#it had a very interesting system of magic where things were like

[girlbob-boypants]

Thinking about that game that I liked the art style and combat of but that I fully believed shouldn't have been a battle royale cause it was bad at that and instead should've been a solo game

The streamer I expressed this to said I was wrong and that battle royales are really in so it's good cause it can get a playerbase needed to constantly update things

The game is dead now.

[velnna]

What are the races in your under garden comic? And how did you come up with them?

Oh oh oh juicy question

We're still exploring what "races" we have, how mixed they can get, etc etc, but I love yapping about this so I'll give a bit of a TL:DR

The Under Garden started off with me and my cowriter having a couple of DnD characters we got very attached to and didn't want to dispose, so the "basis" for their races was attached to DnD somewhat - namely drow and tiefling

HOWEVER when we decided to make it its own world we basically broke off with that and decided to, for starters, have a basic "elf" like race for humanoids. The range is basically any vaguely human creature with pointy ears, and then other physical attributes might determine where they're from but wouldn't exactly count as a whole separate thing.

When we worked out some of the large scale history of the world, we decided as well that the people we first interact with, with skin in shades of purple/blue and hair in shades of silver, would have been dominant at some point, then driven to seclusion in small pockets of the world. Meaning that if someone were to look vaguely.. "drowish" I suppose, they'd be linked to this ancient powerful people and the few places they're known to still exist in. They've got the longest lifespan (~250 years) and are also more intertwined with the high level magic system in this world.

For example:

From here we sort of made room for types of elf we haven't pinned down yet, and will probably parallel anything from bluer "sea" elves to stockier more dwarf-like people, and for all intended purposes even if someone just looks like a human they're a flavour of elf. For example:

And again, the further you go from the silver hair - purpleish skin combo the less connection you have to the OG magic dwellers. There's more nuance to the magic system but that's the gist of it.

ASIDE FROM ELVES HOWEVER we now get into what we decided to do with the "tiefling" side of it. The thought process here was funny because we had a character inspired by a cyborg but no way to have actual cyborg shit justified in this world without an extra layer of complication. So I was like yo what if he's like a bug instead. Exoskeleton vibes n all. So then we decided fuck it out more wack looking people will be mostly inspired by bugs. Within them you DO have a bigger variety of "races", lifespans, physiologies, etc, and there's a lot of room for us to wiggle. They're generally non magical and can cross breed with elves so bugness is also a spectrum.

Some bugs:

Some bug hybrids:

Basically anything with a weird number of limbs, eyes, odd scleras, exoskeletons, wings, etc is some flavour of bug or bug hybrid. They tend to be as far removed from magic as possible.

Obviously there's a bunch of more and lesser known types of bugs and the sheer diversity makes for some interesting worldbuilding questions and dynamics but as a whole it's a work in progress

*takes a bow*

[acotarxreader]

Mirror Part Two

Azriel x Reader

Warnings: High angst, drama, fluff, injury, Tamlin

Synopsis: After your abrupt exit from the night court you return to your worldly travels but the rising threat of war with Hybern has Rhysand seeking out his favourite weapon once again

Synopsis: You were gifted with the ability to mirror other fae's magic with a simple touch and your free spirit nature leads you to cross very close to the borders of a hidden city, where your future best friends and soulmate snatch you out of the sky to protect their border.

Inspired by Who's Afraid of Little Old Me & My Tears Ricochet by Taylor M.F Swift

A/N: Welcome to part two of this dramatic guy! Sorry for the lil wait! Let me know what you think friends!

I think I'm gonna write my first Eris fic hehe

Requests Open

Part 1

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

The War with Hybern

You passed through the mist like the shadows of the night that swaddled you, deep south in Prythian, practically in the Mortal Realm. Spring Court had crumbled to the weeds and whims of the High Lady of Night, your mortal enemy that you never met. You drifted from the face of the earth like the ghost Rhysand’s neglect had turned you into, banished to exile from the world that broke your body before breaking your spirit. You adjusted to the loneliness with surprising ease, melting back into the solitary figure you were when taken from the skies above Velaris, your free spirit exchanged for a shattered one. The events of the budding war with Hybern came to your knowledge through the ever-winding grapevine of gossip and tales. The very escapades of your former family and its new members provided you with equal amounts of amusement and worry.

“Bad dog!” You flung your shoe playfully at the great towering beast at the entrance of the cave you were currently occupying, the green-eyed beast released a growl as he dropped the carcass of the freshly slaughtered deer on your doorstep, tracking blood all over the rock. 

“How I love your visits dear YN” He growled before tilting his head slightly and returning to the wild. You and Tamlin now had a shared interest in your hatred of the Night Court’s leadership, his welcome of your travels through the shell of his court for the first time in centuries gave you the flicker of a homily feeling you’d banished from your heart. You used the Spring Court as you had The Middle, as a base of operations before travelling to see every inch of the world you could. He offered to bring you to the countless run-ins he had had with the Court of Dreams as a new war with Hybern began to threaten the peace. You weren’t really sure if it was so much because of Rhysand that it was because of Azriel that you hadn’t returned, the shattered friendship too much to think of. You watched an onyx shadow leak from your knotted knuckles, the last trace of Azriel you had to hold on to. Your shadows pulled along the carcass of the animal, the sight turning something in your stomach. You shuddered slightly, a sense of alarm growing in you at something in your world being tampered with. 

You winnowed to the ruins of the Tamlin’s residence, the shell of once reviled power and grace much like the owner. Traipsing up the steps of the crumbling house, the sound of a male you hadn’t heard from in such a long time rocketed through your system. 

“Rhysand?” You heard your voice speak without making the conscious decision to, Tamlin lifted his head from his hands as he sat at the rotting table, Rhysand spinning with unusual unease at the sound of your voice. 

“YN-” He took a step towards you instinctively, you following your own intuition, stepping back from him. “-You’re here?” “No need for the personal visit High Lord, if you wanted me dead you should have just said” 

“YN, I can’t believe you’re really here” He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised, his best had tracked your movements to the discarded court. 

“Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you. Why are you here?” You chewed out, the ghost of a smirk passing Tamlin's face. 

“Just visiting the High Lord of Spring” “Why? Need him as a weapon? Find value in him now you need him for war games?” Your icy words plummeted the temperature in the room, Rhysands wings slumping. 

“YN, don’t be like that”

“You can leave, Tamlin like many others, do not need you to faux interest in our lives for them to hold value” You circled around the table, running parallel to him across the dissolving oak to land next to Tamlin as he sat back in his chair, quietly smug.

“So, are you in love?” You laughed at his question, Tamlin matching the sound. 

“No, I think you took any ability for me to feel that from me” Rhysand searched your eyes for the way you used to look at him, for any semblance of the female who’d cleave the world apart for him, for any leverage he might still have with you. 

“You’ve made your request Rhysand, go” Tamlin found some ounce of long-dead confidence in him to shun the Lord of Night. 

“Hm” Was all he replied, moving to dissolve but stopping to witness a small shadow leak from your fist, a sign you had potentially seen Azriel recently, not the truth which was that you had kept the shadows with you since you fled, the last connection to a feeling of home. He nodded his head, a small laugh leaving him before vanishing. You pushed the back of Tamlin's chair to turn him to face you in his seat. 

“What request?” “Hybern is preparing to rage a war, he needs further assistance” He practically whispered before standing again and crossing the ruins of the dining room.

“So I was right, he did just want you as a weapon” “Actually-” his hand landed on the heavy door “-He wanted you” Tamlin melted into his beast form once again, leaving you to think through the words, your eyes looking down to the scars the last Lord of Night had left you. 

—--------------------------

You winnowed to a high mountain top you hadn’t graced in some time, your eyes looking upon your formerly beloved home of Velaris, the word home like acid in your throat. You looked towards the Town House, the once monument to your love, a mausoleum to it now. You sighed aloud before turning towards the House of Wind, something calling out to you through the night air, an idea growing in you. the sound of your feet hitting the stone gently filled the library. The dark shrouded you with unnatural warmth as you called quietly into the hollow pit for an old friend of yours. 

“Little mirror, you have returned” “Bry, don’t be coy with me” You could hear the creature of nightmares smile through the shadows.

“What do I owe this long overdue visit my little mirror?” You could feel its energy swirling around you but keeping enough distance so as not to risk you mirroring it. 

“Hybern is planning to attack and I wish to know what side of the aisle you find your wonderful self on” You had thought of your old friend as the perfect addition to a team you had no plan on being directly involved with.

“They have not yet asked my little mirror” The chill of its voice met your skin with a flush of contrasting warmth, inspecting you for any trace of harm.

“When they do, bargain for something of little matter to you that they can’t refuse and then once you have completed your task, go free” “Indeed-” he hummed at your self-assured tone “-why bother trying to help them little mirror?” “Let's say it’s out of habit” you laughed lightly, the wisps of dark air feeling as though a grin could be felt in them. You looked up to the mouth of the pit above you, the faint outlines of bookshelves shrouded in darkness haunting above.

“Ask for a window Bry, you deserve to see the world you will once again grace” Energy graced over your hand in thanks so easy for you to capture and yet it had no value to you T when compared to the sentiment of what you had at your finger tips. The sound of footsteps up above had you jolting slightly, retreating further into the dark so as not to be seen. 

“Be safe friend” You whispered softly before winnowing out of the depths. 

—-----------------------------------------

Shadows sank into the cobblestone as you manifested on the singing streets, your feet felt light along the heavy rock, practically levitating towards your old haunt. You stood at the gate of the Town House, the shadows of the residence dancing across the candlelight in the window, happy fae dancing in the streets as if not in the presence of the creature they turned you into. 

The Town House was decorated to within an inch of its life, banners and streamers flowing freely from every corner as music sang through the house to the garden where the majority of the party was revelling in the moonlight. You followed the radiate path to the garden you’d spent years cultivating, willingly ignoring the changes to decor made by the new Lady of Night. 

You watched the Inner Circle at the bottom of the garden, your former family rejoiced in celebration of the birthday of a fae you only knew through stories of the Hybern War. Nesta glowed in the moonlight. You looked among the now expanded Inner Circle, Azriel noticeably missing as you took another step down the path, Cassian swirled Nesta around, you smiled genuinely at the sight, so happy to see him happy. The smile faded as Rhysand did the same to Feyre before they walked hand in hand to the other side of the garden, your once favourite spot, the perfect view of the Sidra. 

You found your feet taking you in their direction, slightly secluded from the rest of the Inner Circle. The sound of your steps on the soft grass made a silent sound that sent shivers down Rhysand’s spine as he turned to see you standing on top of the slope, staring down at them. 

The music seemingly stopped dead, your appearance at the party stopping the revelry like a record scratch as you spoke-

“Doesn’t look much like a war is nigh right now, now does it?” You clasped your hands in front of you, eyes burning into the former love of your life. 

“YN-I-” “This is YN?” Feyre stepped from behind her mate, her beauty illuminating the path up to you and you hated her for it, you looked around at the world you believed she stole from you but realised as quickly it was Rhysand who had committed the theft.  Feyre moved to close the distance between you both, stepping from her mate's grasp to practically square off to you. You could feel the power radiating from her, so tempting to take but would replace the last scrap of Azriel you had access to. Still, you enjoyed the thought of rattling Rhysand.

“Ah, Feyre, Rhysand’s lovely High Lady of Night, I don’t think we’ve had the displeasure of formally meeting” You outstretched a hand, she instinctively went to take hold of it, and Rhysand immediately pulled her back.

“Don’t let her touch you!” He ordered, some fae looking in your direction at the disturbance to their antics. “Who’s afraid of little old me?” You laughed again, it reverberating off Feyre’s chest

“Don’t go near her” “Where is this hostility coming from Rhysand, I seem to remember it was you who made the first act of aggression” You lifted the small cuff of your sleeve, the hint of a small arrow-shaped scar still marking you centuries later. 

“Leave YN” “You sought me out, I’m returning the visit” Feyre’s head darted towards her mates at the revelation.

“Oh? He didn’t tell you? My my always one for secrets Rhysand” you tsked, circling them as Rhysand’s father once had done to you, a hunter and her prey. 

“YN, I’m am celebrating with my family, if you could extend some courtesy and-” “Courtesy!?-” You scoffed loudly “-You crossed out the good years with me, cursed me the moment I treated you with the same respect you’d given me for years, banished me to the same solitude you used me to escape from! So you don’t deserve courtesy! And now, even when you are mated to pure power, I can tell you wish I stayed, you curse my name wishing I stayed! Your favourite fucking weapon!” Years of repressed anger flooded from you to the space between you and the mates, Rhysands face greying as he clutched onto Feyre’s hand like you may steal her away forever. 

“I-I didn’t do anything to you YN, I just fell into this world, this was hard on everyone” Feyre rattled out, your heated gaze landing on one of the most powerful fae to grace Prythian. You took a deep breath in before speaking again-

“Oh boo freaking hoo-” "You found yourself laughing coldly “-Figure out the Hybern thing by yourselves, I’ve already had enough” You span on the ball of your foot, striding up the very path you had designed to get the best view of the garden. 

“And those new curtains look horrific!” You called back over your shoulder to the mates before reentering the house you wished to burn to the ground with your vitriol. 

-

You returned to the now suffocating air of the Velaris streets, feet bouncing off the cobble as you walked down the hill, your muscle memory bringing you down the way to one of your favourite spots in the city. The moment your mottled shaking hands met the cooling brick of the Sidra’s boundary wall, the tsunami of tears you fought every day since leaving flooded your atmosphere. 

“YN?” Azriel crossed the same bridge you said goodbye to him on those years before, the paper bags containing Mor’s favourite alcohol smashed to the stone floor. The stream of oak-coloured liquid flowed to your shoes. Shadows darted around you like dogs flocking to their owner after a long time apart. You laughed at the feeling of them swirling around you, lightly nipping at your face in their own form of pecks to the cheeks, banishing tears. You managed to open your eyes between their displays of affection to find Azriel standing with pure shock on his face, arms hanging by his sides and wings dipping to match. 

“Am I hallucinating?” “No Az-” You smiled wide through tear-stained cheeks “-I came back to take another strip off of your dear brother” You watched him pinch his arm to ensure he was truly awake. Azriel then flew at you in a similar fashion to his shadows, wrapping his arms around you to practically crack your bones. 

“Az-You’re-suffocating-me” You managed, laughing again once he gave enough of a release to allow your lungs to expand. 

“Why is it every time I find you on this bridge you’re crying?” He wiped a thumb across a stray tear, your crooked hands holding his to your face before they could move back away. 

“I love the drama” you laughed through fresh tears.

“Why are you back YNN?”

“Well, Rhysand came to visit me in Spring Court-” an almost growl left Azriel in response “-and he’s in need of his favourite weapon again” A definite growl left him this time, his hands dropping away from you as he turned to look back up the direction of the Town House.

“I told him to leave you alone, I didn’t track you down for you to be used as-” “You what?” He turned back to your slightly tilting head.

