#eliot enjoys getting to be a Little Weird

[shadeofazmeinya]

my favorite types of Eliot grifts in Leverage are:

1. glasses

2. the weirdest fucking guy you can imagine

[onyxbird]

The Bridgeport Cat Café

New Leverage AU, based on this video of someone from a cat café account introducing their cats and describing what types of crime they (allegedly) engage in:

Hardison bought them a cat café instead of a brewpub.

Parker thinks it's a great idea. As soon as Hardison shared the idea with her, she started planning out the incredibly elaborate system of climbing structures, catwalks, tunnels, and hidey-holes at both cat and human scale. Hardison wasn't able to implement all of her ideas, especially not before the rest of the team arrived, but he managed a lot, including purchasing the rest of the building the original café occupied and expanding into that space.

The renovated café quickly becomes known for the fact that it is both the physically largest cat café any of the patrons have encountered and that sections of it essentially double as an indoor play structure for both kids and adults.

Hardison, as someone with allergies himself and knowing Leverage would want to bring clients here, poured a lot of thought into the cat-free and "allergy-friendly" side of the café, where patrons can enjoy all of the café's food and beverage offerings, watch the cats, and even climb a limited portion of their signature human-sized "cat tree" while remaining separated from the cats by enormous windows. The two areas are served by separate ventilation and both have thorough air filtration. The cat-free side quickly becomes popular with the remote-work crowd who like to bring their laptops and watch the cats without any actually climbing on them and their work materials. (There are also customer-free portions of the building the cats can retreat to and optionally view the customers through glass.)

Eliot and Sophie, of course, say the idea is absolutely insane. Sophie's mostly ticked off about the unilateral move to Portland and them taking on the extra burden of a (weird, niche) business (although she makes little secret of being charmed by many of the cats themselves), but Eliot is particularly incensed about the difficulties of trying to run a café that's full of animals. "Running a good café isn't child's play, you know. You planning make food on site with cat fur everywhere? You think the Health Department's gonna stand for that? Sure, you can probably get away with some kind of automatic coffee machine and prepackaged food, but that ain't a café, that's an animal shelter with a damn vending machine."

His complaints trail off as Hardison steers him into the (newly renovated) kitchen, through the airlock-style double doors from a hallway not open to the cats, each with an automatic air curtain to keep cat fur as well as cats from slipping through. The other side of the kitchen has pass-throughs and doors directly to the cat-free side of the café. The gleaming new espresso machines are already in place, along with other basic kitchen equipment, although Hardison comments that he's still researching the best ovens and layout for baking all of their pastries on-site (the printouts and notes on his research are already bundled up and ready to be "spilled" on top of the materials for their next job, in front of Eliot).

The kitchen also features several plexiglass tunnels so that cats can watch the action in the kitchen without contaminating the space. Eliot will never admit, even under torture, to making squinty eyes and kissy noises at the cats that come to hang out with him while he cooks with no other humans around to see, especially when prepping pastry in the wee hours of the morning before anyone but the cats is awake.

Finally, Nate regrets having turned Hardison loose with free rein to pick the Portland HQ. When he suggested a restaurant or something as a front, he assumed he knew the limits of what that could entail--in hindsight, he's glad they didn't end up operating out of a Medieval Times* knock-off. He's performatively grouchy about the cats, yet never seems to chase away the ones that mysteriously end up on his lap during job planning. There's one particular "shoulder cat" that seems to love nothing more than riding around on Nate's shoulders during a briefing, occasionally punctuating particularly passionate sections with supportive meows.

Another quirk the café becomes semi-known for is the prominent lost-and-found counter where patrons can try to reclaim items that have vanished from their pockets, as the cats at this establishment seem to be oddly prone to pickpocketing...

*Consciously or not, Nate is on some level aware of how much Hardison and Parker would enjoy watching Eliot "joust."

[alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody]

kinktober #23

Bonfire Bash 🔥 / Rotten Core 🪱

“Oh, you’re gonna do it like that?” says Hardison, widening his eyes at Parker. “That’s just nasty, woman. That’s, like, a four-thousand-percent sugar to anything else ratio. S’mores are about the balance.”

Parker licks around the edges of her s’more, which is a carefully assembled tower of six marshmallows, three Hershey bars broken in half so that three halves bracket each side of the marshmallows, and then the usual amount of graham crackers because this is the only way she can stand them. Otherwise they get all weird and gummy in her mouth and it unlocks some weird memory she thinks might be from when she was a baby, and she definitely doesn’t want that. 

“Excuse me,” she says, poking Hardison’s pudgy side with one finger. “My methods are superior. Tested by time!”

Hardison looks to Eliot for help, but Eliot shrugs. “Can’t be that different from that orange soda you’re always drinking, man.”

“HaHA!” cackles Parker, chomping a bite out of her s’more. “See? This was a great idea, you guys. Why don’t we have more s’mores nights?”

“Fire,” Hardison and Eliot say in unison.

“Oh, right.” In her defense, Parker has been really good about the fire. This is a nice way to enjoy it: sandwiched between her favorite boys, eating what’s objectively one of the best foods ever invented, all with a giant roaring flame to keep her warm and stimulated. Earlier in the evening, Hardison presented her with a whole set of fireplace tools, including an extendable blow poke and a long metal grabber to move wood around with, and told her that they were the condition on which she was allowed to play with the fire.

“Did you steal the tools?” she’d whispered, and he’d nodded.

“You know I did. Only the best for my baby.”

They’re burning, like literally burning, a bunch of old identities from the last city. Hardison’s got backups under layers and layers of encryption and firewalls and all his other digital safety measures that sound like word salad to Parker, but she wanted to have a ceremonial bonfire to commemorate starting over again, so Hardison humored her and printed out some copies. 

She likes the new house so far. It’s colder here than Portland, but it doesn’t rain as much, and there are enough trees on the multi-acre property that she’s already starting to bug Hardison about a zip line. So far he’s much more open to the idea of putting one out in the trees here than he was to putting one inside the New Orleans house, even though the high ceilings would have been perfect. 

She takes another bite of s’more and adjusts a few logs with the grabber. The fire sends up a shower of embers and ash, and she flicks them off where they land on her clothes. She’ll have to shower right away when they get inside, because as much as she loves the smell of wood smoke when it is outside, in the fresh air where it belongs, she hates smells that linger, and wood smoke is definitely a lingerer. She’ll pull the boys in too. Eliot’ll hate it because he just washed his hair this morning and he doesn’t like to do it twice in one day, says it’s bad for the hair or something, but oh well. That’s why she bought him the shower cap. It’s not her fault he refuses to wear it. 

She’d kind of thought that Eliot would have had some fancy high-end way to make a s’more, like dark chocolate and brown sugar marshmallows or something, but he’s chowing down on a normal one next to her, hair pulled back into a loose bun and shoved under a beanie to keep it out of the goop. That’s the other thing Parker likes about s’mores, the one Hardison really can’t abide: the goop. Parker can endure any number of boring activities, lectures, and/or social situations if she has something sticky on her fingers to keep her entertained. Lately she’s been really into those sticky little hands, but the s’more is a nice change of pace. 

(The new house also came with pine trees, which she’s very excited for. Eliot said they won’t start dripping a lot of sap for a while still, but she can wait. She’s got time. And a bulk order of sticky hands to get through.)

Next to her, Hardison wipes some marshmallow from his hands with an antibacterial wipe. His face is a bit fuller than it used to be, and while he’s retained some muscle tone in his arms, he’s also got enough extra arm for Parker to jiggle a little when they cuddle. His belly bows out in a soft curve beneath his t-shirt, and 

“Hi,” she says, tipping her head onto Hardison’s shoulder. Now that he’s back from his stint of globetrotting and saving the world, he hasn’t been working out as much, and his orange soda consumption is back up to normal levels. He’s softening up; they all are, thanks to Eliot’s determination to get them to eat three meals a day and their enthusiasm at being his taste testers for the new menus he’s been working on. Parker likes her new, softer shape a lot, even if she’s had to work to figure out a new center of gravity, a new sense of balance. It’s a good challenge. Without even realizing it, she’d gotten kind of bored of knowing how to do everything she does without having to work for it.

“Hey, mama,” says Hardison, bumping his head gently against hers. “Want me to start another marshmallow for you?”

Parker nods, mouth full. Hardison is the best at roasting marshmallows. He’s proven himself over campfires, barbecue grills, fireplaces, gas burners, blowtorches, and the tiny tabletop electric grill Eliot gave in and bought after he realized the one Parker had her eye on could double as a fondue pot. The man’s got it down to a science. Probably he has an algorithm for exactly how much heat and exposure time each square inch of the marshmallow needs to be perfectly golden.

Hardison plucks another couple of marshmallows out of the bag and threads them onto his stick. On her other side, Eliot takes a slug of the new porter he’s trying out for the new restaurant space he’s been cooking up. Eliot’s softer than both of them, but they’re doing their best to catch up. A little bonus padding has made him stronger, more powerful, harder to hurt, and Parker loves that that softness makes her feel both comforted and reassured in his arms. He’s still the most dangerous person in any given situation, but she likes knowing that there’s some extra fat between him and whatever he’s up against.

Eliot built the fire pit out here with his own two hands and a bunch of rocks he dug up from the chunk of the yard he’s taken over for his garden. If Parker looks hard enough, she can see them in its construction: Eliot the protective perimeter of stones, Hardison the gravel inside it, laying the groundwork and keeping everyone even, and herself, reaching up for the sky in bright fingers of flame. 

“Who do you think could eat the most s’mores?” she muses, watching Hardison twirl his marshmallow stick amid the flames.

“You,” Eliot and Hardison in unison.

“Come on!” she groans. “That’s not fun!”

“But it’s true,” says Hardison, shrugging. “You could eat us under the table as far as sugar’s concerned.”

“Okay, fine,” she says, skimming the gooey marshmallow innards off the tip of her own stick, where the outer shell of the marshmallow went up in flames shortly after she plunged it into the fire. “What do you think you could eat the most of?”

Hardison purses his lips, gaze lost somewhere above the fire. “Probably like — we talking, like, one specific food, or a whole genre of food?”

Parker shrugs. “I’ll allow a genre, since mine is sugar.”

“Maybe chips,” says Hardison. “Or, like, the extended family of chips and chip-adjacent snacks. If we include, like Cheetos, Takis, all them, I think I could do it. Give me something to hack and I can clear out bags without even realizing.”

“That’s true,” says Parker, considering. “I’ve seen you go through chips like that. It’s impressive.”

“Thank you,” says Hardison, bowing as much as he can while sitting on a log, roasting marshmallows. “It’s a carefully honed talent.”

They both glance at Eliot, who’s squinting into the flames. 

“Potatoes,” says Eliot finally. “Variation in texture’s key to being able to eat a lot of something. More important than taste, even, but that ain’t even really an issue with potatoes. You can dress ’em up all sorts of ways and they’ll feel like different foods.”

Hardison nods solemnly. “Okay, okay. I think Parker and I will have to verify, though. Like the Guiness Book of World Records. Let’s put that on the calendar.”

“As long as I get to cook the potatoes,” says Eliot, and Parker and Hardison nod vehemently.

“All you, man,” says Hardison. “We ain’t touching that.”

He pulls his marshmallows out of the fire and examines it. “Almost done,” he tells Parker, and she begins preparing her chocolate bars and graham crackers.

“Okay, but Eliot,” she says, tapping his knee with the corner of a wrapped chocolate bar. “If you had to make your own version of s’mores, what would you do?”

“Like how would I make ’em better, or how would I make ’em high-end?”

“Either,” says Parker, sliding the marshmallows Hardison passes her off the stick and squashing them between the graham crackers and chocolate so that they ooze out the sides.

Eliot thinks, turning his beer in his hands. “Pound cake,” he says after a long moment. “With crushed graham crackers in the batter. Grill it beforehand to warm it up, get it a little crispy, there you go.”

“I want that,” Parker agrees. “I want that a lot.”

