#easily one of the top 5 most reasonable responses

[lans-rabbit-glade]

man i will forever be so very grateful that the casting team for Word of Honor took one look at Zhou Zishu, a character whose appearance is specifically described as Inconspicuously Plain and Unremarkable and Somewhat Haggard, and went "y'know who we should get to play this guy? Most Gorgeous Human Alive Zhang Zhehan"

like if i were Wen Kexing and i fell in love with a drunken hobo only for him to remove his mask and reveal that he's actually The Most Beautiful Man In The Entire World i'd probably say something dumb as all hell too

[violetasteracademic]

What do you think about the passive language used in azriel’s bonus chapter? Azriel says he found himself entering the foyer right before elain comes and then he finds himself in the library at 7.

Oooooh my darling anon. You have me giddy and kicking my feet with excitement to talk about this! Once again, a simple anon ask has spiraled into a deep crack theory post. This is a long one!

I love this bonus chapter so much. The prose are some of her loveliest work and the treasure trove of details is simply masterful. And I'm so excited about where I think the story is headed.

I definitely understand what you mean regarding passive language: there's a sense of everything happening without intention. In fact- he is explicitly acting against his "every intention." but the devil is in the details. As you said, the bell chime for the seven pm service. The exact same bell chime from when Nesta attended a service and was lulled into non-con scrying session with ancient songs. Ones Clotho just happened upon below level seven of the library one day in a random stack of books. Azriel giving away Elain's necklace to G/wyn or any other priestess who would like it after meaning to return it to the store. There's so much to get into but for the sake of keeping this post a reasonable length (which I still failed at anyway), I am going to hone in on what is, in my opinion, the most important line in the entire G/wyn section of the bonus chapter:

For whatever reason.

One of the most difficult parts about writing is that it is so easy to get hung up on a catch phrase or a certain way of describing things. Whether it is through our subconscious minds, or more intentional developmental edits, there are phrases that invoke something very specific and it is hard not to re-use them. I struggle with this. SJM has definitely come under fire for this as well.

For whatever reason has been used 13 times in the entirety of ACOTAR including the bonus chapter (it takes .5 seconds to type it into the search bar on Kindle and it displays the number count up top, this is not as unhinged as it sounds 🫣) and two of those times were regarding G/wyn, three were regarding the Priestesses, and every single time it was used to express that there is hidden information at play- be in magic, motivations, or machinations- something out of character, or something we do not yet understand. It essentially means that there is a reason, but it is not being revealed.

All of Azriel's passive actions and the little parallels between Azriel's experience with G/wyn and Nesta's experiences in the book (hearing G/wyn's song calling to her, her power rumbling in response to G/wyn, the glow, so on and so forth) are also connected through this line:

Azriel:

Nesta:

If we trust that for whatever reason does in fact indicate that there is a reason, there is an oft overlooked detail that also connects Nesta and Azriel's experience on page: G/wyn's breath.

In Nesta's for whatever reason moment, G/wyn is guiding her through the Valkyrie breathing technique. Nesta continues to focus on G/wyn's breath, which leads her to feeling this rush of thinking about how amazing G/wyn is, how she is good at everything, and somehow nothing about it irks the easily irked Nesta. G/wyn's breath settles her and leaves her content to be there:

Contented. Calm. Distant. Stilled. Resting. These are all of the sensations listening to G/wyn's breath creates. Now let's look at Azriel:

Azriel's shadows hear the silent music in G/wyn's breath. Suddenly, Azriel and his shadows are calm. Content. Stilled. Resting.

Even more interesting? Both of these moments occur after deeply painful moments with Elain. For Nesta, this takes place after Elain calls her out for focusing on what Elain's trauma did to her. Azriel is obviously wrecked from being ordered away from Elain. Then they both find themselves with G/wyn, there is a pointed experience of them interacting with her breath, and they are suddenly distantly removed from the situation that was ailing them mentally. Settled, calmed and feeling abnormally giddy over thoughts of G/wyn and how amazing she is and how happy they are to make her happy- for whatever reason.

Now, if you are still with me, we are REALLY going to get into some crack theory.

I do not believe that it is a coincidence that in a book where Nesta and Cassian were the two POV's, only Nesta and Azriel experienced G/wyn's lulling effects. We are dipping into major HoFaS spoilers here, so stop now if you don't want to move ahead!

In HoFaS, we learned the Cauldron has been corrupted by the Asteri. They pooled their power into it so that it would work their will. I think there is likely a push and pull for power within the Cauldron itself between the dark corruption of the Asteri and the original power of fate and creation by the Mother. Both entities exist within the Cauldron, if you will. We also learn that Truth-Teller was made in the Cauldron as a weapon against the Asteri. But we also learn that Azriel himself was a weapon crafted by the Asteri:

I believe this is in reference to Shadowsingers, but either way, there is a suggestion that whoever- what ever- Azriel is, it was crafted by the Asteri.

I also believe that whatever Nesta stole from the Cauldron was not the power that the Mother had gifted to Elain when it recognized her, perhaps the Archeron bloodline (let's not forget the Bone Carver's words about salvation laying dormant in a human bloodline), but the dark corruption of the Asteri.

No longer just a tool of creation, but a deadly tool of destruction. Nesta's power of death. And Silene's parents turned the horrors it produced to their advantage. I assume this is in reference to Truth-Teller, the knife that can unmake things which was created the Starborn bloodline to defeat the Asteri:

A tool not of creation, but of destruction. Unmaking.

I absolutely love Azriel and Nesta's friendship, but I also think there is something deeper going on here. I think Nesta and Azriel both experience the weight of the darkness of the Asteri's powers. Yes, they both have trauma. But they also are deeply unsettled people who fight incredibly hard against the darkness that weighs on them.

I believe both Nesta and Azriel carry the literal corruption of the Asteri, and it is something only they, and not the rest of their family, has to fight. They are doing it. And they also lean on each other in a very deep and beautiful way.

UGH. I love them, Your Honor.

I also believe that Nesta gave back her corrupted powers at the end of ACOSF (hopefully). And the mother interrupted her giving back all of her power, leaving only what the Mother intended remaining. Nesta seems much calmer and more settled in HoFaS, and while we can attribute it to her emotional growth, I think again it is extremely important that Nesta and Azriel, the only two characters to have been affected by G/wyn's luring, were also the main characters in the crossover where the corruption of the Cauldron is revealed.

Okay- but what does this have to do with G/wyn? I know, I know, G/wyn's lightsinger theory is the most accepted theory. And it might be true. But I also don't think it is everything. There is more going on here, and something that specifically leaves Nesta and Azriel susceptible. Nesta was also welcomed to the library to work with the priestesses in ACOSF for whatever reason.

I have made a few posts now about the Priestesses as the likely next mini villains in the upcoming ACOTAR book in alliance with Vallahan. You can read those here and here if you are interested. But I believe the invoking stones of the priestesses might come into play. In this case, what is occurring isn't specific to G/wyn, and I don't believe that she is the only one that could have this affect on Azriel and Nesta. Or maybe it's both, her lightsinger abilities allow her to lure while the invoking stones allow her to lull. Either way, there is a wider picture of the Priestesses and the secret powers they hold involved.

G/wyn believes that the stones are filled with the power of the Mother, and can only be used to protect and not harm. However, Ianthe also used her invoking stone (that was my interpretation, anyways) to lull guards to sleep. Feyre also questions if the invoking stones contain power far deadlier. Lucien confirms that the power the priestesses hold can be utterly lethal if they choose it.

If the invoking stones are also Cauldron Made, then they too carry both life and death. Creation and destruction. Protection and harm. I truly believe that G/wyn is completely ignorant to her own power, what the stones are capable of, and what the intentions of some of the corrupt Priestesses are. To destroy the rule of the High Lord's and regain their power:

The feminist in me is like yes queens, get off your knees and take your power back. But in this context, I think we can safely assume this is not a good thing, as we know many of the High Priestesses are also corrupted and do not have good intentions.

I think there is a lot of evidence that the like calls to like occurring very specifically between Azriel, Nesta, and G/wyn, might have less to do with the (very fair and again possibly correct) theory that G/wyn is a light singer and much more to do with the warped power of the Asteri. I think it is most likely Gwyn is not a villain, nor has any impure intention in her heart. But she does believe in her religion, in the Priestesses, and that they solely enact the power of the Mother for good. That leaves her in a position to be easily manipulated by the "promise" of greater good. The sole fact that she doesn't even think the invoking stone or power of the priestesses is capable of harming when we know otherwise says a lot about her indoctrination.

I also don't even know if G/wyn will specifically play a role in what I assume will be the future luring and lulling of Azriel, or if she was just a deeper representation of the power the priestesses hold. Either is definitely possible.

So yes, Azriel was acting out of character, a bit dazed and passive and almost in a trance. Just as he and Nesta had both experienced around G/wyn before.

For whatever reason.

[batsplat]

your top 5 fave motogp races? or alternatively what races you’d show to a newbie to get them into the sport or smth

one of those things where it's painful to pick five, but at least this ask gives me the chance to hedge my bets and pick five different races for each category (most of these races will be featured in the recs lists; 27, 4+93, 46)

laguna '08: works wonders to bring both that season and the rivalry alive. delightfully visceral and vicious, there's few duels that tell you quite so much about both participants. I have lap-by-lap notes for this race. I have points tables assessing how much of a turning point it was in the season. I have read the bit in casey's autobiography about this race about a million times. how their expectations going in influenced the dynamics of the race, how the slower man won the race, what valentino was attempting to do to casey, casey's response... I could quite literally talk about this race forever

phillip island '17: idk I don't think this is objectively 'better' than the other two infamous dogfights of that era (pi '15; assen '18), but sometimes you just notice which one has the most rewatch value for you... I really like races where risk/reward calculation is a big deal, where at least one of the riders is having to actively judge how much they're willing to do to win... with the hard style of racing in this one, those calculations feel particularly present. phillip island is in such a perfect calendar spot for generating maximum drama

misano '17: maybe the quirkiest pick. marc is too good and too successful for me to ever really have been 'stressed' watching him in his prime, but bloody hell did he run me close here. something so satisfying about being so adept in wet/mixed conditions... love the spite element of this race, love the risk/reward calculations, how marc just needs to go for it in the very final lap, his dogged determination... a race where he doesn't have a massive margin over the field but just wants it so so badly that he goes for it. he's making a statement, bouncing back from a low point in the season, super compelling stuff

mugello '04: just love races that are kinda a mess! lots of twists and turns... bunch of riders fighting it out, the sete duel, the rain interruption, bunch of riders fighting it out but now on a way more slippery track... I don't know, there's just something charming about a race that has a bit of everything! of course it's also part of my beloved 2004 season, from which I could have easily included five different races (and if you're ever looking for a full season to watch, 2004 2006 and 2017 are the holy trinity - mix of title fight drama and banger races)

okay listen I'm gonna cheat here because I wrote out the word 'catalunya' and then had a crisis staring at this post. '07 I need to include because it's my favourite casey win and it's how he establishes himself as an all-round threat and is so important in the overall context of the valentino rivalry, but '09 is like... right up there with laguna as season lynchpin races and also somehow jorge has been left out from these picks... I love big momentum-switchers I love races that have so much meaning in the context of a rivalry AND season. I also love how they're connected! that valentino did the same move on casey (just not on the final lap) and had basically already rehearsed his coup de grâce two years in advance, before visualising it the week before the race... casey joking about it in the catalunya '09 presser, jorge knowing he kinda should have seen it coming, casey kinda ragging on jorge for not having seen it coming... idk!! I like this little legacy they built there together

for newbies

phillip island '23: you need to include something a little more current to give new fans a reason to watch now... phillip island races are reliably great - this one introduces you to two of the major protagonists of the current game in a way that kind tells you a lot about both of them, gives you a demonstration of one of the best types of races (the multi-rider dogfight), and it also is the most brute force way imaginable of explaining how tyres work in motogp. pedagogically pleasing! it's the kind of race new viewers will be able to enjoy in the moment, but have a lot of questions about afterwards - the sweet spot

assen '15: easily makes my top five rewatched races too, but I put it under the newbie header because again... tells you a lot! it's very likely this hypothetical newbie will have at least have SOME knowledge of who the two protagonists are and know they've fallen out, though I suppose it'd be funny to go in completely blind. obviously a great duel and a very nice introduction to the two big names plus their respective riding styles... what you really want is some late drama and a controversial finish that you can immediately have a hot take about

donington '05: we need a full wet race, not just mixed but wet wet... this one's got one hell of an attrition rate but also proper tussling between the different riders, rather than everyone just riding out on their own. it really gives you a feeling for how these kinds of races work... lot of riders wobbling around, saving near-falls, trying to get a sense of how much they can risk, riding behind each other to have somebody else test out their conditions... plus, the valentino performance kinda slaps

austria '17: got to be a marc/dovi duel in here, and this one has the clear edge not as much for the race itself but a) the novelty at the time, and b) the significance in the title fight. in dovi you've got somebody who is emerging as a threat and is providing a new flavour of challenge.... there's also that fun tension between how marc logically very much should just be happy to be there as a result of what a ducati circuit it is and he's simply supposed to be limiting the points damage... but he also really, really wants to win... actually either this or motegi 2017, almost want to change my pick. one of those two!!

brno '03: sneaking in an old race as a gateway drug, and I think this one is quite 'accessible' to the uninitiated. I considered other ones like phillip island '01 (valentino's first premier class matchpoint race, classic dogfight) or welkom '04 (first yamaha race and one of the duels) - but I think you don't need much context to get absorbed in this one. the race commentary already gives you the most important information... valentino's struggles that season, the criticisms he was facing from the italian press, how badly he wanted to win, the haircut, all of it... and then you get to see the post-race prisoner's celebrations, a flavour of the proper classic camp dramatics

slightly silly number of honourable mentions, each of which I was extremely tempted to include: motegi '10, jerez 2005, misano '19, laguna '11, jerez '10, assen '04, catalunya '04 '05 '16, mugello '05 '06, sachsenring '06, assen '04, phillip island '04, le mans 2005, qatar 2005, suzuka '01, thailand '19, austria '19, qatar '18, silverstone '19, sachsenring '10, qatar '15, mugello '16, sepang '10, assen '07 (and ones I did already kinda mention above: phillip island '15, assen '18, phillip island '01, welkom '04, motegi '17)

[serasfanfiction]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3| Part 4 | Part 5| Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Lucifer was a vast number of things. He'd even admit to most of them.

Stupid enough to deal with Alastor while having been up for two days and only running on a few sips of coffee was not one of them.

After laying out some of the finer details of his plans with the group, he'd retreated back to his room to get some actual sleep. He kept the mug out of a bout of petty spite that likely wouldn't amount to anything in the end other than his own amusement. He left the mug on one of the bedside tables, largely undrunk from, before falling into bed.

It was a testament to how tired he was that he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. How thin he was pulling himself that he slept through the rest of the day and all through the night. When he next woke, he didn't necessarily feel well rested, but his mind was clearer, which was the important part. When he got dressed, it was in full suit and hat.

Alastor had already demonstrated he was very good at seeing right through him. There was little reason to give him even more ammunition by not showing up in top form.

A glance at his clock showed that it was still morning, but not so early it might be perceived as impolite to go knocking on someone's door. Which is what he found himself actually doing for a change, when he took the time to knock on Alastor's door.

For several long moments, there was no sign of movement from within. Lucifer hadn't been paying any attention to the deer demon's comings and goings, so he had no idea if he was even in the hotel at the moment. There was always a possibility he could be in his radio station, but the On Air light had been off since the hotel was rebuilt.

He was just about to withdraw to see if Alastor might be some where else within the hotel, when a noise came from within. Seconds later, the door opened to reveal that the room's occupant was indeed at home.

Lucifer studied the Overlord. Nothing about his appearance suggested why it might have taken him so long to answer. There was not a single thing out of place about him, save the continued absence of his microphone. Even his smarmy smile was it's usual self.

Alastor feigned surprise as he gazed down on the being standing outside his door. "Your Majesty, what a surprise! How can I help you on such short notice?"

Lucifer ignored the potential jab at his height, used to it by now. It was worth it to see the slight tightening of Alastor's smile when he refused to engage with it. Instead, he replied in a bored tone, "I request an audience with the Overlord Alastor."

Alastor's eyes narrowed, cottoning on to the fact that this wasn't actually a request. Refusing to be the first to miss a step in their little dance, he fell easily into the roll of host. "Please, come in! Do excuse the lack of hospitality. I wasn't expecting guests today."

Lucifer stepped into the room and was immediately hit with the pungent scent of rotting flesh. His fingers curled around his cane as he fought the urge to cover his face. A quick glance around revealed the smell was coming from the partially decomposed carcass of a deer laid out across the lone table out in the bayou.

Disgusting.