“Well…you went radio silent on me, I had to make sure you were okay-” a shadow clipped his ear somewhat sharply “-We, we had to make sure you were okay. You left us” The last three words tinged with undeniable heartbreak, heartbreak you had felt yourself. “Az, I had to leave”

“But you didn’t have to leave without me” an element of anger leached from him.

“Az” “No, you left! Rhysand might have broken your heart but you obliterated mine! Chipped away at it over centuries” A sharpness never reserved for you cut into your skin with similar pain to what Rhysand’s father had dealt you. 

“Azriel I’m sorr-” “-It broke me every time you chose him and all he did was tolerate you! Tolerate the love I so desperately wanted! And now I watch as he gives Feyre even a fraction of everything you deserved and I hate that I didn’t fight harder for you! I hate it! Hate how he  weaponised and ruined the love of my life!” His raised tone bounced off the flowing waters of the Sidra, the sound of his century's worth of repressed resentment tumbling out of him like the small waves hitting the boundary wall. 

“YOU SAID YOU WANTED ME TO BE HAPPY EVEN IF IT MEANT RUNNING AWAY FROM ALL THIS!” “BUT I THOUGHT YOU’D TAKE ME WITH YOU”

“I SHOULD HAVE! I FUCKING SHOULD HAVE!" You roared back, an onyx shadow of your own making curling around your vibrating fists, Azriel’s eyes shot towards them, his hand taking a gentle firm hold on your wrist before you could bolt out of his life again.

“You’re still mirroring me” he whispered so softly you thought you imagined it.

“Yeah… it was all I had left connecting me to you, to my home, to someone who would always do more than just tolerate my love” You returned the words with equal tenderness, eyes fixating on your shadows swirling into his, your eyes illuminating like they hadn’t since first landing on Azriel’s. His hand slipped from your wrist to your hand, chasms and fissures of equal cruelty knitting into one another so the skin may feel whole again.

“YN! You don’t get to leave like that!” Your heads moved in unison to look up towards an enraged Rhysand, you released Azriel’s hand on sight.

“You don’t control where I do and don’t go anymore Rhys” you chewed back.

“I am regretful for what happened and how it happened but don’t let the little incident that happened between us stop you from defending your people!”

“Little incident?” Your chilled laugh returned, a shiver running down Azriel at the sound. 

“YN, be sensible here” Rhysand has his arms out as though trying to corral an animal as he steps towards you, Azriel instinctively standing between the two of you. 

“YNN is entitled to spend the rest of her life how she wants to, she owes us nothing” His hardened stare cut through his brother, shadows swirling around his feet.

“Az, we need her power to-” “-We need her to be happy, Rhysand. That’s what we always should have needed of her, we owe her everything. You took no issue in me destroying those who destroyed me, she should be given that option, even now” Azriel spoke with clear conviction, the words causing Rhysand to purse his lips in thought. 

“If she doesn’t join then she will succeed in destroying us by not helping us” He looked around Azriel to you, your thoughts racing at the words. You stepped back from the two brothers, your shoes crushing the glass of the smashed bottles. 

“Follow your own past decisions Rhys and don’t follow me” You dissolved in front of the two as they began to argue once again. 

—------------------------------------------------------------------

That day you watched Tamlin ready what little forces he had, the thought of your former family defending your homeland without your intervention ultimately being your deciding factor to join. That and the thought of giving Rhysand any semblance of moral high ground. 

You transversed the battlefield in a shielded shadow, blasting the enemy as you flew alongside the Illyrian-winged warriors. A blood-curdling call of a female you didn’t know drew your attention downward as Cassian flew down past you towards her, too fueled with adrenaline to notice you follow closely as sudden strikes of pure cauldron power shot down and destroyed the warriors you had just flown alongside. You landed on the battlefield with such force it split the soil, Cassian’s head turning towards you rapidly locking eyes on you as you both found yourselves smiling at one another. 

“YN, you came!” “I miss you Cass, stay alive” You called back before bolting back into the now-cleared skies as more and more warriors rose to replace the fallen. From above, you covered Feyre unbeknownst to her, the collective goal having more importance in this moment. You watch as she reaches the cauldron with Amren allowing you to double back and continue your onslaught. Rhysand’s true beast form rises from the ground and you feel a bolt of fear at the pure sight of him. You swoop down to meet his side as he tears into the enemy, Helion dashing to join his side as he reforms himself into his beastly counterpart. 

“YN!!!” Rhysand roars down to you as you sprint around him, you leap on top of a razor-sharp talon as he shoots towards the sky, your knotty hand pressing into the scales of the High Lord. The feeling of familiar pure unadulterated power coursed through your veins, never did you think you’d mirror the High Lord again, the traces of betrayal tinging the power as it blasted from your outstretched hands to mist a sizable amount of enemy forces. Bryaxis coursed around you, shielding you from any retaliation as Rhysand and Helion unleashed on the battlefield. 

“I have to get to Feyre!” You hear Rhysand screech out as you cover him along his way towards his mate, the shift in the air undeniable as Amren is released from her bindings. You defend the space the cauldron occupies, allowing Rhysand to rush to Feyre’s side. Something cracks deep in you as you hear the High Lady of Night shriek in pure pain, fearing Rhysand has taken his final breath. You winnow to Tamlin as he sinks tendrils of power into some stragglers of the Hybern arm. 

“Tam! With me!” He has no hesitation in taking your hand, you winnow with him to where the cauldron claimed its price, Feyre begging for help from the High Lords. A chill shoots up your spine, rattling your bones. Your face hardened before you reached for Helion’s hand, mirroring his energy before you sank back into the shadows, following your own thread to land alongside Azriel, his wings in tatters as you dropped to his side. 

“YNN” he writhed out in pain, your arms encapsulating him, you feel Helion's power course through you as you attempt to heal him back to whole, your own body crying out in pain from the events of the war.

“It’s okay Azriel I’m here, I’m here” Your tears fell into his hair as you clung his head to your chest, his own heartbeat struggling to match yours. The light flowed across your disjointed digits, stitching the centuries-old wounds together as it poured into Azriel.

“I wish I didn’t let you leave that night YN” “I wish I didn’t leave you that night” You cried out, gently rocking him back and forth, his hand landing on your forearm to hold you closer. 

“I wish to carry a piece of you with me forever YNN”

“You can have all of me Azriel” You stretched down to meet his lips before he used what little energy he had to lean in, fully surrendering to every dream he dreamt of you from the moment you pulled the knife from his wing centuries ago. The glow that radiated from your energy returned and Azriel once again wished to bask in it for the rest of his days. His torn flesh stitched together as the healing energy flowed between the two of you. The feeling of home you never thought you’d have again blazed through every cell until it was just you, Azriel and shadows of onyx mirroring one another's endless hope for the future. 

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

Whatcha think?

Tag: @saltedcoffeescotch @popcornlauncher @notepaper @panther-girl-124 @mirandasidefics @slightlyjaded @moonlwghts @tsunami-of-tears

[verysium]

ACT 1, SCENE 2: blue lock headcanons

nagi found out amazon product testers were a real thing, and he had never been more happy in his entire life. if he wasn't training to become a professional football player, that would have been his dream job.

sae became a victim of the cat distribution system the moment he moved to spain. he left his window open once, and he came back to a whole secret society of strays on his fire escape.

aryu used to watch his mother do her makeup in the bathroom every morning. after she left for work, he would use her hair curlers and nail polish to bedazzle himself. if you ever ask him to do your makeup, he would tilt your chin up with one hand and ever so gently swipe on your lipstick for you.

kaiser is a whore for attention, even if it is bad attention. if you're not listening to him during dinner, he would most definitely steal the food right off your plate whilst maintaining eye contact. gives you the most shit-eating grin once you catch him.

rin genuinely cannot function around the female species. sometimes his aunties make small talk during family gatherings, and he just sits awkwardly with his baby cousin in his arms. the baby almost always cries.

sae still uses his ipod from 2005. he doesn't have any interest in music, so he mostly uses it as a white noise filler during long flights. if you send him a song recommendation though, he will listen to it.

rin kept a diary as a teenager with some of the entries completely filled with angsty scribblings about sae. he definitely had an entire section somewhere dedicated to death and existentialism. the second half of his journal is reserved solely for you though. he sometimes doodles flowers in the margins.

raichi is chronically online. he would be the type to have an entire four-page argument with a stranger in the youtube comment section. sometimes you have to remind him that the outside world actually exists, and he needs to go outside and touch grass.

sae is secretly intrigued by artists. like how can you just transfer an image from your head onto paper? is it some sort of magic? he cannot wrap his mind around anything that isn't concrete and tangible. he sometimes walks through the streets of madrid just to spy on the old people painting the sea. if you made a drawing of him, he would internally malfunction.

isagi used to help his mother with knitting and sewing. he even learned how to crochet one summer but forgot all about it once he got into football. would not complain if you asked him to do laundry or iron clothes. he is (most of the time) very sweet and kind.

bachira does not have a sleep schedule. what is sleep? he only knows 24/7 hyperactivity and the demons under his bed. would wake you up at the crack of dawn just to go hang out in some random abandoned parking lot.

sae has to physically restrain himself whenever he does shoots for brand endorsements. he would definitely tell the truth if the product was low-quality while literally being on set for its commercial. this man does not lie. cannot model for the life of him. he lost his ability to smile a long time ago, and he feels viscerally ill every time a camera is shoved into his face. if you're there to accompany him though, he will straighten up and at least attempt to look enthusiastic.

rin is terrible at any sort of class that involves creative writing. however, he does enjoy reading haikus. it's the only form of poetry he can understand. definitely sends you one when he misses you.

reo is clueless whenever you tell him that you feel ugly in your outfit. like where is the ugliness? all he sees is the most stunning person in the world. definitely recommend taking him shopping. he would go into the fitting rooms with you and give you the most encouraging confidence boost you have ever felt.

sae has the strongest enamel in existence because he bites his popsicles right off the stick. rin tried to do that once and ended up getting brain freeze.

yukimiya is the type to go from 0 to 100 in less than a millisecond. if anyone says anything remotely negative about you, he will definitely make sure they do not live to see the light of day. he does all this with the most charming smile on his face too.

shidou has no table manners. he would be the messiest eater in existence. if the dining hall looks like a velociraptor just barraged through, you know shidou was there. he only uses a napkin because you told him to.

rin wears chelsea boots and women's clothing. he has a collection of trench coats in his closet, and they're one of the only things he's incredibly proud of. at least he beats sae when it comes to fashion sense.

ness would pack you lunch every day without you even asking for it. he also uses those glittery animal toothpicks and cuts your apples into hearts. his paper notes are little menacing though. usually it has your name written a thousand times in blood red ink.

sae would let you braid flowers into his hair, but he would wrinkle his nose in embarrassment if you ever took a picture of it. he tries to act nonchalant when you gush about how pretty he is because in his mind he looks incredibly stupid. will keep that photo by his bedside and look at it when he's lonely though.

isagi is incredibly clumsy. sometimes he will act like an egomaniac before falling right on his face. the world has an interesting way of humbling him. he does keep his mood swings in check when you're around though. your presence gives his mind inner peace.

otoya has color-coded folders for every girl he has dated. he keeps their names, likes, dislikes, and contacts all separately filed so he doesn't confuse them. however, on your night out, he got so caught up in talking to you, he forgot to even update your file. the date ended with him smiling like a damn fool. you're always the exception.

aiku is the type to just be casual about everything. he just got into a car accident while on call with you? that's okay because he got to hear your pretty voice on facetime. he took a tidal wave straight to the face while ogling you at the beach? that's no problem because he got a sneak-peek at your cute little bathing suit. this man literally has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to you.

bachira was the kid who tried to mix up weird concoctions at the school lunch table. now it translates into drinking both an energy drink and americano at once. you had to pull him away from the soda fountain because he kept trying to add every single drink combination possible into his red solo cup.

sae would blatantly stare at your ass and then tell you it was for research purposes. if you press further, he will pull up the statistics showing how buttock size correlates with athletic ability.

rin is obsessed with tea only because he saw his brother drink it at family dinners. he always sat up straight on the zabuton and sipped the bitter leaf juice as a way to impress the grown-ups. unfortunately for him, he developed a caffeine addiction in his late teens.

niko would be the tech-savvy person in your relationship. he doesn't believe in traditional flowers, so he codes you an entire HTML webpage with roses on the user interface. he also wholeheartedly believes that virtual pets are real pets.

shidou is an adrenaline junkie. he has six piercings, two of which are helix. he also snowboards during the winter and speeds on the highway for fun. (don't be like shidou, kids.)

© verysium 2023 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[thebestofoneshots]

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

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Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 10.7 K Warnings: None Prompt: Some of Peter's ideas have very convenient fundamentals... This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it. Proofread by lovely: @aremuslupinsimp

Chapter 33: More Than a Feeling

November 30th, 1976

You knocked on the door before you entered the class. Seraphina was standing beside her desk and nodded to let you in. You smiled and went straight to sit next to Remus. He had carried your bag and placed it on the seat next to his, to save a space for you. You smiled when you saw him and thanked him silently as Seraphina continued to talk. 

She was going on about dark magic and how bIood is often involved in rituals of its kind “As you know, every living being has magic cursing through their system. But it’s not quite that it emanates from them but rather that you have the capacity to store it. Muggles don't have such an ability, which is why they cannot wield magic like we do. Some people can use this magic more than others, and some can learn to improve their capacity to store and to use the magic around them for spells.”

“Is this a first-year class?” A Hufflepuff girl scoffed behind you. 

“And while this seems like basic knowledge, it goes a lot deeper than that, Miss Anderson. Those who wield magic for many years, start developing changes in their system. From simple things like being able to do wandless magic by developing their skill to use their body and hands to cast spells, to more elaborate ones, where you alter your bIood, or even your very soul, for example.” 

There were whispers in the background after she said those words. Students knew how dangerous dark magic could be. They knew it could taint a soul and corrupt the finest of wizards. But most of them also knew that sometimes there was no other choice than to use them in self-defence. Especially with the whispers of the war, it was not unheard of that some wizards had used the unforgivables against deatheaters. 

“In this class, we have seen hexes and curses that could protect you, we’ve talked about courses and magical contracts. Binding bonds and spells, etc. We’ve faced against some dangerous creatures and defeated them. We’ve duelled each other,” she threw you a look “and had some unfortunate accidents, but those are to be expected.” 

She sighed, “Today we’ll be talking about an interesting but dangerous thing. BIood rituals. Anyone have any idea what I might be referring to?” 

Lily raised her hand, “BIood rituals are the use of spells that require bIood, either a bIood sacrifice or just a few drops of someone’s bIood. They can be very dangerous and powerful, and if used to harm, they can even bind the person whose bIood has been used in the spell. They aren’t all dark magic, but they can be extremely dangerous.” 

