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lunar-lair · 2 years ago

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new starlight in the stars’ hands

(SURPRISE IM BACK!! another celestial au piece for @ashwii because, uh, frankly im a little obsessed. so many ideas so little time!! yet again, a piece on leo and his stars. more domestic, more dialogue-y, and i took some liberties. plus im SUPER tired its noon and i pulled an all nighter. regardless i uhhh,,hope it slaps!!! partially under the cut because 1.7k is kinda long lmao)

Leo has always held his stars close.

Ever since he was born into this universe, they’ve been apart of him, his children, his extended family, little loves and bright spots, part of everything he’s ever known and all the endless care in his heart.

From the beginning, his brothers have understood. Mikey got it well enough, his comets art and loved beings and fleeting adoration, and Donnie knew many other moons and cared for many of Leo’s stars like nephews. Raph was one of them, as he always has been, and cared for them like brothers and nephews, family of his own, just as all of them do.

So they all knew the fond little smile when a new cluster of stars were born, knew to leave him to it when he’d blip out of existence. (Pros of being every star in the sky, you can get anywhere they’re at, anytime.)

When he was younger, he’d greet them with something bright and a hope that they’d like it here, that this was home for them, that they could stay wherever they liked, that they were part of him and he’d always be here for them, whatever that meant.

He’s still bright, and he’s still fond, but his edges softened out with age. A fondness that slipped onto his face every time he felt it-this bright little thing, almost like a soothing balm, sheer excitement, something warm and a little confused uncurling in the corners of his mind.

When he described it to April, she said, “So like a notification but for new stars?”

He just shrugged back. “I guess, yeah.”

It was ironic, then, that he’d found himself shivering and grinning, wide and fond and warm.

Before April could say another word, he blinked out of existence, entirely disappearing from the middle of her living room. Kind of astounding that he could still do that while currently in a less celestial state on earth, but whatever, manifestation of stars does what he wants, she guessed.

She still pointed, though, brow raised. “Uh. Y’all know what just happened?”

Donnie hummed, looking up from the cell phone she’d given him when she met them. (Sometimes she wonders if the phone scales up when they’re in space, or if they just stay the same size, and then she stops because her head starts hurting.) “Ah, he does that. New stars, probably.”

“...ok,” April said slowly. “But why did he just…leave?”

“He’s gotta greet ‘em!” Mikey chimed, and Raph nodded.

“Yeah. He told you they’re like his kids, right? He never leaves them hanging for long.” And hummed, chin in hand. “I’ll have to say sorry to the little guys for not sayin’ hi right away. Wonder if this new batch is near Mercury like he thought they’d be.”

Donnie hummed down at his phone. When April leaned in, he had a doc filled with a ton of confusing science-y (because he still managed to be an expert in everything human he could find, even before he met her) stuff about chemicals and star locations open. “Based on the amount of hydrogen in the area, I’d say he’s right. Besides, Mikey, you know he always knows.”

He hummed back at him. “Yeah, but he’s wrong, like, once every 2,500 years. Close enough, right?”

“Sure. Not like that’s a long stretch of time, even for us.”

Leo blipped back into existence, celestial form burning new stars into his skin, right next to Mercury.

His grin softened as he observed them for a moment. They were mostly rather small stars, and they had all grouped together around a couple of the bigger ones already. Ah, these were his brighter stars and his constellations. They happened to form together like this, ready to stay together all their lives.

They were already acting like siblings. It only made his heart warm.

He approached, and all of them relaxed, like they already knew who he was. (Well, they did, but only innately. They didn’t know him as a person, not really, not yet.) “Hello! You all must be the new stars I felt pop in.”

The largest of them nodded, already taking charge.

He sat down on thin air, crossing his legs and grinning. “Well, I’m Leo! It’s nice to meet you all.” They relaxed a little further, and more of them nodded back this time, smiling. He held a hand to his chest, watching as they followed his arm, stardust falling as it went. “You all are part of me, though I’m sure you all already know that, at least on some level.” He gestured around him, looking up and around, his grin widening as some other stars gathered to meet the new kids. “This is the milky way. It’s your home, and you’re free to live wherever you’d like. You can stick together, you can split up, you can call each other siblings, anything you want, I’d be glad to do what I can to give it to you.” He held out his hands, letting stardust fall, watching the smallest and newest of them give quiet ‘ohhh’s at the little display. “Me and all the other stars, we’re your family. I’ll always be here for you, til the end of your days, and the end of time.”

“Til the end of our days?” One of the bigger ones spoke, and all of them quieted for a moment as Leo’s knowledge spread throughout the group.

Every star was quiet, for a moment. The moons still chattered and the planets still spun on their axes, but the light of the universe was silent.

Leo smiled at them again, but it was a little sad, a little pained. “Yes. Stars die, after a time. I’ve outlived every one I’ve met, and I’ll outlive you all, too.” Stardust fell, and he only realized they were tears when some of them crowded forward into his hold. He readily held them back, sighing softly as the others caved in and gathered as well. “What’s important is that we love. That we live, with everything we have, together, until your final moments.”

They all nodded back at him, whether slow or vigorous, determined to live ;ife to the fullest, just as he had asked.

He leaned back, and grinned at them, soft. He always felt like syrup and honey when he was with his stars, like he was made of the light they gave off. “No matter what, though, I’ll be here for you. I’d be more than glad to be your father, your caretaker, or anything else you wish.” He laughed, holding two of the eldest’s cheeks in hand. “After all, humans wish on us all the time. I think we deserve some, too.”

They all laughed at that, his knowledge innate. Everything he knew, it was theirs to know and see, as long as they wanted to.

He leaned back, letting them go. “Now! Before I let you meet everyone else, we need to decide on names!”

It was always the same routine: a real name based on their location and age-MU, a dash, and a number for Mercury, VE, a dash, and a number for Venus, so on-and a nickname. It could be anything, something on Earth or something celestial or even something the humans had made themselves. If Leo knew it, they had it to pick from.

A lot of them chose simple names, as they always did. Then some of them chose names like Jamie, human names, or things they’d made or colors they’d named, like Scarlet or Tower.

He never minded. He called them nicknames, but really, they were more proper names, to him. He’d lived his whole long life with a name for people to call him by, and he only felt they deserved the same.

He turned to look around, and laughed. Nearly every older star and some of the others that didn’t have places they preferred to be were gathered around, nervously waiting around Mercury’s orbit. He waved them over, turning to the new stars with a bright grin. “Now that you’ve got names, you can meet the others!” He threw up a peace sign. “I’ve gotta dip. Got places to be, embodiment and all. But I promise I’ll be back with my brothers to check in soon!”

They waved goodbye, and he disappeared, popping near earth and then popping in again in April’s living room, wide grin on his face.

His brothers just stood there, looking bored, but she nearly fell off her couch. Again. Jeez, it’s been years, she should be used to that. She pointed an accusing finger at him over her coffee table. “I know what you’re thinkin’, Leo! Ain’t no way I’m ever gettin’ used to that! At least text me, you heathen!”

“You are the only one who can do that,” Donnie hummed, sipping the coffee April made him while Leo was gone. (Honestly, one of the best things humans have ever made. Reminds him of being full moon, but it’s synthetic. Astounding.) “And you only do it on occasion, anyways.”

April tsked. “Still kinda weird that you can do it just with some stardust you leave behind. Gives me the heebie jeebies. Like, what is it, your sweat? Your blood?”

Leo shrugged. “I think of it as skin cells.” She just grimaced back at him.

Mikey pulled him into a side hug. “Welcome back! You’re gonna introduce us to the new guys later, right?”

Leo patted his arm, grin easy and light. “Of course, Mikey. They’ve gotta meet Raph, too, you know that.”

Donnie nodded. “We can head over to Mercury when we leave.”

For now though, they settled down, chatting with April for a while about this or that. Leo was never very good at paying attention unless he wanted to.

He was pretty excited to see his stars again.

He grinned warmly, staring up at April’s ceiling.

He knew what they were already; the makings of a new constellation. Some of the bigger ones, they were the focal points. The others were the areas in between, filling in empty space.

He leaned back, resting his hands behind his head.

He can’t wait to see what the humans think of the new starlight in their sky.

#hope the way i integrated leos teleporting made sense!#also i kinda winged it on the whole human items thing lmao #like i said i took some liberties. nicest thing abt this being a kind of open au tbh #bit more of a silly domestic one this time like i said. just 4 funsies :o)#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt celestial au #lunas library #lunas lies #BTW. the casey idea is still in the works dw. i might make a little thing abt that later #once i find the old casey fic someone made and everything else ashwiis said abt it

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sideofmango · 4 years ago

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HOT TOMALES! I just got a great idea for a request! Bakugo, Fatgum, Sero, and Hawks hcs of them with a black!fem!s/o but she has a Galaxy quirk. It gives her purple blue eyes with stars and constellation pupils that changes when she blinks, she blushes stardust and mini stars, has sparkly tears, and her quirk allows her to use black holes, comet like projectiles, and she can make mini stars and planets appear from her energy along with spreading stars and constellation like freckles all over her body. (I saw these gorgeous art designs and I couldn’t help myself. I do not own the art, they are just inspiration to me for this request 😭✨)

“She’s Out of This World” - Headcannons

Pairings: bakugou, fatgum, sero, and hawks x black!fem! reader Pronouns: she/her Warnings: none...besides a few curse words (cough...bakugou...cough)

Thanks for another great request <3

He definitely was NOT looking forward to the new foreign student joining the class when Aizawa first announced it

But then you stepped through the oversized doorway and he very obviously did a double take

Bakubitch was seeing stars...literally...you were flustered and blushing stardust

Bakugou thought that you were hot and your quirk was cool...though he would NOT admit it

He was definitely overly aggressive towards you when you met each other because bby boi didn’t know how to express his feelings

Hi crush grew when he saw you wouldn’t take his shit and you talked back...(he thought that was hot as fuck)

“Hey (y/n)-chan?” Midoriya asked from his seat, his half burnt journal out as he held a pen in his hand. His green eyes were wide as he looked you over before scribbling things down

Bakugou wasn’t saying anything and was pretending to be on his phone but he would look up every so often to see if you found Deku as annoying as he did

He was kinda bummed when he saw you didn’t

“What’s up Midoriya?” You asked back as Midoriya looked back up at you, loosing his train of thought when he saw the constellations in your eyes change and shooting stars in the purple-blue orbs when you blinked or got excited.

“C-can you make stars and planets and stuff?” He asked after a pause. This caught the explosive blonde’s attention as he watched you smile and nod.

“Yeah...do you want me to do it now?” Everyone nodded in response to your question, their eyes now focusing on you.

A mini galaxy began to appear above your hands, a small smile on your face as you looked at everyone’s excited and impressed faces.

“Woah! You’re really hot!” Mineta said, catching you off guard as your eyes widened and you cheeks became covered in stardust, a shooting star appearing above your head.

“T-thanks.” You grew even more flustered as some of the other boys agreed

Bakugou glared daggers at Mineta for breathing near you, so the fact that he talked to you was pissing him off even more

Mineta’s ass got BEAT after school and the next day Mineta wouldn’t even look at you

You caught the satisfied smirk on Bakugou’s face that he tried to hide when he saw Mineta practically piss his pants

“You know you could just talk to me...” You said from your seat behind Bakugou with a small laugh as Bakugou tried to hide his quickly reddening cheeks

He LOVES to talk about you and show you off, even if not a lot of people get to see you together because y’all are pro-heros

Will definitely talk everyone’s ears off when given the chance about how cool your galaxy quirk is and how strong and powerful you are to the point where some of his friends are convinced you aren’t real because they haven’t seen you together

No one questions him anymore after you joined him and his two interns on patrol when they spotted you after you had just finished your own patrol

“Excuse me.” You looked down when you felt a small tug at your belt, seeing a little girl with pigtails and warm brown eyes.

“Hi sweetheart.” You smiled widely at the girl as you kneeled to her level, noticing the doll of you in her arms and the small stars that were drawn on her cheeks.

“I wanna be just like you when I grow up! I already told my mommy!” The little girl told you excitedly as a woman who looks like the older version of the little girl in front of you smiles at you with a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“I think you’ll make a great hero one day.” You told her as her eyes seemed to shine in adoration. Her little hand touched the stars on your cheek as she mumbled about how pretty it was.

“Thank you.” You laughed lightly as the little girl blushed.

“I can make sunlight!” She explained after a moment, excitedly showing you her hands that formed the little ball of light.

“Watch this.” You smiled, putting your hands around hers as you made tiny planets and a mini galaxy around her little ball of light that looked like a sun.

“Woah!” The little girl excitedly jumped up and down before hugging you as her mother thanked you before the pair walked off. You stood turning when you felt eyes on you.

It was your boyfriend, Toyomitsu and his two interns who had been watching the little exchange with small smiles.

“Are these your interns!” You asked him excitedly as you pulled at his large hand, eyeing the two teenagers.

“Mmhmm.” He nodded proudly. “Isn’t she out of this world?” He asked to the boys with a laugh.

You rolled your eyes at his corny joke, but let out a small laugh.

“Do you want to join us?”

“Of course! Toyomitsu literally doesn’t stop talking about you two! It’s great to finally meet you.”

“Really? He hasn’t stopped talking about you either.” Kirishima said as your starry purple and blue eyes looked from the redhead to your boyfriend with a raised eyebrow. He just smiled at you, a soft pink covering his cheeks as he shrugged.

Flex tape is super into you from the moment he saw you, but he was too nervous to say anything to you in the beginning

He was convinced you would go for someone like him (which is stupid bc he’s so cute)...he was obviously wrong

Both you and Sero’s quirks have pretty practical applications, especially when you generated small suns and moons as light sources

The first time you generated a black hole kinda scared him tho...even if it was a small one

Once you convinced him that you had complete control over the black hole, he wasn’t so nervous about it anymore.

Definitely takes advantage of the black hole creation ability of your quirk now too

“Hey (y/n) can you come over?” Your boyfriend called you. This made you nervous because you thought something bad could’ve happened...like that one time Sero had accidentally gotten his tape stuck in a fan while it was accidentally stuck in his hair

“What happened? Did you start a fire? Was Denki involved? Is there another fan, because I can go get my scissors again!” You said quickly as you stood at his door in the dorms.

You had rushed there so it had only taken you a moment to get there after he had hung up.

“Nope...no fire, Kaminari wasn’t involved, and there isn’t another fan incident...but I kinda broke the vacuum cleaner and there’s glitter all over my room.”

“Why is there glitter everywhere?” You looked from the mess all on the floor to your boyfriend who smiled sheepishly at you.

“Well, Kaminari thought it would be fun to do a prank...and the test kinda backfired...”

“I thought you said Kaminari wasn’t involved?”

“Uh-” He stopped when you held your hand up with a sigh.

“What am I supposed to do about this Hanta?”

“I was thinking that maybe you could use a black hole...since it’s kinda like a vacuum?”

“Fine.” You sighed after a pause in conversation, nodding once before you made a small black hole appear in your hand. Pointing it towards the floor you sucked up all of the glitter before making the black hole disappear again.

“I knew it would be faster than a vacuum!” Sero told you as he hugged and thanked you.

“Don’t be so messy next time...and maybe stay away from the glitter.” You laughed.

Keigo was kind of caught off guard when he first saw you.

He originally thought your quirk had just changed your appearance and that it was only creating stars, well until one day...

You see, the pair of you had moved in together and had also gotten a dog because why the hell not?

Anyways Keigo was supposed to be getting home any moment from patrol and since you had been off that day, you stayed home with your dog

“Did you have to ruin your toys so quickly? We just brought you this ball.” You complained to the small rambunctious animal who simple stared up at you with big brown eyes and a wag of its tail.

“Alright, let’s try this then.” You said after thinking for a moment. You created a small planet before throwing it down the hall. If your dog broke it, you could simply make a new one and it wouldn’t be a waste of money.

The dog happily chased after it before appearing a moment later with the small blue planet in its mouth. It put the sphere down at your feet, looking up at you and waiting for you to throw it again.

The door opened as you threw it down the hall again, Keigo walking into the house after just getting off.

He set his goggles on the table by the door along with his special headphones, taking his gloves and jacket off at the door.

“I’m home, Birdie.” He called out as your dog ran towards him and dropped the strange new ball that he didn’t remember getting at his feet.

“I’m in here.”

“Weird.” The pro-hero mumbled before tossing the ball again and walking towards where your voice had come from.

“How was patrol?” You asked as your dog appeared again, the broken planet in front of him on the ground at your feet.

“It was fine...nothing major.” He answered simply, watching as you sighed giving a look to your dog before putting your hands together and making another small sphere, this time a purple color.

“Try not to break it so quickly this time.” You told the dog before tossing it.

“What was that?” He questioned as you looked at him confused. “When you put your hands together?” He clarified.

“Oh...did I forget to tell you? He broke his new ball, so I created a planet for him. I just figured it would be easier than buying him another toy that he’ll just end up destroying.” You shrugged.

“You can make planets?”

“Among other things.” You laughed softly at the surprised face he made. “I thought I told you.”

“No...but that’s cool as hell! What else can you do?” He asked, his eyes not leaving yours as he laid his head in your lap as you both sat on the couch with you explaining your quirk in depth.

