#like as far as i can tell people ship ray with like three people. 1 someone he interacts with maybe twice. 2 his COUSIN. 3 toxic yuri

[quadrantbreaker]

i dont know if i trust people who only draw certain characters just because ive seen so much weird shit . you are giving me trust issues

[rjalker]

here's what I have transcribed of The Copper-Clad World by Harl Vincent, from September 1931 so far.

still can't tell if the spaceship is named the RXS or the RX8.

It's got ableism and racism so far, but has a cool premise. Not sure if there's a specific term for when you build a shell around...something that's not a whole solar system.

stuff in brackets will be removed from the final version.

this is public domain, so you can do literally anything you want with it. Please rewrite it to not be bigoted.

the original, blurry PDF can be found here.

this story is not complete yet. I have no idea how much longer it is lol.

Edit: Added more of it so far. I know tumblr would love this evil alien cat lady queen if this were a modern thing.

The Copper-Clad World, by Harl Vincent

Chapter 1: Into the Unknown

Adrift in space! Blaine Carson worked frantically at the controls, his jaw set in grim lines and his eyes narrowed to anxious slits as he peered into the diamond-studded ebon of the heavens. A million miles astern he knew the red disk of the planet Mars was receding rapidly into the blackness. And the RXS[?] was streaking into the outer void at a terrific pace – out of control.

Something had warned him when they left Earth; the Martian cargo of k-metal was of enormous value and a direct invitation to piracy. Of course there was the attempt at secrecy and the shippers had sent along those guards. His engineer, Tom Farley, was thoroughly reliable, too. But this failure of the control rocket-tubes, missing their destination as a result – there was something queer about it.

“Tommy,” he called into the mike.[comma?] “Find anything yet?”

“We-e-ll, something,” the audiophone drawled after a moment: “I’m coming up.”

“What is it, Tom?” he asked when the engineer’s round face appeared at the head of the engine room companionway.

Farley dropped his voice and his customary smile was gone. “I found the stern rocket-tube ignition jammed so it’s firing continuously,[?]” he said,“and the others are all dead: won’t fire at all. That’s why she doesn’t swing to the controls?” [why is there a questionmark]

:Can’t you fix it? Lord, man, we’re headed out into the bent of planetoids. We’ll be wrecked.”

“Nothing I can do, Blaine, without shutting down the atomic engines. Then we’d freeze to death and run out of oxygen. These ships ought to have a spare engine just to take care of heating and air conditioning. I’ve always said so.”

“What happened to the ignition system?”

Tom Farley looked over his shoulder apprehensively. “Dirty work, Blaine,” he whispered. “I’m sure of it. Tool marks on the breech of the stern tube. And there’s one of those guards I don’t like the look of.”

“Nonsense. The k-metal people know their men; they picked these three especially for the job.”

“Who else could do it? There’s only the five of us on board.”

There might be something in what Tommy said, at that. A thing like this couldn’t just happen by itself. And, come to think of it, one of those guards was a queer looking bird: dwarfed and hunch[?]-backed, sort of, and with long dangling arms. It would be better to investigate.

“Get ‘em up here, Tommy,” Blaine said.

The RX8[?] drove on and on through the uncharted wastes outside the orbit of Mars. None of the space ships of the inner planets ever ventured out this far, and Blaine knew there was grave danger of colliding with some of the small bodies with which the zone was infested. If one of those guards was the traitor he was risking his own neck as well as theirs.

Two of them entered the control room with Tom Farley, big, husky fellows of solid countenance and armed with regulation flame-ray pistols and gas grenades.

“Where’s the other, the dwarf?” Blaine asked, his suspicions mounting immediately.

“In his bunk,” Tom replied with a meaning look. “He said he’d be up in a few minutes.”

The pilot-commander addressed the guards. “Fellows,” he said, “I suppose you know we’re in a serious fix. The ship is out of control and we’ve missed Mars, where your metal was to be delivered. We’re speeding out into the unknown, out past the limits of space-travel toward the orbits of Jupiter Saturn, Uranus – God knows where. And my engineer thinks that one of our number has tampered with the machinery. Know anything about it?” Blaine eyed them keenly.

One of the guards, Mahoney, flushed hotly. “No, sir,” he snapped. “At least Kelly and meself had nothin’ to do with it. But we’ve been suspicionin’ that little Antazzo ever since we came out. It’s a peculiar way he has about him, the divil.”

“You think he -- “

An incisive voice from the doorway interrupted, “Never mind what he thinks, Carson. I’ll do the thinking from now on.”

As one man they turned to face the speaker. It was the guard, Antazzo, and he was clothed from neck to ankles in a garment of bright metallic stuff that shimmered with shifting colors like those of a soap bubble. A mask of similar stuff covered his face, and in each hand there was a weapon resembling a ray pistol but of strangely unfamiliar design.

Mahoney shot from the hip and his stabbing ray splashed full on the hunchback’s chest – but harmlessly. That lustrous garment was an insulating armor; the traitorous guard should have been shriveled to a cinder at the contact. Antazzo laughed evilly as his own weapons loosed strange and terrible energies.

Tom Farley ducked, and Blaine watched in horrified amazement as the crackling streamers of blue radiance from the dwarf’s pistols found their marks. Mahoney and Kelly, standing there, bathed for a brief instant in horrid blue fire; tottering, swaying, their mouths opened wide in a last agonized effort to cry out. Tiny pinpoints of brilliant pyrotechnics flashing and exploding within the columns of blue fire. Then, nothing! Where the two husky guards had stood there was utter emptiness; not even a shred of clothing remained. The air in the control room became heavy and acrid.

“Antazzo!” White-faced and shaking, Blaine cried out in futile protest, “My God, man, what have you done? What does this mean?”

And then, in a blaze of rage, he was on his feet. Murder was in his heart as he set himself for a crashing charge that would sweep the beast from his feet. His own flame-pistol was missing; it was a case of killing this monster with his bare hands. Tom was circling, over there, cursing horribly. One of them would get him. Strangely, Antazzo had lowered the muzzles of his pistols.

A terrific punch, started from the floor, never reached its mark. Blaine saw a tiny puff of pinkish vapor that spurted from the bosom of that metallic garment. He was coughing and gasping; helpless. Muscles refused to do his bidding. With a moan he dropped into the pilot’s seat, knowing that Antazzo’s will compelled him. That gas had hypnotic powers. Mechanically, his fingers strayed to the controls.

And Tom – Good old Tommy – he was under the influence of the stuff too, creeping there on hands and knees toward the engine room companionway.

Antazzo was talking. “We come now to the matter of instructions,” he said. “You, Farley, will assist me in restoring the ignition system to normal. You, Carson, will keep to the controls and will lay a course to Jupiter as soon as the control rocket-tubes will respond. Understand?”

Tom growled reluctant assent from where he was crawling.

Strange, this hypnotic gas! Blaine mind functioned clearly enough, yet he was utterly at the mercy of this madman’s will – a robot of flesh and blood. “Jupiter!” he exclaimed. “Why man, it’s nearly a half billion miles from the sun. Not habitable, either.”

Antazzo had removed his mask and now smiled a superior smile. “We’ll reach it,” he said: “the RX[8?S?] is very fast. And it’s not the planet itself we’re found for, but its second satellite. Io, your astronomers call this body, and it’s a world sadly in need of this marvelous k-metal.”

“But – but --”

“Enough!” The hunchback snarled his rebuke in Blaine’s face and turned to Tom. “Come, Farley,” he said, as if talking to a child, “we must get to work.”

In a daze of conflicting emotions, Blaine turned to gaze through the forward port when the two had left the control room. The RX[8S?] was accelerating rapidly under the steady discharge of gases from the stern rocket-tube and had already reached the speed of one thousand miles a second. If one of those tiny asteroids, even one no larger than a marble, should meet up with them it would crash through the hull plates as if they were paper. His heart went cold at the thought.

Oddly enough, he found himself wanting to make this trip with the demonic Antazzo. It was the effects of the pink gas. Even with the misshapen guard down there in the engine room the power of his will was effective. The devil must be an Ionian, he thought. But how in the name of the sky-lane imps had he reached Earth? How had he wormed his way into the confidence of the k-metal people? He must have been there several years, working to this very end.

There was a tinkling crash on the starboard side amidships; a screaming swish as something slithered along the side and caromed off into the void. One of those little planetoids. Probably no bigger than a pea, and luckily they had struck it glancingly. He wiped the sudden perspiration from his forehead.

Pressure on the directive rocket controls brought no response. Would they never finish with that ignition system?

A gleaming light-fleck segregated itself from the mass of stars ahead. At first he thought he imagined it, but a second examination, this time through the telescope, convinced him it was growing larger. Drawing nearer, it was, and resolving itself into a well defined orb that was directly in their path. Fifteen hundred miles a second, the indicator read now! They’d never know what happened when they struck.

There was no reply for a moment, and the blue-white globe drove madly toward them. He consulted the chart. Pallas – an asteroid some three hundred miles in diameter. Not very big as celestial bodies go, but big enough!

“Just one minute now.” It was Tommy’s voice coming drearily, unnaturally through the audiophone. A minute! Ninety thousand miles! It seemed the asteroid was that close already.

Antazzo was in the control room then, and the effect of his mental dominance became more pronounced. Suddenly the dwarf let out a shriek of terror when he looked through the port and saw the brilliant body that now loomed so close. Blaine experienced as savage joy in the knowledge that the hunchback was mortally afraid.

“Latza! Latza!” In his fear Antazzo slipped into his own tongue. Then, remembering, he shouted, “We’re ready, Carson. Swing wide!”

The directive rockets answered to their controls now. Quick pressure on this, a swift pull on that, swinging the energy value to maximum, brought results. The little vessel groaned and shivered under the strain as a full blast from the forward tubes retarded them. Her hull plates twisted and screeched as the steering tubes belched full energy in swinging them from their course. They were thrown forward violently, though the deceleration compensators were working to the utmost.

Pallas swung around in their field of vision, and there was a fleeting glimpse of sun-lit spires of mountains, shadowed valleys, and mysterious crevasses from which clouds of steam and yellow vapor curled. Still it seemed they must crash against one of those slender pinnacles. Nearer it came like a flash; a dizzying blur, now, that drove directly in their straining faces.

And then, abruptly, it was gone. Already thousands of miles astern, the danger was past. Miraculously, they had escaped.

Antazzo laughed; a hollow mirthless cackle. His fingers shook crazily when he untwisted them from their grip on the port rail.

“Good work, my friend. Very good, indeed,” he jabbered, his chin quivering in nervous reaction. “And now we carry on – on to Io.”

Blaine Carson, almost wishing they had collided with the spire, set himself grimly to the task. He was powerless to refuse.

Chapter 2: The Second Satellite

When, eventually, they swung into the orbit of Jupiter and headed in toward the enormous red-belted body, the two Earth men were heartily disgusted with the voyage and with themselves. Repeated doses of the pink gas – the ignominy of their utter subservience to the will of Antazzo – had worn them down no less than had the hard work and loss of sleep. Both were in vile humor. They endured the triumphant chatter of their captor in bitter silence.

“Over there, my friends,” he said, pointing; “see? It is our destination. The golden crescent, Io, is something over a quarter million of your miles from the mother planet. See it? It is home, my friends, home to me and for yourselves in the future – if the Zara spares your lives. Lay your course to the body, Carson.”

Blaine growled as he sighted through the telescope. Yet, in spite of his fury, he could not overcome the feeling of excitement that came to him when the powerful glass brought the satellite near. This body was like nothing else in the heavens. Antazzo had called it the golden crescent. Rather, it was of gleaming coppery hue, and now, as they swung around, it was fully illuminated – a brilliant sphere of unbroken contour. Smoothly globular, there was not one projection or indentation to indicate the existence of land or sea, mountain or valley, on its surface. It was like a ball of solid copper, scintillant there in the weak sunlight and the reflected light from its great mother planet.

Antazzo laughed over his absorption. “Looks peculiar to you, does it not?” he asked; “rather different from any of the bodies you have visited, you are thinking.”

Blaine grunted wordless assent. The globe that was Io rushed in to meet them, growing ever larger in the field of the telescope. Now it appeared that there were tiny seams in the smooth surface, a regular criss-cross pattern of fine lines that looked like – Lord, yes, that was it! The body was constructed from an infinite number of copper plates, riveted or brazed together to form a perfect sphere.

“Why, the thing’s made of copper!” Blaine gasped. “Copper plates. It’s a man-made world; artificial. But where are the inhabitants?”

Antazzo laughed uproariously. “Not man-made, my friend,” he corrected, “but preserved by man for his own salvation. A dying world, it was, and the cleverest scientists in the universe saved it and themselves from certain death. What you see is merely a shell of copper, the covering they constructed to retain an atmosphere and make continuation of life possible – inside.”

“Your people live inside that shell?” Blaine was incredulous.

“What else? We must have air to breathe and warmth for our bodies. How else could we have retained it?”

It was staggering, this revelation. The young pilot could not conceive of a completely enclosed world with inhabitants forever shut off from the light of the sun by day and from the beauties of the heavens by night. Yet here it was, drawing ever nearer, a colossal monument to the ingenuity and handiwork of a highly intelligent civilization who had labored probably for centuries to preserve their kind. A titanic task! Who could imagine a sphere of metal more than twenty-four hundred miles in diameter enclosing a world and its peoples? A copper-clad world!

They were coming in close now, and the gravitational pull of the body made itself felt. Blaine was busy with the controls, sending tremendous blasts from the forward rocket-tubes to retard their speed for a safe landing. The incredibly smooth copper surface was just beneath them, stretching miles away to the horizon in all directions.

The inductor compass was functioning. Evidently Io possessed as strong a magnetic field as did the inner planets. Antazzo now consulted a chart which he drew from his pocket, and examined minutely the surface over which they were speeding. Here and there curious designs were etched on the copper plates, and it was from these he determined their course. Obviously there was an entrance to this sealed-in world.

When they had proceeded some two thousand miles in a northeasterly direction Antazzo gave the order to reduce speed. Off at the horizon there appeared a bulge in the copper surface, a round protuberance that resolved itself into a great dome-shaped structure as they drew nearer. A full two hundred feet it reared itself into the heavens, and Blaine saw a number of large circular hatches in its side that evidently covered air-locked entrances.

“You will land close by the dome, Carson,” Antazzo barked, “and both of you will get into your moon-suits.”

At his tone, Blaine saw red. He realized on the instant that the effect of the pink gas had worn off and that he was his own master once more. All the pent-up emotions of the past few days were unleashed. If only he could get in one good punch. They might get away yet. There was plenty of k-metal to replenish the fuel supply. He whirled suddenly, muscles tensed. He faced the grinning hunchback – and was greeted by a breathtaking spurt of the pink gas. This time it was not merely a subjecting of his own will to that of the master but a complete hypnotism, a somnambulistic state. As in a dream he turned to the controls.

Now it came to him that the dwarf no longer spoke. He worked his will entirely without words; his evil mind possessed fully the mind of his victim. For Blaine Carson there was no further independent thinking. He was an automaton, a sleep-walker.

Like a detached and more or less disinterested observer, he saw that he had landed the ship. Then he noticed three dwarfs in bulky, helmeted moon-suits, shuffling clumsily across the copper plates. Hazily he knew he was with the others in an airlock; the hiss and the throbbing of pumps told him that. Under the great dome there was the latticework of a huge reflecting telescope; strange pigmy figures scuttled here and there, working at curious machines. There was the constant purr of many motors, the gentle pulsation of floorplates beneath his feet.

With the moon-suit removed, he realized the atmosphere was fetid and stifling. A great pressure bore on his lungs, making breathing labored and difficult. And then they were in a lift that dropped into the depths of its shaft with dizzying speed. Antazzo’s grin; Tom’s eyes, dull and lifeless, floating there in the haze before his own – it was all a nightmare from which he must soon awaken.

There followed a period of complete unconsciousness of movement and of his surroundings. Light – light everywhere; a blue-white radiance that beat upon his unseeing eyes with unrelenting ferocity. Stabbing pains bored into his very brain, pains that carried with them an unspoken and unintelligible command. Why couldn’t they let him alone; leave him to die in peace? H e knew he was on his feet, swaying. There were voices, strident and guttural, and then by some magic the veil was lifted. His brain cleared and he saw that he stood before a dais where a much bejeweled and resplendently clad woman sat curled in the luxurious cushions of a golden seat. Chalk-white was her face and her lips crimson; amazing eyes, cat’s eyes, pupils red-flecked and glittering, stared out at him.

“The Zara,” Antazzo whispered. “You will make obeisance.”

Mechanically, Blaine dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor. Tom Farley, over there, was doing the same, but Antazzo stood erect with his arms crossed over his chest and his head thrown back. The eyes of the Zara swept him contemptuously from head to foot. All was not well between them.

Blaine arose from his humiliating position at a sharp command from the hunchback. Tommy did likewise and the two exchanged sheepish looks. The effects of the pink gas were wearing off once more. They were in a large hall, obviously the throne room of a palace. Men-at-arms lined the walls on either side of the dais, and these were straight limbed giants with green-bronze skin and regular features – not at all like the deformed Ionian who had captured them and stolen the RX[8???S???]

The Zara talked rapidly in throaty gutturals, her fierce gaze directed at Antazzo and her brows drawn together in a scowl that could have but one meaning. She was displeased with the hunchback, displeased and furiously angry. What was it all about? Hadn’t he brought home the bacon – the k-metal they were after? Blaine was nonplused.

Then Antazzo replied to the woman who was obviously his queen. His voice rose in shrill disagreement and his scowl was as fierce as the Zara’s. Threatening her, he was, the nervy devil. He clenched his fists and raised his arms in an angry gesture, pacing the floor in his fury and thrusting out a pugnacious chin while he raved. This Zara woman rose higher in her cushions, and the look that flashed from those terrible eyes would have warned a less excited human, however justifiable his anger might be. But Antazzo was in too deep to draw back, that was plain to be seen. Blaine held his breath in anticipation of an explosion.

It came then, that explosion, and in a way entirely unexpected and horrible to behold. The tiger woman uttered one fierce sibilant like the hiss of a serpent, a terrifying sound that silenced the hunchback and brought him stiffly to attention, mouth open and eyes bulging with horror. One of those unbelievably white arms stretched forth, threateningly tense, and a jeweled finger leveled itself at the rash Ionian. From it there flashed an intangible something that leaped to bridge the distance with the speed of light, something that screeched as it flew and crashed like breaking glass when it struck Antazzo’s horrified face. In an instant he was on the floor, screaming and writhing in mortal agony.

The Zara watched with compressed lips and livid features as a host of black disk-like things covered the squirming body, spinning madly as if driven by atomic energy and emitting a myriad high-pitched tones like the angry buzzing of a swarm of bees. Antazzo’s body shriveled as the things hummed on in their devilish work. Soon there was but a tiny heap of clothing with the angry black disks whirling and singing their song of hate. And then, in a puff of thick yellow vapor they were gone, their gruesome work completed. The odor of putrefaction lay heavy on the air.

Blaine shuddered and a fit of nausea twisted his vitals. It served the devil right, of course, but it was a horrible way to go. These damned Ionians, even to their queen, were bloodthirsty creatures. And what devilish ingenuity they had displayed in their development of weapons! His eyes were drawn irresistibly to the flaming orbs of the Zara.

She was actually smiling at him, this beautiful, heartless animal, not a smile of derision but one of deliberate allure. He felt the hot blood mount to his temples. A languid arm beckoned him to her side and the amazing creature settled back in her cushions with the drowsy, contented motions of a lazy feline.

