#ask freelance fighter

[metalhoops]

Nancy Wheeler always wanted something. That was her secret. It was the one thing that no one knew about her because she hardly knew how to explain it to herself. It was like being hungry for something other than food. It was illogical, incomprehensible and all the things Nancy had never let herself be. 

She prided herself in being capable and competent. This manifested in different ways across the years. In the days before her best friend’s death, she had prided herself in her grades, her appearance, and her capability to somehow charm the once acclaimed ‘ladies' man’ Steve Harrington. 

After that, things got messy, and her world changed. Her friend died, and she hadn’t been able to stop it. She’d learnt how to use a gun to keep herself and those she loved safe. She redefined capability, using it to encompass roles like ‘fighter’ and ‘protector’.  

She realised she’d never loved Steve, not really, not in the way she should. Steve was funny. He knew how to make her laugh, sweep her off her feet, and make her feel special. No one had done that for her before. She’d lived in a crowded house that always felt empty. Steve understood that. Her mother and father had been dancing around each other since she was born. Even as the eldest child, she’d never felt special, not until Steve. 

Then there was something about Jonathan. He’d been kind and compassionate. He’d been something Steve wasn’t. She didn’t want to be with Jonathan because of any external forces. Dating Jonathan wouldn’t turn heads or make the other girls in school look her way with something akin to envy. But it might fill that gaping hole of want.  Jonathan understood her. He saw her for who she was and he’d loved her for it. No one had ever done that before. Steve had come close, but he hadn’t seen her. He’d seen the possibility of a white picket fence and a family. 

Nancy knew if she went for that life, she’d be just like her mother. A woman filled with ambitions and dead dreams. A woman who got glassy-eyed when gazing out of her bedroom window, as though envisioning herself opening the glass and soaring free or falling to her death, impaled on the same white picket fence that’d sprung up like a field of daisies the day Nancy Wheeler was born. 

For a while, Jonathan had been enough. Until he wasn’t. She didn’t know who owned the blame for the demise of their relationship. It happened slowly, maybe when he moved to California, possibly before that. They were two continents drifting apart. He left in his wake the same old familiar aching hole of want. 

She applied for colleges, worked on her journalism, and freelanced for a couple of local papers outside of Hawkins, ones where women were allowed a seat at the table. It helped. She was done trying to impress others. She wanted to impress herself. 

She felt more at home in her body while she was moving, but when she came home, either to her estranged family house in Hawkins or to her silent student dorm room, she felt the hole once again. That was when Steve asked her to move in with him. 

She wanted to say no. She wasn’t going to do it to herself or Steve again. She didn’t want to give him hope. He was always in love with her. It waxed, waned and morphed like the moon, but the love was always there. Yet, to her surprise, he shook his head, showing her he’d also changed in their time apart. 

“Not just with me, Nance. Robin and Eddie are coming too. There’s enough room. It’s gotta be lonely sometimes hauling up all by yourself.” 

Nancy couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no. So she didn’t.  

What she hadn’t expected was how much she would enjoy having someone to come home to. The house was never quiet. Eddie would play his guitar at all hours of the night and morning. Ever since the group had made the mistake of getting Steve a record player for his birthday, he’d blast his music while cooking or cleaning. She couldn’t go a week without waking up to Toto’s Africa. A prospect that’d once petrified her, had somehow managed to bring her such comfort. Then there was Robin. Robin was never quiet. She was always talking to Nancy. 

Nancy had gotten used to her childhood home, where they ate together at mealtimes but remained silent. The place where, when she asked about someone’s day, she’d get a one-word response and a thousand-yard stare. When she asked Robin about her day, the girl told a novel-length, detailed account, filled with wild hand gestures and, more than once, illustrations. 

Nancy had come home late after spending the day at the library trying to complete a paper for her Intro to Communication and Journalism course. She was surprised to find Robin home alone, sprawled out in front of the T.V. watching what appeared to be a French Film. 

“Where’s everyone?” Nancy asked, letting her bag thud to the floor as she positioned herself on the armrest of the couch. 

“Watching a movie at the drive-in. I said I couldn’t go since I’m sick, real bummer.”  Robin faked a cough, then winked at her, sitting up and making room for Nancy. When she didn’t move quickly enough, Robin pulled her closer.  

The girl was clearly faking it. For what end, Nancy could guess. She knew Steve and how he acted when he was in love. He and Eddie had been mooning over one another for months. At first, it’d surprised her. She’d tried to deny her intuition, unsure why the concept of Steve liking Eddie made her feel naked. Nancy had always been progressive. It didn’t bother her that Steve or Eddie liked men, but it made the old, odd ache within her burn. 

“Do you think they’ll finally work it out?” Nancy questioned, watching as a flicker of surprise, followed by an air of mischief fell over Robin.

“Oh, Steve knows he’s got it bad for Eddie,” Robin confided, a cheeky grin spreading over her lips. Their faces were very close. Her eyes were blue, flecked with greys and greens, perfect in their imperfection. 

“He’s been waxing poetic to me for the past month. You thought listening to him talk about girls was bad? At least I can relate to that. Listening to him gush about Eddie kinda makes me want to puke. I mean Steve’s all ‘his hair looks so soft and curly, Robby.’ what am I meant to do with that? To me, Eddie’s just... I don’t know, our gremlin roommate that lives in our walls. I like the guy, but I don’t know what Steve sees in him,” Robin admitted with a laugh. 

She slung a hand around the back of the couch and absentmindedly tangled one of Nancy’s curls around her finger. Oh. Nancy liked that more than she should. Robin smelled like green apple shampoo, pen ink and poor decisions. 

Nancy was good at noticing things. She wanted to be an investigative journalist, and it came with the territory. She’d heard Steve mention how Robin had the habit of talking too much when she liked a girl. 

Nancy also noticed how Robin looked at her, the way her eyes lingered when she came out of her bedroom in her nightdress. Her eyes had scraped over Nancy’s shins, calves and the hollow space beneath her clavicle. All the new exposed flesh she usually kept hidden. It shouldn’t feel intimate, but it did. She’d seen drawings of her likeness amongst the clutter on the kitchen table and knew who they’d belonged to. Robin was good at drawing. She wondered if the girl would ever consider doing comics for the papers. It’d be nice to work with her around.

Nancy knew Robin was talking, but she didn’t hear a word of it, distracted by the stray strand of sandy hair, caught in Robin’s lip gloss. Nancy was smart, smart enough to know nothing good could come of acting on what she was feeling. She leaned forward anyway, brushing the hair back behind Robin’s ear, watching her go still. 

“How’d you get that?” Robin asked, capturing Nancy’s hand, trailing her finger over the scar cut across her palm. It was too close to another night, another possibility of love, another stupid decision by Nancy Wheeler.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nancy breathed, pulling back from Robin’s hand. 

“Robin, can you do me a favour?” Nancy asked, but before she had time to reply, Nancy pushed forward.

“Don’t fall in love with me,” she warned, her voice small but deathly serious. 

Robin pulled back as though slapped, looking at the woman before her with wide eyes, seeming like a creature ensnared in a trap. It’d come out all wrong. Nancy was never good with this kind of thing. 

“I hurt everyone that loves me,” she amended. 

“So please don’t fall in love with me, because I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Robin blinked owlishly at the girl before leaping to her feet and pacing before Nancy and the TV. 

“Holy shit,” she breathed as she paced. Robin’s body never felt at home staying still either. Nancy opened her mouth to say something, but it was drowned out by another bout of ‘holy shit’. 

“You like me, Nance,” Robin exclaimed, gesturing an upturned palm between the two of them. 

“You have to like me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t say that. And I mean, why the hell would you say that?” Robin ran a hand through her hair before huffing and sitting back down across from Nancy, taking her hands into her lap. They were both shaking. To her credit, Robin didn’t touch the scar again. 

“It’s not your fault. What happened between you and Steve. You know that right?” Nancy hadn’t expected that. Robin was always on Steve’s side for everything, they were best friends. 

“I broke his heart, too. He’s told you that, right?” He had. 

“That’s different,” Nancy reasoned. 

“Just because a relationship doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it was pointless. It’s like... I don’t know, having a crush on Tom Cruise,” Robin reasoned, instantly losing Nancy.  

“Alright, bad example. What I mean is back in high school, I had a major crush on Tammy Thompson. Don’t give me that face. Steve has said everything you could say. The point is, looking back at it now we never would’ve worked. She was a total flake. She was pretty but I’d drive her up the damn wall, like, could you imagine Tammy Thompson letting me talk about Italian Neorealism for two hours? No. But you did.” Robin nudged Nancy’s shoulder as though to prove a point.

“Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. The point is, I realised I liked girls because of Tammy Thompson, so liking her wasn’t a waste of time. You changed Steve and Steve changed you, same with Jonathan. It’s made you who you are, Nance and who you are is a total badass, that I really, really like. So please don’t tell me not to fall in love with you. It’s not fair. You won’t hurt me, but even if you do, I think it’d be worth it for us to try.” 