“Excellent, Miss Evans. 10 points for Gryffindor,” Seraphina said while Lily beamed. “Indeed, they can be extremely dangerous. But it isn’t dangerous all the time. In fact, some bIood magic is used in the simplest of things. For example on magical contracts.” 

“Like the ones used in the past in the Triwizard Tournament,” Imogen said out loud. 

“Indeed Miss Potts,” Seraphina said. “Your great-great-grandma was a participant, correct?” 

“She won,” Imogen said proudly. 

“That’s right, I apologise for my ignorance on the matter. But it is correct, to put their names in The Goblet of Fire the students had to give a drop of their bIood too, as a way to bind them, since once they were chosen there was no way out of the tournament.” 

“An awful event if you ask me,” Lily whispered to Marlene, they were sitting right in front of you and Remus.

“I don’t know,” you said. “I think it was rather interesting, testing your magical skills against real but controlled threats, seems pretty cool to me.” 

“Of course, you would say that,” Lily said as she shook her head. 

“What? Why?” you asked with a small frown “I genuinely think that–” 

“Because you tend to like dangerous things sweetheart,” Remus said as he gave you a look. 

“Well that’s–” 

“You play quidditch,” Marlene intervened, “And you are in the duelling club. You like danger, the adrenaline rush and all that.” 

“You would love to be in the Triwizard tournament, wouldn’t you?” Lily added. 

“Well I never said that but… I suppose I would try signing up for it.”

“There you go,” Lily said as she turned back around “It’s the kind of thing that would suck you in like nifflers drawn to shiny things.” 

“I’m surprised you haven’t gotten in much more trouble so far,” Marlene added as she too turned around. 

Remus chuckled and you threw him a look. “Or… she’s just really good at not getting caught.” 

You scoffed, diverted at that and shoved him lightly. He just gave you a teasing smile in response. You’d realised Remus had gotten the habit of teasing you a lot more often the past few days. At least as much as you used to tease him. 

After that, you turned back to look at Seraphina, who kept talking about contracts by bIood, secret keepers, the Fidelius Charm and other kinds of magical bonds. Remus on the other hand, hadn’t quite gone back to the class. His mind had gone off, thinking about Lily’s words, what they implied and what he eventually said: Because you tend to like dangerous things, sweetheart. 

Is it possible that that is why she…

“…do you agree Mr. Lupin?” Seraphina asked startling Remus out of his thoughts.

He looked at her wide-eyed and turned his gaze to you, throwing you a pleading look. You bit your lip and grabbed your quill, scribbling something on your parchment as quickly as you could and moving it towards him as casually as possible. 

Remus scanned over your paper, but you hadn’t exactly been very specific with it either. It only said “BIood Bonds Bad?” 

Remus swallowed and turned back to Seraphina “Well, I think it’s not possible to have a certain yes or no opinion on the matter, it’s a matter of how you use them and for what. For example, if you’re using a bond to bind someone to you against their will, to make an imperious stronger or to curse their bIoodline then we can all agree they’re terrible. Dark wizard stuff even. But if you use bIood for a magical contract to make sure both parts will fulfil it, or to deepen your connection with someone or even to protect someone by sacrificing yourself, then the line becomes a lot more blurry.” 

Seraphina seemed pleased by his answer and nodded “Brilliantly said, Mr. Lupin. That is indeed why we are taking this class, and why I consider it so important. I want you to pick a position, either for or against, and then you’re going to work in teams to form a debate in which you’ll go over the good and bad of using bIood magic.” 

People started to split the classroom when Remus turned to you “Thanks,” he muttered. 

You smiled and turned to him. “What’s got that pretty head of yours in the clouds, hm?” you asked. Not even realising you had casually called him pretty, perhaps the veritaserum wasn’t completely out of your system yet, prompting you to say a lot more than usual. 

“I was thinking of someone.” 

“Someone… And may I know who that was?” 

“No.” 

You pouted, “But I helped you.” 

“Are you gonna charge in the favour?” 

“No, but telling me would be the polite thing to do,” you said with a shrug.

He pulled his head to the side as he sucked in some air with a bit of a shrug. “You’re outta luck. I’m not feeling very polite today.” 

You bit your lip at that, thinking of a clever retort when you felt two arms wrap around your waist from behind and pull you to the owner’s chest. You knew it was Sirius the moment you felt his hands on you, not because you were an expert on his hands, but because you could smell his cologne –or perhaps it was his shampoo or just him– the moment he stepped on your personal bubble. 

He then dug his face into your neck, you saw Remus advert his gaze, and you could have considered it politeness but, there was something else, you frowned looking at Remus as your eyes narrowed, and then Sirius pressed his lips to your neck, on the exact same spot he had sucked a hickey the past week and the scarlet flags lurking on the sides of your mind were washed away in an instant. After all, you were probably just imagining things, right?

“Sirius, what are you…?” You asked and he pulled his head away from your neck and pecked your cheek, his movement had been so sudden that you were startled into silence. 

“You looked so pretty from afar,” he admitted “don’t know why Moony insisted on sitting so far from me and James.”

“You were being loud, you would’ve brought us in and we would have lost more house points,” Remus responded simply. Of course, that wasn’t the reason. He was feeling a little more jealous than normal that day. Probably because you had gone and kissed Sirius on what he considered his time. On potions, you were his partner, not Sirius’.

Sirius pouted, his chin now resting on your shoulder as he looked at Moony. “So what are we, for or against?” he asked. 

“Hm? We’re all gonna be on the same team?” you asked. 

“Well duh, why do you think we’re here,” he said as he pointed at James and Peter. 

“Well... I think against is too easy,” you said. 

“What’s wrong with easy?” Peter asked. 

“It’s boring,” Remus and you replied almost at the same time. 

“Nerds,” Sirius said, chin still resting, you pushed your shoulder blades back to nudge him and he just smiled, “but the best nerds,” he added then. 

You rolled your eyes. “So we’ll be for?” Lily asked, “I think it’s a great choice.” 

“I agree,” James said a little too fast. Lily threw him a look and he just shrugged and gave her a wink. 

“Well then for it is,” Marlene said. “This is our side of the classroom anyway, isn’t it?” 

Lily nodded, and you all started to dig through your books to try and find arguments that would back you up on the debate. Learning a couple of interesting things about bIood magic with the books that Seraphina had borrowed, some of them from the restricted section. And while most things in those books were warnings about the ill use of this kind of magic, it did point out some of the uses they had for good.

The debate had gone quite fast. And while the other team had great points in their favour, in the end, all of you put up a great front against them. You thought it had been really fun, and Mary mentioned it was a very muggle way of teaching, and that she remembered having gone through a similar exercise at her elementary school before Hogwarts. Which had been rather interesting since according to your knowledge, Seraphina was a pureblood. 

Saturday, December 4th, 1976

It had been a grueling day. Apparition had finally started to involve the physical act of apparating and it was exhausting. Professor Dumbledore had taken each student one by one on an apparition so that they got the feeling of it. Some of the students that had never done it before ended up puking all over the grass. Mary had excused herself to go to the infirmary to get headache pills. Lily had thrown herself into the grass and stared at the sky for several minutes while taking deep breaths. 

Peter had to swallow his own puke, and this wasn’t the first time he’d ever apparated in his life. Remus had done quite well. He had appeared on the other side of the grass with a straight face and had walked over to you calmly. 

“It wasn’t that bad,” he said as he approached you “I thought it’d be worse.” 

You frowned at that, you didn’t remember your first time apparating, since it had been when you were a baby, but your mom would always tell the story that you cried and cried for hours after it. And then it took a small dose of calming draught to get you to sleep that night. The next time they did it, the result had been similar. Eventually, you got used to it.  But by the reactions of the students that had never done it, you figured there was no possible way that it “wasn’t that bad” which is why there was only one answer to Remus’ reaction. He was used to a lot worse. 

You almost wanted to hug him after it, but you knew he’d think it weird, and if he knew it was because you felt bad about his situation, he’d think you were pitying him. And Remus Lupin hated to be pitied. Even if it wasn’t pity what you felt, you just thought your friend was so brave, and he had gone through so much already. It's silly, you thought, but you still wanted to hug him. 

Thankfully you were quickly distracted by Sirius who went next, coming back to you from the other side completely unaffected by it, exactly like James had. The latter boasting a little about how good he was, saying it had to do with how much quidditch he practised when, in reality, had a lot more to do with how many times Effy and Fleamont had apparated him. 

When it was your turn you approached Professor Dumbledore calmly. He called you by your last name and extended his arm for you to hook yours onto. “I understand you have apparated before, have you not?” He asked calmly. 

You nodded “Yes sir, my parents have been apparating me since I was very small.” 

“Correct. Have you ever tried to do it on your own?” 

You shook your head in response, and then frowned… “Well… there was one time in my previous school in which I attempted to do it with a friend. I was young and… well we splinched badly. She had the worst of it. I had to stay at the infirmary for almost 3 whole days. She stayed for the entire week. We got detention for it.”

Dumbledor raised an eyebrow at that, “And you haven’t tried again since?” 

You shook your head. “We promised we would enrol in the class together, and then I moved… so suppose there wasn’t really a reason not to try again anymore but… I’ve been rather busy since I got here.” 

“So I’ve heard,” he said with a nod, an almost imperceptible smile on his lips. 

You gave him an awkward smile in return and he tilted his head as if asking if you were ready, to which you nodded. In no less than a second, he was apparating the two of you to the other side of the field. 

Your stomach turned upside down when you were on the other side, not because of the apparition, but because of the memories brought along with it. One second you were in class, with your arm locked on Professor Dumbledore, the next you were in the forest, launched across Barty’s shoulder against your will. 

The memories flooded your head without you having a say on it and the moment you landed on the other side you were tense, seething with anger, panic and helplessness. You blinked and tried to steady your breath, your eyes seeking something to anchor to, and you spotted Sirius, who was talking to James with a huge smile on his face. 

Two people noticed your restlessness. First, it was Dumbledore, who had seen the scenes of the memory you had accidentally projected into his mind as he apparated the two of you. You had been studying occlumency the last few days and you had unwittingly transmitted all of it straight into him. He turned to you, noticing how much less relaxed your grip on his arm felt. 

“Are you all right?” He asked calmly. You somehow managed to nod, your eyes still trying to focus on Sirius’ laugh instead of the memories that plagued your mind. But Dumbledore didn’t let go of you yet. “I would suggest you take the rest of the day off.” 

“What?” You asked, focusing your eyes on the old teacher “I’m fine I–” 

“You seem to have a lot on your mind…” He added with a courteous nod. You looked at him with eyes opened wide, breath hitching at your throat when you realised what you had done. “And you’ve also had a rough couple of days.” 

You looked at him, a serious look on your face, as you focused on your thoughts, trying to conceal what had happened the rest of that night, and attempting to leave out details like the phase of the moon and when you saw Remus. It didn’t feel like Dumbledore was trying to pry further, but you still had to try. 

“I’ll send a note to Silvanus excusing you from his class. You’ve been doing quite well on it regardless.” 

“You don’t… Will you not ask what happened?” you asked as you turned to him, “Sir,” you added as an afterthought, trying to maintain your politeness. 

Dumbledore cocked his head to the side, “If you wanted me to know, you would have come to me the day it happened and you wouldn’t be trying to conceal it. I trust in your judgement Miss (Y/LN). I’ve heard good things about you from more than one teacher.” 

You swallowed. “Thank you,” you added with a courteous nod. 

“Regardless, I do feel the need to tell you that if it ever happens again you shall come straight to me or to any other teacher to report it.” 

“Of course, sir.” Frankly, you weren’t sure if you really meant that, but you said it regardless. He nodded one last time and allowed you to go. 

The other person that noticed was way further from the two of you, he had also been talking to James when a familiar smell hit him. It was exactly the same way you smelled when you arrived at his door, barging it open with an iron poker in your hand. It was the smell of panic.

Remus turned to you in an instant, looking at the way you were desperately looking around the field until you focused on Sirius. He frowned, and then saw your entire interaction with Dumbledore, paying close attention and using his heightened senses to listen in to your conversation with the professor. 

When you eventually walked back to your friends, you moved to stand in between him and Sirius. Neither James nor the other boy seemed to notice your discomfort, in fact, Remus wasn’t sure he would be able to acknowledge it if he hadn’t recognized the smell from that night. You had a cocky smile on your face and you were pretending to be as unaffected as Sirius and James had been. To anyone, you would look like you were perfectly fine, except for the haunting look in your eyes, perhaps. Remus wondered, if Sirius looked close enough, would he be able to notice too? As he stared at you laughing at some silly joke James had made about the weather, he started feeling the urge to hug you. Of course, he wouldn’t do it, he had no excuse, and you were dating Sirius, not that it was that hard to forget, you were almost always all over each other. 

But he also knew that if he hugged you, you would know he noticed, and then you would think he was pitting you, and you hated to be pitied. But Remus did not pity you, no, he was absolutely stunned by how well you had played your feelings off, hiding them under your skin so skillfully that the only reason he noticed had been because he could still smell them. 

Regardless, Remus Lupin didn’t hug you. He resisted the urge to place his hands around your face like he had done on the shack, or to bring you close to his chest like he had when he cuddled Vixen. He resisted because he knew you weren’t his to hug, but that didn’t stop him from inching closer to you. To stand so close it was almost ridiculous the way your shoulders would rub against his as you laughed, or pretended to laugh, or attempted to do it by drowning the memories with the sound of the other boys’ laughs. He wasn’t sure which of the three it was. 

When the class was over, you told the boys you’d go make sure Lily and Mary were alright, that you would check on Mary at the infirmary with Mars after taking Lily to the room. James tried to offer himself for the job but Remus stopped him. He knew you were looking for a way out and into the comfortable silence of probably the common room or the library or somewhere. 

Even if you were a lot more relaxed now, the smell lingered just a bit, like your emotions were threatening to get out. Remus wanted to go with you, to be there for you like you had been after all the moons since you met him. But he also understood the need for time alone and time to think, and there was something in your eyes that told him that that was exactly what you needed. 

You waved the boys goodbye and walked alongside Marlene and Lily to the room. You both were holding the red-head, arms linked to each other as a way to help her keep balance. 

“It feels like I’ve been on a boat for hours,” Lily complained. 

You gave her a sympathetic look “I think I’ve got something for nausea on my cupboard,” you mentioned “Mom sent it over when she heard I fell off my broom.” 

“But that… you didn’t fall because of nausea,” Marlene said with a frown. 

“Yeah… I didn’t want to tell her I jumped off of it, to get the snitch,” you said with a grimace. Lily was looking between the two of you, trying to focus on the conversation as much as possible. But she was still dizzy. 

Eventually, the three of you made it to the room, both you and Marlene helped Lily to the bed, and then shut the curtains to make her feel more comfortable. You were rummaging through your trunk, trying to find the potion when Marlene said she’d go check on Mary. In the end, you decided to split, Marlene would check on Mary while you stayed with Lily. 

