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peterprkrsbtch · 3 years

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sapphire - part 2

Peter Parker x reader

A/n: Part 1 is up on my page! There’s a couple flashbacks in this one so I put the dates before so it doesn’t get confusing. If you enjoy this one, like or reblog to share! I already wrote part 3 and it’s my favorite one yet so that’ll def be up soon :)

tag- @juliannaamonroe

Warnings: swearing, make out, violence

(September 1)

We’re one minute away. Come out hoe!

You smile as you read the text, glancing at yourself in the mirror again, nerves and excitement ablaze in your stomach. You’d been planning for this day since last winter, and now it was finally here. You adjust your carefully styled hair and double check that the natural makeup you applied was sitting on your skin correctly.

Of course it was. That goddamn injection sometimes made you feel like a vampire out of twilight and sometimes you still got surprised when you saw your own face while passing a mirror or a particularly reflective window. You smooth down the ruffles of your short black skirt and tug the top of your tank top down so a bit more of your curves show.

You put on your white sneakers and tug your shirt back up to cover your chest again. We’ll have to work up to that, I guess. A long honk sounds from outside your apartment building and you curse as you scramble to grab your backpack and phone before running down and out the front steps.

“Awwww,” You say sweetly at the sight of the two girls who had become your best friends. “That’s the shirt you were wearing when we met, Ally.” You jokingly brush away a tear, pretending to be ultra touched.

“Best damn day of my life.” Ally says from her spot in the drivers seat, laughing at your dramatics. She may be joking around, but her sentiment makes your heart clench. This year really was going to be different.

***

(July 3)

You quickly realized you needed to find some Midtown friends if your plan for senior year was going to work. If you dared to show up looking, well, like you do, completely alone and friendless, you might become even more of an outcast than you were before. The first month of summer had been the least lonely time of your year so far, thanks to a certain Spiderman.

The two of you spent most of your nights together, flying through the city, fighting crime together, and talking. The “slow” nights that used to fill you with boredom quickly became your favorite when he was involved. The sound of his laugh and the jokes he makes during fights quickly became the highlight of your days.

But you couldn’t let yourself get too distracted by him. After all, neither of you knew what the other looked like. The only other boy you’d ever found remotely cute (other than celebrities) was nerdy Peter Parker from your high school. He wasn’t your usual type and he seemed to be just as shy as you were, so you had little (zero) hope that it would ever lead to anything more than a smile during the hallway if you accidentally made eye contact.

Sorry Spiderman, but no way in hell are you gonna make me lose my focus. The loneliness you had felt through the last three years of high school was too much. Your plan had to work. So that night as the two of you patrolled together, you softly mentioned that you were going to a pool party tomorrow and wouldn’t be able to meet.

He seemed a bit disappointed, but you brushed it off, trying to remember the names of the girls at your school who seemed nice. Peter, however, couldn’t focus on anything other than the fact that you had told him where you would be tomorrow. There was only so many pool parties in a city like New York.

You tried not to think about who was under the Spiderman mask out of respect and, to be honest, it seemed like a pointless endeavor. Peter was not the same. No matter how tired he was from patrol, he always had time to lay awake before he fell asleep and picture what you would look like under the mask.

There wasn’t very many people who understood Peter’s secret life. None, actually, until you. Maybe that was why he was so intrigued by you, because you were so similar, but in his heart he knew that wasn’t it. He liked you. And he hated himself for it. But once you mentioned the pool party, he made sure to take one long last glance at the color of your hair before you two said goodbye. Just in case he happened to see that same hair tomorrow.

(July 4)

You were so, so nervous. Your closet of exclusively sweats and hoodies was trashed as Part 1 of your plan, much to your mother’s happiness. She had always been honest about her hatred of your junior year clothes and was extremely excited to purchase everything you needed. As distant as she was, you had to give her a little credit.

Although you’d been wearing the new clothes for the past month, this was the first time you were doing it so publicly. Your denim shorts exposed miles of smooth leg, and you’d decided to wear a red tube top in honor of the holiday-not to mention it really showed off your curves. You’d meticulously done your hair and makeup like you’d been practicing the past month and prayed that somebody would talk to you today.

You’d seen the flyer for the Fourth of July party on Instagram, which had been step 2. Unfortunately, you had two followers. Your mom and her boyfriend. Step 2 is a work in progress.

One long walk later, and you’re in front of the address. You swear you could explode of nerves right there, but instead you take a deep breath and force your legs to carry you inside the house and towards the people out by the pool.

Your eyes are so focused on your destination, the glass sliding door, that you barely notice when you bump shoulders with someone, causing you to drop your phone.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” You say, reaching down to grab your phone.

“Oh my god, stop. That was totally my fault.” You stand back up to see the girl who was speaking, and you recognize her immediately. Her name is Ally, and she’s a part of the most popular group at school. Despite her long black hair and sweet smile, you haven’t heard many good things about her. Not the type of person you were looking for.

“Do you go to Midtown? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.” Ally says, making no move to walk away from the conversation.

“Yeah, actually. My name is Y/n?” You don’t miss the way her eyebrows raise and her eyes widen with confusion and shock. You’re embarrassed now, realizing maybe you weren’t as invisible as you’d thought. In an effort to explain away the last few years, “My dad left a couple years ago and it was pretty hard on me, but I’m all better now.” You flash the most dazzling smile you can manage and hope she accepts it.

“No way, mine did too!” She gasps as she grabs your hands. You feel a small pang of guilt at that. It was a lie, you had no idea who your dad was and frankly, you didn’t think your mom knew either.

The conversation starts to flow between you and Ally easily as you make your way out to the pool. “This is my best friend Betty.” Ally introduces you to the sweet-as-pie girl and the three of you quickly fall into a conversation like you’d known each other forever. A few of their guy friends tried to come up and talk to you, but she just waved them away. “Leave us alone, we just met our new best friend.”

You felt bad for judging Ally so harshly earlier, blindly trusting the stupid rumors you’d heard about her. Popular or not, the three of you got along better than any of the other friends you’d tried to make throughout your life. They do briefly make fun of your instagram before forcing you to take and post pictures with the two of them by the pool. They both tag your account.

Peter didn’t seem to share the good luck you did. He’d dragged Ned to 6 different pool parties across the city and saw no one who looked like Sapphire. Disappointed, he spent the night patrolling alone and dodging fireworks.

***

(September 1)

Since that day, you’d become a trio with Ally and Betty. The day after the pool party you’d woken up to nearly 1,000 followers on your instagram. Everyone from Midtown who never gave you a second look when you had your hood shoved over your head now wanted to be your friend.

The three of you spent the rest of your summer days together, and you fit into the popular friend group better than you could have imagined. Maybe you watched too many teen movies, but you expected them to be mean. The only mean one was Flash, and even he was basically harmless. You’d given up Saturday night patrols with Spiderman for a weekly girls night with your new best friends. You thought having new friends and a bustling social life would’ve made it easier to forget about Spiderman, but somehow he seeped into every area of your life.

That damn laugh. As Ally and Betty sing along to the radio loudly, you bite your lip to stop a dumb smile from rising to your lips. God, just thinking about him made you flustered. As Ally drives into the school parking lot, nerves bubble in your stomach.

As if you aren’t stressed enough, your brain decides this is the perfect moment to remind you of the one night this summer you and Spiderman haven’t talked about since.

*** (August 14)

The two of you were sprawled out on a gravel rooftop next to each other. Not the most comfortable of relaxing spots, but you’d both grown tired of flying around under the summer heat with no hint of trouble for miles.

“This sucks.” Spiderman huffs out.

“Rude.” You reply quickly, even though you know he isn’t talking about you.

“Oh, no,” He immediately sits up. “I didn’t mean you suck, I just meant, you know, because there’s not much going on right now and it’s hot and-” He sees your cheeky smile and stops himself with a laugh. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s cute.” You bite your lip. The fuck did I just say? Before you can begin to explain, he jumps to his feet.

“Spidey sense, let’s go!” You jump up too and follow after him as he jumps off the building. Thank god. I’ve never been so grateful that someone’s in trouble. The fight was tough, even with the both of you. These men had strange guns that keep firing at you and Spiderman even though you’d tried multiple times to crush them with your powers.

“The guns are magic-proof! I can’t destroy them!” You yell over to Spiderman as you take down one of the men in between punches.

Somehow, two men get ahold of their guns and corner you. Just as you start levitating to fly over them, a web shoots from somewhere behind them and the men and their guns are yanked away. Spiderman wastes no time and you swear he seems angry with the two men as he webs them to the wall next to their friends before picking up the guns and violently smashing them on the ground.

You’re still frozen in shock, watching him. When he seems to be satisfied with the broken pile of guns on the floor, he runs back over to you. “I’m so sorry, I know we promised-” You finally break out of whatever trance you were in to place a finger over his lips, casting a disgusted glance towards the men staring at you from their webbed cocoons.

“Not here.” You say quietly, and fly the two of you quickly up to the roof. He blinks for a second, his head spinning from the speed. You rarely use your full speed, especially with him, but you had to get out of there. “Okay, go ahead.” You say after a second of silence.

“I’m so sorry, I know we agreed not to get in each other’s way, and I know you can handle yourself, probably better than I can. Hold on, I didn’t mean I handle you. That sounded weird. Anyways, I just got so angry when I saw those men pointing their guns at you I had to-” He’s talking about the agreement you two had made when you first started working together. You both obviously were skilled, so you agreed that you wouldn’t interrupt each other’s fights unless asked.

“Spidey, I really don’t care you interrupted. It was hot.” JESUS CHRIST NOT AGAIN. You immediately winced and slap a hand over your mouth. “Oh my god I did NOT mean to say that I’m so sorry.”

Your rambling is cut off as Spiderman’s hand travels up to the bottom of his mask and you think your eyes might fall out of your head with how wide they become as he begins to pull it up, revealing the soft pale skin of his neck.

His jaw, chin, and then lips become visible as he lets the mask rest on his nose. The 0.5 seconds that have passed since you stopped talking feel like an eternity until he suddenly leans forward, crashing his lips into yours. Spiderman is an amazing kisser, you decide, as you gently kiss him back.

WHAT AM I DOING? Your mind is going haywire but instead of stopping, you deepen the kiss and nearly smile when he lets out a low moan. Everything you’ve told yourself about focus and distractions flies out the window when his gloved hands clutch your waist and pull you closer to him than you thought possible.

It feels like it’s only been a second when he pulls away, but your eyes flicker to his swollen lips and you know it must have been longer. You smile as you stare at his lips, only inches from yours, but as your gaze moves to the rest of his exposed skin the smile drops slowly.

Your rational mind comes back. It’s easy to forget when you’re with him that you’ve only known each other a couple months. How could you do this? Your first time making out with a boy, and he doesn’t even know your name.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” You whisper as he starts to say something. “Sorry, what were you going to say?” He blinks slowly and takes a deep breath before stepping away from you.

“Nevermind. See you tomorrow.” And he swings away from you. You silently curse yourself for being such a big mouth, wanting to know what he would have said. You can’t help the small voice in the back of your head, telling you that you made the wrong decision.

You raise your hand to run your fingers along your tingling lips before flying home as fast as you can.

***

(September 1)

You wince at the painful memory before reminding yourself everything was back to normal the next day and neither of you mentioned it again. You still weren’t sure if that was good or bad. You force all thoughts of Spiderman out of your brain and even give Ally an encouraging cheer when she successfully parks on her first try.

You don’t remember Midtown having so many fucking students last year, but maybe it was because they were all staring at you. Any confidence you’d had as you opened Ally’s car door had disappeared as everyone around you turned to gawk. The bright smile you’d pasted on a second ago quickly fell and you glanced at Ally nervously.

“Come on, girls!” She says enthusiastically, grabbing an arm from you and Betty as she breaks the brief moment of awkward silence. God bless you Ally. As the three of you hoist your bags over your shoulders and make your way into the school, you mouth a quick thank you her way, hoping she can see your genuine appreciation. She smiles at you. “I’m happy we’re going into this year as three instead of two.”

Betty leans forward to smile at you. “Me too, y/n. I’m really happy you’re here.” You smile back brightly. There really was no one as sweet as Betty.

“You won’t be so happy I’m here when I talk your ear off during class.” The three of you continue laughing and joking your way down the hall to stop at your lockers.

“Oh my god, is that Y/n?” Ned interrupts Peter’s latest ramble about his night with Sapphire. Usually, he really did listen. Ned was fully invested in the superhero love story, as he called it, unfolding. But the sight of a girl notorious for hiding in her own baggy clothes across the hall in a miniskirt and tank top was more important.

“Y/n?” Peter asks, confused why Ned wasn’t paying attention. But when he turned around to see what Ned was staring at, he understood. He’d seen you around school the past three years, but never like this.

You looked like a fucking model. And everyone in the hall couldn’t help but stare. “Holy shit.”

“Right, dude?” Ned breathes out, the two of them shamelessly staring. “Why didn’t that happen to me over summer? Oh my god, of course she’s friends with Betty.”

Peter laughs as his best friend goes on about “two pretty best friends” but he can’t take his eyes off of you. The light in your eyes as you joke with your friends, making them double over in laughter, feels strangely familiar. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part because you’re extremely pretty.

He watches in surprise as you and Ally walk up to the AP Chem classroom, waving goodbye to Betty sadly as she heads off to English. You turn to walk into the classroom after Ally, but you pause and look back down the hallway-right at him. Instead of yelling at him for being a creep like he expected, you smile at him widely before heading into the class. He exhales deeply and glances down at his schedule quickly, a smile appearing. AP Chem.

Of course his thoughts are still consumed by Sapphire, but it was hard to ignore you especially after seeing his name on the seating chart next to yours in the back row. Plus, Sapphire was the one who’d shot him down after he finally tried to make a move after catching onto the hints he thought she’d been dropping.

He felt bad for thinking that about her, he didn’t blame her at all. He knew there was a million reasons they shouldn’t be together-and he didn’t want to know specifics on why he wasn’t good enough. Sapphire hadn’t brought up that night since, and he was fine to pretend it never happened.

You were already in your seat at the lab table, but Ally was still standing next to you waving her hands wildly as you two spoke. He doesn’t want to interrupt so he freezes in place, unsure of whether or not to go sit down. He’d thought you were cute, and a little shy like him in freshman and sophomore year and he remembered the many times he would look at you from across the room like he is now.

His eyes had been quick to find you whenever you two were in the same room ever since the first day of school freshman year when you smiled at him in the hall. Even last year, when all he saw of you was a curled up lump at your desk or a sliver of hair peeking out from behind your hood he still noticed you.

Luckily for him, the bell rings and he slides into his seat just as the teacher begins speaking. “Hi, Peter.” You lean over to him, your shoulders nearly touching, and whisper so the teacher doesn’t hear. “I’m y/n.” You smile warmly as his cheeks and ears turn light pink.

“You don’t have to introduce yourself. We’ve gone to school together since we were 6?” Now it’s your turn to be embarrassed and you purse your lips together.

“No, I know, just-” Peter notices you seem a bit frustrated as you glance around the room and then lean even closer to him. “Everybody thinks I’m new.” You nervously mess with your bracelet.

“You do look a bit different.” He points out and you raise your eyebrows before sighing slowly and shrugging.

“I was just sick of feeling invisible, you know. Not because I care what anyone here thinks. Last year was just, really, really lonely.” Peter watches you intently as you speak, hanging onto your every word.

Your confession made him sad. If only he’d been brave enough to ask if you were okay. You pause for a second and meet his eyes. Any other guy in this school would’ve laughed at you by now. You gesture to your outfit and nervously adjust your skirt. “I’m also not a superficial person. It wasn’t about changing how I looked, I just needed the confidence to put myself out there.” You pause and nod towards Ally with a smile. Peter glances over to Ally and sees her blow you a kiss, which you catch across the room with a giggle.

I miss you! She mouths with a dramatic frown and this time Peter laughs quietly with you. “I thought she was a bitch before I met her.” He looks at you with surprise to find you smiling at him. “But,” you hold up a finger for dramatic effect, “because I put myself out there, I met my best friends. A lot of people around here judge on appearances. I’m not like that anymore.” You say with confidence.

“That’s really cool of you.” Peter whispers back, and the sound sends an involuntary shiver down your spine. He’s so close to you and the feelings you thought you left behind two years ago don’t seem so left behind as you stare into his warm eyes. “For the record, I’d be your friend no matter what you look like.”

Peter has only been this nervous a couple times before in his life, and he can’t help but feel like he’s betraying Sapphire with the way he’s thinking about you. He watches as you smile warmly at his words and extend your hand towards his.

“Friends? Even though I'm so much uglier now?” You pout your bottom lip out, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. He nearly laughs out loud and has to remind himself you’re still in class. “I know guys go wild for the homeless man sweatpants look.” You’re both trying to hold back your laughter, shaking silently in the back of the class as he raises his hand and grabs yours.