Nancy never had learned to shut Robin up, but she suddenly had an idea. 

She leaned forward, placing a shaking hand on Robin’s cheek and crashing their lips together, sleek, sticky, glossed lips smacking together, tasting of strawberry, feeling like home. 

Maybe the third time was the charm. 

[slyvester101]

I know this is another ask so soon lol but how do you think Wash's and Tucker's relationship would go if Tucker was in season 6? Tbh I already have my own interpretation that they are instant enemies, Wash's worst nightmare and it took the personification of a aqua sim trooper. Their stubbornness knows no bounds and it's worst when they met before having their character development. Someone has to hold Tucker back before he gets murdered by a trigger happy freelancer for not shutting tfu.

Ask away my fine fellow

I think if Tucker was with the reds and blues during season 6, there’d be a lot more roasting of Agent Washington. Church and Tucker bounce off of each other, sending rib after rib to anyone in the area, including the other. Which means that Wash has to deal with twice the amount of insults and bickering. It is easier to manage Caboose since Tucker was the one to keep an eye on him when Church left Blood Gulch first (because Church always leaves first) and he is much better at keeping Caboose on track than Church. 

While I do think Agent Washington dislikes Tucker when they meet, he also recognizes how smart and resourceful the guy is and sees the potential he has and how much he's holding back in order to be underestimated. It makes him wary. Additionally, I think Tucker’s flirting and care-free attitude reminds him a lot of York, so he has to deal with that while also trying to command a guy who reminds him of his dead friend. He tries to stay away from Tucker as much as possible. (It does not work, they fight all the damn time)

(They both consider murder many times)

Tucker is definitely more wary of Agent Washington as well and questions everything he commands and undermines his authority all the time. So basically Tucker being Tucker. Tucker would also be more grumpy about being on this mission since it took him away from his son (if Tucker was to join without completely breaking the timeline, I think it would make more sense for him to go to the desert temple after the whole epsilon and Meta showdown). He would also hold a personal vendetta against Wash since he would be there when Church dies and make that link to his best friend dying to Agent Washington, which means when they meet again, Tucker is down and ready to rip this guy apart.

All this would make Wash’s eventual addition to the team a bit more strained and awkward. Tucker is even more petty and even downright mean to Wash because of everything that happened and takes much longer to warm up to him. Wash takes it with the same amount of grace as always, trying to be diplomatic about it and be a good teammate (I don’t think Tucker would be as willing to call Wash “team leader” after everything that happened, so they decide to be something like co-leaders since Tucker is the highest-ranking soldier and a pretty good fighter in his own right and Wash has the most experience). 

They’re basically begrudging parents to Caboose by the time Carolina shows up. They bicker like an old married couple worthy of competing against Grimmons. (Tucker shows he’s finally warming up to him when he stops calling Wash various names like “agent fuckface” “agent friend killer” “agent team wiper” and starts calling him “Wash”)

While they go planet hopping with Carolina, Tucker learns about Wash and his time with freelancer and he realizes how absolutely fucked up he is (he knew he had issues, but holy shit). He’s a bit more willing to work with Wash, and to some extent Carolina, near the end and after their mission to kill the director. (That whole scene where Wash choses to protect Tucker from Carolina, choses blue team over freelancer, is the day Tucker finally accepts Wash as his friend.)

By the time they crash on Chorus, I think Tucker and Wash have really mellowed their relationship and have learned to rely on each other. They’re the dynamic duo, the one-two punch that leaves you reeling, a scary ass pair for anyone they face. Even after Church leaves again, Tucker and Wash don’t have that power dynamic of “anxious ex-specops authority figure” and “angsty asshole who hates following orders” since they’ve spent a lot of time learning how to work together as blue team leaders. Tucker is still angsty and Wash is still paranoid, but it’s more of a partnership than the mentorship we see Wash having with Tucker in the og show.

I think it makes their separation on Chorus even more heartbreaking for the both of them since they’ve gotten so close. They haven’t trusted someone like this in a long time, someone who’s so good at reading them and knowing when to give encouragement but also not afraid to call out your bullshit. It also makes their reunion so fucking awesome because they can finally let down their guard a little and trust someone else to pick up some of the load. 

I don’t know how it would change the course of the rest of the show since I’ve only watched up to season 12, but I think at that point it’s basically the same as it would be in the show.

[midnight-pluto]

MY MODEL: special features — one braincell

SYNOPSIS: seems like the Xianzhou has hired a freelance photographer to help with their new magazine. however, this model seems to have fallen head over heels for a certain photographer - what exactly is their story?

CONTAINS: he fell first they fell harder trope, fluff, crack, humor, swearing, slight angst

my model master list

˙☆. JING YUAN :

The Xianzhou Luofu’s top model. One might think that he hangs out with more dignified friends rather than the mismatched group he has now, but the public will never know. They’ll never understand just how deep their connections run.

“I’d rather be a Lover than a Fighter.”

˙☆. FU XUAN :

The Xianzhou Luofu’s second top model. One of the main reasons the group chat began - her rivalry with Jing Yuan: rivals to best friends who still pretend to be rivals for drama. Used to have a workaholic mindset but learned what was good for her, leaving behind the thoughts that weighed her down.

“It was all so innocent.”

˙☆. BLADE :

The main rapper of The St3llaronHunters. Was never one to be in the spotlight but felt an obligation to so he accepted. Isn’t very close with the group chat but still hangs around for nostalgia’s sake, and still holding onto loose threads of past now lost.

“This is just the way I am.”

˙☆. TINGYUN :

The lead photographer for the Xianzhou Luofu. Got into the group chat by selling extra photo copies of Jing Yuan. Could’ve been one of their models, but still has some lingering self-esteem issues due to a toxic and manipulative best friend.

“Memories Feel Like Weapons.”

˙☆. YANQING :

A 13 year old child. Does anyone quite understand how he managed to wiggle his way into such a renowned group of people? No, but Jing Yuan seems to be acting as a protective brother figure to him, so they all learn to chill with him. Perhaps, it was the fact that he’s indebted to him in some way.

“I was a Kid but I wasn’t Clueless.”

TAGLIST: @zyphyrr @ohmyfinggod @not-creativequill @klementime @nekobluecute @theautisticduck [ if you want to be added, send me an ask or feel free to comment! ]

[regheart]

Emmeline Vance and the Prewett twins 🤔

i'll answer @signed-manny, who asked for emmeline, and @midnightstargazer, who asked for fabian and gideon as well. thanks to all!

first, i'd like to address that seeing the prewetts as twins is a common headcanon, probably to mirror fred and george, but i like them as ordinary siblings, molly as the oldest, then fabian, then gideon. as the middle son, but the oldest boy, fabian often found a lot of responsibility placed upon him, but not as much support as he might have wanted, while gideon was the baby, but also constantly on the shadow of his brighter brother. i think percy is the weasley brother that most ressembles the prewett side, but bill remembers them enough to look up to them

on that vein, i think fabian might have been a freelance curse breaker (bill inherited his books) and gideon might have worked as a hit wizard (he didn't have the grades to become an auror), but their true vocation was the order

i see them as having wolfish traits — pack animals, good fighters. fabian's patronus was a fox (clever and charismatic) and gideon's was a jackal (a little more vicious)

fabian's wand was made of aspen with a dragon heartstring core, a good wand for a powerful duellist and suiting for a revolutionary

gideon's was was made of sycamore with a phoenix feather core, an explosive combination suiting an adventurous owner

at this point it might be obvious that they're both gryffindors

emmeline vance, however, is a slytherin. she worked as an archivist for the ministry, a very dull job for most of the time, but one that made it possible for her to find any information registered by the ministry, and that included records of underage magic, filed auror cases, legal processes... she might have been the one who digged the files to find the information dumbledore wanted from voldemort (she did die that year. coincidence?)

her patronus was one of the coolest animals ever, a jellyfish. mostly because i think it would look cool as fuck, but also for the association with an animal that could burn you, but does not mean to. jellyfishes don't really have brains

for her wand i chose alder wood and dragon heartstring core. it marks a desire to be different from its nature, and it's also fitting for non-verbal spells

now, for the dynamic between the three of them, i usually pair gideon with dorcas or marlene based on a few shared traits, and recently i've been interested Ina romantic potential between fabian and emmeline. on my most recent version of them, i made emmeline a couple years older than him, and i don't think they would've been close during hogwarts, but while being part of the order, emmeline would find out that fabian is someone who can make her laugh and he would find her patience and intelligence endearing. gideon was almost always by his brother's side, and he enjoys emmeline's company first because it makes fabian happy, second because she's always receptive to his problems and has interesting thoughts on morality and war strategy. they make a good research team, but they make an even better team for complicated missions

emmeline can never really look at molly after they die

[midnight-raven]

Futuristic Four ft Riley & Miguel as Sinner Demons

Idea inspired by Anon. Original ask here -> post

The Underworld; a dark and chaotic realm ruled by Xibalba, where the souls of those whom have sinned in their previous lives are sent to spend the rest of eternity.

