the cemetery, and everywhere in between. It didn’t even fully matter if you were discovered as a demon by him. This time, the source of that problem was not your fault! Which led into the last problem to solve.

Problem number three: getting back to normal.

This would require both teams to accomplish their tasks. Both getting your phone back and finding Beel so that quack of an angel could undo what his cake had caused!

Even just thinking about it made you seethe. Work together on D.A.R.? He was making things so much harder for you! Where was he in all of this? While you lived in the Morningstar home, trying your best to do a thousand things at once, he had the time to scheme and make magic cakes? All you wanted to do was get back to your regular size and wipe that smirk off his face.

Maybe force feed him his own cake and shove him in a pocket and see what it was like!

Because this was the worst!

If you thought being jostled around in a bag was torture enough, nothing topped the constant sway and shake of being in a pocket. Especially the pocket of someone as shaky as Levi.

“Oh, but I forgot to grab a flashlight! What if we end up being out all night and can’t see him?” The pocket swayed heavy in one direction. “Ugh! But if I go back now, I’ll be losing precious time!” Back the opposite direction.

If you were holding onto any more cake, now was about the time to get rid of it.

“Levi!” You couldn’t help but punch him a bit through the fabric of his clothes.

His flinch was so severe, you felt it in your own body. It was as if he had forgotten about you entirely. Muttering some stuff under his own breath, he padded straight for a while till he came to an abrupt stop. All of a sudden, a massive hand plucked you out of your hiding spot. Your skin prickled as instincts told you to chomp, but you held yourself back.

He pulled you out in what appeared to be an alleyway. Blue locks swayed back and forth in front of his eyes as his head swiveled to make sure there were no people or cameras around. “Levi,” you called, trying to get him to pay attention. It took saying his name a few more times before he listened. “Don’t be so anxious.”

Somehow, those supporting words earned you a glare. “Oh, yes, because saying that is so helpful.”

“I simply thought I should give you words of encouragement. Don’t be anxious. Go get it done. Be victorious.” You tilted your head slightly, lifting a closed fist in solidarity, ignoring that irksome expression you couldn’t describe once again.

A heavy sigh left his lungs. “Listen, I don’t know how they do things in hell—“

“The Devildom.”

“…That. But it’s not very encouraging to be told to do or not to do things based on something I have no control over. My brother is missing, you’re stuck like this, Lucifer getting angry is scary, that Prince guy getting angry is scary, and it’s up to me and Mammon to fix these things? How am I not supposed to get anxious?!”

You hummed a little, trying to see things from his point of view, but it was difficult to relate. “Well…how do I best encourage a human?”

“Everyone is different, but…I guess just using empathy.”

“Asking a demon to use empathy, really?”

“You wanted to know!” He shook his head and motioned to put you down in the pocket again. “Just forget about it…”

If there was one thing you wanted right now, it was not going back in that thing. So, mostly as a preventative measure, you spoke up to stop him. “Hold on! I can give it a proper try.” You sighed a bit in relief as he straighted you back out in an open palm. Then you thought for a moment. Empathy… So, you just had to relate and use words based off of that? You had almost done that before, when you spoke about losing someone important to you anytime Mammon had brought up words of his sister. If you used that as a reference, could you call the feeling that stirred in your gut when you couldn’t find your special one way back when anxiousness? Then, if that were the case, maybe you could say a thing or two about it. “We will find him,” you started to say. “Beel seems rather resilient, doesn't he? And even if we end up having to get your other brothers involved, or even the Prince, his safety takes importance over my mission. We’ll find him.”

Levi stood in silence for a moment, mulling over your words. A sudden blush popped up on both of his cheeks. “I-I guess that’s better. But wasn’t the best, so I’m only giving it a C+!”

Ignoring what a letter had to do with anything, you frowned. “That was extremely good, what're you talking about?”

“You almost had it, but then lost points by saying we could ruin your mission, which makes me stressed out too. I don’t want to see you get in trouble.”

These humans were awfully confusing creatures. “Why would you care so much about something that doesn’t concern you?”

“It does concern me! Because- Because… I thought we were friends and tied with the p-pact and stuff…”

Right. You forgot how much humans were pack animals. They existed by living in groups of families and worked to ever still bring more people into their lives. Quite the opposite of demons. A sign of growth and strength was true independence. Which shocked you to hear that Lifia was working with two other demons. Maybe there was something true about that myth about strength in numbers. “I do not know what one must do to become a…friend.”

Awkwardness filled his body as he shifted and couldn’t quite look at you. “Well, friends talk to each other, hang out, and do stuff with each other. B-but, we can talk about that later! I think I feel better now…thank you. “

“You’re welcome. But don’t you dare put me in that pocket again.” You pointed towards the hood hanging behind his head. “Put me there instead.” He begrudgingly listened to you, placing you in the sturdier fabric near his neck. It didn’t sway as frantically, and it would be easier talking to him from here if you needed to. From there, Levi set off again, your search for Beel officially beginning.

You both started in the Cemetery. With it being daytime, it seemed no one had to hop a fence. The human walked for a while, stopped at his sister’s grave, and said a few words before putting you in the grass and letting you get the plant-sized view while he searched from above. It felt like miles were walked and hours had passed before you both came to the conclusion that he likely wasn’t there. Besides, you had been with him when he walked away from the fence. He was bound to be somewhere else.

Levi followed a list both he and Mammon had come up with, stopping at several places. A nearby café that opened in the early hours of morning, Beel’s favorite gym, a parking lot that normally had a truck that sold fruits, a grocery store, and several restaurants. Levi asked the questions while you did your best to sneak around and not get caught. You certainly had been stuck with the more stressful job. And yet where were your words of encouragement, huh? Still, your efforts had found you nothing. Not even a crumb of evidence. The day had all but been spent, the sun setting down and painting the sky in an marigold hue. The search party was losing steam, but finally, Levi had stopped in a local park.

“He comes here to jog a lot, and to feed the ducks in the pond over there. It’s a…pretty large place to search, but…if he could be here…” His words drifted, as if he was even losing the energy to fully share his thoughts.

“Maybe message Mammon then? Let him know to come help. He should be done with his tasks by now. If we tackle it together, it shouldn’t be so daunting.” As you were speaking, Levi pulled you out of his hood and down on the ground. After settling you in the grass, he grabbed his phone.

“You’re right. Let me do that.”

While he was doing that, you’d get somewhat started. You headed a little away from the human and towards the shade of some trees, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. It was mostly empty here. Off in the distance, you could see a human couple walking a small canine. A few elderly stood at the outskirts of the previously mentioned pond and threw some small green things into the water. The more you walked into the protection of the trees, the less you saw of the world around you. It was pretty private here, a good place to hide if you needed.

Then pain filled your body.

Something snatched you up from the ground, ensnaring you in a death grip. You hissed in agony as your vision was turned towards an infamous grinning face. One of the demons from before who had worked with Lifia. The poisonous one. The other demon had called him Bazz or something? He was as ugly as ever, with a new scar sporting over a whitened eye.

You couldn’t even sense him! Was it because of the state you were in? To be totally blindsided by this… “Y-You!” The air in your lungs was easily pushed out from your body. Already you could feel the creaking of your limbs and bones, knowing that if you were to be crushed any tighter they would start snapping. Although, you didn’t let that deter you from your usual apathetic attitude. Worse than dying would be letting this scum have the joy of seeing you beg in your suffering. “Ha-Had to wait till…I was like this before- ugh- before you could have the…upper hand, huh?”

Slightly tighter, and you could see spots in your vision. “Are you really surprised a demon played dirty? Ha!” His eyes narrowed at you. “You’re weirder than I thought.” He stuck his tongue out from his mouth, the vibrant saliva dripping down and sizzling across his own skin. “Once I deal with you, those humans will be mine to devour! Every part of them. You should be thankful I wont let any bit go to waste.”

“MC!” Suddenly noticing your predicament, Levi started moving his feet, sprinting on some sort of instinct. Bazz easily knocked him back with the back of an arm, sending him rolling back over the ground, hitting the dirt and the roots of one of the trees hard. Dazed, it took him a while to stand back up. Even from here, you could see a small thin trickle of blood coming down from his hairline. Something about the sight stirred some old archaic emotion inside you, threatening to send it bubbling up to the surface.

“GO! Get back to the house!”

“I…I won’t!” Stupid, stubborn human! With the bravery at all the wrong times!

Bazz found this all too pleasing, licking his lips as his eyes glimmered with Gluttony. “Maybe I’ll indulge myself right now, and let the little imp watch.” Now, instead of keeping the human back, he lunged. You were squeezed hard enough to toy with your consciousness. But despite that, you wouldn’t go down without protecting your human in every way you could. You dug your teeth into his flesh, feeling some of the poison that ran through their veins enter your mouth. It hurt enough to stall him apparently for just a moment. You caught the glimpse of fear on Levi’s face.

And then you caught glimpse of a blur.

Within a second, you found yourself flung in the air. You hardly had time to steel yourself before you felt your shrunken frame slam against the earth. The environment flickered in your view, as your mind was ready to shut itself down completely. But you couldn’t let it. You pushed yourself up, hardly standing above the tall grass, only able to take in a few seconds of information in at a time.

Bazz growled and sprung up, hardly hurt but clearly frazzled. Then darkness. You pulled yourself back out of it and caught a large shadow encroaching over you before being picked up by large hands. The lift made your vision warble. You bit your lip and forced yourself to focus. Levi was off in the distance, his eyes wide as his mouth moved to form words that you couldn’t fully hear. Wait… Levi? If this wasn’t him, and not the demon, who was… You turned your body and looked up.

Beel shook his other hand, his knuckles bruised but not broken. His eyes narrowed, his muted expression still contorted with fury. “Don’t touch them!”

A twitching smirk popped up on the demon’s face. With petty glee, he pounced on Levi, claws poised to tear the human to shreds. You and Beel shouted his name at the same time. The youngest sibling sprinted forward and kicked Bazz hard in the ribs. Even for being a human, it caused the attacker to hiss and jump on the bigger threat instead, knocking you both down. Soon it was a mess of limbs, even Levi tugging at the demon’s clothes to do whatever he could to protect his little brother. You scrambled up and prepared to rip Bazz’s eyes out. But before you could do that, a sudden light shone off to the side.

The white was blinding, causing both you and the demonic assassin to cover your face in anguish. You fell down on Beel’s chest and tried to ignore the burning sensation. It clenched your throat and made it difficult to breathe, to think, to do anything. Two large hands curved over you, trying to shield you from the light.

Bazz rolled off Beel's body, thudding to the ground. "Back again, you bastard?! I'll kill you! And then I'll go after your human master too!"

The last thing you heard was Levi shouting his brother’s name…

“Please!”

The emotion tore at your chest, ripping you apart on the inside.

“…”

You had to. He had to.

“I’ll do anything!”

“Anything?… Even if it meant ______?”

That wasn’t even a question. Of course you would. Over and over and over again. In every moment, in every life, you would.

“Yes… Please… I don’t care if ___________! They were the only reason why I’m who I am today… With them gone, I… I won’t be the same regardless… Even if I lose ______, they need me! Besides, maybe one day, past several lifetimes, I can ____________.“

“Very well. Today we both break the rules. All for a human. Goodbye, __________”

A gentle touch startled you out of your dream. Although you had the sneaking suspicion that you would’ve jolted awake regardless. Impulse flared the word ‘danger’ in your mind, and you swiped your claws at your attacker before you could even register them. Even before the blur in front of you compiled into being, you smelt the distinct scent of human blood.

“Oh, sorry… I didn’t mean to startle you.” The tone was far too understanding for the fact that you’d just broken skin.

As the hair prickling at the back of your neck calmed itself, you blinked, confused and…embarrassed. “Beel…” Images of the scene you could recall from before replayed in your mind before they stopped abruptly. You couldn’t remember how you got here. Where even was here, now that you were looking at it?

At first glance, it fooled you into thinking you were still at the park. Large lush trees shielded you from the warm light above. They rustled pleasantly, harmonizing with the soft blanket of vibrant grass coating the fields and hills. The fluffy clouds above rolled lazily, giving off a comforting glow. Playful flowers swayed back and forth in their beckoning, luring visitors to skip down the path they were outlining. Despite being in a compromising position- your identity and form being shown to yet another human- all you could feel was a lingering peace. A persistent, possessive, and invasive sort of peace. Therein lied the proverbial rub.

This wasn’t the human realm.

And fortunately as much as unfortunately, your new human companion seemed to sense the same thing. “Do you know where we are?”

You sighed, sizing- again, mind another pun- the human up. Even being the way you were now, you could tell Gluttony was much bigger than his brothers. And that wasn’t to say just on the larger side of humankind. No. You meant significantly bigger. Enlarged. Quite poetic, in a way.

While Solomon’s cake had shrunken you, it had grown Beel.

In Mammon and Levi’s hold before, you were about the length of a full hand. In Beel’s case, you would be lucky if you were the size of one of his fingers. His hair was brushing up against the branches and leaves of the trees. His voice made your own bones rattle. And the cut you had given him before was so small it was already healing. If anything, it explained how he had held up against a demon for as long as he did. However, it still didn’t explain where you were.

“In a manner of speaking,” you finally answered. Silence filled the air then, giving him some time to ask questions. Surprisingly, he never did, so you asked one in turn. “Do you remember anything before waking up here?”

Beel’s face scrunched ever so slightly as he racked his brain. If he weren’t so dangerously large at the moment, you’d almost have considered it endearing. It was quite like how Mammon always cracked his mouth open in thought, or like how Levi bit the corner of his lip, or even how Lucifer— You nearly violently shook your head. Human quirks were just comical at best. Nothing else. How much influence did this place have over your thoughts? Luckily, Beel spoke up to distract you from your own mind. “I remember fighting that guy, and then grabbing you, and then nothing till I woke up here. I was going to grab Levi, but…” He looked around, as if still keeping his eye out for his missing brother.

“He’s…not here.” Somehow you could say that with certainty. Whether you’d become accustomed to his soul or the pact had forged stronger connections than you thought, you couldn’t tell. The only thing you could decipher was…severance. It was like you were cut off from both pact-mates. Even the small fragment of vitality and sin that should’ve been flowing through your veins was stifled. Those personalized bits of Greed and Envy were being drowned out by the roaring silence of Isolation. It was…almost startling in its loneliness. You should’ve been accustomed to such things, but it was almost as if you had gotten used to a new normal in this relatively short time amongst those humans. But, you couldn’t waste your time thinking about that for too long.

Your world shifted as Beel pushed himself up to his feet, curling his hand so you stayed secure. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

With a wistful sigh, you shook your head. Stuck in another place, were you? Was this going to become a pattern? “Haven’t the foggiest.” Once again, the magic of the environment eased your anxiety about your identity. Before you could control yourself, your lips were excited to spill well-kept secrets. “Looks Celestial to me, and I’ve never been there before.”

“Celestial?” Beel hummed, “Like heaven? Are we dead?” A rather calm way to ask such a desperate question…

“If we were, I wouldn’t be here.” With a shrug, you pointed towards the ground below. “Even if I was sent here by mistake, I’m sure divine spears would be raining down on me by now to send me back to where I came from. I’m not exactly welcomed near those glittery gates. So, I figure this must be a figment or copy of that realm.”

The human simply uttered a simple “ah” like he understood everything you were saying before stretching his neck from side to side. It was hard to tell if he was also feeling the influence of the area or if he was just naturally a bit calmer than the others. Beel gestured to the path of flowers. “Should I follow these?”

“Could be a trap.”

“Hm. I don’t feel like they are.”

“Go where you want then,” you nodded. A little flourish of the hand motioned to your own body, beaten and bruised and bitty. “I’m not exactly built for travel like this. I’ll go wherever you decide.”

Suddenly, a large fingertip came down, patting you on the head and almost skewering itself on your horns in the process. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

A flash of annoyance cropped up in you for a split second. “I’m much older than you, you know.”

His head tilted just a little, looking genuinely befuddled by that. “Does that change anything?”

A rather humiliating noise of shock clamped down in your throat. You were silent for the next long while as he walked. He was right about that. Nothing you could say or do really changed your position for the time being. Small, nearly magic-less, and exhausted, there wasn’t much of a fight you could put up. If that previous scuffle had proven anything, it was that…right now you were at the mercy of everyone else. It was a blow so low, it left you breathless. Up until now, you were happy to deny the truth, but now there was no fooling yourself. This human… Beel… was your protector.

A demon relying on human protection while you were in somewhere that looked like the Celestial Realm? What kind of topsy-turvey reality was this? The facts repeated over and over in your mind and forced a foreign warmth to brush across your cheeks as Beel continuously ducked his head to avoid branches and the like. You rubbed at your skin in an attempt to snuff out the fire in your body, but it didn’t work.

Beel followed the outline of flowers down deeper into this grove of trees. Both of you remained silent, but it didn’t feel awkward. If anything, it was almost…nice… For what reason, you couldn’t describe. Perhaps you could almost sleep like this, and let the responsibility be on someone else’s shoulders for a while. Everything was out of your hands. You closed your eyes and felt the tension leave your body for a while. You managed to get a little bit of rest until you felt the human stop in his tracks. When you opened your eyes, a strange sight sent a chill down your spine.

Several doors stood upright, scattered throughout the place. Wood, metal, glass, gold, silver, diamond; any material and color you could think of, any design, and it was here. It reminded you awfully of a graveyard. Each door seemed to represent something, eerie in their rigid stillness.

Of course, that was juxtaposed with a sight you did not expect to see in a place like this.

A long table coated in a lacy tablecloth sat at the end of the flower-path. Shiny silver dish-wares were spread across it, glinting in the soft light. And as expected, on top of every dish was a heaping pile of foods. Pastas, pizzas, pies, cakes, casseroles, and crepes, human food of nearly every kind was packed on every square inch of surface. Slurping could be heard above you, and as much as you suddenly feared getting wet, you couldn’t blame him. Just from the smell alone, you could almost feel hungry too, which was something you hardly felt anymore.