Tags:

#katsukisblackteddy #requested #bnha #bnha x black reader #mha x black reader #mha #headcannons #bakugou #fatgum #sero #hawks #galaxy quirk #x reader #pls i love fatgum #bnha boys make me soft #bnha x reader

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neopronouns · 4 years ago

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do you happen to know any genders related to space? Like stars, or certain planets or just space in general

quite a few! under the cut

(also, due to the Very Large amount of space genders, i may have missed some, sorry!!)

aliencoric: a xenogender related to aliencore

aliensic: a xenic alignment to aliens

andromediane: a xenogender related to the andromeda galaxy

asteragender: a fluid gender that’s connected to a specific constellation

astergender: a gender that feels bright and celestial

astralgender: a gender that feels connected to space

astronomique: a gender related to and/or influenced by astronomy

eclipsique: an astronomique gender related to and/or influenced by solar and lunar eclipses

blastjernen: a gender related to blue dwarf stars, blue stars, blue nights, neutron stars, and space that feels hot and unknown

b✰y/b*y/b⭐y: a nonbinary male xenogender related to space, aliens, etc. similar to being male, but a version of male that is based more on alien concepts than on human concepts.

caelgender: an aesthetically-centered gender that is largely focused on space-related things such as stars, aliens, planets, galaxies, and black holes

caelagender: caelgender + agender

caelivus: a gender related to the empty space between celestial bodies, where you can see the stars, but not feel them, and are alone

cavrumgender: a gender based around black holes and the feeling of black holes. feels all-consuming but never complete

celestae: a celestial xenogender. feels ethereal, angelic, extraterrestrial, and as though it relates to outer space

celestiagender: a gender connected to outer space and creatures from outer space

celestialgender: a gender that is related to a planet, celestial body, or astronomical object in out solar system

linnutgender: a gender related to or influenced by all the planets, celestial bodies, and astronomical objects in our solar system

the following definitions can be modified to fit the rest of the genders in this system by inserting the celestial body the gender is named for:

a gender related to the [celestial body]

a gender influenced by the [body]/the placement of the [body] in the sky

a gender that is stronger in the presence of the [body]

a gender influenced by a [body] kintype

a gender related to [deity that represents the body]

a gender influenced by one’s devotion to any of the aforementioned gods

a gender that can otherwise be explained using the [body]

sonnegender: the sun

lunirgender: earth’s moon

mercugender: mercury

venugender: venus

terragender: earth

marigender: mars

juperigender: jupiter

saturnigender: saturn

uranugender: uranus

neptunigender: neptune

plutigender: pluto

celestial gender system: a system of nonbinary genders that are linked to a soft, celestial energy

juparian: masculine

lunettian: feminine

mercurian: neutral; gendered, but not masc or fem

plutoian: void and/or uncertain

neptunian: masc + neutral

venusian: fem + masc

saturnian: fem + neutral

celestarian: masc + fem + neutral

ceresian: fem + void

sonnean: masc + void

ouranian: neutral + void

terraean: masc + fem + void

marsean: masc + neutral + void

erisian: fem + neutral + void

asteroidian: fem + masc + neutral + void

kuiperian/starfluid: fluid between celestial genders

collapsargender: a gender that has a strong pull, tending to pull other identities into and compress them before spitting them out in a compressed form, like a black hole

collstellargender: a collapsargender related to a stellar black hole

collsumagender: a collapsargender related to a supermassive black hole

collintergender: a collapsargender related to an intermediate black hole

scutifluid: fluid between collapsargenders

cometgender: a gender which relates to another gender in the way a comet orbits the sun of a solar system - zooming into the solar system, then out again, spending more time out in space than near the center but always attached to the gravitational field of that sun

constellavir: having both a space-related gender and a male(-aligned) gender at the same time (or more than one of either/both. basically polygender with space genders and male genders)

constellgender: a gender that fluctuates based on what constellation is most visible at that time

contigender: a gender that flows through space and time, constantly changing and always moving; a gender of or related to space and time

cosmiccoric: a gender that feels like you’re a cosmic entity, one with the universe, especially when you’re meditating

cosmoic alignments:

void-aligned: a formless, dark, and frigid alignment associated with black holes and deep space. may be unaligned or reject alignment

constellation-aligned: a cold, multifaceted alignment that is complex and solid. associated with starlight and astrology. may feel as though individual parts of the alignment make up one larger alignment

nebula-aligned: a fluid, colorful, and bright alignment that floats slowly through the cold void of space. associated with supernovas and stars. may feel cloudy or intangible

aurora-aligned: a fluctuating, colorful, and bright alignment that swirls through the temperate atmosphere. associated with solar winds, magnetic fields, and earth

stellar-aligned: a large, hot, and bright alignment with a fixed course through space. associated with light and solar eclipses. may be loud or boisterous.

supernova-aligned: a huge, red-hot alignment that seems to expand rapidly in all directions. associated with stars. may feel like it’s burning up other alignments around it

planet-aligned: a stable, solid, and warm alignment thriving with liveliness. associated with weather patters and gravitational forces. may aligned with sunlight and/or darkness

lunar-aligned: a quiet, slow, cold alignment with a fixed course through space. associated with water and lunar eclipses. may align with softness and/or grace

asteroid-aligned: an erratic and unpredictable alignment that’s cold. may feel like it’s far away from other alignment

singularity-aligned: a small and enigmatic red-hot alignment that has the potential to be something bigger. may indicated questioning alignment rather than being sure

quantum-aligned: a paradoxical alignment that is both known and unknown, present and absent. may be complex or simple, and may overlap with many other alignments or none at all

cyberastral: a gender defined by the ideas that 1) one is consubstantial with stars, galaxies, and celestial bodies due to being a collection of matter in the universe and 2) that software is modeled by the universe, combined into the idea that one is both a celestial soul and a self-modifying piece of code

dipperine: a gender related to the big dipper, small stars, space, and time that feels cold and is only felt under certain circumstances

exoplafluid: fluid between celestial/space genders

exoplanique: a gender related to exoplanets and rogue planets

extraterrgender: feeling that you are some sort of celestial body, planet, asteroid, meteor, constellation, or something indescribable that is in the universe or yet to be found in space

galaksene: a gender related to clusters of stars, galaxies, small distant planets, earth-like planets, and nebulas that feels infinite and void at the same time

galaxenic: a xenogender related to a galaxy

galaxiasflux: a fluid gneder that feels like it flows and fluctuates with any galaxy

galaxxin: a gender that feels like it’s flying through galaxies, never to return

galaxygender: a gender related to space, the stars, the cosmos, and all things galaxy-like

genderlulne: a gender related to the moon itself, not dependent on phases or time of day

genderquasari: a gender that bursts like a quasar

genderspace: an umbrella term for genders influenced by and/or related to things in space. could be a standalone identity generally related to space

jupitique: a gender related to the moons of jupiter

keplerique: a gender related to kepler planets

kosmyc genders (the ones with space characteristics):

nuitsolum: a dark min- + xin-aligned gender connected to power, space, the color purple, moons, and a sense of the void

nuagesolum: a soft min- + agin-aligned gender connected to neutrality, fog, the color purple, stars, suns, and power

brilliantesolum: a bright min-aligned gender connected to the color yellow, suns, writing, and deserts

angesolum: a bright idin-aligned gender connected to the color cyan, suns, the color yellow, angels, and feathers

clamosolum: a nin-aligned gender connected to cameras, the color cyan, eyes, moons, and history

deusolum: a min-aligned gender connected to greek gods, the color green, conceptum attraction, stars, and nature

rubrusolum: a min-aligned gender connected to the color red, fire, suns, the summer, and roses

auransolum: a lin-aligned gender connected to the color orange, campfires, fruit, moons, and warmth

flavosolum: a nin-aligned gender connected to the color yellow, sunshine, space, stars, and happiness

virisolum: an agin-aligned gender connected to the color green, nature, health, suns, and neurodivergence

cyasolum: a din-aligned gender connected to the color cyan, ice, winter, moons, and snow angels

caersolum: a fin-aligned gender connected to the color blue, lakes, rivers, stars, and birds

purpusolum: a xin-aligned gender connected to the color purple, nonconformity, fashion, suns, and royalty

magsolum: a uin-aligned gender connected to the color magenta, time, literature, suns, and lizards

roseasolum: an idin-aligned gender connected to the color pink, lovecore, doves, stars, and pillows

reosolum: a uxin-aligned gender connected to the color black, demons, scales, moons, and dragons

albusolum: a flin-aligned gender connected to the color white, angels, feathers, stars, and fae

aessolum: a nin-aligned gender connected to the color bronze, wealth, freedom, suns, and self-control

grisesolum: a uin-aligned gender connected to the color gray, rainy days, hot chocolate, moons, and winter

argesolum: a din-aligned gender connected to the color silver, silence, technology, moons, and rocks

brusolum: an agin-aligned gender connected to the color brown, music, books, stars, and movies

aurusolum: a nin-aligned gender connected to the color gold, family, self-identification, suns, and comfort

lunaegender: a gender that feels spacey and celestial and bears a similarly to vampires. during the night, it soaks in the radiance of the moon and is unidentifiably gendered, while during the day, it turns to ash and becomes void/genderless. bears similarities to (demi)bigender

moongender: a nonbinary gender connected to the moon and various aspects of it

neptunique: a gender related to the moons of neptune

oceaspatium: a gender that encompasses the depths of space and the depths and qualities of the ocean

pancaeleste/pancaelestic: being every space-related gender within one’s experiences

pangalaxenic: a xenogender related to every galaxy

phobosique: a gender related to the moons of mars

planetesfluid: a fluid gneder that feels like a planet aimelessly floating through space

plutique: a gender related to the moons of pluto

profundanic: a gender centered around a deep connection to caverns/caves, space, and unknowable knowledge

rodstjernen: a gender related to red dwarf stars, red stars, red sunsets, supernovas, and space that feels warm and distant

saturneo: a neutral gender with fluid ambiguine feelings/qualities that’s linked in some way to saturn

saturnir: masculine version of saturneo

saturnera: feminine version of saturneo

saturnique: a gender related to the moons of saturn

siengender: a masculine gender revolving around space, kindness, and loyalty

solislayera: a gender related to any layer of the sun

spacecoric: a xenogender related to spacecore

spacegendervoid: a nonbinary gender connected to space, stars, and the universe as a whole. feels vaguely unaligned in nature and has ties to feelings of genderlessness.

astralgendervoid: mascuilne version of spacegendervoid

celestialgendervoid: feminine version of spacegendervoid

spaethgender: a gender related to missing space. only for alienkin and variants thereof

stargender: having the gender of a star; an otherworldly/nonhuman gender that is beyond comprehension; no matter how many genders are discovered/coined, none would match the person

stellaene: a gender that feels like a planet that’s spiraling out of control, flying off into the cosmos

supernovae: a gender that is like a supernova. it erupts and dozens or hundreds of new genders are created, destroyed, or fused together

uranusique: a gender related to the moons of uranus

venusanian: a fingender (feminine-in-nature gender) related to the solar system, specifically venus, or outer space in general

#gender lists

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startanewdream · 4 years ago

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the fall

Summary: James lives. Sirius falls.

Notes: Sometimes people ask if in my Jily Lives AU series, Sirius dies like in the book. I like to think not, but I never wrote one way or another, because after all I don’t want Sirius to die.

But if it happened like in the books, here it is how I imagine it would go (not really part of the series, but it mentions events there):

Sometimes James still dreams of the fall.

It was something he always feared.

Most people wouldn't guess but he always had a fear of heights; that was the reason he first mounted a broom and took of for the sky - more than any fear he felt, James loved taking risks, being dare. It made him feel alive.

He never stopped fearing the height, but he trusted his broom and in all his short career at Quidditch there had been only one accident, one time a bludger hit him too hard and he fell - later he would claim he had blacked out, but the truth was he stayed awaked through all his fall, until someone managed to grab him and save him.

James never forgot that feeling of being adrift in the air, condemned to fall in that one-way trip. He remembers thinking that this must be like the angels felt when they were falling from grace.

His mother had been Catholic and she had told him all the stories. He had not paid attention to most - his father's adventures stories were much more to his taste - but there were some that caught his attention. Daniel in the lion’s den. Samson with his hair. The fallen angels.

He always thought it must have been hard for them, being cast away from heaven. James loved flying, loved being above everything and feeling free; he would have hate being trapped on the ground.

He would hate losing his wings.

When he was six, his father allowed him to stay awake well past his bedtime and they camped in their backyard. It was a cold November night, but James was too excited to feel cold; his dad was telling stories of long lost heroes when James saw the fall for the first time.

It looked like a line of light crossing the night sky, something falling quickly in the space of a blink of an eye and vanishing before he could understand. And then another and another, after a few seconds or minutes, a number of little lines appearing in the starry sky. It was beautiful.

It scared him.

'Are those angels, dad? Are they falling again?'

His father had smiled.

'No, James, those are falling stars. Shooting stars. Make a wish'.

James did not feel like wishing for anything. Stars were made to be in the sky too. They shouldn't fall.

When he told that to his father, he smiled again and hugged James.

'Those are not really stars, son. Those are meteors, parts of a comet that came too near Earth. What you see is just the meteors entering our planet and burning in the process'.

'It's strange'.

'It's just an event, like eclipses or the phases of the Moon. But this one is special, it happens once in thirty years. The first time I saw it I was your age'.

'Does it hurt them? Those meteors when they burn?'

'No more than the water is hurt when it's raining', his father assured him. 'They are just rocks. I thought you would like it. This meteor shower is called the Leonids'.

'Like the Greek hero?

'Like the constellation Leo, actually'.

This picked up his interest even more. James loved lions, loved the courage they represented and loved how they were the symbol of a House he would be someday.

He watched the rest of the meteor shower in a blissful mood and that night he dreamed of falling stars that were not really stars nor they were falling.

A decade later, he convinced his friends to fly to the top of the Gryffindor Tower, equilibrating precariously on the bricks of the tower, to watch another meteor shower.

Remus slept right away, tired even in a moonless night, and Peter was trembling too much to enjoy the show, but Sirius stayed awake with him all night, watching the stars, almost clapping each time he saw a shooting star (this meteor shower was much less impressive than the other James saw, but it didn't matter. It was never about the stars).

'Do you think wishing upon a star really works?', Sirius asked him in a low voice.

'Depends. What are you wishing for?'

Sirius had turned to look at him.

'If I tell you, it doesn't come true', he said as if it were obvious, but James just stared back at him, waiting.

He knew Sirius would tell him because there were no secrets between them. They trusted each other too much for that.

And just like he knew it would happened, Sirius blinked.

'I wished - I thought of my family -'

James frowned then, still remembering the raining summer night where Sirius had appeared in front of his house, wet and trembling, and had told him he had run away from home. James had done the only sensible thing - he had stand aside to allow Sirius to enter and had helped him change his clothes.

He didn't understand what Sirius could wish about his family - as far as James knew, none of them were really Sirius' family and he was much better away from them.

'My brother, actually', Sirius whispered, sounding guilty of even having this thought. ' I wish I could have him back'.

James thought of the first day of classes that year, when Sirius had come face to face to his brother after running away, and how Regulus had turned his back on him, had refused to hear Sirius calling him, and how heartbroken Sirius had been.

'You don't need him', James said forcefully, hating to see Sirius so down. Sirius was made to shine even more than the star he was named for. 'I am your brother. I won't ever leave you'.

Sirius beamed at him them, his eyes full of love and James knew he was right. They were more than best friends. They were brothers.

Years later he would feel guilty when he found out the truth about Regulus, how he had been brave after all and how Sirius never discovered it.

Years later he would watch Sirius fall and the only wish he could make was that it was all a dream.

But right then they didn't know better, so Sirius offered his hand, which James ignored in favor of hugging him, and they stood together watching the meteor shower.

That was how James and Sirius did most of the things. Together.

They laughed and they pranked and they made mistakes together. They wronged together too and they faced detentions - when they started to get separate detentions, they invented a mirror to talk to each other.

When James realized he fancied Lily Evans, he told Sirius first - Sirius didn't seewhat attracted James in Evans, but he supported, helped him with some cheesy lines (none of it worked) and promise he would marry James if Evans was still rejecting him by the time he were thirty. James knew how much that meant for Sirius, who never really seemed to care about dates and relationships.

And he didn't doubt Sirius would be there for them to grow old together.

When he finally started dating Lily, he told Sirius, even before telling her, that he was in love with Lily. And then, as he said it (Sirius had rolled his eyes, but James knew he was happy for him, because that’s how they were with each other - if one was happy, the other was too; if one was that sad, the other found the reason and punched it in the face), he realized that he had never told Sirius that he loved him too.

'I love you, Padfoot'.

Sirius had stopped to look at him, looking only confused.

'Yeah, I know. We are brothers'.

And then James felt stupid for thinking he had to said how he felt out loud. He never once doubted Sirius loved him either; of course Sirius would feel the same.

Nothing change after they graduated. Sirius was with him in the Order, for the most important and most boring missions, for the days were hope were lost and for the small victories they managed.

Sirius was his best man in his wedding, making a speech that made everyone cry and filled with puns about dogs and stags that made James laugh even if none of the other guests understood. And Sirius was by his side when his parents died.

Years later James would see Sirius hearing about his mother passing away with just a blink, but when he heard about the Potters, Sirius came and hugged James and they cried together, because they were both losing their parents. Sirius had not only been a brother to James, but also a second son that his parents had loved fiercely - and Sirius had loved them back, had found in them all the care and support he lacked from his own parents.

And then Sirius was somehow the only family James had (Lily was part of him, so it was different), until Harry was born - and it was obvious that Sirius would be the godfather.

And even more obvious that he would be their Secret Keeper.

Except it didn't happen like that because Sirius had an idea and James had believed it was the best, because he wouldn't dare to mistrust Peter (he was already hiding things from Remus and that hurt him too much).

But Peter - who James had also loved too, but maybe he should have told him that more - betrayed them and by the tiniest luck James and Lily and Harry survived. Peter died. James tried not to think about it.

For the next years there was some peace. Sirius got to fulfill his wish of being an Auror, James went to his studies, Lily went to preparing her potions. And Harry grew up happy and with his family complete.

Until the fall.

If James had to describe it, he always thought it would be much like the falling star. The angel would be thrown from the sky and at first he would trust his wings to keep him from falling like they always had done; but much like the meteor, the wings would burn brightly upon entering Earth and the fire would consume them, until there was nothing of the feathers and the angel would just fall, in what would seem forever - but the ground would be nearer and nearer until, finally, the angel would hit it.

The angels survived in the stories, but James remembers the story of Icarus, who dared to fly to close to the sun and fell to his death in the sea.

Sirius was no angel and, like Icarus, he always flew too high, James knew, because there was nothing holding him back.

James had a son and a wife to protect with his life and somehow this grounded him, made him think more than when he was young. Sirius loved them all, but he was free.

That didn't worry James for a very long time. Sirius was a star. It was okay for him to be high in the sky. He was made to be there.

Until the fall, where the laws of the physics didn't seem to matter.

In hindsight, James thought he should have paid attention. Sirius had been dismissed from a work he truly loved, had to hide for being hunted after telling the truth the world didn't want to hear. He had lost everything he had fought for in the last fourteen years and he was forced to hide in his old parent's house, the one place he had tried so much to run away from. He was careless and out of practice.

Lily tried to warn him and James didn't listen. It had been so long since James had worried about Sirius - instead, it was Sirius that was always comforting James with his worries and problems. At some point in their lives Sirius had become the older brother to him, just as much as a godfather - a second father - he was to Harry.

Harry loved him and he never thought of Sirius like anything other than his family too. Harry would hear Sirius and trust him and care for him.