“And elevated,” he goes on, rubbing his chin, “I think Earl Grey shortbreads and lavender dark chocolate. Marshmallow’s got to be the sweetest thing there or it won’t work.”

Parker wrinkles her nose. Hardison doesn’t mind lavender, even goes in for some floral beers or ice creams sometimes, but she’s not a fan. “Okay, you guys can have those. Will you make me the pound cake ones sometime?”

“Yeah,” says Eliot, reaching over for a bite of her s’more. “Maybe next weekend. We got this fire pit now, we might as well use it.”

“Now hold up,” says Hardison from Parker’s other side. “I could get in on some pound cake. Throw some strawberries in there, I’m in.”

“Strawberries’d be good,” Eliot agrees through a mouthful. “I’ll pick some up this week. Can’t have you two starving.”

Parker lays a hand on her belly over the blanket where it’s starting to round out a bit. “Aw, we know you’d never let us starve.”

“Never,” says Eliot, passing her s’more back to her. “Not on my watch.”

[chrisfriel]

beginners guide to dying 040724

rarely post non photographic stuff but this moved me today

In September 2023, Simon Boas was diagnosed with throat cancer. Aged just 46, he was told the disease was terminal, and that it would ultimately take his life.

Over the following year, he knitted together his reflections on life into a book - A Beginner's Guide to Dying. The book is set to hit the shelves in October. It will be a posthumous publication.

In what he expects to be one of his final interviews, Simon spoke to Emma Barnett on the Today Programme, offering his reflections on life and death as he moved into hospice care.

My pain is under control and I'm terribly happy - it sounds weird to say, but I'm as happy as I've ever been in my life.

I used to think I'd rather be hit by the proverbial bus, but having a couple of months knowing this is coming has really helped me both do the boring 'death-min', but also get my thoughts and prepare myself, and feel so accepting of what's to come.

It's been such a great bonus, actually.

The book is called A Beginner's Guide to Dying, but really what I'm trying to convey is how enjoying life to the full kind of prepares you for this.

In some ways I was lucky that my life and my career have taken me to quite a lot of places where death is more a part of life than it is for us in the West.

I spent my life as an aid worker - quite a lot with the UN - and I've lived in places where death is something that not just exists in the background, but is imminently possible.

I spent three years running a UN office in the Gaza Strip. I spent a lot of time in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and I've been working in Ukraine. Seeing people there for whom death is such a part of life - they lose children, they don't know where the next meal is coming from - has really helped me.

I've also been a Samaritan for the past four years. In some cases you are on the line while people end their lives, so I think death has been more a part of my life than for many people.

It does us all good to think about it.

That's not in a gloomy way… by kind of realising it's inevitable and it's a part of life, it actually throws life into perspective and helps you to enjoy it more and prioritise the important things.

My family are about to go through the most difficult thing in their lives. My lovely wife, Aurelie, and my parents… are well surrounded, and I hope that my cheerfulness in the leaving of life might perhaps help them in the next few years…

All our lives are little books - but they're not someone else's complete book. You're a chapter or a page or a footnote in someone else's life and they are going to keep writing beautiful chapters when you are gone.

And those green shoots can grow around grief and put it in perspective. I hope people will think, "I'm glad I read that - Simon's story". And just because it's over, doesn't mean it's gone.

You don't need to have been a politician or a mover and shaker or an aid worker or anything in life. All of us make a huge difference.

I love this quote from George Eliot's Middlemarch:

"The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

All of us make a huge difference in life. I love the idea that most films about time travel revolve around changing one tiny thing in the past, and of course they come back to the present and everything is different.

If you project that forward, you can change huge amounts of things into the future.

All our tombs will be unvisited in a few years - all our actions will mostly be unremembered - but the smile you gave the checkout lady or the kind words you gave to a stranger in the street could still be rippling forward.

We all have that opportunity and it's a huge power. And I want everyone to realise how special and precious they are.

I love melted cheese. Unfortunately I haven't been able to eat since Christmas. The chemotherapy killed my taste buds and the radiotherapy killed my salivary glands.

So, sadly, melted cheese and all the things I loved are off the menu.

However, I've been given full permission by my oncologist and my hospice team to enjoy as much Muscadet and as many cheeky rollups as I want - and I shall certainly be indulging in those and spending time with my family.

I'm sort of - not looking forward to my final day - of course that's the wrong way to see it. But I'm kind of curious about it, and I'm happy and I'm ready.

As Julian of Norwich said: "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well."

FULL INTEVIEW

[fictionadventurer]

I happened to see a good chunk of the Netflix Persuasion. I can't give a complete review or analysis or whatever, but I have thoughts.

This movie has some very pretty colors. I like cool color palettes, what can I say?

There was one shot of a purple sunset where I was like, "Oh, I could live in this picture."

The aesthetic was so trendy I couldn't take it seriously. The clothes were that 2019 Little Women cottagecore vibe with lots of poorly-fitted textures and layers and colors. I laughed out loud at the Big White Text announcing LYME or BATH, because it's such a specific vibe.

I tried to detach from any notion of it as an Austen adaptation, and just enjoy it as its own movie that just happens to take place in a history-flavored fantasy world where everyone uses modern speech. Because sometimes those stories can be fun. It still didn't work.

Because it mostly just confused me. It was this weird mish-mash of genres and tones that didn't really blend together. Oil and water. It was Pinterest and Hallmark and Austen and College Humor and Instagram and Feminism and it's all felt like it came from completely different movies.

It was trying to be a sincere period drama love story and a goofy parody at the same time and it just didn't work.

Like, there were some sweet moments in it. Anne talking about poetry to Captain Benwick was rather nice.

But then you've got things like the weird octopus-sucking-my-face story Anne tells at Lady Dalrymple's. Even that could have worked okay in context, because Mr. Eliot jumps in and turns it into a metaphor about identity, which helps to cover for Anne's awkwardness and shows that he's willing to help her out. But then they keep bringing up the octopus as a sort of pet name and it's just so weird and doesn't fit with the rest of the story.

I've gotten ahead of myself so I'm going to backtrack to some specifics.

Mary Musgrove was excellent. Spot-on. I love how she's visibly younger than Anne. First adaptation I've seen that emphasizes that.

It was interesting how they emphasized the Mrs. Clay storyline. It actually sparked some interesting thoughts about the differences between the male social climbing of the sailors (shown in a positive light in Austen) and the female social climbing of the marriage-seeking ladies (shown in a more negative light).

I've never had a clearer picture of why Mrs. Clay matters so much to Mr. Elliot. Even in the book, it's a bit muddy, but it's crystal clear here. Mr. Elliot telling us his schemes straight-out did have the benefit of making the story very easy to follow.

I've got to back up again.

They completely altered the Anne/Wentworth storyline by mixing around all the plot points.

After they go to Bath, Wentworth seeks out Anne, says that they haven't had a chance to talk, and tells her how he always admired how good she was in an emergency. And this was before the staircase scene. I was extremely confused, until it hit me--this is a dream sequence! This is how Anne wants it to play out, but then she'll wake up!

But no! This actually happened! Wentworth says all this very sincerely and passionately, leading up to him declaring...that he wants to be friends. (At least there's context for "We're worse than exes--we're friends.")

It completely alters the trajectory of their relationship. Instead of jumping from the passion of hatred to the passion of love, Wentworth has gone to the other end of the pole--friendly indifference. He likes Anne and is totally okay with her marrying someone else.

I think they changed it so Mr. Elliot could be a serious contender in the love triangle. Wentworth has let her go--can she find happiness with someone else? I'll admit it's an interesting change, even if it's not Persuasion.

But it also seems like they're trying to make Wentworth a Suitable Love Interest for the Twitter Generation. Wentworth gets weirdly bristly with Mr. Elliot. Then Wentworth apologizes because Anne is a strong woman who doesn't need his protection. He tells her she should have been able to be an admiral. He's being mature and letting go of his resentment and wishing her well and showing that he doesn't like Regency Gender Roles. It's like they're shaving away his character growth in favor of a bland Nontoxic Relationship (TM).

But then Anne likes Mr. Elliot because he's bad? He openly talks about how he's trying to wreck her father's relationship to get the title. He insults her family. And she likes it.

This version of Anne holds her family in contempt. She doesn't like them or how they treat her and she openly disdains it. So she connects with Mr. Elliot. But the book Anne seems sad for her family--she doesn't like their behavior because she wishes they could be better people. She has compassion while movie Anne is resentful.

Persuasion is all about restraint. This movie is all about lack of restraint. People speak bluntly and say what they think and openly insult people. It's a completely different culture from the usual Austen movie, because it's modern culture. Which emphasizes how little we value good manners and restraint.

It's also weird how in changing the story, they also turn it into a generic rom-com. There's a more blatant love triangle between the good boy and the bad boy. Wentworth is starting to fall in love with Anne, but he's got an opportunity to advance his career, and he has to decide within a few days, oh no! It's textbook romcom plot points.

There was another point that I'll probably think of later.

EDIT: Oh, I just remembered! I think it was that the movie was so interested in the vibes and emotions of each individual scene that it didn't bother to try to stitch them together in a coherent whole.

The ending kiss looked 1000% like the cover of a cheap romance novel.

And the final moral of "don't let anyone tell you how to live your life" feels so simplistic and selfish and weird.

Overall, I'm not angry. I'm just confused. It's not the type of movie to arouse any kind of emotion other than "Huh???" And maybe a bit of regret that they couldn't have done better things with the interesting bits.

[the-starry-seas]

My fellow Leverage fan! I have a question! Star Wars (specifically TCW era) Leverage au, who are you putting in which role on the team?

ooh okay I'm thinking 👀

Mastermind is Windu. That man is bonkers frickin smart and having had to handle Jedi and politicians and Force powers for so long? This team is a cakewalk, he's on vacation, he's enjoying himself. Critically lacking in family/Catholic trauma but he's having such a good time that I can't hold that against him.

Grifter is Obi-Wan. He has the perfect combination of looks (those eyes do half the work), steady temperament, gremlin behaviour with little provocation, and YOLO-ery to pull off just about anything he sets his mind to. (Briefly considered making him the hitter due to his canonical propensity to remove people of their limbs.)

Hitter is Jango. He's got shit to work out, he's good at what he does, and he'd look great with long hair. Surprisingly like Eliot in that he's got a circle of female acquaintances that he learns things from. Arguably never been one to try to atone for the shit he's done, but also arguably has the daddy issues thing down pat. Also at some point Eliot should have Obtained Child and this is my opportunity to make that a reality (kinda).

Hacker is Tech. Because I love him and also because look at him. He's the best at what he does! And he's already part of a weird renegade clone unit so he's got some team-oriented skills and is used to being up to weird shit. It's like taking a collie to a sheep farm, he's got a job and he's very good at it and he WILL be doing it.

Thief is Quinlan. His experience as a Shadow makes him good at finding things, and getting into and out of places unseen. Also I think canon Quinlan would really love the brain-puzzle of the lasers and locks and all that. He switches out museum exhibits just to give the curators a crisis over Who Did That. Also I think he'd get a kick out of jumping off buildings.

[lightthewaybackhome]

I'm having a terrible time with Leverage:Redemption. I enjoyed the first two episodes, but honestly, everyone feels like a cardboard cutout of themselves. Parker seems weird not because she is but because she's supposed to be. Eliot feels way overplayed, over acted, not like Eliot. He doesn't feel right at all.

Harry Wilson is hardly anything. Where is the found family? Where is the perfect balance between humor and heartbreak? Why are we even trying without Hardison?

And the cons? There's little danger. Some of them are just dumb. And there are no gut-clenching moments where you wonder how this is going to play out? I have not once wondered if everyone would get home safe. Most of it I'm watching through sheer willpower. I'm not having fun.

I fell in love with Leverage the minute I started it. It was all these lost and lonely people finding their souls, healing, and growing together. I don't know what this is.