Follow the lives of six demons as they try to live the rest of their eternal afterlife to the fullest.

(Closing off the rest of the post because of mentions of dark topics. Proceed with caution.)

⚠️ TW: Mentions of Death, Suicide, Slight Torture, and Mentioned Substance Abuse⚠️

If not a fan, please do not read ahead.

Thank you.

HIRO HAMADA

Age: 18

Alias: Kage

Species: Cybernetic Kabuki Demon

Cause of Death: Building Explosion

Hiro and his brother, Tadashi, were researchers in a lab that mysteriously caught fire. Hiro had made a deal with Xibalba, to spare his brother's life, even if the deal condemned his own soul.

Afterwards, Hiro was reincarnated as a demon in Hell. At first, he worked as a Bot Fighter for Yama in the Greed Ring, until Hiro decided to start an assassination business, to investigate those whose deaths were unnatural and unsolved.

VIOLET PARR

Age: 18

Alias: Dark Wings

Species: Harpy Demon

Cause of Death: Bullet to the Heart

Violet was a young super who was declared an enemy after she deflected a bullet with her shields and accidentally struck an innocent bystander. Shunned by her family, Violet lived a life on the run from the NSA, until she was finally cornered.

Reincarnated in the Wrath Ring as a Harpy Demon, Violets’ power grew with her rage, as she continued her path as a Vigilante of Justice. Vowing to never be hurt again, and to work alone.

WILBUR ROBINSON

Age: 17

Alias: Surge

Species: Electricity Demon

Cause of Death: Electrical Surge

Wilbur always knew he could never live up to his fathers golden legacy, which led him to reckless actions with dire consequences. This created a rift between him and his Dad, that could’ve been repaired in time… but it was too late.

In the Greed Ring, Wilbur was captured and used as a living battery for an underworld casino, and spent decades being drained of his powers towards the brink of death. Until he was saved by a vigilante known as ‘Dark Wings.’

PENNY FORRESTER

Age: 17

Alias: Renegade

Species: Camera Demon

Cause of Death: Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

In her previous life, Penny was a popular actress, featured in many movies and gossip magazines. But beyond the spotlight, Penny was cracking under the pressure of her stardom and demanding agent. Until the day she took her own life.

Reincarnated as a demon with a camera lens for her right eye, Penny became a freelance photographer, to expose people's true colors. As well as making her first friend; her protective and loyal hellhound; Bolt.

RILEY ANDERSEN

Age: 17

Alias: Little Miss Sunshine

Species: Clown Demon

Cause of Death: Struck By A Car

Her parents would describe Riley as a ‘happy girl’ but everything changed after they moved. Riley became cynical, a shadow of her former self. And then one day, everything hit the fan.

Reborn in the seven rings, Riley became a special clown performer, with the help of her impish friends; Anger, Fear, Disgust, Sadness, and Joy.

MIGUEL RIVERA

Age: 18

Alias: De La Cruzcito

Species: Skeleton Demon

Cause of Death: Smoke Inhalation

Kicked out by his family at 15, Miguel tried to make his dream of becoming a musician true, but living on his own, Miguel had to take on certain jobs to survive. After a long day, Miguel fell into a deep sleep, not realizing a room nearby had caught fire. He woke up dead.

In his afterlife, Miguel got the opportunity of working with famous musician; Ernesto De La Cruz, who took the young boy on as his protégé. And as long as Miguel does everything Ernesto ask, he can live out his dream. And never have to return to his former life again. It’s worth it, right?

(Thinking about making a separate post for each characters to further explain their lives, afterlives and the sins they committed. Even maybe some Fanart for how I picture them.)

[halibellecter]

Is That You?

--

"Is that you in the picture?"

"Yeah. But I mean we're not supposed to talk about that stuff-- so what can I do for you?"

And she's not lying. It is her in the picture...

So far she's headed off every opportunity to ask, oh, is that your husband? is that your daughter in the middle? look at you, you look so happy!

She's in the picture. But she's in the middle, about nine and a half, long braid decorated with little dragonfly clips. Between her mom-- she's the spitting image-- and dad, one of the last pictures of all of them together. You can't see their faces too well, they're scrunched up with laughter. Both of them are tickling her and she's shrieking and wiggling all over the place; it's a wonder the picture isn't more blurry than it is already, her hands and feet smearing details that get dimmer every time she tries to remember what they were.

Her father's next deployment ended, just a few days early and already on the return trip, with her being handed a smartly folded flag that her mother was crying too hard to take. She was ten.

Mom had lasted for another four short years after Dad died. Four years where they barely spoke-- not angry, just busy. Mom was already a successful doctor, already more dedicated than most. Being the single income must have been a good excuse, because she threw herself into her work. Kay-- no, no, not Kayla, no, the person that would be Agent Oklahoma, eventually, proto-agent, not-yet-medic, freelancer-in-the-future, to be worth something later on-- she-- already barely saw her. Between a dad on active duty in the army, and a mom with such a demanding job, she was a career latchkey kid; but sometimes after he died, she could go for weeks without direct contact. It almost seemed like her mom liked it that way. Looking back on it, home must have hurt.

If she'd known she only had four years left with her...

Just like her father, she was on the way home when she died. So close to home-- familiar territory. Got tired and fell asleep at the wheel. Kayla-- no, no, no! that girl, had been on the phone with her. Trying to keep her awake. It's blurry now but she can remember her desperate, raw-throated screaming and the crunch of metal and... and her mother's voice, a little choking whisper. Baby I'm so sorry. I'm not going to make it, there's too much blood. Sweetheart I love you---

But she tries to remember how lucky she is: unlike with her father, at least she got to say goodbye.

They're so happy in the picture.

The challenge coin leaning against the frame was what finally trained her out of that bad habit she used to have where she got attached to other people. A close friend. Nearly a brother. A safe place after the accident, the one who scooped her up and held her as she cried herself out into his chest. He had been all she had left.

If she squeezes the coin hard enough, her pulse throbs in her fingers like his heart thumped under her ear that night. And a lot of nights afterward. They joined up together; they were practically fused at the hip. He was a medic like her, a brilliant fighter, a...

a credit to his unit, and to the UNSC.

The words echo when she remembers them, engraved on her bones on the day they laid him in the ground. The person who loved anyone enough to cry over them like that no longer exists.

Is that you?

Yeah. Well. Not anymore.

[super-ion]

So I've spent quite a bit of mental energy the last couple days on character creation for an upcoming Pathfinder game (as I do). So of course, in true Char fashion I had to throw a drabble together to get into her head (directly inspired by a scene by @the-sword-lesbian for her character).

She's a half orc inventor with a fighter flavor. She's 6'6" and built like a tank. She's a nerd with special interests. Her dump stats are wis and cha.

***

They spot her in the back of the seedy tavern. She's hunched over a table surrounded by an array of incomprehensible tools. Half a meal sits forgotten on the edge of the table. Her brow is furrowed in concentration and she chews on her bottom lip as her fingers work at the clockwork before her.

The lead bounty hunter casts a look at the barkeep, who frowns and disappears into the kitchen. A few of the more observant patrons clear out and the remainder soon follow.

Not her though, she's too busy. She is absolutely completely focused at the task at hand.

She's big, she is half orc after all, but she has a roundness to her cheeks, a softness in her shoulders. She has a few faint scars, maybe broke her nose once, but that all might just be from lab accidents. She gives off the air of an academic type, some well fed student who got too many ideas about adventure in her head.

“Akhana Greystone?”

“Huh?” she replies, jumping slightly at the interruption.

She peers at them through light brown eyes, almost golden. One of the hunters, the newbie, decides the color reminds him of when there are storms high in the mountains and the river is fully saturated with the high desert silt.

Another of the hunters notes the ribbons woven into the messy braid of dark hair, bright pink and purple. She's brought in a few marks in her career and has never seen anything so frivolous.

This job is guaranteed easy money.

The mark makes an awkward smile at the three of them, not entirely sure who to address.

“Uh… yeah, Akhana. That's me,” she replies. “Y'all need any tinker work done or anythin? I'm kind of between jobs right now, but I'm not above a little bit o’ freelance if it keeps my belly full.”

She looks at them hopefully for a moment before her smile slips at their expressions.

The leader glances back at his more seasoned companion with a raised eyebrow, silently asking if this is the right person. She frowns dubiously as she nods.

“I had a pretty good gig goin’ for a spell there,” she nervously continues, starting to ramble as she returns her attention to her work. “Gunrunning and all that. Lotta time to be alone in my head to think about designs and it pays a might bit better’n working the forges. Hurts a lot less than the fightin’ ring too. But of course, somebody had ta go and ruin it. Jerk wanted a cut of the money, like we're some kind of criminal enterprise, if you can believe that! Okay, I mean, yeah, it's technically illegal and everything, but it's not like we we're doing anything wrong, ya know? Just gettin’ supplies out to good honest folk tryin’ ta eek out a living out in the wild. So what if some of those supplies just happened to be black powder weapons of dubious provenance? I tell ya what though, Ma ain't to happy about my face being on a wanted poster, her bein’ a former marshal ‘n all that…”

She trails off, perhaps realizing that she effectively just offered a confession to a trio of strangers. She looks around the room and seems surprised to find it empty. She squints at the three of the bounty hunters in turn, sizing them up.