“Watch your step!” Tommy hissed.

That warning was unnecessary. Blaine shook his head and backed away from the dais, an instinctive recoiling from a loathsome thing. The Zara saw and understood; and she went again into a black rage. She sat stiffly erect and called rapid orders ot her men-at-arms.

The Earth men were surrounded instantly, their arms and legs pinioned by powerful hands, their feeble resistance overcome by the bronze giants as easily as if they had been children. Helpless and hopeless, they were borne from the room.

This was the end of the story, Blaine thought. Why this Zara woman had not made away with them at once was a mystery. Perhaps they were being reserved for an even more terrible fate than that of the hunchback. They were being carried along a dim-lit passage now, and Tom was cursing his captors in a never-ending stream of invective.

A metal door opened and then clanged shut behind them. They were dumped unceremoniously on metal tables that resembled those of a hospital operating-room on Earth. Woven bands, quickly adjusted by the bronze giants held them fast. Blaine turned his head and saw that Tommy was still struggling against the inevitable. A gag had been placed in his mouth; that was why he has ceased reviling the Zara’s servitors.

The room was cluttered with elaborate and complicated mechanism that Blaine could not recognize in the slightest detail, excepting that there were many banks of slender glass cylinders which bore some resemblance to the vacuum tubes used on the inner planets for radio communication and television. One of the bronze giants, he saw, was bringing a metal cap from which a cable extended to one of the strange machines. This cap was forced down over his head with a none too gentle pressure and he could see no more.

There came a sharp buzz from the machine and a million stinging needles drove into his brain. There was a moment of fleeting visions; strange places he viewed, and strange creatures parading in a fantasmagoria or delirium before his aching eyes. Voices, harsh and guttural, spoke in his drumming ears; voices that were dimly understandable, though uttered in the tongue spoken by Antazzo and the Zara. Then came sudden and merciful unconsciousness.

Chapter 3: Ilen-dar

When Blaine Carson opened his eyes it was to stare at the blue-white radiance of an illuminated ceiling. He lay on a downy cot and it seemed he had just recovered from a long illness. Weak and sick, he turned his head listlessly to gaze at the ornate embossed designs on a wall of gleaming silvery metal. What place was this? His mind was wool-gathering; dim memories of unspeakable things struggled for mastery over a hazy consciousness. Suddenly then he remembered, and he sat up in his unfamiliar bed, senses acutely alert.

Across the room he saw a figure hunched in a chair; a twisted man-creature who was oddly like someone he had seen. Antazzo! But this one had none of the other’s ferocity as he returned Blaine’s stare. Rather, there was a look of deep concern in his ugly face. He came immediately to the bedside and looked at Blaine solicitously.

“I see you have recovered,” he said. “It is good.”

Blaine stared and stared. This creature had spoken in the language of the Zara’s subjects, yet he understood his every word! It must be a dream, this impossible thing that had happened. And where was tom? Abruptly he found that he was talking rapidly in this tongue of an alien race.

“Yes, I’ve recovered”, he said, “and I’m amazed at what I find. How have I acquired this knowledge of your language? Where am I, and where is my friend? Can you enlighten me in these things?”

The other smiled. “I can, Earth man,” he replied. “You have been taught our language while you slept. A thought transference process we use for educating the young. You are in the palace of the Zara and your friend is safe in the next room. I may add that you are in high favor with Her Majesty.”

The wizened creature lowered his voice on the last words, and his knowing eyes spoke volumes. In favor with that she-devil! Blaine went cold at the thought.

“I want to see my friend,” he said shortly.

“Later. My orders are to bring you to the Zara immediately you are strong enough. And Pegrani obeys orders.”

No use to attempt a break now. Blaine was tempted to drive a fist into that ugly countenance and fight his way out of the place. But that would be suicide. He’d wait, get the lay of the land first and then try to dope something out with Tommy.

“All right, Pegrani,” he said, “I’m ready to go before this Zara of yours.”

As he prepared for the audience, alien thoughts crowded one upon the other in his strangely enlightened mind. With the knowledge of the language had come knowledge of many things relative to the copper-clad world. They’d given him a liberal education. Somehow he knew these stunted creatures like Antazzo and Pegrani were known as Llotta and that, while ruling the sealed-in planet, their kind had originally come from Ganymede, the fifth satellite of Jupiter. Centuries had passed since the inhabitants of Europa and Ganymede had been forced to desert their aging worlds and had settled on Io. During other centuries the widely different peoples had cooperated in constructing the great copper enclosure in order to keep the new world alive and capable of supporting life. Then had come a century of bitter warfare in which the Llotta were victorious. Intense hatred existed between the two races, he knew, and a hazy impression of mechanically imparted knowledge told him that few of the Europans remained alive.

“We are here, Carson,” his guide announced, when they stood before the square columns of an enormous portal.

The scene in the throne room was vastly different than when he had first visited it. The Zara sat curled as before, a golden bowl of incense burning at either side of the throne. The men-at-arms were absent and, instead, there were dozens of handmaidens, white-skinned and seductive as their queen, reclining on luxurious cushions that were arranged in a semicircle before the dais. It was a scene of Oriental splendor. A stage carefully set.

Pegrani knelt and touched his forehead to the floor but Blaine held himself stuffly erect, looking straight into the eyes of the Zara. She smiled and extended her arm in that beckoning gesture.

“You may leave now, Pegrani,” she said, without deigning him a glance. “Remain in the corridor until I send for you.”

There was a tense silence as the Zara’s gaze, ineffably softened now, held Blaine’s. Unconsciously he was drawn to the steps of the dais. Unwillingly, yet inexorably, his lagging footsteps brought him to her side. Cool white fingers touched his arm and he saw that the red flecks in the black of those wide eyes were golden now. Surely there was no harm in this woman. But he remembered Antazzo.

“Carson,” she purred, “you are more than welcome to Llotta-nar, the land of my people and the ruling power of Antrid, the body you call Io. The freedom of the realm is yours for as long a time as you wish to remain.”

This was too good to be true. “You – you mean,” he stammered, “that Antazzo exceeded his authority in his act of piracy – in bringing us here?”

The golden flecks flashed red and a cold note was manifest in the throaty voice. “Antazzo,” she replied, “was destroyed for his audacious actions. We needed this k-metal of yours, Carson, and he was sent to Earth to get a quantity of the material. By magnetic directional waves was he sent – we have no shape-ships – his body disintegrated by my scientists for transmittal, and the atoms of his beastly form reassembled in their proper relation when he arrived there. But he threatened me when he returned successful. The possession of the k-metal and his knowledge of its powers and uses had gone to his head. He demanded my hand in return for his work; demanded that he be permitted to mount the throne of Llotta-nar as my consort. Therefore I destroyed him.” The hard eyes softened anew. “And – and for his abominable treatment of you I destroyed him,” she concluded.

Blaine fought off the spell of those gold-flecked eyes; he looked away in sudden panic. This creature was not telling the truth. She was hiding something; a sinister motive lay beneath her smooth speech.

“My friend,” he said abruptly: “what of him?”

“For your sake, my Carson,” she purred, “he too shall have the freedom of the realm for as long a time as is desired.”

The cool fingers crept along his arm, firm and compelling. “Look at me,” she whispered.

He thought of the pink gas as his eyes were drawn irresistibly to hers. What he saw in those gold-flecked depths sent a shiver of apprehension chasing down his spine. Savage, devestating desire mingled with ill-concealed rage and his coldness. This beautiful animal could turn like a flash, and rend him limb from limb – and would on the slightest provocation.

A commotion in the corridor caused her to release him and sit bolt upright. Temporarily relieved, Blaine wheeled to face the portal. Tommy had broken loose! He heard his strident voice, berating an unseen antagonist in the tongue of the Llotta.

Then they were in the room, Tommy struggling and arguing vociferously with one of the green-bronze guards. The handmaidens had deserted their cushions and were milling about in affrighted confusion. The Zara’s sibilant exclamation startled him into looking at her once more. The same cold fury that had greeted Antazzo glinted icy-hard in that grimly beautiful face. It was all over for poor Tommy.

But the Zara reached upward and stroked a transparent rod that dangled above the throne, something he had not noticed before. A screaming vibrant note smote the heavy air, a pulsation that beat at the ear drums with painful intensity. Silence fell as the awesome sound died away and echoed faintly from the huge columns that supported the arched ceiling. Tommy cooled off when he saw that Blaine was unharmed.

“Drekan!” The Zara’s voice was a whiplash as she addressed the guard. “You will leave my presence and report to your overman for punishment. Never again molest the Earth men. Begone!”

Again this amazing woman curled in her cushions and again she purred. Tommy watched in open mouthed astonishment as she smiled guilelessly on his friend.”

“You may leave me now, my Carson,” she cooed. “Farley is free to accompany you. Pegrani will guide you and inform you regarding our customs and our people. You will learn much. And then you shall return to Zara Clyone.”

Blaine had fully expected that Tommy would die a horrible death before his eyes, and in his sudden relief bent low and kissed the cold white hand of the Zara. A foolish thing to do! She purred and snuggled into the cushions like the feline that she was – a dangerous animal; claws drawn in now but ready to strike out, razor sharp, on a moment’s notice.

[just-like-playing-tag]

Yo it's Apollo!Ray AU hours again

I just think Ray would be more fitting as ruthless psycho than Norman? I mean, Ray was willing to sacrifice 35 children out of 37- children that were his family, children he loved. I'm not saying such decision didn't destroy him internally; but if he, after having thought about it for a long time and considered there was no other chance, eventually agreed to sacrifice most of his own family, think about what he might be able to do to the creatures he despises.

Now, I'm not saying I'm 100% sure this is how Ray would act if he was sent to Lambda, and I know I'm on thin ice with remaining in character; but I find it fun to think of what could have been of him and eventually bringing to light some hidden dark aspects of his!

Hear me out: Ray is a complex, predominantly gray character. Through the canon story, he was greatly effected by Emma's good influence for the better. Nota bene!! I don't mean that Ray isn't his own character, and that his personality and development was solely shaped by Emma; what I mean is that he was influenced by Emma's attitude as much as she was of his own, because our personality is also built on the people we're surrounded by, especially the ones we share a deep bond with.

Now, let's say that, at Grace Filed, Ray's heart was still in a predominantly gray zone: a bit ruthless at heart - he really was willing to abandon to death 92% of his family - but still able to be influenced by Emma's good resolutions for the best (even though it's important to keep in mind that he didn't believe an escape involving more than three people was possible until it took place in front of his eyes. I think it's a very relevant detail, as it shows how GF!Ray's cynism and realism often lead to him solely being able to see the most negative results, and not allowing him to believe in the impossible as Emma and Norman did).

Now, things changed as canon Ray escaped. He had seen the impossible become reality right in front of his eyes, and in that moment he vowed he would have never made the same mistake: he would have never given up again; not on his family, nor on his life.

He swore to protect his family, and that he would have never allowed any of his siblings to meet death again: and that's because, for the very first time in his entire existence, he started to believe that no-escape-scenarios can actually be overcame without sacrifices, if only you have enough faith into making it possible. He learned that fighting back will never stop being an option, and he's now willing to do anything, even the impossible, to grant his family an happy life- this time, for all of them.

It's beautiful, isn't it? Well, bad news!!! Lambda!Ray never got the chance to go through this character development. In fact for him after his shipment everything got worse and more desperate!

I find it unlikely that Ray would have left a note with a revisited escape plan like Norman did before leaving... We know for sure in two months he didn't come up with what Norman had thought in a couple of hours, and even though in the circumstances of him being shipped he would have been him to make the recognition, he didn't know about the support of the younger siblings, which was a key element of the escape plan. Overall, even putting aside the fact that Norman is generally considered being a span more witty than Ray, I personally like to think that Ray, for how he is - pessimistic, depressed and everything - after seeing the cliff would have been far too miserable to come up with something as fast as Norman did.*

*Actually, it's hard to tell for sure, because I think Ray would never give up on saving Emma and Norman- but things were happening so fast, so what if he didn't have enough time? What if he just couldn't come up with a plan to overcome the cliff? I fully believe Ray would have done anything to save Emma and Norman, but what if there wasn't anything to be done? It's hard to say.

Ray is shipped to Lambda. This is probably what he's thinking, differently from Norman:

1. Their plan to escape somehow feels as it's already failed, since they already lost one person: without him, the plan of setting the house on fire to distract Isabella has no chance to work, making their already few chances of escaping go down to basically none.

2. Differently from Norman, who never stopped believing in Emma, Lambda!Ray doesn't know if his siblings were actually able to escape; taking into account how pessimistic Ray is, he has probably long presumed them dead. In such situation, it's very likely he considered the work of the six years of his life to at least make Emma and Norman survive gone to waste. I think it's actually very likely for him to get even more depressed and hopeless at Lambda, believing that now all his family is dead, and probably blaming himself for that. The fact that out of all his family he was the only one who survived - him, the one who out of them was the most ready and willing to die - must feel to him like the most cruel joke from destiny.

[For reference: until the very moment they finally met, also Norman didn't know the escape was successful.

Of course, Norman believed in Emma and in her plan, but what about cynical, realistic, I'm-depressed-since-I-was-one Ray?]

At Lambda, Ray is hopelessly stalling, obsessing on this kind of thoughts. His hatred for demons and, for extension, the world he lives in, is growing stronger and stronger. He's slowly sinking in the abyss of his own desperation. Now that all for him is lost, the only thought that keeps him from giving up on his life is one: the thirst of vengeance. A single, dark, rooted thought that somehow manages to be the one thing that keeps him going on. (Once taken on the Apollo facade, there probably was also a component of wanting to stop once and for all the suffering of thousands of children... But in all honesty, I believe with Ray the revenge component would be much stronger than it was with Norman.)

Let's take a moment to reflect on Ray's vindictive side, shall we? Of course, the main reason for Ray to set himself on fire was because according to him it was the safest way to make the others escape (honestly I think a big part of it was also because of him being suicidal kind of depressed, but that's not relevant to the point). But I believe another primary reason for his actions was his seek for revenge: you can clearly see it in his words full of hate and loathing. And I mean, I think that's pretty canon? Ray's beautiful theme in this moment of the anime is literally called “Ray's retaliation”.

That night Ray sought revenge for having ruined his six years plan to save his true friends (since Norman was ultimately shipped without him being able to do anything to save him), together with revenging all of his siblings he saw being led to death. Somehow, it was a moment for him to set all his anger free as his last testament leaving that cruel world.

But as for the Ray of the AU, he never got to experience that freeing moment! Instead, the anger inside of him kept growing stronger and stronger. And now that he believed the whole escape plan had failed and not a single child had survived, it's fair to assume his thirst for revenge would keep growing with it. And also, once again: this time there's no Emma to have a good influence on him.

Now imagine: after escaping Lamba, Ray meets Emma and Norman again!! He's overjoyed: for the longest time, he had thought he would have never got to see them again. He's ecstatic, overwhelmed with joy. In that moment, he swears to himself he'll never lose them again. Skip to the moment of the confrontation between the three of them, except this time it's Ray to expose his plan to exterminate the demons; when Emma randomly speaks her mind and says that, well, she actually doesn't find it very nice to eradicate an entire species, and that in fact she and Norman were already planning a fun trip to a deadly metaphysical place nobody ever came back from to reforge the promise. Needless to say, in the span of minutes Ray is back sinking deep into the abyss. He won't lose them again. He can't lose them again. And click boom, he goes “You know what Emma? Why don't you visit our Paradise Hideout a bit longer instead 😊🔪🔪🔪”

What I'm trying to say is: when the story starts, Ray has gone through all of the most dreadful and disturbing horrors; he's unstable, and depending on his fate when leaving Grace Field he could have easily swing from one extreme to the other. I think Emma greatly helped him overcome his hatred; but what would have been of him, hadn't she been there to support him? What if he only met people who shared his hatred for demons? What if Ray had the choice to kill them all?

[the-enamorando-deity]

*Can I request Sara Lance x Reader with your prompts **

Word - 22

Location- 4

Situation-1

Sentences- 13,20, and 25

Thanks! 🙂❤💜

hi hi hi hi oh my GOD THIS GAVE ME SO MANY IDEAS AAAAAH

Prompts: Crown, Ship, Stuck in the Past, “Is that a threat or a pick-up line?”, “Either we go or I do, but I’d prefer if you didn’t make me do this alone.”, “You’re so pretty. What the fuck.”

Sara Lance x Reader, (18+) because i’m a goddamn heathen and oof-

Captain Lance

Sure, the Legends had their shares of mishaps and incidents, but this was by far one of the worst mistakes that had happened since you joined the crew. Everything started so well, you and Sara were having fun in the halls of the WaveRider, surrounded by your favourite people in the world.

Her laugh bounced off the walls and made you smile, shoving by each other to get to the finish line before each other. You caught a glimpse of her looking at you, eyes bright in a way they only seemed to do again after over ten years of trouble. Your heart warmed at the thought of her, exposing the darkest and loneliest parts of herself, only to have them met with eager warmth and acceptance.

You hadn’t been through the things she had, but knew similar ways to relate, and it only made you crave her more. She thought herself nothing more than a bit of fun, a weapon more often than not. You saw everything else, and let her know it every day. She grabbed your hand right before the finish line, distracting you just enough that you didn’t realise she was pushing you behind her. 

With a victorious cry, the crew surrounded their winner, and Nate pulled Sara up onto his shoulder. ‘Captain Lance wins again!’

‘I’m on top of the world!’ she jeered, grinning down at you.

‘Not for long, Captain,’ you replied, a hint of something in your voice.

Nate lowered her back to the ground, the crew moving onto the next challenge you and Sara had arranged for fun. ‘Is that a threat or a pick-up line?’

‘You’re just going to have to find out.’

Charlie made a face and looked like she was about to be sick, quickly pushing to the front of the group to escape the grossness of you two.

Things turned bad fast. Only seconds into the next challenge, Gideon’s warbled warnings alerted you all to something sinister as the ship started to lurch and spin, all of you making a break for the control room, reaching it far too late. Sara was there first, finding out the trouble and running for the loading bay before any of you could process what was going on. 

You cried out after her and raced down the steps, only to see the door blow open and suck her out, her head crashing into the doorframe before she vanished. ‘Sara!’

Your foot tapped on the metal floors as Gideon searched and scanned, but with the damage the ship sustained, she couldn’t locate the captain. Ray sat beside you and tried to offer words of comfort, which were only met with silence. His hand on your shoulder was kind, but you couldn’t think clear enough. 

The ship had crash-landed in the middle of the ocean, on an island Zari only barely managed to aim you for. With Gideon out of commission and no clues as to your time period, you all felt an overwhelming sense of hope lost, not only for yourselves, but for Sara. If the WaveRider barely made it to an island, had Sara hit the water? Was she even in the same year as the rest of you?

Heavy hearted, you dragged Mick from his room with the premise of “it might be Aruba”, making him help you search the notably small island, both of you knowing it wasn’t Aruba. It didn’t take long, both of you calling out for Sara, able to search the island in under half an hour. Without much shade, there wasn’t many places she could hide, or be hidden from sight.

It wasn’t until Nate saw a ship in the distance, remarking on the distinct shape and colouring, that he knew when and where you all were. The ship had seen your smoky signal and made way towards you.

‘Zari, get the WaveRider disguised, now!’ you ordered, after following Nate’s train of realisation. ‘Nate, please tell me the fabricator is still working?’

He nodded, and you all made a desperate run for the machine. The ship was still a few minutes from being able to see everything properly, even with a telescope- or so you hoped. Zari gave the thumbs up that the ship was disguised, pulling you aside.