“Friends.” Peter isn’t sure why he keeps going, but he does. “And just so you know, you were never ugly. I don’t know why you tried so hard to hide yourself last year, but even then,” the words leaving his mouth sound confident but Peter takes a deep breath before looking up from his lap to meet your eyes. Your wide eyes and surprised smile give him just the confidence he needs to finish. “You could never be ugly.” Peter can hear his heart beating.

You blink at him. This boy could not be real. Here he was, basically implying that the one thing you had wanted all along, for somebody to notice you, was true. Not only was it true, but it was Peter fucking Parker telling you this. Despite everything that had changed you in the past year, the giddy feeling in your bones brought you back to sophomore year and pining over Peter.

“Really?” Your smile spreads and he seems to let out a deep breath of relief.

“Yeah.” He smiles back at you until your sweet moment is interrupted by a fat ass syllabus dropping onto the lab table in front of you.

“Fuck,” you whisper. “This class is gonna be so much homework.” You turn the page so Peter can briefly see the list of projects alone, and it’s enough to make him cringe.

Something about the way the whispers travel back and forth between you all class makes you realize you hadn’t fallen into a friendship this easily, even with Ally. Even with Spiderman, your brain points out.

A red and blue suit swings into your mind and you are hit with a wave of guilt. Not two hours ago I was thinking about my make out with Spiderman, and now I’m comparing him to Peter?

You have all but one class together, and you can’t help but glance in Peter’s direction any chance you get. The only time you don’t see him is at lunch, even though you look all around the lunch room for him or the boy he’d been standing with this morning. You thought it would be too creepy to ask him where he’d been.

Finally, the last bell of the day rang, and you were sure if you didn’t have superpowers you would’ve been exhausted. School is kinda draining when you actually acknowledge people. Ally and Betty share your complaints about being tired on your drive home, all three of you agreeing you need naps. You kiss them both on the cheek and wave goodbye before heading up to your room.

Forget what I said about having superpowers. I’m fucking tired. You lay down on your bed, groaning into the pillow at the thought of having to patrol tonight. You sat up abruptly. You’d never dreaded patrol, it was always the thing you looked forward to. You glance towards the suit in your closet and sigh.

It’s not patrol I’m nervous about. It’s him. You feel incredibly guilty about today. I’m not a two timer. If I want to like Peter, I have to talk to Spiderman about that kiss first. You start to make your way over to the closet before another wave of exhaustion hits, sending you straight back to your bed.

After a nap. Then we’ll talk.

#peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker angst #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #avengers #marvel #spiderman #tom holland imagine #tom holland x reader #tom holland angst #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut

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foster-the-world · 3 years

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To (try to) sell or not to sell?

Skip past this post if real estate doesn’t interest you or talking about money issues is not for you.

My mind is spinning which makes me want to ask everyone and their brother their opinion. So I am asking for your opinion. Caveat: these are the ramblings of a lucky person. I know this is a great “problem” to solve no matter what we decide.

We live in NYC - where we can’t afford to buy but luckily have a rent stabilized apartment. It’s not fancy but compared to most NYC places it’s big enough.

Three years ago we bought a house in Upstate NY. The idea was to rent it out to weekenders while enjoying it ourselves sometimes. We thought/hoped we could mostly cover our costs (taxes, mortgage, etc) and give our kids some space to run, grass, etc. So far, it’s worked out really well. When the pandemic hit we went up there and enjoyed the space. We had planned to buy a three bedroom but ended up with a very large house. At the time we bought this house the area was relatively cheap. This house was the high end of our budget but we assumed we could make the cash up by renting to big groups. We’ve done fairly well renting it out. The last year the occupancy rate has sky rocketed because everyone from NYC is dying to get out but couldn’t fly, go long distances.

In this area, like so many, everyone is buying houses like crazy. NYC people want a place to escape to. The housing stock is limited - especially with renovated homes. Plus, the area where our home is is very quickly being developed. All of the NYC lookalike restaurants, etc have arrived and are continuing to come.

The plan was to keep the house for a long time.

Now our realtor tells us she would probably list it for more than double what we paid. I was skeptical but I’ve talked to a few other people that said it sounds about right. That being said the price she mentioned is very high for the area so she may still be wrong.

So while we didn’t have a desire to sell we are now thinking about it.

Pros of selling: The cash that would give us a nice size cushion. It would pay for nursing school, get us through the next few years without my salary + if we weren’t stupid could be helpful for a while. It won’t make us rich by local standards but for someone who was raised without much money it would be a lot. While we 100% love the house its not without work/stress. We sometimes randomly receive request to fix things from the guest. We have to stop whatever we are doing and make it happen. The house is fully updated but the general upkeep is timing consuming. There is always another expense and we can’t go cheap on things because of the rental guests. There is always a little bit of fear that we will get hit with a really large bill. Plus, if this is just a housing bubble the price could go even lower than what we paid. Our taxes are high and they keep going up. I’m a card carrying Democrat so I can’t complain too much about taxes but it be nice not to have them anymore. Now seems like a good time to be a seller. Lots of all cash offers with no inspection, bidding wars, etc.

Cons of selling: We love our house. It’s unique and we won’t be able to get anything similar. The women before us was a designer by trade so it has a lot of nice touches. The town we are in is perfect for us. We like the neighbors, etc. While we hadn’t meant to get something so big it has been wonderful. We have big groups of friends and family come. The kids love, love, love going. Just thinking about telling them makes me sad. Baby boy hasn’t really even gotten a chance to enjoy it. I’ve had long term dreams of them growing up there. We lose all rental income - which over a longer period could add up to a nice sum. I feel happy in the house (when not doing chores). From a brief reading it looks like we’d pay Capital Gains tax. We could try to use the cash to buy another cheaper place outright but I don’t think we have the energy for that. Plus, as mentioned the housing stock is not there.

Of the people I’ve talked to the consensus seems split on whether or not these costs increases are going to continue or if the bubble will burst.

So what should we do? Any guesses on whether these housing prices will last? If we had a glass ball and someone told me we’d be able to sell it for the same amount or somewhat less in a few years we’d def hang on to it. However, if that glass ball said the bubble is going to burst and you’ll never get near close to this amount of money we’d regret not selling. So what do we do? Anyone have a glass ball? Anyone actually read through this long long strain of my thoughts?

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inknopewetrust · 4 years

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adieu, remember me. (1)

The Old Guard Booker x Female! Original Character

Summary: After a few years away, one member of the immortal team must return to protect their immortality and secrets as enemies begin to uncover their past.

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: nothing yet!

Parts: ... | 2 | part 2 coming soon!

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to let me know what you think about the work and it will def be more than 2 or 3 parts and longer than this one. Requests are CLOSED at the moment and I apologize in advance for any mis-wording or spelling in different languages because I don’t know french/italian but I feel in some cases it was necessary to use for character interactions. Published on 8/9/2020.

if you want to be tagged for the next part please let me know!

All original content is owned by me. Anything from the film/comic is property of the writers, studio, and director. Gif not by me.

Versailles evolves every so often but over 172 odd years, more visitors pack its halls and recall its history. Tourists from around the world flock to the once functional palace and the home of infamous, complicated monarchs. Passed the sweeping halls and the paintings of untouchable status, a special exhibit was placed at the end of the hall with cases full of crowned jewels of French royalty.

Tourists flashed photos of crowns and rings and pearls that adorned the exhibit cases. In the center of the room laid perhaps the most famous of jewels, as well as the crowns that found themselves on the heads of women who suffered terrible fates. The Hope Diamond sat in a case between crowns that once adorned it and worn by Marie Antoinette and Louis Philippe I’s controversial daughter, Vivienne, Duchess of Auvergne. On loan from its final resting place at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the diamond once found itself imbedded in each of the crowns on momentous occasions.

Crown worn by Vivienne, Duchess of Auvergne and third daughter of King Louis Philippe, killed by French revolutionaries in February 1848. Crown was commissioned by the King for his daughter’s twenty-eighth birthday. Was worn on the night of her death on 24th of February, 1848.

Twenty-eight. 172 years later she still remember the party, the food, the smell of the candles that burned from the chandelier and the man who caught her heart. Pretentious was the only word that came to mind when she thought of the party and the woman. At the time she felt deception too but the world has a funny way of making villains look like heroes depending on the perspective.

Clara felt the surge of memories remind her of the life she knew before the one she was in now. She didn’t know how long she had stood in front of that particular case with that particular diamond and crown but by the time her feet began to ache she knew it had been long enough. Clara also wasn’t sure how long a small English girl had been standing next to her, also staring at the silver diamond encrusted crown and the plaque underneath it.

“You know, she’s kind of a rebel and I dig it. It reminds me of Princess Margaret in a way. She was Queen Elizabeth’s sister and she partied a lot too.”

“Excuse me?”

“Vivienne. She was a rebel in her own right and I admire her for it.” The woman turned, her face meeting the girl taking notes on a piece of paper. The girl couldn’t have been more than thirteen and certainly had a bold personality if she was talking to someone she didn’t know.

“The revolutionaries didn’t see it that way, so why would you?”

“She was independent. I think it was progressive and cool for her not to follow the rules of her family. Not to mention the glamour in her style. She had the best dresses and crowns since well, Marie Antoinette probably.”

“That’s a little naïve, no?” The woman raised her brow at the student but the girl simply shrugged. The young one looked at the older woman and analyzed her face and features as she spoke.

“She spent the people’s money like water and saw no problem with the poverty in the streets. Vivienne was oblivious to the world around her because she lived in a world of riches with everyone at her disposal.”

“Perhaps.” The girl paused before continuing. “There’s a tv show about her on... um-I don’t remember- HBO maybe and they say she took a commoner for a lover and he sold her secrets to the revolutionaries which led to her death. Her body disappeared after the broke into the castle and people think they threw her body in the Seine.”

“I would advise you to stop watching whatever movies are giving you that perspective on the issue because it’s not true.” Clara scoffed and turned away from the girl.

The girl listened but was too entranced by the figure in front of her eyes. Brown hair, medium length, waved. She looked nice to say the least. She had on pretty clothes and may have been an employee because she knew so much but the girl wasn’t sure. All the student was certain of was that the woman standing in front of her looked very much like the Duchess in the paintings that lined the modern wing.

“You look like her.” The girl told her and she put her pencil down holding the pad of paper at her side. Before she had a chance to answer the girl, a teacher called out to the students as a signal to leave and the girl picked up her bag.

“Have a nice day.”

The girl left with the class and the woman stayed in front of the case watching them leave the room before turning back to the crown that once adorned her own head. A soft rumble came from her pocket and she pulled out the burner phone with a number she didn’t recognize but an area code she did, Goussainville.

France, safe house #4

“Hello?”

“Clara.” The Italian on the other line sounded relieved that she simply picked up the phone. Clara’s face contorted into one of worry than one of happiness she had been called.

“Nicolo, s’il tu plaît dites-moi que tout va bien?” Clara moved over to a window, away from the crowds to answer the call she had been anticipating for the last day. She dreamt of a black girl and her throat being sliced open. Waking up gasping for breath that wasn’t her own and cautious of who it might be.

“No-no. Il y en a un nouveau ... mais ce n'est pas le problème. les gens essaient de nous trouver et Dieu sait quoi.” Nicky told her and Clara felt helpless, disappointed in herself that she wasn’t there to help them. Not only was there someone new who needed guidance but the others needed her too if they were going to protect their own skin.

“Andy went to get her. We are at the safe house in Goussainville and they should be here later today. If you can make it... we really need you, Clara.” Clara sighed and looked out the window that faced the vast gardens the palace was surrounded by. Serenity before the inevitable storm.

“He’d kill me if he knew I’m telling you this but Booker needs you. It’s getting worse since the last time he saw you and I am not sure what to do.”

“That was three weeks ago, Nicky.”

“I can’t explain it... it’s just gotten worse. I know he has to help himself but he’s always a bit brighter when you’re around.”

“I can be there later tonight. What time are they getting in?”

“7.”

“I can be there at 8. I’m in France so I’ll take a train as soon as I can.”

“We will be waiting.” Nicky told her and she hung up the phone. Clara looked back at that glimmering crown and what the young girl said about the Duchess. Naïvety at its finest.

At the safe house in Gousssainville, the three immortal men unpacked the bag they brought and washed up after the ambush in Afghanistan. Nicky stood alongside the small counter space prepping dinner when Booker came to fill a cup with wine.

“Who was on the phone?” Booker asked in a low grumble and Nicky set down the knife he was using to slice tomatoes.

“It was Clara. I called her and told her we needed her here. She dreamt of the girl too.”

“And?” Booker pushed further and downed his glass in an instant upon the news.

“She could catch a train to be here at 8.”

“How did she sound?”

“Worried.”

Booker nodded and filled his glass again before going to sit in front of the tv in a chair he had designated as his own many years ago. Nicky watched as he sat, drank more and tried to remove himself from his thoughts but was too lost to do so. He was observant and cared deeply for the others in his life but there was only so much he could do for a man as stubborn as Booker.

“Hai bisogno di aiuto?” Joe called out to Nicky from everyone’s shared bedroom before also joining the two in the common space. Nicky shook his head and glanced at Booker who wasn’t looking but certainly listening.

“I called Clara. She is on her way to us now. She knows we are in trouble.” Joe smiled at Nicky and gave him a quick peck. While they were all very close, Joe and Nicky had taken Clara under their wings and helped her acclimate to the world as an immortal, especially after they found her and the two french immortals clashed.

“It’s been too long. I miss that woman.”

“We all do.” Nicky said before returning to his meal. Without much time having gone by, the door to the cemetery sounded and Andy walked through the door with a nervous woman behind them. The girl was young, no more than 25 and had blood stained on her forehead. One hand was clutching her arm but out of nervousness not injury. Her eyes looked at the three men. Two sat staring at her in chairs and the other by the refrigerator and the only sound that played was the cheering of fans from a football match that played on the widescreen. Andy looked over her shoulder and then back again, breaking the silence to introduce the newest member of The Old Guard.

“Everyone, this is Nile.”

--------------------------------------------

Tag List: (Let me know if you’d like to be tagged for the next part!)

@holychocopie

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transhoverfish · 4 years

Note

What are everyone's "abilities" in Survivors? Ryley has good hearing and Milo glows but what do the others have?

!!! YOU HAVE ASKED ME ABOUT MY AU !!! THE FLOODGATES OF YELLING HAVE OPENED!!

