#it's literally the first couple of seconds from my lad's perspective lol

[bragganhyl]

WIP of a whatever

kinda felt the urge to scribble something bee gee three related, we'll see if this becomes a thing or not

‘Alright, lad, like we practised.’

A boy looked up at his father, his spindly limbs trembled under his stern and yet concerned gaze. Dark brown eyes peered into his own with an intensity that could’ve burned his soul to cinders were he to fail this test.

‘My name is Bertalan, I am the son of a tanner.’

Smell of fur, smell of leather, it’s all the same in the end. A lie does not have to be the opposite of truth, when it can be a cloak woven out of it. A cloak that smells like cured leather.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Rivington, we had a workshop there until recently.’

‘Remember the accent, lad.’ The man’s voice rang with a gentle warning. The boy nodded, he’ll have to practise to keep his tongue rolling the right way. But it shouldn’t be too hard, it’s not that different from how Baldurians talk. His father straightened his back as he continued.

‘What happened?’

‘Pa couldn’t keep running it, after Ma got sick.’

‘How did she get sick?’

‘Her lungs couldn’t handle the fumes.’

Focus on the coughing, focus on the wheezing, forget all else about the curse, he guided himself, and his own voice rang deeper in his mind. Older. More resolute.

‘What of your father?’

‘He taught me what he knew then he retired,’ he looked his father straight in the eye. The words slipped from him effortlessly now. His father raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

‘Then how come you’re a hunter?’

Bertalan shrugged. ‘Have to get the skins somewhere,’ he chuckled. ‘At least, that’s how it all started, now I just hunt.’

‘What do you hunt?’

‘All manner of beasts. The stranger the better.’

‘Ever hunted a mind flayer before?’

That… that’s not the question. He’s supposed to ask about…

Bertalan stopped his line of thought before it could fully form in him. He saw this dream thousands of times, from the day his father first asked these series of questions. The answers were etched into his soul, including the ones he was about the recite next.

Trust no one, trust only in nature.

Pain shot through him, from head to toe, from a spot behind his eye along every fibre of his being. He gasped, but the only air around him was stale and reeked of something unnatural. He struggled to look, a hand came to the side of his face, trying shield his aching eye. He glimpsed glass or at least something transparent ahead of him. As he struck it, his movements felt sluggish and feeble.

Luckily for him, the strange, casket-like pod opened at the contact. Or maybe it just opened on its own. Bertalan certainly didn’t feel like he forced the thing open. He blinked once. Then again. And again. He recalled an open field, high grass, sunlight warming the back of his neck, Corvus calling out for danger. He assumed it was his quarry but… it was just a touch. Then the dream came and now… a room, constructed by something fleshy yet mechanical. The ranger’s eyes widened as the realization slowly sunk in: he was on a nautiloid.

[suzie-shooter]

Alex Rider season 3 unhinged liveblog ramblings scribbled during first watch. Spoilers, obvs. (also fair warning, I am not particularly a fan of Tom or Kyra lol)

Episode 1 - Widow

S2 recap trivia - Alex's therapist is Molly Doran from Slow Horses and married to Alan Blunt IRL

Malta: Ok, so we're not just going to pretend it's Venice lol.

Creepy old men already hitting on Alex. Standard.

"After this we're out of leads." How do you even have any leads in the first place? Oh ok, Smithers' phone. Terrible security protocols from him, leaving that much historical classified data on it.

"Find the Widow - surely he could have given you an address?" First thing Tom's ever said I've agreed with lmao

Aaaand within a second he's back to being deeply irritating, okay.

Yassen living rent free in Alex's head, you love to see it.

"They've got this picture of me being the responsible one." Have Tom's parents actually met him?

Ooh Razim mention.

You maybe want to clean that wound before whacking a dressing on it Alex?

"Do you think you'll ever lose your appetite Nile?" Spat my drink.

Damn, no harem pants then. Scrubs up well tho.

Listing Levin in the opening credits than having him be only a S2 flashback should be a warcrime.

Episode 2 - Lab

"This weapon is called pork sword, wait, no, shit, wrong USB."

"Julia Rothman. Definitely a wrong un." Spat my drink again.

Do Crawley and Pritchard not warrant helmets and visors? Are they somehow immune to shrapnel?