[freneticfloetry]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Will I ever get enough of these? No? Thanks to @liminalmemories21, @strandnreyes, @welcometololaland, and @reyesstrand for the tags!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

45. RIP to the lost works of my OG fandom, published on a ship board/archive that no longer exists. (I still have most of them, they just won’t be seeing the light of day. Like ever.)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

368,184. (Again, RIP to all those now-unpublished words — with them I’d be somewhere around 800k.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

LOL So glad this question is phrased the way it is. Right now, I’m only actively writing in 911 Lone Star fandom, though I have a WIP in Magicians fandom that I fully intend to finish. Historically, I’ve written in about 40 fandoms (36 on AO3), most with a single fic. Thanks, Yuletide!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ashes and Flame (Every You and Every Me), The Hunger Games Trilogy (I get a kudos email for this one at least five times a week. How are people still finding and reading this little fic?)

Lost in Translation, The Losers

Deck the Halls with Daddy Issues, pre-film Avengers MCU

Big Girl Pants, New Girl

Shells of a Long-Ago Lifetime (Faces That Once Were Mine Mix), Supernatural

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

99.9% of the time, absolutely. Comments are my biggest motivation — the serotonin section fuels my muse. If people take the time to tell me they read and enjoyed a fic (especially if they tell me why), I like to at least thank them for that. There have been times when Real Life has been Happening A Lot and comments on the more popular stuff have gotten by me, and I feel weird about going back months after the fact to respond — that Hunger Games fic, for instance, has a couple pages of unanswered comments.

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

Posted, probably Of All Our Yesterdays. I am typically an Angst with a Happy Ending writer without fail, but the boys of the Black Dagger Brotherhood don’t do typical happy, and Phury is lowkey the angstiest of the bunch.

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

I’m actually gonna say scenes from an unfinished story, because I think Quentin Coldwater having this happy ending, the way this one happens, is the biggest fuck you to show canon and its creators that I could possibly craft.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I recently got my first hate comment! I posted about it, but I’ve also left it up in all its glory.

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

I do now! Not that I haven’t in the past — I wrote several het scenes for my very first ship, and Quentin and Eliot had some delightful married kitchen sex we picked up right in the middle in What Baking Can Do — but I feel like Tarlos has really helped me unleash my inner smut writer. My smut from Carlos’ POV has a lot of feelings (LOL), but the stuff I’m writing from TK’s POV is a little sillier and dirtier and more fun. With feelings.

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

I do love me a good crossover. Outside of canons I’ve crossed that exist in the same universe (We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, in Jessica Jones/Luke Cage fandom, plus And to All a Goodnight, for two Jennifer Crusie books), I once wrote tens of thousands of words of a ridiculously plot-heavy Roswell/Angel crossover that will forever hold a soft spot in my heart, a randomly cracky and super angsty Supernatural/Grey’s Anatomy, and a minor character-focused Supernatural/Sarah Connor Chronicles, Requiem, that I still sort of love a lot.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

That Hunger Games fic has been swiped a few times. Weird.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, the Hunger Games fic — it exists somewhere on the internet in Dutch. And that one, the SPN/TSCC crossover, and an old Dexter fic, Dinner and a Show, have been podficed.

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

I have! An old friend and I once cowrote ~25k of our idea of fluff, which was basically hijinks, smut, and torturing our leading man with a boom box and Billy Joel.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

For ships that I’ve written… Hmm. I think, before I wrote to build a home, I would’ve said it was a tossup between Tarlos, Queliot, Chlollie, and Jules/Robin from Troubleshooters, but now there’s just no contest. Weewoo Husbands for the win. For ships in general, Tarlos still tops the list, alongside the ones I mentioned, the OT3 (Eliot/Hardison/Parker), Arthur/Eames, Phedre/Joscelin from the Kushiel’s Legacy books, Frank/Karen from the Netflix Marvelverse, Aidan/Sally from Being Human US, and my MCU crack cube of Steve/Nat/Bucky/Sam.

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

God, this is such a throwback, but it’s probably Adagio in B-Flat, the Sherlock music porn murder mystery I half wrote and got hopelessly blocked on.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I’d say, especially banter. And understanding characters, I guess? I’m good at making characters sound like themselves, whether they’re speaking or internalizing. And, I’m now proud to say, plot. That’s something I wouldn’t have dared to claim this time ten years ago.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oof. Brevity. I have completely lost the ability to write short (and, by extension, to the point). I’m also the slowest writer in the world, thanks to my tendency to edit every sentence within an inch of its life.

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

My Lone Star mutuals are laughing right now. Clearly I hate it. 😊 I’ve written three fics that feature Spanish, two sort of significantly, and all my old Firefly fics have some Mandarin in there somewhere.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OG Roswell. So much OG Roswell. Michael/Liz, specifically, with a side of Kyle/Isabel.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It almost feels like cheating, since it’s my most recent fic (and the only one I’ve published so far in my current fandom), but I’m so stupidly proud of to build a home. Carlos is such a touchstone character for me that writing him was oddly therapeutic. And I think I’ve said this before, but writing the two of them together was like the evolution of the clarity I found writing Queliot, which was the first time I’d really explored a ship in fic where I loved both halves of the pairing even close to equally — it helped me unearth my Carlos and who he is in my heart, but it also helped me uncover the true depth of my love for TK.

No pressure tagging @orchidscript, @heartstringsduet, @never-blooms, @rmd-writes, @walkinginland, @paperstorm, @mixtapestar, @catanisspicy, and @alrightbuckaroo!

[writinglittlebeasts]

nine people tag

tagged by @rickie-the-storyteller

RULEZ: Answer these questions and then tag 9 people to play too!

i will tag (gently; that's a lot of people): @unhingednovelist @rmgrey-author @tabswrites @karolinarodrigueswrites @void-botanist @outpost51 @camillenrose @moonluringfrost @at-thezenith

and i am. Rambling. in this tag game, so i'm gonna throw it under a cut lol

Three Ships

see, when i'm not thinking about these things they fall right out the back of my skull, so i have nooooo idea. ... and you know what that means !!! 🤪🤪🤪

quentin + eliot from the magicians! they are my everything; they invented love and when i think about them i want to scream and cry and throw up. don't have any other details, if you know you know if you don't get well soon

julia and kady and penny from the magicians! the arrangement doesn't matter! i also have a fun au where both pennys are alive at once and in the same polycule, and initially it's super weird but they get over it. julia and kady have everything, they were forced together but stayed together on purpose, their history is so tumultuous but they care so much about each-other. kady and penny's romance feels rushed but when they decided they were doing it they were great and i was totally on board (+ rewatches have made a lot of the rushed-ness make sense in character

fen and margo from......... the magicians! this show was sooo committed to making fen an accessory character to margeliot (i refer to margo and eliot together this way because it feels wrong to separate them) that they crushed her character into a little box and still, Somehow, she and margo have like Allll of the chemistry, it's ridiculous. i think about the scene where margo tells fen that if eliot dies she'll take care of her every day. i languish under the knowledge that fen's destiny being textually intertwined with margo's was never romantic to the writers the way it was romantic to me. the king's wife and the queen who also happens to be the king's best friend slash qp??? it's sooooooo good.

Currently Listening

in the interest of naming a song instead of just saying i've got reads with rachel running in the background, lp's lost on you but specifically this version is one of my most listened tracks this year i think. it's like, right underneath francesca, it's so good

Last Movie

i watched nimona a couple of days ago and puss in boots: the last wish this morning <3 i read nimona aaaaaages ago (ought to read it again) and i was so excited for the movie. i'm still thinking about it. nimona my friend nimona. puss in boots was fucking gorgeous, also, it was So pretty

Currently Reading

i FINALLY finished paris daillencourt (my beloathed) so i guess i'm back to reading ninth house and house of leaves alternately. though i might bounce around a little and read whitesmile instead because baccano! is one of my favorite series and it's just been sitting on my shelf, driving me nuts because i didn't want to add another book to my, like, (at the time) 3 current reads

Currently Watching

i'd say the rain but i really don't like it so it doesn't count lol . i've been catching episodes of sailor moon while my roommate has been watching them, though, and i've been enjoying that!

Currently Consuming

basically just arizona green tea. it never stops (the arizona green tea)

Currently Craving

absolutely nothing lmao . inspiration for original stories.

[heidiamalia]

oooo 10 and 11 for the fic recs??

okay so i had to do a lil digging for these lolol i apologize for the wait

10/ a fic that isn't prose [poetry, text fic, etc]

after a length of time searching i found the script-formatted fic where crowley and aziraphale create a podcast after the not-apocalypse and i mean -

it's great.

it's a new craze by attheborder

CROWLEY: I try not to make a habit of gratitude, but I must give our appreciation to everyone out there who’s been listening and subscribing to The Ineffable Plan.

AZIRAPHALE: Ooh, yes, we’ve become quite popular, haven’t we?

CROWLEY: Yeah, just hit number eight on the advice charts … No advertising at all.

AZIRAPHALE: Mm. How … miraculous.

CROWLEY: … Aziraphale. You did not.

Crowley and Aziraphale are very possibly the people least qualified, on the entire planet, to start up an advice podcast. But what else is there to do when the world isn’t ending anytime soon, you’re technically on indefinite sabbatical from your lifelong careers, and you need a plausible excuse to spend more time with your best friend who you’re definitely not, absolutely not, maybe just a little, actually maybe overwhelmingly in love with?

i do very much enjoy how thoroughly in you get with this one. we're stuck to the sidelines with the rest of the listeners tagged on twitter and whatnot, watching certain spirals come out and the plot thicken. their voices are so real in my head throughout, without any moment of doubt. i think i laughed right from the summary and didn't stop.

11/ a fic that brought you aboard a new ship

now this line isnt exactly fair because the show itself brought me aboard the ship - the gifsets and the pacific rim comparisons and the long metas to being in sync with each other really introduced me. but the first fic i absolutely remember reading for the ot3 was this one -

safe as houses by thecanaryfalls

Parker and Hardison comfort Eliot, in their weird multimillionare-convicted-felons-who-are-planning-a-life-with-him kind of way.

Set right around The Rundown Job.

this is that middle of the night, quiet and soft piece where you can hear how loud someone's shifting on the couch is -

like does that make sense.

the bit of early early dawn where its too soon to speak up before the birds but you still wanna have that sleepover conversation moment where you have to reassure your best friend you're always gonna be there.

this was that. this is where it was so so solid for me.

ask me about the fic rec meme!

[hagatha-christie]

September books, though at this point these posts are purely just for me

The bad:

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot - shocking amount of racial slurs for a children's book

Sovietistan by Erika Fatland - technically didn't finish this one. It's a shame because it was SO interesting and I enjoyed reading about Central Asia bc I know nothing, but Fatland is so rude about every single local she comes into contact with. Constant descriptions of bad teeth, people's weight, how nasty the food was, and how backwards the attitudes were. I get it's kind of a strange/unique region but it was gross to me that her narration, apart from when she discussed history of the region, was very much "wow look how weird and exotic these people are! I'm so glad I live in Norway where it's CLEAN and people aren't WEIRD." Only made it through the Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan chapters which is a shame bc this could've been great if she was just not an asshole!!!!

The okay:

Uncharted by Alli Temple - was truly expecting nothing from this Kindle Unlimited pirate adventure-romance series with a stock image cover but it was actually not bad? Fun, pulp-y plot and I finished it in about 5 hours

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner - a serviceable romcom about two soccer players who fall in love. I read Wilsner's other books (one was fine and one I hated) so I feel like saying this is my favorite isn't saying much, but it was cute.

The Lost Spells by Robert MacFarlane - the draw here isn't so much the poems (but they're fine!), it's the beautiful watercolors

The good/great:

spellbook for the sabbath queen by Elisheva Fox - a really beautiful but sparse poetry collection that has stuff about identity and environment and difficult familial relationships and sexuality and Judaism. This is her first collection and it definitely feels like one, but not in a bad way. I'll def keep an eye out for more of her stuff

Ararat by Christopher Golden - a recommendation from a friend and it had some GNARLY kills but was another book that was very much My Shit. Also had a great ending

American Journal: Fifty Poems For Our Time, edited by Tracy K. Smith - a really great poetry collection especially if you're just getting into poetry and are looking for new poets. There's enough variety that there's something for everyone in there!