“Aw heck,” she says. “You fella’s are here about the bounty, ain't ya?”

The leader gives a curt nod.

“Come in quietly,” he says. “Nobody has to get hurt. It'll be easier for all of us.”

She runs her tongue along one of her tusks, considering for a moment.

“Nah,” she says finally and returns to her work, slipping the last few gears and pieces of wires into the gauntlet.

The bounty hunters exchange a baffled glance.

“Ma'am-”

She holds up a finger to silence him. She clicks a mechanism shut and spins a dial, listening intently to some unknown response. She gives a quick nod, apparently satisfied, she starts packing up her tools.

The leader clears his throat.

“Ma'am, we're here for the bounty on your head-”

“Yeah, I know,” she interrupts. “I heard ya. Answer’s still no.”

Only after the last tool is carefully placed in its place does she uncurl herself from her hunched posture. As she squares her shoulders and cracks her neck, the hunters realize that what they mistook for softness is actually a healthy layer of padding over solid muscle.

The hunter on the left, the newbie, takes a nervous step back.

She slips the gauntlet on her wrists. Something clicks and whirrs. There's a spark and a tiny puff of blue smoke from the gauntlet.

She grins, her eyes filling with a manic sort of delight.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Runaway - Chapter Two.

Thank you so much to all those who offered commentary, reviews and reblogs on the first chapter, beautiful ones! Now that I have the mamoth story of BTBT out of the way, I can pretty much post each chapter of this as soon as the previous one hits 40 notes to unlock, and they’re nice, short reads too, so people aren’t likely to fall behind. If you do require a break, though, just let me know. If not, if you want it, you got it! Your author aims to make her audience happy :)

Previous chapters - Prologue  One

Taglist - In the comments

Words - 2,225 

Warnings - 18+ content throughout, minors DNI!

“So, you’re a rare breed of woman, honestly being so into football. Any other sports out there you like?” Manny asked her, his timing a little off, Hannah taking a gigantic bite out of her burger.

“UFC,” she muffled through a mouthful of cheddar laden beef, ending up with a smear of barbecue sauce at the corner of her lip. He reached forward, wiping it away with his thumb, bringing it to his lips and sucking. It was a tiny action, but god, it made her pulse quicken. “I watch all of it, but I have such an affinity for the female fighters. I might not take crap easily – well, Michael aside, I guess – but those girls? They’re next level tough. I went up to Vegas to watch a match recently, Jennifer Cora versus Lily Romero-Reyes. Shit, Jennifer got her ass handed to her!”

“Yeah, I was there, too. I know Lily, actually. She’s married to one of the guys in my club, and the daughter of another,” he spoke, Hannah swallowing her mouthful of food with widened eyes.

“Get the fuck out of here! Oh my god, that’s awesome! What’s she like? She seems scary as hell!” she cried, picking up a fry and popping it into her mouth. “Actually, now you come to mention it, I’ve seen her being walked out by MC guys, but I didn’t put two and two together!”

“She’s scary in the octagon, but outside of it, she’s the sweetest girl. She and Angel, that’s her husband, by the way, they’re two of my favourite people, and their baby is adorable. She got all of us wrapped around her teeny tiny lil’ pinky finger,” he smiled, thinking of Willow, who he had a definite soft spot for, loving kids as much as he did.  

She finished her mouthful, sipping her drink before nodding in his direction, reaching to tap the patch upon his kutte. “By all of us, I take it you mean the guys in your MC, right?” He nodded through a mouthful of burger. “So, what’s that all about, then? I hear so many differing stories about you guys. Some say you’re all criminals up to your asses in illegal activities, and some say you’re merely a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who happen to run the only scrap metal yard in Santo Padre.”  

He contemplated his options, knowing that she wasn’t stupid, but then again, neither was he. “We sit somewhere between the two.”

“The straight and narrow more of a winding road littered with potholes and razor wire?”

He cocked his head, rolling his tongue around his inner cheek to retrieve a stray piece of tomato. “You got it, darlin’.” It was nice, that she didn’t quiz him over it. She knew what he was, and was smart enough to know that despite her question, he wasn’t going to embellish further any more than she was about to sit and pick for more details, of which she didn’t. “So, what about you, Hannah banana? What do you do to keep yourself in expensive looking shoes?” His eyes cast down to where her legs her crossed, the pointed toe of her stiletto brushing his calf every so often. He knew pricey when he saw it.  

“Bookkeeper. I work freelance from home as opposed to just for one firm. I do smaller businesses, like bars, salons, boutiques, restaurants, places like that. I’m cheaper than keeping someone on staff to do it, but I charge enough that I can indulge my fetish with nice shoes such as these,” she replied, waving her foot in a way that made her legs muscles flex from where she’d hitched her dress up a little, trying to get some air from one of the jaunty old upright fans over in the corner onto them. A fully lined lace bridal gown wasn’t the coolest of items to wear within an establishment with no air conditioning, a sign upon the bar apologising for the fact it was broken. In July of all months.  

“And what do you do to keep those stems looking as mouth-watering as they do?” he then asked, sipping his beer with a wink. Oh, she could get used to this. A man who was complimentary of her. Boy, how she’d missed that.  

“Apart from the ballet, I run, do a little pilates and yoga, too. That’s about as much as I like to put myself through, since my natural happy state involves sitting on my ass.” Grabbing a handful of napkins from the bar, she began to fan herself, finding the heat a little much. “If you’ll excuse me for just a few moments, I’m going to head to the bathroom, and then go up to the small store I saw further on up in the row. I noticed clothes in the window, and I desperately need to get out of this gown!”

“N’aww, shit. And I thought it’d be me getting you out of that dress.” He winked at her, Hannah shaking her head as she slid from the stool, resting her hand to his arm. It was surprisingly firm, his muscles not big, but certainly well formed.  

“You’re bad.”

His grin widened. “But you like it.”

Her eyebrows twitched, licking her top lip in a way that made his insides pulse. “Never said I didn’t.” She left him then, heading to the restroom first before exiting, attracting looks from people parking up along the narrow street, to see her there, resplendent in her wedding gown. That was another reason for wanting to change, since a few more people entering the bar had offered their congratulations.  

In truth, it was starting to eat at her a little bit. Hannah Gray was the furthest thing from a bad-mannered person, and no matter how poorly Michael had treated her in the past, she knew he didn’t deserve to be jilted quite so unceremoniously. Her fear of being alone truly wasn’t enough to justify her actions that morning, but if she knew one thing about herself, it was how impulsive she could be.  

Entering the store, she drew stares from all around, people whispering in hushed tones as she walked to one of the racks and shuffled through the items, finding something perfect and in her size more or less right away. A simple, and very short, black wrap dress. On the next rack, something else she needed, since the slight sheer quality of the fabric would mean her oyster silk bridal lingerie would show right through; black underwear.  

Her outfit choice, she couldn’t one hundred percent say wasn’t borne of wanting to maybe get a little more attention from Manny, crazy as it was that she was even thinking about a dalliance with another man on the day of her would-be wedding. Paying for the items (plus a new crossbody bag with chain straps she decided to treat herself to, she asked to use their changing room, the woman behind the counter offering her a big, sturdy bag to stow her dress in, which she thanked her for before going to change.  

The dress fitted her well, if not a tiny bit risqué in so much that it barely covered her butt cheeks. Hell, she had nice legs. It could be worse. She could be Michael’s wife. As it was, she’d had a lucky escape, on the back of the Harley belonging to the outlaw whose eyes almost fell out onto the bar floor when she walked back in.  

“Yup,” he almost growled, “those are some fuckin’ quality stems.” Oh, what he wouldn’t give to feel those beautiful legs wrapped around him.  

“Why thank you, sir.” She inclined her head to him, jumping back up onto the stool and finishing her drink, Manny immediately ordering her another, turning to see her suddenly wince, reaching to rub at her ankle. “Cramp.”  

He jerked his head back, making a wiggling motion with his hand. “Gimmie your foot, I’m good for this shit. Healing hands, so I’ve been told.” She hesitated only for a second before gently toeing her shoe off and lifting her leg, Manny grasping her foot and resting it a mere inch from his crotch, fingers beginning to softly squeeze her upper ankle. “There?”

“Yeah,” she hissed, the pain shooting up her calf, the muscle tensing. “Thank you.”  

He winked, only pausing briefly to pay the bartender before returning both hands to her leg, squeezing warmth through the taut muscle. Just his hands on her leg, and Hannah felt her skin tingle pleasantly, the action seemingly quite innocent, but definitely charged just beneath the surface. Even more so that she could feel the heat of his crotch against the sole of her foot, knowing that one little move would end up with her brushing against his cock.  