So, room 6, wired to blow, yes? It's what I'd do…

Oh yeah sure guys, they're going to still be sitting there, all unmoving in the dark, for sure that's a person, and not a Massive Trap.

Thereeeee we go. Agent mince. Top of your class huh, well you're certainly at the top now, and down the sides and partially out of the window.

I know there's the whole 'characters don't know what genre they're in' thing but you are literally in the 'working for MI6 genre', you are up against people notorious for booby traps and blowing shit up, why the fuck would you touch something that hadn't been declared safe first? Apart from anything else you're fucking up the scene before forensics get there.

"I love you man." Vom.

Alex: breaks into super sekkrit lab. Also Alex: doesn't have the faintest fucking idea what he's looking at, so not really helpful.

COMICALLY LARGE BOMB KLAXON.

Episode 3 - Enemy

"Welcome to Malagosto." OooOOooh.

Maybe I'm just looking at it from a fic writer's perspective but it does seem a massive anticlimax to immediately let Tom and Kyra know Alex is okay? Like, you could have got a good couple of episodes of angst out of that uncertainty.

"Do you want me to kill them?" Oh God yes please.

Why the fuck have they plugged the USB directly into the network rather than an isolated PC? 'Hur dur we checked it first', you literally believe Scorpia are smart enough to not be bluffing about the nebulous death threat but you don't think they could hide something on the hardware? Fuck's sake lads. Amateur hour.

Is this Home Secretary meant to be Suella Braverman? Or Priti Patel maybe lol. (Equal rights and all that, and if it had been a white male character I don't think I would have thought twice about the dialogue but having both your two new female characters be immediately proved wrong/ massively patronised/ blown up ain't hugely comfortable viewing tbh).

HOW MANY FICS INVOLVING ALEX GETTING FUCKED ON THAT BED HAVE JUST BEEN BORN?

"Are you suggesting we break into a dead man's house?" "It's not like he's going to be there." 😂

"He became a very close friend of mine." Fnar.

Omg making Alex read his father's love letters is hilarious.

Alex: you could have faked that news report Also Alex: handwriting can definitely never be faked (how is Alex even familiar with his dead father's handwriting? wouldn't recognise mine)

Ugh please stop trying to make Alex/Kyra happen.

Alex up the vent shaft. I hope they're sitting casually at the top going - you could have just taken the stairs love.

If he's climbing upwards, why is his hair dangling like he's upside down? Have they filmed this like 60's Batman, and he's just crawling along a horizontal set lol.

Alex never once asks about his mother does he. Given the shagger-John route they seem to have gone down you almost think Julia would be in a better shout of getting Alex to switch sides by claiming to be his mother.

And - yeah, Alex's recruitment just doesn't feel that convincing here. Adding Tom/Kyra/Jack so much to the mix has changed the feel of his life a lot, and TV verse Alex has had a lot less fucking over by the Department by this point too. And Rothman feels too creepy to be effectively convincing him of anything.

"I want you to meet your tutor." FUCK YES FINALLY 🙌 (may have rewound that part several times lol)

Episode 4 - Recruit

Nicaragua: 18 years ago OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING

Baby Yassen is adorable, I'm in love.

OH MY GOD THAT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FUCKIN SPIDER THING

OH MY GOD THE REVEAL OF HIM STANDING OVER THE SLEEPING ALEX I'M DEAD

(Ok, I'm calm again. For now. We continue.)

"You killed my uncle" - all the hundreds of ways this conversation has been written over the years and Yassen's just like lol get over it 😂 (here for it tbh)

Rothman: He's one of our best Yassen: One of? Bitch.

Yassen watching Alex train like 👀👀

"Did he ever tell you you're no fun?" Oh you want to have FUN with Yassen do you?

Yassen bitchslapping Alex to fuck, both hilarious and hot.

Oh, you want to be WET wet.

"Matteo's the guy with the blanket." Why is that so funny.

Omg Yassen stepping in to protect his boy and humiliating Nile in the process lol. And Alex doing what Yassen tells him, because of course he does 🥰

"This one is my responsibility" 🥰🥰

"What about love, friendship?" Alex has only known Yassen five minutes and is already down bad.

"Kind of lonely though, right?" Yeah, Yassen needs you at his side Alex, so step up and stop being a whiny little bitch about killing people.

Never get in the first taxi, rule one of espionage.

Yep, called it. Tom's like: I'll have my fucking tip back in that case.