Alastor was completely unfazed, as usual, to the response to his diet. "I was just in the process of eating breakfast." He glanced at Lucifer out of the corner of his eye, smile a touch more amused. "Would you care to join me?"

Lucifer swallowed back a gag at the mere idea. The only response he cared to give to that was to wave his hand, erasing the poor thing from existence. "Thank you for the ...offer... but I'll pass, thank you very much."

The redhead blinked once at the loss of his breakfast, before shrugging. He turned his full attention to his guest with a clap of his hands. "Very well, now that you've cost me my breakfast, tell me however I can be of assistance! Do be quick, though, I do have a meeting later today with my fellow Overlords."

Without so much as a twitch, Lucifer cast his net over the room. Alastor, prey instincts very much alive and well under it all, noticed the change in the room immediately. He hid it well, but the flattening of his ears gave away his irritation at being trapped.

Lucifer was beginning to get the sense that Alastor didn't care for being reminded that he could be rendered powerless. The king didn't intend to escalate this any further than necessary, but he needed Alastor's full and undivided attention.

And judging by the poorly veiled look of anger being directed at him, he had it.

"This discussion will last as long as I require it to." Keeping to the bored facade, Lucifer led with, "It is the topic of the other Overlords I wished to discuss with you."

Alastor was quick to recover, effecting a similar attitude. "Come now, sire. If you wanted to talk about the attacks, we both know this show of power is unnecessary."

White clad shoulders rose in a shrug. "The last time we talked, I needed you for something. This time I would merely like your cooperation."

The redhead tilted his head ever so slightly too far to the side, eyebrow raised. For the first time since his domain had been intruded upon, he looked intrigued. With a flick of the hand, he indicated for Lucifer to continue.

Well, here they went. "I plan to have a reminder televised and broadcast to everyone that while I might not care about Hell, I do care about anything that endangers my daughter."

Alastor threw him a shrewd look. "Television isn't really my thing, so I fail to see how I come into this."

"What I'm about to do might cause some... upset." Lucifer gestured to Alastor. "I'm asking for a show of solidarity from you when I do it."

He got a hum in response to that, neither interested nor dismissive. "And what, pray tell, is this mysterious action you plan to do that's so going to upset people?"

Lucifer allowed himself to smile, letting hints of his malicious intent peak through. "I plan to break Angel's contract."

Slowly, Alastor's smile widened until every single one of his teeth could be seen, something outright sinister to it. When he laughed, there was a touch of mania to it. "Oh my! I've often dreamed of causing a stir, but I think this might take the cake, my good man!" He laughed again, as if genuinely amused by over how much potential chaos this was going to cause.

From some of the stories Vaggie had told him, Lucifer supposed he would find such a thing amusing. Alastor was here because he was bored, was he not?

Lucifer allowed him another moment with his amusement, before pointedly clearing his throat.

Taking the cue, Alastor reigned his amusement back in. It still colored his voice as he pointed out, "I still hardly see why you would need my help with this little plan."

It was time to show a few of his cards, he supposed. Reaching out, Lucifer took hold of a random one of Alastor's contracts, grip only enough to bring it into existence. The redhead's eyes ticked to it, acknowledging it. The blonde, having no intention of doing anything with it, released it, allowing it to vanish. "As easy as it is to break one of these silly little deals you all like to make amongst yourselves, I need to be near either the contractor or the contracted. And as much as I'm sure Angel likes being in front of a camera," he leaned forward, fingers of his right hand tapping on the top of his cane, "I thought it might be more ...satisfying to see the look on Valentino's face when I do it."

There was nothing feigned about Alastor's amusement. Lucifer was entertaining him and they both knew it. Still, he was ever the one to play hard to get. "What you're proposing could incite a war between the Vees and the hotel."

Lucifer snorted. "You could care less about any conflict with the Vees and we both know it."

Alastor hummed, not denying it. "Perhaps, but we've only just survived one all-out assault. Do you really want to risk Charlie's safety in another?"

Ultimately, Lucifer waved the concern away. "If necessary, I'll just eradicate the Vees and allow the ensuing power vacuum to distract everyone. It might be the perfect opportunity to install someone who is ...better controlled in their place."

Alastor shivered, though out of excitement or something else, it was hard to tell. "How positively cutthroat."

The blonde stared expectantly. When he didn't receive any further comments, he asked, "Well?"

The redhead stared back. "To agree to this could threaten the balance I have with the other Overlords." He examined his claws, as if check to see how sharp they were. "Please forgive my hesitation to agree to this with hast without some stipulations of my own."

Lucifer sighed and resisted the urge to role his eyes, having seen this coming a mile away. "Of course." He lifted a hand from his cane to flick his fingers in a 'go on' gesture. "Well, what do you want?"

Alastor made a show of studying him, likely trying to figure out what he could get away with asking for. "Do I have time to think about it?"

Lucifer laughed, a short, single, "HA!" What did this guy take him for? A fool? Maybe if the smarmy bastard had the slightest clue how to not be a smarmy bastard that might have been an option, but Alastor was a textbook example of a person who would take someone for all they were worth if they so much as showed him a single bit of leeway. Enjoying the way the redhead's eye twitched in irritation, Lucifer pointed out, "You're the one that said you had a meeting later today, did you not?"

He let the threat of them staying in this room until either they hashed out an agreement, or Lucifer was sent away empty handed hang in the air.

In the wake of having the upper hand, Lucifer forgot how petty Alastor could be. He may have indeed been on a deadline, but it was becoming increasingly clear after the first hour that said meeting wasn't as early in the day as the blonde had hoped. Alastor gave very little away as he pondered his options, the very picture of someone who had all the time in the world. He did glance up in the general direction of his radio tower, at some point, his eyes narrowing speculatively, but was otherwise a blank slate.

Lucifer understood petty spite, willing to match it toe to toe with any irritating little upstart who thought they were bigger than they really were, but even he had his limits. As the first hour crept into the second, his good graces were starting to run out. It would be nice not to have to fight this battle on two fronts, but he didn't actually need Alastor.

Perhaps noticing his window was closing, Alastor placed a single finger tip to his lips thoughtfully. "I would like to warn Rosie and Carmilla Carmine ahead of the broadcast." At the blonde's indication he was listening, the redhead explained, "Rosie was kind enough to supply the manpower to defend the hotel during the last extermination day. Carmine supplied the weapons. It's polite to warn our allies about such drastic moves." He smiled as if he cared about both of them, as opposed to just Cannibal Town's Overlord. "We don't want them to think we suspect them of attacking the hotel, now do we?"

Translation: Alastor wanted it to look like Carmilla was more an ally than she actually was. It wouldn't matter if she actually was or not. Everyone else would think she was.

Lucifer nodded, already tired of the political BS. "Fine. Next?"

"I want two favors: one up front, one at a later time of my choosing." Alastor leaned forward, eyes dimly glowing. "And this will be a binding deal."

Warning bells went off in the back of Lucifer's mind. He shook his head. "No open ended favors. Name the favor's now or chose something else."

There was a pause, long enough he thought Alastor might actually chose something else. He watched the redhead straighten, a war clearly being fought behind that smile of his.

Finally, Alastor sighed, put upon. "Very well." He spun on his heel, heading in the direction of what appeared to be the roof access door. He turned his head enough to glance at Lucifer over his shoulder. "Come along, I will show you the first favor."

Intrigued despite himself, Lucifer followed him. The door was correctly placed to be somehow connected to the Radio Demon's infamous radio tower. To his knowledge, no one but Alastor himself ever went into there and came back out alive. Even as they had rebuilt everything else, Lucifer hadn't gone any more near the tower than necessary, mostly reviving it from the remains of the original and simply restoring it.

Lucifer blamed not noticing the way Alastor was watching him on the fact that he was just so damn curious. If he had, he would have noticed the shit eating grin on the redhead's face before he used one of his shadows to open the access way.

There was no stairs. In fact, there was no enclosed structure at all. The access way opened up right under the steel beams that supported the tower to the side of the building.

Lucifer gaped, incredulous. "You want us to climb that?"

"Oh, heavens, no! I can't speak for you, but this demon would never resort to such monkey shenanigans." A laugh track went off around them, the sound creepy without any radios near by. Alastor leaned in until they were nearly nose to nose as Lucifer squinted at him. "My first favor is in my booth. I usually just travel by shadow up there, which I'd be more than happy to do for both of us if you'd lower the shield...?"

Lucifer's squint turned suspicious. "Absolutely not." It was simple to extend the barrier and then open a portal of his own straight into the studio. He smirked. "After you."

Alastor looked disappointed at being deprived of his fun, but stepped through with an air of good-nature. Lucifer followed, already taking in the room as he did so.

The room was of decent size. Electronic equipment took up the majority of one side of the room, a small couch/bench stationed in front of it. The room had that same voodoo-swamp-old fashion vibe Alastor's room had. A lamp with eyes that followed them as they moved cast a warm yellow glow throughout the room. A coat rack made from a deer's antlers sat off to the side and somehow Alastor had gotten cattails to grow up through the otherwise metal floor. The most interesting thing in the room, though, sat on the table in front of the radio equipment.

It was Alastor's mysteriously missing microphone.

As if in a trance and unable to take his eyes off it, Lucifer crossed the room to exam it more closely. Someone had taken something just sharp enough to it, slicing it in two. He had only peripherally paid attention to the staff the last time he'd seen it, hadn't thought too much of it. Thought the pole the microphone sat on looked almost flimsy. Up close, it was easier to see that it was far sturdier than it had appeared at first glance. Whatever had broken it had to have been powerful.

A bigger picture was starting to take shape. Something they'd all just overlooked because Alastor was just that good at pretending to be fine.

But here was proof of the cracks, carefully hidden away where no one would dare to look for it.

"Is this Adam's work?"

Alastor's expression twisted with distain, his fingers fidgeting like they wanted to tap something. "I admit I underestimated that cur and his downright ridiculous axe."

Like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place, dozens of little things Lucifer had observed over the weeks since he had moved in suddenly made sense. "You were hit by Adam's guitar?" Horror and reluctant awe (and maybe a tiny bit of worry) took up residence in his chest completely taking out his brain to mouth filter. "How are you still alive?"

Alastor, of course, only chose to focus on the worry. "I'm touched, your Majesty. Is that concern I hear in your voice?" If his smile got any larger, it was going to split his face in two.

Knowing him, maybe it could.

Lucifer grit his teeth. Why did he want this guy's help again? Surely nothing was worth this. Glaring, he snarled, "If I was, I'm not anymore." Wanting to wipe that smile off his face, schooled his features into something smug. "So, why haven't you fixed it? It's almost been two months."

Some of that amusement smoothed into something closer to frustration. "It's not as simple as it looks." When Lucifer didn't look convinced, Alastor waved a hand towards the staff.

Not seeing what the big deal was, Lucifer reached out and placed a hand over the area where the pole had broken. At first, the staff seemed to be little more than a prop, an object Alastor favored and was clearly attached to.

But the longer Lucifer touched the object, the more he began to suspect that there might be more to it than just an inanimate object. In fact, if he didn't know better, he could almost swear he felt--

Under his fingers, was the unmistakable ba-bump of a heartbeat.

Startled, Lucifer jerked his hands away. "It's alive?!" He went to take a step backward, only to back right up into a solid body. Lucifer froze, suddenly hyper aware of the line of heat pressed up against his back.

So stunned by what he told himself was the sheer audacity of this sinner, Lucifer simply stared as Alastor ran a hand down his arm, half leaning over him as the redhead guided their hands back to the microphone. Bracketed by Alastor from behind and the living(?) staff under his hand, when Lucifer heard the heartbeat again, he heard its twin against his back. "Oh. It's... you?"

"A part of me, yes." Alastor pulled away, his hand withdrawing like a caress.

Lucifer shuddered from the chill at his back, goosebumps raising all along his arm. He was never more thankful he wore long sleeves then he was in that moment, as he cursed the redhead for his utter and complete lack of respect for other people's personal space. He swallowed around his discomfort. "Your first favor is to fix this?"

He couldn't see it, but he could hear the smug grin in Alastor's voice. "My microphone is as much a part of my image as I imagine your cane is. We wouldn't want any flaws in the front we're putting up, now would we?"

Lucifer suspected there was more to this than Alastor wanting to preserve some image. Unlike his cane, the microphone seemed to actually be a part of Alastor in some way. Being deprived of it had to have depleted him in some way. Using a favor for something like this meant that it was important.

Feeling like he might be making a mistake, although he wasn't sure how, Lucifer turned around to face the other. "I accept the terms. What is your second favor?"

The redhead's expression schooled itself into a perfectly blank smile. "I can't tell you."

The blond felt a rise of irritation. "Pass, try again--"

"I really can't tell you." The depth of seriousness in Alastor's tone caused Lucifer to pause. The redhead's smile tightened in a grimace, and for the briefest of seconds, the blonde thought he saw the green glow of stitches along his lips.

Lucifer frowned. If he didn't know any better, he would have said those stitches were literally keeping Alastor's mouth shut.

Pulling his composure back together, all vulnerability smoothed away into Alastor's default host façade. "I assure you, what I plan to ask for is within your abilities. No one else need get involved. We don't even have to leave my room."

Lucifer studied him. "Will this favor put Charlie in danger?"

Alastor softened, although it was only skin deep. "Not a hair will be harmed on our precious Charlie's head."

He still had his reservations. Those alarm bells were going off like mad, but as long as Charlie wasn't in danger... "How will I know what your favor is if you can't tell me?"

A red clawed hand waved the question away. "Details will be delivered when the time is right."

Oh, he really shouldn't do this. Lucifer knew this, but... He sighed. "Fine, I accept." He pointed a finger at Alastor, narrowly stopping right under his nose just for the pleasure of seeing the deer demon go cross eyed to glare at it. "But if you pull any funny business whatsoever, I don't care if Charlie likes you or not, you are done."

Alastor side stepped the offending limb, holding out his hand. Around them, the shadows in the corners of the room began to dance and writhe with anticipation. "Ah, does that mean we have a deal?"

Lucifer eyed the hand, mouth turning down into a severe frown. He wanted this to be the end of the negotiations. Wanted things to end while he was still in a favorable spot. He still could. He didn't have to do this. He was so tired of their games.

"There's one more thing."

Alastor's patience was a strained thing. It seemed he wasn't the only one wanting to strike while the iron was hot. "Oh?"

Here they went.

"Release Husk from his contract."

Alastor stood completely frozen, a sign Lucifer was coming to suspect might be his way of hiding any immediate, knee jerk reactions and to buy himself a moment to think of an appropriate response. "Come again?"

Lucifer merely stared back. They both knew he'd heard him.

Alastor drew back, studying him like an entirely new specimen had just skittered across his desk and the redhead had no idea what to make of him. "Now, why ever would you care about Husker's contract?"

Lucifer knew he shouldn't be getting involved with this. This was already messy with getting involved with Angel's and Valentino's business. That he atleast could blame on the fact that Charlie had asked him.

Getting involved with this couldn't be blamed on Charlie, beyond the fact she'd invited him into her home and hadn't kicked him back out. All of this looked a lot like proof that underneath all his apathy, Lucifer still had the capacity for empathy.

And that was sort of the problem, wasn't it? Allowing himself to care - admitting that he cared already - about Angel's plight meant he had to admit he wasn't blind to Husk's.

Not to mention... Husk had been kind to him, in his own gruff way. There were nonalcoholic drinks on the menu at the bar, because the bartender had figured out the King of Hell wasn't big on alcohol. Husk hadn't judged him that time he had decided to drink, recognizing he wasn't doing well that day. He'd simply known when it was time to cut him off and send him off to bed.

There was absolutely no reason for him to have involved himself the night after Lucifer's and Alastor's first deal. Stood absolutely nothing to gain from warning him, considering everything pointed to Lucifer potentially using him to make a point.

Without meaning to, his mind went back to the expression on Husk's face as Lucifer and Angel discussed the plan with the promise to come back to it when they weren't both half dead from exhaustion. Even with the new information that there were other options to get out of contracts, Husk hadn't once held hope for himself. If anything, there was only the simple, sincere congratulations that Angel was going to regain his freedom.

Despite himself, Lucifer could feel that same guilt rising up again when he couldn't afford to be showing any weaknesses.

Judging by the way Alastor's features sharpened, a shark scenting blood in the water, he'd already messed that one up.

Sure enough. "I see." The redhead was aglow - literally - with his manic delight. "Oh, my dear, dear, sire. You've grown attached."

Lucifer said nothing, having already said too much already. It hardly mattered at this point, as his silence was telling enough.

Alastor's own carefully contained movements as he circled around the room - around his king - were telling in their own way. The redhead knew exactly what he wanted, he was simply covering up his eagerness with the veneer of patience. "Husker is one of my prized contracts. It brought me great joy when I won it." He paused, eyes dim as he lost himself in the memory. His expression growing more sadistic. "It would pain me to lose one of my favorites."

