#ministry of supernatural investigations au

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

The stranger the better

A belated fill for Day 6 of @painlandweek. I wanted to write a meet cute for the free day, so I decided to write something set in the same AU as When the bones are good, set about three years before that fic. You can either read the first chapter below or here on AO3.

Prompt: Free Day

Word count: 3K

Rating: M

Warnings: none

Summary: After transferring to the London office of the Ministry of Supernatural Investigations, Charles meets his new partner, the famously brilliant—and infamously difficult—Agent Edwin Payne. Edwin is less excited to find himself with a new partner, especially one who’s so distractingly smiley.

***

“Difficult. Impetuous. Cheerfully disobedient.” Director Asa Nurse of the Ministry of Supernatural Investigations’ London office gazes at Charles from across her desk, reminding him more than a little of the terrifying babysitter his parents used to leave him with when he was a kid. “Director Buchanan over at the Birmingham office had quite a bit to say about you, Agent Rowland.”

“At least I’m cheerful?” Charles flashes what he knows for a fact is a winning smile.

She’s unaffected, as he expected she would be. You don’t get to be in Director Nurse’s position by being easily won over by smiles. “Six months in the MSI and you’ve already wracked up four official reprimands. That’s quite a feat.”

“At least one of those was bull… nonsense.”

“Oh? The Maggie Ramirez case, I assume?” Director Nurse has a way of speaking so every word lands like a slap. He wonders what it would be like to get an official reprimand from her and decides that he doesn’t want to know.

“Wasn’t going to kill a ten year old girl, was I? Not even if she was possessed by a demon. And now she’s alive and home with her parents, the demon’s back in Hell where it belongs, and everyone except Director Buchanan is happy. I’d say I made the right call.”

“Two of your fellow agents were injured in the fight.”

“They survived. She wouldn’t have if I’d followed orders. To me, a dead little kid is a worse result than a few broken bones. Most of my fellow agents would agree.”

He thinks that the lines around her mouth soften a bit. She’s as inscrutable as she was two years ago when she walked into the Tesco where he was working and asked him if he believed in the supernatural. He’s pretty sure she’s even wearing the same brown pantsuit, her red hair in the same twists that almost look like devil’s horns. He’s hoping that the fact that she recruited him herself will endear him to her. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that she’ll show him the door and it’s not like he can go back to Birmingham.

“However.” Director Nurse glances at her computer screen. “Your former partner, Douglas O’Connor, says that you’re bright, quick on your feet, compassionate, and one of the most promising young agents he’s ever worked with. He thinks you have the potential to be a real asset to the MSI.”

“Dougie was a good partner.” And the reason Charles held out at the Birmingham office as long as he did, to be honest. He only applied for the transfer after O’Connor told him he was retiring to go be closer to his daughter and grandkids in Cornwall. Otherwise, he would have at least stuck it out for a year. He's not a quitter.

Director Nurse sits back in her chair, regarding Charles like he’s an interesting lab rat. “Director Buchanan and I worked together for many years until he transferred to Birmingham. We didn’t always see eye to eye.”

Charles bites back a reply. To say he and Buchanan don’t “see eye to eye” would be a wild understatement. His former director is a burly man with a mustache who likes to yell and slam doors. The first time he lost his temper and slammed his fist into Charles’s desk, only inches from his hand, Charles knew Birmingham wasn’t going to work for him. But it’s not like he can tell Nurse that he hates Buchanan because he reminds him too much of his cunt of a father, not without sounding like a petulant teenager.

“Would you say you’re good with people, Agent Rowland?”

Charles blinks, surprised by the change of topic. “Yeah, I’m aces with people. Just not Buchanan.”

She hums, gaze still focused on him. It’s starting to become eerie; he’s not sure if she’s even blinked since he walked into this office. “Agent O’Connor mentioned in his letter of reference that you have a way of putting witnesses, victims, and even suspects at ease.”

Charles nods in agreement.

“He also said that you saved his life twice, once by taking a potentially fatal curse meant for him.”

“Wouldn’t have killed me,” Charles says with more confidence than he feels. If there hadn’t been a witch on hand to immediately administer the countercurse, he’s been told his heart probably would have stopped within a minute. But there hadn’t been time to calculate his own chance of survival versus Dougie’s; he had just acted.

Nurse hums in a way he can’t quite parse. “According to your instructors, you proved to be adequate at spellwork during training. You don’t have the focus required to have true talent. Disappointing, but not everyone has the gift.”

Charles coughs to hide his wince. He honestly can’t tell how this meeting is going.

“Yet, you proved yourself exceptional at hand-to-hand combat.”

“It’s all the cricket,” Charles says, because he can’t think of a single other bloody thing to say. Director Nurse was intimidating when he was a directionless, scared kid barely making ends meet and desperate to find a purpose in life besides scanning groceries. Now, she’s somehow even more so. “Good at… swinging things.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Her eyebrow inches higher, as if to ask “really?” “Based on your work history, however brief, and your letter of recommendation from Agent O’Connor, I do think you’ll have a place here in London. So long as you learn how to adjust your attitude and follow orders .”

He knows that the only words out of his mouth should be, “Yes, thank you, ma’am,” but he’s never been good at biting his tongue. “As long as you don’t order me to kill a little kid, I’ll do my best.”

Her lips purse. “You don’t make things easy for yourself, do you, Agent Rowland?”

Charles tries for another smile. “Have I mentioned how happy I am to be here?”

She blows out a breath. “You know, I think I might have the perfect partner in mind for you.”

***

“In shocking news, the cause of death seems to be the giant fucking crater in his skull,” Dr. Jenny Green says.

Edwin gazes down at the corpse spread out on the autopsy table. Miles Foster, age thirty-two, approximately five foot ten, with chin-length blond hair, a snub nose, and a neatly trimmed beard to hide the faint acne scars on his cheek. He appears to be a specimen of excellent physical health, save for an ingrown toenail on his left foot and the aforementioned crater.

“Do you have any idea what caused it?” he asks.

“Well, it sure wasn’t natural causes,” Dr. Green says. “Too big to be a gunshot. No burns, so not a bomb. No claw marks or broken bones, so probably not a demon tearing its way out of him. Could have been blunt force trauma, but that usually results in the skull caving in, not exploding out.”

Edwin hums, leaning closer to examine the wound that ended Miles Foster’s life, a gaping hole where his forehead used to be. A messy way to die, but at least it was surely quick. Though having had his own skull cracked open on multiple occasions, Edwin cannot recommend it.

“What of his clothes?”

“They weren’t your style.”

Edwin sighs and pointedly stays silent. He finds Dr. Green to be more bearable company than many of his colleagues at the MSI, but he is in no mood for banter today, especially not now that he’s been reminded of what it’s like to look down at his hands and find his own brain matter there. He suppresses the urge to cover his head with his arms, as if that ever did him any good.

She rolls her eyes, but continues. “I’ve sent them to the lab, but mostly they were covered in exactly what you’d expect from clothes worn by someone whose brain exploded out of his face. It was a nice surprise before lunch.”

Before Edwin can point out that she’s been the MSI’s medical examiner for long enough that she should no longer be put off her food by viscera, the doors open and someone calls, “Hello?”

As one, Edwin and Dr. Green turn to stare at the young man standing in the doorway. He’s a few years younger than Edwin, probably in his early twenties, about six feet tall, with curly dark hair, golden brown skin, elfin features, and dark eyes. He must be an MSI agent if he’s strolled into the morgue—unless he’s a walking corpse, Edwin supposes—but nothing about him strikes Edwin as agent-like. Unlike the navy, gray, and black suits most of the ministry favors, his is a vibrant red. He even has an earring dangling from his left ear and a gold chain around his neck, which cannot be regulation. Most bizarrely, he has colorful badges pinned to the lapels of his suit jacket.

“Hi.” He gives a little wave. “Director Nurse sent me down here.”

“Did she,” Dr. Green says flatly. “I hope your skull’s not about to explode too? If it is, stand farther away from my coffee.”

“I don’t think so.” The newcomer smiles, eyes crinkling with mirth. “But I guess that’s not the kind of thing anyone sees coming, yeah?”

“And you are?” Edwin asks.

“Oh, sorry, mate.” The man closes the distance between them, holding out his hand to Dr. Green, only withdrawing it when he sees she’s wearing latex gloves covered in gore. Instead, he waves. “Charles Rowland. I just transferred from Birmingham.”

“Dr. Jenny Green.” She doesn’t return his wave. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

He looks a bit taken aback. “Just got here today.”

“And how long were you in Birmingham?”

“Six months,” he says with a small, barely there grimace.

“New.” She says it like an accusation. “Try not to get your rookie optimism all over my fucking lab.”

Far from being offended, Agent Rowland lets out a delighted peal of laughter. Dr. Green and Edwin exchange sidelong looks. Rookie optimism, indeed.

As Agent Rowland turns away from Dr. Green, Edwin reluctantly takes his hand to shake. He doesn’t care for touching strangers, but it can’t be helped. The man has slim, almost delicate fingers, not when Edwin would expect from a MSI agent. “Agent Edwin Payne. A pleasure.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of you, mate.” Agent Rowland pumps his hand with far too much enthusiasm.

Ah, of course. Edwin tries not to flinch. He knows that his case has a certain amount of notoriety in the MSI. A sixteen year old boy who went missing in 1916 and reappeared in the basement of his old school nearly a century later, unaged and unchanged, except for his story of being subject to decades of torture, is the kind of case that not even the MSI gets often. The fact that no leads were ever found about where he went or what kind of entity took him makes it one of the MSI’s most interesting unsolved cases. Edwin believes they discuss it during training.

“You’re the one who closed the Ripper case, right?”

Edwin blinks. That wasn’t what he was expecting. The case of a vampire with an unfortunate fascination with London’s most notorious serial killer had gone unsolved for decades, with dozens of dead women to show for it. Edwin tracked down the killer after only a few months at the ministry. In retrospect, he wonders if that’s why so many of his fellow agents have disliked him from the start.

“I remember hearing about it in training,” Charles says. “Bloody brilliant, mate.”

Edwin searches his face for any sign of contempt or mockery, but his smile seems genuine, his brown eyes warm. “I got lucky, truly. He was arrogant and it made him careless.”

“Thirty years and no one else got lucky, did they?”

“I suppose not.”

Someone clears their throat pointedly and Edwin jumps. Under Agent Rowland’s warm brown eyes, he quite forgot about Dr. Green’s presence.

“Would you two like to keep chit-chatting?” Dr. Green asks acidly. “I can put the autopsy on hold, if you’d like. Give you two time to make friendship bracelets.”

Edwin feels his face flush with embarrassment. “No, please continue, Dr. Green.”

“Sorry, mate, didn’t mean to interrupt.” Agent Rowland turns his attention to the autopsy table.  “So, what happened to this poor bloke?”

Edwin would like to know what interest Agent Rowland, fresh from Birmingham, has in his case, but he is trying not to alienate his colleagues quite so much. Plus, he would rather make small talk about a dead man instead of polite chit-chat about the weather and how Agent Rowland is finding London so far.

“Miles Foster,” he says. “He was a yoga instructor and online influencer. This morning, he was filming a… live stream when his head exploded on camera, right in front of the tens of thousands of people watching.”

“And who says yoga is calming?” Agent Rowland flashes that beaming smile again and Edwin quite loses his train of thought for an instant.

Edwin clears his throat and tugs on his bow tie. “He was filming from his home, with only his girlfriend at home with him. When she heard him screaming, she went to see what the matter was and found him already dead. She claims no one else was in the house and there are no signs of a break in, nor a struggle.”

Agent Rowland is quiet for a moment, contemplating the corpse. “Once saw a demon rip a bloke’s head off from the inside and crawl out.”

“There are no obvious signs of demonic possession,” Edwin says. “Plus, he was on camera. I imagine one of his viewers would have noticed a demon crawling out of his skull.” He glances at Dr. Green. “It does make me think of the dandelion sprites we encountered two years ago.”

“Dandelion sprites?” Agent Rowland asks.

“Tiny gods that feed on adoration and attention. When they get their fill, they explode out of their victim and find a new host. One of our analysts had a run in with a pair of them. She now keeps them in a jar on her desk.”

Agent Rowland’s eyes go wide. “Alive?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Last time I saw a corpse that was killed by dandelion sprites, the inside of his skull was covered in that colorful goo,” Dr. Green says. “All that’s in this poor sucker’s skull is the scrambled remains of his gray matter.”

“Perhaps something related, then?” Edwin will have to rewatch the tape to see if he can see any small figures leaping out of Miles Foster’s skull at the moment of the explosion.

Agent Rowland must be thinking along similar lines. “Should take another look at those tapes, shouldn’t we? See if we see something besides brains come out of his head.”

“Yes, I will certainly do so,” Edwin says, annoyed. He’s been with the MSI in some capacity or another for a decade; he does not need this bright-eyed rookie telling him how to conduct his case. Even if the bright-eyed rookie does have one of the most magnetic smiles Edwin has ever seen, the kind of smile that makes him want to earn another one. “But I’m sure you have your own case to see to, Agent Rowland. I won’t keep you.”

“You’re not keeping me from anything. This is our case, isn’t it?” At Edwin’s uncomprehending look, Agent Rowland’s smile turns sheepish. “Sorry, mate, I thought Director Nurse would have told you already. I’ve been assigned to be your new partner.”

***

“There has been some sort of mistake.”

“She told me you’d say that.” Charles has to break into a light jog to keep up with Edwin Payne’s long, purposeful strides. They’re about the same height, but his new partner seems to be all legs.

“Director Nurse is a very busy woman. She may have gotten me mixed up with someone else.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.” Even if Director Nurse did seem like the absentminded sort, he can’t imagine anyone ever mistaking Edwin for someone else. There’s something a little strange about him, something that Charles can’t quite put his finger on. It intrigues him.

Edwin stops so abruptly that Charles nearly runs into him, turning to face him. “This isn’t personal, Agent Rowland—”

“Call me Charles, mate.”

“—But I simply do not work well with a partner,” Edwin continues, ignoring him entirely. “This is not the first time that Director Nurse has attempted to pair me up with someone, and it always goes poorly, I’m afraid.”

Charles shrugs. He can work well with just about anyone, so he can’t really relate, but he knew some partners who weren’t a good match for each other in Birmingham. It wasn’t a fun situation for anyone. “Sounds like you just haven’t found the right match, then.”

“There is no right match for me. I’m not good with people. I never was, not even before—” He breaks off with a wince. “Suffice to say, it’s best that we get this sorted out as soon as possible. There are plenty of perfectly capable agents in this office who I’m sure will be delighted to be partnered with you. I am not one of them.”

Before Charles can retort, Edwin is barreling ahead again, rounding the corner. “Director Nurse!”

Charles follows him around the corner and finds Edwin hurrying towards Director Nurse, who is coming towards him, flanked by her two assistants. When she sees Edwin, she rolls her eyes at the ceiling.

“For goodness’s sake,” she says. “Not this again, Agent Payne. I am on my way to a meeting and I do not have the time.”

“This will only take a moment, Director.” Edwin stops in front of her, fists pressed tightly together. He’s replaced the latex gloves he wore in the morgue with brown leather ones, like Charles’s grandfather used to wear whenever he went for a drive. Between the gloves and his slightly askew bow tie, he has the peculiar air of someone who stepped out of time. “I believe there has been a mix up.”

“There are no mix ups here,” Director Nurse says severely. “As you well know. Agent Rowland is your new partner.”

“I do not need a partner.”

“That isn’t for you to decide.”

“I am not the only agent without a partner here.” Something like a whine creeps into Edwin’s voice. “Agents Palace and King—”

“Are both more than capable of defending themselves, plus Agent Palace has her psychic abilities and Agent King has his shapeshifting.”

“He turns into a bloody tabby cat!”

She raises one unimpressed eyebrow. “Are you going to start carrying a weapon? Or finally agree to take remedial combat training?”

To Charles’s surprise, Edwin’s cheeks flush. “I don’t need combat training or a weapon. Any deficiency I may have with combat, I make up for with my spellwork.”

“Ah, so Agents Palace, King, Kahn, and Black didn’t have to retrieve you from a Fae court only last month? Saving you from being executed, I might add?”

“That was an isolated incident.”

“One of dozens of isolated incidents, ” she says. “I have sent enough agents to rescue you from towers and train tracks, Agent Payne. No, we are quite finished with that. If you want to continue working in the field, it needs to either be with the basic knowledge of how to defend yourself or a partner who is skilled enough in combat for the both of you.”

 Edwin turns to look at Charles with a raised eyebrow. “And he is?”

“Oi.” Charles is trying not to take any of this personally, because it seems that Edwin would object to any partner, not just him, but it’s hard not to take that personally. “Top of my class, actually. You don’t need to be built like a brick shithouse to know how to throw a punch.”

Edwin’s eyes flick over Charles, so quickly he thinks he might imagine it, before he turns back to Director Nurse. “I do not work well with people.”

“Then it’s about time you learn, isn’t it?” She smiles sweetly, though her eyes are ice cold. “Or I’ll have to reconsider if you even belong in the field.”

Edwin’s already impeccable posture somehow becomes even straighter and stiffer.  “I would be wasted behind a desk.”

“And you’ll be wasted if you end up dead in a ditch because you’re too stubborn to learn to defend yourself!”

“How about this?” Charles steps forward to stand next to Edwin, hoping to diffuse things before Edwin says something that gets him an official reprimand. “One case. We work the Miles Foster case together and if it’s a bloody mess, we go our separate ways. But if it’s aces, and it’s going to be aces, we stick together, yeah? Then no one’s wasted behind a desk or ends up dead in a ditch.”

“I am not going to end up dead in a ditch,” Edwin grumbles.

Director Nurse ignores him, looking between Edwin and Charles thoughtfully. “One case,” she agrees. “But, Agent Payne, know that if this case is a bloody mess, as Agent Rowland puts it, we will have to discuss your future at the MSI. As things stand now, you are a liability in the field, and I do not tolerate liabilities at my ministry. And now, I have a meeting that I’m now quite late to.”

With that, she stalks by them, her assistants on her heels. One of them shoots Charles a sympathetic grimace, which he returns with a smile.

“Well, then,” Charles says once they’ve disappeared from sight. “Looks like we have a case to solve, doesn’t it?”

Edwin is still staring straight ahead, gloved fists pressed tightly together and posture so stiff it looks like he may snap. “This will most likely be a bloody mess, just so you’re aware.”

“Nah, mate.” Charles claps him on the shoulder, withdrawing his hand quickly when Edwin grows even more tense under his hand. Doesn’t like touch, got it. “This is going to be aces.”