This scene is so dark I have no fucking idea what's going on, I thought Nile had attacked Alex, but apparently not. Is Nile officially part of this exercise or not, it seems really unclear lol.

The power of friendship and sparklerabbits saves the day, apparently. Yawn.

Jesus, we really ATE with this ep, huh.

Episode 5 - Revenge

"Would you rather your arms around me, or my arms around you?" Way to make it creepy Tom you skeevy fuck.

"Can we focus please?" "We're multi-tasking."

Sure Grendel, rock up to the super sekkrit spy base in a massively conspicuous car why don't you?

"Yassen will give you everything you need." Oh I BET he will.

Feels sloppy them not removing the diffuser from the vent tbh.

"What does this say?" Alex hasn't inherited John's neat handwriting then lol. Alex leaning into him like that > me making noises only dogs can hear.

"You've put lockpick?" "I left my last one in Nile."

Ooh, suicide pill, nasty. Kind've pointless though, given they've been left with the evidence anyway.

Yassen in Alex's bedroom again, likely place for him to be.

"I don't want you to fail. I don't want you to die." 🥹💕🥰

Yalex roadtrip, let's goooo.

Disappointed they're not making Alex do the Entrapment infrared acrobatic sequence here lol.

If this is Yassen's idea of a date it definitely needs work.

So no surprise scorpions then? Can't have shit in Detroit Malta.

"Why? Why did she kill him?" Well taking things at face value here he was a highly murderous member of a terrorist organisation, so you know, kind've her job.

Yassen does like a casual lean, doesn't he.

Episode 6 - Target

Alex and Yassen have shacked up in London, hope there's only one bed.

Now they're in the back of a van, SO many opportunities for shagging, they're spoilt for choice.

Yassen's impressed look when Alex reels off all the security details, so proud of his boy.

"What happened to my mum?" Finally he wonders lol.

"And I'm good at it. You could be too." 🥹

"You think Alex killed him?" I mean, he was also there with a notorious assassin, so probably not, y'know.

Domestic Yassen cooking Alex's dinner and also cooking him a gun lol.

Smithers' "How I've missed you" ahahaha. Smithers/Kyra much better pairing tbh.

"He's actually quite good at this stuff." Smithers' little snort lmao

Time for Alex to be blacked up/ dunked in a teabag bath/ gussied up. Although he still looks exactly like Alex afterwards, which feels less useful lol.

"You love him, don't you?" Yassen loves him more. I have to say Alex had far more chemistry with Syl, and frankly for that matter with Tom. I really don't get the Kyra agenda.

"It's a dry hole." Alex's worst nightmare.

Is Alex going to look through Mrs Jones' knicker drawer?

Episode 7 - The Shot

Mrs Jones and her tall murderous hobbit son lol. Otto really looks about 58 here.

Hope they bill him for her fucked up fridge.

Is that Bath? Oh, it is.

Mrs Jones casually throwing Alex back into play lol. Maybe she can have a little revenge for him trying to shoot her.

"Everyone breaks into houses." Jack's face lol

Ewww put him down, you don't know where he's been (Yassen's bed, almost certainly)

"Remember they can't hurt you unless you invite them in." "That's vampires."

Yassen arguing in favour of going to rescue Alex MY HEART

"Sit down. I'm going to tell you a story. About your friend, John Rider." HOLY PLOTHOLE TIMELINE PATCHING BATMAN

"John was embedded inside Scorpia for three years." Not the only thing he was embedded in by the sounds of it.

Alex seems to be hallucinating again lol.

Yassen, maybe psychoanalysing your insane boss isn't the safest thing to be doing?

"It's quite mad Julia." Yassen really gives no shits omfg

"I know my place." Yes, at Alex's side.

I like how Julia thought telling Yassen she'd killed John would do anything other than piss him off lol.

Episode 8 - Invisible Sword

"But you do owe me a new fridge." LOLLLLLL

Crawley feeling like a spare part during this lift convo, hahaha

"Smithers, you can do me some kind of tracker, right?" "Yeah, if you promise to keep it on you this time."

Alex is like ohshit I'm gonna die fr

"Not for the agents. They undid their seatbelts." Eyyyyyyyy 👉

Aww they've given him a little baby assassin outfit, how cute.

Where's Yassen, has he just fucked off to the pub?