Yet, several bells were ringing in your mind. The human known as Gluttony was led to a royal feast? “Beel, I know it looks tempting but—“

“Welcome.”

A smooth voice sent those alarms blaring louder. The demon? No. The voice was much too calm to match. But you could smell Bazz…could smell his blood. You turned your head behind you, but was blocked from sight by Beel’s massive body.

“You must be Beel, right? Please, take a seat. While you’re at it, why don’t you hand me that demon so I can…take care of them for you?”

[rainofthestorm]

Headspace Explorations & Resources

This is put together from-our-own-experience and with feedback from friends and other systems who've tried parts of this kind of exploration before. Before we begin, I'd like to note:

Not every system has a headspace

Not every system needs a headspace

But if you'd like to explore and see if you have one, or perhaps use this as a jumping off point to try to make one, feel free. There are some additional resources at the bottom of the post that are more geared that way from the start, too.

Who needs an inner world, anyway

Some systems do just fine without one. Some struggle for various reasons to make one. A relatively common reason for this is the lack of an ability to consciously visualise things in your mind (aphantasia).

For us, visualising things in general does not work well if at all, most days. Headspace is the only exception to this rule: we are almost always able to access headspace, despite apparently having a lot of difficulty coherently visualising anything else. I have no clue why that is, but that's been our experience.

All that to say: aphantasia may not always extend to headspace. And even for the folks where it does, some systems find a lot of value in building out a headspace grounded in non-visual senses or abstractions. As that's not our experience we aren't sure how to guide people there, but it's worth noting that that is something we've heard folks do.

As for the why, many systems find that having some semblance of an inner world helps with communicating with each other, gives some parts an avenue for self expression and interaction that doesn't necessarily require fronting, and occasionally it can help to have a place to retreat to for comfort or to rest, when the outside world gets to be Entirely Too Much.

A brief history of our experience of headspace

We've had something that we now think of as headspace since long before we ever knew what it was, before we knew there was a word for it, well before we knew we were plural or even trans. I think our first memories of it come back to sometime in high school.

To begin with, we just found that there was a certain mental image / sounds / impression that we could refer back to in order to help us ground and center ourselves, keep ourselves calm and collected. We found a level of visualisation or some similar mental construct helped a lot with that.

I think the initial picture we had in our head was quite simple: just a very blank, mostly dark space, a vast and completely still body of water... sorta like what we'd imagine the inside of one of those giant water tanks to look like. Only much, much bigger. So big you can't really see walls, just the endless black void and still water all around.

And we'd kinda focus on that for a bit as we took a moment to steady our breathing. Every handful of seconds or so, we'd try to re-focus and re-immerse ourselves in it by imagining little droplets of water falling from somewhere high above. Hitting the surface with a loud, echoing, almost piercing drip echoing through the stillness. The water's surface rippling out for a ways before the ripples died down, returning the surface of the water.

Just... still, quiet space, punctuated by the occasional droplets of water.

At some point we started mostly unconsciously building on this mental image over time. An island in the middle of the water, just a tiny little spot, barely the size of our room. A gently curved mound emerging from the surface of the water, its sands a barren, blackened grey. Then, some black rocks dotted around the shore to sit on. A little grass on parts of the island.

We'd sit by the water's edge in the stillness, with the occasional drips from high above keeping us focused on and in the space. And we'd sit there for a while, focusing on the stillness and the very clear sound of the water as it occasionally drips from above.

This space eventually became a central place in our headspace. I guess the practice of visualising and reinforcing it with sound and other physical impressions got it to take root pretty well, ultimately.

Since we've realised we're plural and recalled this space, headspace has grown mostly out of it, although we have a handful of other spaces not directly connected to it as well. Eventually we reworked the place to be a little more comfortable, we still come here to meditate sometimes, if we aren't up for wandering around the rest of headspace as much.

Exploratory meditation

This is... a suggestion, more than anything. It's not comprehensive, we don't expect it to conclusively help everyone, it's a starting point and nothing more. Adapt it as you see fit.

There's two parts to this: first, you want to calm yourself down and get to a reasonably neutral and grounded state.

Sit or lay somewhere comfy. If you find laying makes you sleepy, sit instead. Sitting on a cushion on the ground is usually good, but a comfy chair will be fine too.

Pay attention to your breathing, keep it measured and slow, deep breaths. Reasonably consistent, but not forced. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Close your eyes, and just focus on the breathing for a minute. Count it out if you feel the need. Brain and thoughts can sometimes get a bit loud during this, so try to stay anchored to your breathing and let whatever happens, happen. If your attention drifts, just bring it gently back to your breathing when you notice you've drifted, that's okay.

Next, we're going to explore a little bit. Keeping your eyes closed, keeping your breathing steady:

Picture yourself in your head, just you, as best you can, from your own first-person perspective. Spend some time going over your posture and looking at yourself without opening your eyes. See if you notice any differences in how you perceive yourself here compared to your actual physical body, without focusing on them too much. Keep focused on your breathing as much as you can.

Once you have a decently solid idea of yourself, keep your eyes closed and look around, what's just beyond you here? What's the floor look like, in your head? What does the environment look like? Are you outside somewhere? Inside a room? Just a black or white void? If it's dark, see what happens when you think about turning a light on, a lamp or a torch.

Examine the space around you. We generally say look but don't touch at first, as in... go in with the attitude of finding what's there rather then wanting something specific to be there. Just expecting to find something, whatever it might be.

When you've spent a bit looking, see if you can get up in this view and have a proper look around, wander a little, take note of what you find to bring back with you when you return.

Folks we've had try this have of course had mixed success and often needed to modify the process or expectations to suit themselves. Some folks find that if their headspace starts out as a pure void, it's relatively straightforward (if slow and painstaking at first) to start building out little rooms and going from there. Most folks doing that will start from a low level of detail and gradually build from there (for example: white void -> blank white room -> oh look there's a door -> wonder what's beyond the door -> hallway -> doors in the hallway -> oh hey we have separate rooms off the hallway now -> maybe we could decorate these rooms a bit).

Hostile headspaces

Some folks may find that when they start poking around and exploring headspace, that it's initially hostile to them and treats them as an intruder. That's not a particularly common experience, but it's not especially rare either.

Unless your headspace, when you find it, is already actively hostile to your exploration, I would not recommend approaching it as such. However, should you need it, we'd recommend reviewing lb_lee's Headspace Discovery and Defense.

In a lot of ways we tend to view hostility as more of a someone is scared / feeling unsafe with me being here than we would as someone wants to hurt me. Hostility is generally a defensive measure, although in certain cases it can be more direct and active hostility which is a little trickier to manage.

There's generally a reason for it, even if you're not sure what that is for a while. Sometimes that reason is as simple as one or more headmates feeling very insecure or unsafe with the host or one of the more forward-facing parts delving into the depths of things. Sometimes it's more complicated; it can be a bit trial-and-error and touch and go for a bit. We would tend to recommend making your focus curiosity and seeking to understand -- and being understanding that sometimes, some headmates may not be ready to be known and understood yet.

Additional resources

Wonderland Immersion

'Do Not Disturb' Technique

Sophie's Wonderland Tips

Wonderland Creation by Daydreaming

[starlightshadowsworld]

Bsd except Atsushi doesn't work at the Agency. He gets another job, and turns out it's one of the Port Mafia's front companies.

No one in the Port Mafia knows how he got the job and put it together he's the tiger they're searching for.

Thing is, the Port Mafia don't actually want to get rid of him because Atsushi is actually very good at his job.

He's like accidentally committing various crimes on their behalf, like fraud, money laundering etc.

But Atsushi's lived such a sheltered life and has never had a job before, he has no idea this out of the ordinary.

Atsushi just thinks he's working a normal job. And he gets paid reasonably well, has a place to stay so he's not really looking into it.

It's like he's at a cafe and makes really good coffee and the Port Mafia are like... Well we can't get rid of him, who's gonna make my latte just the way I like it?

Atsushi accidentally becomes the most beloved unofficial member of the Port Mafia.

Without knowing it.

At some point Atsushi does find out but carries on.

Because he doesn't have anywhere else to go. And quite frankly, he's having fun. His customers are sweet and kind, he's finally living a life worth living.

Sure it's something the Orphanage would scoff at, but they'd do that regardless.

Somewhere along the lines Kyouka goes from assassin to his fellow co-worker and they bake cakes together and Kouyou's just like... You know what she's happy, let her be.

(And maybe Atsushi can't save everyone but he saves Kyouka and maybe that's enough.)

Chuuya even offers to teach him self defence and Atsushi has a gun incase he needs it.

He's the Port Mafia's equivalent of the Agency's cafe guy, they will go to war if anything happens to him.

Which the Guild find out the hard way.

[iskratempestmadness]

A few facts about the characters of "Baki the grappler"

Characters: Baki, Hanayama, Katsumi, Jack, Retsu.

Baki

Food

- it may seem that he prefers something simple, but he doesn't mind trying unusual food combinations. According to the type of ice cream with French fries.

- traditional Japanese cuisine on weekdays and fast food on weekends. He likes to treat himself to a big burger on Saturday night. Although he will have to work hard afterwards to get himself back in shape.

- has a neutral relationship with alcohol. He can drink during the holiday, but usually tries to abstain.

Leisure

- you can't tell from him, but he reads quite a lot, although he can't be called a bookworm. He definitely likes manga and comics, as well as something light from Japanese classics. He reads to relax, so he doesn't want to strain his brain.

- he likes to play board games. He is quite experienced in them, but in some cases, fortune does not favor him.

- walking in the fresh air. As I said, he just wants to relax, so contemplating nature is perfect for that. He likes the prospect of going somewhere to the countryside and staying there to live.

Moment:

It was early in the morning, when the city had not yet had time to wake up. The young man was sitting on a bench in the park, which was close to his house. Despite the fact that summer had already arrived, it was quite cool outside, but the young man did not seem to notice this. Hanma has been visiting this place quite often lately. Perhaps it was here that he could fully relax. His thoughts were confused, like the thoughts of a man who had just woken up, he was thinking about everything and at the same time about nothing. However, he noticed all the peculiarities of his environment. For example, he noticed that the birds were calling to each other today more briskly than usual, and also that this morning was warmer than yesterday, but it was still a little cool for summer... He liked it... And he also liked to have such a carefree time... This is the kind of environment he wants to spend his life in...

Hanayama:

Food

is mmmm... He loves Japanese fast food. You know, quick fried meat in batter with vegetables and various sauces. Or udon in a small but cozy eatery. But he needs really big portions.

- he also likes traditional Japanese dishes, but he prefers not to eat them too often.

- Alcohol? He is an expert in this. It may seem that he drinks only strong drinks, but he is also very well versed in the lungs. Hana also belongs to the type of people who drink and do not get drunk.

Leisure

- naturally, he spends a lot of time in bars. He knows all the bars in Tokyo. And he wrote a review for each, all the pros and cons of the institution were taken into account. He finds this way of spending time very entertaining.

- he likes to play billiards when he has free time. And he's pretty good at it. Despite his size, he is adept at this.

- fishing. Ohhh, he's a pro at this. And how else can you call a man who went to a shark with his bare hands? But even in less extreme conditions, he finds pleasure in fishing.

Moment:

A hard day. This is perhaps the most plausible description of what happened today. There are so many issues that need to be resolved "urgently", so many people who do not understand what they want from him... It exhausted him. His head was throbbing violently, preventing him from concentrating...What was he thinking about? Yes, there's nothing to talk about.Hana was in the very state when a person's mind is filled with various short memories that have no connection with each other...And he didn't have a single sensible thought in his head. He lit a cigarette as usual. And he himself did not understand how he ended up where he is now. It was one of the idzkai he frequented...Heh, perhaps this really was the best option to relax. The young man sat down at the counter and waited for his order... and for some reason, he was already feeling better now. My head didn't hurt so much anymore, and there was no annoying carousel of memories. Hana waited for his order and to his delight, the food really helped him. In some cases, even such small things can make you feel better.

Katsumi:

Food

- HOMEMADE FOOD. To give Natsue her due, she cooks beautifully, so Katsumi's favorite food is homemade food. He doesn't even have a preference, he just loves it and he'll eat whatever they give him.

- he also likes strange food combinations. He is always ready to try something new, but he already has his favorite combinations. I can assume that this is watermelon and feta cheese or popcorn with hot sauce

- relationship with alcohol... Well, he only drinks on holidays, but Katsumi doesn't know the measure. If he drinks, he gets completely drunk. He doesn't know the measure at all.

Leisure

- bowling. He just likes this kind of leisure activity. And he became almost a master at it.

- he likes to sing and not only in the shower. Therefore, one of his favorite ways to spend time is karaoke. He might not be a brilliant singer himself, but he puts his whole soul into it.

- cooking. In this, perhaps, it cannot be said that he is a great master, but he really likes to learn this. He was already delighting himself with a couple of simple dishes. However, it should be noted that his dishes are a little overcooked.

Moment:

He decided to put himself under stress again. There was no other way he could have called it. Of course he liked cooking, but what was happening was terrible. The heated oil splashed in all directions, he spilled something on the floor, broke a couple of plates, and a mountain of dishes in the sink was waiting for him. Is it not a horror? Nevertheless, Katsumi was determined that he would cook this dish. Why didn't he go the easier way? Why didn't you just order what you wanted? After all, he could have asked Natsueh to cook this dish, why didn't he? There were several reasons. First, he liked it. Yes, despite what was happening, he still enjoyed cooking. And he didn't expect a good result at all, he just enjoyed the process. The second is his stubbornness. Is something wrong with him? So what, he will do it as many times as it takes for a decent result. It's a challenge for him. It's a tough call. He had to sweat a lot, but... God, he was really glad... The food was good. But as usual, it is slightly peppered.

Jack:

Food

really has no preferences. All that can be eaten is food for him.

- however, he highlights the Canadian cuisine. After all, this is his native kitchen. One of his favorite dishes is cream cake and "nanaimo"

- attitude to alcohol? Mmmm... Given his lifestyle, we can say that he does not drink at all. But sometimes when he can't sleep, Jack will drink a glass of tincture, but no more. Most likely, he will be able to put tinctures.

Leisure

- He likes to swim. This is an ideal way for him to practice and relax. Besides, he is fond of diving. (So it's ideal for him if he lives somewhere near the sea or a deep lake. This is one of his dreams.)

- he can play the guitar. Despite the fact that he trains almost all the time, he also finds time to practice it. His game is at the amateur level, but it's also not bad.

- What is it? Just like Bucky, he can't be called a bookish character, but he has a couple of bookshelves. Jack prefers little-known works by popular authors. And his favorite genres of books can be called detective and fiction.

Moment:

Quiet. It's late in the evening, it's about one or two in the morning. The noise of the city is no longer audible, only the quiet rustle of leaves and the occasional rumble of water. The atmosphere is wonderful... However... The young man had not been able to sleep for about two hours and it began to bother him. Instead of lying on the bed, he could have done something more useful with a light... well, or at least interesting. Reading was perfect. Jack sat up in bed, turned on the lamp, picked up a book lying on one of the bedside tables and plunged into one of those most amazing worlds that are considered fiction or a fairy tale, and call it fiction. Hanma was quite picky about literature, although he didn't read much. But this book was really interesting to him. Why? Perhaps it was an interesting plot, or curious descriptions of the area, or dialogues of the characters, or... Why guess? Jack liked this book because he could use it to distract himself. There was no hint of the real world in it. Not once in the entire book has there been a hint of problems that were in the real world. And the young man didn't think it was a bad thing. On the contrary, he liked it. It brought lightness, calmness and calmness to his life... Perhaps... A little bit of happiness...

Retsu:

Food

is Chinese cuisine. To say that he loves her will not be enough... He RESPECTS her. He respects her all. From dishes in street eateries to home cooking.

- Japanese cuisine is in second place after Chinese cuisine for him. However, he is extremely critical of her. Retsu tries to eat right, so he carefully monitors what he eats.

- does Retsu drink? Exclusively on holidays. But if there is an opportunity, he will refrain from doing so. He really doesn't like alcohol.

Leisure

- cooking. And he's a pro at it. He has been cooking since childhood, he has a wealth of experience and his knowledge in cooking is still being replenished. He read a lot of books on cooking and watched a huge number of programs on this topic. He is completely enlightened, as it might seem. However, he claims that he still has a lot to grow.

- reading. But he can be called a bookworm. He read everything from classics to manga. And this made him extremely selective in the collection of works. For Retsu, the book is needed not only to relax or distract himself, but also to rethink life. The book is a source of wisdom for him.

- he is fond of photography. And in this he is at the beginner stage. But he learns fast. He likes to photograph animals and plants. He also likes to shoot landscapes.

Moment:

"Yes, this is what we need... This kind of view definitely needs to be captured." This was the first thought that came to Retsu's mind. And the scenery was really spectacular. Mount Fuji. The height is 3776. And it's amazing. The young man was really happy despite the cold and the long journey. Taking out his camera, Retsu started taking pictures... huh... Amazingly... But the camera did not transmit even a tenth of the landscape... However, the footage was amazing. Retsu didn't have much experience in photography, he was still a beginner. How did he come to this? Why photos? Everything is simple. There have been changes in it. Let's just say his mindset has changed. The young man seemed to rethink his life... And I made a conclusion. He needs to slow down. Pay a little more attention to his environment. Watch the world more. That's why he chose photography. With his help, Retsu had the opportunity to forever contemplate what he had captured.

I don't think I'll pull part 2, heh.

[the-weeping-dawn]

-> BASICS

Name: Ilztaun Auvryvirr

Class/Subclass: Aberrant Mind Sorcerer College of Eloquence Bard (usually a few levels in Wizard, School of Necromancy)

Background: Noble

Gender: Male

Sexuality: bisexual

Pronouns: he/him

-> OTHER

Family: Three siblings he still counts, Sylf, *gestures to the various lunatics he got stuck living with a few months and now cannot escape*

Birthplace: Menzoberranzan

Job: Co-Head of Knights of the Shield Bard, of a few finds Actor composer Alchemist Hat juggler for many reasons

Phobias: He's generally agoraphobic, but it's something about vast open skies that set of the terror of being somewhere he's not meant to be the worst Second worse. Combined with horizon. He was nearly screaming before needing to look anywhere else. (keeping in the rigging of all things kept him sane) To become what someone else wants him to be ever again. Ducks. Okay the first time he was in the night above ducklings. He missed seeing their mother and stepped too closely. She didn't miss him at all.. just suspicious of them from then on.