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen - these poems were so fucking weird that i was immediately in love. Idk what else to say other than "strange and lovely"

Rouge by Mona Awad - speaking of strange! If you're into skincare this is especially fun, I'm glad I got a facial BEFORE reading this because otherwise I would have been mildly unsettled. I love that thing Awad does when the character starts to lose it and the narration goes off the rails

Bestiary by Donika Kelly - I mean this in the best possible way, what the FUCK. "You grow. You are large./You are a 19th century poem." but also "I have never known a field as wild/as your heart." Hey Donika what if I throw up everywhere

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan - some great characters and also a couple of plot points that were so upsetting i started laughing and then had to put the book down for the night because it was the most tragic possible thing to happen. (almost) every single character in this book is a total asshole and I love them all!!!!!!!! Maybe not technically "great" but one of those books that felt like it was written just for me.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - an all time favorite I reread because I was sad. Sandra Cisneros is one of those writers that makes me feel incredibly seen and I was having a bad day so I read this in one sitting and it helped a little

[lucky-at-the-end-of-the-world]

Entry 1: The End Times!

For as long as I can remember I've had the urge to run away. From home, from life — from myself. I spent my tween years with my eyes turned out of bus windows, unseeing as the little houses passed by, thinking about how it would feel to just get off at a random stop and go. Nowhere. Anywhere. 

I'd thought that maybe I'd have a better life by now and that I'd have outgrown this urge. But I don't and I haven't so at twenty-three I still do things like stare blankly at train cars when I’m taking the trash out at work and think about how easy it could be to hop them like some coming of age movie. I guess I'm a little old for coming of age, huh? 

Anyways I still get this feeling.

The need to leave everything behind and slip away into nothing. Not even a different life, just nowhere. To dissolve.

Of course I can't do that. I mean I definitely could but that plan involves a plane ticket, asking an old friend to take in my two cats and scrawling some waterproof apology to whatever poor park ranger would stumble across the body of a suicide victim with a collection of ironically optimistic tattoos. (There Is Still Time, and I Must Still Have Hope. Is there? Must I?)

Since I can't in good conscience do any of that, I do the next best thing. At nine or ten at night I pull on my boots and I walk to the gas station in the bad part of town. I buy a pack of Marlboro Reds even though I'm not a smoker, and I choke a couple down in the nearby park. They make me sick (again, not a smoker) and I walk home dizzy in the dark.

It's not much but it's something. When you're as anhedonic as I am, and when the line of ambivalence you walk is so thin that most days you have one foot on either side, you get pretty good at appreciating something. Even if that something makes you feel sick and is completely out of character.

The first time I did it felt like a relief.

I’m not a voyeur, I don’t think (autocorrect had to help me spell that word so I think that’s a point in my defense), but I’m a chronic wallflower and if I could afford therapy or diagnoses I’d probably be slapped with an anxiety disorder of some sort. Talking to people is hard and being seen by them is harder. In the cover of night I feel almost safe. Safe because I’m unseen and safe because I’m unnoticed. 

Safe because walking out in the open and smoking are both things that are completely out of character for me. It feels liberating in some small pathetic way. Like disappearing and killing myself slowly over the course of weeks one cancer stick at a time. Since I started this habit I can’t stop the idea that I’m just methodically hammering one more nail in my coffin until the day I’ve realized that it’s sealed and there’s no walking back home— Reader, do you know what I mean? Probably. It’s not all that profound. And hey, today’s news has made it even more meaningless. Awesome!

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve known I wanted to be a depressed cliché waxing poetic about common emotions like they’re made somehow more special because I’m the one feeling them. 

Back to today’s news, though. I think it’s pretty cool. The end of the world. Sorry T.S Eliot, it’s neither bang nor whimper but a slowly arriving and unstoppable asteroid. I always knew we were no better than dinosaurs and now the universe proves me right! The universe also is taking away my choice as I have so often asked her to do over burning incense and T.J.Maxx tarot decks. 

I guess if this is the first time you’re hearing about it (which would be weird, how did you even find my blog) we’ve been given about two years before the day of impact. Give or take. Hopefully take. Sorry if you’re someone who likes being alive and is enjoying your time here on earth, but the rest of us are collectively relaxing and handing the narrative over to whatever comes next.

For me that’s being out here at ten and smoking again. The park is always empty and tonight’s no different. I’ve even dragged the shitty little wooden picnic table out from under the metal awning so I can stargaze. Who’s gonna stop me? It’s the end times, people are doing much worse than moving picnic tables. Then again in this part of town they were doing that anyway.

Not that you’d be able to tell since this is a blog, but I just spent the last twenty minutes staring at the stars and almost forgot I was writing this. This tiny pass-through town is heavy with light pollution so the stars aren’t exactly glamorous, but they’re basically just as pretty as anywhere. Especially tonight.

Tonight they’re a shimmering curtain taking two whole years to open for a very very special end of the world show— just for Earth. 

Sorry again to anyone who’s bummed about the whole dying soon thing but I’m pretty…relieved. No more stress, no more worries. I’ve blinked away two years before without even noticing, this should be a cake walk. I’m still a little scattered on how to spend them. The only plans I’ve ever made in my life are how to end it, so I guess I’m thrown. I have a couple of ideas, though. I mean…I have always wanted to die in a National Park. 

I wonder if two years is enough to see them all. At least a few, right? Enough to pick out a favorite? 

If anyone actually does read this, good luck out there.

— Dan

[spookfished]

media roundup march-jul

this is my review backlog from when i was like getting ground into the ground working at a summercamp lol. ..if my thoughts are really short i probably just wrote it

NOTE FROM WHEN I STARTED THIS IN LIKE JULY: hey guys whats up! i was like "during spring break im going to read so much!" then i had to 'apply' for 'jobs' :( also i was playing so many games (not umineko though. sorry rokkenjima-ers). then like 5 months passed! woops. now i am a college graduate and unemployed 👍so now i have plenty of time to do things like this lol. making a post for these and then for everything in august. skipping the music section also bc i dont feel like it. some things really worth spotlighting were small victories, wrath goddess sing, and honk for jesus.

books:

what feasts at night by t kingfisher: horror novella (?) about a scary house and an ex-soldier. i liked reading ursula vernons reading as always, but this was a bit too short for me to really get a feeling for anything… it also didnt have the same visceral horror as their previous book (what moves the dead) so i was a bit disappointed :(

cathay by ezra pound: a book of tang dynasty poetry translated by notable contemporary poet (and infamous fascist) ezra pound. ts eliot once said that cathay "invented" chinese poetry in the mind of the western reader, which is weird bc he didnt speak a lick of chinese at the time. umm tldr i didnt like this book but i did write 750 words of review including a translation of my own (NOTE FROM TODAY IN OCTOBER: I WROTE THIS LONG ENOUGH AGO FOR CLASS THAT ITS ACTUALLY KINDA EMARRASSING NOW SO PLS BE NICE) if youre interested in that kind of thing lol

wrath goddess sing by maya deane: retelling of achilles where she is a trans woman. dathomira's review of this book can speak more for it than i ever could (and also its been a couple months..) but i really really enjoyed this book. go check it out!

a clear and muddy loss of love by please don't laugh: f/f webnovel. qiyan agula, female prince of the grass plains, has sworn her revenge on the nangong emperor after his reign killed her family and annexed her country. she ends up engaged to the emperor's daughter, nangong jingnu--but their bond makes it harder and harder for qiyan to enact her promised vengance. vibes wise, its kinda like baru cormorant but tilted way farther towards romance than political intrigue. i really loved this!! the way their relationship grows together…. qiyans gender fuckery…. the length of a webnovel really lets you sink into jingnus character development--its such a turnaround that i think it would be hard to do somewhere else. yay i love baihe

year of rice and salt by kim stanley robinson: what if instead of 30% of europe dying from the black plague, 99% of europe died? how would that shape the centuries to come? also, buddhism is here. this book is really well done and really well researched. the audiobook is reaaally good to listen to while travelling--the narrator, uh, doesnt pronounce everything the best but has this really velvety voice that i loved. i had a good time listening to this while driving cross-country (i only did a little of the driving lol) but fell off a little bit after that. also, if anyone knows any books that are more just like the first part let me know!

videogames:

ultrakill: YEAHHH ULTRAKILL HELL IS FULL BLOOD IS FUEL ETC. ok if youre involved in like the trans indie gaming community at all, youve probably? at least heard a teeny bit about ultrakill, which is a fast-paced mega-violent retro FPS about being a robot descending throug hell and KILLING!! i was really unsure about if id like this personally (jumpy, didnt like ovewatch or most fps ive played) but like. dude. ive sunk so many hours into ultrakill this month. im literally on the last layer rn (the game is currently in early access, but theres plenty to do). people call this game overwhelming, but i guess ive felt that since its a single player game its way Less overwhelming than something like um, ovewatch again lol. ultrakill's blood-to-heal mechanic encourages the player to get close and dirty, and there are tons of mechanics that sound as cool as they feel--punching bullets back at the enemy, ricocheting coins into weak points, etc. also gabriel is here!!! i like him a lot :3 theres a free demo here if it seems like its up your alley

yakuza 0: a brawler game set in glitzy 80's japan, following kazuma kiryus rise to power within the yakuza--at least i think thats whats going on? after all, hes the protagonist of like 5 other games also called "yakuza." this game glories in violence and materialism (you use money instead of xp to upgrade your abilities) and it has a gritty story full of sad-eyed men smoking, backstabbing, and losing everything. yakuzas one of those series that kinda hangs around in the background with a couple people Absolutely Obsessed with it, so its nice to see it live up to the hype. im only on chapter 3 (out of 16?) so far, but im really enjoying it :3 of course, yakuza is famous for having lots of minigames but ive only sampled a couple of them so i dont feel like i can really comment on that yet. some of the cutscenes are kinda long but the voice acting is really good…. i usually do stuff like make my bed or fold laundry while im watching lol. id recommend it so far :3

neon white: scratches the ultrakill speedrunning itch but if the only part of ultrakill was speedrunning and the gritty visual element was replaced by like, smooth apple-style celestial gloss (theres no ground pound even!). in ultrakill you get a beautiful array of tools (guns) to solve the same problem (killing a guy) in multiple ways but with neon white theres essentially one perfectly bite sized (most missions are 30 seconds or less) solution and you just have to get as close to it as you can. brought down of course by the extremely corny writing and voice acting, which at least has the decency to be sincere--it grew on me, but not by much. having cutscenes interrupt the mission sets was also deeply frustrating. IT FUCKS THE FLOW, MAN. anyways still a really really good game with an amazing soundtrack that i would recommend for any first person platform likers or speedrunners

rabbit and steel: just a really fun mmo-type (GCD-based) game! for like, wow/ffxiv raiders who wish those games had fewer cutscenes to sit through haha or potential raiders who dont want to put together a static…

ghost trick: afaik, shu takumi's only standalone mystery game. a ghost detective investigates the mystery behind his death by possessing objects and tricking on them, ghost style. um the ghost trick fandom is very strident about playing spoilerless, and i do think that was definitely good! some of the twists here are pretty crazy. but, like, i think that insistence made me think that ghost trick was going to be "lifechangingly good" instead of just "very good" -- which it is! the puzzles are very clever and fun and the writing is, of course, really funny, charming, and heartfelt. but i couldnt help but be just a little bit disappointed? still a good game though.