They should have expected Voldemort to use it against them. Voldemort could not use James or Lily - Harry wouldn't believe it - but when he came for Sirius, if only pretending to, Harry didn’t doubt it for a second and feared and didn't care about anything other than saving his family.

It was a trap and as soon as they found out, they came to rescue Harry. Someone should stay behind to tell Dumbledore, but Sirius never considered waiting while his godson was in danger.

James never expected him to. He knew Sirius enough to know he loved a challenge and he loved Harry even more.

But James never expected Sirius to fall either.

James remembered the first meteor shower he saw. In one moment there was nothing, just the a normal night sky, full of stars and constellations he would someday learn about. And then the lines were crossing the sky, flashes of light that seemed to either last one second or fall forever until they vanished in the horizon.

That's how Sirius falls. Forever until the horizon comes.

He is dancing with Bellatrix, a dance of lights and carefree laughs with a cousin that is not his family - James is his family, the Potters are his family - when the spell hits him. It's not green, so James is not concerned, but then Sirius falls behind, gracefully, quickly, into a veil that seems to welcome him with open arms just as James did the night Sirius ran away from home.

And then he is gone.

Not dead. Gone.

Like the falling stars in the meteor shower, vanishing into nothing.

James wishes for him to return with all his heart, but nothing happens. He begs to any god that might be listening. No one answers. Nothing changes.

After all these years he has an answer to Sirius' question (it's a waste of time to wish upon a star) and he can't even tell him.

He stares at nothing, feeling numb, for once not hearing Harry's cries and then Lily is there, hugging him and it's only when James can only breath through his mouth that he realizes he is crying, kneeling in the ground in front of the veil, his hand raised expecting Sirius to grab his hand so James can save him.

Nothing happens.

He doesn't know how he survives the next week. He doesn't remember anything except for a few flashes - punching Fudge (because that's what Sirius would do) destroying the motorbike that Sirius left on the Potters house, attacking with a kitchen knife Sirius's mother portrait (it works, and they manage to take her out - Sirius would have been happy).

It's only when Harry returns from school and asks him in a very quiet voice if he blames him, that James feels like waking up.

'No', he whispers. 'It's only Voldemort's fault'.

He doesn't blame Harry - his son did what he thought it was the best with the few information he had -, he doesn't blame Dumbledore for trying to keep Sirius away, he doesn't blame Snape for being a dick and messing with Sirius' head and he doesn't blame himself for not being able to prevent what happened.

The only one he has to work on not blaming is Sirius, who should have know better, who should have been more careful, who should not dare to leave James' side.

But then again, when he got the chance, Icarus flew too high too. And Sirius was not made to be locked.

He finds Harry in the backyard of the house some day, looking at the destroyed motorbike; there is a toolbox next to him, and James remembers Sirius teaching Harry about motors a long time ago, sharing his passion with his godson.

Harry doesn't ask why the motorbike is destroyed; he seems to understand whatever anger made James do it. He just starts fixing it and, after a while watching his son working, James grabs some tools too.

It's a hard work, under scalding heat, but they never complain.

'I asked Nearly Headless Nick how ghosts were made', Harry whispers one afternoon, while he is changing the tire.

'He wouldn't return', James says without taking his eyes from the cylinder, trying not to sound resentful. 'He would have gone on'.

'Dumbledore once told me death is just the next adventure'.

'Sirius would never refuse an adventure'.

Harry smiles at him, with tears shining in his eyes, and he nods.

It's a long summer. James wakes up screaming sometimes - it's the fall, always the fall - and Lily is there for him, kissing him and embracing him until he falls asleep again.

She is the sun for him, the one star he can count on to keep shining, to return every day after it sets.

Lily is mourning too (she loved Sirius too, even though people would forget it), and sometimes he catches her crying silently; he is the one to embrace her, and then what happens is that they cry together.

But being with Sirius mostly of his life taught James that pain, like happiness, is better when you have someone to share.

It's Lily who suggests they make a funeral for Sirius - not a sad event, just something to represent him and a place to let them pay their respects - not with flowers, because Sirius never cared for them, but James thinks he would like to receive motor magazines from time to time.

So they place a tombstone near where James' (and Sirius') parents are buried. It's empty, no coffin and no one to pay the homage Sirius truly deserved (a big speech, music playing, lots of people crying), but it feels somehow like an ending really, when James stares at the silver tomb and sees the name of his best friend and brother there.

Lily was right after all; Sirius isn’t there, not really, but James comes to that place to talk to him, to tell him what's happening, even if it makes him sad to realize how much Sirius is missing.

He hopes that wherever Sirius is (in heaven, pranking innocent angels at least and waiting for James), Sirius gets to hear and cheer too for all the good news.

He never stops missing Sirius, just like he still wishes his parents were still there. When the war is over, he takes a break to come to see Sirius, to open the champagne they promised they would toast to when Moldy-Voldy was finally gone. It's a lonely toast, but James pretends Sirius is there; a dog passes by - it's not black, it doesn't look remotely like Sirius' animal form -, but James sees it a sign.

The next day, after he visits a shelter and returns home with a black dog, Lily just smiles.

'Hello, Padfoot', she says letting the dog sniff her then lick her face, and just like that the dog is already part of their family.

Sirius is not there for Harry's first hangover (he would have laughed and give Harry various tips on how to avoid passing out, and also various tips of preparing the best drinks), he is not there when James and Lily get pregnant (he would have complained about not being godfather again) and he is not there when Harry marries (Sirius would have cried harder than James).

And he is not there when James sees for the first time his grandchild, a beautiful tiny boy that brings tears of joy to his eyes when a very tired Ginny lets him hold his first grandson.

'He is perfect', he whispers, unable to look away from the baby just as once he couldn't look away from his son. At his side, Lily is letting the baby hold her pinky, beaming. 'Did you decide a name for him after all?'

'Well -', Harry begins, sitting right next to Ginny on bed and taking her hand.

'We always thought of naming after you if it were a boy', Ginny says, exchanging a look with Harry.

James looks up.

'I am honoured -'

'Until we saw him for the first time', Harry interrupts him, his voice soft. 'When he opened his eyes, I swear there were like a million stars there shining for us. So we thought of - something else'.

'What?'

'Sirius', Harry says simply. 'Instead of making it his second name, we thought of calling him Sirius. Sirius James Potter'.

James looks back at his grandson. It's fitting.

'He does look serious', he whispers, and some part of his mind hears Sirius' barking laugh, teasing him indignantly for going for that old joke.

More than the tease, James swears he can hear the happiness too. Sirius was always a Potter anyway, this is just one way of making it somewhat official.

'It's a lovely name', he agrees, smiling, and indeed when the baby opens his eyes, James sees all the stars there that won't ever fall.

#James Potter and Sirius Black #Jily Lives AU #But not a happier world this time #Angst #With some sort of happy ending #t: fanfiction

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all1e23 · 5 years ago

Text

Astrophile [Pt.13]

Chapter: Cassiopeia

Summary: Bucky and Y/n spill the beans to their friends about their not-date and, Ori asks her for a very special book.

Warnings: Usual Astrophile fluff with a pinch of… angst? I don’t know. I don’t consider it angst.

A/N: The bracelet mentioned is found on Pinterest. Link here. Send me love because I’m needy, okay??

***My fics are not to be saved or posted on any other sites without my written permission. Reblogs are welcomed! Thanks!**

Bucky hasn’t woken up late after spending all night on the phone with a girl since he was in high school but here he is, rushing around because he slept through his alarm after staying up till three in the morning talking to Y/n. She’s good at doing that to him, making him forget everything but her and Ori. Every time he’s around her his brain goes foggy and it’s getting harder and harder to remember a time before her. Bucky grins to himself thinking about her sleepy voice early this morning as he cuts Ori’s peanut butter and jelly into a star.

“Y/n, we should probably hang up. You’re drifting off, babydoll.”

“I d-don’t need sleep. I’m fine. Did I tell you that Cassiopeia is my favorite constellation?” her voice slurred from sleep that’s calling her, her eyes closed and barely able to hold her phone up.

Bucky chuckled as he watched her breathing start to even out through the small screen on his phone, “Yeah, you did. Go to bed, Beck. I’ll call you after my shift.”

“Pinky promise?” She whispered, eyes remained closed but she was smiling.

“Pinky promise, sweetheart.”

Bucky’s never been what he would consider lucky. Yeah, he’s had a few wins over the years. Some big and some small. His most significant being his baby girl and he wouldn’t trade Ori for all the good fortune in the world but, he’s never been one of those guys that simply fell into the good stuff. He’s never stumbled into a new job because he was in the right place at the right time or happened to work with the love of his life. Bucky’s never been the guy that won the big-ticket raffle. He’s never had started with a straight flush in his hands on poker night.

Then Y/n walked into his life with stardust sprinkled book pages, lemon pancakes and a heart that could start a raging fire if he let it. Something changed in his destiny the day he met her. It was a soft, simple sort of change. One you miss if you blink too many times. It wasn’t some big moment that led them here. She didn’t do anything that could be written in the lines of a song or played on screen for thousands to see. Their late-night talks would never be recited by others in sweetheart whispers, but he would take their story over any sonnet or ballad.

It’s funny how it all happened. Bucky is the same man he was when they met, but there’s something about having her fingers weaved in his that makes him feel like he can be a better man; for her and Ori. It was a simple fall. So simple, he never noticed she was taking little pieces of him every time she said his name, every time she read to Ori or made his girl smile. It was just books and giggles and pancakes, and then, it wasn’t. In the blink of an eye, every laugh made him lighter, every phone call took another piece of his heart, and every touch changed the way he pictured his future.

Bucky never planned to fall for her. He had no plans to fall in love and never thought luck would be on his side when he did, but his heart left his chest months ago without notice, and it’s been resting comfortably next to hers.

And he never wants it back.

Ori skips into the kitchen bringing Bucky back to the frenzied reality of his morning. His daydreams were much more beautiful to live in, but they are late, and if he doesn’t hurry along, he will never get to work. Ori climbs up onto her designated stool. Even she could tell they are late. Super, duper late as Y/n would say. Y/n doesn’t spend the mornings with them (with a birthday exception), but if she did, that’s what she would call their morning.

She sends Bucky a quick ‘morning daddy,’ and grabs her fork, but her smile slowly fades as she looks down at her plate. This isn’t her usual breakfast. Ori knew something was off when she woke up this morning, but this? This is… this is… totally awful!

“Eggs, daddy? They are bad luck!“

Bucky groans and looks at the near-empty pancake container. He forgot about that, eggs always mean a bad day. His eyes travel to the clock above the stove, he just doesn’t have the time today. They are already an hour behind, and that meant he had to check Ori into the front office, making him even later for his shift. He walks over to his scowling daughter and presses a kiss to her forehead in an attempt to soothe the angry wrinkles set there.

"Comet, baby, they are just eggs. I need you to eat, yeah? I’m running really behind today, but I promise I’ll pick up stuff for pancakes after my shift."

Ori sinks down in her seat and pushes the eggs around her plate. "Okay, but today is gonna be a bad day,” she grumbles sourly.

---------

What was it about working in an Elementary school front office that made people so grumpy and forgetful? Bucky has been in that front office over twenty times since Ori started Pre-K, and the lady at the front desk still acted like she didn’t remember him. He’s had to introduce himself to her every single time he comes into the front off. How many little girls are named Orion in that school that she can’t remember his name?

Thanks to Ms.Forgetful, he was an extra twenty minutes late, and Steve gave him the look. Bucky hates that look. As if Steve has never been late before? Bucky recalls a time when he was strolling in late nearly every day with a dumb grin on his face and a smirking Sam following close behind.

At least it turned out to be a slow day, and nothing was burning down.

“Hey, so, uh,” Bucky stammers, propping his feet up on the chair in front of him and tosses his piece of bread onto his plate. “Can you guys keep Ori this Thursday? I’d ask Nat but thought you two could use the practice."

Steve rolls his eyes, but doesn’t take the bait the same way Sam would.

"I don’t think watching my Five-year-old niece will be practice for when we adopt a baby boy, but you should know that you don’t have to ask. We love having Ori over."

"Why we gotta watch her?” Sam asks, a sneer on his face as he nudged the brunette's boots with his own from across the table.

“Sam…” Steve sighs heavily.

“I’m just askin’ is all! You got a date or just need a night off?"

Bucky’s gaze flicks back and forth between the two men, and he finally deflates with a massive sigh. He may as well confess and let them get it out of their systems now. It would be less embarrassing that way.

"I asked Y/n to come over, and I’m cooking her dinner. It’s not a big deal so let’s not make it a big deal,” He adds the last bit as his eyes land on Sam.

"No big deal?” Sam screeches as he flies out of his chair towards Bucky. “This is huge, man! It’s taken you long enough to ask her out on a date. You’ve been talking for what six months now?"

"Three and a half,” Bucky is quick to correct.

Sam’s grin widens because of course, Bucky knows precisely how long they have been talking. Sam wouldn’t doubt he has it down to the minute. “Yeah. Right. Three and a half months. I thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives waiting for you to get a damn clue, but you finally got your head on straight and told her how you feel!”

Bucky clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably in his chair making Sam’s grin fall, “Oh, for Christ–” Sam groans with a shake of his head. “You didn’t tell her how you feel did you?”

"There’s nothing to say. I don’t– we are still –” Bucky blows out a breath and sits up bolt straight. “It’s not a date, okay? I didn’t say the word date when I asked her to come over. She probably doesn’t even think it’s a date. We have done movie night plenty of times before and it's never been a date.”

"What did you say?” Steve prods before Sam has a chance to speak up. Bucky gives a slight shrug and meets his eye over the table, “I asked if she wanted to come over to watch a movie. I told her I could make dinner and that it would be just the two of us."

"That’s a date!” Sam shouts excitedly.

Steve dips his head to the side and smiles, “Sorry, Buck. I have to agree with my better half on this one. Sounds like you asked her on a date."

Bucky opens his mouth to argue, but their zone lit up a call, and there was no time to yell at his dumb friends, they had work to handle. Even if they didn’t, Bucky had no idea what he was going to say because hell if his heart wasn’t praying it was a date.

-------

"Hey, there, librarian.”

Y/n wrinkles her nose at the nickname as Natasha walks into her office. She hasn’t seen Natasha since Ori’s birthday party. A twinge of guilt creeps up her chest because Natasha no doubt knows Y/n and Tony broke up, and she didn’t hear it from Y/n. Not that she has to tell Natasha everything. Still made her feel guilty. She slowly sits up and peeks out the large window in her office to find a head of bouncing curls bobbing through the children’s section.

Good. That would give the adults a minute to talk.

"I’m not a librarian. I own a bookstore. There is a difference."

"Is there?” Natasha asks and leans against the edge of her desk, chuckling at the look of annoyance on her friend’s face and the serious tone in her voice when she replies, “Yes, I don’t have a degree in library sciences, and I don’t work in a library. I sell books– you’re teasing me, aren’t you?"

"A little bit,” Nat confesses. “So, what’s new with you? Skip the Tony part. I heard that news from a chatty blonde and his husband.”

"Um, well…” Y/n’s eyes dart back out to the main floor. She wants to make sure Ori is not within earshot when they speak about a certain new development. “I think Bucky asked me out on a date but now that I’ve had time to think about it I feel like it’s unlikely it’s actually a date.”

Natasha snorts and crosses her arms over her chest, "It’s very likely it’s a date, but why do you say that?"

"It’s a movie at his place, and he offered to cook, and Ori is spending the night at Steve’s. I don’t know. It’s probably just a friend thing. How many times have we done a movie night since we met and it was never anything more?"

Natasha is quick to refute every flimsy reason she just put forth, "How many times did he cook you dinner on these movie nights and when has Ori not been at the house?"

"Never,” Y/n squeaks.

“It’s a date,” Natasha confirms with a smug grin as she hops up onto Y/n’s desk. She spots something interesting resting on the corner by the picture Ori drew for her. She leans over and grabs before Y/n can stash it away. It’s two bracelets, thin black leather cord with a small silver star in the middle attached to brown paper.

It’s one of those wishing bracelets. They have a special saying and usually made with a certain person in mind. Mother, sister, boyfriend or best friend. This sounds very much like something Y/n would pick out for a certain dark-haired, blue eyed single dad. She reads the label and her grin widens.

Pinky Promise. I promise to wear this, so I never forget how lucky I am to have you. Close your eyes and make a wish, tie this bracelet to your wrist. When the bracelet falls off the wish you made will come true.

“Did Bucky give this to you?”

Y/n leans back in her chair and shakes her head, quietly admitting where those actually came from, “Um, not exactly. I bought that. As a gift. For Bucky. I thought – Well, we say pinky promise to each other. Did you know that? Anyway, we do, and when I saw it, I thought of him. It’s kind of our thing, and well, it had a star. I doubt he’s going to wear it, but yeah, it’s for him.”

Natasha hands it back over to Y/n who clutches it to her chest.

It’s cute, and Bucky would definitely wear it for you. It’s pretty clear he would do just about anything for you.” Y/n tightens her hand around the bracelets and ducks her head to hide her smile from Natasha, but the red-head caught it.

She will let it go this once.

“Y/n?” Ori asks from the doorway, nervously tugging at her braids. “I can’t find a book I want.”

Y/n chuckles and slowly stands up not before putting her trinkets back in their rightful place by Ori’s drawing. She holds her hand out to take the little girl’s and follows her out onto the main floor.

“What are you looking for?” Y/n ponders aloud, trying to mask the confusion in her voice as Ori leads her away from the children’s books.

"A book about love?"

Y/n grins and drops to her knees in front of Ori pulling the little girl to a stop, "Why? Are you in love, my starlight?"

Ori doesn’t smile like she usually would, she simply shakes her head and whispers, "It’s for daddy. He needs help. He’s good at loving me, but I don’t think he knows how to say when he’s in love.”

It felt like someone had reached into Y/n’s chest and ripped her heart out. Bucky is in love with someone else? She can’t breathe. He’s been dating someone this entire time, and she didn’t even know. She was right all along Thursday night isn’t a date and Natasha is wrong; for once in her life.

But why did it have to be this she was wrong about?

“Are you okay, Y/n?” Ori whispers watching her carefully.

She focuses back on Ori and forces a smile the young girl would believe, “Yeah, starlight. I’m okay. Um, I’m not sure I have any books like that here, but I will keep an eye out and maybe order some, okay?”

Ori nods and wraps her arms around her neck in a tight hug, “I hope so. We can’t wait forever, right?”

Y/n swallows the lump in her throat and wraps her arms around Ori, giving her the biggest squeeze she can muster while her heart is breaking in her chest.