Guilty Pleasures: Fuck you.

Hobbies: Embroidery, drawing, learning instruments which can never be useful, gardening, talking to every.single.cat. in the city.

-> MORALS

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Sins: Pride, wrath,envy lust but he doesn't count it

Virtues: Diligence, Charity(he'll fight tooth and nail to deny.)

-> THIS OR THAT

Introverted/Ambivert/Extrovert

Organized/Disorganized (HE HAS A SYSTEM! THE SYSTEM HAS A SYSTEM!)

Close-minded/Open-minded

/Anxious/Restless (he has never been calm to where we've removed the whole option)

Disagreeable/In-Between/Agreeable

Patient/In-Between/Impatient

Outspoken /In-Between/Reserved

Leader/Follower/Flexible

Empathetic/In-between/Apathetic (will lie about.)

Optimist/Realist/Pessimist (Will claim extreme pessimism in words. Never holds to them for more than 5 minutes or will argue against himself if the same opinion is expressed by someone else. )

Traditional/In-Between/Modern

Hard-working/Lazy

-> RELATIONSHIPS

OTP: Ilztaun/Emperor

Acceptable Ships: Minthara, Barcus, Gale...Party bicycle mf......

OT3: Unethical Polycule AU lives in my head rent free. Like Lae'zel lives with he and Emperor and Shadow/Wyll and her parents without anyone knowing it she knows the concept even.

BroTP: Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Gale. ...Barcus again....I keep forgetting characters outside the party but this si the 3rd I'm doing ^.^;

NoTP: Karlach oddly, she just shoudl have better taste.

-> BASICS

Name Ian

Class/Subclass: Druid Circle of Stars Assassin Rogue Divine Soul Sorc

Background: Haunted One

Gender: Woman? In the default kind of sense

Sexuality: lesbian

Pronouns: Whatever

-> OTHER

Family: She'd rather not still care about Orin but sadly, they were close once. no she doesn't count certain entities.

Birthplace: Not quite sure she was born. Though her memory is almost entirely in Baldur's Gate....

Job: She'd like to continue as an adventurer Former Bhaalist cult leader.

Phobias: Loss of control. Herself. That She's going to wake up and find Shadowheart dead. Or another bard. No idea what it was with bards....they both seemed so kind.....perhaps that was more it, and being a bard followed?

Guilty Pleasures: The feeling of skin ripped from flesh, laying out an identifying bodies left in a mangle of viscera, the taste of blood while biting in wild shape, that she regularly pictures friends without skin, what their flesh might taste like. ANYWAY.

Hobbies: Picked up whittling from Halsin, around the same time he started teaching her druid craft as a way to be a little more productive with the knife she refused to put down. Mainly actually likes doing detailing in buildings. Has gotten very good at climbing about Shadowheart's parent's home since she can't remember where a ladder is, can remember how to get up to reach doorframes, windows and so on without one.

-> MORALS

Alignment: Chaotic Good. Maybe?

Sins: Wrath, Greed

Virtues: hm.

-> THIS OR THAT

Introverted/Ambivert/Extrovert

Organized/Disorganized

Close-minded/Open-minded

Calm/Anxious/Restless

Disagreeable/In-Between/Agreeable

Patient/In-Between/Impatient

Outspoken/In-Between/Reserved

Leader/Follower/Flexible

Empathetic/In-between/Apathetic

Optimist/Realist/Pessimist

Traditional/In-Between/Modern

Hard-working/Lazy

-> RELATIONSHIPS

OTP: Ian/Shadowheart

Acceptable Ships: Ian/Karlach or Kagha

OT3: I think for the time being she's not to polyamory yet.

BroTP: She is one of my latched onto Halsin much like a baby duck. Also she and Shadowheart with Isobel and Aylin. Independently yes. But Again the duckling metaphor cannot be more true than with them, who thankfully would take the moon and stars ducklings in stride. Lena/Gortash...Unfortunately she returned quite different even with her memories back, Gortash didn't and wasn't really someone she could understand why they were friends beyond shared loneliness.....Which would describe the entire group she'e found but.....It's not her job to fix him, it took her brain being so wrecked it's being held together with a bit of parasite.....So on the pile with Orin he goes. ....Would have been nice to keep just one of them, especially since the first she thought she might want to live in this world for more than just service to her father, was realizing they might have become friends, one she'd hold off killing as long as she could even which then...is as high affection as she had.....

NoTP: Also Gortash. Really anyone that could cause her to be part Bhaal's breeding kink. People who are not Shadowheart

-> BASICS

Name: Sylfiel [Nothing More]

Class/Subclass: Wizard, School of Transmutation Life Domain Cleric (Formerly War Cleric while still following Lolth) Wild magic Sorcerer

Background: Noble

Gender: Woman

Sexuality: pansexual

Pronouns: She/Her

-> OTHER

Family: No. (Ilztaun but also he does tend to more firmly define that by blood so she'd not say it. You'd think grabbing her)

Birthplace: Menzoberranzan

Job: Adventurer, magical item specialist

Phobias: Returning to Menzoberranzan, Loosing control of her magic again, That the incident had survivors after all. Isolation, large dogs. Horses.

Guilty Pleasures: She rejects the concept and has had enough guilt for any pleasure for at least her lifetime no matter how long and four others.

Hobbies: Painting, sewing, she's been learning some metal working, likely to go more in a goldsmithing direction though it's mainly because she learned she enjoyed the craft itself while testing different techniques with Damon before actually working with the hammer itself.

-> MORALS

Alignment: Chaotic Neutra leaning a lot more on the evil end of things

Sins: Pride, Wrath, Pride again, Greed

Virtues: Diligence

-> THIS OR THAT

Introverted/Ambivert/Extrovert

Organized/Disorganized

Close-minded/Open-minded

Calm/Anxious/Restless

Disagreeable/In-Between/Agreeable

Patient/In-Between/Impatient

Outspoken/In-Between/Reserved

Leader/Follower/Flexible

Empathetic/In-between/Apathetic

Optimist/Realist/Pessimist

Traditional/In-Between/Modern

Hard-working/Lazy

-> RELATIONSHIPS

OTP: Sylfiel/Gale

Acceptable Ships: I need to finally run her to decide these two

OT3: Again need to get her through an entire play to decided these two more firmly

BroTP: Sylf/Damon (she assumed she'd hate him upon meeting and then they never shut up, mainly about their crafts of asking details of the other.)

NoTP: Sylfiel/Minthara.

TAGGING: @maud-lin @baldursghaik @thefloatingstone @nearest-x-dearest @squidgang

....anyone who's feeling like it? I guess?

AND I FORGOT TO SAY UP FRONT I WAS TAGGGED BY @arach-tinilith THANK YOU <3 <3

[arctic-shard]

Have a pile of Alagadda headcanons:

Being interested in bugs, all the references to the citizens of Alagadda being chitinous, and SCP-6624 giving the Yellow Lord a centipede theme, I tend to lean in on the whole insect thing. Alagaddans aren't insects, mind, I just take various inspirations from insects.

There's a fairly strict caste system but it's like insect castes - an Alagaddan is made for a role and plays it. The colour of the Alagaddan has no bearing on caste, role, or job.

The Hanged King

Not a victim, or if it is, it did it to itself For Unknowable Eldritch Reasons.

The Humours love their weird King, despite it being a silent cosmic horror.

Has A Plan called the Grand Play but nobody knows what it is. Ambassador thinks it knows but it's being played like everyone else.

The Ambassador

Not a native Alagaddan. The King found it or called it in from somewhere else.

Considers itself in charge. King don't care.

Basically serves as the eyes and hands of the King, going places and making deals and killing people. King's busy being eldritch.

If a tourist is causing trouble or snooping around, it's probably the Ambassador who's going to deal with them.

You can run but you can't hide.

The Humours / Lords

The first Alagaddans. Maybe the King's humours made into people? Many stories about their origins, possibly all true.

Primary duty is providing emotion for the King, either through advice or sharing experiences telepathically.

Other duties are performing rituals, making bodies for citizens, overseeing parties, and keeping order.

Mostly they just mess around doing whatever.

Can change shape by ripping off their mask and creating a new body.

Believe that the Ambassador should rank below them.

Pets

Probably have a better name but I'll figure it out some other time.

Created by a Humour for a specific task, like the Maestro of Rancour (SCP-6624-2) or the Magistrate of Duty (OC).

Courtiers

Live in the palaces and tend directly to the Humours.

Duties generally involve running errands, carrying stuff around, passing messages to other Humours, acting in a lady's maid capacity, and being on-call when a Humour is horny.

They wander around the palaces so while, for example, you'll find mostly red-clad courtiers in the Red Lord's palace, there will be other colours hanging around as well.

Servants

Anyone with a Real Job, working under a supervisor or not.

Someone has to make the wine and snacks and clothes and musical instruments and clean up after everyone else and sell things to tourists.

The servants in the King's Palace are mind-shattered husks, having spent too much time around the King.

'Musician' and 'entertainer' and 'artist' the like aren't jobs in Alagadda any more than breathing is a job on Earth. All Alagaddans sing and dance and entertain, it's as much a part of them as their masks.

Revellers

Your basic Alagaddan.

They're the ones partying in the streets, roaming around and pulling whoever they encounter into the Carnival.

They're the audience for any official plays or concerts or whatnot.

They seem to have the least going on in their heads. They are the Crowd, the Ensemble, the And Company.

Peasants

Pretty sure they're mostly revellers who either think too much or got tired of 24/7 partying and want to do their own thing but don't want to actually leave Alagadda so they go live in the outskirts.

Or maybe people who had their role stripped from them.

The lords leave them alone to Serve As An Example.

They do not go to the palaces.

Soldiers

They're off trying to cause incursions into other realities. They wait on the far side of SCP-5501, they fight at SCP-6034, but there's not many in the city itself.

If someone's causing trouble in Alagadda, they'll probably just get dismembered by whoever's closest.

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

Headcanon Kate gives the 141 kisses and then immediately bites them to show affection like a cat

HOW DO YOU KNOW I'VE BEEN DEEP IN BITING 141 HEADCANONS

It's a love bite!! She just gets so excited by physical affection she has to nom a little. It's fine. Don't worry about it.

Price and Ghost DO NOT make it easy for her. Ghost, obviously, covering his face a lot, but Price has a beard! She can't nip at his cheek or chin, she just gets a mouthful of beard, that's unacceptable. Sometimes she bites his nose. He's smart, though, can tell when she's bitey, knows to pull away so she can't nab him. So she resorts to biting the back of his hand. He has to shave for some reason and after the first round of novelty wears off (babyface Price?!!?!) new novelty appears because NEW BITING SURFACE!!

Kate tried to bite Ghost's hard shell mask once and hated it. He covers up a lot so she can't ever shrug it off like "oh oops i didn't mean to" she literally has to ruck up a sleeve or tug his collar down. this gives him enough time to plan a RETALIATION BITE.

Not nippy ones like she does, either. Full on chomps. His reasoning is "if I have my teeth in you then i know you are not going off somewhere doing something STUPID" Kate is offended by the implication she does stupid things. rude. This does NOTHING btw to make anyone else on base less intimidated by Ghost. rumors circulate about how he bites hard enough to draw blood and that's with someone he kind of likes! (this did happen, thankfully it was not in public because they were both very kind of into it)

feral bastard man Soap adores the love bites. to the point where if he's feeling down, he'll ask for it because it's a nice little dopamine rush. When the ADHD starts ADHDing he will either bite or ask to be bitten. it works, so nobody questions it. Soap is actually more likely to break skin because he's got sharp chompers. Kate likes to bite the top of his ear. Will use the mohawk to drag his head down if she needs to

Gaz gets nibbles. comparatively gentle bites. the guys are talking about their various Kate Bite Bruises Etc and Gaz is like??? wtf are you on about??? Sure there's a bit of a sting sometimes but she kisses it away. Price makes a comment about maybe she bites harder to match the biting the guys do to her (he is correct for the most part). And Gaz is like. you HEATHENS. why are you BITING HER BACK?

This devolves into a very long (slightly horny) discussion of biting as affection, etc. as well as some brief spirals into "why isn't she biting me harder/softer???" (there's a slight chance that Kate comes by Price's office while this is the hot topic in the guys' group chat and Price relays the entire conversation to her, no this is NOT an invitation to bite me right now Katherine!!!! [Price is the only one who can call her Katherine and he's only done it twice])

Anyway Gaz gets Nice Bites until he has a close call, which prompts a very dramatic kiss from Kate followed by a very mean bite to his neck that bruises almost instantly. Gaz is like great! i now see i was not missing out on anything. let's go back to the nice bites please. (he will get nice bites when he stops doing stupid shit, and Gaz thinks that's a bit rich coming from the queen of stupid shit herself, which earns him another, if slightly nicer, bite)

One of them has the top of his ear nicked from an arrow. Not Ghost, his ears are covered, but at least ONE of the others. I'm pretty sure it's Soap but it could be Gaz. that doesn't have anything to do with biting but is important for us all to know.

[interlink-au]

Meet the Links: Aspect

The Hero who defeated Calamity Ganon 10,000 years before Breath of the Wild’s Great Calamity

His race is a bit of a mystery to me (I have a lot of thoughts about this) so I made him a new race—Faroshi. His people live in the Faron region and worship the dragon Farosh.

Hyrule is preparing for Calamity Ganon and he is the Hero who is supposed to defeat him. No pressure. He's been visiting shrines and testing new technology the Sheikah have been working on. His Seeker Stone, as his time period calls the Sheikah Slate, is fully stocked with features! Wait, "Towers out of range"? How is that possible? It seems like this isn't the same Hyrule he was just preparing to save...

Aspect turned out to be a pretty quirky guy the more I wrote him. He's a quiet guy who thinks carefully about what he wants to say before he says it. He knows sign language and is always signing along with his speaking. His reasoning is, "Hylian isn't my native language so I want to be understood." Which would make sense if the majority of the population knew sign language and if his accent was hard to understand. Both of which are not the case. His other reasoning is that it's for practice. He learned sign language for a friend and got in the habit of signing while he talked to keep his skills sharp. But the truth of the matter is that he doesn't know what else to do with his hands when he talks. And as I was getting down to the root of his habits being social awkwardness, alongside the stuff I'm about to talk about in the next paragraph, I started to realize I accidentally gave the guy autism. And I was trying so hard not to project, too. 😆 I suppose it was inevitable.

He is even less expressive than Wild. It's hard to tell what he's thinking. He looks stoic with the intense expression he always wears, but he's actually trying to bottle up his anxiety. Between the social anxiety, autism, and Hylian not being the "language of his heart," he has difficulty expressing himself, which leads to him not speaking very often. To be clear, he speaks Hylian very well. He just overthinks everything.

He's smart and detail-oriented but he's not always the best at putting all the pieces together.

He's glad for little, no-pressure ways to be useful, like helping to provide food or teaching Echo sign language.

Similar to the Zora and Gerudo, the Faroshi prioritize spear training over sword-training. That's not to say he is unskilled with the sword. His sword beams when using the master sword are especially impressive. He is just more accustomed to fighting with a spear or bow. He also has various elemental weapons with designs based on Farosh, Dinraal, and Naydra. Both these weapons and his jewelry are heirlooms that have been passed down among the Faroshi for centuries.

Don't call him a Zonai. Those weird, Hylian zealots are barbarians. Or so he says. The original meaning of what a Zonai is got a little twisted somewhere along the timeline when people who worshipped those "Gods who descended from the heavens" called themselves Zonai after the beings they worshipped.

He's the tallest Link in the group at a whopping 5'8! ...My mom is taller than that. He's surprised that the other Links think he's tall, because he is about the height of an average Hylian male in his era, and is short for a Faroshi. Can't win for losing.

Feel free to ask whatever questions you have about this guy. I have so much to say that it’s hard to decide what to put here.

Meet other Interlink characters

[duhragonball]

Stardust Crusaders Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 183-192

Last time, the boys finally made it to Egypt. So they're home free, right? Well, not really, because they crossed the Red Sea into the southeastern tip of Egypt, and now they have to cross the entire country to get to Cairo.

But that shouldn't take too long, right? After all, the Tarot-themed bad guys are pretty much all defeated. Right? You're shaking your head, are you saying they added more Major Arcana?

One of the things I really enjoyed about Part 7 were all the wide shots of scenery, but I should have known Part 3 had plenty of the same.

All right, so first thing's first, the boys meet up with some guys from the Speedwagon Foundation, who provide them with some provisions, a new robot hand for Joseph, and a new ally. Only Joseph and Avdol know who it is, and everyone else is astonished to find out it's a dog. Say hello to Iggy, whose Stand is named after the Fool card. Iggy immediately starts dry humping Polnareff's face and farting. Come get this work, Dio.

Speaking of Dio, the Speedwagon guys have some intel on him. They spotted nine people leaving a building where Dio is suspected to be hiding, but that's about all they know. It's a safe bet that they're Stand users, but the only Tarot cards left are the Emperor (Hol Horse) and The World, which Kakyoin presumes to be Dio's Stand. Avdol has no idea what to make of this.

Okay, time out, real quick.

So I think this is kind of a mistake. The Tarot thing in Part 3 was a neat idea, and it seems like a good way to organize and name all the major characters in the story. Six good guys versus Dio and fifteen henchmen. It works.

But now we're down to the end and suddenly Araki pulls the rug out from under the audience and reveals nine more henchmen we have to deal with. They have a whole other theme, and when we get through with them, there's still another henchman we have to deal with, and that guy's just named after pop music references because Araki was over it, I guess.