"For the head of Scorpia, you're a really bad liar."

Laughing at all the other Scorpia agents having to listen to this convo about their boss like we are not paid enough for this shit 😬

"Everyone else is getting what they want, let me have my cereal."

Protecting his boy to the last. Yassen really is purely on Alex's side, we love to see it.🥰

And OMG HE LIVESSSSSSSS 🙌🙌🙌🙌 (I voted yes in that poll, I had faith lol)

Well that was - far more fanservice than I dared hope for, after the meagre pickings we got in the first two series. Yalex supremacy to the motherfucking end, let's go.

[ivyquinnauthor]

12, 17 and 25 for the ff writer asks please :)

Responding to the fanfic writer questions, if anyone else wants to ask some, feel free!

***12 - Who is your favorite character to write for?***

I guess since I’ve written pretty consistently in three fandoms so far, I’d list the ones that I liked the best for each or used to like. I mean, I was first in Buffy fandom so Spike. In Smallville---which I can’t write for anymore at all cause whoo boy all the scandals there turn my stomach----I liked Chloe Sullivan but again the real life terrible, literal cult stuff means I can’t do anything in that fandom anymore, and I haven’t written for that character in over 4 years. Such things happen. In Lucifer, I prefer Lucifer the most cause lots of just angst to mine but also sarcasm, lol.

************

***17) Post a line from a WIP you’re working on:***

Honestly, I have a few I spin plates for, keep up in the air, between two multi-chapter fics and a sort of interconnected series of one-shots. So, lines from the following:

A) From “Recurrence” - 

As musicals go, he appreciated ones with a more intense difficulty level and, in that regard, The Music Man left much to be desired. Doing the quid pro quo to show the lads trying out for Harold Hill how it’s supposed to be done was far from a challenge---he much preferred being out with Ella in Vegas with some Lady Luck---but he muddled through the inferior song anyway. After all, trouble with a capital T is something he knew everything about.

B) From “This Ebony Bird Beguiling” - 

He wasn’t sure how he got from playing helpful house guest, preparing sugary-laden treats for the urchin and the detective (when Chloe woke up, talk about a rough night) in a sunny beach house to giving Trixie Espinosa preening advice. Oh, don’t get him wrong. His interminable life had been nothing but bizarre, depending on whose perspective one took, but it usually didn’t vacillate between almost mind-numbingly boring and human one moment to worrying about someone else’s loose pin feathers the very next.

C) From “Queer Eye for the Chef Guy” (next Culinary Advice one-shot) - 

“I agreed to this, sort of, because you clearly need a distraction while Linda works through the whole you’re-the-devil-thing.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes at Gary. “You have a fine talent for making the infernal and, frankly, formerly---very formerly---divine sound mundane, Preston. It’s more than a just a ‘thing.’”

Oh Christ...wait shouldn’t even think it. He'd gotten the devil extra prickly already. “Fine then. You want a project, and I want to keep Ms. Smith happy and, by extension, both my arms intact, but does it have to involve my clothes?”

“These!” Lucifer said, holding up a pair of cargo pants littering the floor. “Cannot be labeled clothes. In fact, do you have lighter fluid? Never mind I can immolate anything...”

“You can what?” And he didn’t yip, not really. Okay, maybe a little.

“Well, what all do you think I can do?”

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose. If he’d known that, he’d have just dragged his rucksack to Lux. Let Lucifer accidentally set his own bloody flat on fire.

***

And just cause sometimes I keep notes on things to do one day if little scraps of things come to mind, a couple snippets from stuff that’s just ideas and files for now:

A) From “Hair of the Dog” - 

He should send Miss Lopez home. Lucifer knew that the moment he spotted her arguing with Patrick in a very colorful and completely un-Ella-like mix of Spanish and English curses grumbling about being cut off. A good person would call her an Uber or even a private car---he could more than afford it---and send her home with a spare bottle of aspirin from under the bar to boot. Lux kept plenty of other first aid remedies around. After the hangover she was sure to have in the morning, Miss Lopez would even thank him for such chivalry. 

Except Lucifer was not a good person. 