‘Pirates? You’re kidding right?’

You sighed and handed her an outfit. ‘Get dressed.’

‘We can’t just leave the WaveRider here unattended, if someone finds it, we’re screwed, and stuck here forever,’ she explained, pushing the outfit back into your arms. ‘It’s fine, that stuff smells like butt anyway.’

Not wanting to leave her alone, you turned to a very unenthusiastic Mick. ‘Stay.’

He growled, more at the fact that you ordered him, less so at the order. ‘Fine, I don’t wanna play pirates anyway. I have all the booze I need right here.’

With that, you grabbed Nate, Ray and Charlie and headed for the doors, ready to greet whoever it was that may or may not be about to try and kill you. Three steps in, you saw Ray stumble before you and quickly turned to head back to Zari.

‘Get him to the medbay.’

Charlie poked at Ray’s ankle as he lay in the chair, eliciting a shriek from him. ‘Broken. He can’t come with us, we’ll be sitting ducks.’

With a look from the crew, you knew Sara’s position was to be yours for the time being. 'I guess Zari’s coming along after all. Ray, you get Mick to help you fix the ship. We’ll be on comms, and Zari can guide you. Okay?’

He winced and nodded, looking sadly at Nate. ‘Sorry we can’t be pirate bros, buddy.’

‘Next time.’

With the new plan, Zari- somehow less enthusiastic than usual- followed the three of you to the beach, and you all left the WaveRider behind, watching the rowboats launch from the pirate ship.

‘Here we go.’

You dropped to the sand and started holding onto your ankle, a weak cry silenced by a pained huff telling the crew you were playing hurt.

‘Y/N, what are you doing?’

‘If they think we’re hurt, we’re less of a threat,’ you explained, ‘we can get on their ship, get to port, find Sara, then get Ray and Mick to come get us when the WaveRider’s fixed.’

From the moment the pirates arrived on the shore, they were silent, taking inventory of you all before lowering their guards. One finally spoke to ask what was the problem, and with that, the four of you realised the entire crew was made up of women.

It was Charlie who spoke first of the Legends, helping you stand. ‘Our captain is wounded and our ship damaged, may we seek refuge with you to get us back to port so we can commandeer items for repair?’ 

‘No need, our ship has all you need,’ she spoke again, ‘come aboard, let your captain rest her wounds, have a meal, and we can assist you with repairs.’

Cautious, you all glanced between each other before moving towards the row boats. ‘Thank you,’ you replied graciously, bowing your head, ‘your captain must be very good to you.’

The silence of the women returned, Charlie and Zari helping you to one boat to keep up the ruse, Nate grabbing your bags and joining Charlie in the other boat. It was tense, terrifying, and altogether a bad idea. You could barely resist muttering to yourself at the eagerness for you all to get captured, the willingness to trust strangers. And yet, it felt right.

You knew why the moment you were helped off the row boat, looking up, only to lock eyes with their pirate captain. Adorned with a gorgeous crown of silver and jewels, the love of your life stood before your eyes, unharmed.

‘Sara,’ you breathed, quickly wrapping your arms around her and pulling her close. 

She hugged you so tight you forgot your cover, kissing her long and soft. The crew had fallen silent, the only noise coming from Charlie and Zari as they tried to resist vomiting. 

‘Our Queen has found her lover! Rejoice for our quest is long over!’ cheered the first mate, an uproarious cry of delight from the entire female crew deafening you as Sara held your face tenderly.

The dark makeup around her eyes made the bright blue shine brighter, her lips stained a dark red, the soft freckles you would often count by kissing them now darker than you’d imagined they could be.

‘You’re so pretty,’ you laughed, still not believing she was alright, ‘what the fuck? How are you so-’

Sara silenced you by placing a gentle finger to your lips, turning to face her crew. They bowed down before her, the cheeky smile she gave you followed by a wink. The gentle hum of her voice rippled through your body as you held her hand, thinking only now, that she had obviously been searching for you for a long time.

‘Our mission is complete, ladies, you may all return to your ports if you wish, or stay aboard under the rule of Jessalyn,’ she announced, voice cracking slightly, her tone withered and shaky. ‘Thank you all for your service, you have sent me home.’

She turned to Nate, Zari and Charlie, dragging them and you in for a group hug.

‘Captain? Before you go,’ the first mate, Jessalyn you assumed, spoke, ‘perhaps a feast? We will miss you greatly, and this may ease our worries of your safety.’

Nodding eagerly, Nate grinned at Sara like a kid in a library- or at least, Nate as a kid in a library. She agreed, quickly dragging you off and leaving the others to engage with her other crew. 

Before you even reached her quarters, Sara grabbed you and pulled you flush against her,  hands roaming your body as she kissed you hard, pressing you against the wall, dragging her fingers through your hair.

‘Jesus, Sara, how long were you here?’ you mumbled between kisses, your arms around her neck as you pulled her close.

‘Four months,’ she mumbled, moving to kiss down the side of your neck. 

‘Should we really have left the others out there? What if-’

She put a finger to your lips and placed a soft kiss on your nose. Sara reached behind you, never dropping eye contact, and opened the door. ‘Either we go or I do, but I’d prefer if you didn’t make me do this alone.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ you replied, greedily moving to kiss her again.

Her lips tasted of wine and sea salt, mixed with berries you were sure didn’t still exist. You had barely lost her for two hours, and you could barely get your hands off her. The door shut behind you, Sara dragging you towards her bed, laying down and pulling you over her.

You kissed down her bare chest, gently pulling her shirt down and sucking a small trail down the centre. Squeezing her breast, your lips moved back to her neck, your free hand skating up her outer thigh, fingers dancing over her skin and thumb rubbing circles as you moved inward. Her breath hitched at your touch, grabbing your wrist with her hand and guiding it higher, closer to where she wanted you.

Moaning softly into her neck as you kissed her, Sara wasn’t happy with your messing around. She reached up to take the crown off, looking down to meet your eyes.

‘Leave it on,’ you grinned, pulling yourself down lower on the bed, bowing down to kiss the insides of her thighs. 

You teased her softly with your tongue, moving closer and feeling her try to press her thighs together. A gentle whimper left her throat as you tugged her underwear down over her legs, discarding them across the room. Her skirt hitched up as you kissed and sucked at her stomach, Sara’s hands tangled in your hair and pulled your head closer, lower.

Giving in, you softly kissed up her folds, tongue darting in as you moved up and down. Her hips hitched as you licked a stripe up and down her soaking pussy, hands tugging you closer as she demanded more. 

‘Stop being so gentle, goddamnit,’ she huffed, a smile breaking out across her face as you began sucking at her clit. Breath caught in her throat, she was more than satisfied now.

‘Is that better, princess?’ you murmured, the soft rumbles of your voice making Sara grip your hair a little tighter. 

She managed to nod, a pleased sigh when your soft fingers started circling her clit, your mouth moving elsewhere as she started getting close already. Distracting Sara by kissing her lips, your other hand moved back up to her breast, and one of hers moved down between her legs.

‘Good girl,’ you grinned, hearing her fingers slip inside herself, her body gently rocking beneath yours. It was often a joint effort, making her happy, and it seemed that even in the bedroom she still liked a little control.

Her moans filled the room, sucking at her neck as she struggled to keep a hold. ‘Baby, you do it so much better. I wanna feel you inside me, please.’

More than happy to oblige, you kissed back down her body, your tongue darting over and circling her clit as your fingers took over where hers had been, stroking the inside of her walls as you felt her clench around you. Her hips lifted off the bed as your fingers and mouth worked their magic, a quick pace letting her finish, but you didn’t stop. Slowing only a little, you helped her work herself down, sucking across her collarbones.

‘That’s gonna leave a mark,’ she grinned, wrapping her arms around you and kissing you like it was the first time. ‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you too.’

Turning on her side as you lay by her, she ran a finger down your arm. ‘By the way,’ Sara teased between kisses, ‘if you broke my ship, I’ll kick your ass.’

‘I know.’

taglist: @marvelfansince08love @mymarvelwomen @imnotasuperhero @natasha-danvers @veteranwerewolf95 @monihaswritersblock @natasharomanoffswife   @xxxtwilightaxelxxx 

[qqueenofhades]

helllllloo. i wanted to first say that you are a wonderful human being, your presence on my dashboard brightens my day, you’re so kind to all your followers and i love seeing you interact with us! and i am sending you all the positive adult vibes your way ✨✨✨

second, there’s been a lot of chit chat lately about all the heartrender husband fans combusting over Simon Sears’ interview and the many many feelings that a certain grumpy bear gives us for his one (1) soft spot and ray of sunshine despite all his fragility and fear. i was wondering, if you had any thoughts on how it looks on the flip side for fedyor? i cant imagine being married to the General’s right hand man is easy (it’s both the safest and most dangerous place for Ivan to be).

Okay first of all, the first part of your ask is so sweet that I read it like three different times and was like wow are u sure. Second, boy oh boy can I use those positive adult vibes (even if they sound slightly like a porno 😂) because it has been the few weeks from hell. Job rejections, family health drama, moving hassle, and other such nonsense, to the point where if either myself or a member of my family has inadvertently insulted a leprechaun, I hereby apologise deeply and unreservedly on our behalf. Sheesh.

Anyway, never mind all that. We are indeed losing our minds slightly over said interview, for obvious reasons, but yes, Fedyor. Obviously he is Ivan's little ray of sunshine and one (1) weakness and the person he allowed himself to fall in love with despite losing the rest of his family, all of which are ship dynamics that drive me/us promptly feral. I definitely feel, however, that Fedyor has plenty of ferocity of his own, which is one of the reasons Ivan is drawn to him. Book!Fedyor tells Alina in the carriage scene that he became a Heartrender instead of a Healer (despite being of a Healing temperament) because he thought that he could do more good for people as a soldier, including when he has to kill. He also says that being a Corporalki is the hardest of all Grisha paths and requires the most training and study. I imagine that Fedyor was pretty good especially at the book learning part of his training, is interested in and dedicated to Grisha lore and history, and about finding way to use that beyond the obvious and making the Grisha appreciate who they are as a people and what their purpose in Ravka really is. And I'm not just saying that because I am also a historian and like to project onto my favorite characters. Shh.

Fedyor is obviously the total opposite of Ivan, personality-wise, but I think that is also why they complement each other. Fedyor helps Ivan lighten tf up and eat a pink cookie at a party, and Ivan helps Fedyor cut directly through the bullshit when he needs to. Living in the Little Palace and around the royal court, as members of General Kirigan's inner circle, obviously requires a touch for politics and diplomacy that Fedyor is far better at than Ivan, but that means his instinct is likewise to smile and humor people even when he wants to tell them to fuck off. Cue Ivan coming along and telling them to fuck off, which means they can blame Ivan for it and not Fedyor, and Ivan is perfectly 100% fine with everyone thinking he is the biggest grump to ever grump, since the only people whose opinions he cares about are Kirigan and Fedyor. Oh Ivan.

Fedyor is also outgoing and likes to have fun and is probably on good terms with most of his compatriots. He's clearly friends with Nadia since we see them arm in arm at the winter fete in mlm/wlw solidarity. He is also Ivan's Anger Translator, and if people have something they want to tell Ivan, they have a bad habit of telling Fedyor instead and trusting him to pass it on, rather than talking to Ivan themselves. (Fedyor: honey do you think this is even a slight problem? Ivan: no what are you talking about, it's great.)

I do think that Fedyor is just as frightened of losing Ivan as Ivan is of losing him, though for different reasons. It helps for him that they're usually in the field together (judging by his comment to Kirigan in 1x06 assuming that he and Ivan are going after Nina together) and facing the same things and same danger, even if it causes Ivan anxiety for this exact reason. I do appreciate that none of us have bothered to include any homophobia in Grisha culture, or exclude the possibility that Ivan and Fedyor could indeed be married in a church ceremony in the Ravkan liturgy. There's probably some side eye toward their relationship in wider Ravkan society, sure, but that is also tied up with being Grisha and the prejudices that they already face for being different. Behind the walls of the Little Palace, though, that is not really a factor and not something that they have to deal with. People are surprised that Fedyor and Ivan are together not because they're both men, but because "you're so nice and he is so... Ivan..."

Fedyor: I know, I know. But I love him anyway.

I also think that Fedyor is deeply protective of Ivan, not least because he is the only one who knows the truth about him being fragile and losing loved ones and everything else that he has been through, which is why one of my favorite headcanons is Fedyor going absolutely apeshit if Ivan is ever seriously hurt. Likewise, you can call Ivan grumpy in a joking fashion, and Fedyor will chuckle and agree with you, but anything else and his eyes turn red and the Heartrending hands come out like what u say about my husband bitch. Only Fedyor is allowed to roast Ivan in depth at all, according to Fedyor, and he will Let You Know if you transgress.

(Also why I want Ivan and Fedyor to meet the Crows again, Ivan sees Jesper and goes NEMESIS, and Fedyor just goes MURDER!!!)

Anyway. I'm love them. The end.

[chiliconsharls]

The unsolicited AlexReggie ship manifesto

DISCLAIMER: This is obviously meant as a rant post about a ship I can enjoy in fandom spaces and not an actual request from me to make AlexReggie canon in the show or any of the sorts. I am quite happy and excited about the actual canon LGBT+ ship of this show, which is Willie x Alex. Do not get that twisted.

That being said, let me talk to you about the amazing, entertaining dynamic Alex and Reggie have that makes them super easy and fun to ship them:

I wanna start off by saying that I’m mostly writing this because I feel like they are either unfairly underlooked or just grossly misread; and I’m more upset about the latter. (Someone on this hellsite actually had the nerve to say Alex doesn’t take Reggie seriously so. I just had to get this off my chest)

So what’s this amazing, entertaining dynamic you speak of?

Alex and Reggie are best friends. That much is clear from the very first minutes of the show. It’s not Alex is Luke’s friend who’s friends with Reggie or the other way around. They’re all best friends. 

In fact, Alex and Reggie’s very first interaction is just about the sweatest we get to see them. Their first interaction:

Reggie goes over to Alex to compliment him specifically on how he played at the rehearsal which leads us to a lot of grey areas of headcanoning (was Alex the last to join and so he was shy or nervous around the others? Maybe Reggie just likes to compliment him for some reason, or my personal favorite: Reggie knew Alex was anxious about playing the Orpheum so he thought Alex needed reassurance of his awesomeness? ), but the matter is: Reggie thinks Alex is awesome. 

However, them being sweet best friends is not their entire dynamic (and thank God), no. Alex and Reggie are the quippy best friends, they’re the Vitriolic Best Buds (type one– with Reggie being more on the ‘unaware of the vitriol’ side): 

“A very good measure of how good your friends are is how much you can insult them without them taking offense.”— Heliomance

When two people who are the very best of friends behave like the very worst of enemies.

Alex pokes fun at Reggie saying “he can see you” when Carlos asks if the ghost is “hiddeous”. Reggie makes fun of Alex for crying and being “a very emotional person” (even when Alex isn’t even there). 

But at the end of the day, and this is where I wanna emphasize: they’re the ones to show care first and immidiately for each other. 

It’s stated that their friendship runs deep between all three of them (Luke, Alex and Reggie), but I’m not gonna write the manifesto for the OT3 yet so bear with me: 

In episode 1x02: when Alex complains about them not giving him a hug when he was crying in the “void”, Reggie goes to hug him without hesitation – for Alex to turn him down because, again, that’s their primary dynamic. 

Same episode, a few minutes later: Reggie gets overwhelmed about Ray crying and asks to see his parents and Alex turns to him and sotfly goes “Yeah”

In episode 1x07: when Alex is upset about Willie and Reggie gives him a reassuring comment about how there’ll be others which Alex takes greatfully and openly. 

Episode 1x09: after Alex has said goodbye to Willie and Reggie goes over his shoulder to ask him if he’s alright

Same episode, a few minutes later: when Reggie voices his concerns about what will happen to them if they cross over and Alex turns to him, again, his voice softer than it usually is when he speaks to Reggie, and tells him that “It’s not like we have a choice”, to ease him up a bit. 

What I mean to say with this is: Luke is, as I can read in the context of what we’ve seen in the first season, the least emotionally intelligent out of the three of them and so since Luke lacks in that department–> it means Alex and Reggie have each other. 

Again, they’re like – really best friends when you truly look. Mostly because Luke suffers from his trope of the front-man and main male protagonist, so he’s capable of going on his own or with Julie to explore other bonds while Alex and Reggie have less and lesser and a lot of that is spent with each other. 

Alex tells Reggie about Willie, Reggie pays attention and actually cares about the stuff he’s learning both from Alex as an extension of Willie and then about what he can get from the rest of the world. Alex and Reggie – most of the time during the season – are on the same page about stuff and together, while Luke is off doing his own things, mostly with Julie as she is the protagonist. 

Granted, Alex main focused relationship is with Willie (and I’m super greatful for that), but after Willie, and this is where I take no criticsm, it’s Reggie who comes on the list. Not Luke, not Julie or Carrie– Alex immidiate secondary focused-dynamic as of Season 1 is Reggie (if only slightly tied with the boys as a trio itself, obviously). 

Then there’s the aspect of them individually and how they contrast each other. Alex is obviously the smarter of the three and Reggie falls further on the scale, all the way to the side. That makes them a little the Smart Jerk, Nice Moron trope except Alex isn’t that much of a jerk all the time. However, it works, because not only it makes up for great comedic bits (literally all of their scenes together omg) but also because you can’t have one without the other or it’d be awfully unbalanced.

The “rhythm section” duo

Yes, I even wanna talk about the symbolism of their instruments too and how they’re linked through that. Drums and bass are not only essential to any band but they’re also very important and rely on each other. I’m no music expert at all, but even I know one usually follows after the other to keep the pace of the rhythm. 

This article has some many interesting takes on the relationship between the drummer and the bassist: 

“A drummer’s comprehension of the role of bass guitar is often far greater than most guitarists.”

“Everyone in the band is of course on the team, but the bond between the bassist and drummer is something so deep that it usually takes a long time to develop.”

“Bassists and drummers are the rhythm section together, meaning one instrument consisting of two parts.”

“Simply put, the bassist and drummer really are the rhythm section. It’s not the guitarist and certainly not the damn keyboard player. That can be an unclear distinction at times, but I feel strongly about it. Bass and drums should be an inseparable pair, sonically speaking,” he continues. “That’s not to say that all kick patterns should be followed to the tee, but there should be an obvious and palpable awareness of what each other is doing. There are too many nuances to list that can go with or against that grain. In short, bass and drums should always be intertwined like hot, sweaty lovers having the rawest, musical sex.”  —  Miles McPherson

I find the whole ✨semiotic✨ of this very poetic on its own, but it’s also an OT3 thing I’ll get on later, I think. 

Ultimately, Owen and Jeremy make it work, too. Duh. Their chemestry on screen really gives you the vibe that despite all the times Alex looks at Reggie like he’s fed up and wants to die all over again ("I wish I couldn’t see you”), Alex still finds him endearing and just…he loves the guy. And obviously Reggie – the heart of the boys trio– just loves him right back: 

I just think they’re cute and funny and even when I’m not shipping them, I’m still appreciating them from a mlm solidarity pov (bc Reggie is definitely bi) and whoever said that Alex doesn’t take Reggie seriously or ever tries to even imply Alex wouldn’t set the whole world on fire to keep Reggie warm is just not watching the same goddamn show.

[burnsopale]

Pictured: three tired boys breaking into pieces.

I was gonna wait until we actually reached lake Baikal, but I’m impatient, so let’s start the final part of my little series about these three disasters.