Lucifer turned his lip up, disgusted with the song and dance. "You have other toys."

The redhead hummed in agreement as the blonde likely wasn't wrong there. Still, "Regardless, as former business partners and long time associates, Husker knows things about me I'd prefer not to be spread around."

"Then renegotiate the contract," Lucifer countered, unimpressed with the flimsy excuse to get out of giving up Husk's soul. He tapped his cane against the floor sharply. "Don't forget I can simply get rid of it if I so choose. I don't need for you to agree."

Alastor dissolved into his shadows. While he was restricted from leaving the confines of his quarters, he could still move around the area inside the barrier. Lucifer regretted not having cutting that off as his eyes darted around the studio, trying to anticipate where he would reappear.

Hands wrapped around his shoulders, deceptively gentle. Warm breathe brushed his ear, as Alastor drawled, "And yet you asked me anyway."

Lucifer turned his head until he could see Alastor's face out of the corner of his eye. His body warred with itself as the redhead drew his right hand up the blonde's shoulder, the sharp points of Alastor's claws coming to rest against Lucifer's juggler.

"Give me unlimited access to your blood," Alastor tapped his finger tips against racing pulse, "and I will renegotiate Husker's contract. Our dear Husk gets his soul and freedom back in exchange for his silence and you get to assuage your guilt over the fact that you didn't just do it in the first place."

Lucifer shivered, finally giving into the urge to step out of Alastor's grasp and putting some distance between them. He shouldn't have ignored whatever he was feeling towards the redhead. How low had he fallen that Alastor's attentions, never born out of anything other than the sinner's twisted hunt for amusement, was preferable to being alone?

He wondered if Alastor understood that Lucifer wasn't the only one getting in too deep with this move. There would be consequences to this. Right in that moment, the Devil decided the punishment for Alastor's hubris would be that he would allow the sinner to discover the depths of those consequences on his own.

Lucifer turned around, refusing to have this little back and forth with his back to Alastor. "No yanking my chain." His tone made it clear there was no room for negotiation there. "Send me a message like a normal person."

Alastor blinked, pleasantly surprised Lucifer was actually going to say yes. Perhaps this is why he agreed so easily, saying, "Of course! I'm hardly a savage." He pondered the situation, adding, "I expect a response promptly, say, no less than a few hours...?"

The blonde snorted at the idea of the redhead being anything other than a savage. Posture stern, he countered with, "24 hours."

The redhead hummed, leaning forward to put himself just on the edges of Lucifer's personal space. "Twelve hours, and I'll make allowances for political meeting spill overs."

Oh, he'd 'make allowances,' would he? Lucifer gave into the urge to roll his eyes, but otherwise acquiesced. "Fine."

Alastor's form lit up with glowing green symbols, stiches visible for all to see. The shadows along the edges of the room danced with near frenzy. "Then we have a deal?"

Lucifer looked at Alastor's hand. Raised his eyes to lock gazes with the sinner he was about to tie himself to potentially until death did they part. Thought about what Alastor's expression would be when he realized the hole he was digging for himself. It brought a smile to own his face.

A hint, a shadow of doubt took root in Alastor's eyes, but it was much too late to back out now. Before either of them could second guess this, The King of Hell, his own demonic attributes on full display, reached out and took the Radio Demon's hand.

"Deal."

tbc

Part 10

[riririkinzi]

NIMONA GOLDENHEART HEADCANONS

In the comic version, Bal is older while Ambro is younger

But in the film version, Bal younger while ambro is older

When Bal started his training, he has to tie his hair tightly 24/7, from ponytail to hairbun.

Bal was a very shy, introverted and quiet kid, so Ambro greeted first but Bal worries that he might be like Todd and his goons.

If one of those who have the most sense of humor it's Ambrosius, he always the one who makes Bal laugh and smile and loves doing so.

Bal fell first, because of how Ambro easily charms Bal with his golden retriever energy, but Ambro fell harder for his skills, pretty eyes and smile.

But he soon warms up to Ambro and often approaches to him evertime.

He'd let Ambro play with his hair, from hairstyling to accessories.

He was even suprised that Bal's natural hair is wavy curls and he adores it very much.

When Ambro saw Bal in his haircut, short and straight, he'd ugly cried with the snot on his nose because he's gonna miss playing with Bal's hair.

Baby Ambro: (Sobbing) Why!? Why must you cut off your beautiful hair Bal!?

(Even Valerin is upset but does not show it)

Bal pretty cries with his rosy cheeks and big round eyes, Ambro ugly cries with snots.

As kids, Ambro talks, likes to run around and play in the dirt, while Bal listens, reads and stays under the shade.

When it comes to how they sing, Bal sings like an angel, something like this but doesn't believe that it's good. But Ambro does and he adores it, while Ambro sings off Key and something like this.

And they still do as adults

Who ever's responsible on making Bal laugh, it's Ambro because he loves seeing Bal laugh and smile, and must keep going, even Ambro's terrible singing makes Bal laughed so hard.

When Bal's not training, he often goes to the garden to read, holds out his fingers so he can hope for a butterfly to come.

For Ambro's parents, I'm tired of snobby asshole parents, I mean the bloodline last a thousand years, I'm sure it happened to his parents before because based on some fics I read, I hc that he has both loving and supportive moms, and adores Bal more than Ambro does.

Ambro's mom: (cuddling baby Bal) "Ambrosius dear, who's this little kitty he's adorable".

Ambro's dog coded energy is something he inherited from his mama

During pre teens, Bal came out as trans to Valerin first, saying that he doesn't feel like a girl but rather than a boy, he got his top surgery way in hie late teens.

During the night before the day when they have no training or studying, Ambro and Bal would have small make out sessions, but the reason why it's short because Bal worries that they might get in trouble.

If you're wondering who gets into many fights, it's Ambrosius, because he's so sick of Todd and his cronie's shit, but Bal often prevents the fights from happening but sometimes it doesn't work.

The way how Ambro dressed, is simple, comfy practical, such as simple hoodies, sweaters, sweatpants, simple sneakers and comfy loose short, in bright, pastel and muted tones and etc.

For Bal he'd wear something academic, studious, simple and 5% formal like, academia but comfy, such as blouse and sweater vest, turtle necks and some simple yet causal pants, in pastel, earthy, eye catching and dark tones, because he often worries of how people will see him.

During the post canon, Ambro choice of clothing stays the same except more free spirited, some ear piercings and let his hair grow a bit longer.

But for Bal, he started wearing more gothic and emo, black and dark tones more with earrings and ear piercings too, along with makeuo, such as eyelinear, surma, and masscara as he slowly reaches out of his shell thanks to Nimona.

Ambro wakes up first since he's the early bird, and everytime he does, he always kisses his sleepy Ballister good morning and kisses him good night if Bal falls asleep first.

Like canon, Ambro's the big spoon, a very clingy big spoon, and Bal's the lil spoon.

Ambro's love language is act of service, qualite time physical touch which means he's super clingy to Bal like a puppy, while Bal's language is also the same but physical touch in a delicate way head petting.

Who handles spicy food the longest?

Todd can only last a bite

Diego can last half of the meal

Ambro would finish almost the whole meal before chugging down a gallons of ice cold water.

But for Bal and Nimona, it's childs play for them, they'd add extra hot sauce that would scare the heck out of everyone.

Ambro's scared of dentist and big injection, so every appointment he always have to hold onto something or hand everytime.

And when he realise that Nimona shared the same fear of Injections, during Nimona's first appointment, he hides them in his pockets, but Bal caught them.

Ambrosuis's pet name for Ballister: Princess, sweatheart, kitten, 주방, 천사, Babydoll ,Doll.

Ballisters's pet name for Ambrosius: Darling, rose, Ambro, پیاری, دھوپ.

Want some smut headcanons and more?

Staytuned for the reblog

[desktop-writes]

Static on the Screen | 02

--The Big Fish Leaves it's Small Pond--

<|AO3|Gala Au|SotS|>

(<- Part 2 of 14 ->)

[1|_|3|4|5|6]

{TW: Legal Dehumanization, forced imprisonment, corrupt government agency}

[Words: 8,338 ]

*Note: For any overarching triggers, please click on the Gala Au tab at the top. For warnings regarding this specific fic, please click on the SotS tab.*

They said they were sick.

At the time, it was a reasonable response to the question of why they couldn’t leave town. People were only just starting to recover from Spectra’s ecto-bug-induced sickness. It would have cause mass hysteria -and then mass death once people burned up from the ever-increasing power- if it reached the greater public. The people of Amnity Park had put faith in their government to do what was needed and went about their day. There were still people who were recovering that needed tending to.

It was two months after the sickness that things went back to almost normal. Different stores opened back up. School had started once again. People were healthy enough to go outside and do things. The only thing different was the bubble that had encased the town during their recovery. It was still up. When asked when it would be removed, the Ghost Investigation Ward told them that it was “none of their concern” and to “move along”. When pressured by the local press for an official statement, the only comment they would put out is that “Amnity Park as a whole is still infected” and nothing else.

Tucker, Danny, and the previously infected Casper High students held a high level of doubt and an even higher level of disbelief that they would outright lie about this. Casper High was Spectra’s target after all and had infected the students the worst, but even they were healthy by then. Dash and the rest of the football team were able to attend practice just as they were before. The cheerleaders could make it through their routine without passing out from exhaustion. There was so much proof against their statement that it was laughable, but they stuck to their guns -literally, in most cases- and hunkered down on their official statement, refusing to look at even the most obvious of facts.

The town couldn’t tell anyone about the blatant abuse of power either, due to the government agency cutting them off from the internet and cell towers. Every home Wi-Fi router was wirelessly disabled and confiscated to ‘repair’ them—anything to keep the town away from exposing their power grab. Any computers connected to the internet at the time ended up crashing and had to be factory reset. Tucker was glad that he kept his most important files on both a flash drive and an offline computer for that reason.

During the two months, Tucker wasn’t able to get in much contact with Sam or Danny. Sam, along with Jazz, had one of the worst cases and it took the full two months to recover. Her parents didn’t allow visits so as to not set back her recovery. On the other hand, Danny was taking on the caretaker role for Jazz and was helping her with her newfound liminal abilities while Jack and Maddie were down in the lab making who knew what. They could get in a sentence or two in if they met picking up their family’s portion of food for the week, but nothing else.

He didn’t just spend the two months doing nothing, though. He got to work on the technology problem. Tucker was thankful that he had modified his computer to the realms and back, meaning - with some code- he could easily change his VPN to say his computer is in a different city, just to check if it was an computer error or it was a Guys in White scheme. Lo-and-behold, it was another one of the GIW’s power plays. He had find that out when he was able to connect to a library’s free Wi-Fi in Springfield. He quickly changed it back to not rouse suspicion and get his computer confiscated for ‘repairs‘.

The next time he met up with Danny, he slipped a note into his hand asking him to get him some ectoplasm straight from the realms and an old Wi-Fi router. Telling him that they had cut off the access to the internet, but he had an idea on how to get it back. All written in ghost speak. They continued their conversation, Tucker asking how Jazz had been recovering and Danny asking the same about his parents, who were recovering well. For them, it wasn’t anything worse than a bad head cold. With the confirmation of recovery from both ends, they parted ways.

Three days later, Danny - as Phantom- dropped off a bag containing 4 9mm test tubes of pure, straight-from-the-realm ectoplasm along with a lightly scavenged router and a note from Sam telling him that she’s getting better and to keep working on getting a way around the internet block. He opened the router, located where the GPS antenna was, and removed it just enough to connect it to his online computer. From there, he made sure that the antenna was operational.

After the confirmation, he disconnected it, put on proper protective equipment, and opened one of the four tubes. Using an old paintbrush, Tucker spread a layer of ectoplasm on the antenna like it was thermal paste, letting the ectoplasm sink in to the hardware. He continued taking it apart and applying ectoplasm to every component, making sure they would still work in the realm and not end up fried, wasting his hard work. With all the pieces coated, he reassembled it into a cohesive piece of machinery

After cleaning up his work area, he put the contaminated gloves, goggles, and paintbrush in a tub of water with 1½ tablespoons of blood blossom-infused water to decontaminate them. While they were decontaminating, he took a shower and worked on some school work tht he was behind on before the shutdown. While he didn’t want to do any homework, he didn’t want to start a game and forget about the tub.

After 20 minutes, he put on a separate pair of gloves and mask to take the items out and let them dry for 10 minutes. He took the tub of solution and diluted it with enough water that the pink color disappeared, fully dissolving it and rendering it inert, then dumped it down the bathtub’s drain. He rinsed out both tubs to ensure none of the solution lingered before placing the plastic tub in the very back of his closet, underneath the shelf holding his lead-lined box for things like dried blood blossoms and ectoplasm.

Still wearing the gloves, he put the reconstructed router in the same bag Danny had dropped off hours ago with a note stating to put the router in the realms, close to the portal’s entrance, and turn it on. He had tested it to make sure it worked using both his PDA, which contained realms-sourced ectoplasm, and his dad’s old phone that he was gifted when he got a new one, which contained ambient ectoplasm. When turned on, only his PDA could receive the signal, albeit weak, while the old phone couldn’t even register one existed. After zipping the backpack up, he took off the mask and threw it in the small trash bag by his desk, followed by a wad of gloves. He tied the grocery bag up and placed it in the kitchen trash for him to take out the next day.

The next day, he repeated the same process. He took apart an older laptop of his and coated the internet receiver in a layer of ectoplasm along with a few crucial parts to ensure it would function and interact well with the ambient ectoplasm, just as it did before. He checked to make sure it was operational and could be connected to the router before cleaning and disinfecting everything he used.

With a second grocery bag in hand and backpack on his back, he went to take the kitchen trash out. He then snuck his way out of his backyard and into the Fenton’s. Spotting a tree close to a window, he decided to climb up to it. Settling on a sturdy branch, he moved the bag to his front and scooted his way to the window, which led to Jazz’s room. Once there, he knocked in code light enough only Danny could hear - as far as he knew - to let him know it was Tucker.

He immediately handed the bag over once the window opened. He took a look at Jazz to see how she was recovering and gave Danny a nod and a message of Glad-Recovery-Look through their bond. Danny gave him a nod in return and responded with Protective-Healthy-Thanks. With that, he moved away from the window while Danny closed it. Coming back down the tree, Tucker thought himself lucky he didn’t get caught by Maddie. He’s always had bad luck, and Maddie was the sterner of the two Fenton adults. He didn’t want to get tangled in the questions of why he was at their daughter’s window at 7 in the morning. The answer would have led him to imprisonment by the GIW for going against them as he was not a great liar when put on spot.

He came through the back door not even five minutes later. His parents were still asleep and wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours. He went back up to his room and worked on connecting his old laptop to his database, putting up firewall after firewall and puzzle after puzzle to protect both the computer and what he considered his greatest creation. He continued this cycle of upgrading his tech until a month and a half later, when everyone was healthy.

During those two months, there wasn’t even one major ghost attack, leaving him on edge. It wasn’t until they met up again that he figured out why. According to Danny, the rest of their rouges found out what Spectra did and decided to wait to come and play fight until they were healed. Even Skulker had agreed, claiming “the hunt wasn’t fun if they couldn’t fight back.”

He never once tried to connect his newly upgraded laptop to what he called the Ecto-net router, even after Danny had given him a thumbs up 5 days later. He wanted to wait and do it when everybody was there. It was an extensive project he accomplished with a little help from Danny, and he wanted his friends to witness it’s completion. The day came two days after the Guys in White’s official statement.

Danny had sat on the edge of his twin bed, an arm wrapped protectively around Jazz, who sat next to him but turned towards his computer desk. Sam had pulled the wooden chair that came with his desk out of his closet and sat on his other side. The air was filled with Anxious-Hope-Suspense-PleaseWork as he opened his laptop. He went down to the toolbar and clicked on the time and date, then turned on the Wi-Fi. He clicked on the router’s name -which looked like random letters and numbers-, imputed the password, and waited. The wait took about a minute, but it was the longest minute of his life.

When the signal connected, they celebrated quietly. What they were doing could be considered an act of treason if they got caught, and while Tucker room wasn’t bugged -they had checked every hangout-, his parents were still not in the know. The Team didn’t want to give away what was happening to them yet. To double check, he went to Google and searched for something random. Sure enough, it pulled up the search result. They sat in silence for a minute, just soaking up the feelings of Proud-Joy-Excitement that surrounded them. The silence was broken by Jazz a couple of minutes later.

“What’s our next step?”

“What do you mean?” Tucker asked in confusion.

“What do we do now that we have access to the outside world?” Jazz rephrased. Tucker hadn’t thought about that. He had been so focused on getting to this point that it never crossed his mind.

“I vote we get in contact with the Justice Leauge. This was what they were made for, after all.” Danny piped up from the bed.