OK SO. as u mentioned ryley has good hearing and milo glows. basically,

ryley = good hearing

milo = glowy boy

emily = electric detection (cooler than i describe rn my vocabulary is small)

danby = like emily's but reverse. controls electromagnetic things

roman = night vision

jochi = the most superpower like one, he got quick regeneration.

avery = telepathy!

bart = also kind of telepathy but more like future telepathy. he has future vision.

and i. never thought of one for ozzy actually and at this point i have no idea what to give them that wouldn't have been brought up prior so. u know genetics are weird! they just dont have anything ig. nobody look at me LABDKABDLABD

AND ALSO paul and marg have powers! paul got that peeper enzyme carrier thing, and marg got the very funny power of feeling others emotions. yes that includes the fish. yes this is one of the primary reasons she didnt kill paul over a decade of dealing w him. yes she hates it.

and the vesper haven't been sick long enough to develop anything! or at least thats what im going with bc i havent thought of anything for them yet 😔

AND NOW: LONGER EXPLANATIONS. IM GONNA GET CARRIED AWAY SO ITS UNDER A READ-MORE.

first off on the list: bart! so bart.. kinda has futuristic visions?? but the things he sees are not set in the stone,, as in if he dreams about smth (a lot like ryley can!) it is possible to change those events! most of these visions/telepathy type stuff were bc of the emperor and warpers, and also al-an! once the sea emp died and the warpers all calmed down his powers kind of go away a bit. i think i wrote al-an sort of mentioning it in one chap of awa?? but its only kind of implied. so he has rlly similar powers to avery except he can't tell what others are thinking and he can only kind of tell how his closest friends r feeling. so right now bart pretty much doesn't have powers! he can communicate w the warpers and sea emps much easier than the others tho (he's the only one that can talk to warpers! im not sure he'd get along w them after being hunted down by them for like 12 years though KABDLSBRLSHD)

avery has telepathy! this is because when he first shows up he jokes about having telepathy and i was like "haha. WAIT." and then he got telepathy! i realize its a bad idea to not come up with their powers until as im writing but uhhh well. i never said i was a fantastic writer who's smart. KANROSHROSBF.

he also kind of had marg's empathy ability but wayyy dialed back. he can only tell how other humans are feeling and he can only vaguely understand it as opposed to feeling the emotions himself like marg does. so he can kind of tell how others are feeling and he can tell what theyre thinking about! unless of course for plot convince he can't. strong emotions, especially strong negative emotions (ie. fear) can overwhelm him and makes his powers stop working. and if someone is convinced they're right then he wont b able to tell they're lying/hiding something! yay plot convenience!!

roman has night vision. i have no way of making this sound cool he just straight up can see really well in the dark. like a cat. most of the powers were based off where they originally landed and what would help them in that area! and roman landed in the sparse reef, which is so dark all the time i cry thinking about it. so he has night vision! his poor eyesight is probably all kinds of fucked up now tho.

jochi has regeneration abilities! now i know this might sound a bit much but he just heals from cuts and stuff faster and like. he bones heal fast. and he's more likely to survive smth that might usually kill someone, but its like a 10% higher chance of living nothing too much. he doesn't rlly get scars as much as the others, and its healed his old ones a bit more! this is by far the most unrealistic power of them all, but ya know its alien fish planet game who cares. basically bc his life support systems failed his spine got all fucked up and he got infected faster bc he was barely alive for the first few days and spent a lot of time w bart who was looking after him. power helped fix his back, but he still has a rlly bad limp and pretty much constant pain. big mood there khasar 😔✊

emily can detect electromagnetic waves! works best underwater. kind of like ryley's, but instead of hearing noises she can only hear anything electric, like vehicles or ampeels or heartbeats. gets all fucked up during thunderstorms though sadly. she's the only other one that can kind of hear warpers and can tell when ones about to warp around but she cant actually talk back to them. pretty sick if u ask me tho.

danby has p similar powers to her bc ampeels also spawn in the bulb zone. except he can sense them at a much smaller distance, cant hear warpers, and can control the waves around him! mostly just his own tho. so like, he can quiet his heartbeat or make it stop all together. scary power that he does not know how to control. uh oh. but he can also control other creatures a bit! he's very good at hiding bc of this, which is nice bc he loves to hide from scary things. very big mood once again.

milo is glowing powers! looks a lot like the transparency of a ghost levi or a crabsquid, although he isn't as see through as them. you can def make out like veins but not bones or organs. his powers are activated by touch, the more force behind will create more glow and more transparency! a poke = goes away within a few seconds, a slap = stays for a minute or so. instead of bruises, he just glows until the bruise would normally go away. he's basically a living glowstick. i have another joke for this but i cannot physically convince myself to type it bc its some shit emily would say to him and i cannot embarrass him like that LABDLABDKABAKD

andd ryley's super hearing! can hear basically everything within a mile radius at all times. im bad at math and i don't know the metric system but i think that's like around 1k meters. wait does the metric system use mile already. no. ONCE AGAIN NEVER SAID I WAS SMART.

OK ANYWAYS back on track! this means he can hear about half of the crater at all times. he's gotten p good at blocking out background noise and anything far away. typically only hears everything within like 300 meters of himself. so when he does get back to just hearing everything its like. u ever take out headphones in a busy place and everything kinda hurts for a few seconds bc its so much noise. yeah like that but 500x worse. he's able to concentrate on specific areas within this 1 mile field but if its far away it fucks him up good for a lil while. sorry ryley :(

and then the other two degasi! as mentioned before, paul can carry enzyme like the peepers, but he also can kind of make some himself! only small amounts and it works a bit less than the peeper enzyme does. he does not have to cough it up though thankfully it just like. idk how to describe this idea it can just kind of leave through his skin?? he has like no control over his power at all it just kind does its own thing and he deals w it. this is primarily how he and marg survive for so long w/o dying to kharra!

and finally marguerit! highly empathetic abilities that allow her to feel the emotions of anything around her! i thought it would be funny as hell to give MARGUERIT of all ppl Big Emotion Disease. this is a big reason why she has had yet to murder paul and why she's a lot less murderer like in the au. its hard to kill someone if you. you know. can feel exactly what they are. probably the reason she adopted Dog Bart/Legally Preston Emotionally Not. saw sad puppy and felt too bad to leave him. like paul, she has basically no control over it and is one of the reasons she does NOT want to go back to the survivors base and be around so many other ppl, she'd be feeling like, 13 ppl's emotions at one time. all these powers have fucked up drawbacks dont they??

once again sam, robin, jeff, maxim, and ozzy are (for now at least) not gonna have any powers! mutations are weird and ozzy just didn't get anything, and the vesper haven't been sick long enough for any yet!

OK THATS ALL. HOLY SHIT SORRY FOR YELLING FOR 15 MINUTES. GOT CARRIED AWAY. hopefully that explains everything tho OABEOABROANRJS OK BYE MY PHONE IS ALMOST DEAD

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cross-d-a · 4 years

Text

fic tag game

aaahhh @vishcount thank you for tagging me!!! These are so fun and I adored reading about your fic journey~! ೖ(⑅σ̑ᴗσ̑)ೖ ❤

OH as a note!! For the ppl I tag at the end I don’t expect you to read all of this bc it’s A Lot!!! but I figured you might want to do this game yourself? haha :)

Name: cross-d-a shortened version of my first ever username. unfortunately stuck with it now haha but i’m fond of it :p wish it was cuter tho!!

Posting the rest of this under the cut so it doesn’t eat up people’s dashes!!

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Fandoms:

oKAY YIKES there are....honestly too many too name. I’ve got a short and obsessive attention span so it’s either all or nothing with me usually. When I can stay in a fandom for a long period of time it’s a miracle. I’ll name the bigger ones that I’ve all written fic for! Even if I’ve never posted them haha

Right now I’m very firmly into Daomu Biji (dmbj). It feels like it’s both got a crap ton of content and yet barely anything at all haha. Maybe because the English fandom is so small. But at least there are a bunch of dramas and books!!! I really, really, really adore dmbj so much!! And a large part of that is the fandom!!! It's been a really cool and unique experience! Everyone in it is truly so kind and wonderful, and I’ve made some really incredible friends because of it (looking at you vish!! ❤). I’ve got a bunch of wips, but I’ve only posted two fics for dmbj!

Before this I was very into Guardian and mdzs. MDZS was my first foray into cdramas and Guardian’s Zhu Yilong really suckered me into watching more haha I also have fics for both these fandoms!

My very first fandoms were Fullmetal Alchemist, D. Gray-Man and Naruto. My very old ffnet account has fics for these and I’ve got a bunch of newer wips on my tablet. Then Star Trek, Twilight, BBC Merlin, Sherlock, Death Note, Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar the Last Airbender and Marvel were a few of my main ones in high school. Plus a bunch of anime (like Fruits Basket! and Kuroshitsuji and Natsume Yuujinchou).

Then college hit and I renewed my childhood love of Tolkien (mainly lotr and the Hobbit), and Star Wars. I also found Teen Wolf! Then after college it was Stranger Things.

I find myself in a cycle of mild fondness and complete obsession with these fandoms haha I go back to Star Wars at least once a year!! Then I’m in the gffa hole for a few months. Marvel also reoccurs, depending on how interested I am in new content! Star Trek I always always always go back to. TOS is my comfort show and it will never fade from my heart ❤

But for now I’m stuck in cdrama hell and I love it

Tropes:

Time travel, found family, whump+hurt/comfort, fairytale-like elements, resurrective immortality (thanks to a “Nine Lives” Hobbit fic), CROSSOVERS

I’m a slut for all these things so they often worm their way into my plots haha

I also just- love weird premises. I think that’s the anime influencing me haha

Fic I spent most time on:

My series he leaves sand and stardust in my wake (main fic is hurricane on the edge of oblivion), I have...spent five years on now. I have done so much research for this fic it’s insane.

The premise is force ghost!Obi-Wan getting shunted back into his tiny 10 year old self. I incorporate a shit ton of legends and I try to stay as canon as possible. I basically want this au to feel like it’s 1000% plausible while still getting all my gay shit. It’s chock full of whump, redemption, found family, minor characters turning into major characters, and I’ve got slavery uprising on the mind, too. It’s just- everything I could ever want to explore in the Star Wars universe basically.

It’s my first big project. I started doodling and scribbling ideas in the margins of my notebook in my Scottish History class. I adore it so so so much. But, because of my hyperfixation and fleeting intense obsession with things it makes it- really difficult to consistently update. I leave it for months at a time and I am constantly guilt-ridden about it. Because it’s my baby and I have a lot of wonderful readers. I fear I’ll never be able to finish it. Especially since I’ve written so much and I’m still only in the beginning of it. ( ; A ; )

Also, I’ve spent so much time with Xanatos, Feemor and Bruck that they just feel like mine now. I can’t read any fics that involve them, it’s too strange. Which is a damn shame because I love them so much haha OH ALSO!! I think it’s the first really big fic to include those three?? So I’m very proud about that haha (I’ve had so many ppl comment about how they actually Give A Shit about these three and are Invested bc of me haha)

Favorite fic(s) you’ve written:

hurricane on the edge of oblivion (with nowhere to go) (Star Wars)

My long-term passion project. My love-letter to Star Wars, I suppose. Reading it now I feel like a lot of it is clunky or long-winded, but I think it really shows the foundation of my writing today :) Main characters are Obi-Wan, Xanatos Du Crion, Qui-Gon Jinn, Bruck Chun and Feemor. Eventually we’ll get to Maul, Savage, Feral, Shmi Skywalker, (more!) Ahsoka, Anakin and a shit ton of clones ❤

things we hunger for (Guardian)

My Ye Zun self-indulgent fic. It’s a time travel amnesia Weilanzun! Honestly has some of my fav writing I’ve ever done. It’s so soft and really indulges in the hurt/comfort. It gives Ye Zun the friends and family I think he deserves. Also, he gets to grow into a (mostly!) functional person and I adore him.

the beast that slumbers within your soul (mdzs)

Jiang Cheng centric fic!! I feel like all my favourite fics I’ve written are love letters haha. This is one def my love letter to Jiang Cheng. This fic possessed me for two whole days. I wrote 16k in almost one sitting. I went to sleep at 6 in the morning bc I couldn’t stop writing. And when I drifted off I kept thinking of new ideas so I’d whip out my phone and write down lines and notes. I- have never ever ever felt that way about anything. It was- insane. It felt insane. It was so amazing. I’m still riding the memory of that high.

Basically Jiang Cheng actually finds Baoshan Sanren and it turns out she’s a fox demon and Jiang Cheng is descended from wolves. It’s- okay I said the fic above this had my favourite writing?? That was a lie. This has my favourite writing I’ve ever done. It’s unfinished bc I am in dmbj hell but I am still excited about the next chapter which features Wei Wuxian’s pov!!

the whispers of spirits (dmbj)

My current passion project. In a way it kinda feels similar to hurricane? Bc multiple povs, incorporating different aspects of canon (we’ll get there!! I promise!), shit ton of research, etc. etc. I really really really love it for so many reasons. I’m basically taking all the things I was unsatisfied with in Reboot and Sha Hai and running with it. Found family and whump galore! It’s also a love letter to the women of dmbj who really deserve so so so much better.

Honourable mention to:

One Day (you’ll have given more of yourself than is meant to be taken) (Marvel)

This fic also kinda possessed me. I just- couldn’t get rid of the idea of a trans!Thor. And I mean a mtf Thor! It’s just? So many people look at Thor and go “that’s a Real Man.” Full stop. They never think there could be anything more, and it really really really bothered me. So I wrote out my feelings. I’m not trans. I don’t have that experience at all. I’ve had issues and confusion about my gender but nothing like this. I just wanted to do justice to this idea of Thor in my head. And I still feel a bit nervous having posted it. But I've gotten so many comments from people who really connected with what I’ve written? So I’m very very thankful I wrote it and it has a very special place in my heart. It’s a very cathartic fic.

Fic I spent least time on:

Probably we rise (Star Wars) and I think it shows haha. I wrote it in response to Dave Filoni posting a drawing of Ahsoka and Gandalf telling her “People thought I was dead, too, and look how that turned out...” So I incorporated Ahsoka (and Din and Grogu and Ezra!!!) into the ending of Rise of Skywalker, kinda explaining how I think they could all still be alive. :)

Longest fic:

hurricane is my longest fic (159k) but I’m kinda worried whispers will eclipse that.....

Shortest fic:

Of my posted ones it’s The Five Moments it Took Tony and Scott to Admit They Were Best Friends (and the first time they ever did), currently clocks at 1.6k. It’s unfinished tho so maybe that doesn’t count.... otherwise it’s we rise which is completed and 2k.

Most hits/kudos/comments/bookmarks:

hurricane overall has the most of all these. Though I don’t think hits counts as much bc it’s multi-chapter. If you discount multi-chapter stuff, most hits goes to my obikin smutfic Homecoming, bc people are horny af haha

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on:

If I had energy I’d like to rewrite the beginning of hurricane bc it feels so so wordy. I’d want to expand on One Day bc I really would like to write a whole series with trans!Thor. And like- I’d really like the focus to finish any of my WIPs.

Share a bit of a WIP: I really wanna share my Guardian/dmbj crossover that I started back in August. Bc I adore the idea of wu xie&shen wei&ye zun triplets! Plus time travel!!! I dunno if I’ll ever finish it tho ( ; A ; ) It just feels like a lot to deal with right now.

This scene takes place during the Mountain Awl arc. Guardian crew and desperado fam run across each other at the village! Wu Xie has recently found out that he’s adopted and he’s searching for answers in the area Sanshu originally found amnesiac!toddler!Wu Xie in :) Gonna pull two snippets bc I’m v excited and this might be the only time anyone else sees this fic haha:

“Oh?” Pangzi focuses on Yunlan now, lips twisting. “You think I’ve ‘got the wrong guy,’ huh?” He laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. “That’s rich! Are you that cocky or are you just stupid?”

Bristling, Yunlan drops his hands and scowls. “Excuse me?”

“Sir,” Shen Wei tries. “I think—”

Pangzi’s eyes snap back to Shen Wei, sharp and blazing. “How dare you fucking steal his face!”

What?

Automatically, Zhao Yunlan turns to Shen Wei, but the professor looks just as shell-shocked as Zhao Yunlan feels which- is seriously something. Since everything about Shen Wei is so carefully controlled, kept to the minimum. Except for those delightful little smiles that bloom across his lovely face, or the startled little bursts of laughter that fall from his lips. Or even when anger and frustration spark across his features, cracking his calm veneer open enough that he can see a glimmer of what lies beneath, the fire in those eyes. Zhao Yunlan delights in those moments, makes a game of making Shen Wei’s control slip.

He tells himself it’s nothing more than a game. Nothing more than trying to find out what makes Shen Wei tick.

Zhao Yunlan’s always been very bad at lying to himself. Or very good. Depending on who you’re asking.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yunlan splutters.

But before anyone can say anything else, a very familiar voice calls:

“Pangzi? What’s wrong?”

Yunlan can feel Shen Wei stiffen, and Yunlan himself is pulled to that voice like a planet in orbit, like the inevitable plummet to the ground.

Another shadow wavers in the doorway before it steps out onto the dirt. Light illuminates shaggy hair, limning it gold, sharply casting everything else in shadow. But as the figure nears, the contrast softens until Yunlan can see the newcomer’s face properly and- and—

“Wu Xie!” Pangzi growls. “We’ve got ourselves an impostor!”

The man wearing Shen Wei’s face steps up to them, brows furrowed and mouth pulled down into a sharp frown. He glances between them, eyes landing on Shen Wei. His scowl deepens. He opens his mouth, but then—

“Wu Xie?” Shen Wei breathes, all trembly and lost and hopeless.

Heart in his throat, Yunlan turns to Shen Wei again. Turns and flinches at that stricken look upon Shen Wei’s pale pinched face.

“A-Xie?” Shen Wei chokes. “Didi?”

and

Pangzi snorts. “Professor?”

“I-it’s true!”

Startled Yunlan swings his attention over to Jiajia who clenches her backpack to her chest, face screwed up in admirable determination. “P-professor Shen took me and Xiao Quan on a field trip to investigate an archeological site around here!”

“Oh?” Wu Xie drawls all slow and amused. “Well, what a coincidence. We’re archeologists, too.”

“With guns?” Yunlan bites out.

Wu Xie raises a brow, grin full of teeth. “Well, you can never be too prepared.”

“Right,” Yunlan drawls right back. “Are you a professor, too, then? You come here with your students?”

Wu Xie outright grins. “You could say that, I suppose.”

Out of the corner of his eye, one of the men rolls his eyes. He’s the one with sharp features, glasses and looped earbuds. Does he think it’s appropriate to listen to music at a time like this? Yunlan admires the man’s gall.

aahhhh vish thanks so much again for tagging me!! This was so fun to relive my fic memories!! I’m gonna tag @alwaysaslutforshakespeare @jockvillagersonly @tehfanglyfish @lichelleme @undyingsunshine @humanlighthouse @thewindsofsong I’m curious about your guys’ writing and fandom journey!! As always, no pressure to actually complete this!! I just thought it was fun ❤

Wow if you read all of this I am very humbled and impressed, thank you!!