In the last post I talked about how Kai, Rai and Johnny are similar. Now I want to talk about how their similar fates will mean something different for each of them.

To recap, all three boys are highly sensitive and emotional, but too proud to dare be vulnerable, and so they hide behind more aggressive behaviour; Kai is antisocial, Johnny is sarcastic and cruel, and Rai is ANGRY. All three spend canon dealing with a big change in their lives (his name is Takao), but they are locked in their self-denial, so they resist the change furiously until they exhaust themselves and reach a crisis point where their armour is shattered and they stand revealed as who they truly are.

Or at least, Rai and Kai get that, Johnny almost gets there, but the arc ends before he can really reach it. He would have, though. Remember, Ralf, arguably the main antagonist of the arc, accepts the existence of the power of friendship before he even steps up to battle Takao. Johnny on the other hand never says out loud that he’s on board with the new regime. So for the images above, I could have chosen Johnny’s flinch after Ralf lost, where he’s got the same pinched expression and bared teeth as the other two, but in his case, it’s his moment of quiet distress in the garden that gives us the clearest glimpse behind the armour.

So they are similar, but the beauty of Bakuten Shoot Beyblade is the level of detail these characters get at their best. All three boys are facing an authority that demand they submit, but giving in will mean something different for each boy.

(Oh no, Judin’s getting horny again.)

(She’s not sorry, though.)

Rai’s case is fascinating because he is an alpha who, more than the other two, is forced to submit. He resists until he breaks, and then Rei overwhelms him with massive power. It’s a benevolent destruction, meant to tear down Rai’s walls and show him a better path, but it’s also a horrible humiliation. Don’t forget that Rai has to deliberately control his temper before he can congratulate Rei.

Remember also that it was Rai’s ambition to be chief, and for a little while that was his future, and now, while he will not have to live with being an imposter chief, the chief who was not chosen, he will have to live with having been the Almost Usurper. Rei and Rai will both be “the redeemed boy” of the tribe, except Rei is pure and blameless, while Rai is blackened and tainted by what he did.

Yes, this is all terribly dramatic, but that’s kinda the point; Rai is dramatic. Rai, Johnny and Kai are so proud that every little embarrassment is excruciating, and this embarrassment was not little.

So it is my belief that for Rai, submission to Rei will never be easy. First of all because his submission was forced; he is part of the clan, Rei is Byakko’s chosen chief of the clan, Rai has no choice but to submit; he tried to resist once and Rei showed him his place. Secondly, Rai is himself an alpha, used to being the dominating personality in all his relationships except with Rei.

And yeah okay we’re getting dangerously close to AlphaOmega fanfic territory here, but they’re friggin cat-people, so the terminology works, and anyway, not every character in this story is dominant or submissive. Max, for instance, can be either or neither. I’ve used him before as the example of a boy who accepts himself completely, emotions, weaknesses and all, and that makes him strong and adaptable, able to withstand for instance the realisation that his mom is a terrible mother. He can blend in with any group of people and do just fine; after all, his element is water.

I obviously have no idea how Rai deals with Rei returning in G-Rev, but looking strictly at season 1, I see a Rai who will always struggle to take orders from Rei, though he will do it for the sake of duty, and because he knows his reluctance comes from his own pride and shame, not from any fault of Rei’s, and really that just adds to his pain. Even leading the Chinese blading team is something Rai will know he is only doing until Rei decides to join them. Then he will have to step down.

ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO, ANYBODY ELSE FEELING A CREEPING DREAD? *sweats* Well buckle up cause it’s about to get hornier.

Next is Johnny. The funny thing is that where Rai is an alpha forced to submit, Johnny only thinks he’s an alpha, and submission actually comes very natural to him. Once he met Ralf anyway. AND YES I SHIP THEM PUT DOWN THE PITCHFORKS. I like to think I ship them because they have this dynamic, and not that I give them this dynamic because I ship them.

Part of Johnny’s problem is that he’s a soft boy who thinks he needs to be a swaggering macho male. He keeps tripping himself up because his natural instinct is to curl up in the safety of Ralf’s authority, which means he’s always doing what Ralf tells him to in the hope that senpai will notice him and give him the affirmation he needs. Remember my argument that Johnny bases his self-worth on his wealth, status and blading skills, all of which Takao is teaching him means nothing, leaving him with precious little; he is in desperate need of someone to tell him he is good enough even without these things. His loud complaining is both a front he puts up, his armour, and the way he expresses his fear of where this train is hurtling. Highly sensitive people are not good at accepting change, and Takao introduces change about as gently as a hurricane.

Unfortunately, the one who Johnny is looking to for affirmation is a guy who has no interpersonal skills whatsoever, and Johnny can’t really look elsewhere because of a little thing that Saint-Exupéry talks about in The Little Prince, when the Prince meets a fox who asks the boy to tame him:

“"I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."

...

But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.”

By giving Johnny his first major defeat, Ralf has tamed him, and, as Saint-Exupery goes on to say: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

Unfortunately, as before mentioned, Ralf is UTTERLY OBLIVIOUS to this thing having happened. He’s a stork what can I say. At best he has an instinctual sense of Johnny, Giancarlo and Olivier being “his people” now, which for instance allows him to casually dismiss Johnny’s very reasonable request TO BE ALLOWED TO GO HOME.

Ralf is the type who rules with complete authority. He’s a stone wall as far as negotiations go. Not that he can’t change his mind or see the sense in an argument (Again, he accepts the power of friendship when he sees it in action), but only if he is Wrong. This is like the one thing that keeps him from being a straight up villain. In all other ways he is unbendable, which also leaves Johnny’s attempts at asserting dominance hilariously ineffective.

For Johnny, his final submission to Ralf would mean he had reached self-acceptance, and it would give him safety and comfort, and I think Ralf, once he learns how to act like a human being, will grow into his role as Johnny’s Captain.

Though I admit that this, more than with Kai and Rai, is my own interpretation of Johnny’s character, since we don’t get his full arc. And he is not like this at all in the manga, but that’s a separate canon.

Again, if you think this is all very ... well, horny of me, I’m not saying all relationship work this way. Again, Kai defeating Max in battle did not mean Max is now tamed, because Max does not work that way. If he ever allows himself to be tamed, it will be his choice.

Takao, and shounen anime protagonists in general, tend to tame everyone they meet, and some people take it in stride, while others become their devoted followers or obsessed rivals.

Kai was very much tamed by Takao, but since he doesn’t respect Takao or think much of his abilities as a blader, Kai is able to shrug their bond off at first.

At first.

But I’ll come back to Kai if we ever get through episode 45.

[chaoticspacefam]

The Lana Shipping Meme!

This is a meme made by @swtor-legacy-sitcom​ who very kindly tagged me to fill it in, thank you! :D This was super fun, I’ve been in a bit of a writing rutt lately so this was a nice way to sort-of dip my toe back into it :P I TOTALLY forgot this was in my drafts and forgot to schedule it to post, I’m soooo sorry it took so long lmao 😳😬

I’m not sure if we’re supposed to tag other people with this one so I’ll just leave a general, open tag here: if you have a Lana ship and want to fill this one out, feel free to yoink the meme and say I tagged you! Yes, I promise I mean you <3

Spoilers for KOTFE/KOTET, and slight spoilers for the Subterfugeverse “version” of said events, will be discussed below, so be aware of that before proceeding! There’s also some midlly nsfw questions so you might wanna skip those if they’re not your thing! :D Under a cut because it’s long, but no trigger warnings need apply.

Is Lana Beniko absolutely done with their shit?

Oh yes, absolutely. Nearly always. At any given time, BUT Lana wouldn’t have it any other way. Saarai may be a reckless, overly-heroic idiot with seemingly no self-preservation, but she’s Lana’s reckless, overly-heroic idiot, ya know :’D

Do they make jokes together?

Fairly often, yes! Theirs is very much a flirty/fond banter type of relationship. Lana tells her she’s insufferable, Saarai rolls her eyes and snarks back, so on. See:

Saarai: Well this was a stupid idea Lana: Considering it was one of yours, I’m not surprised Saarai: Why didn’t you say something? Lana: I did and you did it anyway. And what have we learnt from this? Saarai, quietly: I’m a dumbass and I should listen to you more.... Lana: Good. I still love you, though. Saarai: :’D

Lana, two minutes later: You’re going to do it again, aren’t you? Saarai: Yeah, probably.

as well as that little cutscene “You’d better come back blah blah blah” “Well I have you to rescue me, that’s all I need~” is their default pre-dangerous battle banter :P

Who’s hornier? (who initiates)

Saarai is definitely hornier, and while she’s not always the one to initiate, she’s definitely the one to ask more often. (if I had to give it a number, prolly something like 65/45 lol) One of these days, Lana’s going to buy a spray bottle /jk

Kinkiest they’ve been?

Not awfully. Saarai’s a biter (Lana likes it, don’t worry 😏) and she loves it when Lana pulls her hair, but other than that, and making use of connections within the Force to heighten the sensations during such activities ;) they’re pretty vanilla

There was a post going around a while back about an alternative to a praise kink that was like, a “reassurance” kink, instead. I can’t find the actual post to link to it and I haven’t pinned down any specifics for them yet but I definitely think that’s a Saarai thing to look into later 😏

Has Lana ever covered up something your OC did as Minister of Intelligence?

In a roundabout way, yes. Technically, Saarai’s entire existence on Rishii. Since, teeechhnically, as far as the Empire’s concerned at that point, Rai’s supposed to be dead. Lana doesn’t know the technicalities of why that is (and Saarai isn’t comfortable telling her, even now), but she knows it’s important, so she does it for her even if she doesn’t know why.

Favorite non sexual downtime activity?

Cuddles! Saarai is a cuddlebug, and while Lana enjoys them she’s definitely not the “if I don’t get cuddled x times a day I can’t go on” type (in my headcanon, ofc, I’m not saying she can never be that way!) but, Saarai’s also very warm and cuddling her is cozy, so it’s something they both enjoy, whether Rai’s the big spoon, or - and this is Rai’s favourite thing ever - Saarai putting her head in Lana’s lap so Lana can play with her hair, it’s something they always do at the end of the day when they’re both done with work.

Mushiest thing Your OC has ever done for Lana?

So, I’m too impatient & lazy to do the actual HK missions in-game, but I know you can technically get another HK unit, so because ✨it’s my fanfic and I get to make the rules✨ Saarai sent Aria (my DS! Jedi Shadow, very good at stealth) back to Zakuul and though it was a bit battered up, she managed to retrieve HK’s processor. They had to get him a new chassis, but Koth and Ty managed to salvage the rest of his “important” bits and they rebuilt HK for her after they settled on Odessen :’3

Most Embarrassed Lana has ever been because of your OC?

In the middle of an important meeting, in front of everyone on the Alliance High Council, including Theron, Senya, Ni’kasi, Vano, etc.

Lana, sarcastically, after they’ve been disagreeing on how to handle a particular matter for ~1 hr: hahaha bite me.

Saarai, dead serious: Okay, where? 😏

Lana was mortified, to say the least XD

That thing that happened that they vow to NEVER speak of?

Saarai’s reaction when they went to Nathema. Rai’s psychometric, and in hindsight she realises putting her hand on that wall as she ducked into the building was a mistake. She was bombarded with flashback after flashback of what had happened on Nathema when it was still Medriaas, the planet where she was born and where most of her family died, it was not a pleasant experience for her and Rai actually collapsed at one stage because it was all too much for her ;w;

Lana had to bring her back around and herd her back on the ship, where Rai had to wait because she just couldn’t go any further, and Lana and Vano had to go on alone. Lana agreed not to tell anyone else about what had happened, because Saarai didn’t want any of them to worry about her, or think she was “weak” because of it.

The Angriest they’ve ever been at each other?

There’s actually two instances that come to mind for this one

1) Koth’s betrayal/stealing of the Gravestone, Lana was pissed at Koth and wanted to take it out on him, Saarai was pissed at the situation and got between them and chewed Lana out for taking it out on him. (Subterfugeverse is kinda complicated, there’s two Commanders calling the shots for different parts of the Alliance, Koth took issue with something Vano did and made the reckless, kinda stupid decision to still steal the Gravestone even tho Saarai didn’t do anything. (also for anyone new to the blog, all three of them are dating, they’re polyam ;)) Lana took it personally, Saarai was more upset that he was upset and didn’t say anything before he did something stupid. Rai and Lana butted heads about how to deal with it, Lana got salty cause she got yelled at, but they ofc fix it later :3)

2) Torian’s death. Saarai had tried to warn Lana what would happen if they split Vette & Torian up during that fight, Lana brushed it off and told Rai to “stop overreacting, it will be fine”. Obviously, it was not fine. Rai was very angry at the result because, I quote, “I WARNED YOU! And you wouldn’t listen to me!” Saarai refused to speak to Lana for a few days after that, it was kinda a rough time for Lana, she’s only seen Rai get that angry a few times, and only once at her so it shook her a bit. 😢

How does both Lana, and your OC initiate the ‘fade to black’ ;)

For Saarai, the “indicator” is usually when her kisses start to become 50/50 between kissing and biting/nibbling. That’s the universal “ok I want to” signal for Rai. Usually very quickly followed by a soft “yes?” or “are you sure?”, either against her skin or into her ear, depending on where she’s kissing at the time; because she’ll always check first, and if Lana says “no”, it’s off, because Lana’s consent is more important than any of her feelings.

For Lana, it’s when she’ll let Rai pick her up and/or usually to pin her to a wall. There’s a decent height difference, Saarai’s 6 ft 3, and I headcanon that while Lana’s not necessarily “short” at around 5 ft 8, she’s considerably smaller than Rai, as well as being more “reserved” with PDA, she’ll hold hands, or kiss her on the cheek etc. in front of other people, but otherwise Lana tries to keep somewhat “professional” while they’re at work. So when she starts climbing her like a tree, Rai knows she’s about to get some. XD

Do they have kids?

Kiiiinddd of? It’s complicated. Saarai has a son, Ty, from a previous relationship. Lana & Koth both sort of step up to help co-parent, but since Sith Purebloods age differently (i.e. they’re adults at ~20ish the same as humans, but after that they’re more like elves and their physical aging slows down, so they’re more long-lived), even though Ty’s very young by Pureblood standards, he’s still 60 years old, so he’s technically older than Lana and it’s kind of awkward for him to actually call her mom even if she kind of acts like one. He accidentally called her “mom” once, it was very awkward for both of them XD

What has been the most protective Lana has ever had of said kid?

I sat and scratched my head for ages trying to think of something to answer this question with, but I’m very sad to say that right now at the time of answering this meme, I don’t have any specific scenes planned out to tell you about! :( But rest assured that Lana absolutely would rush to help Ty if it was ever necessary :D

House pets? Is your Lana a dog person, or Cat person?

Funnily enough, they don’t actually have any pets! I’d like to think of Lana as more of a cat person than a dog person, in my personal opinion. But they have yet to get any pets of their own, maybeee later on, I dunno. Haven’t hit on any solid ideas for them yet, but I feel like if they happened upon a cute kitty they definitely could adopt one at some stage :’3

Do they get freaky on the Alliance Base or in the Shuttles?

They’ve done both, to be honest lol. Thankfully, Saarai’s sneaky enough that they haven’t gotten caught doing it, yet. Thank the Force.

Are their Sparring Matches Flirtatious? Hardcore?

They could go either way, it depends on what kind of mood they’re both in. If Lana’s particularly annoyed (usually not at Rai, but sometimes) then it’s more likely to be a hardcore spar, Rai’s a pretty tough cookie so she’ll often offer to be Lana’s punching bag in order to spare them some repair bills so she doesn’t rip apart the training dummies irrepairably, it’s okay, Rai can take it ;)

But if they’re both in an otherwise good mood and are just sparring for practise sakes, then yes, they often very quickly devolve into flirtacious banter and some of the classics, you know, “okay you win, you can let me go now” “mmm, nah” “I thought we were sparring” “do you want me to stop” “...don’t you dare.” etc. :’D

Class Specific things that play into their relationship?

Saarai’s a Juggernaut, and I headcanon Lana’s probably some sort of Sorcerer, so they tend to fight as such. They cover each other in more ways than one, if you want to get to Lana you have to go through Saarai first (and good luck to you, that woman can take and give a fucking beating lmao). Lana picks off whatever Saarai’s saber misses, usually with Force attacks but sometimes with her saber, too. Saarai takes bullets for Lana so Lana doesn’t have to get hurt. Lana yells at Rai for doing that and then fixes her up with Force healing afterwards, rinse and repeat. :’D

When they do argue, Lana tends to spontaneously manifest Force lightning, Saarai’s used to it and doesn’t bat an eyelid, she knows Lana’s not actually going to throw it at her and she’s more than prepared to dodge any stray bolts that do come her way.

Lana’s the tactician and the ground support, Saarai’s the battering ram/the bigass hammer used to clear space when Lana needs a bit of extra “oomph” (and trust me, they’re usually never far apart. The other one will be there and then you’ll be in trouble lmao)

Describe a time your OC went ‘Full beast mode’ to protect Lana, instead of the other way around?

"Kriff. Koth, what happened?” Three words was all it took, and everything made sense: “They hurt Lana.”

That scene in the Endless Swamps on Zakuul, just before they pull the Gravestone out of it and Lana and the Commander get ambushed. Saarai went with Lana & Koth to break Vano out of carbonite (since Saarai was still on Rishii at the time, she doesn’t get frozen, only Vano) so when they split up, Saarai goes with Koth to look for ship parts while Vano goes with Lana to look for water.

Lana and Vano get ambushed by the Knights/Skytroopers, and Lana’s hand gets busted. It takes Saarai and Koth a little while to rush over there to help them, but when they do

Saarai. Goes. Fucking. Feral. It’s the scariest she’s ever been in front of Lana and Lana will never forget it, they almost didn’t really need Senya’s help for that part, Saarai basically had it covered. I imagine Lana later described it as “kind of hot, but also kind of terrifying, actually”

Saarai’s considered Chaotic Good, so generally speaking if there’s a peaceful, non-violent solution to a problem, she’ll opt for that, but she has a few buttons that you just do not want to push, ever. And hurting her partners is one of those buttons. She will go apeshit and that’s exactly what happened in the swamp lmao

Little things couples do to annoy each other. What does Lana do? What does your OC do?

Saarai likes to wake up early and hide Lana’s kaf mug in increasingly ridiculous places. Once, she even got Koth to help her stick it to the top of the Gravestone’s hull. It took Lana half the morning to find it, Lana was not amused. XD

Saarai and Koth also have an ongoing “terrible puns” contest where they basically see who can annoy Lana with the most ridiculous puns possible, see this post for an example :P Lana wonders where/how they keep coming up with these puns, she really does.

Does Lana get jealous in your headcanon?

Not really! In Subterfugeverse, both Rai and Lana are polyam, so generally speaking, jealousy isn’t a problem for them, and when it is it’s more of a case of “hey. Hey. Hey, I’m not getting enough attention, pay attention to me.” and then it’s usually dealt with and all is well ;)

When Lana meets Anri, the only thing Saarai does is tease her about “when she’s going to make the move”. 😜

Story that is prominent in their relationship?