*** 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving comments or kudos on AO3. The next two chapters will be posted over there.

[soundingstars]

Noctis' AU Verses

Shadowhunter: Noctis comes the Lucis family which is one of the top shadowhunter families around next to the Scientia and Amicitia families who are allies of the Lucis’ family. The Lucis family are considered to be royalty because of how far back their history goes in the world of the shadowhunters. Noctis was raised as a warrior growing up to fight against the monsters that hid among humans. With Ignis and Gladio, he becomes one of the shadowhunters at the London Institute to join the fight against their enemies.v: the royal shadowhunter

PJO: Noctis is the son Zeus who was brought to Camp Half-Blood at a young age after the death of his mother, a tragedy that he wasn’t going to remember either. The camp ended up becoming his new home as Noctis didn’t understand anything until he was around the age of eleven, that was when he started his life training with the other demigods. Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto became his closest friends though as it was normal to see them around the camp together or going on quests as a group. The hope is there though that he will be able to see his father in person someday instead of just hearing his voice. v: the son of Zeus

Paranormal: Noctis was born with the gift as a medium which caused him to suffering from headaches sometimes, the headaches depend on the strength of the spirit that he comes in contact with. With the small group of paranormal investigators, he travels around to different haunted locations to see what can be done to help the owners that own the haunted locations. v: do you believe in ghosts?

Harry Potter: The Lucis family are one of the many pureblood families in the wizarding world, Noctis is an only child since his mother passed away when he was young leaving him with his father. It was difficult without his mother and his father busy taking care of duties that needed his attention in the Ministry, his friends and interest in magical beasts helped with that though. He hopes that after graduating from Hogwarts that Noctis will be able to find a place for himself while caring for magical beasts that he has read about in books many times.v: the pureblood son

Fantasy:  Noctis’ memory as a human is a blur to him before he was reborn as a Kitsune with the ability of the void, a ability that is very rare for most Kitsunes to have. He hopes to get the answers that he wants though since he has no idea why he was brought into this world, it’s the main reason why he is searching around for his kind and hopefully find a purpose for himself. A reason for him to be here in the world that he lives in. v: searching for a purpose

College: It was Noctis’ decision to go to college despite the royal tutors that were back at home, his father respected the decision allowing his son to head off to college. There were a few courses that the young prince was interested in while he wanted a different experience from what would of been given to him back home. The chance to be a normal person despite the royal blood that ran through his veins. v: the chance to be normal

Castlevania: Being apart of the Lucis family, Noctis was raised as a warrior to face against the creatures that would of been seen as legends. Fighting against the supernatural creatures that had a habit of roaming the land while the family was royalty, they were feared at the same time because of the stories that revolved around them. This was their lifestyle though, living as a warrior to help serve the people and fight against the evils that lurked in the darkness. v: I’m a Lucian

[gameofdrarry]

Wizards Hearts Recs: Vampire!Fic

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 The Art of Our Necessities by dcfg21 Rated:  Explicit Words:  52,682 Tags:  Vampire!Harry, Angst, Forced Bonding Summary:  After being Turned by a vampire, Harry descends into reckless and dangerous behavior. The Ministry and the Vampire Council devise a way to keep the former Savior on a leash, and his fangs to himself, by forcing him to take a Consort. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Catch Me Before You Fall by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill) Rated:  Explicit Words:  17357 Tags: Vampire Draco Malfoy, Biting, Blood Drinking, POV Second Person, POV Harry Potter, Hurt/Comfort, Clubbing, Nearly Omniscient Bartender, but aren't they all, Kissing, Dancing, mild jealousy, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Hand Jobs, Draco Being a Git, Harry being oblivious, Draco being oblivious, Harry being thirsty, Draco being really actually thirsty, Switching, Community: daily_deviant Summary:  Draco, newly turned, shows up on Harry’s doorstep. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Palace of Eternity by gracerene Rated:  Explicit Words:  27909 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Future Fic, POV Harry Potter, Non-Linear Narrative, Harry Potter Partially Epilogue Compliant, Getting Together, Past Relationship(s), Getting Back Together, Creature Fic, Vampires, Vampire Draco Malfoy, Character Death, Wakes & Funerals, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Male Character, Gay Male Character, Bisexual Harry Potter, Gay Draco Malfoy, Accidental Bonding, Draco Malfoy Speaks French, France (Country), Auror Harry Potter, Ocean, Tattoos, Nipple Piercings, Drinking, Smoking, Romance, Endearments, Biting, Blood Drinking, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Rimming, Bottom Harry Potter, Top Draco Malfoy, Implied Switching, Dirty Talk, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Minor Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter, H/D Tropes Exchange Fest 2019 Summary:  It had been twelve years, five months, and six days since the last time Harry had laid eyes upon Draco. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Midnight in the City of a Hundred Spires by shiftylinguini Rated:  Explicit Words:  25418 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Drinking, Smoking, Sleep Paralysis Imagery, Vampires, Creature Fic, Vampire Draco Malfoy, Light Angst, Dark Humor, Mystery, Intrigue, Clubbing, Dreams, Blow Jobs, Grinding, First Time, Getting Together, Private Investigators, Private Investigator Draco Malfoy, Hopeful Ending, H/D Erised 2019 Summary:  Harry Potter is a missing person. Draco Malfoy is a vampire. They are the last two people one would expect to bump into each other in a Creature Bar in Prague, yet to Draco’s absolute shock that is definitely Harry fucking Potter sitting across from him. Even more surprising is that Potter may have a case for him. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Is Tu Fuil 'O Mo Chuislean by wench_fics (WeasleyWench) Rated:  Explicit Words:  12174 Tags: Violence, Vampire Sex, vampire, hp_vampfest entry, M/M Sex, OOC, artwork: mad1492, NSWF artwork Summary:  Harry becomes a vampire - and has to mate soon or be killed. His mate is none other than Draco Malfoy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 In The Red by bixgirl1 Rated:  Explicit Words:  45629 Tags: Post Hogwarts, Powerful Harry, Creature Fic, Vampire Draco, Rentboy Draco, Angst, Pining, Bonding, cursebreaker harry, POV Alternating, Magical Theory, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Anal Fingering, Blowjobs, Frotting, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Just really lots of sex, no really, There's like 3k of plot in this, Vampire Sex, Blood Drinking, Roleplay, Gift Fic, Switching Summary:  When Harry goes looking for a vampire at a Creature club, the second-to-last thing Harry expects is to find Malfoy working there. The last thing he expects is to fall in love with him. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Draco Malfoy and the Secret Underground Vampire Bureaucracy by Lomonaaeren Rated:  Mature Words:  18429 Tags: Vampires, Humor, Bondage, Self-help, Romance, Bonding Summary:  In which there is an obsessed Potter, conspiracy theories, bonds, hormones, far too much self-help, and, of course, a secret underground vampire bureaucracy. None of which is as important as the fact that this is not Draco Malfoy’s fault. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Not Quite Like You Imagined by canis_lupus Rated:  Explicit Words:  10935 Tags: Vampire Harry, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, HP: EWE Summary:  The taste of blood always makes Harry horribly nauseous. Not a fortunate thing if one is a vampire. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Not Today by Kefalion Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  2985 Tags: Vampire AU, 18th Century Aristocracy AU, QLFC Summary:  It's the winter season. Parliament is in session and everyone of import is in London. Harry has joined them for the first time. He doesn't want to be part of any scandal, but the choice might not be his. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Harry Potter and the Inconvenient Condition by mirabella Rated:  Restricted Words:  ~20500 Tags: Relatively mild bloodplay, as close as I'm ever likely to get to consent issues Summary:  Harry comes back from vacation with an inconvenient case of vampirism and must learn to cope with blood, Malfoy, and recalcitrant secretaries. And if that doesn't tell you everything about the plot you need to know, you haven't read enough badfic. ❤️ Read on Dreamwidth

📜 For Thine Is The Kingdom by kedavranox Rated:  Explicit Words:  66928 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Self-Harm, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Guns, Bonding, Soulmates, Mates, Flashbacks, Vampires, Creature Fic, Auror Draco Malfoy, Memory Loss, Memory Alteration, Legilimency, Occlumency, POV Alternating, Background Femslash, Background Slash, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Tattoos, Magical Tattoos, Blow Jobs, Telepathic Bond, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, brief spanking, Hung Draco Malfoy, Shower Sex, post-sex fingering, Rimming, brief breathplay, Dom/sub Undertones, Romance, Frottage, Sex Toys, Pansexual Harry Potter, Language Kink, Families of Choice, Family Issues, Near Death Experiences, Violence, H/D Erised 2018, Community: hd_erised, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Blatant Disregard for Traditional Vampire Lore Summary:  On a secret mission, Draco is Turned. With no memory of what happened, he learns that to save his missing Auror partner and regain what he’s lost, he must uncover the long-buried secrets of the vampire covens. To do that, Draco must open his mind and heart to what he has become, the new-found family that surrounds him, and the man who has remained steadfast at his side through it all. Harry spent five years avoiding the man he fell in love with, but when Draco needs his help, he cannot refuse. As they race against the clock to find Draco’s partner, Harry discovers that the bond they share is nothing to hide from, and that he'll never outrun the pace of his own heart. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Thirst by fluxweed Rated:  Explicit Words:  4448 Tags: Vampires, Vampire Sex, Vampire Harry Potter, Blood, so much blood, Blood Drinking, Biting, Explicit Sexual Content, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Drarry Discord Writers Corner Drabble Challenge, HP Kinktober 2020 Summary:  The path of Malfoy’s scent is obvious; Harry hasn’t fed for days, so his senses are sharp. Deadly. And Malfoy smells so good. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Business Meetings by Lomonaaeren Rated:  Mature Words:  31332 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Vampires Summary:  Draco leads a powerful group of vampires. Harry is their Ministry-appointed negotiator. Cue a series of once-monthly meetings where Harry and Draco argue about the various virtues of attacking the Ministry versus holding back from doing so, and, eventually, other things. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Hell Tastes Like Honey by alpha_exodus, chachisoo Rated:  Explicit Words:  16122 Tags: Vampire Draco Malfoy, Biting, Blood, Reckless Harry Potter, Teasing, Alcohol, Dancing, Voyeurism, Anal Sex Summary:  Malfoy is a vampire. Entirely unrelatedly, Harry wants to fuck him. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 For Services Rendered by dracogotgame Rated:  Mature Words:  4229 Tags: Mythical Beings & Creatures, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, vampire!Harry, Angst with a Happy Ending, Oneshot, canon? never heard of her, Drarropoly: Founders Edition - A Drarry Game/Fest, Smut, Minor Violence, Morally Ambiguous Character, Semi Healthy Relationships, Lucius Malfoy's A+ Parenting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, this is not fluff, idk what it is but fluff it is not Summary:  Draco has always given Father's 'business associates' a wide berth. But his fascination with the vampire may lead him down a dark and twisted path. ❤️ Read on AO3

[gloster]

FAVORITE FANFICS OF 2019

HAPPY NEW YEAR’S EVE & HAPPY 2020 TO YOU ALL.

So this was a fun post I did last year, inspired by the dozens of Favorite Books of 2018 by the booktubers I followed and I thought to myself: why not do a little something something for the fanfics that stood out to me, stuck me with throughout the year. 

Last year I read insanely amazing reads, and if you’re interested to see what were my favorite fanfics of 2018, here’s the link: past favs

For this year, I read sooooooo many incredible fanfics that it was hard to narrow it down to just 10. And the funny thing is, a good portion were from the same author, so it was insanely hard picking the top one. 

I implore all of you reading and following me to try the tag-and please tag me. Always on the hunt for fanfic recs. I also am curious to hear the favorites from the following people: @kila09, @sebbies, @bookstakeyoutootherworlds, @scarlet47, @fleetofshippyships, @eyelashesandentropy, @tired-luxis, @dreamydrarry, @mothermalfoy, @profoundfelicity & @goldentruth813

Without any further ado, here are my top 10 favorite fanfics for 2019:

1). Soup-pocalypse and The Great Curry Cataclysm by SqaudOfCats/ @norelationtoatticus (drarry)

Summary: Eleven years after the war, Draco Malfoy leads a quiet, boring, and perfectly respectable life, thanks very much. Or, at least he does, until a sudden and very unexpected veela awakening causes him to throw soup all over Harry Potter in the middle of the Ministry cafeteria.

If the summary alone doesn’t get you to immediately click on the link and read, I don’t know what to say. But I can say this. SqaudofCats has become my new drarry favorite author period. I read all of her drarry stories, loved them all, and am hoping she does more. 

This story, in one word, was a GEM. A FUCKING GEM. It was so so so good.There were so many good elements: Veela Draco, Dad Harry raising Teddy, Draco learning how to cook, a strang but HILARIOUS courtship involving food that I didn’t realize how much I needed until this story. It was also a perfect blend of fluff with so many cute moments and angst, which thankfully didn’t involve the couple but had to do with Harry’s mental health and PTSD post-war. 

I read this story back in May and I still think about it. Have to stop myself from reading because I have so many fanfic tabs. But it is so good. It’s so addicting. Highly recommend. 

Honorable mentions from this writer:

*Gift for Draco

*Nearly Lost Things, Carefully Tended

2). Cinderfella by @goldentruth813 (sheith)

Summary: Takashi Shirogane is exactly the kind of man Keith likes; built like a brick house with a smile sweet enough to rot teeth and a heart of gold. Of course he’s also YouTube famous and worlds out of Keith’s league. The closest he can get to his pseudo-celebrity crush is when he watches Shiro’s videos from the safety of his bed. Or so he thinks.

This incredible bean of a human being, this incredible writer is the reason I was pulled into the sheith ship long before I finally got into the show-and then had me drag @kila09 into the incredible maddness that is Shiro and Keith and the crew....and the disappointing season 8 that I am still pissed about. But yes @goldentruth813 is the reason why I got pulled into this ship, and this fanfic is the story that sealed my love for sheith and made them my 3rd favorite ship of all time. 

This story is a fun, hilarious modern twist of Cinderella that obviously involves two guys, one is who a popular Youtuber and the other who is a hardcore super fan who meet in the most surprising circumstances and come back together in the most hilarious of ways. With our classic glass slipper being a beloved leather jacket. 

It’s so stinking cute. It’s so hilarious. And it’s so weird since, while I do appreciate the fairytale, Cinderella isn’t one of my favorites but I’m a sucker for a good retelling of it. And this was so good.

Honorable mention by this writer: 

*Safe Haven 

3). Burn the Witch by @lettersbyelise (drarry)

Summary:  When Harry Potter is sent in to investigate Draco Malfoy’s successful potions company, posing as Draco’s bodyguard, he doesn’t know the case will launch a series of events that will change his life — and Draco’s. A story about choices, scars, Chopin piano pieces, and finding all kinds of love in the most unexpected places.

Let’s be honest here. At this point, are we really surprise to see this story here , featured in a favorites/rec list? Are we honestly surprise? At this point, I feel every drarry-shipping reader has read it. Devoured it. And praised it. 

This story pretty much took over the drarry community the way Red, White & Royal Blue took over the book world. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t see Burn the Witch featured in a drarry fanfic recs post, saw posts praising it. Fanart of it, edits for it, and several mood-boards. It was THAT STORY. And I am proud to say it was worth THE HYPE. 

Because it’s so well-known, I’m not going into too much detail but I can say it involves Daddy Draco and Scorpius who is precious, Harry in an undercover mission, and has one of the BEST post-war, slow-burn to the point of excruciating drarry relationship I’ve read all year. READ IT. 

Honorable mention by this writer:

*Draco Malfoy’s Stupendous Seduction Seminar

*Love Me (Four Times)

4). Evitative by Vichan (drarry)

Summary: In the summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry is drawn to a room in Grimmauld Place. Like the Gryffindor he is, he enters the room without fear. The room is a library, and Harry is surprised to find that he’s eager to learn.Then he gets the bad news: he’s been accidentally expelled from Hogwarts, and he needs to be sorted again. Everyone is confident that he’ll go straight back to Gryffindor, but with what he's been learning, Harry’s not so sure.

Out of all the stories I have in my list, this is the only one that is currently a WIP. I know some are hesitant with WIPs but this one is so worth it. Another hidden jewel found by chance. This story has to be one of the best slytherin-Harry ever and that shows the Slytherin House and the Slytherins in a positive light while still remaining true to their cunning ways. 

5). Up We Go by Oh_Hey_Tae (BTS: Taehyung x Jimin x Yoongi)

Summary: “If you’re a witch that works with plants, then why are all of yours dead? That can’t be good for business.”

The room dims again, and Jimin lifts a hand to flip off the ceiling. Taehyung knows he’s sad and that’s why the shop darkens and he shouldn’t find it funny—but he can’t help it. Because this is ridiculous. The good kind of ridiculous. The amazing kind.

(Or: Taehyung has a green thumb, Jimin runs a magical store, and Yoongi can kind of see dead people.)

Oh my goodness, where on earth do I even begin with this one? I am loss for words. It’s been months since I read it and I am still lost for words on how incredible it is. This story reads like a fairytale. Who am I kidding? This is a fairytale. A beautiful fairytale that is of loss, grief, friendship, family, love, and magic. And a beautiful fairytale that features a poly relationship

I was broken at the last word of the last chapter. Broken. Broken and put back together again.This story was so heartbreaking and heartwarming and I couldn’t think of anything else the whole damn week after I finished it. It was that good. 

Honorable mention by this writer:

* Tell Me Again

6). Silence by the Night by @parkkate (drarry)

Summary: After a spell goes horribly wrong, Harry has to deal with the loss of his eyesight. It’s such terrible timing, too, because how is he supposed to find out what Malfoy has been up to in the Room of Requirement? It’s not like he can ask the git, not only because it’s Malfoy, but also because the Slytherin has suddenly lost his voice. While they’re both trapped in the hospital wing, however, Harry discovers there’s so much he didn’t know about Malfoy, and it’s highly intriguing, but also a bit alarming. Where did all these confusing feelings come from all of a sudden? And what is Harry going to do about them?

See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. That is the best way to sum up this story. The themes of it certainly tie with the story. This story....there is a certain chapter and @parkkate knows what I mean if she remembers my reviews that shattered me. That made me sit down with a gasp because the angst just cut through me in a way that no other drarry fanfic had do to me. @parkkate I hope you know what I mean. 

Funny thing is about this fanfic is that it took my lazy butt forever to read it, like months after it was done. And mind you, I’ve seen so much praise and incredible fanart for this fanfic as well. So yeah, I was cursing myself for not getting to it sooner. And it was so so so so damn good that I literally said to @parkkate THIS IS CANON. This is canon. This happened 6th year after the bathroom scene and no one can tell otherwise. 