Just the thought of that made her bite her lip, Manny catching her do it, his hands travelling a little higher as he kept eye contact with her. “How’d those hands feel, beautiful?”

“Absolutely perfect. I might have to get your number so I can call you up to do this for me again at any point in the future where cramp easing is required,” she spoke, her voice a little thick, slow like honey for just how good his fingers rubbing over her felt.

He snorted softly, purposefully letting his fingertips drag in tickle over her leg before squeezing once more, easing the cramp away. “If I’m giving you my digits, it’s for more than to come rub out a cramp.”

“I’m sure I could think of a few more places.” His eyes didn’t leave hers as she pulled her leg from his grasp, Manny sliding from his stool, fingers gently resting to her knees as he manoeuvred himself between her thighs.  

He let his lips touch against her ear, his voice steeped in gravel when he finally spoke. “Now who’s bad?” Leaning back, he winked, excusing himself, heading for the restrooms and leaving her so scorching, she was surprised she didn’t pass out from the heat that had begun to blaze between them. This man? He had game in shades, and he knew it, but he wasn’t arrogant with it, not at all. Manny was the exact opposite of Michael, who had never really come back down to earth after his glory days as the most adored high school jock.  

Speaking of jocks, there was a pile of them working their way into the bar loudly just as Manny was returning from the restroom, one not watching where he was going, bumping into a woman carrying a glass of wine back to her table, the glass knocked from her hand and shattering on the floor. The young guy didn’t even acknowledge his fault.  

“Hey yo, you in the yellow shirt!” Manny called, his cadence suddenly filling the bar like a foghorn, yet his voice was barely raised. “You gonna apologise to the lady? You just knocked her glass clean out of her hand, man.”  

He shrugged, turning back. “It was an accident; I didn’t mean it.”

“Be that as it may, it was an accident you caused. Be a fucking gentleman and apologise.”

He scoffed in disbelief. “I don’t need a moral lecture from some scummy biker! Get the fuck out of here.”  

“Seems you do, homie. I said apologise.” Manny suddenly straightened, making himself look much broader than his slight frame alluded to, the guy laughing before balling his fist, his arm shooting out. The punch aimed never made contact, though, Manny grabbing his wrist and squeezing. “Nah, son. I’m gon’ give you this time to reconsider your actions here, save you missing any teeth, because if I swing at you, trust and believe, yo’ bitch ass is going down hard, and those aforementioned teeth are gonna be all over the damned floor. All you gotta do is say you’re sorry.”

Hannah sat rigid in her seat, watching it all unfold, her nerves tingling with excitement at how coolly Manny handled himself, not even raising his voice once.  

The guy considered his options, trying to yank himself free of the iron grip around his wrist. It did not yield, Manny yanking him closer with ease, placing his other hand atop his head and physically turning it in the direction of the woman who was standing there speechless. “Apologise. Now.” His whisper was delivered in a serpent like hiss, the guy gulping.  

“I’m sorry.”  

“Finally,” Manny chirped, letting him go. “Next time, don’t let it be the threat of a better man than you to make you do the right thing, bro.” The man walked away, looking sheepish, Manny sniffing casually before turning to the woman with a megawatt smile. “Chardonnay? You look like a chardonnay girl.”

“Yes, but really, you’ve done enough! Thank you!” she gushed, Manny waving her words away and heading to the bar, where he bought her and her friend a bottle, placing it along with a fresh glass upon their table. “You ladies enjoy.” He winked, the women bowled over by his manner, Hannah smiling softly. He didn’t have to do that, he had absolutely no reason to than out of being a decent human, and it only made her feel pulled into his orbit further.  

Chivalry. Big dick energy. She’d begun to forget what they looked like.  

[north-blue-hearts]

Famous Last Words

CisFem Reader x Trafalgar Law

CW: Violence, swearing, mature themes, erotic romance, angst, creative use of devil fruits, this story is still in progress, I will add content warnings as needed.

Chapter 2: Sleep

The evening out wasn’t any different than any other after-work venture. Nami and Vivi kept you in the middle of the conversations, and Robin joined all of you about an hour in. Zoro was there from the start, and Franky showed up with Robin. Sanji showed up with Luffy, and once Luffy was there he seemed to key into your shaky mood.

Luffy decided to talk to you about all sorts of things, and asked you questions when you were up for it. His uncanny ability to know how to navigate complicated emotions without prompt was almost unsettling, but appreciated. It didn’t hurt that you kept sliding your appetizers over to him.

By the end of the evening Zoro was giving you a ride home, while Luffy rambled on about beetles in the backseat. When Zoro parks you realize you’re having a hard time leaving the truck.

“Nami said it was a bad day.” Zoro offers. “Want us to come up with you? Not to stay, just, you know.”

“If… if you don’t mind, actually, yes.” You admit sheepishly. “Last time I… My window was broken, and my place was trashed. It’s just a hard day.”

“No worries. C’mon Luff.” Zoro says evenly as the three of you pile out of the truck and head up a couple flights of stairs to your apartment.

Zoro takes your key and opens the door, stepping inside first, Luffy close behind. It was easy to forget that the two of them had very physical jobs. Zoro was a freelance bodyguard – he’d get hired on for events and such because he had local-level knowledge that was invaluable, and he was an expert fighter. Luffy was one of the bouncers at Shakky’s bar, which was probably the rowdiest and most successful club in the entire East Blue.

You came in behind them, and were deeply relieved to see that nothing looked out of place. Nothing even felt out of place, which was a welcome feeling.

“You want me to check the bedroom and bathroom?” Zoro asks quietly. He looks relaxed, but he always looks relaxed, once you know what relaxed looks like for him.

“I’m not uncomfortable with it, if that’s what you’re asking.” You answer, setting your bag down. “Everything looks good so far, but if you want to be ‘better safe than sorry’ about it I won’t stop you.” You admit, smiling as Zoro steps into your bedroom.

Luffy turns to you with a smile. “False alarms are the best.” He admits with a grin, stretching idly. “But fights are fun too,” he admits with a sigh, looking at least a little disappointed that there wasn’t someone in your apartment for him to fight.

“Fights are best outside my home.” You say with a smile, patting Luffy’s shoulder as Zoro comes back out into the living room. “All good?”

Zoro nods. “Nothing’s out of place.” He smiles a little. “Rest well, Caddy,” he says, using Luffy’s nickname for you.

“Drive safe,” you offer as the two file out of your apartment. The door closes behind them and you sigh a little into the empty air.

It’s been a good year. You’ve settled into this life well, but it never seemed to get easier hearing a name that wasn’t yours.

It was like you were friends with people in someone else’s stead. Arcadia was the one they cared about, the one they protected, the one they checked on to make sure she was okay.

And you weren’t Arcadia. You were little more than an imposter. Trading lies to protect yourself, and if you stopped lying, you’d be relocated by the Marines, and taken away from the friends you had.

The friends you loved as yourself, as (Y/N).

Your heavy heart carried you off to bed, and a few thick tears carried you off to sleep.

You slipped so heavily into sleep that it was almost like you’d fallen through your bed and into a dream. So quick was the shift from awake to dreams that it took you a moment to even realize you were sleeping.

It was the shifting backgrounds that gave it away, from the alley that you’d never forget, to the face that you’d never be free from, to a name you hadn’t heard in two years, to the sea. To a ship. A wide dirigible. Your dream world shifted and shuffled through years of memory and background before it settled on a wide span of water.

You stood on the ocean, the waters calm and steady, almost like glass. There were a few clouds in the sky, fluffy and sparse and of little concern. A soft wind ruffles your hair and brushes along your skin, warm and gentle.

The peace gives way a little, to the vast solitude. The horizon is flat and unchanged in all directions. You’re alone. Isolated. Safe, in a calm and careful place, but there was no one else here.

Here you were (Y/N).

With a sigh you sit on the ocean, laying down, sprawled out as you look up at a painfully blue and beautiful sky.

“So shut your eyes.” You murmur the words softly, the song wandering through your dreaming thoughts, and shut your eyes as you lay on the ocean.

You’ve always joked that you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but your voice in your dream knows better than you. “Kiss me goodbye.”

“And sleep.” You close your eyes and wonder idly if you can sleep in your dream, and dream within that dream. Something at the back of your mind seems to believe you can, that you have before at least woken up within a dream to only wake up truly after.

“Just sleep.” Maybe all of life was just a dream. You’d wake up one day to find yourself-.

Something brushes along your back. A tender touch. There’s no desire to pull you under, just a finger tracing down your spine. Your eyes snap open and you turn over.

The ocean is dark, and the creature beneath you is indistinguishable from the waves, save for a hand, flat against the water, seemingly unable to reach beyond. You line your hand up, marveling a little at how small it is by comparison, and how warm the hand feels despite the seemingly impenetrable wisp of water between you both.