“Right, starlight. We don’t wanna wait forever.”

--------

The call wasn’t anything too serious. A car accident and only one of the drivers were hurt. There were small cuts, a few scrapes, and bruises, but everyone made it out okay. No jaws of life needed, and everyone is making it home to their loved ones tonight. All in all, it was a good call in Bucky’s book. It did push Bucky thirty minutes past the end of his shift though. Apparently being late is the theme of the day. Now he’s scrambling to get his gear put up, and get his bag together. He’s itching to see his bright-eyed comet, and he might have a call or two to make.

"There a reason you’re trying to rush out of here?” Sam teases with a soft chuckle. “Got a pretty girl waiting for you or something.”

Bucky wants to be mad. He really does. He wants to tell Sam to fuck off because he doesn’t know what he is talking about. Things between him and Y/n aren’t like that, and he can shut his mouth, but Bucky can’t. He can’t bring himself to feel anything close to that thanks to the way his heart is beating, frantic and heavy. It’s about ready to crack his ribs with the way it’s thumping against his chest. All he can do is grin because, yeah, he’s got a pretty girl with a kind heart waiting for him to call and Bucky’s never wanted to see her face as badly as he does right now.

His phone chimes. A message from Y/n, as if she knows he’s slowly fading away from the distress of not seeing her since last night; he misses her that much.

But the message is not what he expects.

[Beck]: Hey, I can’t make this Thursday. Something came up. I’m really, really sorry. Maybe we can reschedule?

Bucky’s heart slows as he reads the words over again. One more time just to make sure he’s reading it right. His world darkens; suddenly lemon seems too sour, the stars have dulled and those starry book pages are too tattered to read. He tosses his phone in his bag and slams his locker shut, silencing the soft murmurs stirring around him.

“Don’t worry about Thursday, Sam. Something came up.”

Sam watches Bucky stalk to his car and looks back at Steve. He’s never seen that look on Bucky’s face before, absolute disappointment and it stung all of them.

Bucky should have known better than to think– None of it mattered anyway. It wasn’t a date. It was a chance to see if she really felt something more, but if she realized she didn’t, it was better Thursday night didn’t happen. Besides, they are just friends and friends cancel sometimes. He isn’t mad at her. He could never be mad at her. Just… disappointed he wouldn’t get to spend the night with her. It’s no big deal though. Something could have come up. She doesn’t tell him everything.

They are friends. Just… friends.

After all, Bucky has never been one to just fall into the good stuff.

Previous // Next

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #single dad bucky #daddy!bucky #fireman!Bucky #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #Firefighter AU

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thetorturerwrites · 5 years ago

Text

Puer Deus: Proof

This amazing artwork was gifted to me by @faestae-writes. Please do not re-use or re-post it without permission from them and/or myself. Don’t be a dickbag.

***

Captured / Hurricane / Sustenance / Liar / Scars

Summary: Of Gods and slaves

A/N: 18+ only. Physical violence; sadism; references to abuse; smut

Word Count: 5.1k

Day Six

It was the sound of his voice that stirred you, nudging into your gray matter and beckoning you back from bleak emptiness. Your brow creased, and you exhaled, uneven and apprehensive. You flexed aching fingers and toes, forcing the stiff joints to cooperate.

“Find them,” he ordered, his voice strong but low, “I don’t care how. Find them.”

Red-rimmed, puffy eyes broke open, and you squinted, the glare of the light cycle offensive and irritating. You grumbled at the very idea of bright light and struggled to sit up. As your brain kicked into gear, you took stock of your situation.

This was the same torture chamber, that was your blood staining the floor, and it was your filth in the sheets. Licking your chapped lower lip, you worked to put puzzle pieces together. Your Knight guard had brought you to these chambers yesterday, Ren’s chambers.

You’d slept in Ren’s bed.

Had he? Your breath caught on the idea that he had stayed with you. If he had stayed, what did it mean that he was still here? If he hadn’t, why had he let you sleep here?

Shaking off the unnecessary, relentless pondering of your brain, you rubbed at your eyes and hunched forward. Every part of you ached as though you’d been ejected into space, compressed and redistributed in the wrong order. You grimaced and shifted, slowly dragging your legs off the side of the bed, mentally preparing yourself to bear weight.

Drawing in a rough breath, you shifted your survey from surroundings to immediate. The state of your body evenly matched the state of this room. You were caked in dried blood, painted with hand prints, droplets, and innumerable streaks and smudges. Ren had cut open every one of your scars; he’d left nothing unclaimed.

Sometime in the night, though, your wounds had been tended, and you were now decorated in patches of surgical tape.

The memory of his hands, his scalpel, propelled you forward, scooted you to the edge of the bed. If you kept moving, kept working to survive, maybe you’d be able to outrun the repeated, vibrant images of his relentless torment and your body’s exuberant rejoinder. You couldn’t escape Ren; but perhaps, you could escape the memory of his effect upon you.

Pushing against the mattress, you bit firmly into your lip, thinking this endeavor was every bit as torturous as Ren’s blade. Your legs burned and wobbled like it was your first time to stand. The soles of your feet throbbed, but you made little, shuffling steps. Tears tumbled down to wash tracks into the blood staining your cheeks, and you pinched your eyes tight together.

For a long moment, you just stood there, willing your body to be strong, begging your stupid eyes to dry.

The door slid shut, and you could hear him moving back into the room, but you were trying too hard not to fall to give him much attention. It was taking all of your effort to stand and squeeze your fists together, too far away from the bed to sink back into its support but uncertain that your legs would hold you much longer. The idea of crumpling into a mess on the floor was less than appealing, but it was unavoidable, you decided.

You could feel him behind you, but you couldn’t look. He was a looming dark planet, the center of your universe now, and you could feel how fast you were hurtling through the Galaxy. Heat danced along your skin, and you shook your head, trying to clear away the flashes of his eyes, twin comets burning a bright swath of destruction in their wake.

You’d been so willing to let him end your life, but he hadn’t, and you weren’t sure how you felt about that.

You'd given him your ultimate prayer, your whole body supplication, and he had decided it wasn't good enough. He hadn't granted you the absolution you'd sought.

Ren didn’t move; and as always, it unnerved you so much that you turned your head to look at him. The pity you felt for yourself abated instantly. He was also still painted with your offering, ruddy constellations mingling with vast swatches and trails. His dark tresses were clumped together, matted with congealed blood.

The sight of it was jarring.

Why would he spend the night in your blood? Why hadn’t he washed away your filth and gore? Was it a war prize, some malicious badge of honor to mark your breaking? Did that mean the war for your body was over?

You were filled with too many questions and only one answer. Your blood on his body looked magnificent.

He was wild, feral, a savage, dogged creature they would tell stories about for millennia to come. The great monster in the dark.

The varying shades of crimson and obsidian framed his face and his body as though he had been carved directly from the middle of a volcano, white hot in the center bleeding outwards to ruddy and then midnight black.

But it was his eyes that captivated you, as always. His greedy gaze slid over you, roving around bruised curves and raised scratches. He lingered on the bloody palm print on your breast, and it tightened for him obediently. His eyes raked down to your thighs, and you stopped breathing.

You were trapped by the promise of brutality and lust you saw there.

Ashamed of the way you'd reacted to him, the way you were still reacting to him, you shied away from his stare, dizzy and struggling to stay upright. Your insides were twisted, your equilibrium was thrown off as though you’d been pushed too far out of his gravitational field. You were tumbling into anxious awareness, your brain firing off question after question.

What could you offer that hunger in return when what you'd already given hadn’t been enough? What else were you expected to produce when the sum total of everything you were had been rejected, discarded?

Broken and battered, you were nothing short of empt--

"Beautiful," he cut off your thought.

It was soft, nearly under his breath. You snorted louder than you intended and shook your head, completely disbelieving. Beautiful? Riddled with bruises and scars? You looked down at yourself, tracked with dried blood and surgical tape. Certainly not.

He was on you in a second, covering the distance in two long strides. His demanding hands took hold of your body, turning you and pulling you flush against him. His left hand slid around your throat, tightening and shifting your face to look up at him; his right hand dropped down to cup your backside, rubbing and squeezing the shapely mass.

"My bruises," he murmured, " my scars."

His voice was husky, ravenous, and he dropped his face down to nudge your jaw with his nose. What could you say in response to that? They were his bruises and scars now. You'd never think of them in any other way.

You swallowed nervously, pressing against his chest where your hands were trapped, fingers splaying. Your body, injured though it was, flooded with his nearness. Sweat dampened your brow, and a blush crept up your cheeks. Your thighs quivered, and you pressed them together to staunch the familiar twinge. Wanting pooled low in your belly, and your lips parted on a stuttered breath.

Your clearing eyes focused on the expanse of skin under your fingers, and you realized that this was the first time you’d touched him. He'd had his hands on you for days, but you’d never been granted the return opportunity. Stunned, you pressed the palms of your hands into his pecs, feeling his heartbeat. The existence of his pulse awed you.

Your Child God truly was a man, but he was such a man as you had never seen. He was marble, chiseled by the hand of war and kept sharp by a ceaselessly demanding master. There was no softness here, no gentleness, and there would never be mercy.

You grimaced, huffed out a breath, and let your gaze travel further to take in more of his alabaster skin and alluring, dark beauty marks. How unnecessary to decorate an already magnificent work of art, you thought, but how utterly perfect they looked upon him.

But something was wrong.

Your eyebrows drew together, worry playing over your face. Yesterday, he was pure and nearly flawless, his only injury being the wound traversing his face. Yesterday, he had been wholly transcendent in his perfection.

Today, his body was marred, corrupted by lines and lesions that should not be there. Beneath the russet stains, he was bearing the wounds of a different sort of battle, an impossible struggle.

Eyes blown wide with the memory of yesterday's accusation, you jerked backwards in his embrace, pushing his arms away so you could examine more of his body. Your trembling fingers ran over arms, ribs, shoulders, lingering on all of the pink and red scratches that now danced with brown freckles.

No…

You recognized the pattern you saw on his flesh. You’d been mapping that exact calligraphy for years. You were too horrified to cry, to be ashamed or apologetic. You reached up and swept anxious fingers at the hollow of his throat, tracing the too-familiar jagged lines.

And he let you. Ren held you loosely, one hand splayed across your back while the other continued to stroke your ass and hip. He watched you, dark eyes trained to your face, keeping his silence as you discovered not just his body but the effect he wanted you to believe you'd had upon it.

You...

“No,” he tipped your chin up, “I told you yesterday. You did this.”

You shook your head, pushed against him, and tried to step back, emphatically disagreeing with his crazy assertion. Ducking down swiftly, Ren lifted you over his shoulder, affording you the view of his newly scratched-up back, and carted you into the bathroom.

You flinched from the automatic light, instinctively burying your face against his shoulder as the false blue flooded the room to hurt your eyes. Ren outstretched his hand at the fixture, blew out half of the little halogen bulbs, and cast the bathroom in a less harsh glow. You breathed a heavy sigh of relief and pushed at his back, wiggling in his grip.

Ren set you on still hurting feet and turned you before a large, floor-to-ceiling mirror built against one of the walls. You tried to step away, not wanting to see the results of his ravaging, but he pushed you back into place, turning your head and forcing you to face your reflection.

As before, you were shocked by the woman you saw there. She was as feral as Ren, savage and shameless. There were dark circles under her eyes from overuse, and she was painted an astonishing array of colors that amplified every curve, accentuated every muscle.

That woman, you thought, was not surviving. She was thriving.

You still didn’t know what it meant that she was you, and you were too exhausted for much more.

When Ren stepped behind you, you choked and gaped at him in the mirror. He’d shucked his pants and pressed into your backside, wrapping a long arm around your middle, his forearm nestled beneath your breasts. He tipped your head to one side and cleared away your hair so that he could drop his face into that crook.

Your brow knit at the familiarity of it, recalling the way he’d positioned you exactly like this in the shower. He’d tucked the length of his erection at the crest of your ass, and he’d kept you flush against the long column of his body. Being fully inside his orbit produced an immediate, visceral reaction, and you shook inside his embrace.

You stared at the picture in the mirror. His wide shoulders and strong arms caged you, hulking in the background. His dark halo was dipped down, his face buried into your neck. The devil wrapped around you, come to claim his prize.

He drew in a deep, satisfied breath, and you couldn’t help but think you smelled like a barn. Hardly a fit sacrifice for such a demanding, devoted demon. He smirked against your skin, and your eyes widened impossibly further. You were so wrapped up in concern, you hadn't noticed.

He’d done it. He’d broken into the stronghold, and he could hear you.

Ignoring your shock, Ren stroked your stomach gently, slowly. His middle finger rubbed over your belly button, and it felt so incredibly good that you visibly shuddered. When he started speaking, you felt the vibration of it at your throat, understanding why he liked it so much. It was a subtle gesture, but it was powerfully seductive.

“There are as many ways to use the Force,” he said, “as there are species in the Galaxy.”

He raked thick fingers down your arm and encircled your wrist. Turning the inside of your arm upwards, he tracked the bruise he’d left there with his thumb before turning his arm up to show you his matching bruise in the same spot, and you stopped breathing.

“It is everywhere” he continued, “even when you don’t know it.”

He curled your arm up against your chest, and you took the opportunity to hug yourself, eyes watering as he kept on. Nuzzling into your hair, he pressed his lips at the very back of your neck while nimble fingers danced down the lengthy scar at your thigh, pinching at the surgical tape.

"And it is accessible to everyone, anyone if they can feel it."

Pulling you closer by one large hand at your hip, he snuggled his growing erection between your buttocks on a satisfied hum. His arm slithered up your torso, sliding against your sternum and between your breasts until long fingers wrapped around your neck to squeeze. You couldn’t look away as he shifted so that his leg slid against yours, the discordant but matching line peeking through his dark leg hair.

"Like you."

You were stunned into utter stillness; you couldn’t even breathe. The things he was saying couldn’t possibly be true. You were nobody from nowhere. You’d been sold into slavery as a child, and you’d spent your life just trying to survive. There was no Force sensitivity here.

“My grandfather was a slave,” he murmured against your temple, “and he was the most powerful Force-user in the Galaxy.”

I’m not your grandfather…

“Do you need more proof, puppet? There's plenty."

His hand dropped to palm at the tape stretching across your abdomen, squeezing the swell of your belly in his broad hand. He was goading you into turning around to see if he had a matching one, but you knew he did.

Ren hadn’t ever lied. If he said that you did this, you were going to have to believe that you did. Unlike the day before, he’d been with you in this room the entire time, and you’d woken to a flushing lattice covering his body.

You shook your head to his question, hoping instead he would explain how you’d been able to accomplish this miraculous feat when you were just a weaponer from the desert.

How...

“You used to scream into the desert,” he offered, settling his chin on top of your head and talking to you in the mirror.

“The only time you would let your guard down was then, and you would unleash all of your rage, your pain. You taught yourself to unburden all of that anger and hurt by pushing it out into the stars.”

You closed your eyes, focusing on the sound of his voice rather than his words because they were nauseating; this could not be real. Everything he said was true, though; and worse, him knowing those things meant that he’d truly been in your head, diving into your thoughts, memories, history.

"When that wall comes down," he murmured, fingers stroking the supple side of your breast, "you communicate the only way you can. They took your voice, but your body found a way. You found a way."

At some point during his instruction, you'd latched your fingers onto his thick arm and were holding it as though he would save you from this. The tears he had been building spilled over, clamoring down your trembling chin.

"You can make whomever might be around you feel what you're feeling."

The weight of what he was telling you settled; his words rang in your ears. You thought about the last two days and how your wall had been fractured on the first day, resulting in the bruises on his arms. And then, you replayed yesterday when it was all but obliterated and you had pushed out all of your outrage and suffering as you readied yourself to die.

Ren was telling you that you were Force-sensitive, and he was offering his body as proof to that fact.

For a second, you wondered why he was telling you this, why he was being nice. Wouldn’t it be better to keep someone who could literally wound you with their feelings in the dark about something like this? Ignorance made for better prisoners, you knew that for a fact.

Opening your eyes, you met his stare in the mirror. It surprised you that he was being so open, and you had so many questions.

Ren...

“Kylo,” he said simply, and you blinked, bewildered.

“My name is Kylo. Ren was…,” he paused, seeming to search for a proper description, “...a different man.”

Curiosity having been forgotten with this kernel of information, you let your gaze wander your reflection. You studied each line of black tape, each scratch you assumed was closed with a cautery pen. You lingered over bloody fingerprints, long tracks running down your legs, the pool of crimson at the juncture of your thighs.

He held you like that for a long time, quiet and still, fingers barely grazing different bits of your skin, giving you time to assimilate the information. Often, your eyes would stray to him, this package of tightrope composure and bombast.

This man was a monster. He delighted in torturing you, making you suffer and cry. You’d never seen a person so fully alive as he was covered in your blood and carving up your flesh. He lived up to every inch of his reputation.

And you had survived his wrath, the explosion of his violence.

Twice.

An appreciative hum vibrated against your back, and his face dipped down against your ear. He stroked the soft skin where thigh met groin, keeping you tucked against him with an arm around your stomach. He rocked his hips into you, pushing his swollen dick between your buttocks. Your lips parted on an eager gasp, and you couldn’t help yourself from leaning your head back against him, pressing your ass into his thrusts.

“You did,” his tone was low, “And you will.”

The absolute certainty in his voice chilled you, and nervousness trickled in. He still meant to keep you, the war for your body was not over, and this was not a tender moment.

You thought back to the floor he’d pinned you to when he learned you’d stopped eating. This reprieve, this cease-fire of suffering, was not a result of kindness. He was simply ensuring you wouldn’t be broken beyond repair so that the misery could continue tomorrow.

“Smart girl,” he whispered in your ear before standing upright and unwinding from around you.

A frown flitted across your face because him being able to hear your thoughts was disabling, intimidating, but you swallowed it down because you were simply too flabbergasted, too weak, and too starved to fortify yourself against it. Maybe you’d be able to work on it tomorrow; but tonight, you just needed to recover.

Ren ushered you through a hot shower, washing away the remnants of last night’s bloody agony. The hot water and steam lulled you into a spacey relaxation, and you put up absolutely no resistance when his fingers stopped washing and began to play your body like an instrument. You told yourself it certainly wasn't because you craved his touch.

He let the lie slide.