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

#cross talks #my fic #fanfiction #uhhh what else do i tag this as i dunno #about me #cross posts #wip fic

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the-drunken-fist · 4 years

Text

October 19th.

Yeah, it’s here.

I was thinking a lot what I could do for my lovely boy’s bday (and I am not talking about Jon Favreau, u sinners) bc actually I can’t do anything but silly notes about manga. However, one night a great idea came to my mind and said:

“What about Shisui’s appearance?”

“Appearance?”

“Appearance.”

“Shisui’s appearance?”

“Yes, Shisui’s appearance. You know, curly hair, body flicker, non-stop sharingan using, mad oldsters, coups, Uchiha fucking guys… Shisui!”

“Has it been a parody to Snatch?”

And so, I thought it would be pretty… interesting (?) try to realize some Modern AU headcanons about Shisui and his appearance. Let’s do it:

Shisui had some problems with his appearance in the childhood. When he went to the 1 grade, children immediately gave him a name “Potato-Shisui”. And do u know why??? Because of his nose. Shisui had never paid attention to such a feature of him and didn’t even think that his classmates’ name-calling was bad. But soon our boy understood that children went far and everything was changing into bullying. Shisui decided to turn the situation the other way. He was the highest child in the group, so during one of those unpleasent moments it was enough for him just to stand up silently, showing who was the boss in the area.

Yes, Shisui was tall. And slender. Very slender. He was a small copy of Thomas Sangster. But! This body that seemed extremely weak for… life… was actually strong and full of energy. Uchiha had always been the winner in all sport competitions at school. Especially in running ones. And it wasn’t just one-minute activity. It was his life. He run every day, in different weather because it gave him the feeling of freedom, fly, wind. It gave feelings. Great, but Shisui got another name-calling… “Russian wolfhound”.

Hair. Lovely curls that would make girls moan in the attack of cuteness in the future. But at that time he couldn’t find any advantages in them. Only big problems in hair care. Once a boy from his group even asked him if he was a Jewish. Shisui was surprised and seriously started to think about it. He knew much about his ancestors but that idea had never been in any of his family’s books and documents. But for him it sounded cool. And interesting.

Shisui didn’t consider himself handsome at all. And, yeah, such questions were opened when the period of his adolescence became. It wasn’t an idea-fix, u know, it was automatically because there were a lot of talks about it, hormones and all such unexpected things. But our 13-year-old baby didn’t even realize that he expressed such charismatic, self-confident, strong aura that made him much more incredible than even the prettiest face could make.

With time the body of our Shisui started to fill itself with visible physical strength. The shoulders became wider and more massive, the muscles like layers were growing on arms, legs, torso aki on titan in Shingeki. After the vacation like a new person came back to the classes. He looked much older than all his coevals. And his voice… when a teacher first time called him to answer the homework after such metamorphosis and the boy opened his mouth, all pupils in the classroom twitched. Gentle, light voice had changed into deep, strong, with features of whiskey and honey.

Continue the previous paragraph. It’s extremely necessary to mention the type of his speech. Oh, boys and girls… he was a talented orator. Shisui spoke absolutely clearly, accurately, confidently. But this talent became the reason why teachers always asked the boy to participate in something like “Competition of readers”. Shisui was a polite boy, so his answer was always “Ok, with pleasure”. Despite the fact of his incredible skills in a such activity Uchiha didn’t pretty like it. To stand in the center of people’s attention was a nightmare.

Later the traits of his beauty transformed into more masculine. All the parts of his face, that had always seemed too big for it, started to add very strong and self-willed features to boy’s appearance. He wasn’t a kind of guys with “traditional beauty” like Sasuke. He had something strange in his look (in a good way), contradictory. Big soft eyes with long eyelashes went with a strong jaw and high cheekbones in an extremely fantastic manner.

Clothes style. I say only two words – dark/casual. Boy, I can understand u absolutely. And Itachi inherited this style from his friend. Sometimes, when people see Itachi and Shisui together, they think that the boys wear the same clothes. Honestly, it has sense bc Itachi got some Shisui’s hand-me-downs. And the reason isn’t in difficult financial situation. Itachi doesn’t follow fashion but near there is always Shisui who can say “U have always liked this hoodie. Take it, i’ve become too big for it”. Would you refuse?

At 17 Shisui understood that it was time to stop pretending. He had terribly bad eyesight and it was becoming worse and worse. The problems continued from the time when he was 7, but our boy tried not to pay attention to it (oh, yes, lovely, I know…). He spent 2 hours in the optical store surrounded by long shelves with enormous amount of glasses of different styles, forms, colors. He was confused. Highly confused. Thanks to a nice woman there who helped him recommending many pairs which should suit him.

Accessories. Shisui has always been a big fun of little details in the look (and he wasn't even supposed). Bandanas, caps, wrist braces, belts – are his favourities. He even presented а nice necklace to Itachi for his birthday. And after “the-optical-store-incident” he found out that glasses would become honorary members of his small collection.

Bonus! Some songs from Shisui’s playlist. Naruto calls it “Grandfather’s album”:

Gone With The Sin – HIM (!!!!!!!!!! – forever love 1);

July - Noah Cyrus;

Thoughts & prayers – Grandson;

Six Billion - Nothing But Thieves;

Lonely - Palaye Royale;

O'clock - Emilie Zoé;

We Are Young feat. Janelle Monae - Fun. feat. Janelle Monáe;

About Her - Malcolm McLaren;

How We Roll - Hollywood Undead (at all HU was Shisui’s adolescent love);

Enough's Enough - Paris Shadows (Sasuke’s recommendation);

Where Did You Sleep Last Night – Nirvana;

Let It Go - Def Leppard;

When the Smoke Is Going Down – Scorpions (!!!!!!! – forever love 2);

Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High? - Arctic Monkeys;

Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - Urge Overkill;

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Soundtrack Wonder Band (Itachi always prays to all possible Gods to stop Shisui rampaging (dancing) during this song);

Otherside - Red Hot Chili Peppers;

Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones (rampaging song №2);

Chinese Democracy - Guns N' Roses (“No, Shisui,” Itachi said wearily. “Yes, Shisui. My car, my rules.”);

HUMBLE - Kendrick Lamar (unexpected but Naruto insisted. His “cool track” should “colorize” grandad’s list);

Lounge Act – Nirvana;

That's all for today. Thank u for your attention. And now go drink to the health of such a perfect man 🎁🎈🎂🌸💫

#uchiha shisui #shisui #shisuiweek2020 #free day #shisui's bday #naruto #naruto shippuden

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whispersafterdusk · 4 years

Text

Lost in Time - ch 14

It'd been four days since their tussle with the spy; they hadn't heard or seen any hint of them, and so far the only injury that had turned up at Xu's clinic had been a woman who had fallen on a bit of wood. Asher had gone into town long enough to get his broken tooth pulled (front right tooth on the top...he looked like a doofus when he smiled now) and had immediately returned to camp to hunker down and wait out the spy's next visit while the Civil Corps members had gone on a manhunt across the marsh and into the neighboring desert area.

So far, nothing.

They'd briefly discussed the suits again; Eli couldn't make up her mind on whether this Access suit thing was an original (less worrying) or if Duvos had figured out how to piece one together (really worrying). Asher shared her worries -- the thought of Duvos mass producing those things for their soldiers, even if they weren't working like they did in Eli's time, would still pose a huge problem if the continent ever went to war again. ((Continued below cut))

He did know she'd given up on the trail cameras for now but she was still working on something out in the tent; it used a lot of the same pieces that she'd set aside for the cameras but also several new, different ones that she'd sent Petra and Selene after. The centerpiece of these new additions was a detached screen that she'd marked out dimensions on - she was either cutting it down to size and needed the middle-most section or she was dividing it into a rectangle and eight smaller squares that were all roughly the same size. She hadn't done anything with the screen yet aside from measuring and marking out those squares but there were small piles of nigh identical looking chips, boards, and wires that were already assembled and sitting in a neat little line on the rubberized canvas under her cot that he assumed had to be put together first before the screens could be attached to them.

It had been a fascinating sight to watch her work with such tiny components; he hadn't had a chance yet to ask her what those things were (interrupting her while she was working on them seemed like a poor idea since it looked so...fragile, in a way) but he was looking forward to seeing the finished product, learning what the gadgets were for, and why she needed so many of them. It also piqued his curiosity about Old World tech in general; so much of it seemed purposely designed to work with pretty much anything else. Maybe Old World technology didn't so much depend on the parts as it did the programs to run it...which in turn made him wonder, assuming they ever got to a point where they knew how to read and create new programs, if all the old relics could be made to work again like they did back then rather than being pieced together with spotty knowledge and prayers.

Behind him Adam, Arlo, and Eli were all asleep inside the tent with the front flaps pulled closed to block out as much of the unusually plentiful sunlight as possible - there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was considerably warmer today than it had been lately; he appreciated the warmth and imagined his sleeping companions probably did as well but found himself going back and forth on whether he was truly grateful for the "sunny" part of this sunny day. On the one hand, that suit made the spy near-invisible but not intangible so they should still cast a shadow so if the spy was dumb enough to try sneaking in close in broad daylight Asher was hopeful he would spot that before they got close enough to be a danger. On the other hand he doubted they would actually be that stupid. The constant prickle at the back of his neck - the feeling of being watched - wasn't a sensation Asher enjoyed, and it also wasn't something he was used to experiencing for such a prolonged period of time; he had no proof though that he WAS being watched, and that was probably bothering him more than the prickling was.

The grumpy sigh he huffed out whistled a bit as it exited through the gap his missing tooth had left behind; that annoyed him to no end too. Asher didn't consider himself an overly vain person but damn it he'd liked how he looked; it had taken a couple years to be at peace with the sunken in scar across his nose but at least that made him look...adventurous. Dashing. Daring. A missing tooth made him look like a drunkard, and it would be a long trip to Seesai to get a replacement that wouldn't prematurely discolor. Adam was right in that he could easily get a tooth closer to home but, again, discoloration was a problem -- whatever that woman in Seesai did to keep the false teeth from coloring was a closely guarded secret...no one knew what she did or what recipe she used, not even her family if they were to be believed.

He supposed it was a question of if he wanted to look stupid with his tooth gap or look stupid with a yellowed tooth in a few years. Neither thought was especially attractive and brought with it a sort of helpless frustration that, coupled with the prickling feeling of having eyes on him, made him want to get up and move around to burn off the pent up energy and emotion.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of rustling grass; before he could truly react to the sound Eli came into view and he relaxed slightly.

"You're up - uh, early. Or however you want to consider it."

She shrugged as she sat down on one of the rocks ringing the firepit. "Eh, it happens. Sometimes you just don't sleep."

"Any new ideas?"

For a time she didn't respond; silently Asher surveyed their surroundings - everything still seemed to be as it ought to be. He still felt twitchy though...he was ready for action, or for anything that wasn't sitting here keeping watch. Maybe with Eli awake he could exercise or something.

"Not really," Eli finally responded. "I can think of twelve different ways to disable that suit but they all require tech that doesn't exist anymore. And it's not something I could put together from stuff that's left here."

Asher nodded, then glanced back toward the tent; when she'd come out she'd left the tent flaps open and he could barely detect movement inside -- Arlo shouldn't be up for awhile yet but it was looking like Adam was waking up. "So what's all that stuff you've been working on then?"

"Hi-Defs."

"I've no idea what those are."

"They're wrist-mounted computers. A lot of their functionality isn't going to work right in this day and age but back in mine they were onboard guidance systems with maps of all the regions, could make and receive calls, they kept track of addresses and your appointments and bank accounts and whatever else you wanted to track, they could project 3D images, take pictures... They could do a lot of things depending on the model you had."

He blinked at her; only half of that had sunk in as he'd gotten a bit hung up on the concept of a wrist-mounted computer. "Really? Why those then? If they're not going to work right, I mean. What will they even be able to do?"

"I want them mostly for communication and maps of this region. I'd need signal transmitters in some strategic areas but once I get it all tethered to the facility they should work. It's going to take a lot of footwork to get maps updated since it'll have to be manual scanning rather than satellite surveillance...or, hmm. Maybe some satellites survived." She paused for a moment, then shook her head. "Nah, shouldn't rely on that. Arlo mentioned there's a space station segment out in the wastes but even if there's enough left there to scavenge I doubt I could get a link going with anything that might be left up there, and even if I managed it I still wouldn't have a way to issue orders or anything like that." There was another pause and a sigh, and a wistful glance toward the sky before she returned her attention to him. "Mine will be the sort of central control for them all outside of whatever computer station I decide to run them off of. My aim is to give them to anyone involved with the security of this facility."

"Huh." Him with a high tech device...not something he'd considered before. The idea was...kind of exciting, to be honest. "So maps and talking to one another. Is that all we can hope for?"

"Communication and map display is, bare minimum, what I'm aiming for, with maybe a basic calendar and clock function. I'll have a look at what I can immediately do once I've server-flashed Pauline and get at least one transmitter up for testing."

"...and you've lost me. What's a server-flash?"

She laughed quietly. "-right. It's hard to determine what terms survived the years and what didn't - with Petra and Merlin it's at least a 50% shot that I don't have to define something for them. So! Server-flashing. I take the main operational files for an AI and do a sort of...quick copy of their foundation. Pauline's an AI but not a living AI so I don't need to worry about her personality or anything, just the uh...the semi-intelligent framework she runs on."

"Yeah, going to need that taken down a few degrees still. Pauline seems just as smart as Stewart but she doesn't have personality?"

"Nope. She's just a regular assistant AI -- a sort of input-output response machine with just enough programmed intelligence to appear sentient but she can't learn or grow as a...uh...well, not as a "person" exactly but she -- she won't ever change. She just is what she is. AIs like her you could make infinite copies of and they'll never, ever stop being identical copies unless something on the outside alters them. Stewart on the other hand, if I were to make a copy of him, that copy would develop its own personality if given enough time to learn and live and the same would happen with a regular living AI."

That...sort of made sense. At least, it was simple enough that he could grasp it without her needing to explain it more in-depth. "And you're going to use her to run the Hi-Defs."

"After some minor reprogramming yes."

He nodded slowly; having a little, easily accessed map right on his wrist would be neat, even if it was just of Portia. And if it worked well here maybe it could be expanded out into the other cities and nations too...and, oh man, would that make mapping the Peripheries way easier too if all they had to do was walk through it with the Hi-Def recording or whatever it did to create the maps -- suddenly he could think of all sorts of possibilities and perks to having one of the things. "What would be the range on these things? How would they figure out and store maps?"

"Range depends on what kind of signal strength I can get. Hi-Defs have their own localized signals so they'll all be able to 'talk' to one another within a certain range, and also interface with the signals coming from the transmitters at a much wider range. I'm pretty sure I'd only need sixteen or so at some key points to cover all of Portia and a bit of the outlying areas. As for updating or creating maps it'll have to be manual scanning -- someone is going to have to start from an already mapped point and then let the Hi-Def scan the territory as you travel through it. It'll take awhile but the program that runs a Hi-Def is robust enough to piece it all together without too much extra work needed. And they have their own onboard storage to hold it all."

"Neat...and amazing." As a more comfortable silence fell Asher tossed a few thick branches onto the fire and nudged them into place with a blackened, straight branch he'd purposely kept as a sort of log poker. If Adam was stirring too then he should probably get the fire's heat evened out so he could start cooking. "Did you end up camping a lot as a ranger?"

"Yeah. I went camping for fun too."

He carefully poked at the fire for a moment. "...do you miss doing that?"

There was a long pause before she answered. "I miss a lot of things."

Asher winced a bit. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that."

She shook her head and flashed him a strained smile. "Nah, don't be afraid to ask things. The funny thing with pain is the more you experience it, the easier it is to tolerate."

"I don't think it works that way with this kind of...you know."

With a shrug she turned to pick up the cooking kit (which was in a large leather satchel that had seen better days) that was off to the side of the firepit. "Works well enough for now. I don't want you guys walking on eggshells around me, and I can't hide from it forever. Hell, I can't hide from it even if I wanted to."

Asher was quiet as she handed the satchel over; he pulled the kettle out and stood to go fill it from the water barrel they'd installed just inside the tent flaps, then came back and sat it among the coals to start boiling. A feeling of guilt had settled like a rock in his stomach -- that had been such a stupid thing to ask her. "If you ever want to...talk, or something. I'll listen."

The smile she gave him this time was less strained. "I know. It's appreciated."

As he bent to re-arrange a few half-burned logs she got up and walked out of his immediate line of sight; behind him somewhere he heard Adam's low voice and then the man's plodding footsteps as he came over and took Eli's place on the rock. Asher just managed to catch the sight of Eli disappearing into the tent as he glanced back but she quickly came back into view a moment later.