I was gonna draw a little doodle for this but the poses kept not coming out right so I gave up, sorryyy qAq

I haven’t gotten very far into planning the SoR onwards+ segments of Subterfugeverse, just bits and bobs like this, but I’d say for now the most prominent is probably their first meeting on Rishii. Basically, meet-cute but with a lightsaber involved too hahaha. There was a lot of posturing and flirty subtext right from the get-go with these two, even if Saarai was particularly suspicious at first (see the earlier question about her being technically dead to the Empire). At first, when she noticed Lana tailing Ty (because Lana was extremely confused about why a Pureblood was so far from Sith space ;)), Saarai assumed that something had happened to her twin and the Empire had A) found out she and Ty were still alive and B) Sent Lana to track them down and kill them for good. Several tension-loaded hours later and Lana managed to convince Rai that actually, Ni’kasi was fine and speaking of, she was trying to avoid being killed too so maybe, actually, they could help each other. And that was all she wrote <3

[wefoundloveunderthelight]

The Love Cruise - by GleefullyCaptainSwan

Read on AO3: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Or on FF

Tagging:   @teamhook @kmomof4 @stahlop @lfh1226-linda

Chapter 4: Captain Jones

“Do you think Barbados is ready for me?” Ruby stood, showing off her tanned body in her new bikini.

“Girl, I don’t think anyone is ready for you in that. Where’s the rest of it?” She spun around and Emma fanned herself, teasing her friend.

“Why are you wearing so many layers?”

Emma tugged her cover up tighter around her waist. “Not everyone can flaunt it like you can. I look like they lock me in the closet during the day and my body never sees the sunlight.”

“Oh stop, you’re sexy as hell, Emma. I’ve seen more than a few guys turning their heads when you walk by, though usually you are running away from them so they can’t catch you.”

“Whatever, I told you I’m not interested in finding a guy on this damn cruise.”

“Not even that guy, Graham, that asked you to dance?”

Emma scrunched her nose and shook her head. “He’s cute, and a great dancer, but, eh, I don’t know.”

“You know, he’s going to be with us today?”

“What? How do you know?”

“Because I talked to him after dinner and he’s on the same excursion we are.”

“If you’re so interested in him, why don’t you hook up with him?”

“I would if he wasn’t asking about you half the time.”

Emma groaned. “Can we just go? I don’t want to talk about men all damn day. I want to enjoy the beach, the sand, the ocean in Barbados. We are in fucking Barbados, Ruby. Together. When we are back in Boston and it’s raining, will we have these men to keep us warm? No, but we will have each other.”

“Ho’s before bro’s?” She giggled as Will walked into their room.

“Do I get to be a ho?”

“You are by far the biggest ho, William!” Emma laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you still mad at me?” She planted her lips on his cheek and he groaned, wiping the pink smudge off his face.

“I’m not bloody happy with you, but what’s a bloke to do? You’re my best friend and I can’t stay mad at ya.” He put his finger up to her face, “But don’t do that shit again. That girl won’t stop asking me about rum recipes now.”

“You didn’t seem too upset when she kept telling you how talented you were at the bar last night.”

“Wait, what did I miss?” Emma looked between the pair on either side of her.

“One of the bartenders let him make our drinks at the piano bar. You should have seen him playing it up, flipping bottles, acting like a goddamn bar hero. He was on his game.”

“I’m fucking talented as hell, that had nothing to do with that lass.”

“You were showing off.” Emma teased. “You do like her.”

“I do not.” He resisted, less forcefully than he had the day before. Emma was sure he liked her, but she was also sure that he was probably feeling guilty about liking her also.

“You know it’s ok to like another girl, Will.” Emma slid her hand onto the back of his head, pressing his forehead to hers. “Ana’s gone. You deserve to have some fun.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why are you ladies always pushing me so hard to move on from Ana? What if I don’t want to move on?”

“You don’t want to move on because you’re too afraid to open yourself up again and maybe get hurt.”

“Besides, we love you, Boo.” Ruby added, wrapping her arms around them both.

“No Boo. You both promised, not here.” His mouth turned up in a grin. “But I love you guys too.”

~*~

“Absolutely not.” Regina stood with her arms crossed in front of her.

“You can’t work 24 hours a day, we get to leave the ship for a few hours, are you really going to deny this simply because I’m going?” Robin whined.

“Yes.” She said matter-of-factly.

“Ok enough of this, we’re going.” Killian gestured to Robin before turning around and pointing at Regina, “And you’re coming with us. Captain’s orders.”

“You can’t do that.”

Killian shrugged, “I just did. I’m not going to have my Cruise Director burned out 4 days into our voyage, we are going to imbibe in some alcoholic beverages in Barbados.”

“Fine, but it is under duress.”

“At least that will be two of us on this bloody cruise under duress.” He winked at Robin and the three of them left the ship in search of a good bar.

Being the Captain did have its perks, they were directed to apparently the best bar on the beach they could find and an hour later, sitting with their feet in the sand and a bucket of beer, the three of them found themselves engaging in nonviolent conversations.

Regina was laughing, “Wait, so you were just going to leave him there?”

“Of course, I was, he was about to start a riot.” Killian said as he felt tears well up in the corners of his eyes, his body shaking from his laughter.

“Do you remember what I said to the guy?”

They both looked at each other and spoke in unison. “The only way you'll ever get laid is if you crawl up a chicken's ass and wait.”

“Which one of you got punched first.” Regina eyed them with curiosity.

Robin raised his hand. “I ended up on the pool table. Killian tossed one of the guys into a stool. By that point, the manager threw us all out.”

“That was the last time we insulted the Captain’s son again.”

“You two really are idiots.” Regina quipped as she took another sip of her beer.

“But we had you laughing.” Robin winked.

“Only because I was imagining you getting your ass kicked.”

Killian nursed his beer, watching the two of them doing what he could only describe as violent flirting, until he started to feel like a third wheel.

“I’ll be back.” He announced, heading inside toward the bar, and discreetly paying the tab. “If they get anything else, just put it on the same card.”

Killian exited the bar and walked through the small town, browsing the shops until he followed the path toward the beach. He saw groups of travelers lounging on the sand or sailing on the water, most likely passengers on his ship.

He toed off his shoes and walked barefoot through the sand, looking up he saw her, laying on a towel, an oversized hat perched on her blonde locks, reading a book. She was gorgeous. Her friend, a tall brunette he had seen her with earlier was wearing a very tiny bikini, arching her back and taking in the rays to her already sun kissed skin.

There were others with them, the man she was laughing with earlier stood nearby talking to a shorter woman. A taller man with wavy hair was sitting just off to the side of Emma, he glanced at her often, but Emma seemed not to take notice, her head buried in the words in front of her.

He continued to walk along the wet sand, observing the woman who had captured his attention when she looked up, glancing at the waves out beyond him. He looked away quickly, reaching down to pick up a shell he nearly stepped on. When he looked up again, she was gone.

~*~

Emma was reading the same line over and over again in her book, trying to avoid the gaze of Graham, who was seated to her right. At first, she thought he was looking at Ruby, God knows if she were a hot-blooded man, she would be. But when she caught his eye, he smiled at her and attempted to make conversation. Emma froze and immediately buried her head in her book.

It’s not that she didn’t think he was attractive and extremely nice; she just didn’t know what to say to him. She knew he was a Sheriff in some small town in Maine and that her brother thought he was quite impressive, which made her not want to talk to him even more than she had before her brother started pointing out all the things they had in common.

She peered up from her book, a feeling washing over her like she was being watched. She peeked to her right, but Graham was talking to David and Will was finally having a real conversation with Belle as they bounced a volleyball back and forth between them.

Her eyes scanned the beach when she saw him picking up shells near the water. He seemed to look her way and then turned back toward the ocean.

“I’m gonna go dip my toes in the water.” She announced suddenly to Ruby who was currently lying ass up on the towel beside her.

“Have fun.” She replied lazily.

She jogged toward Killian who was facing the ocean now and skipped up behind him. “Are you considering throwing yourself in because if you are, I actually do know how to swim, in case you need saving.”

He turned suddenly and his bright smile made her heart skip a beat.

“Swan, fancy meeting you here.”

“Did you go on an excursion today?”

“No, I hung out at one of the bars a little way down the beach.” He pointed behind him.

“Drinking alone?”

“Oh, no I went with a few friends.”

“I didn’t realize you came with people. Or did you meet them here?”

“My buddy…” He paused. “Um, my buddy and I came together.”

“Did you ditch him?” She asked looking around for his friend.

“He is entertaining a lass back at the bar, felt like a third wheel. Have you been on the beach all day?”

“My brother dragged us all sail boarding, so I’m gonna be really sore tomorrow considering all the times I fell into the water, but it was a really good day.”

He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling as the sun beat down on him. “That sounds like you had a lot of fun.”

“Do you maybe want to get a drink later tonight?” She blurted out, wondering where that blast of courage came from.

He looked at his feet and she panicked. “I uh, I think I need to tell you something first.”

“Oh?” Suddenly there was screaming behind her on the beach and she turned to see Ruby yelling and running toward a group of people. “Oh, shit, I gotta…” She turned and ran toward Ruby, looking down the beach to what was causing her so much stress. August was lying on the ground, holding his leg.

“Oh God what happened?”

“We were playing volleyball and the old man slipped, I think he twisted his ankle.” Will said in a slight panic.

“I’m ok guys.” August groaned, “I think I just sprained it.” He stood up and then stepped down, immediately falling back down to his knees.

“Ok Mate, you’re gonna need help back to the ship, you’ll need the medic to take a look at that ankle.”

She was shocked when Killian sprung into the middle of the group, helping August to his feet. “Should we all go?” Ruby asked August.

“No, you guys stay here, have fun. I’ll just go back and make sure everything is ok.” August waved them all off.

“I’ll go with him; the sun is starting to burn my skin.” Emma announced and Killian made eye contact with her, a smile forming on his lips.

Emma stood on the other side of August, wrapping her arm around him to help support his other side. “Come on dad, let’s get you to a doctor.”

“Very funny, Emma.” He chided her and Killian laughed.

“You sure you don’t mind going back to the ship?” She asked Killian.

“Absolutely, it’s important that all the passengers are taken care of.” Emma looked at him quizzically but continued walking toward the pier.

~*~

Killian knew he should have just told her he was the damn Captain when they first met. He tried to tell her at the beach and then her friend got hurt and as Captain it was important that he took the man back to the ship, his passengers health always came first over innocent flirting with one of the women on his ship.

Once they made it to the infirmary, he spotted Tink at the back of the bay. He waved her over and she jumped into action.

“Jones, have you started combing the ship for injured passengers now?”

He laughed nervously, avoiding eye contact with Emma. “I believe we have a twisted ankle.” He helped get the man up on the bed.

“Name?” Tink questioned as she pulled up her iPad to search the passenger list.

“August Booth.”

Killian backed up against the wall and watched as she examined his ankle. He observed Emma asking questions, checking to ensure that he was going to be ok and he slowly backed out of the room. He’d tell Emma later about being the Captain, right now she had more important things to tend to.

~*~

“So, it looks like it’s just sprained.” She ran her hand over his ankle again and Emma couldn’t help but notice the way August watched the nurse in awe.

“Well, does that mean I have to spend all my time down here in the infirmary now?” He joked innocently.

Tink laughed, “Well only if you want to.” She teased and Emma suddenly felt like she was invading a private moment.

That’s when Emma noticed that Killian was no longer in the room. “Oh, did you see where the guy who helped us went?”

Tink looked up and laughed. “Jones? Pretty sure he probably went back to the bridge.”

“The bridge? What bridge would that be?”

“Of the boat, did you hit your head or something. That’s where the Captain usually is when we are getting close to leaving port.”

“Captain?”

“You are talking about Captain Jones, right? The guy you came in with?” She pointed haphazardly toward the wall of photos behind her before turning back to August to wrap his ankle.

Emma walked up to the wall and immediately recognized the blue eyes in the largest photo in the center. Her heart was racing as she read the inscription under the portrait.

Captain Killian Jones

Holy Shit!

~*~

“Ok spill.” Emma turned to look at Ruby who was staring at her from across the room as they got ready for dinner.

“Spill what?”

“Who is he?”

“Who is who?” Emma turned back toward the mirror; confusion littered across her face.

“The hot drink of water you found on the beach; you know who I’m talking about.” Ruby glared at her with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“What, the guy who helped August? Good Samaritan, I guess.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

“Bullshit, I was watching you before all that happened, you went directly to him on the beach.”

“What, are you spying on me now?” She accused.

“Out with it.”

Emma sighed. “He’s just some guy I keep running into. That’s all.” Emma put on her shawl and headed to the door, effectively ending the conversation.

“Ok keep your secrets.” She said with her eyes narrowed, joining her in the hall as they headed to the dining hall.

Their dinner passed by quickly, the saying was true that time would fly when you were having fun, as Emma was starting to enjoy sitting down to eat with her friends every evening. Even the newcomers were starting to fit in with everyone. Will and Belle had warmed up to each other. They were sitting quietly at the end of the table, Will trying to demonstrate how to flip a bottle without dropping it. Belle would giggle and follow his every move and he would reward her with a new blush to his cheeks.

Her brother and Mary Margaret had become inseparable, however the small kiss he gave her after dinner was a new development. August left dinner early stating that he needed to head back to the infirmary for a checkup on his ankle, though Emma was sure the visit was more to do with the cute blonde nurse than his ankle.

After dinner, the remaining group decided to relocate to the piano bar on the deck above them for a night cap. The music was enjoyable, and the bar wasn’t crowed which allowed them to spread out into different areas of the room.

“I think he likes you.” Emma set her drink down and looked over at her brother who was sitting beside her.

“Who?” David looked toward the bar and she spotted Graham looking in her direction. “Oh, he’s nice. I guess.”

“You guess? Emma, he’s a really nice guy. Did you know he’s a Sheriff in the town that Mary Margaret and Belle are from?”

“Small world.” She said softly, taking a sip of her drink and peering around the bar.

“Waiting for something better?” He questioned.

“Why would I be waiting for anything? I already told all of you that I’m not interested in finding anything here.”

“Emma, it’s been 7 years since Neal ran off, don’t you think it’s time you stop punishing yourself and think about what might be out there for you and Henry?”

“Punishing myself?” Her annoyance was rising.

“That’s not what I meant. Not really, I mean, not exactly. I just feel like you punish yourself for Neal leaving. It wasn’t your fault. You deserve to be happy, sis.”

“I love you Dave, I do. And I’m really happy that you seem to have found something on this ship that you are interested in, but please, let me handle my own happiness.”

“Alright, I’ll back off.” He said with a grin.

He went back to his date and Ruby slid up beside her. “Is he trying to get you to sleep with Graham, because if he is, do you want company?”

“Ruby!” She exclaimed, “how much have you had to drink?”

“Enough that I would take him right there on the bar.”

“Dare.” Emma smirked at her, knowing that Ruby never backed down from a dare.

Ruby’s mouth went from wide open to a firm line of determination, getting up from her seat and sauntering over to the bar. Emma looked around at all her friends, each of them distracted with other people and she took the moment to sneak out without notice.

She found herself wandering the lido deck in the dark, her drink from the bar still in her hand as she sipped it through the straw with the tiny umbrella attached. She told herself she wasn’t looking for him but that didn’t stop the disappointment she felt when she didn’t find him either.

~*~

“Everything is under control, Captain. You don’t have to stay up here if you would like to rest.”

“Thank you, Smee. I guess I just wasn’t ready to head to my quarters.” He stared out at the deck of the ship below him, there was a small group of passengers wandering her planks. A wave of blonde hair caught his attention, her hips swaying back and forth in the night breeze. “On second thought, I think I’m going to retire for the evening.”

Perhaps now was as good a time as any to confess to her who he was. He bounded down the stairs and shoved open the doors to the Lido deck. He headed in the direction she was last seen, but the deck was empty. Disappointed, he realized she may have already gone back inside.

“Captain Jones.”

He spun around to see her standing against the wall of the ship. “Ah, I guess I’m busted.” He said with a sigh. “Let me guess, Lady Bell clued you in? I swear to you I was going to tell you on the beach today.” He said honestly. “But then…”

“Then August’s old man body turned to wood and he required medical assistance.” She joked.

“Yes, that. Forgive me for being less than honest?”

“Only if you tell me why you didn’t just tell me the first day.”

“That’s fair. My friend Robin pretty much convinced me to take this job, I was less than thrilled about the theme of this cruise, and well, I was just happy to talk to someone else who seemed to be forced to be here as well.”

She shook her head in understanding. “So, you’re really the Captain huh?” She walked closer to him, her fingers trailing the sleeve of his shirt as she traced the stripes on his arm.

“Aye.”

“I should have known when you rattled off all those facts about the ship. No one else would have paid that much attention.”

“Actually, you all should pay attention to that information.” His tone serious.

“Yes, Captain.” She smirked with a mock salute and he swallowed hard.

“I won’t put up with any sass on my watch.” He teased as they fell into step walking along the deck.

“So, how’d you become a Captain?”

“My brother convinced me to join the Navy when we were just lads, the sea became my mistress as soon as I met her. I was captivated by her tempestuous nature. On the surface she could be rough and demanding, but beneath the surface she’s calm and inviting.”

“So your brother is a Captain too?”

“He was, yes.” He paused, leaning on the rail for support. “He not with us anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“He was the best Captain to ever sail the seas. He’s out there somewhere.” He pointed to the horizon. “He’s a better man than I’ll ever be.”

“Well considering you are the Captain of the ship I currently find myself on, I hope you’re the best Captain we can ask for.”

“I wouldn’t even have had the chance to Captain such a vessel if not for my brother.” He looked over at her unsure of why he was suddenly freely sharing information he would rarely share with another.

“Did he teach you?”

“He taught me everything I know. How to be a good Captain, a good sailor, and a good man.”

“When did he pass?”

“Two years ago. We were at sea, on a mission, there was a fire, I was in the engine room when it exploded. We were taking on water and I needed to seal off the leak. I sent everyone out, I expected it to be the last good deed I ever did. But he found me, dragged me out of the pits of that ship and got me on the rescue boat.”

“Wow.” Emma was staring at him in a shocked silence.

“He went back in for the rest of his crew.”

“Because you don’t leave a man behind.” She said seemingly with a sudden understanding of their earlier conversation.

“Aye.” He nodded but didn’t continue.

“That must have been really tough.”

“One of the worst nights of my life.”

“Looks like you made the most of it though. Look at you now.” She smiled softly.

“Perhaps.”

“Wow, you’re worse than me with the martyr stuff.” She laughed and he wanted to crawl into the void where her laughter filled the air and stay there forever. “I think you should try being a little easier on yourself and trust me, coming from me, that says a lot.”

“I’ll take that under consideration.” He smiled and she glanced around.

“I should get back before my friends send out a search party.”

“We can’t have that on my ship.” He smirked.

“I’ll see you around, Captain.” She said as she walked back toward the door, turning back to offer him a shy smile before she disappeared into the belly of his ship.

Perhaps this cruise wasn’t the worst idea Robin ever had after all.

[husbandograveyard]

“Told you so” - Killer X Reader

Hiya everyone! In between requests I will be participating in the One Piece of summer challenge from @doctorgerth​ & @laws-yellow-submarine​! I will try and write one prompt a week. this will mean 11 reader inserts, 11 different prompts, 11 different One Piece men! Check out their challenge, their AMAZING blogs and feel free to participate! <3 I’ll also put this on my Ao3, just cause I post all the things that are not headcanons there! 

One Piece of summer challenge - week 1 

Prompt: Sunburn - Character: Killer - Word count: 1.4k 

Warnings: A little swearing. It’s the Kid pirates. 2nd person. Female Reader. 

Peace and quiet. Something that you rarely had experienced since joining the Kid Pirates. The closest you came was bedtime, if you were lucky enough that Kid had locked himself up in his workplace again. Other than that? There was always some kind of ruckus: whether it was crew members training, having loud discussions, fights, there was always something to do. 