“We’re trying to be secretive about this, remember? Plus, they have connections to the government. Ya know? The people who are holding us hostage. I say we bide our time and collect some information. That way, we can use it against them if need be,” Sam interjected. Tucker had to agree with Sam on this. It’s too risky to trust someone who works with the government at the moment. He turned the Wi-Fi off and put the laptop up in his closet while he listened to Danny and Sam quietly argue about what to do.

“Guys! Sam is right. We can’t trust the Justice League at the moment in case they are working with the Bozos in White. Plus, Danny, even if we did send a message and they did arrive, the GIW would know someone was able to get around their internet block.” Tucker interjected. Danny had a thinking look on his face for about two minutes before nodding.

“Another thing,” Jazz introjected, “ If we have more information, we would more than likely belived and look better as a hero team to the other heroes than with out.” With that, they went and started the whole reason they had even came over in the first place. Him and Danny trying to beat Sam at Doomed.

He hooked up his gaming system to the tv while Sam and Danny pulled the three pillows on his bed to the ground for them to sit on. They loaded up Doomed with local multiplayer and played for about an hour and a half, Danny and Tucker almost beating Sam twice before she came up from behind and stole first place from them. Jazz had never liked first person shooter games and had brought a psychology book that she had checked out from school to read.

Eventually they went home, as Sam’s parents were being overprotective of her due to her health scare, and Jazz had decided someone needed to pull their parents out of the lab and into a bed before they became ghost themselved due to overwork. When they left, Tucker spent some time with his parents, playing board games and watching dvds. He helped his mom with dinner, then went to his room. School was officially starting the next day, and he needed to be ready for what it may bring.

It was three days later that they showed their true colors.

He had gone out for a walk before starting on his homework. His mom said that he needed some more sunlight after staying cooped up in his house for two months. So he was at the park, taking in the needed sunlight before his homework. Weirdly, he was really eager to get that done. Afterward, he was going to see if he could get into the Guys in White’s personal database to start their data collection mission. All was going well for him.

That is until he heard people shouting.

Most of the voices he didn’t recognize but one stuck out to him as the shouting grew louder. Over the rumbling of tires and the whirring of guns, he could hear Danny’s voice. He was ready to brush it off. Danny didn’t like them helping him when it was his parents he was trying to escape from, for some reason, and they tried to respect that but some situations are unavoidable. Especially if they join in mid-fight. He was ready to turn around, go home, and prepare the med kit to help nurse his wounds. When Tucker had asked why he went to him with this instead of Jazz, who had gotten her first aid certification online, he told him that he didn’t want her to see what Jack and Maddie had done to him and have her worry over something that would take three days max to heal.

As he turned around, he was met with a different vehicle barreling down the street. There was no cheesy logo on the side of the van - and it looked like a van, not a homemade tank- instead it read G.I.W in a very official-looking font. Agents hung out of windows holding Fenton rays and were taking shots at his best friend. All the while, shouting insults and threats at him. he made the mistake of catching one of the agent’s face when he froze. He remembered that face. they were the one who had handed him food not even a week ago. That same face that had smiled so warmly now had a cruel look of pure hatred as they and the rest of their team hunted.

He needed to run, to get away. He needed to get to somewhere safe, but he was so rooted in his spot that even Undergrowth would have a hard time pulling him up. Internally, all hell broke loose when they got close enough he could hear the sizzling of a gun charging up. He booked it. He was running so fast he would have been proud if he had realized it. But he didn’t. The danger was close. The danger had the ability to kill him. So he kept running, even while his senses heightened and anything that wasn’t panic shut itself down.

He doesn’t remember how long it took him to get home. He held no memory of if he had slammed the front door, nor of going up the steps. All he knew was that he needed something, no somewhere, safe. It was only when he had reached his room that he let the tears that had started to gather in his eyes fall. His room was his safe place, filled to the brim with the technology that he had upgraded and spent so much time with.

He couldn’t break down like this in front of his parents. They didn’t know that Danny was Phantom. They didn’t know he was a part of a hero team. They didn’t even know that he had committed treason three days ago under their roof. He tried to stop his tears as he fell to the floor beside his bed but his efforts were wasted. They wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop hearing the words the agents had shouted.

Freak.

Scum.

Monster.

The last one hurt him the most. If Danny was considered a monster for being a ghost, then what was he? He had almost the same amount of ectoplasm in his system. Was he a monster? He couldn’t be, right? Monsters destroy everything around them. They hurt and cheat with no remorse. He can’t be a monster. He just can’t be.

His hands started to shake while he gripped his hair, his beret having been knocked off during his dash home. Tears continued to fall as his breath started to quicken. He bit his lip to try and keep his parents from finding out. He was curled up trying to take a breath. He was a coward. He should have stayed and helped, instead, he ran and left his best friend with new enemies that they knew absolutely nothing about. He’s a bad friend. He shouldn’t even be able to be a part of the team. A hero wouldn’t run. A hero would help. He had no business being a hero. He kept spiraling till he ended up passed out on the floor, unable to make it to his bed.

He was exhausted the next day. He had missed his alarm due to not setting it before he passed out. He had to wear a new beret and it sat weirdly on his head all day. He forgot his PDA due to his rush to school. He still felt on edge from his anxiety attack the night before and nothing was helping him.

It felt wrong to talk to Danny. Danny could have fully died and Tucker would be at fault for leaving like he did. His guilt tripled when he caught a glimpse of a bandage on Danny’s arm. That wasn’t there the day before. Would it have been prevented if Tucker was there to help? He adverted his eyes to the ground, mentally wishing he had his PDA or even just something he could fidget with to distract him.

It was the end of the school day when the routine changed. The three of them would normally go to either Nasty Burger or, if Danny couldn’t go that day, the park to walk around before going to his house to play Doomed or some other game and do homework. They couldn’t play at Danny’s cause his parents would cannibalize any game system he ended up getting and Sam’s parents thought the video games were for boys and would throw it out the second they found it. Tucker had walked out of the high school’s doors unable to remember what they had done his last class. All he wanted to do was go home and forget yesterday had even happened.

Sam was walking ahead of them. It was weird, as the three had always walked home together unless one of them was sick or just not in school that day. Maybe she heard about what had happened and decided that he wasn’t worth her time anymore. Maybe she was breaking off the friendship and hoping he would take the hint. Tucker squeezed his backpack straps harder than he was before at the realisation.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by Danny’s arm wrapping around his shoulder with casual affection. As much as Tucker hated to make the connection, he could see the ways Jack and Maddie had an effect on him. Danny could be loud in his affection, much like Jack, but also knew when someone just needs him to be there, like Maddie. That didn’t change after he died, thankfully. If anything, it was turned up to 11 with his protection obsession.

Danny didn’t say anything while they walked down their street, just kept his arm over Tucker’s shoulder.It was tight enough that had a grounding pressure but loose enough that he could escape from it easily. They passed his house and walked to Fentonworks, up the stairs and into Danny’s room. He hung his backpack on the hooks on the door, so his leftover lunch doesn’t come back to life. When he turns back around, he’s met with Danny with his beret in his hands. It was dirty and had two or three holes, completely unwearable now. Tears formed in his eyes as that had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. He collapsed to his knees with a sob, tears now obscuring his vision fully.

Arms circle around him while he cries and apologizes. Apologizes for not helping; for being a coward. They kept spewing from his lips as the arms still held him. The body the arms were attached to was saying something, but Tucker could hear it over his own voice. it wasn’t until he felt the NotMad-ItsOk-Safe-Safe through his core that his verbal spiral stopped and he started to calm down. It was hard to lie though the bonds.

Danny was truly not mad at him.

A couple minutes later, Tucker pulled away from Danny. He brought a hand to his eyes to wipe the tears away. He took a few deep breaths before he stood up again and got off the ground. He went over to Danny’s bed and sat on the edge, the burnt berrete still in his hands. He twisted it back and forth anxiously while Danny pulled up the office chair that he had gotten from dumpster diving a couple years back.

“I don’t blame you for not helping yesterday, Tucker.” Danny had started. Tucker had opened his mouth to refute the statement but was cut off by Danny continuing. “ You didn’t even have anything to fight humans on you at the time. There was no way you nor Sam could help. I wouldn’t want you guys to either. i had the ability to at the very least protect myself and I don’t want you guys being injuered or worst because I couldn’t help.”

“But heroes don’t run away from problems. They face them head-on.” Tucker knew it was a weak counter argument but he was grasping at straws at this point. By the look on Danny’s face, he could tell too. It was just, he couldn’t comprehend the fact Danny didn’t blame him even though he absolutely should. Danny should be able to trust his friends to have his back instead of running away.

“ That’s the thing, though. All the heroes we see probably had mentors or were at least adults when they started. We’re just a group of teenagers trying to protect our town from being turned to rubble. We barely have any adult help. We’re just teenagers. We shouldn’t have to be the ones fighting. We should be able to work with the adults instead of against them. We’re still young and are going to have trauma responses to what we’re going though. I refuse to let you think I blame you for this.” Danny had refuted.

He was right. Tucker knew that for a fact. It was wrong that they had to sacrifice so much and couldn’t even place a single ounce of trust in the people who they should be able to trust the most. They should be able to call for help - hero help- without worrying about the potential consiquinses. There was alot of shoulds in the world though and no amount of hoping would get them magically done. A sense of determination filled him at that thought. The best way to help like he’s needing to is by gathering information.

“I’m guessing you talked with Jazz. Because, no offense, that was a little too emotionally intelligent comming from you.” Tucker joked lightly, trying to lighten up the mood. Danny put a hand to his chest like he was clutching imaginary pearls and breathed in a highly dramatic and full of false offense gasp.

“Me? Emotionally stupid? Never.” Danny started dramatically, a little bit of laughter peaking though at the end, which caused Tucker to snort and they fell into full-blown laughing fits. They could barely get a word in until they calmed down and that had taken forever. When they did, Danny continued what he was saying while wiping a tear from his eye. “Of course, I went to Jazz. She’s, like, the holder of the brain cell. Which, ya know, rude. I deserve some time with the brain cell once in a while.”

“ Danny, last time you had the brain cell, you ended up dead. Me on the other hand…”

“Tuck, I can name 5 reasons you shouldn’t have the brain cell, ever.”

They continued to banter like that the rest of the night, or at least till Tucker had to go home. They had done their homework while the portal underneath their feet hummed lightly but welcomely, like it had continue to do since Pariah Dark was defeated. He went home when Jazz got off of work around 7ish. He didn’t know why Jazz still worked or how she still had a job, with all the stores that had originally opened starting to close back down.

He’s just glad his parents hadn’t asked about yesterday when he got home.

The next day was better than the pervious one.

He was able to wake up early enough that he held a proper service for his damaged beret, which he had named Bettie, and eat breakfast with his parents. His PDA, which he named Beitrice, sat firmly in his pocket while his newly-contaminated laptop was in his backpack. He hadn’t thought of a name for his laptop yet, but it would come to him eventually. He had tried to do some digging in to the databases from his bedroom last night but he was too far away to get in. He was planning on going to Nasty Burger afterschool to try and get a better connection.

When he whispered his plan to Sam and Danny, only Sam had offered to come with. Accoriding to Danny, his parents had drug him and Jazz out of bed in the middle of the night to show them some invention and, along with the back to back nightly fights, he was exausted and was planning on going into a “mini coma“ after school that day. Both he and Sam wished him good luck with that as the bell rang signaling the end of lunch.

They split ways after school, Danny leaning heavily on Jazz as they walk away. They both seemed even more tired, if that was even possible. He and Sam went in the oppisite direction and headed to the local fast food joint, if you could even call it that at this point. When everybody had recoverd, Nasty Burger and the local grocery store never really oppened back up and became teenage hangout spots. Of course they had the employee only sections triple locked so nobody would try to rob the place, but he would bet 20 bucks that nobody had any intention on doing so. They would end up loosing the hangout space if that happened.

They took their normal seats in the corner , which was perfect to hide what they were doing while still being in range of the Ecto-net router, the GIW’s wifi signal, and his own offline computer. it was a perfect little sweet spot. He started to attempt and get into the GIW’s files while Sam turned into a combonation of a barrier and a gaurd, blocking peoples view of what they were doing as unsuspitiously as possible.

He and Sam may get into fights - nobody could forget the meat vs vegetable arguement they had last year- but she’s always had his back and covered for him when he needed to do his tech thing. He, of course, returns the favor as best as he can, though it can sometimes be found lacking. They were a team, though and though. They weren’t really chaotic together, though he knew she enjoyed the chaos he and Danny bring into her life, it was more filled with silent support. Unlike Danny and Jazz, they had never grown up around all the weirdness that was the Fentons and Ghost, so if one of them just needed a break from the crazy, they knew the other would be there.

It had taken about 30 miniutes to get in though the wifi network, but he had gotten in. The pages whole color scheme was a hospital white, giving him a slight shiver down his spine, with a multitude of tabs lining the top of the page. The tabs held labels like ‘Data and Stats’ and ‘Projects’. He made sure his laptop was muted before taking a screenshot and sending it to his main computer. He continued taking the screenshots; going though all four tabs and sending them to the computer. Until he came across a conerning project in the last tab.

They had named it Project Open Invitation and it was marked completed. He took screenshots and saved photos before reading more deeply into it. From what Tucker could gather, it had been completed around the the end of the first month and talked about a law inwhich they had admitted to commiting both voter and government fraud and bribing alot of officials to be able to get the law to pass and be enacted so quickly. He mentally tried to remember the laws acronym as he continued to skim and screenshot. he was finshed 15 minutes later.

For the next hour they worked on homework, until he felt a slight chill in the air. While Tucker did get powers from his liminality, neather he nor Sam had gotten a full ghost sense like Danny. For them, it was something akin to getting a chill up your spine. The closer the the ghost was the bigger the shiver. They packed their things in thier bag as quick as they could without rousing any suspition then headed for the door. They knew the routine by heart now so neither of them had to talk though any of it. Once they were a good distance away, they slipped into a near by alley and put in their comms.

“Phantom, do you need help?” Sam whispered in ghost speak.

“Nope, just forgot about a schedueled playdate with Youngblood is all.” he had responded in kind. It was then that the ghost alarms rang and they seen the GAV barreling down the road. With a quiet “Faex”, Danny’s end of the line went quiet. Tucker breathed out a sigh. He always hated this part, walking away from being there for Danny. Judging by Sam’s sigh, she felt the same. Atleast they knew who he was fighting against this time, even if it was his parents.

“ I still belive we should go a help him, no matter what he said.” Sam slightly complained. He could feel the Fear-Nervous comming off her.

“It’s still one of his boundries though.” Tucker matched her with a feeling of ItsOk-HeWillBeFine.

“Still think its stupid.”

“Just because you think that, doesn’t mean you cross it. Now, come on. You can help he patch him up.”

They ran to Tucker house, about 15 minutes away from the alley they were at. They greeted his Mom, as his Dad was still at work, and went up stairs. He grabbed the first aid kit from deeper inside his closet. It doesnt look like what a normal first aid kit would look like. It was in a dented metal lunch box with some superhero imprinted on the top. It was, also, covered in hazard and ghost stickers they had found online. Some of them were special stickers, as they were either shiny, glowed, or were textured.

He opened the box and got out the all the usuals for when this would happen. Burn cream, gauze, and medical tape in hand, he moved out the closet just in time for Danny to float in though the wall. Tucker took in the state he was in. There wasnt many injures, thankfully. What catches his attation is the large burns on his forearms. There are three large burns, two on his right and one on his left, clearly made by an ecto-blaster. Surrounding the them is smaller burns, most likely spash back. Besides the burns, smaller cuts and scrapes littered any exposed flesh.

Sam lowered Danny on to his hardwood floor as he set the materials. He handed Sam the gauze as Danny detransformed. Tucker put on a pair of medical gloves and started spreading burn cream on the wound. They definetly needed to be looked at by a profeshional, but they didnt have that oppertunity. So they double-padded the gauze while wrapping it in medical tape sparringly. He hoped that they would heal by tomorrow, but he wasn’t holding his breath about it. The smaller ones were cleaned out but not covered, as they were working on the paycheck of someone who worked part time.

After cleaning and bandaging the burns and putting things away, they managed to get Danny to take a nap in Tucker’s bed. It didn’t take much to convice him, thankfully. After Sam left to tell Jazz about Danny’s whereabouts, Tucker got started looking though all the screenshots he had sent. He was surprised that he could even get to them. They were all interesting in some fashion and were being transcribed into their database.

The database was his baby and his best coding work to date. Multiple layers of codes and encriptions were cencased in layers apon laylers of ectoplasm-enriched code. It held everything close to the four of them, every adventure and weakness and connection they ever had. He heavily gaurded it with an AI he had made. Its soul objective was to tear apart any opperating system that had no ectoplasm in it at his command. It was truely his favorite creation. He trusted it to hold both the transcriptions and screenshots behind the the locked tab.