“Nice to meet you.” You say softly, wanting nothing more than to be able to push past the water and reach deep.

Golden eyes look up at you, shimmering in the water, and there’s something in them that makes your heart flutter. You put your other hand against the water, kneeling on the ocean, and a moment later another hand presses against yours.

Frustration knits your brows, and you lean back smacking the water off the sides of the hands pressed against it. The splashes of water from your impacts are more irritating.

“If you’re going to act like water, then act like water!” You growl, smacking your hands down again one last time before you sigh in frustration.

The hands on the other side shift, and realign with yours. You can see the flex in the fingers, as though they want to wrap around yours and the frustration you’re feeling is shared. You smile softly, pulling your hands together a little so you’re not stretched out, and the other set follows your movements easily.

“Hmm... can you hear me? Move a hand away if you can hear me.” You prompt and one hand disappears into the darkness for a second before returning.

“Good… good, then I can finally tell someone.” You say, tears welling up in your eyes. “I can tell someone who I am, and it’s okay, cause it’s a dream, and no one will get hurt for it.”

You tell the sea creature everything. Your name, what you saw, how your world changed. You talked about your travels, where you ended up, how you hated the name you had to go by, and how aggravating it was to have nicknames for it. Especially when you knew those names came from a place of love.

You talked about your new friends, and how much they cared about you, and how scared you were to lose them, and the hands against the water flexed and pawed, offering what comfort they could.

“Sorry,” you mutter softly when you’re done, talking, your tears having dripped into the ocean. “I’ll talk about happier things next time.” You offer with a soft smile. “Maybe next time I’ll be able to hear you.”

The pointer finger on each hand extends, and cross over one another to make an ‘X’ and you chuckle. “I see, you’re denying me the pleasure of hearing your voice.” You tease. “Ah, but I’m going to hear a nice voice soon. My friends got tickets to a concert in a few weeks.”

“That’ll be a distraction, at least.” You sigh, poking at the water for a bit.

“Can you see me?” You question after a moment’s silence, and see the hands form a circle. “That’s not fair. I can’t see or hear you. I can’t reach through the water.” Your cheeks puff in a mock pout before you let the air out as a rude sound from your lips.

You could swear you heard a stifled laugh, but the ocean rotated suddenly, and you woke up.

You sat up in bed, a rushed feeling of water crashing over you just as you woke up making your body move before you aware of it. Sheets were tossed, and you nearly bucked yourself over the edge of the bed, managing to turn away from the edge and flop onto the mattress instead of falling off.

A dissatisfied groan seeps into the mattress as you notice the first few rays of morning light sneaking into the room. You considered turning your back to the window and grabbing a few more moments of precious sleep, but before you could move your alarm went off.

You grunt into the mattress again, pushing yourself up onto your knees with immense will. You squint at the light coming in, silently cursing it for waking you up, before you reached over and turned off your morning alarm.

The glassy reflection of water as you trudged through your morning routine, made your heart feel lighter and heavier at the same time. You traced your fingers along the tension of the water in the bath, remembering the warmth that had met you in your dreams. Disconnected and vivid, surreal and so real at the same time. You often remembered your dreams, but none of them had quite been like last night’s.

The phrase ‘man of your dreams’ came into your mind and you laughed, nearly choking on the toothpaste. Spitting paste into the sink you turn the water on and shake your head.

“Hanging around Nami and Vivi last night has put strange thoughts in my head.” You muse. You were happy for the two of them, and perhaps a little envious of how well they complimented one another. Franky and Robin were a couple as well, but not soul mates. The two certainly seemed to be though, and apparently they’d talked about what they’d do if they did meet their soul mate.

Love was messy business, requiring communication and effort. Sometimes you could do everything right and still have it fall apart – which was what happened to your last relationship. That’s what had made it hard. Nothing had been monumentally bad, but what was needed just wasn’t there – not for either of you.

If he had been your soul mate; no, you shake your head tossing the useless thought aside. The what ifs were long gone. You were here, as Arcadia, alive despite the odds, and surrounded by good friends who made sure your apartment was safe, and you were okay.

That had to be good enough for now.

[loominggaia]

FUTURE LG STORIES EXPOSED: PART 6

—> Part 1

—> Part 2

��–> Part 3

—> Part 4

---> Part 5

Please click the Part 1 link above for a full explanation. The following text contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the Looming Gaia series. For this reason I will place it under a cut.

Read at your own discretion!

Washed Up - The Freelance Good Guys are devising a plan to rescue Javaan. Evan sends the Steel Knuckle Squad to Kelvingyard, but Elska demands to go with them so she can rescue any of her clanmates who might be there. Evan knows he can’t stop her, but advises her to disguise herself first. She cuts and dyes her hair, breaks her own nose, and pretends to be Balthazaar’s slave along with Skel and Linde. They look for Javaan at Kelvingyard, but the staff tell them he was bought by Mr. Dorzlaf of Silverspring. The crew then heads there, and Dorzlaf’s steward informs them that he just left for a big tournament in Merrowville, so they change direction once again.

Mr. Dorzlaf takes Javaan and Zov there to compete. In the meantime, clients pay Mr. Dorzlaf to breed their female slaves with Zov, as he is a famous champion fighter and his offspring is valuable. The Steel Knuckle Squad recognizes Zov from the many posters of his face around town promoting the tournament, and they confront Mr. Dorzlaf. Balthazaar says Javaan is actually his slave, but he escaped and ended up at Kelvingyard, so he’d like him back. Mr. Dorzlaf asks for more money than Balthazaar has, but offers to breed Elska with him for a reduced price. The crew agrees, if only to get Elska and Javaan some time alone to make a plan.

Elska decides she’s going to win the fighting tournament, then use the prize money to buy Javaan from Mr. Dorzlaf. The crew doesn’t like the plan, but they don’t have much choice. The tournament begins. Elska chews through opponents on her own while Javaan requires drugs to survive these brutal fights. Zov is suddenly doing very poorly, and each time he loses, Dorzlaf has to pay a large amount of money to spare his life. Zov then drops from a heart attack in the middle of a fight. Dorzlaf drops the last of his money to spare him, then takes him to the infirmary and the doctor says Zov is not fit to fight anymore. Now all of Dorzlaf’s hope is riding on Javaan. Linde and Skel discreetly cast spells at the arena to help Javaan and Elska win against their opponents, but in an unlucky turn of events, they are eventually matched against each other.

The crew runs around the arena, trying to hustle up enough money to spare Javaan from death. They ask Dorzlaf for help, promising they’ll give him the prize money if he spares Javaan’s life, but he says he already blew all his money sparing Zov. Eventually the sparing bell rings, and it turns out Dorzlaf just sold Zov to a Kelvingyard broker to spare Javaan. Elska officially wins the tournament.

Dorzlaf takes the crew back to his camp to exchange money in a more secure location. Zov is shocked that his beloved master sold him out just like that, and he begs him to reconsider. Dorzlaf just tells him to stop complaining and the broker will come to pick him up tomorrow. 

They go into Mr. Dorzlaf’s trailer, where Balthazaar hands over the prize money in exchange for Javaan. Just then, Zov flips out and kills Mr. Dorzlaf. He considers all the things Javaan has told him during their time together and finally believes him. The crew offers to smuggle him out of Evangeline Kingdom and take him back to the Hollow. On the way back, Balthazaar and Javaan reconcile their conflict about Feredil.

Village Maniac - Javaan, Balthazaar, Linde, and Skel take Zov back to Drifter’s Hollow with them, but he’s having intense drug withdrawals and needs to be quarantined for a while. The villagers are excited to have a new neighbor and want to welcome Zov, but that proves to be a challenge because his behavior is totally inappropriate. Zov has no manners or knowledge of social norms, he suffers violent fits of psychosis, and seems to behave more like a wild animal than a person.

Javaan is committed to raising his son Ranger in Drifter’s Hollow and is trying to be a good father. He feels responsible for bringing Zov here and tries to help him out the best he can, but after Zov threatens to hurt Ranger, Javaan finally admits this task is way out of his league. Itchy mentions that if anyone can help a trainwreck like Zov, it’s the Order of Love and Light, so the Freelance Good Guys take Zov to the temple of Love and Light in Taybiya.

They discover that High Priestess Hope has been replaced with a minervae named Gratitude. This is a female-only temple that normally doesn’t accept male students, but Patience has a vision when she sees Zov that makes her accept him anyway. She doesn’t say what that vision was, but mentions that she did accept a male student in the past (Itchy), so she's up to the task. Zov’s classmates are Lily and Buddy. Together they will be learning how to love themselves so they can love the world, and bring forth Love and Light.

Dead Love Rises - Mr. Ocean wanders into the forest in a demented state and gets robbed by road bandits. The incident prompts Evan to call a village meeting, where he suggests everyone should take shifts supervising Mr. Ocean each day, as his dementia is only progressing and incidents like these are bound to happen again if he’s left unattended. This villagers are all quite annoyed, and Morbus even breaks up with Mr. Ocean because she finds his behavior burdensome. He doesn’t even remember they were dating, which just pisses her off even more.