7). You only Live Once by @dreaming-fireflies (viktuuri/victuuri)

Summary: It's when the man is soaring in mid-air under the full moon that Victor gets a good look at him: he's Japanese, with black hair slicked back in a styled look, and a lithe body covered in tight, tight, leather under a navy blue coat.

And when the man lands on the ground again, Victor sees the final piece that captures his heart absolutely and thoroughly – a pair of brilliant, golden eyes.

Victuuri supernatural AU in which Victor is a Western demon hunter and Yuuri is a Japanese half-youkai exterminator.A cross-cultural romantic comedy/drama, with Japanese mythology, shounen action, and slice of life elements.

Literally the summary itself said everything you needed to know, everything that should AND MUST intrigue you enough into reading, that I don’t know if I really have anything to add. But I’ll try to add some of my own input. 

Like the summary said, this is a Supernatural-au YOI story, infused with Japanese mythology. Two different shows that shouldn’t work together but somehow did, creating such a fantastic read. I loved it. From beginning to end. I even knew first chapter it was going to be an ultimate favorite of mine. This fanfic just reminded me of my great love for Vikor and Yuuri-and my need for a fucking season two. As well as reminded of the glorious prime days of Supernatural, which in my opinion were seasons 4 & 5. There was action, there was angst, there was mutual and insane pining from both sides, and so many incredible moments to put into words. Seriously, what more could you want?

@dreaming-fireflies, you seriously did the damn thing with this story. 

Honorable mentions by this writer: 

*Entwining Fates 

*Zanka

8). your sharp and glorious thorn by @arahir (sheith) 

Summary: To end the war they inherited, Keith marries the King he lead an army against.

“You know, we met once,” the king continues, voice closer, and Keith almost turns. They met many times on the field—but then the king clarifies with a single word. “Before.”

Before he was a king. Maybe before he was a general. Keith has traced his rise like the growth of a seed he planted in clay and never expected to see again for how poorly he sowed it. None of this would have been possible without Keith—not the war, not a line soldier's battlefield promotion, not the end of it all, tied up so neatly by all Keith’s best mistakes. Not the killing, either. The king is right about that much, at least.

This is an arranged-marriage AU story, a trope I don’t love too much unless it’s really well done, and had very strong Game of Thrones vibes. And please note when I said Game of Thrones, I mean Game of Thrones back in its incredible prime, not the shitty season 8 we all agree was a nightmare never to be thought of again. But yes, this story was so good. Arranged marriage, enemies-to-lovers, slowburn. Please read. 

9). Your Constellation Prize by rosegardenlake aka @whoalookingcooljoker (sheith)

Summary: Akira is Hollywood's biggest celebrity. He sings, he acts, he models, he does it all and he does it perfectly. That's what Shiro thinks at least, but what would he know? He's just a tired office worker whose dreams fell through years ago. ...But when he sees Akira, oh god, when he sees him - Shiro's world fills with light again.

When Shiro lands an interview to be an assistant at Akira's company, he has a hard time believing it's reality. Though Akira's rarely around, meeting everyone is like a dream. Especially meeting Keith, Akira's shy sweet dorky cousin (OR IS HE?!)

I didn’t realize how much I would liked-love in fact-or needed a celebrity-AU until I read this story.  And that’s about all I will say since I feel anything else will probably make things spoilery. But I will this say: these two can be such idiots, but they’re our lovable idiots and they’re so sweet, so soft. Also that this story definitely well-portrayed the dark side of fame.

10). That Old Black Magic by @bixgirl1 (drarry)

Summary: Centuries ago, marriage contracts were the norm — ready-made alliances between families, expected and complied with, without complaint. But norms have a way of changing, and when a long-dormant contract flares to life, Harry has to navigate an unexpected splintering of the path he'd thought would be easy after the war... with Draco Malfoy.

Least but certainly not least: an incredible, incredible drarry story done by the impeccable @bixgirl1. 

I know I said that I’m not the biggest fan of the arranged marriage trope since I’ve been let down by so stories that started out promising but disappointed in the end. However, there are a few authors who I can always count on to make this trope into a great story. Such as @beatitudinembty, and also @bixgirl1. 

This being is pretty much....I wanna say Sarah J Maas, one of my fav authors, in the drarry community. Everyone knows her. Everyone loves her. Everything she writes always turns into gold, and this latest story by hers was no except. Arranged marriage brings Harry and Draco together in the most infuriating, excruciating, incredibly-done slowburn. 

Honorable mentions that I seriously wanted to add to the list but this post is already lengthy. All amazing, all greats reads by various writers y’all should check out:

*Moon-Eyed by @l0vegl0wsinthedark (Veela Draco, werewolf Harry, done by another star in the drarry community 

*Expectant by @l0vegl0wsinthedark (drarry mpreg with Veela-Draco & werewolf-Harry)

*Where There is Tea by @bafflinghaze (drarry + bookstore+ tea=goodness)

*The Rules of Matchbreaking @nerdherderette ( drarry: match-maker Draco, oblivious Harry, what more could you want?)

* Come For Me by Frayach (drarry; STEAMY STEAMY smut and disabled rep)

*I Want Your Touch (And I Want Your Love) by @awjiminie (yoonmin with bad boy Jimin, good boy yoongi. What more could you want?)

*Seasons of Love by mucha (BTS; Jimin x Tae x Yoongi; incredibly well-done poly relationship)

Lovely people, that concludes my favorites of 2019. So many fantastic fanfics that I could spend hours gushing over them. To the writers who created these incredible stories. I applaud you. I thank you for creating and sharing these wonderful stories. Anyone interested in doing the tag, please do. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, GUYS. 

[mittensmorgul]

Plastic fantastic

I've put off doing this long enough, and spent the intervening days reading everyone else's interpretations, so there's gonna be a lot in here, but also a lot that I've probably not focused on too heavily because other folks have already said the things better than I could've. So this is just a recap of the things I personally feel are most significant and thematically cool going forward. It's... a lot... :'D

15.04 was infused with an element of surreality. Which I ended up referring to throughout this post as “plastic.” Hence the title. But this got super long, so here have a cut. :’D

Right from the THEN segment, we're reminded of Cas. Rowena's sacrifice, Cas's own suffering at Chuck's hands, and how this has affected Sam and Dean-- Sam miserable for having done what they had to do (right?) in sacrificing Rowena, and Dean PISSED but feeling like this was the only way to free them from what he sees as Chuck being a "fanboy" of them. It shifts directly into BECKY, who was described previously as a "fangirl" and involved in a supremely unhealthy relationship with both Chuck AND Sam (even if it was completely one-sided and creepy with Sam). And then shifts to Chuck being told-off by Amara in 15.02, in essentially a recap of all the best insults and condemnations she could fling at him... because he deserved it honestly, I mean HE LOCKED HER AWAY FROM THE DAWN OF CREATION TO SUFFER ALONE WHILE HE DID HIS THING TO MAKE HIMSELF FEEL BIG.

Okay, sorry, I just really hate that guy and his hypocrisy sometimes (read: all the time).

Right. Where were we. At the beginning.

Gunfight in the bunker, with the Danger Lights activated. I've been waiting for this scene since we got BTS photos of Jensen all battered and ragged with the beard. This... isn't real. It's not SPN universe real anyway. Since the SPPT promo came out, I have been eager to see this episode just for this scene. I guessed it was a vision Sam was having/receiving because of the Equalizer Wound, the beginning of his glimpses into "Chuck's writing process." Is this an AU that Chuck actively created? Is it just the sort of thing Chuck daydreams about? Or in the style of Supernatural episodes past, is this some sort of window into the ending Chuck wants/intends to write for them, which obviously would be something they absolutely could not let stand?

Like Dean’s nightmare he awoke from in 10.09 where he saw himself slaughtering a room full of people at the beginning of the episode, which became reality by the end of the episode? Is Chuck’s horrific ending that Becky hated what we actually saw play out in Sam’s nightmare? The show has invited us to consider that as at least a possibility. Or, to at least assume Chuck’s horrifying ending was at least that awful.

There's so much in this scene that doesn't match up with what any of us might imagine Sam would even consider a nightmare of his own mind's creation, you know? And yet it's SAM who is plagued by these incongruous nightmares that don't even really connect up with things that are relevant to the things currently on his mind, you know? After recent events, one would think the things that would plague Sam's nightmares would be the loss of Jack, or his role in Rowena's apparent death and his guilt/depression over it, or even the fight against the ghostpocalypse and the people who lost their lives as a result of that. Instead, he's having "nightmares" about having gone full Boy King of Hell demon blood addict, which hasn't been a pressing personal fear of his for more than a decade. He's even talked specifically about how he's made his peace with that entire time in his life, such as his talk with Magda in 12.04. NOT coincidentally also written by Davy Perez.

That's because... this is NOT Sam's "nightmare." Why would Sam "dream" about Dean's regular gun having the power to spark out demons? Why would he "dream" about BENNY being a human (and alive!) ally of Dean's that Sam had sent his own army of demons to destroy? Why would Sam dream that his demonic-self would hunt down and kill his loved ones (Bobby! Jody! and nobody else mentioned! as if this was some weird time-travelling situation combined with Benny's human presence!), and then in the end hunt down and murder Dean in cold blood? This wasn't Sam-As-Lucifer (though I believe we will be seeing that particular nightmare in next week's episode), but SAM. HIMSELF. Turned into the demon he always feared he was "destined" to become before they learned how to tear up the story and make their own choices about their destiny.

The problem now is that they actually believe that Chuck has gone, and they're on their own now. Sam believes that this must be his own nightmare, and therefore he's just stuck with it, as his own mind and memories and fears come back to torment him. He's lost his power to fight against it, like Dean's lost his power to fight against his current experience. It's as if the only power Chuck retains over them is in the fact that they BELIEVE he's gone, you know? Magic's power is in the belief of the caster, Rowena has recently reminded us with her own life. And I think that's exactly what's leaving Sam and Dean so completely vulnerable to manipulation by Chuck, in ways they've never before been vulnerable to it. Because they've both staked their entire futures on the fact that they so firmly believe they're free of Chuck's story.

Sam is just... so confused by this nightmare, he can't even make sense of it at all. And the sleep deprivation isn't probably helping.

I think we've all covered the Meat Man conversation already, as well as all the Dean vs Food stuff, so I'll only add that commentary in here if I think of something I haven't already said on the subject.

Dean calls out Sam's assertion that he's fine, directly telling him "No, you're not," and expressing his understanding of what he's going through.

And here come the cheerleaders. And doesn't this (as I believe many of us have already said over the last two weeks) just smack of Sam's "fake case" Gadreel had him trapped researching inside his own mind in 9,10? Crowley had to convince Sam that what he was trapped inside wasn't real, that he was possessed by an angel who was forcing him to experience these things. And obviously the God Wound isn't direct possession, and I don't doubt that this is a real case, but how much of this case might have been "arranged" by Chuck, or how much of Sam's perception right now may be clouded or colored because of the effects of that Wound?

Not only that, but Dean is also a participant in this entire odd case, and he doesn't even HAVE a wound connecting him directly to Chuck, you know? But his judgment seems to be equally clouded by something, as well... I'm gonna call it Intense Denial. Dean is basing his entire life right now on the presumption that Chuck has stopped interfering in their lives, when I think the exact opposite is true. I think Chuck is now focused on them more directly and more intensely than he ever has been before, and their obliviousness to that fact is only strengthening his hold on them, and amplifying his power over them.

But back to the current point in the episode:

Sam interviews the vice principal of the school, and the girl who was killed was in the drama club, debate team, cheerleading, campus ministry, you name it. That's... an awful lot of potential friends, so Sam asks about BEST friends, and we're directed to Veronica "and the girls." Veronica is singled out, which makes her speech to the empty room later even more interesting...

This episode relies on a lot of the elements of the case they're investigating to seem rather... plastic. And Veronica stood out as one of these elements. She could've just been "one of the girls," but she was identified specifically here, and it's like that designation itself somehow altered reality just a little bit. Heck I think I'm gonna need to put this line of thought on hold until we get to the speech scene. Remind me to come back to this.. >.>

The Whitmans interrupt (oh those crazy parents from 1.08, at it in a completely different role), seemingly uncaring of the dead girl and demanding their son's future not be ruined by postponing the lacrosse game. (OH THE IRONY) Sam rightly calls them out on framing it as "the end of the world" if he doesn't get into his first choice college. These parents have already been established to be Those Kinds of Parents who will do anything for precious little Billy to get whatever he wants in the world. They'd probaly strangle kittens on live TV if it would guarantee their son's future, you know? We haven't even seen the full extent of what they were willing to do for their son, and they already feel like cartoonish villain types.

I need to take another aside here to talk about the boy’s name. BILLY. Which, considering how we left things in 14.20, we’ve all been wondering about what Billie is up to in the Empty, right? This boy that will, by the end of this episode, become a literal stand-in for Jack on a cosmic scale? Is called Billy. Just... consider that.

I can already hear Becky critiquing Chuck's Monster of the Week here... and in turn parts of the fandom cynically saying that this is the complaint on MotW episodes forever-- that they're boring or unimportant or skippable because the monsters are predictable and boring, and just... NO. YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY MISSED THE POINT.

I think the general assumption is that the case we watch Sam and Dean solve is being directly affected by Chuck's simple act of typing it out. In exactly the same way we believed Metatron influenced the events of s9 by the simple act of typing it out. Could he control the thoughts of the people he wrote about? Not exactly. Could he manipulate the situation via the power of the angel tablet-- the direct word of God-- to influence the scenario and events in improbable ways? Yes, I absolutely think he can. And I'll continue discussing this as we go along.

But we return to Dean leaning against the car eating pretzels. I've already written about his constant eating and drinking in this episode, but PRETZELS?! That's a new one for Dean. It's usually jerky, or chips, or candy, or... all sorts of other things. Where did he even get the pretzels from?

He'd apparently been at the morgue examining the body, and found a vampire tooth. So this case that seemed NOTHING like a vampire case based on how the body was found, suddenly there's irrefutable evidence that it's a vampire instead. Almost as if the facts of the case have shifted somehow, rather improbably and inexplicably. Just as inexplicably as Dean finding the beaver mascot riding a scooter "awesome."

The second girl to be abducted calls out Veronica as being "so fake" in her grief over Susie's death. And yet, improbably, after a long cheer practice, she's the only one alone in the school parking lot late at night. Where's the rest of the cheer team? The coach? Anyone? How was she there all alone? Yet she was, because the case needed her to be.

It's plastic.

Like the little square of crime scene tape left unattended in the woods. Weird, right? That after the scene was cleared and the original investigators left, it was still left there around an empty patch of dirt. And Sam and Dean... are just... standing there at the edge of the woods, boxed in by yellow crime scene tape and orange cones while they have their conversation about the fact the police have no idea what could've done this, and Sam laments the fact that it's THEIR job. THEY deal with the truth and carry the weight, while everyone else gets to go back to their blissfully unaware lives.

Dean busts out the flask while the two of them stand there in their own personal crime scene box, like their lives are the crime here. They ARE the victims of a cosmic crime. And the corpse of what their lives could've been, of what Sam had always thought he'd want of his own life, to live in a little town like this and just be NORMAL, is what they'll find on the autopsy here. And Sam is just beginning to realize he can't identify with those sorts of people at all.

And then we jump right from Sam lamenting the lost white picket fence to Becky's house-- where the front railing is white pickets, where she's built a real life for herself. Yet even something about it seems... off... just a little bit. That older kid seems way older than 7, which I assume would be the oldest any of her kids could be based on when we last saw her in canon, before she began to recover from her obsession and begin building a true happy life for herself. Heck maybe I'm talking myself into a problem that doesn't exist, and he's supposed to be just a really big 6-year-old, but okay. Or maybe he's adopted, or the kid of her husband from a previous relationship. GAH This is so not relevant to anything, why can't I let it go... >.>

Regardless, she clearly loves her family, and is invested in her life with them. Her husband is a man who truly appreciates and loves her in return. I'm really happy for her. Her husband at one point says, "Where would I be without you," and she jokingly replies "Covered in puke." And it's the same sort of cute exchange we saw between Sam and Jess in the pilot, where he asked, "What would I do without you?" and she jokingly replied, "Crash and burn." And considering that Sam himself will mention Jessica at the end of the episode, it seems worth pointing out the thematic similarity they're trying to set up here.

I wonder how much Becky has told her husband about the reality of the Supernatural books she's built her business and hobbies around, or her own part in the events of the books? More than Sam ever told Jess about the reality of his life? At this point, I'm gonna be glad her husband didn't end up pinned to the ceiling on fire.

Becky waves goodbye to her family as they leave for a day of fun, and Chuck waves back at her. He's inserted himself into her life again, and it's freaking creepy.

Chuck says he "wanted" to see her, and corrects himself to "needed." And here we have the laying out of the classic “NEED VS WANT” conundrum we’ve been yelling about for literal years. Funny that Chuck has it all wrong himself, you know? Becky makes herself clear that she neither wants nor needs him. He's not welcome there at all, and yet he presses on, past her assertion that his problems aren't her problem. I've already written a little bit about what Chuck apparently wanted from Becky, and what he actually got from her, so I'll try not to repeat myself, but to say that Becky was far kinder to him than he deserved.

So we learn about the second cheerleader's kidnapping, Dean makes an uncharacteristically flippant comment in front of the Vice Principal (somebody has a fetish), and kinda... blinks in shock at himself before professionally affirming they'll look into it and turning and walking away. Like he can't quite believe he actually said that. Which is weird, right? Because this is the sort of thing Dean has made flippant and kinda gross comments on in the past, right? But even when he's made comments about which cheerleaders are legal (4.13), or suggestive comments about even college students, he's rarely done so this blatantly directly TO the school principal, you know? This was... odd... like everything is just slightly out of sync.

I'm fascinated by the tiny models of Supernatural things that Chuck is prodding at in Becky's house. The first thing we see is Lil Levi's gas station. The only time we have EVER seen this gas station was in 10.03, when Hannah and Cas stopped there for gas, and yet Becky has the Impala parked by the pump, and what looks like a yellow classic car of some sort on the other side, hidden by the pumps so it's impossible to really see it there.