He plucked and tugged at your nipples until they throbbed to attention. He dipped his fingers between your ass cheeks and rubbed at the tender opening until you arched and gasped, breathless. He slid his fingers between your labia and rubbed soapy circles into your clit until you danced up onto your toes, and he pumped two deft fingers into your cunt just long enough to have you shuddering before lifting his hand to the water, washing away the bits of blood he’d fucked up into you yesterday.

And then he sat you on the shower floor, dissatisfied and scooted out of the way like furniture, while he bathed himself. You bristled for a moment, but it dissolved as you watched. You marveled at him, watching his impressive hands move quickly over thick arms and legs, coloring the water pink with every pass.

Ren towered over you, and he was nothing short of spectacular. Every inch of him was immense, battle-forged, and the scars that now decorated his body, your scars, only amplified the cords of muscle working beneath the skin. You found yourself wondering if he trained for all of those muscles or if he’d just killed enough people that they were natural now.

He tipped his head back into the water, and you watched his Adam’s apple bob. You let your gaze travel over him without reservation, and you followed each of his ribs and the dark line of fuzz that led down from his belly button to the thick patch at his pelvis. You were watching the way his cock was lengthening when you caught yourself, flushed at what you’d been doing, and looked away.

Your eyes caught on his thigh, though, and you blinked. He’d gone to great lengths to prove to you that he was wearing all of your bruises, but the memory of those at your thighs had escaped you entirely. Recalling the way his mouth had claimed your skin, you grazed at your thigh, poking your fingernail into the flourishing purple.

Before you could stop yourself, you reached out and brushed your fingertips against the discoloration on his skin, thinking it was so out of place.

Ren had stopped washing, hands folded behind his neck, and was staring down at you. His abdomen was clenched tight, his skin was flushing a lovely shade of pink, and his nose was red from the hot water. Something you couldn’t name punched up through your lungs leaving you breathless.

You weren’t sorry. How could you be sorry when you hadn’t known it was you?

But seeing something of you, this intimate mark of yours, on this man’s body stirred something primal and moved you to act. The rational part of you screamed that you should stop, but the part of you hungering for this beast propelled you onto your knees before him, wanting some part of the bruise to actually be yours.

Your eyes weren’t drawn to his cock, swollen with arousal and standing proud inches from your face. Instead, your stare fixed upon his thigh, fingers tracing it again lightly.

You looked up at him, the question unnecessary because he certainly already knew what was in your mind. He nodded once, barely perceptible, giving you the permission you sought. Licking your lips, you readied and focused upon your target.

He hissed when your quivering lips connected with his leg, your nose rubbing into the softer, upper thigh hair. You trembled, thinking surely you had gone insane, but you licked at the soapy skin anyways, roaming the circumference of his bite mark with your tongue tip. You glanced up at him to find him watching you intently, his stare delicious and wanting.

Ren nudged your knees apart with his foot, spreading your thighs further so he could look down at the bites he’d left you with, evidence of his viciousness. He was pleased with himself, with his handiwork, and it rumbled up through his chest.

When you followed his eyes, faltering in your task, he wrapped his fingers around the back of your neck and pulled your mouth back to his thigh. In your periphery, you could see him wrap his big hand around his fat, neglected cock and stroke slowly. You burned at the idea that he was fucking himself millimetres away from your hot mouth and sucked at his bruise.

He hummed when your teeth nipped at the skin, and you reveled in the sound. It amazed you that you could make that happen.

With a lusty growl, his pace picked up, and you could hear his fist insistently working his cock, the slaps echoing off the tile. He anchored you to his thigh, fingers tight at your neck, and you purred against the skin. His breath was coming shorter now, and you lifted your eyes up to look at his face, salivating at the sight.

He was breathtaking, flushed with desire, dark hair shining onyx from the water, eyes heavy-lidded as he pleasured himself.

Emboldened, you inched nearer, slid your arm beneath his leg, and lifted him onto your shoulder, mirroring the very way he’d held you the night before. The same heat that flooded you beneath his lightsaber returned, and you wrapped your suddenly brave hands around his hips, tilting them towards your mouth.

Opening wide, you sunk your teeth into the meat of his thigh, drawing the falsely-bruised skin deep into your mouth.

“Fuck!”

He barked it out and tangled fingers in your hair, holding you exactly there while you sucked and bathed his skin with your tongue. His tempo was hurried now, skipping, and you growled against him, knowing he liked to feel your chest, your mouth vibrate.

Remembering all of the ways he’d tormented you, you opened your jaw wider to draw more of him in, bit down again, and turned your head from side to side, yanking and tearing at the, now appropriately, discolored flesh.

On a snarl, he yanked your head back from his thigh and slid his leg from your shoulder. You licked your puffy lips but didn’t dare look at him fisting his cock; you couldn't be certain you wouldn't beg for it. Rather you looked up at his face the way he’d forced you to look up at him that first day, suppliant and worshipful.

You were the hungry beast now, eyes wild and wanting, skin flushed and tight. He affected you in ways no person ever had, but he couldn't pretend you didn't affect him, too. It was a heady, heady thing.

“Open.”

His harsh grip tipped your head back, and you sunk your weight into your knees. You knew it was an inviting picture, your thighs spread wide, breasts pushed together between your arms, swollen lips parted and ready. You knew he loved seeing himself all over your body, and you wallowed in it, groveling for the way he looked at you.

Like property.

But you knew you were unlike any he'd had before or would in the future.

The sounds he made were sinful, incredible, and you yearned for them, desire dribbling hot onto the tiles beneath your cunt. His breath was choppy, and he was staring down at you so fiercely you thought you might burst into flames.

Ren’s hulking shoulders hunched forward, his torso curving in as he neared orgasm, and you moaned at the sight, the raspy sound swallowed by the rush of the shower and the pained groans spilling from above. Lost to the carnality, you reached out to wrap your hand around his calf, needing the contact.

That was all it took, the last bit of what he needed.

You saw the moment his body loosened, the flash of it across his face, and his shoulders eased back, hips pushing forward. For a second, he was trapped between anxious build-up and explosive relief, and he held his breath. His grip on his cock tightened, his strokes changing from fast and loose to slow and tight.

He erupted into a breathy groan as the first salty drops hit your tongue, and you squirmed on an impatient whimper, the taste of him overpowering your senses. He was salty, spicy, tart, and it flooded your tongue, sliding down into your throat.

Ren held his cock right above your face as he came, the inflamed, red-purple head barely resting on your lower lip. He squeezed and milked all of his release into your waiting mouth, chasing the last bits of release with low, gravelly moans.

When he finally released his grip on his dick, readying to pull away, your pearly tongue shot up to curl against the very end, lips closing around the sensitive tip and kissing away that last drop before swallowing down his taste.

It was bold, stupid, reckless, and so fucking worth it.

His eyes darkened impossibly further, and he snatched your face between harsh fingers, bent forward, and kissed you before you could clear his cum fully away. His tongue pushed past your teeth and invaded the cavern of your mouth, sliding through the salty mix on a satisfied sigh.

You'd tasted him twice in as many minutes, and you were sure you'd never be the same. It was magnetic, delirious, obscene, and you were scorched in the wake of it.

Gathering you into his arms, Ren reached back to turn off the shower and herded you back into the bathroom proper. In minutes, he had you dried and back in the bed, a tray of food at your side. You watched him pull on clothes, uncertain of why you felt the way you did, empty and confused, satisfied and pleased, defeated and victorious.

When he was fully dressed, he stepped back around to the side of the bed, wrapped his fingers around your throat, and squeezed until you looked up at him, as though you could look anywhere else when he was so near.

The gesture felt almost intimate now, his way of centering you always back to him.

“Eat. Sleep. There’s a guard outside. I trust you understand the consequences if you try to escape again."

You’re going to beat me no matter what; so, does it matter?

Your eyebrow perched up high, daring him to argue or prove you wrong.

Ren's luscious lips turned up at the corners, his amusement obvious, and he slid his indecently-long index finger into your mouth. Pushing past your hard palette, he hooked that finger and caught the ridge separating the roof of your mouth from the soft of your throat, sending you into a sputter. He pulled you closer by this crude latch and looked into your watering eyes.

“Indeed, I am.”

#kylo ren smut #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren #kylo ren x you #kylo x you #puer deus

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fragiledewdrop · 4 years ago

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Send a space thing for questions by @sentencestarters-and-asks. I need a distraction, so I am going to answer all these and tag people at the end.

Planets: Life

Mercury: What’s your full name? Federica

Venus: What’s your first language?Italian

Earth: Where’s your home?An apartment in the outskirts of a town near Rome.

Mars: What’s your sexuality?I’m bi.

Jupiter: Do you have any siblings? A younger brother named Giacomo.

Saturn: Any pets?A cat named Faramir, Mir for short.

Uranus: What’s your hobby? Writing, mostly.

Neptune: When’s your birthday? March 27th

Pluto: What time is it right now where you are? 13.49

Moon: What are you currently studying/hope to study? Foreign Languages and Literature

Stars: Experiences

Sun: Have you ever had alcohol? Oh, yes.

Sirius: Have you ever failed a class? No. I almost failed PE in Highscool though. I am not cool.

Rigel: Have you ever gone on a rollercoaster? Yes, when I was a child. I don’t remember the experience very well.

Deneb: Have you ever been out of your home country? Many times, most recently to Paris.

Arcturus: Have you cried out of something other than sadness? Yes. Out of joy. Out of wonder at the beauty of things.

Betelgeuse: What’s something you can never forget about? The fact that my family love me. There was a time I doubted that. I won’t anymore.

Aldebaran: What’s something you care desperately about? Writing, for one. And equality. And learning the most we can from everything and everyone.

Canopus: Have you ever broken a bone? No, thankfully.

Bellatrix: Have you ever been forced to lie/keep a secret? Yes, more than once. When my mother was depressed, severely, I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Something similar happened with my brother too. Thankfully now I have a better understanding of the fact that mental illness is not shameful. I also kept my sexuality a secret for a long time.

Alphard: Have you ever lost a friend? More than one, but the most painful was my former best friend who couldn’t accept I was bisexual and depressed. I had my share of faults too, but it still hurt. Now we are on speaking terms again, but I’ve never taken any relationship for granted ever since.

Vega: What’s something you’ve done that you wish you hadn’t? Hurt myself. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

Constellations: Favourites

Centaurus: Favourite holiday? Christmas!

Orion: Favourite month? October

Cassiopeia: Favourite book? Right now I am reading “The Waves” by Virginia Woolf and it’s becoming a fast favourite.

Delphinus: Favourite study? Any kind of literature.

Hercules: Favourite instrument? Violin.

Gemini: Favourite song? Savage Daughter by Sarah Hester

Pegasus: Favourite place to be?in my room with the window open, sitting under a tree or near the sea.

Libra: Favourite colour? Green.

Phoenix: Favourite thing to wear? Flowy dresses.

Aries: Favourite movie? Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Handmaiden, The Return of the King.

Cygnus: Favourite weather? A sunny crisp autumn morning.

Hydra: Favourite sound? My cat drinking his water. I stop whatever I am doing just to listen.

Galaxies: Love/Friends

Milky Way: Who’s your oldest friend? Her name is Roberta. We were in Middle school together and reached out to each other about a year ago to reconnect. She’s awesome.

Andromeda: Do you consider yourself social? Hell no.

Black Eye Galaxy: Do you believe in love at first sight? Not really. I do belieave that we can glimpse the possibility of something when we meet certain people, whtether a friendship or a relationship, and attraction certainly plays a role, but it takes more than that to truly fall in love or even become real friends.

Cartwheel Galaxy: When was your first kiss?The first REAL one? I was 21.

Cigar Galaxy: How’s your flirting skills? Awful.

Comet Galaxy: Have you ever had to leave a relationship because someone changed too much? No, not for that reason.

Pinwheel Galaxy: Would you date the last person you talked to? MY MOM? xD

Sombrero Galaxy: Do you have a crush right now? No

Bode’s Galaxy: Have you ever had a secret admirer? Yes, actually. My brother told me one of his friends had a crush on me. Same with Roberta and one of her friends. I had no idea either time.

Sunflower Galaxy: Would you date/make friends with someone out of pity? I have made friends with someone out of pity. Not the best idea to be sure, not if pity is and remains the only reason. I would not date out of pity, though.

Tadpole Galaxy: Would you deny a relationship/friendship? If I had a good reason, yes.

Whirlpool Galaxy: Have you ever cried over a breakup? Absolutely and abundantly.

Other stuff: Wishes

Comet: What’s your big dream? Being healthy and indipendent.

Asteroid: What does your dream life look like? A job I don’t hate, travels,feeling useful, having friends, being able to manage my depression.

Meteor: What’s something you wish you could tell, but can’t? I wish I could tell that I will be able to graduate.

Nebula: If you could undo one thing in your life, what would it be? Keeping my problems a secret from the people who loved me.

Shooting Star: If you could bring back one thing, what would it be? The lightness of childhood.

Pulsar: What do you hope to do in the next 10 years? Make my parents proud. Fall in love again. See more of the world. Graduate. Stay in touch with my friends. Publishing a book of poems.

Supernova: What’s one thing you want to do before you die? Being happy.

Quasar: If you could spend the rest of your life with only one person, who would it be? Honestly, at the end of the day it would be my brother. I love him, and I still have the big sister insinct to make sure he’s okay, even though he doesn’t need me in that way anymore.

Wormhole: What’s something you wish would happen, but know won’t? I will never be completely fine, most likely, but that’s okay as long as I can live a fullfilling life.

Black Hole: What’s the last thing you want to see? The face of a loved one. Tree branches against a clear blue sky.

Tagging @snovolovac , @vengefulnoob , @awed-frog , @justsomeonerandom17 , @leeaneea , @mirandasinclairs , @pancsaa , @unefemme , @procasdeanating , @mansikkaomenabanaani , @phasingoutfromthis , @popping-pills-at-popeyes , @laurentlovesdamen, @pxwerpxlitics

Do it only if you want, of course

#tag games #about me #these things calm me down

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 5 years ago

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Of Aliens and Alpha Centauri: Space in Good Omens (1/3)

. So just yesterday, in one of the many discussions of Alpha Centauri and the practicality of our two favorite disasters running off together, @theniceandaccurategoodomensblog raised the perfectly valid question: “Why are we assuming there are no aliens?” And I said I had a lot of thoughts on the subject. This meta is the result of those thoughts and questions.

Broadly, the question of whether or not there would be aliens comes down to “what is the purpose of all that space in the Good Omens universe?” Everything we see is focused on Earth and the creation and destruction thereof, which, when you consider the scale of the whole universe, is really not that Big a story at all.

But the treatment of space is a little different depending on which version you use as your source material. If you try to combine the book and the TV show, you get some contradictions.

So I’m going to tackle each separately, starting with the book below the break, pulling together all my observations and thoughts on What does Good Omens really have to say about space?

I’m not going to do this on a strict schedule, but I have three parts planned and will post them as I find the time to write them!

(Source: I’m a huge sci-fi nut and think way too hard about everything, but I’m not any kind of expert. Other insights and comments are 10000% welcome.)

Good Omens Book

The book has, perhaps, the simplest approach to space: it’s barely mentioned.

For those unfamiliar, there is no mention of Alpha Centauri, or running away, or Crowley helping create stars/nebulae/whatever it is he made. Unless I missed one, all references to space in the book are:

The Earth is a Libra (p.17)

Crowley’s amazing drunken rant about the bird and the spaceship (p.54-57)

Adam and The Them talking about aliens and how aliens are now all about peace and harmony and being some kinda space cops “They all have this bright blue light around ‘em and go around doing good. Sort of g’lactic policemen, going round tellin’ everyone to live in universal harmony and stuff” (p. 156, part of a slightly longer discussion)

Newt meeting aliens who talk about peace and harmony while being some kinda space cops (p. 197-199)

That’s it; Crowley (then Crawly) doesn’t even ask about putting the Tree on the Moon, the line is instead “why not put it on top of a high mountain or a long way off?” (p.10).

Just because it’s simple, however, doesn’t mean we can’t learn a great deal.

Humanity has watched the stars for all of our history; they can be used to navigate, to tell time; the constellations are used to record stories; astrology attempts to make sense of the chaos of everyday life through the motions of heavenly bodies. The motions of the stars and planets has been calculated and recorded for as long as we’ve had enough knowledge of math to do that (so ancient Sumeria and Egypt, and by ancient I mean 4-5 thousand years ago), while less predictable events such as eclipses and comets have been taken as ill omens or signs of Heavenly disfavor.*

The prevailing model in the West was geocentric (Earth in the center) and contained what we call the “Heavenly Spheres”; Earth was a globe surrounded by clear layered spheres, and across each sphere one of the seven planets moved in its predictable track. (The seven planets were: The sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn - a planet being defined as a “wandering heavenly body that does not follow the fixed course of all the other stars”). Beyond all these was the final sphere, containing all the stars like a painted ceiling, and all moving together, rotating around a point near Polaris, the North Star.

The stars were predictable, but mysterious, unexplainable - but they existed to serve the story of mankind because why else would they exist?

This mindset carries into Good Omens - at least the book, and probably the Radio Drama as well (I haven’t heard it in ages, but I don’t think it deviated from the major points). The universe is vast and huge and filled with “loads of buggerall” (p. 56) - Aziraphale’s comments confirm that, at the very least, angels and demons are confident that the universe is a vast vacuum (matching our modern ideas of cosmology) and also that it has a physical end somewhere (due to the way space-time curves, this might not necessarily be the case).**

And yet.

All these vast loads of burgerall are slated to be destroyed along with the Earth, aren’t they?

It certainly seems they were created at the same time. We know that there had only been “rather more than seven” days as of the start of the book, and that “rain hadn’t been invented yet” (p. 9). The language suggests not only that Earth is a new thing, but that there isn’t another planet out there that already experienced days and rain. Crowley, at least, believes that God created the whole universe (p. 373) and there seems nothing in the book to contradict this.

As for Armeggedon, it’s referenced as the “final test” and as “testing everything to destruction” and so forth (p. 48). At the final showdown on the airbase, Metatron refers to the great plan of a world lasting six thousand years (p. 352), and again this could refer to Earth only, or it could be the universe as a whole. In fact, as a general rule, the book simply conflates the earth and the universe, as if they were the same thing. And they are. Much like in the more Medieval and Classical worldview outlined above, there could be lots of stars and things out there but they only serve as a backdrop to the real important things going on here on Earth. Everything was created at the same time, and the only reason it might not be destroyed all at once is if the winning side decides they like the view and want to keep it.

The only hint that there might be more to the universe than Heaven, Hell and the little stage for their cold war (Earth) is the appearance of the aliens to Newt.