“You’re going to miss class,” Lily complained as you walked towards her with the potion finally in your hands. You gave her a look; as if she hadn’t missed a bunch of classes for you in the past week. She pouted in response “But who’s gonna give me their notes?” 

You smiled as you sat on the bed and placed your hand on the back of her head and gently brought it forwards to make it easier for her to take the potion. “Remus will be in that class, we can get his notes.” 

“With his handwriting?” Lily asked when she finished the potion. 

You gave her a look “It’s not that bad!” 

“When he charms it.” 

“You’re exaggerating,” you told her as you passed a small candy to her, the nausea potion had always been a bit bitter. 

She opened her mouth instead of taking it in her hands and you just placed it on the spot. “Is apparating always going to be this bad?” she asked you as she savoured the candy. 

You shook your head “It gets better,” you promised “I’m sure you’ll be top of the class in no time.” 

She almost snorted at that. “What are you planning to do?” 

You shrugged in response, “Maybe I’ll read ahead,” you said, “or just some fiction.” 

“I miss the telly,” she said with a pout. You smiled at that, while you did not have a television at home, you had encountered one on your walks through Muggle London and had been absolutely fascinated by it, the little screens showing moving pictures just like magical portraits but instead of having a defined person –or people– they had all sorts of stories on them. Including some of the movies you had seen in the cinema before. 

“Want me to read you something?” 

She gave you a look, and then extended her hand and passed a book over to you– a copy of “The Lord of the Rings”. 

“Oh, I love these books!” You said with a smile. 

“It’s my third time reading them actually,” she said “I read them before I came to Hogwarts and I always felt somehow connected to them,” She told you before she yawned. You smiled, realising the potion was already working its magic. 

You flipped through the pages until you found her bookmarker. It was a small blue wildflower, already dry, you took it in your hands and eyed it carefully, Lily looked up at it sadly, “Sev gave it to me a while ago,” she said casually “I can’t bring myself to throw it away.” 

You gave her a look and placed it back on the book, you didn’t exactly like Snape, and you knew why she was sad about it, but you also understood how hard it must have been for her, that her best friend changed so much that he turned against her. He had even called her a slur, a ridiculous word the pureblood assholes had invented, to say when they needed to feel superior. 

Lily saw the way you carefully placed the flower near the back of the book and nodded as you started narrating from where she had left off. Frodo and Sam had just met Legolas when you heard some light snoring from the girl. You smiled and closed the book, taking a bookmarker of your own instead of using the flower again, that way when Lily opened the book, she wouldn’t have to think of Severus, even if the blue flower was still safely tucked in the back.

You gave the girl one last look, tucking in her bed sheets with a swish of your wand before walking back towards your own bed. You stayed there for a few minutes, taking your charms book and skimming through it before setting it on the side and taking an occlumency one instead. Nightshade had given it to you after you asked, and after the ridiculous way in which you had projected all your memories to Professor Dumbledore, you knew you had to continue studying it. 

You looked at Lily one last time and decided a change of setting would be the best, especially since the low-lit space you had created for her comfort wasn’t helping the headache threatening to form as you continued attempting to read the book through squinted eyes. Besides, holding your wand up with Lumos had gotten annoying. 

Exiting the room a few minutes later, you walked straight to the common room and plopped down on the sofa, your head towards the fire so you could properly read the pages. You had been so engrossed in the book, you didn’t hear the portrait open, and you certainly didn’t notice Sirius walking all the way towards you. 

He looked at you as you read the book, moving his hands in the air to try and get your attention a couple of times, but when it proved to be useless, he decided to get your attention in a different way. He leaned closer to you and climbed on top of you, letting his head fall on your stomach as the rest of his body settled over yours. You moved the book to the side and gave him an incredulous look as he snuggled up against you.  

“You’re heavy,” you said as you playfully attempted to push him off. 

“Oh, so you only realise I’m here to try and kick me off?” he teased, looking up at you. “No hey Puppy how was class? Why do you look so tired? No, just ‘You’re heavy.’” 

You giggled at his words, “How was class, Puppy?” 

He hummed unsatisfied in response, easily hearing the sarcasm laced in your words “Awful. Kettleburn had us clean the pens of the Nifflers. They’re adorable until you have to clean things up and smell their stool.” 

“And you’ve come to lay on top of me after that?” You asked as you tried to push him off again, but he just wrapped his arms around your torso tighter. 

“Yes, because you smell nice,” he mumbled as he dug his head on the sweater you were wearing -Remus’ sweater-, “and James used a cleaning spell on me so don’t try to push me off again.” 

“But you’re heavy,” you said with a small pout. 

“Not true, you love it,” he said simply, refusing to move. You rolled your eyes but allowed him to stay. Even if Sirius was actually just slightly heavy, there was a part of you that enjoyed being cuddled by him like this a little too much. And whatever spell James had used was perfect, Sirius smelled like nothing but himself. A smell you already found intoxicating in and of itself. You sighed and took the book again. “Wait, really?” 

“What?” You asked as you moved the book to the side to look at his face. 

“Your gorgeous boyfriend is right on top of you, pretty much begging for a cuddle and you prefer reading… What is that?” he asked as he pulled the book from your hands to read the title “Occlumency?! Really? Is occlumency more interesting than me?” He added as he threw the book back, instead of falling straight on the floor, which you would have definitely reprimanded him for doing, it floated down towards one of the side tables in a gentle motion. 

You stared at the book a little impressed, especially when you turned back to Sirius and realised his wand was tucked in the pocket of his pants. He was surprisingly good at wandless magic, that you knew, but it never failed to impress. 

You turned to him with a small smirk as you leaned your hand towards his head “Sirius if you want my attention you just have to ask for it,” you said as you dug your hand into his hair.

He hummed again, closing his eyes peacefully as he felt your fingers run over his scalp, an action that reminded you a lot of how Padfoot –back when you thought he was Fang- had reacted to you petting him. You wondered if it was a dog thing or a Sirius thing. You saw him take a deep breath as he buried his head deeper into your stomach. 

“I’ll pretend that isn’t weird,” you teased with a smile. 

He turned to you with a reproachful gaze. “It helps the stool smell go away,” he said with a frown. 

You just laughed, also being a canine made you understand the appeal of smells, especially his smell, but you were never as obvious about it, besides, there was nothing as fun as teasing Sirius… Which reminded you of that talk you’d had with Peter after the quidditch game. You reached for the nape of his neck and gently turned his head to look at you, you saw the way his nose brushed on your stomach and how the tip bent just a little as he turned your eyes to yours, “You know… the other day I was talking to Peter–”

Sirius winced “Don’t tell me it’s about one of his ridiculous ideas because–” 

“Hey listen!” you told him as you smacked him lightly, “Peter is smart too.” Sirius only raised his eyebrows “Sometimes,” you added. “He’s good at Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures.” 

“And your point?” 

You rolled your eyes. “He said something and… I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” you had stopped scratching his scalp for a second and he nudged your hand by moving his head for you to get back to it, much like a dog would. You held back a laugh and continued, “he said that when their parents got him a kitten, they had to rub the kitten onto the cat to make him accept him.” 

Sirius frowned, completely lost in the point you were trying to make. “Is this your way of trying to convince me to get a kitten? Because I don’t like them.” 

You laughed. “No, I have enough pets with you lot being my friends.” He looked offended and leaned his head to give a soft, playful bite to your arm. You just smiled, biting your own lip. “Point proven.” 

He scoffed and placed his head on top of the arm he had bitten as he looked at you straight in the eyes, you almost lost your train of thought as you stared at him, always fascinated by the fact that someone so beautiful would be looking at you, with such a gaze. 

“So what’s with the cats then?” He asked, he was looking at you in a way that made your knees weak, and you were happy you were lying on a sofa rather than standing. 

“Well, it’s a smell thing,” you said as you broke eye contact, focusing on your hands on his hair to try and speak properly. “Peter said it’s something about getting the kitten to have the smell of the pack so the larger cat wouldn’t attack him.” Sirius nodded. “He then mentioned that… Moony had honed in my smell. That even on the first moon of the year he had been restless, and had been really hard to deal with.” 

“Yeah, he was a bitch,” Sirius said as he nodded “Kept wanting to go in the castle.” 

“Mhm,” you agreed. “So Peter suggested that we do the same.” 

Sirius arched his eyebrows at you as he passed his tongue over his lips, clearly amused at your suggestion. “Sweetheart, if what you wanted was to rub against me, you could have just said that,” he said with a small smirk and a suggestive look. 

You scoffed and swatted him on the head, “Sirius focus! He said I could rub onto you or James.” 

“No!” he said all too fast, a flash of jealousy in his eyes. 

You giggled, “Well… technically he said Padfoot and Prongs. He offered himself too but said he was too small.” 

“Ugh…Don’t put that image in my head!” He said with a frown. And then turned to you again “What about Remus? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to rub on him?” 

You nodded, “Yeah, but it doesn’t seem very clever to go rub onto Moony when he could just reach down and close his jaws around me, does it?” 

Sirius frowned, “Not Moony, Remus.” 

“You think that would work? You don’t smell the same as Pads.” 

“Why, been smelling me much?” he teased. 

You rolled your eyes, “Padfoot smells a lot more like a dog.” 

“Are you suggesting I stink?” 

“Your words, not mine.” He pinched your side with his hand and you laughed. Of course, you didn’t think he smelled bad, in fact, Vixen seemed to be just as drawn to that smell as you were by Sirius’. 

“Anyway, Remus smells like Moony.” 

“Been smelling him much?” you teased now. 

He gave you a look, “I live with him you moron.” He omitted the fact that yes, he had, and that Remus had been clouding his thoughts for a while now. 

You sighed, “Well, I suppose we could turn into Vixen and Pads and cuddle him then. You think he’d be up for it?” 

He looked to the side as if thinking about it, “Well… If anyone can convince him, it’s us.”

You nodded in agreement. And then you remembered, “Talking about Remus…” 

“Mhm?” 

You sighed, “I’ve been invited to Slughorn’s Christmas Party.” 

“Congratulations?” he said a little confused, “What’s that got to do with Moons?” 

“He’s never been invited.” He hummed in response as if to get you to elaborate, you continued to brush your nails on his scalp, he could feel your nervousness in the way the patterns you made had gone a little faster. “I want him to go. He… seemed a little harsh when I suggested that he must have been invited many times because of how clever he is.” 

“He won’t like it, he’ll think it’s pity.” 

“No, but… I think he deserves it! More than me even!” 

Sirius shook his head “It’s not just about cleverness, I was invited in my first year, all of my cousins had been members of the Slug Club. Of course, I didn’t go.” 

You sighed, “Yeah, maybe my father being who he is has a lot more to do with my invitation than anything.” 

“That’s not… it’s not what I was trying to say…” 

You sighed again. “I know, Puppy.” You then turned to him, “Would you mind if I invited him?” 

“Instead of me?” He teased. 

“Of course if you don’t want to I would never, I just–” 

Sirius laughed, “I couldn’t care less about the Slug Club, in fact, Walburga might be pleased if I were to go, so I think it’s great if you take Remus instead.” He really tried not to think of how good the two of you would look all dolled up for the party together. 

“You think they know about us?” You asked with a frown. 

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t,” Sirius said and then shrugged, “If anything I bet they’re pissed you’re dating me and not Regulus.” 

You laughed at that, and then remembered the way Walburga had stared at you when she introduced their children, “Imagine if they knew I’m part-fairy.” 

“You what?” Sirius asked, pushing himself from you to look straight at your face. 

“You… I didn’t tell you?” 

“No!” 

“I thought I had,” you said with a guilty-looking smile “It’s from my mum’s side, my great grandma was a fairy, but they decided to keep it secret.” 

“That must be why you’re so pretty,” He said as he leaned back against you “And so good at flying, it’s kind of an unfair advantage when you think about it.” 

You smiled, you knew Sirius wouldn’t judge you for being part fairy, but there was something about the way in which he took it, like it was the most normal thing in the world –rather similar to the way Remus had– that made you want to plant a kiss on those pretty pinky lips of his. 

“How do we convince Remus of the cuddling?” You asked then, your mind going back to the other boy. 

Sirius smirked, “We don’t convince him. We surprise him,” he said as he stood up and extended his hand for you to take, a mischievous look on his face that made him look like the most alluring thing you had ever seen in your life. You almost gaped at him as you grabbed his hand and he pulled you off the bed and dragged you to the stairs of the boys’ dormitories. 

Remus Lupin hadn’t had the best of days. He had attempted to help the boys clean the pens but the animals kept drifting apart from him and trying to escape their little space because of his presence. Eventually, Professor Kettleburn had asked him to step out of them and help him sort out some of the food, dividing it into smaller bags for the younger students to be able to feed them later on. 

Remus was already used to not being able to be close to some creatures, they didn’t exactly like him much, probably because they could smell the wolf in him. Of course, it wasn’t like that all the time, in fact, the fireworms he was still co-parenting with you seemed to have gotten a liking to him, although he wasn’t sure if it was because they couldn’t quite think properly or if the real reason was because a fireworm could be easily as destructive as he was. 

Either way, Remus hated sorting the food, it was a boring, tedious task that he felt brought no new knowledge to him, but that wasn’t even the worst part. No, the worst part was that, because it was such a simple and mundane task it offered no mental challenge, which meant his brain was idle. And of course, since his brain was idle, he couldn’t stop thinking about things he’d rather not think about at all. Let alone in depth.

It had all started as he was serving the second bag, his brain had gone back to the previous class, he’d seen how worried you were. While you hadn’t told Remus and the boys, or anyone the exact details of what had happened that night, you had mentioned Barty apparating in front of the Shack. Remus knew the boy was talented, but he didn’t know that he was that talented. He had no idea how to apparate yet, although after doing it with Dumbledore he thought he could learn how to do it easily enough. 

He had also linked the smell from that night exactly to the way you smelled that day. He’d noticed he’d become a lot better at isolating your smell from the rest of people after the incident. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the lingering smell of bIood that always seemed to be carried alongside you after you had been wounded; because he had been so close to your animagus in the infirmary or because his obsession had just gotten that bad, but it was happening. Quite similar to the way he could easily isolate Sirius’ smell. But smell sometimes changed a little, he remembered easily being able to know when Sirius had snogged someone by the sheer smell he exuded afterwards, it always pissed him off and he had to play it out, especially after he realised it was because he too wanted to snog him. He could also tell when the rest of the boys had done similar things, but that had never bothered him. 

But the fact that Remus had been able to identify the exact smell from that night, meant you were probably reliving what had happened, which had, in turn, put him just as on edge as he had been then. The same worry filled his insides, the same need to protect. It had taken a monumental struggle not to instantly sprint your way when the smell first hit him, and it had been even harder to hold back from hugging you when he could see damn well you could use one. And Sirius was too busy boasting with James to notice, not that you weren’t a brilliant actress, heck you hid it almost as well as he hid his aches and pains after a moon. But there had been few people he couldn’t quite hide it from. Turns out there were also people you couldn’t hide it from: that being Remus. 