balatro: poker game where all the rules are malleable--for the right price. dude balatro made it so much harder for me to pass my finals. really good game if u are a numbers type of person (or maybe really bad) i think i would have sunk a LOT more time into this if pikmin hadnt come around

tv/movies:

dear ex (rewatch): i already talked about this on one of my [other posts] but rewatching it was good :3 i cried again

brave bang bravern: bravern is like… a pastiche of the mecha genre? that mixes like, gritty war mecha shows with fluffy sentai-like shows that ultimately ends up having a lot of heart and sincerity. and also gay people?? idk i really liked it but i think u kinda have to be mecha-pilled at least a little bit already for sure

shogun: woops i forgot to finish watching this. well its a drama about this british sailor who shipwrecks on japan in the middle of a power grab (by tokugawa) really fun! unfortunately i frequently do not have the attention span for hour long episodes unless someone makes me do it

honk for jesus: drama? about the wife of a megachurch pastor who is trying to stage his big return. about what she gets from staying with him, what she endures and what she inflicts on others as a result. (also, image!) really interesting to watch as someone who knows very little about megachurches, with some fantastic acting

life is short girl walk on: sort of an anti-romcom? about one girls wild night out. soo so so pretty it really captures when youre like out really late with your more adventurous friends and youre like wow literally anything could happen rn. definitely worth a watch 👍

challengers: bro all the filmheads saw challengers its the tennis threesome movie. its really good enough said

i saw the tv glow: i watched this movie on a shitty tv interrupted by gambling ads like three times and it still ripped my dick off. man. not a lot to say about this one bc i already talked about it a bunch with other people but i think everyone should watch it

marcel the shell with shoes on: slice of life movie about, well, a living shell. with shoes on. actually really really good?? i was so surprised (the trailer is like accurate but at the same time makes it seem kinda hallmark twee) and like it is a little bit cutesy but not in a way that diminishes the movie itself or its messaging.. i think it being pretty offbeat and also the internet elements (?) also helped balance this. has the pikmin element of "wow being small really helps you to marvel at the world's beauty in a new way" while also being about connection and grief.

the bad guys: animal heist movie. its pretty good even if i don't like akwafina very much at all. fun and soothingly predictable with nice art

podcasts:

small victories: small victories is a slice of life/drama podcast about marisol, a recovering drug addict trying to put her life back together--and it's really going to happen this time, for sure! marisol has such a clear and engaging voice (and her voice actor is so great!) that you can't help but root for her no matter what, even when she messes up horrendously. it made me go like this o_o 🫢 alone in my room like i was eavesdropping on a breaking up couple at a party

thanks for reading if you did! or even if you didnt? anyways this has been stewing in my notes for multiple months. be free

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches and Wizards Job 12-13-14

AO3 Link

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Remember: Tumblr has no algorithm. Reblogs give me life.

1-2 + 3-4 + 5-6 + 7-8 + 9-10-11 + 12-13-14 + 15-16 + 17-18-19 + 20-21-22 + 23-24-25 + 26-27-28 + 29-30 + 31-32-33 + 34-35-36 + 37-38 + 39-40-41-42

TWELVE

You know how I could tell the plan had gone to hell?

It was about the time I heard the most put-together woman I've ever met let out a quiet, angry little "Bugger!"

Sophie and Parker grabbed the door to the vault and tried to close it, but like most vault doors, it swung out. The people outside latched onto it and fought for control of it. I rushed forward to try and help. A claw came at me from around the door. It was vaguely human-shaped, as if someone had got a description of what a human hand looked like without actually having ever seen one. "Crap!"

Look, if Sophie was swearing at the situation, I was pretty sure I was allowed, too.

I caught the sorta-hand just under the wrist and slammed it hard against the frame of the vault door. Someone cursed outside in angry Russian. It was just the day for that kind of language, apparently. "Let go of the door!" I told them, backing away. They didn't have the right angle, they didn't have the muscle, and the things outside weren't human. There was no way we were winning control of the door, and that left the next best choice. Like Sun Tzu once said, something something battlefield of your choice.

They never questioned me. That was just one of the things that I was coming to really enjoy about working with the Leverage people: they trusted me. They'd hired me to do a job, they expected me to do the job, and they were absolutely willing, ready and able to get out of my way so I could do that job. Coupled with the fact that, Ford aside, not one of them minded shaking my hand, or looking me in the eye, I was beginning to feel like maybe the breaking-and-entering, the stealing, the lying and the whatever weird thing was going on with the van and all those paintings wasn't so bad.

I still didn't know what it was these people did.

Sophie and Parker each went in a different direction. "Don't hurt the artwork!" Sophie cried out.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to, to be fair. I planted myself directly in front of the vault door as it was wrestled open once again. My wand was out of the question; the last thing I wanted to do was start slinging fire around so many priceless treasures. Instead I reached under my duster for the modified shotgun holster Eliot had given me before the whole museum break-in debacle had started.

And for my staff.

I wasn't sure if all of the Surprise Ninja Brigade were inhuman or if I was dealing with a mixed crew. There was too much magic, too many power players potentially involved, for me to gamble either way. I had to assume at least some of them would be squishily human, and I had to temper my magic accordingly. Boston was buzzing in my veins, humming in my muscles. Since the morning the city had been slowly seeping into me. I wasn't back to full power from what the night's breath had corroded but it was a near thing. I worked a hand; I knew I had the firepower at the moment; what worried me was the control.

They swung the door fully open; it was, from their point of view, the smart thing to do if they wanted to charge us en masse. It also meant when the first one came rushing in, the rest of his buddies were all behind him, neat as bowling pins. I pointed the staff at them, "Forzare."

Unseen force caught the front man and threw him back into his friends. Then it caught those same friends and threw them back into the ones behind them. Everyone went flying back hard, slamming into the opposite wall with an almighty crash. I didn't hear anything crunching, though, which was the point.

I stepped forward hastily as our attackers tried to sort themselves out from the tangle I'd left them in. We were almost at the end of the hallway, which meant I had something like thirty yards of room between me and the airlock we'd come from. The first man came at me, and I heard him snarl.

Well, that made things much easier, didn't it. "Thank you," I told it. "Ventu!"

The gale that came out of me sent the man-shaped thing flying the entire length of the hallway and smashed him so hard into the airlock I did hear crunchy sounds that time. My concentration had slipped up for a split second, and the magic had roared out with far more force than I'd meant to.

"Harry!" Behind me, Sophie chided me mildly. She wasn't really upset, I realized, just upholding her duty as the Sensible One.

"Harry!" Parked cried out in an entirely different tone of voice. The rest of the pack was getting up.

I am not a scalpel; when it comes to magic my main advantage has always been the amount of raw power I can swing. But if I threw my usual sort of punch at the Surprise Ninja Brigade, with Boston backing me up, I was going to turn any humans in the party into pulp. Fire was out. Kinetic force was out.

I was just glad I'd had, for once, time to think about these things, and made plans accordingly. I'd spend the morning weaving a copper wire bracelet. It wasn't going to win any prizes for craftsmanship, but I was so surrounded by tech that I had to do something about it, and I couldn't very well run around under a suppression spell and be useful to Leverage at the same time. So I'd made the bracelet, and every time a piece of tech died around me, some of the electric feedback fed into it, rather than explode all over the people around me. It was the weakest piece of magic I currently had on my person - relatively speaking.

I pointed my hand at the pack. "Fulguri!"

Electricity arced out of the bracelet, along my fingers and through the air, blinding in the gloom of the hallway. The stale air filled with the smell of ozone, as if lightning had struck nearby. It leapt from one of our attackers to another, and another, and another, until it had struck all five. Two of them screamed, twitching violently. I wanted to scream myself; I hadn't thought to insulate myself against the electricity, and it felt as if my hand were on fire. Again. I didn't realize I'd stumbled back until I felt my shoulders hit the wall.

The remaining three things in human shape were smoking faintly, which was really weird to see, but they didn't look any worse for wear. One of them growled something in Russian at the two humans, and got a groan in response. It turned its full attention on me -

just in time to take a marble plinth full to the face.

Sophie managed not to get overbalanced, but only just. The plinth shattered. Her target staggered back and went down with a plaintive, confused little cry. The other two crossed a look. One of them lifted a hand.

And a black, long thing.

"No!"

I scrambled back to Sophie and Parker and threw out my hand. The taser's charge, souped up with my own electrical attack, slammed into my shield. I felt the force of it crackle and crawl like angry ants over it, looking for any way in. It was making my skin crawl without even touching it.

"They're calling for help!" Sophie exclaimed. I squinted against the flickering light; the one guy wasn't letting go of the taser button. Behind him, the other man was talking urgently into something cupped in the palm of his hand.

"Can't we?" I asked her, even though I didn't really want to hear the answer.

"Not for the past few minutes," she admitted.

The taser finally ran out of juice. I had just enough time to register that before I was up again. I slashed my staff at the two men. They both went flying to join their buddy by the airlock, but this time there were no snap-crackle-pop sounds.

There was, however, a tiny tinkling sound as whatever the one guy had been holding in his hand shattered beyond repair.

The silence was brutal. For a moment it felt as if I were the only thing alive in the half-darkness; my pendant was still lighting the hallway. All the other lights had burned out.

Then one of the certified humans groaned, breathing raggedly. I whipped around, stepped on the rubble of the plinth, and only my cat-like reflexes saved me from going down. Surely that, and not the fact I had my staff on my hand to catch me. "What happened to not hurting the artworks?"

"It's fine, it was a fake," Sophie breathed. "Harry, should we get the portrait out? We'd have to take it out of the frame."

"No. You're looking at two separate pieces of magic, the portrait and the frame itself. One's worthless without the other, and you'd still be leaving half the problem behind." Something inside me twisted painfully at the only way I could see of neutralizing the threat. I didn't want to even consider damaging something so old, so beautiful; it wasn't the painting's fault that someone had turned it into a door to the nearest hell. Belatedly it occurred to me that it was pointless, anyway: the two women with me would've likely killed me if I tried something like that.

"Can we, like, jam the lock in the painting?" Parker asked, in mirror of my thoughts.

"Not in a way you'd like."

They both caught on quick to what I meant. Then Sophie gasped. "Harry, one of those guys is melting."

I looked at the airlock. Crunchy McFly was already turning into goo. "He's from the Nevernever, most of these guys are," I explained. "Like the night's breath damage on Hardison, it's only real as long as you believe it in."

"Or as long as they're alive enough to believe in themselves?" I saw her clench her fists in exasperation.

But she never once made excuses. Not for the 'melting' guy, not for what she'd seen me do, not for any of it. For the first time I'd met someone who didn't just want to believe, but once confronted by the ugly truth behind the expectations of glittering rainbows and magical butterflies, the grit and blood and violence of it, and accepted it all.

I was insanely jealous of Ford at that moment. I just wasn't ever going to admit it, obviously.

"Parker, can you think of any way we can get the painting out in one piece right now?"

"Right now? No. The whole point was that we wouldn't be carrying anything out!"

"I know," Sophie admitted. "But there's only one reason for these people to be down here right now."

Parker scowled. "They're stealing it. They're using our con to cover their theft!" For someone who'd been talking about waltzing out with the portrait herself just that morning, she sounded incredibly insulted at the idea of someone else doing the stealing. I wasn't gonna touch that, though. I was still riding the high of having won a fight with six, uh, six -

What even were those things?

I stepped past the two women, replaced my staff in the modified shotgun holster and crouched by the one Sophie had hit with the fake plinth. The hands were the most obvious giveaway, but not the only one; everything was fine until you got to the foot. The man was wearing the same type of lace-up boot that a hundred armies wear around the world, but it did nothing to disguise the fact that there was an extra joint just above the ankle, as if the foot were far longer than the boot could accomodate. A faint scent of upturned dirt and crushed vegetation clung to the man. I tried to peel off the mask, but it wouldn't come off readily. It took me a moment to realize I was trying to yank his face off.

I let go. I had to take a moment to breathe and fight off the urge to wipe my hands repeatedly on anything that could clean them. In the light of my pendant I saw something had rubbed off on my fingers. Sticky, like blood, but it smelled bitter, like crushed grass.

I got a hunch and tipped the man's head sideways. I saw it then; the lines I'd thought were some kind of weaving or pattern on the mask were ears, flattened against its skull, starting a couple of inches higher than they would have in a normal human.

It was enough to tell me what our attackers were, and that we weren't even remotely close to being out of trouble. "We gotta go." I stepped back, still trying to rub that sticky feeling off on my shirt, and stepped on something that crinkled and crunched underfoot. Crouching down, the light of my pendant shone back at me from a small scattering of reflective shards.