And yet, what are they described as? One is “stubby and green,” the one that talks to Newt is “a yellow toad dressed in kitchen foil...wearing the kind of mirror-finished sunglasses that Newt had always thought of as Cool Hand Luke shades” and the third is “a pepper pot.”

Two aliens as designed by a child, one clearly doing some vague Space Cop look, and a Dalek. The ship itself “looked like every cartoon of a flying saucer Newt had ever seen” (p. 197). I never ever got the impression these aliens were anything other than figments summoned from Adam’s head, spouting buzzwords he’d seen in New Aquarian (acid rain, albedo, polar ice caps) while acting like cops do in movies. And their message “We give you a message of universal peace and cosmic harmony an’ suchlike” (p. 198) - the “an’” instead of “and” is one of the distinguishing marks of how Adam and The Them talk. This is another one of his stories and games, played out on a much wider scale.***

My primary conclusion here would be that aliens cannot exist in the Book!Omens universe. The universe is the backdrop, Earth is where the real drama plays out. The universe has only existed for 6,000 years, not nearly enough time for other life to have evolved separately. God could have created life on the other worlds, but there is no indication that this ever happened, that there are other playgrounds on which this fight is being acted out - Crowley and Aziraphale never even consider the possibility that they’ll be reassigned elsewhere. It’s Earth, and then eternity in Head Office, no other options.

Book Omens: Other Possibilities?

I do think there is one alternative possible for Book!Omens: if we are willing to throw away the strictly supernatural elements of the book, it could be re-envisioned as a sci-fi story, in which God, angels, and demons are actually super-dimensional aliens who, by Clark’s Third Law, are sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from actual angels and demons. I refer to this as the Stargate Interpretation.****

More accurately, God would have to be the super-dimensional being, and would have created the Earth as a place to let the story play out; the angels and demons are then direct creations who buy 100% into the narrative they are given. Everything else can still exist - Lucifer rebels because of the same reasons, takes along all the unsatisfied angels, Heaven and Hell are only concerned with Earth because that’s all they’ve been told to concern themselves with. Their afterlives exist still, but only because humans were created to fit into that system.

Meanwhile, literally anything could be going on in the rest of the universe. There could be alien races thousands of years older than the earth. There could be galactic empires. Who knows? Not people on Earth. Our world was isolated from all that by superdimensional shenanigans.

But, and this is important, in order to maintain the illusion, angels and demons must be kept as much in ignorance of all this as humans. Might lead you to question the power of the being with the Ineffable Plans if those plans only extend to the edge of the solar system and don’t even go particularly far back in time.

Now, do I think this is the best headcanon for the book? Nope. This is a supernatural story, the threat of Heaven and Hell is so looming and menacing because there’s no other force out there, nowhere to appeal except the “higher authority” that isn’t, apparently, listening, and there’s no option to escape just by relocating to a new world. I think trying to force the Stargate Interpretation on it would diminish the story, and I really don’t think it’s what the authors intended at all.

However, I also think this would make for a very interesting fanfic in the hands of the right writer. Book Aziraphale or Crowley suddenly discovering that the scope of Head Office’s powers is much more limited than they’d thought? Who knows about this - have the Archangels and Lords of Hell been covering this up to keep the lower-level angels and demons from rebelling? Would their “miraculous” powers still operate the same on these alien worlds? Are there other beings out there more powerful? Or going the other direction - are there other worlds also playing out their own little pantomime of Eden and Armageddon? Are they created by the same God, or other members of the same race, and what are the implications either way? Does each world have an Aziraphale and a Crowley, or is the main GO world the first to screw up the Apocalypse so badly they survive it - and what is the implication of that?

There’s a whole lot of scope for interesting AUs out of this, and I’d be rather surprised if no one has written any, seeing as the book came out thirty years ago. (If any are available on AO3, send us links - this sounds a bit niche, but I’d love for fans to be able to find these!) I would consider them AUs though; the default assumption of the book is no aliens and including them is a deviation, just as adding in Hogwarts or Charles Xavier’s school while keeping everything else the same is a deviation.

However, in the TV series, space is certainly more present in the narrative, and the Stargate Interpretation doesn’t work as well. Can we reach any clear conclusions? I’ll attempt to find out in my next meta!

(Too important to footnote: We know that Atlantis vanished (p.372) so most likely Adam’s aliens did as well. There is, still, the possibility that they continued to exist after the end of the world. I think their somewhat shoddy appearance and very cliched dialogue suggest the aliens would, at best, continue to cycle through similar interactions to what we saw with Newt until Adam either “deactivated” or “updated” them. What would they do then? Did he create entire races and homeworlds for them or - as I rather suspect - did he just make the one ship full and then move on to the next?)

-- Footnotes --

*Note: the math for predicting eclipses has also existed for thousands of years, but was more difficult for ancient cultures to confirm because only a fraction of eclipses are visible from a certain spot. Several ancient cultures were eventually able to work out the pattern, notably ones that either ruled over a lot of land or else had good information exchange with their neighbors. Comets took a LOT longer, and indeed as late as the 16th century many believed each comet was unique and traveled linearly through the solar system, never to return. Edmond Halley (working partly from observations by Isaac Newton) was able to demonstrate that comets did in fact orbit the sun, and predicted the return of the comet now named for him in 1758. He also was the first to observe and describe the proper motion of stars, that is, the fact that they don’t actually travel in one large fixed group.

**Also, I find it delightful that, along with thinking dolphins are fish, Aziraphale says the bird crossing the universe would need a generation starship - which as a sci-fi trope has been somewhat out of fashion since the 1970s, in favor of faster-than-light starships. This alone says volumes about his taste in literature and science.

***The fact that the alien refers to its own message as “one of them pheonomena” (p.198) - a term Shadwell uses - does suggest that Newt’s own imagination is filling in the gaps left by Adam.

****Just gonna go ahead and out myself as a lifelong Stargate fan don’t mind me. That said, Terry Pratchett also explores a world made in this style in his pre-Discworld novel, Strata, which contains a flat world in a sci-fi setting, where everything operates according to a medieval worldview. It is a fascinating read, not least for the inclusion of several elements that would later find a permanent home in the Discworld series. If you can find it, read it.

tagging the commenters who said yesterday they would be interested:

@sarahthecoat @ineffableove @akawestruck

#good omens #book good omens #book omens #good omens meta #good omens book #space #alpha centauri #aliens #stargate #of aliens and alpha centauri #sci-fi #i knew this was going to be a weird meta

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doomedandstoned · 4 years ago

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Black Spirit Crown Score Big Win With ‘Gravity’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Strong guitars chords carve out a bold landscape to begin the first of five cosmic tales. "Doomstar" sails across the universe as a comet, filled with as much magic as destructive possibility. On a dark night, you can almost make out the whirling, wicked tale of this asto-demon.

Welcome to the evocative domain of Ohio's BLACK SPIRIT CROWN. We first met the Clevelanders on their original four-tracker 'Red Sky' (2017), its sphatik gem "Megalith" added to our 'Doomed & Stoned in Ohio' (2017) compilation and the first and second rounds of Ohio Doomed & Stoned Festivals organized in short, subsequent order. The boys of Black Spirit Crown have long been an integral part of the heavy music scene of The Buckeye State, opening for such greats as Conan, Inter Arma, and The Obsessed.

As with their debut, 'Red Sky' (2017), the vocals are so important to convincing us of the band's bonafides. Guitarist Dan Simone and bassist Chris Martin have a good instinct for singing in harmony, building up a song climatically, and giving it legs so it can express itself in fitting form. The vocals on "Doomstar" are mainly clean, on the order of a Bask, Snail, Chrome Ghost, or Noctum, but the band reveals in the song's second half that it can get as grissly as any Aaron Turner project.

"Saga" belts out a solid punk-tempo -- an interesting and entirely fitting choice for a song about Viking rampage. The runaway development of the middle section felt characteristically Pikelike and I half-way expected him to make a quick guesty on the record. Just then, we hear the hearty hoo-hah! of a crowd and run to rejoin them for the song's remaining verse, which soon fades away into the shadowy labyrinth of memory.

Firey drummering distinguishes the advent of the "Orb." Is this odd visitor here to observe us? Or maybe it is intent on giving us a window into a world besides our own? We scarcely have time to ponder the question before the song whisks us away on its transcendental carpet ride. If you're looking to classify Black Spirit Crown's style (and let's face it, all of us have an inner music critic that does) it would be probably best to think of it as "space doom" or even "cosmic grunge." Certainly, there's some kind of a dreamy psychedelic element at play, bending and stretching each song as it will, sometimes for great lengths of time. Perhaps that element is the orb itself?

We're lucky to have very memorable songs on both of Black Spirit Crown's records. For the first, the clear standout was "Megalith," which in a perfect world would have at least given Black Spirit Crown a summer radio hit. On this record, there is ripe opportunity for another crossover with "Teutates."

Teutates by Black Spirit Crown

Teutates was a Celtic god of the ancient peoples of Gaul and Britain, the protector of their entire community. Black Spirit Crown personify his legend in song: "I hold the world in iron hands, I travel pathways not meant for man." Pretty badass, huh? "Write my name across the sky, in lines of fire 10 miles high." He's nothing if not bold, that Teutates.

After the brisk pace of the last rousing number, we burrow back into the cold comfort of the dark soil to reconnect with those doom roots. Here Black Spirit Crown venture into the smokey den of Monolord, Slomatics, and Windhand. Dan's phantom vocals are undoubtedly suited for both the mood and style of "Gravity," which I'm currently listening to just after dusk and it's absolutely ruling the night. I suppose it could rule regardless of when and where it yields its trance-inducing power. By the end of the record we've become one with the comet, and embraced its final destination, as well.

And now, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to premiere the album, 'Gravity' (2020) in its fullness. Look for my interview with Black Spirit Crown and more insight into the album to follow!

Give ear...

Doomed & Stoned · Black Spirit Crown - Gravity (2020)

A Listener's Guide to 'Gravity' By Black Spirit Crown

Just days before its release, I caught up the core members of Black Spirit Crown, Dan Simone (guitar, vocals) and Chris Martin (bass, vocals) to get the backstory on the album and insight into the spunky songs written for it.

★

I understand that it's been quite a journey leading Black Spirit Crown to this new record? Bring us up to speed.

Dan: So, Gravity is an album that's been about two-and-a-half years in the making. Our initial plan was to start recording in late-2017 with our original drummer, Jesse, but unfortunately he left the band that October, right around when we were going to start. At that point we had three of the songs ("Saga," "Orb," and "Gravity") mostly written and ready to record, and were going to write a couple more songs to go with them as we went. When Jesse left it took a little bit to sort out and secure our next drummer, Alex, and then get him up to speed with our existing material. We brought Alex in mid-January of 2018 with a scheduled show opening for Conan at the very beginning of March, so those first several weeks were a relentless drilling down on our existing material so we'd be ready for Conan. After that, people knew we were back and ready to play so that's what we did, for the next several months we just reveled in it, culminating playing to a totally packed house at the first Ohio Doomed and Stoned Fest. Which ruled. After that, Alex was totally immersed in the existing material and we could turn to writing a bit.

We'd love to get a tour of this place. Care to take us through each of these five rooms?

So let's talk about the songs on the album. I write about space, weird fiction themes and probably unsurprisingly, doom, defined as "death, destruction, or some other terrible fate". I've always been a huge fan of fantasy and science-fiction so that's where most of my subject matter comes from. Giant sentient megalithic rock from space that, in it's agony of being trapped in immobile awareness, broods and looms over all creation slowly gathering power to wield entropy versus order until it grinds all of life to a frozen, dusty halt. Stuff like that, but that was the first album. This second album has five tracks.

Doomstar

Inspired by the star Algol. A star of ill-repute for many civilizations it is named Head of the Ogre in Arabic, Satan's Head in Hebrew, Spectre's Head in Latin, and Demon Star in English. The Chinese name it the Mausoleum, or House of Bones. It is the Gorgon's severed head held by the constellation Perseus. It is a harbinger of mayhem and bloody violence, so why not write a song about someone born under this star? Interestingly, the main riffs for this song came to Chris in a dream, and he showed up to practice the next day with the music pretty much complete. I wish I remembered the actual date, because it would perhaps be interesting to know where that star was in our sky while he was dreaming.

Saga

Vikings. I've pretty much always had a thing for them. I wrote most of this song about 16 years ago, but the band I was in then couldn't play it, and it never really fit anything else I was doing until now. It was still kind of a departure for us at first, as it is significantly faster paced than our earlier material, but it sits really well in our live sets, giving the audience a little punch in the face in the middle of it all. Lyrically it touches on a lot of the stories and themes Norse Mythology, without really diving substantially into any specific one. Those stories were called Sagas. Initially the middle part was supposed to have lyrics, and I was going to delve into some specificity, but I couldn’t decide exactly where to go with it, the stories never really worked within the riffs and structure of the song, and then I realized that whenever I was playing those parts I’d envision grizzled vikings in their dragon boats coursing through raging and icy seas. Pretty much a travel montage out of a movie, and that worked for me so I left it alone.

Orb

This song was originally supposed to be on the first album, but we couldn't really get the second half settled in time so we skipped it. It's about a moon-sized orb of living metal that comes to Earth to help humanity transcend to a higher form of existence. Within the Black Spirit Crown mythology, the Orb is diametrically opposed to the Megalith as agents of Life/Order and Death/Chaos respectively. It fell out of our live sets for quite a while, too, when we initially brought Alex in because we were focused on working on settled songs. I was pretty stoked when we brought it back because I really enjoy the weird psychedelic second half. I love working the wah pedal and delay, and Chris just goes bananas through the whole thing. I'd really like someone someday to get some excellent video of us performing it because I dig playing it so much, but I never feel like I get the whole experience because I get sucked in to playing my part.

Teutates

This is the most recently written song on the album, and the single from it. The comet Toutatis is a large asteroid with a chaotic orbit that passed within 18 lunar distances of Earth in 2012. It is large enough to potentially end life on the planet if it were to impact. It gets its name from the god Teutates from Celtic mythology who was, perhaps ironically, a protector god whose name roughly translates to "Be of the Tribe". We really dug the idea of that duality, this thing that was simultaneously a being responsible for the life and well-being of its worshippers, yet could in a thoughtless moment totally obliterate them. Why shouldn't it, really? The huge vocal harmony near the end always gives me chills. "Be of the Tribe, Give up thy life.."

Gravity

The title track of the album. Look, I tend to write long songs, our shortest song is 5 minutes, and our average - not counting this one - is 8 minutes, but we just write until the journey, the story, finds its end. We don't try to write intentionally long songs. Except for this one. With this song we set out to write a song that could fill a live set on its own, 20 -30 minutes.

Musically, it's a meditation. Waves of droning fuzz that crash and recede. Thematically, it's about a group of star-farers who are woken from hyper-sleep to find themselves abandoned on a barren, high-gravity planet by their A.I. which achieved sentience at some point in the journey and decided it had no need for humans. It's the funerary rite for them as they are crushed and frozen by the weight of the alien atmosphere. The last 7 minutes is their death throes, and it was also a total hoot to record.

In the rhythm guitar parts I hold the same chord for the entire 7 minutes, but we tracked three layers of guitar there so I had to hold that chord for 21 minutes. By the end my fret hand was shaking so violently that I had to hit the chord with my pick hand and then grab my fret hand and hold it in place so I didn't shake off of the neck of the guitar. Chris, of course, was laughing hysterically at my agony.

On top of that is total celestial chaos. Two separate theremin tracks, two separate guitar solos by me (one in the foreground one in the background), clips from NASA of electromagnetic storms in Saturn's atmosphere and other weird radio-telegraphic stuff, some keyboard synthesizer by Chris, and a guest appearance by our good friend Joe Fortunato who is a master of atmospheric guitar-synth alchemy (who also appears on the track Orb). Chris then took what could have been just a total mess of noise, and panned and faded and otherwise produced the hell out of it into a marvelous cacophony, and honestly it's exactly what we'd always imagined it could be.

Chris, take us behind the scenes of this whole thing. What were some of the hurdles you had to overcome to get this puppy on record?

Chris: With respect to the drum parts, we had tried to start the record some time ago with our original drummer, Jesse, but we ended up parting ways right around the time we were set to start. After bringing Alex in and getting him up to speed, we had written a couple more songs and were about ready to start going, but things kind of fizzled out with him and he was gone. Rather than waiting to onboard another drummer, get them up to speed, and delay recording even longer, I decided to program the drum parts.

I compiled all the practice recordings we had and scoured Youtube for live videos of shows with both our past drummers, Then, I basically compared the best parts of their respective versions of each song, transcribed them, and programmed those comps as the drum parts. It was pretty time consuming to get all the little nuances right as opposed to, say, starting from scratch and making fresh parts, but I really wanted these to sound like the parts our drummers had done live, because they helped to make the songs what they are.

Bass tracking was done over a couple days. It was pretty straightforward; my P bass into my pedalboard into my old SVT. Can't really go wrong there. The only exception was the second half of "Orb," where I used the bass rig I learned to play on when I was 12; my dad's old '65 Traynor YBA-1, which I inherited when he died. I had planned on using the bass I learned on too - his old '73 Gibson EB-0 -- but there were some electronics issues when I went to start and I couldn't get the tone I wanted out of it. I didn't want to wait for parts to arrive to repair it, so I went back to the P bass, straight into the YBA-1. Still got that really fat, old school sound I was going for, so it was a win.

Guitars were pretty simple as well; Dan's Les Paul into his pedalboard and the 72 Traynor YSR-1. Live, he runs a Traynor YBA-1 reissue as a second amp to fill out the sound, but the YSR sounded pretty gnarly on its own so we stuck with it. I did also end up blending in a little bit of the little Laney combo I have to get a little more bite and cut. It's a great little amp that's been on everything I've done.

Guitars turned out really nice, didn't they?

We had Joe Fortunato (Sparrowmilk, Venomin James) come in and add some synth guitar type stuff on a couple songs as well. The intro and outro of Gravity, as well as some of the crazy laser sounds in the outro, is basically him hitting one note on his custom Dunable/EGC hybrid baritone, then manipulating some of his pedals to create some of the most bizarre things we'd ever heard. I just hit record and told him to make noise. We got about 20-30 solid minutes of random sounds. It was pretty crazy. I went through and picked a solid section that fit the whole mood of the song and dropped it in where I wanted it. Outside of that, there's a bunch of theremin and other random stuff Dan put together.