Remus attempted to focus on something else, and he looked up to try and find some kind of interesting animal, student drama or something, but instead, what he found was Sirius’ intense gaze. His eyes, which looked more blue than grey that day because of the sun that shone so brightly over them as they cleaned, were focused on Remus. Remus almost scowled, thinking Sirius was looking at him out of pity, but then he noticed that Sirius hadn’t quite realised Remus was looking at him yet. When they locked eyes, Sirius continued to shamelessly stare at Remus, looking to be rather deep in thought as he stared at his friend, as if he were trying to solve a riddle. 

While Sirius didn’t look particularly angry as he stared, Remus was slightly intimidated by him, was there any chance he had noticed the way he had been looking at you? The way he kept staring at him when he wasn’t looking? Sirius wasn’t particularly oblivious to the way people looked at him, to the way girls looked at him.  Was it possible that he was able to link those gazes to the ones Remus often threw his way? 

Regardless of how intimidating “the Black” stare could be, Remus held his stance, staring at Sirius with as much curiosity and moxy as he could muster. Sirius seemed amused by that, biting his lip in the most lascivious manner Remus had ever seen in his life and then sending a wink in Remus’ direction before focusing on cleaning again. 

Remus was glaring at Sirius’ back as the boy turned his head, how dare he wink at me like that? he thought as he mentally scoffed. Needless to say, Remus wasn’t able to get Sirius off his head after that, especially Sirius’ soft-looking lips. Fucking Sirius Black and his fucking pretty lips. He’s an arse who knows how pretty he is and uses it to his advantage. What a prat! Why must he be so fucking pretty?!? 

By the end of the class, Remus’ head was in pain from how many thoughts were going ‘round inside of it, he might as well be a merry-go-round with how much it was swiveling. He had a headache, he was full of dirt and animal food and he was still pissed at Sirius who had looked at him the way he did. 

James had gone chasing behind Lily with the excuse that he had to go check on her and Sirius had approached Remus right after. Peter was lost somewhere, but Remus couldn’t care less at that point. He was still pissed at Sirius, for absolutely no reason at all. 

“You alright?” Sirius asked with a frown, and fuck did he look adorable.

“I’ve got a bit of a headache,” Remus said sharply, “I think I’ll go to the library.” 

“You have a headache and will go to the library?” Sirius asked puzzled, “Doesn’t seem very clever, why don’t you come with? I’m going to try and find Kit, I’m surprised she didn’t come back to class after taking Lily to the dormitories.” 

Remus scoffed, and coughed a bit to cover it up when he realised you wouldn’t want Sirius to know you had been affected because of that night, “Wouldn’t want to third wheel on quality time with your girlfriend.” 

Sirius threw him a wary glance as if he had noticed something was wrong with his friend, “You’re never a third wheel Remus, we love having you around.” 

Remus bit the side of his cheek to hold himself from snapping at Sirius, he had no logical reason to do it, any normal person would be more than happy to spend time with his best friends all together, but Moony was a jealous beast and sometimes it sipped all the way into Remus, “I have to prepare my potions essay.” 

There was no potions essay, he had finished it a few nights ago when you had polyjuiced yourself into James to take his punishment for him, not that Sirius knew. 

“And you should cuddle her more,” Remus said almost bitterly. When Sirius gave him a quizzical look he tried to calm his nerves again. “I think It still hurts,” he said “I saw her clutching her arm earlier.” 

Sirius nodded and Remus stared at him as they parted ways, grumbling something about Sirius being unbelievable as he walked to the library. There he tried to find a quiet spot, but after finding none, because all students seemed to be more focused on gossip than on books, he decided to retire to the Prefects’ Bathroom, to try and relax. Unfortunately, when he went he walked in on none other than Alice Becket making out with a Ravenclaw boy from 7th. She seemed surprised when she saw Remus but he just shut the door. 

Remus didn’t care much about Alice snogging other boys, he had used her as much as she was using him, and he knew they weren’t exactly exclusive, but he had already been pretty riled up at the moment, and that was like the last nail in the coffin. Thankfully Alice didn’t follow behind him as he stormed through the hall towards his Common Room. He hoped to the heavens that he wouldn’t find you and Sirius snogging on the couch because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to maintain his sanity if he did.  

Thankfully, as he walked in, he realised it was mostly empty. There were a few first and second-year kids talking, and reading, while most of the older kids had probably gone to the Hogsmeade outing after class. He walked up to his room and opened the door warily as he looked around. He frowned as he took in the smell of the room. It looked empty, but there was a lingering scent of you and Sirius all over the place. The thought that you had both shagged there earlier made him even more uncomfortable as he let himself fall head first on the bed and groaned into his pillow. 

For some fucking reason that also had the smell of you and Sirius. Which, while initially pissed him off, the more he let the smell penetrate him, the more relaxed he started to feel. He was about to let his mind roam with thoughts that he normally didn’t allow himself to have, with all the stress of the day he figured he deserved a break. He took a deep breath and remembered how you and Sirius had sounded back when you were kissing the day you made the potions for the prank. Remus was just starting to get in the mood when he felt his bed dip on the side. He turned around horrified, just to find Padfoot jumping like a happy puppy. 

“What in the bIoody–” He started and then felt the bed dip on the other side. A small red fox had also jumped into his bed. She was wagging her tail as excitedly and happily as Padfoot “Vixen?” he asked, confused. He could have sworn he saw the fox smile. 

The fox and the dog threw a look at each other before the fox climbed on top of Remus’ chest. The dog leaned in closer and rested his head on the fox’s back. Remus looked horrified at the two of them, horrified because he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt more comfortable –perhaps when he was reading and you were all mushed together on his bed– and horrified because he had no idea what the hell the two of you were planning. 

He wasn’t even sure what to say, or if he should say anything, but it pissed him off not knowing what the hell the two of you were up to so he put on the angriest face he could muster “If you two pair of twats don’t get off me in the next five seconds, I will hex you!”

Padfoot stared at him and leaned his head on your back again, only tilting it to the side when Remus started to count down. Sirius had been stared at with that angry, threatening face hundreds of times throughout his life. He’d do something silly near the moon, and Remus would put on that same face and scowl at him, he’d get caught after a prank and Remus would give him the scowl, he’d snog a random girl and leave her and Remus would also get pissed, at this point, Sirius was almost immune to it. You, on the other hand, had only seen Remus angry at the Shack, and while it wasn’t exactly the same face he was making, it did make you recoil, even if it was just a little. 

“Three… Two…” he kept counting, Remus was staring directly at you, and you wriggled out of the sandwich Remus and Padfoot had you on until you fell on the bed. You rolled over your back until you were staring at Remus, weight on your front paws as if you were ready to jump and attack, but there was something playful about it, as if you were challenging Remus. Padfoot on the other hand had just laid his head on Remus’ chest again, looking as unbothered with Remus as Sirius often was. 

Remus attempted to push him off of him but Padfoot didn’t budge. Of course, Remus wasn’t using his full strength and Sirius knew that too, which gave him more confidence to stay right where he was. Besides, Remus was warm and comfortable and he smelled awfully nice that day. 

“Sirius, get off! BIoody hell why are you both attacking me like this?!?” Padfoot barked softly and you leaned closer again, but Remus gave you a warning glance “Either one of you explains to me what the fuck is going on or–” Padfoot leaned forward and licked Remus’ cheek, an action awfully reminiscent of the Halloween party. Remus pushed him off his face “That’s fucking gross!”

Regardless, the dog didn’t seem to care and licked Remus’ hands as he attempted to push him off.  You watched the entire scene diverted when the werewolf turned to you, a pleading look on his face. “Little Witch, please tell me what the fuck is going on.”

You felt genuinely tempted to ignore him and just lick his face like Sirius had done, but there was something about Remus’ pleading expression that made you want to do whatever he wanted. You turned back into yourself, not quite measuring your stance and ended up laying beside Remus, almost like that time you were reading “The Godfather” except this time around your head was leaning on his arm. But rather than stepping away, like Remus expected you to do, you just got yourself comfortable, which was a very Sirius thing to do. Padfoot had laid his paws on Remus’ torso and licked your face once too, which had you laughing merrily as you lay in Remus’ arms. 

Remus was rather tense, feeling like he might be third-wheeling but also awfully welcomed in between the two of you. “Little witch?” he asked again, an edge of panic in his voice as Padfoot continued trying to lick his face and yours. 

“Peter told us we had to cuddle you.” 

“What?!” Remus asked as he frowned, now more confused than he’d been before. 

Sirius transformed back into himself, he was sitting on the bed, leaning slightly onto Remus as his hands were pressed on the other boy’s abdomen like they had done when they were paws. “Well technically, he said Vixen had to cuddle Padfoot and Prongs.” 

“You’re not making anything clear,” Remus said as he motioned to stand but both you and Sirius held him down. You by placing your hands on his arm and Sirius by leaning onto him just a little more. 

“It’s because of the smell,” you explained. “He said Moony had honed on my smell and that he kept chasing after me since the first moon.”

Yeah, Moony isn’t the only one who honed onto your smell, Remus thought. 

“And he said if we rub our smell on her and she smells like the pack then Moony wouldn’t chase her anymore.” 

Remus looked at you horrified, “You wouldn’t be thinking of setting a foot out on the next full moon, would you?” 

“Well of course I will,” you said simply. “We can’t have Moony continue being all reckless chasing after me or whatever, he’s hurting himself, and you in the process.” 

“We can’t have him hurt you either,” Remus said sharply. 

“And that, my dear friend, is why we are going to cuddle you,” Sirius said with an air of finality. 

“I… I don’t know about–” 

“We have to try, Rem!” You said lifting yourself and turning to him, a little more serious now.  You sighed. “I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself because of me. And if what I need to do to fix it is cuddle the shit out of you and Padfoot then, I’ll take one for the team.” 

Sirius barked a laugh after that and shoved you lightly on the side “Oh shut up, Vixen loves cuddles!” 

“Not from dirty smelly dogs,” you teased. 

Sirius straight up gasped at that, looking rather amused. “Oh, you little minx!” He said as he turned into Padfoot again and jumped over you, licking your face mercilessly. He kept barking in between licks. And both you and Remus knew exactly what he was saying even if neither of you spoke dog. 

“Take that back, Take that back!” Padfoot said with each bark. 

After laughing so much your stomach started to hurt, you complied. “All right, alright! You’re not a dirty smelly dog, Pads!” 

The dog barked satisfied, cooing his head in a smug manner that would have allowed anybody to figure out that he was Sirius and not a normal dog. You had reached up and started rubbing the back of his ears, gently scratching. Remus, without thinking much about it, joined you, your fingers brushing against each other as you both petted Padfoot. 

“That’s right, he’s a good boy, isn’t he?” Remus teased. Sirius was about to protest, but the boy scratched the dog in a way he knew would shut him up; and rather than complain, he started wagging his tail behind him as he leaned onto Remus’ touch. 

“By Merlin! You have to teach me that!” You said with a surprised expression as you watched the way Padfoot leaned onto Remus, who had somewhat of a smug smile on his face. “You think it would shut Sirius up too?” The dog barked your way and was about to jump over you again when Remus scratched the same way again and he instantly melted back onto the other boy. You giggled at that. “You’re brilliant, Rem!”

Remus almost beamed at that, while the stress of the day wasn’t getting relieved the salacious way he thought it would, cuddling his two crushes, even if they would be in their animal form, might as well be a lot better. As long as he didn’t think much of it. Besides it had been your idea –technically Peter’s– which meant you actually wanted to cuddle him. 

And while earlier, at least at the Halloween Party he had shone away from your touch, after he felt the way Sirius’ hands and yours brushed over his body, it felt a lot less intimate to cuddle Padfoot and Vixen, even if it was just as nice, and even if you still hadn’t turned to Vixen. You were too entertained petting Padfoot and the dog seemed rather content, even as his girlfriend was cosied up against his best friend. Head on his shoulder and shoulder –the not wounded one– against his torso. 

He knew Sirius to be jealous, he had been jealous of Tom several times, but he seemed to be feeling nothing of the sorts as you cuddled up against Rem. And boy were you a lot closer to him than you’d ever been to Tom, which he was really trying not to think much about. 

Remus stared at the both of you, the dog and the girl, all comfortable, and all over him as he wondered if Sirius just didn’t consider him a rival at all. He had never seemed jealous of how close you and he were. How many projects and classes you had together, how much time you spent with each other. Remus, like he often did, started to overthink it. Was he that bad-looking that Sirius wouldn’t even consider the possibility of him stealing his girl? Was it that impossible to believe you could like him back? 

No, you had called him pretty several times, you had mentioned he was hot too, Sirius had mentioned the same thing. If he didn’t know any better he’d think it had been flirting. But neither of you would flirt, you were too bIoody in love with each other to ever even consider another person. But Sirius was definitely a jealous man. Jealous except when… it comes to me. 

You looked up at Rem when you realised he had stopped petting Pads, you only noticed because the dog kept bumping his head on the way to his hand as if asking to continue what he’d been doing, when you saw the frown on his pretty face, his brows knitting together as he was in deep thought, you spoke “What’s got your knickers in a twist? Is cuddling us that uncomfortable?” 

“What?!” Remus asked as you brought him back, trying not to look at your lips as you laid so close to him, “No, no! I was thinking of– hold up! Aren’t I supposed to be cuddling Padfoot and Vixen?”

“You are,” you said with a shrug.

“I’m cuddling Padfoot and my little witch,” he said amused. 

Not one person in the room questioned the way Remus had said “my” prior to Little Witch. In fact, not the dog, not the girl, not even the small portrait in the back –that was known to be rather outspoken– even questioned the wording of the sentence, as if you all knew, on a subconscious level, that it was true. 

You gasped, not realising you had completely forgotten to turn back, too entertained on petting the dog to think about it “You’re bIoody right!” you said as you leaned forwards brusquely,  Remus really tried not to feel bad about the cold breeze that instantly hit him after your bodies separated from each other. “Must have been really tired, I was about to fall asleep.” 

And you really had been, not that you knew why you were so sleepy. It seemed the cosiness both boys brought over soothed you to sleep. 

Padfoot barked your way, you didn’t have to be a dog expert to know he was making fun of you. He poked his head on Remus’ hand again, as if to prompt him to continue his ministrations, and you looked at him, a spark of jealousy lighting inside you, not because you didn’t like Remus petting your boyfriend, but because you wanted in on the petting too. In an instant, you turned to Vixen, shrinking to the middle of the bed and walking your way toward Remus’ chest, and pushing Padfoot’s head just slightly to the side, as if you owned the place. 

The dog nibbled your ear in protest but ended up letting you do whatever the hell you wanted, placing his head on top of your back once you looked like you had gotten yourself comfortable. He made sure to brush his snout all over your smaller body. Partly because he wanted to make sure he was rubbing you with the scent of the pack, but mostly because he wanted to see if he’d get a reaction out of you. You only leaned closer to Remus, closing your eyes as you got yourself even more comfortable. The boy, the only human left in the room, smiled and placed a hand over your small head. 