"I'll be back in a bit - I need to grab a few things from town." She had her pack slung over a shoulder but it hung limp and empty. "Don't bother cooking for me."

"All right. If you're sure," Asher replied.

"I am." With that she began to jog toward the path that, eventually, led back into Portia.

Asher watched her go and then sighed heavily, looking over to Adam. "You ever feel like a massive idiot sometimes?"

"Sure," Adam grunted. "Then I remember I'm not you and feel better."

Asher rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to whack the man with the fire poker stick; when he didn't rise to the man's banter Adam gave him a strange look.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. I think. How do you want your eggs this time?"

------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Xu had acquired a wooden chair with a really comfortable cushion and a small wooden table for Harrison to work at; it sat in the corner near the front doors so it would be out of the way of everything else in the clinic but its position did mean that usually, when someone walked inside, Harrison was the first thing they saw. Already several tourists looking for headache or muscle ache cures had approached him at the table to ask after the medications, even when Dr. Xu was clearly within view at his desk further in the room.

He kept telling himself to find humor in the situation but it was starting to get a little annoying - especially after someone actually moved a stack of books out of the way to "speak to him" with Xu staring on in surprised confusion.

It was enough to have him dreading the sound of the doors opening, and so today when they slid open he actually flinched and carefully peered over the top of the book he had propped up in front of him.

To his surprise it was that girl from days ago - the one who had fallen on the driftwood and gotten it through her arm. She looked bright eyed and chipper, with no other obvious injuries, and he inwardly groaned as she looked around, spotted him, and came right over.

"Hey there!"

"Hello. How's the arm healing up?"

She smiled and slipped her coat off, then pulled her sleeve up to show the bandage there. "It's all fine and dandy - itchy, but doesn't seem infected or anything."

"Well, that's good." He went silent as she pulled her sleeve back down and got her coat back on, then cleared his throat awkwardly. "So...what did you need then?"

"Ah, hello there -- how is the arm?"

Harrison sat up a bit straighter as Xu came over; the girl gave the doctor a smile.

"It's all good. A bit itchy but seems to be healing."

Xu nodded. "Excellent to hear. Now, what brings you back to the clinic?"

The girl's smile faltered a bit and Harrison swore he saw a tinge of pink appear in her cheeks. "Ah...well, uh, I came to um. Talk to him, actually-"

She pointed shyly to Harrison, and he blinked at her in confusion. Talk to him? Why?

Xu seemed just as confused as he was. "Oh?"

"Yeah...um, private matter."

"Huh?" Harrison blurted out.

She turned her attention back to him and rubbed at her injured arm awkwardly. "Um. If you have the time, anyway."

"S-sure, I guess."

He stood up and came out from behind the table; the girl took a few timid steps toward the door and when he followed along she headed outside into a much brighter day than Harrison had been expecting.

He raised a hand to shield his eyes and looked over to her. "What did you need to talk to me about? Did I do something wrong with your injury?"

She shook her head, hard; it was hard enough to dislodge a few wisps of hair from the messy bun on top of her head. "No no nonono, nothing like that. I was just um, wondering if you'd...like to go get coffee or lunch sometime?"

With that the woman stood there, lightly scraping the toe of her shoe into the mud; Harrison felt like someone had abruptly switched off all the lights inside his brain. She wanted to go get coffee, with HIM?

"Uh..."

"It's ok if you don't want to," she went on in a rush. "I don't mind. You're probably busy. I shouldn't have asked."

"N-no, no, it's-" Harrison interrupted. "Ah - no one has ever asked that before. I think my brain shut off." He offered her a weak, slightly sheepish smile, and to his surprise she returned it. "But...why me?"

"I...dunno. You're from Lucien, like me. I don't meet a lot of Lucien natives when I travel around. And, you're. Um. You know...cute, so I thought, why not?"

Now it felt like his ears were on fire. "A-ah," was all he could say.

An awkward silence fell and it went on entirely too long for Harrison's liking; he was hoping she would say something...he wasn't sure WHAT, but he wanted to hear SOMETHING, anything, that would take the burden of this conversation off him until his brain caught up.

"So..."

"Ah, uh, yeah, um, sure," he said finally. "I-I mean, if you're sure."

The girl's face brightened and she bounced on the balls of her feet for a moment. "Hee! Yay! Ok, so when are you next free?"

"Later this evening?" he offered.

She nodded. "All right then - later this evening. Down at that restaurant in the square? The knight one?"

Harrison nodded, feeling lightheaded; he completely missed what she said as she waved and then headed off down the hill. Too late he returned the wave, and then leaned against the clinic doors behind him.

"What...just happened..." he muttered, rubbing at his forehead.

He, Harrison, had a date tonight.

...wait, did she ever even give her name?

"Oh boy..."

---------------------------------------------------

"Haven't seen you in a bit," Django said as Eli walked through the door.

With all the afterimages swimming around (it was REALLY bright outside today) Eli could barely see him, and somewhat stumbled her way toward the counter. "Been helping the Pigs out at the facility."

"Ah, that'd be it."

She managed to find a stool and sat down. "I had to come back for some supplies and I'd like to take some treats out to the them as a surprise."

Django nodded. "I see, hmm. I just pulled an apple pie out of the oven, and I've got some Black Forest cake made just this morning. Won't take long to whip anything else up either," he said as he flipped open a menu to the dessert section and slid it over to her.

"Thanks." She picked it up and held it in front of her; with the afterimages it'd probably be another minute or two before she could clearly read it. "Do you know if they've established any favorites?"

"I know Arlo doesn't really like sweets in general. I haven't talked to Asher or Adam enough to know about those two."

Eli frowned; good thing she'd asked. "All right, no sweets for Arlo then. I know he likes spicy things at least. How about...an order of vanilla pudding, some of that apple pie, and that spicy spaghetti stuff?"

"Sounds good."

As Django headed off toward the kitchen Eli folded the menu properly and returned it to the pile, then leaned forward to brace her elbows on the counter and put her forehead in her hands.

Every idea she'd had so far to disable that suit all required things that weren't around anymore; the easiest would be a localized EMP to overload the projector circuits and force it into a reboot cycle where it wouldn't be able to disguise its user until it fully restarted itself. A sliver shot would do similar in that it would disrupt the projectors by confusing its sensors with a quick burst of hard light mirror shards. Or she could use a taser overload, or a bolt drainer, or a sys-dis (a system disabler - it would scramble all the circuit signals), or even a battery overcharger. So many things she COULD do, if she was in her own time period...

But she wasn't, and simple ideas like trying to use water or some sort of paint or even dirt to try and short out or otherwise mark their target probably wouldn't work -- Access Suits had built in miniature shield generators evenly interspersed among the projector sensors that pulled double duty at repelling water as well as dirt, dust, or mud-like materials. She couldn't safely rely on the hope that those generators were as damaged as the faulty projectors; if they were working correctly they might get two seconds, tops, of visual assistance if they were to try and douse the spy in something...two seconds could seem like forever in a fight but since there was no telling what else that spy might be armed with by now Eli was not about to risk anyone around her with so many unknown variables (it was as much for the spy's safety as well as their own that they be able to clearly see what they were doing the next time they clashed - she'd hated firing blindly at the spy and it'd be a really simple matter for someone to accidentally kill someone else).

"Something the matter?"

Eli jumped at the sound of Django's voice just over her shoulder. "You walk really quietly when you want to."

Django chuckled as he moved back behind the counter; he had a few containers in hand that he neatly lined up on the counter in front of her. "Old habits I guess, haha. It'll be a few minutes on the spaghetti."

She slid her pack off her back and pulled a cloth bag out of one of the front pockets, then sat it on the counter; before she could say anything Django picked it up and began to slide the containers inside.

"It was an honest question though - something on your mind?"

Eli paused, then huffed out a sigh. "Just trying to figure out how to hunt down a ghost, is all."

Django's eyebrows raised a bit. "Wasn't aware we had a ghost problem outside of our haunted cave."

"Not a literal ghost," she replied, laughing quietly. "More like someone pretending to be one."

"I see. Not exactly your run of the mill problem to have."

With another sigh Eli rested her forehead on her hands again. "I'm not exactly a run of the mill person."

Django nodded slowly, rubbing at his chin. "...you know, how about we have a quick dart game while we wait on your spaghetti?"

There was something...odd, about his tone. Eli eyed him but couldn't detect anything other than his usual smiling demeanor -- he sounded off but looked fine.

"...all right," she answered, standing up and aside as he shuffled out from behind the counter and led the way toward the back game room.

There were a few others in the restaurant; Eli found herself waving at folks as she went and narrowly dodging Toby who was waving a report card at her (she made a mental note that there were only two more months for Toby to prove he'd kept his grades up enough for training) and then she was in the game room with Django already retrieving the darts from a drawer in the prize counter.

He didn't say anything at first as he handed her the three green darts while he kept the red ones. "So. Looking for a person pretending to be a ghost, you said?" Django lined up a dart and then tossed it a breath later; it landed right on the border between a bullseye and the next ring out.

Eli huffed then laughed quietly. "I feel like I'm about to lose. Terribly."

Django tossed another one and it landed squarely inside the bullseye. "I've had a lot of practice. Where's this ghost person lurking? Out at the facility?"

"...yeah," she answered after a pause. "We have an uninvited visitor out there."

The third dart he threw, to Eli's surprise, flew well off to the left and embedded itself into the thick safety backboard that the dartboard was mounted on. "When did this ghost show up?"

"Recently."

She watched silently as he went over and slowly took the darts down; when he was out of the way she took her first throw and it barely stayed within the board, embedding itself into a bottom right section that wasn't worth any points at all.

"Humor me. Was it someone you think is on the smaller, lighter side?"

"I...guess. Couldn't really get a good look at them, obviously." Rather than taking her second throw she turned around to face him; he'd moved over to lean against the prize counter's front, arms crossed over his chest and a somewhat brooding look on his face -- seeing something other than his usual cheerful expression immediately made her forget all about the dart game. "All right, spill: what are you getting at?"

Django inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Did Arlo tell you about that Rogue Knight we had, not too long ago?"

"Yeah, I've heard about it. He said you were the one who was able to drive them off too. You think this knight guy came back?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't think your visitor is the same Rogue Knight I fought that day. But you mentioning a ghost brought back some memories, from when I was younger. Of a different, more dangerous knight, in her own way."

Eli walked over and dropped her remaining darts onto the counter. "Are knights just a common thing now?"

"Not anymore. In the older days - meaning, the older days of our current era, between the Calamity and when humanity was finally recovering - folks took up the title of knight as they fought to protect their homes and people from both man and monster alike. Humanity didn't have much left back then...just a lot of old stories and memories of how things once were, but the legends that were even older than the Old World still managed to survive. Such stories helped keep the survivors alive, and while it's a tradition that's been mostly overwritten by the Civil Corps and other law enforcement nowadays, there's still a fair few of us who stick to those old stories and the honor that comes with claiming the title of knight."

Eli watched him as he spoke; the brooding look had given away to something more resembling a thoughtfulness - a softer, more introspective look, and as he talked his chin was slowly dipping down so his gaze ended up on the floor just in front of his feet.

"So..." she said quietly into the pause that followed. "Why did me mentioning a ghost make you think of another knight?"

Django finally lifted his gaze and flashed her a grim smile. "I drove that Rogue Knight off with the belief that he wouldn't dare step foot here again. I still believe that, in fact. But I've been on my guard for any hints of other troublesome knights that might show up to try and finish the job he left undone. It just so happens that I know of a woman who called herself the Ghost Knight -- I knew her when I was a younger man. We even fought together a few times to clear out monster nests or drive off bandits."

Eli's eyes widened. "You're kidding."

"I wish I were. You mentioning you were looking for someone pretending to be a ghost brought her to mind."

"Who is she? What's she look like? Why would she be here?"

"I don't know. I never learned her real name, and she never learned mine. I never even saw her face - only the strange suit of armor she wore. As for why she's here-"

"Is she a mercenary for hire?" Eli interrupted. "What - how did - how do knights function?" At his mildly surprised look she slumped her shoulders a bit. "Sorry - didn't mean to interrupt you."

Django chuckled and pushed off from the counter, moving to line up to throw his darts again. "Not a problem. I can only guess at why she'd be here -- same reason the Rogue Knight was, I wager. I wouldn't call her a mercenary...that's not what we did. But, it's been over a decade since I last spoke with her, and people can change."

Eli shifted and leaned against the counter almost in the same spot he'd just vacated, putting him and the dartboard at her back as she stared a hole into the wood in front of her; if this person was this Ghost Knight that Django had known years ago then that meant it was a good chance that this spy's having an Access Suit was just...a one-off. One person who got their hands on something that actually still worked. That was one fear off the list, at least.

"Django... How did this woman fight? What did she do as the Ghost Knight?"

"Scouting," came his answer, quicker than she'd expected. There was the sound of the dart thunking into the board before he continued. "No one was better at it than her. And in a battle she was the best flanking attacker you could hope to have on your side."

"Flanking... Does that mean she didn't take people on in a direct manner?"

"She avoided that as much as possible but she was still capable of defending herself if she had to." Another thunk of a dart. "Can I ask you a favor?"

"Sure."

She turned around from the counter in time to see Django turning as well, flicking his wrist and sending the dart at the board without looking or aiming; the dart stuck into the bullseye.

"If you find this person, and manage to capture them, I would like to speak to her."

"I... I mean, I'M willing to let that happen, but I'm not a Civil Corps person. That's not likely up to me."

Django nodded, slipping his hands into the pockets of his colorful coat. "If you can make that happen, I'd be indebted to you... Excuse me, I should go check the spaghetti. It ought to be done by now."

"Yeah, sure thing. I'll head back up to the counter."

He disappeared through a small door into the kitchen and, as she said, Eli walked out of the game room and back to the counter where the rest of her order was sitting packed neatly into the cloth sack.

She looked over a shoulder at the restaurant's patrons; there were considerably more people here now than had been when she'd first walked in, and Django had purposely wanted to talk to her about it away from others. She really, really wanted to ask him more about how this Ghost Knight woman fought, or where she'd come from, or--

'I'll come back when it's not busy, or maybe I can catch him at home.'

That he'd admitted he'd been on the lookout for any other trouble-making knights worried her...maybe she should also split her history lesson time between Isaac and Django.

------------------------------------------------

"Bye, see you tomorrow!"

Django gave Sonia a small wave and a smile as she headed out the front door; there were a few spots left to sweep and then he could put out the lights and head home himself.

Normally he enjoyed the absolute silence of the restaurant late at night - it gave him time to daydream, or plan for the next day's operations. Tonight though... He couldn't help but think of that Ghost Knight. Everything he could recall about her had come flooding back in a rush when Eli had mentioned someone pretending to be a ghost; any other time he would have dismissed it as silly old memories but now...

He bent and swept up dirt into the dustpan, and then moved to carry it over to the waste bin.

Ever since he'd driven that rogue knight off he'd been constantly vigilant for any hint, no matter how small, that someone else had arrived to plunge Portia into chaos. He imagined most people would think he was being paranoid without reason and so had kept such worries to himself...maybe he shouldn't have done that. Portia's residents had been panicked at first and demanding more protections from the Civil Corps folks after the knight incident but, as time wore on, they'd fallen back into their lives without fear of outside threats; would anything be different now if Django had shared his worries with Gale?

"Too late for that," he muttered to himself.

He swept up the last little dust pile and dumped it into the bin, then went to put the dustpan and broom away.

Once everything but a single lamp was powered down he dipped behind the front counter; for the most part he stored napkins, silverware, and small dessert plates behind here but after that Rogue Knight had left he'd started stashing a small box out of sight behind the formal cloth napkins that were only used during holidays.

The box was about the length of his hand from fingertips to the heel of his palm, and was just barely shy of being perfectly square. Django popped the latch open and lifted the lid to reveal a delicate-looking pair of gloves made of silvery wires, each with a single wire that was much longer than the others that ended in a tiny plug; they were very hard to see among the loose cloth that padded the inside of the box, and he knew from experience that even when worn they were difficult to spot.

As he looked the gloves over he had his usual mixed feelings about them; hidden beneath his shirt and jacket were a pair of matching armbands hugging his biceps that had very small charge generators on it -- wearing the gloves with the lead wire plugged in allowed him to charge up and release a controlled shock that went off with a bang, a bright flash of light, and repelled anything he hit along with delivering a strong sting to his target.

Much like the memories of the Ghost Knight now all his memories of having found these relics came rushing back; he'd once been a young, stupid man, with lofty ideals about what it meant to be a knight without truly understanding anything about knighthood. He'd thought that finding these gloves had been the ultimate stroke of luck -- something to make him an unstoppable force of good in the world. He'd been hilariously proven wrong, over and over, until he began to treat them as tools to compliment his own skill, rather than relying entirely on them.