So we end up with six good guys taking on twenty-six bad guys. Is that a problem? Well, I can't complain much, since Part 3 is one of my favorites, and a lot of these Egyptian Stand battles are classics.

Still, it feels like we're dragging things out for no particular reason. Most of these battles are really short and simple, and maybe if there were fewer of them, there'd be more room for the characters to develop a bit before they get beaten down. Hell, Avdol's only been in two Stand battles since the story started. Kakyoin's helped out a few times, but his only solo wins are Tower of Grey and Death Thirteen. It just seems weird to have so many enemies in this story only to use most of them as fodder for Jotaro.

Then again, that may be the point of Part 3. Araki introduced the Stand concept with this story, and it does feel like much of the action is designed to demonstrate the width and breadth of what a Stand could be. So rather than have a handful of Stands in longer battles, Araki crammed as many Stands as possible into Part 3, just to showcase the variety.

But getting back to the Tarot, somewhere in the middle of watching the anime series, I realized that one of the Enemy Stands would be named "The World", and that's when it finally hit me that Dio was the Za Warudo Guy from various memes in 2006-2007. Back then, I used to see stuff from the Stardust Crusaders OVA, as well as the video games, with Dio's over-the-top offense. The time-stopping, the road-roller throwing, the knife tossing, the WRYYYYYYYYYY-screaming, etc.

What I didn't know was how in the hell anyone was supposed to beat the guy. The memes were all about how insanely OP the guy was, and it seemed like a joke instead of a serious story. And yet here's Joseph Joestar and his pals marching off to Egypt to pick a fight with this guy. They're doomed. They're fighting their way to Cairo just to die.

And that's the kind of tone that was set for my introduction to Stardust Crusaders. It kind of fucking rules.

As for the mysterious new Stand Users, the gang doesn't have to go far to learn more about them, since one of them has already been preparing an ambush. His Stand moves water around. It makes a water-hand to attack this Speedwagon guy, but usually it just slashes at people like a knife. For example...

Kakyoin gets taken out first, and he barely had a chance to do anything. This looks pretty horrific, and it does take him out of the story for a while, but he miraculously recovers. We'll go into that later, but for now, say goodbye to Kakyoin, because he'll be riding the pine for the next several arcs.

The enemy doesn't introduce himself until the end, but for the sake of clarity, this guy's name is N'Doul, and his Stand is called Geb. He's blind, but that doesn't slow him down much, since he uses some sort of echolocation to detect his targets. You take a step, and he can somehow hear that and knows to send Geb to attack that spot. I assume this is part of Geb's ability.

However, Geb has a weakness, in that Iggy can smell it coming before it attacks. I suppose this is because it uses water to hit things, and dogs are good at smelling water. So getting the drop on Iggy might be impossible for N'Doul. On the other hand, Iggy's not much of a team player, and he seems fine with leaving the others to die.

Avdol nearly figures out how to beat Geb by dropping his bracelets on the sand to simulate footsteps. When Geb attacks, he singes it with Magician's Red, but doesn't score a clean hit. Geb, however, slashes Avdol's throat, which looks like a fatality, but no, he's fine after this.

So with two men down and no idea where to find the Stand User, Jotaro makes a break for it and grabs Iggy. N'doul doesn't understand what he's up to, but Jotaro has figured out that Iggy can smell Geb before he attacks. So he's hoping to use that to his advantage. Even if Iggy doesn't want to cooperate, he'll have to warn Jotaro or they'll both get killed.

But Iggy tries to escape using his Stand, the Fool. It's kind of like Geb except it uses sand instead of water, and it seems a lot more versatile. Maybe Iggy's just more creative. Here, he makes a pair of sandy wings to glide over the desert. This way, N'Doul can't find him, and Jotaro has a harder time keeping up with him.

N'Doul is confused for a while, until the Fool loses altitude, and Jotaro has to use Star Platinum to bounce them back up into the air. That's enough for N'Doul to figure out that they're airborne.

All N'doul has to do is wait for them to come back down again, but Iggy isn't going to make him wait that long. He drops sand down to the ground, which allows N'Doul to guage Jotaro's exact position and altitude.

But before Geb can attack, Jotaro goes on the offensive. He's already gotten close enough to spot N'Doul, so now he just grabs Iggy and throws him at N'Doul using Star Platinum.

This forces both of them to use their Stands to protect themselves from the collision, which gives Jotaro time to get close to N'Doul without getting attacked.

And so, once N'Doul gets his bearings, he discovers that Jotaro is right behind him. From here, it's just a matter of which one can strike first.

But Star Platinum is all about speed and precision, so it's not too surprising to see Jotaro win this. Geb manages to knock off Jotaro's hat, but that's all.

Jotaro doesn't hit N'Doul hard enough to kill him, but N'Doul attacks himself with Geb to kill himself anyway. He expects Jotaro to interrogate him using Joseph's Hermit Purple, and N'Doul prefers to die than to betray Dio's confidence. As N'Doul explains it, his Stand allowed him to commit crimes at will, and he was totally free to do as he pleased, but Dio was the first person to see value in N'Doul, and he seems to take this very seriously.

Before he dies, N'Doul gives Jotaro his name, and the name of his Stand, and explains the theme behind his group. The nine Stand Users are named for the Egyptian Gods of Prosperity, known as the Ennead. N'Doul claims that the Ennead mythology was the basis for the Tarot, but the connection seems kind of flimsy to me.

The best link I could find is the French occultist Ettailia (real name Jean-Baptiste Alliette). I thought his psuedonym was kind of cool until I realized it was just his last name spelled backwards. It looks like Ettailia was the one who got the ball rolling on using Tarot decks for divination and occult purposes, and he took inspiration from contemporaries who claimed the Tarot was the Book of Thoth, i.e. a mystical tome of ancient Egyptian wisdom. But this all happened in the 18th century A.D. millennia after the Ennead were worshiped in Egypt.

Then again, the characters in Stardust Crusaders who take the Tarot seriously would probably buy into the Egyptian connection, even if the Tarot deck itself seems to have originated in Europe. And it would certainly suit Dio's aesthetic, since he clearly enjoys living in Egypt and the counsel of fortunetellers like Enya Geil.

Anyway, the fight's over, Jotaro wins again, and Iggy is nice enough to fetch his lost hat. But Iggy made sure to spit out his gum all over the hat as a last "fuck you" to Jotaro for forcing him to fight N'Doul.

Speaking of the Book of Thoth, we meet the next two Ennead guys when the Joestar Group takes Kakyoin and Avdol to the hospital. These are Oingo and Boingo, and they're brothers. Boingo, the younger brother, has a Stand called Thoth which takes the form of a comic book that predicts the future. Together they use this to do various shenanigans.

For example, Boingo's comic predicts that Joseph, Jotaro, and Polnareff will go to a cafe and drink poisoned tea, so all Oingo has to do is infiltrate a cafe and make sure to poison the tea when they inevitably show up.

This is a weird arc, because the two sides never actually fight each other. This is more of an exploration by Araki of the concept of Fate. It's a recurring theme throughout JoJo's Bizarre Adventure that Fate is more than an abstract philosophical construct. Rather, Fate is a genuine, tangible force of nature, and it cannot be denied for long. The villains try to cheat or manipulate Fate, because Fate always seems to bend towards justice.

For example, there's plenty of cafes in this town, so there's no reason for the good guys to pick the one in Boingo's comic. Indeed, Polnareff chooses one at random by tossing his cigarette on the ground and seeing which one it points towards. But this leads them right to the cafe in Boingo's comics, where Oingo is waiting for them, disguised as a waiter.

But why should they drink tea? I mean, they order it at first, but suddenly Joseph gets paranoid, and suggests they avoid drinking anything unless it comes out of a can or a bottle. So he changes the order to three Cokes, and he specifies three cans just to be extra sure no one poisoned them.

But Polnareff doesn't see how anyone could possibly have been expecting them to come to this particular cafe. After all, they chose it at random, and if Joseph's that worried about it, they can just go to another one. Except... the one they go to is on fire, thanks to Polnareff's misplaced cigarette. This convinces Joseph to just go back in and order the tea like they were going to do from the start.

Again, there's no conflict here. Everything proceeds exactly as Boingo predicted. The only tension is with Oingo, who knows Boingo's Stand always tells the truth, but he still has to live with the suspense.

In any event, Oingo and Boingo's plot is foiled when Iggy starts a ruckus nearby, and the Joestar party goes to deal with that before they can drink enough poisoned tea to get killed. The comic book only showed them holding the cups to their lips. It never actually said they would die.

This is the main weakness of Boingo's Stand. Thoth's predictions are absolute, but they leave a lot of wiggle room in the interpretation, and they only show so much of the future. If you want to know what happens next, you have to wait for more images to appear, and you might miss an opportunity. For example, another sequence in the comic predicts that the boys will meet a guy and decide to mug him for no good reason. This turns out to be a huge mistake, but Thoth doesn't tell them that until later.

In the meantime, they go ahead and mug the guy when they meet him in real life. I mean, why not?

When I watched this arc in the anime, I wondered why the scenes from the Thoth comic were rendered in such a wildly different art style. It seemed eccentric at first, more of a whimsical choice than anything else. But now that I'm reading the comic version, it seems much more obvious. Araki has to draw the prediction, then draw the same events all over again when the prediction comes to pass. So the change in style is to keep things from getting too repetitive. Also, it's clear which panels are the prediction and which ones are "real" life.

Finally, the boys hit paydirt, as Thoth shows them planting a bomb in an orange and using it to blow up Jotaro. The comic even shows Jotaro getting exploded, so that's it, right? They're guaranteed to win now! All Oingo has to do is prepare a bomb and hide it in the good guys' car while they're not looking.

However, Joseph and Polnareff catch him in the car, so Oingo's only chance is to use his Stand, Khnum, which lets him change shape.

The good news is that Oingo fools them without any trouble. His disguise sucks, but Joseph and Polnareff are dumbasses, so they fall for it anyway. The bad news is that it works too well, because now they want Oingo to get in the car and ride with them. You know, in the car, where Oingo planted the bomb. The bomb that's destined to blow up in Jotaro's face. Or maybe, just a guy who looks like Jotaro. Uh-oh.

So now Oingo is in deep shit. He can't convince them to let him out of the car without arousing suspicion, and Polnareff keeps making his anxiety worse with his usual himbo banter. He asks Jotaro to do his cigarette trick, and Oingo freaks out because he doesn't know if he can. Fortunately, Pol demonstrates. You just flip a cigarette into your mouth. That sounds really painful, but doable.

Except Jotaro can do the trick with five cigarettes at once. This is a pretty awesome scene, because it immediately sets up the lore that this is what the Stardust Crusaders have been doing on all those long days of travel. Jotaro does tricks with cigarettes and teaches Polnareff how to do them too. Anyway, Oingo manages to pull it off, but just barely.

Finally, Polnareff starts getting ready to eat the booby-trapped orange, and Oingo panics and claims he has to go poop. He runs out of the car, and he seems to be home free, when Polnareff decides he doesn't want the orange after all and tosses it out of the car.

And Oingo steps on the orange before he can change back to normal, so it blows up in his face, his Jotaro-like face, thereby fulfilling the prophecy. Joseph and Polnareff don't even notice.

Boingo rushes to his brother's side, and swears revenge. Oingo pleads for him to reconsider, since Boingo is so timid, especially on his own. But before they can do anything else, that guy they mugged comes back with a posse. Turns out he's rich and he hired some guys to help him get revenge.

Eventually, Polnareff and Joseph arrive to meet the real Jotaro, who has no idea what's been going on. They're meeting up at the hospital to visit Kakyoin, and an ambulance pulls up with Oingo and Boingo in it. Joseph and Pol sort of recognize Oingo's clothes, but they don't really want to know, and they just move on with their day.

[moretomhardy]

FettSolo Week Day 6: Life or Death (WIP)

Rating: Explicit/NC-17 Pairing: Boba Fett/Han Solo Characters: Boba Fett, Han Solo, Jabba, various OC employees and slaves of Jabba's palace Tags: A/B/O, omega Boba, alpha Han, dubcon, induced heat, fuck-or-die, AU Content Notes: WIP, Mentions of past sexual assault, omegaverse (including past bitching, which is where an alpha is turned into an omega by getting fucked repeatedly by other alphas (which in this case is the past SA)), doubious consent inherant in fuck-or-die, normalized slavery Summary: Boba is on a contract playing bodyguard to Jabba the Hutt when he's drugged with a nasty heat-inducer. Boba can't afford to break a Hutt contract, and it's slim pickings for alphas Boba would ever be willing to sleep with in Jabba's palace -- you know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when Han Solo is the best of any bunch. Set about 8 years before ANH, when Boba and Han are both around 25. Author's Notes: This was supposed to be a fun little short fic I could crank out for @fettsolo-week, but then idk, plot and details abounded, it's 18k and I probably need another 10k to actually finish it (also I have a fucked up definition of "fun", but that's neither here nor there). So here's the first 11.2k that's sort of almost ready to post, please excuse any typos, choppy sentences, and pacing weirdness as this is almost pure first draft. Also sorry that this is not only omegaverse but, like, advanced omegaverse, lmao.

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Chapter 1:

Boba woke up with a low-grade headache that refused to respond to eating, drinking, and minor painkillers. He'd been hired to play eye candy for the rest of the week while Jabba was courting new investors, so he couldn't hole up in bed and sleep it off, either. He sighed and pulled on his armor, bracing himself for a more annoying day than usual.

The headache was still there the next morning, after a full night of sleep. Boba rubbed around his throbbing eye sockets and wondered if he'd been poisoned somehow. He didn't think anyone currently on Tatooine had a reason to poison him. There weren't any especially high bounties out on him at the moment, he had at least a neutral history with everyone else Jabba had invited for the festivities, Jabba himself supposedly needed Boba to show off the strength of Jabba's syndicate to the rich visitors (and to save his hide if any of those visitors decided they wanted to take out the competition instead, however unlikely that might be), and Boba was friendly with all of the cooks and serving girls on purpose. He took another painkiller, just in case it might work that time, and went out to face the rest of the palace.

The headache got progressively worse throughout that day, until Boba was toying with the idea of taking one of his more serious painkillers. The mental fuzziness and hit to his reaction time might be worth it when the alternative was putting his visor on one of its darkest settings to make even the dim lights of Jabba's lair tolerable. Not to mention how the constant, throbbing pain was wearing on him.

At the dinner, while Boba was looming in the corner watching everyone else eat, he started having feverish chills. By the time everyone had returned to the throne room for a night of carousing Boba was coated in a clammy cold sweat. He had to turn down his audials because each shriek and laugh felt like it was drilling straight through his skull, his legs were aching, and he just wanted to take the Slave 1 out to empty space somewhere so he could curl up in his bunk to be miserable in peace.

He focused on keeping his breathing even and not giving into the urge to shiver. It would only be a few more hours before Jabba went off to bed, and Boba could go out to the rudimentary med droid he had on the Slave 1 and ask it if he needed urgent medical attention or not. If he didn't maybe Jayney would still be up in the kitchen and would have some of her dumpling soup left over.

After another hour of feeling steadily more miserable, Jabba turned a gleaming eye towards Boba.

<i><"My boy,></i> he murmured, or as close to murmuring as he could get, <i><How are you feeling?></i>

Alarm bells started clanging in Boba's head; maybe he'd over-estimated his usefulness to Jabba in this scenario. <i>"I'm fine, your excellence,"</i> Boba said carefully in Huttese to at least slightly limit eavesdroppers. <i>"Why do you ask?"

<Fortuna said a breeding fever was spreading among the girls. I hope such a thing won't pass to you.></i>

Boba's stomach squeezed into a ball of ice. "I'm not susceptible to such things," Boba said, trying to sound careless. He was still legally registered as an alpha, since the prison hadn't want to admit what had happened to him on their watch, so there was no reason Jabba or anyone else should doubt that.

Jabba licked his mouth. <i><If you say so, my boy. We Hutts don't suffer from these trivial illnesses, either.></i>

Boba inclined his head and bared his teeth in the privacy of his helmet. Humans in general didn't catch the contagious heat fevers some species, especially Twi'leks, were susceptible to, but that virus was a main ingredient in some of the more nasty heat-inducing drugs that <i>did</i> work on human omegas.

Boba had only actually been in heat twice in his life, that first horrible time in prison before the guards realized what had happened to him and got him on suppressants, and the second time when he'd been alone and stupidly ran out of his supply while the Slave 1's hyperdrive had been damaged and he'd been in a system that had outlawed suppressants. He could hardly even remember the symptoms to compare to what was happening to him right then.

He waited out the next few hours, Jabba's greedy eyes constantly on him. Boba kept his shoulders very precisely straight and relaxed, his feet planted and his core pulled tight against the shivers that wanted to race through him.

Finally, Jabba called it a night, saying his grandiose goodbyes to the investors that were still awake before slithering back into the depths of the palace where his wet room was. Boba walked him to the door and then made his escape down to the hangar. He sealed the Slave 1's hatch before he pulled his helmet off, groaning and asking for the lights to reduce brightness.

He pulled out the med droid and collapsed down to sit on the hold floor in front of it while it booted up. It gave him a quick scan, then asked for a blood sample. Boba pulled off a glove to let it prick his finger and it spent a few minutes processing. Boba probably should have invested in a better model by then, but he didn't actually have much cause to use a med droid, in the course of his normal life. He preferred to go to a med clinic if he was injured more seriously than a few bacta patches could handle.

The droid finally lit up green with a conclusion and said, "You have been dosed with a very strong heat inducer." It put up a display giving the name of the specific drug, which Boba unfortunately recognized as one of the worst out there. "It has overpowered your suppressants, and you are nearly in full estrus. Treatment options at this stage are sedation under observation until the symptoms pass naturally, or frequent copulation with an alpha to ease the symptoms until they pass. Whichever treatment option you choose, please make sure to drink plenty of fluids and keep up your electrolytes."