The Guys in White held unusual infromation in their database. The health records he could see, they were apart of the CDC after all, but things like ‘ Ectoplasm Rating’ were confusing to him. How would they even measure that. Thankfully, each slot was blank, so he had some time to prevent the scan. He went back to what interested him at Nasty Burger. Project Open Invitation.

According to them, Project Open Invitation was step one of a larger project to eventually take down the Meta and Ailiens Protection Act. They were hoping the new law law they had proposed would create the slippery slope they needed to get it rolling. They kept referncing the law all over the place. They called it the Ectoplasm Contaminatin and Control Acts, or the ECCA for short. They were slipped into a bill about how to properly contain and despose of radioactive materials. It was signed by Lex Luthor for probabley not good reasons. Luthor and Vlad had the same frootloop vibes.

Just as he was going to look up the Act on his PDA, Sam walking in the door. She took her boots off by his door before pulling up the same wooden chair she used the other day. With a light huff, she fell into the chair and leaned forwards. He went about connecting his phone to the ectonet router. With it connected, he went and searched for the act.

“ So, what are we looking at?” Sam asked.

“ Some thing big. And bad, real bad.” Tucker was still looking while he talked. “ From what i could gather, their end goal is to get rid of MAPA. They had already completed the first step. Now if i could find the bill they keep refernceing then I could figure out how to turn this against them.” He contininued his searching vigrously while Sam took a look at what he had found.

“ Try looking at recent bills about how to dispose of radioactive material. “ Tucker took her sugeestion and looked it up. Sure enough, a bill was bearly passed a month ago about how to properly dispose of and contain radioactive materials and mentioned ectoplasm. He scrolled up to the top and started screenshotting everything. He quickly turned the wifi off on his PDA and sent the screen shots to his lap top.

He and Sam read though the law together, Sam puting some of the legalese into language he could understand. It starts simple; a bill talking about how to protect the enviroment by containing toxic materials and attempting to dispose of it as cleanly as possiable. It was honestly a bill he could see Sam standing by so far. What shook them to the core is what it said to do with affected people or towns.

If a person registers at a 5 or above on the Ectoplasm Contamination Scale and has no meta gene, he or she shall become governmet property and are to be handed over to the Ghost Investigation wawrd. If a town shall have 60% or more of its population register at or above the acceptable level, the town shall be quarentined to a nessasary dregree accoing to the Ghost Inestigation Ward as to not spread the contamintion.

A quiet “shit” left their mouths as the same time as they processed what they just read. Sam stood and sarted pacing and curinsing under her breath. He knew they both were radiating Terror-Distress but their was no way to stop it. Tucker was still with shock. HOw to you prosses the fact that you no longer have rights.

“ We need to tell Danny and Jazz. They definitly would be affected by this.” Tucker wispered from from his seat. He doesnt think his voice could go higher at the moment, so he was thankful that Sam had sensitive hearing.

“ I’ll go get Jazz. You wake up Danny.”

Before he could even respond, she was back out his door, leaving her boots in his doorway. He peeled himself off the chair and went to wake Danny up. It took a good ten muinutes, but he was up by the time Sam got back with Jazz, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“ What is so important that you woke us up at,” Jazz aquinted at the clock in his room. “ 6:30 at night?” Sam and Tucker exchanged glances. This was real now.

“ We went to the Nasty Burger after school, liked planned, so Tucker can get what he needed digitally.” Sam started. She turned to look at Tucker.

“ What we found was disturbing to say the least. Their plan is to destroy meta and alien protection laws and use them as test subject or soldiers. And according to the new law, us and atleast 60% of Amnity Park are considered non-sentiant and government property.” Tucker watched their faces as they took in the information. Tears formed in Jazz’s eyes as Danny stood up the angryiest he had ever seen him.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“ How can you be so sure about that, Danny?! How?!” Sam raised her voice.

“ Because I’m going going to raze those fuckers into the ground for every thinking they could touch my people.” Danny responded to her in ghost speak. Only Sam or Jazz could get though to him now, and seeing as Jazz couldn’t at the moment, Sma stepped up. Tucker went to comfort Jazz. He’s carpmentalized the information already, ready to be unboxed at a later date. Prephably alone.

He put an arm around Jazz and pulled her close. All he could do was tell her “ they were going to do something about this. Even if they have to contact the Justice Leauge.” Tucker didnt pay attention to the arguement in front of them. He was busy thinking.

What’s going to happen next? He had no idea. He wished that he had some sort of direction to go. But he could tell that something big was on the verge of happening and hoped that it was good. With their luck, it probley wasn’t.

Danny and Sam’s arguement had ended some time ago and they ended next to the two of them, Sam leaned against his other side and Danny on Jazz’s other. They ended up falling asleep like that, all curlled up together. Protecting eachother in their sleep and being there when one of them has envitably a nightmare.

It’s been two weeks since they had found out about the ECCA.

Alot had happended between then and now though. The morning after they had a conversation about the information they had found out , and they came to the conclusion to let Danny take control of patrols and for each of them to carry at least a wrist blaster of something to defend themselves. They found and stole the prototype Jack and Maddie was making to scan people and get their ecto-levels. Val ended up being fully inducted into Team Phantom for her own protection, as rates a 5.25 on the ecto- scale. The one of the only reasons it was even considered was because of her progess on her view on ghost and her wilingness to go the non-leathal route when taking in ghost since becoming an honorary member.

Just a pretty hecktic couple of weeks.

The whole team had taken to hanging out his room daily. It was a relief to to see them safe and not taken. Sam and Val had taken to playing stardew valley on his playstation while Danny worked on homework and Jazz was at work at the local library. He had been working on making sure that their readings always read under the legal limit when a loud and repetive dinging came from his desktop computer.

He quickly put his laptop to the side and headed to his desk. Lightly, he pushed Danny out of the chair and pulled the keyboard to him. He swiftly hopped on to where his AI was holding off against the outside hacker. Adreniline flooded his veins as he pounded his fingers against the keys of his keyboard. After a hot minute, he was able to lock the person on the otherside out of thier computer. With a bit of code, he threw up a chat box.

I dont reconize your system. Who are you? What are your affiliations?

A minute later, there was a responce.

It has been a while since someone had bested me. You should be proud.

Redirection, he reconized. they were probley wanting to throw him off balence. He gave them one more chance.

I wont ask again. Who are you and what is your affiliation?

He waited longer this time. After two minutes of no typing, he decided to help them speed up.

You have one minute to respond or else I will destroy your system.

He didn’t even have to wait for a reponse after that.

I go by the name Oracle while online. My employer may need this information. Can you unlock my computer?

Tucker sat back in awe at the admission.

He had just beat Oracle. He, bad luck Tuck, had just be The Oracle, the myth of the hacking forms and insperation to hackers everywhere. Deep down he wanted to fan boy at the experence but there were rumors they worked with the bats. Despite everything, they can be let loose without supervision.

Only if i monitor your actions

Deal.

He unlocks their computer and watched as they started reading the rouge descriptions. It was then that they decied it was the best time to ask their burning questions.

“ So Tuck, what was that dinging noise.” Danny asked.

“Just an alarm for an attempted breach.” He awnsered as he watched them scan though each profile, settling on a few as iif reading them closer than the others. He files the ones they stay on for later.

“Who was trying to get in?” Sam questioned.

“It was the Oracle.” He lightly gushed while he watch them finsh the rouges list and venture on to the incidents tabs. He still couldnt belive that the oracle was lookig though his database. That he may have vital information for Batman. He watched as they read battle after battle, greatful that they had chosen codenames instead of personal ones. It was only when they started hovering over Danny’s tab that he lock them out and pulled up the chat.

Phantoms off limits.

Phantom had to be, no matter how much he wanted to let someone on the outside know. It was to much of a risk to let Phantom’s secerts to a person he hadn’t even met face to face. He wasn’t risking it ubtil he was 200% sure it it wouldn’t blow up in his face. The response came a minute later.

Your Phantom’s guy in the chair, right? I can help with that.

It was a simplified veresion of what he did but they were basicly right. Val and Danny were thier main fighters while he, Sam, and Jazz provied backup. Alot of his backup was tech related but it was still backup. Pushing that aside, why would they want to help him out. He was just a small town tech nerd. Plus people always wanted something in return, so unless he knows what the catch is he can accept it.

Whats the catch? Nobdy would do that for free.

You seem to know alot about ghosts. We have had a few show up in Gotham here recently. Help me debrief the others tomorrow and we can talk more about what the mentorship would look like.

He though about the offer. Talk to the bats and gain a mentor. It wasn’t that simple in reality. It wasn’t only his secrets that were kept in there. He couldn’t be the only one to make this desion.

Let me talk with my team.

He could feel their couriosity as he turned his chair. He took a deep breath and rested his chin on his entwined fingers. He looked at all three of them, leaving the suspense hanging in the air.

“ Oracle wants to mentor me.”

“ Are you serious? They want to mentor you?” Sam exclaimed. He nodded in confermation. “ What did they want in return?”

“ Just to act as a consultant on ghost for the Bats. They said that some of them had showed up in gotham so, yeah.”

“ I heard some rumors in the realms about three other halfas from Gotham. Appaerntly they are young too, older than me for sure but younger than Vlad.” Danny introjected into the conversation.

“ From what I’ve been told, city spirts were picky with who they let in though.” Val said.

They continued the converesation for about an hour and ended up on acceptence but with limitations, like staying out of their lock servers. He turned around and awnsered the awaiting question while waving is freinds bye while they leave. It was about 7 o’clock now so Jazz was off work and it getting late.

Your not getting anymore access, but I accept.

He unlocks their computer again before working on intergrating a chat option and removing the locked pages on Oracle’s copy of the database and puting it on their computer. They had stayed on long enough for him to put it on there and tell him what time was best for he consultation then logged off. He apperiated the quick log off; he was tired and need to eat before bed. It was then that him mom called him down for dinner. They offered to watch a movie after dinner, but he said that he was tired and went to bed, preparing to tomorrow.

[paintingwhiteceilings]

❃EXO's chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse❃

A/N: because why have your first post be romantic or suggestive when it can be unserious and downright weird.

Xiumin/Minseok: 9/10

✾ Let’s be honest, this man is way too good at sports not to survive far into a zombie apocalypse. Pretty sure those skills will translate and be useful in some way. He can outrun them so easily that he never truly finds himself in any danger.

✾ Xiumin actually possesses functional brain cells and a good dose of common sense which means he makes good, well thought out, decisions. Unlike the beagle line, he won’t get himself stupidly killed.

✾ Despite all the chaos, he is incredibly organized, keeping precise track of what he has and needs.

✾ He can properly take care of himself and could run this thing solo. He is not dependent on others to do things for him and he strikes me as someone who is perfectly content to be on his own. The only reason he would team up with the others is for the company and because he finds their idiocy amusing.

✾ He has the added bonus that the zombies think he is adorable, like a pet, so they will keep him alive even when he does get caught.

Suho/Junmyeon: 5/10

✾ Remember that time when Suho fell asleep during carting? Yeah, he is beyond exhausted before the apocalypse even starts and will probably die by accidentally falling asleep. Suho will try to ‘rest his eyes’ and before he knows it a zombie is gnawing on his arm.

✾ Honestly trying his hardest to keep the rest of the members from dying, but instead of appreciating his efforts, they keep making fun of him for it. They are really testing his patience but he feels too responsible for their safety to leave them to fend for themselves.

✾ Not that anything he says matters, they never truly listen to him so instead he has to be the one to get them out of the dangerous situations they get themselves in.

✾ If he doesn’t get eaten due to his permanent exhaustion, he would be the type to accept his fate. The members will drive him insane to the point where he will simply give up and walk into a hoard of zombies with open arms.

✾ If you pair him up with his babies Kai and Sehun his survival rate somehow increases. Nobody touches his babies.

Baekhyun: ?/10

✾ Okay, so he either survives until the end or does something stupid and gets himself killed.  His survival rate is either 10/10 or 0/10, there is no in-between.

✾ Like Baekhyun is an ace in most games so he has the ability to outsmart the apocalypse if he puts in the effort. He is competitive enough to take it seriously, too.

✾ His survival truly depends on whether he gives in to his intrusive thoughts and let’s be fair, he has many and zero impulse control.

✾ He would, for instance, believe that he can successfully pretend to be a zombie to blend in with them. He has a lot of dumb ideas and will either act on it himself or get someone else to try it out.

✾ Obviously, his plans wouldn’t work and he, or his chosen guinea pig, would get eaten. Then again, it is Baekhyun and somehow he always manages to come out on top, so who knows, he might survive.

Chen/Jongdae: 6.5/10

✾ Okay, this man is a father so he gets to enjoy the father buff. If his family is with him, he is near unstoppable. Chen can be competitive and has a lot of energy, so technically his chances aren’t too bad.

✾ His main issue is that, well, every zombie and their mother can hear him from the other side of the planet. He is absolutely oblivious as to why the zombies keep finding him.

✾ Like Chen, please use your inner voice, zombies are not deaf and you are giving them your location whenever you talk.

✾ Will ‘accidentally’ push Chanyeol into a zombie when he jokes about being the C in CBX and finally find peace. At this point, he kind of deserves it.

Chanyeol: -10/10

✾ Hear me out, this man is a mess.

✾ Technically, he could survive but he is another one that for sure will listen to his intrusive thoughts. Like let’s be fair, Chanyeol has mastered an array of weird skills just because he can’t stand being bad at something; he will be just as determined to figure out how to survive during an apocalypse.

✾ The type to “I saw this in a film” and try it. He will quickly discover that most of it won’t work because those are movies and not real life. Still, he will have the biggest motivation to figure things out, even if most of his sources are fiction.

✾ The problem is that he is way too much into this whole apocalypse scenario. He will try to out-apocalypse the others or will make up some sort of stupid competition to kill time because sitting still for five minutes is for losers.

✾ He comes up with the “Who can get closest to the zombie without getting killed” game. Baekhyun might have helped.

✾ To be honest, it doesn’t quite matter how good his cards are in the context of a zombie apocalypse, he will probably die within a day because he has two left feet and a very intimate relationship with the floor.

D.O./Kyungsoo: 7/10

✾ Pair him up with another member, and suddenly their chances increase.

✾ His cooking skills make him so incredibly valuable. He will make sure no one starves, and can make a decent meal out of pretty much anything you give him.

✾ The others try their hardest to keep him alive because being in an apocalypse does not mean one has to eat grass.

✾ Then again, he would not hesitate to sacrifice the others to the zombies if they annoy him.

✾ The only one able to keep the beagle line from doing stupid shit with his threats.

✾ You can’t really count on him outrunning the zombies, though. We have all seen this man attempt to play soccer, he is not made for physical activity. He will not survive with his physical skills and will absolutely accept his fate rather than try.

Kai/Jongin: -100000000/10

✾ Listen, this man will die within the first five seconds of the apocalypse.

✾ It is not a question of whether he dies, more so than how. There are so many ways that he can get himself killed, even without the apocalypse playing a major factor.

✾ He could give himself food poisoning when he tries to cook or trip over his own feet when he tries to run away from the zombies. He does not really have a great sense of self-preservation.

✾ 10000% the type to think that they could befriend the zombies because “zombies are people too.” Luckily for him, the zombies do think he is adorable and won’t immediately eat him when he gets too close.

✾ But yeah, if it isn’t for the others constantly monitoring him, he is dead.

Sehun: 1000/10

✾ Last to die because his members will do everything they can to keep him alive. Maknae privileges and whatnot.

✾ He is very much dependent on his members to do basically anything, but the thing is, they would do it without question.

✾ He will complain the entire time and whine constantly.

✾ If Suho dies, you might as well kill him too. How is he supposed to sleep without his emotional-support-hyung??? So yeah, the only way to really decrease his survival rate is to eliminate his members.

✾ Honestly, we all are simply living in his world, what Sehun wants, Sehun gets. It might even extend to the zombies. He would just ask them to stop trying to eat him and they would oblige because, well, Sehun asked.

✾ He is 1000% responsible for the cure being found. It has nothing to do with Sehun finding it himself. Instead, when/if he gets bitten, the members will stop at nothing to find a way to rid him of the disease. Sleep? Who needs sleep when Oh Sehun is dying!?

masterlist

[cursedvibes]

Hi..... Can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from JJK? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series (until now)? Thanks....

No problem. It gives me a great excuse to whip out this image of my top 9 jjk faves

They're not in order here, but compared to other categories, I don't actually have such a hard time ranking characters.