When he finally understood what the gloves true purpose ought to be he began to win more often and eventually they had earned him the title of Storm Knight; when he'd realized that his dependence on them had basically shaped his reputation he had almost thrown them away. The fear that someone else would make the same mistakes he did (or worse - that someone would use them to harm others) had made him keep them, and steadily he relied on them less and less over the years until he'd mothballed them five years before he retired. The Rogue Knight had been threat enough that Django had felt the need to take the gloves out of storage and thankfully with them - and with his reputation - that had been enough to scare the knight off.

The problem with this Ghost Knight was Django knew reputation alone wouldn't drive her away. She had fallen into the same pitfalls he had: thinking that Old World technology made her invincible, or at the very least better than everyone else. Rather than learning and improving she had stagnated...and he'd watched it happen.

"You could have been one of the best..." he sighed, closing the box and tucking it under an arm.

She really could have been...maybe he should have fought her harder on her reliance on that suit. Maybe she would have listened if he'd fully explained his own mistakes with the gloves. Maybe he could have trained with her to show her there was a more honorable way of living. But then again, maybe there wasn't some magical combination of words that would have swayed her to his side and stopped her from getting mad and literally stabbing him in the back.

As he headed to the front door he reached his free hand around to rub at a spot on his lower back. That old scar ached and itched when it was cold or wet outside but it was an old wound he'd learned to ignore; tonight it was a dull throbbing pain - probably exacerbated by the sweeping, or so he told himself before pausing to really examine that thought.

There used to be an old wives tale about how an injury caused by a mortal enemy would burn and ache when that enemy was nearby. The Ghost Knight had been his companion once...he didn't think for a moment that they could be friends again but he could spare a bit of hope that the old tale was true and that he would know exactly when he was needed if it was truly her in the region.

#Lost in Time #lit #Lost in Time - ch 14 #Dr. Xu #Django #My Time at Portia

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tabletopjourneys · 4 years

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Session 35 Notes

The Silver Scale Pack get to know various members of Rana's immediate family, get woken by draconic-speaking rodents, find out more about their quest, and hit a few stores on their way back through Longview, headed for one of the local taverns.

@gher-bear @aradow @telurin @epimetala

On this day we have a nice visit with Rana's mother, Romy, stay over and find out Anesh, for as long as anyone can remember, has a population of tiny animals that speak draconic. They all speak draconic and have infected our rats with the same! It's totally normal guys! And no, Diem, it is not because one of the town's people is secretly a dragon. We'd know. For sure.

The next day we move on to meet Rana's brother, sister-in-law, niece, and niephew. We find out a little more about Haldric and Phi's daggers, which she hides in her pack and displays her common daggers in their place instead. Ixayl'anu gets her platinum ring made, Diem gives the kids their putty vivis as a gift. On our way toward the tavern, we hit a general supply store and maaaybe one other??? Dried fruits and granola were purchased along Phi's medical supplies at any rate.

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Session 35 Notes

Notes!

(Chillin’ with Rana’s mom)

When we go in Rana’s home, Phi becomes a wandering cat who helps herself to exploration, comes back and says “There’s a hot tub!”

Mom: You’re welcome to borrow it.

Phi: Is this where you grew up?

Rana: Yep! (pulls out duck sauce, honey, apple jam etc. - giving it to her mom).

Phi sees this and pulls out her very expired mixed fruit to hand over, along with her gummy owlbears.

Mom: Oh no dear, that’s fine, you don’t have to start pulling supplies out of your pack.

Phi drops the gummy owlbears into the pile anyway.

Rana: Really sorry to barge in like this, but we just needed a couple of days, we’ve run into some situations and I’m looking for someone in Bouldergap - wanted to see if Stell knew anything about them.

Romy tells us we’re welcome anyway, stresses that this is still Rana’s home too and says something about friends that I missed for note-taking.

Rana pulls out the silver scale and letter from Retin and talks about him, says she’s pretty sure the guy Retin is sending us to is a dwarf. We were told he might be helpful, but we weren’t told where he was. She figured Bouldergap was the place to look and knows it’s a long shot her mom or brother would know him but we also needed a place to stay on the way, so thought she thought she might as well ask.

Romy: I can’t be sure but I feel like Stell has mentioned a Haldric in passing but I certainly don’t have a whole lot of communication with anybody of that name.

Rana: No ironbands as customers then?

Romy: No

Rana: It’s a weird thing, handed us this dragon scale gave us that name and sent us this way.

We’ve noticed Romy has a bone of contention with Rana over the news about shadowood travelling.

With prompting Diem remembers they’re the story teller and should tell it, 13 performance, gets smoother as they go on. However, to their friends, who have heard Diem tell this particular story among others many times, they definitely seem off their game a little.

When we get to fighting the dragon, Romy is worried, Diem insists healers were on standby so nobody died

Rana: We almost had him.

Diem: Well I mean technically one of us did get him later that night…

Phi cracks up laughing

After stories Rana says something about the meteor

Mom says something I missed for note-taking, GM is telling us about blacksmiths/nosy customers (so maybe something about that?).

Through conversation we gather that Grismor is innkeeper/tavern keeper of The Smiling Dragon - one of 2 inns who trades in gossip. Smiling Dragon is better for gossip, better drink, does his own ale, seasonal brews, jolly little dwarf who is as tall as he is round. Square dwarf.

Rana tells us about her messages to her brother which provided a nice distraction about meteor news for Longview.

Rana offers her mother the camels then belated asks us if that’s alright.

Diem says that they can’t obviously take the camels everywhere they go after this anyway.

There’s some talk about whether they’re needed for the trip further North.

Romy: Lets see how they do with the sheep

Rana: Elk’s in with the sheep and they’re doing fine (I think we ended up deciding ooc that it’s in a separate paddock though).

Rana is playing with the silver dragon scale while making small talk which eventually includes Farford gossip too - specifically the mention of a firecat.

Romy: Yeah someone was talking about seeing one here too.

Rana: No one saw the person it was with so I’m thinking it’s just a stray

Romy: We do have a lot of flame point cats in the area so it’s possible I suppose.

Ixayl’anu: Is it the same type of cat?

Conversation about them being wild cats vs tame, a specific species, etc continues.

Rana: No like flame point siamese not actual fire

DM: these are not just cats they are more akin to avatars of The Candace

We find out the entire town is talking about firecats too

Rana: How’s Stell (Stellan) doing? I picked up a few things for the kids, so hopefully they’ll like it.

Romy: Good

Rana: Nothing alive

Romy: I’m sure Stell will appreciate that.

Diem asks about the kids so we find out Rana has a niece and niephio (I have no idea on the spelling for this and a google search turned up only nibling as a suggestion for enby niece/nephew). Diem grins further to learn of the niephio in particular.

Rana (upon mention of the niece): She big enough to help with the forge yet?

Romy: She’s big enough to do the bellows and help out

Rana: We will hunt them down tomorrow

Phi: Yay!

At some point Phi would say “So your brother only has two kids?”

Rana: Yeah just two kids

Phi: Oh, so they’re just starting?

Rana: No I get the impression they might be done

Phi: Interesting...

Rana: At least he doesn’t (something I missed)

Phi: Well, that’s why you have more, so they can be together.

Rana: I’ll mention it to him...better yet you could mention it to him

Phi: This is the starter pack right?

Romy is extremely amused by this conversation.

(Dinner prep and additional conversations)

There are dress mannequins and clothes everywhere, fabrics everywhere.

Diem and Romy eventually start talking about the tailoring and different fabrics and fashions etc.

As they talk about that, Rana wanders off to make food for everyone.

Phi goes to help cook.

Diem wanders off with Romy to talk about fabrics and fashion some more (Rana will throw them out the second story window if they do more than that lol).

Rana was half sorting her bag and still has her rocks and stuff spread out on the rug even as she’s making dinner now.

Romy gifts Diem an outfit by the end of their conversation, still so happy this is the first time Rana’s brought anyone home. As she’s got Diem pulled aside though, she asks for more details about everything that happened, worried and just making sure everything’s truly good, and how is Rana really doing?

Diem spins it well about how capable Rana is.

Her mom def agrees and looks worried, but noticeably less so.

While waiting for dinner we all talk more, telling Romy about how we saved Perfection. She does not look ready to come to terms that her daughter is an adventurer now, but accepts it.

Part 16 of Rana rumors according to the other townsfolk who saw us all: “Yeah we knew something like this was gonna happen eventually”

Rana brings up the thunderbird and we talk about that.

Food got delivered, rats were introduced, how Rana and Phi have been training them to spy, rat race story from the Harvest festival gets told as well.

Rana notes that she is actually showing us off to her mom <3

Rana prompts us to talk about ourselves to her mom.

Phi happily tells her whole life story, or at least all the things she’s said to us as a group.

Ixyal’anu talks a little about herself as well.

Diem hangs back and doesn’t say much during this portion as they already talked pretty extensively with Romy already.

Rana: And Ixayl'anu’s on a task for her god but she doesn’t have a fire cat, she has vague dreams.

Romy asks about Ixayl’anu’s deity, pleasant ‘mom questions.’

As things wind down, Diem remembers the find familiar spell and asks if they have a moment, whether it would be alright to summon them while they’re here - noting it would listen to their directions and not make a mess or break anything. They get permission, but never end up doing the spell before bed.

Phi takes her hot tub bath, Diem takes one after.

After Rana gets us settled to bed in the guest room, she goes out and takes a point of exhaustion spending 8 hours to cast enriching the land again since she’s been gone a few years and it only lasts a year, then she goes and sits with the sheep, all of the sheep bed down next to her in a sea of white around her and she leans back against the nearest sheep for a nap/meditation during the spell. They remember her and know she’s the source of the good food.

(Mice vs. Rats: Draconic edition)

During the night, in the wee hours of the morning Ixayl’anu wakes up hearing some very high squeaky voices arguing “This is our territory”

“No, we were invited,” back and forth half awake-half asleep and thinking “what is this? Oh...this is real, this is something that is happening here.”

Very tiny angry voices continue.

Investigation check for more details 15: It’s dark in the room, she can kinda see in the shadows, she doesn’t see anyone. At the foot of Ixayl'anu’s bed is Horatio, four little house mice are around him being territorial against him, and the strange thing is they are all speaking draconic, including Horatio.

Ixayl'anu: What...what?

When Phi wakes up she doesn’t understand her rat any more, but she does hear the rat and mice speaking draconic.

Ixayl’anu: What?

The four mice squeak in a mousy scream

Horatio: Yeah you better run (turns to Ixayl'anu): Thanks!

Ixayl’anu: What? Why? Why are you speaking draconic?

Horatio: Is that what this is? I don’t know I was just suddenly able to and these mice were speaking a weird dialect and I found I could speak back in it as well.

Ixayl’anu: What...okay...and you’re still speaking it, who were they what were you fighting about?

Horatio: They live here and were being territorial and I was telling them I was an invited guest ‘cause I’m with you all.

(I am dead to the world as Phi wakes up)

Phi: Why are you talking to yourself?

Ixayl’anu gestures at the rat

Phi: Have you been teaching my rat that...?

Ixayl’anu: No…. Do you think that’s just something you can teach a rat?

Phi to Horatio: How are you doing that?

Horatio: I don’t know it just happened!

Phi: You’re still doing it…

There is conversation back and forth as its established among the three characters that Horatio still understands Phi, but since he is no longer speaking rat, she can’t understand him, but now Ixayl’anu can both understand and speak with him through draconic.

Ixayl’anu says something I missed.

Phi: what are you saying to my rat?

Ixayl’anu says something else I missed.

Horatio: You all can just decide what language to speak in? That’s weird.

Ixayl’anu: Yeah it is weird

Horatio: It’s a weird dialect and apparently it’s infectious.

Hamlet is mentioned in the back and forth and Phi, recognizing the name, wonders aloud if Hamlet is like this now as well. She tells Horatio he’s changed and she hopes it’s not permanent

Ixayl’anu tries to stop her to ask about that back and forth but Phi slips out of the guest room.

Phi 25 stealths through the house looking for Rana. From a window she sees an odd clump of sheep in the field. She goes out outside and climbs the fence.

Rana is deep in meditation.

Phi: Hamlet, wake up Hamlet…

Rat wakes up and cleans his face but says something back in draconic that she can’t understand.

Phi in common: Oh my god.

Phi uses her stone to let Ixayl'anu know not only this, but what she can see out here around Rana (visible plant growth around her - she’s decided to sleep on her sheep in the field which is weirdly moving and Hamlet’s doing the same thing, Rana’s not moving, I feel like I’m dreaming I don’t know about you…)

In squeakish Phi tells Hamlet that she can’t understand him but she knows he can understand her so “If you want to find out what’s going on you have to talk to Ixayl'anu about it because she’ll understand you. So I’m going to go now.”

Hamlet is irritated and goes back to sleep. All the sheep watch her. One sheep baas at her, then they all start baaing for food, none of them were speaking draconic.

Ixayl’anu to horatio while Phi’s gone: They just walked up to you and started talking to you and that was it?

Horatio: They tried to fight me!

Ixayl’anu: like biting and scratching?

Horatio: Yeah, look at this wet spot! And I’m an invited guest!

Ixayl’anu: That’s rude!

Horatio: That’s very rude, yeah! I’m an invited guest *stamps tiny rat feet*!

Together Ixayl’anu and Horatio determine they probably live in the roof or something, not pets.

Ixayl’anu casts detect magic. She sees the faintest little glow around Horatio. So faint you may think it’s not there and the only reason she sees it is because the lights are off, a wisp of power with the vaguest sense of magic. The source of it is nowhere nearby and the magic itself is so barely there she can’t even see the mice in the walls like she should have if they were properly bespelled in some way. It’s not any specific school for it. Mostly all she really sees is the glow of our various magic items.

At this point Phi returns

(Diem’s perception rolls were 2, 3, and now 0 lol. It is at this point we determine Diem is actually being held in sleep by their patron, catching up, talking about the familiar, and the follower and the spells and just having tea and a lovely bonding time. Probably when they were Tarma out in the desert, they did less communicating)

I missed some back and forth between Ixayl’anu, Phi, and Horatio.

Phi: They were being aggressive and picking on him?

Ixayl’anu to Horatio: Would you be willing to see where these mice have gone?

Horatio: You want me to bring one back to you? Yeah I can do that.

Ixayl’anu: You don’t have to but it’d be nice, I can give you food for it, *looks at her supplies*

Horatio: What kind of treat do I get, what’s in it for me?

Ixayl’anu: Nope no that’s not food I have nope that’s not food. *pauses in her rummaging* Well, what do you want, I suppose we can find something for you?

*thinks on it* A gummy owlbear?

Ixayl’anu: Oh I have some of those. Sure. *finds her little package of them*.

Horatio: Okay! *scurries off and disappears*

About two minutes later she hears furious squeak yelling, Horatio reappears holding a mouse by the scruff of its neck in his mouth “I found one!”

Ixayl’anu: Where’s the cage you keep the rats from? To put the mouse in?

Phi: We sold the cages, the carrier is Horatio’s home...there’s this box?

Ixayl’anu: Yeah that’ll do.

They find a box of rocks to gently empty real quick and put the mouse in it/close the lid (15 animal handling check).

As soon as Horatio had dropped the mouse: “Gummy owlbear please.”

Phi: He knows fetch now!

Ixayl’anu: All that training you’ve been doing with him is paying off! *taps box* Hello?

Phi: Ask if it if it talks like that if it knows it’s doing it or ask if it knows any dragons? I don’t know?

Ixayl’anu: Right?

Mouse is bouncing around in the box trying to get out.

Rana head canoned the rats as 400-550 grams

Horatio is gaming the system a little bit and only found a wine gummy to eat, never officially given one (Phi bought fancy rat treats for him)

(More things I missed and wrote down as “Talking to mouse ah 2”)

The mouse is screaming obscenities at Ixayl’anu.

Horatio is on his back in 7th heaven and suggests she should also give the mouse a gummy owlbear, maybe it’ll talk then.

Ixayl’anu sneaks in a smaller portion and it takes awhile for it to calm down and then it’s quiet for a little bit after until... “This doesn’t make us friends!”

Ixayl’anu: You want more? I’ve got more.

Mouse: I mean...yes

Ixayl’anu: I’m not planning on keeping you here I just want to ask a few questions

Mouse: More first

Ixayl’anu: Okay *puts in other half of gummy*

Mouse is very very quiet

Ixayl’anu taps the box: Hello?

Mouse (slurred): What do you want?

Ixayl’anu: Where’d you learn to talk like that

Mouse: I always talk like this this is how mice talk

Some similar back and forth about this.

Mouse (when asked about dragonborn/people like Ixayl’anu): People like you don’t come around here.

Ixayl’anu: Really? Oh… (to Phi in common now) I don’t this is how they talk, this is weird.