(I swear I will replace these Mittens Quality Screencaps™ as soon as HotN properly caps the episode... apologies for the photos of my tv in the meantime)

It was Cas's pimpmobile we've actually seen at this location in canon. And this was the gas station where Cas was losing his grace, desperately trying to get to Dean in time to save him, and Hannah kept getting them lost. He calls her out over her feelings-- dangerous temptations-- clouding her judgment and getting in the way. They're attacked by Adina, and Crowley arrives just in time to save them both from her, stealing her grace and force-feeding it to Cas, enabling him to power up again and save Dean. Aah, callbacks! And I mean, it might just be a visual callback to the fact that Jensen also directed that episode (and that gas station was named after his nephew), but it's still a reference that brings an awful lot of baggage with it, regardless of what prompted its appearance in miniature in Becky's house. Not to mention, this reference happened LONG after Chuck had supposedly stopped writing about the Winchesters' lives. And yet... Becky seems to know this reference, which had nothing to do with Sam and Dean and everything to do with Cas.

The second model we see looks incredibly like (or at least should all be having us THINKING of) the Carver crypt from the first three episodes of s15. And that's... super creepy, right? What is this building? Why did Becky have a model of it at all? This happened DAYS ago in canon.

And the third is Singer Salvage yard, with the Impala parked out front. How long has it been since we've seen it? In an episode that opened on Sam's "nightmare" that involved him strung out on demon blood having just killed Bobby and Jody in Sioux Falls? Interesting that Chuck expressed fascination with that particular model in this episode, isn't it?

He asks if Becky is still obsessed with his work, and she corrects him. She's obsessed with HER work. She'd essentially dismissed Chuck as the creator of Supernatural, and relegated him to the role of Recorder Of Events, as a prophet. It wasn't actually HIS story. But what she's made of it, what she's made her life's work, IS HER OWN CREATION, based on the same reality she believed that Chuck had been nothing more than a conduit for. And OUCH for a guy like Chuck to not even get credit for any of it now, because of the lie he'd told to insert himself into his own creation. It's incredible to me. He wants nothing more than recognition as the creator, as the writer, and Becky's far more interested in her OWN stories about the same characters. She saw herself as more than Chuck’s equal as a writer, she saw herself as his superior. He just recorded, she CREATES. She dismissed everything Chuck was most interested in, and writes the characters all having achieved a measure of peace and happiness, the same as she has. And Chuck... hates it. :'D

Remember, this is the guy who invented monsters before he invented anything else. Leviathans were his first creation, even before the archangels. But they had a nasty habit of eating everything else he tried to create, so he grudgingly locked them in Purgatory, and moved on to the next thing. And he's had a lot of similar failures over the years... like the original hellhound that Lucifer stole away (and that Sam killed in 12.15). Seems like this has always been the story Chuck wanted to tell, because he's always only ever had his original drama with Amara as a source for his creation. He's... obsessed... with his version of events, no matter how many times he's confronted with reality, he weasels out of personal responsibility for everything. Like he does in this scene with Becky, letting her believe he's just a poor dude who wants to keep writing and lost his writing mojo because his prophet powers dried up.

This is probably the first Becky's heard Chuck had a sister, who Chuck only explains rejected him because she "sucks." And... Chuck... you're leaving out the horrific things you've done to her as an explanation of why she refused to help you. He's still hiding behind the “super cute” Chuck Facade. And nothing he says is an out and out lie, but it's entirely a manipulation, a complete reframing of the cosmic scale of what's happened into something he expects Becky to be able to offer him sympathy over. And she's just not having it. And again, good for her.

Chuck admitting that he's lost and hates himself at least engages Becky enough to try something to get him moving forward (again, still thinking he's just a guy who's lost everything). And tells him if writing makes him happy, then he should write.

Meanwhile Dean's incongruously eating a hot dog (WHERE IS HE GETTING ALL THIS FOOD?!) and interviewing a beaver. Sam questions why, and Dean's not only gotten information about the case (mascots have access to cheerleaders), but information about the kid inside the suit (he's a smart kid, got a full ride to IU). Dean's been unusually productive while chewing that hot dog, apparently. But he’s basically a caricature of himself during this case, like he’s trying to wear a suit he hasn’t worn in 15 years, and is finding it really ill-fitting. (it’s probably all the snacks he’s eating, honestly)

Veronica hands Billy a black wristband printed SUSIEFOREVER, which... is probably how Billy's feeling at the moment (hello, she was his girlfriend and he accidentally killed her... this is gonna haunt him forever). Veronica (who we've already been told by the latest girl to disappear is "so fake" in her grief over Susie's death) seems to be coming on to Billy, or at least making her interest in him known. And we DON'T know how all of this will resolve yet, but there's an awful lot going on in this scene. Did Veronica actually kill Susie? Is she the vampire and is that the reason for this OTT "so fake" grief on her part? Did Billy's "anything for my kid" mother who interrupts the scene actually kill her and Billy know something about it? Why is everyone acting so... weird?

Because we're back to the plasticity of this entire case again. What's actually killing cheerleaders? What's really going on here? If this entire case is Chuck's machination, because he wrote it down, and therefore subtly affected the situation, is that why everything seems just slightly off? Slightly malleable, as if Chuck is only working out the details of the case as he's writing it all down?

Billy leaves with his mom, and Veronica is left in a dimly lit gym filled with empty chairs and programs for the memorial service. She's practicing her speech to this huge empty room, speaking into a microphone. And as she talks, she edits her speech.

We've seen Chuck do this. in 4.18, he had Dean push the doorbell with determination, and then went back and edited it to read "with forceful determination." Just before the doorbell rang, and it was a forcefully determined Dean doing the ringing... So Veronica's self-edit here seems almost like a Chuck self-edit.

Remember how I mentioned way back toward the beginning of this mess how Sam asked the VP for a clarification on who Susie's "BEST" friends were, and Veronica was singled out among a group of her close friends? And now Veronica stands alone not only as the sole person in the room here talking to empty chairs, but as the one with apparent motive to kill Susie, who's been accused of expressing a lot of over-the-top melodramatic "so fake" grief. And... she edits her relationship with Susie on the fly:

Veronica: We are here to celebrate the life of my friend Susie. No. *clears throat* *takes a breath* We are here to celebrate the life of my best friend Susie. My best friend Susie who I miss like... *sigh* like she was a part of me. And in many ways she's still a part of me. She'll always be a part of all of us. Susie Martin was as rare as a ghost orchid and as unique as a snowflake. So beautiful inside and out. But as Robert Frost tells us, nothing gold can stay. And that's what Susie was. Pure gold.

And during this entire speech, to the empty room, the music in the background is ominous, looming, tense. The musical cue is telling us to doubt her performance here, with the high strings picking up the tension just as she comes to a close and Dean shows up with his slow clap. I mean, it was a pretty OTT speech, delivered with an intensity that literally does feel rehearsed. Stilted. Plastic. Everything in the case so far has pointed the arrow at her being the monster. The framing of the narrative would support it if it had been true, but the background of the entire case feels exactly as Becky has described it. What if THIS was the original ending to the case that Becky had voiced her complaints about, as if THIS is the story that Chuck would've written.

But that's such weaksauce. MotW episodes are nothing if not thematically consistent. Vampires are about revenge cases, and this case is a very specifically pointed bit of revenge, of Chuck against the Winchesters. They ruined the last story he tried to tell, and the fact this started out looking like something OTHER than a vampire case (possibly a ghoul, based on the parallel to 9.10, and a dismembered body), and then seemingly remolded itself INTO a vampire case halfway through... it feels like that first fang Dean found at the morgue was Chuck sinking his teeth into their lives.

And Veronica, no matter how the case had painted her to this point, was completely innocent. A bit plastic, because she's a victim of this reality bend as much as Sam and Dean are, because the real monster of this case is Chuck-- only Sam and Dean don't have any idea yet.

Dean calls her on her fake emotions, and they directly accuse her of killing her friend. And get the proof that she was innocent because she HAS BRACES, which she's apparently self-conscious about, but it proved she wasn't a vampire. *SIGH*

Plastic.

So Sam and Dean look for video evidence from surveillance cam footage, which the police had apparently already looked at and found nothing, but now they find a car driving past immediately after the second girl's abduction. Did the police not see it? Or is this another bit of plastic?

Meanwhile back at Billy's house, his parents refuse to even hear him say Susie's name, and suspicion immediately shifts to their entire family. Billy's father washes blood off his hands, and nobody seems to find this strange. Are they all monsters? Did one of them slip up? What the heckeroo is actually going on here? Whatever it is, it feels like they're all complicit, and Billy seems to be having reservations. Except they've also got the latest victim tied up and blindfolded in their storage room. So... they're definitely guilty of something. But we're only halfway through the episode at this point, so there's clearly more to the story.

Chuck tells Becky he can't see what Sam and Dean are doing anymore, as he conveniently scratches at his left shoulder where his wound connecting him to Sam is. Which is wild, right? Because what little we know about the Equalizer gun was that it fired INTENT. And that it affects the person shot and the shooter identically. So what was Sam's intent when he shot Chuck? Dean had just told Chuck to "Go to Hell," but Sam didn't say anything out loud when he shot Chuck. Was his intent "stop fucking with our lives" or more vaguely grief-filled "go to hell" or something more? Because whatever intention Sam shot at Chuck seems to have directly caused both Chuck's loss of power AND his inability to see directly into their lives now. And after having watched the Sam and Dean show for their entire lives, Chuck is PISSED about not being able to see what they're up to.

And I wonder, incidentally, if this will be the same factor that's causing problems for the Winchesters, too... that Sam may have inadvertently severed whatever protective force had made their lives as hunters as... implausibly unproblematic as they've always been, you know? I think we'll be seeing that develop more in the next episode, but we saw hints of it happening in this episode too (like with Dean's comment about the killer having a cheerleader fetish). But regardless, I think this is why Sam is suffering these grief-fueled nightmares, his inability to breathe, and his general current mental state. He’s suffering from the same intent he’d fired at Chuck. Only it hit Chuck with a case of writer’s block, while it hit Sam with something he’s been unable to truly define or explain. Yet.

Becky tells Chuck to write about the Winchesters if he loves their story so much, because that's what SHE does. Her stories don't have to be based in reality for her to enjoy them, but Chuck's only metaphorically a writer. He doesn't just want to make up tales, he wants to literally create reality. During Becky's entire pep talk, Chuck's holding a little figurine of Sam pointing a gun, and ain't that just on the nose? She plucks Sam out of Chuck’s hands and puts him back on the mantle (and I admit to at first thinking it was the Cas doll from 5.06, because Dean did the same thing with Cas, putting him up on the mantle like that), but Chuck still expresses doubt in his ability to actually write.

And here's where the most incongruous stuff in the entire episode begins happening-- the family dynamics of a killer family. It's still unclear who the monster is among them, but like Dean, we are leaning toward the father. The thing is, none of it's actually plausible. That's the beauty of this entire case. It's plastic.

How did this single kid out of this entire town get turned by a vampire, and his parents just... completely accepted what happened immediately without question? How did they KNOW what to do for their son in this circumstance? They went out and killed animals for their blood for him. Where did they learn to do this for him? And then how could they so casually just... kidnap a whole human being just to feed their son? Why not go back to feeding him animal blood like he'd done before? They didn't see anything wrong with any of this, either. DID THESE PEOPLE NOT HAVE QUESTIONS?!

And what of the vampire that made him? Did that vampire just... turn him and run? Did he give the kid a pamphlet explaining vampire life to him or something? It's just utterly baffling that this whole family just... incorporated this development into their lives as if it was all an entirely normal thing to accept about their kid. The dad KIDNAPPED A WHOLE ENTIRE HUMAN BEING for him on his own initiative, the mom was ready to shoot Sam and Dean for interfering in their plans. LIKE HOW IS ANY OF THIS NORMAL?!

And perhaps most bizarre of all, Sam and Dean didn't see anything wrong with it in reflection later that night. But I'll get to that when we get there. Heck this note-writing thing is really hard when I already know everything that's gonna happen. I have enough trouble staying on point without the benefit of foresight. :'D

So these parents are insistent that they're doing all of this, sacrificing all of this, just for him. And when he tells them he doesn't want them to, they just beg him to tell them what he wants from them. And he's just so frustrated because they aren't listening to him. Like they don't even care about him despite professing they're doing all of this so he can be happy. And he's just... profoundly not happy.

So the father, when Sam and Dean show up, still thinks they're going to ARREST him. Which is a weird thing for a suspected vampire to believe, and he's horrified when Dean pulls out a machete instead of handcuffs. This is a totally shocking development for him, and yet he STILL holds it together enough to bargain for his wife and son's lives. And the wife is profoundly confused by this, and our suspicions shift to her. But that's still... not quite right. She's prepared to literally shoot what she believes to be two FBI agents to save her son, again, as if all of this was entirely normal. As if this is what normal people are willing to do for their monster children.

I've already written a bunch about Becky's critique of Chuck's writing, and how poorly Chuck takes her notes. Chuck... is really out of touch with fanfic culture. Becky's reading this story as if it was fic, not reality. She kudos'ed and commented, and expected Chuck to just accept that and move on, because that's how fic culture works. But he demanded a beta read level critique, and Becky gave it. And he shouldn't have asked for it if he didn't actually want it.

And here comes the revenge that justifies the Vampire Plot. Chuck... is the vampire. he's the monster that doomed Billy for no reason. Who drove the parents to such extreme lengths to protect their child. Because that's how CHUCK saw what TFW had done to protect Jack. He saw it as just that outrageous and unfounded, even though it was in no way the same. We just witnessed Chuck's critique of TFW's actions in 14.20, and it was scathing, mocking, and vindictive.

Plastic.

But I also suspect that Becky wasn't reading ~this case~ exactly, because she complained that Sam and Dean were tied up (they were never once tied up in this episode), and she complained about the villain monologue being stale (Dean does most of the monologuing here, and it's Sam who figures out what's actually going on). Just one more bit of plastic.

But Chuck somehow managed (even if he couldn't see it) to put Jack's 14.20 realizations about himself into Billy's mouth. As if Chuck's story had already been written, and through some power of its own it was brought into reality via these previously innocent people. The story itself is more powerful than the author.

Like Jack, Billy has been trying to accept responsibility for his actions. He couldn't control himself, he didn't know it would happen, but he's dangerous and needs to be stopped. And Billy's speech isn't a "villain monologue," but a painful confession of everything he'd done. So what story was Becky reading?

Sam angrily judges the parents' actions, and Dean expresses his shock that the father would've just let him cut off his head to save his son. And is taken aback at the comment that he must not have kids, if he doesn't think he wouldn't have done the same for his own child.

And Dean's like... well, no I wouldn't have done the same for my own child. It's a super messed up situation that I'd really been trying not to think too hard about, thanks. It's been less than a week and here you go bringing up the worst day of our lives, so thanks for that... but they carry on. The mother says they just wanted him to have a normal life, and that's something Jack never would've had regardless because of what he was. But he had *a* life, with the Winchesters. If Jack had been a vampire, they wouldn't have gone out hunting and kidnapping teenage girls for him to eat, you know? But they were willing to raid heaven and shout down God for Jack. But context matters. And this hastily assembled vampire family ready to play revenge/victim for Chuck's story lacked all context. They were plastic.

It's Billy who ends up dictating how his parents are to handle everything, calm as can be. And his parents finally listen to him. And he sacrifices himself to the Winchesters. And they just... go along with it, take him out to the woods, and Dean kills the boy kneeling at his feet, accepting his fate as he's clearly crying, while Sam watches on. It's what Chuck had wanted in 14.20, and Dean had refused to give him. And now this entire situation has been Dean, manipulated into providing that demanded sacrifice, one way or another. And the most interesting bit of it? Chuck... couldn't even see it playing out. He missed the whole show that played out in Chuck Puppet Theater despite the fact. Like whatever he actually wrote was irrelevant, because his intent is somehow still connecting through to the Winchesters in pantomime.

And Sam and Dean's reactions to all of this are also just weirdly plastic.

I've already written about Chuck and Becky enough I think, but Chuck's moved on from "Writers lie," to "I can do anything, I'm a writer." With some of the worst villain monologue we've ever gotten, with "There, see, it's making you feel something! That's good, right?" While Becky is outraged and heartbroken over Chuck's ending. The only thing I need to say about whatever Chuck's planned ending is, is that if the series ends the way CHUCK wants it to, it'll go down as the biggest intentional betrayal of a fandom in the history of television. The show has stated to us in this episode that Chuck is the final boss big bad, and that he cannot be allowed to win. He can't have the final word in this story.

In *our* world, the current writers have officially called out a good number of sins of their past and exposed them via Chuck. They wrote the Leviathans being a personal favorite of Chuck's despite being pretty universally hated by fandom... well... they're looking for redemption for themselves in s15. THEY can't allow the story to end horribly. They've staked their current writing cred on it, as well as the entire history of 15 years of building TFW into the heroes. Sure, they've joked that not all fans will be happy with the ending, but in serious comments they've also promised a "real" ending and not some advanced level deus ex machina that wipes everything clean, either. That's a lot to deliver, and Chuck's suggested ending of the Winchesters horrifically dead doesn't deliver any of it.

So... back to the denouement of the episode. To the Impala! The least plastic thing in the entire episode. But it's pretty plastic.

Sam suggests that what Henry did for his son, was something they would've done for Jack, given the chance. And no, he's not talking about kidnapping teenage girls to feed him, he's talking about offering himself as a sacrifice in his son's place. Because Dean literally did do that. He was willing to sacrifice himself to kill Jack before he could kill again. It's what Chuck had presented as the ONLY way to stop Jack from destroying the world, with the examples of Jack having accidentally killed Mary, and then the whole of society crumbling because Jack told everyone to stop lying. But Sam? He wasn't willing to sacrifice both of them. And then he learned the truth from Chuck, about the manipulations that forced them all to this point, how Chuck probably did have the power to make everything right, restore Jack's soul, everything... but he didn't want to because it was more entertaining for him to watch them act out his plots instead. He WANTED that drama, that horrible sacrifice. He ENJOYED it.

But given the choice, I think Sam and Dean both would've traded places with Jack. We actually *saw* Cas literally exchange himself for Jack in 14.08. But Chuck wasn't satisfied with that trade. He wanted more from them, and they decided they were done playing on his stage.

There's a bit of incongruity in the speech Dean gives Sam about his current state, as well. He's usually so much better at reading Sam, yet he's comparing Sam's current mental state to his own back in the crypt, after Chuck. And just... no? This is not it at all? When he told Sam he's felt like cashing in, *we* think of 13.05, where he literally DID think of cashing in, you know? That feels far more similar to how Sam's feeling right now than to Dean's ANGER and "we need a plan!" bossiness from the crypt after Chuck. It's jarring as a comparison, because IT'S THE WRONG THING ENTIRELY.