Even at night, when the lights were out and you were curled up on your boyfriend’s chest, it was rare to actually sleep through the night together, Kid or someone else banging on the first mates’ door. Killer was always needed somewhere. 

If some private couple’s time was something you wouldn’t get, then at least you wanted to make sure to have some quality time with yourself. 

It had been a grey summer: humid heat accompanied by rainstorms. Once you had dared complain about it, only to have Kid tell you to “get the fuck off of his ship if you don’t like the places we’re going”. 

Today however, the weather was extremely nice, probably because you were getting close to the next island. You knew the moment you’d dock on the island, there would be so much to do, Kid wanting to loot and starting fights everywhere, that sleeping would not really be an option, let alone have some quality time. So you decided to make the most of this sunny day. 

Putting on a bikini, you grabbed a towel and a book and made your way to a secluded spot on the deck. Some sunbathing and a nice read would be enough to make you feel relaxed and all ready for the chaos and sleepless nights that were undoubtedly about to come in a few days. You did your best to ignore the remarks and wolf whistles of the crew as you walked on deck in your bikini, already used to their antics. 

You only stopped in your tracks as a big hand wrapped around your upper arm, effectively stopping you from walking. “What are you going to do y/n?” You turned around, coming face to chest with your masked boyfriend. He sounded more amused than anything, head tilted slightly to add to his questioning tone. 

“Sunbathing, the one day the sun is up and we’re not expected to kill people” “Like that?” “Well yeah, don’t expect me to put on a sweater” He chuckled, shaking his head a little.  “Just meant you should probably put on some sunscreen,” he nodded upwards toward the sun, which was shining brightly, “I know it feels nice and all, but she’s definitely out there to burn some people”.  “Don’t worry babe, I never burn, promise. But I’ll check regularly in a spot in the shade okay?”  He seemed satisfied with that answer, nodding before pulling you in for a quick hug. You stood up on your tiptoes in order to give him a quick kiss on his mask, and then on his neck before you were on your way again, happily humming as you laid out your towel on a sunny secluded spot on the deck a little while later. 

You laid down with your book, the sun pleasantly warm, not even burning as hard as Killer had said. But you knew these little protective acts were his way of saying he loved you, those actual words hardly ever leaving his lips. And you liked it when he showed concern like that, it was a pleasant change from most of the others in the crew, especially your captain. 

You flipped through the pages, reading a little, changing positions regularly and checking for sunburn, just to be safe, before eventually laying down on your stomach undoing the string of your top, trying to get that nice even tan on your back. So far nobody had interrupted you, and you suspected you boyfriend may have had something to do with that. You made a mental note to thank him later.  You laid your head down on your arms and closed your eyes for a minute, enjoying the soft warmness of the sun rays on your back. 

---

You woke up to someone extremely gently nudging your side. You nearly jumped up before a couple of realizations hit you: one, you probably shouldn’t get up with your top strap still undone. Two, it was dark outside, you really fell asleep. Three, sitting up hurt like a bitch, as if your whole back was on fire.

Killer had been right, and was now the person nudging you awake. ‘ “I told you so y/n, you’d be burned... your back is about as red as the captain’s hair” he wanted to sound amused or even teasing, but all that was overshadowed by the worry in his voice.  “Shut up please, just tie the strings so I can get up?”  Killer complied, you flinching as he very loosely tied your top, every little movement of the strings on your skin feeling as if someone was pushing a thousand tiny needles in your back. 

“do we have something that helps with this?” Killer shrugged, genuinely not knowing. The Kid pirates weren’t exactly known for their excellent first aid, shrugging off and toughening out any and all non-lethal wounds.  “I’ll see what I can find” 

The walk back to your shared room was excruciating. Now that the drowsiness from your sleep was wearing off, you were starting to realize just how much your skin hurt, but also how much your head was pounding, how dry your lips were, and how unsteady you were as you made your way over to the first mates’ cabin. Killer noticed how much you were wobbling, instinctively wrapping an arm around your waist, and retracting immediately as you hissed painfully. 

You grabbed onto his arm to steady yourself instead, and you wanted to drop yourself onto the bed and pass out again, but stopped yourself just in time. You didn’t want anything in contact with your skin right now, not even the light blankets of your shared bed, and you realized that you should probably drink some water or something too. Killer had come to the same conclusion and instructed you to just stay where you were. As if you were gonna go anywhere, you thought to yourself, you were too busy focusing on not passing out. 

It seemed like eternity before the door opened again, Killer holding the crew’s first aid kit in his hands as well as a bottle of water. You eagerly gulped the water down, instantly feeling a little better. The pain was still more than present as well as the dull pounding in your head. 

“This is what Kid uses if he burns himself while welding his stuff. It may not be ideal bu-” “whatever it is, just use it babe, it cannot be worse than this burn” 

Oh how wrong you were. Neither of you had any idea of what was in the mysterious - and slightly dirty looking- spray bottle, but it stung so hard, you actually yelped the first time killer sprayed.  “HOLY SHIT THAT HURTS”  Killer really had to do his best to hold back another ‘told you so’ as he sprayed a couple more times, you cursing under your breath every single time. 

Then he very gently worked in the stuff whatever it may be. His hands were pleasantly cold, he had been smart enough to wash them with cold water beforehand as he massaged in the spray bottle concoction as softly as he could. Gentle usually wasn’t in Killer’s vocabulary, but you noticed he did his absolute best to make sure you weren’t in too much extra pain. 

While you waited for the product to dry into your skin, he got another bottle of water and afterwards he helped you put on one of his shirts, since they were way too big for you, and thus it wouldn’t cling to your skin like your own clothes did. You sighed happily as you noticed that it smelled just like him too, momentarily forgetting that your back was still positively burning. 

“I have a late evening of work to prepare for our encounters on the next island. But it’s better for you do sleep alone, that way I won’t touch your back”. You knew damn well that he was probably just making sure you were comfortable, but nodded without saying anything. He stood up, made his way to the door.  “y/n?” “yes?”  “Next time, maybe don’t be stubborn and listen to me when I say something will hurt” “Oh shut up”

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 10 favorite things about TFS?

Bold of you to assume I can narrow it down to just 10 things, but I’ll try my best. 

Here’s a list of things I LOVE about The Final Season of TWDG, starting from #10 and working my way down to #1.

10. Rosie is best girl and doesn’t die 

Listen, okay? If you give me a game with a doggo companion that I bond with only to have said doggo die for dramatic effect... you automatically lose 2 outta 5 stars on your rating. Case in point: Season 2.

However, tfs knew not to kill Rosie off for dramatic effect, knew it’d be cheap. Plus, Rosie is a sweetheart and I love that she helps Clementine come to terms with her past trauma with dogs and genuinely bonds with her. Rosie is best girl. 

9. Over the shoulder camera/controls 

They’re the best of the series, having come a LONG way since S1. Like, look... Don’t get me wrong. S1 isn’t unplayable or anything, far from it, but they’re not the greatest either. They’re pretty wonky at times, the fixed camera can get annoying when you’re moving around, and sometimes button presses don’t register. It’s definitely something I have to get used to whenever I go back and replay the entire series, and like I said, it’s not the worst controls in the world... but oh man, compared to TFS?

Have you ever played S1 and then jumped straight into TFS just to get a direct comparison of the two? Because I have and it’s jarring how much smoother, accurate, and overall better everything is in TFS.

Just... props, guys. Thank you for the over-the-shoulder, movable camera, thank you for the polished button prompts, and thank you for a run button that has Clementine go into a nice jog rather than a comical run or, eh... does nothing [lookin’ at you ANF... Javi slow].

It’s just so effortless to play. The most trouble I ever have is with doors but that’s a given- Doors make no goddamn sense in this series and I’ve given up trying to learn their secrets. Oh, and speaking of more improvements! 

The shooting mechanic in this game is leaps better than in S1. Y’all remember the Motor-Inn shootout? The one that was such a frustrating pain in the ass?? So much death and anger...

I still die sometimes when shooting the walkers with the bow, especially the ones that are on fire, but it’s nothing compared to the shooting mechanic in S1, so the biggest THANK YOU for that one. It’s actually enjoyable to shoot stuff this time around.

8. Collectibles 

You as Clementine get to pick up various collectibles to decorate her and AJ’s dorm with and it’s great. One of my favorite bits about this game is seeing Clementine wake up in this empty, lifeless room, and see it get brighter and brighter with every collectible you place throughout the game until you reach the final scene with AJ where the room is just FULL of life and personality. Like... it’s officially theirs. It’s such a good feeling! 

And the devs totally didn’t have to add the collectible system in, but I’m so thankful they did. I’m one of those people who gets every single collectible every single time I play. 

7. Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth

Y’know, I honestly can’t think of a better place for Clementine and AJ to end up than Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth. It’s awesome, I love it, what a great idea. I also love the sense of wonder when we step outside for the first time and see the inside of Ericson, as well as the others, walking around. Like even Clementine is taken back by it.

Because of course it makes sense for Clementine to end up in a school surrounded by people closer to her age rather than with a group of dumbass adults like in the past three games.

Here it feels like they’re all about on the same level. There’s no older person here belittling Clementine because “she’s just a child and doesn’t get it,” they’re just people, y’know? Hell, if anything, Clementine’s now the most experienced one!

The school’s great! I wouldn’t change a thing about TFS taking place here. The environments are beautiful and I love exploring the world. 

6. Marlon as an antagonistic character/final confrontation 

I have an entire Marlon character discussion/study so I won’t put too much time into this one, but I will say that I love Marlon’s part in tfs. I love him as a surprise antagonistic character, I love how chill he is in the beginning, I love the final confrontation at the end of ep1... I just really like Marlon, y’know?

Ray Chase gives a damn near perfect performance as Marlon, so much so that I wish he survived past ep1 just so that I could hear more of his acting. Marlon himself in an interesting look at a leader character hiding his shame and guilt while trying to maintain control over everyone [including himself] around him, only to be broken down when he’s found out. 

5. James 

I know people tend to be pretty split on James, but I personally really like his role in tfs. I love that they included a character who was apart of the Whisperers, and hell, if anything I’d like to know MORE about James’ past with them. 

I just find him and his whole “walkers are sort of people? kinda?” beliefs. Again, I know some people get annoyed with him because of his beliefs but I think he adds an interesting spin on the whole thing, y’know? Though I do love what a bitch he is if you don’t agree with him hahaha

James is a bitch and I love him, okay? I love his dumb walker mask, I love his dumb boyband hair, I love his whispery voice, and I love his backstory with the Whisperers and Charlie. I love this he’s trying so hard to be this pacifist that he ends up doing the literal thing he said he doesn’t want to do-- hurt people. Y’know... like attempting to kidnap AJ and threatening to break Clementine’s leg in the caves if he’s alive. 

Which, by the way, that whole cave scene is a thing. It’s wild and I love it but not for the reasons the devs probably wanted. Like... it’s a little hilarious? I know it’s not supposed to be! But I can’t take James seriously when he’s walkin’ around his hands on his hips all huffy and puffy, okay? It’s just wild. 

Anyway, I love James and wouldn’t get rid of him. Hell, I’m still waiting for my James with the Whisperers mini-series, Skybound. 

4. Ericson Crew

There isn’t a single character from Ericson that I don’t like, or that I’d get rid of, which is rare with these games. Thinking back to the previous games, there’s always at least one person I could do without or that I didn’t like. I adore all of them!

The Ericson crew just feels closer than previous groups. For starters, they’re way more likable than most in our previous groups. Even when there’s tension [and boy is there tension at points] you still get the sense that they don’t hate each other, unlike in our previous groups. They do in fact love each other as a family and will do what they can to protect one another.

Plus, they’re all interesting. They’re troubled youth and I love all of them! 

Aasim keeps a daily journal where he chronicles everything in hopes of learning from past mistakes to prevent future ones, he’s damn good with a bow, and he’s got a neat little soul patch on his chin.  

Ruby is the tiny yet fiery medic of the group who adamantly believes in manners yet used to chase teachers around with pitchforks. 

Brody is caught up in the twin mess with Marlon but she’s also shown to want an escape, a road trip where she and her friends can go see the beach, but she also suffers with anxiety and panic attacks and isn’t afraid to knock Marlon on his ass or swear at Clementine. 

Mitch is a grumpy, tall boy who looks after Willy like a brother, knows how to make bombs out of manure and propane, and used to fight his neighbors because they didn’t like his face. 

Omar is a sassy chef who has to have every ingredient just right otherwise he’s salty for a week and he can take a bullet to the leg like a champ. 

Willy’s a goober who can climb trees like you wouldn’t believe and he made a bomb of his own in Mitch’s honor that completely wrecked the delta’s ship. 

Tenn is a soft, naïve boy who draws and reads but isn’t afraid to stab a walker bitch if he has to. 

Violet was sent to the school after witnessing her grandmother’s dead, she used to date Minerva who is now “dead,” has abandonment issues,  tries to give off the appearance of a grumpy grump but like once she’s comfortable with you she’ll tell you her life story and do romantic shit like dancing and painting you a pin. 

Louis was sent to Ericson because he was a rich brat who broke up his parents marriage because they wouldn’t let him take singing lessons and has felt like garbage ever since, using humor to cope and push people away, and keeps the façade on until someone’s willing to see past it in which he’ll finally bare his soul to you, name a song he wrote after you, and do everything in his power to keep you and everyone else safe over himself. 

I just... Love ‘em all. 

3. Clementine and AJ’s dynamic 

To think that they almost killed AJ off, or kept him a minor character. That would’ve been a shame and an absolute waste because Clementine and AJ’s dynamic is super fucking good in tfs. 

It’s actually a little baffling that AJ’s as good as he is, from his writing to his voice acting, he’s just great. And his relationship with Clementine is definitely one of my favorites to come from this game. It’s not perfect, but I don’t want perfect. 

I love that AJ looks to Clem for guidance and I love the way our choices affect him, even when it’s a case of the bridge scene. Hate the bridge scene knowing that I gotta sacrifice a character I care about for another I love, but I can’t deny that I love how that choice is made. After everything, do you trust AJ or not? 

Plus, their conversations are so well done, their chemistry is through the roof, and I wouldn’t change it. 

Oh, and the barn scene? Gets me every time, even though I already know everything’s fine and gonna work out. Still gets me. 

2. Clementine is Bisexual

I’ve talked about this in the past, but lemme just say that I love the fact that Clementine is canonically bisexual. 

Doesn’t matter if you’re dating Louis, Violet, or no one, Clementine is still bisexual. The game confirms it through it’s text/subtext and Clementine’s actions that we don’t have control over, and the devs confirmed it. She ain’t straight, she ain’t a lesbian, she is bisexual. 

I can’t express how happy that makes me. Just... 💗💜💙

And with her being bisexual comes her two great love interests: Louis and Violet. They’re amazing, and such an improvement over the previous game’s attempt at love interests... ahem, y’know... Kate.

1. Louis as a character/his relationship with Clementine 

I mean... c’mon. Y’all knew what #1 was gonna be. Do I even need to explain? This entire blog is just me gushing about Louis/clouis. 

Look, Louis is my favorite non-playable character across the entire series. Hell, even when you factor in playable characters, he’s STILL my absolute favorite. Like, even outside of his relationship with Clementine, I find him to be such a compelling character by himself. 

Like I mentioned above, he came from a stupid rich family who gave him everything he ever wanted, but when his father wouldn’t let him take singing lessons, he literally worked for over a year to break up his parents marriage because “you get to be happy or you get to be rich, can’t be both.” 

He gets sent to Ericson where the apocalypse happens, he never gets to make up with his parents, and he ends up using jokes and piano as a coping mechanism to deal with everything, falls into a cycle of being unreliable and the butt of the joke, and lives one day at a time without much thought for the future. 

He puts on the happy jokester persona to push people away from knowing the real him and rarely shares much about himself. Hell, when Clementine does hunting and decides to take care of the walker with him, he actually does let down the wall for a minute to share his view on “this moment” before looking away like “Oof, shared too much-- HEY, GO CHECK ON AASIM :D I’LL BE OVER HERE :D FIXING THE TRAP :D and adjusting the wall ahem--” 

It’s so interesting because you’d think that he’d be more open about his past with Marlon or the twins or whatever [like Violet is] but no, he doesn’t tell you shit about his past until EPISODE 3 and you have to work to get that story. 

I just... I just love him. Could talk about and analyze his character for hours. And I love his relationship with Clementine. It’s just so good. The piano scene where they finally admit their feelings for one another?? That shit has my entire heart. Their entire relationship is my favorite. What else is there to say? 

[current-mcr-news]

Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy - Episode 1

BRANDON JENKINS: In 1953, a 25 year old director named Phil Tucker had $16,000 and just four days to make his first sci-fi film. The plot? A creature comes to Earth with a death ray and wipes out all of humanity, except for eight people who are immune to the creature’s weapons. He called the film Robot Monster.

Movie clip: With the swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is inundated by indestructible moon monsters. Their ghastly mission? Death for all humans.

B: The film was so low budget, Tucker couldn’t even afford to get alien costumes, so he had the monster in a gorilla suit with a TV for a head.

Movie clip: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

B: The release was a disaster. It was widely panned. Its lasting legacy would’ve been that it was one of the worst movies of all time. But in the early 2000s, a kid from New Jersey with a knack for drawing comics saw a picture of the Robot Monster and it stuck with him.

Gerard Way: I’ve never even actually seen the film, but I saw pictures of this creature over the years, and they’ve got a TV set, kind of circular space looking head, and they have a gorilla body, and I was like, “I want a superhero that’s kind of inspired by this.”

B: The kid’s name was Gerard. He’d been writing comics since he was 15 and was on his way to making it as a professional comic book artist.

WAY: I went to art school and I was an illustration and cartooning major, so comics were kind of like my major, and I was like this perpetual intern. I interned at DC, I pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network, and then I landed a job as a toy designer at this place called FunHaus in Hoboken. But that’s like right when the band took off.

B: That band, Gerard’s side hustle, would become massive alt-punk sensation, My Chemical Romance. Seemingly overnight, My Chemical Romance and Gerard were making some of the most popular music in the world, getting spins on terrestrial radio, dominating music video countdowns, they were even nominated for a Grammy. But while he traveled across the globe leading a rockstar life, Gerard kept up with his first love - drawing.

WAY: So I really missed comics and we were in Japan and we did a signing at a shop, and one of the fans gave me a little marker set and it was Copic markers. They were like the greatest markers that I’d ever used before, and so I started to create Luther.

B: Luther, a superhero with a gorilla body and space helmet who lives on the moon was the very first character Gerard drew in what would become his hit comic The Umbrella Academy. I’m Branden Jenkins and this is Behind the Scenes: The Umbrella Academy. This season, we’re going backstage and inside the making of season 2. The first season of the show, based on Gerard’s comic of the same name, launched in February of last year and quickly became one of the most beloved series on Netflix. Now it’s back for its second season with bigger effects, bigger characters, and bigger drama. We’re going to catch you up on everything that’s gone down in The Umbrella Academy universe so far, and we’ll spend the next five episodes breaking down how the team shot the multi-million dollar superhero production across two countries, and how in the midst of a global pandemic, they managed to finish it from inside their own homes. But first, we wanted to take a look back and dig into the roots of The Umbrella Academy. So today, I’m catching up with the creators of the comic and the guy tasked with making the TV series. We talk about how the graphic novel was adapted for your screens.