Kenjaku

I've talked about them a bunch, most recently on the last ask about my favourite characters, so I'll just summarize what I love about them: mad scientist + family drama + trans + chill & genre-savvy + Japanese history + body snatcher

2. Yuuji

Also like him for how he's a pretty unusual shonen protagonist. He's not overpowered, he doesn't want to become the jujutsu king/kage/president and almost every shonen mc trope he does exhibit gets punished or beaten out of him. He nontheless doesn't lose his base compassion for people. That compassion is also what will drive him to kill if he has to, something for the few people he actually hates. He's selfless to the point of suicidal. His whole character arc(s) revolves around him finding a satisfying way to die and now being forced to also find a satisfying reason to live (with how jjk is going, I don't think he'll find that but he's not able to die either). His conflicts with the villains are deeply personal, he doesn't just challenge them on the basis of them breaking the law or being some nebulous depiction of a bad person. That's how it starts out, but he can't beat them on that basis alone. He was only able to really hurt Mahito and defeat him after he accepted their personal connection and similarities.

3. Tengen

Problematic conservative grandma. She's really the root of all of the problems in jujutsu society, she's the one who build up the entire basis of the series from world building to the antagonists. Without her Kenjaku wouldn't be who they are right now, they would likely not try to challenge the system and forcefully advance humanity in the way they do and might even be dead for hundreds of years. Gojo wouldn't exist without her either. Riko wouldn't either and she also wouldn't have died the way she did. Same for Yuki. Sukuna might largely be influenced by her as well. She's responsible for so much of what's happening in the series, but gets all too easily overlooked both in-universe and outside. Her whole backstory is so fascinating, her relationship to Kenjaku drives me crazy and I do find her stubborn, kinda grumpy personality quite charming. Also gnc as fuck.

4. Uraume

While in Sukuna's case I really care more about his backstory than him as a person and find his personality not that exciting, it's the opposite for Uraume. I do want that Heian flashback and also see where Uraume came from and how they met Sukuna, but what I really like about them is their personality. At first glance they appear so calm and collected, just a loyal servant without much autonomy, but they're actually so much more. There's so much passion in them, they are so easy to tick off and always ready for violence. Especially in combination with Kenjaku they are so entertaining. I need to see them cook more often. Preferably human. That brief glimpse we got when they prepared Sukuna's bath was so good. The way they pinned down and sliced up those curses without destroying them...I want to see them do the same with humans.

5. Angel

Heian era's craziest paladin. I just love how hypocritical and bloodthirsty she is. She has her sense of justice and right and wrong, she doesn't pretend like everyone has to agree with it, but she will still mercilessly kill everyone in her way or who she just doesn't like for one reason or another. If Kenjaku is a social butterfly, she's a social caterpillar. I miss her just blatently telling the protagonists that she doesn't care about their goals or innocent people dying. She must have been wonderful to witness in politics. I'm really curious how her relationship to the Abe clan looked liked. It's such a shame that all that got toned down, so Sukuna didn't get one-shotted and Gojo could be freed. The volume 24 extra show though that Gege does care about her or at least her technique, giving me some hope that she will actually get something to do again soon. Once we get her backstory, she could easily rank above Uraume. Btw, I want more panels where Angel is just a mouth. No Hana, just that mouth with a monotone background and overly detailed teeth. It looks so fantastically creepy.

Favourite Moments

1. Kenjaku talking to Kogane

It's just such a good moment that does a lot for Kenjaku's characterization, their goals and relationship to Tengen (and arguably also Yuuji). Still feeling pretty ambivalent about ch222, but this was undeniably a highlight. It has had a tight grip on my mind ever since. I could write whole essays about it, starting with the scenary of it all. Kenjaku sitting alone, the only one in focus and the only one in the light, while being in front of a game console with two controllers that remain untouched and without a game running while talking to someone/something that/who can't hear them or can't understand them. Kogane is basically just a computer. It can't give insightful answers or challenge Kenjaku's beliefs, while Tengen has also lost all autonomy and most of her personality I assume. She also can't talk back, probably can't hear them and isn't even there, but Kenjaku still directs their musings at her, knowing she won't/can't answer, but still asking for her input, challenging her and leaving space for what would be her own words. They hate her, but also want her to do better and this scene really shows that while Kenjaku's plans my succeed, they probably won't get what they really want.

2. Yuuji chasing Mahito

Pretty easy pick. I'm really looking forward to seeing this animated soon. It's not just the beautiful imagery or how their roles have now reversed, but also what leads up to it. Yuuji accepts who he is, how he is not so different from Mahito. He discards any pretence of high and mighty reasons for why Mahito should die and embraces his hate. He's not pretending to be any better than Mahito, no "I'm not gonna kill you because I'm not like you", he says with absolute senserity that he will kill Mahito as many times as it takes. He's gonna hunt him down just like Mahito did. It's also the start of Yuuji giving into the role jujutsu society has put him in and starts thinking of himself as a cog, a mere object that serves others and blindly obeys its function (killing curses). I think getting Sukuna out of his body was the start to him evolving past that thinking, but this was a very necessary step. He needs to be broken down before being build back up. It was a great end for Mahito as a character as well.

3. Kenjaku & Tengen get Sukuna's body

This whole scene is so interesting. Like in the first moment it's basically just Kenjaku talking to their hand puppets again, but this time there's a bit more outside input. Ngl, the mere fact that Kenjaku and Tengen are together, talking to each other and working with each other excites me already. There's not much of Tengen's consciousness left and she can't actually refuse anything Kenjaku does, but their interactions were still very fascinating. What's also interesting is how they (both of them) treat Sukuna's corpse. They stroll up to it so casually, as if they have done it in the past. Kenjaku asks Tengen if they can take it and she says yes, but neither of them consider Sukuna and his wishes in all this. Kenjaku even jokes that it's their souvenir for him. It makes me so curious about how they are connected to him and what kind of relationship the three used to have. It gets even better now that we know that Tengen was the one who prepared his corpse (without his knowledge) and Kenjaku was the one who turned Sukuna into a cursed object. These two have clearly passed around Sukuna's corpse between them before. "Do you mind if I take his fingers?" "No, go ahead, I don't need them" This scene gets better and better as the story progresses.

4. MCs meeting Tengen

Speaking of scenes that get better with time, ch145 and 146 have been one of my favourites for a long time. They have to be on this list for how many times I've reread them alone. The more information and backstory we get, the more interesting this whole info dump becomes. There are always little phrases and moments that become a lot more meaning full on a reread. We also got so many hints. Tengen's connection to the Star Plasma Vessels and Six Eyes, Yuki being able to hear the other SPVs, Tengen and Kenjaku's relationship (many hcs were spawned by Tengen casually calling Kenjaku a child and I'm happy to see that many of them are turning out to be true), the first hints at Kenjaku's plan, even though a lot of depth was missing of course and Tengen underestimates some of their reasoning and end goals, and Tengen's utter failure to understand Kenjaku as a person (they aren't even that shy to talk about their reasons, especially to her! grandma please...).

5. Noritoshi preparing to die/visiting his mother

It's this scene of Noritoshi finding his mother again plus the context of her side of the story at the end of the Sakurajima colony and Maki's advice re matricide that really moves me. Probably Noritoshi's best scene so far. I really hope the reason he isn't with the others is because he went back to his mother to finally talk to her openly. I swear, these two are so horrible at communicating. It's so heartbreaking to see Noritoshi lose all will to live and being ready to die in battle to do at least something useful with his life. He dedicated everything to changing the Kamo from within for his mother, only to get kicked out of the clan and find out that his mother has moved on. Everything he has done so far becomes meaningless. However, it is what comes afterwards that makes it even more clear how toxic his mindset was. Noritoshi thinks poetic words about how he's gonna die for his friends, only to be interrupted by Daido and Miyo. It shows that this way of thinking is entirely unnecessary and something he has to break out of. It's what sets him on the right path to reunite with his mother. Kenjaku forced him out of the clan and gave him no way to return. His mother showed him that there is a way to live a happy life despite the abuse both of them suffered from the Kamo clan, it is possible to move on. Daido & Miyo disrupted his suicidal thoughts and took over the fight for him aka he has to rely on others and accept their "help" without giving anythign in return. Maki taught him that there might be a way to reconnect with his mother and that he should ask all the questions he has for her regarding his purpose and name openly. I really didn't care much for Noritoshi before, but this whole arc elevated him so much for me.

[twisting-echo]

So ¿what in your opinion are Danny fenton's top 5 cutest crossover ships? In both het and slash.

So ¿two top 5's? I don't know.

Well, this is going to be fun because I have more than just 5 hehehe 😼

1) Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Manny Rivera/El Tigre (TigerGhost/TigerSpirit) I just fell in love with their dynamic, thanks to @/nicktoonsunite

I love Danny and Manny because Danny tends to be a little more serious and easily stressed out than Manny. And Manny's laid-back and fun loving personality helps balance that out for Danny. But the main draw for me is that they both understand what it's like to have separate identities that clash with their lives and the responsibility of protecting others. Even though they may feel like their powers get in the way of their normal lives sometimes, they will always put aside their own needs to do what's right.

2) Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x SpongeBob SquarePants (SpongeBoo) because of @/nicktoonsunite (and because I remember playing Nicktoons Volcano Island on my old GameCube and Nicktoons Globs of Doom on my old PS2). 

Danny and SpongeBob are just cute, queerplatonic partners, and their personalities mesh well together. I love how close and comforting they are in @/nicktoonsunite's universe. If there was something that was bothering them both, they would be the first people they chose to confide in. 

3) Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom and Octavia Goetia (Spectral Owl) because of you and how cute they are. I honestly love the idea of Danny and Via healthily trauma bonding over the upbringings they had in their family homes. I love how shy and awkward they would be with each other.

I imagine Octavia helping Danny ghost hunt with her magic and knowledge of the supernatural, but I think what I love most is how slowly and gently Danny gets Octavia to put her walls down and trust him. They would be absolutely good for each other as a couple, and I headcanon that Danny will grow to be 6′ 1″ and Octavia will be 6′ 7″. Danny and Octavia will be a tall and adorable king and queen couple one day. (He will always nickname her Spooky.)

4) Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Betty Barrett/Atomic Betty (Galactic Ghost) Now I was a huge Atomic Betty and Danny Phantom fan in my childhood (still am) so that's how this ship came to be.

I ship Betty and Danny for the same reasons I ship Danny and Manny but Danny becomes a galactic guardian and Betty becomes a ghost buster lol.

5) Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Little Cato (Spectral Space/Spooky Cat/Ghostly Hellions) (I need more ship names for these two).

I'm a huge Little Cato fan, and this is one of my favorite ships that I've come up with for him. I like to imagine that Little Cato gets his first intense crush on Danny, and Danny is completely oblivious (for awhile) about it. Little Cato just thinks that Danny is the coolest person he's ever met, and laughs at all of his silly jokes. Danny can't help but think how cute Little Cato is and finds himself enjoying every moment that they spend together. That's all I'm going to say about this ship because I plan to make a post about them in the future.

Honorable Mentions:

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Jenny Wakeman/XJ-9

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Billy Joe Cobra

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Lydia Deetz (Because Lydia is sweet and kind and everything Sam isn't)

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Spencer Wright

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Verosika Mayday

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom x Loona the hellhound 

 There's probably more that I like but can't think of any more right now.

Thanks for the ask @amethystoceandespiser

[i-darling-amaflower]

I've tried thinking about which characters in DFF are my favorite and which ones are my least favorite, but that becomes exceedingly difficult as the show progresses. The reason for this is, as many posts have pointed out, the way the show reflects reality and therefore has no "Good and Bad" no "Black and White," but instead simply has many different hues of grey. So, at the end of the day, it all comes down to one's opinion or the way one perceives a character. I will do my best to express my thoughts on each of the 9 main characters.

1. Por

The leader of the pack. He is one of the one's we're obviously not supposed to like as much; he bullied Non, he stole his work, he was two-faced, he almost killed Non. But he still has a bit of complexity added to his character what with his family situation. Ultimately, in my opinion, that does not excuse any of his actions. He is pretty low on my list.

2. Top

This is gonna be a short paragraph. I hate him. The things he did weren't as extreme as some of the things Por did, but he literally has no excuse whatsoever. He's just plain annoying, a bully with a backstory as long as his dick, which is to say nonexistent.

3. Fluke

I think he has morals? If he does he fully does not listen to them. His biggest flaw is his selfishness. I believe he would've ratted Top and Tee out when Top broke the camera if it wouldn't have caused a crack in the friendship of the group, and therefore his spot in the popular group in school. Because let's be honest, he doesn't give a rat's ass about his "friends," he doesn't wanna be a part of whatever they're doing 3/4 of the time. But his selfishness ruins what potential he might've had, to the point of him being downright creepy.

4. Tee

Now this is a character. I think his shade of grey is the perfect blend of both white and black. Yes, I obviously hate what he did, but at the same time I understand. I would rather jump off of a cliff than give someone other than myself problems, but if I was a little less like that and a little more cowardly, I think I could relate to him a lot. He wasn't as warm to Non as Jin was, but he definitely wasn't as cold as Por and Top were. And boy, does he have a past. It looks to me like he's been a part of his uncle's gang for quite a bit, which would obviously quiet the kindness in anyone's voice, if not in there whole being. He has a sick father he genuinley cares about and no other way to make money. He's in a corner. And while I believe there's always a choice, I understand why he saw the one he picked the clearest. The thing, though, is that he didn't want to hurt Non, he didn't want to bring Non to his uncle, it just wasn't as strong as his want for himself and his father to be fine. But this is what makes him stand out more than the other members of the original friend group. He regreted it. He feels guilty. It's quite literally haunting him. He never could and never will be able to escape that part of his life. He even brought Non 2.0 (aka White) right up close to himself, and he would do anything to keep White there, safe where he can see him. So while I don't like him, and he is easily one of the more everything-i-do-damages-Non characters, he is still a very interesting one.

5. Jin

I can't explain how much I hate him. When I was in elementary school there was an anti-bullying poster that said something like "a bystander that does not help is just as guilty as the bully." And although both Fluke and Jin acted as bystanders, I hate Jin more because he is under the impression that he is kind and innocent, and he is branded this way to all the other characters. Even Non believed it. He takes no responsibility for what he did, or rather, what he didn't do. I don't even think he feels guilty about what happened to Non, he so easily forgot about it. He moved on so fast for someone he saw as a "friend" or, going even further, a "crush." The most evil thing is that the change in the way he acted between the past (smiley, warm, there) and the present (frowny, cold, closed-off) was not due to the fact that he absolutely ruined this kid--someone he considered a friend--'s chance at a future by leaking a video of said kid being groomed, and then proceed to nearly (if not actually) kill this kid with the help of his friends. No, it was do to the fact that his new crush said they were just friends. That's so incredibly pathetic. I'm obviosuly not saying that crushes can't literally crush your soul, but I think he had other issues he could've been worrying about.

6. Phee

Up until episode 9 I absolutely loved him. But then he dissapointed me a bit (which he is aloud to do, he's literally still a kid; for that reason I haven't kicked him off of my list of characters I like just yet). He has a big heart, which was used to cause a lot of good, but unfortunately became his flaw. It started to grow until it out-weighed his sense of justice. I think he still loves Non and wants to know what happened to him, but not as much as he wants to forget and move on with Jin. He came to the house partly to get answers but mostly to fix his relationship with Jin. He started to like the friend group, so he wants to live in ignorance, and that I do not agree with.

7. Tan

Him and Non had a pretty weak relationship, but despite that, he still loves him (he loves his whole family, actually, even if their parents don't deserve it) deeply; deeply enough for them to be the only thing he's living for. In my--who am I kidding, the fandom's opinion, he is currently doing nothing wrong, killing people or not. He lost literally everything, and frankly, it shows. But instead of giving up, he perserved, which is more than Phee can say.

8. Non

Jesus Christ, this poor kid. A family that forgot about him while he was there, and loved him after he was gone, and a boyfriend that loved him while he was there, then quickly forgot him after he was gone. He'd never had it easy in his life and still didn't have it easy (possibly) after his life. If you think what happened with Keng was Non cheating on Phee, fuck you. Fuck you. That was grooming, Non was being taken advantage of. Although I don't really think of Phee sleeping with Jin as cheating, it was more cheating than Non and Keng. Yes, he pulled the rest of the friend group into the illegal money thing, but that was not his fault, it was Por, Top, and Tee's fault. So much shit happened to him, and none of it was deserved; I really hope he's alive and killing them.

9. White

I don't dare to have opinions on him yet because I'm really expecting a deeper backstory. I don't think he's as naive as he's letting on.

If you want to add any of your opinions, feel free to!

[cloudlessly-light]

The darkest parts of me (2/5)

Title: The darkest parts of me (2/5) Summary: They find each other in a dark world where they do twisted things. The only way things could have become more dangerous, is if they were together. Funny how life turns out.

Unsub!Hotchniss AU.   Word count: 2,9k Rating: Explicit Warnings (for most or all chapters): smut, descriptions of violence, descriptions of murder, gore (nothing too explicit), mentions of weapons

It was supposed to be one night of pleasure, but it didn’t turn out that way.