Vocals were fairly easy. Dan tracked all of his quickly, I tracked all my clean ones later that day. When I went to do my screaming, in Doomstar, Saga and Teutates, I got about half done and my chest and throat started hurting, so I took a couple days to rest them before finishing up, thinking it was from being out of practice. Long story short, I ended up with some gnarly respiratory issues that really impacted my breathing and my voice, and it took me about 4 months to get my stamina back up to be able to do vocals again. It gave me some time to mix, but killed me that I couldn't just finish tracking and wrap it up.

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#D&S Debuts #Black Spirit Crown #Cleveland #Ohio #doom #metal #stoner rock #doom metal #D&S Reviews #Doomed & Stoned

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lightdusk96 · 7 years ago

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RobStar Week: Day 3

(Originally posted on July 25th 2017)

Welp, here it is! This was a fun prompt to work with!

Fireworks

The night was clear of clouds, warm of temperature and filled with stars. The figure of the crescent moon shone like a gem amidst the canvas that was this summer night. But very few people in Jump City were able to take time and appreciate it’s beauty, for even in these late hours, they had errands to attend to, jobs to do. A city brimming with life and action that contrasted the calm void of the night.

And somewhere amidst the coast of Jump, a great tower shaped like a T, stood proud and tall, like a shield against the dangers of the rest of world. On top of it, an orange skinned girl with green eyes and fire-red hair was staring at the night sky. Humming a song to herself and letting her legs dangle over the edge of the roof, kicking them around without a care in the world, the alien known as Starfire loved these kinds of nights. Squinting her eyes in concentration, she tried to find constellations to pass the time.

Her concentration was broken by the arrival of a new presence on the roof. A very familiar and welcome presence. From the confident rhythm of his steps, to the cheap and abundant hairgel, she knew who it was. She smiled to herself as she felt a pair of gloved hands gently wrapping themselves around her waist. Robin.

Nuzzling his head against her neck, the dark-haired acrobat chuckled when she turned around with a warm smile on her face and captured his lips with hers. The kiss was slow and easy as they savored each other’s taste.

They broke the kiss after a while, looking at each other in the eyes, breathless but so very happy.

Robin broke the silence first. “Hey.”

Star giggled at how lovestruck and dopey he sounded when he made that remark and responded with her own. “Greetings, Robin.”

“So, what are you doing here all by yourself? Shouldn’t you be at bed by now... with me... cuddling each other?” he stated with a smirk, cuddling her to accentuate his point.

She laughed at his forwardness. Ever since they became a couple two years ago, he had been so much more open with her and she loved it when he was like this.

With one arm around the back of his neck and the other stroking his hair, she replied: “A tempting suggestion. For your information, I came here to watch the stars. It is not often that I get to see them in such clarity... it is truly a sight to behold.”

Robin nodded at that, slowly taking one of her hands off him and intertwining his fingers with hers. “I think I might have an idea to make this night even better... Tell me... do you remember our first date?”

Starfire smirked slyly. “You mean after Tokyo or after we first met?”

Robin laughed at that. “When we first met. You know... at the Feriss Wheel?”

“When that tentacle monster caught me. mistaking me for my sister...” she continued.

“There you go. Well, they’re showing fireworks again tonight. What do you say? Wanna go there for a while with me?” he asked, with a barely withheld tone of hope for her to say “yes”.

How could she ever refuse that kind of proposition?

Her response was to get up on her feet and extend her arm with a smile on her face, showing that she is ready. He eagerly took it and they flew away from the tower.

Robin could never get enough of flying with Star. He enjoyed so many things from it. From the way she held him, to the way her face lit up, to the pure thrill of being so high up, it was like a dream come true to him. As for her, the thought of sharing the wonderful experience of flight with him filled her with such joy that she had to restrain herself from flying into space.

They arrived at the carnival fairly quickly. Star started descending, but Robin tapped her shoulder gently to get her attention, stopping her. “Wait! Why don’t we just... stay up here? It feels much better when we’re alone.”

Starfire nodded and shifted Robin a bit in her grasp so he would be more comfortable. A moment later, the sky lit up in many vibrant colors as the fireworks were set off.

If the night sky was a canvas, then the ones who set off the fireworks were the painters. Dozens of fireworks streaked through the sky, leaving a trail of sparks around them like comets before exploding in a fireball of color. Robin and Starfire were in awe of how gorgeous this display was.

Some of those fireworks even created shapes when they exploded. From hearts to stars to even the faces of the Titans themselves. Near the end of the fireworks show, a barrage of fireworks filled the sky until they exploded all at once, creating the smiling faces of Robin and Starfire next to each other, surrounded by a large pink heart. Suffice to say, Robin and Starfire were flattered at how much the city appreciated them and supported them. Although they felt that doing good was its own reward, they definitely didn’t mind this show of gratitude.

“Amazing...” Robin said.

Starfire turned his face towards her and looked deeply into his eyes, visible to her despite the mask. “Like I said before... Earth is full of amazing things.”

They kissed each other deeply and passionately, Robin wrapping his arms around her neck and Starfire wrapping her arms around his waist. They kissed and held each other in the sky, the stars illuminating their bodies, a different set of fireworks being set off inside their hearts.

#robstar #robin #starfire #teen titans #fanfic #romace #robstar week 2017 #fireworks #romance

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starlitservos · 7 years ago

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Space asks v2, the nearest and farthest pair of each section with respect to your current location (use your best judgement for any ties or ambiguity)

thanks! I’m implementing some rules of my own to facilitate this, as follows:most data comes from basic googling because if I let myself look at anything other than the little boxes there or on wikipedia, not only will I never finish the questions, I will probably die of thirst before I get to the second one. some of my numbers are probably wrong, but I’ve already spent too much time on this and I don’t want to go in and redo everything, but if anyone sees anything off please tell meties or ambiguity are generally resolved by answering both questions cuz I don’t get a lot of asks so I need to make the most of what I dofor cases in which I am basically part of one prompt, like earth, I answer that and also the next closest, for the same reasondistance to constellations will be measured as distance to the brightest star in that constellation (this may overlap with stars)distances that change significantly, like in the solar system where orbits matter, are averagedokay I think that’s it for preprocessing, it could be a lot and I feel bad cluttering up people’s dashes so here’s a read more:

Planets:Earth: Where’s your home?(average distance 0 mi, I live here) hey great question man. Pluto: What time is it right now where you are?(average distance 39.5 au) it’s quarter past 3 in the afternoon, but I’m answering this one near the start, so. Moon: What are you currently studying/hoping to study?(distance 238,900 mi) currently studying fancy light boxes with buttons, and less fancy human talk stuff. would also like to study a whole bunch of invisible stuff too, and made-up ideas a bunch of people agreed on like fifty-ish(? I don’t remember exactly, it’s probably more) years ago because it mostly makes sense. even if you can clone fake spheres with fake knives. …neither of those are full planets…aaanyway

Stars:Sun: Have you ever had alcohol?(distance 1 au, I don’t quite live there but it’s close enough) yeah, but only a little so it doesn’t really count. Deneb: Have you ever been out of your home country?(distance 2,616 ly) yeah, a few times. thinking I might want to get out permanently sometime if the nazis aren’t all taken care of soon. see, these are actually stars, thank you! learn from this, pluto

Constellations:Centaurus: Favorite holiday? (it’s…it’s alpha centauri, I mean c'mon, the closest star we’ve got; distance 4.37 ly) gosh, I’m not sure. purim’s pretty fun but I can’t eat hamentashen anymore…I do like pesach conceptually but not a fan of the whole family dinner, and I always hated doing the questions and being in the spotlight. I’m not youngest anymore though so that part isn’t really a considering I guess. Cygnus: Favorite weather?(hello, deneb again, still far as hell; in pc, 802+/-66) windy and just around the edge of warm and cool, cloudy but not fully without sun. no mud. sadly this is not very common weather around here.

Galaxies:Milky Way: Who’s your oldest friend?(yeah this is the one I’m in, right there on the edge–that arm there, see? distance 0 pc) probably a guy I’ve known since like 4th, 5th grade. but, I dunno, I guess really just me, since who else was there?Andromeda: Do you consider yourself social?(another gimme, everyone knows andromeda’s right next door, distance 2.537 million ly) sort of. I can be charming, but I’ve only got a couple social skills, and I’m absolutely awful at first impressions. I’m fine just sitting around reading or wandering around empty places all day alone, but I’ve got a decent network of people I’m friendly with. even if I am always surprised when people remember me as anything notable. Comet Galaxy: Have you ever had to leave a relationship because someone changed too much?(real far off, if you thought deneb was far–this thing’s a whole 3.2 Billion ly) I’ve never dated anyone.

Other Stuff:not exactly sure how to measure distance for this one, since it’s not specific things, I’ll just…ignore the annoying ones and get the closest instances of the rest

Asteroid: What does your dream life look like?(our solar system’s got a whole belt of them like, right there. distance like 2.2 au) shit I already answered this one, didn’t I? sorry, I meant to skip it when I was selecting because of that, but I forgot, and I don’t feel like redoing anything now, I’ve already spent too long on this. Quasar: If you could spend the rest of your life with only one person, who would it be?(man these things are cool, the closest one is at the core of the galaxy markarian 231, distance like 580 million ly, along with a pair of binary black holes–look, it’s the last one, I can do extra research if I want) I really don’t know. I’m pretty sure that if I had to be like, constantly around one person for that long, either I would murder them, or they’d murder me. honestly the only exception would probably be a duplicate of me or something–that sounds really self-centered, but really, I just have serious trust issues (that I'm working on).

thanks for the questions, and thanks to anyone who read the whole thing. as always I’m still taking them, and there’s no ask-by time (especially for space ones).

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eastofthemoon · 8 years ago

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Towards The Sun- Chapter 8

Title: Towards the Sun: Chapter 8

Series: Voltron Legendary Defender

Rating: PG

Characters: Keith, Thace, Shiro, Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Coran and OCs

Summary: After the rebels escape, Thace is now staying at the Castle of Lions and Keith has questions for him that can no longer be put on hold. However, once he gets his answers, Keith is afraid how everyone else will take the news.

Archive of Our Own

Keith always did enjoy the observatory. He would often come up here by himself to look at the stars when he needed to think. Often, he would find himself being joined by Shiro, or one of the other paladins. It was nice. Everyone just sat silently as they watched the stars and comets go by.

He never dreamed he be doing the same thing with Thace...his father.

Neither of them had uttered a word as they stared up at the window and watch the stars twinkle. Keith rotated his shoulders as his mouth refused to budge. Should one of them just start talking? Lance would give him an earful if he found out they said nothing to each other the whole time, but did that mean Keith had to begin it? Or was he overthinking things again? Did he-

“It is a nice view,” Thace said as he gazed up.

Keith blinked, his rapid train of thought gone as he tried to recompose himself by tucking his hands into his pockets. “Yeah,” he replied and clicked his tongue. “I like coming up here, it’s quiet.”

Thace gave a nod. “I will admit, growing up I took it for granted,” he said. “I was on so many ships, I forgot what a sight it was..until I met your mother.”

Keith frowned and looked up curiously. “Mom?”

“She loved to stargaze,” Thace explained with a fond smile. “I often caught her standing outside watching the stars.” He gave a small chuckle. “She made me memorize the constellations near Earth.”

Keith gave a small smile as old memories of leaning against his mother with a mug of hot chocolate in his hands as they sat and count the stars came to him.

“Mom did it a lot with me too,” Keith admitted and turned to him. “She...also loved listening to the rain.” He licked his lips. “Did she..um..do that with you too?”

“Very much so,” Thace replied. “It didn’t rain on my homeworld and I thought I would never get use to it.” He crossed his arms as he lifted his head up. “Ironically, I find myself missing the sound now.”

Keith’s smile faltered as he began tap the floor with the heel of his boot. “Me too,” he said, “but I miss her more.” He took a deep sigh. “It’s been a long time since I got to talk about her to anyone that actually knew her.”

His mother had no living family, and Keith hadn’t been close or met anyone in a long time that had known her personally. He had often told Shiro and his parents about her, but it wasn’t the same. Keith had been so young and he always felt there were sides to his mother he didn’t get to see or understand as a child.

Thace’s eyes softened as he gave a nod. “Yes, it’s the same for me,” he explained as he patted Keith’s shoulder. “None of the other rebels had ever met her. It’s always been me telling them about Amy.”

Keith took in a deep breath as he shut his eyes. “I miss her,” he said. “I still miss her a lot.”

Thace said nothing, but his face seemed full of pain and regret. His shoulders slumped slightly as he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Keith looked up to him as he took his hands out of his pockets. “For what?”

“For abandoning you,” Thace said, his voice thick with emotion “For not acting like a father when you needed one,” he took a deep breath. “For leaving you all alone when your mother died. I can only fathom how painful that ordeal was for you.”

Keith went quiet. He hadn’t been expecting that. “It’s not your fault mom died. Those things happen, and you had a valid reason for going.”

That was the part Keith couldn’t deny. As much as it angered him not having a father around, there was no denying taking down Zarkon was a higher importance.

“That doesn’t excuse or change the fact that I left you behind,” Thace said as wrinkles formed in his forehead. “I’ve lost count on how many times I was truly tempted to fly back to Earth, and insist that you and Amy come back with me.”

Keith narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “So...you wanted me?”

Thace’s looked aghast at the question. “What? Of course I did. You are my only child, I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

Keith’s fists tightened, his mind drifting back to Thace’s words at the meeting. “Then why are you so eager to get away from me?”

Thace frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Keith twitched. “At the meeting, when Oberon said you would have to live here, you didn’t seem thrilled at the idea.” He tossed his hands up. “ Does ‘it’s not something to rush into’ ring any bells?”

“Ah,” Thace said slowly and tapped his fingers against his elbow. “Keith, you misunderstood. Truth be told...being able to finally get to know my son would be a dream come true for me.”

Keith scoffed. “You got a funny way of showing that.”

“Perhaps,” Thace said with a nod, “but the main reason I was hesitant was because I was concerned about you.”

Keith froze and tilted his head in confusion. “About me?”

“You have lived without a father for most of your life, and suddenly I just appear to you out of nowhere,” Thace said as he leaned against the railing. “I had assumed you might not be comfortable with me living here when you only found out about me recently.”

“Oh,” Keith said as he mulled it over. “So, you were just trying to ensure I wouldn’t feel awkward?”

“Yes,” Thace replied, “but was I wrong?”

Keith opened and shut his mouth. “Not completely? I’ll admit, I’m not sure how I feel about you yet.” He took a deep breathe. “However, I was rather annoyed you were just going to decide that without asking my opinion.” He turned his head at him with a glare. “You have a habit of doing that.”

Thace gave a small chuckle. “Your mother accused me of the same problem.” He paused. “Although, there is Shiro to also consider. I fully realize that having a Galran around, especially one that was part of Zarkon’s high command, would likely bring back ugly memories for him.”

Keith rubbed his neck. “Shiro is working through it,” he replied, “but I can’t deny I also had the same thought.”

Thace nodded. “With that aside, Keith,” he said as he brought his face closer, “do you wish for me to stay?”

Keith chewed his bottom lip as he ran a hand over his face. “Honestly...I..I don’t know.”

Thace didn’t look surprise as he crossed his arms. “Don’t rush that decision then,” he said gently. “My main concern is you and I will respect your decision if you wish for me to leave.”

“But where will you go?” Keith asked as he found himself moving in closer. “And it was a major condition for the alliance-”

“I’m certain I can find other arrangements that won’t interfere with the alliance with Voltron and the resistance,” Thace insisted. “I can take care of myself, so don’t let that be one of the factors in your decision.”

Keith shut his eyes. His brain was buzzing with thoughts and he didn’t know which to dwell on. Thace wanted to stay, but did Keith? He didn’t know. He couldn’t decide-

Thace placed a hand on his shoulder, instantly calming Keith. “Let’s discuss something else in the time being,” he said.

“Oh..,” Keith said slowly. “Okay, but what?”

Thace gave a thoughtful frown. “What were you doing before you found the Blue Lion on Earth?”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Um..not much, quite honestly.” He hugged himself. “It was a rough year. I thought Shiro had died on the Kerberos mission and spent the next year wandering to figure out what to do with myself.”

“I see,” Thace said. “But what about school?”

Keith sucked air between his teeth. “I wasn’t going to school.”

Thace eyes narrowed in a kind of manner Keith had seen Shiro do when one of the paladins had misbehaved. “You dropped out?”

Keith snorted. “Technically, but more like I got kicked out.” He shrugged. “One of the Galaxy Garrison's officers was talking badly about Shiro, and..I kind of punched him.”

Thace’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

“They ended up declaring I had a discipline issue and sent me packing,” Keith said as he tried to read Thace’s face.

“I...see,” Thace said in an overly neutral tone.

Keith gave a pout as he tilted his head. “You okay?”

Thace rubbed his eyes. “Keith, promise me you will never Oberon that story?”

Keith’s eyes hardened. “Why?” Was Thace that embarrassed Keith was kicked out?

Thace took a deep breath. “Because he will use it to forever mock the both of us.”

“Huh?” Keith replied.

“Oberon and I were in cadets together,” Thace explained, “and, a higher ranking officer had made ‘comments’ about my late father...which I did not take that well.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “Did you punch him?”

“Not quite,” Thace replied as he fiddled with his sleeve. “I at first called him a few names I dare not repeat, but when he grabbed me by the collar...I punched him in the stomach.”

Keith’s jaw fell and then seconds later he burst out laughing. “Ha ha! Oh, man! You serious?!” He snickered. “I guess the ‘apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ as Mom would always say.”

Thace gave a crooked smile. “Yes, it would seem so.”

Keith took a breath to calm himself down before returning his gaze to Thace. “So, did you get booted out too?”

“They were in the middle of discussing the matter if I should be expelled or punished when I met up with the resistance,” Thace said. “So, in the end, it didn’t truly matter.”

“But Oberon still holds it over your head?” Keith said.

“Yes, and it will be even worse if he learns you did it too,” Thace said as he pointed. “So, keep it to yourself.”

“I’ll try,” Keith said, “but if he’s with Lance, he’s probably already told him about it.”

“Yes,” Thace said in a tired tone, “that is very likely.”

Keith gave a small smile as he return his gaze to the stars above. As they sat in silence, Keith wondered if his mother was smiling at them where ever she was.

08080808080808080808080808080808080808080808080

“Oookay,” Hunk said as he fastened the last screw, “try now, Shiro.”

Shiro nodded and began to bend his cybernetic arm. However, the grinding sound returned and he halted immediately.