Padfoot looked like he was about to protest over the loss of contact, Remus without even opening his eyes mumbled “It’s Vixen the one that needs the smell of the pack, not you Pads.” 

The dog huffed in response, he too wanted to be pet by Remus, but he also knew Remus was right, so he just nuzzled his head closer to Vixen’s body as you nuzzled your own against Remus’ hand. Remus was enjoying the way the two of you warmed him more than almost anything he’d ever enjoyed in his life. Perhaps only rivalled with that one kiss he had given you and the one he had shared with Sirius years past. 

And while the nagging little voice in his head screamed at him to run, to leave before he knew what heartbreak really was after being able to be so close and yet not being able to have either of you, he decided to ignore it. 

Remus would wallow in the feeling of the two of you nuzzling against him, even if it was just this once. 

Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

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[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

if tom got the DADA job what would he have been like as a teacher? would dumbledore have tried to watch him/get him fired?

Tom's Not Getting the Job

Well, you answered it, anon, Tom was never getting that job.

That's the whole thing.

The first time he tries, he's only eighteen and very unqualified for the position. Dippet said no and... Dumbledore strongly implies that he put in a very strong word against Tom being hired. I'm not sure Tom would have been hired anyway, he was only eighteen and had no credentials and we're told canonically that Hogwarts teaching is a very prestigious position and they do not typically hire you straight out of school, but regardless Dumbledore did actively put in word against him which meant it probably wouldn't have happened.

Then some years later after Tom's gone abroad, Tom comes back for the interview with Dumbledore and the interview is just Dumbledore laughing at him and telling him he's an idiot for thinking he'd ever get this job and Dumbledore would never ever hire him.

So long as Dumbledore's around, Tom's not getting the job. Tom also either didn't have the connections with the Board of Governors or the Ministry/was too proud to use them to get himself that job (I'm inclined to believe the latter but technically we don't know for certain).

Tom was never getting that job.

Dumbledore wouldn't sit around waiting for him to get fired, because he already did it, he fired Tom by never hiring him. It's done. It ain't happening and the only way it would happen is if someone went completely over Dumbledore's head and there was nothing he could do about it.

Tom the Teacher

Well, he'd be in the staff meetings from hell (does Hogwarts even have staff meetings?) where every time they meet it's Dumbledore saying something weird about him regardless of whether or not he's up to shit.

I imagine Dumbledore would do everything in his power to give Tom as little authority as possible and make sure rumor's good and spread around the students that Tom sucks.

Given Tom probably isn't telling the world he's a half-blood here or the Heir of Slytherin, as he didn't seem to canonically until he came out as Voldemort/that's not a great thing to do when the Chamber of Secrets is right there and he was at the school at the time when that happened, that means the Purebloods don't like him but you also have Dumbledore's camp not liking Tom on top of that because Dumbledore doesn't like Tom.

(Now, if Tom's not becoming Voldemort, Dumbledore might not have quite the same following he does by the time we reach canon, as most of those people were involved in the conflict with Voldemort/that's what's most present in cultural memory in Harry Potter, but I imagine he's still very influential for the same reason he was such a lightning rod for the resistance movement in HP against Voldemort.)

Honestly? I see Tom being a relatively ordinary Hogwarts professor, he's probably a lot better than all of the DADA professors Harry had, maybe even most of his professors period, but he still has to deal with kids who don't want to learn and a system of magic people don't understand. Magic in Harry Potter is just memorizing spells, not how they work, and so the better wizards and witches are just those who memorize more spells faster. Tom can't make the kids who do this well do it any better than any other professor and he can't make the kids who don't do it well suddenly do it better.

It's also very out of scope to discuss how magic even works and start doing something interesting with it when it's something the wizarding world just doesn't discuss or deal with at all and will just confuse most of the students (even up to seventeen) that he'd be dealing with.

I imagine Tom hates putting up with Dumbledore and is just waiting for the man to retire or die.

[talenlee]

3e: Eberron is A World Of Locks

Hey, do you know the world of Eberron?

Eberron is, in my opinion, probably the best setting Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 ever had. This is partly because of what it presents as available, with its world-native Changelings and Warforged. Another part of it is that it was (at the time) a fresh world which wasn’t already filled edge to edge with Important NPCs you needed to recognise and respect and route around, which like it or not, is one of the predominant things about the Forgotten Realms that stands out in my memory. There’s a wealth of ways players can anchor themselves in that world, with its recent civil war, its dragonmarked houses, and its various discarded, collapsed empires. There’s a lot of stuff to interact with, a lot of means to have a place in that world.

In addition to all that though is an interesting addition to the world that may be a bit less obvious because of how it changed a 3.5 D&D skill in the context of the whole world, and made room for characters who were in a way, trickier.

That is, Disable Device.

If you’re not overly familiar with the way the skill system of 3e D&D, it was a point-based system where your class informed how many skill points you got each level, plus more for your intelligence and plus more for weird extra reasons. These skills then added to your ability scores as appropriate; to jump required Strength, to Hide required Dexterity, all that sort of thing. Sometimes you got advantages based on traits about your culture, like your size or your gross physical qualities, sometimes you had cultural background advantages. It’s like how Elves got a bonus to Listen, Search, and Spot, while Dwarves got a skill bonus to who cares, they’re dwarves.

The skill system was elaborate in a way that didn’t usually wind up producing necessary results. This is a structure that often gets referred to as fiddly. It was worth having 5 skill ranks in a skill you didn’t plan on using because of how it improved another skill, but also that didn’t necessarily matter most of the time, meaning there was a sort of budgetary exchange that once you got it, kind of just dangled there. It also had the weird effect where skills spread out across a bunch of things – being good at jumping, riding, and climbing were all different skills even though fundamentally, those were kinda the same thing and reasonably, being better at any of them would make you a bit better at all of them.

There were some skills that were fantastically specific, like decipher script (that could be used to uh, decipher scripts), or very broad like use magic device (which could fake all sorts of nonsense and work as a skill check for making almost any kind of spell available to the people with the skill). And in this space there was a skill that served to show how skills could be setting specific.

In conventional D&D, high fantasy worlds like Greyhawk, machinery was okay-but-not-worth-it. Disable Device largely lived as a sort of ‘pick locks’ skill, which was usually useful for disabling traps in a dungeon delving environment, or opening doors you didn’t have access to. These two applications steadily became less and less important as magical ways to open locks and close them show up starting as the players level up into the higher level material of level 3. At around that point, the capacity of Disable Device to meaningfully address a need of the party becomes somewhat token, as you can use Knock to bust magical and nonmagical doors and locks, and traps start becoming magical and therefore, best addressed with spells and spellcraft.

It’s a shame too because in terms of an actual skill, like ‘a thing people can do’ Disable Device is pretty cool. It indicates a skill and thoughtfulness that seems like it should be applicable to more things. Toolkits were sometimes connected to the skill, armour repair sometimes but the actual craft of being good with devices was orphaned for its impact in the world and its application to adventurers with a degree of experience.

Welcome to Eberron then, where everything is high magic, sure, but the magic is used to catapult past the industrial revolution. This is a look you may know as Magepunk (which I think is reasonable to use as a term for describing my own setting, Cobrin’Seil). In Eberron, there are trains. There are machines. There are devices that people use in their everyday life, and with that comes a more widespread vision of the applications of disable device.

Now, this isn’t to say that I’ve grabbed the entirety of the Eberron compendium and dug through it for every single time Disable Device is used for every kind of system or interface. But rather that I know, as a GM, in that world, when people are surrounded by trains and chains and industrialised components, and the creation at the scale that suddenly, you didn’t need to consider things like unique, individualised magical creations to keep things safe or secure or operate things.

This has an effect of turning most forms of leaders and threats, people who have spaces that players want to approach and interact with, suddenly don’t have to answer a kind of outsourcing question. If magic is what makes a place dangerous, the people who command dangerous places are going to trend towards being magical. Wizards are the ones who have menageries and laboratories and fancy alchemy stations and whatnot, and those are the things that sites tended to need.

Except if suddenly, locks and tools and machinery exist that mean that you can have a site-based challenge that cares about material components without necessarily everything being a bespoke magical construction, and that means that suddenly the boss that runs this place isn’t the wizard who makes it work, but instead the person who has the power, the means, and the access to construct that sort of space.

Disable Device becomes more useful as a game tool, but also, the world is a place that allows more people to have access to the status of being a kind of ‘boss monster’ character at the end of a character’s narrative. And that’s all through the transformation of the world-centering power of characters.

High fantasy, unconsciously or not, directs all the attention towards the wizard.

Which is a pretty sad trick.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[therealvinelle]

Have you and Muffin watched/read Death Note?

I think one of Light's main flaws is that he is too narrow minded and his way of solving the problem he sees in society is very superficial. In my opinion, he goes after the byproducts of a deeply flawed system instead of attacking the issue at its roots. Also, he is not very creative. I mean, in a world where a magic notebook that allows you to kill people only with their name and face and death gods are real, why not go for that angle? Why go for the angle of something beyond human comprehension, something biblical, supernatural? I think a bit of theatrics would have worked in his favor much better. Maybe studying religión theory, mythology, see where those failed and learn from that. I dunno, maybe I'm just biased because I am a philosophy major/lit minor student.

We have watched it. The Death Note tag on both our blogs are full of thoughts.

As for Light's angle, he was a cynical seventeen-year-old who decided to test the Death Note on a criminal who'd taken hostages on live television. He thought "... WELL I MEAN IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN COINCIDENCE" and tested it again on another criminal, and after realizing he'd killed two people decided he had no reason to feel guilty, he'd done everyone a favor! He'd made society better! And to further justify his actions, he shouldn't stop! If you kill two criminals, you've killed two criminals, if you kill a thousand you have culled society. From there, it becomes easy to justify killing a few innocents like Naomi Misora because your mission is so grand.

I'm always a big fan of characters who make decisions that make perfect sense to them, even if the viewer may decide "But you could have done X!" because we're sitting comfortably in our chairs and have no true stakes in what's happening.

In other words, I don't expect a privileged seventeen-year-old who first did a very stupid thing and who then decided to fix society in the way most obvious to him, to be aware of or believe in modern left wing social theory.

He did go for something beyond human comprehension, though, in that he created Kira, who was very much worshipped. The creators of the manga/anime were simply not very interested in that part, which is why Death Note is primarily a detective/crime manga, not one explorative of religion or philosophy (I agree with you that I'd rather have had that).

[panlight]

I just read your post about how easily Bella was able to adjust to vampirism, and do you think it was has something to do with she had already tasted human blood before she turned?

like if we go for the eternal damnation angle, where after you're turned you're supposed to drain the life of the kind you belonged to but that doesn't happen to Bella nor does she suffer through it as she had already tasted Blood and thus had already damned herself therefore making her immune???

I mean I know Smeyer didn't go for that angle but this adds an added layer of depth and darkness to the whole "Eww Bella drank Human Blood and LIKED IT" and " Wow, Bella has adjusted so well to being a vampire" like i feel like it ties the whole thing up in a neat lil bow

I could get behind this! She's already tasted human blood, "screwed her total," as she said, before she even becomes a vampire, and so she's primed for it, she's already doomed. There's no angst because the vampire essence had already taken root. I could also accept that the James bite did something to her, or even the pregnancy had changed her in a way that made the adjustment to vampirism less of a shock to the system.

I still wouldn't love that it was such an easy, non-event though. I don't, personally, feel like becoming a supernatural creature with an insatiable blood thirst is something you can really "mentally prepare" for. Like sure, making the choice beforehand and being informed might take the edge off; it could remove a few of the layers of chaos and fear, and that could help. She's not waking up in a strange world surrounded by strange people like the others were. But it should still be hard. You're still dealing with all-new senses, all-new instincts, all-new painful bloodthirst. "I just thought about it and made up my mind not to eat people!" is such a boring explanation.

And also, for me, the whole thing I found compelling was this sort of impossibly difficult and painful self-denial the Cullens had going on. It's only interesting if it's difficult. Newborn!Carlisle banishing himself to the woods and trying to starve himself for months and then spending centuries perfecting his self-control enough to be a doctor is just WAY more interesting to me than Bella hanging out with her human dad on day 2 of vampirism. Alice wandering alone and trying to make sense of her visions and having only "sporadic success" at not eating people is a hundred times more interesting to me than newborn!Bella dressing up all sexy and going to meet a lawyer. The mental image of Carlisle, Edward, Esme and Rosalie ALL having to tackle newborn!Emmett to try and keep him from eating someone because he's so outrageously strong is way more compelling (and scary! and sad!) than Bella just getting "distracted" by Edward and not eating the hikers. Jasper still struggling with the bad habits he picked up in the vampire wars; Rosalie killing her attackers without spilling a drop of blood because she knew she wouldn't be able to resist that; lovely gentle Esme slipping up and killing people and having to come home to Dr. Perfect Record with red eyes. Edward going on his rebellion because he didn't want to be in pain any more. THAT's the stuff I find compelling, that's the stuff that sucked me into this series.

But totally! At least explain her success with some actual lore. She's already tasted blood, she's already been bitten, she's been somehow changed by the nightmare pregnancy. All of that is better than "mentally prepared." Or at the very very very least really make it clear her success was about her circumstances. It was easier for her because she was informed and supported, not because she's innately magic or unusually self-controlled.

[tossawary]

" "Shizun has slept for many days and only just woke up," said Luo Binghe. "I was wondering, do you perhaps have an appetite?"

In truth, strictly speaking, Shen Qingqiu had long held himself in a state of inedia. Even if he didn't eat, he would be fine. But he was unable to resist his nature, which craved good food. As soon as he heard there were things to eat, his eyes shone with desire."

Volume 1, Chapter 3, page 137.

"What kind of cultivation world had people using horses and carriages all day? What kind of cultivation world had people who, after achieving inedia, still needed to eat and sleep? What kind of cultivation world had an author who occasionally mixed up even the stages of Foundation Establishment and Nascent Soul?"

Volume 1, Chapter 1, page 13.

Shen Yuan, you... kind of answered your own question! People still eat because they like to eat! Food is good! Later on, both Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan will bring up just how many power-up plants exist, so it seems very reasonable that food offers additional energy, replenishes energy, and has the potential to improve cultivation.

Powering a body without food or sleep seems like it could be a serious drain on your system, a burden (a status effect!) that you generally wouldn't want to take on if you didn't have to, especially for inexperienced and weaker cultivators, although some cultivators may just have a personal preference for inedia. I just personally don't like the idea of a magical system where starving yourself is actually good for you, instead of just a thing you can do that takes effort. I know, I know, it's a trope here. Shen Yuan is talking right here about how inedia is a very, very common element of the genre. It's a whole thing. It's got roots. I just personally prefer "everything has a cost and you need to trade accordingly" and "food is good for you" fantasy systems of power.