But it's wrong, because it's the glaring omission of Cas that's already been lampshaded in the episode. That Dean's current blind spot here is shining a violently bright light on what SHOULD be said. Just like the end of 13.05 when we all yelled "HELLO, DEAN" at the television when Cas didn't say the line to him. We've been talking FOR YEARS about how this show uses narrative negative space like this, how it expects us to shout HEY WHAT ABOUT CAS?! at the screen, or to see that even this driving scene in the dark, in the car, is a perfect inverse mirror of that scene in 13.05, where Sam had spent that entire episode feeding his favorite junk food that he criticized Dean for in this episode, Dean and dragging him out on a case in the hopes of making him feel like himself again and... that's what Dean's telling Sam he wanted to work this case for now, to show Sam exactly what Sam had tried (and failed spectacularly) to show Dean in 13.05.

Dean even quotes some of Cas's last words to him before he left, that he should "move on."

But they needed to walk around the giant Cas-shaped hole in the narrative. And they needed to do it this incongruously. And that's exactly why it works.

And it's why Sam CAN'T move on. He doesn't feel free. I've already written a bit about this, and how it's directly tied to Sam's wound, and what it's probably doing to him. And what IS it doing to him? Chuck wobbles his head side to side, and the Sam and Dean bobbleheads on the desk beside him follow suit.

[holyfool-arcana]

The Holy Fool: Chapter 2

The Waters Taketh Away

Word Count: 2.1k  Warnings: Mentions of infant death and murder  Rating: M  Description: An Arcana AU set in a Vesuvia that is half-noir and half-fantasy.

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“Doctor Devorak, if you do not cease and desist, we will have no choice but to take you into custody!” snapped one voice, the annoyance in it softened by the fact that the owner of said voice was obviously trying to suppress a yawn.

“Shouldn’t we get this body to a morgue, get an autopsy report in, identify the corpse, inform the family?” another voice cuts in rapidly-- “That’s standard protocol, why would you just leave a dead baby lying around--”

Asra had trooped on ahead when Liuyin hesitated at the fringes of the forming crowd, tugging his companion after him till they reached the source of the voice.

“Ilya,” the magician greets, and the name almost seemed like a spell-- the tall, gangly man going red-faced from his haranguing had shut up, almost literally, his jaw clicking as he slammed his mouth shut.

His eyes widened, almost to a frantic degree, and Liuyin suspected this new flush was from something other than aggravation as he offers the two of them a small smile that bordered on nervous. “Ah, good morning Asra--”

“Magician,” Asra corrects steadily, seeming to grow increasingly unfazed the more flustered Doctor Devorak seemed. He gestured to Liuyin. “And this is--”

“Liuyin Mei, administer of last rites and curses, blessings, the such,” Liuyin replied, breaking the tension between them by offering their hand to the doctor. “Pleasure to meet you, Ilya.”

“Oh, it’s Julian now,” the man replied, stooping down and pressing a kiss to the back of Liuyin’s hand. “It’s wonderful to see such a lovely face in the midst of such chaos.”

A business card is pressed into their hands, and Liuyin had glanced between it and the man, now straightened to his full height, before they’d tucked the card into their sleeve. “Ilya, that’s enough--” Asra says, a faint note of vexation in his voice. “Constable Marlin, take us to the corpse, please.”

The mustachioed, portly gentleman nods, gesturing them forwards, whilst they shouldered past a few more civilians and reporters starting to gather around a cordoned-off area of the docks, where two bundles lay on the ground, side-by-side.

“When the salvage team found the body and the arm, was there anything else present?” Liuyin turned to a detective on the scene.

The detective turns to Liuyin, frowns, then shakes their head. “No, sir,” they’d replied. “Nothing turned up of note.”

“No coffin?” Liuyin cuts in, and received a strange look in turn.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because around three this morning, in fact, my aunt and I were preparing burial rites for a baby,” Liuyin replies. It wasn’t an outright lie, per se, just a small one-- truly, they hadn’t even seen the contents of the box yet before it was stolen-- “and someone had broken in and snatched it from our property. I think that because the box was so small, they might have mistaken the contents for valuables, and possibly dumped the body of the infant once they realized it wasn’t.”

“Very curious. Why didn’t you file a report?”

“Finding the body ought to have spooked the thief enough,” Liuyin reassured them.

“So this is yours, then?” the detective asks.

“Should be, yes,” Liuyin nodded, watching as Asra paced a slow circle around the larger of the two bundles, a calculated look in his eyes.

“So you’re saying,” furious scribbling commences, “That the corpse recovered from the water was dead before entry?”

“Isn’t that the job of the detectives to determine, sir?” Liuyin replies in response, a calculatedly aggravating response.

It works. An eye-roll of disgust and a sigh later from the detective, they’re told to simply “collect their things” and “get the hell out.”

Liuyin is all too happy to obey, even if it meant carrying a corpse in their arms through the streets of Vesuvia-- the docks were starting to get a little too crowded, too loud, and they felt a headache coming on.

“Asra, let’s go.”

The white-haired magician had glanced between them and the bundle of soaking white silk in the arms apologetically. “I have more investigations to do here,” he says, jerking his chin in the direction of the larger bundle-- the one that Liuyin knew concealed a metal prosthetic arm beneath it.

“I’ll stay--” Liuyin began to offer, about to reach into their pockets for some tiger balm to temporarily alleviate the burgeoning migraine, but Asra shook his head instead.

“Go home, Liuyin. You should get some rest.”

Liuyin opened their mouth to protest, but decided better of it, nodding instead. “Fine. Take care of yourself too,” they’d offered as parting words.

Navigating the sea of people was even harder by themselves, especially considering their cargo-- Liuyin had covered up the baby’s face so no one would take a look and frighten the mass into a panic, and then resigned themselves to elbowing and shouldering their way between the people.

A black-gloved hand reached out to them then, and Liuyin followed it up into the smirking face of one Doctor Devorak. “Need a hand?”

“What do you want?” they inquire in return, less than hostile but shrewd nonetheless, even as they accept the assistance.

“No need to be so suspicious,” the doctor drawls in return, quite cheerfully, using his height as an advantage to navigate through and around the crowds. “It’s quite a reasonable request, though I’m sure we ought to discuss it away from the crowds.”

Liuyin waits till they’re free of the worst of the gathered, before deftly stepping in front of him, their hand still in his, pacing backwards with measured steps and careful not to crash into anyone. From a distance, they’d almost look like two sweethearts with a newborn on a stroll, though in reality, he was just their new acquaintance who obviously held a torch for their best friend, and the newborn was, of course, dead.

“Talk,” Liuyin says tersely.

Doctor Devorak slows his steps down till they were nearly at a standstill in the middle of the sidewalk, dipping down till his wild auburn curls were brushing over Liuyin’s cheek.

“I want to perform an autopsy,” he says, the way someone else might whisper a sweet nothing, breath brushing against their ear and causing a few flyaways of hair to flutter up. “Aren’t you curious why a baby had to die, and why someone kept it so secretive?”

Liuyin couldn’t help it, they found this scene far too comical-- here he was, almost flirting, and here they were, a literal corpse in their arms being toted about like a loaf of bread.

They snorted, and then laughed, ignoring the affronted expression on Doctor Devorak’s face, pushing the dead infant into the doctor’s hands as they continued down the street. “By all means,” they said, giggling as they watched him fumble with the package before regaining his handling.

He was, in fact, quite adorable when flustered, the thought came unbidden to Liuyin.

They pushed it out of their mind and nodded on. “Come back to my shop, then. I’ve got a decent workspace.”

“Administer of funeral rites, right, right,” the doctor nodded, muttering to himself as they passed through the streets with trickles of conversation being passed around as if it were a strong liquor-- sparingly, with each their turn.

Gradually, he’d discovered that they were adopted by an aunt, their parents were unknown, and that Liuyin was frightened of creatures that crawled. In return, Liuyin found out Julian was orphaned as well, raised by a woman who was “practically a grandmother”, and was an apprentice to one of Secretary Satrinava’s children when he was learning his practice before joining the Ministry of Public Health.

They’d both known Asra for some time, though the doctor clammed up about the nature of that relationship when pressed-- and Liuyin was too polite and well-trained to ask further.

Finally, they’d reached the door of the shop-- a small property on the edge of the central district, white-walled, with evergreens peeking over the tops of the shingles. The double doors were thoroughly pasted with yellow talismans, layer upon layer over the years, till hardly any of the original wood underneath could be seen, strips of sun-bleached paper fluttering in a limp breeze.

“What are these?” the doctor asks, trying to make out the sigils and reaching for one of the slips of paper.

“Don’t touch it!” Liuyin says in a near-shout of alarm, throwing themselves onto his arm.

He retracted his hand back rapidly, blinking down with a query in his eyes.

Slowly, bit by bit, Liuyin let go of his arm. “Sorry I yelled…” they replied, eyes trailing right over where the button of his jacket opened at the dip of his collarbone. “Those are protective charms designed to keep intruders of the supernatural sort out.”

“I see,” he’d said, face settling into a look of consideration. “In that case--”

“Yinyin?” A slender, petite woman with dark hair in a high-collared dress over which she’d draped a dressing robe emerged from the opposite door. “I thought I heard your voice-- oh!”

Auntie Liya was staring somewhat judgmentally, at the two of them-- and Liuyin suddenly became aware of their proximity to Julian, pressed nearly chest-to-chest, the bundle in his arm held awkwardly at his hip to prevent getting crushed.

Their face lit on fire and they stepped back right into the door of talismans, pushing it open blindly and stumbling back into the courtyard. “C-come in, Doctor Devorak, we’ll set up a table for you.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Aunt Liya asks expectantly, hands on her hips.

Liuyin squeezes their eyes shut, as if praying for the ground to swallow their mortification, and then nods obligingly, painting a smile across their features. “Auntie, this is Doctor Devorak, who helped me recover the body that was stolen from us earlier this morning. Doctor Devorak, this is my Aunt Liya, who I’m apprenticed under.”

“Charmed,” the tall man replied, reaching to shake the matron’s hand.

He mustn’t have expected her to grab his hand, remove his glove, turn it palm-up, scan it, and then let it drop back with a, “Humph!” and a “that one’s nothing but trouble, Yinyin,” to her ward within the span of the few seconds he was caught off-guard, tossing the glove back to him in the meanwhile.

Doctor Devorak, to his credit, only fumbled briefly with the glove that she threw back at him, Liuyin taking the chance to transfer the bundle of corpse baby to their own arms, deeming it unstable in his current state of hesitance.

“A-Yi, Auntie, we really must be carrying on with the investigation,” Liuyin replied as they gestured the doctor to them with hurried movements, as if urging them to escape before Aunt Liya got around even further in passing judgement upon the two of them-- who were strictly professional, sorry and thank you.

“Investigation?” their aunt asks incredulously, and that was pretty much all the incentive Liuyin needed to grab Doctor Devorak’s free wrist and tug him insistently up the steps and through the open sliding doors to the left, into the coffin-house where the dead were banished. “Yinyin, you stupid child, come back out here!”

Liuyin led him through the white-sheets hanging from the entrance, skirting around a not-quite-fully burnt trough of incense sticks that was arranged in front of an altar housing the statue of a stern-faced man.

Liuyin had paused in front of it for a brief moment and bowing, murmuring a few words of supplication under their breath before they’d continued on, holding open yet another set of white curtains as they led him into another room.

He’d taken stock of the surroundings and deemed it acceptable-- a waist-high table, good lighting, and the area was evidently kept clean. Despite the number of corpses that must have gone through this coffin-house, it smelled more strongly of incense than of necrotic flesh, and though he was far too accustomed to less glamorous working conditions, he’d appreciated the meticulous care that the witch and their aunt had. “You can set it down on the surface of the table,” he’d informed them.

They’d concurred with the request, gingerly laying the bundle down. “I assume you brought tools with you,” they said.

“Of course, darling,” the doctor offered a smirk and cast off his coat, leaving it hanging on one of the hooks on the wall, before bringing out what looked like a leather portfolio, but bulkier, from one of the folds.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Liuyin says skeptically, eyeing the variety of sharp blades and implements he’d unravelled from the bag.

“Don’t want to stay for the show?” He asks, raising a brow.

Liuyin narrowed their eyes at him. Fine, two could play at the banter. “No,” they replied. “I’m going to just purify everything so the infant spirit doesn’t latch onto you and eat your spouse’s children in the womb.”

The doctor took it in stride. “Have fun!”

[soundxofstars-archived]

Noctis’ AU Verses

Shadowhunter: Noctis comes the Lucis family which is one of the top shadowhunter families around next to the Scientia and Amicitia families who are allies of the Lucis’ family. The Lucis family are considered to be royalty because of how far back their history goes in the world of the shadowhunters. Noctis was raised as a warrior growing up to fight against the monsters that hid among humans. With Ignis and Gladio, he becomes one of the shadowhunters at the London Institute to join the fight against their enemies. v: the royal shadowhunter

PJO: Noctis is the son Zeus who was brought to Camp Half-Blood at a young age after the death of his mother, a tragedy that he wasn’t going to remember either. The camp ended up becoming his new home as Noctis didn’t understand anything until he was around the age of eleven, that was when he started his life training with the other demigods. Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto became his closest friends though as it was normal to see them around the camp together or going on quests as a group. The hope is there though that he will be able to see his father in person someday instead of just hearing his voice. v: the son of Zeus

Paranormal: Noctis was born with the gift as a medium which caused him to suffering from headaches sometimes, the headaches depend on the strength of the spirit that he comes in contact with. With the small group of paranormal investigators, he travels around to different haunted locations to see what can be done to help the owners that own the haunted locations. v: do you believe in ghosts?

Harry Potter: The Lucis family are one of the many pureblood families in the wizarding world, Noctis is an only child since his mother passed away when he was young leaving him with his father. It was difficult without his mother and his father busy taking care of duties that needed his attention in the Ministry, his friends and interest in magical beasts helped with that though. He hopes that after graduating from Hogwarts that Noctis will be able to find a place for himself while caring for magical beasts that he has read about in books many times. v: the pureblood son

Fantasy:  Noctis’ memory as a human is a blur to him before he was reborn as a Kitsune with the ability of the void, a ability that is very rare for most Kitsunes to have. He hopes to get the answers that he wants though since he has no idea why he was brought into this world, it’s the main reason why he is searching around for his kind and hopefully find a purpose for himself. A reason for him to be here in the world that he lives in. v: searching for a purpose

College: It was Noctis’ decision to go to college despite the royal tutors that were back at home, his father respected the decision allowing his son to head off to college. There were a few courses that the young prince was interested in while he wanted a different experience from what would of been given to him back home. The chance to be a normal person despite the royal blood that ran through his veins. v: the chance to be normal

Castlevania: Being apart of the Lucis family, Noctis was raised as a warrior to face against the creatures that would of been seen as legends. Fighting against the supernatural creatures that had a habit of roaming the land while the family was royalty, they were feared at the same time because of the stories that revolved around them. This was their lifestyle though, living as a warrior to help serve the people and fight against the evils that lurked in the darkness. v: I’m a Lucian

[prinzenhasserin]

Chocolate Box Exchange

Dear Chocolatier!

Please don’t feel obligated to use my prompts! This letter is just in case you might want to poke at some more of my prompts/likes. Generally, I’m open to a lot, and I will be delighted with any rating from gen to explicit. My AO3 account is here.

My prompts may tend to the longer side, but I’d love just a snippet or a scene from any of them, or illustrations of any of the scenes, too ❤️

(If this letter cribs a lot from my other letters, it’s because I’m lazy, and my likes don’t change around that much :D You can find some of my other letters under the exchange letter tag. I hope you have fun creating!)

General likes:

loyalty

odd couples!

found family, dysfunctional families that nevertheless love each other

historical stories for same-sex pairings that aren't unhappy but that fit with the society of the time (so like, spinster ladies living together; bachelors-for-life)

cultural differences! age differences! height differences!

heists, rescue missions

character driven narratives

dragons, fairy tales, magical realism, urban fantasy

Space AUs

competent characters

people not realising they’re the most competent at their job/hobby

people failing their way to success

happy endings, earning your happy ending, open yet hopeful endings

cynical humour

mutual pining

everything is better in suits, corsetry, fancy dresses

Identity shenanigans (secret identities, mistaken identities)

Blatant Lies

Enemies becoming friends and/or lovers

outsider POV

epistolary, poetry, unusual narrative formats

orange/blue morality (that is, not entirely human morality); grey/grey morality

non-verbal expressions of affection

Art likes:

sketches! 

textures! 

background! 

lavishly designed worlds and setting! 

Kisses! Sleeping Together! 

Trees! 

Colours! Black and White! Sepia! 

Explicit art! beauty spots and scars! hair!

Kinks:

wall sex

shifting power dynamics

semi-public sex

lots of foreplay, drawn out orgasms, edging

desperate sex, drunk sex, we-just-can’t-help-it!sex, sex for life-affirming

sex toys

sex toys in public (though I get embarrassed if someone else notices)

General dislikes:

infidelity in mentioned pairings

suicide

non-con (dub-con is totally fine though; as are consent issues due to power imbalances, people not knowing all the facts, or drunken sex-pollen-escapades)

permanent character death

unrequited love between requested pairings

non-canon nicknames

Gokusen (art+fic)

(Pairing: Sawada Shin/Yamaguchi Kumiko)

How do I love this so much? I have no idea. I’m not even near high school age anymore, and yet the plot (and tbh, sometimes its ridiculous nature) always gets to me. I’d read more about any aspect of this canon though I am a little more partial to the manga, for giving me more content ;), and if you want to bring in any other characters, feel entirely free to. Post-canon would be great, but anything goes really.

How does Shin convince Yankumi to have sex with him? (A wonderful fic I got was with plenty of bad yakuza movies, which :D :D :D but I am always open for more! Maybe Shin speaks to Kumiko’s competitive spirit? Maybe he asks her to spite the police commissioner, by doing it in his house? Maybe there is some heavy kissing because they are trying to escape thugs/police/Kumiko’s students?)  Is he getting kidnapped left and right before they actually get together because all and sundry already think they’ve been doing each other for years?

If they are already in an established relationship, how does Shin deal with Yankumi’s students (especially when one of them develops a crush)?

I’d be also super interested to see how other people view their relationship, like Shin’s father, Kumiko’s grandfather, the other yakuza groups, her students-- or simply Kumiko and Shin setting out to fight an up-and-coming group of delinquents, rescuing kittens, or Shirokin, from an overzealous school commissioner?

I have no problems about depicting violence, or graphic criminal activities, but please no major crimes involving children.

Inuyasha (art+fic)

(Paring: Inuyasha/Sesshoumaru)

I am here for all the contrived reasons to get them together. Hate!sex? Yes! Sex Pollen? You got me! Arranged marriage by their dad to keep dog demons with dog demons? I am here!