One night turns into more and he knows that they should stop. Because the craving was increasing, getting worse as his need to kill grows. He should leave Washington, but for some reason he doesn’t, and he tries to ignore the thought that maybe Joan was the reason. Then one night the need becomes too much, and he finds a man, a scum of a human to take back to his apartment with a promise of drugs.

When he punches him hard enough for bones to break he feels the release he’s been needing, and he takes his time, savors every scream, enjoys every whimper. Maybe that’s why he loses track of how much time actually passes, maybe that’s why he doesn’t hear the knock on his front door or the soft hello from the hallway. He’s in the middle of cleaning up the blood and when he looks up, she’s there.

“Joan-” He starts but stops at the way she doesn’t look afraid.

“What happened?” Emily looks at the pools of red, smells bleach and lye and she should walk away. She had left this life behind. But she feels the familiar pull in her stomach, feels adrenaline and the rush she had missed terribly since she left Ireland, so she stays.

“He broke in.” He says it slowly, the lie sliding off his tongue easily as he stands up. His eyes stay on hers, there’s something about the way her cheeks flush and how she looks more relaxed than he’s ever seen her that immediately makes him feel at ease.

“You’re lying.” She whispers as he walks towards her, a shudder running through her when he comes close enough to touch. His eyes are hard, the darkness of his orbs reflecting something close to vehemence and she feels her thighs clench in response to his violence. “Tell me what happened.” He smells of blood, the sweet and metallic smell mixing with the intense smell of bleach and she breaths in through her nose, inhaling the familiar scent greedily.

“You’re not afraid?” He takes off his gloves and grabs her jaw, his fingers gripping tightly. His knuckles are bruised and swollen and she doesn’t as much as flinch as she keeps her eyes on his.

“No.” She smirks and her eyes flicker with want, making them even darker than usual. When he smiles back she knows that whatever it was that had attracted her to him in the first place, was even more dangerous than anything she’d ever had before.

That night she finds out about his past and as she tells him about hers, he listens intently. She tells him her name, her real name that she hadn’t used for years and as she helps him clean up the mess in his home, she realizes that the connection between them was something more hazardous than either of them had expected. 

Before Aaron, Emily never had to deal with the clean-up, one of Ian’s men always taking care of it for them. But Aaron teaches her, and together they find themselves finding a new kind of release. He was addicted to the kill, the chase, Emily was addicted to the power of it.

“You get off on it.” He stated after their first kill together. They had travelled to New York, and after he had watched Emily end another man’s life she had pressed him against a wall. The way she clawed at him, tugged his clothes and fucked him right then and there was more than enough for him to know.

“I do.” She smiles, cheeks still flushed and hair wild. “But I don’t get off on the torture like you do.”

“I only kill those who deserve it.” He rolls on top of her and traps her between his body and the bed. His hand hovers over her throat and when she nods he squeezes tight. “I torture men who are rotten, men that this world is better without.”

When Emily licks her bottom lip he groans and let’s go of his hold.

“I want to watch next time.” She spreads her legs wide and she feels his hard cock against her naked thigh, already ready for another round. “But I want to finish him off.”

“Deal.” He thrusts inside of her roughly and enjoys the way she gasps at the stretch. “I’ll teach you how to use the knife.”

“But I like my gun.” She squirms when he stays still, hips pressed against hers and almost uncomfortably big. She buckles her hips, needing him to move.

“Ah-ah, that’s how you get caught.” He bites her neck and she hisses, her nails digging into his skin in warning and he starts to thrust. They could talk more about this later, right now all he wanted was to hear the way she moaned his name.

*

Money was never an issue for either of them, Aaron had saved his whole life and always took a little from each of his victims, Emily still had her funds and money from her years with Ian. It had been surprisingly easy as she got him a whole new identity to use and as they traveled to South Carolina together, Aaron realized just how much easier it was being a pair than a single man traveling alone.

“What about him?” Emily asked as they sat in a bar in Georgetown, having a drink as they watched people walking by. They hadn’t killed in almost a month and she couldn’t help missed the raw danger that she now associated with the rush of arousal and Aaron.

“You can’t choose someone at random, I told you, we need to know if he deserves it.” His warped sense of justice causes her to smile. She had never really given much thought to who deserved to die and who didn’t, she had always just thought about the way it made her feel. She wasn’t patient enough for the chase, maybe that’s why she had met him, she thought. Aaron grounded her in a way no one ever had.

“What?” He mutters and she realizes that he had caught her staring.

“I just, never thought I’d meet someone like you. Someone so similar and yet so different.” It wasn’t logical, it wasn’t the kind of love she’d grown up reading about. It was more, the way he made her feel addictive. It had only been a few months, but she couldn’t imagine life without him anymore. Their destructiveness was something that she knew was dangerous, but couldn’t see herself without.  

He smiles at her words, they were rarely soft with each other, both getting off on the cruelty of it all, but he knew he’d never felt the way he did for someone else, not even Haley. He takes her hand and rubs his thumb over the top of hers, feeling her soft skin.

“Come on, I know where to go.”

He takes her to a part of the city that he knows has a high crime rate and as they sit in their rental car he keeps his hand on her thigh. It’s warm outside, so she was wearing a dress and when his fingers skim over her smooth skin he notices the way she shivers, always just a touch away from needing more.

“Pay attention.” He says lowly with a knowing smirk and then watches her as she watches the street. It doesn’t take long before two men walk past their car and into an alley. He takes notice of the way they speak to each other, how the quick flash of a gun gleams under the streetlight before they disappear from sight and he notices that Emily has seen it too.

“Let’s go.” She says and gets out of the car, Aaron right behind her.

They walk in silence, just barely catches the drug deal before one of the men turns to walk the other way. Emily knew that wouldn’t be enough of a reason for Aaron to want either of them dead. But then the second man walks straight up to a woman who couldn’t be more than 18, a life on the street already forcing her to use her body to survive. The conversation between the man and the woman is quiet, until it’s not. They watch as he grabs her and she fights but he’s stronger and bigger and when he reaches for his gun she stops struggling.

“You’re coming with me one way or the other, are you going to make it hard?” The man says, gun still pointed towards the woman who looks at him with teary eyes.

“Please, don’t kill me.” She whispers, taking a slow step backwards.

They’re still hidden away in the dark and Aaron takes advantage of the fact. He hits him in the back of the head, then punches him again and knocking him out.

“Leave.” Emily tells the woman who’s looking at them, stuck somewhere between fear and surprise. “Get out of here.” When the woman still doesn’t move Emily sighs and pulls out her gun. “Now.”

She runs away, barely sparing them another glance as Aaron starts to drag the man back further into the alley.

“Go get the car so I don’t have to carry him the entire way.” He tells her and she catches the car key he throws her way.

“Do you think she’ll talk?” She asks, eyes still on the retrieving form of the woman.

“No, she won’t deal with cops unless she’s arrested herself.” He knew women like her, they never talked to the police, even when they should.

Emily takes his word for it with a nod and then walks back through the alley to get the car. She drives around the building, makes sure that she stays hidden out of streets lights and cameras and when Aaron puts the body of the man in the trunk, she feels excitement run through her.

They’ve rented a small house on the outskirts of town, far away from other residents. It comes in handy, Emily realizes as she hears the loud screams coming from the man each time Aaron cuts him with his knife. She had never found blood or the mess thrilling, but as she watched Aaron, effortlessly powerful, twisted in all the ways she was, she found a steady pulse of arousal beating between her legs.

Aaron takes a break and looks up at her as she watches him from a stool, a glass of red wine in hand. He’s sweaty, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He never thought he’d enjoy being watched this way, but as Emily’s breathing hitches and cheeks flush pink he realizes that he does.

“How many women have you hurt?” He uses his foot to roll the man onto his back and looks down at his bloody face. There’s no answer, only grunts of pain and fear. “You don’t even know, do you? Filth.” His foot connects to his stomach and when the gurgling wheeze of a mouth filled with blood is the only sound heard Aaron feels the euphoria he’s always chasing. “Come on sweetheart, finish him off.”

Emily reaches for her gun on the countertop but he stops her with a shake of his head.

“You think you feel powerful with the gun? Just wait until you use the knife.” He smirks and she carefully drops the gun back on the counter. So far she had stuck to her gun but Aaron had encouraged her to stop ever since they started killing together.

She knew that a gun was easier to trace, that he was right when he said that she should change things up. When her fingers grasp the knife her hand shakes from nerves and adrenaline, but he only nods reassuringly at her.

“Please-” The man on the floor pleads and the rush of power is immediate as she kneels down next to him.

“Begging will get you nowhere.” She holds his stare as she raises the knife. The feeling of steel slicing through flesh is foreign, the heat of blood on her hand new and she stares, wide-eyed at the way the floor is colored red.

“Going for the neck, smart choice.” Aaron says behind her, voice thick with barely restrained want.

She doesn’t stand back up until she’s sure the man is dead and when she does Aaron grabs her tightly, his hands shaking against her hips.

“You’re so pretty like this baby.” He tells her and she lets go of the knife and grabs his shirt instead, not caring that she’s ruining the material as she does.

She pulls him into a rough kiss, her tongue immediately seeking out his as they leave the mess they’ve made on the floor for the time being. He tastes like danger and adrenaline, metallic and Aaron and she moans softly as his hands starts to tug her dress up her hips.

He hears the fabric of her dress tearing as he forces it off her body and swiftly picks her up and her legs wrap around him. Even through his shirt and her underwear, he feels the heat of her between her legs and he growls against her lips. He needs her, needs to feel her and with that thought in mind he places her on the counter. She seems just as desperate for him, her fingers working on each button of his shirt with an impatient huff until she gives up and rips the shirt open, sending buttons flying.

The marble is cold against her heated skin but she barely registers it, her sole focus on him. She watches as he pushes his jeans and boxers down just enough for his cock to spring free, then helps him with her panties by lifting her hips as he drags them down her legs. His teeth are bruising her as he bites down on the soft flesh of her breast and when she moans at the pain he looks at her with something close to madness.

“Fuck me.” She tells him, her fingers tight in his hair as she pulls him up to kiss him. “Make me come.”

Aaron nods into another messy kiss, mostly tongue and heavy breaths but he doesn’t care. Emily drunk off the power of a fresh kill was his favorite kind of Emily. The heat of her as he rubs the tip of his cock through her makes him suck in a breath, her slick shiny on her thighs.

“Your wish, my command.” He whispers and the way her lips tug into a satisfied smirk goes straight to his cock. His grip on her is bruising when he pushes inside of her. He takes his time, lets her feel every inch of him until he’s pressed flush against her.

Her eyes drift closed as he starts to pull out, keeping the same slow pace. Normally they’re frantic, desperate to be pleased and to please, but the way he’s teasing them both is driving her insane in the best way possible. She can’t move, his hold is too tight and she can tell that he knows just how much he’s teasing her from the way he’s smirking at her.

“Harder, fuck me like you mean it.” She grunts, voice tight with frustration and she’s once again impressed by his self-control. But it seems like he’s done teasing only a few strokes later and instead he fucks into her faster, hard enough for her body to jolt and she bites down a loud moan.

“You can scream, no one’s going to hear you.” He lets go of her hip and moves his hand between her legs, his thumb starting to rub her clit. She leans back against the counter, resting her weight on her elbows as she watches him with hooded eyes. He’s sweaty, his body shining with it, his hands red and stained with dried blood, small specks of it on his neck and face. The visual mixed with how he’s touching her causes her to cry out as her head falls back.

“It’s so good.” She gasps, eyes hooded and mouth slack.

It’s not long until she feels the coiling in her belly and she can tell that he’s close as well. He’s rubbing her clit in fast circles, his muscles tense. Then he pulls her up so she’s sitting again, his lips claiming hers in a bruising kiss.

“Come with me.” He grunts and she nods. Her arms wrap around his neck and when he bites down on her shoulder she moans at the painful pleasure. She comes with a scream, her body shuddering as her muffles more sounds against his neck. The feeling of his release only prolongs her pleasure, the heat of him inside of her making her gasp as his hips stutter against hers.

Aaron doesn’t move away until his breathing has slowed and his heart rate has returned to normal. When he looks down at her, he sees the same relaxation on her face that he feels himself.

“We’re too good at this.” She smiles and he chuckles before kissing her forehead.

“Sex or murder?” He asks, half teasingly.

“Both.”

[clotpolesonly]

20 questions for fic writers!

tagged my @thotpuppy!! &lt;3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

209

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,195,283

3. What fandoms do you write for?

on AO3, i have posted for: Teen Wolf Merlin Raven Cycle Captive Prince Dark Rise Supernatural (crossover w/TW) once upon a time, back in FFN days, i also wrote and posted for Harry Potter (primarily) and then one each for Newsies, Little Mermaid II, and Twilight. none of these fics ever got finished lmao.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Metamorphose (Merlin, Merthur, 7750 kudos) Happiness is Effortless (TW, Sterek, 7746 kudos) Much Ado About You Two (TW, Sterek, 7046 kudos) I'll Dissolve When The Rain Pours In... (TW, Stackson, 6172 kudos) We Duel At Dawn (Merlin, Merthur, 4949 kudos)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i respond to all my comments!! (except for comments on old suspended WIPs that ask if i'm writing more, which i let sit in my inbox to haunt me like a beating heart under my floorboards slowly driving me insane until i figure out if i am writing more or if i can definitively tell them it's abandoned alkfdgh) i've been stuck recently though and have let my inbox get backed up for a month, so i really need to go on a reply spree soon 😭 it's just a point of pride, i guess? i made the decision that i would Respond To All Comments/Reviews I Ever Get when i first started posting back on FFN in ye olden days (like 2008 lol), and i've been pretty darn good at keeping that promise to myself. and i just think it's nice!! FFN had private messaging, and a lot of those responses turned into whole conversations and friendships that lasted for months. community engagement is a good thing and i like reaching back to the people who reach out to me.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

proooobably These Gordian Knots We Tie (Sterek)😅 though An Empty Glass Is An Ugly Mirror (Dydia) is also pretty bleak.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

uuhhh most of them??? i write a lot of fluff, LOL, i wouldn't know how to pick out just one that stands above the rest when the vast majority of my posted oneshots are sappy as fuck 😂

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i really don't, tbh. which i count myself lucky for, cuz i hear a lot of horror stories. but i've only gotten a small handful of negative comments, most of which were bitching about disagreeing with the characters' choices. i don't think i've ever fielded personal attacks or what ye olden FFNers would've called flames, lol. proportionally, they're negligible.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

on occasion. out of my 209 fics, only 13 of them are explicit, which is roughly 6% lol. including my 7 mature fics (not all of which are rated so for smut, i don't think) ups that to 9.5% 😂 i'm just not very interested in writing smut, not to mention it's both difficult and kind of boring and repetitive when you think about it. i feel like i'm notorious for romances that use one kiss as the climactic ending, if even that, haha. when i do (rarely) write smut, it's usually in dedicated pwp format, rather than integrated into a larger story, cuz i just feel like most larger stories (mine, at least) don't need it 🤷🏻‍♀️

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

the only crossover that i've written and posted was Teen Wolf/Supernatural, cuz i just could not resist the urge to have Allison call the Winchesters and tell them that her father had gone on a hunting trip and he hadn't been home in a while. i just needed that in my life, and i was offended that no one else had written it. also i thought that Dean "Easily Flustered By Flirtatious Men" Winchester should really meet Stiles "Doe Eyes, Witty Banter Someone Needs To Sex Me Right Now" Stilinski. for reasons.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i have! the reason that i teeechnically have a wattpad account is because someone yoinked To Be A King wholesale and posted it over there themselves, and i needed an account to be able to message them to take it tf down. weirdly, they changed some of the names, but not the distinctive names? the identifying names?? like Mordred or the names of my OCs. it was an odd choice. anyway, they took it down immediately with no other response. i think that's been the only time, as far as i'm aware.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i've got 15 translations listed in my related works 😍 8 of them by the same industrious person, bless them.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not since that one disaster of an attempt with a friend in early high school, lmao. that's when i realized that i am a control freak with high and unforgiving standards. she was writing her parts 1) badly and 2) WRONG and it drove me up the wall. i can't handle not having complete control of the narrative 😅 i write alone.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

that's not faaaiiiiiir, patently impossible to answer, next question

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

if i don't finish For Shell And Safety someday, it'll be a fucking tragedy, cuz i'm really proud of that one and i was so so invested in it when i started it and i've still got Thoughts on how it's supposed to end, i just got stalled out in the middle of it and never found my momentum again. but.....it's been 6.5 fucking years. however, i feel like, because i do still have those thoughts and plans, that one might have a better chance than REM-DAC, because THAT one stalled out right before it was supposed to be over due to the sudden realization that i actually wanted there to be a sequel and i couldn't tie up the loose ends in the first fic without knowing how to set up for the second one. but. i never figured out concretely what i wanted to happen in the second one. and it's been 5.5 years there too. still no concrete plans. so, despite that one also being a GREAT FIC that i'm VERY PROUD OF and deeply invested in, i will have to at some point accept the reality of how low the odds are that i will ever actually get back into the swing of it and finish what i fucking started. they haunt me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'm really not quite sure 🤔 strengths and weaknesses are easier to tell from an outside perspective, lol. i feel like i write good natural-feeling dialogue. at least, the professor in the one short story technique workshop i took in college told me as much 😂 said i had the best dialogue in the class. been riding that high for a decade aldkfjghf

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

idkkkkkk 😅😅😅 pacing maybe?? like, long form pacing in lengthier narratives??