I mean, maybe there are some situations where the special properties of this world's food potentially introduce imbalances to your cultivation system, and there are situations where you do actually need an empty stomach to efficiently address a cultivation issue, like when cultivating in the Ling Xi Caves where time passes strangely and which are (I think) rich in ambient spiritual energy. That might be interesting to explore. Maybe there are some spells and techniques that require absurdly fine control. But generally speaking, I am a little squicked by the concept that not eating could be actively good (they're athletes and scholars!), so I tend not to represent this world that way, especially because SVSSS does have Shen Yuan enjoying eating as above and cooking as an act of love.

I have lost my train of thought and I'm kind of hungry now...

[laurentidal]

Ice Core Report ❄️ August 2024

Decided to do a little editorial check in at the end of each month. Most of you probably don't know that, while Lauren is my real first name, that my blog is actually named for a massive ice sheet that once lay over the place where I live (the Laurentide Ice Sheet). Thus, this is a report from my ice core.

#1 Story: Suggestion Box

This one was a huge surprise for me. It took off immediately, and I had not seen that coming. I'd had this image saved in my "had potential" folder for probably three weeks before I decided on how to tell the story. It went through an iteration where this was an ice skating rink, then it was a sandwich shop. I think one draft had a "five dollar footlong" joke in it. But ultimately I liked "arcade" the best.

#2 Story: Enjoy Your Stay

This was based on fun joking conversation I had with @hypno-potion and as the scaffolding we were joking about kept getting more elaborate I was like "No there is definitely something here." I'm glad you all agreed.

#3 Story: Kitty Pet Saga

I saw this picture and immediately knew what the story was going to be. Sometimes I see an image and think "There's something here if I look hard enough" and sometimes I see an image and a fully formed idea just jumps right out of it.

#4 Story: Oh My

This is a story I actually wrote quite some time ago for an old defunct website that never really got any foot traffic. I'm glad I brought it over, because it's one of my personal favorites. The only fauxcest story in the top five this month. That's one of those kinks I think I'm just going to have to accept that you guys aren't as into as I am (and I have the data to validate that claim).

#5 Story: Daughters and Suns

The only true repost from my old blog and the only part of a series in the top five this month. This series is my favorite thing I'm writing right now (though this entry isn't my favorite in the series). There's a lot more coming so I hope you're enjoying as much as I am.

Sunda Systems

We're half way through Season 1 of my Sunda Systems investigative mind control conspiracy story. Our investigator has made several contacts and visited the campus first-hand. She also might be starting to feel some effects from her various encounters, and her keen eye for detail is missing a few clues that are staring her right in the face. But I'm sure the date she's got lined up will give her some much needed relaxation.

Please please please share this story and feel free to get interactive with it! I've put some real effort into it and I've never written such a slow burn before. I'm enjoying the ride, and I've got some GOOD (I think) twists and turns coming. I think this format could be fun to play around with as an audience. Post your theories! I love seeing that folks are engaging with more than just the like button.

Update of Magics & Mesmerism

Some of you are aware that I'm working on an erotic mind control TTRPG called Magics & Mesmerism. I'm still plugging away. As we speak, I'm writing skills for the Innovator character class. As a treat, I'd like to share with you an except from the page on Hypnotic Foci:

General Thoughts

Every story in the top five this month is a FEMALE SUB story. Noted. I tend to favor that in my writing, too, which is interesting because I think Female Over Male stories are hotter, probably because of the subversion of expectations. I'm a slut for subversion of expectations.

I think that's everything. Love you all and I'm very excited for you to see what's coming in September. One of my favorites that I wrote comes out tomorrow, and on the 13th you'll be introduced to your first Force of Nature.

Till then, keep reading, keep messaging, keep asking, and if you're feeling generous, keep donating.

[ponett]

Was rereading your FFXVI article the other day and I got curious to know why you don’t like Bravely Default and Octopath. I agree that Octopath is a tedious dumpster fire, but I quite liked the Bravely series apart from That One Bit of Default (and also the entirety of BD2, which plays a lot more like Octopath and is therefore dogshit). I’d be interested to hear your thoughts in more detail, if you’re willing to share?

I will definitely say that I liked what I played of Bravely Default 1 (the only one of the Bravely games I've touched) better than Octopath 1. It's not the worst. I can see how people who are more patient with it can get a lot out of it. I think most of my problems with it mainly come down to pacing. The story takes a long time to go anywhere, and the writing along the way didn't grab me. (Ringabel's constant womanizing certainly didn't help.) You unlock additional jobs slowly. It felt like I had to stop and grind a lot, either to level my jobs or just to have enough gold to buy shit. Compared to the whirlwind pace of the classic FFs it was riffing on, it felt like I was making very little progress during the time I played

But the thing that really bothered me is that, even in the early game, bosses are massive damage sponges with tons of HP that take forever to fight. My casters would run out of MP halfway through the fight, and because of how rare and expensive ethers were I'd have no way to restore their MP, so I'd just limp along to the end of the fight without magic. It was miserable. Most old school JRPGs are also pretty strict about MP recovery items, sure, but in those games boss fights tend to be MUCH shorter until later in the game, and they're generally designed so that going in with a full HP/MP party already puts you at an advantage. Those games also have items like tents so that you can restore your party at save points, whereas Bravely seemingly just expects you to turn off encounters and walk all the way back to the nearest inn. These are VERY strange design decisions in a game that's trying so hard to be accessible and low-friction, to the point that you can just turn off random encounters whenever you want. This balancing feels like the worst of both worlds when it comes to classic and modern JRPG design

I can pinpoint the exact moment in the story that was my last straw, though, about six hours into the game. I took a photo of it. It was this:

In a better story, I could roll my eyes at this line and move on. But I was already having a generally unpleasant time, and the story felt like it had barely gone anywhere in six whole hours. (By that point in FF6 you could be nearing the opera!! In Chrono Trigger you'd probably be in Magus' friggin' castle!!!!!) So I decided it was time to cut my losses

I took this as an opportunity to just go and play FF5, rather than a modern game that's imitating it. I still need to actually beat FF5 someday (I am terrible about finishing long games because ADHD etc. etc.), but god, I loved what I played of it, and it really just highlighted how much better it is than Bravely Default. WAY better story pacing, way better bosses, you unlock the jobs way quicker, the party is way more likeable. It was still a game where I found myself grinding, but in FF5 it felt like I was actively making the choice to invest time in my character builds because I was having fun with those systems, rather than feeling forced to grind for gold or whatever

TL;DR the moral of this story is that everyone should play FF5

[whattadroid]

I rewatched alien: romulus with subtitles this time so if you (like me) were looking for spelling/names OR might be able to answer some small lore questions, I'll list them all under the cut :)

(I apologize in advance for the shitty formatting. I typed this all out like an animal and I truly do not know how to edit tumblr formatting lmao)

Characters:

Marie Raine Carradine (Rain), Andy (model number ND-225, also: could that be a positronic man reference? Positronic Man's Andrew was NDR-113 but the ND -> Andrew thing felt too similar to ignore), Tyler, Kay (Tyler's sister), Bjorn (Tyler and Kay's cousin, also the father of Kay's unborn baby), Navarro, and Rook (same model as Ash from Alien, Rook is his surname and he has an unknown first name I believe)

Places:

Jackson (a WY mining colony), Yvaga III (a non Weyland-Yutani solar system which apparently means that androids are not allowed there which is INCREDIBLY interesting to me), Corbelan IV (the name of the ship the group works out of. I think it's supposed to be a hauling vessel? Short flight probably because it doesn't have any long flight capabilities like cryosleep chambers), Renaissance Space Station (the name of the station where shit goes down, separated into two halves called Romulus and Remus)

Some interesting tidbits:

- Rain's dad FOUND Andy "in the trash" according to Bjorn. Also, Rain's dad (presumably) repaired him, wrote directives for him, and knew enough about synthetic programming to know how to alter their personality. Or maybe he just straight up told Andy "hey memorize this book of dad jokes" and Andy was functional but just as glitchy when they found him.

- Jackson is fucked, btw. With all of those facehuggers that fell into the colony the odds are that at least one of them survived and, as Andy himself said, they are "busy little creatures". I wonder if there will be future mentions to a destroyed Jackson colony?

- The scene with Kay sort of quietly sneaking through the hallway with the orange lighting looked SO MUCH like the alien from alien: isolation, with the flared fingers and all. Am I the only one that made that connection?? Was it a connection at all lmao??? It's all I can think abt each time I see that gif.

- Tyler's actor was fucking incredible. I missed a lot of the hard hitting scenes the first time but goddamn. The tear while Kay is screaming and they are trying to be quiet? Begging andy ON HIS KNEES to open the door to save Kay? The way he's like numbly denying what he just saw saying "okay, okay. I'll just go and get her" after Kay gets taken. very good shit

- Rook says "I discovered the genome" as in HE specifically discovered it. I just thought that was interesting that he attributed it to himself. I wonder if he was in charge and had human assistants (interesting implications there to the importance of synthetics to WY's scientific structure) or if HE was the "assistant" (bc he's a synth) and yet was the one who discovered it and, probably regardless of what the human scientists believe, takes the merit of the discovery.

- It seems like WY synthetics are STRONGER than xenomorphs. Andy pried open a closing station door and held up the elevator in two scenes, both of which had moments where a xenomorph tried to do the same thing and failed or was not able to do it as effortlessly as he had. Maybe I'm reading into the movie magic too much but I was VERY interested in that.

Questions!!! (most of these probably do not have answers yet, which is okay, but some of you have encyclopedic knowledge of alien lore lol so I just wanted to try)

1. Is Rain under 18?? I didn't catch the info on the screen when Rain was talking to the WY rep about her quota but I can't understand why they would ask that if she was over 18. Why would it matter? Was it maybe just because she had family listed on her account or something?

2. WHY are there "quotas" and contracts? What are THEY (the workers) getting out of it? Are they prisoners? Are they colonists that didn't realize what the fuck they were signing on to do? Was Rain born on the colony? They said that it was Rain and Andy's first time in space, so probably, right?

3. Does a xenomorph grow in the chambers of the heart? I sort of figured because it went down the throat that it grew in the stomach, but it seemed like (thru the gore at least) the xenomorph was incubating and burst from the chambers of the heart. I may have misidentified the organs though lol, or maybe Navarro's heart just straight up was In The Way.

4. Do WY androids have the same heat signature as a human? If so, why? It is way too much a coincidence to build an android with a 98.6 ambient temperature. If they do NOT have the same heat signature, why didn't the facehuggers react to andy? They reacted to the flare despite it being non-organic, so I thought they would've reacted to him in some way at least, or had some sort of scene with them crawling all over andy like spiders trying to see if he was organic and then treating him like furniture when they realized he wasn't (missed opportunity cause that would've been a really freaky shot lol)

5. Why did Kay touch her breast after she had "given birth"? Was she lactating the genome? I tried to pay very close attention bc I missed it the first time too but I don't know what they were trying to insinuate there. It seemed too sticky to be the genome.

[aurorawest]

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi - 5/5 stars

This book managed to rip my heart out at least 3 times. I loved it. Medieval enemies-to-lovers slow burn; very romantic. Kinda read like fanfiction at times but in a good way. 10/10 would read a follow-up love story about Arundel and Captain Wekena. If you like Captive Prince, give this one a try.

Reforged by Seth Haddon - 4/5 stars

Pretty good bodyguard romantasy. Ironically CS Pacat blurbed this one (another am-I-in-the-matrix moment). The world was interesting and I enjoyed the politics, though they're definitely not as complicated as other SFF politics I've gone feral over (see: Captive Prince, Winter's Orbit, A Memory Called Empire). I ordered the sequel after I finished this.

The Doctor's Date by Heidi Cullinan - 4/5 stars

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske - 5/5 stars

Where do I start? I love, love, LOVE A Marvellous Light. It's one of my favorite books ever. None of the rest of the books in the trilogy could live up to it, really, because it's so good. You'll notice I rated this one 5 stars though, because quite honestly I fell prey to a bit of The Academy Paying The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Its Due syndrome. I did love this book and thought it was better than A Restless Truth (which I still loved!) but part of that is, quite frankly, just due to the fact that I prefer m/m romance to f/f romance.

Anyway. This was such a good finale to the trilogy. I loved that the romance was a giant middle finger to purity cultists. I loved that one of the mains was Italian. I loved finally getting the story of what happened to the Alston twins. One thing I thought was really cool was how, viewed from the outside, you totally get why Edwin is such a loner. I really admire from a writing perspective how Marske pulled that off.

I feel like there's a lot to be said about what Marske was trying to SAY with this book, but I definitely need to reread it first before I can articulate any of it. The purity culture stuff is obvious, but the magic system too. I feel like Jack when he's almost able to connect everything in his mind into a bigger idea, but he can't quite get there.

I've got a special edition from Illumicrate coming, so I'll be rereading it when I have that.

Oh also, this book was the embodiment of all that one tumblr post -

The Guncle by Steven Rowley - 5/5 stars

I saw this in bookstores for years before I finally gave in and bought it. The blurb makes it sound insufferable and twee. Ignore the blurb. This was such a good book about grief and learning how to live again after terrible loss.

I Like Me Better by Robby Weber - 4/5 stars

At last I can stop getting the Lauv song stuck in my head whenever I set eyes on this book (it's stuck in my head as I type this). Pretty standard-issue YA, but it was cute and had a good message.

The Stagsblood King by Gideon E Wood - 4/5 stars

Another book about moving on from grief! This is the second book in a trilogy. When I was trying to determine if I wanted to read on beyond book 1, I scoured the internet for information about what happens in books 2 and 3. Eventually I decided, hell, I enjoyed book 1 well enough, even if what I want to happen in the rest of the trilogy doesn't happen, they're worth reading. SO, to that end, I will tell anyone looking for info that Tel gets romantically involved with a new man in this one, which, eh. I still want him to somehow end up with Vared. It was still quite good though.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune - DNF at pg 82

So funnily, we were at the bookstore the day I was about to start reading this, and my wife pointed out Ravensong (also by Klune) to me and said, "Do you have this one?" I made a face and said, "That's an older one of his books and I'm wary of his early work after that horrible Verania series. I don't think I've ever read an author as hit or miss as TJ Klune."

I wrote the above when I was 60 pages in and now I have officially DNFed this. Listen. You know how in Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi was clearly given free rein to do whatever he wanted, so all of his worst impulses made it to the final cut unchecked? Yeah. That's what this book is like.

Here's my Storygraph review: I see Klune is officially Too Big To Edit now. This book has exactly the same problem that his awful Verania series had—a joke that's funny at first but quickly grows tiresome when it's repeated five times per page. The emphasis on Victor's asexuality was also weird and read like Klune was just super proud of himself for writing an ace character.