Hell's Bells, had they been using a mirror to communicate? An honest-to-goodness enchanted mirror?

I went from worried to scared in a heartbeat. The situation had just escalated from Witchwell to actual fairy-tale enchantment. These were powers that shouldn't have existed outside the Nevernever; the modern world just couldn't support that level of magic without provoking some massive backlash. But there I was, dancing on the shards of a pocket-sized enchanted mirror. Travel-sized for your convenience. I snatched for a handful with my bad hand, stuffed them into a pocket of my duster out of instinct and reeled away. "We gotta go now."

"Harry?"

I raced past Sophie and back into the vault and the painting. There was no way we were winning this fight; all we could try to do was not make it a complete loss. I patted my coat down. "Tip it forward, I need to get behind it." I found the sharpie in my pocket.

"Harry!"

Sophie sounded utterly scandalized. Oh, sure, never mind stealing the priceless piece of art, but heaven forbid I doodled on it. Still, I switched the sharpie for a piece of chalk, one of many I'd prepared earlier in case I had to make and empower circles, a little drop of my blood staining them here and there. "Forward! We can't take it with us, but I can track it, if we get it done before more of those things show up!"

Sophie huffed and puffed, but she quickly fished out the gloves she'd pocketed back at the lab. Between her and Parker they managed to tip the painting forward just enough that I could squeeze all of me behind it. "How do you know there's more of them coming?" Parker demanded.

I scrawled the date and some nonsense numbers on the hard backing against which the painting was secured, then focused my will on the sequence that mattered: my address, back in Chicago. I felt the tracker snap into life with a sound no one else there heard. "Trust me." I managed to squeeze back out onto the vault. "If I'm right and they're leshy, there's always more."

"Leshy?"

"Um, Russian fairies of the field. Bit like bitey rent-a-thugs. Look like people-shaped hares." A lot of people thought leshy were related to rabbits, usually because they hadn't met a leshy in person. Or gotten kicked by one. Or bit by one. They did share one thing in common, rabbits, hares and leshy: they were incredibly prolific. "We need to go."

"Well, let me check that they bypassed all the security first," Parker grumbled, moving ahead of me. "We didn't get this far to trigger an alarm getting out -"

She stepped out and froze. To be fair, so did I.

There was a young woman there. She was a little shorter than Parker, curvy, dressed in very professional business attire. She had dark brown hair in a bun that had gone a little messy. I couldn't see a lot of detail with only the light of my pendant, but she looked as surprised as we were. "Iggy?" she said in disbelief.

"Jess." Parker sounded as if someone had gut-punched her.

I don't know, at the time, what clued me. It might have been that what little I could see of the shadow behind the woman didn't match her. Or maybe it was my knowledge that if any situation involving me can explode into violence at the first available opportunity, it absolutely will.

I do know that I saw the woman, Jess, begin to lift one hand. I saw her fingers twitch.

I snatched for Sophie, caught a wrist, heard her exclaim something. But I was busy tackling Parker out of the vault, out of the way. I shoved them both behind me and threw my hand out, summoning my shield and putting every bit of magic behind it that I still had. Boston roared through me.

Something a brilliant, poisonous green that matched entirely too well the color of the eyes of the man in the portrait slammed into my shield. It launched me back into the vault door so hard I forgot how to breathe. My field of vision shattered. The door, however many hundred pounds of metal and mechanisms, careened back and crashed against its hinges, the hydraulics screeching like banshees.

Belatedly, I realized I was on my knees. That one casual blast had taken everything I had, everything my shield bracelet could pack, and everything I'd drip-absorbed from the Boston air; it had barely winded her and I couldn't even convince my legs to hold me up.

"Koldun," the young woman hissed in a voice so old and full of power that every hair in my body suddenly stood up on end. She smiled; it was a deeply predatory gesture. "Wizard Dresden."

"Pleasure to meet me too," I wheezed, wrapping an arm around my chest. My ribs felt, if not cracked, at least solidly bruised. My entire back was stinging painfully. And still I couldn't shut up. Fear did that to me; it took any sort of brain-to-mouth filter and set it on fire. And speaking of fire -

"I had heard you had left your home. Pity the wind has brought you here to die."

"Prettier than you have tried," I replied when my fingers finally closed on my wand.

I already knew I was quicker than her on the draw. A line of fire blazed out, and I pointed everything I had on the wand at her face, based on two facts: one, speed and two, aiming at her meant I was aiming away from the vault.

I was also hoping for three: truly powerful beings rarely put out a shield for little ol' wizards like me. Those who did know me know better, but whoever Jess was didn't have the benefit of experience.

And what you do know, I was right on all three counts.

She howled in pain and fury, a sound that tried to take my knees right out from under me just as I finally managed to get to my feet, and launched herself back and away from the plume of fire, staggering. I didn't know if it was surprise or actual injury, and I didn't have the time to stop and find out. Whatever, whoever she might be, she was way more than I could handle, and I was the wizard of the team.

I scrambled around the door, nearly went down, tried to find a wall that would hold me upright long enough for the rest of me to figure out how to run. Instead I found two pairs of strong hands catching mine, yanking me up and forward, supporting me as I worked out how legs moved.

"Dresden, that was Jess!" Parker hissed at me as we hurried away, furious and betrayed.

"Trust me, Parker, unless your friend joined the cool kids' club between now and the last time you met her, that wasn't her."

Someone had helpfully cleared the unconscious bodies of the other two leshy away from the airlock door, and we all piled in. "Harry?" Sophie asked, a world of concern in the one word.

"Been better," I admitted. "Been worse."

"Who was that?"

"I don't know, but I can tell you that they're punching down. We need out, now."

"Harry." I saw Parker's hands working restlessly as she forced the airlock to abort its disinfecting cycle. "Is this a T-1000 thing?" she finally blurted out, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

She was afraid, and I had no idea what she was asking me.

"Is Jess alive?" Sophie translated.

"What? Yes! Probably. Most likely. Whatever it was just put on her face because it was useful at the moment." I turned and, lacking any better ideas, put my hand on the vault-side door lock. It sputtered, spat, and locked up. Such a burden of tension went out of Parker's shoulders at my answer that I could've sworn she shrank an inch or two. What are they teaching kids about dopplegangers these days?

The lab-side airlock door opened.

Once again, we all froze.

The lab was empty and shadowed, the only light coming through the polarized windows. In the gloom, the eyes of the five leshy staring at us gleamed red.

Hell's Bells.

THIRTEEN

There was an unknown, incredibly powerful being behind me, five angry-looking leshy in front of me, a building full of priceless art all around me, and I wasn't sure I had enough magic left in me to blow out the candles on a birthday cake, let alone fend off five fairy thugs.

I'd had better days.

I grabbed for my staff. I didn't know what, if anything, I was going to be able to do with it, but I make it a point to go down fighting if I know I'm going down. The leshy stood up straight, growling low, hare-like hands working restlessly. One of them took a step forward -

From the side, Eliot slammed into one of the leshy like a freight train. I heard the fairy squeak like a rubber duck at the impact, right before Leverage's heavy hitter rammed it full-force into a wall, forcing a wheezing, undignified 'heek' out of the creature. It slithered down to the floor, twitching helplessly. Eliot was already turning and the rest of the leshy hadn't even had time to figure out what was going on.

All the time I'd been with the Leverage people I'd been wondering why their hitter didn't carry a gun; it seemed counterproductive, that. In that moment, I realized why: he didn't need it.

A few steps and Eliot was on the nearest leshy. There were no quips, no pause, no hesitation; he closed in and punched it, and his whole body went with the blow. The leshy went down like a ragdoll.

And just like that the odds shifted completely, not that it mattered to Eliot. One of the fairies came at him head on while another darted to one side and tried to come at him from behind with a bite. He threw an elbow back so hard that I heard the leshy's teeth clack against one another when its mouth was forcibly closed, head whipping back so violently its ears actually flopped free. The hitter kicked the one in front of him and sent it staggering away, probably surprised beyond thought. Then he turned, grabbed those floppy ears, and slammed the leshy face-first into the nearest table.

Twice.

Just in case.

The last two leshy crossed a look as Eliot stood there, not even breathing hard, eyeing them like a kid selecting candy at a store. Leshy aren't cowards; they're not very bright, but they're not cowards.

They bolted for the door.

"Everyone alright?" he asked.

I realized Sophie was nowhere in sight. I had no poker face to speak of at the moment, I was busy with other things like breathing. Not falling on my face. Minutiae like that. My panic showed way too easy.

"Dresden, it's fine." With that absurd quickness I'd just seen him use to take out three fairy thugs, Eliot was by my side before I even saw him move, his voice calm and reassuring. Which was good, because either the world was tilting to the left or I was going down again to the right. "She went to make sure our path stays clear. Come on." He steadied me on one side and we hurried away from the airlock.

"Someone's stealing the portrait," Parker told him, and she sounded as infuriated as I'd seen her yet, trottting along my other side. "They're using our con to steal the portrait, and they already stole Jess' face!"

"Oh, crap," the hitter suddenly looked profoundly worried. "This ain't a T-1000 thing, is it?"

"I still don't know what that means, but no," I repeated. "She's fine, she's not dead. At worst she's tucked away in a closet somewhere. Most likely she doesn't even know someone's running around with her f -"

The airlock blasted out of its mooring. Not the airlock door; the entire thing came flying out, catapulted through the lab and slamming into the opposite wall with so much force that the reinforced windows on both its doors and along every wall of the lab shattered with multiple cracks of thunder. Any equipment in its path was pulverized or went flying every which way in multiple pieces; electronic shrapnel filled the air. Everything not bolted into a shelf tumbled down. The entire room shook. The three of us went crashing down.

Boston flooded in through the broken windows. It felt raw against my bruised ribs, and I'd never been more glad to feel that grating rush, or to see so many bits of electronic equipment die a fiery death. I threw my hand out and called out, "Fulguri!"

Lightning crackled out, everything the bracelet had snagged through the destruction of the lab. It didn't feel any better than the first time, but I was nearly out of options. It danced into the darkened hallway beyond the gaping masonry hole where the airlock had once rested… and into a shield.

Ah. Fast learner.

The shadows of the hallway stretched forward a little, and the man in the painting stepped out of them.

He was shorter than me by a breath. He was lean, the rest of him as narrow and angular as his face. He wore a traditional Russian embroidered black robe over a pristine white dress shirt, the ancient and the modern somehow perfectly balanced rather than making him look like the clown I wished he was. Black loose pants were secured around his waist with a black silk sash embroidered in silver and green, and he was wearing black dress shoes I'm pretty sure cost more than my payout from Leverage. He even had the same little smirk he was wearing on the painting. With all those angles from his beard, his moustache and his face, with the hooked nose, he really did look like a vulture. The only thing he was missing was the emerald brooch.

"You might have told me you were leaving, wizard Dresden, you and your friends." His English was very deeply accented, his voice somewhat pleasant, vaguely amused. He laced his hands behind his back like a mildly disapproving teacher. "We might have parted cordially, if nothing else."

"Really? And you'd have let us leave?"

"Well," the man said, his smirk growing wider. He pulled his hand up and out of the shadows he brought a staff, a bent and gnarled thing that looked like the spine of something that was still alive when it had been removed.

He was a wizard.

"Before you tried to set me on fire, perhaps I would have," he declared cheerfully, and rapped the staff lightly on the ground. I rolled to my knees and brought up my shield on instinct.

Pure, raw force sent me skidding back on the ground, but I was too low for it to throw me over. The slide stopped when both Parker and Eliot slammed into my back, bracing against me. My ribs didn't like it, but I wasn't complaining. Better than the alternative, which probably involved all three of us turned into very fine mist.

"Dresden, what is he?!" Eliot demanded when the attack finally let up.

I wasn't sure what to answer to that. Incredibly powerful? Stupidly old? What little I'd understood of the conversations surrounding the portrait, it was at least two hundred years old, which meant he was at least two centuries old. If he also was one of Baba Yaga's students, I didn't like my odds against him. I didn't like anyone's odds against him and, once again since I'd gotten involved with the Leverage crew, that wasn't the biggest problem.