One day, Mr. Ocean wakes up on the dock next to a familiar face. It’s Solveig! He doesn’t believe his eyes, blaming his dementia for this hallucination, but she assures him she’s real. She says she’s a divine, and she’s been searching for him for a very long time. The Freelance Good Guys are suspicious of her at first, but she proves her divinity by casting spells, and they’re delighted to have a divine ally in the Hollow.

Solveig spends all her time with Mr. Ocean, which unburdens the villagers with his care. Better yet, he seems much healthier since she arrived. His pain is lessened, he’s moving around better, and he seems much less confused overall, as if her presence has breathed new life into him. One day, Solveig notices Mr. Ocean’s memory of Redwood Island is fading, so she suggests that they pay it a visit for a few months. Isaac offers to fly them there, but she says the island is their secret place and insists on taking him there herself by boat.

When they arrive, Mr. Ocean is disappointed to see the island has been desecrated by a large fortress sitting atop the mountain. Solveig tells him not to worry, it was built by her friends and they are the protectors of the island. They will defend it from anyone who tries to colonize it. They spend the night in King Kaiva’s old cave, then Solveig excuses herself to visit her friends in the barracks. When she arrives, she sheds her magical guise and reveals herself to be Tragedy. She has been using telepathy to mine Mr. Ocean’s memories for intel.

Goryx and Splitter are present at the barracks. It turns out this was all Goryx’s plan, as he realized Mr. Ocean was their biggest foil last time they tried to take back the Divine Executioner. Killing him is one thing, but Goryx had an even better plan: why not recruit him to their side? Then they would be unstoppable! They have invested a lot of time and resources into this elaborate scheme and know Disgrace will be furious if they fail. Disgrace forged a cursed mask for Mr. Ocean beforehand, which “Solveig” brings to him as a gift. Mr. Ocean puts it on and is immediately parasitized by the mask, named Vulzalla. Vulzalla complains because Mr. Ocean’s body is so decrepit, but Tragedy assures it that his arcane power makes up for it.

It seems Vulzalla suffers everything that Mr. Ocean does, including his dementia, as he enters a demented state several times and wreaks havoc on the island. He kills all of the slaves with hydromancy, blinds all the Crescent soldiers with photomancy, and finally destroys the whole fortress. Goryx decides this isn’t worth it anymore–Vulzalla is too much of a liability. He decides the best thing to do now is make him someone else’s liability, so they fly him back to Noalen and drop him in Drifter’s Hollow.

Vulzalla attacks the village at first, then the mask suddenly cracks and falls off Mr. Ocean’s face. It seems Mr. Ocean’s greenlite infection killed it, as it’s consumed by fungus. Mr. Ocean returns to his senses, and Goryx and Tragedy flee. Mr. Ocean does not remember anything that transpired on the island. He thinks he remembers Solveig returning, but the crew assures him that she is still dead and it was all a dream.

More parts to come…

(I just want to mention that even if you’ve read these, you haven’t been 100% spoiled. A LOT of details and B-plots are missing from these summaries!)

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[squiddosss]

boo! howss it goinggg? hows life? who is the person in your icon? i also do not know anything about planes but I would love to be educated :)

hi nol!! life is pretty good. i got my flu shot the other day so i don’t feel great rn but i have the day off of school :)

the person in my icon is my own oc! i am still figuring out lore or whatever she is a fighter pilot (for the us navy). it felt fitting to have her as my pfp because i am in a plane phase rn. so yeah

her callsign is freelance. the other girl is swan. i said enough gay pilots i want lesbian pilots so here are they are. is this basically a different piece of media that i stuck in a blender and now i’m calling it completely original content? yes. do i care? no.

also these patches make no sense but i am figuring out their designs. give me a break :/

i also have more stuff in progress for these two + their friends. but that is for later.

sneak peak :)

OK SO U ALSO ASK ABOUT PLANES. i don’t have a lot to share rn BUT i just got a model kit f-22 raptor so as i work on that i will update with plane facts

<3

[pixelgrotto]

March Of The Dead, The FRANCHISE

Approximately one year ago was the release of Book of the Dead, a Pathfinder 2e supplement that focuses specifically on undead. It's the sort of tabletop RPG book that I really like: the type that hones in on a specific creature category and just hits you over the head with new monsters and a bucketload of lore. These sorts of books are less en vogue these days among major publishers than they were in the D&D 3.5e era, probably for economic reasons. (I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to buy 250 pages of in-depth factoids, including treatises on ghost biology and paragraphs revealing that undead learn Necril via steady exposure to constant streams of negative magic.)

Anyway, Book of the Dead is packed to the brim with all kinds of ghoulish stuff, and there's also an adventure in the back dubbed March of the Dead, which involves the PCs investigating a town where all the residents have been turned into zombies by naughty cultists. Basically, it's the village section of Resident Evil 4. I immediately wanted to run this, and began wondering who I could GM it for. Incidentally, around this time I was enlisted by Paizo to freelance on the upcoming Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia books, which are intended to remake the game's Asian-inspired setting into something a little more fitting for 2023. A bunch of writers from the Asians Represent podcast were called to work on the books ("Up in the sky! It's the Asian Signal!") and after I realized that some of my colleagues hadn't played the game they were writing for, I asked them if they'd be down to try taking cultists to suplex city. They said yes, and me, Daniel Kwan, Drew Quon, Emma Yasui and Jacky Leung ended up playing for a whole year.

This was my first time GMing for a group who all had some kind of public presence on livestreams and podcasts, and it was instantly fun in the sense that here were folks who were naturally charismatic and used to speaking to an audience. At the same time, because our game was private, everyone was freed from the normal restraints that come with livestreaming and able to go as bonkers as they wanted. This commenced almost immediately in our Session Zero when everyone gravitated towards the more colorful character options, because who wants to play one of the Core Rolebook ancestries when you can be a living toy, a robot, a catperson and a skeleton?

And so, March of the Dead kicked off in solid style as the PCs dove into the town of Fiorna's Faith and ripped apart multiple flavors of zombie with much gusto. I ran the adventure pretty close to how it's written in Book of the Dead, and can confirm that the middle section where the party has to lock themselves within a house and defend against multiple waves of undead assailants is pretty awesome, and very close to the scene in RE4 where Leon and Luis get stuck in a house and shoot the crap out of 100 jobbers in a great example of male bonding.

But even more awesome was how each character's personality quickly crystalized into something special, setting the stage for their future development. Daniel's poppet gunslinger Tapio had a kitbashed gunblade and a deranged desire to BUST on his enemies, which led to lots of dialogue which would've gotten all of us cancelled if we'd been streaming on Twitch. Drew's fighter, a automaton named Kaine, unlocked memories of his soul's prior existence by beating the shit out of dudes and just as equally getting the shit beat out of himself. (Kinda like the Thousand Years of Dreams segments in the Xbox 360 RPG Lost Odyssey, minus the shit beatings.) Emma played the coziest member of the crew - a catfolk named Weetabix who was also a summoner who could manifest a giant flying squirrel named Rudiger, thus placing the party on the pathway of aquiring an ever-increasing entourage of furry friends. And Jacky combined the skeleton ancestry and duskwalker heritage (even though I think they're technically incompatible) to make Ozark, a min/maxing Ghost Rider magus of Pharasma who broke the entire system by parkouring 80 feet each turn and constantly healing himself with illegal necromantic juicing practices.

With such a colorful cast, it would've been a shame to stop with just one adventure. So after the party smashed Harlo Krant, the so-called "seed of evil" set up by the cultists to spread undeath through Fiorna's Faith, I homebrewed March of the Dead 2 as a continuation. (No gimmicky subtitles here, just straight up numbers!)

If the first March of the Dead was RE4's village, then I designed the sequel to be the castle section, and I wanted to go big with a bunch of setpieces centered around a fortress siege. It's hard to do mass scale battles in most D&D derivative systems, so instead of trying to have the party command an army I mostly just relied on the supplement Guns & Gears, which has a series of stat blocks on siege weapons which worked better than I expected. The idea was to have the PCs use the seige tools to turn the tides of war in an already ongoing battle between the cultists and a friendly group of Serenrae-worshipping orcs (the Burning Sun tribe, which received a mention in Lost Omens: Knights of Lastwall, another book I heavily relied on for setting lore). Alternatively, I also gave the PCs the means of sneaking into the fortress Sam Fisher-style. The party ended up taking the stealth option, but not before Kain rolled a natural 20 to catch a cannonball in his hands and throw it back at the baddies, which was awesome.

Inside the fortress I had separate rooms and passageways devoted to each cultist, and all of these areas - or the cultists who inhabited them - were meant to hold some sort of significance towards one of the PCs. There was a gnome summoner intended as a foil for Weetabix, a tech-obsessed tinker dude who had essentially created undead automatons for Kaine to contend with, and a fleshwarping dwarf who'd imported cadavers from all across the world and used Tapio's former body to form a flesh cape for his skinstitch golem. Ozark, meanwhile, got a friendly ex-Pharasma cleric NPC to help him in the last fight. Not all of these connections worked out exactly as planned - for instance, the gnome could've turned against her fellow cultists if successfully swayed by Weetabix, but she got her face melted off with an eroding bullet before she could utter five words.