Lion's Legacy by LC Rosen - 4.25/5 stars

Queer, YA Indiana Jones, but less #problematic. This book had some eerie similarities to my own archaeology adventure novel(s), which made me wonder half-seriously if I somehow know Lev Rosen? Anyway, I feared this would be very heavy-handed and not nuanced on archaeology's ethical dilemmas, since it's YA and also the current culture is to view said dilemmas as completely black and white with no nuance, but I was pleasantly surprised. It manages to examine that, queerness, and daddy issues, plus has time to be a genuinely fun and exciting adventure story. Highly recommend.

Too White to be Coloured, Too Coloured to be Black by Ismail Lagardien - 4/5 stars

I picked up this memoir in a bookstore at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg as research for Six Places to Fall in Love, since Percy is coloured. A pretty brutal read, but good, and definitely good research. The author was a photographer and journalist through the most violent years of apartheid.

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson - 5/5 stars

Two nonfiction books in a row?? This is the second book by Erik Larson I've read, the first being the excellent The Devil in the White City. I'm not, in general, all that interested in WWII when it comes to military history, but this book is about the day to day lives of Churchill and the people surrounding him (with brief stops to visit FDR and high-ranking Nazis sprinkled throughout). This is a very, very good book, and I recommend reading it if only as a reminder of the resilience and bravery of ordinary people under terrifying circumstances.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - 5/5 stars

Holy shit. Holy shit is this book good. Imagine the love child of Lost, Person of Interest, and Battlestar Galactica, but queer and with multiverse shenanigans thrown in.

I need everyone to read this book. Now. Yesterday. Get to it.

[ethankyou]

A while back I had a chance to play Cyberpunk Red, which is the 4th edition of Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.

Red is also the successor to Cyberpunk 2020 which was the inspiration for the notorious Cyberpunk 2077 - haven't played, don't intend to, not the subject of my discussion here!

So how did it go?

Cyberpunk Red is a lot of crunch though plays really easy once you get past the initial learning curve of the rules.

But there are a lot of rules.

I find my go to when learning a new game is to find a video of someone trying to give a briefer on the game system and then go to the book to cement those ideas myself.

I found this video pretty helpful when researching character creation. XPLoveCat does a whole series guiding through the creation process. If you like to listen to someone explain things (it's a big help for me) this might be a great place for you to start too!

Once you pick your lifepath, if you're going with the beginner one (i don't remember what it's called it's been nearly a year sorry!) the creation process is pretty smooth, it's just following some steps. There's a medium and veteran version of the life paths that add more complexity to your character creation process and I feel like since our group was a bunch of RPG vets we could have handled that, but it does speed things up to go with the quicker start for a one shot.

Meanwhile Red is like "You have 60 skills and one of them is fashion and one of them is looking good."

Whenever I'm starting a new game I also like to have a character sheet handy so I can piece everything together. And once you get Red's character sheet in front of you, it really begins to feel like a game from the 90's with a modern coat of paint.

The character sheet in question. 3 pages!

There's a lot of fun to be had in older systems! But newer systems have opted to streamline things like skills and stats and stuff nowadays. I remember being glad that 4th edition D&D cut skills by more than half by just folding a lot of similar ones together, something that would continue into 5th edition as well. There were some casualties along the way though (rip use magic device, and all the extra knowledge skills!) and typically the stuff that got cut was stuff that would facilitate like... You know.... Playing a character? Not just murderhoboing your way across the country.

Pictured below, everything that is "Cool" in the year 2045 (taken from a custom character sheet)

Creating a character is an interesting process because it follows this lifepath system. So you choose one of several paths and the game streamlines the creation process by directing you which page to go to next in an almost "choose your own adventure" sort of layout. This is very helpful, but while it's easy to go forward, it's not so easy to go back. If you went to the wrong page or just didn't like what you read and want to try something else, you'll be searching for where you made that wrong turn. A lot of ttrpg books can be like this so this isn't exactly a new problem, but the way the book is laid out it really does need you to follow this path to new pages instead of discovering the information yourself by reading on. I guess just write down the page numbers of places you want to go back to before flipping forward.

Initially finding things on the sheet is tough because if you're told to make a "Tracking" check, you might not immediately assume that's an Int skill. Since the skills are grouped by attribute, you'll have to go through the process of figuring out what skill belongs to which group. I don't think this is a bad thing, because the alternative would be an alphabetical list of 60+ skills, which might make it harder to figure out their associated stat, or would just make the sheet more bloaty with repeated stats beside each and every skill. All games have an adjustment period to them and this is a pretty minor one. I remember this being a sticking point for our group after playing it originally but having some time to think on it I think there's a valid argument to be made either way. Someone in our group even mentioned this was one custom character sheet away from not being an issue and I agree. And apparently others do too because there's a lot of them out there! Many of which sort the skills differently and many also try to condense the 3 page sheet to 2. I know there's a lot of wasted real estate on the third page but it's pretty cool!

There are also apparently free quick start rules that come with premade characters and everything! Free is free and you can check that out on drive thru RPG! It's called easy mode but my understanding is this includes the core rules too. This would probably be the best choice for a one shot game to test the water but we just weren't aware of them at the time.

But a major part of creation is your role. This is the part I might be the most critical of. While they give you a lot of skills and everyone has access to the same skills, each role has basically one major ability that only they can do. The med tech can use medicines to help the groups, the netrunner can take more actions while in a netrun. That kind of thing. But that's pretty much it. Improving your role may allow you to use your role abilities better or more frequently, but there's not a lot in the way of new abilities.

And also the divisions between the roles feel pretty arbitrary. Like the med tech is the only one who can use a bunch of medicines. But why? Everyone has access to the first aid skill, which is something the med tech is also proficient in. What's stopping someone from taking one of their medicines and using it?

I think having well defined roles for each player is very important! And the roles do provide this, but I don't feel like they go far enough. We did only play one session though so perhaps this is something that would be more evident over time.

I played a Netrunner (a hacker) which ends up also having to play a little minigame separate from the rest of the action. I knew what I was getting into but wanted to try it out to see how the game handles it. In previous games that I've played a hacker, it bogged down the game by either having an entire session play out for the hacker while everyone else waits, or does nothing while everyone else is in the middle of the action because they have to stay with their big cool hacker rig. Red deals with this in a really great way - your rig is a headset that has wifi. And if you want to hack a secure system, you need to be hardwired into that system. This means the Netrunner has to be on site and still has an opportunity to join the action. Or may even be forced to do both at once.

As far as the actual hacking game goes, I really like the implementation of hacking a cyber infrastructure. You bring programs that all serve different functions, such as attacks or other actions and then you have to fight your way up the digitial infrastructure, with each level offering more rewards, but higher threats. The programs all have a fantasy aesthetic and the architecture functions kind of like a dungeon in Netspace. You can take multiple netspace actions, but you're still able to act in meatspace as well during this time. Sometimes you'll have to balance your actions in and out of netspace.

The biggest problem I had with the Netrunner goes back to my problem with roles. There's a Tech stat and several Tech skills so what kind of check do you make? Why, you add your role to your roll! The Netrunner uses their role, which starts at +4. Compared to their Tech skills which are floating around a +10 or so. Now the DVs for these checks are all lower to compensate for this but... Why do we gotta do it this way?

There could easily be a skill that could have covered this and the DVs could have been comparable to everything else in the game. You might think, well if other characters were allowed to hack, they could prove to be just as effective as the Netrunner so it has to be a balance issue right? Well the Netrunner role allows them to take 3 actions a round in Netspace which would make them much more efficient than someone without the role. But also having the role is what grants the interface feature, which is required to take NET actions at all! But even though the Netrunner is obviously the best choice for the task, what's stopping someone else with a rig from attempting the same thing and just being less efficient at it.

The way I guess this is addressed, is that you can take on other roles potentially? You have 4 in your starting role, so I believe you'd start with 1 in a new role. But with a +4 in my Netrunner role I found that I struggled a lot, so I can't even imagine floundering around with just a +1. You'd be at the whims of the dice.

Despite that though, I appreciate the game does allow this sort of multi-classing. Especially since many of the roles seem to be very gear based, so it feels silly to not allow any crossover.

In the end, the hacking did feel balanced, which is important. But it didn't feel awesome, which i guess is what it came down to for me. But I also failed a lot of those checks Netrunner checks, which brings me to my last major gripe.

Rolling a single d10 for checks is fine, but if you critically fail on a 1, which is 10% of the time, that is lame. I don't mind using a d10 for checks but without some kind of way to mitigate 1's it makes things brutal, not in a fun or challenging way. I feel like if I was going to play again, I would need the crit fails to just be gone altogether.

Overall, I did enjoy Cyberpunk Red! I think it's a bit hard to dig into for a oneshot, but we managed just fine. If you really wanted to get a feel for it though, I'd recommend you play a 3-5 session arc. This game is definitely worth your time!

I'm also curious about going back to previous iterations to see how it's changed over time.

So, fun fact time, Cyberpunk Red was published in 2020, 30 years after Cyberpunk 2020 was originally published which is goes hand in hand with every scifi media that has predicted a date in the "far future" that we have now reached (and passed!).

See you in 2045 for the 5th edition of Cyberpunk I suppose!

[y-rhywbeth2]

I have questions about the Weave, and I thought you might know.

Since not all magic comes from Mystra (warlocks, sorcerers who get their magic from say, the Shadow Weave and the Feywild), do the magic casters who get their abilities from other sources use the Weave or no, since it’s “hers”? For example. If I had a Wild Magic sorcerer, or a Shadow Magic Sorcerer, are they like. Always manipulating the Shadow Weave or whatever the Feywild has, or are they “borrowing” use of Mystra’s Weave when they’re on the material plane/toril/etc since she sort of rules the roost in these areas? And, if she wanted these sorcerers, or warlocks I suppose, to be not able to do magic, would she be able to stop them if their magic doesn’t come from her? I guess the same might go for clerics, since their powers come from their own gods, which isn’t always Mystra, so I don’t know if that’s Weave-based or not.

I’m sorry if this is difficult to parse, these were falling asleep questions that I wanted to ask before I forgot. Also I really appreciate your lore dumps and things they’re super helpful and interesting.

With the sole exception of Shadow Magic, all magic on Toril comes from/relies on the Weave/Mystra: magic + the Weave, and Mystra are one and the same. As I recall Gale saying, Mystra is magic.

Different classes simply access the Weave differently. The Weave is a sort of gateway/safety barrier maintained by Mystra to keep magic anchored and prevent raw magic breaking lose and uncontrolled (wild magic) or becoming unreachable (dead magic). Spellcasters basically build roads through the Weave in order to reach, channel and shape that raw magic.

Arcane magic is "the Art": For sorcerers magic is an innate part of them, and through trial and error (and sometimes education) they build their own personal routes of access. Wild magic sorcerers are still trying to cast spells as normal, there's just a very high chance of things going haywire. Wild magic utilises the areas where the Weave is damaged; it still uses it and the Weave must exist for Wild Magic to exist, if the Weave is completely absent then the raw magic is inaccessible and you get Dead Magic zones where magic isn't possible at all. An analogy that's given for warlocks is that their patron basically gives them a magic GPS so that they can find a path through the Weave using a road set up by the patron. Wizards and Bards build their roads through study (which is more academia and scientific method like for wizards, and usually more prose/verse/music theory-esque for Bards)

Divine magic, as used by clerics, druids, paladins, rangers and etc, is "Power": Mortal reaches out via prayer, god reaches back, and the path in the Weave is formed that way. While this power is the power of the deity itself, implanted with instructions on "how to use" into the worshipper's brain, it still gets into their brain via the Weave, and so gods and worshippers must go through Mystra as an intermediate/conduit.

Spellcasters from other worlds who come to Toril must use the Weave while they are there. Torilian spellcasters who go planewalking are subject to the magic systems/rules that govern wherever they're going.

Mystra can and will destroy your roads or ban your access to them - and would genuinely love to ban access to evil deities and people who want to use magic to harm others - but policing single mortal on Toril is a bit of a pain in the ass, and she's also limited by the terms of her employment contract as goddess of magic.

Mystra, as the manifestation of the Weave, decides who can draw upon it and who is barred from accessing it. Deciding is somewhat taxing to her, for every attempted use of the Weave by the target of this ability draws her attention and some small bit of her power, but for a mortal (or even a hun- dred mortals) doing so, this distraction is trivial to the deity. Such a punishment is normally reserved for someone who has been abusive of magic, trying to inflict great harm to magic itself (such as by intentionally creating areas of wild or dead magic), or researching spells of mass destruc- tion, such as many of those known in Imaskar, Narfell, Netheril, and Raumathar. Such a being cannot access the power of the Weave, cannot cast spells or use spell comple- tion or spell trigger items or activate spell-like or supernat- ural abilities. However, magic and its effects can still harm them, and such beings typically are slain by their rivals or angry commoners for their cruel and mad works. Mystra can also bar a deity from accessing the Weave, which would prevent the deity from using magic while in Faerûn but not while the deity was on another plane where the Weave does not exist, such as any of the planar homes of the deities. Such an act is very draining to her, and she only does it to reduce the power of a deity intervening directly in Faerûn. She cannot block a deity’s ability to grant spells to wor- shipers without negating the ability of each worshiper to draw on the Weave. In addition to being time-consuming to locate each of the target deity’s followers and sever their individual connections to the Weave, such an act would greatly upset the balance of power between the deities, angering Lord Ao. - Magic of Faerûn

Mystra has also closed off all and any access to Netherese High Magic, which is clearly too powerful to trust such hubristic creatures as mages with. You will stay within the power cap of 9th level spells, and you will like it.

The two areas of magic outside of her control are: Psionics, apparently (although that's not what it's called on Toril. It's better known as "mind magic" colloquially, "metaphsychics" to academics, and "mindfire" to mages (or the "Invisible Art", to Duergar). Sources disagree here. Some will tell you that Psionics are something other: and others will say that they still tap into the Weave but for some reason Mystra has zero influence over it, although it's been suggested that this is more because Mystra is "too busy with all the arcane shenanigans!", and thus far has only kept a careful side eye on it. She can and will still slap you down if you start threatening the stability of the Weave/the health of the world.

Where the Weave is the tapestry of all reality, governed by Mystra, the Shadow Weave is a copy made by Shar using the gaps between the threads of the true Weave: absolute nonexistence. Shar's end goal is to spread use of the Shadow Weave until it's used more than the Weave, and then take Mystra's place as goddess of magic. Ultimately though, while the Shadow Weave is very good at illusion, enchantment, necromancy and etc it comes with a lot more limitations and drawbacks: for example it can't replicate any spells that create light and heat. Also channelling it is a traumatic experience, and most users end up converting to Shar, because at least then she does her thing and numbs them to the suffering using her "gift" causes. As the Shadow Weave is not part of Mystra, she has no way of knowing if somebody is using it or cutting them off.

That said, apparently the Shadow Weave still relies on the Weave to exist and function. :

The Shadow Weave is an alternative to the Weave crafted by Shar that literally rides atop the Weave; it is an echo of the Weave and can't survive without it. - Ed Greenwood

Ultimately, there is no real way to completely get around needing Mystra if you want to use magic on Toril.