What I like is their contemptuous relationship with each other, that nevertheless evolves -- I like that they claim to not spit on the other if they were on fire, but when push comes to shove, they do help each other, and defend the other from their enemies. I like that they are halfbrothers, that they clearly recognise the power in each other, the underlying class issues, and all.

How about a small snippet of them teaming up together? Surprised by sex pollen, or a gender-changing well? time loops would be awesome! as would Inuyasha and Sesshomaru meeting again in the future, with Inuyasha time-travelling and Sesshomaru getting there the conventional way. Would also read soulmates!fic, or a sleeping beauty AU

I see both Inuyasha and Sesshomaru as fairly aggressive and forthright, and would prefer you not to characterise either of them as submissive (outside the bedroom).

Miss Marple (art+fic)

(Pairing: Miss Marple/OFC)

I am a fan of Miss Marple. I, too, have lived in a quiet town where you can see into the abysses of the human condition :D

I’d love to read something that lead her to the person we know her as, maybe when she went to the girl school in Switzerland? Maybe during her time in the cypher division, during the war — maybe the cypher division was really a cover for Miss Marple’s spy activities for the war office?

I’d also love fic about her as we know her: spending time in St. Mary Mead’s and solving crimes, quietly knitting her nephew another sweater. Was she maybe in love with a woman the whole time? Did she quietly retire into a cottage with her best friend, and everyone knows but doesn’t really?

Depending on when you set it, I would also love Miss Marple in a relationship one wouldn’t expect of her -- with a rival maybe? An enemy spy? A crossdressing motorcyclist, or a authoress of mystery novels. I would love an outsider POV on that! Or a 5 Times someone was surprised by Miss Marple’s companion thing.

Harry Potter (art+fic)

(Pairing: Amelia Bones/Minerva McGonagall)

I’d love to see a slow blossoming romance in the halls of the ministry, when they both started out as Aurors. Or maybe they are rivals, always competing for the same spots on specialisation teams and then, sparks fly, and there’s tension filled hate-sex? Maybe Minerva is Amelia’s auror trainer, or her superior officer, and Amelia keeps breaking the spirit of the rules while following the letter in the interest of capturing a culprit?

Would also read a story set later, when Minerva is already a Professor at Hogwarts! I love tiny extra bits of worldbuilding that show the inherent magic in the setting (like magic knitting needles, or self-filling tea sets)

(Feel free to disregard their entire backgrounds on Pottermore.)

Original Works (fic)

If you’d like to go wild with the pairings alone, that would be delightful! Otherwise, here are some thoughts:

Bored Female Physics Prof who Built a Time Machine Last Week/Female Human Intergalactic Ambassador

Long suffering Intergalactic Ambassador trying to reign in the mad genius that’s been time-travelling across history! What is there not to love? 

Or; Intergalactic Ambassador is stranded on Earth and now this remarkable (beautiful, brilliant) woman has built a time machine with which she can get back to her people

adventures through time and space! physics prof trying to woo her lady love and getting stuck in time loops instead, and her lady love having to rescue her!

Classic Hollywood Female Screenwriter/Classic Hollywood Actress

they have a longterm relationship behind scenes

Screenwriter keeps writing roles for Actress, who is very annoyed at being typecast all the time and keeps bugging the writer about being a hack, and the Screenwriter is very condescending about her acting talents --> hatesex ensues

a happy ending for expies of Greta Garbo/Mercedes de Acosta maybe?

5 Times the press walked in on them having sex and didn’t realise it

Demon Brother/Half Demon Brother | Demon Hunter

idk, idk (I WANT IT LIKE BURNING) uhm, yes.

tempestuous relationships! drawn out seduction that devolves into physical confrontations!

xeno? vaguely inhuman anatomy? yes! sex pollen! ritual sex to do stuff! 

maybe demon hunting together, demon brother freaking out that he’s a traitor to his race? demon hunter brother freaking out that he’s a traitor to his people? yet both of them not being able to resist each other

soulbonds

I’d like a happy or open ending, please!

Down-On-Her-Luck Aristocrat Forced to Become Barista/Emperor in Civilian Disguise

... this would be great set in SPACE. Fantasy? or 19th century Austria, either way, I am here for it

I am not to set on any gender! (The civilian disguise could even be crossdressed, for extra tropey-ness)

secret dates that lead to more! sneaking around to find a place to have sex in! and then it turns out they met before, and they have been lying to the other the whole time!

escaping bodyguards -- one thinks they are there for his debts, the other to collect him to the palace!

revolution? weird government shenanigans? reams of paperwork? beleaguered bureaucrats?

Fake Paranormal Investigator TV Host/Trolling Supernatural Creature

maybe the supernatural creature thinks the hotline for the show is a real helpline, and asks for help with the infestation of pixies, and then falls in love with the host and trolls him forever?

maybe the tv host keeps accidentally stumbling upon their real lair

prank calls: “Uhh, there’s a werewolf in my kitchen” and when the film crew arrives, there’s only the caller (who happens to be a werewolf)

Female Detective/Female Supervillain in Disguise

moral quandaries! maybe the detective figured it out way before, and didn’t say anything for plausible deniability 

maybe the supervillain seduced them to keep her off track, and fell in love for real? and now she’s scared of saying anything at all?

maybe they both go to the same club to relax, sex happened, and now that they wake up they realise what they have done! most awkward morning after ever

Female Mob Boss/Female Undercover Detective

in SPACE! modern times! 1940s on the home front!

is it a planned seduction? does the detective set out to get secrets during pillow talk?

is it an unplanned seduction? does the detective have no other explanation for being in this gay club rn, and they have sex?

are they trying to seduce secrets out of each other, and more importantly, does it end with the both of them blowing this entire popsicle stand and eloping together to the wilderness?

Also here for pure smut: hate sex, switching power dynamics, ill-advised drunken one-night stands, sex for blackmail reasons

Female Pirate/Female Naval Officer

I would love this pairing in any setting, Mediterranean pirates of pre-Roman Empire, Egyptian pirates, Chinese pirates, privateers, pirates of the Caribbean, pirates in SPACE, smugglers…

Did they know each other before? Is the naval Officer perhaps a point of contact for the crown for a privateer? I like an aspect of danger in my ships, but I don’t like totally unredeemable characters.

Does the pirate capture the naval officer for ransom? To seduce her to the dark side? hate!sex! stranded on an island/planet with sex pollen! 

Does the naval officer capture the pirate, and the pirate seduces her for her freedom? Or both at once?

Female Regency Crossdressing Rake/Regency Bluestocking

They meet at a ball, and flirt. Then they meet again at the next ball (or the theatre, or gambling halls) and their relationship continues. The crossdressing Lady is very worried about being actually a woman, and pretending to be a man, but the other Lady found out the very first night and is totally cool with it.

How does the crossdressing work? Is she pretending to be her own brother because he’s off to Gretna Green (or wherever) to get married, or do people dismiss the rumours that she’s a lady because of her general attitude?

There are no tropes that could make this bad for me! :D

I would enjoy this in a world without homophobia, just as I would enjoy this if they had to pretend to be a heterosexual couple forever (though I would enjoy it more if they had the support of at least one of their friends/family, or a community behind them)

Female Selkie/Original Female Character

I did not have space for the anglerfish selkie or the squid selkie, so clearly i compromised. Plain selkies are also awesome!

OFC is manning a selkie rescue station -- she steals back stolen skins; and never has she been so tempted to keep this one

OFC is a ship captain, who is rescued by the selkie and falls in love

OFC is a fisherwoman, who catches a selkie accidentally, and then retires in the lighthouse

King (Elderly)/Evil Vizier

hatesex! confused boners! a scheme plotted out by the King to secure the reign of his heir

the King is blackmailed into a relationship by his vizier, and he could try to resist, but doesn’t because he likes to be submissive in bed, and it’s so hard to find good doms at his age

they have been pining for each other for all of the King’s reign, and during a terrorist attack (?) they are sex pollened

Librarian/Patron With A Very Overdue Library Book

Librarian is part of a secret cabal of librarian assassins, and they hunt the patron down

The book is alive and doesn't want to go back to the library.  It keeps on sneaking back into the patron's backpack to leave with them,

the patron is a ghost, trying to return a book from 200 years ago

hatesex

Patron with late book is actually using it in his attempts to summon the Old Ones and has already lost some sanity points in his attempts, he refuses to return the book until he is successful

The book is one of a kind and contains some secret ciphers and codes that are needed in the on-going plot to save the world. However, the patron ends up needing to also borrow some other unique books from the same library and struggles with explaining this to the unamused librarian who has a waiting list for that first book. 

idk, idk, i have no ideas, but i’d love absolutely anything, and i am thirsty

time-travel! set in space! passive-aggressive notes back and forth! the patron tries to insist on their perceived superiority! and then they have to donate enough money to fund an entire new children’s department!

Loyal Knight/Professional Gambler Crossdressing As a Woman

confused boners

why the crossdressing? just because? does it confuse his gambling partners? the people he’s in debt to? 

i can only tell you that i’d be into it

set in space! set in a fantasy hub! Star Wars AU! Italian Renaissance! 18th century France!

New Male Supervillain Struggling to Control Superpowers/Superhero

supervillain becomes accidental villain because of their destructive powers, superhero tries to redeem him

supervillain’s power is mind altering, and he thinks he is influencing the superhero with his powers, but the superhero has a really terrible crush on them

supervillain thinks his power is mind altering, when in fact it’s something else

supervillain’s powers are mind altering, and he seduces the superhero, and rescues him from the government who had them working for free? idk, this isn’t planned out that well

superhero seduces supervillain to do good

Pirate/Pirate

I would love pirates absolutely anywhere, Scottish smugglers, piracy on rivers,  Mediterranean pirates of pre-Roman Empire, Egyptian pirates, Chinese pirates, privateers, pirates of the Caribbean, pirates in SPACE.

f/f pairings would be great, just as m/m pairings, or f/m, whatever floats your boat (heh)

Two different pirate ships try to stop a ship of loot/weapons/high profile people from arriving at its location. Two of the opposite crew fall in love along the way.

The First Mate oils their muscles, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to this bosun (or the worst, depending). There are various bets about the futility of this most obvious crush.

The smuggling cave is only accessible during low tide, and it’s only known to the pirates, yet their stash of high-grade alcohol/sauerkraut/sails/unobtainium  keeps vanishing, and so they set out a trap, and it turns out to be another pirate who needs it to help heal some other dudes.

The captain is so throughly annoyed by two of his crew members, he makes them sleep in the same cabin (or the hammocks nearest to each other) for the entire voyage, and they keep falling into the wrong bed because of reasons. (Optionally, hate-sex — or they are united by their hatred for this clearly unreasonable captain and overthrow him.)

Regency Lizard Monster Coffee Shop Owner/Down-on-His-Luck Aristocrat

here for xeno! or urban fantasy! or space coffee shops!

is the lizard monster pretending to be a human, and the aristocrat finds out but nobody wants to believe him?

does the aristocrat want a job, but fails at How to greet a Lizard Monster 101?

Royal Uncle Looking to Inherit/King's Pirate Captain Identical Twin

identity shenanigans! hate sex! court intrigue!

does the royal uncle know about the identical twin, or was he raised in secret for assassination prevention, and now he roams the Seven Seas, or the space equivalent of that

the identical twin seduces the uncle, so that they can inherit together

the King deliberately introduces his two heirs to each other so they can fight it out, and they have plenty of hatesex

Successful Businesswoman/High School Rival

hatesex behind the bleachers on their 10th highschool anniversary

hatesex during their unexpected meeting at the new gallery opening in town! and then their best friends get married to each other, and much embarrassment all around

Supervillain/Superhero's Sidekick

hatesex, sexpollen

trying to seduce secrets out of each other! identity shenanigans! moral quandaries!

Female BNF/Female fandom newcomer

... look, i just want to know where this is going, okay? I’d love something inspired by Mina de Malfois; or like, whatever!

is there fandom wank about it? is it just a quiet lovely back and forth? 

Crossover Fandoms (art+fic)

Victoria Winslow (RED)/Female M (Bond)

Victoria as one of M’s double Os; headstrong and stubborn and a loose canon

did they know each other before M became M? (was there hatesex, and now it’s an awkward relationship that might turn into more?)

Victoria Winslow breaks into M’s apartment with the intent to seduce her; M is prepared for the entry, but expected a man, and now Victoria is there

Victoria is in trouble somewhere, and M accidentally rescues her; Victoria has to show her her appreciation someway

Susan Pevensie (Narnia)/Minerva McGonagall (HP)

They could have met when they were young, being roughly the same age, or later. Childhood friends! 

Susan Pevensie becomes the first muggle to enter the Department of Mysteries, on account of her crossing worldstreams before, and that’s where she meets Minerva, who has to open the doors for her every day

Susan is the first muggle to ignore the anti-Muggle charms on Diagon Alley, and Minerva is sent to investigate

Phryne Fisher (MFMM)/Jane Marple (Marple - Christie)

teaming up to solve a murder!

teaming up to drive a poor inspector up the wall

teaming up during the war, codebreaking! and seeking comfort with each other

they went to girl’s school together, and now have to relive old glory days!

definitely here for Phryne and Jane being each other’s lesbian experience

John Constantine (Hellblazer)/Severus Snape (Harry Potter)

they’d be so glorious together! I’m here for all the fucked-up-ness this pairing can generate

hatesex? sex pollen? :D i hate repeating myself, but really, anything would be great; I’d love a AU in which John convinces Severus to not join the death eaters because they are all wankers anyway

or a AU in which Severus survives and joins John on madcap adventures trying to survive eldritchs horrors

or like, a one-night-stand that ends in Severus hearing the prophecy and defecting from Lord Voldemort

or like, anything, please, i really want this like burning, and i saw this in the tagset, and how is there only one story of this yet, really, anything, please

also, I’d love if they’d bonded up over their chavness, or something. really, anything would be great

Jane Marple (Marple - Christie)/Minerva McGonagall (HP)

I’d love Miss Marple snooping her way into the Scottish ruin, and finding out there’s a Wizarding World

maybe they are childhood friends?

maybe working at the cypher division is a code word for Department of Mysteries, during the war?

I’d love outsider POV for this; maybe Harry noticing that Minerva is living together with another woman, and it turns out to be Miss Marple? and they bond over having books written about them

Cher Horowitz (Clueless)/Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)

Do they meet in law school? Or before, or after? 

I want them to be competent, and brilliant, and dazzle each other with their excellent taste in clothes. I want them to be besieged by terrible human beings, and persevere. I want them to cuddle on a sofa, and inspire so many girls to do great things. I want them to grow as human beings, and be kind and positive, and succeed. (And I want one of them to be President.)

Also excellent would be: Elle does criminal law, Cher is in charity work, and they need to solve this embezzlement case.

But I’m also here for the porn, because that would also be amazing. Or like, buying a house together. Getting married. Deciding to adopt a puppy together.

[atsooshis]

the bsdxace attorney and ace attorneyxbsd au no one needs but is here

bear with me i love both, this is super long and i’m clawing at grasps with the AAxBSD part but i tried

BSD x AA: still takes place in yokohama

the ADA is all one big law office and for some reason most of the cases they end up catering to are murder cases

fukuzawa is the big boss lawyer and values justice

kunikida is his apprentice, he learned most of his techniques from fuku. kinda stands as the boss whenever fuku isn’t around

dazai is kunikida’s co-council, but in the past he was a prosecutor who had pretty crooked ways- he was a mole prosecutor working under the port mafia before. he gave up his job after defeat at the hands of fuku and kuni who worked side by side on a case against him, where he was trying to indict a falsely accused defendant for the death of odasaku. he’s trying to become a defense lawyer under fuku’s discipline.

tanizaki and naomi are assitants of sorts in the office, they’re not interested in becoming lawyers or anything, they just really like the idea of bringing justice for people who deserve it

yosano’s an injury lawyer but for some reason she landed a job in the nutcase agency and has to take up murder cases, which she doesn’t mind. her additional medical knowledge helps her understand autopsy reports more.

kenji often drops by the office after fuku helped him with a property dispute in his hometown, often brings fresh produce and food for the lawyers. now knows legal lingo for his own good despite no actual interest in law as well

ranpo’s a private investigator of sorts, he’s not entirely hired by the agency, but he has his own desk in the agency because he helps them a lot, in return for fuku defending his ass in the past. he’s with the police department but tends to work on his own, as he figures out mostly everything out in a minute. makes the correct arrests. he helps the lawyers investigate cases they get even though he isn’t involved, but doesn’t really talk about the actual answers though, because he believes they should be doing their job instead of him handing them the answers.

atsushi’s a fresh law school graduate and can barely argue without crying, but fukuzawa is his inspiration as a lawyer after the man defended him against false charges after the murder of the orphanage headmaster. will fight for what is right and generally the phoenix wright of all of this, except internal tears are 100% present. he’s a good lawyer at heart and he does handle his job well but trembles after trials. believes in his clients.

kyouka’s a spirit medium from the kurain village despite taking on a different surname rather than ayasato (jp’s version of ‘fey’). atsushi had to defend her after she was accused for assassination, where she was framed by the port mafia. has grown close to him in the process and acts as a co-council of sorts for the new lawyer.

the port mafia is still there and they have moles in the prosecutor’s office and the police department

namely akutagawa, a prosecutor who has never lost a single case until atsushi comes along. while he takes on numerous cases, he’s respected enough to be able to pull strings to prosecute port mafia cases in order to indict wrong suspects involved in port mafia businesses

higuchi is in the police department as a detective, whom akutagawa constantly has to work with, much like edgeworth and gumshoe

chuuya’s also a prosecutor, while being a mafia executive

basically everything else with the mafia is the same just aku and chuuya’s in the prosecutor’s office

black lizard squad..... but in the police department. hirotsu’s a high ranking officer, tachihara and gin are officers that closely work with him

the guild is a smuggling ring honestly imagine that fucking smuggling ring in AAI god i hated that

AA x BSD: still takes place in japanifornia

anything detective agency, a specialized detective agency whose members have supernatural abilities

phoenix wright - Rise from The Ashes, heals him upon taking fatal injuries. gets hit by a car? no fucking problem. runs on a burning bridge and falls down more than 10 feet into cold rushing water? no problemo. kinda like yosano’s ability, but people and him just have to be fatally injured. additionally still has a magatama maya gives him

mia fey, maya fey, pearl fey - all three share the same channeling ability due to their fey blood. feys still have the fame from spirit channeling, it’s just not much big of a deal as it was in the AA universe. additionally, mia can manipulate her scarf. think rashomon, but not as harmful- more of a shield and an extra hand.