Phi: I think they just don’t know, they don’t know that they’re weird, you know

Ixayl’anu: But horatio thinks it’s a weird dialect

Phi: Did you ask if it if they saw any dragonborn? Or dragons?

Ixayl’anu: Well they haven’t seen anything like me (then to the mouse in draconic) Have you seen anything big with wings?

Mouse: Yeah outside but I live in this house I don’t have to worry about that

Ixayl’anu: Are there any mice that you can’t talk to?

Mouse: Everybody kinda talks like this around here

Ixayl’anu: Kind of or they do?

Mouse: They do?

Ixayl’anu: They all speak this...they all...speak this...I’m really confused.

They decide to try and wake Diem up for a third opinion, and it takes awhile before Diem’s patron allows it, letting Diem know that their friends need them for a moment, so they will have to continue catching up later.

Ixayl’anu as Diem finally starts waking up out of sorts: Weird things are happening

Diem continues to be out of it enough for a bit until eventually Phi catches them up - including the detail about Rana meditating in a cloud of sheep.

Phi (to Diem about the mouse in the box: It’s drunk

Diem: Are you guys sure you’re not drunk?

Phi: I’m not sure we’re not dreaming

Ixayl’anu: This isn’t dreaming not even close.

(I didn’t tag these two responses so the first might be Ixayl’anu and the 2nd Phi)

Too tired to bother with ritual magic, Diem uses a slot to cast comprehend languages.

Mouse asks if we’ve got more of those treats, which Horatio hears and says “Yeah! I’ll eat another!” *perks up*

Diem translates for phi who turns sharply to Horatio to talk about how many he’s already eaten and how he got one in the first place to ask Ixayl’anu for another, etc.

Horatio looks sheepish: Weeeellll sometimes you don’t secure your bag very good and I was hungry and they smelled good.

Phi smirks and retrieves Ixayl’anu’s package of owl gummies, then gives half to Horatio, and half to the mouse.

Horatio: YES! (helping her), I want this one I want the bigger section ‘cause I’m bigger and I get the big one (little grabby rat hands)

Diem does a history check on any stories they might have heard about talking animals like this (21). There are plenty of fairy tales with talking animals, sometimes it’s afey kind of thing - playing a prank on people. They’ve heard of similar events happening before, pretty disparate not tied to one physical location. Sometimes they’ve heard stories of animals in an area like within a mile circle will be able to speak draconic or sometimes other languages, not really a pattern to it. Sometimes it’s little towns, other times it’s connected to a whole city. Might be a natural phenomena. Specifically tiny beasts/birds/lizards are usually the type able to speak.

They also know various fae and wish spells can make this happen, but still they’re just random.

Diem shares this with Phi and Ixayl’anu.

(Insert missed conversation here)

Horatio or the mouse (not sure which): Yeah sure sometimes you say words that are funny and I don’t really understand what they are and they kinda sound like that and I don’t know what they are.

?: All the fangs or one specific thing? (I have no idea who said this or where fangs come into play)

We discover the mouse once met a gopher, stuck his nose in its burrow and it yelled at him back in draconic.

Diem to Ixayl’anu: Ask the mouse if it knows any fae in the area

Mouse makes an intelligence check when she asks, but does not know what she is talking about.

We confirm the mouse has always spoken draconic

Diem tells a quick rendition of cinderella as an example of fae meddling with small creatures where dress making is also involved (theorizing that perhaps Rana’s mother gets help from the mice as well)

We’re fairly certain it’s a normal mouse though and it’s now snoring softly so we’re not getting any more info.

Horatio by now is sprawled out on the bed, Phi cuddled around him while Diem gives him scritches. At a loss, we all go back to sleep for now, planning to ask Rana more in the morning.

(Good Morning!)

In the morning Phi will figure out the coffee situation and make some for everyone.

Romy (waking up to this): This is such a nice change of pace, somebody making the coffee for a change, and friends Rana brings in not destroying the house by the time I get up.

Phi: It’s no problem, I was just watching Rana from the window and figured she’d really like some, she’s gonna be tired so I can make sure coffee is waiting for her. We do have quite a story to tell her though.

Romy shows Phi where the biscotti is and such.

Rana is just now getting up and plucks Hamlet up.

Elk: something happened something happened something happened

Rana is feeding the sheep and clearly thinks the elk just wants some too

Elk: Oh is it breakfast? I’d like breakfast too!

Diem, after sleeping on it, performs a new arcana check on what sort of spells and effects cause draconic-speaking critters (21 again). They know now it can be caused by fae, wish spells, high level wizarding things will happen, and that similar strange effects happen around ancient dragon lairs (a little nugget buried in all their Miova dragon research they’d forgotten about), and that sometimes it’s just random without no discernible cause.

Rana comes in covered in sheep wool, hay, butt and legs wet, but she’s happy. Everything outside is noticeably green and lush.

Phi: We made coffee

Rana is super grateful and makes a beeline to grab a cup.

Rana: I took care of the plants and the animals

Ixayl’anu comes down around this time with the mouse in the box.

Romy: Your friend made coffee and something happened last night they were just about to tell me about.

Rana statues over her mother’s words with an ‘oh no what kind of things?’ sort of reaction.

Phi we’ll explain: Where’s Hamlet? Is he in your bag? Wait I’ll go get Horatio (who is snuggling Diem upstairs still)

Rana scritches Hamlet who asks “Oh is it breakfast time?” (in draconic) She’s tired enough she just hands it the biscotti without thinking.

When Phi returns she gets down on her knees in front of hamlet with horatio

Phi: What about today? What are you speaking today?

Speaking to her around his mouth of biscotti “I dunno what am I speaking today?”

This pings for Rana like hey…

Diem comes down as Ixayl'anu is talking about what happened.

Rana healing words the mouse. 7 pts healing. He immediately wakes up and feels great.

Mouse while cleaning his face: I feel really great?!

Ixayl'anu: You want some biscotti?

Mouse (very distrusting): Yes...

She sets the biscotti down. After awhile she’s half grinning and looking at her mom now.

Rana to the group: They just do that around here, always have.

Romy: That’s why the rumor mill here is so lively.

Diem: Why draconic?

(missed conversation)

Rana: Most people understand at least a few words.

Diem: What’s the local lore on it all? I mean...there’s gotta be stories involved?

Romy: The local lore - I did ask around since I’m not from here, it was very strange at the beginning but the townspeople didn’t seem to be bothered, the general consensus is that it’s a blessing of Vkandis.

Diem gets us all talking about maybe the silver scale dragon living nearby as they also share what they remembered about such events after they woke up.

Rana insists she would’ve seen it

Romy thinks you would know though, Diem mentions that they slept with one and didn’t know until the next day though so...

Romy: Rana you did see those kites though (a local cryptid)…?

Rana: That was definitely not a dragon.

Ixayl’anu: Birds? What?

Rana: They almost look like a roc but they’re definitely not rocs (some people write them off as rocs or pterodactyls but the markings are different they are an air cryptid - Ropen from New Guinea).

We get enough from context to realize this is an unusual sighting, but we are not outright told it’s a local cryptid, like spotting bigfoot.

We are told to watch what we say because the bakers bribe the birds and the whole town will end up knowing.

Rana: That thing is def not a dragon though.

Romy admits she’s never even seen a dragon before.

Rana: Diem rode it

Diem (laughing): In more ways than one

Phi laughs too

Rana still insists she would know if one of the townspeople were a dragon though while Diem insists you really couldn’t know that for sure, what if they just enjoyed a simple life and to avoid discovery they just chose a form that aged with the town, no one the wiser. Rana still insists it’s not possible.

Diem: So sure you’d know? We’ve traveled a month together on the road practically living together. How do you actually know I’m not a dragon?

Rana: I don’t.

Prepared for a similar pushback, this admission clearly surprises Diem. “And yet you’re this sure about people you haven’t spent every waking moment with?”

Rana says she thinks if you are not living time people need to know they need to know they will find out what you are doing.

Ixayl'anu: It could just be sleeping somewhere.

Rana: Either way this is just a normal thing

Ixayl’anu: Sure not really but sure.

Diem: Could be the innkeeper and has always been an innkeeper because they enjoy it. Everybody needs a hobby.

Ixayl'anu wants to know if V’kandis has anything to do with dragons.

(It is at this point we are informed that we’ve seen Romy has a shrine to V’kandis in the house as we’ve ignored this fact in favor of being like oh no, it’s not ‘cause a god blessed your town, it’s because of a secret dragon!).

Ixayl'anu scoots the mouse on his way and turns the topic of discussion toward our reasons for being in Longview and Anesh: So we’re looking for this dwarf?

Rana: No we’re looking for my brother

Ixayl’anu: Does he know where he is?

Rana: Maybe.

Phi: How old is he?

Rana: Older than I am

Phi: Oh, so definitely should’ve had more kids by now

Diem: Wait, Phi how many kids do you have then?

Phi (mishearing): Ooooh lemme get back to you on that...between 80 and 50.

Diem: You have at least 50 kids?

Phi: Oh no I have 0 kids, I don’t have that kind of life.

Rana herds us out the door, she leaves most of her heavier stuff at home.

(To Stellan’s house we go)

For some reason we established Diem definitely gets changed under an illusion of Ixayl'anu ever since using her image as a changing screen back in Budelia. Ixayl’anu has no problem with that, but they’ve all probably seen flashes of Diem’s side and leg tattoos anyway over the month we’ve been together.

Before we leave the house Diem casts comprehend languages as ritual. The birds quiet as we approach, but then the chattering starts up and we catch names and normal gossip presumably about people around town.

Ixayl’anu and Diem have a bit of a side chat about this in the RP text snippets section.

We have an uneventful walk over.

We walk in without knocking - Stell is clearly working on a sword or piece of armor.

Amira (the little girl def notices our presence, specifically Rana’s)

Rana quietly holds out her arms for a hug and Amira runs over squealing with excitement.

Diem: That is so adorable.

Rana scoops her up and has her on her hip now.

Amira looks at us and her eyes get really big - like who are you all? With continued excitement.

Stellan takes notice, surprised Rana brought friends, but still busy hammering out the sword.

Rana: Did you get your pigeons?

Stellan (withering look at his sister): I got THREE pigeons, yes.

Rana grins even bigger at his tone and expression.

Stellan is still working on whatever he’s hammering into during this exchange.

Rana: I was worried they wouldn’t get through so I had to send 3 of them.

Stellan: Well they all got here - first one was very surprising, after 3 though...

Phi: What was the message again Rana?

Rana: Oh, I sent him pigeons telling him about the meteorites and that we knew they were going to hit Anesh but we didn’t know where.

Stellan lets us know the meteors have been diverted and are scheduled to hit somewhere in the desert where there are no people.

Rana nods

Diem: Did they use magic to divert them?

Stell: You’re not from around here are you? Must suck to be from a place without a god that cares what happens to you.

He is a BIG guy. He stops hammering to shake our hands

Phi shakes with both hands to see how much she can get them around one of his (she can’t, there’s a gap between her fingertips).

He is very amused to have Phi forcibly shaking his hand with both of hers.

Meanwhile, Hamlet pokes out and gets on Rana’s shoulder to investigate the new passenger on Rana’s hip.

Amira: You have a new pet?

Rana: Yes, but this one is coming with me - you can still play with him for a bit.

Hamlet: What?

Amira in draconic: Wanna be my friend and play?

Hamlet: Okay!

Diem said some things during the exchange I forgot to note (probably a few cool stories about auntie Rana idk, asking about her speaking draconic?) that resulted in Amira excitedly adopting them for a tour of the house/playing with Hamlet. They follow Amira’s excited lead to do just that, but not before stopping near the next doorway for introductions to Adri, her mother.

Diem to Adri: She’s very adorable

Amira (talking about Aunt Rana): Look! She has a pet rat can we have a pet rat too?

Rana: I could probably get them a pet rat?

Adri: I could probably also get them one, if they’re responsible enough and can prove they’re ready to take care of it.

Some possible missed conversation before Adri, Amira, Diem, and Hamlet head deeper into the house while Rana continues talking to her brother.

Rana asks about the dwarf and shows him both the letter and silver scale, which he looks at while listening to the story about the wizard in the shadowoods

Stell: Are you sure it was Haldric that they wanted?

Rana: Yes (she double checks letter)

Stell: I know a Haldric Ironband but he’s a master blacksmith, but I...he...he’s never mentioned anything about wizards or honestly going anywhere so far away?

Rana: To be fair the wizard seemed to know who I was so maybe Haldric never met him either.

Stell: I don’t know this sounds like destiny hero bullshit

Phi is internally happy screaming about oh my god this actually works (it’s just as well that I never noted what actually works since the rest of us might only notice Phi’s happy scream state, rather than mind-reading the reason for it)!

Everyone but Diem learns this shorthand info I can’t entirely follow after the fact. My shorthand is awful and I’ve discovered I am unlikely to remember how to coherently type it later: Bhuxodihr for some reason you do want to mention t by the proper name he’s mostly retired, teaches to a select few, not stellan’s master. Haldric was stellan’s master’s master

Rana holds up the silver scale (again? I guess? lol) “You know what this would signify?” she hands it over to him. “Retin said we could use this, that it would give us legitimacy”

Stellan tests the hardness of it, getting higher and higher and Rana lets him and still nothing happens “Uh…(hands it back) I’m pretty sure this is the real thing.”

Rana: Real dragon scale?

Stellan: Mhm

Rana: Well that’s interesting

Stellan: Who did you say gave this to you again?

Rana: Retin, a wizard who lives in the Rethwellian Shadowoods

Stellan: I think Haldric knew someone down there but they weren’t genasi

Phi and Ixayl’anu tell him that we had a whole argument about it and deduced that Retin takes on the form of whatever will make you feel connected/more at home.

Phi or Ixayl’anu bring up how weird it is that all the animals here speak draconic.

Stellan, however, has hit his limit for weird shit, though not animals speaking draconic - that is a thing that’s completely normal.

Phi awkwardly: You should come visit us some time too, was great meeting you...or...yeah.

Ixayl’anu: Where would he meet us?

Phi: I have a home

Ixayl’anu: But you’re not really there

Phi: Well we can arrange it ahead of time.

Rana: She does have connections in Miova if you every go out that way.

Stellan says some things to Phi about all this, but as he’s talking he looks at her and she sees the moment when he notices her daggers and stops.

Stellan: Where did you get those?

Phi: They’re family heirlooms

Stellan: Nooo….where did you really get those? You can’t take those into stone roost or even bouldergap, not displayed on your hips like that.

Phi: Interesting you say that I was already thinking I should hide them because we found them on the skeleton of a dwarf in a cave in the woods

Ixayl'anu: No it was a corpse

Rana statues a little bit (which Stellan would notice)

Phi: There was a dwarf corpse, yes…

Stellan holds his hands up like ‘I don’t want to hear it’ and points at Phi: You cannot wear those, they’re only given to an elite group of dwarves and they do NOT give them to gnomes, you have to keep them hidden.

A few questions are asked about that. As far as Stellan knows, they’re assassins of some kind.

Phi: So do they have other weapons with the same characteristics?

Stellan: Sometimes they have short swords but not any arrows or large blades - just the small bladed weapons and it was a thing he wasn’t allowed to learn because he’s not a dwarf.

Phi: Do you know anybody who was in this group?

Stellan: No mostly these guys are like--

Rana (talking over him): I don’t think my brother knows any dwarvish assassins

Phi: If I were to return them to the right people, who would I talk to?

Stellan just looks at her for a few seconds: I don’t know if you just heard me but these guys don’t really advertised themselves

Ixayl’anu: Is this a group we wanna have anything to do with or just avoid them?

Stellan: If you’re really determined to get them back to someone, you might try Haldric, but I wouldn’t lead with that.

Ixayl’anu: Are they better to just be avoided?

Stellan: I wouldn’t wanna mess with them but you’re all out there dealing with meteors and who knows what else so maybe that’s what you do now, I don’t know.

Rana: This dwarf found the meteor too and turned into a mushroom

Stellan takes a deep breath.

Rana is enjoying making him uncomfortable now

They all talk about our bag of holding and hiding the weapons, Phi stashes them and pulls out her ordinary daggers to secure in their place.

Rana as they talk about possibly disguising Phi’s daggers: Oh mom has some camels now if you need one, there’re 3

Stellan: Okay I’ll take care of them for you

Rana: Do you want them to talk? I can make them talk.

Stellan (not amused): No, the pigeons are enough.

Phi: Thank you for the information

Rana: Yeah, I would like to not get killed by the people we were looking for

Phi: Yeah that would not be good

Rana: I’m gonna go corrupt tanny for a bit

Stellan: Yeah i’m gonna go back over here and...think about things

Rana: I let mom know everything so you can talk to her later.