Boba buried his face in his hands for a few minutes, thinking through his options. He couldn't leave, because for one thing that would be breaking a contract with a Hutt, which would only lead to having bounties posted on him across the galaxy for the rest of his likely-short life. And for another, that would just let Jabba know that the drugging had worked and that Boba was an omega despite what his documents said. Boba wasn't sure what the point of sending him into heat right then was -- maybe he was supposed to be some kind of party favor for Jabba's guests?

Boba rubbed at his aching temples.

"Is sedation really the only option?" he asked the droid. "There's really no other way to relieve the symptoms?"

"If you have access to alpha hormones, some omegas find this can reduce the immediacy of the symptoms for natural heats when applied topically and internally in regular intervals. But the effect is lessened on induced heats, and research is limited on altered alphas." The droid projected a series of charts showing how effective that course of treatment was. Even for born omegas in natural heats, they were only 39% effective, and the numbers quickly got much more dismal throwing in bitched alphas and induced heats.

"Taking anti-virals and/or cold medicine can help reduce symptoms for a day or two, but they will wear off quickly. I believe you are already past the point where they could be helpful."

Boba tried to pull up a holoscreen and do some searches of his own to corroborate the droid, but he couldn't bear to look at the screen lights for longer than a handful of seconds. The Slave 1 had apparently been listening in, and she projected a display of her own showing holonet searches of medical boards and omega support forums backing up the med droid's claims.

Boba closed his watering eyes and asked her to read him her results until it all got too depressing and he stopped her.

So, Boba would need to find an alpha who wouldn't immediately blab to the entire galaxy that not only had they banged Boba, they'd fucked him through a heat and he was omega. Someone currently in Jabba's palace, no less. Boba's eyes stung with more emotional tears, and he scrubbed at them angrily before getting up and hobbling on fever-achy joints to the galley to jam a stimpack into his thigh, followed up by a mid-grade pain reliever/fever reducer combo. Not exactly a recommended pairing of injections, but once wouldn't kill him. While we waited for that to take effect, he refilled the water reserves in his suit and sucked down an electrolyte pack and a tall glass of water.

He rolled his neck out and went back into the hold to pull his helmet and abandoned glove back on. He made sure his seals were fully engaged, the started the air circulators running to make sure no trace of his heat scent would get out of the ship when he left. He collapsed into one of the hold jumpseats while he let the circulators run. He started going through his mental catalog of alphas he'd seen so far in the palace this week. It was a grim list; he'd just have to accept that the secret of his dynamic would get out after this. He couldn't afford to have a Hutt bounty chasing him, especially when any non-underworld employer would ping his genetics as clone as soon as they ran them and ship him off to the empire as a deserter.

It was amazing that he'd made it as many years as he had without letting anyone get a good scent of him, really. He'd just have to start testing all his food for heat inducers. And arrange a suitably bloody and public death for the alpha when they inevitably told.

Boba forced himself back to his feet when the air filters gave him the all clear that they'd scrubbed all traces of his scent out of the air. He moved through a few quick katas, trying to stretch the ache out of his body and center himself; it didn't work too well on either front. He double-checked all of his seals again, touched every weapon he had on, then went up to his weapon storage to lock up his jetpack. The bulk of the jetpack and the distinctive profile of the nosecone was not going to help him with trying to discretely hook up with someone. That done, he headed back to the throne room where the party was still going strong.

There were plenty of alphas around, but most of them Boba wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. He walked slowly through the rabble that was splayed out across the throne room, the bar, and the gambling tables, searching for anyone he didn't already hate and that he could maybe delude himself into trusting for the span of a few nights. And who wouldn't be stupid enough to blab about the situation while they were still on the same planet as Boba.

It was slim pickings, like he'd thought. He disabled his incoming helmet filters so he wouldn't accidentally pick someone who's smell he couldn't stand, but that just made things even more bleak -- Boba had always been picky when it came to alpha scents. He was more naturally inclined towards betas and omegas. Not to mention the riot of smells in the palace this late at night, a mix of food and sweat and body odor and personal scent and spilled drinks and vague whiffs of puke and piss.

It was enough to make him feel vaguely queasy at the best of times, let alone when he was feeling like he'd been trampled by a heard of bantha and left out to dry in the sun all afternoon after.

Boba grit his teeth and abused his 360 helmet cams to look around the palace while he kept his head straight forward.

Laima Sikkani, a competent bounty hunter, was ensconced in a corner of the throne room, but she was a Twi'lek, no use for a heat. Gregon, an occasional palace guard who was decent company, was at the bar, but he was an Aqualish, equally useless. Melrir and Yarina came to circle Boba and see if he wanted any company for the night, but again neither of them were species with dynamic genders, and none of the working girls at the palace who were were alphas. Boba had to wave them off and pretend he was still working.

Kikimak was playing Liar's Cut in the gambling den, and he was both an alpha and he probably wouldn't tell anyone anything until he was at least a few systems away from Boba. But Boba kind of hated him on a purely personal level, and Yarina had once told Boba that Kikimak was a terrible fuck. Boba kept him in mind as a last resort.

He had nearly circled the entire floor and was about to begin a second circuit with grimly lowered standards when he caught sight of Han Solo at the sabbac tables. Solo was an alpha; he was also a bit of an idiot, kind of a loser, and a huge slut, but he wasn't the type to kiss and tell, usually. He also smelled good, and the rumor among the palace working girls was that he did know what to do with his cock, despite how much he ran his mouth.

Boba settled into a shadowy corner and waited for Solo to get up from the table so Boba could approach him in relative privacy. If he just walked up to him in the middle of the gambling rooms the rumors would be running rampant before he could even drag Solo back to his room.

It was the better part of a miserable hour while the stim injection slowly wore off before Solo finally stood up from the table and wandered towards the freshers, stopping to talk to what seemed like every table he passed. That was another knock on Solo's character -- he was a huge chatterbox. Boba slipped around to the other side of the room on shaky legs while Solo was slapping backs, and then he darted into the freshers after him. There were two other people in there, which was not going to work. Boba grimly stepped backwards into the dark hallway where the freshers lived and waited for Solo to come out again.

One other person walked right past Boba without seeming to notice him, and he startled someone else so bad they jumped a good foot in the air when they spotted him looming in the dark. Fortunately they scurried back out into the main rooms without Boba needing to give them any more motivation to do just that.

Solo finally came back out again, humming, and Boba grabbed him by the arm and dragged him further down the dim hallway towards the private rooms the girls sometimes used when a client didn't rate a room of their own. Solo squawked in alarm when Boba first grabbed him, but the noise wouldn't be noticeable from the main rooms.

"Hey, Fett," Solo started once he'd got his bearings, "what's this about, now? I thought his excellency was pleased with my last shipment." Solo's voice was shaking a little despite his best attempt at bravado.

Boba got the door to one of the rooms unlocked and dragged Solo inside. "This isn't about Jabba," he said as he closed and locked the door behind them.

"Um, okay?" Solo only sounded a little reassured while Boba gave the room a cursory scan for bugs. It came up clean after a handful of seconds; not much point surveilling these rooms when none of the high rollers would ever get brought here. "What... is this about, then?" Solo asked while Boba was busy running the scan. "I didn't think I rated high enough anywhere to have a bounty put on my head."

Boba scoffed. "Of course you don't." He unbuckled one glove and took it off, startling Solo into raising his hands briefly with the sudden movement.

"Um," Solo started again, staring at Boba's naked hand with furrowed brow, and then his face relaxed as Boba's scent hit him. "Oh. Oh shit," his eyes went wide and snapped up to look into Boba's visor. "You're in heat?"

“Yes,” Boba said, trying not to snarl.

Solo was starting to grin. “And you want little old me to help you out, huh?”

“Yes,” Boba bit out. “As long as you can keep your mouth shut about it.”

“Of course I can keep my mouth shut,” Solo bristled a little like he wasn’t one of the biggest loudmouths in Jabba’s court. “What happened, though, did you run out of suppressants?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Boba hissed. “I got dosed somehow.” He eyed Solo for a second, then continued, “I think Jabba did it on purpose. Heard a rumor somewhere and wanted to see if it was true.”

Solo’s expression went soft, and Boba bared his teeth at him behind his visor. “Well, hey, I’m happy to help out if you can’t leave.”

“How long are you staying on Tatooine?”

“I was going to stay until the end of the festivities.”

Boba nodded, eyeing Solo. “You know I’ll kill you if you ever tell anyone about this?”

Solo’s grin went wry. “Yeah, I figured. Don’t worry, I know how to keep it discrete.”

“Fine. Do you have a room?”

“‘Course I do,” Solo puffed up like that was something to be proud of. “Room 15 on level 8.”

That was one of the nicer ones, and it had a window. “Make your excuses to your friends and I’ll meet you there.” Boba unlocked the room and walked out and down to the furthest end, where it became a service corridor. He had to edge around servers carrying big trays twice, and one with a mop bucket, but everyone was used to Boba using the service corridors by then and no one made a fuss.

Boba took the corridor back to the dancing girls' ready room, stopping at a wall panel along the way to slice into the camera system and loop the footage in the girls' ready room and the few cams in the service corridors on this side of the palace. He also pulled the access codes for the two locked hatches between the general service corridors and the dancing girls' room. The couple of girls still getting into makeup and costumes startled when Boba slipped in through the back entrance, and Thevma came right over, frowning at him.

"You need something?"

Boba got straight to the point to put her at ease. "Do you have some kind of robe I can wear over my armor so that no one would recognize me in the hallways?"

"Oh." Thevma relaxed and gave Boba a critical once over. "You need to keep the helmet on, too?"

"Yes."

Thevma tapped a finger over her lips. "I think I have a few things that will work. Come here." She led him over to the racks of costumes in the far corner and pulled out a few gowns, holding them up next to Boba for a moment before shaking her head and muttering to herself. Boba's headache was coming back full force as the last of the stimpack and painkiller wore off, and he was about to give the whole thing up and just try climbing across the outer palace wall between his room and Solo's when Thevma finally made an approving noise and pushed the mess of black fabric she was holding at Boba.

"Try that on."

Boba struggled for a moment to find the bottom opening of the dress through the ruffles and lace, but he did find it and he pulled it on over his head. Thevma showed him how to do up the straps and lacing on the torso, then she handed him a veil to put on underneath the wide hood attached to the dress. He brought his rangefinder down as far as it would go to hide it under the veil, then scrutinized himself in one of the many full length mirrors in the room -- the dress obscured all the lines of his armor under the elaborate decorations on the torso, the flowy skirt, and the wide sleeves that drew back in to cinch tight at the wrists so his vambraces would be securely hidden. It even worked better than he'd hoped for at disguising the blocky shape of his helmet under the hood.

"Do you have any--" Boba started to ask before Thevma handed him a pair of black gloves to match the dress. "Thanks." He pulled the gloves on over the ones he was already wearing and that completed the illusion.

"If you need to wear it again, I can have someone drop some shoes off in your room tomorrow if you want to try on a pair now." Thevma held out a pair of simple black shoes with a few inches of heel that would further throw off anyone from recognizing Boba. Plus, the climbing spikes on Boba's own shoes were kind of distinctive and might peak out as he walked and the skirt moved.

"I'd appreciate that." Boba took the shoes and sat down in one of the dressing chairs to pull off his boots and try the heels on instead. He tried on a couple of pairs before they found one that fit, and Thevma told him he'd need to practice walking in them more. He changed back into his own boots while Thevma set the heels aside, then pressed a 150 credit chit into Thevma's hand, along with a few extra twenty pieces.

"Thanks," Boba said while Thevma stared down at the credits. "And give my apologies to the others for startling them."

Thevma looked up and flashed Boba a genuine smile. "Any time for these tips."

Boba nodded to her and slipped back out into the service corridor. He stopped at another wall panel to get into the cam system again and release the loops in the dressing room and the other service corridor cameras carefully, then he left the corridor before he hit another camera field.

He wound through the hallways avoiding cameras for a while until he looked like he was coming up from the throne room when he let himself get on another camera. If anyone was monitoring the cameras closely they'd notice that he'd come out of nowhere and didn't match anyone who'd been in the palace all day. But Boba knew what kind of security guards Jabba bothered with, and he knew no one would bother investigating what they'd assume was just another working girl in a special getup for a client.

Boba was panting hard from the minor exertion of a few flights of stairs, even without the weight of his jetpack, when he finally made it up to Solo's room. His headache back in full force and his vision starting to tunnel. Boba knocked on Solo's door, and Solo answered almost immediately with a smarmy smirk that went confused as he took in Boba's getup.

"Uh, I think you --" Solo started, and Boba didn't have the patience for this. He put a hand in the middle of Solo's chest and shoved him back into the room, following him in and locking the door behind them while he started a scan running for cameras. Solo kept bleating in confusion the whole time.

"Shut up," Boba snarled, and Solo's mouth snapped shut.

The reprieve only lasted for a second. "Wow," Solo ran his eyes up and down Boba's body. "I think you just gave me like ten new kinks."

Boba groaned through his teeth. It was an outrage that this was the best alpha he could find in the whole palace. The scan came back with one camera tucked into a corner above the bed. "There's a camera above the bed, left corner near the ceiling. Can you shoot it out?"

"What?" Solo frowned and whipped around to squint up into the corner. "I thought I got all of them." He pulled out his blaster and obligingly shot out the camera once he'd identified it.

Boba reran the scan to make sure the camera was fully dead. The scan came back clean, so Boba moved over to the little table in the room so he could start undressing, pushing back the hood and pulling off his veil as he went.

"On top of the armor, huh," Solo said, considering, as Boba started to undo all the lacing and straps on the dress. "Can I help with that?"

"No." Boba stepped away from Solo's reaching hand as he got the last pieces undone.

"Okay, I won't complain about watching," Solo grinned as he stepped back, hands raised in mock surrender.

Boba tried to pretend Solo's eyes weren't heavy on him while he pulled the black gloves off and then the dress, which he tossed over the back of one of the chairs. He carefully set his helmet on the table next, then looked back over at Solo to see if Solo would peg him as a clone and cause a problem about it.

There wasn't any spark of recognition that Boba could see in Solo's eyes as he studied Boba's face eagerly.

"You smell so good, sweetheart," Solo breathed, getting all up in Boba's space and tucking his face up against the back of Boba's neck. Boba let him take a few greedy inhales because Solo's scent was starting to take the edge off of Boba's headache, then elbowed him away when he tried to lick Boba's neck.

"Why don't you focus on getting naked," Boba rasped.

"I can do that," Solo grinned. He stepped away and had all of his clothes off before Boba had even finished getting his plates off. Solo had a big dick, which was unfortunate and was probably at least half of why he was so annoying. He was already getting hard just from smelling Boba, and he took himself in hand while he watched Boba get out of his kneeguards, boots, flight suit, and underlayers.

Boba was shaking as he tossed his leggings and underwear over the back of a chair with his undershirt, so they would hopefully dry a little before he had to put them back on in the morning. He was plastered with sweat, and already half-hard and wet himself. His headache was finally relenting to the alpha pheromones heavy in the air, but he still felt achy and weak and a little nauseous.

Boba startled as Solo touched his shoulder.

"Easy, now, come here," Solo gently gripped Boba's shoulder and drew Boba around to face him. "Just take some deep breaths, that's it." Solo stepped in close, ducking a little so that his neck glands were up in Boba's face. The concentrated smell of alpha made Boba a little dizzy; he grabbed at Solo's hips to steady himself, and Solo made an approving noise deep in his chest. "That's right, you're doing good."

Boba shivered and felt himself getting wetter, heat blooming in his belly.

"Good," Solo repeated, reaching up to cup the side of Boba's neck with his free hand. That was the hand he'd been stroking himself with, and the snarl was tearing out of Boba's throat before he could stop it at the smell of another alpha's pre-come.

Solo paused, then swept his thumb slowly across the underside of Boba's jaw. "It's okay," Solo soothed, his hands and voice still gentle, "just keep on breathing." Solo was quiet for a few moments, still rubbing his thumb across Boba's throat. "This isn't a big deal if you are," Solo said, talking slowly and carefully, "but are you altered?"

Boba jerked back, or tried to -- his center of balance was shot and he tripped over his own feet. He would have fallen on his ass if Solo hadn't surged forward to catch him, grabbing him by both shoulders and pulling him in so they were pressed together from knees to collarbones, Solo's erection pressing into Boba's stomach.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Solo was saying, wrapping one arm around Boba's back to keep him pressed close while the other came up to cup the back of Boba's head. "I don't care if you are, I just might do some things a little differently if you were, is all." He pressed his mouth to Boba's hairline, which was soaked with sweat.

Boba's eyes were stinging, and he was breathing hard through clenched teeth against Solo's shoulder. It was bad enough if it got out that he was an omega pretending to be an alpha -- if everyone found out that he was really a bitched alpha, that would be ruinous for his reputation.

"Should I take that for a yes?" Solo asked when Boba didn't say anything.

Boba nodded into Solo's shoulder; if Solo already suspected it enough to come out and ask, there wasn't much point in trying to deny it. Solo would include it in whatever version of events that he told all his friends later no matter what Boba said.

"Okay," Solo said, rubbing the hand on Boba's back slowly up and down. "That's just fine. Thank you for telling me."

Boba wanted to snap something about how he hadn't told Solo, and how had he even known, anyways, he wasn't supposed to smell any different to a born omega while he was in heat, but there was a hard lump in Boba's throat that he knew better than to try talking around.

Solo kept them standing there until Boba's breathing had evened out again, stroking Boba's back the whole time. "Come on," he said, squeezing the back of Boba's neck gently. "Let's go take a shower, you can't be comfortable all over sweat like this."

Boba tried to step out of Solo's embrace so he could walk, because he was uncomfortably sticky and a shower did sound kind of nice, but his knees were weak and his legs shook under his own weight.

"I've got you," Solo said, starting to walk Boba backwards towards the fresher, "just hang onto me."

Boba stumbled along where Solo lead, keeping his face tucked up into Solo's shoulder as Solo got them under the sonics and started running his fingers through Boba's sweaty hair. The sweat dissipated under the sonics, and Solo took the excuse to run his hands all over Boba under the guise of getting him clean.