miles edgeworth - Logic Chess, allows him to realize what the person he’s talking to will say next depending on what he will say. also lets him deduct possibilities in a case which helps the agency in their cases. kinda like oda’s ability, but more on verbal probabilities, rather than probabilities in the future, plus ranpo’s super deduction, just super limited.

gumshoe.... is their actual detective, a private detective for them. not actually gifted, but aids edgeworth on his cases. he used to be a detective under the police department until edgeworth invites him into the agency after finding out that his failures in his job has cut his salary a lot. he’s bad at being detective, but edgeworth brought out his best after he stayed with the agency.

ema skye - a forensics expert, helps within the agency. sometimes tags along with edgeworth and gumshoe whenever she’s needed for her expertise. can see bloodstains without the use of luminol, but she has to wear her funky glasses. can also tell whose blood it is as long as she sees other comparative blood samples.

franziska von karma - a prosecutor that works with the skilled ministry. unnamed ability grants her super strength as long as she’s annoyed/angry, which is often.

godot - Fragrance of Dark Coffee lets him dispense drinks out of fucking hammerspace. any drink, really. but mostly dispenses coffees of his own blends. throws dark coffee at enemies honestly and it throws them off guard but man can he fucking fight

apollo justice - Chords of Steel, his voice enables him to unleash destructive sonic waves but he has it under control. still loud as hell but minus destruction unless he means to. additional perception ability from the gramaryes.

trucy wright - adoptive daughter of phoenix after her dad, a suspect in one of the agency’s cases, disappears. a magician still. Magic Panties lets her pull out anything and lets her put anything in it. even people. she can manipulate the space fabric containers honestly, but prefers to use the panties for her shows. despite her magic panties being her main ability, she still has the heart of a magician and devises all tricks as much as she can.

klavier gavin - Guilty Love lets him use any sound he causes to unleash destructive sound waves as well. same as apollo honestly, but more control. can make a needle drop more destructive than it should be. still a famous rock star.

thalassa - has the same perception ability apollo has. Siren’s Serenade allows her to enthrall people with her singing, making them focus only on her. not part of the agency but often visits for trucy and apollo.

athena cykes - resident psychologist of the agency. Mood Matrix allows her to hear the voice and turmoils of your heart. honestly the same thing in the AAverse, and can choose to switch her ability on and off with widget’s help. also, for some unknown reason, the agency’s best hacker.

simon blackquill - another psychologist in the agency but works with edgeworth sometimes to manipulate possible suspects into fessing up. no ability, but can cut your throat

clay terran - apollo’s best friend and assistant of sorts. not an ability user, but this guy has learned how to map the stars and impresses everyone in the agency with it. he’s actually very helpful to them and everyone appreciates him despite being not an ability user. sometimes spends time with ema and gumshoe.

juniper woods- is not part of the agency but a student in Themis Legal. has an unnamed ability that allows her to grow flora or reverse the growth of plants. generally plant-based ability, but it tires her out pretty quickly. visits the agency and gives them all treats from her garden in the mountains after they help her avoid being falsely arrested.

the Phantom - Phantomime... generally enhanced imitation ability. the same thing in AAverse honestly

nahyuta sadhmadhi - no ability but honestly has the power of the Holy Mother™. the whole defiant dragons and khura’in’s shitty history doesn’t happen so he isn’t a prosecutor or anything, but he does fly to the US to visit apollo to see how he’s doing in that weird agency he got himself into

rayfa khura’in - enhanced insights anywhere as long as there’s water she can dance around on honestly. her insights aren’t as dull as they were in the AAverse, and while she can let images appear in the water, she experiences the victim’s last moment herself within her mind, and this lets her make correct judgements whether a defendant is guilty or not.

idk what else i was gonna write more about the port mafia counterpart in this but this is so long already honestly and i have no idea what to do with that

[ghaisgeach]

Shida Verses

The Keeper of Darkness

Verse type: Main verse Setting: Modern-ish Fantasy Age: Unknown

As a Keeper, it is Shida's job to make sure the balance of dark mana throughout the world remains in check. She travels around with her brother, Hiro, as the two of them do their job. For a while, it was peaceful going for the two of them. Until the two of them began to notice a change. As they began to investigate the two of them realized that they were being hunted. After avoiding their hunters for awhile Shida managed to escape a close encounter with them. But at a cost. Hiro was captured after making it possible for Shida to get to safety. Now Shida has made it her mission to find out who has taken her brother and to get him back.

Challenged by the Dark Twin

Verse type: Pokemon AU Setting: Mainly in the Johto region Age: Seventeen

Shida and Hiro grew up yearning to travel to the different regions. Once they finally became of age to set off on their own Pokemon journey they were each given an Eevee of their own. Together they traveled and battled their way through the regions. Hiro grew fond of ice and dragon type Pokemon while his sister developed a liking for dark type Pokemon. They don't normally do gym battles but they do challenge other trainers to double battles. Together they have taken up various competitions, such as contests and battle competitions, to help raise money for their travel expenses.

The Stoic Chef

Verse type: Modern AU Setting: London Age: Twenty five

Throughout their whole life, the twins have always done everything together. So it shouldn't be a surprise that out of college they not only live together but own their own pub, called After Dark, as well. Shida runs the kitchen while Hiro is the host as well as the bartender. This decision mostly came about because they both agreed that Hiro would be better suited to run the front of the house than Shida. They live in an apartment close to the pub.

The Black Duchess

Verse type: Medieval AU Setting: Medieval Britain/General Medieval setting Age: Seventeen

Though she was born with a twin brother, one who is younger than her, Hiro is the heir to their father's land. Because she's a woman her father plans to marry her into a wealthy family instead of giving her control over their land. Hiro, on the other hand, has different plans for her. He's promised her that once he has become head of their family that he would make her an equal to himself. Because of this promise he has been teaching her in secret everything he's been learning including how to wield a sword. Though her brother is doing all of this for her, Shida plans to become a knight instead and serve her brother in that way. This, however, she hasn’t mentioned to her brother.

The Black Dragon

Verse type: Fantasy AU Setting: Medieval Britain/General Fantasy setting Age: Unknown

Black dragons are a rare sight. An even rarer sight is a pair of white and black dragons spending time together. But Hiro and Shida are never far apart from one another. Whether they are hunting together or spending a night at an inn in human forms, they are always seen together. When close to human settlements the two take on human forms but when they are far out in the wild they prefer their dragon forms. Both Hiro and Shida enjoy interacting with humans and learning more about them.

Black Scales Black Leather

Verse type: Shapeshifter/Supernatural AU Setting: Wandering Age: Unknown

For centuries Shida and Hiro have lived among humans. They live in a more rural place, far away from any major city and a large number of people. Living out in the countryside the two of them enjoy the open forest. It is the only place that allows them to freely transform without others discovering their secret. As some of the last dragons, they are endangered to humans discovering them and locking them up in labs to perform experiments on them. The both of them try to live their life as normal humans, though after some years they seclude themselves and wait for the townspeople to forget about them before reappearing.

The Black Firebender

Verse type: ATLA/LoK AU Setting: Republic City Age: Seventeen

Growing up in Republic City has been one of the best things for the twins. Having a firebender for a father and a waterbender for a mother, the two of them took on their parents element. Hiro inherited their mother's element while Shida inherited their father's. They were given a proper education and were both taught how to properly wield their element. Hiro learned how to heal others and took up a job at a hospital while Shida joined the Republic City's police force as a detective.

The Black Serpent

Verse type: Harry Potter AU Setting: the Wizarding World Age: Seventeen

Shida and her twin brother Hiro were both born into a pure blood family. Their family moved to London from Japan after their father was offered a job at the London Ministry of Magic in their Spirit Division branch of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. When the twins were finally enrolled into Hogwarts the both of them planned on following their father and joining the Beast Division. What the twins didn't expect was that the Sorting Hat would put them in different houses. Hiro was placed into Gryffindor while Shida was placed in Slytherin. It was the first time that they had been separated and their first year was hard on the both of them because of it. But as their second year began they had grown used to it and developed habits of meeting up with each other whenever they could, such as studying together in the library and trying to get into the same classes together. Even as their seventh year starts they still struggle a little. Shida cooped with their years separated better than her brother. She became more reserved because of it but only because she didn't want to seem like a bother to him. She mostly ignored whatever people said to her anyways. What she didn't ignore was the fact that her brother would get himself into trouble due to fighting. Whenever Hiro got detention, Shida made sure to scold her brother just as hard as their teachers.

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

The fourth and final chapter of The stranger the better is up, featuring the conclusion of the case part of this case fic, bonding, and Charles being extremely normal about his new partner.

Excerpt:

“So, partners?” Charles can’t keep the goofy smile off his face. He hasn’t felt this good since Chelsea Fitzgerald agreed to go out with him when he was fifteen.

Edwin nods. “I do worry you’ll come to regret this. I’ve told you, I’m difficult to work with.”

“You know, I don’t think you’re half as difficult as you think you are.”

“We’ve only worked one case together.”

“And it’ll only get easier from there, won’t it?”

“Charles, has anyone ever told you that you’re absurdly optimistic?”

“One of my many charms, mate.”

Edwin now really looks like someone fighting a losing war against a smile. He has dimples, Charles notices. He has the urge to poke his fingers into them. “Being saddled with me won’t make you any friends. I’m not well-liked here.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Niko likes you.”

“Niko keeps the homicidal parasites that nearly killed her as pets.”

Charles has to admit that’s a good point. “What about Crystal?”

“Crystal and I are not friends.”

“Think you might be, mate. She threatened to kick my ass if I let anything happen to you.”

Edwin looks adorably gobsmacked at that.

Charles takes pity on him and doesn’t make him respond. “Anyway, I’m likable enough for the pair of us.”

The dimples are deepening and Edwin’s lips are twitching upwards. Charles feels like the vending machine just gave him two bags of crisps for the price of one. “Are you now?”

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

Chapter 3 of The stranger the better is up, featuring more case fic shenanigans, the boys learning to work together (despite Edwin's best efforts) and way too much time spent with old books from the archives.

Excerpt:

“Have you found anything of note?”

“Not unless they found anything unusual in Miles’s stomach?”

“According to Dr. Green, just an absurd amount of kale for before 7 AM.”

“Well, then I guess he didn’t pick up a headache tonic from a bloke at the circus and find his brains leaking out of his ears after a few doses.” Agent Rowland pats one of the case files in front of him.

“From what we’ve learned, Miles does not seem like the type to have suffered in silence. If he’d been experiencing headaches, he surely would have made them Cecelia’s problem. Plus, I like to think people today know better than to purchase medicines from strangers at circuses.”

“I don’t know.” Agent Rowland smiles again. He does that quite a lot. “Doesn’t sound all that different from the vitamin smoothies my mum buys from her massage therapist.”

“I do hope her brains don’t start leaking out of her ears,” Edwin says dryly, then wonders if that’s not the sort of joke one should make about someone’s mother.

To his relief, Agent Rowland giggles. Actually giggles, like a child delighted by something shiny. It shouldn’t be charming, but Edwin feels his own lips tugging into an answering smile.

“I cannot cast judgment,” he says. “Back in my day, they treated just about anything with cocaine. I remember being about ten and having a doctor who was overly enthusiastic about treating my common cold. My brains did not leak out of my ears, but I thought they would.”

"Didn’t realize the Victorians were so much fun.”

“Edwardian,” Edwin corrects automatically, reaching for his cooling mug of tea. “I was born in 1900, a year before Queen Victoria died.”

“All the cocaine that did her in, was it?”

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

Chapter 2 of The stranger the better is up, featuring Charles making some new friends and enemies, Crystal and Niko showing up, and a lot of exploding gray matter.

Excerpt:

"What on earth am I supposed to do with a partner?”

“It depends. Do you think he’s cute?”

Edwin splutters. “His being cute is irrelevant. Working with him will actively undermine my ability to solve this case. And if I don't solve this case, Director Nurse will stick me on desk duty.”

“So yes?” Niko swivels her chair to face him, wearing a sly smile.

Edwin thinks of warm brown eyes and elegant hands. “He is…not unpleasant to look at.”

“Knew it,” she says in a song-song voice, propping her chin in her hands. “I looked up his personnel file. He has a nice smile.”

“Will his smile solve the mystery of how Miles Foster’s head exploded? I think not.” Edwin huffs. “You know I don’t work well with people, Niko.”

She studies him for a moment, frowning. “You’re not half as bad with people as you think you are.”

“You know that’s not true,” he says, appalled. “You’ve worked with me for years.”

“Exactly! You’re good at working with me.”

“You’re a special case.”

Niko smiles sweetly at that. “What about Crystal?”

“What about her?”

“You’ve worked with her a bunch of times.”

“Crystal has grown vastly more tolerable with age.” Edwin sniffs.

“And Thomas? You work with Thomas fine. When you’re not having sex with him in supply closets.”

Someone clears their throat and Edwin and Niko both whirl around. To Edwin’s horror, Agent Rowland stands in the doorway, carrying three paper cups and looking between Edwin and Niko with a raised eyebrow.

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

this is not a request or anything, you write what You want, but this idea entered my brain and i need to put it Somewhere so your inbox it is. dimension swap crossover between canon dbd and your msi au where something causes the two charleses to swap places

Oh, this would be fun!

MSI!Charles would be immediately 1000x more protective over an Edwin that didn't survive his ordeal and died at 16. I think there would be a bit of a learning curve with them adjusting to a Charles who is older (physically speaking) than canon!Edwin.

That being said, I can see Edwin being very flustered over an older Charles who wears a suit and maybe has a bit of stubble. Though since MSI!Charles isn't a ghost, he'd probably miss being touched by his own Charles.

On an angstier note, I imagine it would cause canon!Edwin a lot of uncertainty to realize that there's a universe out there where Charles survived his hypothermia and internal bleeding. Could his Charles have been saved? Had Edwin not been there, would Charles eventually have left the attic to get help? Did Edwin accidentally kill him with his act of kindness?

The Night Nurse would be very weirded out to be confronted with a Charles who suddenly respects her and doesn't refer to her as "Charlie." He does slip up and call her "Nursie" once and she feels like they're back on solid ground.

I think canon!Charles would be bewildered by the MSI. What do you mean, he and Edwin work for a secret sort-of government agency now? And what do you mean the Night Nurse is their boss? He has to wear a bloody suit to work? Why the fuck are Brad and Hunter his coworkers? Shouldn't they be in America? Or in Hell?

Also, why is twentysomething Edwin so fit? Why are his shoulders so broad? When the fuck did that happen?

I can see MSI!Edwin being charmed and exasperated by a perpetually 16-year-old Charles prone to throwing himself into danger with even more frequency and enthusiasm than his own Charles, as well as being horrified that there's a universe out there where his best friend died so young.

Canon!Charles would have feelings about the fact that in the MSI universe, Edwin has been sporadically hooking up with Thomas for years. If he finds out about the supply closet rendezvous, he might go hunting Thomas down with his cricket bat.

MSI!Crystal and Niko are delighted to watch a skinny teenage Charles following their Edwin around like a bodyguard. Niko doesn't know why this Charles hugged her for like 10 minutes when he first met her, but she thought it was sweet.

If both Charleses and both Edwins are briefly in the same universe, I can see the Edwins squabbling over who had it worse. "I spent seventy-three years in Hell." "Well, I spent ninety-five years someplace just as bad." "I *died*." "Charles drags me to office cocktail hours every month." The Charleses step back and let it happen.

First reason this could never actually happen in the MSI universe: canon!Edwin, with the benefit of having been studying the supernatural for decades more than MSI!Edwin and being an actual supernatural creature, could probably figure out what had kidnapped MSI!Edwin and how to stop it with an afternoon of research.

Reason #2: Not sure which, if either, of the Payneland pairings would have gotten together yet, but I can totally see one of the Charleses looking at the other Charles, thinking, "Huh, I think he's in love with his Edwin" and then getting slapped in the face with one hell of a realization.

For anyone wondering what the MSI is:

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

Let's not overanalyze

The first chapter of a belated fill for @palasakiweek, set in my Ministry of Supernatural Investigations AU. You can read the first chapter below or here on AO3.

Prompt: Day 6: AU

Rating: T

Word count: 4K.

Warnings: none

Relationships: Crystal/Niko; Edwin & Niko; Edwin & Crystal

Summary: When Niko starts a job as an analyst at the MSI after barely leaving her flat for two years, she has no idea what to expect. She’s not expecting to find out that vampires, ghosts, and other supernatural entities are real. She’s especially not expecting Crystal Palace Surname-von Hoverkraft, the gorgeous and somewhat terrifying agent who she can’t stop thinking about.

***

Niko stares at the blank white wall of her brand new office. There’s a tiny dent right at her eye level, but besides that, it’s an expanse of nothingness, like no one has ever stepped foot in here before. She wanted to bring some posters to hang up today, but that seemed overly optimistic when she doesn’t even know what her brand new job entails, or if she even has a job. She isn’t entirely convinced that the slow slide into losing her mind that started when her dad died two years ago hasn’t finally caught up with her. Everything about being in this strange room in this strange building seems a little surreal.

Before last night, she hadn’t even heard of the MSI when her godmother called to tell her that she got Niko a job as an analyst and she would start in the morning. Niko doesn’t know what the MSI does, or even what the acronym stands for. She thinks it might be like MI6, but what would an agency like MI6 want with a uni dropout who hasn’t left her flat in two years?

Maybe it was a mistake to call Auntie Niko and ask her for help finding a job, but it had been two years since she’d left her flat for more than a few minutes at a time, the money she inherited from Dad was starting to run out, she knew what would happen if she called her mother back in Osaka and asked her to send money so Niko could keep hiding out in her flat, and Auntie did always say to call if she needed anything. She doesn’t actually know what Auntie does for the British government. Not even her mother knows, and they’ve been best friends since they met at boarding school when they were girls. Auntie could work for MI6, for all Niko knows, though it’s hard to imagine.

Niko wonders if she should start unpacking the small box of things she brought—her heart-shaped stationary, her favorite sparkly pens, the Scooby Doo plushie Auntie gave her when she was little—but she’s half-convinced that as soon as she opens the box, someone will come along and yell at her that she actually shouldn’t be here and she needs to leave. Assistant Director Nurse is supposed to come speak to Niko at some point, but according to her skittish assistant, she’s been delayed by another meeting that went long.

Part of Niko wonders if she should just go home, change into her favorite hedgehog slippers, and crawl into bed, but then she pictures the disappointment on Auntie’s face. If her godmother thinks she can do this, then Niko is going to do it.