At some point before they finish talking to Stellan, Ixayl'anu was looking for signs of jewelry in Stellan’s forge. She saw some platinum but didn’t really see any jewelry (because she needs a platinum ring). She asks him about it anyway while we’re there and it’s simple enough he melts down two platinum coins to make a simple ring for her out of it. He doesn’t even charge her for them since he already has the forge fired up.

He does have Amira help him since he rarely works with platinum and it makes a good teachable moment that takes about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, Adri has been following Amira and Diem around, Diem gets introduced to Taniel, 10, who probably is working on magic homework, they got really into potion making because they fan Rana and Rana brings herbs back - real into that right now.

Taniel gets up to see Aunt Rana, but Adri warns her to wait a bit they’re talking about tense things right now.

Through conversation along the tour Diem gets that Adri speaks draconic and has been teaching her kids.

Diem makes casual conversation that includes whether or not Adri grew up here and when/why she learned draconic.

About that time Rana walks in and Taniel gives her a big hug and tells her about her new obsession

Adri answers Diem that it makes sense from a guard’s stand point so she learned it, birds are awfully helpful

Diem: Oh yeah that makes sense

Rana: Yeah, Adri is very good at her job

Diem: You look it, you are killing it in that outfit (she is amused), I’m...yeah, not surprising I wouldn’t make a good guard, I even need help when we take watches (said in good humor)

Ixayl'anu stands awkwardly in the door until Adri invites her in properly (because she’s secretly a vampire! shhh)

Rana: We’re not gonna be in town for terribly long, I was just hoping Stellan had some of the info I needed and he did.

Adri: What info?

Rana: Oh I was sent by a wizard to find someone named Haldric who might be in stone roost and I thought Stellan might know him.

Adri takes it in stride “Well, be safe.”

Rana drops in that it has to do with the meteor.

Nearing the end of the conversation and visit, Phi asks if we can run by a general store to get medical kit supplies to complete her partial kit.

When we have to leave Amira is sad about the rat having to go and starts asking for a rat again in super sad puppy fashion.

Adri tells her they’ll still have to see and Diem distracts both children by pulling out the self-animating putty to give them as a gift, telling them how they can shape their own rat or whatever they like and it moves (makes a little rat and sets it down to walk around on the table and lick a paw clean) see?

Their imaginations take off with excited chatter about making tiny dragons and more, once again happy.

(A trip to the general store)

Rana takes us to Bafor’s general store (Bafor is a dragonborn).

Phi tells us that we would have noticed how Phi progressively jumped on this field medic train and as things have gotten dangerous and sketchy. Phi realized it would be handy to have some skills in healing just in case - more so ever since Phi found the medical supplies in Budelia and ever since Averni she’s been doing a little research here and there, including medical knowledge heading out into the new terrain of Anesh, like what to do for heatstroke and working on more survival skills. Over the journey she’s brought it up a few times to Rana and Edea, and Rana readily taught her some of her new feat requirements from her similar healer feat. Phi wants to eventually learn to make her own poisons too for maybe a damage over time, but also poison check and knowing what to do about poisons in order to help heal them.

Phi’s medicine check will also apply to her background skills, diagnosing a wound, how they died (starving, madness, dehydration, container recently held poison, blood spatter analysis, forensic stuff is part of her past).

Combat triage is cool and useful.

Ruled that with her medical proficiency feat she can diagnose poisons and such, but she would have to take a separate feat to make a poison and do dmg over time.

Phi walks into the store and admits she’s filling out the healer’s kit.

Rana says she has those items already and they have this conversation in the store. All along though she and Rana have talked about this over the month we’ve known each other.

Bafor: Yeah I have the little items, but you could also just buy a new healer’s kit already filled.

Phi: Yeah why don’t I just do that.

Bafor: Tell you what, you buy a whole healer’s kit and I will fill out your other one for free.

I think we hit a fruit stand or a different store where the vendor is gruff but warms up as we spend money (because that was a note for the vendor attached to all these dried fruits, but Bafor seemed pretty amenable from the start).

Phi and Diem also buy a big bag of granola for a silver each, and some dried fruits (Anesh grows pomegranate, apricots, olives)

Diem also buys a bag of mixed dried fruit, dried apricots, and a pomegranate (for a silver each)

#Longview #Anesh #Romy #A talk with Rana's mom #Stellan #A talk with Rana's brother #critter mysteries the draconic edition #Adri #Amira #Bafor #Taniel #Haldric mention #Retin mention

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excorcismic · 4 years

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so i , hylia , seem to be the ceo of impulsive decisions and yes percy was definitely one of them and no i do not regret it because HOLY HELL i’m excited to actually write him here . it has been . . . a while . a long while , so i am terribly sorry if i’m rusty !! but as i try and tackle to rp to-do list i’ve made before work tomorrow the FIRST THINGS OF MANY is to get the ball rolling with percy , and what better to do that with via a plotting call !! read more if you like & then react / like this if you’re interesting in me coming to you for plots w/ this dude .

IN A CANON NUTSHELL : i’m pretty sure everyone is generally familiar with at least the premise of the percy jackson series - but just in case !! perseus “percy” jackson grew up until the age of twelve thinking he was a mere mortal with his lovely mom & awful stepfather , biological dad lost at sea , until he gets attacked by his pre-algebra teacher turning into a winged monster and , fast forward , he’s taken to a camp made up entirely of children between the greek pantheon & mortals , camp half-blood . at first he’s unclaimed , until a few days later the god poseidon claims him which is . . . kind of a big nono ! considering hades, zeus, and poseidon took a vow to not conceive any demigods after wwii . zeus also broke that oath but zeus is a hypocrite and we don’t like him . the rest of the series carries on with percy saving the world a few times , fulfilling a prophecy that ends with taking down the resurrected kronos , then gaea when she rears her ugly head and . . . yeah . if you’re a demigod you don’t know peace and percy . . . would much rather be a mortal . but like , life i guess .

IN AN ALUCARD NUTSHELL : so to start , besides the whole demigod thing , percy’s life isn’t all that unchanged - except he’s an actual mortal this time around . again grew up super close to his mom , however she disappeared when he was twelve years old and now her case has gone cold . moved out at sixteen since four years alone with his stepfather were unbearable , and has been living with friends ever since and trying to just . get out into the working world so he can support himself / live on his own and eventually try and reopen up the case to find his mother . up until now though he’s had a shit ton of trouble keeping jobs ( always some freak accident that gets him let go ) but he’s always been good at swimming so community center lifeguard is the best possible thing for him .

BUT OOOOOOOH YOU WANNA PLOT WITH PERCY SO BAD OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OKAY SO . I’m still a liiiil bit head empty as I’m writing these so I’ll probably add more stuff later on but as of right now !!

okay so I mentioned Percy’s been pretty much living with his friends ever since he was sixteen - so I’d like some former roommates and current roommate(s) ! the amount of time he’s stayed will vary - some maybe for only a few months for whatever reasons , maybe a few for a year or so . we can talk that stuff out !!

SO PERCY , never really been the type to have a lot of friends though . he’s always been one of the more outcasted kids , so maybe negative school connections ?? maybe kids who he’s gotten into fights with , intense rivalries , ex-friends - just give me people that wouldn’t stand him back then . he wasn’t a bully , never went out of his way to attack anyone , but he wasn’t one of the people everyone got along with . he’s probably punched and gotten punched by a few people .

old neighbors that haven’t seen him since he left home !! just some folks that knew percy & his mom and haven’t seen him ever since he left his stepdad . that stuff .

maybe some parental figures ?? because percy honestly kind of needs that guidance and . yeah .

exes !! again , he’s been around a lot of places so he’s probably dated a few times . not sure how serious of relationships these would be , probably nothing too long-term but definitely has had a few relationships . percy’s bi he’s a bicon and i will accept nothing else

folks who want to try and push percy to do more than what he’s doing right now , maybe trying to get him to go back to school or get a different job than what he has now since . . . he’s still kind of just floating and scraping by in preparation of wanting to build up more . he wants to get rich enough one day to where when he finds his mom she doesn’t have to work a day in her life and neither does he , but you can’t really get there if you’re workin’ as a lifeguard for the rest of your life , so .

former and current coworkers - i’ve established before that percy has been through a LOT of jobs so definitely people that have briefly gotten to know him through them and also now ! maybe those coworker connections also led to things like maybe they briefly dated or maybe percy crashed on their couch a few times - again , we can build off of that stuff .

regular attendees of the community center that percy works at , just some folks he knows by name and recognizes or go to see him or some shit idk there’s gotta be SOME people who come by regularly idk

folks trying to help percy find his mom - because . . . that’s his top priority right now . he just wants her back that’s it :(

maybe kind of like a band of thieves / lost kids group connection of sorts ?? just some folks around percy’s age who haven’t had the best hand dealt to them by life and they all just kinda take comfort in that together , hang out at abandoned places or in cheap areas and just . kinda live . that stuff .

idk again i’m running on a spent brain so i am SOOOOOO sorry but pls let’s get creative and come up with stuff !! i . will def get around to doing more stuff for him tonight i might just starter interacting before i get his intro up but until then YESSS LET’S PLOT STUFF love u guys <3

#dhq.plots #missing person tw #yes i was too lazy to make plotting post icons #and yes i just want to look at booboo stewart so #░ ★ abt . ❛ ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ·s ɴᴏ ʙɪɢ sᴜʀᴘʀɪsᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴜʀɴᴇᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴀʏ / percy jackson

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astrologysvt · 5 years

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Chart First Impressions: Wonwoo

For more SVT astrology posts, follow my blog! Check out my masterlist to see all the readings I’ve done so far and what I’ve got coming up! 💫

This is just a very general reading of the member’s charts — the parts that popped out to me, things I personally liked, things I thought were interesting or contrary to the image I have of them. I’m not looking at anything in particular with each reading. Some of their readings may be more aspect focused, where some may just focus solely on their personal planets and their signs. If you have any questions on specific aspects or want to request a more specific reading, feel free to send me an ask!

lets all thank wonwoo for giving this air dom group the water it needs

our little cancer bb

he’s so sweet

may be more emotional than he lets on

certainly very sensitive to everyone around him and a lot more of a stabilizing factor in seventeen’s dynamic than he may come across.

not just because of how calm a person he is, but because he’s very in touch with what the other members are feeling and will direct his attention where he feels it’s needed, even if it’s just subtly walking over and putting a hand on their shoulder.

not only that but with such a strong-willed, high-energy group of people like svt, it’s good for them to have that little bit of water in there to absorb those super high frequency fire and air energies lmao.

the general feeling in a group that wonwoo offers brings that little bit of stability and serenity you need when you’re surrounded by a group of people who are looking to really and seriously make you think.

like at a party, if you’re feeling overwhelmed you’re gonna find water-sign wonwoo in the corner so you can sit with him to recharge.

homebody af.

i’m going to get A LOT into how dedicated and detail-oriented wonwoo is -- that all still stands but you need to understand.

cancers and leos have SUCH a lazy streak. they’re so capable but they take their comfort seriously.

so as hardworking and capable as this chart may dictate, he takes his leisure just as seriously as he does his work.

def a drama queen thanks to all of that LEO.

i think that there is a lot about wonwoo that is so signature wonwoo that’s so NOT stereotypical leo.

like his cold look, the deadpan humor, and generally his appreciation for the more serious things.

but then all that leo comes in and just, makes him the most dramatic and silly guy on the planet.

when he all of a sudden decides to yell, or in svt club when they were talking about how dramatic he acts when he pretends to be upset.

oh, or when he makes a joke and looks at his members desperately trying to get a reaction/approval.

that’s his leo side of him.

not to mention how great of an actor he is -- his tendency for dramatics and creative expression come from his leo, but his ultra empathetic cancer sun helps him express sincerity.

he would make a great actor, we all know it and i do not doubt it for a second.

but let’s take a look at his chart because he has a super interesting one.

cuz hey ya’ll we got ourselves a .・゜゜・　kite　・゜゜・．

his leo mercury forms a grand trine with his aries saturn and sag pluto

his mercury is opposite his aqua uranus

and his uranus is sextile both his pluto and saturn

making a beautiful .・゜゜・　kite　・゜゜・．

they’re super easy to spot cuz they look like a kite and often times indicate a great talent and huge potential as indicated by the planets involved.

to break it down

trine aspects are super harmonious, meaning that the two planets that are meeting in this trine freely and easily offer energy to each other.

these are aspects of our personality we are naturally good at.

the stuff we hear second-hand from others because we simply aren’t aware we’re doing them.

for example, someone with a moon trine mars wouldn’t understand people with overly short tempers who are ultra sensitive.

mainly because their emotions are harmonious with their sense of action/anger. they simply do not feel any tension in that area of their life and thus, seldom experience bursts of anger.

for wonwoo, his grand trine indicates that there are THREE areas of his life that easily flow energy to each other and those would be: communication, discipline, and transformation.

this can mean a lot of things.

his saturn trine mercury means that he’s an organized and detailed-oriented person.

it can be one of the reasons he appears so deadpan and levelheaded -- it’s because he’s so practical in his thinking and planning that, often times, he sees no need to act dramatic unless called upon by the situation. he simply isn’t surprised by outcomes because he either predicted them, or is taking them as they come and actively thinking through solutions.

which is why his outbursts are very calculated and mainly used to be funny.

his communication skills are clear and concise, and this can certainly rope in why exactly he loves books and is so well spoken.

it’s because he very clearly understands and feels the weight in words, and understands how to manipulate them in order to convey a message.

this also makes him very aware of how other people use language. he’d definitely see it as an art/skill, and be extra appreciative of when people are great writers.

his saturn trine pluto amplifies this ultra resourceful and organized persona he’s got going on.

it tinges this aspect of him a little less militaristic and more compelling and magnetic.

he’s extremely persuasive when he needs to be.

not only that but his sense of purpose is multiplied. it’s definitely not on the same level as say i think a more purely capricorn energy like seungkwan or seungcheol’s

he isn’t holding himself to this incredibly high standard that’s daunting him in every move he makes, but he definitely feels a lot of purpose in his actions.

if he goes out of his way to do something, there is a reason.

i think especially when he makes his long posts on fancafe, he’s so charismatic and genuine and you feel the need to make note of what he says, the timing, and the purpose because it’s wonwoo.

that’s that energy.

mercury trine pluto again makes him very well spoken, a very targeted, no nonsense individual when he needs to be (though do not get me wrong, the leo in him is naturally super super silly).

pluto almost adds a hint of obsession to everything it touches, which can make wonwoo that guy who stays up all night researching something or breaking apart in his mind something that may have happened. he likes understanding every bit of what happens and why.

pluto would also add this sense of secrecy and intimidation, which again adds his image of being that deadpan guy.

but noooooow we add in those sextiles.

sextiles are very similar to trines meaning that they are very harmonious.

however, as opposed to a trine, sextiles need to be developed a bit more to be able to fully reap the positive benefits.

now we have uranus sextile saturn and pluto.

uranus as a planet is the reformer. they’re the innovators, the “take the path less traveled”, the avante garde planet.

it’s a very powerful planet because of how uniquely and off-beat their mind works, and when you pair that with the intensity and depth of pluto you get something that’s really fascinating and eye-catching.

his saturn sextile uranus makes it so he’s capable of letting people into his vast world. he strives to understand and create so much and saturn brings a sense of reality/possibility that allows him to bring people into his vision.

he really doesn’t let us into this side of him but i sincerely hope that, years and years later, he somehow manages to become a writer or something like that. there is SO MUCH depth to him and he is certainly very capable.

and now we get into the opposition.

as i said before, a grand trine and even sextiles are super harmonious signs and often times connote a sense of ease and even laziness.

they are naturally good at it so it can bring a sense of “i’m already good at this so why bother”

that or the idea of developing and really putting these skills to good use may fly COMPLETELY under the radar because they are simply unaware they’re capable of such things. or maybe they do know, but it comes so easily to them they have no idea how to call upon those skills on command.

that’s where the uranus opposite mercury comes in with this kite.

without tension and without friction there is no growth.

the opposition between uranus and mercury creates that tension and brings awareness to the ways these skills may be used

the opposition in general makes him super quick-witted but also very temperamental. his attention is super fickle.

his kite comes to full fruition once he learns to reign himself in and commit his mind to a single idea.

generally, for wonwoo this can mean that he sees communication (mercury) as his tool in order to bring a sense of change and innovation (uranus) and he’ll be successful at this because of his harmonious aspects.

and i think the best part about the uranus influence is, although they’re very individualistic, they’re sincere hope is to make the world a better place as cheesy as it sounds.

they’re goals are big in that they want to bring a positive impact to a lot of people may it be an industry, community, or even country.

which is why i imagine wonwoo is very satisfied being in the position he is in now, where he’s able to be a source of inspiration and happiness to so many people even if it is just for a short period of time for those specific people.

not to mention his cancer influence, who would see a great deal of value in being a place of rest and comfort for other people.

#seventeen #svt #wonwoo #jeon wonwoo #ugh he's so soft

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