Eventually Solo ran out of things to clean on Boba's back. He took Boba by the shoulders and said, "Turn around for me, that's right." Boba went along with it, leaning most of his weight back into Solo's chest, only to stiffen up as Solo swept his hand up Boba's belly, feeling horrifically exposed and vulnerable. "Shhhh, it's just me," Solo said into Boba's ear while he flatted his hand over Boba's stomach, "I'm not gonna hurt you, sweetheart."

Boba realized suddenly that he was growling and choked off the noise into a humiliating whimper.

"Hey, it's okay, go ahead and let it out." Solo lipped at Boba's ear, and Boba flinched hard as Solo mouthed down to his neck and nipped at his jugular. "Okay," Solo pulled away quickly, "my fault, that was too fast." Solo went back to petting Boba's stomach, until Boba wasn't twitching every time Solo touched him.

Then Solo swept his hands up to Boba's chest, teasing at Boba's nipples until Boba threw his head back against Solo's shoulder, panting and squirming.

"That's it," Solo cooed in Boba's ear, making him shiver. "Such pretty little tits, I can't wait to suck on them."

Boba bit his lip and squeezed his thighs together, feeling hot again.

"Good. I'm gonna touch your stomach again, okay sweetheart?" Solo did just that, sliding one hand down from Boba's chest to Boba's stomach. Boba was able to suppress the urge to bare his teeth that time. "Good, that's so good." Solo kept touching Boba's stomach until it didn't feel like a threat anymore. Then he reached down to carefully stroke Boba's cock a couple of times. "Very good," Solo purred when Boba's hips bucked into his hand. "You're doing so well, honey."

Boba's head was getting lighter and lighter while Solo kept stroking him and murmuring praise into his ear. Boba came, sudden and hard, curling over as much as he could with Solo's arm sliding across his chest to hold him up while his legs went to jelly.

Solo kept on talking while Boba came back out of atmo, panting hard with his face tucked up under Solo's jaw where Solo had ducked down far enough for Boba to reach. Boba took a minute to take stock of his body, then tried to get his legs back under himself to get out of the uncomfortable sprawl against Solo.

"Back with me, sweetheart?" Solo helped Boba straighten himself out, although he still couldn't hold up his own weight all the way. "I'm gonna touch your throat, now, alright?" Boba stiffened a little and Solo hushed him, rubbing the back of his knuckles across Boba's belly. "Just relax, you're doing so well for me."

Boba shut his eyes while Solo dragged one knuckle all the way up Boba's stomach and chest to his neck. It was the hand that was still partially covered with Boba's come, which helped some; it was harder for his instincts to tell him that was a threat. He still flinched a little when Solo wrapped his hand loosely around the front of Boba's throat, and he couldn't stop his lip from curling up to show his teeth. Solo kept on telling Boba how well he was doing and how pretty he looked while he was coming, which made Boba blush and distracted him enough that soon he was able to relax into the gentle touches to his throat.

Solo kissed up and down Boba's cheek, then mouthed down to lick at Boba's pulse point, and Boba just shivered. "Good, that's perfect, baby," Solo grinned into Boba's neck. He rubbed his fingers up the side of Boba's throat a couple more times, then turned him around again to scrub through his hair one last time before shutting off the sonic. "You need anything before we go to bed?" Solo cuddled Boba into his chest again as he started moving them out of the shower.

“No,” Boba mumbled, grabbing weakly at Solo’s arms and trying to keep his feet under himself while they moved.

“Water?” Solo prompted anyways. “Food?”

“Not hungry.”

“If you say so." Solo got them to the bed, where he sat down and pulled Boba into his lap. "What do you want to do first?"

Boba squirmed, his cunt tingling as it rubbed on Solo's thigh. "Aren't you supposed to knot me?"

Solo snorted; his hands felt like they were everywhere, stroking Boba's back, cupping his hips, brushing teasingly against his nipples. Boba grabbed at Solo's shoulders, trying to shake the spinning feeling in his head, and ducked in under Solo's jaw to nuzzle at the scent glands there. Solo's breath caught and he swept a hand up into Boba's hair to hold his head in close. Solo cleared his throat after a minute, clearly trying to pull his scattered thought process back together. Boba took that as a complement.

"We don't have to jump straight to knotting. You want me to eat you out first?"

Boba tried to think about that while he nibbled gently on Solo's scent glands, coaxing them into releasing a flood of pheromones that were doing wonders to make Boba feel normal again. Solo groaned and clutched tighter at Boba.

"What if you just --" Boba grabbed the hand Solo didn't have buried in Boba's hair and shifted his legs open to press Solo's hand against his cunt.

"You want me to finger you?" Solo teased his fingers against Boba's pussy lips. He slid his fingers between Boba’s already slick folds and teased at his hole. Boba buried his face in Solo’s shoulder and pulled one leg wider to give Solo more room to work with. “That’s right,” Solo cooed. He slid his fingers up to the front of Boba’s cunt, then paused for a second. Boba jerked his hips impatiently and Solo muttered “right,” to himself before he brought his fingers back somewhere useful and slid one smoothly inside Boba.

Boba bit his lip and tilted his hips up into Solo’s hand. He ducked down a little to get at Solo’s collar gland, rubbing it indulgently with his tongue while Solo curled his finger inside Boba, searching for the right places to hit.

Boba twitched when he found it and squeezed Solo’s shoulders hard where he was clinging to him to stay upright. Solo rubbed his prostate what felt like just as hard. Boba grimaced and grabbed at Solo’s wrist.

“Not so hard.”

"Sure." Solo eased off right away, pumping his finger in and out a couple of times before curling back into Boba's prostate, this time so gently it was barely more than a tease.

Boba shivered and shoved his face into Solo's collarbone.

"That better?" Boba could hear the self-satisfied grin in Solo's voice. He nodded into Solo's shoulder anyways.

Solo ruthlessly abused his new knowledge, stroking gently at and around Boba's prostate until Boba was practically dripping and rock hard, and Solo had worked three fingers inside of Boba's cunt. Boba finally let go of the death grip he had on Solo's shoulders with one hand to stoke himself the last of the way off, but Solo twisted them both around until Boba was suddenly flat on his back on the bed under Solo.

"Let me finish you off, hey?" Solo grinned down at Boba.

"Fine," Boba said while he got used to the change in position.

Solo huffed a little laugh and tapped at the back of the hand Boba still had wrapped around his own cock.

Boba reluctantly let go of himself, and then Solo swooped down to shoulder between Boba's thighs and suck the head of Boba's cock into his mouth.

Boba let out a strangled sound, half alarm and half pleasure. Solo's mouth was hot and wet and almost shockingly good. Then Solo teased his fingers up against Boba's prostate and Boba came immediately into Solo's mouth. Solo swallowed Boba's whole load, then reared up over him again, smirking obnoxiously.

Boba couldn't bring himself to be actually annoyed, still panting hard and suffused with pleasure.

Solo ducked down under Boba's jaw to nibble at his scent glands, and Boba choked out a few more gasping noises while Solo twitched his fingers in Boba's exquisitely sensitive cunt. Solo waited until he could stroke his fingers inside of Boba without Boba going tense all over before he mouthed up to Boba's ear to ask, "You want my cock now, or my fingers again?"

Boba shivered at the tickle of Solo's breath against his ear. "Your cock," he decided, since he was supposed to be getting knotted.

"Good," Solo growled. He slid his fingers out of Boba and got braced up above him. Boba wasn't sure where to look or what to do with himself while Solo grabbed him by the hips and just looked down at him hungrily for a handful of seconds. Solo's cock was so hard it was purple when Boba glanced down at it, beads of fluid dripping down it's impressive length.

Boba looked away again in a hurry because a cold feeling was starting in his stomach, despite the heat between his legs.

He hadn't been fucked since he'd escaped prison, and it was occurring to him way too late that that was maybe going to be a problem.

Solo was thankfully unaware of the storm brewing in Boba's head. He was staring down at Boba's cunt when Boba looked back at his face; he let go of Boba's hip with one hand just then, reaching for his cock and guiding it to Boba's hole. "Ready?" Solo looked up to meet Boba's gaze; he paused, expression flickering at whatever he read on Boba's face.

Boba scowled to smother whatever stupid expression he'd been making, but before he could come up with anything to say for damage control Solo was giving him a crooked smile and sweeping the hand left on Boba's hip all the way up Boba's body to cup the back of Boba's neck. He leaned down to press a brief kiss to Boba's mouth. "You okay, honey?"

"I'm fine," Boba insisted, his voice only a little rough.

"If you say so." Solo kissed Boba quickly again. "You ready?" he pushed his cock just a little bit against Boba's entrance.

"Yes," Boba insisted, grabbing up two white-knuckled handfuls of the bed covers as he braced himself.

"Good boy." Solo squeezed the back of Boba's neck one more time before moving that hand back down to Boba's hip, and Boba couldn't help the way that made him shiver. Solo grinned at him, still leaning in close, his face only a few inches above Boba's. He tilted Boba's hips up a little and started pressing inside.

Boba bared his teeth at the stretch of Solo's cock, and Solo leaned in to kiss at Boba's curled lip. He laughed at Boba's startled twitch. "Still doing okay?"

"Yeah, I can survive your huge cock, Solo," Boba growled.

That made Solo bark a laugh, his cock jerking where it was halfway inside Boba. "I'm glad to hear it," Solo grinned down at him, "but I think you can probably stand to call me by my first name while I'm inside you, hm?"

Boba scowled again at Solo's stupid, smug face while he looped both legs around Solo's hips and pulled him in hard. That did make Solo's mouth drop open, face going slack in surprised pleasure, which was worth the little sting of pushing too fast, too soon.

"Okay," Solo panted, "got it, don't poke the loth wolf."

"You gonna do anything with all of that?" Boba ground out when Solo made no indication of moving. "Or do you usually just coast on size?"

Solo laughed again, collapsing forward onto his elbows and tucking his face into Boba's neck for a moment. "Definitely should have known better." He nuzzled up against Boba's jaw gland, working it with his lips and making little bolts of pleasure shoot down Boba's spine. Then he got his knees under himself and started working his hips shallowly, rocking his cock in and out of Boba, the drag against Boba's sensitive rim winding him up towards orgasm again faster than he would have thought possible.

He grabbed at Solo's shoulder and braced his other arm against the bed, curling his hips up to meet Solo's thrusts. Solo mouthed his way down Boba's neck and chest until he was flattening his tongue over of one Boba's nipples. Boba jerked, the stimulation like a direct line to his cock, everything oversensitive from having come twice already, or maybe that was just the heat hormones.

Boba half swallowed a pathetic little noise that had Solo rearing back up to look at him with wild eyes.

"Are you into kissing?" Solo panted.

"What?" Who asked that kind of a question?

"I really wanna kiss you, are you into that?" Solo shifted again, setting his elbow next to Boba's head to brace his weight up. It brought the smell of him thick in Boba's nose, which right then seemed really, really nice.

"That's fine," Boba said, trying to keep his eyes open. He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd kissed someone, but he hadn't hated it when Solo had kissed him earlier.

Solo dived in, licking his way eagerly into Boba's mouth. He kept his hips rolling into Boba, never pulling out far enough to do anything but build up a maddening tease. Solo's scent was everywhere, driving Boba crazy while he tangled his tongue with Boba's. Boba suddenly needed to come; he got a hand free and wriggled it in between their bellies. He barely had to touch himself before he was spilling again, clenching down tight around Solo's cock and having to turn his head and break the kiss so he didn't give into the overwhelming urge to bite down while Solo's tongue was still in his mouth.

Solo hissed curses above Boba while Boba trembled through a long orgasm, his face shoved up against Solo's shoulder.

When he finally flopped back down against the bed, panting hard, Solo looked wild. Boba kept his legs clamped tight around Solo's hips, where he already had his ankles crossed over the small of Solo's back.

"You gotta give me a second," Boba managed. Even the small movements of Boba panting and Solo shifting impatiently between Boba's thighs was sending shocks of feeling up Boba's spine, in that confusing area of sensation between pleasure and pain.

"You can take all the time you need," Solo said, his voice strained.

Boba huffed. "You don't have to act like such a saint."

"So far I think this has all been kind of bare minimum decency, actually," Solo said.

Boba wouldn't really know. His experience was limited, since fucking anyone would out him as not being the alpha he was supposed to be.

"Are you doing okay?" Solo rubbed at Boba's side, and even that was almost too much sensation, making Boba shiver and clench down on Solo's cock. Solo groaned through his teeth and pressed his face down into Boba's collarbone. "You are killing me, honey," he mumbled into Boba's skin. Solo's lips moving so close to Boba's collar glands felt so intense; Boba squeezed all his limbs around Solo, but it was starting to feel on the good side of too much. Boba shivered again and then squirmed a little under Solo's weight, everywhere they rubbed together feeling like fireworks shooting through Boba's nerves.

Boba clenched down on Solo's cock again, sparks going off in his belly, and Solo groaned through his teeth like Boba had stabbed him. He panted hot over Boba's neck, then nudged Boba's jaw up and nibbled at the gland tucked behind Boba's jawbone.

Boba showed his teeth for a second, but it felt so good that he relaxed down into the bed again, loosening his grip on Solo everywhere except where he still had his legs locked around Solo's hips. Solo saw he had a good thing going and brought a hand up to the gland on the other side of Boba's jaw, massaging it gently with his thumb while he kept on licking and gently nibbling on the first one.

Heat was blooming in Boba's stomach again, and he squirmed some more against Solo, finally risking rocking his hips a little on Solo's cock, still stuffed inside Boba to the hilt.

The feeling was electric; Boba arched his back and loosed his legs so he could move a little more.

Solo picked his head up to look into Boba's face. "You want more of that?" he asked, his voice ragged while he jerked his hips against the cage of Boba's legs.

Boba couldn't help making noise as Solo's cock dragged out and back in, stoking the fire in his core. "Yeah," Boba decided, loosening his legs a little more, but keeping his heels planted firmly in the small of Solo's back.

"Come on, Boba," Solo growled. He caught one of Boba's legs behind the knee, still leaning in close all along Boba's body. "Give me a little room to work with and I can really make you see stars."

Boba reluctantly let him have the leg, which Solo pushed out wide, pinning Boba's knee down to the mattress.

"Good boy," Solo praised, leaning back in for another kiss. He got his knees under himself while he was tickling Boba's gums with his tongue and started to work his hips again, just a little bit at first. Even that still made Boba gasp into Solo's mouth. "Still that sensitive, huh?" Solo said against Boba's lips.

"It's getting better," Boba said, shivering again and squeezing around Solo's cock to get more of the pleasure-pain of the friction.

"Fierfek, you are so tight," Solo hissed, snapping his hips in harder. Boba bit his lip and bucked underneath Solo, trying to grab at him with his legs again. "Oh, no you don't." Solo kept Boba's leg splayed out wide on the bed with one big hand and a good portion of his weight shifted over. Boba subsided and Solo rubbed at the little scent gland at the inside of Boba's knee. Normally Boba barely even remembered those were there, but right then it felt like a massage on his jaw glands normally did.

He groaned and let his other leg splay out a little, giving Solo more room to move. Solo took full advantage, working his hips in hard and driving embarrassing little noises out of Boba. Boba's cock was already hard enough to leak again, bouncing on his stomach with every thrust. Solo took notice, shifting his weight back onto his haunches so he could grip Boba's cock. "You gonna come for me again already?" He jacked Boba a few times, then focused on rubbing indulgently around the head, worrying gently at Boba's foreskin. "I'm flattered, really. What are we up to now, three times and I haven't even knotted you yet? Let's make it an even four."

Boba made a few incoherent noises, until Solo's cock rubbed a perfect long stroke against his prostate while Solo dragged his thumb up along the slit of Boba's cock and he spurted into Solo's hand, his pussy clenching hard around Solo's cock. His jaw ached and he had to turn his head to bite savagely into the pillow. Solo groaned and leaned in to bite under Boba's jaw on the glad Boba had exposed perfectly to him, still stroking Boba's cock until Boba fumbled a shaking hand down to pull him off. Solo didn't stop moving this time, and Boba jack-knifed underneath him while his whole body ratcheted up with a sensation that tipped over into pain.

Solo was saying something into Boba's throat, nursing at Boba's jaw gland, the hand not keeping one of Boba's legs flat rubbing circles around one of his collar glands. It was easier to relax back after that, although he was panting like he'd run through the entire undercity of Nar Shadda. He was dripping with sweat again, he realized vaguely as one of Solo's hands skidded across his wet skin.

His fingers creaked as he let go of the death grip he'd had on Solo's shoulder and bicep. He could already see faint shadows of his fingers left behind on Solo's arm.

Solo was working a bruise of his own into Boba's throat, his thrusts turning longer and harder until suddenly he was grinding into Boba hard and biting down on Boba's collarbone. Boba grabbed at Solo's shoulders again, feeling a fresh stretch in his throbbing pussy.

Solo let go of Boba's leg, finally, and he wrapped it tight around Solo again. Solo scooped both hands under Boba hips and tilted him up so that Solo could slide in an extra fraction of an inch. Boba tried to wiggle a little to get some more friction, somehow right on the cusp of coming again, but Solo pulled him in impossibly tighter and growled against the base of Boba's throat.

Boba froze, his heart suddenly hammering while he thought about how close Solo's teeth were to Boba's jugular, and how they were probably locked together by now for at least the next ten minutes.

Then Solo let go of Boba's shoulder, leaving a smear of drool behind, to pant, "Sorry," into Boba's neck. He jerked his hips against Boba, as if he was still trying to get deeper. "Just give me one second," Solo leaned his forehead into Boba's neck, his breath ragged against Boba's skin, "and I'll get you taken care of."

Boba nodded, his jaw dragging against the top of Solo's head, and tried to relax.