B: Alright, so if you haven’t watched season 1, go back and watch season 1 on Netflix. For those of you who just need a quick recap: At 12pm on October 1, 1989, a supernatural event occurred. Forty-three babies across the planet were born to mothers who were not pregnant just seconds before. The world was confused, intrigued, and one eccentric billionaire wanted to find the babies and adopt them. He ended up with seven. Each baby had a superpower, and what do you do when you’re a billionaire with a group of kids with superpowers? You train them to become a crime fighting family.

Reginald: I give you the inaugural class of The Umbrella Academy!

B: When Gerard Way started creating the members of the Academy, he started with the most fundamental material. 

WAY: I created a list of all the things that interested me. It could be anything from ouija board, fortune teller, spaceman, gorilla body, just a list of stuff.

B: Then he drew from that list and started creating these characters. All in all, he would draw seven. The first, Luther, the half-man half-gorilla, was the team’s defective leader. He was also the child closest with their father. 

Luther: Just at Dad’s favorite spot. Allison: Dad had a favorite spot? Luther: Yeah, you know, under the oak tree. We used to sit out there all the time, none of you ever did that?

B: Next, he created Klaus and Allison, the boy who talks to the dead and the girl who can make people bend to her will with just a few words.

WAY: Klaus, he has some pretty serious addiction and addiction is something that I dealt with in my life. He’s also a little bit spooky and supernatural, and my personality in My Chemical Romance was very similar to that.

Klaus: I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?” Luther: Since when? That’s your thing. Klaus: I’m not in the right frame of mind! Allison: You’re high? Klaus: Yeah yeah! I mean, how are you not listening to this nonsense?

WAY: He was kind of my version of Doctor Strange. I find Allison to be the one that is easiest to write and I put the most of myself into Allison.

B: Her superpower is that she can make you do pretty much anything she tells you with a few magic words.

Allison: I heard a rumor you want to be my friend. I heard a rumor that you like Bradley. I heard a rumor that you left me alone. I heard a rumor that you stop crying.

WAY: There’s a bit of a tragic nature that comes with her power.

B: Allison, out of all of her super powered siblings, is the only one grasping for a normal life - career, husband, children. In a way, she’s the most human. The fourth character Gerard created is Diego, a guy with an uncanny ability to throw knives. He’s also stubborn as hell.

WAY: I knew early on he was gonna be the one that was gonna be really difficult with the leader. I figured that.

Diego: You know, you of all people should be on my side here, Number One. Luther: I am warning you. Diego: After everything he did to you, he had to ship you a million miles away. Luther: Diego, stop talking! Diego: That’s how much he couldn’t stand the sight of you!

B: The fifth character, a kid who can travel through time and space, who simply goes by Five. Despite the other character growing up into adults, he has remained a teenager, sort of.

WAY: He was a time traveler who then got stuck in his young body when he traveled back in time because time travel is complicated. 

Klaus: Where are you going? Five: To get a decent cup of coffee. Allison: Do you even know how to drive? Five: I know how to do everything.

WAY: So then came The Horror.

B: The Horror, aka Ben, aka the dead sibling who only Klaus can see.

WAY: I imagined this character that had all these monsters living under his skin that came from another dimension. And he was very tortured to me. It actually kind of hurts him and it’s scary to him.

Ben: Do I really have to do this? Klaus: Come on, Ben. There’s more guys in the vault. Ben: I didn’t sign up for this.

B: And then finally, Number Seven, Vanya, who seemingly has no powers besides playing the violin.

WAY: I was at this cafe in Manhattan when I was living in Brooklyn, and it was called The Sidewalk Cafe I believe, and on the wall they had a white violin just as decoration. And I remember looking at that and thinking to myself, “That would be a cool superhero.” And Vanya was always kind of designed to be a character who wasn’t special, that was going to transform into that.

Vanya: Look, if I was special I would’ve been in The Umbrella Academy. I’m so sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one.

B: These seven adopted siblings forced together by supernatural events formed The Umbrella Academy. Both the original comic and season 1 of the show start at the funeral for the Academy’s patriarch, the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves. We learn that while the siblings ventured away from home as teenagers, after years of fighting and a toxic upbringing, they’ve returned home, back together for the first time in years, and all their dysfunctions and old conflicts come bubbling to the surface.

Diego: He was a bad person and a worse father. The world’s better off without him. Allison: Diego! Diego: My name is Number Two.

B: When he started writing the comic, Gerard was focused on his own strained relationships. He saw his band as his own dysfunctional family at the time.

WAY: When you’re a baby band, you’re in this van and it’s like a submarine but it’s smaller. It’s like a closet that you're all living in and sometimes you’re going on seventeen hour drives, and you have very strong personalities. This dynamic starts to develop between all of the members and you really do kind of become a dysfunctional family. Like, there’s times where I felt like I was the mom.

GABRIEL BA: They know each other’s weaknesses.

B: Turns out, family dynamics was a theme with everyone who joined the Umbrella team, including the illustrator and Umbrella’s co-creator, a Brazilian artist named Gabriel Ba.

BA: And sometimes they say it to hurt the other intentionally and they do that a lot in Umbrella because they’re all angry at each other all the time. And even though I have a great relationship with my brother, I have that. We have a younger sister as well, so she’s very opinionated and she’s strong. I wouldn’t say we fight a lot, but sometimes we- I just know how to hurt her if I want to say something.

B: Family is present in Gabriel’s life more than for most people. He works every day with his twin brother, fellow comic book artist, Fabio Moon. But his work made him an unconventional choice for Umbrella.

BA: In the mid 90s, we moved away from superheroes. We, my brother and I, we figured the type of story that we liked to tell and wanted to tell was more real life, day by day life relationship, this kind of stuff. 

B: Gabriel grew up in Brazil and now lives in Sao Paulo. His brother had been making experimental comics for well over a decade.

BA: But The Umbrella Academy was a superhero book with this day by day life relationship drama, and that was really interesting for me.

B: What excited Gerard about Gabriel was his style. His characters weren’t macho. They didn’t have big ripped muscles. They’re the kind of comics you could imagine being drawn in the margins of a notebook. There's nothing stereotypically super about them.

BA: It was not a straightforward American superhero artstyle. It was a mix of European and more fluid, but also could handle action and crazy stuff. And also, I can’t deny The Umbrella Academy was my first paid job in the U.S.

B: Wow.

BA: For the first ten years of our career, my brother and I were making comics for free. Just for ourselves, just getting [?], if there were any. So when I got the invitation to get involved with The Umbrella Academy it was this whole package of factors.

WAY: Gabriel climbing on board was a huge thing for us because he’s such a fantastic artist. He brought these characters to life. The interesting thing about Gabriel,  he didn’t have to make Umbrella Academy. He was doing really well on his own and making really experimental artistic comics, but he liked the idea so much that he said, “I’m gonna do superheroes.”

BA: The superhero aspect of The Umbrella Academy is really just a layer in the story. I like the development of these characters, their struggles, their relationships, there’s romance, there’s deception.

Vanya: You are unbelievable, you’re trying to dig up dirt on a guy I like? Who does that? Allison: Look, I’ve had my fair share of stalkers and creeps, I don’t trust him! Vanya: You mean you don’t trust me.

BA: And it had the fun explosions and action scenes. So that’s the good mix.

B: The first book of the comic is called Apocalypse Suite. After their father’s death, The Umbrella Academy gets a warning from their time traveling brother that the world is going to end in 10 days. They don’t know how, they just know that it will. And now, back together for the first time, they’ve got to figure out how to save the planet and learn how to look past their differences. Which sounds dope, right? But when it first published back in 2007, it wasn’t immediately clear that people would dig it.

WAY: So one of the things I was dealing with when Umbrella Academy came out was a lot of people in the press before the comic came out saying things like, “Here’s a musician and he’s writing a comic.” They didn’t really know my background, they didn’t know that I’d written at 15, they didn’t know I went to art school. All they knew was that I was the singer in this rock band that a lot of teenagers liked. So, all I really wanted was a fair shake. I didn’t write The Umbrella Academy to become a TV show or a film. I wrote it to be an amazing comic. But we knew that first issue, and we knew it was good, and we knew that if you didn't get it by the first seven pages you just weren’t gonna like it, and I was totally fine with that. But then it came out and then the response started to happen and then reviewers loved it and people loved it.

B: The comic went on to win an Eisner award, which is like the Oscar of comics, and pretty quickly, Gerard gets an offer to turn the comic into a full length movie.

WAY: I got swept up in the Hollywood thing.

B: But it doesn’t pan out.

WAY: That’s actually one of the reasons why there was such a big gap between comics, is because I was really, you know, I was trying- at the end of the day, I was trying to be helpful. If this was gonna be a movie version of what Gabriel and I had made, I wanted it to be great so I put in a lot of time and it kept me away from the comics.

B: But then Netflix hits you up and is interested in making this into a series.

WAY: Right.

B: I guess I'm curious, as someone who just initially wanted to make just a really good comic, what about turning that project into a television show was interesting?

WAY: Straight up, I want to make a great comic and that’s all I’m really interested in. If I can write great comics, you’ll have great material to make TV shows. So let me focus on that.

B: In other words, Gerard wanted to focus on the comics and let someone else adapt it.

WAY: And that’s when Steve came in and he changed things and he ran with it. 

STEVE BLACKMAN: I’m Steve Blackman, I’m the showrunner and I’m executive producer.

B: Steve is a master at adapting books, comics, and film into television. Before The Umbrella Academy, he’d worked on shows like Fargo, Legion, and Altered Carbon, all of which originated from other sources. So he knew coming in that adaptation can be tricky work.

BLACKMAN: At first, I think Gerard and Gabriel, who co-did this with him, were very protective of the work like parents of their baby. And I think I had to prove to them initially that I would love and protect this child that they had worked on for so many years, so here I am, an outsider coming in and they were very nice to me, but I could see there was like, “Is this guy gonna totally screw up our baby here?”

B: Is it something that you can come to the table with Gerard and be like, “Hey, here’s my arsenal of adaptations, this is why it will work.”

BLACKMAN: Yeah, I worked on the show Fargo for three years. Fargo was obviously based on the Joel and Ethan Coen movie from 1996. I don’t think Gerard had ever seen my shows, I don’t think he watches a lot of television, so for him, it didn’t matter what I’d done before. It’s just what I was gonna do in the here and now on this show. I wasn’t intimidated by the challenge but I really did sort of have a sense of I know which direction I’m going.

B: What was your first initial reaction? Were you sort of like, “Oh, maybe I’ve never done anything like this, or this does feel familiar to other work  that I’ve done.” Or, “I can do this, this is right up my alley.”

BLACKMAN: Well, what I liked about it from the beginning was what I saw in the subject matter and I saw a dysfunctional family. But right away, I was very inspired by Wes Anderson’s work. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those movies that really was always something I truly loved. So, I saw that in this show.

Five: An entire square block, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, but not a single drop of coffee. Vanya: Dad hated caffeine.  Klaus: Well he hated children too and he had plenty of us.

BLACKMAN: It was a family show, it was a very relatable dysfunctional family show that I wanted to tell.

WAY: Steve’s a great collaborator. Steve Blackman, the showrunner, he had a vision. I respected him and his vision. I realized it was gonna be different from the comic, and I let him run with it because he cared deeply about it.

BLACKMAN: My first conversation with Gerard over the phone, I said to him, I told him one of the words was subversive, we wanted to subvert the expectation of what a superhero show could be because there were many other shows, either on the air or coming down the pipe to be next, and we wanted this to stand out. And that was sort of the first hurdle with me, was to say to Gerard that I could do that and I could definitely make this thing feel special. And right away he said, “Okay, yeah. You get it.”

B: You’ve adapted something like Fargo which is a unique adaptation, right? You’re adapting from a different medium, like a feature film. Does that change the way you understand adaptation?

BLACKMAN: At a story point of view, no, I don’t think they’re that different. I think adapting a story, whether it's a graphic novel or the source material comes from a movie, a book, there’s a lot of care into doing it that the tricky thing is, I need to put my creative spin on it. I had Gerard and Gabriel, who lived with this for ten years, and then I have to come in and say, “Look, I’m going to honor you. At the same time, what is the Steve Blackman part of the show? How can I add my spin to it?”

B: For fans of the comic who’ve seen season 1 of the show, you’ll recognize some of that Steve Blackman spin. For example, the group who governs the laws of time in the comics, the Temps Aeternalis, in the TV show they become the Commission, an entire bureaucratic system running and adjusting linear time. Steve made some other changes too. 

WAY: One of the things that I thought was an ingenious idea was making Ben a ghost that Klaus could communicate with. I was most impressed by that change.

Ben: You know what the worst part of being dead is? You’re stuck. Nowhere to go, nowhere to change, that’s the real torture if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost, and pissing it all away.

B: Perhaps the biggest change from the comic to the show is the diversity of the characters. Diverse in race, diverse in region, diverse in sexual orientation, these characters on screen look a lot more like what the world actually looks like.

WAY: It’s built into it. They’re all from different places, they’re all from different countries, so I think that’s really the biggest improvement on the source material, is how diverse it is.

B: Steve felt the pressure of both fan expectations, and Gerard and Gabriel’s trust in him.

BLACKMAN: There’s nothing worse than having pre-existing source material and having the fans dislike it. You want to make the fans feel honored and respected, at the same time I felt it was incredibly important that Gerard and Gabriel walked out of this thinking, “He did a good job.” If they hated it, I would’ve been crushed. If the fans hated it, I think I’d also be crushed. I knew I couldn’t make everybody happy, but I wasn’t doing a page for page translation. My adaptation wasn’t gonna be that.

B: The adaption worked. Season 1 was a massive success. In the finale of the first season, the Academy thinks they’ve managed to stop the end of the world from happening, but unintentionally, they’ve actually just initiated it. The moon has been destroyed and its remnants are now heading directly for Earth.

Five: We might as well accept our fate because in less than a minute we’re gonna be vaporized.  Diego: What’s your idea then? Five: We use my ability to time travel, but this time I’ll take you with me. Luther: You can do that?

B: The family, latching onto their time traveling brother Five, manage to escape the chaos. But we’re left to wonder where and when they’ll turn up, and that’s where season 2 begins.

Five: We brought the end of the world back here with us. Klaus: Oh my god, again?

BLACKMAN: It’s a pretty crazy journey this year and I think people will be hooked. I hope they binge the hell out of it and love every second of it.

B: Coming up in this season of Behind the Scenes, we’ll be taking you on that crazy journey with the people who make it happen.

“We hired meteorologists, we knew that snow was gonna come, but we had planned it. We went away for a day, we came back, and there was four feet of snow on the ground.”

“It’s 60s Dallas. Okay, so that’s a very different story for Allison. We have to talk about this somehow. Her experience is just different from her siblings.”

EMMY LAMPMAN: And a lot of people would come up to me and apologize for doing their job and I was like, “Please stop apologizing.”

“That was a wishlist fight scene that Steve had always wanted to do.”

“So we actually had our guys throwing plates up in the air and taking photos of them to try to get these UFO imageries.”

“You know, we have a new point in our resume: Can produce and deliver a show during a pandemic.”

B: Behind the Scenes of The Umbrella Academy is a Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios Production. I’m your host, Brandon Jenkins. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It really does help other people find it. Thank you all for listening. 

[dragonstoravens]

Annnnd here’s another one! This time for Babylon, which I write collaboratively with my very good friend @charlottedotexe. Do you like sci-fi, but not TOO much? Do you like romance? Do you like an overuse of Catholicism as an aesthetic/framing device? Then this is the WIP for you!

The taglist for Babylon is currently empty, so let me know if you’d like to be added to that or the general taglist!

General: @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @elywritesbydarkness

Image IDs under the cut!

[ID: an eight-panel slideshow in the comic sans writeblr intro style.

Image 1: “Babylon” in large text in the center. Below that, “a series by @charlottedotexe and @dragonstoravens.” Scattered around in comic sans of various colors are the phrases “both mcs: touch-starved, bi, and ready to... do nothing abt it for like two whole books,” “mad scientist with a heart of gold!” “there was only one bed!” “ prissy rich boy with Depth™,” “one of them can throw a car if they want.”

Image 2: The heading reads “so where are we? when?” and is followed by a bulleted list. “futuristic sci-fi but tbh it’s barely relevant. technically part of the larger Rebel Blue Cinematic Universe™ so that’ll be mentioned. none of the setting matters here tho we’re all about the ROMANCE. just know u can get cybernetic implanty thingies that do all sorts of neat stuff. like throw cars. or be tasers. anyway, you’re here for the romance. who are these dumbasses anyway?”

Image 3: A picrew by aloha sushi core of the character Azure. The heading reads “dumbass numero uno” and is followed by a bulleted list. “this is azure zaraya (she/her/they/them.) 24. bi. very bi. “go to horny jail” levels of bi. southern as hell. stubborn as hell. says stupid metaphors like its her job. cybernetics prodigy. still an idiot tho. very bad with words.” Below the picrew are more bullets. “has a crazy mom. crazy COOL. no really her mom’s a little nuts and also a leading scientist in cybernetics. how did a cybernetics prodigy end up a ship mechanic for vigilantes?? she doesn’t really know either but it’s fun here. also lonely tho don’t tell her brother.”

Image 4: a picrew by aloha sushi core of the character Trinity, including a pair of bat wings. The heading reads “dumbass numero dos” and is followed by a bulleted list. “this is trinity jericho (he/him.) 22. also bi, but a lot quieter abt it. probably on the aro spectrum. anxious wreck. still somehow incredibly charismatic (read: very good at faking it.) emotionally repressed rich boy turned traumatized business mogul. closet goofball.” Below the picrew are more bullets. “no he doesn’t actually have wings its an AESTHETIC CHOICE OK??? pretty secretive about his personal life, especially in public. has a sister??? apparently??? his boss has a History™ with Azzy’s bff in Rebel Blue. ladder climbing’s a lonely pastime.”

Image 5: The heading reads “more characters?” with the sub-heading “ tbh it’s mostly just these two, but there’s a couple important side characters.” Below that are three picrews by aloha sushi core, of the characters Crimson, Periwinkle, and Adriel. The text below Crimson reads “crimson: azzy’s twin brother. a whole cocktail of occupations. shiteater supreme.” Below Periwinkle, it reads “periwinkle: azzy’s bff. Not A Fan of trinity or his boss. loves azzy enough to put up with it anyway.” Below Adriel, it reads “adriel: trinity’s baby sister. 13 and Observant. really just wants her brother to be happy.” At the bottom of the slide, another sub-heading reads “...and that’s it bc let’s be real Trinity doesn’t have any friends.”

Image 6: The heading reads “ slowburn friends to lovers 150K and counting,” followed by a bulleted list. “yeah it’s a four book series (so far) but let’s do a bit of plot to get us started. meet cute: Trinity’s cybernetic eye (custom made by one Dr. Maria Zaraya) breaks, and he goes looking for her to fix it. surprise! he gets her daughter instead! bigger surprise: they both like VERY old terran memes! so when Trinity needs a date for one of the many Fancy Business Events he’s forced to attend, it’s this or pay his sister in juice pouches. cue two anxious bi disasters fake dating in high society. what happens next will shock you! and also force Trinity to start questioning his lawful evil alignment.”

Image 7: The heading reads “how many goofy ass tropes did we fit in here???” followed by a bulleted list. “friends to lovers! fake dating! there was only one bed! SLOW slowburn. grump loves a ray of sunshine. how many times can two people bleed on each other? hurt/comfort out the ass. no really there’s a lot of hurt/comfort. kissing to hide in plain sight. probably more that we’re forgetting bc this bitch is LONG. we weren’t kidding abt that 150K slowburn babey.”

Image 8: A heading and sub-heading in the center of the slide reading “that’s it please enjoy our dipshits. they are stupid and we love them.”

end ID.]