Just a week ago, after the worst moment of his long suffering life, the detective had more than established that to her, he was not a person at all. And it was perversely impressive that in literally billions of years of existence, including permanent exile from his entire (mostly rubbish) family and burning for millennia in a lake of fire, that the detective yelling about being terrified of him would be the worst, but it was. So, no, Lucifer was not a good person or even pretending to be one right now. And he was well and truly soused for once after a steady effort at not only drinking every handle in his personal bar and half of Lux’s but also from downing more than his fair share---celestial metabolism or not---of some molly from the last party he hosted in the penthouse.

He was probably for a precious hour longer even less clear-headed than Miss Lopez. So when he pulled her away from the bar and smoothed things over with Patrick, he couldn’t quite make himself send her away, especially after she curled into his side. He definitely couldn’t refuse her suggestion to go up to the penthouse either...

B) From “What to Expect When You’re an Expecting Devil” - 

“No.”

He arched an eyebrow back at his therapist, who, to be fair, was also his former lover (and before things got utterly complicated and pear-shaped, he’d still have kept up that arrangement with her; she was that good as he found the uptight ones tended to be when they got a chance to let loose), currently the mother-to-be of his first ever nephew, and the only other person in history that he or Amenadiel knew about who was also dealing with a celestial pregnancy. Which sodding perfect. However, just because they were all kinds of enmeshed and, eventually, would be family and boy had his brother cocked that all up (literally), it didn’t mean he had to always listen to her.

If his track record was anything to go by, he rarely did.

Still, Linda kept her hand held out till he relinquished the handle and then coughed at him till he yielded the tumbler too. There were demons he’d beheaded in Hell for far less insolence. Sad state of affairs he’d reached where a wisp of a thing who couldn’t even hope to come up to his chest got him to acquiesce with merely her glare.

“First of all, if this is even...whatever Remiel thinks she senses and it’s assuredly not that because Dad likes his jokes but that’s...” He stuttered a bit there. “I am not that. Even if I were, I don’t think drinking would hurt the little larva and, maybe if it did, bully for everyone. Surely, by now you’re at least passingly familiar with Revelation?”

Linda’s glare hardened, and she gestured to the bar. “Don’t even. I’m not drinking with an angel-baby cause who even knows and you’re not going to...”

“With the antichrist?”He bit back, tone cutting, but the fight leaking from him. “If Remiel is right---and let’s all just hope she’s not because her spider sense is busted---I’m going to need to a drink or all of them worse than ever now.”

“No, Lucifer. Not self destruction for one or, well, both of you that way.”

He pursed his lips but grabbed a bottle of water from behind the penthouse’s bar instead. “Fine then. I suppose that’s the price of you being the only doctor I know who can help me out on the other end of things, you know, if Remy’s not just cracked.”

Linda blanched. “Nope not doing. First, there’s such a thing as too much family togetherness but also I’m not even close to that kind of doctor and it’s been three decades since medical school. Add in that...” she paused then, fumbling for the politic way to phrase something, he was sure.

“Right, like I said, the antichrist. Maybe. I don’t rightly know, John was very stoned when he wrote all that down. Psychadelic nightmare fuel and all that. So, then, I just go it alone, again, assuming Remy’s right?” His hand strayed to his hip because, honestly, self preserving powers of denial aside, even he knew something was really different about him these last two months.

And it shouldn’t intimidate him to have Linda waddle over to him with her eyes narrowed and, if anyone but Amenadiel ever asked him, it didn’t. Not really.

She sighed and bit her lower lip. “Okay, so not an optimal idea, but I have a friend from my residency and his son’s really talented just tends to fuck up...I mean he has his license but if you pay enough....no questions asked so that was what I was thinking?”

“Question or a statement, love?”

“Little of both, but I’m sure no booze is good booze till seven months from now.”

Lucifer drained his water. “Well, and I thought I knew something about Hell. Clearly, I was wrong.”

*******

***25) Have you ever cried writing a story?***

Yes, I have. Back when I still wrote Smallville, I have a very dark trilogy of stories called the Lara-verse. When writing two parts of that series, Black as Sackcloth and Of Wolves and Lambs, I cried because the first involved some fairly gruesome and distressing lead character deaths and because the second dealt a lot with dissociation and PTSD. Honestly, I never finished the series with the four installment because it was such a weird, hard headspace to be in that I just didn’t have the strength to go back to it. It’s on my livejournal here if anyone reads Smallville - https://legendarytobes.livejournal.com/?skip=30&tag=lara%20verse - people would have to friend me there to read, but if anyone’s that curious, feel free to.