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i have avoided it so far, lkajdfgh. objectively, i think it can be done well and it can be done badly, and different methods serve different purposes so it depends on the story which is most appropriate. the online medium provides more avenues for it than print, like the hover text translations that used to be more popular before phones/touchscreens without cursors became the most prominent way to read things, or superscript links to footnotes with translations. some people put the translation directly into the narrative like an echo, but that gets really tedious really fast, and it would be simpler and more streamlined to just cut out the other language entirely and say "XYZ" he said, in french instead. overall, my preferred method is to filter it through the understanding of the POV character and their potentially limited/imperfect grasp of that other language. if they don't know what's being said, we don't know what's being said. if they pick out some words and get the gist, we see their thought process of figuring it out. it informs our understanding of the character, as well as providing an obstacle and creating tension. if you want to include a full translation of the foreign text, you can in endnotes or a postscript, but i don't really think it's necessary. if people wanna find out what it says, google translate is free 🤷🏻‍♀️ probably best not to use google translate to write the thing, though. if it's not a language you speak, preferably find someone who does speak it to translate, to make sure it's accurate and not butchered. hence me avoiding writing anything that requires other languages 😂 cuz i'm a monolingual usamerican loser who doesn't want to go to as much trouble as it would require to branch out like this. i am a "so-and-so said something unintelligibly french" bitch.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

cut my teeth on Harry Potter back in the day

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

another patently impossible question, i have no answer for this, i love all my fics equally (or at least in tiers uwu)

.

i am tagginggg: @adamprrishcycle @flightspathfic @nooowestayandgetcaught @adrianfridge @nyxelestia and anybody else who wants to do it!!

20 questions for fic writers!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

[rainydawgradioblog]

Top Ten Songs that my Roommates Hate:

If I’m good at anything it's being obnoxious. Here’s ten songs that I love, but drive my roommates up the wall.  Ranked from their most to least tolerable.

10.  “Bangs”- They Might be Giants

Starting off very tame, “Bangs” has the signature TMBG geeky sound and whiny vocals. The song conjures imagery of pocket protectors and protractors. With lyrics like "royal flyness" and talk of concordant angles, “Bangs” is likely a big hit in the math department. Hey at least they've got taste.

9.  “Billy Don't Be a Hero”- Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods

What's better than mass manufactured 70s bubblegum pop hit about the Civil War? A cover of the Paper Lace ‘classic’, “Billy Don't Be a Hero” tells a story of a soldier killed in combat, in the most catchy, kitschy way possible. It’s a very addictive song, so please listen responsibly.

8.  “Xanadu”- Rush

“Xanadu” by Rush is not to be confused with the 1980 Olivia Newton John film of the same name, though both are pretty polarizing. The only critique I can offer is that at only 11 minutes, “Xanadu” is entirely too short. Who wouldn't want to " To stand within the pleasure dome, decreed by Kubla Khan” with Geddy Lee. Sounds pretty cool if you ask me.

7. “Motorcycle Mama”- Harpo

Everyone knows that a truly great musician is defined by their references to other, better musicians. Unlike the other songs on this list ( with the exception of Gaucho) this is a bad song, but it's a blast. Harpo’s so caught up in trying to string Ravi Shankar and Fritz the Cat together that he entirely forgets to pay any attention to the rest of the song.

6.  “Be True to Your School”- The Beach Boys

Clearly, my roommates are lacking some serious school spirit. Just wait until some loud braggart tries to put them down. They won't know what hit them.

5. “Your Auntie Grizelda”- The Monkees

I'm a big fan of the Monkees, but even I have to admit that “Your Auntie Grizelda" is an annoying song. There is a definite reason Peter Tork wasn't placed on vocals, but I think there's a certain charm to having a singer who can't really sing.

4. “Schlock Rod Pt. 2”- Jan and Dean

“Schlock Rod Pt. 2” is nothing if not unique, it's an obnoxious conversation between two men, complete with constant voice cracks. Set to a tune consisting of clanging metal and sputtering car engines, it's satire, and I’ll defend it till the end. Think this one is annoying? Check out part one.

3. “Gaucho”- Steely Dan

I apologize in advance to all the Dan Fans out there, but damn this song sucks. Listening to “Gaucho” is like being transported to your grandpa’s pontoon in the 80s, and when a song mentions ponchos more than once, there’s a fundamental issue lyrically.

2. “Sally MacLennane”- The Pogues

The best way to listen to any Pogues song is at an ear-splitting volume, though the people I live with might disagree. If you have too many friends, this will either take care of it (especially if you listen at strange hours of the morning) or you’ll meet the best people you’ll ever know. Rest in peace, Shane MacGowan, you are a legend and a genius.

1. “Strap on That Jammy Pac”- Ween

Recorded on a four-track cassette while both Dean and Gene Ween were supposedly huffing Scotchgard (they probably weren’t) and had mono (they probably did); “Strap on That Jammy Pac” is the first track off of The Pod, which is easily one of the best albums of all time. Shout out to Ween for this much needed addition to blues-country history.

-Parks

[writingwife-83]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag @bg-sparrow this looks like fun! ☺️

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

260 (and rapidly going up, because there’s a bunch more one shots that are currently still in a multi-chapter and I’m working on posting them individually)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,528,192 😵‍💫

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly BBC Sherlock and Star Wars. But I’ve also written a fic for The Hunger Games, Loki show, Grantchester, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, and Wonder Woman.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

(I’m not gonna include the fic that technically comes in 4th place because that’s the multi-chapter of one shots which will eventually be deleted completely from AO3 once all the one shots have their own post)

I Told You So (sherlolly)

Alliance (reylo)

Half Agony, Half Hope (sherlolly)

Zephyr (sherlolly)

For Science (sherlolly)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Absolutely! There was only one time in my life that I said I couldn’t routinely do that, and that was at the height of popularity for I Told You So. I was posting it on AO3 and ffnet, and also posting the links on here, and I was getting feedback on all three platforms. Which was amazing! But it meant it was a bit much to keep up with. Other than that, I feel commenters deserve a response since they’re giving us writers the thing we want most. ❤️

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

For reylo probably I’m Ready to be Heartbroken and for sherlolly I think it’s a tie between You’re Dying and Congratulations, By The Way.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I truly couldn’t say because I’ve written sooo many with happy endings that Idk what would be happiest 😆

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I’ve gotten the very occasional slightly rude comment over the years, but not what I’d consider hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I never have and I don’t plan to. It’s just not something I want to do. And besides I think there’s always more than enough of that for those who want it. If anything, what tends to be lacking is a large selection of fics without that type of content.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Only think I’ve ever done is a Star Wars AU one shot for sherlolly called Balance.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, and I don’t know if I’d even want to know because that would be such a huge amount of stress and I’d probably be very limited in what I could do about it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I’m honored to say that I have! There might be one for I Told You So on ffnet… I can’t remember. But definitely on AO3 there’s a Russian translation of Zephyr and a Chinese translation of For Science

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, indeed! I’ve co-written two fics with @thisisartbylexie. Alliance for reylo, and Half Agony, Half Hope for sherlolly. Coincidence that those are also in my top 5 kudos? I think not.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

That’s super hard but if for no other reason than the duration of my creating, I guess I’d have to say sherlolly.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I don’t think I have an answer for this because the 2 WIP I have at the moment are ones I am definitely in the process of finishing.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think dialogue and internal descriptions for the character. And I guess describing things in a way that help the reader easily hear/see the scene in their mind, since that’s a comment I’ve gotten many times over the years.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action and mystery. Ironic, given my fandoms lol. I am always so uncomfortable describing action scenes or situations where there’s a lot going on and it’s fast paced. And I absolutely would struggle if I had to come up with a mystery plot line!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

What an interesting question! I’m trying to think if I’ve ever even done this in a fic. 🤔 But I think it’s a great thing to include if the plot calls for it! If I did I’d ideally want to check with someone who is fluent in that language just to make sure I’m not being inaccurate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

BBC Sherlock (for sherlolly) going on 10 years ago 🥹

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I genuinely don’t think I can choose. Sometimes I try to when I get this question, but it really is a toss up between a few fics. There’s not one particular one that stands out from the others so much that I’d call it my favorite. But some of my faves are definitely in that list of my top kudos fics that I listed in question 4.

I’ll tag @musicprincess1990 @englandsgray @love-yellow-door @strawberrypatty and whoever else sees this post and feels like participating!

[purgemarchlockdown]

ask game

from tsuwmya 2, 4, 11, 12, 13 for Muu and 1, 2, 3, 5, 21 for Mahiru I hope it's not too much 👉👈

It's no problem! I enjoy doing ask games a lot they're really fun!

Muu:

2. favorite mv moment/frame?

I love this frame from It's Not My Fault so much, it's just so pretty and lovely to watch. I love how slow it feels...

4. favorite minigram episode/moment?

I think bread Muu is really funny. Second place goes to Raincoat Muu though.

11. what are your favorite points about their story and the narrative surrounding them?

TOXIC CYCLES AND ENVIRONMENTS I LOVE YOU (IN STORYTELLING)!!!!!

I love it when characters are...kinda the worst. I am a Worst Girls Enjoyer and I like it when characters are horrible so Muu's already appealing from that point.

But Muu is so much More than just Horrible and that's really what sells her for me, cause there is a lot of depth to her as a character. Muu's a victim and a bully, she tries her best to keep herself satisfied with this shallow form of love and attention, one predicated on being at the top and hurting the people under you. As long as you are not the worst you can continue to get the "honey." Which leads to very destructive and unhealthy environments and situations.

It's not really surprising Haruka and Muu gravitated towards each other, both use "pity" to gain a form of "love" and in the process demean and hurt themselves. Muu's self hatred is a very real thing and it's not something she can easily grow out of.

Muu's kinda stuck, she's unwilling to take responsibility for her own faults but also due to the horribly toxic school environment she finds herself in she's unable to really grow Either since the place basically discourages growth and development and she's also horribly insecure and self-hating which really doesnt help anyone.

Plus as I said she uses that "pity" to gain love and that kinda means she Needs to be in some sort of bad situation for that to work. The "ideal" situation for Muu is one where she's in pain so that people care about her and that's just...depressing.

I could talk about it forever honestly but there's a lot more questions so-

12. what do you wish would be discussed more often about them in the fandom?

I want to see more discussion on her horribly toxic cycles and self-destruction! I don't think there's much of it and its sad since its such an integral part of her story. She's really channeling Shiori fr and I think that's really interesting! Plus I'd also like if if people stopped treating her like a mastermind...she isn't...she's really impulsive actually...

13. any ideas on what would they and their MV be like if they got a different verdict in T1?

Plays up the pity factor by a lot, you thought After Pain was sad? Muu's playing that thing up to eleven now. She's desperate to gain love and attention so please please please forgive her now, she won't do anything bad she promises! It be real depressing alright...

Mahiru:

1. favorite song lyrics?

Even when I test you, even the times we do the breakup ritual, Is because I love you

This is the most quietly horrifying line in TIHTBILWY for me and I love it. Mahiru "Love is Pain" Shiina Just Admitted to testing how much her boyfriend loves her and how willing he is to stay with her. "Breakup ritual" is so horrifying in this context I love it.

2. favorite mv moment/frame?

Cat moment fr.

3. favorite non-mv official illustration?

(I can't find a big version of this for some reason) I Love her album cover! It's really striking and pretty I think, plus I really like all the flowers around it.

5. favorite voice drama line/moment?

Mahiru: What? No, no. There’s no such thing as that. Being in love is like a landmine. It’ll explode someday, you know? The only thing that differs is whether it happens earlier or later in life. It’ll happen to you too. Even if you don’t have any interest in it now, one day it’ll explode for you as well. All because you’ll have that fateful encounter with your special someone.

Can you tell I Really like it when Mahiru is horrible? It's subtle here but her insensitivity and the way she can ignore what other people say and want because She thinks she knows whats best is shown here and I really like that about her. Plus the amatonormativity is Real in this sentence.

21. do you have any similarities with them/relate to something in them?

Not really, I don't really relate to Mahiru much. I'm not a romance person (I'm...90-97% sure I'm aro depending on the day) and she can honestly be a bit overwhelming for Me. I can sometimes be a bit overindulgent with my interests though so I guess that counts.

[dandelion-wings]

Process & Commentary: Betrayal's Daughter

Being very navel-gazey tonight! I've been thinking about trying to break down some elements of my writing process for a while, in response to a Discord discussion about editing a while back, and another Discord discussion tonight brought the idea back up.

The thing is, despite my tendency to keep old drafts, I don't have a lot of documents that show the non-writing part of my process, because I usually delete in-doc notes as I go along, and my edit notes are usually on paper and get lost easily. But I do have two pieces where, for very different reasons, I did preserve some element of those notes! I may or may not come back and do a similar showing/commentary of Cursed Transformation later; for now, it's going to be Betrayal's Daughter.

This is a mix of 'introductory notes' for each whole draft, here on Tumblr, and in-draft commentary done in comments on a Google Docs. Hopefully it isn't too dire to navigate! I have, if I've set it up right, enabled comments by viewers on the Docs, on the premise that people may want to ask questions about things I didn't commentate. So feel free to do so!

The prompt for this fic was an interesting one to pick up, because while the prompter had a premise I loved, and I adored Kujou Sara as the core character, the additional characters they listed for the prompt were not, for the most part, ones I would have chosen for the premise. Which made it more challenging to write, but also more interesting, since I had to figure out how those characters would interact with Sara on this emotional journey, and I got to go places I didn't expect! But the first draft was, uh, rough, because I had no idea how to put any of that together at first.

I knew from the start that I was going to have to break it into sections, and that what I wanted was what I (because I get very strong visuals for scene structure) call a "folding fan" pattern of scenes--a frame story with two outer framing scenes and a central bridge, with scenes that mirrored each other in some way on either side of the bridge. And while that's what I came out with, I had no idea how to structure it when I started, so this first draft has a 'frame' that leans entirely on Sara's character story 5 and doesn't appear in later drafts.

Draft 1 - Google Doc

The reason my initial outline notes, which I usually delete from a document as I turn them into scenes, remain in this draft is also because of that uncertainty; I knew most of these scenes weren't doing what I wanted yet in this draft, and wanted to be able to refer back to my initial ideas in the second draft, so that I kept track of what I was trying to do. Those initial notes are at the top of each scene I had such notes for.

The second round of notes, my edit notes, are there because I usually write those on paper, but was traveling at the time and knew I would lose them if I did; they are at the bottom of each scene I had such notes for.

As a processes-and-procedures note, I physically rewrote this fic between the first and second draft. I have two computers, and I usually have it open on the desktop and retype in a fresh document on the laptop. This is fairly commonly something I do for something I know I'm going to make big changes to between drafts; it helps me to make the big departures if I'm not deleting text in the text editor to do so, for some reason, and also lets me rethink individual lines as I type them.

By the time I got to the second draft, I had a pretty good idea of my overall structure, and so this draft is much closer to the finished product. The primary difference is the first scene, because I was still struggling with framing (some notes on which are at the bottom of the first draft), and I started this draft thinking I was going to do a frame using scenes with her brothers.

(Oh. Oh that's what "boat framing" meant in those ending notes on the first draft. The pattern I had in mind when I started the second draft was "Masahito - Yoimiya - Ayaka - Yae - Kamaji - Masahito - Yae - Ayaka - Yoimiya - Kamaji"! Why this looked like a boat in my head, I cannot tell you. I come up with some weird fucking visualizations for stuff.)

As you'll note, there is no final Kamaji scene, and there's a middle Yoimiya scene that isn't in that pattern. I realized the actual shape I wanted and went back to the "folding fan" frame pattern mid-second-draft. Because, unlike the first draft, I didn't need to tell myself anything by writing the final scene I didn't want to use anymore, I didn't need to write it just to throw it out.

Draft 2 - Google Doc

There aren't any notes in this draft (that I didn't delete as I was writing as usual), and there's less for me to comment on that I didn't cover in the first draft, but it is a transitional stage between the mess of the first draft and the final product, so I'm still linking it for the purpose of side-by-side comparisons! There is technically a third draft, but it's identical to the final fic posted on AO3, down to the typos, and there was no commentary to make there that wouldn't fit into the second draft, anyway.