Despite this, it was a fun exercise to tailor the story to everyone in small ways, which is always one of the biggest challenges when coming up with homebrew adventures. Probably one of the most memorable moments was when Daniel was able to obtain the Horn of Aoyin, an item he had previously designed while freelancing for the Pathfinder conspiracy-themed book Dark Archive. There's nothing like a writer getting to add their own magical item to a character sheet, using it in-game to inadvertently cause their companions to go into a cannibalistic rage, and everyone going: "Wow, what asshole made this thing?"

Alas, Drew had a scheduling conflict that kept him from joining us for March of the Dead 3. But the rest of the party was able to go on a final rodeo, and this one marked a dramatic turn as the crew departed Avistan to chase down more cultists in Tian Xia, a development I knew I wanted to do eventually, seeing as how we were all writers for the upcoming Tian Xia books. If we're to equate March of the Dead with a 1970s film series, I like to think that this third movie is the schlockfest that went left field and randomly features the protagonists going to Hong Kong, as in other "third volume in a forgotten franchise" cinematic masterpieces like Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge or The Gods Must Be Crazy III. The PCs also had a good reason to go to the Dragon Empires, thanks to the fact that Tapio was quite literally a made-in-China puppet who now had to return the Horn of Aoyin to the Lantern Lodge in Goka, AKA the only region in Tian Xia that's been updated for Pathfinder 2e thanks to the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix adventure path.

I relied heavily on Fists of the Ruby Phoenix's second volume, which has a Goka gazetteer in its adventure toolkit section but also an article on kaiju. I knew I wanted to do a giant monster attack on Goka, but instead of focusing on Mogaru (AKA Golarion Godzilla who actually does attack the city in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix), I was drawn to Jakabu the Ethereal Leviathian. Jakabu's a flying whale surrounded by undead sea creatures who I like to think may have been inspired in part by the bakekujira yokai. He exudes a Princess Mononoke "nature is mad at the world" presence that I liked, and since I was never able to run the Spelljammer Astral Whale-filled campaign of my dreams for D&D 5e, I figured that now was the right time for a kujira kaiju to take to the skies. Plus, Jacky had mentioned at one point during March of the Dead 1 or 2 that it would be cool to fight an undead whale.

Since the party was level 10 by now and had gone from a village to a castle, it was time to escalate the stakes by giving them an entire city to explore. Jakabu was literally raining thalassic horror on Goka thanks to a bunch of Circle of Despair terrorists from Minkai who were controlling him, and the baddies were led by a Sephiroth-esque bishounen who was in league with a greedy nalfeshnee. (Shout out to Undying Corruption and the good people at Nine Heavens Press for inspiring me with their geumdwaeji, a pig-like demon who takes a lot from both Korean myth and the traditional depiction of the nalfeshnee.) I like hexcrawls, and this "city under crisis" setup was perfect for a simple hex map featuring a slew of random encounters for the party to explore as they traversed Goka's streets. Keeping the Resident Evil theme alive, I looked to Resident Evil 6's China levels for a vibe to emulate. That game has a ton of problems, but the levels in the fake Chinese city Lanshiang remain an awesome standout worthy of becoming inspirational fuel.

March of the Dead 3 ended with the party battling the bad guys atop Jakabu himself, Shadow of the Colossus-style. Along the way they friended the famous sorcereress Hao Jin, who restored Tapio back to his human body via cloning and also gave me an excuse to speak in goofy HK English/Singlish. Which leads me to another important point - I mentioned earlier that this was my first time GMing for a group with plenty of podcasting experience. But it was also my first time GMing for a group composed entirely of players of East Asian descent. This meant that in all three March of the Deads, I was able to make a lot of cultural in-jokes that would've either gone over the heads of another group or simply been inappropriate. These ranged from your typical weeaboo jokes (Ozark read dozens of issues of the world-renowned chapbook SHONEN LEAP while on the trip to Tian Xia) to pitting the party against NPCs who cussed at 'em in crappy Cantonese. This is the sort of thing that often happens when a group composed solely of people of color (or other marginalized folks) get together at the gaming table, and it's freeing, fun, and something that needs to happen more often for every POC who decides to run an RPG.

We started our little March of the Dead trilogy in June 2022, and now we've finished in June 2023. Because of unforseen factors, the Lost Omens: Tian Xia books that we worked on still aren't out yet. But despite delays caused by OGL debacles, I'm supremely glad that my co-workers and I got a chance to catapault off the back of a freelance writing assignment to play for a year. I can guarantee that everything this crew produced for those two Lost Omens books is going to knock the socks off of whoever reads it.

As for me, I'm putting Book of the Dead down for now, since inspiring a three-part FRANCHISE is more than enough usage for an RPG supplement. But who knows where the muse will strike next. Howl of the Wild, the next themed Pathfinder book that I was also lucky enough to work on, comes out in 2024, and I betcha there's enough material in that one too for a year's worth of goofy, high quality fun.

[trainwiz]

In Underspace, will players be able to build their own stations and pilot larger vessels like corvettes, frigates, or cruisers?

The reason I'm asking is because I have experience playing the X-Universe games (IE: X3: Terran Conflict) but not Freelancer.

Station construction is on the list of "maybes". It was a stretch goal that we never made.

As for piloting larger ships, right now it's not on our proverbial radar. Mostly because piloting large ships with the current flight model sucks, and sucks HARD. If we do it, we'll want to do it right and that means a ton of extra considerations when making it that aren't a priority in development.

The game was something I envisioned as a space fighter adventure RPG. Most of what's planned is stuff that supports that.

[sybaritick]

Can I be lazy and ask you to RNG three numbers and answer those??? 😂

(for the fic writer ask meme) yes because it's hilarious. o great random.org, what will I be answering today? the result: 35, 38, 52 35. What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?

Serious answer: that they are almost never the villain in their own minds. They might consider themselves hard-nosed pragmatists, or freedom fighters, or the forces of truth and justice, or just a person forced into this position by circumstance-- but they typically don't consider themselves evil. Real answer: relatable fucked-up backstory

38. Would you ever write commissions?

Sure! I already take commissions in other areas of my life (as a fursuit maker) and also I am really a freelancer to the core and have been for years (my taxes are so complicated you guys) so I'd be down if I thought it was something people were interested in.

52. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, whenever I remember to! I just want to let the person know I'm thankful they left a comment, and honestly I just love interacting w people who enjoyed my fic :D

[quickdeaths]

🌸 If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog. 🌸

I don't do chain asks, but thank you! I had to think up more facts, oh dear.

In the past, I've been an English teacher, a computer skills instructor, the director of a small summer camp program, a movie theater worker, and a freelance writer doing listicle/top 10 style content, and somewhat more substantive media analysis/essay style content. I got my Master's Degree last year but I don't really know what my future looks like, career-wise. Dream job, though, I'd really like to be a full-time writer, whether that's doing essays, or writing novels, or being a journalist.

I don't have any pets at my apartment because $$$, but I'm a cat person for sure. My parents have a beautiful little orange lad named Theo and I miss him very much. I'm housesitting for my parents this fall so they don't have to board him, and I'm always happy to see his cute little face.

I was in a band in high school. I had a friend who was a great singer looking for more musical outlets outside of performing in musicals, and I was a really shitty guitar player who was just happy to be there hahaha. In addition to talent shows, our school did an Unplugged show twice a year in our school library for a very chill, intimate-type vibe for student musicians doing piano or singing or acoustic guitar music or whatever. We performed at both shows one year as a duo, with him singing and me playing guitar. I know we did Space Oddity by David Bowie at our first performance, and I thiiiiink we did The Passenger by Iggy Pop at the second one. We had a couple other songs we knew how to do, too (I remember learning the acoustic version of Everlong by Foo Fighters and it taking me forever to get it down) but never ended up performing. We broke up because we both got busy and because I really was a pretty bad guitarist who took forever to learn new songs.

[amitsuma]

META ASKS: If Your OC Was Canon. // Accepting

@hxroic-wxlls asked:

What plot points would change due to the inclusion of your character in canon? (For Sukkali)

Truth be told, I don't think she would affect very much!

Sukkali is generally uninvolved with the canon events (at least as of now), although... I do have an idea that she takes over as a universe 10 attendant/the U10 apprentice after the whole future trunks arc in Super. That was originally going to be her canon, but I thought that it wouldn't give me as much freedom as making her freelance.

However, if that were canon...? It... still probably wouldn't change all that much-- other than her showing up during the Tournament of Power, and maybe in the filler cutscenes while U10 was gathering fighters for it.

This may change in the future though as I further develop her! I'd love for it to change, in fact.