Solo shuddered and gave Boba's hips one last squeeze before rubbing up Boba's sides. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at Boba, cupping one big hand around Boba's face. "Okay?" he asked, rubbing his thumb over Boba's cheekbone. His eyelids were heavy. Boba nodded and Solo leaned down to kiss him again quickly. "Sorry I went all cave man on you." He nuzzled into Boba's cheek opposite his hand.

"'S fine," Boba dismissed.

Solo didn't respond, except to get both hands around Boba's jaw and tip his head up to expose his whole throat.

Boba's heart kicked into overdrive again while he had directly conflicting instincts to both go limp and let Solo have his throat and also to get his arms up and fight like hell to throw the alpha off of him. He started to growl, only to trail off into a whimper as Solo rubbed at Boba's jaw glands while he mouthed gently at the front of Boba's throat. Solo paused and picked up his head to look Boba in the face again.

"Was that a good or a bad noise?" he asked.

"I -- I don't know." Boba's voice sounded suspiciously wet. He tried to clear his throat and arrange his face into something neutral, but he suspected it was way too late.

"Right," Solo said. "Come here, then." He let go of Boba's head and scooped his arms under Boba's back. He started to roll, then looked down at Boba's legs. "Let go of my hips for just a second?"

Boba took a deep breath and uncrossed his ankles from behind Solo's back, even though all of his instincts seemed to agree on wanting to keep doing that.

"Good," Solo cooed while he finished rolling over, leaving himself on his back and Boba draped over his chest. "That any better?" Solo asked, rubbing his hands up and down Boba's back.

Boba definitely felt less trapped. He squirmed around a little just because he could, making Solo's breath catch as Boba's rim tugged a little where they were joined. It didn't hurt like Boba thought he remembered. But then, the last time Boba had been knotted was just about as different from this scenario is it could be. It even felt kind of good, a tight feeling a fullness and a stretch that was starting to send tingles up Boba's spine the more he thought about it. He sat up, bracing himself against Solo's chest with his thighs splayed wide across Solo's hips.

"Kark, you are a vision like that," Solo breathed, smoothing his hands down from Boba's back to his thighs as Boba moved.

Boba bit his lip and closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at Solo watching him. He shifted his hips again, his own breath stuttering at how good it felt.

"That's right," Solo said, the edge of a growl rumbling in his voice and under Boba's hands on his chest. He squeezed Boba's ass with one hand and bounced his hips once under Boba. Boba's breath hitched again and he clenched down on Solo's knot, grinding his hips down. "Good boy," Solo rumbled, still in that half growl, "you keep riding that knot."

Boba shuddered and squirmed on Solo's cock with more urgency. Solo chuckled and raised one hand to tease at Boba's nipple, the other still groping at Boba's ass and thigh. "You look so good doing that." He pinched Boba's nipple hard, making Boba bite back a squeak and clench down hard on his cock again. "Mmmm, that's right." Solo rubbed the pad of his thumb over Boba's stinging nipple and stroked his other hand up Boba's side, his touch feather-light and ticklish. Boba shivered hard; he could feel himself getting wetter by the second. He rocked more urgently against Solo's knot, as much as he could move, which wasn't really much.

"Fierfek, you keep that up and my knot's not gonna go down all night," Solo said. At the moment, Boba didn't have any objections to that.

Solo dropped one hand back down to Boba's ass, kneading at it for a minute before slipping his fingers between Boba's thighs from behind and feeling where Boba was clutched tight around Solo's knot.

Boba opened his mouth to pant, his skin prickling all over as he broke into a fresh sweat.

Solo raised his other hand to cup Boba's throat. Boba went stiff for a second, his eyes shooting open.

"Shhh," Solo soothed, looking up at Boba with half-lidded eyes, looking like nothing so much as a sand fox batting a roo mouse between it's paws. "It's just me, I'm not gonna hurt you, sweetheart." Solo used his loose grip around Boba's throat to rub at both of Boba's jaw glands at once with thumb and pointer finger. Boba's elbows wobbled and he almost lost his balance before adjusting his stance.

"There we go," Solo rumbled, grinning lazily up at Boba. Boba shuddered and leaned into Solo's touch, closing his eyes again.

With his other hand, Solo swept his now-wet fingers up between Boba's cheeks to rub at his asshole. Boba clenched up tight, dragging a satisfied groan out of Solo, and opened his mouth to tell him to stop that. Except Solo nudged one finger straight inside at the same time, and the only thing that came out of Boba's mouth was a strangled moan.

"That's right, good boy, keep on going." Solo jostled his hips under Boba again.

Boba bit his lip hard and rocked hesitantly down against both Solo's cock and the finger in his ass.

Solo gave a wordless rumble of approval as Boba started to work his hips again, getting used to the intrusion into his ass. He hadn't thought he'd ever let anyone touch his ass again, but, it didn't feel bad. It kind of felt... good, adding to the general feeling of almost overwhelming fullness in Boba's groin. Solo moved his finger gradually faster in Boba's ass, teasing a second one against Boba's rim, making Boba shiver hard and adding more fuel to the fire in Boba's belly.

The feeling peaked as Solo finally slid that second finger into Boba's ass, fucking him on his fingers while Boba was stuffed to the brim with his knot, Solo's other hand still mercilessly working Boba's jaw glands. He came without ever touching his cock, grinding down hard on Solo's knot and curling down hard into the hand on his jaw.

He was vaguely aware of Solo sitting up and pulling his fingers out of Boba's ass to tuck Boba in tight against his chest. Boba came back to his face pressed up against Solo's neck, his fingers practically clawed into Solo's back, and Solo letting out a constant stream of words from where he had his cheek pressed to the top of Boba's head.

It took another second for Boba to realize he was trembling all over. He tried to put a stop to that, but his body wasn't too keen on responding to him at that moment.

"You still with me?" Solo must have noticed Boba squirming, separate from the general shaking. He tipped his head to kiss Boba's cheek.

"Mhmm," was all Boba could manage.

"Good." Another kiss. "You feeling okay?"

"Mhmm," Boba said again, then after a moment of expectant silence from Solo, he managed to add: "Cold."

"I'll believe that," Solo chuckled. He grabbed the comforter from the half of the bed they weren't sitting on and yanked it up and over to drape around Boba. "When's the last time you ate?"

Boba did his best to help Solo tuck the blanket around his shoulders while he thought about that. Had he eaten when he went back to the Slave 1 earlier that evening, or had he just been planning on it before he got distracted by... everything? "This morning, I guess," he mumbled into Solo's shoulder.

"Alright, I grabbed some ration paste on the way up just in case. Unless the kitchens are still open, I can comm and ask in a minute."

"What time is it?"

"It's 2:30."

Boba sighed. The kitchens probably were closed to customers by then. If Boba went down there himself he could still eat leftovers while the kitchen crew cleaned up, or if he commed down and Kivtan was feeling generous someone would bring him something. But he couldn't walk down there and back up to Solo's room without risking his cover, and he definitely didn't want to call for food from Solo's rooms.

The rumors that would start would be very different from the truth, at first, but they still weren't anything Boba wanted to deal with. Not to mention how they would add flame accelerant to the new round of rumors that would start as soon as Solo blabbed.

"How are you feeling otherwise?" Solo asked, threading his fingers through Boba's hair and starting to rub circles into Boba's skull behind his ear. "Still got the headache going on?"

Boba frowned. "I didn't tell you I had a headache."

Solo paused for a moment, his fingers stilling in Boba's hair before starting again as he said, "Well, no, I just kind of assumed. It's kind of the steriotypical heat symptom; do you not get them?"

Boba had spent all of his post-puberty life actively trying not to learn anything about heats except what were the most effective ways to never have them. If he thought back, he did have a raging headache both the previous times he went into heat.

"I had one," admitted tersely, his face pressed into Solo's collarbone so he didn't have to see Solo looking at him. "It's better now."

"Good." Solo leaned in to kiss Boba's cheek again. "You think you'll be able to sleep a little after this?"

Boba was already as good as falling asleep on Solo's shoulder, dispite the knot still stretching him wide. "Yeah."

"Good," Solo said again. He kept on petting Boba while Boba made good progress on falling asleep on him. He'd nearly managed it when Solo shifted, gripping Boba on his back and under his thigh. "I'm gonna pull out now, sweetheart, okay?"

"Okay," Boba mumbled, trying to rouse himself.

Solo picked Boba right up out of his lap, his cock sliding out of Boba as he went, leaving Boba feeling horribly empty. "Shhh," Solo hushed Boba as he laid him out on the bed at Solo's hip. Boba realized he was making a pathetic whimpering noise and cut that off right away. "It's okay, honey," Solo pet Boba's hair one more time as he drew away, tucking the blanket in around Boba. "I'll be right back, okay? Just getting something to clean us up and that ration pack for you."

Boba bit his lip and pulled the blanket tighter, watching with slitted eyes as Solo moved around the room. He got the ration pack first, setting it next to Boba's hands. "You can get started on that," Solo said, looking at Boba hopefully. Boba didn't move and Solo sighed before disappearing into the fresher for a few minutes. Boba had to bite down a humiliating trill building up in his throat -- it felt deeply wrong to not have a sightline on Solo just then, a cold, tight feeling not unlike a panic attack building in Boba's chest.

He shut his eyes and buried his face in the bedding, which smelled strongly of Solo, and tried to convince himself he was fine. The bed dipped soon after, and Solo ruffled Boba's hair. "Let me get you out of this blanket for a second and then we'll get you put to bed properly, okay?"

Boba reluctantly let go of the blanket and opened his eyes to watch Solo scrub a damp facecloth over Boba's belly and thighs.

"That's better, hm?" Solo got off the bed and Boba frowned up at him -- this was Solo's bed, so where did he think he was going now? Solo grinned at him. "I'm just putting this away." He held up the face cloth. "Be right back."

Boba watched him go into the fresher again, but he did come right back out that time.

"You're not hungry at all, hm?" Solo asked as he pulled down the sheets.

Boba looked at the ration pack and reluctantly grabbed it. He wasn't hungry, but he would be sorry later on if he didn't eat. He heaved himself up to his knees to get into the sheets and ripped open the packet. He pulled out the tube of ration paste inside and opened that, starting to squirt it into his mouth.

"Sorry I couldn't get you anything nicer," Solo said as he climbed in bed next to Boba. "And especially that that's the unflavored kind, but I figured better that then a flavor you hate. I'll be prepared better tomorrow."

Boba just grunted. He should have been able to get himself dinner.

Solo rubbed his jaw gland over the ball of Boba's shoulder while Boba finished swallowing all of the ration paste. He grabbed the water bottle out of the ration pack and swished the first few sips around his mouth before swallowing to get rid of the filmy sensation ration paste always left on your teeth. Solo grabbed all of the wrappers once Boba was finished and tossed them over the side of the bed. Then he grabbed Boba and pulled him down with him onto the bed, keeping them pressed together the full length of their bodies.

"You need anything else? Like the fresher? Or I can suck you off again?"

"No." Boba pushed his face into Solo's throat, where his scent was strongest. Solo started petting Boba's hair again, and that felt very nice. Boba threw one leg over Solo's hips to keep them skin-to-skin.

"When are you trying to wake up tomorrow?"

"Seven-thirty."

Solo winced. "You have an alarm?"

"My comm is already set," Boba grumbled, "I'm not an idiot."

"Course not, I'm just making sure." Solo soothed. "Does 7:30 give us time for a quickie in the morning?"

"I'm on the clock at 9," Boba said. "But he almost never leaves his rooms before 10:30."

"Tight, but we can manage. I have another ration pack in case you have to run out in a hurry."

Boba nodded into Solo's neck.

===

It felt like all Boba did was blink before his comm was chiming his wake up alarm.

To be continued....

[roselightfairy]

Tagged by @angofwords, and I love a little navel gazing!

How many works do you have on AO3? 169 at the moment! (heh) This isn't the sum total of all my fanfic; I have some works on a few other websites that I was too embarrassed about for various reasons to transfer over, but it is the vast majority.

What's your total AO3 word count? 1,755,361

Your Top 5 stories by kudos

The Boyfriend - an old Percy Jackson fic I wrote more than 12 years ago and backdated to AO3 in 2020. For some reason or another, it got Discovered and blew up out of nowhere a few years ago, and now I still get kudos on it every single day. It's sweet, and I'm glad people are enjoying it, but it's definitely one of those pieces of writing that reminds me of the difference in my age then and now.

A Tangled Web - a cowritten Legolas/Gimli fic with TAFKAB, heavy on the mutual pining, heavy on the idiocy. We both swore we'd never write about politics again after we finished it. Guess what I can't stop writing about?

Lovesick Blues - another Legolas/Gimli fic written with TAFKAB years ago, combination soulmate AU and sickfic. This one was a ton of fun!

Velle - a fic/art collab with @deheerkonijn during the early pandemic months. This remains one of my favorite projects; it's I think the truest writing/art collab I've ever seen that isn't straight-up a graphic novel. Featuring Legolas, Gimli, desperate horniness, and some of the most tender artwork in the fandom, if I do say so myself.

Worth - a fic I wrote pretty early in my Legolas/Gimli days, heavy on the hurt/comfort and Being Observed.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, yes, yes! I truly, deeply believe that fanfic is most worthwhile when it's a conversation, and I know as a reader of fanfic it brings me great joy to read a fic, think about it, gush at the author, and then hear back. Some of my dearest friendships started in AO3 comments, and I never want to deny myself or other people the possibility of that joy. The best for me is when a comment conversation goes on so long that we have to take it somewhere else!

Do you write crossovers?

Not usually! In fact, I can't think of a single crossover I've published off the top of my head. I do have the eternally unfinished beginnings of a Buffy/Twilight crossover I wish I could pull together, though.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

More and more these days! I've been moving into it very slowly and tentatively over the last several years. Usually if there's a cowriter on a fic of mine, I'll make them write (or draw!) the smut, but I have been tiptoeing into writing it more myself.

As to what kind . . . usually the vague kind, haha. I'm allergic to all words for genitalia, so there's a lot of emphasis on the other body parts, lots of reliance on descriptions of temperature, sensation, breathing, motion, etc. - anything to avoid naming names!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so! Though if anyone knows of something, please do let me know.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not! It would be so cool, though!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Oh, many! I've been honored to work with some incredible creators, and that kind of relationship, once established, is just incredible for creative flow and joy. I wrote quite a few stories with TAFKAB back in 2018, and then DHK and I made so much magic happen together between 2020 and 2022 or so. We started out doing the fic/art collab, and then for rebuild your seawall (brick by brick), we did just a straight-up writing collab. And the whole of modverse became a creative collaboration!

What's your all time favorite ship?

Whatever takes over my brain in the moment always becomes my primary focus, but Legolas/Gimli is the pairing of my heart. They are the OTP that taught me how to OTP. I'm always ready to go on about them for hours!

What's a WIP that you want to finish but probably never will?

Argh, I hate to say never! I started @goodintentionswipfest especially so that I could let go of the things that I knew I wouldn't finish, so anything that I haven't posted for that fest is something I haven't given up on! But I suppose I could share A Thousand Times, a fic I tried to write about Legolas/Gimli that got too complicated for me.

What are your writing strengths?

I think - confessions, moments of truth. That point when the tension between the two characters - whatever it is that they've been wrestling with - has finally come to the forefront and they're stripped bare and they have to tell each other the truth. I find that those scenes tend to come to me smoothly and clearly, and they're usually the ones I am happiest with even looking back years later.

What are your writing weaknesses?

On the flipside to the above, the real challenge of being - or trying to be - so attuned to emotion and what's going on in characters' heads is that boy do I beat it to death sometimes. I wish I could make my characters stop internally monologuing. I wish I could write in a way that leaves things left unsaid. Tragically, I'm very often too heavy-handed with the feelings.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet, but want to?

Man . . . usually when something gnaws at me enough, I can't stop myself from writing it. There's not a lot that I actively want to write that I haven't at least tried. I guess I wish I could write hobbits better - I'd love to spend more time in Merry's head, and I feel like Frodo/Sam/Rosie would be really fun to write!

What's your favorite fic that you've written?

It's so hard to answer this because there's fic I've written that I'm proud of and I think will stand the test of time, but I'm just so wrapped up in what I've been working on lately! I will have to say the Splinter Sect AU, my extensive AU/rewrite of the Star Wars prequels. I think it's pushed me in ways that I've never pushed my writing before, and it's been a really good project for me intellectually and creatively!

Thank you for the tag - this was a ton of fun! In my turn, I will tag @katajainen, @deheerkonijn, @tathrin, @floofyroro, and anyone else who wants to do this!

[noodyl-blasstal]

Can't Talk; Library's Haunted - Chapter 1

Happy @taznovembercelebration! I finally finished a fic I've been working on for ages.

Taako's busy with his ghost yeeting work, he doesn't have time to lose stuff, he especially doesn't have time to try and be nice to hot librarians who aren't cooperating. Chapter 1/7.

Read below or on Ao3 (where you can subscribe for updates if you want them.)

--

Taako stands, hands on hips, glaring hard at the various piles of clothes and books and the other detritus of life that’s strewn around his room. There’s no litter, just things, but not the thing. Sure, life might be easier if he kept his clothes hung neatly in the wardrobe, and his books on the shelf, and his other stuff in their stuff houses, but how else is he supposed to remember what he owns? He rips into the nearest pile again. It has to be somewhere. He was so convinced that he’d kept this one on the table in the hall - it didn’t seem likely that he’d bring an object like that anywhere near his other books, but it definitely isn’t out there, so in here it must be.

But it isn’t.

It really isn’t.

He’s checked high, checked low, levitated some stuff out of the way, found at least three items of clothing he forgot he had and one necklace he had given up on ever being reunited with, but no book.

Frustrated, exhausted, and cursing his past self for not taking Good At Being Tidy classes, Taako flops down into the pile of pillows and blankets covering his bed. He really needs to find it, but where the fuck could it even have gone? It’s not like anyone else has been in his bedroom recently, and no one’s been in their house apart from… oh.

“Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!” He shouts without raising his head. He waits, doesn’t hear any sound from the rest of the house, so tries again… a few times. The fifth one results in footsteps stomping his way loudly enough that Taako almost feels guilty.