The biggest problem was that, whatever else he might be, he was human. Which left me in the unenviable position of either having to explain self-defense to the White Council - I knew exactly how that was going to go. Or even trying to scratch him when I'd already failed twice. I was sure that Leverage could come up with something radical like, oh, caving the museum in on his head or something. I just didn't know if even that was going to be enough.

The man stepped past the gouges the airlock had left behind, rubble crunching under his expensive shoes, and moved aside. Behind him came the two humans that had been running with the leshy in the hallway, carrying the painting.

"They have my portrait!" Parker hissed. "Harry!"

"Problem?" Eliot asked tightly.

"It's a lock and a door!" she snapped. I was expecting the words to make no sense to Leverage's hitter, but apparently he was so used to translating Parker-ese that he didn't even blink, just swore under his breath.

She was still right, and I still didn't know what to do about it, until it dawned on me that the stranger probably wanted the painting damaged even less than we did. I reached out with my magic. It was a lot harder to do not using any of my tools, but I still managed to latch onto the mangled ruin of a small metal cart, and I threw it as hard as I could at the painting.

The man snapped a hand out and the wreck bounced off a shield a bare foot from the two people and their precious cargo. He wasn't fast; he had muscle, but not reflexes. That didn't make a lot of difference when he pointed the staff at us and hammered on my already battered shield. My entire arm was going numb, and I heard Eliot grunt behind me when an immense weight came to rest on us and tried to crush us.

That was when I realized Parker wasn't behind me anymore.

"You do realize this is my property?" the man said conversationally. "I commissioned Sokolov for it."

"And what, sold it to a museum when the going got tough?"

He laughed.

"Dresden," Eliot hissed and tipped his head at a tank half buried in rubble. I volleyed that at the two goons in black. It bounced off another shield and ricocheted around it, nearly tripping one of the men.

"You are quite as the tales describe you, Dresden. Have you not got enough concerns in your life that you wish to make an enemy of me? Very few people have done this and survived."

"Can't have life getting boring. I might end up like you." Eliot pointed out another piece of equipment I couldn't recognize; I'm not into tech, but I can recognize a plan when I'm part of one. I threw that at the men next. It bounced against the shield hard enough to put a ripple on it, but not much else.

"Powerful? Respected? Immortal?"

"An asshole."

The blow came, unsurprisingly. It wasn't a hard guess; hell, the man had a portrait commissioned of himself. It hammered me down on hands and knees, and Eliot growled with the effort not to get crushed to the ground. My shield-bracelet was beginning to glow.

"Hey, Harry, I'm curious," the hitter called out, voice loud and strained; he pointed to a heavy piece of rubble where one of the window frames had buckled, tearing through the heavy masonry. Then he shifted his hand and gestured broadly at the pipes overhead. "What d'you think a sprinkler system's gonna do to a watercolor painting?"

The wizard looked up and hissed, modern enough to know what a sprinkler system was but not modern enough to realize there were no sprinklers on the pipes. His power came off us as he threw all of it at the pipes, buckling and twisting them beyond usefulness.

It gave me enough time to grab that piece of rubble and bring it down as hard as I could on the tank I'd thrown that way. The already stressed tank ruptured. Gas burst out of it in a violent cloud; it caught the twisted piece of equipment and threw it at the men from the other side of the shield. Like most wizards, the man in black had been taught and trained to create a shield that maximized protection while conserving energy: it was a half-bubble, aimed at me.

The piece of equipment clipped the goon in the back just above the knees and sent him flying like a pinwheel with a squawk. Credit to him, he didn't let go of the painting. It twisted with him, overbalancing the man in front and sending him crashing into the shield from the inside. He bounced into it and went down, stunned, and he did let go of the painting.

Out of absolutely nowhere, Parker sprang out of the gas cloud, snatched the painting from the other goon, spun around and ran back into the chemical fog with it. What even -!

The man in black swore furiously and aimed his staff at her. I dropped my shield and threw all my power not at him or his shield - I threw it at the top of the bone staff.

I couldn't scratch the man. I could barely make a dent in his shield. But under that wild, blind shot that was all I could muster, the staff careened to one side and his shot went wild. It slammed into the wall that separated the lab from the hallway and the vaults and went through it like a wrecking ball.

I barely had enough for a shield; I ended up not needing one. Eliot caught the back of my duster and yanked me against one of the few tables that was still somewhat untouched. Rubble rained down on us, but he'd found us a shield as good as any of mine. My ears were still ringing, my body reeling from being so close to the impact, and I was barely aware that Eliot was yanking me up on my feet, dragging me away into the dust-choked room.

A shout sent us both flying through the air with enough concussive force that I knew the landing was going to suck. "ENOUGH!"

My duster and my shoulder caught most of the force of the landing. Great in the case of the duster, that's what it was there for; not so great in the case of my arm. I heard a crunch and the world went to a bright haze, everything blurry at the edges. I couldn't hear much beyond a high, thin whistle.

I could see, however, the last three leshy burst out of the shadows beyond the hole the airlock had left behind. They lunged at Parker as she tried to climb over the wreck of the airlock and out of the room, hampered by the painting. Eliot rolled where he'd fallen, and was on his feet as if he'd done nothing but trip on a stairwell, darted forward and kicked not at the leshy, but at the rubble everyone was struggling with. The fairies went down with shrill, whistling screams; Parker leapt and darted like a deer, and for a moment I dared to hope we'd get away with the painting.

The darkness beyond the hole in the wall lashed out like obedient little tentacles when the man in black gestured. The sheer creepy factor was honestly enough to get my wits back in working order, at least partially. They caught Parker; I didn't think she was going to be nearly as impressed as I was, and I was right; all that got out of her was an indignant "Hey!", followed by the most aggravated noises in the world when the leshy caught onto the painting from the other end. Things immediately became a tug of war between the man in black and Parker, and Parker and the leshy. Something in the painting creaked alarmingly and the man in black shouted angrily at the leshy, who froze and turned to look at him before returning their focus to their prize.

Except they'd taken their eyes off it just long enough for Eliot to get to them. The unfortunate leshy closer to him was the one Sophie had clocked with the plinth. He headbutted it and it went down with a pained howl.

The writhing darkness rippled down Parker's arms. She didn't care. It flowed along her hands. She growled at it. It latched around her fingers and began prying them, one by one, off the painting.

"Harry!" she screamed.

When Parker had walked me through what she planned to do, earlier in the morning, I took the time to make plans and prepare contingencies. I'm not great at thinking ahead, but I've learned the value of it over the years. I couldn't turn myself invisible, or anyone else, but I could have made myself a little harder to detect to normal senses. I could create four or five quick containment circles on the fly. I had the bracelet. I had a few potions on me. I even had something for dealing with fairies, though nothing that could have done more than inconvenience something as physical as the leshy. A lot of the tricks in my pockets I made knowing I was heading into Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, a massive collection of priceless art, each piece impossible to replace if damaged.

I got a empty ketchup bottle out of my duster pocket and squeezed it hard into the dust-choked air, threw my hand up and summoned up a wheeze of magic. I didn't have enough magic left in me to blow out the candles on a birthday cake, but I did have enough to turn the iron filings white-hot, to turn that tiny bit of heat and metal into a thousand bright dots of light. The tentacles shattered; they didn't like light any more than any other shadow does.

Parker managed to keep her grip on the portrait. But in the middle of her worrying over the painting and Eliot worrying over the leshy and me worrying over the tentacles, we'd all forgotten the actual enemy.

The man in black was suddenly and simply there, atop the rubble, directly behind Parker. I threw a shield between the two of them, but he swept his staff through it and shattered it. His free hand caught a handful of the thief's blond hair and spun her around, sharp teeth bared at her. "You -!"

Parker decked him. It didn't have the power Eliot was packing, she was a scarce third his size, but she did it exactly the same way, throwing all of her body behind the punch even around the grip the guy had on her and her absolute refusal to let go of the portrait. Blood flew and the man in black yowled when she broke his nose; he lost his grip on her for a split second and she made to bolt, but he launched the staff forward and caught the hook of it around her throat, dragging her back to him and clamping his free hand on the portrait.

So she punched him again, this time on the mouth, a gorgeous uppercut that bounced his head back like it was on a spring. When it came back, his face was a snarl, the sharp angles of it looking anything but human. He was a raptor, a bird of prey, and he sank his talons into the front of Parker's shirt, dragging her too close for her to swing effectively at him, lifting her a few inches off the ground and twisting his grip until she was forced to let go of the painting or accept a broken wrist. "Little princess," he hissed at her through bloody teeth, "know your place."

I decided, at that point, that Eliot seemed to be the only one who was having any luck dealing with our current situation, so I figured his tactics had to be better than mine. I ran at the asshole and tackled him as hard as I could, my shoulder screaming all the way.

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't magic but it did the job. We both went flying off the pile of rubble, crashing into anything and everything. I heard Parker yell somewhere behind me; I was hoping Eliot was taking her out of the line of fire, and since she sounded pissed as hell, I was pretty sure he was. The portrait was important, but Parker was even more irreplaceable.

Claws tried to grab my shoulders; they couldn't get past the protections on the duster, but it didn't feel like roses on the injured arm. One of the leshy had come looking for me. It peeled me off the man in black, yanked me back. I tried to grab onto something, but I felt my grip slip as if I'd caught nothing but the tatters of some old fabric. I got one good look at the man in black as he staggered to his feet and noticed that, while there was blood smeared all over his face, his nose didn't look broken anymore, or his lip split.

I grabbed for my staff while he barked something in Russian at the leshy. I had a feeling I knew what was coming, and I wasn't disappointed; the fairy thug threw its arms around me and tried for an armlock. Next, those teeth would be coming for my throat.

My staff isn't anything fancy. It's not the bones of some long dead creature or anything like that. But it's five feet and change of solid wood that's survived anything I've thrown at it, or thrown through it. I didn't have time to get it out of the modified sheath, but I had just enough room to yank it up and slam the top of it into the leshy's face, throwing in what magic I'd managed to get back, just for good measure.

I was a little mad, honestly. I would have never got even a little bit of my magic back as fast in Chicago as it was regenerating in Boston. But even while I took advantage of that fact, I recognized the danger of it. Magic's not meant to be an inexhaustible reservoir; you empty it, and it takes time to come back, and your body uses that time to heal, to harden, like building up muscle or growing a callus. Without that break, I was in very real danger of hurting myself just for the sake of one more spell, one more shield, because the magic for it would absolutely be there, but my own stamina wouldn't.

The impact ripped the leshy off me and sent it flying back. Ok, so a little bit of my anger might have gone in with the spell, so sue me.

"Dresden!" Eliot shouted. He had Parker by his side and she looked fighting mad, but at least she wasn't trying to rush the man in black for the painting he'd managed to secure. I couldn't think of a single thing the hitter might have told her to get her to give up, but I wasn't about to complain. He had the last of the leshy scattered underfoot, unsurprisingly.

I backed away, my eyes on the man in black. I'd come by that lesson the hard way, I wasn't about to ignore it.

He stepped back as well, a hand on his staff, the other carrying the painting. "No, I do not think I would have let you go, wizard Dresden," he admitted with that avuncular cheer that was beginning to make me want to punch him on principle. "You and your friends seem the sort to make trouble out of whim. I like to keep that privilege to myself."

I was by Eliot at that point. "Dresden, we're leaving."

"Yeah. If he lets us."

"All we need is one of those bubble things, man."

"Oh, you will need much more than that," the man in black said, his smile growing a little wider.

I never saw him move. Not a gesture, not a whisper. The first hint I had that this man, whoever he was, had opened a full portal to the Nevernever, was when what he'd summoned stepped through it.

FOURTEEN

The bear was simply huge. I'm about six feet and the man in black was about my height. The bear's shoulder rested higher than his head as it rippled into existence and moved to one side, pacing sedately. It was a golden monster, a beast out of a fairy tale, copper gold fur and black eyes, and its mouth was bigger than my head. There was a thin thread of spit trailing off teeth longer than my fingers. It shuffled forward until it stood by the man in black, eyeing the three of us like very tasty cookies.