[miraclesabound]

✨Creator Tag Game✨

Hi there! I was tagged by @finn-ray-nal-beads​ in the game listed below. I think almost everyone in our network has been tagged before, so I’ll only add a few tags of my own. The stories have their warnings when you navigate to them.

Tags: @morby, @thepilotanon, @mariesackler, @sacklerscumrag, @clumsycopy

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

My top five favorite works of this year (in no particular order)

1) “I’ll Get Back to You” - “Marriage Story”, Charlie Barber x Reader, published April 20, 2020.

This was my first work in the “Marriage Story” fandom, and it’s helped me solidify my writing process for this year - outline, outline, outline! Keeping my head organized during a global crisis has been a struggle, and figuring out what sequence I use to get words on paper was a relief, let me tell ya.

2) “Scorched Earth” - “Hazbin Hotel”, slight Angel x Husk, published July 20, 2020.

I was stunned at how well this was received. It has the most hits by far of anything I wrote this year, and while I’m glad it resonated, I’m still shocked. I guess the people were really craving Hazbin angst after the “Addict” video dropped.

3) “Fangs and Other Things” - “Star Wars” Vampire AU, Kylo x Reader x Male OC, published October 29, 2020.

Originally just called “Fangs”, an incomplete version of this story had languished in my drafts for...I want to say four years or so, am=nd I fully expected that it would stay there forever. I had started it at a time where I really wasn’t comfortable writing smut yet, and as such, I thought if I tried to finish it, it would still seem amateurish. Imagine how delighted I was to return to the draft and realize, “Hey, this is still workable!” The day I published it was dark, gray and rainy, and the mood really helped me push through to get the story done before Halloween. I’m still pondering if I want to write a non-smutty sequel about Reader, Kylo and Jason figuring out how this relationship is going to work.

4) “Art Imitates Life” - “Six The Musical”, No Shipping, published November 4, 2020

“Six” has definitely been one of my comfort fandoms since the year started, and the “Queens Fight” is one of my favorite scenes in that show. Even if it was exaggerated, it still felt like a real argument that could happen between six wounded women, so I wanted to see if I could play it a little more “true to life”. Honestly, Marlow and Moss did most of the work for me here!

5) “And Number Three Has The Magic Touch” - “Hazbin Hotel”, Charlie X Vaggie, published February 20, 2020

I’ve written longer-form stories for this fandom, and I still enjoy those immensely, but it’s like I said to one of the commenters who checked in on this story, “domesticity is the good shit!” I have a soft spot in my heart for Charlie and Vaggie, even if Alastor is usually my “comfort” character, and what can I say - I want our girls to have nice things!

[amayawolfe]

Prologue Pt.1 - A Circus On The Move

My Stories Masterlist  

Word Count: 1943

Summary: Morintonio’s Traveling Circus has reached their docking destination and they are more than ready to be back on land. Among them, a familiar red haired teenager as well as one of his friends.

Warnings: mild angst

   It was a beautiful day in the large port town of Dolle. Hardly a cloud in the sky as the sun shone down bright and strong atop the crowds of people that congested the streets below. The sounds of so many going about their daily business were accompanied by that of natural sounds of the surrounding area. Gulls would cry out while fish salesmen discussed prices of the day's catch and draft animals would low as the wheels of the carts they pulled crunched along the ground.

   Several ships would come and go throughout the day bringing in and shipping out an unimaginable variety of both goods and people. Ships would even bring in entertainment. Entertainment such as "Moritonio's Traveling Circus''.

   The troupe consisted of amazing acrobats, wise fortune tellers, brave beast tamers, and mystifying magicians; just to name a few. They were all led by a mysterious man, Moritonio, whose skills in the performing arts left countless avid yet baffled fans. They had traveled throughout most of the lands of the Esanian Continent, gaining the reputation and funds they needed to travel to the Yorubian Continent. There, dreams of making it big in the pleasure capital known as Glam Gas Land appeared to be just within reach.

   The crew of the Ebon Pearl scurried about their routine to make sure their ship was ready for docking. The captain's first mate barked orders and issued threats at some of the more lazy crew members. High up in the crow's nest a young man in his mid-teens was watching the activities below with alert and curious eyes of amber.

   Having only been taken in a little over two months ago, the teen is one of a few young trainees in the traveling circus. Morintonio and a few of the members found the poor boy half-dead on the side of the road. Feeling sorry for the unfortunate lad, the ring leader ordered for the boy to be brought back to their temporary site. There he was cleaned up, bandaged, and fed.

   Thanks to the aid of another trainee, the boy had recovered quickly enough to be back on his feet in nearly a week's time. It was a good thing, too, since by that point the troupe was ready to be on the road again. A few days travel and the young man found himself sailing south on a ship with the others.

   Movement from the shrouds just below the crow's nest drew the young man's attention. Looking down he saw a girl just a couple years younger than himself climbing up the shroud ropes with impressive ease and grace. Not all too surprising seeing she was an acrobat trainee.

   As if she felt his eyes gazing down at her, the girl suddenly looked up. Her violet eyes sparkled in the bright sunlight and she flashed him a warm smile.

   "Hey, Hisoka!" she greeted him kindly.

   Within moments the girl was up the last bit of ropes and jumped over the edge of the crow's nest. Placing her hands on her hips she turned head this way and that to have a look about.

   "Quiet the view, I can see why you're up here so much. Guess I should have come up here sooner as well."

   "Well, you can't say I didn't invite you up, Abaki. ♣" Hisoka replied nonchalantly. The girl smirked and tilted her head to the side.

   "Yeah, I know, but being alone up here with you might get people talking. And last thing I need is Jasper to get jealous and have more reasons to try and hit on me." Abaki shuttered at the thought of the fire-breather trainee that was always trying to get her to go out with him.

   "You know,~" Hisoka replied coolly; a sly and knowing grin forming on his face, "you could have brought that friend of yours. What was her name again? Camilla? ♢"

   Even though Abaki's warm caramel skin had darkened under the sun's rays while out at sea, Hisoka could still make out the blush forming on his friend's cheeks as she looked away from his taunting amber eyes. Causing Abaki to blush over her crush had become an amusing little game to Hisoka.

   "I.. hadn't thought of that," the girl mumbled admittedly.

   Hisoka chuckled and looked back down to the deck below. His soft raspberry hair fluttered in the sea breeze as he leaned against the edge of the crow's nest.

   "I take it the reason you came up here is to tell me that Morintonio wants us to be ready to leave the ship soon? ♢"

   "Oh!" Abaki jumps and whips her head back around towards her friend, "Yeah, I nearly forgot the reason I came up here in the first place! I was told to get you to come down and help make sure everything is ready to go. The boss wants us all of the ship within an hour of docking."

   The plan had been to have plenty of time to get stocked up and ready to head out the next morning. All the while allowing enough time for most everyone to work the streets in the evening with little side performances to make some extra travel money. Performances such as small fire shows, juggling, and tumbling acts, as well as a little magic talent. Minute street sideshows that wouldn't need a license to put on nor a full set up to get things ready and going.

   "Oh, is that all? And here I was thinking you were wanting to hang out with me for a bit, ♣" the red hair boy playfully pouted. Abaki wrinkled her nose and gave him a playful shove before she started to climb over the edge of the crow's nest again.

   "We could hang out more if you weren't always secluding yourself away from the others you know."

   "I still get the feeling the others aren't comfortable around me,~♠" Hisoka said softly, a seriousness settling in his voice and expression. "Besides, you know I'm shy.~♠"

   "I know, Hiso. But, you're just going to have to try a little harder, that's all. I like being your friend and all, but you really should try and make more." Abaki offered him a warm, lopsided grin before she started her descent back down the shrouds. "I wouldn't take to much longer up here if I was you, you don't want Borizoi to get mad at you again."

   Borizoi was an absolute beast of a man who seemingly had it out for Hisoka from the start. He did not like the circumstances in which the young man had been found and actually vouched for the poor boy to be left for dead. Ever since then, Borizoi always had a cold, unforgiving eye on Hisoka.

   "Don't worry," Hisoka gave his fellow trainee a smile in return, "I will be down shortly,~♣"

   "Alright, see you then!"

   Abaki quickly worked her way down the ropes without a single slip up. Even some of the crewmen paused in their tasks to watch her. Some with envy, others with impressed awe. There were definitely benefits in learning how to become a tight rope walking acrobat.

   Hisoka's smile faded as Abaki climbed back down to the top deck. His friend's words echoed through his head. An all too familiar feeling began to gnaw at the back of his mind. Loneliness, and the sense that he was oddly different than most of the other troupe members.

   Often the young lad would chock the latter feeling to the fact that he was what Morintonio called a "nen user." The ring leader, Abaki, and Hisoka were the only ones in the whole circus troupe that could use their auras to do extraordinary things. And yet, while Abaki made multiple friends and got along with just about everyone in the troupe, Hisoka only really ever associated with Abaki, Morintonio, and his magician trainer, Magikana.

   For reasons unbeknown to him, people often found themselves uncomfortable around Hisoka. Both Morintonio and Abaki just tried to lightly pass it off as the others just feeling uneasy due to his raw potential and ability to learn things quickly. They both insisted the others would get used to him eventually as long as he kept trying to socialize.

   Magikana, or simply Kana, to Hisoka, once told him something on an utterly different level.

                                             ~    *    ~    *    ~    *

   One night, a few weeks back, he had come over and sat next to his teacher only to have the three other members that had been conversing with her stop in mid-sentence. After a few minutes, those same three members rose to their feet and left with hardly a single word more. Despite Hisoka not showing any emotion towards the happening, he had felt dejected. Kana looked down at her pupil and placed a long, boney, yet warm hand on his shoulder. She then spoke to him in her thick, accent rich voice.

   "Sheep vill always be nervous round volves, no matter how convincing vool may be."

   "So, what does that make you then?♣" Hisoka had asked somewhat bitterly. Kana simply flashed him a sly and toothy grin and winked.

   "Is simple, I is fox!" Kana chuckled wholeheartedly. "Small enough to be little vorry for sheep. But! Still dangerous enough to cause problem if see fit."

   Hisoka had smiled at Kana, she seemed to always know what to say when Morintonio didn't.

   "Alright then, sensei, what am ?~♢"

   "Hmmm," Kana hummed in thought. She carefully looked Hisoka over before finally giving him an answer. "I vould say, you are much like volf. But, you is still pup. Could be fox, like me. So," Kana shrugged her slim shoulders, "sheep is scared of vaht you could be."

   "Oh, I see... ♠" Hisoka had sounded intrigued; and yet, sad. "And, what about Abaki and Morintonio? ♣"

   Kana let out a boisterous laugh at Hisoka's inquiries then ruffled his hair.

   "I tink you vorry too much, little one. To answer question, Abaki is like dog. Many people like dog, and dog like many people. Sheep often look to dog for guidance, protection, and friendship. Dog can also get along vith volf. Volf and dog have much in common. Now, Ving Leader..."

   The magician paused in thought for a moment. A far off look appeared in her eyes as she carefully mulled over her analysis of the curious man everyone knew as Morintonio.

   "He is own beast," Kana had finally replied in a distant voice. "Ving Leader is loved by many, yet, he can be very dangerous man. Should alvays keep some guards up vith that man." A puzzled looked flittered across Hisoka's face.

   "What makes you say that? ♣"

   "Call it 'animal instinct,'" Kana chuckled lightly. "Should always listen to gut, gut vant to live as much as you do. Sometimes more so. Vaht you need, little one, is to find more volves. Or even dog, cat, or fox. Find more like you. Vill not be easy, but, vill be vorth it."

                                                   ~    *    ~    *    ~    *

   Hisoka found himself smiling a little whenever the memory of that conversation found its way through his train of thought. Somehow, it helped ease some of the lonely feelings.

   He gave a little shake of his head to bring himself back to the present. In one smooth movement, he leaped over the edge of the crow's nest and landed onto the shroud. With agile grace and speed that would even make Abaki jealous, Hisoka made his way down to the top deck where he found some of the other troupe members who were quick to put him to work.

~   ~   ~

Next Chapter:  Bubblegum Blood Prologue Pt. 2 - A Glimpse of Darkness

~   ~   ~

Thanks for reading! If you liked what you read, please be sure to click that heart icon! 

[tearlessrain]

OC Interview Meme

Tagged by @mercurypilgrim... a while ago (thanks! I wasn’t ignoring this I just left it in my drafts and forgot about it. shoutout to the ray bans spambot that made me check my mentions and remember)

Pick three companions who know your OC/muse well. Answer the questions from at least one of their companions points of view. Replace anywhere it says Khatte with your OC’s name. Name the three companions who will be answering here:

1. Kaliyo

2. Vector

3. Dr. Lokin

Are they ready to be candid with their responses? Don’t worry, this is totally private. Khatte will never read it.

1. First Impressions. What was the first impression you had of Khatte?

Kaliyo: “I thought he was a notorious pirate who'd be fun to mess around with for a while. Yeah.”

Vector: “His song was... discordant, but he was more courteous to us than he needed to be. The phosphorescence in the caverns caught in the ends of his fur like unfamiliar constellations.”

Lokin: “My first impression was that he was a reckless fool who would be dead before the year was out. I was wrong about the last one, at least.”

2. Khatte walks into a bar. No, it’s not a joke - what does he order? If you give him a credit for the jukebox, what kind of music would he put on?

Kaliyo: “Usually he just sits there with his virgin whatever and acts drunk so people will tell him stuff. If he is drinking... he's all about efficiency, like every other aspect of his life. And I’m not letting him near the jukebox, I don’t know where he got his taste in music but it makes whatever room he’s in feel like some kind of stuffy cocktail lounge.”

Vector: “If he isn’t there for work, most likely whatever’s strongest. He has a certain lack of regard for both taste and his own health that we find concerning. We all have our own ways of living with ourselves. We’ve attempted to introduce him to the concept of moderation – and quality – but the results have been... mixed.”

Lokin: “He can hold a very intelligent conversation about liquor, but in actual practice he doesn’t drink it for the taste. As his doctor I really can’t endorse it, considering how colorful his medical charts are already, but I’ve seen agents develop far worse coping mechanisms. As for music, he has surprisingly old-fashioned tastes. I’ve heard music while living aboard his ship that I hadn’t heard in decades. It always drove Kaliyo up the wall, of course, and I'm certain he plays it on purpose sometimes to keep her away.”

3. How does Khatte spend a day off from work?

Kaliyo: “Off work? He doesn’t take days off work, if he looks like he’s not doing anything important that means you should be running in the other direction.”

Vector: “At death’s door, presumably. We can’t think of anything else that would make him stop working that long. If he has a few spare hours he has a habit of disappearing, getting himself spectacularly drunk, and returning with obvious injuries that he somehow expects nobody to notice. He does manage to make time for us, though, and we appreciate the effort. Particularly since we do not share his appreciation for colorful nightlife.”

Lokin: “He gets restless with too much free time; if he doesn’t have work to do he’ll find it or make it. If he’s not doing that he’ll be wandering around the less reputable sectors of the nearest populated planet to find new and inventive ways to get himself killed. It’s none of my business, really, but it runs through our kolto supplies and I do wish he’d just take up knitting.”

4. What silly superstitions or funny traditions does he observe?

Kaliyo: “He doesn’t really have superstitions. Just a lot of paranoia.”

Vector: “We have never seen him sit with his back to a door, though we wouldn’t call it superstition so much as very well-ingrained habit.”

Lokin: “He goes out of his way to be polite to the maintenance droid, of all things. Sometimes I catch him talking to it in the middle of the night. I’m sure he’d stop if he realized anyone knew, so I’ve never said anything about it. No idea what he says to it, but it seems a touch less nervous around him than Seneschal-series droids usually are, so perhaps there’s something to it.”

5. What does Khatte wear to bed? And just how do you know that?

Kaliyo: “I don’t know what happens if he actually makes it to a bed and I don’t care, found him passed out on the floor of the main cabin in leather pants once, though.”

Vector: “He doesn’t, and he has both strong opinions and a complete lack of shame about it. We suspect the only reason he wears clothes while awake is the risk of arrest on most civilized worlds, and the risk of mutiny aboard the ship.”

Lokin: “When you live with so many personalities on a crowded ship, it’s usually best to know as little about one’s crewmates’ personal habits as possible. That being said, I regret to confirm that he sleeps nude, and he’s not the type to waste time pulling on trousers in the event of an emergency alert.”

6. Your favorite memory of Khatte?

Kaliyo: “Ooh, how do I pick? Maybe when I found out he was lying about who he was and I got shanghaied into working for the Empire? Or the time he suddenly grew a moral compass for two minutes and let that double-crossing ‘friend’ of mine slip out from under me? No, wait, definitely the time the hairball almost killed me and started treating me like some kind of prisoner because I got double-crossed by the Wheezer. Fun times. I’m thrilled to be working with him again. Really.”

Vector: “We can pinpoint the exact moment he realized that we wouldn’t leave him for someone... easier to love, as he puts it. It took him a very long time to believe that.”

Lokin: “You know, I find myself missing those ridiculous conversations we used to have. It was only a security measure at the time, but there are very few people in this galaxy I can tolerate, let alone enjoy talking to. I really should find some time to catch up with him again.”

7. A time you very nearly almost kissed Khatte?

Kaliyo: “Way back on Hutta, but unlike the entire rest of the planet’s population, probably including the Hutts, I apparently don’t meet his standards. He has awful taste, his loss.”

Vector: “‘Almost’ is a somewhat leading phrase, but still apt, in his case. He has... a complicated relationship with physical intimacy.”

Kaliyo: “Right, I also rank below ‘creepy bug guy’ somehow. Love it.”

Lokin: “Ah... no. For several reasons.”

8. Vacation time! Where do you take Khatte for some R&R?

Kaliyo: “Look, every time I try to take him somewhere fun he ends up yelling at me. Someone else can deal with it.”

Vector: “We always regretted that he was unable to join us on our pilgrimage to seek out the lost colonies, all those years ago. He has asked us about it often, but we can only describe what our own senses told us. It would be impossible for us to know an environment by scent in as much detail as he could, or imagine the feeling of steam vents against fur, instead of skin. We would like to retrace our path one day, with him at our side.”

Lokin: “I suspect I’d have to sedate him to get him to relax around me. He’s got better survival instincts than that. Not that I’m any threat to him at the moment, of course, but he certainly knows that I could be. Perhaps I’d take him tea-tasting, just to see how long he would put up with it.”

9. Khatte’s sense of humor – is it dry, immature, sarcastic, self-deprecating, physical, witty, dark, or…?

Kaliyo: “He’s fast with it, really good at the whole charming witty banter thing, but there’s nothing behind it, you know? It’s a front. One second he’s all smiles and quips and flirting, the next he’s standing over a dead body with a smoking blaster in his hand like it’s nothing. It’s eerie.”

Vector: “We appreciate his wit, most of the time, but we’re fairly certain his sarcasm could peel paint off the hull of a starship if he feels threatened. It’s best not to let him get to that point, unless you want to be very accurately insulted.”

Lokin: “Even when I had an exceptionally low opinion of him I appreciated his talent for wordplay, but you’d never believe it if you met him in a cantina. I’ve seen him hold his own against half a squadron of drunk soldiers. It was appalling. Still, adaptability is key in this line of work and he does have that. But yes, I wonder if the Commander has given any thought to simply letting Cipher insult the Eternal Fleet to death. It might be worth a try.”

-

Tagging literally any mutual with SWTOR OCs and time on their hands, all of you, go nuts. Even if we’re not mutuals, just say I tagged you if you want to do it.