His door flies open and Lup glares in at him. “You know how much I hate it when you do that, right?”

“Why else would I do it?” Taako asks, confused. “It means it always works.”

Lup sighs and walks over to flop on the bed with him, nudging him until he reluctantly wiggles over to make space. “What’s up? You look beat.”

“Can’t find my book.” Taako says to the ceiling.

“You’re gonna have to narrow it down, brother mine.” She gestures in the general direction of the book avalanche he accidentally set off in the corner while he was searching.

“The spooky one.”

“Uh huh, again, narrower please.”

Taako sighs. “The broken one.”

“The broken one, or the broken one?” Lup sits up and turns towards him, confirming exactly why Taako was reluctant to ask for help earlier.

“The haunted one, yeah, don’t make a big deal of it, s’fine probably. Cha’boy almost worked out how to fix it, just need it to check a thing and, well...” Taako waves his hand dismissively and crosses his everything that it means he can avoid the lecture.

He can’t.

“Taako! We literally had the ‘don’t lose the ghost book’ conversation! We made the ‘keeping it on the hall table or in the lab rule’ remember? There was an entire plan to avoid literally this exact situation!”

“You made the rule.” He’s being churlish, but fuck it. She’s not the boss of him, he’s not a petulant child. He’s a grown wizard, a responsible magic user, who just so happens to not be able to find a haunted book right now.

“You agreed to follow it! Plus, you were the one that started it with the whole no fire magic outside of the kitchen rule you made for no reason.”

“Uh huh.” Taako had, in fact, started it. He started it because he thinks it’s incredibly reasonable to not want to constantly worry about your house burning down around your ears, especially when it has taken you a hundred fucking years to get to a point where you have an actual house no one can take away from you so you can finally stop worrying about ending up begging spare rooms or living in the woods again. It also wasn’t an unfounded worry, there was the curtains incident, and the comforter incident, and the couch, the shower, and the short lived bed canopy too. His ‘Days Without Fire’ sign was never higher than 4 and the neighbours complained about the smoke alarm. His thing was different, this was just a little book with a little spook, and okay, yeah, the spook might actually have been a little… lottle spookier than Taako anticipated, but how was he supposed to know that in advance?

“So where did you last see it?” Lup asked.

“If I could remember that, I’d know where it was, wouldn’t I?” Taako knows he’s being a brat, and knows he needs to stop, but he simply doesn’t want to. He’s gonna have to make Lup apology pancakes at this rate because as much as he wants to blame someone else, this isn’t Lup’s fault. She’s trying to help because he literally asked her to. It’s not her fault he feels like the embodiment of chewing tinfoil right now, but when you factor that in, he’s actually he’s being pretty nice (if you squint).

“Humour me.” Lup levels him with a look that doesn’t leave any space to argue.

“On the table in the hall, where we agreed it would stay.” He can’t resist a little sprinkle of spite.

Lup does her pondering face. “Interesting. So someone’s moved it? It wasn’t me, and it doesn’t seem like it was you. Can it move itself?”

“Only a little. Popping open, a short hover. It couldn’t have gone far.”

“Has it ever moved anything else?”

“Not yet, that’ll be later. It mostly just yells at me.”

“Wait, what?”

“Not out loud, but, you know, I got the vibe.”

Lup sighs and rolls her eyes. “Okay, so when did you last have it?”

“Three days ago before I went to the scary meeting with corporate.”

There is a long pause. Taako glances over to Lup who looks back at him in horror. “The hall table, you said?”

“Once again, Lulu, you said. But yes. Hall table.” Taako feels his hackles rising and tries desperately to soothe them back down. It’s not Lup’s fault, it’s not Lup’s fault, it’s not Lup’s fault. Although, actually, she’s doing the squinchy face. “Wait, what did you do? Did you take my spook book?”

“I didn’t take anything!” Lup won’t look him in the eye.

“Lup! What happened?” Taako uses the voice he saves for errant students.

There’s a moment where he thinks she’s going to resist, then the fight goes out of her. “Well… so… you see. Magnus…” She begins.

“Magnus? You let Magnus in the house near my ghost book? Lup!”

“...he said he was dropping his and Julia’s books back to the library, and he knows it’s kinda out of the way and that I’m busy with work and school and Barry, so he said that he could just take mine too and I thought that was really nice actually…” Lup rambling is never a good sign.

“... and then?” Taako narrows his eyes suspiciously and tries not to bite.

“It’s just so kind, really thoughtful of him to do that. The library’s a bit out of the way and it can be really tricky to go when you have the car and the due date was coming up…”

Taako can’t bear it. “Where did you leave your books for him to collect?”

Lup hesitates.

“If it’s the hall table I swan to John.” Taako feels a headache starting.

“It… well, it might… it could possibly have been the hall table.” Lup says.

“Lup!”

“But they were on the other side! They all had library stickers on them! It was obvious.”

“Obvious to you, or obvious to Magnus?”

“Obvious to… fuck.”

“But surely they wouldn’t have taken it? It wasn’t a library book. They’d just have given it back, right?” Surely Magnus just has the book in his truck or something.

“Already ringing Magnus.” Lup says, as she taps at her phone. He finally answers on the third try and Taako’s trying really hard not to sink his fingers into the walls and climb up to lurk in a dark corner of the ceiling or something. Ceiling Taako definitely wouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit.

“Mags! Hey! Quick question… cool, oh, yeah, another new puppy? That’s great, when do we get to meet th…” Taako’s going to kill her, he’s going to kill her dead and no jury could convict. He settles for nudging her gently with his elbow instead because he’d miss her… eventually. “... sorry Mags, actually, I have to be quick, you know how some people can be…” She levels a glare at Taako. “Yes, of course I will, Taako, Magnus says hi.” Taako’s going to eat them both. “Uh huh, look, it’s about the library books, was there one which they didn’t take? … Oh, uh huh, you, you told him he must have made a mistake and that he needed to take it? … and… uh huh… uh huh… then refused to take it back… uh huh… and after that you just left… even when he shouted at you to come back? … uh huh… Magnus! ….uh huh, yeah, gods… fine. Gotta go, love you bye.”

Lup hangs up the phone and looks solemnly at Taako. “So, I have some news.”

“I have ears, Lup. Taako’s taking the car, don’t wait up I guess, I’ll yell if I need some backup cleansing the library or whatever the fuck I need to do to fix this. Keep your phone on and maybe get Barry on stand by? Spooky boy can earn his keep. Also, you’re never allowed to lecture me about being irresponsible ever again.”

Taako is out of the door before she can think of a reply.

-

Thank you for reading! You can find chapter 2 here.

[blackberry-command-cap]

NPC Sunday monday wednesday whatever days don't exist

It's honestly not that much of a stretch to imagine Ga'eon as a side character rather than the protagonist - he's always been more of a supporter than the main event, as it were. Hopefully the MC will be gentle though because he is easy to take advantage of :<<

I'll be answering all of these for Ga'eon before he went to the Sith Academy. At this point, he's just your typical Mandalorian youth, except pacifist. Also he's got a knack for biochem and the occasional scarily accurate dream. You know, normal things.

--What kind of NPC would your character be? Where could you find them?

Ga'eon's very much a follower, he doesn't like to be in charge. He'd work best as a companion, but he could also be a quest-giver potentially, especially if it's less ordering the MC to do carry out his bidding and more "please help me/these poor people".

He'd be found with his clan, fighting the Empire's battles on various backwater planets. The Kach'moff clan are really good in difficult natural terrain and the Empire mostly used them as scouts and such during the Great War. Ga'eon didn't fight; just healed, mended the armor, cooked the food, etc. so he'd be found at their camp, or hanging WAY back from the actual fighting.

--Merchant - what would they sell?

I could see him bartering excess foraged herbs, food, etc. for other materials the clan can't find or collect themselves. He wouldn't just sell raw materials, but also stims, adrenals, salves, or anything else he manages to make with collected flora.

--Quest Giver - what's the quest? One off or chain? The reward?

Probably a one-off! As long as he has his clan he wouldn't really approach outsiders for help, but maybe a clan mission goes wrong and he's the only one who makes it out. A pacifist healer can't do much by himself, so he goes looking for help.

Although the Kach'moffs are essentially Imperial mercenaries, Ga'eon wouldn't really discriminate - if he had a good feeling about a Pub MC he wouldn't hesitate to ask them (of course avoid bringing up the fact that they're Imperial. The MC realizes that once they've already rescued the Mandos - cue LS/DS decision). Reward... he wouldn't have much to offer in the way of money but he could give them some of his adrenals? Or crafting recipes.

--Companion - How do you unlock them? Do they have a specific companion quest line?

It wouldn't be hard to recruit him from his clan. He already feels like he doesn't fit in and that others consider him a burden, so any way to make himself useful somewhere else would be one he'd gladly take, especially if it includes opportunities to grow his skill with the Force, which would probably be the companion quest.

A Force-user MC could take him as an apprentice/padawan, and a non-Force-using MC might get a quest to find him a teacher (a la Din Djarin and Grogu)

--Rrrrrrromanceable? 😘😍💘💌⚘️🥀 What's the reward?

Yes, unfortunately. He's rather naive (read: gullible) and will basically fall in love with anyone who's kind to him. Which... is adorable on some level, but also means someone with less than excellent intentions could really screw him over.

Reward... idk since when did romances come with rewards? But you'd never get a more loyal boyfriend. He gives excellent hugs and emotional support. Be warned if you mess him up I WILL murder you.

--Regular NPC - what's their dialog?

very deferential, you get the sense he's intimidated by you. Also that half his brain is somewhere else.

If you approach HIM and insist on chatting longer than a minute or two you'll start to feel nervous for no particular reason (emotional projection) before he bolts with some excuse about being expected somewhere.

Thanks @reigrace-keyboardjam for the tag! tagging @catohphm and @mtshrike if you so desire (but no pressure :D )

[thothxv]

I really don't want to talk about the present AO3 controversy (I have opinions, I think anyone paying attention does, but I'm so. Very. Tired. And the internet chews up tired people with opinions and spits them out for fun. So that's not happening).

HOWEVER!

I see many people out there championing Squidgeworld as an alternative to AO3. If you don't like AO3's staff or leadership and want to go somewhere else, this is actually pretty reasonable. The Squidge folks have been doing this a long time, they know what they're doing. They are a smaller team, hosting on smaller infrastructure (a dog knocked over their server once, apparently), but they seem up to the task of running an archive.

However. I also see people talking how Squidgeworld's policies are better than AO3 in various regards. And I want to address this because it's... mostly wrong. There are some differences in the TOSes, but for most of you they will be the same.

First thing, top of the list: Squidge's TOS is much smaller and vaguer than AO3's. A whole ton of rules around tagging in the TOS are just... not there. There's a bunch of information in AO3's TOS about how complaints are treated, that's all gone, any specificity about how Squidgeworld defines what they do or do not consider acceptable behavior is just... not there. In their place, we have Wheaton's Law: "Don't be a Dick". You might thing that covers it all, but a good TOS that makes it clear what is and is not allowed gives a lot of piece of mind. Nothing is worse than waking up to see that you've been given the boot because you and the mods disagreed about what the TOS meant. It sucks, you don't want that. It probably won't happen to most people, especially if you're not an asshole, but it is a thing.

The next thing in the TOS is the CSEM clause (the technical term for most of what people refer to as child pornography), and this is what I heard a lot of people talking about. I have heard people say that Squidge "actually bans child porn". However, the only difference between AO3 and Squidge's policies on CSEM (which is, to be clear, they they do not permit it) The only difference is this line: "This includes anything deemed pro-child sex or child-sex advocacy symbols." The thing is, that's subjective. A fic that involves this kind of content is not necessarily pro-child sex. Yes, even if it's RPF. And no, RPF is not CSAM. Nor is RPF CSEM, which is a broader umbrella term. At least, not under US law or US definitions, which is what both AO3 and Squidge operate under. I have done my best to get the official definitions for these things: RPF isn't covered. This has nothing to do with my opinions on RPF, it's just fact. In short, if you're upset at AO3 for not banning sexually explicit RPF containing real-life minors, Squidgeworld doesn't ban that either. Whether or not it takes down a fic with that kind of content in it is basically down moderation staff opinion on whether it might be advocating for child sex.

Now here's the juicy stuff. Squidgeworld prohibits links to any kind of fundraising... except in the case of original work. So, if you are a writer who posts original work to fic archives and wants to link your Patreon... you can do that on Squidgeworld. Just don't do it on fanfics. Or in the comments or in your profile. Standard AO3 rules everywhere else. Honestly, unless squidgeworld takes off on a scale that is frankly unlikely, this probably won't matter, but for some of you, this is a good thing, and it's worth bringing up.

Squidgeworld, unlike AO3, does not allow AI-generated fanworks. Now, I'm sure a lot of you are very happy, but this does actually present some problems: Specifically, you can't always tell AI generated and human work apart. Sure, a lot of the time it's pretty easy, but you can mask it, and sometimes the output could be confused for real writing. More importantly, real people's writing could be confused for AI writing. I could easily see fic authors being attacked with accusations that their work is AI generated, or co-written with an AI. I don't know if that will happen, but... well, some people are assholes, and fan communities are often drama-laden. It could happen.

Squidgeworld prohibits web scraping for the purpose of use with AI. AO3 basically has the same policy, and they've taken more technical measures to prevent it now that we're aware it's a thing that happens (the first time AO3 was scraped was pre-ChatGPT, people just weren't paying attention to this stuff. I imagine squidgeworld takes similar anti-scraping technical measures, although I don't know for sure). I think people don't think AO3 does this because in the post where they explained this they also said they allowed AI-generated fics, and they went on to say that they couldn't make it impossible for someone to scrape the site and feed that into a machine learning model. That's something Squidgeworld can't do either: if you really want a website scraped, that website can be scraped. This is why AO3 went on to say that archive-locking your work would make it less likely for scrapers to catch it, and that you could do that if you were concerned.

So yeah. I think broadly that these policies shake out mostly the same as they do on AO3 in terms of content. There's more vagueness and subjectivity and more things that malicious users could potentially abuse to waste staff time and attack other users, but... well, you can always submit false reports. That's a problem on AO3 too. Same as it ever was. And hey, at least there won't be any blatantly AI-generated fics over on squidgeworld. Mind, I haven't seen any in any of my fandoms anyways...

[notesfromtheidiotbox]

I'm showing a picture of this post instead of reblogging because I don't want to distract from OP's point, but the various comments and reblogs all seem to have a common thread of "how did this happen? Why don't people seem to care?"

My personal theory is widespread compassion fatigue. It's finally ingrained itself fully into our collective psyche. And I'm not just talking about recent events either.

I'm 47 years old. I've lived through the end of the Cold War, two Gulf Wars, one major terrorist attack on US soil that upended literally EVERYTHING about everyday life in the US, the rising threat of climate change, a once in a century pandemic, multiple boom-and-bust economic cycles, the rise of the internet and with it the rise of accessibility of both information and MISinformation, multiple smaller conflicts around the world, the change in corporate attitudes from "we serve our customers our products faithfully and loyally" to "fuck you! That's our money in your wallet and we're not even going to pretend we thought of you as anything else anymore," the creeping resurgence of fascism as a political ideology in the US not seen since the 30s and early 40s,* rapidly rising inflation and wage stagnation without any sort of action to mitigate it for most of the population. and literally hundreds to thousands of people online yelling at each other for not "doing more," "doing better," or for not supporting/believing/doing the right things in the right way.

I honestly think the compassion/empathy tank is not just empty in the US, it's burned through the fumes and is now bone dry.

Being as generous as possible with the timeline, ever since 2001**, what we laughingly call the news in this country has served us a 24/7 diet of crisis after crisis, with no respite. It's ebbed and flowed, of course, but the general message has been "everything is getting worse, nobody is going to save us, we can't solve the existential threats of war, disease, famine, climate change, racism, and lethal prejudice that exists everywhere." And while collective action has garnered several significant victories, the attitude is still "this won't work because everybody has their own ideas of what needs to be done and how to do it and spend more time arguing over the details rather than doing anything***"

I think we don't care because we just CAN'T anymore. Even the things we would normally use to recharge ourselves aren't working. The food doesn't taste good, the entertainment is turning into forgettable sludge by the rapid rise of streaming, and it seems like you aren't allowed to be anywhere in public without spending money, and if you aren't required to spend money to be somewhere, odds are if you stay there for too long you'll have somebody giving you the side eye and demanding an explanation.

And online? Anger, dehumanization, and the constant cry of any sincere expression of joy or excitement is "cringe."

22 years of being constantly told the world is shit, humans are awful, you only have as much value as your bank account has digits, your employers don't respect you or the customers who get affected by their boneheaded decisions, leaving you to take the bullet, and constant reminders if problems which are too big to be solved in our lifetime.****

We're all tired, and we're beaten down, and we just don't have any more fucks to give about the latest crisis created by those in positions of power for what we are realizing are the most petty and stupid reasons.

There isn't a one size fits all solution here. But that's pretty much what I think has happened: the people of the United States in general have reached a point where we don't have the emotional capacity to deal with any more of this seemingly unsolvable shit. And I honestly think it's going to continue to get worse before it starts to get better.

Try to take care of each other out there, okay?

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*For younger readers: oh yeah, during Hitler's rise to power until Pearl Harbor, there were PLENTY of people who thought Hitler was just swell.

** I'd actually argue the trauma cycle started with Vietnam, but it really accelerated with the 24 hour news cycle, the increase in internet speeds, and the events of 9/11.

***On a related note, be EXTREMELY leery of those online who won't accept anything but full-scale revolution as a remedy. Most of the time, these people have no plan for what comes after or seem to think that when society collapses, they'll be on top of the pile, ready to be the boot.

****The kinds of changes that would be needed to wipe out war, prejudice, and many other systemic problems are probably going to take decades, if not centuries. And because of the always on demand nature of society right now, a lot of people seem to have a real problem wrapping their heads around that. Change for the worse happens immediately. Change for the better takes a LOT longer.