"Harry," Parker whispered, voice strangled. "Harry, that's not real is it?"

"I'm pretty sure if it tears your head off a shower's not gonna fix it, Parker," Eliot hissed.

The bear roared, spit flying, and we ran. There was nothing else we could do. It charged after us, making the ground shake, snarling and closing the distance way too quickly.

"Dresden, can't you do anything?!" Eliot shouted.

"I'm open to suggestions!"

"Corner!" Parker twisted around and sprinted down the hallway. Eliot and me had a little more mass to displace; I nearly went down, and he practically bounced off the wall.

The fighting had knocked the power out in the entire museum, and the leshy had torn their way through the security doors and walls separating the lab from the rest of the museum claws-first. We had a clear path, it was just a very messy path. Outside the confines of the lab we could hear distant screaming, faint sirens. "Second museum getting hit in Boston in as many days for the same piece. Someone's gonna have kittens over this one," Eliot said.

"Corner!"

We twisted around into another hallway. I slammed into the turn shoulder-first, gritted my teeth and managed not to faint, but it was a close thing. "Why this way, the door's right there!"

A statue went flying behind us, slammed into the wall and shattered basically into powder.

"This is where the replicas are!" Parker yelled back. "Corner!"

The Golden Bear couldn't corner any better than us, but it also had more padding to help with the impact, and giant claws to help with his nonexistent turn ratio. He swatted at us and a plant in an ornament pot went flying between me and Eliot, the wind of its passage making his hair and my duster fly. The next roar sounded like it was right behind my shoulder. The pot slammed into a table and both went to splinters; Parker leapt over it; we ran around it.

"This is not tenable!" I shouted at them.

"I know!" Eliot yelled back.

"Corner!"

It was going to catch us; that wasn't a question, it was a ticking clock. There was nothing we could throw a it, not magic, not force; it was too big to care.

"It's got to have a weakness, Dresden!" Eliot yelled.

"Sure! Magic silver weapons. Holy heroes of the Crown. It's a Golden Bear! A monster from Russian fairy-tales! I don't know about you but I'm fresh out of holy swords, charming princes and blessed heroes."

Parker, ahead of us, slowed down briefly. "I'm not. Stairs!"

"Stairs?!" Eliot sounded incredulous. I didn't have enough breath to protest, I was just glad he was doing it for the both of us.

We launched ourselves up the broad, beautiful stairwell. The Golden Bear crashed into it, took one gigantic gallumphing lunge forward, and I felt its claws catch the edge of my duster. It's amazing, how three tons of Nevernever murder breathing down your neck can inspire you to new feats of speed and agility. I almost caught up to Parker, arm be damned. The stairs turned, we turned with them, and the bear crashed into the turn, roaring fury at being balked yet again.

But then we were in a straightaway. Parker didn't hesitate, didn't turn, she just put her head down and sprinted forward, leaving both Eliot and me behind. "Anything you got left, Dresden," Eliot gritted out.

I went for my pockets, trying to find anything even remotely useful. I wasn't used to thinking the way the Leverage people thought; I saw the use in one thing, that was it. Them, you gave them a problem and they already had ten solutions thought out, could come up with twenty more on the fly, and if they had time to bounce ideas off of each other? It took me hours, sometimes days, to do what they did so effortlessly, unless I got lucky.

But I'd be lying if I didn't admit they were rubbing off on me a little. I found my chalks, and I realized I didn't need a circle - just an obstacle course. They were already primed; my thought had beeen that I might end up making protection circles around priceless artwork in a hurry. I hadn't realized at the time that Leverage was even more interested in protecting them than I was.

I empowered them and threw them over my shoulder. They broke into pieces, unsurprisingly; it was just cheap chalk. I felt the fragments activate, tiny bits of will made into impenetrable walls.

I heard the Golden Bear slam into one, heard its claws skid into the floor. I was a little sorry I couldn't turn around and watch the creature turn itself into an accordion, but you know. Busy running, trying to get away from death by mauling. Its next roar was so powerful it felt as if the wind of it had shoved me forward. The bear twisted around the bits of empowered chalk, batting at them. My circles were strong, but these weren't circles, just fragments. It tore them apart with minimal effort.

"Parker, you better have a plan!" Eliot shouted angrily, matching pace with me.

"Of course I do!" She yelled back. "This is Boston!"

I saw Eliot pause.

And there it was, the ray of sunshine. It made sense to him, even if didn't make sense to me.

"Corner!" We were in front of one of the massive second-story windows, with nowhere to go. Parker threw herself to one side so abruptly she finished the turn on her knees. I felt something grip the back of my duster and haul me up in the opposite direction, and Eliot and I stumbled to the other side.

The Golden Bear was suddenly facing the window, running at it full tilt. The glass and frame didn't stand a chance; it catapulted at it, crashed through, fell down one story to the manicured lawn below. It wasn't even winded; it just righted itself up, rose to its feet and bellowed a challenge.

Thirty of Boston's finest opened fire on it.

I didn't expect the guns to do much; they were just guns, and the Bear was far too powerful a creature of the Nevernever. But when I stumbled up to the window it was to see every shot tearing into the Bear's substance, peeling chunks off of the massive body.

"You did say 'blessed heroes'," Parker pointed out breathlessly as we watched the police efficiently take down the creature.

I didn't have the words, I could only stare as the Golden Bear went down.

"This is Boston, man," Eliot said, laughter in his voice. "I would bet you money that most of the cops down there had a little party the day they got their badge, invited the priest from the parish their families go to, have been going to for generations. Got a blessing for luck and safety."

Ok, well, that absolutely met the terms of 'blessed' really well. "And cops are sworn to serve and protect in front of, technically, the ruling authority of the city. The very definition of a knight, a hero."

"Yup," Eliot confirmed.

We watched until the Golden Bear stopped moving.

"I'm sorry, Parker." It seemed important to say it; she'd fought so hard.

"For what?"

"I'm sorry the man got the painting."

"Yeah, you said it was a door and lock?" Eliot asked.

"Yup," Parker said very neutrally; it held for a moment before a truly wicked smile bloomed on her face. "And you know what normal people usually need to open a locked door?" She reached into one of the pockets in her all-black outfit, pulled out a tiny bit of shimmering silver, studded with diamonds, and let it dangle from her fingers like she hadn't just done the impossible. "A key."

[toruro]

RLY ?? BC I FELT LIKE WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS AND THE FIC ITSELF WORKED SOSOSO WELL TOGETHER

i also have a couple interests in things on the scientific side that r very common for ppl to have in the abstract ?? like star stuff, which i think is a good example for ppl using metaphorically and i often feel that the metaphors don’t really match up to the meaning which is fine (but i cant help but notice it bc i’m a stupid little nerd.)

but genuinely i thought the fic itself fit perfectly w the concept of isohels ? given i’m no meteorological expert but it was absolutely lovely <3 (i’m gonna pray the hypothetical child gets to read ts eliot tho. on that note, do u like ts eliot?? if so, any specifics??)

ahagdgaha i get where u coming from … i’m so glad u enjoyed the concept of an isohel in the story though >_< it’s so cute to see u talk abt this stuff HDJSJS IS THAT WEIRD OF ME TO SAY idk u seem very passionate and i love that

to answer ur question i’m sorry but i think i’ll be disappointing u when i say i’m not super into ts eliot i actually got the idea to reference him in the story from a friend who read over it and connected the idea of hyacinths to forgiveness in the waste land! maybe u could name ur favs from him and i’ll check it out though :3

[prerodinu]

Dacian couldn't help but snarl at Eliot, having Silas start crying wasn't something that he enjoyed hearing. So he took a step forward like he was going to attack. Artem's pack didn't have a beta, it was just, Artem and Katia, the Alpha, and then everyone else. While there was more than one Alpha in the pack, including people like Liam and himself who had once been an Alpha but decided, leading wasn't something they wanted to do.

It still felt weird having someone 'second' in command. Everyone listened to what Katia and Artem stated, and most of the time they both stated the same thing.

DONT BE STUPID.

"He's mine asshole." Dacian seethed under his breath. But Aurel smiled, a fanged feral-type smile as he wrapped his arms around Eliot and pulled the other close to his chest.

"Aurel Pekar. Vampire. Part of Artem Vukaxin's Pack. Dacian's Pack Mate. Yours." He added onto the end and then started walking. He would pick up Eliot if he could he was tall. Almost 8 feet but that didn't mean he was going to drag Eliot behind him like a doll.

Dacian followed Elijah, making sure that Aurel was following Elit before Artem gave a little chuckle.

"I have some issues when I mind speak with my pack. It's nothing that I can't overcome. Thank you again, for allowing us to stay." He took a step forward before he paused, arms crossing over his chest as he leaned in the doorway. Aurel had given Artem everyone's bags so he didn't need clothing at least Radovan could have something.

"If you can give an old wolf a favor-" Artem held out one of the bags, it was a black leather duffle, holding some of Radovan's possessions. "Can you find a way to get this to Radovan? I think we should all relax for the day you included. Take some time for your pack and I can collect min in the morning. If they aren't already moved into your pack house and in love with your pack mates before I leave." Aurel had passed him the key before he wandered off so at least he had that and could sleep for a little until dinner time.

"If you need me to help cook though, come get me. I do love to cook for family." Because if Radovan was here with Luka, Eliot and Aurel would be something, and who knows if Eliah and Dacian are going to be anything but if that happens they will be family. Not that Artem is complaining but he does need a nap and to call Katia. To many things are happening at once.

   “Why?” Elliot demanded, blinking at Dacian as he grabbed Elijah and so easily yanked the soldier behind him. The look of surprise, alarm and then confusing that crossed the Soldier’s face in rapid succession was marginally amusing–except that Silas was deeply upset by being yanked around and his father’s moment of alarm. 

   The child immediately began to cry in his arms and Elijah tried to twist his wrist free from Dacian to comfort his son. “Hey now, there’s no need for that. I know you were sleeping and that was scary. He’s not scary though, you’re safe.” His gaze briefly flicks up toward Dacian and Elijah arched a brow at him. “You want to explain that or are we just going to pretend it didn’t happen?” He is more than capable of telling Elliot off on his own. The Beta was an idiot, and he liked to push Elijah’s buttons, but he was still Pack. 

   Which was further proven when Elliot looked like he wanted to grab Elijah back and remove him and the crying baby from Dacian. Before he can consider that to much his head is pet, like a dog, and he’s looking up amused instead toward the other man. He did not catch everyone’s names, being the last to arrive and practically deaf. He can hear, mostly thanks to the enhanced wolf hearing, but he has to be incredibly close to someone to hear them. Otherwise, he simply read lips.  

   He seems greatly amused by the man. “Vampire? You look a little tired. Elliot, Second in Command, Elijah’s Pack Mate.” Those words are thrown at Dacian, as if mocking him saying he is ours, asshole. Unlike Elijah, Elliot is not above solving things with his fists, if the Werewolf wants to fight over Elijah in the middle of the Pack. 

   Toshiro did not miss the way the other Alpha missed the nudge, but he isn’t sure he’s supposed to say something or not. He does stop beside the cabin he was taking them too, reaching into Elliot’s pocket and yanking out the Pack houses keys. He unhooked the spare one and tossed it toward Aurel, knowing that Artem was going to miss it and not wanting to further embarrass the man, if he felt that way. The keys are slid into his own pocket and he grabbed his brother by the arm, yanking him back. 

   “Elijah. Go put Silas down for a nap. Elliot, find the others and ask them to make sure there is enough food for guests.” The Two wolves nodded and split up, Elliot heading toward the Pack House to talk to the ones in charge of the food. Elijah headed home, his own Cabin being a bit down from the one their guests were staying in. When Toshiro was alone, he turned his attention toward Artem. “You seem unwell, I hope you rest and recover. I’m going to give Luka a call and check in on them. I’ll be back in a bit to get you for dinner.”