The sound of heels on tile is the only warning she gets that she has company before someone slaps a clear plastic bag full of what looks to be shards of seaglass down on her desk. Niko startles and whirls around in her desk chair.

“I need to know if there’s been any chatter online about seaglass similar to this washing up on the coast near Dover,” the woman standing over her says briskly. “And see if you can find out what language this is etched on it while you’re at it. It’s nothing I recognize.”

Niko stares. The newcomer is a few years older than her, petite and stunningly pretty with a cascade of dark hair highlighted blond, golden brown eyes, and the most immaculate makeup Niko has ever seen in her life. Actually, everything about her is immaculate, from her heels to the perfectly tailored black suit to her manicure.

The woman arches an eyebrow. “Hello?”

“Sorry, yes.” Niko turns to the bag of seaglass. She can make out the faint lines of symbols that might be writing, though it's nothing she recognizes. “How should I do that exactly?”

“You’re new.” It’s not spoken like a question.

Niko smiles, relieved. “Yes.”

“And nobody’s been in to train you?”

“No. Sorry.” Niko isn’t sure why she’s apologizing. “I’m Niko. Niko Sasaki.”

“Agent Crystal Palace Surname-von Hoverkraft.” She says the name with emphasis, like she expects Niko to recognize it.

Niko doesn’t. “Wow, your signature must take forever.”

Crystal looks incredulous, which is fair. It was a pretty stupid thing to say. “Hana and Rosa are busy on a case Payne has them working on, because of course he needs two analysts, since every case Edwin fucking Payne works on is the priority. Duncan’s out on paternity leave and Grace apparently caught norovirus from eating a sketchy burrito. That leaves you as the only analyst available. And meanwhile, I have pieces of seaglass that keep showing up and driving people to dance into the ocean.” She pauses, then adds, “Don’t handle it with your bare hands.”

Niko has no idea what any of that means. “I’m still not really sure what an analyst does.”

“Mostly, you’re going to monitor chatter online for any sign of the supernatural,” Crystal says, her obvious impatience increasing with every word. “And you assist agents with our research so we’re not wasting time at a computer while there are monsters to hunt down.”

“Monsters?” Niko can’t keep the squeak from her voice. The supernatural?

“So I would really appreciate it if as soon as someone bothers coming along to train you, if you would look into this seaglass so I can figure out why people are losing their minds up and down the coast.” Crystal flashes a smile that’s as false as her long lashes. “Thanks, Nikki.”

“It’s actually—”

Niko is cut off by a shriek from outside, followed by the blare of an alarm loud enough that the floor seems to vibrate with it.

“Fuck,” Crystal says and turns to run into the hallway. She runs really well in those heels, Niko notices.

Niko thinks about heading home to her quiet, safe flat again and not leaving for another two years. Instead, she follows Crystal. In the hallway, Crystal is facing two people. One, a pretty woman with curly blond hair, is pressed up against the wall with wide eyes. The other one is a tall, thin man in an old-fashioned tweed suit, complete with a slightly askew bow tie. The man and Crystal appear to be in the middle of a heated argument.

“How precisely was I to know that the amulet would react like this?” he demands. “I’ve been handling it all morning with no trouble. Perhaps it was a woman’s touch. But no, then it surely would have reacted to Agent Drake’s touch. Miss Green, are you by any chance a virgin?”

The blonde’s eyes go even wider.

“You can’t just ask people if they’re virgins, Queen Victoria,” Crystal snaps.

“I am simply trying to determine the cause—”

“I’m not worried about the cause, I’m worried about the fucking hellhound you let loose."

“Its origins appear to be a cursed amulet, not the depths of Hell, so I’m not sure if we can call it—”

The blare of the alarm is making it hard for Niko to think, but she understands enough to pick up on “cursed amulet” and “hellhound.” Before she can ask for someone to please tell her what’s going on, there’s a snarl loud enough to be heard even over the alarm and something comes bursting through the closed office door across from Niko, sending shards of wood flying everywhere. The blond woman shrieks and goes running down the hallway, but Niko can’t move.

It’s a dog, but it’s not a dog, because she’s never seen a dog this large. Its fur is black, with red glowing through it, like it isn’t skin under the fur, but molten lava. The eyes that fix on Niko burn with fire and its teeth are easily as long as her hand. When it takes a step towards her, Niko is hit with the smell of burning meat, strong enough to make her gag.

The first time Niko has left her flat for more than a few minutes in two years and she’s going to get eaten by a dog. She even likes dogs. She donates to the RSPCA every year.

Crystal steps between Niko and the dog, planting a hand on Niko’s chest to shove her back. In the other hand, she holds a baton tipped with metal. She swings at the dog, hitting it in the face. A line of red fire appears on its cheek and it snarls. She brings the baton down on its head and another line of fire appears, but it doesn’t go down.

“Payne, could you do something fucking useful for once?” she shouts.

The man, who must be the Edwin fucking Payne Crystal mentioned earlier, brings up his hand, where an amulet with a dog’s snarling face carved into it dangles from his fingers. He’s pale and wide-eyed, but his voice is steady as he chants something that Niko thinks might be Latin, though it’s been a long time since she took Latin at Gray Wake. The dog lets out a howl and seems to dissolve right in front of Niko, a dark shadow twisting in the air right before it’s sucked back into the amulet.

“Excellent,” he says. “I wasn’t certain that would work.”

And then there are a lot of people in the hallway and a lot of shouting. Niko stands very still, letting people move around her. No one seems to notice her, which is just how she likes it. They’re asking a lot of questions and Crystal and Edwin are back to arguing. Someone takes the amulet from Edwin, placing it in a large metal box with multiple locks. Niko wonders if she should just go back into her office, close the door, and hide under the desk until someone finally comes to tell her what’s going on.

A woman in a brown pantsuit with her red hair in old-fashioned victory rolls comes stalking down the hallway. Niko recognizes one of the women following her as the assistant who showed her to her office this morning. “What on earth is this racket?” the woman demands in a Scottish accident. “And will someone turn off that bloody alarm? We all know there was an emergency!”

The alarm goes quiet, like the building itself is under her command.

“Agents Payne and Surname-von Hoverkraft.” The newcomer, who must be Assistant Director Nurse, turns to Crystal and Edwin with her arms crossed over her chest. “Explain.”

“The amulet that was recovered from the Sofia Delacroix murder scene appears to be possessed by the spirit of a monstrous dog,” Edwin says briskly. “While it didn’t react to my touch, the moment Miss Green picked it up, the spirit was summoned. It had little interest in myself or Agent Surname-von Hoverkraft, so given its known victims, I can only guess that the spirit targets virginal young women.” 

He turns to Niko, opening his mouth, but Assistant Director Nurse cuts him off. “Agent Payne, do not ask what I think you’re about to ask. There will already be enough paperwork about this incident.” She turns to Niko with a strained smile. “You must be Ms. Sasaki. I’m Assistant Director Asa Nurse. I do apologize for the delay. Director Brown was unexpectedly out of the office, so I had to fill in for him at a meeting.”

Niko finally finds her voice from under a layer of shock. “What was that?”

Crystal, Edwin, and Assistant Nurse all turn to her, as if they forgot about her presence entirely. “I just explained,” Edwin says. “A cursed amulet. I believe its origins to be roughly thirteenth century, give or take a few decades.”

“A curse?”

“Yes, quite a rudimentary bit of magic. Even Agent Surname-von Hoverkraft would be able to counteract it.”

Crystal glances at Assistant Director Nurse to make sure she’s not looking, then flashes a rude hand gesture at Edwin. His nostrils flare with annoyance, but he doesn’t reply.

“A curse.” Niko’s thoughts are swimming. Cursed amulets and seaglass that makes people dance into the sea and hellhounds that aren’t really hellhounds.

Assistant Director Nurse eyes Niko like she’s a bomb that’s about to explode. “Ms. Sasaki, what do you know about the MSI?”

“Nothing.” Niko shakes her head. “I don’t even know what MSI stands for.”

“The Ministry of Supernatural Investigations, of course.”

“Oh.” Niko stares at the place where the not-hellhound just vanished. Well, that explains why she’s never heard of the MSI before. She imagines that if the UK government has a ministry devoted to solving supernatural crimes, they probably don’t advertise it.

“Oh, dear,” Edwin murmurs and Crystal curses softly.

Assistant Director Nurse lets out a gusty sigh. “It seems like we have things to discuss. Ms. Sasaki, please come with me. We can get this all sorted out.”

***

There are no monster dogs on Niko’s second day at the MSI, which is nice, especially since yesterday, she didn’t think she would have a second day at this job. The fact that the supernatural—including demons, ghosts, the Fae, hellhounds, vampires, and more—is real is still taking some getting used to, but Niko has always been very open-minded. Plus, she can’t really deny the existence of the supernatural now that it’s nearly eaten her.

After spending her morning looking into the cursed seaglass for Crystal, she goes to work with two of her new coworkers, Rosa Green and Hana Watanabe. Rosa—who apparently isn’t related to Dr. Jenny Green, the scary medical examiner Niko met during the tour Assistant Director Nurse gave her yesterday afternoon—seems unfazed by her close call with the not-hellhound the day before.

“A near death experience means I’ll probably get a holiday bonus this year,” she told Niko brightly when she poked her head into Niko’s office to introduce herself properly this morning.

Niko marvels at how normal everything seems as Hana and Rosa fill her in on the office gossip and complain about the workload caused by two analysts being absent at once. They tell her all about the tumultuous love triangle going on between three of the agents.

“Shelby and Maren are going to leave Brad for each other eventually,” Hana says with a twinkle in her eye, which gets a bark of laughter from Rosa.

They warn her about Agent Hunter, who has asked out every woman who works at the MSI (except Assistant Director Nurse, Niko assumes.) They tell her about Agent King, who is a shapeshifter and occasionally wanders around as a tabby cat, but gets cranky if someone tries to pet him. Niko files that information away, because she would definitely try and pet a tabby cat she found wandering the halls.

“Thomas is always a laugh at the monthly socials when he’s around,” Rosa tells Niko. “He does a lot of the undercover work, because no one thinks twice about a cat being places its not supposed to be.”

That brings them to the topic of Edwin Payne, who’s rumored to be a sometimes-hookup of Agent King’s. Apparently, they’ve been seen leaving at least one supply closet together.

“He’s a lot,” Rosa says. “If he brings you a case, it’s probably going to be your full-time job for two weeks. He doesn’t get that we only have a few analysts supporting thirty agents. He also doesn’t get technology at all.”

“To be fair, he was born in 1900,” Hana adds.

Niko doesn’t get to ask about that before Rosa continues. “He thinks it’s like magic, like I can just wiggle my nose and all the answers he needs will materialize.”

“I’d take him over Crystal Palace Surname von-Hoverkraft,” Hana says.

They exchange loaded looks. Rosa and Hana have been friends since secondary school and seem to have a whole language of silent looks. It makes Niko, who hasn’t talked to any of her friends from Gray Wake since stilted calls to tell her how sorry they were about her dad, insanely jealous. She’s never been close enough to somebody that she could talk to them with just a tilt of her head or the arch of an eyebrow.

“What about Crystal?” Niko asks. “I met her yesterday. She seemed…” She trails off, because she was about to say “nice,” but that’s not accurate. Crystal breezed into Niko’s office, deposited a bunch of seaglass on her desk, saved her life, then breezed away just as fast. She wasn’t nice at all, but she did save Niko from the not-hellhound while wearing high heels, which is its own sort of accomplishment.

Rosa waves a dismissive hand. “She’s just basically MSI royalty. Her parents are Seth von Hoverkraft and Maddy Surname, who are basically the MSI’s James Bonds. For most of the 90s and early 2000s, if there was a high-profile case, they were probably on it. They’re the ones who figured out what really happened to the Titanic.”

Niko doesn’t think she actually wants to know. She’d like to be able to rewatch Titanic without picturing a kraken snatching Jack off the deck.

“So everyone always knew Crystal would follow Mommy and Daddy’s footsteps and join the MSI,” Rosa says. “They were probably training her to become an agent before she could walk. And she’s a psychic, which is really rare. She and her partner walk around like they own the whole place.”

Hana makes a face. “Agent Fisher. He’s creepy.”

“So creepy,” Rosa agrees. “They’re dating too, which, ew.”

Hana nods. “Ew.”

The conversation moves on to the recent battle over the break room’s aging coffee maker, but Niko’s only half-listening. She wonders what it would have been like for Crystal, to know from the time she was little that she was meant to follow in her parents’ footsteps, to know what her life would be like before she drove her first car or went on her first date. It sounds like a lot of pressure. It sounds really lonely and Niko knows all about loneliness.

***

Walking into the agents’ workroom is immediately overwhelming. The space is crammed with haphazardly arranged desks, only about half of which have agents sitting behind them. The room is filled with the sounds of phones ringings, raised voices, and a strange buzzing that seems to be coming from a smoking alarm clock one of the agents is examining. Most of the walls are covered in photographs, newspaper clippings, and case notes. There’s what looks a lot like a human heart covered in barnacles sitting in the middle of one woman’s desk, right next to a greasy bag of takeaway.

Niko spots Crystal at a desk in the corner. She’s leaning back in her chair, staring up at a wall of photos, all of which depict close-up shots of seaglass. There’s a man leaning against her desk, bending down to whisper into her ear. He wears a glossy black suit with a matching fedora perched on top of his wavy dark hair and without even seeing his face, Niko feels pretty confident that Rosa and Hana’s estimation of Agent David Fisher, Crystal’s partner, is accurate. There’s something about the way he crowds into Crystal’s space that puts Niko on edge.

Niko stops on the other side of Crystal’s desk, waiting for either Crystal or Agent Fisher to notice her. When neither of them do, she says, “Hi.”

Crystal turns around in her desk chair. When she sees Niko, she sighs and holds out a hand to her. For a strange moment, Niko thinks she wants to shake hands or something, before Crystal snaps, “The seaglass?”

Oh, right. Those. Niko passes the bag over.

“You must be the newbie.” David smiles, his gaze traveling over her. “The hellhound didn’t scare you off?”

Niko doesn’t dislike many people, especially after only exchanging a handful of words with him. She thinks she might dislike David Fisher. “It wasn’t a hellhound. It originated in a cursed amulet, not in Hell.”

David laughs and looks down at Crystal, as if inviting her in on a joke. “Payne’s going to love her.”

Crystal smiles. It’s not a very nice smile and Niko gets that shrinking feeling she used to get back in uni, when she felt like everyone, even people who didn’t know her, was staring at her, laughing at the girl who had a breakdown after her father died. “Did you find out anything useful?” Crystal asks in a tone that suggests she’s pretty sure the answer will be no.

“I don’t know what language the writing is in,” Niko says. “But that’s because no one knows what language it’s in. Similar writing has been found on seaglass along the coastlines of Greece, Italy, and Spain. Some people think it’s an ancient mer language we haven’t encountered before. But this is the first time the seaglass has hurt anyone, as far as I could tell. Unless they stepped on it and cut their foot, I guess.”

David smirks and tries to exchange another look with Crystal, but she's frowning at the seaglass.

“I’ve never known mers to drive people into frenzies like this,” Crystal says thoughtfully. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

“I couldn’t find anything about anyone finding seaglass just like this in Dover,” Niko adds. “But I did find this.”

She pulls up her MSI-issued tablet and pulls up an Instagram post by a user named heathersfeathers1087, which shows sandal-clad feet with bright teal toenails standing within a perfect circle of green seaglass. The caption reads, “Nature’s mysteries are beautiful!”

“If you look closely,” she says. “That almost looks like the same writing, doesn’t it? And in the comments, she says she’s going to take some of it home to make a necklace out of it.”

Crystal and David both squint at the screen. “I don’t see it,” David grumbles.

“No, she’s right,” Crystal says, tapping one perfectly manicured nail against the screen. “There. It’s faint, but you can just see it. Shit, this was posted yesterday. This lady may have drowned by now.” She looks up at Niko with a frown. “Do you know—”

“Heather Featherington,” Niko says. “She lives near Brighton. I sent you her address. She hasn’t posted since finding the seaglass and her neighbor’s security camera hasn’t shown her leaving her house since she got home last night.”

“Then we need to get moving.” Crystal is already standing up, grabbing her blazer from the back of her chair.

David sighs in a long-suffering sort of way. “Like you said, it’s been over a day. The damage is probably already done.”

“That doesn't mean we're not going to try,” Crystal snaps. “Come on, David.”

Niko knows she should let Crystal go save this lady’s life, but first, she says, “Thank you, by the way.”

Crystal blinks at her, halfway through putting on her blazer. “For what?”

“You saved my life yesterday,” Niko says. “I never got the chance to say thank you. So thanks for not letting me get eaten by a monster dog.”

“Oh.” Crystal smiles, a far nicer smile than the one she flashed earlier. It’s sweet and makes her look younger, less like the terrifying MSI princess Hana and Rosa described. “You’re welcome. First days suck enough without getting mauled.”

David sighs gustily. “I thought Heather with the tacky toenail polish was in mortal danger here.”

“Jesus, David, I’m coming.” Crystal rolls her eyes and follows him out of the workroom.

Later, Niko learns through the grapevine that Heather Featherington was lucky enough to break her leg dancing down the stairs and never made it to the sea, but Crystal apparently spent several hours at the bottom of the ocean, negotiating with the priestess of an ancient mer clan until she agreed to stop trying to kill humans with enchanted seaglass. It sounds really badass and Niko wishes she could hear the story from Crystal herself, but Crystal is already away on another case.

But the first case Niko helped with at the MSI has wrapped up successfully and that’s enough to give her a warm little glow that’s almost as good as having Crystal Palace Surname von-Hoverkraft smile at her.

***

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving comments and kudos over on AO3, where the rest of this will be posted.

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

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Thank you! Here's another snippet of The stranger the better:

Charles sighs. "Just saying, I don't think MI6 agents sit around reading books all day." “MI6 also officially exists, therefore has a great deal more funding to go back and digitize old files than we do. Besides, magic and technology do not always coexist nicely.” Edwin doesn’t sound even remotely regretful about that fact. Charles could point out that technology seems to do just fine in the analysts' offices, but he knows a losing battle when he sees one. “Right, well, my eyes are starting to go funny from staring at old books all day.” “You do not need to join me in my research, Charles.” “Our research.” Charles can’t entirely keep the edge from his voice. “We’re working this case together. Until we have another lead to track down, nothing to do but research, is there?” Edwin looks surprised again, like it never occurred to him that Charles wasn’t here under duress. Charles wonders what Edwin’s previous partners were like, if he seems so taken aback that Charles actually intends to work their case together. “I suppose not.”

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