Shiro cursed as he gripped it to his chest. “It’s still bad,” he said with a wince, “and if feels like it’s even more stiff.”

Pidge growled as she tugged at her hair. “This is getting us nowhere! Shiro, I’m sorry, but I think we really better take this apart. You’re not going to be able to move it at this rate.”

Hunk slumped in his chair. He hated to admit it, but he had to agree with Pidge. At the rate they were going, Shiro’s arm was only going to become a deadweight by the end of the day.

Shiro looked less than thrilled as he looked to them. “Okay, we’ll do it if we have to,” he stated, “but you’re certain there’s no other way to fix this?”

Hunk removed his goggles to scrub his face. “Thing is, this kind of problem shouldn’t be hard to fix-”

“And it really isn’t, but I’m bias.”

The trio turned to the door and saw Ford standing in the doorway. The old Galran showed them a sympathetic smile and Hunk noticed he held a large tool bag in his regular hand.

“Sorry, don’t mean to pry,” he said as he wandered in. “But I could hear that thing all the way down the hall.” He looked to Shiro with a concerned frown. “If you don’t get that thing fixed, you’re not going to be able to move it by the end of tomorrow.”

Shiro’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re certain?”

Ford held up his own arm. “Same thing happened to me,” he stated. “Was a huge pain in the rear to deal with too since I was by myself and had no extra hands to help me fix it.”

Hunk blinked and suddenly found his gaze locking upon Ford’s own cybernetic arm.

Oh, my God, I’m an idiot! Hunk thought as he sprang to his feet. “Ford, you know how to fix this?!” he asked as he pointed to Shiro.

“Course I do,” Ford said as he pulled up a chair. “It’s a common problem with Galra cybernetics.” He narrowed his eyes at Shiro and he pointed at his arm. “Betting they didn’t give ya much maintenance instruction when they attached that thing to ya, did they, Sonny?”

Shiro gave a bitter smile. “No, I literally just woke up to find it on me before they tossed me back into my cell.”

Ford gave a dark growl. “Yup, typical,” he grumbled. “Same with me. Gave me a new arm, and told me to be on my way. Had to figure out the proper maintenance all on my own.”

“And what exactly does that entail?” Hunk asked, intrigued. He was trying not to sound eager, but if Ford could teach Hunk all he knew about Galra tech it could solve a lot of potential problems in the future.

“Let’s fix that arm first,” Ford said as he reached into his bag and brought out a tool. “I’m going to show you what’s wrong with it.”

Hunk froze and cast a sideway glance at Shiro. The rebels were on their side, and therefore were not threat, but Hunk could sense Shiro was uneasy at the idea of letting another Galran at his arm.

Judging by the look Pidge had, she had the same thought. Ford then moved his arm, and Hunk opened his mouth to stop him, but surprised Hunk by pointing to his own arm.

“Mind unscrewing this part to remove the cover?” Ford asked as he looked to Hunk. “Easier for me to get someone else to do it.”

“Oh, uh, sure thing,” Hunk said as he took the tool and began to unscrew. He loosened the cover and carefully set it aside before peering inside the arm. His eyes were glued to the circuits and wire, while he felt both Pidge, and Shiro glancing over his shoulder.

Ford’s arm look a lot more simplified than what they had seen inside Shiro’s arm. Yet, glancing through it, Hunk’s brain was already connecting the basic design for it.

“I’m noticing some pieces here that we haven’t seen in Shiro’s,” Pidge said as she pointed.

“My arm is old tech,” Ford explained with a half amused smile. “It’s not nearly as fancy or advance as his, but the basic design is the same.”

Shiro’s forehead puckered as he looked it over. “So, what exactly is the problem with mine?”

“Something that’s going to make you wince on how easy it is to fix and prevent,” Ford commented with a shake of his head.

Hunk cocked his head to the side. “How so?”

Ford pointed with his other hand inside his arm towards a dark disc that sat in the middle of his arm. “See that? Touch it, don’t worry you won’t damage it.”

Hunk held a weary frown, but did as he was told and brushed his fingers against it which caused it to instantly spin.

“It looks real loose,” Pidge commented.

“Right,” Ford said and gestured to Shiro with his head. “Now, you’ll see one similar in Shiro’s.”

Hunk turned his seat and waited for Shiro to give him an approving nod before he ventured back inside. He spotted the said disc in seconds. It was a bit bigger, but it held the same design.

“Okay, so what do I do?” Hunk asked.

“Try touching it,” Ford stated as he pointed with his free hand, “and compare it to mine.”

Hunk arched an eyebrow, and made certain to put his goggles back over his eyes before reaching inside. He touched it, but to his shock nothing happened. Next the tapped it and then firmly pressed it between his fingers, but it refused to move.

“It’s as solid as a rock,” Hunk said as he looked back to Ford.

“Thought so,” Ford said as he tilted his head to Shiro’s direction. “You need to oil that thing regularly or the parts get jammed up on ya.”

Shiro’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I don’t remember them ever telling me that.”

“Besides, we have plenty of oil here,” Pidge said as she held up one of the cans Coran used on their equipment regularly.

“No, no, no,” Ford explained as Hunk put the cover back on his arm. “The cybernetic arms built by the empire required special lubricant. It’s their ever so subtle way of forcing you to keep coming back to the army.”

“Ooh, great,” Hunk grumbled as he crossed his arms. “So, where do we get that?”

Ford shrugged. “Normally, you hackle some dealers, but you are lucky enough to know me who can make it from scratch.”

“You can?” Pidge said in amazement.

“Wasn’t by choice I assure you,” Ford said as he leaned back in his chair. “When I left the army it was a matter of survival if you catch my drift.”

“Do you have any with you?” Shiro asked with his eyes full of hope.

Ford nodded and glanced to Pidge. “Look in my bag, Sweetheart, and you’ll see a spray can in there,” he instructed.

Pidge poked her head into the bag, brought out the spray can and quickly looked it over before handing it to Hunk.

“Sssoo,” Hunk said as he pointed at it, “I just spray Shiro’s arm with it?”

“Yeah, you don’t need much, but it should loosen up the joints there,” Ford said as he rotated his cybernetic arm. “Give it a go.”

“Well, okay,” Hunk said as Shiro nodded and held up the nozzle of the can. “Here goes.”

A hiss of air was heard as a blue liquid was released and soaked the inners of Shiro’s arm. Hunk stopped after it seemed lightly coated and stepped back. “Anything else?” he asked.

“Give it a tic for it to soak in,” Ford said, “but it should be ready by the time you got the cover back on him.”

Shiro didn’t seem to hear Ford as he became engrossed into flexing his fingers. “It seems to be working already,” he said in amazement. “My fingers already feel less tight.”

Oh, that’s a good sign, Hunk thought as he and Pidge hastily went to close up Shiro’s arm. Once he was done, Hunk held his breath as Shiro moved his arm up, and then down and then up.

SIlence was never such a more beautiful sound to Hunk.

“I know the sound stop,” Ford asked, “but how does the arm feel?”

Shiro rotated his shoulder. “Almost like a brand new arm,” he said. “Doesn’t feel stiff at all.”

Pidge sighed as she picked up the can to look it over. “I can’t believe all it needed was some lubricant.”

“It’s always the simplest solutions that solve the worst problems,” Ford commented as he shut his bag. “You can keep that can. I make it a priority to always keep a few on hand.”

Shiro let his arm drop to his side as he lifted his gaze to Ford. “Um...thank you,” he said. “This is such a huge relief.”

Ford waved a hand at him. “There’s nothing to be thanked for,” he said. “This is knowledge those druid nuts should have told you in the first place, but..that’s a rant for another day.”

Hunk slumped back in his chair as relief washed over him. “Man, that’s a load off my mind,” he muttered. “I was not thrilled with the idea of trying to take Shiro’s arm apart.”

“No kidding,” Shiro said softly as he flexed his wrist and stood. He looked to Ford as he rubbed his neck. “Thanks again.”

Ford gave a nod. “Later, if you like, I can teach what else you need to do to keep that arm going.”

Shiro’s step faltered slight, but he gave a small smile. “Yeah...that would be good,” he said as he headed to the door. “I need to go check with the princess. I’ll see you all later.”

Hunk gave a small wave as Shiro left and Ford grasped his chin thoughtfully. “Still a bit uneasy around Galra, huh?”

Hunk cleared his throat as the leaned on the table. “Not entirely, Shiro knows you rebels are the good guys, but...well…”

“Shiro has a lot of bad memories he’s working through,” Pidge replied sincerely. “So, he’s doing his best-”

Ford placed a hand on Pidge’s shoulder. “You don’t have to explain to me. I’ve been in this war a long time, and I’ve met plenty of people who don’t like Galra.” He gave a deep sigh. “Truthfully, Shiro is the most..shall we say ‘polite’ about it, and I can tell the boy is earnestly trying.”

Hunk frowned as he removed his goggles. “Can I ask on how exactly you lost your arm?”

Ford flexed his fingers of his cybernetic arms and made a fist. “Don’t mind, but not much to tell. Lost my arm while serving in the army and obtaining this new arm was my ‘reward’ for my loyalty. Wasn’t much longer after that I realize on what kind of monster I was giving my loyalty to.”

Hunk drummed his fingers against his knee. He couldn’t help but stare at the old Galran in a bit of admiration. It was one thing for him and the other paladins to decide to fight against Zarkon, but Ford once worked for the empire. It had to have taken a lot of courage to turn your back against everything you knew.

I wonder if I would be able to make that choice if I had to, Hunk thought.

During his musings, Pidge poked Ford’s tool bag with her eyes full of glee. “Sssoo, what other tools you got in that magic bag?” she asked. “And on that note, you mind telling us EXACTLY how Shiro’s arm works?”

“Yeah,” Hunk said with a nod. “Having an actual expert on how Galra tech works would be a huge asset.”

Ford gave a smirk. “I’m hardly an expert, but I’ll tell ya kids all I know. We’ll be in this war together for awhile yet.”

Hunk gave a smile as he reached for his notebook to write it down. If this alliance went through as plan, Hunk knew it was going to be good for both sides.

#thace #galra keith #voltron #vld #what if the storm ends

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zorayda-art · 8 years ago

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Building Terrix: Day 1

Worldbuilding June, Day 1: Introduction

Disclaimer: As DM, I tend to steal ideas from here and there for my personal game. Most of this is cherry-picked, combed over, changed, warped, and molded to fit Terrix. If you see an idea in here you recognize as not mine, that’s probably because it’s not. This isn’t for a book, or anything I’m making a profit from--only for a fun game and a world I can provide for my wonderful players. :)

How does this world differ physically from earth? Is it the same size (same density, same gravity), same ratio of land/water, same atmosphere, etc.? Does it have more than one sun or moon? Rings? Are there spectacular constellations/comets, etc. visible at night or by day?

Terrix is different from Earth in a few ways, but not many. The size is slightly smaller, but it is the same density, and the size isn’t enough to affect the gravity too much—though on Terrix, you would be slightly lighter than on Earth.

Terrix is further from Exxus than the Earth is from Sol; however, the variance in temperatures is relatively alike on both terrestrial planets, meaning that Exxus is an older star and therefore burns a little brighter to reach Terrix in the same way Sol reaches Earth.

There are three moons surrounding the planet: Alodel, Wyna, and Tela. The first two are significantly smaller than Earth’s moon, Tela being only slightly smaller but further away and not completely spherical and formed (through a telescope, one can see the somewhat “squashed” shape).

The stars are very visible from Terrix, save for light-polluted places (from magic or technology, as in Aerilon). Space travel has not yet been achieved through technological means, but planar travel happens often enough that scholars know a little bit about wormholes and that sort of travel. The constellations and stars hold importance to sailors and navigators on Terrix, as well as some who worship deities who put importance on the stars. There are two visible planets (within the Exxus system) with the naked eye in the sky, and a red giant that exists far away but is clearly seen and colored.

Random constellations generated:

These nine stars form the shape of a helmet. The constellation represents a tale of greed. It is most significant on the winter solstice, when it appears setting towards the Northeastern horizon. Its meaning is intertwined with the constellations representing a pair of boots, a throne and a horse. Those born under it are said to be pessimists.

These seven stars form the shape of a shield. The constellation represents a figure from the creation myth. It is most significant on the spring equinox, when it appears rising from the Northern horizon. It is opposed by the constellations representing a rearing horse, a sword and a fox. Those born under it are known for their confidence.

These fifteen dim stars form the shape of an ant. The constellation represents a tale about the power of good. It is most significant on the summmer solstice, when it appears high in the sky. Its meaning is intertwined with the constellations representing a bow and quiver, a queen and a wheel. Those born under it are often impulsive.

These thirteen bright stars form the shape of a longbow. The constellation represents a great villain. It is most significant on the autumn equinox, when it appears halfway towards the Western horizon. It is usually interpreted together with the constellations representing a lyre and a spear. Those born under it often become teachers.

These eight stars form the shape of a winged woman. The constellation represents a tale of treachery. It is most significant during summer, when it appears low on the Northeastern horizon. It is counterbalanced by the constellations representing three women, a torch and a mountain. Those born under it are usually ambitious.

Are there non-human inhabitants of this planet (elves, dwarves, aliens)? If so, how numerous? How openly present? What areas do they occupy?

Terrix is home to many different sentient beings. Humanoid creatures tend to be the most abundant and rapid-growing population, making up for most of the population. Humans and dwarves are responsible for half the humanoid population, with tieflings and dragonborn together only making up less than 6%.

There are other races as well, including gnomes, elves, goblins, goliath, orcs, aarakocra, tabaxi, lizardfolk, kenku—and many, many more.

Each race has a preference as to where they live.

Humans inhabit most larger cities near bodies of water, and generally are very involved in trade. They can be found all over Terrix, and are an involved race.

Elves vary just as widely as humans, from the drow in the Underdark to the wood elves occupying the beautiful naturally wooded areas to high elves who prefer their secluded, temperate homes to the triton who live beneath the waves and by the shores of the ocean. Elves are less inclusive than humans, and depending on which subrace of elves we’re talking about, they can be somewhat suspicious of strangers, and have a too-haughty attitude due to their intelligence and long lifespans.

Dragonborn vary in their preference depending on their draconic blood, having a natural affinity for certain environments. Dragonborn tend to prefer sticking with their own kind, but they value relations with other races, believing that having strong allies makes them a better, stronger community. They are regarded by others with respect, curiosity, and fear—dragons have always been somewhat sacred or fierce, so dragonborn are treated much in the same vein.

Tieflings usually follow human trends, though many hot-blooded tieflings have a preference for cool or temperate climates. Tieflings are much like halflings/Hin in that they tend to blend in with whatever race surrounds them, but tiefling-led communities are around, and they usually keep to themselves.

Halflings/Hin are amazing farmers and shepherds. They love wide, open-area bits of land and are usually found in the plains. Hin are warm and friendly, and tend to get along with every race as trusted neighbors.

Dwarves occupy mountains and underground cities, though not as deep as their Duergar cousins who prefer their halls even further into the Underdark. Dwarves are friendly enough, and sturdy, but they live long and hold grudges. While they make good trade partners, do not cross a dwarf, and don’t take their invitation to their underground kingdoms lightly.

Aarakocra and Kenku tend to love mountains and high altitudes, though not overly freezing temperatures. Birdfolk like these are curious, and while friendly, they don’t really get the concept of things “belonging” to people—they tend to be thieves to outsiders, though they get confused by that concept since everything in their communities are shared.

Tabaxi thrive in jungles and hot, humid climates, though there are some subraces who prefer the desert life. Tabaxi are somewhat aloof, and prefer relations with others when it benefits themselves.

Orcs vary like humans do and are famous for being able to live and thrive in places that were once thought inhabitable. Orcs are stubborn and tough, and are seen as barbaric by others. In reality, orcs are very friendly to outsiders who show them respect, though they will start wars over grave insults.

Lizardfolk, kobolds, and yuan-ti have preferences for warmer climates, often in jungles, forests, and some in the desert. A few subraces even live near volcanoes (often locally referred to as “lava lizards”). Lizardfolk tend to be suspicious of outsiders, because they themselves are seen as monsters right away and are often hunted and killed under this assumption. Getting to know a lizardfolk surprises them, and may endear you to them.

Then there are other races and people who live between the planes—not of Terrix, and not even of this system.

How are the continents laid out? If there is more than one moon/sun, how does this affect winds, tides, and weather generally?

(Refer to map for continents.) There are six main continents, all of which cover around 33% of the planet's surface. The largest continent is Usratia, followed by Makane, Orcran, Aezith, Pylith, and the freezing continent of the south pole, Edres.

There are three moons: Alodel, Wyna, and Tela. Alodel has a phase length of 18 days. Wyna has a phase length of 27 days. Tela has a phase length of 31 days. Each moon differs in size and all affect the tides, whether slightly or no. All of them are much weaker than the effect of the Moon on the Earth’s tides, however, so their effects aren’t really seen until two moon phases line up with each other. When it is predicted that all three moons line up, people on the shore prepare themselves and there is often a religious celebration with it.

Weather and winds are much like Earth’s, save for some pattern changes due to differing currents. Terrix is a planet full of old magic, and it survives off of this like a life force. Without magic, many of its basic functions would change and would cause worldwide death and disaster. Magical energy weaves throughout all energy of Terrix. It is interwoven with climate shifts, weather, atmosphere, it’s in all the plants and rocks, it’s consumed and used and shifted by the fauna, it lives deep beneath the earth and it surrounds it. If it is tainted, it can cause major shifts in the populace and wipe out billions (this has happened once in the past).

How much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?

The land covers about 1/3 of Terrix’s surface (184,000,000 square miles of the planet’s surface with 60,720,000 square miles of land). The differing humanoid races have different ideas on “habitable” lands (namely the orcs), but if we subtract the freezing north and south poles, and the hottest/driest desert lands, we would have about 38,474,208 square miles of habitable land (approximately 63% of the total landmass).

Is the axial tilt and orbit the same — i.e., does the world have the same seasons and same length of year as Earth?

Terrix has 400 days per year with approximately 100 days per season, which can be more extreme in shifts according to the places closest/nearest the sun. The most widely accepted calendar consists of sixteen months, each with twenty-five days; however, it is more common to name the day, the season, and the year as the date (twenty-first of Winter, 4284). The weeks are the same as Earth (mostly for convenience and not confusing my players) as Sunday-Saturday weeks with 7 days.

#wbj #wbj2017 #worldbuilding #dungeons and dragons #dnd #proto is a dm

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